ELKINS' HARRISON AVENUE A VERY OLD ROAD
by David Armstrong

The illustration below is part of Randolph County LAW file 2, Case #182, Randolph County Circuit Clerk's office.

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On 24 January, 1853 M. L. Ward appeared in court and asked to have a road opened from the road near Levi Ward's house to intersect the Beverly and Fairmont Pike near Ananias Hinkle's. It was ordered that W. H. Coberly, Job Wees, James D. Simon, and Garrison Stalnaker view the route for the road.

On the 25th of July, Simon, Stalnaker and Coberly appeared in court and reported on the viewing of the road which "passed from M. L. Ward's gate through Ward's land to the river, then across the river to Peter Conrod's land, then to Elias Lough's land, then to the old county road near Thomas B. Curtis', then following the line as near as possible between Curtis and Zirus Wees, then following the old road through Ananias Hinkle's land to the Beverly and Fairmont Pike near John W. Hill's, the true degrees and poles to be laid down by John Phares, surveyor."

Illustrated above is part of the survey turned in by Phares. If this is platted to proper scale and laid over the Elkins Quadrangle of the Geological Survey Map (7 1/2 Minute Series) it corresponds to Harrison Avenue and Wilson Lane from the intersection of Harrison Avenue and Railroad Avenue to the river bottom behind the present day Wendy's Restaurant. The prominent curve near the right is now the curve at the Third Ward School apartment building, and the section to the right of there on the above survey was the part referred to as the "old road" in the survey. So the section of today's Harrison Avenue near Davis Memorial Hospital was an "old road" in 1853!

 

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