Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 December 1883 — Deserted Virginia Homes. [ARTICLE]

Deserted Virginia Homes.

' One afternoon, along with a small party, I went hunting for wild turkeys over the vast track of 4,000 acres of hill and valley, woods and meadow land. And lam sure we galloped through at. ana saw quite as many deserted homes with the once cultivated fields of blue grass and stones falling back into a state of nature. Now I know it is stated and believed that the owners of these fields fell in the war. Not so. These men pushed over the Blue range long ago. Even as early as the day when the present State of Illinois wasi jknown as “Illinois county, State of Virginia,” these little mountain homes were being massed together, and resolving themselves into great cattle, “ranches” like the one on which I have been spending the most delightful days of my life. How many strange, old-new stories one finds down here among these ancient people. And how many curious relies of days “before the war,sah.” —Joaquin \. Mi Iler. ......: .