10 Years Ago
Week of September 18, 2013
SUGAR GROVE
What is a pie safe? This piece of furniture tended to be found mainly in the Appalachian region, and in time, they later moved west with the settlers as they peopled the new frontiers. Pies were an important part of the German-American diet and a secure place was needed for pie storage. Pie safes also stored baked goods, such as cakes, breads and jellies and jams. To be more useful, they were most often positioned on a cool, back porch, or in the kitchen or summer kitchen.
20 Years Ago
Week of September 18, 2003
Hunters Reminded
To Sight in Guns
Before Going into Woods
With the opening of small game season just about a month away, the Wildlife Resources Section would like to remind all hunters that now is a great time to visit the public shooting ranges and sight in hunting guns and don’t forget to take a youngster.
So get the kids, the guns, the ammo, pack a lunch and head out to the range to spend a day reviewing safety rules, sighting in one’s various firearms, and just to enjoy some shooting. It can be great recreation.
Eastern To Offer
Computer Class
At Old Circleville School
Eastern WV Community & Technical College will station its mobile computer training center—its “classroom on wheels”—at the old Circleville High School to offer a two-session “Introduction to Microsoft Word” on consecutive Saturdays, Oct. 4 and 11. The site is located on state route 28, and there are 14 seats available for this course.
Portable Heaters
Conserve Energy
And Provide Comfort
Cool days and even cooler evenings are the hallmarks of autumn’s approach. But are you ready to turn the whole house’s heating system on?
Instead of raising the temperature—and energy bills—in your home unnecessarily, use a portable heater to make the room you’re in more comfortable. You can turn the thermostat down and keep the rest of the house cooler, saving energy without sacrificing comfort.
30 Years Ago
Week of September 23, 1993
DAHMER
Many Visited
One Room School
Eight hundred nineteen registered people visited the one-room school on display during the Treasure Mountain Festival at Pendleton County Library in Franklin. This number would be very much higher, but a lot did not sign the book. Signing the registry were people from fifteen states, not including West Virginia: Maryland, Virginia, Indiana, Massachussets, Florida, Tennessee, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Michigan, North Carolina, Delaware, Maine, Nevada. Even England and Germany were represented. Many came twice or more bringing friends or other members from their family for many expressed it brought back many memories.
40 Years Ago
Week of September 29, 1983
Fall Is Good Time
To Start Improving Soil
Repeated failure of your vegetable garden to produce good plants may be traced to problems with the soil.
Other things can cause a disappointing garden, but poor soil is one of the most common. This fall is a good time to start doing something about the problem.
You should understand at the outset that the task may be similar to that of correcting the national economy—it can’t be done quickly. Although it is a long-term task, it produces results that should add as much to your gardening enjoyment as anything you can do.
Start by removing those bothersome foreign objects—rocks, pieces of wood and other debris—that interfere with preparing a nice, smooth seedbed.
Do you have any topsoil, or is your gardening site a victim of erosion or bulldozing? If the only thing you have is subsoil, you need to begin building it up by adding organic matter.
You can add leaves, peat moss, old sawdust, chips, bark, grass clippings, composted material or animal manure. Any or all of these will help improve the water-holding capacity of the soil and reduce soil crusting and erosion.
This is the long-term part of your garden soil improvement project. It will take several years of adding and working in organic materials to bring the soil into good tilth.
Until you bring the soil to the proper condition of workability, try to avoid planting small-seeded crops in it. You will have better results with large-seeded types such as beans, corn and vine crops. Or you can use transplants, such as tomatoes, peppers, cabbage and such.
Any garden with low, poorly drained spots is going to present problems. If this is a problem in your garden, consider doing some leveling or filling in, or install a drainage pipe.
50 Years Ago
Week of September 27, 1973
DAHMER
In now what is Pendleton County, Jacob Zorn was the first white person to die. John Vanmeter, as far as known, was the first white man to set foot on our soil and Abraham Burner, a hunter, built the first cabin near Brandywine.
Panther Fans
‘Must Face Facts’
By The Panther
This Panther’s spirit is heavily laden, as low as the grass on Snowy Mountain in mid-January. Sometimes we wish we were hermits living high atop Spruce Knob with no problems.
The reasons we are low, our Cubs are taking a beating every Friday night and we admit we are hard losers. Next, we heard through our sources that a few people criticized our last week’s article because of its bad taste. Sometimes people who refuse to face the facts would rather gaze at a rose than at a thorn, even though the thistles are a part of life.
The easiest thing according to our critics would be, not to face reality, it will go away, just bleed a lot and let life’s tide slowly ebb away.
60 Years Ago
Week of September 26, 1963
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.
Rosecrans Digs In
To Hold Chattanooga
“Old Rosy” Rosecrans, thanks to General George H. Thomas, had extricated himself from disaster at Chickamauga Creek, only to find his army in a trap at Chattanooga 100 years ago this week.
After the Battle of Chickamauga, much of Rosecrans’ Army of the Cumberland—and Rosecrans himself—had streamed in panic and defeat from the battlefield back into the streets of Chattanooga, while Thomas, playing the role of the “Rock of Chickamauga,” held back the Confederate tide at Missionary Ridge.The day after the battle—September 21—Rosecrans began regrouping his men as Thomas slowly fell back closer to the city, holding his line and keeping Braxton Bragg’s Confederates at bay. Then Rosecrans took stock.
His army still existed, at least. His casualties—16,000 men—were not as numerous as Bragg’s 18,000. And he still held Chattanooga, the vital railway center.
But what to do now? Bragg’s Confederates were just to the south, along Missionary Ridge, on Lookout Mountain and in the valley between. On the 23rd, Bragg occupied the head of Lookout Mountain, whence his men controlled the Tennessee River west of the city—Rosecrans’ supply line. Rosecrans was trapped.
Behind the city to the north looped the Tennessee, and beyond that the barren Cumberland Mountains. Unless relief came, Rosecrans’ army would starve in Chattanooga. Or it could abandon the vital city and try to beat it across the Cumberlands to the north.
Rosecrans decided to hold on at Chattanooga. He lined his men up—now reduced from 60,000 to 35,000 effectives—and put them to work. A defensive line was drawn, three miles across the southern end of the city ending on each side at the Tennessee River. Rifle pits were dug. Earthen breastworks were erected. Heavy guns were mounted.
If Rosecrans was in trouble, so was Bragg. Bedford Forrest, Bragg’s aggressive cavalry leader, climbed a tree after the battle, saw the Union army’s demoralization and urged a Confederate advance. Bragg, watching the burial of his many dead and the pitiful state of his wounded, refused.
Bragg’s other top generals became bitter. James Longstreet, who had done more than any other to win at Chickamauga, felt Bragg should be removed for his refusal to take the offensive. Daniel H. Hill agreed. Bragg filed charges against Leonidas Polk, the fighting bishop, for an alleged failure by Polk during the battle, and he quarreled with Forrest, finally removig him as cavalry commander. Bragg was fighting his own generals more than his opposing generals.
Back in Richmond, meanwhile, rejoicing over Bragg’s victory was tempered by the fact that Chattanooga still was held by Federals. And in Washington, the Lincoln administration slowly began to realize that Rosecrans’ defeat was not all bad. “We were worsted, if at all, only in the fact that we, after the main fighting was over, yielded ground,” Lincoln wrote to his wife.
Then Lincoln and his administration turned to the next problem: how to reduce Rosecrans.
Next week: To the rescue.
Pulpwood Collection Yard at Brandywine
Will Aid Local Economy
The Brandywine Pulpwood Company, owned and operated by Robert Nesselrodt of Petersburg, has recently established a pulpwood collection yard at the gravel pit three miles south of Brandywine across the road from Willie Swadley.
Nesselrodt is presently one of the largest pulpwood producers in Grant County, with a production of over 300 cords per month. He is extending his operation into the South Fork area to tap resources which heretofore have been little touched because of the area’s distance from a pulpwood market.
70 Years Ago
Week of September 24, 1953
Sunday Thieves
Get More Hams
The State Police reported today that Dice Armstrong of the Doe Hill section had about $150 worth of meat stolen on Sunday, September 13, while he was attending church.
Five hams, three shoulders, and an undetermined amount of side meat were reported missing. This is the second theft of meat reported on Sunday, September 13. Hugh Moyers, of Moyers, reported a theft on the same day while he and his family were attending church.
Let’s Preserve
West Virginia’s Beauty
The Farm Women’s clubs of the county have as a project this year, the theme: Let’s preserve West Virginia’s beauty. Our state has great natural beauty. Hardly a year goes by without a national magazine running an article describing in words and pictures, the color, the breath-taking views, the inherent beauty of our state. Just this month, “Holiday” magazine printed such an article.
Along the highways the beauty of our state is marred, however, by signboards, trash, dumps and other “eye sores.” We can do little about the signboards—all the states have this problem. But the trash and junk scattered along the roads and dumped over the banks is another matter.
The Town of Franklin has leased a dump for the past five years on the John Harman farm at Propst Gap. Though it was leased exclusively by the town for town trash collection use only, the Harmans have not refused anyone permission to use the spot.
This privilege has been abused by some people—not always intentionally. Some have dumped the trash in the wrong place; others overloaded their trucks and scattered paper, glass and tin cans along the road to the dump and in the fields leading to the dump. The broken glass is dangerous to the livestock that runs in the pasture.
Some people—their number is declining—continue to dump their trash anywhere along the highway that is convenient for them. Nothing detracts more from the beauty of our county and state than do these trash piles. There is no excuse for them. The people of Franklin have an excellent place to deposit their trash. Other sections of the county are realizing the need for community dumps and are taking necessary steps to find such places.
The Brandywine Farm Women’s club has an article in this issue outlining the steps they have taken to provide a community dump.
The Farm Women’s clubs have chosen an admirable project and one which will certainly be beneficial to Pendleton county.
