30 Years Ago
Week of October 7, 1993
Telephone Scams
Increasing as
Telemarketing Develops
Telemarketing is a convenient way to learn about products and services and to make purchases without leaving the comfort of home. Many telemarketers represent honest, reputable companies; others attempt to take your money.
These telephone con artists usually work in a “boiler room” rented office space filled with desks, telephones, and experienced salespeople. These people spend their days talking to hundreds of potential victims all across the country using a carefully prepared script. Yet, these artists earn some $10 billion dollars of consumers’ money each year from those who fall victim to their ploy.
40 Years Ago
Week of October 6, 1983
Pendleton
Community Care
Had 4,249 Patient Visits First Year
This week marks the first year that Pendleton Community Care has been serving Pendleton County residents. In this first year Henry Taylor, the staff physician, and Nancyellen Brennan, the nurse practitioner who is working half-time, have had 4,249 patient visits. This represents a patient load of about 1600 patients.
“The fact that the patient load is growing faster than the national average indicates to us not only the need for medical services in the county, but also the tremendous support of county residents,” says Dr. Taylor.
The staff at PCC looks back with a sense of accomplishment at the growth during the first year and looks forward to the further expansion of services in the coming year.
50 Years Ago
Week of October 11, 1973
Man Mauled
By Black Bear
A Grant County man was seriously injured last Saturday night when a “dead” bear came to life and mauled him unmercifully.
Diane Turner of Cabins was driving her automobile on State Route 28 north of Mouth of Seneca about 10:30 p.m. when she struck the big, 200-pound bruin. Two men, David Berg and Edgar Evans, both of Jordan Run, stopped at the scene of the accident and loaded what they believed to be the dead bear into the trunk of Berg’s car. They drove to the Midway Inn on Route 28 and had Mrs. Aretha McDonald, who operates the establishment, call the local conservation officers to find out what to do with the animal.
Upon arrival of the officers, they opened the trunk of the car and found that the bear was still breathing. While the officers were trying to decide upon the safest method of getting the bear out, veteran bear hunter Robert “Gabe” Evans of Maysville stepped from the crowd which had gathered about and announced that he would remove Mr. Bear from the car.
Evans grabbed the animal by the ears and began to pull. Whether it was the tug on his ears or the fresh air that revived the bear is not certain, but revived he was. The bear jumped from the car trunk on to Evans, knocked him to the ground and began mauling him. The bear bit the man through the forearm, in the abdomen and on the leg.
Conservation Officers Roger Wilkinson and Robert Leeson, assisted by several bystanders, tried to pull Evans from the bear while Conservation Officer Stephen Rexrode and several other bystanders tugged on the bear’s rear legs. When they finally got the man and the animal separated, Wilkinson shot the bear through the head with his service pistol.
Evans was taken to Grant Memorial Hospital at Petersburg where he was treated and then sent on to Keyser hospital where he was treated further and released.
War Hero
May Have Lived Here
john champe mystery
A New York historian who has done research on John Champe says that she is not convinced that Pendleton County’s John Champe was not the John Champe of Revolutionary War fame as indicated by Glen Lough in an address here during the recent Treasure Mountain Festival.
In a letter to Mrs. John Harman, vice president of the Pendleton County Historical Society, Mrs. Patricia Clyne, of Bronx, N. Y., makes the following comments:
“First of all, let me say that judging from the article in The Pendleton Times, to my way of thinking, Mr. Lough did not offer any concrete evidence that John Champe did not at one time reside in Pendleton County.
“I am at a decided disadvantage in that I know little of West Virginia history, except for the research I have done into Champe’s life. However, I do have several points to make to explain why Mr. Lough (from what was quoted in the newspaper article) did not prove his point to me.
“1. Mr. Lough’s statement that the John Champe of Revolutionary War fame did not live and die in Pendleton County as the roadside marker proclaims.”
First of all the marker makes no such claim. All it says is that “Near Champe Rocks is the home and grave…” The word “near” is an ambiguous one, and what is “near” to one person may not be “near” to another.
“2. Mr. Lough states that Champe “died of a heart attack in Marion County during a trip he took in search for a farm to purchase.” Now, this may and may not be true. It is one of the stories that has been handed down about Champe, but to my knowledge, no one has yet given any proof that it is a fact. Did Mr. Lough? The newspaper item makes no mention of any proof. Can Mr. Lough point to a certain gravestone and say, “There lies Sergeant John Champe?” No, it doesn’t seem so. Does he have any documented proof that Champe did actually die in Marion County, other than stories which have been handed down? That, too, does not seem to be the case.
“3. Mr. Lough says that “Washington gave Champe a parcel of land in Hampshire County as a token of appreciation for the services he rendered his country.” Can Mr. Lough prove that? Ida May Judy said that Champe refused all gifts offered by Washington, and that Champe already had a grant of land, some 258 acres, which he had obtained two years before his mission.
“4. Lough’s chief evidence that the war hero did not live in Pendleton County were two affidavits which were submitted to Congress by Champe’s widow and son for the purpose of obtaining government pensions. Lough said the affidavits listed John Champe’s children and the names are not the same as the children of Pendleton County’s John Champe as listed in Morton’s History or Miss Judy’s book. Also, the affidavit submitted by Champe’s widow was signed by Phoebe Champe, and according to local history, the wife of the Champe who lived here was Sarah.”
“This might seem like definite proof, but I’m not convinced. First of all, it must be pointed out that Sergeant Champe was married twice: first to a woman named Elizabeth, by whom he had six children; second to Sarah De Witt. Ida May Judy states that “Sarah had five children,” which I assume she means were Champe’s also.
“As for Phoebe Champe, she was the wife of the Sergeant’s son, John Champ, Jr.
“Now, let me quote a section from The Daring Mission of John Champe, written by Robert P. Brooks:
‘John, Jr., and Phoebe Champe likewise settled in Hampshire County, West Virginia and it was this Phoebe Champe to whom the Congress granted monies, long due to Sergeant John Champ, after the Sergeant’s death.
‘Various dates have been given as to the time of Champe’s death—At any rate, he failed to survive that he might be granted the pension allowed the heroes of the Revolution in 1818. But his widow, the second wife, Sarah De Witt Champe, was granted $120 per annum in 1837 and in 1847, the Congress granted posthumous promotion to him for they made him an Ensign in the Continental service with the extra renumeration to his descendants.’
“This, I believe, may well explain where the difference in the names comes in. Sarah was the wife (second) who got the annuity of $120 in 1837, whereas his descendants (which might well be Phoebe and her husband, John, Jr.) got the 1847 “extra renumeration” mentioned.
“As Mrs. Boggs is quoted as saying in the newspaper article, she “did not doubt the evidence that Mr. Lough produced.” The affidavits which were his “chief evidence” as to the government pensions are, of course, a matter of record. But when viewed in the light of the quotation I have given above, they do not to me prove that there “can be no doubt about it” that the John Champe who lived in Pendleton County was not the war hero.”
“Lastly, I must tell you something which I thought of when I read that Mrs. Boggs spoke of a family tradition that Sgt. John Champe had once lived in Pendleton County. My late professor and friend, Dr. Thomas Ollive Mabbot (the Poe scholar) always paid close attention to family traditions. Rarely, he said, had he ever found them to be grossly inaccurate—most of the times they were based on truth. Therefore, I cannot see where Mrs. Boggs’ family tradition is summarily cast aside by Mr. Lough.
“I am no scholar—merely a journalist—but he has not proven his case to me! Until he produces more concrete evidence, I would continue to celebrate John Champe Days in Pendleton County.
60 Years Ago
Week of October 10, 1963
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.
Three Famous Men
Head for Chattanooga
The crisis around Chattanooga, Tennessee, was like a magnet 100 years ago this week, drawing in military leaders from all directions.
Three of the Civil War’s most famous men started for the vital front where it appeared that the war in the west would soon be settled. In the same week, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant set out from Vicksburg; Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman set out from Memphis, and Confederate President Jefferson Davis set out from Richmond—all headed, eventually, for the Chattanooga area.
Davis was the first to arrive, and he came with furrowed brows. He had heard of the bitter quarreling among the top generals in Braxton Bragg’s army which was spread out to the east, south and west of Chattanooga from Missionary Ridge to Lookout Mountain.
Davis left Richmond by private train October 6, arrived at Atlanta the night of the eighth and went on to Missionary Ridge just east of Chattanooga.
Things were bad indeed in the Confederate army. For a week, Davis talked with top officers and learned that many of them—including James Longstreet, D. H. Hill, Bishop Leonidas Polk and Bedford Forrest—wanted Bragg ousted from command. Bragg, himself, offered to resign. But Davis could find no one whom he could trust with the job more than Bragg and left him in command. Hill, Bragg’s chief opponent, was sent off, disgruntled, to the east.
While Davis talked on Missionary Ridge, Ulysses S. Grant, recovering from a severe leg injury suffered when his horse fell on him at New Orleans, also got orders to move. “It is the wish of the Secretary of War,” the orders read, “that as soon as General Grant is able he will come to Cairo (Illinois) and report by telegraph.”
Grant received the message October 10 and set out immediately. His once-great army, the one that had captured Vicksburg, was now dismantled—some of it in New Orleans, some in Arkansas, much of it moving north and westward toward Chattanooga. Now it was Grant’s turn to move. Within a week, Grant had moved up the Mississippi River and was in Cairo. Within two weeks, he, too, would be at Chattanooga.
Sherman had gotten orders in September to go to Memphis to take charge of the movement of men from the Vicksburg area to the Chattanooga area, but now, he, too, received new orders. He would move overland, his orders said, across hostile territory, to Corinth, Miss., to be ready to move from there as necessary. Further developments would bring him on until he, too, was at Chattanooga.
Next week: Grant Takes Charge.
70 Years Ago
Week of October 8, 1953
Woods Fires Strike
At 5 County Points
Five fires were burning in Pendleton County during the past week. They were North Fork Mountain and along Friends Run; Smith Creek section; on Sandy Ridge near the Thorn; near Seneca Caverns; and on Broad Run near Brandywine.
Over two hundred people were recruited to help suppress these fires.
The forest land in the state will be closed until 24 hours after official notice given by the director of the Conservation Commission, Carl Johnson. This notice will not be given until this section gets a two-inch rainfall it was reported.
