Swift Run Va.
Dec. 31, 34.

Mr. B. F. Zirkel Supervisor Luray Va.

Dear Sir

          I, a local forest Warden feel it my duty to let you know what has happend in this part of the park aeria.

          Noah Herring moved from Simmon Gap to Albemarle County three (3) miles south of Boonesville Post Office. He not only taken his personel property but taken window sash, doors, part of barn roof, 6 or 8 fence gates, wire fence, fence rails. He also put a stick of dynamite in the spring and blew it up which was nicely cemented. He came by and taken the windows and doors from his son's house who moved out of the park. His son George Herring formerly run the Simmons Gap Post Office.

          At the rate this man is going and nothing is done about it, the chances are the rest who have to move out will do likewise or even worse.

                    Yours truly

(Signed)       D. M. Sullivan

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Mr Zerkel.

            Dear Sir I have moved to the George Herring place. and under the Contract was to use all buildings an be responsible for them.
Mr. Herring have been to the C C. Camp no 3. trying to get the store room from them. this room would be of use to me as the roof is bad on the corn house. He also has it locked. and orders me not to touch it. Also has a few hundred pounds of hay in the barn. Would like for him to move it out so I will have room for my cows. If you desire me to hold all buildings please let me no at once so I can show the foremen my permit when he comes to tear them down.

                                   Yours sincerly

                        (Signed) Mr. Boss. Morriss
Swiftrun
Va.

UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK
LURAY, VIRGINIA

March 13, 1935

Mr. Boss Morris
Swift Run, Va.

Dear Sir:

Your letter of March 10 which you wrote to Mr. Zerkel and in which you state that Mr. George Herring is trying to get the store room from his former place on which you are now living has been handed me to answer.

This is to advise that Mr. Herring has no rights to any of the buildings on the place and is not to tear down and move any of them.

I am sending a copy of this letter to Mr. Herring at Proffit, Va., so that he can make arrangements for the removal of his hay from the barn and also removal of whatever he has locked up in the store room, if anything.

Yours very truly,

J. R. LASSITER
Engineer in Charge

CC Mr. Herring
Mr. Bert
Mr. Zerkel

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Dictated but not read.

Proffit Va
March 17-35

Mr Zerkel.-

                Dear Sir+

I'm now answering your letter I recived from you. so called a Copy to Boss Morris.
I'm very mutch suprised to get a thang like that. I have not said or even thraught of tearing dawn any thang up there. that is some of Boss Morrises lies he reparted to you. his wife told me she had a wretten permatt to stay there tell fall and said you had given them the buildings to move a way this fall. and I do know the C C C boys has been giving a way the buildings, and I can proved this to you they gave the George Shifflett house and all to Andry Mawbray. and the also gave G. M. Shiflett buildings to Bernard & Warren Shifflett and the also got N. C. Herrings buildings and the gave Mr C J Begoon buildings to William Sullivan. and Mr Sellars buildings to ame Shifflett. and I wretten to W.C. Hall Chairman Richmond and he said you all had no right to give a way the buildings. and I say if you all were a goning to give them a way wouldent it be more nicer to give it to the one who awned the property and Boss Morris moved from his house he taken the windows & doors I do not know what he did with them. and Bosses wife. told me you had promised Ame Shifflett the store building to move a way. and that is the way you all are doning and sending me your harble letters to which I havent had nothing to do with eny of the buildings up there. I thank you had better send some letters to the ones who are halling out the buildings and the fence. I'm very mutch suprised at you sending to me sutch a thand. I thraught you were a man of a better standing than that. I want you to know that my husband or I nether one have not been messing. with the mess of people up there or the buildings either and Boss Morris Cant come to my face and tell his lies. and that place was mine and not G.R. Herrings. They are up there a beating the park aut of every thang they can and a living on what has moved aut and do you up hold sutch as that. if you do you wont be mutch thraought of as they are. and every body knows what sutch thangs as Boss Morris is. Boos is up there lieing on my husband and he was here down with the grip I'm not lieing on no one. an I'm not telling you one ward mare than I can prave end I am living up to what I say. and I'm a goning to keep your letter and show it to the nicest of people who knows you lisent to Boss Morris lieing on us. and know we had nothing to do with Boss morris or his bueldings they clam you give to him. I want you to answer this at once

                    Yours Truly (Signed) Lillie Herrg
                        wife of G. R. H.

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DIVISION OF SUBSISTENCE HOMESTEADS
Luray, Virginia

March 20, 1935

Mrs. Lillie Herring
Proffit, Va.

Dear Mrs. Herring:

Your letter under date of March 17 received and carefully noted.

The copy of the letter under date of March 13, 1935, to which you take such violent exception happens to have been written by Mr. J. R. Lassiter, Acting Superintendent, Shenandoah National Park. This letter was in response to a letter under date of March 10, 1935, from Mr. Boss Morris to me, which letter I turned over to Mr. Lassiter, since the matters about which Mr. Morris wrote are not directly connected with the Subsistence Homesteads Project and, therefore, not under my authority but, rather, under the authority of resident representative of the National Park Service.

However, while these matters are handled by Mr. Lassiter, your letter goes into a considerable detail regarding the property from which you have recently moved and some of this information does not check with that contained in the files in this office or those in the office of Mr. Lassiter nearby. I have no desire to enter into any controversy by letter but I might suggest that, while you are showing your friends the copy of the letter of March 13 to Mr. Boss Morris, as you say you propose to do, that you also display the letter I am now writing which makes reply more directly to your letter to me under date of March 17, 1935.

First -- Mr. Boss Morris has signed the Special Use Permit and also the Extension of Special Use Permit, both of which Messrs. Noah and George Herrying refused to sign. Under these permits, Mr. Boss Morris has the privilege of living within the Park until the Subsistence Homestead communities are ready for occupancy. Under date of February 26 Mr. Lassiter issued to Mr. Morris a special permit to move from the property he had been occupying to the property vacated by Mr. George Herring; the land farmed last year by Mr. Noah Herring having been previously allotted to Mr. Otis L. David for this year's cropping. However, please note, no permission was granted to Mr. Morris to remove any buildings now or later. If Mrs. Morris has that impression, it is entirely erroneous, although as stated above, occupancy of the house and use of the land under the usual permit restrictions have been provided in the case of Mr. Boss Morris.

Second -- As to other buildings having been given away by the CCC boys, I can only say that no such gifts have been made with the permission of this office or that of Mr. Lassiter of any material from any of the buildings

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Mrs. L. Herring Page 2 3/20/35

in the Park Area, in any case where the material represented a salvage value; the purpose of removing the buildings and storing the material being to utilize it later on for the out-buildings in the Subsistence Homestead communities. It is entirely possible that some items of building material which the authorities in charge of the house-wrecking considered not good enough to store for the above indicated use may have been given to someone near the building site instead of being burned to remove the unsightly rubbish and to reduce the hazard of forest fires, but such gifts were not directly authorized either by Mr. Lassiter, as acting superintendent of the Park, or by the writer, as custodian for the Subsistence Homesteads Project.

Third -- Again, there have been numerous cases of people taking building material without even the semblance of any permission or request for it either from the officials or from the camp personnel engaged in demolishing certain of the buildings.

Fourth -- I note from your letter that the Hon. Wilbur C. Hall, Chairman, State Commission on Conservation and Development, was notified by you of some of the building removals mentioned in your letter to me and that Mr. Hall advised you, in reply, that we had no right to give away the buildings. I have just stated that no buildings or building material have been given away under my authority and, I am in a position to add that none have been given away under Mr. Lassiter's authority, with the single exception of a few items where some family was assisted in a roof repair or the replacement of a couple of windows by being given special written permission to take certain items of this kind from a building that was being torn down or shortly to be torn down to make more habitable the home in the Park area wherein the family needing this material would have to live through this winter and perhaps for many months in the future. Mr. Lassiter certainly has not, directly or through the Superintendents of the CCC Camps, given any one permission to remove buildings or demolished building material from the Park Area to be used outside of the Park Area. As above stated, whatever material has been taken away from the Park Area by those who formerly lived in it or by others has been taken entirely without authority, again with the single exception of special buildings which were specifically awarded by the Conservation and Development Commission to the person on whose land such buildings stood and for the special reason that the buildings were erected between the time of the condemnation appraisal and the time of the former owner's removal from the land. In these cases, special letters were issued by the Park Office of the Commission in Front Royal and everyone concerned understood that the privilege was extended because the appraisal commissioners made no allowance in the condemnation award for such improvements.

Fifth -- I do not propose in this letter to comment at length upon your uncalled for criticism or your personal comments. However, if or when the present chairman of the State Commission on Conservation and Development checks the files in the branch office of his commission at Front royal, I am sure he will find of interest a letter written by a county official containing the statement that, when Mr. Noah Herring moved from Simmon's Gap to Albermarle county, he removed the window sash, the doors, part of the barn roof, a number of fence gates and a considerable amount of fencing material from his own house and the windows and doors from the house in which you formerly lived and, presumably to show his ill will in the Park evacuation, planted a stick of dynamite in his concreted spring and blew it up. Please understand that my mention of this is not with a view to intimating, even, that you or your husband had any knowledge or received any benefit from this unauthorized destruction and removal of property in and from

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Mrs. L. Herring Page 3 3/20/35

the Park Area and I would state, further, that I have no personal knowledge of the correctness of the information in the official report above referred to. However, if this matter has been or later will be investigated by the attorneys representing the Commission or the State, you and your husband and your father-in-law may have an opportunity in open court to explain whatever each of you may know about the matter.

Sixth -- Your characterization of Boss Morris as a liar and a thief does not directly concern me at the moment, for the reasons stated earlier in this letter that the permission given Mr. Morris is based directly on his written agreement in the several official permits and these do not allow any removal of buildings or building material or fencing by Mr. Morris, regardless of what he or his wife may have told you either in a serious or a joking way. Mr. Morris certainly understands that the only rights he has are covered by the wording of the official permits issued to him and to several hundred other Park Area dwellers and nothing in either of these permits or in the special letters from Mr. Lassiter awards him any improvements to be removed from the land in the Park Area.

Your letter of march 17 concluded with a demand that I answer at once. I sincerely hope the above answer is satisfactory. If I might venture a word of advice to one who has written the kind of letters yours was, it would be that , before you write your next letter of criticism and adverse character comment, you get all of the facts connecting the person to whom you write with the situation or reported situation about which you make your complaint.

Yours very truly,

L. FERDINAND ZERKEL

CC Mr. Lassiter
Mr. Hall

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Freeunion Va
Nov 26 -35

Mr L. F. Zerkel

Dear Sir

I heard all of the people in the park have got to move oul. and I'm asking you to do me a favor. When Boss Morris Moves out of the house I used to own. will you please give it to me. My Husband George R. Herring is dead and left me Six children and no home. and I could get the house out of the Park and it would be some help to the children. you all gave the mission people severl buildings and they have moved them out so I would be awfull thankfull if you would help me some. so let me Hear from you at once thank you.

Yours Truly

(Signed) Lillie Herring

Free union Va.
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File: G - 68 - H

December 3, 1935

Mrs. Lillie Herring
Free Union, Virginia
Dear Mrs. Herring:

This will acknowledge receipt of your letter of November 26, 1935, wherein you ask that the house which you formerly owned, now occupied by John wesley ("Boss") Morris be given to you when Mr. Morris moves out.

This is to advise that we have no authority to make any disposition of the buildings in the Park Area, vacant or otherwise, and could only suggest that your request be taken up with the State Commission on conservation and Development, Richmond, Virginia, and the National Park Service, Office of the Shenandoah National Park, Luray, Virginia.

It is our understanding that all of the buildings in the Park Area have been given to the Homestead Project for use as outbuilding material in the homestead communities and, since Mr. Morris has a permit to remain in the Park Area until the homestead communities are ready for occupancy, it is likely that he will continue to occupy this house for some time yet.

I sincerely regret that I cannot do something to assist you in your present need but, as above explained, the matter is not in my hands for disposition of these buildings.

Very cordially yours,

L. FERDINAND ZERKEL
Project Manager, RF-VA-1

LFZ/gh
cc Mr. Lassiter

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