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Scotts Run: A Community in Transition
By Matthew Yeager Volume 53 (1994), pp. 7-20 |
Life along Scotts Run in Cass District underwent revolutionary changes in the first three decades of the twentieth century. This farming community was transformed into a rural-industrial area dependent on outside capital for its existence, as Scotts Run residents became wage workers in coal mines and land ownership was transferred from farmers to coal companies. Farmers who did not make the transition to industrial labor were forced out of their way of life when the price of land skyrocketed to unaffordable levels.
In the late nineteenth century, the residents of Scotts Run were mainly American-born white farmers who owned small holdings. In the 1870 census, 99 percent of Cass residents were American-born whites, and ten years later, 66 percent of the heads of households were farmers.1 Renters, farmers who rented their land for a fixed sum, and tenants or sharecroppers, farmers who worked the land in exchange for a share of the crop, were almost unheard of in Cass District. In fact, 96 percent of the farmers in 1880 owned their own farms, 3 percent were renters, and the remaining 1 percent were sharecroppers.2
Cass District farms were quite small in comparison to other West Virginia and Monongalia County farms of the period. The typical West Virginia farm in 1880 was 163 acres, while the Monongalia County farm averaged 109 acres. Cass District farms averaged fifty-nine acres of improved and unimproved lands in 1885, 46 percent smaller than the typical Monongalia County farm and 64 percent smaller than the mean-sized West Virginia farm. The significant size variation between state, county, and district farms was a product of local agricultural tradition. In most cases the area's rugged terrain precluded large-scale cultivation of corn, wheat, and other land-intensive crops. Instead, farmers raised livestock such as sheep and cattle. For example, in 1879, Cass District farmers produced almost twice as much wool per capita as West Virginia farmers. In that same year, the district's cattle production outstripped both the state and county by 120 and 43 percent per capita, respectively. By grazing livestock on unfenced hillsides and in wood lots, large farm acreage was unnecessary.3
Unlike much of the United States or other areas of West Virginia, the railroad did not penetrate the region until the first decade of the twentieth century. Scotts Run was connected to larger towns, such as nearby Morgantown, by a single dirt road known as the Dunkard Creek Turnpike. During the winter and spring months, however, this road was virtually impassable.4 The absence of a railroad did not leave Scotts Run residents completely isolated. Associating with neighbors on a regular basis was important, as demonstrated by the many poll raisings in and around Cassville during the 1876 elections. Area residents often participated in community picnics with music, dancing, public speaking, and other social events. Osageville organized an orchestra to entertain residents in the area, and in the early 1870s, a martial band performed in parades and at other public events.5 Social activities provided entertainment and fostered social leveling and cohesion, bringing together a wide range of Scotts Run residents.
In nineteenth-century rural America, agrarian life reinforced a variety of folkways. Josiah Hall and William Deets illustrate the diverse, pre-industrial folkways prevailing on Scotts Run in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Josiah Hall, a native of Pennsylvania, lived with his family of seven on Wades Run, a tributary of Scotts Run. Hall moved to Scotts Run in 1867 after acquiring 167 acres from William B. Long. In the late nineteenth century, Hall, like many other farmers on Scotts Run, enjoyed the independence that a diversified crop permitted. Hall and his family operated a very large farm by local standards, with 140 acres of improved land. Hall owned a total of 190 acres valued in 1880 at thee thousand dollars, including land, fences, and buildings. Hall's farm also had eighteen head of cattle including four milch cows, twenty-three sheep, nine pigs, and forty chickens.6
The diversity of crops grown in the area shows the relative self-sufficiency of these farms. For example, in 1879, Hall harvested five tons of hay, planted one-half acre in buckwheat, seven in Indian corn, four in oats, six in wheat, and one-half acre in sorghum. He also produced ten bushels of Irish potatoes, five bushels of sweet potatoes, and had three acres of apple trees and one-half acre of peach trees. In that same year, the Hall family produced three hundred pounds of butter and cut five cords of wood. It is clear that farm production for the Halls, and other farmers in the area, was centered primarily around household needs. Because of the size of their farm, the Halls used outside wage labor for the 1879 harvest, an exceptional occurrence on Scotts Run. Collectively during this same harvest, 62 percent of Cass District farmers did not hire farm labor, indicating a strong reliance on immediate family members and kinship networks.7
William Deets, whose farm lay on the northern side of Scotts Run, worked a much smaller farm than his neighbor Josiah Hall. Deets, a Civil War veteran, owned his farm free of mortgage, and with his wife Clara and their three sons, farmed twenty-five acres of improved land without hiring laborers in 1879. During the same year, the Deets family owned four horses, four milch cows, three sheep, five pigs, and twenty-five chickens. Much like the Halls, the Deets produced a wide variety of crops: one ton of hay, sixteen gallons of molasses, five bushels of Irish potatoes, and fifteen pounds of tobacco. Deets planted one acre in buckwheat, two in Indian corn, five in wheat, and had two of apple trees.8
The Hall and Deets farms were semi-subsistent, governed by the household economy, or the needs of the family, rather than market demands. The primary concern was to feed and clothe the large families that were common on Scotts Run, not planting a crop that could be sold for cash. Surpluses were bartered or sold in local markets after family requirements were met. The corn, wheat, and oats planted by Hall and Deets illustrate their emphasis on feeding the family. This local farm economy was supplemented by an extensive game supply, and many residents trapped and hunted otter, mink, wild cat, red fox, grey fox, silver fox, and bear and sold the skins to Cassville merchants for cash to pay taxes.9
Not all Scotts Run farmers chose to maintain semi-subsistence farms. Some participated in the national market through connections to Pittsburgh and Baltimore. Scotts Run farmers had easy access to Monongahela River transportation at a shipping point in Jimtown, no more than four miles away for most area farmers. In 1882, it was reported that lumber, grain, livestock, and produce were shipped from Jimtown to markets downriver, but some local farmers undoubtedly sold their surplus to markets and stores in nearby Cassville and Morgantown. Evidence suggests local producers were involved in market transactions as early as 1879, when Cass District farmers produced goods valued at $311.24 per farmer. The average farmer in Monongalia County that year produced goods which totaled $247.10, or 21 percent less than the Cass District farmer. The disparity in income between farmers in the county as a whole and Cass District suggests that the shipping point at Jimtown contributed greatly to the market opportunities of Scotts Run farmers. Another indication of the market's influence on Cass District was wool production. In 1879, farmers produced 9,821 pounds of wool, or seven pounds per capita in the district. This compared to state figures of 2,681,444 pounds of wool, or four pounds per capita, a significant difference of 75 percent. Additional evidence of local participation in a market economy is the relatively large number of cattle in Cass District. In 1879, Cass District farmers raised 43 percent more cattle per capita than Monongalia County farmers and 120 percent more than West Virginia farmers.10
Despite their relative self-sufficiency, Scotts Run farmers could not meet all ther household needs. With the uncertainty of transportation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, area merchants played a vital role in the Scotts Run community. For example, many crops required processing before they could be used. Wool had to be carded before it could be spun and woven, and wheat had to be ground into flour before it could be consumed. Merchant-millers provided these services along Scotts Run very early in the nineteenth century.
Artisans also performed essential services for Scotts Run farmers. Local skilled labor, such as blacksmiths, wagon makers, and coopers performed much of the work necessary to sustain the farm economy.11 Artisans and merchant-millers formed a group referred to as "manufacturing interests." As early as 1870, Scotts Run was the scene of several thriving industries which supported farming. A total of twenty-six "manufacturing" concerns served Scotts Run, including blacksmiths, wagon makers, coopers, millers, tanners, and wool carders. Many of these artisans and merchant-millers were also farmers who understood firsthand the precarious nature of agrarian pursuits.12
Joseph J. Wharton was a typical merchant-farmer. Wharton operated a saw and grist mill in Osageville during the late nineteenth century. Wharton's three story, thirty horsepower mill, quite large by local standards, had the capacity to grind one hundred bushels a day. With the help of his wife and seven children, Wharton also maintained a farm of twelve acres of improved land, owned free of mortgage, and valued at fourteen hundred dollars in 1880. With one horse, two milch cows, fifteen head of cattle, eleven pigs, and twelve chickens, the Wharton farm was small but relatively well stocked. Utilizing their improved land to the utmost, the Wharton family planted five acres in Indian corn, five in wheat, one-fourth acre in sorghum, and one-half acre in Irish potatoes.13 Josephus Berry, a wagon maker in Osageville, also typified the Scotts Run farmer. With one employee, Berry worked year-round in the wagon shop and, with the assistance of his wife and five children, maintained a farm. In time, the senior Berry taught the wagon-making craft to his oldest son Thornton.14 David P. Hall, son of Josiah, along with his wife Vienna and daughters Sarah and Ola, farmed an 18.65-acre farm in Cass District. In 1900, Hall owned this farm free of mortgage and worked year-round on his "own account." These Scotts Run residents remained relatively insulated from the outside world. Until the advent of improved transportation, the work patterns of area farmers, artisans, and merchants remained strikingly similar to their predecessors.15
In 1905, the Dunkard Valley Traction Company laid a trolley line connecting Morgantown with Cassville. This enabled Scotts Run residents to travel to Morgantown without the inconveniences posed by poor roads in bad weather. But this greater mobility also threatened the strategic position of local merchants who were driven out of business by Morgantown competitors. The 1900 West Virginia State Gazetteer and Business Directory reported twenty businesses in Cassville; sixteen years later, three were listed. When rich coal deposits were developed on Scotts Run, coal operators realized the trolley alone could not accommodate the huge tonnage that would soon flow out of the area, and in 1914, tracks were laid for the Morgantown and Wheeling Railroad.16
Large-scale commercial mining came to Monongalia County early in the twentieth century. Prior to 1910, most mining by residents was in outcrops. Coal was chipped away for home heating, contributing to the local subsistence economy. In 1900, the county produced 82,148 tons of coal, which increased 405 percent to 414,992 tons in ten years. The demand for coal, fueled by America's entry into World War I, resulted in an even more dramatic increase in the county's production, particularly in the Scotts Run area of Cass District. The Morgantown and Wheeling Railroad made mining on a commercial scale possible for area investors, and by 1919, production soared to 2,158,219 tons for a total increase over the nineteen-year period of 2,527 percent. Accompanying increased production were equally revolutionary transforations in land ownership.17
In the first three decades of the twentieth century, several large coal companies acquired a significant percentage of the land on Scotts Run. Like so many similar transactions in West Virginia and central Appalachia, the broad-form deed conveyed mineral ownership to the coal companies. The surface owner's rights became subordinate to those of the mineral owner, although the surface owner was responsible for paying property taxes. A good example of the compromising nature of the broad-form deed is one signed by James Kennedy conveying mineral rights to the Cochran Coal and Coke Company on November 17, 1903. Kennedy sold the mineral rights on his 74.33-acre Scotts Run farm to Cochran for $5,946 cash. The deed allowed Cochran to mine the "Pittsburgh Vein" of coal underlying the Kennedy property. With this deed Cochran was given ". . . the right to mine and remove all of said coal, and with the free and uninterrupted right of way into, upon, over and under the said land, at such points, and in such manner, for such ways, tracks and roads as may be necessary and proper for the purpose of ventilating, draining, digging, mining, operating and carrying away said coal."18
Cochran claimed no liability for any accidents that might arise from coal production, and the company accepted no responsibility to "leave support for the overlying strata or surface, and without being liable for any injury to the same or anything therein or thereon or to the springs or water courses thereof."19
The deed assured that all practical control of the land resided with Cochran. In a clause at the end of the deed Cochran reserved the right "to purchase and take at any time as much of the surface of said tract of land as they may elect at a price not exceeding One Hundred Dollars per acre." No part of the farm on which the Kennedy family had lived since 1894 was excluded from the provisions of the deed.20
This deed is very similar to others which gave area coal companies control over a substantial portion of Scotts Run. For example, on May 29, 1902, David P. Hall sold the mineral rights of his 18.65-acre farm to Cochran for $1,864.90. As stipulated in the deed between Cochran and Kennedy, Hall also surrendered all practical control of his land to the coal company. Cochran accepted no responsibility for either damage or accidents which might result from mining operations and could purchase the rights to any or all of the surface at a price not to exceed one hundred dollars per acre.21
William Deets sold the mineral rights to part of his farm to Cochran on May 29, 1902, for $1,864. On July 12, Joseph W. Cole sold the mineral rights to his twenty-six-acre farm to Cochran for $2,602.30. On March 10, 1911, David L. Myers signed a deed transferring part of the mineral rights to his thirty-one-acre farm to Cochran for fifty dollars. Nine years earlier, Myers sold Cochran one-half interest in the Pittsburgh vein which lay under his property for $1,559, explaining the low price of the second transaction. The Myers farm was transferred in 1911, but Cochran did not reserve the right to buy the surface rights at a later date.22
It is very difficult to determine the actual value of the lands that Hall, Cole, Deets, Myers, and Kennedy sold to Cochran. From a survey of land books for these years, it is readily apparent that land was grossly undervalued for the Scotts Run area. In 1904, David Hall's 18.65-acre farm was valued at eight dollars per acre for a total of $149.20, less than the $150 value of the family farmhouse. The Kennedy farm was valued at ten dollars per acre, including the buildings, in 1901. It is impossible to trace the values of these farms after 1904 because individual property values are not identified apart from Cochrans total holdings in Cass District.23
The fairness of these transactions between developers and local land owners has been studied extensively by historians of the Appalachian region. In his work on the Appalachian South, Ronald D Eller has argued convincingly that native mountaineers were almost always on the losing end of contracts which transferred mineral rights to developers. Generally, most mountaineers had little concep of the value of their minerals in distant markets and were often unaware of the destruction inherent in mining operations.24
Taking an opposing view, Randall G. Lawrence argued that many mountain farmers actually had a distinct advantage in mineral transactions. In "Appalachian Metamorphosis: Industrializing Society on the Central Appalachian Plateau, 1860-1913," Lawrence found that contrary to many historical interpretations, mountaineer farmers were not always cheated by unscrupulous land speculators. Rather, Lawrence claims, many mountaineer farmers had been dealing with non-resident speculators for years, in some cases prior to the Civil War. Lawrence contends that in many cases, southern West Virginia farmers were shrewd bargainers. It is apparent that residents in Scotts Run and Cass District, unlike the farmers Lawrence studied in southern West Virginia, had very little experience with non-resident speculators and were often duped on contracts. As late as 1900, only 3 percent of the district's property holders were from outside the county. It is safe to say that Hall, Myers, Cole, Deets, and Kennedy did not understand these deeds, since all of these farmers, with the exception of Deets, informed the 1900 census enumerator that they could read and write, but none claimed a formal education. It is very doubtful, therefore, that they completely understood the technicalities of the deed that they signed.25
Of the 14,027 taxable acres on Scotts Run in 1904, 3,854 acres, or 27 percent, were controlled by coal companies. By 1910, coal companies owned 5,475, or 44 percent, of the 12,236 taxable acres. A decade later, 14,354 taxable acres were reported along Scotts Run, with 7,916 acres, or 55 percent, under the control of coal companies. This was an enormous increase, considering that the total taxable acreage increased 17 percent between 1910 and 1920 and 12 percent between 1920 and 1930. By 1930, the increase was even greater. Coal companies controlled 11,421 acres, 71 percent, of the 16,121 total taxable acres on Scotts Run.26
These dramatic changes in land ownership brought a number of responses from area residents. Many families who sold their mineral rights to coal companies moved off the land within the first decade of the twentieth century. David P. Hall and William Deets moved out of state before 1910. Others remained in the area, however, and tried to build a future for themselves and their families in this greatly transformed environment.27
Due in large part to the corporate accumulation of land, prices soared in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While land prices in other areas of Monongalia County increased, it was particularly steep in Cass District. In Clay District, bordering Cass to the west, the average price per acre rose from $12.39 in 1886 to $54.01 in 1921, an increase of 336 percent. In Battelle District, just to the west of Clay, land prices rose 443 percent, from $10.82 per acre in 1886 to $58.84 per acre in 1922. Cass District witnessed a rise in prices from $17.71 per acre in 1886 to $131.35 in 1922, an increase of 642 percent. These rising prices were more than most young couples just starting out could afford, and a life of farming was no longer a viable alternative for them.28
Because of the limited opportunity to own land, many young men turned to other occupations in the district, joining the growing ranks of wage laborers tied to the industrial economy instead of working on their "own account." (see table) Clarence Cole, son of Joseph W. Cole, called himself a laborer in 1910 and worked on the county roads. William Deets, Jr., the only member of his family remaining in West Virginia, went to work in the coal mines. Jesse J. Kennedy, son of James N. Kennedy, was designated a laborer in the 1910 census and worked on the "street railway." Kennedy was quickly initiated into the industrial economy when he found himself out of work for almost three months in 1909. Many, such as the merchant-farmer Joseph J. Wharton and the artisan-farmer Josephus Berry, simply moved away from Scotts Run to better prospects.29
Another indication that independent landholding status was more difficult to achieve than in previous genertions is the number of adult children living at home. For example, in 1910, twenty-four-year old Clarence Cole was still living with his parents on their farm. Through the first decade of the twentieth century, Alvin Deets, age thirty-three, and George Deets, age twenty-nine, also lived at home with their father William. Both Alvin and George were "farm laborers," helping their father with the crops on his nineteen-acre farm. Twenty-six-year old William, Jr. farmed a nearby piece of land which he rented. Ten years later, he moved from the rented farm to a company house when he went to work in the coal mines. Twenty-seven-year old Jesse Kennedy and his wife of four years still lived with his parents in 1910. John T. Kennedy, age thirty-three and another son of James, was a farmer in 1910 and cultivated a piece of rented land. At a time when these young men would have been purchasing their own farms and starting families, they were either tied to their parents or living on rented land.30
Accompanying the widespread dependence were equally significant population increases, as rising coal production fostered a corollary demand for labor on Scotts Run. Consequently, the population in Cass District rose from 1,173 in 1910 to 3,160 in 1920, an increase of 169 percent. By 1930, the population had risen an additional 117 percent, making Cass the third most populous district in Monongalia County. Most of the people who settled in Cass District during these years came from outside the county to mine coal along Scotts Run.31
A large percentage of the people who moved to the area during this period were immigrants and African Americans. Some came on their own, while others were recruited by labor agents who sought workers in regions as diverse as the Deep South and southeastern Europe. In the late nineteenth century, immigrants and African Americans composed barely 1 percent of the population of the district. By 1930, white immigrants from such countries as Austria-Hungary, Italy, England, Russia, and Scotland made up 13 percent of the district's population, with the largest proportion living along Scotts Run. Monongalia County during this time had a 7 percent white immigrant population. Thirteen percent of Cass District's population was African American in 1930, while Monongalia County had a 5 percent black population. African Americans fleeing the brutal racial violence which plagued much of the South during this period found Scotts Run a relatively safe place to work and raise their families. During the first decades of the twentieth century, many coal operators in other areas of West Virginia reported a preference for immigrant and African-American miners over the native white mountaineer. Some operators complained that the mountaineer was unreliable because farming duties drew him away from the mines during planting and harvesting season.32
A secure labor force enabled operators to rid the area of those who disputed their power through legal action. While the changing character of the Scotts Run economy had an impact on family life, small landholders and farmers were also forced into the realization that their interests took an increasingly subservient role when in conflict with the corporate ownership of mineral rights. David L. Myers experienced problems with the Cleveland and Morgantown Coal Company, an Ohio-based corporation, in 1925. The Sewickley vein of coal under the Myers farm had been purchased several years earlier by company president Joseph Pursglove. Pursglove had not purchased the surface rights, however, and, without consulting Myers, the company erected a well on the farm to pump water from its mine. The water was pumped through a pipe that extended several feet above the surface of the Myers property into a creek.33 In order to prevent water erosion of his land, Myers drove a wooden plug into the mouth of the pipe and battered its threads so it could not be extended further over his property. Consequently, Cleveland and Morgantown Coal claimed that its pump was nearly destroyed during operation. The company sought an injunction in chancery court to prevent Myers from tampering with the pump. Judge I. Grant Lazzell granted the motion and ordered Myers to stop interfering with the operationof the coal company.34
The Myers case was representative of the major transformation which occurred in the first three decades of the twentieth century on Scotts Run and throughout the central Appalachian coalfields. Farmers such as Myers became a hinderance to industrialization and, therefore, were eliminated from the land and reduced to a marginal role in their own society. Acts of protest against the new industrial order would not be tolerated. As the area became dependent on the investment of outside capital, local officials, such as Judge Lazzell, could be counted on to protect corporate interests from interference, and the Scotts Run farmer became an anachronism in the community.
The connection of Scotts Run to the outside market place by the Dunkard Valley Traction Company and later by the Morgantown and Wheeling Railroad transformed the area into a rural-industrial economy. Much like other parts of central Appalachia, the connection proved detrimental to the independence and security of the mountain farm family. The accumulation of land by coal companies and the skyrocketing land prices which resulted left farm residents with few options. Coal companies learned quickly that their power would not be restrained by matters of simple justice. Increasingly, the young men of Scotts Run turned to the only opportunity available to them by joining the local mine work force, making Scotts Run a microcosm of the transformation of central Appalachia.
Notes
1. Occupations were obtained by using systematic sampling with a random start; every second household was selected from the manuscript census with a random starting point. Secretary of the Interior, The Statistics of the Population of the United States (June 1, 1870), Vol. 1 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1872), 286; Department of the Interior, Census Office, Report on the Productions of Agriculture (June 1, 1880) (Washington, DC: GPO, 1883), 98.
2. Agricultural and Manufacturing Census Records, 1880 (microfilmed from original by the Univ. of North Carolina, 1963), Agricultural, Monongalia County, Enumeration District 98, 1, hereafter referred to as 1880 Agricultural Census.
3. 1880 Agricultural Census, ED 98, 1-25; Census Office, Report on the Productions of Agriculture (June 1, 1880), 139; Land Book (West Side), 1885, 1-12, Monongalia County Courthouse, Morgantown, all county court records cited herein are at the Monongalia County Courthouse; Census Office, Statistics of the Population of the United States (June 1, 1880), 364, 666; Ronald D Eller, Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers: Industrialization of the Appalachian South, 1880-1930 (Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1982), 19-21.
4. Samuel T. Wiley, History of Monongalia County, West Virginia, From Its First Settlements to the Present Time; With Numerous Biographical and Family Sketches (Kingwood: Preston Publishing Company, 1883), 706; Earl L. Core, The Monongalia Story: A Bicentennial History, Vol. IV: Industrialization (Parsons: McClain Printing, 1982), 458.
5. Morgantown Weekly Post, 28 June and 19 July 1873.
6. Census of the Population, Tenth Census of the United States, 1880 (National Archives Microfilm Publication T9), Monongalia County, Enumeration District 98, 23, hereafter referred to as 1880 Census; 1880 Agricultural Census, ED 98, 15; Census Office, Report on the Productions of Agriculture (June 1, 1880), 323; Deeds, Book 5, 247-48.
7. 1880 Agricultural Census, ED 98, 1-25.
8. 1880 Census, ED 98, 23; 1880 Agricultural Census, ED 98, 15; Census of the Population, Special Schedules of the Eleventh Census Enumerating Union Veterans and Widows of Union Veterans of the Civil War, 1890 (National Archives Microfilm Publication M123), Monongalia County, Enumeration District 81.
9. Morgantown Weekly Post, 1 March 1873.
10. 1880 Agricultural Census, ED 98, 1-25; West Virginia State Gazetteer and Business Directory, 1882-3 (Philadelphia: R. L. Polk & Co., 1882), 88; Census Office, Report on the Productions of Agriculture (June 1, 1880), 139, 175; Census Office, Statistics of the Population of the UnitedStates (June 1, 1880), Vol. 1, 364, 666.
11. Wiley, History of Monongalia County, 706.
12. Morgantown Weekly Post, 12 April and 7 June 1873; Agricultural and Manufacturing Census Records, 1870 (microfilmed from original by the Univ. of North Carolina, 1963), Manufacturing, Monongalia County, 11, hereafter referred to as 1870 Manufacturing Census; 1880 Agricultural Census, ED 98, 24.
13. Wiley, History of Monongalia County, 707; An Atlas of Monongalia County 1886: From Surveys by J. M. Lathrop, H. C. Penny and W. R. Proctor (1886; reprint, Morgantown: Monongalia Historical Society, 1977); 1880 Agricultural Census, ED 98, 24; 1880 Census, ED 98, 36.
14. Wiley, History of Monongalia County, 705; 1870 Manufacturing Census, 11; 1880 Census, ED 98, 36; Census of the Population, Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900 (National Archives Microfilm Publication T1078), Monongalia County, Enumeration District 76, 7, hereafter referred to as 1900 Census.
15. Core, The Monongalia Story, 103, 120, 563-64; 1900 Census, ED 76, 5; Deeds, Book 63, 452.
16. West Virginia State Gazetteer and Business Directory, 1900-1901 (Pittsburgh: R. L. Polk, 1900), 117; West Virginia State Gazetteer and Business Directory, 1916-1917 (Pittsburgh: R. L. Polk, 1916), 127; Core, The Monongalia Story, 347, 382, 421, 422, 457.
17. Core, The Monongalia Story, 451, 454, 492.
18. Deeds, Book 76, 112.
19. Ibid.; 1900 Census, ED 76, 5.
20. Deeds, Book 76, 113.
21. Ibid., Book 63, 452; 1900 Census, ED 76, 5.
22. Deeds, Book 63, 452; Book 66, 143, 258; Book 114, 246.
23. Land Books (Cass District), 1904, 6; 1901, 9; 1909, 16.
24. Eller, Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers, 56.
25. 1900 Census, ED 76, 4, 5, 6; Census of the Population, Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910 (National Archives Microfilm Publication T1279), Monongalia County, Enumeration District 70, 4, hereafter referred to as 1910 Census; Land Book (Cass District), 1900, 1-14; Randall G. Lawrence,
Appalachian Metamorphosis: Industrializing Society on the Central Appalachian Plateau, 1860-1913 (Ph. D. diss., Duke University, 1983), 65-71.
26. Land Books (Cass District), 1904, 7-20; 1910, 1-25; 1920, 1-34; 1930, 1-56.
27. 1900 Census, ED 76, 6, 7.
28. Land Books (West Side), 1886, 14, 15; 1921, 66; 1922, 48, 50.
29. 1910 Census, ED 70, 2, 3, 5.
30. 1900 Census, ED 76, 5, 6; 1910 Census, ED 70, 2, 3, 5.
31. Core, The Monongalia Story, 563-64.
32. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States, Vol. 3, part 2: Population (Washington, DC: GPO, 1932), 1297; Lawrence, "Appalachian Metamorphosis," 142.
33. Circuit Court Records, Chancery Court Case 1081; Morgantown District Industrial and Business Survey (Morgantown: Morgantown Chamber of Commerce, 1921), 11.
34. Circuit Court Records, Chancery Court Case 1081.
Matthew Yeager received a B.A. from West Virginia University and is currently working on his master's thesis at W.V.U. on vigilantism in nineteenth-century West Virginia.