Thursday, November 19, 1897
THE total number of pensioners is 976,014, an increase of 5,336 over last year. The total amount disbursed was $139,799,242.12, an increase in disbursement of $1,584,480.18. The average annual value of each pension is $133,17. With such a burden as this, how can any country be prosperous? It would be cheaper to maintain a good-sized war.
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ONE shipper estimates that 12,000 sheep have been placed in the city markets from this county this year, though the people have not sold as short as usual. R. M. Beard has bought and shipped about 3,500. He has just returned from a trip to New York with three carloads. He had a carload of wethers from this county, 205 in number, which were exported. The stockmen in the market pronounced them the best lot of wethers they had seen from West Virginia in 10 years. One carload of lambs (275) he sold to a slaughterhouse one morning and saw them all butchered and hung up by 9 a.m. A. D. Bruce sold 95 lambs at Mingo that averaged 75 lbs. in weight.
NOTIONS
IN casting around for a name for a department for this paper in which may be gathered such unworthy conceptions as may be sent to the writer, and which may not be classified easily, we have adopted the much-abused word “notions,” having hesitated a long time over “bone-yard” and “ash-barrel;” and, as we intend the notions to be of our own manufacture, we begin with the mental apprehension that many of our candid friends will say at once and continue to believe that the heading “dry goods” would have been much more appropriate. But what would you? Should we head the column “pen-thoughts?” The worn out newspaper word would have caused the reader to fly the track, skip the “pen thoughts” and go read a legal advertisement with relish. We feel that the time of year has come when the reader can stand a few more essays than in the busy months of the summer…
LOCAL MENTION
DIED. Howard Beale, aged 10, of fever, near Big Spring, on Tuesday of last week.
EWING JOHNSON is building a dwelling house on the site of the one burned last June.
ELK has had a visitor for some weeks in a mysterious person who boarded with William Gibson. He supposed to have been a post office inspector though some thought he was a game warden or some detective on the trail of a criminal.
A SHORT time since, the household at Clover Lick was aroused at about 2 o’clock in the morning by the calls of a stranger. He said that he was an officer from Missouri hunting two men who were wanted there and who were at Horton. He asked for a drink of water and an apple and went away at full gallop.
THERE has been an unusual amount of milling done the last few weeks. A great many farmers living as distant as Travelers Repose and Mingo have gone into the Levels (or “Egypt,” as it has been called on this account) to buy wheat. The mills have been kept very busy. A good deal of wheat has been sold at 75¢ cash, though many hold it at 80¢.
“THE melancholy days are come the saddest of the year.” The poet refers to this season of the year when sudden changes from warm to cold, from wet and sloppy weather to still wetter and sloppier, and when colds, catarrh, rheumatism and influenza rage. All the inconveniences of this season may be avoided by buying good, warm wraps and mackintoshes at PAUL GOLDEN’S.
BIOGRAPHIC NOTES
One hundred years ago, one of the most widely known citizens in the region now embraced by Pocahontas and Bath counties was Levi Moore, senior, a native of Wales. He was the pioneer of Frost, and came there some time previous to the Revolution, and was among the first to make a permanent settlement. The lands he settled now owned by the Gibson, Sharps and others. His wife was Susannah Crist, and he first settled in Pennsylvania where he lived until his family, two sons and two daughters, were born, and the older ones nearly grown.
Hannah Moore was married to Robert Gay, the ancestor of the Gay relationship, so frequently alluded to in previous papers…
Sally Moore became Mrs. John Smith, one of the first permanent settlers of the Edray district near the head of Stony Creek…
George Moore was at the notable double wedding when Jacob Slaven and Miss Elanor Lockridge, John McNeel and Miss Harriet Lockridge were married near Driscol. The tradition is that a practical joke was played by one, James Brindly, at which the horse took fright, ran off, and the rider’s head struck a projecting fence stake and he was instantly killed…
Levi Moore, junior, was a person of marked prominence in county affairs. In person he was six feet, eleven inches in height, and well proportioned. He was a member of the Virginia legislature and was on the commission to locate the courthouse, and selected a site near where George Baxter, county surveyor, now lives. His first marriage was with Miss Nancy Sharp, daughter of William Sharp, the Huntersville pioneer, and lived on the Moore homestead…
The Hon. Levi Moore’s second marriage was with Mary McCarty, daughter of Timothy McCarty, a Revolutionary veteran, and the ancestor of the widely extended McCarty relationship in our county…