MARSHALL'S PILLAR, or the HAWK'S NEST, as it is more generally called, is in Fayette County, on New River, within a few yards of the Kanawha Turnpike. This rocky precipice rises perpendicularly above the river, to the height of about 1000 feet. The following account of this great curiosity, given by a foreign traveller, is from Howe's Sketches of Virginia, to which work we are indebted for most of the matter respecting the curiosities of the state.
"You leave the road by a little by-path, and after pursuing it for a short distance, the whole scene suddenly breaks upon you. But how shall we describe it? The great charm of the whole is connected with the point of sight, which is the finest imaginable. You come suddenly to a spot which is called the Hawk's Nest. It projects on the scene, and is so small as to give standing to only some half dozen persons. It has on its head an old picturesque pine; and it breaks away at your feet, abruptly and in perpendicular lines, to a depth of more than 1000 feet. On this standing, which, by its elevated and detached character, affects you like the monument, the forest rises above and around you. Beneath, and before you, is spread a lovely valley. A peaceful river glides down it, reflecting, like a mirror, all the lights of heaven--washes the foot of the rocks on which you are standing--and then winds away into another valley at your right. The trees of the wood, in all their variety, stand out on the verdant bottoms, with their heads in the sun, and casting their shadows at their feet; but so diminished, as to look more like the pictures of the things than the things themselves. The green hills rise on either hand and all around, and give completeness and beauty to the scene; and beyond these appears the gray outline of the more distant mountains, bestowing grandeur to what was supremely beautiful. It is exquisite. It conveys to you the idea of perfect solitude. The hand of man, the foot of man, seem never to have touched that valley. To you, though placed in the midst of it, it seems altogether inaccessible. You long to stroll along the margin of those sweet waters, and repose under the shadows of those beautiful trees; but it looks impossible. It is solitude, but of a most soothing, not of an appalling character--where sorrow might learn to forget her griefs, and folly begin to be wise and happy."