Mrs. Agnes Cooke was 20 year
veteran of the Beckley Post Herald,
and the last editor
of The Alderson Times, or associate
editor, during the nine years and
nine months the paper was published,
with eight editors and five
publishers. She wrote a clever
farewell obituary for the little
paper.
The Alderson Times was published
from 1951 to 1960, and was located
in one of the street level sections
of the two story building that use to be
behind the bank on South
Monroe Street.
Harwood Home On South Monroe
By AGNES R. COOKE _
ALDERSON (RMS.) Turning the pages of a town's history one
finds among other items of interest old houses which mark
the beginning of the town. THE Harwood house on South Monroe
Street holds such a place in the history of Alderson. It was
the first dwelling built after the town was plotted in 1871.
Marion Harwood bought the second lot sold in the new town
and built the first house.
The site of the town had remained farmland for almost a
century and before the building of the Chesapeake and Ohio
Railroad through this section had, been know as Alderson's
Ferry, there having been a public ferry established access
the Greenbrier River in 1766 by the Virginia Legislature.
WHEN THE town was plotted it included only the part that
lies on the south side of the river. At that time Marion and
Rebecca Harwood were living at the settlement known as
Palestine a short distance back from the north side of the
river. They had moved to this section from Virginia
traveling as far as White Sulphur Springs by train and from
there on by wagon.
The section of the
C & 0 Rail road which was to join the eastern
section at White Sulphur Springs with the western
section at Huntington, was under construction and a
station on to be placed at Alderson’s Ferry, later given
the name of Alderson.
The first frame building of the Old Greenbrier Baptist
Church was being town down to be replaced by a larger
building. Marion Harwood bought the lumber of the old
building from the Baptist and built what is now the back
part of the old house, which was added to as the family
grew.
The old house has witnessed the building of the town as
it is today. Its owner, Miss Minnie Harwood, who next
month will observe her 88th birthday anniversary, has
lived in it all of her life and has witnessed the
changes which have come to the town and loves to
reminisce about the days gone by and the people who have
come and gone in the town. The oldest of two daughters
of Marion and Rebecca Harwood, she has seen the building
of a number of homes on her street, one of the first
residential section the town developed.
