10 Years Ago
Week of April 24, 2014
SUGAR GROVE
Mad Stones Were Used
As Cure for Rabies
Folk tend to be wary of nocturnal animals that normally prowl at night only when they are seen running about during the daytime. There is a suspicion that they may be rabid. The traditional folk cure for being bitten by a rabid animal was to use a mad stone. The stone comes from the stomach of an animal, primarily a deer. If the mad stone is bought or sold, it is said to lose its curative powers. In other words, it had to be found or given. Families who possessed a mad stone tended to pass them down from generation to generation. The mad stone is a calculus which is a concentration of mineral salts that can sometimes be found in the stomach of animals that chew their cud. They are often colored, found smooth and as big as a person’s thumb. This mad stone supposedly has magical properties. Not all mad stones have equal curative powers. Those coming from the brown deer are not as powerful as those from the albino deer.
The usual practice was to place the mad stone on the bite wound. The stone was said to start drawing out the poison, often clinging to the wound until the poison has been absorbed, at which time the stone falls off. There are some rules for the proper usage. The bitten individual must travel to the mad stone’s owner for its application. Also, the shape of the mad stone must never be altered.
When using the mad stone, it must first be placed in boiled sweet milk. The stone, while still hot, is then placed on the animal bite, making sure there is some blood present. If the bite is not bleeding, the wound must be scraped to draw some blood. When the stone falls off the wound, it is again boiled in sweet milk that will turn a greenish color. Green indicates that the poison has been drawn from the wound. The stone is reapplied to the wound until it can no longer stay attached.
Some say that the explanation for the “dog days of summer” is the time of the year when rabies is the worst. Mad stones were also used frequently for snake bites, bee stings and spider bites. Rabies was, and is, a feared disease that destroys the spinal cord and nervous system and leads to near certain death. The later stage involves frothing at the mouth, fighting and screaming, which proves the victim had turned mad.
50 Years Ago
Week of May 2, 1974
WHOSE WOODS ARE THESE . . .
(A Weekly Column of Wilderness Lore by The Woodlands and Whitewater Institute Staff Spruce Knob Mountain)
Raccoons
Named By Indians
Raccoons are coming out of their winter hibernation now. Recently we found some raccoon tracks up here on our mountain. As our students followed the tracks and asked questions of us about “coons,” one question that came up was “how did the animal get such a funny name as raccoon!”
That incident and question prompted one of us here on the staff to do a good bit of research on coons. Consequently this week and next this column will discuss coons.
The name “raccoon” is part of our Indian heritage. The word comes directly from the language of Indian tribes that lived centuries ago here in our part of West Virginia and to the east of us in Virginia. The Indians called the animal “Arocoun.”
As far as we can tell, 25 pounds is the record size for a coon. Such a coon would measure a yard long from nose to tip of tail. Female coons tend to be almost the same length as their partners but usually lighter in weight.
There are four different species of raccoons. Down on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico is a very small pigmy coon. Another is found along the West Coast from northern California to southern Alaska. Another is found on the Bahama Islands of the Caribbean.
However, the most common species, extending from Colorado to Maine and south to the middle of Mexico, is the coon we all are familiar with. This is the coon that raids our corn fields and overturns our garbage cans.
Individual coons stay pretty close to home. During a night’s hunt for food very seldom do they wander more than a mile from their dens. They will leave their homes and travel greater distances only when threatened with starvation or when as young coons, their parents kick them out of the den and send them into the world alone. However, as we will see next week, parents are reluctant to kick their offspring out. If the food is available, often a clan of coons builds up around the original den.
Coons are found in and along the edges of hardwood forests. They usually stay clear of evergreens, disliking the pitch of such trees. They prefer hardwood forests because of the abundance of hollow trees, their favorite den site.
Occasionally, coons establish quarters in rock crannies and sometimes earth burrows, but this is only done when they cannot find a nice hollow hardwood tree or branch. When coons do use an earth burrow, they never go down into the ground like a groundhog, but always burrow sideways into a bank. With the growth of cities and the abundant food of garbage cans, coons have moved into the cities and in such cases find their dens in concrete water drains and other man-made spots.
The ideal den is a hollow branch high up in a hardwood tree, fully exposed to the sun. Such ideals are hard to find though, and more often coons settle for the hollow trunk of a fallen tree. These dens serve as their year-round homes.
If the hunting range of the coon is considerable (perhaps more than a square mile) the coon will usually have a couple of secondary dens also. These might be considered “hunting lodges.” They are used for shelter when attacked, when the weather changes, and when the coon is tired.
There is a lot more to be said about the raccoon and next week we will discuss its domestic habits, mating, food and homelife.
60 Years Ago
Week of April 30, 1964
100 YEARS AGO
By LON K. SAVAGE
Editor’s Note—The following is one of a series of articles on the Civil War. Each weekly installment covers events which occurred exactly 100 years ago.
Grant Gives Orders
For ‘Grand Advance’
The hour of reckoning in the Civil War arrived 100 years ago this week.
Ulysses S. Grant, after six weeks preparation, gave the orders for the “grand advance” of Union armies against the South, and when those orders went out, they meant the beginning of the end of the Confederate States of America.
They meant that Grant’s immediate army—the Army of the Potomac under George Gordon Meade—would move out of its winter quarters, cross the Rapidan River and smash into the smaller army of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.
They meant that the armies under Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman would move from Chattanooga toward Dalton, Ga., and smash into the army of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston.
They meant that the army of Gen. Franz Sigel would begin moving up the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia toward Lynchburg; they meant that the army of Gen. Benjamin Butler would move from Fortress Monroe toward Richmond south of the James River; they meant that Gen. Nathaniel Banks would abandon his pursuits in the west and move, with the navy, against Mobile; and they meant a small army was to move from the Kanawha River in West Virginia toward Southwest Virginia.
All of this, involving nearly half a million men, was to occur under the single command of Grant. And on April 27, Grant fixed the date for it to begin: May 4, 1864.
As final preparations were made, President Lincoln wished his new commander “Godspeed.” “Not expecting to see you again before the spring campaign opens,” Lincoln wrote Grant on May 1, “I wish to express in this way my entire satisfaction with what you have done up to this time . . . If there is anything wanting which is within my power to give, do not fail to let me know it. And now with a brave army, and a just cause, may God sustain you.”
On the other side of the Rapidan River from Grant’s headquarters, Gen. Robert E. Lee was ready and waiting for the “grand advance.” Throughout the winter he had worked to equip his 60,000 men and to keep them in fighting spirit. Although the army still was far from being well equipped, its morale was high.
He had mapped his campaign. He had considered various moves—including a counter-offensive—but had conducted on a simple but effective defense: to fight Grant right where he was—along the Rapidan and Rappahannock Rivers. “I . . . see no better plan for the defense of Richmond,” he wrote President Davis. “I have no uneasiness as to the result of the campaign.”
He positioned his forces; he ordered all surplus baggage sent to the rear; and he ordered troops from the rear to move forward.
On May 2, he and a group of his officers climbed Clark’s Mountain and looked through field glasses across the river to the bustling activity in the Federal army. Lee pointed down to the river at two points—Germanna and Ely’s Fords. He said he believed the Federals would cross there.
Thirty-six hours later, the huge advance would start—at the two fords indicated by Lee.
Next week: The Wilderness.
70 Years Ago
Week of April 29, 1954
Berlin Hoover
Warden for 40 Years
Retires
Ranger R. E. Elliott of the Dry River District, recently announced the retirement of one more National Forest Warden.
Berlin Hoover of Sugar Grove, who has served longer than any warden in the organization, retired in March from the strenuous work of fighting fires.
Mr. Hoover recalled many interesting times and events in the history of the George Washington National Forest and the fight against forest fires. There were no telephones or automobiles in those days, no power pumps, radios, and modern equipment. Everything was horseback and foot travel. Many fires were fought with forked sticks, pine brush, and water pails.
DAHMER
The fishing season came in or opened up April 24 and on the same morning we counted 63 cars parked from the intersection of Thorn Creek road with Dry Run road to the hard-surfaced road beyond the old McCoy mill and 13 more to Trout Rock and a host of fishermen landing some nice speckled beauties. Don’t know much about the catches made. One gentleman told me that one lady caught her bag limit and some fish were 15 and 18 inches in length. Then he said, “I don’t think some others were too hot.”
EDITORIAL
Good Fishing
Is Good Business . . .
According to estimates by Conservation Officers a record number of fishermen invaded Pendleton County for the first day of trout season. By six o’clock Saturday morning all the trout streams in the county were lined with enthusiastic sportsmen, many of whom have been returning to the cool streams of Pendleton County season after season for a number of years.
Although most of the fishermen caught a few trout this year, very few of them caught their limit. Unlike last year when the catch was ample, both in numbers and in size, their reward this year for a weekend of fishing was just a little disappointing. Local anglers were not bragging quite so much this year and managers of hotels, motels, restaurants and tourist homes did not hear quite so many expressions, “See you next year.”
The State Conservation Commission has been working hard on the job of improving fishing and hunting in West Virginia, but it is our opinion that the only way to provide better fishing is to provide more fish. In other words, more fish should be stocked in our streams, and if we do not have the hatchery capacity to do it, some of the funds used for other purposes should be utilized in increasing the hatchery capacity in the state. And until enough stock is available to stock the streams adequately, we feel that we should slow down a little on our lakes and impoundments. There were more trout stocked in Spruce Lake this year than were distributed in all the streams in Pendleton County.
While we feel that the lake projects are fine, we believe the great majority of trout fishermen prefer to fish for trout in their native habitat, which is the spring-fed mountain streams. We believe that it would make more fishermen happy, and it would be a greater stimulus to our growing tourist industry to concentrate on providing better stocked streams.
Names and Places . . .
Names are sometimes found in strange places . . . at least that’s what Paul Conrad said when he found a dry land turtle in the yard back of his home at Fort Seybert last Friday. Carved into the shell on the little fellow’s back were the names, Foster Dyer and Lester Mitchell . . . the date . . . 1911. Jack Benny says he is only 39 but these gentlemen will have to admit that they are at least 43.
