Thursday, February 21, 1901
Last week, two gentlemen drove up to Frost and inquired if we had any road laws in this county and said they wanted to get back by the time of the next Grand Jury Court and hunt up the County Court if the roads between Travelers Repose, Huntersville and Frost are not fixed. They claim some of the roads and bridges are too dangerous to drive a dog over.
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Agents are invading this county by the dozens, and our people can sit at home and buy themselves poor. They are coming in on every train and working what they suppose to be new territory. They invade the sanctity of the house and storm the citadel of the Pocahontas citizen. They announce their intention of not leaving until they turn an honest penny and they insist and talk and worry the folks until they dread the sight of an agent. Fruit trees, books, sewing machines, washing machines, kitchen cabinets and nearly every article in the catalogue are being hawked about the county with more or less success. As goes the biblical saying “a fool and his money are soon parted.”
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I am doing all I can to hold my furniture trade and I guess I am succeeding. All that is expected of a man is to do his best. I am satisfied with a reasonable profit on all goods and not to put a fancy price on fancy goods. I am offering a nice velour or plush covered bed lounge, open 45 in. wide and 75 in. long, cotton top, soft centre, sold oak, contains 31 tempered steel springs for $8.82; a nice oak rocker with cobbler seat 24 in.; height of back 54 in. The best rocker for the money $1.88. It is a beauty. Nice reed rockers $2.95. – Paul Golden
ELEPHANT ON A FARM
James Cahill, who lives near Martins Ferry, has the distinction of being the only farmer in West Virginia who owns and works an elephant. A small circus went to pieces in Martins Ferry last summer and Mr. Cahill bought the elephant for a song. Taking him home, he put him to work, and he has proved so docile and tractable that he does the work of a team of horses. The family is much attached to the elephant and value him very highly.
They have found the elephant remarkably intelligent.
Recently Mr. Cahill and his sons were building a rail fence. The elephant was used to haul the rail cuts to the field along the line of the fence where they were split into rails and laid up. Jumbo, as the elephant is called, watched the proceedings intently, and presently picked up a rail with his trunk and laid it in place on the fence as deftly as his master could have done. He then turned his head to his master for his reward which was a turnip. Turnips and other tidbits were carried in the pockets of his master for him as he was used to a good deal of petting.
Mr. Cahill then placed a rail in the trunk of the elephant and in a few minutes, Jumbo was building fence as though he had been raised to the business. His judgement was absolutely faultless in laying a rail properly and all that his driver needed to do was to indicate with his gad the rail wanted when it was instantly raised and put in position.
SUICIDE AT FROST
Mrs. Sherman Buzzard takes her own life while deranged.
Mrs. Sherman Buzzard committed suicide last Wednesday morning at her home near Frost in this county. She has been afflicted for a number of years with some chronic ailment peculiar to her sex and she became insane. Last year, she was an inmate of one of the hospitals for the insane of this state and she was discharged as cured last fall.
She had not been at home long until signs of the returning of the mental trouble were noticed by her husband and children.
On the morning of her death, Mr. Buzzard went to a field about a mile distant to feed some cattle, leaving his wife at home with the four children, the oldest of which is a girl 14 years old. He had no sooner gone than Mrs. Buzzard procured a rope from an outbuilding and, hiding it under her dress, went into the attic of the two-story dwelling in which the family lived.
The second child, a little daughter, followed her mother upstairs and the mother drove her back saying she was getting some coffee for breakfast.
The little girl went downstairs terrified and her older sister went up to try to bring her mother down. Mrs. Buzzard gave the same explanation to this little girl, adding that if she did not go down instantly, she would kill her.
The little girl went downstairs and almost immediately there was the sound of someone plunging downwards that shook the house.
Mrs. Buzzard had tied a doubled rope around a rafter and then dropped bodily through the trap door, a sheer fall of eight feet. Her neck was broken and death was instantons. She was a large woman and the fall was fearful.
The deceased was Miss Elizabeth Hoover, of Highland County, and has a host of friends who remember her before insanity clouded a nature as wholesome and sweet as one could wish to see. The interment took place in Highland County.
