Samuel & Nancy Walton's Grandson With Wife & White Mouse

Nancy Powers Bauman shares these photos of her ggrandparents and their white mouse: George, mouse, (on his left shoulder) and Caroline (Mealy) Walton at their home, probaby in Kanawha. George Walton's grandparents were one of the first Orlando settlers, Samuel & Nancy (Hanna) Walton.

By 1850 Samuel and Nancy (Hanna) Walton were living in the area that would become Orlando with three of their (probably) six children still at home.

One of the older children, James McClung Walton, married Evaline Brown. George Darley Walton (b. 1841) is their son. Caroline's family settled near Salt Lick.

Two of George Darcy's cousins:
Olive Skinner from the July 12, '06 entry Nathan & Ollie (Skinner) Parmer. Ollie Skinner was George Darley's cousin. Her mother, Miriam Walton, and his father, James McClung Walton, were siblings.
William Otto Skinner from the July 11, '06 entry William Otto & Clara Onetta Skinner. William Otto's mother was sibling Martha Walton.

Note:
For more about Nancy Powers Bauman, see http://www.PictureTrail.com/nancyartstudio

Up the Lady's Leg

In the 1950s the Methodist Church's Ladies' Aid Society always had a meeting during the two weeks in August that we visited Orlando. My grandmother, Edith (Skinner) Stutler, was a committed member. My mother would go to the meeting with her, and they usually took me with them. We went "up to the Ladies' Aid." My father, Carl Witzgall, would give Grandma a hard time talking about going "up the lady's leg." Grandma just ignored him.

I was a kid. I have no idea who the other members were or what they did, besides have a business meeting and then a luncheon. Too bad. Even in my youthful oblivion I could tell that this was a long standing, committed group of women.

Photo is of my grandmother, Edith (Skinner) Stutler.

Orlando Ancestors From the Palatine

"At different periods, various causes and diverse motives induced Germans to abandon their Vaterland. Since 1606, millions have left their homes, the dearest spots on earth, whither the heart always turns. Religious persecution, political oppression drove thousands to Pennsylvania - to the asylum from the harassed and depressed sons and daughters of the relics of the Reformation, whither William Penn himself invited the persecuted of every creed and religious opinion."
- History of the Palatine Immigration to Americaas by Daniel Rupp, 1876


The Duvall family were French Hugenauts and the Browns were from Italy. Those and a few others were the exceptions. At the time western Virgina was being explored and settled folks on the frontier were a blend of English, Protestant Scots Irish and Germanic Protestants.

Conrad, Stutler, Riffle, Barbe and Spaunagle are some of the German Protestants, the Palatines, in our ancestry.

The German speaking people who came here in the 16- and 1700s are called Palatines because a great bulk of the Germanic immigrants had poured out of the principality called the Palatinate located on the Rhine River. But German speaking Protestants from what would become Switzerland and parts east also poured down the Rhein River into the ships waiting in Rotterdam. America's Pennsylvania Dutch, the Mennonites and Moravians come from this huge migration.

Ollie and Nathan Parmer

David Parmer sends this photo with the following information:

Ollie (Olive) Skinner (b. 1873) was the daughter of Luther (Alexander & Phoebe (Conrad) Skinner's son) and Miriam (Walton) Skinner (Samuel & Nancy (Hannah) Walton's youngest daughter). Both of the parents died when Ollie was quite young, Miriam died, I believe, when Ollie was two years of age. [Miriam died in Feb 1875, age 38-40, Luther died in Oct 1875, age 42.]

"Ollie was raised by her aunt Anne, the spinster daughter of Alexander and Phebe Skinner. Anne also lived with her parents, Alexander and Phebe. Ollie married Nathan Parmer (b. 1871). They had four children, Dee Gilford, Stella, Maysell and Marie.

To left is a photo of Nathan's mother,
Ingabo Janine Parmer

See also
May 20,'06 The Bennetts of Clover Fork
Sept '06 The Last Midwife
Oct 2,'06 A Buggy Ride to Burnsville

Two of Ollie's cousins are featured in other entries. Her mother was Miriam Walton.
1. George Darcy Walton, from the July 30, '06 entry A Grandson of Samuel & Nancy (Hanna) Walton was the son of Miriam's brother James McClung and Evaline (Brown) Walton.
2. William Otto Skinner from the July 11, '06 entry William Otto & Clara Onetta Skinner was the son of Miriam's sister, Martha Walton.

A Tribute To The Tip Toppers 4-H Club

David Parmer shares a yearbook produce in 1954 by the Orlando Elementary School. It will be a while before the entire booklet can be viewed on line, but in the meantime, here is the dedication from the yearbook.

"We the members of the Orlando School wish to dedicate our annual to the Orlando Tip-Toppers 4-H Club. We desire to do this because of the many things which you have done for the school.

"The 4-H Club has aided us in promoting citizenship in the school. They have bought a clock, record player and movie projector and are now sponsoring a weekly show for the school and the community.

"The school considers the 4-H Club a close and dependable friend, and we appreciate the work and cooperation very much."

Orlando Elementary School was a 3 room building with two classrooms. It was closed a number of years ago.

William Otto & Clara Onetta Skinner

William Otto (b. 1872), son of Granville (b. 1832) and Martha (Walton) Skinner (b. 1832) married Clara Onetta Skinner (b. 1878). , daughter of Jackson McWhorter (b. 1843) Patience (Duvall) Skinner (b.1846).

Yes, they were first cousins. On the right is a photo of William Otto with 4 of his and Clara's boys. Below is Clara.

This is the William Otto (b. 1872) who stayed home. A June 12, '06 entry discussed another William Otto Skinner (b. 1849) who married a California girl named Belle and finally settled in Independece, MO. (see entry for June 12. '06, William O. Skinner Went West.) He was this William O.'s uncle: brother to Granville and Jackson.

Recap:
3 of Alexander & Phoebe (Conrad) Skinner's children:
Granville B. + Martha Walton = William Otto (the younger)
Jackson McWhorter + Patience Duvall = Clara Onetta
William Otto (the elder) moved to CA, married Belle (Nichols? Fertig?) then moved to MO

Photos from Crystal Kearns. Many thanks.

Picture 50 Years on Clover Fork

These two pictures were taken about 50 years apart. At the top is Gideon and Sarah (Bennett) Skinner and their 5 oldest children about 1900. Their home was up Clover Fork; perhaps the photo was taken there. Gid Skinner was the son of Jackson Skinner and Patience (Duvall) of Clover Fork. Sarah's folks were George W. and Anne (Barb) Bennett. Both of their fathers had fought for the Confederacy.

Sarah died in 1938 of anemia and Gideon remarried Minnie (unk). Minnie left him a widower for a second time.

The 8 mm home movie below (click on the image) was filmed in downtown Orlando, WV in the 1950s by Carl Witzgall, husband of one of Gid & Sarah's grandkids. In his 80s at the time, Gid Skinner still hitched the mule to his old wagon and drove into Orlando to pick up his mail and supplies from WD Brown & Son. Carl Witzgall, my father, knew Gid Skinner was the end of a way of life, and took this film to document it.

(See postings May 30, '06 The Bennetts of Clover Fork about Sarah's father, Feb 15, '06 "Dick Skinner's Restaurant: A Family Affair" and Feb. 27 '06 "Jackson McWhorter Skinner, Confederate Soldier" about Gid's family.)

Coal Trains

In the 1950s I'd sit, mesmerized, counting coal cars as the trains laboriously wound their way along the track crisscrossed by the Oil Creek Road. I always lost count somewhere over 100 coal cars. More impressive, sometimes these trains with way, way more cars than I could count had two locomotives in the front, two or three spread along the length and at the back was another locomotive, as well as a caboose.

To the left, taken in the 1960s, a train passes the warehouse in Orlando headed east. To the right is a photo taken in 1985 by Randy Strogen near the Posey Cemetery. It was borrowed from the website Northern West Virginia Railroads. Note that there are two locomotives pulling from the front. Click on the photos to enlarge them.

Along with showing great photos like the one above, WV Rail Fans at NWVR write this about the stretch of railroad Orlando folks know so well:
(the track) "enters the 1887.5 ft Jacksonville Tunnel. The tunnel allows the railroad to exit the West Fork Valley and enter another watershed, the Clover Fork Valley, resulting in an uphill climb for eastbound loaded trains out of Burnsville requiring the use of helpers. The G&B drops downgrade from the tunnel along the northern side of the Clover Fork valley passing through the small town of Chapman before entering the Oil Creek valley near Orlando, WV."

Thanks to Brad Moyers for assisting us in obtaining permission from WVRailFans to use of Randy Strogan's photo, the chart and text.
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John Jackson Blake of Clover Fork

Loretta Roehrs, daughter of the little girl holding the dollbaby, shares these photos.

To the right is John Jackson (Jack) Blake. He grew up on Clover Fork and is buried there in the Mitchell (Clover Fork) Cemetery. His granddaughter Estella Blake is at the left, holding the doll baby. The two girls kissing? One is his daughter Mildred, and that's all we know.

Jack and his wife Ella Mae (Foster) (pictured below) moved farther up Clover Fork and set to farming in the Hackers Creek area. They had 9 kids. Below are pictured two of their boys, Vincent (left) and Alva Brannon, who was Estella's dad and Loretta's grandfather. Another son, Lee Washington, wrote an Orlando history, Blakes and Riffles, Going Back to the Seventh Generation.

Jack's father, Stewart McClung Blake, came with his family to what would become Orlando as an Original Settler at the age of 5.

Jack was born during the Civil War. His father Stewart had been mustered into the 125th West Virginia State Militia the year before Jack was born but we know that, like all his family and neightbors in the Orlando area, his dad served the Confederacy. We know this because Stewart was among those found guilty of being Southern Sympathizers. It would have been when Jack was 8 that his dad was disenfranchised; lost is rights as a US citizen.1

1. per Don Norman at Hackers Creek Pioneer Descendents