Pamplin pipes have been reported from the sites of Fort Laramie, Wyoming; Fort Sanders, Wyoming; Fort Stambaugh, Wyoming; Fort Phil Kearny, Wyoming; Fort Union, New Mexico; Fort Sully, South Dakota; and Fort Davis, Texas (Wilson, 1971).
Miss Thornton’s parents were married in 1874, but the store was already in operation at that time. Her father continued operation until his death, December 16, 1897; after that the store was run by her brother. A bank, the “Farmer’s and Merchant’s National Bank” was also operated in the store. In later years the building became a drug store.
Finally with time and disuse the old building came down and erosion, with perhaps some intentional filling of the area, took place. So the site of the old general store, which in its heyday had meant so much to Pamplin and Appomattox County and its people in their daily living, became simply a vacant area.
Some years ago Miss Thornton had made a train trip and met an old colored woman in a rest room to which they had both gone to smoke. (When we met her, Miss Thornton chain-smoked at the age of 89). The colored woman had a sack of tobacco and pulled out a clay pipe which Miss Thornton recognized as of the kind that her father used to take in trade, so she asked the woman if it was a good one.
The woman answered, “Law, yes, but I can’t buy them any more!” so Miss Thornton told her that it was made long ago, in her home town, and that she would try to get her some.
Her next problem was to find some pipes. After several days she thought of the pipes that she felt sure were covered with earth and still in the basement of her father’s old store, so she talked to her cousin and next door neighbor, Mrs. Bess Franklin Mattox.
Shortly after that, they dug at the site. Mrs. Mattox thinks it was around 1958, though possibly 2 years earlier. “Erosion through the years had covered the pipes and when we first started to dig we found none, then there they were, under the dirt. We found two or three sugar barrels full. Tar was on a few of the pipes, from road tar that was also stored in the basement and spilled”. (This tar, in hard-dried rough spots, is present on some of the pipes we examined; however it chips off readily and leaves the pipe relatively clean).