Thursday,
October 29, 1914
JOB’S HEIR
Allow me to contribute the following letter, which I received from a party from whom I was endeavoring to collect a bill. After writing him several letters, I received the answer given below:
Joseph Daniel Parker
Dear Sir:
Your letter received, in reply will say that it came open, with a one cent stamp on it. It would have afforded the boys much amusement, had not the melancholy thought come with it that you had no better sense than to abuse and slander a gentleman in an open letter. You speak of honor. I don’t believe you ever saw an honorable lawyer, if you have it is more than I have done.
You speak of causing me considerable trouble, great God, I have already had enough to send fifty of you shysters to hell fifty times.
I will give you a history of the case and if you are surprised at my action you are undoubtedly one of the biggest fools on earth.
To begin with, in 1891, I bought a sawmill on credit. In 1892, I bought an ox team, a timber tract, a pair of Texas ponies, a breach loading shotgun and a Winchester rifle, a milk cow, a pair of fine hogs and a set of fine books, all on the installment plan, and hired hands to dig a fish pond.
In 1893 my gin and corn mills burned flat to the ground and never left me a damn thing. One of my ponies died and I hired the other to an infernal insignificant box ankled, prognosticated damn [ ] drummer, who killed him by driving him too hard. Then I joined the farmers alliance and the Methodist church, took advantage of the Homestead exemption, and honest debtors relief law and then had my application filled out to join the Masons. I was making it but for the fact in 1893, my father died, my mother married a [ ] and my brother Jim was lynched for horse stealing.
In 1896, my sister choked to death on a button and I had to pay her funeral expenses. In 1896, I got burned out again, then I took to drink and soon rummed through the interest on what I owed which was about all that I had left. Last of 1897, my wife ran off with another man and left me with a pair of nine month old twins to take care of, now I don’t care a cuss for you or any one else, there isn’t anything which now surprises me.
Now if you feel like giving me trouble, pop your whip but let me give you a little tip, getting money from me is like stuffing butter into a wild cat with a hot awl. You asked me if I expected fair treatment from you under the circumstances. I answer no, I do not expect anything but to be pestered by money sharks and lawyers and other humbugs and grafters. Before I die I am going to petition high heaven for a shower of hell fire, on the whole bunch, and I will especially pray that the storm may spend the most of its fury at 501 Silsby Bldg., where you claim you get your mail.
Disrespectfully,
Thomas Lee
– The Docket
FATALITY
At the Fincastle Fair last week, a man fell from a balloon and was killed. He had ascended 2,500 feet and failing to dislodge the parachute, held to the trapeze as long as he was able. His body fell in front of the grandstand.
NEW LUMBER
INDUSTRIES
Work has commenced on a new railway up Thorny Creek. This will develop a tract of eight thousand acres of fine timber belonging to the Kendall Lumber Company, a Pittsburgh corporation, which owns the plant and town of Thornwood.
The J. E. Moore Lumber Co., will soon have their new railroad from the head of North Fork on the Iron Mountain Railroad completed to their new sawmill near Mountain Grove. The mills will be brought in and erected as soon as the railroad is completed.
The American Column Company, of St. Albans, has started to operate their large tract of timber lands, the McClintic timber on Swago Creek. The Bartholomew Sawmill Company will manufacture the lumber and Charles Young has a contract for cutting and skidding. This is as fine a lot of timber as is to be found in the Greenbrier Valley.
The Warn Lumber Corporation is pushing its railway to completion up Sitlington Creek, and will soon have its mill and town built. The town will be known as Raywood. G. W. Huntley and Harry Thompson have large contracts for cutting and skidding logs for this mill, and both contractors are now at work building camps and making ready.
DUNMORE
Our first snow fell Tuesday; in some places the ground was white.
Charles McLaughlin is building a new dwelling house on the old Hugh McLaughlin homestead.
DROOP TOP
Husking corn is the order of the day.
J.T. Kershner is erecting a fine house for W. C. Pritt.
Our blacksmith, john Shue, is going to Grafton the 31st after a fine Hudson Automobile.
Born to Mr. and Mrs. t. T. McClung, a boy.
ARBOVALE
Robert Bennett is very bad off with dropsy, but is able to go about some.
The infant child of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Brown died last Thursday morning, and was buried in the Arbovale cemetery Friday evening, October 23.
John Hannah weighed up lambs last Thursday.
Beard and Sutton, road superintendents, are hauling gravel and macdemizing the road from Liberty church to Greenbank.
Uriah Hevener is building a machine barn, He is surely well equipped with modern machinery.
JOSEPH SIMMONS, DEAD
Joseph Simons died at his home near Watoga, on Tuesday, afternoon, October 27, 1914, aged about 76 years… Burial on yesterday at the Ruckman graveyard near Marvin Chapel. He is survived by his wife and a number of children, among them being Jacob, Isaac, Elbert, Patterson, Wheeler and John.
Mr. Simmons was a good citizen, a consistent christian, and for years a member of the Methodist Church, South. He was a brave Confederate soldier, a member of the 31st Virginia Infantry.
JOHN W. SHEETS DEAD
John Will Sheets died at his home on Beaver Dam, Sunday night, October 25, 1914, after a long illness of kidney trouble, aged 57 years. On Tuesday his body was buried on the Dutch Bottom Hill at a place he had designated. Services were conducted by his pastor, Rev. J.H. Bean, and a large congregation attended.
The deceased was one of our citizens, and will be greatly missed by his large family and in the community. He is survived by his wife, Mrs. Maggie Sutton Sheets, and their twelve children, Mrs. Charles Gordon, Mrs. Nancy Hughart, Mrs. Wm. Graham, Mrs. Icy Burkett, Lucille and Mary Ellen; Mathews, Blake, Tone, Robert, Joseph and Marvin.
Mr. Sheets was the son of the late Henry Sheets, of Greenbank. Of his father’s family, he is survived by his step-mother, his sisters, Mrs. Clark Gum, Mrs. Leslie Ervin, Mrs. Jessie Hudson, his brothers, James L. S. Price, David L. J. Asbury, Isaac, Grover C. and Clyde K. His brother Harrison died about teight months ago.