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Interviewer : Paul J. Nyden Beckley, W. Va. 25801 October 1, 1980
PN: Maybe we could start off, if you could just mention where you were born and where you grew up.
WB: I was born at Quinnimont, West Virginia, which is down on the gorge, August 30, 1910. And I spent the biggest part of my life, or the early half of my life in the gorge. We left there, and went to Greenbrier County, and came back to Thurmond in 1918. And I lived at Thurmond from 1918 until 1933, when I moved to Oak Hill.
PN: What did your father do?
WB: He was section foreman on the C & O Railroad, stationed at Thurmond.
PN: During the entire time that you were living in Thurmond, was your father working for the railroad?
WB: That's right, yes.
PN: When you were living in Thurmond between 1918 and 1933, were you employed by the railroad?
WB: I was after I got, while I was still in high school, I worked on the railroad part—time, as a relief clerk and stenographer, on the Hinton division; worked at Thurmond, Raleigh, and Rainelle, and Hinton.
PN: During this period then, between 1918 and 1933, I 'd like to ask you a number of questions about the appearance of Thurmond, and you could add any other thing you wanted to. How many houses would you say were in the town?
WB: There was around 600 people lived in Thurmond at the peak, which I suppose, say, divide that by four, which would be 150 houses; or three, would be 200 houses. However, there were apartment houses; people lived in apartments there above the Banker's Club. And on this side, the south side, that I was telling you about, the old Collins store had four apartments upstairs over that. And then, of course, some people worked at Thurmond, boarded at the hotel and lived else— where, you see. There was two hotels, and they had railroad men would —say lived at Hinton, or Huntington, or Charleston, anywhere board at the hotels and go home on weekends.
PN: What were the names of the two hotels?
WB: The Dunglen’s the one on the south side of the river, and the Lafayette was the one on the north side. Both of them's burned.
PN: Did most of the people that lived in the hotels working there at Thurmond, or were there tourists or people…
WB: No, worked at Thurmond. However, there was salesman or any itinerants that would come in would spend the night, or whatever, any business they had to transact, and coal operators. Say, if you owned the mines down there, and you lived in maybe Philadelphia, for that matter. They’d come there, and transact their business, and stay at the Dunglen Hotel. And salesmen would come there, I may be rambling off…
PN: No.
WB : Beneath the Dunglen Hotel, on the ground floor, they had a large room that the salesmen would come, they'd call them "dummers" back in those days, and they would bring their trunks, come in on the train, and bring their trunks with samples of whatever they sold. And merchants from up Loup Creek, and up and down the river, would come there and pick out what they wanted. And the salesmen would order it for them, and it 'd be shipped in then by express or freight. That used to be a big deal. Incidentally, one time, I forgot what year it was, but I was a pretty good—sized boy, Billy Sunday came there to preach one time in this basement of this Dunglen Hotel. Come in on his private railroad car and preached. Of course, everybody down there went to hear him, see him and hear him. The only thing I remember about the sermon was that he, the ushers passed the collection plate around they were dishpans, big metal dishpans —— and he made an announcement not to let the pan rattle. He meant he wanted greenbacks instead of change, see. That's the only thing I can remember about his sermon [laughs].
PN: Was he pretty popular back then?
WB: Oh yes, Billy Sunday was something like Billy Graham today; he was way before your time. Billy Sunday was one of these ranting, raging, fist—pounding; he was quite a character, Billy Sunday was. And he was nationally known; he wasn't just a local preacher. Of course, back in those days you didn't have radio and television to broadcast over; you had to go in person to get your audience.
PN: Was Thurmond a relatively unusual town, would you say, because it had these apartment buildings and big hotels?
WB: For that time, and in that area, it was unusual. Everything centered at Thurmond; it was a hub. It was the junction of Loup Creek and New River. And all the coal that was shipped up and down the river came to Thurmond to be, train made up to go east or west, to go to Tidewater or go west, whichever was shipping the coal. That is, from, between Quinnimont and Thurmond, they'd bring it down; say up to Thayer, they'd bring the coal down to Thurmond to ship it. And on as far away as Ansted, on down; and up Keeneys Creek, and down on south side, there was a lot of mines, see, all down the south, south side of the river, which is this side, from MacDougal. There's a lot of mines up this side, and then there was several mines on the north side of the river. And they all brought the coal into Thurmond, and you make up a train, there you see, at Thurmond for the main line to pick up. So Thurmond was really a hub. There was, I suppose you read the history of it. In 1911, Thurmond did more business than Cincinnati and Richmond. The C & O Railroad grossed $45 million that year, and $24 million of it was at Thurmond. So you can imagine.
PN: Shipping of coal, primarily?
WB: Yea. Many, a many time that I was a boy down there, I 've seen express trains, see back in those days, they run an express train in addition to the passenger trains, and local freights, and manifests. And 1 've seen an express train come in there, and there'd be a mountain of express out there in front of the depot. It'd take them 40 minutes to unload it. It'd delay the train, see; they'd have to stay there 40 minutes just to unload the express off. The express shipments of goods. But now, it didn't all go into Thurmond, see. As I said, Thurmond was the hub. If you lived in Mt. Hope, or Glen Jean, or Oak Hill, you ordered something by express it would come into Thurmond, and then was rerouted onto a branch line, you see, out of Thurmond. So it was handled again, see. That's why there was so much, and the freight depot there —— I don't suppose you 've ever seen it, because they tore it down a few years ago. It was right by the side of the river there, just adjacent to the present depot. And I can remember when, in addition to office staff Stud Ramsey was the freight—house foreman he had nine employees under him just handling freight. Can you imagine that? I don't know a depot nowhere now that has nine employees handling freight. Of course the trucks took all the business now. But you can just imagine that, how much freight nine men could handle in a day. See, as I say, they'd take it off the main line, and reroute it, and maybe some of it would come to, up Loup Creek; some of it would go down on a local, put it on a local freight, and take It, say, down to Nuttallburg. See, it'd come in on a manifest, or some other fast train, fast freights.
PN: What's a "manifest"?
WB: That's a fast freight, time freight, run on a schedule like a passenger train. I know you've seen a train go by, high speed, with a lot of box cars and oil tankers and such they are manifest trains. Coal trains are mostly coal, hauling coal. Then they have a-they don't have them today —— local freights. Say, they was running a local freight from Thurmond to, well to Ansted, say. All right, they had some freight for Beury, they had some freight for Fire Creek, for Sewell, North Caperton, Kenneys Creek, Nuttallburg, Fayette, and so on, and on down the river into Hawk's Nest. This local freight would drop freight off at each one of them, stop at each one of them stations and drop the freight off.
PN: In Thurmond at this time, could you list the types of buildings there were other than homes? Like you mentioned the two hotels. What else was there?
WB: I'll try to enumerate them. There was two banks: New River Bank and the National Bank of Thurmond. Then there was a theater; Collins had a theater there. Then Stanley Panas had a shoe shop under the Collins store on this side of the river. And then a fellow, a colored fellow named Moses had a shoe shop on the north side of the river above the depot. And then there was several stores down there: New River Grocery, and Snyder—Carter Company had a store down...
PN: What was that, a grocery store?
WB: If it was a Snyder—Carter, It was a dry—goods store; if it was New River, it was a grocery store. Well, they had two rooms one was groceries, one was dry goods. And then there was two jewelry stores in Thurmond at one time, and two drug stores Mankin Drug and then the South Side Drug Company. I can't think of the name of the jewelry. But, and then now, let's see, there was the Dog Wagon we called it, it was a little restaurant there by the railroad crossing. And then on down the street we called it a street, it wasn't really a street there was, called the Greek restaurant. It was there, right beside the Banker's Club today; the old building is nothing but a hull now. And then, of course, both hotels had dining rooms; you'd get your meals there.
PN: Would the Greek restaurant, did it serve Greek food or something?
WB: No, it's just that Greeks run it, they served American food. Greeks run it for a long time, and then it was later took over by Americans. It was right, quite prosperous. They all did a big business. Now Mrs. Duncan had a boarding house on this [south] side of the river; she kept boarders and roomers. I don't think that building's there any more. You know where the Rescue Squad building is? Well, there was another large, behind that was a large building up there that Mrs. Duncan used to. And oh, the Rescue Squad, that was a funeral home, later after this store that I was telling you about a while ago burned that had all the, old funeral and home, the theater, along with Collins' grocery store, the dry goods store, and Doc Likens' drug Store, and then Collins had a furniture store, then four apartments upstairs over. That building burned in 1922. And then Collins moved his mortuary to the building that used to be the old South Side saloon; it's the building the rescue squad's using down there now. It's been remodel led; it doesn't look much like the same building now. It had apartments upstairs over it.
PN: You said before that about 600 people lived in Thurmond?
WB: Yes, that's about the peak; wouldn't have been room for anymore.
PN: How many lived in individual houses?
WB: I never did count the actual houses, but as you can see by that picture there [pointing to a photograph on his home office wall], which was taken in 1920] there was lots of houses down there. And, of course, lots of them today, there's a lot of them been torn down. There's nothing like the houses down there today there were then.
PN: How many rooms would each of those homes have?
WB: Oh, four or five.
PN: And how would they use those rooms usually?
WB: Well, you'd have a living room, and a kitchen, and a couple of bed— rooms, something like that you know. Railroad men lived in them; some of them had big families; some didn't.
PN: There weren't miners living there?
WB: I don't know of any miner lived in Thurmond, because there was mines close by, and they lived in coal camps. See, right across the river there from Thurmond was Weewind and Erskine, and they built that houses, people that the miners lived. And of course, not very far down— stream was Rush Run, and Beury, and Fire Creek, and so on; they was the mining towns, and all the miners lived in those towns. If you worked back in the old days, you worked in the coal camp, you lived there, and spent your money there. That's why there wasn't so much money in general circulation. Today there's, I made an economic survey of this area in 1965 when I was Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce. And there was 87 coal mines that had worked out in a ten—mile radius of Oak Hill then, in ’65.
PN: Eighty—seven?
WB: Eighty—seven; though, of course, that's air—line. Today there's probably way over a hundred. But there's more money in circulation here today than there was then, cause people, if you lived down in Whipple back in those days, oh, before the unions got so strong, if you worked there, you spent your money there. If they caught you spending your money uptown, they'd either lay you off or put you in a water hole —— you couldn't make a living. It was rough on you back in those days. But, no, I lived in Thurmond all od, I don't know of any coal miner lived in Thurmond. And I used to know every human being, cat, and dog down there. And I don't the mine. and know of a single coal miner that worked in the mine.
PN: Just going back to the homes a minute, how would people, say a typical railroad family that lived in one of these homes, how would they furnish it inside? What type of furniture would they have?
WB: Well, they'd have nice furniture. Railroad men was the cream, or the elite I used to say, of the working jobs, or working—class people. Cause, well even back, four to six dollars a day was big money then. Of course, that's, you that more than that an hour now. But they had had nice furniture. When I was a kid, we were so poor, that I used to go visit my friends, and I 'd see linoleum on the floor. I thought they were rich, because they had linoleum on the floor, even though you weren't. We all, we had in our house was wood flooring, scrubbed with lye, and turned white. But, of course, those were happy days; [but] comparatively today, you wouldn't want to go back to it —— outside privies and all that stuff; you'd have to carry water, go out and round up firewood, get up early in the morning and build a fire.
PN: Were most of those homes heated by wood?
WB: Coal, wood and coal, yea, coal principally. You used wood to start your fire, and then you used coal. It takes too much wood to keep your fire going all the time.
PN: There wasn't running water in this whole period?
WB: On the other side, the north side of water over there. But on the south side, except in the Dunglen Hotel; and they, of the river, they had running there was no running water, course, had to pump their water. But the houses just a, carry it out of a creek or stream.
PN: Was there any gas or electricity?
WB: Oh no; electricity, but there wasn't any gas. Wasn't any telephones. Well, back when I was telling you a while ago about Thurmond being the exchange, the telephone exchange for this whole area, I betcha there wasn't, each mine had a telephone, but the individuals didn't have telephones. They didn't have any use for them. Of course, it didn't cost you much, probably a dollar a month. But then you didn't need it, so you didn't have it. Just holler at somebody; if you want to tell your neighbor something, just holler.
PN: What did you eat back then generally?
WB: Well, we ate about the same food as you do today. It didn't cost near as much. But comparatively it did, cause, you was making, well when I started working on the railroad, you got 40 cents an hour. And of course, that's $3.20 a day. Well, milk was six cents a can; I don't know what a can of milk is now, maybe 30 or 40 cents for a can of milk today. Bread was five, ten cents a loaf, and now it's, tear a dollar bill off just to buy a loaf of bread today. Flour was just about 39 cents for 24 pounds back then; lard, cheap, for three cents a pound; butter was ten, fifteen cents a pound.
PN: Did you buy your food at a company store?
WB: No, Collins, you see, Collins had a grocery; we bought all our groceries at Collins. And then there was another grocery store across the river. Then later on, sometime later, the C & O, it was called Fitzgerald and Company —— but they were tied in with the railroad — they had a comissary over there. But only people that worked for the railroad, and you couldn't spend money in it. You see, they'd take it out of your pay, see. You'd go over there and cut some paper scrip, like I showed you a while ago; then they'd take it out of your pay, see. If you bought fifty dollars worth of groceries this half, two weeks, it would be taken out of your check when you got it. Ripley had that in his column one time about that store down in Thurmond that you couldn't spend money in. It was a comissary, and you had to spend that scrip, railroad scrip, paper scrip, it was. They were a little bit higher than anywhere else, you see.
PN: The scrip was issued by the railroad company?
WB: By this store called Fitzgerald and Company, and they were tied in some way or another with the, I don't think it was actually owned by the railroad company, but somebody had a franchise with, they had several different places along the railroad, Fitzgerald and Company. It's the same building that the post office is in, in Thurmond. Remember that metal building as you go down the street there below the crossing? That's where the Fitzgerald store was.
PN: Did you have a radio at this time?
WB: Not till about down around 1930, I think, we got a radio.
PN: What types of programs did most people listen to?
WB: Bradley Kincaid of Cincinnati, who was one of these hillbilly singers. And KDA in Pittsburgh, and WLW in Cincinnati, that's about the only stations around. There wasn't any in Charleston or anywhere else. And incidentally, when you bought a radio back in those days, you didn't have built—in antennas like they have today. You don't put no antenna for a radio today. You get out there and stretch, it'd look like clothesline you 're stretching across the yard for your antenna. Yea, they used to sell them at Doc Ridge, when he run the South Side Drug Company, later years sold radios all up and down the river there, and man would have to out and stretch these clotheslines for antennas. We didn't have much variety though. As I say, WLW and KDKA was about all you had, and then Beckley, Oak Hill, Charleston.
PN: Did you get WSM from Nashville?
WB: Yea, used to get WSM too, cause I remember old Uncle Dave Macon, he sang there. He plays ten songs and never change the tune.
PN: What did people do for recreation or entertainment?
WB: Go to a movie. And then we had a ball field there, and we used to play ball, those younger or who was able to. Men, we called "big ball.” Did you ever see one? It's larger than a baseball, much larger. And you don't knock it as far. The ball field was right there; now it's all grown up and now you can't tell hardly where it was any more. Right beside the Dunglen Hotel, there's some bottom land there where Loup Creek comes into the New River. And if you'd foul a ball, go out in the river and get watersoaked, and then you couldn't knock it ten feet then after that. Not like today, we have these Little League teams, goodness, I don't know how many dozens of balls they use a year. We'd use one ball all year; tape it up with friction tape, you know.
PN: Why did you play this "big ball”, rather than regular baseball?
WB: You'd knock a baseball too far; your ball field wasn't far enough along, you see. You'd have knocked all the windows out of Dunglen Hotel with a baseball; it was right down the block. I 've seen those pretty strong boys hit those softballs up there on the porch.
PN: Did you have any league, like they did in Raleigh County and Fayette County?
WB: Not exactly a league. We had a ball team there, and Beury Mountain had a team, Weewind had one, and we always beat those teams. But when we'd come up Loup Creek to play Red Star or Glen Jean, they'd just beat the tar clean out of us. They had better players and better facilities to play on, better diamonds and so on.
PN: Did you play baseball then, when you were playing up at Glen Jean?
WB: No, we always played that softball. Couldn't afford a glove; had to gloves for baseball. Lord, I used to play first base, and they'd throw that ball over there, and I had blood running out of my hand lots of times. Those boys played shortstop or third base, and throwed that ball over there like a bullet, and they'd just bust my hand, like hitting two boards together. Couldn't afford a glove.
PN: What kind of churches were there in Thurmond?
WB: Well, a union church all denominations; it didn't make any difference what you were. And then, of course, there was a colored church or two on the south side of the river. But John Dragan bought that building that the church was in up on the hill, and uses it to store some of his rafting equipment in. Whichever kind of preacher you could get —— Presbyterian, whatever he'd come in; to make him feel good, everybody in town joined the church. And then they begin, the novelty'd wear off, and they'd begin to drift away. And then he'd get disgusted and leave. [laughs] And everybody'd join the church all over again. So I used to kid ‘em and tell ‘em. But it was a right nice little church. It was attended by, attended, all the time I was living there, it was always full on Sunday.
PN: Were there many immigrants from Europe living in Thurmond?
WB: No, mostly people lived in Thurmond, the immigrants lived, worked at the coal mines mostly.
PN: Not so much on the railroads?
WB: Not so much on the railroads. Now there were a lot of colored people down there. They came from over in Virginia, over around Buckingham. I used to hear 'em brag about Buckingham County; in other words, I thought that God's part of the world. I was going down to Richmond one time, and I said I want to see Buckingham, because I 've heard those colored people brag about it so much. And I got through the place before I seen it. [laughs] Such a little place, a wide place in the road.
PN: Did they work on the railroad?
WB: Uh huh; uh huh. And then they would, they would "shanty" down there. I don't whether you know what that term means or not — "batching" or "shintying”. If you notice going into Thurmond, you see those old boxcars sitting on the track over there, as you're going down the hill into Thurmond. Those are shanty cars. Say you were married, and you lived in Buckingham, or wherever, well you'd come down, and go home once a month, see. And you'd cook your own, batching is cooking your own meals and providing for yourself. And they didn't charge any rent. They had to have some place for the laborers to stay. That's what they stayed in, the colored especially.
PN: What percentage of the town was white? Do you have any estimate of that?
WB: Oh, I 'd say, like 95 at least. There wasn't too many colored people. Let's see, they worked on the section on the railroad track, and on the shop track, and in the shops over there some. There might have been 50 out of 600, which would have been a small percent.
PN: Most of them were men alone, or were there many families?
WB: Well, there was some families; some colored families lived there. The Moseses, the Masseys, lived over there on the south, mixed up with the white people up above the depot there. This Moses I was telling you about run a shoe shop there, and he had a big family. And, then this Massey lives on up there near the church I was telling you about. Then there's another family or two of coloreds up there, but I don't remember their names.
PN: Did Massey have a business too?
WB: No, Massey j us t worked for the railroad company. But Moses 's sons worked on the railroad after they up, but the old man hisself run this shoe shop. See back in those days, you'd take your shoes there. You wore a little hole in them, you'd have them half—soled; you didn't throw them away. It didn't cost but a dollar, a dollar and a half to have them half—soled. Just like another pair of shoes, see, wear them for another year or two. But today people, but if you got a really expensive pair of shoes, it pays you to have them repaired. But if you have a cheaper pair of shoes, it costs you as much now to have them repaired, wouldn't be worth fooling with.
PN: Did they have any saloons or taverns?
WB: No they went out, see when Prohibition come in. But I 've read some history here in Shirley Donnelly's column. There mentioned five saloons in Thurmond, but I don't know there were. They had the Black Hawk Saloon and the South Side Saloon, but there might have been some others, some cat—holes somewhere, but I don't know where they were. But they were closed when we came there. People still had whiskey, bootleg that they sold there, bootleg whiskey.
PN: Were the moonshiners making it around there?
WB: No, they'd bring it in there, see, they come in on the train with it sometimes, with a suitcase full of whiskey. Sometimes they go to Kentucky and get it and bring it over here. You go up and down the river, and bring in a suitcase full, and sell you a pint or a fifth. I think a pint was about three dollars, moonshine. But you didn't see drunks like you do today, especially around these beer joints. Because, to start with, you didn't have a beer joint in Thurmond. Beer, of course, didn't come in until 32.
PN: Did people make homwbrew, or anything like that?
WB: Never seen any down there, no. They might have made some and drank it, but you wouldn't have known it if they did. I heard of it, but I never did see anybody with it down there.
PN: Thurmond was unusual, though, in that the railroad was the main street, right?
WB: Oh yes, yea.
PN: Were there other streets or paths going off up the mountain?
WB: Well this road that leads from Thurmond to Beury Mountain was, you might say, a main artery through the town. It wound up the hill and circled around on down to the west end of town, and on back down to the railroad. Today, you can make that circle and come back up by the Banker's Club, come on back up to the depo. But back then, you couldn't; you couldn't drive it. Mr. Pugh cut a road from up the top of the embankment there down to the railroad, which he can drive now from, say the depot, down to his place of business, or his home there, but back then that road wasn't cut there.
PN: Did many people that lived in Thurmond have gardens?
WB: No, there wasn't any place for them. Might have had a little patch that didn't amount to much, but there wasn't any. See the yard, one side of the house was a storey or two off the ground, see. and rocky too. There wasn't much suitable for gardening. Now on this side of the river, there was some of them had gardens. But there it was so steep, you might have had a little patch that raised a few tomatoes, peas.
PN: Did people ever keep plants or flowers inside their homes?
WB: Oh yes. Lord, I got so sick of them things when I was a kid. I never liked them in the house; they always smelled like a funeral home to me, a bunch of old house flowers, you know. My mother used to have lots of those things. The sun come out and get warm, she'd have me carrying them out on the porch. Get a little cool, carry them back in the house. Strictly house plants, you know. I don't guess they bloomed year round, but they lived year round.
PN: Is there anything else that you'd say about Thurmond that you think is significant, that I may not have hit in these questions?
WB: I’ll tell you, one thing about in the heyday, and compare it to today, it'd really depress you, but I didn't say it, if you, it meant anything to you, which it does mean a lot to me because I lived there so long. And I could go down there now, and it'd really depress you, really. So many old friends that's gone. See I left there 47 years ago, and the children were grandchildren, grandparents today. I don't know very many people down there now, but it used to be, I knew everyone. But today, I don't. There's not very many of the old—timers living down there. Charlie Wa-Eer-'s still living down there; he used to be chief clerk for the trainmaster over there. He's been retired a long time now. I guess he's the oldest old—timer down there. And Erskine Pugh, of course Erskine [telephone rings].
PN: You were talking about your feelings about Thurmond?
WB: I say, when you go down there today, time was when you'd walk down the street, somebody to and lots of people knew me up and down the street. Always stop and talk to, and chit—chat, and so on. Today, if you go out on the street, you're the only one you see, yourself. You look in the mirror, you see yourself. Except around meal—time, I was down there the other day, about a month ago, evening meal—time. I went down to the Banker's Club, and of course it was full, because the raft—riders, or whatever you call them, were in there having dinner. But, you mentioned entertainment a while ago, back in the old days, when radios did come out, you know, Amos and Andy was a big deal, and Lowell Thomas. Now this was before your time, you 're a young fellow. But Doc Ridge run the South Side Drug Store; actually the South Side Drug Store used to be on this side of the river, but when it burned, they moved over there, and they called it still the South Side Drug Store. There used to be a Mankin Drug Store on the north side, and the South Side was on this side. But when the South Side burned out, they moved over there and still called it the South Side Drug Store. But anyway, every evening around six o clock when Amos and Amdy and Lowell Thomas would come on, everyone that lived down on the street, we called it, and apartments, and anyone else who wanted to go down there and loaf, would sit down on the street and listen to Lowell Thomas and Amos and Andy. We didn't have radios at home, you know. That was a big deal, listening to Amos and Andy and Lowell Thomas every evening.
PN: The two hotels the Dunglen and the Lafayette —— were they centers where people would gather and talk and?
WB: Play poker; the fellows that roomed there would go in there and play poker among theirselves, you know. That was way back before this big—time gambling, you see, when this fourteen—year gambling, poker game went on. That was, they tell me that big—time gamblers got to come in that really broke it up, see, professional gamblers. See, I know that, most of them, those fellows that lives, stayed in the Dung len and Lafayette Hotel would get among themselves out there in the lobby of the hotel and have a poker game, and nobody 'd bother them. It was all quiet; there wasn't any rowdiness or anything like that one way of entertaining theirself. The Lafayette and Dunglen you've heard the story on that, I guess, haven't you — how the Dunglen met its fate, didn't you. Have you ever heard that story?
PN: Maybe you could mention it?
WB: Well, business begin to drop off down there around, let's see, the Depression. Of course it dropped off everywhere. So, I don't know whether I should mention any names, course she's dead now, liable to have me sued. But anyway, the party decided there wasn't enough business for two hotels, so they hired two fellows two railroad men got em drunk and hired them to go set the Dunglen on fire. They went on the top storey and set it on fire, see. And cut out the competition. Well, they caught 'em, gave them three years apeice; they lost their job on the railroad both brakemen on the railroad. Lost their jobs and got three years in the penitentiary. Well, they couldn't prove this party actually hired them to burn. But to get, they knew that she did, but in court you couldn't prove it. So to get at her, they raided her hotel and found whiskey —moonshine whiskey, see. So they sent her to Alderson, the federal penitentiary; and sent her husband he didn't even drink —but his name was, he was running the hotel, he didn't have anything to do with drinking. He was a, the head engineer for Wilson Engineering Company down there, the company I worked for for 12 years.
PN: Wilson Engineering?
WB: Mm. It also burned them out too. [laughs] And sent him to Atlanta for three years, to get at em for burning his hotel. That's how it, the Dunglen met its fate. Then later, back in a, I believe about '57, I know I was City Manager and we sent the fire truck down there. The Dunglen was on fire, and we sent the fire truck down there.
PN: The Dunglen again?
WB: No, I mean, the Lafayette, excuse me, I meant the Lafayette caught on fire. But it didn't save it.
PN: That's when it burned up finally then?
WB: Oh yea, it burned clear down.
PN: In ’57 when…
WB: The Lafayette did. The Dunglen burned March 22, 1930.
PN: Was there still business in the Lafayette Hotel then?
WB: Oh yes. See the post office was in It, and a pool room in it, and then this New River Grocery Company 1 was telling you about had two rooms in the basement of it, it was the ground floor. Yea, there was still, things like. Of course, 1930 came and Thurmond begin to go down. Everywhere did. The Armour Company moved out then, moved their plant there; of course, that hurt bad.
PN: About 1930?
WB: Yea, about that time. They moved to Beckley. Thurmond started going down really in 1922. See, a lot of the business in Thurmond was on this side of the river too, cause as I was telling you about, all those stores over there. In 1922, that store burned, and of course Collins moved across the river. Well, Thurmond was never the same after that, see. It was almost like two different towns; there was almost as much business on one side of the river as there was on the other, see. It was all centered over on the other side then, when this store burned. But it really started down then. And of course by 1930, a lot of the mines had shut down, and there wasn't nothing like the population there. And the railroad, if the mines is not, producing coal, then they cut off the railroad people. I was cut off in 1931, and never did go back.
PN: From the railroad?
WB: From the railroad.
PN: And what were you doing on the railroad?
WB: I was, the last job I had I was secretary to the freight agent at Hinton.
PN: But Thurmond in the 50s was still more than it is today?
WB: Oh yes, yea, yea.
PN: When did it really decline to where it is today?
WB: Well, when these mines around here all, haven't been down enough in the last few years to really keep track of how closely. I t 11 tell you what cut a lot of people off too, when the dieselized the motive power, took the steamers out. See at one time, there was 175 men worked in that shops down there.
PN: In Thurmond?
WB: Yea, in the railroad shops. Beside what was up at the shop tracks up in the east yard. But when they cut those off, and I was down there some time —— last summer, or the summer before last maybe and there was only two or three people that works in those shops now. You can see what that would do to a town like that. Of course they 've cut off, my brother was yardmaster down there for years and, they used to have three yardmasters around the clock, you know, and they used to have three car distributors around the clock. And they had the trainmaster's office had a staff up there, and a ticket agent downstairs, and a baggage agent, express agent and there's nothing, there's a telegraph operator now, that's about all. Upstairs, all those offices up there are vacant now; they 've moved everything downstairs in one office. Railroad jobs theirselves, there's very few. I used to be call boy down there too some. They had 13 train crews, engine crews, well train crews; and today they got one. There just ain't any mines around here working any more.
PN: When you lived in Thurmond in this period, 1819, a 1919...
WB: 1819? [laughs]
PN: and 1933, did the railroad workers have a union of any kind?
WB: Oh yes, yea. B. of R. T. — Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen; and telegraph operators had a union too. The clerks, they didn't have any union; they did later after I left the railroad, they got a pretty good union. But when I was with them, they didn't have any union. And the trackmen, nothing like that had a union that amounted to anything. But today, their unions are really strong, the railroad men. In fact, they just about broke the railroad companies' back with the high wages they get today, you know. Those trainmen, they go out there and throw that switch, and go home. They get their eight hours for it. If you was working on a section, went out there and worked an hour, you just got paid for that hour. You didn't get paid for the whole day. But their union's so strong, as quick as they get there, they get their pay.
PN: How about the miners back then? There was almost no union at that particular time, was there?
WB: They had a union, but it was never strong until Franklin D. Roosevelt came in in 1932. And he backed John L. Lewis and made the union strong. Then they got strong. Of course, the mining business didn't really pick up after the stock market crash in 1929, mines didn't really start picking up again until, of any significance until Hitler started raising cane over there. Started preparing for war, and then of course in '41 when the war struck why, of course, they, but they froze the price of everything during the war. You could have bought you a pair of shoes during the war, same price you, before the war, because they froze the price of everything. But brother, the day they lifted it! [laughs] The prices of everything soared. But you had to have a shoe stamp to buy a pair of shoes, a ration stamp. You had to have it to buy whiskey, and gasoline; I 've got some of those old gas stamps right now. You know to, A and C stamps, C was good for five gallons; seems like A was three gallons. Just rationed so much.
PN: When you lived in Thurmond and wanted to travel to another place, could you do much of that, and how did you go? WB: Well, back in the old days, we used the train. See, my father worked on the railroad, and I worked on the railroad — didn't cost us anything. Travel was free; you got what was called a pass.
PN: To Hinton or Charleston?
WB: Oh yes, we could go to California if we wanted to, because one railroad would honor another railroad's pass, you see. Now you could get to, order what you call "foreign passes" and go to California if you wanted to. It would cost you nothing, train fare, unless you got a Pullman. You go day coaches, you could ride to California and back, it wouldn't cost you a penny.
PN: Did you often go places?
WB: Oh yea, we travel led. No real long trips like California nothing like that. We'd go to Richmond, somewhere. Of course, it was a big treat to us just to go to Charleston. We thought that was something great, just to go to Charleston. Go down, my mother would take us down there lots of times to buy school clothes. We'd ride the morning train down and the evening train back Number Three down and Number Six back. That was a big deal, you know. Of course, Charleston didn't have the traffic [it does] today; you could walk all over, you know, wouldn't have the danger of being run down like you are today. I don't look forward to going to Charleston today. But back then, you know, that was a big deal. In 1919, they built the road into Thurmond. See, up until then, there wasn't any highway into Thurmond at all.
PN: Was that the road from Glen Jean?
WB: Glen Jean, set in, and next Thurmond. But, I forgot who it yea. They built it down to Newlyn. then bad weather year, then they finished it from Newlyn on down to I remember the first automobile that come in there. I forgot who it was now who drove, but it was an Oldsmobile car.
PN: What year was that?
WB: '19. 1919. And later on, I can remember when there was nine taxi cabs come into Thurmond. They'd line up out there, they used to go over, and fight over the passengers and grab suitcases out of the passengers hands. And the railroad stopped them, and made them line up. If I wanted you, I could pick you out, and let you come over and grab my satchel, see. It got so rowdy.
PN: Did you ever own a car? Did your family ever own a car when you were in Thurmond?
WB: Yea, at later years, they did, yea. But early days, no.
PN: In the late 20s, or something?
WB: And you won't believe this. But Thurmond had, and very few people I suppose remember this, Thurmond had an automobile agency at one time. A fellow named Thompson sold Gardiner cars down there. You never heard of a Gardiner car. They 've been gone for years; looked something like a Dodge. Up on the hill there above, it used to be Collins's big store. You go up across the railroad, you go up that first sharp curve, straight on, on up the hill, up on the upper road, a fellow had an agency —— it was just a garage, that's all it was, a family car garage. He didn't stay there long though. Cause he sold my uncle Carl Reed a car, and he might have sold another one too, and he moved to Ans ted. But they did have a car agency there. And they had newspapers printed there one time.
PN: A Thurmond paper?
WB: Yea, the something Herald. Seems to me like I 've forgotten. Shirley Donnelly got it in his column what it was. I 've forgotten the name of it. I don't remember it; it goes back, way back. Before 18; there wasn't any paper when I went there in 18. We got the Cincinnati Post; that was the big newspaper then two cents, yea, two cents a paper.
PN: People used to come to Thurmond from other towns for entertainment, didn't they?
WB: Oh yes. Get your hair cut; you'd come up to see the barber shop down there and pool room's all in the. same place. You could get hair cut on Sunday — from Gray Hetcher and George Flowser. Fourteen [the train] came up around 11:00 or 11:30, and Thirteen went back about 3: 00, up and down the river; one went east and one went west. But if you lived down at Elver ton or somewhere down the river, you'd ride Fourteen up and get your hair cut, and catch the Thirteen back, you see. He did a lot of business on Sunday. Yea, it was, of course, later years, when automobiles, roads got good, people started moving away and driving back and forth into Thurmond. Of course, that hurts too, you know.
[Note: This was one of the more difficult tapes to transcribe. There are some passages where one or two words may not be exact because of difficulties in understanding the original words.]
Oral History Project - Brandt, Grace and Emmett 1980
Interviewer : Paul J. Nyden Beckley, W. Va. 25801 October 7, 1980
PN: Just to start off, I was wondering if I could ask both of you when and where you were born.
EB: I was born in Greenbrier County, Lewisburg, West Virginia.
GB: And I was born in Sutton, Braxton County, West Virginia. What were the dates that were your birthdays?
EB: Nineteen and two, January the 25th.
GB: And nineteen one, October the 26th. That's soon.
PN: When did you first move to Glade? 1924.
PN: And you both moved from Lewisburg over to Glade in 1924?
EB: That's right. November the 1st, nineteen and twenty—four.
PN: What year was that?
EB: That was in 24, nineteen and twenty—four.
PN: When you moved to Glade, what was the type of work that you did when you went there?
EB: I went there railroading, on the railroad.
PN: That was the main C & O line?
EB: That was the main line of the C & O, yes.
PN: What were you doing in Glade?
GB: At that time, I wasn't doing anything, except that I did some sub— stitute teaching there.
PN: What was the year that Glade was originally started as a town, do you know?
EB: It was round about 1900, when it started.
PN: What were the main industries there, in that period?
EB: The lumber business, lumbering.
PN: And railroading.
EB: Yea, and railroading too.
PN: Was there one main lumber company that was operating?
EB: Well, there was one that was operated a good while, and then It went out of business, and then another one come and set up on the other side of the river. The first one was on the, on the, it was in Fayette County. It was on the Fayette County side. And the next one was operated on the Raleigh County side. And they had to put a railroad bridge in across New River, to get over to, you know, the main line of the C & O.
GB: In was built about nineteen and a…?
EB: Nineteen and twenty.
PN: Maybe you could describe again [they had done so previously before the taping began] what the name of the other town was, and the relation between the two towns.
GB: Hamlet.
EB: Hamlet was across the river. Now it was started about 1920 over there. That's when the first saw mill went in on the Raleigh County side, on that side of the river.
GB: And then on the Glade side, they just called that Glade.
EB: That was on this side [the same side as Meadow Creek].
GB: And the river divided them, you see.
PN: Yea, and both were saw—mill towns then?
EB: Yea, that's right. Glade was a railroad town, and on the Raleigh side it was a lumber town.
EB: No it wasn't, hon. There was a lumber town on this side too. It was, in Fayette County, on this side of the river. That was the first lumber mill that was there at Glade. That was before we went there, but these old—timers told me about it. And then there were signs of it there too, you know pieces of the old mill and all that stuff there. And you remember the old piers on each end where the boats landed on each side of the river there. They was in there when we first went there.
GB: Yea, that's right.
PN: They had a ferry?
EB: They had a big ferry, yea.
PN: When you moved there in 1924, how many houses were there in each of these towns?
EB: Well, there were close to, I expect there was 75 houses over on the Raleigh County side, and there was about 20 on our side. About 20 altogether, Gracie.
PN: How many people lived, you know, on each side?
GB: Well on our side, I figure, do you mean family—wise altogether or?
PN: Yea, the total number of individual people.
GB: Personal, personal individuals. Well, I expect…
EB: There were 75 people on our side. That is on…
GB: I expect there was.
EB: And on the other side, there was, well there at one time, I think they employed around 200 men on their saw mill. And in the woods too, you see. They had a woods gang that worked in the mountains in the woods cutting the timber. They had what they called the logging camp back in the mountains. And then they had a railroad, about 15—mile long, that went up Glade Creek; come out on top of the mountain up at the dam. You know where the dam is over there. It went all the way up to that dam, crossed the road up there. Got some of the logs beyond that road. PN: That brought the lumber down to…
EB: Yea, they brought the timber down; they would saw it up at Glade, there at Glade.
GB: And they put them on the mill ponds.
PN: What did the houses look like?
EB: Well, they were just lumber—camp houses, what we called Jenny Lind houses built up and down, tar—paper roofs on them; there was nothing fancy.
PN: They were pretty much like the houses that would be in a coal town?
EB: That's right, like the same kind, yea.
PN: Inside, did they paint the walls, or was there wallpaper on the walls?
EB: Well, there was mostly wallpaper, or sealing, lumber, you know, sealing inside.
PN: What do you mean, something that sealed it from the wind?
EB: Yea, that's right. And, you know, some of them, I think, was sheet rock, wasn't they inside? Some of the houses?
GB: I don't remember.
EB: Yea, I think there were some of them with sheet rock. But they didn't call it sheet rock then; they called it
GB: Beaverboard.
EB: Beaverboard, I believe that's what they called it when it first come out.
GB: But on our side, the, most of the houses were papered. And of course, there was this tongue—and—groove sealing, siding, under them on the inside. What do you call where they're sealed on the inside?
EB: Sealing. It's lumber, sealing.
PN: How many rooms were there in the homes usually?
EB: Well, there was about from four to six, four to six rooms.
PN: And what did people use the different rooms for, generally.
EB: Well they used one for kitchen/ dining room; it was a combination mostly. And then they had a living room and a couple bedrooms.
PN: Could you describe the kinds of furniture that people would use, as a rule?
EB: Well, they had a, you know, we had a wicker outfit, you know.
GB: I 've got the table to the wicker suite downstairs. I can tell you what we, how ours was, what we had. But of course, some of them weren't quite as fortunate as we. But now we had Aladdin lamps, and I had a kerosene refrigerator, and a gasoline washer. I had all conveniences with the exception of things that operated with electricity.
EB: But we didn't have that for a good while.
GB: Well, but we had it.
EB: Before we left Glade we had that.
GB: We hadn't been there very long.
PN: What did people eat back then?
GB: They raised their gardens.
EB: Gardens and…
GB: And their own meat.
EB: A good part of them did. We kept a couple of cows most of the time; I raised two to three hogs, and had our chickens, and stuff like that.
PN: Did most people that lived there keep animals?
EB: Well, the most of them kept a cow, and maybe a hog or two, a few chickens, and stuff like that.
GB: I think that nearly all of them had animals.
EB: Yea, that's what I'm saying.
PN: How about raising gardens; would you say that mostly everybody did that too?
EB: Yea, most everybody had a garden plot.
PN: Was there any store, or company store, where people would buy their food?
EB: Yes, there was a company store, and also a private—owned store. The Redden store was there when we first went there.
PN: That was the privately—owned store?
EB: That was the privately—owned store.
GB: And across the river was the company store.
EB: It was a company store.
PN: That was on the Raleigh County side?
EB: That was over at the saw mill, where the saw mill was too. They had a, what they call a “club house" over there. You know, it was kind of like a hotel. The travelling salesmens would stay there. And then they had another boarding house where the men that worked on the saw mill the single men boarded. It wasn't quite as nice as the one where the salesmen stayed in.
GB: And they had a doctor's office.
EB: They had a doctor's office. They had a church.
GB: A post office.
EB: And barber shop. Of course, the barber, he just worked part of the time, you know. He'd do something else when he wasn't barbering, of course; worked on the saw mill.
PN: But most everybody that lived on that side of the river, though, did work in the saw mill?
EB: Oh yea, they worked at the saw mill. They either worked at the…
GB: The ones on the Raleigh side; railroad, on our side, on the Glade side, they was railroaders.
EB: Well, there's some of them, Gracie, that worked across the river too, you remember. There was Manuel Richmond and that bunch of fellows that worked there; they worked on the, over at the saw mill.
PN: Back in the 1920s, when you lived there, what did people generally do for entertainment?
GB: Well, I'll tell you what we did. All of the children on our side of the river gathered up at my house, and we'd sit there and sing.
EB: Well, they pitched horse shoes, and had croquet, played croquet.
GB: They had their bicycles.
EB: They'd get out, and most of them might have had a, well if they didn't have a boat, they could get a boat, and boat—ride the river. And done a lot of fishing and hunting and trapping and all that stuff. I used to do a right smart trapping.
PN: What kind of animals did you…?
EB: We caught mink and muskrat and foxes — caught lots of foxes - bobcats.
PN: What did you do, did you sell the hides for furs?
EB: Oh yea, that's right.
PN: What did you hunt for, or what did people hunt for?
EB: Well they coon—hunted and squirrel—hunted and
GB: Rabbit.
EB: Rabbit—hunted. Turkeys there was some wild turkey down there, plenty of them. Grouse, quails there was some quail In there at that time. A lot more to hunt for then than there is now.
PN: Did you hunt for deer?
EB: I didn't then not when I was there. I do now though.
GB: I don't think that anybody down in there did hunt for deer then.
EB: No, it don't seem to me like there was any deer in there. I can't remember being any in there at that time. But of course, they were in there later. They stocked the place back in there, and they got scattered down in there.
PN: Did you have radios?
EB: No, we didn't have any radios when we first went to Glade. And it was several years before we got a radio.
GB: Well now, when we first went to Glade in 24, people had never heard tell of a radio. And then, I guess we got one of the first radios they ever had, and then Buren Martin.
EB: Buren Martin got the first one; he had the first one over there.
GB: Well, however. We got an Airlines from Montgomery Wards, and it was battery—operated. It was, it wasn't a table model, it was…
EB: Had three or four big batteries you put in.
GB: And at that time, along the way, they begin to talk about they was going to come out with a radio that you could see the people talking. And of course, that was television, but they didn't say it was television. But they said they was coming out with a machine that you could see the people that sat in New York talking. And we'd sit and wonder how could you see 'em on a little, just a little dial like that.
PN: What types of radio shows did you listen to?
GB: I guess we listened to just about everything that come on.
EB: You don't remember none of them, do you?
GB: Well, we listened to all…
PN: They had the Grand Ol Opry on there?
GB: Yea, country—and—western music, things like that.
PN: When you mentioned singing before, do you remember some of the songs, or types of songs, that you and some of the kids used to sing?
GB: Well, "They Cut Down the Old Pine Tree”, and "Lamplighter Time in the Valley, and…
EB: What was that one Benny
GB: Yea, “Springtime in the Rockies” and right off hand, just about every song that come out, we knew it. “They Cut Down the Old Pine Tree”, did I say that?
EB: Well they had Victrolas with records during that time too.
GB: We had a Victrola with the records. And of course, we didn't have this one then [pointing to their modern radio and phonograph], but I gave my grandson in Cleveland not very long ago an old phonograph that had the horn. EB: And three or four big boxes of records.
GB: One of our records that we memorized and sang so much was "The Preacher and the Bear”.
PN: Did they have any bars or taverns?
GB: No, no.
EB: They had a lot of moonshine though [laughs].
GB: But we didn't.
EB: But every other family down there made it or sold it.
PN: So there wasn't any problem getting it?
EB: No, oh no. It was pretty wide open.
PN: Did people make it right there in Glade?
EB: Well, right around, you know.
GB: Well, no, there wasn't anybody that made it right in Glade. They made it up on that Redden Mountain [which is on the east side of Glade Creek, on the Raleigh County side of New River], on the Raleigh side.
EB: Well, they made it, listen, listen. There was some made it right there close around. Oh yea.
PN: Did they have any baseball teams then like they did in some of the other…
EB: No, they didn't have none there. They just, you know, the kids would get out and play ball a little bit.
GB: It was just plain old ball. It wasn't anything like the World Series, or anything like that.
EB: The kids would get out and play ball — girls and boys and all of them would get out.
PN: It wouldn't be like some of the coal towns had baseball teams?
EB: No, no, no. They didn't have any regular baseball teams.
GB: What you would call the regular baseball team, I've got my very serious doubts that, at that time, that they ever heard tell of a regular baseball team.
EB: Well, you know Rosemary, let's see, she got her nose broke playing baseball, didn't she? Ray Durrett, you know…
GB: Throwed the bat…
EB: She was in back catching, and he was, she was supposed to be the catcher, and he was batting, and he swung the back bat and hit her on the nose, and broke her nose. That was our oldest girl. Had to take her and have her nose fixed up to the doctor.
GB: And another thing on the Glade side, the track would, there was a swamp. And the track come by this swamp, and the whole bottom fell out of the thing, and the railroad kept going toward the river. And they had to bring the man in there, and she said the railroad was just swinging, I don't know how far. And then that big flood in…
EB: '40, '42, '3, or somewhere along there; it was in the early 40s. It done an awful lot of damage. The river got up over the railroad down there in some places, up in the houses, washed some houses away.
GB: Dowm the river under the bridge; it…
EB: Well, it washed houses over to Meadow Creek here, and Sandstone on down.
PN: What was that year, '43?
EB: That was either '41 or '43.
GB: I think it must have been about '41.
EB: It was right in the early part of the 40s. Oh, it done lots and lots of damage.
GB: And they brought Haley, Chisholm, and Morris from…
EB: Over in Virginia. They come over there and, you know, made a lot of fills and cut their road bed back into the mountain, and lined the track to the mountain, so they'd have, you know, a road bed. It just took the road bed right out from under the railroad in lots of places.
PN: What was that, a construction firm or something?
EB: That was a construction firm, yea. Well, it was the same, they put in the second Big Bend Tunnel up here Haley, Chisholm, and Morris did, when they got this job done down here, you know, up at Hinton. They're the ones that drilled that second hole through the mountain up there.
PN: Back in the twenties, what was the religion of most people there?
EB: Baptist.
PN: And they had only one church in town.
EB: Let's see, no. They had church across the river where they had their schoolhouse up there. Didn't they preach at the schoolhouse, or did they have a church over there?
GB: Well, no, they had a church building up there, and a schoolhouse on the Raleigh side. On our side, we had the schoolhouse and…
EB: Up there at the church that's Lewis Durrett, you know, the church building.
PN: So there was one church on each side?
EB: Yea.
PN: Both were mainly Baptist?
EB: Yea, I think they were both Baptist.
PN: Did many immigrants live, were there many immigrants from Europe that lived in either Glade or Hamlet? poles or Hungarians?
EB: Them Italians, you know, over there.
GB: There were some DeLorenzos.
EB:They were Italians. The blacksmith that worked at Glade a long time.
GB: They were Italians.
EB: An Italian blacksmith. And then Louis, he was a Hungarian, Louis, oh, done the timber cutting, contracted timber cutting, Louis…
GB: The DeLorenzos…
EB: They were Italian.
GB: They were Italian, and
EB: Louis Mohair, Louis Mohair, he was the Hungarian. And he had a camp in the mountain up there, cut timber.
PN: He worked in the lumber industry then?
EB: He worked in the logging camp, you know, cut the logs, cut the timber, and pulling the logs out, get them up to the railroad where they could to them with the train, you see. He had horses, and the men done the cutting then; they didn't have chain saws, they cut it with cross—cuts. Those Italians, they carried 1 reckon you call it sort of a tribal name, you know. The man's name was Louis DeLorenzo. The oldest son 's name was Louis Halley DeLorenzo. They had one names Louis; his name was Louis Halley Louis DeLorenzo. And they just carried the first name of all three of them.
PN: Were there any Black families that lived there at the time?
EB: No, they was all white. No, let's see, wait a minute, listen. I made a mistake when I said there wasn't any there. Bill Fisher and his wife was there, you know, when we first went there. But he left right after we went there.
PN: What did he do, did he work…?
EB: He worked on the railroad; he worked on the railroad. And this colored fellow that she's a' talking about [in the background of the tape], he come there as a, well he was a machinist, and he worked on the saw mill. He was the engineer on the saw mill. He's the man that looked after the motors, you know, the steam motors, the steam engines that they had there in that mill. He was a real man on that stuff. And he'd come from a, oh, job over here at Babcock.
GB: And there was no way for either side of the river on the Raleigh or Glade, or on our side, the Fayette side that you could get out of there, only by passenger train.
EB: That was the only mode of travel we had in and out was passenger train.
GB: Five miles to Quinnimont and five miles to Meadow Creek — it was a ten—mile stretch there that there was no road.
PN: So nobody would have a car who lived in the town?
GB: No. No. We voted, we went from Glade to Quinnimont.
GB: We voted at Quinnimont; that was five miles below. And we either walked, or they had a local freight that run, carried freight. And they’d pick us up there on the depot platform at Glade, and take us to Quinnimont, where we had to go to vote, and let us off. And then the Raleigh run, if it come back after we voted, why they let us in the caboose, pick us up and let us off at the depot.
EB: You know we could wait on Number Eight, that passenger train that come up late in the evening, and ride it back to Glade.
GB: Yea, we could do that, but we usually come back up on the Raleigh run on the caboose.
EB: Yea, I know, to keep from staying too late, you know, or staying down there so long after we voted, we'd ride that freight train back down. And we had motor cars, you know, the section crews used motor cars to transport men to their work and back. And mostly on pay days, we 'd come up here to Meadow Creek; and if we wanted to buy anything up here at these stores they had more stores here in Meadow Creek than they did down there, they had about three stores up here we'd come up here and get our groceries and haul them back down on the motor cars. We did that a lot. And then the women, if they wanted to go to Hinton, well they could get on the passenger train down there and go up to Hinton and spend half a day, and come back down on the next passenger train that runs, you see. Or down the other way, they could go to Beckley. You see, they had passenger trains run up Piney Branch at that time. They could go down to Quinnimont, and get off there, and catch a Piney train and go up to Beckley, and stay about all day and come back home, yea. They had a lot of rail travel then, you see. We had 12 passenger trains, six each way.
PN: Were there any streets in the town, or was it mainly pths between…?
EB: No, there was just walkways like, you know. Just a railroad bed, about all. Now across the river, the bridge across the river, they put a board walk in between the rails to walk across the river. We walked the railroad bridge over and back, you see. Of course, we had to know when the train would be coming. If the train hadn't never come over and went back, you'd have to be a little bit careful about that, you know. Of course, the train crew would look out for everybody; if they seen them coming, why they'd stop and let them get on the engine and ride them on over.
GB: The people on the Raleigh side, the only road they had was the railroad track.
EB: Well there was, you know, there was several fellows that lived around Glade worked down the river on the railroad too. There was Harry Ward, and Jimmy Martin they worked at Quinnimont and lived in Glade, you see.
PN: Did the women that lived there ever do things like dye clothes or make soap, or things like that?
EB: They made soap, some of them.
GB: They made soap, yes, and they did dye clothes, some of them too
PN: Would they work at preserving meats or fish?
EB: Oh yes, we had our meats.
GB: We had our own…
EB: Beef. You see, during that time, around in the nineteen and twenties, we didn't have refrigerators either. We had to either can our meats, or salt 'em down to keep them.
GB: But then they come out with a kerosene refrigerator. We'd been in Glade about five years, I reckon, and they come out. When we first went there, they didn't have anything like that; you couldn't get it. Till Sears and Roebuck come out with a kerosene refrigerator. And as soon as they come out with that, it defrosted itself, and we got a refrigerator then. And then we got the gasoline washing machine. And they come out then with Aladdin lamps, and we had Aladdin lamps.
PN: What were they? Kerosene lamps?
EB: Yea, they used kerosene, used kerosene.
GB: But they made a whiter light actually than, well…
EB: They made just as good a light as electric lamps.
GB: As a hundred watt bulb in a dressing lamp.
PN: What, did you actually can meats in some way yourself?
EB: Oh yea.
PN: How did you do that?
GB: Well, I'll tell you now how we did our beef. We killed our own beef. And in the meat house we'd kill it late so it wouldn't spoil you know [late in the year] we'd hang the beef in the meat house.
EB: Let it cool out good.
GB: We'd let that beef hang there, and it would hang, part of it, of course we'd use off of it all the time. But the quarters hanging — they would freeze and thaw and drip; freeze, thaw, and drip. Until when spring would come, there'd be blue mold on them, and they'd be like dried beef. And then, by that time, why it begin to get warm, then he'd take what beef that we hadn't used, and he trimmed the mold off of it, and bring it in. I'd, he'd cook, and I'd help him cut it up in blocks, little…
EB: Chunks.
GB: Chunks, and I 'd wash that, then I'd dry it, so there’d be no…
EB: You know, dry it with a cloth, take the…
GB: Because you wasn't supposed to wash it and can it, but it's supposed to dry. And then I 'd just pack it in half gallon jars, and put a tablespoon full of salt in it, and put it on, and cold pack it. Didn't put any water in it — let it make it's own juice. And you can't get things like that today.
EB: No, you'd can that you know, cold pack. Well, she cooked it so long, when she calls cold packing it, she packs it cold, and then puts it in the, you know, in the hot water and boils it. You didn't cook It before you put it in the jar, you cold packed it. And then you put your, you put them jars on cooking for so long.
GB: You cooked them for three hours.
PN: That would preserve the meat?
EB: Yea, oh yea.
GB: They'd fix them just like peaches or anything you'd seal in jars.
EB: And it would be already—cooked meat. All you had to do just open the jar up and heat it and it was ready to eat. It was really good; it had the flavor in it too, you see, all the flavor cooked right in. It was better than fresh meat. And hams and stuff like that, if we had them left over, I have had hams that kept for two years, cured hams . And I would sugar cure those hams, hang them up, you know, and let 'em dry after I put the salt and the sugar on them. Then in the spring of the year, when the weather start to getting warm, why I 'd put them down in a feed barrel like a, you know, or an iron barrel, and put, well you could use middlings. You know, that's a ground—up grain you feed cows. And put that right down in on top of that, and that would keep the, everything out of it, you see. Or you could take dry wood ashes and do the same thing. But you'd have to wrap your meat up good before you put them down in, if you put that ashes over it, you see. And it would keep from now on that way. You could keep it 20 years, I guess, wouldn’t nothing go through them ashes. We done it that way.
GB : Well, you don't get meat that's like that now.
EB: You take one of those hams, and take it over there and cut it, and man, you can smell that frying for a mile.
PN: What kinds of fish did people catch?
EB: Well, they caught catfish, and bass, and walleyed pike, and suckers, and red—eyes. Mostly catfish is what they got out of New River then.
GB: And bass and pike. Oh yea, there was bass and pike. They done trot—line. And then most of those old—timers that really went in for fishing used them fish traps. Course it was agin' the law to use them, but they used em anyway.
PN: What were they, like big nets or what?
EB: No, they make them. They made ‘em like a, make ‘em so big around, and then they'd build a funnel, build a funnel. And to build that funnel, make it a, the strips that they used on 'em were hickory splits. Then they'd catch them things; I've seen 'em have a boatload of catfish.
GB: Then they'd take corn and put in the trap and, of course, the fish couldn't get out.
EB: Soured corn's what they used.
PN: What was that, you mean preserved corn?
EB: No, you take corn and let it sour good, you know, and put it in that trap, that would make your bait. And they'd go in there after that corn, and they'd get trapped in there. Then they, what they'd do, they'd pull them traps up out of the river there, take out what fish they want, and just drop it back with the fish in it. They had fish in the trap out there all the time there. A lot of them keep them like that.
PN: So they'd just keep the fish, whenever they wanted to eat…
EB: Yea, if they wanted to eat, they'd go out there and get what fish they wanted out of the trap, and clean 'em up. I’ve helped a fellow or two raise traps there, and he'd raise them, and take out what we wanted, and he'd just leave a whole bunch in there if he had a lot of feed in there for them. They'd just stay in there, and eat, and get fat, you know. Great big long trap, they'd be some of them eight or ten feet long — took two men to raise them up.
PN: These traps?
EB: Yea, oh yea.
PN: Could you do this the whole year round, or just in the summer?
EB: Well, he didn't do it in the freezing, when the river froze over, you know. Course I have seen the river froze solid down there. I’ve seen them haul coal across the river with a sled and horse down there. Don't never see that no more. But I guess on account of the dam up here.
GB: Well, across the river they had mules that they did a lot of their lumber work with.
PN: Did the people do anything to preserve fish like they did meat, or not?
EB: Not as I know of. They just had all the fish, most all the time, that they wanted to eat anyhow. Fresh fish. And another thing they had too was a ice house, across the river. The lumber company put, built them an ice house, and packed it. Well they'd order ice by the car load boxcar load and put in that ice house. And during the winter, [correcting himself] during the summertime, hot weather, if you wanted ice for your, now they had what they called regular ice boxes. You get that ice and put it in the box, and then you could set your milk, your butter, and your vegetables and stuff in that and keep it cool like. Of course, it wasn't like a refrigerator. It wouldn't freeze, it would just keep it cool. And then you'd have the ice to put in your drinking water. Some of them even made ice cream.
GB: On the railroad side, though, they sent ice from Hinton down in blocks [referring to the Fayette County side].
EB: Yea, the railroad men got theirs from Hinton. It come down on the passenger train every day. Dropped a big piece of ice off; the baggage men would come, you know, every morning, drop that big piece of ice off.
PN: Did people ever keep plants of any kind in their homes, just for decoration?
EB: Plants?
EB: Oh yea, they'd keep flowers.
GB: We had house plants, and then of course we had all kinds of flowers in our yard.
EB: And we burnt wood and coal all the time; we didn't have oil or gas.
PN: One thing I meant to ask you before about your jobs and your parents - where did your parents come from and what did they do?
EB: Well, my parents was farmers. My dad was a farmer.
GB: Up in around Lewisburg.
EB: Yea, they were all from up in Lewisburg, up in Greenbrier County. And her people, they were farmers. And your grandfather, he was a saw mill man.
PN: In Greenbrier County?
EB: Yea.
GB: My grandfather Stokes, he, in Braxton County, he had a mill. And then he, he had a saw mill, over in the Rocky Mountains somewhere.
EB: In Colorado, he was up there a while.
GB: My father now, my father's father, my father is, where is he?
EB : Your father was
GB : Up there at the top [discussing and pointing to old photographs hanging on their living room wall]. This was his father here, and he comes from Hamburg, Germany. No grandmother, I’m wrong there, Grandmother Marlowe come from Hamburg, Germany; and Grandfather Marlowe, from Lincolnshire, England originally. That was my immediate grandparents. And then my Grandmother Stokes’s father was from Sutton. Now that was my Great—Grandfather Stokes and my Great—Grandfather Sutton. See, the town of Sutton was named for the Suttons.
PN: Were those pictures from the Civil War?
EB: Yea, that's the Civil War.
PN: They fought in the Union Army?
GB : Yes, uh huh. Yea, they fought on the North side; they were Union soldiers.
EB: You used to help them the babies to Glade too, lots of times, didn't you, help the doctor?
GB: I done a little bit of that myself, even before the doctor got there.
EB: She was everything almost, postmistress.
GB: They’d send for me, and then holler for the doctor.
EB: Only a part of the time, they had a doctor. Most of the time, they had doctors in Glade. The first doctor we had there was Doctor Stokes. Then Doctor...
GB: Wilson.
EB: Ring.
GB: Doctor King, Doctor McClung.
EB: I guess McClung was the last one, wasn’t he, that we had. Who was the last? Johnson yes.
PN: When you worked on the railroad, what were the hours that you worked, say, back in the twenties?
EB: Well, I worked ten hours.
PN: A day?
EB: Yea, ten hours a day. But now, this job of bluff—watching that I had, now that was seven days a week. If there was 31 days in a month, I worked 31. If there was 30, I worked 30. It was seven days a week straight on through the whole year. PN: Ten hours a day?
EB: No, it was eight hours, eight hours then. But now when I first started to work on the railroad, see I started back in 1917 on the railroad, it was ten hours then.
PN: Did you get any days off then?
EB: Only Sunday. You would work six days.
PN: At ten hours a day?
EB: Six days, ten hours a day, at a dollar and seventy—two cents a day. That was 1917. That was before we moved to Glade; that's before we moved to Glade.
GB: That was before we was married.
EB: It was in 1918 that they started the eight—hour day on the rail— road, in 1918.
PN: Did the railroad workers have a union?
EB: Not at that time, not at that time they didn't, no.
PN: When did the union come in?
EB: Well, around a, it got pretty strong about 1935, somewhere along there. Most everybody, course it was a… GB: About the same time as Social Security.
EB: It was a voluntary thing, you know. You wasn't forced to belong to a union then. There was lots of the men didn't belong to a union. I did. I 've got a 35—year certificate, belonging to the union.
PN: What was the specific one you belonged to?
EB: Maintenance of way; maintenance of way. I 've got it in there on top of the cupboard.
GB: He worked 50 years to the day when he took his pension.
EB: From the day I started. Of course, I was cut off some. I was cut off one time back in Woodrow Wilson's time, long about in the twenties, the early twenties. I was cut off about three or four years during that time. That was before I was married; I wasn't married till 24. And when I got called back to the railroad then, why that was in '24. And that same year, we was married, 1924. And I give the mines up then.
PN: You worked in the mines?
EB: Yea, I worked in the mines for about three or four years.
PN: Where, around Glade?
EB: No, it was up in Greenbrier County, up above Rainelle on the G & E Railroad. Worked up at Leslie, and Quinwood, and I worked at Bellwood too. Did more work at Bellwood than I did at any of the other places.
GB: Then he went to work on the railroad, and took that job of watching. He made, his paycheck was $92.54 a month.
PN: For watching the bluffs?
EB: Yea, uh huh. That was a regular month's pay. They paid by the month — 31 day or 28 day a month. You take February 28, you got the same as you did for 31 day. It was a salary pay, you know.
GB: And we reared three children on that.
EB: And sent them to high school.
GB: And saved some money too.
EB: We saved a little bit of money. Of course, you see she operated the post office a while, and I carried the mail on the side, you see. I stayed on this three—to—eleven job most of the time on the railroad, from three in the afternoon till eleven at night. Well then you see, I could come in at night, I could be at home in ten minutes after I left my job. I lived right close to the job.
PN: This was the bluff—watching job?
EB: That was that bluff—watching job. I'd be at home, and be in bed, and asleep by 11:30. And I 'd get up the next morning about eight or nine o 'clock. I had all day to work in. That's when I done my farming. I also carried this mail across the river about noon. I'd be done with that about 2:30 in the afternoon, go to work again at three.
PN: How many days a week did you work then? That was when you worked every day?
EB: That was when I worked every day. But I worked on the mail carrying just six days a week.
PN: Your main job was to make sure that boulders…
EB: Oh yea, that's right, flag the trains…
PN: So they wouldn't…
EB: That's right, hit the boulders. Now I have had several different occasions, I've had both tracks blocked all the way across. And I had a train coming each way. And buddy, I had to move around. I didn't know which train I was going to get first. But I generally put out a fuse then one way, and flagged with my lanterns the other way. I done this 24 years that I worked there. I don't know how many different times we’ve had one track blocked, and had two tracks, both tracks blocked several different times. I never let a train hit a rock. I had a good record there, but it was just…
PN: What did you use, flags and flares?
EB: Yea, that's right. But I was lucky, I was just simply lucky. That's all there was to it. I was lucky. I remember one time, it was in February and the ground had been froze as hard as could be for a long time, and it come a quick thaw and a big rain. And I was on the west, [correcting himself] on the east end of the track, and I heard something far away down the road. I couldn't tell whether it was a big tree fall across the river or whether it was something fall on the track. And it was almost time for passenger train Number One — the George Washington and I walked back, and back down that track to the lower end of my beat. When I got to the lower end of my beat, I had one of these headlight lanterns that throwed a light ahead of me a good piece. And I seen something on the track down there that didn't look right. I went down there, and there was a big boulder had come down on the westbound track and knocked one rail over plumb against the other one, cut four ties in two, and had jumped over and was laying up in the eastbound track had them both blocked. And it wasn't, I started back with my flag. I knew Number One was due at the time. And when I got back up the road a little ways, I heered him blowing for Meadow Creek. I knew he wouldn't be long till he'd be there, and I got him flagged. And he had to back all the way from Glade to Meadow Creek, and come down the west track. But he had to hold him down there until the section crew got up there and put jacks, and jacked this big rock off of the other track before he could get by them. Oh, he'd have went in the river that if I hadn't have been there.
PN: He would have just derailed and gone off?
EB: Oh yea. It would have derailed him sure. One rail, it hit the one rail and just bent an elbow in it like that, and cut four ties in two. It knocked that track right over against the other track. It come off of the mountain with a lot of force. Oh it was big; it was, I expect, ten foot square and more.
PN: The boulder?
EB: The boulder was. They had to dynamite it to get it out of the track.
GB: Our children rode a school pass.
PN: After they graduated from eighth grade?
GB: well no. We sent Rosemary and Louis to Ronceverte to school until they got old enough that they could ride the train. And they started, 1 guess they was about the sixth grade when they started to riding the trains. And then of course my baby doll, she never did go to Ronceverte; she rode the trains all the time.
PN: Mr. Brown, maybe to start off, you could just mention where you were born and what date you were born.
AB: Well, I was born at Quinnimont, January the 13th, 1910.
PN: What did your father do for a living?
AB: Well, my father, he was a cook. He was born at Union, and he came here — I don't remember the exact date - he was married, he was a cook on, for the railroad. In later years, he worked at the hotel. And after the hotel burned down — I believe it was 1914 or '15, I don't remember the exact date he went to work for the railroad C. and O. Railroad — maintenance of way.
PN: Where was the hotel you mentioned?
AB: Down in Quinnimont.
PN: In Quinnimont?
AB: See, that used to be your main, as I before said, your transportation getting into Beckley was train. And back in those times, you had what you called "drummers" travelling salesmen. They'd come up on the night train, stay at the hotel overnight, catch the Piney train the next morning, go to Beckley, take the orders, come back, stay at the hotel another night, and go back west the next day.
PN: And where did you grow up? You grew up right here in Quinnimont?
AB: In Quinnimont.
PN: Have you lived here for your whole life?
AB: My whole life.
PN: When did you begin working yourself?
AB: When I was, I quit high school when I was 16 years old, and went to work for the C. and O. Railroad, 1926.
PN: I know you mentioned this before when we were talking. Could you just mention the different areas and towns that you 've worked in along the railroad?
AB: Oh yea, I worked for the Hinton division, from Hinton to Handley [in east central Kanawha County). That was our territory. See we was a division; I was division man, and like I before said, you take, you go up from Thurmond on down to Eagle, and Nuttall, Sewell, and Fayette all those places there by side Of the railroad. They all isolated; they, towns blowed out, people moved out. Just ghost towns. Same thing up Piney Branch, from McCreery to Raleigh. Some places, you see the old foundation of houses, and that's all People moved out.
PN: What were the different towns along Piney Branch, that used to be but aren t t there anymore?
AB: OK. There's Wright, Wright Two, Norval, Stonewall, Lanark, and Stanaford, and Piney Pokey. Coal mine at Piney Pokey.
PN: What then, the railroad went down around towards a…
AB: Raleigh.
PN: Where Raleigh is today, along Piney Creek there?
AB: Right.
PN: When you started working in 1926 along the tracks In those towns like Nuttall and Sewell, how were those towns then? Were they big and pretty active?
AB: Oh yea. Plenty people living there, and the people had nice yards, company store, and had theaters, everything. They also had a theater over here at Royal, and a store. That was a beautiful little town too. You know the bridge a' going towards Beckley? Beautiful place.
PN: Before you get to McCreery?
AB: Yea, that's right, down at the other end of the bridge.
PN: That's amazing, and there's almost nothing there now.
AB: Nothing.
PN: How many years did you work for the C. and O.?
AB: 42 continuous years. See, I started in 1926, worked till 1928, quit, went to Cincinnati. And the Hoover Depression started 1929, and I came back here in 31, and was re—hired back in 42. And I retired in 74, which gave me 42 continuous years. [He meant '32, not '42 when he was re—hired.]
PN: What did you do between 1931 and 42 when you were living here and you weren't working for the railroad?
AB: Well, just loafing around a little, living off of Mom and Dad. No work back in those times. Then, if you didn't have a job, there was no money, cause there wasn't no checks, no welfare. Well, I did work a little bit on this road out here [referring to Highway 41, which goes through Quinnimont]. It was N R.A. - It wasn't a W. P. A. — out on that rock five days a week for thirteen dollars and some cents a day. Not a day, a week.
PN: Thirteen dollars and some cents a week?
AB: Yea.
PN: For doing what?
AB: Putting this road through here. You got rock out of the woods, and they'd nap them up, make a base for the highway through here.
PN: What does "napping" mean, just crushing them?
AB: Yea, big hammers, breaking them up small. When we got a rock, probably as big as that [points to a fan about three—foot square], just keep on beating up small pieces, maybe like, that make a good base. Thirteen dollars a week.
PN: How were the mines right along New River doing in this period of time, when the Depression began?
AB: Wasn't doing nothing. Part of them was working, and part of them wasn't. And most of the mines then was just like they were in my department on the railroad - didn't have no union. The union was busted. But after 31, Roosevelt came in, they had a chance for all of them to organize and set up a union. And then things begin to pick up.
PN: Was that true, you said, for the railroads too?
AB: Yea.
PN: That the unions were pretty much hurt or destroyed during the twenties?
AB: That's right. Now your trainmen, conductors, but I was in the maintenance of way.
PN: And there was no union for those workers until after Roosevelt came?
AB: That's right. And on top of that I will speak the facts until I think it was 37, I ain't couldn't even belong to the union. They made it possible then, that is '37.
PN: I was going to ask you about that. They discriminated against you, in the membership?
AB: Yea, yea, that's right. They discriminated because it was, they had that in the, a long time, and I believe that it was when I was in the service during World War 11, I believe I seen it in the paper — I was in Florida that Roosevelt had got after them about 10t accepting Blacks in the union. And he was told that was the agreement between the union and the company. The union didn't want them in there. But afterwards, what the reason they accepted the thing is because we all was getting the same pay, and they figured we was just freeloading on them. And so they had to accept you to get your dues. That's the onliest way.
PN: It was 1937 you said that the Black workers along the C. and O. here
could finally be members of the union?
AB: Yea, that's right. They wanted to force in there then, make you pay.
[laughs]
PN: You said that you were working in the Hinton division of the C. and O.?
AB: Yea, between Hinton, well see, they have divisions. They have what they call certain territories cut up in divisions. From Hinton to Handley, that was our territory.
PN: Say, in that area, the people that were working on the maintenance of way, what percentage of them would you say were white, and what percentage were Black workers in this section?
AB: Well, when I first started in 1926, it was pretty rough. They, the percentage of the white was much lower than it was for the Black, because it was pretty rough. Most of the time, I worked, myself, in a gang, like extra force, and maybe you wouldn't see but three, four whites in the gang of maybe 35 or 40 men. We had a boss, assistant foreman, timekeeper, and a water boy. They the only four.
PN: What, and they'd be all white?
AB: All white, and the rest was all Black.
PN: All the people doing the actual work were Black?
AB: Yea. But in later years, they begun to kind of migrate in. Because it was pretty rough work. If you didn't work, you'd get crippled up. I was an overgrown boy. As soon as I got up there — “If you don't look, I'm going to throw a rail on you. I 'm going to do this.” I said, "Come on.” I was just overgrown for my size, you know. And I could just about match up to the rest of them. But in the later years, then they brought in the "Safety First.” So you didn't “I'll cripple you up”, they'd call you up for investigation. Proved I crippled you on purpose, they'd fire you. And then so many accidents, it proved you was unsafe, take you out of service.
PN: You mean if they, they would claim that you caused your own injury, and they'd get rid of you?
AB: Yea, if I caused it deliberately, you understand what I mean? They could say you was unsafe to work so many accidents.
PN: In some of the other unions — like for the conductors on the railroad, you know, and the clerks, and the signalman did they allow, or have Black people working in those positions?
AB: I was just a very small boy, and I remember on Loup Creek and Laurel Creek up here, they didn't have no air brakes. And it was all the stem brake. They'd probably leave up in Lay land and made it ten, fifteen cars, and the only braking power they had was on the engine. Well they had a head man, middle man, and a rear man — three brakemen — and the conductor, engineer, and the fireman. Well, when they come on a steep grade, that rear man, he'd work toward the front; head man, he'd work toward the rear and help the middle man tie up brakes to hold the train. Well, you was continuously tying up brakes and knocking them off, typing them up and knocking off and they were all Blacks that did that. And there was several was crippled and was killed, you know, by the track and they would get rocked off the top of the cars. Loup Creek was the same way. But in later years, they got air, and then they didn't have to do that. But most of those older guys then, why they was about, just about the same as were on the track — they wasn't too numerous — it was pretty treacherous work.
PN: So it was mostly Black workers?
AB: Yea. And in later years, they had air. So all they had to do set those retainers so they'd leave?
PN: What did you call them?
AB: Retainers.
PN: Retainers?
AB: Yea. Set those retainers about a forty, forty—five degrees. That helped checks the brake, you got an automatic brake, all the way down the hill. When you get on level, you can't pull it; you got to just stop and knock the retainers down. It releases that air.
PN: When you talked about the danger, people would fall off the top of cars. What, did they get caught between the cars sometimes, and couplings or anything?
AB: Oh yea, a lot of time, they'd do that too. But what I was speaking of, fall off, see, the cars were loaded, see, and here you're walking across here, and that car reeling and rocking and maybe it's doing ten, fifteen, twenty mile an hour you got to have pretty good balance, you know, and they'd fall off.
PN: Where were the brakes operated from, the top of the cars?
AB: Top of the car. Stem brakes, this way. In the later years, they did away with all those stem brakes. They had what you called "A—Jack”. You could stand on a stool and tighten them this way.
PN: A-Jack?
AB: A—Jacks, A—Jack brakes they 're more substantial than the old stem brakes.
PN: You know, when you see those wheels on the back of freight cars, were those where brakes were?
AB: The old one?
PN: Yea.
AB: You seen the one that stick up what they call the old stem brake. But now, the A—Jacks, you seldom see them unless you look In between the on the car [Indicating about two or three feet], about waist high. Very easy to handle.
PN: So you got to see most of the mining towns along the New River Gorge in the course of your work. Did you talk to coal miners much? Did you meet them often?
AB: Oh yea, oh yea. Yea, quite a few of them. I had a job, I mean, I did get a job down at Glen Rogers. Once I decided 1 'd quit the railroad — I wasn't getting but 40 cents an hour, $3.20 a day — go to work in the mine on a machine. And boy, I got on the job down there. And I got to thinking about it, I said: “It’s too dangerous; I’ll go back to the railroad." [laughs]
PN: How long did you work at Glen Rogers in the mine?
AB: I didn't work; I didn't go. No, I chickened out [laughs]. See, working on the machine, you know, is pretty dangerous. Sometimes the machine jumping back on you, you know, shovelling bug dust, you know. There it is, I don’t regret it. Always in for the money, but I just figured I, I did never work in the mines and none of my people. We was all railroaders, so I just pursued the old tradition.
PN: You said your father had worked some on the railroad?
AB: Yea, he was a cook. And as I before said, and after so many years, you see, they had moved him around on different parts of the division. He didn't want to go, so he just quit that and went to work at the hotel here. And my mother, she cooked up there.
PN: What was the name of the hotel?
AB: Quinnimont Hotel.
PN: And that's not standing at all now, is it?
AB: No, just an old foundation there. They also, see they had a saloon there, in the bottom of that hotel.
PN: They did?
AB: Yea. And see, on up until Prohibition time, the states went dry, see Raleigh County was dry and Fayette County was wet. And all the people in Raleigh County, they had to come to Fayette County here, from up around Raleigh and Beckley, to get their whiskey.
PN: When was this, in the thirties?
AB: No, it was on up until, I guess, before I was born on up until, I believe it was, I don't know when the state went dry, I don't know if it was '14 or '15, or! 13, somewhere along in there. It was in the teens, early teens.
PN: Did the saloon close down after Prohibition, or did they keep it open?
AB: Yea, yea. And it wasn't too long, I don't know, probably about a year after they closed it down, till the hotel burnt down.
PN: And the C. and O. never rebuilt the hotel?
AB: No, that belonged to the Quinnimont Coal Company
PN: But that was never built again?
AB: No , no.
PN: Were Quinnimont and Prince always mainly railroad towns, would you say?
AB: Yea. Of course in later years, they had a little saw mill in through here. I believe it was nineteen thirty, thirty—eight. M. E. Criss Lumber Company, they came in - started to cutting timbers up at the saw mill.
PN: Was it the M. E. Criss?
AB: M.E. Criss Lumber Company. In later years, they cut most of the timber, they sold it out.
PN: Let me ask you another general question. If you had to estimate, say from here on up through Sewell and Nuttall and Caperton that whole area — in all mining towns back, you know, In the twenties and the thirties, what percentage of the miners would you estimate would be Black, and what per cent would have been white back then?
AB: Well, to the best of my estimation, I think they was pretty well equalized. And too, back in those times, there was a lot of Italians. And they was your main miners too. Of course, you don't see too many of them around anymore, you know, but they, there was quite a few of them around.
PN: Were there people from Poland and Hungary and countries like that too?
AB: Yea, all classes.
PN: Do you think there was less discrimination in the coal mines than there was on the railroad?
AB: Yea, there was less in the mines, because see everybody, what they wanted, they wanted the coal. And they didn't care who got it. [laughs] They didn't care who got it. And it was hard work too; most of that was hand work.
PN: I was just going to ask you, what you thought was the reason that there may have been less discrimination in the coal mines than there was along the railroad.
AB: Well, you see, in the mines, see, a man had to go in there, and you had to drill, shoot, and hand—load that coal so much a car. There was no day wages. If you didn't load so much, you didn't make anything. And I heard a lot of guys say they was cheated out of half of that. If you made a shot that was all rock, you had to load that rock. You didn't get no pay for that. See they paid for the tonnage on your coal.
PN: But the easier jobs, say on the railroad, were generally the ones they'd reserve for whites only?
AB: Yea. Well, as it begin to get easier, they'd begin to come in, you know, more and more and more. Now if you watch your gangs along side of the railroad now, you may see one [Black worker]. And nine out of ten gangs, you see, you don't see any, anybody.
PN: So as the work became easier and they used less people, they began excluding Black people from the industry?
AB: No, they didn't exclude now, they didn't exclude. Now see, they hired you, but somehow, I don't know, this younger generation of Blacks, they didn't go.
PN: For railroads?
AB: No. Now you see we have in the last seven or eight years, they begin to hire more young Black brakemen. And they have one engineer, I know, at Hinton. See that came in this Fair Employment Practice. We had a boy her he was a white boy — and he used to come here all the time. He asked me, he tried to get a job on the track. He finished high school. I said, "Go up to the office; go up to the office." He said, “Go up there, can't get no job." So I knew the division engineer, he used to work up there one day, and I asked him, I said: "Sterling, say I got a nice boy finishing high school. “I'd like to get him a job." I said, “He's a white boy; he's a good boy." “That don't make no difference now," he said. “We can't hire him”, he said. “But I’ll tell you what you do. You tell him to go up to the Employment Office, put in an application. And when we need a man, we'll call the Employment Office. They'll send him to us, and that's when we hire him.” You see, since this Fair Employment Practice went into effect, you see that stopped it. It used to be, a lot of thses gangs, well up until 1937, like working track, if a foreman didn't like me, if he got mad at his wife or something, and I didn't look to suit him, he could just fire me, on the spot. And he come right along, he'd hire his cousin, or hire his son, hire his daddy, hire anybody. Well see, they stopped that. Everything went through the office. He couldn't hire, or neither fire. Stopped that. I know a lot of gangs, there wasn't nothing but just in—laws. [laughs] But the Lord blessed me, and I weathered the storm.
PN: Yea, what did you say that you did during the 44 years…
AB: Forty— two.
PN: The 42 years that you worked?
AB: Track maintenance, keep up the track. Laid rails.
PN: That was the whole time?
AB: Yea, absolutely. And the year, I figured in the spring of '74, the supervisor came to me one day, and said, "We're going to have to hire some colored foremens, mostly colored foremen." So he wanted to know if I'd be interested. "No sir, I wouldn't." I said: "Now if that was offered to me 10, 15, or 20 years ago, I would accept it. But I don't want the responsibility now. Cause I’m retiring this year." See, I was 64 years old then. It would have been something nice, you know, if I could have got it ten or 15 years [ago]. But see, that came under Fair Employment Practice, see; he had to hire on a percentage base, promote on a percentage base, see.
PN: Supervisors.
AB: Yea, foremens, things like that. There's been quite a many changes went on down through the course of time, than it was when I first started. But no resentment. If I didn't like it, I could have quit. But I enjoyed what I did. Yes sir.
PN: No matter where you were working, you always were based here in Quinnimont?
AB: No. Well sometime I, well see '62 to '63, I was cut off Hinton division; we had a seniority roster. And I didn't stand for nothing here. So they put on a tie—gang just put in ties Hinton division Clifton Forge division, And we worked over through Virginia, around Lynchburg, Charlottesville, and down the James River and there, putting in ties. We had camp cars. I'd leave there Sunday evening, we stayed in those camp cars until Friday afternoon when we come home, get a change of clothes, go back Sunday. Two years I experienced that.
PN: So you spent the weeks down in Virginia near the job, and come back here on the weekend?
AB: Yea, that's right.
PN: How did that affect you?
AB: Pretty rough, pretty rough. I was tempted two or three times to quit. My wife begged me to quit. "We'll make it. Come on home. I said: “No, got too much invested in there now to quit. But I weathered the storm. I had about two years of it, and finally got back to Mabscott where I retired. Spent the last ten years there.
PN: Working on track?
AB: Track.
PN: What types of equipment did you use when you were working on the track?
AB: Most of it, it was all — there wasn't no equipment [laughs] it was manual labor. Pick and a shovel, pick and a shovel, and a fork, different things. Of course, several other times, different times, you know, in laying rail, you know, you had regular edging machine.
PN: What?
AB: Edging machine. Like when the plate cut down in the tie, well they had, this edging machine come along and smooth that down, you know, to lay the plate on. Then you had your spiker, drill, other different equipment. But now, everything is did by machinery. You see all the men, he don't pick up a hammer, he don't pick up a pick, he don't have to do nothing. Everything is did by machinery now.
PN: Really, you mean laying ties now is not the manual labor that it was when you were working?
AB: No, no, no. Everybody getting machinery. And they're monthly men; they don't have this on day wages.
PN: So now you get a monthly salary, rather than by the day.
AB: Yea. Altogether different.
PN: Did you have to work at putting more stone, or making sure there was enough ballast?
AB: Yea, that's right, that's right. You see, you had what they called a tamping machine, they come along, he'd tamp, had a prong, get down on that tie like that. Well, after he hit it Wo or three times, well that rock, you used a fork probably, throw a little more ballast and tamp each side. Follow him along every day like that. That was in your servicing gang — "smooth— 'em —up" is what we called it, fixing up low joints.
PN: Fixing up low joints?
AB: Yea.
PN:That's what they called that?
AB: Yea. And swagging the track, joints, would swag mostly in the joints, you see. And then you jack it up, tamp those ties around — you called that "smoothing up”.
PN: That's so the joints were, the train wouldn't always bounce when it hit them?
AB: That's right, low places.
PN: It sounds like they probably maintained the tracks a lot better then than the railroads are able to do today.
AB: Oh yea, that's right. Because the men taking more pride in their work. And they did every job like they thought the railroad belongs to them. And they didn't want to be criticized about their work. So you didn't do this, you didn't do that. Everybody taken pride in their work. But now, you see, those machines go along and do that; they 're not perfect. The machines do no more than what you make it do. Like a computer; just like that. So your best track, maintaining them, was did by hand. I know once in surfacing track that was pulling It up, putting it under new ballast you go ahead and crimp up between each tie, all that old dirt, dirt and mud. Clean it out. Dump new ballast on, and then you pull it up and put it on clean ballast — good drainage. And if you got about 18 rails a day, that was supposed to be a good day's work. And now they '11 get a mile a day or better.
PN: Eight or ten rails a day…
AB: Eighteen rails.
PN: How long was each rail?
AB: Well, on the average, some would be 30 at the least. But the average rail now is 39 foot. And then, since then, you have what you call the "ribbon rail”. That was joint rail, 39 foot, standard.
PN: And you would do 18 of them, you said?
AB: Yea, yea. But now you have the ribbon rail; I guess they 're about pretty close to a quarter of a mile long, each strand of that rail.
PN: How do they lay that?
AB: Well, they have a machine, a string of flat cars, a strand of that rail on there just lying. They '11 have that machine, and they '11 pull that rail off on the middle of the road, else on the head of the ties, you understand?
PN: Yea.
AB: That's unloading it. And when they get ready to lay it, they'll go back, have a machine that set it right in place.
PN: Let me just ask you a few questions about Quinnimont when you lived here. You know, in the twenties when you began working, and the thirties, how many people would you say lived in Quinnimont?
AB: Oh, I guess we had 35 or 40 families here. See, we had two schools here, two junior high schools a school down at the corner here was the junior high school, and we had one about three—quarters of a mile up the road, right beside the highway, a junior high school.
PN: How many houses were there back then?
AB: Well, I 'd estimate probably roughly guessing, about 35 or 40. Had a company store. And there was one time that Armour's had a storage place here at Quinnimont too, a pop factory.
PN: What was that, Armour?
AB: Mm. Armour' s meat.
PN: I was going to ask you, did they can meats?
AB: No, they, it was shipped in here by carload, and they had a storage place
PN: And there was a pop factory too?
PN: And there was that hotel you said which was burred down in the teens?
AB: Right.
PN: Were there any churches?
AB: Oh yea. Two churches. A white church here, Baptist church; and a colored Baptist church.
PN: Both were Baptist?
AB: Yea.
PN: Were there any other buildings, like churches, schools, stores?
AB: Here?
PN: Yea.
AB: No. You see, after the store burnt down, well I believe it must have been '51 or '52, '53 whenever it was; but anyway, they never had another store here since. I don't remember the exact date.
PN: Before the road was built, the only way to get into town was along the C. and O.?
AB: C. and O., that's right.
PN: You said that you worked on building the road in the early 1930s?
AB: The highway, highway, that's right.
PN: How about before that, you mentioned earlier…
AB: See I was hired, I quit high school in 1926 and went to work. See, they had a flood on Laurel Creek — washed all the track out. I always wanted to be a man. And I shouldered a man's load when I was 16, and I had to carry it ever since. And that's when I got my first job on the railroad. I think it was November the 15th, 1926.
PN: That you started?
AB: Yea. And the last time I started was June the 29th, 1932. But 1 worked continuously on through after that.
PN: After June 29th, 1932?
AB: Yea. Had no other choice then.
PN: That was the railroad?
AB: Railroad.
PN: You got the job on the railroad in '32?
AB: That's right.
PN: You were here about a year, or something, between the time you came back from Cincinnati and the time you began to work again?
AB: That's right.
PN: You were mentioning something before about, before they had, you know, the highway, that they used ox, oxen to…
AB: No. This Mr. Prince, that's what he had. Well now, this monument down here, that was brought in here by a team of horses, down here, brought up in sections. [He is referring to the obelisk—type stone monument between the highway and New River which commemorates the shipping of the first ton of coal out of the gorge in 1873.]
PN: And you also mentioned there used to be an iron mine?
AB: That's right.
PN: Maybe you could say a few words about that.
AB: Well, I was asking several people about this iron—ore mines down here. And the mines, and that furnace was here before the railroad mainline system was through here. See at one time, see this road was built to Stone Cliff, and I think some of the contractors, they went broke. And then in later years, they extended it on through. And I asked them, I said, “Well, if the mines was here, ore mines, how did they get the ore out?" They said, "The ox carts.” I said, "No wonder they shut down." And I think they taken the old tram, had to go up Batoff, old tram over in there; and it taken them down to about Deepwater, down in there somewhere. And they loaded it on boats till they got it out.
PN: So they brought it over to the other side of the river and put it on the tram?
AB: Yea, that's right.
PN: Where was this iron—ore mine located?
AB: Up on the mountain at Quinnimont, about, oh about two miles up on the mountain here.
PN: Up toward Layland?
AB: No, it's called the, on the Backus side here.
PN: How come that shut down? There wasn't much ore there?
AB: Well, there's too much waste, See that whole bottom down in there, that's full of that old slag rock, where they refined it out, that iron out of there, you know. The bottom's full of that old rock down there. There's too much of a waste; it gets too expensive; then too much to get it out.
PN: So it was a low—quality ore? Not too much iron in it?
AB: Yea, right.
PN: That's interesting. Do you know of any other ore mines they used to have along the gorge?
AB: No, I don't know of anymore. But they used to have coke ovens here too, Quinnimont.
PN: Down this far too?
AB: Mm.
PN: Did they have any at Quinnimont?
AB: Yea, Quinnimont .
PN: They had coke ovens here?
AB: Mm. Some of the old ovens is still standing up the road here about smile, up the road here now, where they used to get coke. Old ovens.
PN: Back in the twenties and thirties, did many people raise gardens and have animals around here?
AB: Yea. Had cows, hogs, chickens. See, r raised hogs and chickens on up till vent in the service, Everybody came back, feed was so high, I wouldn't fool with any hogs, so I raised chickens till r moved up here.
PN: Why, it cost too much to buy the hogs?
AB: Yea, well the feed.
PN: The feed, yea.
AB: I went into the service in '43, you could get 100 pounds of feed for $1.25. Came out it was $5.00 something. Me and my wife, you could buy your meat cheaper.
PN: What was the main form of recreation or entertainment or social life back say when you were growing up in the twenties?
AB: Well, we didn't have any, anything in particular. I told a lot of boys, people asked me, they said, "You fish any?" I said, "Nope." And I got more beatings as a boy coming up by going in the river swimming. That's where stayed in the summer. And I never, I think I caught two fish out of the river In a lifetime, And then this time of year, we'd, boys would go back in the woods and hunt chestnuts, grapes, and get late apples, fall apples, things like that. Otherwise, no major recreation. Of course, we had a ball team. One time, they had enough white and colored boys, you know, around, about the same age, both had a team. We 'd all get together and play ball.
PN: Would you have to use the ferry to get across the river at that time, or was there a bridge?
AB: Well, everybody crossing then, you had to cross the railroad bridge.
PN: Oh, the one that's still up there?
AB: Yea, the old railroad bridge. See, there's two there now the high— way and the railroad. But the only means of transportation walking across that bridge.
PN: When was that bridge built, do you know?
AB: I, I don't, I didn't know, I don't know just, '95 or '95 that bridge was built. And see, before that bridge was built, see they had coke ovens on this side at Prince. In Royal, they had mines across the river; that was in Raleigh County. But they'd bucket that coal from Royal to Prince before that railroad bridge was built.
PN: Then they put in ovens over here?
AB: That's right.
PN: What's the main benefit that you think that the union would bring to railroad workers?
AB: Well, a lot of different benefits. Because when I first started — no vacation, no sick benefits, no nothing. Foreman didn't like you, he'd just fire you. Now, if the union, if you are fired; if the foreman want to fire you, he have to call for an investigation. Just the same as you going to court, and they'll decide who was wrong. And you have to do something pretty bad on the railroad to be fired. See, the reason I tell a lot of these young boys seeking jobs with the railroad. I say, “Now boys, let me tell you something, experience. Now they won't bother you too much about your work; after 90 days you qualify. But don't you steal from them; don't get fighting on the job; and don't be drunk on the job. Cause they'll fight you, they’ll fire you right now about those three things.” Nothing else will matter. But if you qualify, they 're nice people to work for — good company. No regrets. I had it tough to start with; but the last was nice.
PN: And the road hauled mainly coal, right?
AB: Coal and other freight. They have four, I guess two, three, I don't know now, just down to about four manifest trains nothing but merchandise, oil, and that's all boxcars.
PN: Manifests were fast freights?
AB: Yea. They just run on schedule. They was more accurate at one time than passenger trains were. These run on schedule.
PN: When you were working for the railroad, did you travel much around, just for yourself? Or were you working so hard you…
AB: Oh yea. Well, in the earlier years, I used to take vacation. I had a couple' of brothers in Cincinnati at the time; I'd go down and spend some time with them. And my first wife, she's deceased died in '67 she had a sister in Albany, and we'd go up and spend a week or ten days.
PN: In New York?
AB: In New York and back. Then come back, probably two or three days to rest up, and that was it. And always probably save me a week for around Christmas. Never was much of a travel ling man. Always at home.
PN: Did you enjoy living along the gorge for your whole life?
AB: Yes sir. I laugh and tell some of them, I say, “That's the Indian in me.” I say, “You take an Indian, and he always wants to be close to water.” [laughs] Sure, I do enjoy being here. My wife, let's see, I married the last time in '68 to my wife there, a girl I knew when she was just 14 years old. And after I lost my wife, and she'd lost her husband, through my brothers living in Cincinnati, we got in contact. And we were married in 68. But she's from Ohio; she don't like here, but I do.
PN: It's a lot different from Cincinnati.
AB: That's right. That's the way the ball bounce. But I think I could be happy anywhere, as long as I have a decent place to eat and sleep.
People easy to get along with, that's the main thing, you know that?
PN: Is there anything you think's important to add that you haven't mentioned already?
AB: Well, I wouldn't know of any, I don't believe. Course I'll think of a thousand different things after you're gone. Yea, my two brothers, they worked for the railroad in the earlier years. They worked at the roundhouse down here.
PN: Oh yea?
AB: Quinnimont used to have a roundhouse here. See up until 1920, '21, all these crews would call out of Quinnimont to service the mines up Raleigh County — go up take empties and bring loads back. But there was a little confusion, I think around about 20, '21 about some property down here. Well, the C. and O. moved all the roundhouse, shops to Raleigh. Well, that's what killed this place. There was plenty of people here — all railroaders. And my brothers, they worked at the shop, maintaining the engines, you know, when they weren't on the road. But they both left here early. One went, well they both went to Pittsburgh to start with, and they both later settled in Cincinnati.
PN: When did they leave for Pittsburgh?
AB: About 20, '20 or ' 21.
PN: Did they work in the mines up there or the steel mills?
AB: No.
PN: The railroad?
AB: I don't know what kind of work, I know too — they worked construction work in Pittsburgh. And then in later years, they settled in Cincinnati; that's before I went there in '28.
[End of Tape]
Oral History Project - Callaham, Harold 1983 Part 1
(Taped at Hinton Visitor's Center, New River Gorge National River)
JW: Mr. Callaham, will you first of all give us your full name and your date of birth?
HC: My name is Harold Rupert Callaham; born January 20, 1903.
JW: So you 're eighty years old now?
HC: Eighty.
JW: OK. Where were you born?
HC: I was born in Avis, WV.
JW: Avis?
HC: . . . which is now incorporated and has been for a number of years into the city of Hinton.
JW: What were your parents' names?
HC: T. H. initials... my father's initials, T. H. And my mother Dottie.
JW: Where were they from?
HC: From Virginia.
JW: You don't know where exactly?
HC: In the area of Bedford City.
JW: What kind of occupation was your father in?
HC: He was a railroad conductor.
JW: When did he start work for the railroad?
HC: When he first started, of course, he was employed as a brakeman. And later he was promoted to a conductor.
JW: And you don’t know what years he worked there? When did he retire?
HC: Well, he died in 1922.
JW: Oh, I see. How about brothers and sisters? Do you have brothers and sisters?
HC: I have living one sister and one brother.
JW: What are their names?
HC: My sister's name is Mary Pearl. She married a fellow by the name of McCoy in Kentucky. My brother's name is. Paul. . . Paul R.
JW: He lives here in town?
HC: He lives in Illinois.
JW: And you say you have a brother who is deceased?
HC: I have two sisters deceased and two brothers. The sisters were Macel and Rosa lee, and the brothers were Carlos and Arnold.
JW: I was listening to a tape you had made about some of your early childhood memories. First of all, we talked a little bit about Haley's Comet. What do you remember about that?
HC: I really can't remember a whole lot it. I was listening and hearing people talk about it. But, I viewed it several times at night but it was just more or less of a big white streak
JW: How long of a streak would you say?
HC: Well, just from qround looking up there, I would probably say it was a half a mile long.
JW: It looked that long? How many nights could you see it?
HC: I don't remember.
JW: Was it something like two or three nights or was it a week, or what?
HC: I would say probably a week.
JW: Something else. I understand you remember the bateauxs they used to use in the river? What do you remember about them? What did they look like?
HC: Well, a bateaux was a boat made to ply on New River from Hinton to various points up New River where sawmills were located. They were a craft that was approximately sixty feet long, about ten feet wide.
JW: Do you know how deep they might be?
HC: I would think that they would be about four feet deep.
JW: What all would they carry in these bateauxs?
HC: Well, principally, lumber.
JW: Was this sawn lumber or barrel staves, or what?
HC: Both. Both lumber and barrel staves.
JW: Do you remember anything else they used to carry on the bateauxs?
HC: Well, occasionally, some farmer along the way would come to Hinton with a load of vegetables or meat or something, like that.
JW: OK. Where were bateauxs made? Do you remember that?
HC: No.
JW: Would there be a lot of them down there, or just one or two, or…?
HC: I used to play on these boats when they were tied up after they were empty, quite often. And sometimes there would be as many as three.
JW: Where were they tied up?
(Interference)
JW: OK. We were talking about where the bateauxs were docked. You said they were over where, now?
HC: In the general area of where the Hinton Builders and Supply is now located.
JW: According to the map, a little closer to the railroad tracks?
HC: Right adjacent to the railroad tracks.
JW: How were these bateauxs propelled?
HC: They were propelled, at first, by man power, shall we say.
JW: Were they poled, or…?
HC: With poles. And later on, some of them used a motor, especially through the long eddies.
JW: Oh, they did? What kind of motor did they have?
HC: Well, they were a. . . wait a minute, they weren't a outboard motor. They were a motor that was put in a boat similar to a skiff, shall we say. And the skiff was tied along side at the rear of the bateaux .
JW: Oh, so it pushed the bateaux?
HC: It pushed the bateaux.
JW: I saw a picture of a bateaux with an airplane motor on it. Do you know anything about that?
HC: Only thing I can recall is a fellow here in town one time (laughter) had an idea And he built him a boat and put a. . . something that looked like to me like an airplane propeller on it. Is that the one you were referring to?
JW: Yeah. It's in that photograph over there. Whatever happened to it?
HC: I've forgotten. I know he liked to have got drowned one time (laughter).
JW: Oh, really? What happened?
HC: Turned him over in high.. . when the river was up, he had it out foolin’ with it. His name was Wooley. Lawrence Wooley.
JW: OK. We were talking back about the bateauxs... about these piers that used to be along the river. Could you talk about that? Where they were and what they were used for?
HC: Piers and log booms between each pier were erected from about the mouth of Bluestone River to Leatherwood.. .
JW: Leatherwood Road?
HC: Well, let's say the Leatherwood Road. And they would gradually work the logs that were being floated down the river to the far side. And they led into some openings between the islands up here and passed over into Greenbrier River. And the same procedure was followed in the Greenbrier River down to James’ Sawmill.
JW: How far out were these piers in the water?
HC: Well, they...
(Third party: All the way across, wasn't they?)
HC: Well, yes. But they was some distance between each pier and it was a gradual trend to move to the far side.
JW: What's the purpose of the pier?
HC: Well, to put up these Log booms to shoot the logs across New River into Greenbrier River, through an am in the island up here...
JW: So these booms were more or less to prevent the logs from jamming
HC: ... and going on down the river.
JW: OK. It was to stop them from floating down river so they could be moved across river?
HC: That's right.
JW: And so, you don't remember how long they were? You say some of them were perhaps all the way across?
HC: Well, the piers were maybe a hundred feet or so from each other, or longer. Sims, wouldn't you think?
SW: But the pier itself, I’d say, was probably about the size of this room.
HC: It was constructed out of logs and filled with rocks inside.
JW: OK. Constructed of logs with rocks as balast. We were talking about your childhood in the' Hinton and Avis area. What was the first job that you had?
HC: First job was a paper boy.
JW: Which paper did you carry?
HC: The Hinton Daily News and the Independent Herald.
JW: Were they both daily newspapers?
HC: Both... daily newspapers. And in addition to that, there was a weekly.
JW: Now, were these morning papers... these daily papers?
HC: In the afternoon... both afternoon publications.
JW: Did you ever have any interesting experiences delivering newspapers?
HC: Well, I do recall that on occasion, I would get ‘first out’. That is, I would get papers first at the news office. And in that day and time, there were thirteen saloons in Hinton.
JW: What year was this?
HC: (to Mr. Wicker) When did the Bolstead Act go in (laughter)? I would get ten or twenty papers. I paid a half a cent each and I sold them for a penny each. And I would go down Third Avenue where most of the saloons were located and there would always be fellows standing out in front. And I could sell that bunch of newspapers before I got my regular papers for delivery to my customers.
JW: How old were you then, do you remember?
HC: I would say about twelve years old.
JW: And, did you ever have any interesting experiences while you were selling at these saloons?
HC: None that I can recall. I didn't go into the saloons myself.
SW: How about the black gal and the gun smokin’? Were you deliverin’ papers then?
HC: No. I was a call boy.
JW: OK. Tell me about that. What's a call boy, first of all?
HC: A call boy is a person that when a train is ordered to leave Hinton terminal, there was a crew to be called. And the call boy, where there isn't a telephone, had to go to the residence and call the employee.
JW: Oh. And what happened about this gun he was talking about?
HC: (to Sims Wicker) Didn't he ever hear that?
SW: No.
HC: One time when I was returning to the Yard Office, just as I passed Cline's Alley
JW: Where is Cline's Alley?
HC: That's between Sommers and Front Street, just about a half a block from the Yard Office where I worked . I heard a gun fire.
JW: Was it in the night or day?
HC: It was in the daytime, along in the afternoon. . . early afternoon. And being curious as a Young boy would, I went out into the alley and stopped in front of a residence there and the door was standing open. And inside the door, I could see a woman standing there with a revolver in her hand and smoke comin’ out the barrel. At her feet on the floor was a Negro I assumed she had shot. I was later told she had shot him through the forehead. But I didn't pause there too long for I realized the news. . . that I would probably be involved in something. So I got out of there right quick and went about my work.
JW: Why did she shoot him? Or do we know?
HC: Well, back in that day and time in that part of town, there was a lot of houses of prostitution and so forth. And I think that was what was involved
JW: Did you know her?
HC: I knew her as a person who was called "Hair-lipped Sue”. A double hair—lipped woman.
JW: How old were you at that time?
HC: Well, I’d say fifteen years old.
JW: So you worked... you had some experiences there already (laughter). So you were selling newspapers and were a call boy for the railroad. What else did you do?
HC: Well, continued working for the railroad up until the time of my retirement. Following a caller, I was given a promotion to what was known as a check clerk, And from the check clerk… let's see, what did I do. . .
JW: What was the last job you had on the railroad?
HC: I was terminal train master at Hinton .
JW: So, you probably worked there at the yard?
HC: Oh I worked at the yard at various jobs and later on, in 1923, I was sent to Thurmond to work as a car distributor.
JW: Tell me what that was like.
HC: Well, that was a job where that you contacted each coal mine after four o'clock in the afternoon to find out what they had loaded during the day and to get their order for cars for the next day to be supplied that night.
JW: What was it like living in Thurmond then?
HC: Well, I had roomed at the famous DunG1en Hotel.
JW: Oh, you did? How long did you stay there?
HC: Approximately two years.
JW: What do you remember about the Dun Glen?
HC Well, I wasn't involved in it but I heard that there was a continuous poker game, went on twenty-four hours a day.
JW: Oh, really. You never actually saw it, but you.
HC: I just heard of it. And they had big dances and social affairs around Thurmond.
JW: Did you ever go to any of the social affairs?
HC: I went to the dances a few times.
JW: What were they like?
HC: Well, just like a dance most any other place in a town.
JW: How was it decorated inside the Dun Glen for the dances?
HC: The dances were held in the...on the ground floor, that is. We spoke of it as the basement but it was the ground level. A big open place.
JW: And what kind of draperies did they have? Do you remember that?
HC: No.
JW: The bands. . . they had special bands?
HC: Professional traveling bands to come in on occasion.
JW: What about this reputation Thurmond has for being a wild, wild-west type town? Did you ever see anything that warranted that?
HC: No, truthfully not. But, of course, hearsay that there was somebody that was maybe thrown off the New River Bridge there at Thurmond most anytime.
JW: Did you ever meet their Police Chief there, Harrison Ash?
HC: Ash? No.
JW: I heard some tales about him. I didn't know how true they were.
SW: Did you ever play for dances at Thurmond when you were part of a local band or orchestra. . . dance band?
HC: Just one time . I wasn't a member of a band but they visited down there and played for a dance and I set in with them. That's all.
JW: Did you play with them then?
HC: Oh, yes.
JW: What instrument did you play?
HC: Reeds.
JW: You play reeds.
HC: Yeah.
JW: I’m not familiar with that instrument.
HC: Well, that's saxophones and clarinets and such.
JW: OK. You’re talking about all different types? I didn't realize that.
SW: What were some of the places you did play with a band when you had your orchestra?
HC: Well, we played from Huntington, east, all through the coal fields, all into parts of Virginia.
JW: Did you play for any of the coal fields there in the Gorge?
HC: That one time at Thurmond, but most of them were up around like Layland. And over into Oak Hill and Beckley and places like that.
JW: Back to Thurmond when you were working for the railroad, how much business did they have going through there then? I t m told it was quite an amount.
HC: Well, I ‘m trying to remember. I know there was two banks. There was two undertaking establishments, a drug store, a barber shop, two hotels the DunG1en and what we called the "Lay Flat”.
JW: I’ve heard about the "Lay Flat”. That t s the Lafayette?
HC: Yeah, that's right (laughter).
JW: OK. They called it the Lay Flat. And…
SW: How about the meat packing houses?
HC: There was a meat packer had a branch there. I believe it was Armour.
JW: What type meat did they have there? Was it beef, pork or what?
HC: Well, just a distributing point in the coal fields.
JW: Yes, I could definitely see how that would be needed in the coal fields. How about the number. the amount of coal that went through Thurmond? Have any idea how large the freight trains were carrying the coal?
HC: Well, you understand Thurmond was an assembling point. The coal that was mined on White Oak Branch, on Loop Creek and on the South Side as far down as. . . let's see. . . Brooklyn. . . Coal. . . Coal Run. It was an assembling point and it was picked up there by the main line crews that operated out of Handley or Hinton. There would be turns. The crew would be called out of Hinton and would take a train of coal cars and set off part at maybe Meadow Creek, Quinnimont or Thurmond and turn their engine there and get a train of East loads and bring back to Hinton.
JW: They had a turntable then there at Thurmond?
HC: Oh, yes.
JW: That's putting a lot of things into perspective. This is good. OK, when you were working for the railroad, do you remember anything about your hours you worked, or the wages you got there?
HC: A call boy worked twelve hours a day.
JW: When did he start?
HC: At seven a.m. for the daylight shift and at seven p.m. for the night shift. And he worked seven days a week, twelve hours a day.
JW: Seven days a week!
HC: And, for. that service you got $32.50 a month whether there was thirty one days or February now and then.
JW: Didn't seem to balance out too well. How about your other work with the railroad, do you remember what your wages were there?
HC: Well, when I was a clerk back in that day and time, why the average wage was around $80 per month.
JW: OK. I’m interested in when did you get married and whom did you marry?
HC: Oh, my goodness! When did I get married, Sims?
JW: Your wife don't get to listen to this tape (laughter).
HC: I’ll be married fifty five years in May on May 29, 1984.
JW: So that means you were married in 1929. . . May 29, 1929. OK. Could you tell us your wife's name?
HC: What's her name, Sims? (laughter) Edith Lucille Clark.
JW: Clark was her maiden name?
HC: Yes.
JW: Was she from this area?
HC: Yes, from Hinton.
JW: Is that where you met her?
HC: Yes.
JW: And you got married here in Hinton then?
HC: Right.
JW: Where did you first live?
HC: Where did I first live?
JW: Where did you first live. . . you and your wife? Where did you start out?
HC: Oh. We lived the first two years with her mother. And later on we had an apartment.
JW: Where was that?
HC: In the Bowling Haynes building.
JW: Here in Hinton?
HC: Yes.
JW: OK. I’d Like to go back just a little bit and talk about the New River and your experiences as far as swimming, in it and fishing and crossings over there.
HC: Well, in my early childhood, my place of was more often on the river bank and in the river than anywhere else. My parents were. . . never gave as much thought to the danger involved in playing in water. It was always to stay away from the railroad.
JW: Oh, really. The railroad was the danger and not the river?
HC: That’s right. And that's where I spent my life (laughter).
JW: Where the danger was?
HC: That's right. Oh, we went swimmin', catch minnows, fish...
JW: What did you use for bait mostly?
HC: Minnows back in that day and time.
JW: Where was the best fishing area around here? Where did you fish?
HC: Well, I fished usually when I was a child along in this eddy here in Avis.
JW: Did you catch much?
HC: No. (laughter)
JW: What was the biggest fish you ever caught when you were growing up?
HC: When I was growin’ up? I would say it would be a cat fish in the neighborhood of fifteen pounds.
JW: That's a good sized catfish.
HC: Course, I’m not talkin’ about carp. I don't know what they would weigh, would you Sims?
JW: You caught a few carp then?
HC:(laughter) Twenty five or thirty. We caught a few of those after we retired from the railroad.
JW: You fish together?
HC: Oh, a whole lot.
JW: Before I forget it, for the person who is transcribing this tape, the other voice on here is Sims Wicker. We’ve got him on another tape, in case there is a question about who the other voice is.
SW: A fourteen foot jon boat wouldn't hold all the channel cats Harold Callaham and I have caught there below that dam since 1970.
JW: Oh, really. Where do you fish?
SW: Where?
JW: No, when?
SW: When. . . yeah, we fished early. We'd go early of the morning and fish maybe up until eleven or twelve o t clock.
JW: What'd you use for bait?
SW: Oh, we'd use night crawlers, soft shelled crawfish when we could get ‘em, hellgrammites. But we brought our share of the fish out below the dam.
JW: Have you seen the river change that much in your lifetime, other than the dam, of course? Have you seen any other type changes in the river as far as the type fish you caught out of it?
HC: I don't think so. You used to catch a whole lot of pike out of the river but you don't do that anymore. That's the only change I can think about.
JW: How big of a pike did you catch?
HC : Oh, probably two or three pounds .
JW: Oh, really? OK. I want to change the subject here and ask a couple of other questions. When you were raised here, were there many blacks in Hinton that you remember? I know some came to work on the railroad . I'm just trying. . . I'm interested in finding out how they lived here, were there that many of them, and how they got along.
HC: Well, we never had. . there weren't too many blacks in Hinton and they were all in about the same section of town.
JW: Where was that?
HC: That was in the area of.
JW: Going up Cemetery Hill.
HC: Well, I was going to say. . .
SW: They just wasn't too many black people around .
HC: That's right.
SW: Few that were, lived up in there above the Greenbrier School and that area.
HC: It's kind of hard to give you a spot there .
JW: OK. While we f re on that subject, I understand there was one lynching in the Hinton area. Where was that?
HC: Well, what I have heard about that was this: There was, I don't know whether it was a rape or attempted rape, and the person involved in it was jailed in Hinton and a mob formed. And they got him out of jail and they were gonna hang him to a tree that was located behind Dr. Bigany’s hospital. What's that street that goes right through there?
SW: Cross Street?
HC: Yeah. Where Bigany’s hospital used to be... But, anyhow, he had a right sick patient in his hospital and Dr. Bigany come out and talked to the mob and told them what was going on in the hospital and asked them to move somewhere else.
JW: Go hang him somewhere else, huh?
HC: Yes (laughter), go hang him somewhere else . Which they did.
HC: And they hung him to a tree just off the road up what we know as Possum Hollow, which is a road that leads up to the Hilltop Cemetery .
JW: And that was the only lynching that you know of?
HC: That was the only one I ever heard of.
JW: Oh, something that we were talking about earlier about your days with the railroad and stories that you heard about Billy Richardson. We were talking about the problem that he had with a coal tipple at one time. Would you mind telling us about that?
HC: Cecil Lively, an engineer now deceased, told me that he was the fireman for Billy Richardson on the run between Hinton and Huntington on a passenger train. And some place down in the Gorge, a coal company had erected a tipple and they wasn't enough clearance. And as they were passing this tipple, it tore the cab off the engine.
JW: Were either one of them injured?
HC: Neither one were injured or anything like that. It just caught a corner of something and tore the cab off.
JW: Didn't hurt any other parts of the train?
HC: No. No derailment or anything. No accident occurred, just tore the cab off of the locomotive. And they went into Huntington settin’ on the seat without any cab (laughter) on the engine.
JW: Sounds like that must have been a story to tell. You don't remember which coal company it was, do you?
HC: No.
JW: We were talking about your early life in Hinton, about the type recreation. Do you remember what type of games you used to play, what you did for amusement? I understand they had Coney Island down there.
HC: Well, in my early days, we made our entertainment and fun. Course, I’ve stated that we played on the river bank and what we did around, in and around the river. But the streets in Hinton or Avis neither were paved. And we kids played baseball in the street. Usually we made our own baseball with out of string. And for a bat, we jerked a paling off of somebody’s fence. And we played in the street. We played marbles. And in the fall of the year, it was to go back into the woods where they was. . . back in those days, they was a lot of chestnuts, chinkeepins, pawpaws, wild grapes and such as that. And we just made our own fun. We had a better time than kids do today.
JW: I imagine you did. How about the winter time?
HC: In the winter time, it was sleigh riding, ice skating.
JW: Where did you ride your sleigh?
HC: Well, we kids in Avis, we did most of our riding down on what was spoke of as Avis Hill. There weren't but just a very few automobiles in Hinton in that day and time. And there hardly wasn't any traffic in the streets. . . wasn't really any problem. Sometimes we come out of that place that was referred to as Possum Hollow for a short distance. That's about all. . .
JW: I remember somebody saying something about the river freezing over in 1917.
HC: I have seen the river frozen from bank to bank. And on one winter, can't tell you which one it was, the river was frozen over and the ferry couldn't operate. And a team. . . wagon and a team of horses, crossed on the ice. And my brother in-law, whose father was a doctor, said he used to go with his father in the winter time and they went in the sleds and they usually went up the river on the ice.
JW: On the ice?
HC: On the ice.
JW: You don't remember what year that was , do you?
HC: No.
JW: How far up river would they go?
HC: They would go up. . . well, he was talkin’ about Wiggens Eddy. Do you know where Wiggens Eddy is.
JW: No, I’m not certain where that is.
HC: Well, that would be some four or five miles from his hospital. He’d go up the river on the ice.
SW: The Greenbrier River.
JW: Up the Greenbrier River.
HC: Yes, Greenbrier River.
SW: Wiggens Eddy is just a mile this side of Willowood Country Club.
JW: That gives me some idea of where it is.
SW: Calley, did you ever have an interest in attendin’ circuses?
HC: When I was the (laughter)
JW: Sounds like a loaded question.
HC: (laughter) When I was selling papers and was delivery boy for the publisher, that was one thing that was included in my pay was a free ticket to every circus that came to Hinton. And if I didn't get one, I always went to the circus anyhow, but I never paid for it.
JW: How did you get in?
HC: Always slipped in.
JW: Under the tent (laughter).
HC: Under the tent (laughter), never got caught. I had a fellar caught one time settin’ next to me. He'd slipped in too, they'd caught him and put him out.
JW: But you just looked innocent, huh?
HC: Oh, yes. And carnivals used to set on the streets in Avis. And sometimes they'd stay there nearly for a month.
JW: I understand there was a flood one time that got one of them.
HC: Flood did get one of them one time. And that was the last showing they had.
JW: How did the big circuses come to town?
HC: Well, they come by railroad and they unloaded on Avis crossing.
JW: What circuses do you remember? Did Ringling Brothers ever come here?
HC: No, no. There was Spark's Circus, Robinson Circus, Sal’s Floata (?)
JW: Another one? What about Silas Green?
HC: Silas Green Negro Minstral was the first sign of spring each year.
JW: What was that like?
HC: It was a negro minstral show.
JW: Were they all black?
HC: They were all black.
SW: Come in by train, did they?
HC: Yes, they had one car and everybody connected with it rode in that one car or in coaches on the train. And the second sign of spring was onion sets in the stores.
JW: Onion sets?
HC: Yes. Silas Green Show, then onion sets. (laughter)
JW: So, you could buy onions when...
HC: When you could tell spring was just next week or around the corner.
JW: So you could buy onions in the store. Is that what you are saying?
SW: Yeah. Onion sets to put in your garden.
HC: The little ones that you plant.
JW: Oh, I see. Where did the Minstral Show perform?
HC: In the bottom at Avis. That's in the area where Foodland Store is
JW: OK. And they'd perform outdoors?
HC: No. They were under canvas.
JW: OK. It was under a tent?
HC: Yes.
JW: I didn't realize that. How about some of these floods in the river? Do you remember much about them?
HC: I don't remember. Course, we usually had high water every year, especially in the spring. And we lived down in Avis, but we were never put out of our home down there to my knowledge, on account of high water. But now there was a flood here back in the 1’40 or ‘41 that entirely covered everything in the bottom of what we know as Avis. And then Bellepoint over across the river here, just one little spot over there on the level land that wasn't under water.
JW: How about the islands out there? I imagine they were under water.
HC: Oh, yes.
JW: When you think back to the Depression, which were the hardest years for you? Twenties or Thirties, or what? Truthfully, I never had any hard years.
HC: Truthfully, I never had any hard years.
JW: How many people can say that?
HC: Well, I’d have to tell the truth about it, for I had a job and worked all the time.
HC: That’s good.
SW: One thing about it, if you had a job during the Depression, why you had it made.
HC: That's right.
SW: You were making pretty good money and prices were just rock bottom. And, if you had a steady income, why you didn't have anything to worry about.
HC: I was Yard Master here at Hinton during that time.
JW: Do you have any specific memories from your work as Yard Master there?
HC: Oh, well, that's just operating and running the yard.
JW: Anything that sticks in your mind in particular? Any instances or situations that happened?
HC: Oh, well, 'm sure there were many of them. I remember one time after manifest trains that is, boxcars and refrigerators and so forth like that, that started operating special trains and they called them manifest trains one was handled up the east main line in the lower yard, west bound yard and prior to that train's arrival, there had been a mashup of a boxcar over in the yard that had been loaded with evergreens. And, what was left had been thrown over the bank, over onto the river bank. And somebody came along and had a notion that they'd get rid of that old broken up boxcar and they applied a match to it. They set it on fire. And about the time it really got to burning, why, this manifest train showed up and came up there and stopped on a signal. And the boxcar caught on fire on the train.
JW: It was next to it then?
HC: Right next to where this’n had been thrown over and set on fire.
JW: What’d you do then?
HC: Well, the train was cut into on both ends and pulled away and let the boxcar burn up.
JW: What kind of cargo was in it, do you remember?
HC: If I can remember correctly, it was a boxcar loaded with hay.
JW: And that would burn.
HC: That burned the ties out from under the track (laughter).
JW: What did you do then? You had two parts... half a trains.
HC: (laughter) Oh, we put it together over in the yard .
JW: Did they ever carry... ever handle explosives on the trains?
HC: Oh, yes. Nearly everyone of these manifest trains that I speak of had inflammable or explosive lading.
SW: What about the traffic during the World War... second World War?
HC: Well, it was the greatest time for rail... handling of both the...
JW: Troop trains, war materials...
HC: Yeah, war materials, coal and such that in the history of the railroad. I was trying to remember the other day about the number of oars handled through Hinton on the biggest day on record. And it was right around three thousand cars.
JW: Three thousand cars! That was during World War Il?
HC: Yes.
JW: That was a lot of cars. Was that passenger and freight?
HC: Just freight.
JW: Just freight? That's not counting passengers.
HC: Oh, no. You had a passenger train just goin’ and comin’ all the time.
JW: That must have been something else. Is there anything else you would like to mention on this tape before we close it down? That's basically some of the questions I wanted to ask you.
HC: Oh, I don't know. Maybe when I go home or something, I’ll think of something else.
JW: One more thing I wanted to add on the tape. Sims was talking about Cecil Lively. I understand he used to be one of your neighbors?
SW: Yes, Cecil Lively, for years lived just across the street from me on the west end of town. I remember Cecil Lively as a kind hearted, easy going, reserved man that didn't try to make a lot of noise or attract attention. But, I was just going to ask Harold Callaham, after the accident in which Billy Richardson was killed and Lively was his fireman on that train, Cecil Lively was injured and I can't recall whether he fell off of a tank while he was taking coal and water, or whether a lump of coal fell off a tender and hit him in the head.
But he was injured. Caney, do you remember how that happened? I know it led to his early retirement from the railroad.
HC: Sims, I can’t recall that.
JW: Did he ever talk to you about Billy Richardson, as far as his being his fireman?
HC: This was just on a, you might say a rare or one time occasion that I was talkin’ with him. I knew him quite well. Of course, he was a locomotive engineer and he was on the yard a whole lot. And that's where you got acquainted with a person and really knew him. But, sometimes, he's just Like anybody else, you get together somewhere and you commence to talkin’ and something will pop up.
SW: Cecil Lively was one of the Lively family from over around in Monroe County. And I t m sure that this other Lively that lives here now, a retired school teacher, is probably Cecil Lively's cousin or either a nephew. And Cecil Lively's wife was a Sims from over at. . .
[END OF SIDE ONE]
Oral History Project - Callaham, Harold 1983 Part 2
(Taped at Hinton Visitor's Center, New River Gorge National River)
HC: …they were movin’ so much stock, that is, horses and cattle. . .
SW: Hogs. . .
HC: Yes, to Europe. And they, course, Hinton was a stopping place for feed and water for all livestock. And the dead animals would be removed from the cars. And they was quite a number of them... and burned.
JW: How were they burned?
HC: Well, Sims has described it there. They built a great place and put railroad rails... sort of like a barbecue... a big grill... and built a fire under them, you know, and burnt ‘em up to these railroad rails.
JW: I bet that was some odor, too.
HC: Well, it was somethin’ else. But, I can't recall that other one. The thing I remember about the dust out there, is when it would rain over here in Hinton, after the rain dried on your automobile, it was covered with mud.
So much dust?
HC: Yeah, so much dust and your car would be spotted.
JW: When was this? Before World War II, in the Thirties?
HC: Uh-huh.
JW: We were talking about... where were these animals unloaded?
HC: At the stockpens.. .
JW: …that's near where the Hinton House and Kroger is...
HC: No... the stock pens were in the area where Kroger is now.
JW: How many animals could they burn at a time?
HC: Oh, I expect they could burn a dozen.
JW: Did they have that many? At one time?
HC: Oh, yes.
[END OF SIDE TWO, END OF TAPE]
Oral History Project - Frazier, Stewart H. Jr. 1980 Part 1
African american, Railroading 1929-1969, Thurmond, McKendree Hospital, Black Churches
PN: Just to begin, Rev. Frazier, maybe I could ask you where you were born and when you were born.
SF: I was born in Minden, West Virginia — Fayette County — on November the 22nd, nineteen and eleven.
PN: And what did your father do for a living in Minden?
SF: He, he was a miner.
PR: Were his parents miners as well?
SF: Now I don't know too much about his parents, because shortly after I was born, he and my mother separated. So I never did get to know much about his people.
PN: But your father worked in the mines for his entire life?
SF: As far as I know, he did, yes,
PN: Did he work in Minden for his whole life?
SF: No, this was not a lifelong occupation for him in Minden. But being a miner, by occupation, I'm satisfied he worked in several other, other mines, and lived in several other mining communities.
PN: Were they all in West Virginia?
SF: Yes, yes.
PN: Was your dad born in West Virginia too, do you know?
SF: No, I think that he was born in North Carolina.
And what town did you grow up in?
SF: I grew up mostly between Thurmond and Dunloup, on Loup Creek. I lived in two or three mining communities along Loup Creek. But I think I spent more time in and around Thurmond because one of the little towns was two or three miles from Thurmond. And I was, I consider I spent most of my time on the river. This is what most folk in the area refer to as people from the river.
PN: What were the names of those different towns that you lived in when you were growing up?
SF: Newlyn — this was on Loup Creek, Meadow Fork, and for a short time I lived at Sun, West Virginia, and Dunloup. All of these are mining communities on Loup Creek up from Thurmond.
PN: Did you ever work in the mines yourself?
SF: Oh, for a short, for a short period of time. I went into the mines with one of my uncles, and that was a short duration. Then 1 hired on the railroad, and I spent 40 years working for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company. And all of that time, I was employed at Thurmond.
PN: What was the first year that you began working for the C. and O.?
SF: Well this brings back a memory. The fifth day of March 1929 was my first day of employment. And I remember that so well because I sort of make a joke of it. Herbert Hoover went to work on the fourth of March, and I went to work on the railroad on the fifth of March.
PN: So you were about 18 years old when you began?
SF: Yes, in my eighteenth year.
PN: What was your job then?
SF: I was a, I was a station laborer. I worked first at the freight house as a freight handler. And then in the later years, I was promoted to a clerk. And my last employment was crew caller.
PN: As a crew caller?
SF: Crew caller, yea. That was a clerk of the second, second group, not first—class clerk, but while that 1 was eligible to have been promoted, but after the great number of years that I had accumulated seniority as a laborer, and then when I was promoted to a second—group clerk, I felt comfortable staying where I was, because it was just going to be a matter of time till I would be retiring. And it was more profitable to me not to take promotion as a group—one clerk.
PN: What would have happened then? Would you lose your seniority?
SF: Well, I wouldn't exactly lose, have lost my seniority, but I would have gone low on the employment roster. And whereas remaining where I was, why I was near the top of that roster. So during a cutoff period, I didn't have to suffer. But if I'd have moved up to the higher bracket…
PN: They would have laid you off?
SF: Yea, because during the mine shut—downs and so on, why the younger men were always, not necessarily Black, but the younger men, you see, on the bottom of the roster, they would be the first ones to go. So I couldn't see myself losing this kind of money. So really I made more by staying on the group—two roster, because my employment was steady.
PN: What was the year when you finally retired from the C. and O.?
SF: The fourteenth day of April 1969.
PN: I wanted to just ask you if you could maybe describe a little bit about what the responsibilities of each of your jobs were when you were working on the railroad?
SF: Well, when I worked as a station laborer, the first duties that I had was handling freight, unloading freight from the cars. Thurmond was sort of a terminal, a terminus point for the local areas of Thurmond. And then when I had a little more experience, then I was taken over to the baggage room, and I helped to handle the mail baggage. And then when I was pro— moted to a group—two clerk, my duties then consisted of calling the train crews out for, for their work assignments. They used to call that a good job, a person on the job "call boy."
PN: Call boy?
SF: A call boy. And I was amused, one afternoon I was in the store, and the cashier heard me talking with one of the boys that I worked with. And he had said, "Well, here's my favorite call boy. " And she leaned over and said, “Listen, do call boys do the same thing that call girls do?" I says, "Oh, no. This is a different kind of call boy.” She knew better but this was, this was her time to get a joke going. That was the extent of my duties there. I was responsible for seeing that all the men were notified when to report for work. And it was often my duty to keep a record of the crew board, to see that all the men were called on their proper turn, or sequence, and that the crews were called in their proper order.
PN: When you began to work in 1929, did many of the railroad workers have a union to represent them?
SF: No, no, there had been a union, but during the strike in, probably in 1922, a long time before 1 was hired, the union sort of went down. And it did not become active until in the, in the thirties. And even then, the Black employees were not permitted membership until some laws were changed. And then later, in the early fifties, then we were permitted membership . Now they had some sort of a satellite lodge where all Blacks could join after a period of time. But then this didn't last too long. Because after the Civil Rights Movement started, why then all was changed. So I am a member now, even though retired, of the Brotherhood of Railway, Steamship Clerks, and Airline Employees. That union has merged with ours.
PN: When you began working — this is kind of a complicated question I guess you were a yard laborer?
SF: Station laborer.
PN: A station laborer.
SF: Yes, see I was in the transportation department. And this had to do with the employees that worked around the trains and around the station ticket office — janitors and so on.
PN: And there was no union for any of the employees at that time, whether they were white or Black?
SF: The white employees had a union, but it was dormant there for a period of time. See, they'd had a strike and this all but destroyed their union, but then it finally after a period of time, they were able to revive it. And now they have the most viable union.
PN: What vas the first year that you were actually permitted to be a member of the union?
SF: A full—fledged member, that must have been 1950.
PN: That was different from the United Mine Workers then…
SF: Oh yes.
PN: …which didn't discriminate in terms of Its membership?
SF: Oh yes, this was very different. And it was about when, full membership was permitted, it brought about lots of changes. And some of us benefitted by it, and in some departments there was some of us that lost jobs because jobs were cataloged into certain areas. For the [benefit of the] membership, you see, the Black employees were not permitted membership, and this gave the white members a chance to build a lodge like they wanted it, long before we were permitted membership. So when we were permitted to join the white lodge, see this put us way down on the list. But I was, have not been bitter toward that, because this was a transition. And change is pretty devastating: some of us survive and some of us don’t. But I think that in the long run, why, I was among the few that survived the change and by staying close to the job's working schedule, doing my work religiously, minding my business, why I didn't have too much problem.
PN: When you began in 1929 and the early thirties, what percentage would you say of all the people that worked there In Thurmond were Black, and what percentage were white?
SF: Well, I wouldn't know just how to break that down. Now on the, in the maintenance—of—way department, most all the, all of the employees with the exception of the foremen were Black. In the train service department, around the round house, all the laborers were Black. And I wouldn't have any way of knowing how many were employed, because at the round house, they worked three shifts. And there were a few Blacks who helped break the strike and they, during that period of time, they got some good jobs. And there were one or two boilermaker helpers, and several were employed as machinists, and there were two Black hostlers — and these were the men that moved the engines around at the roundhouse for cleaning and repairs and so on. And so, there were a goodly, there were a goodly number. I do know this much — there were more people employed at the freight house than they have total in Thurmond now. And so the change has wreaked havoc with the employment force, of course, with the coming of the diesel engines, and the slowing—down of the mine operations, and mechanization too has had its toll.
PN: You were talking about the strike a minute ago — do you remember what year that was?
SF: As best I can remember, this was 1922.
PN: Oh, the '22 strike?
SF: Mm.
And you 're saying, what, at that time, the union was white only?
SF: Yes.
PN: So if a Black person applied for a job, he didn't get it, right?
SF: Not through the union. But when they struck, they hired lots of non—union people, even whites. And, of course, as the old cliche "The show must go on." And they were labelled "scabs" and so on; well, later on, they called 'em strikebreakers, but for the most part, that nasty word "scab…
PN: Let me get your reaction to this. In a way it would seem that if the union — which was all white — didn't allow Black members, it wasn't exactly fair for them to turn around and call a Black person who took the job a "scab," when he couldn't even work otherwise. Do you think that's accurate.
SF: Well, that was their attitude. But this was unfair, because if Blacks had been permitted in the, membership in their union, they would have struck just like everybody else. And, of course, you take a man who had never had a meaningful job, and then all of a sudden he has a chance to make a good living for his family, why it takes some doing for him to say, "No, thank you, I’ll have no part." And, of course, this was true of lots of white people who did not think kindly toward the union, and they grabbed those jobs as fast as they were offered to them.
PN: It would seem in some ways and maybe you could comment on this — from what you were just saying, that maybe the history of the railroad workers' unions and the miners' union were somewhat the same. Cause 1922 was the year that I know the miners' union was broken, and you were talking about the parallel there.
SF: With the exception that the miners were all in one big union.
[The United Mine Workers always organized coal miners on an industrial union basis since its founding in 1890; the UMW also generally had a policy of organizing Black and white miners into the same locals, even in the Deep South. The railroad workers' union, on the other hand, was fragmented and was actually several unions, organized along the lines of different crafts. Railroad workers' unions, moreover, had a history of excluding Black workers, more or less openly.]
Much of that now has been overcome, due to legislation that has passed, made it almost impossible now for this kind of thing to exist.
PN: When you worked in Thurmond, where did you live? Did you live right in Thurmond, or did you live out here in Harvey then?
SF: Oh no. For a number of years, I lived in Thurmond. But when I was first hired, I was living at Meadow Fork. And I walked or caught a ride with somebody down to Thurmond. And then later on, then I started to “batching" down there. After I was married, why then we finally got a house to live in there at Thurmond and, of course, I was right close to my work. And we lived in Thurmond then for a number of years, and we moved into this community in 1945. And I had to commute from here then to Thurmond. Of course, by that time, in the fifties I guess it was, I was able to buy an automobile, and I drove in my own car.
PN: When you lived in Meadow Fork, what type of a house did you live in?
SF: It was just the average coal company house.
PN: And then when you moved to Thurmond, and said you were batching, where did you live then?
SF: I lived in one of the shanties that were made possible by the railroad companies for its employees, because see they didn't have too many accommodations for the employees, and most especially the Black employees. And they set off several boxcars that were outfitted for fairly comfortable living. And this is how we had to, we had to live.
PN: Are those similar to the boxcars that still sit along the road?
SF: That's right, you see some of them now. I lived in one of those boxcars.
PN: How many of those boxcars were there, would you say, when you were living in them?
SF: Oh, when I was living in one, I guess in that particular area, there must have been, maybe eight or ten, maybe 12.
PN: How many men would live in them?
SF: well sometimes there would be three or four men to a car. You see, and then in some instances there were more. Of course, they had double bunks in them, and maybe there would be four men sleeping in one end of the car, and the other end was the kitchen and the cooking area.
PN: Where were the boxcars located then, in about the same place they are now?
SF: Yea, the same place they are now.
PN: Did many people come in and work during the week, and leave during the weekends?
SF: Oh yea, see many of the people — lots of the whites too, for that matter — lived in, come out of Virginia. And they would work through the week and then go home over the weekend. See this was just a temporary thing. There were just one or two men, maybe, who for a short period of time moved their families into a situation like that. Most of them came from Buckingham County, Virginia and Louisa County, Virginia. And oh, it would be a sight to see them, oh with their suitcases going home for the weekend.
PN: Let me ask this question which just occurred to me. Several people that I have spoken to have mentioned Buckingham County, Virginia. Do you any explanation why so many people who worked in Thurmond and along the gorge seemed to come from that particular place?
SF: Well, it was sort of like a chain reaction. You see, Virginia 's farming country. Well, when the mines, the coal mines opened up, well here was the kind of money that those people had never heard of. And many of them came out here and worked in the mines. And they commuted home the same way, although many of them moved their families into the mining communities. And it was sort of clannish—like. For instance, I come out and get a job, and I'd get a job for, recommend my brother, or my uncle, or so on, or good friends. And so word passed, word passed along. And there for a long time, most of the men — Blacks who worked at the round house came out of Louisa County, Virginia. They were either related or good friends.
PN: And what years would you say they first came to Thurmond?
SF: Well this goes farther back than I could remember, because when, see I was born in 1911. Well now, I didn't have whole lots of knowledge of what was happening around until I was, well about eight or nine years old. And see, this was going on then. But I would suggest that when the mine industry opened up in this area, why people started to coming into the area. There were lots of people that came [here] from the Deep South. They came, they came mostly into the coal—mining communities. They used to run what they called "transportations”. Here would be a man that knew lots of people in a certain area. Well, he would be given x—number of dollars to go and round workers. And the coal companies would pay him and pay their fares. And they called this “transportation" this is where lots of people came into the area.
PN: What states would they come from, generally?
SF: To begin with, most of the people who came in that I have, as far back as I can remember, came out of Alabama. Now there were lots of, there were a few people out of the Carolinas. But many of the mining communities were filled with Alabamians.
PN: Would they come from, say, Jefferson County or Jasper County, Alabama?
SF: Well, it's a funny thing about people from Virginia and the Deep South too; you would never know exactly where they came from. Because they'd have a mailing address at some large town. See — Bessemer, Birmingham in Alabama, now those are principal cities. Most all of them would give you that kind of an address. And the same way with the people In Virginia. The people in Buckingham County, they mostly said as their address Buckingham Courthouse. In Louisa County, it was Louisa County Courthouse. You get off the train and ride all day to get out in the woods where they live. But it sounds prestigious, you know, to have a mailing address at those larger towns. [laughs] I used to have a friend who was a native Alabamian. And I'd ask him sometimes, just for the fun of it, "Where did you come from?" And he would say, "Pittsboig". But here was that southern accent, see, but he was really an Alabamian. But he didn't want that touch. But he'd always say "Pittsboig”.
PN: Were many of those men miners in Alabama before they came up here?
SF: I don't think so. I think they got more of their mining experience here in West Virginia, although there are coal mines in Alabama.
PN: Let me just go back to some other things you were mentioning. You said that after you got married, you moved out of the shanties or boxcars into a house. That was in Thurmond?
SF: No, I didn't move to Thurmond then. I moved to Newlyn.
PN: Newlyn.
SF: Mm. We lived in two rooms that we rented from a friend who worked in the mines. And of course, he was the landlord. But we were good friends, and he rented us two rooms to live in until we could establish something better.
PN: What year was that?
SF: In 1931, the ninth day of August, is when we married. And the next week, then we moved into the two rooms that we had rented up in this coal—mining community .
PN: And what did you use the two rooms for? One as a bedroom and…
SF: Yea, we just had a bedroom and a kitchen. The kitchen was an all—purpose place. [laughs]
PN: How long did you stay there in Newlyn?
SF: Oh, we lived there maybe two or three years. And then, when the panic came, or the Depression, why I had to, I was furloughed. And I worked in the mines again for, from 1933 until 1935, when I stood for re—employment. And during that time, I worked for the Newlyn Coal Company for a while. And then, I wasn't doing too well there. I left there, and went to work for Mason Coal Company over on Piney Branch.
PN: Mesa?
SF: Mason Coal Company. And this was an experience. I loaded coal with another companion for, at Newlyn, and we dug it with a pick, for 41 cents a ton. And then one day, the superintendent came in, and they gave us a long talk — lecture — and informed us that they had reduced our per—ton rate to 40 cents. And I’ll never forget; he said to us, “Now, if anybody can't live with it, why you're free to go and get you another job." But where were we going? And the thing that upset me, he took about an hour to explain this all to us when I could have been loading another car of coal But I left there and went over to, over on, to the Mason Coal Company on Piney Branch, and I had a job there loading machine coal. It was cut with a low—vein machine. Now this was a real experience. The coal was 26 inches tall; it just come up to my knees. And we, my friend and I, had been given a job on the night shift. And I never will forget the first night that I reported for work. I kept looking for the coal. And finally I asked him, one of the fellows that was taking us in, and I said, "Where's the coal?" And he said, "There it is." And about six inches above the top of the rail was a little vein of coal. Of course, after we got deeper in to where we were going to work in what they call a room, just off of the entry, well the coal turned out to be 26 inches tall. And they had to shoot slate above the coal for the roadway, so you could load coal. But when you get back into where you were working, why you had to, you had to get down on your knees and almost kiss the ground to get the coal up. But I learned to make a living like that. But I was very happy, I was very happy when I didn't have to go into that place anymore.
PN: Was that cut with a cutting machine?
SF: Yes, that was cut with a, that was cut with a coal—cutting machine.
PN: A coal—cutting machine?
SF: Mm.
PN: And then you came in and loaded it after…?
SF: Yea, after the machine, yea, after the place was cut, the machine backed out. And sometime, we would have to shoot the coal down, move the, they called it "bug dust," move that dust out from under the cutting place. They cut it from the bottom, from the bottom. And we would load that bug dust out, and then put a shot In, and shoot the coal down. And they'd run the car then up the center of the place. And my buddy worked one side, and I worked the other side. And this is how we made a living.
PN: How did you manage to get yourself in there and a shovel in 26 inches of coal?
SF: Well, you had a straight—handled shovel. You couldn't use a shovel with a, what they called a high—vein shovel. See the shovel was flat.
PN: A high—what shovel?
SF: A high—vein shovel. You'd tear your hands all to pieces, in fact you just couldn't work. The shovels were straightened out flat and you would crawl up. I would take my dinner with me, and I'd leave it out on the entry. You were so cramped up, nobody ate while they were in there. Most of us ate our dinners when we came outside. I lived about three miles, maybe four miles, from where I worked down at Royal, across the river from Prince. So I had plenty of time to get the exercise and digest the food after work, now. That was an experience.
PN: Was it even possible, like to drink something when you were in that low coal?
SF: Oh yea, you'd get out in the roadway where the slate was shot, see, to give you, the motor travel room. You'd drink water. But you just didn't want to eat in there all cramped up like that.
PN: How many hours a day did you have to work at that time?
SF: We worked eight hours.
PN: What did you get paid for that?
SF: Well see, we got paid per ton. And we would, we could only load about four, maybe once in a while we would load eight, cars between us. And the cars would weigh around two ton per car.
PN: And that would be two men?
SF: Yes, we split that on the tonnage straight down the middle.
PN: What did you get paid a ton at that time?
SF: For that machine coal, we got paid 35 cents a ton.
PN: And then in 1935, you got your job back?
SF: I didn't get that, my regular job back. When they started, when we were coming out of the Depression and they started to rebuild the tracks, they extended the privilege to all the men who had been furloughed to sign for a job on the section. And I worked that summer on the section. And then by fall, why I stood for extra work then at the freight house and baggage room. And I worked extra then until 1936, and I fell heir to a regular job. And then I had a regular job from that time until I was retired in 1969.
PN: What does extra work" mean?
SF: Well, you worked when someone laid off; or when there was an excess of freight to be handled they'd call one of the cut—off men. See, this was extra. I made lots of money working as an extra, because most all the men were older men, and they would want off for some reason or another. And when they knew that I was willing to work their shifts for them, why I picked up, at one point, I guess I made almost as much working extra, as an extra employee, as some of the regular employees. But I managed to survive.
PN: When you didn't get extra work, did you work on the section then?
SF: No, they wouldn't allow us, they wouldn't allow us to work on two payrolls. When I stood for extra work, or when I was marked up back in the transportation department, I had to stay with that. And when I didn't have anything else to do during hunting season, why I took my old trusty shotgun and went out shot me a squirrel or two or a rabbit.
PN: This leads me into another thing. What did you usually do for re— creation, hunting and fishing?
SF: I never did learn to fish, but I taught myself to hunt. And this was a rewarding experience. You go out in the woods. And some days I would be successful and kill, during squirrel season, kill several squirrels; during the rabbit season, kill a few rabbits; or shoot a quail or so, a pheasant. And there for a long time, that was the meat on our table. Because during the Depression, the wages at that point, my wages was $2.84 a day when I worked an eight—hour shift. And some days, I would not work eight hours continuous. We'd work a split shift. We'd work so many hours, and then they would relieve me, or relieve us. And then we'd come back and work four more hours. And there have been times when it took me 12 hours to get six hours actual work — paying, because of the on and off.
PN: Did you live right in Thurmond?
SF: Yea, I lived right in Thurmond, yes.
PN: Did you live on the south side or in the main part?
SF: No, I lived over in the north side, the main part of Thurmond.
PN: Where, above where the Banker's Club is now?
SF: No, the Blacks were not permitted to live in that part of town. We had some houses up east of the railroad station on the hill.
PN: On the hillside?
SF: Mm.
PN: Is that where, if you take that road which goes up the hill today, in that vicinity?
SF: Just east of that road, yea. When you take that road around the hill, it turns right where it used to be a community church. Now we lived on beyond, on beyond that. There used to be, I guess, maybe 12, 15 little huts stuck along the hillside. I lived in one of them.
PN: How many rooms were in those?
SF: The house that I lived in had three rooms. Most of them had three, or four small rooms.
PN: Did the railroad build them?
SF: Oh no, no. They belonged to the McKell heirs. See, the two brothers, one of them was, well their father bought lots of land from Thurmond back up Loup Creek. They had lots of coal interests, and they owned that part of Thurmond and they rented those houses out.
PN: When you lived in Thurmond, in terms of your social life, did you often meet miners from some of the surrounding communities?
SF: Oh yes. You see, Thurmond was sort of a terminus. And people, at one time, the railroad was the only outlet for the mining communities. It was a long time before they had a highway down there. And the trains that travelled up Loup Creek that touched all the coal mines. And this was the only mode of travel.
PN: In these years, in the thirties, did you ever grow a garden?
SF: Oh yes, yes, you learned to do lots of things. [laughs]
PN: Was that a significant part of your food, or your diet?
SF: Yes, yes.
PN: What did you usually grow?
SF: Well beans and potatoes and corn, small stuff like that.
PN: Let me just switch slightly. I want to ask you something about this before the tape runs out. When did you, you know, build a church? And did you have churches before when you were working on the railroad?
SF: Yes. Now the first Black church was started, was the outgrowth rather, of debating society literary society. And this commenced in what was the living quarters for the employees at the old Dunglen Hotel. And they got along so well they organized a Sunday School. And from that then, they organized a church. And this took place from my mother's history, I believe; she has since passed about 1913 or 14. And that is when the group grew too large for the limited quarters they had on the south side, at the living quarters of the old Dunglen Hotel. They moved across the river to a rooming house, and they were permitted to use the large room, assembly room, upstairs over this restaurant, combination restaurant and a rooming house. And then, in the later years, must have been around in the teens — '17 or '18 they got together then and moved the church services back across the river to a school building. And in the early twenties, then they were able to, with the help of the McKell heirs, they were given a little piece of ground and they built a church on the side of the hill, in what was known then as the Dunglen section of Thurmond. The railroad, it was a railroad station stop, and they called it South Side. I went to, I went to church school in that setting when I was old enough. And my wife and I became Christians the same year in that little church. That holds some fond memories for us.
PN: And is that same congregation the congregation that you 're the pastor of today?
SF: No, no, they're only two Black people in Thurmond now — a widow woman and a friend of mine, Clinton Tinsley. I imagine you may have run into him.
PN: Clinton Tinsley?
SF: Yea, has an artificial leg. He lives in the little house after you get into Thurmond before you cross the railroad bridge, where the road turns and crosses Loup Creek and goes up New River. He lives in a little house right at that bridge.
PN: When did you become a pastor of a church yourself?
SF: Oh, in 1936, I guess I became pastor of my first congregation. And that was down on Cotton Hill Mountain. And I would ride a train to Cotton Hill, and walk up the mountain to Beckwith.
PN: Oh, cause you lived in Thurmond?
SF: I lived in Thurmond.
PN: And when was the church right next door here originally built?
SF: This is the white Methodist church, and I would have to look on that bulletin board.
PN: Oh, you 're not associated with that?
SF: No, no. We 're good friends; but see, I am a member of the Baptist church. And our church is the church that you see down over the hill, just as you follow the road around. Our church sets down over, below the, below the road.
PN: Are you still the active minister of that church?
SF: No, no. I 'm not the active minister here. This is the church of our membership after we left Thurmond. But my pastorate was, up until the first Sunday in October, was at the First Baptist Church, White Sulphur Springs. I commuted from here over there. I was with that congregation for 16 years.
PN: Wow, until last month?
SF: Until, yes, until last month. And I'm the minister at the First Baptist Church, Union, over in Monroe County now.
[The first of two reels for Interview Twenty—Two ended on the previous page. That part was conducted on November 12, 1980.]
Oral History Project - Frazier, Stewart H. Jr. Part 2
African american, Railroading 1929-1969, Thurmond, McKendree Hospital, Black Churches
— The second of two reels for Interview Twenty—Two begins here. This part was conducted on November 25, 1980.
PN: Rev. Frazier, maybe we could follow up some of the material that you were discussing in the last interview. First, I was wondering if you could describe your experiences at McKendree Hospital, when you were the chaplain there.
SF: Well that was a wonderful experience. I had been asked at various times if I would come and just give 'em a service. I kept putting it off. But finally I had the time, and I decided, well, I’ll run up there this Sunday, and I’ll get this off my back. And so I rode the local train, Number Fourteen — just the even numbers run east; the odd numbers run west. And I had planned to conduct the service and get back on Thirteen, and then I would be through with McKendree. But I was so overwhelmed with what I found there, and the needs that I found, I not only spent the whole Sunday afternoon and rode the late train back to Thurmond, but I had agreed to go back to the home each convenient Sunday. And finally I resigned a local church that I was pastoring, and gave that time to the institution and its people. And another church that I was pastoring down at Stone Cliff - oh, the church that I resigned was at Thayer — and the church at Stone Cliff finally went down because the mines blew out, the people moved away. And I found myself giving full—time to the old folks at the institution. And for a long period of time, I conducted three services each Sunday two services up on the ward and then, two services in the chapel, I beg your pardon, and one service on the ward. I say on the ward, this was on the ward where the immobile patients were. And 1 carried the service to them. And then I would go on Wednesday evenings for a mid—week service. And during this time, I was employed by the C. and O. Railway. And it was just my good fortune to have a boss—man who was in sympathy with what I was doing. And he allowed me all the free time possible. And so I was never penalized on my job for the time that I spent minstering to the inmates. And this was, this was a most wonderful experience. But here it started out as just a service to get rid of something. And all of a sudden, here I find myself going full—time.
PN: What was the year that you conducted the first service there?
SF: This was in, I guess 41.
PN: And how long did you continue?
SF: I, I stayed with the institution until the institution was finally integrated, and they moved the older, old folks back to Huntington. Well, they spread them out, carried some to Denmar [near Hillsboro in Pocahontas County] and other places. But the, the institution per se, they relocated back in Huntington. This was in the fift—, the early fifties.
PN: And they closed down McKendree?
SF: They closed, yea, they down completely.
PN: Do you know what year exactly that was?
SF: Not as I can remember. That must have been in 51 - '50 or '51.
PN:And do you know what year that McKendree changed from a hospital to become an old folks' home.
SF: No, not being associated with the institution at that time, I didn't pay much attention to that.
PN: Was that a negative step, in some ways, do you think that they closed down McKendree, and took that facility away? Or do you think that was basically a positive thing?
SF: Do you mean when they moved the old folks back?
PN: No, this was a positive step. You see, because prior to that it was a segregated institution. The white people, older white people, were at Sweet Springs, and our people were there at McKendree. And so when they integrated the institutions, this was a, this was more positive. And oh, I missed the association with the, with the people and so on, but I was glad for them because this meant for a better, a better life for them.
PN: When, in the years between 1941 and 1951, that you were travel ling to McKendree every Sunday and Wednesday, I was wondering if you could just describe what the town looked like. Or, is it correct to call it a town?
ST: Well, it was just, just a little, just a little, a little community. No, it wasn't, wasn't a town, just a little community. Cause the hospital was the only thing there.
PN: Were there any stores, or anything like that there?
SF: Maybe at one point, there vas a little concession across the tracks from the, where the train stopped. But this was just an indi—, an individual type of thing. You know, how people see probably an opportunity to make themselves a little, a little extra change. And I don't know who the people were that lived there, but they had a little concession stand there for the benefit of people that would be getting on and off of the train.
PN: Did the people that were employed at the institution at that time, did they live in McKendree?
SF: Yes, yes, they, they had rooms there at the, you see, what, what used to be the nurse's home and the doctor or staff quarters this was converted into living quarters for the employees. The superintendent of the institution and his staff lived, lived there, and the employees. Oh, they may have been, maybe one or two employees that drove in. But for the most part, they, it was a live—in situation.
PN: Were most, or all, of the employees Black at that time?
SF: With the exception, for a while, of the farmer. Now down below the institution, there was a farmer. This was a carry—over from the old hospital days. He was resident farmer.
PN: A farmer?
SF: Yes, and for a while after the institution was changed, why he farmed, run the farm for the institution. But that didn't last too, too long. And aside from him and his family, why then the other employees were Black.
PN: Did the farmer grow most of the food?
SF: A goodly portion of it.
PN: Really?
SF: I don't know just how much, how much acreage they had there. But they, they had a pretty good—sized farm. And this was all that he did. He raised vegetables, and he raised hogs, and chickens and so on, yea. And it was, it was a pretty nice affair. But then as the appropriations grew smaller, you see, now when the, when the old folks, when the West Virginia Home for the Aged, of course, moved in, I think they moved them in there on the appropriation for the state hospital, which at that time I'm pretty certain was $56, 000. But then they didn't have an appropriation that large afterwards. And so there wasn't money enough then, and it wasn't productive either, to main— , continue to maintain the farm and the farmer. And so then they moved away.
PN: Is there anything else about McKendree that you think is significant to mention?
SF: Well, I think, I think this, I think this perhaps is significant. Cause we had some of the finest people there as staff as, as you would find. The first superintendent that I worked with was a Dr. George Banks from Huntington. And he wasn't there too long after, after I started going in, until the, they appointed a Methodist preacher and a retired Army officer, Lt. Theodore Thornhill. And he was, he was a most unusual person, and the care for the people. Now the institution wasn't as clean as he thought it should have been, and he spent a lots of time and money cleaning up those to make it presentable and desirable place for the inmates. And I will never forget how rigid he was with the employees. He didn't allow the old people to be abused by the employees. And there had been a few times that he had dismissed employees on the spot for their apparent abuse of the inmates. And he never allowed anything on his table, or the staff's table, that was not on the inmates' table. And this was most unique, because in so many instances, why they have the finer things for their, for the staff, and the inmates have what's left. So I think this would be something that would be worthy of mentioning. And it became the last stop for the Institutions Investigating Committee. They always wound up their tour of the institutions at McKendree so that they would have dinner at the Home for the Aged Colored People at McKendree. So that gives you an idea how nice the place was.
PN: Was Mr. Thornhill white, or was he Black?
SF: He was Black, mm.
PN: You mentioned that when you were very young that you went to McKendree as a patient.
SF: Oh yes. My mother took me to the hospital. In fact, she at one time was employed at the hospital. And I developed this adenoid and tonsil problem. And she carried me to the McKendree Hospital. That's where I lost my adenoids and tonsils. And so even though I was just a youngster, going back there in later years to carry a religious service to a group of old people had a sentimental touch to it.
PN: And how old were you then when you were in the hospital as a patient?
SF: I was between six and seven years old. So as I'd walk around through there, through the halls where, I had the memory of one time that I was down in the operating room.
PN: Was the hospital segregated at that time in any way?
SF: Well yes, most everything was. The colored people, or Black people, they were on wards to themselves just like the, just the white people were.
PN: Were the employees, such as nurses and doctors, did they stay either on the white section or the Black section, or did they move around?
SF: Well now, they, yes, they, they had, they had their separate quarters; yes, they had their separate quarters. Now I don't know of any, of any Black nurses at that, at that time. But the cooks and the orderlies and the maids and so on they were all Black.
PN: They were all Black?
SF: Mm. Of course, this was the, this was the trend. You consider the period of time that you’re thinking back into, and this was not an unusual thing .
PN: What years are you talking about, the twenties?
SF: I'm talking about before the twenties, yes, before the twenties. So this was not frowned on too largely, because it was the commonly—accepted thing.
PN: Was that true up through the twenties and the thirties also?
SF: Yea.
PN: When was McKendree Hospital originally built, do you know?
SF: No, I don't, I don't know too much about that history, because when I became old enough, got old enough to know, to notice what was going on, the hospital was there. Now this Clinton Tinsley that I referred you to some time back, now he could give you that background information.
PN: And after 1951, when the institution finally closed down, what, what happened to the physical buildings there?
SF: The vandals wrecked it. To have gone back there a year after the place was abandoned, and to remember what it was like two years before, you couldn't help but shed tears.
PN: That quickly?
SF: Yea.
PN: So you couldn't even recognize it really after…
SF: No, no. Oh, the old structure stood, but then people just went there and carried stuff off and destroyed all of it. This, this was a, was a beautiful, was a beautiful place there.
PN: The pictures I 've seen, it seemed to be a really beuatiful place. Let me switch to another institution, if that would be OK.
SF: All right.
PN: When we were speaking last time, you talked a little bit about the Dunglen Hotel. I was wondering if you could describe that a little bit more fully, and everything that happened there, and what that meant to the community.
SF: Well, I don't think I would be able to, to describe everything that went on there, because there were so many things that happened. But the Dunglen Hotel in Thurmond was, this was just like going to Philadelphia or New York. This was, this was the meeting place of businesses, the coal operators sit there; buyers for the company stores [went] to the Dunglen Hotel to meet the salesmen well, they called them “drummers" then. They would bring their samples, and they had all these display rooms there, and they would spread their wares out. And the people did their buying. NOW I guess the Dunglen Hotel in Thurmond had the same kind of prominence, considering the difference in the time, as the Greenbrier enjoys now. And I've heard em talk about the poker games that went on and on and on. But just it is known at the Greenbrier, you could go there to the Dunglen Hotel and you wouldn't have to leave. You could get anything that you wanted, and some people got lots of things that they didn't want. But it was, it was, it was a great place. And there was a bridge that spanned the Loop Creek and went over to the train stop on, on the South Side. And of course, at that time, there were passenger trains up and down Loop Creek, and they all stopped for persons going to the Dunglen Hotel. And to have seen that place at night, now this was something beautiful. Because the bridge was, had lights on it, from the hotel all the way across to the main station, railroad station, up on the north side. And they turned those lights on at train time. Of course, this was, it was not only, not so much for the beauty, but for the safety of people who, that walked across there. Because very few people dared to cross New River going into the hotel or going over into the little settlement they called Ballyhack.
PN: What was it?
SF: Ballyhack, that was, that was, there was a little town, a little settlement…
PN: Ballyhack?
SF: Yea, and they called it Ballyhack. And that too had lots of colorful history too. Because there was a saloon over there, and one place, and one great huge building they called the "Blackhawk. And this was, was where lots of things went on too. It's just, it's unbelievable to see what is left, and remembering what, what used to be there.
PN: Where was Ballyhack? Was that on the Thurmond side of the river?
SF: This was on what they called the South Side.
PN: The South Side?
SF: Yes, this was on the same side as the hotel. You see the town of Thurmond was all across, all across the river over to the north side, where the passenger station, railroad station was.
PN: And the bridge you were talking about, it went over Loop Creek?
SF: Yes, this was just, this was a small, this was a small bridge that connected the Dunglen Hotel with the, the railroad coming across from Thurmond. They had a little, they had a little, little canopy of affair there with seats, and the people would wait under that shelter for the Loop Creek passenger train to come across from Thurmond, and go up Loop Creek or to return from Price Hill back into Thurmond…
PN: Say, if people wanted to go from the Dunglen Hotel to the main station over at Thurmond…
SF: Yea, they walked across that bridge that spanned the Loop Creek, and then proceeded to, on across the, the big bridge into, into Thurmond.
PN: Then they'd walk across the big bridge that's still there today?
SF: Yea, that's still there today. See, it had a walkway on it, and, and it had the lights all the way.
PN: On the big bridge?
SF: Oh yes, oh yes. Nobody walked across there unprotected after dark.
PN: When you mentioned Ballyhack, who lived there? Was that railroad workers?
SF: Well, yea, there were lots of railroad workers that lived there. And, I don't know how many houses. Well, just everywhere there was a little space, there was, there was a house there.
PN: That was down towards the south of the Dunglen Hotel?
SF: Yes, back in the direction that the highway follows now, coming up Loop Creek.
PN: Was it mostly Black people or white people that lived in Ballyhack?
SF: It was Black and white, yes.
PN: And you'd mentioned Weewind before. That was further up, wasn't it?
SF: Yes now, no, no. Now this was still on the South Side, but about a mile or so below Thurmond. Weewind was almost straight across from Thurmond.
PN: And that's where Arbuckle…
SF: That's where Arbuckle Creek empties into New River at.
PN: And who lived there, anybody in particular?
SF: No, I didn't know too much, I didn't know too much about, about that place. Now, this was just a little mining community, but I do believe that
PN: Weewind was?
SF: Yes.
PN: Mining?
SF: Back in the twenties, some people by the name of Bear, operated the mine there for a while.
PN: What, Bear?
SF: Bear, yea . That was, well see most of the little places that were beginning to fade out, and finally became non—existent. It's only in the minds of people who did remember it.
PN: And you said that the Dunglen was a pretty wide open place, or something.
Maybe you could elaborate a little bit on that, if you wanted to.
SF: Well, they, they did some of every, some of everything there. They did some of everything there. Just like you find, well, on a smaller scale, you could compare it with Las Vegas.
PN: It must have been pretty lively.
SF: Oh yes, yes it was lively. And when I was in my early teens, I worked at the Dunglen Hotel as a porter. The man that operated the hotel at that time was a railroader. His name was Robert Higgins. He and his family operated the hotel. But of course, the, this was the, the prominence and so on had begun to fade out. Now that was, it wasn't the big thing that it had been in times past, or he would have never been able to have gotten a hold of it. And toward the last, it became more or less just more or less a rooming house.
PN: Really?
SF: Mm.
PN: You worked there for a couple of years?
SF: Oh about a year. For $25 a month, and board and room. But I was too young to occupy my room at the hotel. I had to report to my Mama, my mother's home every evening shortly after 7:00. I went on duty at 7:00 in the morning, and stayed on duty till 7:00 in the evening. But my mother didn't think that that was a desirable place for a kid 15 years old to spend the night by himself, so I had to [laughs] to sleep at home.
PN: Where did they serve meals? Did they have big, big dining rooms?
SF: Yes, they had, yes, they had a big dining room. I don't know how many waiters [and] waitresses that they must have employed there. But it was, it was it was a sumptuous place. Were most of the employees Black at the time, or…?
SF: Yes, yes. They, they had Black and white employees. But the Black employees were maids, porters, and bell boys, and handymen, and maintenance people. But here again, this was not a unique thing in itself, because this was, you know, [the] pattern for the, for the time. And I guess that those people were just as proud of working at the Dunglen Hotel, as lots of people enjoy the same prestige now working in some, in some of the more prestigious positions. They had their own power plant, and their own ice—making plant. Then they had a small farm too along the, along the river bank. They raised their hogs, and plus they, the feed cost, they fed the scraps from the, from the hotel to the hogs. Of course, they had to supplement with other, other food. But then this was how that they, they managed it.
PN: The hotel owned the farm, and the…
SF: Yea, yea, mm.
PN: How many people could stay at the hotel, if it was full?
SF: Oh I, I, I wouldn't have an idea how many would at the capacity then. But I do know from the conversations that I've had with people who were much older, there were times when you couldn't get a room.
PN: What was the year that you were working there - 1925?
SF: Yea 1925, '26.
PN: And at that time, it was beginning to…
SF: Oh yes, oh yes, it was, the bottom had begun dropping. See because here you just coming into the, to the Depression. And it was on its way, on its way out.
PN: And this transition you mentioned between being strictly a hotel, and being a rooming house, had already begun to take place?
SF: Oh yes, it had already begun to, begun to take place.
PN: But you could still get a room for an evening, if you wanted to?
SF: Oh yes.
PN: If you were passing through on a train?
SF: Yes, yes. At that time, there was no problem getting a room. If you had, you had the, the, the money, you could get a room all right.
PN: What did it cost to get a room at that time?
SF: Well now, I don't know what the higher—priced rooms were, but two or three dollars for the cheaper rooms. There were certain sections, you know, where it was kind of rough. Those rooms were, were a little cheaper. And in that part, why you was there almost at your own -risk too. [laughs]
PN: You mean right in the hotel there were real different sections?
SF: Oh yes, yes. There were some residents who were not allowed on the, in the higher class section.
PN: Really?
SF: Oh yea. Street people, they didn't allow them up. Now they, they were up on the third floor, and then the, the higher class people, see, had the, the better part up there of the hotel.
PN: So that wasn't necessarily segregated by race?
SF: Oh no, no, no. It was, see now, it just was not, a Black person renting a room at the Dunglen Hotel this was just out of the question. See, because there was, you understand, this was still back in the, in the period of segregation. And so they didn't have any problem because the Black folk knew not to, not go there expecting to rent a room. To be a maid, bellhop, or porter — well this, this was the extent. And then they had quarters for the Black people to live in. This was a huge building a few hundred yards from the hotel. And this was where all the Black employees stayed. Of course, the white employees stayed in the main hotel; they had certain sections there for them too.
PN: What was the other building you referred to? Was it like a boarding house?
SF: Yea, well they, they called it which I guess was the proper name for it — they called it “The Quarters”. This is where the, where the
Blacks stayed.
PN: Was that owned by the hotel also?
SF: Yes, that was, yea, that was owned by the hotel.
PN: Say some, you know, Black person was travelling through on the train, and wanted to stop at Thurmond overnight. Was there a hotel that he or she could go to?
SF: Yes, now over on the, on the Thurmond side, or the north side, there was a, a restaurant and a rooming house, just a short distance from the, from the passenger station, I mean this is where Black people stayed.
PN: What was the name of that, do you remember?
SF: I don't think it had any particular name. It just was sort of a combination affair — the store in the lower part and the restaurant, and then upstairs, there were rooms for rent. It, just a rooming house more or less, sort of a combination rooming house. It didn't have any particular name.
PN: Do you remember when we were speaking the previous time, you talked that, or you mentioned that there was a, that church services were held in the basement of the Dunglen where there was a room?
SF: No, the original services started in, I guess it would have been the recreation room at the, in the service quarters. And it started as sort of a literary society. And from that, they commenced to having prayer meetings, which caught on pretty well. And then they decided to, to organize a Sunday School and a church. So then they went across the river then, and they got permission to hold religious services in the, I guess it would have been considered the lobby of this, this, this rooming house upstairs. And from there then, they worked out plans to establish a church and for, but when they outgrew that place, then they got permission to conduct religious services in the county schoolhouse across, they went back across, came back across the river and used the, the county schoolhouse for a number of years. And then in the early twenties, a group of people got together and they got, they were given a little land from the McKe11 heirs. And they built a church building, still on the, on the South Side — just up the tracks a little ways from what used to be the old Blackhawk. Now this was a dive, sort of, we would call it now a jungle. But they built a church, and they had good attendance. In fact, the old church building still stands. But there's only just one Black person now living in Thurmond. But there's a minister who, up until last year, continued to try to have services there, because there were a few people just out of sentiment, see, would go, go back there. And I was converted and joined a church there at Thurmond. And this is where I married my childhood schoolmate, sweetheart; we were married in that church. And a year after, just about a year after we were married, I commenced preaching. I preached my first sermon in that little church.
PN: Was that 1929?
SF: No, this was in 1932. We married in 1931, the ninth day of August. And on the third Sunday in June of the next year, I started the ministry.
PN: When you mentioned that the congregation, or church, was originally founded as a literary society, and met in "The Quarters, what year was that?
SF: This carries me back now before this, I believe I remember Mother telling me that in 1912 or 1913.
PN: The year it started?
SF: Yea. Because it was during the time when she was first employed at the, at the hotel. And this, these were the early years that she was, that she was employed there.
PN: What did she do when she was working there?
SF: She was a maid?
PN: And she lived, and you lived right in Thurmond, on the South Side there?
SF: She lived at the, at the, at the quarters. See now, I, of course, did not live with her. I lived with my grandmother up in Minden, West Virginia. I was a pretty good—sized boy — I must have been six or seven years old - before 1 knew anything about Thurmond. Because it was long about that time when my mother took me; and of course she had left the hospital then, and she had worked at the, at the, I meant to say the hotel, she had worked at the hospital for, after…
PN: Before then?
SF: After that time. And I guess it was because of her acquaintance with the hospital that made it easier for her to take me. That, of course, was the only hospital that was available to us too during those years. I guess the other, the other closest hospital was down in the Montogmery area.
PN: During this whole period then in the late teens and the twenties, what, what would you say, or what role did the B lack church play there in Thurmond?
SF: Well the, the Black church was, it was a stablizing force in the community — well—attended and supported. There were lots of transients too in Thurmond. Lots of people, mostly out of, out of Virginia, that worked, personnel on the railroad. And they worshipped at the, at the church. And they would go back to their home churches, as they call it, for the summer homecomings, or the anniversaries or something like that. But then they worshipped and supported the church. And it was meaningful during those years.
PN: Were there any Black—owned businesses in Thurmond or the area?
SF: The store that I mentioned earlier and the combination rooming house and shoe shop. It was a Black, what do you call them, shoemaker. there in Thurmond. And this was all of the, this was all of the businesses.
PN: Those three?
SF: Yea, yea.
PN: So it was a rooming house on the north side?
SF: Yea.
PN: And the shoe shop on the north side?
SF: The shoe shop, for a while, was on the South Side. And then finally, in the later years, this old gentleman set up business over on the South Side [meaning the north side] . He was in business there until the, until there was a fire back in the, in the twenties that, that destroyed: the drugstore, the general mercantile store, the shoe shop, theater, and so on. And he than had to, had to find another location. And this is when he found a suitable place over on the South Side. In fact, he was in…
PN: The South Side?
SF: On the [correcting himself] north side, in the basement then of the, what had been the rooming house and, combination rooming house and store, he had his shoe shop.
PN: The store that you mentioned that was Black—owned, was that over on the north side?
SF: Yes, that was on the north side.
PN: Was that connected with the restaurant, or was that a sep—, and the rooming house, was that a separate…
SF: Well, I don' t know too much about the set—up. I think maybe there were several people in this to—, in this together. And just like you find in some of the modern complexes; you get two or three people that, that have a business in a general location. But that was, that was all of the, all of the businesses. In fact there was no opportunity, or no particular reason for any other, any, any kind of business there.
PN: you were talking briefly before about the roads being built, in the CCC and WPA, I was wondering if you could just say a couple of words about, you know, the role of WPA.
SF: Well, see that was a sort of relief valve for people during the Depression, and this took a lots of people off of direct relief. And they, wherever there was a little road to be built or other, some of the, some of the, the communities had sanitary work that was done by people on the WPA. And there Isn't really much to, to say about it, because it was just sort of a stop—gap, you see, between starvation and walking around, and making, eking out an existence. It was one of the, you know, one of the political things that happened for, to help the economy during that period of time.
PN: And they'd hire both white and Black people, didn't they, to work?
SF: Yea, yea, of course, your politics made the difference as to whether you got a job or not — just like it, just like it is now. [laughs] If your politics were right, why you got a job on the road. If they weren't, why you got a, some kind of a subsistence check.
PN: You said that most of the work that WPA did was in building roads?
SF: Yea, building roads and shoring up embankments that were sliding in, and so on.
PN: Were there separate crews for Blacks and whites, or did they work together?
SF: No, no, they, they all worked together then.
PN: That was pretty much what I wanted to ask you. There are about two minutes left on this tape. Is there anything else you want to add?
SF: No, I don't, I don't think there's anything more that I can, that I can add to that. Maybe you've got another question that you would, about something that you'd like to touch on.
PN: One other quick thing you mentioned before, I was wondering if you could discuss this — that there was an explosion at Red Ash, and they renamed the town after that?
SF: Yea, Rush Run. Well, now I was too young to know much of the back— ground about that. See, that's just what I picked up after years that I got old enough to get around and, and discuss and hear people discuss the thing. But this is principally what, what happened, what happened there.
PN: And they renamed it so…
SF: Well, there's lots of places that they had bad accidents and they closed them down for a while, then they'd rename 'em. And of course this made it more attractive, made it easier for, to hire people, see. Because a lots of people would not know anything about a place under a new name. But if you would tell them that this was such—and—such a place that exploded, why then maybe they wouldn't want to go to work there.
PN: To start off, Mr. Hannah, maybe I could ask you when you were born and what town you were born in?
CH: I was born in 1918 here at Hinton, West Virginia.
PN: And what did your father do for a living?
CH: My father was an engineer on the C. and O. Railway.
PN: When did your father first work for the C. and O.?
CH: I believe it was 1905 when he started.
PN: And when did you begin working yourself?
CH: 1938.
PN: And how many years have your worked, or did you work, for the railroad?
CH: A little over 32 years.
PN: And what were your responsibilities during that period of time?
CH: Well, I started out as a machinist apprentice. Then I worked four years as a machinist after finishing my time. Then I was promoted to what they called a pit foreman at the roundhouse, where we took care of the locomotives coming in for inspection, coaling of the engines, fueling the, putting water in the tank, putting sand in the sand boxes, cleaning the fires, and the washing of the running gear before the engines went into the house for repairs. After that, I was promoted to assistant roundhouse foreman, working inside the roundhouse where we maintained the engines, put ‘em out on the road for, when they were called, and kept all the records of the repairs being made. Then as progress would have it, we dieselized, and the diesel engines came into use, and the steam engines were done away with. This made the work at Hinton fall off until the men were laid off because of not having enough to do to keep 'em busy. And the diesels did not have to be coaled; they just put fuel in the tanks. And the sand boxes were filled. But this was about all that had to be done to these engines as far as servicing on the ready track, or to get ready to go on the ready track. The inspections were cut, until they didn't, didn't have to be inspected only once in a 24—hour period. They could come into Hinton after being inspected at Clifton Forge or Handley, and could continue on the road without further servicing. If the time had run out, and these engines would have to be inspected by machinist's inspector, and any repairs needed be made at Hinton before they were dispatched. When I came to work at Hinton, the roundhouse had 17 working stalls. And these stalls were full of engines the biggest part of the time, having repairs made. The engines , when we were running steam engines, had to have side—rod bearings, crown—bath, brasses put in driving boxes; guide, liners for the guides; and cross—heads built up and repaired with babbitt ["an alloy used for lining bearings; esp: one containing tin, copper, and antimony,” Webster's Dictionary] ; cylinders had to be inspected; cylinder rings had to be renewed at times. And at monthly inspections, there was an enormous amount of work on the steam engines which can be done in a whole lot less time on the diesels because of the way they're built. I've seen at times, when we would dispatch as many as 80 to 90 engines a day steam engines. We had pushers pushing the trains out of Hinton that would go to Alleghany; and then be turned, and the rest of the train go on; and the pusher engine would come back to Hinton to be used where needed, when it was inspected and repairs made to this engine if needed. That took quite a bit of power that they 're not using today because they use four diesel units, or maybe even five, at the head of the train, instead of using one engine at the head of the train and one engine as a pusher. This also cut down on engine crews, because now one engine crew operates all five units of a diesel train, where at that time, they had to have a crew on each engine in order to get the response that you needed when the throttle was open. This has made an awful change in the employment here at Hinton. When I went to work at Hinton, there was approximately 500 men working in the shop and the roundhouse offices. Now there are about 25, or maybe 30 at the most, in all the offices, and the machinists and electrician and pipefitter for all three shifts.
PN: Is there a total of 25 to 30 on all the three shifts?
CH: Yea, that's all three shifts.
PN: What were the years that this big transformation took place during?
CH: 1953, '54, and 55 were the big changing times. And we got down in 1954 to the same level of supervisors that they were using in 1921. And Andrew Hopkins, the night roundhouse foreman, told me, he said: “Charles, we 're safe now. They're down as far as they can go. They 're where they were in 1921. About two weeks later, they laid off five more supervisors. And we had to leave the state to find work.
PN: You did too?
CH: Yes, I went to Cincinnati and worked in a jet—engine plant for General Electric Company.
PN: When was that?
CH: That was in 1954 and '55; I worked there 21 months in the machine shop.
Then I bed back to a job as the night roundhouse foreman at Wallbridge.
PN: Was that in West Virginia?
CH: Ohio. And worked there two months and bid to Columbus, Ohio, and worked there a little over a year, and was laid off a second time from the railroad, at which time I went to North American Aviation and got a job working in the milling machine department.
PN: Was that back in Cincinnati?
CH: That was in Columbus. We built planes then at North American Aviation. And we got the, "engines that I had worked on in Cincinnati to go in the planes that we were building. So I've had quite a bit of airplane—machine experience. So then I bid to Russell, Kentucky in December of 1959. And lacked 15 days of working two years there as relief foreman before I got back to Hinton on a regular supervisor's job in 1961.
PN: Then you worked at Hinton until the seventies then?
CH: I worked at Hinton until 1973, when I had what I thought was a heart attack and was having trouble with my heart. And the company doctors told me I shouldn't work any longer. But I'm now trying to get back.
PN: If you went back, would you be the roundhouse supervisor or foreman again?
CH: Yes. I still hold my rights, seniority. I 'm the oldest supervisor on the roster.
PN: During the time of your employment with the C. and O., did you belong to any one of the railroad unions at any time?
CH: Yes, we belonged to the railroad super—, American Railway Supervisors Association.
PN: So that's, right now, you'd be a member of a union that has a collective bargaining contract with the company?
CH: Yea. Yes we formed a union several years ago about 1945, somewhere along in there I guess, just about the time I went on as supervisor when they organized.
PN: What, were some of the other types of workers on the railroad, did they already have unions prior to the one that…
CH: Yes, I belonged to the machinist's union before I took a supervisory job. All the other employees - supervisors, sheet metal workers - they all had their own union — electricians - they all are union people.
PN: Maybe this is a difficult question to answer, but some of the section foremen or face bosses in coal mines that I've spoken to, often have said that, that it may benefit them if they had had a union now. But they never have. Would you have any explanation as to why the super—, the foremen or the supervisors on the railroad organized one, and in the mines they didn’t?
CH: Well, the reason the supervisors organized was because they could take a foreman off a job, not even tell him why, just tell him: "You're not needed. We're putting so—and—so in your place." And he could not have any representation, no case where he could get his job back, or anything. It would just say: "You go." And this man would take your place. That's why the supervisors were organized. And we had one instant here where a supervisor went on vacation, and when he came back, they had put another man in his place to work his vacation, and just told him that he would maintain that job. So he had to go back to the tools, then later on he did get back as a supervisor, but not as the roundhouse foreman job which he had come off of. It was an assistant job, which didn't pay near ag much money. But we’ve had several cases like that, that that's why the supervisors organized. It has hurt them in some respects, because anybody that's under contract, they don't get near the pension that ones that are not under the contract get. And several of the fringe benefits that non—contract men do get. That would be beneficial in that respect. But I feel that organization gives you the protection that you need and is worthwhile.
PN: So before you had that though, say if you had 25 years, the company could essentially put me in your place if I'd been working there, you know, one year?
PN: If they felt like it?
CH: Yes, if they felt like it, it'd just be, master mechanic, whoever is charge of the hiring, would tell you that you're no longer needed. And that would be it. You wouldn't have any case to fight with, or no, no one to fight for you.
PN: Who are the type of people who would not be under any type of a contract?
CH: Well, general foreman, master mechanic they're not under contract. They're appointed jobs, and can be re—appointed any time.
PN: Any time?
CH: Or they can tell you to move. And you, if you don't go, then they would say: “We don't need you any longer.” If they want to do it that way.
PN: the superivsor's union or association would also give you some protection against their, their transferring you to some place you didn't want to move to?
CA: Yes, we'd have, we'd, we don't have to bid on jobs. Our, our jobs are put on the bulletin board for you to bid on. And the senior man that bids on that job receives the job.
PN: What, what was the role that the Hinton yards played in the whole C. and O. system? How would you describe that?
CH: Well, the yards, they took care of shifting the trains, getting the cars in position to go where they wanted them to g o. For instance, if they wanted a car, certain car numbers, to go to Rainelle, they would drop these cars at Meadow Creek. They would place 'em in a train where they could easily be dropped before the train leaves the yard. Then the train from Rainelle comes down the branch line, and will pick these cars up and take them to Rainelle. Same thing at Raleigh. If they have cars to go to Raleigh, they drop ‘em at Quinnimont. Train comes down from Quinnimont, and maybe brings loads down, takes empties back for the mines from Quinnimont. And the yard places these cars in the trains so that they can be dropped and distributed as they should be distributed.
PN: Is all this controlled from some central location now?
CH: Yes, we at the mechanical department, all of our instructions since we dieselized have come out of Baltimore. When they had the steam engines, the instructions came out of Richmond, Virginia. But now that they have combined with another railroad, I understand that their head— quarters will be back in Richmond, Virginia.
PN: When you were talking before about the differences between steam engines and diesel engines, were the lengths of the trains about the same, or do the diesel engines haul longer trains?
CH: Well, the diesels brought about longer trains, yes. They made the trains quite a bit longer with the diesels.
PN: How many coal cars would you say would be in a, a steam—engine—pulled train and a diesel train, on the average?
CH: I really, I've forgotten just how many. That's been quite a while since I've had anything to do with that, and I really don't know how much difference there was. But there was, like I say, instead of one unit, one engine at the head of the train and one a'pushing there wasn't too much of a difference in the length of them. I think they put some kind of a limit on the trains that you couldn't have 'em, because they were breaking a lot of trains In two, especially after they dieselized. All that weight was coming through each drawhead, and they were pulling couplers clear out of the cars a lot of the time. And they had to put limits on em, so that this, this wouldn't happen. But when they had steam engines, they'd take up that slack, be pushing half of that train together, and the other half pulling, and made a lot of difference in the trains breaking.
PN: Let me just pose a question about accidents to you. What types of, you know, of occupational injuries or accidents would tend to occur on the railroad, in your experience?
CH: Well, in the shops we had several accidents that would happen with maybe a part or, of an engine not being jacked properly. The jack would slip and maybe a person be injured from that. Or sometimes a chain would break and cause an injury with a heavy object hitting, striking someone. And we have had cranes that were used on the floor to turn over on account of too much weight, and injuries of that type. And sometime pretty, pretty serious injuries. There was one jacking incident where one machinist had two fingers cut off; the jack was, had a block of wood between it and the engine. And this block of wood split suddenly, and let the weight down and caught his fingers and cut em off. That was Bob Perry. And you had a good many injuries that way. Then every once in a while, someone would be hurt with a emery wheel; they, they weren't usually too serious they'd catch your hand, or glove, or something and maybe grind a little on your fingers or something like that. Then we had one, one machinist that had his eye knocked out, hitting a pipe die with a hammer. And these dies are very hard, and a chip of it come off and knocked his eye out. Then we would have burns and mashed fingers and things like that, that would happen on the fire pitch, where they cleaned the engines. They would get slash bar, they'd get their hand in the back of the slash bar instead of on the inside of the ring. And they'd go back, and maybe hit it on the tank, and that would bruise or cut their fingers. That, that was most usual type of injury that occurred there. Of course, there was a lot of people get sand in their eyes and thing like that, if it was the usual case, it'd just be temporary pain, nothing serious.
PN: Where did you live? Have you always lived in Hinton when you were working at the roundhouse?
CH: Well most of the employees lived in Hinton, but there were several from farms and the surrounding territories and some of 'em drive 15, 20 miles from Talcott and Sandstone, Meadow Creek, places like that. A lot of em had quite a ways to come. Most of em were right here in Hinton. This, this has been a railroading town for years.
PN: And you always lived here when you were working?
CH: Yes, I always lived here all the time, until I, until the diesels chased me away.
PN: What, what would be the general impact of the diesels on the size of Hinton?
CH: Well, there's an awful lot of the residents that worked at the shop that moved out. You had to move out of Hinton to get other employment, cause there just wasn't anything here but the railroad at that time. And most of the families would pick up and go somewhere else. A lot of them would go where there was seasonal work on the railroad, like Wallbridge. Several laborers down at the shop would go to Wallbridge, and get in the shop up there. There was several of them worked there when I was there. And then there was several of them that would go up and get jobs firing on the yard, when they loaded their ships and everything on the lakes. The summer business was good, and they used a lot of our personnel up there.
PN: Does the C. and O. still run them, or…?
CH: Yes, the C. and O. still operates the…
PN: These piers or yards?
CH: Do they what?
PN: Do they operate these facilities on the lakes that you were…
CH: No, the, they operate the trains. And I don't know, I guess they have regular dockworkers that take care of the dock. I don't whether they belong to the C. and O. Probably do, I know they own a whole lot of 'em at Newport News.
PN: What were they working with on the lakes mostly? Stuff like iron ore, or what would…
CH: Well, iron and coal. They shipped quite a bit of coal on the lakes.
PN: At Wallbridge?
CH: Wallbridge, Ohio.
PN: What was the seasonal work there that you mentioned?
CH: That?
PN: Yes.
CH: That's it.
PN: That's the place you were talking about?
CH: Yea, yea, it's right out of Toledo there.
PN: Let me just ask you a few questions about the, about the roundhouse now.
CH: All right.
PN: Could you start off by giving a general physical description of the way the roundhouse and the facilities looked?
CH: Well, when I went to work there, there was 17 stalls in the roundhouse. Four of them were small, short stalls where they serviced the yard engines. The other stalls were long enough to accommodate the largest engines we had at that time, which were the old Malley locomotive. And later on, when they bought these H—8 engines, they had to lengthen five of the stalls about 20 feet in order to take care of these larger engines. These larger engines would fit on the table with only about three inches of rail on each end, just enough to, for the flanges to clear so these engines would, could be turned. There was two pits in the house, Number 12 and Number 13 stall, where they had large drop—pit jacks to take care of driving wheels. And they had another third jack in the longer stall for engine trucks. When these longer stalls were built, they also put in two jacks in two of those stalls to take care of driving wheels on these longer engines. And they were electric jacks. The jacks that we had in the pits before, operated on air and water hydraulic. And these electric jacks, they let the whole platform down with a section of the rails, and their wheels just set on the rails. These water jacks, there was just one shaft in the center that came up, and engines were balanced, the wheels were balanced on this shaft, and lowered in this manner into the pit — which was pretty dangerous, because if you didn't have it exactly centered, you'd have more weight on one side of the wheels than the other, and these wheels could tilt off of the jack. But as the usual case, they, they had very good success with these jacks. They removed and replaced many a set of wheels with them. After they extended the length of the house, they put in a washroom and locker room and replaced the roundhouse office, which had been on a 7 little bank behind the roundhouse, and put it at the end of the roundhouse. And the foreman's office was joined with the roundhouse office there where the crew clerk did his calling of the crews. We had a machine shop, which had a wheel lathe, a small planing mill, a 30—foot turret lathe, two engine lathes, a ten—foot planer, a shaper, and a slotter, and a hydraulic press, and also an air press, and a drill press. In one corner of this round—, machine shop was the air room where all the air equipment on the engines was cleaned and tested at each quarterly inspection of the engines, and made serviceable to be put back on these engines. We usually kept a spare set of air equipment for each different class of engine that needed different classes of air equipment. So that when an engine would come in for this inspection, we would just take a new set of equipment and put it on the engine, and take the dirty set off and bring it in. The engine could go on out without having to wait for this engine equipment to be cleaned. Then they would clean this equipment when we were not busy removing and putting equipment on other units. This would save a lot of time, put the engine in service quicker, and give us more service out of our engines. We also had a mollyhouse, which had two pits in it, that one of the pits had drop rails where we could do our spring—rigging work and work of this type. The other pit was used for inspections of the big engines that were going east that did not have any major repairs, and did not need to go in the roundhouse for servicing. This also sped up the dispatching of the engines, and helped in that way. There was a stationary boiler back of the machine shop, with two locomotive boilers that were kept fired at all times to furnish steam for the heating of the building and operation of steam—electric compressor, or [correcting himself] steam—air compressor, and things of this sort that steam was needed for. If you needed to put a blower in an engine so you could work in a hot fire—box that had steam that hooked up right in the side of an engine, that would blow steam out the smokestack and draw cool air into this firebox so men could work in them, just after the fire had been knocked out. So that steam was needed at all times — summer and winter. It also was used to heat the passenger station, all the offices over top of the passenger station, and all the little shanties around through the yard where the men had their work to do, such as the weigh station where the scales were, and places of this sort.
PN: And where it was generated is in this little building not too far away from the machine shop?
CH: Yes, it was just above this machine shop on the hill there. And that was, there was one stationary fireman working in that each shift to take care of all of this. Our electric air compressor was located in the boiler shop, as well as the steam generator. I want to say generator, it's air compressor. And electric compressor was used all the time, and if it had trouble, that was the only time that the steam air compressor was operated. But both of them had to be kept in repair. Any time any trouble developed, a machinist — if it was mechanical or an electrician if it was electrical trouble would be assigned to correct the trouble.
PN: And you said, also near the roundhouse these were tracks where coal was put in the trains? [See accompanying diagram drawn by Mr. Hannah.]
CH: These tracks are where the fires were cleaned, and the cars went under— neath the track so when you opened the ash pan, it would fill these cars with cinders that come out of the fire box. And this was elevated in these cars into railroad cars, where when they were loaded they would be moved out and an empty car put in. Sometime we would fill as much as two cars in one eight—hour period, with ashes and cinders. out of these large locomotive fire boxes. We would unload as many as 10 or 12 cars of coal each shift, and elevate it into the coal dock to be dropped into the tanks of these locomotives when they would come through underneath the coal dock. When the cars were frozen in extremely cold weather, we would have fires built alongside the tracks before they would get to the drop pit to thaw these cars out to some extent. Sometimes we'd have to have as many as six or eight men in a car with coal picks breaking the coal loose so it would go down into the coal crusher to be elevated into the coal dock. We had three, and sometimes four, machinist's inspectors working on the inspection pit. There was an engine watchman, watching engines below the pit, and an engine watchman at the inspection pit to keep engines hot while they were being serviced. There was a, one laborer that filled all the lubricators, and did work of that kind, supplying the engines — putting the wrenches, monkey wrenches, pipe wrenches, and hammer and chisel, and waste ["Material rejected during a textile manufacturing process and used usu. for wiping away dirt and oil,” Webster's Dictionary] which had to be put on these locomotives, so that when they come through that they would be ready to go right on out on the road. This required quite a-bit of attention, because tools were scarce at times. Sometime we'd have to beg a man to go without his pipe wrench, or without a monkey wrench or something, because there were no tools on hand. They would, and sometimes an engine would come in, and maybe two or three wrenches on it, where someone had worked on it and left their tools that shouldn't have been placed on that engine. But that's why there was a shortage, because of prop—, improper distribution.
PN: Of tools?
CH: That's right.
PN: And you said that today that only a portion of the roundhouse is standing, especially where they had the longer tracks?
CH: Yes, they have a, they 've cut over half of the roundhouse down, completely level led it. And the tool shop, the machine shop, the storeroom [that] was above the machine shop — a building 70 or 80 feet long it has been removed and re— it's at the east yard now. Any time you need a part for the locomotive, you have to call the east yard, two miles away, and they have to bring something down that you need, on a truck. And this has been rather inconvenient to the shop men, but it's at the car shop where a lot of tools are needed at, or a lot of equipment's needed at the car shop. But all this has been destroyed in order that they wouldn't have to pay taxes on this building. That's the reason for tearing all this down. It was not in use. These tracks are still there [from the roundhouse]; they just use them for storage of old scrap cars that are, been damaged, and things like that that they have no use for at the time. They stick 'em in these tracks, just to have a place to put them.
PN: What was the year that that was torn down?
CD: Oh I, I couldn't tell you. It's been some time.
PN: Would that be in the fifties sometime, or…
CH: I'd say in the sixties.
PN: Sixties. And do you know when the roundhouse was…?
CH: Or may—, maybe, maybe the early seventies .
Do you know when the roundhouse was originally built?
CH: No, I couldn't tell you that.
PN: Let me just ask you another question about the work—force, you know, here in Hinton, you know, at these yards. You know, many of the mines along New River, there were, you know, a number of Black miners and miners from, that immigrated from Europe. Would the same, would there be European immigrants or Black workers here in Hinton working for the railroad too?
CH: Yes, we had an awful lot of colored employees. There, there was even a, several colored machinists that worked when I went to work there. And we have always had good relations. I've worked colored employees under me that a, inspection pit, on the fire pits, and in the coa—, around the coal dock. And we’ve always had awfully good relationship. And I can’t complain on any of em. I've had some of em that I think an awful lot of, and I 'm sure they think a lot of me too. But as long as I worked on the railroad, I won't say I didn't have some trouble with the men, but I never did take one man to the office. Any kind of trouble we had, we thrashed it out among ourselves, and that was it. I've had a few words with some of 'em, had to get 'em straightened out, where they'd do their work right. But it usually just took one or two times, and they knew where I stood and I knew where they stood. And I had an awfully good working relationship with all of them.
PN: If you had to start over your career again, would you do the same thing? Or do you think you'd pick something different?
CH: I don't think I could have done much better with, with what I had to go on. I just had a high school education, and went in on my time. I had to get in before I was 21, to start out as an apprentice. And I lacked four months of being 21. And I had been trying to get a job with the railroad for approximately 18 months before that time. And there had been two machinist apprentices finished their time that hadn't been replaced. At the time I was hired, that was 1938, things were pretty slack yet, and just beginning to pick up a little. 14men I went to work down there engines in what we called "white lead" completely out of service. I expect there was 50 engines setting out on these tracks idle. And it wasn't many years after I went to work there that they were all in service. Of course, we had the war started, and that put everything we had in inmediate use.
PN: Why was that called "white lead"?
CH: Pardon?
PN: Why did they refer to them as being engines…
CH: In "white lead.”
PN: Yea. Why was that?
CH: Just, just, that was just the words that they used for storage. They a, white lead was a paint that they would use, that they would grease all these main rods and side rods and everything with just a coat of grease so they wouldn't just set there and rust. And when they took them out of white lead, we had to clean all this grease off of these engines. Of course, they had a wash pit there for that. This hot, scalding water — just almost steam — and it would cut this grease awfully good. But these engines would have to be cleaned up and inspected. A lot of times a part or two would be missing off of them. There they would need a part for another engine, wouldn't have it in the storeroom, they would slip out and take the part off of these engines and use it. And maybe it hadn't been replaced on the engine setting on the white—lead track, so we would have to inspect the engines, and fire them up, and get them serviceable before they could be put in use. And all these inspection cards had to be placed in the cab, to let the federal people know that these engines were inspected at this certain date, so that they would be eligible for service.
PN: Let me just ask you a couple of more quick questions here. What did your two grandfathers do for a living? Did they work for the railroad also?
CH: No. My grandfather, one of em was a Methodist minister.
PN: At Hinton?
CH: No, in Little Gap Mountain. That's Summers County, but not in Hinton.
And I never did know, my other one was just a farmer. He didn't have any occupation other than farming.
PN: In Summers County?
CH: Yes, right up on this mountain right here — Zion Mountain.
PN: So your family goes quite far back then right in this, in this local area here?
CH: That was the big industry back then. That was just about all there was. That and the railroad.
PN: Do you know when the railroad first came through here? Was it around 1873, when they built Stretcher Neck Tunnel, or was it…?
CH: No, I couldn't tell you what year it first came through here. But it, it's away back in 1800s, I’d say.
PN: So Hinton existed as a railroad town really, prior to the time that the New River fields were really developed in terms of their coal mines?
CH: Well, I, I really don't know about that. But they've been hauling coal ever since I can remember.
PN: Was that, would you say, the major type of freight that moves through…
CH: That was the only freight, you might say, for years. Then those manifests, there was very little of it until, well I guess it started picking up along in the thirties. Until now, It's pretty much a major part of the railroad's — manifests.
PN: And they would be hauling all types of freight?
CH: All types. I've seen everything come through here from grains of wheat to automobiles and Army tractors and e very thing e Ise.
PN: You said that the locomotives and the railroad operations were regulated by federal laws? So the inspections you did had to comply with them?
CH: Yes, they, our railroad federal inspectors come through here at times when you least expect them. And these inspectors, the supervisor will go with him, and he will ready to go out. And inspect usually all the units that are coming in, or any defects he finds, he can stop the engines from moving out.
[End of Tape]
Oral History Project - Keaton, Dewey A. 1980
Railroading 1918-1970, Hinton engineer, Thurmond, Sewell, baseball teams
PN: To begin, Mr. Keaton, maybe I could ask you where you were born and what date you were born on.
DK: I was born in Hinton, 1899, 1899, and grew up here in Hinton.
PN: What did your father do for a living?
DK: He taught school for a while, and then he ran a transfer here, back in the horse—and—buggy days before there was any automobiles.
PN: What was a transfer? Like a taxi or something?
DK: Well similar to a taxi, except, moving, you know, like Atlas Moving.
You know what I mean. And that's about all he ever done.
PN: Did you go to school here in Hinton?
DK: I went to school here to the eighth grade. I didn't get to high school. I had to quit and go to work.
PN: And after you finished the eighth grade, what was the first job, or first work, that you had?
DR: Well I worked, when I was a kid I worked around a grocery store, and a garage, and just little odd jobs I'd pick up here and there. But in 1918, I went to work on the railroad. And I was going with a little girl out here in the West End. And her uncle was an engineer, and he asked me why I didn't go down there and get me a job firing. I said, "Well, I don't know anything about firing. He said, “Well you can learn like I did. So I went down and asked the man for a job . But prior to that time, prior to the time I went to work, I got a job on the shop track. I was about to forget that, and worked there a while [as] a car repair helper. Then I went to see this man about a job firing. And he said, "Well, sign your name.” That's the only re—, only requirement they ask in the way of education. If you could sign, if you could write your name, why you was OK. So I wrote my name. He said: "Now" — Mr. Taylor, that was the shop—track foreman — and he said: “If he would give you a release, I’ll give you a job.” so I went to Mr. Taylor and he said, “Well, if you want to better yourself, if you think you can better yourself, that's OK with me.” So he wrote me a nice letter of recommendation. I taken it back to Mr. Glass, and I went to work and I - I earned the road. And then I worked for about three months — a fireman, I learned to fire. And then, of course that was during World War I, and I signed up my na—, signed up 21, which I wasn't but 18. And the draft come along and they found out I hadn't registered, and they had me at the office, told me they had instructions to take all men out of service under 21. So they taken me out of service, and I was out then till the last of August 1918. And then they, they'd lost so many men to the draft, they hard up for fire—, hard up for men. They didn't have anybody. So [brief interruption as his wife comes in the door]. They take me out of service and paid me off. I had two or three good suits of clothes and a little money in my pocket. And I just didn't care. I was free, white, I wasn't 21, but I was free, free and white. And I went to the country and stayed two or three months; or no, I stayed a month, July And when I came back, why they'd been trying to get a hold of me and I went down to see Mr. Glass, I wrote for him. And he almost hugged me. He was out of men and he says: "We’ll put you back to work if your Daddy will sign a minor's release." So I got a hold of my Daddy, and he signed the re—, release. And I went back to work. And then I worked then till Depression hit. Of course I was pretty deep on the seniority list. I said, “Well, they won't get down to me. I'm all right." Every time they cut — they kept cutting, cutting, cutting finally, buddy, they got me. And so I was off then, I was off about two years, wasn't it? Of course, I got emergency work along that time.
PN: What year was that? 1929 or so?
DK: Well that was the thirty—, when I, the Depression hit in 1929, started. And then, I don't know, I still held on till about '33, you know, just kept dropping a little with each month, you know. ‘33, and then I was cut off about two years.
PN: What was your job at the time you were cut off?
DK: Where was it? Here.
PN: No, no, what was your job?
PN: Fireman.
PN: Fireman?
DK: Fireman, yea, oh yes. Then I was promoted in 1928, I reckon it was, wasn't it? [speaking to his wife] To engineer in 1928. And then, what year was it, I went back to work?
MK: [his wife] About 34, wasn't it?
DK: '36, I think it was.
PN: You became an engineer in 1928, but you were a fireman when you were cut off?
DK: You see, they promote you and you’re still a fireman till you, till a such a time as you, as you're needed to an engineer, and then they mark you up as an engineer, you see.
PN: He'd run sometimes as a fireman; they call him sometimes as an engineer.
DK: Yea, I 'd [get] a lot of running, emergencies, you know. Then I went right back to work in '36, I think it was. I'm just giving you this from memory; I don't have any specific date. Then I never was cut off any more.
PN: When did you finally retire as an engineer?
DR: In November…
MK: 70, November the third, ‘70
DK: November the 30th, November 30th, yea, in 1970.
PN: When you were an engineer based in Hinton, how far did you usually travel on the railroad when you were working?
DK: Well, I worked both ways. From Hinton to Clifton Forge, that was a distance of 82 miles. And west, was 72 miles to Hanley; that was our home terminal. Which we had a hundred mile or less, or eight hours or less, constituted a day. That was our agreement. If we make a run in three hours, OK. Then, then a, but they generally had it so you couldn't make it. Oh once in a while you'd get a trip like that, but, on a, on a rush manifest or something like that the train they wanted to get over the road. But most of the time, they loaded you down with 95 loads of coal with a steam engine. And it was just a drag all the way from, from Hanley to Hinton. But on Alleghany Mountain, they used to have pushers out of Ronceverte. That pusher, his terminal was at Ronceverte. And he got on behind us there and shoved us to Alleghany, top of Alleghany Mountain. Then he come back to, to Ronceverte. That's where his home was, I mean home terminal. But later on, they cut the pushers out. Then they'd just give you a tonnage for the bottom. And you could make good time up the bottom. When you hit the hills, that slowed you down. And, but that was a good railroad. And that, 1950 and along there, that was C. and O.'s heighth [sic] . They had the best railroad and the best track and the best equipment. But since they got the diesels, and merged, why it just went to wrack. She's just no good. They don't haul, they don't, right now the boys, I got two sons that's engineers.
PN: On the C. and O.?
DK: Yea. And they, overtime, they don't care. The hours of service catches them about every time they go out. They have to send a taxi after them. And I don't know what the matter with them now, they, somebody got a whole lot that they don't know what they're doing or something, I don't know.
PN: So you often hauled coal from here along the New River gorge, and along all those towns like Prince, Quinnimont, Terry, up through Thurmond?
DK: Yea, yea, yea.
PN: What's your memory of going through those towns, say, you know, in 1918 and the early twenties?
DK: Well, Thurmond at that time was a boom town. And it's a town with no streets. They ain't got no streets. You've heard that, haven't you? And but you come up through there on a Sunday afternoon, and buddy, them people's out there in swarms. They had two banks, two hotels, and I don't know, they had just about everything you wanted there. But they didn't have any streets. People come there from Charleston, western cities, and the East. They had a big poker game going on down there, went on for about three years there — one game that, in the Dunglen Hotel. But now it's a ghost town; ain't nobody there at all. Oh, maybe a few families there.
MK: They got a big restaurant there, Dewey.
PN: Did you stop to pick up coal often in towns like Beury or Sewell or Caper ton or Nut tall?
DR: Stopped at Sewell, yea. We used to, they had a big mine up there at Babcock Coal Company. They put out a lot of coal, coke too. And we used to run a crew out of Hinton to Sewell, and turn. Give you a message down here, turn at Sewell, get these trains at Sewell. And we, a lot of times, we get a, go down to Sewell. And then a, yes, I remember all of the little towns up there, and down. They put, the state was dry then, but the old saloon building was still standing at Hawk's Nest and different places up and down the road there. The local freight used to pull up there in Sewell and stay at one place for eight hours — solid unloading freight, and feed and grain for the mules. You know, in them days they used mules in the mines; they didn't no motors like they do now. And of course, they taken a lot of, a lot of supplies for them. But that was a boom town then. That was Bab—, Babcock Coal and Lumber Company, I believe was the name of it.
PN: Back during the time when Prohibition was in existence, was it very hard to get liquor at that time?
DR: No. We had [laughs], I helped made liquor [laughs]. Back before I was married.
MK: You didn't help make it!
DR: I did help make it!
MK: You was just there where they was making it!
DK: Well, I helped.
MK: [Laughs rather angrily.]
PN: Was it often [brief interruption from the telephone ringing]. Let me just ask you a little bit more about, you know, Prohibition days and stuff. Did, did people often used the railroad to bring liquor from town to town to sell it?
DK: No, we never did any of that. But there was a lot of it done on, on the train, you know. They, on Alleghany Mountain, they made it over there and they'd get on the train at Alleghany and bring it into Hinton. I know that. But, I know we didn't have to go out of Hinton. We, up, up New River here, they, I could take you up there. One place looked like a sawmill had been there where they made liquor. Yea, and, and different places. I know up on my brother's farm, they had a still back of that. The old barrel hoops are still there. And moonshine was $40 a gallon; you know, that was a big, big temptation, you know. Them old boys up the river there, they'd make it and they'd bring it down the road. And they, they had lawyers here and doctors and different people like that — they bought it, you know. I didn't know who all bought it.
MK: Dewey, tell him about that tram up there. That place where they made whiskey's still there.
DR: Well, that place up there's just exhibition now, you know. This place up at the state, the hotel, used to own, park, or motel, whatever you call it. There's a place under a cliff up there that part of a still's still there.
PN: Did people that made the moonshine, did they usually work at that full—time? Or did they have, you know, other occupations?
DK: Well, I’ll tell you about a shoot—out, at Pipestem. They had a, the Neely boys, the three of them. There was Grat, Claude, and Ed. They were three brothers. They was good men, well I mean honest men. They would pay you every nickel they owed you. And then you could depend on what they tell you. But they made liquor, and they made good liquor. And they had a, they were buying their supplies from a fellow by the name of Pennington. And he operated a little store right on the Summers and Mercer County line; that's just south of the entrance where you go into Pipestem Park. And they had their, they bought their supplies from this fellow Pennington. And Pennington, he raised their price. And of course, they didn't like it. And they got, they went somewhere else to get their, their supplies which was corn meal and sugar and other things they had to have. Then, of course, Pennington didn't like that. So that's when the feud started. So [another brief interruption from the telephone ringing].
PN: You were telling a story about the shoot—out in the…
DR: Yea, that's when the feud started. And Pennington knew, I guess, about when the run would be ready to run off. So he went to Princeton, that was in Mercer County, and he got the Prohibition men, people, you know, state police and some more of them. And they went in and waylaid these boys. and the men, they come in there and started their work, and, and the Prohibition men ordered them to throw up their hands. Instead of throwing up their hands, they throwed up their guns. So they had a big shoot—out. One of the Neelys was killed. And one of the state police was, he was wounded in the arm. And then it went on for some time, things was pretty hot around there. And this Pennington, he decided he 'd better move out. So he was out there in front of his house loading his wagon up, loading his furniture in there. And somebody shot him with a high—powered rifle — killed him. And they never did know exactly who done it. But they went back then and arrested the Neelys kid they, they was, they got a trip for moonshining. But they never did know who shot Pennington. So that was the end of that story. But the Neely boys, they, they was good, good, good men, you know. They wouldn't treat you, they wouldn't lie to you. They was a, of course they was a little bit of kin to me, but that didn't make em any better. And not only the Neely boys, but a, about everybody, not everybody, but a lot of, there was a lot of moonshining going on then, you know, up New River, up them hollers up there. There was a still about in every holler. But just as I said, moonshine was $40 a gallon. And that was a pretty big temptation, you know, for men working for $2 a day, you know.
PN: Let me ask you a few more questions about the twenties and the early period of time when you began to work. When you started on the railroad in 1918, were there any unions at that time?
DK: Yes, we had a union then. But prior to 1914 now that was before my time on the road, but I knew about it the men had to live on the engines. They cooked. And they had what they called a "hay board"; slept on it. They kept em in the side track, and delayed em. Sometimes it was 24 hours getting from one terminal to the next. And they carried their food, and had a steam cooker on the engine. And they cooked on there. But then in 1914, they got the Hours of Service law. That was under Woodrow Wilson. And you got the eight—hour day. And the 16—hour work law; they couldn't work you longer than 16 hours. But we worked, a fireman on the road engine made 50 cents an hour at that time. Then, that's when I went to work, worked, made 50 cents an hour. They finally then, when they got the 16—hour law, of course they had to put a little more efficiency in their, you know, handling. And it was a lot better for them, but…
PN: What was the 16—hour law? That you couldn't work longer than…?
DK: Longer than 16 - that's right, longer, and another they had to give you eight hour's rest. You could take ten if you, if you required it. But they had to give you eight hour's rest before they'd call you back.
PN: And with the eight—hour day, did that mean that, was that a 40—hour week then?
DK: No, no, didn't have no 40—hour week. Eight—hour day, work every day if you wanted to, and then some. Some days, some days, as I said, eight hours or less constituted a day. But sometime we made two days in one calendar day, you know.
PN: So they'd pay you for two days?
DK: Yea, yea.
PN: Did they pay overtime rates above eight hours, or was that straight time?
DK: Not then, they didn't.
PN: That was just straight time?
DK: Straight time. But later on, then we got time and a half for overtime.
PN: When was that? Do you remember?
DK: I don't remember . I don't remember exactly.
PN: In the 1920s, did the railroad unions remain effective throughout the 1920s? Even though, say, that the UMW was destroyed in 1921—22?
DK: No, we had our organization. We never had any trouble that—a—way.
PN: And that wasn't destroyed in the twenties?
DK: No, not our, not our organization.
PN: Which was the union that you belonged to at the beginning, when you began working?
DK: Fire—, the B. of L. F. and E. — Engineer and Fireman.
PN: So you, so you remained in that same Brotherhood the entire time…
DK: Well no, they had two different, two different organizations — the Fireman and the Engineer, which wasn't right. We ought to had one, because what one affected one affected the other, you know. But it was that way, and I didn't know why it was that way.
PN: As an engineer, what, your responsibilities were just driving the engine obviously, but how would you describe the work you did at that time?
DK: Well, of course the engineer, he, he was responsible for the engine, and he was responsible for his fireman. His fireman was working under the engineer. And you had to stay, so, had to stay on the ball, so to speak. You know, you couldn't go to sleep or anything like that. You had to keep, keep your eyes open for everything. And not get by a block or flag or anything like that.
PN: When you were working as an engineer, you were living here in Hinton, right?
DK: Mm.
PN: Back in the, in the twenties, what type of a house were you living in?
DK: Well, right over there, that big house on the corner.
PN: Oh, you lived right here?
DK: Yea, that was my old homeplace over there. That's where I grew up. I moved over there on the corner when I was four years, about four years old. Of course the house wasn't built until my Daddy, you know we had a little small house that burnt down. My Daddy built this house later.
PN: So you were living in the same house your parents were then when you began working for the railroad?
DK: Yea, mm.
PN: Back, you know, at that time in the twenties and the thirties, were there many Black or Eastern European immigrant people that worked on the trains with you?
DK: No, there were no Blacks. Now we had a few colored switchmen down here on the yard. But they never got any, any promotion. They, you know, they just stayed as switchmen. They never, ordinarily they [were] promoted as conductor and on up, you know, and maybe yardmaster. But they never got any promotion. They had to stay where they started. I remember Old Man Fred Wells and Tommy Nelson. They were old, real old, when I came here. But they were still working. And they had their fingers cut off where they'd coupled a old Lincoln—pin car years ago. And I remember them so well. But that's as far as they ever got, as a, as a switchman. And they had been, they had several colored switchmen then. But later on, they quit hiring 'em. I don't think they hired any since I got a job. They, all these were here when I got a job. But now, it's different; they're hiring em. There's some of them been working on the, I mean the mainline now as firemen. And they got a woman braking on Alleghany Mountain.
PN: Yea?
DK: Yea, that's what they tell me, yea.
PN: Were there any immigrants that came from countries like Poland or Hungary or…
DK: No, no; I don't remember, I don't recall any foreigners being on work with me.
PN: In terms of Hinton at that time, did they have any Catholic churches in Hinton?
DK: One, yea, mm.
PN: Who would attend that? Would it be railroad workers?
DK: Yea, we had some Catholic railroad workers.
PN: What was their background? Were they Irish or Italian or…
DK: Irish and Italian and. Now you asked me about immigrants. Yes, we had one man here, Pete Matusic. Charlie [Charles Hannah, who was also present during the interview], you remember him. He was Italian; he was a brakeman conductor. And Mike Cusic, was Irish. He was a engineer. We had some Irishmen here; but they was all native born. I don't think they was born there, you know what I mean.
PN: When you were an engineer, going up the New River, did you ever spend much time in any of the towns, like Sewell, that you stopped in?
DK: No, just long enough to get our train together and then, you know what I mean, pick up or set off. Now I did work at Thurmond, on Loup Creek [Dunloup Creek] a while. I worked there as a fireman a while.
PN: What, going up toward Glen Jean?
DK: Yea, up on, yea. And then when I was marked up as engineer, I worked at, I worked at Thurmond, and Quinnimont on Laurel Creek, and on Hawk's Nest branch I run that run and I worked at Raleigh a while.
PN: Is that when you still lived in Hinton?
DK: Yea, still lived, yea, mm, still lived here.
PN: Did they have many shanties, or shanty cars, for people that would work in some of these different towns for the railroad?
DR: We had a, what we called a bunkhouse. At Hanley, we had a bunkhouse. It was, the company furnished it. And it was a, pretty comfortable. We had a comfortable bed to sleep in. And a, we had a place where we could do our cooking. And we had a electric ice box and everything, you know, out there. But when I first started, we didn't have that convenience. We had to [laughs] sleep on a, on a mattress made out of shucks, corn shucks, you know.
PN: Where?
DK: At Hanley. That's where the bunkhouse was, at Hanley. But later on we, we got a little, you know, better conditions, along as time went on. Then we had a bunkhouse at Thurmond too, and also at Raleigh.
PN: In an average week, when you lived in Hinton, how many nights would you spend at home and how many nights would you spend in some of these other towns?
DK: Well, of course we, we taken our, we went to Haney, we'd stay, taken a rest there. Well I mean eight hours or, or from eight to 16, and sometimes longer. But if they kept you away from home longer than 16 hours, they had to pay you. They had to pay you prorata rate, you know. And we generally got out of Haney from eight to ten hours, 12 hours, along there somewhere. And the same way in Clifton Forge, we went to Clifton Forge. We taken a rest over there and come back.
PN: When you went to Clifton Forge, what were you hauling then?
DK: Coal, mm. Well, of course, we had some manifests run there too, you know. We'd haul, a manifest is a perishable rush food and rush stuff, you know. The last, last six years I worked was on a manifest run from Hinton to Russell, Kentucky 167 mile. And it would take me about five hours and a half to make the run. Now that was the, that was the best job, I mean you know, and I was the oldest man, and seniority, you know, had the right, rights, you know. And of course, I had the best job.
PN: So this was up until the year that you retired in 1970?
DK: Mm, mm.
PN: You were mentioning before about the change from steam engines to diesel engines. How would you describe the changes that took place in your job, say, when this happened?
DK: Well, the diesel, the diesel was a whole lot easier [to] handle. But when they taken the steam off the railroad, they taken the thrill out of railroading. There just wasn't no thrill running the old diesel engines. Of course, they was cleaner. And we had our, our drinking fountain there and our own toilet and everything, which we didn't have on the steam engine, you know. But I missed the steam engine, yea.
PN: Maybe you could talk a little bit more about that, and why you missed it.
DR: Well I, just kind of gets in your blood, you know. You miss the smell of the oil and the smoke and the exhaust the old engine, one thing and another. That big engine that 1600 type — that was the best steam engine that we ever had here. We 've never had a engine, or a diesel, could make the time on Alleghany Mountain with a passenger train. And we used to take 18 or 20 of them big steel sleepers, steel sleepers; and that big 1600, buddy, she'd run off with them up the hill. Yea, she'd make good time with her.
PN: Was there more danger involved in any way in running steam engines?
DK: Well, of course, with the diesel we didn't have steam pressure, you know. There were a lot of times you'd have a wreck where you'd scald you to death, you know. I know on train Number Five, I believe, just west of, of White Sulphur [Springs], Old Man Dolly Womock was engineer. And it jumped the track somewhere there a little below White Sulphur, and pinned his feet in against the boiler. And he just scald him to death, broke a little steam pipe up there. And if he had, if he got out of there, he'd have been all right. But he had his, he just burnt to death, that's all, scald him to death. That was a difference there; you didn't on the diesel, of course you don't have that steam pressure that can be hard to contend
PN: Back in the, you know, again in the early days, in the twenties, what did you do for recreation or entertainment at that time?
DK: Well, I was always a hunter, a hunter, and I never cared too much about the river. But I kept my dogs and a coon hound. I coon hunted a lot. And bird dogs, and I used to keep fox hounds. We used to, I used to get out three o'clock in the morning with my fox hounds, and get one started, you know. They're a night, night, night animal, you know. And we get one started, and then take your stand, and daylight come, well shoot him. I've killed several of them that way. Then I used to rabbit hunt a lot. And bird hunt; I had my bird dogs. Never cared much about the river; I've fished some, but not too much. We had a, oh a bunch it wasn't, wasn't railroad men, it was merchants and doctors and one thing and another I used to hunt with a lot.
PN: Were there many theaters, or places like that, in Hinton back then?
DK: Many what?
PN: Movie theaters or other places?
DK: Yes, we had a, we always had a picture show here. And back, the earliest recollection I have is one they called the Bijou, run by Alec Parker on Summers Street, when I was just a little boy. And then the Fairland, they called it; it was five and ten cents; you get in for a nickel if you's under 12, you know. And then the Masonic Theater, that was, that was before television, you know. And they did a big business then, you know, picture shows.
PN: Did many people belong to lodges or fraternal organizations of any kind?
DK: Yea, we got, oh I don't know, I belong to the Rotary Club.
PN: Back then?
DK: Not the Rotary, T belonged to the ain't that a 'crazy? I'll think of it in a minute.
PN: The Masons or the Redmen?
DK: I was rejected at the Masons. [laughs]
PN: Why was that?
DR: I never did know. [laughs] I never did know. But I never tried a second time. Kiwanis Club, that's what I, yea. I don't know why I couldn't, didn't think of that.
PN: What type of people belonged to the Masons back then?
DK: What type of people?
PN: Yea. Were there many railroad workers that belonged?
Dk: Yea, yea. They practically all were. That's about all that was here then, you know, railroad men. I can't tell you much about the Mason's organization. I know, one of my engi—, Old Man Elton, Melvin Maston, he was an old engineer [at] that time, and I used to fire for him some. He asked me if he could take my name in and present it to the Masons. And I said, "Yea." But they rejected me, and I never tried anymore.
Pn: Back in the twenties, did they have any baseball teams that railroad workers would play on, like the coal—town leagues?
DR: Yea, mm, mm. We had a, a shop, a C. and O. shop team down here. Charley [Hannah], you all them old boys used to play here — Rogers and all them boys, you know.
CH: They played the Cincinnati Reds.
DK: Yea, they played the Cincinnati Reds. And they scored oncet [sic] on them. I think it was ten to one, I believe.
PN: Did they play some of the oth—, who did they usually play? Would they go around to some of these other towns and play baseball teams?
DK: Yea, yea, oh yea, different, different terminals. Hand ley, you know, they had a team. Hinton had a team. Clifton Forge and all, so on, you know.
PN: Would those baseball teams, though, of railroad workers tend to play other baseball teams of railroad workers, rather then coal miners?
DK: Yea, mm. I don't think, I don't know if they ever played any coal miners or not. It was mostly between the railroad, the shop men.
PN: What were some of the other towns that would have teams, do you remember?
DR: Handley had a team. And Ronceverte had a team. I don’t know about Clifton Forge; I guess they had one too, I don't know.
PN: What did your father do for a living?
DK: My father?
PN: Yea.
DK: Well, he taught school as I told you, you know.
PN: Oh, that's right.
DK: For a while, and then he had a transfer here for a long time.
PN: What, what did your grandfathers do? Do you know?
DK: I never knew my grandfathers . My grand—, my grand—, one of my grand—fathers left here in 1872, and divorced his wife and left his family up here in Pipestem, and went down to Big Sandy River. And remarried down there and raised a family down there. And I went down there a couple of months ago to try to locate some of them people down there, but I, I, I couldn't find any of them.
PN: Was it over in Mingo County?
DK: That was a, what county is a, you mean where he went to?
PN: Yea.
DR: It was in Kentucky.
PN: Oh, Kentucky.
DK: I don't know what county it was. It was on the Big Sandy River around, I've forgotten the names of them places up there now.
PN: Back in the twenties, did the railroads ever operate anything like the company stores that the coal companies did?
DK: Fitzgerald they worked in connection with the railroad. Now whether that was owned by the railroad, I don't think it was owned by the railroad, but they, the railroad men, they dealt; you know what I mean, some of the men, you know, stayed a 'hard up all the time, you know, and broke. And they'd have to buy through Fitzgerald, you know, and take it out of their wages. That's the way they had it then.
PN: Where did Fitzgerald have stores?
DK: Had one on Summers Street down here, and oh, I could tell you a number of it, number of the house. And they had one at Russell, Kentucky and…
PN: Did they have one in Thurmond?
DK: Yea, they had one In Thurmond.
PN: Did they have one in a town like Handley or Clifton Forge too?
DK: I don't think there's, I don't think there was a Fitzgerald at Handley, no. Or Clifton Forge, I couldn't, I couldn't say. Well I imagine they did at Clifton Forge.
PN: Did the railroads ever have anything like scrip? Or did you just have stuff deducted from your wages?
DK: No, they didn't have scrip. But they had, at that jewelry store down here, you could, you could buy jewelry or anything like that, a watch, and have it taken out of your wages. But they didn't have any scrip that I, I know of. [Tape turned off briefly.]
PN: Why don't you tell the story you were just mentioning.
DK: Well, I was called at Handley one morning, on Sunday morning, about ten o 'clock. And I had instructions: “No fill on New River.” Now ordinarily we had, on through the week days, we had to stop at Thurmond or Quinnimont, one, and pick up, you know. Pick up some more cars; Of course, the grade level led off, you know, and the more the grade levelled off, the more tonnage you'd pull. And it was on Sunday, and I wanted to get in. And I was coming through Thurmond; of course, I had that 1600, I had her laid out. We was coming to town! And coming through Thurmond, well a, yardmaster they always got out there and watched the train by, you know, if there ging or, you know, some, something dragging. And I got up signal it was against me. And then I got on around, of was anything drag— to the, the next course when the signal is against you, you got to make arrangements to stop, you know. I got around up there where I could see the, the telegraph office that was C. S. Cabin, just east of Thurmond and the operator was down there with a red flag, flagging me. And when we stopped, when I stopped, a journal fell off one of the cars, about ten cars back of the engine.
PN: What fell off?
DK: The journal, the end of the car, you know, the, well, the…
PN: What, the coupling, or something?
DK: No, it's a…
CH: Axle.
DK: Axle, the axle, you know, on one of the wheels [A journal is "the part of a rotating shaft, axle, roll, or spindle that turns in a bearing" Webster's Dictionary.] It fell off and, I know coming across Sewell Bridge, you could see back biggest part of your train. Of course, we all looked the train over then when we crossed there. But this car, it had a little old paten oiler on it. [A paten is "something (as a metal disk) resembling a plate”; Webster's Dictionary.] There wasn't any, wasn't any dope, or anything, anything to burn. And you could stand right over it and see a little blaze about the size of a match. But then they asked me the next day about why I couldn't see that thing burning. And I said, “Well, there wasn't anything there. Wasn't any burning there. It just burnt off." And I asked the train—master, I said, “Do you know anything about the lubrication of that car?" And he said, “No, I don't know a thing about it. I said, "Well, I’ll tell you for my benefit and yours” I told him about this little old oiler, you know, and I never heard any more about that. But if that thing had a come off at Thurmond, there wouldn't have been any Thurmond. But shoot, that'd have wiped, I don't know, Lord, it'd have wiped Thurmond off the map.
PN: Why, because…
DK: The speed I was a'making. Yea, and the yardmaster, he was a good friend of mine. I said, "Now Barley, I said, "you know I was running pretty fast. I” He says, “I don't get anybody any trouble.” That's what he said.
PN: How fast, you know, could you get the train up to, if you were going as fast as you could?
DK: Well, 40 miles an hour was the speed limit. But we run faster than that a lot of times.
PN: What was the highest you could reach?
DK: Oh I just don't know. I run a passenger train, I expect a hundred miles an hour, yea.
PN: Were the tracks in better shape back then than they would be today?
DR: Yea, yea, mm. Of course they’ve done a lot of work on it in the last year here, but they let it go down for long after the diesel come in. They thi—, they thought that the diesel didn't tear up track, you know, there wouldn't be any more maintenance there. But they was wrong about that. They just let everything go. As long as that diesel would run, then all right, as long as it run. They didn't care anything about anything else. But now it's a little different. I think that they kind of got their eyes opened. But still, they 've taken the tracks up now, made a one—track railroad all out of it. And why they did that, I don't, I'll never know. And they get out here, and the Hours of Service law catch them about every time they go out. And overtime, they don't care anything about overtime. They just make four hours of overtime every time they go out. Now that's only, they can't work but 12 hours now. They used to work 16, you know. But they can't, they got that cut down to 12. Only in extreme case of emergency, they work you a little longer than that.
PN: And there's problems because there's only a single track? And that delays a lot of the…
DK: Yea, you know, one man's got to wait somewhere, you know. If there 's two trains going, there's one of them's got to take a side track. But we used to didn't have that. We had double track; and sometime, four—track system, you know.
PN: Along New River?
DK: Yea. Well, that was on Huntington division, we had four tracks. And we had this CTC signal that's centralized train control. You run either way on either track. So there wasn't any delay then on account of being over on the side track, one thing and another.
[End of Tape]
Oral History Project - Richmond, John H. 1983 Part 1
(Taped at Hinton Visitor 's Center, New River Gorge National River)
JW: Mr. Richmond, first of all, I'd like for you to give us your full name and current address.
JR: My full name is John Harvey Richmond, but I always sign it on my taxes as J. Harvey.
JW: OK. Now, when were you born?
JR: I was born on December 24, 1907.
JW: 1907? OK. Where were you born?
JR: I was born at Brooks, on the mountain above Brooks. That was the Post Office at that time .
JW: What were your parents' names?
JR: My father's name was John Alec My mother's name was Rachel Elizabeth Meadows, when she married my father.
JW: Now, what type work did your father do?
JR: He was a farmer.
JW: What type crops did he grow?
JR: Oh, just at that time corn and buckwheat and rye Stuff like that, you know, small grain.
JW: Where was he from originally?
JR: My father was raised •there. My grandfather, now, my grandfather came through here from England, from Richmond . When he came through, my father was... he was up a pretty old man when he married my mother. And he was born... he was born 1854, my father was.
JW: Your father was .born in 1854?
JR: 1854. Uh-huh.
JW: And his father, you say, came from England?
JR: He came from England... well, he really came from Richmond. His father, my great—grandfather, John Thomas Richmond, came from England. He originated then from Richmond, VA. Then... established there in Richmond, then came on West and took up this mount... valley land, laying in there from about Brooks and Earksdale, but come all the way to the river and on the mountain. He settled on the mountain up there.
JW: So your father's one of the first settlers there?
JR: One of the first settlers in there. He took up that land. My grandfather, now...it was my grandfather that belonged out there. He took up settlement there.
JW: And you say he was originally from England? No. it's your great—grandfather?
JR: My great—grandfather was from England.
JW: We were talking about some of your early childhood memor ies there, you were telling me about a dry land waterwheel.
JR: Well, they wasn't any mills back in that time, so they had to devise their own. Seer they learned to pound their meal from the Indians then you see So, he decided he would build. the first people on the creek had built a water mill' which the first one was down at Barksdale. above where Bass Lake is, up that... there.
JW: On that side of the river?
JR: Yeah, the first water mill.
JW: At Barksdale?
JR: Yeah, but they wasn't none there at that time, and so my...
JW: This was before that?
JR: Yeah, my grandfather made the dry land water mill.
JW: OK. So there were no gristmills on the river when he came here?
JR: No, no gristmills. The only mill that they knew of then at that time was the Bacon Mill at Talcott on the other side of the river. the Bacon's Mill. That was about it. That was one of the first mills in this area, was the Bacon's Mill on the other side of the river from Talcott.
JW: That's away far away. Do you know what year this would be when he built this dry land waterwheel?
JR: No. It was before... it was before the Civil War.
JW: Oh, really!
JR: Yeah.
JW: When did he move to that area?
JR: Oh, Lord, he came to that area there in. I believe when he came to that mountain there was in 1818 or somewhere along there... when he came to that mountain there
JW: Now this is what they called Chestnut Mountain?
JR: Chestnut Mountain, uh—huh.
JW: Tell me how that wheel was built.
JR: Well, they split that there ...they'd take white oak — we'd call them saplings — but they wasn't just so big, and they would take those saplings and they got a good long tall one and they split that, you see. And they made this round wheel and they made that so they could bend that where you put the spokes in that thing, you know. It was twelve foot in diameter — round. And then, when they got that bent around with the spokes in it, then he taken and he made the steps on that so far up — the same thing as a water cup on a water mill. He made those steps about twelve inches wide, or maybe a little wider. And you bore a hole with an old—time auger and put them in that hoop, you see, his wheel. And then he connected those cranks... posts out of locust. He made this long crank that fit on this wheel, you see, on the edge of this wheel that turned that. And then he connected this other crank here on the short one when he made those burrows there when he cut those rocks and made the hopper, you know, go around that. And you make one of them stationary and the other one that fastened with... you had a kind of a wedge where you wedged it up, you know, to grind your corn. And you cut that out there in furrows. You take and furrow that that fits in the eye, and the furrows there are a little bit wider, and your corn drops down in that and goes on down and you close that up and grinds that meal as fine as you want it. It comes out the other edge of that there in this scoop down here...comes out into a box that they make that meal to come out in. And those... you see that big long one on that big wheel, it makes it turn them burrows, see, when it comes down to that; geared down, it turns them pretty fast, you see. And, when you walk that wheel, after you get that wheel started... actually, you didn't go up the wheel, you just stood there and walked it.
JW: You stood on top of it and walked it to power it.
JR: You just... you had a platform here and you... just like a water mill, you see, you got your spout here and your water comes down and pours into that pocket. When that pocket starts turning down, when they the other one catches the water and the water just keeps pouring. And after it gets on them wheels it gets started, you see, and the weight keeps it a goin’ Well, that's the same way with walkin’ you see. Just kept that wheel going.
JW: And the man that ground his own flour, he did the walking?
JR: He did the walking and the people that come to the mill in that time, people would come for miles and bring their corn or wheat or rye or whatever they had to grind, and each one, you see, would stay until all of their own was ground so they'd walk the mill, you see, to keep the mill a goin'.
JW: So there were not any water mills... why did he choose to build a dry land one rather than going down and build one on a creek?
JR: Well, you see, it was too far and it was a whole lot easier to build one there under that... under that... than it would be to build a water mill. He'd have to build a wheel down there and would have to build a mill on the water. And he figured a walking wheel would be a whole lot. just as good and faster and closer than it would be to go down over that mountain, you see, and whittle out a road; you'd have to go down there and all like that.
JW: How far was it down to the stream?
JR: Oh, down to that what they call Brooks Creek from down off the mountain there, I guess was about three or four miles. Maybe a little bit more.
JW: How many people would come there to have their wheat ground?
JR: Well, about everybody that settled in the country there. He had several sons and they had settled in there in different. had come on back... had some of them settled on back as far as what they used to call the Grimmet Bank on back at Elton Knob and in there and clear around. And some settled on over in on what they called the Ward Bates at the time that they took this land up there...his land. The land went on the other way, on the left. I'm looking from the river side on the farm. What they called the Davy—Dick Line. He went to that line. Well, there was several others that moved in on that bench, you see, below there. And, so they'd come to that closest mill. That was the only one they was in the country. Some of them come five, six, ten miles to get there to that mill.
JW: Was this operational during the Civil War? You don't know when they built it, do you?
JR: They built it before the Civil War. It was in operation up until other mills come in existence.
JW: OK. And they took the business away, more or less?
JR: Yeah. They didn't have no use for that then. They just let it go, you see. Nobody at that time, or even in my early times ever thought about anything such as history, you see. We didn't give that a thought. If it had of been preserved, it could have been preserved.
JW: What’s there now? Anything?
JR: Nothing that I know of, except the last that...but I haven't been there for fifty years and that's been a long time.
JW: Do you know how to get there now?
JR: Yeah. I know how to get there.
JW: Do you think the stones might still be there?
JR: Well, I...they should be. I don't know for sure whether they are or not.
JW: What's there now? I mean, is it just an open field... I mean the last time you were there?
JR: I imagine it's growed up in woods, because people in these.. .other days don' t clean up land much. I imagine it's growed up in woods. Now, there's a Miles Cales that lives out there on the old granddad farm. He might know.
JW: What's his name?
JR: Miles Ward.
JW: Miles Ward?
JR: Uh—huh .
JW: Does he have a phone number? Maybe we could call him.
JR: I don't know whether he has a phone or not. He might have. I really doubt it. He might have, you could look and see.
JW: Did your father ever tell you much about what happened around here during theCivil War?
JR: Well, there's several things that happened around the Civil War Yeah, he used to talk about it. Over on this bench, up here from Barksdale going up Tug Creek, they was a man by the name of Henderson Garten that lived there. And he was a gunsmith and so was my grandfather.
JW: Oh, really. Henderson Gar ten? How do you spell that?
JR: The Garten is G-a-r-t-e-n, Henderson is H-e-n-d-e-r-s-o-n. Henderson Garten. And during the Civil War, they had a… old man Ira Bragg, he lived in there... he had a sow that was missin' and they accused this boy of a steal in' it or kill in' it one. So, they tortured him...they was a big snow on, my father and all says, a big snow about a couple of feet and crusted on top — back in those days it would freeze and crust on it and a lot of people would walk on the snow. And they said they would make that boy cut and carry wood in a big old place and built a big hot fire and they laid him down in front of that fire and laid this log on him and baked his feet into a crust. And took him out there… now this was reports, was facts, wasn't just folkish tales, you know. They took him out there and made him walk on that crust and they twisted a homemade twist of tobaccer in his mouth and they fooled with him that way and tortured him until they got tired of him and they shot him. And after they had shot him, the old sow come in. He hadn't killed her at all.
JW: Dear! How old was this boy?
JR: He was about fifteen, sixteen years old.
JW: What was his name? Do you know?
JR: A Bragg boy. I don't remember now they'd said whose son he was.
JW: Did the family try retaliation?
JR: No. At that day and time, they just, you know.
JW: Was there any military activity around here?
JR: No, just scouts.
JW: How about Thurmond's men?
JR: Some of them had come through that a way. My grandfather on my mother’s side , he was scoutin’ comin' in home and they scouted through there, and he laid down his blanket and his rifle and they come a big snow and snowed him up. When they come through, they missed him.
JW: Was he Union or Confederacy?
JR: I believe... believe he was for the Confederacy. And it snowed him up and they missed him.
JW: So the Union army was out lookin' for him and…
JR: Yeah, and they come through and what they'd do. I heard my grandfather on both sides... they would... some of them was mean on both sides, the Union and the Confederacy, you see. And instead of killin' a cow or hog or something and takin' the whole thing, they would just take it and cut a big slice out of the ham of it, roast it and go on and leave 'em that way. And... well, it was like General Patton out of World War II, old General Patton said that all wars was Hell. Well, wars in that day and time was too. How that the people you'd be surprised just what would go on in a war in your own country, much less in another one.
JW: Do you know any stories that your grandfather might have told you?
JR: He got caught one time, I forgit how he got out of it. He got away from them. He was on the opposite side. Now, I had two grandfathers and I don't remember just which side they was on. One was on the Confederacy and the other one, I believe it was the grandfather on my mother's side was on the Confederate side. And, they'd get in a lot of times... he got away from them and he hid out there on a mountain where he's buried. And when he died, he requested to be buried there in that flat. And it's just... when you go down this little piece, you strike that sandstone and the only way you can dig a grave is just take dynamite and blast it out.
JW: And you had to blast a grave for him?
JR: Almost. Yeah. Uh—huh. And my father's buried there… there's seven there… my uncle's too. But, that's where they buried him there. So, he... my grandfather traded all this mountain land... course that's after the war and everything... he traded all this whole mountain that runs into Brooks around that mountain. I don't know how much land is in that boundary. Traded it to the Foxes. You see, the Foxes is an old family here that settled on the river here...old man Dave Fox and a bunch of them. He traded them that mountain in there to a steer. You know, at that time, a work steer amounted to a whole lot. He traded him out all that boundary of land to a steer.
JW: Traded all of that for one steer?
JR: Yeah, for a steer.
JW: Well, this is fascinating. Mr. Richmond, do you have any brothers and sisters?
JR: All mine's dead but me. I'm the only one of the family.
JW: Do you remember your brothers' and sisters' names?
JR: Oh, yeah. My oldest brother was Alec, Alec Clark; and my next oldest brother was Rufus Blaine; and my next oldest brother was Jonah Joseph; and the next one was Burt; and the next one was Theodore, names after Theodore Roosevelt; and the next one was Henry Jackson; and my baby brother then, besides me, was named Percy Frank.
JW: But you 're the only one left?
JR: I'm the only one livin' of both girls and the boys. They was thirteen of us in the family.
JW: OK. Now the girls.. .do you remember their names?
JR: Well, Bessie was the oldest one; and Lena was the next oldest one; and Ellie was the next one. There were three of them. But the two younger ones died in infancy. So it was Violet and Lizzie, the two baby ones that died.When you're thinking back when you were growing up, we were talking about the dry land watermill, do you have any other special memories of when you were growing up there? Talking about maybe playing down near the river; did you fish much and hunt?
JR: We didn't fish much, hunted aloe. Oh, yeah. Hunted a lot... that was the main thing, huntin'. We'd hunt, possum huntin' and coon huntin'. Yeah, I remember in coon huntin' that my oldest brother and his cousin, Will, they was coon huntin' and they treed those coon. They wasn't too far from home in thig flat between us and the Luther Bragg's. And they stayed up all night with him and burned the tree… they had treed him up a big oak and burned the tree almost down. So, the next morning, they come on in and left it. My mother said to her son, my oldest brother Pete, said, why they isn't no use in let tin' that coon get away. Said, let's go on over there and cut the tree and catch him. So, Will had started home and he heard 'em and he came back and 'til they went over there and cut the tree. And they was three big coons in it. And the dog, he held one of 'em up above the tree. And Pete, he shot the other one. But Will then...he was at the butt of the tree out there and the coon done come through that tree and went down to the creek. And he was about as far as from here to the river down there from my mother at the end of that tree. He got tangled up in that tree and fell and said, “If you hadn't of been in the way, I'd of caught that coon.” (laughter). That was true fact... that was what he said.
JW: So, he tripped over the tree and…
JR: …tripped over the tree.
JW: Ah, trees sometimes get in the way. What type job did you do? What was your earliest job that you had?
JR: Well, most of it was farmin' and timber cuttin'. I started cuttin' timber around for people, me and my brothers, when I was only about twelve years old.
JW: And this was around in the Chestnut Mountain area?
JR: Yeah, around there. And then we got a little older, we cut for people that were millers, you see.
JW: Now, which mill did you cut...
JR: Used to cut for old man John Bowling and different small outfits, you know, in the country. John Bowling run a mill, and, ah...
JW: Where was his mill?
JR: He had a mill settin' in Brooks' Creek.
JW: OK. Now this was steam driven by...
JR: Yeah, old steam bar and a circle saw.
JW: What else...what was your next job, after cutting timber?
JR: Well, then, we was... we'd farm and then harvest time, and then all of us boys would get cradles and people'd call on us in wheat cuttin' time and oats and rye. And we done all kinds of farm work and cleaned up land. We cleaned up all that mountain... actually altogether, we cleaned up around a hundred acres or a hundred fifty acres Out of the woods. Cut into big timber and all. At that time, you couldn't sell timber much, you know. And, back there on the Chestnut Mountain, old man John Bowling had a mill down over into the creek here and that chestnut timber there on that mountain would be worth some thin' today, of course. We cut timber there that he... he split that chestnut log. It took six yokes of oxen to pull half of that log off of that flat.
JW: That was a big log!
JR: Oh, it was big!
JW: How big around would that be?
JR: That tree was about eight foot through.
JW: Eight foot through!? That's a big chestnut.
JR: That's a biq chestnut. And it was big ...all that was big timber in there. A lot of it was cut up and wasted, you know, cause you didn't sell no timber much. And a lot of the oak timber, back in those days when I was a boy, they cut the oak, you know, and would peel it for tanbark and just leave the timber in the woods. Tanbark was in them old stave mills.
JW: What did they, ah…this tanbark came from oak trees. Was this black oak, white oak...?
JR: Different, you see, they had different colors there. The black oak was a darker tan and then you had the red oak. Now the white oak would give you a tan that would tan your leather. Sort of like now, you might call it a wheat color or somethin! And that…maybe a little bit darker than that... the bark... you got the different tans for leather.
JW: Would they cut the tree and then strip the bark off it?
JR: Yeah, they cut the tree down, you see, and you had to peel the tanbark…peelers at that day and time. And, you'd cut that bark in so longer length and then you'd go around with your axe and cut the bark into. And then you 'd take your feet and you'd start it and just peel it off in big hulls, you see. And then they'd haul that bark out...
JW: They'd haul it by what... wagons?
JR: Yeah, they'd haul it after you got it down to the bottom, where you'd get it out of the mountains, they'd just haul it on a half—sled. A half—sled and tie a chain around it and take it out of the mountains.
JW: What do you mean, a half—sled?
JR: Well, that's just two runners about so long... you'd make it out of sour wood... cut sour wood to run along...
JW: About three feet long?
JR: Yeah, and then you'd have this bolted between here and you tied the one end of that, you seer solid on there. The rest of it was just sort of like a log... be draggin' behind it.
JW: The half—sled would be two runners in the front.
JR: Yeah, that was a half—sled.
JW: Now, how would they get them to market?
JR: Well, they would ship it, you see.
JW: On the train, or what?
JR: Yeah, they had a train at that time, you see. And they would ship the tanbark.
How about the bateauxs? Did they ever use that much?
JR: Not too much in our country. They used them in different places. But most bateauxs that they used was, you know, where they went down the river. You know, like this mill you 're showin' there. They used those to bring that timber out of the mountain up there. Now, on down the river ...that old Tuck you were talk in' about there.. .down there on the...
JW: Tuck Richmond.
JR: Yeah. They'd go up in there and people would come through and buy the yellow poplar for furniture. And they would cut that and float it down the river to where they'd get to the railhead back in that time after the railroad had got through there.
JW: Now, have you lived most of your life up there on Chestnut Mountain?
JR: Yeah. I've lived there... on the mountain there. Always, our mail and everything was always down here at Brooks and down at Hinton…we'd come to town on…
JW: So, you farmed most of your life then?
JR: Yeah, till I got to railroadin'.
JW: What did you do for the railroad.
JR: I started for the railroad in the track department as a timekeeper. At that time, in 22, they had extra forces, maybe seventy—five or a hundred men. They had four or five extra forces on the Hinton Division. And, you get a job on that and an old boy that, what they called a timekeeper see that had what they called a cornmisary...a Fitzgerald car on the camp cars. And you had to take care of that, what they called 'Hundred and Twos' and the man that lived there... their board and all come out of that, see, through that Fitzgerald. You kept that and then the foreman would come in and he'd give you then how much track you pulled or how much sealin' you done...that was puttin’ ties in, you see, puttin' sellin' in or how much margin you made, or so forth and so on. You'd take all that down on a big sheet and then, of course, your time sheets...they were made out of two, you see.
JW: So, that pay was based on how much track you layed and how much cross ties you put down... ?
JR: Whatever you did...how much you did, you see, approximately, they would give you.
JW: Wou1d they just take the men's word for it or what?
JR: You just kept see... the foreman would keep all that out.
JW: Oh, the foreman kept it.
JR: Yeah. He kept them and would bring 'em in and turn ‘em in, you see. And, where you were keepin' the time, you'd take all that down on the report and you'd make your reports.
JW: Did you work much up in the Gorge?
JR: Yeah. Up clear through there from Hinton to Handley. That was a Hinton Division.
JW: When was this you were up there?
JR: When I was down through there at that day and time, we'd lay up at Gauley Bridge. That was 1922 and 23.
JW: What was the Gorge like at that time?
JR: Well, it was a whole lot... looked a whole lot better than it does now because it wasn't filthed up at that time. See, all those mines was a runnin'. See, you had a mines from... well, you could start in here in there on Sewell Valley ...a mines there. You go on down to Glade, you see, that Simrnons Lumber Company, the railroad put a big bridge across there and that lumber from Simmons Lumber Company and the Babcock Coal and Lumber Company bought it out later after Simmons was killed
JW: How did he get killed?
JR: A guy from over here about Blue Jay came in there and shot him?
JW: Why'd he shoot him?
JR: Over some... some kind of workin' conditions.
JW: Oh, really?
JR: Yeah.
JW: Was he a former employee?
JR: Yeah, he had worked there. And he shot him and shot the bookkeeper...shot the bookkeeper in the neck and killed the old man Simmons. Old man Simmons was a pretty good-sized man. And, we was workin’ there, and Frank Halstead was superintendent, and he wanted to know why we didn't stop ‘im. We said, told him, how you gonna stop a man with a gun and him a shootin'.
JW: Oh, you saw this happen? What happened exactly?
JR: Well, he just came in and called that man and shot him.
JW: Did you see him?
JR: No, didn't see him shoot him, but didn't nobody know what was goin’ on, you see.
JW: But you heard the shot?
JR: Yeah. And old man Doug Lacy, he was the bookkeeper, and he gobbled like a turkey. By the time he'd seen he 'd nicked somebody, you know, he started breathin' up to gobble and the guy shot him and he dived back down by the safe, you see. The old big safe they had behind there and the bullet hit the safe, didn't hit old Doug Lacy. He was... that was the bookkeeper. And the other bookkeeper, he got shot in the neck.
JW: Did it kill him?
JR: No, he finally lived.
JW: What year was this? Do you remember?
JR: That was in... that was in 1923 or '24
JW: And, so, you were workin' with the railroad? You just happened to be there?
JR: Just there.
JW: And the guy came in and...
JR: Just come in there...
JW: ...and you saw he had a gun in his hand?
JR: ...and shot him, just come down there…
JW: What kind of gun was it? Do you remember?
JR: Some kind of a little owl head, I think.
JW: Oh an owl head. It was probably a…
JR: A pistol, yeah.
JW: You saw him come in with the gun, and I guess you heard the shots?
JR: Killed the old man dead.
JW: OK. Going right along... tell me about what else was up there in the Gorge... what it looked like then ...going up from Glade Creek area.
JR: Well, goin’ up from Glade Creek ...well, startin' from Hinton, down, in the Gorge, you see, back before the Civil War and before there was any railroad and Hinton was Avis... the Avis Line was Hinton then. Course, the home I bought was built there ...the house that I owned and my home, I sold it just a few years ago, was built in 1872.
JW: Where is it, now?
JR: It's straight up on 'cross Main Street. And, ah... I bought that... the Avis Line come there and when my father and them come here, see, there wasn't no Hinton. The old man...Hinton was named after Avis, you see. A fellow, Ballengee, that owned this started with... the whole Hinton, he bought the whole thing for four dollars.
JW: Four dollars!? I hadn't heard that story.
JR: Bought the whole thing for four dollars.
JW: How did that happen?
JR: Nobody wanted it... it was just a hillside and nothin' in there, you see, and nobody wanted it…
JW: This is Ballengee?
JR: Yeah, a fellow by the name of Ballengee bought it for four dollars and sold it, 1 think he sold it to the Hintons...I'm not too sure, but I believe it was. And then the town then… both towns was named, see... his name was Hinton, Avis Hinton. And they named Avis after him, the station then, when they finally got the railroad here in 1870. The station was up there at Avis right there where old Avis Crossing... you know, where the Foodland is and on across the river there. That was the station then. And they named this end, the lower end, Hinton. When you got... they incorporated it and they built... course they built the Courthouse after the railroad come. Before the railroad come, you see, they had to go to Kanawha...to Kanawha City where the saltworks was to get their salt. And what they would do, they would team up, several of them, and take a yoke of oxen, you see, and go to Kanawha City to get their salt once a year. And they would have to go down the Gorge part of the way ...well, in the meantime, they would follow some into what you called the old Midland Trail at places and they'd go to Kanawha City to get their salt.
JW: was this salt for seasoning and also for animals?
JR: Yeah, for seasoning and animals...everything you see. They had to go down there and get it. So they would take their oxens and a bunch of them would go and get their salt and come back. They wasn't no... see, this wasn't no… when my grandfather, even my father was a boy, this was all Virginia. Wasn't no State of West Virginia. Course, it wasn't made a state until 1863.
JW: Now, this old house you were telling me about, what was the address? Do you remember? It's on Main Street?
JR: Yeah. It was, ah...111.. .111 Main Street.
JW: 111 Main Street and it was built in 1872.
JR: 1872 and I sold it...I sold it to Frankie Moneymaker. He still lives there.
JW: OK. I just didn't know that for certain. Tell me more about the Gorge when you were work in' up there, in your early years.
JR: Well, the Gorge... you see, the mines was goin' full blast then... you had a mines coming up this way from Prince. We'd go from Hinton, down. We got down... you see, when you got down there from the railroad. The railroad was built in 1870, they built the railroad. Well, the Tomkees...the Tomkees was the oldest business here. See, they come to Fort Springs ahead of the railroad and when the railroad, see, when the railroad had come to Fort Springs they had a commissary there; And then they moved on ahead... and see, the Tomkees was in business in 1863 and them old tumbl... part of them buildings that's burned over there, burned down, was the Tomkee buildings.
JW: Oh, really. You mean that building... the old Davis building dates back that far?
JR: Yeah, goes back that far... the Tomkee building and the old Davis building… course, they remodeled the old Davis building. And before the Tornkees went into business there in 1863. And, ah... that's when the railroads came. They didn't go right into that same spot they was in because they's in... but they built those brick buildings and when they built those, the brickyards, up on Brickyard Hill, and the people make their brick up there.
JW: Where was this?
JR: Just- up there, you know when you go up what's the Cemetary Hill going up the Oak Knob?
JW: OK. I've got an old map over here. This map goes back to... what... 1876 . . . steamboat landing and Pack Street, Ballengee Street, Temple Street...
JR: Main Street down here...
JW: Here's Summers, Second... I don't see Main written there. Here's the old roundhouse.
JR: Yeah. That's on...down on Front Street below the Front Street there. But this road that goes out there now, it's the same one that used to be years ago. It's... as you go up the house where the school house is...our elementary school... that's Cross Street up there.
JW: Yeah, here's Cross Street.
JR: OK, you go out here to this church and turn up and this comes on cross here cross Avis Crossing... was a little short bridge. You turn up there left to the cemetary, the McGuire Cemetary and the Hilltop Cemetary. And that's what goes on out there.
JW: And that's where the brickyard was.
JR: The brickyard was across on Brickyard Hill. You go up there and you go to your right around to the Brickyard Hill.
JW: OK. Brickyard Hill was over near where the cemetary is today up on Avis?
JR: No. It's on the other side... on the right. Goes back in there.
JW: Made their own bricks?
JR: Made their own bricks and built those buildings?
JW: And the bricks that they made up there were used there in the old Davis Building.
JR: Those old buildings was built out of that homemade brick.
JW: I didn't realize that. OK. Back to the Gorge there... what else do you remember up there... what was it like in the Twenties?
JR: Well, when you started down... when you went down in that Gorge, they started down there. course, that's after the railroad was built. The railroad was built to go along before I was born, but when I become familiar with it, working, you see...they used the Gorge to go down to get their salt and stuff before they had this railroad.
JW: How far down the Gorge would they go?
JR: They'd go all the way to right just east of Charleston.
JW: They'd go down the Gorge the whole way?
JR: Yeah, only they'd have to. see they'd have to leave it and hit some of what they called Midland Trail. see, they'd have to hit some of that… and see, the Midland Trail come back in there at Gauley.
JW: OK. Where would they leave it down here? Near Green Sulphur and all like that?
JR: Somewhere in there where they crossed in there. But the mines ...let's see... the mines was in full sweep then. They'd have timber mills. The first mines was the Beury Mines at Meadow Creek, up Claypool Hollow. And, they went from there on down to Glade. And then that big lumber mill was in there. They built that… railroad built that big bridge across there. And then they also... lumber company built a railroad... loggin' railroad come across and come clear up there and crossed White Oak. On top of White Oak here and you 'd be able across there to Beckley. You know, when you get up on that last...I don't mean the first White Oak, but the next. Get up on that little hill there after you crossed this main White Oak... there's a building sets over there to the left. It's a strip mine in there. Well, right across there, the railroad come across there, went on across and out across 219.
JW: Is that where those big piers are still in the river today?
JR: Yeah, they're still down there at Glade... that's the big piers. That's where that big railroad... that was one of the strongest railroad bridges on the river at that time.
JW: You know, it's not being used now. They tore it down.
JR: No. They took the steel up... they took the steel up and brought it up here and whenever they built this Bluestone they brought that steel and put it across the railroad across there to that dam.
JW: So, they took the steel off that bridge and made a spur line up to the dam?
JR: Yeah, uh—huh. And after that went out, I don't know whatever happened to the steel then. Don't remember.
JW: Well, what was it like in those coal camps then? Do you remember...?
JR: Well, it was just like in the… everybody seemed to be happy. Course, they didn't make much money. The coal people didn't pay much. My brother—in—law was a miner. He mined fifty years on Laurel Creek. You could go on down there from the Beury Mines and get on down past Glade, then you come into Quinnimont. And those mines down there, the Laurel Creek Mines and Prince ...you see, that was a Princest was millionaires. And the McQuarry Mines, across there from Prince. Well, the McQuarrys built this big hotel here in Hinton. Now that was McQuarry. And the Princes. you had the Prince there. Well, you had the telegraph stations. You started here from Hinton, you had the one there where the cabin is... C.W. Cabin... It was above there at that time. And they was one at Brooks. And they had a spur track... center track down there where they would set off and they had a operator there. And they had a operator at a planing mill at Sandstone.
JR: That was a little old railroad town, Sandstone. That's about all gone. Went on down Meadow Creek and they had another... they had a ferry there at Meadow Creek where they crossed and went back into the Richmond District into Raleigh County. They crossed that by ferry boat in there. And then, they built that... the Raines and those built that railroad then from Rainelle... the Meadow River Lumber Company. See, they built the railroad... one of the Raines' owned the railroad and one owned the mill. They built that railroad in there and, in the mines, and hauled their coal and lumber out of there on that there. And they had a motor car . passenger motor car at Meadow Creek into Rainelle on into Rupert. They built that, the Raines' did. One had... owned the railroad company and one owned the mill. They finally sold the railroad to the N & W, the G & L, they called it. And finally the C & O bought that.
JW: You mentioned, the people seemed to be happy there in the mines. Did you know many of the… I mean in the mining towns... did you know many of them?
JR: Yeah. They all got along ...lot different from the way it is now. Most of the people worked and they didn't have all this stuff to look forward to and the mines ...now, my brother—in—law worked in the mines there... part of the mines he worked in, he'd have to go in, and the others did to, he'd have to go in there ...course, I was never in the. mines. I'm just going from my own... brother—in—law's and all his boys worked in the mines. They'd have to go in there on that mine on a little bit of a low pulley that way, laying down. And they had to lay on their side to load their coal.
JW: Lay on their side? How high was the ceiling?
JR: Ceiling wasn't but about... well, was just barely enough to clear you to go in there on your belly on one of them little cars.
JW: So it must have been about four feet high?
JR: No, it wasn't that high. It was just about... I guess about three feet would do it. And then you... you had to lay on your side to load your coal.
JW: Those seams were awful narrow then.
JR: Oh, Lord it was different then. I wouldn't have went in one at all. My brother—in—law said he wouldn't do nothin' else other than the mines. They'd build those mining towns... course now, we worked around the mining towns when I was working... I was workin' in the Signal Department. We had a operatin' plant over here at Helen at the mines there on the Gulf. We had signals on the tunnel side that goes down in that part there. And the mines, they was work in' good and everybody, you know, worked in the mines and lived along there... later on, of course, the mines got tough and everything else got tough, as far as that is concerned... back there then.
JW: You 're talking about the Twenties?
JR: Yea.
How about the danger in there? Wasn't there several people killed in the mines?
JR: Yeah. There was several of them killed, but not as many as they do any more.
JW: Oh, really.
JR: No, because people that mined then, now they tell me...It's first hand... they knew what to do in those mines. They were good in the mines and they kept the mines shored up. And as fer as the gas and stuff is concerned, they understood it. But, later on, I understand... later on in years, the Government and the Safety got ahold of it and people inspected the mines and the miners then, they was careless and they would disobey orders. They followed their orders back in those day and time, just like amines that's got gas in it, back in those days, they used those headlamps with a blaze in them, you see. And, so, it was altogether different. They got to using machines and all and they become more careless.
JW: Were there many foreigners and immigrants?
JR: Oh, yeah. They were from everywhere in those mines.
JW: Did you know many of them?
JR: Not too many. I just knew around them. Some of them I knew and got kindly acquainted with them... some of the Italians. You never could understand most of them. They were all nice people though.
JW: Where else would they come from?
JR: Well, they had in the mines... they had Italians and they had Syrians, and jus... from all parts of the country you might say.
JW: Many blacks?
JR: Oh, lots of blacks.
JW: Well, tell me about Thurmond.
JR: Oh, Thurmond. That there was the railroaders and the miners haven, saloons and everything was goin' on there that a man could imagine. Almost like… what's it called, Las Vegas?
JW: When did you first go to Thurmond?
JR: Oh, I was in Thurmond back there in the Twenties... the early Twenties. Back when it was really...
JW: Tell me about the DunG1en Hotel.
JR: Oh, that DunG1en Hotel. I'll tell you, that place there was a boomin' and they had everything there. And they had their pool tables and they had their gamblin' and whiskey and liquor. There was one man... he was a section foreman, and this guy... he didn't like him and was kindly jealous of him. I won't mention his name.
JW: OK.
JR: But, he had this... his wife to make a date with this guy ...now, this is Thurmond... and made a date with this guy and he shot him.
JW: Oh! He had his wife make a date with him?
JR: Baited him and killed him right there in Thurmond.
JW: Oh, he did?!
JR: Yeah, he killed him.
JW: How did you know about this?
JR: Oh, it was. everybody knew it. See, I was work in' up thru there and eve rybody knew that. And... yeah, he killed him.
JW: Where did he shoot him?
JR: I think he shot him in the chest or somewhere with a shotgun.
JW: What did he lure him outside the hotel or what?
JR: Naw. He just watched him. Caught him in the right spot and killed him.
JW: Were there many people killed in Thurmond?
JR: Oh, they was a lot of them, but not as right open. It was mostly on that bridge, And people...
JW: In the dark?
JR: Yeah. Lot of people was mean and they was robbery and what—have—you. And they'd knock 'em in the head. The ones that they found and buried, nobody knew who they was or where they come from. They had a potter's field up there on the other side of the river ...up there, what you called Potter's Field. See, Thurmond was a busy place and mines was all around it, you see. And that was Stonecliff Mines across the river there. See, they was those mines and all around Thurmond and Beury there ...Beury right below Thurmond; then right across the river they had a railroad went down there to that mines across New River there from Thurmond. And, then just a little piece up there to Minden, the Minden Mines. And then, all up around there that part there... the mines was thick and people was plentiful. And, of course, back in that time, money was plentiful, cause you didn't have to spend too much, you know.
JW: Did you ever stay at the DunG1en?
JR: No, I never did stay there.
JW: How about the LaFayette?
[END OF SIDE ONE]
Oral History Project - Richmond, John H. 1983 Part 2
(Taped at Hinton Visitor 's Center, New River Gorge National River)
JW: Did you ever see that poker game that was playing so long?
JR: Oh, that poker... lot of times ...our foreman, he loved to play poker. It was Pete Scott. He's dead now. He'd loose his shirt most of the time.
JW: Is there any truth about that poker game that lasted fourteen years?
JR: I guess it was. It never was disputed.
JW: What was the inside of the DunGIen like?
JR: It was pretty nice ...old time, you know.
JW: What did it look like? Do you remember?
JR: Best I remember, it was sort of like... look, you know... had all this fancy woodwork in there and, of course, they had the old lobby and all was built up at that time
JW: What kind of curtains did they have? Did they have big drapes?
JR: Drapes.
JW: DO you know what color they were?
JR: To tell you the truth, I don't remember. I believe they was a kind of gold or red, brown... some kind. I don't really remember just what color they was.
JW: What about the police chief there in Thurmond, Harrison Ash. Did you ever see him?
JR: Yeah. He done pretty good as far as he could go.
JW: What did he look like?
JR: He was… I don't know ...he was a pretty sturdy built man.
JW: I understand he was a very tall man.
JR: Yeah. He was tall. And a lot of people worked there. Mr. Parrish, he was Yard Master there. He was there for years and years. Cliff Allen worked there and he had a daughter stayed there at that old Dun Glen Hotel. And several of those there after... I can't remember their names, that stayed around there at that place there.
JW: Did this guy, Harrison Ashe hang around that hotel? Is that what you meant?
JR: Not too much. Seen he was around there some.
JW: Did you ever talk with him?
JR: No. Never talked with him.
JW: I was trying to get a description of him.
JR: Yeah. I never did get too much into talkin' conversations...
JW: Did he carry a pistol?
JR: Yeah.
JW: You don't remember what kind of gun it was?
JR: No, I don’t.
JW: I was just curious.
JR: Yeah. I understand that. But...now, Slater ...I remember talking with him lots of times.
JW: What did Slater tell you? This was B. L. Slater, Special Agent. I 've met him.
JR: Yeah. He was a special agent. He shot them two boys there at Thurmond up there… I know, Slater... he didn't back up off of nothin'. He didn't take no chances on anything. He was pretty quick... too quick to use his trigger.
JW: Oh, really? Did he shoot anybody else?
JR: No, I don't think. Not that I know of. I heard he shot different ones, but I didn't know of any, only those two. And I know that when this girl was killed over here on Brooks Mountain... this guy, a boyfriend with her... he was. I forgot what his name was, but he'd been in the institution. Emmett Fox was the sheriff here then. And they'd hitched a ride on the back of a truck and kindly got into it. And he got off the back of this truck and he took his knife and cut her throat. It was up around that cold spring on the S
JW: He cut her throat?!
JR: Yeah. And so, Emmett was over there and that guy he just... talked to that guy. Well, I was workin’ at Meadow Creek then and I was about three or four cars behind and Slater, he was in there. And he told Ernmett that he wouldn't never of took no chance on him. Well, Emmett was the sheriff and he just talked the man down and he come down and set down in Emmett's car and he arrested him. Well, Slater said he wouldn't have talked or fooled with him. Slater would have killed him.
JW: Slater would have shot him?
JR: Yeah. That's what he would have done.
JW: How did he know he did it?
JR: Well, he was... he didn't run or anything. He was just there. The guy didn't run.
JW: Well, why did he kill the girl?
JR: I don't know what they was arguing over, but he was off up here.
JW: He was off in his head, so he just cut her throat with a pocket knife?
JR: Yeah, that's right ...cut her throat. She was layin' there on that o.. they'd cut the right—of—way on the road there and she was layin' there on them stobs bleedin' to death, dyin' Warren Mann was in front of me and what's—his— name was with me and those two boys come along... this Fox and what's. They was preachers and they talked to her, but I said to 'em, I said, “Why in the world didn't you bring that lady up off of them rocks ...off of them stobs up on to the road, and you might have done something.” I said, “Now, Warren,” I said, “you 've taken first aid.” And, he said, well he was afraid to do anything. I said if it had of been me, if I'd of been in front... I was back, you see, and I didn’t know anything... if I'd of been in front, the first thing I would have done.. .course, I'd had first aid too in service, you see. First thing I'd have done, I'd have got that lady up there and I'd have closed that down with my thumb and a held it there until she could have got to the doctor. There was a possibility that she might have been saved. I told them they.. .well, they... I said, now that's a poor alibi. You people do thatta way, I said what would you do if you was a doctor?
JW: Well, what did the lady tell them?
JR: She was past the talking part.
JW: Oh, she was...
JR: Uh—huh .
JW: ...just bleeding there? That's a sharne. When was this?
JR: That was... I forgot what time it was ...it was back there later on in the ...I remember was in the late '50's or early '60's there.
JW: OK. Let's talk a little bit more about the Gorge there, when the mines were still in operation there. How about the coke ovens up at Sewell. What was that like?
JR: Well, the coke ovens... that just looked more like a town there. They was in full blast and...they was also coke ovens down here at Thayer. They was coke ovens all up and down that river right there at Sewell. And see, those mines down there and the other mines too at Kaymoor, you see. The Kaymoor Mines went on below Sewell. the Kaymoor Mines was runnin' full blast on the south side. And on the north side… the railroad tracks was divided there and went across to Sewell and come back across at Hawks Nest... the Kenneys Creek Mine on that side, then the Hawks Nest on that side and the... what's the mine on the left, was down at Fayette and south Kaymoor and Nuttall Mines, you see. Nuttall.
JW: Yeah. They had suspension bridges across the river so you could go across to catch the train.
JR: Yeah. At Nuttall, uh—huh.
JW: Now, was there one at Caper ton, too?
JR: One at Caperton. Yeah.
JW: Did you ever see anybody go across those bridges?
JR: Oh, yeah, they crossed them you see... a lot of times.
JW: Have you crossed them?
JR: Yeah...lots of them. See, you had to cross those bridges in order to... and also, we were talk in' about the swinging bridges... you see, the bridge across on the mills at Longbottom was a swingin' bridge.
JW: I was going to ask you about what it looked like at night with all these coke ovens going.
JR: Reminded you a whole lot of a town when those coke ovens was...
JW: What do you mean a town?
JR: Just, you know... see, each mines where a coke oven was burnin', you see that light from them. from the side of them, you could see 'em… you could tell them when you were comin' up here on a train of the night, or be called out of a night.
JW: So, it looked like a town with all the lights?
JR: Just looked like a town up there with them lights burnin’ all the time ...all the whole thing was hurrunin' you see, from clear up from Handley on to Hinton. Course, there wasn't no mines down below Hinton there, but it was Meadow Creek and Sandstone and the other businesses was all hummin' you know, back in those days.
JW: How about train wrecks there in the Gorge in the early days?
JR: They had some, but not too awful many. Because at that time,...the track men was trained and they kept the track up... they kept the... track that the trains run on is the most important thing. And then at the shops, when they'd shop those trains, you know, the men they was expected then... man workin' for a company then, he respected his job and he respected his... like I was tellin' you the other night, people respected their safety rules. And the track wag put up back in the old times... that track was just... and they kept that balanced margin and that track was perfect... the elevations and the levels... if a track was level, a train would run just as smooth as could be on them tracks. But the trouble of today is, that track is not up to the standards. When a train gets to rock in' up and down, it'll jump the track.
JW: Hadn't thought of it like that before.
JR: Uh—huh, it'll do it.
JW: There was a few more things I was going to ask. What about the company stores there? Did you ever stop in any of those?
JR: Yeah. The company stores... we used to buy a lot. Sometimes we'd buy our groceries from company stores for the camp care.
JW: Did they have higher prices there?
JR: Just about like other stores.
JW: Did they have lots of variety?
JR: Yeah. 'Bout anything you wanted.
JW: When did the Labor Unions start coming into the coal industry?
JR: Well, the labor union... first labor union that started here that amounted to anything was the railroad.. .was, ah.. - See, the railroad struck when they got organized there in 1922... they struck and they lost. And, they run the trains and all of the clerks and the agents and all quit and they... oh, they tore up the mail and everything else. They'd hit those cars... they'd shove those cars out in front of the trains, you know, and they'd hit 'em and tear 'em up. It was somethin’ else along there
JW: Where did all this happen?
JR: It started right here at Hinton terminal down to the... on the whole railroad division.
JW: So which union was striking?
JR: Brotherhood of Railroad.
JW: Of what?
JR: Clerks.
JW: So the clerks struck in 1922?
JR: The agents and clerks and... R. M. Morris come here as a clerk and several of them came here at Hinton to clerk carne in at What they called that time was ‘scabs’. See, they hired men ...new men.
JW: Uh—huh. To replace those that was fired because of the union.
JR: So, some of the others then went to work, after they'd seen they'd lost.
JW: Was there violence?
JR: Yeah, there was a whole lot of it.
JW: Was there anybody killed?
JR: No. Just old hand fight in' and tear in' up stuff.
JW: Oh, just a lot of vand, well, sabotage.
JR: Yeah, sabotage.
JW: How about the coal industry?
JR: Well, the coal industry didn't do too much with their unions until John L. Lewis organized them and got 'em up...miners didn't do no good with the unions. But, John L. Lewis really brought the miners out. He brought those companies out and he got the wages and he got the work in' conditions, you know, and the hours and all. He really got the mines... along before that, miners just about starved to death — and some of them did! In the early Thirties there that the mines... there was lots of miners starved to death.
JW: Did they literally starve to death?
JR: Just literally starved to death. They couldn't make it. They just simply couldn't make it and after the miners there on Laurel Creek... there was several there on Laurel Creek Mines. My brother—in—law lived up there... see, 1930, when that worldwide drought came and then on the heels of that, you see.. well, to start out with, in 1929, when everything crashed. the Stock Market you see, crashed. Then, right on the heels of the Stock Market crash, we had a worldwide drought. Right on the heels of that the Depression started. And, so they... they was just a lot of them... they just simply died. They couldn't get nothin' to eat. They wasn't no way... they couldn't get nothin' to buy with. What was ...you had to buy was high, you see.
JW: Do you think that some of the accidents in the mines may have resulted with these people being so weak from hunger?
JR: Well, it possibly could... could have possibly been. Sometimes, now they would get a car, you see, they loaded coal by the car, you see. And you'd get... maybe they'd get one car they'd get 50 cents or a dollar a car... most of the time, back in that time was 50 cents a car Well, they wouldn't get but one car loaded. They wouldn't get no more cars. They wouldn't get but maybe one car a week. You couldn't feed a family on that. And that's the way it run back in that day and time
JW: We 're talking about the unions there again ...did they have big celebrations on Labor Day because of the unions?
JF: Usually the thing they most would have... would have Labor Day parades and all. They really was recognized, more so than they are today. Because, back in the time of the unions... that is. .. the unions had... the Government was the third one. Whenever management and unions couldn't agree why then the Government could.. . they could take it over for a certain cool in t period, you see. And I think it was a lot better than just waitin' and goin' out and out. And it caused more damages and benefits than they would gain.
JW: Let me ask you a couple more questions about the Gorge itself and the towns there. What do you remember about Beury?
JR: Well, Beury was a hummin' little town. It was a mining town and it had those stone buildings there and they had... at Beury there. And they had a distillery there at Beury. But, of course, that distillery was run out before my age time to go down there. But knowed where it was at. But Beury was runnin' in full blast, the mines and all.
JW: Did you ever see the Beury mansion?
JR: Yeah.
JW: What was that like?
JR: Oh, it was real, real, real nice.
JW: Did you ever go inside of it?
JR: No, never was inside of it. Look in' from the outside.
JE: In later years, the last few years, there was a black lady that lived up there. What do you remember about her?
JR: Oh, she lived there for years and years. I'd be up and down by there. I worked down there… up and by there some on motor car.
JW: How long has she been there? Do you remember?
JR: Oh, she was there for years.
JW: Do you remember how far back?
JR: She was there, her and another was there behind her back in my remembrance.
JW: There was another lady there, too?
JR: Uh—huh.
JW: Really? What was her name?
JR: Ah... she was related to this one.
JW: Oh, really? A sister or what?
JR: Yeah. I don't know if it was a sister or what…
JW: The two of them lived there together?
JR: Lived in that old stone building.
JW: now, that's the old company store?
JR: Uh—huh.
JW: And this is Melcinia Fields?
JR: Yeah. She was there for years and years. Everybody knew her and everybody would help her, you know.
JW: Did you ever talk with her much?
JR: Just some. She wouldn't talk too much.
JW: When did the first lady... did she died off or what?
JR: I guess she died. As fer as I know.
JW: But you don't know how long ago that was?
JR: Huh—uh.
JW: What all do you remember about her? Where did she get her food and fuel?
JR: They would get it up Thurmond... go to Thurmond. And walk up there and buy their stuff up there. You see, they had a store up there, Fitzgerald's Store there at Thurmond and get what they needed. Most of the time, they'd pick up their coal off the tracks for their heat, you know. They just kindly, just survived, I imagine.
JW: Looking back, generally in the past, I've just got a couple more questions about the Depression. What do you remember basically about it? What were the hardest times for you?
JR: Well, it didn't bother me too much. We had a new farm back there and we had a fairly good crop. But we didn't fare too bad. But lots of others before the Depression, what really happened to start with was when the Stock Market crashed. Well, when the Stock Market crashed... before it did. I had a nice bunch of cattle and this cattle farm, Greenery from up there, they bought cattle in that day and time and shipped them. And sold them by the head instead of by the pound. And we come in two dollars and a half a head and him a buyin' 'em. So, he got away from 'em and looked back at 'em and he said that was a fine bunch of cattle and he said, “I’m going to buy them anyhow.” So, he give me my price. Well, they was about ten days after that it crashed and everybody lost their cattle, stock and everything wasn't worth nothin'.
JW: You timed it about right.
JR: Yeah, right. In 1929. But right on the heels of ‘29, that worldwide drought came. And after that, they was nothin' raised and people were just on starvation. And they formed... they had the soup lines. It was... in those big cities, it was terrible. In New York, in the news they was as high as ten thousand lined up in the soup lines.
JW: Did they have anything like that here in Hinton?
JR: No, they didn't have no soup lines here. They had... they just did the best they could. People would, you know, kinda help them. And, so we fared pretty good in that time. We didn't make no money but we had our livin’.
JW: Well, let me ask you one more question. What was Hinton like back in the Twenties?
JR: Oh, Hinton was boomin'. We had a bakery here, we had a foundry, they made pieces for cook in' stoves and things down here. And they had... we had a flour mill over here, a big flour mill. And, all that there... business was hummin’ here in Hinton. Railroad was a boomin' and everything was going full blast.
JW: OK. We talked about Thurmond, how the miners and railroaders came in there. Did many of them come up here to Hinton?
JR: Oh, yeah. A lot of them come here to Hinton. Hinton was a boom town. Then, long in that time, bootleggin' started, you know.
JW: Oh, really? This was during the prohibition time?
JR: Yeah, that was the… bootleg started and people was buyin'. And, tell you the truth about it, I was, back in that day in there, I started... I bought whiskey and sold it. In fact, I had several to make whiskey for me. You could always make the money out of that because you could have them to make it for you and you could buy it back here in the mountains. You go around these coal camps and around these lumber mills and those big places and you just couldn't hand it out fast enough and that stuff was about $40 a gallon.
JW: Forty dollars a gallon? Is that how much you paid for it?
JR: NO. I’d just come up about as high as ten dollars, some lower than that. If I had it made for me, it come out cheaper than that. And you was really makin' money on it. It wasn't no trouble at no time to land two or three thousand dollars in your pocket.
JW: Oh, really? OK. Now how much did you pay for it again?
JR: About as high as I ever did pay for it was ten... believe I did pay twelve.
JW: A gallon?
JR: Yeah, and sell it for forty. Sometimes you sold it out in pints and you'd get more than that out of it.
JW: How much did you sell a pint for?
JR: I’d sell a pint, dependin' on where I was at... I would get in a place. one time I went in there to that Glade Lumber Company and I just had sixteen razor backs. You know what a razor back is? That's a twelve ounce bottle they used then.
JW: I hadn't heard about that. Tell me about it.
JR: Those are razor back pints. I had about sixteen of those razor backs just settin' around my... I always went dressed, all my life, always did do that. And I had them settin' right around my shirt and had on one of them big sheepskin coats that you used to buy and high top boots you know, and ridin' pants back years ago. You probably don't remember that. And I had sixteen pints and I was settin’ there in a little old store. And they had a dance hall there and they was havin' a dance that night. And this guy setting' there, I knew him, and he had sold a little bit of whiskey too. He said, “Buddy, I’ll tell you one thing,” said “a man had any whiskey tonight, he could name his price.” And I said, “Well, you could.” He said, “Yes, sir.” I said, “Well, I got sixteen pints. I’ll just name a price on them.” I don't know what I did let that for. It was way up there though.
JW: You don't remember how much you...
JR: I believe it totaled out to about ten dollars a pint.
JR: Ten dollars a pint?! Boy they must have been desperate!
JR: Oh, Law! You take whiskey then and they would make whiskey then. It wasn't no trouble ... and moonshine. If you didn't drink... see, I didn't drink.
JW: You didn't drink?
JR: You can't sell your product if you use it, no how.
JW: Why's that?
JR: Because you're gonna get hooked with it, if you don't be careful. Don't ever use your own product if you're gonna sell. Only way to be able to advertise the best is to be able to advertise by the other guy's word, you see. You 're not usin' yours (laughter).
JW: OK. Did you have a pretty good product?
JR: Oh, yeah! I wouldn't buy nothin' but good.
JW: If you didn't drink, how could you tell it was good?
JR: I could tell. I had guys to make it for me. And where I 'd buy it from,
I knew. Cause he wouldn't lie to me. Cause he knew, you see, I wouldn't buy no more. And the ones I 'd sell it to you see, that's where I 'd get my ...I sold...one guy put some bad on me. And I sold to this Italian. He was a machinist at the...for the Simmons Lumber Company. And he had a fine home and a yard and big white palins' out here. And, he was my regular customer. He took a half a gallon every... twice a week. I went down there...
JW: Twice a week!? He'd have a gallon a week!?
JR: Oh, yeah. Him and his wife... and I don't know how many kids he had. And, he would take this half a gallon... see, I 'd go with him to the gate. He'd just take the half a gallon and go on in the house. I could see him. He'd go on in there and him and his wife would sample it. And he 'd come back out and pay me.
JW: He 'd sample and tell you if it was any good?
JR: He 'd sample it. Well, this guy that made this for me ...he messed it up.
JW: How did he mess it up? Do you know?
JR: He run it too thin... too weak, and he put coca cola in it to color it. And I didn't know it, you see, I thought it was white oak tip so he covered it with white oak charcoal. So, I - sold him that and the next time I went down there he said that there wasn't no account. I wouldn't call it what he called it. I said, “Well, if it wasn't no account, I’ll make it up to you. I’ll bring you another half a gallon.” So, I had to keep my word, you see. And, you know, that that would count today if people would do that. Just keep your word with the guy. And, so... you know, moonshine is really fun to get into it to buy it from other people. To make it, now that was somethin’ else.
JW: Did you ever see some of the stills?
JR: Oh, yeah.
JW: How many stills were around here? Do you know?
JR: There was...a still in about every holler and every spring back there.. .makin' whiskey. And when whiskey and moonshine first started... I’ll get on that moonshine and then I won't give you the trains up the river then, will I? When moonshine first started, a bunch of guys from... old man Henry Cales was a blacksmith... but they first started that, old man Dal Graham from Virginia, he brought how to make moonshine into West Virginia. So, nobody would fool with it until old man Henry Calen and one of his boys set up some kind of a berries and stuff and it soured. And when it soured, you know, kind of made alcohol... come into alcohol. The old man, he knew how to make that so he had one of those big three gallon coffee pots, copper. He took and made him a worm... what they call a 'worm’, a piece of coiled copper, and he made an arm and a cap for that thing. And, so, that's what started him and he started in that makin' that and went from that to a sixty gallon copper boiler
JW: This was Cales, and he was over here in Hinton?
JR: Yeah... no, he was from out there on the mountain. All of his people is gone now, all of this sons. And, so, that's when they started makin' the moonshine. Then, when I started to buyin' it, I didn't buy nothin' from them. I bought it from the other end of the road. But, I could make a moonshine still. I could make one now.
JW: How would you make it?
JR: I know how to make it. You just take you a. you 've seen a stove boiler, you know, along that way. You could get one of them big round kettles, but you take a stove boiler...copper. take and you cut you a hole out in it about the size of a coffee can.
JW: OK. Now why does it have to be copper?
JR: Well, it don't poison you.
JW: Oh. How would it poison you?
JR: Oh, Law... you make whiskey in zinc or somethin' like that and drink it or glass and it'd kill you.
JW: So, you go in solution there?
JR: Yeah. It has to be copper, you see. But you take and bake that copper just till you have to make a still and you take that boiler and you take about the size of a coffee can a piece of copper and make you about the size of a can, you see. Take a round piece of copper around that and you solder that there, cut off and solder a piece on top of it, you see. And that's set down ...or you cut a hole in this lid and you bring this where you cut it out, and you kind of bend that up this a way. You see, and that sets down on the... you put. you put dough on that. You take middlins and make a dough and dough that, you see. It won't leak either. It'll stick, that old dough. On it... you put on the top of that in the side of it and you make you an arm. It's about... it started in about two and a half inches on this end for a small ring, about two and a half inches and tapered down there and solder it to that cap, you see. And then, you take this sand and coil it. And you take a nail keg or a keg and you put that down in there. You bore a hole down in the bottom of this keg and that part would come out where you set your jars down under down there. And this part comes out of the top up here and doughed into that arm, you see.
JW: You said doughed... you meant regular dough, with flour and water.
JR: Yeah… middlins with a... not real flour, you just take the middlins you see. You know what middlins is?
JW: I’m not certain.
JR: Sort of like whole wheat, you know. It's the middle there where you grind your flour and the white parts taken out and the yellow part is middlin. You buy middlin for your cow feed, you see.
JW: I see. Middlins and you mix it up with water?
JR: Yeah. You mix it up with water and make a dough out of it. You dough that on there and then you dough that lid on there. But, when you set your mash, you take and put your cracked corn... you take about a half a bushel of cracked corn in this sixty gallon barrel... half bushel of cracked corn, then you take a… pour a hundred pounds of sugar and three cakes of yeast. You put that in there hot and stir it up right good and then cover it up... then in about six days, that will work off and all of that will come to what they call mash, you see. And then you take that mash and you dip it out and put it in this boiler and build you a small fire under it and you start it to boiling. Then that steam comes through here the first time, you see, that's what they call ‘sing lings'. That's almost alcohol. Comes through there and when you run all that outta there. when you get that all through out of your barrel, then you turn around and you put this back in that boiler and you add the sing lings with it. And that time you got it out, it comes out pure whiskey. It'll be about a hundred proof, you see. And you put that through charcoal and...in a charcoal keg, and leave it there for about... the longer you leave it, the better it is. Anyway, you can leave it there for about two or three years. Or, if you leave it ten, you 've really got somethin' good. Leave it there about two or three years and it's pure. It'll... just about 95 Or 98 proof, you see. It won't hurt you. Ain't nothin' in it but alcohol. They's not no dope in it. And that's the way you make a still and make whiskey. Make it right. But, these here distillerys don't make it... they don't make it that way. They put their... I owned right across from that big distillery there in Baltimore, way back there in the early Forties before I went to the service. And, they don't make like we make it. They've got them big old vats. And half of that old bourbon whiskey you git has never seen a still.
JW: Oh, really?
JR: No. It's just come out there and it's a chemical process. And that's the reason so many people you never seen people back in moonshine days, you never seen nobody goin' up and down the street stagger in' like a dog with the staggers. What they call 'winoes' ...you see, they wasn't nothin' in that...it'd either make them drunk and sick and that was all. It didn't make ‘em crazy... although they was kinda crazy when they was drunk. But, the chemicals in this stuff is what's wrong with the people that drink it. Why, sure. It's the chemicals that's doin’ it. Why, back there years ago, you could go to the drug store and buy what they called ...at that time, 'Burn All Tablets’. It was a chemical, and you could take a half a gallon of whiskey and put burn all tablets in ‘em and that was just as purty a red whiskey as you ever looked at. But, if you take very much of it, why it would just run you crazy.
JW: Oh, really? What did they use burn all tablets for?
JR: To color it... to make it... looked kinda like you got real whiskey and that's exactly.. .may not be that, but that's your trouble today. Your Government is the biggest dope ring that there is in the country.
JW: We hope (laughter).
JR: (laughter) I don't mean the Government. I mean the Government backed whiskey distilleries. That's what I meant.
JW: OK. You were telling me about the trains...
JR: Only ones that was back when I was a boy and started workin' , ah, we didn't have nothin' but the old paddle signals. A operator plants where you used those levers, you know, and throw the switch, and they had those. Well, they put... they run the trains with train orders and they had those little old engines, you see. You couldn't bring many… they had what they called the "Shay Engine” It worked up and down like this. And then the Caiope, and it had a great tall smokestack on 'em. I've got a slide of the one that run in the 63 Centennial down here, that little old engine that they used to run... they used to ride the train behind that thing, but you had to get off and walk. And that's the kind of engine they had. Alright, they had those and then, way back up there in the late Twenties, they come out with what they called the Mallet Engine. That was the greatest engine they ever was. People talked about that... course, then you didn't have much to talk about then but the railroad. That Mallet Engine was somethin', because... that big Mallet.
JW: I think this is spelled M-a-l-l-e-t isn't it. The Mallet.
JR: Yeah, uh—huh. Mallet Engine. They come out with that. Well, they could bring about... with that big Mallet, they could bring about sixty, seventy, sometimes eighty cars up the river with that.
JW: With one engine?
JR: Yeah. And, so then they come out with. they probably did later, they come out with that big H-8, that big engine.
JW: That H-8?
JR: Uh—huh. So, them works that-a-way, you see. Them little old engines worked, up and down.
JW: OK. The Mallet engine and H8 worked on pistons, ah, horizontal?
JR: Yeah, uh—huh. And, so, they came out with that and run that for several years. And then, they come out with the diesel, General Motors made the diesel, the first diesel for the railroad. And they come out with diesel. But, before that, they come out with a turbine... made one... they come out here with it. But they made it so long, they couldn't get it through those number eight crossovers, you see. Those crossovers were too short... ever time they brought it into town here, when those... even in any of those places, why it would derail, because it couldn't make it. It was too long. So, that didn't work. And then they come out with the diesel here in the Forties and Fifties. They come out with that diesel engine. Now, those four diesel engines will bring two hundred cars up that river. So, no wonder you can see where your employment come to. It could bring two hundred cars up there.
JW: One diesel engine?
JR: No, they had four units, you see. Four of ‘em. But, two of those big engines.. . the expense that they made of them... two of them couldn't bring but a hundredcars.
JW: How about the old H—8?
JR: Oh, they was more powerful. You see, them old... the diesel got that. was sort of like the rear end of a car, you see, that pulls those wheels. While the steam engine had to give it that, you see.
JW: Had to give it the old piston.
JR: I know. You see, so that pulled up there. But to finish the whole thing off, they made the first engine, the first big engine that would pull this a way.
JW: That's the…
JR: They got that patent from a grasshopper
JW: From a grasshopper!? Tell me about how they got that from a grasshopper.
JR: The man that practiced that, I forgot where he was from but he was from one of the countries... you see, a grasshopper, he don't pull, he shoves. Did you ever notice him?
JW: Yeah.
JR: He 'd be a settin’ and he shoves. Well, this guy figured out to make a big wheel and put this crank on that, that that could shove it, you see. Well, that thing gets to shovin', you see, they practiced that engine like a grasshopper. That was from a grasshopper because a grasshopper, he couldn't fly and he couldn't run. He had to bounce himself, you see, he had to shove. And they come out… figured that thing out was on this wheel. You see how long that grasshopper 's legs was a stickin’ up there? Well, that was a smart man that brought that big engine out with the grasshopper.
JW: With all those levers on the wheels?
JR: Yeah, the levers would pul... push, you see. And...
JW: So, that lever on the wheel, the horizontal, that's pushing the wheel?
JR: Yeah, when you pushed... when you got 'em started, you see, when you got that steam behind him... that thing would stop on... had to get him over there where he would shove. When he got up there, you see, when that steam... them vapors would shove it, well, everytime you get to shovin’ the more you shoved, the faster it would go. And the more power it would have. But if that rail wasn't sanded good, lots of times he would spin, you see. If he'd spin, he'd loose his grip.
JW: Hadn't thought about that'.
JR: So...
JW: Is there anything else you'd like to mention? We've used this tape up. Anything else…?
JR: I think about all that… that's about I could have. If I think of something else, I'll call you.
[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.
(Taped at Hinton Visitor's Center, New River Gorge National River)
JW: Mr. Wicker, I'd like first of all for you to give your full name and the date of your birth.
SW: My name is Walter Sims Wicker. I was born June 4, 1907 in Hinton, WV.
JW: OK. And what were your parents' names?
SW: My mother was from Swiss in Nicholas County, about ten miles up Gauley River. And my father was from White Sulphur Springs.
JW: Now, what type work did your father do?
SW: Well, I heard my father tell about when he was a young man he drove a hack from White Sulphur Springs up to... in Pocahontas County to those smaller communities up in there and he worked around the livery stable there at the Greenbrier Hotel at White Sulphur Springs. Then, my mother was a school teacher in her early days. She taught …well, at Glen Jean in Fayette County.
JW: OK. How many brothers and sisters do you have?
SW: There were six children, three sisters and two brothers.
JW: And their names?
SW: Well, my oldest sister was Madelyn; my oldest brother was Okey; another brother by the name of Fred; and a sister by the name of Mary; and a sister by the name of Lucille. They're all living except my oldest brother, Okey.
JW: Now, you were raised here in Hinton?
SW: I was born here in Hinton and just be 'bout three years after I was born, we moved to a little place up the road here called Wiggens.
JW: Where exactly is Wiggens?
SW: It's about four miles east of Hinton on the railroad. Ah…on the Greenbrier River. At that time, they had a little store there and a Post Office. In fact, my mother run the Post Office while we the... we were there at Wiggens. And, I went to school my first day at the Wimmer School. It was about a mile and a half back this side of Wiggens towards Hinton. I well remember the school teacher; a fellow by the name of Dodd, stayed at our home. And four of us children were goin' to school, and one winter day when we went to school, why, it started snowin' that morning and snowed all day as hard as it could snow while we were in school. Back in those days, they didn't let you out of school when it got cloudy. You stayed there all day. When we got out of school that evening, the school teacher had to carry me home on his back - the snow was so deep.
JW: Oh really! How deep was it?
SW: Well, as well as I can remember, it must have been twelve, fifteen inches . Course, I was just a six year old kid at that time.
JW: How many people did you have in school there; how many children?
SW: Well, they had all grades from the First up to the Eighth. I guess there was fifteen, eighteen children all together. That reminds me, I have an old school roll there that they... just a little two— page card—like tied together with a pink ribbon at the top and had the name of the school trustees on it and the teacher and all the students' names in there. When you read those named over, there wasn't but about three or four different families represented because there was about a half a dozen out of each family.
JW: Oh, really? I guess so with large families. Looking back when you were growing up there, what are some of the other childhood memories that you can think about?
SW: Well, ah… I remember, while we lived at Wiggens, one Christmas, they also had a very deep snow that winter, and one of the neighbors the night before Christmas, we were sittin' around the house there by the fire a tryin' to keep warm, and somebody knocked on the door and Papa opened the door. Why, Santa Claus run in with his pack on his back and turned around and went right back out the door. And one of my brothers took after him in his bare feet out in the snow tryin' to catch him.
(Laughter)
JW: Oh, really! Did you ever find out who it was?
SW: Well, no. I don't remember now, but just some of the neighbors around there. Wasn't too many neighbors. There was an old fellow by the name of Woodrum that run the store, lived right above us. It was probably him cause he was built pretty much like Santa Claus.
JW: And your brother took out in his bare feet into the snow, huh?
SW: Yes. Then I can remember, one summer a bunch of Gypsies came with their wagons and kids and buckets a hangin' on the back of the wagons. And, we'd see the Gypsies comin' and we'd all run and hide because we'd always been told that the Gypsies would kidnap the kids and take them with them.
JW: Can you think of anything else that sticks in your mind while you were growing up?
SW: Well, when, ah... we didn't stay at Wiggens too long. Maybe two or three years. And we moved back to Hinton and moved out into the west end of town. They called it a farm, but actually it was just a rocky hillside. Anyhow, my mother and father had bought three or four cows and they'd milk those cows. And my father had a wagon... a little homemade wagon made and bought a burr (sic) mule and my brother and I, we had to deliver milk every evening around downtown and back. That was... I can remember that well because we run into some interesting experiences delivering milk. I remember, my brother, he kind of drove a hard bargain. There was one place where the people had a dog that I was afraid of and I didn't like to deliver milk there. And then there was another place way up on the hill in the dark. So, my brother made a bargain that if I'd deliver all the rest of the milk that he would deliver those two, those two places. And then I remember a boarding house run by a family by the name of Keatley. Mr. Keatley was on the police force and his wife run this boarding house on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Summers Street just across the street from the City Hall. And I usually hit there just about supper time of the evening and I can remember Mrs. Keatley always gave me a big hot biscuit with butter on it, and I looked forward to that.
JW: What year was this? Do you have any idea?
SW: Oh, that was around 1914, '15, before the War.
JW: Is Keatley K-E-A-T-L-E-Y
SW: K-E-A-T-L-E-Y, Keatley.
JW: OK. What was your first job?
SW: I reckon my first job, other than just some little odd jobs, was workin' deliverin' groceries for R. M. Deeds. He ran a general merchandise store at the corner of Twelfth Avenue and Temple Street. And, ah, I'd work there all summer long deliver in' groceries. He paid me fifty cents a day. And I well recall one Saturday, he usually stayed open until about eleven o' clock on Saturday nights. One Saturday night when he went to pay me off the three dollars for the weeks work, 1 can well remember that he had a two—dollar and a half gold piece that someone had paid him that day for some groceries. And I 'd been admirin' that gold piece, so he went to pay me off he asked me if I 'd like to have that in my pay. I told him, yeah, I'd like to have it. So, he gave me that two dollar and a half gold piece and a fifty cent piece, which amounted to my weeks pay. And, I guess you could might say that I've got the first nickel I ever earned, because I still have that two dollar and a half gold piece.
JW: Oh, you do? Do you really? It's probably worth a little bit more than two and a half dollars.
SW: Yeah, that's right. So, I guess it was a pretty good investment at that.
JW: It sounds like it. What else can you remember when you...you say you got your first job delivering groceries. When did you start with the railroad?
SW: Well, I worked for several summers carrying and delivering groceries for Mr. Deeds and then, one summer when I was in high school, two other boys and I got a job on the railroad work in' on a section crew just east of Hinton. When we went up and asked the man for a job, he said, "Well" said, "I can give you a job if you can stay at home, because I don't have any room on my camp cars for you to stay on the camp cars." So, we told him well, we'd stay at home. We lived at Hinton. It was about a two and a half mile walk up to where they were workin’. So, we went to work that summer right after we got out of school and worked up to about the middle of August. Then we quit and went campin' and done a little fishin' for a couple of weeks. So, we had a little pocket change to carry us through the winter.
JW: Now, when did you get your regular job with the railroad?
SW: Then, ah... well, I graduated from high school in 1925. And, being from a poor family and lots of kids, why, they was just no way that I could have gone to college because back in those days they didn't have too many scholarships to hand out. And, ah… when I graduated in 25, I went to work that summer on the railroad at the roundhouse at Hinton work in' in the Store Department. Then that fall, I transferred to the Transportation Department as a Clerk: I worked as a clerk until 1929 and just before the stock market crashed, I transferred to the Yard as a Yard Brakeman.
JW: Now, what does that job involve?
SW: Well, I went to work on the Yard as a Brakeman and just a short time after that, the stock market crash came and business died right then and as a result I was cut off from the railroad, because they just wasn't movin' the trains that they ordinarily moved. If I'd of stayed on as a clerk, I would have kept working all during the Depression.
JW: You just made the -wrong move at the wrong time.
SW: Yeah, but anyhow, I left the railroad that winter when I got cut off. I went over to Covington, Virginia and worked for the Western Virginia Pulp and Paper Company and Paper Mill for two or three months. In March, I got a job with David Tree Expert Company in Kent, Ohio. And I went out there and took training with them in tree surgery and worked with them until business improved and I got called back on the railroad. I guess that old railroad blood was just in me and I came back to the railroad and stayed with the railroad the rest of my years that I worked on the railroad. I came back as a brakeman and then was promoted to a yard conductor. Along in the early Forties, I was promoted to Yardmaster and I worked as a yardmaster until I retired in 1972. I worked with the railroad company forty—seven years
JW: That's a long time. What did your job... let's talk about your tree surgeon job. What did you do there? You 've got me curious. And then we '11 talk about the railroad.
SW: Well, it was really a fascinating, interesting job. It was a healthy job. It was strenuous work. You, they... we done most of our work around big estates and people that was... really had the money. In other words, I recall one job that we were work in' on in Detroit, Michigan. At that time, it was the President of the Hudson Motor Car Company, we were workin' on his estate. And, we'd go out and trim up the trees around their place and cut out and dead tree limbs and fill cavities in the trees much like you would fill a cavity in a tooth.
JW: What would you cut with?
SW: Well, you used chisels and a maul to cut out all the dead wood. And, then you'd give it a paint... paint it with wood preservative and then you'd fill it with concrete and smooth if off smooth and then you rounded off the bark around it so that that bark would grow right back over that concrete. And after a time, why it would heal up to where you wouldn't know that concrete was in there until you started in there with a power saw and then you'd find out.
JW: Yeah. And then you'd find out in a hurry!
SW: (laughter) Right! I recall one day, well, two days, the maid that looked after this man's children, why she'd bring those kids out in the long there to play around and the boss told her, said, "Now, whenever those kids get under the tree where you're workin’, just quit workin' and don't do a thing until they move on." And so sometimes we'd set there maybe thirty, forty minutes while those kids played around, doin' nothing, and yet their daddy was pay in' for it.
JW: This is while you were up in the tree, huh?
SW: Yeah.
JW: Now, what would you do once you cut the limbs? Would you put some kind of preservative on it?
SW: Yeah. When you cut the limbs, why you had a little pot of somethin' purty much like tar or somethin' that you had a little brush in there and, when you cut a limb off, why you'd paint that over with the coating to keep the worms and the bugs and the moisture out of them. And, ah... when you got through with a tree and come back down, the boss would look it over and say, "Well, there's a shiner up there." And, you'd have to go back and get that, and he was referrin' to where you'd cut a limb off and didn't paint it. Then you had to go back and get that shiner.
JW: Well, we were talking about the railroad. You were talking about your work with the railroad. What did those different jobs involve? You said you were a yard brakeman. What did that person do?
SW: Well, the Yard Brakeman was switchin - makin' up trains in the yards. You take a train goin' east from Hinton, coal trains... why... course you had what was called a local freight that went out every morning. And then the local went from Hinton to Clifton Forge. And then you had another local freight that went from Hinton to Ronceverte and then up to Greenbrier to Durbin. You had to make up those trains and make them up in station order as they come to different stations; like Talcott, Lowell, Alderson and Ronceverte. Those local freight trains handled those cars and set 'em off. Except, now, Ronceverte we had what we called a "pick up". Made up cars for Ronceverte and Covington, VA and the rest of it would go on East to Clifton Forge. Well, you'd have to classify them so they'd all be right together, you see. And at that, they was lots of coal up the Greenbrier branch to Durbin and interchanged with the Western Maryland. They'd run those cars out on the pick up. And the paper mill at Covington, VA, they got lots of coal to operate the paper mill and you had to classify that all together. And then anything that went to Clifton Forge or beyond , why you just throwed it all together. When it would go to Clifton Forge, then they'd do the same thing makin' up the trains for, like down through Charlottesville and Staunton and those places.
JW: Now, you said you were a Yard Conductor, too?
SW: Yes, well, the Yard Conductor had charge of the... usually two brakemen on a yard crew and a conductor, three men. And, of course, it was the conductor's responsibility to see that the trains were made up into station order. The Yard Master would give the Yard Conductor a list of the train, all the numbers and where the cars went. And it was his job to get them separated and grouped into their proper sequence.
JW: Now, you said you were finally Yard Master?
SW: Yes, I was promoted to Yard Master around in the early Forties . Well, I worked several years before that as an extra man just one job and then another doin' extra work. When I wasn't workin’ a Yard Master, then, of course, I could go back and work my regular job as a Conductor or Brakeman, whichever it might be. Then the Yard Master, it was his job to see that the trains were called on time and made up in the proper order. And, of course, he had to keep tracks cleared to take the incoming trains and get the others called and move out so they could take the other trains in. And they didn't want you to let trains set out on the main line and not get them in the yard, because if you did you had to pay those main line crews additional money for not gettin' them in the yard on time. But, back during the second World War, why we had a tremendous lot of military trains movin', such as troop trains, well all different kinds of war material and lots of passenger trains and all... tryin' to work all the manifestin' trains and the passenger trains and the troop trains and coal trains and the other trains that we were talk in' about, why it was really a... really a tryin' job during the war, now that's all.
JW: Now, when would you say Hinton was in its heyday as far as the railroad? In the Fifties?
SW: Pardon?
JW: When would you say Hinton would have been at its maximum... the railroad here?
SW: Well, ah... during the Twenties, there was a tremendous boom on the railroad here at Hinton. A boy would get out of high school and go down around the house and ask Sam Garrison, the Foreman, for a job, why, he might ask you who your daddy was or somethin' like that. And chances are, he was a railroad man, too. And he'd tell you, Come on down in the mornin'. Put you to work. And it was just that simple 'bout get tin' a job on the railroad back in the Twenties and ah. long durin' the War, course, they had... they'd hire all the men they could get that the Government would let them have. Course the younger men, why they'd take them into service. In fact, during the service, I was… I was of an eligible age to go into the service, and I actually tried to get into the... a company they were organizin’ of... a Transportation Company of railroad men. When they found out I was volunteer in' for that service, why they wouldn't accept me because they said they needed me on the railroad as bad as they needed me overseas. And I couldn't go to the war. And I had a brother that was old... much older that I, and he was workin' in a furniture store in Beckley and they took him right on in. But, ah, they wouldn't take me and I was a whole lot younger than he was. Then, like I was sayin', back in the Twenties, they had... they just had that roundhouse work in' full of men day and night. Wasn't no problem at all to get work. Course, after the war, the big boom on the railroad during the late Forties and early Fifties, there was lots of work on the railroad. And then when the diesels started hittin' the railroad, why thens when employment started fallin' on the railroad here at Hinton, expecially.
JW: Somebody once told me that, at one time they would have a passenger train on the hour at Hinton. Is that true?
SW: At one time, we had fourteen scheduled passenger trains scheduled a day through Hinton.
JW: Starting when?
SW: And, ah... well, they run... they usually run pretty close together. In other words, we had No. 3 and No. 4. They operated early of the morning around... of course, the schedule changed at different times, but around from seven to eight o'clock of the morning, as well as I remember. I think at one time, No. 4 came in here at 6:50 of the morning and usually stayed here about ten minutes. And No. 3 came in going west bound at 7:30. And then, a little later on, at about eleven o'clock, you had a train thag wasn't a passenger train in the true sense of a passenger train. It was an express train, but it also carried one or two passenger cars and you could ride it if you wanted to but it was a slower train because it handled the baggage and express and would spend quite a bit of time at the station. Well, you had that train, one goin' East and one goin' West. And then, along about twelve—thirty, you had a regular passenger train, No. 13, goin' West. And about thrity minutes later, you had No. 14 going East. And then, later on in the evenin' you had No. 5 goin' West and No. 6 goin' East. Then around midnight, you had trains One and
SW: Two just about forty—five minutes to an hour apart. That's the way they operated through Hinton.
JW: You had fourteen trains a day... passenger trains?
SW: Yeah... passenger and express trains.
JW: I think it's what? Three passenger trains a week now?
SW: Three. well, yes. Actually... yeah. Three, well, three each way a week, I reckon it is.
JW: OK. I was going to ask you about your work. What was your wages and hours?
SW: (Laughter) Well... we never did make the money that these boys are makin' today on the railroad, but... we didn't pay the taxes that these boys pay today now, either. When I first went to work in 1925 as a clerk, my wages was $99.90 a month. And, at that time, a Yard Master made $200 a month. When I retired, I was makin' around $800 a month.
JW: That's as a Yard Master?
SW: Yeah.
JW: I was going to as you about...when you got married, when did you marry and who did you marry?
SW: Well, I married a girl from the coal fields by the name of Mable Chamberlain. And, when I met her, she was in training as a nurse here at the old Hinton Hospital. Dr. Cooper had the hospital and we slipped off and went to Tennessee and got married...Bristol, TN. December 30, 1930. Back in those days, the railroad paid off on the fifteenth and the thirtieth of the month. And my wife always said that anything we done, we had to do it on payday. We got married on the thirtieth, which is a payday. And our only child was born on August 15, which was payday (laughter).
JW: Why did you go to Bristol to get married?
SW: Well, ...I guess it was just because we couldn’t - I don't know, actually. I guess maybe it was because it just was easier to get marriage license down there, I reckon. Back in those days, lots of people went to Bristol, to get married.
JW: Oh, really?
SW: Oh, yeah (laughter).
JW: Talking about this... changing it from the railroad to the river … what do you remember about the railroad crossings, I mean the river crossings, and fishing, boating, swimming in the river? What are your early memories about the river?
SW: Well, I can remember when there was a ferry across the river there. right there where the old Hinton House stood. Between the old Hinton House and Food land, the street that ran out there went right down to a ferry that crossed the river there. And, of course, I never was up around Bellepoint a whole lot, but when we lived at Wiggens, there was no bridge across the river comin' from Wiggens down to Hinton. The road ran around the hillside above the railroad and then it came down and crossed the railroad at Bellepoint and then from there, of course, went on down to Avis. And there was a crossing there at the bottom of the old Avis Hill, they call it, where the road... crossed the railroad and went up that steep Avis Hill there. I can also remember that a lot of times the old T—Mode1 Fords, if they got low on gas, they had to turn around and back up that hill because there was no fuel pump on automobiles in those days. If they wasn't much gas in your tank, it wouldn't run into your carburetor if you tried to go up the hill, and you had to turn around and back up. I seen a lots of 'em do that. (laughter)
JW: I'd never thought about that. You said that the ferry crossings was down near where Foodland is today?
SW: Yeah. There was a ferry right there at the old Hinton House.
JW: Would that be where the tip of Coney Island is, or what?
SW: Yeah. Uh—huh. The ferry went right across just below Coney Island and landed over on the other side there.
JW: OK. When was it they had this ferry?
SW: Oh, that was back in the Teens. Well, after they built that bridge, of course, it wasn't too long after that they closed that ferry off. And then, here at Bellepoint, why, they just forded the river there before they got that bridge built there.
JW: You mean you could ford all the way across the river?
SW: Just across the Greenbrier from the railroad side over to the point there. They just forded there.
(Taped at Hinton Visitor's Center, New River Gorge National River)
JW: …down to the end of Coney Island?
SW: Yes. Practically so. There might have been that little cut right down there at the lower end of Krogers there where the water still comes to, but up here on the upper end, when they built that dam, they put a railroad bridge across right below where this concrete bridge is now up to that dam to haul the material up there to that dam and they used a lot of that gravel out of the river to fill those pilings there where they built their temporary piers across there . And...then the railroad ran on up through the bottom there at Bellepoint. In fact, I was brakin' on the railroad some... well I made several trips up there takin' stone up there and concrete and stuff like that... cement, rather, to build that dam.
JW: So that was solid except for that one area across from... where?
SW: Yeah. Uh—huh.
JW: Now, was that real shallow there or is it...?
SW: Fairly so, yes. That island over across from Krogers there that you can see, I've seen wagons and... well, it hasn't been too long since there was wagons went across there and trucks pulled it to that island. They used to farm that island and raise corn over there. And, I've seen trucks go across there. In fact, the road still leads down to the river there where they drove down in there.
JW: Oh, really? Oh, yeah. I remember seeing that. When you were growing up and actually... I 'd like to get your overall impression of the blacks that lived in the area. Were there many of them here in Hinton?
SW: Well, we always had a fair community of blacks, but they pretty much lived by themselves and quite a few of them worked on the railroad. And they had their own churches and their own school. We had a very, I 'd say, an average black community.
JW: I understand there was at least one lynching. Is that true?
SW: Yes. I can't remember personally, but I do know that they had a lynching. It's pretty well covered in the Summers County history. We had this woman C & O operator that worked at C. W. Cabin. At that time, C.W. Cabin was located, oh, about a mile east of where it is now. She worked at this cabin and I understand that this fell or got off a freight train or something and went in there and attacked her. And they lynched him. That's for sure.
JW: What about immigrants that lived in this area?
SW: Immigrants?
JW: Uh—huh. They've got Irish Mountain up there and had Irish people.
SW: Yeah. There was quite an Irish community. Of course, they have a little church and cemetery there up at Irish corner where there is any number of Irish people buried there. Of course, Catholics. An interesting epitaph there on a tombstone, if you want to call it an epitaph. I don't know whether you ever heard it or not. But, anyhow, I had heard for a long, long time about this engraving on this stone and I wanted to see for myself. So, my wife and I and my children drove out there one Sunday and went up in this old cemetery and I found this stone and it had a quotation on it there that went about like this: "Remember friends as you pass by, as you are now so once was I; as I am now, you soon will be; prepare... " I forget now how the rest of it goes, but it was somethin' about meetin' your Maker, but anyhow, it's kind of wild.
JW: Seems like I've heard of that, but I haven't seen that one.
SW: It's there on that stone in the cemetery.
JW: So you remember any other countries that people came from to this area?
SW: Well, there was quite a few of the Scotch Irish people. My mother was a descendent from the Scotch. And, ah, we never had too many Jews to ever make a success in Hinton. There was a few that would come in, and, of course, they was always in the merchandise business and they'd open up. But none of them ever stayed too long. And we had one Turk that came here and stayed for several years. A fellar by the name of Joseph; A. M. Joseph. And he opened up a little store. He stayed for several years, but I think he had a pretty rough time.
JW: What did he sell? What kind of store?
SW: He had just a regular merchandise store, grocery store.
JW: He had a rough time? How come?
SW: I don't know. People just wouldn't patronize him for some reason. And then we had a fellar by the name of Conley, Mike Conley. Now he and his wife opened up a little store out on the west end of town and he just started out with a five gallon drum of ice cream and a box of ice cream cones. He made good. He and his wife rented a room from my mother and lived upstairs over us and they just lived in one room and did their cooking and eating in that room on a little hot plate, I reckon, or something. But he made a go of it. He was an Irishman as well as I remember.
JW: What year was this? Do you remember? Early 30s?
SW: That was back... late Teens, I would say.
JW: I'm curious about the people here at Hinton, Did most people have gardens?
SW: Yes, most... most people that had room did have a garden. And as a rule, they'd keep chickens and.. they didn't allow hogs in town.
JW: Why was that? The smell?
SW: I suppose, yes. Had all that smell.
JW: The house that you lived in, what did it look like?
SW: The house I lived in? The one I lived in... the one where I was born has been torn down. It's a parking lot at Jiltuny Cross' place now. The house I was born in was right there between Jimmy Cross' place and the old hospital. But when we moved back here from Wiggens, why we lived in an old two—story frame house. Had an awful steep stairwell going upstairs and a dining room, living room, kitchen, one bedroom, I believe, downstairs, and four bedrooms upstairs . Mother and father slept downstairs and us kids all slept upstairs. And, we had an old... was no city conveniences. We had an outhouse and we had a well up on the side of the hill. And that old well was the hardest thing to pump that you ever saw.
JW: How deep was it?
SW: Well, I don't know, but I know that whenever. used to be quite a few hoboes come in on the railroad then and we wasn't too far from the railroad. And whenever trains would stop down there those hoboes would come up and knock on the door want in' a handout. And I can well remember my mother kept a couple of big water buckets settin there and whenever one of those hoboes come along, she would say "You go up to that well and get me a couple of buckets of water while I fix you a biscuit." I knew whenever they'd come back they'd be sweatin' and say that was the hardest pump they ever tried to pump water out of in their life.
JW: Was it really that deep, or what?
SW: I don't know... well, I guess it was maybe just the way the well was put in there and it wouldn't pump easy. That was all.
JW: So, she'd give them a biscuit for their work?
SW: Yeah.
JW: I guess they earned it that way.
SW: She didn't turn them down. She nearly always had something to give them.
JW: Can you remember when you first had electricity and when you first had your first radio?
SW: Well, yes. Yes, I can remember both. When we first had electricity, we had moved back up towards town a couple of blocks. And my brother— in—law that had married my oldest sister, he wired the house to put the electricity in. And he worked for the Power Company here in town and he would come out there of the evenings and nights and work wirin' that house. And, the first radio I can remember, a cousin of mine brought one up here that lived down on Gauley River. And he set it up up in the bedroom and you had to listen on those earphones. And you could just hear a very faint sound and it would say, " This is KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. " And we thought that was absolutely out of this world. And you could hear them talk a little bit and sometimes you 1 could hear a little bit of music. But, that's my recollection of the first radio that came in.
JW: You don 't remember when that was, do you?
SW: That was in the early Twenties, I 'd say. Because, that cousin was about my age and he came up here and spent the winter to go to high school and stayed at our house and brought that radio.
JW: When we 're talking about the Hinton area, I imagine they had some kind of lodges for the railroad. Did they not?
SW: Oh, yeah. They had what we called the Big Four Labor Organization. And they built that building where the Big Four Drug Store is now.
JW: Why did they call it the Big Pour?
SW: They called it the Big Four building because it was built by these four big labor organizations: the engineers, firemen, conductors and trainmen; those four labor organizations. But now, those labor organizations are pretty well consolidated.
JW: Talking a little bit about the Depression era, do you remember the NRE?
SW: Oh, yeah.
JW: What are your recollections of that?
SW: Well, I never did... never did have to go on to any of their programs. I always hustled around and managed to find some kind of work on my own. When I got cut off on the railroad, I went out to Ohio with the Davy Tree Expert Company. And then when I got called back to the railroad, and I got cut off a time or two for a short period of time, but I always managed to wiggle around and find a job. In fact, I worked on this road here when it was widened and graded up through here. I drove a truck haul in' stone for the culverts that they put in. And then I believe it was 1932 when they first run this gas line across the New River up here. That was before the dam was built and it crossed the river right there where the Conference Center is. You can see the right of way there now where that runs. And I got a job haul in' pipe. Well, one of them was haul in' pipe. They had about five trucks runnin'. We unloaded the steel pipe over here on the railroad and hauled it up New River there. We started... the contract with that man that I was work in' for, he started over on the edge of New River there and went over across the mountains through Marie and down into that section of the country into Picaway.
JW: I understand that at one time they had big celebrations at Labor Day. Can you remember any of those?
SW: Well, I remember more of the Fourth of July celebrations more than anything else. Course, the Labor Unions, they usually had a big picnic on Labor Day. But, on the Fourth of July, they always had a big parade and everybody was involved. And they had their brass bands and they'd decorate their cars and their bicycles and their horses. And they'd start, maybe, up at the Courthouse and go out on the west end of town and come back. I recall one particular time when Shad Peck, an automobile dealer here back in those days. Of course, the wheels on an automobile had wooden spokes, more or less like a wagon wheel. And he took two of those wheels and put the hub out of align and put them on the back end of this car and got in the parade and that thing was a bouncin' up and down and the kids all got more kick out of that than anything in the parade. I know I did. Just a watchin' that old car bouncin' up and down as it drove along the street.
JW: He put the hubs off center?
SW: Yeah, heah. He put the hubs off center on two of the wheels and that thing just wobbled and shook all over the road.
JW: I bet it did. I understand at one time Hinton had a lot of saloons. Is that right?
SW: Yes. Course, I was very young then, but I can recall three of four saloons.
JW: Can you remember the names?
SW: I can recall one at the corner of Third Avenue and Summers Street; and then there was the old Bluegrass Saloon down on the corner of Front Street and Third Avenue. Front Street, that's the street down next to the railroad. And then there was another one out next to the corner Of Fourth Avenue and Front Street; I don't recall the name of that one. But... and at one time, there was a hotel between the railroad and the river, right down at the foot of Fourth Avenue. Yes, sir. Over there across the tracks from the Yard Office. And they had a walkway or roadway that crossed right down just below the station and crossed over there and the road went right down to that hotel.
JW: Do you remember the name of it?
SW: Ah... I can't recall.
JW: How big was it?
SW: It was a pretty good sized building.
JW: How many stories? Do you remember?
SW: It was only two stories. It was a pretty good sized building. And they used that section of the river bank for a city dump. They hauled their trash over there and they'd burn it over there. The odor and the smoke came up from that place and it just burned all the time.
JW: Where was this now?
SW: Right across the railroad tracks between Third and Fourth Avenues on the river bank. And then, when I was… I can remember back when you got out to the west end of town where the Riverview school building is... it's not used for a school building now; but, anyhow, the road wasn't paved. The road turned up in that holler and crossed the creek and came back out and went on down the highway there. And we lived on down below there. And then, later on, they put a steel bridge right across where the road runs now. And then they built an incinerator at just the far end of that bridge over on the side of the hill there and they burnt their trash, what would burn. And what they raked out, they just pushed it over the hill there. And that stuff there is nothin' but a fill of trash. That's what that is. And then, they built a culvert down through there and kept on fill in'. At one time, that was a wide open holler down through there. But they built that culvert and kept fillin' over the culvert and got the culvert filled up to where the bridge was, they took the bridge out and paved it and put a road through there.
JW: They filled it in with trash, huh?
SW: Yeah.
JW: Now, where was that again?
SW: That's right at the west end of Temple Street, right at the end of Temple Street there. Right this side of the City Garage. In fact, that City Garage is sittin' on the land that they filled in.
JW: OK. I know where that is.
SW: OK. There was an incincerator set right there and they was a steel bridge went right across there.
JW: Is there anything else you can think about that you'd like to mention? Anything you can think about?
SW: Well, not in particular. I enjoyed my experience work in' with the railroad. Sometimes, I think there was other things I would rather have done. But, on the other hand, when you consider that you didn't have an education to get into anything that paid good money, why, I think the railroad was good for me.
JW: Well, when you look back on your railroad career, is there any one day or any one time that sticks in your mind more than any of the others?
SW: Well, I guess when the Superintendent called me in and told me he was going to give me a Yardmaster job. Would be about the highlight of my railroad career.
JW: Was that a surprise to you?
SW: Well, yes it was, to a certain extent. Although the Superintendent we had here at that time had always been favorable to me and treated me nice. And they had... every once in a while Chey had conventions for young railroad men and he nearly always picked me to go to one of those conventions. And I went to several of those conventions. I thought he treated me pretty nice.
JW: Anything else you can think of that you'd like to add?
SW: No, I can't recall right now, I reckon, anything else.
JW: Go ahead.
SW: One thing I might say, I never was one to go around where disasters or tragedies struck. I know when that steam engine blew up down at C.W. Cabin, I believe was in 1953, I was out here in the river at Bellepoint fishin' and I felt the percussion from that explosion. And, I wondered at the time what had happened. And I just stayed out there fishing. About thirty minutes or an hour later, one of the fellars I worked with there on the railroad hollered out there and told me about that engine blowin' up. Well, I still didn't quit and go down there. I just kept on fishin'. And then, when the bridge fell up here at Bluestone and killed those six people, when I heard about that, I didn't go up there. I never went up there until two or three days after it happened. I don't know, I just never did have the desire go around where anything like that had occurred. And the same way with some of the big fires that they had around town. I would just hear about a drowning or something like that. Two little boys drowned over here at the end of this Bellepoint bridge and was work in' on the railroad that day. And their daddy was work in' with me the day they got drowned. Of course, he went up there, but I didn't go. I just never had a desire to go around where tragedy had struck .
JW: I don't blame you. There's a lot of heartaches there, anyhow.
