GUYANDOTTE, VA. – We are glad to learn from the Guyandotte Herald that the hand of improvement has finally reached that locality and that it seems to be rapidly changing its former character.
The editor is right in admitting that it was a ‘hard place’ a few years ago, the hardest we planted a foot in. We spent a day there in the summer of 1844 and must say that of all the vile and abominable holes we ever fell into, Guyandotte, [West Virginia], was the worst.
It was then a mere cluster of rickety, tumble-down groggeries and dwellings, with grease, fifth, drunkenness, brawling, and blasphemy within, and mud, discomfort, and desolation without.
Counterfeiting and gambling appeared to be the most popular amusements of the place, varied by an occasional fight and rejoicing in a perennial running accompaniment of raw corn whiskey.
We doubt whether, at that time, it could have been revived by any place short of Botany Bay or Sodom of old. But it seems that within four years, great improvements have been made. Guyandotte now has graded streets and good sidewalks. The swine, two and four-legged, are banished from her thoroughfares, the sinkholes are filled up, and what is more than all, the health and morals of the place are decidedly on the gain.
A new class of men, most active and enterprising, has driven out the hordes of loafers and scamps of every degree, who used to constitute so large a share of the population.
Guyandotte now has two churches well attended on the Sabbath, a good school, 75 good substantial dwelling houses, two hotels, ten stores and groceries, one drug store, three physicians, three carpenter shops, one cabinet shop, one saddler, two shoemakers, two blacksmiths, one tin, one tailor, and one wagon shop, one tannery, two steam mills, one bakery, two commission wharf boats, one boat yard, and one printing office.
We wish abundant success to our brethren in the far Western corner of the Old Dominion and rejoice to hear of their present thrift and prosperity.
Richmond Dispatch, Richmond, Virginia, 20 August. 1853, page 1
The Ohio Organ of Temperance Reform, Cincinnati, OH 13 Jan 1854 p1
Battle of Guyandotte – We learn from the Guyandotte Herald that Capt. Whiskey marshaled his forces on the streets of that town a few days ago, and several encounters took place. Rocks flew in every direction, and several sober citizens, who interfered to prevent the forces, were assaulted.
“More than a dozen men were knocked down in a few seconds,” and some were badly hurt. The Guyandotte boys soon cleared the field, and those from the other side of the river fled from the scene of action. Drunkenness was the cause of this grand battle.
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