Ten Mile Trivia # 4

Shriver covered bridge and Greene County ABATE riders. photo courtesy of Greene County Tourism

Have you ever wondered why were there were so many wooden covered bridges ? And why especially in Pennsylvania and the U.S. Northeast ? In the 1800's, the northeastern United States was a country in need of bridges. It is a fairly narrow coastal plain cut by many short rivers and creeks. Inland farmers needed overland transport, and that meant fords for crossing these streams. But the water-powered mills sought out the very places where streams could not be forded, the falls and rapids. So bridges were needed. The American northeast was forest country, wood was a plentiful building material, especially in the remote areas where the smaller bridges were needed. The climate favored wooden construction. The climate here is harsh by European standards, hot in the summer and icy in the winter, with a freeze-thaw cycle that would overturn stone pavings. Oddly, this sort of climate is less destructive of wood than the mild, moist climate of Britain (or Oregon). Still, wooden bridges tended to deteriorate rapidly from exposure to the elements, having a useful lifespan of only about nine years. Covering them protected their structural members, thus extending their life to 80 years or more. So wooden covered bridges were the answer.The first covered bridge in the nation was built in Pennsylvania in about 1800 over the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia, shortly after a patent for the type of structure was granted in 1797.

.During the first half of the 19th century, Washington and Greene counties were in the heart of an area considered to be the nation's wool growing capital. In 1836, when 50 cents a pound was paid for wool, there were about 200,000 sheep yielding about 500,000 pounds of wool annually there. However, the price declined to about 25 cents a pound by 1842, and the farmers here began to abandon the raising of sheep for more remunerative pursuits.

In 1820, Washington was the most populous community after Pittsburgh in Southwestern Pennsylvania, with 1,687 inhabitants. Uniontown was next with 1,058, followed by Brownsville 976, Greensburg 771, and Connellsville 600.

Opera House Theater in Waynesburg
The Odd Fellows and Masonic Building Association" built in the three-story brick building in 1871, was known as the Town Hall, but later changed to the Waynesburg Opera House in 1889 after its first major renovation. The Opera House hosted a variety of traveling theatrical troupes, as well as lectures from famed orator William Jennings Bryan, known for his involvement in the 1925 Scopes trial, and former President Howard Taft.

In addition to the Opera House, motion pictures could also be seen in Waynesburg at the Eclipse Theater. In Mt. Morris was the Star Theater, the  Ross Theatre was in Carmichaels, Luvland Theater in Rices Landing, the Grand in Clarksville and at the Grand and Milfred theaters in Fredericktown. The coal companys operated their own movie houses in the patch towns of Crucible, Nemacolin, Mather, Vestaburg, Richeyville and Poland Mines.

In 1917, those interested could play pool or billiards at facilities owned by G. W. Hewitt & Sons and Geoge Ritchie in Carmichaels; by C. A. Bernnett in Clarksville; by H. E. Davis in Jefferson; and by J. E. Morris in Mt. Morris. There were five Waynesburg establishments; the Park Billiard Room, the Downey Hotel, and pool rooms operated by Filby & Becler, William Lockard and P. A. Wilbert.

The first golf course in Ten Mile Creek country was laid out by the Greene County Country Club, organized in the fall of 1921. By the end of the year, the County purchased (at a cost of $17,565) almost eighty-eight acres of the Charles C. Harry farm which lay beside Ruff Creek in Morgan Township, about five miles east of Waynesburg along the newly completed concrete road to Jefferson. There it began to lay out a nine-hole golf course that was designed by John McGlynn, "an expert golf course builder," from Pittsburgh. Acquired with the farm was the Harry residence, remodeled as a clubhouse, and a large barn used for equipment storage.















Remains of a Chartiers patch home after the tornado. That is a Model T automobile on it's side to the left. Photo from Stanley Fowler collection.

On the evening of June 23, 1944, three almost-simultaneous tornadoes struck portions of southwestern Pennsylvania, taking 43 lives. Perhaps the most serious of the three came across Washington County from the West Virginia panhandle, moving southeast across northeastern Greene County and the western edge of Fayette. A second touched down in the McKeesport area and moved southeastward past Mt. Pleasant. The third hit Rural Valley in Armstrong County and moved into Indiana.
The towns of Chartiers and Dry Tavern in northwestern Greene County were particularly hard hit. Washington, Brownsville and Greene County hospitals were not only overcrowded by dying and injured but often had to perform operations by light from kerosene lanterns.
Blood plasma was flown from Columbus, Ohio, to Waynesburg by a small plane that landed in a field illuminated by automobile headlights. As word reached points throughout the nation and world, the Red Cross was besieged by inquiries from World War II servicemen concerned about their families back here.
Wind Ridge in Greene County got its name as the result of a coin toss. It originally was known as Jacksonville.
When Greene Co. was still part of Washington Co., Pennsylvania passed an act for the gradual abolition of slavery. At this time there were 155 slave owners in Washington Co. who registered approx. 443 slaves. Of the 443 registered slaves, Greene Countians registered a total of 33 slaves. When the first national censuses were taken in 1790, there were 44 slaves in Greene Co. & 1 free "person of color". In 1800, there were 16 slaves, 23 persons of color living with white, either as servants or family members. In the introduction to Carter G. Woodson's Free Negro Head of Families In The 1830 Census for Greene County, he makes the following notation: "...that year a petition from Greene County said that many Negroes had settled in Pennsylvania and had been able to seduce into marriage "the minor children of White inhabitants." This county, therefore, asked these marriages be made an offence against the laws of the State."


From 1852 through the mid-1930's, the Greene County Agricultural Society held a fair each year in Carmichaels, PA. The original site was on the east side of town where Cumberland Village is located today. Around 1900, the fair was moved to the location on Ceylon Road where Wana B Park is now. According to a book published by Carmichaels Bi-Centennial, Inc. (1967), the main exhibits at the fair in those days were farm products, livestock and manufactured goods. Activities and contests consisted mostly of horse and bicycle races. Entertainment included live bands as a major attraction, and sometimes circus like performers such as tightrope walkers and acrobats. Admission to the fair started out at 15 cents for children and 35 cents for adults. By the 1920's those rates had raised to 50 and 75 cents, respectively. The grandstand seated nearly 2,000 people. The fair closed in 1935 due to a decrease in attendance and "other contributing factors which caused a decline and complete collapse of the Greene County Agricultural Society."
There was also a fair in Jefferson until 1907. The location of the Jefferson Fair is still referred to as "The Fairgrounds". Today the area consists of residential lots.

Jollytown, in Greene County, did not get its name from the jovial atmosphere there, but from pioneer landowner Titus Jolly.

From The Charleroi Mail of June 29, 1911 :
The first work done by the Crucible Coal Company towards the opening of the mine on its property above Rices Landing was begun this week. Several Italian laborers arrived and were put to work constructing a road from the river to the Fordyce, Crago and the Norman Riggle farms. It is on these two farms where the houses of the company will be built. The coal company will build the tipple on the Thomas Crago tract and it will be constructed so that barges in the river can be loaded and also freight cars be shipped by rail. The company will install a ferry across the river as the material, much of it at least, will be shipped by rail and will arrive on the opposite side of the river.
The new works are to be located about one and one-half miles above the lock at Rices Landing.

From The Argus of May 8, 1884:
A. H. Swan, of Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory, is a native of Greene County, Pa., which place he left for the West in 1853, when twenty-two years of age, with $1,000 in his pocket. He now controls more cattle than any other individual on the continent. His present possessions are valued at between $2,000,000 and $3,000,000, while the amount of stock of which he has the exclusive control and management is over 200,000 head, and valued at over $6,000,000. He was the organizer, and is President and General Manager of no less than five different stock organizations in Wyoming.

From unknown newspaper May 29, 1908 :In the marriage of Miss Flora E. Gruber of Greensboro and John Sharpnack last week, an unusual courtship was brought to a fitting climax. John is an employee of the United States government on the new lock at North Charleroi. On February 15, 1906, he picked up a floating bottle, which contained a note signed in a delicate hand. "Miss Flora E. Gruber, Greensboro, Pa., February 14 - St. Valentine's Day - 1906. Finder please write." The river at that time was at high stage, and the missive was not long in finding its way down to lock No. 4, where it was found by Sharpnack. The same evening he wrote a letter, and in due time received a reply. Letters and photographs were exchanged later. The sequel was the marriage last week. The young pair will live at Charleroi.

Albert Bushnell Hart, one of the most famous of American historians, was born in Clarksville Pa.on July 1, 1854. He was a graduate of Harvard, and received numerous honorary degrees. He was a professor of various subjects at Harvard and was later professor emeritus. He was a member and historian of the U. S. Commission for Celebration of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of George Washington. He served as joint editor of the Harvard Graduates' Magazine, and also a member of many political and historical associations. Some of Professor Hart's publications are Guide to the Study of American History, Slavery and Abolition, Southern South, Handbook of the War, Causes of the War.

Fredericktown ferry FREDERICK glides back to the east shore of the Monongahela River on March 7, 2006. The ferry rides on cables that are attached to each bank of the river and moves between Fredericktown and LaBelle, Pa. Mile 64.1. Photo by Eric M. Johnson.












As late as the end of World War II, nine ferries on the Monongahela River connected Washington and Greene county points with Fayette County. The communities were Fayette City, Coal Center / Newell, Fredericktown / East Fredericktown ( LaBelle ) , Millsboro / East Millsboro, Crucible / Arensburg, Adah, Nemacolin / Huron, Martin and Greensboro / New Geneva. Since the early 1900's, as the railroad advanced up the river, many people used the ferry to cross to the to the Fayette county side to take the railroad to Brownsville or Morgantown. The Monongahela Railway obligingly built stations or shelters at each ferry landing. In 1950, railroad passenger service along that side of the river between Brownsville and Fairmont, W.Va., came to an end.
The ferry at Fredericktown is the last on the river. I plan to do a story on it but it will be a sad one because it does not seem to have much time left due to the new bridge being built at Denbo. There's been a ferry at Fredericktown since 1790. Thats a long time.

From an unknown local paper, June 1,1891 :
Beckie Brown, the ferryman of Brown's Ferry, near Carmichaels, who died recently, had worked that ferry forty years single handed and alone. She was the widow of James Brown, who died before the Civil war, and Beckie continued to placidly work at the ferry. In her early days she attended all the fairs, horse races and old time musters, peddling gingerbread and spruce beer that she made herself. She had a secret preparation for her gingerbread that made it famous, and no doubt did a great deal toward making it familiar at all the local fairs. She never told her secret to anyone, and with Beckie died the gingerbread reciepe.

From The Charleroi Mail, April 27, 1909 :
Judge James Ingram yesterday refused licenses to all of the Greene county distilleries, the applicants being U. E. Lippincott of Lippincotts, R. W. Higginbotham of Grays Landing, and Gilpin South of Bald Hill. The Waynesburg Brewing Company, which constructed the only brewery in the county, was refused license last week. No retail liquor license has been granted in the county for 31 years. A century ago Greene county had nearly one hundred registered distilleries. The map is now pure white.

The above was taken from various sources including The Greensaver, G.Wayne Smith's History and others.

Ten Mile Trivia # 3

Robert Morris, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and an early official of the federal government, once owned 41,000 acres of land in Greene County. Much of his widespread acquisition of land was accomplished with borrowed money. That helped lead him into financial difficulty and eventually bankruptcy. Earlier, George Washington was the largest landowner in this section of Pennsylvania, some in Greene.
The first Boy Scout troop sponsored in Pennsylvania, it is believed, was that at Waynesburg Presbyterian Church in 1911, organized by future state governor Gen. Edward Martin.

In the late 1790s, one of the gun factories that supplied the young United States with weapons was established at New Geneva in Fayette County, shortly before the national armory was placed at Harpers Ferry, then in Virginia. However, the government competition was too much for private industry, and the New Geneva plant went out of business. The course of U.S. history would have been greatly changed had the government installation been placed at New Geneva instead of Harpers Ferry.

Former President Richard Nixon had a Western Pennsylvania heritage through his mother's family, the Milhouses, and other maternal ancestors. As early as 1795, Anthony and Lydia Smith took up residence along the south branch of Tenmile Creek near Waynesburg. Several generations of descendants lived in Greene County before the president's mother's ancestors moved westward in the mid-1800s.

An earlier version of today's illegal parking towaways was the regulation in Washington, Pa., that prohibited hitching horses to shade trees. Constables were empowered to impound the horses in public stables until a storage fee was paid.

The first telephone company to operate in Greene County was the Waynesburg and Blacksville Telephone Co., organized Jan. 20, 1887. The first two telephones were placed in the Strosnider Hotel in Blacksville and in the J.T. Rogers drug store in Waynesburg. By the spring of 1889 Jefferson, Charmichaels, Waynesburg and Rices Landing were joined by telephone. Within the next several years, several other small independent phone firms were started. Patrons on one system could not call those on another, which caused quite a bit of dissatisfaction. At one time, there were 38 different small companies within Greene County alone, all of which were ultimately merged into the South Penn Telephone Co.

A cemetery inscription at the Greene County-West Virginia border area near Blacksville reads:
"Some women have children,
And some have none,
But here lies the mother of twenty-one."

An English geologist, Sir Charles Lyall, who came to Southwestern Pennsylvania in April 1846, wrote after his study of geological formation:
"I was truly astonished, now that I had entered the hydrographical basin of the Ohio, at beholding the richness of the seams of coal which appeared everywhere on the flanks of the hills and at the bottoms of the valleys, and which are accessible to a degree I never witnessed elsewhere. The time has not arrived when the full value of this inexhaustible supply of cheap fuel can be appreciated. To properly estimate the net advantages of such a region, we must reflect how the three great navigable rivers, the Monongahela, Allegheny and Ohio, intersect it and lay open on their banks the level seams of coal. I found at Brownsville a belt 10 feet thick of good bituminous coal, commonly called the Pittsburgh seam, out in the river cliffs near the water's edge."
The accuracy of his statements has been borne out by the later appreciation of this vast coal supply and what it has meant to the area in the years since.

Sept. 30, 1939 -- Waynesburg College played Fordham at New York in the first experimentally televised football game. Although the Yellow Jackets lost, Bobby Brooks of Greensburg scored the first touchdown on TV. In 1875, Waynesburg College President Alfred B. Miller and some of the students began the process of making bricks to build what became the main college building -- Miller Hall. Clay was obtained from a campus site and another nearby point, and three kilns were constructed on campus to "burn the brick." They were able to produce as many as 4,000 bricks daily, during which time the boys hauled "hundreds of barrels of water." Miller explained that to mold the 803,000 bricks made there "almost exhausted Ten Mile Creek for water to moisten the clay." Masons then erected the structure as money permitted, but it wasn't completed until more than a decade later.


Miller Hall courtesy of Waynesburg University

One Saturday in 1888, 11 male Waynesburg College students went to Masontown and indulged in "drinking beer and other liquors." Brought before the college faculty, they acknowledged their offenses and were allowed to remain students on condition that they sign a pledge of total abstinence.

The last survivor of Braddock's infamous 1755 defeat by the French and Indians was reputed to be one Boon Buchanan, who died in Washington County in 1846 at the alleged age of 113. He was a black man who, it was said, served as a waiter with the British army.

Lone Pine in Washington County was originally called Pleasant Valley, along the south fork of Ten Mile Creek. Twin pine trees once towered there, but one was erased by lightning shortly before a post office was established there in 1869. When the Pleasant Valley name, already in use elsewhere, wasn't available for post office use, Lone Pine was chosen. A son of Albert Gallatin, James, supervised construction of his father's Friendship Hill mansion near New Geneva in Fayette County while the latter was in France in 1822-23. When Gallatin returned and saw the structure, he was quite unhappy with it but made the best of the situation. Shortly afterward, writing to a daughter, he described part of it this way: "The outside of the house, with its porthole-looking windows, has the appearance of an Irish barracks, whilst the inside ornaments are similar to those of a Dutch tavern."

Albert Gallatin's home, Friendship Hill
Perhaps the most significant of Albert Gallatin's accomplishments came as the result of his friendship with U.S. President Thomas Jefferson. In the early 1800s, Gallatin persuaded Jefferson to change the route of the National Road and take it through southwestern Pennsylvania. As originally planned, it would have gone around the state through Virginia ( West Virginia ).
A Greene County man is claimed to have been one of the first people in the U.S. to use natural gas for light and heating fuel. L.R. Strosnider, of Mt. Morris, shortly after the Civil War noticed gas escaping from an abandoned oil well on the property where he had a confectionery and restaurant. He placed a half-barrel over the well shaft, bored a hole in the barrel for a pipe, and ran the pipe into his building. He used this gas for cooking and frying oysters and later for light .
Zadok Cramer's 1814 book tells of a "curious cave" about a mile below Fredericktown in Washington County, along the Monongahela, called the "Panther's Den." It was described as entering the hill "about halfway from its base by a small fracture or rent in the rock. After going through a narrow or descending passage, you enter a wide but low room in which you can walk nearly upright. To the roof of this room, we found bats hanging in a stupid kind of sleep."
Near Clarksville, about half a mile upcreek from the Yablonski stone house, is a cave on the side of the high escarpment above Ten Mile Creek. This was also known as Panthers Den, likely named after the more well known one described above. Directly below it there is a large rock in the creek known as Clover Rock that was always a popular spot for fishing and swimming. This entire area is now posted as private property.

During a period of religious fervor between 1800 and 1807, a woman evangelist in the Washington-Greene border area was Rhoda Fordyce. She proclaimed "that if a person would abstain from all animal food and live on parched corn and sassafras buds ... his body would become so ethereal that he would be translated to heaven without passing through the gates of death." One man named Parker tried her theory. Instead of being "translated," he starved to death. Rhoda would not allow the body to be buried until after the third day, insisting that it would then ascend to heaven. At the end of three days, neighbors interposed and buried it. Nothing was heard thereafter of the Rhodianites, as her followers were called.


This from The Charleroi Mail of June 8, 1908 : Charmichaels Pa. In the center of prohibition Greene County (Temperance advocate) Carrie Nation today delivered her first speech since the Republican Presidential nomination. She scored the candidates. Mrs. Nation complimented the assemblage in the fact that the Merry Widow hat has not seriously inundated Greene County. In spite of the dry condition of Greene County enough ardent liquor was imported for the day to make a number of citizens loud, and the usual interruptions occurred. In a big grove 2,000 people listened to Mrs. Nation between showers. When it rained she sold her hatchets.
Last night, waiting at Rices Landing on a train, a young man lit a cigar and blew the smoke into Mrs. Nation's face. She tried to get the cigar and the young man threatened to throw her over the lock wall. The Kansas woman made an information against him before a justice of the peace, but later dropped the case.
These tidbits were taken from various books and internet sources including Robert B. Van Atta of the Greensburg ( Pa.) Tribune-Review.

Ten Mile Trivia # 2

Ten Mile Creek came to be called so because it's mouth is ten miles above Old Redstone Fort at Brownsville. In the early days they named creeks and other landmarks as being so many miles from a known place, as Brownsville certainly was in the early days. Islands also took mile marker names, for instance above Louisville Ky is 18 mile island then 12 mile island and then 6 mile island.
Some think the creek was named so because it's ten miles long. Not true, but ten miles up the creek is located the town of Ten Mile. Its Indian name is Cusuthee.
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The very first steamboat to travel to New Orleans and return by its own power was the ENTERPRISE, designed and built in the Brownsville boatyards and launched from the Brownsville Wharf in 1814.

"Saint Barbara , the patron saint of miners, was a young virgin who defied her father and decided not to marry. Because of this he kept her in a tower. She ordered some workmen to alter the tower while her father was away, thus becoming the saint of architects. After finding out about this her father chased her to the hills where she was swallowed up by the hill. Her name is attached to Santa Barbara, California. There is a prayer for miners dedicated to Saint Barbara:
"As I now descend into the dark bowels of the earth, I beseech thee, sweet Barbara, that I be kept safe from harm, for it liketh me not that I rush unbidden into God's presence."
Wilson's Port, later called New Geneva was a very early place for freighting flatboats and rafts.The land later was patented by Elias Stone and his wife in 1787 and was called Delight.

Augustine Dillner and his wife were the first settlers in what is now Greene county.They arrived as early as 1754 and in 1755 built a cabin close to Crow's Ferry ( Dillner ). The Indians were friendly with them till Lord Dunmore's war of 1774.


"While making a tour of the United States in 1837, General Santa Anna, President of Mexico, stopped in Washington Pa.on January 15. Following the custom of the time, he probably took breakfast at Hill's Stone Tavern ( now the Century Inn ) in Scenery Hill, Pa. This was only a year after the massacre of the Texans at the battle of the Alamo, and Santa Anna was not very popular, so there was no reception committee. All known of this visit was the mere mention in the local paper, The Examiner of his passing and a well grounded tradition that a local man named Brice, whose brother had drawn a black bean ( died ) at Goliad, lay in wait just west of town to take a pot shot at the self styled "Napoleon of the West" as the stage rolled by. Fortunately for Santa Anna the sheriff heard of the plot, and, probably against his personal inclination, gathered Brice into his official fold until the Mexican was safely through Washington. Incidentally, Brice was a dead shot, and might have saved the United States much trouble nine years later if the sheriff had let him alone."

Hills Tavern now Century Inn











UMWA LOCALS
6330 Chartiers
688 Clyde
4583 Clarksville
6151 Mather
6290 Nemacolin
6310 Greensboro
4731 Crucible
6159 Bobtown
762 Vestaburg
2300 Waynesburg

UMWA Band of 4583 Clarksville Stanley Fowler Collection

One of the most notable early teachers in Fredericktown was Jonathan Knight. He was later one of the most eminent engineers of his day and became Chief Engineer of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. He was the inventor of the coning of RR car wheels so that cars stationary on their axles can run on curved tracks without spreading the rails. He surveyed a line ( never built) for the B&O through Greene County in 1836. He lived in Centerville Pa.

Augustine Dillner and his wife were the first settlers in what is now Greene county.They arrived as early as 1754 and in 1755 built a cabin close to Crow's Ferry ( Dillner ). The Indians were friendly with them till Lord Dunmore's war of 1774.

In 1826 the Str. REINDEER was the first boat to Morgantown.

"On February 11, 1850, the first steamboat came up the Monongahela River to the little town of Fairmont. This boat was the GLOBE owned by a man named Yeager. Its appearance created a great sensation among the people, for the majority of them had never seen a steamboat, much less had one come up to their very doors. When it became known throughout the country that a steamboat was to come up the Monongahela River at daybreak on February 11, the people for miles around gathered along the banks of the river as early as the afternoon before. When the whistle of the Globe was heard down the river, the courthouse bell was rung for two hours. The people had brought lunches, so they took the day off as a holiday; speeches were made, and the new wonder examined. Many of the citizens had a free ride up the river. That day was long to be remembered." It was two years before another boat arrived.

In 1856 slackwater, meaning locks and dams, were completed up to New Geneva, making navigation possible nearly year round.

Dry Tavern was named so because in early days there was a tavern there with no liquor sold. It was on the main road leading south between Pittsburgh and Virginia. For years it was the busiest north - south road west of the mountains. The road was laid out by John Crawford and went from Pittsburgh to Finleyville, Bentleyville, Beallsville, Millsboro, Charmichaels, Willow Tree, Rosedale to Morgantown. It was planned to be 60 feet wide.

Ruff Creek got it's name from an Indian named Ruff who lived there.

The first telegraph line in Greene county was erected from Rices Landing to Waynesburg in 1861.


Southwest Pennsylvania was claimed by the districts of West Augusta, Virginia and by Westmoreland, Pennsylvania. In 1776 West Augusta became Ohio, Yohogania and Monongalia Counties, in Virginia. . Greene County in 1776 was partly ( the western slope ) in Ohio county Virginia and partly ( the eastern slope ) in Monongalia County Virginia. The court house for Monongalia was near New Geneva Pa. on the farm of Theopolis Phillips. The court house for Ohio county was at West Liberty W. Va. Virginia law directed that at each court house there was to be a pillory, a pair of stocks, a whipping post and a ducking stool ( now called waterboarding ). Only the ducking stool was used for women.
By 1780 Virginia and Pennsylvania settled their boundary dispute placing most of the Yohogania County region in Westmoreland County. In 1781 Washington County was created from Westmoreland County. Greene County was created from Washington County in 1796.

Before the big modern dams you could at times cross the mouth of Ten Mile Creek by skipping from rock to rock. Other times, because of the volume of water coming out of the creek a very large sand bar would build up there and the river channel would have to be dredged for boats to pass.

Besco is named for the Bessemer Coke Company who operated the Champion mine there using all the coal to make coke in it's 100 ovens . By 1914 there were 257 ovens, a sizable operation. The railroad reached Besco around 1911 and that was the end of track until it was extended farther through Clarksville to Mather in 1919.
In Common Pleas Court in 1797, the following case was considered : The Sheriff of Greene County wishes Richard Swan to answer the charge that he bit off a piece of John Moore's ear thereby damaging the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth.

Ten Mile Trivia # 1

There are two wonderfully droll insults in this. It was placed in an early Washington County newspaper on December 1, 1795 : Whereas a certain RALPH SMITH, of Morgan Township in this County (Greene Co. after 1796), some years ago called me a convict in a public company, and later spoke the same language in ambiguous terms, (such as his good breeding afforded). I do hereby request the favor of Mr. Smith, to wash and shave and go and inquire of Mr. James GILASPY, on the headwaters of Buffalo Creek, and Robert CARREL on the head waters of the Wheeling Creek, two gentlemen which sailed with me from the port of Londonderry, the 14th day of August in the year 1768, and landed at Newcastle, DE. the 3rd day of October following and acknowledge himself a malicious calumniator.
signed Myles Hay of Ten Mile Creek, Washington County.
He requests that he first " wash and shave " !

At Brownsville, for many years the head of steamboat navigation on the Monongahela river, passengers were transferred from the stage lines to the steamboats running between this point and Pittsburgh. West bound passengers were ticketed through from Cumberland, Baltimore and other points east, to Pittsburgh and other points west, via the National Road, and Monongahela river boats. It is shown by official figures that from 1844 to 1852 when the railroads came along, that more than three hundred thousand passengers left the stage lines at Brownsville and took passage on the Monongahela steamers down the river to Pittsburgh and Wheeling. Most of the emigrants and a large number of stage passengers, probably the majority, crossed the river at West Brownsville, and went over land across Washington County to Wheeling. The same was true of the journey from West to East. The National Road through Washington County was the short cut that saved much time over the longer river route past Pittsburgh. In 1852, Brownsville lost any advantages it had based on turnpike and river modes of transportation. In that year, the Pennsylvania Railroad was completed from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was extended from Cumberland to Wheeling through Maryland and Virginia, effectively eliminating Brownsville as a major point of transit. The prominence of the National Road and of Brownsville came to an end as travel by stage, wagon and steamboat gave way to the railroad.

The first white settlers within the territory of Washington County were Everhart Hupp, George Bumgarner, and Abraham Teagarden and these first located their homes in the vicinity of the mouth of Ten-Mile Creek, all within the triangle made by Rice's Landing, Sandy Plains and Millsboro.

Charles L. Rowan was born in 1899, son of George E. and Althea (Prinkey) Rowan. In about May of 1936, he began employment as a laborer at the No. 5 mine of the Vesta Coal Company at Vestaburg, a job to which he commuted from his home. He was killed at the mine on Aug. 18, 1936, after only having worked there for three months. Said the Daily Courier : Rowan ... was decapitated and two other workers miraculously escaped a similar fate when a large slab of slate let go as they were leaving the Vestaburg workings after completing their day's work. The trio comprised a group of workmen who had left the man trip several minutes before the tragedy. Rowan was struck by the full force of the slate which landed on his head and severed it from his body, according to Deputy Edward Hagerty of Millsboro. The fatality was the first of the year at the Vesta Company mine.

Three young men held up the W.J. Rainey Coal Co. paymaster on a trolley car between Brownsville and Allison in Fayette County on the morning of March 11, 1922. They escaped with a satchel with about $30,000 in payroll cash. A guard with the paymaster was shot and seriously wounded as bandits and guards exchanged gunfire on the car, which had about 40 passengers.
That's a tremendous amount of money for 1922. Imagine 5 or more men exchanging gunfire on a trolley with 40 people on board.

Fairmont W. Va Newspaper dated Thursday, 9 February 1882:"Steamboating at Fairmont. The steamboat HARRY arrived here, this afternoon, at half-past four o'clock, having made the trip from Morgantown, about thirty miles, in less than seven hours.
They could have walked as quickly and I believe a horse walks faster than 4 miles an hour.

The Uniontown Morning Herald of June 7, 1926 reported that John A. Logan Strauch ... fell between two railroad cars while working on the Monongahela Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad at Clarksville. He had worked for the railroad for a number of years, at one time working out of the Rainey yards here, and was employed in the Brownsville section at the time of his death. The crew was shifting cars when the accident occurred.

Nick Massini discusses a ghost at Clyde Mine in Fredericktown, Pennsylvania. "The old Clyde mine was haunted by a fire boss that was killed years before. He was seen regularly seen making his run at the Ross Shaft area."
Richard Marcavitch recounted a ghost he saw at Vesta Five owned by the J and L Steel Company. He saw this ghost sitting in his dinner hole every day about the same time.

From 1906-1939 over 35,00 men died in coal mine accidents. In 1907 Pennsylvania lost 1614 with 5 disasters alone claiming more than 800 men.

Just one of the many reasons for the frightful accident rate is illustrated in this old photo showing a miner pouring black powder into a cardboard tube for inserting in a drilled hole to blast coal loose. On his cap is an open flame oil wick lamp. A sight like this would give a modern mine inspector an instant and fatal heart attack.


In the 30's Clyde miners developed a reputation as the first to go on strike. Then they got up early next morning to see that no one else worked.

Vesta 1 Allenport 1891 - 1924
Vesta 2 American Mine Lucy Station Elco 1892 - 1915
Vesta 3 Globe Mine Coal Center 1892 - 1918
Vesta 4 California, Daisytown, Richeyville 1903 - 1984
Vesta 5 Vestaburg 1907 -
Vesta 6 Denbo 1903 - 1947
Vesta 7 West Brownsville 1918 - 1923

Vesta 4 was the largest mine in the country. It eventually ran from the rail and river tipple at California Pa. to Pancake, just east of Washington Pa.

This old boatman did it all : Unknown newspaper dated Monday, 3 March 1884:
Interview With a Veteran River Man. Our reporter met Capt. I. N. Hook, the oldest river man on the Ohio, at the Swann House this morning. The Captain commenced steamboating in 1827. He was in this neighborhood at the time of the flood of 1832. He was the first who placed his barges in front of his steamboat when towing. Formerly it was customary to hitch them on behind, or tie them to the sides. His manner of towing was considered very amusing at its origin, but no one thinks of towing in any other way at the present time.
The Captain introduced the whistle now universally used at the present time. It was by accident that he discovered it. He was going into Wheeling and his whistle was broken. The upper hemisphere was blown off. He placed in its stead a keg. His whistle also caused much amusement but it has taken the place of the old 'bowl' screecher, which would almost lift a man off his feet when it blew.
The Captain also invented the 'spool windlass' by means of which the gates of the locks on all our rivers are now opened. They were formerly swung back by huge windlasses making hard work for eight men. Curious to say he took out no patents on the invention but gave the Company for which he worked all the advantages gratuitously.
He has been up the Little Kanawha repairing the locks damaged by the late flood. The Captain says he took the first steamboat to Burning Springs that ever passed up the Little Kanawha. He is now on his way to the Muskingum to repair the canal washed out in the flood.

I'll bet he invented the telegraph too, and the internal combustion engine , sliced bread , electricity, pop tarts and cheese in an aerosol can. I'll bet when the water got low he just put the boat on his back and waded upstream.