The Gay Manufacturing Company, before noticed, is perhaps the most gigantic enterprise ever projected at Suffolk. It has extended its operations as far South as Chowan county, N. C., and the amount of capital invested is no doubt the largest investment of its kind in Virginia, if not in the entire South. It has made large purchases of land in and around Suffolk and has bought all the timbered lands on the Suffolk and Carolina Short Line or Grand Trunk railroad, giving employment to hundreds of hands, at fair wages, that would otherwise eke out a miserable existence. It also enables the landowners, from the sale of their timber, to free themselves from debt and otherwise improve their condition. Under the direction of President W. N. Camp, it has had erected near Suffolk, on the line of the S. & C. R. R., one of the most extensive saw mills in Eastern Virginia, and with the aid of the Atlantic and Danville railroad penetrating the primeval forests of Southampton, Greensville and other counties of Virginia. Millions of logs will be brought on that road and manufactured for shipment to Northern markets. The company consists principally of Baltimoreans, who will reap a harvest commensurate with the capital invested. And in many instances it is owing to the mature judgment of President Camp that the efforts to establish this great enterprise has been crowned with such signal success. The advantages this company possesses, by its intimate connections with the S. & C. R. R., and A. & D. R. R., cannot be estimated, but it can be truly said that their intimate and close relations with each other, while each is a separate and distinct corporation, forms one of the grandest and far-reaching enterprises of its kind in the South. The Gay Manufacturing Company consists of William N. Camp, president; Charles F. Pitt, Jr., Chauncy Brooks, S. P. Ryland, John M. Denison and William N. Camp, directors; George L. Barton, treasurer; Charles F. Pitt, Jr., secretary. The A. & D. R. R. has made great internal improvement under the management of Major Charles B. Peck, of New York, and has progressed more rapidly than any road of which we have any knowledge. Its starting point is at West Norfolk, on the Elizabeth river, at the mouth of its western branch, the great trucking region of the State of Virginia which will supply it with thousands of dollars worth of freight annually. It runs diagonally across the Norfolk and Western and Seaboard and Roanok, railroads, both of which have already felt its effects, and when it shall have reached Danville the Richmond and Danville will then feel its withering influence, for this being the shortest and most speedy route to deep water, in one of the finest harbors in the world, it is natural that all produce will seek such a route and such a favorable shipping point. CHAPTER X. ENTERPRISE AND PROSPERITY.