U.S. Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ -- USGenNet Inc. -- Please read the U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statement on the following page: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Cosner, Solomon W. (1826-1888) ------------------------------------------------------------------- History of Tucker County, West Virginia From the Earliest Explorations and Settlements to the Present Time. by Hu Maxwell Kingwood, W. Va.; Preston Publishing Company, 1884. Pages 377-381 Solomon W. Cosner. One of the most widely known men of Tucker County is Solomon TV. Cosner, the Pioneer of Canaan. He was born in 1826, in Hardy County, and is a son of Henry Cosner, and of German descent. In 1849 he married Catharine Shell, daughter of Philip Shell, of Hardy County. His Children are: H. Harrison, Armida J., C. Columbus, Elizabeth Ann, Emil, Freylinghuysen, Comodore Porter, U. S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglass. He owns 850 acres of land in Canaan, 400 acres of which is cleared and in grass. He also owns 625 acres on Shafer's Fork. He has a grist mill on his Canaan property. He lives 25 miles from St. George, and has been in Canaan since 1864. He is extensively known as the first settler in that region. His house has long been the stopping place of hunters, adventurers and idlers from the Eastern and Northern cities, who go into Canaan to spend the heated months of summer. When he went into Canaan, in 1864, there was no one living in that region. But there was an ancient improvement, 80 or 90 years old, made by some one whose memory only remains, but who is supposed to have been an ancestor of S. C. Harness. Cosner left Grant County, then Hardy, and cut a path for 20 miles across the Alleghany Mountains, 14 miles from his present home. He carried all his goods and plunder on horseback. When he reached Canaan, he found it a wild country filled with cattle, horses and stock that had been run in there by thieves during the war. He commenced an improvement near one of the most beautiful springs in West Virginia. It was almost out of the world. The nearest stores were at St. George and Maysville, each 25 miles distant, and from one or the other of these places he had to carry his groceries. It was five or six years before any other family moved into that region. The first man to move into Canaan after Cosner was John Nine, of Preston County. He settled on a farm adjoining Cosner's; and the next to come were James and Isaac Freeland, also from Preston. Much of the bread of Canaan's early settlers had to be lugged from settlements fifteen and twenty miles distant. The land produces average crops of grain, and does remarkably well with buckwheat. Potatoes and all vegetables that grow in the ground as potatoes, beets, radishes and onions, grow to perfection. The country, when covered with original forests, is swampy, but, as soon as the timber is removed, the water dries up. The soil is of a dense clay, and water stands in horse tracks in the woods. Fern is a nuisance to deal with. Fire kills it, and the timber also, when it becomes dry enough to burn. Grass grows splendidly as soon as the timber is removed. Cosner was in the war, but his record is not of special interest, inasmuch as he was not in any particular engagements of note. His principal record, aside from being the pioneer of Canaan, is that of a bear hunter. He and his boys have killed over half a thousand bears in Canaan, innumerable deer, two panthers and one wolf, according to their account, he has had many narrow escapes, which, if collected, would more than rival those of Finley. As a sample of his exploits, and also as a sample of his style of narrative, we append a story of his, taken down in writing as it was told, by a visitor who knew something of short hand writing. The story runneth thus: I got up at midnight and went out in the woods with a dog, gun, and a big trap "hunkered" to my back. Soon the dog roared down the hill like the d——l breaking tan-bark, and I said to myself: "that's a bear." I ran after him, and soon came to where the dog had treed two bear-whelps. I was skirmishing around to shoot them, when an old bear, in a bunch of laurel, five or six feet away, "hooved" up on his hind feet, and made for me. I tried to shoot, but gun failed. I got out a cap to put on the gun. Just then the bear lunged at me, and I had to jump six or seven feet high to keep from getting gnabbed. The bear kept snapping at my feet, and I ran behind a tree to hide. The bear followed me, and I kept running round and round until I got dizzy. The bear probably got dizzy too, and quit running and stopped to study how to get me. It popped its head round one side and then the other of the tree and tried to scare me so that I would jump out. But, I laughed at it and it seemed to get madder. All at once it slung its paws round and tore my pants off. This made me mad, and I leaped out and pounded the old beast with my gun, and had a fearful fight. I was getting tired and wanted to quit, and just then my dog snapped the bear and it turned on the dog. I thought to myself, "Now's my time to take a tree," and I ran to a burnt chestnut snag and tried to climb it; but it was too slick and I slipped back faster than I could climb. I saw that I could not climb that tree and was looking for another, when the bear came bulging through the brush after me, and I went up that slippery snag in a hurry. As I went up, the bear came after me with renewed energy and seized my foot, and tore my shoe off. I scrambled to the top of the snag and sat down on it. The bear was trying to climb too. It pawed and scraped and bawled and roared, and made the mountains ring. It was the ugliest bear I ever saw. It kept me up that tree until I got awful tired, and wished that I had staid at home. I nearly froze. The wind whistled against me, and I said to myself, "O, if I only had my pants!" The bear sat down and took times easy, and I tried to scare it off by hitting it with pieces of bark and rotten wood. It got daylight, and the sun came up and got warm, and I felt better, but was tired and numb, and the bear seemed to know it. I sat there in despair all day. It was the longest day that ever T pulled through. About sundown one of the young bears commenced coming down. This was balm and Gilead to my weary back, for I knew that the old one would leave as soon as the young whelps would come down. I watched it patiently and kept as still as I could. It would slide down a foot or two, and then stop a while to study about it, and to look around to see if everything was all right. Then it would drop down a few inches further, and would go through the same maneuvers. It got dark and the moon came up, and that little whelp was not half way down. I was trying to be patient, Job might have been a patient old citizen, but he never sat on top of an old snag twenty-four hours with no pants on. Eternity could be no longer than it took that young bear to reach the ground. I wished that an earthquake would come and shake him off. But, at last he got to the ground, and the old beast started to go away, walking sidewise and looking up viciously at me. When I got down, I was so stiff I could hardly hobble home. I have had thousands of battles with bears, and have stabbed them to death and pounded them to death and kicked them to death; but this scrape made me feel the sneakingest that ever I felt. Solomon Cosner is a man of giant frame, weighing about 200 pounds, and standing 6 feet tall. In his earlier days he was probably the most powerful man in Tucker County. F. H. Cosner, son of Solomon Cosner, born 1861, in Hardy County, married, in 1882, to Elizabeth, daughter of John Sears. His only child is Olive E. His farm is in Canaan, 30 miles from St. George, contains 66 acres and has 10 acres under cultivation. C. P. Cosner, brother to F. H., born 1863, in Hardy County, lives with his father in Canaan. W. H. H. Cosner, another son of S. W. Cosner, born 1849, married 1875 to Melissa J., daughter of John Nine. His wife died in 1881 and he married her sister, Margaret E. Nine. Children are, Harness F., Ada Bell and Lyda Ann. He owns a farm of 100 acres, one-half improved, in Canaan, 30 miles from St. George. In his time, he says, he has killed 30 bears and 300 deer. C. C. Cosner, born 1853, in Lewis County; married in 1880, to Mary J., daughter of John Sears, of Grant County. Children: Gilbert E., and Lilly Estella. He has been in Tucker since 1864; and he owns a farm of 90 acres, 30 acres improved, in Canaan, 30 miles from St. George. Emil Cosner, son of Solomon Cosner, born 1859; married in 1880 to Lydia A., daughter of Gustavus Muntzing, of Grant County. Farmer, 83 acres, 40 acres improved, 30 miles from St. George, in Canaan. Children: Ora G. and Ida Anice. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Register of Deaths, Tucker County, WV (Pages 57-58, Line No. 6) FULL-NAME: Solomon Cosner BIRTH-PLACE: Grant Co., W.Va. AGE-AT-DEATH: 61y-8m-9d DEATH-DATE: December 28, 1888 DEATH-PLACE: Dry Fork Dist. CONSORT-OF: Catharine C. Cosner OCCUPATION: Farmer PARENTS: Henry & Susanna Cosner CAUSE-OF-DEATH: Paralysis INFORMANT: Catharine C. Cosner, widow ------------------------------------------------------------------- If you've reached this file through a SEARCH, you can access other biographies for Tucker County, WV by going to the following URL: http://www.us-data.org/wv/tucker/bios.html -------------------------------------------------------------------