USA > West Virginia > Tucker County > History of Tucker County, West Virginia, from the earliest explorations and settlements to the present time; > Part 35
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HENRY J. SHRADER, son of Henry Shrader, of German de- 'nt, was born at Lead Mine, 1853. In 1881 he married rah S., daughter of Garrett Long, of Holly Meadows. ildren : Addie Alma and Lillie Alberta; is the founder Fairfax, as Eastham is the founder of Davis ; moved to irfax March 28, 1883. He is a contractor, overseer and nager on the railroad.
VILLIAM F. SHAHAN, born, 1852, son of George Shahan ; rried to Mitchel Nester in 1880. Children : Louisa and ah M. His farm contains 111 acres, with 20 acres im- ved, 8 miles from St. George, on Licking.
V. F. STOUT, of Harrison County, born, 1859; married, 3, to Harriet, daughter of Coleman Schoonover ; lives miles below St. George, and follows lumbering as a iness.
OHN A. SHAFFER, of Preston County, of German descent, born in 1849; married in 1870 to Sophia, daughter John Roth, of Garrett County, Maryland. Children : vard C., Faith A., Ethiel H. and Lulu B. He has fol- :d the occupation of farming and merchandising, and is rade a carpenter and mechanic. He is now keeping hotel t. George ; he was in the Union army during the war,
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and for awhile was stationed at Wheeling and at one time was ordered to Staunton, but never reached it.
S. N. SWISHER, son of David Swisher, was born in Hamp- shire County in 1848; he is of German, French, Swiss and English descent; he gets his Swiss from the Swishers and his English from the Bonifields. In 1875 he married Mary S., daughter of Jesse Parsons. Children : Minnie B. and Scott N. He has taught eleven schools-three in Hamp- shire County, two in Mineral and six in Tucker; he is a number one teacher, but has now retired from the profes- sion and has turned his whole attention to farming; he came to Tucker in 1873 and bought a farm on Horse Shoe Run, five miles from St. George. It contains 80 acres of im- proved land and 94 acres of wild land. His farm is in the very best condition, and is a model of modern agriculture. Besides his Horse Shoe Run farm, he has a half interest in the Job Parsons farm, in the Holly Meadows, five miles from St. George. It contains 327 acres, with 120 acres improved. In 1869 he was a brakeman on the B. & O. R. R. from Pied- mont to Grafton; he followed this work a short time, and then went west, visiting the States as far as Iowa, Missouri and Kansas. Not being altogether pleased with it, as he found it, he returned to West Virginia and bought him a farm. He has been on the teachers' board of examiners and president of the board of education.
AUGUSTUS J. STANSBURY, was born in 1848, and married in 1864, at the age of 16, to Mary A. Montgomery, of Barbour County. Children : Jonah, Henry, Polly Ann, Josiah, Eloy and George Nelson.
FRANK A. H. SPESERT, of German descent, son of George Spesert, of Horse Shoe Run, was born in 1853. He is gen-
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erally working on a farm, but occasionally he follows some other business for the sake of change. He is an excellent worker and often gets much higher wages than other labor- ers. He seems to have been marked out for bad luck. When he was a boy he split his ankle bone with an ax and was helpless six months. Then, afterward, he had his leg broken by a saw-log. Later, another log rolled over him and mashed his head, cheek andjaw. It broke him of the habit of chewing tobacco, for his jaw won't crush it.
HENRY SHRADER, born in Germany 1809, died 1878. He came to America in 1838 and in 1848 was married in Cum- berland to Tracy Headlough, of Germany. The next year he came to Lead Mine, a branch of Horse Shoe Run, and commenced opening up a farm. His land, 139 acres, was half under cultivation at the time of his death. His chil- dren are : Mary Jane, Henry, Crista, John, Lewis D., Teena Margaret, Mary Louisa, Tracy Carolina and Sophia Elizabeth.
WILLIAM SHAFER, born 1857, son of Samuel Shafer, of English and German descent, was married, 1882, to Lizzie, daughter of John C. Plum. Their child's name is Stranda. He is a farmer and lumberman, living three miles below St. George.
THOMAS P. SPENCER, born 1833, son of Joseph Spencer, married, 1858, to Catharine Lewis. He farms 30 acres of improved land, and has 95 acres of wild territory, on Loca- tion, 7 miles from St. George. Children : Sarah E., John Thomas McClellan, Mary L. and James O. He spent three years in the Union army, and took part in Hunter's raid ; was in several battles, and was wounded at Cedar Creek by a Minie-ball which passed through his ankle. He was per- manently disabled by the wound and now receives a pension. 32
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GEORGE F. SPESERT, born in Maryland, 1803, of German descent, son of David Spesert, was married, 1842, to Clo- rinda I., daughter of David Gilmore, of Shafer's Fork. Children : David H., Susan C., Mary E., Joseph W., Lettie P., Christena Perlinder, Margaret C. S., George William, Franklin A. H., Nicholas W. and Taylor. His farm of 82 acres, half improved, is partly in Tucker and partly in Pres- ton, on Horse Shoe Run, 12 miles from St. George ; has been living where he now lives since about 1854.
L. W. SHAFFER, born, 1851, in Preston, son of Abram Shaffer, a German, was married in 1870 to Olive A. Stemple, danghter of Major D. Stemple, of Preston. Children : Ar- dilla B., Jessie Myrtle, Daisy Dean, Ora Ross, Ethel Lee, Odessa. He lives in Canaan, 31 miles from St. George, and has four acres of improved land on a farm of 12 acres ; his is the most commodious house in Canaan and probably in the county. He is foreman on his brother's laud, which joins his own.
GEORGE C. SHAFFER, born at Horse Shoe Run P. O., Pres- ton County, 1856, son of Jacob Shaffer, of German descent. In 1833 he married Mary Belle Domire, of Lead Mine, daughter of D. L. Domire. He is by trade a carpenter, and has an interest in the "Dumire Shingle Mill."
DAVID H. SPESERT, son of George Spesert, born, 1841, in Maryland, came to Horse Shoe Run in 1854 and twenty- three years later he was married to Perezinda Frances, daughter of Thomas M. Mason. He lives on Horse Shoe Run, 12 miles from St. George, and followed the shoe- maker's trade 5 years ; he is now a farmer.
DANIEL SPANGLER, son of Jacob Spangler, born 1850, of German descent. In 1978 he was married to Mary A.,
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daughter of Alexander Campbell. Their child's name is William A. By trade, he is a blacksmith, but of late he has turned his attention to farming, and lives on Miller Hill, 5 miles from St. George.
JOHN A. SWISHER, son of David Swisher, of Hampshire County, was born 1857 ; is of English and Swiss descent ; was married in 1883 to Ella, daughter of E. W. McGill, of Hampshire County ; is a farmer of 150 acres, one half under cultivation, on Horse Shoe Run, 5 miles from St. George ; has also a half interest in the "Job Parsons" farm in Holly Meadows. He attended the public schools of Hampshire, and one term at Low Gap, in Tucker County, and attended the Fairmont Normal School one year-1878-1879 ; has taught five schools, one in Hampshire and four in Tucker. He holds four No. 1 certificates in Tucker ; is a brother to S. N. Swisher, and like him is a model farmer. His plantation is tilled and kept in the bost manner.
DAVID L. STEVENS, a native of Pennsylvania, came to Tucker with C. R. Macomber, and has since lived here. He is of distant German descent. His farm on Wolf Run is four miles from St. George. His children are Giles, Susan, David and Minta.
WILLIAM M. SPESERT, of English and German descent, was born 1844. He is a son of George Spesert and has lived all his life on Horse Shoe Run, except four years in St. George ; is a farmer of 400 acres of land ; lives on the farm that for- merly belonged to William Losh, on Horse Shoe Run, six miles from St. George. In 1874 he was married to Mary Maxwell, daughter of Rufus Maxwell; his children are Jon- nie Miller, George Frances and Willis Maxwell.
T.
E. W. THOMAS, born 1848, married Virginia Nutter, 1857,
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His wife died and he married Mary E., daughter of Joseph Hawkins, of Monongalia County. His farm contains 118 acres, 4 miles from St. George on Clover. Children : Ida Black, Isaac E., Russell E., and Earnest C.
WILLIAM E. TALBOTT, son of F. D. Talbott, was born Feb- ruary 24, 1843, at the old Talbott farm, four miles below St. George. The Talbott family originally came from Mary- land, and seem to be of English descent, slightly mixed with German. In 1865 he married Analiza Kalar, of Clover Run. His children are : Howard, Charles, Francis, and George B. The history of W. E. Talbott is one that is of interest to all who would know of the war, and how Tucker County's boys fared in it. He remained on his father's farm, hard at work, all his life until he was seventeen years old. The old farm is now about as it was then. The war and the lapse of twenty-five or thirty years, have made little change in it, and four miles below St. George it may be still seen about as it was when young Talbott worked there, hoeing the corn, hilling the potatoes and repairing broken fences that storms had dilapidated or rampageous cattle had overthrown in their rage for green corn or young clover. To this work the farmer boy, whose youthful days are fated to be spent in Tucker, must get accustomed; for, such it must be. When the snows of winter depart from the fields, and under the influence of spring's first warm days the grass begins to get green, the hungry cattle that have chewed dry fodder for their lives during the snowy months, begin to roam up and down the plantations to find out the weak places in the en- closures, and to burst through them or to leap over, to fat- ten on the tender vegetation which is peeping through the husky straws of last year, still lying like corpses upon the ground, among the brier bunches, and against the banks and
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small hills that front toward the southern warmness.
It may have been from his observations that those fields that faced the south were the most sunny in springtime, when sunshine was genial and beautiful, that, from his earliest years he developed an admiration and sympathy for the land of the South, and regarded it as bourn of all that was noble and patriotic. Be this as it may, he admired the South, and in the arguments that came up when the county was dissevering into two parts, he never let an opportunity to speak and uphold his choice pass unused. The wise heads whose mental force shape, it may be, the course, if not the destiny, of nations, saw not sooner than the country boys where the storm of war would break. The elements of tumult were mingled in affinity all through the human composition of the United States, although more in some parts than in others, and statesmen could see no further with all their models of past empires and past destinies than the farmer lads knew by intuition, or by natural knowl- edge. The clash would be a war, and as such it would end as chance ends its works. The boys saw this, and took part as their fancy, principles or passions directed.
Such a boy was William E. Talbott; and such boys were his neighbors, Cornelius and Nelson Parsons, Dock Long and Robert See, who now sleeps in his rock-walled grave near the dreary shore of Owen's Lake, in the desert domains of the Sierra Nevadas, in California. When the war-which came slowly as a fire on a fuse, and flashed into myriads of simultaneous explosions, as magazines of warlike munitions ignited-had really come, Tucker County's young men caught up such arms as they had and started South- nearly all went South. Cornelius and Nelson Parsons and Robert See went in May, 1861, but Talbott did not go till
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June. He joined Garnett's army at Huttonsville, in Ran- dolph County, just in time to take part in the battles and share in the defeats, routs and starvations. The boys found it a rough beginning to the life of glory which they had pic- tured themselves about to enter.
The history of the battles at Laurel Hill, Rich Mountain and Corrick's Ford, and the consequent retreat that resulted so disastrously to Garnett's army, has been detailed to some length in another chapter, and it is needless to repeat it. Talbott was in it all and endured it all. He found it harsh usage to a boy of his years to be taken from the easy work of a farm and placed in a crowded road of retreating sol- diers, and made to march to the music of their trundling cannon, while the July rains pelted him and the July suns scorched him, and Yankee scouts tormented him from the rear, and rumors of Yankee cannon came in from the front with grim dimensions. But the farmer boy of 18 years was into it now, and he had to go through with the last ordeal that lay in the way of that retreating army which fled from Corrick's Ford July 14, 1861. With shoeless feet he hob- bled over the stony road, and waded the sticky mud, and got no breakfast and fared the same at noon, and marched all night without his supper. About this time he was thinking of the old farm four miles below St. George, where in the early summer the strawberries look red in the fields, and the dewberries grow wild along the river. But it was a dream not to be realized for him to think of it then. He was mixed in one of the most shameful routs of the war, and he must go through with it.
At the Red House, at 2 o'clock in the morning of July 15th, he got a little rest, and got a few mouthfuls of beef, the first food he had tasted for two days. This halt was
-
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while Captain Harper and company were going to the top of Backbone Mountain to see if the enemy were there. The rest came good to the wretched Rebels, who were tired and starved nearly to death. The next day they reached Petersburg, in Grant County. The citizens brought in plenty of provisions, and the army rested two days, and then proceeded to Monterey, in Highland County, Va. From there it went into Greenbrier County.
The general fighting soon began. On October 3rd, Tal- bott was one of 120 who held in check for an hour and twenty minutes, Milroy's 5000 men. When the Confederate pickets could hold the Federals in check no longer, they fell back upon the Rebel camp and the Yankees followed within a short distance but did not attempt to cross the river. There was some cannonading. The Rebels were commanded by Col. Edward Johnson. In the September previous the Rebels had made an attack on the Yankees at Cheat Mount- ain, and got thrashed. In November they, the Rebels, went into winter quarters on the top of the Alleghany Mountains. The Yankees now thought it their time to attack the Rebels, which they did on December 13. The attack was made be- fore daylight in the morning and lasted until 2 p. m. The result was that the Yankees got worse whipped than the Rebels had been at Cheat Mountain in September. This was a hard winter and the Rebels suffered very much. The snow fell deep, and they had only the merest shelter and some had none. Talbott often slept out in the snow, with only a blanket around him. No doubt the return of the spring was to them a welcome visitor. Whether the old strawberry fields came into Talbott's mind, it is hard now to say, but probably they did. But he had few spare moments to think of or remember such things, for the war was come
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with more fury than ever, and the Rebels soon found it to their advantage to fall back within six miles of Staunton. About the last of May or first of June they attacked the Federals at McDowell.
Now came on a series of battles. It was at this time that Captain Harper rode to the Rebel headquarters and notified them that the Federals were moving upon Jackson's rear. Battles took place in rapid succession. Stonewall Jackson swept everything before him. Talbott was taken sick and was sent to the hospital. While there a band of Yankees broke in and captured him, and carried him off. He received good treatment, and soon after was paroled, with others who were taken at the same time. The com- pany to which Talbott belonged was Company I, made up in Lewis County, under Alfred Jackson, a cousin to Stonewall.
After he was paroled, Talbott never got back to the army. When the war was over, he married and settled down to the life of a useful and industrious citizen. He is a tanner by trade, and in connection with his tannery, he runs a saddlery and harness shop. He also opened a hotel in St. George soon after he was married, but closed it again. In 1880 he reopened it and has since kept it open to the public. He has held several offices, and was nom- inated in 1880 by the Democratic convention for sheriff of Tucker County. The old farm where he spent his boyhood days is as famous a' strawberry plantation as ever, and the early sunshine of spring calls forth the grass as early as ever, and the rampageous cattle break the fences as bad as ever.
FINLEY TOY, born, 1854, in Armstrong County, Pennsyl- vania, son of James Toy, of Irish, English and German de-
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scent. He has been in the lumbering business ever since he could carry stove wood. He is partner in the firm of Minear & Toy. He is a pushing business man, and has friends wherever he goes. Mr. Toy married J. Almyra, daughter of Capt. William Elliott, of Kingwood, Preston County, on Tuesday, October 7, 1884.
V.
ISAAC N. VANSCOY, son of John Vanscoy, of Barbour, born 1854, married, 1879, to Margaret A., daughter of John Bright, and lives 14 miles above St. George. Children : Laura Dill and Bertha Ellen.
HENRY L. VANMETER, born, 1848, in Barbour County, son of Benjamin F. Vanmeter, of German and English descent ; married, 1872, to Mary E., daughter of William Weaver, of Barbour County ; is a farmer, living 7 miles above St. George, with 24 acres of improved land and 42 acres of wild land. Children : Alice Only, S. J. Tilden, Benjamin F., and Wes- ley B. He came to Tucker in 1882.
JOSHUA VANSCOY, born, 1827, in Randolph County, son of Aaron Vanscoy, of German descent ; married in Randolph to Margaret Hayes, 1848. Children : Susan Columbia and Rebecca Jane. In 1875 his wife died, and two years later he married Lavina C. Wilson ; is a farmer of 86 acres, with 40 acres improved, 15 miles from St. George.
JONATHAN VARNER was born in 1831 in Pendleton County, of German descent. In 1850 he married Margaret Whis- tleman ; she died in 1861, and he married Mary Puffin- barger. Children : Elizabeth J., John, Henry H., William, James, Madison, Emiline, Martin, Teena, Hawley and Sarah Ann .; is a farmer and miller, living on Red Creek, 27 miles from St. George.
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W.
GEORGE K. WILT, son of Peter Wilt, born in 1848. In 1870 he married Lucinda J., daughter of Elijah Phillips; is a farmer, living 10 miles from St. George, on Brushy Fork, where he owns 102 acres, with 40 improved. Children : Andrew, Ida, Elizabeth C., Almarine, Nora and Ellot.
THOMAS WILT, born in 1856, married in 1875, to Osee A., daughter of Daniel Nester; lives on rented land 12 miles from St. George, on Clover. Children : Clarinda C., Colum- bus, Fanny F. and Jeeca.
WILSON WILT, brother to Thomas and son of Peter Wilt, was born in 1848, and married in 1869 to Elizabeth Kiser. Children : Louisa C., Cora, Sarah A. and William H .; has a farm of 90 acres, with 40 acres improved, 10 miles from St. George, on Brushy Fork.
BUNYON J. WOLFORD, son of Jacob Wolford, was born in 1844. In 1870 he married Sarah E., daughter of R. P. Johnson ; lives on Dry Fork 25 miles from St. George and owns 400 acres of land, 8 per cent. of which is under tillage. Children : Richard S., Sampson D., Mary Jane, James Daniel and Ingiaby Etta.
JACOB C. WOLFORD, deputy sheriff of Tueker County, was born in 1830, and is a son of John Wolford, of Hampshire County, where he was born in 1802. He was a German ; came to Red Creek early in the present century, and was one of the first settlers of that region. Jacob Wolford is a man of good business qualifications. Married Phoebe Bright, of Randolph County; has three children living: Columbus J., Phoebe C. and Ursula. He had four children to die of diphtheria in 1863. He is a farmer, and has been constable, overseer of the poor and deputy sheriff, under A. C. Minear.
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A. I. WILSON was born in 1859 in Garrett County, Md., of German descent, and son of J. H. Wilson. He is doing business for the firm of Feely & Wilson, at Fairfax.
AARON WOLFORD, son of John Wolford, was born 1856. In 1875 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Flanagan. He owns 25 aeres, and has 60 per cent. of it under cultiva- tion, 24 miles from St. George on Dry Fork. Children : James W., Phoebe J., Minnie Ann, Lottie Ellen, Fanny and Mollie.
ABRAHAM WOLFORD, brother to the above, was born in 1845 ; married, 1873, to Jennie Day; lives 24 miles from St. George, on Red Creek. Children: Cora E., John and Sal- lie; is a laborer.
COLUMBUS WOLFORD, son of John Wolford, was born in 1834. In 1855 he married Mary, daughter of William Flan- agan. Children : Christina, Edna, Malan, Columbia E., Claudius, Amelius, Mary, Alice and Florence J .; owned 250 acres of land on Red Creek, 30 miles from St. George, and had 100 acres improved. He died in 1878.
MALAN WOLFORD, son of Columbus Wolford, lives 30 miles from St. George, on Red Creek; was born in 1862, and is a farmer.
JOHN T. WOLFORD, son of John Wolford, was born in 1840; married Narissa, daughter of Gabriel Rains, in 1859. His wife died in 1862, and he married Susanna, daughter of Ebenezer Flanagan. He lives in Canaan. Children : Fran- ces, J. B. Floyd, Hannah, Anderson, Narissa and Susanna.
JACOB J. WHITE, son of Allen White, of Grant County, was born in 1852; married Sarah C., daughter of Elizabeth Thompson, in 1876. He is a farmer and lives on Red
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Creek, 30 miles from St. George. He owns 130 acres and has only 5 acres under tillage; has been in Tucker since 1877. Children : Ida, Henry C. and Owen L.
JOSEPH WHITE, born, 1844, in Grant County, son of Allen White, of Irish and English descent. In 1866 he married Susan Willfong, a widow, daughter of Enos Helmick. Children : Abel, Amos, Elizabeth, Allen, Harness, Mary Jane, Frank, Martin K., James B. and Fannie. His farm of 130 acres, is on Red Creek, 30 miles from St. George ; has ten acres improved; served nearly four years in the Confed- erate army, part of the time under Imboden ; was in several battles about and above Winchester, and in the battle of Gettysburg; came home on a furlough, four months before, the close of the war, and did not go back.
THOMAS D. WILSON, of German extraction, born, 1820; married, 1849, to Margaret Nester. Children : Andrew F., Henry M., Harriett and Elizabeth. Farmer, 263 acres, 9 acres improved ; 6 miles from St. George, west.
THOMAS WILLIAMS, born in Pennsylvania, 1819, of Welsh descent ; never married ; has been in the mercantile business, farming and stock-raising; came to Tucker in 1879 for his health and was so pleased with the country that he remained. He has traveled considerably, and now lives on Horse Shoe Run, 10 miles from St. George.
WILLIAM T. WHITE, son of John White, of Garrett County, Md., was born 1825, and married in 1848 to Mary Ann, daughter of John James. He is a farmer of 100 acres with 60 acres improved, on Limestone, 7 miles from St. George. He has been overseer of the poor, member of the board of education and justice of the peace. Children: John P., Thomas E., William P., Martha E. and Columbia.
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JOHN T. WHITE, son of William T. White, was born 1849; married 1868, to Eliza J., daughter of Thomas M. Mason. He is a farmer of 90 acres, with 70 acres improved, on Mill Run, 10 miles from St. George. He was constable four years. Children : Virginia F., Arthur M., Elizabeth Anna, Earl M., Mand L. and Clyde.
THOMAS E. WHITE, son of William T. White, was born in 1853; married 1878 to Susan, daughter of Thomas M. Mason. He is a farmer of 100 acres of land, with 30 acres improved, on Mill Run, 10 miles from St. George, Children : Florena M., Maggie L., Edgar M. and Anna J.
THOMAS W. WILMOTH, son of James M. Wilmoth, of Ran- dolph County, was born in 1849. In 1875 he married Clorinda C., daughter of John I. Propst. Children : Oscar J. and Leon J. He has a farm of 40 acres nearly all im- proved, on Haddix Run, 10 miles from St. George.
SAMUEL B. WAMSLEY was born in 1840, son of A. M. Wamsley, of Scotch and Irish descent, was married in 1869 to Martha Crouch, of Randolph. His wife died in 1875 and the next year he was married to Elizabeth W., daughter of Ward Parsons. Children : Berdie, Cletus Branch, Stark and Ward. His farm in the Horse Shoe, two miles from town, of 353 acres, has 140 acres improved.
PETER WILT was born in 1819, in Maryland, of German descent. In 1839 he married Catharine Wilson. He lives on Clover two miles from St. George, and follows farming and saloon keeping, the only saloon in Tucker County. Children : John H., Mary M., Abogail, George K., Sarah J., Vilena, Thomas, Anzina and Wilson.
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