USA > West Virginia > Summers County > History of Summers County from the earliest settlement to the present time > Part 9
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
79
HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
This property was the home of the Cardens, the father of Messrs. John M., I. G. and Allen Carden having owned the prop- erty many years ago, and upon which they were raised, it passing from the hands of these gentlemen into the hands of Wm. H. Bar- ger, then into the hands of the present owner. There is situate on the premises an old residence building-a log house-which is more than 107 years old. It is two-story, with an old-fashioned stone chimney at least eight feet wide, with a fireplace in the up- per story, and a wooden log arch of hickory wood.
There is another sulphur spring within two miles of the Green- brier Springs, known as the Lindeman Spring, formerly owned by Dr. Eber W. Maddy, an old-fashioned dentist. The property is unimproved. There is also a sulphur spring in the upper end of the county, in Pipestem district, near the mouth of Island Creek. on the old Reed plantation.
The Richmond Falls, situate sixteen miles west of Hinton, on New River, is one of the famous natural scenes of this country. The perpendicular fall of New River over these rocks is fifteen feet, and is immediately on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway. The Raleigh side, with sixty acres of ground, was purchased by a gen- tleman residing in Philadelphia in 1872, for which he paid Mrs. Richmond, the widow of Samuel Richmond, deceased, and her two sons, Allen and "Tuck," the sum of $15,000 in gold. At that time there was located on the property an old water mill, the house of which was built of hewn logs, and the log farm house. All the property has gone into disuse, and the gentleman who owns it has made no improvements thereon since his purchase, nor has he been disposed to part with the property, being a man of much wealth. The opposite shore or part of the falls is now owned by the same company which is operating the electric manufacturing plant at the Kanawha Falls, utilizing the water power therefrom, headed by Mr. J. Motley Morehead, a capitalist from North Carolina .. These gentlemen purchased this property some three or four years ago, with the view of establishing a manufacturing plant ; but being unable to secure satisfactory transportation facilities, and not being able to acquire the opposite shore, they abandoned the project and went to Kanawha Falls.
In constructing the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, materials were brought down Greenbrier River from the nearest accessible point on the river, from White Sulphur Springs, in batteaux, a channel
80
HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
having been made down the Greenbrier River. These batteaux also plied down New River, the materials having to be unloaded from the boats above the falls, and re-loaded below. Before the construction of this great railroad, all merchandise was hauled by wagons and teams from the head of navigation on the Kanawha River, or from the Eastern markets from Buchannon, after the completion of the James River and Kanawha Canal, or from Staun- ton, Virginia. The writer can remember when the goods brought into Lick Creek or Green Sulphur Springs were hauled first from Kanawha Falls, a distance of seventy-five miles; and later when the railroad was completed to White Sulphur, they were hauled by wagons from that point, a distance of thirty-five miles.
A small box of matches of about 100, in those days, which was about 1870, would cost ten cents; now you can get double the number of matches for a penny. A barrel of salt cost $9.00; now, $2.50 is a good price. Nearly all of the wearing apparel was manu- factured on the farms. The old-fashioned looms for weaving cloth, and spinning wheels for spinning the thread were still in use; the flax being skutched with skutching knives made from wood, some- what in the shape of a two-edged sword, with a board driven into the ground and the wool carded by wooden pads, with wires fas- tened into them.
All meal and flour was ground by water grist mills, usually one- story log houses, with large overshot or undershot wheels, run al- together by water conveyed by a mill-race from a log dam con- structed across some stream. For many years after the settlement of this region there were no sawmills. Ail lumber and building material was sawed with a "whipsaw" or hewed with the broad axe. Later, water sawmills were built with the upright saw, and not until about 1874 or 1875 was there such a thing known in all the region as a steam saw or steam grist mill. There were in the early days but two mills in the Green Sulphur District; one, the old A. J. Smith mill, which later was known as Hutchinson's Mill, which ground corn and wheat and had a bolting cloth-a two-story house on Mill Fork of Lick Creek. The other was that of Samuel H. Withrow, a one-story log house, and ground only corn when the creek was not low in water, and the people for miles around came to these mills. The carding machines and water mills are things of the past.
There is on Hunghart's Creek a perpendicular fall of thirty feet ; near its head, not far from what is known as Spice Spring, a fine
81
HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
spring of chalybeate water, which is visited by many people anxious to see natural curiosities.
There was a fort on Wolf Creek, known as Jarrett Fort, in which John Alderson, the pioneer Baptist preacher of this state, sheltered himself from the Indians when he first visited this country.
At the falls of Griffith's Creek, which are fourteen feet perpen- dicular, there is a petrified root, which is a curiosity in that neigh- borhood. The shale has worn out by the fall of the water, expos- ing this apparently at one time the root of a tree. There are at different parts of it many pieces of glistening stone which have the appearance of eyes.
John H. Ballangee, a few years ago, found a large vessel on Keeney's Knob made of some kind of earth and hardened, which was evidently used by some ancient race. It is something like a basin eight or ten inches in diameter, now in the hands of Luther S. Graham, of Hinton.
Postage in the early days, and within the recollection of men now living, was twenty-five cents for a single letter, and all postage was paid at the receiving office by the person receiving the letter. The nearest post office from Green Sulphur and Lick Creek was Lewisburg, a distance of twenty-five miles; afterwards, and until about the time of the war, the nearest post office for that region was Blue Sulphur Springs, some fifteen miles. The nearest post office to the Clayton neighborhood, where the Grahams settled, was Union, a distance of about twenty-five miles. Afterwards the post office at Palestine, on Muddy Creek, was established, some six or seven miles away, which remained the post office until the establishment of Alderson, and, finally, a post office at Clayton.
David Graham, in the year 1843, made a trip on horseback to the Big Sandy country, in Kentucky, to visit his cousin. There were no roads, and only bridle paths to follow. He went by the way of Beckley, through Wyoming and Logan, staying all night with William Hinchman, a son of the English settler at Lowell, who was born in 1770, and who was then the assessor for the region of country west of the New River, his territory extending from Logan to New River. It took Mr. Graham five days to make the trip, passing down Pigeon Creek to Tug River, and visiting his aunt on that stream.
Another stream of historical importance is Joshua's Run, a small stream flowing into New River at Culbertson's Bottoms. It is mentioned in the early history of the New River settlements as
82
HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
where one of the forts was erected, and which was attacked by Indian savages.
Bradshaw's Run, in Forest Hill District, which empties into Indian Creek at Indian Mills, was named after the Englishman who settled in a cabin on the present site of Thomas G. Lowe's residence. He was killed by the Indians near where he lived.
Cave Ridge, in Jumping Branch District, received its name from the making of salt petre in a cave in said ridge in the early days. The cave passes from one side through the ridge, and the smoke made at one end of the cave would pass out at the other end, passing entirely through the mountain.
Bull Falls, the rapids at the lower end of Crump's Bottom, re- ceived its name from a bull swimming over the falls without being drowned. This falls has valuable water power, and has recently been purchased by Dr. J. A. Fox, of Hinton, for water power pro- ducing purposes, it being expected to utilize this power in the pro- duction of electricity for the operation of an electric railway be- tween Hinton and the Norfolk & Western Railway.
James Gwinn was the first white child born in Monroe County, and in what is now Summers, after the massacre at the Levels. He died in sight of where his wife was born, on Lick Creek, Janu- ary 17, 1804. He raised twelve children.
Ephraim J. Gwinn and wife, Rachel Keller, were born at Gra- ham's Ferry (at Lowell). He was born January 14, 1799. She was born August 13, 1803. They were married April 11, 1822. He traveled overland to Wayne County, Iowa, and purchased land for his children to settle on, except two-H. and M .- who retained the Lick Creek farm, and one daughter, who married Wm. T. Meador, the first president of the County Court of Summers County elected by the people.
On Kishner's Run is situated the famous Chimney Rock, some twenty feet high. On Suck Creek, in Jumping Branch District, there are two of these famous rocks known as the Chimney Rocks.
THE ICE CAVE ON JUMPING BRANCH.
The ice cave on Jumping Branch Creek is one of the wonders of Summers County. It is situated in a dense pine forest on Jump- ing Branch, between that village and Little Blue Stone. The per- sons who were familiar with it in earlier days of the county report that ice was found in abundance in mid-summer in the hot days, and the atmosphere cold. It was visited by numerous picnic par-
83
HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
ties, and was a place of celebrity, but in later years the pine forests were destroyed, and with it the ice cave. It did not seem to be a cave really, but was at the rapids and roughs of the branch in the dense forest where the sun never penetrated, and ice accumulated there in the winter time and remained there in the summer.
Near the head of Hungart's Creek, at a place known as the "Bear Hole," flat, there are indications of great natural convulsions ages ago; the solid rocks were severed 300 feet long and fifty feet perpendicular. The rocks stand thus ajar and apart with a space of two feet between them.
The Stony Creek Gorge shows like evidence of great natural convulsions, as do a great many other places on the surface of the rough and mountainous territory of the county, occurring ages in the past, in the formation of the surface of the earth. Evidence of these convulsions is at the mouth of Laurel Creek and near the mouth of Lick Creek, showing the parting of the great cliffs, as do places at different points on New and Greenbrier Rivers and in the mountains and great hills by which the county is largely cov- ered.
Hungart's Creek was named for the first settler whose identity. like others of the oldest pioneers, has been lost. Among the first settlers in that region was Mathew Kincaid. Moses Hedrick and James Boon, descendants of whom are still living, scattered throughout that region. Kincaid owned the lands where Green L. Scott now lives ; also the John Willy farm and the Z. A. Woodson farm at the mouth of Hungart's Creek. Moses Hedrick sold and purchased from Kincaid the Scott place, and James K. Scott from Hedrick. The Miller farm was purchased from Kincaid by Mathew Lowe, and by him sold to A. J. Miller, and through him acquired by Mr. Willy. The Woodson place, a part of which Talcott is located on, and involved in the great "Talcott-Karnes' Case," was purchased from Kincaid, and James Boon occupied the upper left hand fork of the creek (Boon). John Boon, Andy Boon and Floyd Boon, sons of James, still live around there. James M. Boon and Hugh Boon are half brothers of John and the other boys. J. M. Boon now lives at "Woodrum Town," near Wiggins. He was one of the pioneer saloonkeepers at Talcott, but quit the business a long time ago. Hugh Boon was, in his younger days, a great hunter. and in the "days of the deer" in this region, killed them in great numbers, killing four in a day. He still hunted with an old-fash- ioned mountain rifle, dressed himself in a white suit, or fastened a sheet of white cloth over his body and walked through the moun-
84
HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
tains, dressed in white like the snow, so that he could get in good range of the deer, and in this way killed them in great numbers, until they were all destroyed.
Taylor's Ridge, which runs down to the fork of Hungart's Creek, is named after a pioneer settler thereon by the name of Taylor, of whom now there is no detailed tradition. Another old family on that mountain was Chris Dubois, of French descent, who lived at the top of the Ridge. This was probably Natliff Taylor who first settled on the Milburn Bottoms on Greenbrier River.
Between the years 1769 and 1774 settlements were made by the Cooks in the Valley of Virginia on Indian Creek, one of their num- ber, John, being killed by the Indians; the Woods, on Rich Creek ; the Grahams, on the Greenbrier; Keeneys, near Keeney's Knob. Wood's Fort was on Rich Creek on the farm owned by the family of John W. Karnes, four miles east of the present town of Peters- town in the county of Monroe. Snidow's Fort was in the upper end of the Horseshoe Farm on New River in what is now Giles County. The Hatfields built Hatfield's Fort on Big Stony Creek in the now county of Giles on the farm of J. L. Snidow. Richard Bailey, the son of the settler, in 1790, made the first settlement at the mouth of Widemouth Creek, on the Bluestone, a few miles above the Clay settlement, made in 1775.
These men who first settled west of the Allegheny Mountains gave up the hope of wealth and abandoned ambition. They aban- doned the pomp and circumstance of other conceivable fame. There was no evidence in that day of the great business concerns, the exposure of so much meanness and unfairness among the corpora- tions and captains of industry, the bitterness and woe of oppres- sion, the desperation of despair wrought by untrue methods of business. It is restful and good to turn from all of that and con- template the career of these people.
AN EARLY VIEW OF HINTON.
THEN PUBLIC LIBRARY
AST 25, LEN OX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONA.
CHAPTER VI.
FIRST SETTLERS AND PIONEERS.
The men who first settled this region came from the East, be- yond the Allegheny Mountains. They are among those who head the list for civilization, defiant of all the terrors, hardships and dangers that savage men and savage conditions could send against them, and never a helping hand did they ask from the federal government. Now the great barons of finance and civilization rely upon, depend upon and secure their support and protection by a constant appeal to government.
Traders, trappers and hunters came and went ; individual daring. the spirit of adventure, the craving for excitement and the greed for gain forced the secrets of the wilderness, and gradually they spread among the people of the eastern and older communities a knowledge of the wonderful country west of the Alleghenies.
The Horseshoe Knights of Virginia, who rode gallantly in the train of the imperial Governor Spottswood to the summit of the Alleghenies, and gazed from those heights westward upon the un- explored wilderness beyond, were thought to have done a notable deed. It was boasted of as the mariner of ancient times boasted of having carried his ship beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and for which he was rewarded by knighthood by his royal sovereign.
The passes over the Blue Ridge and the Alleghenies are as prosaic nowadays as are the Straits of Gibraltar, but for many years after the golden spires of the Virginia-Carolinas had grown old, a veil of mystery and the spell of danger hung over the mountain ranges which separated the seaboard colonies from these western lands. The adventurers and pioneers were usually of that hardy stock who had emigrated from foreign lands beyond the sea, seek- ing personal and religious liberty. In those days it was the build- ing of a republic by the lovers of liberty. Congress had not then broken through the bands of the Constitution; the miners and sappers of that Constitution had not then begun their work ; monop- olies had not then been fostered : personal liberty had not then been
86
HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
curtailed; "government by injunction" had not been invented; the Philippine Islands had not been seized; crown dependencies had not been secured, such as Porto Rico, and their subjection patterned after the laws that ruled the American colonies by Great Britain, prior to 1776; even sporadic assaults upon the principles of liberty had not then begun. The federal courts had not then commenced the incessant and silent deposits about the foundations of liberty, the bloody soil of monarchy, as now claimed by those who say they are building spires and minarets upon the Grecian temples of the Republic-that its walls have been disfigured, and that a moat has been dug about its entrances and fitted with secret passages and traps, and constructed cells below ground to complete its terrors. Our forefathers dreamed a practical, real Utopian dream of liberty and equality, when all men should have an equal chance in life, and for that the pioneers laid the foundations of an unequaled civi- lization on the face of the earth. They dreamed not of the coming of the trusts, of the soulless corporations, the monopolies, of their aggressions by a fostering government, which, if permission be continued, will eventually invest all of the "reserve powers" of the government in the President. They believed that with liberty and equality the common man could live, and the able man could grow honestly rich. They treated liberty not as a formula, but as an actual thing; they treated the laws to be obeyed, and not to be evaded.
The pioneers of this region were honest, God-fearing settlers, as is evidenced from all history, tradition and knowledge obtain- able, teaching those who followed them to follow in their own footsteps. There is scarcely a section or a neighborhood in this county wherein there are not descendants of these pioneers, and stronger or more loyal minds do not exist on the earth.
It is impossible at this date and time to procure the names, his- tory or tradition of all, and possibly not nearly all of the frontiers- men who first located and settled in the sections of the territory now included in this municipality.
The best that can be done is to preserve to posterity the names of such as are ascertainable at this late day, more than one hundred years having intervened since the foundations were laid by civilized men in this part of the country west of the Allegheny Mountains. On Lick Creek, in Green Sulphur District, Curtis Alderson, Samuel and Robert Withrow, John and Robert Miller, Samuel Gwinn, John Duncan and John Hicks were among the earliest. On Laurel Creek, David, Joseph and John Dick, Joseph Bragg and James Cales. The
87
HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
Dicks, who settled on the immediate head of Laurel Creek, were from Wolf Creek Mountain, and were brothers of the wife of James Cales. There are descendants of each of these pioneers still re- siding on these creeks, though many have gone on west as civili- zation has advanced in that direction. On Griffith Creek and in Talcott District, Thomas Griffith, Joseph Graham and Stevenson were among the pioneers. On the Greenbrier River, Isaac Bal- lengee, Wm. Ferrell, Conrad Keller, James Graham, Samuel Gwinn, Jessie Beard, Jeptha Massey, Wm. Hinchman, Kincaid, Meadows. Rollyson and Fluke. On Little Wolf Creek Richard Woodruin early located. His son John married a daughter of Green Meador, of Bluestone. The descendants of the first settlers on Little Wolf Creek were John Woodrum, the father of Maj. Richard Woodrum and Harrison Woodrum, and the grandfather of C. L. and John Woodrum. On the Wolf Creek Mountain James Cales, a Virginian, located. His wife was a Dick, and he was the father of Archibald and James Cales and the grandfather of James and Archibald Cales, two of the worthy citizens now residing in that section. The Cooks. Farleys, Hughes and Ellisons, of Pipestem ; the Lillys and Mead- ows, of Jumping Branch ; Ellisons and Packs, of New River region.
The earliest land grant of which we have knowledge was for a tract of land in this neighborhood, which was issued by Thomas Jefferson in 1781. The claim for this patent was laid in 1772, four years before the date of the Declaration of Independence. The first settlers of the Pipestem in New River country were the Cooks, Farleys, Packs and Bartons : in the Bluestone and Jumping Branch country, the Meadows, the Lillys, the Hughes and Ellisons are the first known to history.
William Graham, an uncle of David Graham, first settled on what is now known as Riffe's Bottoms, Colonel James Graham hav- ing first obtained patent for 400 acres. This fine bottom was acquired many years ago by David M. Riffe, a well-to-do farmer. one of his sons, Thomas Riffe, still owning a part of it, on which he resides. Another son of D. M. Riffe resides in Hinton-Jake A. Riffe, the founder, principal stockholder and general manager of the Hinton Department Company. He has been a merchant in Hinton for twenty-five years, and is one of the enterprising citizens of that town. M. A. Riffe, another brother, resides at Roanoke. Virginia. as does also Dr. A. L. Riffe, another brother. Another brother, Dr. J. W. Riffe, resides in Greenfield, Indiana.
The town of Talcott is built on land at one time owned by Mathew Kincaid, whose wife inherited it as a descendant of the
88
HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
Grahams. Griffith Meadows married one of his daughters. The Kincaid tract included a large boundary extending to the Graham settlement at Lowell. C. S. Rollyson owned a large boundary of land on the Big Bend Tunnel Mountain. Another of the old settlers was Michael Kaylor, on the Hump Mountain, which included a large boundary of the valuable land in that region where located. William and Lewis Gwinn owned large and valuable boundaries of land on New River, between Lick Creek and Meadow Creek. David Bowles also owned land on Hump Mountain. John B. Walker and William Dunbar early settled on the top of Swell Mountain, be- tween Laurel and Lick Creeks. Isaac Milburn early took up the valuable lands on the Greenbrier River, having married a daughter of Nortliff Taylor, below the mouth of Little Wolf Creek, where his descendants, Henry and Isaac, still reside. James Boyd owned land on Greenbrier River once owned by Charles and John Maddy, at the west portal of the Big Bend Tunnel, where his son, Benjamin Boyd, now resides. James Boyd was of a Monroe family, and married a daughter of William Pack. Thomas and Charles Gatliff, Frenchmen, were early settlers on New River. The Crump's Bot- tom was owned by a man by the name of Culbertson, and then by a man by the name of Reed, prior to the Crumps, Pattersons on Patterson Mountain; Bradshaws on Bradshaw's Run, in Forest Hill ; Richmonds at New River Falls ; Cardens at Barger Springs : Grimmetts on Grimmett's Mountain : Bucklands on Big Creek and Powley's Creek.
There were in the very earliest days families of Gills and Adkins. who inhabited the Laurel Creek, Chestnut Mountain, and around the mouth of Greenbrier, whose descendants still inhabit that country, who thrived and lived principally from natural sources, and are principally known for inoffensive thriftlessness. Life has be- come harder as civilization, progresses, and the livelihood not obtainable from the forests and streams. the resources now requiring manual labor and intellectual activity. They seem to have mar- ried and inter-married without advancement-a harmless, shiftless race of people, with plenty of intellect unexerted and but little advancement has been made for generations. The old patriarch, John Gill, aged about ninety years, died some three years ago, a county charge.
Mathew Lowe married Elizabeth Kincaide (the name was for- merly spelled Kinkaid), the father of John Lowe and J. Granville Lowe, enterprising farmers of Jumping Branch District, and the grandfather of the furniture merchants in Hinton. C. E. Lowe and
89
HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA.
Clifford Lowe. Mathew Lowe owned and lived on the fine farm on Hungart's Creek, now owned by John Willey and once owned by A. J. Miller, a son of Brice Miller. He had three daughters, Eliza A., who married Anderson Wheeler. J. C. Wheeler and Rob- ert Wheeler were her sons, and Mrs. Waddell, of Madam's Creek, her daughter. Her second husband was Hon. Sylvester Upton. Another daughter of Mathew Lowe was Agnes, who married Peter Wyant. of Big Bend Tunnel, and another daughter, Rebecca, mar- ried Jordan Grimmet.
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.