Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1910-10-28

daughter, Miss Eugene, is general
manager of things about the house.
and my nephew by marriage, MIR.
Erwin Obenchain is general manager
of the farm. Here is the very heart
of Roanoke. The land is fine and in
high state of cultivation. Certainly
the sun never shone upon prettier
farms than these, once the ancestral
homes of the Moomaws, Niningers,
Huffs, Richardson, Watts, and others,
now cut up into small farms, and
worth $500 per acre and little to be
had at that. Some day the city of
Roanoke will spread herself over all
that country. This great agricultural
section made Roanoke possible, and
now Roanoke is reciprocating since
she has gotten to be somebody, and
is making the country rich and pros
porous. A fine new road is being
built through this splendid section,
and another projected. These roads
will bring the country and city to-
gether, and promote the greater pros
perity of booth.
The Botetourt County Fair was on
during my vacation week, but l was
too busy" to attend. My time was
entirely taken up with visits, tramps
over the hills and mountains. had
Fairs at home, and couldn't afford to
waste precious time. AS long as life
lasts / shall remember one long
! tramp through the mountains up to
| Henderson's Cliff, with Jim Layman
and two young lady relatives They
call Jim esquire" now, that he has
gotten to be a magistrate, but l call
him Jim. He is the same after
thirty years of hard work. His hair
! is sprinkled with grey, but he is as
young as he ever was, is this typical,
sturdy, pious mountaineer. His wife
was Miss Eliza Leonard. We called
her "Little Lizy'' to distinguish her
from an older relative of the same
name. She, too, is still young, not
withstanding she is many times a
grandmother. Jim and his wife rear
ed a half dozen or more pretty daugh-
tres. Hunt Riley, his brother -in-law,
reared large number of fine boys.
Hunts boys married Jim's girls, and
they all live on the old plantations in
sight of each other. They form
happy, prosperous community. Jim is
superintendent of the Baptist Sunday
school-the only one i'm the "Cove, a"
and has large practice" as magis-
trate outside his community. Hunt
Riley buried his wife since my visit
a year ago. ! went to her grave
where a beautiful monument has been
erected, and paid my tribute to the
memory of one of the most faithful
and devoted wives and mothers l
ever knew.
On the occasion referred to, with
Jim as "chaperone" and guide, we
climbed old Tinker mountain to it's
rocky summit, and l could see away
off over Catawaba to Fincastle, and
near the spot where / was born and
my mother too, and the old mill
where / worked as a boy until a
spell of typhoid fever cut short my
career as a miller. Far off to the
north and east lay beautiful farms,
the little town of Fincastle where
Mr.. Glenn lives, and Amsterdam,
where the Tazewell Belews came
from, and nearby Alfred Preston s
farm and the home of the Houstons,
where Mrs. S. o. Hall's people live
now, and farther down, Troutville,
where, as boy, / taught a free
school, the first school ever taught
there, now large town with several
churches and a splendid High school.
The Shenandoah road has been built
since, and now engine whistles anC
automobiles whiz where, years ago,
| drove two-horse wagon, and some.
times an OK cart. The country ha.
changed. The Brubakers, Moomaws
Niningers, Lemons, Keslers, Trouts
the old folks, are all gone, anC
their descendants, too, have moved t,
y the cities. This trip to Henderson
= Cliff will be memorable years tt
L come. We turned our faces home
II ward as the old mountain began t,
e throw its dark shadow down over the
valley, along the same old foot path
> / tramped as a boy, as familiar a
though it were yesterday. Calm
eternal, rugged old mountain Tim
y changes. The valleys are cut up b,
:. new roads, and new houses have dis
~ placed the old, but your strong fac
IL and rock k-ribbed sides have defied tn
IL onslaught of pick and shovel, an
'e the destructive hand of modern pre-
gress. The same shade under whic
IN the boys and girls rested a genera
]. tion ago still delight their successors
m AS / walked along this narrow mour
ne tain path | was boy again. i coul
tn see the young boys and girls of lon
er ago disappearing around the ben
e. and hear again their bright laughtt