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By Wayne Baldwin
Special to the Rappahannock News
On Saturday, Jan. 26 my mother and I, (Florine and Wayne Baldwin) took a short hike into Shenandoah National Park. Entering near the Little Devil Stairs Trail at the end of Keyser Run Road, our objective was to locate the old Dwyer homesite.
Miles Jackson Dwyer had purchased the property in the 1880's. Nestled near the foot of Pig Nut Mountain in a hollow closer to what is known locally as Little Round Mountain. Much of the property was cleared as is evident from the many stone piles and stone fences.
Seedling fruit trees are here and there, offspring of the old orchard. The road to the Dwyer place turns left off of the Devil Stairs path going west and follows along side a tributary of the Covington River coming out of Round Mountain Hollow, crossing it in several places.
Formerly owned by John Gore, the house is said to have been built in 1785. I have in my possession a tax bill dated 1933 to Miles J. Dwyer Heirs, Hampton District showing that there was 410 acres and tax with a ten per cent penalty totaling $22.32.
Although Miles J. Dwyer had accumulated so much property it had not been easy at times to pay for it. A letter from Mr. Thomas F. Kinsey from whom property had been purchased reads as follows:
Mr. Du yer,
Doctor _ told me that you talked about selling your sheep and some young cattle to make a payment on land if I was pressing for the money. It is a eery hard time to sell stock now you cannot sell them to any advantage, therefore you can keep them over as I think it would pay you to do it. As we are not pressed for money but ivill wait with you.
Yours truly,
Thos. F. Kinsey
You can come down to January Court and I will see you there.
The Dwyers were of Irish descent. The grandfather of Miles Dwyer had married in Shenandoah County in 1786. Miles’ father had owned property on Piney Ridge from the 1820’s until his death in 1870 when he was buried in the family cemetery there.
There were folks who thought all the mountain people were all ignorant and mainly lived off the moonshine they made. Whether they actually knew this as fact or it was some story they invented as a way of promoting the national park is uncertain.
Contrary to all this misguided misinformation, I can offer as proof
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