Mingo Flats

The name of the road attracted us:"Mingo Flats Road." Why was it called that, and where did it lead? A little further along US Route 219 we discovered that the road came again to the highway, apparently making a loop. We turned left, to see what might be seen.

Beautiful scenery abounded and there were so many places to take photos we would never have made it to the inn where we were staying if I was driving. "Stop!" I'd say. "Back up!" Larry obliged over and over, but finally even I had to admit that we needed to move along.

I looked up the history of this place when we got home to see where it might have got its name. It had apparently been the site of a large Native American village at one time; later settlers believed the natives to be Mingos (a tribe, described as people who had been cast off by the Iroquois) based on local legend and passed-down stories. Even in 1920 there was great dispute over what tribe might have encamped there. We were told by present-day residents that it was a "winter camp" but that seems unlikely to me. Pocahontas County in winter is a snowbound place, and I can't see why Indians would have camped there when they could have been comfortable in a more southern location. According to online documents the Indians grew "winter corn" here so perhaps that is where my informants got the idea of it being a winter camp.

Today there is a small community still located at Mingo Flats; the turn-of-the-century and older buildings are mostly well-maintained. This view looks over what used to be the general store and post office. Hidden in the trees near the center of the photo is the old two-story schoolhouse.

This is a closer view of the store, which appears to be vacant but still cared for.

As we wound up the road past the cluster of buildings, we were startled to see a beautiful stone sculpture of an Indian standing sentinel beside the road.

About 100 or more years ago, this was the Huttonsville to Marlinton Pike, a main thoroughfare through the mountains. Today it is a one-lane country road meandering in the hills alongside of US 219 in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. How did the statue come to be in this place?

I looked online when we returned home and discovered that descendants of the early pioneers wanted to honor the place where the ancient Indian village had stood. Remains of the village were visible to the first settlers, although clearly abandoned for many years. According to some reports, there were burial mounds in the area. An online full-text copy of "Monument to, and history of the Mingo Indians; facts and traditions about this tribe, their wars, chiefs, camps, villages and trails. Monument dedicated to their memory near the village of Mingo, in Tygarts River Valley of West Virginia" provides the background on the statue, the arguments for and against its erection, and even some of the speeches given on the date of its dedication (September 25, 1920--we took these photos almost 90 years to the day later).

We spent a good bit of time in the small park around the statue. It's restful and quiet, a place to contemplate the history of the land the statue overlooks. Today you might never think of the past as you drive down the smooth asphalt of Route 219, but this statue made us stop and look back to what once was.

We left and continued driving along the quiet road, through deep woods turning to fall colors. Then we encountered this:

Another statue? This one was actually erected before the Mingo monument, and was placed in honor of the Confederate soldiers from the area who died in a battle on Valley Mountain under the command of General Robert E. Lee. The monument, according to an article on the Smithsonian Institution's website, "was originally unveiled July 23, 1913 on Valley Mountain, near Mingo, in the proximity of where General Robert E. Lee's army was encamped for 30 days during the Civil War."

Who was the sculpture of these two statues? Was it the same person, or two different artists? Why were the people of this particular community driven to erect monuments to the past? To these questions I have not yet searched for answers, and the young soldier below isn't telling. Perhaps someone reading this knows, or perhaps I will discover what I want to know in archives somewhere.

For those who wander up Mingo Flats Road, the efforts of its past residents have provided a surprising trip into history and an opportunity for many generations after them to stop a moment and reflect on those whose feet traveled the ground beneath us.