The Gwinns of Round Bottom

By Leona Gwinn Brown

(reprinted by permission)

In the heart of the Appalachians, where in the process of time New River has ground its way into the hills, there is a place known as Round Bottom; to the Gwinns the most beautiful place on earth, because it is home. Home, not only because the family was born and raised there, but also because they grew, and became a part of that which makes life beautiful.

(From an unpublished manuscript written by Laban Gwinn, son of George Loomis Gwinn and Rosa Spade Gwinn)

Round Bottom, the home of the George Loomis Gwinn family at McKendree, Fayette County, West Virginia, is well remembered and well loved by the many descendants and friends of the family. The name came from the fact that here, about a mile downstream from the west portal of Stretcher’s Neck tunnel on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (now CSX), New River makes a wide circle, leaving several acres of fairly level bottom land on the west bank of the river.

As a child, I wondered how the family came to settle in this remote place, even then accessible only by a rough wagon road or by boat. My father told me many stories, passed down from his father and mother, about the pioneer life of his grandparents, Laban and Mary Jane Burdette Gwinn, who settled here before the Civil War.

I have been able to find documentation and historical background for some of these stories, and have come across other interesting facts in the past few years. I am writing them down for the edification and, I hope, enjoyment of friends and relatives. This is not intended to be a scholarly work; if nostalgia and sentiment are apparent, so be it. I do list sources of information, for those who wish to look further into the history of the fami1y.

There are many discrepancies and unsolved puzzles in the information I have found. For example, there is the mystery of Elizabeth Speece. Jesse Blaine Gwinn, in History of the Gwinn Family, states that Samuel Gwinn, Sr. was first married to Elizabeth Speece. I have been able to find no documentation whatever for this, but the question lingers because Nelson Gwinn, my cousin, seems to remember having heard this from older family members.

The dates on the tombstones in the old Gwinn cemetery at Green Sulphur Springs, and on John Gwinn’s grave at Meadow Bridge, do not agree with some of the documented facts. The stone on Elizabeth’s grave reads "who died January the 25th 1832 in the 73rd year of her age". This would make her only fifteen years of age in 1774 when she married Samuel Gwinn, and all records indicate that by that year she was a widow with three children. Beside the graves of Samuel and Elizabeth is a gravestone reading "Sacred to the memory of Moses Gwinn who died December 28, 1822 in the 62nd year of his age". In his will, Samuel Gwinn refers to Moses as his oldest son, but if he was the son of Samuel and Elizabeth he could not have been born earlier than 1774.

Another question is: who was Samuel Lockridge? Among the "Gwinn Papers," old documents contained in a trunk entrusted to Nelson Gwinn by Willa Gwinn, widow of Lewis Gwinn, is a land grant given to Samuel Lockridge in 1794 and signed by Henry Lee, governor of Virginia. The land described in the warrant is apparently the land where Samuel Gwinn settled in Summers County after he married Elizabeth Lockridge Graham. How the document came to be among the family papers is a mystery, as well as the relationship of Samuel Lockridge to Samuel and Elizabeth Gwinn.

I am sure there are discrepancies and errors to be found in this book, also, and I apologize for them. I have tried to be as accurate as possible, but errors have a way of slipping in. Some of the old county histories were written from oral accounts, and human memory often fails or distorts facts as the years roll by. Perhaps some future historian will be able to fit in some more pieces and write a more accurate history.

It is certain, however, that the Gwinns of Round Bottom are direct descendants of one Robert Gwinn (the name is variously spelled Gwin, Gwynne, Gwynn, Gwyn, Guinn, Gum) who came from Wales and was appointed constable at the head of the Calfpasture River in Augusta County, Virginia in 1746.

I have had valuable assistance in gathering information for this book. Nelson Gwinn has been of the greatest help in taking time to help me go through the papers in the old trunk and has copied many of the documents for me. All of the "Gwinn sisters", Lena Johnson, Elsie Godbey, Mona Frost, Nelle Wriston, and Leila Walters have furnished old pictures, oral history, and anecdotes. I owe special thanks to Sheilda Ballantyne for using her skills in photography to make prints of the old pictures. All the first cousins have been most cooperative in furnishing biographical material about their parents. My heartfelt thanks to all of them.

Leona Gwinn Brown

May, 1987

Edited and updated November 2000

When Robert Gwinn came to the head of the Calfpasture River some time before 1744, the east coast of Virginia had been settled for over a hundred years, but this area between the Blue Ridge and the Alleghenies was still sparsely settled and wild. The rugged mountain country may have reminded him of his native northern Wales, which is also rough and mountainous.

The area was attractive to settlers, however. Rivers, abounding in fish, flowed through level, fertile bottom land. Forests provided an abundance of fruits, berries, and nuts. To those who had experienced hard times in Europe, it must have seemed a land of opportunity.

Both the English government and the government of colonial Virginia began to encourage settlement of this area in the early eighteenth century by offering land grants of from 10,000 to 100,000 acres to those who could arrange to seat one family per thousand acres on the land. These settlers would provide a buffer for Indian attacks against the eastern settlements and establish the British claim to the land before the French could claim it. Speculators in England quickly began to take advantage of this policy. One of the speculators in land was Captain James Patton, who brought a shipload of sixty-five people to Hobb’s Hole, a port on the Rappahanock River in Virginia, in 1738. In 1744, Robert Gwinn bought 344 acres of land on the Calfpasture River from James Patton and John Lewis.

Robert Gwinn married Jean Kincaid, daughter of David Kincaid, who left Scotland after the Stuart Rebellion in 1715 and finally settled in Augusta County, Virginia. Robert Gwinn and Jean (or Jane) Kincaid had nine children (listed in the genealogy appended to this book). His son, Samuel, was the ancestor of the Round Bottom Gwinns.

In the early 17OO’s, Augusta County, Virginia extended into what is now southern West Virginia almost as far as the Ohio River, and this area, called West Augusta, was still the wild, and for the most part, unsettled frontier. The scattered settlements were often attacked by Indians, and settlers formed companies of militia, with the approval of the colonial government of Virginia, to defend themselves. The family of Robert Gwinn was heavily involved in this defense, as were the other settlers at the head of the Calfpasture. Robert Gwinn served in the early Colonial Wars (against the Indians) in 1756 in Captain William Preston’s Company of Rangers. David Gwinn, son of Robert, accompanied Captain Charles Lewis on a rescue mission to the Muskingum River in Ohio to restore Isabella Kincaid, daughter of William Kincaid, to her family. Isabella had been a captive of the Indians for some time, and when the rescue party found her, she wore Indian dress and was hardly recognizable. David Gwinn, so the story goes, was able to identify her because her little toe was missing. It had accidentally been cut off, before her capture, by her brother when chopping wood. Later, David Gwinn served as lieutenant and captain in the Revolutionary War. The Virginia Daughters of the American Revolution placed a memorial marker at his grave, located in the cemetery at Clover Creek Church, near the site of old Fort George in Highland County, Virginia.

Only two of Robert’s sons, James and Samuel, settled in what is now West Virginia. James and most of his descendants remained in Monroe County; Samuel was one of the first settlers in what is now Summers County. He was the father of John, who bought the Round Bottom property from Isaac and Elizabeth Sanner in 1855.

Samuel Gwinn’s first journey across the mountains into what is now West Virginia may have been as a militiaman to guard settlements against the Indians. In 1756 the Virginia General assembly directed that a "chain of forts" be erected along the frontier for the defense of the settlers against the Indians. George Washington was entrusted with planning the locations and supervising the construction of these forts. One of them, Captain Breckenridge’s Fort, was located between present day Covington and Warm Springs, Virginia, just a ridge or two west of the head of the Calfpasture where the Gwinn family lived. (Could this explain the popularity of Breckenridge as a given name in the Gwinn family?) Other forts in this area were Fort Dinwiddie and Fort Dickinson.

In addition to these official forts, many settlers who had substantial cabins fortified their homes by cutting loopholes in upper walls and sometimes by building stockade—type fences around them. When word came to a settlement that the Indians were "on the move", the settlers packed up some supplies and moved into one of these forts to be better able to fend off an attack. This was called "forting". Often, too, members of the militia would gather at an endangered fort to fight off an attack.

In 1835, in applying for a pension voted by Congress for the benefit of soldiers who had served during the Revolution, Samuel Gwinn describes his personal experiences in "forting:"

I moved to the county of Monroe with my wife and two children, I lived at Thompson’s fort for a year or two, then moved to a blockhouse, finally to Vanbibber’s fort. At these places, I forted in the summer months. All the time afterward in the winter I returned to my cabbin [sic], and devoted the winter to hunting--all the people of the settlement took their families to the forts in the summer months--where we lived pretty much in common--we could turn out all in a body and work each others corn and potato patches by turn--whilst we would be working someone always would be watching for Indians--we worked and watched by turns. We selected from among ourselves someone in whom we had confidence as a sort of leader or Captain, and in this way we got along as well as we could--I was four or fives days defending the attack on Dunley’s [Donnally’s] fort, was called out for this service.

It may have been during one of these expeditions to defend a fort that Samuel Gwinn got his first look at the Greenbrier country. In an earlier affidavit, submitted in applying for a government pension he believed was due him for his military service, he stated that "In the year 1771 or 2 he served a three month’s tour under Captain Laughridge (Lockridge), was drafted in Augusta County, Va., and was stationed at Clover Lick on the headwaters of Greenbrier in Augusta County and was stationed at that place to guard the frontier settlements against the Indians."

One of the smaller family forts was located at Clover Lick, which is in present day Pocahontas County. Today, Clover Lick is only an isolated hamlet by the Greenbrier, but according to Dr. Price’s History of Pocahontas County, in those days "The main route for emigration from Maryland, Pennsylvania, and other points north and northeast, passed by Clover Lick, to Kentucky and Ohio. As many as forty and fifty would be entertained overnight. This made Clover Lick one of the most public and widely known places in the whole country." It was the home of pioneer settler Jacob Warwick, and, according to Dr. Price, was the scene of at least two engagements with the Indians.

Samuel Gwinn was to see more of the Greenbrier country in the coming years, and was finally to make it his home. In 1771, Lord Dunmore became governor of Virginia. He, along with several others, including George Washington, was very interested in land speculation west of the Alleghenies. His policies encouraged further settlement in what had been the Indians’ ancestral hunting grounds, and led to what is known as "Dunmore’s War". The Battle of Point Pleasant on October 10, 1774, between Virginia forces and Chief Cornstalk’s warriors, was the only major engagement of this war, but has been called by some the first battle of the Revolution.

On July 24, 1774, Lord Dunmore ordered Colonel Andrew Lewis to enlist men from Augusta, Fincastle, and Botetourt Counties and to prepare to join him at the mouth of the Kanawha River. He himself was to lead a force from Fort Dunmore (now Pittsburgh) and join Lewis there. Colonel Lewis marched by way of Warm Springs and proceeded to gather his forces at Camp Union, near Lewisburg, where about 1100 men were mustered for the march to Point Pleasant. If, as his pension statement declares, Samuel Gwinn was on this march, he passed through country to which he was later to return as a settler. A historical marker at Green Sulphur Springs, now in Summers County, West Virginia, identifies the road there as being part of the route this expedition took. This is in the area where Samuel Gwinn and his descendants later came to own thousands of acres of land.

In his Semi-Centennial History of West Virginia, James Morton Callahan describes these men and their route:

The backwoodsmen of the Alleghenies felt that the quarrel was their own and were eager to fight. They were not uniformed save that they all wore the garb of the frontier hunter; most of them were armed with good rifles and all were skillful woodsmen, and although they were undisciplined they were magnificent individual fighters. On September 8, with 1100 men Lewis advanced from Camp Union on a fatiguing march, making his road as he went. Guided by Captain Matthew Arbuckle (an experienced frontiersman) he followed along the trail via Muddy creek, Keeney’s Knob, Rich creek, Gauley, Twenty Mile, Bell creek and Kelley’s creek to the Kanawha (September 21) which was followed to its mouth by canoes and by trail.

In an 1871 history on Douglas County, Illinois, Andrew Gwinn, Samuel’s grandson (son of Moses) tells a story which, no doubt, his grandfather Samuel had told to him. It is quoted in Frederick Long’s column in the Hinton News for January 1, 1980:

During the Revolutionary war he [Samuel] was stationed at Point Pleasant, now in Western Virginia. An Indian had.crept behind a tree at a considerable distance from the fort for the purpose of observing the movements of the garrison. His person was entirely concealed with the exception of the heel of his foot which slightly projected beyond the tree. Delicate as was the mark, Mr. Gwinns unerring rifle pierced it with a bullet, and the unfortunate Indian crawled away as best he could in search of safer quarters. His old rifle was for a long time in possession of his grandson.

General Andrew Lewis was a surveyor for the Greenbrier Company, a company organized to speculate in land and encourage settlement west of the Alleghenies. Three members of the Lewis family were among the organizers of this company, and it may have been that they encouraged Samuel Gwinn to settle in the Greenbrier country after the Battle of Point Pleasant. In 1778 Thomas Edgar recorded a survey he made for Samuel Gwinn of one hundred acres of land in Greenbrier County on the "South East Side of Greenbrier River at the foot of Loops Knobbs which he is intitled to by settlement before the first day of January 1778. (The Virginia legislature, in 1779, passed a law that settlers who had taken up land prior to January 1, 1778, might obtain 400 acres at a nominal price and preemption rights to another thousand acres at the usual price of forty pounds per hundred acres.)

Meanwhile, there was still Indian fighting, since by this time the British military strategy included making active allies of the Indians and encouraging raids on settlements. Samuel Gwinn states that he was stationed at Thompson’s Fort and was called from there to the relief of Fort Donnally. Otis Rice, in The Allegheny Frontier, gives an account of this attack by the Indians on the fort near Lewisburg in May of 1778. The settlers were saved by a group of sixty-six men who had been assembled at Camp Union by Matthew Arbuckle and Samuel Lewis. No doubt Samuel Gwinn was among them.

His statement then places Samuel Gwinn at VanBibber’s fort, where he says he was "forted" for two months. Rice says, "The Indian depredations were conducted with frightful audacity, making ‘forting’ the normal mode of life throughout the Alleghenies. Parties of Indians who appeared in the Greenbrier area on September 11 displayed typical boldness when they stormed the house of James Graham, which stood within three hundred yards of VanBibber’s fort, killing three persons and taking another prisoner."

Some time before moving to the Greenbrier country, Samuel Gwinn married Elizabeth Lockridge Graham, the sister of Major Andrew Lockridge. Elizabeth’s first husband was Robert Graham, brother of Major Lockridge’s wife, Jane (or Jean).

Elizabeth, like many pioneer women, must have been a person of great courage and stamina to endure the trials of her life. Her first husband, Robert Graham, died in 1744. His will, recorded in March of that year, mentions three daughters, Sara, Jane, and Rebecca. By April 30, court records show, Elizabeth had also paid funeral expenses for a child, probably Rebecca. Soon Elizabeth was to go with her new husband, Samuel Gwinn, to the wilderness of Western Virginia, to face a life of hard work and constant fear of the Indians. Probably not knowing whether she would ever see them again, she left her two little daughters, Sara and Jane, with her brother, Major Andrew Lockridge.

A record in an Augusta County Court Order Book shows that by June 20, 1775, Elizabeth was married to Samuel Gwinn. By 1780 they had moved to what is now Monroe County, West Virginia. Their first home was near the present town of Lowell. They lived here until 1799, when they moved to land Samuel had acquired near Green Sulphur Springs, in present-day Summers County.

Among the "Gwinn Papers" now in the possession of Nelson Gwinn of Grand Rapids, Michigan, is the original patent for three hundred and fifty acres of land "by virtue of a land office warrant number eight thousand four hundred and fifty four." This land was granted to Samuel Lockridge, the document signed by Henry Lee, governor of Virginia, in August of 1794. How this document came to be among the "Gwinn Papers" remains a mystery. Samuel Lockridge must have been a relative of Elizabeth Lockridge Graham Gwinn, wife of Samuel Gwinn, but extensive research has not given any definite clue to the connection between them.

Frederick Long writes, "Samuel Gwinn Sr. became a prosperous farmer and was known to be an honest, upright man. At the time of his death, through hard work and unyielding effort, his farm in Green Sulphur Springs became one of the most, if not the most valuable land in what is now Summers County."  By 1816, Long says, he bought four tracts of land on Lick Creek, one over 28,000 acres.

Samuel ‘s older sons, Samuel Jr. and Andrew, remained in Monroe County. Samuel Gwinn took two slaves to the new property, cleared land and built a cabin, and then took his family on horseback across the mountains, Elizabeth carrying the baby Ephraim (born June 14, 1799) in her arms. John Gwinn was then ten years old.

Samuel Gwinn died in 1839 and is buried near Green Sulphur Springs. (Elizabeth died in 1832, at the age of seventy-three, according to the inscription on her tombstone, but there is some reason to question the accuracy of the dates).

In his last will and testament Samuel directed that three thousand fourteen dollars in cash be "laid out in Congress Land in the western Country" for the future use of his grandsons, thus showing considerable foresight and contributing to the settlement of the West. Three daughters, Ruth Jarrett, Isabell Busby, and Betsy Newsome, and each grandson named Samuel received a slave. His son Moses had preceded him in death, and he provided for Moses’s children to share in the division of his property.

Samuel’s son, John Gwinn, followed in his father’s footsteps and acquired many acres of land in what would be Summers and Fayette Counties. One of these was "one certain tract of land in the county of Fayette containing 230 acres, lying on New River and known as the round bottom tract," which he bought from Isaac and Elizabeth Sanner in April of 1855. This was the tract of land to which his son, Laban, would later bring his bride, Mary Jane Burdette.

When John Gwinn was twenty-four years old, in 1812, he married Sarah George, daughter of Thomas and Catherine George. Twelve years later he bought his first tract of land, in what was then wilderness, near the present town of Meadow Bridge. The land was well-timbered. He cleared a large section of it and used it to raise grain, cattle, sheep, and hogs.

Fayette County was formed by an act of the General Assembly of the state of Virginia in 1831. In the new county government, John Gwinn was commissioned a justice of the peace. In 1844, he received a commission from the Governor of Virginia to execute the office of Sheriff. He was the seventh Sheriff of Fayette County. He served in this office until 1846, receiving a salary of eighty-five dollars a year.

Frederick Long writes:

At the June term of the County Court, 1840, John Gwinn was granted a license to keep a "house of private entertainment", a tax of $2.00 being imposed. This was a market place where all kinds of foods were kept and exchanged. The early hunters sold their venison, bear meat, beef, pork, hides, pelts and wild ginseng. The farmers traded their products for coffee, lead, powder, caps, tobacco, cotton cloth, etc. At that time it was all a barter business, with little money handled. It was also a stopping place for the traveling public, an Inn or hotel. Every month or so John and one of his sons would load a wagon with the surplus of grains or hides and make the two-day journey to Lewisburg where he would sell them. In this manner John was able to save a large amount of money.

John Gwinn and his wife are buried in the Wickline cemetery near Meadow Bridge next to their daughter, Achsah, who was killed when she was eight years old in a freak accident when a tree limb fell on her. John’s tombstone, which was not erected until the 1930’s, gives the date of his death as 1870, but this is incorrect. An old bill now in the possession of Nelson Gwinn is headed: "February 1871 John Gwinn moved to Lavin (sic) Gwinn on Newriver." The bill is for materials and labor for building a cabin, and totals $141.95, with $7.95 deducted (perhaps a down payment), leaving a balance of $134.00. The chimney of this cabin was still standing when I was a child in the 1930’s, and I remember its being pointed out to me as the chimney of "Pappy John’s" cabin.

Also, among the "Gwinn papers" in Nelson s possession is a note-book kept by Laban Gwinn, in which he had written, "John Gwinn was born Feb. 3 1790 died July 27, 1873 Sunday morning 6 o’clock." I suppose John Gwinn came to be near his son in his old age (he would have been 82 then) and died there, but was taken to Meadow Bridge for burial.

In January of 1861, for one thousand dollars, John Gwinn had sold the Round Bottom property he had acquired from the Sanners to his son, Laban. This deed was signed on January 20 in 1861 in "the county of Fayette and State of Virginia," but was not recorded until October 23, 1866, in the state of West Virginia. During this time, of course, a war had been fought and the new state formed. Had it been recorded when it was made, it might have been lost; Union forces burned the courthouse at Fayetteville, and the records were removed by a southern sympathizer and hidden in Montgomery County, Virginia, until the war was over.

Laban and his wife must have been already living on the property. Nelson Gwinn has a document signed by George S. Birditt and Giles Birditt (Burdette) giving permission for Laban Gwinn to marry their sister, Jane. This is dated the fourth day of November, 1854. By 1861, Laban had built a house and barn on the Round Bottom property and was farming there. But the life there was to be disrupted by the Civil War, which brought hardship, heartache, and division to so many families in the border state of West Virginia.

This heartache is evident in a letter written to Laban Gwinn while he was a refugee in Indiana by his brother-in-law, Samuel. The letter was written in 1863, in Iowa, where Samuel, perhaps, had settled on the "congress land" his grandfather had directed to be purchased for the use of his grandsons. He wrote:

I have received no letters from my own parents since this rebellion broke out, or since this war began. I was, am yet, and always will be Union; live or die, sink or swim, survive or perish and I supposed that you must have all gone South for I continued to write to you for some time after and I received no letters. It’s a long night of anxiety; two years and more—and no letter from Papa, or Mother, or brother, or sister, or cousin, or friend, or the home of our birth. And particularly when times are such as they are.

Laban, too, was a Union man, and his loyalty was to cost dearly. (Other letters written to Laban Gwinn while he was in Indiana were published in West Virginia History, Volume XLIII, no. 3, Spring 1982, "The Civil War Letters of Laban Gwinn: A Union Refugee," by William E. Cox.)

In September of 1861 there was active fighting in the New River Valley. General Floyd had artillery positioned on Cotton Hill to keep the Union forces from using the ferry at Gauley Bridge. On October 29, General Rosecrans stationed Brigadier General H. W. Benham opposite the mouth of Loup Creek with 3000 men, but New River "went on a rampage," and they were unable to get across the river to destroy Floyd’s artillery. However, there was a skirmish at McCoy’s Mill, site of present-day Glen Jean, and Floyd’s cavalry commander was killed. Floyd fell back to Piney Creek in Raleigh County and McCoy’s Mill was then in the hands of Union troops. In December of that year, Laban Gwinn took the oath of allegiance before a Union officer, and was given a pass back to his home on New River.

W. D. Thurmond, of Oak Hill, joined the Confederate Army on August 26, 1862, and organized a company of partisan rangers who were sworn into the army as part of Lt. Cal. David S. Hounshell’s Battalion, Virginia Cavalry, on September 19, 1862, at Fayetteville. Although they were not formally organized until September, these guerrilla fighters were active in the New River Valley during the previous summer. Some time in August, Laban Gwinn was warned ( family tradition says by a neighbor boy whom he had befriended, and who swam the river to warn him) that the Confederates were coming to arrest him. While Laban guarded the boat landing with a rifle, Mary Jane packed food, clothing, and three small children (Sarah, John, and eighteen-month-old Loomis) into a covered wagon. The family started up the mountain toward Camp McCoy’s Mill, and as they looked back, saw their house and barn burning.

Two military passes, now in the possession of Nelson Gwinn, reveal what happened next:

Camp McCoy’s Mill

August 24, 1862

Capt. Levering

Dear Sir:

The bearer Laban Gwynn, a good union man with his family intends to go to Indiana, he is in reduced Circumstances, the bushwhackers robbed him, you would oblige me by giving him a pass for one of the government boats to reach Ohio.

Very respectfully,

M. Stumpf Capt.

Com. Post

 

Camp McCoy’s Mill

Fayette County West Va

Aug. 30.62

Guards & Pickets

Pass Laban Gwinn and family through the lines to Indiana.

They are Union Refugees.

by order George Boehm

Capt. Co. 3 7th Regt.O.V.

Cmndg Post

Laban’s sister, Francena, had married John Fulwider and moved to Indiana in 1843. This must be the reason Laban chose to go there as a refugee.

We get a few hints about the life of the Gwinn family in exile in Indiana from the letters they received from friends and relatives while they were there. They must have prospered. An 1864 letter from Mary Jane’s brother, George Birdet [Burdette], himself an exile to Jackson County, says, "You are a doing so well. I reckon you will stay whear you are as long as you live." They may have considered staying in Indiana, or migrating farther West. In 1864 brother—in—law Samuel wrote from Iowa:

You wrote you wanted to know something about land and the prices of land and the chance for a situation and so on. Well sir land lately has risen in value but then you know that is the case with everything elce. But sir land is plenty yet and cheape, that is prarie land, and can be bought as low as two dollars per acre and that as good as you ever saw. But timber is dreadful scarce this part of the country and it is all that is to hinder any boddy from settling right here. If you come prepared to buy a small farm or at any rate if you had fifteen hundred dollars to invest in land you might do splendidly well with it out here at this time. But if you intend or expect to rent for a few years until you can get at your property in Virginia you had best remain where you are. You are nearer to market than you would be out here in Iowa and would stand a better chance to sell your produce. If you are determined, that is if you have given up the idea of going back to Virginia, you had best come out west where land is cheape so that you may stand some chance to get some land of your own.

They had made friends in Indiana, too. Even after they returned to Round Bottom, Margaret Clingenfield wrote in a neighborly, newsy letter, "Jane, don’t give Laban any peace until he sells and comes back again." (Perhaps they returned to West Virginia with the idea of selling their land and then returning to the West.)

The letters of the spring of 1865, however, revealed that peace was returning to the New River Valley, though much bitterness remained between relatives and neighbors who had fought on opposite sides. Whatever their reasons were, sometime in the late summer or fall of 1865 Laban and his family came back to Round Bottom. Family tradition says that they "camped out" in a sort of cave, or under an overhang of rock, for two years while they rebuilt the house and barn the Confederates had burned.

The courage and stamina of Mary Jane Gwinn in all these hardships is almost unbelievable. Leaving the first home she and her husband had toiled to build in the wilderness; traveling all the way to Indiana with three small children; then leaving relatives and new friends there and coming back to a homestead in ruins; rebuilding the home and bearing more children under what must have been extremely primitive conditions must have required extraordinary strength of character.

Among the trials the family faced was the loss of a daughter, Emily, at age three. Another daughter, Cynthia, is said to have "pined away" and died at the age of twenty-four. Both are buried in the family cemetery at Round Bottom.

The "Gwinn Papers" in Laban’s old trunk give some indication of the economic hardships suffered by the family after the war. Many letters dated in the 1870’s are "duns," asking for payment for farm supplies, seeds, and other necessities. A letter from a Miss Woolwine, the teacher of a school, probably at a lumber camp near McKendree, begs Laban to buy books for his three children, Loomis, Lewis, and Belle.

Living conditions at Round Bottom even after the war were still very much those of the frontier. The river was the only means of transportation other than narrow trails. It was necessary to go once a year by boat or by horse or mule, to the salt works near Kanawha Falls to buy or trade for the salt so necessary for farm animals and for cooking and preserving food.

Part 2  >

The Gwinns of Round Bottom

By Leona Gwinn Brown

(continued)

According to a story passed down through the family and told by my father, it was while her husband was away on an annual trek for salt, that Mary Jane Gwinn, left at home alone with young children and with food in short supply, spied a deer swimming in the river. Taking along her son to manage the oars, she jumped into the boat and intercepted the deer. Grasping the antlers, she held the deer’s head under the water until it drowned; then she dressed out the carcass to add to the family’s supply of meat. (This must have occurred after the war, because tradition says it was Loomis, then about twelve years old, who held the oars.) This pioneer woman, who must have been physically strong and very courageous to perform such a feat, is remembered today by her granddaughters as a very ladylike person, kind, gentle, generous, and possessing a fine sense of humor.

Upon her return to Round Bottom, says another family story, Mary Jane stuck into the ground a twig, or "water sprout," she had broken from an apple tree in Indiana, to be used in driving the horses pulling their covered wagon on the trip home. This twig took root and grew into a tree which bore yellow, pear-shaped apples which were eaten and enjoyed by her future grandchildren.

Laban and Mary Jane, by hard work and perseverance, were able to recover from the trials inflicted by the war. The farm became prosperous once again. They were able to provide for a fine family of eight children of their own, and two adopted children, Hattie Ripley, who married a Martin and lived in the "Garden Ground" on the mountain above Round Bottom, and Kent Bennett.

Shortly before his death in 1900, Laban Gwinn divided his farm among his three sons, John, Loomis, and Lewis. Lewis received the upper portion of the tract, about a mile closer to the town of Terry. John’s portion was across the river, between Dowdy’s Bluff and Stretcher’s Neck tunnel.

Loomis had married Rosa Belle Spade, daughter of William Spade and Emma Skaggs Spade of Monroe County. The deed for their part of the Round Bottom property was made to "Rosa B. Gwinn and her heirs", "for and in consideration of natural effection and love." By this time, so the family story goes, Loomis had embarked on a business enterprise at MacDonald, near Mount Hope, and Laban, by deeding the property to Rosa, meant to ensure that if the business failed, the farm would remain in the family. The deed was made on February 3, 1900, and on March 16, 1900, Laban Gwinn died and was laid to rest in the family cemetery on the farm. Mary Jane continued to live at Round Bottom until her death on April 23, 1910.

Two events of the late 1800’s greatly affected the lives of the Gwinns at Round Bottom. On January 29, 1873, the last spike was driven in the railroad ties on the bridge across New River at Hawk’s Nest, completing the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad from Norfolk to the Ohio River. This opened the area for development of the mining and lumbering industries.

In 1899, the legislature provided for the construction and maintenance of three miner’s hospitals. One of these was built at McKendree, on land donated by Colonel Buery, a coal operator, almost directly across the river from Round Bottom. Three of Loomis’s sons and four grandsons were to find lifetime careers with the railroad. One daughter, Nelle, and a daughter-in-law, Mabel, Wallace’s wife, trained for nursing careers at the hospital. The hospital and the railroad brought many visitors to the Gwinn farm, provided a market for some of the produce, and made travel to the outside world easier for the family. Taking advantage of the opportunity to serve and make some money from the traveling public, Loomis Gwinn built a store and a rooming house near the train station.

Though he had little formal education, Loomis Gwinn was a man of many talents; able, for example, to read blueprints, to calculate the board feet in a stand of timber, to keep books and operate a business. He was a musician, according to his daughters, and even wrote some poetry (there is a long religious poem among the "Gwinn Papers", apparently written by Loomis Gwinn). He was also an expert carpenter.

In the early 1900s, Loomis Gwinn began to build a house to shelter his growing family, ultimately to include thirteen children. Six sons and five daughters were to grow to adulthood here (a daughter and son of this family, also, died in early childhood and were buried in the family cemetery on the farm, near Laban and Mary Jane Gwinn and their two children.)

The house Loomis Gwinn built, of lumber sawed from his own trees at his own sawmill, was spacious and well-planned. The floors and interior trim, including tongue-and-groove wainscoting and mantels for the three fireplaces, were all of hardwood. Each fireplace had an opening at the back of the hearth through which ashes could be swept to fall to the basement and be removed through an opening in the flue, so that they did not have to be carried through the house. In the full basement was a hand-dug well, from which water was brought up to the kitchen by means of a hand pump. A carbide system, buried under ground, with the carbide gas piped to fixtures in the house, furnished light at night.

Around the front and one side of the house was a wide veranda, its roof supported by round columns, with a railing between. At the top of the wide concrete steps leading to the porch, two doors led to the interior of the house. The door straight ahead led into a sitting room, or family room, where a cherry-mantled fireplace, with a large mirror above it, provided warmth and cheer in the cooler months. Here the family usually gathered in the evenings to read, work, play, listen to the wind-up Victrola, or talk.

The door to the right of the front steps, seldom used, opened to a foyer and hallway. To the right off the foyer was the parlor, used only for special company, weddings, or funerals. The parlor was furnished with dark, leather-upholstered furniture, and held an ornate, mirrored, parlor organ. At the end of the hallway to the rear of the house was the spacious dining room, containing a china cupboard and the twelve-foot table which Loomis Gwinn built, himself, to seat the twenty or more people who were usually present for three meals a day.

After this house was finished, Loomis Gwinn built another, smaller house a short distance away. This was to be the home of his wife’s parents, Emma and William Spade, who came from Monroe County to live near their daughter after William Spade suffered a stroke. After his death, Emma Spade went to Hinton to spend the rest of her days with another daughter, but the little house was always spoken of as "Grandma’s house".

Loomis Gwinn believed strongly in education, and wanted the best he could provide for his children. Since there was no school nearby, he built a small building, using lumber sawed at his own mill, and requested that Fayette County provide a teacher. This school served the Loomis Gwinn family, the children of his brother, Lewis, who lived about a mile upriver, and the children from a lumber camp near Terry.

Miss Gertrude Skaggs was the first teacher at the Gwinn school. She boarded with the two Gwinn families, spending two weeks at Loomis’s and the next two weeks at the Lewis Gwinn home. She participated fully in family life, even doing her share of the chores. In the evenings she taught the Gwinn girls to play the parlor organ. One of the Gwinn Sons, Othor, married her sister, Gladys, who came to visit.

Later, Leonard Gwinn, one of her pupils, would return to teach his own sisters and cousins at Estuary School, across the river from the farm, not far from the west entrance to Stretcher’s Neck tunnel. His brother, Laban, and sister-in-law, Adalyne, also later taught at this school. A little souvenir booklet, given to Leonard’s students at the end of the school year 1924, lists the following students: Elsie Gwinn, Mona Gwinn, Lydia Tolley, Violet Kincaid, Nellie Tolley, Marie Ward, Arvle Withrow, Jack Withrow, Howard Kincaid, Floyd Tolley, Leonard Ward, Russell McKay, Loraine Gwinn, Bessie Kincaid, Nellie Gwinn, Leila Gwinn, Elizabeth McKay, Emmit Tolley, Buster Withrow, Marvin Withrow, Raymond Kincaid, Ernest Tolley, Raymond Ward, and John McKay. Loraine Gwinn, Leonard’s first cousin, and Elsie Gwinn, his sister, were eighth grade graduates that year.

Round Bottom was a favorite retreat for summer visitors, both relatives and friends. The fertile sandy soil of the bottom land and the mild climate produced crops not found in the higher elevations--peanuts, sweet potatoes, strawberries, watermelons, and cantaloupes, which graced the table in summer. Fishing was good, and swimming, boating, and picnicking added to the fun.

Grandchildren (some of whom were born in the house at Round Bottom) share many happy memories of extended visits there. Since the only road was a rutty, sometimes almost impassable wagon road from Terry, some three miles upriver, most of us came to Round Bottom by train and boat. In the heyday of the Chesapeake and Ohio, there were several local passenger trains a day. Those of us who lived at Hinton or Alderson or Charleston or Huntington, would ride the train to the "depot", or train station at McKendree. Then we would walk a mile or so up the track, and, when we reached the path leading down to the river at a landing, would cup our hands around our mouths and yell at the tops of our voices "Heeehoooo!" An aunt or an uncle or a cousin would reply from the porch of the house across the river. In a few minutes we would see someone untying the boat at the landing across the river, to row over and "set us across".

For me, as a child, this boat trip was like a trip to a Paradise inhabited by doting aunts and uncles, cousins to play with, and Grandma to "make over us". There would be cows, chickens, pigs, dogs and cats to pet and feed; we could have watermelon and cantaloupe and fried chicken. The grown-ups would get busy visiting and not pay much attention to us. Maybe our youngest aunt, Leila, would take us swimming. Sometimes at night there would be a bonfire on the lower sandbar, across from the store.

When there were several grandchildren overnight, they usually slept in the "big room" upstairs over the kitchen, some in beds and some on a "straw tick" in the floor. I can remember waking in the room early in the morning to hear the "kerchunk, kerchunk" of the wooden dasher in the churn as Grandma churned the butter before the day got hot. We would have the butter on the biscuits she made from the flour in the large barrel in the pantry.

Life on the farm was not all fun and games, however, especially for those who lived there all year round. Clearing, plowing, fencing, cultivating and harvesting were all done without modern equipment. Housekeeping and cooking for a large family and many guests was not easy without electrical appliances. Floods, crop failures, illness, and death were trials that had to be faced.

But everyone, even visiting grandchildren, shared the work, and good humor, laughter, and love were always present. Loomis Gwinn was a genial host and a kind, fun-loving father and grandfather. Rosa Gwinn typified the "virtuous woman" described in Proverbs 31. Despite the rigors of farm life, she never complained, and there was always a loving welcome for an arriving guest or grandchild. As in Proverbs her children did, and do, "rise up and call her blessed". Each summer there was a reunion on the Sunday nearest her birthday, July 14, when family and friends shared good food and memories "down home" at Round Bottom. This custom continues, with the family meeting, usually at the home of one of their descendents, to honor the memory of Rosa and Loomis.

After McKendree hospital closed in 1941, Rosa Gwinn made her home with her youngest daughter, Leila, in Huntington. She died in 1962, and was buried in the family cemetery at Round Bottom.

The education the Gwinn children received at the Gwinn School, the Estuary School, and in the everyday living at the farm prepared them well to succeed in the world outside the river valley where they grew up. All of them became responsible, productive citizens who made important contributions to their state and country.

Carl G. Gwinn, eldest son of Loomis and Rosa Gwinn, was born November 24, 1894 at McDonald, Fayette County, West Virginia. He grew to young manhood at Round Bottom, attending the Gwinn School and helping his father on the farm and at the sawmill. Later he worked cutting timber for various lumber companies.

About 1914 Carl went to work as a "gandy dancer" (section force laborer) for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. He and Silas Kincaid, a neighbor youth who lived on the opposite side of the river and about two miles east of the Gwinn farm, strung a wire between their houses, made some storage batteries from copper, lead, and copper sulphate, and began teaching themselves to send telegraph messages in Morse code. By 1916, they had become proficient enough to qualify for jobs as telegraph operators.

During the time he was working as a telegrapher, Carl became acquainted with Miss Mary Johnson of Nicholas County. A lumber camp had been built in the bottom land across the track from the McKendree depot, and Mary was the teacher hired to teach in the school established for the children of the lumber workers.

World War I interrupted their lives at this point. Carl enlisted in the army on May 25, 1918. He trained at Fort Lee, Virginia, and served in France and Luxembourg and, after the Armistice, in Germany with the army of occupation. His experience as a railroad telegrapher qualified him to serve in the signal corps, sometimes stringing wire or repairing breaks in wire between the trenches, and sending messages between the various commands. He participated in the battles of Verdun and the Aragon Forest, and received a medal for his participation in the battle of Verdun.

In 1919 Carl returned home, and he and Mary Johnson were married on June 16, 1919. They lived at Round Bottom with his parents for a short while, then moved to Prince where he resumed work with the C. and 0. The family made several moves as Carl’s work as operator, agent, and later train dispatcher took him to various jobs. In 1938 the family moved to Hinton.

Carl’s career was interrupted by a two-year bout with tuberculosis, but he was able to return to his job as train dispatcher and work until his retirement on his 65th birthday in November, 1959. The last few years of his life were spent battling chronic leukemia. Carl Gwinn died March 16, 1965.

Russell B. Gwinn was born March 10, 1896 at Mount Hope. An early bout with polio left him slightly lame, but after attending school at McKendree he enrolled at Alderson Collegiate Institute, a military school at Alderson.

Russell began his railroad career as a yard clerk for the C. and 0. In 1923, he became a billing clerk for the N. F. and G railroad at Meadow Creek. From 1926 to 1930, he was agent at Springdale. He was then transferred to Rainelle and promoted to train dispatcher. In 1955, he became chief train dispatcher at Rainelle, where he remained until his retirement.

In 1919, he married Lula Smith. He died at Rainelle, West Virginia in August, 1974. Lula Gwinn died in March of 1974.

Othor D. Gwinn was born at Round Bottom March 20, 1898. After his marriage to Gladys Skaggs, sister of Miss Gertrude Skaggs, who taught at the Gwinn school, he moved to a farm near Lowell, Monroe County, and later to Alderson.

Othor was an expert carpenter. When World War II broke out, he went to the Panama Canal Zone to work for the government for about a year. In 1944 the family moved to Radford, Virginia, where he worked at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant. After the war he became head carpenter for Radford University, and held this position until his death, October 15, 1963.

Gladys Skaggs Gwinn died at age 50 in July of 1947. Othor later was married to Flora Worley.

Leonard C. Gwinn was born at Round Bottom November 16, 1900. He was a student of Miss Gertrude Skaggs at the Gwinn school, and because of her influence he enrolled at Alderson Baptist Academy. After three years there, he was called home because of his father’s illness, and finished his schooling at Oak Hill High School, graduating in 1923.

He married Minnie Katherine Ray, whom he had met at ABA, on February 16, 1924, and they moved into the "McKendree House", a boarding house patronized mostly by visitors to the McKendree Hospital. The house was located next to the store owned by George Loomis Gwinn, and Leonard taught school, operated the boarding house, and helped his father in the store.

The boarding house burned to the ground in 1925. Leonard and his family lived with his parents at Round Bottom until his father’s death in 1927. Then the family moved to Quinnimont, and Leonard began work as a telegraph operator for the C. and 0. At Quinnimont, he was a tireless worker in the Baptist church, and served as superintendent of the Sunday School for eight years.

When the Depression of the 1930’s caused cutbacks on the railroad, the family moved to South Charleston where he found work at the Carbide and Carbon chemical plant.

Following his return to the railroad and a move to Hinton, his career was interrupted by a long illness from tuberculosis. In 1940 he was sufficiently recovered to return to work, was promoted to train dispatcher, and became active in the American Train Dispatchers Association, serving as Vice General Chairman of the C. and 0. System Committee.

He died August 16, 1950, at the age of 49, following lung surgery.

Laban Gwinn was born June 26, 1902 at Round Bottom. At the age of two, he suffered an accidental injury to his eye, which, in spite of treatment by a Dr. Haley in Charleston, resulted in a loss of sight in that eye. Years later, when Laban was 63, Dr. Haley’s son performed surgery which restored the sight.

Laban attended the Gwinn School; then, following Leonard’s example, and possibly also because of the influence of Miss Skaggs, he too enrolled at Alderson Baptist Academy, and played on the football team.

He returned to Oak Hill High School in 1924-25, where he boarded during the week, was a member of the football team, and took the teacher’s Normal Course which then qualified him to teach in West Virginia schools. Around this time he met Adalyne Atkins, whose brother worked at McKendree during the summers. Laban and Adalyne were married July 27, 1925 at Oak Hill Baptist parsonage by the Reverend Shirley Donnelly.

Adalyne also attended ABA, and both taught in the Fayette County schools. Adalyne taught one year at the Estuary School.

In 1929, Laban went to work for Carbide and Carbon Chemicals Corporation and moved his family to South Charleston. He, too, was an experienced carpenter, and, like his father, Loomis, began building his own house on Forest Circle in 1941. World War II delayed the work, and the house was not finished until 1947.

Laban’s real desire, however, was to be a minister of the gospel, and he took a correspondence course from Crosier Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, and received a license to preach. He was never called to serve full time, but filled in for local ministers.

Laban’s career, too, was interrupted by serious illness, leukemia, which claimed his life in 1969. After his diagnosis, he used his remaining time to help in the research being carried on by the National Cancer Institute at Bethesda, Maryland. He sent letters to his relatives asking them to make medical records available for the research. I quote from his letter:

Of course, I gave my consent for them to study my family and my case. It will not benefit me directly for in my case it is too far advanced, but I thought that if in some way I could be of help in making it possible to help others (especially my children and grandchildren), I am all in favor of it... It may be the means of saving some of the youngsters’ lives.

Wallace Gwinn, youngest son of Loomis and Rosa Gwinn, was born at Round Bottom in 1904. He grew to young manhood helping his father and brothers on the farm, and attended Estuary School. Wallace found his lifetime career in the coal mines of Fayette County, beginning at the Minden mine of New River Pocahontas Consolidated Coal Company.

In 1923, he was married to Mabel Leete, then a student nurse at McKendree hospital. Mabel went on to finish her training at Coal Valley Hospital in Montgomery, and continued her nursing career throughout their marriage, working at Oak Hill Hospital and later at Stevens Clinic Hospital at Welch. For many years, until her death in 1989, she was office nurse for Dr. Joe N. Jarrett, in Oak Hill.

Wallace took training to qualify for the position of mine foreman, and was later promoted to superintendent of the Minden mine. He was then transferred to the Caples mine, near Welch, and worked there until his retirement in 1966. They then moved back to Mabel’s family home in Oak Hill, where he died in 1971.

The first daughter of Rosa and Loomis Gwinn, Lena, was born December 29, 1905. She attended Estuary School, then continued her schooling at Oak Hill High School. In 1927 she was married to John Claypool. They moved to New York City, where both worked for several years.

In 1947, Lena was married to James Johnson. They bought a home in Hinckley, Ohio, and both Lena and Jim worked until retirement for the Chevrolet Division of General Motors. After their retirement, they moved to Inverness, Florida.

James Johnson died in 1986. Lena died January 29, 1990.

Elsie, second daughter of Rosa and Loomis, was born in 1907. She finished eighth grade in 1924 at Estuary School, near McKendree (her brother, Leonard, was her teacher that year). She then attended Oak Hill High School.

Soon after their marriage, Elsie and her husband, Asa L. Godbey, began working for Otto Becker, a manufacturer of braces and prostheses for amputees or sufferers from polio, birth defects, or other diseases. This work took them to many parts of the country, and finally to Florida, where they continued in this work until retirement.

Asa Godbey died in 1975. Elsie died in 1997.

Another sister, Mona, was born in 1910. Mona also attended the school taught by her brother, later going on to Oak Hill High School. In 1931 she married Samuel Jett. They lived in Salem, Virginia, where they owned a restaurant.

Following Samuel Jett’s death in 1946, Mona owned and operated a tearoom in Salem. She married Ira E. Frost April 12, 1948. They moved to Marion, Ohio, where Mona died in July, 1987.

Nelle Gwinn, born in 1913, was another of Leonard’s students. She went on to a career in nursing, taking her training at McKendree Hospital. She graduated from nurses’ training there in 1939, and worked as supervisor of nurses’ training until the hospital closed in 1941. She then went to Morgantown, where she was a nurse at Heiskell Hospital, and served as secretary of the state board of nursing examiners. She then worked as a supervisor at Beckley Hospital and operating room supervisor at Raleigh General Hospital in Beckley.

Nell was first married to Estel Walters, who died in 1956. She and her second husband, Ira Wriston, lived at Beaver in Raleigh County, West Virginia. Nelle died January 23, 1991.

Leila, youngest of the Gwinn girls, was born in 1914. Before she was old enough to enroll in school, her brothers carried her on their shoulders to the Gwinn school. After the Gwinn school closed, she attended Estuary school, and, later, went to Hinton to stay with her eldest brother, Carl, and his wife and attend Hinton High School.

After high school, Leila returned home to the farm, and in 1935 married Woodrow Walters, brother of Nell’ husband, Estel. She and Woodrow remained on the farm with mother Rosa until economic conditions forced them to move to Huntington, where Woodrow was employed by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad.

Woodrow Walters died in 1962, and Leila, with their two children, went to Florida to live near her sisters, Lena and Elsie. She lived at DeLand until her death in 1991.

The children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren of these sons and daughters of Loomis and Rosa are now scattered "from sea to shining sea", engaged in many professions and occupations. Some of them, as Grandfather Loomis did, have built their own houses with their own hands. Each of them is contributing, in his or her own way, to the history of this century, as their forebears did to the history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in our country.

The life of the old days beside the river at Round Bottom is in the past. The fields are grown up; the house is in ruins. What is the true legacy that John and Sara Gwinn, Laban and Mary Jane, Loomis and Rosa left to their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren? The gifts, I think, are intangible but invaluable: a sense of humor to soften life’s crises, a capacity for hard work, happy memories of the life along New River, a sense of "family", and roots in the West Virginia soil.

Shirley Donnelly, a Baptist minister and Fayette County historian, wrote a series of columns about the Gwinns for the Beckley Post-Herald. In November of 1962, after a visit to Round Bottom to officiate at the burial of Rosa B. Gwinn in the family cemetery, he wrote:

But gone is the glory of the old Gwinn place. Over it all may hover the spirits of those sturdy pioneers but it seemed to me that one could write in the haze that hung over the hollow the day we were there the old Hebrew word of "Ichabod"—meaning "the glory is departed."

A writer of Gothic novels, Christine Beckelheimer of Oak Hill, who was once a guest at Round Bottom, used the place for the setting of a novel, "The Message". In the book, she said, is a ghost, "a good one".

If there are ghosts and spirits at Round Bottom today, I’m sure they are benevolent ones, and can only add to the enjoyment of the canoers, campers, and fishermen who may come to explore and enjoy the New River Gorge.

Robert Gwinn, born in Wales, settled in Augusta County, Virginia before 1744. In 1746 he was appointed constable at the head of the Great Calfpasture River (near present—day Staunton) in Augusta County, Virginia. (Source: Early Augusta Pioneers, by G. W. Cleek, Staunton, Virginia, 1952.

I. Robert Gwinn married Jean Kincaid

9. Samuel, b.1745, d. March 23, 1839, m. Elizabeth Lockridge Graham, widow of Robert Graham

II. Samuel Gwinn, b. ca 1745, d. 1839, m. 1774 Elizabeth Lockridge Graham, b. ca 1759(?), d. 1832, dau. of James Lockridge and Isabella Kincaid, was first married to Robert Graham

III. John Gwinn b. Feb. 2, 1790, d. July 27, 1873, m. 1812 to Sarah George, daughter of Thomas George

7. Achsah b. 1822 d. 1830

8. Samuel b. 1824 d. 1899 m. Frances Lowry

11. Laban b. Feb. 28, 1828, d. March 16, 1900

IV. Laban Gwinn, b. Feb. 28, 1828, d. March 16, 1900, m. 1834 Mary Jane Burdette, b. 1838, d. 1910

5. George Loomis Gwinn b. Jan. 16, 1861, d. Jan. 27, 1927, m.1894 Rosa B. Spade, b. July 11, 1873, d. Nov. 3, 1962

Courthouse records:

Augusta County, Virginia; Fayette County, West Virginia; Greenbrier County, West Virginia

Original documents now in the possession of A. N. Gwinn, Grand Rapids, Michigan referred to as "Gwinn Papers"

Books:

Callahan, James Morton, Semi-Centennial History of West Virginia, published by the Semi-Centennial Commission of West Virginia, 1913

Chalkley, Lyman, Abstracts of the Original Court Records of Augusta County, Virginia, published in 1912 by the DAR. Reprinted by Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc., Baltimore, MD 1980

Cleek, George W., Early Western Augusta Pioneers, published by the author in Staunton, Virginia, 1957

Gwinn, Jesse Blaine, History of the Gwinn Family, published by the author, 1961, printed by Commonwealth Press, Inc. Radford, Virginia

Kegley, F. B. and Mary, Early Adventurers on the Western Waters

Morton, 0. F., A History of Highland County, Virginia, Regional Publishing Company, Baltimore, MD 1972 (first published in Monterey, Virginia, in 1911)

Morton, 0. F., A History of Monroe County, Virginia, Regional Publishing Company, Baltimore, MD 1980 (first published in Staunton, Virginia, 1916)

Peters, J. T. and Carden, H. B., History of Fayette County. West Virginia, Jarrett Printing Company, Charleston, WV 1926

Price, William T., Historical Sketches of Pocahontas County, West Virginia, first printed by Price Brothers Publishing Company in Marlinton, WV, 1901, reprinted 1963 by McClain Printing Company, Parsons, WV

Rice, Otis K., The Allegheny Frontier, The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 1970

Stutler, Boyd B., West Virginia in the Civil War, Education Foundation, Inc. Charleston, WV 1966

Periodicals:

Cox, William E., "The Civil War Letters of Laban Gwinn: A Union Refugee", West Virginia History, Volume XLIII, Spring 1982, published by West Virginia Department of Culture and History, Charleston, WV

Donnelly, Shirley, "Historic Gwinns of Fayette County", a series of columns published in November of 1962 in The Beckley Post-Herald, published by Beckley Newspapers, Beckley, WV

Long, Frederick D., columns on the history of the Samuel Gwinn family published from November 15, 1979 to April 24, 1980 in The Hinton News, Hinton Publishing Corporation, Hinton, WV

"Gwinn and Adkins Families Populate the C. & 0.", The Train Dispatcher, June, 1949, published by American Train Dispatchers Association, Chicago, IL

Nyden, Paul J., "Mabel Gwinn, New River Nurse", Goldenseal, Volume 7, Number 3, published by West Virginia Department of Culture and History, Charleston, WV

Gwin, Hugh, article in Highland County history book published by Highland County Historical Society, page 123

Gwin, Hugh, column "Historically Speaking", in The Recorder, September 1, 1983