The globe-independent. (Hagerstown, Md.) 1943-19??, 1951-07-26

There are old, historic places all
over Washington County, but not
all of them have been written up.
Here's one that hasn't:
Located several miles from Smiths
burg, in the Greensburg community,
is the Welty-Cable farm, a picture
sque country places, with broad
fertile fields of over 200 acres.
The farm was owned, back around
100 years ago by John Welty and
subsequently by John w. Cable, who
served as a member of the Board of
County Commissioners of Washing
ton County. Land records at the
Court House show that in 1901 deed
was given to Mr.. Welty for what no
doubt was, at least, part of this tract
of land. The property was later
sold to Elmer Bechtell, Hagerstown
agent of the Western Maryland
Railroad Company, who last year
sold it to Richard A. Dick" Henson,
test pilot for Fairchild Aircraft Di-
vision.
Tradition has it that, at very
early date, this farm, with quite a
lot of land in the surrounding
neighborhood, was owned by a
Frenchman. He was quite wealthy
and a man widely known. When
he died there was an unusually large
funeral. AS was the custom in
early days, everybody was invited
back to the house when the funeral
was over. In this case there was
quite a large feast. This custom of
early days is not hard to understand.
People came by horse and buggy
from a distance and had long way
to go before they could arrive home.
Many others walked.
On the farm was large distillery,
operated by Mr.. Welty and subse-
quently by Mr.. Cable. 1t was built
a hundred or more years ago. When
Mr.. Cable decided to close it down,
sometime prior to 1914, the distil-
lery had on hand approximately
600 barrels of liquor. A gallon of
good liquor in those days could be
bought for about So. The liquor
made at this distillery was branded
Mountain Dew" The buildings con-
nected with the distillery are still
standing.
Storekeepers and gaugers, en-
ployed by the government, regularly
went to this distillery. A story is
told of an experience of one of them.
Me lived at the Bryan farm, at Bride
port, and drove to the distillery with
a horse and sulky. One day, while
returning home, and attempting to
cross a small stream at Garver's Mill,
in the vicinity, the horse refused to
go over Well, he was anxious to
get home so he restored to a little
strategy. Taking a handkerchief
he tied it over the horses eyes so
he could not see the stream of water
before him. So over they went all
OK.
He had another experience along
with the performances of these
same duties, which had a rather
ludicrous side, even if attended with
more or less peril. One day he was
driving with this same horse and
sulky in the vicinity of Rose Hill
Cemetery, on South Potomac Street.
1t was when trolley cars were new.
AS a trolley car came along his
horse seemed to decide that the troll
ley car was not going to beat him.
So he lit out at full speed up South
Potomac Street, through the Square
and up North Potomac Street, de-
frying all speed and traffic rules. At
the corner where the ''Y'' is now To-
gcated, he managed to guide the
horse enough, to one side and up
against a telephone pole. Here the
race ended, resulting only in brok-
en- spoke in the sulky.