The Monongalia Story
Halleck Lies On Route of Early County
Road
Earl Core, Professor Emeritus,
West Virginia University
At the crest of the mountain
range shown on maps as Laurel Hill or Chestnut Ridge lies
the community of Halleck, the highest in
Monongalia County, about 1,850 feet above sea level. Some
knobs reach as high as 2,100 feet.
One of the early roads of Monongalia County ran through
the community later known as Halleck.
The "old State Road" from Winchester to
Morgantown was built in 1784 and a branch, constructed a
few years later, turned off just west of Kingwood and ran
across the mountain to Smithtown, then on to Clarksburg by
way of Pettyjohn's Ford near the mouth of the Tygart Valley
River.
For many years the community, church and school were
known as Smith's, in honor of Joseph Smith who settled there soon after
1800.
From 1857 on, the people were served by a post office
at Clinton Furnace, four miles to the north, where iron was made.
The
post office of Halleck was established March 18, 1880,
named for Gen. Henry W. Halleck of Civil War fame. At least
25 Civil War veterans are buried in the Halleck cemetery.
Charles H. Duncan was the first postmaster. The
post office was discontinued in 1908 and mail thereafter
came by rural free delivery.
Despite the elevation, the land
is well suited to agriculture and the farms were in cultivation
before 1830.
Among the early settlers were Joseph Smith,
Samuel B. Brown, James Watson, Jacob Cartwright, Asa Fletcher,
Hugh Austin, Oliver P. McRae, A.C. Reppert, George T. Loard,
George N. King, William Galliher, Jacob Kerns and Joseph
Trickett.
The first school
in the community was built in 1843 on lands of Hugh Austin
and was known as the Galliher School. School was held
there until 1847 and again from 1858 to 1861.
A log schoolhouse
was built in 1848 and was used both as a subscription school
and as a church, until a church building was constructed.
The building was 20 by 24 feet in size, with a door in the
front and a fireplace and chimney at the back.
Early teachers were Oliver P. McRae, Edgar B. Watson,
Louvenia Harrison, James Watson, Eli Moorlage, John Kizer
and Samuel Woods.
After the Civil War, the first free school was opened
in the Halleck log church. The first teacher was John
W. Mason, who later was a member of the state Supreme Court
of Appeals.
This was the first free school in Clinton District
and was said by some to be the first in the state.
In 1869, a frame building, 28 by 32 feet in size, was
erected on the site of the old log school. It was painted white, with a blackboard
extending the full length of the north end of the building and a Burnside stove
in the middle of the room.
Old-timers remembered that a large chestnut tree stood
just to the west, a favorite resort of the boys and girls in autumn, after the
first frost brought the nets rattling down. Morgan B. Hale was the first teacher
in the new building.
A third building replaced this one in 1896, and the
first teacher there was Claud McBee. A new room was added to this building in
1926 by the Farm Women's Club. In 1934, a junior high school was established
at Halleck, with Miss Daisy Timmons as principal.
The first church at Halleck was a log building constructed
in 1854. Joseph Smith and his wife made a deed
for the lot to Oliver P. McRae, Hugh Austin, Joseph Smith,
John Stevens, Thomas Miller, Samuel Stevens and Jacob Cartwright,
trustees for the Methodist Episcopal congregation.
The Rev.
Phillip Greene was the first pastor and Oliver P. McRae
was the first class leader.
A new frame building was constructed
in 1873 and dedicated "on
a beautiful October Sabbath."
Dr.
Alexander Martin, president of West Virginia
University, preached in the morning and,
after a picnic dinner in the grove nearby,
the Rev. J. Wesley Webb, presiding elder,
preached in the afternoon. The Rev. J.W.
Hess was pastor at the time.
Halleck
was a commercial center as well as a religious and an educational
center until paved roads, in the early 1930s, allowed ready
access to the stores of the county
seat.
In the 1920s, J.M. Gemas operated a general store.
George H. Brown was the community undertaker and James
Ellery Smith was the village blacksmith.
Smith Brothers ran
a feed mill, a garage and a general repair and supply shop.
Before the Civil War, Joseph Smith operated a foundry and
in about 1875, James Miller ran a pottery, which did not
last long.
Many citizens of the community have acquired
distinction. Elijah McRae wrote a history of the community,
from which much of the information here has been taken.
James S. Watson was elected to the U.S. House of
Representatives in 1880. M.L. Brown was county superintendent
of schools and later (in 1911) was appointed warden of the
state penitentiary.
Samuel Boardman Brown was the first pupil
of Halleck school to graduate from West Virginia University
and filled the chair of geology at the University for more
than a third of a century.
Nora B. Phillips was a nurse in Bellevue Hospital,
New York City.
The building of hard-surfaced roads in the
community began in 1927, with a short stretch of road being
improved with a 12-inch base of broken stone covered with
crushed limestone.
Rt. 56 from Morgantown to Grafton, later
called U.S. Rt. 119, was completed in 1935, providing all-weather
connections to both cities. |
