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daughter of Dr. A.W. Reid, in 1869. The couple lost their first — and only — child, a very young daughter. In 187t, these two pioneering spirits decided to leave Rappahannock County and settle in the wilderness of the Cariaan Valley, Tucker County, West Virginia, scene of Bob Ridley’s wartimle raids back in ’63. “We have no dependable explanation for this dramatic change,” his descendant reported. “Restlessness? The lyre of cheap land? Some sort of difficulty in Rappahannock? The desire to make a fortune in the new limber industry there? The fUl story as to why the couplfe decided on the move to the wilds of Tucker County was surely known to only a few of their family and trends and these have long shce passed on. Now there are only unverifiable ‘stories’ that have become ever mare faint and nebulous. Whatever their reason, it required a great deal of fortitude, especially on Mollie’s part.”
And Gone Again
Tucker County is located in the mountains of West Virginia about 60 miles as the crow flies due west of Winchester but a great deal further by today’s roads and much, much further than that by the so-called roads of the 1870s. Bob Ridley and Mo'lie were the fourth family to settle in the Canaan Valley, having purchased 500 acres from A.W. Read. The log home they built still stands, now enclosed in clapboard and incorporated into a larger house.
Eastham at first raised stock with indifferent success. He rapidly became a leading figure in the area and in 1882 was a candidate for the legislature from Tucker and Randolph counties. He failed to win the election but carried his own district by an overwhelming margin.
His political ambitions foiled, Bob Ridley looked to the opportunities in big business. Upon learning that the new West Virginia Central and Pittsburgh Railway conpany intended to locate the new terminus of the railroad at the confluence of the Bla:kwater River and Beaver Creek, Eastham signed a contract with the U.S. Senator Henry Gassaway Davis, president and promoter of the railway. Davis was an entreprenuer of considerable wealth with interests in coal, lumber and other industries and his vision and organizing abilities did much to develop that
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