Tags
Billy Adkins, Cain Adkins, fiddle, fiddler, Grand Ole Opry, Harts Creek, Lincoln County, Mingo Ramblers, Norfolk and Western, Stiltner, Tom Atkins, Wayne County, West Virginia, Williamson, Winchester Adkins, writing
A week later, I followed up on a lead from Billy Adkins and called Tom Atkins. Tom was a great-grandson of Cain Adkins and a genealogist in Williamson, West Virginia. It was a chance lead: Billy had called him to ask about Ed Haley’s genealogical connections in the Tug Valley only to discover that Tom’s grandfather was Winchester Adkins — a son to Cain.
When I called Tom, he said he knew almost nothing about Cain and only a little about his grandfather, Winchester Adkins. He said Winchester left the West Fork of Harts Creek at a young age and settled at Stiltner in Wayne County. He eventually moved to Williamson and worked as an engineer on the N&W Railroad. At that location, after a repeated “mix-up over his checks” he changed the spelling of his surname from “Adkins” to “Atkins.” He was also a well-known fiddler who tried his hand at professional music.
“I heard my mother tell someone here while back how many tunes my grandfather played,” Tom said. “It was a hundred and some. See, he just knew them by ear. And I believe that at one time he had a fiddle that was made by Cain — his father — and I don’t know who has that or whether it’s even in existence now ’cause we’ve had floods here. And I do know at one time he was a member of a group in Mingo County called the ‘Mingo Ramblers’ and they were on the Grand Ole Opry way back in the early days.”
Tom said that was all he knew because his grandfather died when he was four years old.
Brandon Ray Kirk 
Brandon,
Did you ever run into any other evidence of the “Mingo Ramblers”? I wondered if anyone else mentioned them playing at the Opry in those early days. My grandmother always talked
about some of the old Warfield/Kermit folks that supposedly played at the Opry during late 20’s when it was just getting started. Perhaps this is that group?
Yes, I found a reference to them in a book about the Grand Ole Opry by (as I recall) the late Dr. Charles Wolfe. At the back of his book, Dr. Wolfe listed all performers and their performance dates. He had not been able to identify the Mingo band, nor any of its members. His book had already been released for years at the time of my discovery so the info was just stored away. The only band member I know of is Winchester Atkins but hopefully someone knows of the others.