The Old River Road to Shepherdstown

The Old River Road to Shepherdstown.
By J. O. Knott

The Potomac is one of the most picturesque rivers in the world. When I heard as a child, the words: “Oh Jordan’s stormy banks I stand, and cast a wishful eye,” the vision came of a wide expanse of water from one shore of which a beautiful land could be indistinctly seen on the other side, while c[r]ashing waves rolled high at my feet. Imagine a stream about the size of the Opequon, and about as distinguished looking, and you have the Jordan. “Rome, on the Tiber,” sounds like the very witchery of words. I am sure, however, that thousands of tourists have crossed the Tiber in going over to visit St. Paul’s Church and did not know that they had crossed a stream, or if they did know, thought it was a canal. “The far and winding Rhine,” is interesting, of course, but chiefly for the old castles which stand on its bluffs. The river itself is swift, muddy, and anything but beautiful. The Thames is small, and of the millpond variety. The Ohio is muddy, monotonous and uninteresting. The lordly Mississippi runs through a flat country and reminds one of an overflowed bottom land. The only river that I have ever seen to compare with the Potomac is the Hudson, and it is very much like our own wonderful river.

Take your stand upon the front porch of the Mt. Vernon mansion, and upon the bluffs of the river at Potomac Heights, Washington, D. C., and you will see one of the most majestic rivers of earth. Great Falls, near Washington City, is a more picturesque sight than the falls of Rhine. But for quiet and romantic beauty, see the Potomac from the high hills of the Moler and Engle section of Jefferson county, where the Blue Ridge forms a near background, and the hills of two States are mirrored in the glass-like water as you look down upon it from several hundred feet elevation. Or see the river from the Samuel Knott homestead, looking north towards Mountain Lock; then from the Cement Mill site, looking towards Shepherdstown, and finally from the bluffs of Shepherdstown. What a marvel that such beauty has in the main, been unsung and is practically unknown to the great world at large. Will not some youthful heart be inspired to write a romance in which the story of Rumsey can be weaved; or some legend of the Rip Van Winkle order, or like that of the Headless Horseman taking the Potomac river scenery as a ground work, and forever immortalizing it?

The Old River Road, leading from Knott’s Island to Shepherdstown, was one of the most delightful drives of forty years ago. The floods of recent years have damaged that road and so turned the river bed in places as to make this road now a little used one. The automobile, too, with its elimination of distance and love for macadamed highways, has stressed the longer way around for the sake of convenience. The sequestered drive over sand and by cool streams, is not now so popular as in the days of the fathers. But those fathers loved that river road. When in other days a young man wanted to know his standing with the girl of his heart, he usually induced her to accept a drive over this romantic way, where amidst environment of river and mountain scenery, rippling water, and the Cement Mill dam roaring in the distance, he unburdened his heart, while the horse he was driving walked slowly under overhanging trees from whose boughs the oriole sang and the king fisher cackled as he dived for his dinner.

At one point in this road, the Island long known as Knott’s Island, separated the Potomac river and formed what was locally known as the “little river” on the Virginia side. For about one mile, from Hoffman’s Mill to the southern end of the Island, this smaller stream of the Potomac formed an almost complete vista. White-armed sycamore trees reached across and touched each other from either side of the stream. The road itself was lined with pawpaw bushes, and the air was burdened with the fragrance of violets and wild mint. The rabbit, in this sequestered lane, would timidly venture out and hop along the road as though sure no one riding along this way would harm it. Turtles would crawl up on the old logs in the midst of the stream and take their sun-baths, where the sun could shine in spots through the dense foliage. As evening came on the river frogs would tune up for their nocturnal concert, and soon from high treble to basso profundo they would burden the air of night with their monotonous music. To some persons this frog concert was interesting and ever beautiful; to other[s] it was most dismal.

In the Knott’s Island region the bass fishing in other days was the very best. At the southern end of the island, where a wonderful spring of unfailing water came out from the hillside, fishing parties would camp for days. Captain Lee H. Moler and his brother-in-law, Will Reinhart, were accustomed to lead parties here each season and to come themselves at every opportunity. Col. William A. Morgan and his friends loved this spot and came frequently, the tall form of the ex-confederate towering above all of his friends. Mr. George Licklider, then quite an old man, would come here and inquire of us “river boys” the best fishing places. I recall that we resented to some degree the beautiful fishing tackle of these visitors, while we used old poles and thick cord for lines. But when our catch (as was frequently the case) outnumbered that of our visitors of the bamboo rod and singing reel, our resentment was appeased.

At the time of which I write the river road was strung with small homes from the beginning of the raod at the Maggie Knott home on to Shepherdstown. The most of these homes have disappeared. The Hoffman mill has fallen into dilapidation. Mrs. Alfred Knode, John and Charley Mitchell, Jim Hoffman, Will Hoffman and Jim Hoffmaster, will all remember the “haunted” places along this road– and they were many– from the old Mounce home to the Mill and then some. In the Mounce house the dishes would all fall down in the middle of the night, and yet nothing was disturbed or broken in the morning. At the Hoffman Mill a young man, soon after the Civil War, in undertaking to extract powder from an unexploded shell, was blown to atoms, and he could be seen, nightly, lantern in hand, going up from the Mill over the hill towards Mr. Christian Reinhart’s. In those days ghosts were realities to us children, and later in my youth, when I rode frequently down this river road, and by the haunted places, feeling the warm and cold currents of air meet, which the old stories said was a sure sign of spooks, I was something like Robert Burns in that while I did not believe in ghosts I was always looking for them. But many waters can not quench love, nor can ghosts deter it in its activities. Shepherdstown had strong attraction for me, even after college hours, and “Dodd,” my horse, was my sole companion as I came this lonely way, too often I am bound to confess near midnight; yet like Ichabod Crane in the region of the Headless Horseman on the Tarrytown Road I would frequently whistle when approaching a “haunted” spot to keep up my courage. At length the river road came to be associated in my mind with all that was romantic, and it is so to this day. To me at this remove of time and distance, that road traveled by Dr. Ashton with his beautiful black mare hitched to his buggy, and by Allen Reynolds, Frank Muzzey, and I think my friend, Joe Bragonier, and a host of others in their courting days, is still a sort of lovers’ lane for all time.

Then, too, the families of days further removed who lived here and were happy in their childhood with us of the river region, seem to come from their unseen country and once more take their places in this world of mystery and action. Men and women who rode horses and drove spring wagons and daytons once more pass up and down this sequestered road. I hear their merry laughter and note their earnest looks where laughing is not in order. One wonders if indeed there is not some truth in the story, so often acted upon the stage, “The Blue Bird,” which advances the doctrine that whenever we think much about our friends who once lived with us but who have passed into the unseen world, they live again in joy in the spirit world.