Leonard Stephens Diary, 1855 Trip, Part 1

[The entries were made in a small book, about the size of a modern paperback, just the size to slip into a coat pocket. On the first page General Stephens noted the purchase.]

May 24, 1855

Leonard Stephens

Price 25 cts

[Blank page]

24th May 1855. This morning at 7.0 o'clock me and Napoleon left home in our buggy on a trip to Orange County, Virginia. Arrived at Cincinnati at 1/2 past 10 o'clock & went immediately on board the Steam Boat City of Wheeling & engaged a passage to Parkersburgh. Left the wharf at 12.0 o'clock. Our horse has been restive through the day & has eat but very little of his feed. I have been unwell all day with cold & am very hoarse. It is with difficulty I can talk. Our boat is making about eight miles an hour. We passed Augusta about 5 o'clock and Maysville about sun set.

May 25th, 1855. I felt much more comfortable this morning. My hoarseness is better & I can breathe much easier. Our horse also has become quiet & is more comfortable. We arrived at Parkersburgh at 1/2 past 12.0 o'clock P.M. where we went a shore & took lodgings at the U. S. Hotel. Much excitement has prevailed all day along the River in consequence of the Virginia election which was held on yesterday. The returns so far all day seem to indicate that Flournoy, the Know Nothing candidate for governor, is elected.

May 26th. We left the hotel at 1/2 past 7 o'clock in our carriage bound for Orange. Dined at California, 22 miles from the River or Parkersburgh, where we dined, then resumed our journey & put up for the night at Mrs Sleet's having traveled this day 41 miles.

May 27th. Started at 1/2 past 6 o'clock & traveled 23 miles to Farnsworth where we got dinner after which we again set out on our way & have put up for the night at Weston, the County Seat of Lewis County, having traveled on this day 43 miles. The reports here in refference to the election are much more favorable to the success of Mr. Wise & we now have strong hopes that he is elected. Thus far nothing of much interest has transpired. Our horse stands the trip very well.

May 28th 1855. Started from Weston at ˝ past 7 o'clock A.M. Dined at Heavener's, then resumed our journey & stoped for the night with Mr. Hillery's, having made on this day 37 miles.

May 29th. Set out at an early hour & and at five miles distance passed the Rich Mountain on the top of which was quite a beautiful scene, the Gap being broad & pretty. There we saw the first Lime Stone in the state. For some rods the road was Macadamized with it & there had also been a Lime Kiln burnt at the same place. A little over the gap of the mountain we had a fine view of the Mountain scenery, indeed it was grand beyond description. The air too at this place is delightful. Respiration is or seems to be uncommonly free & easy. It also appears to brace one's whole system. We have stoped for dinner with Mr. Hamilton at the foot of Cheat's Mountain, having traveled 24 miles. We are now 90 miles from the town of Stanton, which is located in the Valley of Virginia. We passed on yesterday the town of Buckhannon, the County Seat of Upshur county & today we have passed Beverly, the County Seat of Randolph county. Thus far we have had a pleasant journey. Our health is good & our horse performs admirably. He eats all his feed & moves as though he understood that he was in the company of friends. Our carriage too performs or stands the travel well. We have put up for the night with Mr. Burner at the east foot of Cheat Mountain which we have found to be one of the highest mountains by far that we have yet seen. It is 20 miles over & at its base on the east flows Green Brier River in Pockahontas County. Our host is an excellent Democrat, despises the 'Nothings' and seems to be well posted up in refference to their composition. As we advance Mr. Wise's prospects brighten & we now feel pretty sure that he is elected. Indeed we understand the Whigs concede his election. We have traveled on this day 44 miles.

May 30th. We resumed our journey at an early hour & very soon commenced climbing the Aleghenny Mountain which is 18 miles over. We are now on the east side & have stoped for dinner at a Mr. Heavener's where the people are kind & appear to be true Virginians. Here the waters flow east into the Potomack River. We stoped for the night with Mr. Wilson on the Cowpasture river, having traveled this day 40 miles.

May 31st. Resumed our journey & crossed two mountains the last of which [was] the Shennandoah at the foot of which we got dinner at Buffalo gap. This is the best house we have yet found. After dinner we set out & are to night at Staunton the County Seat of Augusta county. We have written letters home & have just returned from the Post Office. We have seen statements to night giving to Mr. Wise ten thousand majority for Governor. This is a very pretty town. The Lunnatick Assylum is here & has at present over 400 inmates. We have written letters home.

June 1st. After breakfasting at 7 o'clock we again resumed our journey & at our start discovered our Umbrella was missing & not getting any intelligence of it we went on without it. About one mile from the town we had occasion to stop & again starting & after travelling some six miles I missed my watch I recollected to have left lieing on the fence where we had stoped. We went back & found it still on the fence but in doing so we lose 12 miles of travel. We on this day have had the rain on us a good deal of the time & only made 15 miles owing to the rain & our having to go back. We have put up for the night with Mr. Lipscomb who keeps a hotel on top of the Blue Ridge.

Saturday June 2nd. At an early hour we again set out & crossed the Mountain. When we got partly over it, it commenced raining & continued to do so until we reached Sharlottesville which was 23 miles from the mountain top. Here we dined & then set out, taking the Gordonsville road, but when we got to the River at the distance of about a mile, we found it impassable & had to return and take the Barboursville road which was bridged & after traveling along that road for ten miles we put up for the night with a Mr. Beck. We are now within twenty miles of Orange Courthouse & about 32 miles from the Orange Springs, which latter place we hope to reach tomorrow. The rain has made the traveling very heavy & Tom has suffered, but he eats as usual tonight. Napoleon has been quite unwell all day. I have given him some medicine & now while I am writing he is snoreing. I hope he will be better in the morning.

[ Continued ]

Notes:

Napoleon Bonaparte Stephens (1814-1887) was Leonard's eldest son. He followed his father into the state legislature (representing nearby Grant County in the House, 1839-1843). Napoleon later served as Clerk of both State and Federal Courts and as President of the Covington City Council. Return.

Cincinnati, known by its boosters as the Queen City of the West, was two years older than General Stephens. After a slow start, it soon became the metropolis of the middle Ohio River region, being 455 miles from Pittsburgh and 540 to confluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi at Cairo, Illinois. Until surpassed by the younger Chicago in 1860, it was the leading meatpacking center of the nation. Warren Jenkins, The Ohio Gazetteer, and Travelers Guide, rev. ed. (Columbus, IN: Whiting, 1841 [microform: Louisville: Lost Cause Press, 1979]), 110. Return.

The City of Wheeling, a wooden-hulled side-wheeler 234 feet long and 34 wide, was built in Wheeling two years before. The craft was lost 31 May 1856 when, upbound on the Ohio, it was crowded onto rocks along the Virginia shore opposite Pomeroy, Ohio. The ship's bell was retrieved and used in the Pomeroy Methodist Church. Frederick Way, Jr., comp., Way's Packet Directory, 1848-1983: Passenger Steamboats of the Mississippi (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1983), 98.
The Wheeling's short life was not unusual. Exploding boilers and fires competed with collisions and strandings to guarantee that few vessels survived for more than a decade. Seymour Dunbar, A History of Travel in America (NY: Tudor, new and rev. ed., 1937). Return.

A note about time. Before the scheduling requirements of long-distance rail travel forced the creation of standard time and the division of the country into four time zones, each locality set its own time, usually by reference to when the sun crossed the local meridian. General Stephens probably set his watch by checking the courthouse clock, if there was one, then resetting it a few miles down the road in the next county. Return.

Augusta is 41 miles upriver from Cincinnati. A contemporary guide to river travel described the town in Bracken County as "handsomely situated" and added, "There have been numerous human bones excavated from the earth in Augusta, proving it to have been a burial place in times gone by. A resident of the town mentions having found 110 skeletons in excavating a cellar 60 by 70 feet." Uriah Pierson James, James' River Guide (Cincinnati: U. P. James, 1856 [microform: Louisville: Lost Cause Press, 1976]), 106. Return.

Founded in 1784 with the name of Limestone, Maysville has been since 1884 the seat of Mason County, Kentucky. James' Guide credited the town of 7,000, 16 miles upstream from Augusta, as being the largest hemp market in the United States, with several ropewalks and a bagging factory. James, 104. Return.

Parkersburg (elev. 616) is located at the mouth of the Little Kanawha River. A note at the back of the diary gives the distance from Cincinnati as 327 miles, but Jenkins, 521, gives a distance of 269 miles, a figure more consistent with the speed General Stephens gives for the steamboat. Return.

Originally known as the Bell Hotel for the bell-tower on its roof, the hostelry at the northwest corner of the courthouse square survived for more than a century, taking new names through the years, including The Commercial and The Stratford. Built in 1812, it was finally torn down in 1973. Jim Comstock, ed., West Virginia Heritage Encyclopedia (Richwood, WV: author, 1976), 3641; [WPA Writers Program], West Virginia: A Guide to the Mountain State (New York: Oxford, 1941), 265. Return.

At this time the Commonwealth of Virginia extended to the Ohio River. The tensions between the westerners and the established powers east of the Appalachians played some part in state politics, but had not been inflamed to the point where the State could be dismembered as it was eight years later. Return.

The apparent leader in the early returns for governor, Thomas Stanhope Flournoy (1811-1883), had served a term in Congress as a Whig (1847-1849). He ran again for governor in 1863 with similar lack of success. Return.

The "Know Nothings" were officially named the American Party, founded two years before, amid the turmoil surrounding the breakup of the old Whig party. The nativist and anti-Catholic movement had scored victories in Massachusetts and other eastern states in 1854 and 1855, and ran strong races in some southern states, but it disappeared as quickly as it had risen, swept aside by the new Republican Party, at least in the North. A. James Reichley, The Life of the Parties (New York: Free Press, 1992), 109. Return.

After years of false starts, the Parkersburg to Staunton turnpike was completed in 1843. West Virginia, 264. The toll road was one small part of the system of popular "internal improvements" which included canals and railroads. Usually built by private companies, the projects were encouraged and subsidized by states to benefit their citizens. The approximate route of the old pike running east from the Ohio is now traced by West Virginia Route 47, which joins US 33 near Weston. Maps of Crozet's original 1825 survey of the route can be seen at the Library of Virginia (VSLA 636). Return.

The settlement which took its name from a hotel known as the California House was located on the Hughes River, about two miles below the forks, "between the Freeport Post Office and the second big run." Hamill Kenny, West Virginia Place Names: Their Origin and Meaning (Piedmont, WV: Place Name Press, 1945), 148; White's Topographical Atlas of West Virginia, 42. Crozet's survey map shows the "Californian" at the mouth of Mill Creek. Return.

Several families named Sleeth appear in area records. Two families were listed in the 1850 census in Ritchie County: David Sleeth, 51, a merchant, with his wife Elizabeth 38, and Granville Sleeth, 29, a farmer, with Nancy, 23. Return.

General Stephens was careful to record his mileage. His buggy may have been equipped with an odometer, which had been invented in Roman times, but he could also rely on mileposts erected along the turnpike. He likewise might have navigated with the aid of a map, such as the one preserved at the Virginia Historical Society, titled Tourist's Pocket Map of Virginia, published in 1849 by S. Augustus Mitchell. The handsome three-color chart, complete with useful tables of mileage, measures about 15 by 18 inches, but folds neatly into a black, clothbound hard cover only 3 by 5 inches, just the size to slip into a coat pocket. (The tourist map is a reduced scale version of Mitchell's large chart of the same date, which can be found at the Library of Congress.) Return.

J.L. Farnsworth, 56, a farmer from New Jersey, was counted in 1850 in Gilmer County. His place would have been near Troy. Return.

Weston (elev. 824). General Stephens notes that the town is 84 miles from Parkersburg. Return.

Henry Alexander Wise (1806-1876) had served five terms in Congress (1833-1844) as a Democrat, followed by a stint as Minister to Brazil (1844-1847). During the 1855 campaign he delivered a three-and-a-half-hour speech, which one observer characterized as being unsurpassed "for argument, wit, satire, and lofty eloquence." He had a reputation as a friend of the Trans-Allegheny region and as an occasional duelist. Dictionary of American Biography. Return.

Elias Heavner (1805-1884) and his wife Elizabeth (Hyre) (1809-1902) kept a tavern in Buckhannon. A sketch of the Heavner family can be found in Bernard L. Butcher, ed., Genealogical and Personal History of the Upper Monongahela Valley (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing, 1978 [1912]), 909. Return.

Hillery not identified. The old turnpike ran directly to Beverly, rather than looping north through Elkins as does the modern highway. Mr. Hillery's was probably near the present day village of Mabie in western Randolph County. Return.

Traces of the old turnpike can still be seen on Rich Mountain west of Beverly on Crozet Road, named for the French émigré who laid out so many of Virginia's public works in the early 19th Century. A few years later, the "broad & pretty" gap was the scene of George McClellan's defeat of Confederate troops. West Virginia, 376. Return.

Rod, a historic civil engineering and cadastral measurement equal to five and a half yards (16.5 feet). Also known as a pole. Return.

John McAdam (1756-1836) devised the most effective method of paving roads since Roman times. On a carefully prepared, well-drained, convex base, broken stone was compacted in layers of successively smaller sizes. Modern usage adds asphalt for a binder. 140 years after the Stephens party passed, limestone is still being quarried here and crushed for roads. General Stephens had more than an idle interest in roads and paving, as he was an active investor in Kentucky turnpike companies. Return.

Not identified; several Hamiltons lived near Huttonsville, where the turnpike and modern US 250 leave the relatively open terrain of the upper Tygart Valley (elev. 2100) and begin climbing. See Hu Maxwell, History of Randolph County, West Virginia (Parsons, WV: McClain Printing Co., 1961 [1898]). Return.

The name of the town is spelled Staunton, but pronounced as General Stephens spells it here. Return.

Buckhannon (elev. 1500), on the river of the same name, flowing north into the Monongahela. Return.

Beverly (elev. 1973) later lost its status as county seat to the new railroad town of Elkins. The townsfolk had better luck with the turnpike, which had been proposed to run south of Huttonsville, but the citizens of Beverly raised sufficient funds to get the road to pass through their town. Dr. A. S. Bosworth, A History of Randolph County, West Virginia (Parsons, WV: McClain Publishing, 1975 [1916]), 103-104. General Stephens notes the distance from Weston as 46 miles. Return.

After having retraced General Stephens' route (with the aid of an internal combustion engine), I have the greatest admiration for his horse, Tom, whose stamina is truly impressive. Traveling across the Appalachians, perpendicular to the ancient folds, requires climbing and descending one steep grade after another. Even if the turnpike was in good repair, the energy demands must have been substantial. Return.

In May 1855 George Burner was among those Pocahontas County citizens "who severally produced to Court the Sheriff's receipt for 5$ each, the tax imposed by law — a license is granted to these severally for keeping a house of private entertainment at their residences in this County until the first day of the May term next." He renewed his license the following year. Pocahontas Order Book, 5: 301, 351. Mr. Burner's would have been in present day Durbin (elev. 2730). Return.

At the crest of Cheat Mountain (elev. 3800), they would have climbed more than 1700 feet in about ten miles. Return.

In their journey across the convoluted geography of the Appalachians, the travelers had passed from the valleys of streams flowing west, directly to the Ohio, into the Monongahela watershed, where the streams flow north to Pennsylvania, and had reached the Greenbrier River, which flows south into the New River. They had yet to reach the watershed of the Atlantic. Return.

Allegheny Mountain (approx. elev. at the pass 4200) now marks the dividing line between Virginia and West Virginia. Anyone interested in the early history of Highland County should consult the map prepared by surveyor Thomas Campbell at the creation of the county in 1848 (just seven years before General Stephens' visit), which shows the major watercourses and property owners, along with the turnpike and the as-yet-unnamed court house site at Monterey. Details of many early families are in Oren F. Morton, A History of Highland County, Virginia (Monterey, VA: [author], 1911). Return.

Probably the younger Jacob Heavener (1797?- —). He may have been a brother of the travelers' host in Buckhannon two days before, according to a pedigree in the World Family Tree, which has Elias coming from Highland County. The Heavener name still appears on a general store at the crossroads called Hightown. The relatively level ground, known in early years as Crab Bottom, but now called Bluegrass Valley, contains the headwaters not only of the South Branch of the Potomac, but of the Back Creek of the south-flowing Jackson River, at an elevation of about 3,000 feet. Return.

John Wilson, (1808?- —), identified as a blacksmith in 1850, had married Barbara Ervine in 1842. Her parents, John and Deborah Davis Ervine were early settlers on the Cowpasture. The county history locates Wilson "at the turnpike ford on the Cowpasture." Morton, 253. The Cowpasture, like the Jackson, flows south into the James. Return.

The route of the old Parkersburg turnpike is identified by road signs on VA 688, a few miles south of modern US 250, which reaches the Great Valley through Jennings Gap. Climbing the narrow, twisting, gravel road through Dry Branch Gap is probably as close as modern travelers can come to experiencing the conditions of 1855. The only hostelry known in the village of Buffalo Gap (elev. 1880) dates from the postwar, railroad era, when the settlement relocated from the west side of the gap. Ann McCleary, Historical Resources in Augusta County, Virginia, Eighteenth Century to Present (Richmond: Virginia Historical Landmarks Commission, 1983), 943. Return.

Staunton (elev. 1366) was the leading town of the central Shenandoah Valley. Augusta County once embraced much of western Virginia, extending in theory at least to the Mississippi. The name of their hotel is not known. The town had boasted four taverns two decades before, the Wayne, Washington, Bell, and Eagle. The Wayne burnt in 1838, and information is lacking for the immediate prewar period. Joseph A. Waddell, Annals of Augusta County, Virginia, 1726-1871 (Staunton, VA: [author?], 1902), 423, 436. General Stephens noted that the distance from Beverly to Staunton was 106 miles. Return.

The recipients of the letters back in Kentucky would have needed to go to the Post Office to pick them up. Home delivery did not begin until 1863, and then only in selected cities. Newspapers of the time featured lists of the names of those who had not collected their mail. Return.

The final returns gave Wise a winning margin of 10,180. DAB. Return.

Established in 1825 as the Western State Asylum. A newspaper reported in 1866 that patients treated over the last ten years had included several deranged from "the war" as well as "from disappointed love 7; from intemperance and dissolate [sic] habits, 30; from religious excitement, 1; from the use of tobacco, 5; jealousy, 4; idleness, 5." Virginia: A Guide to the Old Dominion (New York, Oxford, 1941), 312. Return.

Mr Lipscomb not identified. The hotel was probably in Rockfish Gap, which is the lowest point (elev. 1400) on the Blue Ridge for some distance. Modern shops and restaurants perch beside the busy lanes of Interstate 64 offereing their services to modern travelers. Return.

Charlottesville (elev. 400-480), the county seat of Albemarle since 1761, was still primarily a college town, centered around the University of Virginia, although some minor industry developed after the arrival of the Virginia Central Railroad in the 1850s. Virginia, 204. Return.

The two roads ran parallel, separated by an outlying ridge of the Appalachians known as the Southwestern Mountains, rising a thousand feet above the surrounding land, stretching for more than 15 miles from the Rivanna River towards Orange Courthouse. The Stephenses took the road on the western side of the ridge, now Virginia 20. Return.

William Beck, age 30, operated a hotel in Stony Point at the time of the 1850 census. Return.