Chapter I
Physical Features
History of Randolph County West Virginia
“This our life exempt from public haunts finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in stones and good in everything.”
THE pioneers of Randolph partook of their rugged environment in their mental, moral and physical characteristics That period produced a superior class of men because the struggle for existence was ameliorated by easy access to the soil, giving opportunity for culture and the social amenities and fostering; a generous and hospitable spirit. The extent and direction in which man is compelled to expend his energy in obtaining food, shelter and raiment materially influence his life and belief. In the field of biology it is a well known law that every leaf, limb or branch is developed because of the necessity of the organism to obtain support from its environment. The organism is strong or feeble, depending upon the munificence with which the surroundings bestow their gifts.
The proverbial utterance that “mountaineers are always freemen” is largely true for the reason that a people living in the seclusion of valleys, surrounded by high mountains are enabled by Nature’s fortresses to impel invading foes. Moreover, the birds in the illimitable air and the animals that roam at will in the wilds of the woods suggest to man the inherent right to freedom and independence.
Randolph is the largest county in the State with an area of 1,080 square miles. The contour of the county exhibits a series of mountain ranges with parallel valleys. The valleys are drained by the several forks of the Cheat, the Valley River, Middle Fork, Buckhannon, Elk and Gauley Rivers. Tygarts Valley is about 40 miles long and averages one mile in width. The head of the valley is known as Mingo Flats. The highest point in the county is Snyder’s Knob in Mingo district on the Pocahontas line. Its altitude is 4,730 feet, being only 130 feet below Spruce Knob, in Pendleton County, the highest point in the State. The lowest point in the county is at the Randolph-Tucker line, on Cheat River with an elevation of 1,765 feet. At the Southern extremity where the Elk River enters Randolph, the altitude is 2,390 feet and at the Randolph-Webster line it is 2,000 feet. The Valley River has a fall in Randolph of 1,325 feet. Cheat River has a fall in Randolph of 1,930 feet, more than it has in its subsequent course of 3,000 miles to the Gulf.
The following table will show the elevation of some of the places in Randolph:
Middle Fork Bridge 1,900 Elkins 1,950 Kerens 2,000 Beverly 2,000 Lick 2,000 Orlena 2,000 Montrose 2,050 Valley Bend 2,050 Huttonsville 2,050 Lee Bell 2,100 Cassity 2,100 Long 2,100 Crickard 2,100 Roaring Creek 2,100 Elkwater 2,200 West Huttonsville 2,300 Helvetia 2,400 Alpina 2,400 Harman 2,400 Day’s Mills 2,450 Mouth Fishing Hawk 2,480 Valley Head 2,500 Kingsville 2,500 Job 2,600 Laurel Hill B. and B. Pike 2,600 Mingo Flats 2,700 Pickens 2,700 Blue Springs 2,900 Florence 2,900 Glady 2,900 Monterville 3,000 Rich Mountain Battle Field 3,000 Osceola 3,400 The Sinks 3,400 Rich Mountain 3,400 Nettly Mountain 3,400 Currence Knob 3,500 Lone Tree 3,570 Cheat Bridge 3,600 Bickle Knob 4,020 Bayard Knob 4,150 Yokum Knob 4,330 Ward Knob 4,400 Crouch Knob 4,600 The rocks of Randolph, with few exceptions, are limestone, sandstone and shale. Nearly all of these rocks are of sedimentary origin. Limestone was formed of the remains of the shells or skeletons of sea animals, more or less broken to fragments or even ground to powder in the waves of shallow waters. It is much more soluble in water than other rocks. Sandstone was formed from waste of such rocks as granite. The sand was washed into the sea or other body of water and was there spread out into layers which in the course of ages accumulated in great thickness. Infiltering waters, carrying some mineral substance in solution was deposited between the grains and bound them more or less perfectly together. The finer waste of granite rocks formed shale and slate. Millions of years ago the only dry land in North America was a mountain ridge lying east of the Alleghenies. This primitive mountain by an internal force was forced up out of the bed of the ocean. The rocks forming this mountain were not sedimentary in origin. The action of air, wind and water in the course of a long period wore down this mountain to a base level and deposited its silt and sediment layer upon layer in the bottom of the ocean. The land formation crept steadily westward. There were alternate intervals of upheavals and subsidences. The coal beds of Randolph formed by compressed vegetation, mark successive terrestrial surfaces. At the time of the formation of the Appalachian plateau, there were no deep valleys or high mountains. The dry land was plastic and formative. There were anticlinals and synclinals that in the course of long periods of time by the action of floods, frosts and other agencies sculpted out deep valleys and formed high mountains.
No lake, probably, ever existed in the present formation of Tygarts Valley. The outlet of the Valley, with the exception of temporary land slides, perhaps, has ever been on a lower plane than its floor. However, that the flood plane of the valley has been gradually degrading or eroding, is evidenced by river terraces in different parts of the valley, covered by sandstones worn smooth by agitation in a stream with a rapid current. These terraces are particularly prominent on the M. J. Coberly farm two miles above Beverly and on the opposite side of the river on the farm of D. R. Baker. Cheat River as it passes through Randolph County is being eroded or degraded at the rate of two inches per annum.
The Sinks
Perhaps the greatest natural curiosity in Randolph County is the sinks, where Gandy Creek makes a remarkable subterranean passage beneath a spur of the Allegheny mountains. The stream issues from its lethean channel in three arched passages side by side on the face of a perpendicular cliff, which abridges the glen by an arched opening fifty feet wide by twenty feet high. Into this orifice Gandy’s waters incessantly glide. At a low stage of the water a few persons have succeeded in making their way from entrance to exit.
SOURCE: Page(s) 7 – 11 , A History of Randolph County West Virginia, From its Earliest Exploration and Settlement to the Present Time, Dr. A. S. Bosworth, 1916
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