Past Forests and Sawmills

 Crittenden County, must have had in the early days, wonderful forests with an abundance of all kinds of huge trees. Through the years the early settlers must have taken their toll on these forests. Recently I have been fortunate that people have shared some really good old pictures of sawmills that once were located here in the county. Though not much history is known about the pictures they are enjoyable to look at and shows us a different time in our past history.

 

 In 1908 the Forest Service was worried about how fast the timber in our area was being harvested, they wondered how long it would last. (Even today the forests all over the county are still being heavily timbered.)

 

To add a little past history about our forests to go with these old sawmill pictures are a few tidbits of history from the archives of the Crittenden Press. I hope you enjoy seeing these old pictures and reading the old history.

 

Feb. 13, 1902 - The Timber Question

I wish to call all the attention of your readers to a matter of some importance to us all now and will be more to the next generation. I mean the timber question.

 

The barrel makers have stripped our country of all that would do for barrels, and now are hunting out all that will do for headings, and the farmer will be left nothing for fencing. True we can use wire, but for the posts iron will not do. What will be needed is some durable timber for posts and the like.

 

Well, I think we can have them coming on. In this section and other places, I suppose, there is a large growth of young cedar on hand. I may be a little too enthusiastic but look on this as a God send – just in the nick of time. Cedar is the most durable timber we have, ad with a little attention each little cedar can be made a valuable stick of timber; by proper trimming in time we can make a nice, long bodied tree of a scrubby little bush.

 

When left to itself on open ground the cedar will branch from the ground and all go to limb, which is food for ornament; but for timber purposes by trimming you can make a twenty foot-post of it. While it is not as fast growing as some it will grow anywhere in poor land, hard tramped ground shaded ground, among thick timber, and is at home on a rocky hillside.

 

For ornament in the yard it makes a good cover for fowls, as well as an excellent roosting place, affording shelter from bad weather by the thick foliage.

 

So let us attend to our young cedars, and set more, and they will prove a blessing to the rising generation.

 

                                     (Picture shared by Nancy Hopkins Rushing)

Oct. 15, 1908 – Our Forests Fast Disappearing.

The study of the forest conditions of the state, which the U. S. Forest Service is now carrying on in cooperation with the Kentucky Board of Agriculture. Forestry has now extended to Crittenden County.

 

Mr. J. S. Holms is now riding through the county looking up the available supply of standing timber and ascertaining as closely as possible the annual output of all forest products. He will visit the chief saw mill men and timber men of the county and obtain from them on timber conditions, supplementing this with his own observations in the woods. This study is bringing out the truth with which we all more are less familiar, that the supply of merchantable timber is fast disappearing. 

 

In a few year time most of the counties in the state will scarcely have enough timber to supply the needs of their own people, and the end of the timber business as a means of livelihood to our citizens is in sights. That the big timber in this section has not been all cut before now seems almost remarkable.

 

 

This sawmill was located in the Sheridan area of Crittenden County.  The large square logs may be railroad ties.  All of the men are unidentified.  Picture courtesy of Dave Wilson, who was descended from the Wilson-Bebout families that lived near Sheridan.  Nothing but little saplings left to see in the background.
 

 

A Neice of Thomas Jefferson, Matilda Threlkeld

 

 Such an interesting and fascinating story to add to our Crittenden County History and Legends.

 This article appeared in  The Crittenden Press, December 22, 1880

A Niece of Thomas Jefferson

In the quiet little village of Marion, where the eyes of the people have never fallen upon a President from father Washington down to Jas. A. Garfiled and where the vintage of the lineage of either of the illustrious has never been knowingly looked upon, the discovery of a descendant of the “Sage of Monticello” might awaken a riffle of astonishment.

Yet within the walls of a poorly chinked, ill constructed log cabin in the suburbs of our out-of-the-way village may be found an ancient woman through whose veins the blood of Thomas Jefferson is slowly ebbing. “Aunt” Matilda Threlkeld is verging upon the age of four scores. And Old Time has pressed his blightening fingers upon her until the aged woman can no more leave the miserable hovel she calls home.

According to her own testament she was born in Albermarle County, Va., and is a daughter of Charles Lewis whose mother was a sister of Thomas Jefferson. The brothers, Randolph, Charles and Lilburn immigrated to this State when “Aunt Matilda” was but a child.

After remaining in Gallatin County a short time, they permanently settled in Livingston County, where “Aunt” Matilda was raised, being hired out as a servant girl. Subsequently she came to Marion which has since been her home. Fluent in conversation, with an active mind and a memory unshattered by time, she relates many historical events in a well delineated manner that indicates a parentage above the mediocrity.

She remembers well the soldiers of Gen. Jackson, and can relate incidents connected with the War of 1812. She told the writer which illustrates the longevity of her mind about as follows:

When Jackson was fighting, I was living in old Salem, a number of his soldiers took dinner at my masters one day, when whiskey begin scare, one of the soldiers drank during the meal, thirty cups of coffee. I remember distinctly of handing him that number for I was waiting upon the table and counted every cup. My arms ached when I was done passing it.

Among other things she remember the Lewis tragedy that occurred about five miles from Smithland, when she was twelve years old and account of which was published in the Cumberland Wave some sever years ago, and which we will republish if a file of the Wave containing it can be obtained.

(On the Crittenden County, 1850 census, the name is spelled Threlkill. Matilda died after the 1880 census, no information on her actual death date or place of burial. Her burial location might possibly be in the Old Marion Negro Cemetery located at the end of Weldon Street. She had three children Howell, Zerilda and Fredonia Threlkill/Threlkeld, listed on the 1850 census.)

The Haunted Bridge - By Miss Ruby Dean, 1978

The Haunted Bridge –

Near the turn of the century (1890-1910) there was in Crittenden County a small bridge which was known for miles around as the ha'nted bridge.

 

Where was it located and what were the circumstances which led to this strange phenomenon?

 

Well, it was on the old Shady Grove road, then a dirt road, between Deanwood and Shady Grove.

 

Traveling toward the latter from Deanwood, you crossed Piney Creek by way of the iron bridge, long since gone, turned rather sharpy to the right for a short distance, then to the left, and began the long climb up Piney Hill.

 

About midway up this rocky steep, a stream cut through a sort of gorge on the left and made a swash across the road. This necessitated a crossing which resulted in a loosely thrown up bridge with wide cracks between the heavy boards.

 

Often when I crossed it, I wondered what kept horses from stumbling there.

 

It was in a ravine just to the right of this spot that the ha'nt reportedly appeared, in the shape of a person, headless, arms outstretched and draped in gauzy white. It floated back and forth, sometimes higher, sometimes lower, but always at a distance.

 

Now this unidentified floating apparition never harmed anyone in anyway, shape or form, during all the years of its habitation there, and probably would never have been remembered except for the difficulty it caused passersby who were riding or driving horses. In such cases, always at night, the horses would rear, try to turn back and in some instances absolutely refuse to go another step.

 

A doctor once had to return to his home and ask a friend to accompany him on his call. It seemed that when two or more persons crossed the bridge together, the ghost remained in hiding.

 

Whether this non-understandable phantom was the result of trickery and or deviltry played by human hands, or whether it was an inexplicable phenomenon of nature, has not been determined to this day.

 

In fact, it has been years since I heard anyone even so much as mention the ha'nted bridge. But, sometimes, when and if you are traveling eastward on the Shady Grove road, at night and alone, and get about halfway up Piney Hill, you might just take a peek into the ravine to the right of the culvert there, which bridges the self-same stream at the self-same place as did the haunted bridge, and see if by any chance you see any signs of a headless form in white.

 

Who knows? This ha'nt must might at some point in time, at its own discretion and pleasure, choose to revisit old haunts! 

 (Another wonderful story written by Miss Ruby Dean.  wish I could have known her.)

(This bridge was replaced in 1934 with a concrete bridge)