Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1869-08-13
THE WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS
SIXTY YEARS AGO.

the face of the earth. A3lt u.H
THE WHITE SULPHUR SPRING.
SIXTY YEARS AGO.
A Visitor I'm the Season Of ISL Relate
some of Her experimentation
and Romantic Incidents blended.
As the demand for news fir on
this place cannot always be graft.
fed, writes the Greenbrier White
Sulphur Springs correspondent o.
the Richmond Dispatch, July 81,
since amid all its delights the pres
ent sometimes lacks incident, you
correspondent supposes few mem
cries of the past may not be with
out interest. He accordingly fur
nishes the following details, com
municated to him by lady "a for
mer habitue of the springs), by
whom he is permitted to give them
substantially in her own words:
The first visit / remember MAX
ing to the White Sulphur was in
the summer of 1911. My father
residedi in Eastern Virginia, and, as
was the custom of many gentle
men of that day, visited the springs
every season with his family, in a
heavy travelling carriage, with
horses, servants, etc. The journey,
now so readily performed in day,
then not unfrequently required ten,
and was rendered peculiarly irk-
some by the necessity of stopping
at night at inns of the primitive
description then common even on
highways.
The wildness of the country
about the springs sixty years ago
presented considerable contrast to
its present condition. Gentlemen
returned often in the evening with
such trophies as bears, deer and
wild cat, and the dismal barking OF
the wolves in the neighboring for
est made night hideous and dis
turbed the slumbers Of bellies after
the ball scarcely less than the eiva
ilized shrek of the locomotive that
draws the early eastward-bound
train in our more favored time. The
buildings, generally, then were OF
logs, and, as l well remember, the
cabins were elevated on blocks so
high as to furnish a favorable shell
ter for the hogs that roamed at
large, and whose proximity was
anything but agreeable to the occu-
pants. The rudeness of the &C
commodations was fully represent
ed (not to say atoned for by the
charges of that period, which, if
my memory is not at fault, did not
exceed five dollars per week.
AS we journeyed homeward my
father stopped near Charlottesville
on visit to Col. James Monroe
(afterward President, } then just re-
turned from his mission to the court
of the great Napoleon. Col. Mon
roe lived in the house which is now
the residence of Prof. Venable, and
still, with its surroundings, known
at the University as "Monroe HILL
The site of the rotunda and lawn
was at that time covered with native
woods, and the design of the Uni.
versity still slumbered in the brain
of its great founder, with whom, i
remember, before leaving Abe
marie, we dined at Monticello. In
Richmond, too, we tarried some
time, the guests of Mr.. Benjamin
Bolts, the father of John M. Bolts,
widely known as counsel for the
defense in the celebrated Burr trial,
then fresh in the minds of his coun-
trymen. The unfortunate gentlea
man and his wife, a few weeks later,
lost their lives in the ever memo
rable confagration of the Richmond
Theater.
Among the visitors at the springs
in the season of 1911 were William
Wirt-already giving promise Of
the eminence afterward attained
and the late venerable William c.
Rives, then youth fresh from Viii
liam and Mary College. Two OF
the reigning bellies were Miss Mayo
subsequently the wife of General
Winfield Scott, and the lovely Miss
Conyers, whose tragic death in the
burning of the theater before re-
ferred to, almost in the arms of the
lover who persisted in the attempt
to save her, is still invested with 70
mantle interest.