The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1890-03-27


OF whom are identified with our nara
tive. The metal made by it was similar
in quality to that of the Catoctin, Isa-
bella. and Caroline.
But as the hero of this communication,
its leading character, Jacob Finney, a
native OF New York, is presently closely
connected with Joseph Richardson, the
most prominent member of the above
company, who resided near the mouth
Of the Fort, it is necessary to introduce
him here
Among the emigrants from Catoctin,
we named the Shuts. There were two
brothers, Jonathan and John, moulders,
as we believe. John was father of Will
liam. On reaching Virginia, when the
Isabella got underway, they became mas
ter Golfers. The older Hoffman was a
manager OF the Isabella, twenty years.
while three of his sons were prominent
in connection with the several
furnaces, as also in the Knoxville trade,
then in the zenith of its fame.
DIR. Thomas Blackboard, then the most
prolnlnentir iron man by far in Virginia,
was intimately associated in business
as endorser, particularly, with his bro
therein law. j. Beale Steinberger, then
the largest cattle dealer in the world.
1t is well remembered that for several
years he endeavored to control the beef
markets OF Baltimore, Philadelphia and
New York. Our cOuntyman, James
Bell. Esq, was then at the height of
his fame in the same line of business,
and the most extensive dealer in Vir-
ginia, marketing his cattle in Baltimore
and Richmond. His son, Col. David s..
Bell, spent the greater part of three
winters, as a young man in Baltimore,
attending to their sales; whilst Jacob
Shook, a native of Hardy county, was
brought to the front in Richmond as
his salesman; and at his death, near
Bacon Quarter Branch, had a large and
highly respectable family, but controlled
the sales of cattle in that city. Ills wor-
thy OF mention, too, as a bit of history,
that Mr.. Bell took Braxton Davis by the
hand, a bare-footed boy of 10, of Abe
marie or Louisa, and made q man of him.
We have sometimes thought of sug-
Charleston, w. Va, SO long identified
with j. b. Steinberger, as clerk, &C.,
that he should write up what would be
a most interesting ten years of his most
successful operations in Virginia as a
great cattle dealer He is the only man
living capable of doing it.
But the day of adversely came. ]. B.
Steinberger and his brother-in-law, DR..
Blackford, went down together. A sale
that filled up all of three days was
consumed in selling the personality and
real estate of j. B. Steinberger The
writer can not recall living witness,
unless Reece Allen, of Shenandoah, yet
lives, who attended it. We met for the
first and only time in our life, Hugh
Caperton, father of Allen T. sc. He
invited us to spend the first night under
the roof of his widowed daughter, Mrs.
VIM. .Steinberger, who after some years,
married the Swede, a Lutheran preacher,
Rev. Rude, who gave the name to the
hill near his house, famous during the
war, and died lately in Texas, if we are
correctly informed. But the important
event of that sale was its close, when
John g. Meem, of Lynchburg, bought
the farm. Like Sam Miller, there were
those at the same who remembered him
as a bare-footed boy at New Market.
where he was born. Found his way
presently to Lynchburg, where, some
one seeing what was in him. took him
by the hand. Favored of fortune, he
presently married the daugter of An
drew Russell, the leading merchant of
Abingdon. We do not vouch for it's
strict accuracy, but it was said he at
tended the sale to buy a lot of mules,
when rejecting on the fact that years
before he had left the immediate vicin-
ity g. friendless boy, it was something
thelf To buy the finest farm in the Val
ley. From that sale the writer brought
blood Devon COW, as in few years later
from the herds of Col. Josiah Ware, of
Clarke, the first Short Horn bull and
COtSWOld She9D-fulI blO0dad
Presently the sale of DR.. Blackford's
estate took place, but three days could
not complete it. He removed to Lynch
burg, carrying his aged father with him.
having buried the mother in what had
become Page, but Shenandoah in 1911,
at the fathers settlement. The furnace
went down, except so far as John Nc
Collister and Danl James carried on
cupola some time inside of it. James
was a number of years at the Miller Iron
Works (Forrer) and died in your town
some years since.
1t may have been some time before
the Isabella expired that Samuel Glib
bons, raised on the Shenandoah river in
Rockingham, a brother of the late Abel
p, of this county, united with Daniel
and Henry Forrer, raised on the Hawks
Bill, above Luray, in erecting the first
furnace. They called it the Shenan-
doah, near to the present, and the prede-
cessor of the Mines in the edge of Page.
Several of the Isabella operatives found
there, among them William
Snuff, who at lG had become molder at
that furnace, After q few years Sam1
Gibbons retired, when presently Daniel
Forrer removed to Messy Creek and
took off of the hand of his brother-in-
law, Henry Kineagy, of Lancaster, Pa,
the "old Miller Iron Works." where
some years before the furnace burned
down, and was never rebuilt. Jedekiah
Hotchklss, young man born near
Windsor, in Boone county, N. Y, had
few months before, taught in Mr.. For
rer's family, and came with him to
Messy creek. In a short time he shell
there, and removed presently under the
roof of the boarding house connected
with Messy Creek Academy He de-
serves the credit of suggesting, project
ing and of seeing built, that which in
size, character, number Of pupils, &c.,
would rank with the colleges of the West
and South.
In a few years Dan'l Forrer bought
the property on the C. q O. road, not
far from Crawford Springs, and erected
the furnace called Elizabeth, after his
wife, now Ferrol.
In 1910, about the time William Snuff
had been working at the Shenandoah
and Elizabeth furnaces, the last in Fort
Valley, as we have said Jacob Finney
for the first time is found in Virginia.
He brought the pattern of the ''Hath-
away" cooking stove with him, the first
as such, ever brought to the State. He
controlled its patent here and may be in
other Southern States. George Grim, of
Winchester, was at that date, the most
known foundry man in the
Shenandoah Valley, and extensively
patronized by all this upper Valley
FipneY had the first stoves made in the
State, manufactured at Grim's foundry.
and later, some at the Elizabeth refer
red to, because of the exceptionally fine,
soft metal adapted to it,
1t was at Grim's foundry he first met
young Snuff, then about 90, and perhaps
previously impressed with his skill as
moulder, engaged to met him at Staun-
ton on the 18th June, 1914. Finney had
spied out this section, and so favorably
he determined to begin his
venture at the Valley Mills.
We do not know at what date the late
Rev. VIM. Calhoun became the owner of
the property in question, but in 1881 he
conveyed to his sons, VIM B. and James
W., the tract of land embracing the
bend, or horseshoe, in Middle River, on
the Parkersburg pike. 1t (the decd
speaks Of it as having mill site. They
must have built q small mill and saw
mill, but when they sold it to P. O.
Palmer we do not know. At the date at
which Jacob Finney took charge of the