The Lenoir Topic from Lenoir, North Carolina • Page 1

VOLUME XI. LENOIR, N. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER S3, 1885. NUMBER .1 allace where they will Vkeepcool" through "dog days." X. We have the champion checker player of the State here.

He plays so much that he dreams about it. He dreamed the other night of playing a match game with one of his old chnms. When he exclaimed, "Stop 1 Stop I it's my move and I'm going to jump you "Well jump then" Baid his chum. And jump he did 1 Ker-slunghe went and lit broad side in the middle of the floor! "Ha, Ha! 1 told you, Reuben, that I would jump you." Corn, potatoes and cabbage are fine. -The ground is getting; so dry and hard that the farmers can hardly turn their stubble land for wheat.

Dr. J. K. Moose has a pumpkin that is six feet around he has five about same size, They: are the Henderson Mammoth." 1 Sheriff Hickey and Col. Miller have moved their families to Milli-gan college, where their chil-d ren will go to school i Kitette.

oak tree in this ap ef Stone fountain. All we know from this pomt, until he turns up on Boone's Creek Washington county, Tenn. This old Indian trail was used-for -years by the white settlers as their only pass way. 1 Their first houses were built on this trail. I can name 'some of them.

The first at Three Forks, and several after inr sama section. Two mills west of Boone, old Kasper Cable and old Joln Bv ker, who afterwards moved alonj over this old trail by pack crossing Stare Gap into Tennessee. -This was 84 years ago. They settled near the Watauga River, now John- son county, from which sprung a very large stock of people in size. and numbers.

On Brusny Fork im- mediately on the old trail a house, the first in that section, was built On Beaver Dams the old Webb residence was built the first in that section and immediately on this old trail and in sight of old Stare Gap" in Stone Mountain. Here the old -trail is still very plain. Your excellent correspondent doubt could give some very interest- ing traditions about those large caves near where he lives. I have no doubt that Boone occupied thesa caves, as his route passed by them. Perhaps they were originally Indian, caves.

I should be greatly pleased if any of the readers of The Topic could give any history of Daniel Boone from the Yadkin to Ky. Some of the Caldwell Coffey family are related to Boone they may have some traditional history of interest. Let us hear from any one through Thi Topic. Old Hal. California the Bay being in the opening shown by the part of the letter, the city of San Francisco at the upper end of the outward stem of the letter while Porte Costa, Martinez and other towns -hug the mountain edge at the other on the east.

About 40 miles down the Bav the Livermore canyon debouches. It soon opens out into one of. the prettiest little valleys I have ever seen. It is 14 miles long and about 10 in breadth. It contain two I thriving towns -Pleasanton and Livermore.

As I ran through these two towns, the whole face of the earth there seemed to be covered with hay and wagons, and in the hay business. I became greatly interested and took some pains to obtain statistics of thi industry. I find that these two towns alone, ship on an average daily, more than four hundred tons of hay in bales It is" impossible to keep railraad cars on the tracks there sufficient to move the incoming supplies from the wag- on trains that deliver! at their depots. On last Moncjay, Sept. 1st, fifty-five cars loaded with hay left.

Pleasanton. The averagei from this town is two hundred and pfty tons daily. To prevent accumulation in the depots, immense warehouses, holdingtwo thousand) toni are built by the men who control this business. The bulk of this business is all in one man's hands he has managed to secure the inside irack, and he keeps all competitors always in his By the way, while I amj on this feature of the subject, I want to say that in this one fact- that of monopoly there is the greacj curse, or evil, of California. Every thing here appears to lead jin that direction monopoly.

But even nature had set the example, You find all the good timber here monopolized by the mountains, and alL the good land monopolized by the valleys to a great extent a few individuals have secured vast monopolies of the best landed properties of the State. Senator Stanford is oxiq of jthese he owns hundreds of square I miles of BOONE. BY A. M. D.

Among Watauga's fertile hills Where music flows from crystal rilla And bealtb la victor o'er disease. And rigor larks in ey'ry breeze And all tbe forests and the fields A growth of richest verdure yields, And fruits and towers profusely grow, 1 1 land where milk and honey flow Mountains scattered, heaped and piled. And landscapes rapt in grandeur wilU, And beauty lingers all around And reigns in majesty profound. Within this mountain solitude Stands a yonng village, small and redo, Hard by the baae of Howards' Knob, A mount in Priuoe, a proud Nabob, Whose rocky bluffs forever frown With dread severeneas on the town As independent, bold and free As promontory on the sea, But has a mission, noble, grand, Born more to serve than to command. And owns a mission more to shield Than arbittary power to wield, And courts our rapture and delight More than suspicion or oar fright, So many blessings from him flow, We crown him friend and not a foe Be guards tbe town ss kind and mild As a fond mother gasrds her child.

And when the town is wrapt in aleep Hia mighty vigils faithfu. keep, And holds communion with the star And talk with Venus and with Mars, And tain would shield from v'ry harm. He checks tbe fury of the storm -And tempts the thunderbolt to lurch And spare the steeple of the church And -waste all its electric fires On hit defiant rocky rpires And all may quench their raging, thirst Where fountains from his bosom burst And roll through various gorges down. And waters furnish for the town. This mountain sage is old in age i And has a fame for hisfry'a page.

He is as old as Eden's And he beheld Creation's dawn. Men's lives are. like the flower or grass, But he lives on while ages pass. A thousand years ago he saw The Planets roll with perfect law, And on hia head the stars did shed Their light, and from her eastern bed The moon rose np and made her bow, And amiled the same as she does now. He bails with wonder and surprise The Nations si they fall or rise And notes tha actions of mankind Whether for ood, or bad inclined.

He aaw depai a savage race And saw anoper take its place. 1 A huudred yiirs or more ago The Indian ijeut his deadly bow The weU-ainled arrow quickly sped, A deer did bound and then was dead. cause the season for cutting is about over sell for the former figures I made no investments there; These hills are very beautiful. No trees grow upon them not a tree is visible in any direction from the E. except those cultivated in the streets and' about the houses.

I speak of them as "hills" they are in fact regular mountains that surround this Livermpre valley they of course run down to the "foot hills." These foot hills are very valuable for vineyards. One man has here fourhnndred acres in vines. There is one feature connected with vineyards that we see in the east that irnot practiced here. You never see grape vines in California vineyards trained to post, trellis or wire. Such a thing is unknown here, save in rare instances around houses.

The vines grow up and are cut back, forming a "stump" some two or three feet high; and the only branches that are allowed to grow hang down from this stump, and only a few bunches of grapes are allowed to grow thereon. These bunches grow to an enormous size. I have a friend in San Francisco who tells me he raises them to weigh 7 pounds each. I see in the papers that at one of the State Fairs there was on exhibition a bunch weighing 8 pounds. I want to make the grape and fruit subject generally, the subject of a longer and more elaborate letter when I get through the State Fair here, which commences Monday morning.

I am here oh an important commission with reference to the Sacramento City postofflce and it will probiibly take me nearly the whole week to finish it up and I hope in the meantime to have a spare moment to look into this Fair. By the -way, I must say that I feel that I have been very highly complimented by the government authorities for my selection to make certain inspections of the postal service in two of the largest cities of the Pacific coast Salt Lake City and Sacramento both capitals. 1 spent nearly a week in Salt Lake City in August and my report of investigation was so satisfactory that I have orders to make similar investigation here. This I consider a "feather in my cap," and I know if I have any friends who are among The Topic readers they will be pleased to hear that much which is all I have to say on that score. All of which however has nothing to do with the price of hay which is seven dollars per ton at Livermore and from $25 to $40 per ton up in the mountains and so no more on that subject.

about houses. Perhaps I had as well wait and i make a special letter on this score. But there is one circumstance so on my mind in connection with hay miles each day. They make sometimes as much as 2 cents per lb. or two dollars and fifty cents per hundred mile.

The back loading consists in lumber, either sawed or split. This lumber business here is immense. The bulk of that hauled out of most localities is split. I have seen immense quaitities of fencing plank split out of the Sierra Nevada pines it is worked very smoothly and uniformly to thelengtn of 8 to 10 feet, and about 6 inches broad and 1 inch thick. There is a very large business done in split cedar posts.

I have seen cedar trees from three feet to eight feet in diameter and for 50 feet without serious knots. These are split into fence posts and cross! ties for railways. Another big industry is in what they call here iShaiks. These are pine boards, from 3 to 5 feet long and from 4 to 6i inches and split far more nicely and evenly than the majority of the jplanks used to be sawed in N. C.

This split lumber is a big element in commerce here, and as it is only accessible bv the teams that pull into the high mountains, it makes a paying-business for them as an item in back loading. One more paragraph or so and I close. I found this week one of the stopping places of our stage called the "South Carolina House." I asked the driver why it was so called. He replied that it was owned and run by a South Carolina lady. When we stopped the driver went in and told the lady that there was a Carolina man aboard the stage.

She said she must tee him, for it had been years since she beheld a man from her native country. "I would know a South Carolinian," I heard her say, "by the cut of his eye." I dismounted from my high seat by the driver, and met the lady at the entrance to her public hall. She came with her hand extended, and tears came into! her eyes as she spoke of her long-left and still cherished native home, 'old Edgefield." I was fortunate in having acquaintance in families she had once known in intimacy. She was a fair specimen of well I preserved beauty, though now on! the shady side of life, I inferred that there was a page of sorrow and shame in her history, which she could not reveal. She had married in! early life an Italian, and the two were living far up in the Sierras her husbaad now largely interested in mines there she running the hotel in her name.

She asked me so many questions asked so much for 'news that I regretted I could not answer all her questions, for our st ge must go on. I had, however, a copy of The Topic with me. I gave it to her as a North Carolina paper; in which she could perhaps find some items of interest. She gave me fervent "God bless you" as I told her good-bye. On my return next day, she told me how she had enjoyed that one paper as a messenger from her native country.

And I beg to give expression hereto the great interest with which I have read such copies of The Topic as have reached me. It has been to me an exceeding great -delight. I find an interest even in its correspondence that once I passed over, because I was there and felt no concern about the little social, gossip that your writers spread before us. "Old Hal" looms up before me in living letters. I read his genial effusions with more than ordinary interest, because I know the noble old fellow.

1 1 know he won't object to me calling him old. And I know why he don't enjoy the dance. Some men have excellent reasons for not enjoying things. If I had legs only thirty-two inches long and thirty-six inches round, and that carried as much good butter, milk and buckwheat as Old, Hal's do, I am sure I couldn't enjoy 4a nimble shuffle of an August efening. Of course D.

don't dance, but here's my hand old fellow. I have seen you when youj would have danced, if that Greensboro girl had asked you for a waltz when vou were in your lieutenant's coat You would nave danced but to another tune, if some of those fellows over the line had caught you as well as myself in the dark and troublous times of '65. Here's to your health over the Sierras, Rockies, Alle-ghanies, and everything else may your shadow never grow less, my dear old friend I M. V. M.

OUH LETTER. xV 1 HiO lL.lt.IL,, IN. fholesalE Dealers Gekal Merchandise. LaiVest Warehouse best facili- is for han dling Dried Friit. Ber- I lies, etL in the Stite.

RESPECTFULLY Wallaci OS. August 27th, 1884. iPED FEWEB- At this MMon dmtIt oni wOM to asa wnt Sort of toxuo. IHON enters into almost reirphr. atuui'f prMoripiuia Urn those who need building- np.

V- 1 I I It daw nt bleekeo fnfrirs the teeth. WMkM adiaw Pa. O. H. Pnmn, leading physician of h.ii' ha ftittars isa tbopoocfalr Med BMdW ail ether fonaa of Iron.

la weakness, or a low of the Brown's Iron Bitter ia SHsawaposKi J. Itisaa thatlselauaaa i i i ii i ft 1 th 1 Cur Boons Letter. Boone, N. Sept. 10.

To the Editor of the Lenoir Topic: Since I wrote you last I have been thinking of giving your readers a short sketch of early traditions of Watauga, though everything was Wilkes or perhaps Rowan at the time. Long before any white man settled in these mountains, old Col. Daniel Boone, using the old Indian-trail from the Yadkin River, up Elk Creek till the trail left the stream up Eph's Ridge to Deep Gap of Blue Ridge, then to the Three Fork settlement and to where Boone town now is located, Daniel Boone had various camps or hunting stands on this route. I 1 His rock house camp on Boone's Branch, near where Esq. Calloway now lives on Elk Creek, is a remarkable camp.

It is a rock house about 15 feet square, formed entirely by the rock, a freak of nature; the branch runs over the house and pours off below, making a nice little waterfall. The branch has been called Boone's Branch ever since old Daniel camped in this rock house, and killed game and stored jit away in the camp or dried! the meat, or what hunters called "jerking" it. It is said that in this camp fire coals and ashes that were burned by Boone are still to be seen. During this time it is said that the Indians were in close proximity, being on the Watauga River, perhaps about where B. Mast and Henry Taylor now live.

Col. Boone finally crossed over the ridge and located a hunting stand at Meat Camp, where J. JE. Finley's farm, is located. However, there are some who contend that Boone's camp was on the lands of Esq.

John Greer, while others claim the camp was located on the lands now owned by Jacob Winebarger'8-heirs, I am of the opinion that Boone's camp was on Mr, Finley's lands. I am very sorry our people have been so neglectful about our early history. Our mountain country is rich with traditional hist6ry but alas it is lost to the coming generations by neglect. One thing is certain, however, Boone had a camp on Meat Camp and no doubt killed many fat bucks, bear, elk, and other game all through those pretty valleys and mighty mountains. The Elk Knob, Bald, Snake, Rich and other mountains surrounded Boone's camp on Meat Camp.

What a grand time Boone and those fearless comrades, who hunted with Boone must have had among tiiose high mountains surrounded by fat game of all kinds Tradition says that Calloway, Greer, Finley, and no doubt others? were with Boone in these mountains. During this time Boone established a hunting camp near where the town of Boone now stands, it being immediately on the Indian trail. Here he hunted and made trips across the Blue Ridge to his family on the Yadkin, taking them meat and returning with meal, salt and other equipments. says that Boone tfhd his comrades procured powder from an old man near Virginia or Tennessee line by the name of Clawson. It was called "rag powder" being very course, and was carried in sacks.

Clawson made the powder. Lead that was used was supposed to have been obtained from the mountains and melted from 'the ores. l''V'-: 1 While Boone was occupying this section the Indians were moving gradually further west and had located on Watauga River, near the mouth of Roan's Creek, now Johnson county, and from there to Boone's Creek, Washington county, Tenn. Boone appears to have followed the same trail. This bid trail is yet plain in many places! in Watauga.

South of Boone on the lands of D. B. Dougherty T. J. Coffey and brother and J.

A. Gragg you can find the old trail passing through Hodge's Gap of the Rich Mountain to Brushy, Fork said Creek to Cove Creek, down Cove Creek, crossing-1 Ward's Gap to Beaver Dams, crossing this valley and stream to Stone crossing- Stone Mountain at what is now known, and from: the earliest recollections W3 known as the "Stare Gap." Here Col. Boone crossed into what is'now Tennessee, and left his initials on an Land of the; Oky The Best 5c Cigar in terra, (i Sold only by E. S. Bernhardt Co.

Try a pair of our $3.00 GENTS SH02Z3, And you will wear no other. JUST RECEIVED, A LOT OP- id The Finest in Toxm, EVERY PAIB WARRANTED! SLIPPERS and LOW CUT SH0EB 25 er cent. Discount, to close emt. Highest Prices paid for Dried Fruit, Blackberries. Wheat All Other Produce R.

S. Reinfiardt Cof Lenoir, Aug. 15, 1885. A Large knd Complete Etozk cf Goods jnst rceivf by B. L.

Hououw. HcBrUai Mille, N. wbo will sell cheaper than thv chsjaaja, At Rock Bottom Prices. For cash or good country produce. YOCB 23.

la. F. LEE CLINE, ATTORNEY AT LAU, nicncirszv n.o. 17. c.

X7r.T7i.Ar:-Attorney-ct 7 Lenoir, 17. Late -Hand Sewed French I a the finest lands on the Pacific coast. Doctor Glenn "Dock Glenn" as he is familiarly spoken jof here once a Virginian, was one of the great land kings of jthe State. He boasted of having one field that had sixty thousand acres' In I referred to this in my first letter. Glenn was killed only a short time ago by one of his employees, with whose mistress Glenn was alleged to have taken liberties.) This is another curse here.

Your readers are familiar and sick with the details of Senator Sharon's complicity with a bad woman. 11 These are evils which will eventually be uprooted in California. When the curse of lawlessness ahd irrelig-ion begotten of the bid mining daysi is exterminated by the influences of the gospel, and when the; old" monopolists die out, and their lands are divided up among heirs and legatees many of whom will in the course of time become profligate! and run through with their estates and be sold out putting these lands into the open markets then there will come a better day for California. As it is there is no possible chance for any man getting a foot hold here, in lands unless he is in money. There seems to be a purposewhether studied or, not I dan not tell to keep poor men, poor farmers, out of California.

I understand that Senator Stanford, the largest land holder i here, will not sell a foot of his real estate, although he is childless, his only son, a noble lovely young man, as I am informed, recently dying, The father paid Parson Newman, Grant's Chaplain, thirty thousand. dollars, so to preach a funeral sermon, over the youth. The other. I funeral services cost over ten thousand dollars. Senator Stanford; however, is a noble man, according to reports here.

He is not a land seller, as I ihave written, but buys every foot he can find whererer he wants it. I read in the paper here this wek of his purchase up in the many He is going to build a great University for California far bigger than the Vanderbilts have done for Tennessee. Stanford is going to put ten millions of dollars into his big and he gives it a footing besides of sit thousand acres of land, near San Francisco. A noted educator from Boston in now here assisting Gov. Stanford in perfecting his plans.

Of one thing it may be certain, there will be no half measures, no stinted outlays of money, in this great enterprise of philanthropy. But this has very little to do with the subject of hay and horses, about which I promised to write However, you may find something of interest in the digression, and it is impossible to keep one's thoughts entirely in one channel in this country, especially, where there are so many fruitful themes for discussion. I wanted to tell you something particularly about prices here, and especially in connection with hay and land. I became interested in the Livermore valley, and I ventured to make. some inquiry in regard to the figuesH on real estate in tnis nine paramse.

The poorest of the land there brings $80 per acre, whenever tou can find a man who will sell. "Good wildoat land there can not be bought for less than from $150 to $200 per acre. Even the bare hill bare now, be JNo village ten, no glitfring spires, 'The Stars hbked down on Indian fires. "HIV AND HORSES." "Speaking of Hay and Horses," our Interesting Califfnia Correspondent Fills the Chinks wkli Interesting Information iboat Uriiopolies, Philanthropists, Vineyards, Sc. The Urerncre Vallef-Tha TfcarKaws fron Edga-fiefd, Sc.

SACfiAMENTO, Sept. 9. To the Editor of Hit Lenoir Topic: In thi first letter which The Topic printed giving my impies-sions ofjCalifornia, reference was made, incidentally, to the Hay and Horse 'interests of this State. Although le facts as they first appeared me seemed rather extravagant, I took care not to accept them mjpelf until after they had been thoroughly verified and even then I ad did not write all I had learnedln regard thereto. Havino an houm leisure to night, I have though! something1; additional in regard jo what I have seen and heard this weik in relation to the horses and hay crop of California would be of inierest to The Topic readers.

So here goes. Nq such thing as grass is grown in California as a commercial pro-ductf-if we except Alfalfa and an occasional field of a kind of clover called 'Burr Clover." The hay crop depenas on the season for wheat and wild cits. Wild oats furnish the great fedlk of the shipping hay. If the early spring is very wet the oats growi spontaneously for no one ever links of sowing a croj) and grow great luxuriance and abundance and sometimes under these circuiistance8 excess of spring rains--the wheat fields, instead of "tun ing to cheat," are pretty effectual! taken by the oats, when the wholl is cut in its green state and conv rted into hay. It is the same case with barley, which is to this Stato nearly what the corn crop is to oi farmers in the east for a grain croplfor stock.

Tlere are, however, immense faros, or as they are called Ijere, given up wholly to wild oatf. It is a crop that never fails, I believe. There are whole communities that appear to devote them-sel' es to the industry of cutting and bal ng this oat crop. In fact, I find that nearly every particular section es a specialty of som.thing sat being a universal crop here. few of the counties are taken np ost entirely the grape and ie.

interest, others grow oranges, ons, Of these all, I hope to speak, or write, more particularly in future, telling you also of other specialties in. counties and towns. I want to write now some figures and facts I have learned this week in regard to hay and horses. I have just run through the "Liv-ermore Valley," which is between the San Joaquin Hirer and the Bay of San Francisco. It appears to have been, scooped out by nature in; the range of mountains that' are arted somewhat in the form of the ittle on the western coast of and horses thatl must write itout.

mv first letter, I referred to the lg and teams here. For the past two weeks Ihave been nearly all the while in the mountainous part of the State up among the Sierras pronounced Siairy, and often merely Si'ra by the miners and mountain men. I have been off the railway lines and in a country in fact where railroads are quite an impossibility. There is however a necessity for an immense freighting business for even the mountains are densely populated with miners and others who are consumers and not -producers nearly everything that enters into daily life of man and beast up in these remote mountains has to be hauled from the valleys below. The consequence is that there are extensive trains of wagons on the road at all times.

Such wagons and teams are never seen now in the east. Not even in the old times was there anything to equal the California development in this line. Thirty years ago I had read in the cavalry exploits of Col. Fremont, during and at the close of the Mexican war, something about the extraordinary qualities of the California horse; but I had no idea he could be taxed as I have seen him during the past two weeks. The team to which I have special reference now, was composed of eight fine large horses.

There were the two wagons but only one driver. I counted on the wagons twenty six bales of hay, averaging about 350 pounds each, or over nine thousand pounds for the load more than a thousand pounds to eachhoree! This was on a mountain road in Sierra county, that was as steep generally as the Caldwell road from Nelson's to the top of the Blue Ridge That country reminds me very much of the eastern face to the Blue Ridge. I thought that load was a big one. It was not long however until our stage passed another long train. The foremost man had ten horses and two wagons tied together.

The wagons were piled more than four feet high with flour sacks. I asked him how much he had on. "A little over eleven thousand," he said. I think I could have counted fifty teams during the two days in Sierra county, that averaged eight horses to the team two wagons and one driver. But the biggest teams ave seen yet were on the Sonora road.

Our stage passed, in a long train one day, some three; weeks ago, two teams that had six span or twelve head of horses in each wagon. They were hauling immense machinery up into the mountains. These team3 make from 12 to 15 Bakersville, Sept. 10. To the Editor of The Lenoir Topic: Mica is flatter than an old hat sat on by all the girls and boys at a country dance, and it has left Bakersville stranded upon the shores: of discouragement.

I will wager a -last year's almanac against a "rotten pumpkin" that there are more loafers Bakersville than in any, other town of its size in Carolina. It has'nt even got a school house (and its population js about 700J. will take that back, it has an.old dilapidated trap of a thing that looks like the gable-end of hard- times Ah; the enterprising men of i Bakersville 1 are putting their heads: together and fare going to fit up the basement under the new Methodist Church that is soon to be built here and have it for a school-' room." That's put the boys and teachers down in the cellar tut tt." i 1 Oonnfaa rnU isa and wasasd ted Maw cm vramm v. Aiaer. lasd.only by BKm CUEmOAI.

COh BALTIMORE, af. Lama' HAJTD BOOK fal and atcraetrre, bob talma liatof pricas for recipes, informsunu aboot aora. ate, nron away by atl osalsrs in itwuoins, at aajwadtoaJyaildlWOOIMaipttf featamp. 0 CLIIITON A. CILLEY, Attornoy-jdWiaT7,.