For 50-60 years, the tannery was the biggest employer in Petersburg. It employed 150 men at its peak. Many families got their start in Petersburg because of the tannery. Emmanuel Haupt was an early tannery superintendent. He was employed by John Ed Taylor in 1894 and given control of the yard and the beam shop.
W. J. Keller was employed to do the brick work at the tannery. M. S. Hinkle was employed as a manager also under Engeman and Taylor. James Brill had a matched team of horses that were used to haul sole leather to the depot.
Thomas Cover was a well-known figure with Union Tanning Co.
Other tannery superintendents were Herschell Gird, W. A. Wise, M.D. Newcomer, Amos Crippen, J. D. Whitlock and H. G. Foley.
Superintendents from Wise to Foley lived in the superintendent�s house.
Well-known Loewengart officials include Theodore Brauschweig, Dick Thoughton, Jack Kent, Earl Straley and William (Lefty) Mohr.
In 1933, the tannery had a champion first aid team. They won first place in an area meet with four or five teams in Romney.
Members of the team were Arlie �Buck� Alt, Captain; Harry Foley, Austin �Ikey� Alt, Cecil Alkire and Theodore �Skin� Alkire.
For 10 years, 1942-52, the tannery boasted a record without any time lose due to accidents. In 1953 accidentally received severe steam burns.
Henry Cosner, employed as a maintenance engineer, built four machines for Loewengart. One of these machines is still in operation in Mercersburg, PA.
In 1955, tannery employees voted down Unionization.
Guy Shanholtz worked for the tannery for 58 years, probably the longest record in the area.
Watchmen employed by Loewengart until the machinery is moved are Robert Barr, William Crites, Henry Hendrickson and Glenn Martin.
Tanning Through The Years
Bark was ground in the early days to tan hides. Chestnut and hemlock were the two types of wood used. Oak especially brought a high price for leather. Bark ricks were located at the tannery and South Petersburg. Hides were kept in a storage shed near the depot and taken to the tannery as needed.
Eight tanks were located in the leach house of the tannery where ground bark was cooked for a liquid to be used in tanning.
Water from a spring across Luney's Creek was used until City water was installed.
Cured hides would come folded in bundles tied with a string. Hides would be put in reels. These were 20 vats 1- foot deep filled with water to wash the hides and make them soft.
Then, the hides would be unhaired. It could be used for mattresses, rugs and upholstery. White hair was separated because it was considered more valuable.
The hair was washed and dried and sent in 300-pound bundles to England. Hair was left on longhair hides to be used for rugs. Hair was taken off by chemicals later.
Next, the hides were fleshed. Fleshings were sold to be used in glue-tallow and fertilizer. Fleshing was done with a two-handled knife.
The hides were then washed and sent to the splitting machine.
Every type of leather went through a different tanning process.
Sole leather, made by Keystone Tanning and Glue, required a rocker yard. The liquors used became increasingly stronger. Beginning liquors were called rockers of handlers and final liquors were layaways. Leather was then split and shaved to uniform thickness.
After the tanning process, the wet hide was dyed in various shades of either black, blue, brown, red, white or yellow. The excess water was removed and the wrinkles taken out of the leather.
Hides used to hang from the rafters and dry. Another type of dryer was a stick dryer, used for certain types of hides. The tannery also used a pasting unit.
Leather was pasted to a metal board to stretch it and make it firm and flat. The hides were dried in a chamber at about 140 degrees Fahrenheit.
Over the years the time it took to tan a piece of leather was greatly reduced.
And Now
Now, the red barn on the tannery is weathered and winds have literally taken off the roof. William Crites summed it up by saying, �It is lonesome as can be.�
Gormania
Settled around 1840, Gormania is nestled along the Potomac River and between seven hills (Alt-house�s, Hoffman�s, Gilbert�s Eger�s, Riddler�s Schaeffer�s and Rinker�s.)
The whole portion of the county was opened up with the completion of the Northwestern Turnpike in the late 1830�s. The Virginia Legislature granted a charter for its construction in 1827. Thoroughfare was to be from Winchester to Parkersburg with the hope that it would eventually be extended to California. Parkersburg, however, remained its westernmost terminus. When the road reached Gormania, Job Signs was contracted to build the first bridge across the Potomac River. This original structure was burned during the Civil War.
In 1840, Jacob Schaeffer, grandfather of J.R. Schaeffer, established himself as the town�s first settler when he bought the land on which the town now stands from John G. Brant for $150. Here, he erected a log building in 1839, which served as both a dwelling and a store. Schaeffer became the settlement�s first postmaster; the fledging community adopted the name of Schaefferville.
The elder Schaeffer later became a toll collector for the Northwestern turnpike and his son, Jacob Rhodes, became the town�s first tanner, J. R. Operated the tannery from 1853-1858 when he took up the same profession in Missouri. According to a well-preserved story, J. R. was captured three times during the Civil War. The third time, he was waiting for the order to fire on an executioner�s stand when the commanding officer recognized him as a brother in the fraternity of Odd Fellows.
Jacob Schaeffer conveyed his property to another of his 10 sons, Bailey Tabb, who in turn, conveyed it to his son, Elliot Tabb, Isabella Cooper bought it for $900 in 1875 and supposedly transported it to her long house in her apron. Lloyd L. McCrum purchased the property in 1889, and several days later, sold it to John G. Hoffman and Sons Co., of Wheeling. Hoffman then established one of the biggest tanneries in the state, which served as the town�s chief industry until 1925 when it went out of business.
Schaeffersville experienced another population boom following the arrival of the West Virginia Central and Pittsburgh Railroad in 1881. Also in 1991, the town�s name was changed to Elkins in honor of W. Va. Senator Stephen B. Elkins.
When the railroad was further extended to Tygart Valley and to the present city of Elkins, the town was again changed to Gormania in honor of Sen. Arthur Pue Gorman of Maryland.
On the west side of the town, atop a hill, Fort Pendleton stood. Named in honor of pioneer settler Philip Pendleton, who owned and occupied the site before and after the Civil War, the Union fort was built in August 1861, by the Fourth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonial Cantewell.
The regiment arrived on the hill August 08, 1861, and on October 23, moved on Romney, capturing it and remaining there until the next January. One company was left in the fort for two months before, following orders, they blew up the magazine, spiked their one brass cannon and marched up to Oakland and joined the regiment.
The hill is still wormed by trenches and one, which leads down to the river near the bridge, was dug to supply water to the Fort incase it was besieged.
The hillside facing the Northwestern road was tripped of timber so that the fort�s guns could bombard the enemy if they attempted to pass the fort by way of the road.
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C. W. Elrick
Merchant of Gormania, West Virginia
In September 1906, Mr. C. W. Elrick bought out a merchandising firm at Gormania, W.Va., and from the start has enjoyed a very large patronage. Few people have any idea how much business is done by this thoroughly up-to-date merchant. His store and dwelling here photographed, is a fine large building.
Mr. Elrick was reared in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. He came to Thomas, W.Va., and worked for the Davis Coal & Coke Co. until 1895, when he entered the Buxton and Landstreet Company�s store at that point, and remained with them, as clerk for six years. By this time he had so thoroughly learned the business and so pleased the company that he was made manager of their store at Henry, W. Va. He continued with them as the manager for this store until the summer of 1906, when he resigned to enter business for himself, which he did at this present stand by buying out the firm of Beckman & Wolf.
Mr. Elrick is married and has a family of three boys and two girls. Fraternally, he is a Red Man.
Inter Potomac Industrial Edition 1908
Grant County Wolves: The Final Days
Editor�s Note: Like the buffalo, elk and mountain lion, the grey or timber wolf once roamed the Mountain state. And like the three, it too slowly disappeared from the scene, giving in to human settlements and thus restriction of its wilderness habitat.
According to Fred E. Brooks in his �The Mammals of West Virginia,� the last recorded kill of a gray wolf in West Virginia as by Stofer Hamrick in Randolph County in 1900. O. F. Morton in �Modern History of Pendleton County� states that A. W. Roby killed two wolves in that county in 1892 and that S. P. Dolly and Jacob Arbogast killed two in 1896.
In Smith�s �The Potomac Naturalist,� Jesse Cosner is cited for having trapped the last wolf in the northern portion of Grant County. Cosner trapped the wolf on Wolf Rock, now the site of Vepco, in 1890.
Yet two recent discoveries unearthed by the Press shed new light on both the date set for the last wolf slain in W.Va. and the last one killed in the northern section of the county.
Foremost is information bought forward by Carleton Browne and his brother, Charlie, formerly of Bayard, who claims they trapped a grey timber wolf in a fox trap in 1925.
According to Carleton, the brothers� father, Albert N. Browne, discovered the wolf in the trap while making the usual rounds of the set traps throughout the property. However, he had mistakenly picked up the wrong shells for his rifle that morning and couldn�t finish off the maimed beast. Instead, he clubbed it to death.
The Browne then strapped the rare species onto their old Model T. and drove into Bayard where the catch was the town�s conversation piece for the day. As Carleton recalls, the wolf was given to a Dick Gerstell, superintendent of mines at the time who intended to mount it. The brothers are uncertain whether the gentleman ever did actually stuff the wolf or his present whereabouts.
The Brown farm was and is located about four miles south of Bayard on the Al Brown Road. Interestingly, the wolf met his death only three miles from Wolf Rocks where, it wall be recalled, Cosner reputedly slew that part of the county�s last wolf.
The Brownes� catch would certainly make it the last wolf killed in Grant County as well as in the state.
Sifting through the dusty records of the old Courthouse has turned up yet another debunking of the previous claims. Disbursements made by the County Court reveals a $20 wolf claim paid to J. G. Rotruck on July 1, 1918. Presumably, county officials at the time authenticated such kills before awarding the bounty. No mention is made of where the wolf was killed.
Below, Petersburg resident Chester Shaffer recounts the last reported slaying of the once populous animal in the Petersburg portion of the county.
Timber Wolves were once plentiful in our hills.
In the year 1870, the last timber wolf of this area was killed by hand. The following story was told to me by a witness of the killing. The late Washington Sites of Lima, Ohio, who at the time of the happening, was a boy of 13. He watched his father, Conrad sites, kill the wolf. He described it:
A wolf was cornered in the rocks by dogs. The opening between two large rocks was barely large enough to accommodate a single large wolf. Conrad pilled rocks to cover the opening to keep it in. At the top there was a space between the rocks of five or six inches.
�Seeking escape, the wolf extended a paw through the opening and Conrad grabbed it and pulled on the leg in order to bring the head to the opening and called to a neighbor who was standing y to bring him a club. The club turned out to be half rotten and worthless.
�He was wearing leather gauntlet gloves which protected his hands from severe bites but for further protection, he placed his foot over the opening at which the wolf snatched his shoe sole and ripped if off. He grabbed a rock with one hand and struck the wolf on the head, dropped the rock and held the paw with both hands until it calmed down.
�At each stroke there was another tug of war but this continued until the wolf was dead.
�The next morning, his arms were stiff and sore from the ordeal. The wolf had three missing toes from one foot. One year earlier, toes were found in a trap set for the wolf. It had been killing the livestock.�
These rocks can be seen today, as back then, except that the opening is partially closed by debris. They are near the foot of the Nicholas Lane in the Dehart Gap on Elkhorn Mountain.
No wolves were seen thereafter in this area and no other reports from Grant County.
According to McWhorter, in the early days, wolves overran, the entire Trans-Allegheny and no one was safe alone in the woods at night nor at anytime during winter.
Another wolf story goes farther back and was handed down locally.
A family by the name of Bringel lived in the Spring Run area. There is a spot known as Sand Holes by the road, which leads up to the top of Getz Mountain. It was here that the Bringel boy and his sister had gone to gather firewood for home use when they were trailed by a pack of timber wolves. They hurriedly climbed a tree but in the rush, the girl caught on to a dead limb, which brook off and she fell.
The wolf pack caught her before reaching the ground and quickly devoured her. The boy remained on his perch for hours until the pack gave up and left; then he returned home. On returning to the spot, the parents found only bits of hair and shreds of clothing.
Thus was the life of the pioneer.
Bounties Haunted eagles and Wolves
Today, an occasional sighting of an eagle or mountain lion among the hills of West Virginia still evokes statewide fascination. Last May, the slaying of one mountain lion and the subsequent sighting and capture of another resulted in the dispatching of a Department of Natural Resources team to authenticate the report. The search sparked extensive on-the-scene press coverage, which added an air of mystery and excitement in the quest for these noble creatures that once were plentiful in the Mountain State.
Hopes that somehow there still were a few survivors of the proud animals still lingering among the mountain were dashed however when the research concluded that the two cougars had probably once been someone�s pets.
Most of this generation�s exposure to the eagle, bobcat and wolf is gleaned, if at all from books or possibly a visit to a large metropolitan zoo. Save for a few old and experience woodsmen, none of us ha sever viewed one of the specimen in its natural habitat.
Until 60 years ago or so, each of these mammals roamed relatively free in the Mountain State. Their demise is directly and solely attributable to man and his disregard and indifference to nature�s delicate balance. As man�s boundaries and activities increased, the animal�s territories conversely dwindled. Yet, a scant few of the fittest of each species, seeking refuge in the remotest areas of the state, my have maintained a scant and perilous existence for many years longer had not man launched an extermination campaign for their eradication.
Even 50 years ago, the Grant County Court offered a bounty for every bobcat, eagle or wolf slain in the county. Seventy-five cents were awarded for every wild cat (another name for bobcat), $1 for every eagle and $20 for each wolf.
Bounties were offered for carcasses of all three animals because of their plundering of livestock, especially sheep. Unfortunately, the bounties often had the effect of making even the animals that didn�t prey on livestock the target of extensive hunts. And�at least in the case of the eagle where the oft-conjured tale of the bird�s ability to carry off sheep in a single swoop was more fiction than fact�just how much havoc the three
Predators actually wrecked is debatable.
Nevertheless, the bounty-hunting successfully weeded out the �enemies� until the wolf perished altogether, the eagle was driven to near extinction and the bobcat, though still present here, had its numbers thinned considerably.
Predictably, as the bounty years wore on, the hunted triumvirate�s numbers dwindled. Claims paid by the county in the 1880s and 1890s often totaled in the 20s for eagles and wild cats. Wolves, always elusive and far from numerous in the state even in the late nineteenth century, rarely were claimed at more than f few per year.
By 1895 however, the reported kills were dropping off at a sharp clip. In 1897 for instance, two wildcat claims and no eagle claims were collected. IN 1898, the number of wild cats rose to eight with one eagle clam being paid. In 1899, there were five wild cats presented to the court and no eagles.
By 1904, only two wildcat claims were reported. The next year, no claims were reported. The next three years however, provided a flurry of claims before all but ceasing. Sixteen wildcat bounties were awarded in 1906 plus one eagle1907 saw eight wild cats and six eagles�three of them shot by E. T. Burgess. 1908 produced 18 wild cats and two eagles.
Those were the last sizable totals of any account however, as the aim of the bounties apparently came closer to realization.
The last eagle claim was presented to Sherman Cosner on March 15, 1915. Although no wolf claims had been awarded for over a decade, a July 1, 1918 entry in the order book shows $20 paid to J. G. Rotruck. Interestingly several writers on the subject place the death of the wolf population in the state in the early 1900s. Fred Brooks, in his �The Mammals of West Virginia,� claims that the last wolf on record was killed in Randolph County in January 1900.
Scattered wildcat claims continued intermittently into the late 1920s. Today, the wild inhabits only a few scattered regions in the Great Lakes states and the west.
A stable bobcat population still exists as evidenced by a three-month hunting season in the state.
Although rare anywhere in the United Stats, a small number of eagles probably etch a precarious existence in the Mountain state. On the endangered list, they are constantly under attack from noxious insecticides, which disrupt their egg-producing chemicals and from poachers willing to slay them for no better reason than to be the possessor of a conversation piece.
Here in Gant County, there have been sightings in recent years of both the golden and bald eagle. Conservation Officer Roger Wilkinson reports twice observing a golden eagle in the Elkhorn Mountain Vicinity and the U. S. Forest Service has fielded a sighting of our national emblem, the bald eagle, along the North Fork of the South Branch River.
The Rollicking Days of the Lumberman
Editor�s Note: Around the turn of the century, the immense area we know today was Dolly Sods bore no resemblance to the barren plains it is today.
The mountains were alive with the sounds of wood chips flying and trains huffing and puffing along every hillside. It was the heyday of the lumbering industry and towns like Lanesville. Whitmer and Job sprang up overnight to house the participants.
Today most of these towns are empty or specters of their former selves. But then they were untamed often-brawling stops for the nomadic, free spirited lumbermen who frequented them.
Following is the reminisces of a former lumberman who spent time in Whimer in 1906. The account was captured by Jack Preble who devoted his latter years to the enchantment and unique culture The Land of the Canan has spawned..
�All hell sure did break loose my first night in Whitmer.� Recalled Tom Hamrick, old-time wood hick.
He had been reminiscing about his early days spent in various lumber camps in the Land of Canaan�Davis, Bretz, Laneville, Job, Osceola and Whitmer. As he talked I saw him as a gently faced, gaunt six-footer with a close resemblance to young Abe Lincoln. His steel-rimmed glasses added a scholarly look to his clean-shaven face. Somewhere in his travels he had been given the nickname of �Preacher� although he was no ordained minister of the gospel.
�What happened the first night in Whitmer?� I asked.
�Something horrible�something that demonstrated how human beings could be charged into vicious beasts in a matter of minutes.�
�Care to tell me about it?�
�Don�t mind if I do. But I�ll have to start with myself first. It was back in 1906 as near as I can remember. Having a pretty fair education I was able to get a job as a timekeeper for the Pardee and Curtain Lumber Company. That was in the Hominy Falls section of Nicholas County. Then I heard of the new logging operations in the Dry Fork area of the Cheat River. All up and down Dry Fork and its tributaries, Gandy Creek, Laurel Fork and Red creek were virgin woods where the lumberman�s axe had never been heard. As that part of the country offered greater inducements in adventure and pay I packed my satchel and headed there.
�My first night in that area was spent in Jenningston. There I was refused a room in the only hotel. The hotel keeper told me bluntly to get out- that he didn�t want any wood hicks tearing up his carpets and hardwood floors with their spiked boots. I remember his little daughter asking him if hicks are wood chips. He told her they sure did if whiskey was poured over them. Anyhow, I found a room in a boarding house that catered to my kind. Next night I spent in Job. There was no work for me in that place so next morning I headed for Whitmer at the upper end of the Dry Fork Railroad.
�Whitmer was a thriving community of about 800 people. It was located on Gandy Creek a short distance above there it emptied into Dry Fork. Whitmer supported a large lumber mill, three hotels, a few dry goods and grocery stores, and five saloons. It also supported the usual run of parasites, gamblers. Cheaters, wild women and agitators. I got my self-fixed up in a nice front room in one of the hotels which had a saloon run by George Neff downstairs. Then out I went to see the town.
�I met several of friends that day. Friends I had made in my travels from one lumber camp to another. Tb here was �Smoky Pitt� who claimed Pittsburgh as his home although he was originally from Nova Scotia. I met Kelly the parrot. And ��Tug River Slim�. Also �Casey Jones� a log trainman from the Sewell valley. Seems like ever member of the Jones family was called �Casey� when they took up railroading. Another was a Norwegian named Earnest Wenander who first worked at Tioga in Nicholas County and ever afterward called that his home. He would return to Tioga every three months to pick up his mail. I also met Jakey Faulkner who later lost his life in a train wreck somewhere in the West. Casey Jones, too, was later killed in a wreck at Curtain in Nicholas County. There was one character that was a downright nuisance, a snuff eating, louse-infected sot called Little Mose Callahan. I later head he died in the Dry Fork Railroad station at Jenningston, back in 1924, from drinking too much wood alcohol.
�Then I met a big brute of a man who they said was Joe Brown, the town bully. He was about six feet-six and could go 225 pounds. He was pretty drunk and getting in a quarrelsome mood so I gave him a wide berth. It was said he had worked on almost every big lumber job in the country and was always fired for causing trouble. Right then, in Whimer, he had been inciting the immigrant Italian workmen to strike for something or other. Knowing his reputation as a troublemaker and a bully all the wood hicks kept away from him as much as possible
�My friends decided we ought to celebrate my safe arrival in Whimer so we headed for the nearest saloon. I wasn�t used to hard liquor so by the time we had several rounds of drinks in all five of them I didn�t feel so good. I craved sleep. My friends took me to my room and put me to bed. I lost no time falling asleep. And while I slept all hell was breaking loose outside. But for noises I couldn�t identify in my condition I slept through it all.
�Next morning, feeling much better after a night�s rest, I got up and raised the window shade. And there, not three feet from open window and staring pop-eyed at me, was the contorted face of lifeless Joe Brown! His head was skewed to one side and his body slumped like a gunny sack full of potatoes while his bare feet swayed gently in the morning breeze. He hung there like a grotesque scarecrow over the door of the saloon.
�Outside stood a crowd of men and women staring at the shapeless mass that was once Joe Brown. The women were there out of curiosity while the men were waiting for the saloon to open. They craved their morning eye-opener. I lost no time in getting dressed and out on the street. I wanted to find out what terrible thing had brought on the lynching.
�I was told that shortly after I had passed out cold from too many drinks Joe Brown had gone berserk. Using his big fists and his spiked boots he had mangled everyone in sight. He swore he would wipe out the whole community and leave them stinking in the streets. As Marshal Scott White approached to arrest him Brown pulled a .38 and shot white, but not fatally. Then he made tracks for the big woods. It was no trouble forming a posse of men who knew the woods better than Brown. Late in the afternoon they caught up with him. In the scuffle to take him he was shot in the arm and hauled off to jail.
�Shortly after dark when the wood hicks returned from their labors in the big woods they resumed their nightly carousing. Now Joe Brown could be induced to leave the community was the chief topic of conversation. Little Mose Callahan, who had been begging drinks all day, suggested that the best was to teach Brown a lesson was to hang him. To a drinking man any suggestion, however asinine, on how to correct another�s bad habits seems sensible. So, with a spirit of horseplay in their minds and planning to have some sport by holding a mock lynching, off they paraded to the jail with Little Mose
Callahan strutting in the lead.
�The jail was entered and Brown�s cell broken open. He was shown the rope and told of the decision to hang him to cure him of his sins. Naturally Joe could not see appreciate the joke and had to be over powered after a brief struggle. His own sock was stuffed in his mouth, his hands tied behind him, and then he was dragged off to the public square. And there the spirit of the mob, inflamed to passionate fury by excitement and rotgut whiskey, won over those more sober who only wanted to scare the living daylights out of him. What started out as a dangerous prank turned into a murderous deed. Strong and willing hands grabbed the rope, tossed it over a cross-arm of a telephone pole, and by the eerie light of a full moon jerked the struggling Joe Brown into eternity outside my bedroom window.
�And that,� concluded �Preacher� Tom Hamrick, �was the gruesome end of Joe Brown except that, since I always carried a pocket Testament, I was asked to say a few words beside his grave. That little act of Christian charity earned me a name I�ll never lose. I guess, for the wood hicks all called me �Preacher� from that day on.
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The Origin of Dolly Sod�s a Puzzle
Just about everybody in Grant County has journeyed at one time or another to the wind-swept plains of what is known as Dolly Sods. Yet, if interrogated on the subject, few could recount the origin of the namesake or just how the 32,000 acres came to resemble the tundra in the first place.
As no written records exist to authenticate the whole story, modern writers have only just begun to piece together, the pieces of the historical puzzle.
The following biographical account was assembled by the W.Va. Highlands Conservancy during its successful attempt to bring about National Wilderness status to parts of the Sods and thus preserve it from strip mining, power plants and other plundering.
The members of the Fairfax Boundary surveying Party of 1746 may have been the first white men to see the area. They climbed the Allegheny Front and camped on the summit, which was clear of timber in a strip about � mile wide and covered with large, flat rocks. Cranberries abounded in marshy areas. The next day they proceeded westward across the plateau through spruce forests so dense that sunlight rarely reached the ground. Rhododendron thickets presented occasional barriers. Underfoot were thick deposits of peaty soil derived from decomposing spruce needles and moss, which formed a brilliant green carpet. They reached Cabin Mountain and descended into the Canaan Valley where a four-days struggle through bogs, tangled spruce forests, and dense rhododendron thickets awaited them
Although nearby valleys to the west and east had been settled well before the Civil War, the Dolly Sods area remained a wilderness. During the War, a fire built by Confederate scouts got out of control and reputedly denuded the Roaring Plains. During the summers, families visited the high, open rocky flat-topped ridges, (the �huckle-berry � plains) to pick blueberries and cranberries, just as they do today. They drove their sheep and cattle to the meadows that are possibly analogous to the better-known balds of the southern Appalachians. In local terminology these are �sods!� The Dolly family (also spelled then as Dahle) used the sods at the southern end of the Rohrbaugh Plains; hence the name �Dolly Sods� Probably the spruce forests sheltered some of the last big game animals that are now extinct in this portion of the East�elk, wolves and mountain lions.
In 1884, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad completed a line connecting the infant community of Davis, about seven miles west of the Dolly Sods area, with the eastern seaboard. Exploitation of the region�s magnificent virgin forests began immediately. In 1902, the Parsons Pulp and Paper Company installed a band saw mill on Red Creek. Laneville, a community of more than 300 people grew up around it. The mill closed in 1920 after all the surrounding forest had been cut, and Laneville has swindled away to fewer than 50 residents today. Most of the timber in the southern two-thirds of the Dolly Sods area was sawed in the Laneville Mill, in 1899; the same company had established another large mill at Dobbin, in Tucker County. The forests I the northern half of the watershed of the north fork of Red Creek disappeared into the mill.
Temporary railroad led from the mills to the forests, and backcountry camps were set up along them. After all the commercially valuable lumber nearby had been removed and dragged by teams of draft horses to the nearest railroad tracks, the camps were moved on to unexploited forests. The railroad grades were usually built laboriously by hand. When the timer was exhausted, the rails were removed and re-used elsewhere.
Most of the timber was removed in these logging operations, leaving a barren landscape cluttered with slash. In such a setting fires were almost inevitable. Some were set accidentally by sparks from the logging trains. Others were started on purpose in hopes of converting the entire logged over area to one great pasture. This technique had worked where the soil was underlain by limestone, which wasn�t the case in the Dolly Sods. The peaty soil burned away to the bedrock killing many of the uncut trees and leaving the stumps perched on top of jumbles of boulders. Others fires were set by local berry pickers to improved the blueberry crop, Forrest Service still has trouble with this kind of fire. One of the largest was Dobbin Slashing Fire, which burned 24, 800 acres in the northern Red Creek and southern Stony River watershed late in July 1930.
With the tree cover gone and the absorbent soils burned away, floods followed. The lower canyon of Red Creek has been scoured by flash floods, the latest severe ones occurring in the 1950�s.
By the time that logging was at its height in the Dolly Sods, people had begun to recognize that floods caused by uncontrolled logging were a severe problem throughout the East, and that some kind of governmental control was necessary.
In 1915, the Monongahela National Forests was officially established. Only the surface was acquired; the minerals remained in private ow3nership. The land north of the boundary as well as the summit of Cabin Mountain within the National, Forest, has remained in private hands, principally the Western Maryland Railway Company.
E. L. Judy
County Historian
Mr. E. L. Judy, of whom an excellent likeness appears on this page, is a young man, although not having been a resident of the county a great length of time- yet he has made an impress upon the minds of our people and is regarded as one of the foremost men. In the younger set, of our State; industrious, painstaking and honorable, he has rapidly forged to the front.
Mr. Judy was born and raised in our sister county of Grant; after taking the law course at the West Virginia University he was admitted to the bar about ten years ago, beginning the practice of his profession at Maysville, where he remained until 1900, when he was elected prosecuting attorney of grant, and removed to Petersburg, the county seat. While he was prosecuting attorney Mr. Judy was able, fearless and conscientious, his administration of the office being highly commended by his people. After serving two or three years in the above capacity, in the meantime enjoying a lucrative general practice, Mr. Judy, induced by a tempting offer from the W. Va. C & P. R. R. Vo., gave up his office and for the time being the general practice of law, and accepted the responsible position of general land agent of the company, which for about three years he filled to the credit of himself and the satisfaction of this superiors. However, his first love, the law, kept wooing him, until he resigned his position with the company and located permanently in Keyser, where he is now practicing his profession and is recognized as one of the safest counselors in this section of the State.
Mr. Judy is interested in numerous business enterprises of our section, and was one of the promoters of the Law Building, which is such a credit to our town, and in which he has a suite of offices. Having great faith in the future developments of our State. Mr. Judy is a large holder of timberlands in grant and adjoining counties and some day a substantial return will reward him of his foresight.
Inter-Potomac Industrial Edition 1908
Ollie F. Idleman 1873-1968
Miss Ollie F. Idleman was born September 16, 1873, the third child born to Simon P. Idleman and Sarah Lyon Idleman.
She attended school in Grant County and received teacher training at Juniata College, Huntington, Pa.
Her first teaching assignment was in the White Hall School near Mt. Storm. This was a four-month term running from November to February. She was paid $21.00 per month and paid $5.00 for board each month. She was 2 � miles from school and at times had to wade through waist high snowdrifts to reach it.
During her years in school she taught in Barbour County, and in Bayard, Scherr, and Maysville in Grant County. She retired from teaching in 1927 and lived with her sister, Loretta on the home farm until her death.
About the time of her retirement she became interested in family and local history believing with Daniel Webster that �He who careth not from whence he came, careth little whither he goeth.�
She was a musician, an artist, reciter of poetry and a writer of poetry.
Her mind was retentive and sharp to the end of her almost ninety-five years. She died of cancer June 20, 1968.
The following article, which she wrote shortly before her death, speaks more eloquently of her life and philosophy than anything one could say about her.
BECAUSE?
Because I have known the pleasure of running barefoot, over greening lawns, raked clean of leaves and debris and have been the first, in early spring to climb the ridge to its summit and overlook the landscape below, and maybe hear the first robin or bluebird and
Because I have felt the warmth of bare legs, upon the warmer back of a capering horse, and laughed in glee, with sisters of her antics and
Because I have hunted the earliest spring beauties, violets and anemones, and have found and inhaled the fragrance of trailing arbutus, and have seen the manifestation of life�s resurrection and
Because I have tramped miles to and from school, to acquire the learning that was my due, and enjoyed the companionship of others in my state in life, and
Because I have seen the grandeur of trees and shrubs, covered, heavy, and hanging low, with a frosty whiteness, that belays description, that can only be achieved by an infinite hand, and
Because I have known the love of trusting children, who came to me, not because they must, but because they wanted and loved to come, and have carried this love and trust through the years, and
Because I have been blessed with many friends, and am grateful for my awareness of them, and
Because I was given parents and family of gracious dignity and reliability, whose influence has followed me through the years and has grown more precious as the years went by, and
Because of this rich bounty, life should be full, and moving toward fulfillment; and we might be saying, ��, growing old.� But age is not just a remembrance of passing years, but a state of mind. I quote: � Age is not a matter of character-lined cheeks furrowed brow, and less supple knees: it is the clarification of the deep springs of life.� No one grows old by merely living a number of years. Years wrinkle the skin, but give dignity to the soul.
So, shall we keep these enrichments, shall we take from, or add to, the dreams of youth.
We can have so much that cannot be bought at the market.
From Cattail to Hickory Hill
Thornton Tross
He lives, hunts and above all, picks at Cattail. Just off Durgon Road. Clarence Tross has been playing the banjo most of his 91 years. The poem is his story.
A slave�s son, but not a slave
By Mary Lucille Deberry
In a treasured little book�a book older than he is-
(A religious book of some sort)
Is the date: December 23, 1884�.the date when he was born.
His parents and his aunt were slaves.
But Mr. Abraham�Lincoln freed them
Mr. Abraham said he would if he ever got the power.
And he did. And that was good.
After the war, his father worked�helping to build a limekiln.
He carried ties up the mountain; he dug out the rock.
His father bought 30 acres of land on Cattail Run.
And built the tiny log house where this son was born.
His father�s land, then, came to him�
And he kept up the taxes on it.
It�s his�this land�until he dies
(And that is all the longer he needs it, he says with a laugh).
At age 19, he saved his money and he went to school
From December until April of that year.
He paid 25 cents a day for board�money he�d earned and saved.
He wanted to learn to write his name. And he did.
Then he went to work for 50 years at the big House, Hickory Hill,
Not on a hill and no hickory trees.
Walnut and oak�not hickory
(That is the way they named things in the old days)
A big brick house built by slaves.
He worked outside, making hay shocks;
In the barn, currying horses;
All over the far, doing what was wanted�
Until time for him to retire.
Then the mister said
�Why not do easy, garden work for the missus?�
She talked to him nice; she was good to him.
But, oh, she made him work!
(Have you ever worked for a lady?)
He walked, for 50 years, the 2 miles each way, each day
From cattail to Hickory Hill and back.
No hickory trees and no cattails�
(But in the old times they liked those names).
Four miles a day for 50 years..
Through sunshine and rain and snow and spring.
And it may be �as hard as it was and is�
That this man has everything!
A roof and walls for shelter.
Wood stoves for heating and cooking
Two kerosene lamps for light.
A banjo for music,
A hound dog for company,
Mountains for his view
Rabbits that play within his sight
In front of the roofless cabin
Where he was born.
Sharp, vivid memories
A ready laugh,
And lots and lots of friends.
His eyes look, after 90 years,
As though they might not see.
But they see�His eyes see clearly
They see the beauty of the house where he was born.
November 19, 1974
Bayard
County�s first incorporated town
In the beginning this was Indian Territory, only trappers and the true mountain men would venture near. Bayard was once the site of an Indian Camp and just to the east of town, one can still find interesting remains such as arrowheads and the �Indian Rocks�, an old chair and meal pots carved from huge boulders. Just a few miles to the east of town, Fort Ogden stood on the banks of Difficult River. This Fort was the boundary line between English and Indian territory. Anyone going west was strictly on their own.
However, as all things come to pass, the Indian Territory fell to the progressive onslaught of the white man. In 1736 a patent was granted to Ralph Lard Hopton and others by King Charles for a large acreage of land bounded by and including the rivers. Rappahannock and Potomac, extending to the Chesapeake Bay. Later Thomas Lord Fairfax became proprietor of the territory not owned by others. This produced the Fairfax survey. Just northeast of Bayard stands the Fairfax stone, survey ending point.
In 1796, Reverent Denny Martin Fairfax sold to Benjamin Chambers 36,000 acres of this land for the sun of $6,237.00
After the formation of the State of West Virginia the State Legislature in 1886, granted a charter to the West Virginia Central and Piedmont Coal and Railroad Col, who later changed their name to the West Virginia and Pittsburgh Railway Co. They became the owner of approximately 40,000 acres along the North Branch of the Potomac.
Also in 1886, Grant County was formed by seceding from Hardy County. Maysville was the first county seat of Grant County.
Bayard, lying along the North branch of the Potomac, was a very desirable location for a town. Surrounded by mountains, it is protected from the high winds with both the Potomac and buffalo Creek, clear, clean and full of brook trout. Timber, coal and fire clay in rich abundance all around. A beautiful sight to behold, I�m sure.
Vague as it is, the known early settlers of Bayard were the Rinkers, Morelands, Groves, Clarks and the Browns. .
By the year 1883, the West Virginia Central and Piedmont Railroad reached Bayard. With it came the railroad workers, the business and their families, the Buffalo Timber Co., a tannery, a few stores, entertainment halls and a town was being built.
On March 28, 1893, J. W. Nihiser, J. N. Graves, C. E. Brant, a grinder, D. G. Marshall, J. F. Nordick and C.B. Colburn, citizens and residents of the Town of Bayard made application to the court for the incorporation of the territory described in the application by the name of the Town of Bayard. On March 29, 1893, the court ordered that the said territory be incorporated. The court also appointed Guinn Poland, D.G. Marshall and J. F. Nordick to act as commissioners of elections at the first election to be held in the newly incorporated town. The results being thus; J. F. Nordick, mayor; L. G. Carrico, Recorder and Assessor; A. Knotts, Town Sergeant; Councilmen, D. G. Marshall, F. K. Colburn, B. E. Watring, John Tundacre, L. W. Graves; street Commissioner, A. Shaffer.
In 1895, Bayard bought kerosene streetlights and P. D. Caldwell was appointed streetlighter.
There have been four public schools built in Bayard, first a one-room school about 1880, second and third room, 1885, fourth through eighth in 1913. The first high school was started in the Emmons Opera House in 1917 and in 1921 a new high school was built and opened. This school served the town until 1967 when the Union High School was moved to a new location on Rt. 50 between Bayard and Mount Storm. Our old high school now serves as our elementary school.
At one time Bayard had five churches. Methodist, United Brethren, Presbyterian, catholic and the church of God.
Bayard has had several good doctors; the newspapers in Bayard were the Mountain Breezer, (Bruce Goshorn) Grant County gazette (a. S. Marshall) and the West Virginia Developer.
The mayors of Bayard have been J. F. Nordick, F. E. Watring, D. G. Marshall, E. T. Sullivan, Hirman Fulk, J. H. Landacre, Solomon Clark, John Harauff, H. W. Nine, E. C. Shaffer, R. E. Donovan, M. W. Smith, D. B. Teter, W. B. Wilson, A. B. Veach, A. S. May, E. A. Williams, G. E. Snyder, G. T. Plummer, M. W. Smith, C. G. Shaffer, Lewis Clark, W. F. Blackburn, E. F. Nine, H. R. Fulk, Sr., Cecil Layton, Ray Blocker, S. W. Emerick, Melvin R. Evans and Steven F. Durst..
Of course all the people and history, which surrounds Bayard, could not be condensed into this article. However, there are many interesting facts, which contribute to the town�s history, which are remembered fondly by some of our senior citizens and admired by the citizens of Bayard.
Steven F. Durst, Mayor
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Bayard Graded school 1818-19 --8th grade Class
(The paper has the date as 1818-19 but I really wonder if they meant 1918-19? Dmh)
Teacher: Si Nestor
Students: Doyle Purgitt, Happy Walsh, Ralph Reel, Leo Hill, Harry Teeter, dick Winters, Butch Slagle, Dessie Armentrout, Virginia Foutz, Blanche King, Allie Kitzmiller, Boyd Wolfe, Panty Miller, Bill McClary, Titia Miller, Susan Snyder, Vivian Junkins, Maryland Foutz, Edith Berry, Mabel Snyder, Winfred Newman, Freda parker, John Tamburini
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Bayard High School Class of 1925-26
Beatrice Spikier, Mary Nine, Barbara Duling, Anna Casteel, Hattie Winters, Alma Blackburn, Mildred Slagle, Thelma Curry, Muriel Forsythe, Violet Brown, Ethel Dixon, Christine Rexrode, Mary Joe Tamburini, Ralph Junkins, Irene DeWitt, Juanita Kimble, Della Humes, Cora Elrick, Vesta Wolfe, Grace Fulk, Beulah Miller, Gertrude Reger,
Myrtle Humes, Lovilla Frost, Clara Davis, Greta Nine, Winifred Newman, Evelyn Walters, Margaret Frogott, Ina Junkins, Albert Tenney, John Anthony, Howard Smith, Dick Beat, Ray Kisner, Raymond Kisner, Albert Gray
Bayard High School- 1928
The �Dark Horse Team� of Bayard High School went to state tournament in 1928. Victory High of Clarksburg ended BHS�s dream.
Those on the team were: Virgil Hanlin, Clarence Walters, Eugene Walters, Harold Shaffer, Pete Schwartz, Paige Blackburn. Coach: Mr. Stahl
Emmons Concert Band sponsored by Emmons Coal Co. Holding regular practice every week they were always ready to entertain. Played for all town functions and regular band concerts. Anyone of importance arriving on one of the daily trains of the Western Maryland was met and serenaded by the Band. Sousa marches were their specialty. They were often in demand in other communities for special occasions. This photo was taken on September 17, 1927 before leaving for a trip to Morgantown to perform. No chaperones were needed for the younger members as the older ones looked out for them.
Those in the photo were: Payton Dixon, W. F. Fulk, Marion DeWitt, T. A. Boring, Fred Seymour, Charley Nine, Mack Steringer, E. F. Nine (Rob), John Anthony, Grant Clark, Fritz, Anthony, Charles Hickerson, Roy Casteel, Glen Nine, Gil Blizzard, Don Shumaker, Harold Shaffer, Fred Nine, James Casteel and the Bandmaster, David Frogatt
Mose Tamburini -- Merchant of Bayard
Mr. M. Tamburini, one of the leading merchants of Bayard, has had a most varied Career, yet a remarkably successful one, as the following will show. Born at Tyrol, Austria, 1859; went to France in 1882, and commenced work for the West Virginia Central and Pittsburg Railway Company, whose road was then under construction; after working on the railroad for two years, went west for a short time but soon returned and went to mining coal for the Davis coal& Coke Co.: first at Thomas and later at Elk Garden: in 1893 quit mining and entered the mercantile business at Bayard, where he not conducts a very large general retail store. His store at first was small, but he has, by his superior business ability, increased it from time to time and he now carries a $10,000 stock.
In 1893 he was united in marriage with Miss Margaret Hughes, a teacher in the Keyser public schools.
Mr. Tamburioi owns considerable real estate in the way of houses and lots, farming and timberlands. He is also considerably interested in the First National Bank of Gormania. When he entered the great American port of New York, only twenty-four years ago, he was without money, having so little that he was compelled to walk, and so he and a fellow countryman walked all the way from New York city to Bayard.
Inter Potomac Industrial Edition 1908
There was no Catholic Church in Bayard so mass was held each Sunday in the Tamburini store building.
E. C. Shaffer
Mr. E. C. Shaffer is a young man and a native of Garrett County, Maryland; clerked for Preston Lumber & Coal Co., at Crellin, Maryland and afterward managed the Wilson Lumber Co.�s plant, at Fairfax, W.Va.; entered the mercantile business at Bobbin, W. Va. in 1902; sold out the Bobbin store and bought the Bayard Mercantile Co.'s store in 1904; increased the business of the Bayard store from $900 a month of $3,500.
Mr. Shaffer is a hustler, and in addition to his mercantile business now owns nearly a thousand acres of timber, which he is now operating. He owns his own store building and four residence in Bayard and besides is largely interested in the Cottage Street Mining Co., a local coal mining company
Inter-Potomac Industrial Edition 1908
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Bayard in 1908
Growing and Progressive Town of Grant County
Bayard, one of the progressive towns of Grant county, is also located along the line of the Western Maryland, 40 miles from Keyser, and 51 miles from Elkins. It is incorporated, has several churches, among which are the M. E., U. B. and Presbyterian, a good four-room school house and an opera house building, which is also occupied by stores.
The principal industry of the place is the Buffalo Creek- Cumberland Coal Co., employing about 100 men. Then there is the Nethken Coal and Coke Co., although the two last named are not operating at present, but probably will some future time. This town has good boardwalks and its citizens are public-spirited men, and while Bayard has dad its reverses, yet it progress now seems substantial
Inter-Potomac Industrial Edition 1908.
Homes with Kerosene Lamps on Potomac Avenue around 1906
The �Dungeon� of A. N. Browne Farm
The home on what is known by the A. N. Browne farm located four miles south of Bayard was built in 1807. The house and barn were built of logs, and are still in a good stare of repair, especially the house.
The land where the house was built was bought from people named Hayes by Elijah Rinker. He was the builder of the house and the barn. His son, Felix Rinker, inherited the farm and lived there until 1910 at which time he sold it to A. N. Browne.
In 1943 Charley and Carleton Browne bought the farm from their father, A. N. Browne and divided the farm, Carleton Browne taking the part, 208 acres where they farm home and barn are located. In 1972 the home and 208 acres of the land were given to Mrs. Rosalee Browne Leach, daughter of Carleton Browne, who now owns the place.
The house was remodeled when A. N. Browne bought it. One large chimney was taken down, a new part was added and the house was weather-boarded and painted.
One very interesting part of the original building was that it had a room called the �dungeon.� It was an upstairs room with no windows or doors and was used, as the story was told , for sleeping and hiding boys during the Civil War so they wouldn�t be compelled to serve in the Army. The only access to he �dungeon� was to go into the attic and through the attic floor which had a concealed �scuttle hole.� A stranger wouldn�t know that room was a part of the house.
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Mt. Storm
The oldest titles of land in the area that would become Mt. Storm dates back to 1773. This date probably marks the beginning of the first settlers in the area.
However, as lands were taken up in some instances before lawful titles were drawn, it is probably that �Slab Cabin,� built on a tract later owned by the Hanlin Brothers was erected as early as 1765.
Here, Thomas Logsden built a cabin along the McCulloh Trail, which passed through it near the West Virginia Highway. It received the name �Slab Cabin� probably to distinguish it from other pioneer residence along the trail.
The farm near Stony River Bridge, known for a long time as the Alkire place, is another of the oldest surveys in the community along the McCulloh Trail; Samuel Hanlin was the first man to settle the land. He married Kate Brandsetter and they, the early ancestors of the Hanlin and Cosner families, lie buried in the Geisert Cemetery on the east slope of the Alleghenies.
First ownership of land:
General Joseph Neville was among the first men to secure titles to and about Mt. Storm. He held half interest in a tract of more than 700 acres lying on both sides of Stony River.
Another early landowner was a Mr. Bowman who owned about 700 acres of what is now the Parker Brothers Estate and the central part of the Mt. Storm, community. Bowman very likely was Mt. Storm�s first settler in the town proper and on his property the first post office was established in 1852.
The Neville Family:
General Joseph Neville and his son, Major General Joseph Neville were among the first and most famous inhabitants of Mt. Storm.
Gen. Joseph Neville was born in Farquires, Virginia in 1740 and died in Moorefield. He served as a member of the House of Burgesses from the Hampshire County in 1773 and 1776. During the Revolutionary War, he served the country gallantly as Brigadler General. After the War, he was one of the surveyors who helped complete the Mason-Dixon Line. He was often an associate of Gen. George Washington in surveying Hampshire County lands and was a Justice of the Peace of Hardy County.
His son, Joseph, lived on his estate at Mt. Storm and when the War of 1812 broke out, he was commissioned a Major General.
First Murder:
General Neville, while Justice of the Peace at Moorefield, tried and convicted a man in the first murder case in the Mt. Storm area.
A man by the name of Shrout who lived near the Geisert place on the Morgantown Road about one mile east of the �Mountain,� was charged with the crime of killing his wife, which he accomplished by ramming a broom stick down her throat.
Shrout was executed at Moorefield by hanging. The prisoner was allowed to carry a small stick to drop as a signal. It is said that Shrout, instead of dropping the stick, threw it defiantly into the air.
Wade Hampden Neville, one of Major General Neville�s sons became Mt. Storm�s first postmaster in 1852 when the office was established at the David Aronholt place � mile south of the present post office.
The Kitzmillers:
The first Kitzmiller in the area was John Kitzmiller who came from Pennsylvania, married a Miss Bowman and lived just west of the Stony River on the Morgantown road. A blacksmith, he made the first lock for the hardy County jail.
The Near Hanging of Jacob Kitzmiller:
Jacob Kitzmiller born in 1803 is the source of an interesting episode that occurred on his residence during the Civil War. He as aroused one morning at his home along Abram�s Creek near the Northwestern Turnpike by four masked straggling confederate soldiers who demanded his money. On refusal to give it up, he was taken from the house to the yard. The robbers now looped a rope over an arching limb and lifted their captive from the ground twice to fall in the noose. At this juncture, Mr. Kitzmiller agreed to give them some gold if they would set him free; but his made the robbers only more determined to secure the whole amount of cash he had in his possession; so they lifted him by the rope from the earth and let him hand until he was unconscious. When they dropped him to the ground no apparent sign of life remained, but soon the man revived.
Being foiled in their attempt, here they bound their prisoner and led him over the hill into a deep ravine where the family could not witness what was supposed would be an execution. Here they bound him to a locust tree, but instead of shooting him, they went off leaving him to his fate. However, one left a penknife sticking in the tree, which Kitzmiller used to free himself.
The Cosner Family:
Jacob Cosner was the first man to live on the Geisert place, which is located about one mile east of the top of the Alleghenies on the Moorefield Road.
The Cosners were among the first settlers of the Bismarck area.
Rev. William Cosner was born November 29, 1845 near Mt. Storm. Taught at home by his parents, he left Mr. Storm for a time and organized a Sunday school in a log schoolhouse. Then, accepting an offer from the Moorefield Presbytery, he moved back to Mt. Storm to begin training for the ministry. He first attended Washington and Lee University where his classmate was none other than Robert E. Lee.
He then attended Hampden Sidney and graduated with top honors. At the request of his friends and neighbors at home, he was installed as a Home Missionary in the Allegheny field, of which he was a founder. He served a large field for about two years before he died.
Other early and influential families that shaped Mt. Storm were the Idleman�s, the Schaeffers, the Shillingburgs, the Foleys and the Lees.
First Schools:
The first schools in the community were known as private or select schools. A teacher would appear in a neighborhood and ascertain how many pupils he could enlist and how much money could be raised for his salary, which was about $10 per month plus board. He was required to teach the �Three R�s� and was supposed to have skill in making the quill.
The first schoolhouses were built by the community, or those interested in the school. The earliest ones were built of round logs and covered with clapboards, which were held in place by a rib-pole, nails being too expensive.
One of these schools was located at the Murphy settlement, one near the residence of Francis D. Idleman and another about a mile south of Bismarck on the Smith property
Early Doctors:
The first doctors on record are John Greene and James H. Lemon. Dr. Greene was born in 1797 and lived near Sulphur, Mineral County. He made frequent visits to Mt. Storm for which he charged a standard fee of $3. His diary reports that the winters of 1813-14 and 1855-56 were sinters of unusual severity on the �Mountain�
Dr. James H. Lemon was born in Scherr about 1826.
Other doctors serving the community have included Dr. W. G. Drinkwater, Dr. J. O. Lantz and Dr. J. M. Scott of Medley.
The McCulloh Trail
The trail, later known as the Pack Road, which led across the mountains from Moorefield by way of Mt. Storm and Gormania to settlements on the Cheat and Buckhannon rivers, was the first crude way of travel for emigrants-crossing the Alleghenies and returning and is related to national history.
This path at first was doubtlessly used by Indians for hunting buffalo and in conduction raids.
The �Trail� for many years was used as a pack road over which on exchange of products was made between the older settlements in the east and newer ones across the mountains.
Postal service was rendered along this trail, sometimes a hollow tree was used as a place to deposit letters, which ere picked up by travelers and carried to friends or to a post office. There was a hollow tree near the Mt. Storm M. E. Church on the farm owned by David Aronhalt for that purpose.
John Brown Near Mt. Storm:
In the spring of 1859, John Brown was supposed to have conversed with M. D. Neville. Brown was hung for treason later that year for his aborted raid on the Federal armory at Harper�s Ferry.
The Morgantown Road:
Opened around 1800, it went from Winchester, Virginia, came by way of Moorefield and Mt. Storm and crossed the North Branch nearly one mile above Gormania, through the western end of Maryland, and on through Preston County to Morgantown.
Northwestern Turnpike:
The most heavily traveled of the three roads; the Turnpike was built as a rival of the National Road, which was opened from Cumberland to Wheeling in 1818.
The main thoroughfare east and west through northern Virginia, it was engineered by Claudius Crozet, who served under Napoleon.
Constructed at a cost of $400,000, it stretches for 193 miles from Winchester to Parkersburg. It never competed with its northern rival, but served the interests of Virginia well, and was a national highway of much importance until its horseless rival reached Cumberland in 1845, Grafton in 1852 and Parkersburg in 1857.
Hotels were not more than from three to six miles apart and every farmhouse along the way was open to the public. In the Mt. Storm area, hotels were located at Gormania, a mile east at the Sollars Place, Stony River, the Stone House near Abram�s Creek and another at Cob tavern about half a mile from the top of the Alleghenies in Mineral County.
Church History:
The first record of the gospel being preached was by a Presbyterian minister by the name of Scott at the Francis D. Idleman residence.
Next, the gospel was preached on the Maslin farm on the Morgantown Road.
Religion was also taught in a building constructed for the double purpose of school and church located in front of the Methodist Church. The Methodist Episcopal ministers occupied it until the 1870�s when the Presbyterians and Methodists took over. It was a free church and open to all denominations. It was eventually destroyed by fire in 1865.
Another combination church-school was built by the Board of Education about a mile east; Church services were conducted in it until 1896 when both the present Methodist and Presbyterian Churches were built near the fire site.
The Allegheny Church, a Brethren Church, was the first to be built near the summit of the Alleghenies. Erected in 1880, it was later used by Presbyterians. The Church of the Brethren built another near the late John Tyler Cosner residence and is called Locust Grove.
The Rehobeth Church was built in 1882 mainly by D. C. Tabb, a layman of the Presbyterian Church
The Blake Chapel, also known as the Hartmansville Church was built in 1874 by the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Dorcas Post Office Back Where it Started:
When Dorcas, Rough Run and Spring Run residents saunter into the living room of the quaint pink and white house, they exchange salutations with the postmaster, pluck a letter or two from the wooden cubicles and quite often, ease into the nearby couch or rocking chair situated nearby. It�s a scene that the two-story wooden house post office has experienced a thousand times since June 20, 1892.
June 20, 1892, of course, was the day of first post office in the area was established in the house. James Wiese owned the building then and assumed the postmaster chores in addition to sustaining a general merchandise store. Wiese�s wife was Dorcas, for whom the little community at the base of Elkhorn Mountain was named after.
Apparently the postmaster chores ill-suited Wiese because he soon turned over the reins to George E. Ours who served in that capacity from May 25, 1895 to January 10,1914. Ours was the father of Larkin Ours, who served the 32nd Delegate Disrr8ct in the W. Va. Legislature for eight consecutive terms.
Mary J. Bond became the area�s first woman postmistress in 1914, stepping down in 1918.
Purchasing the house, store and post office package and being appointed its fourth postmaster in 1918 was Snowden S. Cook. Cook bore a daughter in the house in 1913 by the name of Lorena R. Hinkle who 60 years later, followed in her father�s footsteps by taking postmistress duties.
A tinner by vocation, Cook ran his now obsolete operation in a room adjoining the present post office room.
Sometimes in the 1940�s, the post office location was transferred to a home adjacent to the Old Star Mill along Spring Run. The Mill has long since been torn down but the empty post office building still sits next to the home of Delmar Judy.
While at Spring Run, Don Roscoe Kite became postmaster, beginning on August 11, 1943.
Form there, the wandering post office was moved slightly down stream to Kit�s general store located directly opposite the home now owned by Larkin Ours. Here the post office served the rural mountain area until 1972. Kite, after 15 years as postmaster, relinquished the duties in 1958 to his wife, Edna who served an additional 14 years.
Both Kites have passed away, Roscoe in 1971 and wife, Edna in 1973. Their graves can be found side by side in the little graveyard behind the Dorcas Elementary School. The barren store still stands, beckoning with the word post office painted in white letters on its windows.
From there, the post office returned to its original site on May 13, 1972. Here, Mrs. Hinkle sorted out and inserts mail into cubby holes in a corner of her living room. Although it has swelled in terms of service�supplying two mail runs for 138 families and boxes for 18 more- the air of informality and countrified hospitality has lingered from the day it opened in 1892. One can still absorb any new town gossip, take in some TV, relax or simply collect the mail�all in a 10-foot by 20-foot room.
While at Spring Run, Don Roscoe Kite became postmaster, beginning on August 11, 1943.
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Obituaries
Mrs. J. Justin Barger
Mrs. Laura Mildred Barger, 48, of Petersburg, died Saturday in the Grant Memorial Hospital after a brief illness.
Born July 15, 1907 in Petersburg, she was the daughter of the late Claude A. and Luna (Taylor) Bergdoll.
She is survived by her husband J. Justin Barger, of Petersburg; one step son Junior Barger of Petersburg; one sister, Mrs. Marguerite Martin, of Petersburg; two brothers, Ellis Bergdoll, Flintstone, Maryland and William Bergdoll, Moorefield and one step-granddaughter and one step-great-grandson.
She was a retied schoolteacher, a member of the Order of Eastern Star in Petersburg and Grove Street United Methodist Church.
Services were held Monday morning in Grove Street U. M. Church by Rev. Doyle Payne. Interment was in Maple Hill Cemetery.
Arrangements were in charge of the Schaeffer Funeral Home.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorials to the Grove Street U. M. Church or the Grant County Cancer Fund.
Mrs. Robert Lee Patch
Mrs. Eva Lena Patch, 71, was dead on arrival at Grant Memorial Hospital Saturday.
Born in Pendleton County December 28, 1904, she was a daughter of the late William and Rachel (Dolly) Harper. Her husband, Robert Lee Patch, preceded her in death in 1948.
A member of the Petersburg Presbyterian Church. Mrs. patch is survived by two daughters, Mrs. Edith Waughtel, Richland, MO and Mrs. Mary Ann Alt, Baltimore; three sons, Richard Patch, of Petersburg, with whom she resided; James Patch, of Arthur and Cecil Patch, Bridgeville, PA, a sister, Mrs. Margie Raines, Onego; three brothers, Grant Harper, Mouth of Seneca; Ivan Harper, Onego and Elmer Harper, Littlestown, Pa; 16 grandchildren and five great grandchildren.
Services were conducted in the Schaeffer Funeral Home Chapel Monday afternoon. Rev. Bruce A. MacBeth and Donald M. Bolls officiated and interment was in Maple Hill Cemetery.
Mrs. Melvin Harbaugh
Mrs. Louella Marie Harbaugh, 57, of RD 3 Rawlings, died Wednesday at Sacred Heart Hospital. She had been in ill health.
Born in Petersburg, she was a daughter of the late Jasper A. and Rella (VanMeter) Kimble. Mrs. Harbaugh was a retired employee of Celanese Fibers Company and was a member of Dawson United Methodist Church.
Surviving are her husband, Melvin L. Harbaugh, and three sisters, Mrs. Leoda Cox, Keyser, Mrs. Hazel Kile, Rd 3, Dawson and Mrs. Joy Alt, Landes.
A service was conducted Sunday at the Rotruck funeral Home in Keyser by the Rev. William Sansom. Burial was in Potomac Memorial Gardens.
Old �Tyme� Desserts
If you�ve ever partaken of any or all these desserts you know what we mean when we day �they just don�t make �em like that anymore�
Handed down from generation to generation and made from scratch, of course, they�re a bit hard on the waistline, but oh, so good!
In the days when these desserts were more commonplace, thick country cream that had to be thinned for table use, pounds of country butter and fresh eggs were delivered weekly from the farm homes to persons living in town. They were as essential to the cook of yester-year as are the ingredients for a Ceaser�s salad to today�s gourmet cook.
If you ere fortunate enough to receive a dinner invitation to the home of some of this area
S more discriminating cooks a hundred or more years ago you would have known you would be served one of these special desserts.
It goes without saying that after noting the ingredients that go into each or all of the recipes you will not wonder why our mothers and grandmother s found it necessary to suffer from the tightly �laced corset which was a long-standing and often crippling feature in their attire.
Tyler Pudding Pie
� cup butter
1-cup sugar
3 eggs, well beaten
1-tablespoon flour
1-cup rich milk or light cream
1-teaspoon vanilla
1 unbaked pie shell
Cream butter and sugar well. Add flour, then beaten eggs, milk and vanilla. Pour in unbaked crust, bake 10 minutes at 400 degrees, and then turn oven to 300 degrees (or less). Bake until pie is a delicate brown, about 45 minutes. Test with a sliver knife blade.
Jefferson Davis Pie
3 tablespoons butter
1-cup sugar
3 eggs
1-cup cream
1-cup milk
1teaspoonvanilla
1 unbaked 8-inch pie shell
Mix together 2 teaspoons cinnamon, � teaspoon cloves, 3 tablespoons flour.
Cream butter; add sugar, eggs, cream, milk and vanilla. Add spice mixture. Pour in unbaked pie shell. Bake 10 minutes at 450 degrees. Reduce heat to 350 degrees bake 25-30 minutes more.
Mrs. E. L. Judy�s Hickory Nut Cake
1 � cup sugar
� cup butter (include 1 tablespoon Spry)
2 � cups cake flour
1-cup milk
4 egg whites (put 4 tablespoons of the sugar in egg whites just before the beating is finished)
4 teaspoons baking powder
1-teaspoon vanilla
� cup chopped nuts (mix a bit of the flour with the nuts before adding them to the batter)
Cream butter and sugar together, sift flour and baking powder together then add flour and milk alternately. Add white of eggs last gently folding them in. Pour into 2 layer cake pans and bake in 350-degree oven until cake breaks away from sides of pans.
Filling (between layers)
While cake is baking and cooling make the following:
1 egg yolk
3-tablespoon sugar
Pinch salt
1-cup cream
1-tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 cup chopped nuts
Mix together and stir constantly over fire until it boils and thickens. When cool stir in � teaspoon vanilla. Then spread between layer. Ice with 7-minute white icing with some chopped nuts added.
White Icing
Mix in saucepan � cup sugar; 2 tablespoons water and 1/4cup light corn syrup. Bring to a rolling boil. Remove from fire and drop a small amount from a spoon until syrup spins a long thread. Return to heat until it spins a thread. Just before syrup is ready beat 2 egg whites until still enough to hold a point. Pour hot syrup very slowly in a thin stream into beaten egg whites. Continue to beat until icing holds peaks or is stiff enough to spread. Blend in 1teaspoon vanilla. Add chopped hickory nuts if desired.
Woodford Pudding
� cup butter
� cup white sugar
3 eggs
� teaspoon salt
� cup strawberry preserves
� cup pineapple preserves
1-cup flour
1-teaspoon soda dissolved in 3 tablespoons sour milk
1-tablespoon cinnamon
1-teaspoon nutmeg
� cup chopped nuts
Cream shortening and sugar. Add eggs and other ingredients. Pour into a greased pan. 12x8 inches, and bake in 350-degree oven for 35 minutes. Serve with Vanilla Sauce
Vanilla Sauce
1/2cup white sugar
� cup brown sugar
1 cp hot water
2 tablespoons flour
1-teaspoon butter
1-teaspoon vanilla
Mix flour with sugar. Add boiling water. Cook until thick. Add butter and vanilla. Serve warm on pudding.