The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1870-06-10
Correspondence
For he HyiS d hteHigsnc'r.
LETTERS FROM VIRGINIA.
DESCRIPTION OF ABINGDON.
No. "a.

MEssRs EDITORS Il gave you, in my last
letter, brief history of the first settlement
OF Abingdon and Washington county, and
closed with the promise to give you, in
this, description of Abingdon per sc.
am aware that dissertations upon the sub
ject of this and the preceding letter are not
calculated to interest readers, many of
whom may not have heard of the town or
county, never expect or desire to see them,
and care nothing about them farther than
they are part and parcel of the common
country; and only ask to be excused upon
the ground that l have undertaken to write
so many letters that, unless | adopt an err
ratio, or | may say eclectic range, | will
find myself minus material before my task
shall have been accomplished.
But to proceed, as | haven't much taste
for prefaces or prologues. Abingdon, us |
have heretofore informed you, was located
in 171G, but it was not laid off in regular
lots, streets and alleys, till later period,
say about 1881. The streets, of which
there are seven, intersect each other at
right angles-three east and west and four
north and south, with an equal number of
intermediate alleys running in the same
directions. The streets are sixty feet wide,
and the alleys sixteen. The main street is
Macadamized Gas are two or three of the
Others partially, with brick pavements on
either side, from one end of the town to the
other. The population is 1900, more or
less. There is no place of its size in the
State more noted for fashion, taste and mo-
rality, with the usual proportion of loafers
and gentlemen of LEISURE and like all other
small places where there is more than an
ordinary degree Of wealth, right smart
sprinkling of what some people would term
arist0cracy, but which, in reality, is nothing
more than decent observance of the con
vcntionalities of life. Many of our private
residences as well as public buildings are
ofbrick, large and tasty and number of
them three stories high. They are gencr-
ally neat, some of them approaching ec-
gance, and but few of them dilapidated,
though one here and there may look as if
it had been rocked by an earthquake, or
had danced to the music of hurricane, at
some period in its history. We claim to
have the most capacious, convenient and
elegant Court House within the limits of
the Commonwealth, and by some il is re-
garded as a model of architecture, with its
immense pillars and towering steeple--
though | must confess cannot exactly see
it in that light.
| We are great church-going people, and
have almost as many denominations as
there are families. For instance, we have
two Methodist churches Episcopal and
Protestant Baptist, Presbyterian, Prot
estant Episcopal and Roman Catholic, and,
to make out the full variety, we have New
Jerusalem or Swedenborgian Temple, and
a few Lutherans, Universalists and Chris
tian Baptists "laying around loose" In
all these churches there are regular SER
vices every Sabbath, except the Baptist,
which is rather far from water to be very
vigorous. We have four hotels, two of
them large, and another in process of cree
ton, which will be large and elegant-un-
surpassed in almost any country town.
We have eight regular variety stores, two
drug stores, two fancy stores, three groce-
ries, four confectioneries, three drinking
saloons, an agricultural warehouse, two
billiard saloons, an iron foundry, five smith
shops, two wheelwrights, coach estab-
lishment two tanneries, three cabinet shops,
four saddlery and harness shops, any num-
Der of carpenters, brick and stone masons,
two tailor and four shoemaker shops, two
tin and coppersmith establishments, several
house and coach painters, a tobacco fac
tory, couple Of brick yards, u botanical
garden and nursery, Il very large brick
town hall, q literary association and read
ing-room, in which may be found all the
leading periodicals, journals, reviews, &C.,
and last, though not least, the best weekly
paper within circuit of ten miles, honored
with circulation of 400. The town was
regularly incorporated by legislative en-
actment many years ago, and, city like, has
a mayor and board of common council, who
are Conservative in principle, and their
heads are level,
We also have, as is the case with all
places | have ever seen or heard of, where
people get sick and die, or fall out with
and wrong each other, the usual number
as well as redundancy of doctors and law
yers-seven of the former and an even
bakers dozen of the latter-none of them,
l imagine, making fortunes very rapidly
by their professions We have but little
hope of diminution of lawyers very short
ly, as litigation will increase under the
new order of things growing out of recon-
struction, but there is a probability that
some one of the doctors will take dose of
his own medicine one Of these days, and if
so, the jig is up with him. of course. One
of our citizens (Judge Johnston) is in the
U. s. Senate, and another of them (Hon
James X. Gibson) is a member of the
House of Representatives.
And we have mill-a very neat little
brick mill, on stream about the size of
your Bynum's Run, with water wheel
which may be termed cross between
tub and turbine. This mill, if judicious-
ly arranged and managed, has sufficient
water-power to make it valuable, but as at
present managed, it don't grind corn faster
than brood of ducks could gobble up
the meal, if made into dough- The owner,
having half dozen irons in the fire, visits
it in the morning, puts bushel of corn in
the hopper, turns on the water, goes off
after some of his other irons till he gets his
dinner, and then returns to the mill before
the last of the bushel of corn has gotten
safely through. | heard gentleman say
that, in passing the mill one day, he heard
a dog bowling piteously inside, and on
stepping in he found the dog in the meal
chest licking up the meal as it came, but
as he grew hungry waiting for mouthful,
he would look up the spout with one eye
and howl distressingly.
BY the way, while writing about this
mill, if there is anybody in your county
who understands milling or any kind of
machinery, and who desires to make safe
investment in n countrv that ia bounI tn