Golfers at the Highland Springs Golf Course located at the intersection of Route 88 and 27 as they play up to the 10th and 12th greens will notice a small enclosure at the crest of the ridge in which are located two grave stones.
These graves are the final resting place of two of BROOKE COUNTY'S earliest settlers, MAJOR FRANCIS MC GUIRE and his wife BARBARA MC GUIRE.
Major McGuire came into the area just at the end of the 18th century to take up land under a patent he received from the Commonwealth of Virginia for his services during the Revolutionary War. Legend has it that he endeavored to avoid trouble with the Indians by purchasing the property from them with a bag of beans and some plug tobacco.
All of the land encompassed by the Highland Springs Golf Course and what is now known as WAUGH'S SUBDIVISION was included in Major McGuire's holdings.
The home now occupied by Mr. and Mrs. John Paull of Eagle Manufacturing Co. located on Route 88 was the site of Major McGuire's log cabin. In 1801 McGuire added the brick portion of the house that is now standing.
An unconfirmed story is told that shortly after the McGuire's moved into the area that their son was bitten by a rabid animal and died as a result. A family burial ground was started, the same that is now located on the gold course but there is no other stone than those marking the graves of the Major and his wife.
As late as 1822 the road known now as Route 88 was designated as McGuire's Road. It followed a different route than at present as it left the Washington Pike (Route 27) at the George Gist farm, now owned by Robert Baron, and passed over the hill to reach the McGuire house.
The grave stones indicate that Major McGuire died in September 1830 and his wife passed away on December 29, 1835.
When Campbell Waugh subsequently came into possession of the property he removed the log cabin portion of the McGuire House and built the frame portion that completed the house as it now stands.
Under ownership of the Waugh's much of the land holding was devoted to orchards. The large building now used as a clubhouse for the golf course was a large apple storage and processing facility. Apples from these orchards were shipped to virtually every part of the United States.
Thomas McGuire and two of his sons, Francis and Robert, came into Independence Township (then Hopewell) in 1772 from Hampshire County Virginia (now west Virginia), on the south branch of the Potomac River. They settled on the dividing ridge between the Cross Creek and Buffalo Creek watersheds, just on the edge of Independence Township, Washington County, and Brooke County, west Virginia. Here they built a blockhouse - McGuire's - the first in all that region.
Francis bought land in Pennsylvania from the Benjamin wells estate and had several land grants in Pennsylvania, but sold his land in Pennsylvania from 1801 to 1806 and settled across the border in West Virginia. He was born around 1772 in Hampshire and died in Brooke County on September 18, 1820, age 55 years. He married, probably on a return trip to Hampshire County, Barbara Miller, who died December 29, 1835.
Earle Forrest claims that he served as a major in the Continental Line, but Dr. Raymond M. Bell quotes from the Draper Manuscripts that he was a major in the militia. Forrest quotes from Joseph Doddridge's Notes on the settlement and Indian Wars that he was in a party of men who rescued a Mrs. Glass and her small son from the Indians down the Ohio River below Wellsburg and near Short Creek. Dr. Bell also quotes the Draper Manuscripts which state that Francis McGuire and his brother Robert were on Col. David Williamson's campaign to the Moravian Village at Gnaddenhutten where 96 Christian Indians were massacred on March 8, 17982, by the settlers of Washington County. Col Williamson was not in favor of the deeds of his men, but he did not seem to exert enough control over them to stop the mad killing. Francis McGuire strongly opposed the action, but his brother Robert favored it.
In a small plot near Independence are found these stones: Francis McGuire died September 1(), 1820 Age 66-- Barbara McGuire died December 29, 1835, Age 81
Richard Waugh bought the farm on the Pennsylvania-West Virginia border on which Mr. McGuire lived in 1804, and it was in the Waugh family until about twenty-five years ago. The Waugh's had a commercial orchard there, and the Grimes Golden Apples were a specialty developed there. The farm has since become a golf course, and that burial g round is located on top of the hill at Hole #12. Mrs. Barbara Crothers of Taylorstown as a Waugh and was raised on that farm.
The story is told that the McGuire's had twenty slaves that Mrs. McGuire freed after her husband's death. But they ran away because they were afraid that some people would take time again as slaves.