Seeing the sunny South

Foreword

WE have not yet waked up to the realization of the tremendous asset the South is to the United States. In a vague sort of way, of course, the average man realizes that the territory below the Mason and Dixon Line is wonderful. But how wonderful?

The South is wonderful in area. One-third of the territory of the country is included in the South, and the states in this area have three-fifths of the coast line of the United States.

The South is wonderful in resources. It has been calculated that one-fourth of the country's coal, one-third of the iron ore and seven-tenths of the forested area are there. Over half the timber production of the country and all but the least bit of the cotton grown are credited to it. In water power it is rich ; its phosphate rocks furnish practically the country's sole supply of a product all-important to the agriculturist ; its petroleum and natural-gas wells are the wonder of the world ; in the production of aluminum and graphite, fuller's earth and sulphur, as well as a number of other essentials, it stands almost alone. Peanuts and cane sugar, sweet potatoes and rice, spring vegetables and sorghum, peaches and citrus fruits are among its claims to the attention of those who need to fill the market basket. One of the country's leading chemists said, in an address delivered in 1919: **No one with a capacity

FOREWORD

to understand their true significance can review the colossal figures which set forth the natural resources of the South without first being stunned and overwhelmed, and soon thereafter filled with the vision of their stupendous possibilities."

The South is wonderful in climate. Both in summer and in winter may one find sections of it delightful, and in winter even California must take off its hat to Florida and the Gulf Coast. One who discovered by thorough-going experience the climatic advantages of Florida said, ' ' The only difficulty with Florida is that there is only one of it, and in the future years it will be so overcrowded that there will not be room enough for the people who will want to flock there." But let these people take comfort — Georgia and Alabama, Louisiana and Texas, as well as states still farther north, have weather revelations that will surprise the visitor.

Natural resources and climate should satisfy any reasonable country. But the South does not need to rest content with these possessions. For that favored region is rich also in scenery that is amazingly varied and attractive — mountains that reach the clouds; rivers that leap and foam as well as rivers that pursue their way in placid unconcern ; lakes and springs, bays and islands, forests and valleys. It is almost easier to give a catalogue of what is not to be found there than of what may be seen by anyone ^^dth open eyes.

And what abundant ways there are to see the wonders of this enchanted land! Ever^'Avhere there are railroads — the well-known through lines, as well as short lines that pierce the heart of the mountains, glide along by the rivers, or cross the uplands. There is 4

FOREWORD

abundant variety for those who would travel by rail, and fortunate is the traveler who can wander first along one line, and then can choose another and another and yet another. He may take so many of them that he will be apt to think he has really seen the Sunny South by rail. He'll find his error when he makes a study of the roads he hasn't been able to take.

But somehow the visions afforded by the railroad do not always satisfy ; the traveler w^ants to go far from the right of way where, as one nature-lover has pointed out, the black clouds of smoke from the freight engines have destroyed many fine areas of woodland, noxious gases have interfered with the beauty of the shrubbery, and even the washing down of the acids from the smokeladen air to the roots of the plants has had its effect on the foliage near the rails.

For all this the railroad is dependable, and the traveler through the South clings to it. But it is so set in its ways. It says so positively : ' ' This is the way you shall go. No, you cannot stop and pick flowers; you must not pause a moment to look at the other side of that attractive house ; you must not presume to do anything that the time-table does not permit."

What a contrast the automobile is! It is so easygoing. You can see up, down, and around, and not simply through a narrow window. If the mood takes you, you can go up a side road. You can loiter or you can hurry on. You can see a house, a tree, an orchard, a garden or anything you want. The car is so human.

Yes, it is good to take the automobile. But it is fine to have the railroad at hand — especially in places where no one has yet seen fit to make a dependable road, or where such a road cannot well be made, or

FOREWORD

where it is absolutely necessary to cover more territory in a given time than can be done with the car.

Some tourists try to combine the car and the railroad on the same trip. ''I'll take the car, and when the roads get too bad, I'll leave it in a garage, or ship it ahead, then use the train," somebody says when setting out from home. But the result is usually to keep to the car, no matter what the roads.

The author is indebted to many courteous friends who have helped him carry out his delightful program of Seeing the Sunny South, especially to Rev. William F. Klein, of Reading, Pennsylvania, in whose company the pilgrimage through the Valley of Virginia, over to Luray Caverns, and down to the National Bridge was made.

J. T. F.

Philadelphia, April, 1921

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE APPEALING VALLEY OF VIRGINL^ 17

II. ALONG MARYLAND'S VALLEY OF DREAMS 34

Chapter I The Appealing Valley Of Virginia (from Harper's Ferry To Lexington)

THE pilgriins were on their way to Harper's Ferry, that tremendous gap in the Blue Ridge where the Potomac and the Shenandoah meet in majesty. One of them had been telling of a morass in an Oregon road that made necessary a detour of twenty-two miles. His companions, too polite to voice much of the skepticism they felt, called attention to the splendid vision by which the traveler is confronted on approaching Harper's Ferry from the east — the Potomac, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, the wooded heights above the river.

''It's only a mile to the city that is to be our Gateway to the South ; we '11 be at the dinner table in half an hour," the man at the wheel was saying. Then a turn in the road disclosed across the way a barricade bearing the distressing word :

DETOUR

Efforts to persuade the construction boss to let the machine through were fruitless. ''You'll have to go round the mountain," he said, positively.

"How far is it?" was the careless question of the man at the wheel.

2 17

* ' Oh, a matter of thirty or forty miles ! ' ' came the disconcerting reply.

It was unbelievable. Harper's Ferry was just ahead, around the shoulder of the mountain. Surely there was a shorter way to the city which John BroAvn made famous !

* * All right ! Let 's have a little more of Maryland ! ' ' The cheerful voice of the man at the wheel reminded his companions that there was something better even than dinner, at the close of a long day on the road. *'I was just thinking we ought not to turn our backs so soon on a state that can furnish such inspiring views as that we had on the road from Hagerstown. Remember that ridge five miles before we reached Frederick, with the wide panorama of the fertile valley? And the road from Frederick down here has been so pleasing. I really believe I like the idea of the detour. ' '

And the entire party agreed with him when, after leaving the valley at Treverton, they turned northward. The roads were not all smooth, but the country above the Potomac, toward the Pennsylvania line, was so inviting that a highway that forbade rapid travel was not unwelcome.

''"What state are we in now?" asked the man at the wheel. ''There are so many state lines in the neighborhood that I always feel uncertain."

The others also were uncertain, so a study of the curious map of the region became necessary — a region where West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia come together like the parts of a child's picture puzzle.

* * Glad I don 't have to take them apart ; I could not get them together again," was the remark that greeted the appearance of the map. ' ' Why, if you could travel along a straight line drawn through Harper's Ferry at just the right angle, you would pass from Maryland successively into Virginia, West Virginia, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio — crossing nine state lines in little more than two hundred and fifty miles ! ' '

Some of these odd corners of Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland were, during the Civil War, the scene of marching and counter-marching, of fierce engagements and of hardy daring. Along the route of that evening detour there were not lacking reminders of those days of struggle. The way led through Sharpsburg, scene of the battle of Antietam, fought in September, 1862, between the forces of Lee and Mc- Clellan, where more than one-fourth of the seventy-six thousand men engaged were either killed or injured. At one side of the main road which leads across the battlefield is the cemetery where lie the Confederate dead. The acres over which the contesting armies moved are to-day parts of fertile farms, but here and there have been cut through them cross-roads that lead to spots made memorable by the heroism of thousands.

Then comes Shepherdstown on the Potomac, dominated by the monument to James Rumsey, who, in 1784, in the presence of George Washington, succeeded in steaming up the river in a vessel of his own construction.

**The statue on the height above the river is on what they call James Rumsey 's Walk," was the explanation of a fellow-traveler on the bridge across the Potomac — a bridge where the charge for a motor is forty cents. **And well worth the price!" agreed the man at the wheel to the taker of toll. He was thinking how glad he would have been of a bridge at the right place to save him that detour.

At length the way was clear to Harper's Ferry — but from the northwest instead of from the east. The road through the town is decidedly picturesque, as should be the approach to the waters that move in might among the mountain ridges.

The visitor does not feel that he is really in Harper's Ferry until he stands on the highway bridge across the Potomac, or on the near-by bridge over the Shenandoah just where it discharges its waters into the larger stream; until he passes along the steep streets or up the rocky footpath to Jefferson's Rock, where the Sage of Monticello sat in wonder, looked at the Heights of Loudoun, and wrote his famous description of **the passage of thQ Potomac through the Blue Ridge."

Here, in 1794, Washington secured one hundred and twenty-five acres in the angle formed by the two rivers, as the first land for the National Armory which John Brown, in his honest but misguided frenzy, attacked in 1859. And from here Bro^vn was led on to Charles Town, the county seat, for the closing chapter in his stormy career.

''Be sure to put two capital letters in the name of our city," a business man in this chief town of Jefferson County said to the pilgrims. ''Don't mix us up with Charleston, the capital of West Virginia. Too many people do that. Just last month a carload of goods consigned to us went down to that modern town. "

He was asked if it would not be a good thing to change the name of the town and avoid the difficulty.

''What! Change the name of Charles Town?" he asked, with fine indignation ; ' * the town where historywas made, where there are still standing three of the homes of the "Washington family, including Harewood, the mansion of George Washington, where Dorothy Todd came from Philadelphia, driving in Thomas Jefferson's coach, to be married to James Madison in the presence of Light Horse Harry Lee, among other guests !

''Change the name of our town!" he concluded, scornfully. "Let Charleston do the changing. Our name belongs to us!"

Mordington, built by Charles Washington during the closing years of the eighteenth century — ^known as Happy Retreat in the days of George Washington, who was a guest here more than once — and Claymont, built in 1820 by a grandnephew of the first President, are two of the ancient mansions that are the pride of the town that prefers to submit to inconvenience rather than change its historic name.

Charles Town is well within the wonderful Shenandoah Valley, or the Valley of Virginia, one of the most glorious valleys in the South — the valley that was perhaps one of the most famous battlegrounds of the Civil War. To retain possession of it was of greatest importance to the South. The Army of Virginia depended on the supplies of food which came from its fertile upland farms, and the final passage of its rich acres into Federal hands was one of the last blows of the great conflict for Liberty and Union.

Travelers along the turnpike that threads the valley — to-day, as then, one of the famous roads of the country — are attracted by markers and monuments that tell of brave men who fought and died along the way, and of bitterly contested skirmishes that resulted in frequent changes of ownership.

To "Winchester, not far from Charles Tow^n, belongs the record for such changes. Seventy times during four years the town passed from one side to the otlier ■ — four times in a single day !

For many miles down the valley road a backward glance shows the receding gap where the waters of two rivers plunge through the mountains and where history was made by many actors from pioneer times down to the days of the Civil War.

On either side of the road fertile farms stretch away to a ridge of tree-clad mountains. The two ridges form the real boundaries of the funnel-shaped valley whose mouth is at Harper's Ferry, whose head is near Staunton — one hundred and fifty miles of woodland and pasture and fertile field.

And orchards! For this is the home of the red apple of Virginia. And fortunate is he who seeks the valley in early October when the trees are bending beneath the weight of the ripened fruit, when the farmers are pleading ^vith friends, acquaintances, strangers, everybody, to help in gathering the crop.

There were numerous evidences of the eagerness for pickers. Once the pilgrims passed a village school where the teacher was loading the boys and girls into a carry-all. "With merry laughter and glad anticipation they were off for a morning with the fruit.

Not far from that village school, and about one hundred miles up the valley funnel, is New Market, frequently mentioned in stories of the heroic campaigns of 1861-1864 along the Shenandoah. Leading from

New Market across the ridge to the left, to famous Luray Caverns, is a mountain road that takes advantage of New Market Gap for the crossing to Eastern Virginia. This road was in wartime a favorite means of communication between Richmond and the armies in the valley. To-day it passes through the heart of the Massanutten National Forest, the most accessible of the national forests to Philadelphia, "Washington and Baltimore.

And what wonders this forest area has in store for the visitor, whether he comes for a brief stay of a day or two, or determined to spend several weeks in this enchanted area where the Indians, in giving the name Massanutten, had in mind the "Great Mountain Yonder!"

Some of the early settlers followed the Indians to Massanutten. William Powell, it is said, found silver here and forthwith proceeded to make counterfeit money, the depreciated currency of King George giving him his opportunity. George "Washington, too, hunted and fished and surveyed on the mountain and in the valleys on either side. Like the good strategist he was, he planned to return to the region if the difficulties of 1776 proved too great, and to erect fortifications, so the claim is made, in the Powell's Fort Valley, whose wonderful situation for such a purpose will be apparent to those who examine the suggestive map of the Massanutten Forest sent on application to the Forest Service at Washington, D. C.

"Beware of the road over Massanutten!" was the warning of the proprietor of the lunch-counter in the village. But who would not risk a few difficulties for the sake of the tremendous prospect spread out from the road as it climbs the mountainside? And in the days so soon to come when a turnpike mil take away some of the delights of the journey to Luray, while adding others, it will be worth while to say, **But you should have crossed over Massanutten before the road was straightened, when the cautious traveler looked well to his supply of matches before beginning the fifteen-mile traverse from New Market to Luray." Fifteen miles is a short distance — but it is an easy matter to be overtaken by the night, with a disabled machine, while crossing the mountain.

The first visitors to Luray Caverns found that in past ages not only wolves but bears knew the way to those passages; footprints appear everywhere on the damp clay floor, looking as if they had just been made, though many of them probably are centuries old.

The clay has been removed, so that the visitor finds the floor in most places reasonably dry. Concrete walks and bridges have been built wherever these are needed, that access may be easy to the intricate by-ways that lead to mysterious dungeons, tortuous passages, and splendid halls.

Everywhere incandescent lights are placed, so that the marvels of the cave are revealed in an appealing manner. The first visitors had to be content with sputtering candles, but as early as 1882 the aisles and vaulted halls were illuminated by arc lights whose power proceeded from an engine in Luray over what was then a marvel, a circuit of seven miles, '* supposed to be the largest circuit yet attempted mth a single engine, ' ' according to the exclamatory boast of Horace C. Hovey, who first described the mile and a half of passages that are open to the tourist as well as the additional mile or more to which geologists and other specialists have access.

These three miles of subterranean glory are covered by about one hundred acres of rocky earth. So it is in contracted space that the ways trodden by the bears and wolves of past ages turn and loop one over another. The lowest passage is two hundred and sixty feet below that nearest the surface of the upland plateau.

At once on descending the easy concrete steps that lead to Entrance Avenue the visitor is in the midst of the glittering formations that crowd on all sides in prodigal profusion and fantastic shape — stalactites, whose slow growth downward from the ceiling has been accomplished by the agency of the water-bearing carbonate of lime, ''the ever-plying shuttle that weaves the fairy fabric," leaving behind a portion of the mineral before it drops from the end of the stalactite to the floor; and stalagmites, formed from the floor upward by the drops from the stalactites. When the drops are slow enough in their movement they leave all the mineral they carry on the stalactites, but sometimes they form more rapidly and the mineral growth from the floor is the result.

Frequently stalactites and stalagmites have grown together and formed columns from floor to ceiling. Sometimes they are slowly approaching each other. In one instance, at least, the two are separated by the thickness of a knife-blade ; yet many months will pass before the gap is filled. The present rate of growth is a cubic inch in about one hundred and twenty years, though in other caverns it is more rapid.

The eerie beauty of the scramble through these colunms and pinnacles is increased by the changes in color, which varies from brown or yellow to startling red and glistening, alabaster white. Here is a sparkling waterfall, its successive cascades natural as life — but the entire formation is mineral. Over yonder is a dull series of pendants that look for all the world like fish, still dripping from the stream, hanging in a row as in a market. From the ceiling depend draperies delicate as a woman's evening wrap, which need only the electric light to show their translucent texture. In more than one instance the light reveals combinations of colors that make one think he sees a blanket hanging out to dry, or a side of bacon where fat and lean alternate in most appetizing fashion.

In the hall known as The Cathedral there is a group of formations called The Organ that respond to the skilled touch of fingers or soft mallet like the pipes of an organ. Tunes can be played on these as on tubular metal, the pleasure given being increased by the long time required for the dying away of the sound; sometimes the \dbrations continue more than a minute after a stalactite has been struck.

As the pilgrims to Luray emerged from the caverns — where the temperature is about fifty-four degrees the year round — they were content to leave to scientists the discussion as to the age of what they had seen. For them it was enough to marvel at the handiwork of Him who laid the foundations of the earth.

Back again over the mountain to New Market. The road seemed better than before, and the prospect from Massanutten was more perfect on the return trip. Down the valley, with the Shenandoah National Forest on the ridge to the right, where a road on the sum-

NATT RAL BRID(;E, VIRGINIA mit affords splendid opportunity to view the country. On to Harrisonburg, whose name recalls men of 1861- 1865, and whose pleasant streets and stately buildings speak of bustle and prosperity. On to Staunton, the city famed for its educational institutions as well as its sturdy leadership in business, the city which proudly points to the manse where Woodrow Wilson was bom when his father was a pastor in the town, a house occupied by a successor in the church.

At Staunton the pilgrims had been told the perfect Shenandoah Valley road ended. So they sought advice as to roads toward Lexington.

"There are two ways," was the statement of a clerk at the postoffice. ''One of them you will find so bad you will wish you had taken the other. You will have dust to your hubs. For a mile there are stones the size of your fist. I went that way Saturday, and I came back the other. My advice to you is to take neither road."

But it was not good advice. There was no dust: perhaps it had rained. And there were no rocks. To be sure, the going was slow at times. But who wishes to move rapidly when there is such a succession of vistas of hill and vale, on to the distant ridges to the west?

Then the road winds through the valley and over the hills to Lexington, one of the shrines of the Southland, for when they think of Lexington Southerners are apt to think also of the man whom fellow-students at West Point affectionately called ''Old Jack," whose soldiers, many years later, gave him the nickname " Stonewall."

General Jackson was an earnest Christian man, a loyal citizen of the Union until he felt that he should listen first to the call of his own state, Virginia. Then he became a leader of Confederate forces, and so continued until the day when he was shot down by his own men, who mistook him and his staff for Federal cavalry. A monument rises to his memory not far from the business center of Lexington, and there loyal citizens from all parts of a reunited countiy meet in appreciation of the commander's stalwart character.

It is remarkable that another of the South 's greatest commanders was buried in Lexington — Robert E. Lee, who called Stonewall Jackson his right arm. After the close of the Civil War, when he urged his men to do their loyal best as citizens of their country, he became president of Washington College at Lexington, now Washington and Lee University. For five years he trained students for Christian service in a land where there would be no more North and South, but where all would dwell together in harmony. He was buried in the college chapel. Above his tomb there is a white marble effigy which shows the great commander, whom General Grant finally overcame, asleep on the battlefield.

''Let me take you into the General's study," the eager custodian of the chapel made his plea. *'You all will want to see the room where he worked. ' '

The door — not more than a rod or two from the tomb — was thrown open with reverence, and in subdued tones the guide called attention to the furniture. ''Jest prezackly as the General left it," he said. ' ' There he set and read, and there he wrote, and those books on the shelf he used, and that map on the wall he helped to make ; see, it has his name signed to it. "

From the city of Lee and Jackson it is but fifteen miles to the marvel that shares with Luray Caverns the claim to the attention of visitors to the valley who seek the marvelous — Natural Bridge. The road is a little rough, but it is perfectly good in dry weather. The country is not so delightfully garden-like as to the north of Lexington and Staunton, but the more rugged surface is welcome. Perhaps the way would be somewhat trying to a man behind a horse, if he is in a hurry. But the pilgrims had left haste behind them.

So had the one lone traveler seen in many miles. Up a rocky ridge strained the bony horse hitched to a dilapidated-looking covered wagon. A woman drove; two children were by her side. And trudging behind was a man, who was glad to stop and exchange words with men who were not in a hurry.

* ^ This is living ! " he said. ' ' Six weeks ago the doctor in New York said I was done for. I saw I couldn't get well in that climate, and I didn 't know what to do, until I found that my wife was willing to come off like this, hoping to fix me up. We bought that funny-looking contraption you saw and started out. I Ve gained nine pounds since I 've been on the road, what with exercise in the good air, and sleeping out at night. Next spring we hope to go back to New York. ' '

The invalid did not have time to stop at Natural Bridge ; he was searching for something of more value to him than a mighty arch that spans an abyss and tells of the Architect of the Valley of Virginia.

But for nearly two centuries there have come this way men for whom the bridge has been the goal of the journey. One of these was George Washington. There is a tradition that when he was a surveyor he visited the great stone arch, climbed some twenty-five feet up one of the precipitous abutments and carved his initials there. Visitors are told just where to look for the **G. W."; but it is necessary to use a good deal of imagination to see the letters.

Sam Houston, the Indian fighter, later a president of Texas when it was a republic, was familiar with the arch above Cedar Creek, for he was bom not far from the gorge in the Blue Ridge that is spanned by the bridge not made by the hands of men. Perhaps as he looked from the parapet of the monolith into the creek bed far below, or as he stood by the water and gazed upward at the springing arch, he thought of the Indian legend of the building of the bridge which the primitive men called the Bridge of God. The legend tells how the Monacans, fleeing before the Sha^vnees and Powhatans, came to a great chasm which they could not cross. In despair they fell on their faces and prayed that the Great Spirit would deliver them. When they rose they saw with wonder that a great stone arch spanned the chasm. Fearing to trust themselves to it, they sent the women and children ahead to test it. Then all crossed just in time to turn and defend the passage against the advancing hosts.

Thomas Jefferson was the first historian of this Bridge of God. From his boyhood home, Shadwell, not far from Charlottesville, he followed the beautiful valley of the James until he came to what he later described as "the most sublime of Nature's works." He did not rest until he secured possession of the bridge and the land surrounding it. At Williamsburg, Virginia, there is on file the deed he secured from George III of England to the property :