USA > West Virginia > Braxton County > History of Braxton County and central West Virginia > Part 32
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Perhaps the last publie tannery in the county was conducted by Benjamin Huffman on the site of the one established by David Ireland. This was torn down about the time the Coal & Coke railroad was built to Sutton. The great commercial tanneries of the present have taken the place of the county tan- neries, just as they did of the individual tanneries.
Contemporary with the early tannery, was the journeyman shoemaker, but the large shoe manufacturers have driven him out of existence. The jour- neyman shoemaker was an important adjunct to eivilization, and at one time the people thought he was an indispensable being. As a rule, a travelling shoemaker was wise beyond the commonality of men, and often it was with dif- ficulty that he could comprehend his own greatness. He travelled from house to house, and would usually be the inmate of a family for a weck at a time; he saw and heard all that the family knew; he gathered from the ehildren what they knew, and heard the gossip of the neighborhood; he travelled from one neighborhood to another, and was a veritable cneyclopedia of gossip; he was full of sayings and witticisms, and catechised the children with an overflow of his knowledge. His shop was always in the parlor of the eabin where the family cooked, ate and slept, and to keep the children from handling his tools
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required all his powers of forbearance, patience and resistance. He manufac- tured his own lasts, obtained the rosin for his wax from pine knots and pulled the bristles from the wild hog. He manufactured his own shoe pegs with a saw and pocketknife, and some skillful housewife spun the flax for his shoe thread. Out of the home-tanned leather, the travelling shoemaker shod the early inhabitants of West Virginia. One pair of shoes was all that any mem- ber of the family had during the year. About mid-winter, the boys' shoes would have to be half soled and the toes capped, waiting for the good old sum- mer days to come. Fifty cents or a bushel of corn was the price for making men's and women's shoes.
STOCK RAISING.
With the exception of a few counties in West Virginia, but few well-bred horses were raised until recent years. The counties of Harrison and Green- brier were perhaps the foremost in introduc- ing a good strain of horses. The principal horse raised in the State was the common native horse called the "West Virginia plug." These horses were bred for genera- tions without very much care or intermix- ture with the more improved breeds. They have been bred and inbred until they have become of slow growth and "pluggy", by reason of hard usage and little care. Some- times they were belled and turned into the woods to gather their own food with the cattle. As a rule they are low and strong, seldom weighing over a thousand pounds, and are inured to hardships. They have climbed the mountain sides and traveled over steep and rugged paths until they have de- veloped every muscle of the hody. Some of them have style and are first-class travelers, EVANS FAMILY Milking the cows and can endure without fatigue what would kill an ordinary horse raised and pampered in a level country. Central West Virginia in . recent years has given more attention to the breeding of horses. A great many of the heavier breeds have been brought into the state from France, Germany and Belgium, also the Western states, and crossed with our native stock. In some parts of the state, the English coach horse and the saddler have been in- troduced, but the breeds have rarely been kept pure for any length of time, almost invariably becoming crossed with the native horse. The size and style of the West Virginia horse has been greatly improved, but the durability and longevity of our native horses have never been surpassed by any other breed,
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and with the "West Virginia plug, " the veterinary surgeon has but few calls.
The first blooded horses and cattle that came to Braxton were brought here by William Fisher about the year 1835 or 1840. They had an imported horse in Pendleton county ealled "Rattler," and the horses brought here by Mr. Fisher were of that stock. They were iron grey and very hardy serviee- able animals, and as a rule were fine workers. Some of this stock is yet in the country and retains its color wherever there is any considerable mixture of the blood. B. F. Fisher raised two stallions some time within the fifties that were dappled grey and very fine animals. They sold for about six hundred dollars eaeh which at that day was considered a very fine priee. William Fisher in an early day, introdueed the Durham cattle. This was the first effort made up to that time to improve the cattle of this seetion. They were white cattle brought from Pendleton and Hardy counties, and locally were known as the Fisher cattle.
Stock raising has always been a profitable business with the farmers of West Virginia. Greenbrier and Monroe counties are noted for fine eattle and saddle horses, Mason eounty is also a noted stoek county. Harrison, Monon- galia, Marion, Taylor, Upshur, Lewis and Braxton, with some other counties, have been engaged in stock raising since the Civil war on an extensive seale. The lands of these counties are fertile and well adapted to grazing. Gilmer county also handles considerable stoek, her lands being very fertile. Nieholas eounty for many years availed herself of the wild lands within the county and adjacent to it on which to range her stoek in the summer season. That county has a great deal of meadow land on Beaver, Muddlety, Peters creek, MeMillions ercek and other smaller streams. The glades and marshes of Nieholas eounty when cleared of the timber and alder brush, produced an abundant amount of coarse hay, and the quality is being improved by a system of drainage. Nieholas eounty is now handling a better grade of eattle as the country is being settled and the native range destroyed. Stoek raising will become far more profitable as the silo is just being introdueed. This method of feeding eattle is destined to revolutionize the stock raising business in West Virginia. Men with a small area of good land can fatten a load of eattle at a profit in exeess of what could be realized, under the old system, on three or four times the aereage of land. Cattle fed on silage ean be advaneed in weight and condition so as to go to market a year sooner than under the present plan of dry feeding and grazing.
SILOS.
It has been fifty years or more sinee the silo began to attraet attention, and eame into use in some of the eastern states. The system of silage feeding has always had favorable mention in the agricultural journals of the country, and also by most writers. Too mueh praise can not be given the silo as the most economieal way of feeding stoek. and especially so in dairy farming. It
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is only within the last half dozen years that the silo has been tried to any ex- tent in West Virginia.
John Loyd who keeps a dairy near Sutton, was the first man to build a silo in Braxton county, with the result of three years' experience he has built two more.
A. C. Sutton of Big Otter, Clay county. built the first silo in that county in 1914, and the fall of 1915, the Boggs Brothers built nine silos on their farms, and a few others were built in different sections of the county. Brax- ton county commenced to build silos in earnest during the season of 1915.
The hoop and stave silo is the most common in use, and the most popular size is 12x30. We believe the silo is destined to revolutionize the stock busi- ness in West Virginia, and greatly increase the number and quality of the cattle raised and fattened for the markets.
Cattle raising in the coal and oil districts of West Virginia has declined in recent years, owing to the development of these mineral resources. Before the West Virginia & Pittsburgh division of the B. & O. railrorad was built from Clarksburg to Richwood, Bridgeport was the principal shipping point for a great portion of the stock from several counties south of that point. The cattle pens at Bridgeport were a fine paying property. They were valued at about ten thousand dollars, or equal to a paying capital of that amount. After the railroad was completed to Sutton, a great deal of stock was loaded at Mc- Nutt siding. We have known as many as eight carloads of cattle loaded in one day at that point, also as many as six hundred head of sheep loaded from the pens in one day. However since the railroad has been extended to Rich- wood, a great deal of the stock from Nicholas county and south of there is shipped from that point. Since the completion of the Coal & Coke railroad, quite a number of cattle and sheep are now loaded from Clay and Nicholas counties at points along that line. Before the railroads were built to the points named, we have seen as many as a thousand head of sheep going over the Weston and Gauley Bridge turnpike in one day. It was not uncommon in the Fall or Spring seasons to sce two hundred head of cattle in one drove passing over the same route. These cattle were bought up as feeders or to be grazed and put in good condition for the market.
The Shorthorn Durham was for many years the favorite cattle in West Virginia, but in recent years the Hereford has taken the lead. They are a hardy cattle, and seem to stand the winters better when calves, and fatten at an earlier age. As milkers, the Hereford and Black Polled Angus which is a hardy beef cattle, are as a rule very inferior. The Durham cattle are the most beautiful cattle in the world, and to feed them and give them a little more time for development, they are superior to all other cattle in weight and style.
The Jersey breed of cattle is but a slight improvement over the lowest breed of scrub cattle, and that consists in the quality of the milk which they
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give. They have greatly damaged the breed of beef cattle in sections where they are kept. The slightest admixture of blood ean be detected, showing in th pale color of the hair, the cat hams and a large paunch. While the fat Dur- ham or any of the improved breeds of beef cattle will dress sixty pounds to the one hundred pounds gross, the Jersey will dress less than fifty, and their tal- low is yellow and objectionable.
HORNLESS CATTLE.
A citizen of Illinois bred the Polled Durham. He started by crossing the thorough-bred Durham bull with a muley cow, and by sixteen erosses he succeeded in breeding a hornless cattle of very superior quality. Some of his herd found their way to West Virginia, and other breeds of cattle have also been bred hornless.
The practice of dehorning has of recent years prevailed generally among stoek raisers. This operation is very painful, and sometimes results in the death of the animal. Two methods are employed. One is by a knife plaeed in an iron frame and worked by means of a lever. This is very practical when used on small cattle, but with older cattle it sometimes crushes the horn, often injuring the skull. The saw is the implement most generally used when de- horning large cattle. When the horn or nub of the young calf first appears, it may be destroyed by an application of some caustie acid. Removing the horns of eattle with either elippers or saw is extremely brutal, and should be discontinued. While it is not practical under existing methods of stock raising to handle horned cattle, hornless cattle might be bred and would become uni- versal if the method of dehorning was prohibited.
The solution of, and highest attainment in stoek raising in West Virginia will be reached when the level lands are cultivated in corn and other grains to be fed through the silo, while the rolling or stecp lands can be used as sheep pasture, and in this way maintain their fertility and become a source of profit.
At the World's Fair in St. Louis, there were four prize winning steers ae- knowledged to be the largest and finest specimens in the world. The largest was the famous "Advanee" which tipped the scales at the enormous weight of 4,270 pounds, was 181/2 hands high, girth 14 fect and 2 inches, and mcas- ured 4 feet and 3 inches across the back.
The second largest steer was "Baron Lyndale" which weighed 4,000 pounds, and the third largest was "Lord Raleigh," weighing 3,830 pounds.
Samuel Ludington of Greenbrier county, this state, raised a thorough- bred Short Horn that tipped the scales at 4,400 pounds. This is the largest steer of which the world has any record, and perhaps in the six thousand years of its history, no steer of greater weight has been recorded. He was taken to the railroad station in a truck made for that purpose.
Huston Carr, near Belfont, this state, raised a Durham steer with one- fourth Polled Angus, which at two years of age weighed 1,520 pounds. Carr
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sold the steer to L. D. Peppers of Glenville, West Virginia, who sold it to John Goff. He was exhibited at several State Fairs. His weight at five years was 3,600 pounds. Goff sold the steer to Captain O'Brion of Gilmer county who took him to California. It is said that he attained to the enormous weight of 4,200 pounds.
Asa Carr of Belfont raised a yearling Short Horn, one-fourth Polled Angus, that weighed 1,170 pounds at fifteen months of age.
A yearling bull, bred by Daniel O'Brien, was brought to Braxton county in the Fall of 1914, and his gross weight was 1,105 pounds.
The largest hog butchered in the county was raised and fattened by S. B. Singleton of Salt Lick in 1913. It was a cross between the Jersey and Poland China. The hog was two years old. Its gross weight was 886 pounds, and its net weight was 760 pounds. One of the midlings made into bacon weighed 110 pounds. and 141/2 gallons of lard was rendered from the hog.
BRAXTON COUNTY'S FIRST FAIR
was held at Sutton October .... , 1916. The first Agricultural Fair Association was composed of the following members: James Balangee, Vial Sands, J. B. McCoy, J. W. Howell, C. L. Engle, D. L. Long, G. R. Rose, G. S. A. Barrett, M. E. McCoy. The organization was effected by the election of John D. Sut- ton, President, G. S. A. Barrett, Vice President, James Balengee, Secretary, and C. L. Engle, Treasurer.
The Fair was held in the large building known as the Rink, standing be- tween the lower end of the town and the B. & O. depot. This large room, 140 feet long, by 50 feet wide, furnished an elegant place for the agricultural ex- hibit, while underneath the main building which is open and stands some nine or ten feet above ground, was divided into stalls for the stock. The stock ex- hibit was not large, but showed some very good live stock, including horses, cattle and sheep. The horticultural exhibit of fruit, cereals, art and needle work, was exceptionally fine, contributions coming from all parts of the county.
The donations for premiums used at this event, amounted to about $300.00, and was contributed principally by the citizens of Sutton.
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TRAGEDIES.
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BURNING OF RIVERVIEW HOTEL, SUTTON
Jacob Heater who lived on O'Brien's fork of Salt Lick, was in the woods some distance from his home when bitten by a rattlesnake. From a memoran- dum found among the papers of Colonel Asa Squires, we learn that he was bitten on Friday, July 6, 1838, about eleven o'clock A. M., and that he died that night about eleven o'clock. He was buried on the following Sunday in the old Flatwoods cemetery. His remains and those of his wife were exhumed in September, 1906, sixty-eight years after the death of Mr. Heater, and fifty- three years after the death of his wife. Mr. Heater was born March 27, 1798, and his wife, Delila Riffle Heater, was born Dec. 28, 1798.
Many years ago a free negro came from the East, and as he passed through the county some of the people supposed that he was an escaped slave, and tried to have him arrested. The poor fellow became frightened, and tried to avoid arrest. He escaped down the Elk river, and a constable and a posse pursued him. Just at the lower end of the eddy, where the town of Gassaway now stands, he tried to escape by swimming the river, and was drowned. It was later learned that the man was free, and was making his way westward.
Felix Sutton was the sheriff and coroner, and summoned a jury to view
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the remains and ascertain the cause of his death. He related to the writer that when the examination was over, it was sundown, and every person who was present left the ground. He then dug a shallow grave and buried the unfortunate man without any assistance, being detained until after dark in accomplishing it. The grave was pointed out as being on a little bank be- tween the river and a deep drain which emptied into the Elk at that place, just a short distance below the south end of the wire bridge at the lower end of the town. This may have been the first tragic death after the formation of the county, and is doubtless the last in which the coroner dug the grave, acted as pall-bearer, friend, minister and congregation all alone, beautifully . exemplifying the doctrine of his church which recognizes the universal broth- erhood of man.
A young man named Ashire, stepson of Peter Coger, was crushed to death by a saw log on the Elk river about 1847.
Before the war, three miles below Stumptown, a Mr. Bennett's wife and three children were drowned while attempting to cross the swollen waters of Steer creek in a wagon. Mr. Bennett succeeded in rescuing one of the chil- dren and made his own escape.
At the tavern house and saloon of Samuel J. Singleton, who lived on O'Briens fork of Salt Lick, where Newton G. Singleton now lives, a boy named Mollohan was urged to drink a quantity of whiskey on Sunday about 5 o'clock and died about 10 o'clock Monday morning. He lived about seventeen hours, and was buried Tuesday night about 11 o'clock. It was thirty-seven hours before the corpse was released by the coroner. The date of this occurrence, not definitely stated, was in 1859.
At the same tavern house and barroom on August 27, 1859, Samuel J. Singleton shot B. F. Farrow with a pistol. Singleton claimed the shooting to be accidental. The ball entered the bowels. Farrow lived about eleven hours, having been shot about 5 o'clock in the evening, and died about 4 the next morning. On Monday, the 29th, a coroner's jury was called and sat, and on Monday night the corpse was taken to his father's house, on Salt Lick creek, and buried about eleven o'clock that night.
About 1857 or 1858, within wheat harvest, Jesse Farrow was killed by lightning on the hill back of his residence, near the mouth of Rock run, on Salt Lick.
About the year 1858 or 1859 Mrs. Margaret Fisher, while looking along the branch back of the Fisher residence for young gosllings, discovered a colored infant lying in some drift along the creek. The family owned two colored women named Hannah and Fannie. Fannie was supposed to be the
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mother of the ehild. Mrs. Fisher communicated the faet of her discovery to her husband, who got John D. Baxter to stay with his family while he went to Sutton to eonfer with the authorities. The two colored women were sold and sent South.
Some years before the Civil war, a boy named Fox whose parents lived near the mouth of Bireh river, was playing in the water near where some folks were washing. A large pike eaught him by the leg and would have drowned him had he not been rescued. Samuel Fox killed the fish, and it measured four feet and three inches in length. Some years later, this same boy was shot and badly erippled by a man named Harrison Beasley.
Before the Civil war a man named Harris was drowned at the mouth of Bireh river.
A man named Berry, who lived near the mouth of Big Otter, Clay county, was killed by Mclaughlin, brother of Warwiek Mclaughlin. This oeeurred before the Civil war, and domestie trouble was said to be the eause.
Sarah Franees Humphreys, daughter of Dr. A. C. Humphreys, in her ninth year was attending a sehool taught by Mrs. Dunlap in Sutton about time of Civil war. She was standing in front of the grate, and with some others was looking on the mantel for something when the girls standing be- hind her, pushed her dress forward. Having on a hoop skirt, the front of her skirt went over the blazing fire in the grate, and slie was so badly burned that she died the eighth day, the victim of a useless fashion.
William Squires, son of Elijah Squires, was drowned in Salt Lick creek, near Salt Lick Bridge, while attempting to cross the swollen stream. This oeeurred before the Civil war.
Early in the 50's, John Gibson, brother of Ellieot Gibson, was drowned in the Elk river at a point called Breechclout, near the mouth of Flatwoods run, while trying to cross the river on the ice.
Jemima Green who had just moved to Little Otter, was assaulted by some persons, some of whom were thought to be women, and beaten to death. She was found the next morning lying in her bed. Her young child was in the bed with her. The ehild grew to womanhood, and married It was never fully known who committed this atrocious crime.
Before the Civil war, it is related that Isaac Bender who lived on Ferry's run, Webster eounty, was gathering ginseng on a steep hillside, and was bit- ten on the neck by a rattlesnake. He died almost instantly.
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In Sept., 1852, Lemastes Stephenson, while returning from Charleston on horseback, reached down with his penknife to cut a switch from the road- side. In some way the knife blade slipped and cut him in the knee joint, from which wound he died. He was forty-eight years of age.
In Sept., 1855, near Burnsville, John M., a son of Benjamin Haymond, who was about two years of age, was drowned by falling over a bank into a stream of the Little Kanawha where there was a depth of about a foot of water.
Sometime i nthe 50's, while Elijah Perkins, B. F. Fisher and Pinkney El- lison were crossing the Elk river, coming from the old Jackson mill to town, their canoc capsized and went over the milldam, and Ellison who was a good swimmer, was drowned. Perkins and Fisher, neither of whom could swim, made their escape from drowning by clinging to the canoe.
On Brooks run of the Holly river, while hauling logs with a team of cat- tle, Hedgeman Davis was caught by a log rolling over him, and was instantly killed. This was early in the 50's.
Some years before the Civil war, John Morrison, in company with Ellicot Gibson, was bringing a raft of lumber down the Elk, and in crossing Breech- clout rapids the raft tore up and Gibson was drowned. He had previously made the remark that God Almighty had never made that water in which he could not swim. Morrison who was unable to swim clung to some floating lum- ber and escaped.
In 1861 William Blagg was drowned at the forks of Holly while in bath- ing.
Before the Civil war, Benjamin Starbuck had a whiskey still at the forks of Wolf creek. The still was located near the present residence of E. D. Bar- nett, and about twenty-five or thirty years ago, Mr. Barnett found what he supposed to be a grave just across on the other branch of the creek. He and a Mr. Weese opened the place, and found some human bones in a shallow grave. Rocks had been set up on edge, and flat stones laid over them, making a kind of vault. It was said that a stranger had been hanging around the still, and it was supposed he had considerable gold on his person. Who mur- dered the man, in case he was murdered, is not known. Mr. Barnett relates that they placed the remains back where they found them, and that later the public road was made over the grave, and the remains of this unfortunate man, like those of General Braddock, rest beneath the traveling public.
Some years after the war, a man named Pritt, at the head of Grassy creek, Webster county, built a ring fire around some woodland to drive the
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deer out, and the fire caught him and burned him and his dog to death, and the stock of his gun was also burned off.
Mark Hutchinson, a colored man belonging to Wm. Hutchinson, was fight- ing forest fire, and the fire burning very rapidly up the hillside and being be- low him, the colored man climbed a tree, and thereby escaped with his life. His dog however perished in the flames.
One of John Singleton's little girls was scalded to death in a salt kettle which belonged to the family. It was the remnant of an old salt kettle that Asa Squires used in making salt near Salt Lick Bridge over a hundred years ago.
About forty years ago, George Dean who lived on Coon creek, cut a small beech tree which stood near the house. Two of his children were in the yard, one of them, a little girl, was in the cradle and a little boy named Thomas, was rocking the cradle. The tree fell across the cradle and killed the little girl, also crippled the boy in the hand. He is still living, but his hand grew badly deformed owing to this accident.
In the time of the Civil war, a boy named Samuel Thorp was drowned in Crawford eddy at Centralia.
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