Thursday, July 10, 1969
APPRECIATION
If you need any moving done, we’re right here to bear testimony that Fred Burns, Sr., and his Burns Motor Freight outfit “can’t be beat.”
Monday, the old Kee log house came riding down Price Hill to be preserved as an example of pioneer living at the the Pocahontas Museum and the moving was almost a work of art. The moving equipment was good and they knew their business.
Mr. and Mrs. Bobby Morgan donated the log house, which was located on the farm they got from Mrs. Glenna Hayes.
Lanty Landis, Sterling Kershner and Cyrus Kidd prepared the house. Mr. and Mrs. Jim Smith donated an old hewed log for a replacement; Bobby Morgan and his sons, Mark and Todd, some neighbor boys, Lanty Landis, John Sharp, Melvin Moore, Doug Dunbrack, Harry Lynn Sheets, Julian Lamb, the telephone, television and power men, Bud Grimes, Larry Burns, the expert truck driver John Lane, guided by Fred Burns, Sr. – all these really worked Monday to make the move most successful.
Sometimes projects get started that require so much work and so many people, one gets ashamed; but when it’s done, there is a warm sense of thankfulness that people are so nice.
Pioneer Days
Congressman and Mrs. Harley Staggers and maybe Senator Robert Byrd will be in Marlinton for the Pioneer Days Parade on Saturday afternoon.
Miss Pocahontas Pageant
The 1969 Miss Pocahontas Pageant will be held in the Hillsboro High School Auditorium Thursday, July 10, at 8 o’clock. Fifteen young ladies are entered in the Pageant; they will appear in informal dresses and evening gowns. Miss Harriet Johnson, Miss Pocahontas 1967, will be mistress of ceremonies and Miss Libby Graham, Miss Pocahontas 1968 and also Miss Potomac Highland 1968, will crown the queen. The pageant is sponsored by the County Recreation and Tourist Development Committee; Mrs. Tom Edgar is chairman of the Pageant Committee.
Pioneer Day Badges
Pioneer Day Badges are on sale throughout the county. This badge entitles you to visit the Museum, Styles of Yesteryear, Antique Show, Quilt Show, Flower Show, Square Dance, Hymn Sing, Music Contest, partake in all contests except rifle shooting for which there is a charge, ride the farm wagon to the Museum. It is well worth the dollar…
BIRTHS
Born to Mr. and Mrs. Samuel C. Cassell, of Renick, a son, named Ryan Cleveland.
Born to Mr. and Mrs. Manuel D. Holmes, of Renick, a son, named Randall Frederick.
Born to Secretary of State and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, IV, a son. He will be called “Jamie” and will assume Davison as a middle name, making him John D. Rockefeller, V, if he so chooses, on his 21st birthday.
DEATHS
Mrs. Iva Pearl Humes McCoy, 75, of Marlinton; born at Williamsburg, a daughter of the late Joseph and Georgia Humes. Burial in Mountain View Cemetery.
Arlie J. Murphy, 61, of Arbovale; a member of the Durbin Church of the Brethren, American Legion, Pine Grove and Arbovale Brotherhood, and an employee of Howes Leather Company at Frank. Burial in the Arbovale Cemetery.
Mrs. Laura Catherine Rose Kramer, 88, of Mill Point; burial in the Varner Cemetery near Linwood.
The Craigs Visit Winterburn
Visiting the area June 19 and 20 were Mr. and Mrs. Thomas R. Craig, of Clarksburg, Mr. and Mrs. E. G. Craig, of Longview, Texas, and Mrs. A. M. Warner, of Titusville, Pennsylvania.
The Craigs first came to Pocahontas County in 1904. George Craig and Sons, of Philadelphia, purchased 13,000 acres of timberland on the East Fork of the Greenbrier River, six miles above Durbin. The tract was estimated to contain 165 million board feet of hemlock and 20 million feet of hardwood. They put in a sawmill and a planing mill, and here they built the town of Winterburn, naming it for a town in Pennsylvania, where they had previously operated a mill.
Winterburn consisted of about forty dwellings, a boarding house, a store and office, a church which was built for the people and turned over to them.
A log pond of about three acres, having flood control gates and a fish ladder, was built on the Greenbrier.
To transport logs to the mill, some thirty miles of railroad was built. This was held to a maximum grade of 4 percent. The railroad branch, that ran four and one half miles up Little River to the property line on the headwater of that stream, was used jointly by Craigs and the Dunlevie Lumber Company for hauling logs to their mill at Dunlevie, later to be known as Thornwood.
The timber on the original 13,000 acre tract lasted until 1915. For the next three years of operation the timber came from some 5,000 acres owned by Clark and McCullough, located on the north side of the Greenbrier River, running from near the headwaters to a point one mile below Thornwood.
Due to his association with Gifford Pinchot, the first head of the U. S. Forest Service, George Craig, president of Craig and Sons, became convinced that the future industry in West Virginia was dependent on a planned policy of reforestation and control of forest fires. A young German forester by the name of Max Rothkugel was employed by Craig and Sons as company forester.
European Larch seed was obtained from the Tyrolean Mountains of Austria and [sown] on what is known today as the Rothkugel Plantation, which is designated by a marker on Route 28, in what was once the town of Winterburn.
Several miles of fire trails were cleared to provide access to the more remote areas and a fire tower was manned daily during fire season at Smoke Camp Knob. The fire tower consisted of a platform built in a high tree; in years to come the United States Forest Service replaced this with a modern steel structure.
The last log was cut at the mill in 1918. Today, there are only two of the Winterburn houses left. The bottom land which once knew the mills in operation, the daily trains, the hundred who lived and worked there, the company store, the church, the activity of a mill town in its heyday, knows them no more. Cows graze on ground once covered with stacks of lumber, cornfields grow and hay is mowed in fields once laced with railroad track, their pattern showing when the fields are plowed and the black cinders are once more turned up.
The house, once occupied by the general superintendent, was acquired by the federal government and used as housing for the first forest ranger assigned to the area. Later, this was resold and now is the home of Mrs. May Calhoun and her son, Ronald. The other remaining house is the home of Mr. and Mrs. William Vandevender.
Thomas Craig has written a story of the operation at Winterburn, which he has made available to the Historical Society of Pocahontas County. He has contributed a map of the town of Winterburn, which hangs in the museum at Marlinton; pictures have been given which will add to the interest of the map.
While here, the Craigs visited the Museum in Marlinton. ~ Sherron Waybright