Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1883-07-10
For the SPECTATOR.
The Largest PlOw.F acfOry In the
World.


Mr.. EDITOR Few of your readers remem-
Der one B. F. Avery. He is native of Wyom-
ing, Wyoming county, Southwestern New
York. II must be fifty years or more since he
| and Schuyler Bradley, of Syracuse New York
as young men, were found one morning at the
village of GAINESVILLE, Mecklenburg county
Va, where they opened shop for the manu-
facture of plows. They did not remain long,
| but presently found a situation near Midway,
and we are not sure whether inside of Augusta
or Rock bridge county. Your townsmen, Hugh
F. Lyle, now occupies the same shop, as we
believe. Mr.. Avery did not remain long, sold
his interest to Mr.. Bradley, and at least forty
years ago made Louisville, KY. his home. We
regret that we did not meet the venerable man.
| ufacturer and his wife, who, few days before
| we dined with his family, had returned to the
"old home'' to recuperate frame that the
| storms of eighty-two winters have beat upon.
Two of four sons showed us through his ex-
| tensive works, where sixteen hundred piows
have been turned out in one day. Think of it.
and take in the fact, II you can. Sometimes
over 400 hands are worked. Mr.. Avery's bene-
| factions and charities in very truth, are not
known by the left, when wrought by the right,
hand.
MASON, HoGE q co.
These gentlemen's names are as familiar as
household words in Kentucky. They work 700
or 800 of the 200 convicts on the big contract
they are pushing on the Kentucky Central
Railroad. In an interesting talk with Capt.
Todd, now their head-man or Superintendent
of the Penitentiary, and many years himself
its lessee or manager, he said, In speaking of
the hemp pr oduct Of Kentucky, that it now is
little more than the tenth of what it once was.
To mba in no
made 100 acres, now seldom made ten
A. j. ALEXANDER.
This gentleman, the grandson of William
Alexander, who, about century ago, owned
the Laporte, Paulee, and other lands in the
vicinity of Deerfeld, was the lineal heir of the
Lord Sterling baronetcy in Scotland, which his
brother Robert, a bachelor, relinquished in the
year 1917, the year of the Irish famine. We
lately spent day with him on his magnifi-
cent "Woburn" farm of g. 900 acres, and saw his
famous blooded-horses, trotters, and thorough
breds. He, as it will be remembered, bred
maud s." We saw her half-brother mot hav-
ing the catalogue before US, forget the name) a
two-year-old. blood hay. dark legs. name,
and tail, for which $4,000 has been refused. He
is. beyond question, the prettiest specimen of
a horse our eyes had ever rested on.
Mr.. Alexander married first Lucy, the young
est daughter OF our most esteemed friend, a
native OF your town and II years of age, when
he set foot in the streets of Lexington, KY,
with his venerable mother, daughter of Rev.
John Brown, of New Providence church, who
married daughter of John Preston. one of the
founders of Stanton, and whose remains sleep
in Thinking Spring church-yard. James
Brown, one of our first Ministers to France,
was brother of Mrs. DIR. Humphries, the
mother of our friend, the late David C. Hum
phries, who, with his wife aud sister, Mrs.
Robert s. Todd. the step-mother of Abram
Lincoln, we accompanied to New Orleans in
March, 1916, on steamer Peytona-Capt. John
Shalcross-who. as Captain for twenty or more
years, never lost passenger. Mr.. Alexander
lost his first wife and their three children and
married Miss Fullerton, of Chillicothe, O.. her
first cousin.
THE LUNATIC ASYLUM AT LEXINGTON, KY.
1t was pleasure, vouchsafed to US to dine, a
few days ago, with Maj. Morgan. brother of
the distinguished cavalry General and Superin-
tendent under DR.. Bullock. Miss Thornton.
late OF Bowling Green, Va, is Matron. We
have, In our migrating. had the opportunity of
observing the management of several institu-
lions of this kind in the United States, and do
not hesitate to say that the best of them make
a faint approximation to this, the model lnsti-
tuition of all. There Is no offensive repulsive
coercion about 1t. Two hundred and fifty acres
of the fine lands adjoining present the appear
ance of well-tilled garden, and supplies the
wants of the Institution. Maj. Morgan is
brother-in-law of Gen. Basil Duke, of Louis
isville, and the late GEN. A. P. Hill of the Con-
federate army. OCCASIONAL.