Thursday, August 20, 1897
THE last steamer to make connections with the Yukon River steamers that run to the gold regions this season left San Francisco on July 28. Crowds thronged the wharf for hours before the departure. Three times the original rate for tickets was offered. One passenger gave up the trip after getting fifteen hundred dollars for a piece of pasteboard that had cost him one hundred and fifty dollars.
Two thousand people were present to say goodbye to the one hundred and ten passengers for the Klondike gold diggings.
BIOGRAPHIC NOTES
The Poage relationship claims a place in the annals of our county, and some attention will be given to them in this sketch.
The Poages are of pure Scotch-Irish ancestry, and were among the parties that suffered in the siege of Londonderry. The line of descent can be traced to two brothers, Robert and John Poage, who “proved their importation at their own charges” at Orange O.H., 1749. The Pocahontas Poages are the descendants of Robert Poage, who settled between Staunton and Fort Defiance, and was among the first to occupy that attractive portion of the famous valley of Virginia.
Robert Poage’s wife was Elizabeth Preston, whose family settled in the vicinity of Waynesboro with the pioneers about 1740. Their son, John, married Mary Blair and settled near the Poage homestead in Augusta.
William Poage, one of John Poage’s sons, married Margaret Davies and settled in the Little Levels at the place where Charles W. Beard, Esq. now resides (1897) about 1782. Mrs. Poage died in 1843 aged 98 years. Their children were William Jr., George Washington, Moses Hoge, Samuel Davies and Elizabeth.
Williams Poage, junior, married the widow Nancy Gatewood, a daughter of Major Jacob Warwick and Mary Vance, his wife, and lived at Marlin’s Bottom, now Marlinton, early in the century…
William Poage, senior, was a Presbyterian ruling elder and virtually the founder of the Oak Grove Presbyterian church. Some of the first religious meetings conducted by Presbyterian ministers in this region were at his house. When the pulpit would be vacant, years at a time, there would be religious services at his home or the home of one of his sons, who were also elders. Visiting friends from Kentucky brought with them the revival spirit that has rendered the early history of Kentuck so famous, and it broke out in the Levels in 1801. Parties in Augusta heard of it and came over to see and hear what it all meant…
LOCAL EVENTS
A CATCH WORD: “The uncatchable jackass of international bimetallism.”
THE SLANG expression, “you’ll burn your necktie,” means that you’re hot in the collar.
MARRIED at Edray, August 3rd, by Rev. W. A. Sharp, George L. Virgle Hanna and Miss Sharp, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Harmon Sharp, of Linwood.
A QUEER cuss passed through Marlinton early Wednesday morning. He did not speak English, and wore sandals and no socks. He looked as tho he might be from far Cathay, or Arabay, or Webster.
THE prospect for a corn crop is very good. Blackberries are in great profusion in some places and a total failure at others. It is a very good fruit year on the whole in Pocahontas.
IT IS reported that three men were recently killed in Mingo County trying to arrest Captain Hatfield.
DILLEY’S MILL
A.L. Dilley’s horse became frightened at a hog in the bridge at Huntersville Saturday, and getting fastened in the framework of the bridge broke his leg and was killed.
The sick are improving. Mr. O. B. Sharp has typhoid fever, and is better. Miss Florence Hively, who is visiting in Pendleton County, is down with fever.
The threshing machine has been about here. Howard Bird left it to attend the Institute with his best girl.
We very much sympathize with Mr. C. Z. Hevener, and sorry to read of his lamentable trouble. The writer knew him when he was postmaster at Marlinton, and knew Mr. Hevener to be a dutiful and efficient officer. We hope Mrs. Hevener will be returned to him in health, that they may be a happy united family, and that he may early learn to trust the Giver of all good and perfect gifts.
A STRANGE DINNER
THE following account of the strangest dinner ever eaten since the apple was bitten in Eden, nearly six thousand years since, should interest our readers. It gives a clue to what has become a leading industry of the times, canning and refridgerating food products:
Perhaps the most remarkable dinner on record was that given by an antiquarian named Goebel in the city of Brussels, a short time since.
At the dinner were apples that ripened more than 1,800 years ago, bread made from wheat grown before the children of Israel passed thro the Red Sea. And spread with butter that was made when Elizabeth was Queen of England. The repast was washed down with wine that was old when Columbus was playing with the boys of Genoa.
The apples were taken from an earthen jar taken from the ruins of Pompeii, the wheat was taken from a chamber in one of the pyramids, the butter from a stone shelf in an old well in Scotland where, for several centuries, it had lain in an earthen crock in icy water, and the wine was recovered from an old vault in the city of Corinth.
There were six guests at the table, and each had a mouthful of bread and a teaspoonful of the wine but was permitted to help himself bountifully to the butter, there being several pounds of it. The apple jar held about two thirds of a gallon. The fruit was as sweet and as finely flavored as if it had been preserved but a few months.
