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Brandon Ray Kirk

Tag Archives: Jeff Baisden

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 09.17.1926

18 Sunday Jun 2017

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Whirlwind

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Alice Dingess, Appalachia, Bernice Adams, Bob Dingess, Charley Mullins, Clinton Adams, Daniel McCloud, Ezra Farley, Florence Adams, Frank Adams Jr., Fred Adams, genealogy, Gillis Adams, Grover Adams, Harts Creek, history, Hoover Fork, Ina Dingess, James Baisden, Jeff Baisden, Logan Banner, Logan County, Lucy McCloud, Pearl McCloud, Rose Dingess, Rush Adams, Tilda Carter, Twelve Pole Creek, West Virginia, Whirlwind, Will Adams

An unknown correspondent from Whirlwind in Logan County, West Virginia, offered the following items, which the Logan Banner printed on September 17, 1926:

Frank Adams, Jr. doesn’t seem to enjoy walking up the road any more. Wonder why?

Will Adams is taking his vacation this week.

James Baisden was a business visitor at Daniel McCloud’s Wednesday.

Charley Mullins is right on his job this week. Stay right with it, Charley. Winter will soon be here.

Jeff Baisden visits Hoover very often these days. Wonder what his attention is?

Grover Adams is visiting his friends on Twelve Pole. Wonder what makes him go there?

Clinton Adams has bought Florence Adams a bundle of pipes.

Gillis Adams was visiting his girl at Hoover Sunday.

Miss Lucy McCloud was seen visiting in Hoover Tuesday.

Ezra Farley was calling on his best girl Pearl McCloud Sunday.

Gillis Adams was visiting his girl on Sunday. Wonder what was the cause? Ask Lucy. She knows.

Miss Tilda Carter was visiting the sick, Bernice Adams, last Tuesday.

Daily happenings: Alice Dingess and her pipe; David and his bottle; Rush and his mule; Garnett and her rolled hose; Ann and her chewing gum; Rose and her overalls; Ina and her bobbed hair; Boyd and his tobacco; Mollie and her spinning wheel; May and her cards; Alice drying apples; Mandie and her hose; Bertha and her white hat; Susie looking for Daniel; Florence and her apple butter; Bob Dingess’ old Ford; Joe and his geese; Roxie and her baby; Lucy and her pink dress; Carl and his blood hounds; Charley and his ax; Mary is looking so lonely without Herb; Howard and his sweet ways; Pearl and her bangs; Fred Adams and his 10 cent trousers.

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.

Jeff and Harriet Baisden

15 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Harts Creek, Spottswood

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Appalachia, genealogy, Harriet Baisden, Harts Creek, history, Jeff Baisden, Logan County, photos, Trace Fork, U.S. South, West Virginia

Jeff and Harriet (Jonas) Baisden of Trace Fork of Harts Creek, Logan County, WV

Jeff and Harriet (Jonas) Baisden of Trace Fork of Harts Creek, Logan County, WV

Jeff Baisden

23 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Harts Creek, Spottswood

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Appalachia, farming, genealogy, Harts Creek, history, Jeff Baisden, Logan County, photos, Trace Fork, U.S. South, West Virginia

Jeff Baisden, resident of Jonas Branch of Trace Fork of Big Harts Creek, Logan County, WV

Jeff Baisden, resident of Jonas Branch of Trace Fork of Big Harts Creek, Logan County, WV

In Search of Ed Haley 321

17 Tuesday Jun 2014

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

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Allen Martin, Anthony Adams, Ben Adams, Boardtree Branch, Brandon Kirk, Charley Brumfield, crime, Ed Haley, Ewell Mullins, fiddling, Greasy George Adams, Green McCoy, Green Shoal, Harts, Harts Creek, history, Jeff Baisden, John Hartford, Jr., Kentucky, Lincoln County Feud, Logan County, Milt Haley, moonshining, murder, music, Paris Brumfield, Peter Mullins, Sol Adams, Still Hollow, Ticky George Adams, timbering, Trace Fork, Vilas Adams, West Virginia, Will Adkins, writing

Trying to lift our spirits, we went to see Vilas Adams, who lived on the Boardtree Branch of Trace Fork. Vilas was a great-grandson of Ben Adams and a grandson of Ticky George Adams. He was very friendly, inviting us inside his very nice home where his wife fed us a whole mess of good food, which we ate between asking questions.

I first asked him about his memories of Ed Haley, who he said frequented Ewell Mullins’ store during the late 1930s and early forties.

“Down there at old man Ewell’s store, they’d gather in there of an evening and tell tales, old man Jeff Baisden and them,” Vilas said. “My grandpaw Ant Adams and I would walk down there and then Ed would walk down there from Uncle Peter’s. It was a quarter a mile — just a little hop and a jump I call it. Ed would come in there and fiddle for them and if they wanted a certain song, they’d give him a quarter or fifty cents. That was good money I guess back then.”

Vilas’ grandfather Anthony Adams (a brother to Greasy George) always gave Ed a quarter to hear his favorite tune.

“What was Ed like?” I asked.

Vilas implied that he was withdrawn.

“Mostly he stayed with that fiddle,” he said. “He was good.”

Like most of the other older people in Harts, Vilas knew about the Haley-McCoy killings.

“My grandpaw would tell me them tales but I wouldn’t pay no attention,” he said. “He was telling about them fellers — Sol Adams — going over there and locating them and they went back and captured them. Well, his daddy Anthony tried to waylay them and take them back through here somewhere. They thought they’d come through these hills somewhere but they missed them.”

So, Sol Adams — a 20-year-old nephew to Ben Adams who was often called “Squire Sol” because of his status as an officer of the law — “went over and located Haley and McCoy” in Kentucky after the ambush. Meanwhile, his father Anthony and uncle Ben Adams, organized a gang to recapture them as the Brumfields brought them back through Harts Creek. This seemed strange: why would Sol operate against the interests of his family? And why would he have even been compelled to even become involved since he was a Logan County justice and the crime had occurred in Lincoln County?

Brandon asked Vilas if he knew who had been in the Adams gang and he said, “No, I’ve heard my grandpaw talk but I’ve forgot some of it. They was somebody from down around Hart somewhere. He said they took them over around Green Shoal or over in there somewhere and killed them. Grandpaw said they maybe hit them with axe handles.”

Vilas said his grandfather told him something horrible had happened to most of the men who murdered Haley and McCoy.

“He said just about every one of them that was in on that, something bad happened to them,” he said. “I heard one of them’s own boy killed one of them. And one of them got drowned and my grandpaw said the river wasn’t deep. Said he fell off a horse or something right at the mouth of Hart.”

Of course, Vilas was referring to Paris Brumfield, who was killed by his son Charley in 1891, and to Will Adkins, who drowned at the mouth of Harts Creek on November 23, 1889.

Brandon asked Vilas about “old Ben Adams” and he almost immediately started talking about the old timber business.

“See, that was my great-grandpaw,” he said. “They would build splash dams. They had one right out here. They had them tied some way or the other. And they built them up on Hart there, maybe up on Hoover, and they’d work all winter and put them logs in the creek. And in the spring when them floods come, it would wash all them logs down around Hart and then they’d put them together and raft them on down to Kenova. I guess that was all they had to make a living — timber and farm.”

Ben, of course, made his living in timber. He lived at the mouth of Adams Branch, a little tributary of Trace Fork presently referred to as Still Hollow.

“Over there at what we call Still Hollow, they said he had a still-house there and he had a license to make apple brandy back then,” Vilas said. “And he would go with a wagon everywhere and get apples. They was a log house over there in the mouth of that holler — just down the road here a little ways. When I was a boy the old log house was there, but it rotted down. Just one-story as far as I can remember. The old well’s there. He had some kind of an old store or saloon right there.”

Vilas speculated very little on Ben Adams’ personality, but compared him to his son, Greasy George Adams: “always a likeable fella but seemed like trouble followed him.” He heard that after Ben’s first wife died, he lived with first one woman, then the next. He eventually got into a heap of trouble by murdering a local postman, Jim Martin.

“He killed a fella right over there at the mouth of that hollow,” Vilas said. “My grandpaw said he had some sort of an old store or saloon and he was shooting out the door. Right there in the mouth of that holler. It broke him. Lawyers. Lost everything he had.”

It was rumored that Ben’s and Martin’s trouble had something to do with a woman or a right-of-way.

Boone County’s “Little Johnny” Hager 2

13 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Creek, Big Harts Creek, Big Ugly Creek, Calhoun County, Music

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Akron, Arthur Smith, banjo, Bertha Bias, Big Creek, blind, Boone County, Boone County Genealogical Society, Broad Branch, Calhoun County, Chapmanville, Clay County, Dave Brumfield, Dicy Thomas, Dolly Bell, Ed Belcher, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, fiddle, fiddler, Garretts Fork, genealogy, Greenview, Harts Creek, Harvey Hicks, Hewetts Creek, history, Hubert Baisden, Irene Hager, Jeff Baisden, Jeff Duty, Jess Chambers, Johnny Hager, Kanawha County, Kansas, Kentucky, Kith and Kin, Laury Hicks, life, Little Coal River, Logan County, Lydia Johnson, Madison, Mary Baisden, Morehead, music, North Fork, Ohio, Powderly, Riland Bias, Robert Martin, Rowan County, Sampson Thomas, Simon Bias, Spruce Fork, Texas, Trace Fork, Turley Adams, Ugee Postalwait, Victoria Adams, West Virginia, Wilson Craddock, writing

After his return to West Virginia, Johnny Hager took immediate notice of the large number of musicians who lived in the head of Big Harts Creek. His first cousin, Jefferson “Jig-Toe” Baisden (1879-1970), was a dancer and banjo-picker. J. E. “Ed” Belcher (1889-1970), who played several instruments, and Robert Martin, an Arthur Smith-style fiddler, were other significant musicians in the area. Ed Haley (1885-1951), a blind fiddler from Trace Fork, particularly caught Hager’s attention. Johnny’s desire to absorb Haley’s music was understandable because, as Jess Chambers stated, “It was a badge of honor to have played with Ed Haley.” Jeff Baisden, a cousin to both men, may have introduced the pair.

Johnny could supposedly play any instrument and his trip out to Kansas allowed him to soak up a variety of western tunes and playing styles which were completely new to folks in Logan County. Both of these qualities, his diverse musical capabilities and his unique musical background, ensured that he an Ed Haley had many intense music sessions. According to Turley Adams, Johnny’s great-nephew, Hager encouraged Ed to take his show on the road and volunteered to serve as Haley’s “eyes” on such trips. This willingness to travel, coupled with his apparent competence as a musician, made Johnny a perfect sidekick to Ed. Haley and Hager were both unmarried, a convenience which allowed them to roam the country with few cares or responsibilities.

Johnny and Ed traveled to various places in West Virginia but are particularly remembered up around the Calhoun-Clay County area north of Kanawha County. Aside from being populated with rural folks similar to Hager’s neighbors in Logan and Boone Counties, the area was also endowed with a host of great musicians. Haley and Hager wintered there as young men with a fiddler named Lawrence “Laury” Hicks (1880-1937). Ugee (Hicks) Postalwait of Akron, Ohio, a daughter of Laury Hicks, said that Ed and Johnny first came and visited her father in the early 1910s. Hager was a tall, slim banjo-picker. When Ed and Johnny left Laury’s home in the spring, with Johnny leading the way, Ugee and her brother stood on the bank by the house and “hollered and cried after them.”

Most agree that Johnny’s travels with Ed Haley ended around 1914 when Haley married Ella Trumbo, a blind music instructor from Morehead in Rowan County, Kentucky. Haley’s habit of cursing and drinking also helped end the partnership. Hager did not care for it.

For the most part, Johnny spent the remainder of his life playing music while boarding with his Baisden kinfolk on the North Fork of Big Creek. Irene Hager, a daughter of Hubert E. and Mary (Pauley) Baisden, remembered Johnny playing music on her father’s front porch in the late 1920s. Her father, a banjo-picker, lived at Greenview and the Big Branch of Spruce Fork of Little Coal River in Boone County. Hubert Baisden was Johnny’s first cousin. Hager boarded with him for several weeks at a time. One of Hager’s chores at the Baisden home was to keep wood in the stove. Irene said that Johnny often talked about his early travels with Ed Haley.

Johnny Hager was a man with little roots and family, a fellow who never had a real home. Many from Harts Creek remember that Hager was simply from the “the North Fork of Big Creek.” Dave Brumfield, a great-nephew, said that Hager stayed in that vicinity with a Thomas family. No doubt, this Thomas family was headed by Sampson Thomas who married Dicy Adams, a sister-in-law to Johnny’s sister Victoria Adams. Incidentally, just over the mountain from North Fork was the Broad Branch of Big Ugly Creek where lived a fiddler named Jefferson “Jeff” Duty (born about 1877). During Hager’s stay on the North Fork, he probably visited this musician (and any others in this locality) to learn a few new licks.

Hager also stayed with Simon and Bertha (Baisden) Bias on Bias Branch in Boone County. Mrs. Bias’ grandfather, Riland Baisden, was a brother to Johnny Hager’s mother. He spent a lot of time on the Garretts Fork of Big Creek with the Barkers before leaving them to stay with Wilson Craddock’s family on Hewitts Creek in Boone County. Mr. Craddock’s widow has a necklace which Johnny gave her during his time there. Lydia (Adkins) Johnson of Powderly, Texas, recalled that Hager lived with her mother and father during her “growing up years at home” in the late 1920s and 1930s. Johnson “was born (around 1923) and raised in Boone Co. just over the hill from Chapmanville.” Hager was a hard worker and was very efficient at “old-time” carpentry jobs and such tasks as digging wells. According to Johnson: “[Johnny] was a handy man, & a fiddle player. (Sometimes) a neighbor would need him to come live with them, to build them an out house for them. He was noted for the best out houses, he earned his keep by living with & helping others.”

Lydia Johson described Johnny as “a very neat man” and Dolly Bell agreed, stating that he always kept his hair cut and his face shaved. He never wore suits and never dated women so far as any of his family knew. In Irene Hager’s words, he “was a pretty straight fellow” and Dave Brumfield said he never drank when visiting his father’s home on Harts Creek.

NOTE: Originally published in “Kith and Kin of Boone County, West Virginia” Volume XXII

Published by Boone County Genealogical Society

Madison, West Virginia, 1997

Dedicated to the late Dolly (Hager) Bell

In Search of Ed Haley

01 Saturday Mar 2014

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

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Appalachia, culture, genealogy, Harts Creek, history, Jeff Baisden, life, photos, West Virginia

Jeff Baisden, a resident of Trace Fork of Big Harts Creek, Logan County, West Virginia

Jeff Baisden, a resident of Trace Fork of Big Harts Creek, Logan County, West Virginia

In Search of Ed Haley 253

01 Saturday Mar 2014

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Harts Creek, Culture of Honor, Ed Haley, Music

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Ben Adams, Billy Adkins, Brandon Kirk, Cas Baisden, Clyde Haley, crime, Dingess, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, Ewell Mullins, genealogy, Greasy George Adams, Harriet Baisden, Harts Creek, history, Jeff Baisden, John Frock Adams, Johnny Hager, Maggie Mullins, murder, music, Peter Mullins, Ticky George Adams, Weddie Mullins, West Virginia, writing

One fall day, Brandon and Billy drove to see 80-something-year-old Cas Baisden, a son of Jeff and Harriet (Jonas) Baisden. Cas lived on a farm near the mouth of Smoke House with a relative of Uncle Peter Mullins. He had been mostly raised by Uncle Peter and had vivid memories of watching Ed Haley play in his yard, as well as in the house. He said Ed didn’t usually have a very big crowd around him. “People didn’t care a bit, even though he was about as good as they was,” Cas said. He said Ed and his wife could play anything. “He was real skinny and would drink anything he could get his hands on.” He added that Ed knew all the roads and trails up around the creek and could walk them as well as a sighted person.

Ed’s uncle Weddie Mullins married Cas’ aunt, Maggie Jonas. Cas said Weddie went to Dingess to get some booze one time and was killed in a shooting scrape. The man who shot him was laid up in bed when Weddie’s half-brother John Adams came in and asked, “Do you think he’ll make it?” Someone said he might live so Adams pulled out his gun and said, “I know he won’t,” and opened fire on him. Later, in unrelated events, Adams “blew his wife’s head off.”

Cas said Ed’s uncle Ticky George Adams was harmless. He was a small man, short and chubby, who dug ginseng a lot on Big Creek. George was a brother-in-law to Ed’s friend Johnny Hager, who came from the North Fork of Big Creek and stayed a lot with Ewell Mullins and others around Harts. Johnny was a good fellow, a musician and a non-drinker.

Cas knew that Ed sold his homeplace on Trace to Uncle Peter’s son, Ewell Mullins. It was a plank building with two long rooms. In the rear of the eating room there was a flat-rock chimney with a long fireplace. The other room was used for sleeping. Later, an old store building was pushed up against the sleeping room to make a kitchen. The house had no porch.

Cas said Ed’s son Clyde Haley was “like a monkey” when it came to climbing trees; one time, he climbed 40 feet up into a tree and all the other kids ran away because they didn’t want to see him fall.

Cas remembered sketches about Ben Adams but didn’t know if he had been involved in the 1889 feud. At one time, he operated a store on main Harts Creek below the mouth of Smoke House. Across the creek, he had a saloon made entirely of rock. Later, he lived on Trace. Cas said part of his old mill-dam could be seen in the creek at the Greasy George Adams place.

In Search of Ed Haley 25

10 Monday Dec 2012

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

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Appalachia, Ashland, blind, Cleveland, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, Enslow Baisden, fiddler, fiddlers, fiddling, Harts Creek, Hell Up Coal Hollow, history, Huntington, Jack Haley, Jeff Baisden, John Hartford, John Martin, Kentucky, Las Vegas, Lawrence Haley, Liza Mullins, Logan County, Milt Haley, music, Nevada, Noah Mullins, Ohio, Oklahoma, Peter Mullins, Robert Martin, Sherman Baisden, Sol Bumgarner, Trace Fork, Turley Adams, U.S. South, West Virginia, writing

After visiting with Turley and Joe’s girls, Bum guided Lawrence and I up a nearby hollow to see his uncle Enslow Baisden. Enslow lived in a newly built single story log cabin. He said he’d gone blind recently due to sugar and cataracts. At Enslow’s, we met “Shermie”, who Lawrence indicated was the “funny boy” that chased the Haley women off of Aunt Liza’s porch in 1951.

“A lot of times I wouldn’t have no company if it wasn’t for him,” Enslow said of Shermie, who was epileptic. Shermie wasted little time in pulling out a few cards from the pocket of his overalls and sputtering toward me, even reaching for my fiddle case. I knew right then I was surrounded by “good people”: they had kept Shermie under their care all of these years as a valued member of the family in lieu of institutionalization.

When I mentioned Ed Haley’s name, Enslow said, “I was young but I can remember him all the time a coming. They was some Martins lived on top of a mountain out here — Robert Martin and John — and they fiddled all the time, and he’d go out there and fiddle with them. I don’t know how he walked from up this creek and out on that mountain and him blind, for I can’t find my way through the house.”

Enslow said he didn’t know much about Ed because he left Harts during the early years of the Depression.

“See, I lost all time, about everything nearly. I left here in ’35 and went up to the northern part of the state here and then went out in Las Vegas, Nevada, a while. Then, when I come out, I went in the Army in April of ’41. I stayed in there four and a half years and got married out in Oklahoma and we never did come back but just on visits. And Ed, he died in ’51.”

Enslow’s recounting of his travels was sort of an interesting revelation since it reminded me that these folks on Harts Creek — like many mountain people — were not as isolated as some may think. Ed Haley himself left the creek and traveled widely with his music just after the turn of the century, while Lawrence and his siblings had lived in Ashland and Cleveland and served overseas in the armed forces. Several of the people I had met on Harts Creek had been to faraway places and lived in big cities but chose at some point to return to the grounds of their ancestors.

I asked Enslow how old he was the first time he saw Haley and he said, “Oh man I was about nine or ten years old. He all the time played that fiddle. He used to come down here to old man Peter Mullins’ and Liza Mullins’. I guess they was real close kin to him. And Ed’s daddy’s name was Milt Haley. I don’t know whether Lawrence knowed that or not.”

Lawrence said, “Yeah, I knew that. But I understood from the way Aunt Liza told me, he came from over the mountain and I think that she was talking about from up around Williamson or over in that area. My dad, he was born right down here below Uncle Peter’s, where Turley’s at now, in the old house.”

Lawrence’s mentioning of “the old house” really got Enslow going. He remembered it well.

“There used to be an old log house there he was born in and they had a chimney outside on that old house down there — just an old rock chimney. Dad all the time talked about it. He said Ed got him one of them little old homemade sleds, you know, and he got him a ladder and put it on top of that house. And he got right up by that chimney and then when he come off’n there on that sled he knocked the rocks off with him.”

What? Why would he have done such a thing?

“I’ve always heard my dad tell it,” Enslow said. “Said that rock just barely did miss him.”

I wasn’t sure what to make of such a story but before I could really ask anything about it Enslow was off on another tale.

“Dad said one time they sent Ed down there to get some milk or butter or something. When Ed got out there on his way back he got in a briar patch. Dad took a notion to have some fun out of Ed. They had an old horse they called Fred. Dad got to stomping and snickering like that old horse and Ed said, ‘Old Fred, don’t you come here, now. Don’t you come here, Fred.’ Dad said he kept stomping and Ed throwed that stuff at him and tore hisself all to pieces in them briars.”

I asked Enslow to describe Haley and he said, “Well, he just always dressed pretty nice. He was a big man, too. They used to buy him these plugs of tobacco and these guys would get this beech bark and whittle it out about the size of a plug of tobacco and let Ed have that bark and they’d take his tobacco. If he ever got a hold of you, though, he’d eat you up, see. They said you couldn’t get loose from him.”

Apparently, Ed and his wife were so self-sufficient that locals sometimes forgot they were blind. Enslow told a great story about Ella and Aunt Liza, who were sitting by a lamp together one night. “Well, Mrs. Haley, I’m going to bed,” Liza said. “Well, just blow out the light,” Ella answered. “I’m going to read a while.” Liza said, “How’re you going to read in the dark?” Ella said, “Well, I can’t see no way.”

Enslow’s mentioning of Aunt Liza conjured up a great memory from Lawrence.

“Uncle Peter liked to wore me to death one time. Me and my brother Jack went with him up there behind his house and he had a old team of oxen we was snaking logs out of a hollow with. These oxen got hot. One of them got in the creek trying to cool off. Well, Uncle Peter couldn’t get him to move, so he went over underneath a tree and sat down. Well, me and my brother Jack was a cutting up, you know. He was teasing me. I was younger than he was. And I picked up a big rock and throwed it at him and hit Uncle Peter right where it hurts. And he got up. I knowed I could outrun him. My brother — I looked at him — he took off. And I was afraid to move. Uncle Peter come up there. I thought, ‘Well, I’m dead meat.’ It looked like he pulled down a half a tree and got a hold of me and he didn’t let go until he wore that limb out.”

I asked Enslow about Ed Haley’s music.

“I used to hear him play all them old tunes,” he said. “He’d sit and play for hours and hours at a time, him and her.”

Enslow motioned toward Lawrence, saying, “His mother played a mandolin and had a thing on that sat on her shoulders there and had a harp and played them both at the same time.”

He leaned back a little, reflecting, “Yeah, he played all the old music. He’d make up songs. Be sitting around and just directly he’d write a song. Like ‘Hell Up Coal Hollow’ and two or three more he made up that way. You’d come up and say, ‘What was that Ed?’ He’d just tell them what it was.”

Enslow and Bum said Haley made “Hell Up Coal Holler” and named it for Cole Branch, a tributary of Harts Creek. I didn’t know if Ed was the source of that story but I later learned that “Hell Up Coal Hollow” (at least the title) actually predated Haley’s lifetime. As I was gradually learning, Ed wasn’t preoccupied with historical accuracy and was good at creating temporary titles and weaving stories based on coincidence.

Enslow said, “Ed had some kind of saying he always said when he played on the radio down there about ‘carbide acid and acifidity gum’ or something.”

Lawrence said he’d never heard anything about his father playing on the radio but Enslow seemed sure of it.

“He played on the radio down there at Ashland or Huntington or somewheres way back there. I’m pretty sure they said he did.”

I wondered what acifidity gum was and no one knew, although Lawrence had heard Ed talk about it. (We later learned it was an old folk remedy for treating asthma.) Enslow said Uncle Peter asked Ed about it one time and he said, “Well, you have to get a little comedy with the music.”

Wow — so Ed told jokes?

Enslow said, “I guess to draw their attention or something.”

I asked Enslow if he’d ever heard Ed play for a dance and he said, “Well, I used to go to lots of things he played for, but I can’t remember now. They’d go out there on that mountain and play all night at Robert and John Martin’s. They’d be maybe two hundred people out there. Robert Martin all the time played the fiddle and I don’t know whether John played or not.”

Enslow thought Ed and Robert played their fiddles “together,” but Bum added, “Bob played a little different than Ed did. He played newer stuff.”

Enslow thought for a moment, then said, “Yeah, my dad, he used to play the banjo all the time, him and his nephew. They used to play for dances way back years ago.”

What was his name?

“Jeff Baisden.”

Bum said, “I was telling him about Grandpaw taking them two little sticks and beating on the fiddle for Ed.”

Someone said, “He’s the one had the big old feet and he’d get up and dance and play the banjo.”

Enslow said, “They called him ‘Jig-Toe’ Baisden. He wore a twelve or thirteen shoe and he’d get up on his toes and dance. And Noah Mullins, Uncle Peter’s son, he could flat dance. He’d get on his heels and dance all over. He called their square dance about all the time.”

In Search of Ed Haley 24

09 Sunday Dec 2012

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

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Appalachia, Ashland, Ashland Cemetery, Buck Fork, Clifford Belcher, Connie Woods, Dingess, Ed Belcher, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, fiddle, fiddler, fiddling, genealogy, George Greasy Adams, guitar, Harts Creek, history, Hoover Fork, Jackson Mullins, Jeff Baisden, John Frock Adams, John Hartford, Johnny Hager, Kentucky, Lawrence Haley, Liza Mullins, Logan, Logan County, Maynard's Store, music, Nashville, Peach Creek, Peter Mullins, Ralph Haley, Sol Bumgarner, square dances, Trace Fork, Turley Adams, Violet Mullins, Weddie Mullins, West Virginia

At some point, Connie showed up with a small entourage of women toting some of Joe Mullins’ old pictures. My eyes immediately went to a large, framed photograph of two serious mustachioed men. Turley said one was Weddie Mullins — his grandfather on “both sides” of the family tree — while the other was Ed Haley’s Uncle Peter Mullins. Both men were brothers. Turley said his grandfather Weddie — Ed’s uncle — was murdered at the little town of Dingess just after the turn of the century.

Lawrence said, “Mom and Pop used to play at Dingess — just a little community over in MingoCounty.”

That got us back on the subject of Ed, although most of the commentary was choppy and mixed between looking at photographs. One of the girls said, “We’ve heard talk of Ed all our lives.” Another made the unusual remark, “He could see lightning. Some way he could feel it or something and tell it was hitting.” Someone said Ella could tell the difference between the Haley children by their smell.

Turley, who had been fairly quiet throughout our visit, said to Lawrence, “Bernie Adams used to play a lot of music with your dad.”

Violet said, “Bernie’s the one took him in the chicken house for the toilet. They stayed all night up at our house. Robert Martin and Bernie and Ed and them played music all night. I can remember it. I was just a little girl. Mother said Ed played many a time where she was raised up over in the head of Francis Creek.”

Lawrence said, “You know, these different places like Hoover and places like that don’t ring a bell to me. I can remember going down here to the end of Trace, and maybe down to Smoke House, and up to George Adams’ who lived on up this way, and up to that store — Maynard’s Store — and buying candy, but that’s about the limit of my travel, except coming up from the mouth of Harts.”

Basically, the next half-hour or so was a giant “get to know everybody session” — mostly between Lawrence and the locals. I sort of hung back a little, taking it all in, while Lawrence spoke of and listened to stories about his father. There was a glow about his face that had been absent in Ashland.

At one juncture, he told Connie how her grandparents, Peter and Liza Mullins, raised his father.

“Oh, really?” she said. “I didn’t know that. Now I remember Granny. They wanted me to stay all night with her and I was always afraid she’d die in her sleep or something. That’s terrible.”

She asked Lawrence if he remembered Uncle Jeff — “he was Granny’s brother and he was kinda slow.”

Violet said, “He liked to go to all these dinner meetings they’d have out in the country. He’d walk for miles and miles.”

Connie asked Lawrence if Ed ever played at Logan — the seat of government for Logan County — and he said, “Yeah, he used to play around Logan quite a bit and Peach Creek. He’d play up there during court days especially. Back in them days, the town would load up. I’ve been there with him during those times. The old courthouse, I think it faced toward the river. One side of it was on Stratton Street.”

Connie asked where Ed was buried and Lawrence said, “He’s buried in the Ashland Cemetery in Ashland. Mom’s buried in the same cemetery but not with him. By the time my mother died — she died three years after Pop — they’d filled that section up.”

I’d never really thought about that. Ed and his wife were not buried together, the kind of seemingly minor detail tossed out randomly that took on somewhat of a greater meaning at a later date. I made a note to myself right then that I would visit Ed’s grave in Ashland before heading back to Nashville.

Violet wondered about Lawrence’s older brother, Clyde.

“Clyde’s out in Stockton, California,” he said. “He’s what I call the black sheep of the family. Never married. He just followed the sun for work. When it was summertime, he’d go north; when it was wintertime, he’d go south.”

Just then, an old man called Bum showed up at Turley’s. Bum remembered Ed and his family well. He asked Lawrence about the Haleys. It was hard to focus on their conversation — everyone in the room seemed to be talking at once — but I heard Bum mention something about how Lawrence’s brother Ralph used to hang from tree limbs by his “sticky toes” and would “do anything.”

“That’s exactly how he got killed,” Lawrence said. “He was hanging by his toes and he was gonna let go with his toes and flip over and land on his feet but he didn’t make it. He was just active like that. See, Ralph danced around these carnivals and fairs and places.”

A few minutes later, things quieted down a little. I moved over near Bum to ask him about Haley. His answers seemed to come through his nose more than his mouth and were usually followed by a little chuckle. He was great. Bum said he was 67 years old and first saw “Uncle Ed” in the thirties.

“He lived down in Ashland and he’d come up pretty often,” Bum said. “People come from everywhere to listen at him play whenever they’d have them big dances and stuff. He’d play half the night. Yeah, I’ve been right there.”

I asked Bum about Ed’s tunes and he said, “Ah, he played so many… There was one religious tune he’d put the bow under the fiddle, and the hair, he’d turn it right over and slip his fiddle between it, and play that. I forgot what it was.”

Bum told me all about the old dances.

“They used to have a big working,” he said. “About every family on this creek and Harts Creek down here, they’d all gather up and hoe one man’s field out and then move to the next one. And they’d all go to each other’s farms that way and help each other, and when they got done one man would have a big dance. They’d have a dance on Saturday night. They’d have them at just about every home, mostly at Uncle Peter’s up here, in the house. Like one room in there, they’d gather everything up and take it outside and they’d have a dance in there, and when they got through they’d put the furniture all back in. Anybody that wanted to come was invited. They’d have food right in the house. There were usually three or four around to call the reel: ‘Dosy doe and here she comes and there she goes.'”

“It’d just be Uncle Ed and John Hager playing?” I asked.

“Well, Ed mostly,” Bum said. “Uncle Johnny, he played some with him. Uncle Ed, he played by himself most all of these dances. Mrs. Haley played with him a lot. She played the mandolin, guitar or accordion.”

“Did Johnny Hager play the banjo about like Grandpa Jones?” Turley asked Bum.

“Yeah, over-handed they call it,” Bum said. “Molly O’Day, she played that way. My grandpaw would whittle out two little sticks and he’d sit and beat on them strings and Ed a playing the fiddle.”

“Ed played with Ed Belcher,” Turley said.

“Yeah, I’ve heard Pop talk about Ed Belcher,” Lawrence said.

Now who was Ed Belcher?

“He played the guitar,” Bum said. “He could play the piano, too. They’d get together at times and play together. They’d go up Buck Fork.”

Bum said he last saw Ed Haley “over here on that mountain yonder” at Clifford Belcher’s beer joint.

“He’d go down there and play and people’d give him beer and stuff. That’s about all he wanted. I run into him over there one night. I said, ‘Uncle Ed, where you been?’ He said, ‘I ain’t been no where but right here. I come up here to sit around and play music a while.’ I bought him a beer and he sat there and played music. Well, a Conley boy run in and went to playing and thought he was better than Ed and everything. Ed finally told that boy, said, ‘Why don’t you quit playing that music? You can’t play. You’re cutting my music up too much.’ That boy come back at him, you know, and aimed to fight him. He said, ‘Shut up, old man. You don’t know what you’re a talking about.’ I was standing there and I told him, I said, ‘Now listen. If you jump on that man, you’ll have me to fight and him both.’ And Ed took his fiddle and hit that feller right down over the head with it and busted that fiddle all to pieces.”

Lawrence laughed.

Turley said Ed Haley was high-tempered, as well as strong, and hinted at his mean streak.

“Dad said Peter had a dog that Ed couldn’t get along with at all. Ed told Uncle Johnny, ‘You get me close to him and I’ll hit him in the mouth. I’ll knock him out.’ And he said Ed hit that dog and killed him with his fist. Hit him in the ear and killed him. That’s what my daddy told.”

Bum was very familiar with Ed Haley’s family on Trace. He said Uncle Peter Mullins was “pretty bad to get out and get drunk and get into it with people.” He knew all about Ed’s uncle Weddie Mullins’ murder at an election in Dingess. “There used to be a train come in there and they’d bring flour and stuff over there and people’d go over there to Dingess and get it,” he said. “They’d take wagons and go through these hills, like up Henderson and all them places and they got into it over there.” Bum wasn’t sure who shot Weddie but knew that his killer survived the fracas. Once the news reached Harts Creek, John Adams got a pistol from Jackson Mullins and rode to Dingess where he found Weddie’s killer laid up in a bed clinging to life. Someone told him the guy probably wouldn’t make it so (like something out of a Hollywood Western) he pulled out a .38 pistol and said, “I know he won’t,” and shot him in cold blood.

I wasn’t exactly sure who any of these people were — Jackson Mullins, John Adams — but I had the impression that they were some relation to Ed Haley. At that juncture, I just let the tape recorder roll and tried to take notes and absorb everything, figuring that what seemed like unimportant details would perhaps later develop into major items of interest.

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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