Thursday, November 16, 1899
Marlinton to Incorporate
Marlinton has of two evils chosen the less and decided to incorporate. It was either that or form a Vigilance Committee.
Main Street looked like a field of a battle one day last week strewn with the fallen in the fight. A canvass was made of the town, and every voter found at home to whom it was presented signed the paper with one exception.
The territory proposed to be embraced is the square mile owned by the Pocahontas Development Company for a town site on the east side of Greenbrier River and the land on the west side of the river on which seven or eight families live, which is known as West Marlinton.
SUDDEN DEATH
Miss Ann Moore, aged about 30 years, who made her home with Hanson Auldridge near Edray, died Sunday morning at 1 a.m. from bursting a blood vessel.
About 5 o’clock Saturday evening, she had occasion to climb a fence, and jumped to the ground on the other side. As she struck the ground, she felt an intense pain in the head which grew more and more severe until she died. She was conscious until about an hour before her death… The deceased was a daughter of the late Wm. D. Moore, on Elk, and was a half sister of Jacob S. Moore, the president of the Board of Education. The interment took place at the Sharp burying ground last Sunday, the service being conducted by the Rev. George P. Moore.
THE POTATO
The environment of the potato has more to do with its edible qualities than most people imagine. They are too apt to think that all potatoes are alike, and if they perceive any difference in the taste that it is due to the manner of cooking. But such is not the case. All the Marlinton people who buy potatoes will go out of their way to secure “Williams River potatoes.” These potatoes grow on the rich mountain lands at an elevation of from 3,000 to 4,000 feet in the country where the black spruce flourishes, and are superior in every way to potatoes grown on ordinary farmland.
Common everyday potatoes do not agree with our Williams River neighbors. One of them remarked to the writer: “It appears to me our potatoes ain’t as strong as those you get on the low grounds.” The Williams River potato has a better flavor, and when eaten does not lie so cold and heavy on the stomach. It is no hardship to live for months, as many of our people do near the pine woods, on bread, butter, milk and potatoes, and no meat except game.
Maybe when the excellence of the Williams River potato becomes generally known those portions of Pocahontas which are too high to produce corn and other ordinary crops, but which do grow potatoes to perfection, both as to quality and quantity, will have the great potato fields of the country.
APPLIED HISTORY
William T. Price
In reference to the ancestry of our people, it may be inferred that our citizenship is of a composite character, Germans, English, Irish, Scotch and French.
Such names as these: Lightner, Harper, Yeager, Arbogast, Herold, Halterman, Burr, Siple, Sheets, Casebolt, Sydenstricker, Varner, Hevener, Cackley, Gumm, Overholt, Shrader and Burner indicate German descent.
Moore, Gillispie, McCarty, McLaughlin, Coch-ran, Waugh, Hogsett, McNeel, Kerr, Lockridge, Drennan, Gay, McCollam, McCoy, Beard, Baxter, Slaven, Hannah, Hill, Kincaid, Irvine, McElwee, Wallace, Curry, Hamilton, Sharp, Friel and McCutcheon imply Scotch-Irish or English-Irish ancestry.
Warwick, Matthews, Renick, Clark, Gibson, Johnson, Galford, Buckley, Kennison, Adkinson, Barlow, Gatewood, Jackson, Brown, Wooddell, Hull, Cooper, Duffield, Auldridge, Duncan, Beale and Sutton indicate English antecedents.
Maupin, Ligon, Devier, Tacey, Dilley, Bussard and Lange are of French extraction.
Poage, Pritchard, Price and Ruckman denote Welch extraction.
Kee, Doyle, Kelley, Loury, Cloonan, Scales and Roark leave us in no doubt that the Emerald Isle is their fatherland…
Our people possessed an energetic spirit that prompted them to desire a place where they could acquire a competency of earthly goods, so needful in times of disability and for the decrepitude of advancing years.
These people came among the mountains seeking refuge from civil and religious wrongs, and have a sanctuary where God could be worshipped, none daring to molest or make them afraid.
They felt it a duty to provide for their households, and, here, land was to be had in goodly portions and sufficient to locate sons and daughters near the parental home, so tenderly ardent were their family affinities…
