Text from this post is an article from the September 6, 1938 edition of the Bristol News Bulletin about the dedication of the R.A. Doughton Bridge on US Highway 21, just south of Independence in Virginia. At the event, officials unveiled a bronze plaque, commemorating Lt. Governor Doughton who was former head of the NC highway commission. The plaque was removed when the bridge was torn down and replaced in 1989. It is now in the Alleghany Historical Museum, donated by the Woodruff family.

Big Crowd At Road Program

Bridge over New River is Dedicated to Rep. Doughton, Carolina

WYTHEVILLE, Va. Sept. 6 (AP)—
Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina joined hands yesterday morning at the dedication of Doughton Memorial Bridge over New River near Independence and again yesterday afternoon at a barbecue and celebration of the recent completion of a link in the Lakes-to-Florida highway. The new stretch of hard-surfaced road joins Wytheville and Independence.

Some 2,000 persons attended the exercises at the bridge when the span, located in Virginia a few hundred yards from the North Carolina line, was dedicated to R. A. Doughton, former chairman of the North Carolina highway commission and former lieutenant-governor of that state.

Governor Clyde Hoey of North Carolina, in praising Doughton, said it is a “unique fact that the bridge was built in Virginia with the aid of North Carolina funds and that the span was being named for a North Carolinian.” North Carolina contributed half of the $100,000 spent in construction of the bridge.

Commenting on the friendship which exists between Virginia and North Carolina and on the administration of governmental affairs of the two states, Hoey suggested that “others come to Virginia and North Carolina to see how a government ought to be run and how the people ought to be served.”

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Former Governor Trinkle Speaks

Former Governor E. Lee Trinkle, of Roanoke, who dedicated the bridge, praised Virginians, West Virginians and North Carolinians who have worked for completion of route 21 in Grayson and Wythe counties for some 15 years.

A bronze marker at the south entrance to the bridge on which was inscribed the following:

“Dedicated to R.A. Doughton
Built in 1927“

In his response to the dedicatory speech, Doughton said, “I regard this as the greatest moment of my life and I want to thank the Virginians who made this bridge possible.” The structure was built in 1927 but its dedication was postponed until the road between here and Independence was hard-surfaced.

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Sept. 5, 1982 – Article from the Chronicle-Tribune
in Marion, Indiana

Nora Caudill Wagoner, until her death this February at 99 years of age, was America’s oldest Red Cross Volunteer on record in the United States. She graduated from the Marion Hospital nursing school in 1905.

Shortly before Mrs. Wagoner’s death, her daughter, Mrs. Elvira Crouse, wrote the Chronicle-Tribune and asked if the city would be interested in hearing the story of this pioneer nurse who got her start in Marion.

She furnished us with photographs her mother, kept over the years and the story of Nora Wagoner – one of the earliest professional nurses.

By Celeste Williams

Nora Caudill was born Dec. 17, 1882, the fifth of 12 children, in Alleghany County on Air Bellows Mountain, North Carolina, an energetic girl with a dream to travel.

She would often visit relatives who lived in Marion, Indiana. And it was on one of these visits that she saw a woman in a starched white apron and hat tend to a patient in the home of a friend. And right then she decided to become a nurse.

“I admired her uniform and her cap,” she recalled, “I thought she was just wonderful.”

At the time of Nora’s birth, a woman named Clara Barton was organizing nurses into the American Red Cross. And nursing was just coming into its own by the time Nora decided she wanted this to be her profession.

Hospitals were a new phenomenon in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and they were few and far between. So were schools to educate nurses, and so were working women.

But the first Marion Hospital, with a capacity of 20 patients, was opened in 1896, on S. Washington Street, and was owned and operated by Dr. T. C. Kimball.

Nora Caudill stood tall for a photographer in 1905 with nine other nurses and Dr. Sam Davis (great-uncle of Dr. Joseph B. Davis, Marion), for a graduation class portrait.

The women, hands folded in their laps and short smiles on their pursed lips, were dressed in the traditional starched uniforms – striped blouses with high, stiff white collars, long white aprons and white hats perched atop long hair pulled back into buns.

Nora finally achieved her goal — what was to come next?

“There were few hospitals anywhere in the nation,” she later recalled, so she remained in Marion for a time as a private duty nurse for wealthy families and professionals, she said.

Nora was about as eager to travel as she was to become a nurse. So she left Marion with her diploma, her medical supplies in a little leather bag, and an urge to travel. She carried with her no worries about what people would say about a young unmarried woman traveling alone.

“I had a desire to see the country,” she said. “So I would stay in one state maybe two or three years then move to another.”

So, for 15 years, Nora rode the trains of the United Slates as what she called a “tramp nurse.” She saw Indiana, Montana, Washington, Idaho, South Dakota, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky and North Carolina.

“I made a habit or wearing my Red Cross pin and in my travels I was approached many times by people needing help,” she said. “Once in Chicago, a railroad conductor saw my pin and asked if I would get off the train and help in an emergency. I stayed there for a week before continuing my trip.”

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If you’ve ever encountered a site called moonztuff.com, you’re already familiar with this immense (invaluable, accessible, comprehensive, etc.) genealogical resource. If you’ve not yet visited in the 20 years it’s been online and you’re interested in Alleghany County history, you really should take a look.

The site is called, The Cheek Family of Alleghany County, North Carolina, and it covers that family’s history well. But, it also includes info on 135 other surnames that historically interact with the family.

It, also (!), includes the subsite, Deed Abstracts of Alleghany County, NC with a list that begins in the 1700s, before Alleghany County existed, and ends in 1880.
It’s searchable by date or by a surname index. You’ll also find a list of land grants, there.

Incredibly, the site also includes Rebecca’s excellent resource,

An Appalachian Onomasticon
Female Names in the Upper New River Valley of North Carolina
1700’S to about 1850.

This huge list of female, “given names” was taken from Alleghany’s early deed abstracts, and (in what must have taken countless hours) extracted, researched and recorded here.

Find photos, maps, documents and much more at the site. We appreciate Rebecca’s work in researching and assembling this wonderful resource!
And we thank her for sending it to us!

“North Carolina was a proprietary colony originally, with eight ‘Lords Proprietor’ owning the land from 1663 to 1729. In 1729, seven of those eight lords were persuaded to sell their land back to the English Crown. The eighth Lord Proprietor at that time was John Carteret, Baron Carteret of Hawnes in the County of Bedford; and he refused to sell his share back to the Crown, although he never visited his land in North Carolina during the course of his lifetime.

“Originally, he was entitled to one tract of land in NC, a second tract of land in SC, and yet another in GA (all of which were originally part of ‘Carolina’). Samuel Warner, a London surveyor, was hired to calculate the size that one continuous tract would be, and he determined that Carteret’s one-eighth share should be from the northern boundary the current VA/NC line (36 degrees 30 minutes), and the southern boundary, 35 degrees 34 minutes.  In 1743 the initial boundary line was surveyed by a commission.  The line was extended westward in 1746, and again in 1753. The sixty-mile-wide tract of land was to extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. [actually it’s a little over 64 miles. Emphasis added– Ed.] 

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The place now called Roaring Gap in Alleghany County, North Carolina, along the Eastern Continental Divide is named so because it lies between two peaks of the Blue Ridge that dramatically amplify the sound of the wind.

A few white travelers had found their way into the area by the time of the American Revolution. And the Blue Ridge was a good hide-out for Tories after the war, as the forest was full of elk, deer, buffalo, bear, wild turkeys, and other game.

Agnes Maynard was the daughter of William Maynard (1720-1816) who was originally from England but had emigrated to Norfolk, Virginia, around 1736.

Absolom Smith was also originally from England. He had come to Virginia in search of a better life and was working there, in bondage to Mr. Maynard. Absolom had planned to work out the required seven years of servitude and then make his own way in the New World. But before that time was up, Absolom and Agnes found they had fallen in love.

The couple knew that her parents would never agree to a marriage between their daughter and an indentured servant. So, around November of 1800, they took their belongings, a horse and a slave, and eloped to the North Carolina mountains, where the authority of the law did not extend at that time.

Absolom and Agnes were married somewhere along the way. There exists a record of an Absalom Smith marrying Agnes Manord November 27, 1800, in Wake County, North Carolina. (William Mainord died February 22, 1816, in Wake County. His will, dated February 2, mentions a daughter, Aggy Smith. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Maynard-321)

They were chased by Indians near the Yadkin, but narrowly escaped by fording the river. Agnes rode the horse. Absolom could swim, but the slave could not and held onto the tail of the horse in the crossing. Somehow, they managed to make it to the other shore and to safety.

Just outside of what is now Elkin, the couple passed the last settler’s cabin and headed into the real wilderness. They climbed the mountain and when they arrived at the top of the escarpment, at “a good spring,” they decided to settle there. Family tradition says they lived in a large hollowed-out log until they could build a cabin. It was too cold to cut timber or build, but as soon as they could, they did.

Their home was located on Alleghany Heights, in what is now the High Meadows development at Roaring Gap.

From passing white hunters and Indians, they learned, there were people living in Mulberry Field (now Wilkesboro) and that one or two families lived near the present site of Jefferson. These, and the family at Elkin, were their closest neighbors.

This hardy couple survived. They built their cabin and had children who were “hard-working, thrifty, and resourceful.” Absolom and Agnes were buried in their apple orchard, but when the development was built, their remains were moved to the Antioch United Methodist Church Cemetery, nearby.

Their grave (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/89352036/absolom-smith) is simply marked:
Absolom Smith
Agnes Maynard Smith
Pioneers
17- – 18 – –

Information from the book Alleghany County Heritage and from
the late Pauline Swisher Meals whose grandfather, Rev. James Ralph Smith’s, farm was located at the present site of Lake Louise.