TALCOTT (Hinton News) – It is time for another edition of A Peek into Summers County’s Past. Each week, local history collector, William Jones, presents pieces from his collection and discusses their significance. In this edition, Jones provides an early photograph of Talcott, which lists some of the major constructions of the time.
To begin, Jones said, “I was reminded of this photo while in the John Henry Museum recently. John Kessler, a Summers County historian, had given me a large copy of this early photograph of Talcott. So I figured I would use it for this week’s story. I will tell you about the houses and businesses identified. First, the photo appears to be from between 1910 to 1915. The fact that this photo has many of the structures identified is invaluable. So often, very few people were listed in early photographs, much less the buildings in them.”
Jones goes on to discuss the first structure listed. He said, “First, we have (1) in the center of the picture. It is noted as ‘Hdw Store’. I believe this is the second hardware store that was in Talcott. Remember that one of my previous pieces was about the Talcott Hardware and Feed Store that James Nelson owned. There were two stores, and this was the second hardware store.”
“Then there is 2 and 3. The Jones home and store had more ornate design elements to them. That was because Mr. Jones had relocated to what is now Talcott from the original settlement of that area known as Rollensburg at the time. It was built around trading of livestock in the early days. When the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad built a depot near the Big Bend tunnel, which is number (9) in this photo, Mr. Jones moved his home and store to be near the new depot, a shipping point for this particular section of rail.”
Jones goes on to talk about the fourth building listed. He stated, “Number four (4) is still standing and was the L.G. Rhodes Store that now houses the John Henry Museum. You can see the Tacott bridge slightly in the foreground. The bridge was constructed in 1906. It was originally a toll bridge to pay for its construction. Prior to that, in 1896, Thomas Maddy had installed a cable controlled by ropes and pulleys. He would take you across the river to the Rollensburg side for a small fee. The second floor of the store building was once home of the Talcott Lodge No. 100 Masonic Lodge. I have my great grandfather O.D. Thompson’s masonic bible, where he was a member in the 1920s.”
“Number five (5) is Trinity United Methodist Church. Seemingly oddly, it is facing the wrong direction in the photo. That is because it originally sat opposite from the way it now faces. It also sat farther down on the lower section of the lot and was subject to flooding before being moved farther to the corner of the street, and its direction was changed at the same time. This occured in 1954,” Jones stated. “An interesting tidbit about this building is that my great great grandfather L.W. Thompson was contracted to repair the roof in 1944. He then subcontracted the painting of the steeple to my Granddad Bernard Thompson and his cousin Gene Wallace.”
Continuing the anecdote, Jones said, “Granddad stretched as far as he could off of L.W.’s paint ladder but lacked less than 1ft of the top. Oddly enough, my brother’s construction company J.C. Construction replaced the roof and painted the steeple this past year. You could still see the difference in the color from this incident until it was painted again last year. Mr. Kessler told me that the original stone steps were pushed over the river bank behind it when it was moved and can still be seen if you know where to look.”
Moving on to the next items listed, Jones continued his descriptions. He said, “Numbers 6 and 7, the Ead’s and Huston’s were both very prominent families in the community. A fire broke out on September 18, 1923 in the Davis Store, which was adjacent to what was described as the ‘large Huston Home’ in several newspaper articles about this particular incident at that time and the nearby office of Dr. P. A. Ford were all destroyed. (8) Denn Clark & Perry Store was also destroyed by this fire. I remember my grandfather talking about this fire and that it had destroyed several stores and homes. This is the reason why the lot to the right of Trinity Methodist Church is vacant now.”
Finally, Jones spoke about the remaining buildings. He stated, “Number nine (9) is the depot building, this building was torn down in the 1940s. Mr. Kessler told me that the lumber was used to build one of the houses along Route 3 above the Second Baptist Church in Talcott to the right. (10) was the Talcott School which burned in 1909 and was valued at $700 for insurance purposes at that time. (11, 12 and 13) were other private homes of people that were thought of with much respect in the community at that time.”
In conclusion, Jones said, “Over the years Talcott not only had the John Henry legend which it became nationally famous for. But it faced several large destructive fires over the years. This article only briefly touches on this topic of the severity of damages these fires caused in this small community. To have one building burn is bad enough but to have a fire then spread to multiple homes, business and a public school had to be very traumatic for the small town of Talcott. Then for it to not just happen once but 3 times over 20 years in the early 1900s, shows you the true meaning of community. People pulling together and helping their fellow man time and time again, true resilience!”
Note, there are multiple spellings for the area of Rollynsburg. Some of the variations include Rolinsburgh, Rollinsburg, Rollensburg, and the current Rollynsburg as seen on the Rollynsburg Baptist Church.
This brings us to the end of another edition of A Peek into Summers County’s Past. Did you know about all the places listed in the photo?
If you have a suggestion for a future article or a story you want to share about the area’s history, send an email to news@hintonnews.com.
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