10 Years Ago
Week of January 17, 2013
SUGAR GROVE
Brandywine Area
Has Seen Much Change
So much can be said for the sleepy town of Brandywine. Times have certainly changed things. At one time, Brandywine had two grocery stores and several beer joints and dance halls.
The late Mary Propst Rexrode recalled how her granddaddy, Charles Hedrick, was a blacksmith in Miller’s Run. He made the horseshoes right in his shop. He would get the coals hot and hammer the shoes in the shape he wanted. Then he would douse them in a bucket of cool water. They would sizzle as they cooled. Roy Smith also ran a blacksmith shop where Harry Lee Scott’s store is presently located. Ike Propst had his shop across from where Bill Bolton lives.
Wherever there was timber, camps moved to that location. The late Bill Hardy had a saw mill behind the Baptist church. A narrow dinky railroad followed the river up from Moorefield to where Bowers Garage is now located to collect the timber.
The first school was where the Paul Simmons’ beer joint was located. One spring it burned. According to Bucky Joseph, the first two weeks the students spent time in the garage that is adjacent to the cemetery entrance. They then moved to the two-room school, which was situated behind the present school. The students often referred to it as the “sheep shed.”
The town of Brandywine originated where Hoover’s Mill stands. This was where wheat was ground. The Still House, which was along the mill race, was where whiskey, wine, peach and apple brandy were made. Morgan Trumbo and Feltie Swadley ran a store which was a long, low building situated across the river. The late Shirley Propst Pitsenbarger Rexrode recalled her father selling pheasants for 75 cents a piece and rabbits for 10 cents. Yard goods, such as thread, thimbles and needles, were sold here, as well as grocery items, such as oatmeal, salt and sugar. Morgan’s son, Lon Trumbo, built a store on the south side of the intersection. Both stores were later torn down to accommodate the intersection. Arthur Propst had a store in what was known as “Old Brandywine.” A book could be written about “the happenings” at the store.
There was a factory on a hill. This factory, being built in the early 1900s, was a long wooden building with a wide open door in the very center front.
In the early spring when the sap would rise, the men in the community would cut down the chestnut trees, peel the bark, load them onto wagons, as high as possible, and haul them to the factory with a four-horse team.
The bark was unloaded and put into large vats, covered with water. Water was pumped from the river to boil the chestnut bark. A large fire was kept burning under each vat, day and night and boiled down until a brown-like liquid called “ooze” formed. The ooze was poured into whiskey barrels and 50-gallon drums, put on a wagon with four- or six-team horses and taken across Shenandoah Mountain to Harrisonburg, VA, to a tannery. It was here that cow and horse hides were tanned into leather to make the men’s, women’s and children’s shoes. The rest of the trees were used to make chestnut rails. When the chestnut blight came, all the chestnut trees died.
Elmer Keister made gloves out of deer hide that would fit one’s hand perfectly. He was the best corn shucker around working like a juggler. He kept a daily dairy, and his farm was immaculate.
Web Joseph had an ice house. He would cool his soft drinks in the ice house before selling them at the store.
Zadie Joseph was the midwife. She would travel as far as North Fork to do her “mid-wifery,” since there were no doctors in the immediate area.
The Mitchell brothers of Little Fork worked the threshing machine. Large meals were served to the workers.
The road at “Old Brandywine” used to go across cemetery hill, down around Irvin Propst’s home and down over the hill to go to Sugar Grove. The Still House was behind the house at Hoover’s Mill. That was where brandy was made, therefore the name for Brandywine. George Hoover was an undertaker of sorts. He had a horse-drawn hearse. Folks would keep the body of the dead at home until time for the funeral, at which time George would either take them to the church or on to the cemetery. Oftentimes, people would have the funeral at the home.
Two brothers, George and Ed Taylor from Ottobine, VA, were well known for their carpentry expertise. George was Shirley Hammer’s father. Many houses in the area were built by the brothers. It is even thought that George built coffins for the area.
The Shenandoah Mountain Road was built in the early 30s. Shirley Taylor Hammer remembers the men working—some being prisoners with guards keeping them from running away. There was a convict camp located on South Fork Mountain, and the curve is still known as “Convict Curve” to this day. Carrie Schulz of Franklin remembers the school bus passing the chain gangs each day as they performed manual labor, such as road building. The first road went above the dam and followed the hollow up to the Shenandoah Mountain and on down to the Switzer Dam. On a snowy day, one can still see traces of the old road on the Virginia side.
There have been many changes over time to this town of Brandywine. Perhaps one would not recognize what used to be.
60 Years Ago
Week of January 17, 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.
Grocery Prices Soar
In Confederate States
The South, despite is victories during the preceding year, was in distress 100 years ago this week.
“Shall we starve?” asked a Confederate war clerk in Richmond in his diary entry on January 17, and his question expressed the problem of the entire Confederacy.
For while the Confederate armies were racking up their victories in the field, the Southerners in their homes were facing hardships and deprivations far worse than their counterparts of the North. “None but the opulent, often those who have defrauded the government, can obtain a sufficiency of food and raiment,” the war clerk wrote.
Food prices in the Confederacy had skyrocketed as the war went on. Butter cost $2.00 per pound in January, 1863. “Yesterday,” the war clerk wrote on January 17, “beef was sold for 40 cents per pound; today it is 60 cents. Lard is $1.00.”
Other commodities were scarce or non-existent. Calico for women’s dresses, once selling at 12 cents per yard, sold at $2.25 per yard if it could be found. Patches were the order of the day. Farther South, a planter complained of the price of a small box of candles—$10.00. Rents had also soared.
Soldiers suffered from the shortages, too. Lee arrived in Richmond from the Virginia front that same week and the matter was discussed in the Army’s highest echelons. Wheat, meat, blankets, shoes, forage for horses and other supplies were dangerously lacking in the Army.
The causes were many. Extra issues of treasury notes to pay for the war forced prices up. Fewer crops had been planted because of lack of manpower on the farms and because Federal troops occupied many rural areas. Military demands on transportation left few railcars free to carry food to the cities. Speculators who cashed in on the Southern problems added to the misery.
Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, arrived in Richmond from his tour of the West shortly before Lee, and he, too, took up the matter of the South’s economy and financial problems in his message before the newly-convened Confederate Congress.
That same week, another piece of bad news reached Richmond from the West.
Generals John A. McClernand and William Tecumseh Sherman had joined forces on the Mississippi River below Memphis and had sailed up the Arkansas River some 40 miles to the Confederacy’s Fort Hindman—called Arkansas Post.
There, with a barrage from Federal gunboats, they quickly brought the fort under their control, and, within a matter of hours, they had nearly 5,000 Confederate prisoners. The capture, which took place January 11, appeared to be Sherman’s answer for his defeat at the Yozoo Bluffs at Vicksburg in late December.
Next week: Hooker Replaces Burnside.
Retired Teacher
John Dahmer, Makes
Annual Visit to Schools
“Schools in Pendleton County are doing a good job of educating our youth.”
This was the conclusion drawn by John Dahmer after a recent four-day visit to all seven elementary schools in the county.
Mr. Dahmer has made a practice in late years of making annual visits to all elementary schools in the county. He visits each room in the school and makes a little talk to the pupils and gives each of them a surprise. This year he gave each pupil a lollypop and a shiny new dime. His generosity cost him $27.50 for lollypops and he gave away $141 worth of dimes.
Although his philanthropy is a little hard on the pocketbook, Mr. Dahmer doesn’t begrudge the expense.
“I would rather visit the schools than take a trip east, west, north or south,” the retired teacher said with a grin.
Mr. Dahmer began teaching in 1899 and taught for 43 years. He retired after teaching 40 years, but because of the shortage of teachers during World War II, he returned to the classroom for three years during that period.
Reflecting over his recent visit, Mr. Dahmer said, “I was well impressed by all the schools and all the children, and I particularly noticed that everyone seemed to be in good spirits. And then he added with a chuckle, “I didn’t see a sour face on a child or teacher in the county.”
Commenting on his own experience as a teacher, Mr. Dahmer said he never whipped a child in his life.
“I never had much trouble with discipline,” he remarked. “I found that you should not threaten to punish children unless you carry it out. If you follow this practice, they soon find that you mean business.”
“But the best way to get along with children is to make them like you,” he admonished.
“Kindness wins friends,” is a good rule to follow.
New Drug to Fight
Cancer Discovered
CHICAGO—An antibiotic with increased potency against cancer cells growing in test tubes has been discovered by University of Chicago and Rockefeller Institute scientists.
The development was incidental to what perhaps is much more important in science and to the future of medicine—the working out of the molecular mechanism by which the antibiotic acts.
The antibiotic with the superior anti-cancer effect is known as actinomycin X2. One half the dose was more effective than a full dose of actinomycin D. It was far more effective than any of the other 15 antinomycins tested.
70 Years Ago
January 22, 1953
Is Korea
Worth the Price? – – –
In a recent survey of American newspapers it was found that the word Korea was used more than any other noun. Korea is most certainly the profoundest problem facing the new administration. The astonomical cost of the war and the sacrifice of precious American lives has prompted many of us to ask, “Is it worth it?”
Korea is a small, backward country with a low literacy level. The world has given it a nickname—“The Hermit Kingdom.” An automobile is so rare it brings crowds into the streets gaping with wonder. The ox-cart is the chief mode of transportation.
Is it worth the price we are paying? The answer is YES! Suppose you had neighbors living on either side of your home, Jones and Smith. Jones is an educated man with a fine house, new car and a comfortable bank account. Smith was unable to get an education, has a modest home, and can’t afford a car. A gang of thugs comes in and starts beating up on Smith and his family. Would you refuse to come to his aid, and if the same thing happened to Jones, take his part?
The answer, of course, is no. The world looks to America as a sentinel of freedom. We must not fail them.
Freedom isn’t for the privileged few, the educated or the white race exclusively. The sentiments propounded by the founding fathers of our country were that it was for all men whether white, red, yellow or polka-dot.
We made the mistake in the 30s of not going to the aid of the small, so-called “insignificant” countries. The result was World War II.
We are doing the right thing in Korea. It is the only honorable course we could follow.å
