USA > West Virginia > Summers County > History of Summers County from the earliest settlement to the present time > Part 6
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81
In those days every farmer who had an apple or other orchard manufactured what fruit he had or desired into brandy. If he had
49
HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
a good plum crop he made it into brandy; or, if it was a peach crop or apple crop, it was peach or apple brandy.
George W. Summers, after whom Summers County was named, was born in Fayette County in 1804, settled in Kanawha County while a boy, graduated at the Ohio University, elected to the Gen- eral Assembly of Virginia for ten years, elected to Congress and took his seat in 1842, re-elected in 1845 ; was a member of the Con- stitutonal Convention of 1850, and a Whig condidate for governor in 1851. In 1852 he was elected judge of the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit of Virginia, but resigned in 1858. In 1861 was a member of the convention which passed the Ordinance of Secession, which action on the part of the convention he earnestly opposed.
The town of Hinton was incorporated September 21, 1880. We are unable from history or from tradition to give any detailed state- ment of the different sections of the county. The most reliable in- formation we have is as to the two sections of this county now included in Green Sulphur and Talcott Districts.
That section near and around Lowell was one of the earliest settled sections of the county. About the year 1770, or, possibly, a little later, James Graham, with his family, moved to Greenbrier and settled on the opposite side of the river from where the village of Lowell now stands. He erected on his own land a farmhouse, two stories, built of hewn logs, of which we are enabled to repro- duce a cut, as the house is still standing, well preserved, now occupied by B. L. Kesler. This house was built a century and a quarter, or more, ago. It is in size 24 x 30 feet, two stories high ; the sills of walnut, with two large stone chimneys ; the fireplace in the front room is six feet wide, and has a wooden arch five feet high. The hardware consisted of wrought iron nails, made from a blacksmith shop; the lumber was sawed by hand by an old-fash- ioned whip-saw. This house at the time of its construction was considered one of the finest in all that region. There was a fort erected on the opposite side of the river, where Spott's Hotel now stands, known as Graham's Fort. It will be remembered that, after the destruction of the white settlements on Muddy Creek and in Greenbrier County by the Indians, about 1760, all the settlers were killed, captured or fled, and no further attempts were made towards again settling the Greenbrier country until about 1770. It is generally believed that this settlement, when made by Col. Graham, was one of the first made in this immediate region, if not the very first.
A Mr. Van Vibber located on the opposite side of the river on the George Keller place about the same time that Col. Graham
50
HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
located at the Bun Kesler place. The name of Van Vibber is familiar in the settlement of the Great Kanawha region, and it is believed that the name comes from the same man who early settled on Greenbrier.
About the same time that Graham settled near Lowell, Samuel and James Gwinn, two brothers, settled in the same section. The Grahams and Gwinns were neighbors on the Calf Pasture River in Virginia before they emigrated, and had both sailed from Ireland together. Samuel Gwinn, Sr., moved from the Lowell settlement to Lick Creek, where Green Sulphur Springs is now located, about the year 1800, and died there March 25. 1839, in the ninety-fourth year of his age.
Hon. M. Gwinn and Sheriff H. Gwinn, whose names are fre- quently mentioned in this narrative, now own the farm settled on by him. He is reported to have accumulated considerable prop- erty, and that at one time he had $12,000.00 in silver, which he divided among his sons some years before his death. His sons were named Samuel and Andrew, and Mr. David Graham, the author of the "History of the Graham Family," now well advanced in the eighties, remembers seeing them take their part of the silver by his father's house in common grain bags, and about a half bushel in bulk in each. They carried this money from Green Sul- phur Springs up Lick Creek, over Keeney's Knob to their home at Lowell, they having $2,500.00 each.
It is told of this Mr. Gwinn that, while he was attending to some business at Lewisburg, he fell in with some gamblers who induced him to enter a game of cards. Knowing that he had plenty of money, they permitted him to win the first few games, then proceeded to double the bet, to which he replied that his mother had always told him that it was a wise man who knew when to quit ; so saying, he arose from the table and bade the gamblers "good day."
The descendants of this Samuel Gwinn are many, and are lo- cated over different parts of the United States. He was the grand- father of Andrew Gwinn, now residing at Lowell, more than eighty-five years of age ,and of Samuel, who died over the age of ninety, within the last twelve months. Andrew, better known as "Long Andy," on account of his great height, is living on almost the identical spot where their grandfather located more than 125 years ago. James Gwinn, who located near the same place on Keller's Creek and on what is now known as the Laban Gwinn
.
51
HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
place. It was his son who was appointed ensign at the first court ever held in Monroe County.
Conrad Keller was one of the early settlers of the Lowell set- tlement, and it was his daughter that married Ephraim J. Gwinn, the youngest son of Samuel Gwinn, Sr., and the father of M. and H. ' Gwinn, and it was his daughter who married James Ferrel, who lived in the big bend of Greenbrier River back of the Big Bend Tunnel. where E. D. Ferrell and William Ferrell now reside. George and Henry Keller, of Lowell, are descendants of Conrad Keller, as is also Robert A. Keller, cashier of bank of Pineville.
The property at Lowell settled on by the Kellers in these early times still remains in the Keller family, and has come down from one generation to another until the present time; George Keller, an aged and respected citizen residing at Lowell Station, and Henry Keller, a nephew, a short distance up Keller's Creek. The Keller homestead, as suggested by Mr. Graham, is on a beautiful eleva- tion overlooking Greenbrier River. Mr. George Keller is about eighty-five years old, and one of the most respected citizens of this county, as is Mr. Henry Keller, who is very much younger in years.
Among the early settlers in this vicinity was a man by the name of See, who lived on the land originally occupied by David Keller. The date of his settling can not be stated, but supposed to be about the time of the Graham settlement. See sold his claim to Conrad Keller, and went farther west. He finally permanently located on the Big Sandy River, where his descendants reside to this day.
To these primeval settlers might also be added the name of Notliff Taylor, who settled at the Henry Milburn place, eight or nine miles west of the Graham settlement on the Greenbrier River. His daughter, Ann, married Isaac Milburn, the grandfather of our present county man, Henry Milburn, Jr., and the father of the late Henry Milburn, deceased. Elizabeth married Samuel Gwinn.
William Kincaid settled on the Jesse Beard place, now owned by Messrs. A. P. Pence and George N. Davis, on which the cele- brated Pence's Spring is situated, along about this time. This spring was then celebrated only as a buffalo lick, and the marks of the old buffalo traces may still be seen leading across Keeney's Knob from the Buffalo Spring (head of Lick Creek) to the Buffalo Lick, they being located about fifteen miles apart, where Green Sulphur is located. Kincaid left that settlement about the year 1800, and left no descendants in this county so far as known. Wil- liam Hinchman, an Englishman, settled in this county east of
52
HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
Lowell, close to the Summers line, in what is now Monroe County, about the time of the Revolutionary War, and of whom the present William Hinchman's family are descendants ; Capt. A. A. Miller, of Lick Creek, having married a daughter of William Hinchman, and a sister of the late John Hinchman. William Hinchman first settled on the river below the mouth of Gwinn's Branch, just below Lowell, under a lease from Samuel Gwinn, Sr., and shortly after- wards left and permanently settled on the present Hinchman prop- erty. William Hinchman was born in the year 1770. He was the father of twenty-four children. This William Hinchman was the grandfather of the late Hon. John Hinchman, whose death oc- curred in 1896, and on whose tombstone at the old Riverview Church is inscribed, "He died as he lived-a Christian."
The Grahams left the Lowell settlement and located at the foot of Keeney's Knob on the ground now occupied by Mr. David Graham Ballangee, the postmaster. On the spot where Joseph Graham first located, near Clayton, had been a hunter's cabin, previously occupied by a man by the name of Stevenson, or "Stin- son," from which a spur of Keeney's Knob overlooking the Graham farm is to this day called "Stinson's Knob."
After the termination of the French and Indian War the French maintained no further claims or supremacy over any of the terri- tory of West Virginia. It may be possible that some of the Indian depredations made on the English settlers after that time were instigated by unauthorized French adventurers without authority from the government, as the English and French were at war almost continually during the settlement period of this dominion. It was no doubt within the French dominion proper at one time, but was claimed by the English as a part of the discoveries of John and Sebastian Cabot, who sailed along a part of the Atlantic Coast in 1498, after the discoveries of Columbus, the Spanish admiral and discoverer. The Six Nations, the most powerful Indian confederacy ever on the American continent, held dominion of the territory of West Virginia at one time, but its entire authority, whatever it was, was relinquished to King George of Great Britain by the treaty signed on the 24th of August, 1768.
Abram Keller, a descendant of Konrad Keller, possibly his son, removed to Ironton, Ohio, and formed a Keller settlement, and one of his descendants, R. A. Keller, the courteous cashier of the Citizens' National Bank of Pineville, is his descendant, and Konrad Keller, of the Lowell settlement, his ancestor. Ben D. Keller, the efficient stenographer, who has given great aid in this work. is his
53
HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
son. R. A. Keller married a direct descendant of Peter Wright, the hunter and pioneer, who first explored and hunted over Peters Mountain, and after whom it is named.
The farm known as Barker's Bottom on New River, now owned by Mrs. John Webb and Mrs. Rosa Bradbury, daughters of the late M. C. Barker, was originally granted by the Commonwealth of Virginia to Thomas Gatliff ; was conveyed by his heirs to Anderson Pack, and by Pack to M. C. Barker. It is one of the richest and most desirable tracts of land in Summers County. In 1891, during a freshet in New River, it overflowed its banks, washing off the top of the soil a depth of over eighteen inches, covering a consid- rable strip of this land, uncovering and exposing a prehistoric grave- yard entirely unknown to any person then living prior to this freshet. This graveyard covers at least forty acres of that bottom, and was evidently the burying-place of some prehistoric race of people. Whole skeletons of human bodies were uncovered, human teeth were found well preserved, skulls, bones, and skeletons of entire human bodies. In nearly all of the graves were found a knife-shaped bone, which had evidently been dressed and used as a weapon and buried with the owner.
A peculiar pot made from clay was discovered, and in one place as many as two hundred human teeth found in a pile, apparently the teeth of children. A stone turtle was found on this ground several years previous by Jonathan Lee Barker, and at the request of John West, who resided in Alexandria, Virginia, and the owner of a large tract of land in the Pipestem District, the possession of this stone relic was transferred to him and he delivered the same to the Smithsonian Institute at Washington, D. C., where it may be seen at this day by persons visiting that interesting institution, but Mr. West gives credit to himself and to Virginia as the con- tributors, and not to Summers County and Mr. Barker.
I am under obligations to Mr. William Remly Mann for infor- mation regarding this prehistoric graveyard, Mr. J. L. Barker and others. Mr. Mann now resides in this neighborhood. He is a son of Jacob Mann, who removed from Monroe County many years ago, and settled in the Ellisons' neighorhood in Jumping Branch District. His father, now deceased, was a member of the first Grand Jury sitting in Summers County, at the old log church on New River. The old graveyard referred to has been plowed over and cultivated for hundreds of years no doubt. The skeletons were buried in a cramped and upright position. No metals of any kind were discovered. The bodies were placed in the ground three or
54
HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
four feet apart and in an irregular formation. All kinds of animal bodies were also found, in these graves, as well as mussel and other shells.
Neely Cook, one hundred years ago, built a cabin on this bot- tom, which was immediately on the grounds of these graves, but they were unknown and undiscovered by him until revealed as herein stated. The same freshet washed out the Harvey Bottoms further up the river, and also Crump's Bottoms, where the same evidences of ancient burying-grounds were exposed in each in- stance, and the bones of animals and many skeletons of human beings, no doubt of a prehistoric race, whose fate and whose history is lost forever. The Harvey place is some ten miles above the Gatliff or Barkers, and the Crumps about half way between. Many relics, skulls, stones, pottery, etc., are preserved, too numerous to undertake to describe further.
When the county was first formed everything was primitive as late as 1871. It was the ragged end of four old counties. Every farmer raised all of his own grain, and bought what he was short from his more thrifty neighbor: raised and preserved all his own meat; raised sheep, from the wool of which he manufactured his clothing, weaving the cloth for wearing apparel, the cloth being jeans and flannel, and tow from flax; raised, "skutched" and spun on the old-fashioned spinning-wheel, and woven into cloth on the looms, all well-regulated farms having all the necessary apparatus for this character of manufacture. The leather for the shoes, boots and harness was made from the beeves killed for meat on the farm. All clothing, after the cloth had been woven by the women of the household, was by them cut, patterned and made into clothes for both the male and female members of the family ; some of the cloth for the ladies' wearing apparel being secured at the store, but the stores were few and far between and the prices exorbitant. All sugar was manufactured from the sugar tree, and the country blacksmith made nearly all the farming implements, including wagons, of which there were but few ; and the reap hook and sickle were still in use, with the cradle and scythe for cutting wheat and grass. There were but two mowing machines in the country, and no harvesters; fertilizers being unheard of in farming except what was gathered from the barn. Skiffs and boats were hardly known on the rivers, the canoe being still dexterously handled by the hardy river men. Kerosene oil lamps were not introduced until 1865, the pine knot, old "tallow dip," candle and sycamore ball rolled in grease being still in use.
55
HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
There was one store in the Green Sulphur District at the old log storehouse, kept by James Bledsoe, once maintained by John and Alex. Miller ; one in Talcott, kept by J. W. and Wm. Jones ; one in Jumping Branch, kept by Wm. T. Meador; and one at Forest Hill, then known as the Farms. They were all the stores in the county at the date of its formation, and the goods were hauled over- land from Lynchburg, Jackson's River and Cannelton, the head of navigation on the Kanawha River. There had once been a store at Elton in a log house, one kept by David M. Riffe on the Riffe's Bottom, where M. M. Warren now lives on the old Red Sulphur Turnpike. All salt was hauled from the Kanawha River, and cost $9.00 per barrel. The flint-lock rifle was still used, and the "deer- lick" was watched by night. The "log-rollings," "grubbings," "skutchings," "quiltings" and "fencings" were still in vogue, when a man's neighbors, both men and women, would be invited, and spend the day in aiding in whatever work was desired. The "corn huskings" were usually at night, when both men and women would gather in and shuck out a neighbor's cornfield. Elections were holidays. The woods were still full of deer and all small game, and the rivers filled with fish. The people were not poor, nor were they rich, but they were happy. Crime was not general ; little use was had for locks; the principal subject for larceny was the horse. Horse stealing was not uncommon, but the thieves were from with- out the borders of the county. A wedding in the neighborhood was a notable event, and everybody went to church and the funeral. The coming of the railway, the steam sawmill and allied industries have changed the face of the civilization of this territory. Thirty years ago, before the railway came and the public works, the employment was on the farm. A young man would engage to do farm work for a whole year for a horse. This work was in clearing up the wild lands, grubbing, fence building, log rolling, brush burning, etc., and in raising a crop. There were no markets except what could be sold to the country produce store for merchandise. Fifty cents a day was the usual wages for "straight time"-no allow- ance for wet days or time not actually at labor, and the hours were from daylight to dark. The principal income was from the stock raised and tobacco grown. A few made money by hunting the wild game still in the mountains. Hugh Boone still made $10.00 a day.
The first store on Lick Creek after the Civil War was by S. Williams & Co., the company being John A., James W. and Wm. E. Miller. They bought their goods from Jas. H. Miller at Gauley Bridge and hauled them over Sewell Mountain, sixty miles.
56
HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
The advancements of industry and wealth of the county since its formation have been steady and upward. There have been no booms in realty, nor were we in the boom sections at any time during their history. Our towns, villages, lots, farms and prop- erties have steadily enhanced with a regular financial growth. Being exclusively an agricultural territory, among great mountains and hills, with narrow valleys, there have been no sudden advancing prices of real property, but much more of the lands have come into the market and become salable, which were not marketable at the date of the establishment of the county. Great portions of the lands which were in forests and a wilderness, have been cleared up, and are now under cultivation. Real estate, which was scarcely worth paying the taxes on then, is now supporting thrifty inhab- itants. The population has grown from some 8,000 in 1880, the date of our first census since the formation of the county, to 16,000, as shown by the census of 1900. The increase in population in the interim of twenty years being about 8,000. The voting popu- lation was then 750 votes; in 1904, 3,600 votes.
We doubt if there is in the state a county in which there is a greater per cent. of the inhabitants who own their own homes and are freeholders. Many of them rough, hilly, steep and small in territory, but the owner is independent and the owner of his own castle. Nothing tends more to the honesty and general well-being of a community than the independence of its inhabitants, and noth- ing tends to make those inhabitants independent, free, honest and upright than their ability to own their own homes, which he feels is his castle, be it ever so small or humble, or however prescribed its territorial limits may be.
The price of lands being so reasonable, the poorest laborer, if he had any thrift, was able to buy and pay for a home for himself and his children. There has been of late years a tendency of many of our young men to abandon the farm, with its quiet, and seek the more exciting life and surroundings of the public works; but, as a general rule, we doubt if the exchange from the farm to the shop has been for the betterment of the general condition of the majority of those who have sought the change. There has been a steady increase in the wealth of the population, as is shown by the com- parison of the various re-assessments of the realty and the annual assessment of the personalty.
The great apparent advancement for the year 1905 is accounted for from the fact that, prior to 1904, in making the assessments, the assessor, under the prior laws, fixed the values at approximately
57
HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
from one-half to two-thirds of what property would bring if sold at public auction for cash under the hammer, or what property would bring if placed on the block, but in 1904, by an Act passed by an extraordinary session of the Legislature, the valuations were required to be fixed at "their true and actual value"-what the property would bring if sold, or, in the ordinary methods of trade, whether for cash or on a credit.
There is much more wealth now within the borders of the county than there was at its formation. Many of the farmers have accumulated and saved up money, in addition to improving, clear- ing up and enhancing the values of their farms. It is not infrequent to find a thrifty farmer with a snug bank account to his credit, in the meantime building new, comfortable and modern dwellings, outbuildings, placing plank and wire fences around his lands, re- moving the rocks, clearing up and draining the soil.
The price of labor, especially of skilled labor, has increased, as well as the cost of living. Skilled labor has increased largely, and many have saved snug fortunes, secured handsome and comfor- table residences, as well as placing a nice bank account to their credit. Great and material advancements along these lines have been made. The old-fashioned log house is disappearing. The man who was able to construct and own a two-story hewn log house in the early days was considered prosperous, and was gen- erally considered getting along better than his neighbor who still
adhered to the round log house, but few of the "best-to-do." or aristocrats, if I may apply that term to any of the former inhabit- ants, had better than a double story hewed log house, covered with shingles and ceiled on the inside, but usually daubed with mortar and chinks by filling the cracks between the logs with split sticks or chinking, and then filling the remainder of the space and cover- ing the chinks with mortar. Every enterprising or well-to-do farmer had a mortar hole on his farm, and every fall, before the coming on of winter, "daubed" his house by filling up the cracks. or holes where the chinking had come loose, or the daubing had fallen out during the previous season.
At the date of the formation of Summers County there were but two brick houses and no frame houses in Green Sulphur Dis- trict-that of Capt. A. A. Miller on Lick Creek, built in 1868 by Capt. Silas F. Taylor, and that of Sheriff H. Gwinn, built also by Mr. Taylor, at Green Sulphur Springs, for his father. Ephraim J. Gwinn. In Jumping Branch District there was only one brick house and no frame houses. That one brick house is now owed by
58
HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA ..
Mr. W. D. R. Deeds, near Jumping Branch. In Pipestem District there was but one brick house, that of W'm. B. Crump, on Crump's Bottom, and a two-story, unpainted frame house on the land of Anderson Shumate on the old Mercer Salt Works property. In Forest Hill District there was but one brick house, that of Mr. Isaac Young, on New River, which later fell down and has been destroyed. Not a single frame house was in that district (in Greenbrier District there was not a single brick house nor any frame dwellings; Talcott was then a part of Greenbrier), not even where the city of Hinton now stands, the only buildings in the territory of the two cities being two two-story hewed log houses.
There were then no frame or plank stables, barns or fences, all being log, and the fences all old split rail worm fence, many of the rails being of popular and walnut timber.
There was in the early days quite a profitable industry from which the farmers and merchants derived a considerable income- that of raising and transporting tobacco, which was cultivated quite extensively and successfully in Forest Hill and Pipestem and a part of Talcott Districts, there being one good tobacco factory in the county, at Forest Hill, owned by the late James Mann, an enter- prising citizen, farmer and cattle-raiser of Monroe and Greenbrier Counties. The tobacco was raised and cured in log barns built for that purpose, and then transported to market by wagons, usu- ally to Danville, Lynchburg and Richmond, in Virginia. In Pipe- stem District the soil was peculiarly adapted to raising a very fine quality of merchantable tobaccos, used largely for wrapper, which brought fancy prices, but this industry has since been abandoned, and many of the tobacco barns now permitted to become unpic- turesque ruins.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.