Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
As one of the 12 Mon Forest Towns in the Monongahela National Forest, the town of Durbin was host to the quarterly MFT meeting last Wednesday at Rustic Roots Bar and Grill.
During the meeting, representatives from the 12 towns gave reports on activities and events that have taken place in the towns since the last meeting.
Since Durbin was the host, MFT Durbin representative Nicolle Flood-Sawczyszyn invited local historian Bob Sheets to share a bit of history about the area.
Sheets gave a presentation which included information about Fort War- wick, the pre-Revolutionary War fort that was discovered on his property in Green Bank. For the past two decades, Sheets, his family, archaeologists and local students have discovered many artifacts and history about the fort and life in Pocahontas County during that era.
Sheets also shared information about the history of the town of Durbin and surrounding towns, including Frank, Bartow, Thornwood and Green Bank.
“Durbin was a corporate town,” he said. “Cass is a company town. There’s one brick building in Cass – the funeral home that was built there. The rest is all wood. Durbin is a corporate town – as many of your communities are. You look around, you’ve got brick buildings.
“Durbin had three banks,” he continued. “It was a junction for the C&O and Western Maryland [railroads], you’ve got theaters, stores, bars. You’ve got stuff happening here.”
The Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike, which was established in 1847, connected Durbin and the other towns, and was used by visitors, locals and Civil War soldiers.
“One of the things that was going on here was the Civil War,” Sheets said.
As he showed a photo of him standing in a field near the Catholic Church in Bartow, Sheets spoke about the skirmishes of the war that were fought in that area. The field he was standing in is a recently discovered Civil War cemetery with several unmarked graves.
“We are going to have a partnership between the Pocahontas County Landmarks Commission and the Mon National Forest because we believe some of these [graves] extend over onto the Mon Forest property.”
The partnership will focus on identifying the graves and installing signs near the church which will tell the story of the skirmish fought there and the soldiers who were laid to rest in the cemetery.
Back in Durbin, after the war and into the 1900s, Sheets shared several stories he heard passed down through the years or found in the archives of The Pocahontas Times.
Those stories included the rough and tumble lifestyles led by some of the residents.
Sheets told the tale of Jefferson Lee Houchin, who died suddenly in 1900 on the street in Durbin.
The story goes that Houchin, who had an affinity for alcohol, was told by Constable C.B. Burner to go home and sleep it off. Instead, Houchin told Burner he was going to go home, to Bartow, get his gun, and come back.
Later that night, Houchin did indeed return with his 4590 Winchester. Three shots rang out, all of which found purchase in Houchin.
“Witnesses said Constable Burner was doing his job,” Sheets said. “Now, the story behind this is Jefferson Lee was a notorious mean drunk. It was quoted in The Pocahontas Times that ‘he was in his liquor.’”
Sheets, a member of the Burner family says the family has always denied that the Constable was the one who shot Houchin.
“They said it was the Slaven boys,” Sheets said. “As it so happened, Charlie Slaven and his brother owned the bars in Durbin and Cass. They were well connected. Jefferson Lee was a business problem.”
So, one of the theories is that Burner did not shoot Houchin, but instead the Slaven brothers did. Sheets said Burner moved to Florida shortly after the shooting and never really spoke about it.
Adding to that saga, Sheets read an excerpt from The Pocahontas Times archives about a visit by Green Bank resident E.O. Moore, who said he only visited Durbin three times. Each of those times, a man was murdered – the first was Ham Collins, the second Jefferson Lee Houchin and the third was Ed Morry.
Moore vowed he would not return to Durbin.
“Ham Collins was shot on the Staunton-Parkersburg turnpike north of the Traveler’s Repose and Charlie Slaven was convicted of the murder in 1894,” Sheets said. “Charlie Slaven spent two years in West Virginia State Penitentiary and was paroled.”
That fact gave merit to the suspicion that Slaven also shot Houchin.
On the brighter side of things, Sheets shared a photo of a gathering at a church on the Top of Allegheny. He said it was taken at a basket meeting which was a common gathering in the early 1900s.
“A basket meeting is when the ladies would prepare a picnic basket and they would be auctioned off,” he said. “Sometimes they were just open auctions and bids, but sometimes there were shooting matches.”
These meetings would include a sermon in the morning, lunch, then the basket auction, shooting match and an evening sermon.
After Sheets’ presentation, he opened the floor to questions.
Flood-Sawczyszyn then introduced Durbin Town Council member Carolyn Bosley, who gave an update on activities that have taken place in the past several months.
She also introduced Jack Sanford, who works for the railroad. Sanford talked about working on the train in Durbin and his hopes that the town continues to embrace the train excursions.
