14 Thursday Feb 2019
Posted in Big Sandy Valley, Hatfield-McCoy Feud
Tags
Appalachia, assault and battery, C. McDonald, circuit clerk, crime, David Thomas, deputy sheriff, Elias Hatfield, genealogy, history, J.A. Peck, James Hatfield, John Chafin, Logan County, M.B. Lawson, Mingo County, sheriff, Thomas Johnson, West Virginia
14 Thursday Feb 2019
Posted in Big Harts Creek, Halcyon
Tags
Appalachia, Freddie Dingess, genealogy, Halcyon, Harts Creek, history, Logan, Logan Banner, Logan County, May Cooper, moonshine, Shamrock, Tom Dingess, Von Dingess, West Virginia
A correspondent named “Jennings” from Halcyon on Harts Creek in Logan County, West Virginia, offered the following items, which the Logan Banner printed on August 11, 1922:
Miss Freddie Dingess and Miss May Cooper were visitors in Halcyon this week. The girls seemed to enjoy themselves very much. They went in bathing in the creek, rode a log, turned turtle, went barefooted, rode a mule and so on. They sure were a jolly couple. They took back to Shamrock bottom lots of sunshine. Most of the people take back moonshine.
Miss Tom Dingess from the Logan hospital and Von Dingess of Shamrock Bottom were visitors in Halcyon recently. The jolly things they did were innumerable and is believed they took away both moonshine and sunshine to Shamrock valley.
Everything is unusual around here. We have good crops of which we are reaping the benefit of now. All are jolly and the goose is hanging high.
12 Tuesday Feb 2019
12 Tuesday Feb 2019
Posted in Big Harts Creek, Halcyon
Tags
Appalachia, Burl Dingess, Caney Branch, Charles Gore, education, Everett Dingess, genealogy, Halcyon, Harts Creek, Hattie Dingess, history, Holden, Ira Gore, Joe Gore, Lee Dingess, Logan Banner, Logan County, moonshine, teacher, W.W. Gore, West Virginia
A correspondent named “Aunt Meg” from Halcyon on Harts Creek in Logan County, West Virginia, offered the following items, which the Logan Banner printed on September 22, 1922:
Times are good and everybody happy and gay in the old town, but as some of us have never purchased our winter shoes our toes have begun to smell jack frost.
There is some town gossip that Everett Dingess will return to Pennsylvania with his wife and baby where he has spent a few years.
Miss Hattie Dingess has left our town and will teach school on Caney for a few months.
Our home school is progressing nicely under the supervision of Mr. Chas. Gore as teacher. His motto is: “Do good and leave moonshine alone.”
Pete, you walk as if you had spent your past few days in the White House. Has she gone back on you?
Mr. Ira Gore and Burl Dingess made a hurried trip to Holden last week. Boys, what’s your hurry?
Mr. W.W. Gore of Holden spent the weekend with his brother, Joe Gore, of this place.
I wonder why Lee Dingess rides so fast up the hill on his way to the ‘ville. Ask Kris. She knows.
Harvest time has come, boys. Shake off your sleepiness and go to work.
Good luck to the Banner and readers.
11 Monday Feb 2019
Posted in Logan, World War I
Logan (WV) Banner, 21 July 1922.
11 Monday Feb 2019
Posted in Big Harts Creek
Tags
Alice Dingess, Anna Adams, Appalachia, Bob Dingess, Eunice Adams, Evert Hager, genealogy, Geronimo Adams, Harts Creek, history, Hollena Dingess, Ida Dingess, Kate Baisden, Logan Banner, Logan County, Mattie Adams, Ora Mullins, Pitt Branch, Trace Fork, West Virginia
A correspondent named “Dot” from Harts in Logan County, West Virginia, offered the following items, which the Logan Banner printed on October 6, 1922:
Miss Ora Mullins is very ill at this writing. Her friends earnestly hope for her speedy recovery.
Miss Hollena is conducting a good school on Trace.
Trace is very longely since Anna and Nora left. Come back, girls.
The teachers in this town take their pipes to school. Wonder what for?
Jerona Adams was calling on Misses Eunice and Mattie Adams.
There is going to be a wedding on Trace soon. Get the bells ready.
Miss Ida Dingess had a caller Sunday.
Miss Anna Adams had a caller Sunday, Mr. Evert Hager, of Pitt Branch.
Robert Dingess was calling on Miss Katy Baisden one evening this week.
Mrs. Alice Dingess has purchased a Buick car.
07 Thursday Feb 2019
Posted in Atenville, Guyandotte River
Tags
Andrew Johnson, Appalachia, Atenville, Cabell County, county clerk, genealogy, Guyandotte River, Guyandotte Valley Navigation Company, history, John Chapman, justice of the peace, Lincoln County, Lock No. 5, Logan County, Spencer A. Mullins, Virginia, W.I. Campbell, West Virginia, William Straton, Willow Bar
Deed Book C, page ___, Logan County Clerk’s Office, Logan, WV. Spencer A. Mullins lived at present-day Atenville in Lincoln County, WV.
Deed Book C, page ___, Logan County Clerk’s Office, Logan, WV.
07 Thursday Feb 2019
Tags
Appalachia, Boone County, Crawley Creek, Dick Johnson, Elizabeth Hart, Fred B. Lambert, genealogy, Harts Creek, Henderson Dingess, Henry Clay Ragland, history, Jacob Stollings, James Hart, John Baker, Lincoln County, Little Harts Creek, Logan Banner, Logan County, Logan County Banner, Mud River, Native Americans, Roane County, Smokehouse Fork, Stephen Hart, West Virginia
From the Logan County Banner of Logan, WV, comes this bit of history written by amateur historian Henry Clay Ragland relating to Stephen Hart and the naming of Harts Creek in Lincoln and Logan counties, West Virginia, dated 1896:
Logan County (WV) Banner, 8 April 1896.
***
On 13 April 1937, the Logan Banner printed another story about Hart and his relationship to Harts Creek. This latter story was generally derived from Ragland’s 1896 history.
Harts Creek Named After Stephen Hart—A Wanderer And Famous Deer Hunter
Much has been told about Harts Creek in late years, but little is known about the first settler who built his home in the long hollow and gave it a name.
Stephen Hart built a cabin on the farm which Henderson Dingess later owned at the forks of Hart’s Creek. He cared nothing for the soil, but spent his time hunting deer and curing the meat. He didn’t stay long in one place.
Near his cabin he built a house in which to store his cured venison between his infrequent trips to the settlements down the river and was altogether self-sufficient. His neighbors knew little about the man. There is no record of a family reared by him and he told neighbors little of his past history.
His was a roaming nature. He, like the Arabs, pitched his tent where the water was clearest, the game gamest, and the soil most fertile.
To commemorate his short stay at the forks of Harts, neighbors named the creek for him after he had loaded his gun, food stores and skins on a pack mule, and started west.
His few friends heard no more about him, but they remembered him as a “quiet man, a good shot, and a good neighbor.”
Just “around the bend and over the ridge,” Jacob Stollings, John Baker, and Dick Johnson brought their families and built their homes. From descendants of this family comes much of the record of Stephen Hart who gave the creek a name.
Hart’s venison was known for miles around as the tenderest, the most delicately cured meat in the Hart’s section and Stollings, Baker, and Johnson always put in a small supply of Hart’s meat for the winter, sometimes to take an unusually large supply off the hunter’s hands but most times just because they liked the venison.
John Baker married a daughter of Jacob Stollings, and Dick Johnson married a sister of Baker’s. Both men reared large families whose names are familiar in the county’s history.
But Hart left only the name of his beloved deer hunting grounds as a reminder that he had first set foot on Hart’s Creek.
MY NOTE: Of importance, much confusion remains regarding the source for the naming of Harts Creek, essentially relating to the fact that Stephen Hart was born too late to have inspired the naming of the stream. I first attempted to unravel this story when I published a profile of Stephen Hart in a Lincoln County newspaper in 1995/6. Stephen Hart, son of James and Elizabeth Hart, was born c.1810 in North Carolina; Harts Creek appears on a map printed prior to 1824 (Hart was still quite young). In the early 1900s, amateur historian Fred B. Lambert noted that Hart’s father had been killed by Native Americans at the mouth of present-day Little Harts Creek (according to a Hart descendant). Possibly it is Mr. Hart’s father who inspired the naming of the local stream. Problematic to this possibility is the fact that, based on Stephen Hart’s estimated year of birth, his father would have been killed in 1809-1811, which is about fifteen to twenty years too late for an Indian attack in the Guyandotte Valley. Stephen Hart did settle locally. He may well have squatted on Harts Creek land, as Ragland reported in 1896. Based on documentary evidence, he acquired 50 acres on Crawley Creek in 1839. He appears in the 1840 Logan County Census and the 1850 Boone County Census. By 1860, he had settled in Roane County, where he died in 1896–the same year that Ragland published his history. He also left plenty of local descendants in the Mud River section of Lincoln County. How did Ragland garble this section of his history so badly? For those who wish to avoid sorting out this confusing tale, consider this version: at least one early account states the creek was named “hart” due to the prevalence of stags in its vicinity.
07 Thursday Feb 2019
Posted in Big Sandy Valley, Logan
Tags
Appalachia, crime, G.W. Taylor, genealogy, history, Logan County, sheriff, Thomas McCoy, West Virginia, William Sellards
Thomas McCoy is paid one dollar for guarding William Sellards. G.W. Taylor was Sheriff of Logan County, WV.
07 Thursday Feb 2019
Posted in Coal, Guyandotte River, Logan
Tags
Appalachia, coal, genealogy, Guyandotte River, Guyandotte Valley, history, Logan, Logan Banner, Logan County, Logan County Health Department, West Virginia
From the Logan Banner of Logan, WV, comes this bit of history relating to coal and the Guyandotte River, dated 1927:
UNPLEASANT AND HARMLESS TASTE NOTED IN CITY WATER—IS CAUSED BY PHENOL WASHED INTO RIVER
The local water company has lately been flooded with telephone calls relative to a strange taste and odor in the city water supply. At the request of the water company the County Health Department has made an investigation. It has been found that the queer taste and odor is not due to excessive use of chlorine disinfectant, as most people seem to believe. A great many people have remarked that the odor especially resembles that of carbolic acid. As a matter of fact, the compound causing it does not belong to the same family. The taste is caused by a phenol compound which is a coal tar product found in coal mine wastes. The heavy rains this week have washed some of this deposit from the upper Guyan Valley coal fields into the river. There is no known satisfactory method to remove phenol from water, so it goes through the water paint; part of it combining with the chlorine used for disinfecting and producing the taste so prevalent for the last few days.
The water is entirely safe and it is not injurious to health. It will probably last only a few days, until the flood waters in the rivers subside.
The situation is not a new one; various towns over the state, using stream water from coal field drainage districts, report “chloro-phenol” taste from time to time. The only remedy is to keep the coal waste from draining into the streams. Some work has been done in Pennsylvania along this line but so far little has been accomplished in West Virginia.
Logan County Health Department
Source: Logan (WV) Banner, 21 October 1927
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