USA > West Virginia > Tucker County > History of Tucker County, West Virginia, from the earliest explorations and settlements to the present time; > Part 22
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The next day, the fifth of our journey, was clear and cold, and on that day all but two of us got home. That two became separated and lost and did not get in till the seventh day.
We dealt out the flour by the tin cup full, one or two, depending upon whether it was a family or a single man.
A. C. Minear was then in this part of Idaho, and from a letter written by him sometime after this scarcity of pro- 20
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visions, some new features may be seen in the camps. It shows to what extent the mining was carried on, and what wealth was often taken from the mines. The letter, after giving an account of the scarcity of provisions, when flour was one dollar a pound, runs thus :
The famous 'Poor Man's' mine, in Owyhee produced nearly pure silver. Pieces of ore weighing one thousand pounds were found to contain nine hundred pounds of silver. The 'Ida Ehnore' and 'Golden Chariot' mines were the richest in gold bearing quartz. Bullion produced from them was worth from seven to ten dollars per ounce.
In these two mines was the scene of one of the most peculiar battles ever fought in the world. The mines were near each other. and disputes naturally arose concerning the ground between them, which, upon examination, was found to be the richest of all in gold. A compromise was made, by which it was understood that neither was to cross a certain line until the right of one or the other should be established by some legal process.
But, this did not settle the quarrel. As the ore got richer, the two companies worked toward each other, and paid no attention to the compromise. In the course of time they came together six hundred feet under ground, and the battle began. At first, clubs, pieces of quartz, pieks, hammers, knives, pistols and guns were used by the belligerants. . But. breastworks were built, and ore was piled up for fortifications, and the two subterranean armies lay entrenched against each other. Then cannon were lowered into the shafts, and a terrific cannonade was commenced. The re- sults were fearful. In the confined air of the mine the roar of the artillery surpassed anything ever heard on the surface of the earth. The pillars, columns and braces were shot away, and fragments of flying quartz whistled through the dark caverns of the mines. The discharge of small guns could be heard only at intervals, between the discharges of the heavier ordnance. Much of the interior structure of the mines was ruined, and this strange battle ended with no decisive results for either side. A troop of soldiers came up and by threatening to block up the mine, put an end to the unnatural fight.
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Those who have visited Silver City, Idaho, will remember that it is on a small stream called Jordan Creek, which covers over with snow until it is not seen from fall till spring. In the spring, when the snow begins to melt, where exposed to the sun on the south hill sides, the creek rises, and carries away the snow that filled its channel all winter. Thus, the creek is open, while its high banks are covered with hard-packed snow.
A. P. Minear lived beside this creek, about three-fourths of a mile above the town. He was engaged in mining specu- lations in 1868; and, in one of his trades, had incurred the hatred of some speculators, whom he had defeated in their plans. They, therefore, planned violence against him, and attempted to bring their plans into execution on the night of May 5, 1868. It was a most cowardly assault, and also one most wicked and brutal. The following is an account of it, taken from a letter of his, written after his recovery from injuries received :
I left town at ten o'clock to go home, traveling along a trail through the snow. I met a man, spoke to him, we both said "good evening" and passed on. When we had gotten about fifty yards apart, he yelled like an Indian, and started to run after me. 1 knew that I could run to the house before he could catch me : so 1 wasnot the least alarmed. When I had run about twenty-five steps, and was within four hundred yards of my house, I ran over a small ridge, and found myself in the midst of a gang of ten or twelve men, who lay flat on the snow.
Before I knew of their presence, they were all upon me. They did not strike me, only pressed me down into the snow by force. I was still on my feet ; but was down as though sitting on a stool four or five inches high and had my right hand extended out. By this time, the man whom I had met and who ran after me, had come up and had gotten in front of me with drawn pistol. By some means, he dropped his revolver, and it fell, handle first. into my right hand, just as you would hold it, if going to shoot.
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I said, "men, in the name of God, what are you going to do with me ?" (well knowing that it meant death). When I said that, one of the men said, "smother him, so he can't halloo," another said, "choke him." At that, a man's left hand went round my throat. I caught with my left hand the barrel of the pistol that had dropped into my hand, and, cocking the weapon, fired at the man who stood in front of men. I intended to shoot him through the body, but only touched his thigh.
At the crack of the pistol they let me go, struck me across the head with something like a revolver, and commenced shooting at met. I attempted to rise to my feet and run for the creek, about forty yards distant down a steep hill ; but I could not stand. I fell on the snow ; but rolled and scrambled until I reached the creek bank. I shot at them three times on the way. 1 went over the bank, intending to crawl under the snow that covered the creek at that particular point.
The bank of the creek, together with the snow, was as high as my head. I landed on my feet, and by the aid of the bank, I was able to stand. 1 laid my pistol on the bank, took deliberate aim at three of them, who were about ten feet from me, and fired. I shot one man in the arm, from which he died, and shot another who also died. I then let go the bank to hide under the snow and ice. But I fell over in the creek, where the water was two or three feet deep.
My pistol was wet, and I let it go. I could not get under the snow and ice, because it had settled down on the water. So I turned on my back, feet foremost, and swam like a duck down this stream, which from there down was mostly open, at race-horse speed. Pretty soon I went under the ice, and presently went under it again. but each time came out successfully. The third place I came to I could not get under for a log and some brush. I then turned on my face, quick as thought-no time to consider-crawled over that place and into the creek below ; and went on down, in all two hundred and eighty yards. There I came to a place where I knew that I must go ashore. Below, the brush hung so densely over the creek that I could not hope to get along the channel. Be- sides, where I was, should I get out, the ground was bare of snow and my pursuers could not see me as easily as they could where
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there was snow. I lay in the head of a ditch fully one-fourth of an hour, waiting for them to get out of the way. I remained there until I found that I must get out of the icy water or perish. By the greatest effort I succeeded in getting out, and on my hands and knees, for half a mile, I crawled over the frozen granite sand, which must be seen before it can be understood, over rocks, mahogany brush, crystallized snow, sharp as needles, until I wore all the skin off of my hands, knees and shin bones from my knees to my ankles I finally reached a mill, where I made myself known and was taken care of. As soon as I got into the hands of friends, I became un- conscions, and remained so for four hours.
This was a most wonderful escape. He had sixteen bul- lets shot through his clothing. One ball had passed through the top of his head, and laid the skin open to the skull bone. One bullet broke his little finger, and one struck his thigh in front, ran around under the leaders, back of the knee, and came out in front by the shin bone. Another shot struck him in the calf of the left leg, and another in the right hip. One flash of powder left the burnt marks on his forehead. It was three months before he was able to get around. He attempted to convict the desperadoes who assaulted him; but he could not do it. There was always some one to hang the juries who tried them.
In 1868, in Idaho, came the Indian War, in which A. C. Minear took an active part; and from a large collection of his letters, written at and after that time, a great amount of history may be learned. A few extracts are given to show how he spent his life while there :
The Indians are continually breaking into the settlements and driving away cattle. They are not even content with this; but kill people whenever they get an opportunity to do so. They shoot poisoned arrows. Pool was out with a man who was shot through the arın with a poisoned arrow. Pool drew his silk hand- kerchief through the wound and wiped the poison out.
The Indians have been at their deviltry again. They think that
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they can do as they please. But, the stockmen are organizing for the defense. We have just returned from a campaign into their country. Some days ago a company of stockmen, about forty in number, followed a band of Indians about one hundred miles south. Nothing was heard of them for ten days, when one of their number came into camp and reported that the whole party of whites were surrounded by one thousand Indians, and that battle had been raging for two days when he escaped. He had gotten away by crawling at night on hands and feet for miles through the sage brush. The ammunition of the whites was nearly exhausted when he left, and lie knew not what fate may have overtaken them ere that time.
It did not take long to organize a large force to go to the rescue. In a few hours every available cayuse [horse] was pressed into ser- vice, and two hundred men, well mounted and armed, were upon the road leading southward in the direction of the Indians.
I was one of the company. We put spurs to our horses, and did not stop for anything. In ten hours we had marched one hundred miles, surprised and routed the Indian army and had rescued the stockmen who were reduced to the last extremity. Many of the whites had been killed and more wounded. Many of the Indians had been killed. They had retreated into the lava beds where it was impossible to follow them. * * *
The Chinese will come in here in spite of the Indians. Some years ago [In 1864] two hundred of them were killed in one drove by Indians in Eastern Oregon, as they were en route to the mines. Their white bones lay for three years bleaching among the sage brush, and were finally boxed up by their supersticious brethren and shipped back to China, to await the grand resurrection of the Celestials.
A. C. Minear remained in Idaho till the close of the Civil War. He engaged in several kinds of business. For awhile he was in the employ of Wells, Fargo and Co.'s Express, at a salary of three hundred dollars a month. When he left Idaho, he returned to San Francisco and was interested in some mines there. From there he returned by steamer to
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New York, and thence home. He made three other trips to California, the last in 1876. One trip to San Francisco and back, from Rowlesburg, was made in twelve days. With the close of the Centennial Year his desire for wandering seemed to cease. He was in Philadelphia at the Centennial, and has traveled extensively over different portions of the west. After all his travels and adventures, he sums up the whole : " The world is nearer round than most people think it is."
When he settled permanently down in Tucker, he devoted himself to the development and improvement of the country. He had, up to that time, engaged to some extent in mer- chandising, during his stays in West Virginia. When he . quit this he engaged in the lumber business and had several logging camps. For awhile, he controlled and run C. R. Macomber's steam mill.
In 1879 he married Miss Villa Adams, daughter of Clerk John J. Adams, of St. George, and has since lived here. His son, A. C. Minear, Jr., is a lad four years old.
In connection with Mr. Finley Toy, A. C. Minear took a large contract of lumbering on Shaffer's Fork, and comple- ted it in 1884.
He took part in county politics in 1880, and announced himself as a Republican candidate for Sheriff. The Demo- cratic Convention nominated William E. Talbott for that office, and the campaign was one of the hottest ever in the county. The peculiar mixing and fusion of parties at that time will be fully and impartially given in the chapter on Newspapers, in this book. It was a stubborn campaign, and every inch of ground gained by either was by the other disputed to the extremest point. It may readily be suppos- ed that there was a peculiar mixing of parties, when it is stated that a Republican, A. C. Minear, was elected to office
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by a majority of one hundred and twenty-one, over the reg- ular Democratic nominee, a good man, in a county Demo- cratic by about two hundred majority.
A. C. Minear was the successor of Ward Parsons, Esq., as Sheriff of Tucker County. He made a good officer, and even his opponents were willing to admit that no better Sheriff could be found to fill the office.
A. C. Minear is a member of the M. E. Church, and is ever liberal in the support of all truly worthy undertakings, whether connected with the Church or not. He has done something for every Church that has been built in the county since he has been a permanent resident of St. George. He makes no distinction between the different branches of the Church, although his preference is for his own.
J. W. Minear has never returned to Tucker County to be- come a permanent resident; but, he has visited his old home, and remained here one summer. He still lives amid the scenes of his early mining days, at Silver City, Idalio.
In December, 1875, he married Miss Laura Frances Harr, a girl twenty-two years of age, who had traveled in Japan. Their children are three in number, the oldest, Mabel Mil- ler Minear, the next, John Edgar Minear, and the name of the youngest is George Renard Minear.
The family of five live in their comfortable home, on the bank of Jordan Creek, in the distant land of Idaho.
In 1870 Mrs. A. P. Minear left Idaho, and moved with her children to San Jose, California. Her object was to educate her children. Their children were Asby Pool, Clara Corrinth, John Ingersoll, Lucretia Maria, William Charles, and Frank Swift, six in all; the oldest and youngest are dead.
In 1870, A. P. Minear left Idaho and joined his wife at
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San Jose. Reverses had again overtaken him, and he had no money. As he has said: "Our combined capital was only seventy-five cents." A. H. Bonnifield was in Califor- nia at that time, and happening to be at Minear's, he gives the following account in one of his letters :
Mrs. Minear went to the wardrobe with a candle, and accident- ally set the clothes that were in there on fire. I grabbed the tea- kettle from the stove and ran with it to put out the fire ; but I did not arrive in time to be of any service. The clothes were all burnt up.
And to this, A. P. Minear adds in his journal :
We had no money ; and while in that fix, Mrs. Minear went into the wardrobe and set the clothes on fire, and they burnt before any could be saved. This left us with only the clothes we had on.
But reverses had come too often for this to discourage a man of his resolute spirit ; and he borrowed money, moved to San Francisco and at once engaged in business. He was in the mines again, and was superintending nine mines and was receiving a salary that aggregated two thousand six hundred and fifty dollars a month, and he had made eighty thousand dollars besides. Nor did he stop until he had run it up to several hundred thousand dollars, making or losing a fortune every year. The principal part of his mining was done in Idaho, although he operated to some extent in the Comstock mine, in Nevada.
In 1876 Mrs. Minear and her children visited St. George, and went on to Philadelphia to attend the Centennial. The next year, 1877, A. P. Minear quit mining and engaged in a railroad enterprise in Georgia and Florida. He worked hard for three years on that railroad, and finally failed to succeed. He had spent on it all the money he had or could get, and he was left without money and out of business.
He then turned toward New York City to engage again
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in m Ling. He landed there with five dollars and fifty cents. He spent the fifty cents, and lost the five dollars in the street. This left him in a strange city, entirely without money. However, he knew the tables so well that he succeeded in buying on credit a half interest in an Arizona mine for twelve thousand five hundred dollars. He traded upon it, and realized one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He put some of it back in the same mine, and put ninety thou- sand in another mine and lost it all. In the meantime he had built two quartz mills in Arizona, the scene of his late gains and losses in the mining business.
Then he tried Idaho again, and spent the year of 1882 in the mines of Wood River, in that Territory, and there he still holds property.
Since December, 1883, he has been traveling in search of mines through Arizona, Mexico, California, Nevada and Or- egon. The following is from a letter written subsequent to his last visit to New York:
On my arrival in New York, after being gone more than twenty- eight years, I at once sought to find the whereabouts of Mr. Wain- right, if living. I soon found him in the same house and in the same business where I introduced myself to him when I was on the road to California, in 1849. He remembered me and said: "Oh yes, you are the boy who wanted to buy that big red apple, and send it back home."*
David S. Minear is the only one of a family of nine who remained at home. He has always been a farmer, and has been successful as such. He was also a merchant for a number of years. On December 31, 1867, he was married
* While in New York, on his way to Callfornia, he saw a fine red apple in a window, and wanted to buy it and send it back to his friends in Virginia. His young friends informed him that the apple was only painted wood. This was the apple to which the old gentleman referred.
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to Miss Mary J. Parsons, daughter of W. R. Parsons. Their children are five, Creed W., Joseph P., John W., C. Bruce and Mary Catharine.
He pays especial attention to improved stock, and his farm produces fine specimens of blooded cattle and other domestic animals. The most improved machinery is also used in his fields, and an appearance of thrift and industry is seen everywhere about his premises. The fruit of his orchards is of the best varieties.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE WAR.
THE great Civil War, that threatened for a while to destroy the good as well as the bad of American institutions, was felt with all its terrors in Tucker County. When that mighty struggle came on, the people of Tucker County were not slow in choosing which side they would espouse. Be- tween the North and South they were nearly evenly divided; or, if there was any difference, it was in favor of the South. On Dry Fork the Northern men were in the majority and about St. George the Southern men. Early in 1861 the lines began to be closely drawn, and the different factions assumed hostile attitudes toward each other. Neighbor was against neighbor, and people, in the suddenness with which men espoused one or the other cause, scarcely knew who was a friend and who was an enemy. The warlike prepara- tions in the East and South had their influence among the mountains of Tucker sooner than one would be apt to suppose.
Late in May, 1861, a Confederate flag was raised in St. George, under the superintendency of Abe Bonnifield, who was in sympathy with the Confederate cause from the very first. He with others had raised the flag, and had kept it floating over the Court-house by day. At night they took it down, lest some of the Union citizens should cut it down in the darkness. It was viewed with jealousy and hatred by the Union men, of whom there were many in and about
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St. George, but not enough to tear down by force the flag which the Southern men had raised.
Burning under the insult, which, in being offered to their country was offered to them, the Union party sought re- venge from outside help. They sent to Rowlesburg, where Captains Miller and Hall had under their commands a body of troops, and there made known that the Confederate flag was floating over the St., George Court-house and asked that soldiers be sent to cut it down. The promise of this was readily given ; and, on Sunday evening, June 9, 1861, Miller and Hall, with forty men, left Rowlesburg for the purpose of falling upon St. George unawares. They did not expect to meet with armed resistance, but. it being in a time of excitement, they thought it best to avoid, as far as possi- ble, all risk, and, therefore, went in the night.
They reached St. George very early Monday morning, and proceeded to arrest several persons, whom they sus- pected of sympathizing with the South. They found no person inclined to oppose or harm them, and, without con- troversy, they proceeded to search for flags. They found two which they at once captured with great formality and ado, although no one attempted to defend the flags or dis- pute the right to take them. This finished, their mission was done; and, when they had liberated the prisoners taken, they were ready for the return. None of those captured were held to answer any charges, and the whole affair ended more like a Fourth of July celebration than a war- like demonstration.
With the captured flags, which were flaunted in victory, the troops set out for Rowlesburg. On the way they found a rattlesnake, which they tied to one of the flags, and fas- tened a wildcat skin to the other. Bedizzened now fully to
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satisfy the exultations of childlike triumph, the forty men, with their leaders in front, marched grandly into Rowles- burg, having first dispatched a special messenger to an- nounce their approach. The troops marched out to meet the returning heroes, and all as one body went into camp, ending the campaign by a grand trimuphal entry into Rowlesburg.
Thus ended the first page of St. George and Tucker County in the war. The next was not to pass so lightly away. By this time large bodies of Rebels were fortifying themselves on Laurel Hill, near Belington, in Barbour, and in Randolph were large numbers. The Yankees had strong forces along the railroad, at Rowlesburg and elsewhere, thus placing Tucker County, in a measure, between the two armies. Several of Tucker's citizens, among whom were William E. Talbott, E. Harper and William Harper, were now in the Confederate ranks. The two Harpers were on scout duty. William Harper was in Barbour County, watch- ing the movements of the Yankees, while E. Harper was in Tucker for the same purpose. Rebel Home Guards had also been organized, among whom were David and Nelson Par- sons, Hoy Goff and others. The Union cause seemed to be losing ground in Tucker, although there were many still . loyal to the Union, among whom might be mentioned Dr.
Solomon Parsons, Enoch Minear, William Corrick and ser- eral others of our most respected citizens.
As the month of June passed by, the war-spirit grew more violent, and the official functions of our county were pretty well broken up. The Union side were desirous, as they should be, of increasing their strength, and for that purpose were proceeding to hold elections in the county.
This was about the twenty-eighth of June, 1861. The .
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Rebels, under Garnett, were hovering close upon the county, having thousands of men within a day's march of St. George. When it was heard in the Rebel camps that the Yankees were holding an election, Lieutenant Robert McChesney was sent into Tucker, partly on a scouting expe- dition and partly to disturb the proposed election. On the night of June 28, he, with a body of troops, halted at the house of Job Parsons, in the Holly Meadows, and staid over night. The next day the election was to be held, and very early in the morning McChesney and his men departed for St. George, five miles distant. When they reached there, they found that no move had been made toward hold- ing an election, but it was well understood that at Hannahs- ville, eight miles down the river, an election would be held, under the guard of Yankees from Rowlesburg. Some of McChesney's men were sent into other parts, and some of the Home Guards joined him, and he proceeded to Han- nahsville. The following letters, relating to the subject, were furnished the author by Mr. J. Z. McChesney, of Charleston, W. Va., a brother to Lieutenant McChesney. The first was written by Mrs. Mary A. Sce, a lady well re- membered here, but now dead. Her letter reads thus :
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