Thursday, February 21, 1918
Mrs. A. P . Edgar met with a very painful accident Tuesday. While about her household duties she must have fainted. Anyway, she fell with a tea kettle of hot water in her hands and was very badly scalded about the chest and head. While painfully hurt it is not thought that the results will be very serious.
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Pocahontas County having tried almost everything else has started an Alimony Club. Sam Ray was the defendant in a divorce case some time ago and the net result of which was that his wife was given a divorce, the two children awarded to her, and $160.00 alimony a year. Sam Ray did not seem to be much impressed with the magnitude of the decree and has failed to pay. He has been subject to a rule and then to an attachment, and found himself in the Hotel Sheriff.
He made a motion for relief at a special term held by Judge Sharp on Tuesday but as for paying any part of that alimony, that was foreign to his nature and unknown to his habits. The court thereupon remanded him to jail to remain until further order of the court, which may be for years and which may be not so long according to whether the prisoner suffers from a change of mind. It is in a way a survival of the old way of imprisonment for debt, the period being according to an old time judge that we used to have there: Till he pays or till he rots.
PANTHERS
Editor Pocahontas Times –
In your last issue you have an interesting editorial on the subject of panther or “painter” as many of us have heard it called. During my residence in Pocahontas County I saw one panther, which had been killed on Brushy Mountain about 3 miles southeast of Huntersville.
It was in the early winter of 1881 or 1882. I think some hunters were tracking deer in that mountain. A light snow covered the ground. Near the top of the mountain they came upon the track of a panther, and the trail led to a sort of cavern in some high rocks near the top of the mountain. An additional force was called in, and there were probably about six in the party when the panther was routed out. My recollection is that Andrew Taylor, who then lived at the Friel Mill about two miles south of Huntersville, was one, and I think Albert Sharp, who now lives in Marlinton, was another of the party. The others I do not recall, but I know that Andrew Taylor got the hide. They went with dogs, and in a little while the panther came out in pursuit of the dogs. It was no small job to dispatch the beast, as two balls which struck him fair in the face glanced without penetrating the skull. A ball through the body behind the forelegs seemed to have been the most effective, but probably no less than six or eight shots were fired into him before he was dispatched.
The hunters brought the body to Huntersville and weighed it on the scales at Amos Barlow’s store and it weighed 110 pounds. The animal had killed a deer and had been feasting on it, as the trail showed. It was very fat and had evidently been living high because the fat protruded from the bullet hole through the body made by an old fashioned army gun. Col. Cecil Clay happened to be in Huntersville that evening and came to look the panther over. He seemed to be an authority on panthers. I tried to purchase the skin from Mr. Taylor with a view of having it tanned for a rug, but we never could agree on the price…
The only other evidences of a panther I ever saw was when L. H. Stephenson, Capt. D. A. Stofer, C. P. Jones and myself were fishing on the East Fork of the Greenbrier one summer. VanBuren Arbogast took us to see where a panther had caught a deer and dragged it into a thick laurel patch and covered it up. Of course, the deer was not there when we went, but the bed showing where it had been hidden was plainly visible and the track along which it had dragged the deer from the lick was also plainly visible.
I sometimes think that panthers will become more plentiful since the timber has been cut and the mountain sides become covered with briars and thick brush.
R. S. Turk
Staunton, Va.
DUNMORE
Dunmore Window Shade Hanger Company organized with C. E. Pritchard, president; R. B. Charlton, secretary; and June McElwee, treasurer.
Five sled loads of folks and good things went to Greenbank Thursday eve-ning and gave Rev. G. H. Echols a good pounding. He took it with a smiling face.
Mr. and Mrs. C. E. Pritchard entertained the young people with a delightful party Thursday evening. A most enjoyable time was spent in playing games and other amusements and good work for our soldier boys.
Mrs. Guy Campbell and Misses Merle and Helen Moore entertained most delightfully all the young people with a Valentine party. The rooms were lovely with the Valentine Day scheme of festoons of paper hearts, arrows and cupids…
LINWOOD
The general health of the community is much better at this writing.
A little snow fell today, breaking the monotony of the warm days last week.
The debate held at Dry Branch school house was well attended by the young people of our vicinity.
Notwithstanding the 3 cent postage, St. Valentine day passed by with the usual ceremonies.
The sinking of the liner Tuscania seems to be the most important topic for discussion at present. We hope that this inhuman act will be the means of arousing a deeper patriotism in the hearts of our countrymen.
With the help of Elmer Ryder, Ligon Louk, W. H. Doyle and a few others we have been able to find the road across Cloverlick mountain again. We hardly recognized it though, as it had not been seen since last fall.
DIED
Robert Sheets, 19 years old, died of pneumonia last Monday, and was interred in the Mountain View cemetery at this place Tuesday. He was a son of the late J. W. Sheets, of Beaver Dam, and has recently returned from Colorado. He went to work on Elk in the woods and contracted pneumonia which resulted in his death. He was a good, likable boy, and he will be greatly missed by his family and friends.