Tag Archives: Big Ugly Creek

Archibald Harrison 3

27 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by in Big Ugly Creek, Civil War, Timber

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In 1865, Harrison married Martha E. Fry, the 21-year-old divorced wife of Lewis “Jupiter” Fry, a Confederate veteran and well-known fiddler in the Big Ugly Creek area of what was then Cabell County. Martha had been born on September 8, 1844 in Logan County. She was the daughter of Daniel H. and Nancy P. (Bailey) Fry, who lived at Big Creek in Logan County and later at the mouth of Big Ugly. One of her brothers, William A. Fry, died as a POW in a Delaware prison camp during the Civil War.

Archibald and Martha had seven children: William T., born April 18, 1867 in Kentucky; Daniel H., born September 29, 1869 in Kentucky; John M., born October 18, 1871; Mary L., born February 19, 1875, died August 7, 1875; George W., born October 10, 1874; Guy French, born June 18, 1876 in Virginia; and Louisa J., born February 1, 1879.

The first 23 years of Harrison’s second marriage are somewhat of a mystery. During the late 1860s, based on the birthplace of his two oldest children, he and his wife lived somewhere in Kentucky and, based on the birthplace of another child, they were in Virginia in the mid-1870s.

In 1878 Harrison settled near the Bend of the River or the mouth of Big Ugly Creek in the Harts Creek District of Lincoln County. His neighbors, based on the 1880 census, were Levi Rakes and Francis Brumfield, as well as brothers-in-law John H. Fry and Sampson S. Brumfield. Samp was a timber boss with a log boom at the mouth of the creek. George Marshall Fry, another brother-in-law, lived up Big Ugly where he worked as a farmer, timberman, and general store clerk.

On July 1, 1882, Harrison bought 360 acres of land on the west side of the Guyandotte River (near the Bend) in the Harts District from James I. Kuhn, a land agent for Abiel A. Low and William H. Aspinwall. It was worth $1.50 per acre and contained a $50 building, presumably a house or business.

“All that certain piece and parcel of land containing 260 acres more or less, granted by the commonwealth of Virginia to Wm. C. Miller & John H. Brumfield, assignees of Richard Elkins and Richard Elkins, May 1, 1850, lying on the Guyandotte above the mouth of Buck Lick branch,” the deed began. “Also all that part of a survey of 700 acres made for John H. Brumfield, Sept. 11th, 1854, on the east fork of Fourteen Mile Creek. The above described tract 100 acres of land is not to conflict with the lands conveyed to James Marcum.”

(The Kuhn deeds are interesting. In most cases, Kuhn, the grantor, was merely “selling” the surface rights to property already owned by the grantee. Kuhn’s employers claimed the mineral rights.)

In 1883, Harrison bought a 120-acre tract of land worth $2.50 per acre at Nine Mile Creek and a 230-acre tract of land worth $1.50 per acre on Phernatt’s Creek (at what would later be known as Brady) from W.T. Thompson. Harrison and his family soon settled on this latter property.

“Archibald B. Harrison is extensively engaged in farming, in Laurel Hill district, owning 380 acres of land on Guyan river, at the mouth of Phernats Creek,” Henry H. Hardesty chronicled in his history of Lincoln County, with “good improvements upon the farm, large orchard, heavily timbered, coal and iron ore in abundance.”

While Harrison referred to himself as a farmer in Hardesty’s history, there is also some indication that he was a timberman.

“The fact Archibald Harrison owned so much land at the mouth of Phernatt’s Creek is a clue that he was in the timber business,” said Harold R. Smith, Lincoln County genealogist and historian, in a c.2003 interview. “That was during the timber boom and land at the mouth of these creeks was heavily sought by people in that line of work. You could build a boom there and charge people a fee to get their logs out of the creek.”

At the time Harrison was profiled in Hardesty’s history, he and his wife were members of the Christian Church and received their mail at Hamlin.

“I don’t think he stayed at Phernatt’s Creek too long,” said Smith. “I think I read or heard somewhere that he moved to Big Ugly or Green Shoal and did a lot of timbering.”

In Search of Ed Haley 217

31 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by in Ed Haley

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As we headed out of Big Ugly, we dropped Eunice and Doska off at their homes and said our “thank yous” and “goodbyes.” Billy suggested leaving the creek by a different route than Green Shoal, so we could see the grave of Ed’s great-great-grandfather, Money Makin’ Sol Mullins. That sounded good to me, I said. Plus, it was such a beautiful day; the extra drive with our windows down would be a nice way to take in all the fresh air and scenery.

We drove out of Big Ugly on a paved road and then over a mountain that dumped us at a gravel road on the Ellis Fork of the North Fork of Big Creek in Boone County. Sol’s grave was a few feet from the road in a weed patch. His headstone read, “SOLOMON MULLINS, FEB 23, 1782  NC – AUG 28, 1858, A GENIUS IN HIS OWN TIME.” Quite an epitaph for a counterfeiter. On the back of the headstone were the names of his sons: Peter (Ed’s ancestor) of Harts Creek, Alexander of Kentucky, Eli of Kentucky and Spencer of Harts. The footstone mentioned his military service and provided conflicting dates from what was given on his headstone: “SOLOMON MULLINS, 16 KY MILITIA, WAR OF 1812, FEB 20, 1782 – AUG 25, 1858.”

His wife’s headstone listed the names of their daughters: Matilda, Jenny, Margaret, and Dicie (Hollena Brumfield’s grandmother).

Back at Billy’s, we pulled out the Fry family history and looked up information on Lewis “Jupiter” Fry (1843-1924), the fiddler Mayme referenced as her father’s favorite.

“Known as Jupiter because he was interested in astronomy, he owned a telescope and predicted the weather to his family and associates,” the history read. “He also owned a typewriter and typed his own contracts. He never hired a lawyer when he was hauled into court, but represented himself and pleaded his own case. Once when he was involved in a feud over his land, he shot a man. The victim survived and Jupiter was not sentenced. He was a tall, thin man who was well-known for his fiery temper. Lewis owned and operated a grocery store at Gill of Lincoln County for many years. He also operated a push boat, running it from Gill to Guyandotte to buy groceries.”

Jupiter’s younger brother Anderson “Durg” Fry (1849-c.1938) was also a fiddler. He married a first cousin, Drusilla Lucas, and lived at Durg Frye Hollow on the Laurel Fork of Big Ugly. Drusilla was a sister to Boney Lucas and a first cousin to George Fry.

“Durg, of average height, was truly a mountaineer, a great hunter who practically stayed in the woods: coon hunting, trapping, hunting ginseng and catching ground hogs,” according to the Fry history. “He sold lots of animal furs, butchered cattle and hogs for others, and also made molasses. He smoked a pipe and chewed tobacco. He had a dog he called ‘Rat,’ and told others that when he died he hoped the Lord gave him back Rat and 1,000 acres for hunting ground. Durg loved to tell stories and relate stories of the past.”

Mayme Ferrell had told us nothing about Leander Fry (1856-c.1896), who seems to have been the best of the family fiddlers. The Fry history simply said that he “could play the violin well,” while the Lambert Collection had mentioned him as “a great fiddler” who “used to come down [the Guyan River to Guyandotte] from Lincoln on timber to play the fiddle.” Billy said his father used to play a tune called “The Ballad of Lee Fry”. Leander’s biography was vague: so far as we could tell, he never married nor had any children.

In Search of Ed Haley 215

27 Friday Dec 2013

Posted by in Big Ugly Creek, Ed Haley

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At Broad Branch, we found that Bill Duty’s old one-story log house was completely gone. We wanted to go to the family cemetery just across the creek and up the hill but didn’t because it was overran with giant weeds.

We were all just kinda hanging out there, crammed in the car, when Doska said, “Milt Ferrell could play a fiddle. He was a first cousin to my daddy.”

Wait a minute — another fiddler? I’d spent quite a bit of time trying to track down the names of the old fiddlers around Harts. All of a sudden, they were falling from the woodwork.

Milt Ferrell — a man related to the Dutys and with the first name of Ed’s father. I said, “Now who was he?”

“Mayme’s daddy,” Eunice said, as if that helped. “Mayme lives down there.”

“She’s bad off,” Doska added. “One of her lungs has collapsed.”

I just had to see this Mayme Ferrell, although I didn’t want to impose on her if she was in poor health.

Nonsense.

Doska and Eunice said she would love the company…and she just lived down the road.

On the way to Mayme’s someone mentioned that she lived at the old Rector Post Office, a settlement from earlier in the century. We soon turned over a little bridge and pulled up to the only structure left in “Rector proper”: Mayme’s incredible two-story log cabin. It was ancient and leaning, with an old cemetery just behind it on the hill. The whole scene was like something from a dream.

We got out of the car and walked up to a small back porch where Eunice pecked at the screen door and hollered, “Mayme? It’s Eunice.”

In no time at all, Mayme Ferrell was peeking back out at us. She was frail, half-blind and hooked to a breathing machine — and very surprised to see us all on her porch with fiddles, cameras, and notebooks.

Mayme invited us on inside where we sat down in the living room and started talking like old friends. She was well acquainted with Eunice and Doska and knew a lot about Billy and Brandon’s families. It was clear after a few minutes of interchange that her life had went beyond school teaching — she was an educated woman of the modern world, who’d spent twelve years in Los Angeles and San Francisco. She got me to play her a few tunes and the next thing I knew she was singing lyrics that she remembered from her childhood, like “Nigger looky here and nigger looky yander. The old gray goose is flirting with the gander.” Or things like: “I had a piece of pie and I had a piece of puddin’. I give it all away for to sleep with Sally Goodin.” Or this: “Old Aunt Sal, if you don’t care I’ll leave my liquor jug sitting right here. If it ain’t here when I come back we’ll raise hell in the Cumberland Gap.”

Eunice remembered “Cluck old hen, cluck and sing. Ain’t laid an egg since way last spring.” Doska said her father Jeff Duty used to play the tune.

I said to Mayme, “So your father was a fiddler? Tell me about him.”

She was immediately nostalgic.

“Daddy was named for a poet, but I don’t think his parents knew it,” she said. “John Milton Ferrell. He was a great guy. He was a wonderful person. My daddy’s people were just easy going. Most of them were musicians. My daddy, he would lead the songs in church. He was a board member for three terms and the last term he was the president of the board. They would meet over at Harts and those Brumfields — I’ll tell you what — most people were afraid to go through there. Charley Brumfield shot his daddy and killed him. His daddy was beating his mother and he made him leave, so I understand, and then when he came back — I guess he was drunk…”

Mayme looked at Brandon and said, “Those Brumfields were rough then, son. Good people. If they liked you they liked you, and if they didn’t you better leave them alone. They were ambitious people. They just got to feuding among themselves, but it wore out after a while. But my daddy was a good friend to all of them. Charley Brumfield would’ve done anything for daddy. They’d get in a poker game after they had their meeting and they’d all drink. Well daddy would come home with a pocket full of money. One time he came home drunk and he couldn’t hang his hat up. Of course, the older children laughed and I cried, but he sang, ‘Hey hey rushin’ the rabbit. Into the brush and then you’ll habit.’ Didn’t say ‘have it.’ I don’t know what they were getting in that brush. He was a very, very humble person and he was witty.”

Milt Ferrell, Mayme said, played the fiddle around election time, at weddings, at schools or on Friday at all-night dances.

“We’d have barn-raisings,” she said. “After they got the roof over the barn and put the second floor in — the floor where you put your fodder and hay — they’d have a barn dancing. They’d dance all night.”

Milt played with the fiddle under his chin, as did Jeff Duty.

Mayme cried when I played one of her father’s tunes, “Over the Waves”.

She said her father’s older brothers Clinton Ferrell and Fulton Ferrell were also fiddlers. Clint was the smoothest fiddler in the family but would only occasionally pick up Milt’s fiddle and play “Mississippi Sawyer”. Their cousin Jim Lucas was also good.

“Uncle Jim was an excellent fiddler,” she said. “He didn’t jiggle. A real smooth player.”

She didn’t recall any banjos or mandolins on Big Ugly in the old days, although her brother-in-law Clarence Lambert was a great guitarist (“as good as Chet Atkins”) who played Hawaiian music and tunes like “Guitar Rag”.

In Search of Ed Haley 214

21 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by in Big Ugly Creek, Ed Haley

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A few days later, Brandon and I left the festival and headed toward Charleston and on to Harts via Corridor G and Boone County. We reached Harts around three in the morning and parked the bus at the local Fas Chek near a fire station and bridge. Brandon’s uncle Ron Lucas, the manager of the store, had given us permission to park there. The next morning, Billy Adkins met us at the bus and we decided to see Doska Adkins, a woman of advanced age and granddaughter of Bill Duty. Maybe Doska would know about Milt Haley living with her grandfather, who had settled on nearby Big Ugly Creek.

In no time at all, Brandon, Billy and I were charging over Green Shoal Mountain talking genealogy and well on our way to Big Ugly country.

About twenty minutes later, we turned off of the main road into Fawn Hollow and began climbing a rocky driveway toward Doska’s house. We soon spotted Doska cutting brush out near her yard. She was a small-framed woman crowned with a tuft of white hair, having every bit the appearance of “the helpless old widow” — barring the machete in her hand, of course. I could tell right away that things were about to get interesting.

We followed Doska into her home, stepping quickly past a barking dog tied up on her porch. Inside, on the living room wall we spotted a mass of more than forty bushy squirrel tales hanging together in a pattern, which she said were her hunting trophies for the season. Sensing our interest in such things, she showed us a stuffed squirrel that she herself had killed, stuffed and mounted onto a small log. Before we could really ask her anything about Milt Haley, she told us all about how to pickle squirrels for later eating, then opened a desk drawer full of snake rattlers…more trophies.

It took us a few minutes to sit down and actually focus on the reason for our visit. When I told Doska about my interest in Ed’s life, she said he used to stay with her father, Jeff Duty. It didn’t take him long to get familiar with a place, she said, and he couldn’t be fooled with paper money.

“How often would he come there to stay?” I asked.

She said, “Well, I don’t know how often. If I was around, I was real little. I don’t remember him but I’ve heard Daddy talk about him.”

Brandon asked Doska, “Did your dad and Ed play music together?” and she said, “Yeah.”

We wondered what songs Jeff Duty played.

“They was one he played on the fiddle that I thought was real pretty,” Doska said. “I think he called that the ’11th of January’ and he’d play a while and then he’d pick a piece in it. Yeah, man he used to sit on the porch of an evening down yonder where I was raised and play for us.”

Brandon asked, “Was your dad considered the best fiddler up around this part?”

Doska said, “He was pretty good and he could play a banjo, too.”

I asked if her grandfather Bill Duty ever talked about Milt Haley and she said, “No, all of my grandparents was dead before I was born. See, I was born in 1917 and I never seen nary one of my grandparents. Mommy used to have a picture of my grandpaw but I don’t know what happened to it.”

Billy asked her, “Was Ed Haley any relation to you at all?”

“No, he’d just come through here — I don’t know why — and he liked to stay at my daddy’s,” she answered. “Didn’t matter who come through this country. If they’d ask to stay all night somewhere they’d say, ‘You can go to old man Duty’s and stay all night.’”

Of course, knowing what we knew about Milt and the Dutys it seemed likely that Ed came around Jeff for reasons more than his hospitality. As Bill Duty’s son and a fiddler, he would’ve been an excellent source on Milt — the father Ed never really knew.

Doska said her grandfather Duty’s home was no longer standing on Broad Branch but I wanted to see the site anyway. (It was, after all, very possibly the place where Milt settled with the Duty family in the early 1880s.) We asked Doska to accompany us but she said she looked awful; she had been cutting brush all day, she said, and wasn’t dressed to go anywhere. After a while, though, we persuaded her to go with us.

On the way to Broad Branch, Billy suggested that we stop and see 89-year-old Eunice Ferrell. Eunice had settled on the creek years ago and married a son of the Tom Ferrell mentioned in “The Lincoln County Crew”. She was a very friendly Mormon, slumped over with age. I told her I was interested in “Blind Ed Haley,” an old fiddler from Harts Creek, and she said she didn’t know about him. Her father-in-law had been a fiddler, though. She knew something about Tom’s trouble with the Butchers.

“They said they was in a card game and this man was trying to run the horse over him,” she said. “And he killed him but he got out of it.”

We told Eunice that we were going to see the old Duty place on Broad Branch if she wanted to go and she was all for it. We helped her into the car and took off.

Along the way, I stopped the car so Doska could point out her father’s home — the place where Ed used to stay. Brandon said some “hippie-types” from a big city had moved into the place several years ago.

“Michael Tierney lives there now,” Eunice said. “He’s a lawyer. Catholic man. He’s a good neighbor.”

We were having a blast.

“I’m glad I come,” Eunice said.

In Search of Ed Haley 210

12 Thursday Dec 2013

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In the end, suspect or not, Runyon may have felt safe to comment on the feud since he was a man of the badge. If so however, he learned the error of that line of thinking once the Ferrell-Butcher trouble erupted on nearby Big Ugly Creek in January of 1890. (Its events were eventually merged with those of the Haley-McCoy trouble in the song “The Lincoln County Crew”.) The Logan newspaper covered this event:

Albert Butcher, who was shot by Tom Ferrell near Deal’s grocery in Lincoln county, Dec. 31st, died Friday morning last. The latest report we have says that Butcher and Ferrell had been drinking and playing cards all day for a pair of pants, and there was a dispute over $1.50. Butcher got the pants and got on his horse and started home, when Ferrell caught his horse by the bridle and demanded his pants or $1.50. Butcher got down off of his horse and the shooting was done immediately. One report says that Butcher attacked Ferrell with his knife and cut one of his fingers and wounded him in the breast. Another report says that Butcher only made Ferrell loose his bridles. Dr. Hudgins, of this place, was called and operated on Butcher, and it appears that the ball, which was a .38-calibre, had entered the abdomen 1/2 inch to the right and 1/2 inch below the navel, making five wounds in the intestines. The abdominal wall was opened, the fecol matter and blood worked out, the wounds in the intestines entered, and every thing done to save the life of the patient. Dr. Hudgins is a skilled surgeon, but in this case no skill could save.

Not long after Butcher’s death — and this is the part that would’ve had a sobering effect on Deputy-Sheriff John Runyon — a mob of Logan County Butchers went to retrieve Ferrell at the county jail and carry out mob justice. The Lambert Collection offered a great eyewitness account of their “raid” on Hamlin:

There was a saloon, but I can’t recall whose it was. I saw many men and two women stagger out of it while we were there [in Hamlin]. The occasion of the drunk women was when the Butcher mob came down from Big Ugly to take Tom Ferrell out of the jail and hang him for the shooting of one of the Butcher family. Tom Ferrell was just a boy about 20 yrs. of age. He had a difficulty of some kind with one of the Butchers, and to protect his own life had shot the man. Ferrell then came to Hamlin and gave himself up. The jailor Andrew Chapman locked him in a cell for safe-keeping for they realized there would be plenty of future trouble. Sure enough in a day or so the mob came riding into town. The mob was led by Capt. Butcher and two women were along. All had shiny guns on their shoulder. They rode up the street past our house to the jail that stood behind the court house, but when they got to the jail the prisoner was gone.

A Mr. Duty told me that his father then lived on Big Ugly Creek where Mr. Ferrell lived and knew all the circumstances of the killing. He heard of the Butcher plan to hang young Ferrell, so he mounted his horse and started to Hamlin to warn the jailor to protect Ferrell. He rode his horse so hard that it fell dead and he got another horse and rode it hard, but got to Hamlin before the mob did. The jailor at once turned Ferrell out and told him to run to the woods for his life. The jailor’s brother, John Chapman, lived with him and helped care for the prisoners, so he told John to go too, and to run. Word, by way of wireless, was circulated that John and Ferrell struck for the woods with John taking the lead by many yards. He was running for his life, too.

When the mob rode into town, the street was soon empty, for everybody took to cover, and stayed out of sight for the two or three days that the mob hung around. They stayed at the Long House, the other hotel in Hamlin, but it was close to the Campbell House. In fact there was just an empty lot between the two, for it was on the same side of the street.

The mob made many trips up and down the street from the hotel to the saloon and then on a little farther to the jail. They always went as soldiers with their shiny guns on their shoulders. Most of them staggered after they made their first trip to the saloon, and the men always had to keep the women from falling. They stayed so drunk. After two or three days they left as suddenly as they had come, and then John and Tom Ferrell came back to the jail. Ferrell was tried in court and found innocent by way of self defense. Mr. Duty told me that Mr. Ferrell was always in fear of his life after that. He was postmaster at Dolly in Lincoln County, but he lived a miserable life, and in constant fear. They said that Mr. Ferrell was a good and honorable man, and was not to blame for the deed that left him an unhappy man.

Surely, Runyon was horrified to witness this whole fiasco. If a mob could take over the county seat and march through town sloshed and armed with weapons, how safe was he — a mere deputy-sheriff — in isolated Harts?

In Search of Ed Haley 198

16 Saturday Nov 2013

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After visiting with Ida, Billy directed us to Maude Duty, who lived on Big Ugly Creek. Born in 1905, Maude was a daughter of John E. Fry, a longtime justice-of-the-peace in the district, and a niece to Tucker Fry, one-time occupant of the “murder house.” At the time of our visit, Maude was bed-fast, physically feeble, and near death. She hadn’t seen Billy for a few years but soon remembered him and began to whisper answers to his questions concerning the murder house and her husband’s family, the Dutys. She agreed with Billy that the murder of Milt and Green had taken place at her Uncle Tucker’s house at the mouth of Green Shoal. She didn’t know anything about Milt living with Bill Duty but remembered that Ed Haley visited him fairly often on Broad Branch. She said she used to dance to his fiddling when he came to her father’s home.

It was a small but crucial bit of information indicating a strong connection between Ed, Milt, and the Duty family that went beyond the 1870 census.

In Search of Ed Haley 194

11 Monday Nov 2013

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I asked Billy about Bill Duty. We had found Milt living with Duty’s family in an 1870 Logan County census and knew from reading an interview with his son in the Lambert Collection that his family settled on Big Ugly Creek in the early 1880s. Billy turned us loose with his Duty notebook, where we soon located his notes on the family of “William Marshall Duty” (1838-c.1910). He said the family originally came to the area looking for work in timber. In 1900 and 1910, Bill Duty lived on the Broad Branch of Big Ugly Creek. We could find no apparent “blood connection” between him and Milt Haley but his wife Emma Ferrell was a great-granddaughter of Money Makin’ Sol Mullins (Ed’s great-great-grandfather). It was a seemingly distant family connection that might have played a part in Milt’s choice of Emma Mullins for a wife. Billy said we should talk with Maude Duty, a widow of one of Bill Duty’s grandsons, for more information along those lines.

That night, after hours of watching Billy and Brandon shuffle through genealogy books, census records and notebooks filled with handwriting, I realized just how difficult it would be to familiarize myself with all the characters and family relationships in the story of Milt Haley’s death. While I had little chance to memorize them, I made the effort to at least document them because they seemed to help explain a lot about Milt’s story. There were other things, of course, to mix into the blend, such as grudges, hatreds, and dislikes.

There was another important reason for documenting the genealogy: knowing how people were connected to each other helped me to objectively weigh in any slant in their stories (whether intentional or not). For instance, if I were talking to a nephew of “Uncle Al Brumfield,” I would probably get a somewhat complimentary account of his character; but if I were talking to someone whose family had feuded with him, comments might be less than flattering. It seemed obvious, then, that who I talked to, their genealogical connection to who they spoke of, where I talked to them, in whose company I talked to them, and what exactly they said (or didn’t say) were all important to note.

George W. Ferrell 1

25 Friday Oct 2013

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Around the turn of the century, in the years just prior to the arrival of the C&O Railroad in the Guyandotte Valley, George W. Ferrell, a musician in present-day Ferrellsburg, busily wrote songs about local personalities and events. Today, Ferrell’s solitary grave is marked with an ornate tombstone that sits at the edge of what was, until recent years, a garden.

George W. Ferrell was born on October 10, 1874 to Archibald B. and Martha E. (Fry) Harrison. Archibald was the son of Guy P. and Cleme (Harmon) Harrison of Tazewell County, Virginia. Mary was the daughter of Daniel H. and Nancy P. (Bailey) Fry of Logan County. Ferrell’s birthplace is not known because, soon after his parents married in 1865, they left the area, settling at first in Kentucky and then elsewhere.

In 1878, George, then four years old, returned to Lincoln County with his parents. In 1880, his family lived near the mouth of Big Ugly Creek or at the “Bend,” just across the Guyandotte River. Shortly thereafter, they made their home at Phernatt’s Creek, further downriver in Laurel Hill District.

By 1889, Ferrell’s father — who was perhaps recently divorced from his mother — had sold all of the family property in Harts Creek District and at Phernatt’s Creek and relocated to Nine Mile Creek.

Details concerning Ferrell’s early life remain elusive. It is not known who influenced him musically or when he even started writing or playing music. There is no indication of his father or mother being musicians but his mother’s first husband, Jupiter Fry, was a well-known fiddler on Big Ugly. Some of his first songs may have been inspired by his father’s stories of the Civil War.

At some point in his young life, and for reasons unknown, Ferrell was adopted by Keenan and Arena Ferrell, a childless couple at Ferrellsburg in Lincoln County.

“I heard he was just a big old boy when the Ferrells took him in,” said Don McCann, current owner of the property surrounding Ferrell’s grave. “They didn’t have any children of their own.”

In the 1900 Lincoln County Census, Ferrell was listed as their 25-year-old adopted son. More than likely, he was assisting the Ferrells in the operation of their store and business interests.

It is easy to see how Ferrell would have become acquainted with his future foster parents.

“His father worked a lot of timber around Big Ugly or Green Shoal,” said Harold R. Smith, Lincoln County genealogist and historian. “And that would have put him in close contact with the Ferrells at Ferrellsburg.”

But why was he not living with his mother (wherever she was), who died in 1901, or his maternal grandmother, who was alive on Big Ugly? And what was his connection to the Ferrells?

In Search of Ed Haley 181

14 Monday Oct 2013

Posted by in Big Sandy Valley, Big Ugly Creek, Ed Haley

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We next looked at Logan County census records, where Milt Haley appeared in 1870 as “T. Milton Haley,” aged 13, living with a Bill Duty on Rich Creek in the Tug Valley. Duty’s home in Hardee District was relatively far away from the Harts area. Ten years later, in 1880, there was no trace of Milt or Duty anywhere in West Virginia, indicating that they may have lived outside the state at that time.

Had they moved together across the Tug into Kentucky?

We got back in the Lambert Collection for help…and found a circa-1934 interview with Jeff Duty, Bill Duty’s son.

At the time of the interview, Jeff was living at Dollie, a now extinct post office on Big Ugly Creek just upriver and over Green Shoal Mountain from Harts. He didn’t mention Milt Haley but gave a great account of his family story:

Grandfathers both came from Russell County, Virginia. Grandfather Geo. Duty came to Pigeon Creek in what is now Mingo County, before the Civil War. Grandfather James Ferrell settled on Big Creek, Logan County before the Civil War. Grandmother Duty was a Jackson and Grandmother Ferrell was a Fields.

Father was born in what is now Mingo County, and volunteered in 1861 as a Confederate. My father, William Duty, was in Gettysburg and Fort Donelson battles. They fought here seven days and seven nights. He was twice wounded. Father Wm. Duty lived in Mingo until fifty-one years ago, when he moved to Big Ugly, Lincoln County [around 1883]. When we moved to Big Ugly there were only three houses from Broad Branch, which is about one-half the length of Big Ugly to the head of Big Ugly, and now there are about two hundred. Big Ugly is nineteen miles long. There were plenty of deer, wild cats, coons, &c. when my father came. Wolves were here for about fifteen years after we came. Tom Ferrell killed the last deer killed about here about forty-five years ago.

My father was a rather big farmer for this part of the country, raising 1,000 bushels of corn a year, and always raising wheat. He had the first “chaff Piler” threshing machine brought in. It took about twelve horses to pull it. When it came on the first trip, my mother had about twenty geese in the yard, and when they heard it they took to the woods and did not come back for three or four days. My father had six children: John lived on Broad Branch, Lincoln County; Jeff here at Dollie; Phidelia Vernatter-Chapman lives in Boone County; Annie Steele lives in Logan County; George lives within three miles of Hurricane, Putnam County; Martha lives in Logan; she married Queen. My father, Wm. Duty, was the man who rode a $150.00 horse to death to save Tom Ferrell, who was in jail, in Hamlin, about 1889, for killing a man named Butcher, from a mob of Butcher relatives. Tom Ferrell is my cousin.

I am sixty-seven. I have eleven children, of whom three are dead: Alva, Lula, Stonewall, Solomon, Vernonda, Thos. Jefferson, Lee, Musco, Ira, Doska, Maggie. Mrs. Duty was Betty Pauley; her people came from Virginia. “Tiger Bill” Pauley was her father.

Big Ugly Creek was active in teens

24 Tuesday Sep 2013

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Some one hundred years ago, Big Ugly Creek was a busy place. The county newspaper reported weekly on local events, mostly through correspondents who used such names as “Bobby,” “Rex,” “Blue Eyes,” and “Whistler” to inform readers of small but important news events. The timber industry, spear-headed by B. Johnson & Son of Richmond, Indiana, generated the most news, although other timber operations of a lesser size, such as Nelson-Brumfield-Shelton, also appeared in the newspaper.

“Bernie Ward, an employee of the Nelson-Shelton-Brumfield saw mill, got his right hand in some of the machinery early Monday morning and the member was badly lacerated,” the Lincoln Republican reported on December 21, 1911. “Dr. Hallanan dressed the wound.”

Timbering was dangerous business, and workers often made the news when they were injured or killed on the job.

“Floyd Payne was severely injured last Friday by a log rolling on him,” the Republican reported on October 12, 1911. “The fact that he was in the creek and the sand being somewhat quickey saved his life; he was thought to be dead when the log was rolled off of him, but he has since rallied and it is now thought that he may recover.”

It was a hard life for timber men, yet they occasionally found time for sports.

“An interesting game of ball was played on the Midkiff diamond Sunday between Midkiff and Leet, the score standing 8 to 4 in Midkiff’s favor in the sixth inning, when the game was called on account of rain,” the Republican reported on June 29, 1911. “Charley Pullen, the famous Morris Harvey twirler, pitched for Leet, while B. McComas was on the firing line for Midkiff. Walter Scites of the Hamlin team played short for Midkiff.”

Progress accompanied timber. Worth noting was the arrival of telephone service on the creek.

“The Citizens Telephone company is now stringing wire along Big Ugly,” the Republican wrote on December 21, 1911. “The new line will be open for business by the first of the year. Squire Spurlock is putting in the line.”

In addition to the daily goings-on of timber and the modernization of the creek, the county newspaper also wrote briefly on the progress of schools.

“Miss Lottie Lucas is teaching a good school at Leet,” the Republican wrote on October 12, 1911. “Miss Dollie Toney is teaching a very satisfactory school at the Toney school house. Clark Lucas is wielding the rod with good results at the Lefthand branch school house.”

The rural mail carriers were also men of importance in those days, worthy of mention in the newspaper.

“James P. Ferrell who is 76 years old carries the mail from Gill to Rector, 6 times a week and is always on time,” according to the Republican on October 12, 1911. “James Ferrell is yet very feeble but is improved somewhat,” the paper wrote in July of the following year. “For almost a quarter of a century Mr. Ferrell has been a mail carrier in Lincoln county. Albert Ferrell, his son, carries the mail at present.”

There were occasional oddities in local news, such as when the paper reported on the medicinal qualities of a local spring.

“The water at the Big Sulphur Springs above here is said to possess splendid medicinal properties and Huntington parties during the past week took some of it away for analysis,” the Republican wrote on July 25, 1912. “It is especially beneficial in affections of the stomach and kidneys.”

Birth records were on oft-reported bit of news in those times.

“Born: To Bruce Wheeler and wife a 10 pound son,” the Republican wrote on July 25, 1912. “A stillborn child came to the home of Lee Toney and wife last Friday.”

It was a matter of great concern when residents moved away from the creek.

“Charley B. Brumfield and family, who have resided at Big Branch of Big Ugly for many years, have moved to the McComas farm near Bradyville,” the Republican reported on December 7, 1911. “Their departure has caused general regret among their many friends at the place.”

In those days, sickness was a regular problem for local residents.

“Mrs. Squire Toney narrowly escaped death from blood poison last week but she is improving nicely now,” the Republican wrote on October 12, 1911. “Mrs. John Brumfield has been ill with stomach trouble,” the paper wrote later in December.

Accidents in daily life were also frequent in those days.

“Ossie, the 9 year old son of Jim Mullin, while playing in a sled with other lads at the school house below, met with an accident and sustained a fracture of the leg,” according to the Republican on December 21, 1911. “Dr. Hallahan set the broken bones.”

Death was treated with great sensitivity.

“Burley, the thirteen year old son of Chas. Lucas and wife, died last Wednesday, after a brief illness from a peculiar ailment,” the Republican wrote on December 7, 1911. “A day or so before his death he began to lose the use of the muscles of his arms and legs.” That same day, the paper reported: “Mr. and Mrs. Dutch Smith have the sympathy of the entire community in the death of their one year old son.”

“Grover, the 3 year old child of Al Nelson, of Pigeon Roost, fell in the fire place at his home while his parents were absent last Wednesday,” according to the Republican on December 21, 1911. “The little fellow was horribly burned about the abdomen and breast and died Saturday as a result of the horrible burns.”

Funerals were often preached months after a person was buried.

“The funeral of W.R. Duty, who died about a year ago, was preached last Sunday near Rector, by Rev. Chapman. There was a large crowd from all over the county, and a big dinner was served on the ground,” the Republican wrote on October 12, 1911.

 

B. Johnson & Son

17 Tuesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Big Ugly Creek, Timber

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One hundred years ago, one of the largest tie and timber firms in the nation came to Big Ugly Creek and changed it forever.

Around 1907, B. Johnson & Son of Richmond, Ind. bought several tracts of land on Big Ugly and soon established an extensive tie and lumber business.

B. Johnson & Son was headquartered at Leet, a lumber center at the mouth of Laurel Fork. It built a huge saw mill on large rocks. Nearby was a pond where logs were cleaned before sawing. There was also a row of houses called Stringtown.

T.J. Bolin of Huntington was superintendent of 250 men who worked at the mill. D.P. Crockett was the company doctor, while Jesse Hobbs was the saw filer.

Within a few years, B. Johnson & Son constructed a narrow gauge of railroad called the Guyan, Big Ugly & Coal River Railway (GBU & CRR), which extended ten miles from Gill, at the mouth of Big Ugly, to the head of Laurel Fork.

“There was a small train that used to run up and down this creek,” said the late Adam Adkins of Leet. “My wife’s father used to run it.”

B. Johnson & Son was big news in its hey-day. The county newspaper reported its weekly doings. noting especially when workers were hurt or killed.

“Joe Dodson, 25 years of age, and unmarried who was employed at the logging camp of Stewart May at the B. Johnson and Son’s works on Big Ugly Creek, was so terribly injured Saturday evening that he died the following morning,” according to the Lincoln Republican on November 3, 1910. “Dodson had a team of cattle pulling a heavy log and the latter in some way slipped in the snow that had just fallen and caught Dodson, knocking him down. The log was dragged over his left side and leg, mutilating the flesh of the member in a horrible manner and producing the fatal internal injuries.”

In the summer of 1911, B. Johnson & Son was occupied with extending the GBU & CRR into the head of Big Ugly. B. Spears was in charge of the project.

“The G.B.U. & C.R.R. is completed to Rector Postoffice,” the Republican reported on October 12, 1911.

Meanwhile, the mill experienced periodic setbacks.

“The big saw mill of the Johnson Tie Co. has shut down for a few days, the drive belt having given away,” the Republican noted in a less dramatic story on October 12.

That winter, work slowed down on the railroad, as it only extended one mile beyond Rector by December.

At that time, there was a change in the accounting staff at B. Johnson & Son.

“Lester Defibaugh, who has been the efficient bookkeeper at the B. Johnson & Son’s plant here for over a year has tendered his resignation to accept a place in a business house at Lynn, Indiana,” the Republican reported on December 21. “Henderson Davis, who has been keeping books on Upton, is here to take Defibaugh’s place.”

During the Christmas season of 1911, according to newspaper reports, B. Johnson & Son gave its employees a four-day holiday to spend time with family.

Work on the railroad continued at a snail’s pace.

“The new branch of the Guyan, Big Ugly and Coal River Railway has reached a point near the Big Sulphur Spring up Big Ugly,” according to the Republican. “The work is progressing very slowly now.”

By the following summer, things were in full swing at B. Johnson & Son.

“There are now ten logging jobs at the B. Johnson & Son timber shop above here but they have not yet succeeded in keeping the mill at Leet running every day,” the Republican reported on July 25. “Quite a force of men are in these camps.”

The railroad extension was nearing completion.

“The Big Ugly railroad has been extended three miles above this place and work is progressing nicely. The road will be built one mile further.”

Then, early one August morning, just as things were really chugging along, a terrible fire destroyed the mill at B. Johnson & Son.

“A very disastrous fire broke out about 6 o’clock Saturday morning at the big saw mill of B. Johnson and Son,” the Republican reported on Thursday, August 22. “Sam Peyton, the night watchman, was getting ready to go off duty when he noticed a tiny blaze shooting up from a point midway in the mill. He ran tot he place and prepared to get the fire apparatus about the plant in working order but the fire spread so rapidly over the inflammable stuff about the establishment that Peyton pulled the alarm whistle and then fled from the approaching blaze.”

Thereafter, Superintendent Bolin organized 100 men — the “Bucket Brigade” — to fight the fire using water from the nearby creek.

“Superintendent Bolin got a force of a hundred men to save the valuable lumber on the yard adjacent to the mill and covering some acres. The several ‘Dinky engines’ threw water on the blaze and this with a bucket brigade of scores of men worked for two hours and were finally successful in getting the conflagration under control.”

According to the Republican, Superintendent Bolin had no idea of the loss but speculated that it was near $20,000.

“The mill, one of the largest in this section, is a total loss. $2,000 worth of saws were virtually destroyed and nothing about the mill was saved.”

Fortunately, B. Johnson & Son carried insurance on the property. The company hired Bill Bench of Huntington to rebuild the mill.

In subsequent months, there were minor setbacks for B. Johnson & Son, such as the New Year’s Day train wreck.

“On New Year day the dinky engine, No. 618, on Big Ugly wrecked and had to have engine No. 944 to pull her back on the track,” the Republican reported. “No damage was done.”

By January of 1913, work was completed on the new sawmill, prompting the Republican to happily write, “The big band mill belonging to B. Johnson & Son has gone sawing. The new machinery works fine. The log train will get down to business in a short time as the new mill will whittle lots of logs.”

In that same month, Dr. Skelton replaced Dr. Crockett as the company doctor.

Around 1917, B. Johnson & Son left Big Ugly.

“I was still a little girl when the mill pulled out,” said the late Lula Adkins of Leet. “They tore down the houses at Stringtown and just left here.”