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Page 13 text:
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HISTORICAL On special request, the following article was written by Hon. F. IV. King, ex-superintendent of Alleghany Division, at present member of State Senate of Virginia. It is no great span of time from 1870 to 1909, but it is a long stride from “William¬ son with its one or two houses, to the present city of Clifton Forge, with her seven thou¬ sand souls and her $2,000,000 of assessable values. It is no great stretch of time from 1870 to the present, but it is a far cry from the old log cabin school in Slaughter Pen Hollow, taught by Mr. James A. Ford, to the present magnificent graded and high school building, erected at a cost of something like S40.000, and equipped with all of the most modern school-room appliances. Truly the material development of Clifton Forge has been marvelously rapid, but her schools have kept fullv abreast with her onward march, to the credit not only of her school officers, but to the credit of her people, upon whose sympathies, after all, rests all progress. One hundred and thirty-nine years ago, or to be more exact, on the 12th day of May, 1770, George III., of England, through his Governor of the Colony of Virginia, Baron de Botetourt, granted to one. Robert Gallaspy, fifty-four acres of land on the north side of Jackson River, and on both sides of what we now know as Smith Creek, in which was then Botetourt county. The lines of this fifty-four- acre tract ran due north from the river, up by the old postoffice building and the Presby¬ terian Church, nearly to the south side of Pine Street; then west, bearing south to the foot of the steep hill on which Mr. Cutler’s house stands; then south to the river, just taking in the flat land suitable for cultivation. Two years later, June 22, 1772, a tract of one hun¬ dred and one acres, just north of the above tract, w as granted to the same Robert Gal¬ laspy, which included the present school site, and all of what we know as the Flat. In June, 1789, Robert Gallaspy died, and willed to his son, Alexander, one hundred and twenty-six acres of the above land, which his son sold to Alexander Wilson, October 8, 1805, who on August 24, 1810, sold to James Breckinridge, who in turn, sold the same to a man name Van Stavern, which purchaser directed the deed to be made to Mr. Henry Smith, who was the great uncle of the present Mayor, Mr. Jno. A. Bowles, and after whom Smith Creek was named. When Mr. Smith died, in 1850, or 1851. he devised all of his lands to Mr. David Wil¬ liamson. brother of Mrs. T. P. Bowles, and father of Mr. David A. Williamson. Miss Jean Williamson, Mrs. X. B. Early and Mrs. W. M. Smith, and after whom this place was called when it was known as Williamson. This bit of historv is merelv mentioned by way of leading up to what is more particularly the subject of this sketch, viz., the history of the Clifton Forge School, for it was largely
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Page 14 text:
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s - THE ALLEGHANIAN through the generosity of the Williamsons that a public school was first started in this community. I have mentioned the old log cabin in “Slaughter Pen Hollow’’ (which was then known as Hazel Hollow ), as being the first school house in this community, of which we have anv record. This house was one of the quarters used before the war for housing some of the slaves of Mr. Henry Smith, of whom he had a great number. The cabin was a typical one. Built of logs, chinked with mud, a door at one end and windows on each side. It had a large stone chimney, with a fire-place half as big as the end of the house on which it was located, though a stove was used when the house was adapted to school purposes. This house, if primitive in some respects, was modern in, at least, one respect. The light was admitted in a volume rather than bv several small openings. The windows were only about three feet high, but extended nearly two-thirds of the way across each side, thus actuallv exemplifying what has been more or less, a puzzle in modern school architec¬ ture. The extension of the railway, and the de¬ velopment of the iron industry in these parts brought many families here, whose children needed school facilities. It was to encourage the education of these that Mr. Williamson gave the use of this cabin to the school au¬ thorities. It was furnished with plain board seats, and in it was begun the school which is the real parent of its present giant off¬ spring. In this school were taught some of the present residents of the city, among whom I might mention Mr. David A. Williamson, Cap¬ tain Dan. Haynes, and perhaps, others who are among the older citizens of our compara¬ tive!}’ new city. A few years after the inauguration of this school, Air. Williamson gave to the school district a site for a new house, which was identical with the site now occupied, in fact the door of the school-room built thereon opened just where the eastern entrance of the present building is. The house erected upon this site was a one-room frame structure, about twenty-eight feet by twenty-six feet, planked up and down on the outside, and ceiled inside. It had a door in one end, a stove about the middle of the room, and had two windows on each side—a typical country school house of ten years ago. Mr. Ford also taught in this house for a while, and was succeeded by Mr. A ' athan Painter, who still lives in Clifton Forge. Quite a number of the present resi¬ dents of this city 7 were taught in this house, among whom were Mrs. Geo. M. Farrar, Miss Jean Williamson, Mr. Gill Davis, Mr. Hugh Gleason, Mr. Jno. A. Bowles, Mrs. G. E. Showalter, and many others. The increasing population and the more rapid increase of school children soon out¬ grew the capacity of this house, and need was felt for more ground upon which to build, so on the 8th day of March 1887, Air. Wm. M. McAllister, who was a Commissioner of the Court in the suit brought to settle up the af¬ fairs of the estate of Air. David Williamson, then deceased, sold to the Clifton School Dis¬ trict, for S100, an acre of land, on which the
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