Shavers Fork Tributaries & Towns
Zach Henderson deeply appreciated the watershed’s beauty. While attending Davis and Elkins College (D&E) in Elkins, West Virginia, he studied the Shavers Fork and started putting together information about the river. In the late 1990s, people began to gather and form nonprofit watershed groups across the region. That growth has yet to slow down.
Friends of the Cheat, another watershed organization, had formed and encouraged Zach to form a group. The twin floods of 1996 were the impetus for forming the Shavers Fork Coalition, and the first meetings were packed with concerned citizens who wanted to learn more about how to stop the river from flooding. Soon, a Shavers Fork Coalition board of directors formed and obtained nonprofit group status.
Zach recalls much of this history:
I came out in 1990, as an eighteen-year-old high school graduate from New England. I went to D&E in fall 1990 and remained a student until summer 1996. I began college as a recreation student, but ended up traveling for a year and became a little more interested in ecology and environmental issues. And so I changed my major and got involved in the environment and ecology. Through studying sciences, I got involved in watershed work. I worked with Jim Van Gundy [Ph.D., D&E biology professor emeritus] and was involved in looking at the impact of acid mine drainage on streams.
With West Virginia’s more than 80,000 miles of streams, it was a
natural to become involved in aquatics. So I evolved into that and ended up
doing a senior thesis on the current ecological state of our rivers. I was
interested in what the rivers were like prior to logging, prior to farming. What
did they look like? What sort of ecological state were they in? And then, what
has happened over time, since then? What happened to the rivers after the
farmers first arrived? What happened to the rivers after the industrialists
first moved here? I was especially interested in that.
I focused my senior thesis on the Shavers Fork, a local river just over the hill. I swam there, kayaked there, ran around on that river for more than five years, and I love that area. My thesis is titled The Evolving River: Land Use and History on the Shavers Fork of the Cheat. I did some historical digging, and collected anecdotal information. I went up to the Cheat Mountain Club, looked through their fishing logbook back to the late 1800s, which was prior to logging on the upper Shavers Fork. I wanted to find out what that river had been like at one time, because I knew that it had changed considerably.
Zach Henderson on the railbus tour of the upper Shavers Fork he organized in 1999.
I tied anecdotal land-use history in with ecological research and integrated it to create a portrait of the river: What was it like? What were the organisms that indicated the health of the watershed in the past? And then, where are we now and where can we go with this information? After feeling enlightened about local streams, I wanted to get some money to try to interpret it—get that information out. You know, “How can people not know that we used to have trees that were nine feet in diameter, and river conditions where people caught 500 brook trout on a three-day trip to the upper Shavers Fork? What happened?”
We don’t even see brook trout in many of the Shavers Fork tributaries anymore because of acid rain, AMD [acid mine drainage] and sediment issues. So I got into that and looked for some money for interpretation. At that time I was able to find a new program that the state started, the West Virginia Stream Partners Program. They were trying to find and fund support for watershed organizations across the state. We didn’t have a watershed group, so all of the sudden I was starting one. With the help of artist Ruth Blackwell Rogers and other local environmental activists, as well as a few other local quasi-government and government agencies, we started our group in summer 1996.
This was just after the area suffered two of the biggest floods since 1985, and some of the biggest floods that we know about. Houses were packed when we had those first couple community meetings, and I wasn’t quite prepared for it. I was a young guy and pretty idealistic. People wanted us to fix the river and keep it from flooding. We quickly realized that it wasn’t as easy as interpreting the beautiful environment; that there were real cultural issues, land-use issues, and deep-seated mistrust of the government as well as of other people out on the watershed. We wanted to incorporate those interests into our watershed group, so we brought in a many different kinds of folks.
We bought into the concept that a watershed organization needs to represent the interests of the watershed. That’s why we organized the way we did and wrote the bylaws the way we did. Agricultural and forestry interests were represented. We didn’t want too much government involvement; we wanted more citizens. We tried to incorporate varied interests like that. That’s how it grew into the Shavers Fork Coalition, which is more the Shavers Fork Watershed Organization than a coalition, but it seemed like a good name at the time.
We then incorporated and obtained our 501(c)(3) for nonprofit organizations, and we established a board of directors and an advisory committee. We did everything that we needed to do to become a qualified nonprofit, and that fall we held flood education workshops. We had some good turnout from the community, from county commissioners to people who needed to hear that rivers are changing, flooding happens naturally, and we can’t stop rivers from flooding. That there are things that we can do to prevent materials that can be more harmful to riverside landowners from moving through streams.
We tried to find a way to share information
and to gather that information from the locals because folks that lived out
there knew a lot about the history of that stream. One elderly woman used to
say, “Oh yeah, back in the day we used to have swimming holes, and you could
lose an elephant down in there. Now there aren’t anymore holes.”
Upper Shavers Fork Partners’ Sharing and Brainstorming Day, October 2003, Cheat Mountain Club. Agency and academic researchers, conservation groups, forest and wildlife managers, fishermen and cavers shared information and data and brainstormed ways to encourage coldwater inputs to improve aquatic habitat. Photo courtesy Shavers Fork Coalition.
Thus the Shavers Fork Coalition was formed. With interests both in community development and environmental protection, the volunteer-based group created its mission statement: “The Shavers Fork Coalition is dedicated to long-term cooperation among watershed interests in order to promote and care for the unique qualities of the Shavers Fork for the purpose of improving the region’s quality of life.”
Also, in an effort to truly represent the interests of the entire community, the group wrote in its charter that among the nine board members, four must satisfy each of the following categories: agricultural community, recreation and tourism, environmental community, and a watershed landowner.
The group went on to tackle a variety of projects, such as trash cleanups, creating an educational booklet about the Red Spruce ecosystem, sponsoring rail-bus tours of the upper Shavers Fork, and stream bank stabilization.
SFC
board members Al Krueger and
Ruth Blackwell Rogers at streambank cleanup,
2003. Photos courtesy Shavers Fork Coalition. 
Healing the Headwaters Summit tour, May 18, 2000.
Educational
booklet, “Red Spruce Ecosystem:
A Rare But Resilient West Virginia Forest,”
published by SFC, 2000.
One of the bigger achievements was a
“Healing the Headwaters” summit held at Snowshoe in 2000. At this summit more
than eighteen agencies, businesses, educational institutions, and nonprofit
organizations committed to preserving the ecological health of the upper Shavers
Fork. Such across-the-board cooperation is a true sign of the desire to protect
the characteristics of Cheat Mountain. Because of this and other projects, the
West Virginia Watershed Network honored Shavers Fork Coalition with the West
Virginia “Watershed of the Year” award in 2001.
SFC board
members Ed Galford, Charlie Willett, and Ruth Blackwell Rogers
accept Watershed
of the Year award at the annual Watershed Celebration Day, 2001.
In the beginning of 2002, an idea cropped up to collect the history and folklore of the watershed and create a book out of the stories. This book would celebrate peoples’ amazing stories about their experiences on the watershed as well as teach about local history. The benefits of such a project are manifold and include boosting community development, preserving cultural heritage, and increasing awareness of the Shavers Fork Coalition and of the special attributes of the watershed.
This book is the culmination of that idea, and it is inherently incomplete. There are so many stories and so much information about events on this watershed that to truly capture them is an impossible task. But we tried. Since many of these histories are based solely on memory, there will be inaccuracies. Please contact us if you find inconsistencies, and we will duly note them in the second edition.
As rivers continually change, moving stones and carving new channels, so do the stories of those who dwell, farm, log, hunt, fish, and camp along their banks. Any written record of a place is only part of a living history, flowing and changing through time. We hope this snapshot of the Shavers Fork of Cheat will delight and inform readers, remind them of personal experiences, and most importantly, we hope this book will nourish the natural impulse to take care of what we love.
Upper Shavers Fork Partners discussing recent research, Cheat Mountain Club, October 2005. Photo courtesy Shavers Fork Coalition.
| West Side | Landmark | East Side |
| Snowshoe | ||
| Slide Run | ||
| Black Run | Oats Run | |
| Spruce | ||
|
Rocky Run |
Second Fork | |
| Buck Run | ||
| Black Run | First Fork | |
| Fish Hatchery Run | ||
| Cheat Bridge | ||
| Blister Run | ||
| Red Run | ||
| Stonecoal Run | ||
| Whitemeadow Run | ||
| Glade Run | ||
| John’s Camp Run | ||
| McGee Run | ||
| Suter Run | ||
| Stalnaker Run | ||
| Deer Lick | ||
| Fall Run | ||
| High Falls | ||
| Red Roaring Run | ||
| Fishing Hawk Creek | ||
| Bemis | ||
| Coal Run | ||
| Red Creek | ||
| Upper Pond Lick | ||
| Flint | ||
| Wolf Run | ||
| Lower Pond Lick | ||
| Collett Gap Run | ||
| Rich Bottom Run | ||
| Wilson Run | ||
| Taylor Run | ||
| Bowden | ||
| Wolf Run | ||
| Stuarts Recreational Area | ||
| Western Run | ||
| Walker Run | ||
| Mount Zion Church | ||
| John’s Run | ||
| Beaver Pond Run | Rattlesnake Run | |
| Little Black Fork | ||
| Clifton Run | ||
| Little Laurel Run | ||
| Boar Run | ||
| Flatbrush Run | ||
| Nail Run | ||
| Pettit | ||
| Laurel Run | ||
| Rock Camp Run | ||
| Canoe Run | ||
| Sugar Camp Run | ||
| Stonelick Run | ||
| Pleasant Run | ||
| Jobs Run | ||
| Shingle Tree Run | ||
| Porterwood | ||
| Hawk Run | ||
| Sugar Camp Run | ||
| Parsons | ||
| Black Fork |
Allman, Ruth Cooper. 1979. Roots in Tucker County. Parsons, West Virginia: McClain Printing Company.
A Plan to Save a River: Shavers Fork of Cheat River West Virginia. 1967. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Eastern Region, U.S. Forest Service.
Berman, Gillian Mace, and Melissa Conley-Spencer. The Monongahela National Forest 1915–1990.
Bosworth, Dr. A.S. A History of Randolph County. Clearfield Press: West Virginia.
Brauer, Norman. 1995. There to Breathe the Beauty: The Camping Trips of Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone, and John Burroughs. Dalton, Pennsylvania: Norman Brauer Publications.
Brooks, A.B. 1910. West Virginia Geological Survey, Vol V: Forestry and Wood Industries. Morgantown, West Virginia: Acme Publishing Company.
Burford, S. Franklin. 1992. The Snowshoe Story: Business, Politics and the Judiciary In West Virginia. Elkins, West Virginia: Kerens Hill Publications.
Clarkson, Roy B. 1964. Tumult in the Mountains: Lumbering in West Virginia 1770–1920. Parsons, West Virginia: McClain Printing Company.
Clarkson, Roy B. 1990. On Beyond Leatherbark: The Cass Saga. Parsons, West Virginia: McClain Printing Company.
Conrad, David E. 1997. The Land We Cared For . . . A History of the Forest Service’s Eastern Region. Milwaukee Wisconsin: U.S. Department of Agriculture-Forest Service, Region 9.
Constantz, George. 1994. Hollows, Peepers and Highlanders: An Appalachian Mountain Ecology. Missoula, Montana: Mountain Press Publishing Company.
Core, Earl L. 1966. Vegetation of West Virginia. Parsons, West Virginia: McClain Printing Company.
De Hart, Allen. 1986. Hiking the Mountain State: The Trails of West Virginia.
Deike, George H. III. 1978. Logging South Cheat: The History of the Snowshoe Lands. Cass, West Virginia: George Deike.
Fansler, Homer Floyd. 1962. History of Tucker County, West Virginia. Parsons, West Virginia: McClain Printing Company.
Gilbert, Kenneth ed. 1983. Mountain Trace Book II. Charleston, West Virginia: Jalamap Publications, Inc.
Grenard, Ross, and John Krause. Steam in the Alleghenies: Western Maryland. Rockville Centre, New York: J&D Studios, Inc.
Harr, Milton. 1992. The C.C.C. Camps in West Virginia. Charleston, West Virginia: Milton Harr.
Hulse, Charles. 1989. Archeological Investigations at Spruce, WV: A Company-owned Railroad and Mill Community of the Late Industrial Revolution Period. Unpublished.
Lesser, W. Hunter. 1993. Battle at Corricks Ford: Confederate Disaster and Loss of a Leader. Parsons, West Virginia: McClain Printing Company.
Long, Cleta M. 1996. History of Tucker County West Virginia. Parsons, West Virginia: McClain Printing Company.
Maxwell, Hu. 1884. History of Tucker County, West Virginia. Kingwood: Preston Publishing Company.
McKim, C.R. 50 Year History of the Monongahela National Forest. Unpublished.
McNeel, William Price. 1985. The Durbin Route: The Greenbrier Division of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway. Charleston, West Virginia: Pictoral Histories Publishing Company.
Mills, Don. 1991. Randolph County West Virginia: History—Families. Waynesville, North Carolina: Walsworth Publishing.
Milnes, Gerald. 1999. Play of a Fiddle: Traditional Music, Dance and Folklore in West Virginia. University Press of Kentucky.
Ross, Thomas Richard. 1994. Henry Gassaway Davis: An Old Fashioned Biography. Parsons, West Virginia: McClain Printing Company.
Steen, Harold K. 1992. The Origins of the National Forests. Durham, North Carolina: Forest History Society.
Stephenson, Steven L. ed. 1993. Upland Forests of West Virginia. Steven L. Stephenson.
Stevenson, Amy A., and Rae Jean V. Sielen. 1997. Mountain State Stories of the People: Celebrating West Virginia. Morgantown, West Virginia: Populore Publishing Company.
Sundquist, Bruce, and Allen De Hart. 1988. Monongahela National Forest Hiking Guide. Charleston, West Virginia: West Virginia Highlands Conservancy.
Teets, Bob, and Shelby Young. 1985. Killing Waters: The Great West Virginia Flood of 1985. Terra Alta, West Virginia: Cheat River Publishing.
Teter, Don. 1977. Going Up Gandy: A History of the Dry Fork Region of Randolph and Tucker Counties, West Virginia. Parsons, West Virginia: McClain Printing Company.
Weidensaul, Scott. 1994. Mountains of the Heart: A Natural History of the Appalachians. Golden, Colorado: Fulcrum Publishing.
Werner, Harry R. M.D. 1968. Big Doc and Little Doc. Parsons, West Virginia: McClain Printing Company.
Due to the dynamic quality of the Internet, we cannot promise links will remain active. URLS were checked as this manuscript went to press (date).
http://cva.morehead-st.edu/links/pages/archives_links.html (?)
Appalachian studies links
http://library.cn.edu:8686/CNAPs/Appalachian.html (?)
Appalachian studies links
http://www.appalachianfocus.org/links.htm#Appalachian%20Topics (?)
Appalachia: Suite 101 topics links
http://www.suite101.com/links.cfm/1831
Appalachian studies pages
http://www.ferrum.edu/applit/links.htm
Canaan Valley Institute
http://www.canaanvi.org/canaanvi_web/index.aspx
Central Appalachia logging links
http://www.narrowtracks.com/eastern_loggers/ELoggingLinks.htm
Encyclopedia of Southern Appalachian forest ecosystems
http://www.forestryencyclopedia.net/index.html?targetId=12&&anchorId=11
Greenbrier River Watershed. Links to environmental education resources for teachers.
http://www.greenbrierriver.org/teachers.htm
History of Timber Industry in West Virginia, bibliography http://www.clearlight.com/~wvhh/biblio/timber.htm
Logging the Virgin Forests of West Virginia. Somewhat biased synopsis and timeline for logging West Virginia ecosystems
http://www.patc.net/history/archive/virg_fst.html
Natural Resources Research Information Pages. Links to every federal and state environmentally-related agency in the country.
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~leung/agusa.html
Pocahontas County, bibliography. West Virginia Archives and History
http://www.wvculture.org/history/counties/pocahontas.html
Pocahontas County, early history http://www.polsci.wvu.edu/wv/Pocahontas/pochistory.html
Potomac Highlands, history. Links by county
http://www.wvexplorer.com/History/Potomac-Highlands-History.asp
Project WET [Water Education for Teachers] West Virginia. This national organization offers environmental education curricula and many resources. http://www.dep.state.wv.us/item.cfm?ssid=11&ss1id=164
Project Wild: Environmental and Conservation Program for Educators
http://www.projectwild.org/index.htm
Rails USA. Logging and railroad links both modern and history, types of engines, the works
http://www.railsusa.com/logging.shtml
Shavers Fork Coalition
Society interested in the history of railroads and logging in West Virginia
http://www.seidata.com/~jreid/msrlha.html#association (?)
Tending the Commons: Folklife and landscape in southern West Virginia http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cmnshtml/cmnssubjindex.html
United States Geological Survey site for West Virginia.
Good links on mapping pollution, resources, etc.
http://water.usgs.gov/pubs/FS/FS-049-96/
West Virginia Department of Education, a directory of who to contact based on the topic.
http://wvde.state.wv.us/topics/person/A/
West Virginia Department of Education Web site. State education guidelines for all grades
West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection Web site
West Virginia Department of Natural Resources Web site
West Virginia Department of Parks and State Forests Web site
http://www.wvparks.com/index.htm
West Virginia Division of Forestry Web site http://www.wvforestry.com/index.cfm
From the same site—more of the same. This one has categorized subject areas.
http://cva.morehead-st.edu/links/pages/geographic/wv_sites.html (?)
WVRailroads.com. History of railroad links for West Virginia http://www.wvexplorer.com/wvrailroads/default.asp?catid=6&cattitle=History
Allender, Doris
Allender, Jack
Alpine Shores
Appalachian Mountains
Arlington, Jack
Bald Knob
Baltimore
Baltimore & Ohio
Bazzle, Jim
Bemis
Bemis, J.M. Bemis and Son
Bemis Nightclub
Bennet, Londa
Bergoo
Bickles Knot
Bierce, Ambrose
Big Cut
Black Run
Bowden
Branch, Matthew
Broughton, Ed
Broughton, Tom
Broughton, Virgil
Brown, D.D.
Brown, M.M.
Burke, Lorraine
Camping
Camp Pocahontas
Cass
Clarkson, Roy
Coketon Lumber
Cheat and Elkins Railroad Company
Cheat Bridge
Cheat River
Cheat River Lumber Company
Cheat Mountain
Cheat Mountain Club
Cheat Mountain Salamander
Chesapeake & Ohio (C&O)
Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
Civil War
Clarkson, Roy
Coal & Iron Railway
Cooper, Alice
Crane, Earl
Cussins, Devane
Davis & Elkins College
Davis, Senator Henry Gassaway
Depression (the Great Depression)
Dewing, James H.
Dewing & Sons
Dugan, Pat
Durbin
Durbin & Greenbrier Valley Railroad
Elkins
Elkins Pail & Lumber Company
Elkins, Stephen Benton
Fire
Fishing
Fishing Hawk logging camp
Flood
Fort Millroy
Friends of Spruce
Friskhorn, Carl
Galford, Springy
Gandy dancers
Gaudineer Knob
Gauley Mountain
Giddings and Lewis Manufacturing Company
Glady
Goddin, J.L.
Gold
Greenbrier County
Grimes, Terry
Hall, Boone
Hamrick, Harvey
Hayhurst, Chuck
Henderson, Zack
High Falls
Hunting
Hutton, Eli
Isner, Lillie Mae
Johnny Pulp
Kayaking
Krueger, Al
Krueger, Ann
Lambert, Steve
Little Black Fork River
Logging
Luke, J.G.
Luke, William
Lumber
Lumberjacks
Mahoney, Harry
McBride, H.A
McClain Printing Company
Miller, Phil
Millspaugh, Charles
Mally engine
Monongahela National Forest
Montes
Moonshine
Mower Lumber Company
Mullenx, Shawn
National Forest Management Act
Nefflen, Henry
Nelson, Grace
New Tygart Flyer
O’Day
Parsons
Parson Pulp & Paper
Pocahontas County
Pocahontas Times
Porterwood Lumber Company
Phillips, Hayward
Phillips, Jim
Powers, Dorie
Propst, James “Jim”
Proud, Frank
Railroad
Randolph County
Randolph County Circuit Court
Red spruce
Revelle’s River Retreat
Ridgway, Henry A.
Road monkey
Rogers, Ruth Blackwell
Rowan, Buck
Sager,
Sanders, Bud
Scour zone
Shaffer, Grace Gainer
Shaffer, Hazel Phillips
Sharp, Lee
Sharp, Johnny
Sharp, Wanda Powers
Shavers Fork (of Cheat River)
Shavers Fork Coalition
Shavers Fork Watershed
Shay locomotive
Shay Number 12
Shifflet, Calvin
Skidder
Slaty Fork
Smith, Meriwyn McClain
Snoeshoe
Snyder, Jim
Spruce
town of spruce
spruce trees
Spruce Lumber Company
State Rail Authority
Sutton, Rev. W.W.
Thorne, Bill
Trout
Trout Unlimited
Tucker County
Vance, Peck
Wagoner, Jean
Wagoner, Jerry
Ward, Lucille
Watson, Kenny
Weese, Bert
Weese, Duane “Leo”
Western Maryland Railway Company
West Virginia Central Railroad (WVCRR)
West Virginia Pulp & Paper Company
West Virginia Spruce Lumber Company
White, Jim
Wilmoth, Agnes Smith
Wilmoth, Jean
Wilmoth, Martin
Winchester, Col. A.H.
Winchester, Ella
Wooddell, Stanley
Wood hick
World War I
World War II