Ash Cave

Floyd Inman in front of Ash Cave near Cassville

From Lifetimes of Memories:Voices of Barry County Oral History Collection Volume 2

My full name is Willie Aubry McNabb. I was born on July 16, 1915 down on Flat Creek on the old Ash Cave place, and it is still there…. My maternal grandparents were Francis Marion and Sarah Rosetta (Witt) Vaughan who first lived on the Ash Cave place south of Cassville on Flat Creek and later lived in Butterfield. The Vaughan’s inherited the Ash Cave place from my Great-Grandpa Sterling Charles Vaughan, who was a Civil War veteran….We used that old Ash Cave for a barn and for storage. We would also go up there when a storm came. It was full of bats that would scare us kids, but Mom was afraid of storms. Our house was just a little old house standing there but it was quite a little ways from the springs. There used to be a spring run out of the cave; the road covered it and it runs into the creek now. They put a road through there. There was a lane that went up to the cave and we carried water—carried water quite a ways back then. I don’t remember much but I do remember that cave had Indian arrowheads. You could go up there and scratch around and find them. The cave was also full of bats and I was afraid of them and they would fly right at you. Two of Mom’s brothers got in one of them big old double tubs and used it for a boat one time and they paddled way back in there. They got back there and it was a great big, deep hole—the water was coming up out of there. I guess there was a river under it. It would run an awful lot of water. They paddled way back in there and paddled against the current or it would wash them off in that hole and they’d be goners. But people would come from near and far to see that cave. The creek across from there--we called it the Blue Hole--that’s where the cannon is supposed to be.

1915 Newspaper Clipping

From 1915 Newspaper