Historical Society Meeting, July 28 at Durbin The group gathered at the Town Office on Main Street and then moved on to the Old Town Jail. Jason Bauserman and Donald Peck told us about the history of the building, showed us the two celled building and artifacts left in the building and told us about important events connected with the jail and some of the sentences and fines awarded for crimes at the time of the “wild west” period, when Durbin was growing and full of settlers. This was a new experience for us visitors and fascinating. Marlinton Mayor Joe Smith explained that Marlinton has never had a jail, having used the county jails at Huntersville and Marlinton. We wondered if Hillsboro ever had its own jail. Later, Ruth Taylor e-mailed an answer to this:I have never heard of a jail in Hillsboro. We only allow good people here:) You are all welcome to come. After refreshments and our business meeting at the Town Office. we move on to the program. The History of Durbin The table in the front of the council room was loaded with huge tomes, open at beautifully copper-plate handwritten records. Donald showed us further piles of volumes in an adjoining room. What a treasure chest of historical information! These belong to the Town of Durbin, so, open to the public, though no-one may move the books from the council chambers. Jason has been perusing these volumes for several years now, but is less than halfway through the huge stash. He had put markers in interesting and important records. In addition to the Town’s records, which included the setting up of the ordinances for the newly founded town (June 20, 1906), there were Justice of Peace records for the northern end of Pocahontas County and store records which clearly illustrated life in early Durbin and prohibition times. We learned that 13.9 acres were set off for the new town, but the West Fork section has not been (and probably never will be) developed. This land was sold to John T. McGraw by Colonel Robert Kerr. In Jason’s estimation, the founding father of Durbin was Dr. P.D. Arbogast, who, as the first mayor, oversaw the creation of the town’s new ordinances, licenses and taxes AND heard legal cases in the town and ran the jail. It was an incredible amount of work to establish a new town amid hundreds of people moving in. He set the price for a monthly cleaning of every privy at $1, for example. A new mayor was elected every year and a few years later Dr. Arbogast disappeared from prominence in the town’s administration. Jason also showed us the books kept by the Kerr and Wilmuth Store. Over 200 people had credit accounts and, as the years passed, the range of items sold increased dramatically. Credit became a major problem and Jason told of one woman, whose house was almost ransacked and her possessions sold off (with the price and purchasers listed in the register) to pay her debts! As the town became more established, deliberate efforts were made to bring business to Durbin. Livestock was brought to Durbin instead of Staunton for shipment and there was a resulting increase in marriages between local residents and spouses from Blue Grass, Virginia. A particularly diverting aside was a look at the period of prohibition (1921-1925) under the county sheriff, Brown Beard. Many of us have heard of her exploits from Jessie Powell, his daughter, who, as a child accompanied her father to destroy stills and haul in the miscreants. Jason also touched on the houses of ill repute, the selling of liquor (which led to housing in the federal penitentiary) and crimes that occurred in the town and nearby logging camps. Jason had no difficulty holding our attention. His talk closed at 9 PM, but several people stayed on to discuss, look at the records, so it was a late night home for many of us. Thanks to Jason for making this informative and entertaining; obviously, much time and work had gone into his presentation. A good time was had by all.
Posted on: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 02:48:48 +0000