Monthly Archives: January 2013

In Search of Ed Haley 50

13 Sunday Jan 2013

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I asked Curly if he remembered any of Ed’s tunes and he said, “Ah, I remember ‘Forked Deer’ and I remember ‘Billy in the Lowground’ and I remember the ‘Old Sledge’ and I remember ‘Poplar Bluff.’ ‘Blackberry Blossom.’ The longer he played a tune, the meaner he got on it. If he got the feel, it hit him. And the more he played the better he got and the more tunes come to him. He played one waltz — ‘Westphalia Waltz’ — and that’s really the only waltz that I can recall that he played. And it was all double stop fiddle.”

Curly never heard Ed sing a note — a very surprising recollection considering the way that Ugee Postalwait had hyped Haley’s singing abilities.

“I got a copy of a song from him,” Curly said. “He had somebody to write it down. Because at this time, out at Morehead, Kentucky, they had a feud out there. And they had a shoot-out there on the steps and then somebody wrote this song called ‘Rowan County Crew.’ And Ed, they tell me, would sing that at different places throughout Kentucky. At that time, it was like Floyd Collins that was in the cave and like the Hatfields and the McCoys — only this was called the ‘Rowan County Crew.’ Well, at that time it was hot as a pistol through the state. Now evidently he sang that song, but he never sang it for me.”

Curly said, “Ed could have been as great as the Blue Yodeler or any of those people. He could have been right on those records with them but under no reason did he want to record commercially. Had he been living today and with the equipment they’ve got today, he would’ve been in more demand than Elvis Presley ever was. Nobody played ‘Cacklin’ Hen’ like him. And a very humble man. I never heard Ed down anybody else, I never heard him put anybody below him and I never had him to tell me how good he was. In fact, I wonder sometimes if he knew how good he was. But I knew it. He was a brilliant man. He’d just about keep a check up on everything during his lifetime. He knew the news, he knew the political field, he knew what was going on in the state.”

I asked Curly about the first time he ever saw Haley play.

“I played with Ed when I was a kid — twelve, thirteen years old — and we lived at a place called Horse Branch. That’s as you enter Catlettsburg, Kentucky. And I was a kid carrying an old flat-top guitar — no case — trying to learn how to play. In the evening, he’d come out on the front porch after dinner and Ralph would get the guitar and the mother would get the mandolin and the neighborhood would gather because at that time radio was just coming into being. And I’d go down there and sit and bang while they were playing. And that’s where I first heard Ed Haley.”

Curly lost track of Ed when he started playing music out on his own at the age of fifteen. Throughout the mid-thirties, he played over the radio on Huntington’s WSAZ and Ashland’s WCMT with the “Mountain Melody Boys,” then made several appearances on the Grand Ole Opry and Knoxville’s Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round with Curt Polton’s band. It was during that time, he said, around 1936, that Ed got into a contest with Clark Kessinger and Clayton McMichen at the WCHS radio station in Charleston. Clayton was the National Fiddling Champion, while Clark was the National Fiddling Association’s champion of the East. The whole thing was “built up for months — it was a showdown.” In the contest, each fiddler got to play two tunes and someone named Banjo Murphy seconded every one using a three-finger picking style on a four-string banjo. First prize was a “live baby” (a little pig) and the winner was determined by a clapping meter. Curly wasn’t sure what tunes Ed played (probably “Cacklin’ Hen,” his contest specialty) but remembered the results clearly.

“Ed Haley beat the two men on stage,” he said. “McMichen was out of it in a little bit but it took several rounds to eliminate Clark Kessinger.”

Curly returned to Ashland in the early forties and found Ed living in the bottom of a weather-boarded, two-story apartment building on 37th Street (Ward Hollow). He started visiting Haley again, usually on cold days when he knew that he’d be close to home. He’d put his D-18 flat-top Martin guitar in the trunk of his car and “go pick up a pint or a half a pint of moonshine,” then head on over to Ed’s house.

I’d go in. I wouldn’t take the guitar in at all. I’d just knock on the door and go in and I’d say, “Hi, Uncle Ed.” “Hi, Curly.” He knew me by my voice. And I’d go in and sit down, you know, and say, “How’s the weather?” and “How’s things?” and “How’s the family?” and so forth and so on. We’d sit around there and talk a little bit. I’d say, “Ed, been playing any lately?” “No, I haven’t felt like it. I just haven’t felt like it.” I’d say, “Well, how about a little nip? You think that would help?” “Well now you know you might have something there.” So I’d go on to the car and I’d get the bottle and come in and we’d sit back down and I’d pass it to him. He’d hit it. He’d sit right there a little bit you know and I’d say, “Take another little nip, Ed.” “Well, I believe I will,” he’d say. “It’s too wet to plow.” And he’d sit there and he’d rock a little bit in that chair and… Being blind, he talked a little loud. “Hey, did I ever play that ‘Old Sledge’ for you?” I’d say, “Well, I can’t remember Ed. Just can’t remember.” Well, he’d get up and he’d go over and he’d lay his hand right on that fiddle laying on the mantle of the fireplace. By that time I’d be out the door and getting the Martin. I’d come back in and he’d tune ‘er up there and feel her across you know and touch her a little bit here and there. He’d take off on it.

Curly and I got our instruments out and played a few of Haley’s tunes. He showed me the type of runs he used to play behind Ed and gave me a few more tips about his fiddling. He said Ed was “all fingers…so smooth” and could play all over the fingerboard — even in second and third positions. He “put a lot of his upper body into the fiddling” and patted one foot to keep time. If he fiddled for a long time, he put a handkerchief under his chin for comfort (never a chinrest) and dropped the fiddle down to his arm and played with a collapsed wrist.

Just before Lawrence and I left, Curly said, “I’ll tell you somebody that’s still living in Charleston and he’s a hell of a fiddle player — or was. They called him Slim Clere. He’s about 82. He knew Ed. In fact, he was the man that Clere looked up to as he was learning. And he could probably give you more information than I could because he’s followed the fiddle all of his life.”

Curly also recommended Mountaineer Jamboree (1984), a book written by Ivan Tribe that attemped to detail West Virginia’s contributions to country music. It briefly mentioned Ed: “Blind Ed Haley (1883-1954), a legendary Logan County fiddler who eventually settled in Ashland, Kentucky, repeatedly refused to record, but did belatedly cut some home discs for his children in 1946.”

Parkersburg Landing 49

11 Friday Jan 2013

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     Not long after meeting with Lawrence Haley in Tennessee, I found myself heading toward his home in Ashland. As soon as I arrived in town, he suggested that we speak with Curly Wellman, a local musician who had often visited his parents’ home during the Depression. Lawrence had no memories of Curly’s visits but listened as he told all about them at a recent chance-type meeting at a local grocery store. “I was too young to remember him coming,” Lawrence said to me. Curly had told Lawrence to be sure and visit anytime, so we made a quick call to make sure it was okay for us to drop in, then headed out the door.

     “I used to see him on the Ralph Shannon Show years ago,” Lawrence said, as we piled into the car. Curly was still quite the entertainer. We found him more than ready for us — wearing a big grin and dressed in a fruity-striped button-up shirt with a large medallion around his neck. There was no real need for questions or prompting on our part. His memory was very clear.

     “I don’t think there was anybody that ever drawed a bow that played country like he did,” Curly said of Ed. “The biggest finger on his hand wasn’t as big as my little one. Smallest hands you ever looked at in your life. Just a natural touch. I mean everything — tone, ear, perfect pitch… The whole thing. I would carry my flat top and I’d go up to Uncle Ed’s and go in and he’d grab the fiddle. Well, all he would do was throw the fiddle under his neck and run his fingers across the strings — before he ever heard my guitar — then all I had to do was rake across it and we were together. That was Ed Haley. I’ve followed him since I was about twelve or thirteen and I’m 74 now and I’ve worked with a lot of them and, well, I think he was the greatest.”

     Curly didn’t even catch his breath in bragging on Ed.

     “The bow work is the secret to Ed Haley’s music,” he said. “All of the bow work was strictly in the wrist. More like watching an artist that plays classical stuff — the bow arm. He could get more notes out of the length of the bow than any other man I ever watched or heard in my life. It was all fingers. Just so easy. And double stops were nothing for him. I’ve heard him catch three notes on a fiddle. Terrific! Terrific! I started playing when I was about fourteen and I played for him just for pleasure and lived close to the family and knew them all personally — marvelous people. He had a boy that played the guitar pretty fair. Now there was one other fiddle player in this country that thought he was that good, but he wasn’t. His name was Clark Kessinger. Now Clark played a lot of fiddle. I have to give him credit for what he did play. But I don’t believe he could tune Ed’s fiddle. Clark’s a good imitation of Ed.”

     Curly said he’d give anything to hear Ed’s music again.

     Just then, Lawrence, who’d been sitting quiet as a mouse, pulled out some of his father’s tapes and said warmly, “Hey, put these on.”

     Curly got everything set up and stood mesmerized listening to Ed’s music. He kept saying things like, “Listen how true his notes are. The tone quality. And when this was taped, they didn’t have this stuff to work with that they’ve got today. They make you sound like what they want you to sound like. Ah, he was a fine man. Is that his wife playing the mandolin? She could do it. I used to watch that poor old soul down here in town and she’d bring one of the little girls with her to take her to and from places. She’d sit down there on a little folding stool with her mandolin and play for change and this and that. They were hard-working people.”

     Ed’s music gave Curly’s memories a boost.

     “At the time that I knew him, I was a kid. The thing between me and Ed was just love for one another, I suppose, and love for music. And he loved a guitar that could back him up. And he didn’t want no sixth-string chord — you better not strike one in his presence because he’d tell you to crawl back down on the neck. He said if he wanted a snare drum, he’d get one. He was the type of guy that said what he thought. That was his nature. And if you didn’t like it, you’d just well to get up and go out. He was a man that had the flattest delivery with speech when he said something to you. I mean it was just flat out straight. It didn’t make any difference to him.”

     Ed hated to be pitied or touched and liked to get around by himself. Because Curly had seen his “vicious temper,” he never asked him about his background.

     “I was a kid and as blunt as he was there was a lot of things I would like to’ve known that I wouldn’t even ask,” he said. “In other words, I might just say something that he would completely turn me off, me being that young. But, well, he had a big heart.”

In Search of Ed Haley 48

09 Wednesday Jan 2013

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I asked Lawrence if he’d heard from any of his brothers or sister and he said, “I’ve got one that lives in town now. He moved back from Cleveland, Ohio. He lives in town. Noah was a little bit… You might want to talk to him, I don’t know. But Noah, he went away, I guess, in 1939. He went in the service. He was at Scoffield Barracks in Hawaii when the Japanese… He was in all that Pacific Theater. I think he was wounded a couple of times. The Japanese bayoneted him one time in a bonsai attack or something. It left Noah a little bit shell-shocked or something. He gets a pension from it. He’s not together all there, I guess. You know, in a way, if you talked to him you’d never notice it. He was married to a woman of Hungarian descent and raised a family — a boy and a girl. He had a problem with the girl, too. She was having a problem with a boyfriend or something and her boyfriend was there at the house. Well, the boy had a pistol or some sort of a gun and she went and got that pistol and said, ‘If you don’t love me,’ or something and she shot herself. She committed suicide. I think it was non-intentional. It was just a bluff.”

I said to Lawrence, “Well now, aren’t your other brothers, they’re all kind of hard to get along with, aren’t they?”

“Yeah, a little bit odd,” he answered. “Clyde just moved out and took off and went his way, I guess. Followed the sun, I call it. We’d hear from him in Louisiana one year and the next year he might be in Montana or Upper State New York. He did hobo. Noah went to see him about ten years ago out in California and they started back and Noah was going to stop and get some gasoline. Clyde said, ‘No, don’t stop here and get gas. I’ll get your gasoline.’ He went over to this big church and told them he was on the road back to Ohio and didn’t have money to get there. I guess they give them a tank of gas and they come all the way back from California like that. Clyde was good at that. He did work and we’d get his W-2 forms. He never did turn in his income tax, I don’t think. He’d send his W-2 forms home. Some years he was out on an oil rig in Louisiana. Apparently during the time he was working for them they had rigs off the coast of Alaska.”

Hearing Lawrence speak of his brothers caused me to ask if maybe any of Milt Haley’s “stuff” — which I now presumed to be sort of bad — might’ve come down in their genetics.

“I don’t know, John,” he said. “I couldn’t say. They never met their granddad. I don’t think… My dad, if he’d been a sighted man, he’d probably been as gentle as a lamb. But he had frustrations in his own life.”

“Sometimes in a situation like that, sometimes a gene will come and it won’t get everybody,” I said, pressing Lawrence a little further. “Like it’ll skip your dad, and like skip you, but pick out a brother there and one over there.”

Lawrence totally disagreed.

“Well, I don’t think any of them… And I really don’t think my grandfather, from what I’ve heard of that tale… It was caused by hard times. I’m not trying to defend my grandpa because, hell, it don’t make any difference to me now.”

Milt in so many ways seemed like a critical character in the story: an ambiguous rogue — a key player in causing Ed’s blindness and inspiring his music, whose very genetic attributes or deficiencies might still live on strongly in his grandchildren.

I wondered if Lawrence knew where Milt came from before his settlement on Harts Creek.

“I think maybe over in Old Virginia or over in Pike County,” he said. “I understand there’s some Haleys in Pike County. I’d ask Aunt Liza, ‘Where’d Milt Haley come from?’ ‘Well, he come from over the mountain.’ Now, that’s as far as I could get from her.”

Lawrence thought his father had resolved his hard feelings toward the Brumfields in later years.

“Pop was supposed to have made the remark that if he’d had his eyesight he’d hunted down the people that killed his dad,” Lawrence said. “But afterwards, him and one of the Brumfield sons, they settled their trouble.”

I said, “Well obviously if your grandmother was at the Brumfields’ house the night she got shot, there was no animosity between her and the Brumfields.”

I was starting to understand how the tragedies of Ed’s early life, as well as the legacy of his father, had manifested itself into the pain, rage, and lonesomeness I’d been so drawn to in his music. I kept telling Lawrence, “We’re gonna have to go back up Harts Creek,” but it would be a year before we actually did so.

Parkersburg Landing 47

06 Sunday Jan 2013

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     Later that summer, I met Lawrence Haley at the home of his oldest son, Steve Haley, in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Steve was a music enthusiast and computer expert. Lawrence graciously loaned me the four Junius Martin records, which contained his father’s signature tune, “Garfield’s Blackberry Blossom”. I asked him about “Poplar Bluff,” one of the tunes on the records, and wondered if it was connected to the small Missouri town by that name. Lawrence said he didn’t know but that it sounded like Pop was mad when he was playing it on the record.

     “Well, he was either mad or they had taken some strong drink with them and Pop had got into that pretty heavy,” he said.

     I said, “What about a tune like ‘Stonewall Jackson’?”

     “No, he was playing fine music there,” he said. “I don’t think when these records was made at home he had a drop to drink. But I’ll tell you John, he done an exceptional job then because before I went into the service he would shake his left hand trying to get some of the numbness out and I guess that was from a heart problem right there. If he had any decay in his muscle reaction, it didn’t show too much. Of course, he had to go downhill at that age from what he used to be when he was a young man.”

     I played a tune for Lawrence that was unnamed on the records, then said, “This guy I know, Bruce Greene, he collected a lot of stuff, and I played it for him over the telephone and he said, ‘Oh, that’s ‘Indian Squaw’. But then it could have had another name. Like that ‘Yellow Barber’ tune that your dad plays, they call that ‘Arthur Berry’.”

     Lawrence said, “I don’t think he called that ‘Indian Squaw’. I never heard anybody request it. Pop played a piece of music called ‘Indian Nation’.”

     I’d been listening to Ed’s recordings a lot in the last few months and was focused on how he got a “real swing” in his music.

     Lawrence agreed, “That’s what I say. That’s what I was trying to tell you. When Pop was playing and enjoying it, he put a lot of drive in his music. You could see it. You could watch him and just see that he was enjoying it.”

     I asked if Ed played with his whole body and Lawrence said, “Well, yeah he’d do a little, maybe, dance on his chair.”

     Would he ever come up off his chair?

     “No, no, not like that. But you could tell that when he was playing with somebody that fit in with his style or if his accompaniment was doing their job right then he always enjoyed it.”

     Now what would his feet be doing?

     “Well, he’d just be patting his foot or his heel one or the other, most of the time. Not too loud. It was a subdued type of enjoyment, but you could see the drive that he was putting into it. I mean, he could slur a bow and pull a bow and put different pressures on the strings and you’d know that he was enjoying it, or I felt that he was.”

     I played a lot of Ed’s tunes for Lawrence, hoping to jar some of his memories. When I played “Ida Red”, he said his father used to sing, “Ida Red, Ida Red. I’m in love with Ida Red.”

     I told him I loved “Half Past Four”.

     “That’s one of my favorite tunes of all time,” I said. “I get to playing that and I can’t stop playing that tune. Now, that’s one he wrote, isn’t it?”

     Lawrence said, “Yeah, it seems to me like my mother told us that one time. That one of us, I’m not for sure which one it was, but we were delivered at about that time in the morning and Pop had been up all night, I guess. He just sat down and started playing because he was happy he had another boy, I guess. Or it might have been the girl, I don’t know.”

In Search of Ed Haley 46

05 Saturday Jan 2013

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     Several months later, I spotted a follow-up article about Milt Haley’s murder in the Spring 1992 edition of Goldenseal titled “Settling Family Differences.” It was based on an interview with Bob Adkins, a Lincoln County gas driller born just after the turn of the century at Ferrellsburg, West Virginia. It was rough country in there during his childhood.

     “I know of 18 murders within ten miles of where I grew up,” Bob said. “Never knew of anyone to kill a stranger. They were settling their own family differences. People lived by the gun. Never saw but one fistfight. I made it a point to tend to my own business.”

     Bob’s great-grandfather Henderson Dingess was the father of the Hollena Brumfield (spelled “Haline” in the article) shot in the face by Milt Haley and Green McCoy. Henderson and his wife Sally (Adams) Dingess lived on the Smoke House Fork of Harts Creek in what was then Lincoln County (but is today Logan County).

     “The Dingesses made part of their living floating logs downstream,” Bob said. “They also had an orchard and a federal licensed brandy making operation.”

     Al and Hollena Brumfield were wealthy businessmen at the mouth of Harts Creek on the Guyandotte River. Al’s father Paris Brumfield “lived half a mile below there on good bottom land,” Bob said. Al and Hollena “built a boom across [Harts] Creek to catch logs that were floated into the Guyan in the spring. Al charged by the log and prospered. They built an eight-room house and put in a store. Haline ran the store and offered food and lodging to travelers.”

     There was a picture of the Brumfield home in the article — it was the same place where Lawrence had said his grandmother was shot in a feud.

     Bob gave a great account of Milt’s murder, expounding on what I already knew while opening up a few new leads.

A fellow named Runyan [spelled “Runyon” in other sources] came in from Kentucky and put in a store and saloon and made competition for Haline and Al Brumfield. Well, when that fellow came and put in a store it was believed that he would like to get rid of Al.

Every Sunday Al and Haline rode up the hollow to Harts Creek to see her daddy, Henderson Dingess. They both rode on one horse. Runyan gave some men a side of bacon and a barrel of flour to kill them. They got in a sinkhole and shot at Al on the way back. Al jumped off, but they hit Haline in the cheek and the bullet went out the other cheek. Al ran and got away and then came back for Haline. She knew there were two men but she didn’t know who they were. Thought it was Burl Adams but became convinced it wasn’t him.

The men got away, but when it was found out that Milt Haley and Green McCoy had disappeared suddenly that night everyone agreed that they had been hired by Runyan to kill Al Brumfield. Runyan also left Harts that night. Runyan just left, and they looked for him the rest of their lives.  Then they missed Milt Haley and Green McCoy. They just left their families and disappeared. Figured it was by steamboat on the Ohio.

News got to Cincinnati that $1,500 was offered for Haley, Runyan, and McCoy. A detective there found [Haley and McCoy] and when Al heard they had his men he went down posing as sheriff, paid the reward, got them on the N&W train to Wayne County by Kenova, then up Twelve Pole Creek to Tug River. Breeden was a railroad stop and they walked from there to Harts by Left Fork of Twelve Pole.

Haline’s brother, John Dingess, had a saloon at Dingess on the way. They stayed there and stayed the next night at Grandpa’s [Hugh Dingess]. His daughter Brooke was 14 at the time. That night they took Milt Haley out, told McCoy they had hanged him, then McCoy told the whole story. Haley was held and made to listen to McCoy. Then they brought Haley in and he called McCoy yellow and still denied all of it.

Next day they went along West Fork of Harts to Fry. Stayed at Aunt Catherine Fry Adkins’s house at Fry. She was in the kitchen with the two men tied together, everyone drinking. Someone shot the lamp out over her head. Then they shot the men and took axes to their heads. This wasn’t much strange. They took the law into their own hands but made sure it was the right people.

Al Brumfield come to Grandpa [Adkins]’s that night but slept up the hollow. [They] took the bodies to West Fork of Harts and buried them in the same grave. Their relatives kept quiet.

     After repeatedly studying Bob Adkins’ story in Goldenseal, I concocted a theory about Ed’s mother that coincided somewhat with Lawrence’s story about her shooting at the Brumfield place. Bob told in the article how his father Albert Adkins met his mother Brooke Dingess while boarding at Hollena’s in the 1890s. They were married after Albert’s first wife Emma Jane Hager died of tuberculosis in 1901. Well…what if this Emma Jane Hager had been Emma Jean Haley? Had Emma Haley abandoned Ed and changed her last name so as to lose her identity as the widow of a man accused of attempted murder? Was the transportation slow enough and the memories of locals distorted enough by time to make such a transition of identity? It seemed a plausible enough theory, so I resolved to explore it by contacting Bob the next time I was in West Virginia.

Who Killed Doc Workman? 3

03 Thursday Jan 2013

Posted by in Big Harts Creek, Culture of Honor

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In the early morning hours of April 20, 1956, someone shot Doc Workman in the abdomen with a 20-gauge shotgun as he stood at the doorway to his little house on Workman Fork. “I heard the shot fired that killed him,” said Gene Wilson Dingess, a neighbor, in a 2004 interview. “It was way up in the morning. My sister Mildred and Mommy heard it, too. No one thought anything about it. People roamed all hours of the night with guns and shot rabbits and possoms.”

Upon learning the true nature of the incident, residents of Workman Fork reacted with shock and surprise. Nothing like this had ever happened on Workman Fork. Located somewhat remotely in the headwaters of Harts Creek, the fork constituted one of the most peaceful sections of the community. Moonshining was quite common, but murder? Doc’s killing — any killing — was unprecedented on Workman Fork. People were horrified.

Most everyone agreed that Doc knew the identity of his killer. “Doc knew the person at his door,” Dingess said. “He answered the door in his pajamas.” The killer’s choice of weaponry was a source of great interest. First of all, the 20-gauge shotgun used to commit the murder reportely belonged to Mr. Workman himself. Secondly, a 20-gauge shotgun was the type of low-powered firearm that a teenager or woman (or an old man) might use at close range, say, within 30-40 yards. And, oddly, it was left lying across Workman’s leg presumably without fingerprints. “It looked like someone had been standing by his door where they stood and plotted,” said the late late Roma Elkins in a 2004 interview.

One of the initial suspects in the murder was Doc’s former wife, Flora Lilly. Police also questioned Doc’s former brother-in-law, Weddie Mullins, a son of Harlen Mullins. Buster Stollings, who boarded with Flora, was another suspect. Other suspects were two men named Jake and Bill who were out that night riding mules and stealing corn. Apparently locals were so incensed by the tragedy that they investigated the matter themselves. Early the morning of the murder, one eyewitness saw two young men, dubbed as “Frank” and “Jesse” here to hide their true identities, run by as she milked cows on Abbott’s Branch. “Ben Workman said he saw tracks from a woman in high-heeled shoes leading from the mouth of Workman Fork up to the mouth of Long Branch,” Dingess said. “Now who would’ve wore high heels on this creek back then?”

Today, so many years later, it appears that two young men dubbed as “Frank” and “Jesse” were involved in the murder. Although suspects at the time of the killing, they were never questioned by authorities. Jesse’s own mother believed him to be the killer. “When Jesse come in at the house that morning he had a whole roll of money as big as your fist,” his mother later said. “Him and Wed Mullins was in on that killing together.” Reportedly, Frank was haunted by the murder years later when he was on his deathbed. “My uncle went up to Logan and Frank was in the hospital about to die,” Dingess said. “There was a preacher there and Frank said he couldn’t get forgiveness because he’d helped kill a man.”

Parkersburg Landing 45

03 Thursday Jan 2013

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     A few weeks after finding this article, Lawrence Haley called me with the news that he had found four more of his father’s records. These were not from the home recording sessions of the mid-forties. Instead they were from Junius Martin, a man who “ran with Pop some.” Martin had brought them to Lawrence in the late ’70s and traded them for a Parkersburg Landing album. I was extremely excited — what tunes were on these records? Were they dated? Lawrence said two of the Martin records, titled “Blackberry Blossom”/”Poplar Bluff” and “Bluegrass Meadows”/”Ox in the Mud” were dated December 1947. The other two, “Indian Eat the Woodchuck”/Unnamed and “Cabin Creek”/”Indian Eat the Woodchuck”, were undated.

     Inspired by the find, I read up on some history behind “Garfield’s Blackberry Blossom” in Jean Thomas’ Ballad Makin’ in the Mountains of Kentucky. According to Thomas, a French harpist named Christopher Columbus learned the tune from General Garfield in the Big Sandy Valley during the War Between the States. Upon returning home, he told his wife, “Americkee, I’ve learnt another tune! I ketched it from General Garfield his own self. The General whistled it a heap o’ times as he rode ahead of our troops right off yonder at the mouth of Big Sandy.”

     According to Thomas’ account, General Garfield heard Christopher Columbus play the tune on a harp one night at camp.

     “One night I was sent to his headquarters with a message and whilst I was waitin’ for orders I set down on the far end of the stoop and played a tune.  I had not played the piece oncet through till I hear-ed behind me a heavy tread and the clickin’ of sword agin’ boot top. I poked my harp in my pocket quick as I could and riz to my feet in salute. For there stood General Garfield his own self lookin’ down at me. ‘Let’s hear that tune again,’ said the General, as friendly as a private, ‘that’s my favorite tune though I can’t recall the name of it.’ With that, he [the General] let fly a stream of tobacco juice into a clump of blackerry bushes growin’ nigh the foreyard. The amber splattered all over the snow white blossoms on the bush and from then on we called the piece Blackberry Blossom.”

In Search of Ed Haley 44

01 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by in Ed Haley

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Meador’s article was my first real glimpse into the story of Milt Haley’s death since talking with Roxie Mullins. I read it carefully and often.

“In 1889, around the time the Hatfields and McCoys were killing each other along the Tug River, another less known family war was occurring, not too far away, in Lincoln County. The details of the feud are sketchy today, and would be all but forgotten had its events not been recorded in a ballad known as ‘The Lincoln County Crew.’ In 1923, the text of the ballad, attributed to George Ferrell, and a brief explanation were published in The Llorrac, a Lincoln County historical journal published by the students and faculty at Carroll High School in Hamlin.”

Meador began with a somewhat interesting description of Harts at the time of Milt’s death.

“The community of Harts, isolated in southern Lincoln County near the Logan County line, was one of the places where citizens occasionally had to take the law into their own hands. Harts, on the Guyandotte River about midway between Huntington and Logan, was a convenient stopping place for travelers journeying between the two towns. Also it played host to the teams of rough-and-tumble men who rafted logs down the river to ports on the Ohio. Because of its location and because whiskey was sold there, Harts attracted more than its share of troublemakers. Differences were often settled with a gun, and killings sometimes avenged by the family of the murdered person.”

The impetus for the feud that claimed Milt’s life, according to Meador, was trouble between Allen Brumfield and John Runyon, two merchants at the mouth of Harts Creek.

“In Harts, in the latter decades of the 19th Century, lived a man by the name of Allen Brumfield. According to Irma Butcher, Brumfield lived in a large white house near the Guyandotte River bridge. The Llorrac relates that Brumfield operated a store near Harts and sold whiskey from a houseboat in the river. Allen Brumfield, according to The Llorrac, was not the only whiskey merchant in Harts. At the mouth of Harts Creek, a man by the name of John Runyons operated a store and saloon. For some reason there were hard feelings between Runyons and Brumfield, and Runyons is reported to have hired Milt Haley and Green McCoy to kill Brumfield. Payment for the two men is supposed to have been a barrel of flour, a side of bacon and $25.”

Now that was a real interesting twist to the story — no mention of Milt’s wife getting shot at the Brumfield place. Milt was apparently a hired gunman. In a way, I wasn’t surprised. From the very beginning, I had the impression that Milt was a bad character. Roxie Mullins had said he was “awful bad to drink and kept a Winchester loaded and sitting right by the side of his door. A whole mob killed him. They was afraid of him because he had a pretty bad name.” Lawrence had said, “When my dad was very young he didn’t like the whiny way my dad was acting so to make him more of a man he took him out and dropped him in a rain barrel through the ice.” And then there was the poverty aspect: I mean, to kill someone for a barrel of flour, a side of bacon and twenty-five dollars?

According to Meador’s article, Milt and Green supposedly ambushed Brumfield, a very common thing to do in those days.

“The day chosen by McCoy and Haley for their grim deed was a Sunday afternoon in mid-August of 1889. Allen Brumfield and his wife, Hollena, were returning on horseback from a visit to Mrs. Brumfield’s father, Henderson Dingess, who lived on Harts Creek. Mrs. Brumfield was on the same horse, behind her husband. From ambush and without warning, McCoy and Haley fired at the couple as they rode down the river. Their aim was good but not fatal. Allen Brumfield received a bullet in his arm and his wife was shot in the face. Brumfield jumped from his horse and by running was able to make his escape. Mrs. Brumfield also survived but was disfigured for life. Irma Butcher, who knows little about the history behind the ballad, remembers as a young girl visiting in the home of Allen Brumfield’s widow, Hollena, at Harts. Mrs. Butcher relates that widow Brumfield had a hole ‘the size of a quarter’ in her nose, where she had been shot during the feud.”

After the shooting, Milt and Green fled across the Kentucky state line to escape from the law.

“Haley and McCoy fled to Martin County, Kentucky, but in mid-October of that same year were captured and lodged in the Martin County jail. Their captors were no doubt attracted by the reward offered by the state of West Virginia and supplemented by Allen Brumfield.”

A posse fetched Milt and Green and brought them to Lincoln County.

“The accused gunmen were returned to West Virginia by way of Logan County, which was then a border county including what is now Mingo County. There they were turned over to a party of Lincoln County men headed by the aggrieved Brumfield himself. The group journeyed as far as Chapmanville by mid-afteroon and tried to find lodging for the night among the families there. No one would take them in, evidently because of a fear of mob violence. Still looking for overnight shelter, the party continued down the Guyandotte River. For some reason, the guard split so that a portion crossed to the other side, leaving but an officer and three men in charge of the prisoners. A few miles below Chapmanville this small company entered into Lincoln County, soon finding lodging at the house of George Frye. The Frye house was located near the mouth of Green Shoals at Ferrellsburg.”

At Green Shoal, Milt and Green were brutally murdered by a mob.

“About eight o’clock that evening, according to the Logan County Banner of October 31, 1889, an armed mob estimated at 20 or more men surrounded Frye’s house and demanded that the prisoners be turned over to them. Frye and his family were ordered into the kitchen and the guards were allowed to leave the house. The mob then rushed in, firing their guns. McCoy and Haley were dragged out into the front yard and shot several times. The angry crowd then took rocks and smashed in the skulls of the two men. Their bloody work accomplished, the mob disappeared into the darkness, leaving the neighbors to take care of the bodies.”

No one was brought to justice for the killings.

“The Logan County Banner, in relating the story of the murders of Haley and McCoy, said that there had been no arrests in connection with the killings even though it was generally well known in the area who had been involved. The paper also gave the impression that most local people were in agreement in condoning the action of the lynch mob. The paper itself seemed to justify the unlawful treatment of Haley and McCoy on the grounds that they had shot an innocent woman.”

At the end of Meador’s article was an interesting note about Paris Brumfield, father to Al, hinting at past trouble between the Brumfields and McCoy.

“Another mystery concerns a man by the name of Paris Brumfield, who is mentioned in Professor Cox’s version [of the song] as being murdered by his own son. A story quoted in the November 7, 1889, edition of the Logan County Banner, says that Paris Brumfield was engaged in a shooting scrape with Green McCoy about a year before the attack on Allen Brumfield.”

Who Killed Doc Workman? 2

01 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by in Big Harts Creek, Culture of Honor, Halcyon

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Doc Workman was born on January 20, 1893 at Halcyon in Logan County, West Virginia. His parents were Thomas B. and Martha (Hill) Workman. Doc served in the First World War. According to his draft registration record, he was blue-eyed, had dark brown hair and was of medium build. “I think he got gased over there and he just barely made it,” said Gene Wilson Dingess, a close relative and namesake, in a 2004 interview. “They were in foxholes most of the time.” A decorated veteran and prisoner of war, Mr. Workman spoke little of his war experience after returning home. “He never told big tales about his service,” Dingess said. “If you asked him about it, he’d answer you in about thirty seconds and then change the subject.”

In 1919, Doc married Flora Mullins, the pretty red-haired daughter of Harlen Mullins, a local farmer. For many years, the couple enjoyed a happy marriage. By the early 1930s however, according to neighborhood gossip, both began affairs. Doc, who some called “Slick” because of his charms with women, reportedly courted a sister-in-law, while Flora reportedly sparked a Dingess. The family remained intact until at least 1940. Some time thereafter, Doc and Flora separated and eventually divorced. Mr. Workman built himself a small dwelling house just below his wife where he lived with a stepson, Dennie. Around that time, perhaps in related events, a few homes were burned in the neighborhood.

A 1942 draft registration record described Dock as six-feet tall, 178 pounds, of ruddy complexion, with gray hair and blue eyes. In the opinion of most people on Workman Fork, he made for a good neighbor. Lloyd Farley, a son-in-law, in a 2005 interview, said, “Doc was a fine fellow. He was hard to get to know but he would give you the shirt off of his back.” Mr. Dingess also had fond memories of the old gentleman. “We stopped there at Doc’s every day after school to see him,” he said. “He had candy and marshmallows and he always offered us a dollar to let him bust an egg between our eyes.” Dingess recalled that Doc was an excellent marksman. “Doc kept a loaded gun just inside his door to shoot foxes when they got after his chickens,” Dingess said. “He could shoot a fox from 100 yards away.”

In his last days, Doc received a pension for his service in the Great War and began to carry a significant amount of cash on his person. “He drew a veteran’s pension,” said Mr. Farley. “He often packed one-thousand dollars on him.” Not long before his murder, he loaned fifty dollars to his brother-in-law, Buck Mullins, who then lived in Logan. (Mullins soon repaid the loan.) Neighbors spoke of Dock’s money, of his pension… Family members cautioned him against keeping so much cash on hand, afraid that someone might rob him. Adding fuel to the fire of neighborhood gossip, Doc occasionally disappeared from the creek. “Doc would go out of here and be gone for a month at a time when I was young,” Dingess said. “We never did know why he left.” Just a few weeks before the murder, his son Dennie moved away to find a job. “Dennie had just left to work away from here two or three weeks when Dock was killed,” Dingess said. About one week before the killing, according to Farley, Weddie Mullins, Doc’s former brother-in-law, caught him with his arm around his wife’s waist. He told him that he “better not do it again.”