USA > West Virginia > Randolph County > The history of Randolph County, West Virginia. From its earliest settlement to the present, embracing records of all the leading families, reminiscences and traditions > Part 8
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SUMMERS, 400 miles; formed 1871 from Monroe, Mercer, Greenbrier and Fayette; named for Lewis and George W. Summers.
MINGO, about 400 miles; formed 1895 from Logan; named for Logan the Mingo.
65
SUBDIVISIONS AND BOUNDARIES.
POPULATION OF THE COUNTIES OF WEST VIRGINIA EACH TEN YEARS FROM 1790 TO 1890, BOTH INCLUSIVE.
1790
1800
1810
1820
1830
1840
1850
1860
1870
1880
1890
Hampshire
7346
8348
9784
10889
11279
12245
14036
13913
7613
10336
11419
Berkeley .
19713
22006
11479
11211
10518
19972
11771
12525
14900
17380
18702
Monongalia
4768
8540
12793
11060
14056
17368
12357
13048
13547
14985
15705
Ohio.
5212
4740
8175
9182
15584
13357
18006
22422
28831
37457
41557
Greenbrier
6015
4345
5914
7041
9006
8695
10022
12211
11417
15060
18034
Harrison
2080
4848
9958
10932
14722
17669
11728
13790
16714
20181
21919
Hardy
7336
6627
5525
5700
6798
7622
9543
9864
5518
6794
7567
Randolph ..
951
1826
2854
3357
5000
6208
5243
4990
5563
8102
11633
Pendleton
2452
3962
4239
4846
6271
6940
5797
6164
6455
8022
8711
Kanawha
3239
3866
6399
9326
13567
15353
16151
22349
32466
42756
Brooke
4706
5843
6631
7041
7948
5054
5494
5464
6013
6660
Wood
1217
3036
5860
6429
7923
9450
11046
19000
25006
28612
Monroe
4188
5444
6580
7798
8422
10204
10757
11124
11501
12429
Jefferson
11851
13087
12927
14082
15357
14535
13219
15005
15553
Mason
1991
4868
6534
6777
7539
9173
15978
22296
22863
Cabell
2717
4789
5884
8163
6299
8020
6429
13744
23528
Tyler.
2314
4104
6954
5498
6517
7832
11073
11962
Lewis
4247
6241
8151|
10031
7999
10175
13269
15895
Nicholas.
1853
3346
2255
3963
4627
4458
7223
9307
Preston
3422
5144
6866
11708
13312
14555
19091
20335
Morgan
2500
2694
4253
3557
3732
4315
5777
6774
Pocahontas
2542
2922
3598
3958
4069
5591
6814
Logan
3680
4309
3620
4938
5124
7329
11101
Jackson
4890
6544
8306
10300
16312|
19021
Fayette
3924
3955
5997
6647
11560
20542
Marshall
6937
10138
12937
14941
18840
20735
Braxton
2575
4212
4992
6480
9787
13928
Mercer
2233
4222
6819
7064
7467
16002
Marion
10552
12722
12107
17198
20721
Wayne
4760
6747
7852
14739
18652
Taylor .
5357
8463
9367
11455
12147
Doddridge
2750
5203
7076
10552
12183
Gilmer
3475
3759
4338
7108
9746
Wetzel
4282
6703
8559
13896
16841
Boone
3237
4840
4553
5824
6885
Putnam
5335
6301
7794
11375
14342
Barbour
9005
8958
10312
11870
12702
Ritchie
3902
6847
9055
13474
16621
Wirt.
3353
3751
4804
7104
9411
Hancock.
4050
4445
4363
4882
6414
Raleigh
1765
3367
3673
7367
9597
Wyoming
1645
2861
3171
4322
6247
Pleasants.
2945
3012
6256
7539
Upshur .
7292
8023
10249
12714
Calhoun
2502
2930
6072
8155
Roane
5381
7232
12184
15303
Tucker
1428
1907
3151
6459
Clay
1787
2196
3460
4659
McDowell
1535
1952
3074
7300
Webster
1555
1730
3207
4783
Mineral
6332
86301
12085
Grant.
4467
5542
6802
Lincoln
5053
8739
11246
Summers
9033
13117
Mingo 5
CHAPTER VII,
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:0:
THE NEWSPAPERS OF WEST VIRGINIA,
Newspaper history commenced in the territory now forming West Vir- ginia nearly one hundred years ago; that is, in 1803. The beginning was small, but ambitious; and although the first journal to make its appearance in the State, ceased to pay its visits to the pioneers generations ago; yet, from that small beginning has grown a press which will rank with that of any State in the Union, if population and other conditions are taken into account. West Virginia has no large city, and consequently has no papcr of metropolitan pretensions, but its press fulfills every requirement of its people; faithfully represents every business interest; maintains every hon- orable political principle; upholds morality; encourages education, and has its strength in the good will of the people. This chapter can do little more than present an outline of the growth of journalism in this State, together with facts and figures relating to the subject.
The first paper published in West Virginia was the Monongalia Gazette, at Morgantown in 1803. The Farmer's Register, printed at Charlestown, Jefferson County, was the next. These were the only papers in the State in 1810. The oldest paper still being published in West Virginia is the Virginia Free Press, printed at Charlestown. It was founded in 1821. The Monongalia Gazette was perhaps an up-to-date journal in its day; but it would be unsatisfactory at the present time. It was in four page form, each page sixteen inches long and ten inches wide. There were four col- umns to the page. Its cditors were Campbell and Briton; its subscription rate was six cents a copy. or two dollars a ycar. It was impossible that a weekly paper so small could efficiently cover the news, even though the news of that day was far below the standard set for the present time. Yet, had such a paper becn edited in accordance with modern ideas, it could have exerted a much wider influence than it did exert. No other paper was near enough to make inroads upon its field of circulation and influence; and it might have had the whole region to itself. But it did not expand, as might have been expected; on the contrary, within three years it reduced its size about one-half. More space in it was given to foreign news than to the happenings of County, State and Nation. Before the days of railroads, steamboats and telegraphing, it may readily be understood that the cvents recorded from foreign countries were so stalc at thic date of their publica- tion in the backwoods paper that they almost deserved classification as ancient history. The domestic news, particularly that relating to distant, states, was usually several weeks old before it found place in the Gazette. County occurrences, and happenings in the neighboring counties, were
67
THE NEWSPAPERS OF WEST VIRGINIA.
given little attention. Many a valuable scrap of local history might have been permanently preserved in that pioneer journal ;- but the county his- torian looks through the crumpled and yellow files in vain. But, on the other hand, he encounters numerous mentions of Napoleon's movements; the Emperor of Russia's undertakings, and England's achievements; all of which would have been valuable as history were it not that Guizot, Ram- baud and Knight have given us the same things in better style; so that it is labor thrown away to search for them in the circumscribed columns of a pioneer paper printed on the forest-covered banks of the Monongahela. Joseph Campbell, one of the editors and proprietors of the Gazette, had learned the printing trade in Philadelphia. It is not known at what date the paper suspended publication. It was customary in early times, as well as at the present day, to incorporate two or more papers into one, drop the name of one and continue the publication. The Gazette may thus have passed quietly out of its individual existence.
Monongalia County fostered the first newspaper west of the Allegha. nies in the State, and it also has had perhaps as many papers as any county of West Virginia. The full list, from the first till the present time, num- bers between thirty and forty. The list compiled by Samuel T. Wiley, the historian of Monongalia, shows that the County had thirty-one papers prior to 1880. Nearly all of these suspended after brief careers. It would be difficult to compile a list of all the papers established in this State from the earliest times till the present. It would perhaps be impossible to do so, for some of them died in their infancy, and a copy cannot now be found. There were, no doubt, many whose very names are not now remembered. It would not be an extravagant estimate to place the total number of papers published in this State, both those still in existence and those which are dead, at five hundred. It would be a surprise to many persons to learn how ephemeral is the average newspaper. It comes and goes. It has its beginning, its prosperity, its adversity, its death. Another follows in its path. Few can be called relatively permanent. There are now more than one hundred newspapers published in West Virginia. Only nine of these were in existence in 1863, when the State was admitted into the Union. These nine are the Wheeling Intelligencer, Wheeling Register, Clarksburg Telegram, Charlestown Free Press, Charlestown Spirit of Jefferson, Shepherdstown Register, Barbour County Jeffersonian, Wellsburg Herald and Point Pleasant Register. Of the papers in existence in this State in 1870 only sixteen have come down to the present day. The cause of the early death of so many papers which begin life in such earnest hope is that the field is full. Two newspapers try to exist where there is room for only one. It does not require an evolutionist to foretell the result. Both must starve or one must quit. If one quits there is always another anxious to push in and try its luck.
West Virginia's experience does not differ from experience elsewhere. Journalism in country towns is much the same the country over. In cities the business is more stable, because conducted on business principles. Men with experience and business training accustom themselves to look before they leap. The inexperienced man who is ambitious to crowd some one else out of the newspaper business in the interior towns is too prone to leap first and do his looking afterwards. There is no scarcity of good news- paper men outside the cities, and West Virginia has its share, but at the same time there are too many persons who feel themselves called
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68
THE NEWSPAPERS OF WEST VIRGINIA.
upon to enter the arena, although unprepared for the fray, and who can- not hold their own in competition with men of training in the profession. To the efforts and failures of these latter persons is due the ephemeral character of the lives of newspapers, taken as a whole. Country journal- ism comes to be looked upon as a changing, evanescent, uncertain thing, always respectable; only moderately and occasionally successful; inaugura- ted in hope; full of promise as the rainbow is full of gold; sometimes mate- rializing into things excellent; now and then falling like Lucifer, but always to hope again. There is something sublime in the rural journalist's faith in his ability to push forward. Though failures have been many, country journalism has builded greater than it knew. West Virginia's development and the rural press have gone hand in hand. Every railroad pushing into the wilderness has carried the civilizing editor and his outfit. He goes with an unfaltering belief in printer's ink and confidence in its conquering power. He is ready to do and suffer all things. The mining town and the latest county seat; the lumber center and the oil belt; the manufacturing village and the railroad terminus; these are the fields in which he casts his lot. Here he sets up his press; he issues his paper; he booms the town: he records the births, marriages and deaths with a monotonous faithfulness; he expresses his opinion freely and generously. In return he expects the town and the surrounding country to support his enterprise as liberally as he has given his time, talent and energy in advancing the interests of the town. Sometimes his expectations are realized; sometimes not. If not, perhaps he packs his worldly assets and sets out for another town, richer in experience but poorer in cash. There are men in West Virginia who have founded a number of newspapers, usually selling out after a year or two in order to found another journal.
This is the class of editors who blaze the way into the woods. They bear the same relation to the journalism which follows as the "tomahawk right" bore in early days to the plantations and estates which succeeded them. After the adventurous and restless journalist has passed on, then comes the newspaper man who calculates before he invests. He does not come in a hurry. He is not afraid some one will get ahead of him. He does not locate before he has carefully surveyed the field, and has satisfied him- self that the town and the surrounding country are able to support such a journal as he proposes establishing. His aim is to merit and receive the patronage of the people. This becomes the solid, substantial paper, and its editor wields a permanent influence for good. Such papers and such editors are found all over West Virginia.
Journalism among businesses is like poetry among the fine arts-the most easily dabbled in but the most difficult to succeed in. It may not ap- pear to the casual observer that the newspaper business is nearly always unsuccessful, or at least, that nearly all the papers which come into exist- ence meet untimely death in the very blossom of their youth. An examina- tion of the history of newspapers in nearly any town a half century old will show that ten have failed where one has succeeded. The history of journal- ism in Monongalia County, already alluded to, differs little from the history of the papers in any county of equal age and population.
In 1851, when Horace Greeley was asked by a Parliamentary Commit- tee from England "at what amount of population of a town in America do they first begin the publication of a weekly newspaper?" he replied that every county will have one, and a county of twenty thousand population
69
THE NEWSPAPERS OF WEST VIRGINIA.
usually has two weekly papers; and when a town has fifteen thousand peo- ple it usually has a daily paper. This rule does not state the case in West Virginia today. The average would probably show one newspaper for each six thousand people. In the small counties the average is sometimes as low as one paper to two thousand people, and not one-fourth of these peo- ple subscribe for a paper. It is not difficult to see that the field can be easily over-supplied; and among newspapers there must be a survival of the fittest.
The early journals published in this State, as well as those published elsewhere at that time, say seventy or eighty years ago, were very differ- ent in appearance from those of today. The paper on which the printing was done was rough, rugged and discolored, harsh to the touch, and of a quality inferior to wrapping paper of the present time. Some of them ad- vertised that they would take clean rags at four cents a pound in payment of subscriptions. At that time paper was made from rags. It is now mostly made from wood. The publishers no doubt shipped the rags to the paper mills and received credit on their paper accounts. Some of these early journals clung to the old style of punctuation and capitalization; and some, to judge by their appearance, followed no style at all, but were as out- landish as possible, particularly in the use of capital letters. They capital- ized all nouns, and as many other words as they could, being limited, ap- parently, only by the number of capital letters in their type cases.
As late as 1835 all the printing presses in the United States were run by hand power. On the earliest press the pressure necessary was obtained by means of a screw. Fifty papers an hour was fast work. The substitu- tion of the lever for the screw increased the capacity of the press five fold. This arrangement reached its greatest development in the Washington Hand Press, patented in 1829 by Samuel Rust. This press is still the stand- by in many small offices. The printing done with it is usually good; but the speed is slow, and two hundred and fifty impressions an hour is a high average. Printers call this press "The Man-Killer," because its operation requires so much physical exertion.
The early newspapers in backwoods towns attempted to pull neck and neck with the city journals. They tried to give the news from all over the world; and the result was, they let the home news go. They were long in learning that a small paper's field should be small, and that the readers of a local paper expect that paper to contain the local news. Persons who desired national and foreign news subscribed for metropolitan papers. This was the case years ago the same as now. In course of time the lesson was learned; the local papers betook themselves to their own particular fields, with the result that the home paper has become a power at home. The growth of journalism has a tendency to restrict the influence of individual great papers to smaller and smaller geographical limits. All round the outer borders of their areas of circulation other papers are taking posses- sion of their territory and limiting them. No daily paper now has a gen- eral and large circulation farther away from the place of publication than can be reached in a few hours. This is not so much the case with small papers. When once firmly established they can hold their small circulation and local influence much more securely than large circulation and large in- fluence can be held by metropolitan papers. The trouble with the country papers is that the most of them die before they can establish themselves.
Some of the earliest statesmen feared danger from what they termed a newspaper aristocracy, formed by the concentration of the influence of the
70
THE NEWSPAPERS OF WEST VIRGINIA.
press about a comparatively few journals advantageously located in com- mercial centers. This danger is feared no more. The power of the press has been infinitesimally divided; among the metropolitan papers first; then among those in the smaller cities; lastly, among those in the smaller towns, until all fear of concentration is a thing of the past. The fundamental law of evolution, which rules the influence of the press as it rules the destinies of nations, or the growth and decline of commerce and political power, ren- ders it impossible that any aggregate of newspapers, acting in concert, can
long wield undisputed influence over wide areas. They must divide into smaller aggregate, and subdivide again, each smaller aggregate exercising its peculiar power in its own appropriated sphere and not trespassing upon the domains of others. The lowest subdivision is the country paper; and so secure is it from the inroads of the city journals that it can hold its ground as securely as the metropolitan journal can hold its field against the paper of the interior.
CHAPTER VIII.
:0:
GEOGRAPHY, GEOLOGY AND CLIMATE.
In this chapter will be presented facts concerning West Virginia's geography, climate, soil and geology. Its geography relates to the surface of the State as it exists now; its geology takes into account not only the present surface, but all changes which have affected the surface in the past, together with as much of the interior as may be known and understood. The climate, like geography, deals chiefly with present conditions; but the records of geology sometimes give us glimpses of climates which prevailed ages ago. The soil of a State, if properly studied, is found to depend upon geography, geology and climatology. The limits prescribed for this chapter render impossible any extended treatise; an outline must suffice.
Reference to the question of geology naturally comes first, as it is older than our present geography or climate. We are told that there was a time when the heat of the earth was so great that all substances within it or upon its surface were in a molten state. It was a white-hot globe made of all the inorganic substances with which we are acquainted. The iron, sil- ver, gold, rock, and all else were liquid. The earth was then larger than it is now, and the days and nights were longer. After ages of great length had passed the surface cooled and a crust or shell was formed on the still very hot globe. This was the first appearance of "rock," as we understand the word now. The surface of the earth was no doubt very rough, but with- out high mountains. The crust was not thick enough to support high mountains, and all underneath of it was still melted. Probably for thous- ands of years after the first solid crust made its appearance there was no rain, although the air was more filled with moisture then than now. The rocks were so hot that a drop of water, upon touching them, was instantly turned to steam. But they gradually cooled, and rains fell. Up to this point in the earth's history we are guided solely by inductions from the teachings of astronomy, assisted to some extent by well-known facts of chemistry. Any description of our world at that time must be speculative, and as ap- plicable to one part as to another. No human eye ever saw and recognized as such one square foot of the original crust of the earth in the form in which it cooled irom the molten state. Rains, winds, frosts and fire have broken up and worn away some parts, and with the sand and sediment thus formed, buried the other parts. But that it was exceedingly hot is not doubted; and there is not wanting evidence that only the outer crust has yet reached a tolerable degree of coolness, while all the interior surpasses the most intense furnace heat. Upheavals and depressions affecting large areas, so often met with in the study of geology, are supposed to be due to
72
GEOGRAPHY, GEOLOGY AND CLIMATE.
the settling down of the solid crust in one place and the consequent up- heaval in another. Could a railroad train run thirty minutes, at an ordi- nary speed, toward the center of the earth, it would probably reach a tem- perature that would melt iron. And it may be stated, parenthetically, could the same train run at the same speed for the same time away from the cen- ter of the earth, it would reach a temperature so cold that the hottest day would show a thermometer one hundred degrees below zero. So narrow is the sphere of our existence-below us is fire; above us "the measureless cold of space."
When we look out upon our quiet valleys, the Kanawha, the Potomac, the Monongahela, or contemplate our mountains, rugged and near, or robed in distant blue, rising and rolling, range beyond range, peak above peak; cliffs overhanging gorges and ravines; meadows, uplands, glades beyond; with brooks and rivers; the landscape fringed with flowers or clothed with forests, we are too apt to pause before fancy has had time to call up that strange and wonderful panorama of distant ages when the waves of the sea swept over all, or when only broken and angular rocks thrust their should- ers through the foam of the ocean as it broke against the nearly submerged ledges where since have risen the highest peaks of the Alleghanies and the Blue Ridge. Here where we now live have been strange scenes. Here have been beauty, awfulness and sublimity, and also destruction. There was a long age with no winter. Gigantic ferns and rare palms, enormous in size, and with delicate leaves and tendrils, flourished over wide areas and vanished. And there was a time when for ages there was no summer. But we know of this age of cold from records elsewhere, for its record in West Virginia has been blotted out. Landscapes have disappeared. Fertile val- leys and undulating hills, with soil deep and fruitful, have been washed away, leaving only a rocky skeleton, and in many places even this has been ground to powder and carried away or buried under sands and drift from other regions.
An outline of some of the changes which have affected the little spot in the earth's surface now occupied by West Virginia will be presented, not by any means complete, but sufficient to convey an idea of the agencies which enter into the workings of geology. It is intended for the young into whose hands this book will come, not for those whose maturer years and greater opportunities have already made them acquainted with this sublime chapter in the book of creation.
When the crust of the earth had cooled sufficiently rains washed down the higher portions, and the sands and sediment thus collected were spread over the lower parts. This sand, when it had become hardened, formed the first layers of rock, called strata. Some of these very ancient forma- tions exist yet and have been seen, but whether they are the oldest of the layer rocks no man knows. Some of the ancient layers of great thickness, after being deposited at the sea bottoms, were heated from the interior of the earth and were melted. In these cases the stratified appearance has usually disappeared, and they are called metamorphic rocks. Some geolo- gists regard most granite as a rock of this kind.
As the earth cooled more and more it shrank in size, and the surface was shriveled and wrinkled in folds, large and small. The larger of these wrinkles were mountains. Seas occupied the low places, and the first brooks and rivers began to appear, threading their way wherever the best channels could be found. Rains, probably frost also, attacked the higher
73
GEOGRAPHY, GEOLOGY AND CLIMATE.
ridges and rocky slopes, almost destitute of soil, and the washings were carried to the seas, forming other layers of rocks on the bottoms, and thus the accumulation went on, varying in rate at times, but never changing the general plan of rock-building from that day to the present. All rock, or very nearly all, in West Virginia were formed at the bottom of the ocean, of sand, mud and gravel, or of shells, or a mixture of all, the ingredients of which were cemented together with silica, iron, lime, or other mineral sub- stance held in solution in water. They have been raised up from the water, and now form dry land, and have been cut and carved into valleys, ridges, gorges and the various inequalities seen within our State. These rocks are sometimes visible, forming cliffs and the bottoms and banks of streams and the tops of peaks and barren mountains; but for the greater part of West Virginia the underlying rocks are hidden by soil. This soil, however, at the deepest, is only a few feet thick, and were it all swept off we should have visible all over the State a vast and complicated system of ledges and bowlders, carved and cut to conform to every height and depression now marking the surface. The aggregate thickness of these layers, as they have been seen and measured in this State, is no less than four miles. In other words, sand and shells four miles deep (and perhaps more) were in past time spread out on the bottom of a sea which then covered West Vir- ginia, and after being hardened into rock, were raised up and then cut into valleys and other inequalities as we see them today. The rockbuilding was not all done during one uninterrupted period, nor was there only one up- heaval. West Virginia, or a portion of it, has been several times under and above the sea. The coast line has swep: back and forth across it again and again. We read this history from the rocks themselves. The skilled geol- ogist can determine, from an examination of the fossil shells and plants in a stratum, the period of the earth's history when the stratum was formed. He can determine the old and the youngest in a series of strata. Yet, not from fossils alone may this be determined. The position of the layers with regard to one another is often a sure guide in discovering the oldest and youngest. The sands having been spread out in layers, one above the other, it follows that those on top are not so old as those below, except in cases, unusual in this State, where strata have been folded so sharply that they have been broken and turned over. Thus the older rocks may lie above the newer.
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