On the Moraine, Part XI

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

The Thompsons make a social call.

We had not had the McNary Farm long when, one Saturday night, we made a social call. I would have been seven or eight years old. I do not know how this had been arranged, but one Saturday evening we drove up to Rainsboro to see Mr. McNary. He had lived there for a long time, but now that he had sold the farm to us, he was going to be moving to Kansas to live with his son.

I don’t remember much about the visit but these two stories.  

Mr. McNary was up in years and had been married a number of times, I want to say four or five, but I really don’t remember. All I remember was that he had outlived all his wives except the last one. The last one had been a mail-order bride, and he had divorced her. (If you are a relative of Mr. McNary, and I have this incorrect, please write me through the paper, and I will print a correction.) We are talking about nearly 70 years ago, so I doubt my reporting of this could hurt anyone’s feelings very much.

As a young boy, the other story was far more interesting.

As I mentioned before, the McNary Farm, on the western side, contained one of those large, wooded hills. We always called them hills; some may call them mountains. Near the top and toward the south end, there were the remnants of an old sandstone quarry. We cleaned off a portion of the sandstone ledge and one could see it was like a table top, about two feet thick and about 50 feet below the top of the hill. It was a level outcropping.

Mr. McNary told us that sandstone, quarried from that hill, was used as foundations for many of the old houses along U.S. Route 50 on the east side of Rainsboro. He further stated it was brought to Rainsboro, one piece at a time, in heavy carts pulled by two oxen.  

There were two reasons it was brought to Rainsboro one piece per oxcart. The first was the old Barrett’s Mill covered bridge’s weight limits. The second was in order to climb the hill from the Rocky Fork Creek valley to the plateau above, the one that Rainsboro sits on.  

Today, the covered bridge is gone due to arson. The winding curve in the road on the hill is still part of the right-of-way. I understand it to be the old stage coach road between Rainsboro and Cynthiana. 

As I remember, Mr. McNary was a humorous old man, likely about the age I am now.

The Thompsons never made many social calls, so I remember this one quite vividly, considering how long ago it was.

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.