Thursday,
May 27, 1915
HUNTERSVILLE
Corn working seems to be the order of the day here now.
Rev. W. A. Fisher has returned from holding a meeting at Mt. Grove. He reports eighteen conversions.
Joe Webb has finished sawing on the Rodney Buzzard place, and will move to the bridge above Sherman Curry’s to saw out a set for Williams & Pifer.
COOK’S CAMP
Cook Brother’s camp is located on Buck’s Run, three miles from Buckeye. J. S. and A. J. Cook have the contract of skidding the Kee timber for the American Column Lumber Co. They have four good teams, with Sam Doan, Ellet Sheets, Pete Kelley and Pete Pengrast as teamsters.
John A. Cook has the contract of the timber cutting crews with one of the best crews in the state. They are Charley Eagle, George Geiger, Crawford Wooddell and Frank Young. Vernon Loudermilk and Bill Evans do the grab driving and Nathan McElwain the skidway work.
Clark Wooddell had the misfortune to get his hand mashed by being caught in a block and chain last Friday.
Andy Rose is lobby-hogging for Dave Barnes.
Floyd Dorman is buck swamper and water boy. Charley Cart is woods superintendent, with headquarters at Buckeye. Motley Thomas and Wesley Mills are getting out ties for the company.
ARBOVALE
We have been having some rain for a few days which is making the grass and oats come on very fast. There is some complaint that corn is not coming up well. Wheat is looking very well considering the cold, dry spring.
F. Hamed is paying from 26 to 30 cents per pound for wool.
O. L. Orndorff is building a cellar.
Mr. and Mrs. Loring Kerr of Buffalo Mountain were down one day last week and brought a web of carpet for Mrs. F. L. Gillsipie to weave.
Wise and Clyde Gillispie were over to Cass last week pulling stumps for the American Realty Company.
It looks like we may get the high school yet. Surely we need it and thereby save the expense of sending children away to school.
VALE PONTEM
Hard at the bridge in this here town,
The three commissioners punch,
Until the blamed thing near fell down,
Then they went home to lunch.
If ever the rule requiring men to praise the bridge which carries them over was disregarded it was last week when the county court met to let the contract for the new concrete bridge across the Greenbrier at this place.
For years the infirmities of old age have been showing in the old bridge but the expense of a bridge across the broad river at this place is so considerable that the court has put off the day until the structure became such menace to the public safety that it could no longer be ignored…
At the end of the war it was the only bridge of any size that was left in the county. This section of the country was overrun with armies during that war but it so happened that no movement of the troops demanded the sacrifice of this bridge. It was set on fire once by Averill’s troops during the wild retreat of that army from Salem, but the day was wet and Mr. Margaret Poage Price, the editor’s grandmother, who lived in sight of the bridge, was able to scatter the fire.
When we first remember it was the only bridge across the Greenbrier for more than a hundred miles from the head of the river down. The place where we now sit surrounded by all that embellishes citified life was then a farming community. The post office was Marlin’s Bottom but it was known far and wide as The Bridge, and it was a distinctive name for it was the only bridge of any size in the county. Wide detours had to be made to get to this bridge in times of flood. To go to town meant to to to Huntersville. The first court that we ever saw assemble in Pocahontas county was under an oak tree on the river bank near the bridge.
There are still some traces of earth works around the town. It is said that in the Civil War that the first night which Gen. Robert E. Lee spent under canvas was in his camp at this place. Loop holes cut by sentries are still to be seen in the walls of the old bridge.
Among the first articles we ever prepared for publication was a letter to The Times that the logs had jarred some of the masonry loose from the pier. It was promptly attended to by the court and that was our first realization of the power of the press.
The covered bridge is 304 feet long and it used to be the test of a long throw to send a stone from one end to the other…
