"inside the greenbrier valley" west virginia turns 150! :)

7/28/2019 "Inside the Greenbrier Valley" West Virginia Turns 150! :)

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June 20



14 June 2013

Continued on next page

• W Vg h only state in the Union to

its sovereignty through a proclamation o the p

the United States − Abraham Lincoln.

• W Vg w h unlikely site o a Naval b

during the Civil War. The Battle o Bungton Isla

Ravenswood, took place July 19, 1863, less than

ater we ocially became a state.

• bl bw, h f Union soldier to die in

was killed in West Virginia, on May 22, 1861, in T

•

ou w l called “Kanawha,”a namduring a public reerendum in 1861. About a c

a Beckley newspaper suggested West Virginia

that name.

• sm ppl qu h legality o West Vi

existence, since the U.S. Constitution says no st

created rom an existing state without the perm

Congress.— Ken Bays

odd FaCts aboUr stateHo

erners” were not entirely united. This was especially true in the

Allegheny Mountain counties, where loyalties were much more

divided than in the more Unionist northwestern part o the state.

Here in Greenbrier County, the Civil War hit home early

in 1861. As in much o the western part o what was then

Virginia, local men served in both the Union and Conederate

armies. Strategically located on the James River and Kanawha

Turnpike (now known as US Route 60), the county suered as

both armies moved through the region.

Because it was a border county, many o its people were

still loyal to Virginia and the Conederacy. General Robert

E. Lee was briey stationed in the area and even acquired

his beloved horse, Traveller, here. And Conederate soldiers

under Lee’s command mined Organ Cave or saltpeter to make

gunpowder.

In the summer o 1861, Union troops, led by General GeorgeMcClellan, drove o the Conederate troops. In May o the

ollowing year, Generals Hess and Cook ought in the streets

during the Battle o Lewisburg. It’s been said that guests at

Lewisburg’s Star Hotel – now t he North House Museum –

watched rom the balcony as the battle unolded below.

The Battle o White Sulphur Springs, also known at the

Battle o Dry Creek, was ought in August 1863. That all,

troops began to maneuver here in preparation or the Battle o

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Photo by Ken Bays

Ater 150 years, the words still hit home:

“ Montani Semper Liberi. Mountaineers are

always ree.”

I you ask most people across the country what their state

motto is, chances are they won’t know it. Even i they do, it

probably doesn’t mean much to them.

For instance, Maine’s motto is “I direct.” Idaho’s is “Let it

be perpetual.” Though simply stated, these phrases sound some-

what meaningless. The state motto o North Carolina is “To be,

rather than to seem,” and Connecticut’s is “He who is trans-

planted still sustains.” Even in their Latin orms, it’s difcult to

say these words with eeling.

Ask a West Virginian what their state motto is, and you’re

likely to hear it in Latin frst, just because we like the way it

sounds. At the very least, you’ll get a proud, resounding excla-

mation o the English translation. To a West Virginian, these

words actually have meaning. There are ew groups o people

as fercely independent – and yet passionately loyal to the hill s

they call home – as those o us lucky enough to be rom the

Mountain State.

As writer and West Virginia native Jason Headley wrote in

his Oxord American article “State o Conusion”: “We’re a de-

ensive people. Always have been. Coming rom a state that was

conceived in controversy doesn’t make or a relaxed citizenry.”

In celebration o the 150th anniversary o the Civil War, the

West Virginia Division o Tourism has created the appropriate-

ly named website “The Child o the Rebellion.” That’s because

West Virginia was one o two states created during the war, and

the only one created by seceding rom both a Conederate state

and an original colony. Located entirely within the AppalachianHighlands, West Virginia’s ofcial motto truly reects the

realities o the state’s topography as well as the individualistic

spirit o its people.

That spirit is just as strong and apparent today as it was

during the Civil War, especially as the “child o rebellion”

prepares to celebrate another milestone. West Virginia was of-

cially admitted to the Union – its 35th state – on June 20, 1863,

which was 150 years ago this month.

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To understand the signifcance o this anniversary, its CivilWar roots, the additional meaning behind the newborn state’s

motto and the ways the state will celebrate its sesquicentennial,

you need look no urther than the events that were occurring in

the early 1860s throughout what’s now known as West Virginia.

In 1861, just as the United States was divided over regional is-

sues, the western region o Virginia began to split politically with

the eastern region o the state. Still, when it came to the issues o

secession rom the Union and separation rom Virginia, “west-

W Vg: Chl hrll, agg GcullOn our state’s 150th birthday, we look back

at Greenbrier County’s role and ahead at

the events planned to celebrate it.

by Sarah Alderson

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Public domain photo

5



16 June 2013

Continued from previous page

Wh’ t h 150Our area will host several attr

in conjunction with West Virgi

sesquicentennial.

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include themed events during 4th o July C

in Alderson, and the 150th Anniversary Ree

o the Battle o Dry Creek, at Greenbrier Sta

White Sulphur Springs, on Aug. 17-19.

sm h gg celebrations are takin

month on and around West Virginia Day it

include an actual birthday party at CarnegJune 20 at noon, complete with cake and

lawn. At 7 p.m., the hall will host a traditio

dance inside.

G Vll th wll bring the st

S. Creigh to lie with a presentation o “The

Martyr”on June 20 at 7:30 p.m.

th W Vg smph Orchestra wi

a sesquicentennial concert at the state air

Fairlea on June 21 at 7:30 p.m.

“b rll: W Virginia Stateho

award-winning traveling exhibit about the

o our state, curated by the West Virginia H

Council, is being shown in various locationout the year.

W Vg L Cmm,the We

Center or the Book and libraries around th

sponsoring “West Virginia Reads 150,”a yeaebration o reading.

th U s Pl Service is issuingthat celebrates West Virginia’s sesquicente

the state’s Division o Motor Vehicles is o

cial license plate that reads, “Wild and Wo

150 Years.”— Sarah Alderson

Droop Mountain, which took place just across t he Pocahontas

County line in November. As a result o the Union victory

there, Conederate resistance in the state collapsed.

Most o the battles in our area are not considered o prime

signifcance to the overall conict, but men still ought and

died. The people o Greenbrier County experienced frst-hand

the horror, pain and suering o war.

Perhaps one o the most tragic stories o that year began the

day ater the Battle o Droop Mountain. David Creigh, a respect-

ed member o a prominent area amily, would become known in

the history books as the Greenbrier Martyr. (See related story,

page 18.) Creigh came home to discover a rogue Union soldier

ransacking his house and threatening his amily. A fght ensued,

and a gun accidentally fred, killing the intruder. The body washidden in a well but was eventually discovered. Creigh was

convicted o murder and sentenced to be hanged, with no oppor-

tunity to deend himsel. His sentence was supposed to include

the burning to the ground o his amily’s house, but that part o

the punishment was not carried out. Against the odds, the house

stands today, much as our home state does.

These and many other stories are like pieces o abric that,

when stitched together, orm the quilt o history and culture o

the state now called West Virginia.

b h wAs signifcant as the Civil War was to the birth o our state,

it would be incorrect to conclude that West Virginia broke

away solely because o its opposition to Vir ginia’s secession

rom the Union. The fercely i ndependent nature o our people

was already deeply rooted in their genes. I n act, when examin-

ing parts o what would later become West Virginia, one early

land surveyor wrote, “It seems very str ange that any person

should have settled there at that ti me when the whole country

was almost vacant.”

As Jason Headley wrote, “But that’s the point, really. People

had their choice o the entire country, and some o them chose to

live there. In the mountains. It may have been one state, Virginia,

but it was clearly occupied by two very dierent sorts o people.”

First, social conditions in western Virginia were unlike those

in the state’s eastern portion. Pioneering individuals known as

mountaineers tended to settle in the hil ls, while a slave-holding,

aristocratic society dominated in the east.

Second, the population in the west was not homogeneous.

Much o its immigration came by way o Pennsylvania and in-

cluded a hodgepodge group o Germans, Protestant Scots-Irish

and settlers rom states arther north.

Third, the rugged nature o t he western area’s mountainous

terrain made slavery unproftable, so commerce ocused on our

neighbors to the west.

Finally, western Virginians had long elt discriminated

against by their eastern Virginia brethren, and time only in-

creased the social, political and economic dierences between

the two sections.

Virginia was ultimately torn in hal between those who

wanted to remain loyal to t he Union and those who stayed

loyal to the Old Dominion and the Conederacy. But the split

was actually the culmination o decades o heated politi cs and

legislative maneuvering.

During the debate prior to t he vote on secession, Wait-

man T. Willey, who became a United States Senator rom

the Restored Government o Virginia and, later, rom West

Virginia, summed up the position o his ellow delegates rom

the mountainous counties. “I am or Vir ginia, as she is and was;

as our oreathers created her, one and indivisible. ... But i we

are to be dragged into secession or dissension; become a mereappendage o a southern conederacy ... our oppression may

become intolerable, and I or one wi ll be ready to accept the

only alternative.”

On the subject o splitting rom the “mother state,” Arthur

Boreman, president o the convention that oversaw the orma-

tion o the new state and the man who would become West

Virginia’s frst governor, declared, “It requires stout hearts to

execute this purpose; it requires men o courage, o unaltering

determination.”

The mountaineers lived up to the challenge. In 1863, the

western region was admitted to the Union as a new, separate

state. The South, and Virginia in particular, never quite got

over the rebellious act.

Jeerson Davis wrote with considerable bitterness in his

memoirs about the creation o West Virginia. “When, thereore,

disorderly persons in the northwest counties assembled and

declared the ordinance o secession ‘to be null and void,’ they

rose up against the authority o the state,” Davis stated. “To

admit a state under such a government is entirely unauthorized,

revolutionary, subversive o the constitution and destructive o

the Union o States.”

As Headley observed, “This rom Jeerson Davis – a guy

who tried to peel hal the country away rom itsel, lined up

armies, and started a war in order to do so. Even with that under

his belt, he elt qualifed to wave his hypocrisy in the ace o a

handul o mountain olk who didn’t care to play along.”

Despite Virginia’s eort to orce the reunifcation o the

two states in 1871, and the l ingering resentment among ormerConederates regarding their political disenranchisement and

property losses, the two halves were never reconciled. The state

o West Virginia has retained its sovereignty or 150 years.

As we celebrate this milestone or our beloved state, West

Virginians can take this opportunity to declare yet again to the

rest o the country that our state is the Best Virginia, our moun-

tains are Wild and Wonderul, our home is Almost Heaven and

the independent spirit o our ancestors is still alive and well.

Because, o course, Mountaineers are always ree.

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Wh sulphu spg.th ’ cm wll k plc aug. 17-19.

Photo by Ken Lee - kenleephotography.com

35West Virginia was the35th state in the Union.It was born romVirginia, the 10th state.

Our chronology



18 June 2013

by Sarah Alderson

“Dear Emily,

I arrived this evening at the Rev.James Morrison’s in

Rockbridge Co.A ter eating my supper,I was taken in a

house and sentence was pronounced that I was to behung. I was not permitted any council in my case. I wish

you,my dear beloved wie, to bear up under this dreadul

bereavement and you and all the children to bear up un-

der this as well as you can, and try to meet me in heaven.”

So begins the nal letter David S. Creigh would

write − the one he composed or his wie and amily a

ew minutes beore his execution.Shortly ater he wrote the letter and just past sun-

rise, he was placed in a wagon, taken about a quarter o

a mile north o where he had been held, and, there on a

tree, was hanged.

Creigh became known as the “The Greenbrier Martyr,”

and his story would be called a tragedy o the Civil War.

th GM’

Fl L A descendent o David S. Creigh recounts

the bloody story behind one o our

area’s best-known historical fgures.

What happened to this Greenbrier County legend re-

minds us that it was not only the actual combatants who

paid a heavy price during those our bloody years o war.

Creigh was born in Greenbrier County in 1807, the

son o an Irish immigrant who had settled in the areain 1792. He was connected to several prominent local

amilies and lived in Lewisburg or more than 50 years.

By all accounts, he was a well-respected member o

the community, a relatively prosperous merchant and

armer, and a leader in the local Presbyterian church.

During the height o the war, Creigh was a Coneder-

ate sympathizer. But he was also said to be a compas-

sionate, caring man who came to the aid o both Unionand Conederate soldiers during the Battle o Lewisburg.

On Nov.8,1863,the day ater the Battle o DroopMountain, he was aced with a dilemma that would ulti-

mately orce him to do everything in his power to protect

his home and amily. There are varying accounts o what

happened, but the basic story remains the same:Creigh

returned home to nd a rogue Union soldier ransacking

his home and threatening his amily.A ght ensued, anda gun accidentally red.The soldier was killed,and the

decision was made to hide his body in a well.

When the body was discovered by Federal troops,

Creigh made a candid statement to military authorities,

declaring that he considered himsel justied in what he

had done and that he would do the same to any looter,

Federal or Conederate, under the same circumstances.

Creigh was arrested and taken to the headquartersat Bunger’s Mill, where he was quickly tried with no

opportunity to deend himsel.He was ound guilty

and sentenced to death.Union troops marc hed him to

Brownsburg,Va.,where he was hanged on June 10,1864.

In his nal letter,Cre igh wrote,“I hoped I should once

more see all,on earth, but it is decreed otherwise,and I

must submit. I wish my remains removed and laid by the

side o our Father’s and Mother’s as soon as convenient.”Ater he was executed, his body was taken down and

buried in a temporary grave. But in accordance with

his request, his remains later were brought to his home

in Lewisburg. On July 31, 1864, he was buried next to

his parents in the cemetery behind Old Stone Presby-

terian Church. His uneral procession was reported to

have been more than a mile long, as riends, amily and

citizens rom the county and beyond paid tribute. The inscription on his monument reads: “Sacred to

the Memory o David S. Creigh. Died as a martyr in de-

ense o his rights and in the perormance o his duties

as a Husband and Father. B orn May 1, 1809, and yielded

to his unjust ate June 11, 1864, near Brownsburg, VA.”The David Creigh incident infamed the passions o

the area as well as those o the Conederate army.James

Talbert,archivist at the Greenbrier Historical Society,noted that the event has been said to have infuenced

how the rest o the war was ought.It has been written

that the confict had been considered a “gentleman’s

war”until the Creigh case spurred one cruel retaliation

ater another rom both the Conederacy and the Union.

The David S. Creigh House, also known as “Mon-

tescena”or “Boone Farm,”stands as a remi

tragedy. Bunger’s Mill, where Creigh was tr

a part o a private residence, but its açadeas it did then, and the tree where Creigh w

still standing in Virginia’s Rockbridge Coun

Sarah Alderson is a descendent o David Cre

Lewis,who is also mentioned in Creigh’s fna

paternal grandmother was Elizabeth Creigh

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r Lwug. Photo by Ken Bays

Cgh u x h p h cm h

P Chuch. Photo courtesy o Sarah Alderson

daVid s. CreiGH KNOWN IN THE HISTORY BOOKS AS “THE GREENBRIER MARTYR,” CREIGH HASMANY DESCENDANTS WHO STILL LIVE IN OR HAVE CONNECTIONS TO THEGREENBRIER VALLEY. Photo courtesy o Sarah Alderson

"inside the greenbrier valley" west virginia turns 150! :)

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