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Mr. Minor Rexrode, who lives about two miles south of the cave on Thorn Creek, states that his grandfather told him first-hand the actual facts of the closing ofTory Cave.
It was during the Civil War. A group of men were boiling the saltpeter liquor at or near the entrance of the cave when the mouth collapsed. Apparently no one was caught in the cave though it was definitely stated that the saltpeter pots, rifles and other belongings were buried or sealed in the cave. If this is true, it looks as if the boiling of the liquor was being done in the cave entrance and that the men had warning of the fall, and were able to run for their lives. If boiling being done was outside of the cave, then there must have been delicate or additional equipment in the cave. It also appears that the cave must have been worked by a relatively small crew which alternately mined and then boiled, otherwise the miners would have been entombed in the cave.
Mr. Rexrode stated that numerous parties have tried to re-open the cave, some working more than a week at it.--NSS NEWS, March 1950.
Once again plans are afoot to try to open Tory Cave, this time under the leadership of Bill Davies. To this end, Bill took a small party (Hugh Millis, Leo Nead, Dave Rederibaugh and Nancy Rogers)to Franklin, WV, to reconnoiter and possibly dig a little.
So, lightly armed with one pick and one small shovel, we trudged up to the familiar "entrance". It seemed most probable that the entrance would be found at the base of the inner face. One large rock slab barring our progress was moved by levering it with some poles found nearby. Then a trench parallel to the wall was dug deep enough to locate what appeared to be a huge buried rock slab. at this stage, digging was abandoned until a later date when more men and material would be available.
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D.C. Grottomembers blasting at Tory Cave, July 1952 Photo by M.K. Miller |
My West Virginia adventures with WVACS center around Culverson Creekand Fuller's Caveswhere I helped Mike Hamilton with field work on the system for his senior thesis at Colorado School of Mines during the summer of 1968. In September Mike, Paul Davis, Bill Turner, Doug Yeattsand I, using the geology information accumulated by Mike, found the connection between Culverson Creekand McLaughlin UnisCaves. This endeavor was assisted by Mason Sprouland Roy Charltonusing Roy's radio gear. In making the connection, we discovered the 'Wildcat Entrance named for a cougar that Mason claimed he saw after drinking a few beers. The 'wildcat' turned to be one of the landowner's barn cats!
I also did a bunch of 5ttuff in the downstream Lipps area of Greenbrier Caverns. I remember many long, tough trips in there with Wes Thorne, Henry Stevens(H,S), Rick Keener, Charlie Mausand others. On one trip I missed, Wes ran out of Camels and ended up smoking Henry's pipe for several hours, falling asleep smoking it at one point!
In October 1968, WVACSwas covered up with young cavers from the George Washington University Grotto on a regular WVACS work weekend with numerous trips going out. Somehow every trip had at least two GW people on it who were young and inexperienced at caving, and who were not planning on long trips.
My trip was to the siphon in Lipps. Two GW boys and I were to carry Roy charlton'stransmitter to the siphon and transmit long enough for Roy and Jim to get a fix on us. Halfway to the siphon, the GW boys finked out on me, so I left them with strict orders to sit still until I returned in several hours. I got to the siphon all right, got the radio going, lit up my pipe and sat down. Shortly, I noticed the place (a small room with the siphon in one end) was filling up with smoke. Since there was no air movement, the pipe smoke just hung, and in short order I was gasping for breath. Also, I began to worry about the GW guys, as it had been five to six hours since I had left them. I packed up and left the room and found the boys not far from where I'd left them, stumbling blindly along not sure if they were in the right passage or not. The crowning blow was to find out I'd turned off the transmitter too soon for Roy to get a fix and I had forgotten the dye I was supposed to dump in the siphon.
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