USA > West Virginia > Summers County > History of Summers County from the earliest settlement to the present time > Part 2
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In the early days of the colony of Virginia large grants of land had been obtained from the Crown of England by a favored few individuals, which had been preserved in their families by means of entails, so as to form by degrees a political class among the colonists, and the same class monopolized the civil honors. Mr. Jefferson's reason for destroying this condition is given in his own words: "To annul this privilege, and, instead of an aristocracy of wealth of more harm and danger than benefit to society, to make an opening for the aristocracy of virtue and talent, which nature his wisely provided, for the direction of the interests of society, and scattered with an equal hand through all its conditions, was deemed essential to a well-ordered republic." Mr. Jefferson also intro- duced the law about this time to abolish the preferences given to the male sex and the first born, as provided by the English common law. The effects of these changes in the distribution of estates are very visible at this day in our country.
Mr. Jefferson- also about the same time had passed the law abolishing the church establishment, and put all religious sects on the same footing. The Church of England was the legally estab- lished religion of the territory of all Virginia up to this date. The Bill of Rights, drawn by George Mason on the 12th of June, 1776, distinctly provided for religious freedom; but the Constitution, passed on the 29th, was silent on the subject.
The territory credited to this county is 400 square miles, the constitutional minimum now and at the date of its formation ; but, thanks to legal hocus pocus and fictions, we have not the consti- tutional territory, but we have the county as a municipality, and have managed to live, thrive, increase and grow, and will do so until the end of time, or until it shall have the calamity to fall into the wicked hands of the political ringster, grafter and buc- caneer. Its healthy thrift and growth, as exhibited in the thirty-
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
six years of its life, is by reason of the strong, honest and fearless good government which has controlled its destinies. It is not to be assumed that its strongest, ablest. or wisest men have always been in the saddle, but we assert that honesty and fair and just principles have always guided the representatives of this little mountain municipality ; and, so long as honor continues to prevail in the councils of its people, they will have no cause for shame, and will continue as free and independent as the followers of William Tell.
Summers County was formed by an Act of the Legislature of West Virginia in 1871, introduced by Hon. Sylvester Upton, Repub- lican representative from Mercer County, residing in Jumping Branch Township, on New River Hills, and a most honorable, intelligent and fearless man. His actions at that day, when ostra- cism, "test oathism" and "carpet baggism" were rank in the land, stamped him as a noble man, and one of God's best on the earth. Its boundary lines, as set forth by the formative act, includes the two districts, Jumping Branch and Pipestem. that part of the county west of New River, taken from Mercer County, which was created by an act of the General Assembly of Virginia, on the 17th day of March, 1837, and was named after the Revolutionary General, Hugh Mercer, who was killed in the Revolutionary War of 1776, at the battle of Princeton. The county seat was named Princeton because it was the place of the tragic termination of the life of this great soldier, who was, at the beginning of the Revolution, a practicing physician at Fredericksburg.
The boundaries of Mercer County, by the Act creating it, were as follows: "Beginning at the mouth of East River, in Giles County, and following the meanders thereof up to Toney's Mill Dam ; thence along the top of the mountain to a point opposite the upper end of the plantation of Jessie Belcher, deceased ; thence a straight line to Peery's Mill Dam, near the mouth of Alp's (Abb's) Valley; thence to a point well known by the name of Peeled (Pealed) Chestnuts; thence to the top of Flat Top Mountain ; thence along said mountain to New River; thence up and along the various meanders of the same to the beginning." "It shall form one distinct and new county, and be known and called by the name of Mercer County, in memory of Gen. Hugh Mercer, who fell at Princeton." The governor was authorized to appoint jus- tices for the new county, and among those who were thus first commissioned who were from the territory cut off later to Sum- mers, were Robert Lilly and Robert Gore (the ancestors of the
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
great Lilly generation and of the gallant Capt. Robert Gore, the first president of a county court in the new county). The first meeting of the justices for organization was at the house of James Calfee, one mile from Princeton, on the second Monday of April, 1837. John H. Vawter, of Monroe, and John B. George, of Tazewell, were appointed commissioners to run and mark the county line. Moses E. Kerr was the first clerk and Wm. Smith the first sheriff, and Robert Hall surveyor. The first Circuit Court was held May 1, 1837, by Judge James E. Brown, of Wythe County, who appointed John M. Cunningham clerk and Thos. J. Boyd, at- torney for the Commonwealth. Among the first grand jurors for this term were Green W. Meadows and Thomas Maxwell, whose descendants still inhabit the present territory of our county, Mercer being formed from Tazewell and Giles. Before the war there were two voting places in Mercer County, one at Princeton and one at Pipestem. The two townships cut off to Summers had formed a part of Giles prior to the date of the establishment of Mercer.
Giles County was created by an Act of the General Assembly of Virginia, passed in January, 1806, and named for Hon. Wm. B. Giles, a Virginia statesman of note.
The boundaries of Giles were as follows: "Beginning at the end of the Gauley Mountain on New River, where the counties of Greenbrier and Kanawha intersect; thence up the (New) River with the Greenbrier and Montgomery County line to the upper end of Pine's Plantation ; thence a straight line to the mouth of Rich Creek ; thence with the Montgomery and Monroe line to the inter- section of Botetourt County line and with the line of Montgomery and Botetourt to the top of Gap Mountain ; thence along the top of said mountain to New River, crossing the same to the end of Walker's Creek Mountain ; thence along the top of said mountain to the intersection of Wythe County line; thence northeastward and with said line to the intersection of Tazewell County line, and with Tazewell and Montgomery County lines to the top of Wolf Creek Mountain to a path leading from Round Bottom to Harman's Mills, about three miles below the mouth of Clear Fork to Wolf Creek ; thence a straight line to the mouth of Milton's Fork ; thence a direct line from Crane Creek to the top of Flat Top Mountain : thence a direct line to the three forks of the Guyandotte; thence down said river until it intersects the Kanawha County line : thence with said line to the beginning."
Christian Snidow and John Peck, who were named as first jus- tices of the peace, have direct descendants living in Summers, and
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
at a much later date there have immigrated into our county from Giles a number of our best and most substantial citizens, among them Absolem D. Bolton, David Leftwich, William J. Tabor, of Bargers Springs, and Wm. T. Gitt, one of the early lot owners in Upper Hinton : C. R. Price, Frank, M. C. and M. Puckett and J. J. Christian.
Giles County was formed from Montgomery, and Montgomery from Fincastle, by an Act of the General Assembly of Virginia, passed in October, 1776, the year of the Declaration of Indepen- dence. By this act Fincastle County was abolished, its territory being partitioned into three counties, Kentucky, Washington and Montgomery, Pipestem and Jumping Branch being assigned and made a part of the latter.
Fincastle County was created by an Act of the Virginia As- sembly in February, 1772, to take effect December 1st following. It was formed by a division of Botetourt County. Fincastle County thus included all that territory within a line running up the east side of New River to the south of Culbertson's Creek, then a direct line to the Catawba Road, where it crosses the dividing ridge between the north of the Roanoke and the waters of New River; thence with the top of the ridge to the Bent (Mountain), where it turns eastwardly; thence a southward course to the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains, to be established as a distinct county.
Botetourt County was created by an Act of the Virginia Gen- eral Assembly, passed in November, 1769, to take effect January 31, 1769. Prior to that date all the region included in Botetourt County was a part of Augusta County. Botetourt was named after a colonial governor of Virginia, Lord Botetourt, and Montgomery County after Gen. Richard Montgomery, the Irish patriot who fell at Quebec.
The territory of Botetourt County before the division covered a vast region. The Act creating and partitioning Augusta County was as follows: "That from and after the 31st day of January next ensuing the said parish or county of Augusta be divided into two counties and parishes by a line beginning at the Blue Ridge, run- ning north 55 degrees, west to the confluence of Mong's Creek (or of the South River), with the north branch of the James River ; thence up the same to the south of Kerr's Creek (Carr's) ; thence up said creek to the mountain; thence north 45 degrees; west as far as the courts of the two counties shall extend it. This line strikes the Ohio near Wheeling.
"From the time of the partition of Virginia into counties, being
PIONEER COTTAGE NEAR HINTON.
THE NEW YOR! PUBLIC LIBRARY
LANDY ANY i
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
divided into eight, which was the first division of the territory of that great Commonwealth, and the first division of the character in the history of the world, all of the territory of Augusta, in fact, all of the territory of Virginia west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, was included in the county of Orange, which was organized in 1738 by an Act of the General Assembly of Virginia, at which date the territory west of the Blue Ridge was divided into Frederick and Augusta counties. Thus it will be seen Jumping Branch and Pipestem Districts first were a part of the great territory of Virginia, extending from the Atlantic, and in- cluding Ohio, Illinois and Kentucky and the Northwest territory ; then included in Orange County, then in Augusta, then in Bote- tourt, then in Fincastle, then Montgomery, then Giles, then Mercer, and now Summers County, so that it is within the territory of one of the first counties ever laid out on the face of the earth as a political municipality. While Orange was not one of the original counties of Virginia, it fared in the divisions in a comparatively short time after the first division of Virginia, which was into eight distinct counties. These two districts, Pipestem and Jumping Branch, came from this root, while the remainder of the county came through the Greenbrier source. Forest Hill and Talcott Dis- tricts were taken from Monroe County, which included the territory from the Lane Bottoms below Alderson near the mouth of Grif- fith's Creek. on the opposite side to the top of Keeney's Knob, and down the ridge of that mountain to New River at the present site of the new school building now in the course of construction in Avis; up New River to Round Bottom; thence back to Greenbrier River, including both Alderson and North Alderson. (See History of the County Line Controversy.) This territory was included in Monroe, which was cut off from Greenbrier by an Act of the Gen- eral Assembly of Virginia, January 14, 1799, Greenbrier being taken from Botetourt in October, 1777 ; by an Act of the General Assembly Green Sulphur District was cut from Greenbrier and Fayette. Fayette was created by an Act of the General Assembly of Vir- ginia in 1831, and was carved out of Greenbrier, Nicholas, Kan- awha and Logan." The original act creating Greenbrier County was as follows:
"That from and after the first day of March next ensuing said county and parish of Botetourt shall be divided by a line beginning on the top of the ridge dividing the eastern from the western waters, where the line between Augusta and Botetourt crosses the same, and running thence the same course continued, north 55 and
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
west to the Ohio River; thence at the ridge of the said line of Botetourt and Augusta, running along the top of said ridge, passing the Sweet Springs to the top of Peters Mountain ; thence along the said mountain to the line of Montgomery County; thence along the same line to the Kanawha or New River; thence down the said river to the Ohio."
After all its decapitations, Greenbrier is still one of the largest counties in area in the State, having 1,000 square miles ; Randolph having 1,080, being the largest, and Greenbrier the next. Only a small part of our territory is from Fayette, being a part of Green Sulphur District, which had been a part of Greenbrier from 1778 until 1831, the first division of Greenbrier being made in 1799 by the creation of Monroe.
Thus it will be seen that our little municipality traces its terri- total organization back to the colonization of Virginia and the days of Jamestown, Captain John Smith, and the romances of the Indian princess, Pocahontas. Its territorial lineage is thus ancient, but for much the greater part of the century succeeding the first settlements of Virginia, it was only a habitation for savage men, wild animals, birds and the reptiles of the forest.
The districts of Pipestem and Jumping Branch were within Giles County at its formation in 1806, and the people therein had to attend court at Pearisburg. The first court was held May 13, 1806, in a house adjoining the dwelling-house of Capt. George Pearis on New River, where Pearisburg Station is now located. The first justices of the peace in the county were appoined by the governor, William H. Cabell, and were George Pearis, Thomas Shannon, Christian Snidow, David French, David Johnston, Ed- ward McDonald, Isaac Chapman, John Kirk, John Peck, Curtis Champ, John Burke and James Bane. David Johnston was com- missioned the first sheriff. His bond was $7,000, with Isaac Chap- man and Christian Snidow as sureties. James Hoge, deputy ; David French and John McTaylor, deputies. George Pearis was elected presiding justice and commissioner of the revenue ; Philip Lybrook, county surveyor, and his bond fixed at $3,000, with John Lybrook as surety. Isaac Chapman was the first lawyer admitted to prac- tice in the courts of Giles County.
FIRST DIVISION OF GREENBRIER COUNTY.
An act of the General Assembly of Virginia, passed January 13, 1799, dividing Greenbrier County, and by which Monroe County was formed, and from which Forest Hill, Talcott and a part of
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
Greenbrier District were taken by the Act forming Summers County. The beginning line as shown by this Act was where the ridge dividing eastern and western waters joins Peters Mountain, and with a ridge which divides Howard and Second Creek; thence to Alderson; thence to the mouth of Muddy Creek to the divide between the waters of Muddy Creek and Griffith's Run, and with said divide to Keeney's Knobs, and with said Knobs, including the waters flowing into Greenbrier River to New River, and up the same to where it breaks through Peters Mountain.
Greenbrier County, which was formed in 1777, has been, as else- where stated, like the old State, partitioned many times. The counties which have been taken therefrom in whole or in part are as follows: Monroe, Summers, Kanawha, Nicholas, Bath and Fay- ette. Logan was formed in 1824 from Giles, Kanawha, Cabell and Tazewell; Fayette in 1831 from Logan, Greenbrier, Nicholas and Kanawha ; Pocahontas in 1821 from Bath, Pendleton and Randolph ; Nicholas in 1818 from Kanawha, Greenbrier and Randolph, and was named after Governor Nicholas. Mason was formed from Kanawha in 1804, and was named after George Mason; Giles was formed in 1806 from Monroe and Tazewell; Bath was formed in 1791 from Augusta, Botetourt and Greenbrier ; Kanawha was formed in 1789 from Greenbrier and Montgomery. It is in Giles County where the Salt Pond is situated, on top of the Salt Pond Mountain. It is a beautiful natural lake of pure, fresh water on the summit of one of the highest spurs of the Alleghenies. It is three miles long and a third of a mile wide. At its termination it is damned by a huge pile of rocks over which it runs, but which once passed through the fissures only. In the spring and summer of 1804 an immense quantity of leaves and other rubbish washed in and filled up the fissures, since which it has risen twenty-five feet. Previous to that time it was fed by a large spring. That finally disappeared, and many small springs now flow into it at its upper end. When first known it was the resort of vast numbers of elk, buffalo, deer and other animals for drink. Before it filled up it was said to have been a place for salting cattle, and it is said that trees of full size are standing in its bottom, at this day the water being higher than the trees, and at this time it is said to be receding, and at the pres- ent rate within a few years will entirely disappear. This is said to have occurred before in an intermittent manner with many years in the interim.
This lake was discovered by Christopher Gist, the friend of Washington. The water is as clear as crystal. Trees are seen
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
standing erect and preserved as they grew. It is tradition that the source of overflow became filled by the tramping of cattle and animals, and by reason of which the water accumulated in a basin. It is now a popular summer resort.
Montgomery County was formed in 1776 from Fincastle, and named for General Richard Montgomery. Part of our territory is thus derived from the Montgomery-Fincastle-Botetourt source, and the other part from the Greenbrier-Augusta route.
CHAPTER II.
FRAGMENTS OF ANCIENT HISTORY.
The outposts of civilization moved west yearly, at an estimate of seventeen miles per year. New River was discovered in the year 1670. In 1671, explorers spent considerable time in the valley of New River, but it is not known that they came as far west as West Virginia territory. In 1716, Governor Spotswood arrived at the summit of the Alleghenies, in Pendleton County. About 1748, the lands on Greenbrier River began to attract great attention, and a large grant of 100,000 acres was made to the Greenbrier Company in 1749. These lands, as well as that region, were surveyed by John Lewis, and settlements began to be made soon after, or within twenty years, and the frontiers extended to the Ohio River.
It was in 1751 that Christopher Gist surveyed up Kanawha and New Rivers, and climbed to the top of the Hawk's Nest, known in history as "Marshall's Pillar." The great chief justice of the United States, John Marshall, for whom it was named, having climbed to the top of that picturesque rock.
The French surveyed the Ohio River in 1749, but they made no settlements in the West Virginia territory, although they claimed dominion to the top of the Allegheny Mountains. In 1763, the King of England issued a proclamation forbidding any settle- ments west of the Allegheny Mountains, for the purpose of mol- lifying the Indians in that territory, but no attention was paid to this proclamation by the adventurous settlers. In 1765, the gov- ernor of Virginia ordered all settlers west of the Alleghenies to be removed from that territory by force. The territory of Monroe County was reclaimed from the wilderness fifteen years before the Revolutionary War. There were whites in Pocahontas County as early as 1749. There were two white settlers who settled at what is now known as Marlinton, at the mouth of Knapp's Creek, by the name of Stephen Sewell and Peter Marlin. These two gentle- men could not agree, and one of them moved into a large hollow tree. They would get out in the morning, raise their hats to each
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
other, and each go about his business; the associations not being pleasant, however, Sewell moved farther west into what is now Fayette County, and it was after him that the Sewell Mountain and Sewell Creek were named. He was finally killed by the Indians.
Christopher Gist, in 1750, made an exploration for the Ohio Company west of New River, and, on his return, he passed through a part of the territory of what is now Summers County. He came through Pipestem District, down Bluestone River and up New River, and crossed it at Culbertson's Bottom, now known as Crump's or Harmon's Bottom. He went on east, and discovered a lake on the top of a high mountain three-fourths of a mile long by one-fourth of a mile wide; no doubt Salt Pond, or now known as Mountain Lake, a famous summer resort on top of the Salt Pond Mountain in Giles County, Virginia.
Col. Abraham Wood is supposed to have been the first white man to have entered the New River Valley, which was in 1654. He crossed the Alleghenies at a place in Floyd County, Virginia, known to this day as Wood's Gap, and passed down Little River to New River, and, supposing it to be a newly discovered stream, called it Wood's River, but it did not retain this name, and was at one time known as the "Kanawhy," after a tribe of Indians of that name, which at one time inhabited the New River Valley. This river did not appear on the map of Thomas Jefferson which he had engraved in France in 1755.
The first settlement on New River was probably at the mouth of East River, by a man by the name of Porter : when, in 1748, John Toney came into that region, he found evidence of a former habi- tation-a cabin and a grave and stone with an engraving as follows thereon : "Mary Porter was killed by the Indians, May 28, 1742."
It was on the second excursion of Dr. Walker across New River in southwest Virginia that coal deposits were discovered by him. The Flat Top coal deposits, Culbertson's Bottom, the cele- brated Crump's Bottom, on which George W. Harman, Esq., now lives on New River, was settled by Andrew Culbertson in 1753. This is beyond question the first settlement within any part of the territory of Summers County. Andrew Culbertson was from Penn- sylvania; and, on the breaking out of the French and Indian War, he had to abandon this land, so he sold his claim to his brother, Samuel Culbertson, but a patent was not procured, and in 1775 Thomas Farely had a survey made, and assigned his claim to James Byrnsides.
Long litigation followed over the right of ownership between
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
the Culbertsons, Reed and Byrnside. (See Wyth's Chancery Re- ports, 150.)
Thos. Farley, one of the ancestors of the Farley generation, was from Albemarle County, Virginia, and immediately, on locating on this land, built the Farley Fort on the bank of the river at lower end of the bottom at Warford. It was in the fort that James Ellison, whose father was from New Jersey, was born in May, 1778. The father of James Ellison was in the Battle of Point Pleasant, and, after his return home on Culbertson's Bottom, which was on October 19th, 1780, while at work in the corn crib, he was attacked by a party of seven or eight Indians, wounded in the shoulder and carried fifteen miles, escaping on the day of his capture over in what is now Jumping Branch District, by hiding under a cliff and wearing out the rawhide thongs which bound his hands by rubbing them on a rock.
In 1774, a woman was killed on Culbertson's Bottom by In- dians, and a man by the name of Shockley on the mountain there, which has from that day been known as Shockley's Hill.
The James Ellison referred to became an able missionary Bap- tist preacher and a pioneer in planting that church in all the region. It was he who established the Baptist Church at Oceana, in Wy- oming County in 1812, and he was the father of the late Mathew Ellison.
Another fort was built at the mouth of Joshua Run on Culbert- son's Bottom on the breaking out of Dunsmore's War in 1774.
It was General Braddock who sent Captain Thomas Lewis across the Alleghenies in 1755 to establish a stockade fort to enable the white settlers in the region to successfully defend themselves against the Indians. This was Field's Fort, built by orders of Gen. Braddock on Crump's Bottom. Braddock's defeat soon after left the whole of the West Virginia country open to the Indian ravages.
Pitman, Pack and Swope were trappers and hunters on New River in 1763, when fifty Indians came up Big Sandy River, passed through Mercer County territory to New River, forming in two squads, one going for the Roanoke settlements, and the other to the Jackson River settlements, up Indian Creek. These trappers discovered them and the route they had followed, and, divining their proposed destinations and that they would attack those set- tlements, Pitman set out to warn the Jackson River settlements, and Pack and Swope to warn the Roanoke people. This was Samuel Pack, the ancestor of our Pack generation, and Swope, the ancestor of our late fellow citizen, the attorney, J. J. Swope,
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