Written by Charles Collett
Huntington, WV, Newspaper May 31, 1966
LOST IN THE WOODS — Like “Little Red Riding Hood”
109 miles on the back roads of Lawrence County in 4 hours and 10 minutes was my experience Wednesday. Our tour started on Hogskin Road with John Blagg at the wheel and Bob Goldcamp in the back seat and may I say they are the best two companions a county amateur historian could find for a ride in the historic part of the county.
Blagg was born at Mount Vernon furnace where his father was a storekeeper for Col. J. H. Moulton at the furnace commissary. When a schoolboy his parents lived in the large three-story 12-room house when Marshal Field, the Chicago “merchant prince” married Nora Scott, the “iron master’s” daughter in 1864. The story of that wedding and the bride’s sister falling down the stairs with an oil lamp in her hand and dying from the burns has been printed in this column a couple of times in past years. The house stood there for many years but was badly damaged by a fire a few years ago. This was one of the stops on our sightseeing tour which we shall write about later.
This is our opportunity to again tell readers it is not necessary to travel to the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Smokies, or the Skyline Drive in Virginia to see wonderful scenery. We have it in Lawrence County, Ohio, on the ridges one can see a view of 7 hills and 30 mines in the distance better than the Tennessee view of 7 states.
First called to attention is the sycamore tree about 20 feet tall growing on top of the old stone stack at old LaGrange. That old furnace was built in 1836.
This is not far from the D.T.& I. rail tunnel at Royersville, along the old furnace cinder road we pass log cabins that were built several years before “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” where furnace workers lived before the tunnel was dug 117 years ago.
Goats on the hillside eat the wildflowers and there are many signs of great damage to trees by the mid-May late frost, “This is the Prickly Ash road” said our host as we turned on Sand Cut road not far from Dead Man’s Curve on the railroad, “This is rattlesnake road.” said Blagg. “Curves like a snake and it puts rattle in your auto.”
Next, we go up Fox Hollow road and cross Pine Creek on the oldest highway-covered bridge in the county. The date it was built is like the inscription on the tomb of the “Unknown Soldier” in Arlington National Cemetery “Known only to God”. A “drive slow” sign is not necessary, you need only to take a look at the 60-foot-long wood bridge wide enough for two wagons to pass which has enough initials and dates carved in the wood to keep a person looking for an hour.
The bridge was visited on the 17th day of this month by members of the Covered Bridge Society of Ohio, with headquarters at Canton, Ohio who posted a printed notice on the bridge of their visit and date. That society had records and pictures of all covered bridges in the state.
As we drove across and they walked back to look down at the big turtle on the bank in Pine Creek, birds in the trees sang ‘whip-poor-will”. It wasn’t long until John got lost on a Scioto County road and passed Goldcamp Station on the D.T.& I. John said, “just wait until we get on Crowe Ridge where my wife Daisy was born, and I’ll show you something.”
Soliloquy is out of space for today and we shall tell about our big historic find at Mt. Vernon Furnace some day next week. This concludes “Lost in the Woods.”
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