USA > West Virginia > Tucker County > History of Tucker County, West Virginia, from the earliest explorations and settlements to the present time; > Part 19
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the edge of the cliff, he stopped short, for he had not seen it until that instant. As far as he could see in both direc- tions extended the canon like a deep ditch. After a mo- ment's consideration, he turned to the right, and traveled along the chasm, looking for a place to cross. Thus he traveled all that day till evening, and could find no way to pass over.
He had brought two canteens of water with him from the camping place of the previous evening. Of this he had drank all he wanted, but his horse had had none. He emptied one of the canteens into his hat and gave his horse to drink, and, letting him pick dry grass for an hour, and having eaten his own supper, he set forward again along the canon to find a crossing. It was a fruitless search. He rode till after midnight, when from the exhaustion of him- self and horse he was obliged to stop. His horse fed on what it could find, and he slept on the sand till morning. His canteens now contained no water, and his fever and the fatigue of travel caused a violent thirst, while his horse seemed famished for drink.
It was death to stay where he was ; so he traveled on all that day, not seeing any animal, bird, bug or any living thing, except his horse. Just before sunset his horse gave out. He dismounted, and was himself barely able to walk. But he saw that it would not do to remain there. He took off his saddle and turned the horse loose to save itself if it could. With his canteens over his shoulder, he set forward on foot. He found a place where he could get down into the canon, although he could see no way up the opposite side. . He climbed down into it, about three hundred feet, and found the bottom full of deep holes, like wells. He commenced sounding them to find their depths and to see
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if there might not be water in some of them. To some he found no bottom, and others lie found dry ; but he contin- ued his work till late at night, and until the moon had risen. In one, a stone let fall splashed in water. Quick as possi- ble, he fastened a canteen to a twine, and tied on a stone to sink it, and let it down into the well. He drew it up filled with cool water, and having satisfied his thirst as much as he thought safe, he ate his supper.
He now determined to go back and get his horse. He filled his canteens, and found a path leading up the cliff close by the well. When he reached the plain above, he hung his coat on a rock to mark the place, and went back after his horse, about four miles. He found the animal lying by the saddle. He poured the water in his hat, and the horse drank and got up. He rode to where his coat had been left, and there tied him and carried up water for him until he was satisfied. By this time it was breaking day, and Bon- nifield was unable to walk any more. He fell asleep under the rocks, and slept half the day.
When he awoke, he carried water till his horse was again satisfied, and with full canteens he mounted his horse and moved on. His supply of parched oatmeal was getting low, and he had no idea when he would get out of the desert. His idea was to cross the canon, if he could, and if not fol- low it to the Colorado River, if it went there.
The plains were hot, and there were no signs of life about, until he passed the crest of a low hill, when just in front of him he saw a party of men sitting and standing among the rocks. At first sight, he thought that they were Indians, and he wheeled his horse to gallop away. But they called to him in English, and he halted. They all rushed at him, and he again galloped off, feeling certain that they meant
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him no good, although he could not devine what they really meant.
They were gold hunters who had penetrated that region in search of mines. They lost their way, and had wandered two days without water. So extreme was their thirst that they had opened the veins of their arms, and were sucking the blood when Bonnifield came up. They were crazy for water, and they tried to surround him to get his can- teens. He soon understood their purpose, and kept out of their way. He would have given them the water, but, he knew not where he was to get more, and he could not starve himself for them. He told them where they could find water, and they told him where he could cross the canon, and thus they parted.
A few miles further he found the path across the ravine, and before dark he was upon the further side. He let his horse graze a few hours, and again he proceeded over the crusty salt that covered the desert.
He found no more water that night, or the next day. At noon he gave his horse the contents of one canteen, and he kept the other for himself. On all sides as far as he could see was a waste solitude of rocks, sand, salt and now and then a clump of sage-brush, or cactus, or a bunch of grass. The land seemed entirely void of living beings. Not even the snakes were now to be seen.
In the evening he began again to feel the pangs of thirst, and his horse began to weaken. But there was no water at hand. When night came, he did not stop ; for, it was now a matter of life or death. To stop was death. He urged his horse forward, and searched among all the rocks and pits for water. He could find none. The landscape, hov- ered over by the shadows of night, grew more weird and
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desolate than ever ; and the thick crust of salt that cracked and broke under the horse's hoofs, was all that produced a sound to break the silence of the desert. He was not wan- dering aimlessly, although he knew not whither he was going. Awhile before midnight he caught the glimpse of a fire in the distance. Nothing but men builds fires, there- fore men must be there, and he spurred forward as fast as his jaded horse could carry him. The fire was many miles away, and he was a long time in reaching it. When he drew nearer, he could discern that there were more fires than one.
When he came up, his ears were assailed by whoops and yells and howls that informed him that the fires were the encampment of a large band of Apache Indians, who are, of all Indians, the most blood-thirsty. His thirst overcame his fear, and he rode boldly into camp and addressed them in English. They started up and gathered around him, and one or two who could speak a little English questioned him as to who he was, where he was going and what he wanted. He gave ready answers, and made himself as much at home as he could. Still he could see that they looked upon him with suspicion. They seemed to fear that there was a large company of whites near, and that he was only a spy sent into the camp. Some of the Indians immediately started off in every direction, to explore if there was any danger.
Bonnifield dismounted and called for water, which they brought. Then some of them took his horse to water and pasture, and did everything they could to make him feel welcome. He tried to feel safe, but he could not. However, he talked and laughed, and hid all signs of fear. He divided his tobacco among them, and they brought him meat and cactus-apples. It was a large camp, and he was entirely at
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the mercy of the savages. But they did him no harm. He slept by their fire, and they furnished him with the best they had.
The next morning they brought his horse, well fed and watered, and gave him provisions to take with him on his journey. They directed him where to find the camp to which he was going, and, with an improved opinion of the wild Apaches, he left them.
During the rest of his journey he found water oftener, but the country was wild and desolate. He became en- tangled in a jungle of thorny cactus, and suffered much be- fore he could free himself. The cactus is covered with long, tough briers, which, when old, curl in the manner of fish hooks. They are very hard to break, and when fixed in a man's clothes, he is firmly held. Those that have not curled, are very sharp and straight, and are so barbed that when they have once penetrated it is hard to withdraw them. Bonnifield had a serious time in the jungle. He was torn by the thorns, and one entered his arm so deeply that he could not draw it out, and it has never been gotten out.
At the end of seven days he reached the camp to which he was going. He was only a walking skeleton, and his horse was little better. Many a man would never have got- ten through ; but his energy and perseverance overcame all he met, and he saved his life by it. At the camp he found friends who gave him what help they could; but at best it was not the care that his broken health demanded. He re- covered slowly from the fever and his memorable seven days' ride.
As soon as he was able to travel, he determined upon returning to California. The best route was to descend the
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Colorado to Fort Mojave, where he could go by steamboat to Fort Yuma, and thence north through California by railroad.
The Colorado River, above Fort Mojave, is swift, rough and dangerous, and in low water is navigable only for small canoes. It flows hundreds of miles through a deep gorge, called Grand Canon, whose walls are of solid rock, hundreds and some of them thousands of feet high. The scenery is beautiful and grand, and since the completion of the Bow String R. R. through northern Arizona, many tourists go there to look at the wonders. But when Bonnifield was there, it was all in the remotest corners of the world, and none but daring explorers and reckless adventurers had ever been permitted to see it.
Bonnifield visited the Indian chief who claimed that region, and bargained for guides to take him in a canoe to Fort Mojave. The Indians tried to persuade him from undertaking the trip at that season of low water, telling him that it was exceedingly dangerous. But he was fesolved to go, and for a few dollars bought two of them to take him.
"The channel of the river is filled with rocks, around and over which the water plunges in cataracts and whirlpools. One must be acquainted with the channel, or he can never get through, even with the smallest canoe. The Indians whom Bonnifield bought claimed that they knew the river, and probably they did ; but they were treacherous fellows, and he contracted a disliking for them from the first. Prob- ably the feeling of antipathy was mutual, for they manifested no strong affection for him. They watched him, and he seldom took his eyes off of them. It was not a pleasant ride, as the canoe shot down the rapids, and whirled in the eddies, and darted through clouds of spray to emerge in
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the sunlight or shadows beyond. One Indian stood in the bow and acted as pilot, while the other steered from the stern. The pilot gave all his orders by motioning his hand.
They went very rapidly, although they floated only with the current, except when a short space of still water was reached. From the suspicions conduct of the Indians, Bounifield was led to believe that they were plotting to kill him. He thought it best, not only to be on guard, but to ยท disarm them. They each had a gun. When they went to shore, on an island, to cook their suppers, he took from them their guns and knives, and kept them in his posses- sion. They raised a stormy fuss about his arbitrary pro- ceedings ; but, he threatened them with everything horrible if they attempted to resist. They yielded the point, and turned to getting supper. He had to watch them more closely than ever; because they now had occasion to kill him. He thought this bold course wisest. He slept none that night, although he affected to do so to test whether they would fall upon him in his sleep. He thought that they would not, but was unwilling to risk them.
Early the next morning they proceeded down the river. He arranged a plan to sleep without letting the Indians know it. He fixed his blankets on a frame, and lay under them. He punched nail-holes in them, so that he could see out, but the Indians could not see in, and having for- bidden them on pain of death to approach him, he was tolerably safe. They could not tell whether he was asleep unless they would lift the blankets. This they were afraid to do lest he should be awake and shoot them. In this manner he slept some ; but, his slumbers were light.
When he reached Fort Mojave the smoke-stack of the Government steamboat was just passing out of sight down
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the river. It would not be back for a month, and he would have to remain there that time. He discharged his Indian guides, and they went off. He spent the month with that impatience known or imagined only by those who know the torment of waiting only a few hours for a railroad train that is behind time. Bonnifield said that the whistle of the steamboat, as it came up the river toward the fort after its month's absence, was the joyfullest sound that man or na- ture has ever caused to greet the ears of mortal. He pur- chased passage and was carried to Fort Yuma, whence there were railroad connections with his home in California.
When he reached home, he turned his attention to busi- ness, and discarded his romantic ideas. He has since lived as a farmer, and raises annually from three hundred to one thousand acres of wheat.
His wild riding and many hardships have told materially on his constitution, although he is still equal to almost any man of his weight. He still refuses to be surpassed by any- body, and his powers of endurance are as remarkable as ever. A few years ago in the hurry of harvest, he fell and broke his arm ; but he would not stop work an hour. He drove the header for three days with the most stoical indif- ference, and until inflammation brought on a fever, and for weeks his life was despaired of. He finally recovered.
Although he fears nothing, and has passed through al- most everything of excitement and danger all his life; yet so tender are his feelings, that he will not drown a kitten. He is still (1884) under thirty years of age, and lives in Fresno County, California.
TEK. I T
A. P. MINEAR.
CHAPTER XVI. TRAVELERS-CONTINUED.
THE energy and ability of the founders of St. George, the old Minear family, have been inherited by their descendants ever since. Had the Minears remained in Tucker and devoted themselves to its development as they have to the development of distant states, our county would be the better off. As it is, the influence which this family has had upon the growth and prosperity of this section, not only of Tucker, but of neighboring counties, has been not a little, and of the most permanent kind. But, unfortunately for their native county, but fortunately for other counties, they have, of late years, sought their fortunes and exerted their influence beyond the narrow and rugged confines of Tucker.
Of Enoch Minear's nine children, only one, David S. Minear, has made Tucker County his home from his child- hood to the present time. Like his father, his grandfather and his ancestors as far back as tradition runs, he has made a business of agriculture, and has tilled the old farm that his fathers had tilled for a hundred years before him. On the farm, just in the suburbs of the village of St. George, and the oldest house in it, stands the grim old stone house that has stood the storms of three-quarters of a century, and is still firm and durable. For generations it was the homestead of the Minear family, although it is deserted of them now. Within its ponderous walls was reared that family of nine, who have now gone forth into distant lands, and some have gone whither no traveler ever returns. The farm on which they lived was one of the finest in the 18
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county, and it was kept a model of neatness and pros- perity. The family was industrious, and no idleness was tolerated. Enoch Minear, the head of the family, was a hard-working man, and he taught his family the same be- lief. Indeed, in the hot summer and in hours of languid- ness, his boys used to imagine that they were kept at work more than was good for their health and enjoyment. Early in the morning, before the first dawn of day, he would thunder on their room doors with his cane and call to them : "Out of that ! Now's the time to hoe corn while it's cool!" and he never left the door until every yawning boy was dressed and on his way down stairs. The sleepy youngsters filed silently to the barn, harnessed the horses, hitched to old shovel plows, and, while some tore back and forth be- tween the corn-rows, playing havoc with the weeds and briers, and throwing fresh soil to the young corn, others followed with broad-hoes and hacked down what weeds the plows had missed, and straightened the stalks which the horses had trampled down. There were no idlers there. Each one had something to do, and the work could not be slighted. If a row of corn was not well hoed, it was a sad settlement to be made with the one in fault.
The summer days, from so early in the morning, were very long. From the first dawn till noon was almost equal to an ordinary day. The boys worked unceasingly, but still found time to watch the sun and to take note of the marvelous slowness with which their shadows moved from the west to the north. When the shadow pointed north, it was noon. That truth of astronomical geography is well known to all the farmer boys in the world, and, about ten o'clock, when it has been a long time since breakfast and is still a long time till dinner, they are at a loss to discern whether the
,
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shadow is moving at all or not, but are tempted to believe that, like old Joshua of the Scripture, they have enemies to evercome, and the sun is standing still to allow them ample time for the performance of the work.
When the horn blew for dinner, the tired, hungry boys forgot their troubles and went trooping home. After the horses were attended to they ate their own dinners. The bill of fare was that of the farmer, not costly or uncommon, but sufficient ; and, it is doubtful, if in all their travels, these boys have ever found anything better than was their meal of corn bread, pork, butter, milk and vegetables, when they come in at noon from eight hours of hard work in the swel- tering heat.
" Now boys," their father would say as soon as they were done eating and had just flung themselves down in the shady yard on the grass to rest, "now boys, now's the time to hoe corn and kill the weeds while it's hot." So, up he got and up he made them get, and in a very few minutes the whole procession was moving majestically off for the corn-field for seven or eight hours more work.
Enoch Minear taught industry to his family as he taught them morality. He considered it necessary as a part of their education. They learned the lesson, and were never the less fortunate for it.
The subject of popular education in Tucker was now coming more before the people, and a greater interest was taken in it. As yet, there were no public schools. This period may be supposed to extend from 1845 to 1860. St. George was not even a village then, at least not in 1845. It did not contain the number of inhabitants that it contained sixty years before.
While there was no public school, yet there was always a
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school in St. George during the winter. The teacher was paid from private purses, and several pupils came from the country to attend. Sometimes there was a school in the summer time. In 1856 there was a summer school that has been especially remembered by those who attended.
In 1859 the St. George Inn was built. It was managed for nearly twenty years by Adam Tate, Esq., and was a model tavern of the kind. Its comforts and hospitality were proverbial the country over, and it was patronized by law- yers from neighboring counties, by cattle-dealers, by the traveling public and by the people of the surrounding coun- try. The same house has been a tavern ever since, except for a year or two while it was owned by George I. Tucker, Esq. It is now the property of Mr. M. V. Miller, and has recently been refitted and refurnished until it is one of the best houses in the town.
The school of 1856 was taught by Prof. George E. Selby ; and, in addition to the pupils in and about St. George, others attended from a distance. Among those who came from the country were Abe Bonnifield, A. H. Bonnifield, S. N. Swisher, Edgar Parsons, C. L. Parsons and others. In this school Abe Bonnifield took the prize for excelling in reading. The school has always been remembered by those who at- tended it as one of great thoroughness and completeness ; and it may not be amiss to claim for it a greater influence for good than that of any other school ever taught in the county. It was taught in a house that stood and still stands just back of the present school house of St. George. The building was originally a saw-mill, standing some two miles below the town, and was moved to its present site and re- built by Enoch Minear. To him was due the first school in St. George, after the formation of Tucker. He paid the
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teacher from his own pocket, and threw open the doors of school to all who would make use of it. The offer was accepted by many, and before the commencement of sum- mer the enrollment was as large as it has ever been in St. George.
Enoch Minear then kept tavern in the old stone house, and many of the pupils boarded with him. But Abe Bon- nifield, A. H. Bonnifield and David Bonnifield boarded at home, four and one-half miles distant, and S. N. Swisher, then of Hampshire County, boarded with them, and they all came to school together.
Before that time, and several years before, there had been schools in and near St. George. Enoch Minear had always been a liberal patronizer of popular education. His family received the benefit of the best instruction the country could afford. But, even at this time, 1856, his family were not all with him. Some had gone to the remotest parts of the United States to try their fortunes there. The land of California had attracted their notice when it first became known to the world as a field of gold. Capt. E. Harper, who started to that region early in 1848, was the first of Tucker's people to dare the dangers of the land of adven- ture. But others in a very short time were to follow, and the next one was A. P. Minear, Enoch Minear's oldest son.
On Saturday, March 10, 1849, at the supper table, in the old stone mansion, Enoch Minear said to his oldest son: "Pool," that was the name by which he was known, "Pool, to-day you are twenty-one years of age. You may either stay with me or go 'root' for yourself, as you like." Now, for the first time, Pool realized that he was fully a man, and ought to depend upon himself. He was always a whole- souled, generous boy, who was respected by all, and by all
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known as a youth of intellect, energy and ambition. It was plain to any one that he would make his way in the world, no matter in what field he should seek his fortune. On the home farm, from his childhood, he had been a leader of his brothers. This right was partly due him, because he was the oldest ; but, his perseverance and his ambition gave him this position more than was given by his age.
At the supper table, on that Saturday evening, was a neighbor, Mr. Jacob See, a man, as has been said of him, whose worth was unknown until he was gone. He heard what had been said, and when he was ready to go home, Pool accompanied him to the stable for his horse. As they walked along he offered Pool fifteen dollars a month for three months if he would help plow. The offer was ac- cepted. The usual wages were eight dollars a month, and to be offered fifteen was such an inducement that Pool had no hesitation in accepting it. He worked for Mr. See the full time, the three months, and received his forty-five dollars. This was the largest sum of money, entirely his own, that he had ever had.
Mr. See having no further work for him, Pool at once went to the B. & O. R. R., then building through the coun- try, and took a contract of clearing the way of timber for a certain distance. At this he made money, as he always did, and could, without doubt, have remained a contractor on the road until the last rail was laid, had he chosen to do so. But rumors of gold from California began to find their way into the mountains and valleys of West Virginia; and, among the adventurous and ambitious souls that it fired with a determination to try the realities of the stories, there was none among all the youthful mountaineers more en- thusiastic than Pool Minear. His friend, E. Harper, was
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already gone, and at that time was daring the dangers of the western plains, determined to be among the first upon the golden shore. The next from Tucker was to be Pool Minear. He might have been the first or with the first, had lie possessed the financial means of going when young Harper went. But, if he could not accompany his friend, he was resolved to be there as soon as possible.
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