Along the northern boundary of Charles White Jr.'s
wooded Drewrv property is a raised embankment, upon
which rails and ties were once laid.
(Staff Photos By Ferruccio)
1W Ruaakt Mnr Raflway wmi to rm fcjr the ft-wt of
tote hMK term what H hw a raral paved read bi
Drewry on its way from Man son to Townsville.
The house, owned by Charles White Jr. of Drewry, was
built in the 1790s. The road in front was closed in the early
1950s because of the rising waters of Kerr Lai"*. -
WRPC Releases First
Quarter Business List
The Warren Regional
Planning Corporation, located
on East Market Street in
Warrenton, has just released
its 1977 first quarter
figures to the U. S.
Department of Commerce.
John I. Hickman, president
of the firm, reported that
$904,000 in loans and
procurements were accomplished
during the organization's
first three-month
performance period since
opening their offices in June
of this year.
The $904,000 accomplishment
represented loan packaging
proposals submitted
to the Small Business
Administration, Farmers
Home Administration, and
to local conventional financial
institutions.
Area businesspersons
were also assisted by the
staff's management and
technical assistance departments
in financial analysis,
accounting systems and
services, bidding, construction,
estimating, loan packaging,
marketing and other
forms of business assistance,
Hickman reported.
One of the organization's
major accomplishments for
this period was the securance
of a mortgage loan
commitment for a government
subsidized, 50-unit
housing project soon to be
constructed in Vance County
In business for the past
seven years, the WRPC is
funded by the U. S. Department
of Commerce, Office
of Minority Business Enterprise,
to provide free management
and technical
assistance to businesspersons
in the counties of
Vance, Warren, Wilson,
Nash and Edgecombe. In
performing these services,
the staff is not limited to the
five counties and does have
the capability of servicing 17
additional counties including
those along the Eastern
Seaboard, Hickman said.
The assistance teams at
the Warren Regional Planning
Corporation consist of
two basic units, a Business
Development Organization
(BDO) and a Construction
Contractor's Assistance
Center (CCAC). The BDO
provides technical assistance
to minority enterpreneurs
wishing to set up or
expand a business and the
CCAC assists minority contractors
in secOring prime
and sub-contracts throughout
the region.
In addition to providing
management and technical
services, the staff is now
working in conjunction with
the Raleigh State OMBE
and grantee applicants on
the Economic Development
Administration's Public
Works Employment Act of
1977. This Act requires that
at least 10 percent of the
funds appropriated in support
of the Public Works
Project be spent with
minority contractors or in
the purchase of goods and
services from minority
firms.
In releasing a statement
to the press, Hickman said
that his organization has
"an active mandate to contribute
to the community's
development of minority
and disadvantaged enterprises
thereby helping to
strengthen the community's
economic foundation.
"In accomplishing the
goals of the organization,
Hickman has assembled a
team of business experts
which include a mortgage
banker, a construction specialist-estimator,
a financial
expert, an accountant-loan
packager, administrative
assistant-MS&TA trainee,
and two executive secretaries.
Business hours arc from
nine to five, Monday
through Friday. Persons in
need of assistance are
invited to phone in for an
appointment.
Aunt Plum Recalls Day The Trestle Collapsed
Old Manson-To-Clarksville Railroad Cut
i
Through Northern Warren, Vance Counties
By KEN FERRUCCIO
Staff Writer
The Roanoke Valley Railway, built sometime before
what Charles White, HI of Warrenton calls "The War of
Northern Agression," ran from Manson to Clarksville,
Va.
During this war, says Charles, the rails were torn up to
serve "the war effort." But in what way they did serve
this effort nobody is certain.
Charles has heard that the rails were made into cannon
balls and bullets, while his father, Charles White, Jr., 77,
of Drewry, has heard that they were pulled up and used
as rails elsewhere.
Charles Jr.'s grandfather, Capt. William Wallace
White, kept a diary from 1857 to 1910, a bound copy of
which is available in the Warrenton library.
According to the diary, the train was operable at least
as early as 1857, because on December 10th of that year.
Captain White went to Townsville "on the freight train"
to see a Mr. Rowland on business.
After the "Yankee Invasion," Charles Jr. asserts. The
Roanoke Valley Railway was rebuilt as the Roanoke
River Railway. The tracks, he continues, were relaid in
'heir original beds when he wa^ just a child, three or four
years old. This would have been during 1903 and 1904. But
just precisely when the rebuilding began, he does not
know.
Years later, Charles Jr. was to study civil engineering
at North Carolina State and was to receive a masters
degree from Carolina, and serve some nine years with
the Tennessee Highway Department
He attributes these developments in his career to the
profound impressions made upon his childhood imagination,
as, in the company of his nurse, he witnessed the
rebuilding of the Roanoke River Railway.
About the time Charles Jr. was in Middleburg High
School, Townsville took the railway over. S. R Adams
was its president, and James Boyd, its vice president
Charles Jr. may have been a senior at Middleburg
High School when an accident on the trestle occurred,
which was, he approximates, in 1918.
Charles Jr.'s Aunt Sue (called affectionately Plum by
her husband, Henry B. White, and Sue when he was upset
about something), has a distinct recollection of tin
tragedy on the trestle. If it did occur in 1918 she woulr
have been only 28 years old.
"The trestle," she says, "had caught fire sometin.
prior to the accident, had been repaired, inspected, ant
judged safe."
"And it was," added Soil Conservationist Nat White
her son, "a really remarkable architectural
achievement. It was 80 feet high and made of wood."
"There wasn't any way for the engine to turn around on
the tracks," Aunt "Plum" continued, "and it was being
,backed ijpfrom Townsville toward Drewry by two blaok^
men. A man could see that the foundation was beginning
to give way and hoilered to the men in the engine to pull it
forward, to get off the trestle. But it was too late. Too
much of the engine already had been driven on to the
trestle when it gave way."
She says that after the accident Townsville rebuilt the
trestle, but it proved financially unfeasible.
Aunt "Plum" remembers the Roanoke River Railway
as something "unique, purely for the convenience of the
people, not for money; although they made some money,
I reckon."
And she recalls her courtship by train when she was
living at Sunny Slope, and her husband-to-be was station
agent of the Drewry Depot.
Before the train would leave the depot, her fiance
would put fruit or some little gift on board for her, and
when the train arrived at Sunny Slope, it would stop and
blow its whistle. Then Aunt "Plum's" little sisters would
run toward it to see what it had brought.
On one such occasion a bee stung the toe of Aunt
"Plum's" sister, Mary Alice, to which she paid not the
Nat iftitt recuu uuu ue imu« wu a it*uy
vmarnuw areMtectaral acklevcmmt. II was M feet
ligh and made «f wood."
least regard as she ran in hopeful expectation toward the
train.
Aunt "Plum's" estimate of the Roanoke River Railway
as something unique, as a railway for the people, is
consistent with other recollections.
Charles III remembers when people used to go squirrel
and rabbit hunting along Nutbush Creek (now under
Kerr I>ake), and how they would hitchhike a ride on the
train.
"The train would stop, pick them up, and bring them
back to Drewry. It was kind of like the Toonerviile
Trolley of the old comic strips," he said. And Charles Jr.
recalls the time the train was cranked up in the middle of
night to return an intoxicated Drewry citizen safely to his
home from Manson.
The engine which once served so faithfully the citizens
of Drewry is now, according to Charles III, in the deepest
part of Kerr Lake. "Who knows exactly where?" he asks.
When he was a boy he used to go fishing in Nutbush
Creek, and he would see a part of the engine "sticking up
through the water."
He adds that attempts were made sometime after the
accident on the trestle to salvage the engine for scrap
metal, but that they were unsuccessful.
As The Roanoke Valley Railway, the train had served
the South in "the War of Northern Agression." As The
Roanoke River Railway, it had served the local needs of
Drewry citizens.
During World War II, even in its then defunct
condition, it had served a united South and North in the
war against foreign agression. Charles III remember?picking
up spikes and pieces of iron along the railway
when he was only 15 or 16 years old to sell scrap metal for
what was then a united national effort.
The only indication of the railway's ever having
existed along the northern boundary of Charles Jr.'s
wooded Drewry property is a raised embankment, upon
which the rails and ties had been laid. They are gone, and
the embankment itself is gradually disappearing in th"
woods.
Eyen the Drewry depot is gone, vanished in the fire
that destroyed it 20 years ago. Nat White remembers that
it was a one story building "lined with tin." The loading
dock faced the train tracks.
The depot was later turned into a house and inhabited
by a black family with four children. "Chicago has
nothing on us." said Nat. "The old depot caught fire when
a pig kicked over a tin heater."
"There was no fire department as such in those days,"
added Louise Raines of Drewry. The Drewry citizens
were the fire department whenever one was needed."
She recalls how her husband, Felix, ran into the
burning building, found each of the children, and brought
them to the door where she received them and carried
them safely from the flames.
"Tf Perhaps the last defense against the vanishing present
is the memory of its past. The railway from Manson to
Townsville is alive in the minds and hearts of those whom
it served.
/ know rut method to secure the
repeal of bad or obnoxious laus so
effective as their stringent execu
tion
Ulysses S Grant
"It was a unique train, purely for the convenience of
the people," says Aunt "Plum."
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