Three hospitals

To say that the Toe River Valley was involved in turmoil during the Civil War would be an understatement. There were men leaving to serve in front-line Confederate regiments, recruiting for Federal regiments, inter-family clashes, and neighbor versus neighbor struggles.

There are also rumors of three different hospitals in the area. The first was supposed to be in Elk Park, and the source is said to be Trotter’s book, Bushwhackers. I read this book some time ago, and I go back to it from time to time. Elk Park is not in the index, and I am not sure what page it is on. The probability is that there was not an Elk Park until the railroad came through about two decades after the war. Elk Park was created as a answer to the company-owned Cranberry, just a couple of miles up the road. Cranberry, on the other hand, was a wide enough spot in the road to have gained a post office in 1850 (long before the railroad). I wish I had other information on this, but I do not.

Second, I have heard of a Confederate hospital in Bakersville. John Baker, a member of Company I, 29th NCT, came home sick and died in a hospital in Bakersville. We believe that Baker is buried in the old Bakersville Cemetery beside his father. Chances are there was not a real “hospital” in Bakersville, but someone’s home or a vacant building. But that is the story the way that I hear it.

Third: in one of Lloyd Bailey’s Toe River Heritage books, the first I think, there was mention of a smallpox hospital in Pensacola. Who worked in the hospital, how many patients, or exactly where it was located are so far all part of the mystery.

So many times, information regarding this time period comes in fragments just like the three that I present above. It could be that someone out there has more information. Or, we must be ready to come to grips with the reality that what information that might be out there is already gone, save for these glimpses into the past.