Tag Archives: Mont Spaulding

In Search of Ed Haley 254

02 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by in Big Sandy Valley, Ed Haley, Music

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John and Mary A. Spaulding were the parents of Josie Cline and Mont Spaulding, two fiddlers in Kermit, West Virginia, somehow affiliated with Ed Haley. In all, John and Mary had six children: Mont Spaulding (1860), Josephine Spaulding (c.1864), Virginia Spaulding (c.1867), Linsy Spaulding (1870), Nickiti Spaulding (c.1873) and Lizzie Spaulding (1878). In 1870, the Spauldings lived in the Lincoln District of Wayne County, West Virginia. In the late 1870s, they moved over to the Warfield area of Martin County, Kentucky. John died around 1878. In 1880, Mont was listed in census records as a blind person. In 1900, he and his mother Mary lived with his sister Lizzie Fitzpatrick in Martin County.

In 1910, according to census records, “Monterville Spaulding” lived in the Big Elk Precinct of Martin County where he was listed as a 48-year-old widowed traveling musician. Listed with him in that census were five children, including 20-year-old Dora Spaulding and 11-year-old James Spaulding. Based on this census, there was a solid (although not genealogical) connection between Ella Haley and the Spauldings. Between 1911-12, Ella received several postcards from a “Mont, Dora, and Jim Spaulding” from various places — Richmond, Virginia; Charleston, West Virginia; and Norton, Virginia. In light of the 1910 census, which gave Mont’s occupation as that of a traveling musician while listing him with two children named Dora and James, it seemed obvious that Ella knew Mont from her early years. Mont was gone from Martin County in 1920.

In Search of Ed Haley 166

06 Friday Sep 2013

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Ella was in Morehead as late as June 1911, where she received a card from “C.E.G.” reading, “I am living high. I go riding every day with my friend, Mrs. Mell Washington.”

Later in the fall of 1911, Ella was once again at 115 Woodland Avenue in Lexington, Kentucky. While there, one card was sent to her reading, “Well Ella, I got your card. Was glad to hear you Was all Well. Luther is Still here. Will Stay till you come home.”

Ella was back in Morehead by July 1912, where she received a card from Mont and Jim Spaulding postmarked in Richmond, Virginia. I wondered, was this the Mont Spaulding who was blind and played the fiddle around Kermit, West Virginia? In September, Mont and Dora Spaulding wrote her from Charleston, West Virginia:  “hello Ella. Did you get the card I send you from Va?”

“M. Spaulding” wrote to her again in November (although in a totally different handwriting), this time from Norton, Virginia. “It might be possible that my Daughter and I will see you about the last of this month.” The Spauldings apparently made the trip because Dora wrote Ella early in December, again from Charleston: “certainly did enjoy my short stay in your town.”

Ella’s postcards for the first part of 1913 were primarily from her brother Luther and were postmarked from Asheville, Knoxville, and Indianapolis.

In May, some friends sent her a postcard that read: “We would like very much for you to come up Sat. night and play for us. Come to stay all night if you can. Let us know if you will come.” At that time, Ella’s address was Clearfield, Kentucky, but she was in Morehead briefly the next month.

In September, she was in Farmers, Kentucky — her location when she became pregnant with Ralph. While in Farmers, she received a card from “Sissie” postmarked in Hitchins, Kentucky, reading “I am so Lonesome.”

In May of 1914, Allie and Texana wrote her in care of C.D. Davis.

“We are keeping house here in West Morehead and want you to come up and See us at once So Bring your Harp and harp rack with you So we can have some music So let us know When you are coming and we will meet you.”

In August 1914 Allie wrote to her in care of R.A. Thomas from Loveland, Kentucky.

“Well, Ella, I am thinking about getting married Sometime. I think I will and then I change my mind.”

In the next several months, Ella moved from Farmers to 1124 Gay Street in Portsmouth, Ohio. At that location, which is now a DMV parking lot, she received frequent postcards from a mysterious “R.B.” in Plant City, Florida. Only two of the cards were postmarked. In June of 1915, R.B. wrote: “Well, the Sun is Getting hot as H. Down hear.” In August: “I am at Cincinnati to Night But Don’t know whear I will Be to morrow.”

None of the remaining cards from R.B. are postmarked, making it impossible to arrange them chronologically. Here are some of the more interesting ones:

“My Dear friend. You Do Eny Thing with The money you want to. I will Try and Send you Some more wedensday if nothing happens. Don’t forget your Florida friend.”

“This is Tuesday Eve, and no Letter yet. Don’t no what to think if you are mad Rite and tell me what you got mad about. I am going to Kentucky next week.”

“Dear friend, I am Disipointed this Evening By Not getting a Letter. Hoping you haven’t Forgotten me.”

“I will Rite you a few Lines as I promest you. I guess you wish I wood quit Riting So much. Yes, Ella I wood Bee more Then Pleased to get That Picture we was talking about. I am Sorrow you are not well. Say Ella if you can Rite to me three times a week as I am So Lonesom hear. you have no Idea what I have to put up with.”

“I am going to do the Best I can till I can get away But what Ever you Do Don’t change Bording houses. Now you may think I am crazy But I no what I am talking about. I will Rite a Point Letter the first chance I have hoping to hear from you again Soon.”

“Yes Ella I guess you are tard of hearing that word Some Day But Don’t get worried I am going to Do the Best I can.”

“I am so Proud you think of me as often as you Do for I am so Lonesom hear.”

“I think you ort to Rite oftener Then you Do. Please tell me why you Don’t. I am worrying my Life away Faster Then Eny one on Earth. So Rite and cheer me up all you can.”

“This Leaves me feeling Bad This Evening. I was Expectin a Letter But got Disipointed. I will Start you That money Saturday if Nothing happens.”

“Why Don’t you Rite oftener. this is Tuesday Evening and I haven’t had a Letter since Saturday. I guess you are about to Forget me.”

“Some one Swears Thay are going Back to Ky. and I wood Be glad to get Rid of Them So keep quite.”

“Yes, Ella I am going to come Back Soon. I want to get a way From hear By the 20th of July if I can. Ella I can’t tell you wheather or not Maudie and Vada Noes eny thing about what. Guess at the Rest.”

“Say Ella the theater is Right By the Post office hear and the Piano is Playing Silver threads among the Gold. you can guess how I feal. I get so nervous Some times I can’t hardly Liv.”

In Search of Ed Haley 137

29 Saturday Jun 2013

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Charlotte Spaulding, Grace’s daughter, guided Lawrence, Pat, and I to see 81-year-old Babe Hale. I told him about my interest in Ed’s life and he started talking about his Aunt Josie. I showed him one picture of Ed and he said, “That looks just like her almost.” I pulled out Ed’s picture from Parkersburg Landing and he said, “Looks more like Uncle Mont.” I was pretty sure that there was some kind of family connection between Ed and Mont and Josie, especially when Babe said his brother George Hale had went by the nickname of “Milt.” Maybe Josie and Mont were somehow Milt Haley’s children by a previous marriage.

“Josie’s mom and dad are buried down here at Grey Eagle,” Babe said. “He was killed in a raft. You know, they used to take logs down the river. They’s big rafts, trees tied together. And he was killed that way. He was killed on a raft.”

Babe told me more about Josie Cline — some very peculiar details.

“Josie collected toll up there, and when I’d go across, I had to pay, too. It didn’t make any difference to her: she’s gonna get three cents some way or other. But she was really manly. She wore men’s shoes and everything.”

So she wore a long dress all the time?

“Oh yeah,” Babe said. “She was really an old-fashioned woman.”

Charlotte said, “She looked like a man, didn’t she, Babe?”

I asked Babe what tunes she and Mont played and he said, “Oh, God, ‘Sourwood Mountain’ and everything. No, they could really knock it off now, both of them.”

We went to Grace’s briefly before heading back to Ashland. I was under the impression that Grace might have confused Ed with Mont Spaulding, although she had claimed to know about Ed’s banjo-picking friend, Johnny Hager.

“Yeah, he played the banjo with her,” she had said. “He was a little man. He was with them. They was two or three people traveled with them.”

In Search of Ed Haley 136

28 Friday Jun 2013

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The next day, Lawrence, Pat, and I drove up the Tug Fork to see 80-year-old Grace Marcum in Kermit, West Virginia. I was hoping for more information on the Muncy family, who may have been connected genealogically to Haley. It was a long drive through Wayne County up the Big Sandy Valley on Route 52. There was nothing. Then we came to Fort Gay, West Virginia, an interestingly-named town at the mouth of the Tug Fork. A little further south was some of the emptiest country I have ever seen — just the Tug and occasionally the old N&W Railroad. We finally reached the village of Crum, then crossed into Mingo County and to the old railroad town of Kermit. It was completely dead, with just a shell of a strip of old businesses. Across the river was Warfield, Kentucky.

Once we located Grace, I asked her if she had ever heard of Milt Haley.

“They called him ‘Milty,’ didn’t they?” she said. “Yeah, that’s what I heard him called.”

What about Ed Haley?

“He used to play the fiddle for us down there at the square dance,” Grace said. “Daddy built a big hotel and he’d have square dances downstairs in that big dining room. He used to play the fiddle for us down there. Him and Josie Cline and her brother Mont Spaulding was awful good friends. We’d give them twenty-five dollars a night, my daddy. They played at Warfield a lot. Across the river there. Some of her people lived there, some of Josie’s people. I don’t know who it was.”

At that point, Lawrence said, “We used to ride the N&W out of Kenova up the Tug Fork here up to Williamson and all through there. And he’d play music at some of the hotels and at the courthouse and places like that up at Williamson. Coming back, he’d usually stop here and see these Muncys and we’d stay, maybe, overnight with them.”

Grace seemed to know exactly who Lawrence was talking about.

“That was Rush and Loosh and Old Man Sammy. Yeah, I can remember. Dad sold the store out to Uncle Sammy, and he run the business there a long time. Dad got paint poison, and we liked to lost him. Rush lived in Kenova for years, but his wife died and he come up here and stayed with Loosh. Rush was the oldest one.”

Lawrence said, “Well, that’s what my dad used to do for a living was to go around and play during court days. He might stay in Williamson as long as they had a court session a going. And then come back through here and stop and see — I didn’t know that they’s his kinfolk — the Muncys was any kin to him. I’ve heard him talk about Mont Spaulding.”

So wait a minute. Ed played music with someone named Mont Spaulding and Josie Cline?

“Yeah, well, Ed come in ever once in a while, but Ed was getting pretty old,” Grace said. “And he stayed with Josie and them. Wherever they played, he went with ’em. Pretty nice old man. Well, him and Loosh Muncy and Rush Muncy was close. Now, they didn’t only play for Dad. They played for other people. Let’s see, Thursday night and Saturday night down here, and then they’d go to Borderland and play up there on Thursday and Friday nights. They made it good. Let’s see, Mont Spaulding, and a Haley and Josie Cline. Them three was the ones that… I paid them off myself. I know.”

In Search of Ed Haley 118

26 Sunday May 2013

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Later that night, I got back on the phone with Grace Marcum. I just had to know more about Josie Cline.

“She was a little round-faced woman…a little short, chubby woman,” Grace said. “And she wore her hair twisted up on top of her head, a little roll, you know, in a pin. Seem to me like she was blue-eyed, as good as I can remember. Josie Cline’s been dead for years. She collected bridge toll on this here… Well, it’s a free bridge now. They freed it, but when it was first built, they let Josie collect the toll. And she lived there in that little house, her and her husband. Her husband was a paralyzed man, and he couldn’t talk. I don’t know what happened to him.”

I asked Grace if Josie was supposed to be Ed’s older or younger sister and she said, “I guess she was an older sister. She was a funny old woman. She could make anybody laugh. Fine person.”

I asked her again about Josie being a fiddler and she said, “Oh yeah, her and Mont both.”

     Who?

“Her and her brother Mont.”

So she had another brother?

“Oh yeah. Seemed to me like — Mont Spaulding. He wore colored glasses. He wasn’t very tall.”

How could Josie be a sister to Ed and Mont Spaulding when everyone all had different last names? Was she a half-sister?

“Well, she could’ve been, yeah,” Grace said. “But I know they was awful close. Yeah, they had a time. Mont was a pretty good fiddler, and Josie was, too. I couldn’t say which one was the best, but now they played at square dances and everything. Yeah, my dad hired them to play a many a Saturday night down there at the hotel.”

I asked Grace how often Ed came through the area and she said, “Oh, I don’t know. You know, I was just a small girl, and I couldn’t tell you nothing like that ‘cause my father had a grocery store on this side of the railroad — between the railroad and the county road — and I worked there with Dad. He put us all to work. Raised a big family of us, so we all worked, you know, we all helped out.”

After hanging up with Grace, I formulated a theory that maybe Milt Haley had Josie Cline by another woman before coming to Harts and marrying Ed’s mother. It was just a hunch, like the “Emma Jane Hager-Emma Jean Haley” thing. I also wondered if Grace hadn’t partially confused Ed with Mont Spaulding or if Ed was in fact a boyfriend to the widowed Josie.