1891-1894 - Cherry Run, WV

"The trains that passed (Cherry Run) stand out vividly in my memory. While I love the scenes of my childhood home, I knew, even as a small lad, that opportunities to realize my dreams of a measure of success were restricted in that small community, which I still hold in fondest memory.

"The trains told me that away 'out yonder,' where they mysteriously came from, big and interesting things were going on. They told me of a swift action coming to the world that would never let me catnap my life away, where opportunities were unlimited.

"When the 'local' stopped at Cherry Run, to unload the barrel of brown sugar, keg of saltfish, horseshoes and nails, axle-grease, and the big, square box of button shoes, calico and gingham, I watched with an interest that brought dreams of a swifter action 'Somewhere.' While the magic lantern, brought to the schoolhouse from 'far-off' Hagerstown, only had pictures to offer, here was evidence of the real thing!"


"The engineer who stepped from the cab of the engine with his long, shiny oil can, was a 'furriner', as strange as a visitor from Mars. He wore no plow-shoes or boots, and his clothes were unpatched. His overalls were uniform in neatness, required in this strange, far-off land. If the imagined picture of the 'outside world' was poetically extravagant, I now look back and find it more or less true.

I am not the least ashamed to say that sentiment still allows me to see visions from the goods the trains brought to the old country village store. It is probably of interest to no one when I say I have traveled over a considerable part of the world; however you may be interested in knowing the odors in my Father's village general store - from tea, spices, and all the things come from foreign lands, blended, let me, in fancy, ride Sahara camels, sail on dreamy waters through the Straits of Singapore, and touch the romantic shores of Borneo . . .but I now know the dreams were greater than the real."