By Bobby Bice
I have several early images of Haywood, but I’ve chosen the one that I used in my book, Around Shinnston, to submit with this month’s article. It is a real photo postcard and the photographer took the image from the Lumberport side of the West Fork River.
Much of the town of Haywood was at one time the farmland of Felix W. Martin. A man named Jessie Madden is recorded to have settled the area in the year 1877, but Martin is known to have a permanent dwelling house in 1885 and it is he who is credited as being the founder of the actual town of Haywood in the year 1900. It was in that year when Mr. Martin sectioned off some of his farm into several lots to start developing a community. Those lots sold so quickly that he decided to lay out a second plat of lots which also sold quickly. He then sectioned off a third portion of lots.
Mr. Martin was a homebuilder and he instilled in his three sons the knowledge of craftsmanship as well. In 1904, those three sons formed Martin Brothers Company. Leroy H Martin was president, Charles E Martin was vice president, and Albert W Martin was the secretary and treasurer. When they formed this company, their father was in declining health, but they continued with their father’s aim in making Haywood a desirable place to live and soon opened up fourth and fifth sections of land. Many of the older homes still standing in Haywood were built by the Martin Brothers Company.
How the name of Haywood was chosen is unknown to me, but I do know that several people in the Martin Family had the middle name of Haywood, one being the President of Martin Brothers Co., Leroy Haywood Martin.
The Martin Brothers Company had a large three story building in Haywood that they operated as a general store (large white structure shown in the middle left of the accompanying photo), where supplies of every kind could be found. Their specialty, of course, was homebuilding so everything you could possibly need to build a home was found at their store. Their intent was to help the common man find affordable land and either build the homes or sell the supplies to the home builder. They also conducted their real estate business within their store building, which involved the selling of land lots left to them through their father and his farmland. Also, located in the store was the community post office, with the president of Martin Brothers Company, Leroy H Martin, serving as the postmaster during the early 1900s.
I have an old ledger from the post office at Haywood. I’ve read in a history book that the first postmaster was a man named Emerick Martin, but my ledger lists the postmaster in May 1908 as Ida Emerick. Felix Martin is listed as being appointed postmaster on June 11th, 1908 with his son Leroy Martin as his assistant. I suppose it’s possible that a local man named Emerick Martin may have existed, but it seems highly probable that the last names of Emerick and Martin were accidently formed into one name in the article I read. To further confuse history, I did some research on the two names and discovered that the post office in the Haywood community was originally known as the Emerick Post Office and received mail for Emerick, West Virginia. The post office department in Washington, DC officially changed the name from Emerick to Haywood on April 1st, 1904. The Emerick name was one of the earliest families attached to Haywood’s history. Edmond Smith Emerick was the motorman for the streetcar line from Haywood into Lumberport.
The West Virginia Department of Public Safety, now known as the West Virginia State Police, located Company A Headquarters on the Jefferson Bartlett farm at Haywood Junction in June 1922. It remained there until the late 1930’s. A handful of the barracks housing is still standing and in fine condition.
Like most communities, and in addition to the post office, Haywood was home to a school, churches, restaurants, dry goods store, shoe store, supply store, an oil field, coal mining companies (one of the earliest being the Hero Coal and Coke Company), and several other miscellaneous businesses.
The railroad followed the curve of the river around the town and the depot was located along the tracks, slightly to the right of the current Route 20 bridge, if heading toward Lumberport.
The trolley, or streetcar, line going from Clarksburg to Fairmont passed through Haywood Junction, but in 1912, a branch line from the junction to Lumberport was started. It was completed and in full operation by April 1914. At that time, this particular branch of the trolley line (from Haywood to Lumberport) was unique in the sense that it was known as the only P.A.Y.E. car in West Virginia, meaning ‘pay as you enter’. There were no conductors for this branch—only a motorman in charge of the car—and no tickets sold. However, this line was discontinued in the early 1930’s due to its decreasing use. The full trolley line itself was discontinued in 1947.
I’m too young to remember the school at Haywood, but it was originally built in 1905 as a two-room structure. With the rising population of the town, two additional classrooms as well as an office and kitchen were eventually added onto the building. The school was permanently closed after the 1963-64 school year.
During the 1970’s a community park was created for area residents to enjoy. However, it was by this time that the town’s population had decreased considerably, largely due to the construction of the Harrison Power Plant.
When driving along Route 20 through the town of Haywood, it’s far from the bustling little town that it once was. However, a few of the streets in Haywood, such as Martin St., School St., and Park Ave. reflect the history of the town. And that is this month’s story behind the photo!
