Oral History Project (P-Z)

• Oral History Project - Parker, Ray 1980

  
  

  Logging and coal mining, Babcock Lumber Company 1924-1931, coal miner at Clifftop

  Date created:

  11/22/1980

  Audio Transcript

  Interview NRGNPP 023

  File NRGNPP 023-T

  TAPE TWENTY-THREE

  Interviewer:   

  Paul J . Nyden 

  Beckley, W. Va. 25801

  November 22, 1980

  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 - Phipps E.H. 1980

  
  

  Bookkeeper and postmaster, Clifftop, Mead, Terry, 1912 - 1949

  Date created:

  10/16/1980

  Audio Transcript

  INTERVIEW NRGNPP 01 3
  File NRGNPP 013-T
  TAPE THIRTEEN
  Mr. E. H. Phipps

  Mrs. Mildred P.

  Interviewer :
  Henry Paul J. Nyden
  October 16, 1980

  
  [Mrs. Henry is Mr. Phipp's daughter; Mr. Phipps lives with Mrs. Henry and her husband Estill. She was present during most of the interview, and made comments at various times.]

  
  PN: First, Mr. Phipps, maybe you could mention when you were born and where you were born.

  
  EH: Well, I was born on July the 10th, 1886 out off of Harper Road on a farm, log house.

  
  PN: What town was that? Was that in Harper Heights?

  
  EP: No, no, it was on this side of Harper Heights. Do you know where Mt. Tabor Church is?

  
  PN: Yea.

  
  EP: Well, it was right to the right of the road that turns down to Mt. Tabor Church, to the right, went back out there half a mile or more. [The area he is talking about is just outside of Beckley.]

  
  PN: You were born in a log house, what did your father do for a living?

  
  EP: Farmer, he was a farmer. They were nine of us children eight boys and one girl. And the girl, and her twin brother, was the two last children born to the family. They're all gone but me now. Every one of them.

  
  PN: Did you ever work on the farm yourself?

  
  EP: Oh yea, I worked there until I was 18 years old. Back those days, all you could do was make a living, couldn't make any money, just made a living. So I had a chance to go to the C & O civil engineers, when the C & O Railroad was double—tracking their road from Charleston Vest to Barboursville. I went to St. Albans and stayed down there, lived there in St. Albans. That was in 1905; 1907 when they got pretty tight and the C & O Railroad couldn't borrow any money to complete their jobs so they closed it down. That cut me out of work. I had a brother who was opening up Slab Fork Coal Company over at Slab Fork for Mr. Caperton. So he wrote and told me to come over there, and he 'd give me something to do. So I went over there and drove a team of mules, and hauled supplies that was going to build those houses. Finally they built a temporary store; and then they put me in the store as store clerk.

  
  PN: What year was that you went to Slab Fork?

  
  EP: July the 22nd, 1907. July the 22nd, 1907. I stayed there for about two years, and I got a job over in Fayette County, just below Winona. Went over there and worked for two years, and finally got a job with Babcock Coal and Coke Company at Cliff top. And I was there ten years in the office as payroll clerk and postmaster.
  
  PN: At Cliff top?

  
  EP: Yea, mm. Do you know where Cliff top is?

  PN: Yea. What were the years that you worked at Clifftop?

  
  EP: From 1912 till 1922. Yea, 1912 till 1922.

  
  PN: What did you do after you finished there?

  
  EP: Well, I went in the clothing business. And my partner, he lived here in Beckley; he had a clothing store. He wanted to open a second store; and my younger brother one younger then me was working for him at the time. Well, he wanted to open up a second store, and let me operate the second store, and he would work between the two stores, and it wouldn't be as hard on him, you see. But he died, that was in 1922, and he died — wait a minute — he died Christmas Day. I believe, that year. Went to Mayo Brothers in Cleveland, and died. So then his widow didn't care to continue in the business, so they closed out the store at Norton, Virginia, and then they sold their store up here in Beckley.

  
  PN: Is this 1930 when you went to Terry?

  
  EP: Yea.

  
  PN: Then you went to Terry?

  
  EP: Yea, yea. [He must have misunderstood this question, since he held other jobs before he went to Terry, as is made clear later in the interview.]

  
  PN: Who did you work for when you went to Terry?

  
  EP: Captain John W. Smith — he was a coal operator. So he knew me, and he wanted me to work for him down at Terry. So I went to Terry, and he operated for about two years there, and finally gave it up. So other people took it over. And I was down there for 19 years, worked there.

  
  PN: In Terry?

  
  EP: At Terry.

  
  PN: You were the bookkeeper or the…

  
  EP: I was postmaster and payroll man. Wasn't all for the same company. They changed hands a time or two down there — different coal companies — but they wanted me to stay on, so I stayed on. So finally, Terry blew out in 1949. They ceased operations, so that cut me out of a job. 1 came back to Beckley, and worked for some merchants here in Beckley.

  
  PN: When you were working as the postmaster and bookkeeper in Terry, did you go back and forth every day between Beckley and Terry?

  
  EP: Oh yea, yea. I lived here in Beckley. I wanted to keep my daughter in a good school. And the houses down there were just company houses; it wasn't very good. So I drove backwards and forwards every day.

  
  PN: How was the travelling then? Did you ride in a car?

  
  EP: Oh yea, I had my own car, yea. Now, Batoff Mountain is three miles long, you know that? But I never had any trouble, even in the wintertime.

  PN: Really?

  
  EP: That's right.

  
  PN: That's kind of a rough mountain when it gets icy, though, isn't it?

  
  EP: There was one big snow, I don't remember how deep it was. I started home one evening, and brought one of the men that worked there with me. And I had two big coal shovels; if we got stuck in the snow, we could shovel out. But then I was afraid I would get in behind somebody that had stalled couldn't get through — and I 'd have a time maybe getting out or turning around, so I just backed down to a good place to turn. And I turned, went back, and spent the night in Terry.

  
  PN: Let me ask you a few questions about Terry, about 1930 when you first came there. I was wondering if I could just ask you a few questions about how it looked.

  
  EP: Sure.

  
  PN: How many houses were there there, would you say?

  
  EP: Well now, my memory's not very good. I don 't recall just how many. I suppose 25 or 30, something like that. That's just a guess. It's been so long, I've forgotten just how many were there.

  
  PN: Did the people that worked at Terry, would live there, right?

  
  EP: Oh yea.

  
  PN: Did people come from any other towns nearby to work at Terry?

  
  EP: They'd work at Terry, yes, they did. People 'd come from all around.

  
  PN: From where, like Royal or McCreery?

  
  EP: Royal, yes, or anywhere on up the river there.

  
  PN: What did the houses look like?

  
  EP: Well, they were just plain, ordinary frame houses. Some of them were painted, some of them wasn't. Then they had a substation built right in front of the store. It was a great big store three stories high. And this substation furnished power for the mines; they run a line up the hill to the mines. And also furnished power for the houses there in Terry — this substation that they had there.

  
  PN: And the C & O tracks went right through the town, right?

  
  EP: Well yes. It didn't go any further down than Terry. There was nothing on down lower.

  
  PN: On that side of the river there were no tracks?

  
  EP: No, just down to Terry. Well, it went out a little beyond the store, you know, so they'd have room for their cars and so on.

  
  PN: You said there was also a post office, there were some company buildings there. Was there a company store?

  
  EP: Oh yea, there was a company store, yea, about three stories.

  
  PN: Was that where you worked?

  
  EP: Yea, that's where I worked, yea. They had, oh, a great big basement, then the store building itself, and then they had, I believe there were seven apartments up over this store. This store was a great big building, great big building.

  
  PN: And the post office was right there too?

  
  EP: Yea.

  
  PN: You were mentioning before about a bridge, there was a covered bridge?

  
  EP: That was up at McCreery. That's where you left the road, and you had to walk into Terry because there was no wagon road. You walked down the railroad track from McCreery to Terry, which was about a mile and some thing.

  
  PN: Is that what you had to do every day when you…

  
  EP: Yea, every day and every night, I walked down that railroad track.

  
  PN: If you were coming from Beckley down to McCreery, you could cross the river then on that bridge, on the covered bridge?

  
  EP: Oh no, it wasn't there when I worked there. It was already disbanded, yea. The bridge, the covered bridge part was gone. That was years ago. When I was a kid, my daddy took me with him down one time, and so we crossed through this covered bridge. But that's been a long time ago.

  
  PN: It was down by 1930 then?

  
  EP: No, it was earlier than that. See, 1930 is when I went down there to work. I was a pretty good—sized boy then. [laughs]

  
  PN: Thinking about the people that lived in Terry, would they buy all their food there from the company store?

  
  EP: Well, there was an independent store there at McCreery. And some of them would buy their groceries up there. They thought they could get em cheaper than they could in the company store, you know. And some few of them would buy some groceries up there, which was all right. It didn't hurt us any.

  
  PN: Did the coal company at Terry issue scrip?

  
  EP: Yea, paper scrip.

  
  PN: Paper scrip, not the metal?

  
  EP: No, this was the punch—out scrip. You used a punch to punch out the figures.

  
  PN: Could people cash that in at a discount, or something, if they wanted to go up…

  
  EP: Oh yea. That's what they did. A lot of them would take their scrip, and go up to this other store, and cash it in, and take the money, and maybe would buy 'em moonshine.

  
  PN: Was it hard to get moonshine or liquor if you wanted it?

  
  EP: No, no. Of course, they didn't make any right around, but they knew where it was made, And they'd send a boy up to get some. I know this one, one young fellow down there that they sent after whiskey every time, those people that drank it.

  
  PN: Prohibition ended, did they have any bars or saloons in Terry?

  
  EP: No, the closest saloon was Prince. This fellow by the name of Prince, Bob Prince. My daddy used to tell me that Bob Prince lived in Beckley, you know, and his people. He said he took an old sled, hooked an old oxen to it — one oxen and took his trunk; everything that he thought he 'd need, you know, why he took his clothes and wearing apparel and so on, and took this old oxen, hauled it down to McCreery, and on up as close to Prince as you could get, you know. There wasn't any bridge across the river then. So he took it up that far, then he had to transfer it to — oh, what do
  you call them, that you cross the river on?

  MH: Ferry boats.

  
  EP: Boat, yea.

  
  PN: That bridge wasn't in at Prince then?

  
  EP: Oh no , no, no. That bridge across the river wasn't in for years. And this fellow Prince went down there, and opened up a big store, built a big store. And then right on the outside of the store, at the far end of it, he had this saloon. And that was when they were building this C & O through to Richmond, you know. And Lord, he made a fortune selling whiskey there, you know. He'd get him a barrel of whiskey, and then he'd dilute it with that New River water. [laughs] That's right, he would. He made a fortune there, selling whiskey and New River water. Hell, that old saloon was right out, right by the side of his store, right at the back part of his store. I can remember that, yes.

  
  PN: Was the New River pretty clear then? It's still pretty good water.

  
  EP: Oh yes, at that time it was good water. See it wasn't diluted [meaning polluted]; there wasn't any mines much along up there to pollute it in any way.

  
  PN: Was the water clearer then than it is now?

  
  EP: Well, I don't know that you could tell that much difference in it, but it seemed to be better.

  
  PN: Did people fish there a lot?

  
  EP: They didn't at that time, when I first went there. They did too, now the young boys did; boys down there used to set their trot—line across the river. And why, they kept me in fish all the time. Those boys would Catch fish, and they'd bring 'em up and give 'em to me, and I'd give them to the butcher, and he'd dress 'em and put 'em in the freezer for me. And when I started home that evening, why I took the fish with me.

  
  PN: Did you ever sell any fish there at the store? Or would people just catch It if they wanted it?

  
  EP: Oh, they'd just catch it if they wanted it. No, they never tried to sell it there at the store.

  
  PN: What did most people in Terry do for entertainment, or for fun, around 1930 when you first moved there?

  
  EP: Well, the only thing I can remember, they had a pool room there.

  
  PN: In Terry?

  
  EP: Yea, played pool.

  
  PN: Was that in the same place as the company store?

  
  EP: No, it was in a separate building, right off of the company store.

  
  PN: Was that privately run?

  
  EP: Yea, that was run privately.

  
  PN: Did they serve any beer, or any kind of alcohol there?

  
  EP: No, no, no. And then they had a big club house there where single men stayed and boarded, you know, when they were working in the mine. They had a big club house there.

  
  PN: How many people worked at the mine in 1930?

  
  EP: I just can't tell you exactly — it's been so far and my memory's not that good — but I’d say 125—50 maybe. Just guessing at it.

  
  PN: Do you have any guess as to the total number of people that lived there in Terry itself?

  
  EP: Well, no I don't; I just can't remember how many children different families had, you know. I don’t remember.

  
  PN: So you said there were about 25 or 30 houses, and then these apartments, and the boarding house?

  
  EP: A boarding house, yes. Well they had some rooms, but mostly just to feed people and for them to spend the night.

  
  PN: Were there any churches in Terry then?

  
  EP: Yes, they had a small church there.

  
  PN: What kind was that? Baptist or Methodist?

  
  EP: Well I don't really remember, but I think any denomination almost could have services there. Yea.

  
  PN: Back then, were there any Black people living there, as well as white?

  
  EP: Oh yea, yea, yea.

  
  PN: What was the percentage? Would you have any guess on that?

  
  EP: I don't know really, but I'd say there were, I 'd say there were seven or eight houses for colored people. They lived kind of up on a little bench, above the store and the railroad tracks. They had a road up by their place. They didn't live right down in the town with the other people.

  
  PN: Did they work in the mine too?

  
  EP: Oh yea, yea.

  
  PN: What did they do mostly when they worked in the mine?

  
  EP:They'd load coal, load coal.

  
  PN: Were there any immigrants from Europe, like from Poland or Hungary or Italy?

  
  EP: I don't recall any. Now there was one little fellow that worked there; I forget his name. He was a foreigner of some kind, but I don't remember his name now. He lived there; of course he shantied there by himself. He didn't stay with any of the other folk.

  
  PN: What did he do?

  
  EP: He loaded coal.

  
  PN: He loaded coal too?

  EP: Yea, he loaded coal.

  
  PN: How many rooms did most of the houses have that people lived in there?

  
  EP: Around four I 'd say, four rooms; four rooms would be the average.

  
  PN: What types of furniture did people usually have?

  
  EP: I don't know — just a bed and chairs, some old bed springs and so on like that. Dresser maybe, but they didn't have any elaborate furniture.

  PN: Where did they buy what furniture they had, through the store, the company store?

  
  EP: Yea, sometimes they would. And then of course, they could come to Beckley and buy what they wanted, and have it shipped down. But there was no, no road in there except the railroad. And we had to use a push—car from the store to McCreery to get our mail, and freight, and express, or whatever you have .

  
  PN: You mean the train didn't stop there at Terry?

  
  EP: No, no, nothing but the coal train. It'd just come in there and pick up the coal. Sometimes they might have a carload of feed or something for the company, and they'd shove it on down and just leave it there. And they'd unload it, and then they'd pick it up, take it on out again.

  
  PN: Was the church in Terry a major place that people gathered to meet each other and talk to each other?

  
  EP: Well, not only on Sundays. On Sundays they could, or would . But they could have services down there if they wanted them, you know.

  
  MH: May I interrupt?

  
  PN: Sure, sure.

  
  MH: They also had a grade school there. And whenever they needed to have little town meetings or things of interest, they could meet at the grade school or the church. And as far as the furniture and all, he r s talking about when he first went there. I guess that's what you want. But then as time went on, the people, you know, could buy better things and did have nice things. I can remember that. I worked there for several years in the office.

  
  PN: Oh really?

  
  MH: I worked in the office there at Terry, I forget how many years, about six years. It was a one—person office, and back then you know, there was 50 people waiting for your job, so you did what you were supposed to. He needed help so desperately; and one person in an office, he never got a vacation or anything, there were no jobs to to death when I could you know. Now 1 got out of business college, and be had, so I couldn't see my father working himself have helped him. I went there and worked I don't know how long without a cent of pay. 1 got mighty tired of that word “experience”. But you didn't sit and wait; you got out and did it. so I went, so 1, then finally I guess they got tired of seeing my show up and working all day long like a dog, and not paying me; so then they hired me. So I was down there too. That's why he kept doing it. But they had a real nice club house; you know what a club house is?

  
  PN: Yea.

  
  MH: Where they served meals, and the men boarded and roomed there that, single men, or men who lived someplace else and couldn't go back and forth each day. Usually I think the food was good, and plenty of it. I know I have at times eaten my lunch at the club house.
  
  PN: And the company ran that? The club house?

  
  MH: They would hire someone to. Isn't that right.

  
  EP: No, independent people run the club house.

  
  MH: But they were hired, were they hired by the company?

  
  EP: Well, I guess they give them, give, give them permission, yea.

  
  MH: Now there's one big building he was telling you about — the store, the post office, and the company offices were in there on the main floor. Then there was a huge basement, and up above there were rooms. And sometimes they were used, you know, maybe officials, they did turn it into, later years, 1 think they turned it in, one of the superintendents lived upstairs, in the upstairs floor. But you could only go as far as McCreery. Now the covered bridge part, that was back prior to 1930.

  EP: Yea, that was before.

  
  MH: By the time he went to work at Terry, there was just an ordinary bridge across Piney Creek there at McCreery. And then on up at Prince, I don't remember the year that that bridge was built across New River from, what would it be, Royal over to…

  
  EP: Royal over to Prince.

  
  MH: What year would that be?

  
  EP: I don 't remember, Mildred. Used to be a ferry there for a long time.

  
  MH: Not that I remember.

  
  EP: No, I…
  MH: It would have been way back. I don't remember the covered bridge. I don't remember the ferry or any of that. So that had to have been back before me, before I was old enough.
  PN: Did people have gardens in Terry?
  
  EP: Oh Lord, yes.

  
  MH: Beautiful.

  
  EP: That soil down there is much richer than it is up here in Beckley.

  
  MH: The season was earlier.

  
  EP: Yea, about two weeks earlier than we are here.

  
  PN: It was warmer being down on the river?

  
  EP: Yea, yea.

  
  MH: The season was earlier. And the soil there at the bottom of the hill - wonderful soil. They had the most beautiful vegetable gardens and flowers.

  
  PN: What did they grow usually?

  
  MH: A variety of things.

  
  EP: Everything. There was one fellow down there, old fellow by the name of Harris. And Lord, he had some of the prettiest potatoes and tomatoes and things of that kind. And one fellow lived up at McCreery fellow by the name of Thomas, Charlie Thomas and I was coming out one evening, coming home, and he brought a bushel basket of the nicest tomatoes you ever saw in your life, and give me to bring home for my wife to put up — can. Those gardens were just so fine; they'd give me all kinds of vegetables and stuff down there. They had some nice gardens.

  
  MH: You asked about the fish. Back then — I don't know anything about the fish in the New River now — but now I remember this. The men down there when they couldn't go fishing, and now they didn't bring mudcats, you know, they 're not particularly good eating, or I don't think. But it would be blue cats, and I think that's one of your most, to me that's your best cat.

  
  PN: The blue cats?

  
  MH: And they would bring those out of there, and they were nice sized. * Seemed to me that those fellows that went fishing never had any problems getting a gob of fish. And they'd get more than they wanted, or could use, you know, and they would give them to us to bring home. And they were absolutely delicious.

  
  * [Indicating about 20—24 inches with his hands.]

  
  EP: They kept me in fish down there.

  
  MH: Those boys were born and raised down there. They were just, they were part of that river. You should have seen those boys get out on the river in a boat. And as wild as that water is, those young boys would get out there and — I'd stand at the office window sometime and watch them and about have a heart attack and they could really handle boats beautifully. Now you do know that that was a training place down in there for the Army too.

  
  PN: In Terry?

  
  MH: I mean they brought…Have you not heard that?

  
  PN: No, I didn't know that.

  
  MH: I don't remember the year, but you could find this out. Across the river from Terry and up, between Terry and…

  
  EP: McCreery.

  
  MH: And well I’d say McCreery or Royal. Across the river there, they brought soldiers in there for their training on the river because they, and they brought them from all over, because this river is treacherous, swift, and they could find most any condition they wanted in that river. And they Army troops over there for a long time.

  
  PN: Was this in the 1930s?

  
  MH: Now I don't remember the year; I don't know what year it was. You could find out. I don't know if it was around; it would be later than the thirties, I know. Maybe around World War II time. And they trained them to use rafts, and in fording heavy equipment, and this sort of thing. And they got their, a lot, a lot of the troops got their training there too, because the river offers about anything you want to find from smooth spots to treacherous and swift. And it is a very swift river. But now I don't remember the year, but you could easily find that out from most anyone. But I would think if they [the National Park Service] were going to put the New River Gorge history in there [in park exhibits], they might want to add that that troops were trained.

  
  PN: Where did you say, again, you worked between 1912 and 1922?

  
  EP:1912 and 1922?

  
  MH: Clifftop.

  
  EP: Clifftop, yea.

  
  PN: What was your job then?

  
  EP: Well, my job there was postmaster and payroll clerk.

  
  PN: How did you get that job originally? Did you just apply for it, or…

  
  EP: NO, no, I had a brother—in—law who was store manager over at Landisburg. You know where Landisburg is?

  
  PN: Yea, yea.

  
  EP: Well, at Clifftop, they had a lady payroll clerk working there. She decided to get married. Now she was not an old maid, but she was right close to it. So she decided to get married. So this boy at Landisburg wrote me and told me there would be an opening at Cliff top, and if I 'd come over there on a Sunday, why he and the superintendent would be over at the, show me around, and see if I wanted the job. So I went over there on a Sunday, and he showed me all around, showed me through the store, and so on. So, much better office to work in than I had, so I told him, "Yes, I'll take the job." So that's how I got to Clifftop.

  
  PN: And your experience there helped you get the job in Terry eight years later when you applied for the job in Terry?

  
  EP: Well, I judge it did, yes; it's bound to. Takes experience for most anything if you make a success out of it.

  
  PN: When you were bookkeeper at Terry, did this mean you kept all the company's payroll records, and financial records, and tended to all that stuff?

  
  EP: Well, they had a main office. They had two operations; one at Winona. And I 'd send all my reports over there at the end of the half, or end of the month. But they kept general books over there, see.

  
  PN: The same company owned Winona and Terry?

  
  EP: Oh yea, same company, yea. They operated the mines at Winona and also at Terry too, yea.
  
  EP: I was telling you about [before a brief interruption], that was before she went to work there I guess. I started home one evening, and got, oh up past a quarter of a mile from McCreery up Batoff Mountain coming home. Big rock cliff on the right—hand side of the road had fell in and clear across the road. God, it was that high [indicating about four or five feet with his hand off the floor]. When it give way, why it just covered the road clear across. And I had to turn around, and I went back down, went up to Prince, turned and went down by the old McKendree Hospital, Stone Cliff, on into Thurmond, and then from Thurmond up through Glen Jean and on in home — to get home that day. Boy!

  
  PN: Back then, when they had the churches, was there a segregated church? There was one for the Black people and one for the white, or?

  EP: Yea. Black had their own meeting house.

  
  PN: So there was a church for the whites and a little meeting house for the Blacks?

  
  EP: Colored, yea.
  
  PN: How about the schools? Did they have separate schools too?
  
  EP: Wait a minute. Now honestly I were separate schools. I knew they had two school teachers there at Terry. But I'll swear I don't know whether they were seperated or not. I just can't remember. Darn it. When you get 94 years old, your memory don't go back very far.

  
  PN: You said that when you worked, though, you worked six days a week?

  
  EP: Oh Lord, yes. And then sometime worked Sundays; that is, on payroll at the end of the half, I'd be working maybe on Sunday closing the payroll out and writing the statements, you know, to pay off. And then lots of times, I'd take my work with me home and work on it.

  
  PN: Did they pay you extra when you worked the extra hours?

  
  EP: Nooo. So much a month and that was it.

  
  PN: [Addressing Mrs. Henry] You worked for many years? You worked for six years or something, you said?

  
  MH: Almost.

  
  PN: And you didn't get paid at all? You were just helping your father?

  
  MH: Oh, after about three or four months, they put me on the payroll.

  
  PN: Oh, after three or four months, they put you on the payroll too?

  
  MH: I worked for nothing for a while, for those first three or four months, and then they, I guess they got ashamed of me showing up. How to get a job through perseverance.

  
  PN: You said you worked at Mead [near Rhodell in Raleigh County] also? What were the years you worked at Mead as a bookkeeper?

  
  EP: '25 till '29. That was Vanwood then. Used to be called Vanwood, but they changed the name to Mead. That's over on the Stonecoal [a creek], from Lillybrook, Besoco, and all down that creek there.

  
  PN: You must have enjoyed being a bookkeeper, though, did you?

  
  EP: Oh, I loved it, yea, yea.

  
  PN: Because you worked at different places. Why did, maybe it's a hard question to answer, but why did you enjoy that type of work?
  
  EP: Well, I just picked it up and got used to it, and I liked it, and it's better than hard manual labor. [laughs]

  
  MH: And he's still good at figures.

  
  EP: I, now when I was a kid going to old country school know, where one teacher taught all grades I, arithmetic and writing were three subjects I liked. I don't know why.

  
  PN: Where did you go, right up at Harper?

  
  MH: No, Mt. Tabor.

  
  EP: Mt. Tabor.

  
  PN: Mt. Tabor, that's right.

  
  EP: Yea, Mt. Tabor, yea.

  
  PN: Mt. Tabor School, it was called, right?

  
  EP: Yea, Mt. Tabor School is just on this side of Mt. Tabor Church, and on the right—hand side as you go towards Mt. Tabor Church. Frame building.

  
  MH: Now the original church isn't there; there's a brick church there now. But the church he's speaking of was straight across the road, and it was a small frame church.

  
  EP: It wasn't very small, Mildred, it was a good, big church. Good, big church. That church on the left—hand side there was a good—sized church.
  
  PN: Is there anything you think that should be added that we haven't touched on or talked about?

  
  EP: I can't think of anything, I don't believe. just don't come to mind right now.

  
  PN: Did they have electric lights and gas in Terry then?

  
  EP: No, no, they never did have gas.

  
  PN: Never did have gas. Did they have electricity in 1930 when you were there?

  
  MH: Yea didn't they have lights in the office there?

  
  EP: Yea, oh yea, yea. Well, we had lights because we had this generator.

  
  MH: The big generator he told you about; yes, they had lights in their houses.

  
  EP: Sitting out in front, yea. Yea, we had lights then.

  
  MH: In the store and the office, they had electric lights then. All the houses and the store and everything were heated with coal.

  
  PN: You said before that every day, when you went to work, that you had to walk a mile and a half in on the tracks?

  
  EP: That was from McCreery down to Terry.

  
  PN: And if anybody who lived in Terry wanted to take a train or anything, they would have to walk a mile and a half out to get the train?

  
  MH: To McCreery.

  
  PN: Because just coal trains stopped at Terry?

  
  EP: Yea.

  
  MH: And the people that lived there really, you know, if they wanted to come to Beckley, and they had cars, or could bum a ride, you know, they had to walk a mile and a half up to McCreery to get in their cars drive to Beckley. Of course, we’d bring a lot of them up; you know, our car was nearly always, they'd come up with us, and then they'd get a cab, get a taxi, you know. Several of them would ride the taxi and share the expenses; it would take them back to McCreery. Then they'd, no matter how late, they'd still have to walk that mile and a half back down into Terry. That was the only way to get in and out. You had to take your constitutional whether you wanted to or not.

  
  PN: Was it ever so cold there, or so snowy, or so much snow that the trains were stopped?

  
  MH: Never stopped the trains.

  
  EP: I don't remember of it.

  
  MH: I don't remember that. I remember a slide that they had at Terry.

  
  EP: I told him about that.

  
  MH: No, the one I’m talking about, the one that pushed the coal cars into the river.

  
  EP: Oh that was down at the tipple. Down at the tipple, this little old valley right beside of the monitor track that went up to the mines from the tipple, They had a rain there, I think it was early May; it rained, and rained, and rained - got the ground all saturated, you know, with water. So it came loose up at the top; and as it come down, it spread, you know. It brought trees, logs, and everything else with it there was so much weight behind it. So it got down there and shoved a railroad car off in the river. Oh, there was a pile of mud across there, across the railroad track. We got some boards laid across the top of it, and we tried to cross it and go on down to Terry to work.

  
  MH: Now that was one time we didn't make it.

  
  EP: I know there was one time.

  
  MH: At first the slide was moving too fast, because it was bringing trees and stuff down. That was one time we didn't make it to work. That was one of the times. There was another time there was such a deep snow that I told him, I said, "You know, I don't see how we could make it." So my mother called the state police, and they told him to stay home. They had enough problems. She asked them, you know, what the roads were like. And they said stay home; they had enough problems without any more nuts out on the road.

  
  PN: One more little question about scrip. If somebody wanted to change the scrip into…

  
  EP: Cash?

  
  PN: Yea, cash. What would be the discount on that?

  
  EP: About 25%.

  
  PN: 25%. Yea, did many people do that?

  
  EP: A lot of the, a lot of them, yea. They'd take their scrip and go up to this store at McCreery, and they could change there.

  
  PN: That was a commercial store though there, right? That was a private store; it wasn't owned by the same company.

  
  EP: Oh no, no , no, no.

  
  MH: Individually owned.

  
  EP: And they could go up there and use the discount at 25%. And then they'd take that scrip at payday, and come down and collect their money. That is the store manager would.

  
  PN: Did he get the money from the coal company?

  
  EP: Oh yea, yea.

  
  PN: So did the coal company give him less than was on the scrip?

  
  EP: No.

  PN: He could redeem it at its full value?

  
  EP: Full value, yea. See the man that owned the scrip in the first place, he was the only one discounting it, you see. No, the company had to redeem it at face value.

  
  PN: What was the name of that company? I don't know if you mentioned that. You said there were several.

  
  MH: Duneden Coal Company was one of them.

  
  PN: Duneden?

  
  EP: Duneden, that was original.

  
  MH: Maryland Fire Creek.

  
  EP: Then Maryland Fire Creek Coal Company took it over; they were at Winona.

  
  MH: They were the ones that were at Winona. Duneden was out of Staunton, Virginia. Duneden Coal Company's main offices were in Staunton, Virginia.

  
  [End of Tape]

 

• Oral History Project - Pugh, T. B. 1980

  
  

  Keeneys Creek, Thayer, Coal mining, life in mining towns in the 1920s

  Date created:

  08/06/1980

  Audio Transcript

  NRGNPP 004

  File NRGNPP 004-T

  TAPE FOUR

  Mr. T. B. Pugh                                Interviewer :

                                                      Paul J. Nyden

                                                      Beckley, W.Va. 25801

  September 6, 1980

  TBP: What do you want to start off with?

  PN: First, I was wondering if you could just talk a little bit about your childhood, when you were born, your birthday, and the towns you lived in when you were growing up.

  TBP: All right, OK. I was born on the Elk River, that is in West Virginia,

  in 1908, and we moved from there to the various mining towns. And the ones

  that I remember, the first one would be Sumner lee, formerly called Loch— gel 1y. They changed the name because the thing blew up and killed two hundred and some men. And my daddy was a mine foreman there, and when he found about the place being called Lochgelly in place of Summerlee, why he quit because he wasn't going to work in a hotbox like that. And he moved from there to, I believe, Skelton; he was mine foreman there for a while. And then he moved from there to Glen Jean, and from there we moved to Sun and from Sun to Kenneys Creek where he died. At that time, I think I was about 13 when he died; we'd lived there a number of years prior to that. But the first recollection I ever knew of him being on New River was whenever he was superintendent of the mining operation at Thayer, back about 1900. And to get a skilled carpenter, he went back to Virginia and brought his brother—in—law and my aunt over there with their family of boys, most1y boys, would be good work hands. Their father was Manny Ray, and he had several sons, one of whom lost a leg while he was working at Thayer. And the boys as a general rule started to work in the mine as trappers. The trapper was the kid that might start to work when he 12, 13 or 14; depends on how long ago it was.

  And he worked there until he was able to move up. And the trapper was the one that opened the door that caused the air to go a certain direction through the mine, because the men would not work in the mine if they had poor air in the face. And the first people that I remember, how they received the air up at the face, would be that they would go to the end of the main haulageway, and dig a hole up through the roof, and build a fire over it because the reduced pressure of the warm air moving up would allow the cold air to come in down below, and we'd have continuous circulation of air back further from the driftmouth. We had several kinds of mines, and the ones on New River were generally drift— mouth mines. That is, they would start on the seam of the coal and go right straight back with the seam.

  PN: What company owned the mine at Thayer at that time, do you know?

  TBP: I have no faintest idea, but there's a family of Pughs that lived there. There's Bill, and some of the, I 've forgotten the other one's name. But Bill was the last one, and they still own the store there. And the store is right close to where Dragan launches his river rafts. It's just above that, and it's on the Fayetteville side of New River. The Thayer mine was on the opposite side. And the Pughs did own an interest in, by the way, most of the Pughs came from Wales. A good many of them came from the mining towns in England, and especially in, I believe they call it Shropshire. I ^t m not certain about that, a province, or whatever they had in England.

  PN: Is that where your ancestors originally came from?

  TBP: They came from Wales. And the name Pugh…

  PN: Were they coal miners there too?

  TBP: Yea, they were coal miners. Although my great great grand—daddy that came here first was a cobbler. Most of his people had been coal miners to begin with, and they came to this country because of coal mines, to engage in the mine, activity. As a general rule, when they came over, they would be brought over, sometimes foremen, or whatever may be to run the mines, because our hillbillies didn't know anything about that black rock.

  PN: When did they come over first?

  TBP: I think they came over, let's see, my daddy was born about 1870, | think. And it was his grandfather, so, his grandfather, that would be right, he was the one that immigrated over here. But he had been in the shoemaking business, I suppose, and as a young man, he had evidently been in the coal business too, and knew how to run the mines.

  PN: Where did they come from in Wales, do you remember?

  TBP: I have no faintest idea. I checked it out at the Mormon geneological library in Salt Lake City this summer, and I didn't have enough of my own background. But I do, did have two cousins, first cousins, that was Manny Ray's daughters, that were born at, I believe they were born at the area where, no wait a minute, they weren't born at Thayer either, because one of them was 16 years old when she moved down there from

  Virginia. And of course, she was the pretty girl of the place down there. They had two other girls; both are just lovely girls. One of them was considered Miss Beckley during the days when she moved back to Beckley. This Ray always worked as a carpenter around the mining towns; and my daddy brought him there to build his home there. He hadn't married my mother at that time in 1900. So he brought Ray down there to build a nice home for himself.

  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 - Richmond, John H. 1983 Part 1

  
  

  Hinton, Railroading, Bootlegging

  Date created:

  11/14/1983

  Audio Transcript

  TAPE FORTY-EIGHT                  

  Interview NRGNPP 048

  File # NRGNPP 048-T

  Mr. John ll. Richmond                                                                                                           

  Interviewer :

  James Worsham

  National Park Service

  November 14, 1983

  (Taped at Hinton Visitor 's Center, New River Gorge National River)

  JW: Mr. Richmond, first of all, I'd like for you to give us your full name and current address.

  JR: My full name is John Harvey Richmond, but I always sign it on my taxes as J. Harvey.

  JW: OK. Now, when were you born?

  JR: I was born on December 24, 1907.

  JW: 1907? OK. Where were you born?

  JR: I was born at Brooks, on the mountain above Brooks. That was the Post Office at that time .

  JW: What were your parents' names?

  JR: My father's name was John Alec  My mother's name was Rachel Elizabeth Meadows, when she married my father.

  JW: Now, what type work did your father do?

  JR: He was a farmer.

  JW: What type crops did he grow?

  JR: Oh, just at that time corn and buckwheat and rye Stuff like that, you know, small grain.

  JW: Where was he from originally?

  JR: My father was raised •there. My grandfather, now, my grandfather came through here from England, from Richmond . When he came through, my father was... he was up a pretty old man when he married my mother. And he was born... he was born 1854, my father was.

  JW: Your father was .born in 1854?

  JR: 1854. Uh-huh.

  JW: And his father, you say, came from England?

  JR: He came from England... well, he really came from Richmond. His father, my great—grandfather, John Thomas Richmond, came from England. He originated then from Richmond, VA. Then... established there in Richmond, then came on West and took up this mount... valley land, laying in there from about Brooks and Earksdale, but come all the way to the river and on the mountain. He settled on the mountain up there.

  JW: So your father's one of the first settlers there?

  JR: One of the first settlers in there. He took up that land. My grandfather, now...it was my grandfather that belonged out there. He took up settlement there.

  JW: And you say he was originally from England? No. it's your great—grandfather?

  JR: My great—grandfather was from England.

  JW: We were talking about some of your early childhood memor ies there, you were telling me about a dry land waterwheel.

  JR: Well, they wasn't any mills back in that time, so they had to devise their own. Seer they learned to pound their meal from the Indians then you see    So, he decided he would build. the first people on the creek had built a water mill' which the first one was down at Barksdale. above where Bass Lake is, up that... there.

  JW: On that side of the river?

  JR: Yeah, the first water mill.

  JW: At Barksdale?

  JR: Yeah, but they wasn't none there at that time, and so my...

  JW: This was before that?

  JR: Yeah, my grandfather made the dry land water mill.

  JW: OK. So there were no gristmills on the river when he came here?

  JR: No, no gristmills. The only mill that they knew of then at that time was the Bacon Mill at Talcott on the other side of the river. the Bacon's Mill. That was about it. That was one of the first mills in this area, was the Bacon's Mill on the other side of the river from Talcott.

  JW: That's away far away. Do you know what year this would be when he built this dry land waterwheel?

  JR: No. It was before... it was before the Civil War.

  JW: Oh, really!

  JR: Yeah.

  JW: When did he move to that area?

  JR: Oh, Lord, he came to that area there in. I believe when he came to that mountain there was in 1818 or somewhere along there... when he came to that mountain there

  JW: Now this is what they called Chestnut Mountain?

  JR: Chestnut Mountain, uh—huh.

  JW: Tell me how that wheel was built.

  JR: Well, they split that there ...they'd take white oak — we'd call them saplings — but they wasn't just so big, and they would take those saplings and they got a good long tall one and they split that, you see. And they made this round wheel and they made that so they could bend that where you put the spokes in that thing, you know. It was twelve foot in diameter — round. And then, when they got that bent around with the spokes in it, then he taken and he made the steps on that so far up — the same thing as a water cup on a water mill. He made those steps about twelve inches wide, or maybe a little wider. And you bore a hole with an old—time auger and put them in that hoop, you see, his wheel. And then he connected those cranks... posts out of locust. He made this long crank that fit on this wheel, you see, on the edge of this wheel that turned that. And then he connected this other crank here on the short one when he made those burrows there when he cut those rocks and made the hopper, you know, go around that. And you make one of them stationary and the other one that fastened with... you had a kind of a wedge where you wedged it up, you know, to grind your corn. And you cut that out there in furrows. You take and furrow that that fits in the eye, and the furrows there are a little bit wider, and your corn drops down in that and goes on down and you close that up and grinds that meal as fine as you want it. It comes out the other edge of that there in this scoop down here...comes out into a box that they make that meal to come out in. And those... you see that big long one on that big wheel, it makes it turn them burrows, see, when it comes down to that; geared down, it turns them pretty fast, you see. And, when you walk that wheel, after you get that wheel started... actually, you didn't go up the wheel, you just stood there and walked it.

  JW: You stood on top of it and walked it to power it.

  JR: You just... you had a platform here and you... just like a water mill, you see, you got your spout here and your water comes down and pours into that pocket. When that pocket starts turning down, when they the other one catches the water and the water just keeps pouring. And after it gets on them wheels it gets started, you see, and the weight keeps it a goin’ Well, that's the same way with walkin’ you see. Just kept that wheel going.

  JW: And the man that ground his own flour, he did the walking?

  JR: He did the walking and the people that come to the mill in that time, people would come for miles and bring their corn or wheat or rye or whatever they had to grind, and each one, you see, would stay until all of their own was ground so they'd walk the mill, you see, to keep the mill a goin'.

  JW: So there were not any water mills... why did he choose to build a dry land one rather than going down and build one on a creek?

  JR: Well, you see, it was too far and it was a whole lot easier to build one there under that... under that... than it would be to build a water mill. He'd have to build a wheel down there and would have to build a mill on the water. And he figured a walking wheel would be a whole lot. just as good and faster and closer than it would be to go down over that mountain, you see, and whittle out a road; you'd have to go down there and all like that.

  JW: How far was it down to the stream?

  JR: Oh, down to that what they call Brooks Creek from down off the mountain there, I guess was about three or four miles. Maybe a little bit more.

  JW: How many people would come there to have their wheat ground?

  JR: Well, about everybody that settled in the country there. He had several sons and they had settled in there in different. had come on back... had some of them settled on back as far as what they used to call the Grimmet Bank on back at Elton Knob and in there and clear around. And some settled on over in on what they called the Ward Bates at the time that they took this land up there...his land. The land went on the other way, on the left. I'm looking from the river side on the farm. What they called the Davy—Dick Line. He went to that line. Well, there was several others that moved in on that bench, you see, below there. And, so they'd come to that closest mill. That was the only one they was in the country. Some of them come five, six, ten miles to get there to that mill.

  JW: Was this operational during the Civil War? You don't know when they built it, do you?

  JR: They built it before the Civil War. It was in operation up until other mills come in existence.

  JW: OK. And they took the business away, more or less?

  JR: Yeah. They didn't have no use for that then. They just let it go, you see. Nobody at that time, or even in my early times ever thought about anything such as history, you see. We didn't give that a thought. If it had of been preserved, it could have been preserved.

  JW: What’s there now? Anything?

  JR: Nothing that I know of, except the last that...but I haven't been there for fifty years and that's been a long time.

  JW: Do you know how to get there now?

  JR: Yeah.  I know how to get there.

  JW: Do you think the stones might still be there?

  JR: Well, I...they should be. I don't know for sure whether they are or not.

  JW: What's there now? I mean, is it just an open field... I mean the last time you were there?

  JR: I imagine it's growed up in woods, because people in these.. .other days don' t clean up land much. I imagine it's growed up in woods. Now, there's a Miles Cales that lives out there on the old granddad farm. He might know.

  JW: What's his name?

  JR: Miles Ward.

  JW: Miles Ward?

  JR: Uh—huh .

  JW: Does he have a phone number? Maybe we could call him.

  JR: I don't know whether he has a phone or not. He might have. I really doubt it. He might have, you could look and see.

  JW: Did your father ever tell you much about what happened around here during theCivil War?

  JR: Well, there's several things that happened around the Civil War Yeah, he used to talk about it. Over on this bench, up here from Barksdale going up Tug Creek, they was a man by the name of Henderson Garten that lived there. And he was a gunsmith and so was my grandfather.

  JW: Oh, really. Henderson Gar ten? How do you spell that?

  JR: The Garten is  G-a-r-t-e-n,  Henderson is H-e-n-d-e-r-s-o-n.  Henderson Garten. And during the Civil War, they had a… old man Ira Bragg, he lived in there... he had a sow that was missin' and they accused this boy of a steal in' it or kill in' it one. So, they tortured him...they was a big snow on, my father and all says, a big snow about a couple of feet and crusted on top — back in those days it would freeze and crust on it and a lot of people would walk on the snow. And they said they would make that boy cut and carry wood in a big old place and built a big hot fire and they laid him down in front of that fire and laid this log on him and baked his feet into a crust. And took him out there… now this was reports, was facts, wasn't just folkish tales, you know. They took him out there and made him walk on that crust and they twisted a homemade twist of tobaccer in his mouth and they fooled with him that way and tortured him until they got tired of him and they shot him. And after they had shot him, the old sow come in. He hadn't killed her at all.

  JW: Dear! How old was this boy?

  JR: He was about fifteen, sixteen years old.

  JW: What was his name? Do you know?

  JR: A Bragg boy. I don't remember now they'd said whose son he was.

  JW: Did the family try retaliation?

  JR: No. At that day and time, they just, you know.           

  JW: Was there any military activity around here?

  JR: No, just scouts.

  JW: How about Thurmond's men?

  JR: Some of them had come through that a way. My grandfather on my mother’s side , he was scoutin’ comin' in home and they scouted through there, and he laid down his blanket and his rifle and they come a big snow and snowed him up. When they come through, they missed him.

  JW: Was he Union or Confederacy?

  JR: I believe... believe he was for the Confederacy. And it snowed him up and they missed him. 

  JW: So the Union army was out lookin' for him and…                            

  JR: Yeah, and they come through and what they'd do. I heard my grandfather on both sides... they would... some of them was mean on both sides, the Union and the Confederacy, you see. And instead of killin' a cow or hog or something and takin' the whole thing, they would just take it and cut a big slice out of the ham of it, roast it and go on and leave 'em that way. And... well, it was like General Patton out of World War II, old General Patton said that all wars was Hell. Well, wars in that day and time was too. How that the people you'd be surprised just what would go on in a war in your own country, much less in another one.

  JW: Do you know any stories that your grandfather might have told you?

  JR: He got caught one time, I forgit how he got out of it. He got away from them. He was on the opposite side. Now, I had two grandfathers and I don't remember just which side they was on. One was on the Confederacy and the other one, I believe it was the grandfather on my mother's side was on the Confederate side. And, they'd get in a lot of times... he got away from them and he hid out there on a mountain where he's buried. And when he died, he requested to be buried there in that flat. And it's just... when you go down this little piece, you strike that sandstone and the only way you can dig a grave is just take dynamite and blast it out.

  JW: And you had to blast a grave for him?

  JR: Almost. Yeah. Uh—huh. And my father's buried there… there's seven there… my uncle's too. But, that's where they buried him there. So, he... my grandfather traded all this mountain land... course that's after the war and everything... he traded all this whole mountain that runs into Brooks around that mountain. I don't know how much land is in that boundary. Traded it to the Foxes. You see, the Foxes is an old family here that settled on the river here...old man Dave Fox and a bunch of them. He traded them that mountain in there to a steer. You know, at that time, a work steer amounted to a whole lot. He traded him out all that boundary of land to a steer.

  JW: Traded all of that for one steer?

  JR: Yeah, for a steer.

  JW: Well, this is fascinating. Mr. Richmond, do you have any brothers and sisters?

  JR: All mine's dead but me. I'm the only one of the family.

  JW: Do you remember your brothers' and sisters' names?

  JR: Oh, yeah. My oldest brother was Alec, Alec Clark; and my next oldest brother was Rufus Blaine; and my next oldest brother was Jonah Joseph; and the next one was Burt; and the next one was Theodore, names after Theodore Roosevelt; and the next one was Henry Jackson; and my baby brother then, besides me, was named Percy Frank.

  JW: But you 're the only one left?

  JR:  I'm the only one livin' of both girls and the boys. They was thirteen of us in the family.

  JW: OK. Now the girls.. .do you remember their names?

  JR: Well, Bessie was the oldest one; and Lena was the next oldest one; and Ellie was the next one. There were three of them. But the two younger ones died in infancy. So it was Violet and Lizzie, the two baby ones that died.When you're thinking back when you were growing up, we were talking about the dry land watermill, do you have any other special memories of when you were growing up there? Talking about maybe playing down near the river; did you fish much and hunt?

  JR: We didn't fish much, hunted aloe. Oh, yeah. Hunted a lot... that was the main thing, huntin'. We'd hunt, possum huntin' and coon huntin'. Yeah, I remember in coon huntin' that my oldest brother and his cousin, Will, they was coon huntin' and they treed those coon. They wasn't too far from home in thig flat between us and the Luther Bragg's. And they stayed up all night with him and burned the tree… they had treed him up a big oak and burned the tree almost down. So, the next morning, they come on in and left it. My mother said to her son, my oldest brother Pete, said, why they isn't no use in let tin' that coon get away. Said, let's go on over there and cut the tree and catch him. So, Will had started home and he heard 'em and he came back and 'til they went over there and cut the tree. And they was three big coons in it. And the dog, he held one of 'em up above the tree. And Pete, he shot the other one. But Will then...he was at the butt of the tree out there and the coon done come through that tree and went down to the creek. And he was about as far as from here to the river down there from my mother at the end of that tree. He got tangled up in that tree and fell and said, “If you hadn't of been in the way, I'd of caught that coon.”  (laughter). That was true fact... that was what he said.

  JW: So, he tripped over the tree and…

  JR: …tripped over the tree.

  JW: Ah, trees sometimes get in the way. What type job did you do? What was your earliest job that you had?

  JR: Well, most of it was farmin' and timber cuttin'. I started cuttin' timber around for people, me and my brothers, when I was only about twelve years old.

  JW: And this was around in the Chestnut Mountain area?

  JR: Yeah, around there. And then we got a little older, we cut for people that were millers, you see.

  JW: Now, which mill did you cut...

  JR: Used to cut for old man John Bowling and different small outfits, you know, in the country. John Bowling run a mill, and, ah...

  JW: Where was his mill?

  JR: He had a mill settin' in Brooks' Creek.

  JW: OK. Now this was steam driven by...

  JR: Yeah, old steam bar and a circle saw.

  JW: What else...what was your next job, after cutting timber?

  JR: Well, then, we was... we'd farm and then harvest time, and then all of us boys would get cradles and people'd call on us in wheat cuttin' time and oats and rye. And we done all kinds of farm work and cleaned up land. We cleaned up all that mountain... actually altogether, we cleaned up around a hundred acres or a hundred fifty acres Out of the woods. Cut into big timber and all. At that time, you couldn't sell timber much, you know. And, back there on the Chestnut Mountain, old man John Bowling had a mill down over into the creek here and that chestnut timber there on that mountain would be worth some thin' today, of course. We cut timber there that he... he split that chestnut log. It took six yokes of oxen to pull half of that log off of that flat.

  JW: That was a big log!

  JR: Oh, it was big!

  JW: How big around would that be?

  JR: That tree was about eight foot through.

  JW: Eight foot through!? That's a big chestnut.

  JR: That's a biq chestnut. And it was big ...all that was big timber in there. A lot of it was cut up and wasted, you know, cause you didn't sell no timber much. And a lot of the oak timber, back in those days when I was a boy, they cut the oak, you know, and would peel it for tanbark and just leave the timber in the woods. Tanbark was in them old stave mills.

  JW: What did they, ah…this tanbark came from oak trees. Was this black oak, white oak...?

  JR: Different, you see, they had different colors there. The black oak was a darker tan and then you had the red oak. Now the white oak would give you a tan that would tan your leather. Sort of like now, you might call it a wheat color or somethin! And that…maybe a little bit darker than that... the bark... you got the different tans for leather.

  JW: Would they cut the tree and then strip the bark off it?

  JR: Yeah, they cut the tree down, you see, and you had to peel the tanbark…peelers at that day and time. And, you'd cut that bark in so longer length and then you'd go around with your axe and cut the bark into. And then you 'd take your feet and you'd start it and just peel it off in big hulls, you see. And then they'd haul that bark out...

  JW: They'd haul it by what... wagons?

  JR: Yeah, they'd haul it after you got it down to the bottom, where you'd get it out of the mountains, they'd just haul it on a half—sled. A half—sled and tie a chain around it and take it out of the mountains.

  JW: What do you mean, a half—sled?

  JR: Well, that's just two runners about so long... you'd make it out of sour wood... cut sour wood to run along...

  JW: About three feet long?

  JR: Yeah, and then you'd have this bolted between here and you tied the one end of that, you seer solid on there. The rest of it was just sort of like a log... be draggin' behind it.

  JW: The half—sled would be two runners in the front.

  JR: Yeah, that was a half—sled.

  JW: Now, how would they get them to market?

  JR: Well, they would ship it, you see.

  JW: On the train, or what?

  JR: Yeah, they had a train at that time, you see. And they would ship the tanbark.

  How about the bateauxs? Did they ever use that much?

  JR: Not too much in our country. They used them in different places. But most bateauxs that they used was, you know, where they went down the river. You know, like this mill you 're showin' there. They used those to bring that timber out of the mountain up there. Now, on down the river ...that old Tuck you were talk in' about there.. .down there on the...

  JW: Tuck Richmond.

  JR: Yeah. They'd go up in there and people would come through and buy the yellow poplar for furniture. And they would cut that and float it down the river to where they'd get to the railhead back in that time after the railroad had got through there.

  JW: Now, have you lived most of your life up there on Chestnut Mountain?

  JR: Yeah. I've lived there... on the mountain there. Always, our mail and everything was always down here at Brooks and down at Hinton…we'd come to town on…

  JW: So, you farmed most of your life then?

  JR: Yeah, till I got to railroadin'.

  JW: What did you do for the railroad.

  JR: I started for the railroad in the track department as a timekeeper. At that time, in 22, they had extra forces, maybe seventy—five or a hundred men. They had four or five extra forces on the Hinton Division. And, you get a job on that and an old boy that, what they called a timekeeper see that had what they called a cornmisary...a Fitzgerald car on the camp cars. And you had to take care of that, what they called 'Hundred and Twos' and the man that lived there... their board and all come out of that, see, through that Fitzgerald. You kept that and then the foreman would come in and he'd give you then how much track you pulled or how much sealin' you done...that was puttin’ ties in, you see, puttin' sellin' in or how much margin you made, or so forth and so on. You'd take all that down on a big sheet and then, of course, your time sheets...they were made out of two, you see.

  JW: So, that pay was based on how much track you layed and how much cross ties you put down... ?

  JR: Whatever you did...how much you did, you see, approximately, they would give you.

  JW: Wou1d they just take the men's word for it or what?

  JR: You just kept see... the foreman would keep all that out.

  JW: Oh, the foreman kept it.

  JR: Yeah. He kept them and would bring 'em in and turn ‘em in, you see. And, where you were keepin' the time, you'd take all that down on the report and you'd make your reports.

  JW: Did you work much up in the Gorge?

  JR: Yeah. Up clear through there from Hinton to Handley. That was a Hinton Division.

  JW: When was this you were up there?

  JR: When I was down through there at that day and time, we'd lay up at Gauley Bridge. That was 1922 and 23.

  JW: What was the Gorge like at that time?

  JR: Well, it was a whole lot... looked a whole lot better than it does now because it wasn't filthed up at that time. See, all those mines was a runnin'. See, you had a mines from... well, you could start in here in there on Sewell Valley ...a mines there. You go on down to Glade, you see, that Simrnons Lumber Company, the railroad put a big bridge across there and that lumber from Simmons Lumber Company and the Babcock Coal and Lumber Company bought it out later after Simmons was killed

  JW: How did he get killed?

  JR: A guy from over here about Blue Jay came in there and shot him?

  JW: Why'd he shoot him?

  JR: Over some... some kind of workin' conditions.

  JW: Oh, really?

  JR: Yeah.

  JW: Was he a former employee?

  JR: Yeah, he had worked there. And he shot him and shot the bookkeeper...shot the bookkeeper in the neck and killed the old man Simmons. Old man Simmons was a pretty good-sized man. And, we was workin’ there, and Frank Halstead was superintendent, and he wanted to know why we didn't stop ‘im. We said, told him, how you gonna stop a man with a gun and him a shootin'.

  JW: Oh, you saw this happen? What happened exactly?

  JR: Well, he just came in and called that man and shot him.

  JW: Did you see him?

  JR: No, didn't see him shoot him, but didn't nobody know what was goin’ on, you see.

  JW: But you heard the shot?

  JR: Yeah. And old man Doug Lacy, he was the bookkeeper, and he gobbled like a turkey. By the time he'd seen he 'd nicked somebody, you know, he started breathin' up to gobble and the guy shot him and he dived back down by the safe, you see. The old big safe they had behind there and the bullet hit the safe, didn't hit old Doug Lacy. He was... that was the bookkeeper. And the other bookkeeper, he got shot in the neck.

  JW: Did it kill him?

  JR: No, he finally lived.

  JW: What year was this? Do you remember?     

  JR: That was in... that was in 1923 or '24

  JW: And, so, you were workin' with the railroad? You just happened to be there?

  JR: Just there.

  JW: And the guy came in and...

  JR: Just come in there...

  JW: ...and you saw he had a gun in his hand?

  JR: ...and shot him, just come down there…

  JW: What kind of gun was it? Do you remember?

  JR: Some kind of a little owl head, I think.

  JW: Oh an owl head. It was probably a…

  JR: A pistol, yeah.

  JW: You saw him come in with the gun, and I guess you heard the shots?

  JR: Killed the old man dead.

  JW: OK. Going right along... tell me about what else was up there in the Gorge... what it looked like then ...going up from Glade Creek area.

  JR: Well, goin’ up from Glade Creek ...well, startin' from Hinton, down, in the Gorge, you see, back before the Civil War and before there was any railroad and Hinton was Avis... the Avis Line was Hinton then. Course, the home I bought was built there ...the house that I owned and my home, I sold it just a few years ago, was built in 1872.

  JW: Where is it, now?

  JR: It's straight up on 'cross Main Street. And, ah... I bought that... the Avis Line come there and when my father and them come here, see, there wasn't no Hinton. The old man...Hinton was named after Avis, you see. A fellow, Ballengee, that owned this started with... the whole Hinton, he bought the whole thing for four dollars.

  JW: Four dollars!? I hadn't heard that story.

  JR: Bought the whole thing for four dollars.

  JW: How did that happen?

  JR: Nobody wanted it... it was just a hillside and nothin' in there, you see, and nobody wanted it…

  JW: This is Ballengee?

  JR: Yeah, a fellow by the name of Ballengee bought it for four dollars and sold it, 1 think he sold it to the Hintons...I'm not too sure, but I believe it was. And then the town then… both towns was named, see... his name was Hinton, Avis Hinton. And they named Avis after him, the station then, when they finally got the railroad here in 1870. The station was up there at Avis right there where old Avis Crossing... you know, where the Foodland is and on across the river there. That was the station then. And they named this end, the lower end, Hinton. When you got... they incorporated it and they built... course they built the Courthouse after the railroad come. Before the railroad come, you see, they had to go to Kanawha...to Kanawha City where the saltworks was to get their salt. And what they would do, they would team up, several of them, and take a yoke of oxen, you see, and go to Kanawha City to get their salt once a year. And they would have to go down the Gorge part of the way ...well, in the meantime, they would follow some into what you called the old Midland Trail at places and they'd go to Kanawha City to get their salt.

  JW: was this salt for seasoning and also for animals?

  JR: Yeah, for seasoning and animals...everything you see. They had to go down there and get it. So they would take their oxens and a bunch of them would go and get their salt and come back. They wasn't no... see, this wasn't no… when my grandfather, even my father was a boy, this was all Virginia. Wasn't no State of West Virginia. Course, it wasn't made a state until 1863.

  JW: Now, this old house you were telling me about, what was the address? Do you remember? It's on Main Street? 

  JR: Yeah. It was, ah...111.. .111 Main Street.

  JW: 111 Main Street and it was built in 1872.

  JR: 1872 and I sold it...I sold it to Frankie Moneymaker. He still lives there.

  JW: OK. I just didn't know that for certain. Tell me more about the Gorge when you were work in' up there, in your early years.

  JR: Well, the Gorge... you see, the mines was goin' full blast then... you had a mines coming up this way from Prince. We'd go from Hinton, down. We got down... you see, when you got down there from the railroad. The railroad was built in 1870, they built the railroad. Well, the Tomkees...the Tomkees was the oldest business here. See, they come to Fort Springs ahead of the railroad and when the railroad, see, when the railroad had come to Fort Springs they had a commissary there; And then they moved on ahead... and see, the Tomkees was in business in 1863 and them old tumbl... part of them buildings that's burned over there, burned down, was the Tomkee buildings.

  JW: Oh, really. You mean that building... the old Davis building dates back that far?

  JR: Yeah, goes back that far... the Tomkee building and the old Davis building… course, they remodeled the old Davis building. And before the Tornkees went into business there in 1863. And, ah... that's when the railroads came. They didn't go right into that same spot they was in because they's in... but they built those brick buildings and when they built those, the brickyards, up on Brickyard Hill, and the people make their brick up there.

  JW: Where was this?

  JR: Just- up there, you know when you go up what's the Cemetary Hill going up the Oak Knob?

  JW: OK. I've got an old map over here. This map goes back to... what... 1876 . . . steamboat landing and Pack Street, Ballengee Street, Temple Street...

  JR: Main Street down here...

  JW: Here's Summers, Second... I don't see Main written there. Here's the old roundhouse.

  JR: Yeah. That's on...down on Front Street below the Front Street there. But this road that goes out there now, it's the same one that used to be years ago. It's... as you go up the house where the school house is...our elementary school... that's Cross Street up there.

  JW: Yeah, here's Cross Street.

  JR: OK, you go out here to this church and turn up and this comes on cross here cross Avis Crossing... was a little short bridge. You turn up there left to the cemetary, the McGuire Cemetary and the Hilltop Cemetary. And that's what goes on out there.

  JW: And that's where the brickyard was.

  JR: The brickyard was across on Brickyard Hill. You go up there and you go to your right around to the Brickyard Hill.

  JW: OK. Brickyard Hill was over near where the cemetary is today up on Avis?

  JR: No. It's on the other side... on the right. Goes back in there.

  JW: Made their own bricks?

  JR: Made their own bricks and built those buildings?

  JW: And the bricks that they made up there were used there in the old Davis Building.

  JR: Those old buildings was built out of that homemade brick.

  JW: I didn't realize that. OK. Back to the Gorge there... what else do you remember up there... what was it like in the Twenties?

  JR: Well, when you started down... when you went down in that Gorge, they started down there. course, that's after the railroad was built. The railroad was built to go along before I was born, but when I become familiar with it, working, you see...they used the Gorge to go down to get their salt and stuff before they had this railroad.

  JW: How far down the Gorge would they go?

  JR: They'd go all the way to right just east of Charleston.

  JW: They'd go down the Gorge the whole way?

  JR: Yeah, only they'd have to. see they'd have to leave it and hit some of what they called Midland Trail. see, they'd have to hit some of that… and see, the Midland Trail come back in there at Gauley.

  JW: OK. Where would they leave it down here? Near Green Sulphur and all like that?

  JR: Somewhere in there where they crossed in there. But the mines ...let's see... the mines was in full sweep then. They'd have timber mills. The first mines was the Beury Mines at Meadow Creek, up Claypool Hollow. And, they went from there on down to Glade. And then that big lumber mill was in there. They built that… railroad built that big bridge across there. And then they also... lumber company built a railroad... loggin' railroad come across and come clear up there and crossed White Oak. On top of White Oak here and you 'd be able across there to Beckley. You know, when you get up on that last...I don't mean the first White Oak, but the next. Get up on that little hill there after you crossed this main White Oak... there's a building sets over there to the left. It's a strip mine in there. Well, right across there, the railroad come across there, went on across and out across 219.

  JW: Is that where those big piers are still in the river today?

  JR: Yeah, they're still down there at Glade... that's the big piers. That's where that big railroad... that was one of the strongest railroad bridges on the river at that time.

  JW: You know, it's not being used now. They tore it down.

  JR: No. They took the steel up... they took the steel up and brought it up here and whenever they built this Bluestone they brought that steel and put it across the railroad across there to that dam.

  JW: So, they took the steel off that bridge and made a spur line up to the dam?

  JR: Yeah, uh—huh. And after that went out, I don't know whatever happened to the steel then. Don't remember.

  JW: Well, what was it like in those coal camps then? Do you remember...?

  JR: Well, it was just like in the… everybody seemed to be happy. Course, they didn't make much money. The coal people didn't pay much. My brother—in—law was a miner. He mined fifty years on Laurel Creek. You could go on down there from the Beury Mines and get on down past Glade, then you come into Quinnimont. And those mines down there, the Laurel Creek Mines and Prince ...you see, that was a Princest was millionaires. And the McQuarry Mines, across there from Prince. Well, the McQuarrys built this big hotel here in Hinton. Now that was McQuarry. And the Princes. you had the Prince there. Well, you had the telegraph stations. You started here from Hinton, you had the one there where the cabin is... C.W. Cabin... It was above there at that time. And they was one at Brooks. And they had a spur track... center track down there where they would set off and they had a operator there. And they had a operator at a planing mill at Sandstone.

  JR: That was a little old railroad town, Sandstone. That's about all gone. Went on down Meadow Creek and they had another... they had a ferry there at Meadow Creek where they crossed and went back into the Richmond District into Raleigh County. They crossed that by ferry boat in there. And then, they built that... the Raines and those built that railroad then from Rainelle... the Meadow River Lumber Company. See, they built the railroad... one of the Raines' owned the railroad and one owned the mill. They built that railroad in there and, in the mines, and hauled their coal and lumber out of there on that there. And they had a motor car . passenger motor car at Meadow Creek into Rainelle on into Rupert. They built that, the Raines' did. One had... owned the railroad company and one owned the mill. They finally sold the railroad to the N & W, the G & L, they called it. And finally the C & O bought that.

  JW: You mentioned, the people seemed to be happy there in the mines. Did you know many of the… I mean in the mining towns... did you know many of them?

  JR: Yeah. They all got along ...lot different from the way it is now. Most of the people worked and they didn't have all this stuff to look forward to and the mines ...now, my brother—in—law worked in the mines there... part of the mines he worked in, he'd have to go in, and the others did to, he'd have to go in there ...course, I was never in the. mines. I'm just going from my own... brother—in—law's and all his boys worked in the mines. They'd have to go in there on that mine on a little bit of a low pulley that way, laying down. And they had to lay on their side to load their coal.

  JW: Lay on their side? How high was the ceiling?

  JR: Ceiling wasn't but about... well, was just barely enough to clear you to go in there on your belly on one of them little cars.

  JW: So it must have been about four feet high?

  JR: No, it wasn't that high. It was just about... I guess about three feet would do it. And then you... you had to lay on your side to load your coal.

  JW: Those seams were awful narrow then.

  JR: Oh, Lord it was different then. I wouldn't have went in one at all. My brother—in—law said he wouldn't do nothin' else other than the mines. They'd build those mining towns... course now, we worked around the mining towns when I was working... I was workin' in the Signal Department. We had a operatin' plant over here at Helen at the mines there on the Gulf. We had signals on the tunnel side that goes down in that part there. And the mines, they was work in' good and everybody, you know, worked in the mines and lived along there... later on, of course, the mines got tough and everything else got tough, as far as that is concerned... back there then.

  JW: You 're talking about the Twenties?

  JR: Yea.

   How about the danger in there? Wasn't there several people killed in the mines?

  JR: Yeah. There was several of them killed, but not as many as they do any more.

  JW: Oh, really.

  JR: No, because people that mined then, now they tell me...It's first hand... they knew what to do in those mines. They were good in the mines and they kept the mines shored up. And as fer as the gas and stuff is concerned, they understood it. But, later on, I understand... later on in years, the Government and the Safety got ahold of it and people inspected the mines and the miners then, they was careless and they would disobey orders. They followed their orders back in those day and time, just like amines that's got gas in it, back in those days, they used those headlamps with a blaze in them, you see. And, so, it was altogether different. They got to using machines and all and they become more careless.

  JW: Were there many foreigners and immigrants?

  JR: Oh, yeah. They were from everywhere in those mines.

  JW: Did you know many of them?

  JR: Not too many. I just knew around them. Some of them I knew and got kindly acquainted with them... some of the Italians. You never could understand most of them. They were all nice people though.

  JW: Where else would they come from?

  JR: Well, they had in the mines... they had Italians and they had Syrians, and jus... from all parts of the country you might say.

  JW: Many blacks?

  JR: Oh, lots of blacks.

  JW: Well, tell me about Thurmond.

  JR: Oh, Thurmond. That there was the railroaders and the miners haven, saloons and everything was goin' on there that a man could imagine. Almost like… what's it called, Las Vegas?

  JW: When did you first go to Thurmond?

  JR: Oh, I was in Thurmond back there in the Twenties... the early Twenties. Back when it was really...

  JW: Tell me about the DunG1en Hotel.

  JR: Oh, that DunG1en Hotel. I'll tell you, that place there was a boomin' and they had everything there. And they had their pool tables and they had their gamblin' and whiskey and liquor. There was one man... he was a section foreman, and this guy... he didn't like him and was kindly jealous of him. I won't mention his name.

  JW: OK.

  JR: But, he had this... his wife to make a date with this guy ...now, this is Thurmond... and made a date with this guy and he shot him.

  JW: Oh! He had his wife make a date with him?

  JR: Baited him and killed him right there in Thurmond.

  JW: Oh, he did?!

  JR: Yeah, he killed him.

  JW: How did you know about this?

  JR: Oh, it was. everybody knew it. See, I was work in' up thru there and eve rybody knew that. And... yeah, he killed him.

  JW: Where did he shoot him?

  JR: I think he shot him in the chest or somewhere with a shotgun.

  JW: What did he lure him outside the hotel or what?

  JR: Naw. He just watched him. Caught him in the right spot and killed him.

  JW: Were there many people killed in Thurmond?

  JR: Oh, they was a lot of them, but not as right open. It was mostly on that bridge, And people...

  JW: In the dark?

  JR: Yeah. Lot of people was mean and they was robbery and what—have—you. And they'd knock 'em in the head. The ones that they found and buried, nobody knew who they was or where they come from. They had a potter's field up there on the other side of the river ...up there, what you called Potter's Field. See, Thurmond was a busy place and mines was all around it, you see. And that was Stonecliff Mines across the river there. See, they was those mines and all around Thurmond and Beury there ...Beury right below Thurmond; then right across the river they had a railroad went down there to that mines across New River there from Thurmond. And, then just a little piece up there to Minden, the Minden Mines. And then, all up around there that part there... the mines was thick and people was plentiful. And, of course, back in that time, money was plentiful, cause you didn't have to spend too much, you know.

  JW: Did you ever stay at the DunG1en?

  JR: No, I never did stay there.

  JW: How about the LaFayette?

  [END OF SIDE ONE]

 

• Oral History Project - Richmond, John H. 1983 Part 2

  
  

  Hinton, Railroading, Bootlegging.

  Date created:

  11/14/1983

  Audio Transcript

  TAPE FORTY-EIGHT                  

  Interview NRGNPP 048

  File # NRGNPP 048-T

  Mr. John ll. Richmond                                                                                                           

  Interviewer :

  James Worsham

  National Park Service

  November 14, 1983

  (Taped at Hinton Visitor 's Center, New River Gorge National River)

  JW: Did you ever see that poker game that was playing so long?

  JR: Oh, that poker... lot of times ...our foreman, he loved to play poker. It was Pete Scott. He's dead now. He'd loose his shirt most of the time.

  JW: Is there any truth about that poker game that lasted fourteen years?

  JR: I guess it was. It never was disputed.

  JW:   What was the inside of the DunGIen like?

  JR: It was pretty nice ...old time, you know.

  JW: What    did it look like? Do you remember?

  JR: Best I remember, it was sort of like... look, you know... had all this fancy woodwork    in there and, of course, they had the old lobby and all was built up at that  time

  JW: What kind of curtains did they have? Did they have big drapes?

  JR: Drapes.

  JW: DO you know what color they were?

  JR: To tell you the truth, I don't remember. I believe they was a kind of gold or red, brown... some kind. I don't really remember just what color they was.

  JW: What about the police chief there in Thurmond, Harrison Ash. Did you ever see him?

  JR: Yeah. He done pretty good as far as he could go.

  JW: What did he look like?

  JR: He was… I don't know ...he was a pretty sturdy built man.

  JW: I understand he was a very tall man.

  JR: Yeah. He was tall. And a lot of people worked there. Mr. Parrish, he was Yard Master there. He was there for years and years. Cliff Allen worked there and he had a daughter stayed there at that old Dun Glen Hotel. And several of those there after... I can't remember their names, that stayed around there at that place there.

  JW: Did this guy, Harrison Ashe hang around that hotel? Is that what you meant?

  JR: Not too much. Seen he was around there some.

  JW: Did you ever talk with him?

  JR: No. Never talked with him.

  JW: I was trying to get a description of him.

  JR: Yeah. I never did get too much into talkin' conversations...

  JW: Did he carry a pistol?

  JR: Yeah.

  JW: You don't remember what kind of gun it was?

  JR: No, I don’t.

  JW: I was just curious.

  JR: Yeah. I understand that. But...now, Slater ...I remember talking with him lots of times.

  JW: What did Slater tell you? This was B. L. Slater, Special Agent. I 've met him.

  JR: Yeah. He was a special agent. He shot them two boys there at Thurmond up there… I know, Slater... he didn't back up off of nothin'. He didn't take no chances on anything. He was pretty quick... too quick to use his trigger.

  JW: Oh, really? Did he shoot anybody else?

  JR: No, I don't think. Not that I know of. I heard he shot different ones, but I didn't know of any, only those two. And I know that when this girl was killed over here on Brooks Mountain... this guy, a boyfriend with her... he was. I forgot what his name was, but he'd been in the institution. Emmett Fox was the sheriff here then. And they'd hitched a ride on the back of a truck and kindly got into it. And he got off the back of this truck and he took his knife and cut her throat. It was up around that cold spring on the S

  JW: He cut her throat?!

  JR: Yeah. And so, Emmett was over there and that guy he just... talked to that guy. Well, I was workin’ at Meadow Creek then and I was about three or four cars behind and Slater, he was in there. And he told Ernmett that he wouldn't never of took no chance on him. Well, Emmett was the sheriff and he just talked the man down and he come down and set down in Emmett's car and he arrested him. Well, Slater said he wouldn't have talked or fooled with him. Slater would have killed him.

  JW: Slater would have shot him?

  JR: Yeah. That's what he would have done.

  JW: How did he know he did it?

  JR: Well, he was... he didn't run or anything. He was just there. The guy didn't run.

  JW: Well, why did he kill the girl?

  JR: I don't know what they was arguing over, but he was off up here.

  JW: He was off in his head, so he just cut her throat with a pocket knife?

  JR: Yeah, that's right ...cut her throat. She was layin' there on that o.. they'd cut the right—of—way on the road there and she was layin' there on them stobs bleedin' to death, dyin' Warren Mann was in front of me and what's—his— name was with me and those two boys come along... this Fox and what's. They was preachers and they talked to her, but I said to 'em, I said, “Why in the world didn't you bring that lady up off of them rocks ...off of them stobs up on to the road, and you might have done something.” I said, “Now, Warren,”  I said, “you 've taken first aid.” And, he said, well he was afraid to do anything. I said if it had of been me, if I'd of been in front... I was back, you see, and I didn’t know anything... if I'd of been in front, the first thing I would have done.. .course, I'd had first aid too in service, you see. First thing I'd have done, I'd have got that lady up there and I'd have closed that down with my thumb and a held it there until she could have got to the doctor. There was a possibility that she might have been saved. I told them they.. .well, they... I said, now that's a poor alibi. You people do thatta way, I said what would you do if you was a doctor?

  JW: Well, what did the lady tell them?

  JR: She was past the talking part.

  JW: Oh, she was...

  JR: Uh—huh .

  JW: ...just bleeding there? That's a sharne. When was this?

  JR: That was... I forgot what time it was ...it was back there later on in the ...I remember was in the late '50's or early '60's there.

  JW: OK. Let's talk a little bit more about the Gorge there, when the mines were still in operation there. How about the coke ovens up at Sewell. What was that like?

  JR: Well, the coke ovens... that just looked more like a town there. They was in full blast and...they was also coke ovens down here at Thayer. They was coke ovens all up and down that river right there at Sewell. And see, those mines down there and the other mines too at Kaymoor, you see. The Kaymoor Mines went on below Sewell. the Kaymoor Mines was runnin' full blast on the south side. And on the north side… the railroad tracks was divided there and went across to Sewell and come back across at Hawks Nest... the Kenneys Creek Mine on that side, then the Hawks Nest on that side and the... what's the mine on the left, was down at Fayette and south Kaymoor and Nuttall Mines, you see. Nuttall.

  JW: Yeah. They had suspension bridges across the river so you could go across to catch the train.

  JR: Yeah. At Nuttall, uh—huh.

  JW: Now, was there one at Caper ton, too?

  JR: One at Caperton. Yeah.

  JW: Did you ever see anybody go across those bridges?

  JR: Oh, yeah, they crossed them you see... a lot of times.

  JW: Have you crossed them?

  JR: Yeah...lots of them. See, you had to cross those bridges in order to... and also, we were talk in' about the swinging bridges... you see, the bridge across on the mills at Longbottom was a swingin' bridge.

  JW: I was going to ask you about what it looked like at night with all these coke ovens going.

  JR: Reminded you a whole lot of a town when those coke ovens was...

  JW: What do you mean a town?

  JR: Just, you know... see, each mines where a coke oven was burnin', you see that light from them. from the side of them, you could see 'em… you could tell them when you were comin' up here on a train of the night, or be called out of a night.

  JW: So, it looked like a town with all the lights?

  JR: Just looked like a town up there with them lights burnin’ all the time ...all the whole thing was hurrunin' you see, from clear up from Handley on to Hinton. Course, there wasn't no mines down below Hinton there, but it was Meadow Creek and Sandstone and the other businesses was all hummin' you know, back in those days.

  JW: How about train wrecks there in the Gorge in the early days?

  JR: They had some, but not too awful many. Because at that time,...the track men was trained and they kept the track up... they kept the... track that the trains run on is the most important thing. And then at the shops, when they'd shop those trains, you know, the men they was expected then... man workin' for a company then, he respected his job and he respected his... like I was tellin' you the other night, people respected their safety rules. And the track wag put up back in the old times... that track was just... and they kept that balanced margin and that track was perfect... the elevations and the levels... if a track was level, a train would run just as smooth as could be on them tracks. But the trouble of today is, that track is not up to the standards. When a train gets to rock in' up and down, it'll jump the track.

  JW: Hadn't thought of it like that before.

  JR: Uh—huh, it'll do it.

  JW: There was a few more things I was going to ask. What about the company stores there? Did you ever stop in any of those?

  JR: Yeah. The company stores... we used to buy a lot. Sometimes we'd buy our groceries from company stores for the camp care.

  JW: Did they have higher prices there?

  JR: Just about like other stores.

  JW: Did they have lots of variety?

  JR: Yeah. 'Bout anything you wanted.

  JW: When did the Labor Unions start coming into the coal industry?

  JR: Well, the labor union... first labor union that started here that amounted to anything was the railroad.. .was, ah.. - See, the railroad struck when they got organized there in 1922... they struck and they lost. And, they run the trains and all of the clerks and the agents and all quit and they... oh, they tore up the mail and everything else. They'd hit those cars... they'd shove those cars out in front of the trains, you know, and they'd hit 'em and tear 'em up. It was somethin’ else along there

  JW: Where did all this happen?

  JR: It started right here at Hinton terminal down to the... on the whole railroad division.

  JW: So which union was striking?

  JR: Brotherhood of Railroad.

  JW: Of what?

  JR: Clerks.

  JW: So the clerks struck in 1922?

  JR: The agents and clerks and... R. M. Morris come here as a clerk and several of them came here at Hinton to clerk carne in at What they called that time was ‘scabs’. See, they hired men ...new men.

  JW: Uh—huh. To replace those that was fired because of the union.

  JR: So, some of the others then went to work, after they'd seen they'd lost.

  JW: Was there violence?

  JR: Yeah, there was a whole lot of it.

  JW: Was there anybody killed?

  JR: No. Just old hand fight in' and tear in' up stuff.

  JW: Oh, just a lot of vand, well, sabotage.

  JR: Yeah, sabotage.

  JW: How about the coal industry?

  JR: Well, the coal industry didn't do too much with their unions until John L. Lewis organized them and got 'em up...miners didn't do no good with the unions. But, John L. Lewis really brought the miners out. He brought those companies out and he got the wages and he got the work in' conditions, you know, and the hours and all. He really got the mines... along before that, miners just about starved to death — and some of them did! In the early Thirties there that the mines... there was lots of miners starved to death.

  JW: Did they literally starve to death?

  JR: Just literally starved to death. They couldn't make it. They just simply couldn't make it and after the miners there on Laurel Creek... there was several there on Laurel Creek Mines. My brother—in—law lived up there... see, 1930, when that worldwide drought came and then on the heels of that, you see.. well, to start out with, in 1929, when everything crashed. the Stock Market you see, crashed. Then, right on the heels of the Stock Market crash, we had a worldwide drought. Right on the heels of that the Depression started. And, so they... they was just a lot of them... they just simply died. They couldn't get nothin' to eat. They wasn't no way... they couldn't get nothin' to buy with. What was ...you had to buy was high, you see.

  JW: Do you think that some of the accidents in the mines may have resulted with these people being so weak from hunger?

  JR: Well, it possibly could... could have possibly been. Sometimes, now they would get a car, you see, they loaded coal by the car, you see. And you'd get... maybe they'd get one car they'd get 50 cents or a dollar a car... most of the time, back in that time was 50 cents a car Well, they wouldn't get but one car loaded. They wouldn't get no more cars. They wouldn't get but maybe one car a week. You couldn't feed a family on that. And that's the way it run back in that day and time

  JW: We 're talking about the unions there again ...did they have big celebrations on Labor Day because of the unions?

  JF: Usually the thing they most would have... would have Labor Day parades and all. They really was recognized, more so than they are today. Because, back in the time of the unions... that is. .. the unions had... the Government was the third one. Whenever management and unions couldn't agree why then the Government could.. . they could take it over for a certain cool in t period, you see. And I think it was a lot better than just waitin' and goin' out and out. And it caused more damages and benefits than they would gain.

  JW: Let me ask you a couple more questions about the Gorge itself and the towns there. What do you remember about Beury?

  JR: Well, Beury was a hummin' little town. It was a mining town and it had those stone buildings there and they had... at Beury there. And they had a distillery there at Beury. But, of course, that distillery was run out before my age time to go down there. But knowed where it was at. But Beury was runnin' in full blast, the mines and all.

  JW: Did you ever see the Beury mansion?

  JR: Yeah.

  JW: What was that like?

  JR: Oh, it was real, real, real nice.

  JW: Did you ever go inside of it?

  JR: No, never was inside of it. Look in' from the outside.

  JE: In later years, the last few years, there was a black lady that lived up there. What do you remember about her?

  JR: Oh, she lived there for years and years. I'd be up and down by there. I worked down there… up and by there some on motor car.

  JW: How long has she been there? Do you remember?

  JR: Oh, she was there for years.

  JW: Do you remember how far back?

  JR: She was there, her and another was there behind her back in my remembrance.

  JW: There was another lady there, too?

  JR: Uh—huh.

  JW: Really? What was her name?

  JR: Ah... she was related to this one.

  JW: Oh, really? A sister or what?

  JR: Yeah. I don't know if it was a sister or what…

  JW: The two of them lived there together?

  JR: Lived in that old stone building.

  JW: now, that's the old company store?

  JR: Uh—huh.

  JW: And this is Melcinia Fields?

  JR: Yeah. She was there for years and years. Everybody knew her and everybody would help her, you know.

   JW: Did you ever talk with her much?

  JR: Just some. She wouldn't talk too much.

  JW: When did the first lady... did she died off or what?

  JR: I guess she died. As fer as I know.

  JW: But you don't know how long ago that was?

  JR: Huh—uh.

  JW: What all do you remember about her? Where did she get her food and fuel?

  JR: They would get it up Thurmond... go to Thurmond. And walk up there and buy their stuff up there. You see, they had a store up there, Fitzgerald's Store there at Thurmond and get what they needed. Most of the time, they'd pick up their coal off the tracks for their heat, you know. They just kindly, just survived, I imagine.

  JW: Looking back, generally in the past, I've just got a couple more questions about the Depression. What do you remember basically about it? What were the hardest times for you?

  JR: Well, it didn't bother me too much. We had a new farm back there and we had a fairly good crop. But we didn't fare too bad. But lots of others before the Depression, what really happened to start with was when the Stock Market crashed. Well, when the Stock Market crashed... before it did. I had a nice bunch of cattle and this cattle farm, Greenery from up there, they bought cattle in that day and time and shipped them. And sold them by the head instead of by the pound. And we come in two dollars and a half a head and him a buyin' 'em. So, he got away from 'em and looked back at 'em and he said that was a fine bunch of cattle and he said, “I’m going to buy them anyhow.” So, he give me my price. Well, they was about ten days after that it crashed and everybody lost their cattle, stock and everything wasn't worth nothin'.

  JW: You timed it about right.

  JR: Yeah, right. In 1929. But right on the heels of ‘29, that worldwide drought came. And after that, they was nothin' raised and people were just on starvation. And they formed... they had the soup lines. It was... in those big cities, it was terrible. In New York, in the news they was as high as ten thousand lined up in the soup lines. 

  JW: Did they have anything like that here in Hinton?

  JR: No, they didn't have no soup lines here. They had... they just did the best they could. People would, you know, kinda help them. And, so we fared pretty good in that time. We didn't make no money but we had our livin’.

  JW: Well, let me ask you one more question. What was Hinton like back in the Twenties?

  JR: Oh, Hinton was boomin'. We had a bakery here, we had a foundry, they made pieces for cook in' stoves and things down here. And they had... we had a flour mill over here, a big flour mill. And, all that there... business was hummin’ here in Hinton. Railroad was a boomin' and everything was going full blast.

  JW: OK. We talked about Thurmond, how the miners and railroaders came in there. Did many of them come up here to Hinton?

  JR: Oh, yeah. A lot of them come here to Hinton. Hinton was a boom town. Then, long in that time, bootleggin' started, you know.

  JW: Oh, really? This was during the prohibition time?

  JR: Yeah, that was the… bootleg started and people was buyin'. And, tell you the truth about it, I was, back in that day in there, I started... I bought whiskey and sold it. In fact, I had several to make whiskey for me. You could always make the money out of that because you could have them to make it for you and you could buy it back here in the mountains. You go around these coal camps and around these lumber mills and those big places and you just couldn't hand it out fast enough and that stuff was about $40 a gallon.

  JW: Forty dollars a gallon? Is that how much you paid for it?

  JR: NO. I’d just come up about as high as ten dollars, some lower than that. If I had it made for me, it come out cheaper than that. And you was really makin' money on it. It wasn't no trouble at no time to land two or three thousand dollars in your pocket.

  JW: Oh, really? OK. Now how much did you pay for it again?

  JR: About as high as I ever did pay for it was ten... believe I did pay twelve.

  JW: A gallon?

  JR: Yeah, and sell it for forty. Sometimes you sold it out in pints and you'd get more than that out of it.

  JW: How much did you sell a pint for?

  JR: I’d sell a pint, dependin' on where I was at... I would get in a place. one time I went in there to that Glade Lumber Company and I just had sixteen razor backs. You know what a razor back is? That's a twelve ounce bottle they used then.

  JW: I hadn't heard about that. Tell me about it.

  JR: Those are razor back pints. I had about sixteen of those razor backs just settin' around my... I always went dressed, all my life, always did do that. And I had them settin' right around my shirt and had on one of them big sheepskin coats that you used to buy and high top boots you know, and ridin' pants back years ago. You probably don't remember that. And I had sixteen pints and I was settin’ there in a little old store. And they had a dance hall there and they was havin' a dance that night. And this guy setting' there, I knew him, and he had sold a little bit of whiskey too. He said, “Buddy, I’ll tell you one thing,” said “a man had any whiskey tonight, he could name his price.” And I said, “Well, you could.” He said, “Yes, sir.” I said, “Well, I got sixteen pints. I’ll just name a price on them.” I don't know what I did let that for. It was way up there though.

  JW: You don't remember how much you...

  JR: I believe it totaled out to about ten dollars a pint.

  JR: Ten dollars a pint?! Boy they must have been desperate!

  JR: Oh, Law! You take whiskey then and they would make whiskey then. It wasn't no trouble ... and moonshine. If you didn't drink... see, I didn't drink.

  JW: You didn't drink?

  JR: You can't sell your product if you use it, no how.

  JW: Why's that?

  JR: Because you're gonna get hooked with it, if you don't be careful. Don't ever use your own product if you're gonna sell. Only way to be able to advertise the best is to be able to advertise by the other guy's word, you see. You 're not usin' yours (laughter).

  JW: OK. Did you have a pretty good product?

  JR: Oh, yeah! I wouldn't buy nothin' but good.

  JW: If you didn't drink, how could you tell it was good?

  JR: I could tell. I had guys to make it for me. And where I 'd buy it from,

  I knew. Cause he wouldn't lie to me. Cause he knew, you see, I wouldn't buy no more. And the ones I 'd sell it to you see, that's where I 'd get my ...I sold...one guy put some bad on me. And I sold to this Italian. He was a machinist at the...for the Simmons Lumber Company. And he had a fine home and a yard and big white palins' out here. And, he was my regular customer. He took a half a gallon every... twice a week. I went down there...

  JW: Twice a week!? He'd have a gallon a week!?

  JR: Oh, yeah. Him and his wife... and I don't know how many kids he had. And, he would take this half a gallon... see, I 'd go with him to the gate. He'd just take the half a gallon and go on in the house. I could see him. He'd go on in there and him and his wife would sample it. And he 'd come back out and pay me.

  JW: He 'd sample and tell you if it was any good?

  JR: He 'd sample it. Well, this guy that made this for me ...he messed it up.

  JW: How did he mess it up? Do you know?

  JR: He run it too thin... too weak, and he put coca cola in it to color it. And I didn't know it, you see, I thought it was white oak tip so he covered it with white oak charcoal. So, I - sold him that and the next time I went down there he said that there wasn't no account. I wouldn't call it what he called it. I said, “Well, if it wasn't no account, I’ll make it up to you. I’ll bring you another half a gallon.” So, I had to keep my word, you see. And, you know, that that would count today if people would do that. Just keep your word with the guy. And, so... you know, moonshine is really fun to get into it to buy it from other people. To make it, now that was somethin’ else.

  JW: Did you ever see some of the stills?

  JR: Oh, yeah.

  JW: How many stills were around here? Do you know?

  JR: There was...a still in about every holler and every spring back there.. .makin' whiskey. And when whiskey and moonshine first started... I’ll get on that moonshine and then I won't give you the trains up the river then, will I? When moonshine first started, a bunch of guys from... old man Henry Cales was a blacksmith... but they first started that, old man Dal Graham from Virginia, he brought how to make moonshine into West Virginia. So, nobody would fool with it until old man Henry Calen and one of his boys set up some kind of a berries and stuff and it soured. And when it soured, you know, kind of made alcohol... come into alcohol. The old man, he knew how to make that so he had one of those big three gallon coffee pots, copper. He took and made him a worm... what they call a 'worm’, a piece of coiled copper, and he made an arm and a cap for that thing. And, so, that's what started him and he started in that makin' that and went from that to a sixty gallon copper boiler

  JW: This was Cales, and he was over here in Hinton?

  JR: Yeah... no, he was from out there on the mountain. All of his people is gone now, all of this sons. And, so, that's when they started makin' the moonshine. Then, when I started to buyin' it, I didn't buy nothin' from them. I bought it from the other end of the road. But, I could make a moonshine still. I could make one now.

  JW: How would you make it?

  JR: I know how to make it. You just take you a. you 've seen a stove boiler, you know, along that way. You could get one of them big round kettles, but you take a stove boiler...copper. take and you cut you a hole out in it about the size of a coffee can.

  JW: OK. Now why does it have to be copper?

  JR: Well, it don't poison you.

  JW: Oh. How would it poison you?

  JR: Oh, Law... you make whiskey in zinc or somethin' like that and drink it or glass and it'd kill you.

  JW: So, you go in solution there?

  JR: Yeah. It has to be copper, you see. But you take and bake that copper just till you have to make a still and you take that boiler and you take about the size of a coffee can a piece of copper and make you about the size of a can, you see. Take a round piece of copper around that and you solder that there, cut off and solder a piece on top of it, you see. And that's set down ...or you cut a hole in this lid and you bring this where you cut it out, and you kind of bend that up this a way. You see, and that sets down on the... you put. you put dough on that. You take middlins and make a dough and dough that, you see. It won't leak either. It'll stick, that old dough. On it... you put on the top of that in the side of it and you make you an arm. It's about... it started in about two and a half inches on this end for a small ring, about two and a half inches and tapered down there and solder it to that cap, you see. And then, you take this sand and coil it. And you take a nail keg or a keg and you put that down in there. You bore a hole down in the bottom of this keg and that part would come out where you set your jars down under down there. And this part comes out of the top up here and doughed into that arm, you see.

  JW: You said doughed... you meant regular dough, with flour and water.

  JR: Yeah… middlins with a... not real flour, you just take the middlins you see. You know what middlins is?

  JW: I’m not certain.

  JR: Sort of like whole wheat, you know. It's the middle there where you grind your flour and the white parts taken out and the yellow part is middlin. You buy middlin for your cow feed, you see.

  JW: I see. Middlins and you mix it up with water?

  JR: Yeah. You mix it up with water and make a dough out of it. You dough that on there and then you dough that lid on there. But, when you set your mash, you take and put your cracked corn... you take about a half a bushel of cracked corn in this sixty gallon barrel... half bushel of cracked corn, then you take a… pour a hundred pounds of sugar and three cakes of yeast. You put that in there hot and stir it up right good and then cover it up... then in about six days, that will work off and all of that will come to what they call mash, you see. And then you take that mash and you dip it out and put it in this boiler and build you a small fire under it and you start it to boiling. Then that steam comes through here the first time, you see, that's what they call ‘sing lings'. That's almost alcohol. Comes through there and when you run all that outta there. when you get that all through out of your barrel, then you turn around and you put this back in that boiler and you add the sing lings with it. And that time you got it out, it comes out pure whiskey. It'll be about a hundred proof, you see. And you put that through charcoal and...in a charcoal keg, and leave it there for about... the longer you leave it, the better it is. Anyway, you can leave it there for about two or three years. Or, if you leave it ten, you 've really got somethin' good. Leave it there about two or three years and it's pure. It'll... just about 95 Or 98 proof, you see. It won't hurt you. Ain't nothin' in it but alcohol. They's not no dope in it. And that's the way you make a still and make whiskey. Make it right. But, these here distillerys don't make it... they don't make it that way. They put their... I owned right across from that big distillery there in Baltimore, way back there in the early Forties before I went to the service. And, they don't make like we make it. They've got them big old vats. And half of that old bourbon whiskey you git has never seen a still.

  JW: Oh, really?

  JR: No. It's just come out there and it's a chemical process. And that's the reason so many people you never seen people back in moonshine days, you never seen nobody goin' up and down the street stagger in' like a dog with the staggers. What they call 'winoes' ...you see, they wasn't nothin' in that...it'd either make them drunk and sick and that was all. It didn't make ‘em crazy... although they was kinda crazy when they was drunk. But, the chemicals in this stuff is what's wrong with the people that drink it. Why, sure. It's the chemicals that's doin’ it. Why, back there years ago, you could go to the drug store and buy what they called ...at that time, 'Burn All Tablets’. It was a chemical, and you could take a half a gallon of whiskey and put burn all tablets in ‘em and that was just as purty a red whiskey as you ever looked at. But, if you take very much of it, why it would just run you crazy.

  JW: Oh, really? What did they use burn all tablets for?

  JR: To color it... to make it... looked kinda like you got real whiskey and that's exactly.. .may not be that, but that's your trouble today. Your Government is the biggest dope ring that there is in the country.

  JW: We hope (laughter).

  JR:  (laughter) I don't mean the Government. I mean the Government backed whiskey distilleries. That's what I meant.

  JW: OK. You were telling me about the trains...

  JR: Only ones that was back when I was a boy and started workin' , ah, we didn't have nothin' but the old paddle signals. A operator plants where you used those levers, you know, and throw the switch, and they had those. Well, they put... they run the trains with train orders and they had those little old engines, you see. You couldn't bring many… they had what they called the "Shay Engine” It worked up and down like this. And then the Caiope, and it had a great tall smokestack on 'em. I've got a slide of the one that run in the 63 Centennial down here, that little old engine that they used to run... they used to ride the train behind that thing, but you had to get off and walk. And that's the kind of engine they had. Alright, they had those and then, way back up there in the late Twenties, they come out with what they called the Mallet Engine. That was the greatest engine they ever was. People talked about that... course, then you didn't have much to talk about then but the railroad. That Mallet Engine was somethin', because... that big Mallet.

  JW: I think this is spelled M-a-l-l-e-t isn't it. The Mallet.

  JR: Yeah, uh—huh. Mallet Engine. They come out with that. Well, they could bring about... with that big Mallet, they could bring about sixty, seventy, sometimes eighty cars up the river with that.

  JW: With one engine?

  JR: Yeah. And, so then they come out with. they probably did later, they come out with that big H-8, that big engine.

  JW: That H-8?

  JR: Uh—huh. So, them works that-a-way, you see. Them little old engines worked, up and down.

  JW: OK. The Mallet engine and H8   worked on pistons, ah, horizontal?

  JR: Yeah, uh—huh. And, so, they came out with that and run that for several years. And then, they come out with the diesel, General Motors made the diesel, the first diesel for the railroad. And they come out with diesel. But, before that, they come out with a turbine... made one... they come out here with it. But they made it so long, they couldn't get it through those number eight crossovers, you see. Those crossovers were too short... ever time they brought it into town here, when those... even in any of those places, why it would derail, because it couldn't make it. It was too long. So, that didn't work. And then they come out with the diesel here in the Forties and Fifties. They come out with that diesel engine. Now, those four diesel engines will bring two hundred cars up that river. So, no wonder you can see where your employment come to. It could bring two hundred cars up there.

  JW: One diesel engine?

  JR: No, they had four units, you see. Four of ‘em. But, two of those big engines.. . the expense that they made of them... two of them couldn't bring but a hundredcars.

  JW: How about the old H—8?

  JR: Oh, they was more powerful. You see, them old... the diesel got that. was sort of like the rear end of a car, you see, that pulls those wheels. While the steam engine had to give it that, you see.

  JW: Had to give it the old piston.

  JR: I know. You see, so that pulled up there. But to finish the whole thing off, they made the first engine, the first big engine that would pull this a way.  

  JW: That's the…              

  JR: They got that patent from a grasshopper

  JW: From a grasshopper!? Tell me about how they got that from a grasshopper.

  JR: The man that practiced that, I forgot where he was from but he was from one of the countries... you see, a grasshopper, he don't pull, he shoves. Did you ever notice him?

  JW: Yeah.

  JR: He 'd be a settin’ and he shoves. Well, this guy figured out to make a big wheel and put this crank on that, that that could shove it, you see. Well, that thing gets to shovin', you see, they practiced that engine like a grasshopper. That was from a grasshopper because a grasshopper, he couldn't fly and he couldn't run. He had to bounce himself, you see, he had to shove. And they come out… figured that thing out was on this wheel. You see how long that grasshopper 's legs was a stickin’ up there? Well, that was a smart man that brought that big engine out with the grasshopper.

  JW: With all those levers on the wheels?

  JR: Yeah, the levers would pul... push, you see. And...

  JW: So, that lever on the wheel, the horizontal, that's pushing the wheel?

  JR: Yeah, when you pushed... when you got 'em started, you see, when you got that steam behind him... that thing would stop on... had to get him over there where he would shove. When he got up there, you see, when that steam... them vapors would shove it, well, everytime you get to shovin’ the more you shoved, the faster it would go. And the more power it would have. But if that rail wasn't sanded good, lots of times he would spin, you see. If he'd spin, he'd loose his grip.

  JW: Hadn't thought about that'.

  JR: So...

  JW: Is there anything else you'd like to mention? We've used this tape up. Anything else…?

  JR: I think about all that… that's about I could have. If I think of something else, I'll call you.

  JW: OK. We appreciate your time.

  [END OF SIDE TWO -- END OF TRANSCRIPT]

 

• Oral History Project - Rivers, Charles 1980

  
  

  Railroading, African American, Thurmond, 1923 - 1969

  Date created:

  11/08/1980

  Audio Transcript

  Interview # NRGNPP 021

  File # NRGNPP 021-T

  TAPE TWENTY-ONE

  Mr. Charlie Rivers           

  Interviewer :     

  Paul J. Nyden   

  Beckley, W. Va  25801

  November 8, 1980

  [Many words during this interview were difficult or impossible to decipher, but not because of faulty equipment or recording technique. Mr. Rivers is 77 years old and nearly blind, and he was often difficult to understand. It was thus necessary to add, or guess at, words at some points in order to make the transcript more understandable. These words, and the places where Mr. Rivers could not be understood at all, are indicated with brackets.]

  PN: Mr. Rivers, maybe I could start off by asking you when you were born and where you were born.

  CR: Oh, I was born in 1903 down at Charleston, South Carolina.

  PN: Really? What did your father do?

  CR: My father?

  PN: Yea.

  CR: My father was a watchman there on the Ironside Works in Charleston, since he [gave up] his own business. He used to run a, run a boat, a freight boat from the country to Charleston, haul things for them farmers. When he had to give up that, then they give him a job as a watchman in the big Ironside Works as gateman that time.

  PN: That was in Charleston that he was a watchman?

  CR: Yea, right there at Charleston, South Carolina, mm, yea. But he used to work for hisself before, you know.

  PN: He did?

  CR: Yea.

  PN: What did he do then you said?

  CR: He run the farm…

  PN: He was a farmer?

  CR: He was a farmer, and he hauling them stuff from Charleston, Fourth

  Street, and boat for them farmers, see. Getting paid for that, you know.

  PN: He did?

  CR: And when he go back, he carrying a load of wood, cordwood, [from the] city.

  PN: He did?

  CR: He had a freight—boat like. He was March Rivers. See, I 'm Charlie

  Rivers, and he was March Rivers.

  PN: March?

  CR: Yea, he was named March Rivers. I was born in 1903, the 12th day of

  March.

  PN: What did your mother do?

  CR: My mother?

  PN: Yea.

  CR: Oh, she worked around the house then, you know, and gardened, that's all. But they had, they had another boy on the farm, helped to take care of the farm, plowing you know. He had to hire them fellows to do that.

  PN: Did your mother work, did your mother come from Charleston, South Carolina also?

  CR: We were raised there in the South there. My mother born in a place called Beaufort, South Carolina.

  PN: Oh, I know where that is.

  CR: You know where that is?

  PN: Yea.

  CR: Right where she was born at.

  PN: In the Sea Islands there, in that area?

  CR: Huh?

  PN: What Beaufort, around the Sea Islands of South Carolina?

  CR: Yea, on the other side of Charleston, the island. You know, on the island. Charleston's on an island itself, just about. Cause see, Cooper River on one side and the other — fresh water on one side of Charleston and salt water on the other. The big, the bridge there run from Lyons Street across the Cooper, you ever been there?

  PN: Yea.

  CR: You know I know where it is.

  CR: Cause down below there, down below there, over there my Grand—daddy had a had a wood yard down there.

  PN: In Charleston?

  CR: Yea. And up there, where the old street—car line used to be, [where] a little there gulley come in there where/ used to be a street car, Sam Robens had property over there, his brother.

  PN: That was your grandfather?

  CR:  Grandfather ['s] brother.    

  PN:  When was your grandfather born?    

  CR :Mm ?

  PN: What year was your grandfather born in, do you know?  

  CR:  No, you've got me now, I forgot, I forgot that [laughs]. But my grandmother lived to see 95 years old.

  PN: Your grandmother was 95?

  CR: When he died.

  PN: What, your grandfather?

  CR: Grandfather, he died fore my grandmother, uh huh. But I, I didn't keep up with that.

  PN: Did your grandmother and grandfather remember the days when there was still slavery there?

  CR: My grandmother did.

  PN: She did?

  CR: She remember, she was a small kid, you see. She remembered.

  PN: What did she say about that?

  CR: In slavery, them had to work for, people had to go work for Massa, and stuff like that. Farm and different things. And then [?] eat, girl, remember that.

  PN: When she was a girl?

  CR: Yea, when she was a girl, my grandmother. She told us all about that.

  PN: Where did she remember that [from]? Was she living around Beaufort also?

  CR: Yea, well you know, she telling that after I born. After I born, you talking [with her] 'bout that; you see, I don't know nothing about that. I know all the people talking about It, you see, you know how folks just talk. [?] That's all I know about it.

  PN: What made you decide to come up to West Virginia?

  CR: Who? Me?

  PN:  Yea.

  CR: Just travel ling.

  PN: You were just travel ling?

  CR: Just travelling. I been New York first, worked in a brick yard there in New York.

  PN: In New York City?

  CR: Yea, and lived there and gone down into Chicago where my cousin is, and stay there a while.

  PN: What did your cousin do in Chicago?

  CR: Him? He worked in some big factory. I didn't work; I was only there for a visit, that's all. And I, but I work in Middletown, Ohio a little bit.

  PR: In the steel mill?

  CR: Yea, in the plant, yea. And I leave there, and went up to Jenkins, Kentucky.

  PN: You work in a mine there for Bethlehem Steel, or something?

  CR: No. 6 Mine. I didn't stay there but a week. [laughs]

  PN:    In Jenkins?

  CR: Yea, in Jenkins, Kentucky. Just a store and stuff right there and you go right around a curve like that — No. 6 Mine.

  PN: It's Bethlehem Steel, isn't it?

  CR: That's at Jenkins, Kentucky, up Big Sandy [River].

  PN: How come you only stayed for a week?

  CR: I didn't like it. That water [?] I think it's a rock fall. Shit, 1 didn't like it and I leave out there. And I started at C. and O. [in] 1923 in Ashland, Kentucky.

  PN: You did?

  CR: Right in the yard. I started at C. and O. and I ain't worked in no other company from 1923 until ‘69. I retired from C. and O.

  PN: Wow, you worked with them for 46 years, then?

  CR: That's right. That's where I got on the roster there and stuff.

  PN: Pardon me?

  CR: I said that's where I got on the roster and stuff. But I wouldn't work the same job; 1 had different job, you know. Cause I started on the track, and transferred from the track to the shop. And I run that big coal tipple down there.

  PN: Down at Thurmond?

  CR: Yea, I run down there that six years, in the night.

  PN: When did you first come to Thurmond?

  CR: I come, stay on the South [Side] in 1928.

  PN: Right down here in 1928?

  CR: Yes sir, Fayette County from 1928 up to this present time. Cause I had moved out of Kanawha County when I come to Thurmond.

  PN: You lived in Kanawha County, and then you moved out of there?

  CR: Yea, and come here to Thurmond.

  PN: When you first came to Thurmond in 1928, where did you live in Thurmond?

  CR: I lived in Thurmond, right across the river from Thurmond.

  PN: The South Side?

  CR: Yea, on the south Side. Place called Weewind. You could see it from the shop.

  PN: Weewind?

  CR: Yea.

  PN: That's what they call it?

  CR: Yea, it's been a coal mine up there, you know. Was a coal mine there.

  PN: Did you live in a mining camp then?

  CR: Well, the mine done blow out. And this car distributor Hyre Ervin — he had them houses and places and that —— the only way, only place you could get a house to rent.

  PN: Where were they?

  CR: Right at Thurmond on the South Side. And you see, up on the hill, it [was] Erskine. You see, but down there was another company, but that mine done blow up, [correcting himself] blow out. Cause the man, the superintendent, he live — that mine blow out — he stay on that big house on the front. And that second house from this three—room house, that's the house I rent to stay in when I come here, me and my wife.

  PN: So you rented a three—room house when you came in there?

  CR: When I come, that's the only place where you could get to stay. Everything was crowded in Thurmond, couldn't get no place. And I stayed there. And our girl was small, and she walked from there back over the river and go up on the hill by the station to the school. And them yards stayed full, the trains switching all the time, them coal trains. And then I moved back to Charleston, so that girl didn't have all that stuff to go [over]. We didn't have time to check our little girl every day. I was a 'working.

  PN: So you moved back? When did you move back to Charleston?

  CR: I moved back to Charleston in, what was it, the forty—?

  PN: In the 1940s?

  CR: No, no, it was 1929, in the thirties, in the thirties. And when I come back out from Charleston then, [moved back to] Weewind. I stayed there a while and got a house at Rock Lick, at Rock Lick, from that company, Smokeless coal company.

  PN: When you worked during the week here then in Charleston, [correcting myself] when you lived in Charleston and you worked here, did you stay in a house or a shanty or something here, during the week?

  CR: No, well I stay up there, I stay with Charlie a little while up here at Minden. That’s the only shanty I stay in, with some boys, during the week. Then I move, I get a house up in there and stay, mm. And when I lived at Rock Lick, moved right [to] Harvey.

  PN: Harvey?

  CR: Yea, that's in 1944.

  PN: What, you 've been living right here then since 1944?

  CR: Right in this camp, but not in this house. Cause this house hadn't been for sale then. I rent, come here, jump off, get out of the car one evening, go over to the superintendent up in here, he were cleaning up - Hess. I jumped off and asked him any house to rent. And he say: "Yea we got a few house to rent, but who do you, what company you work for?" "I work for C. and O.” “Oh yea, I give you this a house. C. and O. for 4% in this company.”

  PN: They did?

  CR: That's what he told me, that's what he told us.

  PN: What was the name of the company here?

  CR: That's the New River.

  PN: New River?

  CR: Yea, New River. See, there's two New Rivers   New River Pocahontas and this New River Consolidated, yea. Minden and all that Pocahontas; Clare—[mont] Pocahontas; and down yonder, down the road there at the, on the track, ain't working now, that's, that's the New River. And over yonder, New River got some running now. But this mine, the biggest mine they had down here at Minden, on the bottom used to load two car on one track.

  PN: That was New River Pocahontas?

  CR: Yea.

  PN: When you came to Thurmond in 1928…

  CR: '28.

  PN: You were working in the shops then?

  CR: No, I was working on outside a while there in the yard. I was checking them switches in the yard there, you know.

  PN: Switching?

  CR: No, I wasn't switching technically, I wasn't switching. No, I had to keep them switches greased, up and down. And keep them lamp, you know? They had them lamp on them switches, you know? You had to fill them with oil.

  PN: Lap?

  CR: Lamp on them switches.

  PN: Oh, the lamps.

  CR: Yea, you see it on the railroad, you know? It's green and it's blue— like. You had to fill them up once a week. And a lot of time, sweep out them switches. Some of them greasy, keep it so the brakemen [can] use it. Cause two colored fellow Carter Bradley and Clem Holland was braking in the yard out there, colored guy. And here Carter living up here at Hilltop, right where Jones got that store. He got that big, had that big house on the other side of the store. And Clem was living down in the shanty; he wasn't married. Carter was married. One of his girls is a school teacher; and one is a doctor. But Carter died.

  PN: Then there's still shanties? Are those little houses on the side of the road, are shanties, right?

  CR: Them boxcars down there?

  CR: Them shanties. But let me see, there's one boy, he had a boxcar there, for one of the shanty boys. And the mainline boys, and they had one there for the branch line. See they had different, see the branch line, they had their own shanty [s] down there. And the mainline boys on the yard, they had a shanty [s] down in there. And they had a little shanty around the curve.

  PN: Towards where, up towards Beury?

  CR: Yea, on the left—hand side, you're going to Beury from Thurmond. You've been down there. Them boys, [they stayed] in the shanty [s] This boy's been a shanty boy, he married and I mean his wife living now, but he's dead — he's lived there. He had another boy, he had a boxcar up there, the boy stayed in, on the other side of that shanty.

  PN: He was staying in a boxcar on the other side of the shanty?

  CR: Yea, he had a boxcar, another fellow, you know with a wife. He called the mainline; he's at Deepwater now, but he's retired.

  PN: So people are still living in those shanties down here?

  CR: Oh yea, a boy and his mother living down there. That boy retired hisself now.

  PN: What was it like, living in the shanties?

  CR: Well, you know, you know, that just like sometimes, two [or] three men live in the shanty. In the weekend, some of them live in Virginia. Some would go home every, every week. Going on [Number] Six, then come back Sunday night, and ready for work on Monday. Cause when I working down at Newport News, I used to ride Number Two. And Two wouldn't put me down to Newport News till 11:30 that next day. And I go to work there at three o'clock, but I was working on them coal pier. I was firing then, you see, I 'd fire up this…

  PN: You got fired?

  CR: Yea, right down at the shop, that's where I retired, as a fireman.

  PN: Oh, as a fireman.

  CR: I retired as a fireman.

  PN: How long , you were working in Newport News some of the time?

  CR: Well, when they killed that station there in the first of June, summertime. That's coal, you know. Kill them the first of June, and don't fire em back up till the first of October. Don't keep 'em going in the summer, you see, kill them. See, cause it's warm and they don't need no steam around in there, anyway that's the way they do.

  PN: Was that the station that made steam for the whole town?

  CR: Keep steam for the station, the commissary and a 11. And down, down [at] that big tipple down in there see that big line running down there?

  PN: Yea.

  CR: Steam down there — keep them coals thawed. And a lot of time when I run that tipple, I had to climb up both sides and it froze — and break loose them coals up there next to, next to the, in the cement, so it would run down…

  PN: You had to break loose the coal from the top of the tipple?

  CR: Yea, you know, right beside, you know where you pull your thing down for your coal chute [to] come down.

  PN: Yea.

  CR: And it stuck up there to that cement when you ran coal on that river— side, buddy. I had to climb them ladder, them long ladder in there, go up in there, cut it loose. I mean you got to cut it loose then. Pull that string, and there's so much get on there, and then I let it back up. You got one — there for the hand—firer and one for the stoker [he pronounces it "stogie"] — on both mainline and the…

  PN: One for the what, for the hand…?

  CR: You know, when you had the Lilly Engine, you'd fire them with your hand, they 're lump coal them small engines. But them big engines gor stoker; you can feed them. Yea, I done all that; that's what I retire on.

  PN: What were you saying there? There was hand coal…?

  CR: Hand—fire. Well that station there, firing there, all that was hand; there was no stoker in that station there. Now on that small engine, you sit down in your shop, great old pit. That's the engine, you see. And you see, you have to keep the steam there. And any time you clean them, you have to open up and shake your grate. And the ashes go down in that pit. And you turn that water loose, and you wash it down next to the creek.

  PN: Do they wash the ashes right out into the creek?

  CR: Yea, out [of] that pit down there. A big pipe like that, you open it, you get it off the mainline like that.

  PN: And the ashes went into New River?

  CR: Don't go there [?], some get there, but you know, they pile up. There’s some piled up out there about that high, between there ans…

  PN: Where, on this creek here [referring to Dunloup Creek]?

  CR: Up Thurmond, up Thurmond, from the shop. See there's a big flat place from the shop to the creek. See, a long ways before you get to the creek. But sometimes when the water get a little high, some of ‘em go in there.

  PN: What creek are you talking about? What's the name of the creek?

  CR: New River.

  PN: Oh, New River.

  CR: Around there, New River, New River. You see right now they kill that station during the summertime. I can get, I can work right here, right at Thurmond. But my rate was high, and any job I could take. I didn't work there. So they send me down yonder where I can get my regular rate.

  PN: Down to Newport News?

  CR: Yea.

  PN: Did your wife stay here when you worked down there?

  CR: Yea, she be right home here.

  PN: And you came home on weekends?

  CR: I come home some time, I come home every weekend. Sometimes I came every two weeks.

  PN: Two weeks? Why, cause of the type of work they gave you?

  CR: Huh?

  PN: Cause of the days of work they gave you?

  CR: Well you see, we, I'll tell you how it was. A fellow like me, Lou

  Helen was general boss over the whole thing.

  PN: Lou Helen?

  CR: Yea. And he's the one that called men, you know. Well, his Daddy used to be a shop foreman, long time ago. Lou Helen's daddy, guy I know, I worked under. He'd been to Hinton, look over these shops, diff—. He had so many shop to look over as superintendent. And I remember, down at that one there, been down there don't cost me nothing to go down there, got a pass and I was going to work five days, five days a week. That's the way they worked. And I come in the first week, I come in the big bath—, they got a big brick bathhouse. Haul them coal water in there. And the men, men some right and the sea right over there  come in that thing, and get up high, and they splash water on that road. And that road go right on that's 15 coal piers right up there. And go up a little farther, big cafe there.

  PN: A big what?

  CR: Cafe, get something to eat if you want.

  PN: Oh, oh.

  CR: And the next thing is 14 coal tipple. And their office right in there. But the bigger office, Lou Helen's up yonder, up past [Pier] Nine. That 's where the ore, that's where the ore—pier is; when you get the ore, they unload it over there.

  PN: The oil?

  CR: Ore, ore.

  PN: Ore, ore, yea.

  CR: And they got about eight or nine them other pier.

  PN: At Newport News?

  CR: Yea, merchandise pier all the way back there, about nine of them back there. But I didn't work on none of them. 1 just [worked] on the coal pier and the ore pier. I used to work with them hopper and stuff in there. And I'd go in there and break them coal loose. And them big roll that long, that belt

  PN: Belt?

  CR: Wide as this table [five feet wide] or more. Yea, coal come in there. The way they do it, you see them boys, I mean, they didn't bring them coal in the yard. They got a yard there. So many coals [coal hopper cars] go to each one of them chute. Nine track go to this side, nine track go to that side — it's a double tipple. When you in the middle, it's steel from you all the way up to the top. You can dump car over and dump car over. And when that empty go up there, after that fellow up there throw the switch, that empty go that—a—way outside. And a boy up there can slow ‘em down, just punch the button, slow 'em down.

  PN: That boy could do what?

  CR: Fellow up in the office up there, you know? When the cars got off that hump, empties go on back, take off, you know. That boy punch that button and ease 'em down till they get them; when they get down here, that man down there couple em up. And when you go down there, and these boys bring a loaded one, they stop right at that mule, they drop that big a, that big line from up there, man, that they pull. Drop that big line and come right in and you go under the car. And you got something that can draw, you hook up this car on this side. Came back up, go up a hill like that, hit a level there's a fellow up there. See the empty car, he done shoved that knuckle in. So when this loaded car come hit him, he gone. And that go back that—a—way, yea. That's what you call the "goat" up there.

  PN:   The goat?

  CR:   Yea [laughs].

  PN:   What was the goat, the man that worked up there?

  CR:   Yea, he throwed that switch up there. I did get that, that and the brakeman, but that fellow up there get a little more than them brakemen.

  PN: He got more?

  CR: Yea, on the goat.

  PN: When you moved to Thurmond back in the 19—, in 1928 and the 1930s, did they discriminate in housing? You know, could Black railroad workers live on the Thurmond side, or did they have to live on the South Side?

  CR: You lived there you could get a house at. That's the way it was. There wasn't no, we didn't have any discrimination there.

  PN: So a Black person could get a house in the town of Thurmond itself?

  CR: Yea, some been living right up do you know right down there where you got that, they got that Banker's Club?

  PN :  Yea.

  CR: That boy, I know all them. Right up those steps, you see those steps go up in there? ["That boy" is referring to Erskine Pugh.]

  PN: Yea.

  CR: All them house up there colored was living in.

  PN: It was?

  CR: Sure. All up there, down and, down there. Cause this McKell owned all that part there all the way back, on that side of the river.

  PN: Yea.

  CR: And when you get down here and go across, and go up to Minden. And when you go up that step, McKe11 line go right there. And go up on that hill, and go back and hit Beury and wome out, McKendree and hit Prince, and come back in and go back over yonder - Mt. Hope, McKell owned that. But on this side here, this was, this place here, this here was a, the school, Harvey, Harvey College's place.

  PN: What?

  CR: Harvey College.

  PN: Harvey College?

  CR: Yea, here and up there.

  PN: Who?

  CR: His property.

  PN: On, that was his name?

  CR: Yea, who the property belongs to. Blackburn had to buy it for Harvey; Blackburn and Patteson bought this for Harvey College. McKell didn't have nothing to do with this, but McKe11 got all that on the other side. See McKell [?] , he had some of them lease it. He had it leased and had lease it up. When it come to sell, McKell wouldn't sell you no property.

  PN: No?

  CR: No.

  PR: So some Black people lived right over there above the Banker's Club then in Thurmond?

  CR: Oh, they used to. You know, ain't no boys in Thurmond now. All them leave out of Thurmond, you know, moved from Thurmond. Some died or they moved out.

  PN: When were you talking about though, 1928 and 1930?

  CR: Oh yea, all them houses were full up back in Thurmond there, they're all back there. Cause they used to give a, old Dunglen Hotel running then. Me and the boys used to have the Elks Club ball down in that hotel.

  PN: What, the Elks Club?

  CR: Yea, yea man, you could get just most anything you wanted to at Thurmond then. Yea, there wasn't no dif—, no, at Thurmond then, it was as big as Cincinnati. [?] Thurmond then was like a big city. Cause the C. and O. paid, had to pay, that city so much a year tax, you know, comes in there.

  PN: The what?

  CR: You know, where you have to pay that city so much a year to come through there?

  PN: Yea, pay the city so much a year?

  CR: Yea. That mayor of that city, now he got the money; have to take care of the city.

  PN: Cause the C. and O. paid that tax?

  CR: Yea, he had to pay the tax to go through there, yea. I know that, I didn't think about. I know, as a boy, every mayor that have been in there. I think that boy is the mayor now, that got that club Erskine Pugh. I know 'em all [the Pughs]. I know when some of them boys going to school man, girls and all. The oldest girl up here, in Beckley right here — Geneva. She going, you know where that A. and P. store, coming from this way? You know where that big brick thing up there? That's her husband. She married; they wasn’t married till Erskine come out of the Army, you know.

  PN: Till when?

  CR: The one running the Banker's Club? And this girl up there. They’re the oldest.

  PN: Oh.

  CR: This boy, Starr, he's next. But that girl and Erskine, Geneva up there and this Erskine down here.

  PN: Back, back in 1928 and 1930, when you lived in Thurmond, what did you do for entertainment? For fun?

  CR: For fun?

  PN: Yea.

  CR: I tell you, we used to, we used to go to, have a ball there once in a while. You know, we could give anything you want. We use one of them hotels, give it at that hotel. But you know, you wasn't no great big, that's all been there, you know, where you could give them big entertainment. You got a church down in there, but…

  CR: Us got the church down there now a little white church on this side of the river on the hill up there. Old Man Collins and them used to come there. Come to that church.

  PN: Who was Collins?

  CR: He's dead; he used to be a big undertaker around here. That building there…

  PN: Was he Black or white?

  CR: Yea, you see that building there that Banker's Club in?

  PN: Yea.

  CR: That used to be a, Collins building. That used to be the, I believe you called it the First National Bank like. But when I first come, Collins had a store — you know where you go near the station, and go right up on the hill there?

  CR: Collins got a big store right up there, wood store.

  PN: What kind of store?

  CR: You know, you know, wood store, big store —— upstairs and downstairs. His office sitting up there. He had Bolen, head of the store, and he had some more help. And Miss Grace, she'd tend to the stuff. Used to go to New York, and all this stuff,

  PN: Bring it in from New York?

  CR: Yea.

  PN: What did you do for fun, though, usually, say types of things did you do?

  CR: Well we, you take it like this, we used – up there at Glen Jean, they had a big dancing hall, right there as you go down the hill. They tore down now. Right there, as you come down Glen Jean you see where you turn?

  PN: Yea.

  CR: Right over in there, there used to be a big dancing hall. Be in there almost every Saturday night, or something like that.

  PN: Did both white and Black people go in there?

  CR: Well, they come in if they wanted. Everybody 'd drink together and everything in there. Them boys [that] worked in the mines, that didn' t make no difference, don't look like to me. And I 'd meet a lot of them that worked in the mines. ' 'Hey Charlie, " so—and—so, when I used to drink there. Oh, let's get some. I work on night shift, man, they come. Boy, I say, "Man, I got to work. I can't afford you. "

  PN: How did you get liquor then? Did you buy it from bootleggers?

  CR: Yea, the state was dry, you [had to] buy it from bootleggers. Cause, see, colored fellow down there at Dewitt used to be a miner down in Dewitt one day he used to make liquor. And up to Glen Jean, good God! Them Easleys.

  PN: Easleys?

  CR: Easleys. You could buy liquor in them things. Oh boy.

  PN: What did they do, did they make it themselves?

  CR: Yea, they make it themselves, some one way or another. But I know he had some liquor. And I, lot of time here when I pulled liquor, sure enough. I used to go to Kentucky and get liquor myself.

  PN: Were the Easleys, were they white or were they Black?

  CR: What?

  PN: The Easleys. Were they white people or were they Black people?

  CR: Oh, he was colored.

  PN: Yea?

  CR: Over around there, sure old McKe11 [would] back up them boys, especially them boys work for McKell. Shit. McKell’s a big shot, you know. He owned all that property there, all them house and everything.

  PN: McKell back them up, more or le ss?

  CR: If they were work [ing] for him.

  PN:  Yea?

  CR: Yea, he, them boys got anything. Shit.

  PN: McKell would get a cut out of the money that they were getting?

  CR: [Misunderstanding the question] He'd pay em more than the union, you know. He didn't want his boys to join the union. “Hey man, don't join no union. I pay more than you all anyhow. He had them boys' wages higher then the union. He had a little thing, like a streetcar, running way up yonder, from Price Hill down right there in front of the big store by the track. And he'd go on, and he'd pay his way hisself.

  PN : He did what?

  CR: He'd pay his way on that thing just like anybody else. It was his thing, but he paid on it.

  PN: McKell paid?

  CR: Yea, shit, he paid.

  PN : What was the relation between McKell, you know, and the bootleggers and moonshiners?

  CR: Ain't no relation at all. He had no liquor, yea, as I know. Cause the other branch (?) used to live over here at the, in the state where the place up yonder. And he had that city up there [Chillicothe, Ohio — ?] , and not far from that penitentiary up there [Moundsville — ?] And he died, and leave all he had, that McKell, he had a bank up there. McKell, that's a, McKell had a little bank right there in Glen Jean. You see where they build that place there, that big building? McKell had a big gold thing there in that window, a big window.

  CR: Inside the bank, a big gold ball.

  PN: Oh yea?

  CR: Cause I know one time, when we first, me and my wife, when we first come up there. You know, we didn't come to stay there, you know. I was working up there but, you know, but we didn't move up here yet. And she got a check from Macon, Georgia. And I never remember where Erskine got that store — old man running the [store]. And she present the check in there, and she didn't, the man look at the check. Well I didn't know much up here then myself, you know, cause I wasn't living up here. He tells, he tells her: “Well, you got to, yea, you have to get some boy to represent you. I can't, I can't cash it." Well, she said, "All these people are crazy. We got to have my name signed and all that thing.” Well, they didn't know me, cause I wasn't living up here then. I was around New River, didn't go to New River. So one day, we stay up there at Shamrock. You see, this road didn't cut right straight through to Beckley then. You had to go down, you come up a footpath, you go up there right to that old building, you know, in the back, down by the swag there.

  PN: Down where?

  CR: You know, right to Glen Jean, you know, there's a road straight through to Oak Hill now. But when I come here, that road wasn't straight through; you had to go like going to Whipple. station, go right through them woods stayed up there. Just as you got up And turn off there on that filling up there, and go on. And I, so we there, that big used to be a big store, that big white building, nobody in it, after you leave Glen Jean, you know? And there's two house [s] between there and them other house [s]. So the woman been there, called by the name of Clara, and my wife know [her]. We come, and had gone up this Frank, Frank Crockett, run a taxi. He lived in Glen Jean, back over there. We went up to Clara that night and we stay up there.  So, I think we stay up there. I was working there. We stay up there, riding on a car probably. And I gone down, we gone down in Oak Hill, I mean start. I said; "We ought to stop here McKell. I bet you get your check cashed,” I say, a $300 check. And he [ the teller] gone to cash the check and look at the check right there. He said: "Your check is good, all right." He was a good Samaritan. You know a "secret—order" check? My wife's mother died, and leave that; that thing willed to her, you know, from that order.

  PN: So who cashed it for you, McKell?

  CR: He [the teller] look at it like that and said; “Hold it a while. I know you can get it cashed." And he call, called up to McKell. McKell was up on the top, there sitting down, legs crossed. His house, you know, he could sit up at the top. And McKell, he say: “Where are you from? And we told him: “From Macon, Georgia.” "What kind of check?" He say: "Cash it! From Macon, Georgia, and your name on it written down, and the other name on it, the way it was?" He [the teller] said: “Yea, I seen the name myself, her husband right here.” "Cash it!" And he cash it and give us $300. And we take $50 out then and leave the rest in there, you see.

  PN: Let me just ask you some more questions about these bootleggers. Could they, did the police get them often?

  CR: Oh yea, some did get after you, you know, if you can see, you know. Yea, they get after you, yea, they put you in jail too, if they could catch you, you know.

  PN: Did anybody protect them?

  CR: Well, a lot of them, you know; just like McKell there, if you work for him, you know, he go there: "Turn 'em loose. I’ll see about it."

  PN: So McKell would, you know, protect some…?

  CR: His, his boys, they work for him, you know, just like, and them old one [s] that ain't working for him, you know, now been in there a long time, yea, man.

  PN: What did they do for him, work in the mines?

  CR: Man, he had mine [s] all up the hill there.

  PN: Did the bootleggers, were they usually miners too?

  CR: Well some of them keep up that track; and some of 'em in the mine, you know; and some ain't working now, ain't been working now — some old, they just been living there a long time, you know.

  PN: But McKell helped them still?

  CR: Yea, he helped them up when they get in the cramp, McKell helped them. Yea, Frank Crockett didn't work in the mines at all and he'd been around there. Every time McKell ready to go to New York or sometime [meaning some place], Frank Crockett bring him down in his car, taxi. He run a taxi. And he put it so Frank Crockett, then the old man, he had, you see how the station built down there? A car could park up there, and the rest of the cars park around there over the. I know the man then, run a taxi from Glen Jean; but he ran it a long time, you know. And he run that, Frank Crockett, he didn't have a mark up there you know. And Frank Crockett, and he [McKell] tell Frank: “Park in my place." Frank was hauling taxi, running taxi too.

  PN: Was that Frank Crocker or Parker?

  CR: Crockett, Crockett, Frank.

  PN: Crockett?

  CR: Now he's got a lot of houses up in Mt. Hope now.

  PN: What was the Dunglen Hotel like when you first moved to Thurmond?

  CR: Wide open, wide open — bottom and top. Colored had the bottom, and white had the top.

  PN: Oh yea? In the Dunglen?

  CR: Yes sir. All that belonged to McKell.

  PN: What could you, I mean what types of things happened there at the Dunglen?

  CR: Gambling, and drinking liquor, have a party. That's the way they do. Go up right from the, there's two section house been over there then. One of them section house for the branchline man and one for the mainline man. And Miss Duncan live right where that little house is right there now.

  PN: Yea.

  CR: Great big house there. Miss Duncan used to keep a lot of brakemen there, had no place to stay, him and his wife, he had a, they'd get a room, you know, stay there.

  PN: The hotel or…

  CR: No, right over here, right over there on this side here, on this side.

  PN: What were those — shanties or a big house?

  CR: Oh, a big house, man, just like a boarding house. The way that thing burned down sometime. Old Man Collins had a big undertaker right there in front there, right [be] side of that track. As you come from across the river, you know, where you turn and go the other way and this road come in here? [Old] Man Collins big undertaker, that's where he was undertaker till he bought this business and he move him up here.

  PN: In the Dunglen, was there any prostitution or anything like that?

  CR: Well, well, old Silas Green [a travel ling minstrel show] come in there every year and all like that. That big lot was open then, it wasn't built up like it is now. He come in there and all like that, shows and stuff come in there like that. But man, people [come down] from Glen Jean and the Dunglen. One time, you had light all the way across that bridge. Every time the train come in, somebody from the hotel meet the train and see if anybody want a hotel. And some meet em and carry 'em to the Lafayette Hotel.

  PN: Do what?

  CR: Meet these train, you know, come in, passenger [s]. Sometimes they go to the Dunglen, some, the other one, the Lafayette Hotel down the street, you know, where they burned down, down there . I went there one night [from] work. And I work, and the boys say: "Fire over there,” and they come over and hollered at me about a fire. They got a big pump over there and they got fire hose and spigot. The man says: “Charlie," he says, "go up, get you a line yourself. You can help em. I say: “Get them boys to knock a hole under the track then, and I put them through there." And so they knocked a hole under the track. Got a line through, them big pipe. And this Andy…

  PN: What did you do? You knocked a hole, holes on the track?

  CR: Yea, cause the train, you know the track up there, and you know, and ties like this. You ain't going to leave that hose on top of that track, you know a train coming through. Knock em through them brick (in the hotel] and let em run the hose through. And I get over there then. I got inside there man, them thick plaster walls. I was busting them with that hose, man. Had that thing down, Dick, Dick Farrell, rooming down there. Dick said: “Hell, Charlie, get this Miss Bannister.   She's living in Oak Hill now. She was living down there; she used to run the post office.   [Note: Interview 18 is with this same person, Jane Graham Lawson; Bannister was her maiden name.] And the Oak Hill Fire [Department] come in there, and I let them pull them hoses back over, cause I put that big pump on over there. And that big "son" was shooting water, man. And I had it almost conquered, but I couldn't stay over there but so long, cause I got to tend to my, right over the shop, right over there. I had to look out, don't get that engine get dry, cause shoot, it'd be ruined. If water get up to the engine, that'd be ruined. Cause that thing goes blowing around, everybody get scared that thing would blow up there, and the water get down off that shield up there.

  PN: The what, the water what?

  CR: The water get down in the steam engine. Down in that crown shield. Hear that whistle start to blow, you better do something. Get so low, you better dump that fire, and leave that grate open. Don't try to put no water in there.

  PN: That was the place they heated up the Dunglen? [I was confused here.]

  CR: No, that's in the shop, I talking about. When that start that night, and them fellow come here with this wagon from Oak Hill, and they say they'd take over. And shit. They had them little hose there and man they, shit, the fire done got ahead of them, man. That's when that thing burned down. But 1 can still, 1 [was] working; but the company don't mind helping them. Because a lot of times, you know, in the city there, if a fire get around there, in close to the shop, put a hose on the yard engine. Get the yard engines out of there, they're so close to the track.

  PN: Did they have, you know, different women and stuff in the Dunglen Hotel?

  CR: Different woman?

  PN: Was women there?

  CR: Both kinds be there. Yea, when they have them parties, both kinds be there. You couldn't walk out there, man. Well on the end of the week anyhow, there don't be nothing there but just plenty of people out there in front of that store. Right from over this side up over on the other side - drinking. I never get, we had a party there one night - I living down the river in there — and them boys, they [say]: "You ought to get time and come up. I say: “I know I should come up there, but I might get [in trouble].” They say: "Bring something with you." I had, I had some liquor. And I had three pint. And right there from the section house, I leave two right down there in the grass, and then I cross the track there. And I had one time, my bro there tell me if I come, then bring one down there. And you know this, I got, then you could walk right there, right over the bridge, right down [to] the hotel. You didn't have to go around you know, that bridge. Walked, and I got down to walking, and just as I going to get in the door, I come right between two state police.

  PN: Oh no!

  CR: And they looked at me. I said: “How're you, sheriff?" I just keep walking. Well, I had it sticked down my side, my coat on, you know. They didn't bother me like that. And after a while, I sneaked [it] out there. And then them gal, running around, and that pint of liquor gone. That women drinked that stuff. Man, they'd be around there a lot of times. Down here at Cabin Creek, before I came onto the division [at Thurmond], I'd go up to Dry Branch every Saturday night. Woman up there give a dance - Minerva. I’d go up there every, every Saturday night. Had a girl that was working, what, helped in the power house, there helping the head lady, you know. Lived right across the track in that red house, a green house on…

  PN: What was that, Dry Branch?

  CR: Cabin Creek Junction.

  PN: Up in Kanawha County?

  CR: Yea, Kanawha County. You know where Cabin Creek is at?

  PN: Yea.

  CR: You know where they used to run a train up there? And as you get up there, Dry Branch, Dry Branch, you have Wet Branch up there. Minerva used to live on that side, right next to the creek. And I was talking to Joe, he had a house up in there. He's been married, but he'd been single, oh a nice—looking woman. She helped cook over there. I helped, I helped him cook then, in a car. I was a flunkey — second cook.

  PN: You were what?

  CR: I was the second cook on the car. Every car, you know, Cabin Creek freight depot, been right here, and the station down there. And that side track way off from the road, we used to have the car parked over there. And he come down the road, the reason he got down in there.

  [A short story follows here about Mr. Rivers taking a woman he met there home with him, but it is nearly completely incomprehensible on the tape.]

  I work all up them hollows now and then. But right here, yea since I been, since ‘28, I been right out here, headquarters right here at Thurmond. Yea, first one I was under, Baldwin Ferry, not Baldwin, not Bald—, Baldwin Ferry, yardmaster. Cam Porter was assistant shop foreman. Pete Bradley — he was general foreman. And you go in Oak Hill right now, you know where that pawn shop, you go behind the bus terminal? You know where this man used to run [the pawnshop], he died? Roy, in Oak Hill, you see Roy's widow in there? You go in sometime, you see a fellow sitting in there; he done married Roy 's widow. She was his secretary down there, daughter [?] . mien things got low, he done take that job in Hinton, Chief Secretary, and he retire [d] from Hinton. He got a nice, his wife is dead, his wife was a school teacher. He got a nice house in there, and he married this woman. Yea, all them, all them fellows, we used to work together. Yea, but that's all right here. I come here, I worked in the yard for a while, and I transfer over to the shop. And I helped boiler watcher, helped; that wasn't my steady job over in there. But when the helper been out, they shoved me in there. My steady job, and I’d been everywhere, the engine watchman could send me down, go right down to Gauley, and watch that engine, if that fellow took sick.

  PN: You said you were a yard watcher?

  CR: Engine watchman. But you know, you had one at Gauley that [used] coal. You got, you got a diesel down there now. But with them steam engine, you had to have some boys down there [to] watch it, you know. Them diesels, you can fill them up and chain them down.

  PN: What did you say? "Wash" it?

  CR: Watch it, watch it, you have to steady watch it. See, a steam engine, when you have it, you have to keep this coal in it, and keep the oil in it. Where these diesels, you can fill em up; there all night, you don't have to watch em. That's different - that's the reason so many man got cut off, yea.

  [End of Tape]

 

• Oral History Project - Sorrel, Wanda 2025

  
  

  Brooklyn coal community during the last half of the 20th century, coal company stores, Fayette Station road

  Date created:

  06/10/2025

  Audio Transcript

  Interview: Wanda Sorrell (Wanda Pittman) lived in Brooklyn.

  Interviewer: Mallory Meadows

  June 10^th 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?

  WS: Not at this time. I can't think of anything.

  [End of Recording]

 

• Oral History Project - Sydenstricker, Harry 1980

  
  

  Store operator, Company Store, Quinnimont from 1923-1953, life in Quinnimont

  Date created:

  10/16/1980

  Audio Transcript

  Interview # NRGNPP 012

  File NIRGNPP 012-T

  TAPE TWELVE

  Mr. Harry Sydenstricker                                                                                                        

  Interviewer:

  Paul J. Nyden

  Beckley, W. Va.

  October 16, 1980

  PN: To start off, Mr. Sydenstricker, could you tell me where you were born and what date you were born on?

  NS: Yes sir. October the sixth, 1900, at Maplewood, West Virginia.

  PN: What county is that in?

  HS: Fayette.

  PN: Fayette.

  HS: Yes sir.

  PN:  And have you lived in this area in Fayette and Raleigh County your

  whole life?

  HS; All my life, yes sir, with the exception of three years in Charleston

  when I went to school down there.

  PN : What did your father do?

  HS: Farmer.

  PN: He was a farmer?

  HS: Yes sir.

  PN: Where?

  HS: At Maplewood.

  PN: Maplewood.

  HS: That's right.

  PN: And what were your grandfathers doing when they were…?

  HS: Well, he was a farmer too.

  PN: Your grandfathers?

  HS: Yes sir.

  PN: Both of them?

  HS: Yes sir. All my people were farmers. That's right. Though my daddy at one time did work in the mines for about five or six years, before he and my mother were married.

  PN: Where was that?

  HS: At Fire Creek.

  PN: Fire Creek?

  HS: West Virginia, yes, yes sir.

  PN: And what was the first job that you held?

  HS: Well now, the first job that I had outside of working on the farm, I worked in the woods. I was a timber—cutter. I only got a dollar and twenty—five cents an hour. Ten hours a day. One dollar and fifty cents.

  PN: For what, the whole day?

  HS: Yes, a dollar and a half for ten hours.

  PN: A dollar and a half for ten hours?

  HS: Yes.

  PN: Where was that?

  HS: Out in the, it was the Sewell Lumber Company at Landisburg. Yes sir, that's right.

  PN: How old were you when you began?

  HS: Sixteen years old, that's right.

  PN: How long did you work at that job?

  HS: I only worked about two years at that, that's right. Then 1 started to work in the store, delivering, at Lay land, West Virginia. And they had a mule, delivery, you know. Of course, I done stuff be— side delivering. And I later got to be a clerk in the store.

  PN: At Layland?

  HS: Yes sir. And I worked there four years. And the mine shut down, and I went down to Charleston to Capital City Commercial College, and took a business course —— bookkeeping which it is principally. And I finished that in about nine months. And I worked down there about two and a half years. And then I come back to Lay land, I was payroll man, you know, with bookkeeper; we call it payroll clerk. And worked about a year and a half, and they wanted to transfer me to Minden. Well at that day and time, honey, there wasn't no roads over in here. If you went anywhere, you went on the train or you walked. There wasn't no roads up in here at all, nowhere. So I had a chance to get a job at Quinnimont, and I went there in 1923.

  PN: In Quinnimont?

  HS: Yes sir. And I went there from 1923 to 1949, that's right.

  PN: What was your job there?

  HS: Well, I was the store manager, and a payroll man, some, partly that, but mostly store manager, though I did do some payroll work. It was a smaller place, I mean you know, we didn't have, like at the larger companies more office force. They usually had one man for payrolls and bookkeeper, and then one man for store manager. I took the payroll job first. That was open. The store job became open about six months after I take the payroll job. And when I took that, why take it as I [?]. Well, I had work with those people the Beurys until 1953 till they closed down every place. I was later, after they sold the place there, I went right on to work at Laurel Creek as a extra office man, and a fill—in store man when somebody was sick, or on vacation, relief man. I was carried on the payroll at Laurel Creek. And I had the store become vacant at Hemlock — what we called the Hemlock, the Laurel Smokeless Coal Company at Hemlock — I was there seven years. And then they needed a man at Fayette Station; they bought that place down at that bridge down there. You know where that big high bridge is, don't you?

  PN: Yea.

  HS: Well my little old store was right down on there, right on the bottom.

  PN: At the bottom of the bridge?

  HS: Where the bridge, you know, up on the old road. Have you ever been on that old road down there?

  PN: Yea.

  NS: Crooked, ain't it? Right by the old bridge, on the other side. 1 was there two and a half years until they sold that place. Then I went back to Laurel Creek as extra payroll man or store man either one they gave me to do. And the last job I has was in 1953, with the Bellwood Coal Company, which was owned by the same people.

  PN: The Beurys?

  PN: Beurys and the Lawtons, yea. And when they closed that out, I come up here.

  PN: And you 've lived here since?

  HS: Yes sir. And I worked for the Klein Distributing Company as a warehouse— man for four years, that's 1953 to '57. And I worked for Dearing Brothers Stores; he used to have a store over here a retail store where they got all this machinery and stuff now. You see, he don't have no store now, no grocery store. Till they went into this machinery business. And then I went with Franklin Lilly, the insurance company, and I worked about four years for him. And then I seen the chance to do better, and I went with the Reserve Insurance Company. And I worked nine years for them, and I had a heart attack in 1972, and had to quit. That's it. I am now 80 years old.

  PN: You're looking pretty good to me.

  HS: Well, I have a heart condition, and I have to be awfully careful. There ain't much I can do. And other things, of course; my heart's the main one I guess.

  PN: The guy right up on top of the hill, do you know him Nick? He had a heart attack about a month ago, or a month and a half ago.

  HS: A bad one?

  PN: He seems to be OK, cause I was talking to him the other day.

  HS: Oh. You know, you see, they was born and raised right down out here on this ridge. We call it down on the ridge. Well, they had a dairy farm they stay on. Giampalo — those people are Italians; good people, yes sir.

  PN: Let me ask you some questions about Quinnimont. You stayed in

  Quinnimont, you said, between 1923 and 1949?

  HS: Yes, that's 26 years, lived there.

  PN: And you ran the company store, right?

  HS: That's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right.

  PN: Where was the company store in Quinnimont?

  HS: Well, have you been down there?

  PN: Yes.

  HS: Course now, you know there ain't nothing down there now, don't you? Well, it set over in that bottom there. Well, honey, can you get that picture off that wall? [He is asking his wife to get a picture of Quinnimont down from their living room wall.] Cut that off a little bit there.

  PN: So the company store there more or less looked like some of the houses?

  HS: Well now, the store, honey, originally built there was burnt down.

  PN: It was?

  HS: Yea, they had a real, real nice one over next to the depot. And burned down. Well, this is a quick make—up—thing job, and had to get it done right quick. I don't know, but I really believe it, that was a dwelling house transferred into a store. Cause It was a small white building. But the other one was a real dark color. Now that was before I got down there.

  PN: So by the time you got down there in 1923…?

  HS: Well, this is the one, this is the one, right there [pointing to the old photograph], That was the one right there.

  PM: That used to be a place that people lived in, they changed that to a store?

  HS: That's right, that's right, that's right.

  PN: What did most of the people in Quinnimont do?

  HS: Railroad.

  PN: Railroad?

  HS: Yes.

  PN: Did many people have cars then?

  HS: There wasn't no road down there, honey. There might two automobiles in Beckley, not over five. They had about a hundred maybe in Charleston. There wasn't no roads. Why you had to be a rich man to have a car then. One of them little old Fords was, my first Ford in 1919, I paid $690.

  PN: What, you had a Ford in 1919?

  HS: Yes, that's cash. Now when I got to move to Quinnimont, I had to leave that car out at my daddy's, and I sold it to my cousin for $200. Just to get rid of it.

  PN: When you ran the store, what types of things did you sell?

  HS: Oh, well, I, we had meat and produce of course, and groceries of all kinds, and dry goods just like a general store.

  PN: A general store?

  HS: Yes sir.

  PN: Did all of the things you sold come in on the C. and O. Railroad?

  HS: That's right.

  PN: Everything?

  HS: Yes sir. Why there wasn't no roads; there wasn't no trucks.

  PN: Did you have refrigeration there at the store to preserve meat?

  HS: Yea, yea. Now they had an ice house there, ice plant.

  PN: Oh, they did.

  HS: Yes, they had an ice plant there at Quinnimont.

  PN: Did many of the people that lived there, did they have ice boxes in their homes?

  HS: Yes sir, they did.

  PN: And they'd [get] ice from the ice plant?

  NS: Yes, yes. The boy that run that, his daddy and the boy together, they would deliver three times a week, this ice. Cut it off the block. Now you 've seen them big blocks of ice, I know you have. And I had a refrigerator, or the company did. I had a refrigerator down there, honey, as big as a kitchen, that kitchen there.

  PN: A refrigerator as big as a kitchen?

  HS: Yes. And I could put in, let's see, three [of] them big blocks, yea. And I didn't have to wait till delivery time. I would call over there and tell Mr. George, "Bring me some ice.

  PN: From the ice house?

  HS: Yea, bring it over.

  PN: Did many people in Quinnimont raise gardens too?

  HS: No place down there for them, honey, no. There was some of them had small gardens, lived back on the hill. There was some houses back up on the hill, come back up this way. Now you know where the road goes right on down in there? Now there's some houses on around up here this way. A few of them had their gardens. But there's no place there…

  PN: But people that lived on the bottom didn't have any?

  HS: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, nowhere for a garden there.

  PN: Did anybody have any animals of any kind there?

  HS: No sir, not a thing.

  PN: So mostly the people bought their food strictly then from you at the company store.

  HS: Yes, that's right, that's right.

  PN: You said that the Beurys owned the store?

  HS: That's right, that's right, yes sir. Yes, they owned it.

  PN: The Beurys, even though Quinnimont was a railroad town, did the Beurys own most of the town?

  HS: They owned everything down there. Oh, they had a mine there a long time ago. You see, that was the first place any coal was shipped down in there .

  PN: In 1873?

  HS: 1873. There was mines on back up, see what mines was there was on back up the hollow from the town.

  PN: Towards Layland?

  HS: Yea, going up that way, up that way .

  PN:  And the Beurys owned that?

  HS: Oh yea, yea, yea.

  PN: Where did the Beurys live?

  HS: Out of Philadelphia, most of them. One or two of them lived in Charles— ton, but the big ones lived in Philadelphia, yea.

  PN: When you came there in 1923, did you have a radio?

  HS: I got one in '25.

  PN: Did many other people have radios then?

  HS: Well, there's several. It was battery radios then. You can't remember that; that's before your time. Yea, we had to have a battery as big as a car battery, and then a, two other batteries, yea.

  PN: You had to have three batteries?

  HS: You had to have three batteries, the one I had. I had a Crosley.

  PN: What programs did you and other people listen to?

  HS: Well, there was Nashville, WSM I reckon they called it. And, and "The Barn Dance" — the one there in Chicago, I don't know what they called it. Can' t remember that. There was only about four places. Just Nashville, WSM, Nashville. And WBKW, that's Pittsburgh.

  PN: That would be KDKA, wouldn 't it?

  HS: Oh, whatever it was. Now the prairie farmer station in Chicago. Let's see, there's Nashville, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and WLW Cincinnati. That's only about all the four places you could get a station.

  PN: What was the station from Chicago?

  HS: The prairie farmer station.

  PN: The prairie farmer?

  HS: The station, but I don't remember the call letters. That's what they called it prairie farmer station.

  PN: So people could listen to these different stations and shows?

  HS: Those were about the only four you could get, that's right, down there.

  PN: What did people do for entertainment down there?

  HS: Well, we had church there. And of course they had for the children to go to. But occasionally, there was school, you know, somebody would have a, come in there with a vaudeville or something like that. Have it up the schoolhouse, you know. But the picture—show house was up here.

  PN: In Beckley?

  HS: Yea. And later it got to be one at Lawton. You'd go on up there five miles. They had a little old cow path up there, five miles up to that. That's all the entertainment there was. That's right.

  PN: But a vaudeville show would come into town and play at the schoolhouse.

  HS: Well, no, that's a, I mean, that's Silas Green, a musical, come once a year. They are minstrel.

  PN: The minstrel show?

  HS: Colored minstrel, that's what I mean.

  PN: Oh really?

  HS: Yea, they come down there once a year — July Whole railroad carload of them Silas Green from New Orleans.

  PN: What, they travelled all around the country?

  HS: Oh yea, they used to come up here and go down on the Gulf and I don't know all that too.

  PN: How long did they stay in Quinnimont?

  HS: Oh, just one performance.

  PN: One performance?

  HS: Saturday night. Usually July or August. Stay on the railroad car, a whole railroad carload of them.

  PN: What did it cost to get in?

  HS: I really don't know. I didn't have to buy anything. I mean, you know, I working there, and they give us $20 for to use the lot. We had a great big vacant lot out there in front of the store they set the tent out. And I got a good many passes from them, you know, for the people that worked for me and the old boys down there going to help me clean up this mess after they left. And I believe they first charged 50 cents, and they went to 75, and I believe it finally wound up as a dollar. But they quit coming in 1928 or 1929, I'm not sure which.

  PN: What was the show like?

  HS: They were minstrel. Oh, just singing and dancing and carrying on. You know what a minstrel show is don't you? Colored people, singing and dancing, and banjo. Well they had a little old band, a little old I don't know what; they had a drum and trombone noise; more noise than there was music.

  PN: Did they sell food and things there.

  HS: No. We didn't allow them to sell nothing. Nobody didn't sell anything but the coal company.

  PN: So the minstrel show couldn't sell…

  HS: No, no. I put up a pop stand over there, ice cream, temporary you know. I worked that, and the boy that worked at the store, we worked that out — sold pop and stuff like that. The boy would come there too.

  PN: Did you sell hot dogs or sandwiches too?

  HS: No, didn't make no hot dogs, no. I just made the ham sandwich, cheese.

  PN: You sold them?

  HS: Yea, and the pop, when they come out.

  MS: How many people would come to a show like that?

  HS: Whew. I don't know how many people did come to the whole thing.

  MS:[From the living room] Two hundred to two fifty.

  HS: Oh more than that. When old Thayer was running, when Thayer was a running down there, and Greenwood, and Layland, and Laurel Creek.

  PN: So people came in from all around?

  HS: Oh, Saturday night, yea.

  PN: So maybe three or four hundred people would be there?

  HS: I would say at least 350 people.

  PN: At least 350?

  HS: Yes sir.

  PN: On a regular Saturday night, would people come in from some of the other towns to come into Quinnimont?

  HS: Well, we didn't have nothing down in there. They just come once a year. Before they come, they come there three weeks in advance. You know, this man just like you, with all this stuff — advertising. He'd go up here and other places and post up a few, you know, around. Everybody knew he was coming, oh Lord. Silas Green coming, honey, they were going to be there.

  PN: That was the biggest event of the year?

  HS: Oh yea, there was a lot of colored people down…

  PN: Pardon me?

  HS: There was a lot of colored people down there, you know. It's a colored minstrel show.

  PN: A lot lived in Quinnimont?

  HS: Oh yea, we had about half colored, 40% colored anyway.

  PN: When was this, in the twenties?

  HS: Yea, or any time.

  PN: Any time?

  HS: Yea.

  PN: Did most of them work on the railroad too?

  HS: Oh yea, trackmen. You see a lot of them's trackmen. You see we had at one time, we had Mr. Martin and Mr. Plumley and another man — Mr. Tate. We had four section crews there; and each one of them is eight, you see. That's 32 men. And then they had people down around the depot unloading the trains, and all them was colored people. And there was various things they could do. You know, we got along good down there. There wasn't no race riots or nothing. If they were working in the garage, why we would eat dinner — "Come on and sit down and eat here.”

  PN: So both the Black and white people would eat dinner together?

  HS: No, they didn't have all this here nasty fee 1 Ing, not down there they didn't have it.

  PN: Did people go into each other's houses and everything?

  HS: Well, no, they didn't like that. But I mean if they was working, if they was working for you, lots of times, you know, you had to have somebody to clean your windows or wash for you or something. Now that's the way we done it. 1 don't know what other people done. And they had a church there - colored people.

  PN: Oh yea?

  HS: Oh yea, I 've been to their church, yea. They used to come over in our place. There's no need of having this, all this old nasty feelings. It's no good; nothing but the devil that's all it is. You can't do right like that.

  PN: So there were two churches there?

  HS: Yes sir. They were both Baptist churches. And I was the song leader in the white church, yes. I wasn't the best in the world, but I…

  PN: Did you have a regular minister there?

  HS; Oh yes, No, he wasn 't full-time. Half-time, we called it half—time — two Sundays a week, a month, you know.

  PN: How about the other Sundays? What would…

  HS: Well now, we just had Sunday School. First and third Sunday was the preaching service, you know.

  PN: How about in the Black church, did they have a full—time minister?

  NS: Well, half—time, about the same as ours. I don't know what Sundays they had their services. I didn't go there often, but I went sometimes.

  PN: Did they have services in the middle of the week, like Wednesdays,

  HS: I don't know. I’m not sure about that; I 'm not too sure. But they had Sunday services, Sunday School. They had a Sunday School same as we did.

  PN: How about in your church did you have services in the middle of the week?

  HS: Yea, yea, they did. They had a prayer service every Wednesday night, a mid—week service. And Sunday School every Sunday morning.

  PN: Did many people like to go to church just to meet other people, and see their neighbors, and things?

  HS: Well, I don't know whether they went out on Sundays to see and be seen or not. Now 1 believe that most of them went to church because they was interested in the church. And of course, a lot of them didn't go. And a lot of them ended going up here. But if you wanted to see everybody down at Quinnimont, you'd go down there when the trains come in at noon on Sundays. There's one train come in at twelve — around 12:00 0'clock, 12:15    and another one about an hour and a half later. And there you would see everybody. That was the place to gather.

  PN: Why did they come down there then?

  HS: To see and be seen, highballing around you might say. Now I didn't go, no, no, no, no, no. I went to church, went home, eat my dinner, and turned on the radio. It wasn't nothing to me if anybody wanted to come in on the train. I didn't care who comes in. See the train come down from up there like this. Let me explain to you now. Now, there's Piney Creek — that's what we call this creek going down out of here trains, each day now this is, coming down there at 11:45 in the morning. Now, next train — Number Fourteen, coming up from the west.

  PN: From Charleston?

  HS: Yea, eastbound. It leaves Huntington. The next train come in at 12:30 —

  Train Thirteen, westbound; at 1:15, this one goes back; Piney train returns

  2:30 into Beckley; back to Quinnimont at 5 in the evening. Laurel Creek

  train, there's one going up there, there's one trip up and one trip back a day.

  PN: One to Laurel Creek and back?

  HS: Well, what's called Lay land, bottom of the hill there. Just a passenger, now, you know, come out, and the express. While this train left, that Fourteen come in here, where is Fourteen? No they let Thirteen come in here; Thirteen come in here. This train left at about 1:45, if they could get everything unloaded up there, to Layland. Now they left Layland — Lawton at about, near as I can tell you, some of this is not exactly right, thirty in the morning to Quinnimont. You see, there was a junction down there, transfer, you know, to Quinnimont. Now of course, now, maybe you can't understand it. If you can't understand.    [These memories of the trains are somewhat difficult to understand.]

  PN: So Quinnimont was kind of a center.

  HS: Yea, yea, that's right, a terminal, a terminal in a way.

  PN: And trains would come along the gorge from Huntington and go down

  toward Hinton, and then there's be branch lines going up to Layland?

  HS: Oh yea, and coming up here [referring to Beckley] .

  PN: On Sunday morning, or Sunday, when the train came in and all the

  people gathered, was anything sold from the train? Did they sell newspapers or things like that?

  HS: Oh yea, yea. They had papers on there.

  PN: What else did they sell?

  NS: On the train?

  PN: Yea. You know, when they stopped at Quinnimont, and people bought stuff, did they buy anything else besides newspapers?

  HS: Well, I don't know about that, mostly papers off the train. Now we had a lunch down there at Quinnimont - Quinnimont Lunch. Right across from the depot; shucks, we had everything in there.

  PN: And who ran that — you?

  HS: Part of the time I did.

  PN: And that was owned.                             

  HS: Yea, it was owned in conjunction with the store.

  PN: Was that part of the store, or was it a different building?

  HS: Oh, it wasn't in the same building the store was in, but it was runin conjunction with the store.                        

  PN: It was called Quinnimont Lunch?

  HS: Yea, Quinnimont Lunch, yea.

  PN: Who used to go there for lunch, people coming off the train?

  HS: Oh yes. Now we had hot dogs there and hamburgers too.

  PN: Did people who lived in Quinnimont go there?

  HS: Well, some of them did. But it was transit trade people travel ling on the train getting off down there to get something to eat.

  PN: So it was mainly transit trade?

  HS: Yes.

  PN: Did you have many immigrants from Europe living in Quinnimont?

  HS: No, the people were all American people — had white and colored.

  And I 'll tell you, and I'll tell you, about 40% of them was colored people.

  PN: But there wasn't Italians or Polish people or Hungarian people?

  HS: Well, not very many of those, no sir.

  PN: Let me ask you another question. How about in the twenties when you came there that was during Prohibition did, was it easy for people to get alcohol?

  HS: Honey, I didn't drink. Course, I don't…

  PN: How about the other people, though? Did many people drink?

  HS: There's too many of them did, yes.

  PN: How did they get the liquor?

  HS: Well now, you know, back on the hill, there on Highland Mountain, they made whiskey up there. I didn't see them make it. I didn't buy any of it. And I don't know they made it, but I do know, I do know they made it, in a way, because people was getting it up there.

  PN: Was it moonshine?

  HS: Yes, that's what it was. Highland Mountain.

  PN: Who would make that and sell it? Would somebody work full—time at making moonshine, and make a living off of that?

  HS: I don't know what they got for it. I gather they got all they could, 1 reckon. They caught them once in a while.

  PN: After liquor became legal again, did they have any bars or saloons in Quinnimont.

  HS: No, no, we didn't have that here in this state, you see. Now, you mean

  before, see at one time, all right now.

  PN: In 1932 and 33?

  HS: No, no, no, liquor store, that's all.

  PN: Those were just state stores?

  HS: State store, yes. Closest one was up here [in Beckley]. There used to be, 1912, there used to be saloons. That's just like a grocery store, you know, in West Virginia. Now, there used to be a saloon, saloon in Quinnimont then. And there was one in Prince. But, you see, when they moved it out in 19, I don 't know what it was, 1920 1 reckon, I can't be sure, 1918, I think it was. And then when President Roosevelt got back in, was voted back in again, in this state now I don ^r t know what they done somewhere else now this state passed a law that it is to be handled in these state stores. And, you know, it's just like it is now, you go down here to Sprague, or so on. And that's the way they handled it.

  PN: But there were no, you couldn't buy liquor by the drink anyway?

  HS: No, none of that. I don't know a thing about that.

  PN: Let me ask you another question about the store. When you were operating the store, how did you arrange credit for people?

  HS: Well, that was up to me. The man said now, when I taken this store, the man, now I mean the big man — "You run this store, and don't you let these salesmens run it.”

  PN: Who said that? Beury said that to you?

  HS: Mr. Lawton, he was the general manager for Beurys, yes. Now, when it come to credit, I used my judgment. If I sold you a big bill of goods, and you went up there and didn't pay it, you lost it. But I couldn't have been there 26 years if I done very much of that.

  PN: So you would give credit to people who you were pretty sure would pay

  you back?

  HS: That's right, that's right.

  PN: Did you use scrip at all there?

  HS: Well, you see we didn't have many coal company employees there. Only ice plant people; we had about 12 people worked over there in the summer— time. See the ice plant business more or less, you know, summertime thing around a place like that. Of course now in the cities, I think they run it all the time. Well now, of course, he run that one all the time, but not much. But we had some people worked over there; we give them scrip to use over at the store. There were 12 of them.

  PN: The ice—plant people had scrip?

  HS: Yes. It was all owned by the coal company. It was all the same.

  PN: The Beurys and Lawtons owned It?

  NS: Oh, they owned the whole thing, everything down there, everything between the railroad tracks and the river. They owned everything.

  PN: But most of the people that traded at the store worked for the railroad, right?

  HS: Yea, they paid cash.

  PN: And they paid cash?

  HS: Run accounts and paid cash.

  PN: They did what?

  HS: When we had accounts, they paid cash, paid with cash, that's right.

  PN: But they could charge, or arrange credit with you?

  HS: That's right, with the store manager, yea, that's right, that's right.

  PN: Is most people lived there, though, they would tend to pay you back, wouldn't they?

  HS: I didn't have, very little trouble.

  PN: You had very little trouble.

  HS: Very little trouble.

  PN: Did you sell anything like

  HS: I would order it for you. We had no room to keep it, honey. I kept mattresses and chairs and a few things like that, but we didn’t have nowhere to keep them. I'd order, I had a catalog. If you wanted me to order, I’d order any kind of furniture you wanted.

  PN: So if I wanted to buy a table, I would come in to you…

  HS: Yea, that's right, that's right.

  PN:  And you would show me a catalog

  HS: Yea, that's right, and the price. And it would be another week before you'd get, claim the freight. I'd charge you, if you was buying it from me and I was running the store, a very reasonable price, just enough to cover costs of getting it to you. Oh, I didn't carry no specialty furniture or keep it. That's right.

  PN: So you would order it special.

  HS: That's right, that's right, that's right, that's right.

  PN: If somebody ordered a more expensive thing, like a piece of furniture, could they pay for that over two or three months?

  HS: Yes, that's right, we'd give 'em payments on it. That's right. Whenever the radios come in, you know some of them — of course you can't remember nothing about it —— but you could scarcely get one of any size under a hundred dollars, a hundred and fifty, two hundred dollars. Well, it's all right, I could take care of that. And then when refrigerators come in, a little later on, you know, we had electric refrigerators, I sold them. Now we handled that all right.

  PN: If somebody bought a radio for $150, how many months

  HS: Well, a third d01.m, and then he'd give me so much, depends on how much he was making, how much he wanted to pay on it. I 'd give him a year, a year and a half to pay.

  PN: To pay.

  HS: That's right.

  PN: Did you sell clothing there?

  HS: Yes, we had work clothing for the men. And we had what we call piece goods, you know you know what that is cloth, to cut off, oh yes.

  PN: Did you sell women's dresses, or did they order them special?

  HS: No, no, they had to be ordered special. If they wanted that, that was a special order.

  PN: Many of the women would make their own clothes, though, from the piece goods?

  HS: Oh yes, that's right, that's right, that's right.

  PN: How was the weather down there? What was the biggest snow that you ever remembered?

  HS: Well, there was 30 inches down there one time, wasn't it honey [speaking to his wife]. Huh? Wasn't that big snow about 30 inches? One time about 30 inches, yea.

  PN: Was the weather a little bit better down there than it is up here in the winter?

  HS: It's, well here's what it is. Now you can go right on down there today. It don't seem to be quite that much warmer, but it's anywhere from five to eight degrees down there than it is up here, all the time, yes sir .

  PN: When you worked at the company store, how many hours a day would you put in?

  HS: Oh honey.

  MS: [From the living room] A lot more than eight, I believe.

  HS: Sometime a whole lot more than that, depends on what time of the month it was. I got paid by the month .

  PN: You did?

  HS: Yes sir, got paid by the month.

  PN: From the coal company?

  HS: Yea, paid by the month to run the store.

  PN: So you worked nine or ten hours a day, but some days you worked more?

  HS: Yea, we kept it open about ten hours.

  PN: You did?

  HS: I worked, I, sometimes put in 16 hours in there. Not every day now.

  PN: How many days a week did you work?

  HS: Oh, I kept it open all the time. Six days a week.

  PN: But it was closed on Sundays?

  HS: Oh yea, didn't have it open on Sundays.

  PN: Where did you live? Did you live right near where the store was?

  HS: Well, it's about as far as from me down to the bottom of the hill there, right about a thousand feet.

  PN: Did you hire assistants at the store?

  HS: Yea, I had to have some help. She [referring to his wife] worked down there some and other people too.

  PN: And you ran the Quinnimont Lunch?

  HS: Yea, we had, I had a boy for that. There was about three of us all around, all way around, yes sir. Two besides myself.

  PN: Did they pay you pretty good?

  HS: Well, honey, I wouldn't hardly know. I got a hundred and fifty dollars to start in with.

  PN: A month?

  HS: That's right. I wound up with this much after about, oh let's see, after about 30 years. I wound up with about this much.

  PN: They raised you from $150 to $325 after 30 years?

  HS: And all that responsibility.

  PN: Wow. Did they give you any other benefits?

  HS: No.

  PN: Did they give you a house to live in?

  HS: No, no, we had to pay our rent.

  PN: You had to pay rent?

  HS: Yea.

  PN: Do they give a pension or anything?

  HS: Oh no. All we got was the goods at cost and 10% merchandise, things we got out of the store.

  PN: So you got a 10% discount?

  HS: No, the cost of the goods…

  PN: Plus ten?

  HS: Plus the 10%, above the cost of the goods.

  PN: That's what you got it for?

  HS: That's right , that's right .

  PN: What would you sell it for to the regular customers?

  HS: Well now, I didn't rob anybody. I mean, you know, it all depended on what it was. Now you take a loaf of bread; now bread costs, bread sold for ten cents then. Well, bread would cost eight cents a loaf. Well, that's only two cents. You can't, you can't hardly tell. There was meat 25% I'd say on that. And produce, about that. The most was made on dry goods, which was about 40%. Now furniture, we made more on that. We got about 70% on that. It all depended on what it was. That's right.

  PN: After you retired from being in the company store, you worked for insurance companies?

  HS: That's right, that's right.

  PN: The only pension that you would collect back from the time you worked at company stores is social security?

  HS: That's right, that's right, that's all. And that's all I get from any— where else. Now I got a renewal commission from the insurance company for five years. But you see, when you go in as an agent, you sign a contract that five years after you leave the company, your comission stops, you see. And I got my last renewal check in 1977 from the insurance company. That s just the way it works. Now I  'm an old man sitting here, and haven't got. Well, we got our home paid for; we 're fortunate to have that. And the wife, she worked in the hospital for several years.

  PN: At Raleigh General?

  HS: Yea. But she does a little private duty work now for people, but we're not able to do, neither one of us is able to do anything. We're just over on the shelf, so to speak.

  PN: Do you [feel] happy looking back at all the years you spent with the company store?

  HS: Yea, yea. I'm happy with part of it. Now they tried to kill me down there, in 1932. I'm not happy with that. I was shot through the window.

  PN: Really?

  HS: Oh yea. Shot in 1932.

  PN: How did that happen?

  HS: Well they robbed, tried to kill me.

  PN: They tried to rob the store?

  HS: Yea, did come on in there.

  MS: [From the living room] It started out, he was sitting in his office, and here was a window back of him. And they got over at this window, and he was sitting — we was not married then.

  HS: All right now, just like this—a—way.

  PN: They put a gun in your side?

  HS: No, shot through the window, shot through the window. I laid there, I got 53 shots in that side right now.

  PN: 53 shots? But I guess you must have survived.

  HS: Well, I'm here this morning.             

  MS: And he's 80 years old.        

  HS: Well, I had it pretty rough.

  PN: That was the worst experience you had down there?

  HS: Yea, that is, that's right.          

  PN: Who was that that did that, just somebody passing through?   

  HS: No, it was a pre—meditated job. You see, we cashed these C. and O. checks for them people.

  PN: Oh, for the railroad workers?

  HS: Oh yea. And we get in three thousand dollars money, right this evening. That money was in that safe.

  PN: So they knew it?

  HS: Yea, they knew it. They knew they had to put me out of the way, or they couldn't get in there. But they didn't get in the safe; the safe was locked. They tried to, they knocked the combination off of the safe. And they had a cold chisel and another piece of iron they put in there and pounded. But they didn't get it open. I laid there all night from, one man heard the shots, and he says it was twenty minutes after ten. It happened at ten thirty. Now the boy that come down and work for me the next morning at seven thirty. I'd been laying in there.

  PN: You were lying in there shot this whole time?

  HS: Yes sir. See, when I fell off of that chair, I fell over on this side, and this blood run down in this ear. And that's the reason I can't hear in there now. See I 've had trouble with that ear ever since then.

  PN: Where did they bring you for medical attention?

  HS: Oh, Beckley Hospital, yea.

  PN: Beckley Hospital?

  HS: Spent 27 days up there.

  PN: And then you went back to Quinnimont?

  HS: Yea, after a long time.

  PN: When did you get married?

  HS: December the fourth, 1932.

  PN: That was right after you got shot?

  HS: Yes sir, about two months.

  PN: Well, a bad thing happened, and then a good thing happened, eh?

  HS: Well, I 'm here; that's all I can tell you. Well, that's rough, buddy. Was you in the service?

  PN: No, I was never in the service.

  HS: Well, that's what our boys have to put up with, or worse things. That's right.

  PN: Well there's about one minute left. Is there any other thing you want to add real quick?

  HS: Well, I had a good boss; good bosses, I'll put it that [way]. I 've had good bosses all the places I 've worked. And I was happy with my work. And I was happy with the help I had; we got along pretty good. And that's about all I have to say.

  PN: OK.

  [End of Tape]

 

• Oral History Project - Whittington, John Luther 1980

  
  

  Coal mining - Thayer 1903-05, Terry in the 1910s, Unions in 1921-22

  Date created:

  09/20/1980

  Audio Transcript

  Interview NRGNPP 006

  File NRGNPP 006-T

  TAPE SIX

  Mr. John Luther ' 'Bud" Whittington	Interviewer :
  	Paul J. Nyden
  	Beckley, W. Va.	25801

  September 20, 1980

  PN: Let me start off by asking you what year you were born, and where you lived when you were growing up.

  JLW: Well, I was born in Surry County, North Carolina, around Pilot Mountain. And, October the 17th, 1895. And, when I was five years old, times got hard down there. My daddy had some friends that had come over into West Virginia and Virginia, and they'd come back on a visit and told such fiery tales about how people could make money over there on the New River. And there was lead mines across over there in Virginia.

  And he took out over there and got him a job at that lead mines.

  PN: What town was that?

  JLW: Oh, it was about 1899 or 1900.

  PN: What was the town that the lead mine was in? Where was it located?

  JLW: In Carroll County, just down river, just a little ways from Ivanhoe. And we lived over there for a couple of years, and he got lead—poisoned, working at that, where they taking the lead out of that rocks and stuff.

  They had a big blast furnace there, and they'd haul this here stuff out of there and pour It In a bin up there, and had a big furnace there, and it'd heat it, and the lead would run out of them rocks, just like water, pretty near. And it would run into a bin there. A they had in a big building there that was, they had sand / layers in the bottom there. And they made little places all along, clean out places there, and they'd have, they call them "old sow and her pigs      They'd run this lead into chunks, about that long, about that wide; they'd be about that deep [indicating, with his hands, pieces about 12" x 6" x    And they'd run it down along that deep, and they'd get them pigs filled in there, and they'd put in a couple of hours in cleaning it out. And hauling it out in wheelbarrows and stacking it up. And later they'd load it into box— cars and ship it on the railroad somewhere. And working around that lead, he got sick. And a man come from West Virginia, and he was wanting coal miners. And he's telling them about what they can make; down there about a dollar and a quarter a day was big money, you know, back them days.

  PN: What were they making at the lead mine?

  JLW: They just get that stuff out of them rocks there, and run it into , they called it pig iron, little things, 15 pounds apiece.

  PN: How much money would your father make a day there?

  JLW: About a dollar and a quarter a day.

  PN: Then he could make more money in a coal mine?

  JLW: Oh yes. He could make more money in the coal mine in a week than he could there in a month.

  PN: Really?

  JLW: Yea.

  PN: Wow. What would they pay him once he came up to West Virginia?

  JLW: We come to Powell ton, you know, on Armstrong Creek in Kanawha

  County. We moved from there to Powell ton and went to work in the mines.

  And he worked in the mines until he died. It's all he ever done any more after he started. I never got started in the mines until 1902,

  between two and three; I was between seven and eight years old. And a there fellow come down around on Kanawha River telling big tales about how good mining was, how much money they could make on New River. And he wanted people to come to Thayer down here, and work in the mines. And my daddy come up here, and we come and moved up to Thayer, and went to work in the mines.

  PN:In 1903?

  JLW: About 1903, or something like that. And after, you know, once we got up here, back them days, you know, men had to carry picks and shovels and augers and tamp bars and needles and things like that.

  PN: Tamp boards?

  JLW: To work in the mines with, you know; he had to furnish all, every— thing. And he wanted me to go with him to help him carry his tools up, up on the mountain to the mines. So I went up there with him, help him carry it up to the mine, and took them into the shop there to get them sharpened and worked over so they'd be in good shape to work with. And the old boss come around, and got to picking at me, and he asked me, he said: ' 'How would you like to go to work in the mines. ' t "Well, " I said,  don't know. I never been in them yet. And I said, ^t 'I believe I 'd like it. Anyhow, 1 'd like the money 1 can make at it." He said, “I need a trapper.” And I asked him, I said, ”What's a trapper?" "Well, " he said, “ in the mines,” he said, “we have trap doors to regulate the air, keep the air going around in the mines.” And he said, "We have to have trappers to watch them doors. When they see a driver coming, with a mule and a car, why, they open the door and let him through and go ahead, and keep the door, shut the door back after him.” And he said, "When he comes back, you open the other way, with the empty car.” He said, “You're right there to open and close it when he goes through.” And 1 got started working in the mines right there, and I was at seven years old.

  PN: At Thayer?

  JLW: Yea, old Thayer there. And I worked there till, we stayed at Thayer,

  I guess, about three years. And I don't know what happened, they, something happened that they couldn't sell their coal, or something or the other, and they got down to about one day a week. And some of them said over at Layland , there's a they called it Gentry then.

  PN: They called Lay land Gentry?

  JLW : Uh, huh. It's Layland now, but it used to be called Gentry. They named it after the old superintendent; I think he was a manager of it or something. And we moved over there, and we stayed over there until 1908. And my mother got sick, and we had to take her to the hospital; and when they take her to the hospital, she never did come back. She died; they had to take her down to Shelter Arms Hospital down there on the Kanawha River there, between, I believe it was between Montgomery and Charleston, along the river there.

  PN: What was the name of the hospital?

  JLW: Shelter and Arms.

  PN: Shelter Arms?

  JLW: Shelter and Arms, Shelter Arms, or something like that. And I think it's maybe still a hospital there yet, maybe, I don't know. I ain't been down there for a long time.

  PN: When did you move away, or where did you move to when you moved away from Layland, back to the New River?

  JLW: No, we moved over here to Stanaford.

  PN: Stanaford?

  JLW: It's been called Stanaford 3 lately, but it used to be called Riley. The post office was Riley, and people got it, all the people working there, they just said they lived at Riley. Up there was Stanaford 3 mines was, and they hauled the coal from up there with a dinky down, going from here out through that way, you cross the old tram road. They tore that track up, and it's, they got a little kind of a, oh just a, not a very good road that people goes from down there around Standford 4 and back up, up and down along there, there ain't much of a road there anymore. But there ain't no tram road there any more either.

  PN: What was a dinky, a little car that would go along a wire?

  JLW: They used a dinky with a, it's just looked like a, built the same shape of a locomotive, an engine, only it's a whole lot smaller. And it would take the coal down around the side of the mountain there, dump it; and they'd run it right straight down the mountain there to Piney, Piney River there to the railroad, and put it in the railroad cars. They run a lot of coal there. And we finally got down there at Terry, and Royal. We worked at Royal for a while.

  PN: What year was that?

  JLW: Oh, it must have been, I worked at Royal when I was about 18 years old. It'd have been around 19 and what, 14 or 15.

  PN: When you lived in Thayer, around 1903, 1904, do you remember what the town looked like then?

  JLW: We lived on top of the mountain, and the only time we'd come down off of the mountain was to, women had to come down to the store down

  there on, right by the side of the C & O Railroad at Thayer. And people often, they had, I guess, a hundred or more families lived on top of the mountain around close to the mines. And they all had to come down to the, off of the mountain to go to the store to get something to eat. They had a truck that they'd run up and down the mountain to haul the men up the hill and down from work.

  PN: A truck?

  JLW: Yea, they called it “the truck”. And it was about that high [indicating about 12 inches with his hands] in the up the hill place. In other words, it, going up the, steep as the mountain was, the truck, the bed of the truck was level. It was about, it'd be seven or eight feet high on that lower end, and only about a foot high on the upper end, and that give you a level place to ride on, coming up.

  PN: What did you go up on, railroad tracks?

  JLW: They had, they had a narrow—gauge track up through there to run the monitors on to haul the coal down the hill.

  PN: They had a truck that went up on the monitor track then?

  JLW: No, they had a special track for that truck. It was off, around by

   the side of the monitor track. It, I reckon they made it separate because women and children rode that truck up and down the hill all the time. And that way, it didn't interfere with the mines any way.

  PN: How many, were there houses also along the bottom?

  JLW: They had a bunch of houses on the bottom.

  PN: How many were there?

  JLW: Oh, I don't know how many it was, must have had a hundred down there, I guess.

  PN: So, there were about a hundred on the top and another hundred on the bottom?

  JLW: Yea about like that.

  PN: What did the houses look like?

  JLW: Oh, them down at the bottom there at Thayer was nice—looking

  houses. But them on top of the hill, they was more of a Jenny Lind style.

  PN: On the top?

  JLW: On the top. Just anywhere they could find a flat place, they'd chop the trees down, and build a house.

  PN: The houses along the bottom were better built?

  JLW: Oh yes.

  PN: What did they look like. Or, how many rooms did they have?

  JLW: Oh, there's some of them looked like they had six, eight rooms. Most of the houses on top of the hill just were about four rooms. And on they was built more/ Jenny Lind style. They'd take boards, widen it, board ^‘em up that—a—way, and then, two boards going together, they'd put about a four—inch strip over the crack, and it didn't cost so much to build them.

  PN: And the boards in the houses, they were about two feet wide, you

  were saying?

  JLW: The boards in the houses?

  PN: Yea, about two feet?

  JLW: No, they, 12 to 14 inches wide.

  PN: When you lived in the Jenny Lind house on the top of the hill, what

  did you use each of the rooms for?

  JLW: Well, they'd have generally about three bedrooms, and a kitchen and dining room. And they about five rooms to them, and an outside toilet. You never heard tell of a bathroom; if you wanted to take a bath, you'd take a washing tub and get you some water and take a bath.

  PN: Where did you get the water from?

  JLW: You'd get a well—digger to come in there and drill wells. And they'd put a pump in it, so you could get the water out.

  PN: Did you have a pump in the back yard?

  JLW: They'd put a pump, drill a well out, oh, every, every, oh every two or three hundred feet, they'd dig wells, so people wouldn't have so far to carry their water.

  PN: Let me ask you about the furniture in the different rooms. In the kitchen, what would you have in your kitchen?

  JLW: You'd have a little, put some boards up in the loft there to, right over the petition, so they'd have a good foundation under it. And way up next to the top of the room, why, they'd build a chimney from there up, let it go, stick out up the top of the house. And you put your stove pipe up in the ell—point, run it into, run it into that chimney, they called it.

  PN: Was that a wood stove?

  JLW:  No, a coal stove. Yea, most of them, they'd use coal.

  PN:  Yea, what else did you have in the kitchen?

  JLW: Well, you'd put in whatever you had, a table. Most people had a cupboard, or something like that, to keep their dishes in, things. What they didn't, some of them would have closets in them to, little room in the corner somewhere there to store their food stuff in, try to keep the rats out of it, eating it up before they got to it.

  PN: What did you have in the dining room, a table and chairs?

  JLW: Table and chairs, about all.

  PN: And the other three rooms would be bedrooms?

  JLW: Uh huh.

  PN: Did you buy most of your food at the company store, or did you raise some of it.

  JIN: They raised what they could. And what they couldn't raise, they had to buy at the company store.

  PN: What types of things did you raise?

  JLW: Oh, potatoes, and beans, and corn, and punkins, just like most farmers would raise.

  PN: Did you have any animals?

  JLW: Well, back them days, you could keep about all the chickens you wanted, but they [the coal company] didn't care nothing much about your keeping a pig, unless you would fix you a pen, and pen it up, and it wouldn't bother nobody.

  PN: So most of the miners would only have chickens?

  JLW: Chickens, and some of them had em a cow. You could let, just in the mountains, you know, you could let your cow run loose. And he wouldn't bother nobody.

  PN: But if you had a pig, they wanted you to make a pen for him?

  JLW: If you had a pig, you had to build you a pen, so it wouldn't root up nobody else's ground.

  PN: Back then, in 1903 and 1904, what did you do for entertainment, or fun?

  JLW: Well, they'd, there just wasn't much fun to be had [laughs]. Now down at Thayer, when we lived down there, they had a saloon down there at the bottom of the hill. And the fellows would go down there and get

  'em a quart or a pint, whatever they could spare money to buy it with. And a bunch of em get out and sit around and play cards, to entertain their selves.

  PN: When would they do that? Every night, or just on the weekends?

  JLW: Just of the evenings and Saturday nights and Sundays. There wasn't no churches much at that time.

  PN: If somebody wanted to go to church, where would they go?

  JLW: Sometimes they'd have to leave, leave home and leave the camp what they was in. And some of the camps, after they got started pretty well, they'd build em a school house. And I don 't know, some of them claimed that the companies would donate a little money towards hiring teachers for the school. But back them days, the county didn't furnish no schools around the coal camps.

  PN: Was there a schoolhouse in Thayer when you moved there?

  JLW: Yea.

  PN: But there were no churches?

  JLW: No, they'd use the schoolhouse to have prayer meeting, and once in a while, a preacher would come in and preach 'em a sermon.

  PN: When were the prayer meetings? During the week or on Sunday?

  JLW: Well, they'd have them Sunday, and maybe one night a week, about the middle of the week.

  PN: You were talking about card games. What types of card games did miners usually play?

  JLW: Oh, setback, pinochle, and just whatever they knowed how to play .

  PN: Did they play poker ever?

  JLW: Yea, they played poker.

  PN: Did people usually bet on it?

  JLW: Oh yea, they'd, playing poker they'd a, sometimes a fellow' d win much as a dollar in a whole evening 's playing. Maybe play a half a day on Sunday, and he'd either lose or win —— one, you know; hardly ever more than a dollar changed hands. Cause they just didn't have it. When he lost his money, he had to get up and leave.

  PN: When you lived in Thayer, were there many Black miners that lived there. Or were they all white?

  JLW: I don't think there was many at that time down there. A few' d come up, come up the mountain; there was no colored people on top of the mountain at that time.

  PN: How about immigrants from Europe, like Hungarians, or Italians, or Polish people?

  JLW: Now, Layland had a lot of them. But over there at Thayer there was no, I don't know that they, they just didn't have no foreigners over there.

  PN: Around Thayer?

  JLW: No, I don't remember seeing one while I was over there, when we lived at Thayer.

  PN: You were talking before that the houses at the bottom, or in the bottom land, were better than the ones at the top of the mountain. %at, were there any differences in the people that lived in the top and the bottom? How could you move to the bottom? Or what was the reason that you lived in one place, as opposed to the other?

  JLW: Well, the a, at the bottom there, the superintendent and the general manager and bookkeepers and store clerks and others like that, they lived at the bottom. And they had a whole lot better houses than the coal miners did. Even them, the few miners that lived down at the bottom, they didn't have as good a houses as the outside employees had.

  PN: What was the company that owned that town then?

  JLW: At Thayer?

  PN: Yea.

  JLW: Ephraim Creek Coal and Coke Company. And I don't know where they got that "coke company" in it, because I never seen a coke oven down…. They had coke ovens at that time around down on Kanawha River, down there at Cabin Creek Junction, and across the river from Cabin Creek, over there on the K & M side, they had coke ovens down there. But they wasn't none up around Thayer. Well, in fact, I reckon that they just didn't have the ground for em; the river went down through there and then the railroad there on the bank of the river. And they just wasn't nowhere left for to build coke ovens, I reckon's the reason they didn't have 'em.

  PN: They had some up at Sewell, didn't they?

  JLW: Sewell; I think that's about as far up as they come.

  PN: Did you, you lived in Thayer even later, do you remember any sports teams or baseball teams that the miners would have?

  JLW: No, I don't remember them having any ball teams. Only the kids were playing around the schoolyards, and they played a little ball.

  PN: But there weren't any, back at that time there weren't any organized baseball leagues?

  JLW: No, I never seen any.

  PN: Were there any later, when you lived at Terry?

  JLW: No, the, Terry 1 don 't reckon ever had enough players to play ball, and there wasn't no place down down there for them to play anyway, right on the bank of the river. You could stand on the store porch, and throw a rock in the river.

  PN: Were there any roads, in Thayer or Terry, were there any roads that went through the town, or dirt paths, or what?

  JLW: Yea, they had a road that you could go from McCreery down to Terry.

  And if you want to, you could go on down, and go plumb on down to the old Gwynn place. There were two brothers owned property down there, the

  Gwynns. One of them was Louis Gwynn, he was a, he was a good carpenter. He done the carpenter work in that Terry mines. And Loomis, his brother, lived on down on down the river about two miles below Louis. I never knowed of him working any. He just laid, he had a pretty good farm down there on the banks of the river and a lot of girls and boys there to work it with. And he just depend on farming. And I guess he made a better living than most of them did that was working in the mines.

  PN: What town was that, that he lived in?

  JLW: Oh, about 1904, 1905?

  PN: What town was that?

  JLW: Huh?

  PN: What town, was that Prince?

  JLW: No, it was down the river below Prince. It was between Prince and Thayer . In fact, it was down, it's down there across, Loomis lived right straight across the river from McKendree Hospital. The only hospital there vas from Thurmond up, between Thurmond and Hinton, I reckon, was that hospital there. It was built on one of them benches on the side of the mountain.

  PN: How did you go from town to town? If you wanted to visit somebody in another town, how would you go?

  JLW: Well, there's, according to, some people had a horse or a mule they'd ride. Others had to go on foot.

  PN: Did the train bring you?

  JLW: You could go up and down the river. There was a train went down just a little before dark; and there's a train went up early of a morning, I believe it was called Number Four. And Number Two went up along about six or seven o' clock of a night. And they called them "fast trains"; they didn't stop, only just at certain places. And then about the middle of the day, there at Thayer, about middle of the day, two trains, passenger trains, they stopped at every station; and one of them was, I believe it was Thirteen a 'going down, Thirteen 'd go down; and Fourteen would come up. 

  PN: Cars?

  JLW: The number of the train. That's what they was called —— Thirteen and Fourteen. Just one went each way. And they'd generally pass each other somewhere right around, from around between Quinnimont and Thurmond. There was a double track, you know; they had a double track down on the New River.

  PN: What is the first memory you have of the United Mine Workers?

  JLW:  1902.

  PN: Maybe you could talk a little bit about that. How active was the union then?

  JLW: Well, down along Kanawha River, they had a pretty strong union down there. But up in the mountains, along New River, they didn't get the union started in there until, oh, I done got old enough to work in the mines, and I was loading coal, braking on the motor, and one thing and another.

  PN: What year was that?

  JLW: It must have been somewhere in the teens.

  PN: Is when the union first came into New River?

  JLW: Yea.

  PN: Why, would you say, it was stronger in a place like the mines up along the Kanawha River, and not as strong in the towns along the New River? What was the reason for that?

  JLW: Well, I don't know. Unless it was, they just opened up earlier, and had more time to build up. Down around, well, you might say from Charleston up the river, there was several mines along the river there, on the Kanawha River, and they, they worked the mines and got the coal out, and they'd run their coal through screens and get the dust out of it and small coal out of it. And they'd put it in the coke ovens and make coke out of it. And then the coal that they put in the railroad cars and shipped it was big chunks. They'd run It through over screens and get all the fine, small chunks.

  PN: And make coke out of the small chunks and then ship the big ones?

  JLW: Yea.

  PN: Where did they ship the big ones to?

  JLW: I don't know. They'd ship it off out, probably out west somewhere.

  PN: For steel mills, or for heating?

  JLW: I don't know what they done with it. When people were buying coal to burn, you know, the lump coal would bring a while lot better price than the fine stuff.

   PN: Was the union broken in 1922, during the big strike?

  JLW: Well, it was. I don't know whether it got plumb broke or not, but they gave it an awful beating.

  PN: When did it come back then?

  JLW: Generally, I don't know whether I was right or wrong, but the way it looked to me like there was so much meanness a going on around when they didn't have no union. And the coal companies just looked like that they'd let ^‘em have the union to keep 'em quiet and work, so they'd work every day. And they got organized around, and they used to get a better class of men working in the mines.

  PN: With the union?

  JLW: Having the union.

  PN: Maybe you could talk a little bit about what you meant by the “meanness" that was going on.

  JLW: There was a lot of places back in them days, where they had Baldwin—Felts detectives. The company would hire them, keep them on the job to keep peace. And instead of keeping peace, they just started meanness a 'going on, because some coal miners get up on the side of the hill, high—powered rifles. And he'd kill him two or three of them Baldwin men before they'd know he was there [laughs].

  PN: Did they have the Baldwin—Felts then in Terry and Thayer and the different towns there?

  JLW: Yea, they had them all over the country at one time down there. Down along the Kanawha River there, they had a lot of them. I worked along in some of the mines down along the river there for, they'd have two and three they'd call them detectives     at each mines to look after the camp. Then even at Layland there, one time that I remember, they had, they had two    they wasn't Baldwin Felts men, but they was company—paid . The company paid them, run, run 'em over the payroll just like they was a 'working in the mines. And they'd, did you ever hear of that fellow Payne. He used to be a head man of the Baldwin—Felts detectives. His name was Payne. He was about six foot and, oh, eight or ten inches; he was an awful big man, but he wasn't fat. He was poor and skinny. He's just a big man, that's all. And him and John Kaylor, John Kaylor was a mainline motorman. And I don't know, he got in with Payne some way or another, and they's travel together of a night. And he finally got a, left over at Layland and went to Eccles.

  PN: Who did? Kaylor?

  JLW: Kaylor. He went to Eccles. He was, I don’t know, I liked him. He’s just a daddy to me. We lived right close to him at a house there at Leyland. And my mother died there at Leyland; we were at Leyland when she died. And my daddy, he went off to work. I don’t know why he left; I reckon he was just lonesome for my mother. And they tried to get him to come; they moved to Eccles. And they tried to get me to come; they moved to Eccles. And they tried to get me to come over there at Eccles and just make my home with them.

  PN: Who did, the Kaylors?

  JLW: Mm. Mm.

  PN: What was he doing there? Was he a miner, or was he working for

  Baldwin—Fe1ts ?

  JLW: He just worked for the coal company. He didn't have nothing to do with the Baldwin—Felts. But he was the law, and they kept them on there.

  PN: The law for who? The company or the county?

  JLW: The company, the coal company. I used to, I went over to his house and stay a week at a time. He'd take me out with him of a night, and let me see what he, how he done it [laughs].

  PN: What did he do, just check to see nothing was happening?

  JLW: That everybody went along quiet, and didn't, he just tried to keep peace. Or at least that's the way Kaylor worked at it.

  PN: Did he get paid a little bit extra by the company for that?

  JLW: Yea. he got a good salary from the company.

  PN: Did he work in the mines during the day too?

  JLW: No, he didn't, he didn't work, it was a 24—hour job with him.

  PN: Is there anything else you think is important to say?

  JLW: Huh?

  PN: Is there anything else you think is important to say?

  JLW: Well, not to me, it ain't.

  PN: So the union, you say was there in 1902. And the union stayed there in most of the New River fields until 1920s; then it was broken a little bit?

  JLW: Yea. Along, I can remember back when they turned the union loose, and they quit talking about the Baldwin—Felts [referring to the reorganization of the UMW in 1933 after passage of the National Recovery Act]. 1 think the coal companies, they just found out it was easier to pay the men a better wage than it was to spend so much for Baldwin—Felts men. I know one time down there on, we'd been down in Virginia, down around Dorchester in Wise County there. And I got, I wanted to come back to West Virginia [Laughs], and I come back, you know, on Cabin Creek there. And I got me a job and went to work on Cabin Creek there, and I 'm, I liked that and was doing pretty good, making pretty good money, making six, seven dollars a day loading coal. And then pay day come, I 'd draw my money, and I 'd draw more money than I could spend from then to pay day again. And I thought I was just a 'doing fine. And I was a 'boarding with a man come to find out, the fellow I was a 'boarding with was an old—time Baldwin—Felts detective. But he was a nice fellow

  PN: Was he working in the mine then?

  JLW: He was working in the mines then? Yea. And I’d been there, I boarded with him, and he was a nice fellow to be around. And he could, he told some awful stormy tales about that Baldwin—Felts people.

  [End of Tape]

 

• Oral History Project - Wicker, Sims 1983 Part 1

  
  

  Hinton Yardmaster

  Date created:

  10/21/1983

  Audio Transcript

  Interview NRGNPP 044

  TAPE FORTY-FOUR

  File NRGNPP 044-T

  Mr. Sims Wicker

  National Park Service

  October 21, 1983

  (Taped at Hinton Visitor's Center, New River Gorge National River)

  JW: Mr. Wicker, I'd like first of all for you to give your full name and the date of your birth.

  SW: My name is Walter Sims Wicker. I was born June 4, 1907 in Hinton, WV.

  JW: OK. And what were your parents' names?

  SW: My mother was from Swiss in Nicholas County, about ten miles up Gauley River. And my father was from White Sulphur Springs.

  JW: Now, what type work did your father do?

  SW: Well, I heard my father tell about when he was a young man he drove a hack from White Sulphur Springs up to... in Pocahontas County to those smaller communities up in there and he worked around the livery stable there at the Greenbrier Hotel at White Sulphur Springs. Then, my mother was a school teacher in her early days. She taught …well, at Glen Jean in Fayette County.

  JW: OK. How many brothers and sisters do you have?

  SW: There were six children, three sisters and two brothers.

  JW: And their names?

  SW: Well, my oldest sister was Madelyn; my oldest brother was Okey; another brother by the name of Fred; and a sister by the name of Mary; and a sister by the name of Lucille. They're all living except my oldest brother, Okey.

  JW: Now, you were raised here in Hinton?

  SW: I was born here in Hinton and just be 'bout three years after I was born, we moved to a little place up the road here called Wiggens.

  JW: Where exactly is Wiggens?

  SW: It's about four miles east of Hinton on the railroad. Ah…on the Greenbrier River. At that time, they had a little store there and a Post Office. In fact, my mother run the Post Office while we the... we were there at Wiggens. And, I went to school my first day at the Wimmer School. It was about a mile and a half back this side of Wiggens towards Hinton. I well remember the school teacher; a fellow by the name of Dodd, stayed at our home. And four of us children were goin' to school, and one winter day when we went to school, why, it started snowin' that morning and snowed all day as hard as it could snow while we were in school. Back in those days, they didn't let you out of school when it got cloudy. You stayed there all day. When we got out of school that evening, the school teacher had to carry me home on his back - the snow was so deep.

  JW: Oh really! How deep was it?

  SW: Well, as well as I can remember, it must have been twelve, fifteen inches . Course, I was just a six year old kid at that time.

  JW:  How many people did you have in school there; how many children?

  SW: Well, they had all grades from the First up to the Eighth. I guess there was fifteen, eighteen children all together. That reminds me, I have an old school roll there that they... just a little two— page card—like tied together with a pink ribbon at the top and had the name of the school trustees on it and the teacher and all the students' names in there. When you read those named over, there wasn't but about three or four different families represented because there was about a half a dozen out of each family.

  JW: Oh, really? I guess so with large families. Looking back when you were growing up there, what are some of the other childhood memories that you can think about?

  SW: Well, ah… I remember, while we lived at Wiggens, one Christmas, they also had a very deep snow that winter, and one of the neighbors  the night before Christmas, we were sittin' around the house there by the fire a tryin' to keep warm, and somebody knocked on the door and Papa opened the door. Why, Santa Claus run in with his pack on his back and turned around and went right back out the door. And one of my brothers took after him in his bare feet out in the snow tryin' to catch him.

  (Laughter)

  JW: Oh, really! Did you ever find out who it was?

  SW: Well, no. I don't remember now, but just some of the neighbors around there. Wasn't too many neighbors. There was an old fellow by the name of Woodrum that run the store, lived right above us. It was probably him cause he was built pretty much like Santa Claus.

   JW:  And your brother took out in his bare feet into the snow, huh?

  SW: Yes. Then I can remember, one summer a bunch of Gypsies came with their wagons and kids and buckets a hangin' on the back of the wagons. And, we'd see the Gypsies comin' and we'd all run and hide because we'd always been told that the Gypsies would kidnap the kids and take them with them.

  JW: Can you think of anything else that sticks in your mind while you were growing up?

  SW: Well, when, ah... we didn't stay at Wiggens too long. Maybe two or three years. And we moved back to Hinton and moved out into the west end of town. They called it a farm, but actually it was just a rocky hillside. Anyhow, my mother and father had bought three or four cows and they'd milk those cows. And my father had a wagon... a little homemade wagon made and bought a burr (sic) mule and my brother and I, we had to deliver milk every evening around downtown and back. That was... I can remember that well because we run into some interesting experiences delivering milk. I remember, my brother, he kind of drove a hard bargain. There was one place where the people had a dog that I was afraid of and I didn't like to deliver milk there. And then there was another place way up on the hill in the dark. So, my brother made a bargain that if I'd deliver all the rest of the milk that he would deliver those two, those two places. And then I remember a boarding house run by a family by the name of Keatley. Mr. Keatley was on the police force and his wife run this boarding house on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Summers Street just across the street from the City Hall. And I usually hit there just about supper time of the evening and I can remember Mrs. Keatley always gave me a big hot biscuit with butter on it, and I looked forward to that.

  JW: What year was this? Do you have any idea?

  SW: Oh, that was around 1914, '15, before the War.

  JW: Is Keatley  K-E-A-T-L-E-Y

  SW: K-E-A-T-L-E-Y, Keatley.

  JW: OK. What was your first job?

  SW: I reckon my first job, other than just some little odd jobs, was workin' deliverin' groceries for R. M. Deeds. He ran a general merchandise store at the corner of Twelfth Avenue and Temple Street. And, ah, I'd work there all summer long deliver in' groceries. He paid me fifty cents a day. And I well recall one Saturday, he usually stayed open until about eleven o' clock on Saturday nights. One Saturday night when he went to pay me off the three dollars for the weeks work, 1 can well remember that he had a two—dollar and a half gold piece that someone had paid him that day for some groceries. And I 'd been admirin' that gold piece, so he went to pay me off he asked me if I 'd like to have that in my pay. I told him, yeah, I'd like to have it. So, he gave me that two dollar and a half gold piece and a fifty cent piece, which amounted to my weeks pay. And, I guess you could might say that I've got the first nickel I ever earned, because I still have that two dollar and a half gold piece.

  JW: Oh, you do? Do you really? It's probably worth a little bit more than two and a half dollars.

  SW: Yeah, that's right. So, I guess it was a pretty good investment at that.

  JW: It sounds like it. What else can you remember when you...you say you got your first job delivering groceries. When did you start with the railroad?

  SW: Well, I worked for several summers carrying and delivering groceries for Mr. Deeds and then, one summer when I was in high school, two other boys and I got a job on the railroad work in' on a section crew just east of Hinton. When we went up and asked the man for a job, he said, "Well" said, "I can give you a job if you can stay at home, because I don't have any room on my camp cars for you to stay on the camp cars." So, we told him well, we'd stay at home. We lived at Hinton. It was about a two and a half mile walk up to where they were workin’. So, we went to work that summer right after we got out of school and worked up to about the middle of August. Then we quit and went campin' and done a little fishin' for a couple of weeks. So, we had a little pocket change to carry us through the winter.

  JW: Now, when did you get your regular job with the railroad?

  SW: Then, ah... well, I graduated from high school in 1925. And, being from a poor family and lots of kids, why, they was just no way that I could have gone to college because back in those days they didn't have too many scholarships to hand out. And, ah… when I graduated in 25, I went to work that summer on the railroad at the roundhouse at Hinton work in' in the Store Department. Then that fall, I transferred to the Transportation Department as a Clerk: I worked as a clerk until 1929 and just before the stock market crashed, I transferred to the Yard as a Yard Brakeman.

  JW: Now, what does that job involve?

  SW: Well, I went to work on the Yard as a Brakeman and just a short time after that, the stock market crash came and business died right then and as a result I was cut off from the railroad, because they just wasn't movin' the trains that they ordinarily moved. If I'd of stayed on as a clerk, I would have kept working all during the Depression.

  JW: You just made the -wrong move at the wrong time.

  SW: Yeah, but anyhow, I left the railroad that winter when I got cut off. I went over to Covington, Virginia and worked for the Western Virginia Pulp and Paper Company and Paper Mill for two or three months. In March, I got a job with David Tree Expert Company in Kent, Ohio. And I went out there and took training with them in tree surgery and worked with them until business improved and I got called back on the railroad. I guess that old railroad blood was just in me and I came back to the railroad and stayed with the railroad the rest of my years that I worked on the railroad. I came back as a brakeman and then was promoted to a yard conductor. Along in the early Forties, I was promoted to Yardmaster and I worked as a yardmaster until I retired in 1972. I worked with the railroad company forty—seven years

  JW: That's a long time. What did your job... let's talk about your tree surgeon job. What did you do there? You 've got me curious. And then we '11 talk about the railroad.

  SW: Well, it was really a fascinating, interesting job. It was a healthy job. It was strenuous work. You, they... we done most of our work around big estates and people that was... really had the money. In other words, I recall one job that we were work in' on in Detroit, Michigan. At that time, it was the President of the Hudson Motor Car Company, we were workin' on his estate. And, we'd go out and trim up the trees around their place and cut out and dead tree limbs and fill cavities in the trees much like you would fill a cavity in a tooth.

  JW: What would you cut with?

  SW: Well, you used chisels and a maul to cut out all the dead wood. And, then you'd give it a paint... paint it with wood preservative and then you'd fill it with concrete and smooth if off smooth and then you rounded off the bark around it so that that bark would grow right back over that concrete. And after a time, why it would heal up to where you wouldn't know that concrete was in there until you started in there with a power saw and then you'd find out.

  JW:  Yeah. And then you'd find out in a hurry!

  SW: (laughter) Right! I recall one day, well, two days, the maid that looked after this man's children, why she'd bring those kids out in the long there to play around and the boss told her, said, "Now, whenever those kids get under the tree where you're workin’, just quit workin' and don't do a thing until they move on." And so sometimes we'd set there maybe thirty, forty minutes while those kids played around, doin' nothing, and yet their daddy was pay in' for it.

  JW: This is while you were up in the tree, huh?

  SW: Yeah.

  JW: Now, what would you do once you cut the limbs? Would you put some kind of preservative on it?

  SW: Yeah. When you cut the limbs, why you had a little pot of somethin' purty much like tar or somethin' that you had a little brush in there and, when you cut a limb off, why you'd paint that over with the coating to keep the worms and the bugs and the moisture out of them. And, ah... when you got through with a tree and come back down, the boss would look it over and say, "Well, there's a shiner up there." And, you'd have to go back and get that, and he was referrin' to where you'd cut a limb off and didn't paint it. Then you had to go back and get that shiner.

  JW: Well, we were talking about the railroad. You were talking about your work with the railroad. What did those different jobs involve? You said you were a yard brakeman. What did that person do?

  SW: Well, the Yard Brakeman was switchin - makin' up trains in the yards. You take a train goin' east from Hinton, coal trains... why... course you had what was called a local freight that went out every morning. And then the local went from Hinton to Clifton Forge. And then you had another local freight that went from Hinton to Ronceverte and then up to Greenbrier to Durbin. You had to make up those trains and make them up in station order as they come to different stations; like Talcott, Lowell, Alderson and Ronceverte. Those local freight trains handled those cars and set 'em off. Except, now, Ronceverte we had what we called a "pick up". Made up cars for Ronceverte and Covington, VA and the rest of it would go on East to Clifton Forge. Well, you'd have to classify them so they'd all be right together, you see. And at that, they was lots of coal up the Greenbrier branch to Durbin and interchanged with the Western Maryland. They'd run those cars out on the pick up. And the paper mill at Covington, VA, they got lots of coal to operate the paper mill and you had to classify that all together. And then anything that went to Clifton Forge or beyond , why you just throwed it all together. When it would go to Clifton Forge, then they'd do the same thing makin' up the trains for, like down through Charlottesville and Staunton and those places.

  JW: Now, you said you were a Yard Conductor, too?

  SW: Yes, well, the Yard Conductor had charge of the... usually two brakemen on a yard crew and a conductor, three men. And, of course, it was the conductor's responsibility to see that the trains were made up into station order. The Yard Master would give the Yard Conductor a list of the train, all the numbers and where the cars went. And it was his job to get them separated and  grouped into their proper sequence.

  JW: Now, you said you were finally Yard Master?

  SW: Yes, I was promoted to Yard Master around in the early Forties . Well, I worked several years before that as an extra man just one job and then another doin' extra work. When I wasn't workin’ a Yard Master, then, of course, I could go back and work my regular job as a Conductor or Brakeman, whichever it might be. Then the Yard Master, it was his job to see that the trains were called on time and made up in the proper order. And, of course, he had to keep tracks cleared to take the incoming trains and get the others called and move out so they could take the other trains in. And they didn't want you to let trains set out on the main line and not get them in the yard, because if you did you had to pay those main line crews additional money for not gettin' them in the yard on time. But, back during the second World War, why we had a tremendous lot of military trains movin', such as troop trains, well all different kinds of war material and lots of passenger trains and all... tryin' to work all the manifestin' trains and the passenger trains and the troop trains and coal trains and the other trains that we were talk in' about, why it was really a... really a tryin' job during the war, now that's all.

  JW: Now, when would you say Hinton was in its heyday as far as the railroad? In the Fifties?

  SW: Pardon?

  JW: When would you say Hinton would have been at its maximum... the railroad here?

  SW: Well, ah... during the Twenties, there was a tremendous boom on the railroad here at Hinton. A boy would get out of high school and go down around the house and ask Sam Garrison, the Foreman, for a job, why, he might ask you who your daddy was or somethin' like that. And chances are, he was a railroad man, too. And he'd tell you, Come on down in the mornin'. Put you to work. And it was just that simple 'bout get tin' a job on the railroad back in the Twenties and ah. long durin' the War, course, they had... they'd hire all the men they could get that the Government would let them have. Course the younger men, why they'd take them into service. In fact, during the service, I was… I was of an eligible age to go into the service, and I actually tried to get into the... a company they were organizin’ of... a Transportation Company of railroad men. When they found out I was volunteer in' for that service, why they wouldn't accept me because they said they needed me on the railroad as bad as they needed me overseas. And I couldn't go to the war. And I had a brother that was old... much older that I, and he was workin' in a furniture store in Beckley and they took him right on in. But, ah, they wouldn't take me and I was a whole lot younger than he was. Then, like I was sayin', back in the Twenties, they had... they just had that roundhouse work in' full of men day and night. Wasn't no problem at all to get work. Course, after the war, the big boom on the railroad during the late Forties and early Fifties, there was lots of work on the railroad. And then when the diesels started hittin' the railroad, why thens when employment started fallin' on the railroad here at Hinton, expecially.

  JW: Somebody once told me that, at one time they would have a passenger train on the hour at Hinton. Is that true?

  SW: At one time, we had fourteen scheduled passenger trains scheduled a day through Hinton.

  JW: Starting when?

  SW: And, ah... well, they run... they usually run pretty close together. In other words, we had No. 3 and No. 4. They operated early of the morning around... of course, the schedule changed at different times, but around from seven to eight o'clock of the morning, as well as I remember. I think at one time, No. 4 came in here at 6:50 of the morning and usually stayed here about ten minutes. And No. 3 came in going west bound at 7:30. And then, a little later on, at about eleven o'clock, you had a train thag wasn't a passenger train in the true sense of a passenger train. It was an express train, but it also   carried one or two passenger cars and you could ride it if you wanted to but it was a slower train because it handled the baggage and express and would spend quite a bit of time at the station. Well, you had that train, one goin' East and one goin' West. And then, along about twelve—thirty, you had a regular passenger train, No. 13, goin' West. And about thrity minutes later, you had No. 14 going East. And then, later on in the evenin' you had No. 5 goin' West and No. 6 goin' East. Then around midnight, you had trains One and

  SW: Two just about forty—five minutes to an hour apart. That's the way they operated through Hinton.

  JW: You had fourteen trains a day... passenger trains?

  SW: Yeah... passenger and express trains.

  JW: I think it's what? Three passenger trains a week now?

  SW: Three. well, yes. Actually... yeah. Three, well, three each way a week, I reckon it is.

  JW: OK. I was going to ask you about your work. What was your wages and hours?

  SW: (Laughter) Well... we never did make the money that these boys are makin' today on the railroad, but... we didn't pay the taxes that these boys pay today now, either. When I first went to work in 1925 as a clerk, my wages was $99.90 a month. And, at that time, a Yard Master made $200 a month. When I retired, I was makin' around $800 a month.

  JW: That's as a Yard Master?

  SW: Yeah.

  JW: I was going to as you about...when you got married, when did you marry and who did you marry?

  SW: Well, I married a girl from the coal fields by the name of Mable Chamberlain. And, when I met her, she was in training as a nurse here at the old Hinton Hospital. Dr. Cooper had the hospital and we slipped off and went to Tennessee and got married...Bristol, TN. December 30, 1930. Back in those days, the railroad paid off on the fifteenth and the thirtieth of the month. And my wife always said that anything we done, we had to do it on payday. We got married on the thirtieth, which is a payday. And our only child was born on August 15, which was payday (laughter).

  JW: Why did you go to Bristol to get married?

  SW: Well, ...I guess it was just because we couldn’t - I don't know, actually. I guess maybe it was because it just was easier to get marriage license down there, I reckon. Back in those days, lots of people went to Bristol, to get married.

  JW: Oh, really?

  SW: Oh, yeah (laughter).

  JW: Talking about this... changing it from the railroad to the river … what do you remember about the railroad crossings, I mean the river crossings, and fishing, boating, swimming in the river? What are your early memories about the river?

  SW: Well, I can remember when there was a ferry across the river there. right there where the old Hinton House stood. Between the old Hinton House and Food land, the street that ran out there went right down to a ferry that crossed the river there. And, of course, I never was up around Bellepoint a whole lot, but when we lived at Wiggens, there was no bridge across the river comin' from Wiggens down to Hinton. The road ran around the hillside above the railroad and then it came down and crossed the railroad at Bellepoint and then from there, of course, went on down to Avis. And there was a crossing there at the bottom of the old Avis Hill, they call it, where the road... crossed the railroad and went up that steep Avis Hill there. I can also remember that a lot of times the old T—Mode1 Fords, if they got low on gas, they had to turn around and back up that hill because there was no fuel pump on automobiles in those days. If they wasn't much gas in your tank, it wouldn't run into your carburetor if you tried to go up the hill, and you had to turn around and back up. I seen a lots of 'em do that. (laughter)

  JW: I'd never thought about that. You said that the ferry crossings was down near where Foodland is today?

  SW: Yeah. There was a ferry right there at the old Hinton House.

  JW: Would that be where the tip of Coney Island is, or what?

  SW: Yeah. Uh—huh. The ferry went right across just below Coney Island and landed over on the other side there.

  JW: OK. When was it they had this ferry?

  SW: Oh, that was back in the Teens. Well, after they built that bridge, of course, it wasn't too long after that they closed that ferry off. And then, here at Bellepoint, why, they just forded the river there before they got that bridge built there.

  JW: You mean you could ford all the way across the river?

  SW: Just across the Greenbrier from the railroad side over to the point there. They just forded there.

  JW: OK. I understand that...

  [END OF SIDE ONE]

 

• Oral History Project - Wicker, Sims 1983 Part 2

  
  

  Hinton Yardmaster

  Date created:

  10/21/1983

  Audio Transcript

  Interview NRGNPP 044

  TAPE FORTY-FOUR

  File NRGNPP 044-T

  Mr. Sims Wicker

  National Park Service

  October 21, 1983

  (Taped at Hinton Visitor's Center, New River Gorge National River)

  JW: …down to the end of Coney Island?

  SW:  Yes. Practically so. There might have been that little cut right down there at the lower end of Krogers there where the water still comes  to, but up here on the upper end, when they built that dam, they put a railroad bridge across right below where this concrete bridge is now up to that dam to haul the material up there to that dam and they used a lot of that gravel out of the river to fill those pilings there where they built their temporary piers across there . And...then the railroad ran on up through the bottom there at Bellepoint. In fact, I was brakin' on the railroad some... well I made several trips up there takin' stone up there and concrete and stuff like that... cement, rather, to build that dam.

  JW: So that was solid except for that one area across from... where?

  SW: Yeah. Uh—huh.

  JW: Now, was that real shallow there or is it...?

  SW: Fairly so, yes. That island over across from Krogers there that you can see, I've seen wagons and... well, it hasn't been too long since there was wagons went across there and trucks pulled it to that island. They used to farm that island and raise corn over there. And, I've seen trucks go across there. In fact, the road still leads down to the river there where they drove down in there.

  JW: Oh, really? Oh, yeah. I remember seeing that. When you were growing up and actually... I 'd like to get your overall impression of the blacks that lived in the area. Were there many of them here in Hinton?

  SW: Well, we always had a fair community of blacks, but they pretty much lived by themselves and quite a few of them worked on the railroad. And they had their own churches and their own school. We had a very, I 'd say, an average black community.

  JW: I understand there was at least one lynching. Is that true?

  SW: Yes. I can't remember personally, but I do know that they had a lynching. It's pretty well covered in the Summers County history. We had this woman C & O operator that worked at C. W. Cabin. At that time, C.W. Cabin was located, oh, about a mile east of where it is now. She worked at this cabin and I understand that this fell or got off a freight train or something and went in there and attacked her. And they lynched him. That's for sure.

  JW: What about immigrants that lived in this area?

  SW: Immigrants?

  JW: Uh—huh. They've got Irish Mountain up there and had Irish people.

  SW: Yeah. There was quite an Irish community. Of course, they have a little church and cemetery there up at Irish corner where there is any number of Irish people buried there. Of course, Catholics. An interesting epitaph there on a tombstone, if you want to call it an epitaph. I don't know whether you ever heard it or not. But, anyhow, I had heard for a long, long time about this engraving on this stone and I wanted to see for myself. So, my wife and I and my children drove out there one Sunday and went up in this old cemetery and I found this stone and it had a quotation on it there that went about like this: "Remember friends as you pass by, as you are now so once was I; as I am now, you soon will be; prepare... " I forget now how the rest of it goes, but it was somethin' about meetin' your Maker, but anyhow, it's kind of wild.

  JW: Seems like I've heard of that, but I haven't seen that one.

  SW: It's there on that stone in the cemetery.

  JW: So you remember any other countries that people came from to this area?

  SW: Well, there was quite a few of the Scotch Irish people. My mother was a descendent from the Scotch. And, ah, we never had too many Jews to ever make a success in Hinton. There was a few that would come in, and, of course, they was always in the merchandise business and they'd open up. But none of them ever stayed too long. And we had one Turk that came here and stayed for several years. A fellar by the name of Joseph; A. M. Joseph. And he opened up a little store. He stayed for several years, but I think he had a pretty rough time.

  JW: What did he sell? What kind of store?

  SW: He had just a regular merchandise store, grocery store.

  JW: He had a rough time? How come?

  SW: I don't know. People just wouldn't patronize him for some reason. And then we had a fellar by the name of Conley, Mike Conley. Now he and his wife opened up a little store out on the west end of town and he just started out with a five gallon drum of ice cream and a box of ice cream cones. He made good. He and his wife rented a room from my mother and lived upstairs over us and they just lived in one room and did their cooking and eating in that room on a little hot plate, I reckon, or something. But he made a go of it. He was an Irishman as well as I remember.

  JW: What year was this? Do you remember? Early 30s?

  SW: That was back... late Teens, I would say.

  JW: I'm curious about the people here at Hinton, Did most people have gardens?

  SW: Yes, most... most people that had room did have a garden. And as a rule, they'd keep chickens and.. they didn't allow hogs in town.

  JW: Why was that? The smell?

  SW: I suppose, yes. Had all that smell.

  JW: The house that you lived in, what did it look like?

  SW: The house I lived in? The one I lived in... the one where I was born has been torn down. It's a parking lot at Jiltuny Cross' place now. The house I was born in was right there between Jimmy Cross' place and the old hospital. But when we moved back here from Wiggens, why we lived in an old two—story frame house. Had an awful steep stairwell going upstairs and a dining room, living room, kitchen, one bedroom, I believe, downstairs, and four bedrooms upstairs . Mother and father slept downstairs and us kids all slept upstairs. And, we had an old... was no city conveniences. We had an outhouse and we had a well up on the side of the hill. And that old well was the hardest thing to pump that you ever saw.

  JW: How deep was it?

  SW: Well, I don't know, but I know that whenever. used to be quite a few hoboes come in on the railroad then and we wasn't too far from the railroad. And whenever trains would stop down there those hoboes would come up and knock on the door want in' a handout. And I can well remember my mother kept a couple of big water buckets settin there and whenever one of those hoboes come along, she would say "You go up to that well and get me a couple of buckets of water while I fix you a biscuit." I knew whenever they'd come back they'd be sweatin' and say that was the hardest pump they ever tried to pump water out of in their life.

  JW: Was it really that deep, or what?

  SW: I don't know... well, I guess it was maybe just the way the well was put in there and it wouldn't pump easy. That was all.

  JW: So, she'd give them a biscuit for their work?

  SW: Yeah.

  JW: I guess they earned it that way.

  SW: She didn't turn them down. She nearly always had something to give them.

  JW: Can you remember when you first had electricity and when you first had your first radio?

  SW: Well, yes. Yes, I can remember both. When we first had electricity, we had moved back up towards town a couple of blocks. And my brother— in—law that had married my oldest sister, he wired the house to put the electricity in. And he worked for the Power Company here in town and he would come out there of the evenings and nights and work wirin' that house. And, the first radio I can remember, a cousin of mine brought one up here that lived down on Gauley River. And he set it up up in the bedroom and you had to listen on those earphones. And you could just hear a very faint sound and it would say, " This is KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. " And we thought that was absolutely out of this world. And you could hear them talk a little bit and sometimes you ¹ could hear a little bit of music. But, that's my recollection of the first radio that came in.

  JW: You don 't remember when that was, do you?

  SW: That was in the early Twenties, I 'd say. Because, that cousin was about my age and he came up here and spent the winter to go to high school and stayed at our house and brought that radio.

  JW: When we 're talking about the Hinton area, I imagine they had some kind of lodges for the railroad. Did they not?

  SW: Oh, yeah. They had what we called the Big Four Labor Organization. And they built that building where the Big Four Drug Store is now.

  JW: Why did they call it the Big Pour?

  SW: They called it the Big Four building because it was built by these four big labor organizations: the engineers, firemen, conductors and trainmen; those four labor organizations. But now, those labor organizations are pretty well consolidated.

  JW: Talking a little bit about the Depression era, do you remember the NRE?

  SW: Oh, yeah.

  JW: What are your recollections of that?

  SW: Well, I never did... never did have to go on to any of their programs. I always hustled around and managed to find some kind of work on my own. When I got cut off on the railroad, I went out to Ohio with the Davy Tree Expert Company. And then when I got called back to the railroad, and I got cut off a time or two for a short period of time, but I always managed to wiggle around and find a job. In fact, I worked on this road here when it was widened and graded up through here. I drove a truck haul in' stone for the culverts that they put in. And then I believe it was 1932 when they first run this gas line across the New River up here. That was before the dam was built and it crossed the river right there where the Conference Center is. You can see the right of way there now where that runs. And I got a job haul in' pipe. Well, one of them was haul in' pipe. They had about five trucks runnin'. We unloaded the steel pipe over here on the railroad and hauled it up New River there. We started... the contract with that man that I was work in' for, he started over on the edge of New River there and went over across the mountains through Marie and down into that section of the country into Picaway.

  JW: I understand that at one time they had big celebrations at Labor Day. Can you remember any of those?

  SW: Well, I remember more of the Fourth of July celebrations more than anything else. Course, the Labor Unions, they usually had a big picnic on Labor Day. But, on the Fourth of July, they always had a big parade and everybody was involved. And they had their brass bands and they'd decorate their cars and their bicycles and their horses. And they'd start, maybe, up at the Courthouse and go out on the west end of town and come back. I recall one particular time when Shad Peck, an automobile dealer here back in those days. Of course, the wheels on an automobile had wooden spokes, more or less like a wagon wheel. And he took two of those wheels and put the hub out of align and put them on the back end of this car and got in the parade and that thing was a bouncin' up and down and the kids all got more kick out of that than anything in the parade. I know I did. Just a watchin' that old car bouncin' up and down as it drove along the street.

  JW: He put the hubs off center?

  SW: Yeah, heah. He put the hubs off center on two of the wheels and that thing just wobbled and shook all over the road.

  JW: I bet it did. I understand at one time Hinton had a lot of saloons. Is that right?

  SW: Yes. Course, I was very young then, but I can recall three of four saloons.

  JW: Can you remember the names?

  SW: I can recall one at the corner of Third Avenue and Summers Street; and then there was the old Bluegrass Saloon down on the corner of Front Street and Third Avenue. Front Street, that's the street down next to the railroad. And then there was another one out next to the corner Of Fourth Avenue and Front Street; I don't recall the name of that one. But... and at one time, there was a hotel between the railroad and the river, right down at the foot of Fourth Avenue. Yes, sir. Over there across the tracks from the Yard Office. And they had a walkway or roadway that crossed right down just below the station and crossed over there and the road went right down to that hotel.

  JW: Do you remember the name of it?

  SW: Ah... I can't recall.

  JW: How big was it?

  SW: It was a pretty good sized building.

  JW: How many stories? Do you remember?

  SW: It was only two stories. It was a pretty good sized building. And they used that section of the river bank for a city dump. They hauled their trash over there and they'd burn it over there. The odor and the smoke came up from that place and it just burned all the time.

  JW: Where was this now?

  SW: Right across the railroad tracks between Third and Fourth Avenues on the river bank. And then, when I was… I can remember back when you got out to the west end of town where the Riverview school building is... it's not used for a school building now; but, anyhow, the road wasn't paved. The road turned up in that holler and crossed the creek and came back out and went on down the highway there. And we lived on down below there. And then, later on, they put a steel bridge right across where the road runs now. And then they built an incinerator at just the far end of that bridge over on the side of the hill there and they burnt their trash, what would burn. And what they raked out, they just pushed it over the hill there. And that stuff there is nothin' but a fill of trash. That's what that is. And then, they built a culvert down through there and kept on fill in'. At one time, that was a wide open holler down through there. But they built that culvert and kept fillin' over the culvert and got the culvert filled up to where the bridge was, they took the bridge out and paved it and put a road through there.

  JW: They filled it in with trash, huh?

  SW: Yeah.

  JW: Now, where was that again?

  SW: That's right at the west end of Temple Street, right at the end of Temple Street there. Right this side of the City Garage. In fact, that City Garage is sittin' on the land that they filled in.

  JW: OK. I know where that is.

  SW: OK. There was an incincerator set right there and they was a steel bridge went right across there.

  JW: Is there anything else you can think about that you'd like to mention? Anything you can think about?

  SW: Well, not in particular. I enjoyed my experience work in' with the railroad. Sometimes, I think there was other things I would rather have done. But, on the other hand, when you consider that you didn't have an education to get into anything that paid good money, why, I think the railroad was good for me.

  JW: Well, when you look back on your railroad career, is there any one day or any one time that sticks in your mind more than any of the others?

  SW: Well, I guess when the Superintendent called me in and told me he was going to give me a Yardmaster job. Would be about the highlight of my railroad career.

  JW: Was that a surprise to you?

  SW: Well, yes it was, to a certain extent. Although the Superintendent we had here at that time had always been favorable to me and treated me nice. And they had... every once in a while Chey had conventions for young railroad men and he nearly always picked me to go to one of those conventions. And I went to several of those conventions. I thought he treated me pretty nice.

  JW: Anything else you can think of that you'd like to add?

  SW: No, I can't recall right now, I reckon, anything else.

  JW: Go ahead.

  SW: One thing I might say, I never was one to go around where disasters or tragedies struck. I know when that steam engine blew up down at C.W. Cabin, I believe was in 1953, I was out here in the river at Bellepoint fishin' and I felt the percussion from that explosion. And, I wondered at the time what had happened. And I just stayed out there fishing. About thirty minutes or an hour later, one of the fellars I worked with there on the railroad hollered out there and told me about that engine blowin' up. Well, I still didn't quit    and go down there. I just kept on fishin'. And then, when the bridge fell up here at Bluestone and killed those six people, when I heard about that, I didn't go up there. I never went up there until two or three days after it happened. I don't know, I just never did have the desire   go around where anything like that had occurred. And the same way with some of the big fires that they had around town. I would just hear about a drowning or something like that. Two little boys drowned over here at the end of this Bellepoint bridge and was work in' on the railroad that day. And their daddy was work in' with me the day they got drowned. Of course, he went up there, but I didn't go. I just never had a desire to go around where tragedy had struck .

  JW: I don't blame you. There's a lot of heartaches there, anyhow.

  [END OF SIDE TWO          END OF TRANSCRIPT]

 

• Oral History Project - Woodson, Dometrius 1980

  
  

  Coal Mining, African American, Kaymoor 1936-1943, Sprague, Skelton, Cranberry

  Date created:

  11/07/1980

  Audio Transcript

  Interview NRCiNPP 020

  File NRGNPP 020-T

  TAPE TWENTY

  Mr. Dometrius Woodson 

  Interviewer:    

  Paul J. Nyden   

  Beckley, W. Va.  25801

  November 7, 1980

  Note: Questions asking Mr. Woodson to repeat things he previously said are the result of having originally conducted the interview with the tape recorded set on "playback" rather than "record. The interview was conducted a second time immediately after the first one was completed, with the switch in the incorrect position.

  PN: To begin, Mr. Woodson, perhaps you could mention when and where you were born.

  DW: I was born in Kaymoor bottom on August the 5th, 1922. I began to work in 1936, when I was 14, at the Kaymoor mine until I went into the service in 1943. When I came back, I went back in the mines at Kaymoor in 1946. I left there and went to England Branch from there. And I left England Branch in '46 and come to Sprague, and been with Sprague New River Company ever since until 57. Worked at Sprague, Skelton, and Cranberry. Last work I done was at Cranberry on conveyors.

  PN: Why did you stop working at Cranberry in 1957?

  DW: Well, they worked out and put me on hand—loading. and I wouldn't hand load at Cranberry. Then I went over here beside the water dam and worked a while in a punch mine for Bill Ellis. And he didn't pay off, and I wouldn't work, and so he cut me off, and so on. I've been doing janitor work ever since.

  PN: In the United Mine Workers headquarters?

  DW: No, I've been working for Ballengee Furniture Company ever since 1951. And then I've been down here, it’ll be 17 years in June. No, I started my 17th year in June. This coming June, if I still be here, it'll be 18, start on my 18th year.

  PN: Let me ask you about your parents again, to repeat the same questions.

  DW: My father was born in Buckingham County, Virginia. I don't know where his parents was born at. My mother was born at Claremont, and moved from Claremont to Sprague. She left Sprague in 1918 and went to Kaymoor, and stayed at Kaymoor until the late fifties. And then she moved to Minden. And stayed at Minden till my daddy died, and then she stayed with my brother, and then she left there and went with my oldest sister in [Elkton], Maryland.

  PN: And you said that your families was one of the last families to leave Kaymoor?

  DW: I think he was about next to the last. I think there was two families when he left, or one, when he left there, when he moved out. He was one of, about the last one that moved out.

  PN: What year was that?

  DW: It was in, it was in the fifties. Because my boy was born, see I got a boy that's 27 years old. He never was in, down in Kaymoor. We carried him to Kaymoor top one time; he waited till we come back up. It was in the late fifties.  We left out there and went to move to Minden.

  PN: What was the town like right before your family left? Were all the old houses still standing?

  DW: Yea, all the houses were standing, but folks there, they had moved them out cause the mine was working out. And just as soon as they could get an empty house somewhere, they would move them into the other coal camps.

  PN: So it was almost like a ghost town there or something.

  DW: Yea, and a couple years after everybody moved out, somebody set the houses on, set a house on fire down there, and they were so close together, they just kept going till they burned them all up but two. And they was up next to, on the other end of the company store up next to Browns. And then they come back and tore the company store down. But that hoist that you go down on, it run several years after that, because they had little punch mine down there. And folks went down there to work in the punch mine.

  PN: At Kaymoor bottom?

  D: Halfway, halfway, the mine was halfway the mountain. I think they closed the store down about six months before everybody moved out. We had to go out on Kaymoor top, or else Fayetteville, to ger what you used.

  PN: Back in the twenties and thirties, as you were saying before, if you wanted to go in and out of the town, how did you do that?

  DW: You went in and out on the train. You had one that would go out, you come in once a day, come in twice a day, one run about eleven and one run about five. And then you come down on the haulage, over the haulage, and it held 18 people. A rope let it down and a rope pulled it back. And then after 12 0 'clock [midnight], it quit running, you walked down the steps. Or else go to Fayette Station and walk up the railroad tracks.    That's the onliest way you had to get in there.

  PN:  And they called that little car a “truck"? 

  DW:  Haulage, yea.  

  PN:  How did that operate? Was that on wheels?  

  DW:  Yea, it's on four wheels, made just like a big old box. And it had like steps in it, and folks sit on them. And it held 18.

  PN: The steps that you were talking about that went up and down the mountain, was that like a ladder that people built?

  DW: It's wooden steps just like you put on a house. But they had them going down the hill, and then thay had them going thisaway, and back thisaway, thisaway, going over the cliff. You walked on them, you walked down, they had them halfway down the mountain to the mine. Then you just get on the railroad track and walk down the hill from there.

  PN: The rest of the way?

  DW: Yea.  Then when you walked down there, you'd be sore for the next two days. Your legs up in here [indicating the backs of his thighs]. But I got so I got used to them; it didn't bother me. I could walk down and walk back any time. And just like you was on that ruck when the power go off, it stopped dead. It throwed several peoples over the front of it.

  PN: When the power went off.

  DW: Yea, it stopped dead. Some dogs like was picking, it stopped dead. And they to have three crews of men to move that truck; one run it eight hours, the next one eight hours, the next one eight hours. That's the onliest transportation you had besides the train. All this stuff would come into the company store in boxcars. The train would run up to the station, and stop, and they'd take it in the store.

  PN: How many people lived in Kaymoor bottom when you started working in the mines?

  DW: Oh, it was 500 or more down there then. There was a lot of kids too. Thev had two schools - a white school and a Black school. But we played together; all of us played right together - didn't make no difference. And this foreign family lived right above me. Shit, I'd go up there and eat. Went home, they'd come down to my, down to our house and do the same thing. Wasn't no fighting and carrying on. You got to fighting - quite natural kids would. But next day, they'd be right back to playing and carrying on together again. Fish together, swim together, shoot marbles   we would shoot a lot of marbles. Cause that's the most only thing you could do.

  PN: Was that a real  popular game?

  DW: Yea, marble game was a good game down there. We played knucks, rollovers, that was a popular game down there — rollovers.

  PN: What's that?

  DW: You'd dig four holes, and you'd make them two or three times. And the last one, you'd have to put your hand down over in there, and they 'd get your knucks. The older folks played that too. We'd go from house to house and play cards, and drank whiskey, and stuff like that. And most everybody made him some home brew or some whiskey. And a man down there named Lee Jones and Irving Jones, one used to play the guitar and one played the piano. Dancing, each house, this house this week, next house next week. We used to have a good time down in there. And if we got ready to go to a show, we had to go up on the haulage and walk to Fayetteville — three miles or ride a cab If you had money to ride a cab. Or you could walk if you had time, or thumb. And then if you had a bicycle, you'd take your bicycle up there and go. Then ride back down Fayette Mountain, up the railroad tracks back home. But I was fortunate enough [sic], never did own a bicycle. It was a big family, none of us, we never had no bicycle.

  PN: What did you go to Fayetteville for?

  DW: That's where the theater was at and grocery stores, where your shopping, little shopping centers was at — in Fayetteville. See that's the closest town to Kaymoor Fayetteville. You know where Fayetteville is?

  PN: Yes.

  DW: That's the closest place we had to come to town and go to the show. Or else we could catch Number Eight, and go up to Elverton, and go to the show, and walk back again. But now, they cut that out in the early forties, it would have been in the early forties.

  PN: Was Elver ton a bigger town than Kaymoor at the time?

  DW: No, it was about the same. It was an old coal camp. In between Elver ton and there was another one named Browns. And then you would cross the river at Browns, and go over to Nutta11. And then you could go from Nuttall — you could bring a car down there you could go up into Winona, Cliff top, up In there then. If you was fortunate to have a car. There was several folks on Kaymoor bottom had a car, but they'd leave them up on top of the hill. The company had garages they would rent you. The haulage, the truck would carry you up every two hours, every hour.

  PN: The company built that truck and everything for the people?

  DW: Yea, well see, they had to let the miners down halfway the mountain too; the miners rode it too.

  PN: How many miners worked there in the thirties in the mine?

  DW: Oh, it was four or five hundred worked there. Kaymoor always had been a big operation. And then you, see the truck would bring three loads from the top to the mines, then come to the bottom and get one — cause there wasn't that many at the bottom — carry them up and then go back to the top and bring three more halfway, then you come to the bottom and get another one.

  PN: Because more people lived at the top that worked in the mine than lived down at the bottom?

  DW: Yea, because they come in cars and trucks and things   most of them come in thataway.

  PN: Where did most of them live, do you know?

  DW: Oh, they lived in Gar ten, some lived [as] far as over here in Beckley used to drive from Beckley over there. All around over in Gatewood, Cunard, Brooklyn, they would work around everywhere. Even they'd come out of Ames, Edmond Mountain, rode down there, then go down on the truck.

  PN: Let me ask you a couple of more questions about your parents. Did your father work in the mines for his whole life?

  DW: Yea, ever since he come up from Virginia to come up here, and that was before World War I. And he worked in the mines till in the fifties, when we come out.

  PN: And you said he had Black Lung or silicosis?

  DW: Yea, Black Lung killed him. You see, he worked, he come from Virginia up here to Sprague; and he left Sprague and went to Kaymoor to his peoples. And he left from Sprague and went in the service, and my mother went down to Kaymoor in 1918 to his peoples, and stayed down there until they moved them out in about '55, about '58, I believe. My oldest brother was born in Sprague, but he was carried to Kaymoor when he was a year old, and he stayed in Kaymoor the rest of his life. I think he moved out of Kaymoor about '54 or ‘55 when he left out of Kaymoor.

  PN: What did your father's father do for a living, do you know that?

  DW: No, I don t. All I know Is he stayed In Buckingham County, Virginia, down next to Bremo. I never did see him.

  PN: Was he a farmer or something, or don't you know?

  DW: Yea, I guess that's what was all that's down there. Ain't no coal miners or nothing down in there. I was down there one time, but I was too small. I don't know nothing about it.

  PN: How about your mother's parents, your mother's father?

  DW: Well, he was a coal miner. He coal mined at Sprague for years and years. He moved from up at Claremont into Sprague, and he stayed there the rest of his life. And I don't know how old Mama   was when she left Claremont, but she was born in Claremont. There was 19 of them in the family; I think all of them but about three was born in Sprague.

  PN: And your wife's family was also, you know, a coal—mining family basically?

  DW: My wife's family, they come from Virginia. They come into Claremont, they come in, they left Thayer, they was living at Thayer. When Thayer shut down, they moved from Thayer to Kaymoor. My wife was born at Claremont. They was Covington; all their people, they was from Covington.

  PN: What did they do there at Covington?

  DW: Worked in the paper mill.

  PN: In the paper mill there?

  DW: Most of them all, that's the only work around there is the paper mill, and stores, and stuff like that. My wife's daddy worked in the coal mines a long time too. He died about three years ago. Black Lung or silicosis killed him too. Her brother started in the mines a year ahead of me. When he come back out of the service, he went to Michigan; in 46, he went to Michigan. He ain't been back to this, he just come back to visit, he stays in Lansing, Michigan.

  PN: You said you started working yourself in 1936.

  DW: Right, 14 years of age. Started in May, and in June, and then in August, I was 15. Swore an affidavit, put my age up. And I stayed in the mines until ' 57, all but the three years I was in the service. I come right back out of the service, went back in the mines. That's all, onliest jobs I had, that's all I know is coal mining. There wasn't nothing else down in Kaymoor to do but coal mining. Or carry coal on your back, and you couldn't make — ten cents a sack. You had to carry a whole lot of coal making ten cents on a sack.

  PN: What are the different jobs you did when you were working underground?

  DW: Oh, I 've done just about everything in the mine. I've loaded coal, I've helped to lay track, I've worked on the machine, I've run motor, I have broke, I’ve run, I worked on the jack hammer, I've done just about everything in the mine that you can do but boss. Worked on supply crew and all that.

  PN: Like we were talking before, back in 36, when you began working in the mines, what proportion or percentage of the miners was Black, and what percentage was white?

  DW: Well, there was more Black in the mines in '36 than there was white. And then after the work started getting easier, the more white started going in. See in 36, you had to get it, you had a pick and a shovel. You didn't have this machinery stuff then; you had a pick and a shovel. If you didn't load your coal, you didn't make no money. You had to dig it and load it to make your money. Now some motor runners, I think made seven, not quite eight dollars around in the mines; the brakeman was making seven something; the trackman was making seven something; and the machine man was cutting by the ton. He'd go on a section, and cut a whole section up. Maybe there were 15, 20 men that work on that. The more coal they'd load, the more he'd make. Sometimes he would stay in and stuff the mines a day and a half at a time to get his coal cut up for the mens to work.

  PN: He would - for a day and a half?

  DW: Sure, he'd go in in the evening sometime, and it'd be the next evening before he 'd get out, [depending] on what kind of place he had to cut. The machinery wasn't good like it is now, break down, and all that. And if he didn't cut them places up, keep the men in coal, and they wouldn't have nothing to do, he wouldn't make no money. So he'd stay and get it cut up.

  PN: What kind of machine did he use then?

  DW: Well, down at Kaymoor, they had these little old Goodmans.

  PN: What did they have, a big thing coming out in the front they used to cut?

  DW: Well, it's got a, it's a big square thing, sitting there and con— trolling everything behind. And then it's got a cutter bar in the front  six, sometimes, six—foot long. And it's got bits around it; and he'd cut so many places, and the bits get dull, he had to take a wrench, take all them bits out, and re—bit it, and go back to work again. And then the machine—runner had a helper, and he had to set the jacks, and shovel the dust to keep the machine from stopping up. You had to keep all the dust out of the mine.

  PN: Was that machine what they called a duck—bill sometimes?

  DW: No, that's this new equipment [although the duck—bills were made obsolete by the continuous miners]. That was just, it run on four wheels and on a pony truck, and then when you pulled into a place, it would un— slide off it, and set a jack and pull it off of that. Sump it, and cut across the face, and bring it back, and get on and go to another place. Go out that place, throw your switch and come back up to another place, unload it, and [do] the same thing .

  PN: So the machine itself wasn't on wheels or anything?

  DW: They had a pulley—truck, they called it, that runned them. But the machine themself didn't, but the truck did. And then you would have a slope on your, bring your, set your tail back here; pull it up on there; and knock your tailpipe; and you would couple up and go to another place. You had a controller, everything on it, and go in another room. Then when you cut that place, you load up, and go on down to another place, and another place and do the same thing. But now, they got them on rubber tires. They just go right through the breakthroughs; they don't have to go all the way out like they used to. But if you had 25 places to cut, you 25 switches to throw and tram to get to your places. You don't have to do that now; they got them right on the bottom with the rubber tires, and they just go from breakthrough to breakthrough.

  PN: When you worked at Kaymoor, how high was the coal?

  DW: Well, I 've broke a many day — eight hours — in a two—nine entry . And the rooms and all were two foot nine. When you got a place at Kaymoor that was four foot, you thought you had big coal. That's right. It was all low coal — three foot, two—nine, three foot, four.

  PN: You said when you worked at England Branch that the coal was a lot higher?

  DW: It was 12 and 14—foot. I was surprised. And then one day, they told me, they said, "Big Boy"   I was weighing about 200—some pounds then — they say, "You're going to the low coal today.” So I got kind of worried. I said, “What they talking about — low coal?" I know what was Kaymoor. And I got around the hill where they was talking about, it was six—foot clean coal. I told them, "Man, this ain't no low coal. You ought to go where I come from.” And I worked at England Branch, not quite six months. I left England Branch, and I come to Sprague. And I worked at Sprague till it worked out. And at Skelton there, it worked out. And from Skelton to Cranberry. Cranberry worked out; that's the last mine I done. Except I went out here at the water dam, and worked about three months for Bill Ellis in the punch mines. That was the last part of 57; I ain't been back no more.

  PN: What thickness of coal do you like to work in best?

  DW: Well, about four—foot coal is the best coal to work in.

  PN: Why is that better than say, six or ten feet?

  DW: Well, I just ain't never been used to nothing no more than that. A lot of folks won't work in no coal under six, seven foot. But before I went to England Branch, I didn't know there was 14—foot coal. Of course, I hadn't been but up at Kaymoor in that low coal. That was the Sewell seam there in Kaymoor, and that's a low seam of coal. And then they had some down there lower than that. They had some down there the machine couldn't get in: they had to pull back and leave that. Just couldn’t get a car in. See, when I was in the mines, you had a trackman go up there and lay your track, lay your switch when you start off a room, you double that room up, and you pull it back. But now, they tell me, I ain't been under, this, you know, they don 't switch they got everything on rubber tires and stuff like that. You just in there and cut, and go about your business.

  PN: When you lay a switch, what does that mean?

  DW: Ok, that's when you got a mainline coming down through here — as straight track. And then you lay a switch, and then you turn off and go this place. And then you go down here so far, and you lay another switch, and turn off to some other place.

  PN: Oh, the tracks going to the other sides?

  DW: Yea, you slack off the main road up there, just like you turn on different streets? That's the way lay your switches and come off in the coal mine.

  PN: Back when you started working, to repeat some of these questions again, would you say there was any discrimination in the mines, you know, against the Black miners that worked there?

  DW: No, because there was more Black in the mines then than there was now. But now, they did, then they didn't, you seen maybe one or two Black motor—runners. The rest of them was white motor—runners and Black brakemen. But then on up the years come, they got Black brakeman and Black motor—runners just like they had, they had white motor—runners. And you had Black machine—runners and trackmen, and everything, cause there's more Black in the mines then than there was white. The easier the work got, the more the white went in.

  PN: How about in terms of some of the foremen?

  DW: Well, when I went into the mines, you didn't have nothing but white foremens. But when I come back out of the service, they had Black foremens then. Now, I don't know how they got in there, but they had a school around everywhere. And they went, and they learned it, so they had to give them the opportunity to do it. And I think for sure the first Black safety man around here was Russell Matthew. And he's still living; he lives in Oak Hill now. But he done retired now; he was with the state a long time. And then they had assistant night foreman at Kaymoor when I come back; he was Black. But now I never worked for a Black section boss, cause there wasn't none in no mines I’ve been in. But all down here on the Gulf, and places, they got them now. They have had them a long time.

  PN: Where, the Gulf, you said?

  [The Gulf refers to southern portions of Raleigh County, centered on the Slab Fork district.]

  DW: Yea. We got a girl work here now, a young boy, he's a fire, he's a boss [referring to the son of one of the secretaries at the District 29 headquarters]. But when I was coming up in '36, you didn't see that.

  PN: In housing, was there a white section and a Black section in Kaymoor at one time?

  DW: Yea, at one time. But they got out from that, and just as one move out, a Black move in, move into one of them houses. A white move into the Black section. They just, they done that. Then we played up and down the road together — Black and white. Go to each others house and eat, and carry on like that. There wasn’t no hard time down in there at all.

  PN: You said there was two schools and two churches in Kaymoor?

  DW: Yea. You see, you had church in the schoolhouse.

  PN: You did?

  DW: Yea, yea, church and school were the same thing. You had, Sunday you had church in it and during the week, they had school in it.

  PN: Were the preachers in the church full—time preachers, or were they coal miners most of the week?

  DW: Well they was coal miners most of the week, and then they 'd preach on Sundays, yea.

  PN: What kind of churches, what denominations?

  DW: Baptist .

  PN: Both the Black and white church were Baptist?

  DW: Yea, down in the bottom it was.

  PN: What did you do for entertainment there, in the evenings or the weekend?

  DW: Fishing or swimming and drinking whiskey or home brew or something like that. There wasn't no recreation buildings down there. Down at the white school, they did have a few swings and a see, and a couple of

  seesaws. That was all. They'd all go right down there and play on it. And they a little place up there they level led off — it wasn't big as a tennis court, we used to get up there and try to play ball. Choose up and play; we’d have a good time.

  PN: You were talking before, maybe you could mention this a little bit again, about the baseball teams that they did have.

  DW: Well that was up here in Raleigh County where they had the baseball teams: New River Giants, and the Raleigh Clippers, and Slab Fork had a team, and Coal City. But now, each one had a white team and they had a Black team. It wasn't mixed then. I had several uncles was good ball players. If you could have got in the major I ague then, they would have made major league . I had an Uncle David Toney, he was a pitcher; and Robert Toney was the first baseman; and Harvey Toney was a catcher and a third baseman. They played ball with Grover Lewis [a Black miner and ball player living in Beckley, who was featured in a 1980 article I wrote for Goldenseal]. They used to go off in Kentucky, and bring good ball players in here, and they'd give em jobs, fool around. The company would hire a good ball player; they had good ball teams. The Raleigh Clippers played down here [just below the UMW offices in Beckley]. Sprague had a park down there where the shopping center is now. There used to be a big ball diamond in there [referring to the Heck's/ Sears/ Wilbur's shopping center off North Valley Drive].

  PN: How many people would come to the games?

  DR: Oh, four, five, and six hundred people. It would be loaded on the weekends.

  PN: Both white and Black people would come to the games, right?

  DW: Yea.

  PN: Did Black teams play white teams often?

  DW: Yea, they'd play each other. And then down at the ballpark at Sprague, during the week, they would play poker in there. Used to have a man sell whiskey down there called Kenny Trump. He usually met you on the hill, on the railroad track right there on the hill below the ball diamond, until England broke him up.

  PN: He did that too down here?

  DW: Claude England? Yessir. I knowed him when was a state police and I knowed when he was an alcohol agent. Cause he run into me two or three times when he was an alcohol agent, trying to catch me around making whiskey.

  PN: Who was he working for then?

  DW: The alcohol division [the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms]. Yea, I've made a whole lot of whiskey in my lifetime. They caught my daddy making it right on the stove in the house, and put him in jail. And he stayed in jail at Fayetteville for one year. They put him on trusty to come home Saturday evening and go back Sunday evening. [Claude England, unfortunately, won election as sheriff of Raleigh County in 1980. England is a Democrat of extremely conservative, and demagogically conservative, persuasion.] Then they had a, I don't know what that thing they called it, you would go to town, and they would give groceries to Mama for the kids while he was in jail.

  PN: Really?

  DW: Yea. We stayed right there in the house till he come back, till he come out of jail. They put him back to work, put him back to work in the mines. Companies used to be a whole lot better than what they is now. They would, a man would have to do an awful lot for them to fire him back in them days. But now they'll fire you for the least anything. They tell me, I don't know, I ain't been in the mines since '57. I’ve been doing janitor work around groceries, down at furniture stores; I've been working for Ballengee Furniture here since 1950. And then I went on the payroll in '51, been on the payroll [referring to the District 29 payroll] ever since. No, that's Ballengee Furniture. I works two jobs now.

  PN: Oh, you do?

  DW: I’ve been working 8:30 down at the furniture store on Valley Drive and stay till 12:00, and I come down here at 1:00.

  PN: You do?

  DW: Yea. I’ve been here, starting on my 17th year the first of June, starting on my 17th year. But I've been with them ever since '51 on the payroll.

  PN: You work there in the early mornings usually?

  DW: I go to work at 8:30 and stay there till 12:00. Then I leave there in time to get down here at 1:00. I’ve been doing that 17 years since I got this job down here. Well, I worked for them [Ballengee Furniture] when I worked in the mines. I worked on the evening shift. I'd work them in the mornings till the time to go to work, and I'd go home, put my bank clothes on and go to the mines.

  PN: At Kaymoor, or Cranberry, or Sprague?

  DW: No, just Sprague, for Ballengee Furniture. But down at Kaymoor, I didn't do nothing just go to work in the evening time, and get up in the morning. Get up in the morning, and I would leave Kaymoor and go to Browns. I was courting a girl over in Nut tall. I’d walk to Browns every day and stay to three o'clock. The whistle'd blow, and I 'd hurry back home and change clothes, take off for the mines.

  PN: There was no bathhouse or anything like that at the mine?

  DW: No sir, there wasn't no bathhouse then. You bathed at home. You bathed and changed clothes; there wasn't such a thing as a bathroom. See, that, that's just started here in late years the bathroom. You done everything at home. You carried all your bank clothes, and your wife would wash them on the weekend for you. And you'd get up Monday, and start off, see, right at the house. They'd have your water hot and the fire made. And when you get home, you'd just bathe and jump in bed. There wasn't such a thing as a bathhouse. You see, that just started here late years the bathhouse. Since they got this here contracts coming in there, that's when the bathroom started, bathhouse started. When I worked at the, they didn't have a bathhouse at any of the places I worked in '57.

  PN: So you had to go home, you went to and from work in your work—clothes?

  DW: That's right — two or three in the car with dirty, with bank clothes on.

  PN: You were saying before about your memories of the, you know, the Depression when Hoover.

  DW: Yea, I know something about Hoover, sure. I got up many a morning and went in the woods and picked blackberries and come back home. And Ma’d cook them, and we'd have them for breakfast. One time we had nothing to eat at all. Poppa was working every day too; just couldn't get nothing. I went down there [to the company store]; they had busted a sack of beans. Picked up beans and carried them home. She washed them and cooked them, and we had beans in the evening. Yea, I know quite a bit about Hoover. Your dad would go to work in the morning before day, and come back at dark. Go to the store, ask for a dollar scrip — “Sorry, can't let you have it." Wasn't no money to be made.

  PN: You stayed there that whole time in the mine, in the mining town?

  DW: Yea, they had a system then — clean up or bring your tools [meaning take your tools out of the mine, which meant that you were fired]. You had to clean up everything; then you couldn't no coal. That was before my time; I wasn't in the mines then. But I was, I believe, ten or 12 years old when Hoover, the last part of Hoover's. I know, I know I picked many blackberries to eat. And in Kaymoor, it got so bad, they started eating locust blooms.

  PN: Locust blooms?

  DW: That's right. When locust bloom, they would go get 'em and batter 'em in flour and fry ‘em. They taste like oysters.

  PN: They taste like oysters?

  DW: Yea, they used to eat oysters, used to eat them locust blooms like nobody's business.

  PN: What else did they do during that time when it was very hard to get food?

  DW: You just got what you could get and eat and fish, catch fish, and hunt and get something like that what you could. Because the company wouldn't give you very much scrip, because you didn't have the money in there. And you had to pay rent for the house; you had to pay for the coal; and you had to pay your doctor bill — if you had enough to pay. If you didn't, you'd carry it over to the next half, and see what you do next half. You see a man draw five or six dollars, that was a big pay day then. Of course, if you didn't make no money, there wasn't none to draw. You had to pay doctor, hospital, pay so much for lights, and so much for water, wasn't no gas back in them times since you burnt coal for everything.

  PN: What did you generally do for entertainment? Maybe you discussed that a little bit already.

  DW: Well, you'd get out there in the evening, five or six would get on a fence post somewhere, and get something started up. Shoot marbles, or fish, swim in the summertime. Folks get out there and move rocks and stuff and make them a garden and works the garden. Everyone down there had a little garden spot around.

  PN: What types of things did people grow in the garden usually?

  DW: Well, they would grow anything — potatoes, corn, beans, ordinary stuff. They would have places around. Onions, stuff like that, they would have ordinary gardens. But they wouldn't be, if you found out a place as big as this room [about 30 by 40 feet], he was extra good, he had a good little garden. But they would dig a little spot out over there, and go over in these rocks here and dig out a little spot. And he'd have two or three spots around, with stuff planted In it. A whole lot of poke salad down there, folks had a whole lot of poke salad during them times too.

  PN:What?

  DW: Poke salad.

  PN: That they ate?

  DW: Yea, during the summertime. And they had places down there where water cresses grow; they would be getting a lot of cresses and stuff like that. A lot of fishing, eat fish, had a lot of fish; fish was pretty, could catch pretty good fish down at Kaymoor. Because it was down there, wasn't everybody fishing down there because they wouldn't walk up in there. Just the folks around there would fish.

  PN: So there was more fish?

  DW: Yea.

  PN: What kind of fish did you usually catch?

  DW: Most things you caught was catfish and channel cats. But you caught bass and bluegills, crappies, fish most anything out of New River, carp, turtles.

  PN: Yea, you were saying that. How did you cook the turtles that you caught?

  DW: Well, you'd kill him and you cut the shell off of him. And then the turtle's got seven kind of meat in him. And 1 have a friend used to take the shell, and scrape it, and make turtle soup. And lots of game went down in there. You'd kill quails, rabbits, squirrels, lot of coons down in there  coon hunt. And the last part of it down in there, there's some deers would come across the mountain, down across the river, and go up on the other side. We killed us a few deers down in there.

  PN: How did they get across the river?

  DW: Swim. They had a few bear down in there one time. Plenty of fox.

  PN: Red foxes?

  DW: Yea, you can 't eat them though, you know.

  PN: You can't?

  DW: No. You can eat a coon, but you can't eat a red fox.

  PN: Why, too little meat?

  DW: He ain't nothing but just a wild dog. Look just like a wild dog.

  PN: Did people keep hogs or chickens or cows or anything?

  DW: They didn't keep no cows, but they kept hogs and chickens. Thanksgiving — they'd make a big fire and they'd have a hog killing.

  PN: They did?

  DW: Yea. Yea, folks would have two and three hogs in a pm at a time.

  PN: Would people get together on Thanksgiving and kill a hog?

  DW: Yea, and sometimes as high as 12 or 14 hogs would be killed. Each one just getting together, and they'd build a fire, and put a barrel in it. In scalding water, and kill him, and scrape him, and hang him up.

  PN: You were saying before that you thought that relations between Black and white people were, you know, friendly in Kaymoor generally compared to, say, some other situations.

  DW: That's right.

  PN: How would you explain that? What do you think were some of the reasons for that?

  DW: well, they were just down there, and there wasn't nothing else to do [except] for the coloreds and Blacks [meaning Blacks and whites] to get together, and play and carry on together. That's all there was. You're down in that hole; you couldn't get out. You got certain hours you had to get out on the train; you got certain hours you had to go up on the haulage. So we just stayed down in there and played and carried on together.

  PN: Do you think that, you know, just the nature too of working in the mine helped make people friendly to each other?

  DW: Yea, because both of you down in that hole, in the low coal trying to make a living. Sure, we helped each other out, sure, that's what it is. You seen boys and girls playing together just like anywhere, like the whole world around. Down there then, it was the same way down in Kaymoor then. They used to have a foreigner, Cozinas used to live right above us. Shit, I used to go up there at night and eat, just like I did at home. They'd come down to my house, he had two boys — Charlie and Eddie Cozina. We used to fight today, and tomorrow we was all right; we'd go back playing again. Next week, there'd be a fight; and then after it, you play again. Charlie and Eddie lives in Oak Hill now; they stays down, they works down below Montgomery now, still in the coal mine.

  PN: Did you have radios, say in ‘36 when you began working, did your family have a radio?

  DW: Yea, I can remember the first radio we bought. We bought it from, Poppa bought it from a man up Browns. And then in late years before they left from out of there, they had TV, but you couldn't get but one or two stations, something like that, unless you run an antenna plumb up on the side of the mountain. Yea, I can remember the first radio the old man bought. I thought that was something.

  PN: What types of programs could you hear?

  DW: Well, you could get, your biggest station then was Cincinnati, WLW, Cincinnati. Then some of these other stations opened up, and then you could get some. But you couldn't get too many down in that bottom. I've been down there one year when a cyclone come up through there.

  PN: A cyclone?

  DW: Yea, mowing down trees, blow them across the railroad track. My brother runned about three miles, and flagged down, flagged a train down, keep it from running into a slide.

  PN: Because of this?

  DW: You could look down the road and you could see trees was rooting up. Right on the road by the railroad track. It didn't get back on the hill, just come up right up through by the road bed.

  PN: What year was that, do you remember?

  DW: No, I don't know what year that was. My brother, they had a train come through there a fast train named Number Six. And they had a slide on the track, and he run down the road about two miles and flagged it down to keep the train from hitting that slide. the train stopped, when he got it stopped, the wind had b lowed the bell off the engine. They hadn't missed the bell off the engine. It come up through there one time in my lifetime being down there. They called it a twister. Wasn't just nothing but a cyclone like you hear out here in the West and other places now, because it was moving trees, covered up the railroad tracks, took them about a week to get the tracks straightened back out.

  PN: You were saying before, were there any Masonic lodges or fraternal orders of any kind in Kaymoor?

  DW: No, wasn't none in Browns, none at Elverton. I think one boy down there — John S. Whistler — I think he went to Montgomery, and he belongs to Masonic.

  PN: And was there a lodge of some kind at Thurmond, you said?

  DW: Yea, they used to have a Masonic and everything at Thurmond. 1 think the thing's still in the wall down there now. See Thurmond used to be a big—timing little place, a little railroad town, they called it. That's where all the railroad men would stop and hang around. And trains would hang, lay—over there at nights. There and Hinton, see, they were the two stations where trains get their orders and stuff. The section crews would live in there, live in around them railroads up in there.

  PN: Did you associate often, or have a chance to associate with people who worked on the railroad?

  DW: Yea, while I was a kid coming up, I used to, they used to bring extra crews up to Kaymoor and park them down there on the side track. I used to go up there and sell whiskey to them.

  PN: You did?

  DW: Yea, One man used to cook on the railroad down there when I was a kid; he lives out, live up here in East Beckley now. Yea, they used to be, that's where you'd make a lot of monty. When a section crew, when an extra—force crew, would move in there, them folks would buy whiskey like mad. Especially on pay days! The ones that stayed there, and then most of them, a gang of them would catch the train in the evening and go to Thurmond and come back the next day .

  PN: Was that whiskey? Was that moonshine that you made yourself usually?

  DW: Yessir! Well, there wasn't no, it wasn't no whiskey stores in ‘36.

  PN: No state stores or anything?

  DW: No, that's all you had was moonshine and home brew — stuff like that.

  PN: Could you sell in places like the Dunglen Hotel? No, that was burned down.

  DW: Wasn't no hotel nowhere [thought I was referring to Kaymoor] there; they had a hotel in Thurmond.

  PN: Thurmond, yea.

  DW: On down the railroad, there wasn't no more till you got to Montgomery.

  Was a hotel in Montgomery.

  PN: But at the Lafayette in Thurmond, could you go and sell stuff there?

  DW: Well, they'd have it there for to sell you. They'd have it in there to sell theirselves. And then you see some bootleggers go up there, and they put four or five pints of whiskey around their waist, and put on a coat. They'd go; they'd sell it.

  PN: At Thurmond or at the hotel?

  DW: In Thurmond anywhere. Just like you was a moonshiner, and folks out there know, they would come to you to get it. Or else you would go out in there where they were at, and they would buy it from you. You knowed all the bootleggers now. They knowed where the bootleggers was at to buy it.

  PN: Could you make a living that way?

  DW: Yea, yea, you could make a good living moonshining. You might have to take scrip sometime for it, or something like that, but you could sell it.

  PN: If I was selling moonshine, and you gave me scrip, could I go and cash that in at a company store?

  DW: Well, there was always somebody around, man, that had a little money would cash your scrip — give you 75 cents for a dollar. You give him a dollar scrip, and he give you 75 cents money. And then lots of them, they done all their dealing at the store, they would just do their dealing with the scrip, see, and keep their cash. When they had cash to keep; back in '36, there wasn't much circulating.

  PN: If you were gambling in a card game, would you bet scrip or money?

  DW: Sometimes you bet scrip, if you got it; and if you got money, if you had money, they used to play it both ways. Now I used to stay away from school, I used to, my mother used to keep me from school there for the wash, a washing board. When I went to work, I bought my Mama her first washing machine. And my brother bought her first Frigidaire. That ^t s right. That was…

  PN: What year was that?

  DW: In Kaymoor, ' 36.

  PN: That's when you bought the machine?

  DW: Yea. All the other time, you had a washboard. On the washboard up and down [motioning]. Go out in the yard and make a fire, and put your tub on it, and boil your clothes out there. Sometimes you put It on the cooking stove, and boiled it on the cooking stove.

  PN: You were saying too that there were some one—family and some two— family houses in Raymoor?

  DW: Yea, and then they had, they had a big, they had a colored and a Black [meaning Black and white] boarding house there.

  PN: Oh they did?

  DW: Yea, when men didn't have no wives and they come and got a job, they'd go ahead and board, see, so much a month. And right there, they had rooms and everything for them.

  PN: These were single men who stayed at the boarding house?

  DW: Yea. And then some folks would go there with their wife and get a room, and stay there with their wife too.

  PN: Could you get food there too?

  DW: Yea, you'd pay so much a month. Yea, you'd just come in and eat, and sleep, and go on to work. And they had a big club house, you know, right up on Kaymoor top, right from the haulage there, they had an awful big colored boarding house up there.

  PN: On Kaymoor top?

  DW: Yea. Oh it stayed full all the time. You couldn't hardly get, find a room there. Folks come in from different places and work, and then on the weekend, would go home. Stay there during the week, go home on the weekend, come back first of the week, and go to work again.

  PN: What did the women usually have for recreation?

  DW: Just go around from house to house like the mens do, that's all. Wasn't no recreation down in there.

  PN: And the women would do most of the shopping, I guess, right, at the company store?

  DW: Yea, and then they had a clothes, some company in Oak, in Mt. Hope used to have a big place, and they used to go over there and get their dresses and shoes and stuff. And the company ore carried some clothes and stuff too. And they would have a tailor come in about once every two months, and you would get your clothes. Or the tailor made you up for your clothes, and you'd charge them through the company. Pay the company so much a month.

  PN: So I guess now that it right this time, we have time for one more question. So let me ask the question to you again. Are you basically happy that you were a coal miner most of your life?

  DW: Well yea, I liked the coal mining I was in, because that's all I know. I didn't know, I come out of school to go, went to work. I didn't you any farther than the fifth grade in school. I rather would be working, then I would have had money, than to have went to school then. But now, I feel the mistake now, you see. It's too late. Yea, I liked the mines. There wasn't to the mines. You make yourself safe, you keep yourself safe in the mines ain't nothing wrong with the mines. And there wasn't as much gas and stuff like it is now. Mining is getting complicated now, they tell me. I haven't been in them, with all this equipment and stuff.

  PN: If you had your choice, you'd rather work then, than say today, in the mine?

  DW: Well, I couldn't say, because I haven't been in this mines with this here mechanic stuff. I don't know. But they tell me mining is easy now, but I went in the mines in 36, and mines was hard. Of course, you had to hustle. If you didn't, you didn't have nothing. Cause I, when I went to company work, I was making eight dollar, seven dollars and twenty—five cents for eight hours.

  PN: I guess it's a little bit better now. [laughs]

  DW: Oh yes, better now. But with these Republicans who got in, it's liable to be back again [referring to the November 4, 1980 elections].

  [End of Tape]

 

• Oral History Project - Wriston, Nell Gwinn 1981 Part 1

  
  

  Nursing, McKendree, Round Bottom, childhood

  Date created:

  05/18/1981

  Audio Transcript

  Interview NRGNPP 033

  File NRGNPP 033-T

  Tape Thirty Nine

  Mrs. Nell Gwinn Wriston  

  Interviewer:

  William E. Cox

  National Park Service

  May 18, 1981

  WC: Mrs. Wriston, could you give me your name and date of birth, please?

  NW: Nellie Mae Gwinn Wriston; born June 13 June 21st, I’m sorry, — 1913.

  WC: OK. And where were you born?

  NW: At McKendree, West Virginia.

  WC: And what were your parents names?

  NW: Loomis, or G. L., and Rosa B. Gwinn.

  WC: And where did they move to McKendree from?

  NW: They moved to Mckendree from what is now Mt. Hope. It was designated as McDonald at the time, according to my mother.

  WC: What occupation were they involved     

  NW: He was a saloon keeper, my father, Loomis Gwinn. saloon keeper before he moved to the farm, which was willed to him by his father, Laban Gwinn.

  WC: Now, where did Laban move from?

  NW: Originally, I don 't know where the Laban Gwinn's came from, but they had returned to this area from Indianapolis following the Civil War and they have been in the area since then.

  WC: But they had been in the area before the Civil War?

  NW: Yes, they had been there before.

  WC: OK. We'll come back to that in a minute. Can you tell me a little bit about how McKendree got it's name in the Round Bottom section. There's a little bit of confusion about the name.

  NW: My father named the farm the Round Bottom farm. He put that name on it. He grew melons, sugar cane and corn, and staples in the summer time; you know, beans, tomatoes, and the sort. And he and my brothers took those to the camps down river by boat and sold them.

  WC: These would be the coal mining communities?

  NW: Yeah. Like Thayer and Claremont, and on down to, Thurmond. They was far as Thurmond.

  WC: Were there a lot of people living in these communities then?

  NW: Yes, quite a few.

  WC: Did they have any problems getting the boat back up river after going down?

  NW: Never seemed to complain.

  WC: How did they get around the rapids coming back? Did they carry the boat, or...

  NW: Well, they used the poling method. There was one or two in the boat with poles and someone on the land pulling.

  WC: With a rope tied to the boat?

  NW: Uh—huh.

  WC: I see. How large were these boats?

  NW: Oh...twenty—two feet, something like that — twenty—two, twenty—four feet, something like that.

  WC: And how wide?

  NW: I'd say, oh, four feet possibly. They were large boats.

  WC: Did they have names? Do you remember what they called these boats?

  NW: Daddy always referred to them as "skiffs.    

  WC: Skiff, s—k—i—f—f?

  NW: Uh—huh.

  WC: Were they made entirely of wood?

  NW: He sawed the patterns himself.

  WC: And then he made the boats?

  NW: He made the boats.

  WC: I see. How many boats did he have?

  NW: As well as I can remember, the time I spent there, he must have made six or eight. Some of them he gave to other people or traded for something else. But we usually had two boats, one at the upper landing and one at the lower.

  WC: Did you ever have motors on them?

  NW: No.

  WC: Did you ever see these men poling these boats up thru the rapids?

  NW: I not only seen them, I helped pole them.

  WC: Is that right? Could you describe that to me then, just how you do it — take me thru it from A to Z?

  NW: Well, we knew the river route pretty good after we had covered it. I never did go any farther down than Thayer. But you just traveled a long with the strongest one on the ground with the rope, sometimes two. And two in the boat — one in the front and one in the back with poles. And you just kept it away from the rocks. And the team on the ground pulled the boat up over the rapids.

  WC: There would be two people on, or more on...

  NW: After you passed the rapids, above the rapids, you'd go into what we called "eddy water," which the water swirls back in the other direction. You'd get your rest before you came into the next rapid.

  OK, so when you were going upstream, you would always have someone on the bank?

  WC: Now, when you went downstream did those people ride in the boat or did they also walk down the bank?

  NW: No, they went in the boat.

  WC: OK. Now. how did they pull the rope up. Did they have some kind of block and tackle so they could hook it to a tree on the bank?

  NW: No. They just used a rope and gloves.

  WC: Just the strength, the pulling of the person. Now would that be one or two people?

  NW: Usually it was two. But when I was doing the pulling, it was just girls — my sisters and I.

  WC: Did you get out and ride in the boats for pleasure?

  NW: Yes, that was our Sunday afternoon dating — get out and ride the rapids in the boats. That was about all there was to do.

  WC: Uh—huh. How many rapids did you go thru before you'd come back up?

  NW: Oh, maybe just one — maybe not any. We'd row up so far in the eddy water and cut out into the white water and you'd get quite a ride down.

  WC: Were there any accidents on the river?

  NW: None to my knowledge.

  WC: What about swimming?

  NW: We swam. I used to swim the river quite frequently down at the landing.

  WC: Can you tell me a little bit about the McKendree vicinity — what all was down there? Houses and buildings and so forth?

  NW: With a hazy memory, I can remember a few houses to the right of the railroad, between the railroad and the hill below where the old depot used to be. Over — it extended on down and around the turn of the curve. That was the remnants of an old logging camp. I can barely remember the houses that were rotting down. My daddy had bought some land there close to the depot and put a little store in and we stayed over there with him quite a bit.

  WC: Do you remember when he built the store?

  NW: He died in 1927. It must have been 1918, something like that.

  WC: Do you think the logging camp was there before the railroad came in?

  NW: Yes. No, my daddy said the railroad was built when he was eleven years old, and he was born — when... he was born in 1861 on June 16th. And he died on January 27th, 1927.

  WC: So he was eleven when the railroad was built through?

  NW: He was eleven when the railroad was built.

  WC: And then the logging started when the railroad was there?

  NW: Apparently, yeah. And then the need for the hospital came. I don't remember when it was built, do you? It was nineteen—hundred and...

  WC: It was 1901.

  NW: 1901? I remember on the steps on the nurses' home, it seems to me like it was 1914. There was some number there, but I 'm not very accurate. I know I walked over it every day for I don 't know how many years. See, I was there twice. I started my training when I was only seventeen and I quit when I married. I was out seven years and went back and finished.

  WC: Where did you live at during the seven years?

  NW: I lived with — in that little house.

  WC: OK. Now that's the house beside the big white house that Loomis built.

  NW: I lived in the house that Grandfather and Grandmother Spade built and lived in.

  WC: OK. Now what about your early schooling, where was that at?

  NW: It was in a little one room school that my father built. And he built it, ah, went to the Board of Education and told them that he would furnish the lumber and the fuel for the school if the County would furnish the teacher and the seats. And that's how the school was built.

  WC: What type of fuel did it use, wood or coal?                           

  NW: It used wood most of the time, but when the winters got very cold, they brought some coal down from a coal mining camp above about three miles.

  WC: Now this would have been the Fayette County Board of Education?

  NW: Yes, it was the Fayette County.

  WC: Do you remember some of the teachers names that was down there, and also the date that it was built?

  NW: Well, it must have been built... well, let me see. trying to figure out how old my oldest brother would be... (long pause) I really can't say.

  WC: OK. That's fine. Well, who were some of the teachers?

  NW: The first teacher that I remember was a Miss Gertrude Skaggs and she boarded at house. And my brother that was born in.. Leonard, who is dead now… was the oldest boy going to school. And I was only four years old, but mother let me start to school because I wanted to go. And he would carry me on his arm...

  WC: Was this a school for the Gwinn's only, or did other children attend the school?

  NW: Well, to begin with there wasn't anybody but Gwinn's attending. See, there was... one, two, three — there was five girls and three boys in our family.

  WC: That attended?

  NW: And four in my uncle's family that attended.

  WC: Is this Louis?

  NW: Louis. And then there was my Uncle Johnny across the river. The Estuary School wasn't there then. And some of his children came over there. They were only there a year or two.

  WC: What were some of the subjects taught, do you recall?

  NW: Oh, we had all the subjects, the basics. You know, reading, writing and arithmetic, English, gramrnar, some sort of a program in health. A pretty well—rounded curriculum.

  WC: What type of teaching aid or materials did the teachers have in those days?

  NW: Well, Miss Skaggs was laughing about that at my nephews funeral here. My youngest sister and I (she's a year and a half younger than I) and she was in this little pantomime at school. And she was talking about the little part that she and I played in the school play and we had an umbrella, and I don't know how they did it, but somebody poured water on us. She made up a little poem and it was real cute. She was very, very interesting.

  WC: Uh-huh. And what was the school term? When did it start?

  NW: Oh , it started in September and it was out on Memorial Day usually.

  WC: Do you remember when the Estuary School started?

  NW: I don't remember when it started. It might have been there all along, I don't know or remember. But there was some contention, I don't remember what it was, about children coming from across the river. They were coming from Quinnimont, or from Raleigh County into Fayette County to school.

  WC: So you think maybe they had to provide this school for the Raleigh...

  NW: Yeah. For the Fayette one...

  WC: The Estuary School was on the north side of the river. Did you ever go to school there at all?

  NW: I went to school there before... my last two years, I took them both in the last year, one year.

  WC: Do you recall your teacher's name?

  NW: Yes, it was my brother (laughs). My brother Leonard.

  WC: Did he have training to be a teacher?

  NW: Oh, yes. He was a graduate of Alderson—Broaddus.

  WC: OK. Real good. What was your other transportation down in the Round Bottom area besides the boats?

  NW: Horses. We had some riding horses before my father died and the boys had - all left home. After that, the girls had all grown and would just soon walk as to bother with an old stinky horse. So we just sold the horses and kept one or two for working on the farm.

  WC: So you had a couple of horses for working on the farm. You didn’t have mules or anything like that?

  NW: No, Mother would hitch up the horse and plow just like a man.

  WC: What about a wagon? Did you have a wagon? Was the road wide enough for one?

  NW: Yes, we had wagons, but we used sleds mostly.

  WC: Do you know how they were made?

  NW: They used some sort of hard wood. Seems to me like... was it a dogwood, Ira (talking to someone else in the room), well... he's gone somewhere.

  WC: Seems to me like it was a dogwood they used for the sled runners.

  NW: Do you know who built the first trail back into the Round Bottom area?

  WC: I have no idea. I know that Laban and his family all came back. Of course he had the three sons, Louis and Loomis and John. And then he had Elia and Bella and Sarah, his daughters. I think they are still living.

  WC: Well, lets talk about when the first Gwinns went down there. Do you remember that date and can you tell me a little bit about them living there and the Civil War activity?

  NW: I know very little about that area. I have a niece that can give you all that. She did a research on the whole clan.

  WC: What was her name?

  NW: She's Mrs. Leona Brown. And she will be here at the reunion. She wrote a book on it I think.

  WC: Ok. I understood that they were in there in the 1850's, and we just looked at a grocery bill for 1858. Could you tell me about when the house was burned because of the Civil War activity?

  NW: Well, let's see. The War started in what, 61?

  WC: Yes, Ma'am.

  NW: It was somewhere along '61 or '63, along there, when the house was burned, according to Donnelley's notes, the Corporal Thurmond* came through, I believe it was, and burned out the house. And a friend of the family had heard the news the night before and had warned the family and they packed and left before... you see, the Gwinn's was supposed to be against slavery... because this was then Virginia...

  *Captain Thurmond

  WC: OK. So this would have been the first house, which was on Salt Lick Creek, where Louis Gwinn later built a house. So this was the first house. Then they came back and built the second house. And where was it located?

  NW: Well, it was located about where that one was there, but it was remodeled.

  WC: The Louis Gwinn house? In the same area?

  NW: Yes, uh—huh.

  WC: Then they lived there, then how was the next house built?

  NW: You mean our house down on the farm?

  WC: Yes, uh—huh.

  NW: I really don't know how it came about. I suppose after Grandfather Gwinn died that he willed my father the farm, divided up between the three boys.

  WC: So Loomis got this portion where the big two—story white house is now?

  NW: And nothing but a rock pile, the way he described it, and he just threw up the Jinny Lind house and as time and money came to hand and the family increased, he added on to it, until he got situated well enough 'til he could build the new home.

  WC: OK. So the Jenny Lind type house vas the one that was upstream from the present two—story white house about, probably, a hundred and fifty feet.

  NW: Close to the cemetery.

  WC: Did he have a sawmill to cut his own wood?

  NW: Yes, it stood close to the original house. The old house, which was later used as the barn.

  WC: OK. Did he use the sawmill to build the 1912 house?

  NW: Yes, everything was sawed from his    property and even built the mantels and put them in the house.

  WC: I understand that there was a unique system of lighting for the house. Can you tell me about this lighting system that you had?

  NW: Well, it was just a carbide system. We would get a hundred and... it was a big cylinder, steel cylinder, that went down into the ground and it contained water, a certain amount, and had a hopper. And in that hopper you put carbide and then a bell on top of the carbide, and as the carbide would drop into the water, it would form gas. And as the gas... the gas was piped into the house, and as you used the gas, of course, that regulated the flow of the carbide.

  WC: What was the bell for on top of the…  

  NW: That was to rise up in the water when your gas was forming; and when you were using your gas, the bell would go down and trip the lever and let more carbide in and that started your gas again. That kept the level of gas.

  WC: Was this something unusual, or something that you could buy from somewhere?

  NW: Well, I suppose that it was fairly prominent, I don't know. My uncle didn't put it in, I don't know of anyone else that had a system like it.

  WC: Did it have a brand name or anything, or was it just called a carbide lighting?

  NW: I’m sure it had a brand name, but I don't remember what it was.

  WC: I see. Well, what about... maybe you could describe the inside of the house for me. How many bedrooms you had…      

  NW: Well, let's see. It was supposedly about a twelve room house. First floor had a large living room with a fireplace and that's where we did most of our sitting. It was on the left side of the house as you go in the front door. And as I said previously, it had two doors — one on the left side and one on the front side of the house.

  WC: The river side?

  NW: The river side. Then the kitchen, which was very large, and the dining room that contained a table that my daddy had made, would seat fourteen people. And we had chairs, there's a little — one of the old original chairs — for, to seat fourteen. Course there was twelve of us and then Mother and Daddy. Usually there was always an extra hired hand or uncle or stray cousin, or somebody in, you know. And then from that we went to a big, long hallway from the dining room. Off of the hallway was one bedroom downstairs. And at the front side Of the house, beside the porch — it extended out beyond the porch a ways — is what we termed the parlor. We went into the parlor about once a week. It was always kept up. That was where you entertained your company. Upstairs was one very large bedroom, had about three beds in it, I think; a small room, which was to be used for a bathroom, and which we never completed; another small bedroom; and then another bedroom and a long hall with a — I don't know what you call it — a lounging area, I suppose.

  WC: What about in the basement?

  NW: The basement was never completed. There was another bedroom upstairs, let me finish that, and it also had a fireplace. It and the big bedroom had fireplaces. That's all the heat we had in that big house. The basement was set up to be completed ( never was after Daddy died) for a furnace of some type. Because the openings and everything was there for a furnace to be set up.

  WC: Was there a water supply in the basement? I thought I saw something down there.

  NW: There was a well down there, and when I first remember, there was a little creek running through the basement. And that’s where — we had no refrigeration at that time, no way of getting ice over there — On a hot day, a chunk of ice would melt before you could get it across the river. So, Mother kept her milk and butter down in the basement in that cold water running through the basement floor.

  WC: Did you have a well outside, also?

  NW:No, we didn't have an outside well. But there was a well in the basement. But there was water that came down from the mountain when he first built the house. He just hooked up a water line to this creek that ran below the house that had no name, as far as I know. And that was his water supply. And when the timbering began back in the mountain, they cut the water line in two. And since the land didn't belong to him, there wasn't anything he could do about it. That's when he put the water in from the spring then.

  WC: OK. Would this sometimes go dry?

  NW:The spring never went dry.

  WC: I see.    

  NW: Neither did the creek.    

  WC: Now, down at the cemetery the stream was called Hard Spring. Can you tell me…?

  NW:It was called the Hard Spring, it was hard water.

  WC: It had minerals in it?    

  NW: It had minerals in it. It tasted terrible. 

  [End of first Tape]

 

• Oral History Project - Wriston, Nell Gwinn 1981 Part 2

  
  

  Nursing, McKendree, Round Bottom, childhood

  Date created:

  05/18/1981

  Audio Transcript

  Interview NRGNPP 033

  File NRGNPP 033-T

  Tape Thirty Nine

  Mrs. Nell Gwinn Wriston  

  Interviewer:

  William E. Cox

  National Park Service

  May 18, 1981

  WC: Could you tell me about your activities in Sunday School and Church?

  NW: When we went to Church, which was usually in the summer months, we walked to Prince or to Quinnimont. Occasionally we would go to Terry, but we didn't like the churches at Terry. They were what we termed as “Holy Rollers”, and that wasn't our kind of religion.

  WC: How many people would attend the church, say at Prince?

  NW: Well, Prince was a rather small town, but you'd have an attendance of possibly a hundred in Sunday School and Church, usually. In later years, after my brother left the school teaching, he went into railroad work and he was the superintendent of the Sunday School there at Quinnimont for, oh, I guess, fifteen years or so. And we would go to his church most of the time.

  WC: How many people attended there?

  NW: Well, I can remember I was secretary—treasurer lot of times, fill—in for, and... around a hundred, between a hundred and a hundred and fifty.

  WC: What years would this be?

  NW: That was between '27 and '30.

  WC: Were these coal mining communities then?

  NW: No, that was a railroad town.

  WC: I see. Well, could you tell me a little bit about the wildlife, the game, that was down around McKendree?

  NW: We saw deer quite frequently; foxes galore — they were always carrying off our chickens — and rabbits; snakes — copperheads and rattlesnakes — and occasionally hear a panther. You'd hear people speak of being out after dark and panthers following them — you could hear something following them.

  WC: What type of farm animals did you have? You mentioned chickens.

  NW: Chickens. We had some turkeys; we had some geese. Course we had cows and horses, and that's about it, I suppose.

  WC: Did you have a barn for them?

  NW: Yes.

  WC: How large a barn was it?

  NW: Well, it was the old house and it was just torn down and the upper part of it was used to store the hay and grain and so forth. And the underneath part was used for stalls for the animals.

  WC: OK. Let's talk about the Miners Hospital. You mentioned you went there, and what was your first year?

  NW: 1929.

  WC: And who was the doctor there then, the Superintendent?

  NW: Dr. Martin Godbey.

  WC: And you just went there one year before leaving?

  NW: I was there fifteen months.

  WC: OK. Then you went back again. What year was that?

  NW: I went back in 1938, I believe it was.

  WC: The first time you went to school, why did you decide to become a nurse?

  NW: I had no decision on what I wanted to be. I had been to Charleston and had finished a nine—months course in typing and secretarial work. And secretaries were making fifteen dollars a week, and they were a dime—a—dozen, and they were standing on every corner. That was in 1929. So, I came home. I couldn't find work. I knew my daddy and Dr. Godbey were pretty good friends and we were over there one day. And he said, “Why don’t you come on over and go into training. Can't do anything worse, do you any harm.” I said I just never thought I would like it. He said, “Well, you can try any way. We pay for your books, and we pay for your uniforms, and we pay you eleven dollars a month. Now, that's better than staying home and sponging on your daddy. So that's how I started in nursing.

  WC: Did you cross the river back and forth, or did you stay?

  NW: Oh, no. I stayed. They were very strict. You weren't permitted to date. You had to have special permission to go home, even just across the river. If you went down the road to the grocery store just to buy a bar of candy, you had to have special permission. And, I think that was one of the reasons I quit. I was used to my freedom. I like the work.

  WC: Could you tell me about the work that you did and the school training that you had at the same time?

  NW: Nurses now won't believe the conditions that we worked under then. I had no preliminary training, teaching of any sort. I went to work, they gave me my uniform, I put it on, and I showed up for duty along with the rest of the girls, except that I didn't have a cap. You learned from the person they put you to work with.

  WC: How many girls were there then?

  NW: I'd say there were twenty, something like that, besides the new class that came in.

  WC: And how many years was the training when you first started?

  NW: Three years.

  WC: And they had nurses' quarters for you. Could you describe those?

  NW: Yes, they were above the... the nurses' home was built like a duplex. And the doctors lived in one end downstairs. He had a suite or rooms down there. And the nurses had a living room area for recreation and study and classroom work on the other end. And their sleeping quarters were upstairs. For twenty to twenty—five girls, we had one bath tub and three commodes.

  WC: Dormitory style?

  NW: Yeah.

  WC: What about recreation? What was the recreation?

  NW: Oh, we played a little tennis and ball out on the tennis court. Actually, when you got off duty, you were so tired, you didn't have time for recreation. You had two hours off—duty. You went to work at seven o’clock in the morning and some time during that day, you would have two hours off from work. Sometimes you would have from eleven—to—one, and sometimes you would have from one—to—three and sometimes you would have from three—to—five. Well, you had to get your lessons in, you had to study. So you had to do it in those two hours.

  WC: And what time did you get off from work?

  NW: Well, you got off at the end of your twelve hours. You went to work at seven and you'd get off at seven. But you had two hours off from the day.

  WC: OK. Was this five or six days a week?

  NW: Well, it was five days a week that you, ah... well, it was seven days a week that you were on duty. They would give you two days off a week and every week, one afternoon. Not two days off actually. One day off and then one afternoon. It was never always together. I mean you couldn't take an afternoon today and then be off all day tomorrow. They wouldn't run it that way. It gave them too much time to be away.

  WC: What about the courses that you had. Can you recall some of those?

  NW: Oh, yes. I can even show you some of the books; anatomy, dietetics, medical nursing, surgical nursing. Oh, I can't remember a lot of them. Drugs and solutions, and mathematics for drugs and solutions. There was several different things on ethics, scientific nursing, and things of that sort.

  WC: Do you recall the organizational structure of the hospital? Could you tell me the chain of command, so to speak?

  NW: Well, the doctor was in charge. He was it; his word was final. And next to him, I suppose, was the director of nurses — that was to the school. Now, to the hospital, the executive secretary would have been, as far as managing the funding and so forth. But, as far as managing the school was concerned, the director worked directly with the doctor. And, if he came up with the idea that you should put in a certain course, you put that in, whether you thought it should work or not.

  WC: Was there very much politics involved in the selection of the doctors in charge of the hospital?

  NW: Quite a lot. It changed every time the governors changed. If a democratic governor went in, they appointed a democratic doctor. If a republican went in, they sent a republican doctor. He was just a pawn.

  WC: Were you expected to support the politics of a particular...

  NW: The one that was in office.

  WC: What about patient care. What type of patient care was provided by the hospital?

  NW: Well, I'd say we gave good patient care. I don't know how others felt about it, or how the patients felt about it. But I know I worked hard, and I know all my people with me worked hard.

  WC: Could you tell me about a day a nurse would lead in providing patient care?

  NW: Well, I'll give you an example. I was in charge of. I had been there I 'd say a year. At the three months period, you were accepted or rejected. And I was in charge of the male ward. It was all male and T had I'd say twenty—two patients. It was in the summer of either '29 I suppose, or 30, or somewhere in that area. We had a typhoid fever epidemic. In that group I had about five or six typhoid patients that were isolated at the back of my ward. Those patients had high fevers that ranged from 102 degrees on up to 105 degrees. It was up to the nurse to see that they got liquids every hour, and to see that they were sponged if the temperature got above 103 degrees. Add all that up with the typhoid fever patient, that runs its course for about two weeks, plus the other patients in the ward, and the precautions that you have to take to keep from spreading it from one to another, you 'd put in a full day. I was in complete charge of all medications that were given. They were ordered by the doctor and transcribed on to medicine cards by the nurses, and given from the medicine cabinet. We served all trays, carried them to the patients and carried them out. We didn’t have a cart. We carried them. We gave all baths. We had one orderly — the whole hospital, and that was it.

  WC: Now, you mentioned a male ward. Was the hospital divided into different wards by sexes?

  NW: Yeah. There was a male ward and this wing over here was the female ward.

  WC: On the right—hand side of the hospital as you face it?

  NW: Uh—huh.

  WC: There was a black ward also for male and female?

  NW: The colored males were off on the other side. There was a smaller ward off of the colored big ward, on the side over there, for the colored females.

  WC: What else was in the hospital?

  NW: On the second floor was the private rooms. On the first floor, of course, we had the X—Ray room and emergency room, it was in back, and the kitchen and dining room. That was when I first went there. The dining room was in front right, ah, under the... right beside the porch.

  WC: The river side of the building?

  NW: Uh-huh.

  WC: Did you provide completely free hospital care? You mentioned private rooms. Did you pay for those?

  NW: Well, they collected what they could. Dr. Godbey never pushed anyone for pay; and, consequently, he was under indictment for embezzling money when he died. I don't think the man embezzled it; I think he just didn't collect it, that's all.

  WC: Where did the patients come from?

  NW: Well, they'd all joined coal camps around there. When the hospital was first built, there was no roads, you know, just the railroad. And they would come in there by railroad... by train. And if it was an accident, they had a little car, emergency car, that they would run the patient to the hospital.

  WC: A railroad car?

  NW: Uh—huh. And they had an ambulance at the hospital that would meet the trains.

  WC: Do you know when the road was built that runs from Thurmond to Prince, in behind the hospital?

  NW: It was in 1922.

  WC: Was there a trail or anything back there prior to then?

  NW: As far as I know, nothing more than logging trails. They had been logging back in that mountain.

  WC: OK. Can you tell me about when you went back to the nursing school later?

  NW: When I was absent it changed quite a lot, of course, in seven years. I had to take a test for the State Board of Nurses to evaluate my knowledge of nursing, to decide how much credit I would be given for the previous years. So they extended all the time that I had, so that left me about sixteen months to finish, something like that. Classes were about the same. We had an extra operating supervisor, and an extra night supervisor, that were teaching, too. And the doctors, of course, taught the classes. The rules were a little less stringent than they were in the beginning. You could go and come at your own ease. At first, when I went back, I stayed at home at night and went back and forth across the river.

  WC: Did you row yourself across?

  NW: No, usually somebody would take me across and meet me in the evening. They had then regulated the time so they'd post if for a week and I 'd know from day—to—day when I'd be off the next day.

  WC: What was at the McKendree community then — the depot and so forth?

  NW: At that time there was nothing much there except a rooming house. Occasionally, they'd get a patient in the hospital that their people wanted to stay close by, and they could get a room down at this house. A family of Fords had that, no — Forrens were there when 1 left. And, besides that, and a little store — a little store that my daddy had built. The heirs still owned the building, but they rented the store and it was run by Bob Forren. Do you know Bob Forren?

  WC: No. I haven't met him yet. I'd like to. What about, was there a garden there for supplying food at particular times? Was it there then?

  NW: At the hospital? I don't think they did much gardening after Dr. Godbey left there. He, Dr. Godbey, was a good man. He wanted to help everybody. To give them a job, he planted a garden and he grew hogs, I mean he raised hogs. And he raised his meat for the hospital and things of that sort.

  WC: Now, was he the doctor when you returned seven years later?

  NW: No. Norman Patterson was there then.

  WC: Who were the other doctors there then?

  NW: Let me see. I get them mixed up between times. Let's see. Dr. Godbey and Dr. Black were there together. And Dr. Patterson and Dr. O 'Leary, and Dr I didn't think I 'd ever forget his name.

  WC: Well, that's OK. What year did you graduate?

  NW: In '39.

  WC: And then, what happened after then, after graduation?

  NW: Well, I graduated, and I’d gotten a job and was going to work for C & O Hospital in Huntington. And I got sick, sore throat or something, and while I was in bed, the doctor fired the director of nurses. And I was relieving the operating supervisor at that time that I got sick. He came to me and said, “When you get well, and get up and back on your feet, will you take over until I can find somebody?" Well, he never did find anybody. So I just stayed until the place folded.

  WC: OK. And what year was that when it closed?

  NW: In '41.

  WC: And then what did it...

  NW: They moved the old colored people in from down around Barboursville, or somewhere.

  WC: And how long was it used for an old folks home?

  NW: Must have been two or three years. I didn't keep up with it much after that.

  WC: What happened to the staff when they closed it down as a hospital?

  NW: Oh, they went various places. The executive secretary was still there closing out the business. I don't know how long she stayed on after T left. The dietitian went back to Charleston where she lived; she was only working 'cause she liked to work I think.

  WC: What was the reason for closing it as a miners hospital?

  NW: Well, the reason for closing it was inadequate medical care. I mean, the doctor that was there was just not capable. And I advised Board to take control over the matter. And they didn't seem to be very enthused about it; just ignored the warnings. I even called them and talked to them about it. And they said they'd see what they could do about it. But I couldn't see people come to the hospital and expect to get cured, and get maimed. It just didn't make sense.

  WC: And where did this doctor come from?

  NW: I don't know where... he was from Morgantown. He was an alcoholic, apparently. Because, a few days before he left there, I had an emergency one night. Some people, nurses and students, from the hospital called me and I went over. A man had been run over by a train; he tried to hop a train or something and it just cut his- leg off — it was just almost off. And I went round and round and round that man's bedroom pounding on the doors and windows trying to get him awake, and he just absolutely would not answer me. And finally I got the maintenance man to take the door off the hinges. I was sure the old man was dead, but he was just dead drunk. We had to send that man to the Beckley Hospital. I don't know whether he lived or not. I never did hear.

  WC: And he was appointed by the Governor?

  NW: He was appointed by the Governor. I just couldn't see people coming in

  and we'd say, “Don't come in. Go somewhere else.”

  WC: Did this happen over a period of years that the medical care began to decline?

  NW: After he was appointed.

  WC: What year was that?

  NW: Nineteen and, ah, let's see. When the election would be, forty, was it, that the Governor changed? I suppose he was appointed then. It was in the fall of '41 that I left.

  WC: Could you tell me about your job at this particular time. What was your title?

  NW: I was the director of nurses.    

  WC: And how many people did you supervise?

  NW: Well, we had, ah, sixteen and nine is what, twenty—one?

  WC: Was this all nurses?

  NW: Yeah, and students.   

  WC: How much did they get paid then per month.  

  NW:  I don't remember. Not very much — fifteen or twenty dollars , like that. Very small sum.

  WC:  Was their training still for three years?  

  NW:  Their training was for three years. We had established a reciprocity in obstetrics and pediatrics, childrens care, and women's diseases in Cincinnati for students; and they rotated going for they weren't getting enough experience here. But the State had set that up for them.

  WC: Did you have very many female patients at the hospital?

  NW: Quite a few.

  WC:  We’re just about finished now. Do you have anything to add that you think we've not covered on the hospital care?

  NW:  No, I don 't think so. As far as I can tell you, all the nurses I've known have been good nurses.

  WC:  Sort of a catch—all question, do you remember the Depression and how it affected folks in the McKendree and Round Bottom area?

  NW:  Quite well, I can remember that. I had been going to school, pinching pennies, working after—hours, after—school, working my way through school. And I suddenly got this job of nursing, and they were paying me a little bit for nothing — uniforms, books, everything furnished. I saved a little bit of money; had ninety dollars in the bank. And when the banks closed, they got my ninety dollars.

  WC: You lost your money?

  NW: Yeah, I lost my money. And that's what I remember most about the Depression.

  [End of tape.]