Thursday, January 10, 1924
The little white dog that has been a familiar figure in the office of the County Clerk, S. L. Brown, for many years, died last month. She was seventeen years old.
– – –
S. L. Brown, local weather observer, reports as follows for the month of December: Hottest, 56 degrees. Coldest, 6 degrees. Greatest daily range, 36 degrees on the 8th, from 20 to 56 degrees and on the 12th, from 14 to 50 degrees. The mean temperature for the month was 36.5 degrees…
EARL BRIGHT BEARD
Earl Bright Beard was born November 30, 1900 and was therefore just a little more than twenty three years old. He graduated from the Hillsboro High School in June, 1920, and taught several successful schools in his native county and for a time was employed by the C & O Railroad at Hinton. Last spring, he came home and engaged in farming with characteristic zeal and determination to succeed in his inherited calling of stockman.
On the morning of January 4th, the Hillsboro community was stunned to learn that he had fallen into the waters of the Blue Hole and drowned. That morning, finding that the dogs had been among the sheep, for which he was caring, and injured some of them, he began to look about for the damage done and soon found one in the Hole, standing on a ledge just above the water. He attempted to climb down to it, but the ground being covered with ice, he lost his footing and plunged into the chilly flood. Death must have come almost without a struggle…
The funeral service was conducted from the home of his father, M. L. Beard, on Sunday afternoon by Rev. H. H. Orr, of the Marlinton Presbyterian church. Burial in the Clark Graveyard…
The Blue Hole
The Blue Hole is in the Little Levels. At this part in the Levels, Bruffey Creek, or as it was once called, Little Sinking Creek, which passes under Droop Mountain appears and winds through the Levels for a short distance and disappears again and is seen no more. At the place of the tragic death of Earl Beard, there are several large sink holes formed in that limestone region. In dry weather these are without water and the sides are grassed over. The rains caused them to fill up. And heavy rains had fallen last week. The largest of these depressions is Blue Hole. It is large enough and deep enough to contain a building as large as the courthouse. One side is walled with a precipice from the top of which the grassland slopes to a higher summit. The snow and the rain and the sleet had made a surface hard and smooth and icy, and that was the cause of the accident.
Earl Beard was a grandson of the late Sherman H. Clark, and it was on one of the Clark farms that the drowning took place.
This sudden, violent and terrible death stirred the people of this county as they have never been before. It brought to mind the solemn words: In the midst of life, we are in death.
DEATHS
Benjamin Franklin White died at his home on Douthards Creek, near Minnehaha Springs, Sunday, January 6, 1924. For some time, he has been in failing health from kidney trouble. He was about seventy years of age. Funeral service was conducted from his late home on Monday, and his body laid to rest in the family burying ground.
Mr. White is survived by his wife, who before marriage was a Miss Crummet, of Highland county. They are survived by a large family of children. He is also survived by his sister, Mrs. W. H. Hannah, of Elk, and his two brothers, H. Lee White and M. E. White.
Mr. White was a native of Highland county, coming to Pocahontas in early youth with his parents, the late Mr. and Mrs. Henry White. He was an upright, industrious man, whose influence was ever on the side of right. For a lifetime he had been a professing Christian, a member of the Lutheran Church.
– – –
Mrs. Nellie Donivan McClure, beloved wife of A. L. McClure, died at her home near Woodrow January 3, 1924. Her age was bout 40 years. She is survived by her husband and a large family of children, one a babe of a few days… Her body was buried in the Cochran graveyard on Stony Creek Saturday afternoon…