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Migration into Virginia We now come to another great migration--that of the four sons of Clement and Elizabeth (Webb) Shinn--David, Levi, Jonathan and
Clement, and Benjamin and his two sons, Isaac and Samuel, into Virginia. From this great line, which may appropriately be called the "West Virginia Branch," the name Shinn was carried mainly into
every part of the great West. The vitality of the family seemed to die, so far as the old habitat, New Jersey, was concerned, to take newer and stronger hold in Virginia. There were other minor migrations from
New Jersey direct to Ohio, from which many families of the West trace their lineage, but the far greater part of these transplantations emerge from this colony in Virginia (now West Virginia). It is a strange
commentary on families that they spring up in given community, have a glorious youth, a ripe maturity, and then dwindle and die, to be reproduced in distant places, and to decay and die there as they did before.
Families seem to wear out in any one locality in less than a hundred years. New Jersey no longer knows the name Shinn as a great and flourishing family; North Carolina held the family in great numbers for eighty years,
when the great law of destruction set in upon its inexorable work, and the rame is rarely met at present within its boundaries. The same remark applies to Virginia, but not so generally as to New Jersey and North
Carolina. Large numbers of Shinns are still seated in Harrison County, where their ancestors located one hundred and twenty years ago. In the earlier history of a family in a given place the number of male
births is equal to, if not greater, than the number of female births; but as the years go on the ratio changes, and the females outnumber the males. Thus the family, as distinguished by its name, decays and dies. And
even though the ratio remains the same, the vitality of the males leads to migration, and name decay follows. It appears to be true in all families that there comes a time when the land that once knew them well
knows them no longer. The supreme power of William the Conqueror transferred the Saxon estates to henchmen following the fortunes of the conquering lord; the supreme finesse of ignoble land barons, supported and
reinforced by the refinements of law, chicanery and fraud, transfers the hard-earned estates of father and son from the hands of grandson and great-grandson to other names, to be in turn lost to them by processes
similar in principle, though differing in form. And if to all this is added the individual weakness of the descendant, as evidenced by extravagance, idleness and drunkenness, and the absence of laws of
primogeniture to centralize and hold the estate, the besom of destruction sweeps all away, and that which once added glory to a family name is lost in the shadows of obscurity and decay. The successful issue of
the Revolutionary War and the Treaty of Paris carried the boundaries of the United States westward to the Mississippi River, and opened for settlement a region of almost inexhaustible fertility. But prior to this the
French and Indian War, Bouquet's Expedition (1764) and the Treaty of Ft. Stanwix (1768) had fixed the title to the vast regions of Pennsylvania and Virginia in Great Britain, which led adventurous spirits over the
Allegheny Mountains into the regions beyond. Old lines of travel changed and new roads were made. No longer was the migration southward into the Carolinas, but westward, into Kentucky and Ohio. The region
around Winchester, Va., had been the Mecca of migratory spirits from New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland. The Monthly Meeting Records of the Friends at Hopewell, Frederick County, Va., disclose events of great
historic importance. An enterprising Quaker by the name of Ross obtained warrants for the survey of forty thousand acres of land, and these surveys were made along the Opequon and up to Apple Pie Ridge, about ten miles
north of Winchester. Kercheval says that numerous immigrations of the Quaker profession removed from Pennsylvania and settled on the Ross surveys. Great numbers of immigrants followed from New Jersey and Maryland. These
Quakers had a regular Monthly Meeting at Hopewell in 1738. But not only to Hopewell, Va., did these Quaker immigrants go in large numbers, but also to Culpeper, Stafford, Loudoun, Fairfax, Warren, Fauquier and Madison
Counties. Preparative meetings were held at a very early date in each of these counties, with a central authority vested in Hopewell. So great and rapid was the migration that the Monthly Meetings were established by
the parent society at Westland, in the Rappahannock Valley; Crooked Run, in Stafford; Fairfax, at Warrenton, in Fauquier; Apple Pie Ridge or Winchester, Frederick County; Woodlawn, in Fairfax, and Goose Creek, in
Loudoun. Pushing westward, Jackson Monthly Meeting was set up in either Hampshire or Harrison, while Bush Creek and Back Creek Preparative Meetings find place in Hampshire. The records of these meetings show the
dismissal of scores of Quakers for the back parts of Virginia and soon for distant Ohio. The Quakers were good citizens, and the thoughtful historian is led to ask why they should leave so fair a country as Virginia for
the wilderness to the west? The answer is to be found in the spirit of the age, and not in the peculiarities of the Virginians or of the Quakers. That spirit was eminently martial, and found no excuse for a set of
people who refused to bear arms. In Pennsylvania a number of prominent Quakers were seized by the authorities and banished to Winchester, Va. In 1650 the House of Burgesses of Virginia passed a law of more than ordinary
severity. During Lord Dunmore's War and afterwards during the Revolutionary War the legal and social status of the Quakers in Virginia was almost execrable. They refused to bear arms and to pay taxes to carry on a war.
Their estates were confiscated under legal warrant, and they looked to the great West for relief. Speculators look advantage of the law to gain by stealth what had cost the thrifty Quakers years of diligent effort to
obtain. Warlike glory was in the air everywhere, and the partisans of non-resistance fell into disrepute. The Quakers were eager to leave, and the Virginians were glad to see them go. It is not an easy matter to pass
judgment on either party. In many essential points each was wrong, but it is certain that as the age was constituted neither party could have done other than it did. But the historian, as he views the trend of affairs
through the centuries, cannot avoid the conclusion that in the long run Virginia lost more than did the Quakers. Thrift, honor, honesty and enterprise are qualities that a State can ill afford to lose, and that these
qualities belonged to the Quakers of Virginia is beyond all controversy. We shall see some of these Quakers of Virginia transplanted to Ohio, where their thrift and enterprise changed that vast solitude into centers of
civilization and refinement. Levi Shinn was the pioneer of the westward movement, so far as the family of Shinn was connected with it. The records do not disclose the place of his marriage, his wife's name, nor
his dismissal from any New Jersey meeting of Friends. Neither do the records show when he reached Hopewell nor how long he remained there. Tradition and the records say that he lived for awhile on Apple Pie Ridge, in
Frederick County, Va., where others of the family and others from New Jersey had taken residence. In 1778 we find him in Harrison County, Va., blazing with his ax the domain which was to be his under "Tomahawk
Right," and near which the town of Shinnston now stands. The accompanying pieture shows the log house built by him at this time. After this he returned to Hopewell for his family. His deseription of the
county so pleased his friends and relatives that many of them determined to move. Some time during the year 1779 Levi, with his family, his brother Clement and his family, his cousin Benjamin and family, viz., Samuel,
Isaac, Amy and Lucretia Shinn, and some of the Clarks, Antrims, Earls, Drakes, Herberts and others, set out for Harrison County. Arriving there, they took up such lands as pleased them, and began their improvement. Levi
Shinn had already made his selection. Clement located on Middle Creek, about one mile from where Shinnston was afterwards laid out. Isaac Shinn went about six miles away and chose a location on Simpson's Creek, while
Samuel Shinn made a selection on Ten-Mile Creek, about fifteen miles away. Clearing and housebuilding kept them busy, and the Indians troubled them so frequently as to make them forget their peaceable doctrines and
fight for their lives. The necessity for a fort soon presented itself, and upon a prominent location about three miles away they erected a stockade. They were pleased with their settlement, however, and sent word back
to Hopewell and to New Jersey inviting other friends and relatives to join them in the West. The family record discloses six sons of Clement and Elizabeth (Webb) Shinn. Two of these, Peter and Solomon, remained
in New Jersey until a later period, when they, too, removed to the West. The traditions and family records agree that Levi, Jonathan and Clement married in New Jersey at or near Salem. Levi Shinn married Elizabeth
Smith, 1772; Clement Shinn married Ruth Bates in 1772; Jonathan Shinn married Mary Clark, 1778. (Rest of story continues at pages for : Clement Shinn
Levi Shinn Jonathan Shinn
David Shinn |
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