The Huntersville Road
March 1, 1928
Continued…
John Bradshaw had another immense tract of land in the Dilley’s Mill community.
One of the first orders of the new county court was to grant licenses to keep a house of private entertainment at his residence for the year ending in May 1823. For this, he paid a license of $4.50. But the next year he was licensed to keep an ordinary at the same place for a license fee of $18.00. In the meantime, Bradshaw sat as one of the county court, being a justice of the county.
The main difference between a house of entertainment and an ordinary was that the ordinary could sell spirits and wine by the small measure. The court fixed the tariff. For a half pint of whiskey, the charge was 12 1/2 cents or one bit.
There were plenty of half cent pieces in those days. Meals were 25 cents and lodging 12 cents.
A gallon of grain was 12 1/2 cents, and hay for twenty-four hours for one horse was 12 1/2 cents.
What price soda water?
John Bradshaw sleeps in the old Huntersville cemetery. His grave is not marked by a lettered monument but it can be located, and it should receive one of the monuments provided for by Congress for Revolutionary soldiers. My father says that his grave is marked by a wild cherry tree growing directly over his last resting place.
John Bradshaw departed this life January 6, 1837.
A tall unlettered native slab of rock is at the head of the grave, and a smaller one at the foot, both standing. Between the two stones, exactly over the center of the grave there is a large wild cherry tree, perhaps thirty inches in diameter. This tree is showing signs of great age, and is ready to fall. There is some talk of cutting it down on account of its condition…
Practically all of the land about Huntersville is Bradshaw land and the old veteran is there in the center of it in possession…
A great many persons trace their line to John Bradshaw through the marriage of six of his granddaughters, children of William Bradshaw. Nancy married Isaac Hartman, of Green Bank; Mary Jane married Alexander Moore, of Stony Creek; Zanilda married Washington Nottingham, of Glade Hill; Huldah married John A. McLaughlin, of Huntersville; Martha married Beverly Waugh, of the Little Levels; and Matilda married Nicholas Linger, of Lewis County.
Honorable Andrew Price
Marlinton W. Va.
My Dear Mr. Price;
For a number of years, I have read every historical and scientific production of your pen, which came under my observation.
Having spent the early boyhood years of my life in Huntersville, and knowing Marlins Bottom, and the Beaver Creek and Droop Mountain sections of which you write, and which are reproduced in today’s Charleston Gazette, or rather recalled vividly to memory, I am naturally always interested.
Many of the men of whom you speak were friends of my father, and I remember them very distinctly. Most of the places mentioned have been tramped by my bare feet, and sometimes by the same feet cramped and blistered in dress up shoes.
My mother sleeps on the hill at Huntersville where the first light of the new day falls. Something in my blood binds me to those mountains and valleys.
Once in a great while I go back for a short season of visiting with the memories that leap out from every nook.
Sometimes I see a man or woman who remembers a “bad boy” whose name I bear.
I am fond of your manner and style, and am always interested in the subject matter – but most of all, I love to ramble in imagination along Knapps Creek and the Greenbrier where once I dreamed of a great world beyond the rim of the mountains.
Very truly yours,
W. I. Canter
THE CREAM BUSINESS
In one week recently, no less than three farmers came to this editor to inquire if I knew of anyone who would buy the butter they had brought to town. Each of them had a bucket of as fine yellow country butter as anyone could wish to eat.
There was no sale for it.
The stores had more butter than would supply the demand, and the price was down. Many of the householders of town have a standing contract the year round for a certain number of pounds of butter each week at a fixed price per pound. Shipping butter has not proved satisfactory. Such being the situation, there is poor encouragement toward developing the butter making industry as a farm home industry.
A number of progressive farmers have been shipping sour cream. The start was made two years ago. So satisfactory and profitable has it proven that the number of shippers is growing each week. The price received for unchurned butter fat is usually more per pound than butter sells for and the demand for it is unlimited. Last week the price was 45 cents a pound net to the farmer, less twenty-five cents a cow handling charge by the local farmer’s cooperative warehouse. If preferred, the farmer can deal direct with the creamery and save this twenty-five cent charge.
There is a farmer who lives near Marlinton who has four cows, and his weekly cream check is from ten to twelve dollars. He ships two cans of cream a week. If he made this cream into butter, he would not realize as much money for it, and there would be the trouble of churning and butter mixing and then the item of selling it in a market already over supplied.
Another thing, shipping cream will bring the local butter market up. It is a club in the hands of the farmer if he chooses to take advantage of it. When butter is scarce, the demand brings up the price…