Thursday, September 15, 1898
Sunday evening, a Philadelphia grocer went into a cellar that ignited the fumes of gasoline whereupon about forty gallons exploded. The building collapsed and those adjoining also. The buildings were of brick and three stories high. The upper floors were crowded with families in tenement fashion, and the explosion came at the supper hour. The loss of life is thought to be heavy and the list of injured must be very long. The sufferers are natives of Russia.
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A startling complication has arisen concerning the new mail schedule, which will be apt to put it back on the old schedule when the mails all arrived about the middle of the day. As it is now, the main mail arrives at nine o’clock at night, and the ladies of the town say it is being trumped up as an excuse by the men for being out o’nights. If this view of the case is properly presented to the department, no doubt the postmaster general will respect a petition signed by the ladies of the town and we will take a step backward.
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Saturday, September 24th, has been fixed on for the 24-mile foot race from Mingo to Marlinton. The start will be made about 1 p.m. and the contestants will be let go on the first trial. S.E.L. Grews and Norman Price will run, and possibly there will be others. The Englishman Grews is a notable long distance runner… Barring accidents – hot boxes, bellows to mend and the like – the course will be run in four hours or less.
MILL POINT
Joseph Smith has brought his stock in from the mountains.
Misses Maud Smith and Lou Pyles were at Buckeye last Saturday.
Everything is quiet and all the people are attending to their own business generally.
John Hamrick came in from camp to sow his wheat, and will go back in a few days.
The writer had the privilege to visit Elk not long since, and it seems that section has been on a boom. There are eight or ten right new buildings besides the improvement to that section the telephone line has made. Elk will be in the centre of the world if it is not already there.
Our friend W. T. Slaven has described to us two curious freaks in the work of nature near Mill Point. One is a small sumac, growing fresh and green in the top of a large green oak, probably fifty feet from the ground. The other curiosity is a natural groundhog hole in a solid limestone boulder near M. Ruckman’s. The hole is just the right size, and an old soggy whistle-pig has taken up his abode there, taking advantage of nature as it were. The rock is solid as far as a man’s arm and a fork handle can reach, and no telling the extent of the opening after it gets under the mountain.
TRAVELER’S REPOSE
Will the Editor tell us how long we may lawfully catch bass?
Fine weather. Harvesting done and the blackberries all gathered, and soon the voice of the hound will be heard throughout the land.
There are penned up at Mr. Lee Burner’s an old gobbler, a rooster and several hens, growing desperately fat; and still Mr. Kelly makes his almost daily visits.
The daily mail route across Cheat Mountain has been changed to three trips a week. It has been a knockout blow to Durbin, and its people are threatening to revolt against the administration, if it is not rearranged at once.
PERSONAL
In what is known as the Droop Settlement in lower Pocahontas, there resides one of the eldest of our living citizens. John Cochran is verging 90 years, and retains a good share of bodily vigor; can hear without special difficulty and has great fluency of speech and memory unimpaired. Through him, one comes into intercourse with four or five generations. He has seen and talked with persons who were familiar with our county’s history from earliest pioneer period. Such persons, however, will soon pass away and there will be none to rehearse the history that will become more and more appreciated as the years go by and our older people go hence and be no more. May it never be said of our Pocahontas people that they are a people without a history.
DIED
Mrs. Dr. James M. Hamilton, aged 65 years, died September 1 at her home in Fettermon. Mrs. Hamilton once resided in Huntersville and is an elder sister of Mrs. Col. J. T. Lockridge.