100 Years Ago

Thursday, August 12, 1920

Thomas J. Doyle, a disabled soldier, is opening a vulcanizing and retreading shop for the repairing of automobile tires, on Main Street opposite the Marlinton Hotel. He is a son of the late R. E. L. Doyle, who moved to the west about 15 years ago. Mr. Doyle was a member of C. B. 2nd Engineers, Second Division, and was shot with a machine gun in the face in the Argonne Forest. He also had a number of ribs broken by a high explosive shell. He holds a certificate showing that he has completed the Federal Board Student’s Course in Vulcanizing under Government Instruction and spent some time in the Goodyear Rubber Factory at Akron.

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Harry B. Hill and Miss Grace C. Barlow, were quietly married at the home of the bride near Onoto, August 4, 1920. The ring ceremony was used, Miss Oleta Gay being ring bearer…

Mr. Hill is a young man of marked ability. He has been in the employ of the Pocahontas Supply Co. at Cass for the past five years. The bride is the only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. A. C. Barlow, and among the ideal girls of the community…

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A big new Cadillac car belonging to R. R. Luther, of Emory, Virginia, went over the road above the Big Bend on Elk Mountain last Thursday night. It plunged down the very steep mountainside, over brush and rocks, a distance of perhaps two hundred yards. It missed the big trees and rocks and landed right side up with a boy in it unhurt and the machine not damaged. Not even the windshield was broken. Block and tackle and trucks were used to haul it back to the road.

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Wilbur Sharp brought in a back load of six big cat fish, which he and his party caught at the mouth of Locust Creek. The biggest one weighed eight pounds. The party caught a dozen or more.

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A. N. Allen caught a big blue cat fish at the Kee Eddy Monday afternoon while bass fishing. He hooked it behind the ear.

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O. E. Gum unloaded a Happy Farmer 12-24- tractor last Friday, with which he expects to pull his grain separator, and will soon be busy threshing in the Huntersville district.

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The local house of R. T. Greer & Son shipped, last week, roots and herbs for which they had paid more than $20,000. The shipment included a full car of Mayapple of 39,000 lbs., a half car of slippery elm and a half car of mixed roots. In the shipment was a small box of ginseng of the value of $700. This is real money from what has heretofore been waste products. The company finds its present quarters too small and they will build a large warehouse to take care of their growing business.

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A big flying machine passed up the Greenbrier river Wednesday afternoon. When it passed over Edray it was flying very low.

MILL SOLD

Ira D. Brill has sold the flour mill of the Marlinton Milling Company to Howard Spencer, of Hillsboro. Mr. Spencer will move the mill to Hillsboro, and get it going as soon as possible.

DEER CREEK

Potatoes promise a big crop.

The people of Deer Creek have no place to vote this year to keep it wet or dry.

Berrying is all the go here – blackberries, huckleberries and raspberries.

BURIED TREASURE

About forty years ago there was much talk about a buried treasure in the vicinity of Marlinton. About that time, George Moore, who died shortly after, dug a hole in the glade on Jericho, a mile from where this town is built. The excavation was fresh in 1885 when we first saw it, and it was that kind of a hole usually described as big enough to bury a horse in. The other Sunday, we were strolling in that direction and went a little out of our way to look for it. We understand that a person who walks on week days, strolls on Sunday. We found the place without any trouble and there are big trees growing in it.

We do not know what Mr. Moore knew about the hidden treasure or what kind of signs he found that led him to make that pit, but the late James H. Price was a man who had remarkable knowledge of the folklore of these mountains and knew of the tradition of the buried treasure. It was to the effect that a party of men closely pursued by hostile Indians had buried twenty-two thousand dollars in silver on a little run that entered Greenbrier River. That, having buried the silver, they were destroyed and that it had never been found. The silver would be found buried at a depth of three feet in the ground with two long stones on top of it. We remember particularly about the stones, for some of the neighbors said that Mr. Moore dug down to the stones and was taken so sick that he died before he could complete his exploration. As we remember it, he was suffering from consumption at the time that he was hunting for the hoard. It could not have been taken seriously by the people of this neighborhood, for none of them ever went to the place to do the few minutes’ work that would complete the search so far as we know.

As a boy, we worked in the field where this pit was and once cut the brush off that glade, though you would not think so to see the growth there now. We never took a lively interest in it. One thing that always sicklied it over with the pale cast of thought, was that men travelling in the wilderness in the days of the Indians did not carry any money to amount to anything, and we could never conjecture any circumstances that made the existence of such a deposit plausible or even possible…