A Brief History of Upshur County

by G. H. Baird

But despite the wealth that oil has brought, Upshur County people have still maintained the same old spirit of neighborliness toward each other, the same old friendships, and informalities remain, and so we are sure they always will.

Location of Gilmer

The town of Gilmer of today is about two miles south of the spot where the city was first located. A century ago it was two miles north, on the Cherokee Trace, and the occasional district court was held in the home of Captain William Hart. We find that the first court trial was in 1837. There was no public building, so court was held either in the Hart home, or if the weather permitted, under a large oak tree, that until a few years ago, was still standing.

Then Gilmer was, for the most part, a swampy waste, with a few houses dotting both sides of Cypress Creek. The location was most unfavorable as the creek often rose so high that the town was threatened with disaster. So the settlers decided they would move some distance either to the north or to the south of this location. There seemed to be a considerable sectional feeling among the settlers, however, and every one on the north side of the creek wanted the town to go north, while those on the south side wanted it to go south. The location was finally left to a vote. The night before the day for the election, so it is told, a heavy rain storm came up, and the creek rose to such a height that a number of those on the north side could not cross the creek to vote, and the voting place was located on the south side. So it was decided to move Gilmer to the south.

The legislature of 1849 appointed three of the board of the county commissioners of Upshur County to select the site for Gilmer, the county seat. They were Benjamin Fuller, M. M. Robertson, and Benjamin Gage. The committee selected the present site and bought the land from Mathew Cartwright, who made the deed to the commissioners as is recorded in Volume A, Book 1, of the Upshur County records. T. D. Brooks was the first county judge of Upshur County, and the first deed recorded in the sale of town lots of Gilmer, was to Augustus Walker for lots 1 and 2 from James H. Hunt. It was dated March 1, 1851. The home of Benjamin Gage, one of the first commissioners, was on White Oak Creek, north of the Gilmer and Big Sandy road, and is still standing, although built near a hundred years ago. The house is now occupied by Alton Gage, a grandson of Benjamin Gage, and bids fair to last another hundred years. It is reported that Mr. Gage paid a man one hundred dollars to build this house for him. It is said that the nearest neighbor when he settled here was nine miles away.

Gilmer was moved to its present location in 1848, and began a rapid growth. Eighteen years later, it was incorporated into a town with Alias Oden as first mayor. He named the boundaries of the town as follows: As far north as the termination of Trinity street; west to its present limits, just beyond Oak Lawn Sanitarium: South to what is now Warren Avenue, and east, one block from the square. The area of the town was almost as large as it is at present with fewer inhabitants. The incorporation charter died after a few years, but in 1894 the town was re-incorporated with Jim Bussy as mayor, and new boundaries were set up which remain the same to this day.

When Gilmer was moved to its present site, it had to be built from the very beginning. The land had to be cleared and lumber prepared for the building of houses, usually from logs from trees cleared away from the new town. It was a wild country they had to open up and make safe for living, since in 1849 it is reported that bears came from the nearby woods and ate food from the back doors, and deer and turkey and other game could be killed in the clearing of the town square. Many residents, now not so old, can still remember a great ditch, carrying a stream from the old Indian camp (Roosevelt Park) almost to the square. And it was not until Judge T. H. Briggs’ first term of office as mayor that a great gully ran diagonally across the square from the southeast to the northwest corner.

So Gilmer and Upshur County have had to change with the changing times. First the pioneer and the sawmiller, then the cotton farmer, then oil, now yams and a greater diversification than was ever known.

Early Officers of Upshur County

Elected in 1850: Chief Justice, Judge G. C. Patille; District Clerk, J. W. Richardson; County Clerk, R. G. Warren; Sheriff, Oba Roberts; County Treasurer, Jesse Tinder; Assessor-Collector, C. D. Halbert; Surveyor, Jesse Glasco.