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 7
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* From the most southern part of the city of Philadelphia (the north wall of a house on Cedar Street) a parallel line was run due west, and fifteen miles south of it at a point on a straight line that would strike the west side of a circular line whose every point was twelve miles from the center of New Castle, the great "due west line" between Pennsylvania and Maryland was to have its initial point.
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MASONS AND DIXON'S LINE.
Mohawk chief, with his escort, left them. They pushed on, crossing the Youghiogheny and Monongahela. Twenty-six of their assistants left on September 29th. They had now but fifteen axmen, and sent back to Fort Cumberland for aid. They were, however, now beyond their call to settle the line between the Penns and Baltimore. The terminal point of the " great due west line " between the proprietaries was to be on the meridian of the first fountain of the Potomac. In October, they arrived at the Warrior Branch of the Great Catawba War-path, near their second crossing of Dunkard Creek. Here the Shawnees and Delawares ordered them to stop, which they were compelled to do; and, returning, they received honorable discharge on De- cember 26, 1767.
Mason and Dixon's line as thus run (its latitude is 39° 43' 26") was a final adjustment of the boundary dispute between Maryland and Pennsylvania; but so far west of Maryland as it had been run, was not accepted by either Pennsylvania or Virginia as the boundary line between them. But at this time the west boundary line of Pennsyl- vania was of more importance than the south line, as each State was anxious to secure Pittsburgh and the Mononga- hela region. In 1754, Pennsylvania contended that the beginning of the fortieth degree was at the ending of the thirty-ninth degree, latitude 39º north. The establishment of this parallel would have given Pennsylvania a strip of territory 43' 26" south of Mason and Dixon's line, embrac- ing the present counties of Monongalia, Preston, Marion, Taylor, Harrison, Barbour and Tucker, with portions of Wetzel, Lewis and Upshur. Virginia's claim in the same year was a strip 16' 34" wide north of Mason and Dixon's line, and extending across the present counties of Fayette
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HISTORY OF MONONGALIA COUNTY.
and Greene, in Pennsylvania, and making the parallel of 40° north latitude the boundary line. The defeat of Wash- ington and Braddock put an end to the controversy for several years, as the French were in possession of the territory. On April 21, 1774, the commissioners appointed by Pennsylvania on the subject of boundaries, proposed for the south boundary of Pennsylvania against Virginia the extension of Mason and Dixon's line to five degrees of longitude west form the Delaware. Dunmore objected, and the commissioners then offered the extension of Mason and Dixon's line to the Monongahela. But Dunmore would not accept this unless Fort Pitt was given to Virginia. The commissioners refused this, and negotiations closed. The Governor of Pennsylvania before this, however, had sug- gested a serpentine line five degrees west of the Delaware River, in every point corresponding to the meanderings of the said river, and running down to Mason and Dixon's line, and then straight to the 39º of north latitude; which was also declined by the Governor of Virginia, who, think- ing the Delaware River farther east than what it was-on the 43º north latitude-proposed that the west boundary be run south from a point five degrees of longitude west on that parallel. Pennsylvania in turn refused to accede.
The next proposition for the settlement of the boundary controversy came from the General Assembly of Virginia, December 18, 1776. In regard to the southern boundary of Pennsylvania it was as follows : " That the meridian line drawn from the head of the Potomac to the north-west angle of Maryland be extended due north until it inter- sects the latitude of forty degrees, and from thence the southern boundary shall be extended west on the said fortieth degree of latitude until the distance of five degrees
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MASON AND DIXON'S LINE.
of longitude from the Delaware shall be accomplished thereon." This line, in the opinion of the writer, was the true southern boundary line of Pennsylvania, and with the serpentine west line from it north, also proposed at the same time, made the true south and west charter bounda- ries of Pennsylvania against Virginia.
It is often asserted that in this year Virginia passed an act waiving her claims to the disputed territory between Pennsylvania and herself. The reading of the act in ques- tion does not warrant any such conclusion. It says : "The territories contained within the charters erecting the colonies of Maryland, Pennsylvania, North and South Carolina, are hereby ceded, released and forever confirmed to the people of those colonies respectively." (9th Hening, p. 118.) This language does not express or imply that Pennsylvania was to be given all she asked, but only what was in her charter limits.
Leaving Virginia's charter, which was annulled in 1624, out of the case, in 1682 when the charter of Pennsylvania was drawn, it contained no provisions from which its south boundary could interfere with the northern boundary of Maryland lying "under the fortieth degree where New England is terminated." As the New England charter was to begin expressly from forty degrees of northern latitude, Pennsylvania's southern boundary, "the beginning of the fortieth degree of north latitude," could not have been in- tended to be at the thirty-ninth degree north latitude, which claim Pennsylvania never attempted to establish against Maryland. If the parallel of forty degrees north latitude was the southern boundary of Pennsylvania against Maryland, and that southern boundary was to be a straight line to its western terminus, how could it dip down after pass-
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HISTORY OF MONONGALIA COUNTY.
ing Maryland on any territory, chartered or unchartered? Again : if Pennsylvania's interpretation of the beginning of the fortieth degree as being at thirty-ninth degree north latitude, was correct, then the beginning of the three and fortieth degree of north latitude must be at forty-two degrees north latitude ; and thus she was claiming a whole degree of latitude on the north of New York to which she had no right, according to her claim against Virginia.
The establishment of the parallel of forty degrees north latitude as the southern boundary and the serpentine line as the western boundary-and they seem to be the true boun- daries-would have given to Monongalia the larger part of what is now Fayette County, Penn., including most of the Connellsville coke region, with nearly all of Greene and a portion of Washington County.
The final settlement of the boundary lines was effected in 1779, by commissioners appointed by the two contend- ing States. Pennsylvania appointed George Bryan, John Ewing and David Ritenhouse; Virginia, Dr. James Madison and Robert Andrews. They met at Baltimore, Md .; and, after the exchange of several written propositions, the Vir- ginia commissioners, for the "sake of peace and harmony," dropped the claims of Virginia and entered into an agree- ment with the Pennsylvania commissioners, "to extend Mason and Dixon's line due west five degrees of longitude, to be computed from the river Delaware, for the southern boundary of Pennsylvania, and that a meridian line drawn from the western extremity thereof to the northern limit of said State be the western boundary of said State forever." Virginia ratified this agreement June 23, 1780, and Penn- sylvania on September 23, 1780.
In 1782, a temporary line was run by Col. Alexander
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MASON AND DIXON'S LINE.
McClean and Joseph Neville, from where Mason and Dixon were stopped, northward to the Ohio River; and in 1786, Col. McClean and Col. Porter extended it to Lake Erie. The permanent line west from the Maryland line was run and established in 1784 by a commission of eminent men. They determined the west line terminus point of the five degrees of longitude by astronomical observations, and found the temporary west extension point one hundred and thirty-four chains and nine links too far west. The point was marked by planting a square unlettered white oak post and raising a pile of stones around it.
West of Blacksville two marked lines gradually diverge from each other until they are twenty-nine rods apart at the western boundary of Pennsylvania. Both these lines were claimed to be the southern boundary of Pennsylvania. In 1858, in the circuit court of Monongalia County, in the suit of White vs. Hennen, in which the Hon. W. T. Willey was counsel for the defendant, the south marked line was proven to be the true State boundary line. The post was gone, but an old trapper named Roberts testified, that, forty-nine years before 1858, he had seen the post standing at the end of the south marked line. By the report of the Pennsylvania Commissioners* of 1784, preserved in the archieves of that State, it seems that several temporary lines were run and afterward corrected. This erroneous north line may have been one of these temporary lines.
The stone-pile marking the west terminus of the southern boundary of Pennsylvania, 'is fast disappearing. If the
* Spiritually the commissioners were well provided for by Pennsylvania. Sixty gallons of spirits, twenty gallons of brandy, forty gallons of Madeira wine, 200 pounds of loaf-sugar, and a small keg of lemon juice were ordered for their use.
.
. 94
HISTORY OF MONONGALIA COUNTY.
authorities of West Virginia and Pennsylvania fail to mark the point of terminus by the erection of a suitable monu- ment, it would be well, as suggested by Mr. Willey, for Monongalia County to do so herself .*
Among the first writers who discussed at much length the history of Mason and
* Dixon's line, were John H. B. Latrobe, of Maryland, and James Veech, of Pennsylvania.
CHAPTER X. WHISKEY INSURRECTION.
1791-1795. Origin, History and Suppression-Mobs at Morgantown-Action of the State and National Authorities.
AFTER the adoption of the Constitution, the first act of rebellion against the Government was the Whiskey Insur- rection, commencing in 1791 in south-western Pennsylvania in murmurs of discontent, and swelling into an open rebel- lion in 1794. It was caused by Congress passing an excise law on March 3, 1791, which imposed a tax of four pence per gallon on all distilled spirits. At this time whiskey was about the only cash article west of the mountains, and about every eighth or ninth farmer had a still. Grain was no price. A horse could carry only three or four bushels of grain across the mountains, there to be exchanged for salt at five dollars a bushel and iron at eighteen cents a pound. In the form of spirits, the same horse could carry the pro- duct of twenty bushels of rye. Hence the people of south- western Pennsylvania regarded this excise law as unjust and oppressive, a view that was also shared to some extent by some of the inhabitants of Ohio and Monongalia counties.
A great field-meeting or muster of the insurgents was held at Braddock's Field (Allegheny County, Penn.), August 2, 1794, and a circular was issued inviting the neighboring counties of Virginia to send delegates to a meeting to be held on the 14th of that month at Parkinson's Ferry (now Monongahela City, Penn.). Ohio County was represented at this meeting, and William Sutherland was her member of
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HISTORY OF MONONGALIA COUNTY.
a committee of conference to meet the United States Com- missioners sent out to adjust the trouble. In this meeting Monongalia had no representative. On the 9th of August a body of Pennsylvanians, not content with attacking their own excise collectors, invaded Monongalia County; and again on the fourteenth, when they were joined by a few others, but were driven out of Morgantown by the citizens of the town and the people in attendance at court. Sub- joined is a clipping from the Philadelphia Gazette of Sep- tember 2, 1794 :
"We hear that the inhabitants of Morgantown, Virginia, have assembled in a body, and determined to defend themselves against the encroachments and depredations of the insurgents in the west parts of Pennsylvania. In two or three instances they have opposed the insurgents and driven them back.
" [Extract of a Letter from Morgantown, Va., August 14, 1794.]
"'The insurgents have been quite outrageous, and done much mischief. Here we have been quiet until a few days ago, when about 30 men, blacked, came in the night of the 9th instant, and surrounded the house of the Collector of this county, but the man escaping, and advertising that he had resigned his office, they went off peaceably. Three days after, at our court, a number of men, mostly from Pennsylvania, came to Morgantown, and in the even- ing, began to beat up for proselytes, but they were in a few minutes driven out of town. Yesterday they were to have returned with a stronger party, but did not.'
"N. B. Morgantown is mostly composed of Virginians and native Americans."
James Veech says : "Albert Gallatin (of Fayette Co., Pa.) in his historical-defensive speech on the Insurrection, in the House of Representatives of the Pennsylvania Legislature, in January, 1795, on a Resolution (which was adopted) to set aside the election of Senators and members from the four western counties, says of this event : 'A short time afterwards' [having referred to previous like outrages in Pennsylvania] 'the officer of a neighboring county in Virginia, fled for fear of insult, and a riot was committed at the
AUGUSTUS HAYMOND. SEE PAGE 352.
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WHISKEY INSURRECTION.
place of his residence, by some of the inhabitants of that county, wlro have since been arrested, although the outrage seems at first to have been ascribed by the Governor of Virginia to Pennsylvanians. In another county of the same State, some of the papers of the officer were forcibly taken from him.'"
Who the excise officer at Morgantown was is not known.
When news of these disturbances reached Richmond, Henry Lee, Governor of Virginia, issued a proclamation on the 20th of August, 1794, concerning the Morgantown trouble, calling on the civil and military officers to arrest every offender and watch all parties coming from Pennsyl- vania, and to apprehend them if found exciting a spirit of disobedience to the government. President Washington is- sued two proclamations against the insurgents, or "Whiskey Boys," as they styled themselves, and called out 15,000 men in four divisions, from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia and Maryland, one division from each State. The Virginia division was commanded by Gen. Daniel Morgan, rende- voused at Cumberland, Md., and marched into south- western Pennsylvania by the way of Braddock's Road. Gov. Henry Lee (grandfather of Gen. Robert E. Lee) was appointed commander-in-chief. By the time the army arrived in the rebellious district, the last vestige of armed resistance had died out. A part of the leaders were arrested but none were put to death. No troops were sent into Ohio or Monongalia counties.
The records of the old District Court held at Morgan- town, show that on May 5th, William McKenley, John Moore, William Sutherland, Robert Stephenson and John McCormick, of Ohio County, were notified to appear there for trial, for stirring up the inhabitants of Ohio County 7
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HISTORY OF MONONGALIA COUNTY.
against the government; but at the next session, in Septem- ber, no prosecution was made by the Deputy Attorney- General.
Gov. Lee at Pittsburgh, on November 17, 1794, ordered the return of nearly all the army home. Brig .- Gen. Matthews was to move the next Wednesday to Morgantown, and " from thence to Winchester by way of Frankfort." As. soon as the service would permit, Gen. Darke with the Elite Corps of the left column was to follow on the same route. No account was preserved of the arrival of the troops at Morgantown and their winter march through Monongalia.
CHAPTER XI. LOSSES OF TERRITORY.
1784-1848.
Formation of Harrison County-Addition to Harrison-Formation of Preston County-Addition to Preston-Formation of Marion County -Addition to Marion-Unsuccessful Attempts to Detach Territory.
MONONGALIA has sustained several losses of territory-terri- tory which to-day is thickly populated, wonderfully rich in material resources, and whose, inhabitants are in a highly prosperous condition. In 1779, she lost all her territory north of Mason and Dixon's line, a portion of which is the Connellsville coal and coke region. For this loss she was partly compensated by an addition of territory on the south from Augusta County, and, in the following year, by another addition from the same county. But Monongalia . was, however, scarcely well settled in her new possessions before she was deprived of a large part of them, together with a portion of her original territory, which was taken in May, 1784, to form Harrison County .*
On January 1, 1800, a small portion of the southern part of the county-"beginning at the mouth of the West Fork of the Monongalia River, thence running a north-west course until it strikes Buffalo Creek, thence up the said creek to the main fork thereof, thence with the ridge the
*"The county of Monongalia shall be divided in two distinct counties, by a line to begin on the Maryland line at Ford Fork on the land of John Goff, thence a direct course to the headwaters of Big Sandy Creek, thence down the said creek to Tyger's [Tygart's] Valley Fork of Monongalia River, thence down the same to the mouth of West Fork River, thence up the same to the mouth of Biggerman's [Bingamon] Creek, thence up the said creek to the Ohio County line, and that part of the said county lying south of the said line, shall be called by the name of Harrison."-Hening, vol. ii, p. 366.
100 HISTORY OF MONONGALIA COUNTY.
waters of said fork to the line of Ohio County, and with that line to the line of Harrison County"-was added to Harrison County.
On the 19th of January, 1818, a third diminution of the county was made by the establishment of Preston County, whose boundaries were thus defined in chapter thirty-two of the Acts of 1817-18 :
Beit enacted by the General Assembly, That all that part of the county of Monongalia contained within the following bounds, to wit: beginning at the Pennsylvania line, near Fickle's, including the same, thence a straight line to where Cheat River breaks through the Laurel Hill, so as to include all the inhabitants of the Monon- galia Glades settlement, including Samuel Price's and Henry Carother's, from thence, including Gandy's to the Clarksburg road on the Laurel Hill where it descends ; from thence a direct line to the junction of the Big and the Little Sandy Creek, where the · Randolph County line is ; from thence, with Randolph County, to the Maryland line ; from thence to the Pennsylvania line, and with the Pennsylvania line to the beginning, shall form a dictinct and new county, and be called and known by the name of Preston County."
Monongalia, in 1841, for the fourth time lost territory,* when all that portion of the county east of the Chestnut Ridge was added to Preston County by the passage of a bill introduced into the General Assembly by the Hon. Wil- liam G. Brown, a member from Preston.
* On the 15th of March, an act was passed by the General Assembly, providing, "That so much of the County of Monongalia as lies east of the ridge of mountains called Laurel Hill, and north of Cheat River, next to and adjoining the County of Preston, and is contained in the following boundary lines, to wit: beginning on the line dividing said counties at the point where it crosses Cheat River, and running thence a straight line to the England Ore bank, on top of the mountain; thence a straight line to the Osburn farm, so run as to include the dwelling-house of said farm in the County of Preston ; thence a due north course to the Pennsylvania line, shall be annexed to, and henceforth a part of the County of Preston." Referring to this act, Mr. John J. Brown, in his Centennial address, says: "In 1841, by an act of Assembly which Monongalians mildly designate as 'Brown's Territorial Larceny,' the grand summits of Laurel Hill, away to the east where the King of day first heralds his glory, were rudely wrested from her [Monongalla's] unwilling grasp and added to Preston County."
.
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LOSSES OF TERRITORY.
In the next year, Monongalia suffered her fifth loss of territory, in the taking of the southern part of the county, with a part of Harrison, to form Marion County .*
The last loss of territory was a small slice which was added to Marion County, March 15, 1847, by a change of the county lines, the act providing "that the line run between the counties of Monongalia and Marion, shall hereafter run so as to include within the county of Marion all territory on the waters of Buffalo Creek."
Several unsuccessful attempts have been made to take portions of the territory of the county as it now is. In 1857, an effort was made to annex that part of the county south of White Day and Indian creek, to Marion. . Ten years after this, in 1867, another unsuccessful attempt was made to take all that part of Monongalia west of a line beginning at the corner of "Battelle and Clay townships on the Monongalia and Marion county lines, and with said lines to the pictured rocks at the head of Bennefield's Fork of Pawpaw; thence with the dividing ridge between Miracle and Day's Run to the Union School-house on the head of King's Run ; thence with the county road to a bridge across Dunkard Creek at or near Blacksville, including the same ; thence a straight line to the nearest point on the Pennsyl- vania line." This portion of Monongalia, with parts of Wetzel, Harrison and Marion, it was proposed to form into a new county called Union with Mannington, Marion
* The act erecting Marion, passed January 14, 1842, so far as it concerned Mononga- lia, reads as follows :
"So much of the southern end of the county of Monongalia . . . Beginning at Laurel Point, (a corner of the line of Preston Co.) from thence to the mouth of Maple Run on White Day Creek; thence down White Day Creek to Barnabas Johnson's meadow ; thence a straight line to a low gap on the top of a ridge on the lands of the Rev. John Smith, at or near, where the road leading from Middletown [Fairmont] to Morgantown crosses said ridge, and following said ridge to where the old State Road crosses said ridge, and thence a due west line to the line of Harrison County."
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HISTORY OF MONONGALIA COUNTY.
County, as the county-seat. This movement was supported by a petition signed by eight hundred citizens of the several counties, including two hundred and eighty-five citizens of Monongalia. The petition was presented in the Legislature on the 21st of January, 1867. The Constitution then pro- vided, as does also the existing one, that no county of the State should be reduced in area to less than four hundred square miles. As Monongalia did not contain so many as this minimum, the proposition was clearly unconstitutional. Notwithstanding the provision of the Constitution referred to above, on the second day of December, 1873, in the House of Delegates Mr. W. S. Laidley, a Delegate from Kanawha County, as chairman of the committee on coun- ties, districts and municipal corporations, submitted a report, that the said committee, " to whom was referred the petition of W. H. McCans and two hundred and twenty-five others of Monongalia County, 'asking that the county line of Monongalia and Marion counties, be so changed as to annex the district of Battelle to the county of Marion,' beg leave to report the same back with recommendation that the prayer of said petitioners be granted, and report therefore House Bill No. 249," providing for the change in the counties' line so as to annex Battelle to Marion County. The bill was ordered to its second reading, December 4th ; December 8th, laid on the table; and an effort to take it up on the 10th, was unsuccessful, but a similar motion prevailed on the next day. On the 16th, a motion to in- definitely postpone the measure was made, which was superseded by a motion to table, which was adopted; and thus the measure died. This attempt to annex Battelle to Marion was revived as late as the year 1875.
CHAPTER XII. INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.
1796-1883.
Early Growth of the County-Monongalia Glades Road-Monon- gahela Navigation Company-Census of 1820, 1830 and 1840- First Steamboat-Academies-Turnpikes-Baltimore and Ohio Railroad-Projected Railways-Slack-water Navigation-Mor- gantown Suspension Bridge-Various Minor Enterprises.
AFTER peace was declared and the country freed from the incursions of the Indians, the population and development of the county rapidly increased. From 1796 to the begin- ning of the Nineteenth Century, Monongalia enjoyed a comparatively large immigration from the East, and, al- though the tide of emigration to Kentucky and Ohio took with it every year a number of the inhabitants of the county, yet from 1790 to 1800 the population grew from over 4,000 in the former, to more than double that number in the latter year. As early as 1794, a mail route was es- tablished, which enabled the people of the county to com- municate with themselves and the outside world. Between 1800 and 1802, a brick court-house was built on the site of the present one; and in 1804 the Monongalia Gazette was published. Another four thousand was added to the popu- lation of the county in the decade of 1800-10; and the iron- works on Cheat River and on Decker's Creek promised a rapid development of the material resources of the new county, if the problem of cheap transportation could be solved. Long distances and bad roads added enormously to the cost of transportation by wagons, and insufficiency
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