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Brandon Ray Kirk

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Brandon Ray Kirk

Tag Archives: Billy Adkins

Bob and Nora Brumfield Home in Harts, Lincoln County, WV (1991)

08 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Boone County, Harts

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Appalachia, Billy Adkins, board of education, Bob Brumfield, Boone County, Caroline Brumfield, Charley Brumfield, Columbus Lum Pack, Corbit Brumfield, genealogy, Harts, history, Lincoln County, Nora Brumfield, photos, teacher, Victoria Pack, West Madison, West Virginia

Robert & Nora Brumfield Home

Bob and Nora (Pack) Brumfield residence in Harts, Lincoln County, WV. Bob (1893-1969), a son of Charley and Caroline (Dingess) Brumfield, served as a member of the district board of education in the early 1900s. Nora (1896-1964), the daughter of Lum and Victoria (Lambert) Pack, was a longtime teacher in the Harts community. I used to visit their son Corbit Brumfield at West Madison, Boone County, WV. Photo courtesy of Bill Adkins.

Watson Adkins, Jr. Residence in Harts, WV (1991)

09 Sunday Dec 2018

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Harts

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Appalachia, Billy Adkins, Harts, history, Lincoln County, photos, Watson Adkins Jr., West Virginia

June Watson Residence 111.JPG

Photo courtesy of Billy Adkins of Harts, WV. 1991.

Salt Rock Petroglyphs (2018)

23 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Native American History, Salt Rock

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Appalachia, Billy Adkins, Brandon Kirk, Cabell County, Dave Vance, Fraulein Adkins, history, Native American History, Native Americans, petroglyphs, photos, Salt Rock Petroglyphs, West Virginia

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Petroglyphs…down below! Salt Rock, Cabell County, WV. 18 March 2018. For more information about West Virginia petroglpyhs, follow this link: https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/1844

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Making our way down to the petroglyphs… 18 March 2018.

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Billy Adkins carefully exploring the petroglyphs. 18 March 2018. For more info, follow this link: https://www.theclio.com/web/entry?id=22877

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Billy Adkins looking over the petroglyphs. 18 March 2018.

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“Alien” petroglyph. 18 March 2018.

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“Alien” petroglyph. 18 March 2018.

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Petroglyphs just below me. 18 March 2018. Photo by Fraulein Adkins.

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These petroglyphs are one of the most impressive Native American sites located in southwestern West Virginia. 18 March 2018. Photo by Fraulein Adkins.

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Billy Adkins. 18 March 2018.

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My favorite: the “alien” petroglyph. 18 March 2018. Photo by Fraulein Adkins.

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Petroglyph crew: Dave Vance, Billy Adkins, and Fraulein Adkins. 18 March 2018.

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Our guide: Dave Vance. 18 March 2018.

 

Hezekiah Adkins (1759-1842)

04 Tuesday Jul 2017

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Cemeteries, Giles County, Harts, Native American History

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Tags

American Revolution, Appalachia, Beech Fork, Beech Fork State Park, Billy Adkins, Brandon Kirk, cemeteries, Continental Line, genealogy, Giles County, Harts, Hezekiah Adkins, Hezekiah Adkins Cemetery, history, Isaac Adkins, John Lucas, Lincoln County, Missionary Baptist, Molly Adkins, Montgomery County, Native Americans, New River, photos, preacher, Revolutionary War, Ronnie Adkins, tourism, Virginia, Wayne County, West Virginia, Winslow

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In 1990, Ronnie Adkins published THE definitive Adkins genealogy book. A great many researchers appreciated his work on Hezekiah Adkins’ line of the family. Hezekiah Adkins was born in 1759 in Virginia, served in the American Revolutionary War, moved from Giles County, Virginia, to present-day Wayne County, West Virginia, about 1810, and died in 1842. His grave markers are yet visible at Winslow on Beech Fork in Wayne County, WV. If you visit the grave site, you will find Hezekiah Adkins buried on the left and his wife Mary “Molly” buried on the right (unlike in this photo). Any Adkins researcher owes a great debt to Ronnie Adkins and his book. THANK YOU, RONNIE.

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Here is a photo of my good friend and mentor Billy Adkins visiting the grave site in 1991. Years ago, Billy assisted Ronnie in gathering information about members of the Adkins family who settled in the Harts area of Lincoln County, WV.

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Here is Hezekiah’s grave as it appears today (left). His wife Molly is buried to the right.

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Hezekiah Adkins is my paternal great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather through his son, Isaac Adkins (1790-1854).

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Here is Molly Adkins’ grave as it appears today. She is my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother.

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Hezekiah Adkins has a nice military marker positioned at his feet.

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I recently visited Hezekiah Adkins’ grave. 30 June 2017.

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A short distance from the cemetery, beside of the highway, is this great historical marker commemorating Hezekiah Adkins’ service in the Revolutionary War. Beech Fork State Park is less than five minutes away. 30 June 2017.

Interview with Frank Hill of Big Creek, WV (2004) 3

22 Monday May 2017

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Banco, Big Creek

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Annie Elizabeth Hill, Appalachia, Ashland, Big Creek, Big Ugly Creek, Billy Adkins, Boone County, Brandon Kirk, Chapmanville, dairy, education, Edward Hill, Ellis Fork, Frank Hill, genealogy, general store, Green McNeely, history, Kentucky, Logan, North Fork, notary public, Sandy Valley Grocery Company, tobacco, U.S. Army, West Virginia, World War II

On June 2, 2004, Billy Adkins and I visited Frank Hill. Mr. Hill, a retired farmer, bus driver, and store keeper, made his home on Ellis Fork of North Fork of Big Creek in Boone County, West Virginia. Born in 1923, he was the son of Edward W. and Annie Elizabeth (Stollings) Hill. Billy and I were interested in hearing about Mr. Hill’s Fowler ancestry and anything he wanted to share about his own life. We greatly enjoyed our visit. What follows is a partial transcript of our interview:

STORE BUSINESS

My brother started a store. There wasn’t no money in circulation when he started that store. He took a government loan for $100 and he got in touch with Sandy Valley Grocery Company in Ashland, Kentucky, and he invested that $100 and it give him enough stock to start with. Pinto beans at that time was $3.50 per hundred and he bagged them up in five pound bags and sold them for five cents. That was slow money but he made a go of it. Then he got drafted in the army and he turned it over to Mom and Dad and they took care of it for so many years. You know, my dad didn’t have a bit of education. He couldn’t even sign his name. But he clerked in that store and he could make change better than somebody with a calculator.

EARLY JOBS AND WAR

I started growing tobacco and when I was 19 I got drafted in the Army and I stayed a spell there. And the government was letting farmers that was pretty good producers go home. They needed food worse than they did soldiers at that time. That was about 1943. So I got to come home. I had an awful sick dad, too, and that was part of the reason. And I was the last one of three boys – two of them was already overseas. And all of that had a bearing on letting me out, I guess. I never went overseas. My company left about the time they released me.

Note: Electricity came about 1945.

MARRIAGE

I got married at Logan. We went in there and bought our license and the county clerk was Green McNeely. I said, “Could you tell me where there’s a preacher that would marry her and me?” He said, “Step around here behind the counter. I’m a preacher and also a clerk.”

STORE BUSINESS

We run it about fifteen years. We sold groceries. At one time, I had general merchandise. If you wanted any kind of hardware – wires, nails, anything like that – I could get it out of Huntington. People come there from Big Ugly across the mountain and carry their groceries back. That was the only store that was very close unless you went to Chapmanville or Madison.

That store was my wife’s project really. I worked away. I drove a bus 27 years, I think it was, in Boone County. I applied for a job to contract that hollow. I furnished my own bus, gas and everything. I done that for four year and a half and then they put me on the big yellow bus but I never got any credit for them four years and a half toward my pension. I thought they should have paid me for that because I met all the requirements that other drivers did and my bus had to be inspected, too.

I farmed and growed tobacco all them years. We had a dairy, too. We milked cows by hand and bottled it up and sold it in Chapmanville house by house. I’ve served as a notary public for Boone County for three terms – ten year each time under a different governor. And I’ve served on the farm committee for more than forty-seven years and I’ll not run no more as far as I know.

Interview with Frank Hill of Big Creek, WV (2004) 2

20 Saturday May 2017

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Banco, Big Creek, Boone County, Ed Haley, Music

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Albert Stone, Annie Elizabeth Hill, Appalachia, Big Creek, Billy Adkins, Boone County, Brandon Kirk, California, Carlos Clark, Chapmanville High School, Church of Christ, Civilian Conservation Corps, Ed Haley, education, Edward W. Hill, Ellis Fork, fiddler, fiddling, Frank Hill, genealogy, Great Depression, guitar, Hell Among the Heffers, history, Huntington, Johnny Hager, Lloyd Ellis, Logan, Logan County, Madison, Melvin White, North Fork, Pope Dial, Pure Oil Company, Seymour Ellis, Six Mile Creek, square dances, Stone School, tobacco, Vernon Mullins, Walter Fowler, West Virginia, Whitman Creek

On June 2, 2004, Billy Adkins and I visited Frank Hill. Mr. Hill, a retired farmer, bus driver, and store keeper, made his home on Ellis Fork of North Fork of Big Creek in Boone County, West Virginia. Born in 1923, he was the son of Edward W. and Annie Elizabeth (Stollings) Hill. Billy and I were interested in hearing about Mr. Hill’s Fowler ancestry and anything he wanted to share about his own life. We greatly enjoyed our visit. What follows is a partial transcript of our interview:

FRANK HILL

I was born April 22, 1923 up the Ellis Fork Road. When I was born there, we had a four-room Jenny Lind house. It was an old-timer: double fireplace that burned coal and wood, you know. My mother had eleven children and I was the last one. When she saw me, she give up.

EDUCATION

I went to the Stone School, a one-room school just up Ellis Fork. My wife’s grandpa, Albert Stone, gave them land to build this school. It wasn’t a big lot – it might have been 300 feet square. We played ball there in the creek. We didn’t have much dry ground. Well, I went through the 8th grade around there. Arithmetic was my best subject. I had good handwriting, too. I thought I could go into the 9th at Chapmanville but they wouldn’t let me. They said I hadn’t took this test you were supposed to take as you left the 8th grade.

I walked a mile and six-tenths to school. We’d had bad teachers. They couldn’t get no control over the students. Dad got this old fellow from Madison and he said, “Now, I’ll give you ten dollars extra on the month.” I think the board paid fifty dollars a month. Back then, young men and women went to school. Twenty, twenty-five years old. They were so mean the teachers couldn’t hardly handle them. I had an older brother that was one of them. A teacher whipped a younger brother he had one day and he said, “Old man, wait till I catch you out. I’ll give you a good one.” And he meant it, too.

JOHNNY HAGER

Little Johnny Hager was a fiddle player. He was a little man, never was married. And he never had a home. All he had was a little suitcase with a few clothes in it. He’d stay with people maybe a month or two and the way he paid his keep was he whittled out lids or fed their pigs and stuff like that. He’d stay there a month or two till he felt he’d wore out his welcome then he’d go to another house. He was a well-liked little guy. Us boys, we followed him wherever he went cause he could sure play that fiddle. He played one tune called “Hell Among the Heffers”.

DEPRESSION

We had a hard time in this world. You couldn’t buy a job then. I had a brother-in-law that worked for the Pure Oil Company in Logan that was the only man that had a public job in this whole hollow. People grew tobacco to pay their taxes and bills they had accumulated. It was terrible. I remember my daddy had a little barrel of little potatoes when spring come and this old fellow lived above us, he was a musician. His name was Carlos Clark. He’d come out of the coalfields in Logan and he lost his home. His wife was a cousin of mine. He was trying to teach me to play the guitar. I’d go there and she’d lead the singing and he’d pick the guitar and I’d try to play second. He give me eleven lessons for that barrel of potatoes.

We had two or three around here that went to work in the CCC camps. Lloyd Ellis from Whitman’s Creek was one of them and Seymour Ellis was another one from Six Mile. In his last days, that was all he wanted to talk about. They went plumb into California in the CC camps. Then war broke out and they just switched them camps over to the Army. The Army operated those camps anyhow. That’s why they was so successful. They had control over boys to teach them how to do things.

DANCES

We got just as wild as any of them. Ed Haley used to come over here and play. The Barker family had a full band. Now, they could make the rafters roar. There was an old lady lived in here married to Walter Fowler who called the dances and there wasn’t a one of us really knowed how to dance but we put on a show anyhow. They had them in people’s homes. No drinking allowed but there was always a few that did. They always had a lot of good cakes.

CHURCHES

It was mostly Church of Christ around here. The main preacher up here in these parts was Pope Dial from Huntington. I’ll tell you another one that came in here that followed him sort of was Melvin White. Vernon Mullins followed up years later when he preached in here. I remember the first sermon he ever preached was around here in the one-room Stone School. He established a lot of different churches in the country but that was the first one. He’d talk about how he started here, preached his first sermon. Every funeral he conducted on this creek, he’d tell that story.

Jessie Brumfield Residence (1991)

19 Friday May 2017

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Harts, Women's History

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Appalachia, Billy Adkins, Caroline Brumfield, Charley Brumfield, Harts, Harts Middle School, Jessie Brumfield, Lincoln County, Morris Harvey College, photos, Route 10, teacher, West Virginia

Jesse Brumfield House copyright

Jessie Brumfield (1902-1997) was the daughter of Charles and Caroline (Dingess) Brumfield. She was educated at Morris Harvey College and taught school for many years. This home stood across Route 10 from the new Harts Middle School in Harts, Lincoln County, WV.

Interview with Frank Hill of Big Creek, WV (2004) 1

19 Friday May 2017

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Banco, Big Creek, Big Ugly Creek, Estep, Ferrellsburg, Timber

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Annie Elizabeth Hill, Annie Elizabeth Stollings, Appalachia, Big Creek, Big Ugly Creek, Billy Adkins, Boone County, Brandon Kirk, Charles Stollings, Edward Hill, Ellis Fork, Estep Branch, Ferrellsburg, Fork Creek, Frank Hill, genealogy, history, John Patrick Fowler, Jones Fowler, Lincoln County, Madison, Margery Ann Fowler, North Fork, timber, timbering, West Virginia, Willie Stollings

On June 2, 2004, Billy Adkins and I visited Frank Hill. Mr. Hill, a retired farmer, bus driver, and store keeper, made his home on Ellis Fork of North Fork of Big Creek in Boone County, West Virginia. Born in 1923, he was the son of Edward W. and Annie Elizabeth (Stollings) Hill. Billy and I were interested in hearing about Mr. Hill’s Fowler ancestry and anything he wanted to share about his own life. We greatly enjoyed our visit. What follows is a partial transcript of our interview:

JOHN PATRICK FOWLER (1827-1911)

Grandpap [John P.] Fowler lived at Ferrellsburg at one time. He was a timber specialist, I’d call him, because he always run a timber job and hired lots of men. He’d cut out all of the timber on a farm and then buy another one and cut it. They didn’t make much back then but they could get a little money together.

My grandmaw [Margery Ann Fowler] was born, I’d say, down there at Ferrellsburg. My mother lived there at Ferrellsburg when she was a teenage girl and she told me she’d plowed corn right there in Ferrellsburg Bottom before the highway or the railroad either one came up through there.

Grandpap bought a tract of timber on Big Ugly and he moved to where it was at. That was virgin timber up there. Hadn’t been cut for years. He just followed the work. He went through Big Ugly and over to Fork Creek. He sold out over there to a coal company and they just paid him so much a month. Then later he got over here on North Fork. He lived in a two-room log house just above our place.

Grandpap Fowler was well-liked. He was a pretty good sized man. My mother thought the world of him because he raised my mother. She lost her daddy [Charles Stollings] when she was ten. Her mother died of what they’d call cancer today. My mother had two sisters and a brother younger than her. The baby one was just two years old and that was Willie Stollings. Grandpap Fowler took in all four children.

My mother, she had a third grade education. She could sign her name. She met my dad when he come in that area saw-logging. His name was Edward Hill and he was a timberman. Cut timber all over this country. They’d have contests. They’d drive a stake out there and cut this tree and bet who could drive that stake on down with that tree when it falls. And he won a many a time. He was accurate. He could chop right-handed or he could chop left-handed. Anyway, there’s a record of their marriage in the courthouse down here at Madison. Preacher Ball married them, I believe.

Grandpap [John P. Fowler] had a boy named Jones that lived over on Big Ugly and he was digging coal with a pick, just enough to do tonight and tomorrow, and a rock fell in on him and killed him. And Grandpap had loaned him his pistol ‘cause him and this Johnson wasn’t getting along good. They was neighbors over there. But that was the first man got there to help get this rock off of him. But Grandpap Fowler sent my mother as soon as they buried him over there to get that pistol. She went right up here and crossed the hill and come down Estep Branch and told his wife that Grandpap had sent after that pistol. She give it to her and on her way back when she come off’n the hill here she knew that Grandpap and old man Dan Harmon wasn’t very good friends. And just for meanness, she shot five or six times and that fellow took her for a warrant. And Grandpap had to go over there to Madison Court House and pay a fine to get her out of it. She was nervy, I’ll tell you that.

Frank Hill Store

Hill Store at the mouth of Ellis Fork of North Fork of Big Creek near the Boone-Logan county line. 19 October 2013.

Harry Edward Mullins (c.1991)

11 Tuesday Apr 2017

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Cemeteries, Harts

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Appalachia, Billy Adkins, cemeteries, Elizabeth Adkins, genealogy, Harry Edward Mullins, history, Isaac Adkins, photos, Wayne County, West Virginia

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Harry Edward Mullins, a genealogist, appears here visiting Adkins-Fry graves in Wayne County, WV. Harry was dedicated: he purchased modern headstones for several noteworthy Harts area residents, including Isaac and Elizabeth Adkins. Photo courtesy of Billy Adkins.

Billy Adkins at Cat Eye Dave Knob (1994)

08 Saturday Apr 2017

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Harts Creek

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Appalachia, Billy Adkins, Bob Leete, Cat Eye Dave Knob, Curry Branch, Dave Thompson, genealogy, Harts Creek, history, Jenks Knob, Jenks Thompson, Lincoln County, photos, Thompson Branch, West Virginia

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Here’s a photo of Billy Adkins, my genealogy mentor, at the old Jenks Thompson/Dave Thompson homestead. Jenks, great-grandfather to Billy, once lived at this site; later, Dave (son of Jenks, nicknamed “Cat Eye Dave”) lived here. Jenks Knob/Cat Eye Dave Knob is located between Thompson Branch and Curry Branch of Harts Creek in Lincoln County, WV. Photo by Bob Leete. Spring 1994.

James “Blackhawk” Mullins Cemetery (2014)

01 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Harts Creek, Cemeteries, Whirlwind

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Albert Mullins, Billy Adkins, Boardtree Hollow, Buck Fork, Callohill McCloud, cemeteries, genealogy, Harts Creek, history, James Blackhawk Mullins, James Blackhawk Mullins Cemetery, Kimberly L. Mullins, King Mullins, Logan County, Lois Maynard, Lucinda Mullins, Manda Maynard, Octavia Mullins, Ralpph McCloud, Rhoda Mullins, Solomon Mullins, Solomon Mullins Jr., Spencer Mullins, Tennessee McCloud, West Virginia, Willie Mullins

The James “Blackhawk” Mullins Cemetery, which I visited on 26 June 2014, is located at Boardtree Hollow 1.5 miles up Buck Fork of Harts Creek in Logan County, West Virginia. This cemetery is very overgrown. Thanks to the late Willie Mullins who first showed me this cemetery on 25 October 1997.

Row 1

Ralph McCloud (carved on rock)

large unmarked rock headstone that has fallen over, with footstone

unmarked rock headstone and footstone

Row 2

unmarked rock headstone and footstone

unmarked rock headstone and footstone

Tennisee McCloud (21 February ____-__ Ma_ 1904); d/o James B. and Lucinda (Phillips) Mullins; b. about 1877; m. Callohill McCloud

unmarked rock headstone and footstone

unmarked rock headstone

unmarked rock headstone and footstone

unmarked rock headstone and footstone

unmarked square rock headstone and footstone

Row 3

Albert Mullins (1887-1965); s/o Solomon and Octavia (Mullins) Mullins, Jr. (visible in 1997, not in 2014)

unmarked rock headstone and footstone

unmarked large blackened rock headstone and footstone; this is James Benton “Blackhawk” Mullins; s/o Peter and Jane (Mullins) Mullins; b. about 1851; died 27 August 1929

unmarked rock headstone and footstone

stone that reads: “1894. Sep.the.7. SM DE”

unmarked rock headstone

ASVALENA MULLINS (04 June 1890-24 July 1912?)

Row 4

Spencer Mullins (1929-1964); s/o Solomon and Octavia (Mullins) Mullins, Jr.

Octavia Mullins (31 March 1886-24 February 1959); NOTE: This is Octavia’s old stone (see below)

unmarked rock headstone and footstone

unmarked rock headstone and footstone

Tavy Mullins (1886-1959); d/o Stephen “Yank” and Harriet (Carter) Mullins; m. Solomon Mullins, Jr.

Sol Mullins (1879-1967); s/o James B. and Lucinda (Phillips) Mullins

Kimberly L. Mullins (08 May 1973-23 October 1988)

Row 5

Mrs. Manda Maynard (15 May 1913-19 March 1937); d/o Reece and Louisa (Curry) Mullins; m. Woodrow Maynard

Lois Maynard (05? October 1934-09 October 1936); d/o Woodrow and Manda (Mullins) Maynard

unmarked rock headstone and footstone

Row 6

“Solomon” carved on rock; s/o William and Mary B. (Mullins) Mullins; b. about 1905

King Mullins (Sept 1893?-_______); s/o William B. and Mary B. (Mullins) Mullins; b. about 1903

NOTE: According to Willie Mullins, grandson of James “Blackhawk” Mullins, the following other persons are buried here:

Lucinda Mullins; d/o Henry and Mary (Browning) Phillips; b. about 1850; m. James B. “Blackhawk” Mullins; d. 1891-1899

Callohill McCloud; b. 19 March 1869; s/o Overton Obediah and Minerva (Vance) McCloud; m1. Tennessee Mullins; m2. Melvina Mullins; d. 25 August 1936

A notebook of Billy Adkins’ lists this grave:

Rhoda Mullins; born 07 August 1906; d/o Reece and Louisa (Curry) Mullins; died before 1910

John’s epilogue 2

31 Sunday Aug 2014

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley, John Hartford, Music

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Arthur Smith, banjo, Ben Walker, Benny Martin, Bernie Adams, Billy Adkins, blind, Brandon Kirk, Buddy Emmons, Clayton McMichen, Doug Owsley, Durham, Ed Haley, fiddlers, fiddling, Green McCoy, Haley-McCoy grave, Harts, history, Imogene Haley, Indiana, Jeffersonville, John Hartford, Johnny Hager, Lawrence Haley, Mark O'Connor, Matt Combs, Melvin Kirk, Michael Cleveland, Milt Haley, Mona Haley, music, Nashville, North Carolina, Smithsonian, Snake Chapman, Tennessee, Texas Shorty, Ugee Postalwait, Webster Springs, West Virginia, Wilson Douglas, writing

When Ed first went out into the neighborhood with his dad’s fiddle and armed with his melodies (as interpreted by his mother) I think he probably caused not a small sensation amongst family and neighbors and his ear being as great as it was I think he picked up an incredible amount of other music really fast. I think he played with a lot of ornaments when he was a teenager and up into maybe even his thirties. Snake Chapman and Ugee Postalwait have alluded to this. Snake said the dining room recordings just didn’t sound as old-timey as he remembered Ed playing and Ugee said she remembered him and her dad talking about the little melodies between the notes. Of course Ed had to have been through a lot of subtle changes in style since that time. I think in later years he stripped a lot of the ornaments out of his fiddling in order to appeal to the Arthur Smith-Clayton McMitchen crowd who loved the radio style that was so much in vogue at that time. This might have helped make a little more money on the street. People have always liked to hear someone play and sound just like what they hear on the radio or a record. But I think if someone had asked Ed if he had done that consciously that he would have denied it and if he was in a bad mood they might have even had a fight on their hands.

I keep having this idea of Ed imitating other instruments on the fiddle because I’ve tried it myself and wouldn’t it be something that some of these great parts was really an imitation of John Hager’s banjo playing. I’d love to know where that passage is or whether it even exists.

It’s obvious that when Ed had good firm second that wouldn’t slow down for anything, he really leaned back on the beat and got in that little pocket where so many great musicians like to be. Ella and Mona really held up a good solid beat, but I’ll bet Ed was hard on them — a real taskmaster. It’s all in that rhythm section. Wilson Douglas told me one time that Ed always told him to play it real lazy. Texas Shorty, Benny Martin, and Buddy Emmons refer to it as holding on to the note as long as you can before you start the next one. This is an important part of Ed’s feel and sound and it really comes through on the dining room recordings. I get it by playing as slow as I can against a beat I hope is not gonna move, and then I swing the notes with a dotted note feel — a real lilt if I can get it — and just drag on the beat as hard as I can ’cause I know it’s not gonna slow down. I’d love to know just when Ed figured that out or if it was always there. I always think of Ed in his younger years playing on top of the beat or even ahead of it like I did when I was young and full of piss and vinegar. Actually when you’re playing alone you do hafta pretty well stay on top of the beat to hold the time or at least set it, cause you are the beat but you have to keep from rushing which we will tend do when we get to hard passages in order to get them over with. We’ll not do that no more. Mark O’Connor told me one time that while he is playing a tune he’ll play on top of and behind the beat on purpose. He described playing behind it as letting the beat drag you along…almost like water skiing. Oh, to have known what Ed and John Hager or Bernie Adams sounded like together.

I think Ed worked on his fiddling probably daily most of his life so it is fair to say that it was changing all the time. This would explain the varying descriptions of his playing that have come down. I’m sure they’re probably all accurate. Lawrence, Ugee, and Mona always said Ed played with great smooth long bow strokes and Snake Chapman always was adamant about him playing with short single strokes and Slim Clere said the same thing — that he bowed out everything — no bow slurs. Of course, in the dining room sessions you can hear both ways. It’s amazing how well Ed did without the feedback of working with a tape recorder. What an incredible ear he had. As far as I know, the only time he probably heard himself played back was the recordings we have. I hope there are others out there but I’ve come to doubt it.

Brandon and I have always had a gut feeling that if we’d dug down into the hillside a little further at Milt and Green’s grave we might have found something. We only went down five feet and then we were defeated by the rain. What if we had gone down the requisite six feet? What if, like the probe, Owsley had misjudged the bottom of the grave shaft due to the mud and water? What if it hadn’t rained and muddied up the work area? If Melvin Kirk and Ben Walker went so far as to bury the men in a deep grave, why not assume they would have gone for the standard six feet grave traditionally dug? In the following weeks, old timers around Harts kept telling Brandon and Billy, “If they didn’t dig at least six feet, it’s no wonder they didn’t find anything.” We didn’t want to question the professionalism of experts like the Smithsonian forensic team or seem like we wanted to find Milt and Green so badly that we couldn’t accept the concept that they were gone…but what if? The explanation that Doug Owsley gave us about the coal seam and underground stream made a lot of sense. Needless to say we were really disappointed. I had started to rationalize that not finding anything might indicate that they were buried in the nude and just thrown in the hole with no box or winding sheet or anything.

I was in Durham, North Carolina, the other day and I saw a fiddler on the street and I automatically found myself thinking of Ed. I didn’t have to fill in or rearrange much in my imagination to see him there playing on the street — even though this man was standing up, and played nothing like him. Of course when Ed was younger he probably stood up to play all the time like in the Webster Springs picture…dapper and wearing his derby. I always seem to picture Ed sitting down. Another great thrill for me is a young blind fiddler from Jeffersonville, Indiana, named Michael Cleveland who when he plays I can see Ed at nineteen. He stands up so straight he almost looks like he’s gonna fall over backward the way Lawrence said his dad did. When he plays I can’t take my eyes off of him thinking of Ed. Now my friend Matt Combs, who has done a lot of the transcriptions for this book, sits with me and plays Ed’s notes off of the paper, and I play off the top of my head, so in that sense it’s like playing with him.

I guess it’s time to just leave this alone and get back to my study of the fiddle. Maybe get geared up for “Volume Two.” I spend long hours here at the dining room table with my tape recorder and I can hear Lawrence and feel Ed as I try and play my way back into the past. I find that the study of Ed’s music leads me to the study of all music and the way it’s played.

Haley-McCoy grave exhumation (1998)

25 Monday Aug 2014

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Harts Creek, Cemeteries, Culture of Honor, John Hartford, Lincoln County Feud

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archaeology, Bill Bryant, Bill Mccoy, Billy Adkins, Brandon Kirk, Brownlow's Dream, Cheryl Bryant, Chip Clark, Dale Brown, David Haley, Doug Owsley, Green McCoy, Haley-McCoy grave, Harts Fas Chek, Jimmy McCoy, Joanna Wilson, John Hartford, John Imlay, Lara Lamarre, Lawrence Kirk, Malcolm Richardson, Milt Haley, New York City, Rebecca Redmond, Smithsonian, State Historic Preservation Office, Steve Haley, Ted Park, Ted Timreck

Sometime during the next few months, we decided that the grave exhumation would take place on May 6, 1998. I rolled into the Harts Fas Chek parking lot on the 4th and hung out with Brandon and Billy until after midnight. Steve and David Haley showed up the next day, as did Jimmy and Bill McCoy and their families. It wasn’t long until Doug Owsley arrived with his crew. His team consisted of four people: Malcolm Richardson, (his former boss and) the field supervisor; John Imlay and Dale Brown, chief excavators; and Rebecca Redmond, recorder. Along to chronicle the event was Chip Clark, a professional photographer; Ted Timreck, a video documentary specialist from New York City; and Ted Park, a writer for Smithsonian magazine.

I knew right away that these guys meant business.

We all went up to the grave that evening, but “the dig” didn’t start until early the next morning.

The weather was perfect and the hillside became alive with people. In addition to myself, the Haleys, the McCoys, Brandon, and Owsley’s crew, there was Billy Adkins, Lawrence Kirk, Bill and Cheryl Bryant (the property owners), and Lara Lamarre and Joanna Wilson of the State Historic Preservation Office.

Most of the day was filled with probing, scraping, talking and then — well — more probing, scraping and talking. Within an hour, the diggers verified that it was a single-shaft grave. As the day progressed, it became obvious that the grave was deeper than the estimated two feet.

Actually, it seemed to just keep “going,” causing us realize that the probes had been a bit deceiving.

At some point, Owsley’s diggers bumped into a coal seam, which had a small underground stream beneath it. Rich said the stream was a bad find because it had probably deteriorated Milt and Green’s bodies in its seasonal cycle of drying up and trickling over the last hundred or so years. He still felt, however, that teeth and certain larger bones might be preserved.

Just before nightfall, Rich said it would be best to stop working and cover the hole because it was supposed to rain sometime in the next few hours. Owsley mentioned that we were only inches away from the shaft floor…only inches — and he was sure of it this time. We were all too excited to go to bed, so we gathered around a big fire up by the grave. The Smithsonian folks requested that I play some fiddle tunes. I played “Brownlow’s Dream” and joked to Brandon that it might help “raise” Milt out of the ground. All jokes aside: it was a little spooky up there, in spite of the twenty or so people clustered around the fire. I remember shining my flashlight up the hill toward the grave every now and then just to make sure…

After about a half an hour, rain began to sprinkle on our gathering. We filed off of the hill and settled in to bed in Harts. Brandon and three of his buddies pitched a tent near the grave and spent the night as “guards.” All were descendants of major participants in the 1889 feud: either mobsters or members of the burial party. The rain soon dissipated, creating a starry night, and left them gathered around a fire and talking about the feud that claimed the lives of Milt and Green. It was an incredible night of stories. So many things had come full circle. For Brandon, it was overwhelming to just think about how he had earlier stood at Milt’s and Green’s grave surrounded by many descendants of the feudists. Expectations and anticipation was at a high water mark. Such was the excitement that Brandon and his friends didn’t go to sleep until around 5 a.m. when a heavy rain forced them into their tent.

Unfortunately, the rain came down in buckets during the early hours of the morning and created horrible working conditions for the forensic team. Their crude covering over the grave was no match for the rain, which whipped in from all angles. Most horribly, the rain caused the underground stream to gush forth and fill the bottom of the grave shaft completely.

After only a few frustrating hours of digging through clay, mud, and several inches of water, Owsley concluded that the crew had reached the bottom of the grave. They had not located a single bone, tooth, belt buckle or bullet fragment.

Even when Brandon fetched a cheap metal detector, the diggers couldn’t come up with anything.

Milt and Green were gone.

Interview with James Davis of Harts, WV (1997)

17 Sunday Aug 2014

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Harts Creek, Culture of Honor, Harts, Lincoln County Feud

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Ben Adams, Ben Walker, Bill Fowler, Billy Adkins, Brandon Kirk, Cat Fry, Chapmanville High School, Charley Davis, Ed Haley, French Bryant, Fry, Green McCoy, Harts Creek, Henderson Dingess, history, Iris Williams, James Davis, John Brumfield, John Hartford, John W Runyon, Kentucky, Lincoln County, miller, Milt Haley, Spring Branch, West Fork, West Virginia, writing

That evening, Brandon and I met up with Billy Adkins and went to see James Davis on West Fork. James lived on Spring Branch of West Fork, a little hollow just across the creek from Iris Williams. A few years back, his older brother Charlie had told Brandon about seeing Ed win a twenty dollar gold piece in a contest at the old Chapmanville High School.

We found the eighty-something-year-old James laying on the couch with a little fuzzy dog crawling all over him like a monkey. He said he didn’t remember Ed, so I mentioned how he was Milt Haley’s son, which got an immediate reaction. He had heard the story of Milt’s death from Cat Fry, although he didn’t immediately offer up any details. Actually, James was hesitant to talk about the 1889 murders — almost as if the participants were still around and living next door. His answers to our questions were very evasive.

We learned from James that it was Bill Fowler (not John Runyon or Ben Adams) who hired Milt and Green to ambush Al. It was all over competition between businesses. Fowler was a saloon operator and a gristmill operator, while Brumfield ran a log boom.

“They was all there making money,” he said. “You know how that stirs up trouble. Some a making a little more money than others. They was bucking one another, like money men does.”

Milt and Green ambushed Al and Hollena one Sunday as they rode down the creek on a single horse after a visit with Henderson Dingess. In the attack, Mr. Brumfield was shot through the arm, while his wife was shot in the face. Milt and Green were soon captured in Kentucky by the Adkinses and Brumfields, who held them them at Fry. Neither man would admit to anything so John Brumfield shot one of them in the head. He reputedly put his toe at the hole and said, “I put a bullet right there.”

Brumfield was himself shot in the head a few years later.

French Bryant, “who was pretty hard to handle,” was also involved in the killings.

Afterwards, people were afraid to touch Milt’s and Green’s bodies until Ben Walker allowed them to be buried on his property. The whole event “shook people up pretty bad.” Fowler sold out at the mouth of Harts and moved away.

Interview with Tom Farley (2002)

27 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Harts Creek, Culture of Honor, Halcyon, Lincoln County Feud, Music

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Bill Dingess, Billy Adkins, Blackberry Mountain, Brandon Kirk, Burl Farley, crime, Dave "Dealer Dave" Dingess, fiddler, French Bryant, Green McCoy, Harts Creek, history, Ku Klux Klan, Lee Dingess, Lewis Farley, life, Logan County, Marsh Fork, Milt Haley, murder, Polly Bryant, Satan's Nightmare, Tom Farley, West Fork, West Virginia, Wild Horse, writing

Back in Harts, Brandon and Billy visited Tom Farley on the Marsh Fork of West Fork of Harts Creek. Tom was the grandson of Burl Farley, one of the ringleaders in the Brumfield-Dingess mob of 1889. He was a great storyteller and knew a lot of interesting tales about the old vigilantes around Harts.

“Milt Haley and Green McCoy, my grandpa Burl Farley was in that,” Tom said. “Dealer Dave Dingess was in that. Dealer Dave Dingess played the fiddle for them when they chopped them boys’ heads off. He wasn’t a mean fellow. Burl Farley and them just got him drunk. French Bryant and Burl Farley was supposed to been the men who went over and chopped their heads off. My uncle Lewis Farley was in it.”

French Bryant, Tom said, married his aunt Polly Dingess.

“I’ve heard that Polly was one of the hatefulest women that ever took a breath,” he said. “A lot of people said she was the Devil’s grandma. French Bryant, he took her by the hair of the head and he tied her up to that apple tree. She took pneumonia fever and died.”

Tom told a great story about Bryant.

“French Bryant, I know a story they told me. It might be a lie. He was hooked up with the Ku Klux Klan. Was a captain of them. This is an old story. It’s supposed to happened right up here in this hollow. Dealer Dave and a bunch of them had their moonshine still set up in here. There was some young men came back in this country looking for Burl trying to get them timber jobs. They thought they was spying on them. This might every bit be lies but I was told this by all them old-timers. Burl Farley, Dealer Dave Dingess, French Bryant, Lewis Farley, and a bunch of them was supposed to’ve beheaded them right under that beech tree, my daddy always told. This story goes that they come in here looking for work. The Ku Klux Klan brought them here, made old Polly Dingess cook them a midnight supper. Dealer Dave played the fiddle for them and they danced all night. The next day at twelve o’clock Polly fixed a big dinner. Their last meal. One of them told the other two, said, ‘We just might as well eat. This is the end of the line for us.’ One of them just kept eating. He told the other two, said, ‘You better eat because this is the last meal we’ll ever eat.’ Said French Bryant cussed them and said, ‘Eat because you’ll never eat another meal.’ Dealer Dave asked them, ‘What do you want me to do as your last request?’ Said two of them cried and wouldn’t say a word. Said that one boy that eat so much told Dealer Dave, said, ‘Play ‘Satan’s Nightmare’.’ Took them out there at one o’clock under that beech tree and laid their heads across the axe and chopped two of their heads off. Said two of them cried and wouldn’t say a word. Said that one boy that eat so much told Dealer Dave, said, ‘Play ‘Satan’s Nightmare’.’ They chopped their heads off. Said French took their heads and set them on the mantle.”

So Dealer Dave Dingess was a fiddler?

“Dealer Dave played the fiddle,” Tom said. “I remember seeing old man Dave. He was tall and skinny. He played ‘Blackberry Mountain’ and a bunch of stuff. ‘Wild Horse’. Dealer Dave was the biggest coward that ever put on a pair of shoes. When it would start to get dark, my daddy and my uncle Bill Dingess — just tiny kids — they’d have to walk up this hollow with him. One would walk in front of him and the other one behind him. Said Lee Dingess cussed him all to pieces, told him, said, ‘Dealer Dave, nobody’s gonna hurt you. There ain’t a man alive that’s gonna bother you.’ Dave said, ‘Hush, Lee. I’m not afraid of the living. I’m afraid of the dead.’ Afraid to pass that cemetery. They called him Dealer Dave because he horse-traded so much and every time he got cheated he cried and he had to trade back with you. Make a trade today and tomorrow he’d cry till you give him his horse back. They said he was good on the fiddle. They said he played for square dances.”

In Search of Ed Haley 337

17 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Harts Creek, Culture of Honor, Ed Haley, Lincoln County Feud

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Al Brumfield, banjo, Billy Adkins, blind, Bob Bryant, Brandon Kirk, Burl Farley, Charley Brumfield, Ed Haley, Fed Adkins, fiddlers, French Bryant, Green McCoy, Harve "Short Harve" Dingess, history, Hollene Brumfield, Hugh Dingess, John Hartford, Kentucky, Lincoln County Feud, Martin County, measles, Milt Haley, music, Nashville, Piney, Smokehouse Fork, Tom Holzen, West Fork, Wolf Creek, writing

Brandon and I also called Bob Bryant, a son of the infamous French Bryant, who lived with his son at the mouth of Piney Creek on West Fork. Billy Adkins had encouraged us to call Bob, saying that he would probably tell us what he knew of the Haley-McCoy murders. When we called Bob, his son said we were welcome to talk with his dad, although he warned us that his memory wasn’t very good.

Bob said he was born on Piney in 1911.

When I asked him about French Bryant he said he knew very little about him because his dad “was pretty old” when he was born. He said he did remember his father talking “some” about the Haley-McCoy affair.

“Milt and Green were pretty rough fellers who got in a lot of trouble all the time,” Bob said. “They were bad to drink. Milt Haley and Green McCoy was fiddlers — I think so. Maybe they was. Yeah, I almost know they was. One of them picked the banjo, I believe, but I don’t know for sure.”

Bob said Hugh Dingess, who was “kind of an outlaw,” organized a posse to fetch Milt and Green after they shot Al and Hollena Brumfield. They found them over around Wolf Creek in Martin County, Kentucky.

“Them Dingesses up there killed them,” Bob said. “It didn’t take much to get them to shoot you back then. People’d shoot you just to be a doing something.”

I asked Bob if he ever heard anything about who took part in what he kept calling “the shooting” and he said, “Hugh Dingess and four or five more.”

He paused, then said, “A few of them I wouldn’t want to tell you.”

We were just waiting for him to say his father’s name when he said, “Short Harve Dingess was pretty rough. Seems like he was in that bunch some way.”

Some of the others were: Al Brumfield, Charley Brumfield, Fed Adkins, and Burl Farley.

Bob never identified his father as a member of the mob but mentioned that his father was a friend to the Dingesses on Smokekouse.

He said he remembered seeing Ed play at the schoolhouse above the mouth of Piney when he was nineteen years old.

“He was a real fiddler,” Bob said.

In subsequent weeks, Brandon and I went through most of our information — processing it, sorting it, discussing it. We thought more about the story of Milt causing Ed’s blindness by dipping him in ice water and wondered how anyone would have ever equated those as cause-effect events. I got on the phone with Dr. Tom Holzen, a doctor-friend of mine in Nashville, who said Milt’s dipping of Ed in ice water, while a little crude, was actually the right kind of thing to do in that it would have lowered his fever. Based on that, Milt seems to have been a caring father trying to save Ed’s life or ease his suffering. Was it the act of a desperate man who had already lost other children to disease?

Interview with John Dingess 2 (1996)

11 Friday Jul 2014

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Harts Creek, Culture of Honor, Ed Haley, Lincoln County Feud, Warren

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Al Brumfield, Albert Dingess, Anthony Adams, Ben Adams, Bill Brumfield, Bill's Branch, Billy Adkins, blind, Blood in West Virginia, Boardtree Bottom, Brandon Kirk, Buck Fork, Burl Farley, Carolyn Johnnie Farley, Cecil Brumfield, Charley Brumfield, Charlie Dingess, crime, Ed Haley, Fed Adkins, fiddling, French Bryant, George Fry, Green McCoy, Green Shoal, Hamlin, Harts Creek, Harve "Short Harve" Dingess, Hell Up Coal Hollow, Henderson Dingess, history, Hugh Dingess, John Brumfield, John Dingess, Kentucky, life, Lincoln County Feud, Low Gap, Milt Haley, murder, Paris Brumfield, Polly Bryant, Smokehouse Fork, Sycamore Bottom, Tom Maggard, Trace Fork, Vilas Adams, West Fork, West Virginia, Will Adkins, Williamson, writing

Al rounded up a gang of men to accompany him on his ride to fetch the prisoners in Williamson. Albert and Charlie Dingess were ringleaders of the posse, which included “Short Harve” Dingess, Hugh Dingess, John Dingess, Burl Farley, French Bryant, John Brumfield, and Charley Brumfield. Perhaps the most notorious member of the gang was French Bryant – “a bad man” who “did a lot of dirty work for the Dingesses.” On the way back from Kentucky, he tied Milt and Green by the arms and “drove them like a pair of mules on a plow line.”

“French Bryant run and drove them like a pair of horses ahead of these guys on the horses,” John said. “That’s quite a ways to let them walk. Old French, he married a Dingess. I knew old French Bryant. When he died, he was a long time dying and they said that he hollered for two or three days, ‘Get the ropes off me!’ I guess that come back to him.”

When the gang reached the headwaters of Trace Fork — what John called “Adams territory” — they sent a rider out ahead in the darkness to make sure it was safe to travel through that vicinity.

Waiting on the Brumfield posse was a mob of about 100 men hiding behind trees at Sycamore Bottom, just below the mouth of Trace Fork. This mob was led by Ben and Anthony Adams and was primarily made up of family members or people who worked timber for the Adamses, like Tom Maggard (“Ben’s right hand man”).

As the Brumfield rider approached their location, they began to click their Winchester rifles — making them “crack like firewood.” Hearing this, the rider turned back up Trace Fork, where he met the Brumfields and Dingesses at Boardtree Bottom and warned them about the danger at the mouth of Trace. They detoured safely up Buck Fork, then stopped at Hugh Dingess’ on Smokehouse where they remained for two or three days, not really sure of what to do with their prisoners. They made a “fortress” at Hugh’s by gathering about 100 men around them, fully aware that Ben Adams might make another effort to recapture Milt and Green.

While at Hugh’s, they got drunk on some of the red whiskey and apple brandy made at nearby Henderson’s. They also held a “trial” to see if Milt and Green would admit their guilt. They took one of the men outside and made him listen through the cracks between the logs of the house as his partner confessed on the inside. About then, the guy outside got loose and ran toward Bill’s Branch but was grabbed by “Short Harve” Dingess as he tried to scurry over a fence.

After this confession, the Brumfields and Dingesses considered killing Milt and Green on the spot but “got scared the Adamses was gonna take them” and headed towards Green Shoal.

John didn’t know why they chose George Fry’s home but figured Mr. Fry was a trusted acquaintance. He said they “punished” them “quite a bit there” but also got one to play a fiddle.

“These people that killed them, they made them play their last tune,” John said. “One of them would play and one guy, I think, he never would play for them.  I forgot which one, but they never could get one guy to do much. The other one’d do whatever they’d tell him to do. That’s just before they started shooting them. The tune that they played was ‘Hell Up Coal Hollow’. I don’t know what that tune is.”

After that, the mob “shot their brains out” and left them in the yard where the “chickens ate their brains.”

A neighbor took their bodies through Low Gap and buried them on West Fork.

John said there was a trial over Haley and McCoy’s murders, something we’d never heard before. Supposedly, about one hundred of the Brumfields and their friends rode horses to Hamlin and strutted into the courtroom where they sat down with guns on their laps. The judge threw the case out immediately because he knew they were fully prepared to “shoot up the place.”

This “quick trial,” of course, didn’t resolve the feud. Back on Harts Creek, Ben Adams often had to hide in the woods from the Dingesses. One time, Hugh and Charlie Dingess put kerosene-dowsed cornstalks on his porch and set them on fire, hoping to drive him out of his house where they could shoot him. When they realized he wasn’t home, they extinguished the fire because they didn’t want to harm his wife and children. Mrs. Adams didn’t live long after the feud. Ben eventually moved to Trace Fork where he lived the rest of his life. Charlie never spoke to him again.

John also said there seemed to have been a “curse” on the men who participated in the killing of Haley and McCoy. He said Albert Dingess’ “tongue dropped out,” Al Brumfield “was blind for years before he died,” and Charlie Dingess “died of lung cancer.” We had heard similar tales from Johnny Farley and Billy Adkins, who said mob members Burl Farley and Fed Adkins both had their faces eaten away by cancer. Vilas Adams told us about one of the vigilantes drowning (Will Adkins), while we also knew about the murders of Paris Brumfield, John Brumfield, Charley Brumfield, and Bill Brumfield.

Just before hanging up with John, Brandon asked if he remembered Ed Haley. John said he used to see him during his younger days on Harts Creek.

“When he was a baby, old Milt wanted to make him tough and he’d take him every morning to a cold spring and bath him,” he said. “I guess he got a cold and couldn’t open his eyes. Something grew over his eyes so Milt took a razor and cut it off. Milt said that he could take that off so he got to fooling with it with a razor and put him blind.”

John said Ed made peace with a lot of the men who’d participated in his father’s killing and was particularly good friends with Cecil Brumfield, a grandson of Paris.

In Search of Ed Haley 334

09 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Calhoun County, Ed Haley, Music

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Amos Morris, Billy Adkins, Brandon Kirk, Calhoun County, Doc White, Dolly Bell, fiddler, fiddling, history, Ivydale, Jimmy Triplett, John Hartford, John Morris, Johnny Hager, Laury Hicks, Minnie Moss, music, Ocie Morris, Pigeon on the Gate, Stinson, Walker, West Virginia, Wilson Douglas, writing

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.

Chasing John Runyon (1996)

07 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Cemeteries, Ed Haley, Inez, Lincoln County Feud

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Appalachia, Aquillia Porter, Bill Duty, Bill Fields, Billy Adkins, Brandon Kirk, cemetery, Ed Haley, genealogy, Graveyard Point, Hinkle Valley Road, history, Inez, James A Garfield, Jim Webb, Joe Fannin, John W Runyon, Kentucky, Lawrence County, Leonard Porter, Martin County, Mary Runyon, Mary Runyon Fields, Mary United Baptist Church, Milo, Nat's Creek, Peach Orchard, Route 1884, Route 40, Samuel W. Porter, Stidham, Tomahawk, U.S. South, Walt Mollett, Wealthy Fry, Webb Music Store, writing

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.

In Search of Ed Haley 333

06 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Harts Creek, Ed Haley, Spottswood

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Alice Dingess, Billy Adkins, Bob Dingess, Brandon Kirk, Cas Baisden, Ed Haley, Ewell Mullins, Gaie Adams, history, Pete Adams, Ticky George Hollow, Trace Fork, Von Tomblin, writing

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.

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