Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1852-1859, 1859-08-18

1us l oFiuglng ana tunnellng alone, along the
w9oie route, amount to about 1foe and a quarter
n'ttcs the la6orerS and employees form almost
nVe regiments in number; and, when we take
INTO consideration the depots, tanks, engines,
rails, station-houses, and innumerable cars FOR
ftrelght and travel, as we'll as the two lines
OF telegraphic wires belonging exclusively
to the Company which keep every portion
IN communication and successful operation
throughout the line; one no longer wonders
that twenty-five millions of dollars were ex-
pended on the structure, but is only sur.
prtsed that the people of small, single State
could accomplish so colossal an enterprise"
But there is a marvellous overcoming of time
IN gr0'oth, us we'll as of speed, obstacle and
distance, on this route. A full grown man only
SIX years ola, would hardly be more of won.
DER than the town of Grafton-a vel. built,
thriving and handsome village with eight hum
dred inhabitants-which six years ago. was
only the spot of single log-hut, in the middle
OF the town, at this moment as if the child's
Plnntore, in the hurry of his growth, had been
left tied, forgotten under the chin of the full
grown man. are fortunate in the inven-
ton of the photograph, which can verify such
strange facts for history
ana d what pity-Q had thought, as we vis-
tied Fort Cumberland, farther back on the
route) that the photograph was not there, a
century ago, to record for us how looked the
young George Washington in his first uniform!
WV duu SeIlltlR re1QY Tor tnat
nrst hight, when he declared ''there was
something charming in the sound of whistng
bullets"-but, how little thought Braddock, the
consequential general who commanded him
what difference there would be, in hundred
years between his young ieutenant's place in
history and his ownI
AN hour or two after leaving Grafton. we
stopped to visit man who might easily have
seen aud admired Washington with his frst
sword and plume, (being then three years OF
age,l Henry Church, the centennaran of Ty-
CARTS Valley. The old mans portrait, abso.
lutely perfect, was given by Strother, you re-
member, in the Harper of last June. He sat in
the same chair, leaning his hands on the same
stick, apparently; and he banded Jokes with
our party, gathered round him, as happily and
humorously rs If conscious, in his soul. of the
already begun eternal youth of another exis
tence. Two of the 'old folks who are the chill
dren OF the patriarch, were busy in the yard,
constructing new hen-coop, and taking very
little notice of the locomotive and cars of pas.
sengers stopping at the gate. The old girl and
boy did not leave off small carpentering even
to Gee their father hobble out to take a drink
with railway load of visitors. Human curios-
ity yariesI
think you will have to leave me, once more,
to rest week. The topics wish 10 touch up.
on, accumulate and tangle. enjoyed exceed.
lngly this particular part of the geography Of
our eXcurson-(my grandfather having been
an editor in this north western corner of old
Virginia, some seventy years ago, helping, per
haps, to throw spell over the scenery for mel
but it was the finest of weather and the fourth
day of jolitlcation with the most fascinating of
company. | wish could give you, by the way,
half illegible rhyming catalogue Of our names
and accomplishments, which Thompson scrib.
bled with his pencil on waist bit of paper
while the cars were in motion, and which l
pocketed to make out at more leisure. 1t lies
before me, but the Introductory part is altogeth-
er beyond my deciphering. The South has
bright boy, however, m the bard who could i'm
promptu.fy such verses as theSs three or four
concIndinU onac.