The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-09-05
REV. CLAY |. HUDSON
COMING TO ATHENS
Nashville Minister Accepts
Call to First Baptist
Church

Athens, September 4.-(Special.)
The Rev. Clay l. Hudson of Nashville
has been rendered a call to the pas
and has signified his acceptance and
will begin his pastorate October 1 when
the temporary pastor, the Rev. J. o.
Williams, will return to his studies at
Louisville.
The schools are all running here now
with the exception of Athens college,
which opens in two weeks. There are
now about 500 or 800 children in the
various schools
The twentythird annual session of
the Limestone County Sunday School
association will hold it's meeting at the
Presbyterian church in Athens on Sep
tember 16 and II. A fine programme
has been arranged and a number Of
leading sunday school workers are ex-
pected
The first bale of the 1918 crop in this
county was marketed by DR.. Isom
Legg. 1t was sold here at 121h cents
per pound. The outlook for the cotton
crop in this county has been seriously
injured within the past two weeks
~~-~-~~-~>~ ooc.o,~.
man when l advocate greatly enlarged
though L also speak as a citizen who
mas in view. perhaps family or vaguely,
the stupendous industrial and commercial
growth of the United States within the
next 30 years"
The Dismal Swamp Canal
Just 30 years ago private capital COM
pieted some improvements of the little
ditch which was dug through the Dismal
swamp of eastern Virginia originally for
the purpose of sdraining those swamp
lands While the first work was in prog
iess the engineer reported that with a
comparatively small expenditure the
drainage ditch could be so enlarged and
deepened and the work so extended as to
furnish navigable water for small craft
plying between Hampton Roads and
Newport News, then Just beginning its
prosperous career, and Beaufort, N. c.,
as well as other ports upon the North
Carolina sound.
That work was undertaken with private
capital. Citizens of Norfolk were inter-
ested, both as citizens and investors, in
this project. 1t was possible as long ago
as 1884 to sail through the Dismal swamp
canal, and with small steam vessels the
smaller kind of tugs, the trip could easily
be made Capital was encouraged to in
vest IN the exploitation of the magnifi-
cent cypress trees of the swamp and the
drainage proposition promised to reclaim
many thousand acres of wonderfully rich
soil.
The name of this canal was changed so
that no longer was it called the Dismal
swamp canal, out under the Albemarle
and Chesapeake canal, and If Congress
approves the recommendation of the board
OF army engineers of which Brigadier
General Bixby, chief of the engineers of
the army, is the head, the Albemarle and
chesapeake canal will be so improved
as to make ii perfectly systematic and
competent link in the intercoastal canal
system which Congress at this session, or
the next, will be asked to authorize, and
also asked to appropriate as much as
s5Oo,00O for beginning the work.
Major Bond was convinced that as soon
as the government perfected a great in
tercoastal system stretching from Boston
to Beaufort, N. c., and ultimately to the
Savannah river, there will be insistent
demand of the people in other parts of
the country for government aid in can
alizing work which. in Major Bonds opin-
ion, is vital If the commerce and indus
try of the United States are to be perfect
ly developed. He looked for as good q
canal across Illinois as the Erie canal is
to be when improved. and he declared that
the people of the upper Mississippi valley
were wholly justified in appealing to the
government for aid in canalizing, so to
speak, the upper reaches of the Missis-
sippi river so that a permanent canal of
at least II feet depth can be obtained
from st. Paul south.
With the construction of the Panama
canal ii seemed TO Major Bond inevitable
that the commerce of the Mississippi river
and it's tributaries would be greatly in
creased. If it were competent for the
government to build. at an expense Of
say. $3O0000,000, an artificial waterway
across the isthmus of Panama he reas-
oned that it was perfectly competent in
both the legal and the economical sense
for the government to aid the states along
the Mississippi valley from New Orleans
to st. Paul in engineering work which
would be practically that of canaizing the
river along it's whole length.