Thursday, August 3, 1922
The far-famed “Belled” buzzard, claimed by pioneer residents to be more than one hundred years old, again is hovering over the hills of Pocahontas, Monroe and Mercer counties. Superstitious persons fear a disaster is imminent, in which there will be a great loss of life. They point to past occasions when the buzzard made its appearance, which were followed by calamities.
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People by the hundreds are taking advantage of the superior bathing facilities at the Pocahontas county Fair Grounds. A pier has been extended into Gay Eddy, giving water suitable in depth for all ages. The stones are being picked out, steps have been built down the bank, a sawdust trail built to the box stalls of the horse barn, which are being fitted up as dressing rooms.
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C. J. McCarty has started the County Centenary exhibit of things of the olden time for the County Fair by leaving at this office a flail supple and an old brush hook. Both were found around the old McLaughlin house in Marlinton. The brush hook is a battle axe looking arrangement and is similar to one picked up a number of years ago by George Simmons on Williams River and now on exhibit at the Times Office. The flail supple is an innocent looking stick about an inch in diameter and about thirty inches long, with a hole in one end. It was tied to a handle and used to beat our grain. We loaned some farmer our office pair of sickles and we hope he will bring them to the Fair. We do not want them back, as we seldom have any use for them.
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Joseph Pennell brought in about as interesting thing for the old settlers’ exhibit at the Fair as will be on hand. It is a homemade sausage mill which has been in use for almost one hundred years. It belonged to his father, Reuben Pennell, and was made by one, Charles Hartzell. It is made from a solid block of black walnut and shows fine workmanship. It sold for $7 when new.
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John E. Barlow is making a specialty of breeding Duroc Jersey hogs, and he has recently brought in a very fine sire at considerable expense. These red hogs are known as the grazing hogs and are getting a good hold in Pocahontas county. Among the farmers having registered stock are W. A. Barlow, Ellis Sharp, Adam Moore, W. J. Barlow, S. P. Curry, Mt. View Orchard Company. Many of these got their foundation from J. E. Barlow. In addition, about a dozen pigs were placed by the Farm Bureau with members of a boys and girls pig club in the Beard community. These were all registered animals and were procured from local breeders.
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There is nothing that drags so as the effort to get people to name their homes. Almost any house is entitled to a name, and a great many have names that are kept secret. It is considered by many to be putting on too much dog to give a humble home a name for the owner thinks that would be apeing the millionaire who gives his castle a name, and it is only in a case where he is forced to it that some outlying farm gets a name, and even then the most important of places has to be content with the general description of the Home Farm.
And this in a county where it is common for the land never to leave the family. In every neighborhood there are old homesteads in the possession of the descendants of the man who cleared the land and feudal customs have grown up around these farms and lend distinction to the owners.
Names of places do not stick very well. The neighbors hear that you have named your place and speedily forget what it is. The names do not take as a rule. Sometimes there is an exception. Something like a hundred years ago somebody named some old fields on the flat about Marlinton by the name of Jericho, and that name has stuck and is still in constant use and is well known. The plains of Jericho may have something to do with it as this is a flat country at the foot of a high mountain.
Our own house has been tentatively named several times but the name did not take, as they said about the baptism of the boy. But I think that I have got a name at last that has some pep about it. For some years we have been sharing the location with a lot of hornets, and they will build on the cornices of the house. They do not harm and, so far, they have not stung anyone though they have a habit of hitting a bareheaded person on the head and making him think that he has been shot. So, it is proposed to call the place The Hornet’s Nest for a change and see if that gets by.
BIRTH
Born to Mr. and Mrs. J. D. Kenny, of Marlinton, a son.
CAPTAIN GILMORE DEAD
Dr. E. G. Herold was called to Highland county on Sunday by the death of his grandfather, Captain Samuel Gilmore, which occurred on July 20, 1922. For some time, he had been in failing health, and a few days previous to his death he had a fall and a stroke of paralysis. He was nearly 87 years of age. He was one of the prominent citizens of Highland county, and was widely known in Pocahontas county. During the Civil War he served as a Confederate soldier, being Captain of Co. E. 32nd Virginia Infantry. Funeral services on Monday in charge of the Masons, of which order he had been a member for 58 years.