Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 1, 1993 TAG: 9307300412
SECTION: DISCOVER PAGE: D-27 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOE KENNEDY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DALEVILLE LENGTH: Long
But don't let its proximity to development fool you. The mountain in Botetourt County is still a wild place. This was evident on a recent weekday morning, when Paul Spickard, chief forest warden for the Virginia Department of Forestry in Botetourt County, happened into Lee Hartman Jr. on the private road to Tinker's top.
The men stopped their vehicles to talk of subjects important to timber owners and regulators - the southward migration of the Gypsy Moth, so ruinous to hardwoods, and the dry weather so propitious for forest fires. Suddenly, a dove tumbled down the bank into the road, righted itself and hustled away on foot. A curious occurrence. Then, moments later, a long blacksnake slithered down the bank and into the road, oblivious to the men. Its prey: a baby dove quaking in the road. Only prompt action from bystander Skip Brandemuehl, who grabbed the snake behind its head, prevented a feathery meal.
This was just a sample of the things that go on in the mountains while we humans are living our civilized lives. Hartman, who lives on 120 acres on top of Tinker, and Brandemuehl, who owns another 80 acres, often see herds of deer and occasionally see bears. Their world is a mix of modern and ancient, the timeless and the up-to-date.
Tinker Mountain is unusual among the Appalachians, Hartman says, in that it faces east and west, rather than north and south. Its eastern point bristles with antennas used by cellular telephone companies, the Emergency Medical Service communications network, data transmission services and a Lynchburg radio station. The western point overlooks Carvins Cove, the serene water impoundment that belongs to Roanoke. There, sweet blue huckleberries spring from white rocks beneath steel towers bearing high voltage power lines.
From Hartman's front yard you can see, dizzyingly, across the valley, homes, buildings and the Roanoke Municipal Airport. Your observation post is a cluster of rocks older than you can imagine.
Tinker Mountain in some ways is wilder today than it was early in this century, says Botetourt native Ashby Henderson, who has spent all of his 85 years on his family farm that lies in Tinker's shadow, behind Carvins Cove. He calls himself the errand boy for the dairy operation run by his son, Jerry, and grandson, Jeff.
"There were no deer here when I grew up as a young fella," he says, "and there's too many now. And turkey's the same way. I remember my father killing one turkey and that's the only turkey I ever heard of 'til they stocked 'em."
He never saw a bear back in his youth, but he sees signs of them now. "What they do to a cornfield," he exclaims. "They completely destroyed about three acres of corn for us last year."
And, he says, "In the last three years we've killed more rattlesnakes here than I saw in all the rest of my life."
Such goings-on have not deterred Botetourt's homebuilders, whose subdivisions plod toward the Hendersons' 350-acre farm that has been in the family for five generations, plus the two other farms they rent. It's no wonder: The valley is green and gorgeous, the land rolling, if not flat.
"I've been over the country a little bit, to Hawaii and across the United States," Henderson says, "and I've never seen any place I'd rather live than here."
Like many mountains, Tinker is the subject of stories both factual and fanciful.
By far the most colorful stories come from Helen Prillaman's local history, "Places Near the Mountains." She writes that from way back, stories have been told told of an eccentric old man who lived in a cave on the south side of the mountain. His name was unknown, but his practice of repairing pots and pans caused people to call him the tinker. It is said that he lived in the wilderness, killed wild game and sometimes ventured among the settlers in search of odd jobs. He is supposed to have had plenty of money.
That story no doubt contributed to the less plausible tale of a man who supposedly found a keg of silver money under one of Tinker's ledges in 1890. And the claim by one James Riley to have discovered, in 1897, a cave on the mountain's south side, with its entrance blocked by a cut stone. Riley claimed also to have explored the cave and found a vein of silver six inches wide and 90 percent pure.
Ashby Henderson's stories of Tinker Mountain deal less with fabulous riches than with the doings of colorful men. From his farm lot, he can see Lambert Hollow, a saddle through which wagons used to pass into Carvins Cove, before the waters of the reservoir flooded that community.
"A fella named Lambert lived on the other side of the mountain," he says. "He was a moonshiner who delivered a lot of his products around here."
Through that gap came the first automobile Henderson ever saw, a Saxon driven by his friend, Lum Potter. "It rotted out in his barn," he says. "It was the last trip it ever made."
Tinker Mountain has an unusual, crooked shape. One end of it extends in the direction of Catawba Mountain. The other slopes down toward the interstate and the truck stop.
Not far from the interchange, Bettie Talbot lives at Ingestre Farm, to which she came as Emmet Talbot's bride 48 years ago. They ran a dairy and then boarded horses while raising five children. Emmet Talbot has been dead for many years, but Bettie still keeps a couple of horses, and still mounts her tractor to mow hay each season.
The view has changed a bit since she was younger. Now, Roanoke Gas Co. has a storage facility at the end of Tinker Mountain Road. Power lines stretch across the mountain, and the Appalachian Trail has taken a bite from the family's land.
Talbot has lived in New York, Chicago and Burbank, Calif., but none of those places can match her home beside Tinker.
"We just loved it," she says, with a laugh, of the farm's early years, "and when autumn came and the leaves would turn, when my children were young, I would come out the back door and say, `Look at that!' And they'd say, `Oh, mother!' "
Tinker's multiple wonders include Haystack Rock and the Tinker Cliffs, the bears, the snakes and the plant life, including oak, hickory, yellow poplar, Virginia pine, chestnut oak, maple, dogwood and black locust trees. Many are scarred and broken.
"With wind, ice and sun, trees have a rough time on these mountaintops," Spickard, the forest warden, notes.
Hartman knows that. At age 16, he went to work at Woodrum Field, the Roanoke airport. One of his duties was to refill the propane tanks that fired the navigational beacons atop Tinker and other mountains. A full tank would last about three months, he says. He kept that job, off and on, through Roanoke College and his days at Virginia Tech - and in 1972, when he had the chance, he bought his land on top of Tinker, where he lives in a splendid A-frame house. Fruit trees, a large garden and other plantings make it a sort of wonderland, hidden from public view. He emphasizes that the property is private. Signs at his gate make plain that visitors are unwelcome.
"We have black bear," he says. "They come in the fall when the apples are on the trees. They will tear trees to pieces, getting the apples. And you can hardly handle the deer."
by CNB