USA > West Virginia > Summers County > History of Summers County from the earliest settlement to the present time > Part 16
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in an opposite direction, and reported same on his return. He also reported the fine hunting and fine lands in the Greenbrier Valley, from which report adventurers began to make their way into this region. In the same year De Celeron, the French engineer, planted the leaden plate at the mouth of the Kanawha, claiming all of the territory drained by that river for the French crown.
1750-Jacob Marlin and Steven Sewell, influenced by the ac- counts of the lunatic, came out and settled at Marlin's Bottom, at the mouth of Knapp's Creek, in Pocahontas County. One of them was a Catholic and the other was a Protestant, and they quarreled over their religion and separated, one locating in a hollow tree in speaking distance of the other. They would get up in the morn- ing and salute each other, and that was all the communication they would have during the day. It was Colonel John Lewis, who came to survey the Greenbrier grants, and there discovered them, and it was this same year Dr. Thos. Walker crossed New River, Holstine and Clinch by way of Culbertson's (Crump's) Bottom, returning along Flat Top Mountain by the present site of Pocahontas (town), down Bluestone to New River; down New River to the mouth of Greenbrier; up Greenbrier and Anthony's Creek, and over the mountain by the Hot and Warm Springs. 1751-Thos. Ingles was born at Draper-Meadows, being the first white child born west of the Allegheny Mountains. 1751-Greenbrier River re- ceived its name by Colonel John Lewis. 1752-Peter Fontain, a surveyor, made a map, which is a very crude affair, a copy of which will be found with Hale's Trans-Allegheny Pioneers. 1753- George Washington, accompanied by Christopher Gist, was the bearer of communications to the commander of the French, and he says that Frazier's Cabin, on Peak Creek, in Burke's Garden, was then the ultima thule of Western settlement. 1754-George Washington surprises a party of French near the Great Meadows, killing Captain Joumonville, the French commander. He captured or killed every man of the French. It was the first blood shed in the French and Indian war, and resulted in the loss of Can- ada to the French. In the same year Washington was compelled to capitulate to the French at Fort Necessity. In the same year Pack's Ferry was located and settlement begun. James Burke set- tles in Burke's Garden, and is murdered by the Indians. In the same year Joseph Reed settles at Dublin; a McCorkle family set- tles at Dunkard's Bottom, near Ingle's Ferry. 1755 - Simon Girty and his brothers, George and James, were captured at Gir- ty's Run, not far from Pittsburg. In this year the Draper-Mcad-
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ows settlement was attacked, and all of the settlers massacred. 1755-Braddock's defeat at Fort Duquesne. Mary Ingles and Betty Draper were the first white women in the Kanawha Valley, and they helped to make the first salt ever made by white persons in the Kanawha, or elsewhere west of the Alleghenies. 1756-Settle- ments again made west of New River. Vass' Fort built under the direction of Captain Hogg, by the advice of George Washington, in the Middle New River country. Vass' Fort captured by a party of Indians and French, and all the inmates murdered or taken prisoners. Big Sandy expedition under Major Andrew Lewis was made the same year. 1757-New River lead mines were discov- ered by Colonel Chiswell, and operations begun to develop the same. Daniel Boone was married in this year on the Yadkin, in North Carolina. 1758-Fort Duquesne captured by General For- bes and named Fort Pitt. Fort Chiswell, in Wythe County, was built under the direction of Colonel William Byrd. 1759-The Decker settlement on the Monongalia destroyed, and every one killed except one. 1760-An Indian raiding party surprised Wil- liam Ingles near Ingles' Ferry, and seven Indians killed and one white man. Selim, the Algerine of remarkable history, passed up the Kanawha Valley in seach of white settlements. He was a wealthy and educated Arab; was captured in the Mediterranean Sea by Spanish pirates; was sold to a Louisville planter, escaped, made his way to the Mississippi and up the Ohio. Somewhere be- low the Kanawha he met with some white persons, and a woman among them told him, as best she could in sign language, to go toward the rising sun and he would find white settlements. It was just about this time that the Indian raid had been made through this valley, after the Jackson's River settlements, when the Renic family and Hannah Dennis were made prisoners, and it was probably these that he met who told him of the Eastern settlements. He turned up the Kanawha Valley, up New River to the mouth of the Greenbrier, and was finally discovered almost naked and nearly starved, when he had passed up the Greenbrier, through Monroe to near the Warm Springs, in the Allegheny Mountains. He was taken care of. Through a Greek testament which he had on his person, some ministers who saw him discov- ered that he was a good Greek scholar, and communication was thus opened up between him and the ministers, who were profi- cient in Greek. Selim studied English, became a Christian, and returned to his home in Algiers, where he was repudiated by his parents because he had given up the Moslem for the Christian re-
JAS. H. MILLER'S RESIDENCE, Hinton, 1905.
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ligion. He returned to America heart-broken, and finally died in an insane hospital. He passed over in these wanderings almost forty miles of the territory of Summers County, by where Hin- ton and Talcott are now located. This was before there was a white settlement within the county or in all this region, even in the Kanawha Valley. 1761-The Cherokee War was terminated. 1762-Archibald Clendennin and others settled on Muddy Creek and Big Levels, now Greenbrier County, about eight or ten miles from the Summers line. Ingle's Ferry established by law this year, the first Ferry established west of the Allegheny Mountains. 1763-Hannah Dennis escaped from the Indian captivity, making her way through this valley, and after great suffering reached the Muddy Creek setlement. In the same year Cornstalk made his raid with the Indians, passed up the Greenbrier Valley, and ex- terminated the Muddy Creek and Big Levels settlements. 1763- The final treaty of peace between the French and English at Paris (Treaty of Paris). 1764-Captain Paul's Indian fight at the mouth of Indian Creek. In the same year Matthew Arbuckle, the ances- tor of that honorable family in Greenbrier County, of which Sena- tor John W. Arbuckle is the most prominent descendant at this day, a hunter and trapper from the Greenbrier region, passed down the Kanawha Valley with furs for a trading post at Point Pleasant and returned, being the first man to perform so formidable a feat. Three hundred prisoners were recovered this year by Colonel Boquet, in Ohio, he being the French commander. 1765-Sir William John- son's treaty of peace with the Indians, the result of Boquet's cain- paign. Michael Cresap owned 300 acres of land and settled the same in 1763, on Redstone. 1766-Butler and Carr hunted and trapped about the heads of Bluestone and Clinch Rivers. 1767- Butler, Carr and others settled families at the head of Bluestone River. 1768-George Washington, R. H. Lee, F. L. Lee and Ar- thur Lee petitioned King George for two and one-half million acres of Western lands in the Mississippi country. 1769-Eben- ezer, Silas and Jonathan Zane located lands at Wheeling Creek, in Ohio County. In that year a man by the name of Tygart was the solitary owner of a cabin on the Ohio River below Wheeling, pos- sibly the same man who settled Tygart's Valley in 1754. John Stewart, Robert McClanahan. Thomas Renic and William Hamil- ton settled in the Greenbrier country where Frankfort is now sitit- ated. In this year George Washington surveyed for John Frye 2,084 acres of land at the forks of Big Sandy, at the present site of Louisa. Washington was at the mouth of the Great Kanawha
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the same year, looking over his own lands, and his agent, Colonel Crawford, was with him. Camp Union, now Lewisburg, was built 1770. 1771-Simon, Keaton, Yager and Strater were the first white men to camp in the Kanawha Valley. They settled about the mouth of Two-Mile Creek, on Elk River. Colonel Andrew Don- ally built Donally's Fort; Colonel John Stewart built Fort Spring, and Captain Jarrett built Jarrett's Fort, at the mouth of Wolf Creek. 1772-Clarksburg was built. The mineral virtue of the Greenbrier White Sulphur Springs was first tested by the whites. It had long been a famous elk and deer lick among the Indians. A German named Stroud settled on the glades. His family was murdered by the Indians, for which Captain Bull and five families of Indians living at Bulltown were murdered by William White and William Hacker in retaliation for the massa- cre of the Stroud family. In 1773 the highest water, according to tradition, that was ever known in the New River Valley or the Kanawha. This tradition comes through Ballenger, the recluse. In this year Walter Kelley, a refugee from South Carolina, settled at Kelley's Creek, nineteen miles above Charleston. In 1772 the McAfee brothers, McCown, Adams and others, including Colonel Bullit and Hancock Taylor, from the New River settlements, went to Kentucky to locate and survey lands. They located and sur- veyed Big Bone Lick, July 5th. They located the city of Frank- fort on July 15th, and Louisville on August 5th. John and Peter Van Bibber, Rev. Joseph Alderson and Matthew Arbuckle, passed from Jarrett's Fort down Greenbrier, New River and Kanawha, and they discovered the Burning Spring on the Kanawha in this year. The Van Bibbers had an exciting time with the Indians at Kanawha Falls, where the Van Bibber Cut of the C. & O. is lo- cated. The Indians pursued them, and they jumped from the top of that embankment and escaped by swimming across. 1774- William Morris settled at the mouth of Kelley's Creek. Leonard Morris at the mouth of Slaughter's Creek, and John F. Flynn at Cabin Creek. In this year John Lybrook, on Sinking Creek, in Giles County, was attacked by the Indians and five of his children were killed. He secreted himself by hiding in a cave. Wheeling was first called Fort Fincastle, afterwards Fort Henry. It was planned by George Rogers Clark. On the 11th of September Lewis' army of 1,100 soldiers left Lewisburg for Point Pleasant to fight that famous battle. Daniel Boone was commander at the time of Camp Union (Lewisburg), Donally's Fort and Jarrett's Fort. Lewis' army was nineteen days in passing from Lewisburg
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
to Point Pleasant, and that battle was fought on the 10th of Octo- ber. 1774-5-The courts in Augusta County were held alternately at Staunton and Pittsburg, which was then situated in a part of Augusta County. In 1775 Daniel Boone cut Boone's Trail, or the Wilderness Road, from Long Island, in the Holstine country, into Kentucky. In 1775 General George Washington and General Lewis located and took up 250 acres of land, which included the famous Burning Springs in Kanawha County, east of Charleston. In this year Rev. Joseph Alderson cut out the first wagon road across the mountains as far west as Greenbrier River. In 1776 Augusta was divided into three counties-Ohio, Monongalia and Youghiogheny, which latter county was abolished, and the entire territory in- cluded in the two former. In this year General Andrew Lewis, who was in command of the Virginia soldiers, drove Lord Dun- more and his fleet and rabble from Gwinn's Island, on the Chesa- peake Bay, by reason of which Dunmore left the country forever. In 1777 the first forts were established in the Mississippi Valley. 1777-Cornstalk, and his son Elinipsico, and Red Hawk, were mur- dered at Point Pleasant. In this year the Augusta, Botetourt and Greenbrier volunteers under Colonel Skillem marched to Point Pleasant to join forces under General Hand, who did not arrive. 1780-In an Indian raid into Greenbrier, Donally's Fort was at- tacked, but was forewarned by Hammond and Pryor, and rein- forced by volunters from Lewisburg under Colonel Stewart. The Indians were driven off ; and during an Indian raid this year John Pryor, the famous scout and brave messenger, was killed. William Griffith, his wife and daughter were murdered, and his son, a lad, taken prisoner, an account of which is given in this book; and it was the last Indian raid made or murder committed in the Green- brier country. This was on the old Ellis place, near the mouth of Griffith's Creek. The Indians were followed down the creek and on to the Kanawha, and the lad recaptured. A man by the name of Carr and two children were murdered near the mouth of Bluestone, and a woman at Culbertson's Bottom, all in this county ; but no details can be secured.
In 1782 Lewisburg was established as a town. 1784-Mason and Dixon's Line established as the interstate line between Penn- sylvania and Virginia. 1786-The first wagon road, called Koontz's New Road, was opened from Lewisburg to the Kanawha River. Its route was by Muddy Creek, Keeney's Knob, Rich Creek, Gau- ley River, Twenty-Mile, Bell Creek, Campbell's Creek, with side trails down Kelley's Creek and Hughes' Creek to Charleston. 1787
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-Maysville, one time called Limestone, was established as a town on the land of John May and Simon Kenton, and organized De- cember 11th. This year the State of Virginia ordered the construc- tion of a wagon road from Kanawha Falls to Lexington, Kentucky. In 1788 the first house was built in Charleston, by George Clen- dennin. This year James Rumsey, the real original inventor of the steamboat, exhibited his working model to General George Wash- ington and others in the waters of the Potomac River, near Berke- ley Springs. 1788-Daniel Boone and Paddy Huddleston caught the first beavers in the Kanawha Valley. 1789 -- Mad Ann Bailey made her solitary ride from Lewisburg to North Clendennin (Charleston). 1791-Daniel Boone was elected as one of the mem- bers of the Virginia Legislature from Kanawha County. 1792- Kentucky County was organized as a State and admitted to the Union, and was the first child of Virginia, the mother of States, and it was the first State admitted into the Union after the original thirteen. The Battle of Fallen Timbers was fought by General Anthony Wayne, August. 20, 1794. It gave peace and security to all of this region. In 1796 Volney, the distinguished French infi- del and author, was in this valley. In 1798 Peter Bowyer made the first settlement in the New River Gorge, and established a Ferry at Sewall, which is known to this day as Bowyer's Ferry. The first salt well bored in the Kanawha Valley was in 1808. In 1810-12, Audubon, the great naturalist, was in the New and Kana- wha valleys. The first natural gas well ever bored in America was in 1815, in the Kanawha Valley. The last buffalo killed in that valley was in that year. Coal was first discovered and used in that valley in 1817. The last elk killed in this valley was in 1820. The first bridge ever built across New River was at Ingles' Ferry, in 1838. The first person to use natural gas as a fuel was William Tompkins, in 1841, in the New River Valley. He was the first person in America to utilize gas for manufacturing purposes. The first cannel coal discovered in America was in the Kanawha Val- ley, in 1846. The first railroad across New River was in 1855- the Virginia & Tennessee, now the Norfolk & Western. The first coal works in all this valley were erected in 1855. In 1861 New River was higher than ever known, so far as we have any authentic history. The Chesapeake & Ohio was opened for traffic in 1873, and in this year the Quinnimont Company established the first iron furnace and coke works on New River. William Wyant es- tablished the first coke works in the Kanawha Valley in 1883. The State capital of West Virginia was permanently established
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
at Charleston, and the new capitol building occupied, in 1885. Crump's Bottom was settled by Culbertson in 1755, and was the first settlement in Summers County.
In 1763 there were but two settlements in Greenbrier County. One was on Muddy Creek, the other in the Big Levels, and the two together only contained about twenty families, of one hundred souls. The Muddy Creek settlement was visited by about sixty Indians under Cornstalk, the distinguished chief, and probably the greatest of his race. They pretended to be friendly, and there be- ing no war between the Indians, French and the English, the set- tlers took it for granted that they were kindly disposed. Having thus deceived the settlers, they fell upon the whites and killed every man, and killed or made prisoners of every woman and child. They then hurried on to the Big Levels, which was about fifteen miles distant, and there resorted to the same treacherous and in- famous tactics. Archibald Clendennin had just returned from a hunt, bringing three elks, from which they had a great feast. Im- mediately after, at a signal given by the Indians, the whites were thus, within a few hours, in two entire prosperous settlements, ex- terminated. Conrad Yokum-the name now being Holcomb-out of the one hundred persons in both settlements, escaped death. He escaped by flight. Mrs. Clendennin also escaped from captiv- ity. A negro woman was endeavoring to escape from Clendennin, and was followed by her child, crying. To enable herself to make better progress, she stopped and instantly killed her own child. Mrs. Clendennin was a brave woman. She denounced the Indians, which so enraged them that they slapped her in the face with the fresh scalp from her husband's head. They then undertook to in- timidate her by raising a tomahawk over her head, but she refused to be silenced. These Indians passed over Keeney's Knob on their retreat, and it was while making this passage that she passed her child to another woman to hold, and she slipped into the brush and made her escape, returning to her home, where she remained all night, as detailed in another section ; and it was on Keeney's Knob, when the Indians discovered her absence, one of them took her child, and said he would bring the cow to its calf. Taking it by the heels, he beat its brains out against a tree. Mrs. Clendennin finally, after great dangers and privations, and after she had re-
NOTE .- I am indebted to "Hale's Trans-Allegheny Pioneers" for many of the chronological items hereinbefore given, and I have liberally referred to that interesting book.
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
turned to her old home, covered the body of her dead husband with brush, weeds and fence-rails to protect it from wild beasts, and made her flight, crossing the Allegheny Mountains, and reached the Jackson's River settlement in safely.
Hinton, within nine months, from a single log hut, increased in population 300 souls. It was on January 15, 1874, that C. L. Thompson said in the "Mountain Herald": "If we would have a big city, we must have factories. It is an age of development. Let us not stand gazing idly about, but be up and doing. Manufactories will only go up under the fostering care and intelligence of our enterprising people." What was true then is still true. We now have a population of 6,000 souls.
It was on the 16th of January, 1874, that Dr. Thrasher gave the Hon. Elbert Fowler the lie, and Fowler then struck him in the face with a large law book, during the trial of a case in court. Bystand- ers intervened and prevented a rough time. Affairs seemed to have quieted down, but at nine o'clock the same evening, at the Wickem House, Fowler was again attacked by Thrasher, who drew a pistol, when Fowler struck him, and the fight ensued. Thrasher shot Fowler in the arm, the bullet lodging in the lining of his coat just over the left breast. They were then separated. Thrasher after- wards died, supposed from poison taken from his own hand, at his home near Red Sulphur Springs.
It was on the 20th of January, 1874, that the famous fist fight occurred between John A. Richmond and Thomas Bragg at New Richmond. They fell out over some trespassing hogs. They were two of the most powerful men, physically, in Summers County. After fighting for some time, Richmond got Bragg down. and made him holler "Enough." Richmond was a merchant at the mouth of Lick Creek; Bragg was a farmer residing on the Hump Moun- tain, afterwards removing to the West. After the fight was over, as was the fashion in those days, they shook hands and made friends, and remained so ever afterwards.
In 1874, a company, composed of General J. D. Bernard, General Q. A. Gilmore, Colonel William P. Craighill and Benjamine La- trobe, were appointed by the Secretary of War to report upon the practicability and commercial value of a continued water line from the Ohio River to the Chesapeake Bay, known as the James River and Kanawha Canal. They were to report in March. It was in contemplation to construct a tunnel eight miles long through the Allegheny Mountains, with locks 120 feet in length, 20 feet wide and 7 feet deep. The terminus at that time of the James River Canal was
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Buchannon. The project was to continue from Buchannon west, passing through the Allegheny Mountains by an eight-mile tunnel ; thence westward by slack water and sluice dams navigation, by way of Greenbrier River and Kanawha River to the Ohio. This connection between the waters of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico had been projected for a generation before, and this last action was the last ever taken, as the construction of the Chesa- peake & Ohio Railroad destroyed the James River Canal, and any possibility of navigation between those waters was destroyed for- ever. At one time it was proposed to run this canal from Alderson through Keeney's Knobs by tunnel by Lick Creek to New River, and the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Company projected its route over the same course and made its survey, but abandoned it as impractical for the route now being occupied by that great railroad. This canal project connecting the James and Kanawha Rivers had been agitated for forty years.
We had, back in 1874 poetical genius within our borders, as is in evidence from a stanza taken from a poem by a Pipestem poet, who is supposed to be Mr. Gorden C. Hughes, now of Arkansas, which is as follows :
"Our constable, Mr. Wood, Is seemingly very good ; Ile attends to monthly rules With a handsome roll of schedules."
John G. Crockett was appointed postmaster at Indian Mills and James Keatly removed February 26, 1874.
The first large milling company in Hinton was begun on Feb- ruary 26, 1876, by E. A. Weeks. This mill was located on a point by the present light plant, and was destroyed by the flood of 1878.
The first Sunday-school ever established in Hinton was through the efforts of Rev. W. M. Hiner, of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, in February, 1874. The committee secured to organize it was C. L. Thompson, W. W. Adams, J. H. Pack, E. A. Weeks and W. W. Baker.
The voting precinct at Pisgah, on top of the Big Ben Tunnel, was removed to Talcott Station at the March Term of court, 1874. Mercer Salt Works was established as a voting precinct also at the March Term of court, 1874.
Gas was discovered at the place of Robert Gore, on Island Creek, sixteen miles south of Hinton, in 1874.
It was in 1874 that Austin Cummings, the famous horse-thief,
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
secured his release from the penitentiary of this State. This release was secured by Cummings forging a very large petition of the citizens of Summers County to the Governor. It had also attached a recommendation of the prosecuting attorney, the trial judge and other officials. It was a forgery throughout, made by Cummings in the penitentiary, sent to the Governor, Hon. Henry Mason Mathews, who, acting thereon in good faith, issued his pardon and set Cummings at liberty before the deception was dis- covered. Cummings made his escape, and was never afterwards apprehended. He was serving a term in the penitentiary for horse stealing, a crime then very common in this country in those days, and was sentenced from this county.
The railroad switch in Avis at the light plant was first built in 1874. In April, 1874, butter at Hinton was quoted at thirty cents per pound.
There were twenty-five indictments on the court docket for 1874. It was at a term of this court that the famous certificate was filed on presentation of a petition of a gentleman desiring to be removed from road labor service, as follows :
"Raleigh Court House, March 20, 1874.
"This is to sertify that i examnd -, and find a rupetur jist above the umblicus rending him holy un fit manuell labor
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