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 - 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]