LAND OF HOPE AND CLAGWELL

"Ernie, when I was a little boy like you, my grandfather, Captain Hoxie Clagwell would tell about the old days when he and J.B. King, Esq. and two other Clagwell boys, Espee and Barph, first came to the country that is now the State of Hope. It was before the Civil War. That's when Virginia seceded from the state of West Virginia and went with the Confederacy. West Virginia stayed with the Union. The folks in Hope had no interest in either side of the conflict so they declared themselves to be a free and sovereign nation. A year or two after the war ended they had a referendum and, like the folks in Texas had done, they voted to become a state. Unfortunately, the records of Hope's vote to enter into the United States were misplaced by a Washington bureaucrat. The papers were never found or recorded. That's probably why most people aren't aware that Hope is the 51st state.

"You need to understand, Ernie, that the first settlers here in Hope were folks who dropped out of (or were asked to leave) the wagon trains headed toward the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase. Those dropouts, including J.B. King and Hoxie, Espee and Barph Clagwell, found that they got car sick riding in covered wagons so one night they all slipped out. Fortunately or unfortunately, once they departed the wagon train they could not find the way back from whence they came. Since they couldn't admit to their wives that they were lost, the whole bunch settled down where they were and, without any basis in law, claimed the land around them as their own. Fortunately, the land was so poor no one else was there to dispute their claim. The Kings and the Clagwells had two talents between them. The Kings knew how to grow corn and the Clagwells knew how to convert that corn into a popular elixir having many zesty and refreshing qualities. A generation or two later, when the hills were covered with Clagwells and Kings and other newcomers, immense seams of smokeless coal were discovered under the land. When that happened, coal quickly supplanted liquid corn as the basis of the economy. Even today the state flag of Hope depicts two men at work, one running a still and the other trying to hire someone to dig coal at substandard wages. Those two heroic and historic figures were Espee Clagwell, and your great, great grandfather, Barph Clagwell. Doesn't that make you proud?"