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A history of Pendleton County, West Virginia

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HISTORY

OF

PENDLETON COUNTY

WEST VIRGINIA

BY

OREN F. MORTON

AUTHOR OF "UNDER THE COTTONWOODS". "WINNING OR LOSING)" "LAND OF THE LAUREL". "PIONEERS OF PRESTON COUNTY".

FRANKLIN. WEST VA. PUBUSHED BY THE AUTHOR 1910

APPAL. RM.

Vtsi Virginia Fnlvergfty

Copyright April. 1910 By OREN F. MORTON

All Rights Reserved

Printed by

RUEBUSH-ELXINS CO.

DAYTON. VA.

CONTENTS

Chapter

Page

I

Physical Geography of Pendleton

1

II

Before the White Man Came

15

III

America and Virginia in 1748

23

IV

Period of Discovery and Exploration

28

V

The Beginning of Settlement

33

VI

Period of Indian War

39

VII

A Time of Peace

52

VIII

Pendleton Under Rockingham

60

IX

Early Laws, Customs, and Usages

66

X

Formation of Pendleton

85

XI

Early Middle Period— 1788-1818

92

XII

Later Middle Period— 1818-1861

96

XIII

Slavery in Pendleton

103

XIV

Period of Interstate War

107

XV

Recent Period

117

XVI

Church, School, and Professional His-

tory

122

XVII

The Town of Franklin

129

XVIII

The Pendleton of To-Day

133

XIX

A Forward Look .

138

\

PART II

I

The Nature of Family-Group Histor-

ies

143

II

Illustrative Family-Group Sketch

150

III

Given Names and Surnames

155

IV

Index to Names of Pioneers and Sub-

Pioneers

163

V

Origin, Arrival, and Location of the

Pioneers

165

VI

Sketch-Histories of Existing Fami-

lies

173

VII

Certain Extinct Families

318

VIII

Other Extinct Families

326

IX

Recent Families

328

X

Highland Families

332

PART III

Section I—Historical

Edmund Pendleton 338

List of Pioneers of the Indian Period 338

Naturalizations of Pioneers 339

Form of Colonial Land Patent 340

An Apprenticeship Indenture 341

An Emancipation Paper and Other Forms 342

Washington's Visit to Pendleton 343

The Lincolns of Rockingham 343

Pendleton Journalism 344

The Masonic Order in Franklin 344

Law, Order, and Charities 345

Franklin in 1844 345

The County Buildings 347

A School of 1830 349 The Bennetts of Other West Virginia Counties 350

Section II— Statistical

Population of Pendleton in Each Census Year 352

Postoffices 352

Slaveholders in 1860 353

Prices for Entertainment at Ordinaries 353

Levies, Taxes, Salaries, and Fines 355

Bounties on Predatory Animals 357

Prices of Store Goods in 1820 358

Church Buildings and Ministers 359

County Officials before 1865 362

County Officials Under West Virginia 364

The School Districts of 1846 366

Educational Statistics 367

Abstracts from Census Reports 369

Pendleton Legislators 372

Pendleton Men in the Professions 374

County Finances 375

Surveys and Patents Prior to 1788 375

Some Conveyances of Land Prior to 1788 386

List of the Tithables in 1790 387

Section III~Military

Supplies for Military Use, 1775 393

Supplies for Military Use, 1782 393

A Pension Declaration of 1820 ""^^ 394 Citizens Exempt From Military Service in 1794 395

Militia Districts, Companies, and Officers 395

Muster Roll of Pendleton Militia in 1794 396

Pendleton Soldiers of the French and Indian

War— 1754-60 Pendletonians in Mililary Service between

1775 and 1861 401

Pendletonians in the War of 1861 — Federal

and State Service 402

Some Accounts of the Regiments of the Con- federate Service Containing Pendleton Men 406 The Battle of New Market 410

Roster of Pendleton Men in the Confederate Service ^ 411

APPENDIX

Brief Sketch of the Author of the Book. 430

Sidelights on Historical Subjects

1. The Meaning of History. 2. America an Old World. 3. The Men Who Settled the Thirteen Colo- nies. 4. Appalachian America and the American Highlander. 5. A Landmark Year — 1848. 6. Amer- ican Slavery. 7. The Disruption of Virginia. 8. The Mission of America. 9. American Tendencies. 10. An Interpretation in the War of 1861

List of Suggestive Questions on Pendleton History

Corrections

Illustrations

Map of Pendleton

An Indian Spoon 16

Summit of Spruce Knob 32

Site of Fort Seybert 48

A House of the Later Pioneer Period 80

A House of the Early Middle Period 96

A Group of Revolutionary Relics 112

View of Franklin 128

The Seneca Rocks 144

A House of the Modern Time 208 The Blue Hole: A Water-Gap on the South Branch 272

The Old Schoolhouse at Franklin 352

The Courthouse of 1817 336

The McCoy Mill 400

FOREWORD.

The public records of this region, beginning with the or- ganization of Augusta county in 1745, are almost wholly in- tact, and the examination of these was of very great service in verifying and filling out the statements given by our older people. But records are perishable, and it needs no argument to show that by the time the present people of middle age have become old, it might then be out of the question to present a satisfactory history of Pendleton.

It is still generally possible for our older people to follow the links which connect them with the pioneer ancestor. However, this can seldom be done in full detail, and some- times the result is quite imperfect. And as the pioneer an- cestor is usually the great-grandparent, it is very evident in the general absence of continuous family records, that the day is near at hand when it will be practically impossible to trace the line of descent.

It is true enough that if the present effort had been under- taken even no more than ten years since, it would have been decidedly easier to link the pioneer days to the present. But on the other hand an increasing sense of the remoteness of those days, and of learning the story they convey to us, has imparted to the people of this county a keener zest to know its history. It is also to be considered that a railroad and a consequent industrial readjustment are scarcely more than a question of time. An economic change is more or less un- settling, and on that account it is better that the history appear now, rather than later.

Pendleton has a good degree of historical perspective. There is an interesting background of legend relating to the days of pioneer privation, of a gradual subduing of the wild- erness, and of peril from the Indian. The men and women who were the real pioneers are strangers to the present gen- eration, and their ways of thinking and doing have a fresh- ness and interest to us of this new century. Moreover, the recent days of domestic war with their differing conceptions of duty, and their lessons of sacrificing obedience to these con- ceptions, will be to the future period what the pioneer period is to the present.

The person who imagines it is not worth while to give a second thought to the people of yesterday has no right to ex- pect that the people of to-morrow will give a second thought to himself. Such a creed is narrow, sordid, and selfish. It

VII

begets an indifference to the future as well as the past, and shirks the patriotic duty of helping to make to-morrow better than to-day. It is not wise to live as though one were in the past, yet the individual who neither knows nor cares what others have done before him has never really outgrov/n his childhood. Very true words are these of Jefferson : ' 'History by apprising us of the past enables us to judge of the future; it avails us of the experiences of other times, and qualifies US to judge of the actions and desires of men." Equally true words are these of John Sharp Williams of Mississippi :

"A country without memories is without history; a coun- try without history is without traditions; a country without traditions is without ideals and aspirations; a country with- out these is without sentiment, and a country without senti- ment is without capacity for achieving noble purposes, de- veloping right manhood, or taking any truly great place in the history of the world."

He could have added that local attachment and a true pat- riotism cannot exist apart from one another.

It was no small task in itself to examine the numerous pen-written volumes of public records which have accumu- lated in 165 years. Neither was it a light task to look up the information that could only be had by word of mouth. This led to a tour of the county, covering sixty-eight days and causing 593 miles of travel, nearly all on foot, and was followed by visits to Richmond and to the county seats of Augusta and Rockingham. But the reception of the writer by the people relieved this field work of a sense of drudgery. He was freely and cordially received in their homes, was piloted over footpaths, and farm work was ungrudgingly sus- pended to give him the information needed.

In a very true sense the gathering of material for a history is never done. A second tour of the county would have turned over no small amount of fresh soil. But the work achieved had to be done within a very limited time, and to a certain degree under much disadvantage. An expensive volume was out of the question.

It will be noticed that this volume touches lightly on the subject of current history, which is history only in the mak- ing. A writing up of the present men and present activities of a community is description and not true history, and be- gins to diverge from the actual fact as soon as the ink is dry. Neither is extended biographic mention a feature. This is a great money-making adjunct to the customary local history. But it is often criticized as singling out particular citizens whose biographies are bought and paid for, irrespective of the matter of personal service to the community. It is also

vin

criticized as tracing ancestry in a single instead of a collect- ive line, and thus discriminating in favor of particular indi- viduals. In this volume, as a rule and so far as information permits, all the adult posterity of the pioneer ancestor are traced, and there are statements of fact with respect to per- sons who have rendered their county special service. This method is less showy, but has the merit of an attempt at completeness and impartiality.

In a work of this kind it is quite unavoidable that there shall be some omissions and some error of statement. No writer of history is infallible, and he can only do the best he can with the oftentimes incomplete, ill-arranged, and even contradictory material that comes to his hand. Some of the deficiencies of this book are not properly chargeable to the writer, and are due to an absence of needed information.

Owing to the need of sending the earlier pages of the man- uscript to the printer before the latter pages were written, it has not been possible to insure a complete harmony of the dates occurring in more than one place. But such dis- crepancies as had to remain are of no great importance.

If in the following pages is now and then a remark which some reader may think conveys a criticism, the remark is given with an entirely friendly spirit and purpose.

During the progress of the work it has been a pleasure and a great encouragement to note the constant expressions of kindly and substantial interest in the undertaking. Several citizens have in special ways rendered invaluable assistance, and without this aid the work could scarcely have succeeded.

While the greater part of the material for this work has been derived from original investigation, acknowledgement is made to the published histories and historical collections of Augusta, Rockingham, Hampshire, Tucker, and Randolph counties, and to various publications of broader scope, partic- ularly with reference to the Shenandoah Valley.

Franklin, West Va., OREN F. MORTON.

Feb. 23, 1910.

CHAPTER I Physical Geography of Pendleton

History cannot be understood very fully without the help of physical geography. For example, the four states of Florida, Kansas, Nevada and West Virginia are strikingly unlike one another in position, surface, soil, climate and pro- ductions. Had they all been settled by the same kind of people their historical development would nevertheless have proceeded along four diverging paths. In each case the new soil and the new seasons would modify the style of farming. The new climate would modify the type of dwelling. New ways of doing things would spring up, and there would thus result a difference in customs and modes of thinking. The grandchildren of four brothers settling in the four states would recognize themselves as belonging to four distinct types of people.

In position Pendleton lies a very little way to the west, but considerably more to the north of the the center of Vir- ginia before the state was divided. Before its curtailment in 1846 iv lay between the parallels of 38 degrees 15 minutes and 38 degrees 53 minutes, and between the meridians of 2 degrees and 2 degrees and 42 minutes west longitude. The county is nearly midway between the extreme northern and southern confines of the United States. It lies in the middle distance between the extremities of the Appalachian High- land, a region as large as France or Germany; a region of forested hills, fertile valleys, wholesome air, and picturesque scenery; a region of which a noted economist has remarked that "nowhere else in the United States, in an equal area, is to be found such an opportunity for diversity of employment in agriculture, mining, metallurgy, or varied manufactures." From the county seat the airline distance to Richmond, and also to Charleston, is 131 miles. To Hampton Roads, the harbor of the old state, the distance on trade routes is 279 miles, and to Chicago, the metropolis of the Great West, the distance is 714 milep. New York, the commercial center of America, is 415 miles away, while Washington, the political center, is only 187 miles distant. In the mere matter of dis- tance to important points Pendleton is more highly favored than most counties of America.

In form the countv is a not very irregular rectangle. ^ The Sn^eatest length is 32 miles and the greatest breadth is 24

2

miles. The diagonal distance between the northern and Bouthern angles is 88 miles. The corners of Pendleton look toward the four carHiral points of the compass. The area is usually given as 650 square miles. But according to the books of the county surveyor, the true area is 707 square miles or more than 450,000 acres.

On two sides tne boundaries follow natural lines. On the west the border follows the crest of the divining ridge of the Alleghany system. On the east it follows the crest of the Shena^idoah Mountain. North and south the boundaries are artificial courses connecting the two ranges. The bordering counties are eight. They are Rockingham, Augusta, and Highland in Virginia, and Hardy, Grant, Tucker, Randolph, and Pocahontas in West Virginia.

The contour of Pendleton is typical of the whole eastern slope of the northern Alleghanies. In other words, it ex- hibits a succession of parallel ranges inclosing parallel valleys. These valleys are three in number, there being two continu- ous divides within the county. These divides are the North Fork Mountain toward the west, and the South Fork Moun- tain toward the east. The three valleys are watered by the South Fork of the Potomac and its two leading tributaries, the North Fork to the West and the South Fork to the east. The valley of the Sauth Fork is a little narrov/er than either of the others, but in none of the three is there an open width of eight miles on the average. In each valley are minor ridges, sometimes short and sometimes long, all following the same general course of the divides. It thus follows that a river of Pendleton is sometimes closely bordered on one or both banks by a mountain wall of considerable height. Each ridge, whether primary or secondary, rather closely pre- serves its average elevation.

Shenandoah Mountain attains an altitude of 4200 feet to- ward the south, but the conspicuous point is High Knob, nearly opposite Brardywine. The western slopp, four to five miles broad, is interrupted toward the South Foik by a very much lower ridge. This foothill range opens broadly in places to let through the streams flowing down the main mountain, and is relatively higher and more conspicuous to- ward the north, where for an unbroken distance of six miles it is known as Sweedland Hill.

The South Fork Mountain is less elevated than the Shenan- doah, and its eastern slope is not more than half as broad. This declivity is very rugged, heavy foothills rising from the very edge of the South Fork bottoms. Toward the west is a companion hill of almost equal height, not a watershed, how- ever, and between the two is a belt of table land, 3000 feet

9

above the sea and interrupted by deep lateral valleys opening: toward the South Branch. Very close to that river is a foot- hill range.

The North Fork Mountain is higher than the South Fork Mountain and its eastern slope is not only twice as broad but is largely covered by a complex series of minor ridges and knobs, separated by narrow valleys. These elevations have local names, the most conspicuous, proceeding from south to north, being Ruleman, Cassell, Big and Cave mountains to- ward the west, and Simmons Mountain, Bob's Mountain. Pickle Mountain. Entry Mountain, Collett's Mountain, Sand Ridge, Tract Hill, and Little Mountain toward the east. Immed- iately to the east of the South Branch Jack Mountain enters from Highland and runs to the mouth of the Thorn. In the north Middle Mountain enters from Grant for a few miles, separating the two branches of Mill Creek. Toward the High'and line the North Fork Mountain loses the nniformity of height which is generally true of the ridges in Pendleton. It here towers up in several prominences, chief among which are Panther Knob and Snowy Mountain, 4500 feet high. The former was for a while supposed to be the loftiest peak in West Virginia.

The western slope of North Fork Mountain is in its gen- eral features similar to the corresponding side of Shenandoah Mountain. Like the latter it has a foothill range closely hugging the right bank of the North Fork. This elevation, which we will call the East Seneca Ridge, has a remarkable feature that will be mentioned farther on.

Beyond the North Fork, in the southwest of the county, a lofty mountain wall rises from the margin of the river bot- tom and is interrupted only by the valley of Deep Run. Below this tributary the expansive tableland known as the Hunting Ground begins at the brink of the mountain rampart and stretches west to the Alleghany divide on the border of the county. The latter is 4200 to 4500 feet high and without any deep gaps. Yet it appears low when viewed from the lofty Hunting Ground. Spruce Mountain runs from this plateau to the great bend in Seneca Creek, a distance of twelve miles. Spruce Knob. 4860 feet high, is the culmination of this ridge and the highest land in all West Virginia. Between Spruce Mountain and the North Fork is the low chain called Timber Ridge. As in the case of the East Seneca Ridge it opens here and there to make a passage for the streams from the west. Below the Seneca Creek the Alleghany divide bends eastward, coming within four miles of the river, and an arm is thrust southward to the mouth of the tributary. In this quarter the summit of the Alleghany

is broad, as in the case of the Roaring Plains at the head of Koanng Creek.

The three rivers of the county and their leading affluents are bordered by considerable areas of bottom land. Along the North and South Forks these bottoms are fairly contin- uous, seldom broad, and in going up stream they become very narrow. The bottoms of the South Branch occur in broad, detached bodies, having the appearance of dried up lake^, and are more extensive. Around Upper Tract is an areaof20!»0 acres looking like the prairie land of the West Considerable amounts of not very uneven land occur on the plateau of South Fork Mountain, in the broad, open expanse below Upper Tract, on the tilting plain between North Fork Mountain and East Seneca Ridge, on the Hunting Ground, and in the valley behind Timber Ridge. But in general the surface of the county is very uneven and abounds in steep hillsides and narrow gorges.

The South Branch of the Potomac rises at Hightown in Highland at the altitude of 3000 feet, flows eight miles to the Pendleton line, and courses 36 1-2 miles within the county. From an elevation of 2400 feet at the Highland line it sinks to 1300 at the Hardy line, a fall of 30 feet to the mile. Above Franklin the river falls twice as fast as it does below. It gathers volume rapidly, and in the more quiet reaches the breadth rises to 30 or 40 yards Just below Upper Tract it turns aside from the natural direction down Mill Creek val- ley, flowing through a picturesque gorge between Cave and Little mountains into the canoe-shaped valley known as the Smokehole.

The Indians called the South Branch the Wappatomika, meaning "River of Wild Geese." This term went out of use a century ago. It is to be regretted that it gave way to the present long and clumsy designation, insomuch as no dis- tinctive Indian word has been retained to mark the many natural features of Pendleton. Wappatomika may seem a long word, yet it is perfectly easy to pronounce, quite as much so as Susquehanna, Rappahannock, and others of the numerous native names which have been retained on the sea- board.

Three miles above Franklin the South Branch receives its largest tributary, the Thorn, a stream nearly as large at the junction as the main river itself. The Thorn is formed of two large branches, the Blackthorn and Whitethorn, both rising close to the Highland line. The other feeders of the South Branch are small. On the east, passing from South to North, the chief ones are Trout, Deer, Poage, and Mal- low's runs. On the west they are East Dry Run, Hammer'p

6

Run, Smith Creek, Friend's Run, Hedrick's Run, and Reed's Creek. Trout Run was formerly called Buffalo Run. Poage Run was Licking Creek, Mallow's Run was Shaver's Run, Friend's Run was Richardson's Run, and Hedrick's Run was Skidmore's Mill Run.

The North Fork rises a little within the Highland line and is somewhat smaller than the South Branch. From a height of 2U(jO feet at Circleville it drops 459 feet in the 13 miles to Seneca. With four exceptions its tributaries are unimpor- tant. A few miles above Circleville it is joined by Big Run flowing from the Alleghany divide. The Seneca waters the narrow, elevated valley between the same divide and Spruce Mountain, and joined by Horsecamp Run, Brushy Run, and Roaring Creek, adds a large volume to the main river. Deep Spring Run is very short, but is an outlet of an immense spring which gathers the underground drainage of the lime- stone plateau to the east. West Dry Run rises between Paniher Knob and Snowy Mountain.

The South Fork likewise takes its head in Highland and is similar in size to the North Fork. Its tributaries are small, and all the important ones flow out of Shenandoah Mountain. They are Brushy Fork, Little Fork, Hawes Run, Rough Run, and Lick Run.

Below Upper Tract North and South Mill creeks flow north into Grant and there join the South Branch. Otherwise the entire county is drained by the three river systems de- scribed, except that east of Jack Mountain is the source and possibly a mile of the headwaters of the Bullpasture, the parent stream of the James.

The courses of the three Pendleton rivers are remarkably direct The bends are small v;ith broad necks. Thus the loops of the South Fork add only three miles to the airline distance across the county. The course of the South Branch is somewhat less straight than in the case of the other riv- ers. This persistence in a given direction is due to the geo- logic structure of the county, as will hereafter be mentioned. It is true, however, that in the broader bottoms their chan- nels are not permanent. The streams now behave much like the rivers of the West. At one side the current will be eat- ing into the bank, and on the other a rockbar will be form- ing. A reach of swamp or stagnant pool will mark a re- cently abandoned course, while a still older one may be traced by a shallow depression wherein the rockbar has become hidden by a covering of soil and vegetation.

The streams of Pendleton are unsurpassed for clearness and purity. Except in the deeper or shadier places, or for a short time after heavy rains, the rocks in the river-bed may

be distin^ished with the greatest ease, and the finny inhabi- tants may as readily be seen darting hither and thither. The streams, both large and small, have also a very high degree of permanence, even in the face of prolonged dryness. To- ward the close of the past summer, at a point seven miles below Franklin, the writer found the flow of the South branch to be 330 cubic feet per second. It was nearly eight weeks more before the drowth was fairly broken, and even then the smaller streams were running in nearly every in- stance. This permanence is due to the numerous springs is- suing from the high, broad, and often forest- covered hills. A seeming exception to this rule is observable in some of the tributaries. A stream of some volume will suddenly disap- pear. Below such a point the bed will show nothing but dry, water worn stones. Lower down the waters agam become visible. An extreme instance is Reed's Creek, which for a mile below its source is too large to be crossed readily with dry feet. Yet it presently dwindles and is a small brook even near its mouth. These disappearing waters pursue an underground course, especially in the presence of limestone strata.

A number of mineral springs exist. These are chiefly blue or white sulphur waters issuing from strata of shale. There is also an occasional chalybeate, or iron spring. Springs of common drinking water are very numerous, and the quality is generally excellent.

With little exception the rocks of Pendleton are limestones, sandstones, and shales. Here will be noticed a thick bed of hard, gray sandstone; there a projecting ledge of blue, wa- ter-worn limestone, or a riverside cliff of gray limestone pre- senting numerous seams. Here will be a black, flaky shale, upon which one may write as on a blackboard, or else a mass of iron ore thickly crowded with the imprints of shellfish. In certain hillsides we see rotten, crumbly layers of brown- ish shale intermingled with thin seams of sandstone or lime- stone of similar color. On a river-bank one may in a few moments gather a dozen stones, no two of which will agree in color or texture. Some of these are of so fine a grain as quickly to bring an edge to a steel blade.

Another fact of ready observation is that the various strata are tilted at all sorts of angles, and at times are nearly ver- tical. Still another fact is that nearly all these rocks are of sedimentary origin. They were built up from the washings of other rocks and were deposited in water. None of them is of volcanic origin, and none is primitive or original like granite or quartz. The sandstones were once sand. The shales were once mud. The blue massive limestone was

formed in deep water, either by chemical action or from the skeletons of almost microscopic animals. The coarser lime- stone with its shell-casts was formed in shallower water near the shore. The iron ore was formed as iron ore is being formed today. Iron exists in almost every kind of soil or rock. Where it is most plentiful it appears in springs as a reddish oxide, a scum that gradually sinks to the bottom, and In time solidifies into bog iron ore.

Bat every form of sediment tends to settle on a level. If it falls on too sloping a surface it rolls downward. How then do these strata come to be so crumpled and broken that their very edges are exposed to view ?

To find an answer to this question we are carried back to the time when the only dry land in North America was a mountain ridge lying east of the Alleghanies but preserving the same general direction. Its position is marked by what is known as the "Fall Line" in such rivers as the Potomac and the James. The cities of Baltimore, Washington, and Richmond are on the Fall Line. This primitive mountain was thrust up from the bed of the ocean in the form of a long wrinkle and by an internal force. It was not composed of sedimentary rocks, because there had been no dry land to cause them. Atmospheric agencies began at once to attack this old mountain and in the course of millions of years it has been worn completely down to a base level. Nothing re- mains of it except the beds of granite, gneiss, and other hard primordial rocks which cause the rapids and cascades at Washington and Richmond.

By the persistent wearing away of the lost mountain ridge new land was built up around it. Life had appeared on the globe, and plants and animals in great variety assisted in the work. Layer after layer of gravel, sand, and fine textured mud was laid down in the ocean waters and these were in- terspersed with limy deposits, composed of the shells of minute marine animals. The shells and skeletons of larger animals became entangled in the various strata, and their casta are known to us as fossils. Heat and pressure hardened the sand, mud and marl into firm layers of sandstone, shale, and Hmestone. The new land crept steadily westward. Beyond the central line of where are now the Alleghanies was an im- mense swamp covered with a jungle of strange vegetation. In this swamp were formed the coal beds of West Virginia.

In time there was a new wrinkling in the earth's crust There was a steady, upward push, exerted an inconceivably long time, and in this way the Appalachian highland was formed. But this mountain system is itself very old. If it were a young mountain that has not had time to be worn

8

down very much, we would find a lofty central ridge with short spurs extending outward, as in the case of the Sierra Nevada. But while the Alleghanies are broad they are not lofty. They are furrowed into a complex network of small valleys. Furthermore, the ridges are often interrupted by streams which How directly across them by means of gaps. For example the New River flows westward across the entire breadth of the Appalachians with the exception of the ridge in which it rises.

We read of the "everlasting hills," yet rivers may be older than hills. When we see a river passing through a water- gap, it is because the upheaval of the mountain has been so very slow that the river has been able to keep its channel open. From the great range that once stood on the Fall Line, rivers flowed westward. Some of these, like the New, were able in part, as the Appalachians arose, to maintain their direction. The waters thrown eastward completed the tearing down of the Fall Line mountain.

Water will wear away soil that is already formed, but its unaided action on flinty sandstone is inconceivably slow. By rolling along sand, pebbles, and boulders it exerts a scouring action that tells in the end. But rocks are more rapidly worn down in other ways. The crumpling of rocks by their up- heaval and the jarring elfect of earthquakes fills them with innumerable cracks. Into these water finds its way, freezes, and pries the rocks apart, and extends the loosening. The roots of trees exert a similar influence. The heating of rocks that are turned toward the sun causes a blistering of the sur- face. Mosses and other plants gain a foothold and slowly crumble the exposed surfaces into dust. The soil which in these ways is gathered from the naked rock is added to by the dissolving effect of vegetable acids. Rainwater, charged with these acids widens every crevice it can find in an underlying bed of limestone. Immense caverns are in I this way formed. The roof of the cavern falls in places, leaving funnel-shaped depressions on the surface. In these localities surface streams are few, but at a lower level the sunken waters reappear in great springs.

The rivers of Pendleton are quite straight, simply because they cannot be crooked. They flow in troughs lying between the tilted strata. The edges of these strata may often be seen running diagonally across the channel or even in nearly the same direction as the waters. Waterworn stones have ac- cumulated in the>e troughs and support a coating of soil. In this way the narrow bottoms have been built up. This soil, sometimes three to four feet deep, is quite fine and dark, be-

9

cause deposited by overflowing waters and intermixed with vegetable mould.

West of the North Fo; k Mountain is a belt of limestone two miles broad. Another belt appears on the plateau of the South Fork Mountain. Elsewnere the soil is mainly formed by the weathering of sandstone and shales, especially the latter. The shales of the South Branch valley weather buff and thus impart a yellowish tint to the soil. In the South Fork valley the rocks exposed on the mountain sides are not such as afford a superior soil, and in consequence very little of the upland has been reduced to tillage. In the South Branch valley this is less the case, while in the North Fork valley much of the upland soil is of good quality and it is of this that most of the farms of the valley are found.

The minerals of the county have not been thoroughly pros- pected. There has been traced for a distance of 24 miles along the crest of South Fork Mountain a deposit of red hematite iron ore, which according to a conservative estimate of the state geological survey will yield a supply of 20,000,000 tons of good iron. A sample of this ore took a premium at the World's Fair at St. Louis. Some years ago Henry Dickenson reduced some of the ore at his forge and made therefrom a horseshoe and several other article>. This deposit is the largest in the county, but the brown limonite, found es- pecially in the South Branch valley and North Fork mountain IS estimated to be capable of yielding an additional supply of 10,000,000 tons. In view of the enormous consumption of iron and steel in the United States, it is only a question of time when these ores will be needed. The estimated supply would keep three large blast furnaces in operation for 60 years.

The Helderberg limestone, cliffs of which appear along the South Branch, affords good cement and good lime. The white Medina sandstone is a glass sand. Some of the shales when treated by modern machinery will doubtless make ex- cellent brick. Houses of brick are scattered about the county, but brick has been made only as wanted. The rocks of Pendleton are geologically too old to permit the presence of coal of commercial importance, unless in the extreme west. The same fact makes it needless to look for oil or gas unless in the Big Injun Sand, also in the west of the county. The caves contain nitrous earth from which saltpetre has at times been made. With this exception the mineral wealth of Pendleton has never been drawn upon for outside use.

Ever since the advent of the white hunter and trader there have been mysterious legends of lost lead mines in this and adjoining counties. These "mines" have never been redis*

10

covered, because they never had any existence. The Indian did not mine metals. Even if he had known of lead, it could have been of no particular use to him until he became ac- quainted with firearms, and this was only a few years before the period of settlement. That the red man then became a miner and possessed the skill to find what no one since has found is too absurd for serious consideration. Furthermore, the usual ores of lead do not fuse under the influence of a common fire.

In the absence of systematic weather records one can speak only in a general way as to the climate of Pendleton. The mean altitude being about 2500 feet, the climate is de- cidedly cooler than eastward on the coast or westward on the Ohio. The annual temperature in the lowest parts of the county is apparently about 52 degrees, varying from 32 de- grees in winter to l] in summer. The mercury seldom rises into the 90's and a temperature of 22 degrees below zero is the lowest that has been observed. The sea is too remote to yield any appreciable influence, while on the other hand the Alleghany divide shelters the valleys from the storms of the West. There is a large proportion of bright, sunny days. The atmosphere, however, is humid, as is evidenced by the moss occurin< in shaded places and by the mugginess of a warm and rainy spell. But these oppressive days are not many, and the summer nights are restful. Tornadoes and destructive high winds are unknown.

With some qualifications Pendleton may be considered healthful. The records of 50 years mention 120 persons who passed their eightieth birthday. Of these, 21 reached or ex- ceeded the age of 90. One man is credited with having at- tained the century mark, and several other persons are alleged to have done so. Aside from constitutional diseases, which are by no means specially common here, the chief ail- ments are of the respiratory and digestive organs. For the former class the humid climate is largely responsible, as it also is for rheumatism. In times of prolonged drowth the drinking water becomes impure and induces disturbances of the digestive tract. Typhoid fever occasionally assumes a severe form.

The river bottoms have a rich and durable soil, capable of bearing large crops of corn, grain, and hay. Much of the upland, especially in the limestone belts, is also productive. Yet the amount of waste or unprofitable land is large There are many acres of barren shingle in the bends of the larger water-courses. Many more acres are occupied by deep ra- vines, by exposed ledges, and by slopes too steep to reclaim, or too heavily burdened with rock. Adjacent to the rich bot-

11

toms are hillsides of black shale too poor for tillage or pas- ture and capable only of sustaining a scattered growth of stunted pines. When these slopes lie to the south the sum- mer sun falls on them with tropic power and blisters the thin layers of shale into four-sided pencils. On one of these exposures the writer found a large patch of cactus. Though foreign to the locality, it was thriving as well as in its native home on the far Western plains.

The cool upland climate with its generally seasonable rains and its heavy dews is highly favorable to forest and meadow. Land once cleared will quickly return to wood if left alone. "Sprouting" a neglected field is a well recognized feature of farm work. In its wild state Pendleton was to all intents and purposes an unbroken forest, although the woods were nearly free of undergrowth. There is mention of savannahs on the bottoms. These were damp openings covered with native grass and with clumps of bushes. Whether the In- dians had enlarged these by fire we do not clearly know. But all open land not in tillage or reverting to wood is cov- ered with pasture grass and does not possess that naked ap- pearance so characteristic of the lowland South. Even with- out this protection the hillsides do not have anything like the same tendency to wash that is so noticeable in the South.

The trees and shrubs of Pendleton are of great variety and are intermixed with many herbs and flowering plants. The following trees have been recognized here : aspen, ash, birch, black gum, box elder, white beech and red beech, ce- dar, both red and white, chestnut, cooperwood, cucumber, dogwood, red and white elm, red, white, and shellbark hick- ory, ironwood, juniper, linden, white, yellow, and honey locust, red maple and sugar maple, mulberry, oak, (chestnut, white, black, red, ground, swamp, Spanish, and bastard), pine, (white, yellow, pitch, spruce, hemlock, and water), per- simmon, poplar, (yellow and white), sycamoie, sassafras, yel- low and weeping willow, wild cherry and may cherry, water ash, and white and black walnut. The oaks are the domi- nant forest trees. Pines occur frequently, especially along the watercourses and on the dry slate hills. Walnut is of extremely common occurrence.

Among the shrubs are the crabapple, witch-hazel, hazel- nut, rhododendron, sumach, elder, red bud, chinquapin, pussy willow, ninebark, wild rose, bearwood, spicewood, choke cherry, haw, sloe, buckberry, red-drop, dog-rose, and honey- suckle.

Of wild fruits the grape, huckleberry, blackberry, common and mountain raspberry, and teaberry are common.

While Pendleton remained a wilderness, and for sometime

afterward, it was full of ^ame. The buffalo and the elk soon disappeared. Deer remained numerous a long while, and a single hunter is said to have killed 1700 during his lifetime. But the animal is now nearly extinct The panther is gone, although a few black bears remain. The wolf, so destructive to sheep and calves, has not been known for nearly 20 years. But the county treasury still pays many bounties on foxes and wild cats, and a few eagles. The other small animals that still linger are the same as are found in almost every corner of the North Atlantic states. Of reptiles, frogs are particularly numerous, and toads, lizards, newts, and several species of non-venomous snakes are common. The rattle- snake and the copperhead are occasionally met, but are less plenty than in former years. The abundance of forest at- tracts the feathered tribe, although the sportsman's shotgun has made the gamebird rare. Yet in spring and summer the woodland is vocal with song. The clear waters of the rivers are tenanted by trout and a variety of other small fish. In- sect life is in evidence, both in number and variety, and in- cludes several of the farmer's enemies. A few mosquitoes are in the woods but they seldom venture into the open. Probably the greatest insect damage was that wrought dur- ing the early 90's by a pest which nearly destroyed the standing pine.

Appalachian America has unusual landscape beauty, and Pendleton enjoys its full share. On a bright day in June there is an inspiration in standing on some elevated point and looking out ov^er a succession of ridges and knobs, all heavily clothed in a vesture of deep, vivid forest green; or in looking down into a valley with its ribbon of shimmering wa- ter, its succession of meadows and tilled fields, and its com- fortable, white-painted farmhouses.

A special feature of scenic interest is the almost vertical stratum of Tuscarora quartziie which forms the core of the East Seneca Ridge the entire length of the county. This rock is of flinty hardness. To this fact is due the very exist- ence of the ridge. The thin seam is like a plank set on edge and banked up on each side with a buttress of earth that slopes away at a sharp angle. It is broken at a number of places by gaps which lead from the North Fork to the lime- stone plateau on the east. These gaps are very narrow, the rock standing out from the hillside like a finger-bone from which the flesh has shrunk away. During unnumbered cen- turies the ledge has been pushing upward. Meanwhile the streams from the North Fork have been sawing notches in it. On the summit of the ridk^e the seam of rock is little more than discernible, except for instance in the short, knob-

11

like section at the Judy gap, where it rises above the curva- ture of the ground some 60 feet, reminding one of repres- entations of the Great Wall of China. At this and also at the Riverton gap, the appearance of the ledge is typical. The sky-line presents a ragged appearance, like the blade of a knife that has been much used in opening tin cans.

Opposite the mouth of the Seneca the seam presents its most massive guise. Here it has been pictured ever since the artist "Porte Crayon" gave it notoriety in a drawing. At this point the ledge cuts obliquely through the end of a mountain spur. Owing to this circumstance, the softer con- stituents of the hill have very largely disappeared, leaving the ledge towering into the air like the crumbling wall of some gigantic castle. In the Miley gap, four miles below, the view is even more striking. Instead of a single massive ledge it here rises in two parallel sheets inclining at an al- most imperceptible angle from a true perpendicular. The sheets are so thin, especially toward the top, that small holes appear in them. The edges facing the ravine are nearly ver- tical, and when the observer is squarely in front of either seam the effect is much as though he were viewing a slender spire rising 600 feet into the sky. To view these cliffs is worth a special trip, and it is to be regretted that the nar- rowness of the ravine forbids an effective photograph.

At any gap the Seneca ledge presents a variety of color. Brown, drab, greenish, and blackish tints appear on the gray background, giving place to anocherish hue wherever a mass has lately fallen. Deep fissures are to be seen, but the lines of cleavage are horiz«mtal as well as vertical. Large masses fall from the sides as well as the top, causing a deep accumulation of brick-shaped fragments. An occasional tree, usually a pine, clings to the side of the chff and manages to flourish.

In other mountains of the county ledges of the same na- ture occur, as in the Smith Creek gap between Rule man and Cassell Mountain, on the South Branch at the entrance to the Smokehole, and at the McCov mill, but they never present the imposing scenery of the East Seneca Ridge

Another striking scenic feature is tne crest of North Fork Mountain when viewed from the west. Immediately below the sky-line is an apparently vertical wall, 100 to 200 feet high, except in the occasional depressions, where it becomes practicable to cross. This precipice may be followed for many miles, but it disappears at each border of the county. It is the exposed edge of the Oriskany sandstone, which con- stitutes the upper eastern slope of North Fork Mountain, where the covering of broken rock is so heavy as to make

14

the slope of no value save for pasturage and forestry. Dur- ing the severely cold weather of February, 1899, a huge mass of rock fell out of the precipice above the house of E. B. Helmick and plowed a broad path westward down the moun- tain side. It happened just before dawn and was thought to be an earthquake.

In the limestone belt above the East Seneca Ridge are many sink-holes. Some of these have yawning mouths at the bottom, as in the case of the "hell-hole" near the Cave schoolhouse. Stones thrown in are heard to s.rike from point to point until the sound grows faint. The caverns be- low may extend several miles but have never been explored.

Pendleton is endowed with a happy combination of farm- ing, grazing, and forestral resources; with a healthful cli- mate and an abundant supply of clear, wholesome water; with mineral deposits of much consequence, and mineral springs of hygienic value; and finally with features of scenic interest that in time will develop financial importance.

It remains for us to consid*-r the suitability of the region to the people who came to settle it. Almost without excep- tion these people were from Germany and the British Isles. A land without turf was in their eyes a desert. The climate of this upland is of much the same quality and temper- ature as that of the ancestral home. There was hardly any acclimating to be undergone. There was no new method of farming to learn and they could grow the same crops as in Europe. That the foreign stocks have flourished abundantly well in the new home is not open to question.

The influence of geographic conditions on the history of the county will manifest itself from time to time in the fol- lowing pages.

CHAPTER II Before the White Man Came

When the Valley of Virginia became known to the white people it was an almost uninhabited land. On the South Branch of the Potomac was a clan of the Shawnees, only about 150 strong. In Berkeley county were a few of the Tusca- roras. On the Susquehanna, a hundred miles to the north- east, was the Mingo tribe. Much farther to the south were the Catawbas, dwelling on the river in North Carolina which bears their name. Yet the long intervening distance did not keep these red men from warring upon one another. They made of the valley a military highway, their trails taking advantage of its leading watercourses. The weak tribe of the Senedos, living near the forks of the Shenandoah, had lately been crushed between these upper and nether mill- stones. Westward of the Alleghanies was an unoccupied forest reaching to the very banks of the Ohio.

When America was discovered, the Indian population of what is now the United States is supposed to have been less than 400.000. This would yield a ratio of only 8,000 for the two Virginias. The whole Shawnee tribe, which committed so much havoc for half a century, counted only a thousand souls. To the red man in 1725 the valley of the Shenandoah and the intricate hills of West Virginia were little else than one immense game preserve. Yet the lowlands of the Shen- andoah, a region which takes naturally to a forest growth, were then an open prairie, the result of burning the grass at the end of each hunting season. The "Indian old field" in Hardy was another of these prairies.

The word Shawanogi means "Southerners." In the mouth of the white man the word became Shawanoes, or Shawnees. These Indians were of Algonquin stock and therefore related to the tribes of New England and the Middle States. They had pushed southward from their early home in the far North, until turned back by the Catawbas and other tribes in the South Atlantic region. Two centuries ago they claim- ed ownership of the valleys of Pendleton. In mental attri- butes and general ability, the Shawnees stood above the average of the Indian race. In the person of Tecumseh they gave the world one of the ablest Indians known to history. They could very often converse in several tongues, and be- fore they left the South Branch they could generally talk

16

with the pioneers. They were active, sensible, manly, and high-spirited. They were cheerful and full of jokes and laughter, but in deceit and treachery they were not rut- classed by any tribe. They despised the prowess of other Indians, and it became their boast that they killed or carried into captivity ten white persons for every warrior that they lost. According to the Indian standard, the Shawnees were generous livers and their women were superior housekeepers.

We can better understand the early pioneer period in Pen- dleton if we pause a HiOment to look into the habits of the r^-d man and his ways of thinking. What was true of the Shawnees was in a very large sense true of the Indian race in general.

No tribe was more restless than the Shawnee, yet it is not correct to suppose it was in the nature of the red man to be ever on the go. His sense of inhabitiveness was strong. He would make a long and even dangerous journey to see the place where his tribe used to live and to gaze upon the graves of his forefathers. The roving of the Indian was only in response to pressure from without. Each tribe claimed a definite territory, and for another people to disregard the boundary line was a cause of war. Nevertheless, he had no knowledge of territorial citizenship. He always thought of himself as a member of his tribe, wherever that tribe might chance to dwell. Consequently it never occurred to a Shaw- nee to speak of himself as a Virginian or an Ohian. As a natural result there was no such thing as individual ownership of the soil The land of the tribe belonged to the tribe as a people and could be sold only by the tribe. The right of the individual to his truck patch was respected, but his claim ceased when he quit using the ground.

Neither did the Indian count relationship as we do. The tribe was made up of clans, or groups, each with its own dis- tinctive name, and each living in a village by itself. The members of a clan counted themselves as brothers and sis- ters, and the Indian no more thought of marrying within his clan than of marrying his blood sister. The clan looking up- on itself as a family, an injury to a member thereof was held as an injury to the family as a whole, and any warrior thought it his duty to avenge the hurt. If the injury came from another tribe, vengeance was inflicted upon any mem- ber of that tribe. There was no thought of punishing the innocent for the guilty, since the members of the offending clan were likewise brothers and sisters. And as the Indian meted out redress against people of his own race, so did he meet it out upon the white man. Because the people of his

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tribe were brothers he thought the whites were brothers among themselves. He could not at first comprehend cus- toms or thought which were unlike his own. He judged the white man by his own measuring stick.

The families of a clan never lived in isolated homes but al- ways in a single village. A limited agriculture was carried on in an open space around the village. Subsistence how- ever was mainly upon game and fish. A people Hving in this manner requires a very large area from which to draw its support. As a natural result the Indian never butchered game out of sheer wantonness, after the manner of some people who style themselves civilized.

A Shawnee hut was made of long poles bent together and fastened at the top and a covering of bark laid on. The only openings were a place to go in or out and a crevice for the smoke. The art of weaving was unknown to this tribe. Clothing was made of skins tanned by a simple process. Un- til there was contact with white traders the only weapons or other implements were of stone or bone. There were bas- kets, but the pottery was not fireproof, water being boiled by dropping heated stones into a vessel.

Custom took the place of law and was rigidly enforced. An offence against custom was punished by a boycott. Gov- ernment was nearly a pure democracy.* Matters of pub- lic interest were settled in a council, where there was a gen- eral right to speak and to vote. The speeches were often eloquent, but the long-winded orator was not tolerated. Men of address and daring were of course influential, and with- out uncommon abihty no person might be a chief or military leader.

In his own way and to the extent of the light given him the Indian was religious. After death he believed the soul of the warrior took its flight to a happy hunting ground in the region beyond the setting sun. Here the departed one fol- lowed the chase without limit of days. But no coward and no deformed person might enter this abode of bliss. In mutilating a slain enemy he was simply following out this belief. In

* In this, as in some other chapters, the word "democracy" does not refer to a political party. It means the government of a community by itself, the members thereof being on a footing of equality with respect to civil rights. Democracy is thus distinguished from monarchy, which is government in a more or less arbitrary form by some privileged per- son, or from aristocracy, which is government by a privileged class. When the Democratic or Republican party is mentioned in this book, the word begins with a capital letter.

PCH 2

18

common with all unenlightened people the Indian was a believer in witchcraft and a slave to superstition.

The Indian commonly had but one wife. Children were treated with kindness. They belonged to the clan of the mother, and were under the authority of the chief of that clan. The father had no particular authority over his own children, yet exercised control over the children of sisters. The red man has been called lazy because his wife cared for the truck patch as well as the cabin. This charge is not al- together just. The braves spent many long and toilsome hours in making their weapons and in stalking game. To pursue wild animals and follow the warpath requires supple limbs, and supple limbs do not go with hard labor.

Among the whites the Indian was silent, generally sus- picious, and always observant. Among his own kind he was social and talkative. He had no fixed hours for his meals and was a great eater, though able on occasion to go without food for a long while. He discovered the tobacco plant, but not the filthy practice of chewing or snuff-dipping. Smoking was done in great moderation, and was thought to be a means of communing with the Great Spirit. It was also a form of oath. A treaty between tribes was made valid through a mutual smoking of the "pipe of peace."

In making marks on a stone, in carving a spoon, or in weaving a basket, there was always ornamentation, and this was never without a purpose. A given style of decoration conveyed a story of some other meaning.

The Indian had a large fund of folk-lore and of tribal history, this being passed from father to son in the form of oral tradition. He had a keen sense of humor, as his proverbs bear witness. The following are some of these :

No Indian ever sold his daughter for a name.

A squaw's tongue runs faster than the wind's legs.

The Indian scalps his enemy; the paleface skins his friends.

Before the paleface came, there was no poison in the Indian's com.

There will be hungry palefaces so long as there is any Indian land to swallow.

There are three things it takes a strong man to hold ; a young warrior, a wild horse, and a handsome squaw.

A civilized people does not consider a country occupied unless the soil is brought under private ownership and culti- vation. The colonials were increasing in number and needed more land. Here in the wilderness was plenty of it. The thought of millions of good acres lying wild was insufferable to the pioneer. He believed the red man should live as he himself was doing. He figured it out that in this manner

19

the native would need only a little ground for his own use, and that he himself had a perfect right to the vast remainder. The resistance of the Indian maddened the aggressive and resolute frontiersman.

So the settler looked him out a choice spot, blazed such boundaries as he saw fit, and built his cabin. The Indian regarded the act as a high-handed trespass. He proceeded to burn the cabin and to relieve the builder of his scalp. Cruelty on one side was repaid with cruelty on the other. If an unruly frontiersman murdered an unoffending native,— and this not infrequently happened, —the first white man the friends of the victim could waylay was promptly slain in ac- cordance with their ideas of relationship and their rules of warfare. And as the Indian made no distinction between offender and non-offender, so neither did the white man. He learned to scalp, and even to make leather of his adversary's skin. But among the tribes east of the Mississippi, the female captive was not violated.

The Indian would use craft to gain his end in time of war, but was true to the promise he gave in time of peace. Several families secured permission from the red men to settle and hunt on the Monongahela. In 1774 Governor Dunmore sent a messenger to warn them to return because of an impending Indian war. An Indian heard the message delivered and sent this reply : "Tell your king he damned liar. Indian no kill these men." Nor did they. These frontiersmen stayed where they were and lived in safety throughout the Dunmore war.

We shudder at the cruel torture inflicted by the Indian on the captives condemned to death. Yet he was no more cruel than the religious zealots of Europe, who in the very same century that the colonies were founded, were skinning and disemboweling the heretics under the hideous misbelief that they were saving their souls. In his own way the Indian was no less logical or consistent. He sought to make his foe incapable of harming him again. If possible he made sure of killing his adversary. He scalped and mutilated, not merely to preserve a trophy of his victory, but in accordance with his belief that no man may enter the future world who is disfigured in body or limb. He killed the wife so that she might not bear any more children to grow up and avenge the slain husband. He killed the boys because they would grow into ^varriors, and he killed the girls, because they would be- come the mothers of more warriors. If he spared a life, it was to adopt the cantive into his own tribe in order to in- crease its strength. Finally he burned the house in order to damage the enemy that much more.

The captive was either put to the torture, made a slave, or adopted outright into the tribe. Adoption was a prerogative of the women and was often exercised. The story of the saving of John Smith's life by Pocahontas may be a myth, but as there have been authentic instances of the same nature, it holds good as an illustration. The Indian girl was simply following a well known custom of her people, and her behavior was entirely misunderstood by the boasting leader of tne Jamestown colony. Pocahontas chose to adopt the captive into the tribe, and the tribesmen respected her right to do so.

The Indian was kind to the captive be spared. Many of those taken in childhood and returned to their friends in maturer years, have still preferred the rude tepee of the native to the cozy cottage of the white man. It would seem that if civilization is not the unalloyed good that we assume it to be, none the more is barbarism an unmixed evil. There is in fact no hard and fast line between the two. Barbarism is the childhood of civilization, and as the child survives in the man, so in our own latter-day culture there lingers no small amount of barbaric impulse.

The Indian could recognize the power of the white man's civilization, yet for himself he saw no increase of happiness in the complex and artificial culture brought to his shore by the European. His contact with the Caucasian usually meant a contact with drunkenness, immorality, and boundless greed. It meant the persistent breaking by the white man of treaties he had solemnly sworn to. It meant the preaching of a pure religion, which nevertheless was practiced by few of those who had dealings with him. It meant an exchange of his forest freedom for the slums, the social rivalry, the class distinctions, and the false estimates of manhood which are as yet inseparable features of our boasted civiliza- tion. When he visited the great city he saw on every hand the restless man of business pursuing his vision of the Dollar as the wolf pursues the fleeing sheep.

The native ability of the Indian is superior to that of the negro. If he rebelled against the thralldom he saw in the methods of the white man, he was nevertheless feeling his way toward a civilization constructed on the lines of his own nature. The powerful Iroquois, the "Romans of the New World," were but following the very example of the Romans in conquering a general peace among the American tribes. What the Iroquois had already accomplished in their home south of Lake Ontario may be seen by the destruction wrought among them by the army of Sullivan in 1779. Forty towns were destroyed, in one of which were 128 houses. There was

destroyed 160,000 bushels of corn, and in a single orchard 1500 fruit trees were cut down. The framed houses of these Indians were large and painted. That their farming was none of the poorest will appear from the circumstance that one of the ears of corn was twenty-two inches long.

The red man was in some degree a teacher to the white. He had many ways of preparing corn as food, and he im- parted these methods to the newcomer. He taught the pio- neer how to make deer-skin sieves, how to utilize cornhusks, how to recognize medicinal herbs, and how to clear farm land by deadening the trees. All in all, the experience of the native entered very materially into the mode of life of the white frontiersman. The costume of the latter was an approach to that of the native, and sometimes his cabin was no more inviting than the Indian hut.

The red man had great skill in finding his way through an unbroken forest, yet during their centuries of occupancy the tribes had established a network of footpaths with the help of their stone tomahawks. In Pendleton the paths usually follow the rivers, travel thus being easier and game more plentiful And as the rivers of this region run parallel with the mountain ridges, with only a slight divide parting the waters of two diverging streams, the succession of water courses in one continuous valley constitutes a natural high- way. But in crossing from one valley to another the Indian preferred following a ridge. It was easier than to descend a narrow, rocky gorge with its danger of ambuscade.

The Seneca trail is much the best known of the local In- dian paths, and in early days it was used by the white set- tlers. It entered the county near its northwest angle, cross- ing from the valley of the Cheat on the crest of a long ridge and descending to the level of the Seneca a little above Onego. Thence its course to the South Branch at Ruddle ap- proximated that of the present highway. East of the North Fork only uncertain vestiges of the old trail remain, but along the ridge to the west of Roaring creek it may easily be followed, and in places is deeply worn by the gullying action of rain.

On the bottom lands of Pendleton are clear signs of early and prolonged occupancy by the native. These indications are found in the mounds, the rings of earth, the graves, and the arrowheads which in certain localities have been plenti- fully found. The old inhabitants planted their villages along the rivers, where the soil is richest and most easily cleared. Stone arrowheads require time, skill, and patience to fashion into shape, and would not be used wastefully. Their com- parative abundance points to centuries of occupation. In

8

disposing of their dead the tribes of this region covered the corpse with a circular pile of stones. Many of these graves have been detected and sometimes opened.

In a mound opposite the Hoover mill above Brandywine seven skeletons were found placed in a circle with their feet together. On the farm of Major Sites at the mouth of Seneca was formerly a mound six feet high and twelve feet broad at the top. At Mitchell's mill, a mile above Sugar Grove, on the farm of Sylvester Simmons, a little below Brandywine, on the Hammer bottom be- low Franklin, and elsewhere, were unmistakable signs of villages. On the Simmons farm there was visible until a recent date a ring inclosing nearly an acre and apparently forming the basis of a palisade. On the Trumbo farm, a mile farther down the South Fork, was a burial mound. On the Conrad farm, southeast of Fort Sey- bert, was also a mound, once of some size, but now demol- ished by repeated plowing. A mile south of Upper Tract village is a mound still preserving a height of two feet. One that was probably still larger stood a short distance west of the McCoy mill above Franklin. That one of these remains of a vanished race has not been preserved in its original ap- pearance is unfortunate. The Indians of the historic period were not themselves great mound-makers, and some of these levelled hillocks may have been of surprising age.

CHAPTER III America and Virginia in 1 748

The actual settlement of Pendleton begins with the open- ing of the year 1748. Before taking up this topic it is well worth while to spend a few moments in a general survey of the region which within thirty years took the name of the United States of America.

There were then thirteen colonies. These were to every intent and purpose thirteen English-speaking, independent nations, except that Delaware was under the authority of the government of Pennsylvania. Georgia, the youngest colony, had been established sixteen years. The settled area extended a thousand miles along the coast. Nearly all the people lived within a hundred miles of the shore, and the frontier settlements had scarcely crept more than two hun- dred miles inland at any point. As yet the dividing ridge of the Alleghanies was the westward boundary of this region. By the terms of their charters some of the colonial grants extended clear across the continent, but no colony had as yet asserted any rights west of the mountains, and the French were occupying the Mississippi valley. Consequently Pen- dleton lay at this time directly on the American frontier.

The population of the colonies was about 1,150,000, or nearly the same as the present number of people in West Virginia. The negroes were about 220,000, not over a tenth of them being north of Maryland. The number of inhabi- tants was doubling every twenty-three years. Only one- twentieth of the people lived in towns. The largest cities were Boston and Philadelphia, each having about 15,OoO in- habitants. Philadelphia was a comparatively new place, having been founded only sixty-five years bef« re. Virginia, the oldest and most populous colony, contained 150,000 whites and 90,000 blacks. The region below a line drawn through Richmond and Alexandria was quite well settled. Above that Hne the country was more thinly occupied, and settlement nearly ceased at the foot of the Blue Ridge. In the Valley of Virginia were possibly 5,000 people, all these having set- tled there within twenty years. The Virginians were dis- tributed among the plantations and farms. Williamsburg, the capital, was only a village. Norfolk, the only town, had possibly 3,000 people.

The roads being very bad and the streams seldom bridged,

there was no journeying by land when it was possible to travel on the bays and rivers. To be in a stage coach was torture. There was an active commerce with England and the West Indies, but there was no intercourse with South America, and the waters of the Carribean were infested with pirate ships. The great Pacific was less known than is the Arctic today. Africa was known only along the coast, and the lands east of Russia or beyond our own Mis- sissippi were little else than a blank space on the map. It took several weeks for the sailing vessels of that day to make the voyage to Europe.

In the few cities and towns, and along the navigable waters, the people who were thought well to do had built as good homes as those they had gone out of in Europe. These houses were often roomy and comfortable, but inside they would look quite bare in comparison with the less substan- tial but belter furnished houses of almost any American town of the present time. Inland the log house was the one al- most universally seen. Manufacturing was discouraged by law, the British government wishing to use the colonies as a market for the products of its own workshops. Farming was the one great occupation, and it was carried on in a crude, laborious, and wasteful way.

There were a few colleges, but outside of New Eng- land there was no scheme of general education. In all the Colonies were not a few persons who were well versed in the higher education of that day. A large share of these were ministers and lawyers. The daily newspaper was entirely unknown, and the very few weekhes were in size about Hke our present Sunday school papers. The mails were few, slow, and irregular, and the frontier settlement did well if it received a mail once a month. In 1692 Virginia had estab ish- ed one postoffice in each county. For a letter of a single sheet, the postage was 4 cents for a distance of not more than 80 miles, and 6 cents for a greater distance. For two sheets, the corresponding rates were 7 cents and 12 1-2 cents.

Religion was free only in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania. Elsewhere, a state church was supported by general taxation and all people were expected to attend; at least a certain num- ber of times a year. In Virginia this church was the Episco- pal, known also as the Church of England. Religious interest, even with the law behind it, was not of a high or- der, and with some worthy exceptions the Episcopal clergy were a disgrace to their calling.

The methods of legal procedure are very conservative, and since the time of which we speak they have undergone no radical change. All the colonial governments had a more or

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less aristocratic color, and the right to vote was very re- stricted. Even when the Federal government went into operation in 1789, less than four per cent of the American people were qualified voters.

The practice of medicine was barbaric. Quacks were numerous. In the South the doctor was not much thought of.

Taverns were quite frequent, and always kept liquor, the use of which was general. Southern taverns were very poor, but the traveler was sure of free entertainment in the homes of the planters. His visit was an appreciated break in the sameness of life in a sparsely settled country.

It is next in order to consider who were the white inhabi- tants of the colonies. Probably four-fifths of them were of English origin. These were of different types, like the Cav- aliers of Virginia, the Puritans of New England, the Quakers of Pennsylvania, and the Catholics of Maryland. The differ- ences between them were due in part to religious belief and in part to social condition. But they were of one common stock, and in England their ancestors had lived side by side.

In New York were many people of Dutch descent. In Delaware and Pennsylvania the few Swedes were fast losing their identity among the English settlers around them. In all the colonies there was a considerable though unequal sprinkling of Huguenots, Irish, and Welch. They mingled with the English colonists and did not maintain a separate identity.

Two new streams of immigration had lately set in to the American shore. These were the Scotch-Irish and the Ger- man. Some of the Scotch-Irish landed at Charleston. But by far the greater portion came direct lo the port of Phila- delphia, because of the liberality of the Pennsylvania gov- ernment But the inhabitants of the settled part of the col- ony preferred to see the newcomers pass on. So they moved inland in search of unoccupied land. The Scotch-Irish being on the whole the more venturesome went furthest. They penetrated the mountain valleys, spread northward and southward, and thus formed a heavy rim of settlement clear along the western frontier.

As now represented in Pendleton, the leading pioneer ele- ments would be the German, the Scotch-Irish, and the Eng- Hsh, in the order in which they are named. But for the purpose of historical presentation, it is better to consider them in the reverse order. However, the first element actu- ally to show itself here was the Dutch, although it is now represented by only three or four families. The Dutch were thrifty and industrious, and of strong trading and money* making propensities. Thus it came that a Dutch trader was

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the first pathfinder in Pendleton. Intermingled with the leading elements were also a few Irish, French, and Welch settlers. These as we have seen were never inclined to band themselves into settlements of their own in any part of America.

We first consider the English element, because it was the first to colonize Virginia. Pendleton being a part of Virginia, it was settled in accordance with English-American law and usage, and some of the Virginians fell in with the tide of immigration.

The Virginians east of the Blue Ridge were of three types; the large planters, the small planters, and the poorer whites. The large planter was found chiefly in the tidewater country. He was dictatorial, but generous, courteous, honoi able, and high-minded. His high sense of family pride gave him a contempt for baseness, though it also gave him a contempt for manual labor. He was fond of outdoor sports, of fine horses, handsome furniture and elegant table ware. He kept open house and was open-handed. He was public-spir- ited, jealous of his rights, and not slow to assert them. He had no use for towns and villages, and there was nothing to be seen at a county seat except a courthouse and a few other buildings. He held his neighbors at a distance by owning a large estate, and building his large house in the center. He was looked up to by the rest of the community, and in mat- ters of church, politics or society his authority was nearly supreme. His only intimate associates were the other plant- ers of the same class. He owned many slaves and grew to- bacco for the European market. He considered Virginia in his own keeping and he made and administered the laws. He governed well, though always in a conservative manner.

We have described the large planter at some length, for though the rugged hills of Pendleton did not appeal to him as a residence, it was his hand that had shaped the Virginia of 1748.

The small planters were much more numerous, and they gave complexion to the upland district toward the Blue Kidge. Sometimes they owned a few slaves, but very often they had none at all. In their ranks were the doctors, tradesmen, tavern-keepers, and other people of miscellaneous vocations.

The third class was considered as far below the small planter. As to origin it was either criminal or unfortunate In large part it sprang from the 120,000 convicts who were hustled off to America, and especially to Virginia, between the dates 1650 and 1775. The Revolution causing this very undesirable immigration to cease, the British government

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then began sending its riffraff to Australia. In America these people were sold into servitude to the planters at $50 to $100 apiece during tne continuance of sentence. Some be- came fair or even good citizens, but often they remained constitutionally worthless, always lazy, and often trouble- some.

The other section of the poorer whites were the redemp- tioners. These had seldom a criminal record. They were persons bound out to servitude a term of years in return for the cost of passage. Some entered into this condition voluntarily, while others were forced into it, oftentimes by kidnapping. Such persons were often poor debtors and other derelicts, sent here to be out of sight and out of mind. To a far greater extent than in the case of the convict, the re- demptioner on regaining his liberty became a useful citizen. As for the ne'er-do-well, whether convict or redemptioner, he gravitated to the sandhill regions or to the mountam coves of the Blue Ridge, there to lead a shiftless existence only a few removes above that of the savage.

The supremacy of the planter aristocracy was not alto- gether unchallenged, especially in the part of the colony now known as Middle Virginia. Bacon's rebellion of 1676 was an armed protest of the small planters of that section against the policy of the governing class. Near half a century later Governor Spottswood administered this aristocratic rebuke to the democratic leanings of the assertive small planters: * 'The inclinations of the country are rendered mysterious by a new and unaccountable humor, which hath obtained in several counties, of excluding gentlemen from being bur- gesses, and choosing only persons of mean figure and char- acter."

The English element in Pendleton, which there is no reason to suppose was derived wholly from the older Vir- ginia, seems chiefly representative of the small planter class.

Among the earlier pioneers of Pendleton, the Scotch-Irish element was numerously represented. These people entered by way of Pennsylvania, and except in matters of local ad- ministration or legal usage did not come into much contact with the influence of the large planter class. The same re- mark may be made of the Germans, who also came wholly from Pennsylvania, excepting a few that drifted over the Blue Ridge from the German colonies planted in Spottsyl- vania and adjacent counties to the west

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CHAPTER IV Period of Discovery and Elxploration

In 1716 Vir^nia had been a colony 109 years. There were 24 counties and nearly 100,000 people. The tidewater sec- tion was quite well peopled, the upland section very sparsely. But the country west of the Blue Ridge, less than 200 miles from the capital by trail, remained almost entirely unknown. It was believed to be a dismal region that people would do well to keep out of. It is true that John Lederer and a very few other persons had ventured into this region and brought back a few items of information. But these ex- plorers were obscure men. In those days of no telegraphs and few newspapers, it took a person of prestige to make a discovery bear fruit.

In the year mentioned Alexander Spottswood was gov- ernor of Virginia. Being a man of enterprise he thought it high time to learn the truth regarding the land beyond the mountains. Believing the Greet Lakes nearer than they really are, he officially recommended that settlements be es- tablished on those lakes and that a line of forts be built to preserve a communication between them and the Virginia coast.

Spottswood left the capital with a mounted party of 50 persons, chiefly gay "gentlemen," and after entering a road- less, almost unpeopled district, the cavalcade crossed the Blue Ridge at Swift Run gap near Elkton. They pushed forward to the west bank of the North Fork of the Shenan- doah, which was named the Euphrates. Here they ban- quetted on the luxuries they had brought along, and then began their return. They were absent eight weeks, during which time they traveled 440 miles.

Before the disbanding, Spottswood proclaimed a new order of chivalry, "the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe,*' having as its motto, "sic jurat transcendere montes." A free trans- lation of this Latin phrase is "So let it be a joy to pass over the mountains."*

Spottswood and his companions were highly pleased with what they saw. Instead of an uninviting region peopled

• Other authorities put it, "sic jurat transcendere montes," mean- ing, "thus be swears to cross the mountains".

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with frightful beasts, they beheld a broad, grassy plain with a more fertile soil than that of the settled region. There were no woods to be cleared away, except on the mountains, and there were no Indians. The valley needed only people to make it the garden of Virginia.

As Columbus was not the first European to cross the At- lantic, but nevertheless the first to make the American con- tinent definitely known to the Eastern, so was Spottswood the first white man to make the Valley of Virginia a known country. The county of Spottsylvania— "Spotts-Wood"— was set off in 1720 and named in his honor. Its western boundary was the Shenandoah river. In the state capitol at Richmond may be seen his portrait in oil, representing a red-coated gentleman with smooth face, powdered wig, and ample neckcloth.

The published reports drew attention on both sides of the Atlantic to the new land of promise. Hunters, traders, and prospectors were very soon exploring the region. In only eleven years the Calfpasture was known by name, and Robert and William Lewis were heading a movement to se- cure 50,000 acres near the head of that stream and people the tract with fifty families. This is somewhat singular in view of the circumstance that the more inviting lowlands of Rockingham and Augusta were not yet colonized.

In 1726 Morp^an ap Morgan became the first actual settler in the Shenandoah. Other men were soon coming, and by 1734 there were forty families in the vicinity of Winchester. The lower section of the Valley excepting the counties of Clarke and Warren, was occupied by Germans, and the upper section around Staunton filled with Scotch-Irish. Both classes of immigrants came from Pennsylvania. That colony was receiving the heaviest inflow from Europe. The district toward the coast being occupied, these people had to press inland. It was not far to the South Mountain, and just be- yond lay the broad Cumberland valley, affording a natural highway into Virginia. The Germans were particularly at- tracted to this direction because of race prejudice in Pennsyl- vania and government neglect. Land was also cheaper in Virginia.

Until 1720 there was no county organization west of the Blue Ridge. Orange was taken from Spottsylvania in 1704 and made to include all the territory beyond the mountains. Forty years later the latter region was divided into the dis- tricts of Augusta and Frederick, named for two members of the English royal family. These districts were to become coun- ties as soon as there were enough people in them to justify the step. In 1742 there were already 2,500 people in the district

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of Augusta. Wolves were so troublesome that the settlers petitioned the court of Orange to levy a tax so that a bounty might be paid for wolf scalps. Orange accordingly levied a tax of 33 cents per capita on the settlers in Augusta and ap- pointed a trustee to collect the same. The continued immi- gration probably held back but little in consequence of a small war with the Delaware Indians in 1743-4, made urgent the need of a county organization, the courthouse of Orange being about 70 miles from Staunton. So the first court of Augusta began its opening session December 9, 1745.

Events were meanwhile taking place in the north that had a direct bearing on the settlement of Pendleton. Pursuant to his practice of being liberal with land that did not especi- ally belong to him, King Charles II in 1681 gave a large grant in the Northern Neck to Lord Hopton, Earl St. Albans, Lord Culpeper, Lord Berkeley, Sir William Norton, Sir Dud- ley Wyatt, and Thomas Culpeper. This grant extended west of the Blue Ridge, but as there had been no exploration in that quarter, the boundaries were vague. The other grantees sold their interests to Lord Culpeper, whose daugh- ter married Thomas, fifth Lord Fairfax. The succeeding Lord Fairfax thus became sole owner of the grant.

Two Englishmen, John Howard and his son, visited the South Branch, crossed the Alleghanies, and went down the Ohio and Mississippi. They were captured by the French and taken to Europe where they were released. Lord Fair- fax met the two explorers, heard their glowing account of the South Branch, and saw a prospect of lining his pockets with coin. He proceeded to see about the surveying and settling of his domain of 2,540 square miles, or 1,625,600 acres. To determine his south boundary, three commission- ers were appointed by himself and ihree by the crown. They decided on a line connecting the source of the North Branch of the Potomac with the source of Conway river in Fauquier. The survey of the boundary was begun at the eastern end in 1736 and it reached the Fairfax stone ten years later. The new line became the boundary between the counties of Frederick and Augusta. It crossed the pres- ent counties of Hardy and Grant near their center.

Being of thrifty inclination, Fairfax began issuing 99 year leases to tenants at the rate of $3 33 for each hundred acres. When he sold a parcel outright, he exacted for each hundred acres $3.33 in "composition money" and an annual quit rent of 33 cents. But the frontiersman did not relish this English practice in a new country. He wanted land in his own name, and so he pushed higher up the Shenandoah and South Branch valleys.

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So far as definitely known the first white man to visit Pendleton was John Vanmeter, a Dutch trader from New York. He accompanied a band of Delawares on a raid against the Catawbas. Near Franklin, perhaps near the mouth of the Thorn, they met the enemy, got whipped, and concluded not to go farther. On his return Vanmeter told his sons that the lands on the South Branch were the best he had ever seen. He particularly described the bottoms just above the Trough, in what is now Hampshire. His advice was taken, and and a tract of 40,000 acres located by war- rant.

Four men, Coburn, Howard, Walker, and Rutledge, came into the South Branch about 1735, but took no titles and ran against the Fairfax claim. Isaac Vanmeter and Peter Casey arrived shortly afterward, as did also two men by the names of Pancake and Foreman. The tide of immigration became more rapid. When Washington was in the valley in 1748, surveying for Fairfax, he found 200 people located along his course. Many of these were newly arrived Germans, and their antics, probably misunderstood by the young surveyor, did not give him a favorable opinion of their intelligence. Always a good judge of land, Washington prospected on his own account, and mentions going up the valley as far as the home of a certain horse jockey. He puts the distance from the mouth of the river at 70 miles, but Hu Maxwell thinks there is an over-estimate of 10 miles. The airline dis- tance to the Pendleton border being not quite 60 miles and the river nearly straight in its general course, it thus appears that practically the whole distance was settled. The earliest patents in this region seem to have been issued in 1747. A large number bear the date 1749.

By the year 1747 two streams of immigration had touched the border of Pendleton. The stronger one was moving up the valley of the South Branch and was composed largely of Germans. The minor one, the Scotch-Irish, was pushing out- ward from Staunton, and was occupying the headwaters of the James.

But already the triple valleys of Pendleton had been visited by hunters and prospectors, and the features of the region had become known. It is probable that names had been given to some of the minor streams. One of the hunters, whose name is said to have been Burner, built himself a cabin about 1745. The site is a half mile below Brandy wine, on the left bank of the river, and near the beginning of a long, eastward bend. From almost at his very door his huntsman's eye was at times gladdened by seeing perhaps

fifty deer either drinking from the stream or plunging in their heads up to their ears in search of moss. After living here a few years he went up the valley to the vicinity of Doe Hill. He seems to have lived alone, and it is obvious that such occupation is by its very nature self-limited. But so far as we know, Abraham Burner was the first white man to build a hut and establish a home in Pendleton county.*

* In this book Pendleton and its adjacent counties and the State of West Virginia are ordinarily spoken of as though always having the same boundaries as at present. This is done for the sake of brevity, and to avoid the repeated use of the explanatory words that would other- wise be necessary. No injustice is thus done to the spirit of historic fact. When the qualifying words are deemed necessary, they are ac- cordingly given.

CHAPTER V The Beginning of Settlement

The monopolizing of public land in our time, with its fraud- ulent entries, its bribery of officers of trust, and its disre- gard of both public and private right, is at once a disgusting spectacle of greed and a scandal to civilization. The earlier methods may not always have been so high-handed as in this age of gilded opportunity, but the underlying motive is al- ways the same. It is that of locking out the public from the bounty of nature, and then charging an admittance fee. When the law permits the individual to levy on the public a tax that benefits only himself, the state becomes a direct partner in the injustice.

The spirit of the eighteenth century was aristocratic. The colonial government of Virginia had not risen above the idea that the public domain should be a perquisite to the few. The governor and his council— the state senate of that day- would issue an order in favor of "John Smith, gentleman," permitting that gentleman to select from the public lands 20,000 acres, or perhaps 100.000. Sometimes the grantee acted alone, and sometimes with associates. The tract was probably not selected in a single body, but in a considerable number of choice parcels, the surrounding culls being left on the hands of the state.

If saturated with old English ideas to the exclusion of the freer spirit of America, the grantee acted the part of Lord Fairfax and sought to make himself a feudal baron sur- rounded with a population of tenants, so that he and his might be supported by a tax on their industry. If he some- what Americanized he sold his holdings to actual settlers and not always at an excessive price. A word in fact may be said in behalf of the colonial land-grabber. By advertising his lands he could facilitate the sale of the public domain. Yet even this excuse is not very substantial. The intelli- gent homeseeker was capable of acting for himself, and a price no more than nominal might still be a burden to him.

In 1746 and 1747, Robert Green of Culpeper, entered a number of tracts in Pendleton by virtue of an order of council. With him were associated in a considerable degree James Wood and William Russell, the former of Frederick county. No other surveys are on record prior to 1753. The selections of these men were almost wholly in the middle and

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lower parts of the South Branch and South Fork valleys, where the bottoms are broadest. They located nineteen parcels of land aggregating 15.748 acres. A few of these surveys extended into the present county of Grant, or were wholly beyond the present boundary line. The survey of 2643 acres at Fort Seybert was more than six miles in length, the lines being run so as to include the whole bottom within that distance a*" das little as possible of the hilly upland. The survey of 1650 acres on Mill Creek was nearly as long and consequently narrower. This monoply of nearly thirty square miles of the very best of the soil, left the three part- ners in control of the situation. Later comers had perforce either to buy of them, take the odds and ends of bottom land they had not gathered in, or else retire into the moun- tains.

Robert Green did not confine his operations to Pendleton. On the Shenandoah river he entered the still larger amount of 23.026 acres. Another non-resident speculator was John Trimble, a deputy surveyor of Augusta, v^^ho located several tracts toward the Highland line. In 1766 Thomas Lewis of Augusta patented a tract of 1700 acres which had been sur- veyed the year previous for Gabriel Jones and five other persons. This survey was a long narrow strip lying on the crest of South Fork Mountain and described as "barren mountain land." Whether chosen for pasturage or because of its iron ore is a matter of doubt. Other early selections by non-resident persons appear to be few and small.

The first bona-fide settlers of Pendleton appear to be the six families who on the fourth and fifth days of November, 1747 were given deeds of purchase by Robert Green. The heads of these families were Robert Dyer, his son Willaim, and his son-in-law Matthew Patton; also John Patton, Jr., John Smith and William Stephenson. These men purchased 1860 acres, paying therefor 61 pounds and 6 shillings, or $203.33. The price looks very nominal, but it is to be re- membered that the purchasing power of a dollar was greater then than now. It is also to be borne in mind that the set- tlers,—perhaps 5,000— who had come into the valley of Vir- ginia within just 20 years, were scattered over an area 150 miles long and 50 miles broad. This was an average of only one family to each 5,000 acres. The county organization of Augusta was barely three years old. Staunton had not yet received its name. The locality was known as "Beverly's Mill Place." There was in fact no designated town in the whole valley. The nearest approach to one was Winchester, then only ten years old and not to become a town until 1752. As for highways, there were none worthy of the name.

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There was no established road or even bridle path for miles down the South Fork. It would easily have taken a week to ride to Philadelphia, then the metropolis of America. The man of San Francisco or Seattle can today reach Philadel- phia fully as soon.

Roffer Dyer was at least on the border of middle apre and for that period was a person of quite good circumst nces. He evidently went into the wilderness of his own free choice, and seems to have possessed the qualities of leadership and venturesomeness. On coming" to Virginia from Pennsylvania he first located near Moorefield, but finding the damp bottom land malarious, he moved higher up the valley in search of a healthful spot. Two of the other members of the group were of his own family, and the other three were presum- ably former neighbors if not relatives also.

Whether the little colony occupied its lands the sam*» fall or waited until spring we do not know. But because of the short distance to Moorefield the settlers may have moved to the new home at once.

A pathway to the outer world was of pressing importance, and by county order of May 18, 1749, John Smith and Mat- thew Patton were appointed to survey and mark a road from the house of John Patton to the forks of Dry River. Other persons east of Shenandoah Mountain were to extend the road to the Augusta courthouse. Almost precisely two years later— May 29, 1751.— in consequence to a petition to the Augusta court, John Patton, Rog^^r Dyer, Daniel Richardson, and Dube Collins, together with the "adjacent tithables" were ordered to clear a way from Patton's mill to Coburn's mill by the nearest and best way. They were also to set up posts of direction and keep the road in repairs according to law.

Changes in ownership soon crept into the colony. The first was in 1750, when Roger Dyer sold to Matthew Patton his place of 190 acres for the same price he paid for it— $27.50, The plder man at once bought of Robert Green a new tract of 620 acres. In the same year Peter Hawes, another son-in- law to Dyer, bought an entire Green survey paying only $75.83 for the entire 750 acres. Whether still other families joined the Dyer settlement prior to 1753 we do not clearly know. There is no record of surveys or purchases by such men, yet there may have been a few non-landholders pres- ent, and in the vicinity, possibly a few squatters.

We must now turn a moment to the South Branch valley. The largest of the Green surveys in this section was from the very beginning designated as the "upper tract," to dis- tinguish it from a "lower tract" a little farther down in

the Mill Creek valley. The name persisted, and finally be- came that also of the little village that has grown up on the J9row of Tract Hiil. The upper survey is the largest single expanse of bottom land in the county, and would have been a shining mark to the land prospector. As to exact information relating to the earliest settlers in this locality, we are singularly in the dark. The tract is known to have been conveyed in part or in whole to one William Shelton, and by him to others, but there are no details in regard to these transactions.

In what year the tract received its first inhabitants is therefore a matter of some doubt. It is not probable that they came earlier than the people in the Dyer settlement, neither could they have been much behind them. The actual time was anywhere from 1748 to 1751, probably nearer the first date than the spcond. Somewhere within this short period one Peter Reed built a mill here and gave his name to the small stream that winds lazily through the bottom. By petition of the settlers around him, an order of court was is- sued November 15, 1752 for the building of a road to Reed's mill. Whether this road was to the Dyer settlement or di- rectly down the South Branch is not stated. The viewers and markers were James Simpson and Michael Stump. The tithables ordered to turn out and build the road were Henry Al-

kire, H Garlock, Henry Harris, Philip Moore, Henry Ship-

ler, Jeremiah and George Osborn, and John, Jacob, and Wil- liam Westfall. From this it would appear that the settle- ments in the two valleys were of similar size.

For some cause, the exact nature of which is not clearly apparent, there was a sudden wave of immigration in 1753. In this year 27 tracts were surveyed for 21 different persons, 16 of whom were newcomers. John Davis located on the South Fork near the northern end of Sweedland Hill, and Henry Hawes surveyed a plot in Sweedland Valley. West of the Dyer settlement were Ulrich Conrad, Jacob Seybert, John Dunkle. and Jacob Goodman, located on the plateau of the South Fork Mountain. Michael Mallow made a large star-shaped survey at Kline P. 0., on Mallow's Run. Peier Moser and Michael Freeze settled close to Upper Tract. John Michael Propst settled two miles above Brandywine. and John Michael Simmons went higher up the valley. On Walnut Bottom on the North Fork surveys were made by Benjamin Scott, Frederick Sherler, and John, James, and William Cunningham.

But still other settlers were here by this time or else they came quickly afterward. Jacob Zorn lived near Propst. He was seemingly the first settler to pass away. His estate was

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appraised in 1756 by Jacob Seybert, John Dunkle, Charles Wilson, and Christian Evick. In the inventory are men- tioned 55 items. Catharine, the widow of Zorn, seems to have been a sister to Jacob Ruleman, who also was most probably here as well as Mark Swadley and Henry Stone. Frederick Keister, still another son-in-law to Dyer, had come by 1757 and probably earlier. Michael and Jacob Peterson appeared to have settled near Upper Tract. In 1754 we find mention of Samuel Bright on Blackthorn, Joseph Skidmore and Peter Vaneman on Friend's Run. Skidmore and Vane- man were forehanded and enterprising, and became active in land transactions. Another man of this character was Jacob Eberman who was in Augusta by 1750, but may not have come to Pendleton for several years afterward. In 1756 Hans Harper had come from Augusta and was living near the head of Blackthorn. The Indians were now coming on, and until 1761 there was an entire letting up in the matter of survey- ing, except for the parcels taken by John and William Cun- nmgham on Thorny Branch and those of James and Thomas Parsons between Trout Rock and the mouth of East Dry Run.

Meanwhile there were a few more changes within the Dyer settlement. In 1755 Jacob Seybert purchased John Patton's farm of 210 acres, and two years later William Stephenson sold his own place to Mathias Dice. In the latter year Roger Dyer fell into a term of ill health and made a will wherein he mentions 29 persons with whom he had had business dealings of one sort or another. It is quite impos- sible to draw the line between those who were living within Pendleton and those who were not. The persons named weie Thomas Campbell, William Corry, John Cravens, Michael Dicken, Patrick Frazier, Michael Graft, William Gragg, Jesse Harrison, Johnston Hill, Peter Hawes, Frederick Keister, Joseph Kile, Arthur Johnston, James Lock, Daniel Love, Michael Mallow, John McClure, John and Jane McCoy, Hugh McGlaughlin, David Nelson, Matthew Patton, John, Nicholas, and Thomas Smith, William Semple, Herman Shout (Shrout?) John Saulsbury, Robert Scott and Robert Walston.

By the close of 1757, not less than about 40 families, or 200 individuals were living in what is now Pendleton county. They were not unequally divided between the South Branch and the South Fork, and they were most numerous toward Upper Tract and the Dyer settlement. Whether actual set- tlement had yet been made on the North Fork is uncertain.

We may picture to ourselves a primeval forest broken only by a few dozen clearings, nearly all of those lying on or near

the large watercourses. In these clearings were the small houses, usually of unhewn logs. Around the house were small, stump-dotted fields of corn, grain, and flax. The pens for the livestock were strongly built, so as to protect the animals from the bears, wolves, and catamounts that were the cause of continual anxiety and occasional loss. The "broads" leading out from the settlements were simply bridle-paths, and commodities were carried on the backs of animals.

There was a little mill at the Dyer settlement and another at Upper Tract. Doubtless there was also a blacksmith in each valley. But there was neither church, schoolhouse nor store. In the Dyer settlement, judging by the character of its people, it is probable there was some makeshift to provide elementary instruction for the young people. Elsewhere it is not likely that anything was being done in this line, unless through direct parental effort.

But a time of trouble had now come and this episode next demands our attention.

CHAPTER VI Period of Indian War

Jefferson tells us the Indian Claims in the Valley of Vir- ginia were purchased **in the most unexceptionable manner." At all events the few iShawnee and Tuscarora tribesmen were at peace with the whites until 1754. To that date the Shawnees remained on the South Branch. They often vis- ited the homes of the settlers and in this way learned to speak English quite well. When they appeared at a house they expected something to eat and were not backward in letting the fact be known. The Indian was himself very hospitable. He therefore expected something set before him, just as he was wont to provide the best he had when a stranger came to his own cabin. To boil their venison a hunting party would sometimes borrow a kettle, but they would bring some meat in return for its use.

Yet the feeling between the settler and the native was not cordial. The former would sooner do without the visits of the red man. The latter was not at all pleased with the per- sistent pressure of the tide of colonial settlement.

Killbuck, the chief o^" the little band of Shawnees, was an Indian of much ability and strong mental power. Peter Casey, a pioneer of Hampshire, once promised him a pistole ($3. 60) if he would catch his run-away slave. The chief found and brought back the negro, but Casey quarreled about the reward, knocked down the Indian with his cane, and went back on his word. When Killbuck in his old age was visited by a son of Casey, he did not forget to tell the son that he ought to pay his father's debt.

The English and the French were rivals in America. They had already fought three colonial wars, and a life and death struggle for supremacy was now on the point of breaking out. That the weak, scattered settlements of the French beyond the AUeghanies were let alone by the Indians was because of the difference in habits between the French and English pio- neer. The former came not to clear the land but to trade for furs. He almost made himself a native when among the Indians, and if a trapper he took an Indian wife. The hunt- ing grounds were let alone and the Indian was benefited by the articles he received in return for his pelts.

But the English colonist had his own wife, and he felled the trees and cleared the ground as he came along. The

40

game was thus scared away and the Indian had to fall back before him. Furthermore the Englishman did not go to the same pains to win and keep the will of the red man. Thui the Frenchnian had much the greater influence.

In the fall of 1753 the Shawnees on the South Branch were visited by Indians from the Ohio river, who urged them to move out to their country. The invitation was accepted and the removal took place very abruptly the following spring. The Shawnees now sided with the French and with dire re- sult to the border settlements. By the defeat of Braddock in 1755, the frontiers of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Vir- ginia were left totally exposed, and during the next four years the entire line was harassed by raiding parties of the enemy. Sometimes the Indians actt^d alone, and sometimes they were accompanied by French soldiers. The damage in- flicted was very great and it was done by a comparatively small number of warriors. To make matters still worse white miscreants would disguise themselves as Indians and commit depredations on their own account. For aiding and abetting the Shawnees and trying to mislead the Cherokees, one Hugh McNamara was committed in April, 1753. Only a few months after the defeat of Braddock Washington reports 71 persons killed or missing within a few days and crowds of fugitives flying through the Blue Ridge.

In 1756 Virginia appropriated $33,833 for the building of 23 forts, these to comprise a chain extending from the great Cacapon in Hampshire to the Mayo in Halifax. Washington was sent to the frontier with his headquarters at Winches- ter. He was not given enough troops to cover his line of de- fense and his men of one county were not willing to aid in protecting another. His letters give a vivid idea of the dis- tressful times and show his irritation in having too weak a force. Thus he writes under date of April 15, 1766 : "All my ideal hopes of raising a number of men to search the ad- jacent mountains have vanished into nothing." A week later he has this to add : "I am too little acquainted with pathetic language to attempt a description of the people's distresses." Only two days later he writes as follows: "Not an hour, nay, scarcely a minute passes that does not produce fresh alarms and melancholy accounts." In another letter he says, * 'the deplorable situation of these people is no more to be described than is my anxiety and uneasiness for their relief . " Or again : "Desolation and murder still in- crease." September 28, 1757 he writes these words : "Tha inhabitants ot this valuable and very fertile valley are terri- fied beyond expression. "

In 1757 there were 1873 tithables in Augusta. The

41

following year the number had fallen to 1386, showing that n )twithstanding the rangers who had been sent to watch the frontier, many of the people had fled to places of greater safety. No doubt some of the Pendleton pioneers took part in this general flight, yet so far as we can see they remained pluckily on the ground, even though in constant peril, except in the dead of winter when the Indians did not go out on the warpath. Their houses were made bullet prool' and the walls were pierced with loopholes. Several houses of this charac- ter are yet standing, though of somewhat later date than che period under consideration. In time of alarm a family would seek the protection of the nearest iort.

The colonial government deciding to fight the foe with its own weapons, it offered in 1755 a bounty of iO pounds ($33.33) for the scalp of any hostile Indian over 12 years of age, but making it a felony to kill a friendly Indian. This law was enacted for two years and was renewed with a fur- ther reward of $50 for taking a prisoner. But proving futile the measure was repealed in September, 1758. Cherokee allies were hired by the colony and a reward not to exceed $10,000 was voted them. In the fall of 1757 twenty of these allies brought in two scalps from the South Branch. That this sort of help was double-edged would appear from an act passed in the fall of 1758 taking account of the damage done by the Cherokees.

In 1756 three bloody battles were fought in Hampshire and on January 4 of the same year Washington thus writes of the weak settlements in Pendleton : '"I have now ordered Capt. Waggoner with 60 men to build and garrison two oth- ers (forts) at places i have pointed out high up the South Branch." August 16, he makes this further report : "We have built some forts and altered oihers as far south on the Potomac as settlers have been molested; and there only re- mains one body of inhabitants at a place called Upper Tract who need a guard. Thither I have ordered a party."

We have no account of any raids into Pendleton prior to 1757, and if any took place it would not appear that the loss or damage was serious. In February of the year r>.entioned Jacob Peterson, living on North Mill Creek near the Grant line lost six children by capture, one of them soon afterward escaping. On May 16 of the same year the Indians killed Michael Freeze and his wife, who lived close to Upper Tract. On March 19, 1758 there was another and more destructive raid upon the Upper Tract settlement. Peter Moser, who lived opposite the mouth of Mallow's Run, was shot dead while unloading corn at his crib. Nicholas Frank and John Conrad were also killed, George Moser and Adam Harper

42

were wounded, and John Cunningham and two other persons were captured. These casualties happened the same day, though it is not certain that all of them took place at Upper Tract. It is rather strange that these tv\o raids should have occurred so close to the fort if there was an efficient garrison in it at the time. It is very possible that a reenforcement was thrown into it shortly after.

It was perhaps the tragedy at the Freeze home that led to the commissioning, March 16, 1757, of Jacob Seybert as the first captain of militia for what is now Pendleton county. Captain Seybert had come from Frederick county, Maryland, four years earlier. He was one of seven brothers, natives of the very town in Germany that gave birth to Martin Luther. Some of these settled in the Shenandoah valley. Moses Sey- bert, a brother to the captain, sold the farm he there owned for $2500 and went to Guilford Courthouse, N. C, about the time the war of the Revolution broke out. He was siill there at the time of the battle between Greene and Cornwallis, and the family had to stay in the cellar while bullets were flying. Noncombatants being allowed to depart the next day, Sey- bert hurried away and sought a new home in the natural fastness of the Fort Valley within the Massanutten. He thought an armed force not likely to disturb him here.

Fort Upper Tract and Fort Seybert appear to have been built in 1756. Where the former stood is not positively known. One tradition places it near the house of John S. Harman, but in view of the killing of Moser this would not seem probable. Another view places it on the very brink of the river a mile above Harman's. This spot is very advan- tageous, being at the angle of a bend in the river and the opposite bank much lower. The river bluff is steep and a ravine affords some protection on two other sides. The in- closed space is however very limited. A building once stood here and the foundation may easily be traced. But it disap- peared before the recollection of any person now living. The spot lies a mile south of Upper Tract village and on the west bank of the river.

Fort Seybert stood on what is now the houseyard of Wil- liam C. Miller, who lives a fourth of a mile south of the Fort Seybert postoffice. There was a circular stockade with a two-storied blockhouse inside. The diameter of the stockade was about 90 feet. According to the practice of the day, the wall was composed of logs set in contact with one another and rising at least ten feet above the ground. For going in or out there was a heavy gate constructed of puncheons. The blockhouse stood near the center of the circle, and was apparently about 21 feet square. From the loopholes in the

upper room the open space around the stockade could be com- manded by the garrison. There is no evidence of a well to make the defenders independent of the fine spring then ex- isting within a walk of two minutes. Mr. Miller deserves the thanks of the public in preserving in its original site a foundation stone of the blockhouse, and in not obliterating the arc of a circle that shows where the wall used to rise. Among the relics he has found and preserved are bullets that present the appearance of having been chewed, as was the custom of the Indians.

Presumably Fort Upper Tract was built after much the same general plan, but as already observed its very situation is involved in some doubt. Such little fortifications would have been of no avail against a force of white men equipped with field guns, but as against a band of Indians a successful defense was liitle more than a question of resolute defenders supplied with food, water, and ammunition. The Indian thought it foolhardy to storm a fortified post, and he de- pended on blockade, fire, and stratagem.

A most severe blow now befell the weak settlements of Pendleton. The defense of Fort Upper Tract was intrusted to Capt. James Dunlap, who had commanded a detachment in the Big Sandy expedition. A band of French and Indians appeared in the valley, and on April 27, 3758, they captured and burned the fort and killed 22 persons, including Dunlap himself. * No circumstantial account of the disaster seems to have been written, and we have no assurance that any of the defenders were spared. If the massacre were complete, it would go far to explain the silence of local tradition. So exceedingly little in fact has been handed down in this way that some Pendleton people have thrown doubt on the exis- tence of the fort, to say nothing of the burning and killing. There is documentary proof, however, on all these points.

The tragedy at Fort Seybert took place on the following day— April 28, 1758. In this case our knowledge is far more ample. There were survivors to return from captivity and re- late the event. The account they gave us has been kept very much alive by their descendants in the vicinity. In the course of a century and a half some variations have indeed

• The names of the slain were as follows : Captain John Dunlap, Josiah Wilson, John Hutchinson, Thomas Caddon, Henry McCullom, John Wright, Thomas Smith, Robert McNulty, William Elliott, Ludwig

Falck and wife, Adam Little, Brock, John Ramsay, William Burk,

Rooney, William Woods; John McCuUey, Thomas Searl, James

Gill, John Gay, and one person unknown.

44

crept into the narrative. Yet these divergencies are not very material. Through a careful study and comparison of the var.ous sources of information it is possible to present a fairly complete account of the whole incident.

The attacking party was composed of about 40 Shawnees led by Killbuck. There is a vague statement that one French- man was among them. This force was doubtless in contact with the one that wrought the havoc at Upper Tract. But since the recollections of Fort Seybert are nearly silent as to anything that happened at Upper Tract, it is probable that Killbuck took an independent course in returning to the In- dian country. The only mention of Upper Tract in the Fort Seybert narrative is that an express was sent there for aid, but turned back after coming within sight of the telltale col- umn of smoke from the burning buildings.

The number of persons *'forting" in the Dyer settlement was perhaps 40. Very few of these were men, several hav- ing gone across the Shenandoah Mountain the day previous. Some of the women of the settlement also appear to have been away. There was a fog shrouding the bottom of the South Fork on this fateful morning, and the immediate pres- ence of the enemy was unsuspected.

Eastward from the site of the stockade the ground falls rapidly to the level of the river bottom. At the fuot of the slope is a damp swale through which was then flowing a stream crossed by a log bridge. A few yards beyond was the spring which supplied water for the fort. A willow cutting was afterward set near this spring. It grew into a tree four and a half feet in diameter and dried up the fountain. A woman going here for water was unaware at the time that an Indian, supposed to be Killbuck himself, was lurking un- der the bridge. The brave did not attempt a capture, prob- ably because the bridge was in sight of the fort and also within easy shooting distance.

The wife of Peter Hawes went out with a bound boy named Wallace to milk some cows. While following a path toward the present postoffice they were surprised by two In- dians and captured. Mrs. Hawes is said to have had a pair of sheep-shears in her hand and to have attempted to stab one of the Indians with the ugly weapon. It may have been the same one who sought to tease her, and whom Mrs. Hawes, collecting all her strength, pushed over a bank. Re- appearing after his unceremonious tumble, the maddened redskin was about to dispatch the wom m, but was prevented by his laughing comp mion who called him a squaw man. Bravery, wherever shown, has always been admired by the American native.

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William Dyer had gone out to hunt and was waylaid near the fort. His flintlock refused to prime and he fell dead pierced by several balls. The presence of the enemy now being known, Nicholas Seybert, a son of the captain and about fifteen years of age, took his station in the upper room and mortally wounded an Indian who had raised his head from behind the cover of a rock in the direction of the spring.

This seems to be the only loss the enemy sustained. It is said a horseman was riding toward the fort, but hearing the firing and kno\^ing that something was wrong, he hastened to spread the alarm among the more distant settlers.

Killbuck called on the defenders to give up, threatening no mercy if they did not but good treatment if they did. Captain Seybert took the extraordinary course of listening to this de- ceitful parley. Whether the fewness of adult men or a shortage in supplies and especially ammunition had anything to do with his resolve is not known. A thoroughly vigorous defense may not have been possible, but there was nothing to lose in putting up a bold front. Voluntary surrender to a savage foe is almost unheard of in American border war. There was the more reason for resisting to the very last ex- tremity, since Killbuck was known to have an unenviable name for treachery in warfare. It is certain that the com- mander was remonstrated with, but with what looks like a display of German obstinacy he yielded to the demand of the enemy, which included the turning over of what money the defenders possessed.

Just before the gate was opened an incident occurred which might yet have saved the day. Young Seybert had taken aim at Killbuck and was about to fire when the muzzle of his gun was knocked down, the ball only raising the dust at Killbuck's f- et. Accounts differ as to whether the aim was frustrated by the boy's father or by a man named Rob- ertson. Finding the surrender determined upon, the boy was so enraged that he attempted to use violence on his par- ent. He did not himself surrender and was taken by being overpowered.

As the savages rushed through the open gate, Killbuck dealt the captain a blow with the pipe end of his tomahawk, knocking out several of his teeth. After the inmates were secured and led outside, the fort was set on fire. A woman named Hannah Hinkle, perhaps bedfast at the time, perished in the flames. Taking advantage of the confusion of the moment, the man Robertson managed to secrete himself, and as soon as the savapes withdrew, he hurried toward the river, followed a shelving bluff that his footsteps might the less easily be traced, and made his way across the Shenan-

46

doah Mountain. He was the only person to effect his escape.

The captives appear to have been halted on a hillside about a quarter of a mile to the west. Here after some delibera- tion on the part of the victors they were gradually separated into two rows and seated on logs. One row was for captiv- ity, the other for slaughter. On a signal the doomed per- sons were swiftly tomahawked, and their scalps and bleeding bodies left where they fell. Mrs. Hawes fainted when she saw her father sink under the blow of his executioner, and to this circumstance she may have been indebted for her own ex- emption. James Dyer, a tall, athletic boy of fourteen years, broke away, and being a good runner he attempted to reach a tangled thicket on the river bank, a half mile eastward and the same distance above the present postoffice. He nearly succeeded in reaching and crossing the river, but was finally headed off and retaken.

It was now probably past noon, and the Indians with their convoy of 11 captives and their wounded comrade borne on an improvised litter, began the climbing of South Fork Moun- tain. A woman whose given name was Hannah had a squall- ing baby. An Indian seized the child and struck its neck into the forks of a dogwood. The mother found some con- solation in the belief that her infant was killed by the blow and not left to a lingering death. Greenawalt gap, nine miles distant, was reached at nightfall by taking an almost airline course regardless of the nature of the ground. Here the disabled Indian died after suffering intensely from a wound in his head. He was buried m a cavern 500 feet up the steep mountain side. Until about 60 years ago portions of the skeleton were yet to be seen. The next halt was near the mouth of Seneca, and without pursuit or mishap the raiding party returned to its village near Chillecothe in Ohio.

The people slain in the massacre were 17, some accounts putting the number at 21 or even more. Among them were Captain Seybert, Roger Dyer, and the bound boy Wallace, whose yellow scalp was afterward recognized by Mrs. Hawes. It is the brunette captives that Indians have preferred to spare.

Including William Dyer, the four names are the only ones now remembered. It is worthy of note that apart from Seybert and the two Dyers none of the heads of families in the region around appear to be missing. Possible exceptions are John Smith, William Hevener, and William Stephenson. Even the wives of Roger and William Dyer were not among the killed. The infant son of William Dyer was with its mother's people east of Shenandoah Mountain.

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Of the captives the only remembered names are those of Nicholas Seybert, James Dyer, the wives of Peter Hawes and Jacob Peterson, and a Hevener girl. This girl either es- caped or was returned, and she counseled the settlers to be more careful in the future in exposing themselves to the risk of capture. A brave took pity on Mrs. Peterson and gave her a pair of moccasins to enable her to travel with greater comfort. It is not remembered whether any of the captives returned except the two boys mentioned, Seybert and Dyer, and the Hevener girl.

As the party was about to cross the Ohio, young Seybert remarked upon a flock of wild turkeys flying high in the dis- tance. 'You have sharp eyes," observed Killbuck. "Wasn't it you that killed our warrior ?" "Yes," replied the boy, "Yes, and I would have shot you too. if my gun hadn't been knocked down." "You little devil." commented the chief, "if you had killed me, my warriors would have given up and come away. Brave boy. You'll make a good warrior. But don't tell my people what you did." Several years after his return tf.e young man sold his father's farm to John Bliz- zard and he made a new home on Straight Creek. Some of his descendants still live in that vicinity.

James Dyer was among the Indians about two years. He sometimes accompanied a trading party on a visit to Fort Pitt, now Pittsburg. On the last trip he resolved to attempt his es- cape. He eluded the Indians, slipped into the cabin of a trader, and the woman within hid the boy behind a large chest, piling over him a mass of furs. In trying to find him the Indians came into the hut and threw off the skins one by one. until he could see the light through the openings among them. But fortunately for his purpose the Indians thought it not worth while to make the search thorough. After re- maining a while at the old home in Pennsylvania, the young man returned to Fort Seybert, and for more than forty years was one of the most prominent citizens of the county.

James Dyer is said to have been instrumental in effecting the recovery of his sister, Sarah Hawes, whose captivity lasted three and a half years. She thought better of the In- dians than of the French who sometimes visited the village. There was usually an abundance to eat, but in time of scarcity colt steak was prominent on the Indian bill of fare, and to this she demurred. But Killbuck asked her why she should have prejudice against an animal that eats only clean food, when all palefaces were fond of eating the flesh of the hog, an animal that searches in all manner of filth for something to eat. Her captivity worked some change in her appearance and manner, and when she returned her little daughter was

48

not for a while willing to own her, but at length accepted the fact of identity. Her hasband died either before her return or shortly afterward, and she then married Robert Davis.

Killbuck had good ground for using stratagem to cut short the siege. It was no great distance to the more thickly set- tled region of the Shenandoah Valley. A relief party under the command of Captain Brock soon appeared, but was too late to do anything more than bury the slaughtered victims. Their ghastly corpses were interred in one common grave un- doubtedly very near the spot where the tragedy was enacted. An inclosing wall of stone was thrown up and it stood for nearly a century. It was then torn down by a road overseer, who in order to fill up a mudhole was willing to forego the respect to the resting place of the dead which common de- cency requires.

At the time of this raid the home of Michael Mallow lay in a very exposed position. He in some way escaped, but his wife and son were carried off. Being told the wife was no longer living, Mallow was on the point of taking a second helpmate. But news of a different tenor reached him in time, and the two were reunited. The boy was recovered and was identified only through a mark on his thumb. An- other son, Henry, was born during the wife's captivity. The infant was quite promptly soused in a stream with a view of washing off the taint of his white blood and making him a good Indian. But in spite of this style of regeneration he grew up a good white man.

Other incidents of capture have come down to us. Thus a Harper girl of the connection of Philip Harper, living above the mouth of Seneca was carried away. In compai.y with a girl taken from Grant she fled from the Indian village while the braves were away from home. The Ohio was crossed by means of a log Both girls were in rags when they re- gained their homes. The Harper girl married a Peterson.

Before the Kiles had come from Rockingham, George and Jacob of that family were taken prisoners. Jacob was very strong and was made to carry burdens. One night he gnawed the rope open that was holding him and released his brother. They had come back as far as the Roaring Plains when George lay down in some brush, utterly unable to proceed. The brother went on to the blockhouse at the mouth of Sen- eca, and because of his Indian costume came near being fired on by a sentry. A relief party was sent out and the ex- hausted brother brought in. During the time this Seneca blockhouse was used as a rallying-point, the towering cliff nearby served as a lookout.

John Reger had bought of Green, Wood and Russell 407

O Si 0T3

acres on North Mill Creek, but before conveyance of title he was killed by the Indians and his children, John, Dorothy, and Barbara, carried away. To preserve the title to the heirs, Matthew Patton, the administrator, obtained title in his own name in 1768, on condition that if the heirs returned he was to turn over the property to them. The girls re- appeared soon afterward, but the boy did not. To fulfill his bond, Patton made a conveyance to Barbara, now the wife of John Keplinger, Jr , binding her in turn to convey a moiety to her brother, should he eventually come back.

Another incident, vouched for on excellent authority, ex- hibits the more humane side of Indian character. A woman taken about the time of the massacre at Fort Seybert was carried to Ohio. A brave made known a decision to burn her, and said he would eifect a rescue. He made her a pair of deerskin moccasins and told her that while she was absent from the village for firewood he was going to follow her steps. This program was carried out, and when they reached a large stream he told her to wade in. He helped her atross to shallow water, and then took the woman on his back to a cranny in a bluff. He bade her stay here till his return. He explained that her trail would be followed to the river and that it would be noticed that an Indian had pur- sued her. No tracks being found on the farther shore except his own, and these in a semicircle, it would be understood she had drowned. He left provisions promising a return af- ter the search and excitement were over. The Indian kept his word and conducted her to within sight of her home in Pendleton. A log-rolling was in progress. The guide re- fused to leave the shelter of the woods, unless she could bring assurances that he would be well treated. This she was able to do, although at first some of the men wished to kill him. The rescuer remained over night before starting on his return.

Soon after the Indian incursion of 1758. Captain Abraham Smith was sent to the South Branch. He was brought be- fore a courtmartial for cowardice on complaint of one Ed- ward McGary, but the charge was disproved. The accuser was fined 40 shillings besides 5 shillings for using a profane oath.

The total loss at Upper Tract and Fort Seybert was esti- mated by Washington at 60 persons. The burning of the forts and the general havoc wrought during the foray were a most severe blow to the infant settlements of the two val- leys. Some of the remaining people may temporarily have gone aivay. But the ground was not abandoned. With in- domitable resolution the pioneers went about repairing their

PC H4

losses, and we soon find them settling up the estates of their murdered neighbors. An Act of Assembly was passed for the rebuilding of Fort Seybert, but it does not seem that it was carried out. After the disaster the settlers of the South Fork adopted the plan of secreting their families in the coves of Shenandoah Mountain, whence they made trips to the river to cultivate their lands. Trusty watchdogs were also brought into requisition.

With the utter collapse of the French power in America in 1760, the Indian peril became less acute, and although raid- ing parties came from the Greenbrier and destroyed settle- ments to within a few miles of Staunton, there is no explicit account of any further attack upon Pendleton. Yet the In- dians prolonged the war on their own account. It was not until 1764 that a respite was given to the frontier. The red men were required to give up their captives, and of the 82 men and 58 women and children thus restored to their Vir- ginia homes, it is more than probable that some belonged in this county. A number of these, taken when quite >oung and who had nearly or quite lost the recollection of their par- ental home, were very unwilling to part with their dusky friends and had to be brought away by force. The Indians were no less unwilling to see them go. Hunting parties fol- lowed for days the returning captives, in oider to keep them supplied with food.

Sometimes the Indianized person refused to give up the wild life. Isaac Zane, taken when nine years old, lived with the Indians ever after, but never forgot his mother tongue. He married the sister of a Wyandot chief and reared a large family. The boys were true Indians, but the girls married white men and became fine women. Mary Painter, taken from the Shenandoah in 1758, also at the age of nine, lived with the Indians until 1776. She was found among the Cher- okees by a man named Copple, who had likewise been a pris- oner. By a well-meant deception he induced her to go back with him to her people. She married Copple and they lived a while on the Painter farm near Woodstock, but yielded to the "call of the wild," and went West. They always used the Indian tongue in their household.

Though but one hostile visit to Pendleton can be identified as takng place after 1764, another war broke out in 1774, as we shall presently see, and did not come to an end until Wayne's decisive victory in 1795. During this long period there was always the chance that some war party might pass through the broadening zone of settlement west of the AUeghanies, and once more bring the tomahawk and

n

the torch to the reah'zation of people who knew from experi- ence what these things meant.

During the ten years of peace there was recorded in the deed book of the county a conveyance of 200,000 acres of land from the Iroquois Delaware, and Shawnee Indians. The date of the transaction is November 4, 1768, and the tract lay in the angle between the Ohio and Monongahela rivers. Among the signatures are those of governors of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The payment was to be made in blankets, shirts, stockings, ribbon, calico, serge, thread, gartering, strouds, and callimancoe; also in knives, needles, tobacco, tongs, brass kettles, powder, lead, gunflints, vermillion, and finally ten dozen jewsharps.

We have treated this episode of frontier war at some length, because it is at once the most picturesque and the most lurid feature in the background of Pendleton history. Not even the four trying years of 1861-5 with their scenes of domestic guerilla war can go beyond the perilous years of 1755-9. That early period shows to us a young, sparsely set- tled frontier community, compelled to live in the shadow of the stockade: compelled to use watchful care, lest at any moment the stealthy foe lurking in the deep woods mig"ht burn the farm house, kill or maim the adults of the family regardless of age or sex, and carry away young children who though spared might yet be lost to the parents. It shows also an unconquerable will to maintain the foothold that was costing so heavily in danger, suffering, and disaster. Of those days of grim fortitude and final victory we have only fragmentary accounts. It is therefore not easy to form an idea that will do justice to the probable reality.

CHAPTER VII

A Time of Peace

The annals of Pendleton fall into three groupings. The first is the Pioneer Period, closing with the organization of the county in 1788. The second is the Middle Period, contin- uing to the close of the War of 1861. The third is the Ke- cent Period, beginning in 1865 and continuing into our own time. The first of these periods has three natural subdivi- sions. The opening sub-period runs from the close of 1747 to the close of 1758; the second runs from the opening of 1759 to the organization of Rockingham in 1778: the third in- cludes the next ten years, during which time this region was a part of Rockingham.

The first stage of the Pioneer Period is brief yet vivid. It marks little more than the gaining of a foothold on the new soil. It is the story of a pair of weak settlements in a re- mote corner of a huge county. But for the fact that it tells of the actual beginnings of these settlements, and but for the further fact that it tells of frontier war, its annals might seem rather commonplace. Yet the two considerations we have named make the story one of interest and color.

The second stage, which we now take up, is one of peace except for a not quite vanished warcloud at the beginning and a risen warcloud at the close. But within the county these disturbances were not deeply felt. Population rapidly increased and became more diffused over the region. Land values rose and highways were extended. The church and the schoolhouse made their appearance. A local civil organ- ization took form, and the area embraced in the future county began to assume individuality. Natural conditions pointed unerringly to a separate administrative organization.

The shock caused by the ravaging of the infant settle- ments on the South Branch and the South Fork was rendered less heavy by the fall in the very same year of Fort Du- quesne. This post was the keystone of the French power west of the AUeghanies. When it fell the French resistance was utterly broken, and as a natural consequence the back- bone of the Indian resistance was broken. There was now a correct feeling that the Indian peril was practically a thing of the past, so far as the country east of the Alleghany divide was concerned.

Business confidence is a good index to public feeling, and

we need no better index to the mood of the Pendleton set* tiers than is found in the renewed immigration that began in 1759, and in the land sales of 1761 and 1763. In those two seasons the Green syndicate alone sold 7073 acres at more than double ihe price paid by the pioneers of the Dyer set- tlement.

The estate of Peter Moser, killed in March, 1758, was ap- praised June 'Zd, of the same year, only two months after the twin disasters of Upper Tract and Fort Seybert. The admin- istrator was Michael Mallow, and the valuation was fixed at $366.24. In 1761 we find mention of the ''sail bill" of the George Moser estate. The executors in this mstance were Elizabeth Moser, Daniel Smith and Philip Harper.

The will of Roger Dyer was proved by William Gibson. He left his homestead to his son James, his tract of 427 acres near Mooretield to his daughter Hannah Keister, and a be- quest of $66.67 to his grandson Roger Dyer. His wife Han- nah was named as executor. An inventory, taken August 14, 1759, shows an estate of $2099.71, inclusive of $82 30 in gold coin and $140 in other cash. There were several notes and bonds held against various settlers and other persons. The public sale, which took place the same year, resulted in the proceeds of $364.04. The estate of William Dyer was $713.03. What these amounts would signify in our day we may better judge when we find a mare and colt selling for $10, a cow for $7.58, a heifer and calf for $6. 75, an axe for 54 cents, and a spade for 58 cents.

Reference has been made to the sales of land by Robert Green and his associates. The parcels conveyed were 30 in number, and were situated in all three of the leading valleys. The aggregate price, no mention being entered in two of the transactions, was $2942.27. The average price per acre was 44 cents, and the maximum was $1.15. The last named fig- ure looks cheap enough to us now, yet at that time it would not strike one as particularly low, when the rawness of the country is taken into account and also the difference in the purchasing power of a given sum of money. Nine settlers on the South Fork were granted deeds on the same day in May, 1761. Four others secured deeds on a single day in May two years later. As some of these persons had already been here several years without any recorded locations, they appear to have lived on the Green surveys, either as squat- ters or as tenants at will. There is some appearance that the purchasing was done to quiet the title.

Immigration was now quite active, and was directed most heavily into the South Branch ani North Fork valleys, owing to the early colonization of the ISouth Fork and the meager

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supply of good land along that stream. Between 1761 and 1767 we find Ludwig Wagoner and Gabriel Pickens located near Fort Seybert. Postle Hoover was below Brandywine and Sebastian Hoover was above. Jonas Pickle was at the mouth of Brushy Fork and near him was Michael Wilfong. Robert Davis, who married the widow of Peter Hawes, was living on a purchase from Matthew Patton.

On the South Branch the names are more numerous. The Haigler, Harpole, and Wise families settled near the north line of the county. John Poage, an active and influential citizen, was at Upper Tract and owned land on the Black- thorn. Paul Shaver was a neighbor to Mallow. A little higher up the river were Ebern-.an and Vaneman. Still fur- ther up were George Hammer and George Coplinger. Near by on Trout Run was Jacob Harper, and at the mouth of the same tributary was the Patterson family. On Friend's Run were Richardson, Power, Hornbarrier, and Cassell. A little above the site of Franklin was Henry Peninger. At the mouth of Thorn Ulrich Conrad had built a mill in 1766, or very soon afterward. Still higher up the river were Leonard Simmons and Matthew Harper. Gabriel Kile was well up the Blackthorn.

Turning to the North Fork we find the Scotts and Cun- ninghams joined by Justus Hinkle, Moses Ellsworth, John Davis, and probably the Teter brothers. From the mouth of Seneca downward the partners Daniel Harrison and Joseph Skidmore had picked out a dozen of choice tracts, embracing nearly a thousand acres.

During the ten years closing with 1777, we find Jacob Dickenson below Brandywine and George Puffenbarger on Brushy Fork. On the South Branch we notice Henry Fleisher at the present county line. On Dry Run was Henry Buzzard. On the Blackthorn were Christopher Eye and George Sum- wait. George and Francis Evick had come to the Evick Gap. George Dice was a neighbor to them, and Jacob Con- rad and George Kile were below the Ruddle postofRce. On the North Fork we now find the Bennetts above and Nelsons below the mouth of Dry Run. William Gragg is on the pla- teau between the Mouth of Seneca and Roaring Creek. Near him is Andrew Johnson and below the Seneca is Daniel Mouse. Mosee Thompson is elsewhere on the river.

Gristmills and blacksmith shops were multiplying, and the settlements were assuming a degree of stability. In 1769 Michael Propst conveyed a plot of ground for the erection of a Lutheran church, and what seems the earliest schoolhouse made its appearance on the land of Robert Davis.

The earliest mention of local public officials of a regular na-

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ture is in 1756 when William Dyer and Michael Propst were appointed road overseers in place of William Hevener. Later on we find Mark Swadley and Henry Stone acting in the same capacity. The first mention of an authorized road on the North Fork is in 1767, when Michael Eberman, Philip Harpole and Andrew Johnson were ordered to view a road from Joseph Bennett's to the mouth of the North Fork. About this time Jonas Friend and Henry Peninger were con- stables, and Matthew Patton and John Skidmore were cap- tains of militia, the date of Skidmore's commission be- ing August 19, 1767. But down to 1764 at least, we do not notice that any Pendletonian seems to have been drawn for the grand jury of 24 members.

These years of peace and development were interrupted in 1774. There now broke out that strife with the red man which is known as the Dunmore war. The period of quiet had greatly broadened the belt of settlement in and beyond the Alleghanies, and Pendleton was much more populous than in 1758. A damaging inroad by the Indians was there- fore scarcely possible. Augusta raised 400 men for the army under General Andrew Lewis, with which he fought and won the great battle of Point Pleasant. In one of the Augusta companies it is said every man was at least six feet in height. Pendleton men formed a portion of the Augusta contingent, and Captain John Skidmore was wounded at Point Pleasant.

We now devote a little space to the opening of the Revolu- tionary period.

The people of the thirteen colonies were overwhelmingly of British descent. They were proud of their ancestry, and so long as their liberties were respected they were not inclined to break the tie that linked them to England. This tie they regarded as little more than nominal. They willingly acknowl- edged their allegiance to the king of England, but did not freely recognize the authority of any lawmaking body except their own legislatures. They did not see why the statutes under which they lived should be made or passed upon by a legislative body representing only the British people. They were suspicious of every act of Parliament which included them in its provisions, but so long as no particular harm was done to their rights they remained quiet.

When the ignorant, stubborn George III became king and tried not only to rule as an autocrat but to control Parlia- ment by bribery, then it was that the Americans were thrown into a ferment. His attempt to make them pay taxes in which they had no say drove them into armed re- sistance. If the claim of the king were conceded, there was

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no tellinsr what else it might lead to. It had all along beeq expected of them that they would keep out of manufactur- ing, trade only with England, and be content with exchang- ing the products of their fields for the products of her work- shops. But the colonies were rapidly growing in population and wealth, and this shackling of industry was becoming in- tolerable.

The War of the Revolution was fought by the Americans to gain commercial freedom and to maintain their rights as iBritish subjects. These claims did not necessarily lead to in- dependence. Independence was asserted and accomplished because the king was too blind and obstinate to recognize the rights of the Americans to the full exercise of the same privi- leges the British citizen possessed. Canada, Australia and South Africa remam British because their home government has learned wisdom from the lesson of 1783.

As the quarrel developed, the Americans were generally agreed that the British government was overleaping its pow- ers. They were not so fully agreed as to the expediency of political separation. Wealth is timid and conservative. The well-to-do merchants, professional men, and large landhold- ers were to a great extent unfriendly to independence. Ii is estimated that a third of the American people were of this opinion. Such men were styled tories and their opponents were called patriots. In New York and Pennsylvania the tories were as numerous as the patriots. In South Carolina and Georgia they were more numerous. In the other colo- nies the patriots were clearly in the lead. The American climate became too warm for the tories, and during the Rev- olution or at its close 200,000 of them went into exile.

The most unanimous of the Americans were the Scotch- Irish on the frontier. They stood by the cause of American independence almost to a man. It was they that Washing- ton had in mind when he said that as a last resort he would retire to the mountains of West Augusta and find in its men a force that "would lift up our bleeding country and set her free." By West Augusta he referred to the Distiict of West Augusta in its original boundaries as described in a previous chapter.

The English and Germans are of the same general origin, and the German immigrants in America could not feel that they were under a very alien rule. The king of England was also king of Hanover, a country of Germany. He was in fact the grandson of a German-born and German-speaking monarch. Though the Germans have had many wars, they have not in modern times been a truly militant nation. They have fought from necessity and not from glory. The Amer-

ican Germans could not forget that for a century their father- land had been most cruelly wasted by a rapid succession of civil, foreign and religious wars. It had lost three-fourths of its population and had been set back for two hundred years. It is therefore not to be wondered at that as British- American citizens these peace-loving people would sooner put up with injustice than go to arms. Being also clannish, un- familiar with the English tongue, and living much to theni- selves, the quarrel did not strike them so forcibly as it did the Americans of British ancestry. So while many of the Ger- mans did good service in the American army, many others were tories.

We have gone into this discussion to explain why Pendle- ton though an inland region was divided in its sympathies. All the Scotch- Irish and a great share of the English element stiffly upheld the American cause. A few of the English, some of the Highland Scotch, and many of the Germans took the tory side.

Pendleton was at this time a part of Augusta, and Augusta had been established by the Scotch-Irish and was dominated by them. The temper of its people will appear in the instruc- tions drawn up at Staunton, February 22, 1775, and given to the delegates to the House of Burgesses. They read as follows :

"The people of Aug^usta are impressed with just sentiments of loyalty to his majesty. King George, whose title to the crown of Great Britain rests on no other foundation than the liberty of all his subjects. We have respect for the parent state, which respect is founded on religion, on law, and on the genuine principles of the British constitution. On these principles do we earnestly desire to see harmony and good under- standing restored between Great Britain and America. Many of us and our forefathers left our native land and explored this once savage wilder- ness to enjoy the free exercise of the rights of conscience and of human nature. These rights we are fully resolved with our lives and fortunes inviolably to preserve; nor will we surrender such inestimable blessings, the purchase of toil and danger, to any ministry, to any parliament, or any body of men by whom we are not represented, and in whom we are not represented, and in whose decisions, therefore, we have no voice. We ar« determined to maintain unimpaired that liberty which is the gift of Heaven to the subjects of Britain's empire, and will most cordially join our countrymen in such measures as may be necessary to secure and per- petuate the ancient, just, and legal rights of this colony and all British subjects."

The above paper, drawn up in a remote frontier county, Bhpws that the f ramers knew how to use thier mother tongue

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with clearness and force. It reveals a profound sense of the justice of their claims, and it breathes a resolution to uphold them to the bitter end. Incidentally it recognizes that the Americans and British are not one in nationality.

A memorial from the county committee, presented to the state convention, May 16, 1776, is thus mentioned by the latter :

"A representation from the committee of the county of Augusta was presented to the Convention and read, setting forth the present unhappy condition of the country, and from the ministerial measures of revenge now pursuing, representing the necessity of making a confederacy of the United States, the most perfect, independent, and lasting, and of framing an equal, free and liberal government, that may bear the trial of all future ages."

This memorial is said by Hugh J. Grigsby to be the first expression of the policy of establishing an independent state government and permanent confederation of states which the parliamentary journals of America contain. It is worthy of a most careful reading by every class in American history.

It is a natural consequence that the men who could draw up such papers as these should forward a shipment of 137 barrels of flour from Augusta in 1774 for the use of the people of Boston. The savage iniquity of the Boston Port Bill, a measure of Parliament, had put an end to the commerce of the city and reduced its people to straits.

It is hardly necessary to add that the Augustans backed up their words with bullets. They served very numerously in the American army, but owing to the scantiness of the pre- served records we have only a very partial knowledge as to the names of the Augusta men who fought on the American side. As to the men who went out from Pendleton our in- formation is therefore fragmentary. But Augusta men helped to win the brilliant victories of Stony Point, and the Cowpens. Augusta volunteers under Captain Tate marched to the support of General Greene in 1781 and took part in the battle of Guilford. There the Virginia militia fought so nobly that Greene said he wished he had known beforehand how well they were going to acquit themselves. He was ex- cusable for his previous distrust, since the American militia had often behaved very badly in battle. But at Guilford the Virginia riflemen did their part in inflicting upon Cornwallis what was in reality a crushing defeat. He lost a third of his men, and had to get out of North Carolina in hot haste. This result paved the way for his final capture at Yorktown. Sev- eral of Tate's company were killed in the battle of Guilford.

I

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The companies raised in Augusta were expected to consist of expert riflemen. Each man was to "furnish himself with a good rifle, if to be had, otherwise with a tomahawk, com- mon firelock, bayonet, pouch or cartouch box, and three charges of powder and ball." On affidavit that the rifleman could not supply himself as above, he was to be supplied at public expense. For furnishing his equipment he was al- lowed a rental of one pound ($3 33) a year. His daily pay was to be 21 cents. Out of this was an allowance for "hunting shirt, pair of leggings, and binding for his hat."

Of the six regiments called for by Virginia in 1775, one was to be of Germans from the Valley of Virginia and from the colony in Culpeper.

CHAPTER VIII Pendleton Under Rockingham

Because of its vast extent in the first place, Augusta has truly been a mother of counties. The spread of population and the increasing inconvenience of attending court caused one county after another to be lopped off. In 1777 Rocking- ham was created, and its first court met April 17, 1778, at the house of Daniel Smith, two miles north from where Har- risonburg now stands. The town itself did not begin its ex- istence until two years later. It was named after the Har- risons, a prominent family of the early days.

John Smith, father of Daniel, came from England as an officer in the French and Indian war. He was compelled to surrender a fort at Pattonsburg in Botetourt county. His French and Indian captors being angered that he had held them off with a very weak force, they took him to Point Pleasant, treated him with harshness, and made him run the gauntlet. He was passed on to New Orleans and taken to Paris. Here he showed a copy of the terms of surrender. He was noiV released, treated with respect, and at London was given quite an ovation. He married a lady of Holland, returned to .\merica, and settled in Rockingham. He wished to serve in fae American army and was indignant when he was adjudged too old. However, he had eight sons in the service of his adopted country, Abraham being another of these. Daniel Smith, a son of Daniel, became an eminent jurist.

The new county was defined as being all of Augusta east of a line "to be^in at the South Mountain, and running thence by Banjamin Yardley's plantation so as to strike the North River below James Bird's house; thence up the said river to the mouth of Naked Creek, thence leaving the river a direct course so as to cross the said river at the mouth of Cunning- ham's Branch in the upper end of Silas W *s land to the

foot of the North Mountain: thence 55 degrees west to the Alleghany Mountain and with the same to the line of Hamp- shire."

It will be remembered that the Fairfax line, passing near Petersburg and Moorefield, was at first the boundary between Frederick and Augusta. In 1753 the western part of Fred- erick became the county of Hampshire. When Rockingham was created, the boundary line between Hampshire and the new county was moved southward nearly to the present po-

sition of the north h'ne of Pendleton. Its definition in the legislative act reads thus : * 'beginning at the north side of the North Mountain, opposite to the upper end of Sweedland Hill and running a direct course so as to strike the mouth of Seneca Creek, and the same course to be continued to the Alleghany Mountain; thence along the said mountain to the line of Hampshire."

It was not quite all of Pendleton that formed a part of Rockingham. A strip along the southern border was still a part of Augusta, and a fringe on the opposite side was a part of Hampshire.

Of the men designated to comprise the first court of Rock- ingham at least four were Pendletonians; John Skidmore, Robert Davis, James Dyer, and Isaac Hinkle. Skidmore and Davis were not present, being probably with the army. Thomas Lewis, previously surveyor of Augusta, became the first surveyor of Rockingham. The population appears to have been rather less than 5000, about a fourth being in the Pendleton section. There was neither a tavern nor a wagon in the new county. The act creating Rockmgham provided that its voters should elect May 1, 1778, twelve '*ableand discreet persons" to form a vestry.

America was now in the midst of the Revolution, and the infant county had at once to deal with the grave problems in- terwoven with the questions of enlistment and finance.

In October, 1778, some counties had not raised the quota of soldiers required by an act of the preceding year. The state now called for 2216 men for the Continental service. Each soldier was to have a bounty of $8C0 if enlit-tirg for eighteen months, and $400 if enlisting for three jears. He was al^o to receive clothing and a Continental land bounty. In May, 1779, 10 battalions of 500 men each were ordered, a bounty of $50 being ofi"ered. Two of these battalions were for service on the frontier. In October, 1780, the quota for Kockinpham was 49 men out of a levy of 8000. The same Act of Assembly offered a bounty of $8000 for an enlistmerjt of three years, and $12 000 for an enlistment during the continuance of the war. The man serving to the close was to have his choice of these two additional rewards : either a "healthy, sound negro between the ages of ten and thirty years," or $200 in coin and 800 acres of land. Whether any Pendletonian became priv- ileged to choose between a reward of living darkness or solid ground and jingling cash, we are not informed. In May, 1781. a bounty of $10,000 was promised, to be paid when the solflier was sworn in.

Six months later the army of CornwalUs was added to the 1€00 prisoners the state was feeding at Winchester, and the

long war was practically at an end. It had never been popu- lar with the English people, and even before the surrender at Yorktown William Pitt, speaking in the British Parlia- ment, had pronounced the struggle the "most accursed, wicked, barbarous, cruel, unnatural, unjust, and diabolical of wars."

The reader has noticed the seemingly enormous bounties offered toward the close of hostilities. Other transactions were on a like footing. In 1781 the poll tax was $40, and in 1781 a man taking his dinner at an ordinary could be charged the stunning price of $30, when perhaps he had eaten noth- ing more luxurious than corn pone, bacon, potatoes, and sauerkraut, washed down with a cup of herb tea and a mug of "cyder."

But such prices shrivel like a bursted balloon when we re- flect that they were based on the paper currency issued in liberal amount by a Congress having an almost childlike ig- norance of financial science. The ratio between com and paper became one to forty in 1780, and did not stop even there, although the penalty for counterfeiting certifi- cates had been made death without benefit of clergy. A month after the surrender of Cornwallis, the legislature ordered paper money to be turned into the treasury by the first of October of the following year. "Worthless as a Continental bill" became a byword for many a year.

The county was hard put to raise enough revenue for the public needs. In 1779 something had to be done for the families of indigent soldiers. The tax on a conveyance of land was $3.33. In 1781 and 1782 the sheriff was ordered to collect a tax of one shilling on every glass window. A tax of two per cent in specie was levied on all property. Yet it was permitted to make payment in tobacco, hemp, bacon, flour or deerskin.

As to the royalism in the Pendleton section of Rockingham, the recorded information gives only a partial glimpse, and for the rest of the story we have to depend on the recollections that have come down to us through the space of a hundred and thirty years. The trouble was evidently most acute in the later years of the war. The American cause was then hanging in the balance, taxation, as we have seen was very high, and very hard to meet, and the depreciated paper cur- rency was causing great hardship. The disaffection in Pendleton took the form of an armed resistance that fell within the verge of domestic war. There were petty raids by the tories, but there would seem to have been little blood- shed. The only loss of life that we locate was the killing of Sebastian Hoover by a settler from Brushy Fork. The Vir-

0$

ginia law of 1781 declared the man civilly dead who opposed by force the statute calling- out the men to the public de- fense. The disaffected person might be exiled, and if he re- turned he could be executed without benefit of clergy. Free male inhabitants had to swear allegiance to the state through commissioners appointed by the county court.

In Hampshire was John Claypole, a Scotchman, who had a band of GO to 70 men. They resisted the payment of taxes, and at their meetings they drank toasts to the health of the king and damnation to Congress. General Daniel Morgan, the hero of the Cowpens, was sent against them in the summer of 1781, and smothered the insurrection in a few days. The tories were pardoned, Claypole appealing for clemency and pleading ignorance of the real situation. There was no fight- ing, although one toty was accidentally shot.

Claypole had followers on the South Fork in Pendleton. One of these at Fort Seybert, who claimed his oath of al- legiance was not binding, was taken to Patton's still- tub. He was doused three times in it before his German obstinacy was sufficiently soaked out to permit him to hurrah for Washington. This style of baptism does not seem to have been administered by Morgan's men. who scarcely came this far up the river. It was perhaps at the same time that a party of tories, pursued through Sweedland valley, were no- ticed to throw the corn pone out of their haversacks, so as to make better time with their feet.

The other center of disturbance was in the south and south- west of the county, where its memory lingers in the name of Tory Camp Run, Randolph county. Here Uriah Grady headed a band of tory refugees. The leader in this quarter was one William Ward. There were two men of this name, an older and a younger, the latter being perhaps no more than a boy at the time of the Revolution. The elder William Ward was a South Carolinian and is first mentioned in 17.^)3. In 1763 he was a road surveyor, and in 1774 he was a soldier in the Dunmore war. In 1765 he was under sheriff of Augusta. In 1781 he was living on the Blackthorn. For "tumult and se- dition words" he was bound over by the court of Rocking- ham in the sum of 1000 pounds, Andrew Erwin being his surety. The next year (1780) he was delivered up by Erwin and Ralph Loftus, another surety, was given a jury trial, fined 100 pounds, and given twenty-four hours in jail. The records at Staunton say that he was found guilty of treason in Augusta and sent to the capital for trial. Erwin was him- self indicted for "propagating some news tending to raise tumult and sedition in thestatp."

John Davis, apparently a resident of the North Fork, was

adjudged guilty of treason by the Rockingham court and sent up to the General Court. His bondsmen were Seraiah Stratton, William Gragg, and James Rogers. In 1779 Henry Peninger was indicted for "speaking disrespectful and dis- graceful words of the Congress and words leading to the de- preciation of the Continental currency." A true bill was re- turned against him. His bond was fixed at 5000 pounds, and those of his sureties, Sebastian Hoover and Henry Stone, were each of half that amount. Peninger informed on one Gerard, but he himself did not appear for trial.

One Hull was a lieutenant of Ward's, and Robert Davis seems to have been particularly obnoxious to the tories. Vis- its with hostile intent were sometimes made to his vicinity, but an Eckard woman from Brushy Fork usually gave the settlement a forewarning. On one occasion, believing Davis home on furlough, the band came down to seize him, and in their disappointed vexation Hall called Mrs. Davis a damned liar. Her son John, a boy of about fourteen years, took aim at Hull, unobserved by the latter, but the mother in- terfered to prevent a tragedy and a burned home. The fac- tional strife was ended by a conference between Davis and Ward held near the site of the schoolhouse. The principals were unarmed, but a neighbor of Davis posted himself near to STuard against treachery.

The capture of Cornwallis in the fall of 1781 made it highly advisable for the tories to accept the situation. It would seem that the episode was passed over lightly. At all events we find the former tories remaining on the ground, acting as good citizens, and holding positions of trust.

In 1782 a list of claims for the furnishing of military sup- plies came before the Rockingham court for settlement. The claims were very numerous, though of small individual value. Many of them were from Pendleton. For registering these claims Henry Erwin was allowed 100 pounds ($333.33), a good salary for that day.

In 1781 took place what seems the last Indian raid into this county. A party of redskins, led by Tim Dahmer, a white renegade, came by the Seneca trail to the house of William Gragg, who lived on the highland a mile east of Onego. Dah- mer had lived with the Graggs, and held a grudge against a daughter of the family. Gragg was away from the house getting a supply of firewood, and seeing Indians at the house he kept out of danger. His mother, a feeble old lady, and with whom Dahmer had been on good terms, was taken out into the yard in her chair. The wife was also unharmed, but the daughter was scalped and the house set on fire, after which the renegade and his helpers made a prudent retreat

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The girl was taken up the river, probably to the house of Philip Harper, but died of her injuries.

There was now a long period of domestic peace, broken only by the incident of the Whiskey Insurrection of 1794. At least one company of Pendleton militia— under Captain James Patterson— formed a part of the army of Governor Henry Lee that marched to the Redstone district of Pennsylvania, the scene of trouble. At a Pendleton court martial sitting the same year, it was ordered that the names of the officers and privates who marched from this county to Redstone be recorded. If this was done the list does not seem to be in existence. A fine of $36 was imposed upon each of the 11 men who avoided going. In one instance the fine was re- mitted.

In 1782 there were three militia districts. Robert Davis commanded the company on the South Fork. Garvin Ham- ilton, the company on the South Branch, and Andrew John- son was captain of the North Fork company. John Skidmore was recommended as major the same year the county was or- ganized, but he was not commissioned. Other militia officers of the period were the following: Captains, Roger Dyer and Michael Cowger; Lieutenants, Frederick Keister and John Morral: ensigns, John Skidmore, James Skidmore, and Jacob Hevener.

Among the civil officers we find Isaac Hinkle, a deputy sheriff in 1780, and Robert Davis, commissioned sheriff, October 30, 1786. As constables we find James Davis, George Kile, George Mallow. Jacob Eberman, Samuel Skidmore, and Lewis Waggoner. Thirty road overseers were appointed in 1778. Of those serving in Pendleton during the ten year period— 1778-88— we have the names of George Mallow, Jacob Eberman, Samuel Skidmore, Lewis Waggoner, and James Davis. In 1779 Joseph Skidmore had charge of the roads of the middle valley to the line of Hampshire. The next year George Kile had the territory from the Coplinger ford to the Hampshire line, and George Coplinger had the roads from the same ford to the Augusta line. In 1786, Pendleton, as the portion of Rockingham "west of North Mountain," was made the fourth overseer of the poor district, and Robert Davis was appointed to superintend the election of the neces- sary official.

The bounty of wolves at this time was $6.25, and there is mention of scalps being presented by Roger Dyer, Burton Blizzard, and Daniel and Frederick Propst.

Our narrative now brings us to the establishment of Pen- dleton county.

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CHAPTER IX Early Laws, Customs, and Usages

Before taking up the organization of our county it will be a good use of our time to look over the general features of the period we are now in the midst of. This survey will cover the lifetime of a person born when the settlement act- ually began, and reaching in 1818 the full natural term of seventy years. Yet very much will remain true until the close of our Middle Period in 1865. While our survey will have very particular reference to this county, it will very largely be true of Virerinia in general. It will open when the state was yet a British colony, and it will follow many of the changes which have since taken place. All this is a great deal of ground to cover, and our general look must necessarily be brief.

The first capital of Virginia was as a matter of convenience located in the earlier settled section. It remained at Williams- burg until April 30, 1780. when it was moved to Richmond to keep it nearer the center of population. Before the Revolu- tion there was a legislative assembly as there is now, and with much the same powers. At the head of the state was a governor appointed by the sovereign of Er gland. He was the proxy of the British king; his representative and spokes- man. He lived in great style, so as to befit the aristocratic ideas of that time, but his salary was paid by the colony. He was looked up to, yet so far as being the king's proxy he was an ornamental figure head and expected to know his own place. Virginia kept her purse-strings in her own hands, and if he sought to govern after the royal ideas of Europe he was liable to find himself in hot water.

From our distance of time the American is inclined to sup- pose that in cutting loose from England his country threw off one suit of clothes and stepped at once into a brand new suit cut to an entirely different style. There was nothing of that sort. The same suit was dusted, some of the wrinkles pressed out, and then it was put on again. The General Assembly was nothing more than the House of Burgesses under a new name. The Virginia Constitution of 1776 was only a restate- ment of the source of Virginia law, so that it might conform to the fact of separation from England. The king's name was of course left out where it had been used in proclama- tions and official forms. Otherwise Virginia went on living

under very much the same laws and institutions. The new governors lived in style and were looked up to. They were elected by the Assembly and not by the people There was a Governor's Council of eight members, according to the former custom. The native governor appointed justices and signed land patents, just as the king had been doing through his proxy, the royal governor. The coming in of the new or- der of things is a good illustration of the fact that men are willing to progress by steps but are very slow to progress by jumps.

From 1776 to 1829 each county chose by popular vote two delegates to the lower house of the state legislature. A sen- ator was likewise chosen at the same time, Augusta, Rocking- ham, and Shenandoah forming in ]778 one senatorial district. Beginning with 1788, the voters also elected a representative to the Federal Congress. But the exercise of the right to vote went very little farther. The government of Viiginia was very centralized. The citizens of a county had no direct say in the choice of their local officials. When a new county was organized, the governor commissioned a number of men to act as "worshipful justices." These men were not only justices of the peace, but they were also a board of county commission- ers. They held office for life, except that the governor might remove a justice for cause. Vacancies were filled or the court enlarged by new men recommended to the governor by the court. The county court was therefore self-perpetuating. It was a close corporation, and this feature remained in vogue until 1852. From its own body the court recommended a senior justice to act as sheriff, and he was commissioned by the governor, becoming a justice once more when his term was out. The clerk of the court, the jailer, and the con- stables were appointed by the court.

The Virginia Bill of Rights of 1776 laid down the doctrine that "magistrates are the trustees and servants of the people." But in practice the structure of society remained as aristocratic as it was before. The justices were supposed to be chosen from that small number of well-to-do and influ- ential citizens who alone were styled "gentlemen." The office often descended from father to son. It will thus be seen that the favored families might greatly influence the county to their own ends whenever they chose to be am- bitious or domineering.

A century ago a man to be a voter had to own a plot of 25 acres, including a house 12 feet by 12, or its equivalent; or 50 acres of unimproved land; or a lot and similar house in a designated tov;n. Voters were exempt from arrest while go-

ing: to or returning from the polls, one day being: allowed for each 20 miles. The voter mi^jht be required to take oath.

Under the crown the governor and his council formed a General Court or judiciary. There were also quarterly courts of four or more justices. Under independence the state had a court of appeals of five judges, any three constituting a court for appellate cases. A jieneral court of ten judges met twice a year at Richmond, whence they were sent out by twos to hold district courts. Augusta, Pendleton, Rocking- ham and Rockbridge formed one of these circuits, the judges having full jurisdiction in civil and criminal causes, and or- iginal jurisdiction in all causes involving a consideration of more than 100 pounds ($333.33) . After 1819 each of the fifteen judges held one circuit court a year in each county of his dis- trict. After 1818 there was a superior court of chancery in each of the nine districts.

Until 1776, a county court was opened by the reading of the royal commission to the justices: "Be it remembered (date was here given) his majesty's commission directed to (names of commissioned justices here given) to hear and de- termine all treasons, petit treasons, or mispripons thereof, felonies, murders, and all other offenses or crimes, was openly read." A single justice had jurisdiction in matters not ex- ceeding the value of one pound ($3.33). Each county was then a parish, and as such it had its vestry authorized to levy and assess tithes, provide a glebe and support for a minister of the established chuich, see to the poor, bind out appren- tices and any bastard liable to become a public charge. All persons had to pay taxes imposed by the vestry, and also at- tend services at least once in two months or pay a fine. Until 1776, therefore, the annals of Augusta contain frequent men- tion of the church wardens, as the members of the vestry were called. The doing away of the English custom of sup- porting a particular church at public expense also did away with the other English custom of local government through that church. By an Act of 1788, the county court was "for the trial of all presentments and criminal prosecutions, suits at common law and in chancery, where the sum exceeds five pounds ($16 67), or 500 pounds of tobacco, depending therein and continue for the space of six days unless the busi- ness be sooner determined." It had general police and pro- bate jurisfiiction, control of levies, of roads, actions at law, and suits in chancery. The justices served without pay, and their number was not limited by law. The greatest number in Pendleton present at any one term appears to have been nineteen. A quorum consisted of four, and some justices were seldom present at all. For the levy term the sheriff was

directed to summon the attendance of all acting: members. One duty of the justice was to prepare the hst of titnabies.

The grand jury of 24 members, sworn for an * inquest on the body of tnis county," was selected by the shentf from the freeholders. Constables, surveyors of roads, keepers of ordmaries, and owners or occupiers of mills were exempt from jury service. Under the crown the term of the shentf was two years. Afterward and until 1852, the length of term was rather less, dependmg on the time of the year when the commission was issued, tiome sheritts did not act as such themselves, but farmed out the office to a deputy. The sal- ary of the office in Pendleton was at hrst only $zO. The clerk of the court held his office during life or good behavior, and his salary was the princely sum ot $30. The jailer received $26.

The language of the law cUngs very tenaciously to time- honored models. The changes since the colonial era are more in the direction of leaving out certain features than of modi- fying what is retained. The word "'hath" for instance re- mained in legal use long after it had disappeared from every- day speech. Imprisonment for debt was an absurdity not put aside until within the recollection of people still living. In the early court records, therefore, we often tind the form, * 'Thereupon came A. B. and undertook for the said defend- ant in case he be cast in this suit, he shall pay and satisfy the condemnation of the court, or render his body to prison in execution for the same, or that he, the said A. B., will do it for him."

The leading purpose of a jail appeared to be that of a boarding house for the delinquent debtor. The poor prose- cutor could select his court, have free attorney and free writs, and costs were not exacted in the event of failure to win his case. The person giving a bond was until the Revo- lution "indebted to our Sovereign Lord the King." He was then "indebted to his excellency the governor of Virginia." But this monarchical adherence to venerable usage is an- other of the things that has had its day.

The man selling a parcel of ground followed until 1776 the English practice of giving hrst a deed of lease and directly afterward a deed of release. The first was valid "from the day before the sale for one whole year to be completed and ended, yielding and paying thereior the rent of one pepper- corn on Lady-day next, if the same shall be lawfully de- manded, to the intent and purpose that by virtue of these presents and of the statute for transferring uses into pos- session, the said (A. B.) may be in actual possession of these premises and be thereby enabled to accept and take a grant and release of the possession and inheritances thereof." A

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consideration of five shillings (83 cents) was paid by the pur- chaser. The deed of release, which was the real and effciive instrument, was usually dated one day later than the dted of lease.

Considerable fun has been poked at the New England people for their stringent laws on personal conduct. But all America was Puritan wherever the Calvinistic faith prevailed, as among the Scotch-Irish, and the laws on the observance of Sunday were strict. Even in Cavalier Virginia a Sunday law ol 1658 declared that **no journeys be made except in case of uigent necessitie, no goods be laden in boates, no shooteing in gunns." In 1791 a merchant of Franklin was indicted for "retailing goods and selling liquor by the small" on Sunday. About the same time two men were indicted for digging gin- seng, another for carrying a gun, and still another for driv- ing a wagon and hauling dirt.

The offenses most numerously before the courts were as- sault, slander, bastardy, neglect of road supervision, the il- legal selling of liquor, drinking, and swearing. This list en- ables us to form some estimate of the nature of the times.

In 1798 a woman of Pendleton was presented for "beating and keeping the sheriff off from collecting revenue." This was not a solitary instance, for three years later both a man and his wife were brought up for beating the sheriff and rescuing property taken by him, and in still the same year a deputy sheriff had a like experience. As late as 1837 a cer- tain laborer was sentenced to receive 33 lashes on the bare back for stealing a hog worth $5. At an earlier day the same law was made to apply to the other sex as well. In the Augusta records we read that a sheriff was ordered to punish a female thief with 39 lashes "well laid on," and to attend to the matter at once. For stealing a pipe worth one shilling a Pendleton woman in 1790 was required to give a bond of 40 pounds ($133.33) with two sureties. About 1774, one Cash, a poor prisoner, was ordered from Staunton to the state capital for further trial on a felonious crime. He pro- tested that the expense would totally luin him, and said he would humbly submit to such punishment as the court would choose to inflict, and asserted the hope that "by his future conduct he would convince the court and the world of his thorough reformation." To remind him of his pledge, the court let him off with a sentence of 39 lashes. In bastardy the female offender did not escape punishment. A redemp- tioness in Augusta was ordered to serve her master an ad- ditional year in consequence of her having an illegitimate child. For maiming, a not infrequent felony, the law of 1796 permitted damages of $1000, three-fourths of this sum

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to go to the injured party. There was a further penalty of imprisonment from two to ten years. Counterfeiting, another frequent offense, and easier to accomplish than at present, carried at one time the penalty of death without benefit of clergy. Later the penalty was made a fine of $luOO, and a term in prison of from four to fourteen years. In 1797 there was a suspicion that counterfeit coin was in circulation in this county. For swearing or getting drunk the penalty was a fine of five shillings for each offense, or the choice of ten lashes. This law was impartially carried out against the first clerk of court, who for "swearing two round oaths in open court" had to pay ten shillings ($1.67). The colonial laws permitted the branding of a criminal in open court, the jailer making with a hot iron a letter R in the palm of the left hand. The culprit was meanwhile to proclaim, "God save the commonwealth." Possibly the scorching enabled him to say the required words with considerable em- phasis. Road overseers in this county were often indicted for failing to keep their roads in proper condition, and for failing to put up "indexes." In 180 L there must have been a flagrant offense in one of these particulars, for the grand jury used this sarcastic wording : "We do present surveyor of road, if any there be." The penalty for Sunday work was twice as large as the fine for drinking or swearing. For hog stealing the law of 1793 was savagely severe. For the first offense the thief, if a free man, was to receive 35 lashes on the bare back, to be fined $30, and to pay the owner $8 for each hog stolen. For the second offense he was to stand two hours in the pillory on a public day with his ears nailed fast. At the end of two hours the ears were to be cut loose. For the third offense the punishment was death. If the hog- thief were a slave the punishment was even more severe. Even the man buying a hog without ears was adjudged a thief unless he could prove property. For forgery, stealing a land warrant, or stealing a cask of tobacco lying on the highway the punishment was death.

In the colonial period each courthouse inclosure was sup- posed to be equipped with pillory, stocks, whipping post, and perhaps also a ducking stool. The whipping post needs no explanation. The essential feature of the pillory was a pair of short planks coming together at the edge, and with an oval segment cut into each, so that a person's neck might be fitted into the opening. The stocks differed from the pil- lory in confining the ankles in place of the neck, and in not compelling the culprit to stand. Neither position was par- ticularly agreeable, especially if the flies were bloodthirsty and the spectators inclined to use their skill in flinging sticks,

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pebble3, and eggs of uncertain quality. But it is not prob* able that this British amusement was much practiced in Vir- ginia. The ducking stool was a long plank, pivoteu in the center and furnished at one end with a chair to which the prisoner was contined. The purpose of the apparatus was to plunge the culprit into a mill-pond or river. It was a favor- ite punishment for a scolding woman.

In this county the order was twice given for a whipping post, but it IS not certain that it was ever carried out. It may have been thought as at Harrisonburg that a well rooted tree of good size was amply sufficient. But there was a pair of stocks and perhaps aiso a pillory, for we read in 17y0 of one Peter Litile being ordered into tke stocks for ten min- utes for misdemeanor in court. There is no mention of a ducking stool, and in spite of the nearness of the river it is not probable that any was furnished. An Augusta court is- sued an order for one, but it became apparent that there was not enough water within a half mile lo give a proper degree of wetness to a gimlet-tongued offender.

With many otlenses punishable by death, with the nailing of ears to the pillory, with imprisonment for debt, and with whippings, it might look as though there was sufficient terror in tne law to keep people in the path of rectitude. Yet the law was violated more often than it is now. The spirit of the times was harsh and coarse, as is reflected in the severity of the laws and the frequency with which even these laws were broken. The familiar spectacle of pubhc punishment dulled the sensibilities of the people and did not reform the law- breaker. Yet a feeling of humanity existed then as well as now. It is related of a sheriff of Rockingham that in carry- ing out an order to flog a certain prisoner, he went into the delinquent's cell at the jail and administered the lashing to the bed, telling the culprit to howl every time he did so. It is to be supposed that the howls were forthcoming.

A will, begmning *'in the name of God, amen," often con- tinued in a piously worded preamble, which in general may have reflected a religious spirit in tne will-maker. Personal property was parceled out among the heirs with a great deal of preciseness. The widow was often to have a half-bushel of flaxseed sowed yearly for her necessities, and various do- mestic arrangements were to be observed so long as the parties could agree. A distiller of the South Branch under the date of 18J5 stipulated that his widow was to have yearly "five gallons whiskey or appel brandy for her youse." The thrift of the Pendletonian is often apparent in the will- ing of lands situated in another county or even in another state. Once in a while an heir was cut off with one English

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shilling, or with a bequest of "one dollar to be enjoyed by him and his heirs forever." Zacharian Kexroad, iSr., who died in 1799, wills that his son Leonard "shall maincain his mother with food and drink, wood and lignt, and a warm atove."

Taxes were seemingly low, yet no easier to meet than they are today. This was particularly true of the poll-tax, the size of which varied considerably irom year to year, before the Revolution Augusta ottered a bounty on hemp, and many certiticates were issued therefor. These ceriincates, seldom for more than 20U0 pound tiber, were receivable lor taxes. Of Pendletonians who became entitled to these we find the names of Matthew Patton, Postle Hoover, James Patterson, Michael Propst, and George Coplinger. Taxes were sometimes paid in produce, in iV92 a tax of 32 cents was paid at Franklin in flax, and another of $3 in rabbit and deer skins and butter.

Under the broad powers exercised by the county courts of the pioneer epoch, the records became voluminous. This was very true of Augusta, her Scotch- Irish people causing law- suits that were almost beyond count. The old recora-books contain very many more words to the page than those of our time, even with the use of the book typewriter. 'Ihe lines are near together, and in general the writing is neatly and carefully done, and the entries put down in systematic shape. The small letters are neaily of uniform height, and when a coarse-pointed quill was used there are no hairlines and the writing may be read with ease. But when a hne- pointed quill was employed, the writing becomes almost mi- croscopic and is tedious to make out Instead of covering his pages with a hurried unreadable scrawl, the copyist look time to write the name of the presiding judge in large, round, handsomely formed letters, and to begin a long entry with a highly ornamented initial. Indexing was done on the flyleaves and with extreme economy of space, eight lines being sometimes brought within the compass of a single inch. The ink was often very durable, and the writing is in better preservation than if steel pens had been in use. The acid of the ink acting on a metallic pen has a tendency to corrode the paper in the course of time.

Immigration was usually in the spring and settlers came in bodies. The wagon being all but unknown and the roads were trails, the newcomer brought his belongings on a pack- saddle made by nailing or tying two pieces of board to a pair of crotched sticks cut from a young tree. The cow was made a pack animal as well as the horse. The tirst season was likely to be one of poor and unsuitable hving until there was

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time for the first crop to come to the rescue. Certain men of influence and means were active in bringing in new people. James Patton, first sheriff of Augusta and also county lieu- tenant, is said to have crossed the ocean twenty-five times for this purpose. He was the cause of many redemptioners being brought to the Augusta settlements.

A wedding was one of the great events of the year. It was an occasion of feasting and of rude, boisterous mirth. The company proceeded in double file from the home of the groom and when within a mile of the home of the bride, two young men gave an Indian warwhoop and rode forward at full speed, the one arriving first being given a bottle that had been made ready beforehand. On their return it was passed around and then came back to the victor. All were expected to tip the bottle, women as well as men. A big dinner at the bride's home followed the wedding ceremony, and this in turn was followed by the infare at the groom's house. Pewter spoons battered around the edges were used at these feasts, and hunting knives were unsheathed if the supply of table knives run short. The dancing which followed lasted till morning. Slighted or envious neighbors trimmed the manes and tails of the riding horses or tied grapevines across the path in front of the wedding party. As a further annoy- ance guns would be fired off.

In the Revolutionary days the marriage certificate was presented to the justice of the peace to whom it was directed. He then gave authority to the minister of the parish, or par- ish reader, who after publishing the banns, performed the ceremony, kept a record and gave a certificate, the latter not being deposited with the county clerk. But a dispensation from the governor could enable a minister who was not an Episcopalian to perform a marriage ceremony.

In the same year the settlement of Pendleton began "an act to discourage matrimony" was placed on the statute- book of Virginia. It fixed the governor's fee at $3.33, the clerk's fee at 83 cents, the minister's fee at $3.33, if the marriage were by license, and at 83 cents if by banns. The publishing of the banns cost 25 cents. By an act of 1775 the minister's fee was made double the former amount, but the old figures were restored the following > ear. These excessive charges had doubtless much to do with the prevalence of marriage by consent. At a later time any person author- ized to perform the marriage ceremony could demand a fee of one dollar.

The recording of marriages began in 1784. As a prelimi- nary thf» groom was required to put up a bond of 50 pounds ($166.67). If either groom or bride were under the age of

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twenty-one, and this was very often the case, the consent of the parent or paients hb6 to acccn i.any the bond, the clerk then issuing a license. The bond was commonly written on a half-sheet or quarter-sheet of unruled, bluish paper. The con- sent of the parent was written on a narrow scrap and often with poor ink. The signature, if not in the form of a mark, and this was also very common, was usually crabbed and more or less difficult to make out. This scrap, not always unsoiled was folded into a small compass, making it look like a paper of ep^om salts as put up by a doctor before tablets and capsules had come into use. The consent was tucked in- side the bond. A certain on« of them has this import :

"November the 3 da 1810 Sir pleas to grant John

h and naly m a gal that I Rast Lisence acorting

to Law and so doing you will a blidg yours friend Michael A "

The law of 1769 increased the penalty on bastardy with a view of lessening the burden to the counties of illegitimate children supported at public charge. By an earlier la»v the female offender might be whipped and fined.

Where there are children there are games, and the nature of their games is determined by the nature of their activities in after life. A prominent frontier game was that of throwing the tomahawk. By practice the player could make the blade hit the mark with the handle upward or downward as desired. Boys learned to imitate the sounds of animals. When twelve years of age or upward, the boy was given a gun and he began to practice shooting at a mark. The long-barreled flintlock was usually fired from a rest, and one was easily made by turning a gimlet into a tree.

In any American frontier community it has been noticed that the force of its public opinion has been more effective in the maintenance of order than is the legal government of an older district. This is largely due to the sparse popula- tion, and to the fact that everybody is known to everybody else. The thief was given the choice of a jailing or a flog- ging and then had to clear out. A breach of contract killed credit. The tattling woman was listened to, but her story was not believed. The shirk at a "frolic" was called a "law- rence." The man who avoided military duty was "hated out" as a coward, and for a soldier to be short in his equipment was deemed disgraceful. A tongue-lashing once under way might be kept up for years.

What the frontier itself could not supply made necessary the caravanning trip eastward ; first to the commercial points east of the Blue Ridge, and later to Staunton or Winchester. The journey would therefore consume several days and a sup-

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ply of provisions was taken along. At nightfall the horses were turned loose after opening tneir bells and hobbling tbeir feet, other horses were somecimes left at various points to be used on the return. Supplies were carried by packsaddle, two bushels of salt (168 pounds) being considered a load. This amount of alum sale was worth two cows and their calves.

Mention has been made of prices at the Dyer sale in 1759. That there was no particular advance by 1773 will appear by the sale in that year of Michael Mallow's property. 22 cattle sold at an average of $5 per head. 11 horses went for $271.- 67, a silver watch for $13.33. a pair of boots for $1.50, and a pair of speatacies for 25 cents. There were present at this sale Thomas Bland, Michael Boucher, Casper Bogart, James Cunningham, Jacob Harper, Philip Harper, Sarah Harman, Mary Hetfner, Martin Judy, Eve Moser, Michael Peterson, and Jacob Springstone.

A great share of the pioneers had had no schooling and could sign their names only with a mark. Paper was costly and a little was made to go a great way. Writing was done alto- gether with a goose or turkey quill. Ink was not sold in bot- tles but in the form of powder to be dissolved as wanted. A very fair ink was made from maple bark or pokeberr.es with the addition of alum and vinegar. Books were few and seen only in occasional homes. Many of them, including hymnala, were of a religious nature. Books in the German tongue were as frequent as those in the English. At the George Cophnger sale in 1773, the books were a Bible, selling at $1.50, a "Key of Paradise," a psalm book, and a few of little value not specified. At the William Davis sale in the same year there were mentioned "one old Bible," "Explana- tion of the Shorter Catechism, " * 'The Fourfold State, " ' *Bax- ter on the Covenant, " "Closet Devotions," one small history, and two small paper books. In several of the Pendleton homes may yet be seen a German Bible fully as large as an unabridged dictionary, with clear print, commentaries, and illustrations, and bearing date from 1763 to 1788.

In the costume of the real frontiersman the most promi- nent feature was the hunting shirt. It was of blue woolen cloth, was open in front, lapping a foot or more when belted, and fell half way down the thighs. The cape was large enough to come over the head. The sleeves were ample. The edges of the garment were fringed with a raveling of another color. The bosom was a receptacle for provisions or tow. The belt tied behind held the mittens. Tne tomahawk was carried to the right, the scalping knife to the left. Breeches and leggings supplemented the hunting shirt. On the man's head was a fur cap with a tail or tassel drooping be-

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hind. On his feet— provided it were winter time— were moc- casins with a gathering seam up the heel and on the top of the foot. The moccasin was stuffed with deer hair or leaves. It came well up to the ankles and was tied with "wangs." The hunting shirt was retained until well toward the period of the civil war, as was also the fur cap. Until near the same period, also, the wardrobe was quite exclusively made from the fabrics of wool and linen that were woven on the looms in the farmhouses and dyed with various barks helped out with copperas and other mordants. The linen garments would shrink after a washing but would lengthen again. Unless a new linen shirt were well rubbed before putting on, it felt as though full of the spines of a chestnut burr. The apparel worn by both sexes was plain and durable and subject to little variation in style, except for the change imposed by the season of the year. The dresses, hoods and sunbonnets of the women were made without any help from the fashion plates in the "Delineator." Going barefoot throughout the warm weather was usual with all persons.

Stoves being unknown, cooking was done before or over the fire, or in the bake oven. Kettles were suspended from a hook in the fireplace. The skillet to hold over the fire was long-handled, and it was an art to toss up a flapjack and catch it on its other side. The stone bakeoven with a smooth slab or an iron plate for its floor was made hot with a fire of dry wood. When the fiames had died away the ashes were swabbed out and the loaves set in with a long paddle, and the door of charred boards tightly closed.

Fires were kept alive as much as possible. If the coals went out and it was too far to fetch live ones from a neigh- bor's fireplace, resort was had to fiint and steel, or to the priming from a flintlock rifle, tow, punk, and fat pine being the materials for starting a fire.

The dietary was simpler than at present, the staff of life being pone, johnny cake, or mush, more often than the white loaf. Until gristmills were built, hard corn was pounded with a pestle in a hominy block, and softer corn was rubbed on a grater. Game meat was much in use so long as it remained plenty. Vegetables were fewer in variety and not so early as with us. During the cold season there was no fruit except stored apples and the various kinds of dried fruit, the process of airtight canning being unknown. The potpie was a feature of the big dinner at the frolic. Coffee and tea had to come from the seaport by means of wagon or pack- saddle, and being therefore expensive various substitutes were used.

China was seen in the homes of the more prosperous set*

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tiers, but pewter dishes were more common, as were like- wise bowls and other utensils of wood. Cedar ware was made with alternate red and white staves.

The log house was wellnigh universal, and at first the logs were generally unhewn. Nails being made by hand from ex- pensive iron, pegs generally took their places. The floor was commonly of puncheons made very smooth with a broadaxe. The roof was of clapboards and weightpoles. The stairway was a ladder. Windows were small and few, w« oden shut- ters often taking the place of the small panes of glass. Greased paper was sometimes a substitute for glass. The chimney was a massive stone structure occupying a consid- erable part of the house, and the fireplace was so broad as to render it possible to sit within it at one end while a fire was burning at the other. A t the first the only way to make boards was for two men to saw them out with a whipsaw. A good day's work was 50 feet of lumber to each man. For a very long while the few sawmills were quipped only with the up and down blade, and the sawing was slow and uneven. In some of the poorer cabins and earlier schoolhouses, there was no floor at all, except the earth floor provided by nature.

None of the very earliest houses remain. A few are yet occupied that were built within the time of Indian peril, as is evident from the loopholes now hidden by the weather- boarding. A specimen of the older type was the one stand- ing near Cave postoflfice, until about 1870, on the farm of Henry Simmons. It was two storied and built of oak and hickory, the round logs being notched and the ends project- ing. One end was built sloping with a chinking of mud and straw held in place by laths. This was for an additional protection against bullets. The fireplace was nine feet broad and high enough for a person to pass into without stooping. The poplar joists wer^ eight inches square. The planks were of pit-sawed poplar. Some of the windows had only a single light.

In 1779 Virginia opened a land office and inaugurated a homestead policy. Any person could get title to unoccupied land at the rate of ^2 per hundred acres, the land office to issue a warrant authorizing the survey. The warrant was lodged with the chief surveyor of the county, an official who held his place during good behavior. The surveyor was to mark trees, leave no open lines, and when practicable to make the breadth at least one third of the length. Within 12 months after the survey the claimant was to return to the general land oflfice the plat and certificate of survey. Within 6 to 9 months thereafter, the register of the land office issued a deed executed on parchment. This was signed by the go v-

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ernor and stamped with the seal of the state. A caveat might be entered against an issuance of title. No land could be entered if settled on for 30 years. A squatter holding pos- session that length of time could gain title. A foreigner could take land with the proviso of becoming a citizen within two years after returning his plat to the land office. He could also transfer his right to a citizen. An inclusive sur- vey and new grant might be authorized by the county court if it were desired to put two or more tracts into one, or if errors were discovered in the boundaries. The cost of the land patent, if for less than 100 acres, was $1.78. The cost of the warrant of survey was 75 cents.

There were still other modes of acquiring unoccupied pub- lic lands.

Building a cabin and growing a crop of grain, even if a small crop, entitled a man to 400 acres, and a preemption right to 1000 acres adjoining. The certificate therefor was granted by a board of three commissioners appointed by the governor. After lying with the board six months, and no caveat being hied, a patent was issued.

The tomahawk right consisted of deadening a few trees, especially around the head of a spring, and cutting: the man's initials on a few trees along the boundary. This sort of claim had no actual standing in law, yet in some cases was bought and sold. Sometimes the title was quieted by the application of a hickory rod.

The corn right gave a claim to 100 acres by inclosing and cultivating a single acre. The cabin right gave a claim to 40 acres by building a log hut on a certain tract.

However, these more liberal regulations were of no exten- sive advantage to this county, the best of the land having already passed into private ownership.

For the better care of the public highways, the county was divided into road precincts, one for every militia district. All white males above the age of 16, except ferrymen and the owner of two or more slaves, were required to work the roads, and so were all slaves of similar age. For repair work, the overseer was empowered to impress help. A pub- lic road was supposed to be 30 feet wide and to be kept in repair, but the provision as to width was seldom carried out. An "index board" was required at every fork. For this pur- pose the overseer might take timber from the adjoining lands, although it haH to be paid for. Bridges were supposed to be 12 feet wide. There was a fine of $50 for felling a tree across a public road, or into a stream above a bridge, and not removing the same within 24 hours. The law was also very strict on the bribery of viewers. While a piece of road-

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making was going on, it was a felony to accept presents or even "meat or drink." Until 1820, the viewer seems to have served without pay. He was then allowed 75 cents a day, although in 1830, the per diem allowance is mentioned as 50 cents.

Virginia was early covered by a militia organization. Aside from the persons specially exempt or physically dis- qualified, all free white males and all apprentices between the ages of 16 and 50 were enlisted in companies of from 32 to 68 men. They were required to assemble one day in every two weeks— excepting the three winter months— at the hour of ten in the morning, and give two hours to regimental muster. Millers and ferrymen were exempt from militia duty but not from actual service. Each private had to pro- vide rifle,— or tomahawk, firelock, and bayonet,— cartouch box, three charges of powder and ball, and keep on hand one pound of powder and four of lead in reserve.

Under American statehood the militia of Virginia were grouped into five divisions and 18 brigades, Hardy, Hamp- shire, and Pendleton constituting one brigade territory. To each division were attached one regiment of cavalry and one of artillery. The regiment, consisting of at least 400 men and commanded by a colonel, was divided into two battalions, one commanded by the lieutenant colonel and one by the major. Each battalion had a stand of colors. In each company were one captain, two first lieutenants, two second lieutenants, five sergeants, and six corporals. The ensign, a commis- sioned officer having charge of the colors and ranking below the first lieutenant, was dispensed with after the war of 1812. On the staff of the colonel were one quartermaster, one paymaster, one surgeon, one surgeon's mate, one adju- tant with the rank of captain, one sergeant major, one quar- termaster sergeant, two principal musicians, and drum and fife majors. To each company was one drum and also a fife or bugle. Officers received their commissions through recom- mendation to the governor from the county court. It would seem, however, that the captains and lieutenants were pri- marily chosen by the privates. A rigid anti-duelling oath was exacted of the officers. The best men to be found were appointed to office under the militia system. A position therein was considered very honorable and as a stepping stone to something higher.

Company musters took place in April and October, battal- ion musters in October or November, and regimental musters in April or May.

Non-attendance at muster led to a fine usually of 75 cents, and this was turned over to the sheriff for collection. Fines

ft

were numerous, whether or not they were generally collected. Excuses for cause were granted by a court martial, the clerk of the same having in 1794 a yearly salary of $6.67. In the same year we find one man excused for an impediment in his speech, and another for "a deficiency in intellect." Others are excused until "in a better state of health."

During the later years of the militia system, musters were less frequent, the men went through the evolutions without arms, and the practical value of the drill was not very great. The ofllicers did not pay much attention to costume, the regi- mental and some of the company officers wearing coats of the pattern of 1812; a dark-blue garment with long, swallow- tail, epaulettes, and brass buttons.

As a colony, and for some years as a state, Virginia ad- hered to the British coinage of pounds, shillings, and pence. For some cause not well understood, the value of these coins fell off nearly one-third from the British standard. As early as 1714 it took 26 Virginia shillings to equal one guinea of Eng- lish money. During the period of the Revolution and later, the value of the Virginia pound was $3.33. The shilling was 16 2-3 cents and the penny was worth 1 1-3 cents. Ameri- can familiarity with the dollar standard came through ac- quaintance with the Spanish milled dollars, which were cir- culating freely throughout the colonies during the yeais of the Revolution. Our decimal currency, so much more con- venient than the cumbersome English system, was mainly the work of Thomas Jefferson.*

But old habits are hard to break, especially at a distance from the large commercial centers. The British notation was used in this country almost exclusively until after 1800. It then began to yield, though very slowly. An ap- praisement at a sale would be reckoned by one method, and the result of the sale by another. It was not until the up- heaval of 1861 that the last vestiges of the old system were driven out of use.

By 1830 the word pound had fallen into disuse, but smaller

* Jefferson wished to extend the decimal system to other denominate numbers. His plan for reconstructing the table of long measure was as follows :

10 points make 1 line

10 lines " 1 inch

10 inches " 1 foot

10 feet " 1 decad

10 decads " 1 rood

10 roods " 1 furlong

10 furlongs " 1 mile

PCH6

sums were still reckoned in terms of shillings and pence. There were as yet no nickels, dimes, and quarters of Federal coin- age, but there were Spanish coins in general circulation. These were the ftp (five-penny bit), worth 6 1-4 cents; the levy (eleven penny bit), worth 12 1-2 cents; and the 25 cent piece. Six shillings were counted to the dollar. A sixpence was 8 1-3 cents, a ninepence was 12 1-2 cents, and 25 cents was called eighteen pence. 37 1-2 cents was called "two and threepence," 62 1-2 cents was "three and ninepence," 75 cents was "four and sixpence," 87 1-2 cents was "five and three-pence," $1.25 was "seven and sixpence." The sum of $1.50 was spoken of as 9 shillings. The term "fifteen shil- ling lawyer" referred to a practitioner who did not charge more than the usual fees, the minimum being commonly $2 50.

Until 1794 tobacco was legal currency in Virginia, 100 pounds of the weed being reckoned equal to one pound in coin. The value of one pound of tobacco was therefore 3 1-3 cents. In the colonial records of Augusta, and even in the earliest records of Pendleton we find county levies and wit- ness fees computed not in pounds, shillings, and pence, but in pounds of tobacco.

The Spanish dollar was not the only foreign coin in circula- tion prior to 1800. The pioneer with a hoard of coin in his specie pouch might be able to produce gold coins known as pistoles, doubloons, "loodores," and the "Joe Portuguese." The first was worth $3. GO. The second was equal to two pis- toles. The loodore (louis d'or) was worth $4.44, and the Jo- hannes was worth $8.

The practice of agriculture was rude and the tools were primitive. An undue share of labor was done by hand, but this was partly because of the losses which would result from the forays of the Indians. Oxen were preferred as work ani- mals. The harrow was a thorn bush. The wooden plow did lit- tle more than scratch the ground. The scythe had a straight handle. A forked sapling, peeled and dried, made a grain fork.

The gristmill was as primitive as the style of farming. The earliest form was the tubmill with its five foot water-wheel lying in a horizontal position. Since the burrs could rotate no faster than the wheel, a strong current was secured if possible. The handmill with a pair of burrs about as large as a common grindstone was much used, and by dint of back- aching work a bushel of meal could be made in a day.

Tobacco, formerly the great staple of Virginia, was grown for export even in the mountains. Two crops were usually taken in succession from a new field. After 1794

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wheat was crowding out tobacco, and though it brought from $1.00 to $2.50 a bushel on navigable waters, Pendleton lay loo remote to profit thereby. Its farmers had to do as they are still doing: grow their home supplies of corn, grain, and minor products, and send their surplus to market in the form of cattle, sheep, and wool. But the little fields of flax and hemp, once so common and so important, have all but disappeared.

Until within the memory of living persons, produce was wagoned to Fredericksburg, at a head of deep water navi- gation, or to Scottsville. where it could be transferred to a canal boat. As these points are distant from Franklin 105 and 74 miles by airline, it was a matter of some days to make the roundtrip. As late as 1845 store goods sold high because of the small amount disposed of. In 1770 sugar cost 17 cents a pound at Staunton, gunpowder was 67 cents, and a single nutmeg cost 10 1-2 cents.

In the earlier days the pioneer took his rifle to market and if possible one or more scalps of animals. A single wolf ■?calp, worth 160 pounds of tobacco, would more than cover his tax bill, and the rifle, worth about $7, might put still an- ' other scalp in his hands while going home. The larger beasts of prey were not ordinarily inclined to molest man, though it was not prudent to go defenseless. The bear-trap weighing 50 pounds was a feature of every huntsman's outfit, and the hunting camp, perhaps miles from his home, was his shelter while looking for deer.

The practice of medicine was like a dark age to the well read physician of our own time. Perhaps it was as well that physicians were few in those days, and that recourse was often had to the trained instinct and good judgment of the "old woman doctor." At all events her herb teas were far less expensive than the well-labeled bottles we now buy of the druggist.

Whatever the forrs of the medicine then in use. there was nothing small in the size of the dose. Worms were thought to be the chief ailment of children, and there was accordingly a dosing with salt or green copperas. A poultice of meal or scraped potatoes was used for burns, and oneof slinperyelm, flaxseed, or turnips for wounds. Croup was treated with the juice of roasted onions; itch with sulphur and lard. Snake- root was used to produce a perspiration in fever, yet the fever patient was denied cold water and fresh air, and if he left his bed it was perhaps with an enfeebled circulation. A high birthrate was partially offset by a high mortality. The infec- tious nature of some diseases was not understood, and an ignorance of what we now consider the elementary principles of hygiene and antiseptic precaution led to a loss of life that

is now usually preventable. For these reasons, croup, wounds, and childbirth were not infrequently fatal. Among the herbs in common use were boneset, lovage, horehound, chamomile, wild cherry, prickly ash, and "old man's beard."

Vaccination was unknown at the outset of the period and pock-marked faces were common. In 1777 we find the physi- cians in Rockingham authorized to inoculate persons living within three miles of a point where small-pox had broken out. By this now abandoned method, the disease was com- municated in a mild form, although the patient became as dangerous to the exposed person as though having small-pox in full vigor. The doctor at the courthouse was the only sub- stitute for the professional dentist, yet he did little else than clamp an ailing tooth between the jaws of an instrument of torture and jerk it forth in blissful ignorance of anesthetics. However, the unsound tooth was comparatively infrequent, thanks to the thorough chewing required by the hard-crust- ed corn bread, the less common use of sweets, and the ab- sence of the modern soft foods that favor the stomach at the expense of the teeth.

Despite a very common opinion to the contrary, the people of that early day were no more healthy than we are. We hear much of the grandpa and grandma of iron constitution and long life, but they were a survival of the strongest. We hear little of the weaklings who existed then as well as now, and of the hosts of people who went into their graves at too young an age.

The old times were unlike the present times, so much so that we can understand them very imperfectly unless we give no little time and thought to the points of d fference. Even the manner in which people wrote and conversed was not quite the same. We have abandoned many of the ex- pressions once in everyday use and have taken up others which would puzzle our foreparents to understand. It is often imagined that the old times were better than the pres- ent. Without doubt we have in our modern haste lost some of the features of the olden time which it would have been well to keep. We have cares they knew little of, yet on the whole it would prove a very unpleasant experience to be thrown back into the environment of the early pioneer days.

'"Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, And robes the mountains in their azure hue."

CHAPTER X Formation of Pendleton

At the close of 1787 the population of Rockingham was nearly 7000, including about 700 slaves. With at least two- fifths of its area lying beyond the high, broad, and infertile Shenandoah Mountain, the time had come when it was too in- convenient to travel from 30 to bO miles to reach the courthouse. Accordingly the 6tate legislature passed, December 4, 1787, the following act :

'1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That from and after the first day of May next, all those parts of the counties of Augusia, Hardy, and Rockingham within the following bounds, to-wit: Beginningon the Une of Rockingham county, on the Nortn mountain, opposite to Charles Wilson's on the South Fork, thence a straight line to the Clay Lick on the North Fork, thence to the top of the Ailegana, and along the same and the east side of the Greenbrier waters to the south- west fountain of the South Branch, and thence between the same and the waters of James River, along the dividing ridge to the said North Mountain, and with the top of the same to the beginning, shall form one distinct county, and be called and known by the name of Pendleton.

"2. A court for the said county of Pendleton shall be held by the justices thereof on the first Monday in every month, after such county shall take place, in like manner as is pro- vided by law for other Counties, and shall be by their com- missions directed. And the Court of quarterly sessions for the said County of Pendleton, shall be held in the months of April, June, September, and December, in every year.

"3. The justices to be named in the commission of the peace for the said County of Pendleton, shall meet at the house of Zeraiah Stratton in the said County, upon the first Court day after the said County shall take place, and having taken the oaths prescribed by law, and having administered the oath of ofl^ice to, and taken bond of the sheriff according to law, proceed to appoint and qualify a clerk, and fix upon a place for holding Court in the said County, at or as near the center thereof as the situation and convenience will admit of; and thenceforth the said Court shall proceed to erect the necessary pubHc buildings at such place; and until such buildings be completed, to appoint any place for holding courts as they think proper. Provided always, That the

appointment of a place for holding courts and of a clerk, shall not be made unless a majority of the justices of the said county be present; wnere such majority shall have been pre- vented from attending by bad weather, or their being at the time out of the county, in such case the appointment shall be postponed until some Court day when a majority shall be present.

"4. The Governor, with advice of the Council, shall ap- point a person to be first sheriff of the said County, who shall continue in office during the term, and upon the same conditions as are by law appointed for the sheriff.

"5. Provided also, and be it fqrther enacted, That it shall be lawful for the sheriff of each of the said counties of Augusta, Hardy, and Rockingham to collect and make dis- tress for any public dues and officer's fees which shall remain unpaid by the inhabitants thereof, at the time the said county shall take place, and shall be accountable for the same in like manner as if this act had not been made.

"6. And the Courts of the said Counties shall have juris- diction of all actions and suits which shall be depending before them at the time the said County of Pendleton shall take place; and shall try and determine the same, and award execution thereon.

*7. In all future elections of a senator, the said county of Pendleton shall be of the same district as the county of Augusta."

Within the limits defined by the Act of 1787, the area of Pendleton was perhaps 850 square miles. On the east, north and west, the original boundaries have remained unaltered. On the south there have been two subsequent changes. The original boundary included the northern portion of the Crab- bottom and all the rest of the present county of Highland that lies north of the watershed between the streams flowing into the Potomac and those forming the upper basin of the James. Near Doe Hill the line therefore fell even north- ward of its present location.

The population of Pendleton in its beginning was about 2200, almost exclusively white. The distribution of the in- habitants between the three valleys was not very unequal. As yet the people lived mainly along the larger watercourses, the mountains being still an almost unbroken forest.

The house of Seraiah Stratton, where it was decreed that the new county should be organized and the first term of court be held, lay about a fourth of a mile south of the Rud- dle postoffice, only a few yards to the west of the present highway, and close to a watering trough. The only present vestige of the dwelling is a mound of rocks marking the site

of the chimney and from the midst of which rises a young tree. Tradition states that the court used the barn instead of the house. If so it was doubtless because the dwelling it- self was too small to atiord a sufficient surplus of room. But whether house or barn, or both, the charge of four dollars for the whole period of time dunng which the premises were used as a county seat does not look exorbitant.

The organization of the county government is thus de- scribed in the records : **Be it remembered that at the house of beraiah iStratton, in the county of Pendleton, on the 2nd day of June and in the year of our Lord 1788, and in the 12 year of the Commonwealth, Commissions of the Peace and of Oyer and Terminer, directed to Robert Davis, John bkidmore, Moses Hinkle, James Dyer, Isaac Hinkle, Robert Poage, James Skidmore, Matthew Patton, Peter Hull, James Patter- son, and Jacob Hoover, Gentlemen, was Produced and Read, and thereupon the saiu Robert Davis took the Oaih appointed by the Act of Assembly giving assurance of fidelity to the Commonwealth, and look the Oaths of a Justice ot the Peace, of a Justice of the County Court in Chancery, and of a Justice of Oyer and Terminer, all of which Oaths were ad- ministered to him by the said John Skidmore and Moses Hinkle. And thus the said Robert Davis administered all the aforesaid Oaths to the said John Skidmore, Moses Hinkle, James Dyer, Isaac Hinkle, James Skidmore, Matthew Patton, and James Patterson.

**A Commission from his excellency the Governor to Robert Davis, Gent, to be high Sheritf of this County during pleas- ure was produced by the said Robert Davis and read, there- upon together with Seraiah Stratton, Francis Evick, Roger Dyer, James Davis, Isaac Hinkle, and George Dice, his securities, entered into and acknowledged two Bonds for the said Robert Davis's due and faithful performance of his Office, which are ordered to be recorded. And then the said Robert Davis took the Oath for giving Assurance of fidelity to the Commonwealth and was sworn sheriff of Said County. " Of the eleven justices, Davis, Dyer, and Patton were brothers-in-law. The Hinkles were of one family, and the Skidmores were of one other, and were related to the Hinkles. It is quite probable that still other relationships existed.

The organization of the county government was perfected by the following selections :

President of the Court, John Skidmore.

Clerk of Court, Garvin Hamilton.

Prosecuting Attorney, Samuel Reed.

Deputy Sheriffs, John Davis, and John Morral.

Overseers of the Poor, James Dyer, John Skidmore, Christian Ruleman, Ulrich Conrad, John Dunkle.

County Surveyor, Moses H inkle.

Constables, Gabriel Collett, George Dice, Jacob Gum, Johnson Phares, Isaac Powers, William Ward, George Wil- keson.

County Lieutenant, James Dyer.

Regimental Militia Officers : Colonel, Robert Poage; Lieutenant Colonel, Peter Hull: Major, Henry Fleisher.

Overseers of Roads: North Fork; (proceeding from north to south) Michael Eberman, Abraham Hinkle, Isaac Hinkle, Moses Hinkle. South Branch (in same order); George Fisher, Michael Alkire, Francis Evick, Christian Pickle, Nicholas Harper, McKenny Robinson, George Nicholas. South Fork (also in same order) ; John Wortmiller, James Dyer, Roger Dyer, Henry Swadley, Jacob Hoover, Christian Rule- man.

After deciding to build the courthouse on the lands of Francis Evick, and to hold the next court at his house, James Patterson was directed to attend the surveyor in laying out the courthouse grounds. He was also appointed jailer. To make the seat of local government more accessible, road sur- veys were ordered to Roger Dyer's, to Brushy Fork, and to the North Fork at Joseph Bennett's.

Voting places were established at "Frankford" for the middle vallev, at George Teter's for the North Fork, and at Henry Swadley's for the South Fork. By 1847 the number had increased to eight; namely, the courthouse; John Riser's; Doe Hill; Jacob Sibert's on Straight Creek; Circleville; Mouth of Seneca; Mallow's mill; Jacob Wanstaff's in Sweedland Valley.

Moses Hinkle was authorized to solemnize marriages, the county clerk was appointe^i to draw the deed for the court- house lot, and Thomas Collett was granted the contract to erect the county buildings, for which in due course he re- ceived $16fi.67. Samuel Black was paid $18.67 for making the courthouse desk.

The first grand jury met September 1, Jacob Conrad being foreman. The other members were Michael Arbogast. Lewis Bush, Jacob Coplinger. Abraham Eckard, Nicholas Harpole, Isaac Hinkle, George Kile. Adam Lough, Robert Minniss, Frederick Propst. George Paffenbarger, Jacob Root, Joseph Skidmore, John Sumwalt, Philip Tf'ter, and Peter Vaneman. They proceeded to "fire" three of the newly appointed road overseers; to indict three residents of the North Fork for breaking the peace, and another (a woman) for bastardy;

and to indict two residents of the South Fork for absenting themselves from grand jury service.

With Hardy and Hampshire, Pendleton became a judicial district with the court sitting at "Hardy Courthouse."

The report of the surveyors on the line between Pendleton and Hardy was presented in March, 1789, and reads as fol- lows : '*Beginning at three chestnut oaks, a white oak, and chestnut tree on the top of the North Mountain, opposite the north point of Sweedland Hill, and running thence W. 51 de- grees W., crossing the tsouth Fork at the point of Sweedland Hill, through the land and above the dwelling house of Charles Wilson, and crossing South Mill Creek through the land and above the dwelling house of Charles Borrer, and crossing North Mill Creek through the land and above the dwelling of Nicholas Judy, and crossing the South Branch through the land and below the dwelling house of David Hutson, and crossing the North Fork through the land and below the dwelling house of Samuel Day; thence through the Clay Lick a straight course lo the top of Alleghany Mountain, containing 21 miles in distance."

The report was signed by Mosf s Hinkle, surveyor of Pen- dleton, and by John Foley, assistant to Joseph Nevill, sur- veyor of Hardy.

The new county being thus launched on its career, it re- mains for us to know more of the men who were instru- mental in effecting the organization. Our task is the more difficult because there are no voluminous "write-ups" to be dug out of the yellowing filts of some local newspaper.

Robert Davis was of a Welch family that settled in North Carolina and moved thence to Virginia. He may have been the son of Robert Davis, an early settler of Augusta and its first constable. He settled a half mile below Brandy wine, at least as early as 1764, purchasing land in that year of Mat- thew Patton. About this time he married Sarah, daughter of RoRer Dyer and widow of Peter Hawes. His older broth- ers, John and William, settled also on the South Fork. Whether John Davis was the one who was a justice of Rock- ingham and was appointed to let the building of its first courthouse is not known. William died in 1773, and Robert was his executor. Robert was a major in the Continental army and saw active service, especially among the Indians west of the AUeghanies. He was present at the killing of Big Foot, a noted chief. In 1779 he was commissioned Cap- tain of militia for Rockingham, resigning in 1781. He was one of the first justices of that county, but owing to his military duties, he was not present to take his oath of office until May 25, 1779. In 1780 and 1781 he was the leader

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of the South Fork patriots against the tory faction. The dis- turbance was brougnt to an end by a truce he arranged with Ward and Hull, in 1784 he was recommended as coroner. In 1785 he and James Davis were the committee to view the repairs on the new Kockingham courthouse. In 1786 he be- came sheriff of Kockingham, and held this office until he be- came the first sheriff oi I'endleton. He was again sheriff in 18o4, and he served his county as member of the House of Delegates in 1793-4. He was a justice of the peace from 1778 until his death in 1818 at an advanced age. He was frequently called upon in the settlement of estates and in other matters of puolic business, thus indicating a high de- gree of practical judgment. He was one of the substantial residents on the i>outh Fork. On his land stood with one ex- ception the first mill in that valley and probably the very first schooihouse.

Garvin Hamilton is first mentioned in 1774. when he pre- sented a bill to the county court of Augusta for retaking a runaway slave. He was a member of the first county court of Kockingham and was for two years a member of the legis- lature. At what time he came to Pendleton is not known, but probably it was not earlier than the breaking out of the Revolution. He owned land at Thorny Meadow on Trout Run, and on the organization of the county he settled in Franklin. The December term of court for 1788 was held in his house. In the spring of 1783 he thought of moving to Georgia, and as that state required the new settler to pro- duce a ceriificate of character and conduct, he applied for one to his county court It was ordered of the clerk that he "certify that Garvin Hamilton had been many years an in- habitant of the county, a surveyor, a magistrate, a lieuten- ant colonel, a man of uprightness, integrity, spirit, and reso- lution; of true whiggish principles in the long contest with Great Britain.**

Captain Seraiah Stratton was apparently from the east of Virginia. His name first appears about 1767, when he was licensed to keep an ordinary. In 1774 he served on a com- mittee to view the new prison at Staunton. He appears to have settled on the South Branch earlier than 1778. In that year he was granted a permit to build a gristmill. In 1781 and 1782 he was a tax commissioner for Kockingham, and in the former year he produced an account for building a pub- lic granary to receive the tax in grain. For collecting the same he was allowed $11.67. He became a large landholder in the South Branch valley. In 17^2 he removed to Ken- tucky» after selling his homestead of 393 acres to Moses Hinkie

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for $516.67. He appears to have been an active and able cit- izen.

Matthew Patton was one of the very first members of the Dyer Settlement, and after the murder of Roger Dyer he be- came a leading citizen of the Pendleton territory. He was commissioned a justice of the peace, August 19, 1761, and for a number of years he took the lists of tithables for this portion of Augusta.

James Dyer, brother-in-law to Patton, has been elsewhere mentioned. He was a prominent and well-to-do citizen, and much concerned in the public affairs of the county.

The Skidmores of the South Branch were enterprising cit- izens and large landholders. Captain John Skidmore had a military career in the Indian wars and doubtless also in the Revolution. He was wounded in the battle of Point Pleas- ant, and is said on one occasion to have killed an Indian in single combat.

Moses and Isaac Hinkle, cousins to Captain Skidmore, were progressive and energetic and of more than usual ability. Isaac was a sheriff of Rockingham a little prior to 1783.

CHAPTER XI Early Middle Period- (1788- 1818)

The county of Pendleton began its separate existence as the ninth of the counties which now constitute West Vir- ginia. It entered upon a long career of peaceful and steady development. The Redstone insurrection of 1794 and the war of 1812 were remote from its borders. In the former instance Moorefield was the meeting-point of the troops from the nearby counties, whence they marched to Cumberland and thence to the Monongahela. In the latter instance, Nor- folk, more than 300 miles distant by road, was the only point in Virginia seriously threatened by the enemy.

The hne between Pendleton and Bath is thus defined by the county surveyor in 1792 : "Beginning at the top of the North Mountain opposite the lower end of John Redmond's land on the Cowpasture, and N. 63 1-2 degrees W., crossing Shaw's Fork through the lands and below the dwelling house of Thomas Devereux, and crossing the Cowpasture run through the lands and below the dwelling house of Joseph Mathew, and crossing the Crab Run about 21-2 miles above the Blue Hole: thence through the land and below the house of Joseph Bell, and thence to the top of the Chestnut Ridge through the lands of William Lewis, and thence through lands of Adam Boyers; thence crossing Back Creek and the Laurel Fork to the top of the Alleghany Mountain, to a red oak and maple on the top of said mountain; containing 20 1-2 miles."

But this southern boundary stood only eight years. In 1796 another line was established, running through the cen- ter of what is now Highland, and giving Pendleton an area of 990 square miles. This second line was surveyed in 1797, at a charge to the county of $42.92, and it is described as follows by Act of Assembly: "All that part of the county of Bath within the following bounds, to wit : beginning at the top Oi the Alleghany Mountain, the northwest side of the line of the county of Pendleton, thence a straight line to the lower end of John Slavin's plantation on Greenbrier River, thence to Dinwiddle's Gap on Jackson's River, thence cross- ing the Bullpasture so as to leave Edward Stewart in the county of Bath, thence to Stewart's Gap on the Cowpasture, thence to the top of the mountain which divides the waters of the Cowpasture and Calfpasture rivers, thence a north-

easterly course along the said mountain to the line of the county of Pendleton."

The increase in area helped to give the county in 1800 a population of 3962, an increase in two years of nearly 62 per cent. But during the next twenty years, the growth was only to 4846. an increase in twice as long a time of only 22 per cent. This falling off in the rate of growth is due to an active emigration westward. The Indian peril had van- ished to the farther bank of the Mississippi, and the fertile lands now open to unmolested settlement enticed many a Pendletonian to cross the Alleghanies. During this period we therefore lose sight of many a name mentioned in the early records.

But with nearly 5000 people in 1820, and with mors than 70 years of settled history, Pendleton had assumed the ap- pearance of a comparatively old and staid community, even though it was yet a remote region and largely covered with virgin forest.

A road up the Seneca and over the Alleghany divide had been ordered in 1774, so as to communicate with the infant settlements on the Cheat and Tygart's Valley rivers. If the order was carried out, it could have resulted in no more than a bridle-path. A new order for a road was issued in the first year of Pendleton's history, and Joseph Ray was ap- pointed to construct the thoroughfare to the top of the Alle- ghany. There is little doubt that he opened a wagon road. This natural route across the mountains was too important and the country beyond filling up too rapidly to permit the further neglect of a more adequate highway.

In 1811 the new county became the home of a congress- man. General William McCoy was row chosen to represent his district in the National House of Representatives, and he continued to hold his seat for 22 years. This was no small honor to the county as well as to himself, for Pendleton was the least populous of the six counties composing the Eleventh District. Augusta, Hardy, Pendleton, Rockbridge, Rocking- ham, Shenandoah.

In 1799 the log courthouse was repaired, and in 1817 it gave way to a larger and more substantial building of brick.

The records for this period of 30 years present little else than a routine recognition of the usual breaches of public or social order, the more quiet details of chancery work, the lev.\ing of varying sums for the county's needs, the recom- mendations of citizens to official positions, and the granting of licenses and permits. One of the cares of the first county court was to authorize a bounty of one pound ($3.33) on

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wolf scalps. The witness fee of 53 cents a day and the mile- age fee of three cents long remained in force.

The first permit for a gristmill after Pendleton was organ- ized appears to have been issued in 1803 in favor of James and John Dyer. The need of gunpowder in the war of 1812 stimulated the making of saltpetre from the nitrous earth found in the caverns of Cave Mountain, Trout Rock, and the Harman hills. This industry continued until after the break- ing out of the war of 1861.

A good index to the continued growth and broader devel- opment of the county may be found in the reports of public sales.

George Cowger lived in the Fort Seybert neighborhood, where the estates of the two Dyers had been settled up 30 years earlier. At the "praising" of his property, Novem- ber 6, 1788, the 10 horses were rated at $10 to $40 each, the 35 cattle at $6.67 to $10.83 each, the 7 hogs at $3 each, and the 8 sheep at $1 33. A wagon and gears were put at $24. 17, a gun and pouch at $20, a loom at $9.17, a bed and bedding at $10, cotton coat, jaeket, and breeches at $5, two pairs of leather breeches at $3.67, a hat and a pair of stockings at $2, an overcoat at $7.25, a saddle at $2, a flax hackle at $1.67. a coverlet at $1.37, and a hunting shirt at $1. Among smaller items we find mention of a silver teaspoon at 58 cents, a churn and bucket at 42 cents, an iron stove at 25 cents, and a tin lantern at 21 cents. It is hardly more than necessary to add that the stove was merely a small contrivance for holding a few live coals. Failed linen sold at 66 cents a yard and some other linen at 25 cents.

In 1795 the sale of the estate of George Dice near Frank- lin resulted in the sum of $689.05. Henry Janes in the south of the county had been a more prosperous farmer, his sale August 30-31, 1804, resulting in $1303.97. Yet of the 221 items mentioned, scarcely one would now be considered an article of luxury. Of these items 124 sold at less than a dol- lar each. There was not a book or a musical instrument. The story conveyed in the sale is simply that of a farmstead well supplied with appliances of actual need. Christian Hy- necker was a far poorer man, his sale in ]802 realizing but $134.90. although it included $7.32 in cash, and books selling at $1.69.

The sale in 1807 of the personal property of James Dyer netted $1975. The inventory including 8 horses, 65 cattle, 52 hogs, and 23 sheep. There were 15 books, a Bible going at $9. and a copy of Johnson's Dictionary at $3.33. The fur- nishings of the house amounted to $189.09, including a clock selling at $60 and a desk at $25. We here have a glimpse of

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a man who read books, who was considered rich, and whose log house was perhaps the best furnished dwelling in the county.

At the other end of the scale was John Turnipseed of the Deer Run settlement, whose sale took place in 1801. His livestock netted $36.02, and his 45 items of house furnishings amounted $29.13.

The estate of Roger Dyer in 1810 was $6403.33. that of Sebastian Hoover was $4048.33, that of Nicholas Judy was $2183. 33. and that of Leonard Simmons was $3300.56. Abra- ham Hinkle left notes and accounts valued at $4634. Less forehanded men were Joseph Bennett, worth $713.33 Joseph Skidmore, worth $259.08, and George Evick, whose avails were $223.33.

CHAPTER XII Later Middle Period (1818.1861)

This epoch of Pendleton history, even apart from the up- heaval of war coming at its close, is more eventful than the epoch discussed in the last chanter.

During the 43 years the population did not quite double, even making allowance for the portion of Pendleton that went to form Highland. From 1820 to IbSO there was in- deed a rapid growth, the county adding a third to its num- bers in these ten years. But during the next ten year period the rate of increase fell off one-half, and after 1840 it was even slower. It will appear on a little study of this matter, that as Pendleton was then industrially organized, there was elbow room for only a limited number of people. The sur- plus had to find space for itself either in the fertile West or in the cities of the East.

Nevertheless, the industries of the county during this pe- riod were more diversified than at any other time. Never be- fore or since has Pendleton come so near living within its own resources. The annual product of 50 tons of maple sugar nearly made the Pendletonian independent of the sugar and molasses wagoned from the distant seaport. Almost every farmer raised sheep and grew flax if not also hemp. The wool and the flax fiber, with a little aid from the hemp and from cotton brought over the Shenandoah Mountain were woven on the looms that were very common all over the county. Pen- dleton not onlv clothed itself, but made a surplus of cloth.

Other handicrafts also flourished, not only in the one village at the county-seat, but on the farms as well. One man was a wagon-maker, another a cooper, another a tailor, another a hatter, another a potter, another a sickle-maker, another a tanner. The iron used in these little home industries was brought from without the county, but it was possible enough to have smelted it from the ores in the South Fork Mountain.

Along the rapid streams were water-turned mills for grinding the corn and wheat and for sawing the small amount of lumber required for home needs. There were also the saltpeter works and the rather frequent distilleries. A portion of the saltpeter was made into gunpowder. And finally, on the eve of the war, a woolen factory was built and equipped, though soon destroyed by fire.

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In making: saltpeter the nitrous earth was leached and the leaching water boiled down. On cooling, the saltpeter rose to the surface and was afterward clarified.

Within recent years we have witnessed the comparative ex- tinction of these domestic industries. Tanning has lingered because of the mountain forests. The gristmill continues to run. because the absence of a railroad enables it to compete with the flour from Minnesota. The handicrafts are repre- sented only by the blacksmith, the wheelwright, and the shoemaker, and their work is almost limited to repair service. That the homeweaving of cloth is not totally extinct is due to the absence of a railroad and the consequent lingering of oldtime habits. But that only one distillery remains is a fact not mourned by good citizens.

The falling away of the little home industries is easily ac- counted for, but we cannot here pause to discuss the matter.

The growing of flax is now all but extinct in Pendleton as well as throughout the Appalachians in general. Yet the little field of a quarter or a half acre was once a feature of almost every farm, and it entailed no small amount of care and labor. The plants had to be pulled by hand and tied into bundles with the poorer stems. After the manner of wheat sheaves these bundles were put into capped shocks until dry. Then after the seed had been threshed out with a flail, the stems were spread out on a meadow for two or three weeks to KO through the retting process. Then a simple hand ma- chine was used to break the stems so as to loosen the hard sheath from the interior fibers. The next step was the swingling, when each handful of the fiber resting on a board was struck with a not very sharp paddle to break off the shives. The yellow threads were now ready for the spinning- wheel, and the linen which was afterwards woven was of several grades depending on the quality of the fiber.

The tall, yellow-flowered hemp was much grown, not only for the excellent rope and cord which were made from the strong fiber, but as a fabric also. A linen chain with a filling of hemp made a coarser cloth than the linen alone, and it was not so smooth, although it was exceedingly durable. The cloth was at first greenish-gray, finally becoming white. The hemp plant is as persistent as a weed, and has been known to maintain itself on the same ground for more than sixty years.

Wagons were rare. The block wagon with a solid wheel cross-sectioned from a log and banded with a hoop was very serviceable in lodging. Until about 1840 there were only two light wagons. When Zebulon Dyer drove from his home to Franklin in his carryal, people came to look at the strange

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sight as a few years ago they turned out to gaze at the auto- mobile.

The first mower, appearing about 1858, cost $130. It had one large driving wheti and a wooden cutter-bar. The old- fashioned plow with its curved oak mouldboard was not swift in yielding to its metallic rival, since the mouldboard of iron did not scour so well as the one of steel which has since come into use.

The "frolic," ei=:pecia11y for husking a farmer's crop of corn, was a recognized feature of farm labor. The absence of any but the simplest forms of farming tools made the col- lective display of human muscle absolutely necessary.

In keeping a lookout for venomous snakes, the reaper might cut his hand on his sickle. But when his work was done he was free to hunt or fish at any time, and the consid- erable area of wild land still sheltered a considerable amount of game. Several hundred fish would be snared on a single occasion, but the small ones wo aid be returned to the river. The hams of a deer could be sold for $2.50.

Some men acquired much local fame as huntsmen, and were able to tally a long list of the deer and other animals thafc they killed. One of these men while on his way from Brandywine as a witness at court saw the trail of a bear and turned aside to follow it. Not being present when his name was called at court, a postponement was moved. The judge was inconveniently inquisitive, and drew out the cause of the man's absence. He then made the remark that the Day of Judgment would have to be postponed if it found this per- son trailing a wild animal.

The roads were still poor, yet were slowly becoming bet- ter. In 1850 we find provision for assessing the damages along the right of way of the Moorefield and South Branch turnpike.

Tlie militia system kept alive until dissipated under the heat of civil war. Each district supplied one company which assembled for muster in April and October. The regimental muster took place at the county seat toward the close of May. Thursday and Friday were training days for the ofl^- cers, and Saturday was the day of general muster. Only the officers appeared in uniform, and they furnished their own blue, brass-buttoned costumes. A high-topped hat with a feather in front was worn, and also a low hat with its brim turned up on one side and its ostrich plume leaning back. The pantaloons had a yellow stripe on each side. A broad red sash was passed twice around the waist and tied in a loop with the ends drooping nearly to the ankle. The spectacular drill day took somewhat the place now filled by the traveling

circus, and its close was marked by drinking and brawling".

The affairs of the county seem to have been prudently ad- ministered, the increase of revenue from the tithables just about keeping pace with the growth in population. Taxation was very low in comparison with the assessments we are now familiar with. In 1846 a resident of the Seneca valley was taxed one cent on a tract of 130 acres. That by hard effort he was able to keep this ground out of the delinquent tax list will appear from the fact that the title was still in his name several years later.

After the colonial davs the citizen of foreign birth became very rare, and in 1854 it looks like a strange incident to find a record of the naturalization of two Irishmen.

In 1851 we find mention of but four mercantile firms out- side of Franklin. These were W illiam Adamson at the Mouth of Seneca, William S. Arbogast at Circle ville. Addison Hari er on the South Fork, and I. A. and Enoch Graham at Upper Tract.

In 1846 the community was stirred up by the atrocious crime perpetrated by William Hutson, a resident of Reed's Creek. He murdered his wife and several children. The trial took place October 2. Daniel Smith presiding as judge. The 24 jurors appear to have been the following: Benjamin Arbogast, Thomas Beveridge, Daniel Cotton, George Eagle, Samuel C. Eagle, Henry Fleisher, John Jack, Jacob Hull, John Lightner. Henry McCoy, James Moyers, James Morton, Jacob Smith. Benjamin Rexroad, Isaac Seybert, Joseph Siron, Abraham M. Wilson, and Samuel Wilson. These jurors were chiefly from the southern end of the county. The names withdrawn do not appear. The deputy sheriffs, Peter H. Kinkead, and John M. Jones, gave the oath to the jury. That body appears to have come to a speedy agreement. It reported that "we, the jury, find that William Hutson, the prisoner at the bar, is guilty of murder in manner and form as in the indictment against him is alleged, and we so decide and sustain that he is guilty of murder in the first degree." In accordance with this verdict the prisoner was hanged near Franklin. It was the first legal execution in the county. Though at this distance of time it would appear that Hutson was a victim of some mental derangement, the prompt and unequivocal punishment is thought to have bad a salutary influence for many years.

Soon after the Hutson trial the county of Highland was formed from portions of Bath and Pendleton. Its boundaries are thus defined by the legislative act of March 19, 1847: "Beginning where the North River gap road crosses the Augusta county line, and running thence to the top of Jack-

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son's Mountain, so as to leave Jacob Hiner's mansion house in Pendleton county; thence to Andrew Fleisher's so as to in- clude his mansion house in the new county: thence to the highland betwen the Dry Run and Crab Bottom, and thence along the top of the main ridge of said highlands, to the top of the High Knob; thence N. 65 degrees W. to Pocahontas county line "

The area of Pendleton was thus reduced from 990 square miles to 707, and its length of more than 40 miles was cor- respondingly shortened. The number of inhabitants in the section thus lost to Pendleton was about 2100. In 1850, the new county had a population of 4227. Of this number, 3837 were whites, 23 were free blacks, and 364 were slaves. The war with Mexico was then going on, and the name of Mon- terev, the county seat of Highland, commemorates a victory by General Taylor.

Those political events of this period which directly concern Pendleton county are highly important, even if we have left them to the close of our chapter.

The state constitution of 1776 remained in force until 1830. It allowed two members in the House of Delegates to each and every county; no more and no less, except that the towns of Williamsburg and Norfolk were each entitled to one member. But the aristocratic complexion of the document grew more and more obnoxious to the counties west of the Blue Ridge. In 1825 a convention met at Staunton and issued an appeal to the legislature, that a new constitution be framed. The direct result was the constitutional convention of 1829, of which General McCoy was one of the 96 members and the representative for Pendleton county. But the new instrument was not progressive. The counties east of the Blue Ridge were able to outbalance those to the westward, and the new constitution was drawn almost wholly in their interest. It was so displeasing to the counties which now form West Virginia that they gave 8365 votes against its adoption and only 1383 in its favor. But as the correspond- ing votes in the rest of the state were 7198 and 24,672, the new charter carried by a majority of nearly 11,000. The new constitution fixed the membership of the House of Delegates at 135, only 29 being apportioned to what is now West Vir- ginia. The representation from the two divisions of the state was to remain unchanged, regardless of any unequal growth in population. As the weak counties were now lim- ited to a single delegate, the representation of Pendleton was reduced from two to one. There was a little broadening in the matter of voting qualifications, but in general there was no liberalizing of the forms of government.

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Other features of the new constitution were these : Just- ices were commissioned as before, but the limit to each county was 12. The board was to make three nommations for the office of sheriff at the November term, the governor to com- mission that officer for a term of a little more or a litile less than a year and a half, according to the date of commission. The governor also chose the coroner from two nommees, the office being held during good behavior. The county clerk was appointed by the court for a term of seven years. Constables were appointed by the court for two years. There was to be a quarterly term of county court, and supplementary terms in each alternate month. The fourth Thursday in April was made election day, except for presidential electors. Female slaves above the age of 16 were counted as tithables.

The western counties of the state were restive under the illiberal features of the constitution of 1829, and in 1850 a new convention met at Richmond, deliberated nine and a half months, and framed the instrument which was ratified the next year by a vote of 75,748 against 11,069. The mem- ber of the convention for Pendleton was A. M. Newman. The new constitution became effective January 1, 1852.

Under this new charter, each magisterial district elected 4 justices, one of whom presided, the others being divided into classes. They were now allowed a per diem of $3. County officers were also chosen by the people. The county clerk and county surveyor held office for 6 years, the prosecuting attorney for 4 years, and the sheriff and commissioner of revenue for 2 years. The right to vote was now freed from all property qualifications. The time of state elections was changed to the fourth Thursday in May. Pendleton was put with Augusta, Bath, Hardy, Highland, Rockbridge, Rocking- ham, and Shenandoah to form the Ninth Congressional Dis- trict, and with Hardy, Highland, Page, Rockbridge, Shenan- doah, and Warren to form the Twelfth Judicial Circuit.

Of the 82 state senators, 19 were to come from east of the Blue Ridge. Of the 152 members of the house of Delegates, 47 were allotted to the counties now in West Virginia. In apportioning this representation, slave property was thrown into the scale, and as a vast majority of the slaves were east of the Blue Ridge, the East of the state retained the balance of power in its own hands. But as a concession to the West, it was provided that in 1865, or in any tenth year thereafter, and in the event that the General Assembly should fail to agree on a principle of representation, the voters of the state were to decide between four different schemes of suffrage. These four plans were as follows: 1. A suffrage basis resting solely on votes. 2. A mixed basis, one delegate being as-

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signed to each seventy-sixth of the number of whites, and one to each seventy-sixth of all state taxes on licenses and law processes, plus the capitation tax on freedmen. 3. A taxa- tion basis, the senators being apportioned on the taxation basis as aforesaid, and the delegates on the suffrage basis. 4. The senate to be chosen by the mixed basis, the lower house by the suffrage basis.

But the year 1865 found the state of West Virginia an ac- complished fact, and this elaborate scheme of the convention for retaining a control to the East as long as possible has now only an historic interest.

CHAPTER XIII Slavery in Pendleton.

The Appalachian highland is seldom adapted to large farm- ing operations. In early limes the access to an oulbide market was far more inconvenient than in the lowland bouth. But neither the Scotch-Irish nor the German settlers of this mountain land were as a class lavorabie to slavery. iSome of the religious secis among the Germans were decidedly op- posed to it. West of the blue Kidge, therefore, slavery never had the foothold it possessed east of the mountains.

In 1756 there were 40 black lithablf s in Augusta, indicating a slave population of not more than one-tweniieth of the whole. Kunaways appear to have been of frequent occur- rence. Yet slavery grew more rapidiy than the general in- crease. In 1779 Rockingham had lb5 colored tithables, one- ninth of the inhabitants being negroes. The capitation list for Pendleton in 1790 mentions only three colored tithables, these being the property of Francis Evick. In 1834 there were 280 slaves. In 1850 there were 322 slaves and 31 free colored, a total of 353. This was six per cent of the entire population. The same date nearly or quite coincides with the high water mark of the negro race in Pendleton.

If this county were destitute of river bottom and of large and smooth areas of fertile upland, the number of slaves would always have been exceedingly small. But the river bottoms with their adaptability to large and profitable farm- ing gave a conspicuous advantage to those fortunate peisons who owned these lands. This geographic condition quickly created a class of prosperous river-valley farmers, who under the industrial ideas of a former day were not slow to resort to slave labor. Yet very few became slaveholders on any- thing like a large scale, and few of the hill farmers followed their example. This geographic condition helped greatly to accustom the people of the county to the mode of social and political thought which was prevalent east of the Blue Ridge. It had in consequence an important bearing on the attitude of Pendleton during the crisis of civil war.

The old laws relative to negro lawbreakers were severe, yet not without reason. The slave had not the forethought, the initiative, nor the self-restraint which the white man had acquired through centuries of effort. He was a savage by in- itinct and heredity. Force, not suasion, was the one argu-

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ment he could comprehend, and he expected it to be applied swiftly and vigorously. Leniency led only to a loss of re- spect toward tnose in authority over him. Thus we find that the negro who stole a horse or a hog was hanged. In i77y a slave of Rockingham who killed a man was ordered hanged and his head set on a pole.

The early records of Pendleton contain considerable men- tion of negro crime. In 1810 a negro felon was branded in the hand and returned to his ma&ter. In 1811 negro Stevens was tried for plotting to kill, but was discharged. In 1812 negro Daniel was branded in the hand for stealing a calico habit and a piece of muslin. In 18^13 negro Lucy was sold for $11.25, the amount of jail fees, of which she was the occasion. In the same year a negro named Ben stabbed John Davis. He was ordered burnt in the hand, given ten lashes on the bare back well laid on, and remanded to jail subject to the order of his master. The most serious crime was in 1843, when a girl named Maria, the slave of William McCoy, fatally stabbed a negro youth belonging to John McClure. Tke tragedy occurred in Franklin near the house recently torn down by John McCoy. Her trial took place in December. She was reprieved and sent South.

Sometimes the slave was the occasion of lawbreaking on the part of the white man. In 1811 two men in the south- west of the county were tried for stealing a wench, but were discharged. In 1859 a resident of the North Fork was jailed for giving a pass to a negro, though not convicted. In the same year another man committed a felony by helping three negroes to get away.

The colonial records of Augusta tell us the age of a slave child was passed upon by the county court and ordered certified in the records. The whereabouts and the doings of the slave were kept under scrutiny, and his liberty of move- ment was very much restricted. If a slave left his master's premises without a pass, any person might bring him before a justice, who at his option might order a whipping; or for every such olfense he might be given ten lashes by the land- owner upon whom he had trespassed. He might not carry a gun except by the permit of a justice. If he gave false testi- mony, each ear might by turn be nailed to the pillory and afterwards cut olf, in addition to his receiving 39 lashes at the whipping post. The law of 1851 forbade the sale of poisons to negroes. For any slave or free negro to * prepare, exhibit, or administer any medicine whatsoever," was a fel- ony punishable by death, unless there were no ill intent or result. He might not give medicine even in his own family without the consent of his master.

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Before 1776 the slave was real estate in the eye of the law. After that date he was regarded as personal property. The person with at least one-iourih of negro blood— and there was a large and increasing number of such— was counted as a mulatto.

Toward the period of the civil war, there were few whip- pings in Pendleton In consequence of the disfavor with which the institution was generally regarded. Ihe non-siavehoider found his chief grievance against slavery to lie in the too great petting which he thought the slave received, and which he found to make him impudent Ihe dates of slave births were recorded in the family Biole, though on the fly- leaves. With the master's consent the slave might be bap- tized. When the estate was settled up, the slaves were divided among the heirs, a single slave being sometimes held in plural ownership. The small amount of slavehoiding thus became much diffused. Perhaps the largest holder m the earher years of the county was Daniel Capuo. On the settUng of his estate in 1828, the 12 slaves were sold at auction lor $2511.50.

The capitation tax on a slave was 44 cents in 1800, and $1.20 in 18b0.

Sometimes the freeing of a slave at a certain age is men- tioned in a will. Thus Nicholas Harper provides that his slave Lydia be set free when she is '60, if she behave herself, and that her child Polly be free at the age of 21. Some- times there is a proviso that a slave be freed at a certain age, "should the law permit." More emancipating would have been done, but for the embarrassing status of the freed negro. So long as slavery remained in force it was not de- sirable that such persons be numerous. They continued in a certain degree to be the wards of their former owners who were thus in a measure responsible for their conduct. If the negro were under 21, or over 45, or of unsound mind, he was supported by the estate of the former owner. The constitu- tion of 1851 required the registering of the freedmen every five years. In the registry were mentioned age, color, and identifying marks. A copy of the paper was given to the freedman. A county court might then grant him permission to Hve within its jurisdiction during good behavior. Some- times the application was refused. Such a refusal was put up against Elizabeth Dice in 1850. In 1845 the petition of the negro Randall was overruled, but two years later it was ac- cepted. The freedman might not carry a gun without a li- cense, and if he worked in another county, his certificate had to be registered there. He could not himself hold slaves ex- cept by descent. If over 21 and a male, or under 18 and a

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female, there was permission to choose a master. Removal from the state forfeited a certificate, and the free negro of another state was forbidden entrance into Virginia.

The behavior of a negro, whether slave or tree, was nat- urally the measure of the tolerant feeling extended toward him. It is said of a free negro named Hayes, who in the early years of the last century lived on a mountain northeast of Ruddle, that his boys and girls were by general consent allowed to attend the same school with the white children.

The war of 1861 overthrew the institution which Henry A. Wise denounced as "a blight on the economic development of the South, that repressed inventive talent, paralyzed Saxon energy, and left hidden the South's commercial re- sources.*' The slaves and freedmen of 1860 were to be found in most neighborhoods of the county. Soon after the close of the war they had mostly disappeared. In the valleys of the South Fork and the North Fork there are now none at all, with perhaps a solitary exception in Circleville district. The con- tinuance of a desire for black labor on the part of some of the residents of the county seat led to the rise of a settlement of colored people a mile south of Franklin. The settlement is known locally as "Africa." It contains about 70 persons, a number of whom are immigrants from other counties. The only other group of colored people is composed of a few fam- iUes on the west side of the Blackthorn valley, and is known as Moatstown. These people were never slaves. The negro element in Pendleton, especially that of Moatstown, shows a large admixture of white blood.

CHAPTER XIV Period of the Interstate War

The purpose of the present chapter is to tell the story of Pendieion during the great upheaval of 1861. It will deal no more wuh events happening outside the county than seems necessary to the intelligent underbtanding of events happen- ing within.

Having its commercial outlet toward the Valley of Vir- ginia, this county was in social and political touch with that region. During the controversy over the expediency of se- cession, the Valley was in strong sympathy with the Eastern district of the state, and quite as a matter of course, the pre- vailing attitude of the Pendleton people was the same as that of the Valley.

The secession issue reached an acute stage when a conven- tion of the Virginia people met at Richmond in February of 1861. April 17 it adopted an ordinance of secession, by a vote of 88 to 55, the counties beyond the Alleghanies gen- erally opposing the mtasure. The delegate from Pendleton was Henry H. Masters, who voted with the majority and in doing so he reflected the views of a large majority of his own people. It was only after nine weeks of debate that the con- vention came to the point where it was willing to pass the ordinance. That which quickly turned the scale in favor of secession was the call of President Lincoln for troops to put down the revolution in the cotton states. This meant coer- cion, which the prevaihng political thought of Virginia held to be inconsistent with the nature of the Federal bond. In the popular vote held May 22, the 48 counties now forming West Virginia repudiated the ordinance by an overwhelming ma- jority, but not nearly large enough to overcome the heavy affirmative vote in the rest of the state. There seems to be no record as to the number of votes for and against which were thrown in Pendleton county.

The action of the state as a whole led to favorable or unfavor- able action in the various counties. On the 10th of May the fol- lowing resolution was adopted by the county court of Pendle- ton: * 'Whereas, the Constitution of Virginia by the Ordinance of Secession having dissolved all connection between the United States and the State of Virginia, and the said Ordi- nance having been ratified by an overwhelming majority of the voters of the state, and thus exempting all officers of Virginia

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from their obligation to support the said Constitution: Be it therefore resolved by this Court that if any member or members of the Court have any scruples or doubts upon the subject, it is hereby declared to be tneir duty to resign their offices herewith."

All the justices in attendance then came to the clerk's desk and took the oath to support the constitution of the Confede- rate States of America. The justices present and signing were James Boggs, president, bamson Day, John W. Doily, Jacob Dove, William F. Dyer, James A. Harding, Daniel Harold, Solomon Hedrick, Benjamin Hiner, John Kiser, Samuel Putfenbarger, Harry F. Temple, Isaac Teter, Jacob Trumbo, Salisbury Trumbo, and Jesse Waybright.

The same day an order was passed, "Whenever the Colonel, Lieutenant Colonel, and First Major of the Regiment of the count} , or two of them, shall certify to the commissioners that a volunteer company of at least 60 effective men, rank and tile, the larger number of whom belong to said regiment, has been organized by the election of officers, these commissioned by the governor, and that the assistance of the county is neces- sary to uniform and arm such company in whole or part, that the said commissioners shall draw on the Treasurer not over $30 per capita. " Each captain and one or more sureties were to give bond for the faithful application of the money, the amount to be disbursed among the soldiers not to exceed $6000. The justices were to ascertain within their several districts the wants of the families of soldiers, and to supply these wants, reporting monthly to the commissioners, and their vouchers to be honored to an amount not exceeding $500.

In accordance with this order a bond issue of $6500 was voted, the bonds not to be sold at less than their par value, and to be in sums of $25 redeemable in six yearly instal- ments. The commissioners to attend to this sale of bonds were Jacob F. Johnson, William McCoy, and Samuel John- son. The moneys raised were to be deposited with Henry H. Masters for the benefit of the county.

The order for the disposition of the fund reads as follows: "For the purpose of taking into consideration and making an allowance for the relief of the Volunteer Company of this county, and for all others that may be called into service from the county.*'

The body of troops thus raised and equipped was given the name of the Franklin Guards. It numbered 140 men, rank and file. They were the pick of the county, and are spoken of as a remarkably fine body of soldiers. The Guards were at- tached to the 25th Regiment, but a number captured at Rich

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Mountain and paroled were taken into the 62d upon their exchange early in 1862.

The beginning of hostilities was not entirely abrupt. The mails were carried between Franklin and Petersburg until after Federal and Confederate had elsewhere come into armed collision.

Daring 1861 the actual shock of war was not felt within the limits of Pendleton. Volunteers numerously enlisted to serve in the Confederate army, yet aside from the with- drawing of labor from the farms, the industries and the government of the county proceeded in much the same paths as usual. A portion of Garnett's army, in its long and roundabout retreat from Beverly marched up the North Fork, but was not pursued, nor did any Federal force seek to enter the county from the north, the direction most open to inva- sion. There had, as we have seen, been an old road from the valley of the Seneca into that of the Cheat, but it was rough, it led through a very rugged and thinly peopled re- gion, and was therefore not suited to the movement of a strong force. But a little south of the county line lay the Staunton and Parkersburg turnpike, a well-constructed and very important thoroughfare. After the failure of the Con- federate operations in the Greenbrier valley. General Edward Johnson of Georgia was posted on the summit of the Alle- ghanies to defend this route against attack from the west.

Here was established Camp Alleghany, 9 miles from the Crabbottom. In Johnson's force were some Georgia troops, who keenly felt the severe winter weather of this mountain height. An attack was made on this position by Milroy, commanding a Federal force in the Greenbrier valley. Be- fore daybreak on December 12th, two columns each of 900 men, moved upon the Confederate camp. They failed to strike in unison, and were repulsed in detail by the 1400 de- fenders, each side losing about 140 men. For his success Johnson was given a vote of thanks by the Confederate Con- gress. He then strengthened his position and held it till the following April.

As the year 1861 drew toward its close, it brought out with increasing clearness a division of sentiment within Pen- dleton county. The county was disrupted as well as the state. There was an element squarely opposed to a new and peremptory call for Confederate recruits. It was found in neighborhoods in all three of the valleys, but was most pro- nounced in the districts of Union and Mill Run, especially the former. The situation was much the same as around Camp Al- leghany, where Johnson reported much Union sentiment, but also a disinclination to take up arms for either side. The re-

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sistance to Confederate enlistment on the part of these Pendle- ton people led them to organize un'ier the West Virginia government into companies known officially as Home Guards, and in common usage as Swamp Dragons, or Swamps. These men were not enlisted Federal soldiers, though in effect they were Federal auxiliaries.

The general war between North and South was not prop- erly a civil war at all, although it is usually so termed. But the local hostilities which laged in Pendleton as in other counties along the border line were in the nature of true civil war with its unhappy result of a deep and lingering ill-feehng. It was war in a more terrible sense than in the case of coun- ties lying at a distance from the zone of fighting. Families as well as neighborhoods were divided, and the weakness of the civil power loosened the usual respect for law. Broad room was given for the display of private grudges and of personal cupidity. The families of the two factions continued to dwell side by side, and neighborly regard was not always sup- pressed by the division of sympathy. Yet there was an ex- treme tension, and in the inflammable state of the social at- mosphere this led quite inevitably to bushwhacking and to burning and pillage. With neighbor against neighbor, and with a paralysis of trade and industry, destitution hitherto un- known, began to appear in these valleys. The bullet from the rifle of a former neighbor was an almost constant peril, and as a place to sleep the screen of the brush was sometimes safer than the house.

In these pages there is no attempt to enumerate the de- tails of the guerrilla war in Pendleton. No good purpose could be served in doing so.

The government of Virginia, as it stood at the pa'^sing of the ordinance of secession, continued in force until the close of hostilities. But as the state was divided within itself, and as the views of the opposing sides were irreconcilable, the Union counties set up what became known as the Reorganized Government of Virginia, with its capital at Alexandria. Neither state government recognized the legitimacy of the other, and the line between their spheres of influence was defined by Federal and Confederate bayonets. The western counties now saw their chance to obtain statehood, and they pressed their claim with great vigor. The Reorganized Gov- ernment was entirely friendly to this purpose, because it rep- resented only 7 counties aside from the 48 of West Virginia. As a result of two conventions at Wheeling in May and June, the Reorganized Government passed a division ordinance, which was submitted to the people October 24, 1861, and carried by a vote of 18,408 to 781. A convention to frame a

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constitution met one month later, and the document it drew up was ratiried April 3, 1862.

The boundary fixed by the division ordinance included Pendleton in the new state. Yet Pendleton remained within the Confederate lines, and a majority of its people adhered to the Richmond government. It was not represented in either of the Wheeling conventions, but in the constitutional convention John L. Boggs sat as a delegate for the Union ele- ment. The inclusion of Pendleton in the new state was a war measure, and was never submitted to a vote of the people. Even the vote on the constitution of 1862, repre- sented only about two-fifths of the whole voting population belonging to the western counties. . In 1862 the county court of Pendleton levied an appropria-

l tion of $300 for the benefit of the militia, and app< inted one

^ member from each district to apportion the fund, equally

among the districts, and among the families, of those needing aid. The members of the committee were John E. Wilson, John Kiser, Salisbury Trumbo, Andrew W. Dyer, John W. Dolly, and Isaac Teter. The attention of the court was also called to an "inundation of spurious currency, which will soon depreciate and the poorer class will lose thereby." It decided that "the issue and circulation of county treas- ury notes will banish same and give a safer currency, and also enable the commissioners to realize a large amount of money upon the credit of our county." It further decided that the county bonds should be hereafter issued in denom- inations of $25. $20, $i5, and $10, as occasion might require. Bonds of smaller values and also fractional currency were to be redeemable in these larger bonds.

In the soring of the same year Pendleton came within the theater of war in earnest. The first collision within its bor- ders of Federal and Confederate troops seems to have taken place at Kiverton on the opening day of March. Lieuten- ant Weaver with 40 men of the Eighth Ohio advanced from Seneca, and had a skirmish in the Riverton gap with a Con- federate force composed of "Dixie Boys," a band of Pen- dleton infantry, and a troop of Rockbridge cavalry. The position of this force in the narrow defile was very strong. It was expected that the Dixie Boys from behind the cover of the rocks would repulse or at least check the Federals, and that the cavalry would then charge down upon them. Yet the cavalry retired without putting up any fight at all, and it is claimed that it made no pause until it reached Franklin. The infantry squad had to fall back, losing two of its number killed and several prisoners. Bland and Pow>

era, the two men killed, had lived in the near neighborhood. Weaver did not attempt to get far into Germany. He re- tired to the mouth of the Seneca, and camped there that night.

On the 18th of March the force under Johnson, counting the present and absent, was about 4000 men. He had five regiments of Virginians and one of Georgians. There were three batteries with 12 guns. The bulk of this force lay at Camp Alleghany, but there were outlying commands at Huntersville, Monterey, and Crabbottom. Of the several bodies of cavalry, one of 40 men was posted at Franklin. In the opening week of April the Federal activity in the direc- tion of Keyser induced Johnson to evacuate his mountain stronghold, and fall back behind the Shenandoah Mountain, his advance reaching West View, only seven miles from Staunton. This retrograde movement created somewhat of a panic at that place.

Milroy now crossed the Alleghanies, reaching Monterey about April 9th, after a march in bad weather. A number of refugees joined his column, in consequence of a call for new recruits for the Confederate army. May 1st he was at Mc- Dowell. A strong force under Fremont was advancing from Keyser to the support of Milroy. Schenck with the advance of this army marched rapidly up the South Branch and joined Milroy on the 8th. Fremont with the rest of the column reached Petersburg on the afternoon of the 7th.

Meanwhile Stonewall Jackson was executing one of his swift movements. He left Ewellat Swift Run Gap, marched a large force to Mechum's River, and conveyed it by rail to Staunton. He was there joined by his trains and artillery. On the 5th he advanced to the aid of Johnson, who had faced about, driving Milroy's advance parties from Shenandoah Mountain on the 6th. Two days later he occupied the long Sitlington Hill, two miles east of McDowell. Here was fought in the closing hours of daylight the action known as the battle of McDowell.

It is claimed that it was not Jackson's purpose to bring on a battle, if, without fierhting, he could push back the Federal force from its threatening position on the flank of the Shen- andoah Valley. The engagement was fousrht on the Confed- erate side under the immediate command of Johnson, who was desirous of coming to blows. His opponent. Milroy, was more brave and pugnacious than skillful. Schenck did not think the Confederate position on the crest of the steep hill could be taken, but as Milroy had prepared to fight he left the matter with him. From his position on a ridge toward the Bullpasture river, Milroy shelled the opposing heigh t» a

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compliment to which Johnson was unable to reply, his artil- lery not having come up. After skirmishing as well as shell- ing, Milroy advanced to the attack at five o'clock. The fighting was close and bloody and continued four hours. At times the Federals almost gained the crest. But the posi- tion was too strong and too well defended to be taken and the Federals were driven back. During the night they buried their dead and fell back on McDowell. Jackson had arrived on the ground, and his artillery was in rosition for a renewal of the fight at daybreak. The cadets of the Virgi nia Military Institute were with the reenforcing column, but ar- rived too late for the battle and the only injury they sus- tained was the ruin of their fine clothes.

The Confederate force engaged at McDowell is said to have been about 6000 strong. The Federal force was prob- ably somewhat larger. Despite the advantage of position the Southern loss appears to have been the heavier. The victory cost 499 men. Among the wounded was Johnson himself, and among the dead were a number of Pendleton soldiers.

Schenck, in command of the Federals, retreated by way of Straight Creek and the South Branch, arriving at Camp Mil- roy, two miles south of Franklin on the morning of the 10th. Here he camped with two brigades, waiting to be joined by Blenker, who reached Franklin the next day, but with his men too fatigued to move farther. This fo? ce had been on the road since three o'clock in the morning. Schenck thought Jackson would move on Philippi. But with his usual vigor, that general marched in direct pursuit of Schenck, moving down the valley as far as McCoy's mill. Schenck fell back on Franklin, posting himself on the ridge above the town. There was skirmishing all day, but with trifling loss to either side.

Leaving a small force to keep up a noisy demonstration on the Federal front, Jackson made a rapid return to the Shen- andoah Valley, where he soon again confronted the Federals at Port Republic. On the 12th, Schenck was doubting whether the whole of Jackson's army was before him. He suspected an attempt to turn his right flank, and was all the more of this opinion when scouts told him they heard the rumbling of wheels. A few days passed, Fremont in com- mand of the whole Federal army was not molested, and then came the tidings that Jackron was again in the Shenanr^oah. Being ordered in the same direction, Fremont marched do^vn the South Branch to Mdorefield, and thence across the moun- tains to Strasburg.

While the Federal army was in camp around the county

PCHJ

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seat, the townspeople were treated with a reasonable degree of consideration, except in certain commands, where the offi- cers did not have a firm control over their soldiers. There was a scarcity of provisions and forage to supply a host per- haps equal to the whole population of the valley. The grist- mills near by were pressed into service to grind what grain could be had, and the brick tannery of John McClure was torn down to make bake-ovens for the camp. The county was never ag-airi visited by a numerous force, whether Fed- eral or Confederate.

In the third year of the war the loss of its foreign com- merce through the rigorous blockade of the seaports was al- ready causing great hardship throughout the South. The legislature appropriated $32,000 to provide a supply of salt. A levy of 200 bushels a month for 12 months was made upon the salt-works of the state. Benjamin Hiner wa<? appointed agent for Pendleton, and Jacob Dove and E. W. Boggs were made salt distributors. Persons of little or no property were to receive not over 30 per cent of a share. The ratio was to rise with people better situated, until it reached 75 per cent. The surplus was to go to people of still more property. The standard allowance was 12 pounds to each familv and 2 pounds to each horse. The distributors were required to take the oath or affidavit of any applicant as to his loyalty, the number of persons in his family, and the number of his stock. The county court appropriated $300 for the purchase of salt, and later a levy of $3000 was made for this purpose. At the close of the year the county agent was authorized to borrow $3400 for the purchase of salt, the loan to be replaced when the salt was sold.

David C. Anderson was appointed to visit the Southern mills and buy cotton yarn and cloths for the needs of the people. For the aid of the destitute $300 was voted at the levy term, and the capitation tax was raised by one dollar to relieve the poor. In December, Edward J. Coatney was ap- pointed bv Act of Assembly to attend to the wants of the destitute families of soldiers. At the last term of the year the masfistrates were instructed to report at the following term the number and names of indigents. They brought in the name'' of 53 families, and on their behalf Coatney was authorized to borrow on the credit of the county a sum of not more than $2000.

At the opening of 1864 the county court adjourned to the Vint schoolhouse and then to a private house. Only three members were present. Another session was to meet at the same schoolhouse. "providing the presence of the public enemy prevents its meeting at the courthouse.*' Owing to

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the insecurity of the Frankh'n jail, use was now made of the one at Staunton. In October the jail was burned by the Home Guards, so that it might not hold any more of their number taken captive.

In 1864 the stagnation of industry and commerce had made the distress of the South very severe. Prices were soaring skyward. In the summer wheat was worfh $30 a bushel at Staunton and a lady's dress cost $400. The number of the destitute in Pendleton continued to grow. At the May term Coatney was ordered for the relief of indigents to impress an amount of grain and meat to the value of not over $5000 at any one time. His bond was placed at $10,000. In June it was ordered that the outstanding notes in the hands of Benjamin Hiner be collected, signed by the county clerk in Hiner's name, and placed with Coatney for the benefit of the indigents. An additional amount was to be borrowed to make a total of not more than $10. COO.

John E Wilson, appointed agent by the legislature, was authorizf»d to borrow on the credit of the county a sum not to exceed $5000 at any one time, and with such fund to purchase and distribute cotton, cotton yarns, cotton cloths, and hand cards. Receiving families were classified in five grades. Wilson was also bonded in the sum of $10,000, and was al- lowed $5 a day for his services.

The county levy, now in the depreciated Confederate cur- rency, was placed at $5203.50. A tax of two percent on land was ordered collected, according to the assessment of 1860; also a tax of one dollar on each $300 of personal property, according to the assessment of the current year.

There were several raids into the county this year. During the first week of March 400 men of the 12th New York Cavalry under Lieutenant Colonel Root destroyed the salt- peter works above Franklin, and proceeded to Circleville, but without meeting an enemy. In May the county seat being threatened the court adjourned to the Kiser schoolhouse. On the 18th of August, the 8th West Virginia moved up the North Fork and a battalion up the South Fork. The next day Averill moved nearly to Franklin with the 3d West Vir- ginia, the 14th Pennsylvania, and Ewing's battery. His ob- ject was to finish the destruction of the saltpeter works.

February 9, 1865, the sheriff was "notified to have the courthouse windows returned and replaced, the house cleaned, and if Imboden's wagon train be not removed from the court- house yard, it will be moved by him. Soldiers who will pledge their honor that they will not in anv way deface the property belonging to the courthouse will be allowed the privileges heretofore granted them."

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April 6th a settlement with the sheriff was reported. It was the last session of the county court under the laws of Virginia. As the war proceeded the terms had grown in- frequent, and in the territory controled by the Home Guards the county government was little heeded. Three days later came the surrender at Appomattox. Fighting now ceased, and Pendleton emerged from the cyclone of war as one of the counties of West Virginia.

The earnestness and the sacrificing spirit of the Pendleton people in these four years of trial may be read in the very large number of soldiers it sent into the Confederate army, even allowing for that share of its people who joined the Home Guard movement. There were few men and grown boys who did not choose one side or the other. Boys too young at the outset of the war were enrolled at its close in the Frank- lin Reserves, although the old soldiers with their rough and ready wit dubbed them by a rather coarse epithet. The gray- bearded reserves were known by them as the "groundhog battery." Men detailed for labor in the saltpeter caverns were known as the "peter-monkeys. "

In general the Pendletonian was true to the convictions formed during the spring of 1861. yet there was an occasional instance where the individual abandoned the first choice and transferred his allegiance to the other side.

CHAPTER XV Recent Period

No state suffered more severely from the effects of the four years war than the Old Dominion. The share of this county in the general devastation was probably not below the aver- age. The returning soldiers came back to farms that bore deep traces of long neglect, and to homes that had been plun- dered from garret to cellar. The number of domestic animals had become small, and it was no easy matter to find enough wearing apparel to serve for everyday needs. There was little n*.oney in circulation and little to sell. The only money of purchasing power was the slender amount of specie that had come through the war and the paper currency of the vic- torious North. Added to these results and to the disorganiz- ation of civil authority, the fortune of war had detached the county from Virginia, and had included it with no expression of its own opinion in the new state of West Virginia. It was necessary to learn wherein the administration of the new state differed from that of the old.

In one respect the county had an advantage over most Southern communities. There had been very few slaves. The people were accustomed to helping themselves. In the labor situation there was consequently no material change. The ex-soldiers went manfully to work to repair the damages of war and to get back as soon as possible to something like their material condition at the outset of the struggle. That they succeeded may be read in the books of the assessor for 1860 and 1868. The taxable value of the real estate and buildings of the county rose from $1,064,994 to $1,187,987.

By becoming a part of West Virginia Pendleton was spared the direct exp)erience of going through the reconstruction un- dergone by the seceding states. Yet for six years there was a transition period of somewhat similar tendency so far as the ex-Confederate minority was concerned. Those who had borne arms against the Federal government were de- barred the full exercise of their privileges of citizenship. To see the right to vote and hold office withheld from them- selves, and the affairs of the county conducted by that minor- ity of the people who had espoused the Home Guard move- ment was very irritating, even to the one who was ready and willing to accept the results of the war.

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This was not all. The constitution of 1862 was the work of an actual minority of the people whom the close of hos- tilities found living in West Virginia. In forming and organ- izing the new state the influence of the Northern Panhandle had been exceedingly powerful. But this tongue of land, though wealthy and populous, contains only two per cent of the area of the state. As a portion, first of Virginia and then of West Virginia, the Panhandle has been a geographic absurdity. It serves to show how little respect geographic law has for arbitrary lines. The Panhandle is naturally a part of either Pennsylvania or Ohio, and to this day its people do not take their political connection with West Vir- ginia seriously. In the interest of preserving its unity, Vir- ginia would have done well to cede it to either of those states.

Baing in accord with the Ohio people except in the fact of political connection, the Panhandle influence followed the Ohio model in framing a new constitution and new laws. But to a decided majority of the West Virginia people many of the changes were a broader departure than they were ready to take at a single step. These points of difference were alien to their modes of thought and* consequently displeasing. One of the changes in county government was that of sup- planting the County Clerk with a Recorder and the County Court with a Board of Supervisors.

Soon after the close of the war, William H. H. Flick, an Ohioan by birth and a Federal soldier, settled at Franklin as a lawyer and was chosen to the state legislature. Though standing for men, principles, and political opinions that most of the people he had come among had opposed. Flick was of liberal views. He saw the plain injustice in withholding in- definitely from a large class of West Virginia people the full rights of citizenship. The general result of the war being settled beyond cavil, these disabilities stood in the way of a restoration of good feeling. The state was being ruled by a class and not by its citizens as a whole. It had need of the experience and the cooperation of those it was discriminat- ing against.

While in the legislature Flick introduced and secured the pas-jage of a measure known to history as the "Flick amend- ment," whereby the disabilities of the ex-Confederates were removed. This act of justice endeared him to the Pendle- tonians. His erstwhile foes named their sons for him, and they scratched the ticket of their preference in order to support him with their votes.

A prompt effect of the amendment was a political revolu- tion in the state. A majority of the previous voters had supported the Republican party, and that organization had

U9

thus far controled the state. The names restored to the polling list were almost exclusively Democratic. The Repub- lican party at once went out of power, and for 22 years the dominance of its rival was unshaken. Another result was the constitution of 1872. In this instrument the innovations of the war constitution were largely thrown aside, and the old names and usages were restored. In their haste to get rid of the things they disliked, the framers no doubt re- jected some features which were intrinsically better than the older ones they put back. They threw aside a constitutional garment really good, but to themselves ill-fitting. They put on a constitutional garment more comfortable to wear.

If the new constitution and the new state administration seemed reactionary, it was none the less a proof that the normal method of progress is by steps and not by leaps. If the unfamiliar names and terms of the discarded constitution were put away with scant ceremony, it was because of their unpleasant associations during the half dozen years that ihe disfranchised citizens were chafing under the illiberal re- strictions imposed upon them.

The political revolution presented the apparently singular spectacle of the state becoming an asset for more than 20 years of the "solid South." The ex-Confederate element came into control of the Democratic party of the state, and thus gave to West Virginia its political complexion. Yet the West Virginia of 1872 was simply the sort of state it would have been had it peacefully separated from the parent state prior to 1860. As a whole it was another Kentucky, not an- other Pennsylvania or Ohio. It had been an artificial rather than a natural process which had created West Virginia in 1861-3, and given it the administration of its first ten years of independent statehood. The new commonwealth had now the laws and administration which reflected the prevailing sentiment of its people, and the counties which were arbi- trarily incorporated with West Virginia were now in a fair way to become much better reconciled to their new alle- giance. The political revolution of 1872 did rot and could not check the steadily growing economic revolution, which through the peaceful processes of time changed the industrial character of the state and brought back the Republican party.

As a result of the new constitution, Pendleton reorganized its county court, this event taking place February 25, 1873. But though the old names were restored, the spirit of the old order of things was forever gone. A new day had arrived. A person is forcibly reminded of this fact in comparing the county record books of before 1865 and after. Until the date mentioned the books of a Virginia courthouse follow a time*

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honored model that reaches back into the colonial days. There is but slight change from one decade to the next. But since that date a new model has come into view. The new books do not look like the old ones. They are not kept like the latter and therefore do not read like them. For a while the phrase "gentlemen justices" is still used, but is felt to be hopelessly out of date, and soon is quietly dropped. What is true as between the old and the new county records is true of things American in general. It is a very superficial idea which sees in the war of 1861 nothing more than the forcible settling of a political dispute. That event was a deep-seated upheaval, leaving nothing untouched in American society, whether North or South.

The first county court under the reorganization gave the districts of Pendleton county the names they now bear. Previously they had been designated by number. The June term of court was made the fiscal term, and the December term was made the police term. The salaries of sheriff, county clerk, circuit clerk, prosecuting attorney, and jailer were placed resoectively at $175, $200, $135, $240, and $40. The next year 25 road precincts were announced.

War is always accompanied by a weakening of the re- straints of morality, integrity, and social order. The ill- feeling between the two factions of the Pendleton people during the great war had made the county a scene of disorder and violence. It was happily not followed by any murders after the return of peace, yet the resentments called into being could not at once utterly subside. The effects of the four years of civil turmoil were now apparent in an increase in the number of instances of assault and illegitimacy.

Pendleton is one of the three counties of the state which do not limit themselves to a board of three commissioners. Since January 1, 1903. there has been a commissi* ner from each district, thus giving to purely local interests a better recognition.

The jail burned in 1864 was replaced by another, and this in turn was destroyed by fire in 1905. The present building is of modern architecture. In 1882 a levy of $1000 a year for six year s was ordered, so as to provide a fund for a new courthouse In 1889 the contract for the present structure was awarded to John A. Crigler for $7900.

In 1873 the air began to be filled with rumors of approach- ing railroads, none of which have as yet been definitely re- alized. In October of the year named there was a proposal to vote $50 000 to the "Shenandoah Valley and Ohio Rail- road," the bonds to be in amounts of $50 and upward, to run 24 years, and not to be sold for less than their par value.

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The conditions were imposed that the road must be under actual contract from Franklin to the terminus in the Shen- andoah Valley, and that no part of the subscription should be spent outside of the county. D. G. McClung, J. E. Penny- backer, and J. D. Johnson were appointed agents for the sub- scription, but the financial panic of the same year gave the projected road an effectual quietus.

The next railroad project to take serious form was the "Chesapeake and Western." April 20th, 1895, a vote was ordered as to whether *'the county shall issue the bonds of Pendleton county to the amount of $32,000, to be subscribed to the capital stock of any responsible and reliable company that builds a railroad through this county along the South Branch valley from and connecting with some general line of railroad passing or to the county seat, and also secure to such company the right of way for such railroad through the county." Franklin and Mill Run districts were each to pay one-fourth of the issue, and each of the other districts one- eighth, the bonds having a maximum and minimum life of 2 and 15 years. But the order was rescinded, and June 1st made the election day on the following apportionment of $40,000: the county at large, $20,000; Franklin, $11,000; Mill Run, $8,000; Bethel, $1,000. Still another election was or- dered for December 7th of the same year for $50,000, the projected road to run by way of the South Fork, Franklin, Smith Creek, and Circleville.

Another paper railroad appeared four years later. A vote was ordered for September 16th on a levy of not more than $26,000 to pay for the right of way of the "Seaboard and Great Western" from Skidmore's Fork in Rockingham to the line of Grant county. This order in turn was re- scinded, and a vote ordered 14 days later, enabling the dis- tricts of Sugar Grove, Franklin, Mill Run, and Bethel to vote a subscription to pay the damages on a width of 100 feet in the right of way.

Still another project was the "C. and I." railroad in 1902, in behalf of which an election was called for the third of May, the bonding of Bethel district to be $5000, and that of Franklin $15,000.

The county has thus far escaped the unenviable fate of having to pay bonds on a fraudulent project. But the only appearance of railroad construction within its borders is found in about 50 yards of grading a mile south of Franklin. The embankment is in good order, and nothing stands in the way of its bf»ing a portion of a trade route except a certain num- ber of miles of grade above and below, with ties, rails, rolling stock, and various other accessories and conditions.

CHAPTER XVI Church, School, and Professional History

Early colonial Virginia was not a land of religious freedom. The Church of England was supported by the taxation of all the people. As to other sects their houses of worship were limited in number, and these had to be licensed and registered. Their preachers had to take various oaths and could not cele- brate marriages. The clergyman of the established church attended mainly to cultivating his glebe, or parsonage farm. Sometimes he was coarse and rough, intemperate, profligate, and a gambler. In fact the eighteenth century was one of religious lethargy, and was characterized by drunkenness, profanity, and a general coarseness of speech and conduct.

But while this was still true of the east of Virginia at the time the settlement of Pendleton began, the established church never gained a real foothold west of the Blue Ridge. The Scotch-Irish settlers of the western section were solidly Presbyterian, and they were assured by Governor Gooch that they would not be molested in their religious preference. The German settlers adhered mainly to the Lutheran and German Reformed churches, and they were treated with a similar tolerance. The new counties west of the mountains had at first their vestries and church wardens, the same as other counties, and through this mechanism the church exer- cised certain functions in civil government. But west of the mountains the vestrymen were not Episcopalian, because there were scarcely any people of that belief to be found. Good and true men believed the highest interests of the state required the support of the church by the state and compul- sory attendance on public worship. But as the period of the Revolution approached, the opinion grew strong that the long continued experiment of trying to make people religious by statute law had proved an utter failure. Accordingly Vir- ginia adopted December 16, 1785, the following declaration : "Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or bur- thens, or by civil incapacitations tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion : No man shall be com- pelled to frequent or support any religious worship, nor en- forced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or

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goods, nor otherwise suffer on account of his religious opin- ions or belief."

Not until 1785, therefore, was religion free in Virginia. Pendleton being made a county almost precisely two years later, never had a vestry or any church wardens.

The Scotch-Irish, as we have seen, were Presbyterian. This class of settlers was particularly strong on the South Branch. But being restless and venturesome, many of them passed on to newer locations, and thus caused a relative de- cline in their number. The oldest of their churches is that of Upper Tract. There was with little doubt an organiza- tion here prior to 1797, but we have no definite knowledge of it. In that year Isaac Westfall deeded one acre to the joint use of the Lutherans and Presbyterians. There was already on this lot a newly built church. It stood on the east side of the river. A little prior to 1860 the congregation built for its exclusive use a new church in Upper Tract village. About 1880 a church was built at Franklin, and there is a third one near Ruddle.

The large German element was chiefly of the Lutheran and German Reformed churches. The latter faith gradually ois- appeared by merging with the former. The earliest organiz- ation of which we have any record is that of the Propst church, two miles above Brandywine. It was founded in 1769, and is the earliest church in the county of which we have any record. The Lutheran faith has maintained a strong foothold wherever the German element is strongest and most tenacious in holding to ancient customs. We there- fore find the Lutheran churches chiefly in the upper parts of the South Fork and South Branch valleys. In the North Fork valley, partly owing to the division of sentiment during the civil war, it has proved less tenacious, and one of its churches was then burned. The best known of its ministers was the Reverend George Schmucker, who came in 1841 and preached for forty years. His territory was forty-five miles long, reaching into Hardy and Highland. Many of his congrega- tions grew very large, but the civil war almost paralyzed his work. His marriage fee was one dollar if the couple came to him, two dollars if he went to them. It was taken sometimes in maple sugar, grain, and "suits." At a wedding in the Smoke Hole he lost his way and arrived after the supper had been eaten. The discouraged groom had concluded to call the wedding off, but was led to reconsider. People came to him for temporal as well as spiritual advice. He sometimes united the children and even the grandchildren of the earlier weddings.

The United Brethren, Church of the Brethren, and Men-

m

nonite sects are all of German ori^n, and their adherents are very largely of the German element, though not to the same degree as in the case of the Lutherans. The first and second have a strong membership.

The first Methodist society in America was organized at Frederick, Maryland, in 1763, but during the Revolutionary days the Methodist preachers, generally English-bom, were under suspicion as to their loyalty. In consequence the church had but slight foot-hold on American soil until 1788. After that time its success became very phenomenal. Its earnestness and its itinerant system were admirably adapted to the newer parts of the country, and west of the Blue Ridge its gains were particularly large. That Methodism is so strong in Pendleton comes almost as a matter of course. The first Methodist sermon in this county is said to have been the one preached by the Reverend Ferdinand Lair on the farm of L. C. Davis near Brandywine. He spoke in the open air, resting his Bible on the limb of a sycamore. The spot is about a mile from Brandywine and on the right of the road leading to Oak Flat. One of the unhappy results of the dis- pute over slavery was the rending of the Methodist as well as other Protestant churches. Yet the Baltimore conference, of whose territory Pendleton was a part, remained united until 1866. Since that year there have been represented within the county both the great divisions of the parent church; the Methodist Episcopal and the Methodist Episco- pal South.

At an early day there were adherents of the Baptist faith in Pendleton, and in 1795 we find mention of the Reverend George Guthrie, a Baptist preacher in the south of the county. This church, usually very strong throughout the United States, has no organization here.

The Disciples Church, originating in West Virginia and becoming a strong and aggressive denomination, has two societies.

A few adherents of the Latter Day Saints have showed their own earnestness by building a chapel on Smith Creek.

The absence of the Catholic Church, now so strong in America, is significant of the absence of the foreign im- migration of the last sixty years.

In i860 there were fifteen church buildings in Pendleton. Of these four were Lutheran, four were MethoHist, two were United Brethren and one was Presbyterian. The other four were union churches. The seating capacity of the fifteen was 1450 and the average value was $540.

For perhaps thirty years after the settlement of Pendle- ton, we have no positive knowledge of any schools within the

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county. It is doubtful if there was anywhere a building used specially as a schoolhouse, though it is far less probable that there was an entire neglect of school training. Teaching in those days was considered a private not a public matter, and to a large extent it was an adjunct to the ministerial office. We may safely conclude, therefore, that among the German settlers the ministerial head of the Propst church gave in- struction through the medium of the German tongue. Other- wise, and among German-speaking as well as English-speak- ing settlers, the only education was doubtless by private tutoring or by such heads of families as were competent to teach the rudiments to their own children.

In those days and for years afterward the amount of illit- eracy was very great, and the women were more illiterate than the men. Some of the more prominent settlers could sign their names only by means of a mark. Oftentimes both husband and wife had to make use of this expedient in sign- ing a deed or a marriage bond. Sometimes an initial letter was used instead of the simple cross. Thus Francis Evick uses an E, or F. E. Sebastian Hoover uses a B as an initial for "Bastian," or "Boston." Positive illiteracy was prob- ably least rare among the Germans. Usually the German settler signed his name in German script, but once in a while he used a mark in signing a paper written in English.

But even with a general abilitv to read and write, there was very little to read, and the high postage and infre- quent mails were not favorable to correspondence. Books were very few, and these few were mostly of a religious na- ture. No newspapers were published nearer than the sea- coast cities, and before the Revolution it was no doubt al- most a curiosity to see a copy in these Pendleton valleys. In 1796 the nearest college was Washington, just established at Lexington. As for reading and instruction in the Ger- man tongue, the nearest press was the one set up at New Market by Ambrose Henkle, in 1806, and the first school of high grade was the New Market School, founded in 1823.

So far as known the first schoolhouse in Pendleton stood on the farm of Robert Davis. It was in existence shortly after the close of the Revolutionary fighting in 1781. A second schoolhouse on the same farm was nearly rotted down in 1845. In 1791 there was a schoolhouse on the farm of An- drew Johnson on the east side of North Fork. The oldest one in Franklin district stood near the home of George W. Harper above Cave postoffice. The second oldest in the same district stood northwest of the home of Henry Simmons.

The first teacher of whom there is any recollection was a forger, who had been sold as a convict to Frederick Keister.

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He taught in the first schoolhouse on the Davis farm, and John Davis and Zebulon Dyer were among his pupils.

A school at that period was purely a matter of neighbor- hood enterprise. The state or the county had nothing to do with it. Instruction was limited to reading, writing, and arithmetic. The rule of three— simple proportion— came before fractions, and it was thought a great accomplishment to master it. Grammar, geography, and history wpre let very much alone. If the pupil came to know something of these topics, it was through his own efforts after leaving school.

The state constitution of 1776 is as silent as a dam on the subject of popular education. There was no official recog- nition of this matter until 1810. A law of 1820 created a "Literary Fund," made up of various fines and penalties and other odds and ends of public monevs Each county was to have a collection agent to serve without salarv. and each county or city was entitled to a board of five to fifteen com- missioners, one of whom was to be a bonded treasurer. This board was to determine how many indigent children it would educate, and what it would pay for this purpose. Each member could select his own indigents, but had to gain the assent of parent or guardian. This secured, the pupil had to attend, or the parent could be charged the tuition for absent days. Books and other necessaries were furnished but only the three R's were taught. Under this law Thomas Jones was director of the Literary Fund for Pendleton and treas- urer of the school committee.

By the law of 1845. a petition of a third of the voters em- powered the county court to submit the question of a system of public schools, a two-thirds vote being necessary to put it in force. Schools under this law were maintained by a uni- form rate of increased taxation. Of the three trustees in each district, two were elected by the voters and one by the board. The trustees were to build the schoolhouse, employ or discharge the teacher, visit the school at least once a month, examine the pupils, and address them if they chose, "exhorting them to prosecute their studies diligently, and to conduct themselves virtuously and properly." A weak fea- ture of this law consisted in leaving such school establish- ment to the option of the several counties.

Under this new law General James Boggs was county superintendent, and continued in office until his death in 1862, when he was succeeded by David C. Anderson. In 1856 General Bogers made the following report : "The com- missioners have established schools in various parts of the county with the aid of the primary school fund, where they

127

could not have been established without it. The school funds are insufficient to educate all the poor of the county, even if competent teachers could be obtained." The report is signed also by William McCoy, Jacob F. Johnson, Benjamin Hiner, Andrew W. Dyer, J. Trumbo, James B. Kee, Cyrus Hopkins, and J. Cowger.

In 1865 Pendleton became in fact a part of West Virginia, which had adopted a stronger public school law. Its system of sub-trustees came in the following year. At that time five grades of certificates were recognized, the applicant being able to secure a one if he could write and had knowledge of his birth-date. In 1873 came the district board of education, and a year later the county board of three examiners. Subse- quent changes have been made in the direction of greater efficiency in superintendence and in teaching, and in the length of term.

The history of fraternities in Pendleton may be briefly given. The social life of the county has remained simple, because of the rural nature of the county and the absence from large industrial centers. The Masonic order had a lodge at Franklin before 1840, and after a long slumber it was re- vived, but is no longer in existence. The Highland Divi- sion of the Sons of Temperance was granted the use of the courthouse in 1848. but went down before the war. After that event there was for about two years a lodge of the Friends of Temperance. The Knownothings, a once famous political society, had a foothold in the county during the 50's, and in much more recent years the Farmers* Alliance was a local power. Beginning with about 1855 a literary society called the "Pioneers" held weekly meetings at the court- house until about 1867. It owned a library of about 250 volumes. These have since been scattered.

Neither is the political history of Pendleton a complex epi- sode. During the administration of Washington the people of America gathered into two opposing schools of political thought. The teachings of Jefferson were taken up with en- thusiasm by the people of what were then the backwoods. His creed was more acceptable to them than the tenets of the Federalists. Agricultural communities, especially those least in touch with economic movements, are slow to yield convic- tions deliberately formed. It is therefore a quite natural re- sult that the supremacy of the Democratic party in Pendle- ton has had very little interruption. The Whig party had, however, quite a following in its day, and now and then elected its nominee, especially in the "landslide" year of 1,840.

The close of the war between the states found the up- holders of the Confederate cause massed in a single party, re-

128

gardless of former differences, while another party, the ex- ponent of the nationalist idea, was in power in the North, and to a certain extent, also, in the Unionist sections of the former slave states. In general these distinctions obtain in this county. Thus in the main, the line of cleavage between the Democratic and the Republican parties coincides with the divisions of sympathy during the years of war. But. as in other counties of the state, the present industrial epoch has shown a tendency to gain on the part of the Republican or- ganization. After the war and until the adoption of the Flick amendment, the Republican party was in control. Since then the Democratic party has been uniformly successful in county elections, and no general primary is held by its oppo- nent. It has local control in all the districts except Union and Mill Run, although its majority in Sugar Grove is small.

Previous to 1860 the bar of the county was represented al- most wholly by attorn*^ys who were not Pendletonians by birth or training. Among them were Samuel Reed in 1788, Thomas Griggs in 1802, William Naylor in 1803, Samuel Harper in 1805, Robert Gray in 1812, George Mays in 1813, Joseph Brown in 1814, and James C. Gamble in 1816. Some of these were doubtless lawyers residing in other counties. Robert Gray was prosecuting attorney in 1817, Nathaniel Pendleton in 1822. and 1. S. Pennybacker in 1831.

A similar remark may be made of the other professions. *

• See Part III.

I

CHAPTER XVII The Town of Franklin

In 1769 Francis and George Evick surveyed 160 acres of land on the left bank of the South Branch. It is on a portion of this tract that Franklin is built. George appears to have lived across the river at the mouth of the Evick gap. The early home of Francis was near a spring that issues from the hillside above the upper street and near the Ruddle tannery.

In June of 1788 the first county court of Pendleton met at the house of Captain Stratton, six miles below the Evicks. One of the duties assigned to it by the legislative act creating the county was to determine a central position for the court- house. Just what motives led to the selection of the Evick farm we do not know. As the southern county line then stooJ, the position was much less near the center than it is now. The Peninger farm near the mouth of the Thorn would more nearly have met the geographical condition. But Francis Evick appears to have been thrifty and business-like, notwithstanding his inability to write his name, at least in English. It is probable that he presented a more attractive proposition to the county court than did anyone else.

The Evicks had been living here about twenty years, yet the neighborhood was thinly peopled. Up the river the nearest neighbors appear to have been Ulrich Conrad and Henry Peninger. Conrad built a mill at the mouth of the Thorn about the time the Evicks came. Down the river near the present iron bridge was James Patterson. A nearer neighbor in the same direction was George Dice. Above Dice along Friend's Run were the Friends, Richardsons, Powers, and Cassells.

Within a few weeks after the action of the county court, Francis Evick laid off a town site along the foot of the ridge above his meadows. Incidentally thereto, but probably a little later, George sold his interest in the tract of 160 acres, and moved to a larger farm on Straight Creek. The date of the transaction is August 16, 1788, and the consideration is 250 pounds ($833.33). The place was for several years called Frankford, apparently an abbreviation of "Frank's ford," as the crossing of the river at the mouth of the Evick gap was known. In the older states it was usual for a town to grow up at haphazard, with little regularity or system in its pas- sage-ways or in the shape of its lots. But the county seat of

PCH9

ISO

Pendleton was laid out with a method that does credit to all who were concerned in the matter. The amount of ground covered by the original survey is 46 1-2 acres, the county according to statute law requiring two acres for its public buildings. Within this original area the streets and alleys are straight and the lots are parallelograms.

The selling of lots and the building of houses began at once. As will presently be shown, Evick did not always yield full possession of the ground. Yet he had some ad- vanced ideas. He seems to have been unwilling to sell lots for merely speculative purposes or to permit a lot to harbor a public nuisance.

Robert Davis, the sheriff, bought a lot on the same day that Francis Evick bought out the interest of George. For the single lot of one-half acre Davis paid 5 pounds ($16.67). The deed stipulates that the purchaser is to build within two years a good dwelling house, at least 16 by 20 feet in size, and with a chimney of brick or stone. There was to be no distillery on the premises. Each New Year's day he was to pay a ground rent of 33 cents in gold or silver at its current value. If no building were put up, tke rent was to be three shillings, or 50 cents.

Samuel Black, a cabinet-maker, was already in the town, but there is no record of his purchase of a lot. He may have occupied the old Evick home, for Francis Evick was already living in a stone dwelling, now a part of the Daugherty Hotel and not in full alignment with the main street. Garvin Hamilton, the county clerk, was also prompt to locate in the new town. He lived on the Anderson lot in front of the courthouse, and the first term of court at the county seat was held in his house in September of the same year.

We have no record of further sales until 1790. In that year a double lot was sold to Joseph Ewbank for $43.33 and a ground rent of one dollar. This property lay close to Evick's old home and springhouse. A single lot was sold to John Skidmore at the same price and on the same terms as to Davis. Single lots were also sold to Hamilton and to James Patterson for $20 and $15 respectively and without condi- tions. About the same time a lot was sold to George Ham- mer with conditions and price the sam^ as to Davis, and a lot to Jacob Reintzel without conditions. Reintzel, whose lot was on the upper street, sold two years later to Sebastian Hoover. John Painter bought a half lot at half price.

The price of town property was soon rising. In 1792 Michael McClure bought a lot without conditions for $33 33. Edward Brpakiron paid $41.67 for another, which he resold to Stephen Bogart. In the same year James Patterson sold

131

his property, then the home of John Roberts, to Jonas Chris- man for $366.67. In 1795 Oliver and William McCoy paid $40 for a lot originally granted to William Black and then occu- pied by William Lawrence. Before 17y7 George Dahmer owned the lot which was later the property of Adam Evick. In 1800 lots were purchased by Aaron Kee, a merchant, and by a man whose name is written "John Steal." In 1803 Francis Evick, Jr., sold a house and lot for $800. In the same year John Roberts moved awav. selling his lot opposite the courthouse to Peter Hull for $1333.33.

Within a half dozen years there was a cluster of dwellings of sufficient importance to cause the legislature to designate it as a town under the name of Franklin. The Act of As- sembly is dated December 19, 1794. The name Frankford would doubtless have been retained, had not the legislature in 1788 deaignated a town in Hampshire by that nane, to say nothing of the Frankfort in what is now the state of Ken- tucky. The new name evidently commemorates the eminent statesman and philosopher, Benjamin Franklin.

The trustees of Franklin, as named in the legislative act were Joseph Arbaugh, Jacob Conrad, James Dyer, Sr., John Hopkins. Peter Hull. Joseph Johnson, William McCoy, Oliver McCoy. James Patterson, and John Roberts. By another act, dated Christmas day, 1800. the trustees were authorized to make and establish legal regulations for protecting property from fire, for keeping hogs from running at large, to prohibit the galloping and racing of horses in streets and alleys, and preserving good order generally.

The population at the opening of the new century was probably about 100, and the growth has ever since been slow though steady. The changes among the residents are too numerous, however, to be followed. But step by step the hamlet springing up around the log courthouse developed into the completeness of an inland town.

James Patterson appears to have been a merchant as well as justice, although the first recorded license to sell goods was that granted to Perez Drew in Aupust, 1790. From the frequency of his mention in the early records, John Roberts would appear to be one of the early merchants. He removed to Washington county, Pennsylvania. Aaron Kee opened a store in 1800. But until his drowning in Glady Fork, while on his way to Beverly about 1825, Daniel Capito wa«» the leading man of business. The first licence for an ordinary was that granted to Joseph Johnson in 1795.

There is mention of a "meeting house" in 1790, but this can hardly refer to a church building within the corporate limits. The first mention of a school is in 1802, when the use of the

132

courthouse was granted for this purpose. In 1809 Francis Evick, Jr., deeded two and one-half acres on the west side for the purposes of church, school, and cemetery. A com- modious frame church was erected thereon by Campbell Masters. The site is between the houses of John McClure and H. M. Calhoun. It remained many years a plain weath- erbeaten structure without bell or belfry, but was painted and improved some years prior to the civil war. This build- ing was a union church, though at first used mainly by the Lutherans. Later it was used chiefly by the United Brethren, Methodists, and Presbyterians. The last two congregations finally put up brick houses of worship of their own, and the union church having fallen into decay was torn down. A schoolhouse was built on the hillside above the Evick spring, and the summit of the knob beyond was used many years as a place of interment. But at present the property is not used for any of the three original purposes. The three roomed schoolhouse stands on the main street, and the town cemetery lies a mile north on the Harrisonburg pike.

In 1834, after the town had had an authorized existence of forty years, there were two stores, two tanyards, three sad- dlers, two carpenters, two shoemakers, two blacksmiths, one gunsmith, one tailor, one hatter, and one cabinet and chair- maker. The professions were represented by two attorneys and one physician. There were also a school, a temperance and Bible society.

In 1867 a photograph taken from nearly the same position as the picture appearing in this book does not show a very striking contrast with respect to the upper end of the town, save in the appearance of the Union church. The houses were generally weatherboarded and painted.

The last fifteen years have witnessed a decided growth to- ward the north and also on the Smith Creek road. Houses of modern design have arisen, and the greater share of the oblong two-storied log dwelling houses have been removed. The number of private houses has increased to about 100, and Franklin in its present guise is one of the handsomest of the small towns of West Virginia. There are three stores, two drugstores, two hotels, two tanneries, a bank, a printing office and newspaper, a carding mill, an undertaker's shop, a photographic gallery, a planing mill, a blacksmith shop, a wheelwright shop, and a grocery. There are two resident ministers, four attorneys, four physicians and a dentist.

CHAPTER XVIII The Pendleton of To-Day

As "all Gaul is divided into three parts," so is Pendleton divided into three well defined valleys, with broad, timbered ridges lying between.

Along the South Fork there is found a somewhat narrow ribbon of fine bottom land, extending very nearly the entire length of the county. This ribbon is cross-sectioned into a rapid appearing of well-tended farms. Through the six miles of Sweedland valley, and up Brushy Fork, Stony Run, Big Run, and Hawes' Run are other series of farms of less productive soil and very much less extent. To the east of the river there is an otherwise unbroken forest rising to the crest of Shenandoah Mountain, and used only as a wood re- serve and as pasturage. To the west is a much narrower and and more rugged belt of woodland.

At Sugar Grove is a hamlet rather than a village. Here we see a church, two stores, a blacksmith shop, a gristmill, a resident physician, and a half dozen dwellings. There were a store, a mill, and a postoffice here before lb60, but there has since been a nearer approach to the characteristics of a village. Ten miles below is Brandywine, the name a re- minder of Revolutionary settlers who fought in the battle of Brandywine in Pennsylvania, Here the only thoroughfare from the east of any importance reaches the South Fork. Ten years ago there were but five houses in the place. The number rose to about 20 in consequence of a "plant" being lo- cated here for the manufacture of walnut bark extract. After a few years the works closed down, but the houses generally remain occupied. Here are two store buildings, a modern church building, and a schoolhouse of two rooms. Three miles below is Oak Flat, where we find little else than a store and a resident physician. Three miles still further down, and at the entrance to Sweedland valley is the historic name of Fort Seybert, applied to a store and postoffice, a black- smith shop, and three dwellings. Yet within the radius of a mile are two churches, a schoolhouse, and a well settled neighborhood. From each of the four points along the river, roads cross the South Fork Mountain.

On the tableland beyond the mountain summit, as at Deer Run, the Dickenson settlement, and Mitchell and Dahmer poBtofHces, are clusters of hilly but good farms with lime-

stone soil. The double valley of the Thorn is in the nature ol a pocket, the lower course of the stream being walled in with steep hills. At the heads of the two Thorns, the valley becomes broad rather than narrow, presenting the aspect of a tolerably smooth and well settled plateau, the watershed between the sources of the Thorns and those of the Bull- pasture and Cowpasture being a pair of insignificant cross ridges.

Unlike the South Fork the South Branch presents a series of ovals or pockets, these detached river bottoms growing larger as one goes northward. A mile below Franklin the river gives up an apparent purpose of climbing the valley of Trout Run, which opens in the same direction as the stream is pursuing. It now breaks abruptly through a ridge to cross a pocket of bottom land. Just below Upper Tract it turns aside from what would seem its natural course down the broad, open Mill Creek valley, the water-parting between the source of the smaller stream and a bend of the larger being scarcely perceptible. The river now enters a long and pic-

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