WOMAN SHOUTED AT WHIG MEETING

From the Moundsville Echo, February 19, 1909

Submitted by Joseph D. Parriott.

     Yesterday, Captain Jacob Israel rounded out fifteen years more than man's allotted time of three score and ten, for then he celebrated his eighty fifth birthday.
     Captain Israel was born in Iowa in 1824 and when he was six years of age he came here and this has practically been his home ever since.
     Interwoven with his wife and still fresh in his memory are many interesting incidents and much of historical value.
     He was the captain of the first militia company here and his connection with the local military has been told before in these columns.
     He also served in the civil war as first lieutenant of Company M. of the First West Virginia cavalry. He was mustered in with 100 men and served months until the end of the war. He received no wounds but was severely injured by hurting a leader in his neck.
     He also started from Muscatine, Iowa, for the Mexican war but on the way down the Mississippi he became ill with fever and was sent up the Ohio to his home here. This was in 1846 or 47.
     When the Captain came here there wasn't a house south of where Woodburn's store now stands and there were practically no roads where the prison now stands, all was woodland and he lived in a log cabin on the main street of the town which was afterwards used as a cigar factory.
     Among the interesting things the Captain tells of was the holding of a Whig convention held in the woods back of the present prison site. Southgate of Kentucky, was the speaker and he waxed very eloquent.
     In the audience was an old lady who was too deaf to catch his words but she did hear his impassioned eloquence and appeals to support the Whig ticket. She was very devout and thinking Southgate was making an appeal to save souls, she began to shout and as the fervor seized her she leaped to her feet and clapped her hands until her gloves came off. She finally was quieted and the meaning of the meeting explained to her.
     This is probably the only instance where a political speaker was mistaken for a revivalist.
     This meeting the captain says was held here not for the people of the town for they were very few, but for the entire county and much other contiguous territory. There was a big crowd present.
     But this is of the past. For the present the Captain is still very much alive and very vigorous and goes along the streets with head erect and with a springy, youthful step and a keen enjoyment of life. Like Dr. Bruce, who is about the same age, he carries the great weight of many years easily and gracefully.


BACK