Audio
Oral History Project - Pugh, T. B. 1980
Transcript
NRGNPP 004
File NRGNPP 004-T
TAPE FOUR
Mr. T. B. Pugh Interviewer :
Paul J. Nyden
Beckley, W.Va. 25801
September 6, 1980
TBP: What do you want to start off with?
PN: First, I was wondering if you could just talk a little bit about your childhood, when you were born, your birthday, and the towns you lived in when you were growing up.
TBP: All right, OK. I was born on the Elk River, that is in West Virginia,
in 1908, and we moved from there to the various mining towns. And the ones
that I remember, the first one would be Sumner lee, formerly called Loch— gel 1y. They changed the name because the thing blew up and killed two
hundred and some men. And my daddy was a mine foreman there, and when he found about the place being called Lochgelly in place of Summerlee, why he quit because he wasn't going to work in a hotbox like that. And
he moved from there to, I believe, Skelton; he was mine foreman there
for a while. And then he moved from there to Glen Jean, and from there
we moved to Sun and from Sun to Kenneys Creek where he died. At
that time, I think I was about 13 when he died; we'd lived there a number
of years prior to that. But the first recollection I ever knew of him being on New River was whenever he was superintendent of the mining operation at Thayer, back about 1900. And to get a skilled carpenter, he went back to Virginia and brought his brother—in—law and my aunt over there with their family of boys, most1y boys, would be good work hands. Their father was Manny Ray, and he had several sons, one of whom lost a leg while he was working at Thayer. And the boys as a general rule started to work in the mine as trappers. The trapper was the kid that might start to work when he 12, 13 or 14; depends on how long ago it was.
And he worked there until he was able to move up. And the trapper was the one that opened the door that caused the air to go a certain direction through the mine, because the men would not work in the mine if they had poor air in the face. And the first people that I remember, how they received the air up at the face, would be that they would go to the end of the main haulageway, and dig a hole up through the roof, and build a fire over it because the reduced pressure of the warm air moving up would allow the cold air to come in down below, and we'd have continuous circulation of air back further from the driftmouth. We had several kinds of mines, and the ones on New River were generally drift— mouth mines. That is, they would start on the seam of the coal and go right straight back with the seam.
PN: What company owned the mine at Thayer at that time, do you know?
TBP: I have no faintest idea, but there's a family of Pughs that lived there. There's Bill, and some of the, I 've forgotten the other one's name. But Bill was the last one, and they still own the store there.
And the store is right close to where Dragan launches his river rafts. It's just above that, and it's on the Fayetteville side of New River. The Thayer mine was on the opposite side. And the Pughs did own an interest in, by the way, most of the Pughs came from Wales. A good many of them came from the mining towns in England, and especially in, I believe they call it Shropshire. I t m not certain about that, a province, or whatever they had in England.
PN: Is that where your ancestors originally came from?
TBP: They came from Wales. And the name Pugh…
PN: Were they coal miners there too?
TBP: Yea, they were coal miners. Although my great great grand—daddy that came here first was a cobbler. Most of his people had been coal miners to begin with, and they came to this country because of coal mines, to engage in the mine, activity. As a general rule, when they came over, they would be brought over, sometimes foremen, or whatever may be to run the mines, because our hillbillies didn't know anything about that black rock.
PN: When did they come over first?
TBP: I think they came over, let's see, my daddy was born about 1870,
think. And it was his grandfather, so, his grandfather, that would be right, he was the one that immigrated over here. But he had been in the shoemaking business, I suppose, and as a young man, he had evidently been in the coal business too, and knew how to run the mines.
PN: Where did they come from in Wales, do you remember?
TBP: I have no faintest idea. I checked it out at the Mormon geneological library in Salt Lake City this summer, and I didn't have enough of my own background. But I do, did have two cousins, first cousins, that was Manny Ray's daughters, that were born at, I believe they were born at the area where, no wait a minute, they weren't born at Thayer either, because one of them was 16 years old when she moved down there from
Virginia. And of course, she was the pretty girl of the place down there. They had two other girls; both are just lovely girls. One of them was considered Miss Beckley during the days when she moved back to Beckley. This Ray always worked as a carpenter around the mining towns; and my daddy brought him there to build his home there. He hadn't married my mother at that time in 1900. So he brought Ray down there to build a nice home for himself.
This was at Thayer?
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TBP: PN: |
At the coal company's expense, of course, Do you remember Thayer yourself? |
at Thayer. |
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TBP: |
As a kid? |
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PN: |
Yea. |
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TBP: |
Yea, I remember Thayer, because it was one of the mining towns. |
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And just above Thayer was the railroad hospital called McKendree. That's where my daddy died after his accident.
PN: At McKendree Hospital?
TBP: Yea. They took miners there too, but it was a railroad hospital as I remember. They had one there and they put one at Clifton Forge.
PN: Was that between Thayer and Thurmond?
TBP: That was between Thayer and Quinnimont. It's just down the river about ten miles below Prince. OK. And then, of course, Thayer's just below that, j us t above Thurmond, between Thurmond and Thayer. Recreation back in those days consisted of hunting, fishing. As a general rule, they'd go back to the top of the mountain and hunt coons at night, and 'possums; in the daytime, there'd be squirrels and groundhogs all along the river. And then fishing and gambling and drinking whiskey . Thurmond was a gambling center, as history proves; my daddy gambled there many times. I remember whenever he won, why he would always bring us fresh fruits, which we didn't have down there. Although at Keeneys Creek, there had been a man there that ran the boarding house, and he had planted peach trees, and he grows his produce back on the farm at Russellville, right close to Russellville, I believe, in Nicholas County. And he would bring the produce down there and bury it, because we had an ice house there that, we had to cut the ice off the river. And they could keep some produce there, but mostly they would keep the things like cabbage and beets, potatoes, apples that you could bury. And we did bury and preserve apples that way just cover them up with straw and then a mound of dirt over the top, and take the apples out whenever you're ready, as well as the beets and cabbages. As the old
fellow says, one man had a secret method of not having to plant, turn his cabbage over and cover it up with dirt. He just planted his seeds upside down, and they automatically grew in the ground
PN: You mentioned another boarding house. Where was that?
TBP: That was at Keeneys Creek. Invariably, why the people would have boarding houses. Each coal camp would have a boarding house for the unattached miners. We lived at the boarding house there for two weeks until our furniture came from Sun, by freight, to Keeneys Creek. And the number of the car was 2424, and it had a dog in it. The car sat on the siding there for about a day before I noticed, I heard the dog bark. And I had remembered that number 2424, but the conductor had written down 2434, and said it wasn't there. I said it was there, because my dog is in it. So he went down and broke the seal; they always sealed them, so that you could tell if anybody had entered, or whatever it might be. So we broke the seal, and opened it up, and there was the dog and our furniture, so we set up housekeeping.
PN: That was when you were moving to Keeneys Creek?
TBP: Yea.
PN: And where did you live right before that?
TBP: Oh, we lived at Sun. My daddy was a foreman there. He was illiterate when he was married to my mother, and she taught him to read and write enough. But he had been a foreman before that so, he had gone to school till he was about the third grade he said, so he could read and write enough to pass the mine examination for his certificate to be a boss. Ever since 1 can remember, he'd either been a foreman of some sort or a superintendent.
PN: When you knew Thayer, what were the years when you knew what Thayer looked like?
TBP: The first time I ever saw Thayer would have been whenever, about
1918.
PN: How many houses were there then?
TBP: Well, let's see, Thayer must have had at least 30 houses, because Kenneys Creek had, I believe, 17 houses on the bottom, and there was no bottom hardly at all, what we called the mouth of the creek. They were stuck down alongside the hillside. They would be either on the river side if the bank was high enough, and it had to be at railroad level, or the water would wash them out. Then other houses would be built on the mountainside. The mountainside would be a little steep; if they could find the least place that they could put a house there, if they could anchor one house, one side of the house on the upper side, they would put enough posts on the bottom side. The posts might have been ten or 12 feet tall, to give you some idea of the steepness of the hillside that they built on. And the water invariably came from the springs or little streams coming down the little hollows there. In the early days, the streams were pure enough to drink water out of, but it didn't take long before the towns built up there, so that they became Impure again. Of course, my mother had typhoid fever from drinking water out of the Elk
River when she was young, and she ran a temperature of 100, as much as 108 degrees, and survived it. I think she was unconscious for 30 days, with a nurse 24 hours a day. That was from drinking impure water.
PN: In places like Keeneys Creek and Thayer, in addition to houses on the bottom land, did they have houses up on the mountain?
TBP: Yes, they had, right, they had the houses on top of the mountain. For instance, Kenneys Creek had no schoolhouse on the bottom, but there were schoolhouses on both sides within a mile, and the kids always walked to school. Down on the river, we could ride the train for a nickel. One train went down the river at eight o 'clock of a morning, so for a nickel, I could ride to Nut tall. Or I could walk; if I was a little late getting up, why I could walk over to Nutta11 before school started at nine. No problem. The towns invariably measured about a mile between them.
PN: In between the towns?
TBP: Right. And there'd be towns on both sides of the river. And I noticed on your map, the part that they have Nut tall, and Nuttallburg, and South Nuttallburg. [Here he is referring to the National Park Ser— vice's map, prepared from U. S. Geological Survey sections; this map, however, lists Nuttall and South Nuttall. But South Nut tall burg is not the way it was; It was called Browns.
PN: It was called Browns?
TBP: Browns, yes. Right at the end of the swinging bridge there, just about in front of John Nuttall's home, who was the owner of Nutt all. 0K, and something else of interest when they tore down the old homeplace there, the carpenters found a considerable number of gold pieces hidden around on the studs, along the ceiling, and so forth there, as well as 1 remember. I remember the gold, and I think it was Nuttallts home they were tearing down, because they had imported some of the finest pears in the world there. And the pear trees are still there, and I have never seen any pears as big as those, except on the fancy market in New York or in Oregon. And they were delicious, because I have eaten some of the pears after the house burned.
PN: Let me ask you a little about the, say, the typical house in Thayer or Keeneys Creek?
TBP: OK, they would be Jenny Lind houses. They may have four rooms downstairs, with two rooms upstairs. And I remember that I used to be the storekeeper. We bought our groceries from J. B. Sexton and Company; we were able to get them wholesale and better quality than we could get them in the store. And as a foreman, or superintendent, the house was free, and your groceries were at cost. So it made it a little more incentive to be the boss, a boss, than it did to be a worker. But although some of the contractors that worked under my daddy, when he was super intendent, made more money than he did, because of the way that the men worked.
PN: The Jenny Lind houses were the homes that the regular working miners would usually live in?
TBP: Yea, the regular working, lived in the Jenny Lind houses. The reason I told you about that deal that we bought our groceries, there was a closet upstairs. I suppose it was designed as a clothes closet, but it had a little raised place there; and I kept our groceries and ran a little store. When my mother wanted something, I 'd go to the "store" and get her something. And we could get enough steak at the store for four people for 25 cents. A good meal.
PN: So you ran a store in Thayer?
TBP: No, the store that we bought our groceries at, where we could buy steak, would be, was at Sun. Keeneys Creek didn't have any refrigerating facilities, and therefore they had no place to store fresh meet. But at Sun they did; they had the generating plant. And there was an electrical system there; we had electricity in the house. And that's one of the reasons, I remember my daddy could read; he used to read the newspaper. I didn't learn to read till I was possibly nine years old, or until my sis ter and wouldn't, would no longer read the funny papers to me. so 1 had to learn to read, so I could read the funnies. Outside of that, I'd a more than likely been illiterate too. Let's get back to the houses here, you want to know more about the houses.
PN: Let me get back to that too in a minute. Let me just ask you a little bit more about the houses. How did, say, the average miner use the different rooms?
TBP: OK. The children invariably slept upstairs, because there was no fire. There would be a grate downstairs, and a kitchen. The downstairs rooms, you would have a parlor, a dining room, a living room, and a kitchen —— in the four rooms downstairs. The two rooms upstairs would have a stairway up to each room, and there was no heat up there, but there was a fireplace in every room downstairs except the kitchen. The parlor would have a fireplace; the living room would have a fireplace; and the dining room was cold — there was no fireplace in it. But there was the heat from the kitchen stove would invariably warm that up enough. Our house was typical for the two—storey house; now then the one—storey house would be four rooms downstairs. And some of them were two rooms downstairs, depends on if the men were “batch—ing”.
PN: Would they still be called Jenny Linds?
TBP: Jenny Lind was the boards were boarded straight up and down. In some, for instance, Sun, they would paint their houses about every four or five years. It was interesting, because at Sun, they painted the house black, and then they painted it white over the black so that when— ever you finished painting it, it would be invariably dirty with coal dirt too. So they painted all things black and then they'd go over it with two coats of white. But the houses were just built on the side, anyplace that, like I described before. Some places had a big enough place there for a little garden, but most did not have.
PN: There was no place for a garden?
TBP: Not on the river, not on the river. The pumper, since that was a
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railroad siding there for the trains that ran the grade to Winona and Lookout, they had a pumper there that kept water in the tank, as well as for the trains going up and down the river. And he had hacked out a little place over on the river bank there that he grew a little garden — the only garden in the lower part of Keeneys Creek, except possibly old Harrison Bowles might have had a little bitty garden down at his house, before it burned down. They did burn frequently.
PN: What was the difference between a parlor and a living room?
TBP: you put in it. But the mine foreman invariably had six rooms or more, depends on the size of his family, whoever built it. There were six rooms, six rooms in our house, and it was square on the bottom. The parlor was just across from the living room, cause it had a fire— place in it.
PN: What would you use the two different rooms for?
TBP: Oh, company for the parlor, and the living room would be where that you spent most of your time in. In the winter you had no fire in the parlor unless company was coming.
PN: So you'd be sitting, or playing, or reading, or doing whatever you'd do in the living room?
TBP; Right. We had a couch in the living room. It was leather covered, and it had a raised place on it. My daddy being the boss would have a
little bit better things, you know. We had a piano, and a real nice
love seat, that there's such demand for, antiques now. And one of would those old couches, and 1/ read on the couch most of the time. Put me a little coal—oil lamp there, that's a kerosene lamp; called it coal. We had a little stand there, and put my lamp over and read that thing, and then when I 'd go to bed at night take my lamp with me.
PN: What, everybody slept on the second floor?
TBP: No, the living room was also the bedroom for Mom and Dad. Sometimes we'd put a bed in the parlor, but most of the time, why, you didn't have a bed in the parlor.
PN: What, and the kids would sleep upstairs?
TBP: Most of the children all slept upstairs.
PN: And your Mom and Dad would sleep downstairs in the living room?
TBP: Right, right. They would, as a general rule there was no basement under the houses. They was just sitting up on poles, and colder than rascals. But we didn't know any different, so we was perfectly happy.
We all wore long underwear, and we could care less.
PN: Did you have wallpaper, or anything, on the walls?
TBP: Yea, yea. But I have seen walls that were papered with newspapers, anything to seal up the cracks.
PN: To keep the cold air from coming in?
TBP: Right. As a general rule though, the better houses were papered.
PN: With different colored papers?
TBP: Yea, regular wallpaper. And then the ceiling paper, as a general rule, we'd put up backing paper, real heavy backing paper, and tack that up, and then put the other paper on top of it, to make the houses even warmer.
PN: On the ceiling?
TBP: The walls and all, ceiling and walls too. But papering was evidently a, way back in 1600 or 1700, they first made paper, somebody thought about wall paper. Because it was common in the coal houses, the coal company houses. And I never saw any house, except the railroad section plumber's house that had drop—siding on it.
PN: What was that?
TBP: Well drop—siding was beaded siding; it come down like this and turn out like that and then down like that. This is beveled siding.
PN: Almost all the other homes had paper on the wall?
TBP: Right, and then the Jenny Lind, they would put boards up and down inside on some of them, and some of them were sealed with this little four—inch sealing, beaded sealing on the walls as well as all the way around. That'd be a better type of house.
PN: What was that, like panel ling?
TBP: Well, it's just little old half—inch thick material that they'd nail on walls, it had a tongue and groove. It made the house more air— tight. Some of the people got a little particular back then, and wanted better things. OK, any more questions?
PN: If you're talking about Thayer, would part of Thayer though, you say, it would be on the bottom and part would be up on the mountain?
TBP: No, Thayer was a little bit more fortunate. There was a big bottom there in Thayer, and some of the houses were up on the side of the hill. But they did have a stream that came down there and furnished water for the houses, so they could put in running water there. And at Keeney s Creek, why, water ran when it rained and the river ran. We dipped water out of the creeks. The people at the houses, if they were close enough to the creek, would run a wire down to the creek or to the river. The section foreman's house had a wire to the river, anchored on a rock. And they'd put a bucket on a pulley, and let it slide down her, and take a bucket of water out, and then they would wind it up with a windlass. And a good many of the progressive coal miners would haul water out by the windlass. Then of course we carried our water from the spring invariably. The children always carried water, if they had children.
PN: What did you do? Did you ever work in the mines?
TBP: Oh, 1 worked in the mines, but I never worked any there. I left there, oh, I was 15 when 1 left the river. But I have always been closely associated with it, because I would go back. My stepdaddy, after my daddy died, my stepdaddy ran the trains, an engine on the river invariably. I spent considerable time in Thurmond; I would walk down and take him a hot meal on the weekends if he was there, and whatever it might be. Just like I carried my daddy, if he was working on the weekends, say he was working up on the coal seam it was invariably right at the top of the mountain, close to the top and I would take him a bucket of hot lunch up there, if he t d be working on Saturday or Sunday. So, I would walk up the incline to the tipple, and the shops up on the side of the mountain there.
PN: Where, at Thurmond?
TBP: Well, anyplace. They always had an upper tipple, that is, a drum house where they dumped their coal and ran it down on the monitors. And then the tipple the storage tipple —— would be at the bottom; that is where they load it on the railroad cars.
PN: What is a monitor, a conveyor belt?
TBP: No, a monitor [laughing] was about a five—ton barrel on wheels with an opening on one end, and a door on the other end. And they had a rail that would go out off to the side, and a piece on the door of the monitor, whenever it entered the tipple to where the coal bin was, why, it would go out across that rail and the door would raise up, and all the coal would slide out. The front end of the monitor was open, so that the coal would fall, out of the upper tipple into it.
PN: And then they would run it down the mountain?
TBP: The monitor would hold about five tons, as a general rule. And it would go down, and they had a switch In the middle there, where the tracks split. And the monitor, the one going down would haul the other one up naturally; it'd haul the empty one. They'd cross half—way down, and then they'd go on the single track again. Sometimes, the rope was about an inch and a quarter, a steel rope, and sometimes that would break. Then they would have to get a splicer to come in, and he'd splice it so that you couldn't tell where the splice was, he was such an expert. But they did do that. Whenever, of course, the cable broke, and the loaded monitor took off through the tipple, why, it tore up considerable damage. And while we're on that, that's where they the rail horses. That used to be the sport of the young men. It would be a little bit longer than a skate board of today, two boards, it would be a long board with just like sled runners on the side, except they're up close together, just so they fit over the top of the rail. And they would grease that thing, and they had a little brake on it. And they'd get on it, and slide down the monitor tracks to the tipple below, and so many people were Injured, because the brakes were no good, that they made them quit. I had never seen anybody
ride one. I had seen a rail horse, but I never did seen anybody ride one. My daddy would have skinned me alive if he caught me riding one.
I was tempted, but I was afraid; there were a few things I didn't do. My daddy was so big that I was a little bit leery; he was better than six feet and weighed about 200, so, he could outrun me, and he'd beat the tar out of me. To educate the people a little bit —— the way he beat me would be to, people used straight razors to shave with. Hers stick my head between his legs, and my poor little bottom would be stuck out there defenselessly, and he would use the razor strop to good advantage.
PN: They were pretty thick, weren't they?
TBP: They damaged you pretty severely [laughing]. Any more about your, other things?
PN: The rail horses, the kids would make them themselves?
TBP: No, the young men would make those; the kids could make them, but they generally made, they put the brake on them in the blacksmith shop, so they'd be a little more substantial. It rubbed on the side of the rail. These fellows get on that, and take off down the mountain. Just everybody wouldn't do that; all the daredevils would do it.
PN: If the brake didn't work?
TBP: It would Invariably kill you, if you didn't fall off before you ar— rived there. And it was so steep, you couldn't stop. You'd go down through the trees and stuff there. It was rough going, it was hard enough to walk up, let alone walk down those monitor tracks.
PN: On the map, it said that South Nuttallburg…
TBP: It's not Nuttallburg, it's Brown.
PN: And the town of Nuttall…
TBP: Is across the river.
PN: From Brown?
TBP: Right. Nut tall was there first I suppose. But Brown was the correct name for it. See, their map is not right.
PN: you were mentioning whiskey before, did most, a lot of people make their own?
TBP: Oh yea, yea. Although it became illegal around 1917 or 1918. That didn't prohibit the people from making it. They would invariably have their local bootlegger, and make it in the town itself there. There was no law enforcement officers there. I never saw a law enforcement officer in my life until I was 20.
PN: In Keeneys Creek?
TBP: In Keeneys Creek. I never did see one anywhere. They might have had one at Thurmond. Outside of that, I never saw, I never heard of a law enforcement officer. I heard of a game warden, but I never had seen one of those, but I heard they did have them. The people were scarce, as far as, unless they were a miner, they didn't stay around those towns that I knew about. At the boarding house there at Sewell, they had a good many foreigners. We called them Hunkies, because they were from Hungaria, Hungary. But most of our people, though, were from Poland. And the thing 1 remember about the boarding house there, since it was just above our house, they'd get drunk, and there'd be more throat—cuttings there than anyplace you ever heard of.
PN: Where, at the boarding house?
TBP: Yea, there was more fighting going on when they were drunk. Just about every week, somebody would be stabbed, or shot, or have his throat cut. Throat—cutting was common and stylish.
PN: Who lived at the boarding house, mostly immigrants?
TBP: Single men, yea. And one of the best places I have ever eaten in my life was a boarding house over on what we call Winding Gulf.
PN: Where, shat town there?
TBP: Winding Gulf was at Epperly. Yea, that's right, that good boarding house was, Mrs. Meadows, was evidently from Georgia. And what a marvelous cook; she was almost as good a cook as my mother, who was from Virginia .
PN: I wanted to ask you too, were there many immigrants that came into the mines there?
TBP: Yea, we had Hunkies just about every mining operation.
PN: All along the river?
TBP: All along the river, and, what they brought, they brought in Blacks in a good many places too. In Raleigh over here, they imported Blacks from Alabama, invariably.
PK: Did some of these Black people that came in, did they work in the mines in Alabama before they came up here?
TBP: I couldn't tell you that, but they did mine coal in Alabama, so I presume that they were familiar with it.
PN: Did many towns along the Gorge have, did they bring Blacks into a lot of them too?
TBP: Well, there were a few Blacks scattered around there. My daddy used to work some Blacks. In fact, his machinist was Black, and motor—runner was Black. And a very good machinist, and a very good motor—runner. And this Black, Hale, that I showed you the picture of there, let's see, his daddy was the hostler, worked on the railroad; and this Black man was named Bowles, was the machinist. OK?
PN: What religion did most people have?
TBP: Oh, we had all kinds of them. But our place had no church. There
was a church back on the mountain, and there was a church at Nut tall, and
there was a church at Caper ton, I believe. They had a movie theater there,
and they had benches to sit on in front of the screen; it cost you ten
or fifteen cents.
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TBP: No, that was at Elver ton; Kenneys Creek had nothing except a store; A smaller operation. But Nuttall, being a bigger operation, they had a store, and a church, and I don't remember any place for movies there. Evidently, they might have had that in the church, no, not the church, |
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some building connected with the store. The moving—picture theater |
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generally attended by children. They had somebody to play a piano |
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the music. I couldn't read; my sister got on me to read; a lot of |
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other kids couldn't read either. But that was quite entertaining, and you just about took your life in your hand, because it was customary for the kids from one town, if somebody came to their town, to run them out.
PN: It was?
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Yea, and ammunition/ along the river would be the ballast from the |
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railroad; the rocks would be about egg size. And if the people came up to our place, the three of us that I showed you the picture there [T. B. Pugh himself, Hobart Hale who was Black, and Richard McMillion], if we were not outnumbered too much, why we would run the other kids back. And if went down to their town, or up to their town, they would run us out.
PN: They would do the same thing?
TBP: Yea. If they caught us, look out; the war started right there. That was private territory [laughing].
PN: Were there any Catholic churches in some…?
TBP: There was no Catholic churches except in the bigger towns, that I know of. Fayetteville may have had a Catholic church, and Oak Hill, and Mt. Hope. By the way, you had mentioned the schools there. We had a boy named Saswa, which is Cecil in Polish. Old Saswa went to Scarbro to school, and there must have been a Catholic church there, because they taught in Polish half a day, and English half a day.
PN: They did? In Scarbro?
TBP: In Scar bro. So that would be something for you there.
PN: So the teachers must have been, could speak Polish too obviously?
TBP: Bilingual, evidently. I never did go over there with him. I was
able to hear better than old Saswa, and when his mother. We played together, and whenever his mother, I'd hear his mother calling, I 'd start to singing or something like that, so he couldn't hear, because I didn't want him to leave me [laughing].
PN: I saw something the other day, maybe you know something about. 1 saw a picture, I think it was in Glen Jean, it said the Glen Jean Opera House?
TBP: Oh yes. There is a building here, there's a home over here, that the floor of the opera house is the floor in it. I put the floor down. I bought it when I was building a house up on Tank Branch [one of two roads in Glen Morgan], and the flooring came from the opera house at Glen Jean. I had been in the opera house, it was very, it was quite ornate. And I venture to say they had a Catholic church there. But that was one of the centers of entertainment and so forth there, because they had a saloon, and a drugstore. And the first peanut butter I ever saw was at the drugstore; my sister was telling me about that wonderful peanut butter, that grand stuff. And I tasted that, uh, it was for somebody besides me. But they had a drugstore, and a ball park, and a big saloon. The first baseball game I ever saw was at Glen Jean. The coal miners invariably in those days had their own athletic team, which con— sis ted of baseball. And something else that you might be interested in would be the tale that one of the old railroaders told me about the old hunter and his bar—dog [bar, meaning bear] Cuff. Would you be interested in that?
TBP: Let me mention this. Benny Dickinson, the railroader, many years on the C&O Railroad, I guess at the time he told me that, he was close to 60, and I was just in the 20s, so he had been. They used to have a big saloon at Montgomery, and they would take wildcats and dogs, and pit them against one another a wildcat or an alleycat —— and they would go bet on it. They had a little arena built there for the thing, just like a chicken—fighting arena. And people would go down there for the weekend for their entertainment, and gambling, and it was a shopping center for many of the railroad towns . The first long—pants suit I ever had was bought there. My daddy pulled a fast one on me on that. I had been working enough, I started to work when 1 was about 11, and I 'd been enough there that I had a considerable amount of money saved, about $60 or $70 1'd saved during the summer. So I went down there with my daddy to Glen Jean, to digress here, anyway I went down to Glen Jean, I mean Montgomery, where the shopping center was. I picked out the suit I wanted. He picked out the things for my sister, she was three years older than me, and he bought her a lot of pretty things. So I thought, hmm, I 11 buy me a good suit too, to get even with her. So I picked out me a right expensive suit. Now wait a minute, it was still a short— pants suit, I '11 take it back, it wasn't long pants. Whenever I picked out what I wanted, he said: ' 'Is that all you want?" I said: "Yea. " He said, "Well, when are you going to pay the man?" So I hauled out my roll and parted ungraciously with my money for the things, for the expensive things I 'd picked out. Getting back to that bar—dog Cuff. This old fellow had shown up down there, and he said, ' 'Fellows, I have a pretty good bear dog back home. I hear you have a wildcat down here that's never been whipped." The people said, "Yea, we have one that's never been whipped. He's been here more than a year." And the old fellow took a look at him, and, “Man, he's whopping big, isn't he? Pretty close to 40 pounds there." So then he said, the fellow says, “Would you be interested in me bringing old Cuff down?" And they said, "Yea, bring your old bar—dog on down here.” So the old fellow went on home, and the next weekend, why, the train pulled into the station, and everybody was out there with the expectation of seeing a mammoth dog get off there. And the old fellow went over to the baggage car, and took out a mongrel there with a great big logging chain around his neck, made him look so fierce, I guess. He was just barely able to walk, looked like; he was flea—bitten, an old long—eared hound. He looked like he could hardly get up and walk, let alone fight any; but he had a few scars on him. Saturday came around, and on Saturday we came over there, and everybody was gathered around in the saloon, where they had their big show. So they put the dog out in the arena, and the wild— cat out there. The old dog took one look, it smelled him, and crawled, got down on its belly. The old wildcat was waiting to take him, got pretty close to him, and flapped over on his back right quick there and waited for the dog to pounce on him. So the dog just calmly reached over and got him across the ribs, and broke every bone in his chest, and killed him deader than anything.
PN: The dog did?
TBP: The dog did. Said he wasn't about to jump on that cat, so he just reached over and chomped him. So the fellows all lost their bet. They bet on that cat. This old fellow had several hundred dollars with him, and they covered every dollar they had, and he just went around and collected his money is his hat, and left. He more than likely walked out of there too, to keep somebody from robbing him. It was commonplace to rob the guys then, and throw them in the river.
PN: After they'd won money?
TBP: Oh yes. There have been people that were killed down there for less than, for nothing as far as that goes. The last instance that I remember of, some poor old colored boy didn't have sense enough to know which side of his bread was buttered. He got up there and killed the wife beat her to death, and beat the old man —— and he was unconscious and they thought he was dead. But the old man was never able to hear any more after that; he had damaged his hearing. But he recovered, and they hanged the fellow, over in Fayetteville, as well as I remember, or maybe sent him to the penitentiary. Anyway, that was about, in the early nineteens, and the fellow got a dollar and a half there for all of his efforts in beating those people like that. So he either died by hanging or the electric chair, I don't know which. Anyway, life was cheap.
PN: In these towns?
TBP: In the towns. Especially with the Europeans, the immigrants that came over, the new arrivals. They must have been tough cookies, but there some good family people there. And one thing I remember, that the people from Hungary, we had some Hungarians that lived in one house right below us, and there was Polish people that lived in the other house. And the
Hungarians are evidently a high class of people, well educated, because the woman liked me, and I would go down to her house and eat mushrooms and all the goodies that she knew how to fix. And she gave me an acorn or two that was sweet; said they came from Hungary. I have never been able to trace down any of those sweet acorns. We have none. Our yellow oak has the sweetest of our acorns, and they're bitter. By the way, there was, one of those early guys was a botanist on the New River. And he classified more than 1, 200 species of plants.
PN: Let me ask you a little bit about this opera house. If you know more about that, I would be interested, maybe you could, what did they do there?
TBP: Oh, they had plays there, like Chautauqua, a long time ago. They would bring in plays there, and they would bring in singers, and so forth.
PN: Did they have actual operas there too?
TBP: Yea, yea, but not local. They would be travel ling companies, that I remember.
PN: Did they run it the entire year around?
TBP: No, I think that was seasonal, in the wintertime, I suspect.
PN: In the winter?
TBP: I would guess, because I never did attend that opera house there. I’d been in it when I was a kid – a little kid - because I moved away from Glen Jean when I was six
PN: Who was it that built it; was it the coal company?
TBP: Oh no, Bill McKe11. Bill McKe11 was a Scotchman who came over , and he'd invariably borrow money from my step—daddy when he was going somewhere. He never carried any money with him.
PN: Did he own the mine though?
TBP:he owned the mine. He owned the K, G, J & E Railroad, Kanawha,
Glen Jean, and Eastern.
PN: Why did he build the opera house, and other people didn't? Was he more interested…
TBP: No, he was an educated man; he was a Harvard or Yale graduate as well as I remember. I remember old Bill, because he had a name of being a tightwad. But he did build the opera house there. And that was one of the things that went along with his company. And he evidently treated his people pretty good there, to a degree there, because they had more entertainment there than they would at the other places, and nicer homes. They also had a six—room house there that we lived in, four down and two up.
PN: Did people come up from the Gorge to go to Glen Jean and the opera ho use?
TBP: Oh yea, yea. They come from Thurmond. That was the big gambling town, and they attend, whenever, to attend around the country; operas were great things in those days.
PN: Were they mainly Italian operas?
TBP: I couldn't tell you that; I wouldn't know. I never, I was too little to be able to read, so I couldn't read any of the bulletins.
PN: Is that still standing?
TBP: No, no. I told you that I used part of the flooring in a home up there I built for my step—brother. I used to build houses; I built this house. I was a pretty good carpenter on the side. Now to get back to that Welsh deal; I was going to tell you about that. The name Pugh means able to do many things. It's a Welsh name, means able to do many things, many abilities; what it means is stretch, according to abilities. Now, you keep quiet. All right, you want to put up an argument. This is my dog, Jennifer, Brittany spaniel. So most of the people in the early days, if they wanted anything, they made it themselves. If I wanted a toy when I was little, I made it. I only had one toy bought, whenever I was a little kid; it was a tricycle. Wait a minute, a sled, I'11 take it back, a sled.
PN: In these towns, what did the streets look like?
TBP: Streets, they had no streets. The only thing they had would be a wagon road. Now whenever we lived at Keeneys Creek, the, there was a wagon road from the town itself up the river, I mean up Keeneys Creek itself to Winona and Lookout. OK, there was a branch road went off of that down to Nut tall, although there was a wagon road at one time that came from Edmond to Nut tall, that came down through a break in the cliff and wound back and forth on down to the river. As a general rule, though, if they wanted things to go up to the top of the mountain, the wagon road would come down to the tipple, and they would send things up on the monitor. Grocery orders and whatever it might be, cause they's get their groceries down there on freight cars.
PN: Between the houses, what would there be, like dirt paths?
TBP: Paths between the houses, yea, just a walking path. In fact, we had no playground down there except the place where they unloaded the freight cars, the baggage cars. They had four—wheel carts that they moved up and down there. That's the only level place at Keeneys Creek. There was nothing else there. Between the houses, there would be a path; and in some places, they had to carry their coal to the houses. Cause across the railroad track, you couldn't get across there; you'd take a wagon—load of coal down to as close to the house as you could, and then carry it over to the house, or pile it up there and the people would take it as they wanted it. And there was no wagon road between Elver ton and Kaymoor or Brown. And there was no wagon road between Keeneys Creek and Caper ton. And none between Caperton and Sewell that I know of. And none between Elver ton and Sewell. There'd be one up the mountain, but not between the towns. They had no use for the road between the towns; that was just unusual to have one between Keeneys Creek and Nut tall. You used the railroads.
PN: So that's what everybody travel led, on the railroads.
TBP: Right, or walked the railroad tracks. Now, if we wanted to catch a train going on the other side of the river, we had to walk over to Elver ton. We had to walk to Caper ton, cross the swinging bridge, go to Elver ton, or go down to Brown. OK? What else?
PN: You were saying that fishing was an important form or recreation?
TBP: Recreation, right. Just about everybody that had any ambition at all, if they didn't gamble or hunt, or it was out of the hunting season, why they would fish in the river there. And fish if they were caught in there would be blue cats, channel cats, mud cats. And there were two kinds of mud cats; there were the yellow mud cat and the black mud cat. The black ones invariably stayed in the swifter waters, and the yellow one would be in the placid waters. And then in the summertime, why they, people all, invariably took their baths in the rivers, that is the younger people. And the older people, some [ end of first tape].
PN: We were talking about fishing, and we were talking about people taking baths in the river. I'm not sure we caught that on the end of it.
TBP: The young people would invariably take their baths in the river.
And the other people would take a bath in a tub, and if they had a
good, rough job or had saved enough money, or could buy it on credit,
they would buy a double tub. That would be about five feet long, and
normal width. And they would take a bath in that. And along about
1912 or '13, they came out with a little container that would hold
about a gallon of water, and hang it up on the wall, with a piece of
rubberized canvas that had a little square shape —— you put that on
the floor —— and they could have a shower in the place there. They
cost about $7.95 for a little shower.
PN: A lot of people in the coal towns had these?
TBP: Several of the people were able to get those. And some of the
towns, if they had a source of water, would put in pressurized systems; that is progressive towns like Sun; it was, well it might load as many as 15 or 20 50—ton coal cars a day. It was a shaft mine, a great big operation. So they had water there; but most of the small towns on New River never had water, unless it was a spring on the side of the hill above it. And it would go down to a common spigot, and the people could get their water there. Now, unless I 'm badly mistaken, Nut tall might have had water in some of the houses; and I don't know about Caperton. The children didn't visit much; like I told you, if you went to visit town, they'd run you out. So I don't recall ever being in anybody's house outside of my town. Now we would visit back and forth in these towns. But as far as having facilities, I venture to say that the super had water in his house. But we didn't, and my daddy was super, part of the time .
PN: There was no water in your house?
TBP: Some of the places, there were no water in the house.
PN: What year was this that you're talking about?
TBP: That they had water in the house? Or no water in the house?
any
PN: When you said you didn't have/water in your house, what year was that?
TBP: Well there was no water in our house at Keeneys Creek from 1919 to 1924. The house we lived in had no water in it; nobody else's house had water in it, cause we had the best house.
PN: But in 1924, they brought it in there?
TBP: No, they, as far as I know, they never did have water in there till they blew the old town out. I don't know when it blew out. When they discontinue a mine, they call it "blowing it out." So when they blew it out, there was still no water. There was no source except the creek, and it was becoming polluted.
PN: Did they have gas or electricity?
TBP: No, some of the towns had no electricity. I know we burned lamps in the schoolhouses that 1 used to go to. At Sun, they had it after I left there. The towns along the river had no electricity that I remember. They had electricity at Thurmond.
PN: They did?
TBP: As far as I remember, I believe they had electricity there, cause it seemed to me like they had some lights on, they had one street there.
PN: You said before, you said Sun was a "progressive"
TBP: Yea, it was a bigger town.
PN: Maybe you could discuss the difference between a 'progressive" town and the others.
TBP: OK, the amount of coal depended on how much was their income to whoever
the owner would be. And the smaller towns that had the absentee owner could
care less about his men. The people like Bill McKe11 at Glen Jean, it was
his town; he lived there too. Therefore he was interested in entertainment.
The other people could care less, nothing. You were, actually what you
were when you went to work In one of those coal towns, unless you had a farm, or lived on a farm and raised what you ate, you were a slave. You
went to work at daylight, and you got out before dark of an evening, maybe
enough time to take a bath. But you lived out of the company store. And
if you needed something in between time, everything you bought was charged .
And if they didn't charge, why some of these places had scrip. Red Star
had scrip; Sun had scrip; and many of the later towns had scrip, what they called scrip called scrip. You'd go down and cash your, draw so much, cut, they called it “cutting" scrip; they cut so much scrip, take it out and sell it at 15% or 20% discount for cash, and go somewhere else and buy what they wanted. Ok?
PN: When did the union start coming in? What do you know about union
activities?
TBP: Oh, my daddy wouldn't hire a union man, because he said they were troublemakers. And they were in the beginning of the days; the first
thing 1 remember about union was in 19 and, about 1918, or something
like that. About 19 and 20 something is when they had that march down
to the south there [referring to the 1921 Armed March from Marmet to Logan County]. Old man Ed Kelly wrote up a little history of it, and
you can get his book. He'd have a copy of the book at home that you'd
be interested in. He was illiterate, but he wrote it up anyway, about
the mine war. But the first thing my daddy's ask a man that would into work, he said, “Are you a union man?" If he said, "yes"; he said, “Why I have nothing for you. If you're non—union, all right." Because they
did have a lot of dissension between the union and non—union miners.
PN: Were there any union mines along the New River at this time?
TBP: At that time, I never heard of any union mines down there. Although
the union didn't mean anything to me, but I never heard of any union mines.
[Mr. Pugh is historically inaccurate here.]
PN: Do you have any explanation of, say, why the union may have been more active along Cabin Creek or Logan County than It was there?
TBP: I have no explanation to that except that they, evidently were, sort of, the union would break it up like they did on the Civil Rights deal. They would work on one section for a while, then they would work on another section. They had so many men that they could subsidize to go out and organize, called the organizers. And then the coal operators would bring in there, what they called the Baldwin—Felts thugs, and they would have a fight, and try to organize like that. So to keep out dissension, my daddy would never hire a union man.
PN: Was that at Sun, or all the different ones?
TBP: Wherever he worked, he would never hire a union, because they had a bad name through there.
PN: Did the owners, the people that actually owned the company tell your dad what to do, or did they give him latitude to do whatever he wanted to?
TBP: As a general rule, he was their representative, and if they told him, I don't know about it. He never mentioned anything like that; I never heard of anything. But to produce coal, you didn't unionize. It's just about that way. OK?
PN; When did the union finally come In? In '33, after Roosevelt was
elected?
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TBP: Oh yea, yea, but it's been varied, all over. Some smart people
came out of those places there. I know one of the guys, a big executive
in New York City of an insurance company was from Nuttall. We went to
school together. A funny thing, I lived up where these three kids were.
This boy came to see me one time, and I felt something tickling. I had
a swing on the front porch; we had a back porch too. Wait a minute, there
was seven rooms in my house; we had one room stuck out by itself, a
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storage room. I felt something tickle me tickling, tried to brush It. Finally got was old Marvin Hitchcock. He was the one |
on the ear there. Just kept up and looked around, there that became the executive in |
New York, or so I heard; I don't know about that. But he was a very intelligent young kid. He came up there and said, “Did you realize that you're a rich kid?" I said, “How come?" He said, "Well, you have a sled. You have a boat." And I retrieved that from a river. “You have a bicycle." "Yea, yea, well I bought that for myself." “Well, you have a pair of binoculars.” “Yea, yea, I paid $17.95, Sears Roebuck's, yea." And he went off to name all the things 1 had. And if I could stop to think about it, I was a rich kid. Compared to most of them they didn't have anything. I worked. I never saw a Welshman that didn't work.
PN: Doing what?
TBP: Oh, whatever had to be done around there. For instance, they get in a carload of flour; unload it, get 50 cents for it. Get a carload of feed; by the way, they hauled the coal in the mine, from the mine, to the main drive, to the main line in the mine, was mules. And during, we had a two—year strike during that time, and during that two—year strike, why, only the persons that were employed would be the mine super— intendent and the keeper of the mules, and maybe a fire boss to go in and check the mine occasionally.
PN: When was this?
TBP: During the big strike that they had in 1920 to 1921, just about the time the union went on there. That was a two—year strike. How those people lived, I don't know.
PN:That was along the New River too, the strike?
TBP: There was only one train running at that time. That was one train to go east and one to go west. The eastbound, the westbound train was, seemed like it was, I believe it was number one. Anyway, we had a cow that we had driven from Sun down to Keeneys Creek, overland, to have our fresh milk. And our cow had a calf, right alongside the railroad track. And that one train killed our cow. Only one train ran, and it killed her deader than hell.
PN: The union had been in there though then?
TBP: Oh the union, no, no I had never, no organizer ever showed up down there during the years that I lived there.
PN: How could that strike take place then?
TBP: Well, everything else was paralyzed. They shut down everything.
The railroads had cut down to one train running.
PN: So even though there hadn't been that much union activity along the New River, those mines were still shut down during that big strike?
TBP: Well, they shut down the railroads. When the railroads shut down, the mines shut down. Now you're going to have to check on the history of that a 11tt1e bit more, because I was just a kid and don't know much about that. One more thing and maybe we could end. You said you wanted to say something about the schools and the schoolhouses.
TBP: Oh yea, and the sanitation and so forth. Get the sanitation first?
PN: Sure.
TBP: OK. The sanitary facilities in those days was an outside building with a path. And they had people to go along to the places there; they were called "johnny—cleaners. And once a year, they would come around in the mining town, they'd dig a pit over to the side, and clean out your johnny. They had a regular crew to do that; and we kept reasonably good sanitation practices. And as far as the trash and things were concerned cans and so on I venture to say that most of them went into small creeks and into New River. And outside of that, why they would have a dump here and there in some of the smaller towns, that they hauled their stuff out and dumped it. And of course that would be all the bottle hunters now's favorite places. But the drinking water came from the creeks and the springs and the river; springs preferably, because they were sanitary. In the schoolhouses I went to, they were always one room; except at Sun, there was a two—room school. But on New River, I never heard of a two—room school; there might have been some, but I didn't know about them. There was a one—room school at every mining town except Keeneys Creek and Red Star, I don 't believe, wait a minute. I don't think Kaymoor had a school building; they might have. But Caperton had a school building; Keeneys Creek didn't; Nut tall had a school building that I knew about. And I think Elver ton had a school building; 1 don't know about Sewell and the other mining towns. But Sun had a two—room school, because it was a bigger place. And Glen Jean had a two—room school, because they were a bigger place. And a one—room school would have a pot—bellied stove, with the teacher's desk in the front. And the school desks back for the children to sit in —— big, little, and middle—sized and there'd be a bench across the front and a blackboard up front. And the teacher would call the class up to recite.
And as a general rule, the teacher would be a eighth—grade graduate; he 'd take an examination, the state, passed the state examination. And the way that they gave an examination for the eighth grade —— they would send you the envelope with all the questions covering the subjects that you were supposed to have covered for each grade, especially the eighth grade, and you would give the tests tot the children and they'd be sent to Charleston to grade. Be graded, and then they'd send you a notice if you finished the eighth grade ot not. The teacher evidently thought I was a smart little kid, cause she told me to go in the sixth grade, and take an examination up at Winona for the diploma for the next year to practice up. A smart teacher, the only college teacher I ever had, she it was a college graduate; /was at Nut tall. And a very fine teacher, who had five sons of her own, and they did alright for themselves too. Anyway, we did get the questions, and they were graded In Charleston. There was no way to cheat, positively none. The teacher would give you the list of questions, take them up with your answers, and then mail them back. No cheating, no finagling, nothing, my teachers anyway . So the one—room school had one real good advantage, they had outside johnnies, they had one for the boys and one for the girls. The teacher allowed only one person out at a time. And, let's see, what else do you want to know about it?
Where did the teachers come from, most of them…?
TBP: They would just be eighth—grade graduates, and they'd take the examination, state examination and pass it. The advantage I was going tell you about was, from the first grade on up through the eighth grade, we heard every class recite every day. Then If you were on the ball, why, you would be able to learn twice as much by listening to the others. You had very few books to read; we had one shelf about two feet long in a little bookcase there that had some books for all of the kids in the school. So I sat right beside that, and of course, read every one that was in the whole shebang, to pass the time away. And the rest of the time I 'd read ahead, whoever was reciting, in their book, whether they was above me or below; if that kid couldn't answer it, I 'd hold my little hand up and answer it. I thought that was fun; that was my entertainment in the school. And we had no playgrounds at most of the school— houses; Nut tall had a path they could play on there —— there was one path up to the schoolhouse, that's the only place to play. Any athletic event we had, which would consist of climbing grape vines or rocks, and so forth, we had Mr., Brother Lizard Club; they were the rock climbers, cliff climbers, and so forth. I don't know about any other clubs they had there; that was our own make—up club. And we would climb all the rocks, and we could climb around about as good as billy—goats. And the advantage would be, like I told you there, you were exposed to all the other things. And what my pastime was, I told you. And she sent me up there to take the examination, and even in the sixth grade, I passed some of the eighth grade questions. That showed me which ones I was weak in, and then I just went ahead and practiced up on those, and didn't even have to go to eighth grade.
So I just got by, I don't know how, from being exposed to all those things. I think one—room schools are marvelous; you get the attention that you need. If we could go back to those now, I think we'd have better—educated people. This teacher was an expert at it. And my wife's mother went to the eighth grade four years, because she finished it when she was 12, and went on till she was 16, took the examination and taught school for a couple of years before she was married. And I '11 show you the picture of one of the schoolhouses and the names of the students, if you're interested; it was at Lansing, I believe that school was. But you 're not interested in the top of the mountain, I don 't believe.
PN: Mainly the gorge.
TBP: The gorge, yea.
PN: Is there anything else? Or do you think that covers it pretty much?
TBP : Well, I '11 tell you how I learned to tell time at one of those one— room schools. I was big enough to buy a watch, a dollar watch. And I was going to school at Caper ton, where they had a man teacher. The school— house had burned down at Nuttall, and we finished the year out in the church, with no sanitary facilities. Some of the kids, If they had to go bad enough, would go around under the church; it was set up off the ground. That's the only place they had, so I finished the year out there, and the next year I went to Caper ton. They had a man teacher, I don't remember his name . But I remember, he said, "You know, I left my watch at home today. Does anybody know what time it was?" I said, “I have a watch, teacher, and I stuck my little hand up stupidly. And
he says, “What time is it?" I said, "Well, I don't know. I haven 't how learned/ to tell time yet." He said, well, he must have asked me what grade I was in. Anyway, he said, “Come up here. I want to show you how to tell time. " So I didn't know where he kept his paddle, but he had it stuck up under the desk there, and I finally found out where he kept it. He always threatened us, and being a man, we was afraid of
him. So we would attend to our own business, but we wondered where he
kept his paddle. Anyway, he pulled it out from under the desk, laid
it on the desk, and said, "Boy, he says, “Let's see that watch." He
pointed out, he said, "This is the hour hand. This is the minute hand.
If this is past there, that's half past that hour. If it's before it
get between the 30—second mark down here and up here, that's before.
Now, what time is it?" I told him, buddy, and I 've been able to tell
time ever since. I might have been in the fourth or fifth grade. The only man
teacher I ever had. But I did, I evidently received a, well, you want to
cut this off there?
[End of tape]
Description
Keeneys Creek, Thayer, Coal mining, life in mining towns in the 1920s
Date Created
08/06/1980
Copyright and Usage Info