New Coal Company in Chapmanville (1923)
12 Friday Feb 2021
Posted Chapmanville, Coal
in12 Friday Feb 2021
Posted Chapmanville, Coal
in29 Wednesday Jan 2020
Posted Battle of Blair Mountain, Boone County, Coal, Logan
inTags
A.M. Belcher, Appalachia, Battle of Blair Mountain, Bill Blizzard, Blair Mountain, Boone County, C.W. Osenton, coal, Coal River, crime, deputy sheriff, Dingess Run, Edgar Combs, George Muncy, H.W. Houston, history, J.E. Wilburn, James Cafalgo, John Gore, Lewisburg, Logan Banner, Logan County, Nellis, Ottawa, T.C. Townsend, United Mine Workers of America, Velesco Carpenter, W.B. Mullens
From the Logan Banner of Logan, WV, comes this story dated June 29, 1923 about the trial that resulted from the “armed march” on Logan County, WV, by UMWA miners:
Widow Is Introduced At The Blizzard Trial
LEWISBURG, W.Va., June 27 — Two word pictures, one from the lips of the widow of George Munsy, coal digger who “never came back” from guarding his county, the other from one of the party that met and killed the outpost on the mountain side, lay tonight before 12 men who are to determine whether Sub-District President William Blizzard, of the miners’ union, was an accessory to the murder of Munsy.
Before these word pictures the jurors had heard counsel on both sides outline the story of the labor trouble of Southern West Virginia coal fields, the march of thousands against the Logan border, the interruption of that march after a brigadier general of the United States Army had intervened a midnight clash between miners and deputy sheriffs and state police, resumption of the march, fighting on the mountain ridges that separated the non-union Logan coal fields from the then union fields on Coal River, the meeting of 30 or 40 marchers with Deputy Sheriff John C. Gore, of Logan county, and two companions one of whom was Munsey, the volley of shots that answered the Logan pass-word, “amen,” and a wealth of detail about the march presented from point of view of both prosecution and defense.
Review Blair Battle
All the morning was spent in the opening of the attorneys, A.M. Belcher and C.W. Osenton, for the prosecution, and H.W. Houston and T.C. Townsend, for the defense. Then in the afternoon the jurors turned their attention to the witness box. First they saw W.B. Mullens point out the battle line and the points of interest in the march on a map that was tacked to the courthouse wall above the witness stand. Next Velesco Carpenter, facing an inexhaustible stream of questions in direct and cross-examinations told how he had gone from his home in Nellis to Blair, how in a party of about 35 he marched up Blair mountain, spent the night, and early the next morning set out and from his place in line watched the meeting with three men, one of whom he learned was Gore, heard the shots and saw the bodies after they had fallen. Then just before court adjourned Mrs. Munsy took the stand for her brief examination so that she might return tomorrow to her seven children in her home on Dingess Run Creek in Logan county.
Widow on Stand
“The night before he was killed was his time to come home but he never came,” Mrs. Munsy testified that her husband had been digging coal for about fifteen years before his death and that they had been married about 20 years. He had been “guarding for about a week, working for Logan county, for the coal operators,” she went on, but later when Mr. Houston cross-examined her on that statement her formerly quiet tone rose to the ringing declaration “he was defending his county.”
Carpenter did not know who fired the shots that killed Gore, Munsy and James Cafalgo. When the shooting began he ran back a few steps and dropped to the ground, he said. After it was over he went to a point near the body of “the foreigner,” and saw that of Gore, but could not see the third body. Edgar Combs told him he had killed the one Carpenter had designated as “the large man in the middle,” and later told another of the party this man was Gore.
He left Nellis, where he was employed as a pump man, on August 29, 1921, he said, after a man had come to the mines and threatened to “knock off” the “yellow” men who did not go. A journey on foot and by rail took about 30 in his party to Ottawa, and there Edgar Combs picked him and three others he named to go to Blair. The next day from the schoolhouse steps in Blair, he said, Rev. J.E. Wilburn made a speech and a party was organized that went into the hills. Some threw down their guns and refused to go but threats were made, and the men were lined up in single file, with leaders for squads of eight men. The original party of 50 or 60 divided, and the group of about 35, in which he went, camped on the top of the mountain until daybreak. They heard firing in the direction of the “gap,” through which previous testimony had shown the road from Blair to Logan ran and set out in that direction.
Then he told of the meeting with the “large man” and his two companions, and by pre-arranged signal the leader lifted his hat three times to indicate there was no danger. The large man beckoned to them to come on, and when the parties met there were mutual demands for the password. The shots were fired, Carpenter testified, when somebody said “amen,” and in the opening statements prosecution counsel had told the jury that it would be shown that “amen” was the Logan password. Wilburn, the preacher, was in the lead of the marchers column, and Combs next behind him, the witness said.
28 Saturday Jul 2018
Posted Boone County, Civil War, Native American History
inTags
Albert Allen, Appalachia, Ballardsville Methodist Church, Boone County, Cabell County, Charleston, civil war, Coal River, crime, Crook District, Daniel Boone, Danville, Edgar Mitchell, Frankfort, French and Indian War, genealogy, history, Jack Dotson, Johnson Copley, Kanawha County, Kanawha River, Kanawha Valley, Kentucky, Lee Sowards, Lewisburg, Logan Banner, Logan County, Madison, Missouri, Nathan Boone, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Peytona District, Point Pleasant, Pond Fork, Ruckers Branch, Scott District, Sherman District, Spruce Fork, St. Albans, Virginia Assembly, Washington District, West Virginia, West Virginia Synodical School, Yadkin Valley
From the Logan Banner of Logan, WV, comes this bit of history about Boone County in a story dated December 9, 1927:
BOONE COUNTY
Boone county was created in 1847 of parts of Kanawha, Cabell and Logan counties. Its area is 06 miles, 65 miles larger than Logan, and in 1920 its population was 18,145. It is divided into five magisterial districts, as follows: Crook, Peytona, Scott, Sherman and Washington.
Boone county commemorates in West Virginia the name of Daniel Boone, the pathfinder to the west. It is an honor worthily bestowed, for who has not heard of Daniel Boone and the story of his efforts as an explorer, hunter, land-pilot and surveyor. His was a romantic life, picturesque and even pathetic. For more than a century he has he has been held as the ideal of the frontiersman, perhaps for the reason that his course in life was not marked by selfishness and self-seeking. He fought with the Indians, but was not tainted with the blood-lust that so often marred the border warrior and made him even more savage than the red man whom he sought to expel; he built and passed on to newer fields, leaving to others the fruits of his industry and his suffering. As a man needing plenty of “elbow room,” his places of residence mark the border between civilization and savagery for a period of fifty years. And there was a time, a period of nearly ten years, when his cabin home was on the banks of the Kanawha, a short distance above the present City of Charleston.
Daniel Boone was born in the Schulykill Valley, Pennsylvania, on November 2, 1734, but in 1750 removed with his parents to the Yadkin Valley, in North Carolina. Here he grew to manhood, married and reared a family, but was active as an Indian trader, frontiersman and defender of the feeble settlement. He was with Braddock’s army at its defeat on the Monongahela in 1755, and a few years later became the founder and defender of Kentucky. He strove with the red man with force and stratagem, and many are the fire-side tales recounted and retold in West Virginia homes of his prowess with the rifle; his ready plans and nimble wit that helped him out of situations that seemed almost impossible. Many, perhaps, are without foundation of fact; others contain enough of truth to leaven the story. Of his service to the western settlers, records preserved in the archives of state and nation show that he was indefatigable. At the Indian uprising in 1774, Boone was sent out to warn the settlers and surveyors, ranging from the settlement on the Holston river throughout all of what is now southern West Virginia to Lewisburg. In 1788, after he had lost his property in Kentucky through defective titles and failure to properly enter land grants, Boone and his family removed to Point Pleasant, at the mouth of the Great Kanawha, where they remained about one year. Contrary to his habit, his next move was toward the east to a site near the City of Charleston. When Kanawha county was formed in 1789 Boone was a resident and was named the first Lieutenant Colonel of the militia, and the following year, 1790, was elected a member of the lower house of the Virginia assembly. Colonel Boone left the Kanawha valley in 1799, removing to Missouri where he had been granted a thousand arpents of land by the Spanish government and had been appointed a Syndic for the Femme-Osage district–a local office combining the duties of sheriff, jury and military commandant. Colonel Boone died at the home of his youngest son, Colonel Nathan Boone, on the Femme Osage river, Missouri, September 26, 1820. His remains, with those of his wife, were some years later taken to Frankfort, Kentucky, and re-interred with pomp and ceremony. A monument erected by the state marks his last resting place.
Madison, the present county seat, is located at the junction of Pond Fork and Spruce Fork, which form Coal River, is 603 feet above sea level and in 1920 had a population of 604. It was incorporated as a town by the circuit court of that county in 1906. At the organization of the county in 1847, the seat of justice was located on the lands of Albert Allen, at the mouth of Spruce Fork, opposite the present town of Madison. The original court house was burned by Federal troops during the Civil War, and for a time thereafter the seat of justice was located at the Ballardsville Methodist Church. In 1866 the court house was re-located on the lands of Johnson Copley, opposite the old site, and the public buildings erected, which were used until 1921 when the present fine court house was erected.
The West Virginia Synodical School maintained and operated by the Presbyterian church, occupies the site of the original court house, opposite the present county seat.
Danville, another incorporated town in that county, had a population of 327 in 1920.
Source: Logan (WV) Banner, 9 December 1927.
Logan (WV) Banner, 22 March 1927.
18 Sunday Sep 2016
Posted Lincoln County Feud
inTags
Appalachia, author, book, books, Brandon Kirk, Greenbrier County, Lewisburg, Lewisburg Literary Festival, Pelican Publishing Company, West Virginia
Lewisburg Literary Festival in Lewisburg, WV. 6 August 2016. Photo by Mom.
10 Saturday Sep 2016
Posted Lincoln County Feud
inTags
Appalachia, author, Blood in West Virginia, books, Brandon Kirk, Greenbrier College, Greenbrier County, John McElhenney, Lewisburg, Lewisburg Academy, Lewisburg Literary Festival, Lewisburg Seminary, Lincoln County Feud, Pelican Publishing Company, West Virginia
Many thanks to the Lewisburg Literary Festival for hosting us in Lewisburg, WV. 6 August 2016. Photo by Mom.
05 Monday Sep 2016
Posted Lincoln County Feud
inTags
Appalachia, author, Blood in West Virginia, books, Brandon Kirk, Greenbrier County, Greenbrier County Convention & Visitors Bureau, Lewisburg, Lewisburg Literary Festival, Lincoln County Feud, Pelican Publishing Company, West Virginia
Greenbrier County Convention & Visitors Bureau, Lewisburg, WV, 5 August 2016. Photo by Mom.
05 Saturday Sep 2015
Tags
36th Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regiment, Appalachia, Appomattox, Battle of Fayetteville, Christian, civil war, Confederate Army, Fayetteville, Floyd S. Stafford, genealogy, Guyandotte River, Henry H. Hardesty, history, Lewisburg, Logan County, miller, R.A. Brock, Richmond, Robert E. Lee, U.S. South, Virginia, Virginia and Virginians, West Virginia
From “Virginia and Virginians, 1606-1888,” published by H.H. Hardesty, we find this entry for Floyd S. Stafford, who resided at Christian in Logan County, West Virginia:
Was born in Logan county Dec. 15, 1838, in what is now the State of West Virginia, but was then a part of Virginia. In the war between the States his sympathies were with his native State, and he volunteered early in the struggle, serving till the surrender of General Lee at Appomattox, having enlisted in 1861 in Co. D, 36th Va. V.I. At the battle of Fayetteville, W.Va., Sept. 10, 1862, he was severely wounded, but after recovering he returned to services, and engaged in many more hard fought battles, till honorably paroled May 1, 1865, at Lewisburg, Va. Since the war he has resided on his farm in Logan county, in the cultivation of which and the management of a valuable grist mill that he also owns, he has been and is now engaged. His estate is situated on Guyandotte River and is one of the most valuable in the county, consisting of mineral and timber lands. As a citizen he is honored and beloved by all who know him; his post office address is Christian, Logan county, W.Va.
Source: Dr. R.A. Brock, Virginia and Virginians, 1606-1888 (Richmond, VA: H.H. Hardesty, Publisher, 1888), p. 840-841.
22 Wednesday Jan 2014
Posted Big Ugly Creek, Civil War
inTags
16th Regiment Virginia Cavalry, Albert Gallatin Jenkins, Archibald Harrison, Barboursville, Carnifex Ferry, civil war, Droop Mountain, East Cavalry Battlefield, Fairview Rifles, Ferguson's Battalion, genealogy, Gettysburg, Guy Harrison, history, Hurston Spurlock, Knoxville, Lewisburg, Lincoln County, Mary Harrison, Milton J. Ferguson, Scary Creek, Tazewell County, Virginia, Wayne, Wayne County, West Virginia, writing
For a brief period of time in the 1880s, Archibald Harrison, a veteran officer of the Civil War, made his home in the Harts Creek District of Lincoln County, West Virginia, where he labored as a farmer and timberman.
Archibald was born in January of 1837 to Guy P. and Cleme (Harmon) Harrison in Tazewell County, Virginia. In 1850 census records for Tazewell County, he was listed with his father and stepmother, Nancy Jane Bruster, as well as his brothers and sisters.
By 1860, Harrison had made his way to Wayne County, where he was listed in the census with his older brother, Thomas, aged 35. Later in the year, he married Mary Spurlock, a daughter of Burwell and Nancy Spurlock. Mary’s father was a preacher who, among other things, established a Methodist Episcopal (South) Church at Trout’s Hill (Wayne) in 1846 with 36 charter members.
Archibald and Mary had three children: Laura P., born August 8, 1861, who died in 1879; Nancy C. “Nannie,” born February 1, 1863; and Lemuel, born September 18, 1865, died 1942. Daughters Laura and Nannie apparently spent their lives in Wayne County, while son Lem is probably the same person of that name who shows up in Logan County census records on Mud Fork and at Cherry Tree in 1910 and 1920.
During the Civil War, Harrison served in the Confederate Army and was a participant in many important events: namely General Albert Gallatin Jenkins’ famous march to Ohio in 1862, where his companions became the first Confederates to invade the Buckeye State; at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania under General J.E.B. Stuart in 1863; and at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania under John McCausland in 1864.
In 1861, the first year of the war, Harrison enlisted with the Fairview Rifles, an unorganized Confederate detachment under the command of Captain Milton J. Ferguson of Wayne County. He fought with them at Barboursville (July 14, 1861), at Scary Creek in Putnam County (July 17, 1861) at Carnifex Ferry in Nicholas County (September 10, 1861) and at Lewisburg in Greenbrier County (May 23, 1862). Most of these engagements were Confederate losses.
In August 1862 Harrison and the Fairview Rifles got a huge morale boost when they marched with Colonel Jenkins’s force from Monroe County to the Ohio River, occupying the towns of Buckhannon, Weston, Glenville, Spencer, Ripley, and Ravenswood along the way. At the Ohio, Jenkins and about half of his troops crossed the river and captured Racine (they were the first Confederates to enter Ohio) before re-entering (West) Virginia and heading to Point Pleasant.
On September 15, 1862, the Fairview Rifles were renamed Ferguson’s Battalion and officially mustered into service at Wayne Courthouse. Harrison, who was only 24 years old, was made second lieutenant of Captain Hurston Spurlock’s Company. (Spurlock was probably an in-law.)
On January 15, 1863, the 16th Regiment of Virginia Cavalry was formed when five companies from Ferguson’s Battalion merged with four companies of Major Otis Caldwell’s Battalion. Captain Ferguson was promoted to colonel and placed in command of the 16th, while Lt. Harrison and a majority of Spurlock’s Company were designated as Company E.
In the early summer of 1863, the 16th was attached to General Jenkins’ Brigade and sent north as part of General Robert E. Lee’s invasion force. In June, they moved through the Shenandoah Valley toward Pennsylvania where they fought at 2nd Winchester, Virginia, between June 14-15. They also saw action at Gettysburg on June 26, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on June 28-29 and at East Cavalry Battlefield near Gettysburg on July 3.
In the fall of 1863, on November 6, Harrison and the 16th fought at Droop Mountain in Pocahontas County, where the Confederates were defeated by a Union force that helped ensure Union control of the new state. Later in the month, the 16th participated in a siege of Knoxville, Tennessee, until December, 1863.
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