Volume 14 , Issue 39

Pendleton County, (West) Virginia - Church, School & Professional

This week we continue with chapter XVI, A History of Pendleton County, West Virginia, by Oren Frederick Morton, as we learn about the Church, School and Professional history of the early colonial Virginia and how it was not a land of religious freedom. We find that the "Church of England" was supported by the taxation of all the people. As to other sects their houses of worship were limited in number, and those had to be licensed and registered. Their preachers had to take various oaths and could not celebrate marriages. The clergyman of the established church attended mainly to cultivate his glebe, or parsonage farm. Sometimes he was coarse and rough, intemperate, profligate, and a gambler. The eighteenth century was one of religious lethargy, characterized by drunkenness, profanity and a general coarseness of speech and conduct.

While this was still true of the east part of Virginia at the time the settlement of Pendleton began, the established church never gained a real foothold west of the Blue Ridge mountains.

The Scotch-Irish settlers of the western section were solidly Presbyterian, and were assured by Governor Gooch that they would not be molested in their religious preference.

The German settlers adhered mainly to the Lutheran and German Reformed churches, and were treated with a similar tolerance.

The new counties west of the mountains had their vestries and church wardens, the same as other counties and through this mechanism the church exercised certain functions in civil government. But west of the mountains the vestrymen were not Episcopalian, because there were scarcely an people of that belief to be found. Good true men believed the highest interests of the state required the support of the church by the state and compulsory attendance on public worship. But as the period of the Revolution approached, the opinion grew strong that the long continued experiment of trying to make people religious by statue law had proved an utter failure. Virginia adopted on the 16th December 1785, the following declaration:

"Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burtherns (archaic form of burdens), or by civil incapacitations tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion: No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, nor enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief."

It was not until 1785, that religion was free in Virginia. Pendleton being made a county almost precisely two years later, never had a vestry or any church wardens.

The Scotch-Irish were presbyterian. This class of settlers were particularly strong on the South Branch. But being restless and venturesome, many of them passed onto newer locations, and thus caused a relative decline in their number. The oldest of their churches was that of Upper Tract. There was with little doubt an organization prior to 1797 had no definite knowledge of it. In 1797, Isaac Westfall deeded one acre to the joint use of the Lutherans and Presbyterians where there as already a newly built church. It stood on the east side of the river. A little prior to 1860 the congregation built for its exclusive use a new church in Upper Tract village. About 1880 a church was built at Franklin, and a third one near Ruddle.

The large German element was chiefly of the Lutheran and German Reformed churches. The latter faith gradually disappeared by merging with the former. The earliest organization of which there was known is that of the Propst church, two miles above Brandywine. It was founded in 1769, and was the earliest church in the county of which there is any record. The Lutheran faith had maintained a strong foothold wherever the German element was strongest and most tenacious in holding to ancient customs. Therefore, we find the Lutheran churches chiefly in the upper parts of the South Fork and South Branch valleys. In the North Fork valley, partly owing to the division of sentiment during the civil war, it had proved less tenacious, and one of its churches was burned. The best known of its ministers was the Reverend George Schumucker, who came in 1841 and preached for forty years. His territory was forty-five miles long, reaching into Hardy and Highland. many of his congregations grew very large, but the civil war almost paralyzed his work. His marriage fee was one dollar if the couple came to him, two dollars if he went to them. It was taken sometimes in maple sugar, grain and "snits."

At a wedding in the Smoke Hole he lost his way and arrived after the supper had been eaten. The discouraged groom had concluded to call the wedding off, but was led to reconsider. People came to him for temporal as well as spiritual advice. He sometimes united the children and even the grandchildren of the earlier weddings. The United Brethren, Church of the Brethren, and Menonite sects were all of German origin, and their adherents were very largely of the German element, though not to the same degree as in the case of the Lutherans.

The first Methodist society in America was organized at Frederik, Maryland, in 1763, but during the Revolutionary days the Methodist preachers, generally English born, were under suspicion as to their loyalty. The church had but a slight foothold on American soil until 1788. After that time its success became very phenomenal. Its earnestness and its itinerant system were admirably adapted to the newer parts of the country, and west of the Blue Ridge area where its gains were particularly large. That Methodism was so strong in Pendleton and came as a matter of course. The First Methodist sermon in this county was said to have been the one preached by the Reverend Ferdinand Lair on the farm of L. C. Davis near Brandywine. He spoke in the open air, resting his bible on the limb of a sycamore. The spot was about a mile from Brandywine and on the right of the road leading to Oak Flat. One of the unhappy results of the dispute over slavery was the rending of the Methodist as well as other Protestant churches. The Baltimore conference, of whose territory Pendleton was a part, remained united until 1866. Since that year there had been represented within the county both the great divisions of the parent church; the Methodist Episcopal and the Methodist Episcopal South.

At an early day there were adherents of the Baptist faith in Pendleton, and in 1795 was found mention of the Reverend George Guthrie, a Baptist preacher in the south of the county. This church, very strong throughout the United States, and no organization here.

The Disciples Church, originated in West Virginia and became a strong and aggressive denomination, having two societies. A few adherents of the Latter Day Saints had showed their own earnestness by building a chapel on Smith Creek.

The absence of the Catholic Church, strong in America, was significant of the absence of the foreign immigration of the last sixty years before 1910 or 1912 when this this book was published. There were fifteen church buildings in Pendleton county in 1860. Of these four were Lutheran, four were Methodist, two were United Brethren and one was Presbyterian. The other four were Union churches. The seating capacity of the fifteen was 1450 and the average value was $540.

For thirty years after the settlement of Pendleton county,there is no positive knowledge of any schools within the county. It was doubtful if there was anywhere a building used specially as a schoolhouse, though it was far less probable that there was an entire neglect of school training. Teaching in those days was considered a private not a public matter, and to a large extent it was an adjunct to the ministerial office. Among the german settlers the ministerial head of the Propst church gave instruction through the medium of the German tongue. The only education was doubtless by private tutoring or by such heads of families as were competent to teach the rudiments to their own children, as we find among the German speaking and English speaking settlers of that day.

In those days and for years afterward the amount of illiteracy was very great. The women were more illiterate than the men. Some of the more prominent settlers could sign their names only by means of a mark. Often times both husband and wife had to make use of this expedient in signing a deed or a marriage bond. Sometimes an initial letter was used instead of the simple cross.

Francis Evick used an "E," or "F. E." Sebastian Hoover used a "B" as an initial for "Bastian," or "Boston." Positive illiteracy was probably least rare among the Germans. Usually the German settler signed his name in German script, but once in awhile he used a mark in signing a paper written in English.

Even with a general ability to read and write, there was very little to read, and the high postage and infrequent mails were not favorable to correspondence. Books were very few, and these few were mostly of a religious nature. No newspapers were published nearer than the seacoast cities, and before the Revolution it was no doubt almost a curiosity to see a copy in these Pendleton valleys.

In 1796 the nearest college was Washington, just established at Lexington. As for reading and instruction in the German tongue, the nearest press was the one set up at New Market by Ambrose Henkle, in 1806, and the first school of high grade was the New Market School, founded in 1823.

The first schoolhouse in Pendleton stood on the farm of Robert Davis. It was in existence shortly after the close of the Revolutionary fighting in 1781. A second schoolhouse on the same farm was nearly rotted down in 1845. In 1791 there was a schoolhouse on the farm of Andrew Johnson on the east side of North Fork. The oldest one in Franklin district stood near the home of George W. Harper above Cave postoffice. The second oldest in the same district stood northwest of the home of Henry Simmons. The first teacher of whom there was any recollection was a forger, who had been sold as a convict to Frederick Keister (which is an ancestor married into the DYER and HOHL/HULL side of this NW Okie's ancestry), and taught in the first schoolhouse on the Davis farm, and John Davis and Zebulon Dyer were among his pupils.

The school at the period was purely a matter of neighborhood enterprise. The state or the county had nothing to do with it. Instruction was limited to reading, writing, and arithmetic. The rule of three -- simple proportion -- came before fractions, and it was thought a great accomplishment to master it. Grammar, geography, and history were let very much alone If the pupil came to know something of these topics, it was through his own efforts after leaving school.

It was the state constitution of 1776 that was "silent as a clam" on the subject of popular education. There was no official recognition of education until 1810. A law of 1820 created a "Literary Fund," made up of public moneys. Each county was to have a collection agent to serve without salary, and each county or city was entitled to a board of five to fifteen commissioners, one of whom was to be a bonded treasurer. This board wa to determine how many indigent children it would educate, and what it would pay for this purpose. Each member could select his own indigents, but had to gain the assent of parent or guardian. This secured, the pupil had to attend, or the parent could be charged the tuition for absent days. Books and other necessaries were furnished but only the three R's were taught. Under this law Thomas Jones was director of the Literary Fund for Pendleton and treasurer of the school committee.

By the law of 1845, a petition of a third of the voters empowered the county court to submit the question of a system of public schools, a two thirds vote being necessary to put it in force. Schools under this law were maintained by a uniform rate of increased taxation. Of the three trustees in each district, two were elected by the voters and one by the board. The trustees were to build the schoolhouse, employ or discharge the teacher, visit the school at least once a month, examine the pupils, and address them if they chose, "exhorting them to prosecute their studies diligently, and to conduct themselves virtuously and properly." A weak feature of this law consisted in leaving such school establishment to the option of the several counties.

Under this new law General James Boggs was county superintendent, and continued in office until his death in 1862, when he was succeeded by David C. Anderson. In 1856 General Boggs made the following report: "The commissioners have established schools in various parts of the county with the aid of the primary school fund, where they could not have been established without it. The school funds are insufficient to educate all the poor of the county, even if competent teachers could be obtained." The report was signed also by William McCoy, Jacob F. Johnson, Benjamin Hiner, Andrew W. Dyer, J. Trumbo, James B. Kee, Cyrus Hopkins, and J. Cowger. (HINER and DYER being other surnames found in NW Okie's paternal ancestral lineage.)

It was in 1865 when Pendleton became a part of West Virginia, and when it had adopted a stronger public school law. Its system of sub-trustees came in the following year (1866). At that time five grades of certificates were recognized. The applicant being able to secure one if he could write and had knowledge of his birthdate.

In 1873 came the district board of education, and a year later (1874) the county board of three examiners. Subsequent changes had been made in the direction of greater efficiency in superintendence and in teaching, and in the length of term.

The history of fraternities in Pendleton may only be briefly given. The social life of the county had remained simple, because of the dual nature of the county and the absence from large industrial centers. The Masonic order had a lodge at Franklin before 1840, and after a long slumber it was revived, but was no longer in existence. The Highland Division of the Sons of Temperance was granted the use of the courthouse in 1848, but went down before the war. After that event there was for about two years a lodge of the Friends of Temperance. The "Know-Nothings," a once famous political society known as the American Party, had a foothold in the county during the late 1840's and early 1850's, and in much more recent years the "Farmers' Alliance" was a local power. Beginning with about 1855 a literary society called the "Pioneers" held weekly meetings at the courthouse until about 1867. It owned a library of about 250 volumes, which have since been scattered.

The political history of Pendleton is neither a complex episode. During the administration of Washington the people of America gathered into two opposing schools of political thought. The teachings of Jefferson were taken up with enthusiasm by the people of what were then the backwoods. His creed was more acceptable to them than the tenets of the Federalists. Agricultural communities, especially those least in touch with economic movements, were slow to yield convictions deliberately formed. It was therefore a quite natural result that the supremacy of the Democratic party in Pendleton had very little interruption. The Whig party had quite a following in its day, and once in awhile elected its nominee, especially in the landslide year of 1840.

It was the close of the war between the states that found the upholders of the Confederate cause massed in a single party, regardless of former differences, while another party, the exponent of the nationalist idea, was in power in the NOrth, and to a certain extent, also, in the Unionist sections of the former slave states. In general these distinctions were obtained in this county.

Thus in the main, the line of cleavage between the Democratic and the Republican parties coincided with the divisions of sympathy during the years of war. But, as in other counties of the state, the present industrial epoch had shown a tendency to gain on the part of the Republican organization. After the war and until the adoption of the Flick amendment, the Republican party was in control. Since then the Democratic party had been uniformly successful in county elections, and no general primary was held by its opponent. It had local control in all the districts except Union and Mill Run. Although its majority in Sugar Grove was small.

Previous to 1860 the bar of the county was represented almost wholly by attorneys who were not Pendletonians by birth or training. Among them were Samuel Reed in 1788, Thomas Griggs in 1802, William Naylor in 1803, Samuel Harper in 1805, Robert Gray in 1812 (another ancestral surname in NW Okie's paternal lineage where GRAYs married into the MCGILLs), George Mays in 1813, Joseph Brown in 1814, and James C. Gamble in 1816. Some of these were doubtless lawyers residing in other so counties. Robert Gray was prosecuting attorney in 1817, Nathaniel Pendleton in 1822, and I. S. Pennybacker in 1831.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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