PRESTON COUNTY.
Meeting of the New State Committee.
March 6, 1863
At a meeting of the New State Central Committee for the county of Preston, held in the office of the Clerk of the County Court, at Kingwood, Va., on the 3d day of March, 1863, the following appointments of District Committees for the several districts and voting places of the county were made, viz:
District No. 1. - H. Hagans, Jacob M. Thomas, Charles Kantner and Isaac McGraw.
District No. 2. - Soloman Miller, David Graham, Jacob F. Martin, Daniel Tichnell and John Jenkins.
Feather's. - John Feather, John Rodebearer, John Annan, William H. King and Abraham Elliott.
Portland. - Isaac L. Painter, Dr. Wm. H. Crane and John Eleey.
West Union. - John O. Heckert, Isaac Startzman, Dr. A. T. Doll, James H. Shaffer, John Lantz and David Stemple, Esqr.
Graham's. - Sam'l Graham, P.M. Hartley, James M. Carroll, G. A. Heidleberg and Rawley Watson.
Gordon's. - A. Gordon, Barton Hawley, Dr. Ashford Brown, William J. Kelley and Wm. Reed.
Martin's. - C. Jacobs, Wm. B. Zinn, G. G. Murdock, John Zinn and Dan'l R. Fortney.
Kingwood. - John A. Dille, Alexander Shaw, Wm. W. Scott, John Potter and Jno. J. Gocke.
Independence. - Jno. Howard, Amos Gaudy, Thos. Gregg, A. W. Moore and Joshua F. Herr.
Evansville. - Joseph G. Baker, Charles A. Howard, Job Jaco, William E. Tutt and John Bolyard, senr.
Nine's. - Orpheus Purinton, Thornton F. Jeffreys, Wm. H. Brown, Matlick and Jno. Nine.
Rowlesburg - Col. Charles Hooton, Jonathan Funk, Henry Shaver, J. P. Call and Auber Brakely.
Gentlemen: --
We have selected you, not because we believe you are more devoted and earnest New State men than hundreds of our fellow citizens, but because of your ability to spend your own time and your means in a cause more deeply vital to West Virginians, both individually and collectively, than any other case (short of our, eternal salvation) that ever called for earnest, patriotic devotion, and prompt, zealous and determined action. Failure now involves the swift destruction of all our temporal interests - it may be of our lives and our homes. Men die, but their memories live. We make a record now that will live after us - that will cause our children to rise up and call us blessed - that will give them a home, a country and a future - that will make them freemen - that will light up for them the pathway, which to their fathers has been with many a cloud o'ercast. Men of Preston! Will you work now for your little ones, who are to live after you - you gather around your hearthstones, and with artless innocence and unwavering faith look to you for protections? Let they rallying cry - God and Liberty - uttered by the freemen of the Alps, led on by their patriot. Tell, go forth and leap from crag to crag, and be heard on the pinnacles, and re-echo along the slopes and rallies of our own Alleghanies.
"Strike for your altars and your fires,
God and your nature land."
And should any of our countrymen be so far lost to a sense of their own interests as to be disposed to cast their votes against our cause, we earnestly ask them to stop and think - think of the past - think of the future - think of your children - think of your country - think of your God, and then reconcile your proposed action with your conscience and your duty if you can.
Do you want your children educated? - Do you desire your lands improved in value? Do you want your taxes reduced? - Do you want to invite capital and skill and labor into your midst? Do you want your resources developed, your coal, your iron, mined and manufactured, your vast water power rendered profitable, and your onward march in physical, mental and moral development unobstructed and unimpeded? If you want all this - vote for the new State. Your taxes have been reduced in the reorganized government to 30 cents on the one hundred dollars worth. Will you cleave to old Virginia and pay one dollar and twenty ______________________________________________________
Do you desire your lands improved in value? Do you want your taxes reduced? - Do you want to invite capital and skill and labor into your midst? Do you want your resources developed, your coal, your iron, mined and manufactured, your vast water power rendered profitable, and your onward march in physical, mental and moral development unobstructed and unimpeded? If you want all this - vote for the new State. Your taxes have been reduced in the reorganized government to 30 cents on the one hundred dollars worth. Will you cleave to old Virginia and pay one dollar and twenty cents on the hundred dollars worth of property, which is now the rate of taxation in the rebel government of that State. And now we say to you, fellow-citizens, look carefully over the whole ground and weigh all the arguments, and having learned your duty and your highest interest, go on the 26th day of March, 1863, and vote for the new State.
The duties of the committee will be to ask every man in his district, and to see that he is at the polls on election day, and that he votes for the new State. To fix a time and place in your districts for holding new Senate meetings, and to notify the Central Committee thereof, and also give general notice to the people, in which duty the Central Committee will aid you and as far as possible furnish you, if desired, speakers for the occasion. And now we invoke your earnest patriotic efforts in our good cause and the blessings of Almighty God upon the new State.
Smith Crane,
Jno. R. Stone,
Jno. S. Murdock,
Central Com.
P.S. There will be a mass meeting of the citizens of Preston on court day, the 9th of March.
By order of the Committee.
Smith Crane, Chairman.
Timeline of West Virginia: Civil War and Statehood: March 1863