Notes for: Edwin S. Gibson
A letter to the editor, "West Union Record," Thursday, Feb 3 1916, quoted here in its entirety:
INTERESTING LETTER IS RECEIVED FROM CALIFORNIA READER
The following letter, which will be of considerable interest to many of the readers of the Record, was received last week from Edwin S. Gibson, who now lives at Covelo, California, but formerly a resident of Doddridge County.
Editor of the West Union Record -
Enclosed you will find two dollars for a continuance of the Record, of which I have been a subscriber almost continuously for over thirty years. I left West Virginia thirty years ago last March, and it was then when I first began to read the news of West Virginia through the columns of your paper. The news of old Doddridge has always been of interest to me, as I began life in Doddridge County at the age of nine years. At the time, I came with my parents from Lewis County to Indian Fork, where the whole country was in woods. We settled near where Avon now is, which was then in woods for miles in all directions. As we had moved from Lewis County, for a few years we bought our merchandise from J. J. Gibson, of Freemansburg, Lewis County, he being an uncle of mine and also as there was no store between our place and Freemansburg. It was a distance of about sixteen miles.
In the course of a few years, Tom Highland opened a store at New Milton, which was a distance of six miles from our home in another direction. There was a blacksmith shop there too, as I remember having taken a horse to the shop to have him shod and having to wait by the hour, if someone else happened to be ahead of me, for the blacksmith to make the shoe nails to fasten the shoes on with, as they all had to do in those days. I was also the telephone in those days, and whenever my father wanted to send a message in to Lewis County or anywhere else, I would have to get on a horse, sometimes bare backed, and deliver the message. While this method was not so quick as you deliver a message today, it was just as sure.
They had a grist mill at New Milton. I remember being there once during a presidential campaign. There was a man by the name of Abner Davis, Creed, Herman and Ed Davis' father, running the mill. There was a flag hoisted and Mr. Davis told some of the boys that were with me, that if when we got our grists and as we rode under the flag, we would hurrah for Grant and Colfax, he would give us a piece of pie. We did as he suggested and he gave us the pie, and I remember that it was mighty good, and I have voted the Republican ticket ever since.
I was the regular mill boy, my brother Enoch, being older had to do harder work. In Missouri when they went to mill, they put their corn in one end of the sack and some rocks in the other end to balance it, but as we were a little smarter in West Virginia, we put the grist across the horse's back and balanced it with the grain.
After the mill burned down at New Milton, I used to go to Jim Steel's mill near Smithton, regularly about every Friday, I would occasionally to to West Union to mill. I think that it was Robert McConnell who runs the mill there. I also went to an overshot mill on Sand Fork, also to a horse mill on Johnsons Fork, where they hitched a horse that went in a circle, grinding about three grains an hour. This is a sketch of how the people has to russel (sic) in the hills of West Virginia to get their corn ground.
In those days we had only three months of school in a year. The first school I attended was on Indian Fork. It was in a round log cabin, with a chimney in one and provided with an old time fireplace. Whenever we had a fire in it, we had smoke, and lots of it, all through the house. Our seats were made of saplings with holes through them and sticks driven through them for legs. Coxs, Nicholsons, Dennisons and the McClain boys made up the school. I remember Ed Cox as being first choice in all the ball games.
Six years later we moved down to Snake Run and at school time attended what was called the Snider school. Sniders, Meeks, Boyces, Pratts and Nute Coxes were those that attended this school. There I was classed with Mart Snider and his brother Fillmore. During all this time the school term was only three months. I had to be out at least half of the time, and at the age of sixteen I had to quit school altogether.
I worked eight years for R. T. Lowens, those days it took at least thirteen hours to make a days work, for eight years I worked up and down from the M. I. [Middle Island] junction near Smithton to the head of Meathouse Fork. I knew everybody along the line, and everybody seemed to be a special friend of mine, and after leaving and coming west for many years, I have spent many lonesome hours. Almost all of this time I have read the Record.
West Union was like the schools and most everything else when I left there thirty years ago; it was behind the times, it was regular shack of a town. Most all of the buildings were old shacks, and if there was anything like a bank there, I don't remember it. But when I dropped in there in 1907, I was amazed at West Union, so many of the old shacks were gone and brick buildings had sprung up in all directions and three banks, made it appear like quite a different town. The whole country was much changed. The country is cleared up and good buildings are most everywhere, and many people who could hardly make a living in my days they are in good circumstances. This I was glad to see, and now by wishing them all good luck and prosperity, I close.
Yours truly,
Ed Gibson