10 Years Ago
Week of December 25, 2014
Marriott Donates
24 Beds to Pendleton County Residents
Marriott International, Inc., recently launched “Great Bed, Great Cause,” a ShopMarriott campaign that donated a bed for every bed purchased through its ShopMarriott website in the month of October. As a result of this program, 24 bed sets are being distributed by Almost Heaven Habitat for Humanity to local families in need in Pendleton County.
20 Years Ago
Week of December 23, 2004
SUGAR GROVE
Writer Examines
Origins of Many
Christmas Traditions
Christmas is a blend of memories, of childhood hopes and dreams, of unbounded joy and unexpected anticipation. The lights and cards may fade, but the good memories will last throughout the years. It is best seen through the eye of a child.
The beloved Christmas traditions have pre-Christian origins. The Christmas date itself was arbitrarily set December 25 by Pope Juilus I in A.D. 320.
Pagan origins were one reason the strict Puritan founders outlawed Christmas observances. They knew the “merrie” 17th century England were a drunken combination of Belsnickling, Mardi Gras and Halloween trick-or-treating.
In some ways, Christmas has gradually become more Christian. Martin Luther supposedly Christianized Germany’s tree tradition, and the red-leafed poinsettia was a 19th century addition, brought back by the U.S. ambassadors from Mexico.
The white candy sticks were bent into the shape of the Bethlehem shepherds’ crooks, or maybe “J” for Jesus in the 17th century.
There were secular year-end greeting cards from the 19th century England to Europe to the United States.
Although the New Year’s gifts are a far older tradition than Christmas gifts, St. Nicholas who was known for bestowing gifts to the poor children in the fourth century, was actually the one who inspired the modern Santa Claus. The 12 days of Christmas end with Epiphany, Jan. 6, the celebration of the visit of the wise men to the baby Jesus.
30 Years Ago
Week of December 15, 1994
Town of Franklin
To Have 200th Birthday Next Week
The Town of Franklin will have its 200th birthday next Tuesday. Mayor Alice Hartman said the town will have a formal bicentennial celebration next summer when conditions will be more favorable for celebrating such a momentous occasion and there will be more time for planning an appropriate celebration.
The town was established by an act of the Virginia General Assembly in Richmond, Virginia, on December 19, 1794. It designed an area containing 46-1/2 acres owned and laid off into streets and lots by Francis Evick as the new town of Franklin. It also included the Pendleton County Courthouse which had been constructed at an earlier date.
Week of December 22, 1994
140 Receive Termination Notices at Hanover Shoe
Slow shoe sales of men’s dress shoes have resulted in the lay-off of a large number of workers at the Hanover Shoe factory in Franklin.
Franklin Plant Manager Don Rogers said Monday that 140 Hanover workers have received notices of their termination to be effective as of January 12 or 13, depending upon the department in which they work. He said the layoffs are based upon seniority and by department.
Rogers attributed the lay-off to a decline in retail sales of men’s apparel, saying “dress shoes have been hit the hardest.” He said there has been a trend in shoe styles toward a more casual type shoe which has impacted on sales of Hanover, a manufacturer of men’s top quality dress shoes.
Preceding the lay-off at the Franklin factory, there were layoffs at Hanover’s other factories at Marlinton and Hanover, PA.
Rogers said Hanover had a similar drop in sales in 1990 which resulted in reduced employment, but the company had been building employment since that time.
Employment at the Franklin factory reached a peak in recent months when the number of persons working was well over 600. “Following the current lay-off,” Rogers said, “over 500 people will continue to be working at the Franklin factory.”
Rogers said that although he could not predict the future, he is hopeful that sales will be back to their former highs by the latter half of 1995.
50 Years Ago
Week of December 19, 1974
275 Children
See Santa Here
Santa Claus was the most popular man in Franklin last Saturday. More than 275 children assembled on the town parking lot to talk with the jolly old fellow and be reassured that he would really be back with his bag full of toys on Christmas eve. Santa gave all the children a bag of candy and an orange and made a mental note of the things they are expecting him to bring them. Perhaps his presence had something to do with the fact it was a banner day for local merchants who sponsored the visit.
$750,000
Pendleton Nursing Home Dedicated Sunday
Approximately 500 persons were present Sunday afternoon for the dedication of Pendleton County’s new $750,000 nursing home and open house which followed the dedication service.
Persons who toured the 60-bed facility during the open house were highly impressed with the appearance of the building and the spacious and cheerful atmosphere which was present.
Mrs. Edna Hanson, administrator of the home, said furniture is arriving daily and that she anticipated they will begin receiving residents shortly after the first of the year.
60 Years Ago
Week of December 17, 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.
Hood’s Army Crushed
In Nashville Battle
The Confederacy’s last major offensive was crushed unmercifully 100 years ago this week in a battle that wiped out a Southern army and left the Confederacy, itself, on the verge of collapse.
It occurred on December 15 and 16 when the Federals of Gen. George H. Thomas, the “Rock of Chicamauga,” attacked and routed the battered Confederates of Gen. John B. Hood just south of Nashville in central Tennessee.
When it was over, Hood’s army was a wreck; half of it was captured or shot down, and many of the rest of his men deserted and went home; the war in the West was over except for fragmentary fighting, and the Confederacy was little more than a pocket of resistance in the Carolinas and Virginia.
Hood had come looking for the fight when he invaded Tennessee that fall, but by the time he arrived at Nashville, he was doomed to defeat. Thomas had gathered a far larger army than Hood’s during the invasion, while Hood’s army had been battered and shot at constantly. To make it still worse for him, Hood’s ablest general Nathan Bedford Forrest, was away on a raid when the assault came.
An early morning fog hung over the fields and woods south of Nashville that morning when Thomas’ battalions moved into the attack. The advance went like clockwork. Two bridges of Negro troops moved forward to keep Hood’s right in action while around Hood’s left swung a solid mass of infantry and cavalry.
The Confederates fought valiantly, but their cause was hopeless. The Federals swarmed forward in such numbers that the sheer weight of their force sent the Confederate line back.
Hood’s line cracked first one place, then another, then its full length. Even in retreat, however, the Southerners fought stubbornly, and when nightfall came, Hood and his men still were ready to fight some more from a new line, two miles farther to the South.
The troops slept on the field that night, and next morning Thomas swung his troops forward again, with more of the same type of result. The Federal IV Corps charged straight at Hood’s new position while Gen. James H. Wilson, the Union cavalry chief, swung far down to the South and then sent his men storming into Hood’s area on foot with repeater rifles.
The Confederates, with their enemy swarming in on them from all sides, fought hard, but collapse was inevitable. It came all at once, as the Rebel line crumbled altogether, and Federals began rounding up prisoners by the hundreds.
Hood led the remnants of his army away in total defeat, but after them came Wilson’s cavalry, still picking up prisoners. Forrest returned in time to hold off Wilson in savage, night-time combat. Finally, Hood arrived back in Alabama, his army of 40,000 now reduced to slightly more than 20,000. Of those 20,000 only about 9,000 were to fight some more.
Week of December 24, 1964
Sherman Reaches Sea;
Savannah Captured
President Lincoln received an unusual telegram 100 years ago this week.
From Savannah, Ga., and dated December 22, it read:
“To His Excellency, President Lincoln:
“I beg to present you as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton.
(Signed) W. T. Sherman, Major General.”
Thus Sherman announced that he had completed his march across Georgia from Atlanta to the sea, had captured the state’s main seaport and had ended one of the world’s most famous military campaigns.
Sherman’s march across Georgia was ridiculed in the Southern press as a fight against open land, a fight that pitted a powerful army of 60,000 against old folks and little children. Nevertheless, the march went far to break the spirit of the Confederacy, and at that point in the war, the Confederacy had little else.
In the North, where Sherman’s telegram to Lincoln was published in the newspapers of Christmas morning, Sherman’s feat was hailed as a major contribution.
But Sherman already had his eyes turned toward Richmond and the Confederate army of Robert E. Lee. In another dispatch to Washington, he proposed that he march across the Carolinas, toward Lee’s rear.
70 Years Ago
Week of December 23, 1954
Fort Seybert
Lady Turtle Initialed by
2 Local Men in 1908
Goes to Washington Zoo
The Washington zoo will soon be exhibiting what may well be the most frustrated woman turtle in all turtledom.
She carries the date, 1908, on her chest and the two men who carved it there 46 years ago are still around to testify that she was no spring turtle then.
The turtle will be presented to zoo director William M. Mann by 13-year-old Ida (Ginger) Puffenbarger of 3024 Nash place SE, Washington.
Ginger found it recently trying to hide its embarrassment along a West Virginia roadside, less than a mile from the spot on which two teenage boys waylaid it with a penknife in that awful long ago.
In addition to the date, which any glib woman turtle might be able to explain away as her social security number, the boys carved their initials—N. D. M. and R. C. N.
The first is for N. D. Mumbert, Ginger’s uncle, now in his early 60s and still a resident of Fort Seybert, where the turtle was found. The second is for Mumbert’s boyhood buddy, Robert C. Nesselrodt, who moved to New Jersey 30 years ago.
Ginger’s father, Vernon Puffenbarger, says you could have knocked his daughter’s uncle over with the turtle while they were visiting his folks at Fort Seybert recently.
Mumbert remembers as clearly as though it were yesterday, the day the two of them knifed their initials into the turtle’s underside, and Nesselrodt has been advised of the turtle’s recovery.
In the three weeks Ginger has had the turtle, she has fed it faithfully on lettuce leaves and cabbage with an occasional carrot thrown in for good measure.
From all she can discover, Ginger said, her turtle hasn’t put on much weight or height or width in the 46 years she has been trying to erase the telltale tattoo. Dr. Mann advises her, however, that 46 years to a turtle is nothing—except, perhaps, to a woman turtle. After the manner of their sex the world over, their aging process stops at 29, sometimes several years sooner.
But one thing you can say for Madam Turtle, she knows good country when she sees it as is evidenced by the fact that she has spent all these years among her good turtle neighbors at Ft. Seybert.
