Matewan Oral History Project Collection
Sc2003-135

Kenneth Phillips Interview

John Hennen: This mic check, mic check, or microphone number one. Today's date is Friday, June 2nd, 1989. This is John Hennen. I am preparing to interview Kenneth Phillips, of Blackberry City, Mingo County, West Virginia. Part of the Matewan Development Center Oral History Project. I'm in the home of Mr. Phillips and his wife in Blackberry City. It is approximately 3:00 PM.

J: Alright Mr. Phillips uh...just to get started here let's, we'll get some general background information on yourself and your family. Could you tell me when, and, what is your full name when you were born and where you were born?

Kenneth Phillips: My name is (laughs) I was born January the 8th, nineteen and twenty-one at Blackberry City. I live about forty feet from the house I was uh...born and raised in. And, another home beside it. And, uh...I was educated in the Matewan schools. Went in the military service after school got married. And uh...

J: Your wife's maiden name?

KP: Pauline Bianco

J: Is she uh...was she a local uh..girl?

KP: Well, she was from up the river up here a little ways.

J: When, when did you go into military service?

KP: Nineteen and forty-two.

J: Enlisted or drafted?

KP: Enlisted.

J: Uh...what branch of service?

KP: Navy.

J: Where you stationed over seas or in the States?

KP: All the time I was enlisted. I left the home I never got back 'til it was over.

J: Where uh...where were you stationed?

KP: In the Pacific, Hawaii, and Guam, and different islands around. In Oatock(?) and different places.

J: Okay, okay. What about your, your parents and your family? I understand your family has been in this area for, for a long time.

KP: Well, my dad.

J: How'd they get started here?

KP: My dad was born at Hardy, Kentucky at, at uh...Mud Lick over at Hardy, Kentucky. And, he was uh...he was put...moved to this, he moved to this area...he was moved to this area in uh...nineteen and four. He was born in eighteen and ninety-nine and moved over here in 1904. And, uh...he moved up Sulphur Creek. Then he worked, went to work in the mines when he was eight years old. Went to work in a coal mine when he was eight years old.

J: Approximately nineteen and seven or nineteen and eight.

KP: Nineteen and eight, somewhere along in there. When he was uh...nine years old he was at his own place in the mines to load coal. He was loading coal with the men. And, uh...he worked in the mines until nineteen and forty-three. And, uh...then he decided to go into the trucking business for hisself. But, uh...my mother was local girl. She lived right across the street from where my father's people lived at that time. She lived, they lived on opposite sides of the street. And, they...there was about a hundred yards from here. And, then, they bought this place out here...built a home out here. And, uh...but uh...I've, dad and mother raised eight children here. Put 'em all, all high school education.

J: All go to Matewan High School?

KP: All went to Matewan High School. And, uh...one or two of 'em got a little bit of college, not much uh...a few hours in college. And, uh...of course that was pretty good for those days, a man with eight children to take care of 'em like that. We always had enough for all of us. We never had...never wanted for a whole lot. Oh, kids like to have a lot, but, you know how it is. We got by great.

J: Did you all keep uh...uh...garden all...most of the time?

KP: No, uh...once, once or twice we had a good size garden, that's about all we ever had. I, I remember that because I dreaded that garden work. It was tough to get out and work on these hillside with a garden.

J: Yeah.

KP: Uh...but uh...he always, dad always had something goin' for himself.

J: Where did you stand uh...as far as your age compared to your brothers and sisters?

KP: I was the oldest one in the family.

J: Okay.

KP: The oldest one in the family. And, uh...I had five sisters and three brothers.

J: Did they.....

KP: Got two brothers, I made the third one. Five girls and two boys.

J: Did most of 'em settle in this immediate area also or did they move on somewhere?

KP: Everyone of 'em left but me.

J: Is that right?

KP: Yeah. When I was in the service I said, " if I ever get back to Blackberry City where Mom and Dad's at I'll stay right there from now on." And, so, I'm right here. (laughter)

J: But, all the rest of 'em moved out?

KP: Yeah...

J: That's unusual for....

KP: Yeah, there's some of 'em in Virginia some of 'em in Michigan some of 'em in uh...Tennessee, Florida, Ohio, just every place.

J: See, I'm not, I don't believe we, we got your father's name and your mother's maiden name, could you get that....

KP: Uh...Butler Phillips was my father's name and Cora Starr was my mother's maiden name.

J: Now, as you were growing up...and your father, as you said, he was in the mines until, until after you left the area to go in the service...uh...was he a union man?

KP: Yeah.

J: Was he strong for the union?

KP: Oh, you better believe it. He carried a pistol and stood guard duty and everything else. He was uh..the uh...Ed Chambers and Sid Hatfield were good close friends of his. Dad knew 'em all personally, real well. In fact uh...there was a bunch of pictures here of dad and Sid and Ed and all of 'em at one time.

J: Was he uh...did he have any official capacity with the union?

KP: No...no.

J: A union officer or anything.

KP: No...no.

J: Now, you were telling me earlier...before we were on tape... that shortly after you were born your brand new house was fired into. What's the situation, or the...?

KP: Well, they uh...at night after ten or eleven o'clock at night, uh...the...see they had run all the union people out of their home, out of the coal camps and everything. So, my dad and his parents, uh...in the earlier...they'd....this was, I guess, before I was born...they lived in a tent. They was run out of their house and put in...lived in a tent. And, uh...but uh...this night the, the machinegun fire opened up on the house and uh...all the homes in this area here. And, the people had to run get out, hunt, go, go for cover. There was no place for 'em to find cover here on this hill. See, over on one of those hills over there they had to uh... so the only thing they could do was, at night time get out and run up over this other hill over here and down into a ravine and work their way up Sulphur Creek.

J: And, this is the winter of 1921?

KP: Yeah, yeah. Now, those people would run out of their homes in dead wintertime and uh...you know right in the most severe weather and they had to suffer for a long time without their homes, their personal belongings that they had in their homes. So, I guess that when people go through things like that, you know they, they can't uh...they couldn't change their mind about a union when some, some uh...company had done 'em that way you know.

J: Who was uh...doing the firing?

KP: The nonunion people from the...on the other side of the river over there.

J: From the Kentucky side...?

KP: Kentucky side firing on to the West Virginia side. See a lot of these men that lived over here worked in the mines over there. And, they, they'd run 'em out of their homes. See, at that time, this property was all, wudn't company owned. This was individual, each individual owned his own home here and they didn't like it. They couldn't throw 'em out. They couldn't send the uh...their gangsters in here, or the Baldwin Felts detectives in here to throw 'em off of this property. They couldn't get the state police to come up here and do anything about it cause this was all uh...uh.. privately owned property. So, they decided, well, we can't let 'em live there so we'll just shoot 'em out of there. They shot 'em out, run 'em all out of here.

J: How did the local law enforcement people, of course, this was shortly after the massacre itself...?

KP: Now, this was before...

J: Oh.

KP: This is just before the Massacre.

J: Oh, okay.

KP: See, Sid and Ed was killed in, in probably in May 1921.

J: 1920...oh killed in, in 1921.

KP: Yeah, they was... J: They were killed in the summer of 1921..

KP: Yeah, right uh...this is about uh...shortly...right about the massacre time. (Mr. Phillips refers to the murder of Sid and Ed as the massacre)

J: Um-hum.

KP: But, uh...the, the law, the authority, the law didn't uh... they didn't do...the state police were under Governor Hatfield and that bunch in Charleston on up there. I don't know, there's another Governor (Morgan)...they didn't do anything for the miners. They was looking after the company. State police done what they was ordered to out of Charleston and uh...the local law officers uh...would do the same thing, I mean the people out of Williamson. Now, the Matewan police are the only ones that took up for the uh..for the uh...miners.

J: And, that would have been Sid...

KP: Sid and Ed Chambers and uh...

J: Now, the sheriff, was this sheriff...was Blankenship the sheriff at that time?

KP: G. T. Blankenship was sheriff. Now he, he, he was a Democrat. And, he let it all slide by him you know what I mean. He, he didn't interfere in it. He kept, kept out of it. But, he didn't uh...he didn't uh...uh...he didn't uh...cause anybody any trouble. That's what I say, if he would have sent his men up there and said, "hey, stop that." You know, "we're not gonna have this," make both sides pull back. But, there was uh...there was a pretty good move on his part, I guess, 'cause he'd became sheriff several times after that. Later on he was sheriff. Everybody liked him, I guess. They liked the way he handled the situation. But, uh...I, I can remember G.T. Blankenship he hasn't been dead, maybe thirty years or something like that.

J: Did he remain, did he stay in the office of sheriff for a good many years?

KP: Well, in and out. See the sheriff can only hold office for four years at a time.

J: I see.

KP: He was in there two or three times that I know of, different times. Up in the '30's he was elected sheriff uh...in the late '30's maybe in the '40's, I don't recall exactly.

J: Was the company that you're referring to...(that) was trying to move the private owners off the land...was that Stone Mountain Company or where there a number of companies?

KP: Well, there was all these companies around fighting the union, they didn't want none of 'em around. I don't know whether it was Stone Mountain that had their men over here...this was McCarr Coal Company over here at that time.

J: What's, what's the name again?

KP: That was McCarr, over at McCarr, Kentucky that mine over there. But, uh...now Stone Mountain, I don't know if they had their people in the mountains shooting 'em out of here or what it was. But, uh...runnin' 'em out, I don't where they were from, but, I do know that company over there the Alburn Coal Company...what it was, Alburn, they had machine guns and everything over there all up 'til up in the late '30's and '40's they had their machine guns over there in the office building, over there in the company store, upstairs in a office.

J: How strong would the...was the union say in the late '20's and '30's...it was kind of on the outs at that time, I guess, was it?

KP: It was no union at that time. I mean the men believed in it and they wanted it, but, they uh...they couldn't do a thing about it until...public opinion, see all this trouble brought in people from all over the world, news media from all over the world came into uh...this area. They could see how the miners lived and how they worked. How they survived, how they struggled, the families struggled, and what they were deprived, how they were deprived people, you see. Then the uh...in the end they went back and they spread this word out and it became know all over the world the situation that these people were living and existing under...right here in this area. So, uh...that was through the '20's it got around. Then the politicians began to...Roosevelt he came in power in 1932 and he said, "if I'm elected I'll give any man the right to organize uh...and uh...if he wants a union he can organize it." Other words, he had the Wagner Act passed and that gave everybody the right, any organization, anybody, any company, the employees the right to organize if they wanted. They could be uh...truck drivers they could be uh...railroad people they could be uh...any group of people that wanted to organize and have a union could vote for it, they could have it. Well, uh...that uh...that Wagner Act was broke down here just a few years ago. Not very many either, shortly, very short time ago. And, uh...the uh...things have gone to pot since then. Getting worse I mean in the labor field, in the field of labor. And, conditions and everything is goin' down.

J: What did the people around here think about John L. Lewis?

KP: Well, John L. Lewis was uh...he could uh..if they...people around here had uh...could of voted for him for president of the United States he would have been elected.

J: Pretty popular guy....

KP: At one time, he was a popular man. Every home had a picture of him in it. He was that popular.

J: Did your family have a picture of John L. Lewis?

KP: Oh, we had, we had, our family had pictures of John L. Lewis from back in uh...before I was born. They was, see my aunts and all of 'em were uh...uh...friends of the Lewis'. My aunts, they knew the Lewis, John L. Lewis and...all of 'em for years and years. He used to invite my aunts, when he had a Senate hearing, you know, on some labor uh...thing in the Senate goin' on, he'd invite her to the Senate to hear his speeches and she thought he was great. He was a good man. She said he was the best speaker she'd ever heard in all of her life. She heard a lot of good speakers. But, uh...he was a very popular man in this part of the country. Of course, away from here and down south and around he, he (laughter) wudn't a very popular man cause you know how it is down south what the southern people think of unions and the like, to start with. But, uh...uh...if the southerners knew what uh...what the uh...what they were doing to 'em now, they're making 'em...see these miners over here in uh...over at uh...Marrowbone Development they're being paid exorbitant wages of way above union uh...union wages. And, that, to keep 'em from goin' union, you see and they're passing that on to their customers, which is Carolina Power and Light Company down in Duke uh...down at...down in North Carolina. They're passing that...North Carolina is passing that costs on to their... to their customers. The poor people of North Carolina are subsidize these big coal companies, and these non-union people are making more money than the union people are making.

J: That came back home to some local political people in here not long ago didn't it?

KP: Yeah, yes it did. Some of 'em in jail for it right now. But, uh...those people uh...really those people down there are still against the union. But, they're uh...paying, paying through the nose for it don't know what's goin' on. That's, that's the (laughter) sad thing. They'll be as good if they don't know it. Maybe they don't want to know such things.

J: The aunt that you mentioned who would uh...would be invited to the senate hearing by John L. Lewis is this the same aunt that you told me off tape was actually with the union in some capacity?

KP: Yeah, yeah, she was, she was a secretary uh...she worked in the Charleston office there after, after Ed was killed. Ed Chambers was killed. She went to Charleston and worked out of the uh...mine, mine headquarters, union headquarters over there in Charleston, she was secretary there and uh...she, that's where she got to know uh...more about John L. Lewis and all of 'em, you know, because uh...it's right there in that office and all.

J: What was her name?

KP: Sally, Sally Starr. She married Ed Chambers. Uh...

J: So, she...she was Ed's widow then?

KP: Yeah.

J: Okay, Sally Chambers.

KP: She was Ed's widow.

J: Okay.

KP: She was Ed's widow.

J: Alright, I'm gonna backtrack a little bit again to some things that we discussed off the tape a little bit earlier when I first got here. You mentioned to me that at one point your grandfather had been a pretty large landholder in the area.

KP: My great grand father.

J: Your great grandfather. And, got...somehow got beat out of some land by Henry Ford.

KP: Well, Eastern...what it turned out to be, Eastern Coal Corporation. They uh...just come in and for their mining rights you know, and the coal, the mineral, they...when they signed the mining rights...that gave 'em rights to build and construct and uh...these things pertaining to mining. Well, anything that you put, any kind of building you put up, pertains to mining, that's housing and everything else. So, they come in and took over all this property and everything and put up all the houses on, on it. You notice all those little houses how crowded they are goin' down, that's the way they crowded 'em up on his property, that's all his property through there. And, from Williamson clear up through Hardy and on, way back through beyond Hardy up towards Toler and uh...that area he had uh...a lot of property in there. He was the largest landowner in Kentucky and he, when they, I mean in, in Pike County, Kentucky. And, when uh...he was uh...when they decided to form another county, since Pike County, Kentucky was such a big county, they decided to split it up. So, they took the name of the largest landowner and let him name the, the uh...the new county. So, they already had a Scott County. And, uh..when uh...they ask him what he wanted to name it he said, "well," said, "let's name it Martin," he said, "that's my first name." So, uh...Martin Scott named Martin County, Kentucky. That's the county right across the river from Kermit. And, uh...he, he was the one that named Martin County.

J: And, his family had been in there for generations already, I guess?

KP: Well, no. He was, he settled that land in there hisself. His, his dad, Martin Scott's father was Daniel Scott. And, I don't know but I've been told that Daniel Scott was named after his grandpa, Daniel Boone.

J: Oh, is that right?

KP: That's what they, one of the Boone girls, uh...that's what I've been told. I don't...I don't know whether to believe it or not. (laughter) But, uh...John Scott was uh...was Dan Scott's father and all of 'em lived in Kentucky.

J: Did your uh...I realize I'm jumping around a little bit here but...did your aunt Sally ever discuss with you the shooting of Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers?

KP: Yes, she did.

J: What did she have to say about that?

KP: She said they was...had a court summons to court in Welch, West Virginia and that they...to go there they had...they knew they'd be alright on the train...on the...as long as they were on the passenger train. But, when they...they'd be protected, they'd have protection...the county..well, the county of Welch (McDowell) would give 'em protection to...all the time they were there, 'til the court was over. And, uh...when they uh...arrived in Welch they got off the train...a lot of people got off the train at the same time. But, when they got off the train the train pulled right out. Immediately pulled out. And, they were left standing there everybody else cleared away...went their own ways. They were standing there with nobody around and no protection...no...nobody to...to do anything for 'em...to help 'em defend themselves or anything. So, they uh...they went to their hotel room...they had uh...they'd made uh...they'd made plans, you know, had...had a hotel room there. So, they went to the hotel room and stayed at the hotel room 'til uh...they was uh...to go to court. So, they... it wudn't far from the hotel where the courthouse was at. So, they...when the time to go to court, why, they get out and walk out...they didn't even take their guns with 'em...left 'em in the uh...valises at the uh...in the hotel room. And, uh...they walked up to the courthouse and they started up the steps, the doors burst open and the...the uh...Baldwin Felts detectives came out firing. And, uh... they shot uh..shot 'em all. They's unarmed people...unarmed men and uh...wudn't...didn't dress as policeman or anything else. They was goin' to court there just in their own uh...natural habitat... what they had on, you know, in their own natural clothes. Like I say, they wudn't uniformed to show that they were policeman or anything. Or, that they had...might have been armed or anything like that. So, she told me that uh...well, she told my wife, she told...she said that they shot Ed, that was her husband and, he was dying, she held him in her arms. And, when this uh...detective... I believe it was, was Lively...I mean the Baldwin Felts detective C. E. Lively...came down and put a pistol while she was holding Ed head in her arms...he come down and put a pistol behind Ed's...I believe it was his left ear...and blowed the top of his head off, you know. Right up through and behind the ear and up through...out the head. And, she jumped up then...she begged 'em though not to shoot him. She begged 'em not to shoot him said, "he's already dead." And, uh...they wanted to make sure he was dead. So, they uh...she jumped up then...when they done that...she jumped up with her parasol...you've seen, I guess, you've seen pictures of her carrying that big black parasol around all the time...well, that... she uh...she beat him up with that parasol...she beat him up. He was running from her and she was beating him all the way up the steps with that parasol. He wouldn't shoot her outside, you see. But, he got uh...she followed him right on through the door beating him with that parasol. Why, he uh... turned and uh...pushed her into a room and had her down in a chair and uh...gonna blow her head off. She said he was gonna blow her head off when the sheriff run in there and told him said...I guess, the sheriff had his gun in his hands...said, "you're not killing that woman" said, "you's only to kill...supposed to kill two men" said, "you've killed your two men, now that's enough" said, "you leave her alone." And, that's...that's the way it happened.

J: So, by her account then the sheriff would have been implicated?

KP: Oh yes, the whole...the whole political structure in uh...the county (McDowell) was implicated. Ah...they all was in on it. They was all in on it, I guess.

KP: I was in the sixth grade and one day the teacher gave each of us a little form to fill out that had our mother's name and our father's name and the address and all these things on it. And, uh...I had to think for a long time what my father's name was. I had to stop and study about it. And, uh...you know I...it's always "daddy"...that was the first thing that come to me was daddy. And, uh...well, now daddy's not...then I happen to think...because I'd heard him called daddy for years...mommy...my mother said, "don't wake your daddy. He just got in and he's got to go back to work at two o'clock." Now, I would be in school and I would hear the car. See, I was in the old schoolhouse there at Matewan. And, I could tell the sound of that old car...old Chevrolet coming down the street. I'd peek my head up and look out the window and there was my dad goin'...it was about nine thirty, ten o'clock in the morning. Well, when I came home for lunch my mother would say, "now be quiet, don't wake your daddy he just got in the bed a few minutes ago." Said, "he's got to get up at two...he'll be leaving here at two o'clock." So, he would work from two o'clock in the evening...I mean leave home at two o'clock in the evening...and get home around nine thirty, ten o'clock in the morning. And, he worked hisself to death like that for, oh, years, and years. All through those...through the '20's and '30's that's the way he had to work. And, uh...then in nineteen and thirty-four, I guess, '35, when the union was organized, why, things began to change a little bit, it got better. But, I had...see, my mother...I didn't see my dad maybe for just a little bit on Sunday. And, uh...my mother always said, "be careful, be quiet don't make any noise your dad just got in the bed." And, she always called him "daddy." She didn't... when she was speaking to us, now when she uh...talking to him she called him Butler. But, when we were around it's your daddy, when the children were around it was your daddy. And, I...I...

J: Couldn't remember his name.

KP: I couldn't...I had...that was uh...that was embarrassing to me for that to happen to me, when I was a child you know. Couldn't of...in about the fifth or sixth grade, I guess. Man, that was... but uh...afterwards I...didn't bother me after I really know what it meant, you know. I just was...I guess, it was something that a lot of other children went through the same thing, no doubt.

J: Did your father have Blacklung?

KP: Yeah, yeah.

J: Of course, at that time there wasn't any compensation for Black lung...

KP: No, no...at that time but he...he eventually got his black lung before he died...

J: Did he...he live long enough to get some benefits.

KP: Yeah.

J: Do you have any idea what...what happened to uh...this man Lively after uh...Ed and Sid were killed? Does anybody know what became of him?

KP: I believe, he must of, went somewhere in Ohio, up around Columbus. 'Cause I met a fellow one time that told me that C. E. Lively was his uncle. Now, this man lived in Columbus. And, his name was uh...he was a conductor uh...his name was Smith, the conductor. I worked with him. He told me Lively was his uncle. So, I figured he might have wound up around Columbus or somewhere in that area.

J: And, he had...as it turned out he had been a agent for Baldwin Felts for years hadn't he?

KP: Yeah. He had been one of the top agents there for years. And, uh...that uh...he...he would have killed Sally if he hadn't uh...if that sheriff hadn't of put a stop to it. 'Cause she... (laughing) he'd had to kill her cause she'd would have beat him to death with that umbrella. She would've. She's goin' right after him, following him right up. She beat his head off. (Laughing)

J: Now, in the wake of the...the killings of Hatfield and Chambers that's what's launched, I guess, the...what we...the miners' march on Blair Mountain uh...do you have any rec...of course you wouldn't have any direct recollection cause you were just a baby...but uh... things that people had told you about that period of time?

KP: Oh, no more than everyone else already knows. I don't know, I don't remember anything about it. 'Cause everybody around here was on this side of it anyway, you know. Down on this...on here next to the river on the...on the West...Southern West Virginia. And, those people up there...very few around here knew what was goin' on up there. And, my aunt Sally's husband, Harold Houston, the attorney, was in Charles...was in Texas, posing an oil deal in Texas...for an oil company. And, he uh...told me in nineteen and forty-one, forty-two that he sent John L. Lewis a telegram from Texas (in 1921). Told him to disregard the injunction that uh... they had against the miners. See, you know, to make 'em quit their activities. And, uh...he told uh...John L. to disregard that... that won't stand up in court. Said...said they...said, "I can beat it." Said, "don't you worry about that"...said, "I'll, I can beat the injunction, disregard it." Well, to keep things from getting worse in the coalfields the uh...agent over at Charleston...you know, the telegraph agent...he passed that message onto the FBI and the uh...the uh...state uh...state militia, you know, the head of the state police, had passed that onto 'em. To keep...that helped suppress the miners some, you see. By 'em not knowing all this so he uh...he...he...said that he could have beat the injunction if they had uh...if he'd have got a chance in court he could have beat the injunction. But, he was in Texas at that time. You couldn't fly out of...out of places to get back or anything. So, he had to drive back. While he was there he had a... his car broke down. And, he had to wait to around a week or so. And, finally...he couldn't get a part for it cause it was Pierce-Arrow he was driving. And, he finally got disgusted and traded that uh...that Pierce-Arrow for uh...Model-T...uh...Model, lets see, it was a Ford anyway. I don't know...Model-T or what it was. But, he traded that Pierce-Arrow in for uh...traded even for it too just to get out of there. (Laughter)

J: And, this is the same lawyer Houston....

KP: Yeah.

J: Who would have been the...the

KP: United Mine Workers.

J: ...attorney for the defendants for the Massacre trail.

KP: Yeah.

J: Did he pretty much make his career then as a...as a attorney for the union?

KP: For years he did. See, in nineteen, and twenty-three, or '24, '22 or '23 somewhere along there, they disbanded. You know, after that march, they disbanded.

J: Yeah, oh yeah.

KP: They disbanded. Of course, he...he was uh...he...he would take cases for the union and do thing like that but he was uh...he was on his own, too. He was uh...pretty well known attorney.

J: Now your...your father had a long career as a miner but you... did you ever work in the mines? I know that you spent most of your career working for the railroad.

KP: I worked about what, two or three year in the coal mines? (Asking his wife) I worked about three years in the mines, I guess. It was a union mine, though.

J: Your father and you had a small mine that you worked out of.

KP: Yeah, it was a union mine, we paid union wages and in fact we belonged to the union too while we was operating the mine.

J: About what years would that have been?

KP: Uh...'40...uh...'48, '49, '50.

J: So, that would have...

KP: '51, '52, and '53...see I...I went on the railroad for before uh...Dad put...pulled out. Then he pulled out after I left uh... went on the road and he saw that I was gonna stay there. Why, he pulled out. I went on the railroad worked from 1950 on through. So, I retired in 1980.

J: And, what line did you work for?

KP: Norfolk and Western.

J: And, what was your...I'm sure, I guess, you had several different jobs in the course of your career.

KP: Yeah, I was a fireman and engineer...fireman and engineer. I've worked from Williamson to Bluefield, Portsmouth to Columbus, Columbus back to Portsmouth and Portsmouth to Williamson and worked all...the whole area for about thirty years.

J: Did you run passenger trains or freights, coal cars all different kinds?

KP: About all things.

J: What was passenger service in and out of Matewan like when you were... KP: Well, I never worked a passenger train here. I worked the passenger trains on the Columbus division.

J: Oh, I see.

KP: Oh, it was nice. It was nice goin' along eighty, ninety miles an hour and a hundred miles an hour in some places. It was really moving on. Good...good job. Pauline and the family rode with me several times. They was out there with me. They'd get a pass and get on the train and take a ride go to Columbus stay over two or three days and come back. And, pretty much on the road, wudn't it? (Speaking to Mrs. Phillips) But, uh...I worked 'til I had to quit. Uh...had so much heart blockage, artery problem that I had to quit.

J: I'm gonna mention some names to you. If you don't mind just to get your uh...reaction or your memory of some of these folks and it's gonna cover several decades of the history of Matewan. It's just some people that I'm very interested in and I know that...that you will probably know a lot these people and be able to tell me something about 'em. The first...first person on my mind is a guy named Cooper who was the mayor for so long. Did you know him?

KP: Ira Cooper. Yeah.

J: What sort of a fellow was he? And, what was the town like under his administration?

KP: Well, you know, during the time Ira was mayor, I wudn't here that much. I was on the road. I was working out of Portsmouth and Columbus.

J: Out working. Uh-huh.

KP: Uh...I wudn't here enough to know a lot about Ira Cooper.

J: How about uh...Reece Chambers?

KP: I knew Reece. He was a quiet man. He was uh...he was uh... pretty good size man, I mean he had a big mustache. Big, elderly man when I knew him. He was...Reece was the father of Ed Chambers. And, uh...all of the Chambers called him "Daddy Reece." Everybody called him "Daddy Reece." Uh...he was...he was a good man. He took...he took a part in that battle.

J: Yeah. He was one of the defendants, I guess, from the trail.

KP: Yeah.

J: Let me see. Did you know any Buskirks around here?

KP: Yeah, I knew uh...

J: That was a pretty...

KP: Robert Jr. I didn't know his dad. His dad died, I guess, maybe before the fight come uh...off, I think. He'd been...I think uh... yeah, I'm sure of....he died, I think, the day that his son was born.

J: Is that right?

KP: I believe daddy told me that he died the day that boy was born or the day after he was born, something like that. Maybe..never did see him. I don't remember. But, uh...he died uh...I believe dad told me it was the day that boy was born.

J: Would you know a approximate date on that?

KP: Well, I guess, Bob, the boy that I know. He must be four or five years older that I am. I'd say nineteen and, let's see, when would that have been. Should have been...I was born in '21...I'd say fifteen, sixteen maybe it was nineteen and seventeen somewhere a long in there.

J: Would this have been the Buskirk that uh...owned the saloon on the other side of the swing (Swinging bridge) on the other side of the river?

KP: Yeah. That's the one that uh...that I never knew, that was the older...the older gentleman.

J: Somebody was telling me, just today I believe it was that, of course, you being away so much on the railroad this might not be something you remember a whole lot, but, that Matewan on a Saturday night used to be jammed packed with people downtown.

KP: Oh, I can remember that. You couldn't walk on the sidewalks. There wudn't walking room on the sidewalks.

J: What all went on downtown, during those days?

KP: Well, the stores stayed open late. The uh...Saturday night the stores stayed open 'til nine, or ten o'clock. There was just a lot of people that come into town. They worked uh...all week long and they had a chance on Saturday night to run to town and do a little shopping...that's the way they got to do it. That's the only time they had any shopping was on Saturday nights.

J: People come from communities around?

KP: Yeah, everywhere.

J: Was Matewan sort of the central...

KP: Yeah.

J: ...central location?

KP: Yeah. It was uh...center for Red Jacket and Thacker and uh... on up the river here, on down the river. People come up, you know, they'd come to the nearest community they could get into to do their shopping. At that time, you didn't have Kroger stores uh... big supermarkets and things around. The people came into town to the little, you know, private owned stores uh...family stores and did their shopping.

J: And, there use to be bus service here in Matewan.

KP: Yeah, it was in the uh...'40's. That started out in about '38, '39, '40, through there. Went up to about, I guess, about eleven or twelve years of it, wudn't it (speaking to wife). Something like eleven or twelve years of bus service. Buses out of Williamson, Matewan to Freeburn, and Majestic and they went about thirty, about thirty miles a trip, I guess, the run. But, those days are gone, (laughing) they'll never come back no more. They uh...the...when the...all these homes...all these hollers, we'll call 'em hollers, that's what we always heard 'em called, "up the holler", creeks. You see what Red Jacket looks like now? Thacker, the two big hollers up Thacker, have you ever been up through there?

J: I haven't been to Thacker.

KP: Well, there was...all the way up Thacker two big deep hollers, about like Red Jacket up in...almost like Mate Creek, was full of nice big two story homes. All kinds of homes, you know. There was some small ones but there was, uh. I, I guess, at one time...right there at the town of Thacker out there on the railroad...there was as many as four hundred people get on and off the train there when it was pulling in, and stopped. There was no room to stand and talk or to walk around. There was that many people around there. And, uh...there were so many people...and those people are gone. All those houses have vanished. I mean vanished. There's not uh...up those creeks there's not four or five good houses up those creeks. And, one of 'em don't have any I don't guess but uh...not any homes at all in one of 'em. And, one of 'em is got four or five half decent homes up there. Those people...hundreds, and hundreds of people have left those places like that. What I mean hundreds they might have been a hundred houses or more in that creek...up that creek. Well, each house had two or three in it, so that makes three or four hundred people right there that've left. They're gone...they...they'll never come back here. There is nothing for 'em to come back here to.

J: Would these have been people that worked in the coal industry?

KP: Yeah, yeah, coal miners. Those were company houses.

J: Bob McCoy was telling me that when he was a kid in Matewan a big part of the social life to go down and meet the trains as they'd come in and out of town.

KP: Yeah. Yeah, I can remember about the time Bob was born. I was, lets see, Bob was born about '38 or '39, somewhere along in there. Lets see, I believe, he was born in '38, maybe '39. I knew his mother and his dad. His mother was a Chambers. Bob's mother was a Chambers.

J: Chambers is a pretty big name around here for a long time wasn't it?

KP: Yeah, it was. Now there's uh...I don't know of any in Matewan now. (Laughter)

J: Yeah, they've pretty much moved out too haven't they?

KP: Yeah, they've long left. They done...done alright around Matewan. I guess, all of 'em, you know, they...they left here. They survived after they got away from here. So, I imagine they did pretty well.

J: Were you all pretty much protected from the '77 flood up here of did that...did that get up close to you?

KP: It uh...it came up to this curve down here. Not, not up to the top of it but it touched my property on the...on the lower side down here. It was about, what four or five feet of water that got up to it? (Speaking to wife)

J: (Tape cuts off) That's alright go ahead.

KP: This part of the country I don't think will...unless we have roads, an improvement in our road system... we're gonna be hurting from now on. And, to make Matewan there's gonna have to be some roads to link up the good roads. I mean some fairly decent roads for people to drive on 'fore they can come to Matewan. And, that... that's uh...that's the biggest draw back right now, is the roads.

J: Do you think there's been any...anything in the way politics operate that has prevented that from happening up until now?

KP: Yes, I'm sure. I'm sure that uh...Mingo County has been let down by the uh...by uh...politicians and the state politicians and the state offices and all of 'em. We've been let down. They've let us down. Because, we're so far south that to get any good out of anything they figure "well, 'em people down there don't need any more than what they've got. Let's spend it all up in the Northern part of the state." Just put it all up north. They've got good roads up north. But, they...right in this area here, we don't have anything.

J: Is this new Corps of Engineers project suppose to help the road access in and out of the county any, that you know of?

KP: Don't think so.

J: Uh-huh.

KP: Don't think that it will uh...see it takes better Route 49 and uh...better routes uh...better routes everywhere you get in here. You're gonna have to have good access from...from uh... Route 52 to come in here. We're gonna have to have a lot of different ways to come in. From over in Virginia, come in from... from Virginia and Kentucky. Uh...they're gonna have uh...roads uh....gonna be a lot of roads worked on for it to help this area here. And, I don't know...I don't...I don't...they can't keep... they can't keep the roads...can't keep building 'em...they'd have to repair 'em and, everyday. And, they can't do it.

J: When do...did you start getting the big coal trucks moving around the roads here?

KP: Oh.

J: It's been in the last fifteen years or so, I guess?

KP: About...so many of 'em have been in the last fifteen years. Now, we had a few scattered around uh...back in the '50's but they wudn't...they were smaller trucks. They were little uh...two and three ton trucks hauling, things like that. But, now they've got to hauling these big loads. Of course, the biggest load they hauled on those two and three tons was six and seven tons on a truck. That didn't do the damage to the highways and the bridges, and the...like. The trucks were small. But, uh...over in Kentucky we...we've watched the trucks over there twenty years ago. And, they didn't even license the trucks over there. They didn't...if they licensed 'em they'd have to registered 'em in order to license 'em. And, if they register 'em they'd have to pay the sales tax on 'em. So, they didn't...they run 'em without license, without any kind of identification or anything on 'em. There was nothing on those trucks. And, uh...they finally...the roads were so bad over there that they had to start working on 'em and build 'em up. So, they had to start making those boys pay the..Kentucky was worse than West Virginia for a long time. I mean about the coal trucks over around Pikeville in that area. But, here in the last fifteen years that's when the trucks have become so big, and so many of 'em. And, I can't understand it, they haul coal from Matewan to Thacker, they haul coal from Thacker to Matewan. They take coal from Matewan and Thacker and load in a railroad car at Thacker. They take coal from Thacker down to Matewan and load it in a railroad car. Why couldn't they put it on uh...in the coal cars and save the roads? (Laughter) That's...

J: Are they...

KP: They're bypassing...coal's...trucks....truckload of coal goin' this way and a truck go that way, and both of 'em will come back empty...both of 'em will pass empty again, and then they'd go back loaded and they just keep...I can't understand it.

J: Must have something to do with the contracts they've got. They're required to haul on certain lines or something. There really ought to be some regulation about that.

KP: Well, it's all N & W Line. There's no contract to cover that. It's all...all N & W traffic uh...rail traffic out of here. But, that's what gets me. Sit here and watch coal hauled up the road and then while there...right here there's two big coal trucks will pass right here one of goin' to Matewan and one goin' to Thacker. Then, here...sit there a few minutes...same two trucks will meet goin' uh...in opposite directions empty. And, uh...then you watch 'em and they will come back loaded. They just keep passing each other up. And, they're tearing the roads up, all the time. If they were hauling in one direction it would only tear up one side of the road. But, the loaded trucks on both sides of the road now, goin' that way. It's just pushing it all off the hills. Eventually these roads will be pushed off of these hills.

Matewan Oral History Project Collection