“A Short History of Parkersburg” is the actual title of this story about Parkersburg, WV (West Virginia)—written by Kate Harris about 1910. I obtained this double-spaced artifact (with its 37 loosely stapled pages) recently in an Ebay auction, from a vendor in Bullhead, Arizona. On its front cover, reproduced above, we read that this history was “mimeographed [in] 1956 by Virginia Laughlin for The West Augusta Historical and Genealogical Society, Parkersburg, West Virginia.” Also, in fading ink is scribbled what looks like, “Roger Putnam Adair, Parkersburg High School 1912.”
Its dim and blotched type on old yellowing paper inside will be impossible to scan successfully. Therefore, this unique story will require several days—if not several weeks at my feeble age—for me personally to determine word spellings, edit and shorten the never-ending paragraphs, correct some typos, and retype the text before it can be clearly passed on. However, I will try, and the time and effort required is not a great concern for me in my freedom from making a dollar in retirement. I just want to share (before I pass on) her important and well-researched chronology of Parkersburg—with curious readers interested in an old Ohio-River town’s intriguing past.
The Parkersburg Dispatch News (1906—1915) apparently assigned the long title above to its issue with the story on February 16, 1913. Its Editor made this interesting note preceding the story: “This history, from the pen of the late Miss Kate Harris, for years an instructor in the public schools, is a gripping and fascinating narrative of the development of the community from the early Indian days. It brings the reader down to the time of the schoolboy and girl of the present day, but was concluded before the present system of municipal government was adopted. That is the only detail that is lacking. The manuscript was found by the family among Miss Harris’ effects and the Dispatch-News was generously permitted to publish it—a quite worthy motive, as it will occur to the reader as he pleasurably follows the narrative that it would have been unfortunate should this story of Parkersburg have been allowed to go waste.”
Here I present Miss Harris’s “Short History of Parkersburg” (with my notations and pictures interwoven) in a smaller-size font as follows:
When the country lying west of the Great Mountains became known to the English, thanks to the romantic expedition of Gov. Spotswood, and his knights of the Golden Horseshoe, it was inhabited by many and various tribes of Indians belonging to the different nations. That part of what is today the state of West Virginia, lying northwest of the Blue Ridge and extending to the Lakes was owned by a powerful tribe called the Massowomies. As the English settlements were extended westward from the seashore, the Massowomies gradually retired, so many when the earliest settlers crossed the Blue Ridge, they found the country from here to the Ohio practically uninhabited save for the small villages of Indians scattered here and there.
The Five Nations and the Shawnees used this whole section of country as a hunting ground. There were three main trails or routes followed by war parties, including from the Ohio into the interior of Virginia. These followed the Big Sandy, Great Kanawha, and Little Kanawha. The choice of trails depended of course upon what locality the war party wished to attack. In the main, the Indians of the Ohio Valley seem to have been fairly well disposed toward the white settlers, and to our shame be it said in almost every case, the treaties between white men and Indians were first violated by the whites. It makes one hot with shame to read of the Massacre at Bull Town, and the murder of the “Praying Indians” in Ohio.
The first mention that we find in history of the site whereon Parkersburg now stands, occurs in the account of the expedition of Celeron de Bienville and fills one of the most romantic and picturesque pages in American history. Both France and England claimed the country west of the “Great Mountains,” the valley of the Ohio River; France, by virtue of the explorations of the heroic La Salle, and England, as part of Virginia.
England promptly took the initiative by issuing royal grants of land in the disputed territory to the various land companies in the colonies—rights royally she gave—500,000 acres to the Ohio Land Company was the first grant. This was to be “taken up” between the Monongahela and the Great Kanawha Rivers, but either a curious haziness clung about the geographical position of these rivers, or the Ohio Land Company, of which Lawrence and Augustine Washington were members, was blindly indifferent to it. Perhaps the members thought they were at liberty to construe the grant liberally and were not restricted to their choice of the territory between these rivers, for we find them strictly charging the agent whom they sent out to select the land; “We must have good level ground—we had rather go quite down to the mouth of the Ohio, then take mean broken land.” This agent was the well-known frontiersman Christopher Gist. Other grants by the Crown followed this, one of 800,000 acres to the Loyal Land Company, and another a little later to the Greenbrier company.
France, in the mountains, had not been idle or backward in asserting her claims to this same region. On the 15th day of June 1749, an expedition under the command of Celeron de Bienville left Montreal for the purpose of taking formal possession of the valley of the Ohio River for the King of France. This was to be done by burying at intervals along the river leaden plates stamped with the royal arms of France, and bearing inscriptions laying solemn claims to the land on both sides of that stream even to the sources of its tiniest tributaries “as a monument of renewal of possession,” so ran the inscription, “which we have taken out of the said river Ohio, and of all those that fall into it, and of all the lands on both sides, as for as the sources of the said rivers, the same as were enjoyed, or ought to have been enjoyed by the preceding Kings of France; and that they have maintained by their arms and by treaties, especially by those of Riswick, Utrecht, and Aix-la-Chapelle.”
The party consisted of 20 soldiers, 8 subaltern officers, 6 cadets, 180 Canadians, an armorer, 55 Indians, and a Jesuit priest Father Bonnecamp, by name, to care for their souls, 270 in all. Leaving Montreal June 15th, they struck directly southwestward to the headwaters of the Allegheny, followed it southward to its junction with the Monongahela and thence down the Ohio.
The first plate was buried at the mouth of the Conewago, the second, near the mouth of French Creek near the present site of Pittsburgh, and the third, on the 13th of August at the mouth of Wheeling Creek.
Down, down the Beautiful River went the little flotilla until it halted at the mouth of the Muskingum.
Here the voyagers landed and with the appropriate ceremonies buried the fourth plate,1 then on, on the swift current carrying the little fleet rapidly onward.
Celeron’s Diary records that on the 16th they passed the mouth of the Little Kanawha, and he mentions particularly the island in the river below it—the island that was to be famous later on as the home of Blennerhassett.
A violent storm of wind and rain drove the party ashore at the mouth of the Great Kanawha, and here, on the 18th of August, at the foot of an elm tree, the fifth of the plates was buried. This plate was discovered in 1846, and is now in the possession of the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond. Celeron’s party was detained here, where Point Pleasant now stands, for several days by the heavy rains; cheerless days they must have been indeed, for they had no shelter from the drenching rains, except what could be hastily improvised by the woodsman’s lore of the Indians.
At last the weather cleared and the little fleet continued its way, until on August 31st, at the mouth of the Great Miami,2 with as much pomp as their accessories would permit, they buried their sixth and last plate, and turned their faces homeward.
But what has become of these plates?3 Several have been discovered, but what of the others?
The next mention we find of the Little Kanawha is in the journal of George Croghan who conducted the first English speaking expedition to descend the Ohio. The storm of the French and Indian War had come and gone, past and over was Pontiac’s conspiracy, and with the death of the great chief of the Ottawas following close upon the treaty concluded at the forks of the Muskingum, all danger from the Indian was over for the present. So an exploring party under the command of Col. Croghan left Fort Pitt for the exploration of the Ohio River May 13, 1765. Their purpose was not merely to explore the country but if possible, to establish friendly relations with the Indians in this section, who had hitherto taken part with the French, and we may be sure that the two bateaux of the party carried many gaudy blankets, dear to the Indian heart, and attractive to the Indian eye.
Croghan’s journal has been published as an appendix to Butler’s History of Kentucky, and also in Hildreth’s Pioneer History. Leaving Fort Pitt on the 13th of May, they encamped and spent the night of the 19th at the mouth of the Little Kanawha. One of the things that Croghan comments upon is the abundance of the wild game found along the Ohio. At Letart Falls, they found buffalo, deer, bear, and other game so plentiful that they killed from their boats as many as they needed without taking the trouble to land.
This Col. Croghan was a man of quite a good deal of local prominence. One of Sir Wm. Johnson’s most trusted Indian agents, he seems to have dealt fairly and honestly with the red men, has served with credit in Braddock’s ill fated campaign, and again the following year in the defense of the Western frontier, and we know he was a man who could use his eyes and report what he had seen. This is that same Croghan who at a still earlier date had been sent by the governor of Pennsylvania to inspect the land lying beyond that vague western boundary of Pennsylvania, and, if possible, to establish friendly relations with the Indians living there. His report of his mission and his urgent advice to build a fort at the forks of Ohio raised quite a pretty storm in the Legislature of that day, which was largely composed of placidly, obstinate Quaker noncombatants, between whom and the impatient Governor there existed a perpetual strife of wills and tongues.
But on the 27th of October 1770, a more distinguished visitor than any of these came to the mouth of the Little Kanawha, a tall broad shouldered man in the prime of a strength that few could equal—a man whose keen blue eyes could flash heaven’s own fire or soften with kindly jest and laughter—a man whose name belongs to all the ages—George Washington. His errand was commonplace enough—to locate the lands awarded by Gov. Dinwiddie’s proclamation of 1754 to the officers and men who served in the French and Indian War. Indeed, it is highly probable that Washington had visited this section before, but of this we have no positive proof. Washington in his journal speaks of having talked with a Mr. Ennis who told that while the lands about the Little Kanawha were good, those lying along the river toward its source were not particularly desirable; they “we broken lands, the bottoms neigher very wide nor very rich.” So, Washington, intent on good land, both for himself and for others, merely notes in his journal on passing the mouth of the Little Kanawha or Canhara, as he sometimes spells it, that it is about as wide as the Muskingum but much deeper, and that “it runs up toward the inhabitantsants of the Monongahela, and according to the Indians account, forks about 40 or 50 miles up it, and to this fork and above it the water is navigable for canoes,” and so nothing, he passes on and camps that night about eight miles below the mouth of the Great Hocking. General Washington describes with marked satisfaction the rich bottomland some miles below the Little Kanawha that today bears his name.
Nevertheless, even though he passed it by, something about the land whereupon Parkersburg now stands, must have impressed Washington, for about ten or twelve days later on his return trip up the Ohio, his journal tells us that he and Col. Crawford, accompanied by some of the friendly Indians, left the canoe at the mouth of the Little Kanawha, “intending to meet it again at the mouth of the Muskingum about 13 miles above.” They seem to have walked over the present site of Parkersburg, and pretty thoroughly explored the country between here and Williamstown, noting the lay of the land, the little streams, the fertility of the soil which he always seems to judge by the kinds of trees that grew upon it. Like Croghan, he comments more than once upon the abundance of wild game. Washington and his party go, and again the hush of the solitude settles upon land and rivers, unbroken save by the scream of the eagles upon the bank, or the roving hunter, or war parties of the savages.
Well might the Indians assert so positively to Washington that the Little Kanawha was navigable for some canoes up to the fork and beyond it. Well, they knew it for, as we have seen, one of three routes by which the Indian war parties crossed our state to strike the Virginia frontier was up the Little Kanawha.
Up this stream went those parties that raided the settlements on the West Fork4 and along the Buckhannon, Tygart, and Cheat rivers, and canoe after canoe laden with dusky warriors, painted and feathered, in all the panoply of savage war, must have passed between these shores.
In the year of Grace 1773, Robert Thornton claimed by “tomahawk entry” 400 acres of the land about the mouth of the Little Kanawha. The 400 acres thus claimed, included the land upon which now stands the town of Parkersburg. “Tomahawk entry” one asks, “What is it?” Simply to claim land by blazing tree with a small axe or tomahawk and usually by cutting the name or initials of the claimant, and date as well, upon them.
Then comes the storm of the Revolution, and few thought of taking up western lands, while the war cloud hung over them. But it passed as all things will and with the return of peace, again the restless white man, first as explorer and then as settler, began reaching into the West—the Golden West.
An so in 1773, we find this settlement claim of Robert Thornton confirmed to him by the Virginia Commissioners of Lands. Mr. Thornton, however, seems to have valued his 400 acres at the mouth of the Little Kanawha very lightly indeed for he promptly sold it for fifty dollars to Alexander Parker, Esq., of Pittsburg, who that same year (1783) had it surveyed.
This first surveyor of Parkersburg merits more attention from us. He was Capt. James Neal, a Revolutionary Officer, to whose record of faithful and efficient service, his descendants point with just pride. He was now deputy surveyor of Monongahela County, and in that capacity was sent to survey this newly purchased land of Alexander Parker. Two years later, in 1785, a party of men of whom Capt. Near was one, started from their homes in Green County, Penn., to Kentucky. Down Monongahela in the great clumsy flatboat of that day they floated, down the Ohio until they reached the mouth of the Little Kanawha, which they ascended for a short distance. Here Capt. Neal was on familiar ground, all this land he had explored and surveyed. Further exploration only deepened and confirmed his favorable impression of the country.
Why go to Kentucky when there was such good land here, and here the Captain and his party determined to remain. The rest of the party went on to Kentucky, their original destination, but these sturdy pioneers, landing on the south bank of the Kanawha, made a clearing, built a blockhouse and other rude buildings and houses. Neal’s station was the name by which this early settlement was long remembered. The blockhouse stood upon land which now forms part of the property of Mrs. Janet Tavenner on the South Side, or South Parkersburg, and was for many years a place of refuge from Indian war parties.
Once assured of the success of the settlement, Capt. Neal seems to have moved his whole family, his children both married and single, to the Station. Other men did the same, and the settlement was growing up on the opposite or north bank of the Kanawha, Newport or Stokleyville—more often called “The Point.”
In 1800, the settlement contained about six or eight log cabins, a tavern or “ordinary,” and of course a small store, where a lively trade in pelts and general merchandise went on, all closely about the “The Point.”
On the south bank of the Kanawha rose the rude, but strong blockhouse at Neals’ Station,” and just across from them was another place of defense built in 1789 and known as Farmers Castle, so the little settlement seems to have felt fairly secure from Indian outrages.
Mr. Parker died in 1800 and the western land of his passed to his daughter Mary, who married a Mr. Robinson of Allegheny City, Penn. The title was disputed, a certain John Stockley, then living in the little settlement at the Point being one of the contestants.
Many and fierce were the legal battles waged in those days over conflicting land grants and patents, the trouble arising in some case from imperfect surveying, and still oftener, from the fact that the western boundaries of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia were vague and ill defined, lapping and over lapping each other, so that sometime three parties, each holding a patent, would claim the same tract of land, issued by a different state.
Again the boundaries in these old patents were often very vague and unsatisfactory, as natural landmarks are apt to be. To say, for example, that a man’s land extends from a certain white oak to a big stone on the bank of the river is unsatisfactory to an exasperating degree. The white oak tree may be down or blown down, there may be big stones, or it may be washed away, and then comes a lawsuit.
One followed from this case, and out of two patents held by Alexander Parker—one of 400 and other 950 acres, his heirs only saved 700 acres. Stokley’s patent bears the date of Dec. 8, 1800, and he laid out the town of Newport, by which name Parkersburg was known until 1809, when Alexander Parker’s heirs regained possession of the land on which it stood; and in 1810 the town of Parkersburg was laid out by the side of and including the town of Newport.
Before this, had arisen the very important question of the location of the county seat of Wood. Should it be opposite the mouth of the Muskingum or the [Little] Kanawha, or midway between them? If the mouth of the Little Kanawha be chosen, shall it be on the north or south side? Parkersburg or Newport, as it was then called? Or Neal’s Station?
Or shall it be father inland? The first court for Wood County, held in 1799, met at the home of Hugh Phelps at Neal’s Station, with William Lowther as sheriff, and John Stokley as clerk.
Next, we find the court meeting at the home of Isaac Williams on the Ohio opposite the mouth of the Muskingum, then back again at the home of Hugh Phelps, where it was finally decided that, “the point above the mouth of the Little Kanawha river, at the union of the said Kanawha and Ohio rivers on lands owned by John Stokley, is the proper place for the seat of justice, and it is accordingly ordered that the necessary public building be erected thereon.”
Then the court adjourned “to meet at the point at the upper side of the Little Kanawha where a blockhouse has been erected.” So we see that by this time (November 1800) Newport or Stokleyville, for it was known by both names, and a blockhouse its own and was no longer dependent upon the one at Neal’s Station for protection from sudden Indian forays.
The great question of location definitely adjusted, the court in February 1802 ordered the erection of “a jail, stocks and a pillory at the point on the Kanawha river, a place being laid off for the purpose,” which order was carried into effect, and soon the new Court House, built of hewn logs—on imposing edifices in those days—reared itself proudly aloft, the upper story containing the court room, and the lower the jail; stocks, and pillory were in evidence nearby. Until very recently, this building, thoroughly modernized in appearance by the weatherboarding and a tin roof, held its original site on First Street.
Let us see how the people lived in those days, for the people living in the town itself were only a small part of the settlers scattered through this locality. Indeed, most of them “took up” land around here, and lived the life of the countryman.
Up the Ohio between here and Williamstown were Cooks, Spencers, and Beesons. Below the Kanawha were Neals, Phelps, Lewises, Tavenners, and Foleys. And up the Kanawha lived Creels, Kinchloes, Hendersons, and others. Those families had generally come long distances, bringing their household goods with them—the Lares and Penantes of our modern day.5
When one thinks of the slow and difficult means of transportation of that time, the heavy clumsy flatboat or raft if this traveler came by river, the wagons and pack mules if over the mountains, it is a matter of surprise that such heavy and handsome pieces of furniture should have found their way here, chairs, desks, or secretaries, handsome sideboards, and huge four poster beds made of solid mahogany. Naturally, few of the handsome old pieces have survived our American rage for improvement and new things, but a few are still carefully treasured in certain appreciative families, and an old mahogany sideboard over a hundred years old, once belonging to the Kinchloe family, for example, a chair still older and a quaint old desk which its present owners assert is over 200 years old. This was brought from England to America, and then over the mountains to the Northwest Territory. If that old desk could only speak, what a story it could tell of what it had seen in its time.
But of course the furniture brought here by the settler was not sufficient to supply his needs as his family grew and multiplied, and so the rude frontier furniture, first of his own manufacture, and later made by the village carpenter or cabinet maker, would be called into use. There must have been a curious medley in some of those early log houses—handsome mahogany pieces whose elaborate carving and grace of form spoke of other lands, standing cheek by jowl with the rude tables and split bottomed chairs of domestic manufacture. These were busy days for the housewife as well as for the father of the family.
The flax and the wool was spun, woven, dyed, cut and made into garments under her supervision and largely by the work of her own hands, Shoes? Sometime an itinerant shoemaker would travel about the country from farm to farm, making shoes for the whole family and the servants at a time. Carefully stored away in the cedar chest, among the housewife’s choicest treasures, was the dress of silk or Canton crepe reserved for grand occasions. Ordinarily, her dress and that of her daughters was homespun flannel in winter, with calico and dimity for former wear. The men wore buckskin breaches and the famous blue hunting shirt of the pioneer. Game was very plentiful, so there was no trouble about that part of the food supply, and mills run by waterpower ground the corn and wheat into meal and flour.
In front of many homes stood the great hominy block where the darkies pounded the corn into hominy. Later, the mortar took the place of the block. Fish abounded in the rivers, indeed one of the names of the Little Kanawha in the Indian dialect, signified Fish River. The Ohio, we are told, was so called from the many eagles seen on its banks.
Sugar was easy problem to solve, when the sugar maple trees grew so perfectly at hand, but salt was a more serious question, for not yet did the settler know of the plentiful supply of salt so near him, and few things were more carefully hoarded than the barrel of salt. Occasionally would the traveling merchant bring supplies, brought either down the river in those useful, if clumsy flatboats, or even over the mountains in wagons. These supplies would be traded either to the store, or directly to the settler for furs and pelts of wild animals, deer, bear, beaver, and many others. At a little later date, these were traded for produce of different kinds.
Near the Point, stood “The Rest,” Parkersburg’s ordinary inn or tavern, with its swinging sign proclaiming that here was to be found “entertainment for men and beast.” The Rest: What a happy choice of a name! Why doesn’t some seaside or mountain resort adopt it? It savors of wide porches and deep seated rocking chairs, and I am sure must have been wonderfully alluring to the wearied traveler of those days.
No sketch of Parkersburg, it has been said, can be considered complete without some mention of the story of Blennerhassett, which had furnished another dramatic page in American history.
About a mile below the junction of the Ohio and the Kanawha and in full sight from the Point, lies the island so well known to all Parkersburgers as Blennerhassett’s Island.
Even today it is a place of great beauty. No stranger ever visits it without being struck by its extreme natural beauty, and at the same time we speak of, to judge from Dr. Hilreth’s glowing description, it must have been a spot of almost ideal loveliness.
Great trees of sycamore, elm, and willow clothed and guarded it, and on either side flowed the Beautiful River with its densely wooded banks. Almost a mile from the upper end of the island stood a deserted blockhouse, built by Captain James during the Indian wars.
Tradition has it, that Washington “controlled” this island in 1770, but however that may be, in 1798 it was owned by a Mr. Backus, and called from him, Backus Island. Thither in the year just mentioned (1798) came Harmon Blennerhassett, with his wife and child. He bought the upper part of the island and at once set to work to build a house for himself and his family. What was the secret reason that brought this highly educated, and wealthy gentleman and his brilliant wife, to dwell on the outskirts of civilization? No one knows positively. Various reasons have been offered, but they all rest more or less on surmise and conjecture. Nevertheless, some patent reason there must have been to induce two such persons to bury themselves in the wilds of the West.
The house built by Mr. Blennerhassett, by no means the paradise that William Wirt painted in his famous speech, was comfortable, convenient, and even luxurious, and it speedily became the center of social life of the locality. Then came Aaron Burr wit his wild scheme of an empire in the West and drew Blennerhassett into his web. How deeply Blennerhassett was involved in Burr’s plans will never be known, but with the arrest of Burr, came the ruin of Blennerhassett. He escaped from the island but his was seized and plundered by the Wood county militia, and we must admit shame that they behaved most disgracefully, breaking and destroying, smashing furniture, and even fences, until checked and severely reprimanded by Col. Phelps upon his arrival. Blennerhassett and his family disappeared from the scene, but the house, seized and rented by his creditors, stood until 1811. A large crop of flax was stored in it and during the Christmas season of that year, some drunken Negroes inadvertently set fire to it, and the whole of the beautiful house was destroyed, even the orchards and gardens were included in the general ruin.
One cannot say very much for the generosity of the lady, who could only spare one and one-third acres to the town that bore her father’s name, but one must not criticize a giver. Avery street perpetuates the memory of George Avery who surveyed the new town of Parkersburg, which, as we have seen, had been in 1810 laid off by the side of New port. Hereafter, we hear no more of Newport, or of Stokleyville, but of Parkersburg.
Something else happened that same wonderful year of 1811. Down the Ohio, Down the Ohio, one eventful day, came a strange and frightful monster. Puffing and panting, it moved along on the surface of the water, breathing out clouds of black smoke and vapor, that recalled the old legends of fabulous monsters and fiery dragons, omitting at intervals a hoarse roar that frightened the very wild beasts on the banks and drove the darkies half mad with superstition terror. What was this frightful dragon out of the past? Only the first steamboat launched on the Ohio, and making her first trip. Built in Pittsburg by Nicholas Roosevelt, the New Orleans as he was christened, was the first of many steamers that were to ply these waters. On seven years, no less than fifteen steamers had been built at various points on the Ohio. The Western man was quick to see the great advantage of steam as a propelling power over the slow flatboat of early days. No longer need he fear the river pirate, who lurked along the lonely shore, or lay in wait for him at the mouth of creeks and small tributaries of the river, to attack and plunder his slow craft. Secure in the strong, swift steamboat, the traveler could now defy the once dreaded river pirate.
About a year later, we find our good town of Parkersburg in a state of great excitement. Some troublesome people, living midway between here and Williamstown, about where Vienna is now, were clamoring to have the county seat moved up there, and had actually petitioned the government to that effect; great was the indignation in Parkersburg. Didn’t those people up the river know when a thing was settled? Why couldn’t they let matters alone? But the Vienna people were obstinate, and strangely indifferent to the righteous indignation of Parkersburg, and so commissioners from Ohio and Mason Counties were appointed to decide the vexed question.
Those wise and learned gentlemen, after a careful investigation, reported that the public square of Parkersburg is the proper place for holding the courts of Wood County. “One can imagine the satisfaction, with which this decision was received, and we may be reasonably sure I think, that the wisdom of the commissioners was extolled to the skied by every loyal son of Parkersburg, who then went promptly to work to build a new Court House. Built of brick, two stories in height, with small buildings on either side to be used a offices, it reared its head proudly aloft in the midst of the public square designated by the commissioners as the proper place for holding court.
One cannot help wondering how . . .
EDITOR'S ILLUSTRATED NOTES
1 In 1798, a party of boys bathing in the Muskingum River discovered the fourth plate protruding from its bank, and, after melting half of it into bullets, they gave the last half (pictured above) away. It is probably still in existence in The American Antiquarian Society at Worcester, Massachusetts.
Above we see a monument standing at Gilman Avenue and Virginia Streets in Marietta, Ohio. This bronze plague, in French text that translates into English quite similarly to that of the one buried on the Great Maimi River (noted below), was “presented by the French Government in remembrance of the services rendered in France by the Marietta College Ambulance Unit during the years 1917 to 1919. Above the French inscription, we read: “The inscription appearing below is a replica of the one engraved on the lead plaque buried on this spot on August 18th, 1749 by Celoron De Blainville and of which a fragment recovered in 1798 is preserved by the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester Mass.” In a bronze inset at the bottom of the monument, we see:
Note that the French Commander’s name is spelled “Celeron” by Harris and “Celoron” on the French monument at Marietta. However, much too much is made of spelling in this day and age, so I should point this out here: Back in the 16th century, the English dictionary consisted of only about 3,000 words, the hardest to spell. The King James Bible of 1611 spells many words several ways, like “he” and “hee” and “she” and “shee” for simple examples, and nobody seemed to have a problem with reading the so-called “holy book” with all its variations. Languages are not divine, but manmade creations that evolve over time instead. They only reach a standard for spelling after many years of use. In fact, the ancient Hebrews didn't even bother to record their vowels, never spelled their words completely, and the language completely died—but was eventually revived and rabbinical imaginations added vowel points (or vowels) to the Jewish tongue many centuries later, in the Dark Ages. What's the big hoopla these days about spelling then? If history is seriously taught and studied in our schools, then there would be no problem understanding that spelling in hardly holy.
2 The French inscription translated into English on the lead plaque buried "at the mouth of the Great Miami," reads: "In the year 1749 the reign of Louis XV, King of France we, Celeron, commandant of a detachment sent by Monsieur the Marquis of Gallissoniere, Commander in Chief of New France, to establish tranquillity in certain Indian villages in these cantons, have buried this plate at the confluence of the Ohio and of To-Ra-Da-Koin, this 29th July near the river Ohio, otherwise Beautiful river as a monument of renewal of possession, which we have taken of the said river and all its tributaries and of all the land on both sides, as far as the source of said rivers inasmuch as the preceding kings of France have enjoyed and maintained it by their arms and treaties, especially by those of Ryswick, Utrecht and Aix-la-Chapelle." Note the difference in the date on the plaque and the date it was buried.
3 Three of the plates have been found. More information the subject can be found in Mrs. Delta M. McCulloch's article "Celeron De Blainville Buried Plates" recorded in the Pocahontas Times and reproduced on a West Virginia Archives & History Web page of the West Virginia Division of Culture & History.
4 The West Fork River flows past the site of the worst industrial accident in United States History.
5 Lars is the plural form of Lar—not short for Larry—but a tutelary god or spirit associated with Vesta and the Penates, all were guardians of ancient Roman households. In other words, it seems that Miss Kate is saying that they brought their material goods with them, their gods worshipped at the time—the gods so many people in Parkersburg still worship today.
This page was last modified on Monday, February 01, 2010