Monthly Archives: July 2014

Interview with John Dingess 1 (1996)

10 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by in Big Harts Creek, Culture of Honor, Lincoln County Feud, Warren

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That winter, Brandon made contact by telephone with John Dingess, a Connecticut resident who proved to be one of our best sources on the 1889 feud. John was born on the Smokehouse Fork of Harts Creek in 1918. A grandson to Henderson Dingess, he moved away from West Virginia after serving his country in World War II.

John said Henderson Dingess met his wife Sallie while boarding with her father Joseph Adams on Harts Creek. Henderson didn’t care much for his in-laws (he said they were “hoggish”), particularly his brother-in-law Ben Adams. Ben lived over the mountain from Henderson on main Harts Creek where he operated a small store. He and Henderson feuded “for years.” At some point, Henderson’s oldest son Charlie Dingess got into a racket with Ben over a yoke of cattle and “almost killed him in a fight” at Cole Branch.

The feud between Henderson’s family and Ben Adams reached a new level of tension when Ben refused to pay the sixteen-cents-per-log fee required by Al Brumfield to pass logs through his boom at the mouth of Harts Creek. Brumfield “was more of a businessman” than a feudist but “got into it” with Adams at his saloon near the boom. In the scrape, Ben pulled out his pistol and shot Al, who was spared from harm only because of a button on his clothes. Al subsequently fetched a gun and chased Ben up the creek — a very humiliating thing as there was probably a whole gang of people to witness his flight.

Ben soon gathered up a party of men with plans to force his timber out of Harts Creek under the cover of darkness. Before he could put his plan into action, though, the Dingesses caught wind of it and warned the Brumfields who promptly armed themselves with .38 Winchesters and .44 Winchesters and gathered in ambush on the hill at Panther Branch near the mouth of Harts.

Ben, anticipating trouble, put his wife, the former Victoria Dingess, at the front of his gang in the hopes that it might discourage her cousins from shooting at him as they came down the creek. It was a bad idea: the Brumfields and Dingesses shot “her dress full of holes.”

This was particularly horrible since she was probably pregnant at the time.

The next day, she came to her uncle Henderson’s to show him what his boys had done to her dress but he never punished them.

At that point, Ben was probably hell-bent on revenge and arranged for Milt Haley and Green McCoy, who John called two “professional gunmen,” to “bump Al off.”

John was sure of Ben’s role in the events of 1889.

“Ben Adams, my father’s uncle, he gave them a .38 Winchester apiece and a side of bacon to kill Al Brumfield,” he said.

Milt and Green caught Al one Sunday as he made his way back down Harts Creek after visiting with Henderson Dingess. He rode alone, while Hollena rode with her younger brother, Dave Dingess. As they neared Thompson Branch, Milt and Green fired down the hill at them from their position at the “Hot Rock.” Al was shot in the elbow, which knocked him from his horse and broke his arm, while Hollena was shot in the face. Al somehow managed to make it over a mountain back to Henderson Dingess’, while Hollena was left to crawl half a mile down to Chapman Dingess’ at Thompson Branch for help.

Upon learning of the ambush, Harvey Dingess (John’s father) hitched up a sled to one of his father’s yokes of cattle and fetched Hollena, who remained at Henderson’s until she recovered.

Immediately after the shootings, there was a lot of gossip about who’d been behind the whole affair. John said there was some talk that Long John Adams had been involved “but the Dingess and Brumfield people never believed it.” Everyone seemed to focus in on Milt and Green, who’d recently disappeared into Kentucky (where McCoy was from).

“They used to, if you committed a crime in West Virginia, would run away to Kentucky,” John said. “In the hill part of Kentucky there on the Tug River.”

Brumfield put up a $500 reward and it wasn’t long until a man rode up to Henderson Dingess’ claiming to have caught Milt and Green in Kentucky. He was sent to Brumfield’s home near the mouth of Harts where he found Al out back shoeing an ox steed. They talked for a while, then Brumfield told him, “You put them across the Tug River and when I identify them you’ll get your money.”

In Search of Ed Haley 334

09 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by in Calhoun County, Ed Haley, Music

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Around that time, as Billy and Brandon wandered in the woods of eastern Kentucky, I called Jimmy Triplett, a fiddler and protégé of Doc White in West Virginia. Doc, in addition to being Ed’s friend, was a jack of all trades — fiddler, doctor, dentist… I’d recently heard that he was a photographer and wondered if maybe he had pictures of Ed or Laury Hicks. Jimmy wasn’t really sure.

“It was way back when he was a youth that he took pictures,” he said. “I guess he was considered an amateur, but he made a lot of photographs used for postcards.”

I asked Jimmy if Doc ever talked about Ed and he said, “Yeah, he talked about how good he was and everything. He said that he was one of the best that he ever heard.”

What kind of tunes did Doc play?

“The main one Doc plays is ‘Pigeon on the Gate’ — he got that from Ed Haley,” Jimmy said. “I think it would be in standard tuning — it’s a D tune. I don’t know that there’s that many other tunes that he got off of Ed Haley that he played, but he talked about him a whole bunch and then described seeing him and his wife play.”

Jimmy played a tape over the telephone of Doc talking and playing “Pigeon on the Gate”.

“Here’s one they call the ‘Pigeon on the Gate’,” Doc said. “Ed Haley, a blind man, played that tune from Kentucky. Best fiddler that ever I heard draw a bow. His wife was blind and she played the mandolin. They used to come through the country and stop at our houses and stay for days and play with us. You ought to’ve heard him play the fiddle. He’d make them fellas over there sick.”

Jimmy referred me to John Morris, an Ivydale-area fiddler who’d known Doc and even learned “Pigeon on the Gate” from him. John was too young to remember Ed personally (he was fifty-something) but had heard a lot of stories.

“I growed up hearing about Ed Haley from my dad,” John said. “I heard a lot of other stories about him later. He used to come here and stay at my grandparents’ house some. Their names were Amos and Ocie Morris. They just lived about a mile and a half from the train station and it was on the way to Calhoun County and they were from Calhoun County. He’d ride the train to Ivydale. If it was the evening train, usually a lot of people from Calhoun County — the next county back — stayed at my grandparents’ house. He’d stay at my grandpaw and grandmaw’s up here and then go on the next day. He usually, I think, visited with Laury Hicks mostly.”

What about Laury?

“Laury Hicks was evidently a riverman,” John said. “I believe it was Aunt Minnie Moss that said he could take a hog’s head of salt or something under each arm and he poled boats up and down the Elk River and hauled supplies when they used them flatboats. I’ve heard stories of his strength — what a strong and robust kind of a man he was. My dad said that when Laury Hicks died, Ed Haley wasn’t here and the next time he come through they took a chair and set it out at Laury Hicks’ grave and Ed Haley sat out on Laury Hicks’ grave and fiddled for about four hours.”

John said stories abounded about Ed among the people of Calhoun County.

“They told that they was having church over there someplace one night in an old school building or something on top of the hill between Walker and Stinson,” he said. “Ed happened to be in the country and they wanted him to play some hymns. He got started playing and he got off of playing hymns and they wound up breaking up church and having a dance. And they was about to take him up over it — about to get in trouble with the law over it — for breaking up church.”

I asked John if he thought that was a true story and he said, “Well, I’ve heard that. I know Ed cussed all the time. He was bad to cuss and swear. I heard that my Grandmaw Morris about put him away from the table for swearing at the table. Dad said he swore continuously.”

It was coincidental that John would mention Ed’s profanity. A few days later, Brandon met a niece to Johnny Hager at a genealogical meeting and she said Johnny quit traveling with Ed because he used foul language and because he had another woman in Calhoun County. Supposedly, when this woman died Ed played the fiddle at her grave all night. This “other woman” story may have had some merit: Wilson Douglas told me that Ed had an illegitimate daughter in that country.

1st Annual Ed Haley Fiddle Contest

07 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by in Ashland, Big Sandy Valley, Ed Haley, John Hartford, Music

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Ed Haley Contest 1

(L-R) Peter Even, Mike Compton, Brandon Kirk, J.P. Fraley, Nancy McClellan, Paul David Smith, and John Hartford.

Chasing John Runyon (1996)

07 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by in Cemeteries, Ed Haley, Inez, Lincoln County Feud

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A month or so after “striking out” on the Ed Haley house, Brandon and Billy drove to Inez, Kentucky, and searched for more information about John Runyon. Venturing north of the county seat, they met Leonard Porter, who lived in a little settlement called Tomahawk. Porter remembered Mrs. Runyon staying with Mary Fields in a small house at the mouth of nearby Hall Branch and said she was likely buried in the Fields family cemetery on a point at nearby Hall Branch Road. Billy and Brandon headed up there, where they found the grave of Bill Fields (1882-1948) and Mary Fields (1888-1985), but none of John Runyon’s family. Just down the hill from the cemetery (presently a trailer court) was the old homestead of Mr. and Mrs. Fields. At one time, they later discovered, the Fieldses ran a store beside of their home. Across the road was the location of the former Mary United Baptist Church — named for Mary Runyon or Mary Fields – now converted into a house. As they stood on the hill, Billy reminded Brandon that Bill Duty’s mother-in-law was a Fields prior to her marriage.

They next tried to find the location of John Runyon’s homeplace. According to the Williamson family history, Runyon lived at the “old Stidham post office,” which they figured was located on Rockhouse Fork. Unfortunately, they found no sign of “Stidham” up the many branches of Rockhouse. There were no mailboxes labeled “RUNYON” or any signs to help them along. Many of the names of local hollows had changed since the time of the old deeds.

Feeling a little desperate, they pulled into a driveway with a mailbox labeled “HINKLE” and spoke with a very nice middle-aged man who told them the exact location of the old Stidham Post Office — actually, all three of them. The first location ran by Joe Fannin was situated at the mouth of Spence Branch near Milo. Around 1935, the office was relocated to a site on what is now called Hinkle Valley Road, just across the creek from a sign reading “Left Fork.” The final Stidham Post Office was in what is today James Webb’s Music Store. Upon viewing the sites, Billy deduced that the old Runyon homeplace had been near the second post office.

While in that vicinity, they talked with an elderly man named Walt Mollett who confirmed that John Runyon had been a local resident. He said Runyon was probably buried down the road in a cemetery on Graveyard Point at Stidham, basically the junction of Route 1884 and Route 40.

A few minutes later they were at the cemetery, parking beside the road in a treacherous curve and tromping through a forest of damp growth. At the center of the cemetery was a single, ancient pine tree. Near the pine, Brandon spotted the grave of Runyon’s daughter, Wealthy Fry. Just below her was Aquillia Porter. And below her was a grave with a new tombstone written as “Mary M. Runyons” and dated “January 28, 1861-January 29, 1958.” Beside of Wealthy Fry’s final resting place was an older stone originally created for “Mary Runyon” dated “January 28, 1861-January 29, 1956.” There were plenty of Williamsons in the cemetery — all relation to Mrs. Runyon — including Sam Porter’s second wife — but absolutely no sign of John Runyon’s grave.

Jim Webb, a gentle middle-aged musician and proprietor of Webb’s Music Store, told Brandon and Billy that someone had wrecked in the cemetery a few years earlier and destroyed many of the tombstones. Equally tragic, the wrecker that removed the vehicle from the cemetery had caused more damage to the stones. The community had organized a fund to restore the graves, Webb said, but it was little consolation. Brandon theorized that John was buried beside of Wealthy — that someone had used Mary’s old tombstone to “sort of” mark the spot. He didn’t rule out, though, that Runyon had been buried with his parents on nearby Nat’s Creek in Lawrence County. (The Graveyard Point cemetery was more oriented toward his wife’s family, the Williamsons.) A quick drive to Nat’s Creek, including a tour of the “town” of Peach Orchard (a virtually abandoned coal town once prominent in business affairs and the site of a General Garfield Civil War story), failed to produce any signs of a Runyon cemetery, although it did offer some of the most serene, peaceful, spooky and haunting countryside found in the locale.

Brandon felt a real frustration in not being able to positively find Runyon’s grave and thus achieve some sense of closure on that facet of the story. It was as if he and Billy, whose ancestors had supposedly spent years looking for Runyon, had also been evaded by ole John — even in his death.

Ken Sullivan endorses “Blood in West Virginia”

06 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by in Lincoln County Feud

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I proudly announce Ken Sullivan’s endorsement of my book, Blood in West Virginia: Brumfield v. McCoy. Mr. Sullivan, executive director of the West Virginia Humanities Council, ranks as one of Appalachia’s most distinguished and recognized editors. Best known for his promotion and editorship of the West Virginia Encyclopedia (2006), which has sold more than 17,000 copies, Mr. Sullivan is also the former editor of West Virginia’s premier state magazine, Goldenseal. Educated in history at the University of Virginia and University of Rochester, with a PhD from the University of Pittsburgh, he has consistently offered top-notch work on a variety of Appalachian subjects. It was during Mr. Sullivan’s tenure at Goldenseal that I first read a contemporary account of the Lincoln County Feud. Receiving praise from such an outstanding and accomplished editor as Ken Sullivan means a great deal to me.

Here is Mr. Sullivan’s endorsement of Blood in West Virginia:

“This book brings a deadly story to life: As the Hatfield-McCoy Feud was finally coming to a close in the Tug Valley of West Virginia and Kentucky, another bloody vendetta was under way in nearby Lincoln County, West Virginia. Here it was Brumfields versus McCoys — and Haleys and Runyons and Adkinses and others — with results that were equally fatal. Author Brandon Kirk has done remarkable work in untangling the complex web of kinship connections linking both friends and foes, while detailing the social and economic strains of changing times in the mountains. The story he documents in these pages had lasting implications for the families and individuals involved — and, curiously, for the folk music of the region.”

In Search of Ed Haley 333

06 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by in Big Harts Creek, Ed Haley, Spottswood

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That fall, Brandon and Billy drove to Trace Fork to inspect the “Ed Haley home” — or at least what we wanted to be the Ed Haley home. It was, of course, most likely the Ewell Mullins home since Mullins bought Ed’s land in 1911 and reportedly built a new house there. Billy and Brandon spoke with Von Tomblin, Ewell’s daughter who lived next to the old home. Von said she was born in the back part of the home in 1935. As far as she knew, the front part of the house was torn down years ago, but not the back. Upon inspection, the back portion of the house did appear older than the front.

Von recommended that Billy and Brandon talk to Cas Baisden about the house, since he helped tear some of it down.

They found Cas down the creek.

Baisden said he helped push Ewell’s store against the front of the house when he was a boy. Later, they tore the entire home down, then built an almost-exact replica on the same spot.

Before Brandon and Billy left, Cas told them that Ewell Mullins had three stores in his life. The first one was built when Cas was a small boy near Ewell’s home. The second one was built around 1940 near the original one. The third one was built at the mouth of Ticky George Hollow just prior to Ewell’s passing.

Cas also remembered Ed Haley and his family well. He said Ed had the meanest boys he’d ever seen and probably drank himself to death.

Later that night, Billy and Brandon visited Pete and Gaie Adams near the mouth of Trace Fork. Gaie, who is a niece to Bob Dingess, had a lot of old photographs and said she remembered Ed and Ella spending weekends with her grandma, Alice Dingess. There was a little more confusion about the Ed Haley place: Gaie thought Ewell’s house had been completely torn down, while her husband said the back part was original. Oh boy.

Interview with Nellie Thompson of Wayne, WV (1996)

05 Saturday Jul 2014

Posted by in Culture of Honor, Harts, Lincoln County Feud, Twelve Pole Creek, Wayne

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A few weeks later, Brandon called Nellie Thompson in Wayne, West Virginia. Nellie reportedly had the picture of Milt Haley and Green McCoy.

“I don’t know if I have anything like that or not,” Nellie said, “but I do have an old letter from Green McCoy.”

What?

Almost hyperventilating, he asked her to read it over the telephone.

Nellie fetched it from somewhere in the house, said it was dated May 19, 1889, then read it to him and said he was welcome to see it.

The next day, she called Brandon back and said, “I think I’ve found that picture you were looking for. It’s a little tin picture with two men in it.”

Oh god.

A few days later, Brandon drove to see Nellie about the picture and letter. Before dropping in on her, he spent a little time at the local library where he located a story about Spicie McCoy.

“As I promised last week, today we will explore the life of a lady who claimed to have a cure for diphtheria,” the story, printed in the Wayne County News (1994), began. “Spicie (Adkins) McCoy Fry was so short that if you stretched out your arm she could have walked under it. Anyone who lived in the East Lynn area knew who Spicie Fry was because she had probably been in almost every church around to sing at a revival meeting, something she loved to do. Spicie was well educated. She saw that her children went to school. Once out of grade school, Spicie’s sons took advantage of correspondence courses in music, art, and any other subject they could get thru the mail order catalog. Spicie’s son Monroe Taylor Fry was a self-taught musician.”

After a short time, Brandon drove to Nellie’s home, where she produced a small tin picture of two men sitting together. One of the men was obviously Green McCoy based on the picture we had already seen of him. The other fellow, then, was Milt.

As Brandon stared at the tintype, Nellie handed him Green’s letter. It was penned in a surprisingly nice handwriting, addressed to his brother Harrison, and was apparently never mailed. At the time of his writing, it was spring and McCoy had just moved back to Harts — probably after a short stay with his family or in-laws in Wayne County. He may’ve been there with his older brother, John, who’d married a girl almost half his age from Wayne County earlier in February.

Dear Brother. after a long delay of time I take this opertunity of droping you a few lines to let you know that I am well hoping when these lines reaches you they may find you all the same. Harrison you must excuse me for not writing sooner. the cause of me not writing is this[:] the post master here is very careless. they let people brake open the letters and read them so I will write this time to let you know where I am and where Lynza is. I have moved back to the west fork of Harts Creek and Lynza is married and living in wayne co yet on beach fork. everybody is done planting corn very near in this country. every thing looks lively in this part. tell Father and mother that I[‘m] coming out this fall after crops are laid by if I live and Lynza will come with me. tell all howdy for me. you may look for us boath. if death nor sickness don’t tak[e] place we will come. Harrison I would rather you would not write anymore this summer. people brakes open the letters and reads them so I will not write a long letter. Brumfield and me lives in 2 miles of each other and has had no more trubble but every body says that he will kill me if I don’t kill him. I look to have trouble with him so I will close this time.

On the back of the letter was written the following: “My wife sends her best respects to you all and says she would like to see you all. my boy is beginning to walk. he is a spoiled boy to[o].”

Clutching carefully onto the tintype and letter, Brandon asked Nellie what she’d heard about Milt and Green’s death. She didn’t really know much, but her brother Goble Richardson said he’d always heard that pack-peddlers who boarded with Paris Brumfield never left his home alive. These men were supposedly killed, tied to rocks, and thrown to the bottom of the Guyan River where the fish ate their rotting corpses. Soon after the “disappearance” of these pack-peddlers, Paris would be seen riding the man’s horse, while his children would be playing with his merchandise.

When Brandon arrived home he studied over Green McCoy’s letter — all the cursive strokes, the occasional misspellings, trying to extract something from it beyond what it plainly read.

Strangely, the letter didn’t reveal to which Brumfield — Al or Paris — Green referred when he wrote, “every body says that he will kill me if I don’t kill him.” It seems likely, though, based on what Daisy Ross had said, that Green referenced Paris.

Still, it was Al Brumfield who was ambushed only three months later.

What started their trouble?

And who was the careless postmaster who allowed people to “brake open the letters and read them?”

At the time of the Haley-McCoy trouble, Harts had two post offices: Harts and Warren. The postmaster at Harts — where McCoy likely received his mail — was Ross Fowler, son to the Bill Fowler who was eventually driven away from Harts by the Brumfields. Ross, though, was close with the Brumfields and even ferried the 1889 posse across the river to Green Shoal with Milt and Green as prisoners (according to Bob Dingess) in October of 1889. A little later, he worked in Al Brumfield’s store. The postmaster at Warren was Andrew D. Robinson, a former justice of the peace and brother-in-law to Ben Adams and Sallie Dingess. Robinson seems to have been a man of good credit who stayed neutral in the trouble.

Harts area businesses (1918-1919)

04 Friday Jul 2014

Posted by in Atenville, Big Harts Creek, Chapmanville, Dingess, Ferrellsburg, Hamlin, Harts, Logan, Spottswood, Whirlwind

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The following entries were published in R.L. Polk’s West Virginia State Gazetteer and Business Directory (1918-1919):

ATENVILLE. Population 20. In Lincoln County, on the C&O and Guyan Valley Ry., 27 miles south of Hamlin, the county seat, and 22 north of Logan, the banking point. Baptist church. Telephone connection. Arnold Perry, postmaster.

Anthony Adams, general store

Catherine Adkins, general store

CHARLES ADKINS, GENERAL STORE

Delta Adkins, general store

Hollena Ferguson, general store

Jeremiah Lambert, general store

John Thompson, general store

William M. Workman, general store

William Wysong, general store

FERRELLSBURG. Population 200. On the Guyandotte branch of the C&O Ry, in Lincoln County, 30 miles south of Hamlin, the county seat, and 18 north of Logan, the nearest banking town. Telephone connection. Express, Adams. Tel, W U Mail daily.

H Adkins & Sons, general store

Mrs. Hollena Ferguson, general store

J.W. Stowers, general store

HARTS. (R.R. name is Hart.) Population 15. On the Guyandot Valley branch of the C&O RR, in Lincoln County, 30 miles south of Hamlin, the county seat, and 21 from Logan, the banking point. Express, Adams. Telephone connection.

Charles Adkins, general store

Wesley Ferguson, general store

SPOTTSWOOD. In Logan County, 15 miles northwest of Logan, the county seat and banking point, 10 from Chapmanville, the shipping point. Express, Adams. Mail R F D from Atenville.

Mrs. T. J. Wysong, general store

WHIRLWIND. Population 250. In Logan County, 16 miles northwest of Logan, the county seat and banking point, and 2 from Dingess, the shipping point. Express, Southern. Baptist church. Mail daily. James Mullins, postmaster.

D. Adams, apiarist

Frank Adams, mail carrier

Grover Adams, ginseng

Sol Adams, saw mill

Lindsey Blair, watchmaker

Reece Dalton, live stock

Callo. McCloud, poultry

C.M. Mullins, ginseng

George Mullins, horse dealer

JAMES MULLINS, General Store and Photographer

J.M. Workman, flour mill

NOTE: Some person cited above are duplicated in the original record.

In Search of Ed Haley 332

04 Friday Jul 2014

Posted by in Calhoun County, Ed Haley, Music

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The next day, at the fiddling contest, Brandon met George Carr of Madison, West Virginia. George said Ed was the reason he started playing the fiddle many years ago.

“I was raised in Calhoun County,” he said. “I first saw Ed Haley as a small boy in the one-room Walker School House. Sometime in the early ’30s, about ’34, ’35, I’d say. Him and his wife came and they played for us and he fascinated me with that fiddle. And he had a son called ‘Puckett’ and I don’t know what ever became of him. But Ed and his wife would play on the streets in Spencer where the stock sale was every Friday and they would play there and she pinned a tin cup in her apron and they got nickels and dimes and quarters and fifty cents but no greenbacks. He stayed with a fella by the name of Laury Hicks who was a local fiddler and a self-taught veterinarian. His wife, Minnie Hicks, was a midwife — delivered many, many babies — who held my father in her arms when he was a small baby and he died in ’75 and he was 77 years old.”

Dr. Ivan Tribe endorses “Blood in West Virginia”

03 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by in Lincoln County Feud

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I proudly announce Dr. Ivan Tribe’s endorsement of my book, Blood in West Virginia: Brumfield v. McCoy. Dr. Tribe, Professor Emeritus of History at Rio Grande University, ranks as one of Appalachia’s most distinguished and recognized historians. Best known for his Mountaineer Jamboree (1984), the definitive history of country music in West Virginia, Dr. Tribe is author of six additional books, beginning with Albany, Ohio: The First Fifty Years of a Rural Midwestern Community (1980). Dr. Tribe has also contributed over two hundred articles, composed at least eighty sets of liner notes for albums, and written more than forty record and book reviews. Throughout his long career as an educator and author, he has consistently offered top-notch scholarship on the subjects of traditional country music, bluegrass music, and coal mining communities. While I recommend any one of Dr. Tribe’s writings, his Mountaineer Jamboree remains a personal favorite. Receiving praise from such an outstanding scholar and accomplished author means a great deal to me.

Here is Dr. Tribe’s endorsement of Blood in West Virginia:

“Except for the Hatfield-McCoy Feud which spilled over into two states, eastern Kentucky is better known as Appalachia’s feud country. However, Brandon Kirk’s book demonstrates that Lincoln County, West Virginia had a feud that has been largely overlooked by prior chronicleers. The Brumfields versus a variety of persons named Adkins, McCoy, and Haley made the community of Harts a real hot spot among mountain communities in the late 1880s. Kirk’s Blood in West Virginia tells a fascinating story that elevates the Lincoln County feud to its proper place in Appalachian and West Virginia History.”

Big Ugly News 1916

03 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by in Big Ugly Creek, Gill, Leet, Rector, Timber

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During the summer of 1916, two articles printed in the Lincoln Republican offered news regarding Big Ugly Creek in Lincoln County, West Virginia.

ARE MOVING RAILROAD FROM US (Thursday, July 20, 1916)

The Guyan, Big Ugly and Coal River railway running from Gill to a point eight miles above Rector, on Big Ugly creek will soon be a thing of the past, says the Barboursville News. The B. Johnson & Son people who have been operating extensively in that section in the tie and timber business did the last cutting of timber last Thursday and began to tear up the track on the upper end of the line. The iron of that part of the road beyond Leet will be taken up at once and the four miles between the latter place and Gill will be removed as soon as the lumber at Leet is hauled out.

Most of the residents of Leet have moved away in the past week to other timber openings. Albert Gill, a local merchant has bought many of the houses from the company and will tear them down and use the lumber for fencing.

There were between three and four hundred people living at Leet, and most of them will go elsewhere.

COAL GOOD ON BIG UGLY (August 31, 1916)

Civil Engineer Philip Hager was here over Sunday from Big Ugly, where he and his crew have been busy for two or three weeks making coal openings for the Huntington Gas & Development Co. A lot of good coal has been located and the prospects for big coal development on Big Ugly at an early date now looking good.

In Search of Ed Haley 331

03 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by in Ed Haley, Music

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About an hour later, Brandon showed up at Pat’s, followed by various members of the Haley clan: Noah, Clyde, and a bunch of children and grandchildren. The house was soon full of people — talking and eating. It was a bittersweet moment due to Lawrence’s absence, although his spirit was everywhere. I watched the Haleys — Ed’s children and grandchildren — business executives, gamblers, bar owners — mix with one another. Conversation was friendly between them, although there seemed to be an estrangement — especially among the younger ones. Basically, they were raised up separate from each other (the “Kentucky Haleys” vs. the “Ohio Haleys”); to be honest, it was as if they really didn’t know each other that well.

I realized that the binding force in Ed’s family — the glue that held all of them together — was the music…or at least the memory of it. Children who had never met before were sitting in the floor together or running through the house and yard — some hearing about Ed for the first time. I kept thinking about how one of them might some day pick up a fiddle and naturally crank out some of those “Haley licks.”

Brandon and I sat in the living room with Noah, Clyde, and Mona. Clyde immediately started talking about Ed.

“I used to hate him — hate that man — the way he treated Mom,” he said.

“Evidently, Mom cared for him or she wouldn’t a let it go on,” Noah said.

“I learnt as I got older and got a little tolerance in my mind I learned to forgive my hate for my dad to something else,” Clyde said. “I give it to God or whatever you want to call it.”

“I think the reason you didn’t like him Clyde was because when we stole them ducks there at Keyser Creek, he took each one in a room by ourself and he took a strap and he held us by the arm and he beat the hell out of us,” Noah said, laughing.

“That was Mr. Runyon’s ducks,” Clyde said. “Yeah, he beat us with the buckle part of that belt.”

“Yeah, and I think that’s why you didn’t like him,” Noah said. “I remember that beating we got.”

Clyde said, “Oh, we got a good one, didn’t we?”

I asked where Ed lived when that happened and Clyde said, “That was a four-room house. Ralph, our oldest brother, he had made a trapdoor in that floor and he used to bootleg moonshine through that trapdoor.”

“Clyde, you remember the cow he stole and kept it under the porch?” Noah asked.

Clyde said, “Yeah, Ralph did that. That wasn’t a cow. That was a calf. Our house stood up on stilts and Ralph or somebody had fenced that all in to keep that calf in. Got that while he was in the CCCs.”

Noah said, “And he built a trapdoor so he could go down through the floor…”

“In the bedroom,” Mona added.

Clyde laughed and said, “Ralph got that calf in the house and he was trying to put that calf up in Mom’s lap and it done something all over Mom.”

In Search of Ed Haley 330

02 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by in Ed Haley, Music

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Meanwhile, plans were underway for an “Ed Haley Fiddle Festival” in Ashland. The whole idea was conceived by Pat Gray, a local real estate agent who’d been inspired by an article in the Ashland Daily Independent regarding our interest in Ed’s life. Pat incorporated the “festival” (which was actually a fiddling contest) into Ashland’s Poage Landing Days, a citywide carnival-like celebration centered on the downtown area. The fiddle contest was scheduled to take place in the basement/auditorium of a Presbyterian church in Ashland. Pat declared me the “Grand Marshall” of the Poage Landing Parade, booked my band and I for an evening show and even offered to put us up at her place.

We pulled into Ashland on September 20th, 1996 and parked the bus in a church parking lot just down the hill from Pat Haley’s. Mike Compton, my mandolin player, and I walked up to Pat’s for breakfast (at her invitation) where I found her entertaining Mona and Patsy (Jack’s wife). Mona had written out the words to some of Ed’s songs for me, like “My Happy Childhood Days Down on the Farm”:

When a lad I used to dwell

In a place I loved so well

Far away among the clover and the bees.

Where the morning glory vine

‘Round our cabin door did twine

And the robin red breast sang among the trees.

In my happy boyhood days down on the farm.

There was a father old and gray

And a sister young and gay

And a mother dear to keep us from all harm.

There I passed life’s sunny hours

Running wild among the flowers

In my happy boyhood days down on the farm.

It was obvious that Mona had been thinking a lot about Ed’s music, so I didn’t waste any time getting my fiddle out for her. She caught me a bit off guard when she asked me if she could accompany me using Mike’s mandolin. The next thing I knew, she was playing right along with me — scarily like her mother. After we’d finished a tune everyone got really quiet, then Patsy looked at Mike and said, “You’ve just lost your job.”

Several tunes later, I asked Mona about Ed’s bowing style. There was a lot of conflicting information on that, so I wanted to get her opinion again. She said Ed “mixed things up,” or more specifically, that he varied his bowing between long and short strokes.

I had kinda figured that was true and had even come to think that maybe he had “area bowings,” much like his “area tunes.” It’s really a very natural thing. I play different tunes and different ways when I’m with the Goforths and Hawthornes in Missouri than when I’m with Earl Scruggs and Benny Martin in Nashville, or Fletcher Bright, or Jim Wood, or Bruce Molsky and Brad Leftwich, or Charlie Acuff, or Buddy Spicher, or Hoot Hester.

I should say here that all this business of bow holds, short and long bow strokes, and whether Ed held the fiddle under his chin or not, should never be taken as Scripture. In my own experience, I’ve held the fiddle under my chin, on my arm, on my chest, with all kinds of chin rests, no chin rests, shoulder rests, and used different kinds of bows. (I even used to tape a tin penny nail or two on the bow shaft for weight when I pulled it for long square dances so I wouldn’t have to press down with my index finger.) I’ve bowed heavy, light, long strokes, short strokes, off-string, on-string, and so forth. I’m sure that Ed’s technique — like mine or probably any musician — was constantly changing. What I have tried to document with Ed is who saw him play a certain way, where and when. It’s important to keep that in mind so as to not get lost in the contradictions.