U.S. Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ -- USGenNet Inc. -- Please read the U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statementon the following page: ----------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER XIX. LOSSES OF TERRITORY It was unavoidable that when the outlying portions of Lewis County were settled they would break the slender bonds which held them within the county and form new local political divisions. The establishment of the seat of justice at Weston, less than ten miles from the Harrison County line, rendered it very inconvenient for the citizen who lived on Steer creek or on the Elk river to attend court. There were few settlements or none at all in these valleys in 1817, and the county, seat was then located where it would best serve the majority of the people. By 1840 it was no longer convenient for half the people of the county. The first sign of approaching dismemberment is in- dicated in the formation of Nicholas County from Green- brier in 1818. It included settlements which had been made on the Gauley and its tributaries and some on the lower Elk river. There were many other settlers in the valley of the Elk who had been attracted there by the prospects of good hunting and also by the fertile soil and the broad valleys of some of the streams. Even before the close of the Indian wars there was a respectable set- tlement in the vicinity of Sutton. These settlers were in close proximity to the principal settlement which had been made by that time on the Little Kanawha river and its tributaries. Salt Lick creek was the most compact of these settlements. In 1773 more homesteads were lo- cated on the creek than on Hacker's creek. The estab- lishment of Haymond's salt works in 1808 had attracted many settlers who made a living from the produce of their farms and even sold supplies to other settlers who had come to buy salt. The upper valley of the Little Kanawha around the present site of Burnsville had also attracted immigrants far more than the lands on the small eastern tributaries of that river. Here was a con- siderable community cut off from the county seat by the unbroken wilderness of Oil creek, Leading creek. Sand fork and other streams. The people were dissatis- fied almost from the first with their position on the edge of the two counties, and at a distance from the county seat of either. In 1836 the settlements on the Elk and the upper course of the Little Kanawha were detached from Lewis, Nicholas and Kanawha counties and form- ed into the new county of Braxton. It extended in a broad semicircle between Lewis and Nicholas from Webster Springs to the present site of Clay Court House. From its peculiar shape, it was called for years "the jug handle county." A part of the northeastern corner of Lewis County was next detached to form a part of Barbour. The com- munity on the lower Tygart's Valley river had grown rapidly with the advance of settlement in northwestern Virginia. It was one of the first regions settled, and by 1843 there were five or six thousand people living within the present limits of the county. The natural center of the community was at Philippi on the edge of Harrison and Randolph. In order to secure a sufficient radius of territory around it, a portion of Lewis, including about eighty square miles, with a population of about five hundred, was attached to the new county. The progress of construction on the Northwestern and the Staunton and Parkersburg turnpikes was in- strumental the same year in causing the formation of another county out of the princely domain of Lewis- Opened in 1838, the Northwestern turnpike brought life to the sleepy settlements on the North fork of Hughes river and caused the acceleration of immigration to the region, where lands were cheap and very desirable as compared to the other vacant lands in northwestern Virginia. The simultaneous construction of the Staun- ton and Parkersburg turnpike brought a corresponding development to the South fork of Hughes river. Both valleys had an outlet to the Ohio river, and to the east- ern markets for their produce. In 1842 the legislature established the town of Smithville in Lewis on the South fork of the river, which became a center of com- merce between Weston and Parkersburg, just as Penns- boro and Ellenboro were centers on the Northwestern turnpike. Nearly three thousand people were living in the Hughes river valley remote from their courthouses at Weston and Clarksburg when a bill was introduced in the legislature, 1843, providing for the formation of the county of Ritchie. No objection to the measure was made by delegates from Lewis and Harrison, and the bill became a law. Ritchie included part of Wood and a part of what is now Doddridge. Lewis County was then left with the valleys of the upper West Fork, the Buckhannon and the Little Ka- nawha from Braxton to the present Wirt-Calhoun line. The last named region was undeveloped except for three sections — along the Little Kanawha river, on the route of the Staunton and Parkersburg turnpike, and in the territory south of the Little Kanawha river which had been opened to settlement by the construction of the Weston and Charleston road. The whole region was iso- lated. The settlements in the Sand fork and Leading creek valleys were then in their infancy. The settlers of the Little Kanawha had different economic interests from those of the remainder of the county. Their trade was down the river toward Parkersburg, where they sold their rafts of logs cut at the water's edge, and brought back merchandise. The establishment of Hart- ford on or near the present site of Glenville in 1842 gave the settlers of that section a common center for trade and a nucleus for a county town. The two thousand people living in the district now known as Gilmer and Calhoun counties started a movement for independence at the same time as the people in the Hughes river val- ley, but the persuasions of the people of the county seat caused the movement to be prosecuted half-heartedly, until the success of the Hughes river residents caused them to redouble their efforts. Some objections from the eastern part of the county were still to be overcome, but in 1845, they secured the election of the delegate to the legislature to champion their cause. The result was that the citizens of the western part of Lewis and the northern part of Kanawha were formed into the county of Gilmer. The selection of Glenville as the county seat of the county was very unsatisfactory to the people liv- ing in the western portion of the county, who split off in 1855 to form Calhoun. The year 1845 was also memorable for the creation of another county in the Virginia northwest which took part of the territory of Lewis. The formation of Ritchie in 1843 had included in its eastern part settlers who had been accustomed to making their business as well as their political center at Clarksburg, and the change was unsatisfactory to them. The dwellers of the valley of Middle Island creek, who still belonged to Lewis County, found that their interests were mainly along the North- western turnpike, rather than across the divide on the upper West Fork. Many of the settlers who had been left with Harrison County joined with the others, with the result that Doddridge was formed. With the possible exception of the northeastern part of the county which was cut away to form a part of Bar- bour, the division up to 1850, of the territory of Lewis into other bailiwicks was a distinct advantage to the re- mainder of the people of the county. The center of wealth and commerce was around Weston and Buck' hannon. The western part of the county, which had long been neglected, was just beginning to demand at- tention from the county court, and new improvements were demanded which would require large expenditures from the county treasury — improvements like the Wes- ton and Charleston turnpike, which, though valuable to the region through which it passed, were of little use to the citizens of the county who paid the greater portion of the taxes, and who preferred that the proceeds should be spent nearer home. The needs of the western part of the county were perhaps being neglected to some extent by the selfish county court. Such a state of affairs was to have been expected. The upper West Fork valley had suffered from like treatment at the hands of the Har- rison County court before 1816. Western Virginia was at this time suffering intensely from the treatment of the eastern politicians who insisted upon taxing the cit- izens of the west unjustly and spending among them less than the amount paid in. The remedy for the dis- content — the only remedy that would be fair to all sec- tions — was dismemberment. After the loss of the western section of the county, Lewis was fairly homogeneous. A little further reduc- tion of territory drained by the tributaries of the Little Kanawha would have made the county more of a geo- graphical unit, and it would not have affected the inter- ests of the inhabitants, because there were none. Col- lins Settlement was loyal to Lewis County. Many of the prominent leaders of the county had been born there. There was no danger of a movement being begun to form the southern end of the county, with parts of Brax- ton and Randolph, into a new county. The eastern part of the county alone desired an independent political or- ganization. Three years after the formation of Gilmer and Doddridge, the people of the Buckhannon valley began to agitate for the creation of a new county. Various reasons have been assigned for the discon- tent. In the first place the county seat was at Weston, and the town derived all the honor and emoluments which belonged to that important spot in every Virginia county. Weston merchants were able to keep better goods than those of Buckhannon, though they had a tough competitor in Jacob Lorentz. The schools were better at Weston than elsewhere in the county. The Weston mill had better patronage. Buckhannon busi- ness men thought that all the inequalities would be abolished by the establishment of a county seat east of the Buckhannon mountain. A second reason is to be found in the different political views held by the people of the two sections Those in the Buckhannon valley were largely Whigs of the Henry Clay type; but those of the West Fork valley were almost solidly Democrats, In 1848 the citizens of the Buckhannon valley de- manded that a vote be taken on the question of the di- vision of the county. It carried almost unanimously in the precincts now embraced within Upshur County, only thirty-seven votes being cast in opposition to the measure. James Bennett, who was then the delegate from Lewis, Gilmer and Braxton counties in the General Assembly, paid no attention to the vote of separation. A petition asking that a bill be introduced in the legisla- ture for the formation of a new county was prepared by citizens of the Buckhannon valley and handed to him in December, 1849, just after the General Assembly went into session; but no bill was introduced. A sec- ond petition was given to him early in January; a third, on January 8; a fourth on January 24. Against these petitions, which might have made the position of Del- egate Bennett rather uncomfortable without a counter- movement, the citizens of the West Fork valley, prin- cipally of Weston, prepared a memorial remonstrating against the formation of the new county. At the next election, 1850, the division of the county was the principal issue. Samuel L. Hays of Gilmer was nominated for House of Delegates by the Whigs. Be- ing from Gilmer, he of course cared little for the terri- torial integrity of Lewis; and early in the campaign he announced his intention of supporting the movement to form a new county. He was elected through the almost unanimous vote of the Buckhannon valley. Immediately upon the opening of the legislative session in the fall of 1850 he introduced a bill into the house for the creation of the new county The citizens of Buckhannon sent a lobbyist to Richmond to work for the measure both in the House of Delegates and in the Senate. In spite of the opposition offered by the residents of the West Fork valley, the measure became a law, and in 1851, Upshur County began its separate existence. Besides the eastern part of Lewis, the new county included part of Randolph and a small portion of the strip ceded by Lewis to Barbour in 1843. Lewis County was thus reduced to its present boundaries. It has remained a geographical unit from 1851 to the present time, without any serious attempts being made to form new counties from parts of its ter- ritory. -----------------------------------------------------------