Jenkins Cave - Ritchie County, West Virginia
Though few could locate it on a map today, Jenkins Cave was once a well-known landmark to residents of southwestern Ritchie County, West Virginia.
The cave is located near the upper right fork of Gillespie Run (because the cave is located on private property, I can not disclose its exact location). As caves go, it is quite small. Not being a geologist, I could not identify the rock from which it is carved (though I suspect it must be limestone), nor the forces which carved it (possibly water erosion, but again, this is only conjecture on my part).
The cave was a favorite spot for field trips by classes from the nearby Jackson School in the early 1900s, and the cave's outer walls bear a few etched initials and dates, but these are now mostly illegible.
The mouth of the cave is approximately three feet high, but the passageway quickly narrows, and about nine feet in, there is a spot which is a very tight squeeze for the average man. Following that tight spot, the passageway once again widens, and after approximately 10 more feet, the tunnel opens into a chamber. The room, which is approximately 20 feet wide, is vaguely oval in shape, narrowing to points on each side. It is approximately 15 feet at its widest and probably nine feet high.
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Jenkins Cave - sketch by Veeranuch Trangtrakul, 1999 (from a photo by Alan R. Nichols) The cave's entrance is marked here by a white arrow |
The room is perpetually damp, and the floor is littered with rock debris of various shapes and sizes, fallen from the ceiling. Along the lefthand wall is a vertical crack into which a small person could squeeze, but the crack runs only a few feet before narrowing to a mere slit. It was once said by locals that a second room could once be accessed through this crack.
The cave was most likely first discovered by Native Americans, and knowledge of its existence passed to the first white settlers. Most caves are associated with some type of legend, and Jenkins Cave is no exception. According to local oral history, Jenkins Cave became the home of Confederate deserter "Mad" Jenkins during the Civil War. It is said that he hid in the cave, with his wife regularly bringing him meals. When soldiers--either Union or Confederate-- approached too closely, he reportedly pulled leaves up to the cave's entrance for further concealment.
Not surprisingly, the story of Mad Jenkins has been embellished through the generations and mentions have been made of Jenkins' buried treasure and his ghost. Unfortunately, through all of my years of research into the area's history and specifically for information on Mad Jenkins, I have never seen a written reference to him or the cave. I hope someday some information will come to light. My assumption for many years has been that the name "Mad" was a nickname for "Madison," and while I have seen information on men by the name of "Madison Jenkins," I have yet to find any that would seem to be this same man.
Some new information on "Mad Jenkins" recently came to my attention, while attending our 2004 family reunion. My uncle informed me that his father told him that Mad Jenkins was killed sometime after the war in a shoot-out with his own family. The gunfight occured in Ritchie County near the mouth of Camp Run on what was then called the Parkersburg-Staunton Turnpike (now State Route 47). According to my uncle, Mad killed several people before he was shot. After he fell, I was told, Mad's family stripped his body and left it there in the road. My grandfather, who told this story to my uncle, was born in 1902, so he wouldn’t have had first-hand knowledge of the event, and it’s likely the story became embellished over the years, but my grandfather was known to be knowledgeable on local history, and it seems possible that the story at least has a basis in truth.