USA > West Virginia > Summers County > History of Summers County from the earliest settlement to the present time > Part 44
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
having been Susanna Siders. To this union was born on Decem- ber 28, 1854, one son, Joseph Jonathan Swope, whose father at the time of his birth was seventy-one years old and his mother in her forty-sixth year. This Joseph Jonathan Swope received such rudi- ments of an education as was afforded by the public schools of the neighborhood until he was seventeen years of age, when his father died on April 5, 1872, leaving him in charge of the farm and the care of his aged mother. He gave up the attempt at securing an education, except what he could secure from study at home on the farm. On the 28th of May, 1873, he married Lucy J., daughter of L. J. and Susan (Scott) Burdette. To this union four children were born, Ida S., wife of Jacob H. Hoover, of Hinton; Mary E., wife of John W. Cook, of Charleston ; Elsie W., wife of Z. A. Dick- inson, of Talcott, and Loxie J., wife of Ethelbert Baber, of Hinton. Mrs. Swope died in 1883, and on September 23, 1883, he married Nettle Diddle, daughter of M. P. Diddle, of near Union in Monroe County. To them four children were born, Nina L., who married C. B. Stewart, and is now residing at Northfork, in McDowell County; Nellie H., at present postmistress at Thacker; Joseph Buell, who has completed the course in the Hinton High School and is at present a student of the commercial college at Charleston, and Stella J., residing with her parents in Pineville.
Mr. J. J. Swope is the most prominent of the present generation of the long line of the Swope ancestry now residing in this section of the country. After thirty years of life on the farm of his father in the Little Wolf Creek Valley, he abandoned it and went into the timber business. In 1887 he built a portable steam sawmill at Ronceverte, on which was placed one of his own inventions, a variable friction with only one wheel to use in either feeding and gigging the carriage. In 1888 he moved his family and located in Hinton, where he continued until 1889, when his mill and entire property was destroyed by fire, after which he recuperated and again embarked in the mill business with Robert H. Maxwell for a short time, but the business proving unsuccessful, it was aban- doned. He then entered the law office of James H. Miller, and while firing the engine for the Hinton Water Company, began the study of law, and after six months of close application was ad- mitted to the bar in 1892. He is a gentleman of great mental activity. In 1894, through his advice and efforts and in his office, a company was organized which established the "Hinton Repub- lican," now the "Hinton Leader." In 1902 a fight grew up over the leadership of the Republican party in Summers County, and
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
during that campaign he published and distributed the "Yellow Jacket" newspaper, which was only intended as a campaign pub- lication. It was independent of the Republican organization and opposed the ring rule of the bosses. In 1903 he abandoned Sum- mers County for more attractive opportunities, and located at Oceana, in Wyoming County. He and his son constructed the first telephone line in that territory, which was from his office to the clerk's office. On September 1, 1903, he took charge of the "Wyoming Herald" under lease, which he published until Feb- ruary, 1905, when he founded the "Wyoming Mountaineer," a Republican newspaper, of which he took entire charge as manager and editor, and which has been a successful county paper, its cir- culation having arisen to 1,400 copies each week. In the contest over the removal of the county seat from Oceana to Pineville, which was voted on at the election of 1904, he espoused the side of Pineville with his paper, and that town won by a majority of fifty votes over the necessary two-thirds required by law for the removal of a county seat. This election was declared void for technical irregularities on the part of the commissioners holding the election. A second election was called in 1905, Mr. Swope again espousing the cause. of Pineville, and again that town won over Oceana, and the court house was removed to the latter place in the year 1907. He removed his newspaper office to Pineville, and his first issue from that town was March 9, 1906. He brought the first cylinder press and the first gasoline engine into that county.
Mr. Swope still practices law, but his law is secondary to his interests and energies devoted to his paper. During his residence in Summers County he was an active Republican politician, and had much to do with the policies and management of that party. It was through his efforts that a city charter for the city of Hinton was passed by the Legislature in 1897, consolidating the two towns of Hinton and Upper Hinton under one administration. He pre- pared in his own handwriting that legislative act. That consolida- tion not proving satisfactory, he prepared a bill and aided in se- curing its passage, known as the "Divorce Bill," by which the two towns were separated and again became two separate municipalities. His practice of law extended to the adjoining counties and in the Supreme Court of Appeals.
He is a gentleman of intelligence and of enterprise, and his en- ergies are usually for the interest of his community at large. He is now exercising all of his influence towards securing the construc-
CAPT. HATFIELD, The Feudist.
JOSEPH J. SWOPE, Attorney-Editor.
PUBLIC LINDARY
ASTOR, LENOX AND TIDEN COMUNICATIONS
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
tion of a new court house and fire-proof clerk's offices and modern jail for his adopted county of Wyoming.
There are few of the Swope descendants now residing within our territory. Jacob H. Hoover, the tinner of Avis, married his daughter, and they reside in that town. Another daughter, Mrs. Baber, and her husband live in the same town. Another daughter, Mrs. Dickinson, and her husband reside at Talcott. They are all intelligent, law-abiding people.
There are a few things of which the Swope ancestors may justly feel proud. They are descendants of the original pioneers who first settled in this county. From 1678 to 1907 there is no record of any of the Swope generation who was ever in prison except as prisoners of war. Not one has ever been tried or convicted of a felony in all the long line. Not one, so far as I have ever known or heard of, has signed his name with a mark, and no hungry person has ever gone unfed from their doors.
The old house built by the original settler on Wolf Creek still stands, well preserved. The site on which the hollow poplar tree stood in which Joseph Swope hid from the Indians is still marked and preserved. A large tombstone stands in the Broad Run church- yard with the following inscription: "Joseph Swope departed this life March 2, 1819, in his sixty-eighth year. He was one of the first settlers of this country, after having been nine years a prisoner with the Shawnee Indians."
BARGER.
There were two pioneers within the territory of Summers County by the name of Barger who were descendants of the ancient pioneers of the Middle New River settlements, and no doubt de- scendants of the builders of Barger's Fort. William H. Barger married a daughter of Isaac Carden, and purchased from his heirs the old Carden plantation, including the Barger Springs. He owned another plantation in Forest Hill, which now belongs to John P. McNeer, who married his youngest daughter. William A. Barger. his son, the merchant of Hinton, was a railway conductor, but aban- doned that occupation several years ago, and has been a successful merchant in Hinton, having married Miss Vass, a daughter of Philip Vass, of Forest Hill and sister of Squire Cary Vass, the merchant and justice of that district. He was elected in 1906 a member of the County Court of Summers County, which position he now intelligently fills. Another son, W. G. Barger, some four
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
years ago removed from the old Barger Springs property to Bell, California. The other brother and early settler, J. H. Barger, owned what is known as the Taylor farm, in Forest Hill District, where he died about the time of the war. He was an enterprising citizen and engaged in tobacco manufacturing and raising. The firm of I. G. Young & Co. was composed of I. G. Young, one of the first settlers of Hinton, and W. A. Barger, and did a general mer- cantile business in Hinton for many years. Mr. Young died in 1906. His wife was also a daughter of Philip Vass, who was a descendant of the pioneers of that name in the Middle New River settlements, and who built the Vass (Vaux) Fort. Another of his daughters married C. C. Cook, who, with his brother, Hon. M. J. Cook, were pioneer settlers in Hinton, and engaged in the butcher business about 1880, acquiring large property interests in the town. He died in 1907. D. J. Vass, another son, was a railway engineer, and died a few years ago in Hinton.
BRAY.
Dr. Thomas Bray was born in Burham, England, November 26, 1826. He died at Talcott December 26, 1875. He emigrated to America after his preparation for the practice of the medical pro- fession. He was a physician of great accomplishments and an ex- ceedingly thorough and accomplished engineer. He made a com- plete map of the great West Survey of land in Pipestem District and Mercer County. It is an invaluable piece of engineering and of priceless value to the owners of that property, and could never be purchased. The original is one of the most beautiful pieces of art of that character that can be found in any country. Dr. Bray married Miss Martha Brown, of Mercer County and lived in that county until the building of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, when he located at Talcott, dying soon after. His wife was a sister of Mrs. John M. Carden. His son, Captain Ed Bray, was a conductor on the C. & O. Railway, and a few years ago was overcome and suffocated in the Lewis Tunnel in the Allegheny Mountains while performing his duties as trainman. An accident occurring, the caboose stopped in that tunnel, and he died therein from the poi- sonous fumes collected. His son, A. B. C. Bray, spent his early boyhood days at Talcott, and was for many years a valued railway employee, being station agent at Ronceverte, and is now the cash- ier of the Ronceverte National Bank and a business man noted for his courtesy and ability. One of the daughters of Dr. Bray married
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
Captain Frank Cox, of Hinton, now one of the most competent of railway train dispatchers. Dr. Thomas Bray is buried in the old Barger cemetery at Barger's Springs. His widow still lives with her children. Captain Ed Bray married a daughter of William H. Barger, who now lives in California.
PACK.
The ancestor of Samuel Pack was a hunter and trapper with Swope and Pitman, and the first heard of him he was at the mouth of Indian, and discovering Indian signs, he went to the settlements to inform the settlers, and reached there too late, but it led to and resulted in the fight of Captain Paul with the Indians at the island at the mouth of Indian (which was then known as Turkey Creek). This was in 1763. We are unable to learn the name of this hunter. Samuel, the settler, was born in Augusta County in 1760, and members of this family were found along New River in 1764 be- tween the mouth of Indian and the mouth of Greenbrier.
We insert something of this family's history from Judge John- ston's "New River Settlements," and from information given us by Mrs. Ellen Shanklin, who was a daughter of Richard McNeer and the wife of John Pack Shanklin, now residing near Hamilton, Ohio, and whose mother was the wife of Dr. Richard Shanklin. and a Pack and from other sources.
The Packs in America first consisted of several brothers, who came across the sea early in the founding of the colony of Virginia. but the hardships were such that they returned to England, and later three of them returned. Two of them went to the South and the other came to Virginia. This one settled in Augusta County, and had two sons, one of whom was named Samuel, born in Au -. gusta in 1760. He had seven sons, John, Mathew, Sammel. Bartley, Loe, William and Anderson : the daughters were Betsey, who mar- ried Jackson Dickinson ; Polly, who married Joe Lively, and Jennie, who married Jonah Morris.
John and Bartley settled at Pack's Ferry, in what is now Sum- mers County. Sammuel settled on Glade Creek. now Raleigh: Loe lived on Brush Creek, now Monroe County; William went West : Polly and Betsey lived in Monroe, and Jennie in Missouri.
John, who lived at Pack's (Landcraft's and now Haynes') Ferry. had a great many troubles with the Indians, and plowed in the field with his gun strapped over his shoulder. General, and afterwards President. Hayes' wife was a Pack, and when John Pack, a son of
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
Anderson Pack, was captured and taken to General Hayes' camp, he recognized him and the family connection, and gave him the freedom of the camp at Raleigh Court House. President Hayes' wife's mother was Jennie Pack, who married Jonah Morris, and their daughter married General Hayes, the Federal soldier and President of the United States.
The Packs are English. Alderman Pack, an ancestor, was a member of the Long Parliament, and while a member of Parliament moved the Parliament to make Oliver Cromwell Protector. One of the Pack ancestors was a general in the English Army and fought under Lord Wellington in the Peninsular Wars in Spain and Portugal and against the Emperor Napoleon at Waterloo, and his name will be found in a history of that wonderful battle. Sam- uel Pack, the grandfather of Anderson, was English, and wore the English custom-made trousers-knee breeches and frock coat, and his hair with a queue.
The John Pack referred to married Jane Hutchinson, of an old Monroe family. His children were Samuel, who married Harriet French: Rebecca, who married Robert Dunlap; Archibald, who married Patsy Peck; Polly, who married Dr. Richard Shanklin ; Rufus, who married Catharine Peters, a sister of Mrs. L. M. Al- derson and Mrs. Columbus Wran Withrow ; and Julia, who married Elliott Vawter. John Pack was a lawyer, and practiced and lived in Giles County : Samuel Pack, who married Harriet French, had four sons and one daughter. The sons were Captain John A., who married Mary Gooch : Allen C., who married Susan Lugar : Samuel, who married Sarah Douthat, and Charles D., and the daughter, Minerva, married Dr. J. W. Easley.
The children of Anderson Pack were Conrad B. Pack (Coon), who emigrated to Kansas; Samuel B., who also went to Kansas ; John A., who is living in McCloud County, Oklahoma ; Allen C., in Kansas : Loe L., who died at Ansted : Charles H., now living near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, having entered that territory at its opening ; he married Louisa S. Skaggs, a daughter of James A. Skaggs, of Lindside, Monroe County. The daughters of Anderson were Virginia, wife of Dr. John G. Manser; Clara, who married E. B. Meador, his first wife, and Kate, who married Captain Bob Saunders, of Raleigh. These Packs were Confederate soldiers.
Among the first settlers of the New River Valley in this section was Samuel Pack. The people of this name thirty years ago were numerous in this county. The Packs were among the most thrifty of the first settlers in all this region west of the Alleghenies, but
REBECCA PACK, Widow of Anderson Pack.
TAL. FUELIC LILJAAY
ASTON, LENOX AND TIMER CHUNDATIONA.
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
in recent years, since the Civil War, the majority of the name have gone West with the advancement of civilization, into the great Middle West. There still remains, however, some families of the name in Summers, Fayette and Raleigh Counties, and descendants, relations and connections by marriage are still numerous in num- bers in the surrounding region, though the name of Pack is not. The Packs at one time owned a large part of the most fertile lands along New River, including from the mouth of Greenbrier to War Ford, on the eastern side of the river, and some of the bottoms on the western side, including the lands around the mouth of Blue- stone River. Samuel Pack, the original ancestor of the generations of this region, married a daughter of Captain Mat Farley, a famous Indian scout and brother of Drewry Farley, from whom the pres- ent generation of Farleys in this county descended. The other child of Captain Mat Farley emigrated while a young man to Indiana. Captain Mat Farley at one time lived on Gatliff Bottom. now known as the Calloway Barker place. The sons of Samuel Pack were John, Anderson, Lowe. Bartley and Augustus. Lowe settled in Fayette County, in the Ansted country; Augustus, in Raleigh County ; Anderson, at the mouth of Bluestone River, owning the Gatliff Bottom, and where Lark M. Meador's widow now resides, and on the Jonathan L. and John W. Barker lands. John Pack lived on the Rufus Pack place, opposite the mouth of Bluestone River, and owned the land from the mouth of Bluestone to the mouth of Greenbrier. The children of John Pack were William. who owned the lands at the mouth of Greenbrier River, now owned by C. L. and A. E. Miller ; Sarah Ballangee, the wife of Lafayette Ballangee, the Sam Pack and James W. Pack places. Rufus Pack lived for many years on the east side of New River, immediately below the mouth of Bluestone; Archie settled on New River, where the de- scendants of A. L. Harvey now live, above the mouth of Indian ; Sam, who married Harriet French, lived in Giles County. Virginia. The children of John Pack were William, Rufus, the preacher, Archie, Sam and Polly, who married Dr. Richard B. Shanklin, of Monroe County, father of John Pack Shanklin, who married Miss Ellen McNeer, and now lives near Cincinnati, Ohio. He was a brave Confederate soldier, who fought throughout the Civil War, and now holds a pardon, granted to him by President Andrew Johnson, for offenses committed by reason of his being a so-called "rebel" soldier. The minister, Rufus Pack, moved with his fam- ily to Kansas about 1880. It was his son. John H. Pack, who was
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
the first county superintendent of schools of Summers County and the first merchant in Upper Hinton. It was over his storehouse the courts were held for the county for some time, until that building was washed away in the flood of 1878. Rufus Pack had one other son, Archie, and several daughters, among them being Miss Emma and Miss Clara, who married E. B. Meadows; the other daughters and Archie removed to Kansas with their father, Rufus. Archie lived to be a very old man, and died near Red Sulphur Springs. His daughter, Malindy, married A. L. Harvey, and his son, James emigrated West. Anderson Pack was a large land and slave owner: he married Rebecca Peters, a daughter of Christian Peters, who married Clara Snidow. Rebecca Pack was born February 14, 1811, near Peterstown, Monroe County, Vir- ginia. She married Anderson Pack May 5, 1829, and lived at the mouth of Bluestone River until the death of her husband. after which time she lived with her daughter, Virginia Manser, and moved to the mouth of the Greenbrier River in 1872: thence to Hinton in 1884, and then to Burden, Kansas, where she still resides with her grandson, Dr. William Henry Manser. She is a very remarkable lady, being now ninety-seven years old, retaining fully her physical and mental faculties. She remembers, after her mar- riage, her father-in-law, Samuel Pack, Charles Gatliff and William Wiley, who had all been Indian spies and scouts, meeting at her home and talking over their experiences in Indian warfare. She remembers that there was a fort on the Gatliff or Calloway Barker farm. At one time the settlers were driven from this fort by the Indians, the fort burned. and all their property destroyed. It is on this bottom that in recent years the prehistoric graveyard was washed up from beneath the surface of the earth. After the In- dians destroyed this fort, they went up New River to Indian Creek to the mud fort on Rich Creek. She also remembers the fort on Crump's Bottom. A number of the slaves of Anderson Pack and the descendants of others still live on New River, and in Hinton. Among them is William Pack (colored). Tandy's children, and Allen. There was another son of Samuel Pack named Bartley. Samuel Pack owned all the land from the month of Greenbrier to Gatliff Bottom. Bartley inherited the Landcraft and Dunn places, which descended to his children, Miss I. Dunn, who married John H. Dunn. Mrs. Isaac Young, Mrs. Emily Landcraft, Mrs. J. M. McLaughlin, and Josephus Pack, who was the first clerk of Sum- mers County Court, were all children of Bartley Pack.
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
Conrad Pack, a son of James W. Pack, of the mouth of Leather- wood, a relative namesake of Coon Pack heretofore referred to, is another prominent member of the Pack family in this region. He is now, and has been for several years, general manager of the Buckeye Coal & Coke Company at Bramwell, West Virginia, and has represented Mercer County in the Legislature. He has amassed a considerable fortune in coal lands speculation and in the manu- facture of coal and coke. He is an enterprising gentleman, and was for a number of years located at Athens as a partner in the mer- cantile business with Hon. Rufus G. Meador. He, like his relative. James P. Pack, has departed from the faith of his fathers, and is now a follower of President Roosevelt.
The Captain Mat Farley referred to above was also a scout under General George Washington in the Continental Army of the Revolution. The only families of the Packs remaining in Sum- mers County are James W. and Samuel Pack, who live just above the mouth of Greenbrier. Their sisters married Charles R. Fox, Lafayette Ballangee and E. B. Meadows (first wife). They were children of William Pack, who owned the land at the mouth of Greenbrier, as was also Richard, who died many years ago, leaving two sons, Evan B. and Erastus, who inherited the Greenbrier Ferry property. There were two Pack ferries across New River, one at the lower end of the Rufus Pack place near the mouth of Leather- wood, where the State road crossed New River, and the other above the mouth of Bluestone, on the Landcraft place, over which the famous suit of (Tommy Tight) Meadows vs. Joseph N. Haines was fought through the court.
There were three brothers living in the Jumping Branch Dis- trict some thirty years ago-James M., Samuel and Preston. Some of their descendants still live in that region, but I do not know from what branch of the Pack family they are derived.
James P. Pack, a representative of the Pack family now residing in the county, is a son of the first clerk of the county, Josephus B. Pack, and a grandson of Bartlett Pack. He is now about forty- seven years of age, and is a gentleman of varied accomplishments, intelligent and patriotic towards Hinton, the town in which he has made his home the greater portion of his life. He was at one time a guard at the West Virginia penitentiary; later, under Cleveland's first administration, a post office inspector for the na- tional government ; later, he studied law, passed the examinations with honor, and entered into practice in Summers County in co-
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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
partnership with Col. James W. Davis, under the firm name of Davis & Pack. Later, he formed a co-partnership with Hon. Wil- liam R. Thompson, and practiced the profession for a number of years under the firm name of Thompson & Pack. Tiring of the law, he later retired from the active practice, and became a travel- ing salesman, in which occupation he continues, and has made a success, having accumulated a competence. He is a bachelor. As a lawyer he was successful, becoming an able, conscientious and reliable counsellor, especially in chancery practice. The other chil- dren of Josephus Pack were Luke and John B. The former was a railway conductor, and was accidentally killed. John B. is engaged in the manufacture of lumber in Raleigh County. There was one daughter, Miss Emma. The widow of J. B .Pack was a Miss Kate Dunn, and, after the death of Mr. Pack, married Mr. Erastus H. Peck. She and her husband still reside in Hinton, Mr. Peck having been county clerk for twenty-four years, and was the second agent of the Central Land Co., having succeeded John H. Gunther, the first and only other agent for that corporation in Hinton. There is a settlement of Packs in South Carolina and a town called Pack- ville, and numerous Packs in that region who are descendants, no doubt, of the Pack emigrant who went South. All the Packs in all America are descendants of this English stock, as above de- scribed, beyond a question.
Matthew Pack had a son John, who settled in Raleigh County. He left surviving him his sons, Samuel, James M .. William and John, who lived and died in Jumping Branch District, this county. John was killed during the war, being shot in the leg, from which he died. It was claimed to have been accidental. William's chil- dren were John, James M. and Lewis A. Lewis A. is now a resi- dent of Jumping Branch, and was the Democratic nominee for justice of the peace in 1904, but was defeated by factional differ- ences. He has held the position of president of the Board of Edu- cation, and is an intelligent gentleman. Preston left one son, Alex- ander, who is a telegraph operator at Montgomery. James M. was a justice of the peace and a constable, holding each position for four years. He died in Jumping Branch. Samuel was the owner of the old Little Bluestone Mill and was a man noted for his honesty in that community. James M. left surviving him the. following sons: John A., Chris., William, Lee and Grover. He married a Cook as his second wife, his first wife having been a Miss Goodall.
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