Chapter 1

Where in the Hills?

There it is, a spot atop an Appalachian hill in West Virginia about two miles east of the Ohio River “as the crow flies.”  Twenty-five miles south of the Mason-Dixon line, a small cottage of fieldstone and rough lumber from the surrounding area marks my birthplace.  Two geographic reference points are the cities of New Martinsville to the north and Paden City to the south on the eastern banks of the Ohio River in south western Wetzel County, West Virginia.

            Half way between the two Ohio River cities Henderson Hill road, now declared a “non place” by map makers and present-day locals, winds tortuously and steeply eastward through thick undergrowth up a rocky road overlooking the Ohio toward the Henderson farm on the summit marked by a large nineteenth century multipurpose barn and one-story farm house with a large front porch.  In my childhood years perched precariously below the house and barn were numerous other livestock and farming buildings.  Flat fieldstone paths, fences, hollyhocks, and shade trees like veins of leaf connected the buildings of the Henderson farm.  If the traveller paused, he could look back on the beautiful Ohio River as it flowed past the county seat of New Martinsville about three miles north with its grey stone court house and tile roof on the bank of the emerald water. 

            The steep ascent up Henderson Hill now overgrown and forgotten was matched by an abrupt descent into Whiskey Hollow with its dirt road marked by parallel ruts from horse drawn wagons and sleds.  Evidence that cars had struggled with this road was apparent from narrow tire tracks and deep imprints mingled with wagon wheel tracks.  The dirt became soft slick mud when wet.  Only horse drawn vehicles could traverse the roads after the long dry summers.

            Actually one could approach the ridge of my birth by several challenging routes many having been abandoned with the advent of the horseless carriage and particularly with gravelled and later blacktopped roads.  It would appear that many ridges and valleys had roads carved into the landscape by convenience or necessity.  Creek beds and “flats” encircling the hills served as early roads to the numerous houses and cottages throughout the area from the early nineteenth century when my north western European ancestors settled in this “land of promise” to be sustenance farmers at first and later to find profit from livestock and crops.

            One could arrive on my ridge from Paden City by way of Paden Fork, which climbed on a forty-five degree angle up the Paden City Hill before making the descent into the Paden Fork Valley below.  Another route was the New Martinsville Hill from the Ohio River and intersecting with numerous roads having peculiar names.  As time progressed these two routes proved to be the most used by travellers due to schools, homes, and churches causing Henderson Hill to decline in usage.

            However, continuing the most original and primitive route to my native ridge one would proceed from Henderson Hill into the valley called Whiskey Hollow, aptly named from a popular masculine diversion of early times.  By my day all evidence of the chief industry of Whiskey Hollow had become history. The State Liquor Store replaced all but the name, Whiskey Hollow.

            Red dirt and shale formed the base of the Whiskey Hollow road carved out of the hillside declining into a “bottom” which was the valley floor or fertile level ground sought by my early forbearers for farming.  Bottoms were rich ground from millions of years of erosion in Appalachia.  From mere Indian paths later crudely graded and ditched for drainage, these were the pre “country roads” which John Denver immortalized in his ballad.  Early roads went through creeks; later wooden structures forded the streams.  Mercifully, during the 1930’s excellently engineered and constructed concrete bridges withstood perennial floods which dislocated wooden structures and provided secure crossings for the people of Wetzel County.

            Henderson Hill entry was the shortest inlet to accessing my ridge.  It was also the most accessible by primitive means.  Perhaps indigenous people entered my birth area by the Henderson Hill path to get to the lush Pleasant Valley beyond the river.

            My birth area was settled by north western Europeans who, after settling shortly in seaboard colonies, came across the Allegheny Mountains and down the Ohio on flatboats to claim land (oral history indicated 1000 acres) from the Ohio River east to begin what was later known as the Van Camp community.

            Most likely their flatboat docked in the New Martinsville-Paden City area and probably at the point on the river where their acreage began, Henderson Hill, which provided the shortest distance from the river to the foot of the hill beyond which lay their claim.  There are stories of Glens Rocks, a cave formation amid boulders about half way up Henderson Hill which my ancestors may have occupied temporarily before advancing to Pleasant Valley eastward from the river.  On they trudged to the top of what became Henderson Hill then down the valley to mouth of what was to become Whiskey Hollow and there before their eyes in both directions was a lovely valley, later called Pleasant Valley, ideal for farming and grazing.  Here they put down their roots.  According to stones in the Van Camp cemetery the Glens and Van Camps were among the earliest settlers in the Van Camp community.

            I will present more of the Van Camp community history later, but mention of it here is necessary to provide a firm foundation for the Van Camp community of my birth.  To get to the Bernan Hill, the ridge of my birth, one must continue down Whiskey Hollow until the first sharp left turn in the road.   At this point a sharp right is taken leading the traveller up an almost entirely forsaken road carved out of the side of the hill at about a fifty degree angle.  The soil is more rocky and composed of brown and yellow clay.  A four-wheel drive vehicle will make the climb after seeking permission from the landowner at the foot of the hill.

            South from New Martinsville along the Ohio River, over Henderson Hill, down Whiskey Hollow, and up the hill to my birthplace is about three miles.  It seems much farther since either walking or slowly riding a four-wheeler in places results in what seems a longer journey.  For scores of years stones have been driven into the clay and ditches furrowed on the bank side of the road with drainage passages across the road in appropriate places.

            One strong feature of this road to the top of the Bernan Hill from Whiskey Hollow was its firm base resulting in less slipping of the roadbed in wet seasons.  In my limited geological opinion, the rock formation of this side of  Bernan was such that roads built on deep rock formations which protruded from the hill in an upward angle thus holding building efforts.  Geologically these layers of rock slanted.  If one were fortunate to have land on the side of the hill where the protruding formation slanted upward, one’s efforts at infrastructure for roads and buildings was more successful.  On the opposite side of the hill where the same layer of rock protruded with a downward angle, roads and buildings slipped over time and had to be rebuilt.  With increased clearing and farming in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, slippage of hillsides was even greater due to erosion.  A large apple orchard grew on the hilltop protected from frost during the blooming season by the warm air rising from the valleys.  This Bernan Hill orchard, which is entirely gone today, shaded the road and covered it with blossom pedals in the spring and fallen fruit in the fall.

            The small one-story bungalow of my birth appears suddenly as one advances sharply and suddenly upward through the orchard.  The ridge at this point has no level ground.  Thus the house is suddenly visible upon traversing the last fifty feet of the road which rises even more sharply at this point.  Finally one reaches somewhat level ground near the backdoor of the house.

            Here is my birthplace, a small five-room structure straddling the backbone of the Bernan Hill ridge.  Nineteenth century builders finally found a more or less level place to erect a dwelling each half of which is built on opposite sides of the hill so that the front and back of the house were built on both sides of the hill.  The sides of the house were on either side of the hill, east or west.

            I was born on the eastern side of the house and the eastern side of the hill where the September morning sun’s rays of 1934 penetrated the miniscule bedroom at the time of my Sunday birth.  A few years earlier my paternal grandparents (Furbee) traded a much more advantageous farm at the top of the Paden City Hill for this remote place on the Bernan.  Perhaps my grandfather desired remoteness; this farm was the essence of seclusion.

            Ridges seemed to originate at an intersection with a chain of hills paralleling the Ohio River and split off at various angles ending in a valley some miles inland from the river.    The ridge of my birth followed such a pattern snaking its way along accompanied by streams, creeks, or runs like umbilical cords connected at the base of each side of the hill and leading inevitably to a larger stream and finally to a river.  The two “runs” flowing in a valley on each side of the Bernan Hill were Whiskey Run and Fox Run each having its terminus in Point Pleasant Creek.  Starting as rivulets these streams flowed through a valley floor bending and twisting but never straying but a few feet from the hill they drained.  So my birthplace was a remote area of Appalachia on the Bernan Hill part of a ridge chain which began near the Ohio River sculpting it way somewhat randomly  from side to side accompanied by its two streams.

            Hill farms straddled the ridge with buildings, roads, and fields, pastures, and woods in various parts of the acreage. Dwellings were built near roads however rough and secondary leading to a city, New Martinsville or Paden City.   Ironically, both sets of my grandparents violated this generalization by locating on the point of a ridge where access to roads leading to civilization was a challenge.

            The ridge of my birth ran farther into another farm before it finally ended in a point which sharply tapered off into Pleasant Valley.  This was the farm of the maternal side of my family, the Longs.  Between the two farms owned by my paternal and maternal grandparents was a “knob” so called because it rose knob-like above the surrounding ridges.  Seemingly a unique geological formation, round at the base, about two hundred yards in diameter, and rising to a summit like a high mound several feet above the ridges, it was the highest point from which one could view the entire Bernan Hill of which it was a part.  Both farms appeared below upon reaching the top of the knob, to the south Longs and to the north Furbees.  The two houses with their several barns and outbuildings sat on each side of the knob making up the two dominant forces in my life, paternal and maternal values, behavior, and beliefs.  The knob, the highest point of the Bernan Hill and of several surrounding hills, appeared moulded smoothly as it rose above the rough ridges and valleys of Appalachia providing a unique and appropriate demarcation between the two influences of my childhood.

            Passing my birthplace having reached the ridge top, a farming road followed the ridge between farm buildings and the paling fence surrounding the house and garden area.  A bit farther a barn appeared on the left, a corrugated tin structure of two levels one for livestock and the other for hay.  Instead of ascending the knob the road bent around its base eventually leading to the line fence separating the two farms.  Five strands of barbed wire stapled evenly in parallel fashion to locust posts arose out of the fields to the left and right of the simple road, which passed between two sturdier and higher posts of the gateway in the line fence.  A simply constructed gate matching the fence was stretched between two small poles connected to two fence posts.  To open the gate

one unhooked it from the left post and dragged it parallel to the right side of the road.  Thus the gate was open and one could proceed only to stop on the other side of the fence to repeat the process in reverse bringing the gate to its closed position again.

            At this point a large barn loomed high on the horizon farther out the ridge.  One of two barns on the Long farm, this one was designated the “big barn” whose basement was tunnelled through a rise in the ridge and walled with field stone for a foundation for the floor and hay mow above.  One could actually journey through the barn after opening two large doors on each side and proceeding over the floor above the basement.  Above the floor on each side were large haymows filled each summer with cuttings from the adjacent fields and emptied during the winter to feed sheep and cattle in the basement.  So the big barn stood astride the ridge of the Bernan Hill on the Long farm, a testimony to the nineteenth and early twentieth century farming life style of Wetzel County, West Virginia.

            Sadly only a hint of the “big barn” remains, a shallow depression where fieldstone has fallen from their former masonry niches.   A dominant feature of the Bernan Hill is now a mere depression covered by weeds, briers, and trees, an ideal copperhead habitat.  The wind no longer catches the big barn blowing over the floor between the haymows to relieve the sweating farmer in haying time.  The cool breeze is still which wafted gently through the damp, dark basement where cattle and sheep loitered for reprieve from the summer heat.  The “big barn” with its intersecting basement below and floor above appealed to a lad of the “thirties” as a cool play area imprinted in his memory as part of an idyllic setting for a child of the Great Depression.  From the “big barn” one could see the Long house slightly below the barn.  Memories of eight years of my childhood are associated with this home of my maternal grandparents.