Feather Cottage Media is pleased to bring the work of a colleague to our website for distribution. If you have suffered narcissistic abuse in a relationship, particularly a romantic one, this book can walk you through the healing process and help you grow stronger in your Christian faith. Based upon the author's personal struggle and recovery, this book is for those who are in a relationship or have been devalued and discarded and need to get out now! God loves you and wants you to be healthy and healed. Understanding how you were compelled to love is the first step toward that healing and finding a life that is so much better!
While our books that are priced under $20 have a shipping charge, this one ships free! Further, we are taking no royalty on the book. The price you pay is what we must pay to have it printed and shipped. We want you to have this book and start healing today!

In this, the final state-wide volume of the four-book series, Carl focuses on unique places and traditions in West Virginia that have received very little prior recognition in print. Chapters in this book are: The Locust Heights & Western excursion train that has run in a Clarksburg's family's back yard for 50-plus years; three castles; ghost tours of Harpers Ferry; heirloom apple pioneers and orchards; the New Deal community of Arthurdale; the Fairmont Telephone Museum; Centre Market's author/model maker of Ohio River steamships; the Sagebrush Round-Up country music show and the WMMN early radio stars; the Singing in the Hills annual Gospel music gathering in Mabie; dark stories of Organ Cave; the Sistersville Ferry, last one operating on the Ohio River in W.Va.; Virginia iron furnace and Bruceton Mills dam; Pleasant District Holiness Association's Camp and Tabernacle; Family Roots Farm; Washington family properties in Jefferson County; Rosbys Rock debate; Sharp's Old Country Store at Slatyfork; The Pringle Tree; Sweet Springs Resort; Shepherdstown's Little House; and Kingwood's Esso Station/Museum.
With more than 300 pages and hundreds of photographs, this book will provide both armchair travel and perhaps help you plan your own back-roads journeys into The Mountain State.

Ashtabula Harbor, the toughest port on the Great Lakes, was famous for its bars, brothels and bums. Thanks to geography, railroads, immigrants and demand for steel, The Harbor also was a major iron ore receiving port, a vital link between Lake Superior mines and Ohio Valley steel mills. The book presents the fascinating, terrifying stories of this rowdy port town:
The curse that wrecked many of the sailing ships built at Ashtabula;
How railroads transformed The Harbor from a sleepy hamlet to a major Lake Erie ore and coal port, a world leader for a quarter of a century;
The story of the Finnish, Italian, Swedish and other immigrants whose labors built the docks;
Bridge Street’s rapid growth from swale to commercial district;
Innovations in ship unloading equipment, including the mighty Hulett unloaders;
Shipwrecks, fires, floods and dock accidents; The stories behind the lift bridge, lighthouses, resorts and other Ashtabula Harbor landmarks.
Illustrated with historical photographs and maps, this is a book sure to please any reader with an interest in the Great Lakes, shipping, and Ohio's connection to the coal fields of Appalachia.

Cullen Spencer’s & Edwin Pratt’s ‘Pleasure Grounds’ opened in 1869 as a picnic grove overlooking Lake Erie in northeast Ohio. Wealthy families from Pittsburgh and Cleveland came by train to enjoy the cool breezes, wide beaches, home-cooked meals and modest accommodations of farmhouses, hotels, inns and summer cottages. The Resort became known
as Geneva-on-the-Lake—GOTL.
The automobile made this Lake Erie paradise accessible to steel-town families from the Ohio and Mahoning valleys; by the 1920s, the hamlet was hosting 3,000 to 5,000 visitors a day, and incorporation became necessary. Two large dance halls, midways, a golf course, restaurants and beautiful beaches kept the working class returning to “The Lake” even during the most difficult of economic times. After Prohibition ended, myriad bars gave guests more reasons to make GOTL their party town.
Hard times came upon The Resort following the riot of 1965, Lake Erie environmental issues and decline of The Resort’s trademark beautiful beaches. But the town was just hibernating and came back even stronger in the new millennium, thanks to The Lodge & Conference Center, the nostalgia factor and The Resort’s place in Ohio’s Wine Country.
“Pleasure Grounds” is a celebration of the people and stories of Ohio’s first summer resort town. Journalist and documentary photographer/filmmaker Carl E. Feather, weaves first-person interviews with historical research to tell the story of a unique American treasure: Geneva-on-the-Lake, Ohio!

The third volume in this series focuses on the theme of nostalgia as Carl visits a variety of "old-time" places through the state. He chats with an old-fashioned barber who fretted about raising a haircut price to $6, visits two drive-in movie theaters, gets a gift from a general store owner, and gets to know some roadside vendors who take advantage of those famous W.Va. pull-off areas. Chapters are: Traveler’s Repose; Robert Head, poet; The Old Fiddler (Ivan Gorby); Lawn Art; Old Barbershops; Wanna Red Barn; Cook’s Mill; Grafton and Sunset Drive-in Theaters; General Store; Saving the Old Music; Roadside Vendors; An Old-Fashioned Auctioneer; Whisperin’ Gracie; Wandering into Difficulties.

This sampler/reader contains the first chapter of the Wandering Back-Roads West Virginia books available on this site. The chapters are complete with the photography as published in the books. This is a great way to become familiar with the entire series. Chapters are:
The Executioner's Story: Robert Harness of Moundsville worked at the state penitentiary and helped build the state's first electric chair;
Hurley's Heaven: Jay Hurley left a lasting legacy of retailing, historic preservation, music, and friendship in Shepherdstown;
The Old Repose: The landmark Traveler's Repose in Pocahontas County is recalled by the last member of its founding family to live there;
Last Train from Clarksburg: The Locust Heights & Western excursion railroad was built by a machinist, his family and friends, who continue to keep it running more than 50 years later.

In this first volume of the series, Carl E. Feather introduces readers to a dozen of the West Virginians he wrote about for Goldenseal magazine over the decades. The subjects include a West Virginia History Hero who helped build the state's first electric chair, Wheeling's night vigilante Moon Dog, and Reno Calemine of Keyser, a cobbler who spent his entire working life "saving soles." Chapters are: Moundsville Pen Executioner; Hammel’s License Plate Forest; Pansy’s Country Store Opry; Petersburg’s Minnie Pearl;Friendly; Moon Dog (Wheeling); Wheeling Suspension Bridge; Dingess Tunnel & Cabwaylingo, Bloody Mingo;Keyser cobbler; Coalwood; Crazy Bear; Pleasure Valley; Chapel for a Little Boy; Reed’s Mill (Monroe County).

The second volume of this series based upon Carl E. Feather's work as a freelance writer for Goldenseal magazine takes the reader into the lives of Mountain State citizens who overcame great difficulties through their determination, faith, and grit. You'll meet a 100-year-old gentleman from Marion County who survived the Great Depression, a weightlifter who also crafted lawn art from coal mine scrap, and the founder of Shepherdstown's O'Hurley's Store. Chapters are: Hurley’s Heaven; The Iron Man (Jim Davis of Marion County); Yokum’s Vacationland; Silas Kirk’s Century; Mail Call in Glady; The Punch Jones Diamond; The Wiseman of Mabie; Railroad Cross-ing; Wheeling’s Paradox Bookstore; Mount Wood’s Dentist (Wheeling).

In the 1700s, Palatinates were driven out of their native German-Swiss regions by war, famine, and dwindling land options. Several of the author's ancestors were part of this immigration, including his fourth-great grandfather, Jacob Vatter, whose surname was changed to Feather. After serving in the Revolutionary War, he and his wife set out for Somerset County, Pa., and from there, to Preston County, Virginia, where they were among the early settlers of Lenox (Crab Orchard community). Their sons and daughters married other second-generation Palatinates, as well as offspring of established Scotch-Irish and English immigrants. As farming declined and exploitation of the land and its minerals took its toll on the economy and sustainability of subsistence farming, the fourth and fifth generation sons left the high places for the industrial flat lands of Ohio and Maryland. But the intense draw of these mountains, which reminded the Palatinates of the landscape they knew in the Rhineland region, could not be ignored. The author's personal journey back to the mountains and coming full circle is at the center of this story from start to finish.