On the Day Before Her Death Came Word of a Fortune

The Daily Register, January 23, 1899

Parkersburg, West Virginia, January 20 - Mrs. J. P. Eddy died suddenly in Ritchie County, yesterday. The life of Mrs. Eddy was a very romantic one.

She was raised in luxury in Pennsylvania and was married to Eddy against the wishes of her parents. She accompanied her husband to a small cabin on a rented farm in Ritchie County. She adapted herself to the surroundings and the couple were supremely happy amid hardships. They were frugal and industrious and were soon able to purchase the farm, and additions were made until the farm became a large estate and the cabin gave way to a more comfortable home.

Later if was found that the Eddy farm was splendid oil territory, and riches poured in upon them, but happiness departed. Troubles ensued, engendered by jealousy, and both parties sued for divorce. Several weeks ago Mrs. Eddy went to Harrisville where depositions were taken in her case. On her way home she was taken with a chill, and the next day she was suffering with pneumonia.

During all these years she had not heard from her girlhood home in Pennsylvania, but on the day before her death, a letter bearing the postmark of her native town was handed her. It was from a prominent attorney, a friend of her youth. He wrote that her father and mother were both dead, and in the settlement of the vast estate, her share was $80,000. Her death occurred the next day.

[Phebe Stackpole Eddy, died 27 Dec 1898?]

Ask a Street in Rathbone

Marietta Daily Times, March 19, 1915

Residents of Rathbone Addition have petitioned the County Commissioners to open a fifty-foot street from the street car station at the road crossing, to the Minshall home, opposite the Children's Home, and running parallel with the street car line.

In Doan & Mann's Rathbone Heights addition a deal is pending for the sale of property upon which the prospective owner plans to erect a building for a store.

The addition may soon be the site of a new church building, a well known local minister being active in the work of agitating interest in the erection of a place of worship in the addition. Doan & Mann have agreed to donate ground for the site.

E. Patterson of Mill Creek has moved into the C. A. Whiston property in Rathbone Heights addition.

A Green-Horn's First Trip to Marietta

The Marietta Times, May 1, 1890

Away back in the 1830s when this country was thinly settled, I took my first trip to Marietta. My father was a plain farmer, and like most plain farmers, used a yoke of oxen and cart to haul his produce to market, to trade for groceries and other necessaries.

As my brother was going to Marietta with a load of produce, my father told me I might have all the walnuts I would gather and could go with my brother to sell them. I went right to work and gathered two bushels. I had heard father speak of all the principal stores, and was familiar with the names of most of the people who lived there. Most of the old settlers traded with Joe Hall. The business part of the town was from Hall's to Mills' corner on Ohio Street.

My brother drove down Greene Street to the market house, which was a building about fifty feet by twenty-five, and stood where the National Hotel now stands. As we backed up to the market house, a man came up and asked me what I had in the sack. I told him walnuts. He bought them and paid me two quarters for them. 

I started down town feeling very rich. Finally I came to a store where there were piles of cheese, cakes and crackers. I stepped up to the counter and asked a big red-faced man for a quarter's worth of crackers. He weighed out a pan full and asked me if I had anything to put them in. I took off my saw-tooth cap and held it up for him to put them in. He poured them in and I started out, but he told me to wait and get the rest of them. He weighed another pan full and asked had I no other place to put them. I opened my hunting shirt, which was belted around my waist, and he poured them in. 

I started back to the market house, carrying my cap full of crackers in my hands. When I got to the cart I emptied them into a half-bushel we had along and started for home. I had crackers enough to last for months, and so ended my first trip to the celebrated city of Marietta.

Old Boy.