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Brandon Ray Kirk

Tag Archives: steamboats

Recollections of Tom Brown about Timbering on Big Sandy River (1979)

19 Thursday Sep 2019

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Sandy Valley, Timber, Twelve Pole Creek

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Appalachia, Big Sandy River, Bragg Creek, Fort Gay, history, Horse Creek, Kenova, logging, Mingo County, Naugatuck, Ohio River, pushboats, rafting, steamboats, timber, timbering, Tom Brown, Tug Fork, Twelve Pole Creek, Wayne County, West Virginia

The following interview excerpt of Tom Brown (born c.1909) was conducted at Fort Gay in Wayne County, WV, on December 15, 1979.

***

It was probably hard to get around back then, to go to church.

Well the only way you could get around through this country was up and down creeks or on horseback or wagon. And roads were in the creek most of the way. And where they cut timber and logs they had tram roads built back in the heads of the hollows and they had tracks–they built their track out of 2″ X 4″s–and they hauled these logs or ties from the mills back to the heads of the hollows back to the railroads. And they logged out of the mountains and they ran lots of rafts down Tug River. I’ve see high as four to five. They started the rafts running in the spring. They run them out of Mingo County and generally a lot of them was set out in Naugatuck.

That’s how they got them, they used rafts and boats?

Yes, they used rafts. Logs. They’d put these logs together… Sometimes a raft would be maybe 200 or 300 feet long.

200 or 300 feet long?

Almost as wide as the river. The man would stay on that and they’d pull the men to, I guess, Kenova and the Ohio River down here. And they would log them through the winter. The spring waters came and they started down the rivers with the rafts. The river banks were all cut clean.

That’s what I was going to ask you about. They had to be cut clean, didn’t they?

Yes, they was all cut clean. But the rafts… Well they ran logs down Twelve Pole Creek to… Back then people used to put their logs in the creek when it would raise and run them plumb out down Twelve Pole to Kenova. Heads of these creeks… And sometimes I can remember Bragg Creek and Horse Creek… They was a sawmill. There was locks in at Saltpeter and they pushed just like water to Bragg Creek. I’d say along 1916-1917. And almost the travel was boats. It went down on a little showboat. It used to come up an old paddle wheel boat.

That was in about 1917?

About 1917, ’18, ’19, along that.

Could you get a ride on that showboat if you wanted to?

No, they just pulled in and parked and had a show every night, like the picture show, the movie picture show had.

How long did that showboat go up and down the river? How many years did that last?

Well, I don’t know. It would just come up every once in a while maybe, and just stopped at certain places maybe. Places you know at that time… That was about as far as it could get up. And then things was brought up on pushboat. They loaded ties and stuff like that. I remember them loading them on the boat at the river at the mouth of Horse Creek. It was about as far as boats could come up the river.

P.H. Noyes v. Anderson Hatfield and John R. Browning (1891-1893)

17 Sunday Jun 2018

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Guyandotte River, Hatfield-McCoy Feud

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Appalachia, Charles M. Turley, Charleston, Cincinnati, circuit clerk, deputy sheriff, Devil Anse Hatfield, Guyandotte, Guyandotte River, Hatfield-McCoy Feud, Henry W. Sentz, history, J.B. Buskirk, John R. Browning, Kanawha County, lawyer, Logan County, Logan Court House, M.B. Mullins, Marion Chafin, P.H. Noyes & Company, pushboats, sheriff, steamboats, traveling salesman, W.W. Adams, West Virginia

On October 27, 1891, P.H. Noyes and Company sued Anderson Hatfield and John R. Browning relating to an 1890 debt. The following depositions provide some details about the case:

NOTICE TO TAKE DEPOSITIONS.

To Anderson Hatfield Sr. and John R. Browning. You will take notice that on the 28th day of March 1892, between the hours of 8 o’clock A.M., and 6 o’clock P.M., at the Law office of Adams and Smith’s at the City of Charleston in Kanawha County, we will proceed to take the deposition of P.H. Noyes and others to be read as evidence in behalf of ourselves in a certain suit at Law pending in the Circuit Court of Logan County, West Virginia wherein you are defendant and we are plaintiffs and if from any cause the taking of the said deposition be not commenced on that day, or if commenced and not completed on that day, the taking of the same will be adjourned and continued from day to day or from time to time, at the same place, and between the same hours, until completed.

Respectfully, P.H. Noyes & Co., By Counsel

Executed the within notice on the within named John R. Browning and Anderson Hatfield Sr. on the 2nd day of March 1892 by giving to each of them a true office copy of the same.

J.B. Buskirk, Dept. for F.M. Chafin, S.L.C.

***

DEPOSITIONS of Witnesses, taken before the undersigned authority, in and for the County of Kanawha, in the State of West Virginia pursuant to the annexed notice, at the law office of Adams & Smith at the City of Charleston W.Va on the 28 day of March 1892 between the hours of 8 o’clock A.M., and 6 o’clock P.M., of that day, to be read in evidence on behalf of the plaintiff, in a certain suit pending in the Circuit Court of Logan County West Virginia, in which suit P.H. Noyes & Company are Plaintiff and Anderson Hatfield Sr. and John R. Browning are Defendants.

Present: W.W. Adams for Plaintiff and no appearance for Defendant.

Deposition 1: Henry W. Sentz

Q: State your name, age, residence and occupation.

A: My name is Henry W. Sentz. I am 25 years old. I reside in Charleston, W.Va. and am a traveling salesman.

Q: What connection if any have you with the plaintiffs P.H. Noyes & Co.?

A: I am employed by them as a traveling salesman.

Q: Do you know anything about the matter in controversy in this suit between plaintiffs and defendants?

A: I sold him the bill of goods and he paid me in cash the sum of $400 for the residue. He executed the note upon which this suit is based. Since that time he has paid $100 on this note.

Q: Did you ever have any conversation with the defendant Anderson Hatfield in regard to the claim for which this suit is brought? If so, when and where?

A: I am not positive as to the time, but we had conversations in regard to the claim on two or three different occasions before the institution of this suit. These conversations were had at Logan Court House.

Q: State what was said by you and by him in said conversations.

A: He spoke of the debt, and when the note became due he asked for more time on it. He said if we would give him a little more time he would pay it, and I agreed to it as far as I could and explained the matter to the house. This was before the note was sent to Mr. Turley for collection. At the expiration of the time Mr. Hatfield asked should be given him on the note, I had another conversation with him. He still wanted more time, stating that he had a land deal on foot with M.B. Mullins, and said he thought it would only be a short time until the note was paid.

Q: What if anything did he say in these conversations, about the acts on which this suit was afterwards brought?

A: He said the debt was just and he wanted to pay it.

Q: When did these conversations occur?

A: The first conversation occurred about the time the note was due. The note was for three months, I think. The second conversation occurred about two months after the first. Both of these conversations occurred before the note was placed with Turley for collection.

Q: Has the house ever given Hatfield any other credit than the $100 credit above mentioned on the note?

A: Yes. At the time the goods were sold I figured up the amount of the bill. He paid at that time $400 and then sent in the note in controversy for the residue before the goods were shipped. When the goods were shipped, it was found that the amount of the note and the $400 was in excess of the amount of the bill for the goods, and credit was given on the note for this excess.

Q: What if anything did said defendant say in said conversations with reference to the condition of the goods for which this note was given? I mean their condition when he received them?

A: He said nothing.

Q: When did he first claim that the goods were damaged for which the note was given?

A: I can’t give the exact time but it was after the two conversations above mentioned, and before I had put the note for collection in C.M. Turley’s hands, that the defendant stated to me that some of the flour had been damaged, but that he did not blame P.H. Noyes & Co. for it as the goods had been a long time in transit and he did not get them home as early as he had expected to. Part of the flour had lain at Logan Court House for some time, I think in J.B. Buskirk’s stable.

Q: By what route and conveyance were these goods carried in Logan Court House?

A: They were shipped from Charleston to Guyandotte by steamboat, and from there to Logan Court House by push-boat, which is about 80 miles up Guyandotte River. The flour was shipped from Cincinnati to Guyandotte.

Q: When did you first hear of any claim on the defendant’s part and that he was entitled to an offset because said goods were damaged?

A: It was after the institution of the suit I saw the offset filed with the papers.

Q: Has the defendant made any payments on said note except the one of which you have spoken?

A: None that I know of.

Deposition 2: M.B. Mullins

Q: State your name, residence and occupation.

A: My name is M.B. Mullins, Logan County, West Virginia, Real estate dealer.

Q: Did you ever have any conversation with the defendant Anderson Hatfield in regard to the claim of P.H. Noyes & Co. v. him which is in controversy in this suit?

A: Yes.

Q: When and where?

A: I think it has been some nine months ago at Logan C.H. We first had the conversation in Buskirk’s store and then in Turley’s office.

Q: What did he say about said debt in that conversation?

A: He and I were on a trade for some land. He said he owed this debt and asked me in connection with the trade to pay it. This I agreed to do provided he could make good title to his land.

Q: At that time, who held this note for collection?

A: C.M. Turley said he had the note for collection. He is an attorney at Logan Court House. And part of the above conversation with Mr. Hatfield was had in the presence of Mr. Turley.

Q: Do you remember anything else Mr. Hatfield said to you about this debt on that occasion?

A: He asked me to write P.H. Noyes & Co. and ask them to give him a little time on this debt until this trade went through and he would pay it, and not to sue him. I did this.

Q: How long ago do you say this conversation occurred?

A: Nine months or more and I think I wrote the letter before I left Turley’s office. The date of the letter will show the date of the conversation.

Q: Did C.M. Turley take part in said conversation between you and Hatfield?

A: Yes, sir. My recollection is that Mr. Turley said he would give us time and hold up on the suit until the title to the land for which we were dealing was examined. Turley also wanted me to write P.H. Noyes & Co. so that they would understand why he had not brought suit v. Hatfield.

Q: Did Mr. Hatfield say anything about the goods Noyes & Co. had sent him being damaged or having any offset against said claim?

A: He did not at that time and I don’t remember of his having ever told me so. My recollection of his language is that he said “it is a just debt and I want to pay it.”

***

Additional notations derived from the Logan County Circuit Clerk’s Office, Logan, WV:

Law Orders Book G, p. 277 (27 October 1891): initial entry

Law Orders Book H, p. 112-113 (24 November 1892): case continued

Law Orders Book H, p. 113 (25 November 1892): jury could not decide, jury discharged

Law Orders Book H, p. 254 (28 April 1893): no notation

Law Orders Book H, p. 254 (28 April 1893): plaintiff wins $321.95 with interest

NOTE: This case does not appear to have any connection to the Hatfield-McCoy Feud.

Dusenberry’s Dam (1887)

30 Thursday Nov 2017

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Barboursville, Guyandotte River, Huntington, Logan

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Barboursville, Cabell County, Charleston, Dusenberry's Dam, Guyandotte River, history, Hugh Toney, Huntington, Huntington Advertiser, Logan, steamboats, West Virginia

From the Huntington (WV) Advertiser of February 5, 1887 comes this bit of history about Dusenberry’s Dam:

The dwellers along the banks of the Guyandotte River from its mouth to the headwaters, together with many others who are interested in the navigation of that stream, will be pleased to know that it is soon to be cleared of all obstructions. Major Post, the Chief Engineer, and Capt. Hugh Toney, his assistant, in charge of the Government improvement on Guyandotte River, have made a contract with the Messrs. Rodgers to clear the river of all obstructions from Barboursville up for a considerable distance. By this contract the Dusenberry mill dam, which has been the chief obstacle to the free navigation of the river and the cause of immense loss to timber dealers and others, will be removed.

After its removal, with such a stage of water as we now have, steamboats will be enabled to ascend to within a few miles of Logan C.H. This will be of immense importance to the city of Huntington, as it opens a fertile region, which has in a great measure been cut off by this dam and forced to go to Charleston. A line of steamboats will, no doubt, enter the trade between this city and Logan C.H. as soon as the river is clear.

At the point where the Dusenberry dam is located was established as one of the first grist mills in all this region of country. About the year 1818 or 1820, the Legislature of Virginia passed an act allowing a mill dam four feet high to be built across the river at that point, and since that time the obstruction has remained.

Capt. Toney has been untiring in his efforts to secure the removal of this bar to the free navigation of Guyan, but not until a few days ago was he able to effect the arrangement which will result in opening the stream.

The merchants and business men of Huntington should now be on the look out for the trade up this river and use all proper means to bring it here.

Thealka Is Chartered (1900)

16 Tuesday May 2017

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Sandy Valley, Huntington

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Appalachia, Big Sandy River, Captain Christian, E.A. Woodruff, Guyandotte Shoals, history, Huntington, Huntington Advertiser, Ohio River, steamboats, Thealka, West Virginia

Thealka Steamboat HA 10.09.1900.JPG

Huntington (WV) Advertiser, 9 October 1900.

Andy Hatcher Burns (1897)

14 Sunday May 2017

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Sandy Valley

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Andy Hatcher, Appalachia, Big Sandy River, history, Kentucky, Paintsville, steamboats

Steamer Andy Hatcher Burns HuA 12.27.1897.JPG

Huntington (WV) Advertiser, 27 December 1897.

In Search of Ed Haley 244

17 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Sandy Valley, Civil War, Ed Haley

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5th West Virginia Infantry, Arthur I. Boreman, Ben Haley, Bill Smith, Camp Chase, Catlettsburg, civil war, Guyandotte, history, Independent Company of Scouts, James Buskirk, Jim Smith, Kentucky, steamboats, Stephen Strawther, Wash Watts, Wayne, Wayne County, West Virginia, William A. Haley, William T. Sherman, writing

On August 30, 1864, Captain Benjamin R. Haley wrote a letter to West Virginia Governor Arthur I. Boreman:

Sir I have the Honor of reporting to you the Success and condition of my company I have Lost no men tho there is Some ten cases of Sickness in my company owing to exposure in Scouting and Lying out in the night time we have had quiet times for the Last month untill the Last few days we now have Bill Smith and his gang in our midst which gives us much trouble and fatigue Looking out for him we also have Jim Smith the arch trator and a Small gang to Look after which is a great innoiance attended with considerable Trouble and Danger so upon the whole we have our hands full and in deed we may consider ourselves fourtunate if we are able to compete Successfully with them our armes are in good order and ammunition plenty for the ensuing month.

We have Arrested 9 Disloyal citizens which have been Sent away under Gen. Shermans order and two more who are now under trial at Catletts Burg Ky. Also one cofederate Soldier who was sent to Camp Chase whose name was Wash Wats. There has been Recently a trasaction in our county of Some importanc that a cirtain Rebel capt. James Buskerk who was experimenting with uncle Abe pills and took one too many So it worked him out of this wourld and also out of our way for ever and at the Same time there was one Stephen Strawther who took a very Heary Dose which is prooveing it is Supposed pretty fatal to him tho he may recover its affects for any thing we know yet we do hope it may have a good effect Let it work as it will it is an expressed opinion that if this Little company Should be removed the gurillas would be robbing Steam Boats between Catlettsburg & Guyandott and it is threatned Strongly as it is.

Attached to the August 30 letter was this message:

Sir wee are concious that our company is too weak to purform the Duty that is Required oweing to the increased numbers of gurilas and the Disbandment of the other three companies puting all together it becomes dangerous to Scout through the county or even to Hold a position in the County we have time and again Reported to the federal forces and with one Single exception have failed to get Help they invariably tell us to Remain with them and Keep out of Danger which you at once Se gives our County no protection at all now I have conversed with your warmest costituance and just friends and they all think it Due them and the intrust of our county that you Should give an order for more men now I can asure you the men can be recruited in a very Short time. You are aware that the term of Servis of the 5 Va Regt. is now about out and there are quite a number of them who have not nor will not reenlist also quite a number of them who Reside in wayn County and cannot Stay at home under existing circumstanses. They therefore would Readily enlist in a compey of this kind and Defend the Interest of the Loyal people of this county. There are also quite a number of citizens who would becom Souldiers in a Local Company like this be you assured we must have moor men or Suffer great Loss after Runing great Risks of our own Live we are held as usurpers of the Laws of Va and cald Borman Bogus theaves and cut throats by the Rebels and threatened with instantaneous Death when captured.

We are not at all Dismaid or intimidated at there threats not with Standing that there is plenty moor men to Help us we think it nothing more than Right they Should be permitted to do wee know they will do if armed and put at it we therefor petition you to give us the minimum number of a company Say eighty the Rank and file to be paid from the Date of there enlistment and for to be economical Say one Lieutenant.

On September 15, 1864, Haley was captured by a force under the command of Rebel Bill Smith. A few days later, on September 23, he was officially discharged from the 5th West Virginia Infantry, as was his son, William. The following day, the Wheeling Intelligencer reported on his capture:

A RAID: A few days ago the notorious rebel Bill Smith, with about sixty men, made a raid on Ceredo, situated on the Ohio river, in Wayne County in this state. They captured Capt. Ben. Hailey, and eight of his men, who belonged to the West Virginia State Guards, who were stationed at Ceredo for the protection of that point and surrounding neighborhood. They also captured all the male citizens of the place, with the exception of two old men, and robbed the Post Office of stationary and postage stamps, and other valuables, to the amount of about forty dollars, and robbed the citizens of all the horses in the neighborhood, and about seven hundred dollars. The guerillas left Ceredo with their prisoners and booty, going in the interior, in the direction of Wayne Court House, robbing the citizens of their horses and other property. The loyal citizens have been greatly annoyed for the want of necessary protection, ever since March or April last, the country being overrun by guerillas, committing depredations of the most shameful character, such as murdering citizens, robbing houses of bed clothing and their valuables, and taking money from citizens. It would be a great relief to the loyal citizens of Wayne County if the military authorities could possibly spare soldiers sufficient to protect said county from the bands of guerillas that are continually infesting the county, and driving the loyal citizens away from their homes.

In Search of Ed Haley 177

28 Saturday Sep 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ed Haley, Harts

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Bill Peyton, civil war, Comber Bias, Favorite, Guyandotte River, Harts, history, Hustler, J.T. "Pomp" Wentz, Lewis Midkiff, Major Adrian, Morris Wentz, Nick Messinger, Sam Bias, steamboats

Aside from this great fiddling history, I located several wonderful passages that hinted at Civil War era life in the Guyandotte Valley.

“A family named Bailey ran a mill at Harts Creek,” Sam Bias told Lambert in 1942. “They had seven or eight children — all half-naked. This was during the Civil War. Such mills ground slowly and people got hungry waiting for their grists. Mr. Bailey furnished a skillet where folks could parch corn when hungry. Food, in those days, was either secured from the forests, or produced on the farms. It consisted of corn bread, potatoes, bacon, pickled pork, and a few vegetables produced in the gardens. Hogs were often kept before being killed till they weighed as much as five or six hundred pounds, or more. There were no canned goods. We often fished at night and had fish the next day fried in bacon grease. We used a hook and line. We had guns and often killed ducks. I killed a bald eagle just above the Falls. It measured seven feet from tip to tip of their wings. It had been catching Lewis Midkiff’s geese. Women were very modest, and wore long dresses. People were scarce. They often lived five or six miles apart. Comber Bias, from the Forks of Two Mile, bear hunted at Harts Creek. He got a bear shortly after the war and I ate some of it. We had spinning wheels and looms. I can remember when my mother made pants and knit socks for us.”

“I remember bear and deer were plentiful in my early days,” said Bill Peyton. “Panthers were gone. I have laid by trees with my brother Lewis where six coons were until daylight and my father would come and shoot them. He killed many deer, a few bear, a few wildcats, foxes, panthers, etc. Trapped foxes. Much flax and cotton was grown. I have helped pack cotton many times. Many people had stills and made brandy. The Major Adrian, Louisa, and Lindsey [were steamboats] that ran before the war. Sugar orchards were plentiful. We raised wheat during and after War. Soldiers of both sides passed at different times. About 1200 Yankees went down the Creek as from Boone to B’ville on one occasion. Did no harm. Rebels (about 1000) also passed on another occasion on way to Wayne. They did no harm. Later soldiers came and robbed us and took a horse — Rebels — took blankets, clothes, meat, etc. About 25 in party. On Guyan, Nick Messinger had a water mill at the Falls after the war ended. Two or three saloons were in Hamlin directly after the Civil War. Pomp Wentz and Morris Wentz ran the Hustler since the war. A steamboat called the Favorite ran from Huntington to Laurel Hill.”

J.T. “Pomp” Wentz: Steamboat Captain of Cabell County, WV

23 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Music

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Appalachia, Cabell County, fiddler, fiddling, Fred B. Lambert, Guyandotte River, history, J.T. "Pomp" Wentz, music, photos, steamboats, West Virginia

Pomp Wentz

J.T. “Pomp” Wentz, riverboat captain in the Guyandotte Valley. From the Fred B. Lambert Papers, Special Collections Department, Morrow Library, Marshall University, Huntington, WV.

H.M. Stafford

31 Friday May 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Sandy Valley

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Appalachia, Big Sandy River, H.M. Stafford, history, Johnson County, Kentucky, photos, pushboat, steamboats

HM Stafford and pushboat Johnson County 1904

H.M. Stafford and pushboat, Johnson County, Kentucky, 1904

Rafting Scene

26 Sunday May 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Sandy Valley, Timber

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Appalachia, Catlettsburg, culture, history, Kentucky, life, logging, photos, steamboats, timbering, U.S. South

Six steamboats with log rafts, Catlettsburg, Kentucky, 1901

Six steamboats with log rafts, Catlettsburg, Kentucky, 1901

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Cricket

29 Monday Apr 2013

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Appalachia, Big Sandy River, Cricket, culture, history, Johnson County, Kentucky, life, photos, steamboats, U.S. South

Cricket

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk | Filed under Big Sandy Valley

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Steamboat: Argand (1900)

25 Thursday Apr 2013

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Big Sandy Valley, Huntington

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Appalachia, Argand, Big Sandy River, Charleston, culture, history, Jessie, Kentucky, Paintsville, photos, Point Pleasant, steamboats

Argand

Argand Likely to Sink HA 02.02.1900

Huntington (WV) Advertiser, 2 February 1900

In Search of Ed Haley 73

26 Tuesday Feb 2013

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

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Appalachia, Aracoma, Big Foot, blind, Blues, Clyde Haley, Come Take A Trip in My Airship, Coney Island, Devil Anse Hatfield, Done Got the 'Chines in My Mind, Ed Haley, Ella Haley, fiddler, Fox Cod Knob, Franklin Roosevelt, Harts Creek, Hester Mullins, Hiram Dempsey, history, Island Queen, Jack Dempsey, John Hartford, Lawrence Haley, Logan, Logan County, Mona Haley, music, mystery, Noah Haley, Nora Martin, Pink Mullins, steamboats, Trace Fork, Turkey in the Straw, West Virginia

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 6

26 Monday Nov 2012

Posted by Brandon Ray Kirk in Ashland, Big Sandy Valley, Ed Haley, Matewan, Music, Pikeville, Williamson

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Appalachia, Art Stamper, Arthur Smith, Ashland, Big Sandy River, Billy Lyons, Blackberry Blossom, blind, Charles Wolfe, Clark Kessinger, Clayton McMichen, Duke Williamson, Ed Haley, fiddle, fiddler, fiddlers, fiddling, Fox in the Mud, Frazier Moss, Fred Way, Ft. Gay, Grand Ole Opry, history, Huntington, Joe Williamson, John Hartford, Kentucky, Kermit, Kirk McGee, Levisa Fork, Louisa, Mark Howard, Matewan, Mississippi River, Molly O'Day, music, Nashville, Natchee the Indian, Ohio River, Old Sledge, Packet Directory, Paintsville, Parkersburg Landing, Pikeville, Prestonsburg, Red Apple Rag, River Steamboats and Steamboat Men, Robert Owens, Roy Acuff, Sam McGee, Skeets Williamson, Snake Chapman, square dances, St. Louis, Stacker Lee, Stackolee, steamboats, Tennessee Valley Boys, Tri-State Jamboree, Trouble Among the Yearlings, Tug Fork, West Virginia, Williamson, WSAZ

Back in Nashville, I was knee-deep in Haley’s music, devoting more time to it than I care to admit. I talked so much about it that my friends began to tease me. Mark Howard, who was producing my albums at the time, joked that if Ed’s recordings were of better quality, I might not like them so much. As my obsession with Haley’s music grew, so did my interest in his life. For a long time, my only source was the liner notes for Parkersburg Landing, which I had almost committed to memory. Then came Frazier Moss, a fiddling buddy in town, who presented me with a cassette tape of Snake Chapman, an old-time fiddler from the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy in eastern Kentucky. On the tape, Snake said he’d heard Haley play the “old original” version of “Blackberry Blossom” after he “came in on the boats” at Williamson, West Virginia.

The boats?

This was making for a great story. I was already enthralled by Haley’s fiddling…but to think of him riding on “the boats.” It was the marriage of my two loves. I immediately immersed myself in books like Captain Fred Way’s Packet Directory 1848-1983: Passenger Steamboats of the Mississippi River System Since the Advent of Photography in Mid-Continent America (1983) to see which boats ran in the Big Sandy Valley during Haley’s lifetime. Most of the boats were wooden-hulled, lightweight batwings – much smaller than the ones that plied the Mississippi River in my St. Louis youth – but they were exciting fixtures in the Big Sandy Valley culture.

“I have seen these boats coming down the river like they were shot out of a cannon, turning these bends, missing great limbs hanging over the stream from huge trees, and finally shooting out of the Big Sandy into the Ohio so fast that often they would be nearly a mile below the wharf boat before they could be stopped,” Captain Robert Owens wrote in Captain Mace’s River Steamboats and Steamboat Men (1944). “They carried full capacity loads of sorghum, chickens and eggs. These days were times of great prosperity around the mouth of Sandy. Today, great cities have sprung up on the Tug and Levisa forks. The railroad runs on both sides, and the great activity that these old-time steamboats caused has all disappeared.”

During the next few weeks, I scoured through my steamboat photograph collection and assembled pictures of Big Sandy boats, drunk with images of Haley riding on any one of them, maybe stopping to play at Louisa, Paintsville, Prestonsburg and Pikeville, Kentucky on the Levisa Fork or on the Tug Fork at Ft. Gay, Kermit, Williamson, and Matewan, West Virginia.

Finally, I resolved to call Snake Chapman and ask him about his memories. It was a nervous moment – for the first time, I was contacting someone with personal memories of Ed Haley. Snake, I soon discovered, was a little confused about exactly who I was and why I was so interested in Haley’s life and then, just like that, he began to offer his memories of Ed Haley.

“Yeah, he’s one of the influences that started me a fiddling back years ago,” Snake said, his memories slowly trickling out. “I used to go over to Molly O’Day’s home – her name was Laverne Williamson – and me and her and her two brothers, Skeets and Duke, used to play for square dances when we first started playing the fiddle. And Uncle Ed, he’d come up there to old man Joe Williamson’s home – that’s Molly’s dad – and he just played a lot for us and then us boys would play for him, me and Cecil would, and he’d show us a lot of things with the bow.”

Molly O’Day, I knew, was regarded by many as the most famous female vocalist in country music in the 1940s; she had retired at a young age in order to dedicate her life to the church.

“And he’s the one that told me all he could about old-time fiddling,” Snake continued. “He said, ‘Son, you’re gonna make a good fiddler, but it takes about ten years to do it.'”

I told Snake about reading in the Parkersburg Landing liner notes how Haley reportedly wished that “someone might pattern after” him after his death and he totally disagreed. He said, “I could have copied Uncle Ed – his type of playing – but I didn’t want to do it because he told me not to. He told me not to ever copy after anyone. Said, ‘Just play what you feel and when you get good, you’re as good as anybody else.’ That was his advice.”

I didn’t really know what to make of that comment. I mean, was Haley serious? Was he speaking from personal experience or was it just something he told to a beginning fiddler for encouragement?

After that, my conversation with Snake consisted of me asking questions – everything from how much Haley weighed to all the intricate details of his fiddling. I wondered, for instance, if Ed held the bow at the end or toward the middle, if he played with the fiddle under his chin, and if he ever tried to play words in his tunes. I wanted to know all of these things so that I could just inhabit them, not realizing that later on what were perceived as trivial details would often become major items of interest.

Snake answered my questions precisely: he said Haley held the bow “up a little in the middle, not plumb on the end” and usually played with the fiddle at his chest – “just down ordinarily.” He also said Haley “single-noted” most of his bow strokes, played frequently in cross-key, hated vibrato and used a lot of “sliding notes.” He seldom got out of first position, only occasionally “going down and getting some notes” that he wanted to “bring in the tune” and he definitely tried to play words in his music.

“The old fiddlers through the mountains here – and I guess it’s that way everywhere – they tried to make the fiddle say the words of the old tunes,” Snake said.

“Uncle Ed, he was a kind of a fast fiddler,” he went on. “Most old-time fiddlers are slow fiddlers, but he played snappy fiddling, kindly like I do. Ah, he could do anything with a fiddle, Uncle Ed could. He could play a tune and he could throw everything in the world in it if he wanted to or he could just play it out straight as it should be. If you could just hear him in person because those tapes didn’t do him justice. None of them didn’t. To me, he was one of the greatest old-time fiddlers of all time. He was telling me, when I was young, he said, ‘Well, I could make a fiddle tune any time I want to,’ but he said he just knowed so many tunes he didn’t care about making any more. He played a variety of tunes that a lot of people didn’t play, and a lot of people couldn’t play. He knew so many tunes he wouldn’t play one tune too long.”

I asked Snake about Haley’s repertoire and he said, “He played an old tune called ‘Old Sledge’ and it was one of his good ones. He played tunes like ‘Trouble Among the Yearlings’, but when he was gonna play it he called it ‘Fox in the Mud’. He made that up himself. One of the favorite tunes of mine he played was the old-time way of playing ‘Blackberry Blossom’ and he played it in G-minor. Ed could really play it good. They was somebody else that made the tune. Uncle Ed told me who it was – Garfield. He said he was a standing fiddling near a big blackberry patch and it was in bloom at the mouth of the hollow one time and this fella Garfield played this tune and he asked this fella Garfield what the name of the tune was. He said, ‘Well, I ain’t named it, yet,’ and he turned around and spit in that blackberry patch with a big bunch of ambeer and said, ‘We’ll just call it ‘Blackberry Blossom’.”

Snake laughed.

“Yeah, Uncle Ed, he had tales behind every one of them like that, but that’s where he said he got the name of it. He said he named it there…spitting in the blackberry blossom.”

Snake only remembered Haley singing “Stacker Lee”, a tune I’d heard him fiddle and sing simultaneously on Parkersburg Landing:

Oh Stacker Lee went to town with a .44 in his hand.

He looked around for old Billy Lyons. Gonna kill him if he can.

All about his John B. Stetson hat.

Stacker Lee entered a bar room, called up a glass of beer.

He looked around for old Billy Lyons, said, “What’re you a doin’ here?

This is Stacker Lee. That bad man Stacker Lee.”

Old Billy Lyons said, “Stacker Lee, please don’t take my life.

Got a half a dozen children and one sweet loving wife

Looking for my honey on the next train.”

“Well God bless your children. I will take care of your wife.

You’ve stole my John B. Stetson hat, and I’m gonna take your life.”

All about that broad-rimmed Stetson hat.

Old Billy Lyons said, “Mother, great God don’t weep and cry.”

Oh Billy Lyons said, “Mother, I’m bound to die.”

All about that broad-rimmed Stetson hat.

Stacker Lee’s mother said, “Son, what have you done?”

“I’ve murdered a man in the first degree and Mother I’m bound to be hung.”

All about that John B. Stetson hat.

Oh Stacker Lee said, “Jailor, jailor, I can’t sleep.

Old Billy Lyons around my bedside does creep.”

All about that John B. Stetson hat.

Stacker Lee said, “Judge, have a little pity on me.

Got one gray-haired mother dear left to weep for me.”

All about that broad-rimmed Stetson hat.

That judge said, “Old Stacker Lee, gonna have a little pity on you.”

I’m gonna give you twenty-five years in the penitentiary.”

All about that John B. Stetson hat.

It was one awful cold and rainy day

When they laid old Billy Lyons away

In Tennessee.  In Tennessee.

Snake said Haley used to play on the streets of Williamson, West Virginia where he remembered him catching money in a tin cup. In earlier years, he supposedly played on the Ohio River and Big Sandy boats and probably participated in the old fiddlers’ contests, which Snake’s father said was held on boat landings. These impromptu contests were very informal and usually audience-judged, meaning whoever got the most applause was considered the winner. Sometimes, fiddlers would just play and whoever drew the biggest crowd was considered the winner.

I asked Snake if he ever heard Ed talk about Clark Kessinger and he said, “Skeets was telling me Ed didn’t like Clark at all. He said, ‘That damned old son-of-a-gun stands around and tries to pick up everything he can pick up from you.’ And he did. Clark tried to pick up everything from Uncle Ed. He was a good fiddler, too.”

Snake said Clayton McMichen (the famous Skillet Licker) was Haley’s favorite fiddler, although he said he knew just how to beat him. This made me think of the line from Parkersburg Landing, “In regard to his own fiddling, Haley was not particularly vain, although he was aware that he could put ‘slurs and insults’ into a tune in a manner that set him apart from all other fiddlers.” (I wasn’t exactly sure he meant by slurs and insults.)

Snake could tell that I was really into Haley.

“Try to come see me and we’ll make you as welcome as we possibly can,” he said. “I tell you, my wife is poorly sick, and I have a little trouble with my heart. I’m 71. Doctors don’t want me to play over two or three hours at a time, but I always like to meet other people and play with them. I wouldn’t have no way of putting you up, but you can come any time.”

Just before hanging up, I asked Snake if he had any Haley recordings. He said Skeets Williamson had given him some tapes a few years back and “was to bring more, but he died two years ago of cancer.” Haley had a son in Ashland, Kentucky, he said, who might have more recordings. “I don’t know whether he’s got any of Uncle Ed’s stuff or not. See, most of them old tapes they made, they made them on wire recordings, and I don’t know if he’s got any more of his stuff than what I’ve got or not.”

I told Snake I would drive up and see him in the spring but ended up calling him a week later to ask him if he knew any of Ed’s early influences. He said Ed never talked about those things. “No sir, he never did tell me. He never did say. Evidently, he learned from somebody, but I never did hear him say who he learned from.” I felt pretty sure that he picked up tunes from the radio. “Ed liked to listen to the radio, preferring soap operas and mystery chillers, but also in order to hear new fiddle tunes,” the Parkersburg Landing liner notes read. “A good piece would cause him to slap his leg with excitement.” I asked Snake if he remembered Haley ever listening to fiddlers on the radio and he said, “I don’t know. He must have from the way he talked, because he didn’t like Arthur Smith and he liked Clayton McMichen.”

What about pop tunes? Did he play any of those?

“He played ragtime pretty good in some tunes,” Snake said. “Really you can listen to him play and he slides a little bit of ragtime off in his old-time fiddling – and I never did hear him play a waltz in all the time I ever heard him play. He’d play slow songs that sound old lonesome sounds.”

Snake quickly got into specifics, mentioning how Haley only carried one fiddle around with him. He said, “He could tune right quick, you know. He didn’t have tuners.  He just had the keys.”

Did fiddlers tune low back in those days?

“I’d say they did. They didn’t have any such thing as a pitch-pipe, so they had to tune just to whatever they liked to play.”

Haley was the exception.

“Well, it seemed like to me he tuned in standard pitch, I’m not sure. But from hearing his fiddling – like we hear on those tapes we play now – I believe he musta had a pitch-pipe at that time.”

I wondered if Haley spent a lot of time messing around with his fiddle, like adjusting the sound post, and Snake said, “No, I never did see him do that. He might have did it at home but when he was out playing he already had it set up the way he wanted to play.”

Surprisingly, Snake didn’t recall Haley playing for dances. “I don’t think he did because I never did know of him playing for a dance. He was mostly just for somebody to listen to, and what he did mostly was to make money for a living playing on the street corner. I seen him at a fiddling contest or two – that was back before I learned to play the fiddle. That’s when I heard him play ‘Trouble Among the Yearlings’. He won the fiddling contest.”

What about playing with other fiddlers?

“Well, around in this area here he was so much better than all the other fiddle players, they all just laid their fiddles down and let him play. The old fiddlers through here, they wasn’t what I’d call too good fiddlers. We had one or two in the Pikeville area over through there that played a pretty good fiddle. Art Stamper’s dad, he was a good old-time fiddler, and so was Kenny Baker’s dad.”

After hanging up with Snake, I gave a lot of thought to Haley reportedly not liking Arthur Smith. His dislike for Smith was documented on Parkersburg Landing, which stated plainly: “Another fiddler he didn’t care for was Arthur Smith. An Arthur Smith record would send him into an outrage, probably because of Smith’s notoriously uncertain sense of pitch. Cecil Williamson remembers being severely lectured for attempting to play like ‘that fellow Smith.'”

Haley probably first heard Smith over the radio on the Grand Ole Opry, where he debuted in December of 1927. Almost right away, he became a radio star, putting fiddlers all over the country under his spell. His popularity continued to skyrocket throughout the 1930s, during his collaboration with Sam and Kirk McGee. In the late thirties, Haley had a perfect chance to meet Smith, who traveled through southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky with the Tennessee Valley Boys. While unlikely, Haley may have met him at fiddling contests during the Depression. “In the thirties, Haley occasionally went to fiddle contests to earn money,” according to Parkersburg Landing. At that same time, Smith was participating in well-publicized (usually staged) contests with Clark Kessinger, Clayton McMichen and Natchee the Indian. Haley, however, tended to avoid any contest featuring Natchee the Indian, who “dressed in buckskins and kept his hair very long” and was generally a “personification of modern tendencies toward show fiddling.”

In the early 1940s, Haley had a perfect opportunity to meet Smith, who appeared regularly on WSAZ’s “Tri-State Jamboree” in Huntington, West Virginia. Huntington is located several miles up the Ohio River from Ashland, Kentucky and is West Virginia’s second largest city.

In the end, Haley’s reported low opinion of Smith’s fiddling was interesting. Arthur Smith was one of the most influential fiddlers in American history. Roy Acuff regarded him as the “king of the fiddlers,” while Dr. Wolfe referred to him as the “one figure” who “looms like a giant over Southern fiddling.” Haley even had one of his tunes – “Red Apple Rag” – in his repertoire. Maybe he got a lot of requests for Smith tunes on the street and had to learn them. Who knows how many of his tunes Haley actually played, or if his motives for playing them were genuine?

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