Appalachian History

Please welcome guest blogger C.J. Pitzer. Pitzer, who recently graduated from West Virginia University with both a Bachelor Degree in Political Science and a Masters Degree in Business Administration, has recently begun researching the life of West Virginia towns that were submerged by the Tygart Lake Dam. He's publishing his findings in a brand new blog: Towns of Tygart Lake.


Ever thought it could happen in your own back yard? Visualizing your home sinking down to the dark depths forever arouses nightmares and primal fears. And yet this scenario became a reality in 1938 for those living along the river a few miles south of Grafton, WV.

Cecil WV, early 1900s. From 'Towns of Tygart Lake' blog.

The Tygart Lake Dam was designed to provide flood protection for the Tygart River Valley as well as for the Monongahela and upper Ohio rivers. Although the benefits of the dam may be now be seen as immeasurable in terms of preventing the loss of lives and property, there were some negatives associated with its construction. One of which was the flooding of many small towns along the banks of the Tygart river.

The rising water forever changed the land as well as the lives of those who had to be relocated.

These towns may have been small and insignificant compared to today’s standards; however, to their residents they were home. The first of these towns was Yates, located near the modern day swimming area of Tygart Lake. Next heading up stream was Stonehouse approximately two coves down from Yates.

The third, located in modern day Hailslip Cove, was called Cecil and may have been the largest of four communities. Cecil as a whole may not have been swallowed up by the lake; however, it seemed to have disappeared from the maps after the forming of the lake. The fourth small town was referred to as Sandy and was located close to the lake’s head waters. It appears to have been settled around the county line dividing Taylor and Barbour counties.

In an effort to put a human face on the flooding of these four small communities I have attempted to find newspaper stories that discuss how people were affected by the building of the dam. One Cecil resident, a W. W. McDaniel, was lauded in the Grafton Sentinel for his poems 'Where the Rhododendron Grows' and 'The Old Water Mill.'

His overall involvement in the community eventually led to his becoming known as the "Sage of Cecil." For 56 years Mr. McDaniel lived in Cecil, tending to his farm, marrying, and raising his children. This all would change in 1936 when the federal government compelled Mr. McDaniel to leave his home behind as the waters began to rise. The "land he loved so well was relinquished with the deepest sorrow." This is only one personal story related to the flooding of these towns and there are no doubt others just as dramatic.

Throughout history towns have been forgotten or abandoned, lost in the continuous march of time. These four towns suffered the same fate. Although they are gone in the physical sense the fact that they where once full of life is reason enough to remember them.



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Community Christmas tree, Knoxville, TN. On Market Street between Union Avenue and Clinch Avenue. Night view. Ordered by Knoxville Community Service Council. December 21, 1921.

















"Two unidentified women (initials M.H.P. and A.H.) in 1908 sent this Christmas greeting to Kentuckian Mary McDowell, "The manner of our growing old is the measure of our life."








Covered bridge, 32’ long, near Dunkinsville, OH.












In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Portland cutter was the most popular type of sleigh used in the United States.

Peter Kimball and his sons–notably Charles Porter Kimball of Portland, Maine, developed the design. Fancy cutters, trimmed with silk and silver cost about one hundred and fifty dollars. By 1910 plain cutters were available in the twenty dollar range.



Santa Claus is surrounded by children in front of O. J. Morrison's Store in Grafton, WV, circa 1920.










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It took the individual effort of each Jarvis, mother and daughter, over two generations to forge the Mother’s Day we recognize today. And it's a story with a twist, so buckle up!

Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis, of Grafton WV, had attempted starting a series of Mothers' Day Work Clubs in Webster, Grafton, Fetterman, Pruntytown, and Philippi in 1858 to improve sanitation. She continued to organize women throughout the Civil War to work for better sanitary conditions for both sides.

In the summer of 1865, Jarvis organized a Mothers' Friendship Day at the courthouse in Pruntytown to bring together soldiers and neighbors of all political beliefs. The goal was to work in conjunction with local doctors to provide health care to war veterans plagued by diseases such dysentery, small pox, and tuberculosis.

The event was a great success despite the fear of many that it would erupt in violence. Mothers' Friendship Day was an annual event for several years.

Ann Jarvis' daughter, Anna Jarvis, would of course have known of her mother's work. Much later, this second Jarvis started her own crusade to found a memorial day for women.

After her husband’s death in 1902, Ann moved to Philadelphia to live with her son Claude and daughters Anna and Lillian. Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis died in Bala-Cynwyd, west of Philadelphia, on May 9, 1905 at the age of 72.

Anna led a small tribute to her mother at St. Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church back in Grafton, where her Mother had spent 25 years teaching Sunday School, on May 12, 1907. Then on May 10, 1908, the first official Mother's Day celebration took place at both that church and also at the Wanamaker Store Auditorium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

St. Andrew's Methodist Episcopal Church Sunday School Room, 1911, Grafton, WV. Oval portraits on wall show Ann Jarvis (left) and Anna Jarvis (right).

John Wanamaker was one of the founders of today's modern day department store.  He no doubt recognized the profit possibilities of a potentially national event that could generate lots of gift sales, and he had the finances to push it. And as a former U.S. postmaster general, he had the political weight to advance it.

That same year, Elmer Burkett, a U.S. Senator from Nebraska, proposed making Mother's Day a national holiday at the request of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA). The proposal was defeated, but by 1909 forty-six states, as well as parts of Canada and Mexico, were holding Mother's Day services.

Anna Jarvis devoted herself full time to the creation of Mother's Day, endlessly petitioning state governments, business leaders, women groups, churches and other institutions and organizations.  She did have her ticks: she incorporated herself as the Mother’s Day International Association, and claimed copyright on the second Sunday of May.

She finally convinced the World's Sunday School Association, a key influence over state legislators and Congress, to back her. In 1912 West Virginia became the first state to officially recognize Mother's Day, and in 1914 Woodrow Wilson signed it into national observance, declaring the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day.

By the 1920s, Anna Jarvis had become soured on the holiday’s commercialization. She and her sister Ellsinore ultimately spent themselves into poverty campaigning against the holiday.

In 1943, the 79 year old Jarvis, partially deaf and blind, entered a sanitarium in West Chester, Pennsylvania. For reasons unrecorded, the Florists' Exchange, a trade association, picked up some of her bills, unbeknownst to her. And even after she told a reporter she was sorry she ever started the whole thing, she received thousands of Mother's Day cards each May until she died, in 1948.
 
"A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world,” she is quoted as saying in her New York Times obituary. “And candy! You take a box to Mother—and then eat most of it yourself. A pretty sentiment!"

She never married and was never a mother.

 
Sources: www.wvculture.org/hiStory/jarvis.html
www.smithsonianmag.com/issues/2007/may/last-mothers.php
www.mothersdaycentral.com/about-mothersday/history/
www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070513/NEWS/705130403/1036


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