Ned Jones Describes John Jarvis

The following is an excerpt from Ned Jones’ 1901 book, History of Smithburg, describing John Jarvis’ unusual characteristics: 

 

“In the following chapter I speak of perhaps the most peculiar character of the time, John Jarvis. In the first place he was the most powerful man physically that it ever had been my fortune to meet, and I firmly believe that he could have felled a horse with a blow of his hand. I have frequently heard it said that he could raise a barrel of whisky from the floor and drink out of the bung hole. Be this as it may, I know that he possessed the strength of three ordinary men. Jarvis settled just across the creek from where Clarence Maxwell now lives or about a hundred yards north of what might have been the new bridge if it had not been an abortion. The field is known to this day as the Jarvis field. 

 

“Jarvis was a hard worker, a hard drinker, and a brave and successful hunter, and many a night I have listened to his hunting stories till long after midnight. He told me that one fall whilst he lived at the place I speak of, that he killed forty-two deer and one bear in two months time, adding that one of the deer was snow white. He never used but one gun, which was a very large bore rifle running sixteen balls to the pound, and a flint lock without saying. This gun he never mentioned only as ‘Old Arbitrary.’ It was well named for it was a formidable weapon for those days, and in the hands of Jarvis, it dealt death at almost every discharge. 

 

“Jarvis was a man of no learning at all so far as books went, but he knew a great deal outside of them and was as quick to see the advantage as any man, and yet he loved sport, too well to accomplish much. In fact if he had not had one among the very best of women for a wife he couldn't have done anything. They raised a large family of boys and girls and raised them right. Mrs. Jarvis was a woman of fair education, a great thing for families in those days. 

 

“… I heard him [John] say that he sold the Webster tract of six hundred acres for a horse. He explained that he thought the horse worth more than the land and that land was more plenty than horses, which was true enough, but short sighted. When I first knew him he lived on Morgan’s Run where A. B. Leatherman now lives, and died there. His wife lived many years after his death and died being very old. She was my mother's closest friend and when I think of one, I think of the other.”

 

John Jarvis Buys Land on Rock Run

In 1821 John Jarvis took part in a land transaction that to this day, almost 200 years later, is indelibly linked to the origins of West Union and Doddridge County. The following paragraph is taken from Hardesty’s 1883 History of Doddridge County:

   

“The land upon which the town of West Union now stands, was patented about the year 1787, by James Caldwell; the survey contains 20,000 acres, the whole of which he sold to Nathan Davis and his brothers William and Joseph, in the year 1807, for the sum of 23 cents per acre. They removed to the lands in 1808, and soon after sold the greater portion of the land to Lewis Maxwell, at the same price.”

 

There are a few inaccuracies in Hardesty’s rendition of the above land transactions. 

• There were actually 20 separate land grants totaling 16,200 acres.

• James Caldwell patented only 5,000 of the 16,200 acres. The other land patents were held by John Caldwell, Archibald Woods and Moses Chapline. They had formed a partnership called Archibald Woods & Company. 

• Nathan Davis was not the sole grantee of the 16,200 acres. The other equal purchasers were Joseph Davis, James Davis, Jonathan Howell, David Kershner and John Jarvis. To my knowledge William Davis had nothing to do with the transaction.

• Nathan Davis and others did not actually obtain legal ownership of the land until 1821, when Archibald Woods & Co. filed suits of ejectment against them. By 1825 they still had not paid off Archibald Woods & Co., so Lewis Maxwell paid the purchase price to Davis and others. Maxwell purchased all of the land except the 1,415 acres that Davis and others were living on.  

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John Jarvis retained only 45 acres of the original survey. His tract was described in a deed as: “23 acres beginning at a water beech by the roadside on Middle Island near the mouth of Rock Run and 22 acres lying in the 4th 620 acres purchased of Archibald Woods & Co.”