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Brandon Ray Kirk

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Brandon Ray Kirk

Tag Archives: Marmet

Logan-Boone Highway in WV (1928)

05 Monday Dec 2022

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Sandy Valley, Boone County, Coal, Huntington, Logan, Native American History, Williamson

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Appalachia, Aracoma, Aracoma Hotel, Boone County, Charleston, Chief Cornstalk, Chief Logan, coal, Daniel Boone, farming, history, Huntington, Kanawha County, Logan, Logan-Boone Highway, logging, Madison, Marmet, Midland Trail, mining, Tug Fork, West Virginia, West Virginia Biographical Association, Williamson

From West Virginians, published by the West Virginia Biographical Association in 1928, comes this profile of the Logan-Boone Highway in southwestern West Virginia:

Boone County, south of Kanawha, has been opened up by a hard road from Marmet, across the Kanawha from the Midland Trail. A second connection with Charleston is offered by a highway on the south side of the Kanawha. The county was named for Daniel Boone, the great hunter and Indian fighter, who lived in West Virginia many years. Madison is the county seat. Logan, county seat of Logan County, was named for Chief Logan, the speech-making Indian chief, who has been made one of the numerous story book heroes of the Indian race. Whether or not Chief Logan ever shot a deer or pitched his wig-wam in this county is much in doubt. The modern hotel at Logan, the Aracoma, further reflects the Indian influence with the name of this member of Chief Cornstalk’s family. Coal mining, lumbering and farming are the principal activities of Logan and Boone counties. Most of the road south is also hard-surfaced, and will eventually form the link between the Midland Trail to the North and the Huntington-Williamson highway along Tug River.

Armed March on Logan County, WV (1921)

21 Saturday Sep 2019

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Battle of Blair Mountain, Boone County, Logan

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A.C. Rouse, A.R. Browning, Appalachia, Battle of Blair Mountain, Bill Blizzard, Blair Mountain, Charleston, crime, deputy sheriff, District No. 17, Don Chafin, Ferndale, Frank Keeney, George Munsy, H.M. Miller, history, Hubert Ferrell, J.E. Wilburn, J.L. Workman, John Gore, Lens Creek, Logan, Logan Banner, Madison, Marmet, merchant, Mine Wars, Mother Jones, Savoy Holt, sheriff, T.C. Townsend, United Mine Workers of America, Warren G. Harding, West Virginia

Here is one article from the Logan Banner relating to Bill Blizzard and the Armed March on Logan County, WV, popularly remembered today as the Battle of Blair Mountain:

Blizzard Gloated at Gore’s Death, Said

“That’s fine! What’s the matter you haven’t killed any others?” William Blizzard, mine workers’ officer, was quoted as saying after he heard of the death of Deputy Sheriff John Gore and two companions at the hands of a party of union miners, according to testimony Monday at Blizzard’s trial upon an accessory to murder indictment growing out of the armed march against Logan county in 1921. Blizzard is charged with having participated in the plans that caused the death of George Munsy, one of the Logan defenders killed with Gore.

Hubert Ferrell, of Ferndale, the witness who quoted Blizzard’s words, declared the mine workers’ office made the statement in a speech to the armed miners gathered at Blair on the afternoon of the day after they had returned from Blair mountain where the Logan “defenders” were killed.

“It don’t seem like it would take any  more nerve to kill Don Chafin (Logan county sheriff) and his thugs than it would a sheep-killing dog,” Ferrell testified Blizzard continued in his speech. “Right tomorrow I want you to fix up to go over the top. It don’t matter about losing a few men. I want you to go over to Logan and let the men out of jail and tear the thing down to the ground.”

Under cross-examination Ferrell added that Blizzard had told the men he wanted them to eat dinner the next day “on the jail house step.”

Ferrell, according to his testimony, failed in his first effort to visit the men who participated in the armed march when he was stopped by guards at the mouth of Lens Creek where the marchers first assembled. He denied that he had ever desired to join the march and said he went there only to see if there were any men there whom he knew. T.C. Townsend, one of the defense attorneys, cross-examined Ferrell vigorously upon that point. The witness said he was on his way to Charleston to buy clothing at the time. Later he said he went to Blair intending to go on to Logan and visit his half-brother, but was prevented by the armed men in Blair from either going on or returning and eventually returned home on a special train after federal troops took charge of the situation.

While he was at Marmet at the mouth of Lens Creek and unable to go farther up the creek because he could not give the guards the password and did not belong to a union, Ferrell said Fred Mooney, secretary treasurer of District No. 17, United Mine Workers, and a man who was said to be C. Frank Keeney, the district president, were there in an automobile. Mooney, the young man told the jury, asked the guards if any guns and ammunition had arrived and on being told he had none informed them that two truck loads had left Charleston. The man pointed out as Keeney told the men he did not believe they were sufficiently prepared and that they would do better to go home, “get prepared and then go over and get Don Chafin and his thugs.”

On the day before Gore and Munsy were killed, Ferrell said Blizzard also made a speech from the porch of the school house that served as base for the armed forces on the union side at the mountain and asked what was the matter that they were not having more success and told them they ought to go over and “get Chafin and the thugs and get it over with.”

Mrs. J.E. Wilburn, wife of the miner-preacher who was one of the principal witnesses for the state now serving a sentence of 12 years for his part in the killings on Blair mountain, testified that guns and ammunition were stored in the parlor of their home. She did not know Blizzard, she said, but men who took the arms into the house said Blizzard had brought them, she testified.

A.R. Browning, a merchant at Blair, told the court that members of the armed forces there got merchandise at his store and told him to charge it to the United Mine Workers of America. The things they got, he said, included shoes, overalls, and other clothing and also some women’s clothing, which he thought, they got for their wives and daughters.

H.M. Miller, a constable at Madison, said that just before Keeney made a speech at the ball park near there which he counselled the marchers to return to their homes, he had a conversation with the union president in which Keeney said that “if the federal troops would keep out he would take these men and go through Logan with them.”

Earlier in the day, J.L. Workman and A.C. Rouse of Marmet had testified as to the occurrence during the assembling of the men on Lens Creek. Workman told of “Mother” Jones’ efforts to get the men to go back to their homes and her declaration that she had a telegram from the President of the United States, which he said Keeney called a “fake.” Later that day both Workman and Rouse said Savoy Holt in a speech from the running board of an automobile said the union officials were their but could not address the men and that he had been instructed to tell them that the telegram was not genuine and that they were to “go on.” Rouse said Keeney and Mooney were in this automobile and that Blizzard was in another nearby. A man he did not know spoke from the running board of the automobile in which Blizzard was riding, telling the men to go on, and Blizzard’s car drove up Lens Creek followed by the armed hordes.

Source: Logan (WV) Banner, 6 July 1923

State v. Edgar Combs (1923): Statement of Augustine Washington, No. 1

16 Wednesday Jan 2019

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Battle of Blair Mountain, Coal, Logan

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Appalachia, Augustine Washington, Blair Mountain, Chafin and Estep, crime, druggist, Edgar Combs, history, Logan, Logan County, Lola Herold, Marmet, United Mine Workers of America, West Virginia

document 1-1document 1-2

Charleston, WV: One Century Ago (1927)

25 Friday May 2018

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Coal, Giles County, Native American History, Tazewell County

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Alex W. Quarrier, Andrew Donnally, Benjamin F. Morris, C&O Railroad, Cabell County, Charles Droddy, Charles Page, Charleston, Clendenin, coal, Coal River, Coalsmouth, Daniel Boone, David Ruffner, Davis Creek, Donnally's Fort, Ebenezer Oakes, Elk River, Fleming Cobb, Fort Tackett, genealogy, Giles County, Greenbrier County, Henry Ruffner, Herbert P. Gaines, history, John P. Huddleston, John Young, Josiah Hughes, Kanawha County, Kanawha Court House, Kanawha Salines, Kanawha Valley, L.H. Oakes, Leonard Morris, Logan Banner, Logan County, Malden, Marmet, Mason Campbell, Mercer Academy, Michael Newhouse, Native Americans, Owen Jarrett, Point Pleasant, Roy J. Morris, salt, South Charleston, St. Albans, Tazewell County, The Western Virginian, Walton, West Virginia, William Cobb

From the Logan Banner of Logan, WV, in a story titled “Conditions Century Ago: Charleston Educator Tells of Settlement of Kanawha County Which Embraced Part of What Is Now Logan–With 550 Population Charleston Was Metropolis of Kanawha Valley,” comes this bit of history for the city of Charleston dated October 14, 1927:

Josiah Hughes, principal of the South Charleston graded schools, has written a sketch of Kanawha county, telling of the activities of a century and more ago. It is of interest here, because Logan county was created in 1824 from parts of Kanawha, Cabell, Giles and Tazewell, and because some of the pioneers he names have descendants in Logan. Kanawha county was formed Oct. 5, 1789. His article in part follows.

Charleston was the largest town in the valley, and had a population of approximately 550. It had its stores, its schools, its court house, its jail, its pillory, and its whipping post.

The postoffice at Charleston was “Kanawha C.H.” established under that name in 1801, and was so called until late in 1879. Among those who received their mail here one century ago were the following: Leonard Morris (an ancestor of Roy J. Morris, who is in the local C. & O. ticket office), probably the earliest of the pioneers of the valley; Fleming Cobb, the noted Indian scout, who lies buried near the mouth of Davis Creek; John P. Huddleston, who hunted and trapped with Daniel Boone; Alex W. Quarrier, who was many years clerk of the courts of Kanawha county; Herbert P. Gaines, founder of the first newspaper in Charleston; John Young, whose father saved him and his mother from death by Indians when Fort Tackett at the mouth of Coal River was destroyed about 1789; Dr. William Cobb, the first physician in this valley and the ancestor of the Cobb family near Clendenin; Michael Newhouse, a noted pioneer of Elk river; Ebenezer Oakes, a near ancestor of our townsman, L.H. Oakes; Charles Droddy, the first settler at Walton; Owen Jarrett, noted ancestor of the Jarrett family in Kanawha county; Col. David Ruffner, the noted business man whose enterprise made possible the establishment of Mercer Academy in Charleston one hundred and ten years ago; Benjamin Morris, a noted pioneer and near ancestor of Benjamin F. Morris of Marmet; Col. Andrew Donnally, whose father built Donnally’s Fort in Greenbrier county.

During the years 1825-1829. “The Western Virginian,” as it was called, was the only newspaper published in Charleston. Mason Campbell was editor.

50 Salt Furnaces

The first great industry in the Great Kanawha Valley was the manufacturing of salt. One hundred years ago more than fifty salt furnaces were in active operation. A few years later the annual production of salt reached upwards of 3,000,000 bushels.

Kanawha Salines, now Malden, was the center of the great industrial area. The salt companies had greater stores than could be found in Charleston and many of the citizens of Charleston went to Kanawha Salines to do their trading.

One hundred years ago only a few coal mines had been opened up. Wood was the principal fuel used at the salt furnaces. Prior to 1830 but little coal was used by the salt makers. The coal industry in this valley was of comparatively small value until the opening of the Chesapeake and Ohio railroad in 1873.

By 1827 three steamboats had succeeded in reaching Charleston. In 1830 the first towboat on the Kanawha reached Charleston.

Before the close of the first quarter of the nineteenth century missionaries of various churches had visited the valley and preached in the homes of the pioneers. The Protestant Episcopal church established parishes in Kanawha valley about 1821. The Rev. Charles Page was the preacher for the churches at Point Pleasant, Charleston and Coalsmouth (St. Albans). But the Presbyterian church was probably the pioneer in the valley, although small congregations of communicants of the Baptist and Methodist churches may have worshiped in the homes of some of the pioneers. Dr. Henry Ruffner organized the first Presbyterian church in Kanawha county in 1818. The church was organized in Charleston.

Feud Poll 1

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

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Feud Poll 2

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

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Feud Poll 3

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

Recent Posts

  • Sheriff Joe D. Hatfield, Son of Devil Anse (1962)
  • The C&O Shops at Peach Creek, WV (1974)
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Ed Haley Poll 1

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

Top Posts & Pages

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

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

Blogs I Follow

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

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

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

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

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Genealogy and History in North Carolina and Beyond

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

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