Wheeling's Gambling History to 1976

By Mike Minder

This complete and remarkable history of gambling in Wheeling begins with the origins of odds and evens as an old fortune telling "game" and ends shortly after the death of "Big Bill" Lias. Minder, historian-turned-detective, gets credit not only for his care in recounting the evolution of gambling in the Wheeling area, but also for gambling in local Native American cultures. In the same way, he assesses the attitudes of religion regarding the human tendency to gamble. Minder describes the rules of various games and the stories of famous and not-so-famous players. He also investigates the reasons people gamble and methods of cheating. Government-sponsored gambling is also explored.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Minder
• Release date: Aug 7, 2011
• ISBN: 9781311914118

Mike Minder

Mike Minder was born and raised in Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1963. He graduated from Wheeling Park High School in 1981. Mike served in the U.S. Army's Military Intelligence Branch as a morse code interceptor. He was later assigned to the Army Reserve, first as a radio operator in Special Forces, then as an operations sergeant in an engineer company. Mike also worked as a store detective and internal security manager for a major U.S. retailer. In 1995, he graduated from Bethany College, winning the Chapman Prize in History. In 1996, Mike finished third in a six-candidate race for Mayor of Wheeling.

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Wheeling's Gambling History to 1976

Published by Mike Minder at Smashwords

Copyright 1997 Mike Minder

To my uncle, "Scotty Matysiak (1918-1997)

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to the following people and organizations that provided many of the resources to help make this book possible:

Bethany College Library

William Carney

Peg Davis

Larry Good

Dr. Mary-Bess Halford

Dr. David Javersak

Dr. Gary Kappel

Carrie Nobel Kline

Michael Kline

Dr. Leslie Lucas

Martins Ferry Public Library

Betty Matysiak

Scotty Matysiak

Amelia Minder

Judy Minder

Bill Mowry

Jean Mowry

Ohio County Public Library

Dr. Jocelyn Sheppard

Wheeling Area Genealogical Society

Wheeling Intelligencer

Wheeling News-Register

Wheeling Police Department

Dr. William Young

Special thanks to the Wheeling National Heritage Area Project for allowing me to borrow their Wheeling time period names for my chapter titles.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One: The End of the East (Prior to 1818)

Chapter Two: The Gateway to the West (1818 to 1849)

Chapter Three: Secession and Statehood (1849 to 1865)

Chapter Four: Prosperity in the Panhandle (1865 to 1926)

Chapter Five: The Stage of the Mountain State (1926 to 1976)

Epilogue

Notes

Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

The City of Wheeling's history is an example of luck and good fortune. In the words of a real estate agent, the good fortune of Wheeling's history can be summed up in three words: LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION! Wheeling had the Ohio River for easy transportation, navigable hills and valleys, and later, the National Road to the West. Wheeling's frontier spirit of trying to beat the odds transformed a small outpost into the Workshop to the World. Ebenezer Zane, George Washington, Alexander Glass, Big Bill Lias, and others knew that Wheeling was worth investing their time, effort, and capital in hopes of a big pay-off. Like casino gambling, the odds for success were almost nil. But that didn't stop them from trying.

Gambling, both legal and illegal, has a long history in Wheeling. Bits and pieces of Wheeling’s gambling history exist in books, magazines, and newspapers. The reason that a definitive work devoted to the subject doesn’t exist is simple. Not many citizens would like to go down in history remembered as gamblers. So not much was written down. Compiling the necessary amount of this material to write a book devoted entirely to Wheeling’s gambling history was a gamble in itself with not very good odds. I’m glad to say that the odds can be beat.

Mike Minder

Wheeling, West Virginia

1997

CHAPTER ONE:

THE END OF THE EAST

(PRIOR TO 1818)

Before the Europeans arrived, the area now known as Wheeling was inhabited first by the Moundbuilders (about 6000 B.C.). Archaeological digs didn't turn up artifacts that could be used exclusively for gambling. But we can assume the Moundbuilders gambled, as they were the ancestors of what we called Indians. And Indians did gamble.

To the Indians, gambling was a time-honored tradition that had been going on for some time. By European standards, the original inhabitants were totally addicted to games of chance. While gambling to Europeans was considered immoral, most Indians considered it part of a sacred ritual. This was because they considered much of their world a mysterious place controlled by gods or supernatural forces that showed their favor or disfavor through the outcome of their wars, agricultural harvests, and games of chance. Contrary to the white man's labeling of the Indians' gambling activities as a sure sign of laziness, Indian gambling served a very practical need. Their games kept them physically fit and improved the coordination needed for successful winter hunts. In addition to the ancient Adena and Hopewell tribes, the Wheeling area was also host to the Shawnee, Wyandot, Mingo, and Delaware Indians. European settlers observed these Indians play such gambling games as cup-and-pin, football, dominoes, ball-juggling, the moccasin game, stick ball using one or two poles, various stick games, ring-and-pin, lacrosse, hoop-and-pole, racket, dice, chunkey, snow snake, and foot races. On these games they wagered their bowes and arrowses, their copper beads, hatchets, and their leather coats.

Cup-and-pin was one variation of a game in which the goal was to throw up a top section in an attempt to have it land on a pointed stick. The top section was a grass ball, a piece of hide with holes, or the hollowed out end of a piece of bone or animal hoof. This top section was connected to the pin by a length of string.

Football was the Powhatan Indians' gambling game of choice. This form of football resembled European soccer because the ball could only be moved using the feet. Both men and women played football, although separately. A white spectator wrote, They use beside football play which wemen and young boyes doe much play at, confirmed this. The men never. They make their gooles as ours only they never fight nor pull one another downe...The men play with a litel balle lettinge it fall out of ther hand and striketh it with the tope of his foot, and he that can strike the ball furthest winns that they pay for.

The Cherokee Indians that ventured into the Wheeling area on hunts also played a form of football. Football figured in as a big part of their social and ceremonial life. The Cherokees considered football and other games to be the little brother of war and prepared for them at length. They fasted, purposely scratched their skin, sought the help of medicine men, took sweat baths, and danced all night after ritually sampling the loved Black Drink. This Black Drink was a substance brewed from the leaves of the yaupon, a plant that looked like holly. The brewed leaves produced a tar-colored liquid that was believed to free the drinker from guilt or punishment and promote moral goodness. Each warrior drank down a quart full of the Black Drink, then forcibly vomited it a half-hour later by pressing his forearms against his lower belly. Those who could force the vomited Black Drink to a point over eight feet away were regarded with affection.

The Cherokees and the Muskogeans played stickball, a forerunner of the game of lacrosse. Each player carried two sticks with netted ends. The earliest lacrosse balls were solid wood, but later consisted of deer hair covered with deer hide. Two teams of about sixty men lined the length of a 500-yard long playing field with a nine-foot wide goal placed at each end of the field. The bodies of one team were painted white to tell the otherwise identical breechcloth wearing teams apart. Play started when an old man threw the ball high into the area and got himself quickly out of the way. Touching the ball itself was prohibited, so players used their netted sticks to throw the ball, catch it, and carry it.

A game between two villages was every bit as exciting as our college football games between archrivals. Stickball was very rough, and players were often seriously injured. To European observers, some of these games were so violent that they might have easily been mistaken for battles. George Catlin, a famous painter of 19th century Indians, observed such a game of stickball. He provided a possible reason why so many injuries occurred:

There are times when the ball gets to the ground, and such a confused mass rushing together around it, and knocking their sticks together, without the possibility of any-one getting or seeing it, for the dust that they raise, that the spectator loses his strength, and everything else but his senses when the condensed mass of ball-sticks, and shins, and bloody noses, is carried around the different parts of the ground, for a quarter of an hour at a time.

This violence was intended, as the game was created so that the young men could prove themselves as warriors without having to risk possible death in combat. A European witnessing the game described it as A kynd of exercise they have often amongst them much like that which boyes call bandy [hockey] in England.

The game was over when one team made twenty goals. Putting a stake in the ground each time a team made a goal tallied the score. When the score reached ten, a stake was removed with each additional goal until no stakes remained.

In addition to using their playing skills for victory, lacrosse players sought supernatural help. Behind each goal was a bowl that held a medicinal piece of turtle hide that was to help attract the ball. Also, each team was allowed to substitute their medicine ball for the game ball until a goal was made. A medicine ball contained a measuring worm that was supposed to make the ball invisible to the opposing team.

Games of lacrosse lasted about one and a half hours. At the conclusion of the game, the winning team gathered around their goal and held a stomp dance.

The Cherokees also played stickball, chunky, the moccasin game, as well as various stick and dice games. The moccasin game was the most popular and well-attended sit-down gambling games. Playing it required two teams of three men, four moccasins, and four small identical objects such as pebbles, foot bones, or fruit pits. One of the four identical objects was inconspicuously marked. Playing the moccasin game was simple. A team placed one small object under each of the overturned moccasins. It was up to the other team to guess which moccasin held the marked game piece. The choice was made by pointing a three-foot rod at the guessed moccasin. Wooden tallies were used to keep score.

The moccasin game's simplicity of play was kept exciting with drumming and singing. A game might go on for days, many times ending when one team had lost all their possessions.

Dice was one of the only Indian games in which the outcome depended on pure chance. Indian dice was nothing like the six-sided ivory cubes that the whites were accustomed to. Indian dice had only two sides. They could be made of various materials. To distinguish one side of the die from the other, paint or carved designs were used. A cup or bowl was sometimes used to mix up the dice, or sometimes they were just tossed up in the air to land on spread blankets. Scoring was based on which sides of the dice landed on. Indian dice games lasted much longer than those of the Europeans. Quarrels and disagreements, sometimes with fatalities, were not uncommon.

A common game of the different tribes of the area was chunkey. The method of play varied slightly from tribe to tribe. The equipment used to play chunkey consisted of a disc-shaped stone and long poles. The disc-shaped stone measured anywhere from three to five inches in diameter and one and a quarter inch thick. It was concave on both sides, while the edge was convex. The stone was considered community property. The tapered poles were thin and up to ten feet long. Each end was flat. Usually only two players competed against one another. The chunkey competitions were usually played in the plaza of the village on a specially prepared piece of flat ground. The stone disc was rolled along a flat piece of ground and then each player threw their pole in an attempt to hit the moving target. If the chunkey stone was not hit, then the winner was the one whose pole landed where the disc stopped. One point was awarded for the pole nearest to the stopped chunkey stone. Poles that actually touched the stone scored two points. Games of chunkey would last all day. Whole wardrobes were bet and lost on it.

The variations of chunkey had to do with the various dimensions of the playing stones. Since rocks suitable for the making of chunkey stones were not easily obtainable, round stone balls of one to two and a half inches in diameter were sometimes substituted. Egg-shaped chunkey stones of less than two inches in diameter were also used.

Hoop-and-pole was similar to chunkey. A rolled hoop was used instead of the chunkey stone. The hoop was sometimes laced, and in some cases a solidly woven center was used so that the javelin-like sticks would embed in the hoop instead of just going through it. The scoring sometimes depended on which part of woven hoop was penetrated. The woven hoops were essentially rolling dartboards. A spectator witnessing such a match in 1889 described hoop-and-pole as difficult and that misses were more frequent than scores.

One type of stick game dazzled early European settlers. Robert Beverly, a late 17th century historian, wrote in his History and Present State of Virginia, They (the Indians) have also one great diversion, to the practising of which are requisite whole handfuls of sticks or hard straws, which they know how to count as fast as they can cast their eyes upon them, and can handle with a surprising dexterity.

Some Indian gambling games can't be described because Europeans never saw them being played. Archaeological digs found round pottery and stone discs that may have been used as counters in some sort of game using arithmetic. Robert Beverly also witnessed an unidentified game in which the Indians took part in Some boisterous plays, which are preform'd by running, catching and leaping upon one another.

Gambling among Indians was not just limited to male participation. Women gambled just as often and with as much gusto as their men. The men didn't always like this, and would even try to beat them to give up gambling. This was to no avail, because as soon as the men went off on a hunt, they went right back to gambling.

Snowsnake, true to its name, was played in the snow. The snakes could either be a small boy or long sticks of carved maple. The maple snakes had a carved, upraised front that resembled a snake's head. The head was about an inch and a half in diameter, while the rest of the body that followed was tapered. A notch was cut into the tail to accept a thrower's finger.

To play snowsnake, a long flat track of snow was prepared. Each player took his turn throwing and watching his snake slide down the course. The snake that traveled the furthest was declared the winner and the thrower took possession of the other players' snakes. Side bets were not uncommon.

The most popular gambling game with both Indian men and women were foot races.

Indians gambled for high stakes. Entire villages might lose their ...horses, dogs, cooking utensils, lodge, wife, even...wearing apparel. To replace these necessities, Indians sent war or raiding expeditions against other villages.

The first European to lays eyes on the future site of Wheeling was a Dutch trader by the name of Arnord Viele. In 1692, Viele was paddling his canoe down the Ohio River on a two-year journey to trade with Shawnee Indians near the Cumberland River. If Viele was typical of many Dutch immigrants to the New World, he gambled with cards, dice, and ninepins (a forerunner of modern bowling). Hopefully, Viele was not foolish enough to play with the skillful Shawnees at their dice games. Otherwise, he would have returned home to Albany (in present day New York State) empty-handed.

The next group of Europeans that visited the Wheeling area were the French soldiers under the command of Baron de Longuenill in 1739. Enroute from Montreal, they camped at least one night on the Wheeling Creek bottom. A decade later, more French troops, this time commanded by Captain Celeron de Bienville, ceremoniously attached a lead plate to a tree or buried it where Wheeling Creek meets the Ohio River. The constraints of guard duty and the need for rest probably kept the French troops from gambling. The French lost their claim to the strategically valuable area of the Ohio Valley after their defeat in the French and Indian War in 1763.

The Treaty of Fort Stanwix of 1768 opened up the Wheeling area to European settlers. Colonel Ebenezer Zane, along with his brothers Jonathan and Silas, came in to Wheeling in 1769 with a dream of building a settlement on the Ohio River. They were the children of a Quaker father who had to leave the area of Quaker Philadelphia for the frontier when he married a woman who was not a member of the Quaker Society of Friends. Ebenezer Zane's purpose was two-fold: religious freedom and to make a fortune in land speculation. To increase their odds for survival, the Zane brothers built a log cabin that could be defended. They departed and returned a year later with their families. Other settlers who arrived with their families were the Wetzels, McCollochs, and Shepherds. To accommodate future residents, Ebenezer Zane started laying out the original 112 lots that now constitute downtown Wheeling (the area bordered by Eighth and Eleventh Streets, Market Street and the Ohio River).

The Indians still had possession of Wheeling Island, so the Zane brothers developed a long-range plan to buy it. The Zane brothers made friends with the Indians' chief, Cornplanter. After gaining Cornplanter's confidence, the Zanes' persuaded Cornplanter to sell them the Island for a barrel of whiskey and an old iron chisel. Had the Zanes been foolish enough to try to win the Island using games of chance, they might have lost not only the Island, but their home sites as well!

While not a sure thing in terms of safety, Wheeling was able to serve as an outpost of the British Empire after the construction of Fort Fincastle (renamed Fort Henry). In reading some of the histories of Wheeling, it's a wonder how the Zanes and their fellow settlers ever had time for fun, what with all the work of building homes for themselves, hunting & fishing, growing crops, and defending themselves against the local Delaware Indians who seemed constantly trying to raid the settlements. In terms of gambling, the pioneer settlers of the Wheeling area weren't much for cards, dice, or backgammon, simply because most had never heard of such games.

Games that served more useful purposes were common among many settlers. Corn-husking competitions were a good excuse for enjoyment come harvest-time. Processing a large pile of unhusked ears was not something that relished. So a game was made of it. On the appointed evening of the corn-husking, all the neighborhood men and boys brought their oxen-driven sleds heaped with unhusked corn. They heaped the unhusked corn into a large pile. Two team captains were chosen. All the participants then drank a gourdful of whiskey from a tub. The team captains placed a fence rail across what they agreed upon as the center of pile of corn. Teams were chosen using the coin toss method. In most cases, a wood chip substituted for the coin. One side was bark, the other a lighter color. After each player was assigned to their particular team, the chip was flipped one last time to decide which team would occupy each side of the corn pile.

Each team member had a husking pin. It was a wicked looking tool, consisting of a small spike attached to oblong loop. The husking pin was held against the inside of the hand, just above the palm. Inserted into the oblong loop were the middle and ring fingers. The husking pin was used to tear off the corn husks. The husks were gathered below the base of the ear of corn, making a kind of handle. This handle provided the leverage needed to break the ear from its stem.

Then the corn-husking competition began. Smart teams began husking the middle of the pile, as it caused the fence rail to slowly roll to their side. This boundry change increased the amount of corn that the other team had to husk. This could be considered cheating, but that was mild compared to the kicking of unhusked ears across to the opposing team, secretly nudging the rail, or throwing the husked corn so that it covered layers of unhusked corn. Accusations of cheating often resulted in fist fights.

When the rail touched the ground, the two teams concentrated only on husking their respective piles as quickly as possible. To ease the tension brought about by such repetitive labor, the teams took frequent sips of whiskey and chanted rhythmically. The first team finished husking their pile of corn won the competition. With a loud cry of victory, the victors placed their team captain on their shoulders and paraded him in a circle around the losers . When the defeated team finished husking their corn, the participants sat down to a potpie supper.

Eventually, the rough corn-husking competitions developed into the more sociable corn-husking bees. A large amount of labor was still required, so both young and old were invited. Music was played, hard and soft cider was consumed in great quantities, and wagers were made on who could husk the most corn. These tamer corn-husking bees sounded like good clean fun, but according to the famous author Mark Twain, they produced as many babies (and marriages) nine months later as you would find after a religious camp meeting.

Logrolling was a more strenuous competitive game. Otis Rice describes it in his book, The Allegheny Frontier: West Virginia Beginnings, 1780-1835:

An essential part of the work of clearing land for farms and public structures and one which required cooperation among pioneer families was the logrolling, which usually began in February and lasted for about six weeks. In preparation for this event, the owner of the land cut the trees, removed the branches, and then cut the notches about ten fee apart along the tops of the remaining logs. At each of the notches he placed a dry limb, which he ignited so that it would burn for a time. After repeating the latter process morning and night for about a week, he had burned the log into manageable lengths. On the day of the logrolling, the men of the neighborhood gathered, equipped with handspikes made of dogwood and about five feet long. They slid the handspike under the log so that they could get holds on each side and then carried the log to the heap where it was to be burned. To be able to pull down other men in a logrolling contest was a mark of prestige. Often the host at a logrolling served a dish known as bergoo, a kind of potpie made of vegetables and wild meats, such as squirrel, turkey, and venison.

Most frontier communities could expect to have at least ten or more logrollings each year in early spring.

Rifle shooting at marks improved a marksman's accuracy as well as providing an excuse to test-fire a rifle with the possibility of winning a prize. The usual prize made at the shooting matches was a beevee or barrel of whiskey. A common target at which to fire was a nail driven into a tree 200 yards away. The legends of frontiersmen hitting the nail on the head aren't so incredible when it is disclosed that such handmade nails had heads that were as wide as