Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1895-02-23

over mountain ranges that had been
rudely graded and thus made passable
for wheel-carriages; as to any other
routes, they were mere bridle-paths
Some OF our people still tell how their
grandmothers rode day after day hun
dreds of miles when accompanying
these migrating households. When
settled in their new homes in the
mountain wilds, these families were
buried as it were in the boundless
forests which surrounded them on
every side. These isolated homesteads,
destitute for the most part of the lux
uries their inmates had left behind
them. became in time the prolific
nurseries of a hardy and industrious
race. Living out of the world these
free mountaineers forgot the fastidious
refinements of the land their fathers
had forsaken; forgot indeed their fore
fathers ways and habits of life Mail
facilities were at best but discourage
ment to correspondence, and as the
old folks died their children failed to
keep up their connection with distant
relatives, and by and by all remem-
brance of relationship was lost. With
former family ties went many tradi-
tlons, many manners and customs still
cherished as sacred heritage by FAM
lilies in the older State; and in their
stead new customs and fresher aspira-
tions came to extend still further the
line of demarkation already establish
ed between the two peoples-for, ex-
cept in certain localities where pecu-
liar circumstances have maintained
the old status, two distinct peoples
they were, are, and probably ever will
be.
The extreme western and north
western portion Of the State was set
tied by all immigration having the
same general characteristics of fresh
ness, energy, and enterprise as that
which came over our eastern border.
Along the banks of the Ohio and its
navigable tributaries a robust and
hardy population took possession, and
thriving centers of trade everywhere
spraug into existence. Here the real
resources of the country began to be
developed; here were brought into no.
tice the natural products-salt, iron,
coal, petroleum-which have placed us
on record before the business world as
among the most resourceful and pros
pectively progressive of the States.
The establishment of these industries
in their turn invited and fostered an
immigration equally enterprising and
businessmen as that of their original
founders. West Virginia, still part
of Virginia, had found her calling
had started on a new career of her own
choosing. She had long been mere
annex-an outlying timber-tract and
pasture-ground to the lords of the
richer lowlands; but now her hardy
sons, true children of the soil, saw be-
fore them a higher destiny. They
were men fully fitted for their mission,
and admirably in harmony with their
surroundings. Slavery had never
gotten any real footing in their midst.
They were, therefore, men who did
not depend on others. but were self
reliant and Sufficient in all things.
The situation was of itself most favor
able to the development of equality
and bold independent manhood; des-
tiny had spoken; already these free
sons of West Virginia were in their
daily lives acting out the motto which
was to find place on the seal of the
new State; already they were West
Virginians, for we'll may it be said
that men bold and true constitute a
state.
Now came the war, and the foreshad-
owed destiny became reality. The
last link between the old State and
the new was severed nevermore to be
united. Was it not well done What
was there in common between the two
peoples ? Probably no people on
earth are better qualified than the peo-
pie of Lower Virginia to illustrate the
primary law of inertia so far as it per-
tains to the art and practice of remain
ing stationary while the universe re-
wolves around them. In fact mental
and physical repose has, in the course
of generations, become fine art among
the first families. A boy might stick
his jackknife into door-post down
there, and go back a gray-haired old
man and find his knife still sticking
where he left it half century before.
1t is needless to inquire too infinitely
into the cause of this chronic inert
ness; let it suffice us to know that
these men-these modern jewellers in
the venerable Castle of Indolence"-
are one and all products of the old re-
gene, and that their supreme indifer-
ence to all things vulgarly practical is
counted among the most estimable
virtues and excellencies to be acquir-
ed by persistent and consistent walk
in the good old waysas ways are in that
latitude.
What has West Virginia to do with
such an antediluvian civilization as
this When we cut loose from our
quondam relatives of the elder branch
and lineage, We should by all means
have cast off the last remnant of their
threadbare and antiquated style. Let
these good, easy going people go their
own way in peace and we will go ours,