Saturday morning, my wife, Ruth, and our dog, Edison, wandered Tucker County for my current book project about the county. Our destinations on this gorgeous, cool late-August Saturday were Parsons and Davis.
Parsons is the seat of Tucker County’s government. In the 2020 Census, there were 1,322 persons living there, making Parsons is the largest city in Tucker County. It has the distinction of possessing what appears to be the county’s only full-fledged traffic light, at the junction of routes 219 and 72.
The later highway was the route we took from our home in Preston County. From Kingwood, Route 72 follows the Cheat River through the canyon to Rowlesburg, St. George and Parsons.
St. George was established as the county seat after Tucker County was formed out of Randolph County, Virginia, in 1856. The Cheat River town had a court house, lawyer’s offices, the county’s first academy and several hotels—folks who had business to conduct at the courthouse faced long journeys across steep mountains and usually required lodging.
Parsons literally stole the county seat from St. George during the capstone event of a four-year “county seat war.” The railroad had chosen a route that went through Parsons rather than St. George, assuring the former of a more prosperous, populous future. Starting in 1889, a series of elections, all plagued with irregularities, were held to determine what town should be the true county seat. A special election held in April 1893, gave Parsons the three-fifths majority needed for the relocation. Property for a new courthouse and funding in the amount of $120 to relocate the records were secured. Meantime, a two-man St. George faction tried to obtain an injunction from the state, threatening to further delay the move.
The night of August 1, 1893, and armed party of nearly 200 men left Parsons for St. George, traveling “by horseback, buggies, and on foot. They followed the narrow winding river road, which made the distance to Saint George about eight miles,” wrote Homer Floyd Fansler in his landmark History of Tucker County (McClain,1963).
The Parsons gang are coming to take the county records tonight and sent me to cut the telephone line so’s nobody could tell St. George they’re coming!
The invaders had dispatched Bascom B. Baker on horseback earlier in the day to cut the communications line between the communities. Bascom was of no mind to shimmy up a pole in a densely wooded section; he found an easier target in a clearing near St. George and went to work. But someone spotted his suspicious activity and questioned Bascom, who responded: “The Parsons gang are coming to take the county records tonight and sent me to cut the telephone line so’s nobody could tell St. George they’re coming!”
Some shots were fired by the approaching raiders, who were met by St. George folks who had armed themselves. One man wielded a club with spikes driven into it. Words were exchanged, but with the sheriff as a member of the invading party, no blood bath was drawn along the Cheat River that night. The courthouse records were removed, loaded onto wagons and relocated to Parsons, which did not even have a courthouse at the time. As dawn crept across Backbone Mountain the next morning, the weary horses and mob entered Parsons with the records that remain there to this day. Fansler wrote that the courthouse bell from St. George reportedly “was kept ringing all the way to Parsons as a funeral dirge for Saint George.”
On to Parsons’ Day …
Saturday morning, while sitting at a picnic table and sipping our coffees from the aptly named Sunrise Coffee café on Route 219, we studied the details of the brick-and-stone Tucker County Courthouse as exposed by the actinic morning sun. Possessing elements of both Flemish Renaissance and Romanesque Revival styles, the two-story courthouse seems overbuilt for the state’s county with the fourth-smallest population.
Built of red, pressed brick, the courthouse is topped with a four-story tower with four clock faces. Years ago, I wrote a Goldenseal magazine story about the late Doyle Kisner of nearby Holly Meadows, who worked for months getting the vintage clocks to work again. We observed that the hands seemed to be stuck at 10:15 on the side facing our table, but at 10:20 they resumed their circuitous journey of “keeping time.”
We walked a block to a parking lot where the Parsons Day “Show Us Your Ride Show" was being held. There were contemporary, classic and antique vehicles in luscious, bold reds, yellows, silvers and aqua practically glowing under the cerulean sky. But my attention was drawn to a dull yellow/rusty rototiller owned by Bob Ekholm, who lives outside of Parsons on Holly Meadows Road.
Bob is a retired print-shop owner who is just a few months older than the 1946 Frazier Farm (Graham-Paige Motor Corp.) tiller he exhibited. In the late 1970s, Bob purchased the behemoth for use on his farm in Fairmont. I made the mistake of asking him if he still used it.
“Oh, hell, yes!” he said. He walked to the front of the machine, yanked the starting rope, and the engine erupted into the cacophony of two-stroke engine firing up for a hot date. Bob fiddled with the controls between the tubular, metal “handles” and demonstrated the 79-year-old machine’s full capabilities without damaging the asphalt.
Bob used the machine for a couple of years after he relocated to Parsons following the 1985 flood Cheat River Basin Flood. “I put it in the shed and forgot about it for 20 years,” Bob said. In 2019, I took it out, cleaned it up and it started right up.
Well into its retirement years, the tiller’s main purpose is working up Bob’s home vegetable garden. The B1-6 is overkill for that task; it was built to tackle fields with a heavy cover crop or break up new ground. According to the manuals and parts lists that Bob has for the machine, the manufacturer offered four different sets of tines, each designed for a different purpose. Bob said tines and other parts can still be found for this classic; one company even buys spent machines and refurbishes the parts.
Bob said a new machine cost around $470 and was sold through the auto dealerships that handled the Kaiser-Frazer automobiles. That arrangement was short lived, and G-P turned to selling their Frazer Farm tillers through agricultural machinery dealers.
While Bob purchased his B1-6 used, he has a friend, Nick Channel, who owns one that his father purchased new from the Lambert dealership in Parsons.
“And he still uses his, too,” Bob said.
While versatile in its capabilities, the B1-6 is a challenge to move and operate. With its all-metal construction, the tiller weighs 450 pounds. “It will go in a straight line, but when you go to make a turn, you really got to put some muscle in it,” Bob said.
By the time I wrapped up my visit with Bob, we needed to put some muscle into our plans to be in Davis by 1 p.m. for the grand opening of the Friends of the Blackwater’s Tucker County Heritage Art Exhibit. The presentation and depth of the exhibition had been upgraded since my visit during its soft opening earlier in the month. Located in the basement of the former Babcock Building, the industrial feel of the setting dovetails with the stories and historical photographs of the coal, lumber and railroading industries that built and sustained Tucker County from 1885 to 1950.
Ruth and I wandered about the signs, which were researched, written and designed by David Vago. Although we had seen many of them on our walks along the trails that host the signage, accessing them in a single location provided a continuity and an immersive experience. Videos with Vago and Tom Rodd narrating the stories enhanced the exhibit.
It continues through September and is free and open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday and Sunday. Follow the signs from Wandering Caravan’s shop, 437 William Ave., Davis, to access the event.
