Full Citation

Title: Born Merchant: Local Influence on Extractive Industry in Pocahontas County, West Virginia

Citation Type: Journal Article

Publication Year: 2023

ISBN:

ISSN:

DOI: 10.1353/wvh.2023.a913797

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Abstract: In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: In 1891, a group of businessmen published a prospectus entitled "Marlinton, Pocahontas County, the Future Manufacturing and Industrial Center of the Virginias," designed to entice investment into a new town in the Greenbrier River Valley.1 The roster of businessmen associated with the plan for the Pocahontas Development Company (PDC) included men from Taylor and Marion Counties in West Virginia. Prominent politicians such as Johnson Newlon Camden and Aretus Brooks Fleming added weight to the proposal, but the final name in the listed directors stands out as the only local involved.2 Jacob Williamson Marshall, a merchant from Mingo Flats, had a long history of representing his community's economic and political interests in the Beverly Valley and the Greenbrier River Valley, and his participation in the PDC signified local interest to investors.3 While the modern understanding of the impact of extractive timber operations on West Virginia points to the PDC as a tool of rapid timber extraction, Marshall's role points to a different understanding of the town's purpose. An examination of the participation of a prominent local merchant in a plan to develop a town and infrastructure to support timber extraction highlights the nebulous line that separated economic invigoration from wholesale destruction for profit. This article contributes to a discussion of the role of insiders in nineteenth-century West Virginia's prelude to industrialized extractive practices that forever altered the geography of many regions of the state. The experience of locations such as Randolph and Pocahontas Counties in the timber industry stands as an example of the range of interests in play as the twentieth century dawned in West Virginia. Outsiders and foreign capitalists were not the only investors in opportunity, as locals exercised their power to drive rural communities into the global marketplace. Wilma Dunaway's analysis of world systems theory confirms that "the incorporation of Southern Appalachia's local economies into the capitalist world system involved every level of society."4 Examining [End Page 127] the world of a local merchant as he transitioned from antebellum practices of barter and subsistence to industrial extraction is important to understanding that economic level in West Virginia. Jacob Marshall's role as a merchant and economic guide in his community during western Virginia's antebellum growth can be compared to his involvement in late nineteenth-century practices of capitalist extraction across West Virginia and Appalachia. Although the political landscape shifted dramatically around Marshall's economic ventures, his place in the expansion in his region's economic development was not particularly tarnished by those changes. The Greenbrier River Valley held as much promise for Marshall at the end of his life as it did during his antebellum period of success, and he was, throughout, a born merchant. While his work and life were not remarkably different than other small merchants across western Virginia, an examination of the life of a resident who was neither an extractive capitalist nor a yeomen farmer is relevant to West Virginia's history.5 The transition to a professionalized method of wealth extraction was not necessarily removed from antebellum habits of rural merchants, who utilized distant relationships for income production. Practices such as the feedlot system, which involved coordination between rural brokers and outsider interests, have been examined by historian Ronald Lewis, and this article considers whether timber extraction was consistent with these types of business practices.6 Like merchants in other parts of Civil War–era Appalachia, the postwar economy of West Virginia was ripe for modernization. Steven Nash recognized that postwar development held potential to revive Appalachia's economy.7 Scholarship from Mary Beth Pudup suggests that men like Marshall struggled to achieve the promise of their early ventures due to the inability of the agriculture-based economy to rise above subsistence methods.8 The development of a sustained capitalistic economy was certainly influenced by transitioning politics within the state. Building on the work of historians such as Richard Curry, this article examines Marshall's place in the Democratic resurgence in West Virginia near the end of the nineteenth century, which opened resource development.9 State-level...

Url: https://doi.org/10.1353/wvh.2023.a913797https://muse.jhu.edu/article/913797

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Authors: Bailey, Kristen

Periodical (Full): West Virgina History: A Journal of Regional Studies

Issue: 2

Volume: 17

Pages: 127-153

Data Collections: IPUMS USA, IPUMS NHGIS

Topics: Housing and Segregation, Labor Force and Occupational Structure

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