OLD HOMESTEAD 



too expensive for the benefits expected. Their depths vary at 

 different points, two hundred and fifty feet being the deepest. 



They are wild places, but filled with beautiful scenery, quite 

 accessible if one has time to go down into and through them. 

 The ''Huddle " Gulf, into which the Fox Gulf leads, was early 

 bridged at the Cal. Totman place, but was until very recently a 

 hard, dangerous crossing, and, although it was much the nearest 

 way to Adams, the people in our section preferred to go around 

 by the Little or Fox Gulf, or some other safer road. 



The North Gulf, called the '' Big Gulf," was bridged at John 

 Gifford's, but was avoided for the same reasons. Even the Little 

 Gulf crossing, near Fox's, was shunned in early days, being very 

 steep on both sides. Each gulf had but one bridge, and all had 

 their dangers and difficulties, causing many accidents. Henry 

 Wright, of Greenboro, because of a broken neckyoke, ran off the 

 Gifford Gulf with a load of shingles and went down a partly slop- 

 ing, partly perpendicular bank ninety feet high; landing in the 

 top of a tree saved him and his horses from certain death. A 

 brother-in-law, Bernice Doane, once had a horse crowded off 

 the end of the Little Gulf bridge; it dropped through the har- 

 ness to the creek, twenty feet below, leaving its mate on the 

 bridge with the sleigh, full of people, just balanced, one runner 

 on the bridge and the other three-quarters off. Father once had 

 his harness give way on the steepest part of the Totman Gulf; 

 this let the democrat wagon, in which he and mother were rid- 

 ing, upon old Dick's heels. Any other horse than old Dick 

 would have dashed them over the bank into the gorge, a hundred 

 feet below. There were plenty of accidents, but I remember no 

 fatalities. 



These deep gulfs made homes and hiding places for wild 

 animals of all kinds, and if one was started in any other part of 



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