30 Years Ago
Week of April 7, 1994
County Non-Smoking Law Takes Effect
Saturday
Violators to Be
Subject to Fines
Smoking indoors in most public places in Pendleton County will be illegal beginning Saturday, April 9.
A Clean Indoor Air Regulation adopted by the Pendleton County Commission takes effect Saturday which prohibits smoking in indoor public places.
SUGAR GROVE
Springtime—It’s the
Season for Fresh Life
To Spring from
Winter’s Chill
It’s wonderful to be on the mountaintop. One can see some things so clearly: the awesome panorama. Now that the warmth of the sun is penetrating nature, one can see the numerous shades of green beginning to unfold. But on the mountain where there seems to be a quiet peace in the thin air, it’s easy not to see the details below. Details such as the birth of new life along the farm lands, the return of the robins, the blooming crocuses and other spring flowers, the spring scent, the exuberant frogs croaking, and the trees dressing their branches. Century after century, fresh life springs from the stillness of winter’s chill. It offers all of us new hope, and it will continue to long after we’ve left this world.
Head Start Children Work With Seniors
Children at the Burr Head Start Center in Riverton enjoyed coloring Easter eggs with senior friends and parent volunteers during the Easter holiday. The children shared with the seniors how they have been mixing two basic colors together to create a new color.
50 Years Ago
Week of April 4, 1974
whose woods are these . . .
(A Weekly Column of Wilderness Lore by The Woodlands and Whitewater Institute Staff Spruce Knob Mountain)
Valleys Million Years
In Making
During the previous two weeks this column considered river flow and the mechanisms of land erosion. Building upon this, this week we discuss how rivers formed our valleys here in West Virginia.
The valleys of eastern West Virginia run parallel to each other. To us, residents of this area, this seems natural. However, worldwide, this is not the common pattern. Worldwide, it is more common for valleys to arrange themselves like branches on a tree, meeting each other at longitude angles. Here in West Virginia large valleys and small tend to run north/south and east/west.
The reason why our valleys run north/south and east/west lies in the rock layers underneath. Because the mountains were formed by a folding of the earth’s crust, a pushing in from the Atlantic coast, major north/south cracks developed in rock underneath.
Since the cracks ran north/south, rivers and hence valleys formed along these lines. East/west valleys are usually smaller than the north/south valleys. These are the feeder valleys, formed by erosion, bringing the run-off into the larger north/south valleys.
If you have a map handy (especially a topographic map, one that shows geologic contours) it is very interesting to study it. From it you can see this very interesting geologic pattern that occurs here in West Virginia. Valleys run parallel. The large rivers flow north/south, and the mountain streams that feed them flow east/west.
The small east/west valleys form by simple erosion. This can be seen by taking a short walk in the mountains. As you go up a small valley, imagine a large rounded mountain slope extending from ridge to ridge and filling the valley with earth. A small trickle develops. As it trickles, it carves a stream bed. Over millions of years this stream bed works its way deeper, becoming the valley you are walking up.
How can we check whether small valleys were in fact formed this way? The simplest check is to look for rock outcroppings on one side of the valley. Once you have found some, look across the valley on the other side. It is possible that you will find identical outcroppings on both sides, proof that they were part of the same formation, and proof that they separated by erosion from the stream.
But, how does a river form the flat, fertile valleys we have here in West Virginia, where a relatively small river runs through the middle? It is difficult to accept that the river was so enormous it filled the whole valley. How did a small river make a large valley, especially one that is even and flat along its bottom?
The answer has two parts. The first part is that millions of years ago the valley was steep and narrow. The river cut straight down and was at the bottom. A river (maybe but not necessarily much bigger than the one that exists today) had cut a deep and narrow gorge over millions of years previously. Over time the sides of the valley eroded off making it wider at the top and filling up the bottom with soil broken from the top walls.
The second part is that the river then smoothed out this fill. As fill broke off the top and slid down one side of the gorge, the river was forced over to the other side of the valley. It flowed on that side, smoothing things out. Then when fill slid down that side, the river came back and smoothed out the first side. As the gorge filled with erosion from its sides, the valley at the bottom widened for it rose up higher into wider sections of the valley. Periodic floodings of the river polish off the surface and deposit topsoil.
60 Years Ago
Week of April 9, 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.
Beaten Federals End
Red River Campaign
Nathaniel Banks, the former Massachusetts governor who now was a general in the Federal army, was deep in Confederate-held Louisiana 100 years ago this week. He slowly was beginning to realize that he also was deep in trouble.
Banks, against his own judgment but following orders from Washington, had led 25,000 Federal soldiers and a fleet of steamships up the Red River a month earlier in an effort to wipe out Confederate resistance in the Southwest. So far, he had done reasonably well; the expedition had moved about 100 miles up the river, had defeated a Confederate force and had captured the town of Alexandria. But now, things were beginning to look bad.
His army was strung out for 20 miles along a little road through pine woods, heading toward Shrevesport. Then, quite suddenly, about 2 p.m. on April 8, the head of his column ran headlong into a line of Confederate troops near the town of Mansfield.
It proved disastrous for Banks. For along that line waited more than 10,000 Confederate soldiers, assembled in a V-shaped formation that faced a 1,000-foot clearing and a deep ravine.
Although the Confederates were outnumbered more than two to one, they could pour heavy fire into the Federals as they emerged in the clearing. The Federals could do little but move forward in column onto the battlefield. Thousands of Federal troops, stretching for miles to the rear, could not come forward to help those in front simply because of the traffic jam.
Nevertheless, Banks surveyed the situation and accepted battle.
The two armies skirmished for about two hours, and then the Confederates, under Gen. Richard Taylor, charged. With twice the number of men on the field, the Federals, and the Union line caved in. By nightfall, Banks’ army was in full retreat, minus about 2,000 men who had become casualties. Such was the Battle of Mansfield or Sabine Cross Roads.
Next day, Taylor pursued Banks and ran into a little trouble, himself. Late in the afternoon, he attacked a line of Federals at Pleasant Hill and momentarily broke the Union line. But the Federals, bent upon revenge, counter suffered 5,000 casualties to accomplish nothing. Banks, even though he had opposed the campaign from the start—was forced to take the blame and eventually was removed from command because of it.
Next week: Two Confederate victories.
316 Circleville Alumni
Attend Annual Banquet
Circleville High School alumni and their husbands and wives were turned out 316 strong for the school’s annual alumni banquet which was held March 28 in the high school auditorium.
Byrl Law, head of the agriculture department at Glenville College and former vo-ag teacher at Circleville, served as toastmaster for the occasion. Floyd J. Dahmer, former principal of the school, was the principal speaker for the evening.
The invocation was given by D. K. Harman and the benediction was pronounced by Wilbur Hunt. The meal was served by the Circleville Volunteer Fire Department.
Entertainment was provided by a trio composed of Rosann Harper, Carol Bland and Barbara Jennings Harper who sang three numbers.
Officers elected for the following year were Joe Hedrick, president; Mrs. Keith Judy, vice president; and Othal J. VanDevander, secretary-treasurer.
Pendleton-Grant
Streams Termed Ideal
For ‘White Water’
Boating
boating demonstration
in smoke hole sunday
creates traffic jam
It took a bunch of “river rats” from the city to prove it, but now we know it’s true.
The South Branch of the Potomac River and its tributaries in Pendleton and Grant counties are good for something besides trout fishing.
“They are a ‘white water’ canoeing paradise,” according to about 50 rugged outdoorsmen from a half-dozen states and the District of Columbia who gathered here over the past weekend for several days of boating.
The big event was held Saturday afternoon when no less than 47 of the hearty clan raced their canoes and kayaks from Mouth of Seneca down 14 miles of the treacherous North Fork River to the Smoke Hole Caverns.
It was a new type of sport for most local residents, but they seemed to enjoy it as carloads by the hundreds followed the boatsmen downstream expecting to see a hidden boulder or the swift, swirling current topple them into the 38-degree water.
And occasionally it happened. McKelden Smith of Staunton, Va., and Corbin Dixon of Waynesboro, Va., were dumped into the cold water when their two-man canoe struck a submerged log. Several others had similar experiences.
Some of the canoes carried one paddler, and others carried two. A total of 30 canoes and kayaks entered the race and all finished.
Dan Sullivan, a kayakist from Washington, D. C., covered the 14 miles in the fastest time, one hour, 28 minutes and 47 seconds.
A two-man canoe team consisting of John Berry and Bob Harrigan won their division in 1:55:52; while Nancy Abrams and Tom Southworth won the mixed race in 2:01:06.
Bill Bickham of State College, Pa., the national champion one-man canoeist, won the men’s canoe singles in 2:02:42; and Barbara Wright, a Boston biochemist who holds the U. S. women’s kayak title, won the women’s singles in 2:03:37.
Bickham describes the North Fork as the most challenging stretch of canoe water in the eastern part of the United States.
What is the secret to winning a canoe race?
“Mainly, it is the ability to read the water,” says champ Bickham.
Reading the water is the ability to look at the bulges and swirls in the river and tell where the canoe will travel swiftly and where it may hang up on rocks.
“You try to stay as close to the big waves as possible without actually getting in them,” Doug Armstrong of Westminster, N. J., added.
Barbara Wright, the canoeing champ from Boston, explained that there is quite a difference between canoeing and kayaking.
“In a canoe you kneel and use a single-blade paddle,” she said. “A kayak is worn almost like clothing. You sit down, strap your legs and brace your knees against blocks inside the boat. This allows you to maneuver with body movement as well as with the paddle.”
The boats were started at 2-second intervals, with the fastest kayaks going first, the two-man canoes second and the slower one-man canoes bringing up the rear.
The boatsmen wore wet-suits like those worn by skindivers to keep them reasonably dry and warm. Decks over the canoes kept the craft from filling up with water in the rough water.
Evidence of the widespread interest in this young and growing sport was seen in the Smoke Hole Sunday afternoon. Demonstrations of kayaking and canoeing were given at the recreation area, and it drew hundreds of cars.
Law enforcement officers and volunteers spent the afternoon trying to keep traffic moving on the narrow Smoke Hole Road as onlookers by the thousands drove by to see agile boatsmen roll their kayaks completely over in the Eskimo Roll, and the canoeists strain their muscles to paddle their craft upstream in the swift flowing current.
The weekend of boating was organized by the Canoe Cruisers Association of Washington, D. C., and a group of Petersburg business firms and individuals.
