USA > West Virginia > Preston County > History of Preston County (West Virginia) > Part 9
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All officers, from the governor down to the most insignifi- cant in executive and judicial stations, excepting members of the General Assembly, were appointed. A desire to change this, and to provide for the election of the governor and most of the other officers by the direct voice of the people, was one of the motives of those asking for a change in the Constitution of 1829-30,
During this year, work on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was commenced in Preston County, and the iron pathway was the all-absorbing theme of conversation.
The western part of the county, sharing in the rapid in- crease of population, its people complained of the distance they had to travel to the election polls at Kingwood or Evansville, and asked for the establishment of a poll at the house of Samuel Graham, near the present site of Mason- town, and another at the house of Jonathan Huddleson near Zinn's (now Brown's) mill ; and the Assembly, by act of March 17, 1851, authorized separate elections at these places, The Assembly also established an election poll at the house of James Hays, near Cranberry. These were, respectively, the sixth, seventh and eighth election polls established in the county.
The Brandonville, Kingwood and Evansville Turnpike was now rapidly approaching completion; and the General As- sembly, on the 21st of March, authorized the company to in: crease its capital by an additional sum of ten thousand dol-
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HISTORY OF PRESTON COUNTY.
lars, for the purpose of planking or macadamizing the road, and making a branch from the wire suspension bridge on Cheat River, to the Kingwood and West Union Turnpike. The board of public works was directed to subscribe three- fifths of this amount.
On the 24th of March, the Kingwood and West Union Turnpike Company was authorized to increase its capital to the amount of ten thousand dollars, for the purpose of fin- ishing the road to Kingwood, and extending it to Morgan town. Of this sum the board of public works was required to subscribe three-fifths on behalf of the Commonwealth.
The Cheat River wire suspension bridge was finished this year by David H. Kennedy, a civil engineer of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. A slight swag in its center caused the commissioners to retain five hundred dollars of the contract price as a forfeiture, before taking it off his hands.
The convention called by the will of the people, for the purpose of amending the Constitution of 1829-30, met in Richmond, and continued in session till 1851. The result of their labors, an amended constitution, was submitted to the people for ratification or rejection, on the fourth Thursday of August, 1851; and, receiving a majority of the vote cast, it became the Constitution and Form of Government for the State of Virginia.
The new constitution gave Preston County two members of the House of Delegates, instead of one, as the Constitution of '29-30. Preston, Monongalia and Taylor were constituted the forty-ninth Senatorial District. The basis of represen- tation was denominated by the convention the "Mixed Basis," being based on the number of white inhabitants of the State and the amount of all State taxes paid: one delegate and one senator for every seventy-sixth part of said inhabitants, and one delegate and one senator for every seventy-sixth part of said taxes. This apportionment on the "mixed basis," was, by a provision, not to be subject to amendment until 1865. It gave the eastern part of the State a majority of representatives, owing to their great wealth, principally in
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FROM 1818 TO 1868.
slaves, and to which its numbers in population would not have entitled it.
The constitution abolished the landed qualification of voters, and, in many things, was decidedly a great improve- ment upon the previous constitution. The General Assem bly was to meet once in every two years, unless convened in special session by the governor. All property was to be taxed according to its value, except slaves who had attained the age of 12 years; and they were to be assessed with a tax equal to, and not exceeding, that assessed on land of the value of three hundred dollars.
Preston, with Harrison, Marion, Taylor, Barbour, Ran . dolph and Upshur, composed the twenty- first judicial circuit of the tenth district of the fifth section, into which the State, judicially, was divided. The judges of the circuits were elected by the voters thereof, and were to serve for a term of eight years. The county courts were to be held as before, in regard to time. A court was to be held on the second Monday of every month, termed monthly court, excepting the second Mondays of February, May, August and Novem- ber, when its meetings were to be known as quarterly terms. The circuit courts of Preston County were to be held on the 26th of April and September. The voters of each county now were to elect a clerk of the county court, for a term of six years ; a surveyor for a term of six years; attorney for the Commonwealth, for a term of four years ; commissioners of the revenue, for a term of two years; also constables and overseers of the poor. Heretofore these officers had all been by appointment. Preston was divided into eight magisterial districts, and the voters of each district were to elect four justices of the peace, to be commissioned by the governor for a term of four years. These justices were to choose one of their own body for a presiding justice of the county court. The justices were to receive for their services in court a per diem compensation, but were to receive no fee or emolument for any other judicial services. The eight magisterial dis- tricts of Preston were laid off as nearly equal as possible, in
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HISTORY OF PRESTON COUNTY.
territory and population, by the following commissioners, ap- pointed by the General Assembly (April 2, 1852) for that purpose : John J. Hamilton, Charles Hooton, D. C. Miles, Samuel R. Trowbridge, John J. Brown, Thomas Gregg, Har- rison Hagans, William Conner, John Shaffer, Benjamin Shaw and John Feather. They laid them off as follows: On the east of Cheat-the First comprised all of the present District of Grant, in the northern part of the county ; the Second in- cluded nearly all of what is now Pleasant District ; the Third, the principal part of the present District of Portland; and the Fourth comprising the present territory of Union Dis- trict ; on the west side of Cheat-the territory of what is now Kingwood District, was included in the Ffth; the larger part of Valley District, as now constituted, formed the Sixth ; the present boundaries of Lyon, with one or two exceptions, included the territory of the Seventh ; and Reno District, as it is now, included almost all of the Eighth.
Election polls were established as follows: in the First, at Brandonville; in the Second, at Parnell's, near Chidester's, and at Miller's, near Muddy Creek ; in the Third, at Feath- er's, in the Crab Orchard, and at Summit (Cranberry) ; in the Fourth, at Germany, in West Union; in the Fifth, at Kingwood ; in the Sixth, at Graham's; in the Seventh, at In- dependence, Huddleson's, and at Martin's ; and in the Eighth, at Evansville, Nine's, and at Funk's, all on the Northwestern Turnpike.
The first quarterly term of the county court, under the new constitution, convened in 1852, and elected John S. Mur- dock president. The body was composed of thirty-two jus- tices. In personal appearance, it is said that the court was a remarkably fine looking body of men. An editor, from an adjoining county, complimented them by saying, "that so fine a looking body, physically and intellectually, resembled a session of congressmen, rather than a county squires' court.' When he went home, the editor published a highly eulogistic account of the county court of Preston.
The new constitution, while it was an advance upon the
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FROM 1818 TO 1863.
old one, contained features objectionable to many in the wes- tern part of the State; and during the first administration in power after it went into operation, a spirit of rivalry sprang up between the western and the eastern sections of the State, as a continuance of the struggle for political power that began long years before.
It was a stirring time in the county : the ideas of change in the new constitution were going into the test of practical operation, the awakening rivalry of sectional power and ad- vantages were claiming attention with increasing interest ; and, in addition to these, the iron pathway of a hitherto im- possible enterprise, was being rapidly laid down, and the principles of the two great political parties of the day were being discussed upon the hustings all over the county in the presidential canvass of the year, whose result would make Franklin Pierce or General Scott the Chief Executive of the Nation for the next four years.
After the close of the presidential canvass, the spirit of en- terprise in Preston County made a venture in a new field, showing that it did not too tenaciously cling to any old es tablished order of things. Turning from the hitherto all- absorbing idea of turnpikes, the public-spirited men of the county, in connection with others in Monongalia, conceived the idea of a railroad from the Pennsylvania line, at the mouth of Cheat, by the way of Morgantown, to intersect the Balti- more and Ohio Railroad at or near Independence. They foresaw the value of such an enterprise in building up the languishing iron interests of Preston and Monongalia, and opening up their great mineral wealth. With but limited means, imperfect ideas, and full knowledge of probable re- verses and trials to be encountered derived from past exper- ience in turnpike enterprises, they undertook to accomplish the construction of this railroad. They secured the passage of an act by the General Assembly, on the 30th day of No- vember, incorporating "The Morgantown and Independence Railroad Company," with a joint-stock capital of 200,000 dollars, to be divided into shares of twenty five dollars each?
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HISTORY OF PRESTON COUNTY.
William G. Brown, John P. Byrne, Elisha M. Hagans and John A. Dille were appointed part of the board of commis- sioners, and were to open books for the purpose of receiving subscriptions to construct the said road; and when the amount of fifty thousand dollars had been subscribed, the subscribers were to organize the company and have power, if the capital of two hundred thousand dollars was insuffi- cient, to borrow money for the purpose of finishing the road, and have five years within which to begin the construction of the road.
They failed in the attempt-it was an enterprise beyond the capacity of the country of those days. Sufficient interest was not taken, and sufficient means could not be obtained to make even a commencement; yet the day will come when the project will be carried out, and a railroad will be built from the State line, connecting with the Baltimore and Ohio at some point along its route in southwestern Preston, open- ing the great mineral wealth of the northern and western portions of the county-building a line of furnaces along the eastern base of Chestnut Ridge, and developing its coal-beds, to-day but scarcely known, and little worked.
With the close of the year 1852, ended a period of time in the history of Preston County, extending from 1831 to 1852, that may be fitly termed The Turnpike Period, as the pro- jection and construction of turnpikes was the main object of enterprise, and though many of them never got out of their paper infancy, yet three of the many lines that were pro jected, now approached completion-one from Morgantown, over the mountain, to Bruceton, connecting with another from the great National road, by way of Brandonville and Kingwood, to Fellowsville, on the Northwestern Turnpike; and the third, from West Union, on the Northwestern Turnpike, to Kingwood, extending to the western part of the county, and leading to Morgantown; while preceding them, and at the beginning of the Period, was the construction of the great Northwestern Turnpike, building up towns, and dotting every mile of its track through the county with
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FROM 1818 TO 1863.
taverns. In all its glory of moving multitudes, it feared no rival, cared for no effort of competition, and scorned the idea of an iron road crossing the mountains parallel with its own track, and entering into competition with it for the products of the western prairies. But the railroad had dispensed, in a large degree, with horses as moving power; had intro- duced steam, and now had entered the county, and following the streams that cut deep their channels through the ridges. came to a heavy mountain, and going through it with the longest tunnel then in the world, continued on. Crossing the western boundary of Preston, it kept on a short distance, then divided, sending two lines to the banks of the Ohio.
And when, on New Year's, 1853, the first train entered Wheeling, and the shrill whistle of the locomotive was heard on the waters of the Ohio, the days of the old turnpike were numbered; its immense throngs were destined soon to be transferred to its daring rival; and wane of travel, desertion, and decay, was the fate the future had in store for it. And. soon, very soon on the old highway
"We hear no more of the clanging hoof, And the stage-coach rattling by : For the steam king rules the travel'd world, And the old 'pike's left to die."
The Turnpike Period is closed, and we come to the Rail- road Period, introduced by the construction and opening of the Baltimore and Ohio through Preston County, with first a brief glance at its origin, object of construction, and slow progress westward to the Ohio.
General History .- Turnpikes were the first great roads constructed across the once-supposed impossible barriers of the Alleghanies. The next plan to unite the East and West, was to carry canals through the Alleghanies from the head- waters of the eastern rivers to the head-waters of the western rivers. However, the project made but little headway till the era of railroads, when attention was turned to the possi bility of their crossing the Alleghanies, and reducing even- tually a fortnight of travel from east to west, to a single day's
9
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HISTORY OF PRESTON COUNTY.
journey. A railroad was talked of from Philadelphia west, over the mountains, to Pittsburgh, to secure the commerce and productions of the West.
A rival road was discussed in Baltimore by a few men of enterprise, to run from that city west, over the mountains, to Wheeling, on the Ohio River. These discussions led to the call of a meeting at the house of George Brown, in Balti- more, for the further consideration of the important subject, and to take some definite action upon the prosecution of the enterprise, if it was determined to attempt it.
On the 12th day of February, 1827, a few persons met at Mr. Brown's house, according to the call, and proceeded to organize the meeting by electing William Patterson chair- man, and David Winchester secretary. After a brief dis- cussion, the meeting was adjourned to convene on the 19th of February ; and at this meeting, the chairman read thirty- four pages of a printed report, prepared to show the possi- bility of constructing a railroad from Baltimore to the Ohio River, at Wheeling, and that Baltimore was one hundred miles nearer than Philadelphia, and two hundred nearer than New York, to the Ohio River, and that the road would only have New Orleans to compete with for the trade of the whole West. After the report was read, they determined to organize a company for the immediate prosecution of the enterprise. A charter was applied for and obtained from the General Assembly of Maryland, on the 24th day of April, 1827. The company was organized, and books opened for subscriptions. The capital stock was four millions, of which the State of Maryland and the City of Baltimore subscribed one million, and the other three millions were to be raised by individual subscriptions. On the Fourth of July, 1828, amid a great crowd of people, the venerable Charles Carroll of Carrollton (a signer of the Declaration of Independence) laid the corner-stone of the "Baltimore and Ohio Railway." The road, encountering reverses, made slow progress, having only reached the Point of Rocks by 1831. In this year the Assembly of Virginia gave the road authority to cross the
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FROM 1818 TO 1863.
State to Wheeling, under certain restrictions. Horses were used to pull the cars until the summer of this year, when the first locomotive, the "York," was put on the road, with gratifying results. It was built by Phineas Davis, of York, Pennsylvania. The next locomotive was the "Atlantic," and then followed the "Franklin." In 1850, the road had reached Cumberland, and was projected west of Cumberland to Wheeling. It was laid to Piedmont in June, 1851; and du- ring 1851 and 1852, it was completed from Piedmont to Wheeling, where the first train entered on the first day of January, 1853. Thomas Swann was president of the board of directors when the road was finished, and George Brown was the only member of the first board of directors that was a member of that board now.
After overcoming many difficulties, and fighting many hard battles for life, the company was finally successful in carrying their road over deep gorges on high trestle work, through facing mountains by long tunnels, across turbulent streams by heavy masonry work, and along the sides of steep mountains by blasting a track through the solid rock. From Baltimore to Wheeling, after crossing the Potomac at Harper's Ferry, wild and impressive, grand and magnificent scenery presents itself along the whole route, till leaving the mountains to descend to Wheeling. Indeed, the mountain scenery of the road is pronounced by tourists as wonderfully grand and beautiful. And over its rails a daylight trip across the Alleghanies possesses attractions of scenery which captivate the dullest eye. But leaving the general attractions of a road famous all over America for its grand and magnifi- cent scenery, we turn to its location and construction through Preston, to the consideration of the rapid building up of the country along its route, and to take a glance at the wild, beautiful and impressive mountain scenery it opens to the traveling public, with a moment's attention to the great ob- stacles of nature in its pathway that were triumphed over by the science of engineering.
Several routes had been proposed from Cumberland to
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HISTORY OF PRESTON COUNTY
Wheeling, one even running through Pennsylvania; but finally the present route was selected, and was surveyed in 1850. The work of construction was immediately com- menced, and rapidly pushed forward till the close of 1852. when the road was opened throughout to the public, on the first day of the new year. It was located through a region of country with but here and there a house. In this county, a house was standing on the site of Rowlesburg, one or two where Newburg stands, and a mill and two or three scatter- ing houses where Independence is. When it was finished, Cranberry, known as Salt Lick Falls, Rowlesburg, Newburg and Independence had sprung into being as towns; and a few houses, known afterwards as Greiggsville, and now a part of Tunnelton, had been put up on Tunnel Hill. This rate of growth was far more rapid than the town-growth of the Northwestern road when it was built. Houses were built in many places along the road, but principally all that came endeavored to rent or build in the towns. Prospectors for coal made their appearance, and carefully examined the country adjoining the railroad. No coal to amount to any. thing was found east of Cheat; but west of the river, along the line of the road, it was found in large quantities, and of fine quality. Mr. Henry, now the efficient Superintendent of the Orrel Coal Company's works, at Newburg, came out and prospected very successfully for coal, and opened the above named mines. Shortly afterwards, he became Super- intendent, and with quite a little colony, founded Scotch Hill, just south of Newburg. Formerly the place, which had been settled at an early day, went by the name of Sand Hill. The road entered Preston on the east, from Maryland, and came past the falls of Snowy Creek, and up its valley, passing through the Green Glades, to Cranberry Summit, at the head of Snowy and Salt Lick creeks, 2550 feet above tide- water. From the crest of the mountain, it commenced a west- ward descent of twelve miles to Cheat River. Starting at Cranberry Summit in its descent it passes through McGuire's tunnel, 500 feet long, and Rodamer's tunnel, two miles below
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FROM 1818 TO 1863.
it, and 400 feet in length, over the site of the little village of Rodamer's, now building, and on over heavy embankments. through deep excavations, with mountains on the right and mountains on the left, it came down Spruce Creek, crossing which, it came to the waters of Salt Lick again. Here, cross- ing that stream on a stone and iron viaduct, 50 feet wide, with a fifty-foot span, it follows its gorge-like valley, boun- dary-walled with lofty mountains, to where it opened into the Cheat River canon. Passing over that wild and turbulent stream on a bridge of two arches of iron and timber, respect- ively, of 180 and 130 feet span, resting on abutments and a pier of blue colored freestone, it enters Rowlesburg, located in a small amphitheater, hemmed in by Battery Hill, Quarry Mountain and a westward-running ridge.
Leaving Rowlesburg in the shade of its mighty mountains. "the sentinels of the centuries," the road begins its five mile ascent of the mountain, with a grade of one foot to every fifty of the distance. It goes up the left-hand hill of Cheat. frequently fissured by the deep gorges worn by small streams that empty into the river. Soon in the ascent it comes to Keyser's Run, the first of these streams that for un- told centuries have been wearing down their channels through the hill to the river. The road crosses its deep- mouthed gorge by a solid embankment of 76 feet; then winds along a steep face of the hill to the Buckeye hollow. where it crosses the 400 feet of chasm on a cast-iron viaduct. that rests on a solid wall of masonry, built 120 feet from a solid rock foundation in the bottom of the gorge. From the "little trestling," as this viaduct was often called, the road cuts its way along the side of the hill, passing two or three projecting coves, and comes to the mouth of Tray Run. Its upward route to this point lay a hundred feet or more above the waters of Cheat, whose right hand bank was almost against mountains that rise up toward the sky, fissured by shadowy gorges, and to the eye of the traveler presents an impressive scene. Tray Run ran at the bottom of a great gorge, 600 feet across from wall to wall at the top. and 180
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HISTORY OF PRESTON COUNTY.
feet down to the waters of the run .. On the solid rock in the run was built a solid wall of masonry, 130 feet high, from wall to wall of the gorge; and on it was placed a cast-iron viaduct, 50 feet high, extending from side to side. At the time of its construction it was the grandest viaduct in the world. Over it the road was carried 600 feet. Cheat here. winds along the base of the mighty hills imprisoning it, 200 feet below on the right of Tray Run. Trees on its banks. look to the traveler on the railroad like shrubbery, while the mountains rising up toward the heavens, shadow its waters: of coffee-color hue with a darker tinge than they receive from. the dense forests of laurel and black spruce through which. they have broken.
Leaving Tray Run, whose bridging was a wonderful feat. of engineering, the road goes on, in its continued upward ascent, along a precipitous slope, with heavy cuts, fills and walls. To the passenger the changing scene is increasing in interest-mountains on the right-mountains on the left- mountains looming up in advance, and mountains piling up as the last glance is flung back. The road here reaches the Buckhorn branch, a wide cove in the western flank of the mountain, crossed by a solid embankment and a retaining wall 90 feet high. A little distance on, and the road bids adieu to the river, now full five hundred feet below, and al- most buried in foliage.
To the right the impetuous river turns, and dashes to the northward to escape from confining ridges; to the left the. road turns, and stretches westward . through a low gap, by a. deep excavation, and then by a deep, long cut crosses Cas- sidy's Summit, and is beyond the crest of the mountain. At the west end of the cut (now called 80 cut), the road enters. the table-land of the west Cheat River country. On the east- ern side of Cassidy's Summit, it left the great Cumberland Valley, and at the west end it entered the extensive New- burg coal-region. It now commences, the descent of the u ountain at the grade of ascent, crossing over the bushy
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