Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1920-10-31
THE RAMBLER WRITES OF OLD WATERWAY,
WHERE HULLS OF SHIPS LIE MOLDERING
When Neabsco Creek Was a
Commerce-way and the
Colony of Virginia Was
Young - Boats Loaded
With Iron Concerning
Locust Trees, and a Mem
DRY of the Lanesville Road.

TINE train sped along the two
and-a-half-mle stretch of
level and nearly straight track
from Marumsco creek to that
wider and larger creek called Ne
absco. Before coming to the north
shore of Neabsco you pass for perhaps
half a mile across what was a marsh
or wet soft meadow that bordered the
creek. The Richmond, Fredericks-
burg and Potomac railroad, when it
came to build this section of it's line
about 1870. avoided this tract of land
by making a detour to the west and
bringing Neabsco creek at a point up
stream from the present crossing. A
few years ago in reaiigning and re-
building the road this bend was elm
mated, the engineer running his line
straight over the marshland. That
land had once been part of the creek.
Gangs of men. fleets of steam snow
els-if they come in f1eets-companie
cars began the building of a "hlp'
over this low land.
1t was a task that engineers and
railroad builders had not foreseen.
Perhaps oracleS. augurS. Soothsayers
and. prophets could not have foreseen
IL.
it with thousands of tons of rock and
gravel and it's appetite seemed to
grow by what it fed on. Its NAV
seemed to have no bottom. ana. as
smoking. steaming locomotives;
grinding. rattling dump-car trains
down rock and gravel to make the
roadway along which trains now pass
every hour day and night. new iano
began to rise on both side OF the
building roadway and at no great ois-
lance from 1t.
The ancient bed of the creek was
| bullying in mounds and ridges unoer !,
| the pressure of the stone ana grave
dumped to make the NIL. IN Ina Ina
tom Of the creek, were old boats that
had sunk in Neabsco when 1t was was
commerce-way in the long. and
long ago. That IL a vague ana un,
satisfactory way to ins S,, ;e ,s ~t the
these craft vent mt d ao~n' V VIr was
probably young colony OF Great ,,s
| Britain, and Indians more numerous lou
| than whites In the Neabsco ana ma
rumsco .neiehborhood when these
ships sank The samelee on mas Of the
huiis Of the old boats forced up with
the bottom of tho creek was loadeo
with a cargo of iron-not iron ore
but iron-so the Rambler heard an
old man say. There is iron ore IN
the hills back from the Potomac river
and through which Neabsco flows and
there is a tradition that an iron 1uf-
mace was somewhere there.
But. Of course, it Is only tradio
ton. Persons whose ancestors were
living there two generations DeIore
the american revolution do not Know y
where the furnace was. They had II
from their forebears that iron was
made In that part of Prince william
county. but even the forebeaEs knew
not whore. So far as the Rampier
has been found. The tradition OF the
the ruin or the site OF the furnace
| has hen found The tradition OF tne
lost furnace was current long pe1ore
The timbers of that ancient craft ano
her iron cargo were forced up from
the depths Of the mud that once had
heen the bottom of Neabsco. Mind
Won. the tradition was not invented 70
ssv Ynii the sunken boat and its iron
SreiSht. The boat and cargo con
firmed the tradition. Everywnefe mas
the rambler been told that this ira,
dition has been handed down" and
! this prompts him to reflect why IN