Volume 9, Number 1 - Fall 1985
RECOLLECTIONS of NAMES from the PAST
By Ruth Asher
RECOLLECTIONS of NAMES from the PAST By Ruth Asher
My father-in-law, Eli Asher, often spoke of the Drew family that ran the powder mill at Mash Bottom. Seems it continually pounded (hammered) all day and night. Jess Drew is the only one I remember. Eli also told me that Ed Costello was once the constable at Cape Fair. Tom Jones, who played the fiddle at all the picnics, was son-in-law of Costello.
My uncles, Will Gentry and Claude Henson told me of the many tie slides that were located on James River and one on Flat Creek at the John Bennett and Bill Carney Ford. I had never heard of but one tie slide until talking with them.
Ernestine Haynes told me that her grandfather, Zack McDowell, had race horses. Seems there ~ras considerable racing going on, but she knew very little about it. My father told me of racing horses on the former Fred McCord place in the Bend of James River which is a part of our farm. The McDowells used to live close by. This farm, later known as the Melvin Blunk farm, is now called Cane Bottom. The McDowell’s relatives were buried on the old Pompel place, now McCord Bend. There was a cemetery there. My own great grandfather, who was in the Civil War and died in 1862, was buried there. The cemetery is no more, being cleaned up and cultivated over years ago. Rolla Blunk told my late husband, Ernest Asher, about that. Rolla also told of plowing up Cane Bottom and seeing hundreds of Minnie balls, the ammunition used in the Civil War. Mash Hollow is now covered by Table Rock Lake. It’s the body of water just below the Cape Fair Cemetery and once the Cape Fair Townsite.
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