By Nancy Merical
In the year 1995, my husband, Jack, and I purchased an old 1920’s summer cottage on Second Creek on what was then known as Nickell’s Mill Road (now McClung Road) in Monroe County. Our cottage and an old three-story grist mill that came with it sat just yards from the Greenbrier County line, a few miles from the historical towns of Lewisburg and White Sulphur Springs.
On a knoll above the mill stood an old two-story house. We learned from research that the house, mill and numerous acres surrounding our cottage had been, in the early 1800’s, a plantation owned by James Nickell, an Ireland immigrant. The area at one time included not only the mill but a post office, blacksmith shop, slave quarters and other facilities.
My mother’s last name before marriage was Nickell, my uncle’s name James Nickell. Were we descendants of the plantation owner? I visited the courthouse and historical foundation in Union, Carnegie Hall and the library in Lewisburg, hunting up old records. My efforts failed to produce any proof of relationship, but I did unearth a portion of James Nickell’s will stating he had bequeathed, on his death, a fifteen-year-old Charles Nickell $500. My maternal great-grandfather’s name was Charles Nickell. His birth certificate lists him as born in Greenbrier County.
A young man, also a Nickell, who then lived in the old house on the hill, stopped by one afternoon to welcome us to the area. He told us that four Confederate soldiers had lodged in the old house during the Civil War as guards to prevent Unionists from burning down the mill, which supplied Confederate troops with grains. This was later authenticated by an article I read on the mill’s history. When the young man told me that a confederate soldier had been killed and buried beneath the kitchen in the house, my writer’s mind reeled with excitement. I had to write a story about the area! Fiction fired by truth.
I began writing this story in the late 1900’s. Lack of time with the joint care of my disabled parents forced me to put the incomplete manuscript away. After my parents’ deaths, I dug it out and finished it.
The history surrounding our summer cottage and mill supplied many interesting facts to incorporate in my story. Virginia, with Richmond as the capitol of the South, held a major position in the war. Many battles, particularly the 1862 Battle of Lewisburg, were fought in eastern Virginia, now West Virginia, due to differing opinions on slavery. The battle that ended the war was fought in Virginia.
Many homes lining McClung Road leading into our summer cottage are now owned by what are thought to be descendants of slaves freed and deeded parcels of land by the plantation owner after the war. An old black and white photo, found in a chest at one of the slave’s quarters, showed a black woman standing by the big sycamore tree in the front yard of our summer cottage.
A few years after the civil war, southern and northern generals met at the famous Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs to settle the particulars of slave emancipation. My fiction novel is dedicated to the principle that all lives matter, regardless of race or religion. I hope knowing the history of our old mill and the surrounding area helps you gain a greater interest in my story.
The following is a blurb from Walnut Hollow Farm:
In 1856, Mattie, a genteel southern lady attended by slaves in her Grandmother Kirkpatrick’s Lewisburg, Virginia home, marries penniless farmer Zeb Colter and moves to his isolated Walnut Hollow farm. Zeb dies three years later from typhoid fever. Grieving, but looking forward to again living a life of ease, Mattie returns with her two-year-old daughter, Knella, to Lewisburg. Shocked and disillusioned, she learns that her grandmother’s slaves have been sold and civil war is imminent. A staunch abolitionist after reading Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Mattie marries plantation slaveholder and southern section leader, John Hensley, in hopes of converting him. Her success turns into sorrow when her husband recants his office and is imprisoned as a traitor to the South. As the civil war rages on, Mattie endeavors to protect her slaves and family while endangering her own life. And the question always taunting her: will her husband survive the horrors of prison or will Mattie again face widowhood on the old Walnut Hollow Farm?
About the Author, Nancy Merical:
Return to Walnut Hollow Farm is Nancy’s thirteenth book. Widowed and mother of four, grandmother of ten and great-grandmother of 31, Nancy keeps busy crocheting animals and painting rocks for her All God’s Creatures line. She is also a photographer with greeting cards and framed photos on the market. Her fourteenth book, Recycle Those Stumbling Stones, published simultaneously with Return to Walnut Hollow Farm, will also be offered at White Sulphur Springs Library’s booksigning along with her other books.
The booksigning will be held at the WSS Public Library on Tuesday, June 18, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. There will be light refreshments. A number of her books will be available for purchase at the event.