NEXT - MY EARLY LIFE
family trait of the old Bradys seemed to come out again in my Grandfather. When the town of Junior began to grow, he felt
crowded and restrained. With a neighbor, he sold out and went 15 miles south, buying together 165 acres on the west side of Rich Mountain, on the waters of Cassity Creek. Grandfather took 110 acres, deeding 55 acres to the neighbor who came
with him (who incidentally never paid a cent of the money Grandfather advanced for the land.)
When my father was a small boy, they moved to the mountain farm. Until their log house was built, they lived in a rented shanty belonging to a black family. The wife was the daughter of a slave family who lived nearby. Her name was Victoria,
and her parents were Jerry and Mandy Baxter.
Deed to the Brady Rich Mountain Land;
Recorded in Deed Book "Q" Page 497 (Randolph County, W.Va.)
This deed made this 6th day of February, 1890 between Chas. M. Frasure and G. A. Frasure, his
wife, parties of the first part, the County of Randolph and the State of W. Va. and G. B. Brady of the County of Barbour and State above, and Ft. W. Corley of the County of Randolph and state above, of the second part. Witnesseth that
for and to consideration of the sum of $350.00, Sixty-five in hand paid the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged, $285.00 to be paid on or about Nov. 1st, 1890, for which the parties of the second part has assigned a note to the
parties of the first part, executed by W. A. Simon to Grant William, for $175.00 with interest amounting to ten dollars on same, due about Nov. 1st, 1890. The parties of the first part do grant, bargain, sell and convey with covenants
of General Warranty unto the parties of the second part, the following tract of 171 acres of land more or less, Situated in the County of Randolph on the were, of Cassiday’s Fork and bounded as follows. 'Beginning at a Birch and
Chestnut on top of Briggs Sugar Camp ridge, the beginning corner of a survey of 125 Acres of land made for Jonathan Arnold now owned by Patrick Crickard, thence with two lines thereof N 85-1/2° W--148 poles to two small hicories (sic)
and two maples, a corner thereof, S. 81° W 155 poles to White Oaks in a line of land run and sold by David Goff, Commissioner for forfeited and delinquent lands in the year 1840 thence with said line 1 variation S 50° E 95 poles to
birch and White Oak on the back of Said Cassiday's fork, corner of survey of 108 Acres of land made for William Armstrong, thence with a line thereof S 87-1/4° E 208 Poles to a leaning Hickory, corner thereof, also a corner of survey
of 84 Acres of land made for said Armstrong, thence with a line of the last mentioned survey S 87-3/4° E 120 Poles to a White Oak with pointers in line of a survey of 150 Acres, of land made for Allen J. Currence and W. B. Currence,
thence with said line due North to two small Spanish Oaks on top of said Sugar Camp Ridge, a corner of said 150 Acres, thence with another line thereof N 60° W 104 Poles to 2 beginning corners thereof also a corner of the 125 Acre
survey, thence with a line of the last named survey S 20° W 7 Poles to the beginning, with its appurtenances and a vendor’s lean is hereby retained on the above described property to secure the deferred payments. Witness the following
signatures and seal.
C. M. Frasure
G. A. Frasure
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When Grandfather bought the land, he was told that it was so free of rocks there wouldn’t be enough to build a chimney. This was partly true, for the rocks were too small for that purpose. The
ground was almost literally covered with small stones, from 1 to 10 14 inches across, and about an inch thick. Later, when my dad tried to farm it, with my brother, sister and myself helping, he told us that if we could strike a hoe
down without hitting a stone, he would give us a dollar bill. His money was safe!
Reproduction of the Oil Painting of
Rich Mountain Cabin - by Troy |
 Reproduction of an oil painting by Troy Robert Brady of his dearly loved childhood home on Rich
Mountain. It was painted from memory, for the log house was torn down in the '20s, but readily identified by his siblings when they viewed his painting. Rich Mountain is located in Randolph County, West Virginia, not far from
Elkins, West Virginia.
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Three or four of my father's younger brothers end sisters were born in the one and one half-story log house he and his neighbors raised. Much later, when I was six months old (about March 30,
1907) my parents moved into that same house, moving back to town briefly, then again to the mountain place, leaving finally when I was eleven years old.
My father, Walter P. Brady, spent the happiest years of his life on the "mountain place" as he called it. He and his brother Charlie, roamed the virgin forests with their dogs, "Rob" and "Old Boss". There were still bears and panthers
in the woods then, and my dad told many interesting tales of their encounters with them. Dad inherited the Brady aversion to living with near neighbors, and I believe he spent the balance of his years still searching for the home of his
boyhood. Even after I was grown and married, he moved back again to the area, with a dream of rebuilding the old home, which had been torn down many years before. His dream was never realized. On the following pages I will recount some
of the stories he told me about his earlier experiences in the woods of that rocky mountainside.
STORIES ABOUT RICH MOUNTAIN
(As told to me by my father, Walter P. Brady)
One evening Charlie and I went to bring the cows home for milking. We walked down the county road to the foot of Jerry Ridge, then south down the hollow to Chestnut Lick. As we turned east up
the creek, we noticed the dogs growling low and cowering close to us. When we found the cows and started back down the path, the cattle acted frightened.
Just then we looked up on a rock ledge to our left, and there was a panther lying flat on his belly and wringing his tail!
The cows started to run, and I hollered for Charlie to grab one of our young heifers by the tail while I grabbed another. They took us down the creek at about 15 feet to the jump, then up the hill, the cowbells ringing like crazy!
When we got to the head of the lane, there was our Dad, with a big "two-hander" switch! "I told you boys about running those cows," he said. We told him about the panther, and he held off the whipping. That night some of the neighbor's
sheep were killed. The dogs trailed the panther to a cave. One of the neighbors, named Marshal Scott, was a fearless man, and knew a lot about animals. One of the men went for a lantern, and Mr. Scott then asked someone to go with him
into the cave. All the men were afraid to go in.
All right, I'll do in myself, then," he said. When inside, he called out, "Boys, when I hold the lantern over my head, I can see eyes. If one of you will come in and hold the light up high, I'll shoot him." Nobody would go in. "Look
out, then, he's coming out." He held the lantern in front of him and advanced toward the panther. Afraid of the light, it crawled along a ledge above Mr. Scott and ran outside, where one of the men shot him.
One moonlit night, Charlie and I were up at the Wes' Pingley place. The Pingleys lived at the top of the mountain, about two miles from us. We had just passed the 'Kiah (Hezekiah) Corley place, half way home, when we came around a bend
and there in the road was the biggest bear you ever saw, standing on his hind legs. He was almost on us!
All we thought about was getting home, and since the road was wide there, we ran by him like a couple of deer. When we came to the rail fence about 50 yards above the house, (it was nine rails high!) I jumped it without touching a rail.
Charlie was fat, and he hit the top rail on his stomach, and you could have heard him grunt all the way to the house. When we got to the house, I stopped outside, and Charlie just fell through the door on the floor.
We had company that evening. Dad said "What's the matter, Charlie?" He was so out of breath he couldn't tell him, so I went inside and told him about the bear. The next morning Dad took us up to where we had seen the bear, and sure
enough, there were these monstrous tracks in the road, plain as day!
I had heard about the Snake Den Rocks, but had never been there before. One warm day in the spring, I walked out on top of the bluff and looked down below me. There was a pile of snakes that looked to me like it was four feet high,
lying in the sun! The stench of them made me dizzy, and I almost fell off the cliff into them.
There was a big rock on top of the cliff, as much as I could do to roll it. I "rasseled" it over to the edge, and aimed it at the pile of snakes. I didn't stay to see what happened, but you never heard such rattlin' in your life as they
did!
Another time, me and Charlie were out sangin' (digging ginseng) and we were wading through a patch of fern, when we heard a rattlesnake right near our feet. Charlie ran back out of the fern patch, and I jumped up on a big flat rock.
I had a rifle, and started shooting snakes. They kept coming out from under that rock, and I killed 22 rattlers before I got 'em all.
We didn't have much trouble with snakes when we had the dogs along. They would plunge at the snake, get it to strike, and when it was full length, would grab it near the head and shake it so hard it would fly in two. Rich mountain had a
lot less snakes when we moved away from there!
Grandfather managed to eke out a living from his rocky acres on the ridge above “Painter” (Panther) fork of Cassity Creek until his youngest child was born. Perhaps the best place to list his children, their birth dates, the persons
they married, and the dates of their deaths:
Celia Rosella, (10-9-1876--3-3-1936) m. William. Cox, divorced. (Ancestry.com lists marriage date of 2-12-1898 in Marion Co., WV. Also shows her as "Celia A." Him
as "William A." RmB) (4 children) m.
Charles Alford (6 children) Charles Benjamin, (7-29-1878--11-19-1953) m. Rachel E. Moore (8 Children) (Ancestry.com records marriage on 7-1-1900 in Barbour Co., WV RmB) Walter Parley, (2-1-1880--9-1-1959) m. Sarah Bergia Knaggs. (5 Children) (2) m.
Virginia Simmons (1 Child) (3) m. Lina Hannah Maud Virginia, (10-27-1882--2-28-1940) m. Homer Harvey, (5 children) Glen Harrison, (4-17-1884--6-3-1968) m. Grace Campbell, (5 Children) Lulu Elizabeth (10-20-1887--1-18-1968) m. Ford Valentine. (4 children.) Pearl May, (7-6-1891--9-4-1969) m. Frank Matthews. (3 children) (Matthews - mother's first cousin) (Died) m. ? Bales, m. Jack De Sau. Oscar Dayton, (5-17-1895--2-5-1980) m. Belva Poling. (1 Child) Francis Granville, (4-3-1896--12-8-1973) m. Bena Crivella (2 children?), m. Nevada Phillips
(Names in bold are my parents. TRB) (Detailed Lineage)
Grandfather moved his family back to the town of Junior about 1896, rented a house, and began working at his old trade of stonemasonry. (Evidently his money was all used up on the old farm.)
There is a very high cliff of the Roaring Creek (Homewood) sandstone about two miles upriver from the town, and he began working at the quarry there, getting out the stone for both the Henry G. Davis mansion at Elkins and the culverts for the Western Maryland railroad. On August 22, 1898, he reported for work, and was asked to labor under a
large, loose stone, hanging precariously above him. It weighed about two tons. He told the foreman that he was afraid the stone would fall. The 'boss" then inserted a pick in the crack move the rock and pried at the hanging piece. He
then said, "Go on under it, it's perfectly safe." Grandfather had worked only a few minutes when the stone fell, crushing him to death instantly. He was only 45-3/4 years of age, and left seven of his nine children at home. My father
Walter was the oldest, and he was 16 at the time. Francis G. was a toddler just past two years. Mary Row Brady was left with the task of providing for her family. This she did by working as a midwife, delivering most of the babies in
the town and surrounding area.
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