The Blue Ridge Center

One Man's Journey!
Authored by Clarence Gallahan
Neersville native-story teller

You know it really all started — my journey through Neersville and the valley — in 1918. That is to say mom and pap got married by the Justice of the Peace in Washington D.C. on that date, thus making my journey possible.

Pap was a strapping strong young man at 29 years of age, and mom was a sweet 16 filled with excitement and hope. It must have been love at first sight, because unusual steps were taken to form this union as soon as possible.

Pap worked on the saw mill, and the "love bug" was biting him hard. He would drive his horse and buggy over to mom's house to do a little courting, but mom's parents thought pap was a bit old for mom and were "reluctant" to pass their blessings on the hoped for marriage by pap.

As time passed, "not too long though," pap grew restless, as did mom, and they began to scheme up a plan that would "ensure their happiness" and being together. As the plan took shape, "eloping that is," pap sprang into action.

Working on the sawmill, he had access to lumber, and so he built a ladder long enough to reach the second story window of mom's room at her parent's house. Excitement grew once their plan seemed a reality.

Courting, of course, continued all during this time with pap still trying to win over mom's parents, which just didn't happen. They would go to a barn dance, which was allowed, and pap would stop the horse and buggy on an old wooden bridge over a creek to sharpen up his dancing skills before arriving at the dance.

Finally, love could wait no longer, and late one night pap tied the ladder onto his buggy and set out to mom's house. Once there, he carefully placed the ladder up to mom's window and stole her away from her parents by moonlight. Grabbing a bag with a few belongings, down the ladder mom came, and with haste jumped into the buggy as pap said "giddy up" to the horse.

They both lived near Independent Hill, not too far from Manassas, Virginia, where the train station was — and they made a beeline straight for it. Once at the station, and while the engineer was filling the old steam engine's boiler with water, pap put the horse and buggy in the Librey stable for safe keeping until they returned and had just enough time to catch the steam engine train to D.C., where they were married.

They returned to Independent Hill to live for awhile, having the first two of their thirteen children. Then pap moved to Loudoun County and worked as a sharecropper while living near Lovettsville, Round Hill, and Hillsboro and having children at each place. Eventually, he ended up back at the end of Sawmill Lane in the old rock house that once stood there on the Webb property. More kids!

It was there that pap finally saved enough money for a down payment on his first farm — the Bill Fleming Farm — not far away in Neersville and the "Between the Hills Valley" on Old Harper's Ferry Road in 1940. My brother John, who was two years old at the time, was transported down to the Fleming farm by horse and buggy with mom driving.

Two years later, I was born and thus my journey in the valley began. There was no electric, no bathroom, indoor plumbing, running water or heat in the house. I can remember mom reading the Bible to pap by kerosene lamp.

Electric was put in around 1946 or so — lights only at first — and the dirt road was restructured and "black-topped" around the same time, as far as this old storyteller's memory goes.

I can remember sitting on our front porch and watching the heavy equipment like bulldozers and turnapools, move the earth and build the road. We kids would sometimes build our own bulldozers, etc. out of sticks and green apples and take them into the garden where the dirt was soft and imitate the workers on the road.

With store bought toys almost nonexistent at our house, we had to make our own, and could make just about anything with sticks and apples, much like the tinker toy sets of early times.

Paul Staubs, Howard Speaks, Alfred Cash and my brother Herb, who drove the old water truck, were some of the locals who helped build the road, I am told. Some stretches of the old roadbed are still visible today. One such stretch lies in front of the Blue Ridge Center, another is in front of the old Lutheran Church, and there are others as well. And so it was.

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