When one travels across the Mayo River at the T. J. George bridge in downtown Stuart, it is hard to imagine all the pain and heartache that has taken place near there. In the 1980’s, Patrick attorney Lawrence R. Burton wrote about the spot, which he called the “Twenty Foot Hole.” Burton describes the spot as follows, “If one stands on the south side of the river, and looks northward toward that spot in the stream, the view is a pleasant one. The hole is at the base of a precipitous cliff strewn with ivy, post oaks, grape vines and a variety of wildflowers. The stream moves slowly past that point, lending credence to the adage that “still water runs deep” and is the epitome of tranquility. There is nothing, from that vantage point, to suggest anything of a forbidding nature; just a beautiful, placid stream challenging some aspiring artist to capture it for posterity on canvas. But for anyone, except the very agile, to attempt to negotiate the narrow path that spans the cliff on the other side of the river, the change of scenery is dramatic and frightening! The path rises some twenty feet above the river, is slick and extremely narrow. Gaining a safe foothold tempts the impossible, and with each tentative step one wonders if it may be his last! Below are jagged rocks, and, at the water’s edge, a large boulder extends four or five feet into the river; silently suggesting disaster if one’s foothold should fail along the path. Just above the hole, the water is swift and fairly shallow. That’s where most of us, as youngsters, learned to swim; later gravitating to the more exciting, though hazardous, waters of the hole.”
We have no idea how many victims the Twenty Foot Hole claimed before the turn of the 20th century, but we do know that the river has taken at least eight victims, between the years 1925 and 1993.
The first victims that we know about are brothers, 22-year-old Joseph Larkin Austin and 20-year-old Alexander F. Austin. The brothers were the sixth and seventh children of John William Austin of Russell County, Virginia and Martha Ellen Carter of Floyd County.
It has always been a mystery as to why the Austin brothers were in downtown Stuart in 1925, unless they were possibly visiting relatives. In the 1910 census, the family was living in Stuart but by the time the father, a mill worker, died in 1919, they were living in Leaksville in Rockingham County, North Carolina. John William Austin was buried in the Plasters Cemetery in Vesta, Virginia.
In the 1920 census, 17-year-old Joseph Larkin and 15-year-old Alexander were both working as doffers at a cotton mill in Leaksville. The two brothers lived on Mill Street with their mother, their older brother, Robert Hannibal, who was an oiler at the mill, and their 11-year-old brother, Lewis Henry Austin.
The fifth of June 1925 was Alexander Austin’s 20th birthday. Apparently, Alexander, his older brother, Larkin, and several more young men decided to go swimming in the T. J. George Mill pond. According to an article in the June 14th edition of the Lynchburg News and Advance and the two young men’s death certificates, Larkin was the first one to need help. Alexander went to his brother to try to save him, but he too, was dragged under by the “swirl.”
The June 14th, 1925, article in the Lynchburg News and Advance shown above recounts the Austin tragedy, but also mentions that there have been numerous fatalities (misspelled facilities) at the mill pond. I have been unable to find out the names of these victims, as death certificates were only required to be filed in Virginia, beginning in 1912. Next week, we will look at the next tragedy that occurred at the twenty-foot hole, only three years after the Austin brother’s deaths.
Woody may be reached at rockcastlecreek1@gmail.com or (276) 692-9626.
