20 Years Ago
Week of June 10, 2004
SUGAR GROVE
Writer Explores
What School Days
Were Like in 1830s
A typical Pendleton County school in the 1830s was a small, crude log building with the floor being bare earth itself. There were no recesses except for a one-hour lunch intermission. The books used were the English Reader, the Dilworth Speller and Pike’s Arithmetic. There were few slates and no blackboard.
A prominent feature in the daily routine was a stock of hickory gads used for “licking the kids.” Some behaviors meriting “lickings” were as follows:
Playing cards at school—10 lickings;
Swearing at school—eight lickings;
Making swings and swinging on them—seven lickings;
Telling lies—seven lickings;
Telling tales out of school—eight lickings; and
Fighting at school—five lickings.
Fifteen school districts were established in compliance with an Act of Assembly. Persons over 20 who could read and write were 2,702, while those who could not were 1,167 within the county. The percentage of illiteracy was 30 percent.
There were also many prohibitions:
- To scrawl on, blot or mark slips;
- To climb on any fence, railing ladder, etc. about the schoolhouse;
- To play in the playground before school;
- To meddle with ink unnecessarily;
- To study home lessons in school hours;
- To leave the hall at any time without permission;
- To spit on the floor;
- To have in his possession at school any book without the teacher’s knowledge;
- To throw pens, paper or anything whatever, on the floor or out a window or door;
- To quit school without having finished one’s work; and
- To mark, cut, scratch, chalk, or otherwise disfigure, injure or defile any portion of the building or anything connected with it.
By 1872, schools that were open less than four months were 20, open five months, 35, and open seven months, one. There were 60 male teachers and four female teachers. The average monthly salaries were $30.90, with the average number of months taught being 3.32. Time certainly turns the seasons over and over again.
50 Years Ago
Week of June 13, 1974
WHOSE WOODS ARE THESE . . .
(A Weekly Column of Wilderness Lore by The Woodlands and Whitewater Institute Staff Spruce Knob Mountain)
Raccoons
Make Playful Pets
We were writing about raccoons several weeks back before the staff here at our institute took a class from Davis and Elkins College down the Potomac River on a month long study of American History, paddling our canoes from the Potomac’s headwaters here in West Virginia all the way to Washington, tracing American History from Indian times to Watergate. In that first article we began our discussion of raccoons. This week shall belatedly finish that discussion.
Before we do, however, a mistake in the last article needs to be corrected. Raccoons do not hibernate as indicated in that article. They enter a deep sleep in the northern areas of their habitat and from this sleep they occasionally rise during the winter and rummage about for food. In the warmer parts of their habitat their sleep patterns are not altered from what they are the rest of the year.
Generally coons mate for life and once a pair sets up housekeeping together they share the same home year after year until driven out by predators. Because of this, male coons engage actively in the home life, helping to raise the children.
Baby coons are born in April. By June they have grown sufficiently to accompany their parents on nightly forages for food. During these trips in the early summer their favorite food is crayfish and spring frogs.
In fishing for crayfish and frogs the coon is very clever. When a frog hides in the mud at the bottom of a pool, the coon with amazingly dexterous and tactile fingers, probes through the mud, sifting and groping about. The coon works entirely by feel and a frog that escapes this searching must be very elusive. In fishing for crayfish the coon overturns a rock with one paw while holding the other paw ready for the crayfish to back into.
Later in the year coons turn toward vegetables for food as farmers with cornfields know. In eating their corn, coons are often very picky, passing up regular ears and going only for the ripest and best. At other times coons hunt out fruits and nuts. Occasionally they go after bird eggs and sometimes carry this over to a fondness for chickens. When the above delicacies are not available, a coon’s staple diet seems to be mice.
In eating, one of the peculiar habits of coons is that they usually wash their food. If water is near a coon almost always takes the food over and washes it thoroughly before eating. This cleanliness stems probably from the fact that much of a coon’s favorite food (frogs, crayfish and insects) is often quite dirty and muddy when caught. Such food clearly tastes better with the sand or clay washed off.
Nonetheless, coons are not particularly clean animals. They defecate anywhere, while walking like a cow, horse or bear. Audubon, the famous naturalist, tells of a tame coon that had its special way of urinating. “After playing for a short time in a pail of water, it would commonly urinate in it and then upset the pail.” As anybody who has had a pet coon knows, they are very playful. In the wilds for instance, instead of running along the ground, they prefer to scamper along the top of a fallen dead tree.
60 Years Ago
Week of June 11, 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.
Grant Loses 5,000
In Hour at Cold Harbor
“I have always regretted that the last assault on Cold Harbor was ever made,” General Ulysses S. Grant wrote in his Memoirs in his life. That battle, fought 100 years ago this week, furnished ample reason for Grant’s regret, for seldom in history have so many men been shot down in such a short time to accomplish so little.
Cold Harbor was actually a three-day battle, but it climaxed in one horror-filled hour on the morning of June 3. Five thousand Union soldiers fell within those 60 minutes—many of them shot to death and many others shot down in a “no-man’s land” where they bled to death within calling distance of the two fighting armies.
Cold Harbor, itself, was certainly not worth fighting for. A little crossroads just east of Richmond in Virginia (it was neither a harbor or cold), the place somehow became geographically important in the campaign between Grant’s army and that of Robert E. Lee. The two armies, while facing and fighting each other, had side-slipped southeastward down from the Rapidan River all through May, and suddenly both Grant and Lee realized that Cold Harbor would be a strategic point to control.
Phil Sheridan, Grant’s cavalry leader, reached Cold Harbor first but immediately had to start fighting to keep it, as Lee’s army began moving in. Grant ordered his whole army of 113,000 men into the area at top speed, and Lee did the same with his 78,000.
On June 1, as the two armies were converging, Grant launched his first assault at Cold Harbor, and it met a medium of success. His men broke Lee’s line, and the Confederates had to fall back. The attack cost Grant 2,200 casualties—far more than Lee’s losses—but still there was something of a victory for the Federals.
Next day, June 2, Lee attacked Grant’s right and won a minor victory, but still the battle was far from settled. Then Grant ordered an all-out frontal attack against Lee’s line for the next morning.
But in the meantime, Lee’s army was building a defense to stop the best that Grant could put forth. Entrenchments ran everywhere through the Confederate position, zig-zagging in all directions in a maze from which Confederates could pour gunfire into every nook and cranny of the battlefield.
Morning came; a night-long rain ended and out of their lines came thousands upon thousands of Federal soldiers, moving with their guns ready into the field of fire of the Confederates.
It was not just one big bloody battle but, rather, a series of smaller ones—each occupying only a few minutes. The Confederate trenches blazed forth with gunfire as the Federals approached, and the Northerners fell by the hundreds. Caught in the maze, the Federals found that they were running into a crossfire no matter which way they turned. One soldier told of seeing a whole company drop to the ground as if on command—but his company never got up.
After an incredible hour of this, the Federals had had enough. Grant ordered new charges, but they never were quite understood at the front. The men just stood or sat in something of a stupor and did not move.
Cold Harbor cost Grant 12,000 men. Lee lost about one-fourth that number.
Next week: Lincoln renominated.
70 Years Ago
Week of June 10, 1954
Telephone Service
Extended to Smith Creek, Entry Mountain Areas
Telephone service has been extended to 47 more families in Pendleton County, Boyd J. Hiser, local C&P Telephone manager, announced here yesterday.
Work was completed last week on a telephone network that extends from Franklin through the Entry Mountain section, across Hall’s Hill and up through Smith Creek giving the people in these areas the advantages of the modern dial service that is gradually expanding throughout the county.
The new line which extends all the way past the Goshen School House to the homes of Oscar Lambert and Charles Hartman, Jr., brings the total number of county telephones in the C&P system to 573.
Fifty-five miles of wire weighing 9,350 pounds and 1,400 feet of cable were used in the project which began in January.
History of Fairview
Methodist Church
Contributed by E. T. MILLER
The history of the old Bethel Church dates back to very near the beginning of Methodism in this section, and so far as we know this was the first Methodist Church in the County. Legend tells us that Ferdinand Lair preached the first Methodist sermon in the County in a grove near the Riverside Church of Brandywine. The first recorded date in which Ferdinand Lair is mentioned, he performed the marriage on April 28, 1800, of Jesse Hinkle and Barbara Moser. At this time there was no house of public worship closer than the Propst Church four miles south of Brandywine and this church was the Lutheran faith and built in 1768.
We have no record as to when the class, as was then called (congregation now) was organized but on March 3, 1821, there was a deed for a plot of land secured from Peachy and Amelia Dyer and the following trustees appointed: Ferdinand Lair, Jesse Hinkle (who was also a preacher), Abram House, Henry Judy and Peachy Dyer. They were instructed to build a house of worship. A little description might not be out of place. The house was about 25 by 30 feet, well ceiled but off the ground at one side about three feet with no wall under it. With only one stove it took lots of fire from the pulpit to keep the congregation in a listening mood on a cold day. The seats were a plain bench with a backrest that caught a tall person at the shoulders, a shorter one at the back of the head, and the little tots with no rest at all frequently fell through backwards.
The lighting system (before oil lamps) was a perforated tin box about six inches square and twelve inches high in which a tallow candle was installed. The time for night services was called “early candle lighting” not 7:30 or 8:00 o’clock.
This building was used by Methodists and Brethren about 80 years. The people needed a better house of worship and on October 16, 1899, secured a deed for the lot on which this Fairview Church now stands, from Allen Dyer and others. Trustees were as follows: H. T. Cowger, J. P. Dyer, James A. Gilkeson, W. C. Miller, J. W. Conrad. They contracted with carpenters to erect this house and at the time of dedication, W. A. Sharp was preacher in charge. A preacher from Baltimore was to dedicate the building but by reason of delays in mail, he failed to appear. Rev. Sharp had to substitute and dedicate the building which has served its purpose for 54 years, after which the demand for improvement and a basement was imperative. With some effort we now have them of which we are proud and thankful.
