THE LEGEND OF JACO CAVE
I was recently asked to tell the story of the legend of Jaco Cave again for our readers who may not have had the opportunity to read it when I published it several years ago. I am happy to oblige.
This short description of the Jaco Cave Story and related subjects of interest was taken in part from a story written by William C Blizzard and has been a hand-out offered by the D.C. Historical Society since the 1970s. Mr. Blizzard was a journalist, historian, & photographer born on Cabin Creek, located on the south bank of the Kanawha River in Kanawha County, WV. His extensive collection is housed at the McConnell Library Archives and Special Collections, McConnell Library in Radford, VA.
“God,” said John Brown of Osawatomie and Harpers Ferry, “has given the strength of the hills to freedom (meaning WV’s hills); they were full of natural forts, where one man for defense will be equal to a hundred for attack; they are also full of good hiding places, where large numbers of brave men could be concealed, and baffle and elude pursuit for a long time.”
So spoke John Brown of Springfield, Mass., in 1847. He was speaking to one man only: Frederick Douglass, a former slave and legendary Negro leader. Brown was outlining to Douglass his plan to establish armed guerrilla bands in the Appalachians to strike at the slaveholders.
If Brown’s knowledge of the ethical geological intent of the Supreme Being is doubted by modern readers, his analysis of the guerrilla value of the Appalachians, and all similar prune-like formations, was full of earthly common sense. He was also describing an area where refugees from slavery might hide while fleeing north to freedom.
Brown did not convince Douglass of the wisdom of his guerrilla plan or its value compared to the risks and sacrifices involved. But in 1847, both men knew of the value of the wrinkled Appalachians as a route of the Underground Railroad, a freedom road for escaping blacks.
Before the Civil War, there were few main highways through the mountains of what is now West Virginia. Two of these were the Northwestern Turnpike, completed from Winchester to Parkersburg in 1838, and the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike, completed in 1847. A third, the James River and Kanawha Turnpike, had been constructed from the James River to the Ohio River as early as 1800.
Although official histories are understandably silent on the subject, it is reasonable to believe that all these major turnpikes were utilized by escaping Negro slaves. Like other travelers, escaping slaves, on any organized basis, had to have way stations for rest, food, and drink.
Such resting spots, or inns-of-desperation, had to be manned by brave, trustworthy people. Often, without doubt, they were private homes; ideally, they were places that could be easily and effectively defended.
The location of most of these way stations is doubtless lost to history. But one, near West Union, in Doddridge County, is strongly identified by legend as an Underground Railroad stop, a crude inn for runaway slaves.
This crude inn (if such it was) is now called Jaco Cave. It is located on Jaco Hill near West Union. The name is pronounced “Jake-O” and was the surname of Luke Jaco, who owned the cave during the middle of the 19th century. Reference to Jaco Cave and its role in the Underground Railroad is made in the West Virginia Guide, published in 1941. However, the Guide writers spelled the name “Jacko,” which is almost certainly incorrect.
Jaco Cave is located on a low hill only a few hundred feet above the old Northwestern Turnpike, now U.S. 50. In this area, the new 4-lane highway is in the same place as the old turnpike, so Jaco Cave is (the last few words in this sentence are unreadable on our copy) an archeologist. It is not an enormous shelter but is a most excellent one, a recess about 20 feet deep enclosed on three sides.
Adjacent to this enclosed room is another stone shelter open on two ends, affording less protection than Jaco Cave proper but still a reasonably good shelter. On the other side of Jaco Cave is a sheer, vertical sandstone face, 30 feet high or more that might also give protection against the elements.
Local legends assert that skeletons were once found on the clay floor of Jaco Cave. If so, investigators should consider the probability that they were of Indian origin.
It is said that several years ago, a skeleton was found under cliffs bordering U.S. 119, near Peytona in Boone County, on Drawdy Creek. Suspecting foul play, the finders notified the sheriff.
It was later discovered that the bones had belonged to an Indian (experts can tell through tooth characteristics and other features), who had probably died long before the sheriff’s grandfather was born. This would lead us to believe that the bones in Jaco Cave if such there were, might also have been aboriginal.
Residents of Doddridge County tell numerous tales of Luke Jaco, many of which were and are unflattering. According to one account, he came to West Union about 1845 and purchased the hill, cave, and other property. He then set up a large inn on the Northwestern Turnpike below what is now called Jaco Cave.
Luke, according to some stories, had wild, wild ways. Wealthy guests, it was said, came to his inn and did not depart. (Such rumors were often started when an anti-slavery white man or woman dared to participate in the Underground Railroad.) After the Civil War, Luke and his family moved to Missouri. According to stories circulated about West Union, he had opened another inn in that state and was yet operating most unconventionally. He was shot and left for dead near West Union. He lost an arm as a result. According to local gossip, the shooting resulted from a brawl.
Yet most of the peculiar happenings that were supposed to have occurred around Luke Jaco’s inn could have been related to his clandestine Underground Railroad activity. (Many believed and continue to think that this was the case.) That Jaco used the cave that bears his name as a haven for escaping slaves was a familiar story around West Union and remained to this day.
As this was strong Union territory, many local citizens probably looked upon Jaco’s Underground Railroad with approval. A story in the May 1933 issue of the West Virginia Review represented that Ephraim Bee, a prominent West Union resident, aided Jaco about 1857 in his unlawful aid to escaping blacks.
This story by James Wesley McCarty is highly fictionalized in style, but the author must have believed it to have a backbone of truth.
There are other interesting facts about this Doddridge County area. In the first place, John Brown of Harpers Ferry fame lived near West Union in 1840 for at least a month and possibly for almost three months.
Brown was surveying lands for Oberlin College, but he undoubtedly took time to look up unusual natural features such as Jaco Cave. He had to be familiar with this section of the Northwestern Turnpike, completed a few years earlier. He had every intention of settling permanently between West Union and Center Point. There is indisputable historical evidence that he was sharply disappointed when his selected home site was unavailable.
There can be no doubt that Brown intended to be active from his home near West Union in the antislavery cause. In the summer of 1859, Brown, although a hunted man actively planning his Harpers Ferry raid, appeared in nearby Clarksburg to aid the free Negro woman accused of helping slaves to escape. It is tempting to infer a connection between Luke Jaco and John Brown, although there is no evidence to support such a conclusion.
Jaco was not a native of the West Union area, and his name is not common in Appalachia. A few individuals with the surname Jaco now live in and around Grafton and Morgantown, but all disclaim any knowledge of the famed Luke Jaco of West Union.
Mrs. Mabel C Ford of Moran, Kansas, now 81, wrote to the author of this article on July 8, 1971:
“Grandmother was a Jaco, but her father (here again are two lines which cannot be determined.) mother at 14, two boys older and a sister younger.
“…My mother lived in the home of a great uncle for some time, or until she married my father, John Stanton Ford. The Ford families were descendants of the Hanway family….”
Samuel Hanway was the surveyor of Monongalia County in 1784, who owned large chunks of early Morgantown. George Washington visited Hanway’s office near Morgantown that year and conferred with Albert Gallatin, later Secretary of the Treasury under Thomas Jefferson, about varied real estate.
The Father of this Country, anyone may see, believed that he should have free and clear deeds to as much of that country as possible. The Jaco individuals living in Morgantown today are also probably related to Samuel Hanway.
No West Virginia Jaco of today, whatever his descent, admitted to the writer any knowledge of the Luke Jaco of our Jaco Cave area. The name, according to present-day Jaco, is of French origin.
When Luke Jaco left West Union after the Civil War, he sold his property, including the cave, to Chapman J Stuart. If not a friend of Luke Jaco, Stuart knew the man well. And who was Doddridge County’s own Chapman J Stuart? He was the man who is credited with having named West Virginia.
An attorney who had studied at the old Monongalia Academy in Morgantown and the Western University of Pennsylvania (now the University of Pittsburgh), Stuart was a prominent organizer after the Civil War of the new state of West Virginia. He was a member of the Wheeling Convention of 1861 that repudiated the Ordinance of Secession and organized the Restored Government.
He was elected to the state senate and was with the Restored Government at Wheeling until the new state of West Virginia was formed. In 1861, he was a member of the convention that framed the West Virginia constitution and called that convention to order. He was a member of the first nominating convention held in the new state and called it to order. He was appointed chairman of the boundary committee tasked with determining the boundary of the state of West Virginia.
Several names were suggested for the severed western section of the Old Dominion, including “New Virginia” and “Allegheny.” Stuart presented “West Virginia” to the conference committee. His motion was defeated at the time but was later adopted by the constitutional convention, so Stuart named the state of which he was one of the founding fathers.
What of Ephraim Bee, who in one account was connected with Luke Jaco in Underground Railroad activity? Bee was the West Union postmaster for many years and the village blacksmith. He was a member of the first West Virginia legislature and served two succeeding terms.
EPHRAIM BEE
Ephraim Bee’s education resulted from being self-taught, for he was only given the opportunity to attend school up to the third grade. He never let that slow him down. Ephraim did more with that third-grade education than many men who were much more highly educated. Mr. Bee was unable, like his neighbor, Chapman Stuart, to name West Virginia, but he did the next best thing possible… His fifth daughter by his second marriage was born on the day President Abraham Lincoln signed the bill that created our beloved Mountain State.
What did Ephraim Bee name the daughter? What else? He named her West Virginia Bee.
It could have been worst. There were lots of Indian names in favor at that time, and the new state could have been called Youghiogheny, Conshohocken, or Daguscahonda.
(This story was taken in part from a copy of the Legend of Jaco Cave donated to the Doddridge County Historical Society by Jacqueline Wetzel and Mary Franklin.)
God Bless.
Patricia Richards Harris