Panther Mountain
Prepared by A. J. Legg , 1930
Alexander Brown lived on Laurel Creek on the farm now owned and occupied by Mrs. J. W. Backus. This is just outside of the Panther Mountain Community but Alexander Brown had a son Dr. William Brown and a daughter Mrs. Joseph Backus, both of whom settled in the community and have descendants still living in it. Dr. William Brown lived at the head of Backus Branch on the farm now known as the Burdette place. He was a farmer and a doctor of good repute and a man of considerable influence in the community. He was a staunch Union man during the Civil War and while he was too far advanced in years to join the federal army he did not let an opportunity to aid the federal cause pass without doing what he could for the advancement of what he advocated. His son William K. Brown settled in the community and raised a family of useful citizens of whom W. G. Brown of Summersville was the eldest. His other son Wesley Brown moved to the West soon after the Civil War.
While General John B. Floyd was camped at Carnifex Ferry some Confederate scouts came into the community. They took several horses from the people and as they passed the first small drain west of where Arnette Church now stands they were fired on by Captain Ramsey and a few of his men who were concealed in a laurel thicket. One Confederate soldier was wounded, Ramsey and his men escaped unhurt across Gauley River. John M. Mason passing along the road late that evening picked up a sword lost by a Confederate officer.
Just after the battle of Cross Lanes three soldiers from Colonel Tyler's army had escaped to the woods. They came in to James A. Renick's home and were hid under a cliff and fed until it was safe for them to travel. One of these a Mr. Condit visited the Renick family two or three times after the war.
The day after the Battle of Cross Lanes Major Andrews and seventeen other Union soldiers wandered in to William Grose's place where they were fed and given some rations to take with them. They traveled on down the river and reached the Union camp at Gauley Bridge.
Edwin Spriggs, a Union soldier from Ohio who belonged to General Rosecrans' army with two other soldiers were crossing the river and their boat capsized. All were drowned. Some time afterward Sprigg's body was found just below the Edz ferry near where Albion post office is now located on the Nicholas side by William Kincaid, a boy living just across in Fayette County. John B. Dorsey, Franklin Grose, C. H. Legg, and perhaps a few others buried the body, which later was raised and identified by a Union scout named Carpenter. It was afterward taken up by his brother aided by John Dorsey, Alex Cavendish, C. H. Legg, and others and removed to his old home in Ohio.
My father, C. H. Legg, had built a cabin and moved to a new clearing about one-fourth of a mile back from the public road. Near the close of the war, my grandfather Legg, Franklin Grose, his son A. D. Grose, Lieutenant Samuel B. Koontz, who had recently returned from the Richmond rebel prison, and my father were near the road just about where Pine Grove school house now stands. We heard shooting and saw men running their horses. My mother, of course, was scared so leaving my sister and I at the house she hastened to see what had happened. She found my grandfather Legg and Franklin Grose had been taken prisoners by the Confederate Captain Holstead and a party of his men. Samuel B. Koontz, A. D. Grose, and my father had escaped to the cliffs.
The soldiers also had Dr. William Brown with them as a prisoner. They would not allow my mother to return to her home until they had gone within a mile of the ferry. The Confederates seemed to be fearful of Union soldiers in the county so they were afraid to let my mother return for fear that she would carry news to their enemies. This was the last incident of the Civil War that occurred in the community and it is the only incident remembered by the writer.
James A. Renick, Covington Grose, and A. J. Grose moved their families to Ohio during the early part of the war. Soon after the war Covington Grose and James A. Renick moved back to their farms but A. J. Grose moved on to Missouri and never returned. He lived and died near Clifton City, Missouri, at the ripe old age of 89 years.