U.S. Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ -- USGenNet Inc. -- Please read the U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statementon the following page: ----------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER VII. THE BEGINNING OF LAW AND ORDER The lawless state of the country during the first few years of the settlement of Lewis County has been alluded to briefly in other chapters. It is now proposed to show how the legal processes of England and America took the place of community remonstrances, and became the basis of united action. It was the year 1779 before the Virginia legislature was made to realize that it had not incorporated all the inhabited Trans-Alleghany ter- ritory into Trans-Alleghany counties. From an over- sight due to the lack of geographical knowledge, the region now contained in Harrison and Lewis counties was still included in Augusta County, which paid little or no attention to the life and death struggle with the Indians which was being waged in its western marches. In the absence of other authority, Monongalia County exercised jurisdiction over the whole West Fork valley. Petitions for the formal inclusion of the region in that county which were presented to the General Assem- bly in 1779 resulted in the extension of the boundaries of the county to include all the territory drained by the Monongahela and its branches and nearly all that drain- ed by the Little Kanawha. The territory included in the new county was far larger than that of some of the states lying on the east- ern coast. It extended from the Maryland boundary westward to the Ohio river, and from the headwaters of the Elk river almost to Pittsburgh. The seat of jus- tice was first at Fort Redstone, afterward at Morgan- town. By far the largest part of the population at first lived on that part of the Monongahela valley now in- cluded in the state of Pennsylvania. Most of the inter- ests of the governing authorities of the county were in that section. Later it was in the district immediately surrounding the court house at Morgantown. The southern part of the county, embracing the headwaters of the West Fork and the Tygart's Valley rivers was far from the county seat and separated from the other settlements by a comparatively unsettled re- gion where the land was more rugged and where wide river bottoms did not exist. The enormous extent of the county resulted in considerable difficulty in the ad- ministration of justice. The settlers at West's fort and other places were at great inconvenience in attending court, and the officials of the county were at equal diffi- culty in collecting taxes, levying on property and ar- resting violators of the law. Under the circumstances it was inevitable that be- fore long there should be agitation for the division of the county. A strong memorial was presented to the General Assembly by residents of the upper valleys. The representatives from Monongalia County did not appear to object to the division, and in 1784, the south- ern part of the county was formed into the county of Harrison. The boundaries of the new counties were as follows: beginning at the point where Ford fork crosses the Maryland boundary; thence by a straight line to the headwaters of Big Sandy creek; thence down Big Sandy creek and the Tygart's Valley river to the mouth of West Fork; thence up West Fork and Bingamon creek to its source; thence with the ridges separating the waters of the Monongahela from the Ohio to the head of Middle Island creek; thence with that creek to the Ohio. On the east the county was bounded by the ridge separating the Potomac from the Monongahela drain- age basin; and on the south the line extended from the point on the Alleghany Mountains where Rockingham and Botetourt counties meet, north fifty-five degrees west to the Ohio river, a distance of 108-3/4 miles. The area of the county was not much less than 4,000 square miles, and the population in 1784 is estimated to have been about 2,000. The act providing for the formation of the new county specified that the justices to be named in the commission of the peace should meet at the house of George Jackson, near Bush's old fort, to take the oath of office, select a site for the court house, and transact other business. The location was probably chosen be- cause it was midway between the settlements of the upper Tygart's Valley and those of the West Fork. In the discussion as to the permanent location of the county seat, most of the justices objected to Bush's fort. The settlers in that vicinity were not numerous, and the location probably pleased none of the justices, the ma- jority of whom were residents of the prosperous com- munity around Nutter's fort. This fact probably de- termined the location of the county seat at Clarksburg. At the first session of court held, 20 July 1784, the justices recommended persons suitable for appointment for the offices of surveyor, heads of the militia, coroner, and justices of the peace to the Governor of the Com- monwealth. They also appointed constables and view- ers and overseers of the roads. A grand jury was sum- moned, a mill seat established, a donation of lots ac- cepted for the court house and jail, and one civil suit was brought before the court adjourned. John Sleeth, a resident of Hacker's creek, was recommended for ap- pointment as justice of the peace and for authorization to celebrate the rites of matrimony. John Runyon, whose cabin stood not far from the mouth of Freeman's creek, was one of the constables. The civil suit was brought by John Hacker against Elijah Stout for "de- taining said Hacker out of his landed rights." The duties of the county courts were many and varied. From the year 1623 the county courts of Vir- ginia were supreme in the county government, in both administrative and judicial affairs. The county court was composed of all the justices of the peace in the county, who were appointed by the governor. No new justices were appointed without the recommendation of the justices already sitting, and the body thus became self-perpetuating and all-powerful. The important office of sheriff was filled by appointment by the governor, but the justices recommended three freeholders for the office from among whom the ap- pointment was made. It was the custom of the county court to recommend three of their own number, and the office was handed around among them according to seniority. With the system of fees then in force, one or two years incumbency in the sheriffalty was sufficient to lay the foundations for the fortune of the holder. All the other officers of the county were either recommend- ed by the court for appointment by the Governor, or were appointed outright. The only officers elected un- der this democratic (?) system of local government were overseers of the poor and the delegates to the legisla- ture. The court also possessed real judicial functions. The county court was the only tribunal in Harrison County for fifteen years after its formation. It settled small disputes, punished breaches of the peace and es- tablished law and order throughout the county. As might be expected the administrative functions of the county government were altogether in the hands of the court. It laid out roads, established mills, built bridges, granted licenses, levied and collected taxes, recorded deeds, wills and mortgages, erected public buildings, exercised a general guardianship over orphans and fixed prices at taverns besides a host of other mat- ters too numerous to mention. The authority to license establishments presupposes the right to regulate; and the right to regulate at that time included the right to fix prices. The court at its first meeting licensed one or two ordinaries or taverns, and proceeded to fix rates for liquors, victuals and for- age for horses. Beer was to be sold for twelve cents a quart, and rye whiskey, cider and apple and peach brandy were the same for one-half pint. A warm break- fast cost nine pence, or eighteen cents, a warm dinner, one shilling, or twenty-four cents and a warm supper nine pence. A bed for one night with clean sheets was four pence (eight cents). The custom of fixing prices at ordinaries continued for many years after the forma- tion of Lewis County, the schedule of rates being re- vised at intervals. The assessors who had been appointed by the Har- rison County court had a much easier task than the as- sessor has nowadays. At the June term, 1785, the court entered an order that a list of all the whites and of all the buildings should be taken by the assessors, in order that the court could proceed with the business of laying a levy. The total of the whole county, comprising, with few exceptions, only the valleys of the Tygart's Valley and the West Fork, was 318. John Sleeth, of Hacker's creek, was appointed to make a list of all those residing "from the mouth of Lost creek, upwards, including the whole of the livers in the West Fork settlement." The district included all the territory in Lewis County that was then inhabited, and also the settlements on Lost creek and above West Milford on the river. The whole list is as follows. Alex West John Richard Matthew Richards John Brown Conrad Richards Jacob Cozad Jacob Harleson John Waggoner James Sleath Jacob Bush Thomas Doyle McCune Abraham ------ Elizah ------ John Huggle John Runyon Henry Flesher Joseph Kester Christen Harrison Samuel Norris Jesse Huse (Hughes) Ebenezer Haley Alex. Sleeth Samuel Bonet George Collins Joseph Crozan Edmund West, Constable Thomas Hughes James Schoolcraft Daniel Cane Adam O'Brien James Campbell Ellas Huse (Hughes) William Hannan John Collins David Wales Sleeth George Brush (Bush) John Sleeth John Hacker Adam Bush Richard Clark Joseph ------ Edmond West Isaac ------ Joel Lowther James Tanner Even before the completion of the enumeration the court directed that the sheriff should collect from "every tithable in this County 2s. 6d., being the County levy for the year 1784, and pay the same as directed by the proportions." There was no property tax collected at that period, only a poll tax on males over 21. The amount of the tax for 1784, reckoned in terms of dollars and cents, was 41 1/3 cents on each individual. The ex- penses of the county government were not large, being confined at first to the erection of the public buildings. Roads were worked by the tithables, who may on that account be said to have paid an additional poll tax in labor. The justices of the peace received no salaries, but they had considerable fees and an occasional turn at the sheriffalty. The first care of the county court was to provide for public buildings. A court house thirty-six by twen- ty-six feet set eight feet above the ground, was con- tracted for. John Prunty undertook to build a jail for £19 15s., and Daniel Davisson was to erect the whip- ping post, pillory and one pair of stocks for £5 19s. 11d. All were completed by 1789. Just how primitive the justice established in Har- rison County was in the beginning may be inferred from some of the records of the court in the latter part of the eighteenth century. A female prisoner convicted of felonious taking was given ten lashes on her bare back in 1788. In the same year a man was convicted of hav- ing stolen an ax, a hat and a pair of stockings. The court ordered "that the sheriff immediately tie the pris- oner to the public whipping post and give him thirty nine lashes well laid on & deliver him to David Hughes Constable" who should deliver him to the next consta- ble and so on until he was conveyed out of the county. In 1791 John Jackson was given a verdict by a jury in a slander case, but the damages were fixed by the jury at only seven shillings. Jackson demanded a new trial on the ground that the sheriff had conveyed apple brandy to the jury in a tea-pot while they were engaged in considering the case, and that the jury drank it. The motion was granted, and all twelve of the jurymen were fined twelve shillings each. In John Hacker's lawsuit concerning a tract of land, a jury of twelve men was summoned to appear on the land and inquire into and settle the bounds between the claimants. In 1795 a prisoner entered the plea of guilty to a charge of felonious assault. While the members of the court were discussing whether the prisoner should be tried by the district court, the prisoner escaped. The sheriff was ordered by the court to raise the "hue and cry" and command assistance to take him. The same year Sheriff John Prunty objected because the court called a witness without having a subpoena issued, thus cheating the sheriff out of his fee. In the old record book is to be found a full account of the proceedings that fol- lowed : "Ordered that the said John Prunty be con- fined in the stocks for the space of five minutes" * * * for his "damming the Court and the attorney who was there supporting the client's claim, and the whole bunch. The Court and the attorney was D----d fools and a set of d----d scoundrels." After being released he again showed disrespect and was confined for the remainder of the day. The court bound him over to keep the peace. After spending some time in jail bond for his good be- havior was obtained. Attempts of the court to oust him later were unsuccessful. In spite of the crudeness of the administration of justice the establishment of the courts was a good thing for the people of the community. The substitution of orderly government for mob rule was the beginning of real social progress on the upper reaches of the Monon- gahela. Above the county court was the district court, which was organized in 1785. Judges of the General court were detailed to hold court twice a year in each of the districts into which the state was divided. The sessions for the district in which Harrison county was included were generally held at Morgantown. Circuit courts su- perseded the district courts in 1809, and two sessions were held each year in each county. The new county government began at once to look after the interests of the people. Means of communica- tion were most needed in the settlements, and many or- ders were passed within the first two or three years fol- lowing the formation of the county providing for the lo- cation of new roads. The first order of the Harrison County court dealt with territory afterwards a part of Lewis County : "Ordered that the road from Richards' Fort be extended by Edmund West's mill to John Hack- er's the nearest and best way. Nicholas Carpenter, Isaac Richards and David Sleeth be appointed to view and lay out such road and make report to the next Court to be held for this County is hereby revived." The fol- lowing year a road was ordered opened from Clarks- burg to the Flesher settlement at the mouth of Stone Coal creek. Other roads were opened at a later period to all the settled portions of the new county Though they were mere dirt trails, often no more than pathways through the woods, they represented some advance in communication and a great advance in community con- sciousness, because they were public property, owned and operated by the public. One of the most important offices in the county during the first four or five decades of its history was the land office. It was opened almost immediately upon the establishment of the county government. As soon as the surveyor was qualified he began issuing patents for lands and recording surveys for homesteaders or pur- chasers. In direct opposition to the policy of the royal gov- ernment of the colonies in attempting to restrict settle- ments to the fringe along the Atlantic coast, the State of Virginia did all in its power to encourage settlers to make their homes west of the mountains, both to assure her hold on the territory for future occupancy and to provide outposts for defense against the British and In- dians, who, if they succeeded in crossing the Allegha- nies, would be able to strike at the vitals of the common- wealth. In order to make it worth while for settlers to cross the mountains and to hold those who had already gone to the west, the General Assembly in 1777 passed an act providing free land for every settler. Every per- son who had secured a settlement right or a corn right was to receive 400 acres with a preemption to 1,000 acres adjoining if he chose to take it. The price fixed for the additional land was so high that few of the settlers cared to take out preemptions. They eagerly took ad- vantage of the opportunity to secure homesteads, many of which were claimed on the basis merely of deadening a few trees and planting corn. The legislature in 1779 provided that a settler must have lived on land one year and have raised one crop of corn from it in order to be entitled to a homestead. Few large tracts west of the mountains had been patented up to that time. By another provision of the act of 1777, it was pro- vided that as soon as possible the land claimed as home- steads by settlers should be patented and recorded. In order to settle disputes which might arise between set- tlers who had built their houses close together and who claimed the same tracts of land, a temporary commission was appointed with both executive and judicial powers to determine who was rightfully entitled to the land, The commission for the district including Monongalia, Ohio and Youghiogheny counties was composed of John P. Duvall, James Neal and Will Raymond. They held sittings at many different points throughout the dis- trict in the summer of 1781, and issued certificates to settlers which entitled them to enter the tracts specified with the county surveyors. Not all the persons who were given certificates after- wards perfected their titles. Some sold their claims and others failed altogether to pay attention to the matter, preferring to be squatters on the lands of others. Many of the lands for which certificates were issued in 1781 were surveyed in Monongalia, but in other cases the owners waited until after the formation of Harrison County. Before the close of the year 1784, the surveyor's office of the new county had returned as surveyed and entered no less than eighty tracts. In 1785, 960 surveys were made, and the next year the number was 365. The number of surveys indicates that the country was being filled up very fast with settlers following the close of the Revolution, and such was, in fact, the case, but the tide of immigration was not nearly so great as indicated by the number of tracts surveyed. In some cases they represented the patenting of lands by wealthy capitalists in Boston, in New Jersey, or in eastern Vir- ginia, who had purchased large tracts of land from the state and who hoped later to sell the lands to settlers at a profit. The act of 1779 had fixed the price at forty pounds per hundred acres, which proved to be beyond the ability of the hunter-trapper-farmer of the frontier to pay. In 1792 the price was reduced to the merely nom- inal charge of two cents per acre. Some of the tracts sold under both acts were very large — for instance, the Pickering survey of 100,000 acres made in 1785, lying on the headwaters of the West Fork and the Little Kanawha rivers, and the Banks survey, equally large, which was located at about the same time on the watershed of the Little Kanawha river, lying part- ly in Lewis and partly in Gilmer counties. After the price of land was reduced in 1792 thousands of acres of land were entered, embracing practically the whole area of the State. Often a large survey would include the homesteads of settlers, or lands claimed by other large holders, and the result was a series of lawsuits which began almost with the establishment of the courts in the Trans-Alleghany region and continued until long after the formation of West Virginia. Henry Jackson was one of the most widely known surveyors of Western Virginia during this period. He went into the forests with only one or two assistants and surveyed thousands of acres. Often the work was not done thoroughly, as in the case of the Banks survey which he completed far from the spot, after having been compelled to flee for his life from the Indians. The only data which he had secured was his beginning corner, from which it could be seen that the boundary line of the survey would cross Leading creek three times. The political beliefs and opinions of the people of Harrison County during the eighteenth century were not difficult to determine. During the Revolution, with few exceptions, they espoused the cause of independence, and against heavy odds defended the frontiers of Vir- ginia. After the close of the war they had some bitter experiences with the delays of the state government in the Indian wars, which caused them to favor the estab- lishment of a national government strong enough to cope with the Indians. George Jackson, who was sent by the citizens of Harrison County to represent them in the state convention of 1788 to consider the proposed constitution of the United States, voted in favor of rati- fication. His experience in the Indian wars and his na- tional patriotism caused him to disregard the claims of eastern politicians who favored a loose confederation. He truly represented the political opinion of his constit- uents. Though politically coherent, Harrison County was not a geographical unit. Diverse elements came into ex- istence almost with the formation of the county. The fixing of the county seat at Clarksburg was almost as much of an inconvenience for the people of the upper Tygart's Valley section as the former location at Mor- gantown. The people of that section were almost as well off before the formation of the new county. The objection early took form, and three years after the cre- ation of Harrison, an act of the General Assembly was passed cutting off all that portion of the county east of the Tygart's Valley and Buckhannon rivers and estab- lishing it as the county of Randolph. Both sections were gainers by the separation. On the one hand the people of Randolph were able to trans- act their legal business without the inconvenience of a long journey to the county seat; on the other hand the people of the West Fork watershed were relieved from the burden of having to share the expenses of govern- ment with a section which lagged in its development as compared with the more favored valleys toward the Ohio. Henceforth the officials of Harrison County could devote their whole attention to the more and more complex problems of making the administrative machinery keep pace with the rapid course of development of the county. The settlements near the mouth of the Little Ka- nawha river, which began about the time of the close of the Revolution, developed rapidly in their favored loca- tions on the rich Ohio river bottoms in contiguity to the New Englanders who had settled around Marietta. The likelihood of a further rapid increase all along the Vir- ginia side of the Ohio river made it clear that a separate county government would be necessary within a short time, especially since the new center of settlement was separated from the court house at Clarksburg by a wide expanse of unbroken forest. The General Assembly in 1799 formed Wood County from parts of Harrison and Kanawha. The new county was a narrow strip extend- ing all the way from the Great Kanawha river to Middle Island creek. After the cutting off of the Ohio river settlements, the inhabited portions of Harrison County formed a fair- ly homogeneous district, embracing most of the valley of the West Fork river from Buffalo creek in what is now Marion County to Bulltown. The most thickly set- tled portion of the county was around Clarksburg, on Elk creek, Simpson's creek. Lost creek and the country along the West Fork river. Few settlements had been made along the Little Kanawha or its tributaries, and the West Fork settlements had not extended far enough southward to make Clarksburg inconvenient as the coun- ty seat. The population of Harrison County in 1790 was 2,080. NOTE — The author is indebted to Colonel Henry Haymond's History of Harrison County for many of the facts set forth in regard to the formation of Harrison County. -----------------------------------------------------------