Thursday, December 17, 1914
A big mercantile house in Philadelphia went into the hands of a receiver some days since, who, after going over the books and making a study of the firm’s business methods, made the statement that the failure was due to the fact that the firm had not sufficiently advertised its business. It had advertised some but never increased its appropriation for publicity as it should have done, clinging to the old fashioned notion that people knew where it was located and what it had for sale.
The lumber industry of the Greenbrier Valley looks to be in a good way to get better. Orders are coming and many of them at prices with an advance of the rate that prevailed at the outbreak of the war in Europe. Probably one third of the hardwood lumber cut in this valley is for exportation, and for this lumber there has been no demand at all on account of the uncertainty of ocean shipments, and unsettled conditions abroad. However, a reasonable rate of insurance can now be had and the clearing of the sea of German battleships opens the markets of France and Great Britain. The two products hit hardest by the war seem to have been cotton and lumber. Cotton shipments moved first, but lumber seems to be following closely. The over production of lumber not being so great as that of cotton or rather the curtailment of the lumber cut being possible, the price of lumber did not fall as did the price of cotton.
The state of Virginia will send a ship load of provisions to the war and famine stricken people of Belgium. The county of Augusta and city of Staunton contributed a carload of flour, consisting of 340 barrels. The Chesapeake & Ohio is hauling all contributions to this cause free of charge.
WARWICK FAMILY
The venerable Peter H. Warwick, and his granddaughter, Miss Ruth Warwick, of Greenbank, are guests at the home of O. D. Warwick. He says his brother, John R., is in very bad health. Mr. Warwick brought us an old ivory handled, two pronged table fork picked up in the site of the old Warwick Indian Fort on Deer Creek.
BEAR HUNTING
Uncle Henry Gilmer and his son, Sam, of Lewisburg, who have been on the head of Tea Creek, hunting for bear, came in Tuesday. They stayed at one of the camps of the West Virginia Spruce Lumber Company, and they say that on Tuesday morning everything was frozen in the camp except the coffee pot, and it was on the stove with a fire under it. The thermometer was eleven below zero at Marlinton that morning and the camp is at an elevation of four thousand feet or more. They got no bear started, as it stormed from the day they went in until they came out, when there was two feet of snow on the ground and fifty feet of snow above ground. There had been bear in the woods as the sign was plentiful but they got none started. The bears were lying in storm beds in the laurel Mr. Gilmer maintains and had not gone to hole for the winter. He has observed that bears do not den up until the sun crosses the line and the days begin to lengthen, no matter how severe the weather may be. Mr. Gilmer had a pack of four dogs, two tried and true hounds he had bought in Kentucky, and two Ayredales. The latter are famous fighters and hunters, but he has not yet had the opportunity of trying them on a bear.
NEW HOPE
Harry Gum, who has had a severe attack of tonsilitis, is some better.
E. N. Bussard went to his grazing farm below Frost Monday to bring his sheep home for winter quarters.
Bland, little son of Mr. and Mrs. G. S. Grimes, is seriously ill at this writing.
DUNMORE
With snow from 8 inches to two feet deep and the cold weather 20 below zero, it ought to make some people feel like going to Florida to a warmer climate.
A shoe shop has been opened up in town.
Some of our people are hauling coal from Cass.
The people of Huntersville and vicinity pounded their preacher one night last week. Preachers are like other people – thankful for little favors and big ones in proportion.
SAMUEL COCHRAN
Samuel Cochran died at his home at Mentor, Polk county, Minnesota, November 23, 1914, in his eightieth year, having been born in the Levels District of Pocahontas county, August 12, 1835. His wife was Diana McLaughlin, and they are survived by their two children, Elizabeth Margaret, and George W. He was on of five brothers – Clark and george B. still live on Droop Mountain, and David J. and thomas are dead. During the war Mr. Cochran was a brave Confederate soldier, a member of Captain McNeel’s Company, 19th Virginia Cavalry. In 1877 Mr. Cochran and his family went west, driving all the way to Minnesota in a road wagon drawn by three horses.