The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1876-05-18
PoINr PLrAsANr TEy YEAns Aao,

with much interest;
On the l5thday of May, 1866, Point
Pleasant was truly deserving of the
cognomen of "Old Town and "Rag-
ged Edge" with only 1913 buildings,
all told, many of which were dilapi-
dated, and in bad repair, and the
reader knows what an old wooden
building looks like, when implanted,
and the angle of which is italicis-
ed to the horizon at ninety degrees,
as many of these buildings were then.
In consequence of the towns untidy
and unpreposessing appearance at
that time, Addison, our neighbor-
ing village on the Ohio side, had an
ambition to vie with us;and in point
of trade, commerce, and productive
industry, our condition was common
surate to, and in keeping with our
ostensible appearance, with but one
Touring mill, one blacksmith shop,
one tailor shop, one bakery, one saw
mill, one shoe, shop and one wagon
shop, and the rest of the community
lived and eked out n slow vegetation
on the aggregate accumulation of the
misfortunes of society.
Nor is this all, the community it.
self, which was numerically small,
numbering about GOO souls, was SO
far socially divided and discovered,
that no two persons in it of opposite
politics, could with any degree of
friendly intercourse, meet and con
verse on any proposition tending to
the public good.
Politics divided churches, and
churches themselves cast and mould
ed society into classes, till the aggre-
gate good which the whole might
have accomplished, had there been
Il union of effort, was lost in unavail-
ing and worse than futile strife
And let the experience of the then
compared with, the nor teach US that
this strife, this contention has done
a thousand-fold more to keep us back,
in spite of and in opposition to nat
ural advantages, than all the le-
gcndary curses that might have
been pronounced, or conjurcd by civ
ilizcd or savage, could have done.
But in the last decade we seem to
have entered on new era. In the
last ten years, 1903 of the old buildings
in this ancient town have been en-
larged and improved after the style
of modern architecture. Most of the
little squatty cottages have develop
ed into fine two,story residences, and
1856 new buildings have been erected,
Many of them are fine and commodi-
Gus houses, costing from $4,000 to S.
600. In fact the half of this town
has been built in the last ten years;
and of productive industries we can
note, foundry and machine shop, a
cigar factory, ship yard and large
numbering establishment, a steam
tannery, two printing offices in full
and successful operation, two shoe
manufactures, two blacksmith shops,
two merchant Touring mills, two
furniture shops, two bakeries, two
merchant tailoring houses, three mil
linery shops, and within the cnvi-
rons of the town, extensive horti-
cultural grounds and henery, and a
large sash, door, blind and chair fac.
tory III course OF erection, and be-
sides we have as fine and extensive
mercantile houses to facilitate the
exchanges of the country as can be
found in the land, with an excellent
agricultural district ofcountry, above,
below, and back of us, on the two
beautiful nayigable rivers of Ohio
and Great Kanawha, and above all
our people are happy and hopeful,
industrious and thrifty, honest and
unembarrassed, and on all subjects
which are material to the public good,
they are a unit, And while excel
lent schools are constantly open for
the moral and mental culture of our
young, our social circle is of high
tone and in its influence elevating.
The Union Register, after the man
ner ofprimitiye Methodist preachers,