Little Ottie Cline Powell

Yesterday we laced up our hiking boots, drove to the Blue Ridge Parkway, and hiked to the summit of Bluff Mountain. It was a strenuous hike up a steep mountain, with leaf-covered scree and tumbling cliffs making it especially slow-going. Shadow was a trooper and her four-paw drive helped steady me on the other end of her leash as she led the way. I felt like there wasn’t enough oxygen left on the planet to satisfy my lungs. It was like hiking two hours up the steepest flight of stairs you could imagine. Why do hiking packs get heavier as you go along, even when you’re drinking water from your water bottle and thereby supposedly lightening the load?

Up through mostly bare forest, past groves of wild laurel and maples we hiked until the rough trail opened onto a sun- dappled meadow.  There we stood on the summit of Bluff Mountain.  The cement pylons from an old fire tower were still visible, so I sat down to catch my breath while John poked around looking for a marker or something to tell us what gorgeous valley we were looking at.  The rolling valley and tiny houses looked like a model train set, with each white house and farm a tiny model on a scale map of a valley.  The wind blew softly through the trees and golden leaves shimmered on the mountain slopes.

We weren’t sure if we had made it to the summit of Bluff Mountain or its neighbor, Punchbowl Mountain, so we set off to look around the cement pylons for a U.S. Geological Survey marker.  They usually tell you where you are plus include the summit height.  As we poked around the underbrush, I came across what I first took to be a grave stone – then realized it was a memorial marker to a little boy, Ottie Cline Powell.

Off to the side of the meadow, under a scrubby tree as the trail picked up again in the forest was a low stone marker with a bronze plaque on it.  Someone had left a small toy car on it and there were smooth, tumbled pebbles left as mementos (see Blue Ridge County’s article detailing the story. The fully story of Ottie’s disappearance is told very well in the article.  Wikipedia also has an entry about the event).

The plaque said that little Ottie Cline Powell, aged 4, had wandered away from his school building in November 1891 and his body was found on this spot in April – 7 miles away from the school building.

How had a four year old child wandered up a mountain that we had found so difficult to climb? What had drawn him away from his school? How had he died? My heart just broke thinking about how frightened he must have been as he lay down under the tree where he died.

When I got home, I searched online and found the story.  Apparently, little Ottie was at school that cold November day. A storm was brewing and the teacher in the one room school building asked the children to gather firewood at recess, something they did frequently. When she called the children back to the building, Ottie was missing. She immediately sent the children home to fetch their parents and the community began a search, spreading out in circles from the school.  Ottie was not to be found.  The community searched until snow made it impossible to keep combing the mountains for the boy.  His distraught parents put up posters as far away as Lynchburg offering a reward for his return but no clues – not a single one – turned up.

Then the following spring, in early April, a party of hunters found the remains on top of the mountain.  Evidence suggested that Ottie had made it to the summit the same day he disappeared for he still had chestnuts in his stomach – the snack he had eaten at school.  The night he disappeared, an ice storm hit the mountain, and the assumption is that he died of exposure the same night.

While I could not find any evidence that Ottie’s ghost haunts the mountain, I will tell you that there was a sense of lingering sadness up there, perhaps enhanced by the toys left on the old marker.  It was a good hike, but I wish I’d brought a little flower or something to put by Ottie’s marker. I still couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow he lingers on the mountain, a wisp of sadness in the wind.