Page 261 - Family History

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from contagious, infectious, and other dangerous diseases, to regulate the
building of stables, privies, and hog pens ...," and the last sentence "to restrain
and punish drunkards, vagrants, and street beggars; to prevent vice and
immorality; to enforce a proper observance of the Sabbath; to preserve public
peace and good order; to prevent and quell riots; disturbances, and disorderly
assemblies; to prevent and punish lewd, indecent, and disorderly conduct or
exhibitions in said town." Fines up to $50 were specified.

If there were such goings on, the only
remembered vice, if one could call it that, was
Eppa Hunton - Uncle Ep, the Purcells called
him - driving into town. Uncle Ep had a feud
with town sergeant Walter Howell, and when
Ep drove his two-horse vehicle down from

Woodgrove, he'd see Mr. Howell standing on
This picture (1880-1900) shows a haywagon on
the street, and he'd come out on his horses
Main Street in downtown Round Hill. Billy
with a whip, yell at them, and race through Hall's store in on the right, and Paxson-Lodge's
town. He'd take the turn on the pike on two Hall is on the left.
wheels, and before Mr. Howell could get on his horse, Ep was outside of the town
limits.

The town council's first item of business was to get down to Hamilton to check

out the town ordinances. To guard against the Uncle Eps, there was to be no
horse-racing - a "trial of speed," they called the sport.

The first crisis came in June 1900 when Mary Pines caught a case of smallpox at
her mother's home, and Charles Lloyd was paid a dollar a day to stand guard over
the quarantined Sandy Traverse home. As a result, all town property owners were
"ordered at once to clean and disinfect all privies, hog pens, and premises

generally."

Things got better in 1913, when the town put in a waterworks, and three years
later William Birdsall was paid $20 to lease his land on the summit of Scotland
Hill, the 877-foot-high hill a mile northwest of town for a reservoir. In 1926 all
town privies were to be "updated," and for the first time septic tanks "were
encouraged."

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