While at the reunion at Louisville James Gray, of Castlewood, who is quite old, fell from a second story window, a distance of twenty feet, and sustained serious injuries. He was removed to a hospital for treatment, and at last accounts was in quite a bad fix. The injured man was a gallant confederate soldier.

All members of McElhaney Camp No. 835 in arrears for their annual dues of 15 cents per annum are respectfully requested to pay the same to S. H. Wyatt, adjutant of said camp at Lebanon Va. All confederate veterans who desire to join said camp will please send to said Adjutant at Lebanon, Va., their names, letter of their company, number of their regiment and name of their Colonel, stating whether Infantry or Cavalry with 15 cents due, and such will be enrolled with our camp, and be reported accordingly.
J. C. GENT,
Commander
S. H. WYATT,
Adjutant.

M. A. Fletcher, seventy odd years old, who resides near Dickensonville, was painfully injured, according to a report which reached Lebanon, by falling from a train at Castlewood depot a few days ago. Mr. Fletcher, it is said, got on the train when it stopped and did not get off until the train was in motion and by the fall sustained several bruises.

LATER - Howard Fletcher returned Monday from visiting his father and reports his father's condition more serious than was at first reported.

The reunion of McElhaney Camp will be held at Honaker the last Saturday in Aug., that being the 31st day.

This change was made so as not to conflict with the circuit court. Judge Wm. E. Burns will address the veterans on that occasion.

All veterans will note the change and time and be governed accordingly,
J. W. BAUSELL,
Comd'r.
J. H. Sullivan, Adj.

[Written by J. W. Bausell.]

As you requested me to give you a short sketch of the men and women of the county who are 80 years of age and over, I will take as our first subject Harvey W. Martin, born 83 years ago in Elk Garden. His father was one of the pioneers of the county, and his mother was a daughter of Thomas Price, who gained considerable notoriety as an Indian fighter. There is a large connection of the Prices scattered from Dan to Basheba.
Harvey Martin was brought up under the old Methodist dispensation and has never departed from his early training.

In 1862 he joined Capt. Ed Smith's company of the 19th Virginia Infantry and was elected Orderly, or Sargeant. He was in every engagement of that regiment and was a brave soldier. After the surrender he married Miss Fogleman, a true and good Christian lady. They have one son, Henry, and by the vigorous application of birch limbs in his boyhood days he has made an honorable citizen, but as a result there is a scarcity of birch on that farm.
Harvey Martin has a remarkable memory for one of his age, in fact he has maintained his mental faculty to a wonderful degree. He is loved by all his neighbors. It is a great pleasure to visit this home, especially if you are hungry.
In offering this imperfect sketch I will close with congratulations to cousin Harvey.

John Shell, of Cleveland, was born 83 years ago in Washington county. He was a son of Aaron and Rhoda Shell. In 1855 they moved to Russell county.
In 1862 John joined Capt. J. H. Candler's company, 48th Virginia Regiment. He was in all of the engagements of the regiment until he was wounded and captured. He was a good soldier and is a good citizen. All honor to such men, and may his last days be happiest.

John W. Kitchen, of Bolton, was born in Wythe county 81 years ago. He is a tanner by trade and was working at his trade when war was declared. He enlisted in the 45th Virginia Regiment and was a gallant soldier.
In 1879 he moved to Russell county and worked at his trade for several years.

He is an honorable citizen and enjoys the respect of all of his acquaintances. John is able to come to town occasionally and enjoys meeting with old friends.

Wm. Jackson, of Elk Garden, was born in Wythe county, and was a member of the 50th Regiment and was always at his post. He is 84 years old and is a good, quiet citizen. He is waiting for the final roll call and will answer present and will be marshaled with the host on the other shore.

Two weeks or more ago a little daughter was born to Mr. and Mrs. Hiram Addison, near Lebanon.
The mother of the girl baby is thirty odd years of age, but the father has seen the frosts of eighty-two winters.

Russell County's oldest citizen, uncle Silas Castle, is in very good health with the exception of being nearly blind.
Mr. Castle resides in the Western District of Russell county, and the family record shows that he was born January 30, 1819, making him almost 102 years of age.
During all these years Mr. Castle has had remarkably good health, and he recalls many interesting things that happened in the early days of his life.

William Buckles, of Muscotah, who recently retired as county commissioner, probably held that office longer than any other Democrat or Republican in the county or state. Mr. Buckles was county commissioner from 1900 to 1908 and again from 1912 until the time of his retirement last week. He probably had the distinction of being the oldest commissioner at the time of his retirement. He will be 77 years old next birthday.
Mr. Buckles came to Kansas from Hansonville, Va., 55 years ago and settled on the farm which he still owns two miles east of Muscotah. About 20 years ago he retired from the farm and has been living in Muscotah. He served one year in the Confederate army.
He has the reputation as being one of the very best county commissioners Atchison county has ever had. Republicans as well as Democrats always admired him for his frankness and fairness in office. - Atchison, Kans. Globe.

Meadow View, March 11. - Jessee Browning celebrated his 99th birthday here yesterday. He did not have any elaborate party, but many of his friends called to see him during the day.
He is the oldest citizen in this section of the state it is understood. His early life was spent in Russell county, after which he moved to this section and won many friends. He was a life long farmer by occupation.
Mr. Browning is in remarkably good health for his age, yet he does not get out and about very much.

Richmond. Sept. 13. Application for a Confederate pension was today received by John H. Johnson, chief pension clerk in the state auditor's office, from Jessee Browning, of Meadow View, Washington county, who lacks but a few months of being 100 years of age.
Mr. Browning says that heretofore he has refrained from applying for a pension because he has been able to care for himself. He says that he served in the Virginia Light Artillery.

Few people live to be as old as Jessee Browning, of Meadow View, Washington county, Va. On March 10, he celebrated the 100th anniversary of his birth.
We. Browning, who is the father of Col. J. S. Browning, of Pocahontas, is probably the oldest citizen of southwest Virginia of whom there is definite birth records. He is in good health for a person of his age and frequently drives to Abingdon and elsewhere through the country in his buggy. He has had a long and interesting career and has personally known every president of Emory and Henry college.
Mr. Browning was born in Washington county March 10, 1826 during the administration of President John Quincy Adams. He has lived during every presidential administration except 5.
Friends and neighbors of his arranged a big party at his home in celebration of his 100th birth anniversary.
This splendid century old citizen is well known to many Russell county people, where many of his relatives reside, and where scores of his kin sleep in different cemeteries of the county.
Last year Mr. Browning rubbed elbows with Russell friends, enjoying a visit of several days and a return visit is expected this year.

News is brought to Lebanon that B. F. Francisco, an old Confederate soldier aged about 86 years, is dangerously ill with pneumonia at his home near Hansonville.
Very little hope is held out for the recovery of the good man.

Now domiciled at the Soldier's Home in Richmond, John C. Dickenson writes of school days in Lebanon seventy-one years ago.
He mentions as his schoolmates several whose names are on old records, none of whom, however, are alive: Tom Pruner, Lilburn and Fullen Hendricks, James Taze Gilmer, Charlie Carter, John Gray, Hop Boyd and Dick Wyatt.
Mr. Dickenson states that he was well acquainted with J. W. Bausell, Towsen Daugherty, who was killed in the last bloody fight at Gettysburg, and also went to school to Miss Ruth Daugherty, an aunt of Towsen Daugherty and Mrs. J. W. Bausell, of Lebanon.
Miss Ruth Daugherty was a niece of General Townsend.
Mr. Dickenson remembers the Katy Sage kidnapping, the story which was published in the News two weeks ago.
Mr. Dickenson says he hopes some one familiar with the history of the Dickenson families that located in Abingdon in 1720 will give a sketch of their history in a future issue of the news.

Tampa, Fla., April 8. Aaron L. Hurt, 82, of Honaker, Va., one of the heroic band that charged Gettysburg, was inducted into the army of benedicts here Tuesday upon the eve of the 37th reunion of the soldiers of the south.
The bride was Mrs. Fanny Graves, of Chattanooga, Tenn.
The romance dates from the reunion last year in Birmingham, Ala., where the two were introduced.
Original plans called for performance of the ceremony by Rev. J. Smith, also a veteran, from Marshall, Texas. Mr. Smith this morning waited at the appointed place for more than two hours before a telephone message informed him that the wedding was to be postponed for a short while to obtain the consent of the bride's parents.
The blessing obtained, the principals arrived just after Mr. Smith had left. In his absence the ceremony was performed by Rev. D. V. Snipes, Presbyterian minister and superintendent of Tampa Schools.
Mr. Smith told newspaper men that he has been "marrying couples for 52 years and has never had a knot come untied yet."
Mr. Hurt served with the 29th Virginia Regiment, Company C.
The bridegroom, erect and active, his gray faultlessly tailored uniform, cut the perfect military figure with his flowing mustache and pointed goatee of the style so popular in the 60's. The bride is a small brown-eyed woman with face unlined and hair its natural hue. They will go to Mr. Hurt's home in Virginia after the reunion.

Sixty-odd years ago a brave company of men, Confederate soldiers, met the invading Yankees in battle at Wytheville and through the valley of Virginia where some hot fighting took place in the war of 1861-65.
One of these young men who faced the enemy and did his share of fighting was John T. Dickenson, a Russell county boy. Today this old hero of the stirring days that tried men's souls, is spending his remaining days in the Russell county poor house, having been admitted to the home of the homeless a few days ago.
It is said that every penitentiary in the United States have been searched and that no Confederate soldier could be found there, and indeed we are sorry that one has been compelled to seek refuge in the alms house.
Until recently Mr. Dickenson was cared for at the Soldier's Home in Richmond, but he says that he does not want to go back. Perhaps it is a desire with home to be near the scenes of better days.
God bless this old soldier. God bless every old soldier.

(Honaker Herald)

That this section is noted for its large families is evinced every day, and its residents are also noted for their longevity. An example of both. Cornelius Ball, who owns a farm on the headwaters of Indian Creek, and is 92 years old, has been married twice, eighteen children being born to his first wife and eleven to his second, making twenty-nine children, twenty-one of whom are living.
When one of the sons was asked how many grandchildren and great grandchildren there were, he replied, "Gosh, I don't know, there are so many."
Mr. Ball has two brothers, Harvey and Noah Ball, who are older than he, being 99 and 97, respectively; also another brother Daniel Ball, who is 83 years old, and a sister 80 years old. The combined age of the five is 450 years.

The Honaker correspondent to the Roanoke Times says:
Newspapers throughout the country published following the reunion in Tampa, Fla., last year, romantic details of the courtship and marriage of A. L. Hurt, Confederate veteran, of Honaker, Russell county, Va., past four-score years and Mrs. Fanny Graves, 56, of Chattanooga, Tenn. News picture services circulated widely a picture of the aged honey mooners and scenes attending their Tampa visit.
It has just come to light that this romance has gone on the roll of craft "spurlos versenkt" on the sea of matrimony.
Mr. Hurt has returned from Little Rock reunion, the only veteran from this county to attend. The prime motive that led him on that long journey was a faint hope that he would meet again the bride of Tampa, whom he first met at the reunion in Birmingham in 1926.
When the Hurts left Florida after the wedding the bride stopped in Chattanooga ostensibly to arrange her property affairs and with promise to join her husband in Virginia soon. She never came. A few letters were exchanged and the bride dropped from the picture, so far as her husband is concerned, for he has never been able to find a trace of her since.
The veteran has told friends that he feels keenly the shattering of his romance and after his trip to Little Rock in the hope of finding her again attending a reunion of Southern warriors he stopped over in Chattanooga in an effort to learn her whereabouts but without success.

Dickenson Farm In Castlewood Has This Distinction

Nat C. Dickenson, old Confederate soldier and life-long democrat, was in Lebanon Tuesday from Castlewood.
On his father's farm in Castlewood, he told a reporter, there are 32 voters and all of them for Al Smith, Joe Robinson and Rouse.

S. P. McCloud was badly if not seriously injured Thursday night at his home just out of Lebanon, when he fell from the porch receiving injury to his side and cutting a deep wound on his head from which he lost such a quantity of blood before a physician could reach him that it was feared he could not survive. This is the second or third time within a year that this aged man has been the victim of misfortunes, having broken a leg on one occasion and running a snag through his hand on another.

J. W. BAUSELL

Sunday, July 22, was another milestone in the life of J. W. Bausell, who passed into his 90th year. Mr. Bausell was born in the year of 1845, and at the age of 16 or 18 took part in the war between the States, being one of the few surviving Confederate Veterans now living in Russell county. Mr. Bausell's wife is 91 years old and they will celebrate their 69th wedding anniversary in September.

Uncle George Williams, who makes his home with his daughter, Mrs. Henry Fuller, 3 miles north of Lebanon, celebrated his 96th birthday on February 27th. He is the oldest Confederate soldier living in Russell county.
He fell a few years ago and broke his hips which keeps him in his room.

A. L. Hurt, over at Honaker, is one of the few Confederate veterans left in Russell county. He is 93 years old and last week he took a jaunt to Norton to visit his niece and nephews, Vault, Willard and Miss Mary Margaret Hurt.
Others from Honaker, who accompanied Mr. Hurt to Norton, included his daughter, Mrs. Harry Morford and nieces, Mrs. Bernice Morford and Mrs. Tom Honaker.

Uncle Pat McCloud, ninety and a soldier on the Confederate side of the war between the States, like other Lebanon "boys" have done, went away from the home town and got married last week.
Bride number 3 for the Lebanon veteran is the former Mrs. Sopha McCrary, of Abingdon, and she two had stood up twice before and heard ministers say "love and obey."
Rev. Otis Johnson, Lebanon, married the couple and added his blessing.

Bryant F. Francisco, one of the four lone Confederate soldiers in Russell county, if he lives until next Monday, May 3, he will celebrate his 97th birthday with a dinner at the home of his son, W. H. Francisco, up in Corn Valley east of Lebanon.
Three years short of a century, Mr. Francisco is enjoying remarkable health and is by far the most active Confederate soldier in Russell county. Notwithstanding his many years beyond man's allotted time, his mind is clear and he can relate instances of the terrible conflict that ended 72 year ago.
This old veteran has supported his county paper and read it religiously since far back days, and he never lets his dues lag.

Haskew Hurt and son, Claude Hurt, of Somerset, Kentucky, crossed into Virginia, the old home state, on Tuesday, passing thru Lebanon on their way to Gardner to visit the elder Hurt's father, Moses Hurt.
Sunday next our good friend Moses Hurt will celebrate his 89th birthday with many relatives attending. Another grand old man attending the reunion will be Haskew Ball, one of Russell's three remaining Confederate soldiers. Incidently, Mr. Ball will be 84 years old Monday, and together with kindred they will celebrate and enjoy the day at the Hurt home, a home that has long been noted for its real old time, old Virginia hospitality and here is a wish that the day will be full to the brim of joy for all attending.

Courtesy Journal-Virginia, Abingdon, Va.

The above picture was taken last Thursday, when a surprise birthday party was given John P. Wilson, 99, at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Oscar Butt, on Oak Street. As shown in the above picture are the officers of the Anna Stonewall Jackson Chapter, United Daughters of the Confederacy after arriving at the home, where on behalf of the Chapter Mr. Wilson was presented a handsome cane of fine grain Costania wood, silver mounted, on which the following words were engraved: "J. P. Wilson, October 24th, 1940, from Anna Stonewall Chapter U. D. C." Following the presentation the Chapter members and friends sang "Happy Birthday to You."
In front is Mr. Wilson and on the left is Mrs. Butt, and the right Mrs. A. L. Cumbow, 2nd Vice-President, holding the American flag. Back, reading from left to right are officers of the Chapter: Mrs. Sheffey Miller, Secretary; Mrs. W. L. Thompson, Treasurer; Mrs. W. C. Kreger, President; Mrs. Mary Ballance, Registrar.
Mr. Wilson is the last surviving Confederate veteran in Washington county, having served in the Second Virginia Cavalry, under General John P. Floyd.
Mr. Wilson is a native Russell Countian, Swords Creek section, moving to Washington county several years back.

Haskew Ball Outlived 1,449 Men Who Fought With Him In The War Of 1861-1865

The grand old man whose picture you see on this page is Haskew Ball, the only surviving Confederate soldier in Russell county of 1,450 boys and young men this county sent into the conflict of the war between the North and South, the father of A. C. Ball, merchant in Honaker.
The hardships, suffering, exposure, not only to shot and shell but to all kinds of weather conditions, are imprinted upon his mind so deeply that 77 years have failed to blot out. Often Mr. Ball and the other 1,449 Russell boys fought without food and marched without shoes, sleeping on the ground, often in the rain and snow.
Mr. Ball resides with his only living daughter, Mrs. W. E. Mutter, of Blackford, Va. He was born August 28, 1844, son of J. W. and Rebecca Ball, one mile south of Old Honaker, where he spent his childhood and boyhood days, learning the cabinet trade under his father, the late Turner John Ball. His father was familiarly known by that name.
Haskew Ball, when a boy, attended school in Honaker, the late Captain E. D. Miller was one of his teachers. Before the war between the States young Haskew Ball taught in the public schools in both Russell and Buchanan counties and quit the school room to volunteer for service, serving three and a half years.
After the close of the war Mr. Ball again resumed his chosen profession of cabinet making with his father, making furniture, coffins, spinning wheels, both styles - large and small, and many other items of general household use.
Mr. Ball was married to Miss Cyntha Hurt, daughter of Moes and Polly Hurt of Gardner. To them 7 children were born, 4 of whom still survive.
Haskew Ball, than who there is no finer Southerner, is a lifelong native Russell countian, and as he nears the century mark he can walk without a cane and can read without glasses.