Organ Cave

 Pipe Organ.    Image Source: here.

     Organ Cave is part of the third largest cave system in West Virginia, known as the Organ-Hedricks Cave System.  It was believed to be the largest for many years, until the Friars Hole Cave System and Hellhole cave systems were further explored.  It was registered as a National Natural Landmark in 1973 and the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.

     The cave got its name from its most impressive formation - which looks like a pipe organ.  The stalagmites are of different lengths and thicknesses, so they actually make different sounds when you tap on them.  Unfortunately, vandals have taken it upon themselves to break pieces off the bottom.  So far the organ remains standing, but its foundation has been compromised.  Hopefully the vandals will be caught and punished before any more damage is done.

Organ Cave Organ.  Image Source: here.

     Organ cave is rich is saltpeter, or nitre, which is an important ingredient in gunpowder.  General Robert E. Lee, of the Confederacy, and his men mined the cave during the Civil War. and the hoppers they used to produce the saltpeter are still there.  Native Americans are believed to have used to cave for its flint deposits.  Old Native American writing has also been found in the cave, but the meanings remain a mystery.  

     Animals have been living in and around the cave system since the ice age, probably even longer.  Many fossils have been discovered, including reindeer, sabre-toothed cats, grizzly bears, giant ground sloths, armadillo, and porcupine.

     In July 1948 this cave system was first surveyed by the National Speleological Society, and it was believed to be the longest in the world.  Well, many more caves have been discovered since then and it now ranks in at 39th longest in the world.  Organ-Hendricks cave system is known to be the 9th longest cave system in the United States, and many spelunkers believe much more is yet to be discovered.

   

 

FEBRUARY 16, 1871 

     The western portion of the State of Virginia is in many respects the most charming country in [the south?]  The country is mountainous.  [The Alleghany?] range crosses this ... In the sides of the cliffs ... there are in some places .... of them, however, are not ... safe retreats for the ground hogs which infest the whole country.  Some of them are very large and very noted.  One of these caves is known by the name of the organ cave.  It is in Greenbrier County, about twelve miles from the White Sulphur Springs.  The entrance to the cave is but a few feet from the road which leads from the Greenbrier Sulphur Springs to Union, the county seat of Monroe county.  The aperture is not, however, on a level with the road, and hence an individual might pass the place and see no signs of ...  The sides of the road are thickly ... brush-wood, and the mouth of the cave ... ravine at least thirty feet below the level of the road.  The cave seems to have been formed by a small stream forcing its was through a ridge into Second creek, which is about two miles distant.

     In order to enter the organ cave, you have to make a circuit of a few rods, that you may reach the bottom of the ravine.  So soon as you enter the ravine you see before you a huge opening in the ground sufficient to admit a large house.  The arch is rock.  On advancing a short distance, the opening becomes very small, just large enough to admit a moderate sized man with ease in a crawling posture.  Above you is a rock, and all around you is a cold clammy rock.  Sometimes you find it difficult to advance on account of the smallness of the aperture.  The light of day never enters this gloomy place.  In spite of yourself you will think of the grave.  You will imagine the awful condition in which you would be if the rock above you would sink only a few inches.  There you would be wedged in and forced to linger and die.  Again you imagine you awful condition were your light would be extinguished.  Soon the gloom is partly dispelled.  The opening grows larger and larger, and you find yourself in a vast field arched - not by the blue concave of heaven - but by limestone rock.

     The water filters through this rock, and strange limestone formations hang down from the ceiling above which resemble the icicles that hang down from the eves of houses in the midst of a sleet storm.  These when struck give forth a peculiar sound, from which circumstance the cave is called the organ cave.

     In many places the cave is very rough;  in others it is smooth.  In some places you have to wend your way along the side of rugged cliffs with fearful precipices below you.  Great caution is necessary at such points.  A misstep would be fatal.  You would be dashed to pieces against the rocks or drowned in some pit filled with water.

     The soil in some localities of the organ cave is mixed with nitrate of potash.  Many years ago the people in the neighborhood threw the soil in hoppers resembling ash-hoppers, and let the saltpetre drip out as lye is run off ashes.  From saltpatre thus obtained gunpowder was made.

     The organ cave has never been fully explored.  No one has yet discovered into what the little stream which winds its way through it, empties.   It is highly probable that it finds its way into Second creek, but at what point no one knows.

     Great precaution is necessary on going into the cave.  You must go well provided with candles and matches;  for as said before, the light of day never enters it.  You must take a straw of something by which you can mark your windings through the cave.  This precaution is very essential.  You might miss your way and be lost forever.  If your light would, by some misfortune, be extinguished, you would be left in total darkness, and if you should miss your way, you would be in a desperate condition.  In either event, the probability is you would remain in the cave and literally pine away and die.          

The Daily Telegram., July 15, 1914

              

The Greenbrier Ghost

Zona Heaster Image Source: here.

     In 1876 Elva "Zona" Heaster was born in Greenbrier County, West Virginia.  When she was twenty years old she met a man called E.S. Trout Shue - it was October 1896.  E.S. was short for Eramud Stribbling, but the papers called him E.S. or Edward, others called him Trout.  He was new in town, and looking for a blacksmiths job.  Well, he found a job, and the two got married.  Zonas mother, Mary Jane, didn't like him one bit.

     The marriage didn't last long at all, though, because on January 23, 1897 Zona was dead.  She was found in her home, lying at the foot of the stairs by a young boy named Andy Jones.  He had been sent there on an errand by Shue.  Naturally, the boy freaked out and ran home to tell his mom.  She called for the doctor and coroner to come quickly, but it took nearly an hour.

    When Dr. Knapp got there Shue had moved Zona's body upstairs to her bed, and didn't want anyone to touch her.  He had already dressed and readied her for the funeral, with a high collard dress and a shroud to cover her face.  This was especially strange because local woman were usually the ones to clean and prepare a body for burial.  As the Dr. tried to examine her, Shue wouldn't leave him alone with the body - he wouldn't even let him get close to her head.  

     All Dr. Knapp could see was that there was some bruising around her neck, but he decided to list the death as "everlasting faint."  Later, though, he remembered he had seen her two weeks before about "female trouble," so he changed cause of death to "childbirth."  It's actually unknown if she was pregnant or not.  When Mary Jane was told of her daughters death, she is said to have remarked "the devil has killed her."  Many believe she was referring to E.S. Trout.

Image Source: here.

    During Zonas wake Shue didn't want anyone to come close to the coffin, much less touch her body.  His emotions were all over the place.  One second he was crying, the next he would be getting on to people for disturbing his late wife.  He tried to convince them he was acting this way so that Zona could "rest easier."  Even stranger was the way he had tied a scarf around her neck, he cried and said it had been her favorite.  Her body was laid to rest on January 24, 1897.

     Well, Mary Jane didn't believe that her daughters' death had been some sort of freak accident, not for a second!  She was convinced that Trout Shue had killed her.  So, every night for a months she would pray that Zona would let her know what happened.  Sometime after the fourth week Zona appeared to Mary Jane in a dream.

     In the dream, Zona tells her mother that Shue was abusive to her.  On the day she died, he went into a rage because he believed she hadn't cooked any meat for dinner.  He was so angry that he broke her neck, which she proved by turning her head around backwards like an owl.  For four nights Mary Jane says she was visited by her daughters ghost.

     Mary Jane decided that this horrible man wasn't going to get away with this, so she went to see a prosecutor.  She spent hours trying to convince John Preston to reopen the case of her daughters death.  We don't know if he believed that Zona had visited her mother from the beyond, but he was convinced that something wasn't right.  So, he sent deputies out to talk to people again, just in case.  As it turns out, lots of locals had suspected foul play as well.

     Preston decided to go to see Dr. Knapp for himself.  The doctor told him how Shue had not allowed him to make a full and proper examination of the body.  When Preston heard this he thought it would be a god idea to exhume the body and have an official autopsy performed.  By law Shue had to be present for the autopsy.  He said he was sure he would end up arrested, but that no one could find him guilty of anything.  

     The body was dug up and autopsied in a one-room schoolhouse.  It took three hours to perform the autopsy, and it was obvious that she had met with foul play.  A report was published on March 9, 1897 that stated:

     "The discovery was made that the neck was broken and the windpipe mashed.  On the throat were the marks of fingers indicating that she had been choked.  The neck was dislocated between the first and second vertebrae.  The ligaments were torn and ruptured.  The windpipe had been crushed at a point in front of the neck."  Trout Shue was arrested for murdering his wife.

     During his stay in Lewisburg jail the townsfolk learned some interesting things about Mr. Shue.  It turned out that Zona hadn't been his first wife, or even his first wife to mysteriously die.  His first wife ended the marriage because he was very cruel to her, and his second died less than a year into their marriage.  Shue didn't seem too upset over the whole ordeal, he was sure he would be out soon.  He told whoever would listen that he wanted to marry seven women during his lifetime.  (What a strange thing for someone to want.)

Mary Jane Heaster Image Source: here.

     The trial finally started a couple of months later, on June 22, 1897.  Preston put Mary Jane Heaster on the stand, and she told all about her daughters visits.  Shue's lawyer was determined to make her out to be a lunatic for seeing ghosts.  He asked her all kinds of questions and tried to trick her into changing her story somehow, but she never did.  The town believed her story.  

     He was found guilty on July 11, and given a life sentence for the murder of his wife.  A lynch mob waited for him outside the jail, they wanted to see him hang for what he'd done.  The deputy sheriff wouldn't have any of that, and four of the mobs organizers ended up in trouble.  Shue ended up in Moundsville at the state penitentiary, but only lived three more years.  He supposedly died of some epidemic that was going around the prison.  His grave is unmarked.

Image Source: here.