USA > West Virginia > Braxton County > History of Braxton County and central West Virginia > Part 29
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Nine months the lawmakers remained in York; the news of Burgoyne's
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surrender was received there. Then six months in New York and another term in Philadelphia. Menaced by unpaid troops, Congress went over to New Jer- sey. Sessions were held in Princeton College library. Annapolis next, where General Washington resigned his commission. Trenton had a trial then, with Henry Lee as president. Here Lafayette took leave of his American allies.
GENERALS OF THE ARMY.
Through the courtesy of the Secretary of War, the following facts have been obtained, showing the Generals who have commanded the army from 1775, with dates of command, to the present time :
Major General George Washington, June 15, 1775, to December 23, 1783; Major General Henry Knox, December 23, 1783, to June 20, 1784; Lieutenant Colonel Josiah Harmer General-in-Chief by brevet, September, 1788, to March 4, 1791; Major Arthur St. Clair, March 4, 1791, to March 4, 1792; Major Gen- eral Anthony Wayne, April 11, 1792, to December 15, 1796,.
to July 3, 1798; Lieutenant General George Washington, July 3, 1798, to his death, December 14, 1799; Major General James Wilkin- son, June, 1800, to January 27, 1812; Major General Henry Dearborn, January 27, 1812, to June, 1815; Major General Jacob Brown, June, 1815, to February 21, 1828; Major General Alexander McComb, May 24, 1828, to June 18, 1841; Major General Winfield Scott, (brevet Lieutenant General) June, 1841, to No- vember 1, 1861; Major General George B. McClellan, November 1, 1861, to March 11, 1862; Major General Henry W. Halleck, July 11, 1862, to March 12, 1864; Lieutenant General Ulysses Simpson Grant, March 12, 1864, to July 25, 1866, and as general to March 4, 1869; General William T. Sherman, March 4, 1869, to November 1, 1883; Lieutenant General Philip Sheridan, November 1, 1883, to August 5, 1888; Lieutenant General J. M. Schofield. August 14, 1888, to September 29, 1895; Major General Nelson A. Miles, October 5, 1895, to March, 1901, and as Lieutenant General to 1903; S. B. M. Young, Chief of Staff, 1903; H. C. Corbin, Chief of Staff, 1906; Arthur McArthur, Senior Gen- eral, 1906-1909; J. Frank Bell, Lieutenant General and Chief of Staff, 1909- 1910; Leonard Wood, Major General, 1910-1914; Hugh L. Scott, Major Gen- eral, 1914.
PRESIDENTS WHO HAVE DIED IN OFFICE.
William Henry Harrison died at 12:30 A. M., April 4, 1841, of a disease of the lungs and liver.
Zachary Taylor died at 10:30 P. M., Sunday, July 9, 1850, at the White House, of cholera morbus.
Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by J. Wilkes Booth, at 10:30 P. M., April 14, 1865, while at Ford's Theater, on 10th street, witnessing the per- formance of "Our American Cousin." He was carried to the home of Mr. Pe- terson, 516 10th street, where he died at 7:22 A. M., April 15, 1865
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James A. Garfield was assassinated by Charles J. Guiteau at 9:30 A. M., July 2, 1881, while passing through the Baltimore and Potomac depot at Wash- ington, D. C., to take the train for Long Branch. He lived for eighty days, suffering intensely most of the time, and died at Elberon, New Jersey, Monday, September 19, 1881, at 10:35 P. M., and was buried at Lake View Cemetery, Cleveland, Ohio.
William McKinley was assassinated by Leon Czolgosz at Buffalo, N. Y., Sep- tember 8, 1901, and died September 14, 1901. He was buried at Canton, Ohio.
WHERE THE PRESIDENTS ARE BURIED.
The body of George Washington is resting in a brick vault at Mount Ver- non, in a marble coffin.
John Adams was buried in a vault beneath the Unitarian church at Quincy. The tomb is walled in with large blocks of rough-faced granite.
John Quincy Adams lies in the same vault by the side of his father. In the church above, on either side of the pulpit, are tablets of clouded marble, each surmounted by a bust, and inscribed with the familiar epitaphs, of the only father and son that ever held the highest office in the gift of the American people.
Thomas Jefferson lies in a small, unpretentious private cemetery of one hundred feet square, at Monticello, Va.
James Madison's remains rest in a beautiful spot on the old Madison estate, near Orange, Va.
James Monroe's body reposes in Hollywood cemetery, Va., on an eminence commanding a beautiful view of Richmond and the James river. Above the body is a huge block of polished Virginia marble, supporting a coffin-shaped block of granite, on which are brass plates, suitably inscribed. The whole is surrounded by a sort of gothic temple-four pillars supporting a peaked roof, to which something of the appearance of a bird cage is imparted by filling in the interstices with iron gratings.
Andrew Jackson was buried in the corner of the garden of the Hermitage. eleven miles from Nashville. The tomb is about 18 feet in dameter, surrounded by fluted columns and surmounted by an urn. The tomb is surrounded by mag- nolia trees.
Martin Van Buren was buried at Kinderhook. The monument is a plain granite shaft 15 feet high.
John Tyler's body rests within ten yeards of that of James Monroe, in Hollywood cemetery, Richmond. It is marked by no monument, but is sur- rounded by magnolias and flowers.
James K. Polk lies in the private garden of the family, in Nashville. . It is marked by a limestone monument, with Dorie columns.
Zachary Taylor was buried in Cave Hill cemetery, Louisville. The body was subsequently to be removed to Frankfort, where a suitable monument was to be erected, commemorative of his distinguished service.
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Millard Fillmore's remains lie in the beautiful Forest Lawn cemetery, of Buffalo, and his grave is surmounted by a lofty shaft of Scotch granite.
Franklin Pierce was buried in the Concord, N. H., cemetery, and his grave is marked by a marble monument.
James Buchanan's remains lie in the Woodward Hill cemetery, at Lancas- ter, Pa., in a vault of masonry. The monument is composed of a single block of Italian marble.
Abraham Lincoln rests in the Oak Ridge cemetery, Springfield, Ill., en- closed in a sercophagus of white marble. The monument is a great pile of mar- ble, granite and bronze.
Andrew Jonhson's grave is on a cone-shaped eminence, half a mile from Greenville, Tenn. The monument is of marble beautifully ornamented.
The body of James A. Garfield has been placed in a tomb at Cleveland, Ohio.
Grover Cleveland was buried at Princeton, New Jersey.
THE MONROE DOCTRINE.
We owe it to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and the allied powers, to declare that we should consider any at- tempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependen- cies of any European power, we have not interferred, and shall not interfere; but with the governments which have declared their independence and main- tained it, and whose independence we have on great consideration and just principles, acknowledged, we could not view an interposition for oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny by any European power, in any other light than as a manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.
PRESIDENT JAMES MONROE,
In his message to Congress in 1823.
AN EMANCIPATION PAPER.
(A form sometimes used in the days of slavery.)
Know all men by these presents, that I, A B ยท, of the County of. and State of Virginia, being the owner and
possessor of a negro man named C. (Otherwise C. D .), for divers causes and consideration to me thereunton moving, do and by these presents do forever quit claim to said negro C who is hereby forever set free and emancipated by me, or my heirs or assigns, over the person and property of the said C ...... and he is hereby declared by me (so far as in my power to do) as free to all intents and purposes as if born free. In tes- timony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and scal this day of. 1825.
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THE SEVENTEEN YEAR LOCUST.
Bulletin No. 68 issued in September, 1900, from the Agricultural Experi- ment station of the State University at Morgantown, by Professor A. D. Hop- kins, gives an interesting account of the Cicada or Seventeen year locust, which appears in swarms of countless numbers throughout the State. They do not ap- pear at the same time generally over the State, but by district or certain boun- daries in different years, but the swarms appear in each district always seven- teen years apart.
In the District in which Harrison County is included, the swarm appears during the latter half of the month of May.
They emerge from the ground in appearance like an uncouth worm, in the evening, usually between sundown and ten o'clock and proceed to the nearest upright object, which may be a tree, fence, post, weed or the side of a house, anything upon which they can climb and expose their bodies to the open air. In about an hour after emerging, the skin on the back splits open and the adult insect works its way out.
The wings, which are short and soft at first, rapidly develop, the body wings and legs harden and by the following day it is ready to take its flight and enter upon its short aerial life of about thirty days.
The males sing almost constantly and owing to their numbers with their shrill piping voices, make a deafening uproar.
Each female deposits from three to five hundred eggs in numerous ragged punctures, made by her powerful ovipositors in the twigs of shrubs and trees. These eggs hatch in about six or eight weeks from the time they are deposited, and the young cicada larvae, emerges from the twigs and fall to the ground, burrow beneath the surface, and enter upon their long residence of seventeen years.
The following letter written to the University gives record of 102 years of the coming of the Cicada :
Clarksburg, W. Va., January 18, 1898.
Dear Sir:
I have received your letter of the 14th inst., asking for such information as I can furnish in regard to the periodical Cicada generally known as the Seven- teen Year Locust.
May 15, 1795; May 25, 1812; May 25, 1829; May 14, 1846; May 25, 1863; May 17, 1880; May 21, 1897.
The first two dates, I procured from my father, the others are the result of my own observations. I was three years and three months of age when the Cicada appeared in 1812, but I do not recollect that I saw them.
The date of their first appearance is influenced somewhat by the weather and the temperature. In 1897, it was cold about the 22nd of May, and many of them perished. They continued to come up for about two weeks this year, and by the 21st of June seemed to have disappeared in this neighborhood.
I have endeavored to ascertain the extent of this locust district, but have
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made poor progress. I am informed that they did not appear at Charleston, but were numerous in Nicholas County. They appeared in Meig's County, Ohio. I suppose in this State that the district does not extend to the Great Ka- nawha River, and is bounded by an irregular line North of that river. It is said that they appeared in Grant County of this State. I had previously sup- posed that this distriet did not extend east of the Allegheny Mountains. It ex- tends quite extensively into the State of Ohio.
As to Pennsylvania, I have no information in regard to the Cicada. All the harm this insect is properly chargeable with, is in puncturing the small branches of trees with their ovipositors to lay their eggs for the next brood in 1914. They do not eat anything and the males do the singing.
In old times, there was a superstition that sometimes the Cicada had the letters P and W on their wings indicating Peace and War, but I find the same character appear on the wings every year, generally resembling the letter "N."
I regret that I eannot furnish you with more valuable information, but such as it is, I furnish it cheerfully.
Very respectfully, LUTHER HAYMOND.
We were but two years of age when the Locust of 1846 appeared, but we very distinctly remember the Locust years of May 25, 1863, May 17, 1880, May 27, 1897, and May 25, 1914 .- The Author.
GOING TO MILL.
Mrs. Sallie Sutton Stump, mother of Rev. Dr. John S. Stump, of the Baptist church, reeently related an experience of her girlhood days, and told of her fear of passing a graveyard. She said that she often went to the old Adam Gillespie mill on horseback. The path led from her home on Granny's ereek over the hill by the Bowlinggreen, and down a branch of Flatwoods run to the Elk river. There were but few improvements along the way. By the side of the path on the old William Bell place, was a graveyard. Sometimes she was delayed in getting her grinding, and it would be dusk before she would pass that point. She would make every effort to pass the graveyard before the shades of evening fell upon that lonely spot.
Cabin standing at Hominy Falls, Nicholas county, built in 1855, and oc- cupied as storehouse for many years on the road from Summersville to Gaulcy.
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It was the oldest or first store kept in that community.
Early in the forties, there was quite a delegation of emigrants from Braxton eounty to Illinois. Among the number was Michael and James Gibson, Charles Byrne, George Peter, Wm. and Chauncy Lough, Tramel Gillespic, Andy, Charles, Samuel and Balard Wyatt, Chapman Gibson, An- drew Murphy, and others whose names we do not have.
Later on, about the year 1857, another delegation went west, loeating principally in the state of Kansas. Among this num- ber was Robert and Washington Given, ...... Duffield, Benjamin Enos, John Roberts, Frank, Scott, Tunis and Call Davis, Joseph Huffman, John Raner and possiblly some others.
STORE HOUSE ON WILDERNESS ROAD, NICHOLAS COUNTY These people moved from Sutton to Charleston in flatboats, carrying their pro- visions with then. They have numerous descendants now scattered through the western states.
It is said that Steward Donahue, John Sands and Rob Thomas Olden of Pocahontas county, ran off and came to the mountain between the Elk and the Holly. They were the first settlers to make an improvement on the mountain. They planted a peach orchard which grew there, the fruit of which became noted for its fine flavor. They were afterwards taken back to Pocahontas eounty, tried for the erime of robbery and sent to prison for a term of years. After- wards, John Hoover of the Valley of Virginia settled at that place. He was the father of John and Paul Hoover, and the mountain went by the name of Hoover for many years. It has since gone by the name of Ware Mountain. There are several families of that name living there. The locality is noted for its production of fine fruit, and it is said that at one time rattlesnakes abounded there in great numbers.
John G. Morrison went south during the Civil war, looking for his father's horses which some bush whackers had taken and disposed of in Pocahontas county. He recovered his horses, and traded one of them to Isaae Mann who lived on the head of Anthony's ereek, taking as part payment a Walthani wateh, No. 30,164. Morrison is still earrying the wateh, and values it very highly.
In August, 1875, there eame a tide in the Little Kanawha river, and as Captain Burns was running some flatboats down the river, his rivermen struck slaek water four or five miles above the mouth of Leading ereek. They ran on
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for some distance and tied up in an orchard. They then discovered that Lead- ing ereek had a rise of twenty-four feet, and six inches of plumb water which was flowing across the Little Kanawha like a milltail, dashing its turbulent wa- ters against the opposite shore. As the tide receded, the boatmen loosened their crafts, got them in the channel of the river and went on their way. Jeremiah Gillespie was one of the boat's crew, and related this circumstance to the author.
What might seem remarkable in the preservation of sweet potatoes is shown by the following story related by Mrs. Sallie Stump of Gilmer county: One spring, in taking her sweet potatoes out of the box in which they had been kept during the winter, she overlooked one. In the fall when she went to put away her seed for the coming spring, she found the potato and placed it back in the box with the new seed potatoes. It saved over another winter, was planted in a hotbed the following spring, and grew.
About 1888, a party of men, supposing that the MeAnany family had a large amount of money and other valuables, attempted to rob them, the attempt being made after the family had gone to bed. The family was composed of Michael McAnany and his two sisters, Mary and Ann, also John Smith, an old man who was making his home with the family. Michael slept in the back room downstairs, and being a strong and ambitious man attempted to fight the rob- bers. They shot a time or two at him, one ball striking the bedstead. One of the women got out and ran down to John Young's who lived close by, for as- sistance. Young grabbed his gun, took a colored man named Carrington with him, and started on the run. Carrington who was unarmed, kept saying to Young, "Don't go so fast, Mr. Young." Young was a fearless man who had seen service in the Civil war and was anxious to relieve his neighbor and get a shot at the robbers. They were gone however before he arrived, and they had succeeded in getting some jewelry and about two hundrd dollars in money. John Glenn, Bose Wine and another man were indicted for this robbery. Glenn and Wine were tried, eonvieted and sent to the penitentiary.
The early frontiersmen, being exposed to danger and having to rely upon their wits, studying the nature and habits of wild animals, became as shrewu in their examination of things that eame under their observation as a moderni detective. A company of hunters on one of the streams emptying into the Elk river, came to a camp which had recently been abandoned. They examined the eamp and ascertained that there had been three men and a dog there, and also that two of the men had ordinary rifles and one a gun with a short barrel; also that the dog was small and had a stump tail. They examined the tree against which the hunters had leaned their guns, and ascertained their lengths by meas- uring the distance between the impressions made in the ground by the stocks of the guns, and the places where their muzzles had rubbed the bark on the tree. They saw from where the dog sat in the snow, leaving his imprint as perfect as if a modern dentist had taken an impression for a new tail, that the
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dog had lost part of that member with which he so often indicates his friend- ship for man.
In the early settlement of the country, there was a colony on the West fork of the Little Kanawha composed of Cottrils, McCunes and perhaps some other families who were noted for their native shrewdness and their repeated violations of the law. In felony cases, they have been known to hold moot courts in which they would go through the whole case with as much skill as is often displayed by the legal profession at the bar. They would introduce their evidence, and see that there was no conflict in the testimony. Each witness knew what the others were expected to state, and each one was to corroborate the testimony of the other, thus it was seldom that the law made a conviction out of the numerous violations committed. In the days when men were put in jail for debt, Felix Sutton who was Sheriff, had a capias for a man named Murphy who lived on the West Fork. Going to Murphy's house one day to make the arrest, Murphy ran around the table and prevented the Sheriff from placing his hand on him, without which there was no arrest, and no violation for resisting an officer. Murphy succeedeed in keeping the table between him and the Sheriff, and dinner being on the table, both finally sat down and ate dinner, after which Murphy made his escape. Nearly fifty years after this occurrence Mrs. Murphy, then a very elderly lady, related the circumstances to the author and spoke of it as one of the very remarkable and amusing occur- rences that had taken place in the early history of the country. Mrs. Murphy recently died having lived to be 110 years of age.
"Old Pioneer" Jack Cottrill who lived on the headwaters of the West Fork, was one of the noted characters of that region. The Cottrills, it is said, had Indian blood in their veins. Jack lived a typical wild, rural life. He was a hunter, a seng-digger, lived in the woods, followed bee hunting, roamed the mountains, crossed every low gap. followed every hog trail, fiddled and danced in every cabin, but never laid up any store ahead. The writer stayed over night many years ago at a Mr. Chenoweth's who kept a store near Jack's cabin, and early the following morning .Jack's wife came to the store with a little bunch of ginseng roots which they had dug the day before, and said she had stayed up nearly all night drying the ginseng. getting it ready for market carly the next morning. They had no meal, she said. and would have no break- fast until she returned. Old Jack told the merchant one day that as soon as "the blessed root began to blossom" he would have plenty of ginseng. and his summer's living would be assured. Such was the wild and savage-like state of a few neighborhoods in central West Virginia as late as thirty-five or forty years ago.
The cabins in which the great majority of the people lived were built like the early schoolhouses, except they did not have as much space left to admit light. An ordinary dwelling or log cabin was usually about 16 x 20 feet. made of round or split logs, covered with clapboards, had a puncheon floor, and but one door. The chimney was built to the mantel, the material used being loose
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rocks and mortar, and was either left open or built out with "cat and clay," being small flat strips split out and cut the length required for the stem of the chimney. These were laid up in mortar and plastered on the inside with the same material, answering a very good purpose for a time, but never safe from fire. At the time of which we are speaking, the people were very fond of danc- ing. Usually they danced the single reel or "hoedown." The music was very fine, some of the old pioneers being hard to excel on the violin. The dances were usually held where there was the most room and in cabins having the smoothest floors. Some of the puncheon floors were very uneven and rough. It was related to the author that, on one occasion where they were having a dance, there was a man present who had been very fond of dancing, but who had recently made a profession of religion and refused to engage in the dance. He was sitting in the chimney corner listening to the music, and after awhile he began patting his foot. This he kept up for a while, and as the merriment of the occasion went on and the music rang ont in the still hours of the night, he jumped out on the floor and began to dance. Doubtless the man had been sincere, but he made two mistakes. In the first place, we are commanded to avoid the appearance of evil. This injunction he disobeyed by lending his presence. In the second place, if occasion called for his presence there he should have kept his foot still. This, through grace, he might have done. The early settlers had but little recreation. They had endured great privations and dangers, and their coming together under most any circumstances was to them a source of great pleasure. More recently, a lady asked a Methodist Bishop whether he considered it any harm for a Christian to dance. The bishop said he didn't know that it was, but that a Christian did not want to dance.
Note: A Christian under the influence and in the enjoyment of the knowledge of his acceptance with God must possess a joy that can not be har- monized by placing himself under the influence of and his body subject to emotional music without doing violence to his profession .- The Author.
We remember when quite a boy of seeing some wild turkeys fly out of a wheat field for some distance, and alight in a meadow near a high rail fence. The timothy grass was waist-high to a man. We conceived the idea of capturing a wild turkey alive and procceded to come up, concealed by the high grass, keeping the turkey between us and the fence; and, as luck would have it (it must have been luck for no feat of the kind as we then thought had ever been accomplished before), we succeeded in getting close to a large turkey hen, and as we made a dart for the game she rose out of the grass and started to fly, but was too close to the fence and struck the top rail. We grabbed her and then we had a tussle in the high grass, but we held her and well remember the little stringy, blue home-made suspenders that we wore and succeeded in getting them off without entirely losing our pantaloons and using them to tie the tur- key's wings and feet and carried her home in triumph. We tried to keep the turkey alive, but she refused to eat and pined away and died.
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