USA > West Virginia > Tucker County > History of Tucker County, West Virginia, from the earliest explorations and settlements to the present time; > Part 36
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JACOB B. WOTRING,* born, 1834, son of Peter Wotring, was married in 1863 to Ellen, daughter of Robert K. Knotts,
* This name is often written " Woodring."
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of Closs Mountain. Children : Henry J., Stella A., Fanny, Jeckolialı and George Edgar. He is a farmer of 134 acres, half cultivated, and has one hundred bearing apple trees, and forty peach trees. He came to Tucker from Preston, 1844, and settled near where Alexander Closs now lives. The next year he moved to his own farm about 12 miles from St. George on Horse Shoe Run. In one winter he killed 7 panthers.
W. M. WEST, born, 1842, in Baltimore, Maryland, is not a resident of Tucker further than that in the capacity of a minister of the M. E. Church; he traveled in the county in 1884. He was married in 1874 to Emily M. Naylor, of Maryland. Children : Florence V., Edward E., William N. and baby.
DENNIS YOAKUM, of German descent, from Grant County, son of Alfred Yoakum, born, 1852; married, 1884. Farmer, 28 miles from St. George on Dry Fork; been in Tucker since 1882; owns 100 acres of land, 20 acres improved. Children : Sarah Ann and Adam.
JOHN W. YAGER, born, 1847, in Preston, German and Irish descent; married, 1867, to Laverna Ganer, of Barbour County. Children: Truman L., Coretta G., Emory J., Leaper A., Fernando C., Dorphretta A. and Effie C. He is a farmer of 160 acres, 45 acres improved, on Haddix Run, fourteen miles from St. George. He is a preacher of the M. E. Church South.
GEORGE W. YOKUM, born, 1847, in Missouri ; married, 1876, to Elizabeth, daughter of William J. Flanagan. His farm on Red Creek, 30 miles from St. George, contains 153 acres, half improved. He belonged to the Home Guards. Chil- dren : Cletis, Stella and Ferva.
APPENDIX.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR"
HU MAXWELL was born in Tucker County, Western Vir- ginia, September 22, 1860, of educated and respectable par- entage,-of English, German and Irish descent. He is a son of the Hon. Rufus Maxwell, of St. George, one of the well-known and influential citizens of Virginia.
In looking for facts concerning the early life of young Maxwell, we find in him but few traits not noticeable in the average intelligent representative of Young America.
He was reared on a farm. As a general rule, farmers' boys have to work, and especially has this always been the case in Tucker County. But young Maxwell was not partial to manuel labor, and many were the deep schemes he laid to avoid it. One of his favorite plans to escape work-then an absolute torture to him-was, to get very sick and go with- out dinner, and then after the others of the family had gone to their work, for him to pillage the pantry, and then stroll off to build toy mills and construct mud mill-races. After having tired himself at such work he would lie down and go
* This sketch of Hu Maxwell was written by Henry Clay Hyde, Esq., a prominent lawyer of the Kingwood Bar, and a man of rare literary merits. Hle and Maxwell are exactly the same height and weight, and nearly the same age, and possess tempera- ments nearly the same. Both are fond of travel and romance ; and their travels have been over nearly the same grounds. Mr. Ilyde, from his intimate acquaintance with the subject of the sketch is well qualified for the undertaking which he has accom- plished. He has dealt impartially, as may be seen from his criticisms where there is aught to criticise. He has had access to papers and memoranda of Maxwell which few persons have had the privilege of seeing, and from them he has drawn where it was necessary to do so .- JAS. W. WHITE.
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to sleep. No matter how often, or how loud, his parents would call for him, he would not answer them. If he was asleep he had not heard them ; but if he was awake, and within hearing, he was too busy to answer calls which did not, in the least, concern him. More than once did his parents have the whole neighborhood hunting for him- calling and searching everywhere-and, when discovered, would be found watching, serenely and quietly, the move- ments of his anxious parents and friends, from some obscure spot in the wood-yard or through a crack in the paling fence surrounding the garden.
He differed from other boys in this : he had no associates or playmates. Not a boy on Horse Shoe Run associated with him. It appears that he preferred to "associate with himself" and roam through the forests and by the brook- side, and commune with nature in the way which we then appreciated her inspiring beauties, than to be in the lively and frolicsome company of all the boys in the neighborhood. His natural disposition appeared to be that of a consum- mate recluse, and as such, at the early age of eight years we find him in his seclusion courting the muses. He began by extemporizing poetry-usually doggrel of four lines, describing anything that would attract his attention or strike his fancy. But he did not write them down, for he had reached his fourteenth year before he could write. He generally forgot them as soon as he saw anything else which suggested a subject upon which to exercise his poetical ge- nius. However, he had remembered a few when he learned to write, and wrote them down, keeping them until 1880, when, upon being appointed a cadet to the U. S. Naval Academy, he burned all his poetry with the exception of a few compositions.
HU MAXWELL
C. H. MAXWILL
ABE BONNIFIELD
JOHN MOORE.
1
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One of the four-line doggrels composed by him when quite a small boy, it is not remembered at what age, was preseved by him after learning how to write. The idea was suggested by seeing some hogs rooting in a swamp. The lines show a boy's ability to coin words if they possess no other merit. The lines ran thus:
All the hogs are digging deeper After lizzards in the mud; And their ears look like a reeper, And their noses like a bud.
Immediately under this preserved effusion the author afterwards wrote, " what this means, I don't know;" and, in all probability, he is correct. But he must be given credit for the possession of a virtue-in other words, a good judgment-not usually possessed by those who engage in versification at an early age: Although expressing his thoughts in rhyme at the early age of eight years,-six years before he was taught to write-he was not known to offer a single production to the public until he was twenty years of age, at which time his occasional poems elicited the very favorable criticism of the leading members of the State press.
His education in the country schools was limited to a few months, during which time it was not observed by his parents that he had made ordinary progress in the attain- ment of knowledge. His mother taught him about all he knew until he reached his fifteenth year. Up to this time he did not learn much ; for he did not know his letters at eleven, and never got higher than the Third Reader and the rudiments of arithmetic during the time he attended the country schools. However-strange to say-at the age of fourteen he was one of the very best geographers in West 33
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Virginia-having taken a fancy to the study-which was owing to the fact, no doubt, that he had been laughed at for saying that Spain was in the United States, confounding it with Maine. This aroused his ambition-likely the first he ever experienced. He got Mitchell's geography and atlas and went to work to learn the answer to every question in it. Every spare moment was devoted to the old geography : and as he never made up his mind to do anything he did not do, in one month he could answer every question, nor was his knowledge of the superficial kind. It was practical. Now, he and his brother Cyrus put what money they had together, and bought a newer and larger geography and were not long in mastering it. He has never studied geog- raphy more than a week since, and has always passed nearly perfect examinations in it.
He had completed geography and was looking about for something else when he hit upon history. He got Ander- son's General History and went to work on it. Events, places and dates seemed to fix themselves naturally in his mind, and he soon knew Anderson's History almost as well as well as Mitchell's Geography. Meanwhile his oldest brother, Wilson B., was attending college. When he came home he was surprised to find that Hn was able to teach him far more than he ever learned of geography and history. Hu continued his reading-almost constantly, and read scores of histories, ancient and modern; and to perfect his knowledge in ancient history, took a course in ancient geography.
When he had completed history he looked for another book; for it always was, and now is, his nature and charac- teristic, not to attempt to do two things at the same time. Eo always finishes one thing before beginning another.
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While looking for a new book, he found a Davies' Algebra and Adams' Latin Grammar-books which his mother had learned from. He was examining the algebra and grammar, when he was told that he would save time by the study of arithmetic, before that of algebra; also, by learning some- thing of English grammar before beginning the study of Latin. He at once got a grammar (Kirkham's) and went through it. He then went through Pinneo, Smith and Har- vey. He learned the definitions, but did not understand the science. However, he was of the opinion that he did, and knew no better until J. J. Peterson, Esq., gave him his first insight into the science some three years later.
All this took place while he was under sixteen years of age, and was at home trudging on the farm or at work on the saw-mill.
His knowledge of geography and history begat in him a desire for travel. When the Centennial Exhibition came, he was nearly sixteen, and wanted to go. His father took him and his three next younger brothers. As it has been expressed : "It was his first sight of terrestrial creation in all its magnificence."
When he returned from Philadelphia -- in October-he was sent to Weston, W. Va., to school." His experience there was about about what every other boy's is at school, except that he would confine himself to but one branch of study at a time. He recited in several branches ; but arith- metic got all the study. He got through Ray's Third Arith- metic and was turned back to go through it again ; for some of the boys were lazy and others had to hang back on their
* The first year Mr. Maxwell attended the Weston Academy, the school was taught, by Louis Bennett, now Prosecuting Attorney of Lewis Counts ; the second year it was tanght by J. J. Peterson, now editor of the Huntington Republican ; and in 1578 79it was under the management of L. C. Crippen.
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account. While he was going through arithmetie a second time, he was making philosophy his special study.
When school was out in the spring of 1877, he went home and worked on the farm that summer. He now took up the study of algebra.
In the fall he again returned to Weston and pursued his studies. The text-books, from which he recited in the elass- room, did not interest him, and he spent the greater part of his time reading works on geology and astronomy. He was now in Higher Arithmetic.
When the term ended, he did not go home, but remained with his grandfather, and worked a little on the farm. Here he took up his Higher Arithmetic, and in three weeks had worked every example in it, with but a single exception. After the completion of the arithmetic he undertook the study of Latin, and he met a warrior-though dead-not easy to conquor. He thought he could learn the language that summer, but he was mistaken.
In 1878-79 his progress was as rapid as usual and his work no less incessant. Still clinging to the practice of pursuing but one study to the exclusion of all others, he took a fancy to Geometry, and went through the works of several authors on the subject.
About this time the students of the Academy organized a debating society. They had a debate every Friday evening. Capital punishment was debated with great warmth and enthusiasm, and the people of the town shared in the ex- citement. Mr. Maxwell was against capital punishment, and so deeply did he rivet his convictions, that to-day he is uncompromisingly opposed to the death penalty. His studies were likely neglected in order that he might throw all his energies into the debates in which he engaged. The
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writer has heard him say : "My studying, then, was more of a desultory character than most people thought." He was always studying something, but it was one thing at a time, to the exclusion or neglect of everything else.
He fell into the habit of reading biography, and usually read forty pages a day. He went through the whole curric- ulum of English authors from Chaucer to Tennyson, and did likewise with the history of the naval and military men of the world. He read everything of a biographical nature that he could get possession of. He then returned to his- tories and read everything from Josephmus to Peter Parley. He could read an average-sized book in a day, and so re- markable was his memory that he could remember every event, place and date in it. While he was doing this, of course, other studies were more or less neglected.
In June, 1880, Mr. Maxwell graduated. He was given a diploma on twenty-one branches, six of which he had never studied in school three days in his life. But he passed his examination on them, and passed well. He had gained his information from general reading .. On the day before he was to be examined on bookkeeping, he borrowed Duff's treatise on that subject, and read it that night. The next day he answered every question asked him and was given 100 per cent. on the examination. He never opened a work on geology in the school room and yet never missed a ques- tion. He had read probably a dozen books on the subject -also on mineralogy and astronomy-so he had no need of studying them in the school room.
Full one-half of the school-time study of his life was de- voted to Latin. He studied Greek for a short time but never made much progress. However, he studied it long enough to be able to read a few sentences in Herodotus,
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Xenophon and Homer, when he quit it -- forever. He had not made up his mind to learn it. But in Latin it was dif- ferent. He studied hard, and has often been known to take the grammar and steal away from others and then, for hours, dig like a Trojan to learn the conjugations. He was afflicted with headache almost constantly, for two years, which was, no doubt, caused by constant study.
In school and out, Mr. Maxwell has read a pretty full course in the Latin classics. Virgil, Livy and Cæsar are his favorites. He can repeat several books of Virgil, nearly entire, in the original language, and has written a transla- tion of several chapters of Cæsar.
In English he has read nearly all the standard poets, Shakspeare, Byron, Pope and Tennyson in particular. Byron is his choice, clearly, above all writers, ancient or modern, and he has committed to memory nearly half his poems.
As a student, Mr. Maxwell has always been a too-close one. His study at school was intense, but done in an irreg- ular manner. Everything was carried to extremes. During the four years he spent at the Weston Academy, it is be- lieved that he read four times as much as any other student there, and was always perfect in his recitations. It may not be out of place to add here that he never read but one novel·in his life.
In May, 1880, he was appointed a Cadet Engineer to the United States Naval Academy, at Annapolis, Md .; but did not go to Annapolis until the following September. The summer of 1880 was a momentous one to him. He did more intense, devoted studying that summer than during any other two years of his life, studying almost night and day. Often a week would pass without taking more than
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twelve hours sleep. Frequently, he would not rest his head on a pillow or disrobe himself for sleep twice in two weeks. He would study until after midnight, throw himself on the floor, or rest his head on his stand, and sleep an hour or two, wake up excited and hurry to his books again. He was preparing for the Annapolis examinations; and, judg- ing from what we know of him, he was determined that the result of his study should be success or death. The little sleep he got was no rest from study. His mind was as hard at work while his body was asleep as when awake. Algebra, geometry and philosophy were the subjects of his dreams. How he endured it we cannot tell. But he broke lown at last. When the time came to go to Annapolis, he was sick and nearly blind. However, he went and passed the examination without trouble. He called up all his re- serve strength and worked to remain in the Academy. From day to day he got worse and his eyesight failed. He knew more than enough to have remained, but his health was broken down-he was blind and nervous. He saw -- in fact he was told so-that it would be impossible for him to re- main, so he packed up his valise, took a steamer, and went off on the Chesapeake Bay, and has not seen Annapolis since.
Had Mr. Maxwell been more moderate in study, he might have remained at the Academy; but his tendency to carry study to an extreme, caused the failure of his health. Ilo is now glad that he could not remain. He believes that he would have deserted anyhow within two years. His desire to go to Colorado at that time would, no doubt, have led him to arrive at such a conclusion.
All along, up to this time, he had written verses on almost every imaginable subject. Some of the poems were of
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considerable length. On one he worked at odd times and on Sundays for eight months, and averaged 1,000 lines a month, or 8,000 in all. It was a metrical, blood-curdling romance, written in the measure of Hiawatha. The scene was laid in Madagascar, and to some extent in the adjacent countries, and on the Indian Ocean. It contained one tro- mendons shipwreck, and there was no end to the fights with savages, wild beasts and " chimeras dire." There was very little original in the story. He had gleaned the incidents and episodes from Eastern stories, and from "Drury's Ad- ventures in Madagascar." But he found occasion for a few fancy touches, in addition, and had two or three exciting thunder-storms in the mountains. The manuscript escaped the flames of September 12, 1880, when he collected and burnt 40,000 lines of verso, clearing up his past record in order to begin anew when he shoukl enter the Naval Academy. Another poem that escaped his wantonness was an allegorical pasquinade, representing a newspaper war between two editors, one of Weston and the other of Buck- hannon. This poem contains 1,000 verses. A few shorter poems were also spared.
When Mr. Maxwell arrived at home from Annapolis he was nearly blind. He read but little during the following year. He knew that the best thing for him to do was to spend the winter as roughly as possible. He went into the lumber business. He chopped logs and peeled trees and did anything else that came along to be done. He worked . in sunshine, snow and rain, nor missed a day. He carried his dinner to the woods with him, and in cold weather, when mercury stood at zero, his bread and bacon would freeze and grit beneath his teeth; but it suited him. It was romance and it was doing him good. He grew stronger
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every day and was soon able to stand almost anything. He did not bother his head with books. He might have made more money at easier work; but he was rebuilding his con- stitution, and well did he succeed. No matter how cold the morning, if Horse Shoe Run was not frozen over, he would pull off his boots and wade it. Once when it was over its banks -- and it is a dangerous stream-he pulled off his boots, coat and hat and swam it. The ice was running thick, and in the drift he was carried down the stream nearly a quarter of a mile. But he came out and walked home, a half mile, barefooted, through the snow and ice.
Thus he spent the winter, and the spring found him with a constitution like iron. He could say then, as he can say now, that, he can stand anything in the shape of ex- posure, fatigue or hardship, that any other man can stand. About the only literary work of that winter was the writing of two novels, "Rich Mountain" and "Llewellyn."
In the spring of 1881, Mr. Maxwell taught a graded school at St. George. He did good work there, but the school was not a financial snecess. When his school was out he went to Parkersburg and took part in an Institute which was in progress there at that time. After visiting Blannerhassett Island, and other points near Parkersburg, he went to Tay- lor County and engaged a school which he taught the fol- lowing winter.
The next summer he spent at home writing a history called "Conquest of the Ohio Valley." He had worked on it some before that time; and in the summer of 1881 ho had written a history of Tucker County; but it was not published until 1884. The "Conquest" is yet incomplete and unpublished. He has worked on it for two years, and
HISTORY OF TUCKER COUNTY.
the preparatory reading and compiling of notes extended back over several years.
In the fall of 1882 he was invited to deliver an address at the Fort Henry Centennial, to be celebrated at Wheeling. He went and spoke. The address entire was published in the Wheeling Sunday Register. It was characterized by the State press as an eloquent and masterly effort.
In November of that year be went to Cincinnati in the interest of his "Conquest." In returning he came up the Ohio on the steamer Indes to Huntington, and thence home, passing over to the Kanawha, up it and New River and the Greenbrier to Lewisburg. Part of this distance he went on the cars and walked part. From Lewisburg he came across the country, home, a distance of 150 miles. He slept by the roadside at night and had a general rough and tumble time. For food he ate crackers exclusively. At one time he walked eighty miles without stopping any place to rest over night. He would walk until he could go no longer, then lie down and sleep a few hours, and then up and on again. Thus he walked over 200 miles, aver- aging thirty-five or forty miles a day. He came from the Greenbrier River to Mingo Flats without stopping an hour to rest or sleep. Late at night, above Huttonsville, Ran- dolph County, he lay down on the ground to sleep. It rained and he slept on until nearly day, when he awoke and proceeded on his way. Soon his ankle began to pain him, and when he had gotten within two miles of Beverly, it gave away. He could not lift his foot from the ground, and was in a sad plight. But he hit upon a plan that sne- ceeded. He took a strap that was around his knapsack and tied it to his foot, and at every step he wouldl lift his foot from the ground, and thus went hobbling into Beverly,
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where he remained until his ankle got better when he proceeded home.
He spent the winter of 1882-83 at home in the lumber business, and wrote some and read a little at night. Early in the following March he set out for a series of wanderings. He visited all the Southern States except Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. He took up his head-quarters for a short time at New Orleans, and from there made excursions into the surrounding country, pass- ing through some vast swamps filled with alligators. Ho went to Texas and traveled over 1,000 miles in that State. Then he crossed into Mexico, and back to Texas again. He then went to New Mexico, and from there to Arizona- that dread region of the dead universe. In New Mexico he came near getting mixed up in the Indian war. General Crook was then there, and Mr. Maxwell was on the point of starting to Silver City, but did not. The company with whom he would have gone was set upon by the Indians and destroyed. He went to Arizona and stopped a very short time at Tueson, and a little longer at Yuma. From Yuma it was only across the river to California, and he soon had crossed and had set his feet on the Golden Shore. That waste solitude looked to him little like a paradise. The morning he crossed the mercury stood 130 degrees in the shade. He passed into the Colorado Desert, one of the hottest countries of the earth. It extends north-westward from the Gulf of California. He visited that great wonder of the Pacific Slope, the "Boiling Gulf," of California, and wrote a splendid description of it for the columns of The Wheeliny Intelligencer, from which we make the following extract :
Half smothered as we were, we climbed from the cars to the
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ground, and started on foot to the Boiling Gulf, which was only a few minutes' walk distant. The crust of salt and coarse gravel over which we walked was so hot that it burned the soles of our shoes. This may sound unreasonable, but it is a fact. But that was no detriment, and in a few minutes we were standing on the brink of a formidable pit some ninety feet in circumference and ten or twelve feet deep. This was the Boiling Gulf. It was nearly full of black mnd, which was blubbering and boiling and hissing, like that bottomless pit of fire and brimstone which we read of in Dante, where the tormented spirits come up from the fierces depths below to cool themselves. I said that the pit is ten or twelve feet deep. I might as well say it is ten hundred feet deep, for nobody knows its depth. The mud fills it to within ten feet of the top, and what the depth of the inud is cannot be told. There is an intensely nauseating odor coming up from the foul den. It savors strongly of sulphurretted hydrogen, and one turns dizzy to breathe it.
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