Years Ago
Week of April 9, 2015
County Named Healthiest In West Virginia
Data released by County Health Rankings and Roadmaps, a project of the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, lists Pendleton County as the healthiest county in the state. Jefferson, Monongalia, Pleasants and Upshur counties round out the top five, respectively. Mercer, Logan, Mingo, Wyoming and McDowell counties fell to the bottom of the ranking.
Pendleton ranks first in the state in health outcomes, up from third place last year. However, the county dropped from fifth in county ranking in 2014 to tenth place for health factors.
The health factors ranking is indicative of such things as adult smoking and obesity, access to exercise opportunities, health screening availability, child poverty, violent crime, housing problems, etc.
Today Marks Anniversary of ‘Surrender at Appomattox’
The War Between the States Comes to an End
by Dewayne Borror
On April 9th, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee was forced to surrender the Army of Northern Virginia to overwhelming forces under the command of General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House. This week we observe the 150th Anniversary of that historic event.
Only a few men from Pendleton were in the ranks that day at Appomattox, as soldiers in the 25th Virginia Infantry. The 62nd Virginia Infantry, the regiment into which the majority of Pendleton men served, was at Lynchburg at the time of the surrender.
Following Lee’s surrender, the gallant southern soldiers from Pendleton County began the long sad journey home. The last months of the war in the county had been hard. George Washington Hedrick, a fourteen-year-old boy from Reed’s Creek, was murdered in front of his family by Union Home Guards. On the seventh of April, DeWitt Harper of the 18th Virginia Cavalry, was laid to rest with military honors on his family’s property, now known as Cedar Hill Cemetery. Dewitt was killed on the North Fork by his cousin, Perry Harper, a Union Home Guard. DeWitt had led a raiding party to the home of his uncle, Simeon Harper, and upon entering the home, DeWitt shot and killed his uncle, probably mistaking him for one of his cousins.
As news of the surrender reached Pendleton County, it brought both sadness and happiness. The long hard war was finally at an end and loved ones would soon be coming home, but the hope that most of the county and the South had for a separate country had come to an end.
Those from the county that had remained loyal to the Union now had a reason to celebrate. Shortly after hearing of the surrender, a group of West Virginia Home Guards from Captain John Boggs’ Company, decided they would come to Franklin to take “formal possession” of the county seat. This group of men, numbering about twenty, were under the command of Lieutenant William Phares. Riding into town, singing and cheering, the men were not welcome visitors.
As part of their formal “retaking of the town” they rode around the court house singing “rally ‘round the flag boys” as Daniel Dice climbed to the cupola of the Civil War era court house and placed the United States flag. The Stars and Stripes waved for a while before it was decided it was time to leave town as former Confederates would soon be returning home.
The flag was taken down by Dice and the party left town without any disturbance. Dice had this very flag in his possession for many years. Rumor has it that he not only raised the United States flag, but in doing so he removed a Confederate flag which was flying in its place.
Information is this article is from “Twixt North and South” by H. M. Calhoun and other sources.
Week of April 16, 2015
New Franklin Elementary School Dedicated
The official dedication ceremony of the newly constructed Franklin Elementary School was held Friday during a student assembly at the school. Principal Rick Linaburg welcomed dignitaries from across the state attending the event. He cited a time line of structures housing the elementary school beginning in 1802. It was noted that the former building had been in service for 63 years.
20 Years Ago
Week of April 14, 2005
SUGAR GROVE
Groovy Words — Why Aren’t They Being Used in Today’s Society?
What happened to all the groovy words one used to use? Where have all those phrases gone? Jumpin’ Jehosaphat! Holy molely! Heaven’s to Betsy! Back in the olden days, life was a real gas, a dilly, a doozy, the cat’s whiskers, the cat’s meow, far-out, nifty, ducky, groovy, super, fabulous, beautiful and wicked.
Life used to be swell, but when’s the last time anything was swell? Swell has gone the same way of beehives, knickers, spats, poodle skirts, pedal pushers and pageboys. One discovers that the words one grew up with have vanished.
The words of the youth have been left behind, the Mickey Mouse wristwatches, Hula-Hoops, skate keys and an organ grinder’s monkey.
It turns out here are more of those lost words and expressions. The milkman did it. It’s one’s nickel. Knee-high to a grasshopper. Fiddlesticks! I’ll see you in the funny papers. Don’t take any wooden nickels. And awa-a-ay we go.
Farewell and hail to rumble seats and running boards, iceboxes and Fridgidaires, Victrolas and hi-fis, fountain pens and inkwells, party lines, tennis prisses, slide rules, and manual typewriters.
Modern bluntness is often accompanied by a loss of manners. A “hunk” no longer means a large lump of something, a “rap” isn’t just ‘60s talk, “crack” means more than a small opening, “ice” means more than frozen water, and “pot” more than a cooking utensil. Of all the words that have undergone shifts this past century, the one that rattles more cages and yanks more chains is “gay.” One grew up using the adjective that meant “high spirited,” as in “Gay Nineties.” It then moved into the linguistic path of specialization. Then, the perfectly wonderful word has been word-napped by the homosexual community. These words once strutted on the earthly stage and now are no longer heard, except in one’s memories. That’s one of the greatest advantages of aging.
30 Years Ago
Week of April 13, 1995
SUGAR GROVE
Ancient Chinese, Persians Colored Easter Eggs
Where did the custom of coloring Easter eggs come from? No one really knows for sure. The ancient Chinese, Greeks, Persians and Egyptians dyed colored eggs for their friends. Our forefathers used onion skins, and dyes from mustard seed, red cabbage, beets to color eggs. Who brings the colored eggs at Easter? Of course, the Easter bunny. However, the children in Italy, Belgium and France say the eggs are brought by the church bells which don’t ring from Good Friday until Easter Sunday. Then there are many games played with the Easter egg.
50 Years Ago
Week of April 17, 1975
DAHMER
After many years of research, the writer can trace the first white man traveled path through the Dahmer community. The early land patents boundaries sometimes mention crossing a path. Who used this path before the white man? The answer is it was an Indian trail, also used by wild animals of the forest.
Because of the abundance of native chestnuts along this trail, it was an ideal place for the Indians’ hunting ground, because turkey, deer, bear and squirrel were fond of the delicious chestnut.
The Indians’ arrowheads found here, and at least three Indian burial places in this community, help to prove this to be a true story. So perhaps Killbuck, the Indian chief, once roamed these hills.
60 Years Ago
Week of April 15, 1965
100 YEARS AGO
By LON K. SAVAGE
Editor’s Note—The following is one of a series of articles on the Civil War. Each weekly installment covers events which occurred exactly 100 years ago.
Lincoln Assassinated; Murder Plot Unfolds
President and Mrs. Abraham Lincoln were driven through the streets of Washington amid a tumult of celebration. Everywhere, there was rejoicing; triumphal arches spanned the streets, and victory torches flared. It was Good Friday, April 14, 100 years ago this week, only five days after the surrender at Appomattox. That very day, the flag that had been lowered at Fort Sumter exactly four years earlier upon the outbreak on the Civil War had been raised again over the fort, proclaiming the end of the Civil War.
It was in this spirit that the Lincolns and their guests slipped into their box at the Ford Theater. The audience, who had been expecting them cheered; the orchestra played “Hail to the Chief”; the actors bowed, and the play—a comedy entitled “Our American Cousin”—began.
And before it ended, the joy, the comedy, the triumph—all had turned to abject horror. For as the Lincolns watched the final act, an actor named John Wilkes Booth slipped into the box and fired a pistol at point blank range into the back of the President’s head.
And there, in one of the wildest nights in American history, the history of this nation changed.
The course of events that followed has been told many times. Booth, a Confederate sympathizer, stabbed Major Henry Rathbone in the arm as the soldier tried to grapple with him, then leaped down onto the stage, breaking his leg in the attempt. He arose, shouted “Sic Semper Tyrannus” to the crowd, ran limping off the stage to a waiting horse outside and fled.
As the theater exploded into terror and confusion and as the President, still alive, was carried bleeding across the street to a lodging house, still another attack was in progress elsewhere in the city.
Lewis T. Powell, an accomplice of Booth’s, visited the home of Secretary of State William H. Seward who lay abed with an injury. Pretending to be delivering medicine, Powell ran up to Seward’s bedroom, beat off his sons and his male nurse and stabbed the secretary of state about the neck and face, then fled back down the stairs, outside and away on a horse.
And a third member of the conspiracy, George A. Atzerodt, at about the same time, visited the hotel where Vice President Andrew Johnson was staying—drunk, some said. But Atzerodt, who was to finish the job of wiping out America’s leadership, lost his nerve and left without making the attack.
Panic spread across the city that night, as Lincoln lay dying. Around him at the lodging house, doctors, top cabinet members, congressmen and family gathered to wait and pray. At 7:20 a.m., Saturday, Lincoln died.
By this time, police knew Booth’s name and had put together much of the assassination plot. The city was sealed off; even the Canadian border was blocked to watch for the assassins. Johnson was sworn in as the 17th President—still a little drunk, according to one account. Seward, it was found, would live.
Next day, “Black Easter,” the President’s body lay in the White House as millions went to churches to mourn. During the ensuing week, Lincoln’s body lay in state in the capitol rotunda; his funeral was held, and his body began the long trip back to Springfield, stopping at cities and towns on the way so that citizens could take one last look at his face.
In Washington, meanwhile, thousands pressed in the search for Booth. His accomplices were found, arrested and imprisoned. His path was traced to the home of a Dr. Samuel Mudd who had set Booth’s broken leg; it was traced across the Potomac River into Virginia and onward to a farmhouse near Bowling Green, Va., 50 miles north of Richmond.
And there, the Federals found Booth and an accomplice in a tobacco barn. With orders to take him alive, the Federals told both to come out; Booth’s accomplice did so and was captured, but Booth refused.
So, the Federals set fire to the barn and watched, through the wide cracks in the weatherboarding as the actor strutted his last act, fighting the flames with his crutch. Then, a shot was fired—by a solider disobeying order—and Booth fell. He died early next morning. His fight had lasted 12 days.
Next week: The End.
