Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1890-12-12


Justice to the town keeps pace with it. Let
me sum up III moment what | saw i'll
driving over this ''quiet'' town this morn
ing. Remember it has only about five
inhabitants.
A QUIET TOWN.
SAVIOR the first time-the novelty in
Virginia, a silk mill; a shoe factory; All ice
factory: two sumac mills, one Of which is
said to lie the second largest in the world
a wooden mill which makes the finest cloth:
q machine works and foundry; pillow
works and foundry; a tannery, three large
-four mills, the product OF one OF which-the
Bridgewater mill, is known all over the
country: a bark mill; two live newspapers:
two banks; bone mill and two pickle fac
tories. At the whaTves at the lower end
of the town were steamers arriving and de-
parting to and from Baltimore and n orfolk
and sailing vessels Of 300ton capacity. And
the whole scene at night is lighted by both
al electric plant and gas works. You
would hardly expect to find all these indus
tries and this commercial Stir in qu:et
town would you?
MONEY FLOWING TO WASTE.
And yet, with all this, when one looks at
tle advantages Of the place, one cannot
avoid the conclusion that it hos been dis
crelitably SLOW town when put in compari-
son with what it ought to be and what it
Will he within the next five years. [ am
not afraid to commit myself to the partic-
uIaj'i5y Of dates about this place; for there
is nothing I Shall say in this letter of the
future that you will not find much more
t lan realized in the next five years. What
it has already received from the hands of
enterprise has literally been dropped into
its lap without al effort Of its own. The
silk mill came that way, and a letter las
been raeiyed from another silk manufac-
turer who wants to bring a much larger
plant here. When I stood and looked at
the magnificent dam across the Kappa
hammock river on the upper edge OF the city
with its four thousand horse power OF
water, only enough of which is uti-
lized by a canal to ran some OF the indus
tries which [ have named, [ could not
help feeling a SORT OF piGue that SC many
dollars and cents were flowing over the
immense dam. For the water power is
nothing more nor less than dollars and
aid cents, and Fredericksburg has stood
by for years and seen it wasted. THIS
blindness puzzled me all day, until to-
night l think [ got the full explanation OF
it.
HOW IT CAME TO PASS.
Sitting at the hotel, I got into CONVEX
satioa vita the manager Of one Of the gold
mines around here. One naturally thinks
that if anything would lie scrambled for 10y
people in this world it IS gold. There are
foaH god mines within eighteen miles OF
fredericksburg: every one paying-one OF
them, the mine Of the gentleman | was
81 eahing to, paying $50 a ton on low grade
ore and $500 a ton on high grade. ! asked
Who owned the first mine Of the four we
were talking about? A party in Dakota
The second? A party in Boston. This
third? A party in Philadelphia. The
fourth? Parties in Washington and Phil
adcphia And there the whole thing was
made plain The people here had ret
walked up to the advantages surrounding
them, and just permitted somebody else to
come in, do the work and gather in the
profit. And Fredericksburg has not been
q lo1n il, +iic ToPoso,. nitioc than eba q ri
her equal in age in Virginia have done the
same thing. The newspapers Of tits burg
have been crying aloud and calling out tC
the world the advantages it possessed, bat
the toWnspeople Of past days have quietly
thought the cry was intended for the world
and not for them.
But those past days are past at last, and
in all my experience with Virginia devel.
ment l have seen nowhere a newer CT bet,
ter spirit. The Fredericksburg Develop
ment Company is Of course the nucleus OF
this new spirit, and | find that most excel
lent symptom i'll new enterprises, the PEG
pie of the town itself are backingit There
are as few hold-backs, expect, in this old
town, as can be found in any town in the
State. There seems to be a general feeling
about the past that This sort OF thing has
gone Oh about long enough y and from that
conviction has come determination te
stand i'll with the other sort of thing that
is to make fredericksburg grow.
] stopped i'll at the Development Compa
nvs nffiaa Hi n, o,.,t,7cr a,I road ;+, ,,ro
pectus. II is one Of the most liba-al that
has been issued by any company and shows
Willingness to give the stockholders the
first chance. The par value of it's stock is
$lGo, and with every share q lot is given
and for those lots which viii lie soil the
shares are taken in payment at $50 pei
share. There axe many other liberal fea
lures regarding the allotment Of business
and residence lots which are entirely favor
able to the Stockholders.
TIE IRON, GRANITE. AND TIMBER RE-
SOURCES.
The capital stock Of the company is
81, 100000. 1t is Interesting to note OF
what this capital stock is based. 1t has
six thousand acres Of iron and timber land
This iron ore by analysis at the Smitnson
Ian Institute at Washington yields 50 pei
cent of metallic iron. But its yield ant
history were well known before that analy
SIS. It is ineXhaustible and has, from The
seven mines opened on it, been shipped fo
years. while during the war a large supply
of the iron use4 by the Confederacy can'
from there. 1t is brown halnatite wit:
low phosphorus. A railroad runs through
the property for four miles.
Tae timber tract is oak, ash, poplar ani
other varieties, and owing to an improve
melf made long ago, but now abandoned, is