Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1881-08-20
MINOR DISPATCHES.

MINOR DISPATCHES. aa
VICTORIA, B. c., August 19.-At 8 O'Clock
yesterday afternoon destructive fire began
at Yale, in the principal business block, and
nearly ell the business houses, three hotels
the court house, jail and a number of dwell
ing houses were leveled. The fire was still
loss will be very large, and the insurance is
fire to have crossed the street, and to be
sweeping rapidly up the river. All the val
liable buildings are now burned.
Vacation Notes.
ELIzABETHToN, August IS.
Mr. EDIToR: have thought that some
of your readers who are not familiar with
this part of the country, might perhaps be
interested in some description of it. Eliza
bethton, the county seat of Carter County,
is situated about ten miles from johnson
City, on the East Tennessee and North
Carolina Railroad. It is surrounded by
beautiful hills, at the confluence of the Doe
and Wautauga Rivers, the latter being one
of the most beautiful streams / ever saw.
The Doe River has fall of fifteen hundred
feet in distance of twenty-five miles, af-
fording opportunity for hundreds of mill
sites. Two woolen factories at Elizabeth
ton are run by it, besides -four mills and
saw mills A very little dam is necessary ;
few stones and little brush, to turn the
water into race, down which it rushes
with great rapidity, turning the wheel with
its natural force.
Elizabethton is a quiet town of 400 to 500
Inhabitants. Carter County, / am told,
contains about 10000 people. The
people here are intelligent and of high
moral character. There is not saloon or
drir king place in the village, and have
heard no rough or profane language.
The Sryder House is one of the most COM
cuctable and home-Eke hotels l have ever
eaten at. Everything is in perfect order; the
rooms large and airy, the table excellent and
all your wants antic pated in a quiet way by
the cheerful and motherly landlady, Mrs.
Snyder, so that you do not realize that you
gre in hotel, but seem to be in some quiet
family. The house has been we'll filed
during the summer with guests, many of
whom are officials of the new railroad and
the.r families, and are very nice people.
Through the kindness of DIR. Cameron,
visited the furnace of the Knoxville Car
Wheel Company on Stony Creek. The ride
up the valley of the Wautauga is very
beautiful with fine farms on either side. I saw
| as fine corn fields as ever saw anywhere. No
| one can judge correctly OF the agricultural
| condition and resources of East Tennessee
by simply travelling in one direction or con-
| fining his observations to one locality. Car
| ter County certainly compares favorably
| in this respect with the best counties of
| Ohio and Pennsylvania. At the furnace we
| were courteously entertained by Mr.. Quaife
and Mr.. Christian and his hospitable wife.
| The furnace is in the midst of mountains
| that are filled with iron ores OF rich and
| reliable quality. They have another FUR
| nece three miles above, but both together,
| though running day and night cannot meet
| the present demand for iron. AS to the
products of Carter County, it can boast not
only of tall corn, but of fine hogs aud large
peaches, and the biggest men I ever
saw. For instance, Mr.. William Thomas.
| who lives about ha't a mile
from town, has two sops. The oldest
| is C:xteen years of age and weighs
$50 pounds. The youngest is nine
years of age and wejghe5 ZIG pourds.
This is big story, but have the testimony
of reliable men who saw him weighed only
! few day ago, and l saw the boy myself,
the like of which never saw before.
Yesterday made trip to the present
terminos of yhe new railroad with Mr.. Wal
lece Hahn and family, the auditor of the
road 1t is completed about seven miles
above Elzabethton. Having gone as far as
we could on the engine and fat cars we took
it afoot on through the second tunnel into
the george" For mile or two I notice
that the road was ballastered with marble
white, brown and variagated. 1t seemed
like extravaganza, but what else is to be
done when railroads run through noun
tains of marble The second tunnel is cut
through mountain of white flint-a Her
culean task-but what will the energy of
this age not accomplish? The george" is
| he widest country / ever saw. The road
1uns along the side of an almost perpendic-
ular mountain some two hundred feet OF
more above the bed of the river, with noun
taius ON either side. 1t is dangerous and
almost impossible for a man to walk along
| the line surveyed out under the ledge. AS
saw the workmen, with their picks and
blasting drills, almost literally hanging on
the cliff, at the risk of their lives, l thought
how little people realize, as they roll
through our mountain passes on the trains,
with what labor and difficulty these great
thoroughfares have been made /; and if any
| man had said, fifty years ago, that a rail
road would one day be built through this
gorge, he would have been regarded as par
TALLY insane. But it is being built, and in
all human probability will be completed to
the Cranberry Iron Works" by the
LIST of November These railroads that
penetrate into the heart of the noun
| tains will be of great benefit to
the country in developing its inexhausti-
BILE mineral resources. The workmen have
hard time of it, living in their rough cab
ms; but, though rough in their exterior and
, manners, they are civil and good-hearted,
and seem to be susceptible of influence.
Their great enemy is whisky, which they
drink freely after payday, which brings ca
rousing and fighting.
am told that such was the state of things
at the furnace seven years ago, but that
through the influence of Mr.. Quaife and Mr..
Christian and Others things are entirely
changed, and the workmen and their fami-
lies are now temperate, Industrious and hap
by. 1t shows what power there is in Chris
tianity when brought to bear upon COM