USA > West Virginia > Hampshire County > History of Hampshire County, West Virginia : from its earliest settlement to the present > Part 59
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W. R. WILSON, of Springfield district; merchant ; son of Nathan and Mary Wilson ; Irish ancestry : born at Piedmont, 1868; married, 1893, Effie, daughter of Samuel and Eliza Benning- ton, of Maryland; children, William R. and N. I. Wilson.
HOWARD J. WAGONER, attorney-at-law, residing at Davis, West Virginia, son of J. J. and Maria Wagoner, was born near Frankfort, now Mineral County, 1859; German and Scotch ancestry ; married, 1888, Miss Lon V., danghter of Charles H. and Margaret A. Sutton, of Han- cock, Maryland; children, Carrie May, Howard Sutton, and Karl. Mr. Wagoner taught school eleven years in Hampshire, Mineral, Morgan, and Tucker Counties.
W. F. WIRGMAN, farmer, resident of Romney district, son of O. P. and Mary J. Wirg- man, of English ancestry, was born at Ilamilton, Virginia, 1852; married, 1881, to Jennie V., daughter of John W. and Julia J. Vandiver ; children, Edna J., O. Bowly, Meda R., Wilbur F., Mary, and James V.
J. S. WADDLE, in the railway mail service, son of Julius C. and Mary J. Waddle, was born 1853, at Winchester ; married, 1891, to Edith, daughter of Isaac and Susan Parsons. Their son is John D. Waddle.
M. W. WATKINS, farmer near Augusta, son of Washington and Rebecca Watkins, English and Irish parentage, was born near Ebenezer, 1845. Mr. Watkins was a Confederate soldier in McNeill's company.
SILAS WILKINS, son of Abraham and Rachel Wilkins, farmer of Sherman district, was born in Hardy County, 1867; German ancestry ; married Sarah E., daughter of William and A. M. Davis, 1892; children, Annie V. and Fanchon V.
CHARLES E. WOLFORD, carpenter of Sherman district, son of John J. and Elizabeth J. Wolford, German parentage, was born 1860 ; married Rebecca V., daughter of Jacob and Louise Godlove, 1880; children, Florence M., Harold C., Charles O., Preston E., Lemuel C., Mary E., aud William E.
THE WHITE FAMILY have been for many years connected with the history of Hampshire County, especially since the year 1815, when John Baker White took up his residence at Romney. They are of Scotch and English origin, coming of an old Covenanter family, and united by the ties of blood on the Scotch side with the martyr Patrick Hamilton and Captain Robert White, who as- sisted in the defence of Derry in 1688-89, and on the English side with Major Henry Baker, who so largely conducted that famous defence of Derry. The family have since the days of Knox been Presbyterians. Their ancestral home was near Edinburgh, Scotland, and is said to be still standing.
The first of the family to reside in America was Robert White, who was a surgeon with the rank of captain in the British navy. Visiting his relative, John William Hoge (who was the ancestor of Dr. Moses Hoge, of Richmond, Judge John Blair Hoge, of Martinsburg, and the Hoges of Wheeling), who resided in Delaware, he married his daughter, Margaret Hoge. For a while he resided near York, Pennsylvania, where he erected a home and called it, after his Scottis. home, White IIall. He then removed with his kinsfolk and clientage to Virginia, and
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built a home near North Mountain, a little west of Winchester, which he also called White Hall. There he died in the year 1752, in the sixty-fourth year'of his age, and was buried in the old Opequon graveyard, near Winchester. He had three sons who survived him, Robert, Alexander, and John, all of whom did service in the French and Indian War, and bore commissions under the colonial government. Robert inherited a large part of the estate with the residence of his father, and it descended to his grandchild. Robert was the grandfather of Francis White, who was sheriff of Hampshire County. Alexander became a lawyer of eminence. John was a mem- ber of the first bench of magistrates of Frederick County, Virginia, and was the father of Judge Robert White.
ALEXANDER WHITE, after whom Alexander White, of Hardy County, now deceased, was named, was a very distinguished patriot and statesman, and an uncle of Judge Robert White. There is a volume of Virginia Historical Reports which contains four hundred and seventy-nine pages about Alexander White. He was a member of the House of Burgesses of Virginia with Patrick Henry, and it is said in the book referred to that Patrick Henry never voted until after he had consulted with Mr. White. Alexander White was an eloquent speaker, and being of old Scotch Presbyterian stock, he was much opposed to the support in colonial days of the church by the State, and it is said that he was the first man in this country to offer a resolution in a public body upon the subject of religious freedom, and this long before George Mason had his cele- brated resolutions inserted in the Virginia bill of rights. Mr. White was a member of the Vir- ginia convention which ratified the Constitution of the United States. He was also a member of the first Congress of the United States, and some of his speeches are found reported in the debates of that Congress. It is stated in histories of that time that he was the most eloquent man in that Congress. After the adjournment of the first Congress he retired to private life, having done much as a patriot and statesman. He was one of the commissioners to adjust the matters relating to the northwest territory. He practised his profession and owned extensive and valuable lands in Hampshire County.
JUDGE ROBERT WIIITE was the father of the late John Baker White, who for about one- half a century was the clerk of both the circuit and county courts of Hampshire County. Judge White was one of the early judges in the district of which Hampshire was a part. He held his first court in this county early in the present century.
He was for many years the president of the old general court of Virginia. The following sketch, copied from the " Southern Literary Messenger" of May, 1837, tells of his life and char- acter. The article is an editorial review of a life of Judge White and others published by a Maryland author.
"Our Maryland friend deserves, and will no doubt receive, the thanks of every Virginian for this interesting sketch of her gallant sons and revolutionary heroes. We donbt not that it will be acceptable to our readers generally. Virginia ranks among her distinguished sons, Robert White, late judge of the general court, who was gathered to his fathers in March, 1831. He was born in the neighborhood of Winchester, March 29, 1759. In his seventeenth year he volunteered as a private in a company commanded by Captain Hugh Stevenson, and marched, June 20, 1775, from Morgan's Springs, Berkeley County, to Boston, where the British army was besieged by Washington. He soon arrested the attention of the commander-in-chief by his chivalric bearing. Washington's discerning eye saw in the boy the germ of that remarkable decision of character which in after years sustained him in many appalling trials.
"On March 17. 1776, Boston was evacuated, and White saw his beloved chief occupying the position vacated by a cruel and imperious foe. Following the standard of his country, he shared the dangers and sufferings of the disastrous campaign of the following summer, when he was made an ensign. We next find him at Germantown, on October 4, 1777, where he fought as a lieutenant under Major William Darke, of Berkeley County, Virginia, his intimate friend through life, who on this occasion displayed an intrepidity unsurpassed by the bravest of the brave.
" After this engagement, which resulted unfavorably to our arms, Lieutenant White was constantly employed in harassing detached parties of the enemy in the spring of 1778. During one of these enterprises, at Short Hill, New Jersey, his thigh was broken by a musket-ball, and nearly at the sime moment he received another severe wound in the head from a British grena- dier. He fell senseless to the earth, and was taken prisoner. In the autumn, after being ex- changed, he reached Winchester by slow and painful efforts, exceedingly lame, weak, and ema- ciated.
"In 1779 he was commissioned as a captain of cavalry. For some time he was employed in recruiting and training his troop in Philadelphia, but was compelled, from bodily inability, to retire from service. His military career closed in the twentieth year of his age. In this year he commenced the study of law in the office of his uncle Alexander White, one of the most profound lawyers in the Valley of Virginia. While here he read Blackstone, Coke, and other books for nearly four years, until he appeared at the Winchester bar, December. 1783. His health was now restored, and he was quickly cheered with an extensive and profitable prac- tice. Ile was an able lawyer, clear and cogent in argument, but not eloquent, his voice rather harsh and shrill, and in the impetnosity of debate his enunciation was sometimes affected even to stammering. For ten years he maintained a lofty eminence at the Frederick bar, during which period he was frequently elected to represent his county in the house of delegates. Ilere he mingled in debate with some of the most prominent figures in the commonwealth. Ile heard the celebrated Patrick Henry deliver his argument against the British debts. He declared that no language could describe the splendor and grandeur of the scene. On November 16, 1793, Mr. White was appointed judge of the Federal Court of Virginia, which ofhce he held till his death. " Until 1825, Judge White was not only over indefatigable in discharging the high trusts of his station at Richmond in June and November of each year, but each successive spring and
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fall, whatever might be the state of the roads and the weather, you would see him wending his way in his gig, through five counties, of which the tenth judicial district was composed, at the appointed time, for the very small salary of sixteen hundred dollars per annum. llis reported opinions in the case of Hyers, who was tried for murder, and Preston's case, on a question of es- toppel, are universally acknowledged to he powerful specimens of sound learning and extensive research.
" When Judge White was in the social circle, the sternness of his official character was thrown aside, and the soft, insinuating manners of the polished cavalier made him the delight and ad- miration of all.
" He kept on steadily in his high career of usefulness to the community until the spring of 1825, when, in coming to court in Loudoun, he halted for the night at a tavern on the banks of the Shenandoah. He retired to his room at an early hour, and was found by the landlord at bed- time, sitting by the fireside, stricken with paralysis. He remained in this situation for several weeks, and was then borne in a litter to Winchester. Here I saw him, and never shall I forget the interview. I approached the patriarch for the first time since his affliction. Alas! how changed. His dark and brilliant eye no more flashed with the lightning of genius ; those lips, which were once vocal in the discharge of his official duties and in establishing the rights of his fellow- citizens, were now almost powerless ; the intellect was prostrated; his noble form was in ruins; all was desolate and sorrowful. I wrung the hand of the patriot, and bid him adien torever. IIe died a Christian, and rests near the tomb of General Morgan in Winchester."
JOHN BAKER WHITE was born near Winchester, Virginia, August 4, 1794. He enlisted as a soldier in the War of 1812, and was made an ensign. He was appointed clerk of the circuit and superior court of Hampshire County in 1814, and on March 20, 1815, he qualified as clerk, and he continued to fill both these offices by successive appointments and elections up to the time of his death. In early life he was married to Miss Louisa Tapscott, of Jefferson County, by whom he had three children, Susan J., who married William J. Armstrong, of Hampshire County ; Juliet Opie, who married Noble Tabb, of Berkeley County, and Arabella, who married Judge Lucas P. Thompson, of Augusta County. This wife living only a few years, he afterwards married Frances A. Streit, of Winchester, who bore him nine children. He was a man of great integrity, kind heart, strong sense, sonnd judgment, high principle, and broad cultivation. He was a Christian, and was prominent in every enterprise for the advancement of the county or the betterment of its people, a good lawyer and safe counsellor, true and trusty in all the rela- tions of life, and with a heart and hand ever open to charity. His life was rich in good deeds, and his means and large influence were potent factors in promoting the material interests and moral, religious, and intellectual advancement of the people of his county.
Few men have been more beloved and honored than he was among his own people. Pos- sessed of means in his younger days, his home was the seat of true old Virginia hospitality, and it opened its doors not only to friends, relations, and those of worth and high position, young and old, who crowded its rooms, but also to every passing sont who needed food or shelter. The house first built by him in his early life was a large brick mansion. It was destroyed by fire in the year 1857, and upon its site was then erected the smaller brick house in which he resided until driven from it during the war between the States in 1861, and it is now the residence of Julius Waddle.
Among the young persons who to a large degree received their training under his care in bis office and as inmates of his home and who afterwards became useful and honorable men were Newton Tapscott, a brilliant lawyer, who died at an early age ; Ilenry M. Bedinger, member of Congress and Minister to Denmark; Alfred P. White and Philip B. Streit, who were in their time perhaps the foremost lawyers at the Romney bar ; Judge James D. Armstrong, of the Hampshire judicial circuit, and Dr. Robert White, Presbyterian minister, of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. John Baker White up to 1861 was a Union man. He supported Bell and Everett for president and vice-president in 1860, and voted for the Union candidates for the convention which passed the ordinance of secession, one of whom was Colonel E. M. Armstrong, afterwards of Salem, Virginia, who was Mr. White's son-in-law. But when President Lincoln issued his call for troops to invade and coerce the seceded States, Mr. White at once ranged himself with his State in defence of the rights of the States and the Constitution of the United States as Virginia and her people had always held them. From that time till his death no man was truer to his State, and not many contributed more of effort or suffered more loss in her defence. With three sons out of four (the only ones old enough) in the Confederate army, himself active and effective in his county in bringing the people of this border county almost in a solid mass to the support of the cause in which his State had unsheathed her sword, he inevitably aroused the enmity of the Federals, and was compelled to leave his home to escape arrest. Ile went with his wife and young children to Richmond, and was given a position in the treasury department of the Confederate government. Ile died there on October 9, 1862. His death was no doubt hastened by the loss of his property and the anxieties oppressing him. Ile was buried by the Masonic fraternity in Hollywood Cemetery, at Richmond, Rev. Moses D. Hoge of the Presbyterian Church, Bishop Duncan of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and Bishop Minegerode of the Episcopal Church, taking part in the funeral services.
COLONEL ROBERT WHITE, now of the city of Wheeling, son of John Baker White, was born in Romney, February 7, 1833. He attended school in Romney, the last being that kept by Dr. Foote, at the Literary society building, now the West Virginia institution for the deaf and blind. Ile went into his father's office when fourteen years old and remained there until he entered the law school of John W. Brockenbrough, at Lexington, Virginia, where he studied his profession as a lawyer. He obtained his license to practise on March 30, 1854, and at once com- menced the practice in Romney. Before the war, he was captain of the volunteer military com- pany known as the Frontier Riflemen, which marched to llarper's Ferry on May 18, 1861, and
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reported to Stonewall Jackson, who was then commander of the Virginia troops there. His com- pany was assigned as Company I of the Thirteenth Virginia Regiment, then commanded by Col- onel A. P. Hill. During the winter of 1861-62 he was assigned to duty in the ordnance depart- ment, until, in 1863, he was authorized to raise a battalion of cavalry. This battalion was raised and organized with him as its commanding officer. Some time afterwards it was united with other companies, and the Twenty-third Regiment of Virginia cavalry was formed, of which he was commissioned the colonel, and in that service he continued until the surrender of General Lee.
Since the war Colonel White has been prominently connected with many of the important affairs in the State. In 1876 he was nominated at the Democratic Convention held in Charleston, withont his asking, as the candidate for attorney-general, and was elected to that office by the largest majority ever given to any man in the State. The capital of the State was then at Wheeling, to which city he removed with his family in the spring of 1877. Many years ago he was appointed by the legislature as a member of the State board of trustees of Capon Springs as well as of Berkeley Springs. The latter position he resigned some years ago, but still holds his membership in the Capon Springs board.
A few years after the war, he prepared and attended to the passage of the act of the legisla- ture establishing the deaf, dumb, and blind institution of the State, and when the board of regents met at Wheeling to locate the institution, he attended that meeting, and through bis earnest efforts the institution was located at Romney. He was appointed secretary of the board, and for years, while living in Romney, acted as one of the regents. It was through his instru- mentality that the contract was made under which the South Branch Railway was afterwards built to Romney, and greatly through his efforts that the means were raised for its construction ; and from the beginning, until he removed to Wheeling, he was the president of the company.
As attorney-general of the State, he had charge of very important suits, in which at that time the State was interested, and among them the cases which involved the liability of railroad companies for taxation, which were decided by the Supreme Court of the State in favor of the State and which decision was afterwards affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States, and by reason of which the railroad companies from that day to this have annually paid large sums, by way of taxation, into the State treasury. Ile was appointed and acted as the representative of the State upon the staff of the chief marshal at the dedication of the Washington monument, in Washington, February 22, 1885. He has twice represented Ohio County in the legislature ; the first time at the session in 1885, and the last in 1891. At both sessions he was the chairman of the finance committee. He has held the office of solicitor of the city of Wheeling for two terms, and has twice been president of the Ohio County Bar Association. Ile was a member of the celebrated arbitration convention which met in Washington, in May, 1896, and is now the president of the West Virginia Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. Ile is also a member of the board of trustees of the Southern Memorial Association, and one of the executive committee of that board, and the chief officer of the West Virginia division of the United Con- federate Veterans, with the rank in that organization of major-general. For years he has been one of the ruling elders in the First Presbyterian Church at Wheeling, and was a delegate to the Centennial General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church which met in Philadelphia. For years before leaving Romney, he was Master of Clinton Lodge of Masons, and in the year 1875 was Grand Master of Masons in the State of West Virginia, and as such laid the corner-stone of the capitol building at Wheeling.
JOUIN B. WHITE, son of John B. White, was born in 1837. Was educated at the Potomac Seminary at Romney ; studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1858; became a partner of James D. Armstrong in the practice of law, and died unmarried at Romney. He was at the time of his death an elder in the Presbyterian Church, and the resolutions of the bar and the officers of the court on the occasion of his death express their "high appreciation of his talents, lofty honor, nuassuming modesty, and all the other qualities that adorned his character."
ALEXANDER WHITE, son of John Baker White, was born at Romney in 1841. Was edu- cated at the Potomac Seminary ; was sworn in as deputy clerk of Hampshire County courts, April 26, 1860. Ile entered the Confederate service, April 19, 1861, as a private in Company K, Thir- teenth Virginia Infantry. He remained with this company, participating in all the campaigns and battles in which the regiment was engaged, until September, 1864. This was A. P. Hill's old regiment, and it was engaged in almost every battle fought by the "Army of Northern Virginia" up to that time, serving not only around Richmond, but also in the Valley of Virginia and in the Maryland and Pennsylvania invasions. He became a sergeant in his company and one of String- fellow's sharpshooters. In the winter of 1863 he was recommended to the War Department for transfer and promotion for gallantry. This recommendation was approved by General Lee, and the Secretary of War in the spring of 1864, but the order never reached him until late in the summer of that year, when by virtue of it he became first lieutenant of Company C, Twenty- third Virginia Cavalry, in which capacity he served till the end of the war. After the war he went to Cumberland, Maryland, and was for nearly two years a clerk in the office of Horace Resley, clerk of the circuit court of Alleghany County.
On July 23, 1867, he married Miss Susan L. Williams, of Hardy County, and engaged in farm - ing, he residing upon the farm now occupied by the widow and children, on Capon River near the llampshire line, until November, 1884, when he died of pneumonia. Ile was for some years assessor of Hardy County and was candidate for election on the O'Conner ticket in 1872. He was a good scholar, an extraordinarily fine conversationalist, with keen wit, fine imagination, great logical powers and a wonderful command of language. He was a writer of no mean ability, kind, generous, honorable, of perfect integrity, and be won and held the esteem and affections of those with whom he came in contact, and he accomplished in his short life in Capon a work for good which has kept his memory bright and dear in all that region. He was an elder in the Presbyterian Church, abundant in labors and in charity, and left to his children
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that best of all heritages, a good name. One of his brothers, who knew him best, speaking of him, said "he was the best and brainiest White." As soldier, citizen, gentleman, Christian, he stood, like Saul of Tarsus, among his brethren higher than them all.
CAPTAIN C. S. WHITE was born in Romney, March 10, 1840, and was educated at the Potomac Seminary in his native town. He is a son of John Baker White, who was clerk of Hampshire County courts and an officer in the War of 1812, and a grandson of Judge Robert White, who was an officer in the Revolutionary War. Inspired with the same spirit and motives which led them into the military service of their State, he, on April 19, 1861, entered the army of Virginia as a private in the Thirteenth Virginia Infantry. He served with that regiment in the Confederate army more than a year, until disabled and discharged, being promoted by suc- cessive steps to sergeant-major, and acting adjutant. During the winter of 1862 and 1863 he was first a clerk, and then head of a bureau in the Confederate treasury department. In the spring of 1863, having become able for cavalry, though not for infantry service, he resigned his position in the treasury department, and under a commission from President Davis raised within the Federal lines a company of two hundred men for special service. Declining promotion, he remained with his company till the close of the war, receiving one severe and two slight wounds. After the surrender of Lee, he started with part of his company to join Johnston in North Carolina, but Johnston having surrendered before they reached him, the men were dis- banded, without surrender or parole, and he returned to his home, reaching there about June 1, 1865. Upon his return home, being then an unpardoned and unparoled rebel, debarred by the then existing laws of his State from practising the profession of law for which be had been educated, he rented a farm and engaged successfully in agriculture.
In 1872, the legal disabilities of all ex-Confederates having been removed, he was elected clerk of the county court of Hampshire, and has by successive re-elections held the place ever since. He was for a term clerk of the circuit court also, but declined to be a candidate for re- election to that office.
In 1876, being chairman of the county Democratic committee, he organized and carried out the campaign in his county, which resulted in swelling the Democratic majority from four hun- dred and forty-nine in the preceding election to thirteen hundred and sixty-nine.
In 1877 he was appointed fish commissioner for the State of West Virginia; was reap- pointed by each succeeding Democratic governor, and was for most of the time president of the commission.
In a senatorial convention at Moorefield, in August, 1886, he proposed and advocated, and after strong opposition on grounds of expediency, the convention adopted, the first straight tariff reform and anti-monopoly resolutions ever passed by a Democratic convention of West Virginia. Ife was among the very first of Hampshire Democrats to declare himself opposed to the financial policy of President Cleveland's administration. The Democrats of Hampshire were the first in the State to declare in public meeting their opposition to this policy, and Cap- tain White made the first public speech delivered in the county denouncing it, and was there- after active in assisting in the organization of his party on that line of policy which resulted in the nomination of William J. Bryan for president. He has been a delegate to most of the sena- torial and congressional conventions and to every gubernatorial convention (except one) of bis party, and in these conventions has always been found with the majority of Ilampshire's dele- gates supporting Democratic principles and usually successful candidates.
Independent in thought and character and fearless in following his convictions, he has never been a follower of party leaders, but always a consistent though liberal Democrat. Ile was from its formation until June 1897, commander of Camp Hampshire, Number 446, united Confederate veterans, which was the first camp ever organized in West Virginia. Hle was also one of the first members of the committee of the Southern Memorial Association, appointed by General J. B. Gordon, and assisted in drafting the plans for the organization and consolidation of that asso- ciation, and for securing the erection of the Battle Abbey of the South in accordance with the proposition of Charles B. Rouss. Failing health and press of private affairs determined him to resign this position early in 1897, and upon the acceptance of this resignation, Colonel Robert White of Wheeling was appointed in his stead. ยท
Captain White was married July 25, 1867, to Miss Bessie J. Schultze, a daughter of Robert Schultze, of Edinburgh, Scotland, a member of the British diplomatic service residing at the time of her birth at Rotterdam, Holland. She was the mother of Captain White's son, John Baker White, and died June 24, 1869. On May 26, 1873, he was again married to Miss Catherine, dangh- ter of Thomas G. Steele of Fairmont, West Virginia, and has by her four children, Louisa, Anna, Robert C. S., Jr., and Bessie.
Captain White is a Mason, a member of Clinton Lodge at Romney, and a Past Master. Ife is a member of the Presbyterian Church.
CAPTAIN JOHN B. WHITE, son of Captain C. S. White, was born at Romney, West Vir- gina, August 24, 1868. His mother was the first wife of Captain White, to whom be was married July 25, 1867. Her maiden name was Bessie J. Schultze. Ilis education was in the public schools and in his father's home. From the time he was thirteen years old, he went to school from nine until four o'clock and worked on the farm before and after school, and during his vacations. He quit school at the age of sixteen, and the next two years were spent on the farm, in the county clerk's office, and in private study. At the age of eighteen he was appointed messenger in the office of the Secretary of State, Henry S. Walker. Ile was raised to the grade of a clerk in the office, again promoted to stationery clerk, and finally made chief clerk during the latter part of Mr. Walker's term He was retained in this office by Mr. Walker's successor as a clerk until March 8, 1893, on which date he was appointed private secretary to the governor for the term of four years commencing March 4, 1893.
After leaving home he was entirely on his own resources, and by his own hard work and
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conscientious devotion to duty made his way. In politics he is a Democrat, and was recognized in the campaigns of 1892 and 1896 as a leader of young men. He was a member of the governor's guard in 1888, and was gradually promoted to the command of the second battalion of the second Regiment of West Virginia National Guards. He was a number of times despatched to the scene of the strikes in this State, as the special representative of the governor. Captain White is a practising attorney in Charleston. He is a member of the Masonic Fraternity, being a Royal Arch Mason.
ROBERT J. YOSTE, farmer of Gore district, son of Henry and Eliza Yoste, was born 1847; German and Irish ancestry ; married Rachel C., daughter of Jacob and Elizabeth Saville, 1873; children, William, Bertha R., and Eliza E.
J. D. ZILER, farmer of Bloomery, son of George and Mary A. Ziler, German parentage, was born 1839; married, 1880, Emily A., daughter of Israel and Elizabeth Hardy ; children, George I. and Israel H. He lives twenty-six miles from Romney on a farm of four hundred and fifty acres, ninety improved. He and his brother Joshua once had the remarkable experience of catching a black bear in the wood, one of them holding its mouth shut while the other cut its throat. It had been in a tree, and when it came down they grabbed it.
THE END.
NT
VAIY & U 1938
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