USA > West Virginia > Prominent men of West Virginia: biographical sketches, the growth and advancement of the state, a compendium of returns of every election, a record of every state officer; > Part 3
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Travelers over the Baltimore and Ohio railroad have been enchanted by the grand views looking northward through the Cheat river gorges, and have been thrilled as the cars dashed down the mountain side at the rate of thirty miles an hour; and then, as they wind their way around the short curves, driving eastward up the heavy grade to the summit of the Alleghenies at Terra Alta, the view to the southward changes into both beauty and grandeur. A more charming landscape than this latter is rarely seen. But grander by far than the Cheat river gorges and upper Allegheny scenery, are the canyons of the New river along the line of the Newport News and Mis- sissippi Valley railway. For fifty miles, from Hinton, Summers county, to the Great Falls of the Kanawha, in Fayette county, the deep, seething, foaming river rushes down through rugged gorges with tremendous power, sweeping everything before it. The mountains on either side are almost perpendicular, present- ing rugged cliffs with projecting crags, towering two thousand feet above the level of the river, presenting a picture, at times, indeed awful to behold.
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Men cross the Atlantic ocean in search of attractive scenes never thinking that we have at home, along our great iron pathways, in both grandeur and beauty, the equal of anything in Nature's Garden that can be found on the Continent of Europe. "See Naples and die " has been a trite saying for gen- erations, but better advice to our friends in other States is, see West Virginia's grand mountains and beautiful valleys and live.
EDUCATIONAL.
Shortly after the organization of the New State (December 10, 1863), a public school system, general and thorough in its scope and workings, was inaugurated for the education of all classes between the ages of six and twenty-one years. Although the system has been amended and improved in many ways, it is not yet as perfect perhaps as similar schools in some of the older States, but the plan is the same, and it is gradually being perfected as the years go by.
The general school law contemplates the instruction of all the youth in the State in such fundamental branches of learning as are indispensable to the proper discharge of their social and civil duties. When a boy or girl passes through all the lower grades up to and through the high school, he or she is pretty well equipped for the duties and responsibilities of life. Indeed, a generation ago such an one would have been regarded as the possessor of more than an ordinary education.
Our public school system has been cordially supported by the people generally in every portion of the State. It has met with comparatively no opposition. The various legislatures have enacted liberal laws looking to the perfection of the system. On the whole, it has been supported with that liberality that so important a measure deserved at the hands of a generous public. In 1865, there were but 133 public school houses in the State; in 1886, there were 4,260. The total value of school property in 1865, was $52,856; in 1886, it was $1,964,945. In 1865, there were but 387 teachers of both sexes engaged in our free schools; in 1886, there were 4,925. The growth of the school interest has been nothing short of the marvelous; and it is even now just beginning to reveal the blessings it has been, and can yet be, to all our people.
In addition to the public school system, which embraces the
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high school as a component part, there are six Normal schools, and a thoroughly equipped University, all maintained by appro- priations from the general treasury of the State. These higher institutions offer at a nominal tuition, the very best facilities for obtaining thorough practical and classical educations.
The State University has nine departments, or schools as they are called, namely :
1. Philosophy and English Literature.
2. Astronomy and Physics.
3. Mathematics and Engineering.
4. Military Science and Tactics.
5. Modern Languages and Literature.
6. Ancient Languages and Literature.
7. History, Political Economy and Belles Lettres.
8. Chemistry, Natural History and Agriculture.
9. Law and Medicine.
It possesses an apparatus necessary for a thorough illustra- tion of chemistry and physics, and its museum contains many specimens in natural history, and extensive geological and con- chological cabinets. It has a full corps of competent instruct- ors, and is turning out every year, a large number of young men who, it is expected, will leave their impress upon the State.
WATER-POWER.
West Virginia is peculiarly fortunate in the distribution of water-power as a motor for machinery. There is no county in the entire State that does not offer peculiar advantages in this direction. Along New river alone, from the mouth of the Greenbrier to the Great Falls, there is water-power enough wasted every day-because no part of it is utilized-to run all the spindles in New England. For more than fifty miles this great river rushes down through gorges and canyons with tre- mendous force; and along its banks are sites for thousands of factories and mills that could scarcely be bettered on the globe.
New river is particularly mentioned because it is the largest river in the State, and Nature seems to have designed it as a never failing motor for the wheels of industry; but every river within our territory also offers superior water-power advantages. There will come a time when this vast waste of motive power will be husbanded-when points like the Falls of the Great
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Kanawha, and Harper's Ferry on the Potomac, will be manu- facturing centers wholly built up by water-power that has been wasting since the world was created.
TIMBER.
We hazard nothing in stating that in no other portion of the country containing the same number of square miles of area can there be found a greater variety of timber of the same ex- tent and quality than exists in West Virginia. All varieties common to this latitude are found in every portion of the State ; but the different varieties of oak predominate. A superior quality of wild cherry, walnut and butternut abound on the alluvial and richer soils. White and yellow poplar are found upon almost every hill-side and are principally sought for lum- ber. White pine abounds in certain localities in grand forests that appear practically inexhaustible. Black (pitch) pine, cedar, ash, sugar, maple, white and red hickory, hemlock, spruce, sas- safras, birch, beech, sycamore, and the minor and less valuable species than these we have enumerated are also found in suffi- cient supply.
It is estimated that there are to-day in West Virginia nine million acres of land in original forests. There are in some of the interior counties immense primeval forests that are strangers to the woodman's axe or the saw of the lumberman. It is not uncommon to see poplars from three to eight feet in diameter and sixty feet to the first limb. Oaks are not so large, but many of them measure five feet across the stump. Walnut trees are often found four feet in diameter. The timber is larger and of better quality in the river and larger creek val- leys than along the slopes and elevated plateaus.
The timber trade in West Virginia was among the earliest vocations of the pioneers. The best varieties have been taken from the hill-sides along the larger streams of water, and floated in rafts to market. One rise alone has been known to bring out of Elk river $50,000 worth of poplar logs. Large trees, ninety feet in length, have been floated down Elk and Guyandotte rivers, to be sawed into gun-wales for flat boats and barges. The lumber rafts that are annually floated out of the Guyan- dotte, Elk, Greenbrier, Little Kanawha, West Fork, and Tygart's Valley rivers are enormous, and are worth millions of dollars
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when cut up into boards and shipped to eastern markets. And withal, the lumber business is yet in its infancy in West Vir- ginia. As the population increases, and railroads are con- structed, and the navigation of the principal rivers is improved by the latest systems of locks and dams, these immense forests will be brought into market, and will prove a great source of wealth to those that are fortunate enough to be their possessors.
COAL.
The largest and most important coal field thus far discovered in the world, is in the Appalachian range of mountains in America. This mountain chain passes through West Virginia from north to south, and gives to the State 16,000 square miles of coal area. Our coals lie in five natural divisions, and are noted for their superior qualities for heating, coking, gas and smelting purposes.
The Great Kanawha coal field is the largest of the five natural divisions of the coal area of the State. Beginning at Charleston, fifty-six miles from the confluence of the Great Kanawha with the Ohio river, and extending up the Great Kanawha for about one hundred miles, the hills on either side are underlaid with coals of every known description except anthracite. The coun- try is cut and counter-cut in all diretions by numerous water courses which render mining easy. The steep hill-sides readily expose the coal seams that, when added together, aggregate eighty-nine feet of coal measures above the water level, the smallest vein being twenty-six inches and the largest thirteen feet. This section is being opened up at a rapid rate, and it is believed that before the expiration of another decade, it will produce more coals for the western and southern markets than are at present shipped from the State of Pennsylvania.
The next largest of our coal basins is that which begins in Mineral county, and, climbing up the Allegheny mountains in a south-westerly direction, embraces the counties, in whole and in part, of Tucker, Barbour and Randolph. This coal field is drained by the three separate forks of Cheat river, the Tygart's Valley, North Branch of the Potomac, and their tributaries. It is being rapidly opened up by the building of the West Virginia Central Railroad, and it is thought that, in extent of area, this vast field of " dusky diamonds " will rival the basin of the Great
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Kanawha Valley. There is a single seam of coal twenty-three feet thick on Coal creek in Barbour county. This is the largest single yein of coal that has ever been opened in West Virginia, or, indeed, in the world.
The Monongalia section may be considered as the next largest of our coal fields. It begins with Monongalia county, runs up the Monongahela river, and embraces large portions of Marion, Harrison, Doddridge, Lewis, Gilmer, and Braxton counties. With the exception of a few mines in Marion, Harrison, and Doddridge counties, this great coal basin is practically in a state of nature, although the quality of the coals, and the variety of coal measures, render it rich beyond computation.
The trans-Kanawha section, which embraces all that southern tier of counties, extending from the Big Sandy river to the Blue Ridge, is vast in the extent and variety of its coal measures. With the exception of a small portion of the extreme south of Mercer and McDowell counties, this field is wholly undeveloped. It is drained by the Big Sandy, Guyandotte, Coal, Piney, and Blue Stone rivers.^
The Preston county basin is bounded by the Briery mountains on the west, by Laurel ridge on the east, and is the southerly continuation of the Ligonier Valley, or second basin of the Pennsylvania survey. There are five workable seams of coal in this basin, the most of which have never been developed or in any way opened up. At Austin and Newburg, extensive mines are in operation.
The counties of Marshall, Ohio, Brooke, and Hancock, in their relation to West Virginia coal operations, are separated from all the other natural boundaries. Geologically speaking, they belong to the Pittsburgh basin. For many years, coal has been extensively mined in all of these counties. The Pittsburgh seam is worked as far south as Moundsville, Marshall county. It dips southward, and could, by means of shafting, be profit- ably worked farther down the Ohio valley. The workable por- tion of this seam, in the vicinity of Wheeling, averages about five feet in thickness. It is available as far east as Steubenville, Ohio, and is within easy reach from one extreme to the other of Brooke county.
The coal deposits in West Virginia are practically inexhaust- ible, and the advantages for mining and developing them are
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very great. The large number of workable seams accessible above water level; the abrupt hill-sides; the self-drainage of the mines ; the fat coking, the greasy bituminous, the hard and valuable splint-that smelts iron without coking-and the rich and oily cannel coals ; the cheap water transportation down the Ohio and Great Kanawha rivers,-all enable the operator to mine cheaper, and with more economy, under the same rates of labor, than in any other portion of the Allegheny coal-fields.
IRON.
Professor Maury divides the iron ores found in West Virginia into two classes, namely :
1. Those ores that belong to and are found in the Appala- chian Coal Measures, consisting of Brown Oxides, Carbonates and Black Bands, and in some places nodular Red Hæmatite.
2. Those that belong to the region lying between the eastern escarpment of the coal formation and the eastern border of the State, forming a part of the great iron belt of the Atlantic States, and consisting of the Brown and Red Hæmatites, that are much richer and abundant than those of the first class.
The iron ores of the Coal Measures are extensively distribu- ted throughout the State, but they have only been developed, to any considerable extent, in two or three counties. The Black Band, which is nothing more than a carbonate of iron, is a superior ore and is now being worked, in a very satisfactory manner, on Davis' creek, Kanawha county. There have been no discoveries of this ore outside of Kanawha, Fayette and Wayne counties-all in the southern part of the State. It is peculiar in that it becomes richer from roasting. By piling it in heaps and setting them on fire, the carboniferous matter is consumed, and in the process of combustion enough heat is generated to convert the carbonate of irón in the ore into a richer oxide, and in the heaps thus roasted there is found, on an average, double the quantity of metalic iron. This ore is found in seams varying from one foot to seven feet in thickness.
The Brown Hæmatites, which are the results of decomposi- tion of the carbonates, are quite variable in the thickness of the seams, and are found in large quantities in the counties of Min- eral, Grant, Preston, Monongalia, Taylor, Barbour, Braxton, Clay, Kanawha and Wayne. The thickness of the veins range
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from six inches to four feet, and some of them yield as much as fifty-five per cent. of metallic iron.
The Red Hæmatites occur in nodules or pockets in a series of bands of red and reddish-yellow shales. These pockets fre- quently contain from fifty to sixty per cent. of metal; but, out- side of Wayne county, no pockets have been discovered large enough to constitute a workable deposit.
Thus far we have spoken only of the Brown and Red Hæma- tites as found in the Coal Measures. Under the second division mentioned in the outset, we desire to allude briefly to these two classes of ores that are found between the eastern escarpment of the coal formation and the eastern border of the State, and form a part of the great iron belt of the Atlantic States. These ores are much richer and more abundant than those mentioned in class one. They are found in Mercer, Monroe, Greenbrier, Pocahontas, Pendleton, Hardy, Grant, Hampshire, Morgan, Berkeley and Jefferson counties. They lie in seams, some places seven feet thick, and yield all the way from thirty-five to eighty-two per cent. of iron.
All that is necessary to make West Virginia a great iron- producing State is more railroad facilities as means of trans- portation. With all the raw materials-iron ore, coal, lime- stone, gas and timber-on the same tract of land, or at worst not many miles apart, what can prevent her from forcing her- self to the front in iron industries, within the next quarter of a century, as a second Pennsylvania ?
SALT.
There was a period in the past when West Virginia was one of the largest salt-producing States in the Union. In point of fact, it would be in the front to-day if it were not that large combinations or syndicates have been formed in the manufacture of salt that resulted in "dead-renting" our furnaces, and have thus materially shut off our production of this great necessity to human health, comfort and life.
Rock salt has never been found within the limits of West Vir- ginia; but salt brines, varying in strength from six to twelve degrees, have been struck in four different localities, by means of artesian borings, at depths ranging from 600 to 2,000 feet. Salt furnaces were operated for many years on the Ohio river, 3
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from Hartford City to West Columbia, in the county of Mason ; at Malden, in Kanawha county; at Bulltown and Otter Creek, in Braxton county; and at "Salt Works," in Mercer county. With the exception of an occasional furnace in Mason and Kana- wha counties, and the one on Otter Creek, Braxton county, this once flourishing industry in our State is at a stand still.
The first salt furnace that was built in Kanawha county was by Elisha Brooks in the year 1797; but as far back as 1753 salt was made by Indians in the Kanawha valley from water ob- tained from what was then called the " Salt Licks." In the year 1849, 2,951,492 bushels of Salt were manufactured in the Kana- wha Salines. This was the largest number of bushels ever pro- duced in a single year, before or since that time, in the Great Kanawha valley.
The pioneer furnace for the manufacture of salt in Mason county was erected in 1849, and the largest amount of salt ever produced in that locality, in a single year, was 2,500,000 bushels. When the furnaces in Kanawha and Mason counties were all in full blast, the annual product was about 5,000,000 bushels. The time may come again when this great industry of our State will be revived.
OIL AND GAS.
The petroleum oil springs of West Virginia have been known ever since the early pioneers settled amid her hills and valleys. As far back as 1825, oil was procured at various points in the State by sinking sand pits, ten to fifteen feet deep, in the springs where petroleum flowed in small quantities upon the surface of the water. The drilling of salt wells, about the beginning of the present century, revealed the existence of oil in the salt region of the Great Kanawha valley ; and in 1842 a large vein, or basin, of rock oil was struck at Burning Springs, Wirt county, while boring for salt water. Inasmuch as it was not considered good for anything, except as a medicine for sores and bruises, the oil flow was shut off by tubing the well to prevent disturbing the salt water.
The first distinctive oil well ever put down in West Virginia was at Burning Springs in the fall of 1859. This enterprise proved a success, and the result was, the drilling of scores, and hundreds, and thousands of others within a very few years, that gave the State prominence as an oil-field of untold value. Test
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wells were sunk in a large number of counties, but paying wells were confined to Wood, Wirt and Pleasants counties.
It was claimed by many scientific men that petroleum was the result of pressure upon coal, as oil is pressed from the olive, and upon this theory many wells were put down in the carbon- iferous sections of the State. The fact was very soon demon- strated that petroleum was not found with bituminous coals, as expected, but in fissures of the rocks underlying bituminous strata, that doubtless were opened since the coal strata was bituminized. No discoveries of oil have thus far been made in West Virginia outside of what is commonly called the "Oil Break." This so-called Break is a geological. upheaval of the earth's surface, giving it a roof-shape, or bulge, which can be read- ily traced by men of experience in the oil business.
The Burning Springs territory has been practically abandoned, because of the seeming failure of the oil; but in the Wood county section, in and around Volcano, the oil business is still in operation ; and at Eureka, in Pleasants county, and in Monon- galia and Marion counties new and paying fields are now de- veloping. For many years a large number of oil refineries were operated at Parkersburg. Now, however, only a few are left, which are quite sufficient to handle all the oil that at present flows into that city. It is estimated that about 4,000,000 barrels of oil have been taken from the oil break in West Virginia.
Since the opening of the Washington county oil-field in Penn- sylvania, within the past three or four years, a new impetus has been given to the oil business in West Virginia. Arrangements have been made to test the stretch of country, fifteen or twenty miles wide, extending almost due south from the Pennsylvania State line to the Little Kanawha river. It is claimed that deep wells will prove the existence of oil, in paying quantities, all along the line of territory named above.
The existence of Natural Gas in the salt producing portions of the State has been known for many years; but no one con- sidered it valuable until quite recently, consequently it was never utilized. Thus far paying gas wells have only been found in Brooke, Hancock, Wirt and Kanawha counties, although thor- ough tests have been made in other sections, notably in Ohio and Marshall counties.
The wonders of petroleum, within the last three decades, have
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thrown a flood of blessings upon the world in the creation of new branches of industry, and the cheapening of many of the utilities and luxuries of life; and now we have natural gas in many localities that bids fair to prove as great a blessing to the world as oil. Gas is used for fuel in Wheeling, Wellsburg and Morgantown, and has imparted fresh vigor to manufacturing enterprises of all kinds peculiar to these localities. Far-seeing men predict a great future for those sections of the United States that are fortunate enough to possess this wonderful fuel.
MISCELLANEOUS MINERALS.
In addition to coal, iron, oil and salt, there are other valuable minerals in West Virginia worthy of mention. Common Tufa, Hydraulic and Marble Limestones abound throughout different portions of the State. There are, however, no genuine marbles within the limits of West Virginia; but in Jefferson and Green- brier counties there is a limestone of different colors very much like the real marble, that is susceptible of a high and beautiful polish.
Fire clay is quite abundant in Hancock, Marion, Monongalia, Kanawha and perhaps other counties. It lies in large veins and results from silicco. Potter's clay, which is the outgrowth or result of the decomposition of granites and shales, is common to many of the counties. Glass sand exists in Hampshire county. In Lewis and Hardy counties veins three feet thick of Yellow Ochre have been discovered. Deposits of Barytes-a heavy, white mineral used in cheap paints and for adulterating white lead-occur in Jefferson and Mercer counties. Saltpetre and Black Oxide of Manganese are found in different localities. Indications of the existence of lead, gold, zinc, tin, copper and silver have been discovered in innumerable localities throughout the State, but none of them are workable.
MINERAL WATERS.
Every county in the State is supplied with a greater or less number of fresh-water springs; and in the southern and south- eastern border a large portion of the mineral spring plaza breaks out in never failing medicinal waters equal to any of their class found in any other portion of the world. These springs present a considerable variety of chemical characters and thera-
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peutic adaptation. They comprise several kinds of sulphur, chalybeates, salines, acidulous or carbonated, aluminated cha- lybeates, and low temperature thermal waters.
The sulphur springs are most numerous and are found in sev- eral counties, but principally in Greenbrier and Monroe. The chalybeates are common to every section of the State, but are strongest in the Allegheny mountains. The acidulous carbon- ated waters and the aluminated chalybeates are found in vari- ous places, but have never been developed outside of the section bordering on Virginia.
The most valuable of all these mineral springs is the sulphur, commonly called alum waters. They have been tested in most every variety of disease, and have generally proved themselves powerful remedial agents.
The most noted of the many medicinal springs in West Vir- ginia are the following: Berkeley Springs, Morgan county ; Capon Springs, Hampshire county ; Shannondale Springs, Jef- ferson county; Orich Springs, Berkely county ; Sweet Springs, Salt Sulphur, Red Sulphur, and Old Sweet Springs, Monroe county ; White Sulphur Springs, Greenbrier county-one of the most noted Summer resorts in America; Mineral Wells, Wood county; Sanitarium, Pleasants county; Electric Wells, Wirt county ; Salt Sulphur Springs, Webster county-perhaps the most powerful of all the springs in the State. These latter springs are said to be a sure cure for all stomach and kidney ailments. Also the Magnesia spring, Greenbrier county, and the Blue Sulphur Spring in Cabell county.
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