Audio
Oral History Project - Rivers, Charles 1980
Transcript
Interview # NRGNPP 021
File # NRGNPP 021-T
TAPE TWENTY-ONE
Mr. Charlie Rivers
Interviewer :
Paul J. Nyden
Beckley, W. Va 25801
November 8, 1980
[Many words during this interview were difficult or impossible to decipher, but not because of faulty equipment or recording technique. Mr. Rivers is 77 years old and nearly blind, and he was often difficult to understand. It was thus necessary to add, or guess at, words at some points in order to make the transcript more understandable. These words, and the places where Mr. Rivers could not be understood at all, are indicated with brackets.]
PN: Mr. Rivers, maybe I could start off by asking you when you were born and where you were born.
CR: Oh, I was born in 1903 down at Charleston, South Carolina.
PN: Really? What did your father do?
CR: My father?
PN: Yea.
CR: My father was a watchman there on the Ironside Works in Charleston, since he [gave up] his own business. He used to run a, run a boat, a freight boat from the country to Charleston, haul things for them farmers. When he had to give up that, then they give him a job as a watchman in the big Ironside Works as gateman that time.
PN: That was in Charleston that he was a watchman?
CR: Yea, right there at Charleston, South Carolina, mm, yea. But he used to work for hisself before, you know.
PN: He did?
CR: Yea.
PN: What did he do then you said?
CR: He run the farm…
PN: He was a farmer?
CR: He was a farmer, and he hauling them stuff from Charleston, Fourth
Street, and boat for them farmers, see. Getting paid for that, you know.
PN: He did?
CR: And when he go back, he carrying a load of wood, cordwood, [from the] city.
PN: He did?
CR: He had a freight—boat like. He was March Rivers. See, I 'm Charlie
Rivers, and he was March Rivers.
PN: March?
CR: Yea, he was named March Rivers. I was born in 1903, the 12th day of
March.
PN: What did your mother do?
CR: My mother?
PN: Yea.
CR: Oh, she worked around the house then, you know, and gardened, that's all. But they had, they had another boy on the farm, helped to take care of the farm, plowing you know. He had to hire them fellows to do that.
PN: Did your mother work, did your mother come from Charleston, South Carolina also?
CR: We were raised there in the South there. My mother born in a place called Beaufort, South Carolina.
PN: Oh, I know where that is.
CR: You know where that is?
PN: Yea.
CR: Right where she was born at.
PN: In the Sea Islands there, in that area?
CR: Huh?
PN: What Beaufort, around the Sea Islands of South Carolina?
CR: Yea, on the other side of Charleston, the island. You know, on the island. Charleston's on an island itself, just about. Cause see, Cooper River on one side and the other — fresh water on one side of Charleston and salt water on the other. The big, the bridge there run from Lyons Street across the Cooper, you ever been there?
PN: Yea.
CR: You know I know where it is.
CR: Cause down below there, down below there, over there my Grand—daddy had a had a wood yard down there.
PN: In Charleston?
CR: Yea. And up there, where the old street—car line used to be, [where] a little there gulley come in there where/ used to be a street car, Sam Robens had property over there, his brother.
PN: That was your grandfather?
CR: Grandfather ['s] brother.
PN: When was your grandfather born?
CR :Mm ?
PN: What year was your grandfather born in, do you know?
CR: No, you've got me now, I forgot, I forgot that [laughs]. But my grandmother lived to see 95 years old.
PN: Your grandmother was 95?
CR: When he died.
PN: What, your grandfather?
CR: Grandfather, he died fore my grandmother, uh huh. But I, I didn't keep up with that.
PN: Did your grandmother and grandfather remember the days when there was still slavery there?
CR: My grandmother did.
PN: She did?
CR: She remember, she was a small kid, you see. She remembered.
PN: What did she say about that?
CR: In slavery, them had to work for, people had to go work for Massa, and stuff like that. Farm and different things. And then [?] eat, girl, remember that.
PN: When she was a girl?
CR: Yea, when she was a girl, my grandmother. She told us all about that.
PN: Where did she remember that [from]? Was she living around Beaufort also?
CR: Yea, well you know, she telling that after I born. After I born, you talking [with her] 'bout that; you see, I don't know nothing about that. I know all the people talking about It, you see, you know how folks just talk. [?] That's all I know about it.
PN: What made you decide to come up to West Virginia?
CR: Who? Me?
PN: Yea.
CR: Just travel ling.
PN: You were just travel ling?
CR: Just travelling. I been New York first, worked in a brick yard there in New York.
PN: In New York City?
CR: Yea, and lived there and gone down into Chicago where my cousin is, and stay there a while.
PN: What did your cousin do in Chicago?
CR: Him? He worked in some big factory. I didn't work; I was only there for a visit, that's all. And I, but I work in Middletown, Ohio a little bit.
PR: In the steel mill?
CR: Yea, in the plant, yea. And I leave there, and went up to Jenkins, Kentucky.
PN: You work in a mine there for Bethlehem Steel, or something?
CR: No. 6 Mine. I didn't stay there but a week. [laughs]
PN: In Jenkins?
CR: Yea, in Jenkins, Kentucky. Just a store and stuff right there and you go right around a curve like that — No. 6 Mine.
PN: It's Bethlehem Steel, isn't it?
CR: That's at Jenkins, Kentucky, up Big Sandy [River].
PN: How come you only stayed for a week?
CR: I didn't like it. That water [?] I think it's a rock fall. Shit, 1 didn't like it and I leave out there. And I started at C. and O. [in] 1923 in Ashland, Kentucky.
PN: You did?
CR: Right in the yard. I started at C. and O. and I ain't worked in no other company from 1923 until ‘69. I retired from C. and O.
PN: Wow, you worked with them for 46 years, then?
CR: That's right. That's where I got on the roster there and stuff.
PN: Pardon me?
CR: I said that's where I got on the roster and stuff. But I wouldn't work the same job; 1 had different job, you know. Cause I started on the track, and transferred from the track to the shop. And I run that big coal tipple down there.
PN: Down at Thurmond?
CR: Yea, I run down there that six years, in the night.
PN: When did you first come to Thurmond?
CR: I come, stay on the South [Side] in 1928.
PN: Right down here in 1928?
CR: Yes sir, Fayette County from 1928 up to this present time. Cause I had moved out of Kanawha County when I come to Thurmond.
PN: You lived in Kanawha County, and then you moved out of there?
CR: Yea, and come here to Thurmond.
PN: When you first came to Thurmond in 1928, where did you live in Thurmond?
CR: I lived in Thurmond, right across the river from Thurmond.
PN: The South Side?
CR: Yea, on the south Side. Place called Weewind. You could see it from the shop.
PN: Weewind?
CR: Yea.
PN: That's what they call it?
CR: Yea, it's been a coal mine up there, you know. Was a coal mine there.
PN: Did you live in a mining camp then?
CR: Well, the mine done blow out. And this car distributor Hyre Ervin — he had them houses and places and that —— the only way, only place you could get a house to rent.
PN: Where were they?
CR: Right at Thurmond on the South Side. And you see, up on the hill, it [was] Erskine. You see, but down there was another company, but that mine done blow up, [correcting himself] blow out. Cause the man, the superintendent, he live — that mine blow out — he stay on that big house on the front. And that second house from this three—room house, that's the house I rent to stay in when I come here, me and my wife.
PN: So you rented a three—room house when you came in there?
CR: When I come, that's the only place where you could get to stay. Everything was crowded in Thurmond, couldn't get no place. And I stayed there. And our girl was small, and she walked from there back over the river and go up on the hill by the station to the school. And them yards stayed full, the trains switching all the time, them coal trains. And then I moved back to Charleston, so that girl didn't have all that stuff to go [over]. We didn't have time to check our little girl every day. I was a 'working.
PN: So you moved back? When did you move back to Charleston?
CR: I moved back to Charleston in, what was it, the forty—?
PN: In the 1940s?
CR: No, no, it was 1929, in the thirties, in the thirties. And when I come back out from Charleston then, [moved back to] Weewind. I stayed there a while and got a house at Rock Lick, at Rock Lick, from that company, Smokeless coal company.
PN: When you worked during the week here then in Charleston, [correcting myself] when you lived in Charleston and you worked here, did you stay in a house or a shanty or something here, during the week?
CR: No, well I stay up there, I stay with Charlie a little while up here at Minden. That’s the only shanty I stay in, with some boys, during the week. Then I move, I get a house up in there and stay, mm. And when I lived at Rock Lick, moved right [to] Harvey.
PN: Harvey?
CR: Yea, that's in 1944.
PN: What, you 've been living right here then since 1944?
CR: Right in this camp, but not in this house. Cause this house hadn't been for sale then. I rent, come here, jump off, get out of the car one evening, go over to the superintendent up in here, he were cleaning up - Hess. I jumped off and asked him any house to rent. And he say: "Yea we got a few house to rent, but who do you, what company you work for?" "I work for C. and O.” “Oh yea, I give you this a house. C. and O. for 4% in this company.”
PN: They did?
CR: That's what he told me, that's what he told us.
PN: What was the name of the company here?
CR: That's the New River.
PN: New River?
CR: Yea, New River. See, there's two New Rivers New River Pocahontas and this New River Consolidated, yea. Minden and all that Pocahontas; Clare—[mont] Pocahontas; and down yonder, down the road there at the, on the track, ain't working now, that's, that's the New River. And over yonder, New River got some running now. But this mine, the biggest mine they had down here at Minden, on the bottom used to load two car on one track.
PN: That was New River Pocahontas?
CR: Yea.
PN: When you came to Thurmond in 1928…
CR: '28.
PN: You were working in the shops then?
CR: No, I was working on outside a while there in the yard. I was checking them switches in the yard there, you know.
PN: Switching?
CR: No, I wasn't switching technically, I wasn't switching. No, I had to keep them switches greased, up and down. And keep them lamp, you know? They had them lamp on them switches, you know? You had to fill them with oil.
PN: Lap?
CR: Lamp on them switches.
PN: Oh, the lamps.
CR: Yea, you see it on the railroad, you know? It's green and it's blue— like. You had to fill them up once a week. And a lot of time, sweep out them switches. Some of them greasy, keep it so the brakemen [can] use it. Cause two colored fellow Carter Bradley and Clem Holland was braking in the yard out there, colored guy. And here Carter living up here at Hilltop, right where Jones got that store. He got that big, had that big house on the other side of the store. And Clem was living down in the shanty; he wasn't married. Carter was married. One of his girls is a school teacher; and one is a doctor. But Carter died.
PN: Then there's still shanties? Are those little houses on the side of the road, are shanties, right?
CR: Them boxcars down there?
CR: Them shanties. But let me see, there's one boy, he had a boxcar there, for one of the shanty boys. And the mainline boys, and they had one there for the branch line. See they had different, see the branch line, they had their own shanty [s] down there. And the mainline boys on the yard, they had a shanty [s] down in there. And they had a little shanty around the curve.
PN: Towards where, up towards Beury?
CR: Yea, on the left—hand side, you're going to Beury from Thurmond. You've been down there. Them boys, [they stayed] in the shanty [s] This boy's been a shanty boy, he married and I mean his wife living now, but he's dead — he's lived there. He had another boy, he had a boxcar up there, the boy stayed in, on the other side of that shanty.
PN: He was staying in a boxcar on the other side of the shanty?
CR: Yea, he had a boxcar, another fellow, you know with a wife. He called the mainline; he's at Deepwater now, but he's retired.
PN: So people are still living in those shanties down here?
CR: Oh yea, a boy and his mother living down there. That boy retired hisself now.
PN: What was it like, living in the shanties?
CR: Well, you know, you know, that just like sometimes, two [or] three men live in the shanty. In the weekend, some of them live in Virginia. Some would go home every, every week. Going on [Number] Six, then come back Sunday night, and ready for work on Monday. Cause when I working down at Newport News, I used to ride Number Two. And Two wouldn't put me down to Newport News till 11:30 that next day. And I go to work there at three o'clock, but I was working on them coal pier. I was firing then, you see, I 'd fire up this…
PN: You got fired?
CR: Yea, right down at the shop, that's where I retired, as a fireman.
PN: Oh, as a fireman.
CR: I retired as a fireman.
PN: How long , you were working in Newport News some of the time?
CR: Well, when they killed that station there in the first of June, summertime. That's coal, you know. Kill them the first of June, and don't fire em back up till the first of October. Don't keep 'em going in the summer, you see, kill them. See, cause it's warm and they don't need no steam around in there, anyway that's the way they do.
PN: Was that the station that made steam for the whole town?
CR: Keep steam for the station, the commissary and a 11. And down, down [at] that big tipple down in there see that big line running down there?
PN: Yea.
CR: Steam down there — keep them coals thawed. And a lot of time when I run that tipple, I had to climb up both sides and it froze — and break loose them coals up there next to, next to the, in the cement, so it would run down…
PN: You had to break loose the coal from the top of the tipple?
CR: Yea, you know, right beside, you know where you pull your thing down for your coal chute [to] come down.
PN: Yea.
CR: And it stuck up there to that cement when you ran coal on that river— side, buddy. I had to climb them ladder, them long ladder in there, go up in there, cut it loose. I mean you got to cut it loose then. Pull that string, and there's so much get on there, and then I let it back up. You got one — there for the hand—firer and one for the stoker [he pronounces it "stogie"] — on both mainline and the…
PN: One for the what, for the hand…?
CR: You know, when you had the Lilly Engine, you'd fire them with your hand, they 're lump coal them small engines. But them big engines gor stoker; you can feed them. Yea, I done all that; that's what I retire on.
PN: What were you saying there? There was hand coal…?
CR: Hand—fire. Well that station there, firing there, all that was hand; there was no stoker in that station there. Now on that small engine, you sit down in your shop, great old pit. That's the engine, you see. And you see, you have to keep the steam there. And any time you clean them, you have to open up and shake your grate. And the ashes go down in that pit. And you turn that water loose, and you wash it down next to the creek.
PN: Do they wash the ashes right out into the creek?
CR: Yea, out [of] that pit down there. A big pipe like that, you open it, you get it off the mainline like that.
PN: And the ashes went into New River?
CR: Don't go there [?], some get there, but you know, they pile up. There’s some piled up out there about that high, between there ans…
PN: Where, on this creek here [referring to Dunloup Creek]?
CR: Up Thurmond, up Thurmond, from the shop. See there's a big flat place from the shop to the creek. See, a long ways before you get to the creek. But sometimes when the water get a little high, some of ‘em go in there.
PN: What creek are you talking about? What's the name of the creek?
CR: New River.
PN: Oh, New River.
CR: Around there, New River, New River. You see right now they kill that station during the summertime. I can get, I can work right here, right at Thurmond. But my rate was high, and any job I could take. I didn't work there. So they send me down yonder where I can get my regular rate.
PN: Down to Newport News?
CR: Yea.
PN: Did your wife stay here when you worked down there?
CR: Yea, she be right home here.
PN: And you came home on weekends?
CR: I come home some time, I come home every weekend. Sometimes I came every two weeks.
PN: Two weeks? Why, cause of the type of work they gave you?
CR: Huh?
PN: Cause of the days of work they gave you?
CR: Well you see, we, I'll tell you how it was. A fellow like me, Lou
Helen was general boss over the whole thing.
PN: Lou Helen?
CR: Yea. And he's the one that called men, you know. Well, his Daddy used to be a shop foreman, long time ago. Lou Helen's daddy, guy I know, I worked under. He'd been to Hinton, look over these shops, diff—. He had so many shop to look over as superintendent. And I remember, down at that one there, been down there don't cost me nothing to go down there, got a pass and I was going to work five days, five days a week. That's the way they worked. And I come in the first week, I come in the big bath—, they got a big brick bathhouse. Haul them coal water in there. And the men, men some right and the sea right over there come in that thing, and get up high, and they splash water on that road. And that road go right on that's 15 coal piers right up there. And go up a little farther, big cafe there.
PN: A big what?
CR: Cafe, get something to eat if you want.
PN: Oh, oh.
CR: And the next thing is 14 coal tipple. And their office right in there. But the bigger office, Lou Helen's up yonder, up past [Pier] Nine. That 's where the ore, that's where the ore—pier is; when you get the ore, they unload it over there.
PN: The oil?
CR: Ore, ore.
PN: Ore, ore, yea.
CR: And they got about eight or nine them other pier.
PN: At Newport News?
CR: Yea, merchandise pier all the way back there, about nine of them back there. But I didn't work on none of them. 1 just [worked] on the coal pier and the ore pier. I used to work with them hopper and stuff in there. And I'd go in there and break them coal loose. And them big roll that long, that belt
PN: Belt?
CR: Wide as this table [five feet wide] or more. Yea, coal come in there. The way they do it, you see them boys, I mean, they didn't bring them coal in the yard. They got a yard there. So many coals [coal hopper cars] go to each one of them chute. Nine track go to this side, nine track go to that side — it's a double tipple. When you in the middle, it's steel from you all the way up to the top. You can dump car over and dump car over. And when that empty go up there, after that fellow up there throw the switch, that empty go that—a—way outside. And a boy up there can slow ‘em down, just punch the button, slow 'em down.
PN: That boy could do what?
CR: Fellow up in the office up there, you know? When the cars got off that hump, empties go on back, take off, you know. That boy punch that button and ease 'em down till they get them; when they get down here, that man down there couple em up. And when you go down there, and these boys bring a loaded one, they stop right at that mule, they drop that big a, that big line from up there, man, that they pull. Drop that big line and come right in and you go under the car. And you got something that can draw, you hook up this car on this side. Came back up, go up a hill like that, hit a level there's a fellow up there. See the empty car, he done shoved that knuckle in. So when this loaded car come hit him, he gone. And that go back that—a—way, yea. That's what you call the "goat" up there.
PN: The goat?
CR: Yea [laughs].
PN: What was the goat, the man that worked up there?
CR: Yea, he throwed that switch up there. I did get that, that and the brakeman, but that fellow up there get a little more than them brakemen.
PN: He got more?
CR: Yea, on the goat.
PN: When you moved to Thurmond back in the 19—, in 1928 and the 1930s, did they discriminate in housing? You know, could Black railroad workers live on the Thurmond side, or did they have to live on the South Side?
CR: You lived there you could get a house at. That's the way it was. There wasn't no, we didn't have any discrimination there.
PN: So a Black person could get a house in the town of Thurmond itself?
CR: Yea, some been living right up do you know right down there where you got that, they got that Banker's Club?
PN : Yea.
CR: That boy, I know all them. Right up those steps, you see those steps go up in there? ["That boy" is referring to Erskine Pugh.]
PN: Yea.
CR: All them house up there colored was living in.
PN: It was?
CR: Sure. All up there, down and, down there. Cause this McKell owned all that part there all the way back, on that side of the river.
PN: Yea.
CR: And when you get down here and go across, and go up to Minden. And when you go up that step, McKe11 line go right there. And go up on that hill, and go back and hit Beury and wome out, McKendree and hit Prince, and come back in and go back over yonder - Mt. Hope, McKell owned that. But on this side here, this was, this place here, this here was a, the school, Harvey, Harvey College's place.
PN: What?
CR: Harvey College.
PN: Harvey College?
CR: Yea, here and up there.
PN: Who?
CR: His property.
PN: On, that was his name?
CR: Yea, who the property belongs to. Blackburn had to buy it for Harvey; Blackburn and Patteson bought this for Harvey College. McKell didn't have nothing to do with this, but McKe11 got all that on the other side. See McKell [?] , he had some of them lease it. He had it leased and had lease it up. When it come to sell, McKell wouldn't sell you no property.
PN: No?
CR: No.
PR: So some Black people lived right over there above the Banker's Club then in Thurmond?
CR: Oh, they used to. You know, ain't no boys in Thurmond now. All them leave out of Thurmond, you know, moved from Thurmond. Some died or they moved out.
PN: When were you talking about though, 1928 and 1930?
CR: Oh yea, all them houses were full up back in Thurmond there, they're all back there. Cause they used to give a, old Dunglen Hotel running then. Me and the boys used to have the Elks Club ball down in that hotel.
PN: What, the Elks Club?
CR: Yea, yea man, you could get just most anything you wanted to at Thurmond then. Yea, there wasn't no dif—, no, at Thurmond then, it was as big as Cincinnati. [?] Thurmond then was like a big city. Cause the C. and O. paid, had to pay, that city so much a year tax, you know, comes in there.
PN: The what?
CR: You know, where you have to pay that city so much a year to come through there?
PN: Yea, pay the city so much a year?
CR: Yea. That mayor of that city, now he got the money; have to take care of the city.
PN: Cause the C. and O. paid that tax?
CR: Yea, he had to pay the tax to go through there, yea. I know that, I didn't think about. I know, as a boy, every mayor that have been in there. I think that boy is the mayor now, that got that club Erskine Pugh. I know 'em all [the Pughs]. I know when some of them boys going to school man, girls and all. The oldest girl up here, in Beckley right here — Geneva. She going, you know where that A. and P. store, coming from this way? You know where that big brick thing up there? That's her husband. She married; they wasn’t married till Erskine come out of the Army, you know.
PN: Till when?
CR: The one running the Banker's Club? And this girl up there. They’re the oldest.
PN: Oh.
CR: This boy, Starr, he's next. But that girl and Erskine, Geneva up there and this Erskine down here.
PN: Back, back in 1928 and 1930, when you lived in Thurmond, what did you do for entertainment? For fun?
CR: For fun?
PN: Yea.
CR: I tell you, we used to, we used to go to, have a ball there once in a while. You know, we could give anything you want. We use one of them hotels, give it at that hotel. But you know, you wasn't no great big, that's all been there, you know, where you could give them big entertainment. You got a church down in there, but…
CR: Us got the church down there now a little white church on this side of the river on the hill up there. Old Man Collins and them used to come there. Come to that church.
PN: Who was Collins?
CR: He's dead; he used to be a big undertaker around here. That building there…
PN: Was he Black or white?
CR: Yea, you see that building there that Banker's Club in?
PN: Yea.
CR: That used to be a, Collins building. That used to be the, I believe you called it the First National Bank like. But when I first come, Collins had a store — you know where you go near the station, and go right up on the hill there?
CR: Collins got a big store right up there, wood store.
PN: What kind of store?
CR: You know, you know, wood store, big store —— upstairs and downstairs. His office sitting up there. He had Bolen, head of the store, and he had some more help. And Miss Grace, she'd tend to the stuff. Used to go to New York, and all this stuff,
PN: Bring it in from New York?
CR: Yea.
PN: What did you do for fun, though, usually, say types of things did you do?
CR: Well we, you take it like this, we used – up there at Glen Jean, they had a big dancing hall, right there as you go down the hill. They tore down now. Right there, as you come down Glen Jean you see where you turn?
PN: Yea.
CR: Right over in there, there used to be a big dancing hall. Be in there almost every Saturday night, or something like that.
PN: Did both white and Black people go in there?
CR: Well, they come in if they wanted. Everybody 'd drink together and everything in there. Them boys [that] worked in the mines, that didn' t make no difference, don't look like to me. And I 'd meet a lot of them that worked in the mines. ' 'Hey Charlie, " so—and—so, when I used to drink there. Oh, let's get some. I work on night shift, man, they come. Boy, I say, "Man, I got to work. I can't afford you. "
PN: How did you get liquor then? Did you buy it from bootleggers?
CR: Yea, the state was dry, you [had to] buy it from bootleggers. Cause, see, colored fellow down there at Dewitt used to be a miner down in Dewitt one day he used to make liquor. And up to Glen Jean, good God! Them Easleys.
PN: Easleys?
CR: Easleys. You could buy liquor in them things. Oh boy.
PN: What did they do, did they make it themselves?
CR: Yea, they make it themselves, some one way or another. But I know he had some liquor. And I, lot of time here when I pulled liquor, sure enough. I used to go to Kentucky and get liquor myself.
PN: Were the Easleys, were they white or were they Black?
CR: What?
PN: The Easleys. Were they white people or were they Black people?
CR: Oh, he was colored.
PN: Yea?
CR: Over around there, sure old McKe11 [would] back up them boys, especially them boys work for McKell. Shit. McKell’s a big shot, you know. He owned all that property there, all them house and everything.
PN: McKell back them up, more or le ss?
CR: If they were work [ing] for him.
PN: Yea?
CR: Yea, he, them boys got anything. Shit.
PN: McKell would get a cut out of the money that they were getting?
CR: [Misunderstanding the question] He'd pay em more than the union, you know. He didn't want his boys to join the union. “Hey man, don't join no union. I pay more than you all anyhow. He had them boys' wages higher then the union. He had a little thing, like a streetcar, running way up yonder, from Price Hill down right there in front of the big store by the track. And he'd go on, and he'd pay his way hisself.
PN : He did what?
CR: He'd pay his way on that thing just like anybody else. It was his thing, but he paid on it.
PN: McKell paid?
CR: Yea, shit, he paid.
PN : What was the relation between McKell, you know, and the bootleggers and moonshiners?
CR: Ain't no relation at all. He had no liquor, yea, as I know. Cause the other branch (?) used to live over here at the, in the state where the place up yonder. And he had that city up there [Chillicothe, Ohio — ?] , and not far from that penitentiary up there [Moundsville — ?] And he died, and leave all he had, that McKell, he had a bank up there. McKell, that's a, McKell had a little bank right there in Glen Jean. You see where they build that place there, that big building? McKell had a big gold thing there in that window, a big window.
CR: Inside the bank, a big gold ball.
PN: Oh yea?
CR: Cause I know one time, when we first, me and my wife, when we first come up there. You know, we didn't come to stay there, you know. I was working up there but, you know, but we didn't move up here yet. And she got a check from Macon, Georgia. And I never remember where Erskine got that store — old man running the [store]. And she present the check in there, and she didn't, the man look at the check. Well I didn't know much up here then myself, you know, cause I wasn't living up here. He tells, he tells her: “Well, you got to, yea, you have to get some boy to represent you. I can't, I can't cash it." Well, she said, "All these people are crazy. We got to have my name signed and all that thing.” Well, they didn't know me, cause I wasn't living up here then. I was around New River, didn't go to New River. So one day, we stay up there at Shamrock. You see, this road didn't cut right straight through to Beckley then. You had to go down, you come up a footpath, you go up there right to that old building, you know, in the back, down by the swag there.
PN: Down where?
CR: You know, right to Glen Jean, you know, there's a road straight through to Oak Hill now. But when I come here, that road wasn't straight through; you had to go like going to Whipple. station, go right through them woods stayed up there. Just as you got up And turn off there on that filling up there, and go on. And I, so we there, that big used to be a big store, that big white building, nobody in it, after you leave Glen Jean, you know? And there's two house [s] between there and them other house [s]. So the woman been there, called by the name of Clara, and my wife know [her]. We come, and had gone up this Frank, Frank Crockett, run a taxi. He lived in Glen Jean, back over there. We went up to Clara that night and we stay up there. So, I think we stay up there. I was working there. We stay up there, riding on a car probably. And I gone down, we gone down in Oak Hill, I mean start. I said; "We ought to stop here McKell. I bet you get your check cashed,” I say, a $300 check. And he [ the teller] gone to cash the check and look at the check right there. He said: "Your check is good, all right." He was a good Samaritan. You know a "secret—order" check? My wife's mother died, and leave that; that thing willed to her, you know, from that order.
PN: So who cashed it for you, McKell?
CR: He [the teller] look at it like that and said; “Hold it a while. I know you can get it cashed." And he call, called up to McKell. McKell was up on the top, there sitting down, legs crossed. His house, you know, he could sit up at the top. And McKell, he say: “Where are you from? And we told him: “From Macon, Georgia.” "What kind of check?" He say: "Cash it! From Macon, Georgia, and your name on it written down, and the other name on it, the way it was?" He [the teller] said: “Yea, I seen the name myself, her husband right here.” "Cash it!" And he cash it and give us $300. And we take $50 out then and leave the rest in there, you see.
PN: Let me just ask you some more questions about these bootleggers. Could they, did the police get them often?
CR: Oh yea, some did get after you, you know, if you can see, you know. Yea, they get after you, yea, they put you in jail too, if they could catch you, you know.
PN: Did anybody protect them?
CR: Well, a lot of them, you know; just like McKell there, if you work for him, you know, he go there: "Turn 'em loose. I’ll see about it."
PN: So McKell would, you know, protect some…?
CR: His, his boys, they work for him, you know, just like, and them old one [s] that ain't working for him, you know, now been in there a long time, yea, man.
PN: What did they do for him, work in the mines?
CR: Man, he had mine [s] all up the hill there.
PN: Did the bootleggers, were they usually miners too?
CR: Well some of them keep up that track; and some of 'em in the mine, you know; and some ain't working now, ain't been working now — some old, they just been living there a long time, you know.
PN: But McKell helped them still?
CR: Yea, he helped them up when they get in the cramp, McKell helped them. Yea, Frank Crockett didn't work in the mines at all and he'd been around there. Every time McKell ready to go to New York or sometime [meaning some place], Frank Crockett bring him down in his car, taxi. He run a taxi. And he put it so Frank Crockett, then the old man, he had, you see how the station built down there? A car could park up there, and the rest of the cars park around there over the. I know the man then, run a taxi from Glen Jean; but he ran it a long time, you know. And he run that, Frank Crockett, he didn't have a mark up there you know. And Frank Crockett, and he [McKell] tell Frank: “Park in my place." Frank was hauling taxi, running taxi too.
PN: Was that Frank Crocker or Parker?
CR: Crockett, Crockett, Frank.
PN: Crockett?
CR: Now he's got a lot of houses up in Mt. Hope now.
PN: What was the Dunglen Hotel like when you first moved to Thurmond?
CR: Wide open, wide open — bottom and top. Colored had the bottom, and white had the top.
PN: Oh yea? In the Dunglen?
CR: Yes sir. All that belonged to McKell.
PN: What could you, I mean what types of things happened there at the Dunglen?
CR: Gambling, and drinking liquor, have a party. That's the way they do. Go up right from the, there's two section house been over there then. One of them section house for the branchline man and one for the mainline man. And Miss Duncan live right where that little house is right there now.
PN: Yea.
CR: Great big house there. Miss Duncan used to keep a lot of brakemen there, had no place to stay, him and his wife, he had a, they'd get a room, you know, stay there.
PN: The hotel or…
CR: No, right over here, right over there on this side here, on this side.
PN: What were those — shanties or a big house?
CR: Oh, a big house, man, just like a boarding house. The way that thing burned down sometime. Old Man Collins had a big undertaker right there in front there, right [be] side of that track. As you come from across the river, you know, where you turn and go the other way and this road come in here? [Old] Man Collins big undertaker, that's where he was undertaker till he bought this business and he move him up here.
PN: In the Dunglen, was there any prostitution or anything like that?
CR: Well, well, old Silas Green [a travel ling minstrel show] come in there every year and all like that. That big lot was open then, it wasn't built up like it is now. He come in there and all like that, shows and stuff come in there like that. But man, people [come down] from Glen Jean and the Dunglen. One time, you had light all the way across that bridge. Every time the train come in, somebody from the hotel meet the train and see if anybody want a hotel. And some meet em and carry 'em to the Lafayette Hotel.
PN: Do what?
CR: Meet these train, you know, come in, passenger [s]. Sometimes they go to the Dunglen, some, the other one, the Lafayette Hotel down the street, you know, where they burned down, down there . I went there one night [from] work. And I work, and the boys say: "Fire over there,” and they come over and hollered at me about a fire. They got a big pump over there and they got fire hose and spigot. The man says: “Charlie," he says, "go up, get you a line yourself. You can help em. I say: “Get them boys to knock a hole under the track then, and I put them through there." And so they knocked a hole under the track. Got a line through, them big pipe. And this Andy…
PN: What did you do? You knocked a hole, holes on the track?
CR: Yea, cause the train, you know the track up there, and you know, and ties like this. You ain't going to leave that hose on top of that track, you know a train coming through. Knock em through them brick (in the hotel] and let em run the hose through. And I get over there then. I got inside there man, them thick plaster walls. I was busting them with that hose, man. Had that thing down, Dick, Dick Farrell, rooming down there. Dick said: “Hell, Charlie, get this Miss Bannister. She's living in Oak Hill now. She was living down there; she used to run the post office. [Note: Interview 18 is with this same person, Jane Graham Lawson; Bannister was her maiden name.] And the Oak Hill Fire [Department] come in there, and I let them pull them hoses back over, cause I put that big pump on over there. And that big "son" was shooting water, man. And I had it almost conquered, but I couldn't stay over there but so long, cause I got to tend to my, right over the shop, right over there. I had to look out, don't get that engine get dry, cause shoot, it'd be ruined. If water get up to the engine, that'd be ruined. Cause that thing goes blowing around, everybody get scared that thing would blow up there, and the water get down off that shield up there.
PN: The what, the water what?
CR: The water get down in the steam engine. Down in that crown shield. Hear that whistle start to blow, you better do something. Get so low, you better dump that fire, and leave that grate open. Don't try to put no water in there.
PN: That was the place they heated up the Dunglen? [I was confused here.]
CR: No, that's in the shop, I talking about. When that start that night, and them fellow come here with this wagon from Oak Hill, and they say they'd take over. And shit. They had them little hose there and man they, shit, the fire done got ahead of them, man. That's when that thing burned down. But 1 can still, 1 [was] working; but the company don't mind helping them. Because a lot of times, you know, in the city there, if a fire get around there, in close to the shop, put a hose on the yard engine. Get the yard engines out of there, they're so close to the track.
PN: Did they have, you know, different women and stuff in the Dunglen Hotel?
CR: Different woman?
PN: Was women there?
CR: Both kinds be there. Yea, when they have them parties, both kinds be there. You couldn't walk out there, man. Well on the end of the week anyhow, there don't be nothing there but just plenty of people out there in front of that store. Right from over this side up over on the other side - drinking. I never get, we had a party there one night - I living down the river in there — and them boys, they [say]: "You ought to get time and come up. I say: “I know I should come up there, but I might get [in trouble].” They say: "Bring something with you." I had, I had some liquor. And I had three pint. And right there from the section house, I leave two right down there in the grass, and then I cross the track there. And I had one time, my bro there tell me if I come, then bring one down there. And you know this, I got, then you could walk right there, right over the bridge, right down [to] the hotel. You didn't have to go around you know, that bridge. Walked, and I got down to walking, and just as I going to get in the door, I come right between two state police.
PN: Oh no!
CR: And they looked at me. I said: “How're you, sheriff?" I just keep walking. Well, I had it sticked down my side, my coat on, you know. They didn't bother me like that. And after a while, I sneaked [it] out there. And then them gal, running around, and that pint of liquor gone. That women drinked that stuff. Man, they'd be around there a lot of times. Down here at Cabin Creek, before I came onto the division [at Thurmond], I'd go up to Dry Branch every Saturday night. Woman up there give a dance - Minerva. I’d go up there every, every Saturday night. Had a girl that was working, what, helped in the power house, there helping the head lady, you know. Lived right across the track in that red house, a green house on…
PN: What was that, Dry Branch?
CR: Cabin Creek Junction.
PN: Up in Kanawha County?
CR: Yea, Kanawha County. You know where Cabin Creek is at?
PN: Yea.
CR: You know where they used to run a train up there? And as you get up there, Dry Branch, Dry Branch, you have Wet Branch up there. Minerva used to live on that side, right next to the creek. And I was talking to Joe, he had a house up in there. He's been married, but he'd been single, oh a nice—looking woman. She helped cook over there. I helped, I helped him cook then, in a car. I was a flunkey — second cook.
PN: You were what?
CR: I was the second cook on the car. Every car, you know, Cabin Creek freight depot, been right here, and the station down there. And that side track way off from the road, we used to have the car parked over there. And he come down the road, the reason he got down in there.
[A short story follows here about Mr. Rivers taking a woman he met there home with him, but it is nearly completely incomprehensible on the tape.]
I work all up them hollows now and then. But right here, yea since I been, since ‘28, I been right out here, headquarters right here at Thurmond. Yea, first one I was under, Baldwin Ferry, not Baldwin, not Bald—, Baldwin Ferry, yardmaster. Cam Porter was assistant shop foreman. Pete Bradley — he was general foreman. And you go in Oak Hill right now, you know where that pawn shop, you go behind the bus terminal? You know where this man used to run [the pawnshop], he died? Roy, in Oak Hill, you see Roy's widow in there? You go in sometime, you see a fellow sitting in there; he done married Roy 's widow. She was his secretary down there, daughter [?] . mien things got low, he done take that job in Hinton, Chief Secretary, and he retire [d] from Hinton. He got a nice, his wife is dead, his wife was a school teacher. He got a nice house in there, and he married this woman. Yea, all them, all them fellows, we used to work together. Yea, but that's all right here. I come here, I worked in the yard for a while, and I transfer over to the shop. And I helped boiler watcher, helped; that wasn't my steady job over in there. But when the helper been out, they shoved me in there. My steady job, and I’d been everywhere, the engine watchman could send me down, go right down to Gauley, and watch that engine, if that fellow took sick.
PN: You said you were a yard watcher?
CR: Engine watchman. But you know, you had one at Gauley that [used] coal. You got, you got a diesel down there now. But with them steam engine, you had to have some boys down there [to] watch it, you know. Them diesels, you can fill them up and chain them down.
PN: What did you say? "Wash" it?
CR: Watch it, watch it, you have to steady watch it. See, a steam engine, when you have it, you have to keep this coal in it, and keep the oil in it. Where these diesels, you can fill em up; there all night, you don't have to watch em. That's different - that's the reason so many man got cut off, yea.
[End of Tape]
Description
Railroading, African American, Thurmond, 1923 - 1969
Date Created
11/08/1980
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