Fly By Town

Harpers Ferry (Photo credit: cliff1066™)

     
       I won't say that I was lost.  I didn't know exactly where I was, but I basically knew where I was going.  I had taken a wrong turn and didn't particularly want to stop to consult the map.  The road I was on would eventually come to a main road that I recognized.  I was pretty sure of that.   Most roads go somewhere and that somewhere will usually provide more options.    You can never get really lost forever on highways.  For a short while maybe, but not forever.

         Winding through mountains in West Virginia, then Virginia, then back and forth again, I was enjoying the beauty of the place yet I was anxious to get back to the main highway.  We had a ways to go and I wanted to get to our motel in Lexington, Virginia before it got dark.

         As we came out of a particularly curvy mountainous area, we emerged into a small community.  I wouldn't quite call it a town because I didn't see anything besides houses.  There were quite a number of these houses.  Houses that struck me as being somewhat large looking two story houses, similar in design and relatively old.  Houses built before 1950--maybe even pre-war.  The community looked neat, but poor.  And odd.  

        The place was eerie odd like something seen in a dream.  In retrospect I almost wished I had stopped, or at least paid more attention.   At the time I was more concerned about finding a main highway and I did after passing the eerie odd community.

         For the rest of the drive that day my mind kept going back to the place on the road that I had flown by.  I felt haunted.  That evening in the motel I looked on my computer to find out where it was that we had passed through.  Nothing.   I could not figure out what that place had been.

        Several weeks later after more careful researching with the help of Google Maps and Google Search, I figured out what place we had flown by.   Bishop, Virginia and Bishop, West Virginia was the town.  A place divided due to having been  built on the border of two states.

          Bishop is an old coal mining town--something I had surmised as we drove past.  I mentioned that to my wife and now it was confirmed for me.  Now with mines closed, Bishop is just part of the Appalachian poverty region.   What was a fly by town to me is a place where a goodly number of people live and struggle to get by.

          Why write about Bishop today?   Because today, January 4th, a Saturday, I hope to pass through there again if my schedule allows.  If I do return, this time I will slow down a bit.  Maybe take some pictures.  Maybe just stop and look for a moment.   The place still haunts me.  If I make sure that it is real--real to me at least--then maybe its ghost will live in my memory a different way.  Not a dream, but a real place.

          Have you ever passed through a town that haunted you?   What is the strangest place you've ever been to?   Are you familiar with Bishop or the Appalachian region of West Virginia and Virginia?

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Harry Powers’ Saga

        A couple of years before my father died in 1990, he put down the story of his life in what he titled "The Autobiography of a Nobody".  I did not know about this until after his death.  He had loaded it onto a floppy disc, but none of us could figure out how to access the information.  Fortunately he had printed a few copies, one of which I have.

The following is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of my father's  Autobiography of a Nobody:

Image via Wikipedia

Harry Powers 1920

         Harry Powers and his two sisters owned the confectionery store one block from our house. Oh. the many times if we got a penny or two or more, how we would run to the store to buy candy from the store. Adjacent to the store was their living quarters. Harry had a coupe, one of the few that had an automobile in the neighborhood. On several occasions he would let me ride with him, and then deliver a grocery order to one of his customers. 

THEN THE NEWS HIT THE NEWSPAPERS! 

        Every few hours during the day an extra hit the streets. Since my father worked for the newspaper he saw to it that I got a big bundle of fresh extras to sell so I could have spending money. EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT! HARRY POWERS MURDERS THREE WOMEN! 

       This was a devastating event that hit and shook Clarksburg (WV). It had a remarkable influence upon our neighborhood. It was being told that many of the neighborhood girls were on his list to be next. This had a temporary affect upon these girls whose names were on his hit list. 

       It bothered my mother. One night my mother had a terrible nightmare. She climbed out of her second floor bedroom onto the porch roof screaming that Harry Powers had her. The harder my father gripped on my mother’s arm the more she would scream thinking that Harry had her, She was very close to jumping off the roof. Finally my father was able to awaken her. Harry had a tremendous effect on other people in the immediate neighborhood. 

       What had happened was that Harry Powers, a heavy-set man, placed an ad in a lonely hearts section of a newspaper that attracted three different women at three different times, He owned a farm in Quiet Dell, West Virginia. They would come there!  I was too young to know exactly what Harry did to them, but I do know that he murdered them, and threw their bodies down the well. 

       A sort of a neighborhood scandal occurred in this case also. One of the more affluent neighbors decided to put a fence around a portion of the Quiet Dell Farm. He then pursued to charge admission to the curiosity seekers. The law didn’t like this, and quickly put a stop to it. 

      Harry Powers owned the house across the street from us. Authorities of the law dug up the entire back yard on the suspicion that he had buried people there. No bodies were found. 

      My older brother Tommy recalls the time he was rolling a tire from the top of our street. The tire got away from him, rolled down hill two blocks, jumped the ditch and hit a pillar that supported the front porch roof. The pillar was devastated. Harry came up and surveyed the damage. My father settled the matter amicable with Harry and all was satisfied. I don’t believe my brother was punished in any way for this matter. but I suppose he did learn his lesson. 

      Harry Powers was found guilty of first degree murder on all accounts. He was sent to West Virginia. State Penitentiary in Moundsville, W.Va. where he was hastily executed by electric chair. 

     Today murders are everyday occurrences all over the world. In my boyhood days they didn’t occur that often. This was national news with a national following. Even then there were some sensational tabloids that came out stating Harry Powers is still alive. You know the story! Elvis is still alive. However I can assure you, Harry Powers was executed by electric chair.

      Just a note:  According to Wikipedia, Harry Powers was actually executed by hanging in 1932.  I feel very fortunate that my father had the foresight to create his autobiography for his descendants to read.  I can see some of my father's influence in my own writing.  I guess I should thank him for that as well.