Rev. P.R. Law, Editor THE LUMBER BRIDGE NEWS
Source: Robesonian (Lumberton, North Carolina) December 2, 1902 iSSUE

Contact: Myrtle Bridges   January 2, 2015

We had heard much from all classes about the Sand Hills of Richmond. This old county has no monopoly of sand hills, 
nor the only ideal ones. Yet, all in all for one reason or another, the county is more far-famed for this sort of 
possession than any other. We have been called to traverse them and to know them in all their aspects. Travel over 
them is hot in summer and cold in winter. Jehu could have made no reputation for speed had his roadway been across them. 

	A little more than thirty years ago the round, tall, stately, pine crowned them with glory. The forests then must have 
been lovely. A few acres remain here and there to tell the traveller of what their primeval glory was. Turpentine and 
lumber vandals with great forest fires at intervals have wrought fatally and now a saddening desolation meets them every-
where. A sickly black jack growth with here and there a towering pine, a mournful wreck of a once proud monarch, is what 
one now sees. The land is poor the population is sparse.  One wonders if there is not oil or gold or diamonds or something 
else underneath to compensate for the sterility of the surface. 

	We travelled a few days ago eight miles out from Rockingham in an easterly direction and saw no human being nor any other 
living thing, except one pie rooter pig. A day later we were more fortunate and saw a dozen goats and they looked fat, hale 
and high spirited. We meet at out destination a sturdy band of rugged Scotch folk. They know how to be independent and thrive 
on those hills. No others could do it like them. They have a plenty and are as well contented as any. Sober in all things, they 
carried a lifted and proud head and are moved by a religion of principle.

Rev. P.R. Law returned last Friday from Richmond County where he had been preaching in Rockingham and Marks Creek 
churches and left next day to preach at Kenly and Smithfield in Johnston County.

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