The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1899-07-12

Inc HeTcuieah Iask AcCOmpliSne
by Davis In Developing the Natura
Wealth Of the Country.
|, | In the Pittsburg Dispatch recently
"Gath" the famous writer has thre
column story relative to a trip u
along the West Virginia Central rail
road. He says in part:
] have visited Senator Elkins ant
his wife's father, ex-senator Davis, a
the town of Elkins, West Virginia
fairy town of 1000 people out of tn
igreen mountains within the last min
years. The West Virginia editors in
yited me to read to them, and | lef
Washington before | ] O'Clock, and a
noon changed cars at Cumberland ant
began to go by the West Virginia Cen
trail railroad 113 miles among tn,
wild mountains. We assembled tn,
Potomac until it became baby-lik,
creek. crawling around the level gladel
or upland pastures and its source, tn,
Fairfax stone planted by young Georg,
Washington, as Lord Fairfax's ives
tern boundary, was almost in oul
view.
"Think Of the monopoly of those
times from Charles ii to the battle Of
Yorktown. when Fairfax owned every
acre between the Potomac and Rap
pahannock, the Chesapeake and the
toy Allegheny! To mark out some Of
it, young Washington entered the
public service and finally did the great
act OF his life, the starter, by going
down the Monongahela to Pittsbure
and then without any fort and up the
Allegheny toward New York state al.
most to Erie, Pa.
after 1875 years from this act and
a generation after the first railroad
crossed to the west, Henry Davis a
plain employe Of the Baltimore and
Ohio railroad joined the Potomac to
the Blackwater, which is one of the
sources of the Monongahela, by rail-
road which is 3,100 feet above tide,
the highest of the mountain crossings.
MIR. DAVIS HERCULEAN TASK.
"Mr. Davis was in pursuit of lum-
Der and coal. He had herculean
job. The land titles and surveys were
negligent, the administration of the
mountain counties in tangle, and
patience and perseverance were the
only keys to the possession of enough
land to develop. He had a young
daughter however, who married the
delegate from New Mexico, Elkins, a
Missourian, driven from about Kan
sas City by the war bandits.
fnl ar{o
the rich Republicans as Davis had
been democratic United States Sen
ator. Now Elkins is the United
States Senator, and the opening of
Davis mines by foreign negro and
northern votes has changed West Vir-
ginia from democratic to republican.
To complicate the situation, Arthur
P. German is the cousin Of Mr.. Davis
and candidate for President of the
United States. If Mr.. Bryan can be
dispensed with, German will run and
German has realized some of his indie
pendence from the railroad and its
coke, coal, lumber, land and new town
industries. Germans portrait in oil
is the gem of Davis house.
AL uHCoC uillHSS ndHpCH III
Oldest State in the Union right in our
day. West Virginia is another and
nobler Pennsylvania, and Elkins pre-
dicted in his speech before the editors
that it would have 5, 900, 900 people in
the year 3, 900 which is Pennsylvania's
present population.
LIKE TRAVELLING ON VELVET.
''The trip from Cumberland to Ell
kins takes five hours, and it reminded
me of running needle through moss
or green velvet. We chased up the
Potomac past the immense wood
pulp mills at Piedmont, where the
machinery, has been moved to the
heart of the spruce and hemlock for
est, and the quarrelsome population
of Cumberland is bowling like the
wolf to the lamb, that manufacturers
are muddying its water. So are the
old, stuck first country towns like Bev-
erly and st. George threatening civil
war because the railroad towns are
claiming the court houses.
The new towns on the new railroad
carry names of the old colleagues of
Davis and Elkins. They are Barnum,
Harrison, Hendricks, German, Bayard
and Davis.
THE GREAT CHANGE IN 25 YEARS.
Gas soon as we get down to the
levels of the Blackwater, the scenery
changes from the East to the West.
The valleys spread out gradually, the
cones become mounds, the verdure is
wider, the soil is better. The Ohio,
as you know, curves backward upon
itself in the Monongahela, like a
whip-lash falling parallel to the whip
stock. Rather if the whip-lash cat
of several tails. as the Blackwater,
Cheat, Tygart, ETC., each tail obeying
its own mountain lines.
"Here is G wonderful new world
aud yet % years ago fished this re-
gion without the slightest sense of
the fortunes in it. So do old land
owners now complain that their coal
lands are not developed and that the
strangers have only brought in the
railroad to haul out their own produc-
tions. The owner of the land is very
apt to feed his own mouth first. Why
could we never dig way out yourself,
old gentlemen of two many ancestors?
Because We are not manual.
"The house of ex-senator Davis,
made of pink and gold tinted sand
stone, is about 100 feet by go. That
of Senator Elkins, in the same gen.
eral forest edge, is nearly a third larg-
er, but is made of russell tinted
shingles. Both houses on the rim Of
a vast green mountain amphitheatre,
show far off with their turrets and
pediments. Through each runs hall
nearly a third the width of the struc-
ture, treated with wide. cayernour
fireplaces and opening into living
rooms.
OLD OAK AND FINE TAPESTRY.
1.-THE interior is surrounded with a
second story gallery, with the eye or
opening some 80 feet wide, vision of
oak, with the frieze in tapestry and
panels upon the abutments, sculptur-
ed columns, low stepped stairs gliding
up to circular bays, oil paintings Of
his Senatorial friends, like Thurman,
Bayard, German, as well as his grand
parents and family. His library is in
a corner and is octagon, or lantern
shaped, rising high, and with its sep
arate entrance from the lawn.
ITO see Elkins at work with the
concerns Of his growing state attests
the perfection of the American sena-
tar. Judgment, policy, decision are
as regular as his morals. He Is Of
West Virginia stock, his father con-
federate In feeling, and one brother