Tag Archives: Logan

Whirlwind 1.23.1919

24 Monday Mar 2014

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“Blue Eyed Beauty,” a local correspondent at Whirlwind in Upper Hart, Logan County, West Virginia, offered the following items, which the Logan Democrat printed on Thursday, January 23, 1919:

Harve Smith and Reece Dalton were business visitors to Logan Monday.

Mrs. Rhoda Jane Sargent went to Buffalo Sunday to stay with her sister, Mrs. Doskie Sargent.

William and Mose Tomblin are cutting timber on Rockhouse for the Island Creek Coal Co.

Prof. K.K. Thomas is getting along nicely with his school on Twelvepole since his return from the army.

Shade Smith is at Logan this week serving on the petit jury.

Rev. George Hensley preached at McCloud Sunday.

Taylor Blair and family spent a few days this week with his mother.

J.H. Workman passed this way Friday, enroute to Logan.

Whirlwind 1.2.1919

21 Friday Mar 2014

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“Blue Eyed Beauty,” a local correspondent at Whirlwind in Upper Hart, Logan County, West Virginia, offered the following items, which the Logan Democrat printed on Thursday, January 2, 1919:

James Mullins, postmaster at this place, has sufficiently recovered from an attack of influenza as to be able attend to his duties in the office.

“Uncle Jim” Tomblin is spending the winter with relatives in this community.

Everett Adams, Jesse Mullins and Crit Blair have received their discharges from the army and have returned home.

Bill Tomblin was a visitor on Island Creek Christmas day.

Gordon Farley was released from jail in Logan in time to spend Christmas with his family.

Marion Riddle was a business visitor at Yuma Friday.

John Workman, who has been at Eli Workman’s sick with the influenza has returned home much improved in health.

Moses Tomblin has resumed his work for the Island Creek Coal Co. on Mud Fork.

In Search of Ed Haley 265

13 Thursday Mar 2014

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We later drove to see Tootsie Tomblin, a younger sister to Jake and a neighbor on Big Branch. Tootsie greeted us at the door, flanked by her tall husband Clabe, and a small nut-cracking housedog that barked at our every movement — even after we’d sat down at a large eating table in the dining room.

Tootsie referred to Ed Haley as “Uncle Ed” and said her whole family loved him. She said he was “a great person…so understanding.” Ed was particularly close to her mother, Nary Dalton.

“Ed thought the world of my mother. He thought my mother was the finest woman he had ever laid his eyes on. And he’d tell her, he’d say, ‘Come over here Nary and set down beside me. I want to talk to you a little bit.’ And he’d tell her everything about hisself, and about his wife, his children and everything. He loved her cooking.”

Tootsie laughed.

“Daddy had a whole litter of kids and we all had nicknames but Mommy insisted on calling us by our real names. And Ed, being blind, couldn’t figure out why there were so many kids in the home. He called for Mom. ‘Hey Nary, come in here and set down beside of me.’ Mom went to him and said, ‘What are you a wanting, Ed?’ He said, ‘I’ve listened for three or four days and I’m kind of buffaloed.’ She said, ‘What are you buffaloed on?’ Ed said, ‘You got too many kids. All of these names don’t add up. What are we a doing with all these names?’ Mom laughed and then explained it to him.”

Before we could ask Tootsie any more questions, she showed us several small boxes of old family photographs while feeding us donuts, pie and milk. I asked her if she remembered much about Ed coming to her father’s house.

“They was a funny family of people,” she said. “I mean, they had peculiar ways. They was different. Them people went clean as pins. You never seen them dirty. Ed could take care of them good as I could mine and me with eyes. When Ed spoke, he spoke with authority. They knew he meant what he was saying. He’d say, ‘Now, that’s enough,’ and that was it. He never had to whip his kids.”

Tootsie said Ed mostly visited Dood at his first home (“Jake’s place”) and never brought his wife with him. Later, after her father built his new house in 1951 (her current home), Ed only came a time or two. On his last trip, he had a Jacob Stainer or a Stradivarius violin with him.

“He was here in the fall and died the next summer or maybe that winter,” she said. “One of his boys brought him here.”

When Ed was in Harts, he traveled a lot with Jeff Mullins, a simple-minded man and brother to Aunt Liza who stayed with the Adams family. In Logan, he played with his wife or a colored man.

I asked Tootsie if she remembered a lot about how her father played the fiddle. She said she was sure that he played with the fiddle under his chin. Some of his tunes were “Cacklin’ Hen”, “Wednesday Night Waltz”, and “Bear Dog” — basically what Ed played. He could also play a little on the guitar and sing. Tootsie really bragged on Ed’s singing — like his “Coming Around the Mountain” — and kind of caught us off guard when she said, “Buddy, Ed Haley could dance. He was a chubby fellow but he could move. That old man could move.”

In Search of Ed Haley 263

11 Tuesday Mar 2014

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Along the way, we stopped and picked up Billy Adkins, who guided us to Jake’s home on Big Branch. Jake, we found, was a little skinny fellow, somewhat quiet, and — I was told — a decorated World War II veteran.

I asked Jake if he remembered the first time he ever saw Ed.

“I don’t remember that,” he said right away. “I was born in 1916 but I didn’t stay at home like the rest of my family. I’d slip off from home here when I was a little bitty fella and maybe stay a week or two before I come back or they’d come get me or something another. Then after I got up in years, I joined the Army and I stayed over four years in the Army. I was in there nineteen months before they bombed Pearl Harbor. So I didn’t stay home like the rest of the kids.”

A little later in the conversation, Jake made it clear that he remembered more about Ed and his family than he realized.

“He stayed with Mother and Dad a lot, Ed did, and them young’ns,” he said. “She was a music teacher, the old woman was. She was from out of Kentucky and he was off’n Harts Creek. They had about five, six children.”

I asked Jake how long Ed usually stayed with his father and he said, “Aw, he might stay a week. They’d go up there at the courthouse at Logan and play music, him and her, and she had this little boy tied to the rope so she could draw him in you know out on the sidewalk. And somebody give him some pennies and he had them pennies you know and he dropped them and she started drawing them in. He ripped out a big oath, ‘Wait till I get my money!’ You know, they couldn’t see what they done or nothing.”

Sometimes, Ed left his kids with Dood when he was playing in Logan.

“Now them kids, they was pretty mean, but people most of the time helped him correct them,” Jake said. “They raised one girl, Mona. That girl, she was a bad one. She’d run up and down the road with them boys if Dad didn’t get after her. She was just a young gal, you know. Ed, he didn’t care if you corrected them kids. If you busted the hide on one that was all right.”

Jake didn’t remember much about Ed’s appearance other than that his eyes were “milky-looking.”

When Brandon asked him what it was like to hang around with Ed, Jake said, “He talked to Dad a whole lot. He said to my dad one time, ‘Dood, where do you think hell’s gonna be at?’ Dad said, ‘I never thought about where it’s gonna be, Ed.’ He said, ‘I have an idea where it’s gonna be. I believe it’ll be on the outside of this world.’ He was a good ole man in a way, but he was bad to drink in a way.”

Oh…so Jake remembered Ed drinking.

I asked him if Ed drank a lot and he said, “No, I never did see him come to Dad’s drunk. Dad didn’t allow no bad stuff around his house, even when he wasn’t a Christian.”

Jake thought for a second, then said, “Ed was a healthy eater. He’d come in there — get up for breakfast — he’d say to my mother, ‘Nary, have you got ary onion?’ And she’d get him an onion. He’d eat an onion head for breakfast. My mother was a person that would feed anybody that came along. It didn’t make no difference whether he was a drunk, a hobo, or what he mighta been, Mom would feed him. We had a big long table with a bench on one side and about ten people to eat off of it besides who come in. We kept Bernie Adams half the time. He was the puniest feller that ever you saw — a plumb weakling he was — and he’d stay with Dad for maybe two or three weeks.”

Jake tried to describe his memories of Ed and Dood playing around the house.

“We just had an old log house,” he said. “A door over there and one here and one room and Dad had a lot of trees around here. They’d sit out there in the yard. They’d start in on Saturday evening and they’d be a sitting right there when Monday morning come with a half a gallon of moonshine playing music. They’d fiddle that long.”

In Search of Ed Haley 258

06 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by in Big Harts Creek, Ed Haley, Music

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Late one October night, I rolled into Harts on the bus. I was full of excitement, having just read an article from Smithsonian magazine about Doug Owsley, one of the top forensic anthropologists in the country. According to the article, Doug had worked with the mass graves in Bosnia, identified some of David Koresh’s charred cult members at Waco, and helped to break the Jeffrey Dahmer case in Wisconsin. He was very interested in historical graves, having exhumed western outlaws, Indians, Civil War soldiers and no telling what else. He was known in some circles as “the Sherlock Holmes of Bones.”

The next morning, I told Brandon I had this idea of contacting Owsley to see if he would exhume the Haley-McCoy grave. He thought for a few seconds, then said it was risky. While he was as curious as I in wanting to know what was “down there,” he wasn’t really sure what we would gain by it. Besides, he said, people might think we were taking things a little too far. He could picture us sitting down to interview someone and all of a sudden they say, “Oh, you’re the guys going around digging people up.” He had a point: I wasn’t even sure what we might gain by exhuming the grave. We tabled the notion until later.

Turning our minds to more pressing thoughts, we decided to visit Stump Dalton at Ferrellsburg. Stump had popped onto my bus during my last trip to Harts and, looking very much like a thin-haired George Jones, said, “My family and Ed Haley was close. If he was in Ohio or somewhere and he come here the first place he come was our house. I knowed of Ed to stay as high as two months around there. We had him a bed all the time.”

Stump was a son of Dood Dalton, Ed’s fiddler-friend on the Big Branch of Harts Creek, as well as a former mandolin player for the Starlight Rambers, a local group featured on Logan radio many years ago. He was 66 years old.

“I’ve actually played with Ed Haley,” Stump had told me.

Brandon and I made the short drive to Ferrellsburg where we pulled the car into a wide spot near the railroad tracks. We walked across Route 10 to Stump’s turquoise-colored house. “Come on in, boys,” Stump said at the door. “I’ll tell you what I can about Ed Haley.” Immediately, as we sat down on couches inside, I asked Stump about his father, who was reportedly a great old-time fiddler and a good friend to Ed Haley.

“They called him Dood Dalton,” Stump said. “His real name was Moses. My dad used to play for a lot of them old-time square dances. Music follows the Daltons. Dad could play anything that had strings on it. He was a number one harp player. He could play anything on the French harp.”

Brandon asked Stump if he remembered any of his father’s tunes and he said, “‘Hell Amongst the Yearlings’, ‘Sally Goodin’, ‘Old Joe Clark’, and all that. See, when they would first start playing, Ed would say, ‘Now Dood, I want you to tune that fiddle up and play that ‘Lost Indian’.’ Now they used to take and clamp a little knife on the bridge. It softens that down. Then they would take two little sticks — about the size of straws, you know — and play that ‘Hell Amongst the Yearlings’ and beat on that and man you talk about a tune. Dad would either beat or play it or vice-versa, him or Ed would. That was a favorite tune for them two — that and the ‘Blackberry Blossom’. You know, they revised that ‘Blackberry Blossom’.”

Right away, it sounded a lot like the kind of relationship Ed shared with Laury Hicks, the fiddling veterinarian in Calhoun County.

I told Stump I thought Ed Haley was a master of improvisation and he agreed, saying, “They would play a tune and they’d put their own thing into it, you know. I’ve seen Ed Haley sit down and say, ‘Now Dood, what do you think of this?’ and vice-versa. And they’d sit there all day, all night. They could do about anything they wanted to do with a fiddle, both of them. When they was into fiddle playing, they was into fiddle playing. You didn’t come in there and start a conversation with them.”

I asked Stump if Ed and Dood played at the same time, as he had supposedly done with Hicks, and he said, “Not too much.”

In Search of Ed Haley 225

15 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Big Harts Creek, Ed Haley, Whirlwind

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After lunch, Billy suggested that we go see Sherman and Minnie Smith, who lived a little further up the creek at the old Whirlwind Post Office. Minnie was the granddaughter of Solomon Adams and a great-granddaughter to Anthony Adams. Her father was a nephew to Melvin Kirk, who helped bury Milt and Green.

We soon pulled up to an incredible two-story log home with a remodeled front. We first spoke with Minnie’s husband Sherman who was busy dismantling a chimney labeled “S.A. 1875.” Minnie came out of the house, recognized Billy and started talking to us like we were neighbors. We raved over her log house for several minutes, which caused her to tell us how her grandfather Sol Adams had built it of yellow poplar in 1869. We later discovered that he was born in that year.

We gathered in chairs and sofas in a dimly lit living room with a low ceiling, while Sherman stood nearby in a doorway leading into the kitchen. We told them about my interest in Ed Haley, which caused Sherman to tell about seeing him in Logan when he was a boy. He said Ed was usually by himself but sometimes had a banjo-picker with him.

“Ed Haley used to play here when I was a girl,” Minnie said, adding that she was born in 1933. According to Minnie, Ed played for dances in the Workman home. Her parents would clear all of the furniture out of the living room and an adjacent room on Saturday. Ed came before the dance started and was fed properly, then as people started showing up he was “set up” on a stool in the doorway between the two cleared rooms. From there, he could entertain two rooms of people instead of just one. Minnie remembered him playing tunes like “Blind Man Stackolee” and “Fire on the Mountain”. Creed Conley was usually the caller and would have people dancing so wildly that they’d bump heads. Most were drunk. Minnie said someone passed a hat around for Ed’s pay toward the end of the dance.

In Search of Ed Haley 223

13 Monday Jan 2014

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After talking for some time about Ed’s music, our conversation drifted toward his family on Harts Creek.

“Old man Peter Mullins, everybody called him ‘Reel-foot Peter’ cause he had his foot cut off here and had a special shoe made,” Joe said, referencing Ed’s uncle. “He walked kindly on his heel. He worked on log jobs but he couldn’t do much. He gathered ginseng. He made most of his money on moonshine. He hauled it up to Black Bottom in Logan and sold it. He liked to drink. They drunk moonshine most of the time. They were good old people.”

Now would Ed drink a lot with Uncle Peter when he was around Harts?

“Old man Ed every now and then he’d take a few drinks of it,” Joe said. “I’ve seen him pretty high. It didn’t take much of that moonshine to get in your hair. I’ve seen it just as clear as a crystal. You could look through the bottle just like looking right on in a looking glass and you could shake it and about seven beads’d pop up there on top of it and they’d just roll around and around. And you couldn’t smell it. I’ve seen some that you’d look at and it’d look like muddy water and you could smell it through the bottles. But they made good whiskey. They generally made it out of chop or corn and if they’d double it back and use good clear water it was good. You could just turn it up and it wouldn’t take your breath.”

Brandon asked what Ed was like when he was “feeling high” and Joe said, “He seemed like he was in a good mood about all the time. When I was around him I never did hear him say nothing out of the way to nobody. Old man Ed, he was a fine old man but he got over here at a beer garden. Clifford Belcher had a beer garden on this mountain — it was the meanest place that ever was — and he was over there playing one night and they was a big bunch of them a playing cards and the law come in to arrest them all. Some of them boys jumped out the window. And Ed got into it with somebody in there and they said that fellow said something and Ed just come over and took that fiddle by the neck and busted it all to pieces over that fellow’s head. I don’t know what he said to him but I come along there after it happened. They arrested a whole bunch of them fellows and put them in a cattle truck, the state police did, and took them to jail. They was about fifteen or twenty of them. They was Geronie Adams and Virgil Farley and Frank Farley. They loaded them up and hauled them to Logan and them fellows a cussing. They said, ‘You just might as well keep quiet. You’re going to jail.’ I think they took Ed to jail, too.”

Brandon said he’d heard several old-timers talk about how people used to play jokes on Ed when he was at Trace and Joe agreed.

“They played all kinds of tricks on him,” he said. “They was an old man stayed up here, old man Jeff Mullins. He was Peter’s wife’s brother. They called him dumb, but now he wasn’t as dumb as they thought he was. He stayed up there when Ed and them was up there and they was all the time playing pranks on Ed and him. Tennis Mullins, Ewell’s boy, he was big and fat and he run the store all the time. He was all the time fooling with Ed and old man Jeff.”

I asked how Ed took it when people joked with him and Joe said, “He was good about it. He never got mad. I know up there one time they was out there at old man Peter’s where they was a bridge there and they was a bunch of trees there. And old man Ewell Mullins, he was all the time fooling with Ed. He told Ed, he said, ‘We’ll climb a tree here to the top and let them cut it down.’ Well, Ed couldn’t see. Ewell, he climbed up the first limb about ten feet high and said, ‘Cut ‘er down boys!’ He jumped off about the time it started to fall. And Ed climbed right in the top of it. I bet he was forty feet up there. And they cut it and it fell and skinned him all over and liked to killed him. Ewell never would tell him though that he was just up a little bit on the tree.”

Joe said he also remembered Ed’s uncle Ticky George Adams.

“The old man as far as I know he never did work on no public works of no kind or draw no release or nothing,” he said. “He kept his family… He went from house to house — and everybody raised all kind of stuff and had cattle and plenty of milk and butter and eggs and everything — and every place he stopped they give him something. He had a little pole on his back with a sack on it. You’d see him a going bent over just kindly in a long run. He’d go up Trace and go through the head of Trace. And old man George would go around that a way and come down Rockhouse by Will Farley’s and back up through my Uncle Sewell’s and Aunt Alice’s down here. Everybody’d give him something. They’d give him a stick of butter or give him some milk or give him some meat or give him some eggs or something another. That’s the way he raised his family. Those Hoover times was hard.”

In Search of Ed Haley 204

27 Wednesday Nov 2013

Posted by in Big Harts Creek, Chapmanville, Ed Haley, Harts, Music

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A few days after visiting Earl Brumfield, Brandon dropped in on his good friends, Charley Davis and Dave Brumfield. Davis was an 88-year-old cousin to Bob and Bill Adkins. Brumfield was Davis’ son-in-law and neighbor. They lived just up Harts Creek near the high school and were familiar with Ed Haley and the story of his father, Milt. Charley said he once saw Ed in a fiddlers’ contest at the old Chapmanville High School around 1931-32. There were two other fiddlers in the contest — young men who were strangers to the area — but Ed easily won first place (a twenty-dollar gold piece). He was accompanied by his wife and a son, and there was a large crowd on hand.

Dave said Ed was mean as hell and laughed, as if it was just expected in those days. He said Ed spent most of his time drinking and playing music in all of the local dives. Sometimes, he would stop in and stay with his father, Cecil Brumfield, who lived in and later just down the road from the old Henderson Dingess place on Smoke House Fork. Dave remembered Ed playing at the Cow Shed Inn on Crawley Mountain, at Dick Thompson’s tavern on main Harts Creek and at Ellum’s Inn near Chapmanville. Supposedly, Ed wore a man out one time at a tavern on Trace Mountain.

Dave said he grew up hearing stories about Ed Haley from his mother’s people, the Adamses. Ed’s blindness was a source of fascination for locals. One time, he was sitting around with some cousins on Trace who were testing his ability to identify trees by their smell. They would put first one and then another type of limb under his nose. Dave said Ed identified oak and walnut. Then, one of his cousins stuck the hind-end of an old cat up under his nose. Ed smiled and said it was pussy willow.

Dave said he last saw Ed around 1945-46 when he came in to see his father, Cecil Brumfield. Ed had gotten drunk and broken his fiddle. Cecil loaned him his fiddle, which Ed never returned. Brumfield later learned that he had pawned it off in Logan for a few dollars to buy a train ticket to Ashland. Cecil bought his fiddle back from the shop and kept it for years.

Dave’s stories about Milt Haley were similar to what his Aunt Roxie Mullins had told me in 1991. Milt supposedly caused Ed’s blindness after getting angry and sticking him head-first into frozen water. Not long afterwards he and Green McCoy were hired by the Adamses to kill Al Brumfield over a timber dispute. After the assassination failed, the Brumfields captured Milt and Green in Kentucky. Charley said the two men were from Kentucky — “that’s why they went back there” to hide from the law after the botched ambush.

The vigilantes who captured Milt and Green planned to bring them back to Harts Creek by way of Trace Fork. But John Brumfield — Al’s brother and Dave’s grandfather — met them in the head of the branch and warned them to take another route because there was a rival mob waiting for them near the mouth of the hollow. Dave said it was later learned that Ben and Anthony Adams — two brothers who had ill feelings toward Al Brumfield — organized this mob.

The Brumfield gang, Dave and Charley agreed, quickly decided to avoid the Haley-McCoy rescue party. They crossed a mountain and came down Hoover Fork onto main Harts Creek, then went a short distance down the creek and turned up Buck Fork where they crossed the mountain to Henderson Dingess’ home on Smoke House Fork. From there, they went up Bill’s Branch, down Piney and over to Green Shoal, where Milt played “Brownlow’s Dream” — a tune Dave said (mistakenly) was the same as “Hell Up Coal Hollow”. Soon after, a mob beat Milt and Green to death and left them in the yard where chickens “picked at their brains.” After Milt and Green’s murder, Charley said locals were afraid to “give them land for their burial” because the Brumfields warned folks to leave their bodies alone.

Brandon asked about Cain Adkins, the father-in-law of Green McCoy. Charley said he had heard old-timers refer to the old “Cain Adkins place” on West Fork. In Charley’s time, it was known as the Fisher B. Adkins place. Fisher was a son-in-law to Hugh Dingess and one-time superintendent of Lincoln County Schools.

In the years following the Haley-McCoy murder, the Brumfields continued to rely on vigilante justice. Charley said they attempted to round up the Conleys after their murder of John Brumfield in 1900, but were unsuccessful.

U.B. Buskirk: West Virginia Timber Boss 2

30 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in Logan, Timber

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The Peter Morgan affair, as well as subsequent related events, had a profound impact on young U.B. Buskirk, who would become Logan’s wealthiest citizen in future years, but he chose not to divulge any information about it to Fred B. Lambert, regional historian. Instead, he discussed another murder involving Dave Straton, the son of Maj. William Straton of Logan.

“Once in 1870 or 1871, 200 or 300 rafters came to Barboursville. All got drunk. There was no room in the hotels. There were many fights and a wild time generally. Scott Lusher and Dave Straton were fighting in the street. Then John Thomas Moore was killed by Dave Straton. John Thomas Moore owned the Burnet House, a two-story building, and kept a hotel and bar room. It was near the Flour Mill at the corner of Water Street and Main Street (exactly where the First Methodist Church now stands). He had rented the upstairs for a dance.”

After 1870, Urias and Louisa Buskirk divorced and young U.B. went to stay with Dr. Bedford Moss in Barboursville.

“My parents fell out and Dr. Moss of Barboursville wanted a boy so I went to live with him,” Buskirk said. “This was about 1874 (September). I remember Henry Poteet, the Thornburgs, Baileys. John Wigal was my teacher. I went there April 1874.”

Throughout the 1870s, then, Buskirk lived in Dr. Moss’ home and received a Cabell County education. His father spent the decade in and out of court over the Morgan murder, while his mother married twice: first to Thomas Buchanan, a Civil War veteran, in 1874 and then to Henry Clay Ragland, future editor of the Logan County Banner, in 1878.

In 1880, young U.B. Buskirk left Dr. Moss and returned to Logan County.

“I left there on July 2, 1880 and came back to Logan,” he said.

After his return to Logan, Buskirk took a teaching position at Pigeon Creek for one year, then used the money he saved to pursue a life in business. His father, a local businessman, may have encouraged this venture.

“In 1881 I was a merchant at Logan,” he said. “I worked at this for 25 years. I bought deer skins, even bear skins, ginseng, etc.”

By the early 1890s, Buskirk was Logan’s wealthiest citizen, with business interests in timber, coal, and real estate. In 1892, he opened the Standard Mercantile Store (later the Guyan Mercantile Company). He served on the town council and built a livery on Hudgins Street. In 1896, he began construction of a mansion at 404 Cole Street.

“I first engaged in timbering, pushing timber into the river, for C. Crane and Co., about 1897,” he told Lambert. “They bought only portable timber. They had three double band mills in Cincinnati. They were in business 25 or 30 years before that.”

In his interview with Lambert, Buskirk showed a real familiarity with the timber industry — particularly its rafting era — as it existed in the Guyandotte Valley in the late 1800s. He sprinkled his stories with memories of people and geography.

“Rafting was rarely done beyond the mouth of Little Huff, just up above Ep Justice’s,” he said. “Most of the Justice family came to Logan. Ben lived on Main Island Creek. He moved to Huntington and died there.”

The upper Guyan Valley was difficult to navigate on rafts because of two geographical features, namely the “Roughs” and the “Betty Shoals.”

“The ‘Roughs of Guyan’ extended 14 miles from the mouth of Gilbert Creek to the forks of the river as the junction of the Clear Fork and the Guyan,” Buskirk said. “The Betty Shoals were just below the mouth of Gilbert Creek. A preacher Fontaine drowned there. His body was recovered.”

Peck’s Mill was a familiar site to raftsmen as they plied their way downriver toward the timber market in Guyandotte and Huntington.

“Peck’s Mill was built by Mr. White in the late ’60s and sold to J.E. Peck Sr. and Ed Peck,” Buskirk said. “R.W. Peck Sr. was sheriff in 1880.”

Logan County rafstmen heading toward the Ohio River usually made it to the Harts area of southern Lincoln County on their first day of travel.

“At the end of the first day’s run, raftsmen put up at Big Ugly, seven miles below Harts Creek — on the right going down,” Buskirk said. “Rafts ran 8-9 miles per hour coming down and reached Logan in 2-3 hours.”

A little further downriver, near West Hamlin, was the “Falls of Guyan,” an actual waterfall and hindrance to river traffic.

“The Falls were dangerous but were removed, as was Dusenberry Dam,” Buskirk said. “The Jordan Sands shifted. Men sometimes had to cut through the sands here and elsewhere to get pushboats through them.”

Upon reaching the town of Guyandotte, loggers sold their rafts and took their money to local saloons and hotels.

“Mrs. Carroll at Guyandotte kept 3-4 businessmen but not raftsmen,” Buskirk said.

Unfortunately, Fred Lambert’s interview ends on that note, leaving no personal record of his later life. Actually, his interview stops at the very moment when Buskirk was at a high point in his personal, economic, and political life. This makes sense considering that Lambert was probably most interested in his genealogy and connections to the timber industry, not his biography.

As a result, we must rely on local historians to briefly conclude the man’s life story.

At the end of 1897, Buskirk completed construction of a mansion at 404 Cole Street in Logan — known in later years as the Hinchman House — then promptly went to Cincinnati and married Frances “Fantine” Humphrey.

Mr. and Mrs. Buskirk settled in their Logan mansion, where they had three children: Voorheis (Buskirk) McNab, born January 2, 1899, Dr. Joseph Randolph Buskirk, born July 30, 1900, and Dr. James Humphrey Buskirk.

On May 15, 1909, Buskirk sold his home in Logan to Ettie Robinson (the wife of former sheriff and councilman, S.B. Robinson) and moved to Cincinnati. He kept in touch with his friends in Logan and died a wealthy man on March 14, 1956 at the age of 94 in Louisville, Kentucky.

U.B. Buskirk: West Virginia Timber Boss 1

29 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by in Logan, Timber

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In the early decades of the twentieth century, Fred B. Lambert, local historian and educator, interviewed Urias Beckley Buskirk, a former resident of Logan, West Virginia, who had amassed a great deal of wealth in coal and timber. Buskirk spoke primarily of his family history and the timber industry as it existed around the turn of the century.

“I was born November 22, 1862 in the City of Logan,” Buskirk began. “My father was Urias Buskirk, a Pennsylvania Dutchman of Erie Co., Pa. My grandfather was Joseph Van Buskirk who lived in Erie Co., Pa., with one or two older children. My mother was Louisa Goings, of Lawrence Co., Kentucky, a daughter of William Goings.”

In early Logan County records, Urias “Guy” Buskirk, father to U.B., was listed as a shoemaker (1856), bootmaker (1859), and merchant (1860).

“We are a family of shoemakers,” the younger Buskirk told Lambert. “My father’s grandfather and all of his boys were shoemakers, even in Holland. All had a big demand. My father did that here — probably made 10 cents an hour clear.”

Urias Buskirk married Louisa (Goings) West on October 6, 1856 in Logan County. Louisa was a daughter of Alex and Mary (Skidmore) Goings. She was first married to James West. The Buskirks had six children: James Bilton, born about 1853, Ann Brooke, born about 1857, John L., born about 1859, Urias Beckley (the subject of this sketch), George, born about 1866, and Robert W. “Bob”, born about 1869.

“I am a brother of James Bilton Buskirk, a hotel man of Logan, postmaster and storekeeper,” Buskirk told Lambert. “My sister was Ann Buskirk who married James A. Sidebottom of Boone County. One of my brothers was John Buskirk who, at the time of his death, lived at Apple Grove in Mason County but was buried at Logan.”

Buskirk gave more detailed genealogy for his younger brothers, George and Bob.

“My brother George married Mollie Henderson, a daughter of the late James R. Henderson of Montgomery Co., Va., a sheriff,” he said. “Their daughter Mattie died single while Tina married John Maynard and had two children. My brother Bob married Moldah Hamilton. They had no children. Then he married a widow with two children from Arkansas. They had one son, Robert, Jr., who was born the day after his father’s death.

In recounting events of his early life to Lambert, Buskirk could have drawn on the two sensational events of his childhood: the Civil War, which ended in 1865, and his father’s murder of Peter Morgan in 1870. More than likely, he was too young to have had any personal memories of the war, but his father, a private in Company E of the 45th Battalion Virginia Infantry, surely told him stories, as did his relatives Thomas V., a private in Company G of the 16th Virginia Cavalry, and Francis S., a private in Company D of the 36th Virginia Infantry (Logan Wildcats).

Or maybe not.

For whatever reason, Buskirk limited his childhood memories to a single but interesting line: “When I was a small boy, a bear was chased through the streets of Logan.”

In the spring of 1870, Urias Buskirk, the father of U.B. and a merchant in Logan, shot and killed Peter D. Morgan, a former Logan County constable and sergeant in the Logan Wildcats. Morgan was reportedly engaged in an affair with Buskirk’s wife and had threatened to kill him. In an 1874 trial, Buskirk pled self-defense for the murder in front of a hung jury at Wayne. A Cabell County jury finally acquitted him of the crime in 1879.

A newspaper story from the period offers some insight into the murder.

“In May, 1870, the community here was startled by the intelligence that a murder had been committed — a cold-blooded, deliberate murder,” the Democratic Banner of Guyandotte, West Virginia, reported on Thursday, August 27, 1874. “The murdered man was Peter D. Morgan; the murderer supposed to be Urias Buskirk. Buskirk had a bad reputation, and on account of his troubles had been compelled to leave; he had a pretty little wife, and Morgan had been in a liaison with her during his absence as well as after his return. Buskirk had threatened to kill Morgan, and on the evening he was killed said that he should not be surprised at any time to hear of Morgan’s brains being blow out. One night Buskirk was at Morgan’s store with a rifle, Morgan was at the counter waiting on some customers, and while standing there some one standing outside the window, with deadly aim, sent a bullet crashing through his brain. The blood gushed over the lady’s face he was waiting on and over the goods, and he fell to the floor a corpse. Buskirk, a few minutes afterward, went to a doctor who lived near and told him ‘he heard a gun go off, and should not wonder if some one was killed.’ He was arrested on suspicion, but escaped from jail and remained for two years returning in 1872. He was then re-arrested, and had a trial but the jury disagreed.”

“His counsel moved for a change of venue and his trial moved to Wayne Court-house, where it took place, after several postponements, last March, and resulted in another disagreement,” the story continued. “He is now out on bail, Morgan, who was killed left a very pretty widow, and since his death she has been living a rather fast life, having had an amour with one C.R. Williams, prosecuting attorney of the county, who was also one of the principal witnesses against Buskirk. On Tuesday morning, Guy Lawson, brother of Mrs. Morgan, met Williams and accused him of debauching his sisters; from words they rapidly came to blows; then pistols were drawn, and an indiscriminate firing begun. The friends of the parties rush in; C.R. Williams shot Lawson, and Frank Buskirk, brother of the one who is accused of murder, took up for him, and shot both of the Williamses. It was at first reported that C.R. Williams and Lawson were both killed, but that was a mistake.”

“Lawson was shot in the left breast near the heart, and is not likely to recover; C.R. Williams was shot under the left eye, the ball passing down into his mouth, knocking out several of his teeth; R.B. Williams shot in the left leg, and a man named Dingess behind the left ear, but the ball did not enter the skull,” the story concluded. “The doctors think all will recover except Lawson. In the height of the affray Thomas Buskirk appeared on the ground with his wife, and stopped the fight by jumping right in between  the combatants and swearing he would kill the next man who fired a shot. He was greatly commended for his action, as the combatants had friends who had rushed to the scene — many of them armed — and it seemed likely there would be a bloody affray. Several parties have been arrested. Most of the original combatants were under the influence of whisky. It is a mixed up affair, and we should not be surprised to hear of a renewal of the combat.”

Anthony Lawson founds Lawsonville

23 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in African American History, Logan

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Almost two hundred years ago, an Englishman made his way into the Guyandotte Valley and soon found himself fully engaged in the fur trading business and the creation of a new county.

Anthony Lawson was born on October 31, 1785 in Stanton, Northumberland, England. He was the son of Anthony and Margaret (Carse) Lawson. On May 26, 1806, Lawson married Ann Bilton, a daughter of Lewis and Jane Bilton, at Saint Helens Church in Longhorsley Parish, Northumberland. Ann was born on March 17, 1783 in Fieldhead, England.

In the early summer of 1817, Anthony and his family left England for America aboard the ship Active. “They left England on account of religious persecution,” according to the late Dr. Sidney B. Lawson, who spoke some years ago with historian Fred B. Lambert. Accompanying Lawson were his wife and four children: John Lawson, born in 1807 in Woodcraft, Northumberland; Lewis Bilton Lawson, born in 1808 in Stanhope, Northumberland; James B. Lawson, born in 1808 in Northumberland; and Anthony Lawson II, born in 1813.

On July 12, 1817, the Lawson family arrived at Philadelphia. They settled in Alexandria, Virginia, where Anthony’s uncle, John Lawson, operated a store on Cameron Street. While there, Ann gave birth to a fifth child named George Wilborn Lawson in 1818.

At that time, according to Ragland’s History of Logan County (1896), Lawson was persuaded to move to the Guyandotte Valley. “Col. Andrew Bierne, of Lewisburg, soon made his acquaintance, and induced him to come to the wilds of Guyandotte River and engage in the fur and ginseng trade,” Ragland wrote. “Mr. Lawson first settled near the present site of Oceana, where he remained about four years and then moved to the present site of Logan C.H.”

At Logan, which was then called the “Islands of Guyandot” and situated in Cabell County, Lawson ran a mercantile store. “Anthony had many buying and selling trips to Philadelphia,” writes James Avis of Albuquerque, New Mexico. “He would travel by horseback to the town of Guyandotte and from there by boat to Philadelphia. It is believed that he would visit with relatives living in Philadelphia.”

In 1824, when Logan County was formed from Cabell, Lawson served on the first County Court. His store was chosen as the seat of government for the new county. He also donated land for the construction of a courthouse. Reportedly, Logan was originally named Lawsonville but later had its name shortened to Lawnsville. Later still, it became Aracoma, then Logan Court House.

In 1830, Lawson was listed in the Logan County Census with his wife and four children, as well as two slaves (one female aged 10-24 and one male aged 0-10). His oldest son, John, was enumerator of the county census.

In 1840, Lawson was listed in the Logan County Census with his wife, son Anthony II, and three slaves. In that same year, sons John and James were also living in the county, with no slaves.

In 1847, Lawson became ill while on a return trip from Philadelphia. He was taken from a boat at Guyandotte, now Huntington’s east end, where he died of cholera on May 20. He was buried in the city cemetery. “Col. Anthony Lawson Sr. — Logan County — died at Guyandot aged upwards of 60 on his way home from Philadelphia,” the Richmond Whig wrote on June 17, 1847. “He often spoke of his birthplace as the vicinity of Alnwick Castle, the seat of the Percies in Yorkshire, England. He accumulated a large fortune which he left his children.”

On December 27, 1847, Ann Lawson was murdered by two of her slaves in Logan County. “Ann was mending a shirt for one of the slaves so that he and another slave could go to town for supplies,” Avis writes. “Thinking that they could be free after Anthony’s death, the negro she was mending the shirt for struck her on the head with an iron poker and she died.” After the murder, the slaves robbed Lawson. “The slave knew that money was kept in one of the drawers in the bureau,” according to Avis. “The poker was again used to pry open the drawer and take the money.” Two slaves named Bill and Hardin were accused of the murder. “The one that killed her was hanged, probably on the courthouse lawn,” Avis writes. “The other slave was severely punished.”

Whirlwind Post Office

11 Sunday Aug 2013

Posted by in Big Harts Creek, Whirlwind

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Between 1909 and 1952, Whirlwind Post Office served the postal needs for residents of Upper Hart. What follows is an attempt to reconstruct a history of its postmasters and its locations. All information is based on official post office records located in Washington, DC.

In 1908, Lawrence W. Riddle petitioned the Postmaster General for the creation of a post office called “Zama” in the Upper Hart section of Logan County, West Virginia. This proposed post office would be situated twenty feet west of Harts Creek, three miles west of the Norfolk & Southern Railway, six miles northwest of McCloud Post Office, seven miles south of the town of Dingess in Mingo County, and eight miles east of the Guyandotte River. The total population to be supplied with mail would be 200 persons. In January 1909, the First Assistant Postmaster General responded in a letter that marked out the proposed name of this post office, “Zama,” and replaced it with “Whirlwind.”

Early postmasters at Whirlwind included: Lawrence W. Riddle (March 31, 1910, appointed; April 25, 1910, commissioned; May 16, 1910, took possession), Moses Tomblin (February 13, 1911, appointed), Sol Riddle (May 7, 1913, order; May 25, 1911, appointed; June 12, 1911, commissioned; June 30, 1911, took possession), and James Mullins (April 30, 1914, confirmed; May 19, 1914, commission signed and mailed; May 23, 1914, assumed charge). On June 26, 1925, Mr. Mullins requested to change the site of the post office to a spot 600 feet southwest of its current location.

Lindsey Blair next served as postmaster (April 28, 1938, confirmed; May 6, 1938, commission signed and mailed; May 11, 1938, assumed charge; resigned without prejudice). On July 15, 1938, Mr. Blair requested to relocate the post office to a spot 1652 feet east of its present location.

Shirley Smith replaced Mr. Blair (October 22 or 23, 1940, assumed charge; October 26, 1940, appointed acting postmaster). In a letter dated October 1940, Smith requested a relocation of the post office. The new post office location would be 5/10th of a mile southeast from the old location, 100 feet west of Harts Creek, nine miles southwest of Dingess, ten miles north of Harts, twelve miles southeast of Verdunville, and fourteen miles from Logan. Ms. Smith asked that the post office be relocated “so I can take care of it at my own home.” Twenty-eight patrons resided within a one-mile radius. Postmasters in this era include: Shirley Smith (December 5, 1940, confirmed; December 27, 1940, commission signed and mailed; December 31, 1940, took possession; January 1, 1941, assumed charge; resigned without prejudice) and Pearl Lowe (July 11 or 12, 1941, assumed charge).

In a letter dated August 19, 1941, Pearl Lowe wrote the Postmaster General requesting that Whirlwind Post Office relocate to a new site. The proposed location would be one mile north of its present location, about forty feet west of Harts Creek, two miles southwest of a county line, nine miles southwest from Dingess, nine miles south of Verdunville, ten miles from the Guyandotte River, and ten miles from Chapmanville. This location was approved and became effective as of September 18, 1941.

Pearl Lowe served as the only postmaster at this location: (September 19, 1941, appointed acting postmaster; November 5, 1941, appointed postmaster; January 2, 1942, commission signed and mailed; January 22 or 23, 1942, assumed charge). On April 14, 1942, Mrs. Lowe requested that the post office be relocated to a new site 1500 feet east of the present location. Shortly thereafter, on July 6, she requested that it be relocated to a site 1/8 mile away. This new spot would be 300 feet east of Harts Creek, nine miles southwest of Dingess, eleven miles northeast of Harts, and twelve miles southeast of Verdunville. On April 8, 1944, Ms. Lowe requested the site be moved 1/2 mile to the east. This latter site became effective May 1, 1944.

On July 15, 1944, someone (the paperwork does not specify who) requested that the post office be relocated 1/4 mile south of the old post office, about forty feet east of Harts Creek, two miles from Mingo County, nine miles southwest of Dingess, ten miles north of Harts, eleven miles south of Verdunville, thirteen miles east of the Guyandotte River, and thirteen miles northeast of Chapmanville.

Tema Workman took possession of the Whirlwind Post Office on February 28, 1947 and was “appointed” on March 12, 1947. On April 22, 1947, Ms. Workman requested that the post office be relocated to a site one mile north of the old location. The new post office would be 1/2 miles from Mingo County, 7 1/2 miles south of Dingess, 8 1/10 miles northeast of Shively, 9 1/2 miles north of Harts, and 10 8/10 miles southeast of Verdunville. This letter cites another name which the community was then known: Bulwark.

Subsequent postmasters included: Tema Workman (June 16, 1947, confirmed; July 11, 1947, commission signed and mailed; September 30, 1947, took possession; October 1, 1947, assumed charge; removed) and Verlie Smith (November 5, 1947, assumed charge; November 5, 1949, took possession; November 15, 1949, appointed).

On November 16, 1949, W.J. Carle, Post Office Inspector, wrote a letter requesting the post office be moved to a site one mile southeast. The new location would be situated two miles from Mingo County, 6 1/2 miles east of Shively, 8 1/2 miles north of Harts, ten miles south of Dingess, and fourteen miles west of Kirk.

Ernestine Tomblin served as the final postmaster at Whirlwind (March 31, 1951, assumed charge; April 17, 1951, appointed).

Whirlwind Post Office was discontinued on January 5, 1952, effective January 31, 1952, “mail to Harts.” Documents cite the post office as “unnecessary.” An investigation determined “reestablishment unnecessary” on May 1, 1953.

In Search of Ed Haley 128

13 Thursday Jun 2013

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Wilson said Ed hung out with his buddies for a month or so, then made plans to head back down to Ashland or to Logan County.

“About a week before he’d get ready to go to Logan, we’d say, ‘Now Ed, stay another week. They is some big farmers coming out of Roane County, and you can make a little money there’,” Wilson said. “And that Postalwait, a week or two before he knew about when Ed was gonna leave, he’d [give Ed] some homebrew — and ah God it’d knock your hat off. Bernard would say, ‘Now Ed, hang on a few days, now. We’ll help you get some more money.’ Aw, he’d cuss around, ‘Well, I’ll stay another week, and that’s it.’ When that homebrew’d work off, Postalwait would bring him just a little bit about noon that day before the session. By God, he’d just lick his lips, you know, and he’d say, ‘That’s fine,’ but he’d never let him get none before the session. Well he’d stay that week and we’d tell all the aristocrats that had money. Some of them old retired ladies, they liked to hear him and they would bring a little money.”

“Well, he’d leave over there maybe with sixty or seventy dollars,” Wilson said. “Then he’d head for Logan and the coalfields, and they would begin to make money, stay up there two or three weeks. Back to Ashland, and then in the fall, he’d come back to Calhoun County. Let everybody build up a little, you know? And if they was nobody down there to meet him, he’d catch that what we call the ‘mail hack’ — a man that carried the mail with a little buggy and a team of horses. Everybody hollered, ‘Well where’re you gonna be?’ ‘I’m over at Hicks’, boys!’ That danged house was full. The yard was full. Minnie Hicks’d have a big pot of beans and three gallon of coffee. And it was just about every night.”

Wilson had really specific memories of Ed playing at Laury Hicks’ house.

“He’d sit there in an old split-backed chair, by god, and never miss a note,” he said. “And his endurance never slowed up. He patted his feet a little bit, but not in excess. Any time Haley was just sitting around, his fingers constantly moved all the time just like he was playing the fiddle. And there was no fine tuners. The man didn’t have a chin rest — he didn’t have no use for a chin rest.”

What kind of strings did he use?

“John, in them days, there were no super sensitive strings,” Wilson said. “It was the old Bird, and the old Gibson, and them Black Diamonds. They cost twenty-five cents. And he played them strings and them white bone keys and that old fiddle. And I tried to remember what kind of fiddle he had but it didn’t matter much whether it was any good or not. He could make it play. Now John, another thing I want to mention to ya. Now, Ed Haley’s bridge was almost flat. He didn’t have much roll in his bridge.”

Wilson said Ed didn’t have a lot of rosin on his fiddle because he didn’t use much on his bow.

What was he like?

“You couldn’t punch the wrong button,” Wilson said. “He didn’t want you to ask him about any ‘Orange Blossom Special’ or ‘Boil the Cabbage Down’. You had to be real careful. We didn’t talk a lot, but he took a liking to me. I picked up enough nerve to ask him why he didn’t go onto WSM way back there in ’37 and ’38. ‘Well,’ he said,’‘I don’t like them people. I don’t trust them. And another thing, they’ve got no soul about their music.’ And if you mentioned Natchee the Indian, you punched the wrong button. Ah, there’s so much stuff about him — I don’t want to leave nothing out. I remember this one night in particular it was about 3:30 in the morning. Some lady come in there. She was about half-stooped on that homebrew. Said, ‘Ed, I wanna hear the ‘Old Spinning Wheel in the Parlor’.” He said, ‘Damn the ‘Old Spinning Wheel in the Parlor’. I’m tired. I’m quitting.’ That’s the way he was.”

In Search of Ed Haley 117

25 Saturday May 2013

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I gave Clyde Haley a call to ask him about this Josie Cline, who was somehow connected to Ed Haley. Was it his sister, half-sister…or even a girlfriend?

“No, I don’t recall him ever having anybody by that name around the house,” Clyde said. “I’ve just heard my dad talk about her. He didn’t womanize, if that’s what you’re talking about. He didn’t bring any women around the house or anything like that.”

I mentioned that Josie Cline was supposedly Ed’s sister and he wasn’t surprised.

“He might have,” he said. “I never did get acquainted with her. Josie Cline — I recall the name real well. I don’t recall any Clines personally. We went up around Kermit and Logan and up in that area quite a bit, you know. My dad took me with him all the time. I was his pet. I wasn’t around that area too much. The only time I went over there was one time I run off from home and went over that way and scrounged, you know. I couldn’t have been over ten, eleven, twelve years old.”

I asked Clyde why he ran away and he said, “Well, mostly because I was just that type of a guy. I didn’t always stay around the home. A lot of the times when I was away from home that way, it was because I was in dutch with the law, you know. I had to get away from Ashland. And we’d go different places, you know, me and my dad.”

I asked if Ed ever got “in dutch with the law” and he said, “Not too often, not too often. The only time he ever got in dutch was one time when he was whooping us kids in school you know and he whooped me so hard using a thin, brown belt — and he was using the buckled end of it to whip me with… He wrapped that belt around my body and accidentally hit my tally-whacker you know and put me out of commission for about three months. Yeah, I remember that pretty well. He wouldn’t never whip the other boys like he whipped me. But as I look back on my lifetime, I see that he did things that he wouldn’t ordinarily have done if he had been a normal man. He was blind and he done these things to us and my mother — he beat my mother quite a bit, you know. If he could have seen like a normal person, I think he’d been an altogether different person. I forgave him a lot of that stuff but he was awful mean to my mother.”

Clyde elaborated.

“He’d come in drunk sometimes and beat on her and every time he’d do that, when I was big enough, I’d hit him with something. I hit him with a milk bottle one time, one of those big old heavy milk bottles. But I conked him with one of them one time and cut a pretty good gash in the top of his head. If he’d ever found out that that was me that done that, he’d a beat me half to death. But we all told him that Sarah West done that. She stayed with us. John West’s wife. John West stayed with my mother and dad a lot of times too, because I remember him pretty well. And he did things around the house that my mother and father couldn’t do. He was like a handyman. But Sarah West got the blame for that milk bottle because I blamed her. I told him, I said, ‘Pop, that was Sarah done that, hit you in the head with that milk bottle.’ And he got on her about it. And I remember she couldn’t talk real well. She had a hesitant speech. She says, ‘Mr. Haley that was Clyde did that. Wasn’t me. That was Clyde.’ Trying to tell him it as me. And he wouldn’t believe her. She took the blame for that, poor girl. I was a regular hellion.”

I asked Clyde if he remembered any of the other people who worked around Ed’s house and he said, “We had so many people stayed around in my house. My mother and father were hospitality plus. You know, anybody that came around the house they were just like family. There was a lot of them that was at my house because they knew my mother’s part of the family, like John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd. Those people in that category. They were from right there in the area. Their homes were right around in Logan and West Virginia. My dad was from Logan County. They’d come and listen to my dad play the fiddle. There’s stories that I could tell you that you wouldn’t believe about my dad — those things that we done when he was away from home. Things that were mean, pertaining to the family. He wasn’t a nice person to be around. If you come down this a way and we get together and talk, I can tell you things that I wouldn’t tell you on the phone.”

In Search of Ed Haley 78

07 Thursday Mar 2013

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The next day, Lawrence and I went to find Milt Haley’s grave on the West Fork of Harts Creek. It had been two years since our initial trip up the Guyandotte Valley and I was excited to once again plant my feet on the grounds of Ed Haley’s childhood. We followed Bob Adkins’ directions to the West Fork of Harts Creek, where we found a confusing sign labeled “East Fork Road” pointing us across a stone bridge and past a somewhat large red brick church. Lower West Fork was very much different from my memories of main Harts Creek — more sparsely settled. It was surprisingly beautiful farm country with a view of an almost-forgotten agrarian way of life. There were old barns, cattle and tiny farms all along the nice little road.

Not surprisingly, Lawrence and I were unable to find the Milt Haley grave, which we figured was located in a thicket on top of one of the surrounding mountains. Hoping for the best, we decided to ask for directions at a nice-looking house. We chose a neat little white home, where an older lady came out and showed almost complete confusion as we asked about Ed Haley, Milt Haley and a grave. Once she figured out what we were talking about, though, she introduced herself as Iris Williams, said she was part-Brumfield and pointed toward the grave just down the road and to the right on a hill. She said her older brother Lawrence Kirk would know all about it. She went back inside and called Lawrence, who said he’d come right over and tell us what he knew about Ed Haley and the Haley-McCoy murders.

It wasn’t long until Lawrence Kirk pulled into the driveway and popped out of his car. He was a short stocky 70-something-year-old fellow with thinning hair and glasses. He made his way toward the porch, grinning and waving a newspaper. He said he had seen me on TV and unraveled the paper, which featured a front-page story about our recent visit to see Lynn Davis in Huntington.

In one of those “strange contact moments,” I introduced him to Lawrence Haley. It was a first-ever meeting of men whose ancestors had shot it out along Harts Creek over one hundred years earlier. They seemed to like each other right away and made it clear they held no grudges over their ancestors’ troubles. This was great news — no barriers to information flow. However, I have to admit, I got a little adrenaline rush in thinking that Lawrence and I were now in “enemy territory.” In my mind, the 1889 feud was still smoldering in the hearts and minds of at least a few people.

Instead, we all sat on Mrs. Williams’ front porch with Mr. Kirk, who remembered Ed well.

“I’ve heard Ed Haley play up there at the courthouse square many of a time in Logan with Ed Belcher,” he said. “They’d get together up there sometimes and play all day. I’d be with my dad up there when I was a youngster. I kinda got acquainted with the old man, enough to speak to him. He’d always ask you who it is. ‘Yeah, I know some Kirks,’ he’d say.”

Mr. Kirk said he used to see Ed and his wife on the Logan-Williamson bus that ran between the coalfields and Huntington.

“I felt sympathetic towards them,” he said. “They were blind — handicapped — and I’d notice them. I can’t remember that well about him. I can’t remember too much how he was dressed. It bears on my mind about ever time I ever saw him he was bald-headed. I’m not sure…but he played that fiddle.”

Mr. Kirk last saw Ed play music on a Sunday just before the election of 1948 or ’50 at the Harts Tavern. His uncle Taylor Brumfield was the owner of the tavern. Ed was there with Bernie Adams, who Mr. Kirk called “a pretty good guitar player.”

“Bernie was bad to drink,” he said. “He just drunk liquor until it finally killed him, I reckon.”

Ed was “being pretty sassy” at the tavern.

“They wasn’t giving him enough money to please him, you know,” Mr. Kirk said. “They was buying him a few drinks but he felt like fellows ought to throw him in a few dollars of money along. But that bunch there, they had to have their quarters to buy some beer with.”

Ed told Bernie, “Well hell, let’s go. This tight bunch here won’t buy a man no beer. Can’t get a crowd together no how.”

Bernie said, “Now, Ed. Don’t get to talking too rough about these fellows around Harts. Some of your folks didn’t have too good a relation with these Brumfields around here.”

“Aw, to hell with these damn Brumfields,” Ed said. “There’s nobody afraid of these Brumfields.”

I almost fell off the porch laughing.

In Search of Ed Haley 73

26 Tuesday Feb 2013

Posted by in African American History, Big Harts Creek, Ed Haley, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, Logan, Music, Sports

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Mona’s memories were really pouring out, about a variety of things. I asked her what Ed was like and she said, “Noah is a lot like Pop in a way. He always liked the outdoors, Pop did. He’d get out and sleep on the porch at night. He could peel an apple without breaking the skin. There was an old man up on Harts Creek and I’m almost sure that his name was Devil Anse Hatfield and Pop trimmed his fingernails out on his porch with his pocketknife. Aw, he could trim my nails or yours or anybody’s.”

Ed was good at predicting the future.

“Pop said machines was gonna take over man’s work and we was gonna go to the moon one day,” Mona said. She figured he wrote the song “Come Take A Trip in My Airship” because it sounded like his kind of foresight.

Mona said she remembered some of Ed’s stories but warned me that I wouldn’t want to hear them.

Of course, I did.

I asked her if they were off-color and she said, “Well, not really, but he was kind of an off-color guy. I can’t really remember any of the tales about him. What was that one about him dreaming he was on Fox Cod Knob and dragging a big log chain and he fell over a big cliff and when he come to hisself he was standing on his head on a chicken coop with his legs locked around a clothes line?”

What?

“He told some weird stories sometimes — ghost stories and things that I can’t remember,” she continued. “He told that story about Big Foot up in the hills of Harts Creek. A wild banshee. Pop talked about it. Clyde said he saw a Big Foot.”

Lawrence said, “It was up in the head of the Trace Fork of Harts Creek somewhere. Pop was on the back of this horse behind somebody. They was coming down through there and all at once something jumped up on back of the horse behind him and it was just rattling chains all the way down through there and the more that chain rattled the faster that horse would go. They absolutely run that horse almost to death getting away from it.”

I asked about Ed’s travels. Mona said her parents walked and hitchhiked a lot. Along the way, Ella sang to occupy the kids. Lawrence remembered buses and trains, where Ed sometimes played the fiddle for a little extra money from passengers. I asked if he ever talked about playing on any boats and Mona said, “No, but I know they did because I was with them on the ISLAND QUEEN that was going back and forth to Coney Island. Up by the calliope on the top deck.”

Mona said Ed always set up in towns near a movie theatre so the kids could watch movies.

“Every time he played he drawed a crowd,” she said. “He was loud and he was good. I never seen him play any that he didn’t have a crowd around him — anywhere.”

Ed was “all business” but would talk to people if they came up to him.

“One time we went in a beer joint up in Logan, West Virginia, that sat by the railroad tracks,” she said. “They played over at the courthouse and we walked over there. Pop wanted to get a beer while I ate supper. It was back when Roosevelt was president I reckon and he got in an argument with some guy about President Roosevelt. That was his favorite fella, you know. This guy started a fight with him and he backed off and walked away. Pop just let the man walk the length of his cane, hooked it around his neck, brought him back and beat him nearly to death. He was strong. He was dangerous if he ever got a hold of you, if he was mad at you. He always carried a pocketknife and it was sharp as a razor. He whittled on that knife — I mean, sharpened it every day.”

“Everybody liked Pop — everybody that I ever knew,” Mona said. “He had some pretty high people as friends.”

In Logan County, Ed visited Pink and Hester Mullins on Mud Fork and Rosie Day’s daughter Nora Martin in Aracoma. Mona said Ed was also friends with a famous boxer in town whose father played the fiddle, but she couldn’t remember his name. I later learned from Lawrence that it was Jack Dempsey, the heavyweight champion of the world from 1919-1926. Dempsey wrote in his biography that his father had fiddled “Turkey in the Straw” so much that all the children thought it was the National Anthem.

Ed mixed freely with some of the colored folks in Logan, and sometimes even left Mona at a “bootleg joint” operated by a black lady named Tootsie. She and Lawrence both felt Ed absorbed a lot of the Blues from the blacks in the coalfields. Mona sang one of her father’s songs — which I had never heard — to make the point:

Done got the [ma]chines in my mind, Lord, Lord.

Done got the ‘chines in my mind.

‘Chines in my mind and I can’t make a dime.

Done got the ‘chines in my mind.

 

My old gal got mad at me.

I never did her any harm.

‘Chines in my mind and I can’t make a dime.

Done got the ‘chines in my mind.

In Search of Ed Haley 54

20 Sunday Jan 2013

Posted by in Ed Haley

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Lawrence said we could go see Mona if Noah would show us the way. Apparently, Lawrence didn’t know where his own sister lived. Noah agreed to guide us there, but drove a separate car so he could leave right away. He and Mona weren’t getting along. On the way, I said to Lawrence, “Now this sister is the youngest one?” and he said, “Yeah, she’s the baby.” I said, “She’s the only sister you have, and her name is?” “Mona,” he finished. “M-O-N-A. That wasn’t what she was intended to be named. Mother intended her to be named after old Doc Holbrook’s wife — her name was Monnie.”

Mona was staying with her daughter in nearby Ironton, Ohio. At the door, before Lawrence could tell her who I was or the reason for our visit, she looked right at me and said, “Well I know you. I’ve seen you on television.” It was an instant connection. I noticed that she had a high forehead just like her father.

We went on out in the yard where she showed a little surprise that Noah had led us to her house.

“He’s mad at me,” she said before sighing, “I feel sorry for poor old Noah. So lonely. Has to buy his friendship.” Right away, she dispelled our hopes that she had any of Ed’s records.

“No, I don’t have any,” she said. “I let my part of the records get away from me. I lost mine in my travels. I left them somewhere and never did get them back. It was around ’56. I went back to get them and the lady — Dorothy Bates — had moved. And I think she’s dead. I was living here in Ironton.”

Mona seemed a little emotionless — her voice was hollow, distant, as if her mind was a million miles away. She didn’t seem to show much remorse about losing her father’s records — “I’m sorry that I did, but you know hindsight’s 20/20.”

I asked her if Ed ever talked about his father or mother and she said, “He talked about his dad getting killed. He said that he was in the Hatfield-McCoy feud and he got killed with Green McCoy. He was a friend to the McCoys, I guess. And that’s all I can tell you about that. And he never talked about his mother at all.” Mona had no idea who Ed’s mother was and knew nothing about her connection with Uncle Peter Mullins on Harts Creek. She didn’t even remember what year her father died, saying, “My memory is failing me. I was married and living at South Point.”

I noticed again how much Mona looked like her dad.

I asked her if she ever had any long talks with him and she said, “My mother and I were very close but we didn’t talk much about my dad. I’ll tell you, I loved my dad but I didn’t like him very much because he was mean.”

She laughed and said to Lawrence, “Wasn’t he?”

“Yeah, if you struck him the wrong way,” Lawrence admitted. “He never was mean to me. I can’t even remember Pop whipping me.”

Mona insisted, “He wasn’t ever mean to me either but he was mean to Mom.”

I asked her what Ed did to her mother and Lawrence said (somewhat agitated), “He was a little bit mean to Mom. He’d fight with her sometimes and we’d have to stop things like that.”

It got a little quiet — a whole new facet of Ed’s life had just opened up to me.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have said that,” Mona said, “but that’s how I feel. I sympathize with him now but he was a mean man.”

Lawrence tried to smooth it over by saying, “I put that down, part of it, to frustration with his condition. Really, I do.”

Sensing Lawrence’s dislike of the topic, I got the conversation directed back toward Ed’s music. He and Mona remembered Pop playing frequently on the streets of Ashland at Gibson’s Furniture Store, Field Furniture Store (later Sears) on 17th and Winchester and at the Ashland (later Second) National Bank on 16th and Winchester. It made sense that Ed often played on Winchester Avenue, the main east-west thoroughfare through town, currently merged with Route 60 and Route 23. I asked if Ralph ever played with Ed and Ella on the street and Mona said no — that he only played with them at home. Bill Bowler, a blind guitarist, was the person she remembered playing with her father on the street.

“He wasn’t very good,” Mona said. “When they’d get ready to set down and make music Pop would have to tune up his guitar for him.”

Ed hung around Ashland through the winter, Lawrence said, then took off around February. There was not a particular place he went first; it just depended on his mood. Mona said he was in Greenup County, Kentucky, often.

“He played in front of the courthouse there,” she said. “I’ve seen them have that whole front of the courthouse with people standing around dancing.”

She and Lawrence also remembered Pop playing in Portsmouth, Ohio; Cabell County, West Virginia; Logan, West Virginia; Lawrence County, Kentucky; Paintsville, Kentucky; and “all up and down the Big Sandy River.”

“They’d play around railroad YMCAs, too,” Lawrence said. “They had one in Ashland, one in Russell. And down on the N&W they had a big railroad YMCA in Portsmouth — New Boston, I guess. And there was a big steel mill at New Boston. Mom used to play there more than Pop, I guess. Mom used to play at the main gate.”

Mona and Lawrence gave me a great idea of how Ed dressed when on the road. She said he wore “moleskin pants and a long-sleeve shirt — sometimes a top coat when it was cold.” Lawrence said his dad always buttoned his shirt “all the way to the top button” but never wore a tie and mostly wore blue pants. For shoes, he preferred some type of slipper, although he sometimes wore “high top patent leather shoes” — what I call “old man comfort shoes.” Mona said he always donned a hat, whether it was a Panama hat, straw hat or felt hat. He also packed his fiddle in a “black, leather-covered case” — never in a paper sack as Lawrence remembered. “No,” she stressed, seeming amused at the idea of Ed having anything other than a case. Lawrence disagreed, clearly recalling to the contrary — “Buddy, I have.” He said Ed seldom had his fiddle in a case when he went through the country, usually just tucking it under his arm. “Same way with Mom. She didn’t have a case for her mandolin a lot of times. I guess that’s the reason he wore out so many, reckon?”

Who Killed Doc Workman? 2

01 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by in Big Harts Creek, Culture of Honor, Halcyon

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Doc Workman was born on January 20, 1893 at Halcyon in Logan County, West Virginia. His parents were Thomas B. and Martha (Hill) Workman. Doc served in the First World War. According to his draft registration record, he was blue-eyed, had dark brown hair and was of medium build. “I think he got gased over there and he just barely made it,” said Gene Wilson Dingess, a close relative and namesake, in a 2004 interview. “They were in foxholes most of the time.” A decorated veteran and prisoner of war, Mr. Workman spoke little of his war experience after returning home. “He never told big tales about his service,” Dingess said. “If you asked him about it, he’d answer you in about thirty seconds and then change the subject.”

In 1919, Doc married Flora Mullins, the pretty red-haired daughter of Harlen Mullins, a local farmer. For many years, the couple enjoyed a happy marriage. By the early 1930s however, according to neighborhood gossip, both began affairs. Doc, who some called “Slick” because of his charms with women, reportedly courted a sister-in-law, while Flora reportedly sparked a Dingess. The family remained intact until at least 1940. Some time thereafter, Doc and Flora separated and eventually divorced. Mr. Workman built himself a small dwelling house just below his wife where he lived with a stepson, Dennie. Around that time, perhaps in related events, a few homes were burned in the neighborhood.

A 1942 draft registration record described Dock as six-feet tall, 178 pounds, of ruddy complexion, with gray hair and blue eyes. In the opinion of most people on Workman Fork, he made for a good neighbor. Lloyd Farley, a son-in-law, in a 2005 interview, said, “Doc was a fine fellow. He was hard to get to know but he would give you the shirt off of his back.” Mr. Dingess also had fond memories of the old gentleman. “We stopped there at Doc’s every day after school to see him,” he said. “He had candy and marshmallows and he always offered us a dollar to let him bust an egg between our eyes.” Dingess recalled that Doc was an excellent marksman. “Doc kept a loaded gun just inside his door to shoot foxes when they got after his chickens,” Dingess said. “He could shoot a fox from 100 yards away.”

In his last days, Doc received a pension for his service in the Great War and began to carry a significant amount of cash on his person. “He drew a veteran’s pension,” said Mr. Farley. “He often packed one-thousand dollars on him.” Not long before his murder, he loaned fifty dollars to his brother-in-law, Buck Mullins, who then lived in Logan. (Mullins soon repaid the loan.) Neighbors spoke of Dock’s money, of his pension… Family members cautioned him against keeping so much cash on hand, afraid that someone might rob him. Adding fuel to the fire of neighborhood gossip, Doc occasionally disappeared from the creek. “Doc would go out of here and be gone for a month at a time when I was young,” Dingess said. “We never did know why he left.” Just a few weeks before the murder, his son Dennie moved away to find a job. “Dennie had just left to work away from here two or three weeks when Dock was killed,” Dingess said. About one week before the killing, according to Farley, Weddie Mullins, Doc’s former brother-in-law, caught him with his arm around his wife’s waist. He told him that he “better not do it again.”