The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1873-08-07
Peculiar People in the Mountains.

A Rockbridge correspondent OF the
Richmond Wig says that in the noun
tains of Amherst, there live and move
and have their being curious class of
people. Generally ignorant, or rather
without book learning, they live hard,
work hard, and one would suppose,
must die hard, on about the poorest
land in the State of Virginia. Away up
among the hills and hollows, with fire.
quently nothing but bride path to
their log houses and patches, they raise
more children, dogs, and cats, than any
people on Gods green earth, and, with
out any of what people in the more
cultivated portions of the State call
comforts, they seem ashappy as the day
is long. But L started not to write of
them, but of the "Hermit of Otter
Creek, whose nearest neighbor lives
half mile off from him. His name is
Larkin Noel, aged about seventy years
"a little eweasel-faced, dried-up old man,
with head as white as snow, and a
voice piping and shrill. Some fifteen
years ago he went West and stayed two
years, but not liking it came back and
"squatted" on patch of ground in the
mountains, on Otter Greek, eight miles
hanging rock, he patched himself up a
cabin, not ten feet square, and only
high enough to stand up in. There is
no floor to it but the hard earth no
bed or bedding, unless pile of old rags
can be called the latter. A frying pan
and coffee-pot are the stock of cooking
utensils, and that is everything his
cabin contains. He cultlvates O small
patch of tobacco and corn, and makes
enough to buy his coffee, and on it and
corn bread he lives. Here for twelve
long years, with no neighbor nearer
than half a mile, alone in the solitude
of the mountains, Larkin Noel has
lived, and when asked why he did not
go to his relatives and friends, why an
old man like him lived off that way
where he might die and no one know
| it, his only answer is, Because it suits
me-" Imagine that answer given in the
shrill, piping tone of age, the old man
in his rags peering at you with his
bleored eyes, from under his elin locks,
and you have Larkin Noel, the Hermit
of Otter Creek. He isnot amisanthropic
hermit, but very cheerful and talkative,
and seems to have no other reason than
the one he gives for his way of life. 1t
is not necessity, for he could go to his
people, who, though poor, are kind, and
would care for him. 1t is simply be-
cause sit suits him." and his way of
life truly illustrates the saying that
"one-half the world know not how the
other half live." Next to Larkin comes
his one-armed sister-in-law, who lives
within mile or so of him. Though
@ a hoI l,1f ho ,orh@
having lost the other by accident, she
does full days work for a man in the
corn field, among the horses and cattle,
and in the kitchen. "She amt much
for pretty, but she's bully for work, "
Larkin remarks, and truly she is,a Won
derful creature, and, though homely
and unlearned, her stern devotion to
duty in the hard struggle her and all her
people have with nature for livelihood,
puts to blush the whining and whimper-
ing of many strong young men of our
State, who say they "can find nothing
to work at" and could but wish some
of the over-nice young ladies, who
shudder at the sight of abroom-handle,
could see this sturdy, one-armed woman
going through her daily tasks without
a murmur, that they too might realize
the full force and meaning of General
Lees oft-quoted: "Duty is the noblest
word in our language"
Not very far from Jordan's Amherst
Furnace two old maiden ladies live and
work a poor farm together. They say
their brothers left home, leaving their
father only to them, and he worked
them like men. So they are used to it.
They make fair crops Of oats, corn, and
tobacco, and have the incest, neatest
garden in the county. They tend their
own horses and cows, and do all the
farm work, and live alone and are cheer
full and happy. But I have given you
enough about the curious people of the
mountains of old Amherst, and can only
hope 1 have let your readers look in
upon hitherto unkn.wn land, right in
the heart of Virginia. and that it may
stimulate writer's more able, and with
more spare time, to "work up" the
many strange and interesting features
of Virginia life and society, in all its
| III ffarant forms and rhaces