USA > West Virginia > Webster County > Moccasin tracks and other imprints > Part 7
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of Solomon, that by sparing the rod there is danger of spoiling the child.
Schools were soon opened in other neighborhoods and among the pioneer teachers may be mentioned the following: William Kain, William and Samuel Given, Israel Clifton, Jonathan Griffin, Joseph Woods and Timothy Holcomb. One of the peculiar features of the schools in this county in the days of the moccasin
and the hunting shirt was that the teacher sometimes allowed the pupils to vote on the question of an "open" or "closed" school. If the majority voted for an open school, each pupil must spell and read aloud while studying his lesson. This practice was kept up by some old-time teachers as late as 1869. These subscrip- tion schools taught by the old-time masters paved the way for better ones, but progress was made slowly.
No money was drawn from the Literary Fund, for the children of indigent parents, established by the General Assembly of Virginia in 1809. Nicholas county, of which a portion of Webster county was a part, had, in 1833, eighteen primary schools, in which ninety-nine poor children received instruction at a cost of one hundred and eighty dollars. Even in neighbor- hoods where benefits were obtainable from this fund many poor children were denied the privilege because their parents did not wish them to bear the opprobrium of being educated at public expense. No schools were organized under the act of 1846, which practically gave to Virginia her first system of free schools.
During the decade between 1846 and 1856 many per- sons who had received a very good education beyond the mountains, and in Greenbrier county, moved into
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the Elk valley and the Glade country. They greatly aided in the establishment of schools in neighborhoods in which they settled. The old-time teachers were usually deficient in educational qualifications, yet they did a noble work and prepared the way for the intro- duction of the free school system of the state of West Virginia. They and the Methodist circuit riders were the advance agents of civilization that was to be in- troduced among the hills and valleys of Webster county. The boys and the girls who were disciplined and taught in those primitive schools became the first teachers under the new system. Other men educated in that class of schools became justices of the peace, county officials, legislators and ministers of the gospel.
On account of the disorganized condition of the county, brought about by the Civil War, the free school system was not carried into effect until 1867. James Dyer was the first county superintendent of free schools for the county. The acts of 1863 provided for the election of a Township Board of Education, to have full charge of all school matters pertaining to the town- ship. Legislative acts of 1866 provided for the election of three trustees in each sub-district by the patrons thereof. The auditor's report of 1867 shows that the levy for school buildings in Webster county was $294.91. The report of William Ryland White. State Superin- tendent of Free Schools. for the same year showed that the county had 11 school districts : four log school houses and received from the state four hundred and seventy-five dollars: salary of county superintendent, fifty dollars : children of school age. males, three hun- dred and forty-four, and females, two hundred and
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ninety-six. The auditor's report for 1868 shows that the county received from the state seven hundred and sixty-six dollars and ten cents; paid in teachers' sal- aries, one hundred and sixty-five dollars; levy for buildings. five hundred and eighty-six dollars and eighty-two cents.
The following are extracts taken from the report of the State Superintendent in 1868: Entire expenses for school houses and school purposes, three hundred and forty-eight dollars and eighty cents; cost of edu- cation for each pupil for school year, four hundred and sixty dollars; number of school districts, eleven : log buildings, three: number of houses built that year, three: number of youths between six and twenty-one, males, three hundred thirty-one; females, three hun- dred and three; total, six hundred and thirty-four; number of pupils attending school, males, forty-four; females, seventeen ; total, sixty-one; daily attendance, male, twenty-four: female, five; total, twenty-nine; number of teachers employed, male, three: female, one; total, four: average monthly salary, twenty-seven dol- lars ; average number of months taught, three; number of visits by county superintendent, four; number of applications for certificates, six; number of certificates granted, two.
County Superintendent's Report of 1869:
"I did hope when I made my report twelve months since, that I would have a much more favorable report than it is possible for me to make at this time.
When the commissioners and trustees believed that they were to receive pay for their services they were
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somewhat interested. but when they learned that they were to receive nothing, their zeal, if they ever had any, abated to a fearful and distressing extent.
I have traveled all over the county, and have gone to nearly every house, and I have talked a great deal and tried to impress on the minds of the people the great importance of a liberal education. I have made an effort to get the officers to go to work in good earnest, but they have failed to do their duty, except very few. It is a lamentable fact that there is not the interest taken and felt on this momentous subject that should be.
Townships.
This county is divided into three townships, Fork Lick. Glades and Holly. Each has a Board of Educa- tion. but Trustees are needed in some districts. Fork Lick is divided into four districts, and has two free schools and three subscription schools. District num- ber two has a free school. I visited it four times. I did not find it all that I desired. and I did all that I . could to correct what I believed to be wrong, and the school was respectable. District No. 3 has one free school. I visited it twice and found it doing well. The teacher is well qualified for his occupation. and was industrious and very attentive. The scholars were very studious and made proficiency. There is prospect of a free school in District No. 4 shortly.
Glades township is divided into four school districts and the Board of Education has made a levy of twenty cents on the one hundred dollars valuation for the support of free schools. There will no doubt be one free school commencing in a short time, and there is a
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probability of other schools in this township. There are four subscription schools.
Holly has been divided into four school districts and a levy of ten cents for the schools. The Board say they will have public schools in a short time. Two subscription schools have been taught in the township. There is a general complaint in the county of high taxes and hard times. Well, it is true that many people in this county are in a distressing condition, and can with difficulty pay their taxes, but notwithstanding all this, if the Boards of Education and the Trustees will do their duty. something could be done for the education of the rising generation. I have. it seems to me, done almost every thing that I could do, to get up free schools all over the county, but have accomplished but little as yet. All that I can promise is to do the best I can in the future".
JAMES DYER, County Superintendent.
The following comment upon the above report is from Honorable William Ryland White, State Superintendent :
"During my visits to this county, I could see the deso- lation that the recent war had made. Marauding parties, claiming to belong to either side as circum- stances suggested, plundered the inhabitants, and drove off their stock and burned their houses. The resources for renewing what was lost are few, and it will take a longer time for the people to get back to their former condition, than is required in less isolated sections. Yet the diffusion of knowledge is just what they need.
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Their many hills would become the pasture grounds of immense herds, so well adopted is the soil for grass. and their giant trees, sooner or later, must supply the in- creasing demand for lumber. Educated labor must de- velop Webster county, for nothing else will".
General Superintendent.
It will be seen by Superintendent Dyer's report that he had made a former report; no trace of it, however, can be found. It possibly consisted of a mere letter, as no free schools were in operation in 1867.
Webster County Statistics. From State Superintendent's Report of 1869.
Money received from state, six hundred twenty-one dollars and thirty-two cents: salaries of teachers, five hundred and seventeen dollars; salary of county super- intendent, fifty dollars; money levied for buildings, eighty-three dollars and seventy-three cents; expended for buildings, one hundred and twenty-five dollars: log school houses built, one; houses under construction, five: value of school houses, two hundred and fifty dollars : number of youths, male, two hundred and seventy-six, females, two hundred and sixty-six: en- rollment, males, two hundred and fifty-nine. females, one hundred eighty; average attendance, males. one hundred fifty. females, sixty-nine; number of school districts. ten : number of common schools. thirteen; number of second grade teachers, three: third grade, four ; fourth grade, one: fifth grade, two: number of applications for certificates, fifteen : number of certifi-
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cates granted, ten : number of teachers, ten, all men; number of months taught, twenty-three and one-half ; number of pupils studying orthography, one hundred and eighty-one; reading, one hundred and eighty-one; writing, sixty-ninė; arithmetic, thirty-two; geography, one ; English grammar, six; algebra, one; other branches, eleven ; salaries of teachers, twenty-two dol- lars; clerks, three: commissioners, nine: trustees, thirty-three ; levy for building purposes, forty cents ; for teachers' fund, twenty cents: amount collected for teachers' fund, one hundred and eighty-seven dollars and ninety-four cents.
County Superintendent's Report. of 1869.
"Hon. H. A. G. Zeigler,
State Superintendent of Free Schools:
Dear Sir :- I have found great difficulty in procuring reports from the various townships, in consequence of the imperfections in the blanks for teachers. I have labored very assiduously to correct this deficiency. The blanks for teachers should have, 1st Date of Entrance ; 2nd Daily Attendance : 3d Age ; 4th A column to record the branches taught. This would enable the county superintendent to present to you a correct idea of the progress of education and intellectual development. You could then measure development with expenditure, and see how much is returned to parents and guardians in the form of education.
The Boards of Education of this county are deficient in duty ; the trustees in many cases are no better ; there- fore this report is very meager and unsatisfactory. I
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indulge the hope. however, that Webster will in a short time, strive to realize the full measure of the benefits of our school system.
From observation and experience, I would recommend the abolition of the county board of education, retain your county superintendent, and have a board of three trustees for each school district. This would, with im- proved blanks for teachers, simplify the work and give a full statistical report. The board of education fail- ing to report the various branches taught renders it impossible for me to give you the number in the county.
School Houses.
In Fork Lick Township. we are building six school houses, one of them, logs, finished, another will be fin- ished this month: the balance will be completed the ensuing winter; two of these houses are framed, and there are others that will be. let out soon.
In Glade Township no levy for building. None in either of the other townships of this county. We have obtained sites in Fork Lick township gratuitously throughout. JAMES DYER,
County Superintendent, Webster County."
"P. S. The Fork Lick township is deficient nearly one-half of its levy, growing out of the large tracts of land owned by non-residents of the county, but returns have been made for this township. The other town- ships have made no returns.
JAMES DYER."
Names of applicants and grades of certificates :
Second grade. James Woodzell. Thomas P. Coulter
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and B. C. Conrad. Third grade, Wm. P. Morton, J. H. Hardway, Francis G. Morton and W. M. Hayman. Fourth grade, A. W. Miller. Fifth grade, R. Brooks and E. Clifton.
From these reports and statistics, it will be learned that free school prospects were not very flattering in Webster county in 1868 and 1869. There was a deep- seated opposition to the organization of the system by some very good citizens. The cause is not hard to dis- cover. People were slow to endorse any innovation, and more especially, if it cost money. The late war had impoverished the people, and money or its equivalent was not readily obtained. If men of today vote against the free school levy, it is little wonder that men were against it fifty years ago. The county was sparsely settled. Isolated families could not attend school and the district did not have funds sufficient to build addi- tional houses. It would be but natural for such persons to oppose being taxed to educate other children and their own grow up in ignorance. The teachers were not well equipped for their work, and they did not re- ceive sufficient wages to arouse much enthusiasm. In some of the districts abandoned dwelling houses were used for school purposes, or a part of a house was used while the family occupied the other.
But a better day dawned about 1880. The log houses were replaced by frame buildings, and painted school houses were seen in many localities. Opposition passed away when these better conditions appeared. Higher salaries and prompt payment attracted better equipped teachers. School terms lengthened from two and three months to four and five months in the various districts.
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The inevitable result followed-a great educational awakening and a larger number of pupils enrolled in the schools.
Even as late as 1880, Webster county was isolated both commercially and educationally from her sister counties. Dry goods, groceries and hardware were transported by wagon from Weston and Gauley Bridge, a distance of more than sixty miles. No one talked much about education to persons living outside of the county, except for a week each year, when the teachers' institute for the county was in session at Webster Springs.
When a Webster boy became of marriageable age, he did not select a wife because of her educational attain- ments, or because she was a good cook, or a neat and tidy housekeeper, but because she was a good "sanger". A young man living in one of the prominent valleys of the county, took unto himself a better half. The next day a neighbor met the father and said, "John. I heard Sam was married yesterday". "Yes," said the father, "Sam is married". "Did he get a good wife ?" queried the neighbor. "Well, I should say", replied the father, "Polly is the best sanger that ever 'sot' a foot in the woods."
But in 1889 a history making event occurred. The whistle of a railroad locomotive was heard in Webster county. Its reverberations among the hills sounded the death knell of the sang digger and the log school house. Webster county was now bound by bands of steel to her progressive sister counties of the northern part of the state. Men came from these counties and brought their educational ideas with them. The school term length-
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ened from five months to six months. Schools were graded and two-room buildings were erected at Erbacon, Camden-on-Gauley, Wainville, and Cowen. Gauley Mills later joined the ranks of the five towns in erecting a two-room building. Higher education was scarcely thought of twenty years ago. If the boys and girls were kept in the primary schools until sixteen years old, much was thought to have been accomplished. Now, there are High Schools at Cowen and Webster Springs. Both schools are receiving a liberal patronage. Today the schools of the county are in good working order and the prospects for even better conditions are very flattering. Webster Springs employs five teachers in the grades, and Cowen three.
The following items are taken from Superintendent George R. Morton's report of 1914: Number of school houses, one hundred and one ; number of teachers em- ployed, males, sixty-two, females, sixty, total, one hun- dred and twenty-two; number of youths of school age. three thousand six hundred and thirty-seven; number of pupils enrolled, males, one thousand four hundred and forty-four ; females, one thousand three hundred and fifty. total. two thousand seven hundred and ninety- four : average daily attendance, two thousand one hun- dred and twelve: average salary of teachers in rural schools, thirty-six dollars and thirty-three cents; total expended for school purposes, thirty-eight thousand five hundred and fifty-five dollars and twenty-four cents : total value of school property, one hundred and seven thousand two hundred and fifty-four dollars. Number of books in libraries, three thousand six hundred and twenty-five, valued at one thousand five hundred and
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fifty dollars; cost of education per capita based on enumeration, ten dollars and twenty-seven cents; based on enrollment, eleven dollars and twenty-six cents ; based on attendance, twenty dollars and one cent.
A comparison of Dyer's last report with Mr. Mor- ton's report will show the great educational advance- ment that has been made since the establishment of the free school system in Webster county.
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XII. THE CARPENTER FAMILY.
Jerry and Benjamin Carpenter settled on the Elk in the vicinity of the mouth of Holly early in the history of the valley. They were brothers and it is thought that they came from the Greenbrier valley. Jerry had been carried into the region beyond the Ohio by the Indians when a small boy. He remained with them until man grown before returning to civilized life. He settled on what was afterwards known as the John P. Hosey farm and Benjamin, his brother, erected a cabin at the place now occupied by the little town of Palmer.
A man by the name of O'Brien blazed a trail from the Ohio by way of the Trace fork of Steer creek to the mouth of Holly. It is not now known at what point he settled, but he marked the way because he did not know woodcraft well enough to travel without some other guide besides what nature had provided. The Carpenters having spent most of their lives in the woods could travel for days in any given direction without either compass or marks made on trees with an axe or hunting-knife. When they could not see the sun, they traveled in the proper direction by frequent examinations of the moss on the tree trunks near the ground. White men learned from the Indians that the moss grew in the greatest profusion on the side facing the north. It appears that the Indians did not know of the Elk settlement until they found the O'Brien trail and followed it eastward. They came to the house of Benjamin Carpenter and finding his wife and small child at home both were tomahawked and scalped. The husband was down under the bank of the river
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graining a deer skin. He was soon found and shot at by one of the four Indians in the marauding party, but the bullet flew wide of its intended mark. Car- penter ran to the house for his gun. He reached the door and was in the act of getting his rifle from its rack above the door when he was killed by one of the party concealed in the house by a bullet from his own gun, which the Indian had obtained when the cabin was entered. Nancy, a sister of the brothers, was taken prisoner and the party soon began their homeward journey after the cabin had been set on fire.
Some days before the Indians made their appearance Jerry went to Fork Lick for the purpose of hunting buffaloes. He killed one and jerked a quantity of the meat. Building a rude boat, using the skin for the purpose, he arrived at the mouth of Holly a short time after the redskins had left. The cabin was still burn- ing and he was horrified to see his sister-in-law, who had been scalped and left for dead, walking in the yard in front of the burning cabin. She was tenderly taken in his strong arms and carried to the boat, but she died before the opposite bank was reached. Carpenter pre- pared to follow the Indians and rescue his sister. He was joined in the pursuit by a man by the name of Hughes, a noted frontier warrior, and another man whose name is unknown. They had no difficulty in taking up the trail and pursuing at a rapid pace. The Indians traveled with leisure because they probably thought that they would not be followed. They were overtaken on Steer creek and completely surprised by a well planned method of attack. Carpenter had told his
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companions that the first act of the savages, when they were attacked, would be to kill their prisoner. The at- tack was stealthily made and three of the Indians fell before the unerring aim of the frontier riflemen. The fourth Indian before the reverberations of the rifle re- ports had died away threw a tomahawk at the captive woman. but she dodged the well-directed blow. Snatch- ing up another tomahawk he started in pursuit of the fleeing woman, but Hughes like an infuriated wild beast sprang after him and buried his hatchet in his head before he got in striking distance. The Indians were not scalped, but Carpenter cut a strip of skin about three inches wide and two feet long from the back of one of them, beginning at the base of the skull and in- cluding a tuft of hair. This strip was afterwards tanned and used by him for a razor-strop. It became an heir-loom in the Carpenter family. It was in the possession of John L. Carpenter at the time of the Civil War. William Perrine carried it off, and, when he was captured by Federal soldiers that gruesome relic of the days of barbarity and savagery was taken away from him, but what disposition was made of it is not known.
When Carpenter returned home, he was informed that another party of Indians were still on the east side of the Ohio. He took his wife and a scanty supply of necessary articles with him and went up Laurel creek to the mouth of a small run. Here he found a safe retreat under a large, projecting rock. His oldest son, Solomon, was born the first night spent in that strange habitation. This was most probably the first white
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child born in what is now Webster county. The stream was called Camp run and still bears that name. It is not known when the Carpenter family was murdered but it was some years before Dunmore's war. which occurred in 1774.
They settled in the Elk valley soon after the treaty of Fort Stanwix in western New York in 1268. which opened up the region west of the mountains to settle- ment.
John L., a son of Sol Carpenter, married Nancy Perrine. They settled at the mouth of Missouri run where the town of Erbacon is now situated. He be- came the father of the following children: Dianah, Joseph, Agnes Jane, William Hamilton, Amos, Mary Catherine and Estelline. John L. was an herb doctor of splendid ability. He compounded his own medicine from plants and roots obtained by himself in the woods. He had a good farm and was an exemplary man. a model farmer, and a law-abiding citizen.
MURDER OF THE STROUD FAMILY.
Adam Stroud. a German, lived on Stroud's creek about one mile from its junction with the Gauley at Allingdale. He settled there soon after the treaty with the Indians in 1768. One day in the month of June. 1112. when he was away from home, a party of Indians of the Shawnee tribe murdered his entire family con- sisting of his wife and seven children. They also plundered his house and drove off his cattle.
Captain Bull. a Delaware chief, and some other In- dians resided at Bulltown in what is now Braxton
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county. His original home was on the Unadilla river, an eastern affluent of the Susquehanna river in New York. He was accused of plotting against the whites in Pontiac's conspiracy in 1763. He and five families of his relations came to the Little Kanawha after their New York homes had been burned by the whites and lived in a little village located near a salt spring. Although it was known that Bull and his people were inoffensive, and very friendly to the whites, and kept up an intercourse with the settlers on Hacker's creek and the Buckhannon river, suspicion at once fell on these Indians because the trail led in the direction of Bulltown, as the whites called the Indian village. A party of five men consisting of William White, William Hacker, Jesse Hughes, John Cutright, and possibly Adam Stroud, determined to proceed to Bulltown and avenge the murder of the woman and children. It was not known for many years just what occurred when they reached the Indian village. When they returned, they denied having seen an Indian in their absence. John Cutright died in 1852, when he had reached the age of one hundred and five years. On his death-bed, he told of the killing of all the Indians found in the village. Their bodies were thrown into the river. The massacre was as atrocious and revolting as any that had preceded or followed it in border warfare. The real perpetrators of the Stroud murder escaped to their homes beyond the Ohio without detection. These two acts on the part of the Indians and the whites had a direct bearing on Dunmore's war, which began in 1774, and resulted in a decisive defeat of the Indians by the Virginians in the autumn of that year.
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