As early as 1860 the Elk Garden post office was at Hendrick’s Mill, and remained there through the mid Twentieth Century.  The Stuarts donated land for a school just below the mill dam. 

            After their parent’s deaths, Aaron L. Hendricks, and his brother Andy F. invested heavily in a turnpike, the Russell County to Washington County Turnpike, connecting Saltville to the Fincastle to Cumberland Gap Turnpike at Smithfield.  This undertaking was to connect the salt works to the outside world, but the railroad connecting Roanoke to Bristol was built just to the south of Saltville about 1850.  Virginia’s Turnpike system turned into the biggest bankruptcy the Commonwealth ever experienced.  The Civil War finished off most of the moneyed people in the South.  Aaron Lilburne and Andy F. sold the mill and property to William Alexander Stuart in 1868, who somehow had greatly increased his wealth through the war.  

            The world stage was not through with the Hendricks yet.  A descendant living in Indiana, Thomas A. Hendricks, became a US Senator, Governor of Indiana, and Vice President to Grover Cleveland.  

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Footnote – Many of the current inhabitants of Elk Garden believe that either William Alexander Stuart or Thaddeus Thomas built the Thomas Price Mansion.  There is another tradition that one of the Thomas Prices built it.  There is no documentary proof of when it was built.  Thaddeus Thomas was born 1832 in Tennessee, and attended the Martha Washington Academy in Abingdon, which was a Methodist School.  He and his wife lived in Elk Garden from 1857 – 1873 (the 1870 census has them in Lebanon).  At this point they moved to Nashville for Thaddeus to become co-publisher and business manage of “The Holston Methodist”.  This might be a clue as to why that publication carried so much of the history of the Elk Garden Methodist Church, which was founded by Richard Price, Sr.  The architectural style, as well as the nature of the materials used inside, support the tradition of its being constructed well before the War of 1812, thus by one of the Thomas Prices.  Thaddeus Thomas, Richard Price, Sr.’s grandson-in-law, was married to Sarah, daughter of John Wesley Price, son of Richard Price, Sr.  Richard’s will gave that portion of his estate that lay to the east of State 80 to his son, John Wesley Price.  John Wesley’s daughter, Sarah, and her husband Thaddeus Thomas, inherited that portion of the land lying across State 80 from the Thomas Price Mansion.  Thaddeus and Sarah were not of the lineage of Thomas Price, neither did they ever own any of his land, which lay on the west side of the highway.  Thomas Price’s land passed through his grandchildren, and was bought by Aaron Hendricks, who sold it to William Alexander Stuart.  Therefore, it is impossible that Thaddeus Thomas built the mansion of the property of Thomas Price.  One can see how after a century and a quarter people could confuse Thomas Price with Thaddeus Thomas.  As for William Alexander Stuart having built it, it is a fact that he lived there for a while as his family matured.  However, after he moved out, the house was abandoned, and cows came and went through the fallen doors, and used the mansion as a toilet.  Henry Carter Stuart moved to the Hendricks Mansion while he built West Rosedale.  This would seem to suggest that the Thomas Price house was old and run down at the end of Stuart’s occupancy.  As for Thaddeus Thomas, he and Sarah in the 1860 census lived in the same house as “Mary Price Robinson Moore”, the daughter of “Richard Price”.  This Richard is assumed to be Richard Price, Sr., but could have been either of the Richards who were the son and the grandson of Richard, Sr.