Was he real, or imagined, this is the story of

STONY MAN

From our home in Stanley, Virginia, where we lived from 1990 to 1996, we could easily look up to the mountains east of our little farm and see the Skyline Drive. It was a spectacular view, particularly on a clear, moonlit evening.

There was a “lookout” listed on the Drive called “Stony Man”. It was an outcropping of granite and other stone, which resembled the face of a man. From this reality, emminated the “story of stony man”. During those years in Stanley, in the shadows of the beautiful Shenandoah National Park and we enjoyed many stories together….they were inventions of the imagination…

STORY of STONY MAN….began one winter’s night in Kite Hollow where we lived. The snow was falling heavily. We had several surprisingly big snow storms during our years in Stanley. Sarah was 13 in 1994, and Hannah was nearly 5.

We brought Lightfoot, our Collie/Labrador mix from New Hampshire. Fogey the Prince of all Dogs, was an Irish Setter, who also came from New Hampshire. These two wonderful dogs were more to us than pets. They were family members…The girls adored them, cared for them, and took pride in their different personalities. Fogey was the proud, strong manly dog who stood tall and straight. When Fogey ran across the pasture, you had to watch him. His gate, his posture, and his profile as he literally “flew” through the air…Lightfoot, on the other hand, was a plain lovable dog who was loving and intelligent. She looked at you with “human eyes”, have you ever known a dog like that?

Welll, “Once upon a time”, as we used to say, the snow was coming down. There must have been more than a foot of it already covering the ground. As Hannah called in the dogs at suppertime, we noticed Fogey came bounding to the door, as he usually did, but Lightfoot was nowhere to be seen. Where was Lightfoot…? We went out front on the porch and called again, and again… So, we waited for about half an hour, expecting her. But then both Sarah and Hannah thought that we had better go out and look for her.

But, the snow was falling, and the lane was already filling up with snow…how could we get out and look for Lightfoot? We decided to take the tractor, a 1952 Ford 8N model which was a sturdy and dependable vehicle for mowing, hay riding and plowing snow. On this night, Fogey ran along side the tractor as we left the lane and turned onto the road. Hannah and Sarah both stood along side Daddy on the huge rear axle, left and right.

We looked and called and looked and called. We turned right and headed towards the mountain…turned toward “Stony Man”. We weren’t sure we believed that there was actually a “man” named “Stony Man”, we knew “Stony Man” as an overlook where the stony outcropping of rock, resembled the profile of an old man’s face.

With Fogey leading the way, and the tractor’s head lights shining on the snow, we drove deeper into the “hollow” and continued looking. We noticed that Fogey began to get agitated at one point as we passed by a narrow snow covered driveway to our right. No mailbox, no markers of any kind were to be seen. But, as Hannah and Sarah looked up this seemingly abandoned driveway…they shouted, “Daddy, Daddy, there’s a little cabin up there, and there are lights on….there’s smoke coming out of a chimney!” And, sure enough, as Daddy looked up through the heavy snow, there was surely someone living up there.

Fogey began to sprint toward the small structure…he was leading us to something…and what a surprise we would have… As we drew closer to the little cabin…there was not a sign of life anywhere, except for the smoke coming from the chimney, and a dim light shining through the single window, beside the only door. It was dark…and the girls held tighter to their Daddy, as the tractor slowed to a stop….but, why was Fogey making such a fuss? Why was he barking? Fogey never barked. But tonight there was something unusual about him. He could see in the dark, you know…dogs have that ability, you know.

About that time, we saw the target of Fogey’s excitement and his agitation. There was a black dog chained by its neck to the side of the cabin. This dog was shivering in the cold snowy night. There was a bowl near him…and nothing else. When this dog saw Fogey, it immediately jumped to its feet and pulled at the chain. Fogey came close and we could see them greeting each other…who was this other dog? Finally, Hannay screamed out, “Lightfoot, Lightfoot!” And Sarah said, “Daddy, it’s Lightfoot”…someone had apparently “stolen our dog”! And here she was cold, alone and tethered to a strange dark cabin several miles from home.

Daddy jumped down from the Tractor and pounded on the door. We needed to find out who had taken (or found) our Lightfoot. After two rounds of knocking, the door slowly swung open…we could see a fire burning inside in a very small room. As the door came cully open, we say a big man standing before us. But, was it a man? It looked more like a combination of a scare crow, and a statue made of stone. His face seemed to be made of stone. His nose and chin were sharp rock-looking features. His eyes shone as jemstones of some sort, seemiingly illuminated from within…they glowed. And, his voice! When he said, “Who are you? And what do you want?” He sounded like a cement mixer trying to speak. Gravel-ly and grating, his words were understandable, but very unpleasant sounding

The girls stood behind Daddy as he told the man that we were looking for our beloved Lightfoot, and that we found her, tied to the wall of this house…” Daddy wanted an explanation, and without hesitation, the man gave one. His voice continued to grind and rattle as he said, “I found this dog along the road coming into Kite Hollow..she’s a friendly dog, and on the cold snowy night, I thought I would take her to my home, here and wait for someone to come and fine her.” We quickly understood that this man was not a threat to us, or to Lightfoot. Although, if we judged him by his appearance, we might have called him a “monster” of some sort, as he didn’t look human, but more like a scarecrow made of stone.

Fogey and Lightfoot were now playing together at the corner of the cabin, and Daddy quickly moved over to unhook Lightfoot’s chain. So, with our dog-rescue complete, we started the tractor again, with the dogs along side and Hannah and Sarah standing once again beside their Daddy, there was one more question needing an answer…”What’s your name?” Daddy called to the man standing at the door. “They call me ‘STONY MAN’, he called back to us. We immediately understood why he was known as STONY MAN…he looked like he was made of stone, and he lived in the shadow of the rock outcropping that bore the same name…STONY MAN.

We went quickly home to Mother, and told her the story. She had worried as we were gone for more than an hour…the girls gave her the full story, with every detail. Mother/Ellen was amazed! She couldn’t imagine a man who was “made of stone, and spoke with a voice sounding like a cement mixer!” She asked exactly where we had found Lightfoot. We showed here exactly where we had been on a small map we kept at the house.

The next afternoon, the roads were plowed, and Mom insisted that we drive back to “Stony Man’s house”. As we took the station wagon to the spot we had stopped by the little lane leading to the cabin…we found nothing there! There was absolutely nothing to be seen. No cabin, no little lane, and no sign of Stony Man. There were no tracks in the snow, either. What had happened to Stoney Man? Where was he?

Months went by and we sometimes talked about our snowy adventure, and our encounter with Stony Man. We asked the native residents of this little town of Stanley if they had ever seen a cabin in that location, or seen a man matching our description. No one had, except an older gentleman, who gave this account…”Many years ago”, he said, “there was a story told about a man who lived alone in a little cabin up by the STONY MAN overlook on the Skyline Drive. But that was almost a hundred years ago. And, no one has ever seen him since before the First World War..(1919)”

How could this be, we wondered. Hannah asked, “Daddy, are you sure we saw him up there?” And Sarah said, “It might have been our imagination, you know.” But later that summer, when we took Lightfoot and Fogey for a long walk and passed the spot we had found Lightfoot that stormy night…both dogs sprinted together up the hill where the driveway was…they seemed to know where they were going…they quickly returned when we called them. In Lightfoots mouth we saw she was holding the remnants of a tattered leash…the very one, we remembered seeing at the house that never existed, and saw the man who never existed….