USA > West Virginia > Monongalia County > History of Monongalia County, West Virginia, from its first settlements to the present time; with numerous biographical and family sketches > Part 10
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On October 19th of this year, "The Marion and Monon- gahela Navigation Company" was incorporated, for the purpose of slacking the Monongahela from the Pennsyl- vania line to Fairmont. Capital stock, $200,000; shares, $20. Henry Dering, D. H. Chadwick, Alfred Yeager, Samuel Sears and George M. Hagans were to receive subscriptions. The company was authorized to commence work as soon as enough was subscribed to build a lock and dam, and so keep on until the whole work was completed. January 9, 1867, Morgantown, with but one dissenting voice, voted $20,000 to the capital stock of this company; and on the 21st of February its charter was amended so that tolls could be collected both ways as soon as a lock and dam was completed. Before this amendment all crafts or lumber passing down and not returning went free of toll. David H. Chadwick, Alfred Yeager, Samuel Sears, James Evans, William P. Willey, James Lazzell, George M. Hagans, Will-
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iam A. Hanway and Francis Thompson were authorized to receive subscriptions in Monongalia. When they had received $25,000 in subscriptions, Col. James Evans, the Hon. W. T. Willey and R. B. Carr were sent to Pittsburgh to solicit aid.
This project was fruitless, as had been all the efforts, beginning as far back as the year 1817, for the improvement of the Monongahela River in what is now West Virginia. The Hon. James C. McGrew, member of the House of Representatives of the National Congress, secured the pass- age of an act by the third session of the Forty-first Con- gress, authorizing a survey of the Monongahela River from New Geneva to Morgantown, which was made in the summer of 1871, under Col. Merrill. Mr. McGrew, February 12, 1872, introduced a bill appropriating money, and $25,000 was appropriated by the second session of the Forty-second Congress to begin the work of slacking the river from New Geneva to Morgantown. While the bill was pending in Congress, a board of trade was organized at Morgantown in the interest of the measure, and R. L. Berkshire and George C. Sturgiss were sent to Washington. The next session of Congress appropriated $66,000 to the work. In 1872, the contract for the construction of a stone lock (No. 9) at Hoard's Rocks was let to Smith, Hawkins and Davis, for $54,641.75, theirs being the lowest of twelve bids. The Hon. J. Marshall Hagans, M. C., in 1875, secured an appro- priation of $22,000 to continue work on the lock, and also an act authorizing a survey of the Monongahela River from Morgantown to Fairmont. This survey was made under direction of Capt. T. P. Roberts, whose report gave the dis- tance as twenty-eight miles, with a fall of fifty-five feet in the river, which would require six dams. In March, 1876,
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the contract for constructing the dam at Hoard's Rocks was awarded at Cincinnati to Smith and Hawkins, for $50,000. The work was to be completed by November 15th, but was suspended in October, because of exhaustion of funds and the failure of further appropriation by Congress. The work was re-commenced in 1878. A part of it was pronounced defective, and was torn up and rebuilt. Work, after a time, was suspended, and was begun again in the summer of 1879. In September of that year, the lock and dam was completed, and on the 29th about 1,500 people gathered there to cele- brate the event. Addresses were made on the occasion by the Hon. J. Marshall Hagans and Joseph Moreland. Later in the season the lock was damaged by the bursting of water through, and a part of the wall fell. The damage, however, was immediately repaired. The following description of the lock and dam was given in the Genius of Liberty, a news- paper published at Uniontown, Penn., in 1879, which was furnished the paper by William Weston, the engineer in charge when the work was completed :
"The dam is over 300 feet from shore to lock-wall. It is built en- tirely of stone and cement, and is vertical on the upper side and slants from a width of four feet on top to fourteen at the bottom. It is built in the form of an arch, circling up the river. A line drawn from the middle of the base of the arch to the middle of the top of the dam, is twenty feet. The foundation stones are bedded in solid rock with a shoulder of five or six inches to rest against. The stones are not only cut keystone fashion to prevent moving down, but each successive layer is held down by being cut with copings, and thus dovetailed in the wall below each stone in the top layer which reaches across the top of the dam, and is cut smooth and round so as to prevent drift catching the walls. Noloops or hooks of iron are used to hold the stone together, as this is unnecessary. From the standing water below, the dam is nineteen feet high, and slacks the water five feet at Morgantown, a distance of eight miles by river.
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"The lock walls are the most complete piece of masonry along the river. The walls within the gates are 200 feet ; entire length of walls 300, and the distance between the walls fifty feet. The wicket gates are in the walls on the sides of the lock; the water above the upper gates pass in arches ; when these wickets are opened to the center of the side walls then perpendicular down to the bed of the river, then returns to the center table walls above and under the upper gates, and thence through arches in the table walls into the lock. These arches, though very crooked, will admit a volume of water sufficient to fill the lock in a short time. There are five-inch groves in each wall above the upper gates, and below the lower gates for the purpose of slipping down five-inch boards (like the front boards are put in a granary as it fills up), to keep the water off the gates if they need repair. The four gates weigh thirteen tons each."
It was found to be necessary to lower the height of this dam four feet, and this was completed in January, 1881. Col. W. E. Merrill, an engineer in charge of the work for a time, in a letter concerning the weakness of the dam and explaining the reason of cutting it down, said that Lock and Dam No. 8 should have been built before No. 9, and that the proper location for No. 9 was at Collins's Ripple, about four miles below Morgantown, but no good foundation could be found there. Building at Hoard's Rocks, about four miles further down the river, necessitated increasing the lift from ten and a half feet (what it would have been at Collins's) to eleven and a half feet. Col. Merrill also said that after Lock No. 9 was built, he desired the construc- tion of the dam delayed until Lock No. 8 was built, but a public meeting at Morgantown demanded that Dam No. 9 be built at once, and that he had done so, which caused the lift to be raised from eleven and a half feet to eighteen feet.
The contract for the building of Lock No. 8 was awarded
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in July, 1881, to Shipman and Carmody, of Fairfax County, Va., for the sum of $46,236; but the work is not yet com- pleted, owing to lack of funds. On the 24th of December, 1881, Lock No. 7 was let by the Monongahela Navigation Company of Pennsylvania to Harold, McDonald and Com- pany.
On March 13, 1882, a meeting in the interest of slack- water navigation was held in Morgantown, of which Prof. D. B. Purinton was president and E. Shisler was secretary. This meeting appointed George C. Sturgiss, Joseph More- land, Col. A. Fairchild, the Hon. J. M. Hagans and Prof. I. C. White a committee to endeavor to secure an appropri- tion by Congress sufficient to finish lock No. 8 and repair No. 9. On the 9th of June Congress appropriated $25,000. The last session of Congress having failed to make an appropriation for the Monongahela River improvement, Col. Merrill, in a letter dated May 5, 1883, said that the balance of $29,000 on hand would have to be used to pay for stone then being quarried, and that no further work could be done till Congress should make an appropriation.
March 5, 1850, the "Morgantown Bridge Company" was incorporated by the Assembly, by a vote of 58 yeas to 49 noes. This company built the wire suspension bridge across the Monongahela River at Morgantown, which was completed on the 16th of December, 1854, at a cost of nearly $30,000. Its construction was a work of great value and benefit to the whole county, as it furnished a safe and sure means of crossing the river at all seasons of the year.
Various minor enterprises were projected during the pe- riod covered by this chapter, which will be treated of in their appropriate places in following chapters.
CHAPTER XIII. REORGANIZED GOVERNMENT OF VIRGINIA.
1861-1863.
Secession-Virginia Legislature Convoked-Calls a Convention- Action in Monongalia-Proceedings of the Richmond Con- vention-Submits an Ordinance of Secession-Course of the Union Delegates-Large Meetings at Morgantown-Resolu- tions Adopted-Other Meetings in the County-Vote on the Ordinance-Rumored Invasion-Military Preparations-New State Organization-Wheeling Convention of May 13th, '61- Convention of June-Reorganization of the State Govern- ment-Jones's Raid-Showalter's Retreat.
THE profound excitement following the raid of John Brown upon Harper's Ferry in the autumn of 1859, was at its height at the opening of the presidential election of 1860. This struggle, in which four tickets were in the field, was bitter beyond precedent. Certain southern States had declared at an early period in the canvass that they would withdraw from the Union in the event of the election of the Republican candidate. When it was definitely ascertained that Abraham Lincoln was elected, a convention of the people of South Carolina was called. On the 20th of December, 1860, this convention adopted an ordinance of secession. Within the next two months, Mississippi, Flor- ida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas withdrew from the Union. These States formed a new Republic -The Confederate States of America,-and elected Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, President.
The people of Virginia found themselves confronted with the most important question that had ever come up in the
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history of the State since the days of the Revolution. Governor Letcher called an extra session of the Legislature to meet on the 7th of January, among other things, "to take into consideration the condition of public affairs, and deter- mine calmly and wisely what action is necessary."
People in Western Virginia at first did not comprehend that a terrible war was about to be inaugurated, and many laughed at the idea of secession, or if the South did secede that a war of any magnitude would follow. Marshal M. Dent, then editor of the Virginia Weekly Star, seemed to have had a correct idea of the terrible contest of arms about to open, and in an editorial as early as January 5, 1861, said, under the heading of " The Crisis Has Come":
."We are in the midst of a Revolution. The country is becoming aroused in every direction. . Madness rules the hour. The North has commenced to arm, and soon we will be in the midst of a bloody internecine war. We here warn you to beware of the insidious smiles of Secession. It commenced as a peacable lamb, and has increased step by step until it has become a monster of strength and power. Again we call upon you to arouse to your interests-to choose for yourselves whether you shall be for or against your country."
This editorial was followed by others making eloquent and stirring appeals against secession.
The Legislature convened in extra session on the 7th day of January, 1861, and on the 14th passed a bill calling a convention of the people of Virginia, whose members were to be elected on the 4th of February, and to meet at Rich- mond on the 13th of that month. A substitute for this bill, offered in the House of Delegates, providing that a vote of the people should be taken upon the calling of the conven- tion, was defeated by a large majority. Thus, for the first time in the history of the State, a convention would
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assemble without the sanction of the people. A clause of the bill, however, provided that the sense of the voters should be taken at the election for members of the conven- tion, "as to whether any action of said convention dissolving our connection with the Federal Union or changing the organic law of the State shall be submitted to the people for ratification or rejection."
Petitions of citizens of Monongalia, irrespective of party, were published from Morgantown, Granville, Scott's Run and Cassville, calling upon the Hon. Waitman T. Willey and Marshall M. Dent, then clerk of the Circuit Court, to become candidates for seats in the convention as the rep- resentatives of the county. These gentlemen were elected without opposition, while the people of the county, by a vote of 2,027 to 13, said in thunder tones that Monongalia wanted the action of the convention as to Secession or any change of the organic law of the State submitted to the people.
On the 27th of January, the Kramer Guards and Moore Cadets paraded in Morgantown, and Mr. Willey made a Union speech to a large assemblage, which was received with applause. Subsequent to this two Union poles and flags had been raised at Morgantown and Granville. On the 30th of January a Union meeting was held at Easton, with William J. Vandervort as chairman, and was addressed by J. M. Holmes, Thomas A. Ryan and W. S. Cobun. On the same day a similar meeting was held at Fort Martin, at which Daniel Miller presided as chairman.
The Convention assembled at Richmond on the 13th, and organized by electing the Hon. John Janney, of Loudon County, president. W. T. Willey was appointed a member of the Committee on Federal Relations. Fulton Anderson,
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a commissioner from Mississippi, Henry L. Benning, a com- missioner from Georgia, and John S. Preston, a commis- sioner from South Carolina, addressed the convention, all urging Virginia to join the Southern Confederacy. Mr. Willey answered the address of Preston in an able and eloquent speech. Many resolutions were offered, which were referred to the Committee on Federal Relations. This committee sat with closed doors. On the 9th of March, a partial majority report of fourteen resolutions was made by · the committee. The eighth resolution asserted the right of a State to secede. Upon this report opened the battle in the Convention. It was a great struggle of the giant minds of Virginia. The leaders from the eastern part of the State championed secession; the leaders of the west stood for the Union. On the 4th of April a substitute for the sixth resolution, proposing an ordinance of secession to be voted upon by the people, was defeated by a vote of forty-five yeas to eighty-nine noes. The people of Richmond were for secession. An uncontrollable throng filled the streets, and treated with derision the western members. The news of the fall of Fort Sumter set the turbulent crowds upon the streets wild with excitement. The national flag was torn from the dome of the Capitol, and the Confederate banner raised everywhere. At night, the Dispatch said, "the city was lighted up and the whole heart of Richmond was in the demonstration." A great assemblage gathered in a large hall with closed doors. The Convention went into secret session. A stormy scene followed. On the morning of the 17th, ex-Governor Henry A. Wise made a wonderfully impassioned speech. The Union leaders were firm, but could not hold the rank and file against the great pressure brought to bear upon them. The convention came
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to a vote upon "an ordinance to repeal the ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, by the State of Virginia, and to resume all the rights and powers granted under said Constitution," and it was carried by a vote of eighty-eight to fifty-five. This ordinance was to be voted upon on the 4th Thursday of May, but the schedule prohibited the election of Congressmen on that day.
The Union leaders were greeted with threats of personal violence, and their language declared treasonable, by the excited throngs in the city. Willey, Carlisle, William G. Brown, James C. McGrew, and others, the next day, declared that Western Virginia would never support the ordinance. On Saturday, April 20th, some of the Union leaders assem- bled at the Powhatan Hotel secretly, and resolved to withdraw from the convention, return home, and urge their constituents to vote down the ordinance. The Hon. James C. McGrew, of Preston, was one of this little band of eighteen or twenty members thus assembled. The meeting was so hastily called that it was impossible to notify all the Union delegates. Several of these delegates found much difficulty in getting out of the city and through the State to their homes.
When Beauregard's circling batteries opened fire upon the walls of Sumter, and the thunder of battle rolled up from the South Atlantic coast, Western Virginia realized the awful fact that a terrible war was upon the country, and turned with intense anxiety to the State Convention and the action it would take upon secession. The 17th of April, 1861, was an eventful day in the history of the Common- wealth of Virginia. With the rising of the sun Virginia was united; with its setting, the East had pronounced for
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secession, and the West was assembling its first meeting in favor of revolution against any attempted disunion.
A large assemblage of citizens, without respect to party, " convened at the court-house in Morgantown, on Wednesday evening, April 17, 1861, pursuant to a previous notice. It organized by electing William Lazier president, George M. Reay, William N. Jarrett, John Mikel and Henry Dering, vice presidents, and Drs. William M. Dent and Isaac Scott, secretaries. William Lazier and Henry Dering made Union speeches. Dr. J. V. Boughner, Francis Madera, Col. Leroy Kramer, R. L. Berkshire and Dr. H. N. Mackey, the com- mittee on resolutions, reported the following :
"WHEREAS, an alarming crisis now exists in this country immi- nently threatening the existence of the American Union, and all the blessings of that civil and religious liberty, to secure which our Revolutionary forefathers waged and endured all the hardships and privations of a seven years' war ; and, whereas the present deplorable condition of our public affairs has arisen from the indiscreet and useless agitation of the slavery question in our National legislature by demagogues and selfish politicians North and South ; and whereas the time has come when it behooves every true friend of the Union and his country to rally under the flag and maintain the same with an unwavering hand and under the most adverse and trying circumstances ; Therefore, be it
" Resolved, That we, the people of Monongalia, without distinc- tion of party, deprecate and hereby enter our solemn protest against the secession of Virginia in the present exigency, as unwise · and inexpedient and fatal to her best interests and the interests of our whole country ; believing as we do, that amongst its immediate and legitimate results, will be the utter ruin and bankruptcy and desolation of our hitherto proud and powerful old Commonwealth.
"Resolved, That we are attached to the Federal Union as the ark of our political security and safety, that it is endeared to us by the enduring fame and patriotic deeds of its founders, and that we will cling to it despite all the tirades and treasonable threats of
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the ingrates and traitors who are engaged in the unholy work of firing the Southern heart and precipitating us in the yawning gulf of Secession.
" Resolved, That secession as it is practically exemplified in the so-called Southern Confederacy,is unmitigated treason against the Constitution of Government of the United States, and its leading actors in the language of its prime mover and greatest champion, William L. Yancey, 'are traitors,' and liable to be treated as such for violating the Constitution and laws of their country.
" Resolved, That the idea of seceding from the general govern- ment of the United States, and attaching Virginia (as the outside sentinel) to the so-called Cotton or Gulf State Confederacy, is repulsive and opposed to every feeling, sentiment and instinct of patriotismn, and the sense of this meeting is unalterably opposed to being into the wake of secession by South Carolina, the hot-bed of · political heresies and treason.
" Resolved, That Western Virginia has patiently summitted to and borne up under the oppressive policy of Eastern Virginia for the last half century, as shown in her course in denying to us equal representation and refusing to bear her equal share of taxation (in uniformly claiming and receiving exemption from equal taxation on her slave property ;) that now the measure of Eastern oppression is full and that if, as is claimed by her, secession is the only remedy offered by her for all our wrongs, the day is near at hand when Western Virginia will rise up in the inajesty of her strength and repudiating her oppressors will dissolve all her civil and political connection with them, and remain firmly under the time honored Stars and Stripes.
" Resolved, That we hereby tender our thanks to our delegates · in Convention, W. T. Willey and M. M. Dent, Esqrs., for their firmn stand and active resistance to the extreme and unwise policy of secession, and cordially say to them, 'Well done good and faithful servants.'"
The resolutions were adopted, and the following was pre- sented and unanimously adopted :
" Resolved, That in case an ordinance of secession is passed by our State Convention, that our delegates be requested to propose
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a division of the State, by some line that will sever us from all future connection with Eastern secessionists."
The Virginia Star, in commenting on the action of the meeting, concluded by saying :
"The whole West is on fire, and ere long the flames will reach the top of the Blue Ridge and proclaim to our oppressors and would-be masters, that our backs are not yet ready for their lash ; that we have borne with their oppression and unjust taxation as long as we can, and that now, we must either be equals, or separate."
The meeting adjourned to Monday, April 22d. Morgan- town on that day was decked with flags. A delegation from the "Flats " numbered about three hundred, and one from Fort Martin, commanded by Capt. Joseph Snider, Jr., num- bered about two hundred and fifty. It is said that over two thousand people were present. F. H. Pierpont and Fontaine Smith made Union speeches, and the meeting by acclamation adopted the six resolutions offered at the meet- ing of April 17th. Dr. Z. Kidwell, the States' Rights party's nominee for Congress, was present, but declined to speak on the ground that it would subject himself and friends to insult and injury, which reason he gave in a card addressed to the people of Monongalia.
Mr. Willey arrived home on the 24th, and that evening, by request, addressed a large audience of ladies and gentlemen in the court-house upon the work of the State Convention. Marshall M. Dent, the other delegate to the Convention, left Richmond in two hours after the passage of the ordinance of secession, but arrived home later than Mr. Willey. Upon his arrival he issued a card resigning as a member of the Convention, and in a long editorial pub- lished in his paper urged that Western Virginia should declare herself a separate and independent State.
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Public excitement was intense. The militia met and drilled. Rumors came of a northern invasion from Union- town, Penn. During May additional meetings were held. At Adam Brown's on Dunkard Creek one thousand people were present; at the Evans school-house, where over four hundred assembled; at Clinton Furnace, at Easton, at Cheat Neck, and at Capt. Joseph Snider's, near the State line, where over two hundred were present.
Monongalia's vote on the ordinance of secession, May 23d, was : "For Ratification," 115; "For Rejection," 2,263; majority against secession, 2,148. While the people were voting rumors came that a Confederate force was gathering at Grafton. At Morgantown the council placed the town under the charge of Capt. Jacob Hickman in command of the Home Guards. In the early history of the town its citizens had rallied under arms to repel an Indian invasion ; and now nearly a century after, its rest was broken again by war's alarms, and upon its Revolutionary picket-posts were standing many of those who were to be soldiers of the Great Rebellion. On the following Monday the excitement became intense. A messenger reported an armed force at only ten miles' distance, whose object was the capture of the town. Active preparations were made-runners were sent to the country and messengers to Pennsylvania to ask aid. All night long armed men in response to the call poured in from the country. The first organized com- pany that came in was the Cheat Neck company. The next was a company from Smithfield, Penn. After them came Capt. Hughes Oliphant's cavalry company from Fairchance Furnace, Penn., a company from Morris X Roads, Penn., and Capt. Joseph Snider's company. News came. from Fairmont that over two thousand troops were on their way
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