May 20, 1861
Near a hundred of the patriotic citizens of Skin Creek met at the Store House of Messrs. Hall & McCoy, on Big Skin Creek, on Saturday the 11th inst., for the purpose of consulting as to the best means of defending the Old Dominion. Patriotic speeches were made by Col. H. M. Peterson, William Gibson, John McCoy and Esquire Marsh. After the speaking a vote was taken and all were unanimous in declaring their purpose to stand by the Flag of Virginia. Col. Peterson then called for volunteers, when thirty-one as brave men and true as ever shouldered a musket, responded to the call; these were assured by the gray-headed sires that their homes should be protected and their families defended, if the emergency arose, and here an incident occurred which does honor to the head and heart of an old man, Anthony R. Spaur[?], Esq., whose five sons had volunteered, and when a son-in-law expressed a willingness to go but hesitated on account of leaving his family unprovided for, "Go," said the old veteran, "I will take care of the wife and children!" When the old and gray-headed thus step forward, the soil of Virginia will not long be troubled with an invading foe; where waves the Flag of Virginia there will her sons be found, and there they will die. Big Skin Creek is not the place for Mr. Carlile to get his 1000 majority. All honor to that portion of Lewis and her brave sons!
A Home Guard was then organized and twenty-five persons enrolled themselves, embracing in its numbers three Ministers of the Gospel.
The meeting adjourned to assemble again at Georgetown, in the 18th (Saturday) for the purpose of organizing the two companies in that section of the county.
Timeline of West Virginia: Civil War and Statehood: May 1861