USA > Virginia > Rockbridge County > Rockbridge County > A history of Rockbridge County, Virginia > Part 20
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The old roads were "straight, steep, narrow, and rocky." An undated peti- tion, probably of near the year 1880, says that the mountain roads were unpleas- ant, and for carriages dangerous, because much obstructed by rocks, for the removal of which the law made no provision. Nevertheless, the public opinion of the colonial age required that the public highways be kept up to a certain stand- ard. Many a road overseer was presented by the grand jury for failing to keep his track in order, or for not putting up "indexes" at the forks as required by law. An acting justice was ineligible as a commissioner of roads
Until just after 1840, the roads were worked by compulsory labor. The road levy, which now became law, seems to have caused considerable dissatis- faction In 1813 the surveyor was allowed $1 00 a day, the common laborer fifty cents A man with a plow, two horses, and a driver was paid $1.50. In 1845 the rates were advanced to $1 25 for the surveyor, and seventy-five cents for the workman For cart, horse, and driver, the allowance was $1.25. In 1861 the levy was $1 50 per capita, or two days in labor.
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According to a petition of 1802 there were several forges west of the Blue Ridge, and yet all wagons had to go to Rockfish Gap in order to cross the mountain. From this and other authorities, we glean some idea of the cost of travel a century ago. The petition just named says it took twelve to fifteen days for a wagon to make a roundtrip to the markets east of the South Mountain. About thirteen barrels of flour made a load for four horses, and it usually sold at $5.00 a barrel. Merchandise to the amount of 5,000 to 6,000 pounds was hauled back at a charge of $1.30 per hundredweight. A load of flour was often retailed before coming to Richmond. The teamsters had regular stands where feed was left to be used on the return. In 1806 William Wilson spent $21.40 in a round-trip to Richmond. T. Wayt turned in a bill of $56.50 for an absence of thirteen days, while taking a patient to the hospital for the insane at Williams- burg. Wayt went with a guard and an impressed horse. When J. D. Davidson set out from Eagle Tavern in Lexington, in 1836, he paid $50.00 in stage fares before he reached the Ohio at the mouth of the Guyandotte. Thence, to New Orleans, his steamboat fare was $120.00. When this book was begun, a person could journey from Goshen to the Ohio river for about $4.90, and in less than a tenth of the time that Davidson had to use. And furthermore, the $4.90 was easier to get hold of than it was eighty years earlier. Even in 1848, which was before the iron horse had cut any figure west of the Alleghanies, it took the family of Cyrus H. McCormick twelve days to go to Chicago, then a city of 20,000 people.
As for postal rates, six cents would not carry a letter even thirty miles in 1838. If the distance were from thirty to eighty miles, the postage was ten cents ; if it exceeded 400 miles, the charge was twenty-five cents.
Between the wars of 1812 and 1861 there was great interest in turnpike roads. The railroad was unknown in America until 1829, and not until 1848 did it reach the Alleghanies at any point. The country was vast, and unless good wagon roads were to be had, the interior districts were doomed to be most seriously handicapped. But the United States was poor as well as vast. and "metaled" roads, such as were being extended over populous Europe, were sel- dom possible. Most of the turnpikes of that period were simply well-graded "dirt roads." A petition of 1836 tells us that what was styled a piked road cost $784 a mile, or forty-four and one-half cents a yard. Several of the longer lines were usually built by private companies. The funds were raised by subscription or by lottery, and the stockholders looked to the tollgate for their dividends. But the charter for a turnpike was not always followed by a visible highway. There were paper turnpikes in those days, just as there were paper railroads at a later time. One of these was chartered in 1853. It was to take form as a macadamized way from Collierstown to the mouth of North River.
A HISTORY Of ROCKPRIME COUNTY, VIRGINIA
The Lexington and Covington Turnpike Company was incorporated in 182" with an authorized capital of $20,000, a sum which today would scarcely make a respectable beginning. The width was to be sixteen feet on North Mountain. and twenty feet elsewhere, but in 185) there was permission to reduce the width to eighteen feet if livestock were exempted from toll. The route was surveyed by Claude Crozet, and the road was completed in August, 1832. About the same time the pike from Lexington to Millboro was built. In 1830 a lottery was authorized for the raising of $30,000 for a road from Lexington to New Glas gow in Amherst. Five years later a survey was ordered for a road from lex- ington to Richmond by way of White's Gap. The capital was placed at $75.000. and the tollgates were to be fifteen miles apart. A petition of 1847 asks for a macadamized road between Staunton and Buchanan. The road along the base of College Hill from Lexington to North River was piked with stone as early as 1820. Until the railroad appeared, this seems to have been about the only piece of road within the county that was actually macadamized.
While the furor for planked roads held possession of Virginia, a highway of this description appeared in the southeast of Rockbridge. The road in ques- tion is still sometimes known as the "Plank Road," but it is hardly necessary to add that the planking soon rotted away.
It appears to have been somewhat earlier than 1820 that fifty-four petitioners ask the amendment of a recent law, so as to exempt them from working the high- ways outside the limits of Lexington, except with respect to the ford in North River. "They also ask that it be made unlawful to gallop horses in the streets of the town. They announce that they would rather pay in due proportion for the repair of the streets than be called upon to work them.
It was a long while before the fords and ferries in the larger streams were superseded by bridges. In 1834 Colonel John Jordan contracted to bridge North River near his mill at a cost not to exceed $1.500 The bridge was to have two passage-ways Yet it was twenty-five years earlier that Jordan and his partner. John Merchead, asked leave to put in a toll bridge near their new flouring mill
A century ago the stage was what the railcar and the motor-car are now The carly carriages had an attachment underneath that was in the form of a hayfork It could be let down to serve as a brake Stages of an improvised type appeared about 1825. By 1820 a stage came to Lexington three times a weck. In 1836 there were stages twice a weck on the Lexington and Covington pike The tollgates cast of the Alleghany line were at Armentrout's, at the first of North Mountain, and at Hugh Mackey's, midway between Lexington and Armentrout's The species of gentleman known in the Old West as the "road agent" sometimes paid his respects to a stage, and the merchant who went to the city to buy goods carried a pistol.
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The waterway has always been a cheap means of transportation. Attention was early directed to the outlet afforded by the James and North rivers. A petition of 1810 states that North River has been cleared out, and it asks that the county court be given authority to levy not more than $200 a year to keep the channel open. An Act of 1811 gave the necessary authority, but roused the wrath of certain of the inhabitants. They say the benefit was not general, and declare many of the people knew nothing of the measure until it became law.
Sluice navigation from Richmond to Balcony Falls was open in 1816, and to Buchanan in 1827, but the James River and Kanawha Canal, incorporated in 1831, did not reach Balcony Falls until about 1850, nor Buchanan until 1851. During the intervening third of a century the batteau was used in moving pro- duce from Rockbridge to Tidewater. This craft was a narrow boat about ninety feet long, and it was propelled by poles. In the center was a canvas awning eight to ten feet long. Three negroes made a crew. As cargo, seventy-five bar- rels of flour could be taken on. If tobacco were the load, the hogsheads-seven to ten in number-lay lengthwise with the boat. It was comparatively easy to go down stream, but since it was difficult to "shove back," after getting above the smooth waters in the lower James, the batteau was sometimes disposed of at Richmond. The nightmare of the voyage was Balcony Falls. In this four-mile pass the James falls some 200 feet, and the channel is beset with rocks. The few steersmen who could put a craft through "Bal-co-ny" were in much demand at high wages, yet in time of high water not a few of the batteaux were broken on the rocks. Pig iron, of which from five to eight tons made a cargo, was recovered in some quantity in after years, at times when the water in the pass was very low and clear. During the reign of the batteau, boat building was quite a business at several places in the county. The leading boat captains were John Hamilton, Samuel McCorkle, and Elisha Paxton. It was during this period that Cedar Grove, as the head of navigation on North River, was almost the metrop- olis of Rockbridge. After the coming of the canal it fell into utter decay.
By a majority of 217 in a total vote of 615, this county subscribed $15,000 to the North River Navigation Company in an election held June 1, 1850. A further subscription of $29,950 was carried August 23, 1851, 687 citizens voting for it and 385 against it. At the close of the war of 1861 the interest on the principal of $26,115.44 amounted to $2,856.75.
From Glasgow to Lexington the canal was built in sections, arriving at East Lexington in 1852. As each section was opened to travel, a warehouse was built. The first one ahove Balcony Falls was at Miller's, half way to Buena Vista. Another was at Thompson's, several miles farther on, and a third was at the mouth of South River. Until a warehouse ceased to be a terminal it was a very important place. Goods were wagoned on to Lexington and more
A HISTORY OF ROCKARUM.L COUNTY, VIRGINIA
remote points in the county. The canal boat would stop anywhere to take on or punt off freight The crew would even help a farmer to thresh, so as to secure the moving of his wheat. Freight was paid to the owner of the boat, and a toll to the canal company_ In 1855 more than 7,000 tons went down the canal. This included 18,879 barrels of flour, 7,500 bushels of wheat, and 2.226 tons of pig and bar iron In 1860 the freight to Richmond on a barrel of flour was sixty cents. In 1853 there went down 150,000 bushels of corn and 60,000 gallons of whiskey.
In all, there were six canal dams on the two rivers There were five locks on the James, within the limits of this county, and fifteen on North River.
The first packet boat to reach Lexington arrived November 15, 1860.
These passenger conveyances made three trips a week. The packet was drawn by three horses, a shift being made every twelve miles The speed of four miles an hour was much more rapid than that of the freight boat.
The canal continued in use until put out of business by the railroads soon after 1880. As late as May. 1878, it was repaired by convict labor. In 1876 iron and whiskey were still the chief items of export. Ruined dams, grass-grown locks, and empty sections of canal bed remain as landmarks of a vanished era.
Almost thirty years before the railway locomotive entered Rockbridge, the Virginia and Tennessee-now the Norfolk and Western-had passed to the south- ward, and the Virginia Central-now the Chesapeake and Ohio-had come to Staunton In I&D a company was chartered to build a line from Goshen to Rockbridge Ahun But it was not until after the war of 1861 that a serious effort was made to bring a railroad to Lexington.
A subscription of $100,000 was voted to the Valley Railroad in November. 1800 This was followed by one of $300,000 in December, 1868, and by one of $125,000 in July, 1871. To the third subscription Lexington added $30,000. making a grand total of $555.000. A contract for building the railroad from Staunton to Salem was let in May, 1873. A financial crash came the same year and nearly paralyzed industrial activity all over the United States. It was ten more years before the Valley Railroad reached the county seat of Rockbridge The sum of $1.250,000 was spent on the stretch of thirty six miles between Staunton and Lexington, and $800,000 was sprinkled over the eighty six miles Intween Lexington and Salem The cuts, fills, and abutments that are scattered between these two points are mute witnesses to a waste of good money. To Rockbridge the result was doubly unfortunate. The county had only a partial return for it investment Instead of the central portion being crossed by an im- portant track, it is merely entered by the now isolated and unimportant Valley erection of the Baltimore and Ohio. The possibility of its completion was fondly di cu fel in the county papers as late as 1906.
A very important freight-carrying branch of the Chesapeake and Ohio sys-
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tem was built between Clifton Forge and Richmond under the name of the Richmond and Alleghany Railroad. The Lexington extension was completed October 14, 1881, the main line along the James a month earlier. In the same year thic Shenandoah Valley Railroad was built through the eastern side of the county. Two years later, as we have seen, the Valley Railroad finally came to Lexington. The Richmond and Alleghany line was at length acquired by the Chesapeake and Ohio Company, and the Shenandoah Valley by the Norfolk and Western. During the period while all the railways entering Rockbridge were dominated by the Pennsylvania system, the Lexington extension of the Chesapeake and Ohio was made to connect with the Norfolk and Western track at Glasgow. The ten mile section between Balcony Falls and Lock Laird was then dismantled. From the very first all the trains entering the county seat used one track be- tween that point and East Lexington. The main line of the Chesapeake and Ohio had crossed the northern corner of Rockbridge as early as 1856.
The total mileage of the Chesapeake and Ohio within this county is 30.36 miles, and it is assessed at $657,208.70. The Norfolk and Western mileage is 36.45 miles, and its assessment, $620,892. The Baltimore and Ohio mileage is 17.38 miles, and it is assessed at $154,950. Consequently, there are 84.19 miles of railway in Rockbridge with an assessed value of $1,433,050.70. This aggre- gate does not include about eighteen miles of lumber railway up Irish Creek to the county line. This spur will be in use some years, and if the tin ores in that valley are successfully developed it may become permanent. There was formerly a railroad track up Bratton's Run to Rockbridge Alum, thus realizing for a while the project of 1860.
When the year 1918 began, the passenger fare of two and one-half cents a mile on the Norfolk and Western and the Chesapeake and Ohio lines, and three cents on the Valley line was a striking reduction from the five cent rate charged in 1881.
INDUSTRIAL INTERESTS
ROCK RIDGE AGRICULTURE-MANUFACTU RES-MILIS-THE IPON INDUSTRY-TIN MINE
Of pioneer agriculture something has already been said. It was crude and laborious, and was carried on for a century in almost entire ignorance of labor- saving machinery The conservation of soil fertility was little appreciated. Was there not still a large amount of uncleared ground? And was there not a well- nigh boundless wilderness of virgin soil in the direction of the setting sun? So long as considerations like these seemed a suficient answer, there was little in- centive toward intensive farming.
But the methods in use were not entirely wasteful. Before and during the Revolution a great deal of hemp was grown, and this crop requires good soil. After Kentucky was comfortably open to settlement, hemp culture dis- appeared from Virginia, and migrated to the Bluegrass State and to Missouri. Yet with this drain on the virgin fertility. Rockbridge has continued to produce a very considerable surplus of wheat, wool, and dairy products, and an ample amount of corn and hay. In 1850 it was growing twice as much wheat as was needed at home, and its cornfields yielded twenty-three bushels per capita. It was not until the coming of the canal and afterward the railroad that this county had a convenient access to the markets of the outside world.
Flax growing disappeared with the arrival of the great city factory, and is now but a fast fading recollection. The fiber crops have become extinct, yet the other staples remain substantially the same as they always were. They comprise corn, wheat, hay, and oats, and small amounts of rye, buckwheat, and barley. The chief innovation is the growing of apples on a commercial scale For this purpose the high-lying and relatively thin lands are well suited.
The farms of the colonial period were quite well stocked with domestic animals, which, however, were not so large as the improved breeds of the present day! Yet the pioneers were not indifferent to good tock. In 1752 James Fulton mentions a pacing mare purchased in New England
By 1877 a very perceptible improvement in farming methods was noted Yet as early as 1839, we hear of the Rockbridge Agricultural Society, which under the Style of the Rockbridge Agricultural and Mechanical Society, was still in existence in 1860 In the year last named an agricultural department was appear- ing regularly in the Gazette. A two pound tomato in 1857-before improved varieties lad been thought of-and a turmp of four and one half pounds indicate that the antebellum tillage was not to be despised
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In 1910 the production of corn and the cereals was about 1,000,000 bushels, grown on one-eighth of the county's area. The yield of corn was at the rate of almost thirty bushels to the acre, which is distinctly above the average for the United States in a series of years. The showing with respect to potatoes and the cereals was not quite so favorable. Yet yields of wheat of thirty to thirty-six bushels to the acre are sometimes obtained, and in 1917 the value of the wheat threshed from twelve acres near Raphine was $1,000. In the Boys' Corn Club contest of 1911, the prize winner grew 1041/2 bushels on one acre, demonstrating the possibilities that lie in thorough and well-directed work. But the unsightly gullies and the galled spots seen on occasional slopes are evidence to a former neglect.
Despite the great inroads into the uncleared surface, both for farming and the marketing of lumber and other forest products, there is still a large wooded area in Rockbrdge. In the Blue Ridge an extensive acreage has been taken over by the National government as a forest reserve.
Rockbridge has been little conspicuous as a manufacturing district. What was true of the early period was true of Appalachian America in general. The farm home was more or less a workshop. There were hatters as well as tailors and shoemakers ; the blacksmith was a small iron-worker ; the wheelwright made wagons as well as repaired them ; the cabinet-maker made tables, bureaus, and bedsteads. But the great factory, aided by rapid transit, has driven the home mechanic to a dependence on repair service. In 1850, the census could report only $22,018 as the value of home manufacturcs.
Nevertheless, this page of the industrial chapter was not a blank one. The first McCormick reapers were made near Midway. This county was the pioncer in building iron plows to supersede those with the wooden mouldboard. Such a one, known as the lexington plow, was being manufactured at Riverside in 1832. Two years later was chartered the Rockbridge Manufacturing Company with a minimum capital of $10.000 and a maximum of $100,000. It was to build on North River, on the lands of John Jordan and the heirs of John Morehead a mill for cotton, woolen, and hemp goods. In 1856 there is mention of the Rock- bridge Woolen Factory. The wool clip of this county is placed at 30,469 pounds in the census of 1850.
The gristmill came carly and has been well represented ever since. The first in the county was that of John Hays. It was built about 1740, and must have been a specimen of the primitive affair known as the tubmill. But Hays had a fulling mill by 1751, and probably earlier. It was perhaps the same fulling inill which was carried on at a somewhat later date by Joseph Kennedy. Petitions for leave to build gristmills were sent in to the county court in 1747 by Henry Gay, James Allison, John Hodge, and John Edmondson. David Moore, Joseph
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A HISTORY OF ROCKBRUINE COUNTY, VIRGINIA
Long, and James Young had nulls mn 1751. Young's mill was at the mouth of Kerr's Creek. The first we hear of on the lower Buffalo was that of Thomas Paxten, probably built a little carlier than the Revolution. By 1820, grist and saw mills had become rather numerous. Outside of South River and Walker's Creek districts-from neither of which we have any report-there are now eleven flouring mills and two other mills that grind corn.
When we come to the iron industry there is a larger story to tell. The smelting of iron began west of the Blue Ridge in 1760, and the beginning seems to have been in Rockbridge. By 1779 we know that Daniel Dougherty was operating a forge near the mouth of Irish Creek. It is said that cannonballs made here were fired at the British in Yorktown in 1781. In 1700, there is mention of the forges of MeChuer and Nicholas Vanstavern. The former seems to have been near the site of Buena Vista
In 1835 Martin speaks of the Bath Iron Works as making thirty tons of pig a week. This furnace employed sixty-five workmen and had a dependent population of 150. A petition of 1850 speaks of seven furnaces on or near North River with a capacity of 7.000 tons of inctal a year. To argue the im- portance of river improvement, the petition says it was costing $200 a ton to haul iron from Lexington to Balcony Falls, and $5 50 to have it sent thence to Richmond. With navigation all the way, it was believed the cost of freight could be reduced one-half. In 1853 there were four furnaces, with a capital of $90,000 and a yearly output of 4,000 tons of pig metal: three forges, with a capital of $30,000 and an output of 500 tons ; and two foundries making 400 tons of castings.
In the old days of the iron industry, the metal was shipped as pig and sold at about $20 00 a ton. The workmen were mostly slaves from east of the Bhie Ridge, hired from their masters for $60.00 to $8000 a year. Merchants traded for a good deal of the metal and hired farmers during their slack season to wagon it to Scottsville. The round trip consumed a week. On the return the wagons brought goods for the Rockbridge stores. The coming of the canal facilitated the marketing of iron, but at the present moment the iron mdustry in this county is carried on only at Buena Vista and Goshen. From the latter point a railway was built up the valley of Bratton's Run to reach the deposits of ore in the bordering mountains This line has been dismantled, vet is likely to be rebuilt.
The Bath furnace stood at the south end of Little Goshen Pass, a short distance above the mouth of the Little Calfpasture A mile below was a foundry. and near Rockbridge Baths was still another. A third foundry, last known as Weaver's, stood on the Buffalo, a mile above the mouth of the stream. In its palmy days Buffalo Forge was a husy industrial place The Buena Vista
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furnace stood near the town of that name. The Vesuvius furnace was twelve miles above on South River. Mount Hope, built about 1850, was on Bratton's Run near Rockbridge Alum. A mile from Mount Hope was the California fur- nace. The Rockbridge Foundry was on the south side of Irish Creek, a half mile above its mouth. In 1856 it was operated by T. B. Taylor and T. P. McDowell.
The furnaces of Rockbridge were blast furnaces and used charcoal. Little was then known of the coal deposits west of the Alleghany, and they were prac- tically inaccessible. Some day the iron industry will assume greater proportions than ever in this county, but we cannot expect this to happen so long as the sand- like ores of Lake Superior, which may be scooped up with a steam shovel, are sufficient for the needs of the country.
In the files of the Richmond Times-Dispatch is the following paragraph re- lating to the antebellum iron industry of this county :
As the tourist rides through the mountains, he will see close to some roaring torrent the ruins of old stone blast furnaces overgrown with ivy and bright with the fiery-tinted trum- pet flower, gentle and dainty reminders of the ruddy glare of other days, of the sparks and flames from these forgotten shrines of Vulcan. The famous Jordan family, iron kings of the antebellum days, freighted their product down the James to the foundries and machine shops of Richmond. After the Union blockade of Southern ports, the Confederacy found almost its entire supply of iron in the Virginia mountains.
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