Centerville

“ We overtook our regiment just as they were ready to recross Bull Run, and were held in readiness the remainder of the day, but no order for action was given and near night fall marched back to our camp ground of the proceeding night.
Just after dark a heavy rain began and continued all night and about half the next day, so we were thoroughly drenched by this time. Shortly after day break we started toward Centerville and our skirmish line captured several prisoners on the way. We moved very cautiously through the woods in the downpour of rain, thinking the enemy was at Centerville. ”

“ Centerville is served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific and the Iowa Central railways. Among the principal buildings are the county court-house and the Federal building, and the city has a public library and a hospital. It is in one of the most productive coal regions of the state; it ships coal, limestone and livestock, has large bottling works, and manufactures iron, brick and tile, machine-shop products, woollen goods, shirts, cigars and flour. ”

“ Nightly the village streets are brilliantly lighted and business goes on as busily as by daylight. The magic current is introduced to the houses and brings light and cheerfulness to the homes.
The old village of Centerville would scarcely recognize the village of Turner, which is but the village of Centerville under a new name.
CHAPTER XXII. TOWN OF MONTGOMERY. By David A. Morrison.
This important town is in the northern part of Orange County, bordering upon Ulster. It lies between the towns of Newburgh on the east, and Crawford on the west. ”

“ And amid a shrieking of hundreds of voices the train started that was to bear the four chums to their homes in Centerville.
“There’s your dear friend, Oswald Fredericks, Frank!” said Will, as the party hung partly out of a couple of windows in the car they occupied.
“And he’s got his eye glued on you, too; don’t forget,” remarked Jerry.
“Oh! he’s a good hater, all right,” said Bluff. “If he didn’t have any reason to wish you all sorts of bad luck before, that souse in the river settled it. From now on he’ll never hear the name of Frank Langdon without getting mad, you mark me. ”

“ In 1846 Centerville was laid out and first named Chaldea but the citizens were not satisfied with that name and at a house raising held not long after there was a large gathering and a proposition was made to change it. Dr. ”

“ I looked in vain for the old “brush heap” which had once screened me from the rebel cavalry; the fire had consumed it. But the remains of the Stone Church at Centerville was an object of deep interest to me.
I went from Washington to Aquia Creek by steamer, and from thence to Falmouth on [Pg 300] horseback. I found the army encamped in the mud for miles along the Rappahannock river.
The river is very narrow between Falmouth and Fredericksburg, not more than a stone’s cast in some places. I have often seen the pickets on both sides amusing themselves by throwing stones across it. ”

“ We've got our own, and the air of this camp isn't quite as nice as I'd like. Shall we go, fellows?" asked Frank.
"Might as well," answered Jerry; "but before we do I think these chaps ought to be told that the sheriff promised to drop in and see us tomorrow; and that if there's any more of this humbug and annoyance tried, I'm going to ask him to take the whole bunch back to Centerville."
"And I promise to prefer a charge of malicious mischief against them, and an attempt to destroy property. Incendiarism is a crime, especially when life is placed in peril ”

“ It was originally located in Washington Township about five miles southwest of Centerville on Social Row Road, about halfway between Sheehan Road and Yankee Street. In the spring of 1953 it was torn down and moved to Carillon Park, where it was rebuilt, using the original stones and timbers. ”

“ She was the goddess of counsel, war, female arts and industries. In Italy she was known as Minerva. No satisfactory explanation is given of the origin of the Greek name Athena. See Encyclopædia Britannica. The post office of Centerville was established October 11, 1878, with Wm. T. Cook as first postmaster. The name was changed to Athena May 16, 1889.
Athey Canyon, Polk County. This canyon is on the west slope of Eola Hills about two miles northeast of McCoy. ”

“ Have examined Centreville, Union Mills, Blackburn's Ford, etc. The rebels have left all their positions, and, from the information obtained during our ride to-day, I am satisfied that they have fallen behind the Rapidan, holding Fredericksburg and Gordonsville. Their movement from here was very sudden. They left many wagons, some caissons, clothing, ammunition, personal baggage, etc. Their winter-quarters were admirably constructed, many not yet quite finished. The works at Centreville are formidable; more so than at Manassas. Except the turnpike, the roads are horrible. ”

“ Centreville, so famous in the July days of 1861, was now the evident destination of the forces and crossing Bull Run, at Blackburn's Ford, the scene of the first day's fight in the memorable First Bull Run engagement, the brigade arrived at Centreville not far from noon. To build fires and to prepare a dinner, undisturbed, was the next act in this day's drama and, if tired soldiers caught a few hours sleep before the next scene, it need not be wondered at. Some of the men in the Thirty-ninth were participants in the disastrous battle of Bull Run ”

“ It seems strange that even the holy influences which radiate from this joyous season cannot keep some men from getting into unseemly wrangles. It was only yesterday that our local saw a street row here in the quiet avenues of our peaceful city—a street row recalling the riotous scenes which took place here before Dead Horse experienced a change of heart and became New Centreville. ”

“ The sun hardly penetrates through its gloom, and the traveller, oppressed with its loneliness and desolation, 154 hurries through that he may reach the more genial spots beyond, and feel the cheering rays of God’s sunshine.
Near one border of this region, at the junction of roads that lead from Fredericksburg and United States Ford, is Chancellorsville; not a town, not a village, but simply a tract of cleared land surrounding one brick house, said to have been erected for a private residence, but used at the commencement of the war as a roadside tavern. ”

“ The country around was wild and broken, with but few roads fit for the movements of an 95army, and those easily guarded. Centreville was twenty-two miles distant from Washington, and Manassas Junction six or seven more. About midway between the two flowed the little rivulet of Bull Run, in a general direction from north-west to south-east. A road led from Centreville to the Junction, crossing the Run three miles from that place, at “Blackburn’s Ford,” while a turnpike running towards Warrenton, also crossed Bull Run at Stone Bridge, four miles distant. ”

“ Beallsville, like Centreville as a town, was the outgrowth of the National Road. It was laid out in 1821, and incorporated as a borough in 1852. Jonathan Knight, the old engineer before mentioned, surveyed the site of the town and made the plat. The National Road forms the main street of this town, as it does that of Centreville. The first old tavern reached in Beallsville, going west, was on the north side, at the east end of the town. This house was first kept by Andrew Keys, and after him by Thomas Keys. ”

“ There were several thousand soldiers in and around Centreville, who had not been engaged, in position and condition to resist a pursuit by any force the Confederates could have sent against them that night; it's a very risky business to pursue a retreating army in the night time ”

“ The city of Centralia became alive with gossip and speculation about this new move on the part of the employers. Everybody knew that the whole thing centered around the detested hall of the Union loggers. Curiosity seekers began to come In from all parts of the county to have a peep at this hall before it was wrecked. Business men were known to drive their friends from the new to the old hall in order to show what the former would look like in a short time. People in Centralia generally knew for a certainty that the present hall would go the way of its predecessor. ”

“ Centerport, although a moderately wealthy town, could not supply fifty thousand dollars, off-hand, for such a purpose; and that was the least sum needed for the establishment of an up-to-date building and field for winter bathing, basketball grounds, tennis courts, a cinder track, and a dancing lawn.
Perhaps Laura Belding was no more interested in the establishment of such a fine field than many other of the girls of the sophomore, junior, and senior classes. Laura was a soph herself; but she saw ways and means to an end more quickly than the others. ”

“ The plaintive cries of the night-birds alone break the gloomy silence of the desolate region, and the shadowy thicket stretching in every direction produces a depressing effect upon the feelings. Chancellorsville is in the centre of this singular territory, on the main road, or rather roads, running from Orange Court-House to Fredericksburg, from which latter place it is distant about ten miles. ”

“ And as many of them (the practice being general among all the denominations) are embellished with towers or spires, their redeeming effect on the appearance of the town is very considerable.
As I am on the subject of American towns, I trust that my friends in that part of the world will excuse me for never having been persuaded by them to fall into ecstacies at the contemplation of the plan of Philadelphia, which they point to with feelings of enthusiasm, as the very perfection of taste and judgment in the art of building cities. ”

“ Every city ought to have a center, and every center ought to signify in its spaciousness, its arrangement and its architecture, a city's dignity. Buffalo is, unfortunately, far from being alone in her need of such a thing. Where Buffalo is most at fault is that she does not even seem to be thinking of municipal distinction. And very many other cities are. Cleveland is already attaining it in a manner which will be magnificent; Chicago has long planned and is slowly executing; Denver has work upon a splendid municipal center well under way ”

“ There has been reference in this book to the Centralia case. No one can consider that he understands the technique of holding down the Reds until he has studied this case, and therefore every friend of “Big Business” should send fifty cents, either to the I. W. W. Headquarters, 1001 West Madison Street, Chicago, or to the “Liberator,” New York, or to the “Appeal to Reason,” Girard, Kansas, for the booklet, “The Centralia Conspiracy,” by Ralph Chaplin, who attended the Centralia trial, and has collected all the details and presents them with photographs and documents. ”

“ For as you approach it, past the charming little hamlet of Glendale, past such a sunny wealth of orchard and meadow and corn-land, past such beautiful glimpses of landscape, you cannot help expecting a scene of rural prettiness in sympathy with such surroundings. But Orderville at first sight looks like a factory. The wooden shed-like buildings built in continuous rows, the adjacent mills, the bare, ugly patch of hillside behind it, give the actual settlement an uninviting aspect. ”

“ I was next in rank, and he telegraphed me the same day to report at department headquarters at Corinth. I was not informed by the dispatch that my chief had been ordered to a different field and did not know whether to move my headquarters or not. I telegraphed asking if I was to take my staff with me, and received word in reply: "This place will be your headquarters. You can judge for yourself." I left Memphis for my new field without delay, and reached Corinth on the 15th of the month. General Halleck remained until the 17th of July ”

“ In 1887 the Illinois Central railroad built a line from Manchester to Cedar Rapids, running it through Central City. This little city, exactly half way between Manchester and Cedar Rapids, at once began to grow as soon as it was certain the railroad would be built.
This road was a great boon to the north part of Linn county, as before that Marion was its nearest market, and many had to haul their produce twenty miles to reach it.
Central City now has six hundred people. It has fourteen business houses, three churches, a solid bank, a fine school doing full twelve-grade work. ”

“ Valiant and able generals came from the different parts of Ohio, and from the different races which settled there. But the Scotch race, descending through New England, has the highest place in our soldiers’ ancestry, and the county of Clermont has the deathless glory of being the birthplace of Ulysses Simpson Grant, one of the greatest captains of all time, one of the purest patriots, one of the best and gentlest men. ”

“ If you did not have more to eat than my men, and march and fight so hard, I tink you would take a little shicken, too!"
The town of Kinston is one of the neatest and most tidy-looking I have seen in North Carolina, or, in fact, elsewhere. It is finely laid out, in a splendid location upon the banks of the river, the streets running at right angles; the houses well built, painted white, and to each is attached a beautiful and tasteful flower garden. ”

“ Facing the west from the Franklin railroad, the first building to the right is the residence of the Misses Denny, in a somewhat isolated position. This stands in its freshness and beauty, solitary and alone. Passing down two squares to the centre of the town, not one building and only two or three stables or barns remain on either side of this street of private residences, my own with all of my library and manuscripts, among the number. Passing further on westward for more than three squares in length, to the top of “New England Hill,” five or six more or less isolated houses remain. ”