USA > West Virginia > Braxton County > History of Braxton County and central West Virginia > Part 31
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LINCOLN'S FAMOUS SHORT LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE.
Lincoln thought it necessary to write only a short letter at the most eritical presidential elections. The viee president, Hamlin, wrote a letter about twice as long. Both are in the True Delta of Happy Memory June 12, 1860. Here is the Lincoln letter :
Springfield, Ill., May 22, 1860.
Hon. George Ashman, President of the Republican National Convention:
Sir: I aceept the nomination by the convention over which you presided, and of which I am formally apprised in the letter of yourself and others, acting as a committee of the convention for that purpose. The declarations of prin- ciples and sentiments which aceompany your letter mect my approval, and it shall be my eare not to violate it nor to disregard it in any part. Imploring the assistance of Divine Providence, and with due regard to the views and feel- ings of all who were represented in the convention, to the rights of all the states and territories and people of the nation, to the inviolability of the Con- stitution and the perpetual union, harmony and prosperity of all, I am happy
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to co-operate for the practical success of the principles declared by the convention.
Your obliged friend and fellow citizen,
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
President Lincoln said, "You can fool part of the people all the time and all the people part of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."
Through the following letter, written nearly a half century ago the great heart of Abraham Lincoln speaks eloquently of the type of man he was. Most of those who knew the martyred president in life are gone. It is by picture and relie that he is remembered by the present generation. And this letter to a sorrowing New England mother is one of the most treasured of the relics. Couched in its simple, beautiful language, it has always been regarded as one of the grandest masterpieces ever written in America :
Executive Mansion, Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.
To Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Mass.
Dear Madam: I have been shown in the files of the War Department a state- ment of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be my any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
Yours very sincerely and respectfully, A. LINCOLN.
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CHAPTER XI.
Tragedies; Early Habits of the Citizens; Stock Raising, Anecdotes.
CANE RAISING.
About the year 1858 or 1859, canc which is commonly called sorghum, was introduced in the central portion of our state. The people had no knowledge of the method of extracting the juice from the stalks, and but little faith in its value as a food product. The first method or test that was given it, was by cutting the stalks at cach joint and stripping the outside of the stalk off with a knife. This could be done as it was hard and tough, leaving the pith which contained the juice. This was then cither pressed or boiled in order to extract the juice. When the people had become convinced of its value and gained some knowledge of its manufacture, they made wooden mills. These were simp- ly two rollers made usually of sugar wood. These rollers were about twelve . or fourteen inches in diameter by eighteen inches long, turned by hand, with journals from five to six inches in diameter. One of the journals extended above the frame about three fect, and on this was placed a sweep about twelve feet in length to which a horse was attached. The rollers were supplied with wooden cogs, and in order to make the journals as well as the gearing work smoothly, tallow was used as a lubricant. The bench and cap of the frame were made something like five or six inches thick so as to give the journals a good bearing. The rollers were tightened by means of keys, and when the rude wooden machinery was in operation the friction of the journals and cogs created a noise that was simply deafening, and could be heard for miles. You couldn't stop the horse readily as it was impossible to make it hear, consequently many accidents occurred. It was not an unusual thing at that day to see a boy with his hand or arm ground off. At a later time, the local foundries made cast iron mills. Now a much better class of mills is made with three turned rollers placed in iron frames. While for many years the juice of cane was boiled in iron kettles, now evaporators are used. From the cane is made an excellent quality of syrup which is most palatable and healthful. Some people prefer it above sugar for making fruit butters. Farmers make a mistake in not raising more cane as a half acre planted to cane will amply supply any family. It requires from seven to eight gallons of juice to make one of syrup. The quality of the soil as well as the season, has much to do with the quality of the juice. The juice . of cane grown in a dry season is much sweeter, and produces more syrup per gallon of juice.
SUGAR MAKING.
When the country was first settled, and for many years afterward, nearly all the sugar consumed in the interior of the state was made from the sap of
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the sugar tree which grew in great abundance along the water courses and in the rich coves and flat lands. Some sugar camps contained as many as five hundred trecs. In the early Spring after a hard freeze and the sun had warmed up the sap, the farmer would tap his trees. The process of making sugar was very simple. There were two ways of opening the trees-one was by the use of a gouge, a piece of flat iron about the size of an inch and a quar- ter chisel, and end being cupped. This gouge was driven far enough through the bark and into the sap of the tree to allow a spile of similar size and shape to be driven into the incision made by the gouge. These carried the water from the tree to the bucket.
Another way of tapping a sugar tree was by boring a small augur hole in the side of the trec, and putting in a spile made of a hollow alder or sumac. The custom was to make sugar troughs out of small poplar or linn trees. These were made by cutting blocks about two and a half fect long, splitting the block so as to make two troughs. These troughs when full contained about three gallons. If there were but few trees, the water was collected in buekets and taken to the house and boiled down in large kettles on the fireplace. If the number of trees justified it, a camp was built and a furnace that would hold four or five kettles was placed by the camp.
The usual method of gathering sugar water was by collecting it in bar- rels and hauling it to the camp with a horse. When the trees were situated on a hillside, the water was often conveyed to the furnaces by means of spouts which were sometimes made of bark pealed from saplings. The water when boiled down usually made upon an average of three pounds to the tree. Some seasons were much better than others for sugar making. Seasons following severe winters being much the best as this seems to be nature's method of sweetening the sap in the branches of the trees. After the sap begins to be ropy in the Spring, it is used only for making molasses until the warm days dries up the sap and converts it into wood. It requires abotu forty-cight gal- lons of sugar water to make a gallon of syrup; and a gallon of maple syrup when reduced, will make about two and a half pounds of fine sugar.
When Lewis and Clark were sent out by the government to explore its western possessions, they rescued a tribe of half-famished Indians who had been driven from the plains and were living on the bare mountains. They gave the old chief a piece of dried pumpkin to eat, and he remarked that it was the sweetest thing he had tasted since his sister, a half century or more before, had given him a lump of maple sugar when he was a small boy. All these years had not removed from the lips of that savage the taste of the little lump of maple sugar. We should spare and eultivate the trec, remembering that it is a luxury which God has placed within the reach of so many of his ereatures.
I. C. Bishop who lives on Hacker's creek, Harrison county, says that the Spring of 1915, he put nineteen or twenty spiles in one large sugar trec, and
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that they made and put away for summer's use fifteen gallons 'of syrup, be- sides what the family used while they were making.
The season of 1915 was the best sugar season that has been known for many years, and the number of spiles must have drawn all the sugar water from the tree.
LUMBER AND OIL DISTRICTS.
Before the commercial saw-mills entered the interior of the State, a great many of the young men found employment on the farm and furnished the labor that was required on the neighboring lands. Very few of the young men left the farm in search of work. They supplied, as a rule, all the posi- tions, such as lawyers, doctors, teachers, mechanics, and merchants. In the sections where the farmers beeame wealthy by reason of the development of coal, oil and gas, as a rule they abandoned the farm and moved to the towns and cities. Very many of them had learned habits of industry and economy. They were vigorous and strong. The early dew of the morning, the sunshine and the fresh air, wholesome vegetables, good exercise and refreshing sleep had given them robust constitutions, but in a great majority of instances they re- versed the whole order of things. In the larger towns and eities, they fell in with the city boys. In too many instances, they learned habits of idleness and dissipation. They were unaccustomed to eity life and were unable to take care of themselves and conserve their interests. The fortunes which at first seemed to them to be immense and inexhaustible soon shrank to a minimum and at last bcame exhausted, leaving the lobsters on the sand-bar after the floods had disappeared. The card table, the saloon, the beer bottle and the cigarette became the inheritance of the weak and the foolish.
The young men of the lumber districts and oil fields, as a rule, leave the farm for other employment. Those of the lumber districts, not coming in pos- session of fortunes sufficient to justify city life, generally went to the lumber camp. There is a fascination about the camp and woods that is to be enjoyed nowhere else. The pure water of the mountain stream, the aroma of the newly- cut timber, the well-trained skidding team, the inclines, the skidways, the lightning-like revolutions of the band-saw cutting its thousands of feet of lum- ber a day, the whirr and buzz of the machinery fascinates the young man and keeps him wedded to his job. But they are not altogether free from bad in- fluences and environments. The whiskey jug, the cigarette, cocaine and other drugs equally destructive to humanity, follow the eamp. Profanity increases as men gather in camp as well as in war, and such expressions as the following may be heard from young men in a short time after they have left the farm, "Look here, feller," "You bet," "You're damned right, old man," "Yes, my feller." But after all, they work. Many of the young men remain for several years at the camp and become useful eitizens, but the vulgar expressions spoken of rarely ever leave the lumberman. Horrible as it may seem, this form of vul- garity is often communicated to others.
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"ROCK OIL" FORMERLY RECOMMENDED AS A PANACEA.
The following is an extract from an article written by John MaeRay, and printed in the Greenbrier Independent, telling of a visit he made to the oil wells of Wirt eounty in 1861. As some of Braxton's eitizens developed the Wirt oil fields, the portion of the artiele reprodueed below will be of interest to our readers :
Burning Springs as it was called, eame out and eolleeted gradually in a boggy place, eovering a space of a number of square rods. This spring, like many springs of continental Europe and of America west of the Allegheny Mountains, ran oil as well as water, and the eustom was to absorb the oil from the top of the water by means of flannel cloths, and this was sold as "Roek Oil." There are readers now who remember this Rock Oil as it was sold in small bottles years ago, and recommended as a Panacea for all the ills to which flesh is heir. This was done before the boring for oil began, and it was the seareity of the oil that lent the enchantment to its eurative power. Our Eng- lish word "petroleum" coming from two Greek words meaning "roek" and oil", literally means "Roek Oil."
About the year 1857, some Pennsylvania men eame to Wirt eounty and bored a well for salt. This well was sunk right near the Burning Spring and was pointed out to us. They struck some oil, and as it greased up everything and impeded their work they became disgusted, quit and went baek to Penn- · sylvania. Some neighbors of their's heard of it, procured their rights, eame down, put in pumping machinery and worked away, getting two or three bar- rels of oil per day when a joint stock company was formed in Sutton with sueh men as Jonathan N. Camden, Thomas B. Camden, Col. B. W. Byrne, Homer A. Holt and others who made a lease for a term of years of an old Mr. Rathbone. This company bored a well very near the spring about the elose of the year 1860. This well was known in the oil parlance as the "Camden well." When this well was bored, it was done for the express purpose of the discovery of oil. At the distance of one hundred and twenty-five feet, oil and gas were struek in such vast quantities that it spouted more than one hundred feet in the air, blowing the drills and everything in its way entirely out. The people loved to tell this, and everyone who saw this marvel of nature would become excited when he told it.
This was the first big oil well in Wirt county. For weeks, the oil ran with all the force that nature could give it. The owners of the well could do noth- ing to stop the flow. All the appliances that could be brought to bear upon it had no effièet whatever, and immense quantities of sand were used to stop it, but all in vain. The oil wasted in enormous quantities and the Kanawha river ran black for miles with this. Finally every available boat on the river was procured and filled with oil to the water's edge, and by this last means the oil was spouted into the boats and much of it saved.
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Finally to add to the already intense excitement, someone set this oil on fire and Kanawha river was for miles a burning stream of water.
The Camden well and spring caught fire as all surface oil did within reach of the flames, and the fire continued for weeks amid the wildest excitement. This is how the name "Burning Spring" originated. When this was made known to the public, there was a mad rush for the place, principally by the Pennsylvania and Ohio people. Oil had been discovered before this time in Pennsylvania, and they knew its value better than anyone else. When we were there, the crude oil was worth thirty-three cents per gallon in iron hoop barrels on the river bank. The river was the only means of transportation at that time.
There were only a few people in Wirt county when this Camden well was bored, but within a few weeks there were fully 10,000 people on the ground. This Camden well continued to waste and burn until another well, larger and stronger, was bored, known as the "Llewelyn," and the immense flow from this well practically stopped the Camden well.
We were at these oil wells fully a week, and of all the places ever seen, this one took the lead. There was not a convenience or a comfort of any kind; everything looked greasy; there was nothing that you could taste, touch or handle but that coal oil was on it, and the crude oil is very offensive. The der- rick hands would actually wash their faces and hands in this crude oil, claiming that it would cleanse the skin without soap. Their occupation had rendered them insensible to its disagreeable odor.
The state of society at these oil wells was something fearful to contem- plate. "Every man was a law unto himself and did that which was right in his own eyes." In addition to the fierce greed for money, the feeling created by the approaching war was intense and terrible. There had been bloodshed and murder committed a short time before our coming, and acts of this kind were likely to occur at any time. It was "abolition" and "secesh" as each party named the other. The abolitionists had the greater numbers. We never heard the name of God mentioned save in profanity, and the swearing and vul- garity was simply fearful.
SILK FACTORY.
In 1841 or 1842, a company was organized in Clarksburg to propogate the silk worm and manufacture silk.
The silk worm is fed on mulberry leaves, and at the approach of cold weather, spins a web of fine threads which covers it over completely, making an oblong sack called a cocoon, and when unwound from around the worm, is used to make silk. When the cocoon is undisturbed, a butterfly comes from it in the Spring which lays eggs and creates the silk worm.
The building used for this purpose was located near the Barnes' Crossing and was called a co-coonery. The result was unsatisfactory, only about enough silk being made to make the town editor, McGranahan, a vest.
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About the year 1875, Pembrook B. Berry of Sutton, a eabinet maker, brought the first planing mill and set it np in Sutton. He made a dinner and invited quite a number of the citizens in honor of the event. It was some- thing new to the people, and was in the line of progress, and sounded the death knell to the jack-planes in Sutton.
EARLY SALT INDUSTRY.
Many years before the Civil war, Asa Squires began the manufacture of salt near Salt Lick bridge in a very small way. He sunk a gum to eateh the salt water that comes up in the side of the ereek, and with six large iron ket- tles he made some salt, but soon abandoned the projeet. Some of the old kettles are still in the possession of the Singleton family.
John Haymond and Benjamin Wilson eommeneed the manufacture of salt at Bulltown on the Little Kanawha river, (now in Braxton eounty) in the year 1809, and diseontinued it in 1823. A great quantity was made during the war with Great Britain.
The salt qualities of the waters beeame known by a lick being frequented by the eattle of the neighborhood. It has always been said that Conrad's eow discovered the salt deposit.
John B. Byrne afterwards made salt there as did also Adison MeLaugh- lin, but the business was diseontinued about the elose of the Civil war.
Terra Salis, or Kanawha Salines, is a flourishing town about 6 miles above Charleston, containing 4 dry-goods and 2 groeery stores, an extensive iron-foundry, 1 Episcopal, 1 Presbyterian and 1 Methodist ehrueh, and a pop- ulation of about 800.
The Kanawha salt-works eommenee on the river, near Charleston, and extend on both sides for about 15 miles, giving employment, direetly and in- direetly, to about 3,000 persons.
The discovery of salt water in this region was led to by a large buffalo- liek on the northeast side of the river, 5 miles above Charleston. In this liek the first salt-well was sunk, in 1809.
The whole produet of the salt distriet is estimated at 1,200,000 bushels annually ; and this produet must continue to swell with the inereasing demand, and with the employment of additional eapital. It is a curious fact, and worthy of philosophieal inquiry, that while the salt water is obtained by bor- ing at a depth of from 3 to 500 feet below the bed of the Kanawha, it in- variably rises to a level with the river. When the latter is swollen by rains, or the redundant waters of its tributaries, the saline fluid, enclosed in suit- able gums on the shore, aseends like the mercury in its tube, and falls only when the river is restored to its wonted channel. How this mysterious corre- spondence is produced, is a problem which remains to be solved. Theories and speeulation have been heard on the subjeet, but none seem to be precisely consonant with the principles of seience.
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Several vestiges remain on the Kanawha, which show that the Indians were acquainted with and made use of the salt water. Remains of rude pot- tery arc found in abundance in the neighborhood respecting which there is but little doubt that they are the remains of vessels used by them for the evapora- tion of the salt water. That the neighborhood of the Big Lick was their fa- vorite resort, is evinced by the traces of their idle hours to be found upon the neighboring rocks. A short distance below the Big Lick was, some years since, a rock called the pictured or calieo rock, on which the natives had sculp- tured many rude figures of animals, birds, etc. This rock was finally de- stroyed to make furnace chimneys. Another similar sculptured rock is, or was lately, on the southwest side of the river, upon the summit of the nearest hill. The article annexed, originally published in the Lexington Gazette in 1843, above the signature of H. R., describes a euriosity peculiarly interesting to the scientific, and promises to have a wonderful influence upon the pros- perity of this region.
THE GAS WELLS OF KANAWHA.
These wonderful wells have been so lately discovered, that as yet only a brief and imperfect notice of them has appeared in the newspaprs. But they are a phenomenon so very curious and interesting, that a more complete de- seription will doubtless be acceptable to the public.
They are, in fact, a new thing under the sun, for in all the history of the world, it does not appear that a fountain of strong brine was ever before known to be mingled with a fountain of inflamnable gas, sufficient to pump it out in a constant stream, and then, by its combustion, to evaporate the whole into salt of the best quality.
TANNERIES AND JOURNEYMEN SHOEMAKERS.
After the country became somewhat settled so the people could keep do- mestic stock, they began to tan their own leather. This was a simple process. The first thing to be done was to dig out a large trough and partially fill it with beaten or ground tan bark. Chestnut oak bark was commonly used. These troughs were kept full of water. A similar trough was prepared in which lime or acids were used to remove the hair. The hides were then placed in the oak ooze, fresh bark being added occasionally to keep up the strength of the tanning solution. It required about twelve months to properly tan a hide. The hides were taken out of the ooze and placed on a bench, one end of which stood on two legs and made waist-high to a man, the other end resting on the floor. The tanner would take what was termed a currying knife, and with this he would remove all the fleshy parts that adhered to the leather, and usually prepared it for use without blacking the flesh side. This rude way of tanning leather usually left it hard and bony, but it wore well.
Deer hides could be either tanned or dressed. After removing the hair
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from the pelt, the hide was usually dressed in deer brains. This method left it soft and pliable, and it was used for moccasins, and often for men's pantaloons, as well as for strings and other various purposes. Public tanncries took the place of the home tannery, and persons would have their leather tanned on shares, one-half for the other. These tanyards were built close to running springs of water. Several vats were made in a building and kept full of tan- bark, and the hides were transferred from one to the other during the process of tanning. These tanneries, as a rule, made good leather-better than the steamed product that is thrown on the market at this day. In Ireland, it is said, leather is kept in the vats for seven years, and is unsurpassed in quality. David Ireland is said to be the first man to establish a tanyard in this eounty. He located at Sutton, near where the Jackson mill stood. Gus Hinkle was per- haps. the first tanner to locate at Bulltown. Later John Lorentz conducted a tanyard there, and Neil Hurley had a tanyard at the same place still later. Samuel McCorkle, early in the fifties, had a tanyard on the Old Woman's run, also keeping a tollgate. His building stood just below the mouth of a little drain which heads near the C. C. Hawkins property in North Sutton. He closed his business at the beginning of the Civil war, and with his family, went back East to their former home.
William Berry, the founder of the Berry family in this county, tanned leather in a small way at his residence on O'Briens fork of Salt Lick, as early as 1833. He used troughs for vats, and it is not likely that he did very much work for the public. It is said when the stars "fell" in November, 1833, and the people became so alarmed, thinking the world was coming to an end, Mr. Berry told his boys to get up, that the leather was all in the tan vats and. would be destroyed.
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