The Shadow
OLD HOUSE — This wooden house in the Dolly Ann area just east of the city of Covington was one of four houses constructed around 1900 for employees of the Low Moor Iron Company who were working in the mines in Dolly Ann Hollow. Four more were constructed when the mines were reactivated in 1920. One of the original four, like the one pictured, was repaired and expanded in 1946 by Edward Dilley and his son, Dillard. The family included five children and the family lived there for several years before moving to Indian Valley. None of the eight company houses, including this wooden bungalow remain standing today, more than 100 yeras after they were first built. (Photo Courtesy Dillard Kelley)
OLD HOUSE — This wooden house in the Dolly Ann area just east of the city of Covington was one of four houses constructed around 1900 for employees of the Low Moor Iron Company who were working in the mines in Dolly Ann Hollow. Four more were constructed when the mines were reactivated in 1920. One of the original four, like the one pictured, was repaired and expanded in 1946 by Edward Dilley and his son, Dillard. The family included five children and the family lived there for several years before moving to Indian Valley. None of the eight company houses, including this wooden bungalow remain standing today, more than 100 yeras after they were first built. (Photo Courtesy Dillard Kelley)
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For the five surviving children of the late Edward and Velvie Kelley of Covington, the title of Thomas Wolfe’s novel, “You Can’t Go Home Again” rings true — literally.
A wooden bungalow built during the height of the iron industry’s operation in the Dolly Ann area east of Covington, which served as their home for several years, is no longer standing.
It was one of four company houses built around 1900 when the Dolly Ann iron ore mines were active. Four additional structures were constructed in 1920 when the mines were reopened for a brief period.
Edward Dillard Kelley, who is almost 80 and a resident of Baltimore, Md., wrote a poem in 2009 about the house he shared with his mother, father, brothers and sisters in the late 1940s.
Before the family moved into the house in 1946, Dillard and his father spent a great deal of time and labor to make what had become a run-down shack liveable. It had been vacant for some time and had deteriorated for lack of maintenance.
“When the iron mines began operation in 1920, four more houses were built across the stream where the paved road ends today,” Dillard says.
“There was another one about 50 yards south of the one in my photograph that we repaired. They all looked alike.”
None of the eight houses remain standing today.
“One had been vacant for some time in 1946 when my dad and I repaired it, put in doors, windows, added a small porch and two small rooms on the back,” Dillard recalls.
“Life was not easy back then with wood stoves and oil lamps, out houses and spring water being part of everyday life.”
The Kelleys lived in the refurbished home for several years and later moved to Indian Valley.
The couple had six children, one of whom died in infancy. Two daughters and one son still live in the Highlands and one son moved to Sutten, Alaska while Dillard lives in Baltimore. The children range in age from 68 to 79.
Edward O. Dilley, 1906-1981, was a carpenter and construction worker and was employed by the Paul Flint Company for many years. After it shut down, he was employed by Bailey Lumber Company on Highland Street in Covington.
Velvie W. Dilley was a mother and housewife who was born in 1916 and died in 1994.
Living in the Highlands are Ralph Kelley of Callaghan; Loretta Reed of Covington and Janet Campbell of Covington.
Lloyd Kelley now lives in Sutten, Alaska and Dillard, the oldest, resides in Baltimore.
Dillard attended Covington schools and went to Baltimore in the early 1950s where he secured a job with Bethlehem Steel.
He left his job as a steelworker when he was drafted into the U. S. Army. After serving his term with the army, he returned to Baltimore and rejoined the steel mill and worked until his retirement.
In 2009, he wrote his poem about the home place after visiting the location on a trip to Covington.
“The poem tells a little of life back then. All the houses are gone now, only memories. Nature has taken back the land. Trees are growing where the road used to be,” he noted.
His poem, which he shared with his siblings four years ago, is reminiscent of many childhoods spent in the Alleghany Highlands in the early to middle years of the 20th century and how places and things change over time.
Our Humble Abode
This weather-worn old house we came to see.
We saw it would be a lot of work for Dad and me.
A leaking roof, no windows or doors
Oh! What a mess on those dirty floors.
Three small rooms we rebuilt with care
Soon our loved ones would be living there.
I can still remember our abode
Just a weather-worn old building standing above the road.
Near poverty we lived from day to day
So many things we did without and wished we had.
We were never hungry, but sometimes sad
But we were never ashamed of Mom and Dad.
It was so cold at night when the fire went out
When the wind blew the snow all about.
No indoor plumbing, no electric lights
No hot air furnace for those frosty nights.
We got our water from the spring just down the road
We had to carry it back to our humble abode.
As the years went swiftly by
One child would leave, then another.
We would all be missed by Dad and Mother.
As the family grew smaller they moved away.
It was just too sad and lonely for them to stay.
Years later we walked up what used to be the road.
We could see that nature had taken back our humble abode.
Where we once lived, nothing remains,
All worn away by time, neglect and many rains.
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At one time in the history of the Highlands, Dolly Ann Hollow was a bustling place as an integral part of the area’s iron industry.
An iron furnace and at least 10 ore mines were active in the area on Pounding Mill Run.
J. Jordan and Company built Dolly Ann Furnace in 1848 and Ira F. Jordan and Hezekiah T. Jordan began operating the furnace using ore mined in Dolly Ann Hollow.
They changed the name from Dolly Ann Furnace to Mary-Martha Furnace in honor of their wives.
Naming iron furnaces after wives, daughters or sisters of the owners was a common practice in the mid 1800s in Virginia.
Lucy-Selina Furnace which operated at Longdale from 1830 until 1911 was named for the wives of Col. John Jordan and his brother, Edward, of Rockbridge County, who built the first furnace there in 1827.
The Jordans who operated the Mary-Martha Furnace in Dolly Ann were of the same family as John and Edward.
Mary and Martha were members of the Skeen family in Covington before their marriages. Both are buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery in Covington as are Hezekiah and Ira.
Martha Skeen Jordan had a short, tragic life. She was born in 1829 and married Ira around the age of 15 or 16. In 1845 she gave birth to a daughter, Mattie, who died March 17, 1863 at the age of 17.
Mattie out-lived her mother, however. Martha gave birth to another daughter, Lucy Ira Jordan, on Nov. 9, 1847. Lucy died a few weeks later on Jan. 16, 1848. About six weeks later, on Feb. 28, 1848, Martha died. She was 18.
They are all three buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery. Martha and Lucy share a tombstone on which “Mother and Babe” is engraved.
The area where Dillard Kelley and his father refurbished a hovel into a liveable bungalow was in the vicinity of the Dolly Ann Furnace which operated from 1848 until during or near the close of the Civil War which ended in 1865.
The mines, which were a source of iron ore for the furnace, were reactivated after the Low Moor Iron Company took control of Dolly Ann operations in 1893.
The mines operated on and off until 1921 with the ore going to the Covington furnace.
The Low Moor Iron Company had located in Alleghany County in the late 1870s and the first furnace constructed at Low Moor where LewisGale Hospital-Alleghany is today went into blast in 1880.
A second furnace at Low Moor was put into blast in 1887 and in 1895 a furnace was constructed just outside the little town of Covington.
This furnace, which operated from 1895 until about 1925 was located in Sunnymeade near the Jackson River in the area occupied today by Alleghany County’s school system’s bus maintenance garage and the bus parking lot behind the garage.
The furnace was between the main line of today’s CSX mainline and the rails which cross the Jackson River in front of Wendy’s Restaurant. This line extended to the Potts Creek Valley in 1907 and was used to bring ore from Jordan, Bess and other mines in the valley to the Covington Furnace.
Part of the furnace complex was where Dalton and Lyman streets come together fairly close to the river. Houses were constructed on the land after the company was liquidated in 1929 and several remain today where the furnace was located.
Hard times came to iron companies in Virginia during World War I and the Low Moor and Covington furnaces were shut down. The Covington furnace was idle for seven months in 1915 and again for 19 months in 1921-22.
It was put back into blast in 1922 and ran for two or three years using ore from the Dolly Ann mines.
By 1926 the Low Moor Iron Company had ceased operations in Covington and Alleghany County and directors voted in 1927 to began liquidation of its property which was completed by 1929.
During the height of iron production in the Highlands, 1880 to 1907, between 1,000 and 2,000 persons were employed at the furnaces and mines which at one time included operations in Iron Gate and Longdale in addition to Covington, Callaghan, Dolly Ann and Potts Creek Valley.
