USA > West Virginia > Upshur County > The history of Upshur county, West Virginia, from its earliest exploration and settlement to the present time > Part 32
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his local town in the Legislature of Massachusetts. During his services in the the law-making body from 1849 to 1853, his occupancy of the speaker's chair for the sessions of '51 and '52 is the strongest attestation of his popularity and brains. He went to Congress first in 1853 as a Democrat and during his term identified himself with the American or Know Nothing Party, and by virtue of this flop he was returned to Congress. The most significant political victory of his life was that protracted and bitter contest over the slavery question in the pre-organization days of the Thirty-fourth Congress that made him the first Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives. He was elected governor of Massachusetts three consecutive terms and did much to raise the efficiency of the Massachusetts' militia which filled an important role in the Civil war.
On laying down the duties of a commonwealth's chief executive he as- sumed the greater responsibilities of the presidency of the Illinois Central Rail- road, but soon resigned to be commissioned major-general of volunteers, and went to the front in Virginia.
He was in the battles of Winchester, March 23, 1862 ; Front Royal, May 23, 1862; Cedar Mountain, August 9, 1862, and at the capitulation of Port Hud- son, July, 1863.
He resigned his commission in May, 1864, and returned to his native State, where an admiring constituency biennially elected him to Congress until 1877, failing only in 1872.
After a recess of eleven years his friends called him again into political serv- ice by a nomination and election to Congress. He died September 1, 1894, much respected and much honored by his State and nation.
C. S. Haines was the gentleman on the committee created by an act of the West Virginia Legislature past July 31, 1863, from this section of the county ; and he it was after counseling and advising with his most worthy and intellec- tual neighbors recommended that this magisterial district be named Banks after the hero and statesman herein before portrayed.
The first settler in this district was Valentine Powers, who erected the cabin near where the Frenchton postoffice now is; the second settler was Leonard Crites, who came from Brushy Fork. They were soon followed by Abram Wells, Joseph Mckinney, Isaac Parker, Samuel T. Talbot, Rice Vincent and James Bart- lett. All were actual settlers. William Clark, the son of William and Eve (Powers) Clark, was the first white child born in the district. The first grist mill was built by Daniel Peck at the upper falls of the little Kanawha River about the year 1821. The lumber for the mill was sawed at the Gould's saw mill at Meadville, and withed together and carried on horse by a Mr. Peck to the site of his new mill. The second grist mill was built in 1825 by Valentine Powers.
The buhrs were cut from a quarry in a neighboring hill and the building was a mere shed supported by four posts. Samuel Talbot erected the first saw mill in the year 1825; it was a good substantial frame building ; the saw, the old sash pattern, was propelled by an under-shot wheel. This mill is now known as the Wingrove mill. Since the building of Daniel Beck's mill at Arlington and Pow- er's mill on French Creek, there has been constructed many others in various parts of the district. The site of the Peck mill is now the site of the up-to-date flour and grain mill of E. G. Wilson, who purchased the land around the Falls " and including them from the Fidlers. The Wilson mill at Stillman was built by
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FORMATION OF UPSHUR COUNTY.
Gideon Wilson. This mill furnished all the flour and meal for the inhabitants in and around Rock Cave.
The Crites mill at Selbyville was built in 1855-6, by Leonard Crites, whose settlement was made in the same year. Thomas Selby lived at this place in the year 1873 and gave name to the postoffice as we now have it.
Newlonton and the station at Newlonton was opened on May 6, 1891, the date of the first ticket sold over the extension of the West Virginia and Pittsburg Railroad from Buckhannon.
The Moore mill at Hollygrove was built in the year 1867, it is still in opera- tion. About a half a mile above this grist mill was the first saw mill in this section, it was built by Mr. Ligget and had an up and down saw forced into action by water into an over-shot wheel.
The first election in this district was held in Beechtown at the time a vote was taken for and against the formation of the new county of Upshur out of parts of Randolph, Lewis and Barbour. For more particular mention of that vote, look at the chapter on the formation of the county. The second election was held at Centreville in 1866, at which time fifty votes were cast; among those who then exercised the right of suffrage were: Samuel Wilson, Samuel - Talbot, John Douglass, David Bennett, James Curry, Jerad Armstrong, James Smallridge, James Blagg, C. S. Haynes, W. H. Curry, John McDowel, Daniel Haynes, Robert Curry, John Smith, James Hull, Daniel and George Talbot.
The Baptist Church was the first denomination to effect an organization in this district. It was made in the year 1815, at Frenchton under the ministry of Rev. James Wells. The second society formed was that of the Methodist in 1816. Warren Knowlton and wife, and Rice Vincent and wife and mother were among those composing the first class.
PRESENT CHURCHES IN THE DISTRICT.
METHODIST EPISCOPAL .- Beechtown Chapel first organized in 1816, a church was built in 1837, and the present house of worship was erected in 1863.
CENTERVILLE CHAPEL was organized in 1850 and house was built in 1851, Kanawha Run Chapel, Mt. Zion Chapel, Salem Chapel, Canaan Chapel, Brooks Chapel, Newlonton Chapel, Shinar Chapel, Marple.
PLEASANT DALE .- Boreman, Heaston, Eden, Wilson, Union M. P. and M. E. South on Straight Fork.
UNITED BRETHERN .- Cow Run Chapel, Cherry Fork Chapel.
BAPTIST CHURCHES .- Rock Cave, organized on April 15, 1849, and Provi- dence.
At Goshen there is a Dunkard class and a Dunkard Church which was organized by D. J. Miller in 1901.
The first school was taught about 1815, by a man named George Dawson, in a log cabin on the waters of French Creek. The first school house was built in the year 1818 near the postoffice of Frenchton on what is now known as the Walter Phillips farm. This postoffice is the oldest in the district.
To this district belongs the great honor of having grown one of the largest walnut trees in the United States. We dare say that ink of lumber history never penned a more gigantic walnut tree than the one cut by Robert Darnell in the year 1882. When felled it measured across the stump seven feet and six inches
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one way, and eight feet four inches the other. The body was seventy-five feet long and the top end measured three feet four inches in diameter. Mr. Darnell sold it for $600, about one-tenth of its actual worth, but it enabled him to pay for the farm on which it grew.
FIRST SETTLEMENTS IN AND AROUND ROCK CAVE.
William Loudin settled at the mouth of Cherry Fork on the Little Kanawha River on the place now owned by his relative and descendant, Thomas Samples.
Daniel Peck built the first grist mill at the upper Falls on the Little Kanawha River in 1828. He sold it to Robert Clark, whose dreams of success and content- ment were dissipated by the immediate death of four children. The rough tombstone in the Centreville Cemetery marks the date of birth and death of these children.
Alpheus Rude, of Massachusetts, settled on Kanawha at the Falls of Flat- woods Run, now owned by Wilson; and he, his wife, his son William and his wife and children lived and died there. The land that Mr. Rude owned was sold first to William Hefner by his son Edwin; Hefner sold it to George White; White sold it to R. H. Townsend, who sold' it to E. E. Curry. Mr. Curry, on account of its easy approach for the people on the Kanawha and its tributaries, constructed there a grist mill, known for some time as the Curry Mill, later as the Wilson Mill. It was burned down in 1893. Patrick Peebles, of Massachusetts, settled on Kanawha Run on the farm now owned by King Jones; he sold it to Zacheriah Rollins; Rollins to Isaac Parker; Parker to Benjamin Eckle, whose son sold it to A. M. Smith.
Job Thayer settled on a Knob farm near Rock Cave, now owned by John Hull. Murray Thayer settled on a second Knob farm near by.
George Nicholas settled on the James Donley place, which was acquired from Thomas McVincent.
Henry Winemiller settled on the farm now owned by John Hyre. Captain Gilbert Gould once lived near Rock Cave on a tract of land subsequently sold to him by J. J. McVincent, who died in Andersonville.
Samuel T. Talbot built the first frame house in the township, on the Talbot plantation, in 1832. It is still standing in a fair state of preservation.
Three brothers from Boston, Mass., Anson, Gilbert and Pascal Young, settled on what is now the Brake and Helmick Farms.
David Cochran and sister Ann, first settled in Centerville, Rock Cave, in James Curry's home.
The first winter school taught at Centerville was by Festus Young, in a little house near John MacAvoys. When the owner of this little house could no longer ~ spare it for educational purposes a second house was secured just below Benjamin Paughs. It was burned in 1844 and the citizens united in building a hewn log house where the M. E. Church now stands.
The first business house in Centerville was the Morrison & Curry millinery store. It was a cheap structure, built by a William Curry and J. J. McVincent, in 26 days. Thomas Desper used it as a store room and sold it to William H. Curry in 1855.
SCHOOL HISTORY.
The history of Upshur county, in its educational growth, is in general the history of Virginia and West Virginia repeated. The retarding influence of Gov-
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THOMAS JEFFERSON LIGGETT.
JOHN TECUMSEH COURTNEY.
WILLIAM MEARNS.
JAMES JACKSON FARNSWORTH
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ernor Berkeley's speech, when he thanked God that Virginia had no free schools, indicated the true and popular sentiment of her well-to-do people, and was not overcome until one hundred and twenty-five years had elapsed. Seven years after the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, Thomas Jeffer- son, that great apostle of Democracy, influenced the Virginia Assembly to insert in her code the first school laws pertaining to a passive careless regard for and a nominal oversight over only a few schools without donating funds to aid and assist them. In this legislative act a germ of perennial duration was planted, and in time germinated and grew into the Virginia University (1819), and later into the Jeffersonian ideal of free common and free high schools.
Early educational opportunities in the settlements of the Buckhannon River Valley were very meager. What there were, were most energetically improved by the children of the first settlers. Children were needed at home to assist parents in clearing forests, in cutting fire wood, and doing other chores which saved steps for parents; very few schools were kept, indeed, none were held for twenty-five years after the first settlement at the mouth of Turkey Run.
The school houses were of a primitive style of architecture, bearing a very small resemblance to Grecian or Roman order. They were constructed of logs notched at the coners, and daubed with clay. Before this last process was entered upon the cracks between the logs were filled with mountain moss and pieces of split wood. The roof was of split boards, kept in their position by weighty poles laid across them to the full length of the building. Light was provided, not by transparent window glass but by translucent paper covering an aperture made by sawing out a log. This paper was greased, in order to make it more translucent, and was provided with a plank cover suspended by leather hinges, so that it protected the paper and the children during a dashing rain or heavy storm. The chimneys were large and wide. Puncheon benches without backs, ten and twelve feet long, were the uncomfortable seats that pupils were required to sit upon during the long school day. A chair and a table, for the teacher, with one or more good birch rods in the corner, completed the furniture of the school room.
School books were also scarce, and of diverse kinds-sometimes every pupil would bring a different book. Columbian Orator, Arabian Knights, Robinson Crusoe, the Bible or the New Testament were the original books ; later on, Green and Davy's arithmetic, Webster's readers and spellers were used. This outfit, meager as it was, was quite equal to the demands of the curriculum which com- preliending only reading, writing, and ciphering as far as the rule of three. Mathematics was taught at first only by means of a manuscript book, belonging to the teacher, in which arithmetical questions were not only propounded, but the process of their solution must be fully recorded in figures. This was the pupils only source for sums, and to the teachers standard of calculation answers must conform. Pupils after toiling days, or weeks over a sum in long division would go up to the teacher to report their answers, and would hear the appalling words- "not right." They would then have to go over the tedious and perplexing calcu- lation again with the probability, staring them in the face, of arriving at the same result, and receiving the same answer.
The rod bore an important part in the discipline of these primitive schools. Fortunately or unfortunately, the forest furnished switches, which for toughness and punitive power, threw into the shade the far famed birchen rod. The vir-
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tnes of the hickory were understood by all the disciplinarians of the school room, and its penal application was held in extreme horror by all of the unruly, naughty urchins of the region. It was employed with more or less freedom and severity according to the temper and virus of the pedagogue. Some irascible teachers used it with unquestionable cruelty, while others employed it to terrify rather than to punish.
Castigation was inflicted usually by retail, but in some cases by wholesale. Ten or a dozen were often called upon at once, and each in turn received his share of the whipping. Sometimes when the violators of school rules were of unequal size the smaller boy was put upon the back of the larger, and then the teacher used a goad long enough to go around both. In this way the larger boy would receive the greater amount of punishment from the small end of the whip.
The first school in the Buckhannon River valley was taught by a Mr. Had- dox, in a primitive log cabin near the mouth of Radcliff's Run, about two miles south of the present town of Buckhannon. This school was begun in December in the year 1797, and was supported by private subscriptions. The interest mani- fested in this school, at this time, can best be measured by the amount of contri- bution made up and paid over to the first jolly pedagogue. It has been handed down from generation to generation that Mr. Haddox's salary was $16 and board per month. The latter half of this consideration was by compliance with the condition that the teacher go home in turn with the pupils of each parent and supporter of the school. The attendance of this first school was regular, large and wide. Such great interest was taken in the novelty of school life, that the average daily attendance kept up to almost a hundred during the term of school which was three months. Children within a circuit of five miles of the school attended, and were eager and anxious to gain bits of information to help them in their after life. Upon information, such as is received and passed from gen- eration unto generation, we venture to name some of the children who attended this first school: From Cutright's Run were Jacob, John, William and Isaac Cutright and their sister Ann. There were also the Oliver children. There were William, John and Samuel Pringle, Jr., sons of Samuel Pringle of Sycamore fame. The children of the Ours' and Jackson's, from the present site of Buck- hannon, were also in attendance, and the Tingles, the Finks, the Hyers, and Schoolcrafts from Fink's Run answered present to the roll call. School con- tinued to be kept at varying periods, in this log hut, for a score and more of years. The second school was taught in the present town of Buckhannon in 1807. The school house was a vacant residence on the place of Job Hinkle- ~ Samuel Hall was the teacher.
These early schools received no state aid. The teacher had to depend upon his subscription paper which was circulated among the numerous families within reach of the proposed school, and each family signed whatever number of pupils. it felt able to send. In case too few signers were secured the school would not begin, and the teacher went on to a more populous neighborhood to try his luck again. Salaries were, indeed, low, and the meager pay received was made to go further by "boarding 'round."
In 1810 the General Assembly of Virginia created what was known as the literary fund. By this act all "escheats, confiscations, fines, and pecuniary penalties,
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and all rights in personal property accruing to the Commonwealth as derelict, and having no rightful proprietor, should be used for the encouragement of learn- ing." An account by the auditor was obtained under the literary fund. The Gov- ernor, Lieutenant Governor, Treasurer, Attorney General and President of the Court of Appeals were made trustees and managers of this fund. We are not able to say whether the citizens in the Buckhannon River valley settlements re- ceived anything from this fund. The act of 1810 was amended by the act of 1818 which latter act provided that, " It shall be the duty of the courts of the several counties, cities and corporated towns in the month of October, or as soon thereafter as may be, appoint not less than five or more than fifteen dis- creet persons to be called school commissioners. The duty of these commission- ers was to disburse for the county its pro rata share of this literary fund annually. This fund, as will be recalled, was used to pay the tuition of the children of poor parents. The commissioners selected these children out of the applications made to them. This literary fund law applied only to poor white children, and did not include the children of the negro. It is, indeed, a lamentable fact that pride, in almost all instances, overpowered good judgment and very few parents availed themselves of the benefits offered by this fund. Of course, by a later amendment to the provision connected with the distribution of the literary fund, the com- missioners were given power to select children, and when selected it was the duty of the parents or guardians to send such children to school. If they failed to comply with this semi-compulsory provision, a penalty, in a sum equal to the tuition, was inflicted. Commissioners as well as parents objected to this system because it seemed to place their poor neighbors in the light of paupers. They did not look at it, as we do to-day, that there is no child either too rich or too poor to receive an education at the hands of the State. From 1819 to 1845 very little change was made in the school system of Virginia. In the latter year an act was passed authorizing the County Court to re-district the counties, and ap- point a school commissioner for each district. These school commissioners were required to assemble at the court houses of their respective counties in the month of October and elect viva voce a county superintendent of schools. His duties were to keep a register of the children in his county, and report annually on the literary fund-how it was distributed, who received it, and its effect upon the schools under his care. Again on March 5, 1846, an act for the establishment of district public schools was passed. By this law one-third of the voters of a county could petition the county court to submit to the voters, at the next general election, the question of establishing district public schools. A two-thirds ma- jority of the votes cast were necessary for their establishment. Upon the estab- lishment of public schools "a uniform rate of increase taxation" upon the tax- able property in the county was provided for the support of these schools. This additional levy was placed by the school commissioners upon the taxable property in their jurisdiction. By the same law three trustees in each district could be had, two to be elected by the voters of the district, and one to be chosen by the board of commissioners. It was the duty of these trustees to select a site for a school house, to build and furnish the same, and to employ the teacher. The law gave the trustees power to discharge this teacher for good cause. They had also "To visit the school at least once in every month, and examine the scholars and address the pupils if they see fit, and exhort them to prosecute their studies diligently, and to conduct themselves
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virtuously and properly." There were many objections to the manner of the distribution of financial aid to the first schools in Upshur county. The committee which divided these funds oftimes gave assent to a distribution, unequal and unjust. A strong magnetic solicitor always received, on account of his influence, more than his due share of the funds. One teacher tells us that he, on one occasion, had thirty-five pupils and got $36 from the literary fund, and at the same time knew of his uncle's keeping a school with fewer students, and receiv- ing $60 of the literary fund. The law as a whole tended in the right direction, its spirit was good, although its intent be occasionally broken. The law of 1845, as amended by the law of 1846, remained practically the school law of Virginia and West Virginia until the breaking out the war. It must also be remembered that as far as Upshur county was concerned there was not a single school house built out of public funds prior to the Civil war, and there was no other, but the composite-school, religious, and political structures, in the county. That is to say, that the people in a neighborhood united in a common effort to construct log houses of hewn or unhewn timber with the full intention that they should be used as a school house, church and political forum.
This brings us to the war of the rebellion in which Virginia, the mother State, was delivered of a child. This child broke away from maternal precept and example, and greatly improved upon the old order of educational affairs. West Virginia, from the beginning, turned her face toward the bright star of free public schools. The free school system was not an experiment, for the neighboring states of Pennsylvania and Ohio had already tested it. When those men who refused to follow the old State, on the secession and State rights ques- tion, met to frame a constitution for the new State, they were determined to have a uniform system of free education. Therefore, they inserted in the first consti- tution this declaration: "The Legislature shall provide, as soon as practical, for the establishment of a thorough and efficient system of free schools by appropriat- ing thereto the interest of the invested school fund, the net proceeds of all forfeit- ures, confiscations and fines accruing to this State under the laws thereof, and by general taxation on persons or property or otherwise. They shall also pro- vide for raising in each township (district) by the authority of the people thereof, such a proportion of the amount required for the support of free schools therein as shall be prescibed by general laws."
On December 10, 1863, the Legislature of West Virginia passed an act enti- tled, "An act providing for the establishment of a system of free schools." This act was in conformity with the tenth article of the constitution. By this act three school commissioners were to be elected on the fourth Thursday in April, 1864, for each township district. The commissioners so elected, when qualified, together with the clerk of the township constituted the Board of Education whose duty it is to take the control and management of schools within their district. By the same act, and at the same time, a county superintendent of free schools was elected. His duties were to examine all candidates for the profession of teacher, to visit the schools, to encourage institute work, etc.
The first county superintendent of Upshur was A. B. Rohrbough, elected on the first Thursday in April, 1864. His term of service began on the tenth day succeeding his election. Mr. Rohrbough later gave up educational work and went into the ministry where he remained until his death in 1901. We have been unable to find a report from him, telling how many, and what condition
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the schools of Upshur county were in when he retired in 1864. We presume his work must have been hard, earnest, and laborious. The county superintend- ents of Upshur since 1865 have all made reports to a State superintendent.
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