The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1877-05-26
old gentleman, with remarkable military


foresight, had provided against this
strstsgem. First sscertsining the exact
point where the division line passed
through the house, he made chalk
mark 10 correspond, and planting one
TOO. on each side of the boundary, defed
the respective officers, under pains and
penalties, to attach tha. portion Of his
person beyond their bsliwick. Not hsv-
ing tho po oSer to divide his body, as Sol
ONION with his autocratic authority
would have done, and the egal difficulty
presented by his attitude being too great
for their injudicial minds, the officers re-
tired and left the bold debtor in posses
sion of the fort. lij- ,.-.
The elder MCCORMICK was the inventor
and manufscturer of the Mccormick
plow, which was famous throughout all
Virginia some tt,r,y years ago. The
old workshop is stlIi standing where he
and his boys worked, and where CYRUS
frst conceived the idea OF a reaper
aDd where he made the rude model OF
machine which Was destined TO accom-.
pllsh wonderful revolution in the labor
system of all gram growing countries
of the world. MCCORMICK and his
brothers having secured patent for his
invention erected shops Tor their manu-
facture at Chicago, then small town.
But with that judgment which has char
acterized them in all their subsequent
career, al that early day they could see
in the small town on the lake the
future metropolis OF the Great West.
The inventive genius of CYRUS Nc
CoBMIcK has been fully rewarded. He
and his brothers are to-day classed
among the wisest men of America. The
Emperor NAPOLEON. conferred upon
CYRUS the order OF Imperial Knight
hood, which his republican tastes in
dnced him to decline. His invention
was the first of series of useful ones,
which have done so much to tighten
labor and increase the products of this
continent. The humble Virginian boy
has been elevated from the toll and OBJ
scurity of workshop in the valley OF
Virginia to position OF wealth and
fame but now in a good old age, when
taking q retrospect Of his life, am sure
he can find no brighter spot than that OF
his childhood among the pleasant valleys
and blue mountains o. Virginia.
In the same neighborhood, about
mile from the old MCCORMICK home
s.ead, lives Mr.. j, E. A. GIBBS, the in.
ventor of the Gibbs and Wilcox Sewing
Machines. Mr.. GIBBS commenced life
as poor mechanic, but is now living in
sffluence, surrounded with all the COM
forts and elegsncles of life which his
large annual income affords. The his
tory and success of these two men COM
pletely refute the argument so often used
in the land where wooden nutmegs are
made, that the South is incapable of fur.
nlshirg inventive genius. 1t is unde-
Unable that the effect of slavery in retard-
ing development of the mental capacity
of the South Was baneful, but with that
narcotic removed and her dire necessi-
ties pressing upon her, which after all is
the best stimulaat to inventive genius, the
South is bound to take front rank in
the work OF fostering and promoting the
Arts and Sciences. She will soon out.
strip the North as manufacturing Sec
ton, ard the future is not far off when
New England will awake to the fright
full reality that in destroying slavery in
the South, she killed the goose which
laid her golden egg. Then the hypocri.
tical cant about the evils Of negro
slavery will no longer be heard
among the barren hills of Massa.
chussetts; and when the hum of
her spindle is low, and the grinding
of her mills ceases, not because the
grinders are few, but because there is
nothing for them to grind-then will be
heard wall the like OF which never went
up from the cold North. Touch Yam
KEGS pocket and you touch his SOUL
empty his pocket and bis soul is gone.
His loud professions of morality cease
when self-interest antsgonizes, and his
interest in the welfare of his fellow beings
dies out when the currency contracts.
The abolition OF slavery in the South
and the consequent destruction of fanati-
clsm in New England points bright
promise tor the country. &. h. NJ.