Thursday, October 26, 1920
The campaign, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. Every now and then we, the editors, get off some unmeaning thing we call a thought. This is my off year in politics. I am barren, stricken in years, and afflicted. I was once talking with a business man about a great novelist who had produced fiction and then had seemingly written himself dry and was not manufacturing articles at that time for the printer. By the way, it afterwards appeared that it was during some wet drunken years that the idleness continued. The business man seemed to follow the conversation for he said you mean he can’t think up more lies to tell. I suspect that the truth is that the people hoped for so much from the last election and got so little that it is an unwelcome subject and like probing a wound to refer to it. A similar condition was in 1894, following the exaltation of the Cleveland campaign, and another year of change was 1910, following the Taft election. Many people think that this is going to be that kind of a protest. Those campaigns were marked by apathy and the light vote.
I got hold of a copy of this paper dated September 23, 1920. That was some weeks before the great election that seemed to have swept the Democratic party from the face of the earth. I notice that we had just about surrendered at that time, but this year the Democrats have become numerous again like the sands along the shore and the leaves on the trees, and it looks like we are on rising ground…
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From the History of Pocahontas, it is learned the Huntersville has the distinction of being the first place in Pocahontas County where a Sunday School was held throughout the year. The year was 1839, Rev. J. M. Harris, a young minister, a native of Pennsylvania, pastor of a church in New Orleans which has since achieved a national reputation, came to Huntersville to recuperate broken health. In a few weeks after his arrival he opened school and also gathered a Sunday School.
DIED
Joel O. Hill died at the home of his son, L. C. Hill, at Frankford, October 20, 1922 in the 84th year of his age. His body was buried at Williamsburg. Mr. Hill was a native of Pocahontas county, moving to Greenbrier about 12 years ago. He was married three times, and is survived by 10 children. He was a good citizen and a life long member of the Methodist church.
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William Warwick Slavin departed from this life on the 14th day of October 1922, aged 85 years, 5 months and 23 days. He was the son of the late Jacob Slavin, who was born in Tyrone, Ireland, his mother, Miss Nellie Lockridge, of Knapps Creek. Mr. Slavin was united in marriage to Miss Mary F. Riley June 8, 1855, and to this union eight children were born…
He was converted and joined the church about 40 years ago. Although having been an invalid for over 49 years, he bore his afflictions with untiring patience. He was an affectionate companion and loving father… Funeral service was conducted at the home and the body was laid to rest in Arbovale cemetery. S. H. Hiner, undertake in charge.
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Cornelius John Stulting was born in Utrech, Holland June 16, 1842, of parents who were staunch members of the Reformed Church of Holland – sometimes properly called the Dutch Reformed Church. When the government of Holland attempted to supplant the Calvinistic teaching of the church with the liberal views that were then beginning to spread through the influence of the Higher Criticism, the family remained loyal to the old faith and were sorely persecuted therefor. At length they decided to migrate to America and so when our subject was five years of age they left their native land for this country and landed in New York in the summer of 1847. After a short time spent in New York they came to Pocahontas county and settled near Edray, but soon after removed to the Little Levels.
Mr. Stulting was educated in the schools of that day – the old academies maintained by private patronage. He was at school in Hillsboro, Frankford, and at Union in Monroe county. He thus laid the foundation of a liberal education but was hindered from pursuing his studies because of the burden of caring for younger brothers and sisters.
He became a teacher himself and for 25 years taught in the public schools of this county… He had the teacher’s gift of inspiring his pupils with his own high ideals…
The lessons we may learn from such a life as our brother’s are those of industry, frugality and rigid honesty. He had the stern virtues of Puritan training received in his father’s home. He loved righteousness and hated injustice and could be found on the right side of every moral question that agitated the community. He did not hesitate to declare his position for there was no shrinking from what he believed to be his duty.