The Dan River
By Jeanette Bowling © 2015
My name is Dan. I am a river, once proud, revered, respected, lined on each side by fertile meadows called “Wonderful Land of Eden” and rightly so.
I was born in a babbling spring in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and was fed by cold branches, freshets and creeks that became my head waters in Meadows of Dan, my first namesake.
As I meandered through the woods, big rock outcroppings, between huge clumps of laurel and rhododendron dripping with morning dew, big branches of grass tickled me and I giggled and leapt in my innocence.
I left my native Patrick County and found myself in Stokes County, North Carolina. I began to merge with larger creeks and by the time I got to Danbury (my second namesake) I was a full-fledged river. People there loved me, a clear, clean cold stream. A park was on my north bank with picnic shelters, canoes, kayaks and fishing boats. I was smiling as I slipped under the Highway 89 bridge near the art market and stately old courthouse.
I encountered my first dam at Pine Hall Brickyard. Water from Belews Creek Lake joined me as I came into Rockingham County. Shortly I met the Mayo River at Mayodan (my third namesake). I learned that she had also headquarted in Patrick County and had provided recreation with falls, rapids and white water near Anglin Mills, passed Avalon, an abandoned mill village north of Washington Mills. Together we were a force to be reckoned with.
Near Madison on an ugly barren strip of land, many were trying to trouble my waters with inner tubes, kayaks, canoes, anything that would float, making unbelievable noise. I raced as fast as I could under the Lindsey bridge at Hwy. 220 where it became beautiful again with high craggy, moss covered stones and ledges that reminded me of my birthplace.
The welcomed quietness lent way for deer to come drink, birds called to each other from the majestic hardwoods that lined my banks. All along trillium, oxeye daises, wild roses and golden rod nodded to me. A huge patch of May Apples bloomed where a Sandhill Crane waded near a fallen tree where a turtle and a water snake warmed in the late morning sun.
Boy Scouts pulled their oars as two large canoes of boys talked and laughed as they passed little islands grass covered with alder bushes and every now and then little sandbars sprinkled with various sized river rocks. Below Settle’s Bridge I began to see litter along my banks – lots of plastic bags, a deflated basketball, tires, paper, cardboard, a tennis shoe, drink cans and bottles, milk jugs, balls of fishing line, six-pack rings, even a dead calf polluting my once pristine waters.
North of Harrington Hwy. a tremendous amount of my sand had been pumped out. Soon I was lapping around old bridge abutments at Leaksville Landing and Hwy. 87 bridge, near Karastan Mill it was hard for me to pass shallows but I found and opening and with great splashing I rushed through and slowed to a wide leisurely pace when all at once I was pushed to the right by the merging of the Smiths River at Lynrock Golf Course. I moved over as far as I could, washing out a hole under the bank, disturbing a family of catfish, The Smiths had also head watered in Patrick County, held prisoner in Philpott Lake before breaking free and visiting Bassett and Martinsville, Va.
I eyed the once busy boat landing on Bethlehem Church Road, rounded a curve and almost wet my bottom when I saw the beautiful arches of the now abandoned Mebane Bridge. The Eden water filter plant overshadows the sewage plant where “spills” of untreated sewage has been dumped into me so many times through the years that did more damage to flora and fauna downstream than any later accidental spills of coal ash but only got a small paragraph in the local paper.
As soon as I saw the smoke stacks of Dan River Steam Station I was reminded that years ago those same stacks sent out fly ash that scuttled across Eden residents front porches or got on laundry that was left out on the line too long. The EPA ordered Duke Power to catch the fly ash in receptacles atop the stacks but didn’t give a solution as to where the ash could be stored; so it was put in big pits and put in some of my water to keep it from blowing away. Some of the coal ash was used in helpful ways. It can be used as a paving material and the ball fields at Freedom Park are made of coal ash donated by Duke Power.
Looking to my left after I cross a low dam I saw a big pipe with gray matter trickling out but I did not get excited – after all it was only wet ashes that quickly sand to the bottom. My flow carried some under the Hwy. 700 bridge, by the Draper Landing and most was gone when I reached the Piedmont Natural Gas crossing.
I smiled as all was quiet, flowing by farms, through forests and by Wide Mouth, a prehistoric area of lava rocks and caves once owned by the infamous Klenner family. The Ferry Road landing on the left once ferried buggies and wagons across me from Draper to Danville. During very harsh winters I’d freeze and horse drawn vehicles could cross on the ice.
Antebellum houses peeked through the trees. Darkness had fallen when I reached the Berry Hill bridge. For some reason I felt a shiver of evil and hurried on toward my sweet native VA. I heard the lonesome train whistle as it crossed the brickyard road and it ran parallel with me from Miller-Coors to Danville.
Morning brought sights of wildlife beginning to stir – groundhogs, raccoons, even an albino deer drinking along the blackberry vine lined banks. Squirrels leapt from limb to limb as a hawk soared above.
All of a sudden I entered what turned out to be miles and miles of land that owners had let loggers “clear cut” their once lush hardwoods and had not replanted. Without the trees rain had caused erosion that washed away the topsoil. I screamed “rape, rape” but my voice went unheard because birds and animals had moved away, having lost their habitat. The railroad tracks crossed me and I came to a screeching halt at the Schoolfield landing.
A large crew was dredging tons of silt from my bed with acres of scary equipment. Feeling dirty and violated I slipped over a high dam and under Robertson bridge in Danville (my last namesake). Leaping over a series of low dams in the city and under several bridges I passed Veterans Park and under Hwy. 29.
All of a sudden I was crowded with little fishing boats in the “brickyard” area everyone trying to catch my big “stripers,” a rite of spring.
Slipping back into North Carolina a little while, I skirted the sleepy little town of Milton before crossing the state line, going under Hwy. 58, on through South Boston in Halifax County, under Hwy. 360 bridge and feeling dirty, tired and violated, I fell into the welcoming arms of the Roanoke River losing my identity forever.
We were held against our will for weeks in the Kerr Reservoir at Clarksville, then rudely dropped over yet another dam onto rocks, shrubs and tall grass and had not recovered when we became Lake Gaston.
The Roanoke River then flowed through eastern North Carolina into Albemarle Sound and out to the Atlantic Ocean where I was eventually drawn into angry thunder clouds and carried by winds over the Blue Ridge Mountains where I made my way back to the little gurgling springs, the freshets, the streams.
My story was chronicled by Jeanette Bowling, an 86 year old woman of Eden who has been my friend and loved me so much her whole life that she named her son Dan.
Here is the article that was written by Myla Barnhardt after my mother sent her the above letter in response to an article Myla had previously written about the Dan River.
http://www.news-record.com/rockingham_now/myla-barnhardt-for-eden-resident-dan-river-evokes-powerful-pull/article_84d698f4-ae23-11e4-9def-9be27a05a3ad.html#.VNgVjMIdb58.facebook
By Jeanette Bowling © 2015
My name is Dan. I am a river, once proud, revered, respected, lined on each side by fertile meadows called “Wonderful Land of Eden” and rightly so.
I was born in a babbling spring in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and was fed by cold branches, freshets and creeks that became my head waters in Meadows of Dan, my first namesake.
As I meandered through the woods, big rock outcroppings, between huge clumps of laurel and rhododendron dripping with morning dew, big branches of grass tickled me and I giggled and leapt in my innocence.
I left my native Patrick County and found myself in Stokes County, North Carolina. I began to merge with larger creeks and by the time I got to Danbury (my second namesake) I was a full-fledged river. People there loved me, a clear, clean cold stream. A park was on my north bank with picnic shelters, canoes, kayaks and fishing boats. I was smiling as I slipped under the Highway 89 bridge near the art market and stately old courthouse.
I encountered my first dam at Pine Hall Brickyard. Water from Belews Creek Lake joined me as I came into Rockingham County. Shortly I met the Mayo River at Mayodan (my third namesake). I learned that she had also headquarted in Patrick County and had provided recreation with falls, rapids and white water near Anglin Mills, passed Avalon, an abandoned mill village north of Washington Mills. Together we were a force to be reckoned with.
Near Madison on an ugly barren strip of land, many were trying to trouble my waters with inner tubes, kayaks, canoes, anything that would float, making unbelievable noise. I raced as fast as I could under the Lindsey bridge at Hwy. 220 where it became beautiful again with high craggy, moss covered stones and ledges that reminded me of my birthplace.
The welcomed quietness lent way for deer to come drink, birds called to each other from the majestic hardwoods that lined my banks. All along trillium, oxeye daises, wild roses and golden rod nodded to me. A huge patch of May Apples bloomed where a Sandhill Crane waded near a fallen tree where a turtle and a water snake warmed in the late morning sun.
Boy Scouts pulled their oars as two large canoes of boys talked and laughed as they passed little islands grass covered with alder bushes and every now and then little sandbars sprinkled with various sized river rocks. Below Settle’s Bridge I began to see litter along my banks – lots of plastic bags, a deflated basketball, tires, paper, cardboard, a tennis shoe, drink cans and bottles, milk jugs, balls of fishing line, six-pack rings, even a dead calf polluting my once pristine waters.
North of Harrington Hwy. a tremendous amount of my sand had been pumped out. Soon I was lapping around old bridge abutments at Leaksville Landing and Hwy. 87 bridge, near Karastan Mill it was hard for me to pass shallows but I found and opening and with great splashing I rushed through and slowed to a wide leisurely pace when all at once I was pushed to the right by the merging of the Smiths River at Lynrock Golf Course. I moved over as far as I could, washing out a hole under the bank, disturbing a family of catfish, The Smiths had also head watered in Patrick County, held prisoner in Philpott Lake before breaking free and visiting Bassett and Martinsville, Va.
I eyed the once busy boat landing on Bethlehem Church Road, rounded a curve and almost wet my bottom when I saw the beautiful arches of the now abandoned Mebane Bridge. The Eden water filter plant overshadows the sewage plant where “spills” of untreated sewage has been dumped into me so many times through the years that did more damage to flora and fauna downstream than any later accidental spills of coal ash but only got a small paragraph in the local paper.
As soon as I saw the smoke stacks of Dan River Steam Station I was reminded that years ago those same stacks sent out fly ash that scuttled across Eden residents front porches or got on laundry that was left out on the line too long. The EPA ordered Duke Power to catch the fly ash in receptacles atop the stacks but didn’t give a solution as to where the ash could be stored; so it was put in big pits and put in some of my water to keep it from blowing away. Some of the coal ash was used in helpful ways. It can be used as a paving material and the ball fields at Freedom Park are made of coal ash donated by Duke Power.
Looking to my left after I cross a low dam I saw a big pipe with gray matter trickling out but I did not get excited – after all it was only wet ashes that quickly sand to the bottom. My flow carried some under the Hwy. 700 bridge, by the Draper Landing and most was gone when I reached the Piedmont Natural Gas crossing.
I smiled as all was quiet, flowing by farms, through forests and by Wide Mouth, a prehistoric area of lava rocks and caves once owned by the infamous Klenner family. The Ferry Road landing on the left once ferried buggies and wagons across me from Draper to Danville. During very harsh winters I’d freeze and horse drawn vehicles could cross on the ice.
Antebellum houses peeked through the trees. Darkness had fallen when I reached the Berry Hill bridge. For some reason I felt a shiver of evil and hurried on toward my sweet native VA. I heard the lonesome train whistle as it crossed the brickyard road and it ran parallel with me from Miller-Coors to Danville.
Morning brought sights of wildlife beginning to stir – groundhogs, raccoons, even an albino deer drinking along the blackberry vine lined banks. Squirrels leapt from limb to limb as a hawk soared above.
All of a sudden I entered what turned out to be miles and miles of land that owners had let loggers “clear cut” their once lush hardwoods and had not replanted. Without the trees rain had caused erosion that washed away the topsoil. I screamed “rape, rape” but my voice went unheard because birds and animals had moved away, having lost their habitat. The railroad tracks crossed me and I came to a screeching halt at the Schoolfield landing.
A large crew was dredging tons of silt from my bed with acres of scary equipment. Feeling dirty and violated I slipped over a high dam and under Robertson bridge in Danville (my last namesake). Leaping over a series of low dams in the city and under several bridges I passed Veterans Park and under Hwy. 29.
All of a sudden I was crowded with little fishing boats in the “brickyard” area everyone trying to catch my big “stripers,” a rite of spring.
Slipping back into North Carolina a little while, I skirted the sleepy little town of Milton before crossing the state line, going under Hwy. 58, on through South Boston in Halifax County, under Hwy. 360 bridge and feeling dirty, tired and violated, I fell into the welcoming arms of the Roanoke River losing my identity forever.
We were held against our will for weeks in the Kerr Reservoir at Clarksville, then rudely dropped over yet another dam onto rocks, shrubs and tall grass and had not recovered when we became Lake Gaston.
The Roanoke River then flowed through eastern North Carolina into Albemarle Sound and out to the Atlantic Ocean where I was eventually drawn into angry thunder clouds and carried by winds over the Blue Ridge Mountains where I made my way back to the little gurgling springs, the freshets, the streams.
My story was chronicled by Jeanette Bowling, an 86 year old woman of Eden who has been my friend and loved me so much her whole life that she named her son Dan.
Here is the article that was written by Myla Barnhardt after my mother sent her the above letter in response to an article Myla had previously written about the Dan River.
http://www.news-record.com/rockingham_now/myla-barnhardt-for-eden-resident-dan-river-evokes-powerful-pull/article_84d698f4-ae23-11e4-9def-9be27a05a3ad.html#.VNgVjMIdb58.facebook
