Graphite Drawing of Grant’s Store by Kyle Griffith, 2018
Beginning in the 1890’s, a business called “The Little Mercantile Company” or simply “Elliott’s Store” stood near where the present Hopewell United Methodist Church stands in Dry Fork, Virginia. Two business partners, Mr. Robert Eldridge “Bobby” Elliott (1868-1955) and George Lee Hardy (1867-1932) ran the store for about 25 years in all. George Hardy also owned another store at the same time. In 1907, they constructed a new frame building several yards away from the old store. The new building was was one of the largest in the community with an upstairs to browse further. The vacancy of the old building was filled as a blacksmith shop under the operation of J. Ward Hardy (1864-1931), a cousin of George Hardy and a stepfather of Bobby Elliott. Bobby’s younger brother, Wesley Carrington “Carr” Elliott (1871-1968) became an apprentice under Ward Hardy as a wheelwright and blacksmith at his shop to repair wagons and buggies.
In 1909, Mr. Charlie Washington Grant (1883-1953) began working at The Little Mercantile Company. Charlie’s father, John P. Grant, served the position of “Sergeant of Dry Fork” when the community functioned as a town beginning in 1906. Several years following, Charlie Grant married a daughter of Carr Elliott, Miss Estelle May Elliott, who became Mrs. “Essie” Grant. Their first child was a baby girl they named Ruth Grant (1915-2005).
Around 1918, ownership of The Little Mercantile Company moved to a brother-in-law of George Hardy, Mr. Beverly White Jones (1885-1944), who ran it for a short time as “B. W. Jones Store.” In 1919, Beverly sold the business to his older brother, James Henry “Jim” Jones (1876-1929) who renamed the business again to “J. H. Jones Grocery Company.” A surviving receipt advertises “dry goods, notions, fine groceries, & general merchandise.” Notice how “B. W.” has been crossed out and replaced with “J H” and “Gro Co” was added to the end. This receipt belonged to my great-great grandfather, Dock Franklin Meadows (1882-1942) who was a frequent customer. Jim also owned the largest grist mill and distillery in the Dry Fork vicinity: the old Pigg’s Mill property. Read more about this Jones family in “Tarpley W. Jones & the Distiller’s Heirs.”
During the time that the 1918 Flu epidemic swept through Dry Fork, Mr. Grant’s wife passed away at the young age of 23. Over the next couple years, Charlie also lost two of his three baby children, Hazel and Charlie Garnette Grant. Several years later, Mr. Grant remarried to his late wife’s sister Nannie Lou Elliott (1898-1994). This was considered proper family etiquette during the time and circumstances of the day. Together, they had four additional children, the last of which was named Garland C. Grant (1929-2020). In 1929, Jim Jones passed away and his wife Annie Kate Stowe Jones (1883-1944) operated the store for about fifteen years. The wheelwright & blacksmith shop continued to function as part of the business, and after Ward Hardy’s death in 1931, his apprentice Carr Elliott took the position and became a master of the craft. Mr. Elliott’s grandson, Garland Grant, recounted a time with me when he was a young child observing his grandfather.
“I won’t but ‘bout 5 or 6 years old when I’d stand and watch him shoe a horse, and I asked him one day—I seen him driving nails up through the hoof. I says, ‘Grandpa? Don’t that hurt the horse?’ He said ‘Naw,’ he laughed, he said ‘Son, ain’t no more than clippin’ ya finger nails.’ But that bothered me.”
For over thirty years, Mr. Charlie Grant had been perfecting the craft of running a country store as a merchant. According to the 1940 census, it notes that his wife, Nannie Grant, was also a merchant at the store. In 1944, Mrs. Annie Kate Jones, the store owner at the time passed away and the store came to close on another chapter in its history. The store changed hands several times before ultimately Mr. Grant purchased the business and it became known as “C. W. Grant’s Store.” His son Garland and daughter Ruth Grant were merchants there as well.
After C. W. Grant’s death in 1953, Garland took the family business into his own hands. He had just returned from active duty in the Korean War. The store operated six days a week, Monday to Saturday, twelve hours a day, and the opening hour was usually 8:00 AM. Garland told me, “There’s always a need for a store in the community, and Grant’s Store seemed to fill the bill at that time. What they sold and everything, people needed, they wanted it. And they all would credit too…you didn’t have to have a credit card.” Above all of the groceries and mercantile offered by the business, Garland supposed that potatoes were his highest selling item. As the days of the horse and buggy along dusty dirt roads turned into rumbling motors over hardtop roads, Grant’s Store outgrew its wheelwright services and installed gasoline pumps for automobiles.
Garland told me the following story involving my great-granduncle Otha Starley Meadows (1920-1980) and some other local Dry Fork residents on a property that neighbored the store.
“…they was diggin’ a well out here where the parsonage was at that time. And they got down in there and they hit rock—they was doin’ a hand dug well. John Richardson and Major Stowe was out there diggin.’ Got down there and they had some dynamite and neither one of ‘em knew how to use it. Well they got it down in there and both of ‘em was scared to light the fuse. Otha came down the road walkin’ and he came out here where John and Major was diggin’ that well and he said ‘whatch’all doin’ boys?’ One of ‘em says ‘We need somebody to light this fuse down here!’ Otha says ‘I’ll light it for enough money.’ They asked ‘How much would you get?’ ‘We’ll give you five dollars to come down here and light that fuse.’ So they was drawn out of the well, Otha went down there, lit that fuse, they run him out and he says, ‘I want my five dollars now–’ that dynamite went off and shot just like a cannon! Rock rained down on that there house. [he laughed].”
Garland C. Grant (1929-2020)
My cousin, Aurelian Guyard Shelton (1940-2000), [pictured] grew up walking distance from Grant’s Store. He was a very frequent customer and was greatly influenced by Garland’s hospitality and kindness. Most people called him “Relian” (rhymes with billion) and some people had made fun of his name for being uncommon or hard to pronounce. However, one day around 1955, he earned a new identity that stuck with him for the remainder of his life. Garland shared with me the following origin story as he remembered it. He also mentioned Cassie Meadows Shelton (1906-1977), my great-grandaunt.
“Have you seen the headstone at his grave? Have you seen the fact that he’s got ‘Sheriff’ there rather than his own name? I was the one that gave ‘im the name!” He had “a little star…a toy badge that you pin it, chap-like. He got it out of a box of Cracker Jacks or som’n he had bought at the store. He bought ‘em and he took it home first—came back the next day and had that little star pinned inside of his [jacket]—Sheriff was ‘bout 14 or 15 years old at that time. I looked…it was exposed some kind of way. I said ‘Well you the Sheriff ‘round here boy!’ I says ‘I think I’m gon’ call you Sheriff.’ Tickled him plum to death. And some time another I took him home and I told [his mother]. I says ‘Cassie, we got a new Sheriff in town.’ She says ‘Who is it?’ I says ‘It’s yo’ boy! From now on his name is Sheriff.’ His momma was tickled plum to death and he was too–the whole family and it spread like wildfire. Nobody ever called him anything else and he loved it. He’s got it on his stone at the very top, ‘Sheriff.’”
Garland Grant in the doorway of Grant’s Store with several customers, early 1960’s.
In the 1960’s, the store building was getting old and deteriorated. Garland decided to demolish it and build a new building out of cinder block in 1966. That building still stands today. Garland and his sister Ruth ran the business for eleven more years until he sold it to Gary Harris in 1977. Grant’s Store operated under different ownerships over the next several decades. Many fond memories were made at this building, just as there were plenty from the older store. See an aerial photograph of Grant’s Store in 1989 in this link.
Grant’s Store lasted into my lifetime, and I have at least one memory of visiting as a very young child. It closed soon after my memory, sometime around 2004. It sat vacant for a few years until it was purchased by a different family and turned into “The Butcher’s Block.” For about fifteen years, this butchery has been a valued service in the community. As recently as 2023, a large addition was constructed to the back (west elevation) of the building.
The Butcher’s Block, 2016
In memory of Garland C. Grant (1929-2020)
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