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PREFACE. 

The purpose of this volume is to trace the economic, 
social and political life of the people of Lewis County 
from the time the first settlers came to the Hacker's 
creek valley to the present. Believing that the group is 
more important than any of its component parts, it has 
"been my aim to deal with the development of institu- 
tions rather than with family history, to present as 
fully as possible a record of the whole county rather than 
tales of illustrious pioneers and their descendants. In 
order to accomplish this purpose I have selected from 
a great mass of material those incidents which I thought 
would best depict the life of the county, and I have tried 
to arrange them in order so as to show cause and effect, 
advance and retardation, of development. 

It is hoped that this volume will fill a long felt want. 
It is a rather remarkable fact, in view of the importance 
of Lewis County and its influence on the life of Virginia 
and West Virginia, that a history of the county has 
never been published in permanent form. There have 
been published at various times important works relating 
to certain periods, and to certain matters affecting the 
history of the county. The first of these was "Chron- 
icles of Border Warfare," by Alexander Scott Withers, 
which treats of the history of the frontier to the Treaty 
of Greenville, 1795. The same period has been treated 
lately by Lucullus Virgil McWhorter, in his volume en- 
titled "Border Settlers of Northwestern Virginia." Both 
works are extremely valuable for a study of the early 
history of the county. About 1884, Hardesty's "Political 
and Geographical Survey of Lewis County" was pub- 
lished, which contains a historical sketch of the county 
very hastily and carelessly written. 

Many writers have contributed sketches and recol- 
lections to the county papers at different times. Under 
the pseudonym of "Ancient", John Strange Hall wrote 
a series of articles for the Weston Independent depict- 
ing customs, personages and institutions of the 'thirties. 
George F. Oliver contributed to the Weston Democrat 
a series of articles in which the author makes a compre- 
hensive survey of conditions in Weston and Lewis Coun- 
ty as they were in 1844. In 1917, John R. King wrote 
a series of articles for the Weston Independent which 
throw considerable light on the manners and customs of 
western Virginia in the period just before the Civil war. 
Within the past few years, Roy B. Cook, a native of 
the county, has made valuable contributions to the same 
paper in an extended "Pioneer History of Lewis County," 
and a collection of documents, annotated, on "Lewis 
County in the Civil War." 

I first began a systematic collection of materials on 
Lewis County history in 1915. Though the work has 
been greatly interrupted at times, I never quite lost sight 
of my original intention to write the story of develop- 
ment of Lewis County. 

Every effort has been made to guard against errors 
in statement, but I am conscious that some errors may 
have escaped detection. The necessity for depending 
upon traditional accounts in the absence of records for 
a part of the early period has made the task of sifting 
evidence somewhat uncertain. In all possible cases I 
have attempted to verify the traditional accounts by the 
records. 

I have drawn the materials for this volume from 
many different sources — from old letters and account 
books, from public documents, from old newspapers 
and from personal interviews with participants in the 
affairs of the county, as well as from books and pamph- 
lets of earlier investigators. 

It would be impossible to mention here the names 
of all those who have assisted in various ways in the 
preparation of this work. Cordial thanks are due to the 
publishers of the Weston Independent and of the Wes- 
ton Democrat for free access to their files; to Mr. Roy 
R. Hale for lending his file of the Lewis County Record; 
to officials of Lewis, Harrison and Monongalia counties 
for valuable assistance in my search for records; to Miss 
Mary Strange Hall for a scrap-book containing the 
writings of her father; to Mr. Stark A. White for an ar- 
ticle on the Baptists of Lewis County; and to all those 
who have accorded me personal interviews. Mr. E. G. 
Davisson has made valuable suggestions concerning 
the subject matter and has given much valuable ma- 
terial. Miss Edna Arnold has criticised portions of the 
manuscript. 

                                   EDWARD C. SMITH. 
Weston, West Virginia, 

January 1, 1920. 

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