Nelson store found place in all hearts

By David Maurer

Published: October 12, 2008

There were many wonders to be found in Charlie H. Martin’s general store in Nelson County.

One of them had to do with the sheer number of items he managed to cram into the clapboard building standing at the intersection of routes 6 and 151. He carried everything from buggy whips to fishing rods, roofing nails to groceries.

“If I can find it, I have it,” Martin was proud of saying.

He got a kick out of turning his slogan around and saying “I have it, if I can find it.”

In 1951 a reporter from the Richmond Times-Dispatch dropped by and wrote a story about the store. He described the proprietor as “five feet-six inches of the gentlest, quietest, most business-like man you ever saw.”

Thing of the past

People with the same laudable qualities still abound, but sadly the general stores of the past are becoming fewer and fewer. When Martin was born in Rockfish Valley in January 1870, general stores were the mainstay for rural folks.

They were the “big-box” stores of their day, housing under one roof, all the basic necessities for home and farm. Along with salve to doctor a raw spot on a horse or cow, there would be tonics for an ailing human.

In Martin’s Store pots and pans hung next to cured hams, and cans of soup could be seen stacked near a display of saddles. Sewing needles, thread, coffee, flour, candy, paper, beans, toys, hosiery, knives, guns, ammunition and countless other things would be within reach or just a few steps away.

Stocking the right things in the right amount was an art form that Martin mastered. But running a general store hadn’t been his first career choice.

Off to college

When Martin turned 18 he decided to learn something about running a business and enrolled in a business college in New York City. Life in a metropolis didn’t suit him at all, and two months later he was back home and wondering what to do next.

The young man’s uncle helped him get on with the railroad. His first job was as “commissary boy” for a railroad in Louisiana. His salary was $15 a month, and the work provided him with a foundational knowledge of how a store should be run.

Martin turned in his clerk’s apron when he became a timekeeper for the railroad. This was a vital job, because all the clocks in the train depots, as well as the watches carried by essential railroad personnel such as the engineers, brakemen and conductors, had to be within seconds of one another.

Such a close adherence to time was necessary because trains ran in both

directions on the same tracks. To head off disaster one would have to pull off on a sidetrack to allow the other to pass.

Accidents and wasted time were kept to a minimum by ensuring all railroad timepieces were closely synchronized. For 15 years Martin traveled from New York to Mississippi and even out West making sure railroad clocks were showing the same time.

The constant moving eventually wore down the Virginian’s itch to travel, and he decided to settle down. He returned to Nelson County to marry his sweetheart and start a business of his own.

One day in 1905 Martin traveled to Lovingston and looked up an old friend. He asked to borrow $1,500 to build a general store and stock it.

Martin got the loan and circumstances dictated where the store would be located. In the early 1700s the King of England had granted the Martin family a piece of land near Greenfield, so that’s where the store went.

In no time Martin’s Store was open for business. It was around 1914 that a future writer named Boyce Loving became acquainted with the place.

Loving was a youngster at the time, and the store made a strong impression on him. Forty years later when he returned to write a story on its 50th anniversary he found that it hadn’t changed at all.

By that time Loving was a seasoned reporter with The Daily Progress. The story he wrote wove in his memories of the store that he had as a kid.

“To a country boy under 10 years of age, there were marvels to be seen hitherto undreamed of in the showcases and on the shelves,” Loving wrote. “One of the joys of visiting the store is to see the utter abandon with which the stock is scattered about the counters and shelves and hangs from the ceiling.”

The clutter of products started before one actually entered the establishment. As an inducement for passing travelers to drop in, Martin had arranged a number of things along the front of the store.

Loving spotted stoneware crocks, oil lanterns, garden tools, a camp stove, a copper apple butter kettle with wooden stirrer. Leaning against the front were an assortment of farm and garden tools.

It was late summer of 1954, and Martin was 84 years old. The store hadn’t changed and neither had his way of operating it.

By then most stores had ended the barter system years before, but not Martin. People were still bringing in things like eggs and live chickens to exchange for clothing and other necessities.

At one time the storekeeper had gotten a lot of fresh-churned butter as payment for store items. He lamented the fact that even though it was September he had yet to take in a single pound of country butter that year.

The mule shoes and harness collars were probably not going out the door as fast as they once had either. Loving realized that he had come upon a time capsule that connected him to his youth as well as the nation’s past.

The newspaperman and gentleman merchant have long since become part of history. But both left behind words that told of a place filled with wonder.

Loving did it in a newspaper story now yellow with age. Martin did it in a poem.

“With keys in the lock, the lock’s in the door, the best place to deal is Charlie Martin’s store.

“Up with the chickens and on his way, down to the store for all the day. This grand old merchant, aged eighty-eight, ambles down the hill and through his gate.

“With porch laden with goods, in orderly array he genially greets his customers throughout the day.

“Behind the counter he’ll patiently sit, ‘Yes, it’s here somewhere, if I can only find it!’ To the query, “Mr. Martin, when do you plan to retire?”

“When I can no longer serve man, I’ll be ready to go higher.”