Where is Chestnut Creek?
Chestnut Creek begins its journey in Alleghany Co., North Carolina, south of 18 to the east of the Parkway. It runs through the valley land once owned by the Murphys. Descendants still live there on Murphy Bend Road. The locals call it Murphy Highway.
It then meanders along the Parkway, flowing northeasterly into VA and then turns more northerly and heads to the left of the Parkway near the Parkway’s intersection with 89.
It next appears just as you enter into Galax, and it is quite a bit larger than back at the Parkway. Cole Creek, and other tributaries in extreme SW Carroll Co., have now dumped into the Chestnut. It then runs parallel to the bypass and northerly, eventually emptying into the New River. The old train track runs beside it as it heads towards Fries. (Len Chapel)
Chestnut Creek runs by Galax on the south and east sides of the town. You can actually ride adjacent the river, if you exit east off of 89 before you enter the town and follow along the creek until you enter the road on the east side of Galax that runs between Galax and Hillsville, Chestnut Creek then runs almost straight North as it enters Carroll County. It almost parallels the New River for a few miles before you reach the confluence of the streams. (Johnny Long)
Thus the Creek begins in Alleghany County, flows into Grayson, then into Carroll where it empties into New River.
Location of Chestnut Hill/Mt. Pleasant Meeting House and Crooked Creek Primitive Baptist Church:
Mt. Pleasant/Chestnut Creek MH: From Galax, go south on 89 to the edge of town (just past Chestnut Creek) and make a left onto Piper’s Gap Road. A short ways you will turn right onto Old Quaker Road. It is just past Coal Creek Road. Go about 1/2 – 1 mile, and on top the hill and in a very sharp curve, turn left onto Religion Road. There is a church at the end of the road, but I don’t know if it is the original old Quaker Meeting House or not. The graveyard there contains many, many of the old area Quakers, including many of the Stoneman clan.
Crooked Creek Primitive Baptist: Located between Galax and Hillsville on 58, near the mobile home park (it used to be named Midway, and still may be) is a small meandering creek in a most beautiful area of farmland nestled in a shapely valley. That is Crooked Creek. If you travel upstream (south), it goes back to some of the best stocked trout fishing Virginia has to offer. Up over the hill from the stocked section of the creek (can’t think of the specific name of the fishing area…maybe a local can assist with that) is Crooked Creek Primitive Baptist Church. It has many of the early Quakers (Stoneman, Burcham, etc.) buried there.
(Len Chapel)
Note added later by J. Quinn: A newer brick meeting house stands at the site of Mt. Pleasant Friends Meeting on Religion Road. The author of this web site easily found the place using Len Chapel’s directions. Most of the older stones in the attached cemetery have weathered to the point of being unreadable or are probably gone. The stone of Enoch Cox (b. 1752) and his wife Mary are still readable and the DAR has placed Revolutionary War markers next to their graves. Religion Road is as of May 2007 a one lane gravel/dirt lane leading from a Baptist church back to Mt. Pleasant Friends Fellowship (which has no sign pointing the way to it, nor any indication of when it meets). The brick building says simply “Mt. Pleasant, founded 1801” (which is the date of the founding of the monthly meeting). Mt. Pleasant preparatory meeting goes back into the 1780s.