Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1909-04-02
In OLD ESSEX.

EDITOR CITIZEN:-
Your modest correspondent dropped
down in the old county of Essex recently,
stepping off the steamer at Bowlers
wharf for days stay in that region.
Eowlers is rather shabby looking SO far
as fine buildings go, but fine feathers
do not make fine birds, says the old
ssauv, and really when one gets down to
facts, Bowlers is quite something. It
has canning factory that packed and
Shipped some $4,000 cases of canned
goods last season, the stock consisting
of cora. peas, tomatoes, berries, etc,
the average wholesale price being S1.5O
case That looks as if Bowlers was
! alive any way. Mr.. X. G. Neale is erect
! ing fine dwelling for himself, 10 cost
| over IS. 600. and Witzell & Brothers. are
! about to erect a planning mill of large
capacity there. The mill will be quite
an affair. covering some half an acre,
and costing about $23, They have
contracted for all the standing timber
wathin many miles around.
Centre Cross is the adjacant town.
Centre Cross isn't large, but seems
lively, having three stores, q h gh school
costing $500, skating I'm, this
last just being erected by Messrs. An
! derson and Newbill at cost OF 5000.
1 Just at this time Centre Cross has
| surplus of mud, ranking, SO am told,
I with any part of the county in this res
pect, but citizens declare that it is first
class mud, good for brickmalSing or any
other service. When it is dry it grows
fine corn, potatoes. early peas. and in
a word is most useful article, and
personal observation establishes the
fact that it is most clinging and affec-
honate mud.
Centre Cross, and indeed Essex people
gen orally, seem prosperous. Truck
gardening seems to pay and pay well,
AND rs especially the poorer classes that
have made money by raising salable
vegeta bles and fruits. am told that
THESE people pay their debts promptly,
and this establishes their piety, for
there is no better evidence of goodness
than paging ones debts, unless Indeed
it Is the @sIality of not going in debt at
all.
Centre Cross is the ancestral home of
the NewlaiA family, and about here were
born and reared many who bear, very
jproudly, thatname. Some still remand
in the neighborhood and are much res
ipected, while Others migrated, some of
L tuh0n1 tba ra., ,9arc .af tho CITI1rAr Lnou,
well, and still others settled in Virginia
cities. DR.. C. F. Newbiil, who for years
enjoyed large and lucrative practice
IN Norfolk, recently retired from that
position on account of failing health and
came back To Centre Cross, in the vi
cinity of which he owns valuable river
farm. He had planned to rest and re-
cuperate, but his Norfolk popularity
followed, indeed preceded, him to this
place, and he is rapidly becoming the
most useful and most widely employed
physician in the county. But he seems
somewhat disappointed as he had, as
most men whose early days were spent
on farm, longing to smell the fresh
turned sod and see his corn-rows green
/ at his own hands. Somehow the country
reared boy never gets completely weaneo
from his love for farm life.
Il Tappahannock, some ten miles away,
is the county seat, and the home OF
! Jugde Wright. 1t was in days gone by
place famous for prospect of future
prosperity. am told that it was laiC
i off at the same time as Philadelphia, but
II somehow it forgot to expand and lie:
h still and quiet on the banks of the Rap
pahannock, town of some 400 people
Tappahannock has been and still is tn,
X home of many notables, names of which