By Gaylen Duskey
Once upon a time there was a KKK battle on Hog Knob.
It’s true.
But let’s look at Our History and see what happened, why it happened and what the outcome was.
Back about 100 years ago Hog Knob and Booger Hole – the real name is Henrietta, but nobody uses that name anymore – were both more populated than they now are and more of a cultural and commercial center too.
Hog Knob for instance had a grade school named naturally Hog Knob School which served a large area from outside Grantsville to the Gilmer County line which basically took in all of Booger Hole.
There was also a small country store on the ridge – people called the part of Hog Knob along the road Hog Knob Ridge – and there was also an auto repair shop.
Along the ridge there were about 20 houses and 80-100 people including some people who became rather famous including Bernard Pious Bell, a Medal of Honor winner.
The ridge was highly traveled because of the school and because at the time the road to Glenville traveled out the ridge until a fork branched back to the left at what was referred to as “The Big Turn” right before the houses where the Burns family lived and went down another road –now abandoned – going through Booger Hole.
Booger Hole was more commercial with a hotel and two or three small stores. There were a lot more houses there since people tended to settle along the river more than they did at the top of a ridgeback then. There was close to 100 houses with people living on both sides of the Little Kanawha River.
Geographically Hog Knob is a large swath of land that is encompassed from where the Little Kanawha River starts meandering around this miles long ridge.
It starts near the old Sewell Owens house, which is at the bottom of the hill on West Virginia Route 5 to where Steer Creek dumps into the river near Russett and continues on until it flows past the old Rubber Fabricators Building – the NYA Building – until it gets to Grantsville.
That’s quite a big chunk of land and a 100 years ago it was more populated and commercialized than it is today.
And that is the setting for the Ku Klux Klan battle on Hog Knob.
Back then it was not unusual for young men to ride horses and wear guns especially at night and on this balmy evening many men had their guns with them.
Jenus Crites – honestly it was his real name – decided to throw a party at his house which was beside the Hog Knob School.
As was the custom back then parties basically were an open invitation to everyone who wanted to attend.
One woman who lived in Booger Hole said she was going to attend.
She was married and her husband forbade her to go.
Forbade?
That most likely guaranteed she was going.
And she did.
Her husband was among several Calhoun residents who were member of the KKK back then and he decided he was not going to allow his wife get away with disobeying him and he started rounding up his KKK brethren to help him hold a cross burning at that party.
It was not the right thing to do.
The party was in full swing when people heard a boom on the hill near the water tank at the top of the hill above the Crites house.
Then they saw the burning cross.
But instead of being afraid the young men at the party pulled out their pistols and started shooting at the burning cross. The Klansmen started shooting back. The battle did not last long and thankfully nobody on either side was hit or injured.
But the Klansmen did take off as fast as they could back to Booger Hole.
Technically the party revelers won.
The next day an examination of the battle field found bullet holes in the water tower, Crites’ house and the school.
It known as the Battle of Crites Knob and was verbally handed down from generation to generation by residents of Hog Knob as part of Our History.
