The men who first settled this region came from the East, beyond the Allegheny Mountains. They are among those who head the list for civilization, defiant of all the terrors, hardships and dangers that savage men and savage conditions could send against them, and never a helping hand did they ask from the federal government. Now the great barons of finance and civilization rely upon, depend upon and secure their support and protection by a constant appeal to government.
Traders, trappers and hunters came and went; individual daring, the spirit of adventure, the craving for excitement and the greed for gain forced the secrets of the wilderness, and gradually they spread among the people of the eastern and older communities a knowledge of the wonderful country west of the Alleghenies.
The Horseshoe Knights of Virginia, who rode gallantly in the train of the imperial Governor Spottswood to the summit of the Alleghenies, and gazed from those heights westward upon the unexplored wilderness beyond, were thought to have done a notable deed. It was boasted of as the mariner of ancient times boasted of having carried his ship beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and for which he was rewarded by knighthood by his royal sovereign.
The passes over the Blue Ridge and the Alleghenies are as prosaic nowadays as are the Straits of Gibraltar, but for many years after the golden spires of the Virginia-Carolinas had grown old, a veil of mystery and the spell of danger hung over the mountain ranges which separated the seaboard colonies from these western lands. The adventurers and pioneers were usually of that hardy stock who had emigrated from foreign lands beyond the sea, seeking personal and religious liberty. In those days it was the building of a republic by the lovers of liberty. Congress had not then broken through the bands of the Constitution; the miners and sappers of that Constitution had not then begun their work; monopolies had not then been fostered; personal liberty had not then been curtailed; "government by injunction" had not been invented; the Philippine Islands had not been seized; crown dependencies had not been secured, such as Porto Rico [sic], and their subjection patterned after the laws that ruled the American colonies by Great Britain, prior to 1776; even sporadic assaults upon the principles of liberty had not then begun. The federal courts had not then commenced the incessant and silent deposits about the foundations of liberty, the bloody soil of monarchy, as now claimed by those who say they are building spires and minarets upon the Grecian temples of the Republic─that its walls have been disfigured, and that a moat has been dug about its entrances and fitted with secret passages and traps, and constructed cells below ground to complete its terrors. Our forefathers dreamed a practical, real Utopian dream of liberty and equality, when all men should have an equal chance in life, and for that the pioneers laid the foundations of an unequaled civilization on the face of the earth. They dreamed not of the coming of the trusts, of the soulless corporations, the monopolies, of their aggressions by a fostering government, which, if permission be continued, will eventually invest all of the "reserve powers" of the government in the President. They believed that with liberty and equality the common man could live, and the able man could grow honestly rich. They treated liberty not as a formula, but as an actual thing; they treated the laws to be obeyed, and not to be evaded.
The pioneers of this region were honest, God-fearing settlers, as is evidenced from all history, tradition and knowledge obtainable, teaching those who followed them to follow in their own footsteps. There is scarcely a section or a neighborhood in this county wherein there are not descendants of these pioneers, and stronger or more loyal minds do not exist on the earth.
It is impossible at this date and time to procure the names, history or tradition of all, and possibly not nearly all of the frontiersmen who first located and settled in the sections of the territory now included in this municipality.
The best that can be done is to preserve to posterity the names of such as are ascertainable at this late day, more than one hundred years having intervened since the foundations were laid by civilized men in this part of the country west of the Allegheny Mountains. On Lick Creek, in Green Sulphur District, Curtis Alderson, Samuel and Robert Withrow, John and Robert Miller, Samuel Gwinn. John Duncan and John Hicks were among the earliest. On Laurel Creek, David, Joseph and John Dick, Joseph Bragg and James Cales. The Dicks, who settled on the immediate head of Laurel Creek, were from Wolf Creek Mountain, and were brothers of the wife of James Cales. There are descendants of each of these pioneers still residing on these creeks, though many have gone on west as civilization has advanced in that direction. On Griffith Creek and in Talcott District, Thomas Griffith, Joseph Graham and Stevenson were among the pioneers. On the Greenbrier River, Isaac Ballengee, Wm. Ferrell, Conrad Keller, James Graham, Samuel Gwinn, Jessie Beard, Jeptha Massey, Wm. Hinchman, Kincaid, Meadows, Rollyson and Fluke. On Little Wolf Creek Richard Woodrum early located. His son John married a daughter of Green Meador, of Bluestone. The descendants of the first settlers on Little Wolf Creek were John Woodrum, the father of Maj. Richard Woodrum and Harrison Woodrum, and the grandfather of C. L. and John Woodrum. On the Wolf Creek Mountain James Cales, a Virginian, located. His wife was a Dick, and he was the father of Archibald and James Cales and the grandfather of James and Archibald Cales, two of the worthy citizens now residing in that section. The Cooks, Farleys, Hughes and Ellisons, of Pipestem; the Lillys and Meadows, of Jumping Branch; Ellisons and Packs, of New River region.
The earliest land grant of which we have knowledge was for a tract of land in this neighborhood, which was issued by Thomas Jefferson in 1781. The claim for this patent was laid in 1772, four years before the date of the Declaration of Independence. The first settlers of the Pipestem in New River country were the Cooks, Parleys, Packs and Bartons; in the Bluestone and Jumping Branch country, the Meadows, the Lillys, the Hughes and Ellisons are the first known to history.
William Graham, an uncle of David Graham, first settled on what is now known as Riffe's Bottoms, Colonel James Graham having first obtained patent for 400 acres. This fine bottom was acquired many years ago by David M. Riffe, a well-to-do farmer, one of his sons, Thomas Riife, still owning a part of it, on which he resides. Another son of D. M. Riffe resides in Hinton─Jake A. Riffe, the founder, principal stockholder and general manager of the Hinton Department Company. He has been a merchant in Hinton for twenty-five years, and is one of the enterprising citizens of that town. M. A. Riffe, another brother, resides at Roanoke, Virginia, as does also Dr. A. L. Riffe, another brother. Another brother, Dr. J. W. Riffe, resides in Greenfield, Indiana.
The town of Talcott is built on land at one time owned by Mathew Kincaid, whose wife inherited it as a descendant of the Grahams. Griffith Meadows married one of his daughters. The Kincaid tract included a large boundary extending to the Graham settlement at Lowell. C. S. Rollyson owned a large boundary of land on the Big Bend Tunnel Mountain. Another of the old settlers was Michael Kaylor, on the Hump Mountain, which included a large boundary of the valuable land in that region where located. William and Lewis Gwinn owned large and valuable boundaries of land on New River, between Lick Creek and Meadow Creek. David Bowles also owned land on Hump Mountain. John B. Walker and William Dunbar early settled on the top of Swell Mountain, between Laurel and Lick Creeks. Isaac Milburn early took up the valuable lands on the Greenbrier River, having married a daughter of Nortlifif Taylor, below the mouth of Little Wolf Creek, where his descendants, Henry and Isaac, still reside. James Boyd owned land on Greenbrier River once owned by Charles and John Maddy, at the west portal of the Big Bend Tunnel, where his son, Benjamin Boyd, now resides. James Boyd was of a Monroe family, and married a daughter of William Pack. Thomas and Charles Gatlifif, Frenchmen, were early settlers on New River. The Crump's Bottom was owned by a man by the name of Culbertson, and then by a man by the name of Reed, prior to the Crumps, Pattersons on Patterson Mountain; Bradshaws on Bradshaw's Run, in Forest Hill; Richmonds at New River Falls; Cardens at Barger Springs; Grimmetts on Grimmett's Mountain; Bucklands on Big Creek and Rowley's Creek.
There were in the very earliest days families of Gills and Adkins, who inhabited the Laurel Creek, Chestnut Mountain, and around the mouth of Greenbrier, whose descendants still inhabit that country, who thrived and lived principally from natural sources, and are principally known for inoffensive thriftlessness. Life has become harder as civilization, progresses, and the livelihood not obtainable from the forests and streams, the resources now requiring manual labor and intellectual activity. They seem to have married and intermarried without advancement─a harmless, shiftless race of people, with plenty of intellect unexerted and but little advancement has been made for generations. The old patriarch, John Gill, aged about ninety years, died some three years ago, a county charge.
Mathew Lowe married Elizabeth Kincaide (the name was formerly spelled Kinkaid), the father of John Lowe and J. Granville Lowe, enterprising farmers of Jumping Branch District, and the grandfather of the furniture merchants in Hinton, C. E. Lowe and Clifford Lowe. Mathew Lowe owned and lived on the fine farm on Hungart's Creek, now owned by John Willey and once owned by A. J. Miller, a son of Brice Miller. He had three daughters, Eliza A., who married Anderson Wheeler, J. C. Wheeler and Robert Wheeler were her sons, and Mrs. Waddell, of Madam's Creek, her daughter. Her second husband was Hon. Sylvester Upton. Another daughter of Mathew Lowe was Agnes, who married Peter Wyant, of Big Bend Tunnel, and another daughter, Rebecca, married Jordan Grimmet.
Kincaide was a prominent man in the settlement of the country. Mathew reared a large family, having lived at the mouth of Hungart's Creek. Jane married Moses Hedrick, the father of Wm. C., Geo. W., John, Mathew and George, and his daughter Mary married William Wyant, of Pisgah Church. Susan married John Allen, son of Nathaniel Allen, who now lives in Mercer County. Moses Hedrick and his wife lived to a very old age, dying some eleven years ago.
Florence Graham Kincaide married Isaac Tincher, and, after his death, married Thomas Holstein, who still lives on the Big Bend Mountain near Pisgah Church, and he is one of the solid, substantial farmers of this county. Mrs. Holstein is one of the few of Mathew Kincaide's children still living. It was out of the title to this land at Talcott the great suit of Karns [sic] vs. the Citizens of the Town of Talcott grew. The land was inherited by Kincaide's wife, and he made conveyances in which she did not join. After his death the Carnes [sic] heirs sued, one of his (Kincaide's) children, Rebecca, having married Henry Karns, of Mercer County, whose heirs brought the suit.
Lanty Graham Kincaide married Eliza Keller, a sister of George Keller, of Lowell, on the old Konrad Keller place. Emma, a daughter of Lanty Graham Kincaide, married Col. Wilson Lively, of Lowell. Nancy Kincaide and Susan married Griffith and William Meadows. Griffith Meadows once owned a lot of this land at Talcott, and it was he who took the deed from Mathew Kincaide without having the wife join. He was a prominent man in that region about the day of the formation of the county, was a justice of the peace, and now lives in Monroe County, an old man. His sons, Lanty and Rufus, live at Talcott, are well-to-do citizens, both employees of the C. & O. Railroad; one, chief of the carpenter force; the other, Rufus H., the chief of iron bridge construction, one of the best in the land. Lanty Kincaide, a brother of Mathew, married a Scott and settled on Muddy Creek, but later moved to Lick Creek, in Summers, where he died in 1850. John, a son of Lanty, lived and died on Lick Creek, on a farm now owned by James Sedley Duncan, a part of the old Banks-Schermerhorn patent. Two of his sons, Charley and Lewis, were Baptist preachers, and died in recent years. St. Clair Burdette, who lived to the age of 105 years, dying, in 1906, married the daughter of John Kincaide, Octavia.
Lanty Kincaide, Sr.'s, daughter, Rebecca, married William Graham, a grandson of Col. William Graham. James Graham, the famous hunter and blacksmith, was her son.
David, the youngest son of Joseph Graham, married Sarah J. Alderson, a daughter of James Alderson, a descendant of the pioneer Baptist minister west of the Alleghenies. E. D. Alderson, another of the descendants, is one of the best farmers in Talcott District, residing near the mouth of Hungart's Creek. He was a brave soldier in the Confederate Army, a Baptist and a Democrat.
James Boon and James K. Scott on Boon's and Hungart's Creek; Culbertsons, Farleys and Packs on New River; the Meadows, Lillys, Neeleys, Hughes and Cooks in Jumping Branch and Pipestem; Brooks and Foxes, Bowles and Kalors on the Hump Mountain.
The first school taught in Monroe County was in a round log house, the roof made of clapboards held down by ridge poles, with a puncheon floor. And those holding official positions have nearly invariably been the descendants of the old settlers, or the exceptions, which are few, those who became permanent inhabitants, and not those people who landed on our soil, running for office. Those gentry were usually voted to take a back seat, and at least to get the dust of other regions shaken from their feet before entering the lists for official spoils. This county has not had to go beyond its borders to seek for honest timber from whom to elect its officials, and in nearly each case the offices have been held by the descendants of the pioneer and natives of its soil, or from those who have become such, and it is none the worse off by its so being.
C. R. Price is a native of Giles County, Virginia, and an "old Virginia gentleman," descended from an old and honorable family of Newport, Giles County, Virginia. He purchased Wildwood, the Dr. Fowler place, at the mouth of Indian, where he resided for several years, later locating on the John W. Wiseman farm on the New River Hills, between Wolf Creek and the mouth of Greenbrier. He was a brave Confederate soldier and fought through the Civil War, being wounded severely, which wound he carries to this day. He represented Giles County for several terms in the House of Delegates of Virginia, and is now a patriotic citizen of the county. His sons, Wm. H. Price, the jeweler, and Thomas, the wholesale grocer, are citizens of Hinton, and Dr. Malcolm Price, another son, lives in Charleston. Mr. Price was a captain in the Civil War and made a brave and honorable record.
─── Vanbibber settled at Lowell about 1775 or 1780, but sold his claim to Konrad Keller and moved on west. He was evidently a hunter seeking adventure, and later reached the Kanawha. George Keller, a direct descendant, still owns and lives on this land. His only son, the Rev. Wallace Keller, lives in the same neighborhood, and his grandson, David Wallace Keller, is a merchant at Lowell.
Samuel and James Gwinn came about 1780. They were from the Calf Pasture River. Samuel Gwinn married the widow Elizabeth Graham, who was a Miss Lockridge, hence the name of Lockridge Gwinn, a son of "Squire" John Gwinn.
Samuel Gwinn had five sons, Moses, Andrew, Samuel, John, Ephraim, and two daughters─Ruth, who married James Jarrett, Sr., the mother of the late Joseph and James Jarrett, two of the wealthiest men in Greenbrier County at their days.
Samuel Gwinn moved from Lowell to Lick Creek in 1800, and died March 25, 1837, in the ninety-fourth year of his age. Hon. Marion and Harrison are his grandsons. He divided $12,000.00 between his sons in silver before his death. Two of his sons, Samuel and Andrew, carried their distribution home across Keeney's Knobs in grain sacks, in bulk about half a bushel. He invited all his sons in on a certain day and made the division. The two named lived at Lowell and carried theirs to their homes as above stated, on a pack-horse through the mountains fifteen miles, when there were no roads, only a trail. Andrew Gwinn, of Lowell, is the grandson of this Samuel.
James Gwinn, the other brother, settled on Keller's Creek on what is known as the Laben Gwinn farm. He died many years ago, before his brother. He left four sons, Robert, James, Joseph and Samuel. His son was appointed ensign by the first county court of Monroe.
Joseph settled a mile above his father, and left John, Sylvester, James, Augustus and Joseph. J. Clark Gwinn and Geo. K. Gwinn, the merchants of Alderson, are sons of Augustus.
Miriam Gwinn married J. W. P. Stevens, who was a very noted man, being a "schoolmaster." He wrote all the wills, deeds and legal papers of the region. He was called upon to count the $12,000.00 which Samuel Gwinn divided among his sons, and to see that each son got his part. Three of his descendants still live, John and Joseph in Greenbrier, and Mrs. Geo. Alderson, wife of Hon. Geo. Alderson, at Alderson.
Robert, son of James, Sr., settled at River View Church, and his son James, and his grandsons, Oliver, Ed (who was a very large man, full of fun and wit, who was never married, and was killed by a falling tree), and William lived there after him. Also Addison R., of Wolf Creek.
Samuel Gwinn, son of James, Sr., married Magdalene Johnson and settled on the James Boyd farm at Little Bend Tunnel, later owned by William and Charles Maddy, and later by James Boyd, and then by his sons, Richard and Ben R.
Konrad Keller had four sons, Philip, John, Henry and David. Elizabeth married James Ferrell; Rachel married Ephraim Gwinn, youngest son of Samuel. She died May 8, 1889, eighty-six years of age. Philip moved to Indiana. He and Madison married daughters of Enos Ellis. David Keller, Sr., lived and died at Lowell. Henry was the father of George, who now lives on the old plantation. He died about eighty years ago, dropping dead in the harvest field while cradling wheat. Geo. Keller is now over eighty years of age, but remembers his father's tragic death.
One took up a claim also at this place, but sold to Konrad Keller and moved on west, locating on the Big Sandy in 1818.
Notliffe Taylor settled on the Greenbrier, where Henry Milburn now lives, and Isaac Milburn, the ancestor, married his daughter. Nancy, another daughter, married William Johnson, of Johnson's Cross Roads, Monroe County. Elizabeth married Samuel Gwinn, Sr. Notliffe Taylor also owned land on Hungart's Creek, and no doubt Taylor's Ridge is named for him.
William Kincaide first located and settled on the Jessie Beard place, Pence Springs.
William Hinchman, about the close of the Revolution, settled near Greenbrier River. He was an Englishman, and is supposed to have been a British soldier, who, like many others, were tired of British rule, and after the Revolution determined and did locate in this country. His first location was below Gwinn's Branch, then he removed to the present Hinchman plantation across the present county line in Monroe, where his son and grandson, William, lived and died. His great grandson likewise, and his great great-grandsons, John and Luther, now reside. It was his great granddaughters, Elizabeth, who married Capt. A. A. Miller, and Mary, who married Thomas Allen George, of Lick Creek. One son, William, of this pioneer, moved to Logan, whose descendants still live there, the Logan pioneers. He raised a family of twenty-four children, and they live there yet. The Hinchmans are prominent people. The inscription on the monument of the late John Hinchman at River View Church is as follows: "He died as he lived, a Christian." John Hinchman was a representative in the Legislature from Monroe County, a commissioner of the county court and a prominent man. His son, John, is president of the county court of that county. William Hinchman, the ancestor, was a justice of the peace and a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church.
The Ellis settlement at the mouth of Griffith Creek, known as the Enos Ellis place, is one of the oldest in the country, and is possibly older than the Graham. It was near this place where Thomas Griffith was killed by Indians.
Baily Wood had a cabin near the foot of Keeney's Knob, and also Martin McGraw, where A. H. Honaker now lives, but they never acquired title; or, if so, sold out their claims before they had ripened into patent.
William Withrow, the first known settler settled on what is now the Eades farm, a mile southeast of the Clayton post office, but moved away after a short residence. Peter Eades soon after acquired the property. He came from Albemarle County, Virginia, and his descendants are still in the county. Mr. Al. Eades, a section master at Talcott; Mrs. Lant Meadows, of the same place, and W. K. Eades, the merchant of Lowell, are descendants of this first settler, as was Joshua Eades, the carpenter, and Eades, the great bridge architect and engineer, who constructed the great iron bridge across the Mississippi at St. Louis, and the jetty improvements at the mouth of that river.
A family of McGraw's also settled on Griffith's Creek at a place known as the Nowlan place.
It is tradition that the first settler on the Flag Fork of Lick Creek, either James Butler or a man by the name of Sims, came into the region, planted out a "patch" of corn and went back across the mountains to bring his family; and, on his return, the buffaloes had destroyed the corn, and he evidently had to begin over again, as his object was to secure a corn title. Thus Sims' Ridge, where John Hoke lives, gets its name. One of the oldest houses in all that region was a round log house two stories high, with wooden hinges to the doors and roof tied down by ridge poles, with a block between them, with a puncheon floor and chimney with a fireplace in which logs of a large size could be burned, ten feet long. This was the largest chimney ever known of in the country, but built out of small and thin rocks, evidently picked up in the branch. This house was lived in by a renter by the name of John Ellis with his mother, Peggy Ellis, a widow of a soldier in the War of 1812. They were from Monroe County.
After it was vacated by them the house was so dilapidated that W. E. Miller, thirty-five or forty years ago, who owned it, pulled it down and burned the logs for firewood, but the chimney stood for many years after as a monument of the long past. It was a matter of general tradition that this chimney was built by a man and woman, the woman carrying the great mass of stone in her apron and the man placing them.
Uriah Garten was one of the first settlers in the "Farms," and there is one of his descendants by the name of Elijah Garten living on the headwaters of Bradshaw's Run. He first settled in Spice Hollow, where Elijah now lives. Steven Davidson lives on a part of the plantation, having married one of his descendants. Alexander Hutchinson, the father of Major James Hutchinson and J. Mastin Hutchinson, settled on the place now owned by John Lowe on Bradshaw's Run, and he and his wife are buried on that farm. He was the grandfather of A. M. and Wellington. Hutchinson settled there about 1790.
The mouth of Hungart's Creek was settled in 1795 by David Graham, who married Mary Stodgill, on what is now known as the Woodson farm, which is owned by a Mr. Dickinson, who married a daughter of the late Zachariah Woodson.
James Graham, Jr., settled in the Riffe Bottom in the year 1800, a part of which farm is now owned and occupied by the Honorable M. M. Warren, which property afterwards passed into the ownership of Mr. D. M. Riffe, and descended to his children, one of which is Mr. J. A. Riffe, now president and general manager of the Hinton Department Company.
William Taylor, son of Notliff Taylor, mentioned before, settled on Hungart's Creek, a mile north of Pence's Spring Station, on what is now known as the Bush place, the dwelling-house now occupied on this farm by Mr. C. E. Mann was built by William Taylor nearly 100 years ago.
The settlement by the Grahams at the present Clayton settlement was in the year 1783, which is on the waters of Hungart's Creek, where the said David G. Ballangee now lives. Early settlers in that community were also Bailey Wood and Martin McGraw, the location being on the farm now owned by Mr. Charles H. Graham. Wm. Withrow lived about a mile southeast of the Graham place, which was afterwards occupied by Peter Eades and family, from Albemarle County, Virginia, and came there about the year 1830.
About three miles from Clayton Post Office at this time lived a family by the name of Griffith, Thomas, the head of the family, having been killed by the Indians in 1780, and is the last recorded victim of the savages in this county. This place is now known as the Ellis place, and is occupied by the Ellis descendants. This settlement was probably before the Graham settlement at Lowell.
The first settler on Wolf Creek was Richard Woodrum, the grandfather of Major "Dick" Woodrum and the father of John Woodrum and Armstrong Woodrum, who was the father of Richard M. Woodrum, the merchant of Woodrumtown. Richard Woodrum was the grandfather of the venerable Charles Garten, of Forest Hill District.
Richard Woodrum, the grandfather of Major Dick Woodrum, first settled on the "Turner Place," now owned by Oscar Hutchinson. Mr. Woodrum first made improvement on that grant. He was the father of John Woodrum, the father of Major Dick Woodrum. Armstrong Woodrum, the father of Richard M. Woodrum at Wiggins, was a son of Richard the first, as was also Bud Woodrum, who emigated West; also W. C. Woodrum was a son of Armstrong. "Item" John Lilly, the assessor, sometimes mentioned as "Gentleman John," married Ida Woodrum, a daughter of Richard Woodrum the first. One daughter, Polly, married Willam Campbell Hutchinson, who settled at Forest Hill, but early in the Civil War emigrated to Ohio. Another daughter, Lilly, married John Mastin Hutchinson. Another, Rhoda Lilly, married Fleming Sanders, who lived near Forest Hill, and was broken up by reason of his suretyship for Joseph Ellis, deputy sheriff, for Evan Hinton. Fleming Sanders was a brother of Capt. "Bob" Sanders. Lydia Woodrum married George Allen, who lived on Indian Draft near Greenville.
A man by the name of Massey, possibly Peter Massey, settled and lived on the John M. Hutchinson place near Forest Hill, and it is known to this day as the Massey place. These people were all old settlers around Forest Hill and in that region.
Nathaniel Roberts built the first storehouse at Forest Hill. He married a sister of Judge A. N. Campbell. This storehouse was built fifty years ago, and is now occupied by Crawford & McNeer, merchants, and this house was occupied at the beginning of the Civil War.
The present postmaster at Forest Hill is Thomas Marshall Hutchinson, and he has had the office for the past twelve years. He is a merchant at that place, and was also postmaster before the Cleveland administration. The first postmaster at Forest Hill was J. M. Hutchinson, there being no post office at that place before the War, and the people of that region got their mail at Red Sulphur Springs.
The people of the neighborhood would take it in turn and go to the "Red" once a week for the mail, and sometimes make up a purse and hired a boy to go after it, as they did A. M. Hutchinson when a boy.
A tobacco factory was built at Forest Hill, then known as "Farms," fifty years ago, by a man by the name of Hogleman, but the manufacturers, Roberts & Hogleman, was probably the first firm. They manufactured chewing and smoking tobacco. It was a flourishing business, the latest firm being the late James Mann and J. Cary Woodson.
There were three old settlers at Forest Hill by the name of Vass. One was Major Vass, a bachelor, who settled on the J. D. Bolton farm. Another was Baswell, a brother of the Major, who sold out before the War and went to Raleigh County. Two of his sons, one of whom is James L., are Baptist ministers in South Carolina. The other brother was James Vass, who settled on an adjoining place with his brother, known as the Lewis C. Symms place, on Bradshaw's Run. They were not brothers of the late Philip Vass, the father of Squire Cary Vass, of Marie, who was a native of Giles County, Virginia.
Edwin Woodson, who early settled in Forest Hill on the head of Bradshaw's, was an eminent missionary Baptist preacher and was the father of J. Cary Woodson and John N. B. Woodson, who now live in Alderson, West Virginia; Wm. W. Woodson, who married a daughter of John H. Dunn, and Edwin C. Woodson, who is the youngest, and he is now over sixty years old. Eliza Woodson married I. J. Cox, and Jane married Stewart Mann.
The Woodsons were among the earliest settlers in the New River Valley, and the settlers were among the pioneer Indian fighters and defenders of pioneer civilization in the New River Valley region, and there are descendants of the pioneer Woodsons throughout all the county in those valleys west of the Alleghenies. Stonewall Jackson's mother married a Woodson as her second husband, and she is buried at Ansted, in Fayette County.
One of the first settlers in the Forest Hill country was Peter Miner, who settled on the farm where that excellent citizen, Allen Ellison, now lives. His direct descendant, Peter Miner, of that district, still owns and lives on a part of the original Miner lands, and is an excellent citizen. Richard McNeer married his sister, and the mother of Squire John P. McNeer of that district. They have had a long controversy over the title to a part of this property with Mr. Allen F. Brown.
Another of the oldest and most enterprising farmers of Forest Hill District, as well as most respected, is Thomas G. Lowe, who lives on Bradshaw's Run, where Bradshaw, the settler, was slain by the Indians. He was a brave and honorable Confederate soldier during the Civil War. He is a brother of L. G. Lowe, the ex-justice and politician, but a loyal Democrat, and his brother a loyal Republican. His son, William G. Lowe, is the efficient postmaster at Indian Mills, and another son, Robert E. Lowe, fills an important position in Government service at Washington, D. C. Another of the best citizens of that country is Wm. Redmond, a southwest Virginian, who settled many years ago near the Indian Mills.
Frank Meadows was a soldier under General Anthony Wayne (Mad Anthony) from Culpepper County, Virginia, and after the battle of Fallen Timbers and the end of the war came to Wolf Creek and settled. He drew a pension, and after his death it was drawn by his wife from the United States Government. He raised a family of two sons; one was named St. Clair (Sinclair) after General St. Clair, and another after General Anthony Wayne. G. C. Meadows and J. J. Meadows, of Barger Springs, are sons of St. Clair.
This generation of Meadows settled on Greenbrier River in the region of the Wiggins country. G. C. Meadows, son of St. Clair Meadows, now living at Barger's Springs, was a soldier throughout the Civil War. He was a member of Capt. Morton's company and was captured and taken as a prisoner of war at Camp Chase, where he was confined for many months. While there he made with his pen-knife a handsome cane from a piece of hickory stove wood, on which he cut, "G. C. Meadows, Camp Chase, Ohio." It is a beautiful piece of workmanship, done to aid in killing time. He presented this souvenir to the writer in 1907.
The William C. Richmond Bottom below Hinton was first settled by J. Meadows and Peter Davis. Meadows built his house at the upper end and Davis at the lower end. Jerry Davis was the father of William Davis, who died on the waters of Madam's Creek a few years ago, and the grandfather of John, Hortan and Garfield Davis. Abraham, Isaac and Rufus were the sons of Jerry above named.
The people of this county have always practiced those traits of honorable character, in their dealing with one another and with strangers within their borders, which approach as nearly to that of the Golden Rule as those of any community in any land, and especially in any region of territory within the United States. We may travel all over this county during the darkest nights, over the lonely roads and highways, notwithstanding the great and innumerable spots within dense forests and among great mountains, hills, cliffs and rocks which are suitable for the commission of dark deeds, free from the sight of criminals and their victims and without danger. No one is required to carry arms for his own protection or that of his property; neither is the farmer required to lock up or fasten his house or his home to prevent invading marauders. Crime has never been prevalent in the country districts of this territory, and the people are courteous to each other and also to strangers. The abrupt and often insolent manners frequent to many sections of this country, and especially to the densely populated cities and communities, is not in evidence in Summers County. When the people meet, they take time to greet each other, ask about the health of their families and how they are prospering, as well as to inquire into the welfare of their neighbors, always giving and receiving sociable answers to personal inquiries, and with a grace and asperity not imitated in many sections. It is acquired by descent, and is devoid of profuseness. If a person is accepted as a guest, he is expected to be at home during the visit, whether it be in a log cabin, or a mansion on the shores of the rivers. The social life of these people has always been most agreeable, without style, formality, or ostentation. Invitations to come and dine and spend the day are usual among the neighbors, and are accepted. The custom of spending the day is, and has been for generations, a common occurrence among these people. One of the old customs which has descended to the present generation, among the ladies of a community, is to invite each other to come and spend the day and bring their knitting along, and invitations to a quilting, or some gathering of that character of a social nature. The knitting has gone out of fashion, because it has become one of the lost arts since the Civil War. The quilting was one of the many features of country life in this region in which young and old patricipated. A home-made quilt, in which the neighbors joined in making, was a work of art as well as of patience. The quilt is composed of scraps from wedding gowns and other garments, and rare fabrics, cut in all manner of shapes and devices. Each scrap has its history in connection with the wearer or the owner of the original from which it was cut. Some patches in the quilt are cut to represent hearts, birds, animals and monograms artfully made with selected threads. From such a quilt, of which there are many in this good county, is built up a history of good neighbors and good friends. At one of these quiltings the male members attended in the evening, partaking of the bounteous meals and of the dances which followed. The intercourse among our people, as it has been for generations, is frequent and genteel. They meet in public, political meetings and religious services, and have kept bright the dull and rough edges of human life in a country of this character, and which naturally grows up in an isolated mountain community. There has never been envy or jealousy between the classes of rich and poor. They mingle on an equality during public occasions. The individual is respected because of his good qualities, and not because of his earthly possessions. The learned official carries his head no higher in dis- dain of the private citizen than does the farmer and the mountaineer, who can neither read nor write his name, but is a decent and respectable citizen. Neither has disdain for his fellow, unless the individual has forfeited his self-respect by his own acts. The people of this county have always been on an equality. There have been no rich people, and the extremely poor have been few, comparatively. They were all educated in the same schools, and were brought up in the same surroundings, the majority, possibly, of our people being possessed of property of less than one thousand dollars; nevertheless, such persons, regardless of their worldly goods, have been enabled to live upon the lands, and receive many more comforts from that meager possession than are received in other regions, where possessions are much less meager and the properties are much greater in value. The majority of the people own their own lands. They are all reared to work with their own hands, and clasp the plow-handle or other implements of honest toil, which give assurance of prosperity without shame. The early settlers sought this region for an independent life. They preferred it, and they secured it, and that independence has descended to the present generation, and every inhabitant of the county should be proud of his native State, as well as of his county, who was born within its territory or reared upon its soil, or where it has become his home by adoption.
The first Constitution which governed this territory was adopted on the 29th day of June, 1776, five days before the famous Declaration of Independence was adopted, and on the 30th of June the first Governor was selected by the inhabitants from their own ranks, which was Patrick Henry. It was under this Constitution that religious freedom was made an existing fact, and the Church of England was disestablished. At practically the same time primogeniture and the entail systems were abolished, by which lands were handed down from father to the oldest son in succession. The question of suffrage was an agitated one from 1780 to 1850, and till this date. Under the Constitution of 1776 no man could vote who did not possess as much as twenty-five acres of land, with a house on it, or fifty acres of unimproved land. After a long fight, suffrage was extended in 1830 to certain lease-holders and house-holders; but not until the famous Reform Convention of 1850 was every free white man allowed to vote, and during all the time of the strenuous suffrage agitation there was an agitation between the Eastern and Western sections of Virginia. It was in 1850 that the people were given the right to elect the Governor, justices and all local officers, including members of the Legislature, by a direct vote. Prior to that they were elected by the General Assembly, which corresponds with our Legislature, and during all this period the people voted by the viva voce system. The secret ballot was never introduced until after the Civil War. During the time our territory was within the territory of Virginia, it furnished seven Presidents to the United States. It gave the territory from which six States were carved, so that she was the "Mother of States" as well as the "Mother of Statesmen and Presidents."
When the ancient pioneers came into this land, they found a home in the wilderness, and they betook themselves to building houses, clearing the forests, planting orchards and cultivating the arts of civilized life. Few of them ran wild in the forests, and few of them became speculators or engaged in trafficking or speculating in hazardous enterprises. They were sober and thoughtful. They were far remote from the seat of justice. Neither the pioneer, as well as his ancestor, would submit to ecclesiastical domination. As they detested civil tyranny, so did they detest ecclesiastical. The great majority of the ancient settlers were Whigs of the firmest type. They were brave, and the great majority in this region descended from emigrants from the Valley of Virginia, of Scotch-Irish and of German descent, and as that country settled up and became populated, the same descendants of the pioneers gradually went Westward, as they have continued to do in the century following. It was of these pioneer settlers and ancient yeomanry that Washington signified an opinion when, in the darkest days of the Revolution, when it looked as though the patriots might fail in that eight years' struggle, he said "that if all other sources should fail, he might yet repair with a single standard from West Augusta, which included that region west of the top of the Allegheny Mountains, and there rally a band of patriots who would meet the enemy at the Blue Ridge, and there establish the foundation of a free empire in the West," thus indicating that it was his belief that, as a last resource, he could yet gather a force in Western Virginia which the great armies of England could not subdue. It was the descendants of these sires of which Washington spoke who settled in the fastnesses of this mountain region, and the spirit of those sires still reigns in their descendants, as the day of trial will disclose if it may ever become necessary to put it to the test.
As stated in other parts of this book, the first houses erected by these primitive settlers, beginning about 1760, were the log cabins, covered with split clapboards, weighted down by poles to hold them in place. Frequently these cabins had no floors except the earth. Where they had floors, they were of split puncheons, smoothed down with a broad-axe. There were, however, a few hewed log houses, and later many more, as the people advanced in prosperity and the country developed in poulation and wealth. As the improvements came and advancement followed, hewed log houses became common, with shingle roof and plank floor, sawed with the whip-saw. There were no saw-mills.
The dress of these early settlers was of the plainest materials, always home-made. Before the Revolutionary War, the married men shaved their heads and wore wigs or linen caps. Men's coats were made with broad backs and straight, short skirts, with pockets on the outside, having large flaps. The breeches were so short as to barely reach the knee, with a band around the knee, fastened at either end with a silver buckle. The stocking was drawn up under the knee-band and tied with a garter, red or blue, below the knee, so that it might be seen. The shoes were of leather or moccasins. If shoes, they were fastened with a brass or silver buckle. The hat was wool or fur─usually wool─manufactured by rude home processes. The dress for the neck was a narrow collar to the shirt. There were none of the more wealthy or fashionable in this region who could afford the stock, knee and shoe buckles, set in gold or silver, with brilliant stones. Those who did that in the East were considered great folk, of which we had none. The female dress was generally the short gown and petticoat, made of plain material. The German women mostly wore tight calico caps on their heads. In hay and harvest times they joined the men in the labor in the fields and meadows, and it was not common only as a German practice, but was common to all. Many of the females were expert mowers, choppers and reapers. The furniture was of the plainest imaginable; a piece brought from the East was a curiosity. The custom of housing stock was not at all frequent. The "Dutch" or German descendants alone brought with them the fashion of housing their stock to better comforts than the members of the household. There was thrift and money in it.
John Alderson, Sr., was born in England, came to New Jersey in 1737, and married a Miss Curtis, a daughter of his captain. He became a Baptist minister, finally removing to Rockingham County, Virginia. He had a son John, who also became a Baptist minister, and who married a Miss Carroll, of Rockingham County. It was John Alderson, Sr., who came to the Greenbrier region in 1775, and founded the Alderson generation. He was a man of great intelligence, and of indomitable will and energy. He was the first Baptist minister who carried the Baptist doctrine into all this region west of the Alleghenies. He organized the old Greenbrier Baptist Church in 1781.
Capt. Hugh Caperton, who is mentioned in these pages, was associated with Daniel Boone, and was his commissariat. Boone fell out with Captain Caperton on an expedition to the mountains of Kanawha River, and left the camp. When Boone heard of the necessities of the company for food, and was asked why he left the company, he replied, "Caperton didn't do to my likin'." Captain Caperton operated with his company in 1793. Among the men in that company, whose descendants live in this country, were Madison Meadows, Edward Farley, William Graham, James Montgomery, Francis Farley, Drury Farley, Thomas Cook, Andrew Johnson, Jonas Hatfield, David French, Henry Massie, James Abbott, the descendants of whose family live in Pipestem district; Moses Massie, James Graham, David Graham, James Sweeney, whose descendant is the ancient Baptist minister at Beckley; Isaiah Calloway, whose descendant is Matthew Vincent Calloway, the courteous ex-sheriff of this county, now residing in Washington City; and George Abbott.
The pioneer, when he came to this land, carried with him all his belongings─all his earthly goods─which usually consisted of a rifle gun; if married, his wife, and such plunder as could be carried on a pack-saddle. If the emigrant was so fortunate as to own a horse (or beast, as this animal was generally known)─sometimes he would, if extra well-to-do─a negro slave would be a part of his inheritance. Every settler at once became a hunter, a trapper, a farmer and a soldier. The men and boys, and in many instances the women, worked with the hoe, axe and mattock in the clearing of the field. The hides of wild animals were dressed. The usual footwear was the moccasin, made from the dressed deerskin, which was fashioned without thread, tacks or soles─fastened together with strings cut from the deer-hide. Shoes were a curiosity; and when they came into use, made from the tanned cow-hide, they were made altogether by the neighborhood shoemaker (dogwood pegs held the soles to the uppers), who made his own pegs, shoe thread and lasts on which to fashion them. The cradle for the baby was usually a sugar-trough, or a rough box constructed by the master of the place. Plow shoes were made of wood; beds, of chaff, if wheat had been raised; if not, from leaves. The floors were made of oak or poplar logs split in the middle, and laid on the ground with the flat side up, sometimes hewn with a pole-axe, and later with the broad-axe. Wooden pegs were used instead of iron nails in all framing, and in fastening on the rafters and wall-plates. Later, when iron could be had and blacksmith shops came, the ''wrought iron" nails, made by the blacksmith, were used, and took the place of the locust or hickory pin; and later the four-sided factory nail succeeded the smith-made hammered or wrought nail; and now the wire nail is used exclusively. There still exist in this country some remains of the old buildings wherein there was not a piece of iron used in construction; and in others the remains of the shop-made, hammered nails. Leather straps were used for door hinges, or blocks of wood dressed down and shaped to enter an augur-hole, nailed to the door facing with another piece with a hole in it, and nailed to the door. Two sets of these, and the door was ready to hang. No iron latches or locks, but a wooden door-latch─a strip of thin wood and a wooden "ketch," and a string attached to the latch and passing out through a hole in the door─completed the fastenings. Not a nail or a piece of iron in the whole building! Such a large log building was on the W. E. Miller farm, on Lick Creek, in the Ellis Hollow, with a chimney ten feet wide. This was only one of the many of the pioneer residences erected in this land in its first settlements.
The hand mill and the hominy block, with a hole made in the top, in which the corn was made into meal with a pestle, came first; after this came the pounding mill, but few and far between; later came the water grist mill. At first all lumber was sawed by the whip-saw. A log would be hewed square, then hoisted on trestles so that a man could stand under it. One man would stand on top, one underneath, and with a long saw, something like the cross-cut, with one man hold of each end, they would manufacture the log into plank, the man below fighting the dust out of his eyes. Then came the upright water saw-mill, the remains of which may yet be seen in very rare instances. Many a good housewife had the ancient loom and spinning-wheels. The table-ware was of the rudest character─tin plates, wooden bowls and dough trays. Salt could not be had in the backwoods; but the ginseng, furs, cured venison hams and bear meats to be transported to the far-off towns were gathered in, and a far-off journey prepared for, and an exchange made for salt, and later iron, which were transported by the pack-horse, with an old home-made wooden pack-saddle. The horses went unshod.
These pioneers were a hardy race. They felled forests; they battled against the wild beasts─bears, wolves, panthers, and rattlesnakes, copperheads, and other vicious wild beasts and venomous reptiles with which the forests were crowded and were warring with each other; and there were forests full of deer, buffalo, elk, pigeons and turkeys, and other birds useful for sustenance.
The emigrants from the Old World were not of this hardy stock. They sought, however thrifty, the protection of the pioneer settler from the Indian savage, as well as the wild beasts of the wilderness. Every pioneer was a defender of himself and his neighbor. The boys and girls and the women could ride, swim, shoot, hunt and kill. They could aid in the defense of the fort or the blockhouse. There was no end of war with the savages; it mattered not whether during a so-called peace, or when a war was in progress. The Indian was always at war until driven out of the land, and this continued for a generation.
The coat usually worn was the hunting-shirt, made of home-made jeans or the skins of wild animals. It came to the knees, with a belt buttoned around the waist. The arms for defensive purposes, as well as for hunting, were the old fiint-lock rifles, musket or flint-lock smooth-bore, and large hunting knives; and only in later years did the percussion lock and cap-rifled gun follow. The weddings were not frequent, but were great events.
There were no schools for a long time after the pioneer first began reclaiming the wilderness, and it was only the fortunate boy or girl who had the opportunity to learn to read or write. Both were, in the early days, great accomplishments; and to know how to figure beyond vulgar fractions was a wonder. When the schoolteacher came in, he would board around with the various families who sent their children to him. He taught in the log-cabin school house with board covering held on by ridge poles, there being no nails to be secured with which to fasten the roof, and with dirt floors; the poles or walls were sometimes daubed with mud, or chinked only and not hewn, with a rock chimney, and a fireplace big enough to burn a log-heap at one time. Even these houses were few and far between. The seats were split logs or fence rails, with holes bored in one side and pegs stuck in for legs, without backs or comfort. One log was cut out and a hole made for light, and no desks. The ink with which the youth learned to write was frequently "poke-berry juice"; and after all, when a school house was built and a teacher secured─which was after the neighborhood began to settle up─it was only the few who learned to read and write. There were no college-bred gents, kid-glove or patent-leather shoe gentlemen in those days. No churches, but soon came the pioneer missionary Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and Primitive Baptists, with the pioneer preacher, Indian fighter and man of God; and the influence of those pioneer ministers of the gospel will be felt to the remotest ends of the earth, among the generations who still and will inhabit the land. No churches were there, but for miles around they would gather in the groves and in the cabin and dwelling, once in a while, to worship according to the dictates of their conscience. Later came the rude log church and the old-fashioned school house, which answered also for church purposes. The Primitive (Hardshell) Baptists were confined to Pipestem and Jumping Branch districts. Wm. Crump and the Neelys and Meadors were its chief supporters. They did not believe in an educated ministry or in paying their preachers; but are a conscientious, honest and God-fearing people, and good citizens.
The spinning-wheel, now a relic of the past, was a useful piece of furniture to the household of every thrifty settler. The large wheel was used for spinning the wool into long rolls, and then into thread, and then woven into cloth by the old loom which stood in the kitchen "loom-house." The small wheel (distaff) was used for spinning the flax fibers, or hemp, which was made into thread and made ready for the weaver, to be made into linen or "tow" cloth, for the men and women's clothing.
"Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
'This is my own, my native land?'
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wanderings on a foreign strand?
If such there be, go mark him well;
In him no minstrel raptures swell.
High though his title, proud his name.
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,─
Despite those titles, power and pelf,
The wretch concentrates all in self.
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored and unsung."
In 1871, the family of Isaac Ballengee lived in the log house about the middle of the present railroad yards about the round-house. The family of John Hinton lived in a log house by the side of the main track just above the railroad and street crossing at the foot of the hill in the city of Avis.
Then came Mathews Vincent Calloway, who built a frame residence on the lot now owned by R. H. Maxwell at the east end of the foot bridge, which washed away in the flood of 1878; Dr. Benj. P. Gooch, for the practice of his profession, built the residence on the "island," now owned by Bowman. Both of these gentlemen were from Mercer. Luther M. Dunn, who did business near the Avis crossing, from Albemarle County, Virginia; Carl Alexander Fredeking, Lee Fredeking and Charles, the native Germans, who came directly from Southwest Virginia; Robert R. Flannagan and A. G. and Richard A., three brothers from Fayette County; Burke Prince and E. O., his brother, from Raleigh County; William W. Adams, attorney, from Petersburg, Virginia; Nelson M. Lowry, attorney, from Nelson County, Virginia; Cameron L., William R., J. S. and Major Benj. S. Thompson, father and three sons, native West Virginians; Archie B. Perkins and William B. Sprowl, of Virginia; M. A. Riffe and Jake A. Riffe, of Riffe's Crossing County; Archie Butt, printer, Lewisburg; W. Frank McClung, Lewisburg; Carlos A. Sperry, attorney, Lewisburg; Raymond Dunn, Virginia; James Wimmer, railway engineer, Virginia; George Glass, carpenter, Virginia, whose family still resides therein, his widow now being eighty odd years old; Phil Cason. railroad conductor; Childes Talley, railroad conductor, Walker Tyler, railroad foreman, who died in 1907, his family still residing in the city; James Briers, round-house foreman, of Virginia, and whose sons still reside herein; James Prince, merchant, Raleigh County; Wm. T. Gitt, hotel keeper, of Giles County, Virginia; H. S. Gerow, New York; Wm. James, lumberman, of Pennsylvania; Dr. John G. Manser, County; Dr. Shannon P. Peck, County; W. B. Talliaferro. railway employe, Virginia; John P. Mills, lumberman, New York; John R. Gott. undertaker, Mercer County; John H. Pack, merchant, County; B. L. Hoge, clerk, Mercer County; John M. Carden, hotel, County; John H. Gunther, the first depot agent and agent for the Central Land Company at Hinton; E. H. Peck, clerk, Mercer County; D. R. Swisher, master machinist, Virginia; W. D. Tompkies, merchant, Virginia; W. C. Ridgeway, hotel; John Finn, Virginia; Robert Elliott, lumberman, Canada; James W. Malcolm, attorney, Greenbrier; James P. Pack, salesman, County; C. A. Thomas, merchant, Ohio; W. C. Burns, railway employee, Virginia; George W. Gibson, carpenter; James Johnson (colored), boatman; A. A. McNeer, tobacco manufacturer, Monroe County; D. H. Peck, railway engineer, County; P. P. Peck, clerk. County; O. McGee, butcher, Virginia; John McGee, butcher, Virginia; P. K. Litsinger, machinist, Pennsylvania; R. D. Rose, carpenter, Monroe County; Capt. Frank H. Dennis, a sailor, Maryland (he was a brother of U. S. Senator George Dennis, of Maryland); M. A. W. Young, preacher, County; M. Bibb, minister, Fayette County; Wm. Wood (colored), watchmaker, Virginia; Jacob Pyles, blacksmith, Monroe County; John Cooper, merchant, Mercer County; C. B. Mahon, railway conductor, Virginia; R. A. McGinity, shoemaker, Virginia; John W. Flanagan, railway engineer, Virginia; W. R. Duerson, merchant, Virginia; G. O. Blubaugh, lumberman, Virginia; C. B. Blubaugh, M. D., Virginia; T. P. Snow, lumberman, Virginia; Cook Brothers, butchers, Ohio; Ferguson Brothers, hotel, Raleigh; John A. Douglas, attorney, Mercer; F. W. Mahood, attorney, Giles County, Virginia, and who had represented both Giles County and Mercer County in the Legislature of both Virginia and West Virginia. M. V. Calloway was the first merchant, with Wm. Holroyd, the Englishman, as his partner; Hal McCue, attorney, Stanton.
James H. Hobbs, a native of Roan County, was one of the first settlers in Hinton. He was a carpenter, and built some of the first buildings. He was also a constable (elected), and a school teacher.
The first barber in Hinton was John Woodson, a colored man. The first white barber was Chris. Rau, from Ohio; then came L. E. Dyke, Chris. Hetzel, the politician, J. A. Fox and others, and Wm. A. French, Mercer Salt Works. M. A. Riffe, W. C. Ridgeway, A. B. Perkins and Jake Ridisill were among the first saloonists. W. C. Ridgeway, Perkins & Sprowl, Ferguson Brothers, M. A. Riffe, Hiram Scott and Mrs. M. S. Gentry were the first hotel proprietors. Mrs. Gentry kept the first boarding-house in the cities of Hinton and Avis, which was in the old log Hinton residence, near the railroad crossing. George W. Gibson, John R. Gott and R. D. Rose, among the first carpenters; J. H. Gunther, first depot agent. Afterwards followed A. G. Flanagan, L. M. Peck, J. Hugh Miller and R. A. Young. Among the first merchants were C. A. Fredeking & Brothers, A. B. Perkins, Jake A. Riffe, Joseph Hinton & Brother and Frank W. McClung. W. C. Ridgeway, M. D. Tomkies and W. A. Stewart were also among the first merchants; later came John Cooper. The first jeweler was A. T. Maupin, followed by William L. Fredeking, R. H. Smith, John D. McCorkle and E. M. Pack. The first drug store in the town was that of Dr. Wills, who also erected one of the first hotels, on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Front Street, which is now owned by Miss Maggie Atkinson. F. W. Benedict was also one of the original merchants. The next drug store was opened by Dr. Patterson, who was succeeded by W. A. Stewart; then came L. W. Bruce, an enterprising citizen, who established the first and only female seminary or school ever established in the city. He constructed and used as a young ladies' school the present building occupied by the Miller hotel proprietor, and the four buildings by the side, facing the Court House Square. Later on came E. N. Falconer, followed by Puckett Brothers and the Hinton Drug Co. One of the pioneer carpenters and builders of the town was Captain Falconer, the brave Confederate soldier, who resided for a number of years at Alderson; B. L. Moorefield, the merchant tailor, and Mr. Tinder married his daughter. The first three-story brick building constructed in the town was by J. H. Gunther, on the site of Dr. Peck's brick business block, on Third Avenue, which burned down. The second was Ferguson Bros.' Central Hotel; the third, Dunn & Humes' Building, on Second Avenue; the fourth was R. D. Rose's brick corner on Temple Street and Third Avenue, and the Bank of Hinton, on the opposite corner, followed by R. R. Flanagan's brick block. The pioneer brick masons and builders were two brothers, Samuel E. and William P. Phillips, who reside in Avis, and who built a number of pioneer brick buildings in the city. The first opera house after the Thespian Society's project was Col. J. A. Parker's, corner of Summers Street and Third Avenue. The first Methodist preacher was V. M. Wheeler; Presbyterian, Rev. Laird; Catholic, D. P. Walsh; Baptist, M. Bibb.
Richard Gayer was one of the early railway men here. He was foreman in the yards, and was accidentally killed by an engine while in the performance of his duties. He left a widow, who died in recent years; a son, John, an engineer on the Norfolk & Western Railway; a daughter, Miss Maggie, who married Mayor J. F. Smith; and another, Miss Mamie, who married Hamilton Bruce, of Virginia.
R. A. McGinity was the first shoemaker; and James Bishop, the second, operated on Front Street.
Hon. T. S. Scanlon was one of the early locomotive engineers who came to Hinton and made it his home. He is now a resident of Huntington, one of the leading merchants, bankers and Democratic leaders, and a fine orator ─ one of the best "stumpers" of the Democratic faith. He is a brother of Mrs. Richard Gayer.
The Gores, of which there have been a number in this county, including Henry Gore and his brother, Capt. Robert Gore, the father of Charles W. Gore, of Athens, Henry being the father of our present county citizen, a merchant on Lick Creek, James H. Gore, was originally a family from Loudon County.
Capt. Robert Gore was a brave Confederate soldier, a captain in its armies; was at the battle of Gettysburg, and captured, by his daring, one hundred Federal soldiers. This daring enterprise, successfully carried to a conclusion, was witnessed by William Brown, a brave soldier in that war, and now a respected citizen of Pipestem district, who remembers and relates very distinctly the details of the occurrence, and the incident is a true historical fact.
The Frenches first came to Westmoreland Co., Virginia; then to Hampshire County, West Virginia; thence to Giles and Mercer.
The Gotts came directly from Ireland, John R. Gott being the representative of that family in this county.
The Ellisons and Carnes came from Monroe County, and were pioneers in the settlements. The Bowlings and Woods came from Patrick County, Virginia. The Gooches were originally from Albemarle County; the Shumates from Fauquier County. The Coopers were from Grayson. The Pendletons were from Campbell Co.; the Campbells from Patrick Co.; the Meadows from Rockingham.
Josiah Meadows, immediately after the close of the Revolutionary War, first settled on Mountain Creek. He was the first Primitive Baptist (or Hardshell) preacher that came to Mercer and Summers counties. His sons were Turner, William, John and Josiah, Jr.
The Walkers were from Giles County. Charles Walker lived most of his life in Raleigh County. He had the honor of bringing the first grain cradle into that county. Sallie Walker married John Bowling in 1820; Nancy married Edmund Hatcher; Peggie married Andrew Lilly; Zula married Jonathan Bailey; Polly married Sam Bailey, in 1816; Marinda married Green Meador; Narcissa married Josiah Cooper; Valeria married William Lilly; Neuma married a Sizemore; Underwood married a Bailey; Council first married a Bailey and then a Wood. These were children of Crispianis Walker, one of the men whose influence resulted in locating the county-seat at Princeton, in 1837.
