USA > West Virginia > Tucker County > History of Tucker County, West Virginia, from the earliest explorations and settlements to the present time; > Part 15
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He remained at home till his twentieth year, except an occasional visit through the eastern and western counties of West Virginia. He began to be moved by a desire for travel. He thought of Missouri, then considered a far western country ; and on January 13, 1856, he left the home of his childhood and went forth into the wide world. His brother David accompanied him. They went to Wheeling, thinking to pass down the Ohio River, thence up the Mississippi and Missouri. While they were making ar- rangements for the descent, they met Mr. A. J. Mayo, who was the manager of a traveling show that was famous in its day. He prevailed on the two Bonnifield boys to accom- pany him. This seemed a fair chance to see the world, and Bonnifield accepted it, and gave up the project of going down the Ohio River. From Wheeling, the show went to Zanesville, and from Zanesville to Newark, and from New- ark to Columbus. By this time Bonnifield began to get tired of being hauled about in truck wagons. Accordingly, he deserted the show, and spent some time trapping musk- rats along the rivers, and was nearly down to Cincinnati on the Little Miami. But, at Columbus he joined another show and was ready for more trundling about. This time he was with Carbin and Denoon's Indian Troup. He traveled up and down over almost every mile of Ohio, and then passed into Indiana, and visited all the principal places in that state. He was not favorably impressed with the people whom he met there, if we may judge from his
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letters and journal written on the ground. When he got into Michigan he began to be more favorably impressed with the country and people.
The main feature of the show was the Indians. They soon became fast friends with Bonnifield, and would do whatever he told them to. By taking advantage of this, he created a big disturbance in camp one night. The Indians were lounging about on their blankets, some asleep and others not, when he offered three cents to one if he would bite the chief's toe off. The chief was asleep, but his toe protruded from under the blanket. The Indian snapped it up in his teeth, and probably would have gotten it off if the chief had not happened to awake at that moment, and set up a terrible yelling and flouncing about so that he pulled loose from the Indian's teeth. The fight became general, and the war-whoops rang through the town until the people thought the world must be coming to an end.
He passed over into Canada, and wandered up and down over that desolate wilderness of pine trees. Canada was at that time a great rendezvous for negroes who had escaped from slavery in the United States. Small colonies of these runaways were found at intervals throughout that country. It was a bad place for them. The land was poor and the winters were long and cold. The negroes were not pros- pering. They were too lazy to work much, and were trying to make a living by manufacturing soda from ashes. They lived in miserable log huts, and poverty and forsakenness was written on every door, and was visible about the prem- ises everywhere. "Hello there!" said Bonnifield to an old negro who was trying to hoe his patch of corn, that was hardly knee-high at the middle of August. "Hello there ! you old black scalawag, don't you wish you were back in 14
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Virginia twisting tobacco for your grub?" The negro looked up and seemed to be startled ; then leaning lazily on his hoe-handle, he answered with a sigh : "'Deed I does."
Bonnifield got tired of show-life, and came home. His father was then clerk of the Circuit and County Courts of Tucker, and Abe took charge of the office. He was at this employment when the war commenced. He sympathized with the South ; but, he remained at his business in St. George until it began to be unsafe there for a southern man who made no secret of his opinions. On Monday morning, June 10, 1861, just after daylight, about forty Yankees came galloping into St. George, and rummaged through the town in search of Rebel flags. They found one, or claimed they did, and with it returned in triumph to Rowlesburg. Bon- nifield was charged with having something to do with the flag, and he was warned by friends that he was not safe. The next we hear of him he was in the South, accompanied by George and Bax Kalar, William Talbott and other Tucker County boys.
He remained in the war till the last gun was fired, and then did not surrender, but escaped on horseback from the Valley of Virginia, and when the fighting was at an end he came home. The whole four years that he was in the army was one continued succession of adventures and dashing marches. He was regarded as among the very best rider's in the Confederate cavalry. His weight was about seventy pounds; and being thus light, his horse, which was a power- ful one, was about the last to give out when it came to a long raid or a long retreat. He remained for the most part in the Valley of Virginia ; but he was frequently in other parts. He accompanied the Imbodens in some of their memorable raids. As he was always in the very front in
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every kind of adventure, he was often in the hottest part of the battle, and in the foremost rank of the charging col- umns. If he was cut off from his men, and in danger of being shot, he would throw himself from his horse, hang by his hand to the horn of the saddle on the side least exposed to the enemy's fire, guide his horse with the other hand, and thus escape. In the tumult of the battle the foe would not notice but that the horse was riderless; and thus he often dashed through the very lines of the enemy unseen. Such was the strength of his arms that he could hang by them for an hour without very great fatigue.
He was in front of the pursuit that chased Hunter, and was among the few, who, after a terrible night of marching through the wilderness, got in front of the flying army, and gave them the check which well nigh resulted fatally to the Federals.
Bonnifield was not in the battle of Gettysburg; but he joined Lee's army in its retreat before it reached the Poto- mac, and was with it a few days. He went back to the Valley, and was there when General Early, who had been sent to Lynchburg to drive Hunter out, came down the Valley. He joined Early, and the fifteen thousand men moved off toward the Potomac, and chased General Sigel over the river into Maryland. Early set out for Washing- ton, and got within five miles of the city, when he was obliged to retreat. Thus, Bonnifield was one of the fifteen thousand Rebels who got near enough to see the flag on the Capitol at Washington, and got away. He escaped back to the Valley of Virginia.
When the war ended, Bonnifield returned to Horse Shoe Run, where he has lived ever since, although he has trav- eled some since then. He visited Washington a few years
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ago to press his claim for payment for cattle carried off by Union soldiers during the war. He spent some time at the National Capital, and had the satisfaction of seeing how near he had come to taking it during the war.
He has a horse on which he has ridden nearly forty thousand miles. The horse is still living, and is now (1884) over twenty years of age. This horse and its rider are known all over the eastern part of the State ; and they have been out of the State more than five hundred times in the last twelve years. A full history of Abe Bon- nifield will probably soon be published ; and it will surely be an interesting volume.
Several of the Bonnifields have been extensive travelers, although their most beaten path is to and from California. Mr. A. T. Bonnifield and his two sons, Henry and William, are not now residents of Tucker, but they formerly were, and their frequent visits to their old home make them well known here. They have been not only extensive, but romantic travelers. A. T. Bonnifield, a cousin of Dr. Arnold Bonni- field, as well as a namesake, lived on Horse Shoe Run until he was twenty-one years of age. He married a daughter of William Corrick, Esq., of Corrick's Ford, after whom the battle of Corrick's Ford is named. In 1859, the Cali- fornia excitement took a fresh start in Tucker, and quite a number of the young men emigrated to the new State. Bonnifield was among the number. With his wife and three children, accompanied by John Minear, they sailed from New York for Panama. After buying his tickets for San Francisco, Bonnifield had just forty dollars left. This was a small sum with which to go into a strange country ; but it would have to do; and, when all were on board, the steamer passed from the harbor out into the Atlantic.
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The ship was soon out of sight of land, and then came on the dreaded sea-sickness, which none can understand with- out experiencing. The first night was probably the most terrible to the emigrants who had never been to sea before. They lay about the decks as helpless as dead people; and no doubt some would nearly as lief have been dead. The officers and crew of the ship took little more notice of the passengers who lay retching, than to roll them in heaps to get them more out of the way. A person when enduring sea-sickness will not and cannot hold up his head, and can- not help himself. For this reason the crew of the ship were much bothered to drag the helpless passengers out of the way.
Bonnifield was among the sickest. He lay upon the deck in great agony all night. Men with lanterns came to him, and dragged him to the end of the ship and piled him up with the rest of the sea-sick. There he lay till morning. When it was day, he roused up, and thought he could eat some fruit. He felt for his money. It was gone. He had been robbed, probably by the men who had come to him with the lanterns.
The situation in which he found himself roused him from his sickness, and he told his wife that he had been robbed of every cent. He was, indeed, in a hard fix. He had not enough money to buy a dinner when he should land in San Francisco, and a wife and three children were on his hands. It was an unpleasant situation to be placed in; but, he did what he could to recover his money. "He saw a sneaking looking fellow on the ship, and he was struck by the thought that the fellow had his money. So he ran to the Captain and had him search the scoundrel, who protested that he never robbed anybody. But the
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Captain searched him. Nothing was found to prove that he had stolen the money, and he was turned loose. Bonnifield wanted all the people on the ship searched; but the Captain would not do it, and thus that part of the mat- ter ended.
Bonnifield never got his money. However, he found means of making some money. He had taken. on board a barrel of apples at New York, and he now exposed them for sale at ten cents each. The people, who were beginning to recover from their sea-sickness, bought the apples as fast as they could get them. They brought in a quantity of change. About this time a stand of bees on the ship got destroyed; and Bonnifield bought the honey, and peddled it over the ship for twenty-five cents a mouthful. It sold fast, and he quickly disposed of his stock and realized a handsome profit.
When he reached San Francisco he had barely enough money to pay his way a few miles into the country. He went to work, and gradually accumulated money enough to buy a farm. But, the farm's title not being good, he lost his money. However, he went to work at the bottom again, and in the course of a few years was again com- fortably situated. Thus he lived for seven years. His wife having died, he took charge of his children and kept them together for several years.
In 1867 he determined to re-visit West Virginia. He em- barked at San Francisco for New York. Instead of cross- ing the Isthmus of Panama, he crossed through Nicaragua, in Central America, and took a steamer on the eastern side for New York.
When the ship drew near the shore on the West side of Nicaragua, a cannon was fired as a signal of approach.
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This was to give the natives notice in time for them to bring their ponies to the landing. It was twelve miles across the isthmus, and the passengers and freight had to be carried by land. The ship-company paid all these ex- penses. There was no railroad, as there was at Panama ; but there was a good wagon-road. The women and chil- dren were carried across in ambulances that were formerly used in the United States during the war, but had been bought by the ship-company and taken to Nicaragua, to be used as stages. "The men might also ride in these coaches if they liked ; but they were given their choice of two modes of crossing. They might ride in the ambulances or on the ponies of the natives, which were hired for the pur- pose. The majority of them chose to ride on the ponies. The natives were Indians, and kept the ponies on their ranches near about the harbor. They were glad to make a few cents by hiring their ponies to the ship-company for the use of the passengers. They knew about what day the ship would be there, and kept their animals near at hand. Each one was anxious to get his pony used in crossing, for if he did not, he got no pay.
So, when the ship was approaching the shore, the cannon was fired, to call the Indians down to the beach. In a few minutes they were seen coming over the hills from the north, south and east. They were coming in a sweeping gallop, every one trying to be first at the landing, to be sure of getting his donkey a rider.
When the ship landed at the dock, the Indians were massed around it like a besieging army. Each one was en- deavoring to impress upon some passenger the necessity of hiring that particular pony, and the jargon, pow-wow and chattering was entirely characteristic of the assembly.
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The donkeys were white, and looked not much larger than sheep. The passengers thought it impossible that an animal so small could bear the weight of a man, and so were not much inclined to accept one in preference to the ambulance-carts. But, the officers of the ship assured the passengers that the ponies would carry them all right, and then the bargaining began. As said, the ship-company paid for the animals ; so, the passengers' only care was to select as good a one as they could. Every native insisted that his was the best; and thus the trading ran high.
Meanwhile, Bonnifield was busy getting his family started off in the ambulances ; so, when he turned about to engage a pony, he found that all the best of them were taken, and that none but poor or fractious ones were left. He had to take one of these, or none. He took one. It was small, lean, bony and looked like the refuse of all that is vile and wretched in Central America. The rest of the men were already mounted on the more prepossessing of the donkeys, and were ready to move off as soon as the word of com- mand should be given. Bonnifield took in the situation at a glance and saw that he was in danger of being left ; for he was certain that his bony beast would never keep up with the others. But, he had no time to hunt another, and all that was left for him to do was to make the best use of his means.
So, picking up a heavy club, he mounted the pony, ready to start with the others, whether he could keep up or not. "What are you going to do with that club ?" yelled the In- dian who owned the animal, running up and flourishing his fist as though about to strike. "I'm going to knock a whole side of ribs out of this brute if he don't keep up with the rest. That's what I'm going to do. Do you understand
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that ?" Bonnifield gave the Indian this answer, and told him to stand in the background or he would get a little to start with.
The Indian took the hint and retired; and Bonnifield held to his club, for he was determined not to be left in that wild country, and was not in a very good humor any way. His donkey was so small that the rider's feet almost dragged the ground.
The word to start was given just as the sun was going down. Immediately the whole cavalcade was one of com- motion and excitement. The two or three hundred ponies that the passengers feared would not be able to carry them across, were now plunging up the road at a sweeping gallop, every one trying to lead the way. The smallest and most bony seemed more fiery and impetuous than those which had been first chosen. The weakest was fully strong enough to carry a man as fast as he cared to go.
Bonnifield was soon convinced that he had no need of a club. His donkey was so impetuous that he had to drop his cudgel and sieze the bridle with both hands.
The road led through hills and vales, covered with the luxurient vegetation of the Torrid Zone. Cocoanut trees stood thick along the way ; and bamboos and reeds formed a dense copse. It was a splendid ride that evening. The sun went down before they had gone a mile ; but this only increased the beauty of the evening. It got cooler, and the cavalcade thundered on up the road. At times they halted by the wayside to buy sugar, fruit and nuts of the natives, who had built little stores every mile or two. Several of the store-keepers were negroes who had come from the United States, and had settled in that unhospitable country for the purpose of trading with travelers.
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Bonnifield rode forward with the others till awhile after dark. The fruit and sugar that he had eaten caused such thirst that he tried at each store to get a drink; but no water was at hand, and the shop-keepers were too busy to fetch any, so he rode on. Presently the road turned down a ra- vine, and far below in the wilderness and darkness the rip- pling of water could be heard. He said that he must have a drink, live or die. He was told that the woods were full of beasts and venomous snakes, and he would run great risk in going down in the dark. But he would not be pursuaded.
Giving the rein of his pony to a companion to hold, he scrambled down the hill. He could hear the water bubbling and was guided by the noise. It was too dark to see any- thing. The weeds and thorns were so thick that he had to part them with his hands, and scramble over the tops, and pitch and fall, and slip and slide ; but at last he reached the water and lay down and drank. The water was cool, and when his thirst was allayed, he rose up with satisfaction and was preparing to start up the hill. But just then a lion sprang out the thicket and roared. Bonnifield's hair stood on end with fright, and he leaped sheer ten feet over the tops of briers, brush and rocks, up against the bluff, and thence on to the road above, where he mounted his donkey, and bid an adieu forever to the wild beasts of Central America.
In an hour longer the travelers reached the Rio San Juan del Sur, where boats awaited to carry them down to the sea coast. The passage down the river was one of romance and magnificence, and is described as one of the finest in the world. The banks of the stream were covered with groves of tropical trees, and flowers always in bloom .. There is no winter there. Birds with feathers bright as
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gold and silver fly among the trees, and monkeys chatter amid the thickets of bamboos. Basking in the sun along. the water's edge, huge alligators could be seen stretching their ugly carcasses. It was along this river several years before that Capt. E. Harper had so many adventures shoot- ing alligators and chasing wild beasts and fighting the wild Indians.
When the sun was risen on the morrow, the passengers were embarked on boats, and moved gayly off down the river and across the bay. There was a considerable convoy, and it must have looked like an army to the Indians who stood on the shores and gazed wonderingly at the grand procession of boats as it moved peacefully over the shining water. "Get in the boat, you land-lubber!" yelled one of the sailors to Bonnifield who was washing his feet by let- ting them drag along through the water, over the gunwale. "Get in the boat, or the alligators will pepper your hash." Thus warned, he hauled his feet aboard; and looking into the water, he could see hideous monsters swimming along under the boat, waiting for somebody to fall overboard.
When the deep water was reached, the passengers went aboard a steamship and stood off for New York. The pas- sage was rough ; but all safely landed there, and Bonnifield soon reached Tucker. He remained there over a year, vis- iting in the mean time Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Illinois, while his children attended school. He owned the horse on which Abe Bonnifield has since ridden tens of thousands of miles.
In 1868, he returned to California, having married in Tucker a daughter of Job Parsons, Esq. In 1881 he again visited the East, and spent the summer in West Virginia and Kentucky. He now resides in California.
CHAPTER XIV.
TRAVELERS-CONTINUED.
CAPT. EZEKIEL HARPER was born November 28, 1823. His father was Adam Harper whose sketch has been given in a former chapter. Energy and adventure is a character- istic of the family ; and of none more than of the subject of the present sketch. His early life was spent on the home farm, and the stir and commotion of the wide world was all a blank to him. The narrow, but beautiful valley of Clover was the field of his youthful adventures, and it was there that he grew to manhood, every inch of him a man. His constitution was of iron, and his will succumbed only to the impossible.
From his earliest years he was an attentive and extensive reader; and he kept himself posted on all political ques- tions, and on all the issues that the press brought before the people. When he became a man, the Valley of Clover became too narrow for him, and he began to think of new fields. Thus it was when the Mexican War came on. He had always had a desire to see the southern and western countries ; and this seemed the best opportunity that had been presented.
There was no movement made in Tucker to organize a company; but, in Barbour, Col. Henry Sterms mustered a company and held them ready for service. Harper joined the company ; and as far as can now be ascertained, he was the only man from Tucker who did.
He waited anxiously for the call for his company to take
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the field. The newspapers were filled with accounts from the seat of war. He read of the fight at Matamoras, at Monterey ; of the rout of Santa Anna from the gorges of Buena Vista, of the fall of Ringgold at Palo Alto. The battles of Resaca de la Palma, Saltillo, Cerro Gorgo and Contreas passed off, and still no orders came for the com- pany to take the field. The President had called for fifty thousand volunteers, and the call had been responded to by over three hundred thousand. So, there were many men who, like Harper, were waiting with more or less impatience for a call to arms. The war, althoughi yet waged to the extremest limit of vengeance and national hatred, was plainly drawing to a close. Mexico was going down ; and defeat on defeat and rout on rout hurried her doom. The roar of the cannon had died on the field of Churusbusco; and, the greatest and last, the storming of Chapultepec ended the war.
Harper was uncalled. It was a disappointment ; but it came on him gradually, and he continued working on the farm, and dealing in cattle.
But a new and more romantic field of adventure was opening for him. Scarcely had the Mexican War closed, when the discovery of gold, at Sutter's Mills, in California, filled the country with excitement. Those who can remem- ber, know how the land was filled with wild stories of gold in exhaustless stores, and how the rumors ran from ocean to ocean, and adventurers risked everything in their efforts to be first and foremost on the ground. Those who cannot remember, probably will never know. It was an epoch in the world's history, in the history of America, and in the annals of Tucker County. It did not work such lasting changes as the Crusades or the French Revolution ; but its
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changes and results have left a stamp on the chronicles of America that will endure for ages to come. There has never been in the world anything else like it.
In the great rush for the gold diggings, people came from every part of the world. Tucker, although a small territory, then not so much as a distinct county, sent not a few. Perhaps no county in America, of not a greater population, has furnished as many emigrants to California as Tucker has. It has sent them from the very first ; and they have generally been among the best of our citizens. Our own wealth and resources have only recently become known ; and, heretofore, people of enterprise could see in our nar- row valleys and rugged hills little to invite exertion or to promise return for capital invested. From this cause, the most ambitious and energetic of our people, in former days, looked to farther and wider fields in which to contend in fortune's arena. Our timber was then next to valueless, and our vast coal regions were then not supposed to be worth the taxes.
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