Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1910-04-22
some IMPRESSIONS
old NORTH STATE
Marion n. G.. Anr. /

1hatAoh ~ ~ ~ pr. IL, 1911.
Coming from Virginia over the
great c. &. and y. road, which Is a
10th century wonder in point of
skilful engineering. Marion, North
Carolina. is the first town OF promi-
nence reached in the old "tar heel"
state. Here the Carolina, Clinch-
field road touches and crosses the
Southern. Here travellers from all
over the south turn northward for
Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, and
later on when the c. G.. and o.
reaches the Great Lakes 1t will be a
wonderful distributor throughout the
east and northwest
The road crosses the Southern a
mile and half east OF Marion.
Hacks meet all G. e. and o. trains
for hotels. An electric line perhaps
will relieve the situation before a
great while.
Marion is the county seat OF Nc
Dowell county and is an "old timer
from away back The Court House
is little old fashioned affair, with
a peaked "cupola" of the pattern
"befo de wah." Everything is "old
timey."
The old time negro Is here, rag
City" for keeps. The old brick resi-
denoe and hotel, the one where
am writing has the deep concave
worn in the stone door sill by the
constant press of the foot steps of the
hundreds of thousand of country men
who nave come here to court for gen.
erations long gone. The room in
which | write has the old wide four
panel hand made poplar door, with
coat after coat of paint piled on
through the many years gone by.
The old four foot fire place greets you
where pine and oak wood is sti
burned. One cannot help thinking
as he gazes into its depths OF the
cracking logs and blaze OF the long
ago. How many tale the fiery red
tongues could tell Of those who were
there hundred years ago and who
told their story OF tragedy and love,
and enlivened the evening hours
with song. How many OF these de-
parted spirits have come back to sit
by the old fire place and cracking
pine logs, TO be seen only by Uncle
Nose and Mike and Pomp and Dan
and Aunt Dinah, az we'll, who tell
1.-The believin childen" weird tales,
which like hard shell religion, never
entirely gets out of them. But enough
of this, my hair is already little
creepy. You need not be surprised
Mr.. Editor, if some one remarks,
IN bet he kept the light burning
all night" that's just what | am
doing. No sir, no dark for me I'm one
OF these old IoomE with its wide
open fire place and little old fiat
mantel. Been too well trained.
It's strange, yet true how natural
ly one reared amid the blue grass
hills and mountains of TazeweII.
makes, somehow unconsciously,
notes OF comparison between other
! places and people and things gener-
ally, with those of his native hills.
Just now a little sheriff with squeak
ing voice comes out on the Court
House platform and calls. -" John
T. Norris, John T. Morris. " How
readil y one thinks of one of Tave-
wells big six foot sherifT's who
would call the same in great stem
torious voice; and late yesterday
evening L heard a little pine ridge
COW bawl that wheezy whoo-ee and
l thought of one OF TazeweIl's big
thoroughbreds. Did you ever listen
to one, slowly winding. her home
ward way Ger hill, or lea, turn loose
that "bugle blast, "Men Eel air,
Men Ell Lair. From the high hill
tops it echoed and re-echoed far
down the Witten valley and seemed
to die away softly against a horizon
twenty miles distant, more or less
One sometimes thinks it a sin any
way to live in Tazewell awhile and
then spend the rest of life somewhere
else.
L met high up In cloudland this
week, Mr. and Mrs. J. ID. Alexander
enjoying a visit to Prof. Allen and
others at Asheville. They told me
some of the sad happenings at Taze-
we'll.
The general conference or the
Southern Methodist Church, meets
at Asheville May 4th and will con-
tinue about four weeks. The pastor
at Asheville Central church said last
Sunday morning that some of the
greatest inteIlects OF the world would
be here. Among the number, Japan.