The Old Ruble Church near Burning Springs is among the structures the late David McKain helped preserve throughout the oilfield Those were the day when fortunes could be made by tapping a vein of saltwater and setting up a salt factory, and, in the crude frontier misconception of geology, a burning spring, a place where natural gas bubbles to the surface, was a sure sign that saltwater could be found nearby. There, he heard rumor of a collection of burning springs about twenty-five miles up the Little Kanawha River in what was then virtually a wilderness. Sometime between 18, young "Cass" Rathbone, as he was always called, visited his married sister, Juliet Rathbone Van Winkle, at Parkersburg. His father was a retired sea captain who owned a farm in New Jersey and a townhouse in New York City. John Castelli Rathbone was born at Saddle River, Bergen County, New Jersey, on October 10, 1818, the eldest son of William P. If he ever made a public speech in his own defense or wrote anything about his experiences for the benefit of posterity, no record has come to light. That was, of course, long after his dismissal from the Army. People who claim to remember him, and he lived till 1908, say that he was a tall, silent man who was seen occasionally on the streets of Parkersburg going to and from services at the Roman Catholic Church. There seems to be no portrait, photograph, nor a valid description of Rathbone anywhere in the United States. Stanton, and others, is merely one of the by-products of twenty-five years of research. Trimble, and raises some embarrassing questions about Major General Jacob D. That this story also exonerates Colonel Rathbone and his junior officer, Major George C. The story of Colonel Rathbone is the story of the Burning Springs oilfield, a story that may yet become one of the best-remembered subjects of the Civil War, simply because Burning Springs was the first military oil objective in the history of warfare. Historian David Sibray explores the restored oil well at Burning Springs. His name was Colonel John Castelli Rathbone, and he was cashiered from the Union Army for cowardice-under mysterious circumstances-for surrendering his command to Confederate General Albert Gallatin Jenkins at Spencer on September 2, 1862.
Nevertheless, the man who was once the most famous Rathbone of them all died in disgrace. On this Memorial Day, though, all might agree how nice it is to note that more than 80 Marylanders have been awarded the Medal of Honor - the country’s highest and most prestigious military decoration for valor on the battlefield.The Rathbone family has been prominent in the oil industry for five generations - beginning with William Palmer Rathbone, more than a century ago, and ending, for the time being, with Monroe Jackson Rathbone, now chairman of the board of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. One of the first known public tributes to war dead was in 431 B.C., when the Athenian general and statesman Pericles delivered a funeral oration praising the sacrifice and valor of those killed in the Peloponnesian War - a speech that some have compared in tone to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. The Greeks and Romans held annual days of remembrance for loved ones (including soldiers) each year, festooning their graves with flowers and holding public festivals and feasts in their honor.
Doylestown, Pennsylvania Grafton, West Virginia and Rochester, Wisconsin, have held parades since 1868, but the practice of decorating soldiers’ graves with flowers is an ancient custom. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs some 25 cities and towns claim to have originated Memorial Day.
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