The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1867-05-29
WEST VIRGINIA.

- ii 8 ELftE - f51.Tsl 4 81
A Cheat River HRmlet---The Railway
hide from Cumberland Over the Al
leEhanIes---The WOnderS, the Re-
sources and the Drawbacks of West
VIrEInIa---POlItIcaI Affairs, De-
l''Hard Times and Worse coming"
Special Correspondence Net1 York Herald.
RowLEsBURd, PRESTON COUNTY,
~ l- W. VA, May 26, 1867.
Down in a green hollow, about milU
square, through which flows the coffee
colored Cheat river, abounding in deli
cl6us fish, is this little hamlet Of
Rowlesburg, enveloped among the
sharply cut ridges of the Alleghanies.
If, before It was done Brown, sight
of Harper's Ferry, as Jefferson had 1t,
was worth a trip across the Atlantic in
a sailing vessel; If a trip from the Fer
ry to Cumberland, on the Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad, covers the most i'm
portant events OF the rebellion, In the
movements of the hostile armies, 1t is
equally true that the trip by rail from
Cumberland over the Alleghanies fills
the celebrated Frenchman's ideas OF
Niagara Falls-'E.It is grand 1t is char
mantI 1t Is wonderfult It is mag
niique l. By Gar,7he Is first rate. n;9
Cumberland is s'dull. The coal busi-
ness from the mines twelve miles back
IN the mountains, suffers from general
depression in trade We saw two
thousand tons Of this coal pass down
on the road in i've trains in the space
ofhRlf an hour; but both on the road
and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canalth
business is comparatively fiat. Every
where, and in every branch of trade,
the people seem TO be waiting for better
times, with some emisgivings that worse
are coming. The idea prevails in these
parts to some extent, that the e1emp-
ton of Government bonds from taxa
tion, while real estate Is heavily taxed,
Is divertinR men of capital from invest
ments in lands and internal improve
ments; &C., 70 Investments In Govern
ment bonds; and this other idea also is
af1oat, that upon this question in. all its
ramitcations, there will be a recon-
stIuction of political parties which will
shake our financial system to its very
foundations, beginning with panic
and general break down in the fall. "a
AS we left Cumberland this morning
the mountains around that neat little
"Mountain City" were green to their
dure Of spring. The morning was
cloudy with an occasional sprinkle OF
rain, but the sun was at work, and, as
we passed up the pretty valley of the
dwindling main stream Of the Potomac,
the mist from the mountain cones and
ridges on both sides rose like volumes
OF smoke from SO wanYshuRe burning
coalpits. At New Creek station we
found a ragged village commanded by
a redoubt on a convenient hill: and the
scene of many raid and "scrimmage''
during the war. Next comes Piedmont,
a village of machine shops, and where
we see coal cropping out OF the noun.
tain sides. From this point we ascend
twenty-five. hundred feet In fourteen
miles, and reach the table lands or
''giades," as they are called, of the Al
leghaniesy 4wenty-eighti hundred feet
above the sea level.
Iniappeafance these table lands are q
low, hAt, swampY country, and ought
to be rather at the foot than on the sum-
NIT level OF the mountains; but we
have some evidence Of their altitude in
the wtntry aspect OF the woods, gray
and liteIess' as In February, save the
blossomtng wild cherries among the
uuQeLBEOWlus.EO Ou IntS plateau - Slg
feet above the sea, We find the summer
mountain resort OF Oakland, where
they have nice hotel, and where they
say the temperature is never above \
pleasant summer heat, where the
nights are cold, where the air Is whole
some, the, water pure, cold and soft, the
milk and butter delicious and the NUT
ton'chops magnificent. We pass on by
Cranberry Summit, which Is In hoI-
low, fgreat country up here for GRAN
beriiss;) and then we begin the descent
westward to Cheat river. The oak
woods soon begin to be tinged with
green, and their color spreads and
deepens as we rum down to the river,
where the fringing trees are nearly In
fnll feather along the valley.
The next station or two beyond Us Is
Grafton; somewhat famous In the war
ineWest Yirgl but to make the route
from this Gheat river defile available
for the iron horse, shelves along the
mountain sides, the filling mp of deep
gorges, trestle work, bridges and tun-
nsls appalling TO contemplate, were de-