10 Years Ago
Week of September 11, 2014
SUGAR GROVE
Education
Was the Responsibility
Of Church and Home
The beginning of education in Pendleton County was very much a responsibility of the church and home. Teaching children in those early days was considered very private. Parish pastors assumed responsibility for the education of their parish children. Illiteracy was great, typically among women and the poor. Signatures were made with an initial or mark. Pioneer life required learning trades or activities, such as log home construction, chopping wood and hunting for the men and cooking, spinning, weaving and knitting for the women. So, this type of learning was considered too many to be more important than the three Rs. It was not until after the Civil War that the schools were generally provided for the children of West Virginia. This was the beginning of the community-centered one-roomed schoolhouses.
To focus in on a particular one-room school, that being the Wilfong School of Sugar Grove, and built on land owned by John Wilfong, was decided in 1898. It was quite a busy place Monday through Friday of each week. Creek-swelling rains called for parental protection. This was also a time when progress had not destroyed walking energy, working ambition, or school discipline. In 1926, the same land was decided to the board of education by Early Wilfong, the new landowner, near the mouth of Brushy Fork.
The building had no electricity and was heated by a wood stove. A dug well was next to the schoolhouse, and a water bucket and dipper was used for each pupil’s drinking glass. Slates and slate pencils with a scant supply of books were the meager supplies made available to the educational process. All eight grades, as well as all subjects appropriate for each grade, were conveniently seated together, boys and girls separated. Blackboard races for drill work in subjects, such as arithmetic or English, called for repetition in itself. Pupils who were not in great need of constant study at their seats usually benefited much from listening in on class exercises for other grades ahead of them. Frequently, upper class members were helpful by taking care of primer and other lower grade classes, while the teacher took care of the advanced classes. Regular seat work, prepared work for the next class and recitations with much question and answer activities were interspersed throughout the day.
Most days almost always opened with devotional features, a few songs (patriotic, sacred, folk, ballads, love and sentimental, and not infrequently the West Virginia Hills), Bible readings, the Lord’ Prayer and scripture discipline and a sufficient amount of work was expected and usually required.
Pupils carried their lunch in a basket, bucket or satchel which was kept on the cloak room’s shelf which was just inside the building. Coats and overshoes were kept here also.
Depending on the weather, indoor and outdoor games were played. Paddle ball, Fox and Geese and Prisoner’s ball were some of the favorite outdoor games.
Programs for special days, such as Christmas and egg hunts at Easter, were always special as parents and friends would come. Friday afternoons were sometimes used for spelling bees, blackboard games and memory games. During fair weather, the school room was scrubbed, by washing windows, scrubbing desks, floors, walls and blackboards, and polishing the stove, as well as cleaning up the outside surroundings.
Occasions, such as peanut socials, were held each school term with the monetary proceeds being given to buy books for the school library. Students soon learned that work was work and play was play.
This school closed in 1940 and pupils were transported to Sugar Grove. Dewey Wilfong was its last teacher. Other teachers were Arthur Eckard, Perle Puffenbarger, Arthur Eye, John Puffenbarger, Alma Donald, Leona Mitchell and Cameron Eckard.
The building was torn down, and the lumber was used for an additional room to the Sugar Grove School. As the noted educator, the late Charles S. Nelson, once said, “Changes have come, as change must; but not all should be called progress.”
20 Years Ago
Week of September 16, 2004
Brushy Run Hit Hard
By Frances
Last Wednesday’s heavy rains brought relief from the intense dry spell of recent weeks, but folks in the Onego area and other parts of the North Fork Valley would rightly say there was a bit too much relief.
According to local state road chief Darell Warner, the Brushy Run Road in the Onego vicinity was devastated by the heavy rainfall.
Warner estimated the amount of damage as several hundred thousand dollars. He reported that the road was “completely washed out in five places.”
Many private bridges in the area also were damaged, a vehicle washed away, and there was water in at least one home.
A state bridge on Brushy Run Road was made impassable, and there were several 200-to-300 foot stretches of road that were undermined.
Warner reported that four and a half inches of rain had been measured at the state road headquarters in Franklin by about 3:30 p.m. last Wednesday. Then, around 4:30 p.m., following a lull, it started raining hard again.
At least six inches of rain is reported to have fallen in the Onego area in less than 24 hours, Warner said.
60 Years Ago
Week of September 17, 1964
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.
Sheridan Beats Early, North Whoops In Joy
Phil was beginning to get a reputation as another “do-nothing” Federal general. For six weeks he had had an army in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and in that time he had not once really tangled with Jubal Early’s Confederates. Ulysses S. Grant, Sheridan’s boss, was getting a little restive.
So, 100 years ago this week, Grant paid a visit to Sheridan and told him to fight. The results surprised even Grant.
The word from Grant was all Sheridan needed. For a month, he had been eyeing Early’s Confederates. When Grant called, Sheridan’s army was at Berryville, Va., only a few miles from Early’s army, spread out along the Opequon Creek near Winchester. Grant had hardly left when, at 2 a.m. on September 19, Sheridan moved into battle.
Sheridan’s attack had a bad start. On the way to the battle, his supply wagons and ambulances got snarled in a ravine, blocking the way for his fighting men, and the advance slowed to a crawl. By the time his men reached Opequon Creek and crossed it under fire, it was almost noon, and his army had lost much of its formation.
Early took quick advantage of the situation. Finding a hole in Sheridan’s line, he threw a division into and routed one of Sheridan’s divisions.
But once in battle, Sheridan proved to be a master. Dashing along his line on a black horse, he hustled stragglers forward, he re-formed divisions, re-organized lines and sent staff members beating the brush to get his soldiers back into the fight.
And somehow, along in the afternoon, the Yankees again were moving ahead, their battle flags bent forward as they surged anew into the fight. Sheridan himself led one corps into battle.
Early’s men began falling back and took up a new line closer to Winchester, but the Federals pushed on, closing up gaps, faltering occasionally but continuing the pressure.
And then the bottom dropped out of Early’s defense. As evening approached, two solid divisions of Union cavalry came over the crest of a hill and thundered at full gallop, their sabers drawn, down into Early’s left flank and rear. Like a tornado, the cavalrymen—with General Custer among their leaders—ripped into Early’s lines, through them and over them, and Early was overwhelmed. He hastily retreated.
But Sheridan was not through. Next morning, his men swept up the Valley in pursuit and found Early behind new fortifications at Fisher’s Hill near Strasburg. After one day of reconnoitering, Sheridan pushed his men into attack again.
As the battle grew on Fisher’s Hill, Sheridan’s Sixth Corps stole quietly to the right, up along Little North Mountain, then down again. At evening, they suddenly burst forth and charged into Early’s left flank and rear. Again, they ripped into Early’s lines, through them and over them, and again Early and his men made for the rear.
The victories in the Valley electrified the North. Sheridan got a gold sword from Congress and a “God Bless You” from President Lincoln. On top of the victories at Atlanta and Mobile Bay, the victories in the Valley made it appear the war was almost won.
Next week: Hood Heads for Tennessee.
EDITORIAL
The Case of the
Disappearing Dime – – –
When the man tied his tie and put on his coat, he also took the dime from his dresser. On his way to work, he used the dime to buy a paper. The newsboy spent the dime for a cup of coffee at a shop where the proprietor gave the dime in change to a man who bought a pack of cigarettes. This man left the dime as a tip when he bought his lunch and the waitress spent if for bobby pins that afternoon at the dime store. The dime store gave it in change to a woman who bought a pair of sunglasses and she spent it for a roll of mints at the candy shop. The man in the candy shop gave the dime in change to a man who bought his wife a box of chocolates.
In a single day, the dime served as a medium of exchange in eight transactions. But there it stopped. For the man who bought the chocolates is not only a thoughtful husband, he is also a dime-saver. When he got home, he dropped the dime in a cigar box in his dresser drawer where it will remain—along with 157 earlier dimes—and more to come.
70 Years Ago
Week of September 16, 1954
EDITORIAL
Twelve Men,
Good and True – – –
Have you ever received from the sheriff a summons ordering you to appear at the courthouse for jury duty? If so, the first thought that entered your mind probably was, “Out of all the people in the county, I’d like to know how they happened to get me?” If that question has occurred to you don’t feel that you are alone in your thinking because around court time a lot of people are wondering that very same thing.
If you really want to know how it has happened that you have been chosen for jury duty, the answer is something like this: The judge of the circuit court appoints two men of opposite politics to serve as jury commissioners for terms of four years each. Each year the jury commissioners prepare a list of names of approximately 240 persons of sound judgment and good moral character whom they think would be well qualified to serve as jurors. No names are placed on the list who have served on a jury within a period of two years, nor is anyone’s name placed on the list who requests to serve. At the time of preparing the list of persons available for jury duty the jury commissioners write each of the names thus selected on a ballot and deposit the ballots in a box known as the “jury box.”
At least thirty days before a term of court at which a jury is wanted, the clerk issues a summons in the name of the state requiring the jury commissioners to appear at the clerk’s office at least twenty days before the term of court for the purpose of drawing the names of persons to be summoned for jury duty during the term.
On the day appointed in the summons the jury commissioners meet at the clerk’s office and proceed to draw the required number of names (usually 42) from the “jury box.” The commissioners then make a list of these names, known as the venire facias, which the clerk hands to the sheriff to be served commanding them to appear on the first day of the term of court or on the day so desired. The sheriff may serve the persons named in the writ of venire facias either in person or by registered mail.
The foregoing is the method used in the selection of petit jurors. Grand juror is selected in a similar manner except that a separate box is kept for the names of persons available for grand jury duty, and only 16 are drawn for duty at a term of court, whereas, 42 are usually drawn for petit jury duty.
The right to trial by jury is one of the distinguishing features of the old English Common Law. It was incorporated in the Magna Charta in 1215 and was brought by the early colonists to America where it has become a part of the birthright of every free man. The right to such a trial is secured by the constitution of every state in the Union.
While jury duty is an onerous task, it must be ever preserved as a bulwark of human liberty.
