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From The Times-Register archives
HEADLINE: ISSAC VINYARD PROMINENT IN ROAD MATTERS OF EASTERN END OF ROANOKE COUNTY IN 1870’S
SUBHEAD: Records Show Many Applications For Various Permits In Connections With Highways
Isaac Vinyard, one of the men for whom that town was founded and it was recognition of this fact that induced the people there to name the town after Vinyard.
In looking over the old records we find that Isaac Vinyard was authorized by the county court to operate a tavern in 1867.
It is, however, in connection with road matters that Isaac Vinyard appears mostly in the early records. In 1863 the court book has the following record:
“It is ordered that Isaac Vinyard be appointed surveyor of Road precinct No. 49 in place of P. M. Thrasher who is dead and that with the hands allotted said precinct do put away and keep same in repair according to law.”
When a settlement grew up about the depot at Gish’s the inhabitants of that vicinity desired one of the main roads to run through the village and Isaac Vinyard was the man who was spokesman for the applicants. In July 1876 the following court order was made:
Road is Changed
On the application of Isaac W. Vinyard for an alteration in the road running from the railroad at Gish’s mill by Thrasher’s chapel, said alteration to commence at a point near the tan yard and ending near Thrasher’s Chapel, Thomas R. Muse, the commissioner who, at the February term of court was directed to view said alteration, this day returned his report from which it appears that the said road, if altered was proposed will run on Main street of the village recently established at Gish’s Mill depot from the tan yard to near Thrasher’s Chapel, that the said commissioner recommends said alteration. Whereupon it is ordered that said road be altered as to carry it along the Main street of said village between the points aforesaid, instead of along the present location. And it is further ordered that John B. Ruddell, surveyor of said road do, with the hands allotted to said road, make such alterations in accordance with said report. And it is further ordered that the costs of said application be paid out of the next county levy.”
Order Road Built
“It is ordered that Charles Lunsford do with James E. Day, the surveyor of the county, examine the road from Gish’s Mill to J. B. Ruddell’s gate; the road from the ford at Glades Creek between the farms of Wm. M. Berkely and I. W. Vinyard to the Bedford line and also a cross road from I. W. Vinyard’s farmhouse to Gish’s Mill road leading by Thrasher’s Chapel and report as to the width of said roads; who has encroached upon said roads by fencing or otherwise; whether it be necessary that said roads by thirty feet wide and if so, what is necessary to be done to make them of said width and the said commissioners are required to report the first day of the next term of court.”
In July of 1883 the court ordered that a thirty foot road be laid out between Gish’s and Roanoke. Three tentative sites were examined and it was decided that the road be “run from the middle of Tinker Creek at the end of railroad avenue in Roanoke along the side and south of the railroad.”
The application for this road was G. MeH. Gish who operated a store in Vinton and who was also prominent in community affairs about the village before it was incorporated. it was he who was responsible for the depot being erected at Gish’s.
- B. Preston and M. P. Preston were other prominent men in that vicinity in the early days. They owned and considerable land in the vicinity before the town was incorporated.
Isaac Vinyard afterward entered the mercantile business there under the first name of Isaac Vinyard and Brother.
– Prepared by Lingjie Gu
