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PN: To start off Mr. Davis, maybe I could ask you when you were born and where you were born?
CD: I was born October the 19th, 1903 in Boyd County, Kentucky. And a little post office then, they called it Malaty. That's long since been eliminated. But now it's Catlettsburg, Route 2.
PN: And how long did you live there?
CD: Well, I grew up there, and married in that country.
PN: When did you first start working in the coal mines?
CD: When I was 17, a little past 17 years old.
PN: Was that up there in that area of Kentucky?
CD: Yea, that was in Kentucky. Yes sir.
PN: When did you finally stop working there in Kentucky, and come over here to West Virginia?
CD: Well, they shut that mine down, and I didn't come over to West Virginia at that time. I went up Tug River, and worked at Norfolk and Western — Chattaroy.
PN: Over in Mingo County [West Virginia].
CD: Mingo County. I done all right there.
PN: In the coal mines?
CD: Yea, loaded coal. Then I left there and went to Hardy, Kentucky to Fordson Coal Company. Fordson paid a little better money. And worked there three years. Then the Depression come along. And I went back to Kentucky. Then I just went over here from, up in Logan County. And I'd work a little while at this mine, a little while it's shut down. And right there during for about three years in there, it was really hard to get a job. Then 1 had a friend that had worked here at Kaymoor. And he come back here and got a job, Jim Bates, and he told his brother that they were hiring men here at Kaymoor. So we, all worked the same place, so we - whole bunch of us, about seven or eight of us - come here and got a job.
PN: Was that from Logan County?
CD: No, out of Kentucky.
PN: Out of Kentucky?
CD: Yea. I’d bought a little farm back in Kentucky, and was living on it. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have made it during the Depression.
PN: What was the year you finally came over to Kaymoor?
CD: 1933, November the 8th. And I wasn't going, I didn't intend to stay here too long. But my wife wasn't going to go back to Kentucky.
PN: Why? Did she like Kaymoor?
CD: Well, yes, she seemed to like it. She just didn't like Kentucky. And so I started bettering my position, little bit. Started doing various jobs. So after I made my papers at Charleston, the mine boss one day run on to me and wanted to know if I 'd like to have a job being called a "rascal." You know that's what they called the bosses. You know, they call—, the bosses didn't have too good a name. I told him, the mine boss was Jerry Kerr, and I told him that I'd always try, was always my intention to better myself. "Well,” he said, “we've been a giving you some thought.” So in about, oh I'd say, eight or ten weeks, he told me he had a job for me. And I worked, took this section that they had a boss on. And I guess I must have improved it satisfactorily because they was showing my motor reports to other people. And, now I didn't get this straight from them, but some of the other section bosses was telling me about it. Then,
PN: What was the year you became a section boss?
CD: '35.
PN: That's just two years after you came to Kaymoor?
CD: Yea. And I, about 36, they give me another section. But seemingly, I always got those run—down ones. And there was a lot of hard work to get them straightened up. Then I, I had, I went in, the state was a'quarreling a little bit about having a non—certified man down in the bottom end of 16 Right in the mines, non—certified. And it was a little bit, you could find a little gas every once in a while. And they wanted somebody there that, that could be held responsible for that. So they sent me down there. Then they moved me up from there to assistant night boss. And night shift was as big as the day shift.
PN: Were there two shifts at that time?
CD: Yes, but the night shift was as big as the day shift, see. Then after, some how or other, there'd come a little Depression along there, just before the war.
PN: This was about 39?
CD: Yea, '38, '39. And they cut off all the night shift. And told me to tell everyone, to get all the coal I could. Then tell every man to load his tools on his car; that [was] back in the days they bought their own tools. And so — "That means you too.” That's, the next day, they, they told me that I'd go back on the section that I was on when I went on the other, on the other job. Then when they started picking up again, I went back on [as] assistant mine foreman on day shift. And by that time, they had changed mine foremens. Jerry Kerr had left, and O. D. Keaton was mine foreman. Then they kept moving along, and as Keaton went to Lay land — they moved him to Layland and brought a fellow in there by the name of Bill Burgess. That's one of the land company's brothers, fellow that looked at, Virgil still works for the company, I think, or did. And I was his assistant. And then eventually he, he went somewhere else, and I went on as mine foreman.
PN: What year was that?
CD: I think I went on as mine foreman about '46, in there.
PN: And you said you were mine foreman until the mine shut down?
CD: No, I was, then out from '46, then when Mr. Burgess left — I might have misquoted a little there — when he left in about four years there, in '49 1 went on as superintendent. I guess I was the only fellow that had ever worked as temporarily superintendent 12 years. [laughs] The division superintendent told me when Mr. Burgess left, he knew I could look after. And said Mr. Kerr over in McDowell County, the head man, might have somebody else to put in here.
PN: What was that company that owned it?
CD: New River and Pocahontas Consolidated Coal Company.
PN: And when did, when did the mine finally close permanently?
CD: In '61. That's when it worked out.
PN: Were you still working, you were still there then as superintendent?
CD: I was still there.
PN: In ’61?
CD: Yes sir. That's a, I was there in 61 and, till it, till it worked out. That would, that would have been twenty—, 28 years I worked, worked at that company.
PN: Were there still a lot of homes in Kaymoor at the time the mine worked out?
CD: Yes, there were. Now this here Kaymoor bottom camp, they had done away with it. But the top, they were all up there. Then they started selling the houses, and tearing them down. Now there's still you don't have it, but I've got it [referring to photographs I had with me, all of which he had plus others] — one group of houses there that's all of them still intact.
PN: On the top?
CD: On the top. They've sold them to all the people, and there's still some houses in what they call down in the holler that's still there.
PN: But at the bottom, by the river, all the houses there are gone?
CD: All, all gone.
PN: What was the year that those were gone by?
CD: Well, let's see. I can't say exactly, but I 'd say about six years before the mine closed in 61 about '55.
PN: The bottom was…
CD: Yea. What they begin to look at was, that if they kept this bottom open, they'd have to keep that haulage. So they, they were going to get them all out of there before the mine worked out. Se we started, every time we'd have a empty house on top, we'd bring somebody out.
PN: From the bottom?
CD: And Minden, we'd send em to Minden. Till eventually they all come out of there. And that was all before, two or three years before the mine shut down. They didn't want to come out of there; they'd been there all their lives. [laughs]
PN: In this time, were there both Black and white miners living there?
CD: Yes, 44% of Kaymoor labor was Black.
PN: Really?
CD: Yes sir.
PN: Was that when you were the superintendent?
CD: Yea, and everybody else, I guess. And they were good labor. Ain't no, wasn't any difference between the Black man's labor and a white man. Maybe the white man a little sneakinger. [laughs] And a Black man wouldn't lie on the other. He wouldn't want to tell the truth. He, he want, he wouldn't, you know, he didn't want to get in, his fellow man involved. So, what I mean by that — we had lots of cases of John Brown claims he's short, or John Brown done this, or entitled to this or that. But now if you brought it right down to it, talking to the Committee and all, why they, if you 're going to bring in a witness, sometimes you, you'd be going to be doubtful whether you 're going to win that case or not. [laughs] Whether, you didn't want to win it, you just wanted it to be like it was. I never wanted to win a case. I just wanted to do like it was. And I got along pretty well all my years of section foreman and mine foreman and superintendent. I can brag a little; I had one of strike.
PN: Really, is that all?
CD: That's all. Wasn't over nothing at the mines. They got struck one day over a coal haulage. Some of these fly—by—night haulers would haul a little cheaper, see, in the summertime. But in the wintertime, if there come a right big snow, and they couldn't get there, then they wanted this fellow that'd been hauling it all the time, he'd have, put a coal hauler in at the office, want him to deliver it. And he would. But he had to have more for that. He'd send a man out, maybe get hung up, and be there half a day, you know. But where this other fellow got all the cream he was hauling. That, that was the only time that we ever had a one—day shut—down in my years there.
PN: You were talking before about the top camp and the bottom camp. Did Black and white miners live in both places?
CD: Both places. Now they were, this part of the mine I'm a'talking about, or camp [correcting himself] that's still out there, they were all white. But down at the bottom, and all the other houses there; now I don't know, I can't answer for No. 2, because all them out there when I came here were, were white. But they had done shut that mine down, it'd been down for quite some time; and by the time I, I'd say it'd take me five or six years to learn all about No. 2 and the things there, whether I was, I don't know how many Blacks were over there now, I couldn't…
PN: That was Kaymoor No. 2?
CD: Yea, that was, there was a camp over there. Now that's right at the edge of the bridge, on this end, you see. Now they also had houses down at the bottom, right where Wild Water Unlimited gets out. There was a bunch of houses in there. They had houses and, but who were there, the only thing I do know is that a fellow the name of Dan Stull was mine foreman.
PN: Stole?
CD: Stull, S-t-u-l-l, He was mine foreman at No. 2.
PN: You were saying before that they used to have coke ovens at Kaymoor bottom.
CD: They had 163 beehive coke ovens.
PN: And what year did they close down? And why?
CD: '35; market, competition. You see, the, the oil people started making coke. And the chemical people started taking everything out of coal they could get out of it; then they had coke, as a drug. And if, let's just use my company for instance. Let's say our salesmen go up, we’ll say they want $7.00 a ton. Here comes along this oil company or chemical company with their coke: "Well Lord, we can sell you that for three dollars and a half." What they was doing was throwing it away.
PN: Oh, so they…
CD: See, and that put the coke oven, the coal—mine coke out of business. The last one that I know of on the river that ran was up here at Sewell. They made coke up there for a goodly number of years, even after the war.
PN: Oh really? When did the Sewell coke ovens finally shut down forever?
CD: Well I'm not right sure on that.
PN: In the fifties probably?
CD: Yea, probably. It was after the war.
PN: Were the people that worked on the coke ovens, were they mostly Black, or…
CD: No, they was everything. They was both kinds.
PN: They both [were] on the coke ovens?
CD: Yes sir, both of em.
PN: Were people who worked on the coke ovens, were they members of the United Mine Workers?
CD: Well, let's see.
PN: Or not?
CD: Yea, they would have been, because the union came in about '33. And by '35, they would have all been on the pay—, on the union payroll. But before that, they weren't. Now I understand they were organized in the twenties and back. But I, that's history to me. I wouldn't, I wouldn't know about that.
PN: Would the coke oven workers belong to the same local union as the coal miners?
CD: Yes, all belonged to the same union. Yes sir.
PN: You were mentioning before about the haulage. Was that that track that came down from the top of the mountain to the bottom?
CD: Yes, that delivered everybody. That brought supplies to the mine; that brought sand to the mine; brought rock dust to the mine; it brought coal to the top of the hill for the miners; and everything.
PN: Where was the mine located? In between the top and the bottom?
CD: Yea, yea, about, let's see, get that haulage, get that one that's got that incline [referring to photograph label led: “Mountain Haulage, Kaymoor Mine No. 1, Jan. 1920"].
PN: This one?
CD: This one. You see this building right here?
PN: The building in the middle?
CD: Yea, right here. That track runs right around through here.
PN: Is that where the mine…?
CD: That was the mine level.
PN: That's where the driftmouth was located?
CD: Yea, yes sir. I wrote a jingle about, I'm a little bit bad about writing jingles. And I wrote one about that when I first come here.
PN: You did?
CD: We'd set up here on top and watch, look down the hill. And that was the busiest thing I ever saw. I’d never seen nothing like it, you know. Here would go a mainline motor going out the shop track. Here would go one with empties off to the slate run. Here went a car dropping out a load down at the bottom tipple. Here went a empt—, an empty coming in. And here was the coke extractor going around. And here was the beehive out there loading em. And here'd come in the shifter. And I never seen so much. [laughs] And you, and that was the prettiest little camp to stand on the top of the hill and look at, you know. So I wrote one that stayed there in that haulage I don't know, till somebody got it, I don't know. What a busy little, what a busy mining town Kaymoor was. Look at that, that was, of course that was just some of my foolishness. Then I went in there last fall, a year ago, and came back. And I wrote one after it tore down. [laughs]
PN: Let me just ask you a couple of more things about this [the same photograph]. So the mine itself was located midway?
CD: Yea, that's right.
PN: And what's this down here, the bottom tipple [referring to the photograph label led: "West Side Monitor Trestle, Kaymoor Mine No. 1, Jan. 1920"].
CD: That's the bottom tipple. Now let's see, that's
PN: Is that the headhouse?
CD: That's the headhouse.
PN: Where was that located?
CD: That's right at the coal seam.
PN: Right at the driftmouth, right?
CD: Yea, the coal, the mo tor come right out through here, went across the dump and backswitched [now discussing photograph label led: "Headhouse ,Mine No. 1, Kaymoor, W. Va., Jan. 1920].
PN: So it came out of the driftmouth…?
CD: Yea.
PN: Into the headhouse?
CD: Out a piece, and they had a switch there, and switched him back.
PN: Did it drop the coal at that time, when it was inside the headhouse?
CD: Yea, coal was, when he cut loose of his trip, and got switched out of the way, the coal started, they had a kicker bring 'em right on out and dump em.
PN: Did the car tip over?
CD: No, end dump, end dump.
PN: End dump?
CD: End dump.
PN: So they tipped it up like that [indicating an angle with my hands]?
CD: That's right.
PN: And what happened here? Did the coal then go down to the bottom tipple?
CD: Well, you see how it sloped there [referring to the down—hill side of the headhouse]?
PN: Yea.
CD: Well, does it show that, yea, that monitor? That's the monitor.
PN: Right at the bottom of the picture?
CD: Yea. Now he, he takes one right on down, he takes it right on down. Now this was in the twenties. Now this, this was rebuilt, this part. They tell me that part burnt down, and then they put up a modern — at that day [now referring to photograph of the "West Side Monitor Trestle"].
PN: This was the monitor trestle burnt down?
CD: This whole trestle and this structure [on left of photograph].
PN: The bottom tipple?
CD: Yea, the whole, this one. That whole thing burnt down.
PN: That would be the bottom tipple?
CD: Yea, that's the bottom tipple.
PN: Along the mainline C. and O. down there?
CD: Yea, down to the mainline. And I think, they tell me, now I don't, I 'm not, I've asked fellows, that they built a chute from the top down and run coal till, till they got this tipple fixed. They run coal right on to keep the coke ovens going. That, then they built this other.
PN: The coke ovens were right down near the river on the bottom too, right?
CD: Yea, they're not, just above the railroad a little bit. You see, see this locomotive right there [referring to photograph label led: "Coke Ovens, Looking West, Kaymoor, W. Va., Jan. 1920"]?
PN: In the picture of the coke ovens? Yea. What, is that New River?
CD: Yea, that's New River. If you turn that off [Mr. Davis left the room for a moment to get his own collection of photographs, which included some I did not have prints of. He also had clearer copies of all the prints I did have with me.]
PN: One of the pictures showed boxcars under the tipple of Kaymoor No. 2. Why did they use boxcars?
CD: Well, to keep the coal dry. Maybe they were going to ship it to Canada, or maybe they were going to ship it up in Maine, maybe they were going to ship it up Michigan somewhere where they wanted dry coal. And they put it in a boxcar.
PN: Did you have to load them differently from regular coal cars?
CD: Well, you had to get em in balance. You had to put as much in one end as you did in the other, cause it was, different.
PN: And you used a conveyor to load them?
CD: We had a little conveyor for that purpose, designed for that purpose.
PN: To load boxcars?
CD: You put your best, we had the, we used the old coke—oven's bin that come down to load this coke, that fit, that went down here and dropped the coke in the beehive oven. We used that bin, and we'd keep bug dust — or slack, we called it bug dust, we'd keep it in there for this particular purpose.
PN: To load into the boxcars?
CD: To load in boxcars. And we had this little conveyor attached, so we could load it. And whenever they wanted one, why, you don't want, you don't want to lose any business, so if he wants a boxcar and you can load it, why you load it.
PN: You were talking about the truck that moved people up and down the haulage. How did that operate? Was that on electric power?
CD: Yea. It had a big drum on top of the hill, and it was 2,300 feet of track. And it was about 2, 500 feet of dr—, of rope; you know, enough rope on there to give it, so it wouldn't be any danger of it pulling out. And the truck held 18 men, men coming to work.
PN: And there was only one truck that operated on the haulage?
CD: The one truck, that's all. It'd take 18 down and would take 18 up.
PN: And that would bring people both from the top camp and the bottom camp to the driftmouth?
CD: Yes, yes sir. Generally there wasn't as many men at the bottom. It 'd make, of a morning, and of evening, it'd make two trips to the top of the hill and one to the bottom. That was the ratio of equality to get the men up and down the hill.
PN: What did that truck look like?
CD: Well, it looked like a, a small made boxcar, you know, with trucks under it [trucks here meaning small and strong wheels] with all sides off. And then put small, just put a small sides on it. And them sides, you could them off.
PN: You could?
CD: Yea, you'd take the sides off. And they dropped down in loops, you know. And you 'd take em off, because if you load it up with heavy timber, well, you'd want to roll it off. And then that had a permanent end. And this back end up here was open all the, all the time.
PN: The short end was open?
CD: One where the rope hooked on.
PN: And people would get to the truck from that end?
CD: Yes, they got on from that end.
PN: When the truck was about halfway down the mountain, where the tracks coming out of the mine were, how did that go over that? Did it…
CD: Well it…
PN: Was it elevated there?
CD: No, this mine track, this was just went over the top. Your motors and everything could go under it.
PN: Oh, so it was, it was the…
CD: It was designed so that this track was high enough that your motors could go on to the shop, come from the shop, and things like that.
PN: So the truck actually would go over the track then that the…
CD: Well, it went over the mine track; actually it was high enough to do that. It wasn't, just, just designed, you know, the track was over agin the hill, you see. And when it come off here, why the motor over there when it landed, here where the men were going to get off, why your motors still could operate all right. You just, if there was a motor a'coming, men had to watch or be careful.
PN: But one could go under the other, or not?
CD: One…
PN: Was the track that the motor from the mine was running on, was that a different track?
CD: They were different tracks. They weren't, this track [that] come out of the mine, it didn't have nothing to do with this haulage.
PN: OK, yea, OK.
CD: It didn't have anything to do with that part of it.
PN: Were any other tracks going, going down the hill of any kind?
CD: They had monitor track.
PN: A monitor track?
CD: That's all.
PN: And the monitor was totally separate from the haulage?
CD: Oh yes. Now the monitor hauled over from this big head—, this headhouse we call it. Now that monitor, let me get it, let me get [looking among his photographs]. A monitor hauled [short break in recording]. A monitor when loaded, it'd hold about the present—day monitor when the mine shut down - would hold about six ton. Now this load pulled the empty back up, it was a double track. And when it pulled that empty back up, it went under a chute over on the other side where, where its track was. There was two, two chutes there to load on. And you would, this one would load on this side; and when it dumped, when it got down to the bottom, they went over some “knuckles." And they had some "ears" on the side of them door, that door. And when it went over that knuckle, it raised that door up, and the coal went out.
PN: So the mine cars brought the coal out of the driftmouth in, into the headhouse, and the headhouse…?
CD: They went, we had a, right here, there was a “creeper" we call it.
PN:A "creeper"?
CD: Yea, we call it a creeper; it had "dogs" on it. And it operated all the time. One of them cars went over the dump and come back, then went up on this track. And these dogs just kept 'em a’going.
PN: What were "dogs"?
CD: Well, we called em; they were catches. We called 'em dogs, but they set, if the car had a spring in it, it would spring down till the car got over it. And then when it, it'd catch it catch the wheel, either front or back of the car, you see, and keep it a'going right on up. And the next one come along, it would do the same thing.
PN: And it would dump the coal out at the top?
CD: The coal was already dumped out of that, see. It was dumped over here with the, down where they come out of the driftmouth here. And he dumped in the chute. But these empties, then the mainline has done switched around all this. See they brought this up here, high enough when it come out here, they brought it up high enough…
PN: Coming out of the driftmouth?
CD: Yea, so that this motor could go, come on out here and go around, and then, they didn't have…
PN: Did the motors actually go inside the headhouse?
CD: They went down a piece.
PN: And then they'd switch back?
CD: And then they'd switch back; they didn't go clear over.
PN: Was there a big cement structure or something inside the headhouse where they…
CD: No, it was out of heavy wood.
PN: Heavy wood?
CD: And they kept heavy sheet metal on it. Every once in a while, you 'd have to put a new sheet on it.
PN: But the coal then, from the headhouse, would go into these monitors, right? And the monitors would bring them [ the coal] down to the…
CD: Take it to the tipple.
PN: And then that was the mainline…?
CD: Now this, this, what I was going to say about this, now this old thing here burnt down.
PN: That old monitor track.
CD: Now the monitor at that time, they tell me, run clear out here.
PN: That was the, 19—, back in 1920.
CD: '20. But now when I came here, the monitor landed right there, and they had belt conveyor and steel trestle to come out here to the tipple.
PN: So, so back then, the monitor came all the way out to the actual bottom tipple?
CD: The monitor come clear out here.
PN: But later when, when you were there, it stopped and…?
CD: When, after this burnt down, when they rebuilt it, they put in a belt conveyor from the, right, right there out. And you had another, there’s another bin down here then. And it held, it held something like 60 ton, and this one here, up here, held about 150 ton.
PN: The bin at the headhouse?
CD: Yea.
PN: Right around the headhouse, in one of these pictures, there's a, is there another small structure or tipple of some kind near the headhouse? Or was that the only building there?
CD: Well, they had this building and the shop.
PN: That was where they repaired the equipment?
CD: Now in late years, they built right over behind this a mine foreman’s superintendent 's office and a lamphouse.
PN: Oh, that was up Coward the hill?
CD: Yea, right agin' the hill. Now around the hill, where we was talking about these motors would run, they had a shop, repair shop and they would repair. What they done when, what they done, they didn't build a building. They had such a huge structure around there the mule barn. They just made a pit in that there, and poured it out of concrete, and used that mule barn redesigned it, so they could work on motors and things.
PN: Oh really?
CD: That's what, what they actually done.
PN: Oh, so it used to be a mule barn?
CD: Yea, it used to be the mule barn.
PN: And when did they redesign it?
CD: Well, you done asked, redesigned, it was redesigned when I was there. I would say after the begin to get motors.
PN: And there was a big concrete…
CD: Pit.
PN: Pit in there?
CD: Yea, that, that's where you go down and get under and take the bolts out and your ax—, loosen your axles, and going to put new trucks under your motors and things like that, see.
PN: So when that was put in, the concrete pit was put in after it had been converted from the mule barn?
CD: Yea, from the mule, mule barn, yea.
PN: The mule barn was just a wood structure?
CD: Wood structure. Now that, that's what they actually did to that, see. Of course they, coal mine there, that same mine had many different days. At one time it was, it started out mechanically using a puncher.
PN: The mine?
CD: Yea, and they had a compressor house down at the bottom of the hill. But that didn't prove satisfactory very long. And then they come along with the breast machine, and that didn't last very long. And all them things just adding up till they got to where; by the, 1917, about half the coal that was mined on New River was still pick mining. And the only mine that I can find in that book over there [a state report on all coal mines] that was totally mechanical was Batchman down here. All the rest of them in 1917 primarily were pick mining. But what they was getting away from, the market had got so bad, so many, so much fines on the market, there wasn't a market for all of it. So all these little mines put in coke ovens. That's why there's so many coke ovens up and down New River. That, that's like everything else. If you, you can over do that too. If you overdo putting in coal mines, you can overdo putting in coke ovens. About the game thing, you see. And that's what, that's what happened in all that.
PN: Let me just ask you a couple of other quick questions about the, around the driftmouth. Were there two driftmouth, or just one there?
CD: Well, you got one, there we had three.
PN: Three?
CD: Yea.
PN: And did they have any different purposes?
CD: Yea. One, your loads came out. One, your empties went back In. And one, your shop, went around to the shop.
PN: To bring in equipment?
CD: To take your motors, take in your sand, supplies you had to have it that way.
PN: So there were three different…?
CD: That's right,
PN: Did all the driftmouths connect to the main haulage, on the main haulage?
CD: Yea, they all op—, all different openings. There were three different openings.
PN: Did they eventually come together?
CD: Yes, they did. They eventually come up at the, what they called the dispatcher's shanty.
PN: Inside?
CD: Yea, eventually they come…
PN: How far inside was that?
CD: Oh I 'd say 400 feet, five. Right there then, that's where they all come together. And that's where your…
PN: Was there a big slate dump there at, on the top? Was there any slate dump there? Did they clean coal?
CD: Yes sir. Now, there's a fellow by the name of Joe Honeycutt from
Charleston, is over here salvaging that slate dump.
PN: Taking the coal that…
CD: And all he wants is the fines, he says. If you want to see something interesting, it's worth looking at.
PN: Watching him salvage the slate dump?
CD: Watching him salvage it. Now he don't, he got a big shaker. And back behind, it's a big end—loader. He just gets a big load of that slate, tree roots and all, and dumps it on there. And it shakes the big stuff off, and the fines go on this conveyor. Then it goes on out here, and it goes up, and it goes through another shaker. All fines go over here in a pile. And all that size goes out there in a pile.
PN: What, about as big as a nut?
CD: Yea. And all the rest of the slate goes out that way, the slate.
PN: Back then when you were, you know, working there, how did they, where did they clean the coal? Right in the headhouse, did they separate anything?
CD: Well, no, it was hand—loading. And the miner primarily cleaned it himself.
PN: So they had separate cars coming out with the slate?
CD: Yea, each car come out, it, we checked him close. And if it's too dirty, we sent it to the slate dump.
PN: Bow did you actually, but sometime a miner, when they were loading, would load an entire car of slate, or…
CD: Oh well, we had a slate hoist. That's what I’m talking about. Now Elmore, the people were dumping alongside of the mountain.
PN: But you couldn't there?
CD: But it was going to the, the C. and O. was kicking. It was sliding down on them, in slide—, in piles. Maybe it was giving them a little trouble of their own there around the coke ovens, I 'm not sure. Then they went on top of the mountain.
PN: At Lowmoor?
CD: No, New River—Pocahontas. [I was confused at this point, thinking Lowmoor was the name of a town near Kaymoor.]
PN: At Kaymoor?
CD: Yea, about 19 and, oh let me say 29. And they started right down, so when they come out down through that hole, it would be on the ground level. And they just lay track right on down to the mines. And they laid a switch here slate would be here and they'd keep that slate scotched ["scotch" meaning to block with a chock] back, one car. And when they brought that, took that up there and dumped It, he'd drop this empty down. It went down under this tipple. And reach over here and get him another slate car, send it up the mountain.
PN: What, it was a hoist that got…
CD: There was another hoist over there.
PN: Where was that located? Was that located near that track for the truck?
CD: Right on, oh let me say it, eight or nine hundred feet, as the bird fly over.
PN: Yea, did it run on [the tape is interrupted briefly here, since this next section was re—recorded, the first discussion being so confusing]. So you were saying that, when the slate came out of the mine, it would go through the headhouse and then be brought on a track four or five hundred feet?
CD: It would, when it was, it was switched like this car, this man ['s] load [ed] motor come out. And he had 20 cars of coal, and he had five cars that of slate. We had a fellow/ switched them slates out on this track. And they went around on coal—seam level for about, If it [was] just one, it would go around there about 150 feet. And then he'd hook on to it, and take it up the top of the mountain.
PN: And that was the hoist?
CD: And it would go through the tunnel, yea, hook that rope, had about 800 foot of rope on it. And it'd go through this tunnel, dump in what we called a "larry" — that was [the] common name for it as far as I'm concerned. And then it'd go back, drop that empty back, go back down to the bottom, switch it on out on the empty track. Get him another slate. And that went on, routine, day after day.
PN: Was only one mine car full of slate hauled up at the same time?
CD: That's all they could handle.
PN: And you said the larry then could fit five or six mine cars?
CD: Yea, you just keep dumping in it, you see, till it loaded.
PN: And you said that one was a front—…?
CD: Yea, there's a
PN: An end—dump?
CD: End—dump was smaller.
PN: And a side—dump?
CD: Yea, it was smaller than the side—dump.
PN: Why were there two different ones?
CD: Well, you got to build track on out there. And this larry, dumping off the side, won't keep your track going. So you just keep dumping off the end with the end—dump. And if you get as far out as you're going to go with your end—dump, then [you] use your side—dump altogether. And that's the way that, that's the way that slate was handled.
PN: And you were saying that after the coke ovens shut down in 35, that they began dumping some slate on top of the ovens, where the ovens used to
CD: Yea, but that was, that, now that wasn't this mine slate. This was washer refuse.
PN: Oh, I see.
CD: But you see, we had a jig—washer down there. And everything above five— eight slack went through the washer. Whatever that jig—washer put out, they had a little old thing there that would load up, they'd load it with all this, come out of this slate box, take it down there and dump it.
PN: Over the coke ovens?
CD: Yea.
PN: So some of the coke ovens are covered up today?
CD: Now I'd say they are, yea.
PN: Let me ask you another thing. You mentioned before there used to be an iron mine at Lowmoor?
CD: At Lowmoor.
PN: Could you just say a few words about that?
CD: Well, I don't, I 've asked about it. Now I was told that they had 19 or 20 foot of iron ore. But it was such poor quality, see, that it wouldn't compete with a, this Mesabi Range iron ore; that, but this, they had just about had to go out of the iron ore business. They probably were small people, and hadn't enlarged as they went along. And that's what I say, that's what happens to many people, happened to many coal operators. He's little and he directly gets caught in the bind. Now that…
PN: Do you know what the name of the company was that owned the iron mine?
CD: The Lowmoor Iron Company, called the Lowmoor Iron Company.
PN: And where did that come from originally?
CD: Lowmoor.
PN: Lowmoor?
CD: Virginia.
PN: Was that, do you know when the iron mine opened and when it shut?
CD: No, I don't, but I'd say, I’d say it shut down maybe around fif—, going on when this company bought it New River and Pocahontas bought 'em out. It was around 1924 or 25. They just bought their coal reserves, see.
PN: But they were mining iron up until the mid—twenties maybe?
CD: Well probably, yea. And their coal, they had vast coal reserves here in this field; I believe they had 40,000 acres.
PN: Was this Lowmoor?
CD: Yea. That's the reason why New River and Pocahontas bought it. They might have, they might have been able to buy it at a broker's market, or saw it in a coal, in some of these journals that could be picked up, you see, and they just picked it out.
PN: Do you have any idea how many men worked at this iron mine when it was in operation?
CD: I, I wouldn't, I just wouldn't know.
PN: You said it was probably about a 20, 24 foot seam, or vein?
CD: Well, they said it was a pretty good height, from what the fellows told me. Now there was one or two men come from down there, two or three, that worked on the coke ovens. They come from down in there.
PN: And they had worked in the iron mines?
CD: I, I guess they had worked on something down there, and then they were transferred here. I know this hoisting engineer, I was told, started down there at Lowmoor. And he was on that hoist when, when I come here. you know when you're not too con—, you're busy with everything else, and you're not, it's not in your line of business [laughs], you forget to ask questions. [laughs] Isn't that right? You just forget to ask these things. Then you could ask a million.
PN: And how far was this Lowmoor, where this mine was, from Kaymoor?
CD: Well, I went by there. It's down, it's on the, what is that, Jackson River that goes by Covington; it's on down past there somewhere.
PN: How about this iron mine that, there was an iron mine though that was right near, near Kaymoor?
CD: No, no, no, it was down in Virginia.
PN: Oh, oh, oh, oh, it wasn't on the New River?
CD: Lowmoor, Virginia.
PN: It was over in Lowmoor there.
CD: Yea, it was, It was down in Virginia.
PN: But they owned the, but they owned the coal…
CD: They owned this coal reserve here. And the iron, they smelted it down there in Virginia.
PN: Virginia. And they were using the coal from New River in their iron…
CD: From here, yea.
PN: I see.
CD: The monitor come clear out here.
PN: But later when, when you were there, it stopped and…?
CD: When, after this burnt down, when they rebuilt it, they put in a belt conveyor from the, right, right there out. And you had another, there's another bin down here then. And it held, it held something like 60 ton, and this one here, up here, held about 150 ton.
PN: The bin at the headhouse?
CD: Yea.
PN: Right around the headhouse, in one of these pictures, there's a, is there another small structure or tipple of some kind near the headhouse? Or was that the only building there?
CD: Well, they had this building and the shop.
PN: That was where they repaired the equipment?
CD: Now in late years, they built right over behind this mine foreman's/superintendent's office and a lamphouse.
PN: Oh, that was up toward the hill?
CD: Yea, right agin' the hill. Now around the hill, where we was talking.
[End of Tape]
Oral History Project - Derenge, William 1980 Part 1
Company Store Operator, Royal, Terry, Prince, Layland, Greenwood, early 1900's, mining explosions
PN: Mr. Derenge, maybe you could start off by saying what date that you were born and where you were born.
WD: I was born in Freeland, Pennsylvania in the year 1981. My father moved to West Virginia, oh about, 1900.
PN: What did your father do? Was he a coal miner?
WD: He was a coal miner, yea. And we were on Loup Creek, at Dunloup, just about a mile below Mt. Hope. It's a ghost town now. From there, he went down to Thurmond. He worked the mines in Thurmond. Of course, I was just a small lad then. He worked at Thurmond about over a year, and things didn't go right, so he went down to Red Ash.
PN: Your father? He went to Red Ash after Thurmond?
WD: Yea, he went to Red Ash. They had an explosion at Rush Run about a year before that. So he went to work about a year after that. And he worked at Red Ash about two years, I suppose.
PN: About two years?
WD: About two years, yea. Dad had a skift [meaning skiff] hand made, on the New River there. The water's quiet there along Fire Creek. And had them on that river about an hour's time, about half my time. 1 used to haul water. Water was scarce over on our side; I used to cross the river at Fire Creek and get a boiler full of water in the boat.
PN: You went across the river on this skiff?
WD: Across the river. And they had no system of delivering any coal. I recall one time, I went up to the tipple and carried it down, two buckets at a time — coal — and loaded up the skiff. And it was down, almost that much about water.
PN: What, about five inches?
WD: Mm. Go down there about a mile. And the same thing, I carried my buckets full up to the house.
PN: Of coal?
WD: Of coal, yea. After we was there about two years, my father was going up here to Prince, to Royal —— the mines was working. And after the first year, between the school times, I went to the mines and worked with him. That went on for about three years.
PN: So you started working in the mines yourself at Prince?
WD: Across the river from Prince.
PN: How old were you then?
WD: Let's see, I was about 11 years old.
PN: What was the year that you said you started working?
WD: Huh?
PN: What was the year when you started to work?
WD: 1902. Yes, I worked in 1902. Worked there on and off between the school terms about three years, till my father come out and got a piece of property, or farm, here at Springdale. And so we left Royal and went to Springdale, and he farmed one year. Then he went back to the coal mine, and of course, I went with him. The next place we went to work was Greenwood on Laurel Creek, and Brown was what it was called.
PN: Greenwood?
WD: Greenwood, or Brownwood.
PN: Or Brownwood?
WD: Yea.
PN: Where's that near, Layland?
WD: Yea, just about a mile below Layland, hardly a mile. Layland tipple was just inside of Greenwood tipple. Worked there about, I don't know, three or four years. That's where my father, he got seriously hurt in a slate fall, fell on him in the Greenwood Mines. So he went out of the mines for about a year. My father couldn't, he was almost paralyzed for about a year. So I asked if he was going back in the mines again, because in them days, there was no workmen's compensation or anything like that. You was all on your own. And so, we went back to Greenwood and went to work again. It was mostly what work I could do. He wasn't hardly able to do anything.
PN: He was hurt at the Greenwood Mine? Your father was hurt there?
WD: He was hurt there, yea. And so we worked there. And Lay land a t that time was called Gentry. It opened up and started working; my father tried to get a job there, but he knew the mine foreman they were old Pennsylvania buddies — he wouldn't hire him. Found out later they weren 't allowed to hire any of Mr. Brown's men, you know.
PN: Why?
WD: Well, they got a right—of—way ditions they wouldn't hire any of best men away from him. After he belonged to New River—Pocahontas, through their property under the con— his men. So they wouldn't take the found that out, we went to Minden, which that was Lay land then [?], and worked there two months, and then come back there, and he hired him right off. Told him he worked at Minden, so that was different.
PN: Do you remember what Royal looked like back in 1902 when you started working there?
WD: What?
PN: Do you remember what the town looked like then?
WD: Which, Layland?
PN: No, Royal.
WD: Well, Royal was just a, common old houses built with strips, boards up and down, strips. It was typical miners' houses of that day and time. Of course, now, Layland, they build pretty good houses there. Of course, there are not many of them left now; they tore down at least part of them after the mines worked down. I think there's only about a dozen or so left now.
PN: In Layland?
WD: Left down there. Well, I forget where I was now.
PN: How about Royal? When you lived in Royal in 1902, how many people lived there?
WD: Oh, I don't know, it wasn't very big. It worked, say, I expect 75, or between 75 and 100.
PN: How many homes were there there?
WD: Oh, I just can h: hardly recall. If I had a little more time I could say. You're going to have to shut it off for a while [referring to the tape recorder], and I can sit and tell you more accurate.
PN: We can come back to that later then if you want to. %at, when you lived in a place like Royal, what did people do there for entertainment or for fun?
WD: There weren't any. They didn't have any moving—picture show, till we was at Lay land, several years before the first moving picture, moving house, well, was at Lay land. That was around 1906 or 07.
PN: They did have a movie, they did have a moving picture house at Layland by 1907?
WD: Yea, about that time.
PN: Did they have bars or saloons around there then?
WD: Did they have what?
PN: Bars or taverns?
WD: Oh yes, they had a fellow, name was Alex Salveras, saloon just, just before you come into town. And he was kind of a pretty, pretty rough. Somebody done something he saw and didn't like it, he took a blackjack and beat 'em up and throwed ‘em out. That was the law of the land at that time. Coal, in these coal camps like, they only had what they called a detective. Nowadays, they call them Baldwin thugs, and so he was depending on them to keeping order, and keeping any organizers from coming in, and so on. If he got suspicious you was an organizer or something, he told you to get out of town. And if you didn't go, why he, he'd see you did go. he made you go.
PN: These detectives?
WD: Yea.
PN: Were they the Baldwin—Felts?
WD: The Baldwin—Felts, yea. This fellow, laat man there, they had a man there by the name of Payne there for a good while. And he got in bad with the company and they fired him. And a fellow by the name of Green…
PN: In between?
WD: Green, took his place.
PN: Green?
WD: Uh huh. He was, he was a more decent man than the other one. Payne tried to be hard—boiled.
PN: Where was this, this was at Layland?
WD: Layland, yes, along about 1907—08, along there. We worked from about
1907 till about 1912, I guess, on and off. I think my father [was on] the farm one year.
PN: When did, did you move from Lay land to Eccles?
WD: Eccles, I don't know where that come in. It was, I don't just remember what it was, which one. Now up at Eccles, I was on my own. I didn't work [with] my father along in there. So I worked till, Lay land, had for a buddy a German. And he got dissatisfied [with] Layland, so he talked me into going to Pennsylvania —— Hermanie, Pennsylvania. Talked like things, milk and honey up there. When he got up there, why he didn't [see] any milk and honey, and I didn't either. We worked about two weeks, and come back to West Virginia. First went to Logan; went to work, work us, a guy up there said he was only working one, two day a week.
PN: Where, in Logan?
WD: At Logan, yea. So we didn't even ask for a job. And someone told us Eccles was a good place to work. It was some 50 mile away from there on the Virginia Road [meaning the Norfolk and Western Railroad]. So we went to Eccles and got a job and went to work. And we done real well. We worked pillars and pick work. We worked there till, I don't know, spring one year, they got in a labor dispute, and the mines went on strike. And so, I didn't feel, I wasn't going to go back and go in there and what they call scab. So I left there and went out in the country in Springdale at home, and went to work in the woods.
PN: At Springdale?
WD: Springdale. I worked in the woods cutting timber until this thing was settled. And s o I went back to Eccles about, it must have been about 1913, and worked for some time. And on Mar—, April 28, 1914, No. 5 Eccles blowed up. And I was working No. 6. And No. 5 and 6 connect up with a "false—bottom shaft" they call it. And everyone that was around close to the shaft, blown all to hell. We was farther back, and when we was farther back, we could run into this after—damp and suffocated, but we got out.
[Afterdamp is a general term applied to the gasses present inside a mine after an explosion, usually meaning that there are dangerous quantities of carbon monoxide present, accompanied by a lack of oxygen. Carbon monoxide will produce collapse after an hour in concentrations of 0.12 — 0.16%, and will cause unconcsiousness within a few minutes in quantities of 0.5% or more.]
So we got out that same evening; we wait till about 6:00. They got, the explosion wrecked the cage; they got one of the cage, cages working. And so they lifted us all, all out. Well, I have a little story there. We come within, oh, 300 or 400 yards of the shaft bottom. They said the smoke's and fume’s so bad, didn't think we would make it. So they all stopped there. And there's three of us went back to our working—place to get some canvas something to build a barricade with, trying to stay away from the poison fumes. And while we was going back, well No. 5 blew up the second time.
PN: The same day?
WD: Yea. And so we just supposed that all them men close to the bottom of the shaft got killed. And we didn't want to [move] no more, so we barricaded ourselves off, close to where we was working. Cause the air was still clear up there, we got, there. And we stayed there till rescue party come after us. When they got down there, they found this bunch of men. And they wanted to know, was there anymore. They told them, "Yea, there's three men went back. Something must have happened to them. They never did come back. Course we didn't come back, cause we was afraid to. And so they got us out, and we got out about six o'clock I would say.
PN: About six o'clock?
WD: Six o 'clock in the evening.
PN: When did the explosion take place?
WD: When? About two o clock in the afternoon. And we got out about six o'clock that same, same afternoon.
PN: What was that, about four, four hours later?
WD: Something like that.
PN: That you were trapped in there?
WD: Four or five hours.
PN: How did they get you out? Did they fix the cage?
WD: I was going to say, they had got the cage working, anyhow, they hoist us out, normal, I might say, the guides was a little rough on the cage, but still, they made it through.
PN: How many feet under the ground was that? About 400?
WD: How's that?
PN: How deep?
WD: No. 6 is 550 feet, and they had to just half, no , 550 feet to No. 5 And we was halfway, about 200 and some feet down.
PN: That's where you were working on the seam?
WD: We was, our, No. 5, or 6 level was about half, just exact1y halfway. The cages passed each other, mm.
PN: What was your feeling when you came out of the mine then?
WD: Well [laughs], I, my feeling was I was just as glad, glad I got out. And of course I got enough fumes; I got a headache and was sick awhile. I didn't require no medication; it soon wore off.
PN: What was the feelings of the people in the town that night?
WD: Well, there was people there from all over. And they stayed, people there from all over West Virginia. It was like a circus day. You couldn't hardly get around to nowhere. And of course, people that just heard about it come there. And a lot of people who had relatives, you know, and different, and all those countries, there was. You see, there was 186 men killed in No. 5. And there was about 14 killed in No. 6. And people like to came there from all over the country, you know. There was one or two curiosity —seekers, and the others come there to see about their people. They had them all relatives from all over the country. That was a pretty that turn, big mine; 186 was killed. Of course, everyone in No. 5 was killed; wasn't one guy out alive.
PN: Everybody in No. 5?
WD: Yea. And I don't really know how much was No. 6, but No. 6 was a small mine. I'd say about 50 of them got out alive.
PN: What did you, what did you do right after that? Did you stay in Eccles, and did they reopen the mine right away?
WD: No I didn't, some of my friends from down in Terry at - the mouth of Piney Creek. Do you know where Terry is?
PN: Yea.
WD: I was there, and they asked me what I was going to do. And 1 say, "Well, I can go back in there and work. But I say not. Well they say, "Come on down to Terry. Terry was a good place to work. And I told them, "Well, I '11 get my board and things straightened up, and I 'd come down." Which I did. I drawed what little pay I had coming, and paid up my board.
PN: Where, at Eccles?
WD: And I went to Terry, went to work at Terry. And I worked there I don't know exactly how, I went to work about a week after Layland, or [correcting himself] Eccles explosion. About a week, I was down in Terry. And I worked there for 10 months. And I worked there, and the work begin getting slack in February. So I told someone I wasn't going to lay around there. Go back to Layland; they work six days a week around the clock. And I 'd go back to Layland, which I did. I went up there on the first day of March and got a job. And I went to work on Tuesday, March the 2nd. And it blowed up on Tuesday in about ten minutes after I got to my working place.
PN: It blew up?
WD : It blew up. I happened, it got, I asked the you going to send me to?" And he said, “On tenth left.” And I said, “Who’s working that side? I know a lot of people here.” He told me, "Errol Laurentz.”
PN: Earl Lawrence?
WD: A—u—r—e—n—t—z. It sound like, it all sound like Lawrence. Aurentz.
PN: Aurentz?
WD: And I told him, “Well I know him quite well. He's." I said, “I can find my own way. You don't have to show it to me. You can tell me where it is." He says, "Number three room on tenth left.” So I struck out. They all walked in on foot. They didn't have no man—trip. So I struck out. And he say, "You can put your tools on that motor there. He's going up there now to pick up a load.” So he, I put, I put tools on top of the motor. And he told them where I get, where to take them off. So when I got up there, Aurentz looked around to see who it was. He was tickled to death. He jumped up and hugged me. He said, “I sure am glad I got you for a buddy.” He said just the Saturday before his old buddy had quit and left. He'd come out in the country here at Greenbrier out to his place. He said, “I sure am glad they send you in here instead of someone of no count." The way it was, then you were buddies. You shared half and half whether you done anything or not, you might say.
PN: Do what?
WD: I say you shared half and half. Each one checked car about [referring to practice of each coal—loader putting his brass check on each car loaded in a room], regardless how much more one worked than the other. And some fellows was naturally lazy. Well, they didn't put their part. And when we talked there for a few minutes and, the mine blowed up and there's such a concussion. There's no way to describe it, only it seemed like it numbed you all over. You can't think of anything.
PN: Really?
WD: And the compression's so great. When that compression lets loose, well you come back to your senses.
PN: Does it press in on your ears and everything?
WD: Well just the compression's so great, you know. It's almost enough to bust your ear drums. Not no noise, but just the air compressed.
PN: You didn't hear it? You don't hear anything?
WD: You don't hear nothing, just compression. And so after it let loose, he said, "Bill, what is that?" I said, “Well, it's an explosion.” Isaid, "Was any of the gas here?" Well he says, “There’s not much gas here. There’s a little bit up on the main headings.” And I said, “ If it's up in the main heading, well we'll try to get out of here."
PN: A what, a little bit of what?
WD : He said, ' 'It 's up in, a little bit of gas, up in the main headings .
PN: In the main headings?
WD: Yea, we was on tenth left. And so I said , “If that's the case, we better try to get out of here before the poison fumes gets everywhere. Get our on the main entry. That motor that brought my tools in here; they just went out. And the first man we seen dead was right at the switch— points. He blowed off of this trip [which] was going out, just, just left there. And some, we went on down and come to where the trip was, and one was laying on top of the motor head up on his arms like that —— he was dead.
PN: What, the motorman?
WD: Yea. And we were right at the mouth of ninth left. And all the men out of ninth left was coming out. And it was getting, the fumes was getting so strong, you couldn't hardly breathe in. I said, ' 'Let's go back. And we was alongside a trip of cars. And it was lucky, it was lucky, though, they they obeyed. Everybody turned around and s tar ted back. And when we got up on tenth left, going up in there — ' 'Let's go up in here and we can talk" —— about that time we met all the men out of the main entries was coming out. 1 told them the air was good in tenth left. And I said, "There's only one chance we 've got [of] surviving. They wondered what that was. I says, "Build a barricade." And some of ‘em wanted to know what good would it, good would that do, and so on. Of course I explained it as quick as I could. I told them, "The main thing of it is to seal this fumes off, and we can live, live several days with sound air there. Well when they seen the point, well they all pitched in then to, for uu to do that.
PN: So all of them went this, to tenth left?
WD: Yea, we…
PN: And then you barricaded it?
WD: We went just, just inside of tenth left, above, above the main air course. And we build us one, just a temporary one. And then we further back, we build a little better use rocks and use this here fine coal dust for mortar [laughs].
PN: Really?
WD: That's the only thing I had.
PN: You didn't have any cement, so you had to use the coal dust?
PN: I said, you didn't have any cement there, so you had to use the coal dust instead?
WD: No, didn't have none. Use this damp, damp dust for mortar. Well after some, some time, smell was coming through it. Let's see, this was on Tuesday. So on Wednesday then, I told, "Well the only thing we can do is build, build another barricade.
PN: Another one?
WD: And so we build one right, what we called, right where the “gob entry.” If you know what we're talking about, a gob entry's where they take coal out and throw the slate back in that space there. They call that a gob. So got out gob, and took the big pieces and made a wall, and fill in between the wall with fine dirt we got out of the track and so on. Build a wall about five—foot thick.
PN: What was that, the third one you built?
WD: Two altogether; third one, yea.
PN: This was the third one you built?
WD: Yea and it held. We never could, could never smell no fumes after that. So one the Thursday, we had, I'd say, 42 of us got out. There was 30 of them — probably Italians, diff—, foreigners. So they got restless and on Thursday and said they're going to leave us in there to die. [Just as well] try to go. out. 1 said, "Well," I said, "You 're not talking about we going. I'm not a' going, I said. "Let one go out and if one makes it, well, the rest of us can make it. So this fellow Tony I got acquainted with him several years back when he and my father worked together and he said, "All right, he said, "1 '11 go. " I told him, "Well it don't make an difference to me who goes. But I don't think it's any sense more than one go, because if you go down, that '11 be one. But if all of us go, we'll all go down." He said, "That's a good Idea, he said, "I'll go."
PN; What was his name?
WD: His name was Tony. I never did, I never did learn his last name. And so, and I known him real well too. He was just Tony, Tony, that 's all. So we broke a pick handle out. And told him we'd slide the pick handle along on a trolley wire. And he, you know, knowed he was all right so long he followed that trolley wire take him to the outside. And I told him he couldn't take no light. Well he balked then. He said, oh, he wouldn't go without a light. But I told him he can't take no light, cause he '11 blow up and kill everybody outside and us too. And he seen the point, he didn't insist on it anymore. Well, he said, he '11 go anyway. And I give him, I tore up a piece of what we call "shooting paper", “dummy paper" we called it. And I wrote on there — "42 men alive" and dated it. I told him, "You take this with you now. If you don't make it, well they '11 find this paper and they'll know where we are. Well he kept just sliding the pick, you know, we told him to rap on the pick on the trolley wire — sound goes a long ways, you know. He kept saying, "OK, OK, OK, everything OK." And all of a sudden, no more "OK”. And we got listening to him thumping on the bottom. So I said, ' 'Well, he's down. I said, "Shall we try to get him or not?" And some, I don't know who the other man was, but he said, ' 'Yea, let's go and try to get him. I said: “Take good deep breath. And let the breath out a little at a time as you can. And breathe air very little, be— cause the same thing that happened to him’ll happen to us.” And first, he grabbed him by the legs and started dragging him, his head a 'bumping on the side, and bumping hard on the ribs. So [he] change holds and grabbed him by the hands and pulled him. Pull him up and shove him through the hole we had in the wall. Just took a hole out big enough for a man to crawl through. We shoved him through, and he crawled through hisself, and sealed it up again.
PN: You saved his life then, that way?
WD: Yea. He lay down just like a dead man, don't move even. After about five minutes, he begin breathing heavy. And then he start moaning. And I said, "Well, I believe he's going to be all right." In about 15 minutes, he set up and looked real wild. And I said, “Tony, what's the matter?" I said, “Why didn't you go outside like you said you was?" He said, "Oh Bill, all I know, my legs go to sleep.” So that was on Thursday. And after that we didn't have no trouble of anybody wanting to go [laughs].
PN: What was he breathing. Was that afterdamp or something?
WD: Oh yea, he run right into it.
PN: And the afterdamp was what made him collapse?
WD: Collapse, yes. And He said, "All I know," he said, "Bill, my legs go to sleep. And that's the last thing I remembered. But anyway after, the meantime while I was in there, we had no food or water much. There was 42 of us and we only had, I think, about five dinner pails some of us who were working left. And the rest of these fellows in the mines left and they had, they never thought nothing about their buckets. They just wanting to get out of there.
PN: You only had five pails?
WD: Only had about five pails. The first day, after [we] build these barricades, we had about one biscuit around, I think. And that was the end of our food supply. Of course, water would last so long; we didn't have very much of that either. And our biggest trouble was that we didn't have no water. And so the men went around and pick up the scraps where the men eat their lunch, you know, pieces of moldy bread and things. And some of them took the strips out of egg shells and eat the stripping. And some went so far as to eat leather on their shoes and chewed on that.
PN: And they were eating the leather from their shoes?
WD: Yea. Lot of them says you get some substance out of it. And I experiment eating, peeling the inside of bark of chestnut. About that time, there was plenty of chestnuts, you know.
PN: Chestnut?
WD: Chestnut wood. I don't know if that was in the old time or not. But this, along about then, about half of the timber in the woods was chestnuts. And the bark come off easy and had a thick, white layer in there. You scrape that, and it really taste good and sweet.
PN: It does?
WD: Well, I eat enough. I was elected, you know, to eat that thing, eat the bark. And the top of my mouth, there's acid in it, and it just eat up the top of my mouth. Like a horse that got "lampers" it all swolled up — and I couldn't eat no more.
PN: Really, your whole mouth swelled up?
WD: Yea, on account of soreness of the mouth
PN: Just like a horse, you said?
WD: A horse has lampers, you know? The roof of his mouth gets sore and swells up. Well that's the way my mouth was. So that ended my chestnut diet. And so we just had to set there and wait her out. Every now and then, somebody said they h eared something, you know. And after listening and listening for a long time, we found out it was just, just imagination. And there wasn't, didn't hear nothing. In the meantime, there was five men on ninth left. There was about 20 worked there. But they all left. But them five, they was back at the far end of ninth left. They done the same as we did, only they had more material. They had wood there, and they nailed up a wooden barricade. And on Saturday morning, they had a door or something, and then they'd get out and sample air. And it seemed like on Saturday, the air looked like it was pretty good. So they ventured and come outside.
PN: The men from ninth left?
WD: And when they come outside, they went on, they really bawled out them on the rescue (squad). Wanted to know why they didn't explore tenth or No. 3 mines. They said: “We were in there; there might be others in there." So they did. They vent, come in there, and they come across this paper where it said — "42 men alive on tenth left.” And they come right into where we were. I might have to add, they had the mine rescue car in them days, but they kept it up in Pittsburgh. And the ones that worked in there — most were some politicians' sons. And they didn't know anything about a coal mine. They knew how to use a breathing apparatus oxygen helmets and so on but as far as knowing anything about a mine, nothing about it.
PN: This was a rescue squad in Pittsburgh?
WD: How?
PN: The rescue car was in Pittsburgh?
WD: Yea, it was there and they had the rescue car is supposed to explore ahead of everybody else and report what they find. They come in No. 3, I guess. It exploded on Tuesday; they come up No. 3 about Wednesday. They said it was, tenth, No. 10 entry fell in from top to bottom. They didn't know a barricade from a slate fall! [laughs] That was the truth.
PN: They didn't?
WD: And so when they had a report, there wasn't anybody in No. 3 alive. so they didn't, they didn't explore it any more. Instead, they went to No. 4 and No. 5 —— it was off of No. 3 Main.
PN: Cause all these mines were really part of one mine?
WD: Yea, see, No. 4 was up, it was on another creek. No. 5 was still further. They went 2,000 feet into No. 4, and 2,000 feet into No. 5. Well the explosion happened up in No. 4. And of course, they just went all through all the mine. And so…
PN: So by Saturday, nobody was looking any more, right?
WD: No. They were just reporting everything where they'd been — everything, everybody was dead. The explosion really started from [the] substation, where it started from.
PN: A substation?
WD: That mine was so dry that you'd walk in dust above the ankles, just as fine as talcum powder. There the hills, they had good track 35, or [correcting himself] 45—pound steel. And they just turn them, going downhill, they just turned ‘em loose and let ‘em drift [motors and tram cars]. And they stirred up that dust. And ribs everywhere was laying full of dust. And what I was trying to get at there, they had a substation back there; it was cut in solid coal. And that substation get so hot at peaked load anytime. They had to shut it down sometimes, afraid it was going to burn up.
PN: What was the substation? Was that electric power?
WD: Yea, they boost the power.
PN: They boost the power?
WD: Anyway, this old man Atticus attend that substation. He had instructions, he had some fellow got the idea to put a fan in there to blow through the generators, help keep cool. It would, you know, blow that hot air out. And so, he was, the old man was instructed to start up that fan the next morning.
PN: Did it stir up the dust?
WD: They finished, they put the fan in Monday, and he had started up Tuesday. And when he started that fan, that just stirred a whole lot of dust up in there. And the breaker went out. And that circuit breaker 's what had set it off.
PN: The circuit breaker?
WD: Yea.
PN: What, was there a spark and then…?
WD: The circuit breaker is not just a spark. It was, it was a big arc usually always. Yea. I can't hardly describe it. Anyway, instead of a spark, it was a big arc, maybe that jumped that far.
PN: What, what almost a foot?
WD: Yea, when it breaks the circuit see, electric, you know. When you, you cut it, and have two wire and pull them apart, well they’ll arc you. Well that's what happened. That arc sets the dust off. Because this old man had a seat just back far enough, so that he wouldn't get too much cold air off the mainline or too much heat [from the] substation. If that happened up in No. 5 like they said it did well it's have blowed him back into the substation. But instead, he was laying right straight opposite the substation agin' another rib. * Do you want to shut that down a while?
[At this point, we took about an hour's break in the interview. Mr. Derenge was tired and short of breath, both because of his age and his Black Lung.]
PN: You were just saying that they started up this fan, which stirred the
dust up, which exploded?
WD: Yea.
PN: The people that did that, they must not have known too much about mining then, did they?
*One example of an official account which totally neglects the facts brought out in this account by William Derenge is: H. B . Humphrey, Historical Summary of Coal—Mine Explosions in the United States, 1810—1960, U. S. Bureau of Mines Bulletin 586 (Washington, D. C. Government Printing Office, 1960) pp. 72—74.
WD: How?
PN: I said the people that did that must not have known the mines.
WD: Well, at that time, just about anybody, but at that was a lot of things we didn't know. We had idea at that you had to have gas for the dust, before the dust would out after that it wasn't so. They can just, doub—, what double shots, an open shot?
PN: An open shot would?
WD: Yea, would set them off. And like in this case, you get the dust mixed just right, well this arc, electric arc, will set it off.
PN: People didn't know that then?
WD: Back in them days.
PN: That dust would explode?
WD: They didn't know that you see, and which later on they learned that. And anyway, they never did put that substation back in the mines anymore. They build It on top of the mountain and put the wire It shows there they're satisfied that's what done it. Of course they, they, during the investigation, they tried to put the blame on a blow—through shot.
PN: What's a blow—through shot?
WD: Oh, a blow—through shot is where the, say you have a, shots close to the edge that, when you’re going, going into another place. The shot, instead of blowing the coal here, [will] blow on through in the vacant place. And of course, if there's any dust and gas in there, it would set it off. But it isn't possible for anything to blow up, because that was all - nothing but water there.
PN: Why were they doing that? Were they driving an entry somewhere else?
WD: They, a man was working there, driving through what we call a break— through.
PN: So, you were in the Layland Mine from Tuesday until Saturday. And they found you on Saturday?
WD: Yea, we got out Saturday afternoon.
PN: What was the feelings of the people outside then?
WD: Oh, inside, it was, these, one, these five men come out — "There’s liable to be others, So naturally everybody hoped that their, their people was alive. And oh when we come out, they, oh, they swarmed and looking, looking all us over. Looking over all to see if someone, hoping that some of their people [was] in there. And there's, oh, out there, Lay land was just like it was in Eccles. The crowd just like circus day. You could hardly get through there, there was so many people there from all over the country.
PN: All the people in the town were right there too at the mine entry?
WD: Yea, for example, my Dad, he got the word that Lay land Mine blowed up. Well he knowed some way that I was; he said, well, I was working down at Terry. He [some other man] said: “No, he wasn't either he left Terry and went to Layland. So naturally he got in his horse and buggy and took off. And he was there too.
PN: Your father came up?
WD: Yea, and he was, him and the main mine foreman, Roly Nydell, were great friends. He went to Nyde11 and asked him, “Is that so that Billy was here to work?" “Yes, I give him a job on Monday. He's, he's in there somewhere. And so other people, you know, everybody that had people there, well naturally they was going there to see about them. And then, curiosity seekers too; more of them I guess than there were looking for relatives.
PN: Where was your father working at that time?
WD: Well he was out here in the country farming. He wasn't working in the mines at that time.
PN: Oh, he was on a farm then. So he came…?
WD: I was all on my own then. And I had been for several years. He lived out at Spring Dale on a farm. [Spring Dale is in the southeast corner of Fayette County.] Well, can you think of anything else?
PN: What? We could stop a minute if you want. [Short break] You were talking about the substation and how that set off the Layland explosion.
WD: After, I guess I’ll tell him [looking towards his wife], after I got out of Layland Mine, I decided I wanted to quit the coal mines for a while. I left there and went out in the country to my father's house, and went to work in the woods. I worked cutting timber, let's see, about a year. And I last worked, I first worked for Hutchinson's Company in Bellwood.
PN: Hutchinson? Hutchins?
WD: Hutchinson at Bellwood. And something went wrong there. I quit and went to Meadow River, and went down to Bear's Creek, and went to work at this swamp and roads. And I got together with a fellow by name of Louis Johnson from Oklahoma. And we become quite close friends and worked together. And the winters, very severe winter of 19 — between 1913 and 14. And so, we were just working along. We thought we had a road stake. I remember I wanted to cash up; I had $110. And at that time, Meadow River paid off all in gold 50, or 20 gold, $100 and $20 gold piece, and a $10 gold piece. That's the way they paid off.
PN: Meadow River is right on the New River, isn't it?
WD: No, Meadow River, [Meadow] Creek's on Meadow River.
PN: That's right, that's right, yea, it doesn't flow into there.
WD: Well, anyway, we walked all the way to Rainelle. And of course the bank didn't open till nine o'clock, so we couldn't get to Meadow Creek unless we walked. Well, I got ahead of myself there. We, when you…
PN: Might as well stop now.
[The first of two reels for Interview Ten ends here.]
Oral History Project - Derenge, William 1980 Part 2
Company Store Operator, Royal, Terry, Prince, Layland, Greenwood, early 1900's, mining explosions
Interview NRGNPP 010 File H NRGNPP OIO-T TAPE TEN Mr. William Derenge
Interviewer: Paul J. Nyden Beckley, W. Va. 25801 October 4, 1980
[The second of two reels for Interview Ten begins on top of page 10.32.]
PN: You said before, you worked at Terry for ten months?
WD: After I got out of Eccles mines, I worked at Terry.
PN: That was 1914?
WD: Well, went to work there in 1914, yea.
PN: And you were talking before…?
WD: No, I went to work at Terry in '13, rather.
PN: In ’13?
WD: Yea.
PN: That was after the…?
WD: No, no it wasn't, that's right, '14. After , after Lay land there, [correcting himself] Eccles was closing.
PN: And when you were working at Terry, was that the first time that you heard of the United Mine Workers around there?
WD: Well, it wasn't the first time I heard about it, no. I told you a while back that we left there at one time along about 1912 on account of we had this, loading with the car, they got some new cars three inches deeper than the old ones. They wanted 'em loaded for the same price. And the men balked on doing it, and they come out on strike.
PN: This is Eccles, right?
WD: Yea at Eccles.
PN: Eccles, yea.
WD: And so, I didn't want, I wasn't going to scab. So I left there then. Went out to Spring Dale and went to work in the woods. And I worked in the woods for some time. And when I come back, I worked a while at Layland. And then I went back I was dissatisfied at Lay land for some reason — and went back to Eccles and went to work. And worked at Eccles till it blown up in 19—, April 28th, 1914.
PN: Did they have a UMW local at Eccles at that time?
WD: Yea, we had local, local. That was the first, the first contract we were working under's…
PN: At Eccles?
WD: During the year 1914. They signed a contract sometime during 1913.
PN: That was the first time that Eccles had ever had a contract?
WD: That's as far as 1 know. That's all they ever had, yea.
PN: Then when you were working in Terry on the New River, was that a union mine at that time too?
WD: Had a local there, and I was, served, Committee, Mine Committee, on well two occasions I remember, probably more. And of course when I left Terry and went to Lay land, well Lay land was also a union, well in fact it was always a union mine then.
PN: What is the difference that a union would make in the day—to—day work inside the mine, would you say?
WD: Well, I know one difference it make, going back to the first contract. Used to work ten, ten days [meaning hours], and the first contract we got was for nine hours a day with the same pay. And you have to understand of course, I can't remember just what changes took place. Course it all was, got for the better, of course.
PN: Were the mines safer when they were union?
WD: The mines safer, yea. Cause they weren't going to sign a contract unless they got some concessions. I just couldn't tell them off hand, but all along the line, I remember. For one thing in particular, in the yardage. There was so much an inch for slate. And when they got a contract, they got one cent more a yard, or two cents I don't know which. Anyway, they got a little more than they'd been getting. Same way that most all the coal—loading done by hand then. You got so much, 50 cents per ton in the base seams. No, 40 cents in heavy seams and 50 for the low—seam coal. And then a year or two later, they, they reversed all that and just made it the same price.
PN: When you lived in Terry, how many houses were there there? How many people lived there?
WD: Oh, it was no big camp, but I'd say there's 75 probably.
PN: Were there many immigrant miners from Europe working in Terry then?
WD: What?
PN: Were there miners from Europe, that had come from Europe as immigrants, working in Terry? Like Italians or Polish people or Hungarians? Foreigners, were there any foreign miners?
WD: Any what?
PN: Foreigners that had come from Europe?
WD: Oh. No, I '11 say that down at Terry, about the o n1y one I knowed was one family of Italians. Most of them was, the biggest part of ‘em was Stovers. They was raised right around on Grandview Mountain. Reddens and Stovers, I’d say, might have been predominant.
PN:The who?
WD: Reddens and Stovers.
PN: what, and they were Italians?
WD: No, they're American. They was raised right around Grandview. Do you know where Grandview is?
PN: Yea.
WD: Well they was, biggest part of the men that worked there was raised around there. Well in fact, this here, well the Reddens too. Old man Redden, he was weigh boss at, up at old Royal, where I first worked, mine I worked in. He was about the only one I really, really knew when I went to Terry.
PN: Were there any Black miners at that time in Terry?
WD: I don't think there was one, no.
PN: None?
WD: I think they had, had a color line — the Wrights brothers. They owned Wrights No. 1, and No. 2 in Terry. The Lees, no, I forget, Norman Lee, and I forget the others, the managers.
PN: When you were in Terry, how did you travel. Did you have to use a train? Or were there other ways you could travel from town to town?
WD: No, the only way to travel there is, at the time, to walk up the railroad. You couldn't get in, there was no auto—, automobiles. Well, there was automobiles, but they had no way to get down to Terry, and get on the track. And you had to go up to the mines on the Incline. It was almost straight up and down. You went up on the incline and back, back down. Of course, you had a choice of walking, walking down, if you got out early in the day.
PN: Did the people that lived in Layland when you worked there, did they often go down to Prince or Quinnimont on the New River, for any reason?
WD: Oh yes, they had passenger trains there, several from Lay land, running passengers, round—trip a day.
PN: Going down to Prince?
WD: Yea.
PN: Did many people go down there?
WD: Well, not unless the circus was down in Quinnimont. Quinnimont was the headquarter for the circus Barnum and Bailey, and them.
PN: It was?
WD: Yea, and so whenever the circus [was] down in Quinnlmont, the place was crowded, And the train was crowded. And If they couldn't get to go down on, there wasn't room enough on the train, they walked only five miles. In fact, in them days, five miles wasn't, didn't mean very much.
PN: Was Quinnimont a much larger town than Lay land was?
WD: Well, Quinnimont [was] just a junction town. There's two, all in Piney Creek come to Quinnimont, and them off of Lay land another short run. Two short lines. Going to have to say their division point — there was three different railroads, the main line and two branch lines — one up Laurel Creek and one up Piney Creek. As far as the town was concerned, it wasn't so much of a town. Well I guess there was 100 houses probably between there and Prince.
PN: There were a hundred houses?
WD: About a hundred houses. Prince and Quinnimont joined together; you didn't know which was which. There wasn't no dividing line, you might say.
PN: And most of the people that lived in Prince and Quinnimont, did they work for the railroad?
WD: Well yes, quite a few. Cause, as I 've already said, they had two branch lines coming down, besides the main line. But the main line, their headquarters was at Hinton; and the next one down, Hanley where the crews changed. These here, only changes down at Quinnimont, see, your branch lines.
PN: After the Lay land explosion, where did you live then? Did you move away from Layland?
WD: Well when I left Lay land, I went to work in the woods, I guess. 1 think I told you before. I worked for Hutchinson Lumber Company down at Bellwood. And for some reason, I got dissatisfied.
PN: That was after the Lay land explosion?
WD: Huh?
PN: Was that after Lay land or Eccles?
WD: Well after Layland. See, from Eccles I went, went to Layland. And only b lowed up the same day I started to work. So I didn't get to work there. And I didn't even go back after my tools; I lost all my tools. Back in them days, you had to own your own tools. I had, I expect, $100 worth of tools picks and auger and so on. I didn't even, well in fact I never unbundled them. I only just loosened up enough to pull one pick out. The rest of ‘em was still tied up in a bundle. I left there, and I never went back after them, so I don't know whatever happened to them.
PN: Where did you work in the mines later?
WD: Well, I didn't work in the mines no more until after I got out of the Army in the First World War. And the reason, and the reason for that, work, then, I told you a while ago, the sawmill blew, blowed up and killed my brother. And so after I got over the shock, I just said, “Well it looks like things out—, blow up outside as well as in the mines. So I just might as well go back in the mines." And I did. And I worked there on up till, till 19—, about '58 1 guess, wasn't it?
PN: Was that when you retired?
WD: When I retired from the mines, yea.
PN: What mines did you work in?
WD: Quinwood.
PN: Quinwood?
WD: Yea, Imperial Smokeless. And at that time, they sold out to [a] Sprague outfit. And later on, now it belongs to Westmoreland Coal Company.
PN: When did you move to Quinwood?
WD: In 1921.
PN: And then you worked from, in Quinwood, here from 1921 to 1958?
WD: Yea, sometime around then.
PN: They didn't have a union here when you began working here, did they?
WD: Oh yea.
PN: They did?
WD: Oh, we opened up a union here. See they had a strict rule up here when I come up here and got a job; you had to sign what they called a “yellow dog”, which you won't belong to no union. Well, they held pretty close to that. So when Roosevelt was elected President, and they had the law written, executive order of law written that, that everyone, anyone that wanted was allowed to have, to organize and not, couldn't be discriminated against. And so that's, that's when we organized. A bunch of men come up somewhere from down, I don't know where they come from, they come up what they call Sugar Grove over here.
PN: On the what?
WD: Some bunch of men, organizers, come up here, there's a whole bunch of them down below here, what they call Sugar Grove right over there.
PN: Sugar Grove?
WD: Yea, and had a, you might say a rally. And they want everybody to j oin a union which they all pledged they would. So that's where we first organized. That was about 19—, oh somewhere in the early twenties.
PN: The union wasn't destroyed here in the twenties?
WD: Huh?
PN: Did you have a union here in the twenties?
WD: Oh yes.
PN: All the time?
WD: Local No. 6200.
PN: All the time?
WD: All the time, yea.
PN: Even if you had to sign the yellow—dog contract?
WD: No, after, I say when Roosevelt made President, they wrote either a executive order or had a law passed, I don't know which, that anybody who organized without being discriminated against. And if they could prove that they discriminated in any way, well heavy penalty. So I guess about everything organized along by that time. I can't recall exactly what year that was in. It was in early part of twenties. [He is obviously talking about 1933.] Cause when sign the red—dog [meaning yellow—dog], that was in '21. So I don't recall just, just how long that run. They used to, for bait, they had to have a condition. The reason I belong, that if you didn't belong to a union, you'd [get] a 2% bonus on your entire earnings during the year. You get 2, 2% bait, you might say.
PN: What, if you didn't join a union?
WD: If you didn't join the union, yea.
PN: What was that, for individual people or for the whole mine, or what?
WD: That meant for all, all the workers. I know I drawed, I always drawed the heaviest bonus in Quinwood all the time they paid the bonus.
PN: Why, cause you loaded more tons than anybody else?
WD: How?
PN: Cause you loaded more tons? Why did you get a bigger bonus?
WD: Well 1 loaded more coal.[laughs] You got paid according [ to] your earnings, and my earnings was better than anybody's else. And a certain fellow, he was, background was built there [sic], and he's been drawing the biggest bonus. He said, “If I go up there and get a job, I'll take it running away from him.” But when the year wind up, I drawed I think about $10 more than he did. So he didn't say, he got up and left. Some of ‘em got to kidding him about it, so he left. He was a good, was a good friend of mine too.
PN; Let me just ask you a few more questions about Terry. When you lived there, what kind of houses did they have in Terry?
WD: Well, they just had comp—, old, old rough houses up and down boards with strips on them.
PN: What did they look like inside?
WD: Well inside, they was, they was sealed with this here tongue—and—groove pine timber. The inside wasn't too bad. But they didn’t, don't think they ever painted them; they just painted them when they first put them up, I reckon.
PN: They didn't paint them?
WD: I don't think so.
PN: On the inside, did they have wallpaper or anything?
WD: No, they, well yes, the walls was papered. They used what, anything they wanted, but the way the company finished them, it was just tongue—and— groove pine, regular sealing.
PN: How many rooms did they have?
WD: How?
PN: How many rooms?
WD: Well, most of 'em was four and five.
PN: What did people use the rooms for?
WD: How?
PN: What did people use the rooms for?
WD : Well, I cant t say now. Kitchen, dining room, and bedrooms. They hardly ever had a real front room, you know, I'd say. Well, they ordinarily had one room they used as a front room. It was very com—, very common, you see, [at that] day and time. You wouldn't hardly think about living in one of them now. But back then, you know, it was about the average. Of course now Layland, they built pretty good houses when, Layland was all tongue—and—, weatherboarding and inside of most of them was plastered. They had very good, good houses there. The average one was usually rough lumber, with strips on it.
PN: Would you rather have worked along the New River, or was it better working in some of these other mines?
WD: What was that?
PN: Did it make any difference in the mines in New River or some of the mines on the mountains? Was one better than the other?
WD: Well, the biggest difference [was] the kind of conditions. Like Layland had awful good coal, it had, run four—and—a—half to five feet, and had excellent top. And so it was better than the average. Hemlock and Greenwood had pretty much the same thing. But seemed like that the roof conditions were better at Lay land, until we got in about, oh, a mile, mile and a half. Then they run in bad top, and they had all bad top from there on. I worked there at Lay land, when they had [the] explosion, no one ever thought about any bad top there. Only, only had rolls or something [referring to rib rolls]. And then when, when I got on [as] mine inspector, I hadn't been in the mines for about 15 years [referring to the Lay land mines] . I was surprised [at] the difference in some places. Fell out so high, the reflection from your lamp would barely reach, see the top. It fell all the way up to the sand rock.
PN: Where?
WD: At Layland. Some places…
PN: What, you hadn't been in that particular mine for 15 years, and you came back?
WD: Yea, came back. There was that much difference in conditions.
PN: When you were living in Terry…
WD: How's that?
PN: When you were living in Terry, what did people do for fun then? Was there any type of entertainment in Terry?
WD: Down on the river, there was a big, flat rock. We'd sit and play poker all day Sunday.
PN: At Terry?
WD: That's what, some fellow around [said] "Come on down on the rock”, said, said, “show you something." That's the biggest pastime I had there was playing poker, and the other was standing around and watching them.
PN: Did they have any movie theater or anything in Terry?
WD: No, no.
PN: Did they have any schools or churches there?
WD: Well, they had a church and a schoolhouse, I think. [If] you wanted to go to a movie or anything, you had to go to Beckley.
PN: To Beckley?
WD: Mm.
PN: Did It take a railroad to get to Beckley?
WD: Veil, they, the train went up there every day.
PN: Where, up, up Piney Creek?
WD: Two trips a day up Piney, yea. They went all the way to Lester and back.
PN: To Lester?
WD: Mm. I think it made two trips a day if I'm not mistaken.
PN: In Terry let's see, what was I going to ask? — did people grow their own vegetables or gardens of any kind there? WD: Well at Terry, some of ‘em had gardens, yea. Most camps almost had somebody would have a garden. Up at Lay land, the way the houses were there, they go off a little way somewhere, and clean a place and plant a garden —one or two who had ambition enough to.
PN: But not as many people had garden at Layland?
WD: Well not so many, no. But there wasn't too much suitable place to have one, for one thing.
PN: Which, at Layland or Terry?
WD: Oh, they had more room in Terry, yea.
PN: Did people keep animals then?
PN: Did people keep animals?
WD: Well, some of them had cows, yea. I don't think you were allowed to keep ‘em at Lay land though. At Terry, they had cows.
PN: Back in 1913, people, people didn't have radios then, did they?
WD: What? Radios? Don't you know that the first radio I heard was when we come here to Quinwood. PN: Really?
WD: ‘21.
PN: ’21?
WD: Mm. I bought a Kent. It would squawk and squeak. And then you’d hear a word or two, and it would squeak and squawk again.
PN: So it wasn't too good really then?
WD: No, it wasn't very efficient, no. I guess I bought the first cabinet — Victrola. Up here there's someplace, some company went bankrupt in Cincinnati and I got a cabinet, TV, oh it was a dandy, about a hundred dollars. And most of them was at that time, was just little table models.
PN: Little what?
WD: Little table models.
PN: Is there anything else that, you know, you think is important to mention about those years back then?
WD: What?
PN: Is there anything else that you think is important to say about those years, those early years?
WD: Not just now. Shut that off if you want to and we can see where we are. [Short break.]
PN: You were working at Greenwood?
WD: Yea, Dad and I worked at Greenwood.
PN: What, lumber?
WD: That's on Laurel Creek, just below, just below Layland.
PD: You were working in a coal mine then?
WD: Yea. And so my brother, one of the younger brothers and sisters lived out here at Spring Dale on a farm. And my mother would bring pro—, produce down about once a month, or maybe oftener than that. And about once a month or so, Daddy come out from Greenwood to Spring Dale. Usually along the end of the month. You know how it is, going out there, I 'd stay in the shanty. We had a Russian that shantied with us. And we generally all stayed in. Well anyway, this here Russian, he had some friends come from the old country, that used to be here before. And of course that called for a celebration. And so they walked down from Greenwood to what was called Robbins, or Export. And there used to be a saloon there. So they went on down there. And of course, I didn't want to stay by myself there in the shanty. I went along with them just, just to be going. And they stayed down there, and they drink till they got pretty well lit up. And it never occurred to them, next day it's Sun— day —— they wouldn't have nothing to drink till they got back up almost home. And they want me to go back there to buy ‘em some whiskey to last over Sunday. And I balked, and tell them: "No, I didn't - got all the walking I wanted that day. " And so one of them pull out a dollar bill and said, shook it in my face, wanted to know how I'd go for that. Told him, oh, I grabbed the dollar. I was ready to go right now. So he gave me a $20 bill to buy him two quarts. At that time, it sold for $1.25, not a fifth, but a quart. So I got, he give me a $20 bill and told me to buy two quarts. So I went down Robbins, and I just happened down there between six and seven o 'clock. They always closed for supper then. So I had to stomp around; there was about a foot or more of snow and real cold. It was sometime in January. And the saloon opened up. And j us t before the saloon opened up, these two colored men —— of course they lived close by there, they knew what time it opened up, so they stayed till the last minute. And they come on in about the same time I did. Of course I was cold; I was heat, warming myself around the stove before I tried to transact any business. After I got warmed up, I went up to the counter and put down my notes, which I wrote myself, with my Daddy's name on it: “Let this boy have two quarts of whiskey.” I put that on the counter and a $20 bill, and he gave me two quarts and change, let's see, $18 or something, I don't know, whatever change was coming. So I took, put the change in my pocket. And I had on a kind of mackinaw coat, and put a quart, one in each pocket. So I stood around the fire then, wanting to get warmed up good. And these two colored men was, was buying by the drink. Well, when I got thoroughly warmed up, I was, got up and started out. I noticed I hadn't much more than got out of the door, and here these two colored men come out too. I got suspicious then that they wasn't up to anything good. So they walked fast, got ahead of me. And they had their heads together talking among them. Of course, I couldn't tell what they was talking about. So they kept that up for quite a while. And after a while, they finally fell out and they got i n a fight. And one supposedly knocked the other one down. And one, one o f them come back to me. He said, “Boy, that damned nigger wants to rob you. t ' He said, ' 'You stay with me. He opened up, his belly, he showed me a big gun he had, you know. And I got suspicious that he wanted to rob me just as bad as he does. But anyway I let on, let on like I believed what he said. And come up to Greenwood, the store just opened up at that time. Negroes were just piled in the store till you couldn't, there wasn't room to turn around in there. Anyway, I told this other, that I was going to the store to buy something. And I went up in, into the crowd, and he was standing at the door, and he couldn't see me. So I seen him come in and look around to see if he could see me anywhere. While he was there, I sneaked out through the door. But, I guess he suspicioned I must have left. So I went, oh about 300 yards, and there was two or three colored houses. And I knew, knew the people [ that] lived there. And it was real dark, way after dark, and so I stopped there to borrow a, a lamp — well just a miner's oil lamp — cause I had to go up that holler and the old tram road was rotten, broke through full of holes. And dark, that way you couldn't see where you was going. So I stopped and asked this fellow if he I could borrow his lamp. He said, “Yea sure you can borrow it. That was on Saturday and he said, "I won't need it tomorrow no way. And while I was in there getting that lamp, I seen this, my "partner" go by. And of course, he bound to see me standing in the doorway. Anyway I got the lamp and started up the holler. And by the time I got up, about a half a mile up, getting up close to the top of the hill, the moon come up. And there’s a great big chestnut snag standing by the road. And I some way suspicioned he was behind that snag. And sure enough, I was looking right close. As I come closer, I could see his shadow back up. So I got sort of close and I said, I said, see you behind that snag there. " He wouldn't move. And he seen I wasn't a 'coming any closer, so he jumped out. And I took off back down the holler like a deer, a wild deer. And I looked over my shoulder and he, see, he quit following me. And so I went back down to this house where I borrowed the lamp and told this colored fellow what happened. And he said, "Just wait a minute. He says, "I’ll, I’ll take you up home. He went back in and got a big gun about that long [indicating about a foot with his hands], and stuck it in his pocket. And said, “Come on boy, I'll show that son of a b. how to molest boys." So he come on out, and we went on up the holler. And there's two ways to get over there. We went up the little path. He said, he said, “I don't want to have to shoot the son of a, son of a so—and—so, so let's go up this—a—way. So he went up to the shanty. And I told these Russians what happened. Oh, they opened up a bottle, and they give him, he drunk almost half of one of 'em. [laughs] And go, when Dad come back Sunday evening, I told him about it. And he t s going to get, and these two colored people were well known. People, this fellow what took me up home, he knew where they were. And he found out, they found out my Dad was going to get a warrant for them, they shipped out. They never did see them no more.
PN: Really? I guess that pretty much covers everything I wanted to cover. Unless there's anything else you wanted to add. WD: How's that?
PN: I guess that covers everything I wanted to cover, unless there's anything else that you want to add.
WD: No, not that part of it, no. Just as well shut it off.
PN: OK.
[Note: This was an extremely difficult interview to transcribe. Mr. Derenge's voice is quite weak, and sometimes slurred, both because of his age and his problems with Black Lung disease.]
PN: Mr. Forren, maybe to begin, you could mention when you were born and where you were born.
CF: Well, I was borned February the 5th, 1920 at Lookout, West Virginia.
PN: And what was your father doing at the time that you were born?
CF: My father was a coal miner. He was employed by the Boone Mining Company.
PN: Did your father work in the gorge or on top of the gorge at that time?
CF: Top of the gorge, until 1928; then he moved down in the gorge Branch Coal and Coke Company at Elverton, West Virginia. And he continued his coal mining there until he died in 1935.
PN: How old was your Dad when he died?
CF: Only 52 years old.
PN: Was that related at all to the fact that he worked in the mines for many years?
CF: Well, I, I'd, I'd contribute [sic] it to mining experience. Of course, in those days, you know, coal mining was more hazard than it is now, due to —detonation was bad, and miners used to shoot off of solid, which they don rt do nowadays. Yea, I'd say a lot of it was contributed to coal mining, right.
PN: And he probably breathed a lot of dust and stuff too in his life?
CF: Definitely, definitely, right, yes sir, that's for sure. He died young; he was only 52 years old.
PN: What did his father do? Was his father a miner too?
CF: No, his father was a farmer.
PN: Where, in Fayette County?
CF: Monroe County.
PN: Monroe County?
CF: Yea. My father was born in Monroe County.
PN: Were your mother's parents from Monroe County around there too?
CF: Right. Most of ‘em, my father and mother were from Monroe County.
PN: Were your mother's parents, were they farmers, or miners?
CF: Farmers, right.
PN: Farmers?
CF: Farmers, right, right.
PN: Talking about you, yourself, when did you begin working and how old were you then?
CF: I begin to work for the Branch Coal and Coke Company at Elverton, West Virginia, July the 6th, 1936, and I was 16 years old.
PN: What was your first job there?
CF: My first job was picking bone, slate, on the tipple, $3.50 per day.
PN: Did you go into the mine later?
CF: Right. And that was on the bottom tipple, and I gradually moved to the top tipple, dumping coal out of the mine car into the chute. Then went inside, at braking on the mainline motor. And I stayed there until July, July the first, 1945, and I went to Layland. And been at Layland from then till now.
PN: And you 're still working in the mines now?
CF: Well, I 'm not in the mines, but I’m working at, at the mines at the present time — tipple operator.
PN: In 1928, when you first moved to…
CF: Elverton.
PN: Elverton, was there a union there at that time?
CF: Right.
PN: There was?
CF: Local Union 6169. I vas Treasurer of that union, oh, approximately five or six years.
PN: That's Elverton local?
CF: Elverton local.
PN: And even when you moved there, when your father started working there, there was a local union?
CF: No, no, not in '28. See, we didn't organize till '33.
PN: Yea, yea, that's what I was going to ask you.
CF: Right, right, organized in '33.
PN: Had there been a union once, say in 1919- 1920, before the union was broken around here?
CF: I don't know at that time whether there was a union at Elverton or not. I would say there was, but now I'm not positive. No sir, I don't know whether they had their little local there when they was first organized in 1918 or, 1918 or 1919 or '20, somewhere along in there. I’m not positive whether they was organized at that time or not. But I do know definitely they organized in 1933.
PN: After Roosevelt came in?
CF: Right.
PN: And NRA?
CF: Right, right.
PN: Do you have any memories as to what happened then when they reorganized the United Mine Workers?
CF: Well, there was some representative, I remember the night it happened there at Elverton. Of course, you had a little, that was down in the gorge, and they had a little school building on this property. And there was a representative from the UMW District office, at that time it was 17, there wasn't no 29. The representative come out of District 17. And they organized It one night.
PN: Did most of the people working at the mine come to a meeting where this man spoke?
CF: Right. We all, we all met at the, of course I was there at the time; I was only 13 years old. But they all met at the I was there but they all met at the little school house, all the miners. And they signed pledge cards to sign up with the UMW.
PN: Was that happening in all the towns along the gorge about that same time?
CF: Right, right, yes sir, that is right.
PN: During the period in the twenties I don't know if you could remember this or not — but did a lot of people talk about the union even when the union was broken? And there were no locals?
CF: Really I don't, I can't recall, I mean I don't know too much about that
because, see, I was born in 1920; and of course as a child from '20 on up till '30 or '33, you don't pay, I mean there could have been a lot of talk about it, but a youngster don't pay any attention to it, you know. I do remember well when they organized 'em in 1933. But beyond that I, no, I don't know too much about the union, when it was first organized.
PN: And you said you were an officer at the Elver ton local for five or six years?
CF: Five or six years, I was Treasurer of that local union, 6169 was the number of it. I got a local badge here somewhere.
PN: And then you moved, working, up to Lay land?
CF: 1 left Elver ton in 1945 and went to Layland New River and Pocahontas Consolidated Coal Company at that time. And worked for them till they blew the mine out in 1961. Then the Sparks Coal Company taken it over, and he operated it from 1961 until 1969. Then A.T. Massey taken it over; he operated it from t 69 till '70 — only operated it about one year. At the present time, the Royal Coal Company has it. And they've operated it since 70, and operate it at the present time.
PN: What offices did you hold in that local union?
CF: I've been Financial Secretary since 1962.
PN: Did you ever attend International conventions?
CF: Oh yea, I…
PN: As a delegate?
CF: Yea, yea. I attended the, I believe now, I’m pretty sure, I attended the '56, '60, '64, '68, and I attended the, the '76 at Cincinnati. Yea,
I didn’t attend the last one; It was held in Denver.
PN: What, you did?
CF: I didn't. I was, I was elected delegate, but I didn't attend. But
I did attend the last one in Cincinnati in 76. Yea, I, I 've been to about five of them.
PN: I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about what your memories of Elverton were in the years you lived there, what, from '28 to, did you live there till 45?
CF: Went there in 28 as a child — eight years old — and left there in 1945.
PN: I was wondering if I could ask you about your memories, say, in the late twenties and thirties — just some things about the town itself, if that's OK. About how many people were living there when you first moved there?
CF: I would say approximately, no more than 150 that's children and all. I'd say there was around maybe 75, 80, 85, or 75 employees.
PN: At the mine?
CF: Right, mm. But it was on, down in the gorge, there was no road in to it. The only, the only transportation you had in and out [of] the gorge was by railroad at that time. Of course, they eventually did build a little road from Gatewood. I don't know whether you was ever at Gatewood or not.
PN: Is that on the top?
CF: Yea. Down to the mine. But then after you got, you, you could get your automobile to the mine, but then after you got out of your automobile, you had to take the little hoist over the mountain, the incline, the little car that they let you up and down the hill on.
PN: Down to the coal camp?
CF: Down into the community, right.
I guess there were no roads then in the, in the community. Were there paths between the homes?
CF: Oh yea, yea, they had, see they had to haul house coal down there. So they had a team of horses and a wagon. And that's the way they deliver house coal and deliver, delivered groceries from the company store. 1 mean, some of them may be raising a few hogs or cattle or something, and go down to the store and maybe buy, buy four— or five—hundred pound bags of feed. And they'd have to deliver it on the wagon, with the team. So that's, that's the only transportation they had in the community was a team.
PN: And that was a team and wagon that was owned by the company?
CF: Right, right. And they paid the, the fellow to take care of it, right.
PN: How many houses were there there, would you guess?
CF: Yes sir, I’ll tell you in a few minutes approximately I'd say oh I can see it plain 50 or 60, mm.
PN: And you mentioned the school building before where they held the meeting for the union.
CF: Right.
PN: What other types of buildings did they have in town?
CF: Well, they had a, they had a, of course they had the store and they had a movie theater.
PN: They did?
CF: Yea. Of course, that's, that was a big recreation at that time was going to the movies. And that's about it — the store and the movie theater.
PN: Did they have any churches?
CF: Oh yea, yea. Well, no, no, no now, I’m wrong about that. The, of course they had, at that time, you know, it was more or less segregated. They had the colored community and the white community. So the white had their church; they attended church in the school building. But the colored, they did the same thing in theirs; that, that was considered their church and school building.
PN: And there was two different buildings, and they…
CF: That's right, that's right. See, you didn't, I mean they didn't live together like, I mean your neighbor might not be a colored man like it is now. They was on one end of town, and white on the other back in those days. [laughs] That's right.
PN: Was relations between the different races pretty good, or…
CF: Oh yea, yes sir, yes sir. There was some wonderful colored people, that's right. There wasn't, oh now and then you make take a, you know, misunderstanding between some of the white children and the colored children, which they do that today. But, no, they got along wonderful. There was some good people in that little community.
PN: And everybody worked in the mine, right?
CF: Right, right.
PN: Did they work in the same sections usually, or…?
CF: Yea, yea, sure, right. Everyone worked on the same section. I mean not the same section, different sections; but white and colored did work on different, I mean worked together on some of the sections, right.
PN: How many men would be working in a section at that time? About 16 or something?
CF: Well, see it was all hand—loading at that time, wasn't no machinery at all.
PN: Yea, that's right, yea.
CF: I mean you'd have a place here, a place here, and a place there. Everything was put in the car by shovel and pick. So you may have a entry, or, maybe 15 or 20 men work on that entry on the right, and maybe 15 or 20 over here on the left. And go on up, turn right and left.
PN: When, you started working in ' 36, right?
CF: 1936, July the 16th.
PN: And it was all, it was hand—loading then?
CF: All of it was hand—loading at that mine, right.
PN: They didn't have Joy loaders or anything like that?
CF: No, they didn't have no Joy loaders. Lay land was a big mine. They didn't have no Joy loaders at Lay land until about 1952 or '3. It was all hand—loading.
PN; Really?
CF: Yes sir.
PN: Did you have cutting machines in there at Elverton?
CF: Cutting, right.
PN: What kind were they? Those duckbill type machines?
CF: No, just a long, it's a long—type machine; it had a cutter bar on it — it come out something like that. It just cut the coal.
PN: Who made that? Did Joy make that?
CF: Really I don't remember now who, who manufactured those machines. I believe they were Goodmans.
PN: Goodmans?
CF: I'm positive they were Goodmans, Goodman cutting machine, right.
PN: Were they still using mules when you started working?
CF: Not at that mine, not at that mine. They had motors.
PN: They did?
CF: Right. Now I can remember the mules when they had them there at Lookout, when I was just a little boy. I can remember the mules.
PN: When your father was working up there?
CF: Right, right, right. Over at Elver ton, no, they didn't use the mules.
PN: Did they ever use, you know, horses or ponies or oxen or any other type of animals in the bigger…
CF: Well I would say in, in the, if you got a mine that's got the height, what you could you horses, maybe on the mainline. But they had to use the little, well a mule, of course, he, he's a pretty good—size animal. But your pony is what they used on the section, you know. Or either pony—power or man—power; it's usually the man had to push his car in and out of the face. [laughs]
PN: I remember when I was in Morgantown in 1970, there was a mine right outside of Morgantown that still was using ponies.
CF: Yea. Well you know when they, when they did a lot of these small mining business, punch mining I call it, they used a lot of ponies.
PN: Late, into the sixties and…
CF: Right, right. But they never used no ponies or mules in the Elver ton mine, no sir.
PN: You said that there, there was a movie house there in Elverton?
CF: Right.
PN: Did people come from outside of Elver ton to see the movies?
CF: Right, yea right. They come from Brown, walk up the railroad track about three mile. Of course at that time, youngsters didn't care, you see. They t d come from Browns; that's in below, that was the Maryland—New River Company in below Elver ton on the rail—, in the gorge. Or they'd come from Sewell, up the river here next to Thurmond, maybe three or four mile. They would walk, youngsters you know, get your girlfriend, come to the movies. Walk down the railroad track, or up the railroad track.
PN: How often did they show movies during the week?
CF: Let's see, usually Saturday and Sunday, and maybe, maybe about Wednesday two or three times a week.
PN: That was already there when you moved there in 1928?
CF: That was there when I moved there. When I went there, they had the silent picture. But then, I wasn't there but a little while, and they put in talking movies. I remember when they done that.
PN: Did both black and white go to the theater? Or was that segregated?
CF: Yea, it was. segregated, yea. They could go, but they had, they had their little aisle; and we had ours. They was on one side of the building, and we, the white was on the other. That's the way it was at that time. Definitely.
PN: What did it cost to get in?
CF: Oh at that time, 25 cents; 15, 20, 25 cents, right. Scrip.
PN: You paid scrip to get in?
CF: The company operated it too, yea, yes sir, yes sir.
PN: In the church, what type of a church…?
CF: Well, more or less a community church, I mean anyone, I mean, you take the Holiness may have had their meetings on Monday night, on a Wednesday night or a Tuesday night. And the Baptist maybe have theirs on a Saturday night or a Sunday morning or Sunday night, right.
PN: Were there any permanent preachers there? Or did preachers come in from the outside?
CF: No, it was usually someone in the community that was…
PN: Would run the service?
CF: Any time you usually have that many employees, usually some one of them' s a preacher, you know, right.
PN: And that was true both of the Black church and the white church?
CF: Well, no, the Blacks had theirs too.
PN: Did they have a special preacher, or was…
CF: Right.
PN: He a coal miner?
CF: Yea, they had their, that's right, that's right. He was a coal miner too.
PN: He was?
CF: Right, someone that lived in the community.
PN: Was that a Baptist church, or was that a community church?
CF: I don 't know what, I don't know what the colored was. I’d say more or less community church anyone, yea, had to be, yes sir.
PN: Did many people grow gardens there at Elverton?
CF: Well, yes, I mean small gardens. Of course, you don't have too much room down here in the gorge, you know, to g row too much of a garden, maybe just a little bit around the house. Yea, yes, they'd plant a small garden, what space they had.
PN: And you said that some people kept hogs and animals?
CF: Few hogs, yea, and some maybe had a cow or two at that time in Elver ton to get milk for the children, yes sir, that's right. But that was the way of life back then, I mean, I don't know, for some reason, it seems to me like people were more satisfied back then than they are now. [laughs] Too much for em to do now. [laughs]
PN: When you were living there, did people, you know did you often leave town to, you know, visit another town?
CF: Oh yea, about every weekend everybody, well not everybody, but the trains come up, you know, we had a train come up this river, passenger train maybe every, either going east or west, every two hours, local train, he would stop. Then people, Thurmond that's where everybody would come to on the weekends Thurmond, yes sir.
PN: What was that like back when, you know, [when] you were living in Elverton?
CF: You mean to come to Thurmond?
PN: Yea, yea, what was Thurmond like at that time?
CF: Well, Thurmond at that time, of course they had a lot of restaurants and beer parlors. And we had a ball team; of course, we 'd have to come to Thurmond to play ball. And of course on Saturday nights, you know, they'd have dances and this and that.
PN: At Thurmond?
CP: Yea, right.
PN: Where, in one of the hotels?
CF: Well, or in one of the restaurants there or beer joints, yea, restaurants. Yea, that Thurmond was a lively place at one time. Did you ever see the picture of the old Dunglen Hotel?
PN: Yea, yea.
CF: I've got a lot of them out there; I mean it's on the campaign material, literature, you know, Dunglen.
PN : Did you ever go there to dances or…?
CF: No, no, no, now I never did, I never did see the Dunglen. I think it burnt down, I believe in '34, wasn't it, '33 or 34, yea. No, I never did see it, no sir.
PN: But the Lafayette Hotel was still there when you went there, wasn't it?
CF: Right, right.
PN: What was that like?
CF: Well, I don't remember too much about it either; see, I was just a youngster and didn't, of course, didn't pay that much attention to it at that time. In places that served beer, they were just allowed to serve beer, right? They couldn't serve mixed drinks?
CF: No, that's right. Beers only, that's right.
PN: Did many people make, make moonshine around at that time?
CF: Well yea, you could, you could find moonshine, yea, I’ve seen a still or two in operation. [laughs] Right here on Manns Creek. You know where you go up Manns Creek to Babcock Park, near Sewell?
PN: Yea.
CF: Right there in that holler, I 've seen a many a gallon — well not, a many a gallon — I 've seen a good bit of it made. But I didn't, I mean, a colored guy was making it.
PN: Really?
CF: Yea. But up and down Manns Creek there, they was, back in those years, there was a good bit of moonshine whiskey made.
PN: Was that true in general that they, that they were generally the ones, say around here, that made moonshine?
CF: Well, in those days, I thought it was. It was the colored, yea.
PN: Why was that, do you think? Do you have any explanation for that?
CF: No sir, I really don 't, unless it, they figured out that was a better way to make a living than mining coal. [laughs] Of course you could buy a pint of moonshine whiskey in them days for a dollar in scrip.
PN: Really?
CF: Oh yea. Or maybe 50 cent, yes sir, that's for sure.
PN: If you, if you, say paid a dollar in scrip to someone for, you know, for some moonshine, would that person then use the scrip to buy things at that particular company store? Or could he turn it in and get money for
CF: No, he would go, maybe buy sugar and corn and stuff, set himself up some little mash, you see. [laughs] Yea, he could spend, yea. He could go to the store, and buy what he wanted, maybe, well, anything he wanted with that scrip.
PN: So even If he didn't work for that particular coal company…
CF: Right, no, they'd take this metal scrip, see.
PN:You could go in?
CF: Right, regardless who had it, right.
PN: If you wanted to redeem that to get cash, could you do that?
CF: I never knowed of anyone doing that, but of course it says on there that it's redeemable, but I never known anyone to redeem it to get, redeem it to get cash.
PN: Cause they would discount it, wouldn't they, if they…?
CF: I believe they would, yea, yea, right. Well you take, a fellow by the name of Jim Martin in Oak Hill, used to run a pawnshop, he 'd buy all kind of scrip . But it was on a discount; he'd give you 75 cents for a dollar. So I imagine then at that time, some of the companies — New River Company especially they would redeem it, and maybe give him 90 cents on a dollar, you see…
PN: Yea, I see.
CF: Yea, that's exactly right. Oh, you used could buy all the scrip you wanted. I mean, for a discount like that, 75 cents for a dollar, yes sir. Some of those poor fellows, I don't guess they ever did draw a nickel in cash. They always cut It up in scrip. Well, you had no need for it down in there. [laughs] Only maybe a few cents to ride to ride a train to Thurmond, maybe cost you 15 cents, or 20, to ride a train.
PN: From Elverton?
CF: From Elverton to Thurmond, yea.
PN: Was Elveton on the other side of the river from Thurmond?
CF: No Elverton, on the other side of the river from Thurmond? No. Yea, yea, right, it's on the other side, right, mm.
PN: Did everybody that worked at the mine there at Elver ton live, live there in town? Or did anybody come in from another…
CF: Unless, unless there was a few of them that lived at Gatewood. That's on top of the mountain, and they'd have to walk in of a morning. Until maybe three or four years before the mine worked out, they take a little dozer and cut a road into the mine, maybe a mile and a half. And otherwise up until then, they had to walk in if they got in, or go on the train, ride her in on the train, right.
PN: But you said that there was a hoist?
CF: Right.
PN: That you could. Did you take that when you went from your house up to the mine?
CF: You'd have to go out to the mine; see the community's in, in, in, down in the gorge, maybe on the hillside. Then if you was going up to the mine, you'd have to walk out to the mine, and get on the hoist, call the man at the top — they had a fellow lived up at the top he'd pull you up the mountain on the hoist. Then if you was going on Gatewood then Mountain, you'd have to get off and walk around the mountain, and go on top of the mountain.
PN: What did the hoist look like?
CF: Just a little man—car. It was open, I mean, you just sit out in all kind of weather. If it was raining, you get soaking wet. Or snowing, you 'd freeze to death. Just a little car, made on four wheels, had a rope on it. With a big drum on top. They pull you up and down the hill. That's the way they pull all the miners up and down.
PN: How many people could fit in one of these cars?
CF: Probably ten, right, at that time.
PN: Was there more than one, or did they just…?
CF: Just the one.
PN: Run it back and forth?
CF: Right. Maybe take him ten minutes to go up and down. And they put the coal over the mountain in monitors. Of course this hoist track paralleled the monitor track, side by side.
PN: Did they run on the same motors, or were they…
CT: No, no.
PN: They were separate?
CF: Right.
PN: On a monitor, you couldn't ride on that, could you? That was a…
CF: Well yea, I rode on many and many a monitor I mean.
PN: You did?
CF: Many a time those monitors; but nowadays, they would put a man into jail for trying to do It. But then, you could ride anything, they didn't care. The law wasn't that strict.
PN: What did the monitor look like? Was that a big barrel or something?
CF: Just a big type barrel - had four wheels on it, mm.
PN; How would you ride that? On top of it, or inside?
CF: Well they had, they had a, you know, you'd ride on the side of it. They'd have a couple braces from one end to the other, and a board laying there botted to it, you see.
PN: So you could lie on that, or sit on that?
CF: Well, you'd stand up on it. See you had a bar, yea. Of course, you'd have to ride it right on in the tipple. When he got in the bottom tipple, he'd turn this up like that, and dump his coal out. He had a gate on the front end, you see. And while he was loading at the top, you'd get off. But your monitor's not run by motors. Your load pulls your empty; there's no, no motors whatsoever.
PN: No?
CF: No, load pulls your empty. Your load at the top, that load will pull your…
PN: Oh, it's a system of pulleys or something?
CF: Double monitor, see. While your empty's in the bin, while you're dumping, he's loading the other one at the top. So when he gets it loaded, why then that load will pull the other empty back up. No power used whatsoever.
PN: But there was power used in the hoist, right? For those engines?
CF: Rights right, right, motor, that's right, yes sir. I don't know whether there's any monitor in this country right now, unless there's still some over at Stickney over in Wyo—, over in Boone County. There was just, oh, a few years ago, but now whether it's still there I don 't know.
PN: You mentioned a baseball team a while ago.
CF: Yea we had a, yea, we used to have a pretty good baseball, of course, all, all coal companies at that time had baseball teams. If you was a good ballplayer, you'd get a job anywhere. I mean these superintendents, these mines would hire you if you was a good ballplayer. Because that was about the only sport that people had to watch and, and the coal companies would them sponsor ball clubs, and buy uniforms and everything. So about all of them did have ball clubs and they'd come to Thurmond, or play their neighbors up the track or down the track.
PN: Did all the towns along the gorge have baseball teams in the thirties when you were…
CF: Right, yea.
PN: Did they play in a league at any time?
CF: Well no, no, no, it wasn't no league. I mean, you may be available this Sunday, and you call your neighbor up the road, up the railroad track there three or four mile, and ask them if they got a game for Sunday. They say, "No." "Well, we come up or you come down." That's the way they did it.
PN: I guess that was an important social event for the whole community?
CF: Right, yea. Everybody, everybody backed their baseball teams, now. [laughs] That's where they had a lot of fun on Sundays' afternoon, watching those ball teams, and drinking beer and moonshine. [laughs]
PN: What was the legal system in these towns? Did they have constables or sheriffs of any kind living there?
CF: Well at one time, now we had a Conservation Officer that was there for a while. [Interruption of taping, as a neighbor visited Mr. Forren.]
PN: You were talking a minute ago about the law, and the Conservation Officer. Maybe you could describe just what the system of law, you know, was in Elverton.
CF: Well, about the only time that there was either, I mean, ever a law down in there is when something happened was a [which] the company didn't go along with, you know. And they'd call the deputy sheriffs out of
Fayetteville.
PN: They would?
CF: Yea. They had to come in on a train, or come to the top of the mountain and walk down. Of course, I don't remember no murder that, I was only there from 1928 till 45. And I know there was a lot of accidents and a Jot of people killed on Saturday nights down there by drowning or a train getting them or something maybe on the track drinking or drunk. But as far as just actually murder or robbery, there wasn't too much of that went on at that town. Wasn't, didn't nobody have anything to rob em for. [laughs] But, well they had a lot of fights and things ' you know. Boys, and get on Saturday night, and do a lot of gambling and so forth, but as far as too much murder, there wasn't.
PN: Did they ever use the deputies during strikes? Or not?
CF: No, not, no, no, no. No. not this last time since they was organized in 33. No, you mean the company to, men wanted to work to go ahead to cross picket lines and so forth?
PN: Yea.
CF: No, no, no sir.
PN: Do you have any memory of the Baldwin—Felts?
CF: No, I 've read a lot about them, but no, don't remember them — before my time.
PN: It was?
CF: Yes, it was.
PN: When you were living in Elverton, say in the late twenties and thirties, and when you started working in the mine, what percentage would you say of the miners there were Black, and what was white?
CF: I’d say there was about 60—40; there was a lot of colored there.
PN: It was mostly white?
CF: Yea, yea, the majority, the majority was white. I'd say about 60—40.
PN: But there was a big…
CF: Right.
PN: There was a big minority of, of the Black miners there?
CF: Well, about 60% white and 40% colored.
PN: Was there any difference in the type of work they did in the mine?
CF: No, they usually done about the same thing the white people would - mean run motors, lay track, or cut coal, load coal, right.
PN: Were there many immigrants from Europe living there?
CF: Not too many. There was a few Mexicans or, very few, but wasn't too many at Elver ton at that time. Now there was a lot up at Layland, different .
PN: Mexicans at Lay land?
CF: Right. Spaniards, there were a lot of Spaniards at Layland.
PN: Where did the Mexicans come from? Did they come directly from Mexico to work in the mines here?
CF: I would say, yes, mm. Course we had a few Russians at Layland, I mean three or four I know, that worked in the mines.
PN: Did the Mexicans, did they move out after a while? Or how long did they stay here?
CF: Well, undoubtedly, they just died out, and the youngsters didn't take up the trade, that's right.
PN: When you began working in 1936, what were you paid a day and how many hours did you have to work?
CF: Worked eight hours a day at $3.50 a day, picking slate. Although they said it was a eight—hour day. Course the union was in, and of course the union was just organized in 33. But although, you had more or less, I mean you didn't take a real strong hold until maybe in the forties. Why before the union come in, see, everybody was scared of the superintendent or the mine foreman. I mean you did exactly what they said, and it was a long time before it rubbed off too much, see, that you felt like you had a little protection yourself. So I would say it was in the, sometime in the forties before you really got any freedom from the mine management.
PN: When did you get portal—to—portal?
CF: No, there was no such thing as portal—to—portal then. That was, that come along, maybe about ‘48. [It was actually 1943.]
PN: It was that late?
CF: Yea, right. But 1 could remember there at Elverton, even after the union come in, why the miners stayed in the mines from daylight to dark.
PN: How many shifts did they have? Just that one shift?
CF: No they had two shifts.
PN: A night shift, and a day?
CF: Right, that's right. Then they cut coal, the machine crew cut coal on the third shift. Actually had…
PN: There were three?
CF: Two production shifts, and one repair shift, you know, and so forth, getting ready for the next one.
PN: That's when you started working, right?
CF: No, I started at the bottom tipple in 1936.
PN: But they had three shifts, when you began working in 1936? They had three shifts working then?
CF: Well, two production shifts, only two production shifts, that is producing coal. Then the other one was a maintenance shift, that is, for the machinery to cut the coal getting ready for the next shift coming on, the day shift. And maybe bailing water, taking in the sand not too many men, maybe a half dozen men.
PN: Is that all?
CF: Right.
PN: When did the different shifts work? Like when you went to work, when did you begin and when did you end?
CF: 7 to 3, 3 to 11, 11 to 7.
PN: So the 11 to 7 was the half dozen men that would do maintenance work?
CF: Right, right, machine men and so forth. Or someone dumping slate, and this and that.
PN: What kind of hats did you, or what kind of lamps did you use then?
CF: Well, when 1 started in 1933, they had the battery light. I mean, when the organized in 1933. I taken care, that was one of my first jobs after 1 went from the bottom tipple on slate, picking slate, up to the top tipple, I'd say in 1938. But in 1933 to about 1938, they had the cloth hat and the carbide lamp. So we probably got the battery lamp sometime in the, about '38, '38.
PN: The battery one?
CF: Right.
PN: Did the, did they have a different type of a hat then too? It was a hard, it was a harder hat?
CF: No, no, at that time, you could use your cloth hat or the hard—shell hat had just begin to come in existence along about that time too.
PN: The hard—shell hats were better, right? Did they protect you more?
CF: Well when the, well when the first, when the hard hats first came out, well the miners was 100% against them.
PN: They were?
CF: Oh they complained, and did this and everything else, hurt their head. No, they didn't want em. Same way with shoe. Used to be you could wear any old thing. They didn’t care; toed the coal, coal, coal operators didn't, or management didn't. But when they brought those shoes out, you know, the miners complained about those hard toes when they'd, stooping down you know, bending down, loading coal. Them things was "cutting their toes off" and this and that. That hard hat, they all of them complained about the headache all the time. But they don’t do that no more. I mean, sometime, you know, when you 're trying to force a fellow to do something, why, against his will, you got a lot of complaints. [laughs] But now, I think they're wonderful — the hard—toed shoe and the hat. Back in those days, buddy, why they didn't know nothing but the old soft—toed shoe and the old cloth hat. So heck.
PN: You know, what did you do, did you work on the outside tipple at Elverton between 38 and '45?
CF: No, no, I started now in 1936, picking slate.
PN: That was at the bottom?
CF: I worked there possibly two years at the bottom tipple, then I moved to the top tipple dumping mine cars into the chute, dumping coal cars, loaded with coal. Then I may have worked there maybe until about 1937. Then I went inside.
PN: What did you do there?
CF: Braking on the mainline motor, mm. But I loaded coal some at Elver ton too, during that time. See I only worked there nine years, now, from '36 to '45, and I left. But I did a little bit of everything while I was there, such as helping on the track, dumping coal, picking slate, and used to go in the night and help my brother on the pumps, and braking on the mainline, loading coal, a little bit of everything. I mean, a person in them days didn't have no regular job; you just done what the boss told you to do.
PN: There was really no job classification?
CF: No, no, no. Well I mean, of course you may be hired as a motorman, why usually when you was a motorman on section, you kept that job. If you was a coal loader, you kept that job. But a fellow on general labor, they just switch him around anywhere they wanted to, which was all right. If you was a youngster like I was at that time, that'd give you an opportunity to learn several jobs, right. And I operated the monitors; I run, ran the monitors. And operated the hoist we was talking about a few minutes ago, many and many a time dropped them up and down the hill, the miners.
PN: On the hoist?
CF: Yea, right. And I run the hoist of the Layland shaft for about 11 years.
PN: If you, you know, if you had to compare the, what life in the town was like before 1933 when the union came in, and after 1933, what would you say were the major differences of the, that the union brought?
CF: Well about the, about the only thing I could say was really different was that before 1933, why, like I said a few minutes ago, the coal companies had the upper hand on a man. I mean, you was, well, I would say was darn near slaves you worked there, you done exactly what they told you to. And if you didn't, why they was through with you — get on out of the mines. Or get on off the job too, as far as that [was] concerned, and they could set you off the job [meaning job site]. But after the union came in, they'd give a fellow more protection. And the companies realized that, and they were, they weren't near as strict, although they tried to be. And they did continue a little while, cause when the union first organized, it was a little weak to start with until men realized what they had. But…
PN: Did the people feel more…
CF: Right today if it wasn't for the union, the coal miner, it'd be, it would be rough, yes sir. These coal operators don't love nobody. I mean you might take a foreman on the job or something that might like you pretty good or something, but as far as owners, why they don't care nothing, no more about John than they do Jack. No sir. so I union's done a wonderful thing, although we haven’t, I'm, I’m not going to say the union, I’m going to say we - I've been a 1933 but we made a lot of mistakes that shouldn't have happened. A lot of the wildcat strikes shouldn't have been permitted. You take here three or four years ago, five years ago, that we would let the majority, I mean the minority rule the majority. That's what happened, I’m mean if you and I go to school up here, why all you'd have to do is just go up a holler here and stop a coal mine. Well, well that's not right. I mean, heck no. We did do it, and they had trouble in Kanawha County, you know. They had a few pickets up there wasn't even coal miners.
PN: That book boycott up there?
CF: Right. Some guy come up there and just, you know, "What's the matter, buddy?” “Well, they're doing us wrong down in Kanawha County.” Throw the water out. That, that's wrong! Now that's wrong. We did wrong there. And I'm not so sure that that's not part of our ills today. Because you take our foreign business, foreign coal business, why, when they couldn't get coal due to, due to the reason of us striking and so forth over nothing, why then they could buy the coal somewhere else. Course it's picking up some now; I think the coal business is coming back. But now it's been pretty rough here, especially in the southern part of West Virginia the last five or six years. Well three or four years at my mine. We, we've got a lot of men cut off now.
PN: I just want to ask you another question about when the union first came in. Did people feel more free to, you know, speak what was on their mind?
CF: Oh definitely, right, yea, sure. Immediately after, yes sir, now we, was immediately after we organized — or they organized, of course that [was] three years before I began, but I could remember it well — why, the local union got their charter and they'd have a meeting maybe oncet or twicet a month, and elected their officers and their committeemens. And if they had some grievance or some gripes, why the committeemen contacted management, and tried to take care of it. Although like I said a few minutes ago, they was a little contrary to start with, because they didn't want to recognize the union. But they finally come around.
PN: Was there a difference in the standard of living that the families had after the union came in?
CF: I don't think there's too much difference in them days on up until later years, because that didn't have too much effect on the wages. 1 think maybe I was a 'making $3.50 a day when I started. That was in 1936. Of course, we didn't make anything right on up until, to amount to anything until maybe some time in the late forties. But, no that didn't, well it did in a way too. But I know that maybe in '40, '41, '42, a lot of 'em begin to get automobiles, although they couldn't bring the automobiles in the camp. Just leave them on the mountain. But a lot of them, yea, I believe they begin to live a little better than what they did.
PN: When you first moved there in 28 and in that period, what did the town look like? Or what did the houses look like?
CF: Well, the company pretty well kept the houses up. They kept a carpenter they or two that, I mean, of course it was all, had fireplaces in them, I mean grates. There wasn't no electric heat or oil heat or nothing like that. They had old grates in em. But if you broke a step or had trouble with something, the company's just notify the superintendent. He'd send a carpenter to fix it. But there wasn't no baths in none of them. Maybe a few — the superintendent and the mine foreman and the chief electrician; they 're the only ones had baths.
PN: Really?
CF: Yea, right. The rest of them had an old building on the outside.
PN: Did you have to boil water to get it hot, if you wanted hot water?
CF: Right, right, definitely, on the old coal cook stove. Yes sir, yes sir, unless you got to move down in one of the houses — maybe they had a dozen there, I 'd say they only had about a dozen houses there that had baths and water heaters in them.
PN: Out of how many total houses?
CF: Maybe 60, 70, mm.
PN: And the ones when the miners lived there?
CF: Mm. You heated your water; you had a bath in an old galvanized tub of the evening when you come in from work. Your wife would have the, you know, the old water boiling on the stove. She'd pour it in the tub for you, and get some water to cool it down. And you'd get down on your knees, and wash part of yourself. And then after a while, you'd dry that, and get over here and wash the rest of it. And got on the porch and throwed it over the porch — the water. That's the way of life, I mean, that's all
you really knowed. That was it.
PN: Were the houses in Elver ton painted back then usually?
CF: Well they kept the houses in pretty good shape, right. They kept them painted.
PN: What colors would they be painted?
CF: White and black, white and black. Painted white and trimmed in black. It would be white trim?
CF: No, painted white and trimmed in black.
PN: The trim would be black yea.
CF: Yea they, they didn't do bad.
PN: Did people have radios back then?
CF: Yea, yea, I remember people had radios, some of them that can afford them; a lot of them didn't, right. There were some radios there.
PN: Did you have a radio?
CF: Yea, yea, we had a radio. Course, I came out of a large family. And they all were coal miners; they all worked there at Elverton. And I guess at one time, there was four or five of us stayed at home and worked in the mines.
PN: Really?
CF: Stayed with our mother.
PN: And your Dad?
CF: With our mother; our father was dead. Our father died in 1936. He died before I went to the mines. Of course there was about four or five brothers before me that worked in the mines, and there was two or three younger than me that worked in the mines. I think there was seven of us brothers. And I believe, I'm pretty positive all of us at one time worked at Elverton.
PN: Wow.
CF: I think we all, well now except Robert, the oldest one, the one you talked to [See Tape Eight]. I believe he begin his mining career at Lookout; I know he did.
PN: Yea, he said that.
CF: Yea, and the rest of us, I think, started at Elverton.
PN: So your mother kept the house at Elver ton, and you were all working there.
CF: Right, right, right. When our father died, then the superintendent let one of us pay the rent. And so our mother could stay there, right.
PN: Did she live there for many years?
CF: She lived from 193—, or 1928 until 19—, she moved out of there in
1952.
PN: Oh, she lived there till
CF: Right.
PN: At Elverton?
CF: Right, sure did.
PN: Where did she move to then?
CF: Rupert.
PN: Rupert?
CF: Up in Greenbrier County.
PN: Is she still alive today?
CF: No, she lived, she died in '76 at the age of 88. But she lived at Rupert for several years, and then she moved to Fayetteville. And she lived in Fayetteville until she died. But out of seven of us brothers, I'm the only one left that's still coal mining.
PN: Oh, all the others are retired?
CF: Well, I had a younger brother that died suddenly the 25th day of August that worked at Quinwood. And I have one brother, he's been in the service for years and years. And the rest of them's retired, mm. Of course, I'm old enough to retire. I could have retired two or three years ago, but just haven't.
PN: Do you prefer staying active?
CF: Probably work for a while yet, mm, yep.
PN: Have about two minutes there left. Is there, is there anything you think is important to add?
CF: No. Course I've enjoyed coal mining all my life. Course that's all I known, but I've seen a lot happening in and around the mines. But today, I think it's, it's a nice, it'd be a nice future for a you—, I have a son that lives next door. He's 28 years old; he's began his mining career at Lay land. Of course, he's cut off now. He was cut, he's cut off at Layland, but he works at Beckley Coal Mining Company. He's been over there now since he was cut off up here. But he likes mining; yes sir, he likes it. He's only 28 years old; of course, he was foreman at Lay land. He ma—, he was section foreman while he was up there. But he's miner helper now at Beckley Coal Mining.
PN: Where is their mine that he works at?
CF: Down in, you go over here like you 're going to Bolt, turn right and go down in there. Over next to the Beckley, Maple Meadow.
PN: Oh yea, yea, yea. Down beyond Eccles, down there.
CF: Right, right, but you go out there and turn right at a, somewhere. I’ve been down in there before, mm. But coal mining's not bad.
[End of Tape]
Oral History Project - Forren, Robert 1980 Part 1
Elverton, Lookout, Coal mining, other mining towns in the 1920s and 30s.
PN: Maybe you could start off by mentioning again when you were born.
RF: I was born in 1907, 1907 in Monroe County. But in 1909, my father came to the coal fields. First came to Harvey, West Virginia which is located in Fayette County. And about 1911, we went to a little mining camp which has long been abandoned, which was known as Dunglen Mountain, which was operated by William Diggins, which was a part of the old McKe11 lease. Now that's, that's a lot of history to that McKe11 lease. Then we stayed there, my father mined there until 1915. We left there and we went to Lookout, mining camp, another mining camp in Fayette County, which is approximately six mile from the New River gorge. And we stayed there. Then in 1919, my father began, which I was at the age of 12, my father begin to take me in the mines on Saturdays and during school vacation, for at that time we only had what was known as a six— month period of school. And immediately after school was adjourned for the summer, why then all the boys —- 11, 12, 13, 14 years old in these mining camps, why, they first begin, began to get their taste of coal mining. And it was mostly loading coal with their father. But then I went back to school, and I did not take a steady job in the coal mines had until 1900 and, April of 1922. I finished school in March, finished free school in March, and went to school and then went on in 1922 and went to work —— trapping in the coal mine, that was opening and closing doors, ventilating doors, where the mules could get through. And I, I did that for a dollar a day, which was ten hours a day. We had to work ten hours a day at that time. And that was immediately after the union had lost everything they had, in 1921, of course. And there was a lot of bitterness by the coal operators. Some of them had not been organized at that time in the New River field. And it so happened that I first went to work in what was known as a scab mine; it had not been organized.
PN: Which mine was that?
RF: Lookout.
PN: Lookout?
RF: Lookout mine. It was known as the Bloom Coal and Coke Company. And it was the Dianne Mine; they owned two mines at that time. And they were never, they were never organized up through the latter teens; and they were not organized until the organization came back in 1930. In 1922, 1 started driving a mule then, after my experience as a trapper. Then I drove a mule until 1924, and got a leg broke. I got it caught in between a mine post and a coal car. And was off for about seventy—some days before I was able to go back to work. I went back at that time as a coal loader. And then in 1925, I had advanced far enough in knowledge to my thinking that I decided I'd take out on my own. So I went to Elver ton Mine, was at that time owned by the Branch Coal and Coke Company . And it was a non—union mine, of course. For we had no non—union mines in, in the New River field from 21 until 1933.
PN: There was no union mine?
RF: No union mine; we had no union mine left. And so I loaded coal there at Elverton for two months, and left there and went back to Lookout and went back to work in the mine with my father. I have often made this statement, and there is so much truth in it. Back in the early, latter teens and early twenties, when a man went to work on a coal—company job, naturally when he first went to work he had no money. The company gave him his tools — his axe and his auger, tamping bar, needle, and shovel and pick. And they were charged to him. And he paid then, the first month that, he paid for those tools the first month that he worked. And he had moved into a coal company house, and the rent was set by the coal company. And as his children came into this world, I've often made this statement, they were born in this world in a coal company house. They were rocked in a cradle that belonged to the coal company. They were delivered by a coal company doctor. When they become of age, they went to school in a school that was owned and, or built, it was built by the coal company. The teachers were more or less hired by the coal company. And after they came out of what little schooling they were able to get, why then they went back to work for the coal company. And in the event of death, why the casket that they were buried in was furnished by the coal company. They were hauled to the old coal company graveyard, in a coal company wagon, buried in a coal company casket in a coal company grave— yard. And it's surprising to know, the old boys that's sleeping up [and] down New River today, that a lot of people doesn't have the knowledge as to where those graveyards are. I can go to graveyards today, that a very few people that knows where there at today.
Then in nineteen hundred—, I continued on in the mines until 1929, and I got a leg, another leg broke. I left there and went to New York. I was In New York in 1929 when the stock market crash came. I was fortunate enough to find a job. I had had some know— ledge due to my father's previous knowledge of painting. And I worked in New York for about three months until the crash come in October, in '29. And then about November, due to the fact that there were no work whatsoever,
I was able to pawn a watch that had [been] given to me by my father, and wired home for four more dollars in order to pay my transportation back home . I came back to Elver ton, went back to work in the coal mines at one and two days a month. That were all we were operating. There was no money, no one had money. What little work you had was traded up in the coal company store for food. And then in 1933, why we were able to organize again. And some of the coal companies were very, very objective to this. Most all the organizing was done in some of the deep, dark hollows surrounding those coal camps, and most of the time in the wee hours of the morning. And it was rather pathetic to watch some of the old boys bringing in their nickels and dimes, and coal company scrip — to trade to some merchant around some of the little adjoining towns for about 30 cents off a dollar in order to get enough money to buy their union charter. And a charter cost 20 dollars at that time. Then things began to pick up again in the mining camps. We had the National Recovery Act, the Blue Eagle. And it did seem like, with the ten years of my experience, that there was more patriotism and more good will shown amongst the coal miners than there had been for the previous ten years of my mining. And I mentioned a while ago, at that time on the New River gorge, we had around 25 to 30 operating coal camps. Each and every one of the coal camps were, was more or less owned by various coal companies. Only two mines on New River at that time which was known, known as Caperton, Southside Caper ton and Brooklyn and Rush Run —— was owned by Caperton interests. And those Caperton interests were formal, formerly in Monroe County. And they had, they had been much better to our people during the previous ten years of non—union; they had shown more respect and much more compassion than any other coal, coal operators up and down New River. I, mines operated up and down the river, they begin, oh yes, Nuttallburg Mine at one time was bought out by the Ford interests. They operated it for about six or seven years. And then they, they sold again back to the Maryland—New River Company .
PN: What, the Maryland—New River?
RF : The Maryland—New River Company, yes. And they continued to operate that mine until it was closed. But at the time that Ford Motor Company came in there and bought this mine, wages went up to six dollars a day. But the other mines, surrounding mines about everywhere else in the field was only paying around two—and—a—half to three—twenty. But after a short period of operation by the Ford Motor Company, it was impossible to buy a job there. They were not selective toward their men at all; they were very considerate that way. But there were just too many men trying to get on for that type of wage. And then in 1928, just previous to the Presidential election the year that Cal Coolidge, the second, after Coolidge had filled out Warren G. Harding's time —— why they was, due to some manipulations somewhere, there was quite an increase in wages come along about the last of September in 1927. That lasted, at a rate of five—and—a—half to six dollars—and—a—half a day, for driving a mule, operating a motor and a coal—cutting machine, and laying track; that lasted in about 85% of our mines up until just about a week after the election. And then the wages fell to back to where they was in ‘27 and stayed that way until we began to have an increase in '33, ‘34. Coal at that time, most of the companies was paying anywhere from 27 to 35 cents a ton for a ton of coal. And due to the conditions up and down the river, the normal amount would be around five to six and seven ton per day. We did have some of the old boys that were maybe stronger, and working condition was better In their place, that possibly could average ten ton a day, for as much as a month which gave them around three dollars and a half a day, which was a big salary in their estimation, or a big wage.
PN: You were talking about the 1920s before, though, when the union had been destroyed in 1919 and didn't come back till 1933. In your experience, did the miners often talk about the union during the twenties?
RF: It was, it was discussed where it was absolutely known that there was no company suck around, that's what the men. But anytime there's a coal company management was informed that there was even knowledge of it being discussed, that man left the next day. He didn't stay on that job.
PN: If they thought that you were [pro—union], you were just kicked out of them?
RF: That's right. And if even two or three/ discussed it in or around their working place in the mine the day before, they all three left there the next day. It was not allowed to be discussed whatsoever. And they had what was known at that time as coal company guards, and what we call coal company thugs. Those coal company guards and coal company thugs often walked the little roads in front of the homes at night to see that there was no visitation between the neighbors. And they attended their church services to see that they were, did not conjugate [sic] wheresoever.
PN: Really?
RF: And if there was one or two that come into the coal, two or three that gathered around the coal company store, maybe to discuss their personal working conditions, this coal company thug immediately come up and told them to disperse immediately. It was not allowed.
PN: So you couldn't even visit your next—door neighbor?
RF: No, no, no, no, you could not visit your next—door neighbor. No, you could not visit your next—door neighbor. No siree.
PN: Just thinking about the way your, you know, your life was at that period of time, and how it changed when the union came back, could you discuss some of the differences between living in a coal town and working in a mine under non—union conditions and union conditions?
RF: You take back at, during that period of time, a coal company home had nothing in our home. We had two or three old iron beds. And the table that we eat off of was made by our fathers. And you had one or two chairs. And you had what was known as stools, or powder kegs, and things like that to set around the table, eat your meal. Of course, you had a cook—stove and that was all you had at home. You had nothing else. There's nothing to compare with the home today, and what it was at that time. Now I was one of 11 children, and 1 was a little more fortunate, our family was a little more fortunate than some of the boys in, than some of the other families in the coal camp . For my father was a pretty good stonemason, and he was a pretty good brickmason, and he was a pretty good painter, and a fairly decent carpenter. And when he wasn't working —— Oh Lord! —— wasn't working at that particular time, why he was able to maybe throughout some adjoining camps or something, to pick him up a day's work at something else. We had just a little bit more food.
[At this point, a truck drove up to deliver a new stove to Mr. Forren's home, so the interview was interrupted and begun again on the following morning.]
PN: Yesterday we were just, or you were making some comments about the difference between life after the union came in. And I wanted to ask you two or three more questions about that. What, if you think about how life was for the women that lived in the coal towns and the coal camps, do you see any differences for them after the union came in and the mines were re— organized, and before when there was no union?
RF: Oh yes. There's one of the greatest difference in the world. It's not within my vocabulary to describe to you the difference in the mothers and the wives in the homes in the, our coal camps previous to the organization. I made this statement on several occasions, that back in the nineteen hundred and latter twenties and early part of thirties, it so happened that every so often I was able to come into Beckley for various little things. But you could stand on the streets in Beckley, and you could point out each and every coal miner and his wife that came up that street. You generally a old coal miner with an old patched pair of overalls on, which was common attire at that time. And the wife, she had generally an old patched, faded calico dress. But thank God now, since the union come in, it is so different from what it was. You take in our homes today, they have every type of appliance that other homes, other types of professions have, or business have, or labor has. They have their Cadillacs; they have their Lincolns. And that gener—, goes back to, well, from the forties you could begin to see this. You could see this improvement In their, their lives. They begin to attend churches moreso; they were dressed better; their children were dressed better. We had better schools; we had better everything.
Our union did not only apply to the conditions in our individual coal camps. It applied to the conditions in the other types of business in the field. For as we spent our money, which we were then, had access to which we didn't have previous; we just spent coal company scrip or nothing; we were told what we could do. Then after that, why the living conditions, well you seen the mothers going into the beauty shops; you seen them in much better dress; and conditions was far better for a mother or a wife of a coal miner beginning in ‘40 than what it was previous to that time.
PN: How about the food that the children had? Or the whole family, but how about the way the children ate? Were there any differences there?
RF: I would say without exaggeration that in the twenties, latter twenties, up until after the organization come in, that oatmeal was the breakfast in a coal camp. It and fried potatoes, and generally what we called as fatback for the miner. There was only enough of that meat for the miner; very seldom did the children did the children ever had [sic] that kind of meat. It was just not there. The wages did not give them enough to provide for the family. They had their coffee, of course; that was one of the main part of the meal. But their dinner and so on, we often hear this statement made beans was a miner's delight. That was always served oncet and twicet a day. always served oncet and twicet a day. And along with this beans and fatback, there was an enormous lot of bean soup. There was an enormous lot of cornbread eat at that time. It was cheaper to buy cornmeal than it was to buy flour.
PN: It was?
RF: Oh yes, yes, it was much cheaper to buy cornmeal than it was to buy flour. And then most all the coal miners, if it was possible, had their little vegetable patch in the summer. A lot of them were able to buy what we called a pig in the early spring and fatten it for a hog, for the homes, provide meat in the homes in the early part of the winter. Whether there was a little [or] large family, generally December, 15th of January, you done away, you done eaten the meat that had been provided by this manner. Then you went on the regular routine of food, that you was able to get from the company store, and provide work enough to get the scrip to buy it. Go ahead with your questions.
PN: When you lived in a town like Elverton, would you say that most of the miners had gardens in back of their houses?
RF: About 80% of the miners, no, maybe that's a little high. Let's say 60% of the miners had their little truck patch. But the coal company management told you where you could garden, where you could provide this little truck patch. Sometimes it would be as much as a mile, or a mile and a half away from home.
PN: So you had to walk from your house to fix your garden?
RF: That's right, that's right. And I have seen my father, and I have did it, I did it my own individual self, that when we would come home in the evenings from our work in the coal mines, that we would then put, eat our supper — not take our bath, but would eat our supper —— and go to the cornfield and hoe corn until nine and nine—thirty at night. And we also, in the fall, would do the same thing after we had cut our corn, and shucking our corn, and getting it ready to take to the barn. After, or mostly, they had cows around Lookout to provide their milk and so on. Up and down New River, they didn't have that; there was not provisions made in but a very, very few camps where they could keep a cow. That wasn't there.
PN: Did many people, though, you said they raised hogs?
RF: They was around, they was around 30—35% of the people raised hogs. And there was usually something else —— in raising a hog, the rest of the people in the camp would provide what we called refuge [sic] from the table, what we call "hog slop." And you could see the children, of the evening after they come home from school, visiting the different homes that did not have hogs, a' picking up the scraps from the tables and so on what few there were —
PN: To feed the hogs?
RF: What few there were, and the potato peelings, the apple peelings, and things like that, to bring home to the family that did have a hog. Or maybe two hogs, which would sell them, most always one.
PN: Another questions about the non—union conditions and the union condi— t ions. What did the union mean for the safety of the man that was working in the mines.
RF: Up until the union come in, we didn't have any safety. We only had at most of our mines at that time what was known as a mine foreman. He had supervision over the whole mine. And the mine foreman —— there were no section foremen —— up until up in the latter part of the twenties, our mines did not have a fire boss. Finally in the latter part of the twenties, the West Virginia passed a law that each and every company had to provide a fire boss. But the fire boss was not of, he was not, he was not a union man at that time. And he was mostly the relative of some of the companies to be that; it was an easier j ob. And only, mostly criticism then; at that time, it was not so much the safety of it; it was criticize the poor, old miner because he couldn't load another ton or two of coal, or getting his track straightened out where the cars wouldn't wreck, or providing additional timbers that may be for the safety of the miner . That was not always true. Most of the times, when they were driving their main entries, that they were, that they knew that they were going to have future work on ahead of them, why they did that for the, well, they're possibly two or three words you could use in regard to that. They did it, knowing the fact that this advanced entry was going to be in operation, four, five, six years maybe. And they wanted that not for the protection so much for the miner, but in order to hold that top up to providing trouble [sic] as they retreated on this part of the mine, you know. There were no, there were no provisions made for hard—shells; we used at that time, up till the latter part of the twenties, we used a soft hat.
PN: You did?
RF: We used a soft hat, yea. And it was up in the latter part of the twenties and the very early part of the thirties before a majority of the mines went to what we called the head, or the electric light. We used a carbide light, yes, we used a carbide light. And it was, I 've seen my father in coal preparing to get ready to shoot down, that is where we could load it, after it had been machine cut; I've seen my father many a time take his carbide light, and stick it to auger holes and burn the gas out of them where we could charge that hole with powder, or montabel, or dynamite to blow that coal down where we could load it.* And further— more, on many and many an occasion, I've seen my father, and have did it myself, would have to take our Number Four Red—edge coal shovel, and fan it in a place to get the smoke out where we could get In to see, see to load our coal. And you breathed all them impurities. At no time in walking along the haulageway, at no time when you walked along that you weren't kicking up dust, unless you had to wade a water—hole, which it was very few provisions made to keep off the road unless, unless it created a problem for the company. Not to the men, but for the company.
*A cutting machine would undercut the coal face about six inches —— a process which had once been done simply by picks in order to facilitate shooting the coal down. If auger holes were drilled, filled with powder, and ignited without first being undercut, chunks of coal would fly out all over the place, instead of dropping down.
PN: How good care did the company take of the mules?
PN: Oh, they took much better care of the mules than they did men. I’ve often said, it's possibly a little exaggeration here on some of our part, but mine management, the stable boss, what we called a stable boss, he was always there of the evening. You had to, after you brought your mule out of the mine, he first took him to a place that had been provided by the company to wash him off. Then you took him on into the barn. You had to unharness this mule, you had to take the bridle off of him, and you had to put the halter on, and put him in the stall which had been assigned to that particular mule. Then the fire—, then the stable fore—, boss had, in the trough that had been provided for him, had generally put his corn, cracked corn or oats, and also his hay in what we, what was called the manger. And then of the morning, when the mule driver went back to get his mule, he was, he had to harness his mule, he had to put the bridle on the mule. And then often, if you had a new whip around your neck, often the stable boss would examine that whip to see if it was going to cut the skin or something on the mule where you used it that day. And if you crippled up a mule, which I did on two occasions; the fact of the matter is, on two occasions I was misfortunate enough to get my mule fouled so two of them were killed. And that there were often a lot of humiliation, as to why it was done, and so on and so forth. But when a coal miner was killed, he was brought outside. And if it was a mile, if he lived, his home was a mile away from the mine, why he generally was, most often was took In what we called the "dog house" that was provided around the mine. There he was washed and put under a blanket or something, and carried on a little stretcher to his home.
PN: The mule?
RF: No, the mine, [correcting himself] the man, the man. And he was carried to his home. And as I told you yesterday, there he was packed in ice and a casket was brought later. And he was put into this casket, and packed around with ice in quart and half—gallon fruit jars, and kept till the next day till he was hauled to the graveyard in a coal company wagon by a coal company team. And often there was one of the old boys that was a minister that was a coal miner, and he generally said last rite, or had the last rites for the old fellow. But the mules was, mules were provided, on the weekends, on Sundays —— which as you know, we always worked six days a week at that time —— and the mules were provided a nice, what we called a “mule lot.” At Sunday evenings then, why the, it was up to the stable boss to take those mules from the, from the, where they had spent the Sunday exercising and so on back to the barn.
PN: Take the mules out of an open field?
RF: Right, right, an open field for him, yea, where he could exercise. That was only, that's the only provision that was made more than the food. They were adequately fed. And in the noon, at noon at that time, why you had to, 12:00 or 12:30, 12:15 or 12: 30, you had to quit hauling coal with your mule, and take his bridle off, or take, take, unloose his bridle, and the bit from his mouth. And you always had to take in a little sack of corn or oats, every morning, when you, it was part of your, part of the mule driver's paraphenalia was his little bag with oats in it. I’ve often heard men, mule drivers, often heard men that was abused, really abused by management, mine foremen, for whipping a mule or cutting him with this whip we used rawhide whips at that time. And you, you had to be very angelic, and the mule drivers were mostly selected by the company. You, they had to know that you were pretty broad—minded in regard to taking care of that mule and treating him as a mule, I reckon you call it. [laughs]
PN: You were saying that your father was on the Armed March in 1921?
RF: Yes.
PN: Maybe you could say a few words about that. How old were you then, about 12?
RF: No, I was 13 at that time. I was 13 when my dad left Lookout and went to Cabin Creek to join that march into Logan, yes. He was gone three during that time. That was the first time that any of us people around Fayette County had seen an airplane. For they had brought the airplanes in to, flown military planes in to assist in this March anyway, I mean assist the coal companies in this March. My dad laid in on Blair Mountain in Logan County and, for three days and three nights. And he took his rifle with him; it was a, I believe the caliber was what they called a 45—70. And brought it back; he had traded it, he had traded some apples and some potatoes and some other vegetable to another fellow, another coal miner there in the camp for this rifle, which he kept for probably eight or ten years till he traded it off for something else. But he brought it back.
PN: Hew did he hear about this? And how did all the miners come to go, where was it Marmet that they started at?
RF: We had, we only had one newspaper at that particular time, as I recall. That was the Cincinnati Post. As far back as I can remember, the Cincinnati Post was mostly delivered into these coal camps. In fact when I was a kid, I delivered the Cincinnati Post for two cents a copy.
PN: You did?
RF: Two cents a copy. And I 'd make maybe, in a month I 'd maybe make as much as 40 and 50 cents off of it. And there were no Sunday edition, or anything like that. But I'm, I'm sure that we learned at that time about this trouble through the Cincinnati Post. I don't remember the year that the Charleston Gazette become popular in West Virginia possibly previous to this date, but it was not in many of the coal camps to my knowledge. No other paper.
PN: So some of the miners were reading the papers, and that's why they went there?
RF: Yes, they informed, they informed other miners. Of course at that time, we knew our obligation to one another and, as the statment's often made, it didn't take much urging to do that, for our people knowed what hardships they had gone through, what sacrifices had been made, and were willing to go any— where to help conditions for their families, in any way, any type of sacrifice to be made, And there was a relationship at that time amongst the coal miners. In my estimation, [it] does not exist today. If someone got sick, which was a hardship at that time, if some coal miner got sick, or some member of his family, it was not unusual to see, to meet a neighbor on his way over to Mr. Jones's house. He had been hurt in the coal mines an arm broke or a leg broke —— but they were on their way over there with a, half a gallon of buttermilk, or a pound of butter, or a, some vegetables of some type; or if it was a child maybe It was a apple tart or a bag of popcorn that they had popped for him. And each and every coal camp had their little churches. And most of them where we had a number of colored, we had at that time, it was segregation, and they had little, the colored had their little church; and the white had their little church. Mostly always it was a Community Church. In some of our camps, we had the Baptist and the Methodist —— that was about the only two type of churches we had at that time. Once in a while, we had a Catholic church, but not of ten.
PN: Were the Catholic churches in any of the towns along New River?
RF: Let me see then, Mr. Nyden, I don 't, I think, no, not to my knowledge there was any of them. The only Catholic church that the boys used to go to on Sundays when it was possible to get there I 've seen them ride horses and mules to get there —— was the Catholic church at Scarbro.
PN: Scarbro?
RF : Yes. Oh yes, Winona had a Catholic church, yes, yes. Winona was a mining camp, and It was only a couple of mile up off of the river. And I don't remember a Catholic church at Thurmond. But I do know that Winona had one, and 1 remember the priest coming there often to hold his services. But they were a, there was a relation between people, and the relations was good between the colored and the white; even at that time, they were good. And you could, they mingled in the company stores and something else — they was, most of the coal miners drank at that time. If there was any corn whiskey in the country, why they'd find it some way, somehow, or some other. And a lot of their homes had their hornw—brew set every week for them. When Saturdays or Sundays come, why, they had their home—brew. And they often set down in a little party, and drank that five gallon of that home brew, that’s what they generally made. And maybe, in a few hours later, why they run out of this fivem they go over to Mr. Jones house and he had a brew set. And then they made another concoction that they called “Old Hen.
PN: Old Ham?
RF: Old Hen, h-e-n
PN: What was that?
RF: That was made out of raisins and meal. I’ve drank it but I’ve never seen any of it made.
PN: What was that, a whiskey?
RF: It was, it was not a whiskey, it was another beer. I don't know, it's more of a wine. And it 'd, it would knock hell out of you now, brother. You get that Old Hen going good. These home brews, these brews were set in under a cook stove, in a churn or a crock of some, five—gallon crock all there was was five—gallon — a can of malt, and you generally made you a five—gallon. Sometimes they'd put a few raisins in it, a few peaches in it, put a few potatoes in it. And they all, every type of concoction in this world, if you get a little. And then they had their poker parties, and poker games. You never, I 've never known a poker party in a home in the coal camp. But generally on Sundays, why you'd see them along about one o'clock, you'd see three or four take off together; then a few moments later, you'd see two or three more take off together. And you'd know they were headed into the adjoining woods for a little poker game.
PN: They used to play it in the woods.
RF: They always played in the woods, yes, always played in the woods. Coal companies at that time were, did not, would not permit anything like that if they could keep from it. And this was generally done with scrip, metal scrip that they have.
PN: Oh they played poker with scrip?
RF: Oh yes, they played poker with metal scrip. And so…
PN: What did they do in the wintertime when they couldn't go into the woods?
RF: Well, in the wintertime, they would generally get around some old, abandoned house somewhere, build them up a fire if there was any abandoned house. And I 've seen them play in the woods when, dammit, it would be snowing. Oh yes, they had their…
PN: What did they do, did they build a little fire there?
RF: Build a little fire, around somewhere where they could set around a fire. Freeze your front and burn your back up, or burn the back up and freeze your fronts anyway to pick up two or three or four nickels out of that poker game.
PN: When you were talking of the Armed March, it reminded me, I had three friends in western Pennsylvania who worked in the mines —— you know, un— fortunately they 've all died now but they said that they came down from places near Washington, Pennsylvania to, you know, be in that March in 1921. But they came all the way down here to, because they heard about it too. Or nineteen—twenty, it was '21 wasn't it, or '22?
RF: Yea, '21 or ' 22, '20 or 21, yea. That's when we lost the union. That was the beginning of the, and, of losing. Mingo County and over in Clay County that Widen situation, I don't know, now I was in that. I spent three days in Widen my own individual self.
PN: What was that, In the fifties when that was going on?
RF: Yes, no. No, now that was into, that's before I went to the organization, I went to the organization in '48. I believe it was in '43 or '44, somewhere along in that. We had one boy go, over here at Sophia by the name of Farley, who was killed there. They had an awful lot of shooting. I was chased one night there with, what was it, three state police, for about a mile to get away. I had my rifle in my hand at that time. I hadn't done any shooting, didn't do any shooting when I was up there. But I was prepared to if it become necessary. We never did go down in the camp. We was on the hill above Widen there. We built us a cookhouse there, and the state police tore it down.
PN: They never organized that, did they?
RF: Yes, it, it was finally organized, but not as long as the old man had it. Clinchfield Coal Corporation bought that mine, and we organized it, I guess up in the sixties, would say in the sixties, yes. Yes, they signed a contract then with us. But not as long as this old gentleman, I forget his name now. And it was a beautiful camp, I mean it was, previous to that time I had been down in this camp on, before I had, was in that picket line up there.
PN: At Widen?
RF: Yes, at Widen, yes. They had their bank, they had their theater. They had their community building. It was a camp that was about the average camp in the New River field, far above the average camp in the New River field.
PN: Really?
RF: Yes, yes, far above.
PN: Were the camps in the New River field usually not as well built as .
RF: No, they were not, you had pretty decent homes. I think most of the homes were painted in the latter part of the twenties. We still had some [of] what we called the Jenny Lind home; that was a home that was just stripped with rough lumber. And then another strip was put over the big crack on the outside. And once in a while, they would provide you with what we called a, building paper for the inside. But it was nothing to walk into these homes to see these a.
[End of Tape]
Oral History Project - Forren, Robert 1980 Part 2
Elverton, Lookout, Coal mining, other mining towns in the 1920s and 30s.
[The second of two reels for Interview Eight begins on top of page 8.24.]
PN: You were talking about the newspapers in the Jenny Lind houses?
RF: Most all of the, most all the homes, they used the Cincinnati Post and the Grit. We had what was, a newspaper known as the Grit; I think it was printed somewhere up in Pennsylvania. But that was a weekly paper, and it was sold by the boys In the coal camp. It was nothing to see a part of the home that was papered with the Grit or the Charleston, or the Cincinnati Post. And it was up around 28 before you seen the homes begin to have their wallpaper inside. And it was the ones that did have them, it was the miner that had been able to make an extra couple of dollars that month, loading a couple or three extra cars of coal in order to buy that two or three rolls of paper to paper that room. And then the companies began to get just a little more liberal with their painting. You'd see some of the homes that were painted inside. And it was, the painting was done by either the m other or the father or the head of the household. It was not provided by the, material was provided by the company, but the work was done by the miner or his wife.
PN: By the miner?
RF: Yes. Then they would begin to furnish a little more fencing, wire fencing, I saw in front of some of the little homes around the coal camp to keep out the hogs and keep out the few cows that there was. And of course the miner had to set his own fenceposts, and stretch his own wire and everything. But the companies begin, some of the companies begin to their provide them with those necessities to work or raise / little vegetable gardens and so on. But some of them didn't have anything; they just went out and picked them a patch and that's when, that's where they did their gardening at. Then in the thirties, it was nothing unusual. Now that was a pathetic type of life in the coal fields. No one had anything, and it was a year or so later they began to furnish a little Red Cross flour. And honestly I have known the boys to walk from the coal camps on New River--Elverton, Browns, South Caperton from there into Fayetteville, a distance of about 14, 15 miles. And then would be given a 24—pound bag of flour. It was nothing to see 12, 15 of the men coming from Fayetteville with a poke, a 24—pound poke of flour of their back, to go on in, into these little coal camps. And the companies would not, you had to have time or tonnage in the office before they would give you a dollar scrip. I have often, I have often seen old mothers sit there at the scrip window, their tears pouring out of their eyes, begging for a dollar scrip, begging for a dollar scrip. And very seldom was I ever saw them provided with this dollar scrip. And I 've seen a lot of the old coal miners that's wait till the superintendent come into his office, and finally get audience with him to go back and beg for a dollar scrip to go into the company store to buy something, some food or something for theirself. And then when work was not too good, and some of the coal companies, the evening before they knew the mine was going to work, would advance this dollar scrip whereby they could get their little bit of Prince Albert smoking tobacco, or their plug tobacco which most of them chewed at that time, and maybe enough of money to get some bologna and a loaf of light bread to pack their lunch the next day. And maybe a few potatoes. A lot of, a lot of our homes at that time, they had fried potatoes In the morning for breakfast too, but not too many of them. They were not that much unless they had raised this vegetable theirself. In 1941, I went back to the coal mine after I recuperated from my broken back. I was able to go back on a steady basis. Why it was only about two and a half months till I was elected Recording Secretary of my local union. Six months later, I was elected President of my local union.
PN: What local was this?
RF: Layland, 5821, Layland, West Virginia. And then I stayed in the capacity as President of my local union until 45. Well, in '45 I was elected National Scale Committeeman as a representative for the New River field. And that included all of the mines that was around —- 40- some, yea, 40—some at that time.
PN: Was that all District 29?
RF: That was District 29, yes.
PN: There was no District 17 there in the New River fields?
RF: No, in ’43 we got, we went from, we came out of District 17 in ‘43
PN: Into 29?
RF: Yes, and again, now, it went down. Previous to ’21 we had 29. But when we gained the union back in '33, why 17 and 29 was one —— which was 17. But then after we had almost completely organized the field in '43, why then they reestablished 29. And in 45, I was elected International Scale Committeeman. It so happened I am, I am a part of which we think was one of the most famous contracts that was ever…
PN: That was when the Health and Retirement Fund was established?
RF: That was when we got the, that was when we got the pension and the medical program. That's when we signed what was known as the Lewis—Krug Agreement. That was when we had the flags flying over the drif tmouths [indicating U.S. government operation of the mines at the time]. And that was when we got the nickel a ton [royalty payment into the Fund].
PN: Was that the 46 contract? That was signed in 46?
RF: Yes, yes, yea. That's when we got the nickel a ton. And I was also that, in the year of '44, elected Justice of the Peace in my district, which was Quinnimont district. And that was quite an honor to a coal miner at that time. And I was President of my P.T.A.; we had Layland Junior High School, around 700 students at that time. They come in from the surrounding territory. And that was quite an honor. And we spent 56 days in Washington; we had a 56—day strike to get the five—cent royalty to begin with. And at that time was when I become knowledgeable, and with my per— sonal contact with Mr. Lewis. I had known John Lewis intimately previous to this, but not personally. My longest conversation happened to be one evening, we had been laying in at the Hamilton Hotel for about 12, 14 days without a break, or sign of a break from the operators.
PN: Where was that? In Cincinnati?
RF: No, it was In Washington.
PN: Washington?
RF: Washington. And I had gone over to the headquarters over on Fourteenth Street to pick up a Journal. And on my way back, he was, that evening he was sitting in the park between Fourteenth and Fifteenth, feeding the pig—, feeding the squirrels peanuts. He said to me, he said: "New River" which he always called me "New River" because I represented the New River field at that time. He said, “New River, sit down a while." And I sat down, and to me that was one of the greatest personal contacts I think I I’ve ever had with a human being. For the knowledge that man possessed in regard to the conditions that existed in my field, the New River field, was unexcelled that I didn't think possible that anyone unless they had worked there. He begin to tell me of the slate conditions. And at that time, we had to move so much slate without being paid for it, in order to make a passageway for the mules, or make passageway at that time for the gathering motors. And also the other enormous amount of what we called ' 'dead work" in the mines that we did not receive any pay for.
PN: Timbering and stuff like that?
RF: That's right. He had, he had full knowledge of this, full knowledge of this much greater than myself, and 1 worked in the field. And also he told me at the time that he came from Wales and went into coal mines in Iowa. And he, his vocabulary was beyond human comparison, beyond human comparison. I know that during the course of conversation, even though he, I think be as understanding with me, knowing my limited knowledge, why I still had to go back to the hotel and think for hours before some of the conversation would really stick. But he also was telling me about the conditions that exist in those mines. He was the type. About, just a few days after this, why things begin to gel in regard to settling the, part of the contract. That was the year that we got the Safety Code, first safety code that we had in the field. But I remember the morning that they broke, so well. The producers, we had Mr. John T. Jones who was then one of our elec—, head officers, he was Secretary of the Negotiating Committee. Mr. Cartwright from Indiana Coal Operators Association was the Chairman of that committee. And in that time, Harry Moses was…
PN: U. S. Steel?
RF: President of U. S. Steel. And it so happened that previous years that Mr. Lewis had worked with Mr. Moses's father in the mines in Iowa. For I recall so well that morning, that United States Steel had been fighting the safety code so hard. And as Mr. Lewis come into the negotiat—, the hearing that morning, he never pulled his hat off. He walked to the press table, and he sat down at the press table. And during the period of time which was ten or 15 or possibly 20 minutes before he was recognized by Mr. Cartwright as one of the speakers that morning. And as he walked from the press table around to the battery of microphones, he began to drag his leg.
PN: Who was this, John L.?
RF: Yes. Of course all of us was astonished. We wondered what had happened. As he got up, he pulled his hat off and handed it over to the Chairman, or I mean the Secretary, Mr. Jones. He cleared his voice, he pointed his finger down in the battery of lawyers, operators, and other officials of the opera— tors committees, negotiating committee. And he said to him, he said: "Harry,” he said, "Does that bring any recollections to you? Do you recall anyone in your life that dragged their leg a lot of years, before death?" He said, "Harry, I want to say they were fond recollections. He says, "You tell my coal miners setting over here If that don't bring back memories." He said, "The last 11 years of your father's life." [a brief interruption here] He said to him, he said, "Harry, doesn't this bring back memories to you?" He said, “The last 11 years of your father's life, he drug his leg like that.” He said, "Tell these boys what happened." He said, "Tell my coal miners setting over here what happened.” He said, "It was due to neglect of the coal company in which he worked at." And he said, “He worked across, just an entry from me." He said, “You had a wonderful father, Harry.” But he says, “You know I can't say that about you here this morning.” Oh man, he eat him up. Then he said, “Now just yesterday, we dwelt on hours here of time that was unnecessary where you people were trying to seat Mr. Moody as the Chairman of the negotiating committee Wage Negotiating Committee — of this contract.” And he says, “I didn't know Mr. Moody.” He said, “I’ve never had that honor. I never had the honor of meeting Mr. Moody.” He said, ”He may be a great man.” He said, “I don’t know.” He says, “Then he may be a representative of some little deep—freeze corporation from up in state of Pennsylvania” which he was. He said, “Now you know, Harry, and the rest of you operators, you all know that Jim Francis —— who is the President of the Bitu—, or who is the Chairman of the Bituminous Coal Operators Commission, President of Island Creek Coal Company, who now lives in Huntington, West Virginia." And he says, "You all know that it's impossible to arrive at any settlement until some of you all go back to Huntington, West Virginia." And he said, “I would judge that would be Mr. Moody, if we seat him as such." He said, “We'd have to call a halt here." And he said, “My boys may be here when the snow flies.” They said, “We wouldn't want that.” He said, “I’ll have to make this remark this morning.” He said, “In the not—too—far—distant future, when the great minds and the great scientists of this nation" now remember this was in the forties — control the solar system whereby that they'll not need such, or be such great need for coal.” And he said, “Some of the great scientists of our nation control atomic power whereby that they may not need such, be such great need for coal.” He says, "The I hope that they'll erect a monument, a great monument in Huntington, West Virginia. And he says, “On this monument to satisfy you operators back there,” he said “I’d like to know about this inscription.” And he said, "I'd like to see Mr. Moody be made a part of this monument. " And he said, "On that monument," he said, "I'd like to see this inscription — I just don't know. I’ll have to ask Jim Francis.”
That was the type of man he was, one of the greatest humanitarians that I've ever known. To know John Lewis is beyond, beyond human thinking in my book, although I know I'm limited. But then in 29 when I went with the organization, or [correcting himself] in '48 when I went with the organization, we had a wonderful President here George Titler —— that went on to become Vice President of this organization before he expired. [Mr. Titler also went on to run on Tony Boyle's ticket in 1969 is an election so marred by irregularities that the federal courts ordered a rerun of the election in 1972, a rerun in which the Boyle ticket was soundly defeated.] But I 've often told my people that they would never know he was the type of man that never wanted the qualities that was within him to be known amongst the people. What he'd want to do would be the type of humanitarian that he was. You'll never know the days back in the fifties when things were so tough, when I 've gone into these coal camps and delivered coal orders, and delivered an order for some school books, or an order for some school kid's shoes, and delivered Christmas baskets in the homes. And he would always tell me, "Bob, don't tell the people who sent these. Tell them Santa Claus sent these baskets. But we want those kids in school." And at no time, I say emphatically, at no time did ever I take a check from the District 29. I took it with George Titler's name on it and his own personal account. I so often did that. And I spent 26 and one—half years in district before I retired. And I retired on my own; I was almost 67 when I retired. And that was just about the time that this confusion started in the organization [referring to the rank—and—file movements which successfully ousted both International and District incumbents in 1972—1973] . I've often said that I spent 20 to 22 years, the happiest moments of my life, which is now, I am going on my 74th year through the grace of God, was spent knowing that I was in the position to help my coal miners, to help their families. The last three or four years that I was with the organization, in the medical department and the organization, were a little rough. You could see things begin to change. They was a little more vocal about that. And then of course in nineteen hundred and seventy—what, did we go in to, that we gained full autonomy. Seventy—three, wasn't it?
PN: Yes, '73 1 think, yea.
RF: Seventy— three.
PN: That was the first election then [in District 29].
RF: But in all that period of time, why It's been, it's been something that's been impossible for me to relate like I would like to. But they were happy moments; they were happy for my family. I spent a lot of hours at night, been on many a picket line, I 've seen some rough times. I 've seen little tipples that have been built the day before, and go back the next day, and I judge lightning had struck them or something; they wasn't there the next day. I 've seen some little larger tipples that the same thing has happened. But it would seem like that something due to the attitude that they had toward the coal miners that, maybe this was from somewhere else. But anyway they weren't there the next day.
PN: Let me ask you a few more things about the twenties. Did you live in Elverton most of the time in…?
RF: No. Now from 1915 until 1928, I lived at Lookout.
PN: Lookout, yea.
RF: Which was known as a part of the New River field. '25 I was at Elverton as I told you yesterday. I was, worked about three or four months loading coal.
PN: Where did you live after 28?
RF: I went back to Elverton, went to Elverton in '28. And lived there till '33 when I got my back broke.
PN; And where did you go then?
RF: And from '28, now in I went down there and I went to McKendree and become C. and O. ticket agent, postmaster, and had a little grocery store. And my wife was night superintendent of nurses there at the hospital.
PN: At the hospital in McKendree?
RF: Yes.
PN: That was a railroad hospital, right?
RF: Yea. But during the time that I operated this little store, it was more or less what's said "nickel and dime"; often as much as a dollar a day would be maximum sales that I r d have. But I was working in the surrounding coal, maybe a few days at this coal camp. I worked at Hemlock a while; I worked at Laurel Creek a few days; and I worked at Leslie a few days.
PN: Leslie?
RF: Leslie, yes, which is in the Greenbrier field. And but I was not able to go back to the mine due to this broken back of mine, fully back to the mine in full employment until 1940. Then I went to Layland.
PN: When you were living in Elverton between 28 and 33, could you describe the appearance of that town a little bit? Like the number of houses, what they looked like?
RF: They were, Elverton was a mining camp, was a little above the majority of camps along there. Those houses were all painted. There were around, around 70 houses there. But at that time, back up on the hill a mile and a half to two mile, was what was known at the Gatewood section. And a lot of the fellows in that section worked at the mine. We had around, I guess, at the heighth [sic] of their production, around 250 miners there.
PN: At Elverton?
RF: At Elverton, yes. Now when I went to Elverton back in '28, it had become what was more or less at that time a mechanized mine. It had motors. There were no mules, no mule—power at Elverton at that time. They had what was known as gathering motors, and then the mainline motors. And they had their drills, electric drills and so on did the drilling on the inside. And we didn't get the mechanized mine, that is, as far as the loading, loading machines come into New River about 1944 — 45. That's when they got the Joy loading machines. They begin to, hand—loading at that time begin to fade out of the picture.
PN: Let me just ask you a question both about Lookout and Elverton when you lived there between 1915 and 1933. Were there many Black miners living there?
RF: There was Black miners at both of them. They were not a majority; the majority were white. And / never worked in a coal camp, and I 've never known a coal camp in the New River field where I can say that the majority were colored.
PN: But there were a number, though?
RF: They were a number. They were not; I would say 33 and a third percent, would be about 33 and a third percent. But they were, from the time at Lookout in the twenties on up through into 28, they were, they had, they lived down below the company store. The white people lived up above the company store. Same provision was made at Elver ton. Where the incline come down the mountain at the tipple, they lived on the lower side of the incline; and the white lived on the upper side. And it begin to change just a little bit at Elver ton. Some of the colored began to move over around the coke ovens, and over on what had been known as the white side. And now that was not due to the decrease in white employment at all. That was just due to the fact that there was a few more colored begin to come into Elverton at that time, and a few more white as well. But the white were mostly coming from off of the Salem area, Gatewood section, and up around Sewell. Sewell, which was more or less a small railroad center about four mile above Elver ton, had had a lot of colored employees at the coke ovens which was operated there.
PN: And there was coke ovens at Elver ton too, you said?
RF: Yes, coke ovens at Elver ton too . A great percentage of, 50% of the mines, in the twenties had coke ovens; 50% of them down New River, let 's say New River.
PN: Really?
RF: Oh yes. Beury had coke ovens, Fire Creek had coke ovens, Sewell had coke ovens, Caper ton had coke ovens, Elmo had coke ovens, Ajax had coke ovens, and Kaymoor had an enormous bunch of coke ovens.
PN: Really?
RF: Yea, enormous bunch of coke ovens.
PN: Were those beehive?
RF: Yea, yea, beehive—type. And Elver ton had coke ovens, Rush Run had coke ovens, Stone Cliff had coke ovens, Slater had coke ovens. Now 98% of the employees of the coke ovens were colored.
PN: Really?
RF: About all the white that was on the coke ovens at that time was the little motor that was used to replenish the fuel, there was a motor operator, and the coke—oven boss. They were all white. The one that drew the coke, loaded the ovens, and so on and so forth, and sealed the ovens was 98% colored, 98% colored. Now I would say that at Elver ton, half of their pro— duction went into making coke.
PN: Were these coke—oven workers members of the union?
RF: Oh yes, yes, yes, yes. They were members of the union.
PN: District 29 or District 50?
RF: 29.
PN: It wasn't 50 was it?
RF: No, 29. No, we had a pretty hard time organizing Sewell down there. For Sewell coal for the ovens come from up at Cliff top, which was about six miles from the mine. Cliff top Mine, Babcock Coal and Coke Company, Babcock Coal and Lumber Company, was unionized at the mine. But it was up in the latter, it was up in the latter thirties, or the early part of forties before we were able to organize the Sewell coke plant. It was a big plant, one of the biggest ones we had.
PN: Sewell was still operating then?
RF: No, it's nothing operating now.
PN: No, then in the forties.
RF: Yes, yes, yes, yes.
PN: When did that shut down in Sewell ?
RF: Sewell didn't shut down in their ovens until around '51 or two, '51 or two.
PN: In this period we were talking about before, at Lookout and Elverton, you know, were there any inmigrants from Europe that came to work in the mines?
RF: We had several old foreign elements, but not too many at Lookout. Lookout was located up on a plateau. It was more or less a farming community at one time, to begin with, a farming community. It's on, Lookout's located on main Route 60 between, federal highway, you know. And most all those coal mining houses has as much as an acre on up; the last home we lived in had 22 acres. And we didn't have, we had a few foreigners there, but not many. But we had several in Elverton —— Polacks and Russians and Hungarians and. One thing we could never say on the river, you'd never see any Jew in the coal mine.
PN: Really?
RF: No, no, no, no, no, you didn't see one in the coal mine. They often come up and down in them coal camps with their packs on the back of them on payday, selling; some of them had some of the most enormous packs of old clothing and jewelry and stuff, that you ever saw, going into these mining camps. That was after them boys were able to start spending a little bit of the money that they accumulated. But I 've told you, I think, before —— you were told how much money you could draw. You were told how much scrip to cut. But they begin to accumulate just a little cash, they begin to buy maybe a dress with it. Maybe pay a dollar down this month, and next month when they come back, pay another dollar. I remember one old fellow, one old Jewish fellow, by the name of Nicholas Safety. And he travel led that river for years and years. And then maybe when night come, why he'd give a, he'd go into one of these coal camps, and maybe give some of the family [sic] fifty cents or a piece of jewelry or maybe a big piece of wearing apparel for his supper, his breakfast, and his night's lodging.
PN: Did any of these teams, did any of these, did Elver ton or any of the towns along the gorge there have baseball teams?
RF: Oh yes, that's something else. About all of our coal camps, about all of our coal camps had a baseball team. And the coal companies, they begin to become quite competitive with the adjoining camps. And if the coal company heard of a good pitcher, or catcher, or a good player a little above the average, why they'd send some of their management over to this other coal camp to see if they could make some lucerative [lucrative] trade with him, maybe a better job, if you come over and play ball for us. And then a lot of the boys begin up in the latter twenties, the boys begin to, management begin to go into some of these colleges and which was seldom. But boys that was, had to come back to the coal camps to get labor to work during the summer, to get money enough to go back in college, why it, they would hire them. But they, they have a nominal job, were never very hard at all; they was mostly outside —— maybe in the coal company store; or maybe doing some repair work to the houses that summer; maybe putting some, repairing some foundations or doing some carpentry work or something. Yes, that was the way it was done. At that time, I might mention this too, you never heard of, you never knew, you never knew of a coal miner's child finishing high school. And a very, very few of them you heard of finishing eighth grade. Now our family, as I told you yesterday, my dad as I said was a fairly decent carpenter, fairly decent stonemason and brickmason. And my dad, when the mines wasn't working, was able to get over to this farmer that traded work, and get a few dollars. All of us, all of us kids were able to finish school, all of us was able to finish school. And there was never anyone In my family was able to go to college until my two daughters .
My two daughters was the first in my family. And I can go back, my, as I said, my family was coal miners. But as I go back, 75 years in my, I could trace my history back, none of them had college. That's on both sides —— my father's and mother's side both.
PN: When you were living in Elverton, or Lookout, what, would most of the boys and girls go through eighth grade?
RF: Yes, that's all they could go through at that time. But they very seldom ever went through the eighth grade. They were, about the time they were 13 years old, they were, the boys were pulled out to go to the camp [meaning mine], and the girls were pulled out to go, stay at home. The girls, there was nothing, the girls, oh rarely, rarely yes. But it was, I mean, it was rarely that you'd see a girl that had finished high school too. I mean free school.
PN: So most of the people didn't even go through the eighth grade then right?
RF: That's right, that's right, that's right. And kids at that time, you take some boy that, they married early — 15 years old and along through there. My God, some of the boys had their families pretty well along at the time they were 22 years old. Yea, five or six children. There was a relationship that's unusual; you very, very seldom ever heard of somebody leaving their wife. You very, very seldom ever heard of somebody, a divorce in the mining camp. Now,
PN: Why was that, do you think? I guess you were just going to explain it.
RF: Why was it? I think the main trouble [sic] was that there was just, there was a closeness there. That there was a relationship that don't exist today. That a man spent 80% of his time at work and in him home, 85% of his time. And, well, a customary practice, it was necessary, you didn't do those things. Oh no, you never heard of divorce. We lost our father when he was only 53 years old. All seven of my brothers have been coal miners, all seven of them. My oldest
PN: Along New River mostly, or different places?
RF: Well, most of them on the River. Now of course I 've got, I 've only got one brother that is in the industry yet. All, or two, there's three of us, there's three, two of them are on the miner's pension. See, I 'm on the International pension. And there's three of us are pensioned coal miners. And I had one that died, was a pensioned coal miner; that's four of them. I have one that made an Army career; he's he's with the government today; he's in California either, he come out of the coal mines at, went into the mines when he was just a few days past 16 years old. My mother signed papers for him to get in. And he made a career of it. Got three boys — they 're all college graduates; all have wonderful jobs in California. He was just home the week before last. I had a brother that was working at Quinwood, and he was tipple operator there at Quinwood; and he was 57 years old and went to work that morning and died took a heart attack and died right at work.
PN: Right there at that tipple?
RF: At the tipple, yes. At his place of employment. I 've got another brother that's with, still at Lay land. And he's tipple operator there. He's only, see, that mine’s practically closed down. The only thing they’re doing now, they’re bringing some Sewell coal in from some of those small, adjoining mines out there.
PN: But the mine itself is shut down?
RF: Yes, the big mine's shut down right now.
PN: They aren't retreating or anything, it's just shut down?
RF: It's just shut down. They don't know when to start, yes, they, in the last, it's been shut down for a year and a half or two years. But in the last two years they've spent around $8 million there in rejuvenating over there. The mine is all, they've put in an enormous new cleaning plant, they put in an enormous new and it's six mile from the cleaning plant — and they put in an enormous preparation plant. And they retracked the mine with railroad steel. And they bought a lot of moveable equipment. And it's just sitting there now boarded up. The mine now belongs to the United Pocahontas people, and is, I think the head office now is in Cincin—, or in Cleveland. Belong to the New River Pocahontas people, from up in Pennsylvania for years and years and years.
PN: That pretty much covers a lot of…
RF: Well anything in this world, and something else might, back in, back in 19—, from '19 up until West Virginia went dry, why about all the mining camps had their saloons at that time too. And those saloons was controlled in, up and down New River, by what was known as the "Fayette County Whiskey Ring" — politicians controlled them at that time.
PN: They did?
RF: Yea. Well some of the old, there's some very old historical history behind those old saloons old “Stagger Lee,” old “Bloody Bucket" now they had some of the wierdest names in this world. At El-, across the river from Elverton, they had a saloon that was known as old "Stagger Lee." And just down at Keenys Creek —— the old foundation, I was down there a few years is ago, still sitting there —— the old, it had what was known as "Dime a Dozen. And all of em had those peculiar names, all those saloons. But they were noted, noted places at one time on that river. There's so much history to New River.
PN: What, and they were all controlled by, by, by a bunch of politicians?
RF: No, they were always controlled by a bunch of politicians out of the Fayette County, not by the coal companies. Unless the coal companies, now.
PN: How was that? They just managed to…
RF: There was no doubt they was a little, they'd slip the coal company a few extra dollars on that stuff, in order to provide this. And it was built on coal company property, of course, But at no time in all that period of time did I ever know a coal company and I could go back to 1912 very vividly, very vividly I remem—, I can recall those things . Thurmond down there, I don't know whether I told you, Thurmond used to be one of the most historic places between Cincinnati and White Sulphur Springs. My God, they used to gather, these coal operators used to gather in there. It is said now--you'll have to [re]search this, I am not positive but they was one poker game supposed to have gone on down there continuously for nine months without a break—up, without a break—up. And they had one of the most elaborate hotels, and that was owned by an old scab coal operator by the name of William McKe11. William McKe11 was an old bachelor. He controlled the Loup Creek section of Fayette County at one time, with about ten mines, And he was, at that time was a multi—, multiple millionaire. And rather than ever sign up with the union, in the thirties he sold out to the New River Company, which is a subsidiary of the C. and O. Railroad.
PN: The New River Company?
RF: Yea, yea. He sold out to them rather than sign a union contract.
PN: McKell?
RF: Yea, William McKell.
PN: Did he own Glen Jean?
RF: He owned Glen Jean, Kllsyth, Ta roy, and McDonald, Turkey Knob. Let's see, there was: Glen Jean, Tamroy, Price — Derryhale, Oswald, Tamroy. He didn't own Price Hill, Price Hill was opened up there by Sinclairs. That was another toughie; that was aother toughie. But things were, there were not a lot of trouble in organizing in there after '30. Some of the companies found it pretty, but there was more or less, some of the coal companies right after the Depression was right against the wall theirself. Fact of the matter is I knew personally a Mr. Ebersole Gaines, up in the thirties that was become President of the New River Company. This might be a little interesting. I remember walking in the barber shop was in Fayetteville in the thirties, and it right after we had pretty well established ourself in the fields. And we had just come off a long strike. And Mr., Mr. Gaines was sitting in another chair. And there was something, he spoke to me, and a remark was made about John Lewis. And he made this statement to me, and I recall so vividly. "Bob, John Lewis is not only making you boys, but he is making us coal, is making some of us coal operators ourself now.” But we was at the lowest ebb, when this thing, when this union come back in. I remember that so well. They paid honor to him to that extent —— that "He's not only making you boys, but is making some of us coal operators too. Now that's when we had the Blue, had got the Blue Eagle and all that stuff. And it was not merely competitive barg—; one time, one time even with the coal operators, it was the most competitive thing in this world.
[End of Tape]
Oral History Project - Garten, Herbert 1980 Part 1
Terry, Coal mining - life in the towns, Terry, Baldwin-Felts operations
PN: Mr Garten, maybe you could start off by just mentioning when you were born, and what towns you lived in when you were growing up.
HG: Well, actually, I was born in farming country up in Summers County, a little community called Clayton. I was born in 1912, July the 28th, and we lived in that area until I was, oh, about nine, I believe, around nine years of age. And we moved down here to Terry.
PN: When you were nine?
HG: Down here on the river, and I had my tenth birthday a few months after we moved down there. There was actually two camps at Terry. Well, there was, it was a divided coal camp. There was two different companies that owned that down there, and still, I guess, it's that way now. I don't know whether there's any work going on down there now. But at that time, it was a pretty busy camp. And they had a big lumber camp just below Terry.
PN: What was that called?
HG: That was the Bond Lumber Company. And it was all a part of Terry;
they all used the post office, but it was separate from the coal company.
And they had their own company store. Of course, the kids went to school there in the coal camp.
PN: In Terry?
HG: In Terry. They had a, at the time we moved there, the company that operated the mines, they called it the Cook and Carter Coal Company; of course, the Carter was owned, a part of that property, the lower end of it; and then the other side was owned by the Erskine Miller and Sproul people.
PN: Sproul?
HG: Yea, from Staunton, Virginia. And of course, this Cook and Carter, they, the part that they didn't own, they leased from them, you know, and operated the whole thing, you know. That was two separate operations; what I mean, they had two different tipples. But it was all run by this same company. And I don't know, they had quite a few houses. And they had some that they called the new houses. And they hadn't been built too long when we moved there, and they were pretty nice houses. But most of the houses that miners lived in was Jenny Lind construction, you know. In other words, it was just shanty— type buildings; the wind could blow through, you know, if you didn't have a lot of building paper on the Inside. They put up building paper Inside to keep It in the cracks In the floors, and you could feel the floor give, you know, when you walked over, just single floors.
PN: Was the building paper like wallpaper?
HG: No, it was just old brovm—colored building paper, you know, all of it the same color. Actually it didn't have any color; I guess that's just the way it come off of the roll.
PN: Would people put wallpaper on top of that sometimes?
HG: Well, most of them couldn't afford wallpaper; they'd just put that up. And then some of the houses, your better houses, the ones that they spoke of as the new houses, they plastered them. Pretty good houses, double floors, they were pretty nice. Of course, we later moved into one of them, as soon as we could get one empty.
PN: When were they built, the new ones?
HG: I really don't know; around 1920, though, I believe. They hadn’t been built too long when we moved down there, and we moved there in the early part of the winter of 22. And I was ten years old that July. And these houses had already been built, and people was living in them, but they were still fairly new houses.
PN: So you lived in the farming country, though, before you moved to Terry in 1922?
HG: Yes, yes.
PN: Was your father, did he work on the farms then?
HG: Well, yes, he farmed, and then he did different kinds of work. He worked quite a bit in timber; he used to cut timber quite a bit. And then he was a foreman in the woods. But there was better money in the mines, and he had worked in the mines, off and on, you know, before, so he decided just to go to the mines.
PN: Where did he work in the, was it in Summers County he worked in the mines?
HG: No, he came down here to Terry. And we moved to Terry from Summers County. I don't know of any mines in Summers County; now there may be in some places, I don't know.
PN: Did he start working in the mines for the first time when you moved to Terry?
HG: No, he had worked before; actually, he worked in the mines when he was only about 11 or 12 years old, or worked around the mines, you know. It used to be they'd hire boys, you know, to work, to do things in the mines and around the mines.
PN: What, to work as trappers and stuff?
HG: Yea, they'd work as trappers, and helpers, you know. And people would take them in; they used to use what they called "back hands.
miner would hire a boy; I used to have some friends that I worked with that had gone In and worked as a back hand when they was only nine years old. That's kind of unbelievable, you know, that a boy that size could work in the mines. But they'd hire them, and pay them, say, 50 cents a day or something like that, you know. And they'd have three or four places, and hire three or four of these boys to work back hand for them. Well, the miner, of course, he would, most of it was pick work then; this miner, he would put in the cut and shoot the coal, you know, and keep it loose for them, and he'd set the timbers. And that kept him pretty busy, you know. And these boys, of course, they'd just shovel the coal in the cars.
PN: They would load the coal?
HG: Yea, they'd load the coal. And of course, he checked each car, you see. He was the only one that had checks, you know. Back then, you used a little brass, brass check, you know, and you'd hang that on the car; it had your number on it you see.
PN: And you'd get paid…
HG: Yea, and he was the only one, of course, that had these checks. So he would check every car, and if a boy was a pretty good shoveller, why he could make him a right smart bit of money. They'd pay him 50 cents a day [laughing]. But they stopped that when the union got back. Of course, back when they was organized before, you know, when they come out on strike, and they broke the union in 1921.
PN: Yea, that's what I wanted to ask you, to describe that whole…
HG: Well, of course, what I know about it is what the people talked about, you know, when we moved in down there, because it was still fresh you know.
PN: But the union was there in Terry?
HG: Yes, they had the union there in Terry. And they had some battles, you know, with; they used to have, the companies had what they called the Baldwin—Felts thugs, you know. And when they started having trouble, they wouldn't allow two men to stop and talk, you know. If two men stopped to talk anywhere, why these thugs would come along and break it up. They had quite a bit of trouble, and quite a bit of shooting, and men beat up, you know. And they had quite a battle over here at Stanaford. Now I don't know whether there's any of those old—timers left over there that know anything; there may be some that you could find. A good way to find out about that would be to talk to somebody over there in the local. If you could find one of those old local members, and he might could tell you about maybe somebody who lives there.
PN: A couple of my good friends work there now; maybe they would know some of the old—timers.
HG: Some of the old—timers who was there at that time when they had that battle there.
PN: Was Mother Jones there then?
HG: Well, she came through, you know. That was during the time when she used to travel and come through. Now, I never met Mother Jones, but I heard a lot of talk about her, and I knew some people that had, you know. But I remember them talking about, during that strike, you know, they starved the men back to work, of course. The International sent a boxcar—load of food up here.
PN: To Stanaford?
HG: They sent it to Beckley for this area. And the operators got an injunction. They went to court, and of course, they owned the courts, you know. And they got an injunction, and put a padlock on that boxcar and posted guards, and they couldn't get their own food. They let it sit there till it spoiled.
P N: It belonged to the union and they just let it spoil?
HG: Well, they got a court injunction. They couldn't do that now, you see. But then they could do anything, and they did It. No matter what people talk about how good the companies are —— they wasn't so good. 1 learned some of that when I started to work in 1927. I started in the mines, I was only 14 years old when I started in, a while before my fifteenth birthday.
PN: Where did you work, at Terry?
HG: I worked at Terry; that's where I went to work, at Terry. Went in with my dad. I didn't want to go to school, and I didn't have sense enough to know that that was the best for me. But since I didn't want to go, we had to ride a passenger train from Terry up to Beckley, you know. After I graduated from the eighth grade, then I had to go to Beckley; and 1 didn't like that. Had to leave home before daylight, and get back home after dark. And I wanted to go to work. So he took me, and let me, what he thought, I think, 1 t m pretty sure what he figured, cause he didn't like the idea at all.
PN: Your dad?
HG: Yea, he wanted me to go to school But he thought that he 'd wear me out, you know, and I'd get tired of it, because he was one of the best coal loaders that they had at that time. And all I did was help him clean up coal that he had been, you know, the cuts; they'd put him in a good, big cut; and he'd been cleaning it up by hisself. And all I did was help him, you know. But naturally, in order to prove to him that I could load coal, I tried to load my side of the car. That was wishful thinking. He would load most of the cars from his side, and about all I 'd do was finish it off, "top it out" they'd call It, on my side. But I stuck with it pretty good.
PN: What was the situation with the union then? It was totally non— existent at that time?
HG: Yea, there was no union.
PN: Did people still talk about the union a lot?
HG: Well, yea, yea. People still talked about the union, but they didn't have any idea that it would make a comeback, you know. Of course, the company, if they decided to cut wages, they just cut, you know, and there was nothing you could do. They paid what they called the 1917 scale; that was, I guess, the last base scale they had, you know, before they broke the union. So they still used that as a sort of a base, and they paid that 1917 scale for a few years some places; now I don't know whether they did it everywhere or not, but they did down there. And then after a while, they begin to cut wages. And of course, if a man, now like a trackman, I knew a trackman, that, and by the way that man could give you some information too. And he's still living; he lives over here at White Oak; J. L. Whittington is his name, they call him "Bud," "Bud" Whittington, and he's getting pretty well along in years. And he’s another fellow that I learned a lot from about laying track, he and Morris Martin both; they were two of the best trackmen I 've ever seen. And I worked with both of them as track helpers, helping them; they used to hire a helper, you know.
PN: How were you paid? Were you paid salary if you worked on track then?
HG: Yea, you were paid by the day?
PN: But they were still paying by ton for the…
HG: For the coal. But all work like that, that was called company time, you know, and anything like that was paid by the day.
PN: How long was the day then?
HG: Well, it was supposed to be eight hours, but then they got started.
When I first went to work, it was eight hours.
PN: Was that portal—to—portal?
HG: Well, no. You worked inside eight hours, and then however long it took you to get out, that was extra. Your day started at your working place. The motor crews, their day started where they got their empties, the parting where they got their empties. It was several years, you know, before they got this portal—to—portal. Even after we got organized again, they still had that system. You worked, you started your day at your working place. They had cut it down, though, in one contract. We had got the day cut down to seven hours, you know. That was before they started the portal—to—portal. And then they got the portal—to—portal, you know, where your day started outside at the driftmouth and it ended there.
PN: That was during the war, wasn't it?
HG: Well, yea, yea, I believe it was, when we got that first portal—to—portal contract; It was during the war.
PN: In 1927, when you started working, would the union, the union wouldn't have any organizers around at that time, would they?
HG: No, no. It was just as if the union didn't exist then. Now and then you'd hear about somebody talk about a little activity, maybe in some of the other states, you know, in Ohio or Pennsylvania or somewhere like that. But it was pretty well guarded, you know, not too much talk about it, and you didn't put a whole lot of stock in it, you know. But then in 1933, why, then it begin to come to life.
PN: Could you describe exactly what happened then in Terry? In 1933, and the whole process whereby the union…?
HG: Well, we, the organizers begin to come in, and we would meet, we had a meeting or two. A fellow lived in a house that was outside of the coal camp, and we met down there. And they we had a few meetings on the river bank.
PN: Is that because the company didn't own that?
HG: Well, we'd meet down, they said: "Meet below the high—water line and they couldn't do anything about it. t ' Of course, If they had of known about it, they would have managed to do something, you know. But they didn't know about it. Then another thing, the days of the thugs was past; they didn't have them, you know. Maybe they'd have a constable or two, something like that, you know; but usually some of them was in sympathy with the men and wouldn't of looked too hard to break up a meeting. But we managed to get together that way, and got organized, and got a charter, and once we got a few locals organized, why, then we was able to get authority to, and got the union recognized. And then we come out on strike and got a contract.
PN: Why would you say that the constables would be more friendly?
HG: Well some of them were out, actually, most of the constables were workingmen theirselves, you know; it was just a job for them. Sort of a, wasn't so much a company guard, as it was just a local police, you know.
PN: It was elected by the town?
HG: No, no, they was usually appointed, but…
PN: By the mayor?
HG: I imagine that the coal company had a whole lot to do with the man that was appointed. They'd recommend somebody, but usually the man was a pretty reliable man, you know. That is, the ones that I knew. Now there may have been places where they were strictly company men, but I didn't know any of them. But down here at Terry, and some of these smaller camps, where I had any association with. Now, here on Piney River, just up from the mouth of Piney River a little ways, was Mason Coal Company; was the same company that owned Terry, you see. And they were pretty favorable people to work for; they didn't try too hard to keep the union down. In fact, Mr. Gilbert Smith from over here at Fayetteville he's dead now, been dead for a few years but he was one of the, he was the general manager for that Erskine Miller Company, you know, and he would come around each, they had several operations around here and down on New River, down on Fire Creek, that belonged to them. And he would make regular visits, you know; and he got to, he was a fellow who would associate with the men, you know, and get to know the men pretty well, and he was pretty well respected. And he was a fellow who believed in being fair to his men. So that's one reason, I guess, that there wasn't a whole lot of problem that way in these camps. 1 've heard about some trouble that they had in some of the other coal companies, but what I heard was just hear— say. I don't know how true it was, but I can imagine it was pretty true, because of what had happened before.
PN: Where did the Baldwin—Felts come from mostly?
HG: I don't know.
PN: From the outside, usually?
HG: I wasn't acquainted with any of them; to me, it was just a name. Seems to me like, though, that they brought them here from out-of-state someplace. But, I may have known at that time where they were headquartered; but I think it was sort of an outfit that supplied people, you know; the company was associated with them, kind of an agency.
[interruption with children]
PN: In 1921, the strike began in 1921, right?
HG: Well, that's a time that they had so much trouble. I suspect you've heard them talk about all the fighting they did over on Cabin Creek, over in there. Down here, at Willis Branch now, that's down near Pax, you know it's quite a bit of fighting went on down there. And over here at Stanaford, they had quite a battle over there. And Raleigh, there's a tower there that was built, at the time it was built, it was built to mount a machine gun on; that's what they used it for. Now, they've put a little extension onto the top of it; actually it's a stone column built up pretty high where they can see all around the area, you know. And now they 're using it as a base for an electrical tower. Yea, they put a little tower on there, for to string electric wires on it.
PN: Did you say there was less fighting on, you know, along the New River coal towns than in these other places.
HG: Yea, it seems to me like there was.
PN: Why was that, do you have any idea.
HG: Well, I guess because it was a small company; I don't know. I just figure that's more. Now there was some of it that had a little action. Now, over at Royal, I don't know what company had Royal at that time, but the thing had gone on until some of the men was beginning to want to go back to work, you know. They had just about starved them out.
PN: In Royal?
HG: Yea, well, in most of these 11tt1e places. Well eventually, that's what put them all back to work, you know. There just wasn't anything else to do, only go back to work. There was a, they had to ride these man—hoists, you know, up the mountain; the coal camp's on the bottom of the hill. We had them down there at Terry.
PN: Man—horse?
HG: Man—hoist, you know. Hoist—car, you know.
PN: To get to the driftmouth?
HG: Yea, you'd ride a hoist—car up this incline, up to the top of the hill where the mine was, you know. So a load of these, they'd haul ten men at a time. And a load of these men, they loaded up —— they was going to go back to work and they loaded up on this hoist—car there at Royal. And across the river there on top of that Stretcher Neck Ridge there, somebody opened up with a high—powered rifle and shot holes in their dinner buckets. He was pretty good with that thing. He unloaded that carload of men. He didn't hit anybody; he just shot holes in their dinner buckets.
PN: He shot at their dinner buckets?
HG: Yea, so that delayed that for a while. Nobody tried that again for a while, I knew the fellow that was accused of doing that, and he was the type of fellow that I wouldn't doubt that he was the one. Everybody thought that he was the fellow that did it, and I expect he was. Oh, he was a strong union man, and he was hot—headed. And the whole thing fitted him pretty good. He could use a rifle, and whoever did that was good with a rifle, because that's a pretty good shot from over there up above that tunnel, you know, across that river over there at Royal. And whoever did it, buddy, he had a keen eye and a steady hand. But that's about the only really serious incidents that I can remember anything about down there. There may have been some others that I don't know about.
PN: In 1933, when the union was reorganized, were a lot of the people who had been in the union before 1921 still around?
HG: Oh yes, yes. That's what helped get the thing started and make it strong, you know, because when they saw a chance, they grabbed at it.
PN: They were just waiting, more or less?
HG: Yea, yea, they were still there, yea. I worked with quite a few of them for several years after that. And this fellow, that I give you his name there, he was one of them. He was a fellow that, he could lay more track, and lay it good, he could lay a piece of track, a switch, and never stop the motor from running over it; and that's, he's the man I learned to do that from. I learned how to do it after that. He could lay more track, and lay it good, than anybody I 've ever seen. And I know after I went to work in the mines, he had a pretty big section, keeping the track up on, and they was getting good coal off of it. My brother—in—law was one of the motor runners. And he very seldom had any trouble at all, cause the track was laid right and he could get over it without any trouble; and he was getting lots of coal. Well, the man asked for more money. He was being paid $4.55, I believe, a day. And he asked for, seems to me like it was $6.50 or $7.00, something like that. He'd been doing two men 's work. Seemed to me like he wanted $6.50; he needed more money because it was too much working. They wouldn't pay it. Well, he said, "Give me a place to load coal. so they give him a place to load coal, and he was a good coal loader. And he just went right in, loading as much coal as any man on the job. They hired a fellow that was supposed to have been a good trackman; he come with a good recommendation from, off of Laurel Creek supposed to have been an exceptionally good trackman. And they hired him, and he couldn't keep it up, so they hired another trackman. And the two of them couldn’t keep it up. So they told Bud, “If you'll go back to work, take it back, we’ll give you your price.” He took It back.
PN: This is in the twenties when there wasn't a union.
HG: Yea, yea. He, that was one man to another man negotiations. But they paid him.
PN: How long did you live in Terry?
HG: Well, we left there and went over, I was telling you about living over there on Dunglen Mountain; we lived over there a couple of years, and then came back to Terry. And my dad left there in 1931, around the first of March 1931, and went back up to the farm.
PN: He left Terry?
HG: Yea, he left Terry and sent back up to Clayton. And that was when the Depression was just getting started good, you know. Mine work was bad, so he went back up to the farm.
PN: Did you go with him?
HG: No, I stayed down there, and I got married in August that year. 1 stayed a while up at, up there at Norville Mason Coal Company; and then a couple of year went, we moved, that's where we went to housekeeping down at Terry. And we stayed there for a few years. I was living down there when we organized.
PN: In Terry?
HG: Yea. I served as, let's see, I was Vice President. And then I served as Recording Secretary of that local. And I acted as President for a while. Not very long, because we elected an older man, one of the old—timers. I still served as Vice President, and took care of most of the business; but he was actually the President. A fellow the name of
Lonn Neely.
PN: How long did you work at Terry then yourself?
HG: Well, kind of hard to say. I worked, long about that time, about the time we got the union going good, I was working for, you know, the Carters that 1 told you that owned one side of it. Well, they was operating their side of it, and I was working for them. And the Erskine Miller Company from old Duneden over in Fayette County, they worked out their mine over there, the old Duneden Mine; it was over there near Rock Lick. They owned Rock Lick too; I don't know now whether Rock Lick had worked out yet or not. But anyway, this Duneden group, they brought some of their men from over there, quite a few of them, along with their super— intendent and mine foremen from over there; they came over and started up their side. They had to build a tipple though to get started, because the old tipple had caught fire and burned down. But they built a new tipple, and they got started along about 1934, it seems to me like. And they had both operations going at that time. But I had worked between there, and up at Wrights, and back and forth two or three different times.
PN: Where?
HG: Up at Wrights, Mason Coal Company. I worked back and forth between the two for, off and on, I don't know, several years. And then I left and went a, let's see, in 1935, I went over to Black Eagle. The man that had run Terry down there for three or four years had gone over, his father owned a mine over there…
PN: Was it in McDowell County or something?
HG: No, that's over In Wyoming County, just up from Mullens, the old
Corinne mines. And he went over and, it had been down for quite some time, and he left Terry and went over there and started that mine up. And there was, oh, 1 expect four or five of us fellows from Terry went over there and worked for him a while. But I come back after. let's see, I went around, about this time of year, or a little earlier, maybe in July of '35, I believe, I went over there. Stayed about a year, and come back. They call it Black Eagle. That's about the time that started the Blue Eagle, you know, Roosevelt started the Blue Eagle? Well, he started this mine up, and he called the company the Black Eagle Coal Company. And that's what they call the name of the place now; it's the Black, Black Eagle, that's the post office there I guess. But I came back to Terry, and stayed a while. But it, Terry gradually worked down to where it wasn't much there. I worked then from one place to another. I worked over here at Stanaford, at Skelton, Sprague, worked at Layland. I guess the last mine of any size that I worked at was at Layland. I worked over there a few years before they had that big cut—off in '53.
PN: Did you finally retire from the mines in 53?
HG: No, I left here in '53 and went to Toledo, Ohio. Stayed up there three years, worked on the B & O Railroad up there. I stayed three years and got to where I had to decide whether I wanted to move up there or come back, and I didn't want to sell my property and have to try to buy something up there, and j us t put down roots again. I didn't like that idea. So a friend of mine sent me word that he had taken over a small mine out here at White Oak; and if I'd come back, he'd give me a job. so, I was waiting for something like that. After you begin to start downhill, you know, why, it's getting kind of late to put down new roots. It just don't set well. I 'd hit too many hard licks here.
PN: Did you like it better here than in Toledo anyway?
HG: Oh yes, you know, this was my home. I grew up here. I expect if the situation was reversed, why, it'd be the same way, you know. After you get in your forties, you spend 40 some years in one area, and then you get completely out of the area, why it just don't go so easy. Takes a lot of getting used to.
PN: Why do you like West Virginia better than Toledo?
HG: I don't know. I liked Toledo all right; I just didn't like the idea of having to sell out and move up there. As long as, for a while after I started working there, when the lakes would close, they'd furlough the youngest men, you know, and I could come home and spend two or three months in the wintertime at home, and draw unemployment, and get along fairly good. But then it got to where I didn't get that time off, to where I had enough seniority to hold on year around, so I had to make a decision. And I had been promoted to conductor, and it was a case of either come back home or make home up there. The idea, of course I couldn't afford to leave and come back, the way the situation was, unless I had a job you know. Because you couldn't just take off hunting a job in this area at that time, because there wasn't much. And every mine had a long panel list, you know, men furloughed. And the only chance to get a job was from somebody like him that had opened up a small mine, you know, made hisself a job and had enough where he could hire a few men. And when he sent me word that he had this mine, and if I 'd come back, he'd give me a job so I just came back. Worked for him till that fall, and he shut down. [laughs] Then I worked around these punch mines, first, when most of the people around that had these, opened up these little punch mines, I knew them, you know, and worked around them; and I didn't have any problem getting a job from one place to another, you know. Work out one punch mine, and somebody else over here, he’s opened up one; well, “Herb, come over here and work for me." And finally, the first of the year 1961, a fellow wanted me to come down; I was working for a fellow over here on the other side of Layland, had a little punch mine, helped him open it up. He wanted me to come over there and help him build his tipple, because he didn't know anybody else that could help him build a tipple. And I went over there and helped him to build his tipple, supervised it. And we got a mine opened up, and I worked for hm, and bad weather set in, and he had his haul road didn't have anything on it. It was just mud, and it got to where he couldn't operate. So a fellow that was working down here had a mine down here at Maben, punch mine, pretty good punch mine, he wanted me to come down there. He needed a man that could run a shuttle buggy and a cutting machine, so I went down there and worked for him. I only worked a few days, and I got wrapped around that cutting machine, like got tore up. And that ended my mine career right there.
PN: What year was that?
HG: 1961, February the 15th. I got hurt pretty bad. I spent quite a while in the hospital out here. Six months from the day I got hurt, I had to go back in traction, almost lost my leg, wouldn't heal. But they finally got the thing to heal, and I still got it.[laughs ]
PN: I was wondering If I could go back and just ask you a few questions about Terry and how it looked when you moved there in 1922 and, you know, in that period. I was wondering if 1 could ask you some questions about that. How many houses were there would you say?
HG: Actually, 1 don't know. There in the coal camp itself, I expect there was, oh, I tm sure there was more than a hundred, but I don't know just how many more. And then they had a, they had a, a camp up on top of the mountain there then, what they, up on what they called No. 3, a few houses up there, maybe seven or eight. And then there was, well of course, the lumber camp down there, they had a few houses, but I don't know just how many.
PN: How many people would you say lived in Terry at that time?
HG: Well, probably you figure families you know, and at that time families were larger than they are now, and most of them was fairly good—sized families, you know. I expect more than 300 people, I don 't know.
PN: There were about a hundred houses?
HG: Well, just a rough guess; there might have been more than that .
[End of Tape 5A. Interview continues on second half of tape marked 4B/ 5B.]
Oral History Project - Garten, Herbert 1980 Part 2
Terry, Coal mining - life in the towns, Terry, Baldwin-Felts operations
HG: I was just going to say I don't remember where we left off.
PN: I think we were talking about the houses, and how many people; and you said there were about 300 people, maybe more, in Terry. Let me just ask you a little bit about the houses. You said they had the old Jenny Lind houses, and then new houses?
HG: Yea, the most of them were Jenny Lind, and then you had some few that were built later, you know, that they did a little better job on. But that used to be the standard, you know, years ago; when they 'd open up a mine, they'd come in there and usually they'd put a saw mill and cut the timber and saw the lumber and build houses kinf of like a lumber company, that's the way they'd do. They'd go into an area to cut timber, you know, and they'd throw up what they call sawmill shanties. Well, these coal company houses were, they were constructed a little better than these sawmill shanties, because they were naturally expecting to be there longer. But the first houses that were built, they were more Jenny Lind construction.
PN: How many rooms, were the same number of rooms in both the Jenny Lind houses and the new houses?
HG: Well, most of them.
PN: How many rooms did they have?
HG: They'd usually have four; most of them was four—room houses. Now they'd have, for bosses and mine foremen, superintendent, maybe the store manager, people like that, you know, they'd have a little better house — maybe another room or two; some of them even had a bath in them.
PN: What were the rooms used, if you had four rooms, what would you use each of the rooms for?
HG: Well, usually you'd have your kitchen; and in most cases, you, that was your dining area too. Most families, why, they'd use the other rooms for living room and bedrooms. And, of course, in most cases, there'd be a bed in the living room, you know in a house that size, and big families, why, and the bedrooms, I know we used to, we 'd have two beds in the bed— room. And in our living room, we, you had these old, what they called a davenport that opened up into a bed, made a whole lot on the order of these hide—a—beds, you know. They called them then a davenport. And you could open that thing up and make a bed, you know, if necessary. And in our case, it was usually necessary, about every night.
[ laughs ]
PN: What other types of furniture did you have in the living room?
HG: Well that davenport, of course, it, in the daytime it was a couch, you know; and it made out into a bed of a night. And then you had whatever chairs you needed. And we used to have one of these old wind—up phonographs; and some of the others had some, you know, had an old phonograph. And that was usually It.
PN: Did you have a radio?
HG: Oh no, no, no. There was very few radios, and I knew some people
that had radios; usually the superintendent, maybe he'd have one. But you couldn't hear anything hardly on it, more static than anything else. You could tell that somebody was talking, you know, but you couldn't make out what he was saying. But it was quite a curiosity. And then a few years later, the superintendent had his radio, well they fixed up a, down here at Terry, they fixed up a building there that had been used for a feed storage, and cleaned that thing out, and put tables and chairs in there, and used it just as a sort of a gathering place, you know. We'd meet together there, and we 'd play checkers, and listen to the radio —— he had his radio in there. And some listened to the radio, some played checkers, some played set—back —— and just have a sort of a getting together.
PN: What was set—back?
HG: That was played with cards. And, just sort of games, you know. And we had first—aid classes in it. And a couple of nights a week, we 'd have arithmetic classes. We had a fellow came down there, principal of the school, a fellow by the name of Cardin; and he was co—editor, or whatever you call it; he helped to compile a history of West Virginia, he and another fellow. H. G. Cardin, maybe you 've seen some of his work. But at any rate, he wasn't a fellow that whenever he finished with the kids at school, he didn't care about just setting down, not doing anything.
He decided to teach the men a little bit. Some of them couldn't read their statements, you know; before that winter was over, he had them working fractions. And some of them, the ones that was more advanced, he f d have them abstracting square roots, you know, and like that. He was really an educator; that was his work, and he worked at it. I know some fellows there that couldn't sign their statement. But before that fellow left there, they wrote a pretty good hand . So we had a pretty good thing going there for a while.
PN: Where did people get most of their furniture? From the company store?
HG: From the company store, yea. And that wasn't bad. They handled a good brand of furniture, you know. And you could buy it, and pay so much a half [a month] on it, you know. And they didn't have what, a finance charge, you know. You bought the furniture, and they'd take out so much a half until the price of it was paid; there was no finance charge. And some of them, when they could buy like that, they kept theirselves tied up that way to where they didn't draw any money. They just lived out of the company store. They called it being "scrip—bound, just from one half to the next.
PN: What did most people in Terry at that time do for recreation?
HG: Well, most of them liked to fish. And on Sundays, we'd go down to the river and boat ride. And they had a place down there where you could fix a place to play croquet. And we played croquet. A lot of the men, they'd get down on the river bank on a flat rock and play poker. There wasn't much, now at Royal, had a movie theater, and we used to, on the weekend on, usually on Saturday night, they'd have a movie, you know. And you'd walk from Terry to Royal, about three miles one way. We 'd walk to the movie. We had a little excitement down there one time. There was a
fellow, kind of an old fellow, came in there; started staying with a family that lived down, there was a house down near the river. And there was a family by the name of Branstetters lived there in that house. And they worked there in the mines. And this fellow, he come there and started
boarding with Branstetters; the house was down to itself, you know, away from the camp. And this old fellow, he 'd go every day, every day, you 'd see him going with a basket on his arm. He'd go up the railroad track to McCreery and back. And he 'd have a piece of paper in that basket, some— thing underneath the paper, and then he 'd have a few items on top of the paper. And he'd always have some candy to give kids, you know, candy or chewing gum, something like that. And that went on for quite a while. Mrs. Branstetter, she was kind of curious about why he, he always when he was there he stayed to hisself in his room, you know. Then he decided he wanted to take the oldest boy with him to Charleston. He said he had to go to Charleston on business. So he took the boy to Charleston with him.
They let him go; they'd got to where they thought right smart of the old man; he was a pretty nice old fellow. So they let him take the boy with him. And they was gone about a week, maybe longer, several days. They come back home, and Mrs. Branstetter said, Philip told her. I forget now the man's name; he had a name for him. He said all he did in Charleston is spend his money. He said they would walk around on the street, and every time they passed a hot—dog stand or a place like that, he'd give him a half dollar, and he'd get a hot dog for a nickel and bring him back the change. And he'd give Philip a half dollar, and he'd go buy him a pack of chewing gum, or a hot dog, or something, and bring him back the change. And he said that's all they did. Well then counterfeit half of dollars started floating around. And first thing you know, here the police come in, went down to Branstetters and picked the old fellow up. Come to find out, he was wanted in I forget how many states; he was wanted in several states, you know. And he'd been in prison several times and escaped. And the last time that he broke out, they'd shot him in the arm. The bullet went in his elbow there, and that arm, and come out his wrist; and that arm stayed in that shape, and it was just right to hold a basket on. And that's the way you'd hold a basket, you know, on your arm. And everywhere he went, he carried that basket on that arm. And nobody paid any attention to it being crippled; they didn't know it was, you know. And come to find out, that old bugger, that's the reason he stayed in his room, you know. He was in there and he had him a little oil burner in there, and he was, and he'd go up there on the railroad, and he 'd gather up lead, you know, anything that he could find that he could melt. But he could find quite a bit of lead, where the train crews had put down these torpedos, you know, on the rail. And he’d gather that up, and old spoons, and things and he could mix that together, you know, and melt that, and mix it together, and mold them half dollars. And they picked him up, and they took him down to the coal company office. And he told them, he said, ' 'If you hadn't a got me today," he said, "tomorrow I was ready to start putting out bills. Everything was ready. He'd done his engraving; and he really did a good job too. And he showed him how he could do it. He knew he wasn't going to get out any more. He was getting kind of old, and I guess he figured he'd never engineer another escape, and too many states wanted him. He was gone for the rest of his life, you know. And he showed them how he worked it to get these little colored threads in there, you know.
He started rolling the corner of a one—dollar bill, and he started it splitting. And they let him peel it back about half—way, you know, to make two bills out, put another piece to it, you know. The paper that they use, and of course, he'd have that real bill, you know, with the threads in it, and it was a little harder to detect. And the man said, "Well, that would only be half—counterfeit at that, wouldn't it?"
PN: Let me ask you another question. What religion did most people have in Terry? Did they go to church there?
HG: Yea, they had a little church that had been a one—room school. And then they built a bigger school, and they used that old school building for a church.
PN: Was it a Baptist church, or what was it?
HG: Well, it was just first one, then another; it was more a community than anything else. That's what they called It, Terry Community Church. And they've got a new church down there now, and they still call it the Terry Community Church. But they had different denominations, people down there of several different faiths. They had some Baptists, and some Christian belief. My grandfather used to come down there and preach once a month. He was from up Elk Knob; he built that Elk Knob Baptist Church, and pastored it until he died. He lived on a farm right there, right there near the Elk Knob Church. But he would come down there, and he used to preach different places, ride his horse, you know, and go places to preach. And he used to come down there and preach. Different preachers would come in and preach. There was two or three that come pretty regular, once a month. There used to be Mr. Paul Smith from out, well, he was originally from Grandview, but he lived up here in Beckley; and he would come down and preach once a month. And once in a while, one of them would hold a series of meetings, you know.
PN: Were there a lot of people who were immigrants from Europe inTerry?
HG: Yes, there were some. We had some Polish people, and some different, I guess, and I know, some from Russia. Terry was at that time, Terry was a pretty good place to work. But it got so, after it begin to get pretty well worked out, it got to where it wasn't too good, you know, kind of a hard place to make money. But at one time, it was a pretty good place to make money.
PN: Were there many Black miners there?
HG: Yes they had some.
PN: About how many, would you say?
HG: Well, I don't know. They had enough there till they had their own school and their own church.
PN: In Terry?
HG: Yea, you see it actually was a pretty camp at one time.
PN: Where did most of the Black miners come from?
HG: I don't know.
PN: Did the company have any transportation agents that went and got
people from Europe?
HG: Well, no. Now they, they used to, some of these bigger companies you know, like over here at Raleigh, and at places like that, over at Summer lee, I’ve heard of some of the bigger companies that would bringin a trainload of miners, you know, to break a strike. Now that's what happened over at Raleigh. They brought in, they called it a "transportation," because they was on strike. And that's when they mounted that machine gun up there, you know, to protect them. And they brought them, seemed to me like they said they brought them from Alabama, the most of them. But they brought a bunch in over there at Summer lee one time, because that mine was so hot, it had blowed up a few times . And it was one of the gassiest mines in the area. And it b lowed up there once and killed everybody in it. And it was called Perral at that time. Well, they couldn't get anybody to work there; people was afraid of it, so they changed the name to Summerlee. And they brought in this transportation of people from out of state, I don't know where they got them from. But anyway, they didn't know where Summerlee was; they told them they was taking them to Summerlee.
PN: Where is that, in Fayette County?
HG: Yes, it's over, you know where Summerlee Road is over there out of east Oak Hill. Well, that takes you down into Summerlee, and I guess it's still working. But they brought that trainload of miners in there, and there was one foreigner fellow on there that had worked there before; and they didn't know that, that they had him. And when he looked out the window, and saw where he was at, he said, "This is no Summerlee. He said, "This is old Perral, blow up and kill everybody." And wouldn't any— body get off the train.
PN: What year was that?
HG: I don't know. I just heard them telling about it, you know; they said they brought that trainload in there, then couldn't get them off the train, because that fellow recognized the place.
PN: That was Lochgelly too. Didn't they change it's name? What was it's name?
HG: I don't remember now. Let's see, I 'm trying. Let's see, there was Lochgelly, and Oakwood. Oh, I can't think now, but I used to hear my dad talk about them places, now, he, he used to, when he was, just a boy and started to work over in there. That's where he started in the mines, was over in that area. And his mother's people lived over there; they were, Smithson was their name. And they lived in that area, and he went over there and stayed with his grandmother, you know, and worked there. His uncles worked in the mines there, and he worked in there with them.
PN: We were talking about Terry before. Did the Black and white people in Terry get along pretty well together?
HG: Oh, yes, yes, there was no problems. I remember a good friend ofmine was a colored boy, a Stevens boy. His dad was a preacher, he was pastor of a church there. I remember him, he was a big man, tall and broad shouldered. I used to think he was the best built man I 'd ever seen; he'd just fill a door when he stepped up in it, you know, he was that kind of a fellow.
PN: He was the preacher?
HG: Yea
PN: Did he work in the mines too?
HG: Oh yes, yes, he worked in the mines.
PN: Did most of the preachers work in the mines?
HG: Oh yea. They wasn't paid a salary, you know. They preached, and
worked in the mines.
PN: How about your dad when you said, was it your grandfather you said who…
HG: Yea, my grandfather was the preacher.
HG: Was he a full—time preacher?
HG: No, he was a farmer. And the only pay he got out of preaching, somebody would take up a free—will offering for him, you know. He wouldn't, oh, he'd have died before he'd ask for any pay. He just didn't do it. But they would usually take up, he would usually just about get his expenses out of it, you know; that's about what you get, a little church like that. People didn't have much money anyway. You'd see a few of them put in a bill, you know, but most of it was change.
PN: We have about two minutes left on the tape. Is there any final thing you think is important to get in there?
HG: Well.
PN: What do you think is the main thing that the union did for the men, and the women, and the whole families, and everybody?
HG: Well, the important thing, they give them the right to bargain, you know. Before, you didn't have that right, and men had to do just whatever the company said, or leave. I know I used to brake on the gathering motor. And if you couldn’t outrun that motor, you didn't have a job. They didn't slow down for anything. You'd ride off, and throw a switch, and open a before that trip got there, because the front end of that trip, and jump trap door; and you better get it open he wasn't slowing down for anything.
And I 've made couplings where they'd, I’d be standing between the cars, and they'd hit so hard, the cars would rear up, you know. They don't allow that anymore; see, they put a stop to all that. They got lots of men killed, hands cut off, you know. And I 've had coal loaders working in a place where the water would be up to his knees, and he couldn't hardly get a shovelful of coal. You'd get your shovel under the coal, and by the time you raise It up to the top of the water, the most of it's washed off. But, the only way he'd get rid of that water would be to bail it out with his shovel as he loaded coal. No pay for it. He'd just do the best he could to get rid of It. When they could have set a hand pump in there, and pumped it out; but they wouldn't do it. Now, they'd tell a man, "Now, either you work it or take your tools. There's another man outside waiting for a job. He'll work it. And usually that was true, you know.
PN: But the union put a stop to that?
HG: The union put a stop to that. They had to pay for work that you did.
PN: I guess it's just about run out.
[End of Tape]
Oral History Project - McGraw, Tom 2025
Gauley River before Summersville Lake, Coal Mining communities at Gauley, Gauley Bridge,
MM: This is Mallory Meadows on June 16th, 2025. Doing an interview at the Canyon Rim Visitor Center. So if you will tell us your name and a general idea of when you would have been in or around the Gauley River.
TM: My name is Tom McGraw, and I actually grew up on the Gauley River in a little town called Brownsville, which was on route 39, going toward Summersville. I spent, pretty much all of my childhood on the river, enjoying the usual activities hunting, fishing, swimming, boating, I’d do a lot with friends that lived in the general area of the river.
MM: Around what years would that have been?
TM: It would have been from about 1954, give or take up through the time when I was, when I got married, which would have been 1975.
MM: So you remember the Gauley River before Summersville Dam and Summersville Lake were built?
TM: Oh, yeah. I remember going up. My dad would take me up when the dam construction began and the clearing of all the property, and we actually went up and we went on a construction road down over the hill where we could see the clearing of the trees and the clearing of the property. I remember the river prior to when the dam became operational compared to after it became operational. And it was quite a difference.
MM: So will you explain that difference? So maybe as you were a kid, you knew that they were planning to build the dam or the lake, what did the river really look like? Do you remember maybe how deep it was or if it looks different than it does now?
TM: It doesn't look a lot different compared to now as far as the terrain and everything around the dam, the dam didn't change that much. The one thing I remember about the dam that the change it made was certainly when the flood season came, the floods weren't quite as severe as they were previously, but also that the water temperature dropped dramatically after the dam came into being because river was a free flowing river at that time, and the water pretty much stayed warm. But once the dam came into place and the water began to fill the river from the bottom of the dam, which is because of the depth of the dam was very cold. Well, by the time I got down to my, my house, which is our where I lived during that area, it was probably 20, 25 miles, maybe. The water was much colder water to swim in than what we were used to, let me tell you.
MM: Do you remember seeing a difference in wildlife in the area after the dam was put in? Maybe different types of fish living there?
TM: Well, I think the colder water fish thrived. We used to fish and we used to catch bass and, you catch catfish. After the dam came to being, I got it a little, little. I was a little older then, and I didn't do as much fishing on the river as I did. I did those, but, I think more of the cold water fish came from came, didn't see as many catfish as I once did, not where I was anyway.
MM: So after the dam was built and during construction, do you remember what the river would have looked like flowing through what is now the lake?
TM: As best I can tell you, I've seen pictures, but it was like the Gauley River flowing downstream. Down where? The down approximately. Like where the boaters, the rafters and people put out of the river. And, there was supposed to ordinary West Virginia River and nothing. I mean, it really, it was just nothing extraordinary about it. It wasn't very wide. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't inordinately deep. It was just a meandering river coming down from upper Webster County.
MM: So before they built the dam, do you remember anyone saying anything, putting in the newspaper about doing this construction and their plans to create the lake and the dam?
TM: I vaguely remember the announcements about the dam, the, companies who I don't even remember who they were now that were building the dam, putting advertisements in posters around about picking the boys to do the do the work, particularly on the excavation and the, you know, the clearing work. I do remember that. I know we went up occasionally because it was like a Sunday drive. We'd go up occasionally to watch the progress, get a chance to go and see what you could see from from the, from wherever we were, which I can't exactly remember where we were, but I remember being able to see the progress of the the dam coming up. We did that a few times.
MM: So what was that progress like? Did you see the equipment scooping out the valley or just cutting down trees? What types of things would you have seen?
TM: Well, we got to see the initially we saw the progress in clearing, you know, the trees and stumps, houses and things of that nature. And then, as it progressed, I got, we got to see the equipment hauling, dumping, but I don't recall where they were hauling from. But I do remember seeing all the rock, the big heavy riprap that they were putting in the base and all that. So I do remember that.
MM: So there were a few communities like Gad that are now under the lake. Do you remember seeing any of those or going to any of those places?
TM: Never went to any of them. See, my recollection on that was, I don't think I saw any of them simply because where we were was at the main spillway or the dam itself was being constructed and not up away from it. You know, in back in more of the community, back in the hollows, as it were, other sorts of things. I don't remember.
MM: So do you remember maybe how your parents felt about the lake coming in? If you can remember that, maybe how they were, the things that they said about it, if they were maybe upset about it, happy about it.
TM: I don't think they had much of an attitude because where we lived, we weren't affected by river flooding as much as were other folks may have been in the in Brownsville. I lived up on the hill. All of our friends, we all communicate one way. They were always called the river rats. We were the mountain goats. And if you will, just some brief description, the, then it was in New York Central Railroad that goes up through goes up 39 and it went up to the coal mines, Nicholas County, Clay County, where have you. Then there was the river. Then there was housing along the river. Then there was a railroad track, then there was the rail there. Excuse me. There was route 39. All the property started up the hill and that's kind of where I lived. So I was out of the flood range. But I know that the people living on the river, who I had a number of friends live on the river were, hopeful that the dam would keep water out of their basements. To that degree, it it helped a lot. But we didn't really have much in my opinion, other than the excitement of the dam was coming in. It was creating employment. We were wondering how much Summersville was going to grow now. For several years it was just a little I mean, it was the county seat in Nicholas County, but it was just, compared to where it is now, a 10th of the size it is now.
MM: After the dam was built and the Gauley River was created, do you remember when rafting first became popular on the Gauley River rafting or boating?
TM: I couldn't give you an exact time, I know it was not long after after the dam got in. I can't even remember now. I remember vaguely that there were a number of people who were getting into some rafting. There wasn't the big companies like what are now on the river. Then it was independent individuals that had a raft, had a boat or something, and was willing to take people up and down the river. Adventurers went on their own and it just blossomed into all these rafting companies and what have you. I'd say it probably started. Let me see. Trying to think it in my hand here. A dam came into being probably in the middle 60s. Somewhere about there, I'd say probably the rafting industry probably got its initial start somewhere 3 to 5 years after the dam was in its best case. Yeah.
MM: Did it seem like there were a lot of local people willing to go on trips, or do you think that there was some indifference in the local population?
TM: I don't know that they know the local people. You mean as far as going rafting on the river? I don't think too many people did it. There wasn't this organized. Well, now, I mean, people say, well, let's go down the river, let's go fishing, let's go do this. And there wasn't a designation of all the rapids that the things like you have on your map here and, and the rafting company. So it was just people going and going and just going and doing that, raft going rafting, taking their chances. Most of Brownsville's people have had a boat or a raft. Let's go jump in and go down the river. And they do that. And I think that brought about the more of the organization with the rafting companies, because it was potentially very dangerous to go down the river. So before the dam was built that people really go down the river in boats or rafts. Not to the degree you have because you didn't have flow water.
MM: So to circle back on the community that you lived in, was it a mining community or just a regular toqn?
TM: Yeah. It was, it was a, it was kind of a combination community. A lot of the people that lived there worked at the what then was a Union Carbide metals plant, at Alloy. Yeah. And a number of them worked in the area, coal mines around about. And we could talk about that more later, but, it was coal mining, you know, blue collar community people were coal miners. People were truckers. Some of them worked on the railroad. We had people that were retired in the area. It was just kind of a cosmopolitan place. But but it was a working community.
MM: But it wasn't a designated a coal company owns this place?
TM: Oh no no no, no, no, I don't think there was any coal company owned housing in, in the in Brownsville. I may be mistaken, but I don't think it was. There certainly wasn't any tracts of land where you saw, you know, the, the postage stamp or the cookie cutter type of housing would belong to companies where they were all looked alike, except for maybe the color.
MM: So did you have any types of stores or businesses in the community?
TM: Let me see. We have a little mom and pop grocery store. Williams. Ella Walker yes. A couple characters, they were good. They're good people to work with. They been around. See, we had the store. We had a gas station for a while, and it kind of fizzled. We have beer joint. Oh. Had to have an obligatory beer joint. So we had a beer joint. And, you know, for recreation, the guys would get in the parking area across from the groceries, not the grocery store. Scuse me. Across from the gas station and the, beer joint, there was a, wide parking area. And on the parking, very close to the railroad track, all the all the all the older gentleman and the working people all showed up, particularly in summertime. Would all go there and they'd all pitch horseshoes. That was a recreation. And it was quite a quite a crowd actually.
MM: So, that was kind of with that was a kind of a little community working class everybody knew everybody kind of thing. The Gauley River is not directly connected to the New River until they come together to form the Kanawha River. But do you remember hearing anything about the mining communities that were along the new River? Maybe reading something in a newspaper or hearing someone talk about all of that that was happening down there?
TM: Vaguely. What what I remember was that my dad worked at the Alloy plant primarily, but whenever the plant would have, it's periodic layoff due to low water flows in the in the river, which meant they couldn't operate some of the furnaces because they were getting their power from the hydro plant at Gauley Bridge, which came through the this tunnel which was found, it started at Hawk's Nest Dam. When the when the water got low, they didn't have enough CFA, flow coming down the railroad to generate the necessary power to run the entire plant. So whenever those would occur and he would be laid off, he'd end up working for his brother who ran a coal mines up in Nicholas County. But I do remember him talking about trying to get jobs in coal mines up and around Fayetteville and up and down again there. But he always had a job. So I heard about the mines and knew about two mines. I knew people that worked in those mines, but I couldn't tell you too much about that from that standpoint, from that era in my life.
MM: So you mentioned the Alloy plant. Could you explain what that was, what they manufactured?
TM: Okay. It it has always been called the Alloy plant. But it was located in Alloy, West Virginia which is oh 4 or 5 miles or so down the river from Gauley Bridge. It was built in the 1930s by the Union Carbide Corporation, and that was part of the, if you've heard about the, you know, the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel disaster. Well, their construction of that plant was part and parcel of that, that tunnel project coming together. That's what they did was they built that containment dam, which is now the Hawks Nest Dam. And that dam then funneled through a tunnel, went underneath the mountain down to the base of Gauley Mountain, to a large hydroelectric plant that generated power with turbines transmitted that power through lines down the, I guess I would call it The Deepwater side. The of the of the river went down the down the river, crossed the river, and now the we went into what, their steam plant and they generated their power. So that plant then came into being. What they typically manufactured was silicon or silicon derivative types of metal for construction, for automobiles, for electrical components. They made actually one of the highest grade silicon metals in the world for that plant. And for a while they had one of, if not the largest silicon metal furnace in the world. Now, I don't know where that stands now, but at that point in time, it was, it was a pretty big deal. At one time, they employed around 3000 people. And, it was obviously a major employer.
MM: The Hawks Nest Tunnel disaster happened well before your childhood?
TM: That's correct.
MM: So we're not really going to go into that too much during this interview, but did your dad ever suffer any medical problems from his work at Alloy that you know of?
MM: He had some issues that he can never, never really get proven, but it's very likely he had some lung conditions from working in the metals plant. Remember, this metals plant operated for a number of years without any environmental protection directive I can recall. And I remember this one, I suppose would have been 16 or so when I was driving. I can recall that you could drive down route 61 down by the metals plant, and you could look up and could not see the tops of them [the mountains]. So the valley valley filled up with smoke and ash, what have you, people were always saying that you'd get up in the morning, you'd have to sweep the ash from the plant off the steps, off your cars and whatever this was prior to the EPA coming into effect and changing the whole dynamic of the way.
MM: Did the ash and smoke from the plant extend all the way to, say, Gauley Bridge or even to where you lived?
TM: Not generally. That typically was concentrated right there in the lower end of the valley, somewhere from the plant westward toward Montgomery, right down that way. Mostly it settled in Alloy, which was the community associated with the plant, which really no longer exists. And Boomer. And then on down into Long Acre and Smithers. But that was the general area where most of the debris dust ad what have you settled from the plant.
MM: So does that plant still exist today?
TM: Yes. It's, it belongs to a different organization, has gone through 2 or 3 hands on over time, but it still manufactures silica metal.
MM: So things that you would have done when you were a kid, you mentioned that you would swim in the Gauley River with your friends. Did you have a sense of community in your town? How was the town to live in?
TM: Oh, it's a great place to grow up. It wasn't unusual for me to leave the house early in the morning. Come back and come back home was dark. And reason I came home when it was dark was that it was too dark to be out and play. Everybody watched out for everyone else. The kids, we didn't have, didn't have the troubles they have today with kids. It was my great, great environment.
MM: Once you grew up and you got married, did you ever use the lake to go boating or fishing or swimming or anything?
TM: I never owned a boat. But we have friends that did. Yes. My family and I went up there. We went to the beach, up there to usually, see which one was where you went to, I think out with the men, but we go. We go up to the beach or we had friends camped up there. We go up and camp around the boat with them, that sort of thing. So we did do some of the recreation parts of it. I've never fished up in there. I've never fished below the dam. I've never done that. I’ve fished below Hawk's Nest damn, but I've never fished below the below the Summersville Dam.
MM: Is there anything that you want to add that we have not covered so far?
TM: Well, you and I talked a little bit in preparation for this, or we're talking about some of the communities that may have been that used to be there, that aren't there anymore. And I thought if you wanted me to, I will point those out to you on the map if you're interested.
MM: Yeah, we can talk about that and talk through where some of those communities used to be, and maybe what they were like or what happened there.
TM: Okay. Well, I gave you a little bit of a background of how the lay of the land was, as were on the Gauley, well, on the side of the river, on the route 39 side of the river where the road actually was. Or if you come out of Gauley Bridge, it's coming up, Gauley River, there's two ways you come up it. One, obviously, the road. The other one was you had the on my side of the river, if you let me say it that way. You had the New York Central Railroad went up that side. On the other side of the river was a spur line from the C&O railroad, which is now the Chessie. But seeing the railroad there now, that spur came up alongside the river and there were several places along side that river going up just within the area from Gauley Bridge up to about Alta, which was which would be three miles or so up the river. Okay. And there were a number of little communities that sprung up that were coal camps, maybe logging camps, logging community, but mostly coal because there was coal mines and coal operations on that side of the river. Well, one of the things that we talked about, if you come up, Gualey River on the C&O side, you're going to come up to them first. You're going to come up to a little town called Venetta. And this little town was a coal camp. The reason I know what I know about it is I went to school with a couple classmates who lived on that side of the river, and the only way that when I'd come down to go over and hang out with him or play with him, or do want to go fishing with him, the only way was I'd go down the river, go down a path on my side of the river, holler across the river at them. They bring the boat, come get me. And we go back. And I got to thinking about that. And I remember that they also had what was called what the railroad companies call a flat car. And they had one of those and it was sitting on the side of the tracks close to the house. So if I went to the store or they went to get something significant, had something more than you could carry the mile and a half or so out of that bridge back to their house, then they would put that flat car on the railroad track, push it down to Gauley Bridge, park it on the side or whatever, go over to the store. Gauley Bridge stores, it's nothing like that now. I mean, right where they are entirely different, but they get what they put their stuff on the flat car and they bring them up there. Whenever somebody would need to be buried on that side of the river, because there was a cemetery over there. I don't exactly know where that is, but there was a cemetery over there, and they bring the, you know, they bring the deceased up the river on the flat car and carry him up. They were the mules and that was the flat car that they got the stuff. So that little town was Vanetta. There was when I, when I was there with those folks, which would have been in the late 60s, there was the family of with the two guys, two kids that I grew up with, and there was another family that lived up in the same old community up on the hill from, in a more isolated place. But there was only a couple of families. Then you come on up to Brownsville, which is about two miles from Brownsville to Gauley Bridge on the 39 side. You get to the upper end of Brownsville, which would be another half a mile or so. There was a little community called Gamoca that was more of the, the coal camp community because it had the company store, it had a tipple. One of the mines were back up on the hill there, and access from there, it was it was not necessarily easy access, but it was an easier access to Gamoca because they had a suspension bridge that came from the Gauley River, the route 39 side of the river over to the C&O side of the river. So as you got across the suspension bridge, which is no longer there unfortunately, it had a rails on it so they could haul things across with platforms. I wasn't built to take heavy stuff, but you could bring a flat car across the river. To take stuff over there. There was, if you had the picture of it, you had a train station, company store type of thing here on down the river, on down toward the Gauley Bridge, maybe another quarter of a mile. And up on the hill you had a coal handler, a tipple. There was tracks there sufficient to handle a siding for train cars for hauling coal. And then if you went toward the other side going to the left, then you ran into the community of Gamoca where the mine superintendent and his family lived. Other people lived in there. There were it was a fairly, fairly sizable housing community. So when the coal played out on the those and obviously those communities just sort of disappeared. And then you went on up the river and the C&O trucks then crossed over at Belva and went on over into Clay County to pick up there. So that's kind of the community, if you will, in that area during the coal, during when coal was, you know, being mined a lot in, in that in that region. And I saw a picture the other day, too, by the way, of, I think it's one of your pictures, or it was a picture of the Devil's Tea Table, and it's up over actually to be it shows it coming in one way. But my grandfather, I don't vaguely remember it. My grandfather took me up the hill over at Venetta and we went up to the Devil’s Tea Table. I barely remember it and I couldn't find it now, I don't think. But I mean, I could find it, but I don't remember the path he took.
MM: So did your family live in this area for a long time?
TM: I would say they had lived there, we lived in the house my grandfather built. So I would say that he lived, the family lived there. Probably started, probably started somewhere in the 40s.
MM: Do you have any other final thoughts?
TM: No, but I'm sure I'll think of something to tell you later and you can write it down.
[End of Tape]
Oral History Project - Parker, Ray 1980
Logging and coal mining, Babcock Lumber Company 1924-1931, coal miner at Clifftop
PN: To begin with Mr. Parker, maybe to start, you could mention when you were born and where you were born.
RP: Well, I was born down here at Hemlock, right down at the foot of the hill here, used to be the post office Catherine up till that time, that was. And we moved out here to Landisburg, well they call it, about nineteen and I don't know, about nine or ten or somewhere along there. And then my dad, he started working for the Babcock Coal - it was Lumber Company at that time. And he, he worked on bridge work, keeping up the railroad bridges. And they would bring, well the company, when they moved in here, of course they brought in different branches of service, you know. They brought in a bunch of people. They hooked a whole lot of Swedes; and they was the ones done all the railroad work, grade work, you know, laid the track. And then the different parts of the territory, where the lumber, where the timber is. And they'd cut, and then they had timber cutters. And they'd cut the timber. And they'd haul it into the, into the mill with, you know they had different types of engines. They had one type of engine, they had a Shay engine.
PN: Shay?
RP: Yea, Shay. One was a, then they had some Climax engines. And they worked like that you know; them Shays worked more 1 Ike on a railroad, on the C. and O. track. And they brought this lumber in then. And Mr. George Bean, he was the general manager of the Babcock Lumber Company. And I think they, they was in solid there for 20 years, I believe it was, something ]about] around 20 years. Then they had different, and then they [a brief interruption from someone coming into Mr. Parker's shop to ask for a key].
PN: Did you mention the year that you were born yourself?
RP: No. I was born December the first, nineteen and seven, that's my date.
PN: And you were born down in Hemlock?
RP: At Hemlock, uh huh.
PN: When did you actually begin working yourself for the lumber company?
RP: Oh when I was about 17 or 18 years old.
PN: And were you living in Landisburg at that time?
RP: Well, we was a 'Iiving in a, on a little farm up here above Landisburg,about two miles from Landisburg. We always walked to Landisburg to work.
PN: And you worked in the saw mill, or you worked in the logging camp?
RP: Well I worked, I worked where they pulled the lumber off of the chains, you know. They have a, the lumber come on out on chains and different, then they had a lumber grader, you know. And he'd grade different lengths. And then as it goes down this long chain — well, it would be, I'd say, as far as from across the road maybe [about 50 or 60 feet], the chains would extend, you know. And they'd have wagons placed in. And then certain grades of lumber, you'd put on this wagon. And then the next fellow down there, he'd get the other kind of a grade. And on down plumb to the end, would be most of the culls and things go over the end. And then they had, they had docks built, and they, some of these docks was built and they were about 12 to 15 foot above the ground, you know, so they could run these, put these lumber stacks up. And then they would, they had stackers, people that do the stacking. Then after the lumber was on sticks, I believe, something like 60 days or something like that, they would, they'd, they would ship it to different, whoever the buyers was.
PN: Where would they ship it to mostly?
RP: Seems to me like Mr. Proctor, he was a, he was the ship, he was the salesman, seemed like a lot of it went to Cincinnati, through that direction. And then they had…
PN: What was the exact name of the company? Was it Babcock Coal and Lumber Company?
RP: Back at that time, it was Babcock Lumber Company. Then they got, and then later on, they went into the coal business there at Cliff top. And then they went into, then they called them Babcock Coal Company. This was one of their stores over here; well, it's got the name on it.
PN: Right across the street?
RP: Uh huh. Well you see, they had, they had a company store there at Landisburg. And then after, then they had a company store there at Sewell too. So that's where they shipped the lumber to Sewell. And they had a, they had a company store down there. And then, then they a, and of course back at that time too, they shipped some coal. In later years, they shipped some coal from Cliff top down there. And they had, they had coke ovens; they had about 180 or 190 coke ovens.
PN: The Babcock Coal and Coke owned them?
RP: Uh huh.
PN: When did they actually begin their lumber business, do you know?
RP: It was right after 1900.
PN: And when did they start the coal?
RP: I don't know exactly when they did really start the coal.
PN: That was later?
RP: Yea, it was later. And then of course, they run coal and lumber both there for a good while.
PN: How did your father happen to begin working for them?
RP: Well, we just, we was getting close to it, you know. And that's the closest company that worked, back at that time you didn't, of course my dad was a coal miner at that time. And he, we moved up there on that farm. And he just went to working for the Babcock people then.
PN: As a lumber worker or a saw mill…
RP: He worked on, he worked on the bridge crew, keeping up the. You see, when you come to a place like a creek or something, you'd have to put a bridge across it. They'd have to bridge it. So he worked in that crew there. And Lester Kincaid, he was a foreman over the bridge crew. And then, then we had timber foremens. And I think Arch Heffner, I believe he was, used to be, he used to be the woods foreman. And Ed Jones, Edward Jones, he was the, he was the foreman for the, on the lumber yard. And he, they had five lumber graders; and Mark Casto was one, and Hubie Casto was one, and Otho Casto was one, and then they had a fellow by the name of Evans — he graded lumber there. But they had different. And then George Kirk used to — a place up there on Big Sewell, he used to live up there — and he graded the lumber that come off of the chains, you know, out on the, when it goes to the stack. He first, he's the first to put the mark, he's one of the first ones to put the mark on it.
PN: What, the lumber yard was in Landisburg, and then the, is that right?
RP: Huh?
PN: The lumber yard was in Landisburg?
RP: Yea.
PN: And then the lumber, after it was weathered, or…
RP: See, it was all stacked, you know, right there.
PN: And it was shipped down to Sewell then?
RP: And then, you see, they'd have a big dock going this way. And then they'd have a railroad, they'd have a track run up there where they could put their cars, you know, and load their car, on these, just, we called them, I don't know, we just called them lumber cars, you know. And then they'd, then they'd, their train, that engine, they'd take it on into Sewell then. And then they'd get, they'd get orders about 10,000, 11,000, 12,000 feet orders, you know. And they would ship em out different parts. A lot of them, I don't just where all the lumber did go to. Then they had a planning mill there too. They'd, they would, they'd plane a lot of the rough stuff, you know, for sheeting and stuff like that, you know. And they shipped a lot of plane lumber, and framing lumber; and they had a lot of, they cut all kinds, whatever they'd make. Back at that time, they made a lot of lathes, like you use to put plaster up. And they sold a lot of lathes then.
PN: Where did most of the people that worked for the lumber company there come from?
RP: Just, just around in the vicinity.
PN: Were most of them farmers before that?
RP: Well a lot of them was; and then there's a lot of them, a lot of people. They had some colored people there; they brought them in out of North Carolina.
PN: Really?
RP: Uh huh. They come in from North Carolina; then they worked there .
PN: How did they do that? How did they bring them in?
RP: Well they, they'd maybe hire 'em, and just pay their transportation in. Or maybe some of them come up there and get a job. And then they'd send back for his brother or his friend or something. And they'd come and get, get work, you know. Then they had, they had several working, colored people working there.
PN: Where did they work mostly? Did they work in the woods, or in the saw mill?
RP: They worked mostly in the, in, on the yard, you know, where, stacking lumber. And then they had, they had loading crews too, you know, where they loaded to ship it, you know.
PN: How many employees, total, would you say the company had?
RP: I don't know, I 'd say it would be up around 150 or 175. Maybe more people counting the, counting the whole, everything.
PN: That's the lumber operations?
RP: The whole operation.
PN: Of that number, how many do you think were white and how many of them were Black? Do you have any estimate?
RP: Well, there wasn't too many. There wasn't over 12, 15 Black I don't think, something like that.
PN: You mentioned before, you said that there were a lot of Swedes working?
RP: Well, they was, yea they was, they brought, I don't know where they come, where they picked them, how they come. But they, they done mostly contract work, you know. They'd contract that work. And they had, they had what you called shanty cars, you know.
PN: They would live in them?
RP: And they lived, they lived together, you know.
PN: Where did they come from, do you have any idea?
RP: I wouldn’t have any idea where they come from. I guess, I guess eventually they come from Sweden. [laughs] But they, they just, well you see back at that time then, you see, they had a big lumber mill going at Rainelle too, you see, at that time.
PN: Babcock?
RP: No, not Babcock. That was a, that was a Raine Lumber Company. And the Wilderness Lumber Company was at Nallen; they had a big lumber company.
PN: Where?
RP: Nallen.
PN: Nallen?
RP: Yea, just about eight or ten miles from here. No it's more than that, 15 miles maybe down here. It's on, it's on, going towards; it's on Route 19, or 41 really now, going towards Summersville, Between Summersville and here. They had a big band mill, and they used to have a big band mill there at Swiss [near Gauley Bridge, in Nicholas County]. Along in there, there used to be several band mills going back in them, at that particular time.
PN: What does a “band mill" mean specifically? Is that the major type of saw that they used?
RP: Yea. Now a band saw and a circle saw are different. Probably you, 1 don't know whether you've ever seen a band mill, saw, or not. Now it, this mill was operated by what you call a 14—foot, 14—foot circle saw. It's a great big round, you know. And it goes over a big drum at the top and a big drum at the bottom. It's tightened up, and them drums runs just like that thing there is going [pointing to the reel—to—reel tape recorder]. Only it'd be going, a terrific [speed]. And it would stand just like that, and that log would hit that saw just like that.
PN: That's a circle saw?
RP: That's a band saw.
PN: That's a band saw.
RP: Mm. Now a band saw, they could saw a much bigger log than a circle saw could.
PN: Why's that?
RP: Well, it'd have more of a base, you know. You take a saw that 'd go way up there like, that'd be like running a log along that wall there, and that saw, and that whole thing's a saw there.
PN: So that could be like six or seven or eight feet tall? You could put a log that big through?
RP: Yea, six feet anyhow. Yea, six or seven foot, I’d say, that a band saw'll cut.
PN: A circle saw would just be a big piece of metal?
RP: Yea, it's just up around like that, and it will just a ‘reach up here, you see. But now a log would have to be big enough, it just wouldn't go through there. A band saw wouldn't cut it. Why they cut, back there at that time, they used to cut, I've seen them red oak, six—quarter red oak. You know what a six—quarter is? That's an inch—and—a—half board, about that thick, as wide as one of these sheet—rock panels [about six feet wide]. Them boards would come out on the chain that way, just so big like that, we'd have to, we'd have to, we'd have strips to nail across the end of them. As a general rule, two of us would pull that board off and put it on the wagon. And most, a lot of times, just the way that board, you pull it up, you'd split it break it right in the middle. And they'd nail them strips across the end, keep it, keep it from split— ting, until they got it stacked, you know. And after you got it stacked and dried, it was, it was mostly cured then.
PN: How many years did you work in the saw mill, or in that industry?
RP: Off and on, I guess, eight or ten years. Then after I left there, up till, see, they sawed out in '29. I believe it was '29. It could be ' 28, but I'll say ' 29 . On January the 29th, it seemed to me like it was.What would that mean, that they worked the woods out?
RP: Yea, they worked it out. In the meantime, the m ill burnt at one time, and then they rebuilt it. And then, then after they sawed it out, they moved, they moved the mill then you've heard of Glade, ain't you?
PN: Up on New River?
RP : Yea, yea. Now that's where they, that's where they had their last mill.
PN : Was that Babcock Lumber down there in Glade too?
RP : Mm. See that was their last mill here. But now Babcock people had more than one mill. They had, they had mills in Tennessee too. They had mills in West Virginia, maybe in North Carolina, don't know. But anyway, they had, they had several mills. And here a while back, there was a whole truckload of plywood, I noticed the Babcock people, comes from up here at Sutton. And they got a warehouse up there, Babcock people have. And they, and they distribute it, plywood and stuff, into Beckley. And I seen a truck go by here one time, and said Babcock on the truck, and he stopped out there. And I went out there, and I cornered him, and I got talking about it. And he said, yea, they had a, they had a warehouse up there where they shipped, they still, they still handle lumber a little bit.
PN: What did you do after the, you know, it sawed out? What did you do then?
RP: Well, after it sawed out, then, I suspect then, it was a year, or a year and a half or more before they got all the lumber shipped out, You see, it went right on, the lumber sales, till they got all the lumbers shipped out. And that was it; that was all of it then.
PN: What did you do then? Did you stay around there?
RP: I stayed around there a while. And then I went, after that then I went and got me a job at Cliff top working in the mines over there then.
PN: You did?
RP: Yea.
PN: For the same company?
RP: Yea, for the same company. And then…
PN: When did you start working for them?
RP: '33, 1933, yea.
PN: How long did you work in the mines for them?
RP: I worked till '39. I worked, then I come down here at Greenwood Coal. I got a job down there for, at Lawton at Greenwood.
PN: When did you work in Greenwood?
RP: When I was a'working?
PN: Yea.
RP: I worked there then until 1951.
PN: From about '39 to 51?
RP: Huh?
PN: From 1939 to 1951?
RP: From '42, ‘42 to '52, one.
PN: Let me just ask you a couple of questions about unions, if you have any memories of that. When you worked, when you and your father worked for Babcock Lumber, was there any union of any kind that represented the men?
RP: Well, they, not when we first started there wasn't, no union at all. But they was, they was always trying to organize. I think along about '37 or eight; 36, seven, or eight or somewhere along in there, they, they got unionized then.
PN: In where, their lumber operations?
RP: No, the lumber, there wasn't, there was just a coal operation. Lumber, there wasn't no lumber operation then.
PN: Was there ever any union for the lumber workers?
RP: No, un huh, there was never no union back up until the mill sawed out, there wasn't no unions then. It wasn't, about the only unions was back years ago when, in the twenties, when John L. Lewis organized. And then they busted up then for a long time. And then they…
PN: Did anybody ever talk about trying to get a union in the sawmill or the woods?
RP: No, not back at that time, they didn't. Unions wasn't thought of.
They just wasn't thought of.
PN: When you started working at Cliff top in the mines, had the United Mine Workers come back in there by that time?
RP: They hadn't got in when I first started. But they got, they got a, they was, I guess probably that maybe they, some of them was unionizing back at that time. I don't know just when, when the United Mine Workers did really get, get up, started back then organizing.
PN: Do you have any memories of that period when you were working in the coal mine? When they started to organize again, do you have any memories of that?
RP: No, no.
PN: What did you do when you worked in the mines?
RP: I loaded coal, just, just, it was machine cut, you know. And then you'd go in and shoot it down. And then you'd, you'd put your cars up there, and you load, and they pull them.
PN: When you were saying that Babcock had mines at Cliff top, did they, how did they get the coal down to the gorge? Did they ship it out of the gorge?
RP: They shipped their, they had coal cars, they shipped it down, down the same, same track that they did the lumber.
PN: They did?
RP: Uh huh. Only it, from Cliff top, it come in right below the Babcock State Park. It tied in with the track that comes up to Landisburg then, then when you come up there you switch off, and come to Cliff top, or you come on up to Landisburg.
PN: That was the same track then?
RP: Yes, uh huh, same track.
PN: And so they shipped it out of Sewell then?
RP: Yea, they shipped…
PN: Did they make it into coke before they shipped it?
RP: Well a lot of it, they made it in coke, and a lot of it they didn't. They shipped a lot of it straight, and a lot of it in coke. They had coke orders, and they had coal orders.
PN: When you were talking about this train that went from Landisburg down to Sewell, or from Cliff top to Sewell, how wide was the track compared to the track today? Or to a regular track back then, like on the C. and O. mainline?
RP: I don't know just what, I don't even know what the standard size of track is. Anyway, it was narrower. I mean. maybe that much [indicating between six and eight inches with his hands] narrower than the C. and O. track. Cause I know after you got down to Sewell, you know, they laid a lot of track, extra rail up along beside of the, the C. and O. track where they could shift their cars in and out.
PN: Oh really?
RP: Uh huh. There at Sewell.
PN: Down there in the yards?
RP: Yea, down in the yard.
PN: What, would that little train then would take the coal and lumber all the way down to the New River?
RP: Take it plumb to the New River, yea. Then they'd go down, went on down top, top of the hill there, and then what they called "backswitch" it. They'd bring it down way out that way, and then they'd bring it back down. They had to backswitch it down in there to Sewell.
PN: What does that mean?
RP: Well, just like trying to get off of this mountain up here — you couldn't come straight over. But you just go, you'd go out this way so far, and then you go down this way so far, just keep backswitching, you know.
PN: So you wouldn't go like that [indicating straight up a hill], but…
RP: Uh huh.
PN: You said that when you worked, when you were working for the lumber company that you lived in Landisburg?
RP: No, I didn't live in Landisburg. I lived up there…wasn't really no name to it. Just, Landisburg was our post office. And then after, then just after I moved up here, it's like Danese is my post office.
PN: The town of Landisburg, most of the people that lived there were con— nec ted with Babcock Lumber?
RP : Oh, they had a town there. They had, they had, they had houses .
PN: That's at Landisburg, right?
RP: Uh huh, yea, they, a lot of people that lived there. There was a lot of people lived in Landisburg.
PN: How many people lived there? Do you have any idea?
RP: I don't have any idea just exactly how many.
PN: Do you know how many houses were there then?
RP: Yea, there was houses then, but…
PN: About how many, do you have any idea?
RP: I don't know. I never did stop to just really count how many would be.
PN: Were there be as many as 50 or 100?
RP: I expect there would - 50, yea, I’d say 50 houses.
PN: What else was there there? Was there schools, churches?
RP: Yea, we had a, we had a three—room school at Landisburg. And then they had a, they had a big building there, they had a building for a theater and they'd have picture shows in it. And then that's where we had, they had church in there too, and Sunday School. They had it all in one.
PN: In the same building?
RP: Mm.
PN: They'd show movies there, and they'd have church in the same…
RP: Yea, uh huh. Yea, they had a projector booth back there and then, it was really a, it was really the mov, opera house, or what do you call it? Of course, they didn’ t, they'd, we'd have, they'd show, they'd show a picture on Saturday night and then one on Thursday. About two nights a week, you know, they had a picture show. It was all silent, and kids went crazy over it [laughs]. We couldn't wait till Saturday night come, or Thursday.
PN: What denomination of a church was it?
RP: I don't know; it might have been Presbyterian, or Baptist.
PN: Was there a full—time minister there?
RP: No.
PN: Did you have preachers come in and out, or how did that work?
PN: I don't know whether, they really didn't have too many, much preaching there, but mostly just Sunday School for the people, for the kids to go to Sunday School.
PN: Who would run the Sunday School, the different adults?
RP: Yea, I don't, I don't know, I don't remember now who all was the teachers and all, then. George M. Woodyard, he was, he was our main bookkeeper there at Cliff top, [correcting himself] at Landisburg.
PN: You said they had a company store there?
RP: Yea, they had a company store.
PN: What could you buy at the company store?
RP: Anything you wanted to buy John Ritchie clothes, they sold Stetson hats, Bostonian shoes. They had Kipling, Brotherhood overalls, Torchlight and I don't know what different brands.
PN: How did you buy stuff? Did you use scrip?
RP: Yea, we had a, we had a scrip. In other words, you could draw, go to the office there, and you, you had a card. They'd mark down, you said, "Give me two dollars worth of scrip, and they'd put it on that card and they'd give you a couple metal dollars or something”, how big it was, something like that.
PN: So they had paper scrip and metal scrip both?
RP: I don't know just how that scrip was. We never did, we never did fool much with the scrip.
PN: Did you get paid in regular money?
RP: Yea, mostly.
PN: You did?
RP: And then a lot of time, I can remember, they might have just put it on the card and showed you how much you, much you drawed.
PN: And they took it out of your wages?
RP: Uh huh, yea.
PN: Was it hard, if you wanted to buy something like a chair or a bed or something, could you pay for that over a period of months?
RP: Oh yea, oh yea, we could pay it, we'd pay it any way you wanted to. They'd pay so much a month right to the office. Back up at that time, you take these clothing companies that come in there tailor—made suits and all. And they'd [measure] you up, and you'd buy a suit, and then pay for it over the payroll. Of course they did that around coal companies too.
PN: Tailors would come in from the outside and
RP: Yea, uh huh.
PN: Then you'd order it. What did you do for entertainment besides going to movies back then?
RP: There wasn't any. There wasn't no entertainment then.
PN: Did many people raise gardens?
RP: Yea, a lot of them raised gardens. They had gardens; a lot of them, most, a lot of people raised gardens. And then, in back there they put practically, practically everybody had a automobile. Of course we had a, it was all dirt roads back there then.
PN: I was going to ask you about that. If people wanted to get in and out of town, how they would do it.
RP: They had a road right into town.
PN: And people would drive?
RP : Uh huh, uh huh.
PN: Where did that road go to? Was it [Route] 41?
RP : It goes out here to 41; and there's a road, I can't tell you exactly what, if you 're not familiar with the people that live there. Doc Hubert, he used to, he built a big house right there out there on 41 on the right, as you go out there. Now right there, right there is where you turn right straight over the hill into Landisburg.
PN : Then you could drive out to the main road and go to Route 60?
RP: Oh yea, uh huh, yea.
PN: Could you drive down to Quinnimont or Prince then?
RP: Not back at that time, you couldn't, cause you didn't have no road down there at Quinnimont. They didn't put that road down to Quinnimont till up in the thirties.
PN: How far could you drive then, down here to Lay land?
RP: Yea, you'd come to Lay land.
PN: Then up to Route 60? Was that in back then?
RP: Yea, it went up to Route 60, and then that there took you, then if you wanted to go to, back there then if you wanted to go to Beckley, you had to go to Route 60, and drive to Gauley Bridge, and cross the river at Cotton Hill. Go over Cotton Hill Mountain, and then through Fayetteville, plumb into, into Beckley.
PN: Must have taken quite a while.
RP: And then, then later on, then they built that, put a bridge across there — what they call Chimney Corner there, you know, goes down in there. And that's the way we used to go to Beckley that way. After first starting off, you had to go plumb to Gauley Bridge. And fact about it, you didn't, you didn't cross a bridge at Gauley, at Gauley Bridge. You crossed a ferry. And it almost took you a couple of days to go to Beckley and back. [laughs]
PN: How many hours would it take, if you went straight from Landisburg to Beckley without stopping? How many hours would that take you?
RP: Back there then? 1 don't know; I never did drive it from the Gauley Bridge. 1 did, I drove it from Chimney Corner there. Oh, a couple hours or so, something like that. The first car we got, we got it, a '27 model Studebaker.
PN: What year did you get that? Did you get it in 27?
RP: Mm. No, ' 23. No we got it in 23, that's when it was — a '23 model Studebaker.
PN: Was Route 41 a dirt road then? Or was that paved?
RP: Yea.
PN: It was dirt?
RP: Mm.
PN: How about 60, was that dirt?
RP: It was dirt too. And then, I don't know exactly when they got that hard—top to It. Cause I remember, It used to be, you could go to Rainelle. You'd go down, you'd go in here to Meadow Bridge, and go up to it, Sewell Valley that way. That was all dirt road in there then. And I can remember too when it was dirt road up Rainelle Mountain.
PN: Let me ask you something about the Babcocks. Do you know, do you know where they came from?
RP: Pennsylvania.
PN: They did?
RP: Pittsburgh.
PN: How did they make their money originally? Here, or did they have money when they came in here?
RP: Oh they was, they had money to start with. Old man E. V. Babcock used to the owner of the mill down there — he used to be mayor of Pittsburgh.
PN: E. V. Babcock?
RP: E. V. Babcock.
PN: Really?
RP: Mm.
PN: What was he involved in there, do you have any Idea?
RP: Lumber, lumber, lumber. He had lumber up there. And in, he got two sons; I can't think, one of them was. And one thing about it, in the summertime, he'd send them old boys of his down here, and they worked on the lumber yard just like 1 did.
PN: Babcock's sons?
RP: Yea, yea they worked on the lumber, they worked in the summer down here.
PN: He lived in Pittsburgh even when he owned all this stuff down here?
RP: Yea, mm, yea, he lived in Pittsburgh.
PN: Let me ask you a couple of things about your parents that I didn't ask you. Do you know where your father was born, and when he was born?
RP: No sir, I don't know. My father, I've heard the place I thought he was borned at, but my, my grandfather, I never did know what become of him. He joined, he was in the Civil War. He must have got killed or something, and we never did know what become of him.
PN: Your grandfather?
RP: Mm.
PN: Did he live in Rest Virginia, come from West Virginia?
RP: Yea, he was from West, I reckon, from West Virginia someplace. I never, maybe, I don't know exactly where they originated from.
PN: What side did he fight for in the war? In the Civil War.
RP: Well, he was a Yankee, I reckon. That's what he was.
Most people would have been, wouldn't they? From here, they would have fought on the side of the Union?
RP: Yea.
PN: Do you know where your mother's parents came from, or where they were born?
RP: Yea, they was borned over here, right over on that farm, part before we lived on. We bought a piece of ground off of my mother's property. And Newman Kincaid, I don' t know when they…
PN: That was your mother's father's name?
RP: That s my mother's father's name, yea — Newman Kincaid. And then…
PN: Was he a farmer?
RP: Yea, they was all farmers back then. And take the Andersons, and the Rincaids, and the Fleshmans and they just about made up this country at one time.
PN: What kind of farming did they do?
RP: Just raised corn, and potatoes, and kept a few cattle, and that 's about all.
PN: Did they sell most of their…?
RP : Yea, they'd sell, they'd sell their cattle. They'd raise cattle and sell it. Then they'd raise corn, then they 'd, then, then they 'd, they called them "peddling" they'd take their farm, a lot of the farm stuff, they'd like to take it into Landisburg and sell it to people cabbage and tomatoes and corn. And that's about the way they, they, the biggest, back, on further back, they took most of their stuff in, into Sewell . S ewe11 at one time was a big, was a big place once. See, on the New River. It was, right on the top of the mountain there at Sewell, there was, I expect there was a town.
PN: On top of the mountain at Sewell?
RP: Mm. And then they tore them, after they went out, the town went out down there, they tore a lot of them old houses down at Sewell and moved them to Cliff top and built them.
PN: What did they do — they took the lumber and hauled it off?
RP: Uh huh.
PN: When was that? Do you know what year that was?
RP: No. That was a long ways back, before 1900 [he is referring to the original construction of Sewell], back, take Landisburg at one, Clifftop [correcting himself] at one time, let's see, whose is it? Belonged to the Longdale Iron Company. They was the one that attempted to put that rail — then road down to Sewell. And I think they went bankrupt on it, and the Babcocks there come in and took it over then and finished it up.
PN: How many people lived at Sewell back then?
RP: About 500 at one time.
PN: That includes both the town on the gorge and on the top?
RP: The top too, yea.
PN: So your mother's family's people would bring vegetables and things that they had grown and go down to Sewell and sell them?
RP: Yea. Well my grandpa and all didn't do too much of that, cause they sold most of theirs a 'right around Landisburg. And then, then they'd, then Layland was in operation back at that time. Then they sold their stuff at Landisburg and Layland. Course there was a lot of people that lived at Layland at that time. There wasn't no trouble to sell your stuff, to peddle it out down there.
PN: You mentioned the Longdale Iron Company. What did they do, did they…
RP: I don't know just what they were all about. It was a company, but they seem to me like they still have an operation, over there about Lowmoor, ain't they, somewhere over there next to Virginia. [Lowmoor is in Alleghany County, west of Clifton Forge and Longdale Furnace.]
PN: Longmore?
RP: Over in there towards Lowmoor.
PN: Low more?
RP: Ain't that the Longdale Iron Company over in there?
PN: It could be.
RP: Seems like it is.
PN: What did they do here though? Did they just have the railroad? Did they try to…
RP: I don't know what they was, whether they was trying to develop the, develop the lumber, or the mines, or what it was. It might have been mines, I don't know.
PN: Just getting back to what you were doing yourself, when you left the mines in 51, is that when you became a barber?
RP: Oh, I done barber work before that. I did that on the side. [laughs]
PN: You did?
RP: Yea, and then after I quit, I just, I just kept this as a sideline then.
[He has worked full—time as a barber since 51.]
PN: What did you do, you would just go to people's houses and cut hair?
RP: No, I, there at Cliff top, when I stayed over there, I had me a little shop there in one room of my house. And then, then when I went to Greenwood, I went down there first, just took a barber shop over. I, I quit the mines and just went down and took a barber shop over and just, just worked with the barber work. And then before the Two War broke out, and then, then they needed men, so I started to work then for the miners. And then I worked, I guess six years for them.
PN: What, did you work…?
RP: Nine years, I worked nine years down there. I worked inside and out.
PN: Did you still hold your barber shop?
RP: Yea, uh huh.
PN: When did you move to Greenwood first?
RP: I moved to Greenwood in thirty—, I started [at] Greenwood in ' 39 . Then I, then I got me, after the war started up, then I got a job at the, for the company then, about '42.
PN: What did you do after ' 51, when you said you, you left the mine at Greenwood?
RP: Fifty—?
PN: Fifty—one, you said you .
RP: Just barbered.
PN: You 've been a barber?
RP: Right here.
PN: Since that time, right here?
RP: Right here. I 've been in here for 30 years.
PN: Of all your jobs, which one did you enjoy the most?
RP: Well, I don't know. I like, back, really back at that time, I really liked to work. I enjoyed working in the lumber. Of course, it's hard work. And it's hard work in mines too. But I can't say which one I liked the best. Course I, I really liked the mines the best in the wintertime, cause you'd be in out of the cold. Now you take on a lumber yard in the winter— time, it's cold. Back at that time, we were working ten hours a day, you know.
PN: You were?
RP: Started to work before daylight and quitted after dark. You don't have it now like you did then.
PN: Back, back when you started, around, when you started working for the lumber company around 1924, was that when you started?
RP: I don't, when I started working in, at…?
PN: When you were 17 years old?
RP: Something like that.
PN: How much, when you were working ten hours a day, how much would you get paid back then?
RP: Thirty—five cents a hour, First started out, twenty—five cents a hour.
Then I got, I guess, then after I got, got a steady job with them — that's just like working through the summer, you know — I got 25 cents a hour, and then, then after I got to working with them regular, I, I got 35 cents a hour.
PN: You were working in the lumber yards then, right?
RP: Uh huh. That's three dollars and a half a day.
PN: Did you ever operate the saws or anything like that?
RP: No.
PN: Did people who did that work, had they been there for a long time?
RP: Who's that?
PN: Were the people that actually operated the saws themselves, had they been there for a long time?
RP: They'd probably been there a long time. If you could get in contact with, with Ralph Bean [and] Ralph Mullins, they could tell you a whole lot more probably than I could. I'll tell you about people that worked at the Landisburg are getting scarce. About, all of them just about dead and gone.
PN: You said that Layland here was owned by the same company?
RP: Who's that?
PN: Layland here was owned by Babcock Lumber?
RP: No, no.
PN: But they had a company store across the street though?
RP: They just got the name over there. When they first, the reason that name's on that store over there, you see, Massey Coal Company took over, had Cliff top and run coal there a 1 mg time after that. They, they had that company store there at Cliff top. And then, then they, then Massey come over and put the store in over here.
PN: Oh.
RP: And then they, they just went by "Babcock Store."
PN: Was that A. T. Massey, or was that a different Massey?
RP: It's that, he’s that there coal—buyer. He don't, he don't he don't do too much in production, I don't think.
PN: But he's a coal—buyer?
RP: He's a coal buyer; he's one of the biggest in the United States. [This must be A. T. Massey, who is now part of St. Joe Minerals, which operates more non—union coal mines in the eastern United States than any other company.]
PN: And he bought Cliff top once?
RP: He, he, he didn't buy it, I don't guess; but he just operated it there for a, had control over It there for a long time.
PN: When did he start getting control there?
RP: I don't know just exactly when, after I left there.
PN: So that would be after '39?
RP : Yea, somewhere; he just, I think he leased it, you know. I think really they kind of blowed it out, you know, there for, then they took, in fact it sort of worked out. It was working out, and I think he ased the stores; and then, then they opened up some mines down here, what they call Landisburg, right down in there, they opened, he opened up a few mines on the…That coal over there at Cliff top, that was Sewell seam. Then he opened up over here on the, that was the same seam that Layland is.
PN: Let me just ask you one or two more questions while there's still time on the tape. When did you get married?
RP: Huh?
PN: When did you get married?
RP: When did I get married?
PN: Yea.
RP: Nineteen and thirty—three.
PN: And you were already working in the mine then?
RP: I hadn't started working in the mine. That's when I started after I got married. I had to go to work. [laughs] I had to go to work.
PN: You met your wife in Landisburg?
RP: Huh?
PN: Did you meet your wife when you were in Landisburg?
RP: Yea, one of them. I 've been married three times.
PN: Oh.
RP: My first wife, I met her when I was working at Landisburg. Course, I’ve had one boy, he, he, my first wife died 21 days after he was born. Then I got married again, that was about 18 months after that. And then, '71, she died. Then I got married again, and we're still fighting it out!
[End of Tape]
Oral History Project - Pugh, T. B. 1980
Keeneys Creek, Thayer, Coal mining, life in mining towns in the 1920s
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.
PN: This was at Thayer?
TBP: At the coal company's expense, of course, at Thayer.
PN: Do you remember Thayer yourself?
TBP: As a kid?
PN: Yea.
TBP: Yea, I remember Thayer, because it was one of the mining towns. 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 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 Nuttall, 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.
PN: That was at Keeny's Creek?
TBP: No, that was at Elverton; 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, it was but some building connected with the store. The moving—picture theater was generally attended by children. They had somebody to play a piano for the music. I couldn't read; my sister got on me to read; a lot of 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?
TBP: Yea, and ammunition/ along the river would be the ballast from the 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?
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?
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 storage room. I felt something tickle me on the ear there. Just kept tickling, tried to brush It. Finally got up and looked around, there was old Marvin Hitchcock. He was the one 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?
PN: 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]
Oral History Project - Sorrel, Wanda 2025
Brooklyn coal community during the last half of the 20th century, coal company stores, Fayette Station road
Interview: Wanda Sorrell (Wanda Pittman) lived in Brooklyn.
Interviewer: Mallory Meadows
June 10th 2025 at Canyon Rim Visitor Center, Lansing, WV.
M.M: It is June 10th, 2025, and I am interviewing Wanda Sorrell, who lived in the coal camp town of Brooklyn in the new River Gorge. So what year were you born?
W.S: 1954. And I was born in Brooklyn.
MM: In Brooklyn? In the house you lived in?
WS: No. It was a house that's no longer standing. We, we lived there for a short time. And so that's where I was born. We moved away because in the company houses, you weren't allowed to fight. And one of the neighbors stopped by to see me when I was pretty much new born. And he made some kind of snide remark as he was leaving. So my daddy fought him, and we got kicked out of our house. We had to move to Oak Hill for a while, and then we moved to Gatewood after that. Then we returned to Brooklyn in 1960.
MM: Okay. So that you were with the company doctor, though?
WS: Yes. I believe the company's doctor's name was Doctor Jackson, but Doctor Collins is the one that came to the house and delivered me.
MM: And then you said you moved out of Brooklyn. So you really don't remember a whole lot like, as you were a kid being there?
WS: I lived there from 1960 until 1971. So I remember the company store and, the people that worked in the office there, it was a post office and a company store, like, I guess it was the coal mines office where the miners could go get script if they wanted to or pick up their paydays. Then it was a store, general store. Most of the people that lived in Brooklyn would get items and pay for them later.
MM: So kind of like a credit system.
WS: It was. Yes.
MM: Okay. So I've been told that you would go in into the company store and the clerk would pull out a drawer basically with the husband or the father, whoever's name. You would write down everything that you wanted, and then that would be automatically subtracted from the payday.
WS: I'm not positive about that. That would be a question for mom.
MM: So your dad was a coal miner? Yes. And did he ever talk about that or.
WS: Not a lot. I knew it was very dangerous, and he got very dirty. I remember him coming home dirty, and we would, try to race to his lunch bucket to see who could get there first. Because if anything was left over, anything at all, it tasted different after being in that bucket in the coal mines for a shift. That was a real treat. I remember dad walking up the hill, with his bank clothes on and coming home with his dinner bucket. I think I might have a picture of that.
MM: Okay. So did he seem to enjoy his job? Like, did he have a sense of pride?
WS: He did have a sense of pride. Because he was the president of the local in that area, and he worked hard to take care of his men and try to get what was right for them.
I think it was like most jobs disappointing, difficult, always situations. Of course, they, struck sometimes and made it hard on people. And and so he would try to help resolve those issues.
MM: Do you know what position he had in the mine?
WS: I don't.
MM: Okay. And would he typically work the same shift every day?
WS: Yes, he worked the day shift most of it all that I can remember.
MM: So he would leave probably around six in the morning?
WS: That sounds about right.
MM: Okay. And then for your house and the position of your house in the town, would you say there was like streets with houses and people would live on a different street, or it would just kind of be randomly around the houses in the town?
WS: It was basically just a single road, and the houses were on either side of the road.
Our house was up on the hill directly above the company store, directly above the company store.
MM: Would the houses have been down towards the tracks or what they have been up on the hill?
WS: They were all the way up to where the community of Brooklyn still is. There weren't, it was not close to the railroad tracks.
MM: Okay. So you would have been up on that top portion. Do you remember if he had to ride the haulage or the hoist or anything down towards the bottom, or was the main entrance right up there where he lived?
WS: Yeah. The the entrance to the mine was right around the road from where we lived. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm not good with distances, but it was close enough to be a yes.
MM: Okay. So your house. Do you remember what it looked like? If you were on the road looking at your house? Do you remember the shape or the color or what it was made out of?
WS: Yeah, it was a white wood house. It had the high porch. Yeah. That's a white wood house with a high porch. Cinder block. Foundation. Okay.
MM: Was it a single story?
WS: It was a single story. And the basement, most of the basement was just dirt floor, but part of it was concrete. We had a coal burning stove in the basement. Okay. And that's what heated the house. Yes.
MM: Was there any air conditioning in the house?
WS: Yeah.
MM: Did you have electricity in the house?
WS: Yes.
MM: Did you have that as far as you could remember?
WS: Yes. What about when we moved in that house?
MM: It was just a regular bathroom?
WS: Yes. Small. No shower. Just a bathtub, sink and toilet.
MM: So do you remember what types of furniture would have been in the house?
WS: The best I recall was the kitchen table and chairs were wooden. Of course a stove, refrigerator. We had a washer and dryer. Also. No dishwasher. In the living room, it was just like a plush, couch and matching chair. We had black and white TV, a coffee table and two in tables. That's all I remember being in the living room. And then the house had three bedrooms.
MM: Okay, so as you walked in the house, did you kind of describe the layout of the rooms?
WS: Yes. We always pulled up on the strip road behind the house and came down the steps. The steps were wooden until, I think, after daddy died, we got the concrete steps. It was quite a ways down from the top road. So we walked into the kitchen. And then you turned right. Very small little hall which had the great where the furnace was.
MM: And that's the only source of heat came up through that floor grate right there in that hole? That way?
WS: Yes. It was, probably three foot by four foot, maybe. Immediately to the right was the bathroom. Straight across to the left was the living room. And then the way the house was laid out, you could go straight from the hallway or from that bedroom you could go out on the front porch or go straight through into the next two rooms, and then on into the next two rooms.
MM: Okay. Do you remember, like, if there were decorations on the walls, if there were rugs on the floor or anything like that?
WS: Mom was very a very good housekeeper, and she almost always had scatter rugs. So a scatter rug is just like a small throw rug. No big, full size rugs. She had linoleum rugs on the floor, which she mopped and kept waxed all the time. Her curtains were very pretty. She ironed everything and kept everything real neat and crisp. I remember she had, whatnots setting around. She didn't have a lot of interior decorations until later, when I got older. But when I was younger, I remember she had a picture of President Kennedy on the wall. She had, like, religious pictures, like, the angel with the two children on the broken, dangerous looking bridge over a cavern. And Jesus with the sheep. And he was carrying one of the lambs. I remember those pictures, but there wasn't a lot of frills or a lot of extra decor, but it was like a nicely decorated house. Yes, mostly clean and neat and fairly plain.
MM: So do you remember seeing any of the, like, mining structures? So a typical or a conveyor or anything?
WS: There was a little coal mine out from us, which I think is called a punch mine. It was called Underwood's Mines. I remember seeing the entrance to that which was open. I think my brothers went in there when they were small, but I was too scared. Around to the Brooklyn Mines, we weren't allowed to go around those, and I'm sure the boys did. I may have been there once or twice. I don't remember anything specific.
MM: Okay. So you mentioned the boys and your brothers. Did you have any siblings?
WS: Yes. At this period of time we are speaking of, there were six of us children. It was quite lively, but mom was, she was very strict. We spent most of our time outside. The boys loved to set minnow traps. And so they go fishing in the new River. They hunted and, they set traps also for small game, which we ate..
MM: Right in that area of Brooklyn?
WS: Yes.
MM: So you said that they fished in the new River. Did you ever swim in the new River?
WS: Yes we did. I didn't get to go as often as they did because mom was not very interested in going to the river. The road back then was so rugged that you had to have a four wheel drive vehicle, and even then you had to go very slowly. I remember riding in the back of a truck and you just get jolted, violent, like, really, to get down there. So the road now, you can hardly imagine that it was ever like that.
MM: So was the road that you would have taken similar to the road that’s down to the river access today?
WS: Yes. That would have been the same way that we went past horse heaven.
MM: What is horse heaven?
WS: It's a very big drop off right at the edge of the road that goes where you can hardly, it feels like you can hardly see the bottom of it.
I don't know why I got that name, but I do know that later a lot of people ran their cars over there when they couldn't pay for them to get insurance fees.
MM: So what other types of things would you have done as kids outside? Would you have played with neighborhood kids?
WS: Yes, we all got along very well. We knew that it was such a close knit community that, we couldn't get by with anything because even the neighbor mothers would not hesitate to reprimand the children. So we knew we needed to really behave. There was one lady that lived out from us. Their children were already grown and her husband worked in the office at the at the store. Their last name was Riley. And he would let my friend and I come in sometimes on play on the adding machine. And his secretary, Mrs. Treadway, would let us dress up. She would let us use old purses and things to dress up and play. It was just a friendly place to grow up, and everybody kind of watched out for everybody else. All of us kids pretty much could be just turned loose. I remember going BlackBerry picking by myself and had no fear, no hesitation at all. Down where the cemetery is on that whole hillside was blackberry bushes, and you can fill up a gallon bucket pretty quickly. That was a real treat, cause them mom would make blackberry cobblers for us.
MM: So, do you remember her baking a lot of desserts? And what types of food would you have?
WS: Every single day, when we got home from school, we had almost always pinto beans, but some type of bean once in a while. The lima beans or navy beans. But we always had beans. We usually had cornbread or biscuits and and some type of potatoes most always. Generally, we only had meat on Sundays unless the boys had killed rabbit or squirrel or fish. We would eat that during the week sometimes.
MM: For holidays or birthdays, would you have something special?
WS: We did not have special things on birthdays. At Christmas, we were always shocked and amazed that we got what we did because we weren't really expecting anything at all, and it was always beyond our expectation. Mom worked hard and planned to make it really special so we would have a fruit bowl. Beautifully arranged. We were not allowed to touch it. We weren't allowed to eat any of the fruit. She would keep it for a few days. She made, custard, which is, similar to eggnog, but it's not quite that thick. It was, a gallon of milk to two dozen eggs, white egg yellows, egg yolks, and a gallon of milk, cooked on very low heat and stirred for hours and hours. She would whip up the egg whites and make it fluffy, and stir that in at the end, and put just a bit of lemon flavoring in it. So that was every Christmas. Somehow she managed to do that. And we usually did have turkey, Thanksgiving and Christmas. We would have a good full meal.
MM: So did you have any special decorations for holidays?
WS: Basically only our Christmas tree for Christmas. The rest of the time, I don't remember ever having any special decorations.
MM: Then on the subject of food and cooking, did you have a garden or chickens or anything like that?
WS: Mom usually did have chickens. And daddy planted a patch of potatoes, but it wasn't right there where we lived. It was on around the road. Mom would usually have just a few tomato plants. We never had a big garden planted.
MM: Did other people typically plant gardens, kind of along that path of the road?
WS: Yes. Some people had huge gardens and everyone was very kind to share what they had. We always got fresh vegetables.
MM: Was there a lot of canning going on?
WS: Yes, yes yes, yes.
MM: So when it was time to go grocery shopping, do you remember like what types of things that she would be buying?
WS: Basically just flour and sugar or salt and pepper and butter. Dried beans. Potatoes, if we didn't have potatoes. Some canned things. I remember eating hominy and she would buy stuff for the boys to take when they went to the river, or, like, potted meat and sardines and canned soups and things like that. There wasn't a lot of of, groceries. There wasn't a lot of junk. We hardly ever had a whole bottle of pop to ourselves. We had to share.
WS: So when it was time for new clothes or something like that, would you buy that at the company store?
WS: Sometimes. We, used hand-me-downs, all that we could. Usually, I think when it was the beginning of a school year, we would get a new outfit and maybe a new pair of shoes.
MM: So that would come from the company store most of the time. And then where did you go to school? Was there a school in Brooklyn?
WS: Not at the time I went. I went to Cunard. Back then we called it Coal Run.
MM: Okay. So did you go to a school in Cunard from first grade?
WS: To fifth grade, I think, is when the school closed and I had to go to consolidated.
MM: Where would that have been?
WS: That was out. Like near Wolf Creek.
MM: Did you go to high school?
WS: I think I went to Consolidated School for two years, and then I went to Fayetteville High School, which was up on High Street in Fayetteville from eighth grade. I finished 11th grade.
MM: Do you have rough date ranges for that?
WS: Probably 69 to 72. I was in high school.
MM: Okay. So it was also a really important part of community for things like music and church services. And can you tell me about that?
WS: We didn't have a lot of music in our community. But the church, there was a church for black people. And then the white church, which is still standing.
They had services on Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night. Sometimes, there would be home prayer meetings. People that were interested would meet in each other's homes and have a service to attend.
MM: Did most everybody in the community go?
WS: Basically, I would say over half the people attended church services.
MM: Okay. And then do you remember any of the other communities around, like, did you ever go visit friends or go to places like Thurmond or Oak Hill or Fayetteville or?
WS: Yes. Mom and dad liked visiting the cemeteries. We have a lot of pictures of the cemetery, so sometimes on Sundays we would go to the, cemetery at fat Bill Hughes Memorial or to Oak Hill High on Cemetery Tree. We would go to aunts and uncles homes on Sundays, sometimes for a meal. We visited regularly, but not during the week when there was school. We didn't go anywhere.
MM: And would you be driving around in a car? Daddy did have a car. The farthest I remember going was Gauley Brudge. Daddy had a sister that lived down there. So we would go down that station road, the big bridge wasn't there. It was quite treacherous. One time the break line burst, and daddy had to just run the car in the ditch on purpose, because there was no way you could go down that road with no brakes.
MM: And that was during the period when that was a two way road. Yes.
WS: Does it look still kind of similar like it did back then? Yes. I think it's still on the same path. Somehow it seems wider, even though it's only a one way road. It seems like it's wider now than that.
MM: Was it a paved road back then?
WS: I think so. I think it was.
MM: Do you remember as you were coming out of Fayette Station on the side of the river where the Canyon Rim Visitor Center is, you remember what that area would have looked like, or were there people living around there, if you remember?
WS: I don't. I know my brothers remember some people that lived way down on the river very, very close to the river. But they went a lot more than I did.
MM: So did you ever see a lot of trains coming through the area? Do you remember how active those tracks were?
WS: We couldn't see the trains from our community.
They were way down at the river, but all the time when you were at the river, it seemed like there was a lot of train traffic.
MM: More than there is today?
WS: Yes, yes.
MM: So going back to the company store, you lived very close to the company store. So do you remember what that building would have looked like?
WS: Yeah. It had it was a red brick building with square columns, a big concrete, porch. There were probably three entrances on the front. It was a long building. And then it had like in the front of the store was level with the road, but then it, the land dropped down quickly right behind the company store, and there was two houses behind it, and it had, the basement. The company store did have a basement. So when you walked in, what did it look like? When you went in the door where the office was, it was playing, it had it seemed like the windows were frosted. And it was just very plain. Very plain. Office space. There was, typewriters and of course, no printers, no computers. They had the adding machines. I'm not sure if they were electric or not, but I think, I think they might have been. And file cabinets. Then when you went in the company store there, it was double doors and there was tile on the floor. And ice cream. There was an ice cream cooler. The butcher had a place you could get balogna like in chunks and, and having slice that ever how thick or thin you liked it.
MM: So most of the groceries would have been on the first floor?
WS: All of the store was just on the same floor. Yeah.
MM: So was it like a store today? How you get a shopping cart and you go around and collect what you want?
WS: I don't I don't remember any shopping carts. I don't think there were any shopping carts. I think we just carried what we wanted up to the counter and paid for it.
MM: Okay. And would you have used regular currency or would have you been using scrip?
WS: When us kids went to the store, we might get a dime for something and we would use our money. That's the only time we ever shopped. But mom did the other shopping, and I suppose she would either just put on the tab or use scrip them.
MM: So do you remember if there were any certain types of, like, brands or products that were on the shelves?
WS: I don't think there was a large variety. I do not remember the labels on the cans or anything.
MM: But you never felt like you were lacking? You always felt like you had plenty to eat?
WS: Yeah we did and we didn't know how little we had at that time. We thought we were really good. We were doing very well.
MM: So do you remember any of the positions that people would have had in the community? So you talked about the store clerk. Do you remember who that was and what he would have been doing?
WS: His last name was Rhodes. He was the store clerk. He would, I'm sure, keep the shelves stocked. And when the pop man came, you know, he would. And the ice cream truck would run. He would help assist them. Most of the time, it seemed like it wasn't real, real busy. When I was in there, I would usually just be going for candy or something, and there would usually be a few people like visiting on the porch or in the office but I wasn't interested in any of that. I would just go in and it seemed to like the store clerk was always nice, and, he didn't seem overly busy.
MM: Okay. Do you remember any seeing any other company people around?
WS: I probably wouldn't have paid any attention. I know all the coal miners would stop in there, and I'm sure you know Mr. Vanhoose lived up on the hill a few houses down from ours, and I'm sure he was in there sometimes he and Mr. Riley seem to have business regularly.
MM: So who would that be, Mr. Vanhoose?
WS: I think his title was probably Superintendent.
MM: You say he lived up on the hill kind of off by himself?
WS: No, in that row of houses. But he his house was much larger and nicer. It was like, counting the basement, it would be like a three story house. It's still standing. Everything was very, very nice and it was kept neat.
MM: So he was probably he had the largest house.
WS: Yes. Yes.
MM: Did anyone else live in a big house? There was a large house at the very end of the road, which is Brooklyn Loop Road now. The Hiser’s live in it now. It was the largest house. If I'm not mistaken, I think the doctor lived there back in the day. And then Mr. Riley lived in the first house. As you're going up the road, like behind our house. He lived in the first house, which was a large, very nice house.
MM: Were there a lot of houses in the community?
WS: I think mom said there was 70 houses.
MM: Were there anything like apartments?
WS: No. Just houses. Just houses. And most all of them were company houses. So they were all built on the same order and same style, same type houses.
MM: Okay. Are there anything else or other things that you could think about that we haven't covered?
