Elkins Rotary learns about Davis, railroad history

Photo courtesy of the West Virginia Railroad Museum
Henry Gassaway Davis was the subject of a discussion at the most recent Elkins Rotary Club meeting.

ELKINS — Jim Schoonover, former president of the West Virginia Railroad Museum, spoke to the Elkins Rotary Club about two new exhibits at the museum, one about the Donahue brothers and a much larger exhibit built around Henry Gassaway Davis and the West Virginia and Pittsburgh Central Railroad.

The Donahue brothers exhibit is dedicated to a family who focused on clean-ups after train wrecks.

“When things go wrong with the railroad, they put things back together, whether it’s the tracks or the trains,” Schoonover said.

The larger exhibit is built around Henry Gassaway Davis and his connection to the railroad.

“The first railroad that came to Elkins was the West Virginia Central and Pittsburgh Railroad through the efforts of Henry G. Davis,” explained Schoonover.

Information for the exhibit was provided by the WVU Library, Director of Booth Library at Davis & Elkins College Mary Jo DeJoice, local historian Rob Whetsell and the Western Maryland Historical Society. Additionally, two biographies of Davis were referenced — “Henry Gassaway Davis, an Old Fashioned Biography” by Dr. Thomas R. Ross, long-time professor at Davis & Elkins College and former Rotarian; and “The Life and Times of Henry Gassaway Davis” written by Charles Pepper, which was written at the behest of the Davis family.

Finally, “West Virginia Central and Pittsburgh Railway” by Allen Clark was referenced.

“This book is about the operation of the railroad, not the politics of the time, but about the problems with strikes and construction, difficulties with operations and a lot of references to the letters in Davis’ papers that were written to other people trying to fix some of those problems,” Schoonover said.

Davis was born in November 1823. His father was a merchant and rather well to do. He was pleased the railroad was being built from Baltimore to Ellicott City in 1827. By the time young Davis was 14 years of age, his father had suffered financial reversals and they had lost everything.

Davis only had an elementary education and at the age of 14 he had begun working as a waterboy in a quarry in Maryland. The governor of Maryland, who was a friend of the Davis family, gave him a job working on his farm keeping the books and managing the supplies of the farm. Shortly after that, Davis went to work on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad as a brakeman. The brakeman’s job was extremely difficult; the brakes had to be set by hand, jumping from car to car.

“He had an experience where there was a train wreck. They saw this young man who was telling people what needed to be done, so on and so forth, at the time he was about 18 years old, all observed by the president of the railroad and he thought ‘that young man’s got promise,’” Schoonover said. Soon after that, Davis was made a freight conductor and then a passenger train conductor.

“[Davis] would be riding on the train as a conductor, staying in the same hotels as the likes of Stephen Douglass or Henry Clay. He met several politicians that he got to know, and they got to know him,” Schoonover said

“Through all of these things, Davis got the job as superintendent at Piedmont. When he moved to Piedmont in 1852, he and his brother Thomas were living in a box car. In 1853, Davis married Katherine Bance, whose father was a county judge.

Shortly after their marriage, Katherine’s father died in 1954 and her share of the estate amounted to about $50,000, which was a considerable sum of money in those days, worth about $1.9 million.

“While he is acting as the person in charge of the B&O, he started his own business. He had ridden the trains back and forth looking at the undeveloped properties in West Virginia. Wonder where he got his start? He got it the old fashioned way, he married into the money. With Katherine’s assistance, he was able to buy thousands of acres of undeveloped property,” Schoonover said.

In 1858, Davis left the employ of the B&O Railroad and was working on his own endeavors. Throughout the Civil War (1861-1865), Davis provided the B&O Railroad with timbers for their tracks which were being torn up by Confederate sympathizers.

Davis wanted to serve in the Union army but when he met with President Lincoln, he was told that he was doing more for the war effort with his current activities then he could do as a soldier.

After the Civil War, in 1866, Davis was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates. Within his first three weeks of being a freshmen delegate, Davis got Hampshire County divided into two counties for the convenience of those who lived in the county, creating Mineral County.

Less than two weeks later, he helped another delegate get Hardy County divided into Hardy and Grant counties. Shortly after this, Davis acquired a charter to run a railroad from Piedmont to White Sulphur Springs. He was given the right to buy the necessary property at his price. Davis saw the untapped property in West Virginia as something that needed to be exploited.

There was a financial panic around 1870, which made it difficult for Davis to continue to operate his business as he would have liked. However, he was able to continue to advance his political career, becoming a state senator and, rather quickly, was appointed by the West Virginia Legislature as a United States senator. Davis served two terms as a U.S. senator and was on the appropriations committee.

During Davis’ time in Congress, a bipartisanship existed. His son-in-law and fellow U.S. Senator Stephen B. Elkins was a Republican; they rarely disagreed with politics. Also, during this time, the railroad continued to expand.

In 1884, the railroad reached the Fairfax Summit at Thomas and by 1885, it had reached the town of Davis. A route to White Sulphur Springs down the Blackwater Canyon was also in the works. It took until 1889 to reach Parsons and finally Elkins.

In September 1889, the Tygarts Valley News reported, “[T]here are now two millinery shops, two planing mills, one shoe shop, two jewelry stores, two blacksmiths, one saddle shops, two barber shops and a meat market. And there is not a dude or loafer in town,” said Schoonover.

Eventually, the railroad was extended to Beverly, Huttonsville and Belington. A connection between the B&O Railroad in Cumberland and the C&O in Elkins was finally established.

Davis liked to name towns for family members and friends. He purchased property in Leadsville in order to change the name to Elkins. Other towns named for friends of Davis are Shaw, which is named for railroad official Major Alexander Shaw; Blaine is named for James G. Blaine, U.S. Senator from Maine; Gormania is named for U.S. Senator Arthur Gorman; and Baird was named for U.S. Senator Thomas Baird.

Towns named for family members are Thomas which was named for Davis’ brother, Thomas Beall Davis; the town of Davis was named for Davis himself; Elkins was named for Davis’ son-in-law, Stephen B. Elkins; and Junior was named for Henry G. Davis Jr.

During one excursion, Davis was telling those with him for whom the various towns were named. As they approached Montrose, which was not named for a family member of friend, one of those assembled quipped “[D]id you run out of friends, Henry?”

One special item in the Davis exhibit is a 100% sterling silver Tiffany urn, which was given to Davis in 1908 by 13 railroad presidents, the members of the Pan-American Committee. He served as chairman of that committee for many years with a goal of extending commerce beyond the United States to Mexico, Central America and South America.

“Davis cherished the urn and, according to his granddaughter, used it to put his watch and things in at night in his bedroom,” Schoonover said.

When the exhibit closes at the West Virginia Railroad Museum, the panels created for the exhibit and the urn will be placed on permanent loan to the Booth Library at Davis & Elkins College.

The West Virginia Railroad Museum is located at 2 Railroad Avenue and is open Thursday-Sunday, 9:30 a.m. -4:30 p.m. More information about the museum can be found at its website, www.wvrailmuseum.com.

Rotary is a global network of 1.4 million neighbors, friends, leaders and problem-solvers who see a world where people unite and take action to create lasting change — across the globe, in their communities, and in themselves. Visit www.Rotary.org to learn more about Rotary International.

Visit the club’s Facebook page — Rotary Club of Elkins — or contact club president Kenny George at kenneth.george@blueridgeriskpartners.com for more information about the Rotary Club of Elkins.