This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/gBB.2ACI/3274.1.1.1 Message Board Post: Judy: I took some pictures yesterday & I would prefer to send through email than print & mail, if that would be okay with you. I could send 1 @ a time so as not to overwhelm your email. From the road it looks like there is a door going into the cave now. This was a cove spring, meaning it came out of the side of a hill. Most local historians think that possible early uses for caves (like for those that had the original Settlement or Preemption) would have been a place to actually live until their house was built. The spring would have been their water source & a main reason they selected that area to build. Many times they only used a lean-to before they built but a cave was much more preferable...i.e. safer from animals, Indians, weather, etc. At the McBrides Station they had the best situation...a cave & a spring. There was a school about 2 miles away on the Old Faulkner Rd. but I haven't yet found when that would have been built, but most probably after 1830 as th! at is about when Public Education came into existence in Mercer Co. Up to that point tutors were popular & the tutor was almost treated like a member of the family.