(BROOKE CO WV) BY CORNELIUS G. REEVES
(from a publication dated 1982)
If you can go back with me in your imagination some 150 years and draw mental picture of the country surrounding this church, you would see these hills and valleys one vast forest of most magnificent trees. The soils was the very richest because of its resources had never been drawn upon.
Through the great forest might be seen the deer, the elk, the brown bear, the wild-hog and great herds of buffalo, and at night might be heard the call of the panther and the screams of the wild-cat.
And, last but no means the least important, was the red-man, the American Indian who had first claim upon this country by right of possession. It was fighting for this same right that later caused the settlers so much trouble.
Into this vast wilderness came a little bank of travelers. They came on horseback; man, women and children, carrying all their worldly possessions with them. Why they left the eastern shore of Maryland, fought their way over the mountains, and came away out here, we do not know, but we do know that they were most noble men and women, and those of us who are their direct descendants are proud of the fact.
As this little company was making its way westward they stopped to rest by a spring of water which gushed out of the hillside.
Those of you who know the spring at the home of J.C. GIST can understand how it mush appealed to those tired and thristy travelers on that hot summer day. At any rate, one of their number CORNELIUS H. GIST, said he was going no farther; that there he proposed to make his home.
The others located in the neighborhood, forming a colony whose descendants are still helping to make this community what it is.
One of the things which they brought with them was a devout Christian spirit. It was this spirit which led to the establishment of the METHODIST CHURCH in FRANKLIN COMMUNITY.
The first services were held somewhere near the state line, but later a log house was built near the lower corner of FRANKLIN CEMETERY. This house was used both for a school house until 1830, when DR. EDWARD SMITH donated ground along the Pike for a House of Worship, and burying ground, which is part of our present cemetery. The first person buried in this new cemetery was SAMUEL DIXON, in 1830. The sandstone erected over his grave is still standing.
"One man whom I think ought to figure in the history of this community is DR. EDWARD SMITH, BORN IN 1795, died in 1874. He for years had the health of all this section of the country to care for. Riding night and day, as often to the cabin as to the home of the rich--never charging the poor. He literally gave his life for others."
This inscription may be seen on his tombstone: "He was a Christian, an eminent physician, a philantrophist, energetic, and a friend to the poor."
Everybody loved DR. SMITH. And then last but not least, he was the grandfather of JUDGE HARRY HERVEY, and great, great, uncle of our GEORGE SMITH.
In 1832, a church was built on this ground and in 1854, this building proving too small, was torn down and a new church erected. This was the brick building which was destroyed by the Easter storm, March 30, 1902. Two years later, this, the present Franklin Church was built.
Before the church was supplied with a regular pastor, services were conducted by traveling preachers, Circuit riders, as they were called.
The preachers in those days traveled on horseback, often riding from 30 to 50 miles a day, exposed to all kinds of hardships. These heroes of the "saddle-bag" laid the foundation of our present Christian community.
Dear to our memory if REV. THOMAS HUDSON, known as 'FATHER HUDSON" who was one of these pioneer men who afterwards preached as a regular pastor for us.
To go back to our early settlers, according to our best attainable date, HENRY CALLENDINE was probably among the very first to located in this neighborhood, although we find that WILLIAM HERVEY had a land-grant dated in 1766, so that he must have been here previous to that time. It was related that he floated by barge down the Ohio, and walked out into the woods, selecting the ground where the HERVEY homestead now stands. His descendants were instrumental in establishing the Presbyterian Church at Wellsburg. Family History has it that his wife was attacked by wild-hogs, she climbing into the branches of a tree, where they held her prisoner over night.
Those earlier settlers lived in friendly relations with the Indians, but later as they realized their land was being taken from them, they became hostile, and many are the harrowing stories told of them.
The settlers lived in constant terror of these raids and it became necessary to build forts as a place of retreat. One of these was located near the campground, on the MULLHOLLAND farm. It served this whole section.
More family history reveals that my great, great grandmother SCOTT, who lived in a log house standing on the site of the stone house where MR. JOHN PLUMMER now lives, when surprised by the Indians, took her baby and hid it in a barrel of flax, successfully eluding the searching party.
It is also related that she took her children, many times and slept in the corn fields over night, when threatened by attacks from Indians.
Out first school teachers were paid by private subscription. MISS SARAH CALLENDINE taught thus for many years in a log building which stood on the Chapman place, where the shop now stands.
In 1864, the free school system was adopted and in that year, in the midst of strife, the brick building at Franklin was built, also at No. 9. This school, now known as Hope Farm School, has the distinction of being one of the four First-class schools in the state.
The teachers for a number of years, MISS ELIZABETH GIST, is a direct descendant of C.H. GIST, mentioned before. At present the vacancy is being ably filled by MRS. DOROTHY HERVEY KEAN, another direct descendant of the first settlers.
As this rich country became more widely known, other men came in who took up land on speculation. Among these was JACOB VINCENT who took up land in 1000 acre tracts; these tracts were sold out in small parcels, to suit the purchaser. The surveying was done by men riding on horseback, carrying a grape vine.
As these smaller tracts were sold and often traded without any record being kept, it is not surprising that present engineers have so much trouble determining lines. We have stories of farms being traded for a rifle, or other things of little value.
For instance, gossip has it that the productive farm now owned by C.P. WAUGH was once bought for a plug of tobacco.
BENJAMIN WELLS, JOHN VAN METRE AND BENJAMIN JOHNSON, JR. WILLIAM MC MAHON, HEZEKISH HYATT, LAWERENCE VAN BUSKIRK, JOHN BUSK and probably a few others.
The second immigration into the county from the east began in 1795, or one year before the county was organized and named. Among those emigrants were THOMAS COOK, NATHANIEL FLEMING, JAMES DARRAH, WILLIAM MC CLANE, BENJAMINE REED, REV. JOSEPH DODDRIDGE and his brother PHILLIP DODDRIDGE.
It was during this second immigration that FRANKLIN COMMUNITY was first settled. There is nothing definite to connect the families who settled at Franklin with those that settled at Wellsburg (Charlestown) in the early nineties of the 18th century but there is every reason to believe that some of them had been here and had something to do with the land patents of 1772 and as a result of their earlier visit to this section organized and led a band of immigrants that settled at Franklin.
The Gist family, among the first families to settle in Franklin Community, is not certain of the exact year in which THOMAS GIST settled on GENTEEL RIDGE, but there is an event by which the general first settlement in Franklin Community may be established with a fair degree of accuracy.
In the surveying partied of the late 1780's and early 1790's that visited this part of WESTERN VIRGINIA, was a young man named WILLIAM SMITH. When he returned to Baltimore County he married MISS ROSANNAH BOZMAN. A daughter, SARAH, was born to them in Maryland. The family came to Brooke County and in the early fall of 1796, overtaken by a storm, the family found shelter in a cabin in a sugar grove near Independence, Pa. The stork paid a visit that night and a son was born. It is now known whether there was a physician or even a mid-wife. Pioneers were resourceful and husbands and fathers performed many duties then. once bought for a plug of tobacco.
The baby was DR EDWARD SMITH in later years known for his ministrations in child birth. Two old buildings "erected by the hand of William Smith" are still standing on the farm now occupied by MR. A. GREENLEAF standing on the hill above the STONE CHAPEL on PIERCE'S RUN. They are a brick spring house and a log-clapboard building.
The incident of the boy baby in the sugar grove cabin and the statement of JOSEPH F. GIST that his great grandfather settled on Genteel Ridge about the year 1795, fixes the first settlement in Franklin Community, with fair accuracy in the early nineties of the Eighteenth Century.
There is no record of the names of all the families who migrated to Franklin Community in the early nineties at the dawning of the 18th century. However, there were two streams of migration into Brooke County, and some of each stream stopped at Franklin. These two streams of migration were composed of COVENANTORS and METHODISTS, then in its infancy. Most of the Covenantors were Scotch and came here from CARLYELE, PA. where they had stopped for a time.
All true history goes back of recorded acts and considers certain facts which escaped contemporary chroncilers. There are SILENT MONITORS and WITNESS IN HISTORY. So it is possible to reconstruct a list, which will embrace not only the first few families, though coming at a later period, have played more or less a part in the making of Franklin Community in more than a century. The Franklin Cemetery is the SILENT WITNESS, for it has received the earthly remains of those prominent not only in Franklin, but other parts of Brooke County, for more than a hundred years. this is a list of some of the names of those who have "left their footprints of the Sands Of Time" in Brooke County, and especially in the Franklin Community and its environs: HERVEY, GIST, SMITH, BOSMAN, APPLEGATE, RALSTON, JAMISON, RARE, AMSPOKER, MCADOO, WELLS, MARSH, ZOGG, CHURCHMAN, MAGEE, FOWLER, GLOVER, HUDSON, MCGUYRE, JONES, CARMAN, DOUGLASS, HERDNER, MARRYMAN, SCOTT, CARTER, CREE, MILLER, BUCKLEY, REEVES, GREEN, GREGSBY, FISHER, MC CONNELL, GEORGE, HENDERSON, HANNA, CREACRAFT, MC GEE, LEE , BEALL, HINKSON AND CLAYTON.