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Tag Archives: Ewell Mullins

Queens Ridge News 09.03.1926

31 Tuesday Jul 2018

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Harts Creek, Chapmanville, Harts, Logan, Queens Ridge

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Annie Dingess, Appalachia, Ashland, Bob Dingess, Bulwark School, Bunt Dingess, Burl Farley, Carey Dingess, Chapmanville, Charlie Harris, Cole Adams, David Dingess, deputy sheriff, Ed Brumfield, Enos Dial, Ewell Mullins, genealogy, Harts, Harts Creek, history, Howard Adams, Inez Barker, Inez Dingess, Isaac Marion Nelson, J.W. Renfroe, Jeff Baisden, Jonas Branch, Kate Baisden, Kentucky, Lewis Farley, Lincoln County, Liza Mullins, Logan, Logan Banner, Logan County, Lucy Dingess, Mary Ann Farley, Maudie Adams, Mud Fork, Queens Ridge, Rachel Keyser, Roach, Rosa Workman, Sally Dingess, Sidney Mullins, Smokehouse Fork, Sol Adams, Trace Fork, Ula Adams, Ward Brumfield, West Virginia

An unknown correspondent from Queens Ridge (Harts Creek) in Logan County, West Virginia, offered the following items, which the Logan Banner printed on September 3, 1926:

We are having much rainy weather at this writing.

David Dingess made a business trip to Chapmanville Monday.

Miss Inez Barker of Chapmanville has been visiting Miss Ula Adams of Queen’s Ridge for the past week.

Sidney Mullins made a flying trip to Logan last week.

Edward Brumfield and Enos Dials of Harts were the guests of Misses Inez and Lucy Dingess Saturday and Sunday.

The people of this place enjoyed a fine meeting Saturday and Sunday when fine sermons were delivered by Rev. I.M. Nelson and Revs. J.W. Renfroe and Short from Ashland, Ky. There were a number of conversions.

Ward Brumfield, deputy sheriff of Lincoln county, attended church here Sunday.

Mrs. Rosa Workman of Mud Fork was the guest of her mother, Mrs. Sol Adams last week.

Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Harris of Mud Fork were visiting relatives of Smoke House Fork, Sunday.

Miss Maudie Adams and Rachel Keyser were seen out walking Sunday.

R.L. Dingess is teaching school at Bulwark this year. We wish him much success.

Mr. and Mrs. Howard Adams are raising water melons this year.

Times are very lively on Trace now since Mr. Dials made a visit up the left fork.

Born to Mr. and Mrs. Robert Dingess, a fine son, named J. Cary Dingess.

Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Farley made a trip to Roach last week, visiting the former’s parents.

Wonder why so many boys visit Mr. Baisden’s now?

Cole Adams looks lonely these days. Cheer up, Cole. Bessie has come back again.

Wonder who the barber is on Jonas Branch nowadays?

Some combinations: Howard and his wash bowl and pitcher; Liza and her flowered dress; Ewell going to Harts; Maudie and her powder puff; Kate and her bobbed hair; Sally and Bunt packing beans.

Whirlwind News 04.05.1927

09 Saturday Sep 2017

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

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Appalachia, Bernie Adams, Boyd Carter, Buck Fork, Charley Mullins, Chick Dingess, Cumberland Mountains, Ewell Mullins, Florence Adams, Fred Carter, genealogy, guitar, Harmon Carter, Harts Creek, Hendersonville, history, Holden, Hoover Fork, Horatio Adams, Howard Adams, Hubert Adams, Ireland Mullins, James Thompson, Jesse Carter, Julia Tomblin, Kentucky, Lewis Maynard, Logan Banner, Logan County, Mae Robinson, Millard Thompson, music, Peter Carter, Peter Mullins, Peter Tomblin, Sallie Bunn, Trace Fork, Twelve Pole Creek, West Virginia, Whirlwind, whooping cough

An unknown correspondent from Whirlwind in Logan County, West Virginia, offered the following items, which the Logan Banner printed on April 5, 1927:

The Bible school on Trace Fork is progressing nicely and is conducted by Rev. Ratio Adams and Peter Mullins.

Hubert Adams of Holden was visiting relatives on Hoover recently.

Howard Adams and Charley Mullins were visiting Peter Tomblin of Twelve Pole Saturday.

James Thompson and Miss Julia Tomblin were united in marriage on Buck Fork recently. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson are planning a honeymoon trip to the Cumberland Mountains and points in Eastern Kentucky.

Millard Thompson was visiting friends on Harts Creek Monday.

Ezra Farley made a flying trip to Lewis Maynard’s Sunday.

The home of Boyd Carter at Hendersonville was destroyed by fire Monday afternoon.

Chick Dingess was a visitor to Jesse Carter last Sunday.

Ireland Mullins was calling on Miss Sallie Bunn of Hoover Sunday.

Harmon Carter of Buck Fork was calling on Miss Mae Robinson Sunday.

Things seen daily: Philip going to see Aunt Minnie; Howard going to Mollie’s; Florence and her pipe; Bernie and his guitar; Clinton and his whooping cough; Mollie and her forty four; Peter and Fred Carter making toothpicks; Wilburn and his boots; Ewell watching for a car to come up Trace.

Whirlwind News 03.08.1927

03 Sunday Sep 2017

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Harts Creek, Logan, Queens Ridge, Whirlwind

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Annie Dingess, Anthony Adams, Appalachia, Bob Dingess, Buck Creek, Burl Mullins, Carl Adams, Charles Curry, Charley Mullins, Daniel McCloud, Edward Hensley, Ewell Mullins, Frank Adams, genealogy, Harts Creek, Hoover Fork, Hoover School House, Isom Workman, Logan, Logan Banner, Logan County, Lora Belle Martin, Lucy B. Mullins, Lucy McCloud, moonshine, moonshining, Mud Fork, preacher, Queens Ridge, T.H. Adams, Twelve Pole Creek, Washington, West Virginia, Whirlwind, Wilburn Mullins

An unknown correspondent from Whirlwind in Logan County, West Virginia, offered the following items, which the Logan Banner printed on March 8, 1927:

Edward Hensley, the prohibitionist, and Frank Adams, the constable, are constantly on their duty trying to catch all the moonshiners at present.

Anthony Adams of Logan visited relatives at Whirlwind Sunday.

Mr. and Mrs. R.L. Dingess of Whirlwind spent Sunday with their parents at Queens Ridge.

A large crowd visited the Hoover school house Sunday expecting to hear a sermon delivered by Rev. Chas. Curry, but were badly disappointed as Curry was not present.

Daniel McCloud has postponed his singing school, as there are several pupils suffering with smallpox at the place where the school is being taught.

T.H. Adams went through town with a basket in his hand Sunday.

Burl Mullins of Buck Creek spent Sunday on Hoover with his sweetie.

Wilburn Mullins of Mud Fork is still visiting Hoover regularly.

Charley Mullins made a business trip to Twelve Pole Monday.

Mr. and Mrs. Ewell Mullins made a flying trip to Washington, D.C., last week. Guess they had a message for the President.

Carl Adams is still cold trailing. Carl says he is going to stop if the trail doesn’t get warmer.

Isom Workman was calling on Miss Lucy B. Mullins Sunday.

Miss Lucy B. McCloud of Hoover was visiting her aunt, Mrs. Lora B. Martin, of Queens Ridge Sunday.

Peter Mullins Family Cemetery (2014)

10 Friday Jul 2015

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

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Alfred W. Tomblin, Appalachia, Bertha Mullins, cemeteries, Edith Dingess, Eliza Mullins, Ewell Mullins, genealogy, Harts Creek, history, Irvin W. Tomblin, Joe Dingess, Logan County, Lottie Cook, Mavis Dinah Mullins, Maxine Coen Brommer, Nunie Mullins, Peter Mullins, Peter Mullins Family Cemetery, Raymond Dingess, Stanley K. Tomblin, Trace Fork, U.S. South, Vonnie Tomblin, West Virginia

The Peter Mullins Family Cemetery, which I visited in August 2014, is located behind the Ewell Mullins homeplace on Trace Fork of Harts Creek in Logan County, West Virginia.

Row 1

Nunie Mullins (28 November 1918-15 June 1976); d/o Ewell and Bertha (Adams) Mullins

Bertha Mullins (01 July 1894-07 December 1981); d/o Wayne and Minerva (McCloud) Adams; m. Ewell Mullins

Ewell Mullins (25 December 1892-10 March 1956); s/o Peter and Eliza (Mullins) Mullins

Peter Mullins (10 October 1871-10 August 1948); s/o A. Jackson and Chloe (Gore) Mullins

Eliza Mullins (1876-1960); d/o Robert and Almeda (Mullins) Mullins; m. Peter Mullins

Lottie Cook (12 October 1896-12 November 1986); d/o Ewell and Bertha (Adams) Mullins; m. Joe Cook

Row 2

Maxine Coen Brommer (22 January 1935-25 December 2001)

Joe Dingess (07 November 1942-11 December 2006); s/o Raymond and Edith (Mullins) Dingess

Edith Dingess (06 September 1915-06 September 1997); d/o Peter and Eliza (Mullins) Mullins; m. Raymond Dingess

Raymond Dingess (24 November 1916-30 July 1991); s/o Will and Stella (Stollings) Dingess

Mavis Dinah Mullins (04 February 1947-08 August 1947); d/o Louie and Eunice (Adams) Mullins

(gap)

Alfred W. Tomblin (22 July 1932-24 March 2006); s/o Ira and Eunice (Kelley) Tomblin

Vonnie Tomblin (26 February 1935-still alive); d/o Ewell and Bertha (Adams) Mullins; m. Alfred W. Tomblin

Irvin W. Tomblin (26 January 1956-25 July 1996); s/o Alfred and Vonnie (Mullins) Tomblin

Stanley K. Tomblin (04 July 1954-29 July 1954); s/o Alfred and Vonnie (Mullins) Tomblin

Whirlwind-McCloud 03.12.1912

27 Saturday Dec 2014

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

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Appalachia, Dingess, Emma Riddle, Ewell Mullins, genealogy, Gordon Farley, Harts Creek, Hattie Riddle, history, Holden, Ida Martin, James Baisden, Jeff Baisden, Lincoln County, Logan Banner, Logan County, Mettie Raines, Mingo County, Tom Mullins, U.S. South, West Virginia, Whirlwind, Willis Dingess

“J.M.,” a local correspondent at Whirlwind on Big Harts Creek in Logan County, West Virginia, offered the following items, which the Logan Banner printed on Friday, March 12, 1912:

James Baisden, of Dingess, was a Whirlwind visitor Friday.

Mrs. F.F. Riddle and daughter Miss Hattie, were shopping Friday.

Gordon Farley was here on business one day recently.

Miss Ida Martin has returned home at this place after visiting friends in Lincoln County.

Miss Mettie Raines is teaching a successful school at this place.

Willis Dingess is very low at the present writing.

M. Tomblin and Allen ______ killed a fine fox, Friday.

The infant child of Tom Mullins was badly burned one day the past week.

Jeff Baisden and Ewell Mullins passed here for Holden Saturday.

Miss Ida Martin was shopping Friday.

In Search of Ed Haley 354

16 Saturday Aug 2014

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

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Ben Adams, Bertha Mullins, Bill Thompson, Billie Brumfield, Brandon Kirk, Buck Fork, Cas Baisden, crime, Dingess, Dump Farley, Ed Haley, Ewell Mullins, Greasy George Adams, Green Shoal, Harts Creek, history, Imogene Haley, Jim Martin, John Frock Adams, John Hartford, Jonas Branch, Lincoln County Feud, Liza Mullins, Milt Haley, moonshining, Peter Mullins, Weddie Mullins, West Virginia, writing

Cas knew that Ed sold his homeplace at the mouth of Jonas Branch to Ewell Mullins. He said it originally stood below a big sugar tree in the bottom above Uncle Peter’s. (It was moved on logs.) It was a “little old two-room plank house” consisting of the “eating room,” which had a flat-rock chimney in the back with a fireplace and a “sleeping room.”

Cas best described the kitchen, which was just “out at the back” of the house.

“They wasn’t no floor in it,” he said. “It just sat on the ground. It was the length of the house — I guess maybe about eight feet wide — and they cooked out there in that. They cooked out there, packed it in, and set it on the table and they eat and everything in the same house. I’ve seen that old woman, Ewell’s wife, put fence rails in the stove — had a cook stove — and she’d stick them in there and set a chair on them till they burnt up to where they wouldn’t fall out. Me and her old man and his brother, we’d go up on that cliff and drag wood down that creek and the snow knee deep.”

Brandon asked Cas about the fate of Ewell’s house and he said they first enlarged it.

“We moved an old storehouse we had down the field there out there and put it beside of it,” he said. “It was there when the old man Ewell died ’cause the old storehouse had a crack up over the bed and his mother come in there and she was whining about that. Man, the snow’d blow in at him.”

Cas continued, “Then we turned around and tore that down and built this other to it. Tore that other’n down and built it back, too.”

He said the newer home was built on the same spot as the old one but it didn’t resemble it in any way.

Based on this testimony, we concluded that Ewell’s original home was truly gone.

Speaking of Uncle Peter, Brandon asked about him.

“Ah, he was a tomcat now, that old man was,” Cas said. “He was crippled in one foot and he walked on the back of it. Had his shoe made turned back. Prohibition men would come in and… I’ve seen him down there right below where Kate lived — he’d go out and hit that cliff. He’d get them bushes and swing up and go right up over them cliffs. He was bad to drink in his last few years. Well, they all the time made liquor and fooled with it. Finally got to drinking the stuff.”

Cas said Peter was bad to fight if provoked but Aunt Liza “was just like all other old women. She was a good old woman. She just stood and cooked.”

Cas thought that Ed’s mother was related to Uncle Peter, but wasn’t sure how.

“Wasn’t his dad named Milt Haley?” he asked.

Yeah.

“Well, you know they killed him down there around Green Shoal,” he said. “I heard somebody not too long ago a talking about them taking them over there and hanging them. I never did know too much about it. Nobody never talked too much about things back then.”

Cas had also heard about Ben Adams but didn’t know of his involvement in the 1889 troubles. He said Ben was a “pretty mean fellow” who lived in a log cabin still standing just up the creek.

“He had some kind of a brewery up here,” Cas said. “They had it built back in the bank. Sold booze there. Bootleg joint. I don’t know if all the old rocks and things is gone from there or not. He lived on Trace when he killed Jim Martin.”

Part of Ben’s old mill-dam was reportedly still visible in the creek at the Greasy George Adams place.

Cas told us again about Weddie Mullins’s death at Dingess, West Virginia. Weddie was an uncle to Ed Haley.

“I never did know too much about it,” he said. “We was little when that happened, I guess. Him and some of them Dingesses got into it and they shot and killed Weddie. And old man John Adams went down and looked at him, said, ‘What do you think about him?’ ‘Oh, I believe he’ll make it.’ Said he just hoisted that pistol, brother, and shot him right in the head and killed him. Said, ‘I know he won’t make it now.'”

This “old man John Adams” was Emma Haley’s half-brother, “John Frock.”

Cas said John could be ruthless.

“His wife was a coming out the gate and he shot her in the head and killed her,” he said. “Shot her whole head off. He was a little feller. He lived right there where Louie and them lived.”

Cas didn’t know what that killing was over.

“Back here at one time it was dangerous to even stick your head out of the door, son,” he said. “Why, everybody packed guns. Anybody’d kill you.”

The jockey grounds were rough places.

“A fella tried to run a horse over me up there at the mouth of Buck Fork and Billie Brumfield laid a pistol between his eyes and said, ‘You run that horse over him, you’ll never run it over nobody else.’ I believe it was before he killed his daddy.”

Cas said Dump Farley was at a jockey ground one time “right down under the hill from where Bill Thompson lived in that cornfield playing poker and he shot the corn all down. Talk about fellers a rolling behind the stumps and things.”

In Search of Ed Haley 353

10 Sunday Aug 2014

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

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blind, Brandon Kirk, Cacklin Hen, Cas Baisden, Clyde Haley, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, Ewell Mullins, fiddling, Harts, Harts Creek, history, John Hartford, Logan County, music, Peter Mullins, Robert Martin, Trace Fork, West Virginia, World War II, writing

Early the next morning, Brandon and I arrived on the bus in Harts and drove to see Cas Baisden, who we spotted in a porch swing up main Harts Creek, just above the mouth of Smoke House Fork. It was a pastoral scene: a somewhat old farmhouse, several chickens in the yard and a few cattle in the distance who’d done a marvelous job of clearing the mountainside just back of the place. As we pulled up to the house, I realized that it was built fairly high off of the ground — probably as a precaution against flooding. Cas just kind of stared down at us as we unloaded from the car.

Once he figured out who we were, he invited us in to the living room. There we learned that Cas was eighty-seven years old and had spent his whole life on Harts Creek.

“I was born in 1910,” he said. “The only five years I was gone from here was when I was in the Army. I left here the second day of April ’42. I spent five year in the Air Force. Never was off the ground.”

Wow — I had to ask, “What is the secret to living so long?”

“Working, working, buddy,” Cas said. “I work ever day a little bit. I wish you’d a seen the coal and stuff I packed in this morning. I got two calves down there and chickens and cats and dogs. I live on tobacco, Cheerios, and milk.”

Ever drink any whiskey?

“Barrels of it,” he said. “It’s been ten or twelve years since I quit fooling with drinking. Yeah, I went up here and joined the church and things. A fella never knows what he misses when he gets in a church. I used to be rougher’n a cob.”

Cas was partly raised by Uncle Peter Mullins, so he remembered Ed Haley well.

“He’d come up there to Peter’s and just go from house to house playing music and eating,” he said. “He used to go up to Ewell’s — I guess where he was raised — and come down that road just a running and hollering and whooping and cutting the awfulest shine that ever was and you wouldn’t a thought he could a stayed in that road. I don’t know how he done it, but he’d take spells like that. If he got a hold of you with a knife, though, he was dangerous. Hang on you and cut as long as they’s a thread on you. Him and that old woman, they’d get drunk and they’d fight up there. You know, it’s a wonder they hadn’t a killed one another. I believe they did try to cut one another up there at old man Peter’s one time.”

What about the Haley kids?

“Why them young’ns would do anything,” Cas said. “Clyde went out here where Robert Martin used to live on that mountain and went down in the well and they had a time a getting him out. And up here a little bit was a big sycamore and he was up in there and we’d throw rocks at him, son, and if we’d a hit him and knocked him out of there he’d been killed. I believe Clyde was the meanest one among them, I don’t know.”

I asked Cas if he ever played music and he said, “Nah, I done well to call hogs. But now Ed was about as good a fiddler as they was. Nobody could play better than Ed. He could play anything on earth he wanted to play.”

Cas had memories of Ed playing at Uncle Peter’s, either outside for small crowds or inside for “big dances” before “they finally broke up and quit.” The old dances started about the “edge of dark” and people would just “jump around — most people never could dance” – until sun-up. There was no trouble — just “fiddle, dance, drink” — although a person had to watch out for what Cas called the “old hedgehogs.”

I asked him if Ed ever drank much at the dances and he said, “Sure. He’d get to drinking and have more fun than the one’s a dancing.”

When Ed wasn’t around to play dances on Trace, Robert Martin would show up and fiddle tunes like “Cacklin’ Hen”. Martin had the first radio “that was ever in this country” so people went to his house “out on the mountain” and listened to it until “way late in the night.”

In Search of Ed Haley 345

30 Wednesday Jul 2014

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

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Alice Baisden, Brandon Kirk, Clifton Mullins, Connie Mullins, Dicy Baisden, Ed Haley, Ewell Mullins, Harts, Harts Creek, Harts Fas Chek, history, John Hartford, Liza Mullins, music, Peter Mullins, Sol Bumgarner, Trace Fork, Von Tomblin, West Virginia, writing

A few days later, Brandon and I loaded up the bus and headed to Harts where we arrived about midnight and parked at the Fas Chek. The next morning, we drove to Trace Fork to scope out the hollow. Initially, we stopped to see Von Tomblin, Ewell Mullins’ daughter, who lived next door to “Ed Haley’s place.” Von said she thought the back part of her father’s house was original; we were welcome to walk over and check it out.

“Just be sure and watch for snakes,” she said.

We trudged over through the field to the maroon house where we cluelessly looked at it.

Eventually, Brandon pointed down the bottom to the site of Uncle Peter’s place at the mouth of Jonas Branch. A few minutes later, as we sat in a swing under a tree at Uncle Peter’s place, taking in the sights and smells, Clifton Mullins came walking up with a big grin on his face, decked out in a Hank Williams, Jr. T-shirt. We told him we were trying to figure out just how old Ewell’s house was and he suggested that we walk up the hollow and ask Bum about it.

In no time whatsoever, we were on the porch with Bum, Shermie, and two sisters named Alice and Dicy. We had a very confusing — but potentially crucial — conversation about Ewell’s place:

Brandon: Now Ewell had an older home before that one, didn’t he?

Bum: They built onto it, what they done.

Brandon: Which is the old part?

Bum: The back part again’ the hill.

Brandon: Now, Ewell bought that place off of Ed.

Bum: Well now, Ewell built the front part. But the log house that was here, Ed or some of them built it. Some of his people. Older house there. If I ain’t badly mistaken, it was a log house. Got different grooves on it now than what it was.

Brandon: Was you ever in the old place?

Bum: Yeah. Had four or five rooms.

Brandon: When did Ewell tear it down?

Bum’s sister: I think all they tore down was the kitchen part to it.

Brandon: So part of Ewell’s house is the old place?

Bum: They took out the back here again’ the hill.

Brandon: Is part of the old log home still there?

Bum: It’s covered up now.

Brandon: But they’s log under that?

Bum: Yeah, I think it is.

We eventually headed down the hollow to Clifton’s, where his sister Connie showed us more family photographs. Clifton showed us his storage building, which featured Aunt Liza’s beautiful spinning wheel on piles of bags and boxes. Brandon and I agreed right then and there that we would give just about anything to have it. For all we knew, Liza had used it to make or mend Ed’s clothes when he was a boy.

In Search of Ed Haley 336

15 Tuesday Jul 2014

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

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Andy Mullins, Ashland, blind, Brandon Kirk, Columbus, Dobie Mullins, Ed Haley, Edith Dingess, Ella Haley, Ewell Mullins, Ferrellsburg, fiddling, genealogy, Harts Creek, history, Huntington, Imogene Haley, John Hartford, Kentucky, Lancaster, Lawrence Haley, Liza Mullins, Liza Napier, Logan, Mud Fork, music, Nashville, Ohio, Ora Booth, Pat Haley, Peter Mullins, West Virginia, writing

By the spring of 1997, Brandon and I were at a reflective point in our research efforts. We had begun to lose our edge. After all, how many times could we ask, “Now, how did Ed Haley hold the bow?” or “Do you remember the names of any tunes he played”? We decided to step away from interviewing people and focus on writing what we knew about Ed’s life and music. I spent long hours in Nashville at my dining room table listening to Ed’s recordings and working with the fiddle, while Brandon — in his three-room house in Ferrellsburg — transcribed interviews, re-checked facts, and constructed a manuscript. This went on for quite some time.

Eventually, Brandon came to visit and we decided to telephone a few people and ask more questions. Our first call went out to Edith Dingess, the only surviving child of Ed’s uncle, Peter Mullins. Andy and Dobie Mullins had told us about her several months earlier when we visited them on Harts Creek. Edith, they said, had recently moved from her home on Mud Fork in Logan to stay with a daughter in Columbus, Ohio. When we dialed her up, her daughter said, “She might be able to give you some information. Her memory is pretty bad. She’s 81 years old and she’s had a couple of real major heart attacks.”

I first asked Edith if she knew about Ed’s mother — her aunt — who apparently died in the early 1890s. Unfortunately, Edith didn’t know anything about her. As a matter of fact, she said she barely remembered Ed, who we knew had been practically raised by her father. She said he was a “nice person, likeable” who would “laugh and joke and go on.”

“I know Ed Haley used to come to our house with Mrs. Haley and they had a little girl. Might’ve had some boys — older,” Edith said. “I believe they lived down around Huntington. They’d come up home when my dad was a living and we was all home — I was young then — and they’d play music and we’d have company. We used to have some square dances at our house. We had some good times when he come up there.”

Edith said Ed’s children led him around, but he also got around using a cane.

Before we hung up, Edith gave us the telephone number of her niece, “Little Liza,” who lived with a daughter in Lancaster, Ohio. This was wonderful; I had first heard about Little Liza from Lawrence and Pat Haley in 1991. Little Liza had grown up in Uncle Peter’s home and was a featured face in family photographs. Prior to this lead, I wasn’t even sure if she was still alive.

When we called Liza, we first spoke with her daughter, Ora Booth, who gave the familiar introduction: “I don’t know if you’ll get too much out of her or not. She’s kinda forgetful and she repeats herself a lot. All I can do is put her on the phone and see what you get out of her. She’s seventy-six and her mind just comes and goes on a lot of things.”

I told Liza that I was good friends to Lawrence and Pat Haley, had heard a lot about her, and was very interested in Ed’s life. She said Ed used to stay a week or two with Uncle Peter — who she called “Poppy” — before heading back to Ashland. To our surprise, she had no idea exactly how Ed was related to her family.

“It’s been so long and you know I’ve been sick and everything and been operated on for cancer and stuff and I just don’t feel good,” she said. “When you get old, your mind just comes and goes.”

Just when I thought Liza’s memories of Ed had all but disappeared, she said, “I tell you, he was awful bad to drink all the time. Lord, have mercy. Anything he could drink, he’d drink it. That might have been half what killed him. He was a mean man. Just mean after women and stuff. I don’t know whether he could see a bit or not, but you’d get and hide from him and he’d come towards ya. I was scared of him.”

I asked Liza who Ed played music with when he visited at Peter’s and she said, “He just played with his wife. He didn’t have nobody else to play with. Lord, him and her’d get into a fight and they’d fight like I don’t know what.”

I wondered if Ed fought with his kids.

“Yeah, they liked to killed Ed Haley one time up there,” she said. “They’d just get into a fight and the kids’d try to separate their mommy and daddy and it’d just all come up. I had to holler for Ewell to come down there and get them boys off’n Ed Haley ’cause I was afraid they’s a gonna kill him. I didn’t want that to happen, you know? He got down there and buddy he put them boys a going. They was mean. I guess they took that back after Ed Haley. Yeah, he’d come up there and go here and yonder. After Mommy and Poppy got so bad off, people’d bring him down there and set him off and I had to take care of them, so Poppy just told him, said, ‘Ed, she has to wait on us and she can’t wait on you. You’ll just have to go somewhere else.’ He did.”

That was a horrible image.

Ed Haley house?

06 Sunday Jul 2014

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

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Tags

Ed Haley, Ewell Mullins, genealogy, Harts Creek, Logan County, photos, Trace Fork, West Virginia

Ewell Mullins home, Trace Fork of Harts Creek, Logan County, WV

Ewell Mullins home, Trace Fork of Harts Creek, Logan County, WV

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Feud Poll 1

If you had lived in the Harts Creek community during the 1880s, to which faction of feudists might you have given your loyalty?

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  • Ferrellsburg
  • Fourteen
  • French-Eversole Feud
  • Gilbert
  • Giles County
  • Gill
  • Green Shoal
  • Guyandotte River
  • Halcyon
  • Hamlin
  • Harts
  • Hatfield-McCoy Feud
  • Holden
  • Hungarian-American History
  • Huntington
  • Inez
  • Irish-Americans
  • Italian American History
  • Jamboree
  • Jewish History
  • John Hartford
  • Kermit
  • Kiahsville
  • Kitchen
  • Leet
  • Lincoln County Feud
  • Little Harts Creek
  • Logan
  • Man
  • Matewan
  • Meador
  • Midkiff
  • Monroe County
  • Montgomery County
  • Music
  • Native American History
  • Pearl Adkins Diary
  • Pecks Mill
  • Peter Creek
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  • Uncategorized
  • Warren
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  • Williamson
  • Women's History
  • World War I
  • Wyoming County
  • Yantus

Feud Poll 2

Do you think Milt Haley and Green McCoy committed the ambush on Al and Hollene Brumfield in 1889?

Blogroll

  • Ancestry.com
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  • tumblr.
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  • Weirton (WV) Daily Times Article
  • Wheeling (WV) Intelligencer News Article 1
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  • WOWK TV
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Feud Poll 3

Who do you think organized the ambush of Al and Hollene Brumfield in 1889?

Recent Posts

  • The Rainbow End: A Poem (1928)
  • Herb and Bessie Adkins Home in Harts, WV
  • Aracoma Hotel in Logan, WV (1933)

Ed Haley Poll 1

What do you think caused Ed Haley to lose his sight when he was three years old?

Top Posts & Pages

  • Harts Creek District (c.1883)
  • In Search of Ed Haley 113
  • Native American Mound in Boone County, WV (1898)
  • Jack Dempsey’s Broadway Restaurant Location in New York City (2019)
  • History for Jenkins, KY (1928)

Copyright

© Brandon Ray Kirk and brandonraykirk.wordpress.com, 1987-2021. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Brandon Ray Kirk and brandonraykirk.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Appalachia Ashland Big Creek Big Ugly Creek Blood in West Virginia Brandon Kirk Cabell County cemeteries Chapmanville Charleston civil war coal Confederate Army crime culture Ed Haley Ella Haley Ferrellsburg feud fiddler fiddling genealogy Green McCoy Guyandotte River Harts Harts Creek Hatfield-McCoy Feud history Huntington John Hartford Kentucky Lawrence Haley life Lincoln County Lincoln County Feud Logan Logan Banner Logan County Milt Haley Mingo County music Ohio photos timbering U.S. South Virginia Wayne County West Virginia Whirlwind writing

Blogs I Follow

  • OtterTales
  • Our Appalachia: A Blog Created by Students of Southern West Virginia CTC
  • Piedmont Trails
  • Truman Capote
  • Appalachian Diaspora

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OtterTales

Writings from my travels and experiences. High and fine literature is wine, and mine is only water; but everybody likes water. Mark Twain

Our Appalachia: A Blog Created by Students of Southern West Virginia CTC

This site is dedicated to the collection, preservation, and promotion of history and culture in Appalachia.

Piedmont Trails

Genealogy and History in North Carolina and Beyond

Truman Capote

A site about one of the most beautiful, interesting, tallented, outrageous and colorful personalities of the 20th Century

Appalachian Diaspora

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