THE ROCK
CAMP REGISTER
From May 3 to 8, this year, C. J. Richardson, W. J. Harter, Theodore Moore and F. R. Hunter stayed at the Rock Camp on Williams River. When they broke camp, Mr. Hunter registered the names of his party in a book of blank checks and noted: “Fishing poor; worked for what we got. All parties occupying the camp will please leave their names and addresses and what the fishing was. Do not carry away or destroy hotel register. We think it would be interesting to read the record on our next visit, and if we live we will return. Do not carry off the furniture. F. R. Hunter.
It would appear that visitors were numerous at Rock Camp during the month of May and that they took to the idea of registering, as the following from the register will show:
May 10. J. C. Mullins. Fishing no good.
Someone who could not read came by and carried the book to Lum Riddle’s up the river about six miles, but Lum must have carried it back promptly from the following entry:
May 12. C. C. Riddle, John Roberts and J. B. Roberts, of Woodrow, W. Va.
May 12. Cowen, W. Va. It is raining this morning, fishing ain’t no good. I have only catched 153 in two days and I think I will go back home so I wish all fishers good luck and a good time. A friend to all. C. E. McCoy
May 12. Bays, W. Va. I have been fishing three days and a half and I have caught about 50 trout and 100 chubs. I think that is doing very good for the first. All good wishes to all fishers. Brown Miller
Watson McCutcheon, Lanes Bottom, W. Va. Fishing good and wood scarce, and plenty of gray backs. We have been here a long time and will be gone a damn site longer. Caught 300 in 2 days. Frank Gladwell & Co., Denmar, W. Va.
May 16. Fish I have catch none, whistle pig I have catch one. I think I have done well. M. R. Hammons
May 23. Noble Bredan. Playing good poker.
There is only 8 men here just now, H. H. Chaffin, Dyer, W. Va.
May 24. Fishing no good.
May 25. Fishing no good.
May 26. Raining and we are getting ready to go. Looks as if it will rain all day. We caught 30 trout and 100 chubs. W. L. Gum, J. C. Gum
May 25. Been here two days and caught only a few trout. Fishing is good, but trout scarce. This river is a big trap and just enough trout for bait, and it certainly has caught one darn fool. G. E. R. 15-19-5 Waneta, Webster Co., W. Va.
May 27. Just arrived at Rock Camp and find a full stock of gray backs. (Not signed)
Tea Creek, May 29. We sterilized Rock Camp yesterday. Destroyed the furniture, preserving only this register. So far fishing has been poor. However, we have caught enough for five meals for twelve people. We will come out the last of the week. C. J. Richardson, Marlinton, W. Va.
INGERSOLL ON
ALCOHOL
(James W. Loury hands us the following, clipped from the Greenbrier Independent more than forty years ago.)
Colonel Robert Ingersoll was lately employed in a case which involved the manufacture of ardent spirits, and in his speech to the jury he used the following language:
“I am aware there is a prejudice against men engaged in the manufacture of alcohol. I believe from the time it issues from the coiled and poisonous worm in the distillery until it empties into the hell of death, dishonor and crime, that it is demoralizing to everybody that touches it from the source to where it ends.
I do not believe that anybody can contemplate the subject without being prejudiced against the crime. All we have to do is to think on either side of the stream of death, of the poverty, of the death of the little children tugging at the breasts of weeping wives, asking for bread, of men of genius it has wrecked, the men struggling with imaginary serpents produced by the devilish thing, and when you think of the jails, of the asylums, of the almshouses, of the prisons and of the scaffolds on either hand, I do not wonder that every thoughtful man is prejudiced against the vile stuff called alcohol. Intemperance cuts down youth in its vigor, manhood in its strength. It breaks the father’s heart, bereaves the doting mother, extinguishes mutual affections, erases conjugal love, blots out filial attachments and blights parental hope and brings premature weakness. It produces weak not strength, sickness not health, death not life. It makes wives widows, children orphans, fathers fiends, all paupers. It feeds rheumatism, invites cholera, imports pestilence and embraces consumption. It covers the land in misery, idleness and crime. It engenders controversies, fosters quarrels, and cherishes riots. It crowds the penitentiary and furnishes victims for the scaffold, and is the blood of the gamblers, the element of the burglar, the prop of the highwayman, the torch of the midnight incindiary. It countenances the liar, respects the thief, esteems the blasphemer. It violates obligation, reverences fraud, humors infamy. It defames benevolence, hates love, scorns virtue and innocence. It incites the father to butcher his children and the child to grind the parsicidal [sp] axe. It burns up men and consumes women, detests life, curses God and despises heaven. It suborns vileness, nurses perfidy, defiles the jury box and stains the judicial ermine. It does that and more – it murders the soul. It is the sum of all villianies, the father of all crime, the mother of all abominations, the devil’s best friend and God’s worst enemy.
FIGURE “8”
the report reaches us from Beccas Creek, up the valley, that John Tacy, of that section, while plowing his corn the other day, caught his plow on the bail of an old iron pot and turned it up out of the ground and upon examining it found $1,000 mostly in gold and some silver in a good state of preservation, supposed to have been buried there during the Civil War, to keep the soldiers from getting it. The pot had a figure “8” on it and a tree near by had a figure “8” carved on it and this had long been noticed by different ones but no special attention paid to the matter, supposing that some idle boy had cut the figure there for pastime as is frequently done. No, of course, the connection is plainly seen, as the party who buried the treasure did this in order to find it and be guided to the spot, but evidently went away and died or was killed and the secret buried with them.
Now it is believed that there may be seven other pots of gold buried some where in that neighborhood and it is said there will be more plowing done than ever before and that every on e around there will plow his corn at least four or five times this year and a record crop is expected in spite of the unfavorable weather thus far. It is said that Tacy is keeping quiet about it for fear some one will want to claim the money, but the matter has leaked out and is the talk of the community…
OIL
The oil well at Dutch Bottom has now been drilled to a depth of over 800 feet. The big lime was struck at a depth of 607 feet, and before it was reached a lime formation about forty feet in thickness was met. So far two oil producing sands and one sand with gas in it have been drilled into. The three sands each appear to be about a foot in thickness. The product of these sands is not sufficiently large enough to be commercially valuable, but the fact that this formation contains oil and gas is a most encouraging sign.
