Thursday, March 12, 1925
Two degrees below zero at Marlinton last Thursday morning. The weather in Pocahontas this week has been unusually fine and warm for March. Many acres have been plowed in this county.
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A few lines about the City of Washington. I was there the other day. I don’t know whether I can write a piece about it or not for it has been my experience that the longer I live the more I have to say about the country and the less about the city. Not being used to it, city life leaves me cold. I was not raised to pass people on the road without speaking to them.
HOME WANTED
I want to secure a good Christian home for my little motherless boy, aged 6 years.
Thomas M. Keyser
Marlinton W. Va.
MORE HISTORY
Continued…
The colored woman went for an axe, but when she got back, the man was dead. He had killed himself instead of Mr. Creigh. The neighbors came in and they put him in a dry well about a mile from the house.
General Averill’s army was camped at Bunger’s Mill, four miles west of Lewisburg, and the day before they marched towards Lynchburg. Creigh’s colored woman, Sally, told Caesar, a colored man belonging to the Edgars, that Creigh had killed the Yankee, and Caesar reported it to Averill, who sent some soldiers and arrested Creigh. They also arrested Mrs. Creigh and the daughter.
Mr. Creigh was tried upstairs at Wallace Robinson’s store at Bunger Mill. They would not let his wife or daughter testify in the case.
When the trial was over, he came down the steps and shook hands with John W. Dunn, Geo. L. Knapp, S. Hern, Geo. W. Kittinger (my father) and myself, a little boy 14 years old.
I shall never forget how this good man looked when he placed his hand on my head and said, “Goodbye, little boy.”
Then 20 Yankees marched him toward Lewisburg. They made him walk in the hot sun over into Rockbridge county, Virginia, and old General Hunter had him hung one fine morning before breakfast.
When Hunter’s army retreated back from Lynchburg, through Lewisburg, a Presbyterian Yankee Chaplain went to the home of Dr. McElhenney to dine and when informed that David S. Creigh was an Elder in the Old Stone Church, he refused to break bread with his host but sat down and wrote the following lines:
Very respectfully yours,
C. W. Kittinger
Alderson
THE MEMORY OF DAVID S. CREIGH
By the Federal Chaplain, Koger Hart
He lived the life of an upright man,
And the people loved him well;
Many a wayfarer came to his door,
Their sorrows and needs to tell;
A pitying heart and an open hand
Gave succor, ready and free;
For noble and just to his fellowman
And the Master, was David Creigh.
But over his threshold a shadow passed.
With the step of a ruffian foe;
Insolent words and brutal threats
A purpose of darkness show,
And a terror-struck girl with piercing cry
Calls her father to her side.
His hand was nerved by the burning wrong
And the offender died.
The glory of Autumn has gone from earth,
And Winter has passed away,
And the glad Springtime is merging fast
Into Summer’s ardent ray.
When a faithful man from his home was torn
Days of travel to see;
And far from his loved ones a crown is worn
And the wearer is David Creigh.
The tramp of your man is at our door
On an evil errand come
But for the love of him whose garb you wore
I asked you to my home,
Shelter and safety there to find.
Ah! Worthy though I be,
I fear to break bread ‘neath a Southern roof,
For the murder of David Creigh.
Here, where he lived, let the end be told,
As a tale of bitter wrong –
Here, let our famishing thousands learn
To whom vengeance doth belong;
Short grace was given; the dying man
Is led to the fatal tree.
Short grace is meted out to our perishing hearts
Since the murder of David Creigh.
Our army, executing in pride and power,
Was stayed in its onward way
By an unseen hand – disaster, defeat,
Close following from that day.
And a heavier burden no heart hath borne
Than that which came to me
With the dying words and the latest sigh
Of the martyr, David Creigh.
The beasts of the desert protect their young
By an instinct fierce and wild,
And lives there a man with the heart of a man
Who would not save his child?
No! Woe to them who call evil good –
That woe shall not rest on me,
For war hath no word of a fouler deed
Than the murder of David Creigh.