Two Antique Documents from Bluemont
Here are two contributions to our ongoing project of visualizing life and commerce in old Bluemont, contributed by Sonny and Betty Colbert, May 2013. Both items were gifts to them from long-time Bluemont residents, Don and Linda Corley.
Invoice dated ‘Jany’ 23 1877, by J.W. Silcott & Bro, Snickersville, Va. The invoice itemizes the purchase of two sizes of buff envelopes, two colors of “knit cloth” and Clark spools (sewing thread). The seller, possibly a traveling jobber (salesman), was from Daniel Miller & Co, Importers and Jobbers of Dry Goods and Notions, Baltimore.
There were several stores in Snickersville and Bluemont over the years, including today’s still-in-business establishment known as the Bluemont General Store. Silcott’s store may have been located near the site of the current post office in Bluemont.
The poster (or calendar?) of a romanticized horse woman advertises the business of:
Otto Kelley, Contractor and Builder
BUILDINGS ALL SHAPES — BUSINESS ONLY SQUARE
Telephone 10, Bluemont, VA.
When does this “pin-up” date from? Telephones came to Bluemont about the 1920s and the Snickersville Telephone Company started service. (See Rules and Regulations from the 1919 Directory, reproduced on pages 185-190 in the book From Snickersville to Bluemont, the Biography and History of a Virginia Village. The book is available by becoming a Bluemont Heritage member.)
According to Betty Colbert, who remembers him from her childhood days in Bluemont, Otto Kelley lived in the big yellow house at the intersection of Snickersville Turnpike and Yellow Schoolhouse Road.