Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1879-01-18

The Wheeling Register, alIuulnS 10 tne
completion of the :. V. X. X. to Shep-
herdstown, speaks of that ancient burg
as SECLUDED town." and unwilling to
forego the pleasure of paying additional
compliments, concludes by saying :,'Gradr
ually the waste places OF our state are
being opened up by the civilizer." Friend
Zittl9 viii please attend to the Wheeling
editor.-Free Press.
BT All right, father Gallaher, yours
is a vermilEon edict, "and to hear is to
obey! Wen attend TO the gentleman
promptly, but "more in sorrow than In
anger" for it is evident to our editorial
optics that the poor fellow, wandering
in fit of hallucination beyond tie lim-
its of his own longitude. has allowed
his wits to 90 so far estray that he has
lost them altogether. This unfortunate
TACT is Sufficiently attested by his refer
ring to the earliest and best settled por-
,ions ofthe Eastearn Panhandle Of West
Virginia as ''was;e places "a phrase
which certainly no Trans-Alleghanian
on this side of the Ohio, in bis sober
senses, would any more think of apply
ing TO other parts of the world than
that the proveybial inhabitions of glass
houses should habitua!ly throw stones.
So, iuasmuch as the Wheeling editor
referred TO must have been non compos
meniis when be penned his paragraph
about ShepherdStown, we, OF course,
will have to overlook his ofence-luna-
tics being by law irresponsible for their
words ani deeds. This we do The more
readily as we feel sure that when he
shall again be clothed in his right mind,
and be told Of what he has said in his
craziness, he will be no less astonished
shan ashamed of having characterized
as "waste places" the identical localities
which were the first in all the State 20
be freed from such an imputation by
the fostering hand Of civilization and
culture
For he will not fail to remember that
this fair, fertile and famous clover val
lev" of what Washington, more than a
hundred wears ago, christened 1.-The gar
den of Virginia" is not only the Oldest
in settlement, but also the best in cultl-
walton and the most abundant in pro-
ductioc, compared with all other parts
of West Virginia. And that as for
Shenherdstown he will-coutritely, it is
TO be hopeG-recall the fact that it was
considerable corporate town, with its
municipal laws, mayor and common
council, full generation before the site
of Wheeling was first discovered 10y an
adventurous white man-that, about the
middle Of the last century, it was made
"a post of entry" by the Virginia House
of Burgesses, Gas may be seen in Hen
ning's Statutes at Large)-that the world
is irdebted 10 it for steam locomotlon,
without which Wheeling never would
have grown beyord the dimensions Of Il
struggling village-that it has supplied
three Governors TO Ohio and sent ont
more .'civilIzers" TO subdue and settle
the "waste places OF the West-inclu-
dino those in and around Wheeling
than any other town in the two Nir-
ginias.
Consequently, When Shepherdstown
and the surrounding region shall hap
pen again to be alladed to as waste
places it will be charity to attribute
the application of such phrase TO our
place as the irresponsible and unmean-
ing mutteriugs of madmau-especially
il he happens to live in the tuliginous
atmosphere of Wheeling, which though
capital place in many respects, is, at
best, but big and lively
--'Lodgc in a vast wilderness
With a boundcss contiguity of shade. "