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John Scarlett Interview October 26, 2003 Conducted by Joe Liles Part 3 |
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Now, I had some experiences on Fish Dam Road. Most people that could remember that road, they are covered up today. I can remember when people traveled on that road. Mr. Woods would carry mail on a horse and buggy up the Fish Dam Road. Later, he would come by on a T-model Ford. He would go right down Fish Dam Road. He would cross Pleasant Green and go on to where there was a bridge across Stones Creek. Later on, when the bridge went out, they put a 2 X 10 across that little creek. We called that the footpath.
There were a few places on Fish Dam Road that didn’t have steep banks, but most places did. That road had been there so long that, with it wearing down and washing out, most of the places it was worn down deep with high banks on either side. I remember going down that bank to meet Mr. Woods and get our mail.
I couldn’t see who all they was, but sometimes you would see a caravan, maybe five, six, or eight wagons and horses. They be going down Fish Dam Road from the direction of Hillsborough. That was a trade route back then. I imagine some of them was carrying tobacco down to Liggett and Myers or American or to the warehouses. There used to be a large telephone line, had between 12 and 20 wires roughly, that went along Fish Dam Road. That was the communication line. That line went to Hillsborough, it might have went to Greensboro, I don’t know. For a good part of the way, that line went along Fish Dam Road.
Fish Dam Road was in regular use until maybe 1925 or 26. I remember, myself, traveling on Fish Dam Road. I would travel Fish Dam Road down to a place called Mr. Bill Dezern’s farm and Mr. Bob Griffin’s farm. We would go down Fish Dam Road to go there, just below where that paving company is. My father did a little farming a bit down that way, across 70, up a holler, and beyond where the whisky store is.
I traveled Fish Dam Road going the other direction, toward Hillsborough, but we never went farther than Linden Road. I remember going up Fish Dam to the Cabe Ford Road and then to the farm. We traveled by horse or by foot. We never got stuck on a horse. You couldn’t stick him. I traveled mostly with my brothers: James, older than I, and Richard, younger than I, I, and my father, we would all be on a wagon. Most I can remember, my brother James would be driving. He was approximately five years older than me.
Return to John Scarlett - Part 2
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