You’re Invited To An Evening Of Stories From The Seneca Trail

Marlinton, WV – Roxy Todd and Emily Newton are Americorps volunteers working together on the US 219 Writers Project whose mission is to collect stories all along the historic route, also known as the Seneca Trail. Todd describes an upcoming event on Friday October 21st, at the McClintic Library in Marlinton.

“Friday we’ll be presenting an evening of stories along the Seneca Trail through sound, image, smell and even taste including fresh homemade cookies and fresh roasted peanuts, just like the old days,” she says. “People from the community will be reading from some of the interviews.”

Kody Burns will be reading from a story about a man from Thomas, West Virginia, Squire Collins, Justice of the Peace. Here’s an excerpt from Burns’ reading.

“He was in the store one night and he was telling about this fellow, who was telling him he had killed a deer, a buck deer that had thirty points on it,” reads Burns. “Squire just looked at him and Squire said, well I can almost top that. Last year I was fishin on the railroad tracks in the dam. I hit onto something and I thought it was a snag; I yanked and yanked and finally I yanked it.

“And you know what, I hooked onto an old railroad lantern; must have been in there forty years. And you know what, that lantern was still burnin!”

“The other guy said, ah, come on Squire, you can’t give us that stuff. Now OB Collins was lyin. He said, Well I tell you what I’ll do son, you knock about 26 points off that deer and I’ll blow out that lantern.”

Pamela Johnson reads from a story by man named Bill, from Elkins, West Virginia. Bill tells how he met his wife while working at a CCC camp about 12 miles from Petersburg. He was doing radio transmission, communicating with fire tower workers. His future wife Mary Alice was working as a telegraph operator in Petersburg.

“Sometimes we would talk for a long time if there was nobody else on the line,” reads Johnson. “This went on for years, I began working for the Forest Service as a transmitter and we continued to communicate over the line, and kind of became good friends like this without ever meeting in person.”

“We started seeing each other then a bit. Usually I would visit her at her family’s place in Petersburg. And one night she was standing there, so quiet and I thought she was looking at the stars. But her eyes were closed. And I thought, oh she wants me to kiss her. And I’d never kissed anyone before; but I did, I kissed her lips.”

“And she put her hands on her hips and she said ‘Bill, kiss me’ and so I did. And oh boy I tell you the stars lit up then, shining overhead like that.”

Homemade cookies, fresh coffee and good stories – it’s all happening at the McClintic Library in Marlinton Friday night at 7pm.