Mountain Rails of Old Read online

  MOUNTAIN RAILS

  OF OLD

  ELAINE L. ORR

  MOUNTAIN RAILS OF OLD

  Elaine L. Orr

  Copyright 2021 by Elaine L. Orr

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is licensed for your personal use and

  may not be copied in any form.

  Discover all books in the Family History Mystery Series

  Least Trodden Ground

  Unscheduled Murder Trip

  Mountain Rails of Old

  Other Books Include

  Jolie Gentil Cozy Mystery Series

  River’s Edge Cozy Mystery Series

  Logland Series

  www.elaineorr.com

  https://elaineorr.blogspot.com/p/family-hist-series.html

  ISBN: 978-1-948070-76-8

  Dedication

  For George Fisher, another part of my extended family gone too soon.

  To every family historian who has had to explain why they troop in graveyards and cheer when they find records of someone born several centuries ago.

  Acknowledgements

  Since I again could not travel to Maryland to do research, I’m grateful for books of others. There is an excellent history of the Civil War in the region in Garrett County: A History of Maryland’s Tableland by Stephen Schlosnagle and the Garrett County Bicentennial Committee. His Promised Land is the autobiography of John P. Parker, a former slave and conductor on the Underground Railroad (edited by Stuart Seely Sprague). I also used The Liberty Line: The Legend of the Underground Railroad, by Larry Gara. While the Railroad is not a predominant part of this book, I wanted a better understanding of it, and these were excellent resources.

  Thanks to members of the Decatur Critique Group and beta readers – Angela, Dave, Karen, Sue A. and Sue H.

  Table of Contents

  DEDICATION

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  MORE BOOKS BY ELAINE

  ABOUT ELAINE

  CHAPTER ONE

  EARLY SPRING IN THE mountains of Western Maryland meant sunshine, the smell of soil, and buds that promised dazzling flowers. Most of all, it signaled air someone could breathe without chilling their lungs, and Digger Browning relished it.

  Pleasant temperatures also meant outdoor activities, so on Saturday, Digger and Marty Hofstedder hiked up Meadow Mountain. They had almost reached their destination, a huge boulder that sat atop a ridge. She nudged his elbow with her own. “Fifty cents says you can’t climb on top of The Knob.”

  He grunted. “Ten cents says I’m smart enough not to try to scale the darn thing.”

  They continued in companionable silence as Bitsy, Digger’s German Shepherd, raced past them on the narrow path.

  Digger shrugged out of her coat and slung it over her shoulders. “Too early for rabbits.”

  “I’ve never known your dog to need an excuse to run around.”

  “True.”

  They reached the seven-foot boulder and leaned their backs into it. Marty grabbed Digger’s hand. “You’re more out of breath than I am.”

  She laughed. “Says who?”

  “Anyone within ten feet of us.” He squeezed her hand and let go. “I’m glad you showed me this place.”

  “Sometimes I forget you didn’t grow up here. For a while this was kind of a lover’s lane, albeit on foot, but the parks department removed the stones that were comfortable enough to sit on.”

  Marty raised his eyebrows. “Lover’s lane, huh. Now I know why you brought me here.”

  Digger was enough shorter that she had to stand on her toes to reach him for a quick kiss. She didn’t say “dream on,” because she wanted to spend time, maybe a few hours or weeks, getting to know him better. But when could they be together privately?

  When Digger inherited the Ancestral Sanctuary from Uncle Benjamin, it didn’t initially come with his ghost as a permanent resident. As he explained it, when the last shovel of dirt fell on his coffin in the family plot, he found himself sitting atop his and Aunt Clara’s large headstone.

  She loved the ornery – and no longer aging – octogenarian, but the thought of making love to Marty in the house where he roamed through the walls did not appeal to her. He respected her privacy, but he was simply…there.

  How could she explain Uncle Benjamin? A few months ago, she’d taken Marty to the small cemetery behind the house and they’d stood before Aunt Clara’s and Uncle Benjamin’s headstone. She’d asked Marty what he thought would happen if the sole person who could see a ghost told others about the apparition’s existence.

  He had to know who she meant. But he also thought she was overwhelmed because of Uncle Benjamin’s death and the sudden responsibility for a four-acre property and nearly 100-year-old house. They didn’t discuss it more.

  Bitsy bounded toward them, tongue hanging out and a bunch of leaves and small sticks on his coat. Marty bent over to brush him off. “What have you been rolling in?”

  “Careful. Sometimes dogs roll in gifts left by other dogs.”

  Marty snatched his hand back and studied it. “Not this time.” He grinned and pushed his glasses further up his nose. “It’s cold just standing here and it’s what, half a mile to the car?”

  “Closer to three-quarters, I think.” She swung her coat back over her shoulders. “It is getting chilly.”

  As they walked, Marty spotted a small structure behind a grouping of trees. “I didn’t notice that on the way up here.”

  Digger stopped. “It’s a cottage, long since boarded up. If you could see about a quarter-mile farther, you’d see a large frame house with a huge brick chimney. I think the daughter of the people who own that used to live in the cottage.”

  Marty stepped a couple feet off the path. “Wish I’d brought my camera.”

  “I don’t think the place is going anywhere.”

  Bitsy growled.

  Digger turned. “What is it, Boy?”

  Bitsy stared, rigid, ahead of him. Ten feet away, just off the trail, sat a fat raccoon. It hissed. Bitsy barked.

  “They aren’t usually out in the daytime, are they?” Marty asked.

  “Night scavengers. Maybe Bitsy woke him up.”

  “Not rabid, is it?”

  “Doubt it.” Digger stooped and snapped her fingers. “Come here, Boy.”

  Bitsy backed up, slowly.

  “Rabid ones usually stumble around, and maybe drool. This guy looks as if he has all his faculties. He just feels threatened.”

  Bitsy sidled up to Marty, who leaned down to pet him.

  “Hey, who feeds you?”

  Marty stood. “We men have to stick together. Let’s keep walking.”

  Bitsy looked back several times, and finally seemed persuaded the raccoon would not join their hiking party. He bounded ahead, barking at some likely imaginary movement just off the path.

  Marty bent over, picked up a stone, and tossed it a
t an abandoned bird’s nest above them. “I want to come back with my camera.”

  “Won’t be easy to get good shots with all the trees around the cottage.”

  “How did anyone get to that place, or the larger house?”

  “We’re above the east side of Maple Grove. If you leave town from the west, an old state road comes up to the house.” Digger paused. “I think there used to be an unpaved driveway that came back to the cottage. You can see the trees aren’t as tall toward the front of the cottage.”

  “What happened to the daughter who lived there?”

  “Supposedly she ran off with some guy she just met.”

  “Never came back?”

  Digger shook her head. “I don’t know all the details. It was maybe twelve years ago or more. I was about twelve or thirteen. You could…” She stopped herself before she said, “Ask Uncle Benjamin.”

  “I could what?”

  “There must be some old articles in the Maple Grove News.”

  “Maybe I’ll go down to the historical society to read them.”

  “Didn’t you say the paper is close to digitizing all the back issues? You can read them at your desk.”

  He nodded. “Yep. But when you search for a topic, it brings up only those articles. I like the microfilm at the society. You get the whole page.”

  “What difference does it make?”

  He shrugged. “I like to see what else was going on at the time. Like when I was looking for articles on the Underground Railroad in the area. You know, to try to help Holly. If a paper mentioned the hunt for someone fleeing slavery, the same page might have a piece on the literal railroad being used for Union supplies, or who was visiting whom in town.”

  Digger kicked the skin of a large snake from the path into the brush. It had been on Marty’s side of the path on the way up, and he hadn’t seemed to notice it.

  “What are you…gross.”

  Digger grinned. “City boy. Holly asked me to help find her Western Maryland ancestors, but I’m glad to know she enlisted you, too.”

  “Huh. Thought she would have told you.”

  Digger thought her business partner would have let her know that, too, but Holly had talked to a lot of people about her quest. Marty and Digger seemed to be the only two actually working on it.

  She changed the subject. “How do those social announcements relate to the Underground Railroad?”

  “My theory is that those local visits could have been a good way to transport an escaped slave from one house to another.”

  “Did you find anything that said those visits really did help transport people?”

  “Not really, but Holly wants me to keep hunting, in general. Maybe I’ll come up with some connections to her Barton family or people who married into it.”

  “I feel almost guilty, sometimes. My white grandparents are easy to trace back for several generations. Holly’s slave ancestors were numbers on a census, not names.”

  “I’ve never gotten into that stuff. When was the first Garrett County Census done?”

  “First federal census was 1790, but Garrett County was part of Allegany then. It had 4,800 people and 258 were Black slaves, but probably only a few hundred people, if that, lived in what’s now Garrett County.”

  “Aren’t you the walking encyclopedia.”

  Digger tapped the side of her head. “History major, remember? Anyway, have you had much luck?”

  “Not yet. She wants to know who that second great grandmother was, her great grandmother’s mother on her mom’s side. I honestly don’t see how we’ll find out.” Marty shot her a sideways glance. “Not like we can question her ghost.”

  Digger’s heart beat faster. “I wonder if ghosts remember everything about their pasts?”

  “Maybe you can find out.”

  That comment marked the first time Marty had acknowledged even the possibility that Digger might be the medium for an ornery ghost. She wasn’t sure she wanted to continue the topic. At least, not now. “There’s a book about ghost towns of the Upper Potomac River. We could visit a couple and see if we meet any.”

  Marty’s tone was flat. “We could.”

  He had given her an opening and she hadn’t taken it. Why not?

  They walked to the trailhead where Digger had parked her Jeep. Usually, Digger would say it was as easy to be quiet with Marty as it was to talk. Not this time.

  AT THE ANCESTRAL SANCTUARY, Bitsy bounded out of the Jeep and headed for the porch. Digger got out more slowly. “You coming in for supper? Saturday night’s leftovers, and I have lasagna and pulled pork.”

  Marty leaned on the hood of the car and tossed her keys back to her. “I think I’m going to work on a story.”

  When Digger looked surprised, he added, “I want to hike back up there with a camera tomorrow, so I need to do some work tonight. Want to come?”

  From the front porch, behind her, Uncle Benjamin called, “Make him come in. You won’t warm up the pork if he doesn’t, and I want to practice smelling it.”

  Digger started, but held Marty’s gaze. “If it isn’t any colder. I’m stiff from hiking in forty-five degree weather.”

  He grinned. “Wimp. I’ll call you before I go to bed.”

  She waved as he pulled away in his Toyota, and started for the porch. “No surprises, remember?”

  Uncle Benjamin made a palms-up shrug. “Sorry. I thought you saw me on the porch. Got bored waiting for you.”

  Digger knew how hard it was for Uncle Benjamin to be limited to either the Ancestral Sanctuary property or wherever she went. True that his pale version of himself could float through walls, but he couldn’t make anything move. The one time he’d summoned the strength, or whatever you called it, to push her out of danger, he could barely stand for ages.

  She grinned. His ability to transform into any clothes he once wore or anything he saw elsewhere led to some interesting apparel combinations. Today he wore the baseball uniform of a Baltimore Oriole. “I thought you liked the Pittsburgh Pirates best.”

  “The season’s about to start. I feel like I should support a Maryland team.” He pounded one hand into a mitt. “Too bad you can’t play catch with me.”

  “Spring training underway?”

  “Yeah, and this is the Orioles’ old uniform.” He switched to his favorite red sweater vest over a yellow oxford shirt that had frayed cuffs. His khaki trousers had a tear near the bottom of one leg. He once told Digger that it ripped during a battle with a hedge trimmer, but she’d never asked him what one was doing at his ankle.

  Digger pointed to the front door. “Let’s head inside.”

  “Sure. Sorry I startled you.” He floated through the door while she unlocked it.

  “It’s okay. Where’s Ragdoll?” The very furry cat rarely left his side. She seemed to sense his presence.

  “We were in my son’s rooms in the attic. I like to look out that round window.”

  Digger entered the front hallway. “Watching for me from Franklin’s apartment, were you?”

  “What are we doing tomorrow?”

  Digger had promised Uncle Benjamin she would spend time with him on the Internet on their joint hobby, family history research. “How would you like to take a hike with us?”

  “You’re going out again?”

  “Marty had never been up to The Knob, and he was intrigued by that boarded-up cottage just off the trail.” She hung her jacket on the hall coat tree. “He wants to go back with his camera.”

  Uncle Benjamin floated ahead of her. “I would have thought that place fell apart by now.”

  “It’s boarded up pretty tight, and the roof looks intact.”

  “Old Man Halloway thought his daughter and granddaughter would come back. She supposedly left because he wouldn’t increase her monthly allowance.”

  “Where’d they go?”

  “Don’t know. You remember it, don’t you?”

  “I think it was my last year of middle school. I don’t remember
people talking about it a lot.”

  “They sent postcards for a while, then nothing. Guess Halloway’s daughter found somebody to shack up with.”

  Digger smiled to herself as she walked past the large living room on her right and the dining room just past it, into the kitchen. Uncle Benjamin’s language was becoming more like a teenager’s. “What happened to the granddaughter? Was she young?”

  “About eight or nine. That was the really sad part. Have to hope she had a happy life.”

  She opened the fridge and took out the leftover lasagna. “Anyway, you can come if you behave yourself. You can’t butt into our conversations.”

  “I never butt in. I add fascinating details.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  DIGGER SPENT MUCH OF SATURDAY evening poring over books about Garrett County history and searching articles on the Internet. She had promised Holly she’d help her figure out who her great, great grandmother was, but didn’t see how she could.

  Uncle Benjamin had worked on the Browning family history for decades, and even he had a couple evasive ancestors, mostly women whose maiden names weren’t known.

  “You know what you need to do? You should write an article about the Underground Railroad in this area.”

  Digger looked at Uncle Benjamin. “There isn’t a lot on that, is there? Supposedly only a few houses were stations on the railway.”

  “That’s kind of my point.”

  She considered the suggestion. “It’s a good idea, but I want to focus on Holly’s family first.”

  “There were a number of free Black families in the 1860 Census. And, of course, 1870 and after. That’s the timeframe she thinks she’s looking at, right?”

  “Yes, but she doesn’t know whether her great, great grandmother was a free person or slave.”

  “You know you have to look back from what she knows for sure. When can she first find her ancestors on the census?”