Sherando-The Train Bear and NuttyNut-The Vainzane Squirrel: Time Travel to the Apple Carnival

By J.B. Ellicott

Do you like a history and mystery book? Well, this story takes you on an adventure into the past. In fact, it is a trip aboard a time train with a bear called Sherando, a squirrel called NuttyNut, and an Indian named Wash. They all travel through a time portal to the year of 1909 at the first Apple Carnival in Martinsburg, West Virginia, located at the top of the Shenandoah Valley. There they meet people, encounter challenges, and make discoveries. The story is aligned with real people, real places, and real events of the past and mixed with fictional characters and situations to make it fun, educational, and entertaining. Now the question is asked, "Are you ready to blast away on the Time Train?"

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9781645697459

Book preview

Acknowledgments

I like to acknowledge a few people here that helped me with valuable information on writing this book. I thank a great patriot and defender of Berkeley County history, but now deceased, Todd Butler. He was a member of the local Army National Guard Unit in Martinsburg, and he witnessed in 1968 the removal and destruction of the guard’s history from Berkeley County. He wrote and compiled a historical timeline from the year of 1735 to the present day about the heritage of the 157th Military Police Company Army National Guard Unit. He also, with the help of the Berkeley County Historical Society, created the Col. Morgan Morgan Military Museum at the Morgan Morgan Armory. Thank you, Mr. Butler.

I want to thank Keith Hammersla of the Martinsburg/Berkeley County Public Library. His professionalism and knowledge of the public square and other information was very helpful to completing this book. He eagerly showed me how to load the microfilm on their machine especially after I asked what that button was for and watching the tape go flying on the reel. Sorry, Keith. I’m bad. Thanks for putting up with me and answering my many questions. Also I send a thank you to David Porterfield at the library for his useful help. I want to thank historian and writer, Jeff Hollis for his expertise on the heritage of the B. and O. Railroad and the building layouts

I want to acknowledge my wife for helping, giving ideas and encouragement, looking things up on the web and making connections that needed to be done before the deadline. Thanks, honey.

I will finish by thanking everyone for their support by reading this book.

Map of Shenandoah Valley and Cumberland Valley

Be that as it may, it would seem difficult to name a region in the south more rich in legend and lore.

—Holmes Alexander, 1984

Virginia’s Lost Counties

(Berkeley and Jefferson Counties)

Foreword

Our Wonderful History in the Shenandoah Valley

The Lower Shenandoah Valley¹, which Berkeley and Jefferson Counties are a part of, is rich and diverse. A storybook land of famous patriots and events that made it into the history books. This compiling valley storybook is a time-honored account of the past that was started way back centuries ago and whenever a day was completed, a page was added to its portfolio. Historians had gathered up many of these pages to study its past and when the chroniclers were filled with this knowledge, they create beautiful books to be placed into the hands of hungry readers, many who wanted to learn about our Once Upon A Time. Accounts of our early history is truly a part of the cradle of America. Scanning this land through time, one can follow the Indian, the cavalier and later, the mountaineer.

The Shenandoah Valley lies between the Allegheny Mountains to the west and the Blue Ridge Mountains to the east along with a mountain range called the Massanutten lying within. The Potomac River in Berkeley County celebrates the northern boundary, and the James River in Botetourt County serves the southern terminus. Both of these counties were named for the same popular governor, Norborne Berkeley-Baron de Botetourt², the colonial governor of Virginia 1768–1770. Today these two counties enjoy being the gatehouses into the land of the Shenandoah where each has an imaginary castle fortress and a drawbridge opening up for one to cross over into a land that is mystifying and holds secrets of the magical and magnificent mountains, history, and chivalry of the people. Both of these gateways into the valley entice the visitor to come and discover this enchantment that is hidden throughout the valley floor and upon her mountain walls.

There are eleven counties within the Shenandoah Valley with seven in the southern part known as the Upper and Frederick, Berkeley, Jefferson and Clarke; in the northern section known as the Lower. Our area is the delta of the valley. A flat land where the Shenandoah and the Potomac Rivers meet at Harpers Ferry and swiftly flow eastward into the Chesapeake Bay and onto the Atlantic Ocean. As one travels up the valley, one goes south; and as one travels down the valley, one goes north. Elevation is the logic.

To the west and within the mountains of the Alleghenies, running parallel to the Valley for its entire length, are bubbling warm springs that are scattered north to south. The oldest spa in the nation is the Town of Bath or Berkeley Springs, west of Martinsburg. Within the Shenandoah Valley, Native Americans are thought to have been here for thousands of years. The tribe, called the Huron, is recorded to inhabit the valley between the years of 1500 to 1600, the tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy was 1600 to 1700, and the Tuscarora resided in the early 1700s. Other tribes known to be of inhabitance were Shawnee, Delaware, and Catawba.

Historians say the Indians used this area for a hunting ground, battleground, and for a time, they created settlements. When bands of Tuscarora Indians were heading north from the Carolinas toward the lands of New York, they established a settlement at what later became the future site of Martinsburg. Their location was at the center of what today is called the town’s public square and from the 1945 book called The Shenandoah by author Julia Davis, it says, And the Tuscaroras occupied the neighborhood of Martinsburg, where were found the giant skeletons, seven feet long, with three-feet thighs.

In 1744, the colony of Virginia and the Iroquois signed the Treaty of Lancaster which was a monetary agreement for the Six Nations (Iroquois) to cease claims within the Shenandoah Valley. When the United States declared their Independence in 1776, the presence of Native Americans in the valley had faded, but they did leave behind many links of their heritage. Names, songs, and legendary stories survived, but many of the burial mounds scattered along the valley floor unfortunately fell victim to the farmer’s blade. When Englishmen made their first arrival to the New World in the 1600s, they journeyed to the valley and reported back to their countrymen that they have gazed upon a land of endless forests, rich fertile fields, and an abundance of animals.

Over in the old country of England, a young Lord Fairfax³, a King-Charles-II favorite and heir of over five million acres of land in the New World including the Shenandoah Valley, heard these enticing stories of his northern neck of Virginia Proprietary, and he financed an exploration trip to see what inhabited his lands. In 1710, this expedition was led by the Colonial Governor Alexander Spotswood of Virginia and a group of cavaliers calling themselves The Knights. As they left Williamsburg and rode west toward the Blue Ridge, they arrived at the mountain and stared out into the valley in awe of her beauty. They proceeded to make many toasts to the health of the king of England and then made salutes by firing volleys into the air.

Upon their return, each knight was awarded a small golden horseshoe, attesting that he swore to have climbed the mountain. In 1726, a Welshman with an unusual name, Morgan Morgan⁴, made his home in present-day Berkeley County, and his inhabitance gave him the recognition as West Virginia’s first permanent settler. On February 17, 1735, he was commissioned to be the captain of the First Virginia Regiment that today is recognized as the longest and oldest active unit in the nation. Today it is known as the 157th MP Co. in Martinsburg and one of the six companies constituting the First Continental Army. In the early 1700s, Europeans of German and Scot-Irish migrated down from the state of Pennsylvania and settled within Virginia and the valley. As many pioneers crossed the Potomac River while traveling on the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road and seeing the beauty and the opportunities the valley would provide for their families, they busied themselves on making permanent settlements of farms and mills which would later grow into a port of business for their communities.

When George Washington visited as a teenager, he brought his first land at Bullskin Run and made the apple a symbol of the valley by inspiring and requiring his tenants to plant apple trees on his personal property. He also encouraged his brothers to invest inside the valley, and one named Charles did just that by founding a town called Charlestown. Many in the Washington family built inspiring homes and today, one is known as Harewood. This house saw a future president of the US, James Madison, marry Dolley Payne Todd⁵ in 1794. Another future US president, Andrew Jackson⁶, has been whispered by the locals that he was born of poor Irish immigrant parents on the estate of Captain James Strode near Martinsburg.

As the Shenandoah Valley grew in population, the need to go westward over the Allegheny Front was pushed by a new wave of settlers and the English crown. The French and Indian War was a result of this movement with an English general, Edward Braddock, at the helm, and he was soundly defeated at Fort Duquesne. Our local men marched in these campaigns and later, forts were established in the valley as a defensive posture until the war ended by the Treaty of Paris with a British victory. Before the ink written about this war was dried, another upheaval, called the Revolutionary War, began rustling and whirling around the residents dwelling in the valley. A call was made for volunteers and Berkeley County contributed five generals to the cause for independence, and the local militia made famous the Bee Line March⁷ in which these men were of the first southern troops to travel six hundred miles from Shepherdstown to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in twenty-four days to aid General Washington.

In 1778, Martinsburg was established by a Revolutionary War general, Adam Stephen. His highest rank was a major general in the Continental Army and when he was a member of the Virginia Assembly, he voted for the adoption of the Federal Constitution. Eighty-three years later, major storm clouds were gathering over the horizon that affected every resident dwelling within the valley. Called the War of the States-a Civil War, the first battle on the valley floor was in Berkeley County—the 1861 Battle of Falling Waters. This engagement created ripple effects of noteworthy events and became known as the key that opened the door to four more years of war.

Along with spies such as Belle Boyd and many engagements encumbering the people of the valley, there was much devastation in every direction. The Shenandoah Valley, recognized as the Breadbasket of the Confederacy, was a vital piece of land geographically laid out in an angle that allowed troops to march directly into northern territory just like a dagger, pointed to one’s heart and if the US wanted to win this war, then it was necessary to slam the door closed at the top of the valley. While the war continued on, the US government took action to see that Berkeley and Jefferson Counties were tossed over into the new state of West Virginia. This action brought in a vital important piece of real estate—the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

The B. and O.R.R. is celebrated as the first US railway chartered in America and travels east to west, making it relevant to stay within a union state. As Berkeley and Jefferson Counties were being shuffled into West Virginia, it caused the valley to be disunited, and the separation created a political imaginary gate at the new state line between Virginia and West Virginia. The Confederate Armies would now have to cross over into territory they recognized but under a new jurisdiction. This action demoralized and weakened the state of Virginia and the South. After the contest, Berkeley and Jefferson Counties were sought by the state of Virginia through the US Supreme Court to reclaim them back into their territory. By 1872, the court ruled six to three⁸ that these two counties will go to the new state of West Virginia.

This was seven years after the war ended. The valley people were slow to recover from the destruction, and many were disheartened to see the Shenandoah Valley split into two states; but the multitudes have assimilated these changes of the landscape and taken heart knowing that this whole valley will always be the Daughter of the Stars.

As time moves onward into the future, the Shenandoah Valley will never cease to produce historical events. Continuation of the valley storybook will always be inked upon new pages and studied by the chroniclers who will compile these time-honored accounts and write books that will be placed into the hands of hungry readers, for as the hands of a clock, there is no end.

Shenandoah Valley of the Virginias

Daughter of the Stars

The Great Spirit lovingly made the world with beautiful morning stars, and these stars would always gather together along the shores of a peaceful lake, surrounded by bluish time-honored mountains. As the stars floated over the water, they sang their songs of joy and lit up the mountaintops with their robes of light. They pledged to meet here once every one thousand years and one day as the stars were singing, there was a mighty crash. A huge rock, along the edge of the lake, came down, and the water poured out, rushing toward the sea.

As time passed, it was agreed upon by the stars to search for a new place to assemble. They traveled the world over and discovered a peaceful valley with lush floras and faunas and a river that leisurely flows through it. When the stars gathered for their reunion, they discover that this valley was once the floor of that same peaceful lake where they use to meet and casted their robes of light among the blue mountaintops.

The stars were so joyous when they realized this had been the bed of their beautiful lake, that they placed the brightest jewels from their crowns in the river where they still lie and sparkle. The Shenandoah Valley and her river were then given a blessed and beautiful name, Daughter of the Stars.

Everybody needs beauty… Places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.

—John Muir

Introduction

And the Children of Israel shall pitch their tents every man by his own camp and every man by his own standard throughout their hosts.

—Numbers 1:52

Why write a book? I have never attempted this approach but after thinking along the lines that Martinsburg and Berkeley County has a story to tell, I accepted the challenged. It has been fun and actually exciting. Since my day of birth, I have lived here and learned to appreciate the definition of home. In a family home, it’s about the identity of the family crest, its history, culture, and heritage, and the need to protect it. Communities are based on this same doctrine and Martinsburg/Berkeley County has their culture, history, and heritage here at the top of the Shenandoah Valley. This is her identity of who we are as a people. We are to keep our standard (symbols) and like every community, our own flag and seal. That’s why roads, parks, monuments, and buildings are named after someone or an event which gives an identity. These are the teachings from God and his warnings to protect it.

I write this book for numerous reasons. One reason was the time I was rummaging through books at the public library and discovering on the shelf a book that I have never forgotten through the years. The book is called Shenandoah: The Valley Story by author Alvin Dohme—1972. It has page after page of the history, sightseeing, and recreation of every community in the valley plus a map. All the neighboring towns in Jefferson, Frederick, and Clarke Counties were embraced, but here is the layout of what was said about Martinsburg/Berkeley County: Martinsburg, West Virginia was settled by a group of German Lutherans and named after the founder of their religious movement, Martin Luther. The end.

Believe me, that was it. It was bad enough to see only one sentence about the area, but even the history was wrong. I was stunned back then, and I still have the same reaction today. When Berkeley County and her neighboring seven counties were placed into West Virginia during the Civil War, this land soon became identified as the eastern panhandle. The panhandle is a political arm for the state, and little is said today about the culture, history, and heritage of our beloved Shenandoah Valley. I believe the lack