Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1895-10-16

East skirt the valley, which contains a
and comfortable buildings.
For several generations previous to
1891, it belonged to the Kinnear family
of Rockbridge county, an old and
honored name in the community. Mrs.
Margaret K. Ballagh, inherited about
forty years ago from her father, Mr..
Herring Kinnear, who died. Mrs.
Ballagh is the wife of the prominent,
indeed distinguished Missionary of the
Presbyterian Church in Japan, and for
the last thirty years has spent most of
his time in that foreign land. The
late Mr.. John A. Kinnear, of this
county. an uncle of Mrs. Ballagh,
managed the property for his niece,
who, much of the time past, has been
with her husband in Japan. He eff
fected the sale for her, and it is said
the price received was $4,000 in cash.
1t is now owned in fee simple by the
Glasgow Development Company.
This sketch has already far exceeded
the limits intended, but the reader
must pardon me another minute of his
time.
Captain Gerow, the President of the
Development Company, has resided in
Rockbridge county since 1890. He has
won for himself the esteem of all who
know him. He is recognized as a
straightforward, intelligent man. well
equipped for the important special
work he has assumed. If he succeeds,
as we all sincerely trust he may, he will
add another and a bright picture to
the old historic locality, which from
| the Revolutionary era bristles with
great iron production-where the iron
ores have been obtained to operate
mine furnaces and the iron for three
forges-where before the days when
edge tt OILS were turned out at factories,
| boosted of a home establishment of
that order-where originated and was
perfected the grain reaper that carried
the name of Mccormick to every land
in which grain growth waves in the
breeze, or grass fields yield their rich
ness-where the iron pipes were cast
for the Lexington waterwOrks in 1884;
the third of the kind established in
Virginia. A little way over the noun
tain of the ores in Nelson county
where the people are closely associated
| with those of the South River Valley,
nature has placed great curiosity that
vies in grandeur with that which
renders Rockbridge famous the world
over. There plunges from the crest of
an adjoining mountain to that which
skirts our Valley on the East, stream
of water, known as the "Crab Tree
Falls, (which for elevation and all that
attracts the eye and engroses the
mind, is second only of its order, to
the leap of the collection of head
springs in California.
May Captain Gerow not only fully
succeed with his newly developed
labor-saving methods, but may the
prosperity of the country encourage
his company to excel along the lines
of genius and skill and enterprise,
where the fires of a new furnace will
light up the hills and the mountain
sides that are the mute witnesses of
the historic locality where Daugherty;
Moor; the McCronys; the McCluers;
Maybury; the Jordans; Bryan; the Nc
Cormicks; McCown; Bradley; and
others as they wrought in the mines,
produced the iron and turned into
every useful and appropriate and nee
essary implement for the benefit of the
people who abided in the goodly heri-
tage where most of their honored and
useful lives were spent, as we'll as con-
tributing their full share of exports to
swell the value of Industries and the
commerce of the country.
J. G. SHIELDS.