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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02378 5246
COUNTY 5
HALIFAX
VIRGINIA.
By M. French, 1899.
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1907
HALIFAX COUNTY
VIRGINIA
A HANDBOOK
Prepared under the Direction of the BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
BY
ALFRED J. MORRISON
EVERETT WADDEY CO., RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
1907
1676539
CONTENTS.
PART I .- DESCRIPTIVE
I.
II. III. IV.
THE COUNTY.
V .-- THE TOWNS. VI .- THE BUSINESS OF THE COUNTRY
VII .- SCHOOLS AND CHURCHES.
VIII .- MINERALS AND MINERAL WATERS. IX .- WATER POWERS. X .- SUGGESTIONS. XI .- STATISTICS.
PART II .- HISTORICAL.
I .- 1676-1752. II .- 1752-1776. III .- 1776-1830. IV .- 1830-1865. V .- 1865-1907.
The writer must tender his acknowledgments to Captain W. G. Morton; to Captain M. French; to the Rev. Flournoy Bouldin; to Mr. T. E. Dickerson; and to the County Officials.
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HALIFAX COUNTY
County Government in the Ter-Centennial Year.
Judge (Sixth Circuit). WILLIAM R. BARKSDALE, Houston.
Commonwealth's Attorney WOOD BOULDIN, Houston. Treasurer. THOMAS EASLEY, South Boston.
County and Circuit Clerk . . GRAN CRADDOCK.
Sheriff. W. P. SHEPHARD, Houston.
Board of Supervisors.
H. C. LACY (Chairman) Roanoke District. Scottsburg.
R. S. BARBOUR, Banister District. South Boston.
L. W. RICE, Birch District. Ingram.
C. C. MASON, * ( Black Walnut District Denniston.
D. W. OWEN,
T. E. DICKERSON, Meadsville District . Houston, R. F. D.
A. E. WILKINS, Mount Carmel District Turbeville.
R. F. TUCK, Red Bank District. Virgilina.
Dr. R. P. THORNTON, Staunton District, Republican Grove
Superintendent of Public Schools THOS. E. BARKSDALE, Paces. R. F. D.
Commissioner of Accounts and Commissioner in Chancery. BENJ. WATKINS LEIGH, Houston. . Commissioners of Revenue.
H. W. QUARLES, Court House District .South Boston.
T. B. TRAYNHAM, Southern District Cluster Springs.
G. T. CARDWELL, Northern District. Clay's Mill.
Superintendent of the Poor R. D. THOMPSON, HOUSTON, R. F. D.
Examiner of Records for Sixth Judicial Circuit WILLIAM P. BARKSDALE, Houston. County Surveyor M. FRENCH, Houston.
Mayors of the Four Corporations.
R. HOLT EASLEY, Houston. A. HAYES, Virgilina. JOSEPHI STEBBINS, JR., South Boston. C. A. GREGORY, Clover.
*Died Feb. 21, 1907
PART I.
DESCRIPTIVE.
8
HALIFAX COUNTY
I.
THE COUNTY.
Study the map of Halifax County which accompanies this handbook. Compute the area of the county-say, 27 miles by 30-some 800 square miles. and then make a few comparisons. Halifax county is larger than Saxe- Coburg-Gotha, a German State and an hereditary consti- tutional monarchy. Halifax county is larger than Buck- inghamshire in England; and little smaller than the land surface of the State of Rhode Island. The population of Buckinghamshire in England is almost 200,000. The population of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in Germany is more than 220,000. Buckinghamshire and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha are both of them agricultural regions. In 1900 the popula- tion of Halifax county, an agricultural county, was 37,197. Therefore, it is plain that we have room for more citizens. This book is in part intended to show that we have more than room -- that in the great industrial awakening of the South there are few sections which should offer more to the farmer, the manufacturer and the man of commerce than Halifax county offers.
II. THE COUNTY.
The County of Halifax in Virginia lies in the Middle Region of the state and extends over half a degree of latitude-from the Virginia-North Carolina boundary parallel, 36° 50', to the 37th parallel and a little beyond. The 79th parallel of longitude traverses the county. Hali- fax county forms a part of the great undulating plain which gently rises from the limit of tidewater to the low, broken ranges of hills that make the outlines of the Blue Ridge
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HALIFAX COUNTY
Mountains. There is the width of one county between Halifax and the Piedmont country. The mountains to the west protect us from cyclones and tornadoes. The gulf stream tempers our elimate, our winters are short, we have extremes neither of heat nor of cold. Rain is abundant. Streams and springs are everywhere. We have health. Our lands respond to good treatment and yield wealth. Our location makes it practicable for us to raise not only one crop a year, but two crops a year or even three crops a year. We are re-discovering that ours is a stock country. that stock-cattle and sheep and hogs-pay and pay handsomely if we give them half a chance. Our tim- ber has been culled, but we have timber in plenty, and we have wood by the million cords. Although an agricultural county we manufacture and we have only just begun to see what the possibilities are in the manu- facturing line. Our waterpower is such that our two great rivers might be half lined with mills and factories; our two lesser rivers likewise; and our smaller streams could furnish almost as much power again. Although an agri- cultural county we have ten banks with deposits aggregating a million and a quarter dollars and more. Our county has been financed with home capital, and what that means will be understood when it is remarked that more than one of our bank officials came home after the civil war to face ruin. Halifax is an agricultural county, but its mineral deposits are of great value. Grain lands, pasturage, to- bacco lands, fruit lands-river bottoms and highlands- power sites, mines, climate, healthfulness-it is the truth that we have much to offer, and the whole within but 150 miles of the sea coast, direct communication, and Wash- ington and the northern cities only a few hours away.
3 1833 02378 5246
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HALIFAX COUNTY
III.
THE COUNTY.
Why is this county of Halifax, with all its natural advantages, sparsely* settled in the Ter-Centenninal year, 1907? Simply because more than forty years are necessary to make conditions normal after a war that has been fought at peoples' doors. Lands which before the Civil War were worth four and five times their present rating, after the war were thrown out of cultivation, be- cause neither capital nor labor was to be had for the proper working of them. Plantations before the war were little dominions. The extensive system was the only systein in repute. The war changed the basis of profit from the extensive to the intensive system, but it requires time for a people to understand fully that conditions have been changed.
The extensive system still pays well if the investor has sufficient capital. For the average farmer in the county and for the average settler the intensive, diversified system will pay best-that is, the careful handling of an acreage not exceeding 200. Thoroughly fence 200 acres, work each part of the place to the best advantage, keep enough stock to make manure, raise hogs and good forage crops, confine the money erop to an area small enough to be handled with high efficiency. keep eternally busy. and Halifax county is the place for you. Your surplus may be invested on the spot. The years will bring dividends of various sorts. Soil-exhaustion is a worn-out term. And there is no soil that responds more quickly than this to intelligent management. Fields need no rest. They
*It must not be forgotten that by the last consus Halifax stands third in population (not including city population) among the counties of Virginia.
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HALIFAX COUNTY
need variety. They like to work. Keep them at it. Keep a roof on them. They will smile at you and you will smile at them. Some time ago a farmer in the eastern part of the county had planted his tobacco crop-four acres. A man came along and wanted to buy the field. The farmer said he would sell for the value of the crop, no more, no less. The other man said he would see about it. That crop brought $426, after paying warehouse charges. Those were four average acres of upland, recently cleared of small pine. Next year they will be in wheat, and the following year in grass or clover, according to the rotation we practice.
This four-acre, $426 crop suggests something on the tobacco side, a very important side. On the other hand. read the following statement of a settler who left the North- west for Halifax county: "I am a German farmer who lived about twenty-five years in the Northwestern states. I left the Northwest on account of the cold and long winters and also because the land was too high priced to make farming pay. About thirteen years ago I moved to Halifax county, near South Boston, Virginia. I bought an 800 aere plantation. I kept about sixty head of cattle and began to improve with stable manure, green crops (crimson clover, and cowpeas), and good plowing. Now I have a fine farm, cost me only about } what it would in the Northwestern states, and I can grow about the same amount of grain to an acre as in the Northwestern states. I sowed last year an upland field in German millet. Har- vested 23 tons of hay to the acre, sold at South Boston market for $20.00 a ton. Another field I sowed in the fall with crimson elover, after the oat crop was harvested. I mowed this field May 12th and had 13 ton of clover hay to the acre. Soon after I plowed the land again, and planted to corn the middle of June. Harvested about 50
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HALIFAX COUNTY
bushels of corn to the acre. So the clover hay and corn crop value in one summer was about $35 per acre. We have about twelve months the year to work the land, a fine mild climate, plenty of firewood, clear soft water, springs and streams all over, good neighborhood, schools and churches. I think this is the best country now in our United States for immigrants, especially German farmers."'*
IV.
THE COUNTY.
Halifax county lies in the bright tobacco belt of Southern Virginia, which means that a man has the choice of being a general fariner, or of concentrating upon one of the most highly specialized branches of farming to be found in the world, or of being both general farmer and specialist. Roughly, the county is triangular in shape, the Staunton River forming the longest side-from northwest to south- east. The Dan River flows through the southern part of the county, making a junction with the Staunton at a southeastern angle of the county. From this point to Tidewater (only 70 miles distant), the united rivers are known as the Roanoke. Besides the Dan and the Staun- ton, Halifax county is watered by two other rivers, the Banister and the Hyco. The basin of the Banister lies between the valleys of the Dan and the Staunton. The Hyco flows into the Dan from the South. An inspection of the map will show how the numerous tributaries of these larger streams furnish water and water power throughout the county.
A division of the Southern Railway (Richmond and Danville) runs through the county of Halifax, from the northeast curving to the southwest. Another division
*Jobn Cramer, South Boston, R. F. D.
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HALIFAX COUNTY
of the Southern Railway (Norfolk and Danville) skirts the southern boundary of the county, between the Virginia- North Carolina line and the Dan River. The Norfolk and Western (Lynchburg, Va., and Durham, N. C., Divi- sion) bisects the county from north to south. The Tide- water Railroad, from Norfolk to the coal fields, will parallel the Staunton River to the north. Few counties in Virginia have more railroad mileage than Halifax.
.
The four towns of the county are: (1) Houston, the county seat, at the centre of the county on the Norfolk and Western Railroad. (2) South Boston, the county metropolis, a little south of the centre, at the crossing of the Southern and the Norfolk and Western. (3) Virgilina a mining town, in the southern part of the county on the Norfolk-Danville division of the Southern. (4) Clover, in the eastern part of the county on the Richmond-Dan- ville division of the Southern.
The county of Halifax is divided into eight magisterial districts as follows: (1) Banister, bounded 'on two sides by rivers, the Banister and the Dan. (2) Birch, with the Dan as its southern boundary. (3) Black Walnut, bounded on the north by the Dan and traversed by the Hyco. (4) Meadsville, through which runs the Banister. (5) Mt. Carmel, lying between the Dan and the North Carolina line. (6) Red Bank, of which the Dan forms the northern boundary and through which the Hyco runs. (7) Roanoke. between the rivers Banister and Staunton. (S) Staunton, with the Staunton river for northern bound- ary. Every district has a river and a railroad. In addi- tion, every distriet has its telephone line and on the average three rural mail delivery routes.
Red Bank is a mining district. There is enough power at the Hyco Falls to smelt copper and refine gold at many points in the Red Bank district of the Virgilina Belt. The
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HALIFAX COUNTY
Buffalo Lithia Springs, (its waters a world-famous pre- scription for the uric acid diathesis) are less than five miles to the east. The Talley Falls are sufficient to dot Roanoke district with manufacturing plants. Banister is a com- mercial and manufacturing district. Its products go to states from Connecticut to Texas. Its wholesalers keep men on the road throughout the South and the Southwest. Its tobacco market is in magnitude the second of its type in Virginia. Meadsville is a typical bright tobacco dis- trict-light, quick soils that make the texture and the coloring. Staunton district produces a tobacco quite as good, that is, the best; and the same is true of all eight districts though not so emphatically as of these two. Birch, Black Walnut, Mt. Carmel, Roanoke, Staunton, Banister are excellent grain farm districts and the men who care for stock and give stock care are not failures in these districts. In Mount Carmel and Birch districts cattle are being raised extensively and with conspicuous success.
V
THE TOWNS.
SOUTH BOSTON .- South Boston, besides being the second bright tobacco market in Virginia (and therefore in the world, no doubt), is a manufacturing and a jobbing town. After some research the writer cannot find its parallel in Virginia, not simply for rapid growth but for solid enterprise. In 1870 there was nothing but a house or two where South Boston now stands. The place was incorporated in 1884. Within twenty-two years there have grown up here great warehouses and factories and mills; five banks; wholesale houses (dry goods, groceries, hardware, clothing); exceedingly well-equipped private
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HALIFAX COUNTY
residences; and the concomitants of these, churches and schools. The business men of Halifax county were not long paralyzed by the war, and with every day the oppor- tunities for business in the county are becoming more manifest.
The town of South Boston lies on the north bank of the - river Dan, at the crossing of the Norfolk and Western and Southern Railways. Approaching the place from the hills to the South, the view offered is an excellent one. The great county bridge that spans the river here is a con- spicuous feature. Just above it is the long steel trestle of the N. & W. road which curves finely over the flats. To the west of that is the dam and power house that fur- nish electricity to light the town and run the greater part of its machinery. The town extends up from the river and along the slight bluff that overlooks it. One catches only a glimpse of the residence section. But the factory plants are in full view, flanked by rows of tenants' houses. Stemmeries and prizeries loom up. A reservoir overtops the whole. Even a traveller passing through by train is given some index of the extraordinary activity of this HUB of Halifax .*
South Boston has the advantage of a competitive freight rate, which enables manufacturers and jobbers to ship products and goods to all points of the compass as cheaply as other towns of greater size. The manufacturing con- cerns and the big wholesale houses are shipping goods to the Southwest at the same rate as the same goods are shipped from New York.
"From its earlier days South Boston has been a market for tobacco. The amount of bright leaf sold during the
* During March, 1907, the town voted a bond issue of $85,000, the greater part of which will be applied to water supply and street im- provements.
.
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HALIFAX COUNTY
tobacco year ending August 31st last in the seven ware- houses here, was: 13,277,873 pounds of leaf for the sum of $1,314,968.51, being an average of $9. 90 per hundred: 1,103,236 pounds of scrap for $38,060.83, or an average of $3.45 per hundred; total pounds sold 14,381,109, which brought to the farmers marketing here the sum of $1,353- 019.39. From August 31, 1906 to January 1, 1907 the sales were 8,027,306 pounds-$640,987.09.
There is no town known as a tobacco market that is better equipped for handling the weed than South Boston. All of the leaf is sold in seven large and well-lighted ware- houses, the proprietors of which have an enviable reputa- tion among the farmers of the surrounding country for liberality, fair dealing and accommodating spirit.
There are four large and splendidly equipped stemming establishments here besides a dozen prizeries for handling the leaf tobacco. The stemmeries are owned and con- ducted by the American Tobacco Company, the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, the Imperial Tobacco Com- pany, of Great Britain and Ireland, and C. W. Walters and Company respectively. In addition to these tobacco firms there are eight or ten private buyers who reprize the weed and ship it to the tobacco manufacturing centres of the world.
The South Boston market draws its leaf tobacco from the counties of Halifax, Pittsylvania, Charlotte, Prince Edward and Campbell, in Virginia, and from Person, Granville and Caswell counties, in North Carolina.
South Boston has had great success in the matter of jobbing and wholesaling. The idea of an inland town of 4,000 inhabitants doing a jobbing business that runs up into the millions per year is something a little unusual in the mercantile world. There are here three wholesale grocery houses, the R. W. Lawson Grocery Company,
.
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HALIFAX COUNTY
Easley Grocery Company and Blackwell and Walker, all of whom do a flourishing business.
The Virginia Implement and Hardware Company and R. A. Penick and Son are wholesale hardware dealers, and they sell goods in several States. The Farmers' Hard- ware and Supply Company, a concern with large capital, began business in March, 1907. The Keystone Drug Manufacturing Company sells its own proprietary medi- cines and other drugs to the retailers of several states, and they are doing a large business.
The wholesale dry goods and notion house of the Steb- bins, Lawson and Spraggins Company carry a regular stock of $300,000, and sell goods from Alexandria, Va., to Corpus Christi, Texas. They keep twelve traveling men on the road all the time and sell great quantities of goods in Virginia, North and South Carolina and northern Georgia. They also sell quantities of special goods in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, and up as high as Tennessee and Kentucky. The total sales of this house for a year are beyond the million dollar mark. Their immense store is packed from cellar to garret with dry goods from the common sheetings to the finest silks and dress goods, and with all manner of laces, ribbons, notions, etc.
With such a tobacco trade and with so many manufac- turing establishments, employing large numbers of hands. it is but natural that South Boston should have many prosperous retail merchants. There are fifty-odd of them here in one line and another, and some of the retail stores are as handsome establishments as are to be found in any town of three times the size of this.
South Boston has already made its mark as a manu- facturing town, and I am inclined to the opinion that in years to come, and a very few years at that, it will be one
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HALIFAX COUNTY
of the leading manufacturing centres of the industrial South.
The Barbour Buggy Company, with its wagon manu- facturing branch and its immense storage warehouse, mak- ing three large establishments, and its acres of lumber yards, is one of the largest concerns, if not the largest of its kind, in the South. The Barbour Buggy Company has been manufacturing buggies for many years, and a few years ago absorbed the Virginia Wagon Company, of this place, which confines its work to the manufacture of farm wagons. The combination, now known by the one name of the Barbour Buggy Company, has three very large establishments, which, with the lumber yards, drying kilns and railway side trackage, cover eight acres of land. The establishment is supplied with the latest machinery from cellar to garret, and with 250 to 300 hands regularly employed they turn out fourteen thousand vehicles per year. In 1893 this firm was producing only thirty- six buggies a year.
These buggies, surreys, wagons and drays are sold thoroughout the South Atlantic States from Virginia to Florida, and as far to the Southwest as Alabama, Mississ- ippi, Louisiana and Texas. The timber consumed in these factories comes from the forests of Virginia and North Carolina.
Another buggy factory in the town is owned and oper- ated by R. A. Harrell. Mr. Harrell has a factory supplied with suitable machinery, from which he turns out about eight hundred buggies and sewing-machine wagons per annum. His trade is mostly in the South, but he sells some buggies and machine wagons in the West. I saw him making a shipment to Colorado today.
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HALIFAX COUNTY
The Century Manufacturing Company makes and sells all over the South the famous "Century cloth." (now called "Linonette") known to dry goods merchants far and near. They also make other dress goods, linen finish waistings, bleach muslins and long cloths. This is a South Boston concern. run with South Boston capital, and it does an immense business. Their factory is located in South Carolina. where they are right on the ground with the raw material.
The Boston Manufacturing Company, of which Joseph Stebbins is the president, is simply a shirt factory, but something of an unusual one. The company makes only one kind of shirt, a negligee that is made to retail at 50 cents, and the wonder is how it can be sold at that figure. The company employs white women and girls and gives them profitable employment in a neat and airy factory, where every attention is given to health and comfort of the workers. "The Boston," the name of the shirt turned out, is in demand all over the South, and the com- pany cannot keep up with its orders. Plans are now being drawn for a larger factory, that will more than double the present capacity of fifty dozen garments per day. This is the only shirt factory in the South that makes negligees for the trade.
The Century Cotton Mills, established here about ten years ago by T. S. Wilson and C. A. Lukins, are now leased for a term of years to the Paramount Knitting Mills. of Chicago. This company runs a number of first-class knitting mills in the West, and they have leased the cotton mills here in which to make knitting yarns for consump- tion in their own knitting factories.
The Century Mills employ 125 hands and run S.OSS spindles. They consume nearly or quite 4,000 bales of raw cotton per year, and turn out about 6,000 pounds of
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HALIFAX COUNTY
knitting yarns per day, all of which are shipped from the factory door to the knitting mills in the West. The Para- mount Company and the Century Mills Company have united to build here a handsome little brick school house for the use of the employes of the mill and their children. Three teachers, one for the kindergarten and two for the common school, are employed and paid by the company. There are really three schools, the kindergarten and the common school for the children in the day, and a night school for the benefit of such of the operatives as wish to avail themselves of it. All are well attended.
The South Boston Lumber Company has one of the best equipped plants of its kind in the State. Its capacity is 50,000 ft. per day, and its output goes to the local trade almost solely. Such is the building activity in this region.
It must not be forgotten that South Boston had a $200,000 fire last June that cut a swath right through the business centre of the town and destroyed some of the largest stores and factories and warehouses, but one might forget it if not reminded of it. * Somehow it always happens even in as live a town as South Boston, that a good sized fire wakes the people up and causes them to throw new energy into things. It is certain that the fire of last June has made South Boston people do a little more hustling than before. For instance, a Business Men's Association, another name for a Chamber of Commerce, has been organ- ized. It has sixty-odd active members and a splendid corps of officers, as follows: T. B. Johnston, president ; Joseph Stebbins, Jr., first vice-president; R. S. Barbour, second vice-president, and Howard L. Edmunds, secretary and treasurer.
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