Matewan Oral History Project Collection
Sc2003-135

Jim Backus Interview

John Hennen: Today is June 13, 1989. This is John Hennen for the Matewan Development Center Oral History Project. I'm preparing to interview Jim Backus of [North] Matewan, West Virginia in his home. It is approximately 10:30 A.M.

J: Mr. Backus, if you would, please tell me your full name and when and where you were born, please.

Jim Backus: James Willow Backus. Borned at Meador, West Virginia, in the year nineteen hundred and two, January the twentieth.

J: Okay. Where is Meadow? (John mispronounced it "Meadow", it's pronounced Meador)

JB: About nine miles up this creek here. Up at the...near the head of the creek.

J: In Mingo County?

JB: Yeah.

J: Okay. uh...okay.

JB: Did you have brothers and sisters?

JB: Yeah. I had thirteen uh...twelve uh...twelve brothers... there's thirteen all together. 'Course there's twelve of them brothers and sisters, 'course there was two died young.

J: Are any of your brothers and sisters still living?

JB: Yeah. I've got...Let's see, I believe I got eight...eight brothers and sisters living yet.

J: Are they in this area or spread out?

JB: No. Theys two of them...two of them...three of them in this area, yeah.

J: What are their names?

JB: There's uh...Glendine Robinson (Roberson) is one. Jerry Collins is two. Millie, let's see, Parks, she lives up at Red Jacket, 'course that's in this area.

J: Okay. Where did you stand in the ages of the thirteen children?

JB: I was the first.

J: You're the oldest.

JB: Um-hum.

J: Okay. And approximately what age is the youngest?

JB: Well, let's see. Gerry, I believe, is the youngest. She's up...close to sixty, I expect. I'd guessed her to be close to sixty, of course she's still working in the school down there yet.

J: So there's an age difference of about twenty-five years between the oldest and the youngest?

JB: Yeah. There's, about two years yeah about twenty-five years. They average about two years between each one of us.

J: What were your parents' names?

JB: Hiram Backus and Ruthie Varney Backus.

J: And uh...had they been in the Mingo County area for uh...several years?

JB: Yeah. My mother, she was borned and stayed in here as long as she lived, 'course she died. Been dead about ten years, 'course my father, he came here from Nicholas County.

J: Okay. What sort of work did he do?

JB: He was a coal miner and, of course he mined coal and then he was a...worked in the loggin' jobs around when sawmills come around. But he was mostly a coal miner.

J: Do you recall what companies he worked for while he was in the area?

JB: While he was here, he worked for the Red Jacket Coal Company. That's the only one there was around in this neighborhood.

J: How 'bout when he uh, worked at timber operations? Small scale or uh...

JB: Yeah. It was small scale. They was...they'd just be small operations come in and maybe mine...cut out maybe one section of timber uh...I know my grandmother, she had a hundred and three acres for uh...she sold her timber. They mined it uh...cut it out. My dad worked some in that and there was another operation, I forgot now where the timber tract was that they operated but it was a...Williams, I believe, was the owner uh...operator on it.

J: Was the hundred and three acres that your grandmother owned in what's now Mingo County?

JB: Yeah. Yeah. It was up above Meador right on up...

J: Was there any timber rafting in this area?

JB: No. No rafting in this area. Wasn't ever enough water on the ...spring of the year, lot of time, most of all the big raises we had would be in, along in March. Different to what it is...our water system now uh...but uh....it come on snows...it come on usually in the fall of the year and stay on 'til that big a rain come and then all the water would warsh, clean everything out. That water raised, but it wasn't enough to raft anything in it at that.

J: So how did they get the timber out of here then?

JB: They sawed it up into lumber then hauled it out on the wagons, and big old long wagons, load...pretty good bunch of lumber on it and hauled it to different places.

J: Was the timber in this region, when you were a boy, for instance, was it still virgin timber or had it been cut over?

JB: Yeah. There was a lot of it was virgin timber, yeah. I know I've seen poplars, 'course they'd cut these four hundred or two hundred, particularly I had...the stumps on them across the top of them would have probably measured six foot. Them stumps had been cut back about the time I was born uh...oaks, let's see, there was a lot of oaks that was cut after it, and some of these timber jobs. I know my wife's grandfather, he owned a tract of land up above where my grandmother owned this, and there was one big oak in there they had to dynamite it...and bust it up with dynamite before they could haul it and get it hauled on the wagons.

J: Un-hun.

JB: Trees busted up in quarters. It was a uh...biggest oak that I know but they was lots...I've seen chestnut...big chestnuts but oh, you could have..I guess it went six or seven feet across the stumps. Growed up awful big uh...all kinds of chestnuts for animals to eat on and humans...they was better than what these Chinese chestnuts we got now but...

J: Did you, when you were a boy, did you all keep uh...keep hogs and feed them those chestnuts?

JB: Yeah. We kept hogs and cattle. Always kept a milk cow. All the time and some..most of the time I had to keep one, young ones killed in the fall.

J: Um-hum.

JB: And kept hogs all the time. Always had a hog for...for every year for the winter killing.

J: Did, were your hogs penned up or did they roam?

JB: No. They was always kept penned up, and specially in the... and started in the fall early fall, and keep them up and feed them and keep them up, they'd fatten faster keep them up in a pen. And they kept them up and a lot of people turned 'em loose and let 'em run wild and they'd just about what we'd call wild. I know my uncle, he raised several hogs. They run off one time and we had to go...I went with him to help him round them up, and they was what, up plum up to the head of the creek here to...went over the hill over into...on the Pigeon Creek side. That's another creek runs up over...goes up fifty-two goes up Pigeon Creek.

J: Un-hun.

JB: We had to get in there and hunt them out. Herded them back over the mountain and he give me...give me one...one of the pigs when we got back. It had pigs while it was over in there and 'cause I'd went and helped him, he give me one of them pigs 'course I was about eight or ten years old, I guess but a boy at that age at that time was active.

J: That's big time, huh?

JB: Oh, yeah.

J: When were the hogs slaughtered? Late fall.

JB: About, not.... usually about in November. Late November. In the late part of November. Usually.

J: Did you help your dad in that process?

JB: Yeah. Yah. I helped him a many and a many of time.

J: How was that done?

JB: Well...what you'd done is usually we had a warshtub...what we called a warshtub...a big old tub that'd hold about a bushel and a half of water. Put them on, make you a frame out there where they could sit on it...up off of the ground and put you a fire under it and fill it full of water and get that water where it would boil and get it to boiling and you'd have your hog, you'd kill your hog and lay him up on a frame. You'd have planks laid up to...for him to lay on, and lay him up on there and start pouring that hot water on him and that hair'd loosen and then you'd take a butcher knife and run it up and you could pull off a lot of the hair with your hand but they'd take that knife and scrape and get all the rest of the hair and stuff off of him so he'd be clean and got him scraped and cleaned, why usually you had a pair of forks set up there with a pole in the middle of it, and you had a string in the middle of that pole that would let down there and tie...put a fork between his two hind legs across there and tie a string on him and raise him up and take his intestines all out, and you could start cutting him up easy when he was hanging there. You could cut him up...start with his head part and cut that off and cut his front legs off and cut off right on up through there with it and well, they was good eatin' after you got one fixed up there.

J: Did you uh...did you sell any of the hogs that you butchered? Or kept 'em for your own use?

JB: No. Not usually. We kept...kept them for our own use mostly but, 'course everybody..wasn't too much,...wasn't too many people around at that time. Not too many families. I know I can remember back when they wasn't...wasn't more than a...would've been over a dozen families from Red Jacket to the head of Mate Creek all together.

J: Um-hum. This would have been back around 1910 or so?

JB: Yeah. Ten up through up 'til about nineteen and sixteen or eighteen, I guess, when they started building. People started building more.

J: What caused the building? Would that be the mines coming in?

JB: Well.. No Red Jacket...they had...they had a mine here. I don't remember, exactly when they first started operating. Must have been back...pretty back...pretty close to the first of the century, I'd guess, 'cause I know my dad, fer (far) back as I can recollect, he worked at them there...all the time and uh...when I went to work in nineteen and fifteen, they was, mines was developed to a pretty good degree then whenever I went to work then in nineteen and fifteen so they had to been started somewhere close to the early, first part of the century, but I went to work, well my dad didn't have to even hire anybody, you'd go in with somebody you knowed, a boy...a young boy? And I went in with him in nineteen and fifteen. The mine was pretty well developed then.

J: So you went...started work now. Was that working full time when you were...about thirteen years old in the mines?

JB: Well, not all together full time for a...three or four years there I worked through the winter times and go to school uh... they'd work up 'til part of the time in schooltime and then go to school part of the time um...

J: Where did you attend school?

JB: Up Meador. They had a schoolhouse right up Meador.

J: What were your duties uh...in the mines at that age?

JB: Well, at that age, loading coal is what I done for a while. That's...I loaded coal 'til I got the hang of the coal mines. They...they hired me...put me on as a trapper...'course I don't know... you wouldn't...a trapper...

J: I'm somewhat familiar, but could you explain that to me, what a trapper is?

JB: A trapper, see you've got a track a goin' up through here and then you've got entries that runs off of them that track way up on in there. Maybe they'd have one or two motors working up in there pickin' up the coal and they had a...way back down here you had an air course run up here like this, and had this entry here where your...where your track was and if you left that trapdoor open, your air would go up there and come right back through there and it wouldn't go on up in there in your mine, this trapper all what he was doin' when the motor come out, he'd open that trapdoor and when the motor got out, why he'd close it back and when it come back, why he'd open it and close it.

J: Okay.

JB: 'Course they don't use them. They quit using them a long time after I was...after I'd been in the mines a long time they used automatic trapdoors.

J: Um-hum.

JB: Installed automatic trapdoors there.

J: When you began working around the mines, were they...were they mechanized at that point or did you use a lot of animals?

JB: No. Didn't nothing...they didn't really have...they had motors, 'course now some places where they had high enough coal, they used mules. I know Thacker...over here at Thacker, I worked over there some...a few...a little while on the outside. I never did work inside, but on the outside I helped open up and fixed up some mines over there on the, Thacker and they used mules in that now, but it was high...awful high coal. Good high coal.

J: You mean close to the surface?

JB: No. They used them mules to bring them out. And that mules really knowed...they'd learn their job just like a man would, a mule would. You'd hook him up to that car and he'd know where to run fast or where it was sloping, why it'd run fast down that slope That old mule'd have to take off in high gear, you know but when it would start up hill, why, the mule...he had to pull it but he knowed...he knowed where to pull and where to take off on.

J: Um-hum.

JB: They was smart, and...

J: Did you have...did you name the mule?

JB: I don't remember whether...yeah, I imagine they did. I don't know, I didn't never drive any of the mules, I just worked...helped open up on the outside when the other fellows was hauling inside of the mines. I don't know I imagine that they did name them mules. 'Cause all the mules...all the farmers everywhere they always named their mules--when they had a mule--they'd name him. I know we had a big old gray one and I remember a brown like mule with a, oh he was a real big mule and as slow as a...it could, be and his name was John. Called him John. (Laughing) You'd name them after somebody, you know all the time. But them old mules, they knowed their names just like a human would.

J: When you say high coal, what does that mean?

JB: That means coal that's five and a half or six foot or maybe seven foot in the width between the bottom and the top part there..

J: I see.

JB: See the coal was--in that coal um...height...what their referred to as the height of it--of course now Red Jacket--where I worked in there--where I started in a working in the coal was about three-and-a-half foot high, that was low. Couldn't hardly a used a mule in that at all, but that motor--electric motors--would run in there and they was probably about that high off the floor, about that high, but they'd go in there...pick that coal up with them uh but now that high coal over there at Thacker, it was real high coal there. Some of it run up eight or nine feet high.

J: Um-hum. When did the union come into the....

JB: About nineteen and, about nineteen and twenty.

J: Were you still in the mines at that point?

JB: Yes. Yeah. I was in the mines I was...prob...goin' about... probably about the second or third one that got fired for joining the union.

J: Is that right?

JB: Yeah. I know they was a...I was a brakeman on a motor on one of them gatherin' motors picked up that coal from the miners uh... they was another boy, he was Italian. And his name was Pauley Vince. He was the first one--'course what brought it on--'course we'd all...all of us...all of us...had been down there in...in the union meetings. But went down to Mate...had a meetin' down there in Matewan, so they was a man off and they had a motorman that was really a wild...wild...what we called a wild motorman then. That was, one that was reckless. Didn't care how he drove his motor uh ...his brakeman was off that morning and the foreman wanted Pauley to go up in there and brake in his place. 'Course they could get anyone to brake on the one Pauley broke on, 'cause he was gentle more sensible man.

J: Um-hum.

JB: And Pauley he wouldn't go and they fired Pauley. And then they come my turn there and they wanted me to go and I wouldn't go, and they fired me too. Of course they fired one or two I think between...between me and Pauley. But Pauley, I'm pretty sure was the first. That's...that's when the union started having the trouble with it.

J: Who uh...do you remember the name of your foreman who fired you, by any chance? Or who...who the company owner was that...

JB: Well, let's see..I'm not...let's see Charlie Puckett, I believe, was the mine foreman's name. Pretty sure that was...I know it was.

J: The meeting, the union meetings in Matewan...

JB: Yeah.

J: Where were they held?

JB: Well let's see. You know...you know where the bank is, see, if I had a piece of paper here...

J: Here you go. (John shows him the Matewan Development Center's Walking Tour Brochure)

JB: I tryin' to give you a help line on it. Well, here comes the Main Street down through here and where the bank is now, bank sitting here...that's where the bank is now, 'course the bank used to be over on this side at that time whenever that was on, but on up this time...this is where the bank was...now here was the alley that went down through here and right down here just a little ways they was an old church building there. Right along just a little ways down there between where the bank is now or the street corner there, wouldn't have been over, probably a hundred and fifty feet down there at the most. There's an old church building standing there and that's where we met in that old church building.

J: What church was that, do you recall?

JB: Uh...I believe it was a Christian church...what they called themselves the Christian church. I'm pretty sure that was it.

J: Okay. Did you have to conduct these meetings in secret or....

JB: Well, they...not necessarily in secret everybody...looked like they let everybody in there because I know on one occasion--the town they had a deputy sheriff...I mean a police...a town police what it was--, 'course, he was in the payroll to this coal companies and....

J: Who was that, do you recall the name?

JB: Uh...uh...if I can just think of it, I know his name if I can just think of it.

J: Okay.

JB: His first name was Al, but I can't think of...can't think of that last name.

J: That's alright. He was a...he supported the companies?

JB: Yeah. Yeah, he kinda was in favor of the company--but he come in there--course they finally...finally after so long a time they made him leave, but it was open enough 'til there wasn't no kick on him acomin' in. Nobody had a password or nothing like that. Everybody just come in on their own there and if he come in there, Al Hoskins was his name.

J: Okay.

JB: Later on, why they...when they got to meetin' regular then, they had to use a password to get in. That was secret meetin's' then.

J: That would have been after the strike was under way?

JB: Yeah. About the time, after the strike it was under way that that then 'cause...

J: Do you recall the password?

JB: Uh....let's see...it's "together we stand and divided we fall". That was the first one, I think that was the first one we used 'course they changed that one to different ones later on.

J: Okay. I'm gonna...I'm gonna ask you some names of people who I'm aware that were involved with the union and some of the other events and get your response. Uh...did you know Charlie Kiser?

JB: Yeah. I rode...lived right...right close to him up at head of Mate Creek for years and years. He was a union officer down there for years over that little bunch we had there.

J: What sort of a man was he?

JB: He was a good man. He was good 'course he was good to his men and and would have been equally good with the company if they'd uh...been willing to listen, you know, course they had their side and he didn't agree with them they didn't agree with him. But he was a good man, I thought.

J: Did he stay in this area after the strike?

JB: Yeah. No. Not a...he stayed with it a long time up...a long time after the strike but he eventually went to Florida I believe where he went to, 'course he's dead now, course he come back here and visited me one time about six or seven years along before he died. I know he come out over there and he had a big old automobile, along one, of them long vans or something you call them and he was trying to turn it around out there and get parked in there between some other cars he scrubbed agin (against) a car,...some fella's worked over there in that schoolyard. He...he come right on in there and parked it come on in there when they were..they knowed..I don't know whether them fellows...I just never did hear nothing out of 'em. Don't know how much damage it done, but it couldn't have done very much but that was the last time I ever remember seeing Charlie but...

J: Now was he the...the main union organizer around here?

JB: Yeah. He was president of that local um...then he had another party with him. A fellow by the name of John Patrick. He was a... I believe he was an Italian, I believe but he was...he was a good man. Him and Charlie run a garage down there in town for a while um...'course I don't. I know...

J: Where was that garage located. Do you know?

JB: Just...just...this...this...this side of the underpass there. You know where there's some trucks...where them tanks is up on the bank? Right next to close to the where the road is but it was right there about where...on this side of the underpass there where them...gasoline...you can buy gasoline. Know what it cost then?

J: What was that?

JB: Seventeen cents a gallon. (Laughing)

J: Seventeen cents. Were there many cars in Matewan then?

JB: No, there wasn't. Just a scattered, cars here and there. Um...

J: Did the Italian fellow that you mentioned worked with Charlie Kiser, Do you know the spelling on that name?

JB: On which?

J: The Italian fellow that you said worked with Charlie Kiser?

JB: Let's see, that was John Patrick. J.O.H.N. P.A.T.R.I.C.K.

J: Okay. How 'bout uh...Isaac Brewer. Did you know Isaac Brewer?

JB: Yeah. Yeah. I knowed Isaac. I knowed...he was some relation to my wive's stepdaddy, Isaac was. I forget now what relation he was but I wasn't to acquian...I knowed him but I wasn't too acquainted with him, but I knowed him.

J: Okay. Sid Hatfield, huh. I assume you must've known Sid.

JB: Yeah. I knowed Sid well. I was down there and saw him the morning that shooting started down there, 'course what it was see they...the strike had been a goin' on a little while and uh...they was paying...paying us people...us that was out on strike...

J: Un-hun.

JB: giving us a little check to live on, and I'd been down there to get my check that morning and they--Felts fellows--was up there throwing people out of their houses up on the side of the hill here below the crossing where you come out of Mate, down back...down and around those houses. Stony Mountain had houses down around that old hillside a back of the railroad?

J: Um-hum.

JB: And...they was having them fellows all throwed out of their buildings and that's where...all about where it all started at 'course they...they went back down after they got them out and got into it, wanting to arrest Sid and take him up to Welch, what's the ideas was. Cable Testerman, he was the mayor down there and he wouldn't hear to it and that's what they shot him for and that's where all that war started from that was in that, then...whenever they shot..he shot (Felts) Cable and Sid shot him, (Felts) and from that on everybody, course they was all expecting trouble anyhow. All them miners expecting trouble anyway but they didn't know it was going to come like that and it just started out...I don't remember now how many detectives there was killed. They wasn't but two or three of the miners, one or two maybe killed of the miners but it just about got most of all of them detectives but... that's where...that's where it started at there in that...about... in that building on this end of that brick building there on the left coming up this way on the left there where that brick row, goes down through them houses next to the railroad it was on the end...this end of the ...Testerman, he had a jewelry shop in there besides he was mayor and he had this jewelry shop in there in that building there and that's how come them to be in there whenever they wanted to arrest Sid and I don't know but I wasn't...I done come back before the shootin' started. I done got my check and come on back home. Had to walk out of the head of Mate Creek to get down there and it took you all day to make that trip walkin' down and back there about ten miles down and ten back.

J: Were you still living in Meador (John says Meadow) at the time?

JB: Yeah...yeah...yeah...

J: How did you hear about the shootings?

JB: Well, just by word of mouth. 'Course it traveled fast 'cause I know some people were goin' through to Beech Creek and back through there and that was they had to walk back through there to Beech...that was the way they...but that was the way we found it out was by word of mouth, 'course some papers...I don't know whether they had any...I don't remember anybody getting any daily papers up in there at that time. They got monthly papers that come through the mail but I don't think that anybody up in that part of it got daily papers.

J: Were--after the shooting--were people expecting more trouble?

JB: Yeah. They figured they'd look like the miners they'd expected more trouble, and I know that Patrick that I was telling you about, him and Charlie was a goin' up the creek up to Charlie's home when they had a car, Charlie and John did, and one of their foremans up there at the mines come down there and him and some more of them thought they stopped them goin...when theys goin' up the road? That foreman had a pistol and he jabbed that into Johns cheek up there as long as John lived he always had that little ring there where that pistol...where he had stuck that pistol into his cheek there and hard enough to make that ring in there and it stayed in there as long as long as John lived. He always had that ring there where that pistol was--'cause they--Charlie...John wouldn't have bothered 'em, they just go on back and, towards home, but them fellas they wanted to be mean to the union men, and...

J: Now this was a company employee that did this?

JB: Yeah. Yeah it was a foreman for the company course they wasn't running no coal but they was trying to get fellows to go in there and work and mine but they didn't listen to anybody that's go up there and work, but they wasn't at that time...wasn't runnin' any coal there yet but they did later on started when they got enough men started uh...(tape cuts off) workin' that open shop, there...

J: After the...the uh shootings in Matewan, uh...did the strike continue?

JB: Oh yeah, it went on. That was just the beginning of it. That happened right along the first--right in the first--right close to the first of the...hadn't been organized just a little while when that shootin' took place. 'Cause the company, they made efforts to try and get the men to go back to work. When they didn't, why they had them fellows come in there and throw them fellows out and that's when the shootin' started but the union, it went on. I've forgotten now how long it did go on, let's see, uh...five or six years, I guess. I don't remember now, exactly, before it, 'course they'd...the company'd mined coal a long time during...after that.

J: Now when you were fired, uh...I assume you were...you were living in private housing. You weren't....

JB: Yeah.. I lived in my own house up in the head,..the head of the creek then. Yeah. The house...(they) didn't bother me none 'course nobody..they could-n't...they never bothered anybody on just that...that one time was all they throwed...throwed any of 'em that one round, on them folks that lived there on that side of the hill down there. And,...most everybody lived in their own property that worked in the mines. But now some places like them fellers down there, they had company houses, 'course Red Jacket had some company houses, too, but they never did bother them but they made...a lot of them had to move out of their...off of their property.

J: Do you remember the reaction among the miners when Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers were killed?

JB: Yeah. Well they...they knowed that they'd lost one of their best friends they had, 'cause Sid was a staunch supporter of the men and they knowed that they'd lost one...a good man and knowed that was going to hurt their cause.

J: How bout Ed Chambers, did you know him also?

JB: Yeah. I knowed Ed well. Yeah.

J: What sort of a man was he?

JB: He was a good man. He was...all them Chambers...I knowed all....all of them, and they was all...all good friends to labor uh...all good citizens, it was old man Eb, their daddy, started that bank down there. Fine a man as you ever run on to. Needed help, why he was always willing to do what he could to help you. All them Chambers, they was friends to labor I know a bunch of them was in that shootin' course I don't...I don't know whether that one that was killed, when they killed Sid, (Ed Chambers) I don't whether he was in the shootin' or not, but he was on the labor's side.

J: Um-hum. How bout this man since you were, since you went to some of the union meetings, I assume you knew this man, Lively. C.E. Lively.

JB: Yeah, I'd heared of him. But I wasn't but too much acquainted with him, 'cause I think he was down in the Williamson territory down in that part of the...down in there, I believe's where he was. If I ain't mistaken, he was the one that they killed...I believe they killed him down there, at the company guards. (confusing Lively with someone else) I believe [they] did. Seem to me like that bears on my mind. Let's see, Alonzo Pinson was the sheriff at that time and I think he was...-he was against labor, Alonzo was.

J: That'd be sheriff of...in Williamson?

JB: Sheriff of Mingo County.

J: Oh. Mingo County.

JB: But he lived...lived in Williamson, 'course all of the sheriffs...

J: Who succeeded Sid Hatfield as police chief, do you recall?

JB: No, I don't recall now, just who succeeded Sid. Can't get it back in my mind. Let's see, I don't know if...seems to me like there was a fella' by the name of Bill Clay. I know he was an officer but I don't remember what kind of a...whether he was town officer or county officer.

J: Earlier on, you said that when you were on strike you would go to the...the union to pick up a check. Where was the union office?

JB: It was there in that church building, was where...

J: Oh, okay.

JB: Yeah. There in that church building was where they done all their business. I know they was a big store that sit there 'bout pretty close to where the bank is now. A grocery store, and run by parties named Beckner and Hines. That's were I done most of my trading at.

J: Um-hum.

JB: It sit in there pretty close to where the bank's sittin' now, on that lot there.

J: What other businesses were in town at that time?

JB: Well, they was a hardware down there, Let's see it was right in there about where the liquor store is now and a fellow by the name of Kennedy, Young Kennedy, no, not Young, let's see, what was his name. He was a Kennedy. I believe it was Young, that run that hardware. He owned it. Wouldn't but small business, and,..

J: Were there any company stores downtown?

JB: No. Wasn't no company stores down in there...company stores ...company had two stores up the holler here one at what they call Mitchell Branch and one up at Junior camp, 'course uh...they had their big store was up there at Mitchell Branch and then they had a pretty good size store at Junior camp where they done their business there at the stores.

J: Did you ever visit or see the uh...the tent encampments up at Blackberry City, or thereabouts, the tent cities where people were living during the strikes?

JB: Well, this bottom here where my house is now, all this bottom up here up 'til the bridge up there back down through here to the bridge below here, was a tent colony.

J: Oh. Is that right?

JB: Yeah. Yeah. I had a brother-in-law lived here in this tent colony here. They was full of...full of tents then. But there wasn't...that one old house in this bottom from the bridge up here on up...might have been...I think there was an old slaughter house down there, maybe down here next to the where the bridge is now but they were up here...above here, was one old two story house up there was all the houses they was on this property at that time.

J: Do you have an approximate idea of how many people were living in that tent colony?

JB: Now, I don't have the least bit, idea of how many they was, I guess they was thirty or forty miners, probably, and their families, 'course that would have been...my guess.

J: Um-hum. So the land here, there, was privately owned and the people that owned the land allowed the...miners...

JB: Yeah. Hit was, yeah it was...I forget now who owned it...this property now, it was Mose Maynard...Mose Maynard owned part of it and I think somebody else, maybe, owned some more, but they was favorable to the miners.

J: Were you able, eventually to go back to work in the mines?

JB: Yeah...yeah. I went back to work, let's see, I went back in there to work somewhere around in probably in twenty-three, I believe, around about twenty-three when I went back to...into the mines. Yeah. I never had,...never did have no trouble they, 'course you didn't make nothing when you went back...you didn't make very little but, they was always glad to get anybody back at the work. Yeah. I worked forty-nine years in the coal mines.

J: Is that right?

JB: Yeah.

J: Up until when?

JB: In sixty...sixty-two is when I retired. My knees got bad. Couldn't get nothing but low coal to work in and my knees got bad and I had to quit. I didn't...course I was old enough to get on my pension by takin' a cut in it, 'course I didn't have no choice. Couldn't find no high coal where I could keep my knees straight in.

J: Um-hum. Forty-nine years. My goodness.

JB: Course I was about...about seventeen years of that was I was a mine foreman about seventeen years of that last part of it.

J: Um-hum. With what company?

JB: Part of the time Red Jacket, and worked some for Island Creek they was just...for a short while after they took it over.

J: Um-hum.

JB: And then...and I worked for Elliott Hatfield in a truck mine.

J: When did the union get back in the field? Some time in the thirties?

JB: Yeah. I believe it was in the thirty-six, I believe was when the...Roosevelt give them a chance to organize without being fired or anything and they started back just as quick as they got that passed to where they wouldn't be run off and the laws company worked...was a company work for the was a company man that is general work at that time and I helped organize part of Mitchell Branch. I worked at what they call thirty-two Mitchell and I helped organize part of that over there and they never had no trouble. The company didn't put up no argument about it.

J: Um-hum.

JB: I come pretty close to gettin' their foreman on...to sign his name on a paper but he was a little bit afraid to you know.

J: Wouldn't do that. So you did some of the organizing?

JB: Yeah.

J: Who were some of the officers of the union at that time? Do you recall?

JB: Well, let's see uh...Albert Burgraff was a, in there, and Paul McCoy and then they was uh...later on...I don't remember now exactly, 'course I know Charlie was in there when they first started organizing it. Charlie was...took over the president of the local then. He was the president over that for a long time, but I don't remember who replaced Charlie now, 'course I know in our local unions why, had Paul and Albert Burgraff and quite a few of them old fellers then.

J: Albert Burgraff had been involved with the union earlier also...

JB: Yeah...yeah. He'd been involved all the way along in the union, Albert had. Course Paul was a younger feller and he was a good union man. Active...

J: What was uh...downtown Matewan like in the thirties and forties?

JB: Well, in the thirties and the forties it was pretty active had quite a few businesses. I don't remember the businesses too much now but, theys quite a few in there in the thirties and the forties. Especially the forties. It was a active town. A lot more than what it is now.

J: What did folks do for entertainment?

JB: Well, there wasn't too much entertainment...entertainment field. At one time...I don't remember when it was but one time they had a movie house down there in town. I don't remember now how long it lasted but most of the time and then I know back in the early...early... along back early in the, they use to be...have dances up and down the creeks they'd fix a platform and be right out in the open they'd fix a platform and have them dances round on them places, but they's always out in the open.

J: Um-hum.

JB: And...

J: These be like fairs or...or?

JB: No.

J: Weekend parties?

JB: No. I don't remember any fairs or weekends parties. They had shows come in here. We had one circus come in here and the circus I reckon, it was just a regular show and all kind of animals and snakes and different kinds of things like that. It sit over...(phone rings tape cuts off).

J: Okay. At these dances, who provided the music?

JB: Just local...local fellers. Mostly banjers. Mostly all of them...bout all of them..most of them played, banjers (banjos). Most any of them old farmers, that is the youngest sides of them could pick banjers and fiddles. They had banjers and fiddles. THat was mostly all that was used.

J: How bout uh... I've heard several people mention uh.. the baseball teams in the coal camps...

JB: Oh, yeah. They had...they had good teams in there yeah. they had good teams though they...I played when...one time, I don't remember how long we played but I played until I throwed my arm out of circulation, as a pitcher now they had some good...good ball-players and played different teams. We played Beech Creek, that was over on another creek over there.

J: Did you play on the Red Jacket team?

JB: Yeah. And, but now they had some tough batters and tough players all the way around.

J: And you pitched?

JB: Yah. I done pitching for...for our side.

J: Left hander or right hander?

JB: Right handed. Course I could throw one...I could almost knock a fly off of 'em a post.

J: Yeah.

JB: 'Cause I was good course I throwed rocks all my life but I was good. I know one summer I killed four gray squirrels with rocks. Throwing rocks at them.

J: When you were a kid?

JB: I...I was good enough...I killed four squirrels throwing rocks at em uh...

J: That's you got your control, huh?

JB: Yeah. I have..I could throw one just anywhere I wanted to... baseball and I pick out where I figured the feller's weakest spot was the way he stood why you could tell pretty well where his... where he wanted the ball throwed and you'd throw it somewhere just a little close or different with that so it'd be a strike and he'd hit at it anyhow. That ball wouldn't be there.

J: Did you all have uniforms?

JB: No...no. We never had nothing..just our regular clothes.

J: Where did you...where was your field around here?

JB: We had one up there where they built a bunch of houses at Red Jacket. They got houses there now then at...we had another field up at Meador...what's called Meador branch. Had a bottom up there, 'course it's got filled up with houses and stuff now. Had a big bottom there and we played up there in it and Beech Creek, they had a big bottom over on their side over there when they went over there why they had a good bottom lots of territory. Then it wasn't houses. Couldn't find a bottom now big enough to play in around here now.

J: Um-hum.

JB: But then all the big bottoms made good places to play ball, all smooth...

J: So you all would play teams from other companies?

JB: Yeah. Yeah.

J: What were some of the other teams? You mentioned Beech Creek.

JB: Well, I don't remember right offhand now where we ever played Thacker...where they had a team that come down here and played us or not but I believe they had one off of...off of Pigeon Creek over there, some of them companies over there. I forgot now what their names was, but, played against them.

J: About what age were you when your arm went bad on you?

JB: Let's see, I was probably about twenty-four. I think I was about twenty-four but...but um...I played lots, 'course I've always been an active player when I went to school. I was a very active and played...playing ball then. I was always a pitcher in that.

J: Was that? Did you go to high school?

JB: No. I never did even finish the eighth grade.

J: Um-hum. When you were a kid then, did you have, uh...and you played ball. Did you have a town team?

JB: No. We'd just pick out different bunches and never get enough of them country boys to gather up there and we'd just choose up and whether we had a whole, full nine, 'course or just how many we had but chose up there and play agin each other.

J: Uh-huh. Now, Hiram PHillips told me about something called, he called it the sandbar league...

JB: Well, that was what most of all of them...cause that's what... sandbar...that's what most of them had to play in them sandbars course them big old bottoms was just a big old bottom of sand. Some soil on it. That's where they got sandbar teams, that was on account of that...now Red Jacket, they had a good...good lot up there at Red Jacket to play on it was..it wasn't as big as what we'd been playing out in he country but it was a good...good field for them to play ball in.

J: When you played on the Red Jacket team, do you remember the names of any the other of the players?

JB: Well, let's see. On our side, I remember some of our players. There was a boy name Mitchell, Haven Mitchell and Vernon Mitchell they was both good ballplayers and...

J: Ever any gambling go on at the ballgames that you're familiar with?

JB: No. I never did...never did know of any course they could've been growing up naturally, 'course they kept it kindly quiet but... but, no doubt what some of them did.

J: I've heard that there used to be quite a bit of gamblin' downtown?

JB: Yeah...yeah...they used to, 'course I never was...never did fool around much with the gambling too much but they used to be... talk about a lot of it bein' goin' on down there but I couldn't clarify that..

J: It'd be like card games?

JB: Yeah...yeah and of course back in my early days, they'd...I seen lots of people what they call shootin' dice at them crap games and dice. They'd roll and bet on that 'course I wasn't around too much in it course I just seen where passin' around...see fellers out a doin that there wasn't too much law to bother them.

J: Um-hum. Would this be down in town or...

JB: Yeah. Mostly anywhere they'd be at most of the time if an feller had a pair of dice, why they'd start rollin' 'em.

J: What about church life around Matewan, what uh...what churches are represented around here?

JB: Well, you mean then?

J: Um-hum.

JB: Uh...I believe that that Christian church where the union hall was then the Methodist...Methodist they had a church, I think, down there in town. I'm pretty sure and the Baptist, I don't know for sure whether they had one at that time or not but I believe they did.

J: Ever have any revivals come through?

JB: Yeah, they...they usually did course I wasn't...I was to fer off...I lived at the head of the creek when they had the revivals 'course after I moved down here I become a member of the Church of Christ, and when it all started out with a meetin' house over here on the point...then we built over here on the back alley. Got a big building over there, but that was in 1940 when I started with ...come in to the church. I was active in it 'til my wife got real bad off. I was a Bible teacher in it for a little over forty years.

J: Um-hum. Um...is your wife living?

JB: No. She died in 1986. June twenty-second.

J: And. Yeah that's something I forgot to ask you about, your family. When...when did you get married and what was your wife's maiden name?

JB: Well, my wife's maiden name was Pearl Green.

J: And was she a local girl?

JB: Yeah. She live up at the head of Mate Creek where I was, at up there and we got married in January 7, 19 and 19.

J: Did you have any children?

JB: No. Never had no children.

J: Un-hun. Couple things that I meant to mention earlier but I forgot, did you attend the uh...funeral of Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers?

JB: No...no I didn't attend that. Let's see, I lived at the head of Mate Creek and the only way out of there was walking and I didn't come out.

J: Were you affected here by the big flood in 1977?

JB: No.

J: Didn't bother you?

JB: Didn't bother me, no.

J: It was farther down?

JB: Yeah. It just come up about a quarter of a mile down this, 'fore it, had effect, about a quarter of a mile below, far up as it reached.

J: When you retired...Let's see, you said you retired from the mines in 1962..

JB: Yes. No in sixty-four I was sixty-two years old...

J: Oh. Okay.

JB: Yeah. I retired in sixty-four.

J: Um...were you able later to draw black lung compensation?

JB: Yeah. Yeah.

J: What do you remember about that uh...that period? It must have been a pretty big deal when black lung finally made it through?

JB: Yeah. I didn't have no trouble with mine course a lot of fellers had trouble with it a gettin it, I never had no trouble. I never had to make but one trip over to Logan, then I went one trip across to Williamson hospital, over there at Williamson to...for my breathing test. That was all the trouble...I never did have no trouble...

J: Um-hum.

JB: Collectin' 'course a lot of them did have a lot of trouble and a lot of them still do yet, 'course I think that most of the trouble...I think that the biggest thing started that black lung that is in most people is smoking. In my opinion that set it up..., set it up, wasn't real.,.wasn't the black lung itself but I think it set up that nicotine in their lungs course I didn't smoke but I had to smell the other...most of them were chain smokers...

J: Smokin' in the mines?

JB: Yeah. Course they finally outlawed it so they couldn't smoke in the mines but they still slipped around and smoked anyhow but it wasn't bad. You didn't have to smell it like it had been back before that when...before that when...if you was up in a place workin' with a man usually back then there wasn't much air in the mines and that smoke would almost knock you out in there but that feller smokin wouldn't pay no attention to it but I think that that nicotine stuff coated your lungs and that coal dust and stuff settled in there and I think...to me now that's my viewpoint on it and I know I've seen quite a few fellers had it and I know that they was bad smokers to start off with. I've seen others fellers that didn't smoke to heavy and they didn't have it and smoked... worked, probably the same length of time, where they didn't have to inhale the smoke.

J: Um-hum. It makes sense that the smokin' would make it worse.

JB: Yeah...yeah.

J: How 'bout your, your dad. How long did he stay in the mines?

JB: Well, he died in...let's see he died in thirty-two and they... he'd been in the mines about, and they started out he was in the mines, I guess...I guess he must have worked anyhow thirty years to my knowledge, or thirty years in the coal mines. Course he got high blood pressure and their wasn't nobody...wasn't much treatment for it then and they wouldn't take what treatment they had. They had Doctor Hodge, was our doctor, he had a office down there in Matewan. He had...instructed my dad about what to eat and what not to eat but, he didn't pay no attention to it, and finally...finally high blood pressure killed him in thirty-two...

J: Was he still working at that time?

JB: Well, he'd worked up 'til about thirty, 1930. He'd been sick about two years there before he died. that he's knocked out.

J: Where was Dr. Hodge's office?

JB: Well, let's see uh...I believe it is in the same one where Doc Roy's office...you know where Doc Roy's office is down there?

J: Oh. Where it is now?

JB: Yeah. Well, it was about...that was about the same, where Doc Hodge...to start off with him and have was him and Dr. Smith... when they first...union first started out here, they had offices there...pretty close to where Phillips seed store is.

JB: Yeah, Dr. Hodge and Doc Smith, he had an office in there pretty close to where Phillip's seed store is there. It might have been a little above Phillip's but it was in there in that...right close to where Phillip's Seed store is.

J: Okay.

JB: And they was, old Doc Hodge, he was an army doctor. He was rough as a gritter, but he was good. Doc Smith, he was gentle, just as gentle as an old warsh woman, you know, and he was good. 'Course he finally left...left out and Doc Hodge finally..had that ...I believe he had that hospital built over there where Roy is now, I believe, he had that...had a hospital in there. And they was another doctor but I can't think of his name. Worked with Hodge a long time there, but...

J: Now did Dr. Hodge, uh...treat a lot of the miners for the union?

JB: Yeah. He was a regular miner....miner's doctor, you might call him that, 'cause he really was friends to the coal miners. Didn't make no difference, if you had money or you didn't have money, if you needed a doctor, he was there.

J: Um-hum.

JB: And I know, he'd go anywhere. Didn't make no difference where he had to go...why, if you had a car or some way for him to get there he'd go.

J: Did he treat the miners and their families then in tent cities during the strike?

JB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yah. Him and Doc Smith all...all the doctors they had around here outside of the company doctors, 'course the company doctor wouldn't have been interested in the coal miner.

J: How did people manage to pay for their medical services?

JB: Well, I don't remember. Union, I think took care of some of it there for 'em, I believe, of course their...yeah, I'm pretty sure that the union took care of most of that for them for a long time there 'til the miners got started back to work in the coal mines.

J: To your knowledge, did Dr. Hodge and Dr. Smith ever undergo any pressure from the companies for treatin' the miners?

JB: No. I never did...never did know of any. No.

J: Did your father attend the union meetings also in the church?

JB: Yeah. Let's see. No he...yeah he...yeah in the..startin' out there yeah...he attended...practically all the coal miners... they always...they were better than they are at this day and age. THey don't attend too good anymore, but back then why, they always attended their meetin's.

J: So I...your father, I assume was out of work during the strike here also?

JB: Yeah...yeah.

J: And were you...were you still living with you father at that time?

JB: No.

J: You were married?

JB: I was married. See I got married in nineteen and nineteen and uh...'course I stayed with him some and I stayed with my wife...we stayed with her people on up further up the creek for a few years there. J: Did you continue to raise animals?

JB: Yeah...yeah...yeah...yeah, everybody raised animals if they had any where at all to raise one.

J: How 'bout hunting and fishing?

JB: Yeah...I always hunted lots. I never did fish too much but I always was a...liked to hunt for squirrels and grouse and rabbits and groundhogs.

J: Was it pretty much open season on any animals back at that time?

JB: Yeah. Oh back...back at that time, nobody never paid no attention to the law at that time. 'Course people wasn't as bad to kill them then like they are now. They'd usually just kill what they wanted for a mess, but now a feller goes out in the mountains now if he sees twenty squirrels he'd kill twenty if he had that many shells but back then, the law wasn't strict...didn't have very many game wardens...and the game wardens wouldn't bother you without you...got out right in front of him where he had to.

J: This was in the teens and the twenties?

JB: Yeah...yeah.

J: Did women ever do any huntin'?

JB: Well, I never did know of any. I knowed of one good woman that was a good shot with a rifle but I never did know of her huntin' any.

J: uh-huh.

JB: She was a expert on shootin' a rifle.

J: Who was that? Do you ...

JB: It was Chloe Belle Browning at that time course she married a Wynn but it was Chloe Belle Browning at that time.

J: Um-hum.

JB: 'Course that's when she was...she was a schoolteacher back in the...my earlier days but she was good with a rifle.

J: Hum. Where did she teach school?

JB: Meador.

J: Was she one of your teachers?

JB: Yeah. She used to thrash me every now and again.

J: What for?

JB: Bein' a naughty boy, I reckon. (laughing) But she was...she was strict. Lived up to the rules or else. She was a good 'un.

J: Did she have a switch that she'd thrash you with?

JB: Yes. She'd get a switch and send some of them other boys out that wasn't into it and cut her a apple tree switch you know and dust them britches like nobody's business.

J: So they usually brought back a pretty good switch?

JB: Yeah...yeah them boys, they wanted to bring back a good one. They liked to see you get it, you know. (laughter)

J: Did you ever go cut a switch?

JB: Yeah.

J: Did uh...did people hunt with dogs at that time?

JB: Some...some did but most every...most of them old fellers, they liked to...they's just a huntin squirrels, they still hunted but now if they hunted foxes, if they hunted foxes, which a lot of them did. I know my uncle, he had a whole bunch of fox...what they called fox hounds, and he'd take them out and boy they'd hit them foxes and run them ridges for hours at a time before that old fox would come back where that hunter could get a shot at him, you know, but most of them if they hunted squirrels, they'd still, what we called still hunted. THey'd take, in other words, go out and just sit and wait 'til a squirrel come along, you know. Rabbits, now, they used a dog on the rabbits to hunt for rabbits, you needed a good rabbit dog.

J: Did you keep dogs yourself?

JB: Yeah. Always kept dogs. Yeah. I had...I used to have, I guess, had one of the best squirrel dogs, fer as I know they didn't come no better.

J: What kind of dog was he?

JB: He was a...he was kind of a mixed...had a little bit of cur in him...just a little cur and then mixed with some other else. Wasn't a very big dog but, boy he was...he was mean, though. He'd bite if you'd fool with him...and fight other dogs. He'd just about lick any kind of a dog. It didn't make no difference, big or little why he'd, but now squirrels...whenever you took him out in the mountains squirrel huntin, you could just figure on bringing back a mess of squirrels.

J: Um-hum. Can you name him?

JB: Yeah. I can't remember what his name was now. Yeah. I always named all of my dogs.

J: Oh, I know what I wanted to ask you, um...fox huntin', did you hunt...would you hunt foxes for their pelts? Could you sell their pelts?

JB: Yeah. Oh them pellets...that was good...get a good price for them. Yeah...that's what they hunted them fer. 'Course now in the later years, lot of people hunted them just to hear their...hear their dogs run, but now back in the earlier part of the century, why, they hunted 'em for their pellets. Good fox pellet'd bring you five or six dollars.

J: Is that right?

JB: Yeah. Course now...

J: Back around 1900 or 1910...

JB: Yeah. On up through nineteen and ten, on up through nineteen ...I guess up to nineteen and twenty, probably, when they started gettin a better price for them then.

J: Where would you sell them?

JB: They'd ship them off. They had companies that would buy 'em, buy hides...I forgot now what the company was that my uncle sold his'n to but I know he'd...when he died, he'd brought a bunch of hides to the post office and while they was a fixin' up...the postmaster was fixin' up his package and everything, why he had a heart attack and fell dead.

J: Your uncle or the postmaster?

JB: My uncle.

J: Is that right?

JB: Un-hun.

J: Getting ready to ship off some pelts.

JB: Yeah.

J: Do you remember some of the lumber companies that were operating in the area when your dad worked for them, say...?

JB: Well, let's see. There was one, Williams, William's Lumber Company was one he worked for. Only one I...and I worked some for him too. John Williams, I believe was his name, he had a lumber yard up there right out from where we lived, and then he put one up over in the head of Thacker and I worked there a little bit at that one over there just a few days.

J: Un-hun. Was that before you went in the mines or later on?

JB: No. It was about the time I was workin some in the mines and then I'd change around...back when I was young, you could get a job anywhere...I could always get a job anywhere I'd go.

J: Um-hum.

JB: And I worked over there...workin down at the mines on that grade job down there that opened up some mines and John, he had that....his sawmill was right where I had to go by it, and John, he got me to work for him you know of 'course I didn't work but a little bit. That was rough, sawmills was.

J: You worked in the mill?

JB: No. Wheel sawdust is what he wanted me to do. You had to wheel it about forty or fifty yards in a big old wheelbarrow and up hill at that, to get it where we'd dump it where it would be out of the way but I didn't stay with that long. But I worked some up there at the head of the creek handling lumber up there, takin' it when it was, run down the slide when it sawed a board off it'd fall over on the rollers, and roll it on down about thirty or forty feet away from that and had...maybe sometime you'd have to cut off some of it, had a cut off what they...-called a cutoff saw. You'd clip off a end or whatever needed clipped off there and take it on down there and stack it then and that...I worked some in that.

J: All the time you spent in the mines, were you ever injured?

JB: Well, not seriously, no. Butchered up a little bit, I got a foot butchered up some. Never did...never did..I never did have a broke bone in all that time but I got catched in a cable one time on one of them gathering motors, had a cable on it and it'd unspool when the motor was goin' in.

J: Um-hum.

JB: And they was a cross crawler...what, we had a cross crawler that's to hold up loose top, and the car...when we'd pull the load out, it'd knock the leg out from under that cross crawler and on one end of it was a hangin' down like that, and when I come back in there, why, that cross crawler catched me and drug me back into that cable where that reel was a rolling it off, and they's always notches where it burned in it...getting electric burns in it and cut notches in it, took a place around about eight or ten inches around my ribs where it took the hide off there pretty deep. But never, still never had no bones broke, and I had another boy...I was on a one of them electric buggies. Haul coal out with a little electric three-wheel buggy, and I was a foreman then and out at the drip mouth they had..had a bad water hole out there and that motorman, he seen me comin' down there and I always made an inspection. Fire boss run, inspected the mines before the men went in. I'd run in and made my inspection and come back out and he seen me out there and he run his buggy over there to haul me across that water hole and I had my foot hangin' over into the buggy like that? Somehow he run that into a big timber there and hit...busted my foot up and left...busted the hide on the bottom of my toes, and still never broke no bones but it...I don't know how it kept it from it but it busted that hide under the bottom of my toes and the ball of my foot down there where it....

J: Now when there was an accident like that, uh...how did they treat you? They couldn't have had a doctor at every mine.

JB: No. But long...along when this happened...this was in later years, they always kept first aid kits. 'Course, I was well trained in first aid anyhow. Whenever I'd worked for the big coal companies, I took a hundred-and-three hours of first aid training at different times.

J: Um-hum.

JB: And I always kept a first aid kit handy and I could take care of about any kind of a accident that happened to any of the miners. But what I done was wrapped that up so it wouldn't bleed, and headed for the hospital in town there and they treated it down there and I had to go back down there in one of them whirlpools and let them use that whirlpool on there every day for about a week.

J: Is this the hospital in town?

JB: Yeah. Down in Williamson.

J: In Williamson?

JB: Yeah.

J: How long were you out of work with these injuries? Do you recall?

JB: I don't...Well, with my foot, I lost about a week with that foot but 'course my rib I didn't lose nothing unless...lost that day then 'cause I come on out after that done that and the doctor, the company doctor he bandaged it up and I went on back to work the next day course I had to go back and have it treated every day or two 'til it got out of danger.

J: What was the company doctor's name?

JB: Reed. Dr. Reed. B. J. Reed.

J: And that's at Red Jacket?

JB: Yeah. He was a good doctor. Old, and he was...he was good.

J: When was this, about, approximately?

JB: Eh...let's see, it'd been back in the late twenties, I believe in the, late twenties. I don't really exactly remember for sure. And then I got an eye injury along back in the early fifties, 'course I was working for Red Jacket at that time. I lost about a week of that...no, I lost more than that...lost probably two weeks, I guess.

J: Um-hum.

JB: 'Cause I know I had to lay flat on my back over at Charleston in the hospital over there for eleven days before they'd let me turn over. On account, afraid the stitches would pull out of that eyeball where I stuck a pick in it where I was...

J: Stuck a pick in it?

JB: Yeah and I was using a pick on a rail bender, which didn't have I no business a doin that. I was supposed to have a bar, but I was usin' that pick 'cause I didn't have no bar handy. I was just usin that pick when I bent it down there, the pick slipped out of from under the string and on that rail bender and come up and hit that right eye, and took three stitches to it to sew it up there.

J: Didn't lose your sight?

JB: No. It's still...still good.

J: I talked to a uh...I know...I wanted to ask you how the... how the Depression in the thirties affected uh...work in the mines around here?

JB: Well, hit was...hit was rough, it didn't get but just a day now maybe one day a week they...some weeks maybe two days. But it was rough on the coal miners around here but company couldn't sell their coal and couldn't work the mines when they couldn't sell their coal, so we'd get about one or two days a week and maybe some weeks wouldn't get no days.

J: So did people depend on their home gardens, to get by...?

JB: Yeah. They gardened and, any way they could make a dollar, why they did.

J: Was there any...later on was there any CCC camps or WPA projects?

JB: No. Not around here. Not around here. I know I had a brother went off, I don't know, I think he went to California. I believe that's where he went to on one of them CC projects of some sort. I don't remember what it was now.

J: A woman in Huntington who grew up in Matewan, her name was Webb, she told me that she thought in about 1914, two of the town police officers killed each other in a shootout. Do you remember anything about that?

JB: No. No. I wouldn't...don't remember that.

J: She couldn't remember their names, but...she might be mistaken about that.

JB: Yeah, I can't remember it, 'course now in nineteen and fourteen, anything could happen down in Mate...I didn't visit it very often. I not..back that early.

J: Well, this has been a good interview. I know there's probably some things I haven't asked that you might want to mention. Is there anything you want to mention in the interview that we haven't covered?

JB: Well, I don't know whether anything, they'd be much interesting or not, 'cause I made moonshine back through that depression time. (laughter)

J: Oh, you did. Well let's talk about that. (laughter)

JB: Yeah I made it...moonshine through most of that depression that is most of it and sold it to bootleggers and made....and...

J: Did you ever uh...get caught?

JB: Yeah. That's what put a stop to it. (laughing)

J: Who caught ya?

JB: There was a federal man, Jim Runnels, he was a federal agent and what they done, they'd come in and catched my buddy, 'course he was a trying to make an extra run. We'd quit makin' where we'd been a makin' and he decided he'd put in a barrel of mash in his smokehouse. And he'd took a still out just a little ways from where he lived there and hid it in a patch of weeds, and here them federal marshals come up in there and first place they looked was in his smokehouse. There and then they found that mash and then they went out on the hill and found his still, and he turned around and turned me in as his buddy so he could get out on probation.

J: Um-hum.

JB: And I spent six months there in Braxton County Jail. Judge McClintock was a federal judge. He sent me up to Braxton County for six months but that brought my moonshinin' business to an end but...(laughter)

J: What year was that?

JB: In twenty...it was in twenty-six.

J: Twenty-six.

JB: Yeah.

J: Okay. So you were just a young man then.

JB: Oh, yeah. I'd made a lot of moonshine. I had the record for the best moonshine ever was in the country. I could sell mine when everybody else, they'd pass them up.

J: Is that right?

JB: Yeah, 'cause I always made it real clean and made it hundred and ten proof and it was clean and they could drink it and if you'd get drunk on it, you wouldn't wake up with a headache the next day. You'd still...you'd feel able to go, but the biggest part of the moonshiners would make it anything, and it wasn't clean and it was weak to start with and if you drunk it, you'd be sick for a week after you got drunk on it...

J: What did you sell it in?

JB: I sold mine...I got five dollars a pint for it.

J: Pretty good price, isn't it?

JB: Yeah. That was a good price.

J: Sell it in glass jars...?

JB: Yeah. Fruit jars and sometimes I'd get a hold of some bottles and homebrew...I made homebrew, they used to be that was a really had a time with that. Them old boys come up there and have a regular party drinking that homebrew. I have sold a hundred and twenty-five bottles in one Sunday, 'course I got twenty cents a bottle fer it.

J: Homebrew. You mean like a beer?

JB: Yeah.

J: Home beer?

JB: Yeah. It's like beer, yeah. Only it had a little more kick than the beer had hit'd, hit'd give you a real high on it.

J: What all ingredients went into making moonshine?

JB: Well, moonshine what you needed to make moonshine if you want...'course, I usually always used sixty-gallon barrel to hold my mash, and you'd need sixty pounds of sugar and a pack of meal, cook that meal up real good and so it, all to pieces and take that put that in the barrel and put you a cake of dry yeast in there an let her set there for about a five or six days and it would work up and sour off, and sour and it was ready to run.

J: So you'd get five dollars a pint for that...Did people come from all over?

JB: All over.

J: 'Course that was prohibition time.

JB: Yeah it was prohibition time. They'd come from all over the country, yep and...

J: Did you have any uh...people buying to supply saloons with?

JB: Well...

J: Speakeasies, or whatever...?

JB: Yeah, we had other bootleggers...we had bootlegger up at Newtown who was a bootlegger for a long time, 'course we'd sell it to him for twenty dollars a gallon and then he'd double his money on it, there...but....

J: How did the local law enforcement react to?

JB: You'd hardly ever see the...I had one deputy sheriff, he bought it all the time and bootlegged it and he come up there one time and bought a ten gallon keg and, a wooden keg, and we used to buy barrels, wooden barrels, and bought that and come back down the road and had two state police comin' up the road and they met up there and had a big shootin' match and drunk, drunk, drunk, out of that ten gallon barrel of moonshine, you know.

J: They had a shootin' match?

JB: Yeah. Get out and had a ...what they'd do is put up targets?

J: Oh, I see.

JB: Yeah. Have a target settin' out in a bottom and had everybody shootin' at it seeing who could beat, you know.

J: So they had the two state police and the county deputy?

JB: Yeah.

J: Who was that deputy?

JB: UH...A. B. Hatfield.

J: Uh-huh.

JB: He was a good...good friend of mine, but he bootlegged, and but he was a good friend.

J: So if people didn't cause trouble, they'd pretty much...the local law wouldn't bother them?

JB: Yeah. That's right. Always have to...they'd bother you if you'd get to causin' trouble.

J: Were there places in Matewan where people could go to drink?

JB: Not that I know of, no.

J: You pretty much had to take it home?

JB: Yeah.

J: So once you came out of Braxton County Jail, you gave it up?

JB: I gave her up. Yeah. (laughter) I didn't have no more...I figured that was, I had enough.

J: Were you ever tempted to go back into that business?

JB: No. Never was. It never bothered me any.

J: To your knowledge, is there still moonshining goin on?

JB: Yeah, they's moonshinin' going on. Yeah.

J: Do they make stuff as good as yours was?

JB: No that...I don't know. I've never tasted any of that.

J: Um-hum.

JB: But I'd have my doubts about it.

J: It could be pretty dangerous stuff, I guess?

JB: Yeah. It can. Sure it can. You take it, a lot of times they'd make it just any kind of old oil drums or anything else. Copper's the only thing that's safe to make it in. Good copper still.

J: Un-huh.

JB: It's the only thing that's safe 'cause you get them galvanized barrels...a lot of it is made in that. If you look at it right, it looks like it's pretty and clear, but you get the light just exactly right, you can see flakes in that stuff. If you get the light just right on it and it looks...just look at it...look at it pretty and clear as a crystal but if you get the light shining just right on her, you can see them flakes floatin' around in that thing there, you know, and them don't do your body no good if you get them in there.

J: Yeah. You want to stay away from that.

JB: Yeah.

J: How bout your uh...your partner that you were workin' with that turned you in. Did you ever see him after you came out of jail?

JB: Yeah. He was my wife's uncle. Yeah, we saw each other. I even bought him groceries. He got hard up. He lived up the head of the creek on a farm, and his wife was dead and he stayed up there by himself but he run out of something to eat and come to his sister and she wouldn't give him nothing. And so me and my wife...I sent her up to the store up the road here and I sent her up there, and she went up there and bought him some groceries. 'Course he was trying to sell his mule. That's the only way he had if he sold his mule there wouldn't have been no way for he could farm, and I didn't want him to lose his mule so I just sent her up there and she bought him groceries to take care of him 'til he got to where he could make it.

J: So you didn't hold any real hard feelings?

JB: Oh no. I didn't hold no hard feelings...I can't hold a hard feelin' agin' anybody. It don't make no difference. I'm not made up like that.

J: Un-huh.

Matewan Oral History Project Collection