Barboursville

Our farmers came mostly from Virginia and Pennsylvania. Schools 

were good for those times and were well attended. Boys and girls came to 

school from all over the county, as nearly everybody had a horse, or in 

winter they could board in town at $1.50 to $2.00 per week. 

The first teacher I have any record of was David McGinnis, who taught here 

in about 1840. He was one of the first Marshall College students, and was 

studying for the ministry. The teachers, as I remember them, were Mr. 

Simpson, Edward Vertegan and wife, Joseph Foster and wife, Miss Fannie 

Chapman, Jared Armstrong, Mr. McClelland, Dr. V. R. Moss, James Thornburg, 

B. H. Thackston. All taught private schools before the Civil War. Tuition 

was $1.00, $1.50 to $2.00 per month. If it were possible to trace the boys 

who attended these schools, it would undoubtedly be found that their 

education compared with the best. 

Barboursville was surrounded by an agricultural section, producing large 

crops of grain, fat hogs, sheep, and cattle. Hogs constituted the "cash 

crop". They were butchered and packed in Barboursville. Hams and lard went 

to Pittsburgh or Philadelphia; side meat and shoulders to the salt works 

in Kanawha. Hogs were as fine as we have today, and were much cheaper to 

raise on mash, and finished with corn. Wagons came from North Carolina, 

loaded with apple brandy. They sold it here, and loaded back with bacon 

and salt. 

It would no doubt create much consternation to hear a boat whistle here in 

Barboursville, for the gate to open at the locks, so the steamboat could 

pass through. Then the polite clerk, in the old days, went down, assisting 

the ladies and children ashore, followed by the colored porter with the 

baggage. Yes, we saw just that sixty-five years ago. For Guyandotte River 

was locked and dammed by the New York Navigation Company as far as 

Branchland. Seven locks were put in at great expense, in order that the 

company might ship coal out. This was the beginning of coal development in 

the Guyandotte Valley. These locks and dams had no keepers during the 

Civil War, and so were ruined by floods, and were eventually taken out by 

the Government. My father, W. C. Miller, built two of these locks by 

contract, one just above the mouth of Mud River, and one at Branchland. 

His foreman, Billingly Stafford, was drowned during this work, and was 

buried in our old cemetery. 

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