Matewan Oral History Project Collection
Sc2003-135

Fred Mounts Interview

BECKY BAILEY: This is Becky Bailey for the Matewan Development Center. Wednesday morning, June 11, 1990, and I'm interviewing Mr. Mounts. Mr. Mounts, can you tell me your full name.

FM: Just plain Fred. M,O,U,N,T,S. Mounts. I get my mail at Matewan, Box 94. Code of the area, 25678. I never did change my box number. We got a good post office there at North Matewan but I, I just don't change. Takes to long to get your mail and transfer it. Sometimes I go over to that post office and get a letter. But if the bank makes a mistake, sends it to me at North Matewan.

B: When were you born?

FM: Lindsey. L,I,N,D,S,E,Y. Lindsey, West Virginia, 1908.

B: What were your parents names?

FM: Victoria Mounts. She married my daddy. I'm the baby boy by my daddy. Just had two boys. She got, had two girls but they got burnt up in a house. Their names was Nellie and Eliza. I got burnt. She laid me down before the fire and I got burnt fast, she said,"It won't shave off." My beard is stiff. I went to shavin' it and just fuzz come out when I was young and it takes a good blade to cut my beard.

B: Un-hun. Um. What did your father do for a living?

FM: Doc Mounts. That was his name. He was deputy sheriff up Lindsey in Mingo County but he got killed there on the river bank at Lindsey. He was, he had took this fellow's wife and took me and my brother Frank Mounts, that's dead. He (Frank) got killed in a head on collision in Kingsport, Tennessee. Hurt his wife, I, bought him a head, (stone) bought a plot (at the) cemetery there at North Matewan. I was with him when he bought it. Give a hundred dollars for it and that's where I buried him. His wife lived about two weeks after he got killed. He got killed right in front of a doctor and the road master come to my house when I lived down here in Hatfield Bottom. I lived in his house down there. Wanted to know if I had a way of gettin' down there and I said, "Yeah, I've got a car." So me and my nephew went down there to the funeral. He had an '88 Oldsmobile. Got hit head on. Out on the (inter) state, great piece of road too.

B: Un-hun. And that was your brother that got killed down there?

FM: Yeah. That was my brother, yeah. The only brother, whole brother I got. I've got two half brothers that's a livin'. I had three but one died. I didn't even go to his funeral. I was hurt myself.

B: How did your father get killed?

FM: Well, he wrestled this feller a time or two, but course, some called and he went down, at that time, Kentucky and West Virginia wudn't divided state. It was all West Virginia, so he went down to the boat landing where they had a boat to ferry back and forth across the river and they had a saloon over there that sold whiskey and uh...so he went down after this fella. He'd wrestled him a time or two. He, had uh....this feller that he killed, that killed him, he had it in for him cause my daddy had took his wife and took me and I was a baby and my brother Frank told me that I cried so much he had to take me back to my mother so I don't know how long he kept Frank there. But anyhow, he went over there to the restaurant tryin', went down to the boat landing and I imagine he got right in the boat. They pulled across to arrest this fellow and this feller come down and got behind a big waterbush tree and begin to shoot at him from one side of the river to the uh...West Virginia side now. West Virginia. So he got killed right there. This fellow killed him right there on the river bank.

B: And your mother remarried? Is..is that...

FM: NO, my mother was married five times before she died. She lived...she was around seventy-five year old when she died. Yeah. I had five different step-daddies. They was mean to me. They didn't like me someway.

B: Did you go to school when you were little?

FM; Yeah. I went...got up to uh...the second grade is as far as I ever got. What I learnt, why, I had to learn it the hard way myself. My wife had a pretty good education. She helped me out a keepin' time for the men that I worked, you see. All I did is tell her who worked and who didn't eight hours and put, make a report on and she (unintelligible) and Williamson, had to go in every day, daily. And report. I...I was on a salary. I got, I got up to a hundred and thirty-four dollars a month. That's as high as I ever got. All they paid, the owner paid, (unintelligible) a pretty good wages as far as on Williamson yard where they had an old feller was there on that yard. I finally ended up going to the yard uh...I had seen yardage uh...and I could get on a job and I could get it, assistant foreman on the Williamson yard. He retired and they advertised that job and I went there and stayed a while and bought a house in what time. And, while I was there, then I come back to the main line. I didn't like it on that yard.

B: When did um...when did you leave school? How old were you when you finally left school?

FM: I went to school every year that they had school. Up until after I got big enough to work and I got big enough to work and got in a manhood life, why, I began to take an interest in the girls so I got to flirtin' with my wife, you know. He (a friend of his) was a goin' with her sister then, I ask him, I said, "Is that woman, girl you go with got a...got any sisters?" He said, "Yeah. Got one goin' to school." So I said, "Well, what's she look like?" Said, "Oh, she's good looking girl." Blonde-headed. We was workin' I was workin' as a laborer then from my uncle. He was section boss and so I...I spotted her over there across the river once and we was workin', on West Virginia side and I waved at her across over there and she waved back. So I found out, from this feller that was goin' with her sister, she worked, hired out to do house work or (unintelligible) that would feed her and uh...so, I got to goin' with her and wudn't too long that we got married.

B: How old was she?

FM: She was about fourteen, I guess, when she married. I was only about sixteen.

B: Un-hun. And you say you were working as a laborer for your uncle?

FM: Yeah. At that time. That was before I...

B: Okay, and you were the section boss in the mines?

FM: That's before I...I got promoted you see. I...I worked with my brother and he learnt me everything about the railroad how to do this, how to handle a job, so I got promoted there and I worked form Iaeger to Williamson as much as fifteen days every evening. The other foremens was gettin' a vacation. Road master liked me and he was on the all, all over the whole division. I had to stand an examination on my eyes and that surprised me. I didn't know whether I knowed colors or not at that time. Had to go to Williamson in the yard office there and they'd put you out and you had to tell them the colors, you know, different colors, red, white, blue, purple, and green, yellow, pink and all that and I passed that twenty but twenty on my eyes there. Then they come out to their desk and they had a lot of yarn strings there and you had to pick out different colors of them and put them back and tell them, show them that you knowed colors.

B: Un-hun. Why was that? Why did you have to know colors?

FM: Well, that's just a...they had colors like that on the railroad at that time. Signal for the uh...steam engines yeah. You got to have a standard watch at a twenty, twenty one, at least twenty one yellow, at least twenty one yellow watch to carry in your pocket. Now and days, don't make them pockets on a pants to carry a watch. I sold mine after I retired.

B: Okay. What kind of work did you do on the railroad when you first started? What were you doing?

FM: I was a labor man.

B: And what did that...what did you do?

FM: Just anything that the boss wanted me to do. Clean ditches. Plant ties with a balance fork that way they have low places in the track. Boss get down on his knees and look over the track and it'd uh...it took a jack and put on...on the rail, jack...jack up and then uh...left it a swingin' you know, with no balance under the ties. We had to take forks and...and job them forks down, rocks under the ties to hold back up, for the trains. Them engines would wreck if you had too much bad track. Steam engine, anyway. They had a big fire wheel on the fire boxin'. After I got promoted I had the Thacker section twice there, six boys and myself, and I know from McDowell County there. They put my, loaded my stuff up in a boxcar and had...it run local, east and west, at that time. One train went up and the other one came down from Iaeger. Out of Iaeger there and a local brung my stuff there and I took my men unloaded my stuff and put it in the railroad house. They furnished a house to live in. Five dollars a month. That was all they could charge. We had a union that we belonged to that they couldn't charge us any more than five dollars a month. Five dollars a month for rent. Didn't have no electric light. Had to use oil lamps.

B: About what year was this? Do you remember?

FM: That's about 1921, somewhere along there I guess. And I ended up a workin', see I worked, I worked pinchin' out for North & Western, they merged now with uh...Southern Railroad. They've about got it laid by, now. From what they sue to and had them old steam engines. I use to ride them steam engines.

B: Un-hun. What...why did you do that?

FM: Just to, when I wanted to go to Williamson or something and another, I'd get in the engine. Fire the engine with a shovel and the foreman would set there and let me do the firin' and I'd go to Williamson that a way. Then I used to hobo them engine, trains and get on the cars and hobo them. And they'll never fire uh...a diesel coal.

B: Un-hun. During the...

FM: That was after I was married, though I did that.

B: During the Great Depression, Um...do you remember, say the...the hobo's that went around the country and stuff? Did you all ever have..

FM: Yeah.

B: What did you all have...

FM: I....I fed a man and one, man and one my wife did. We had an old fellow come here. He was down to, at that time I worked as a laborer. I lived in that little old two room house and I run a steam pump. Two steam pumps. I had to pump water in water tanks for the train to take water. Big coal station there at Louisville and they'd get coal there and they'd come up and get water. This old man com to my house uh...well, he didn't come direct to my house. First time I noticed him, he was down on the river bank where the pipe lines went into the river, to pull water out of the river into the tank, when I had (unintelligible). I pumped there about three days a week. I worked with my brother then. Just section laborer before I was promoted, so this old man was a puttin' pictures in little frames, setin' there and it was real cold. A big snow on. That snow was (unintelligible) up to my knees. And I went to down there to see if I could find out why he was down there doin' that. And I talked with him and asked him what was wrong. He said, he come from Bluefield, walked, said the salvation army give him that coat he had on. He had a big coat. A sheepskin coat on, lined on the inside with fur. So, I went on back to my work so, I invited him (static, unintelligible) he come up to the house and my wife fixed him something to eat. He stayed there about a week with her before he ever left. And he went walkin' away from there when he...when he could walk. Said he's goin' to Washington. Tryin' to get into Washington. Said he was a walkin'. Said he'd walked all the way from Bluefield there and stayed about a week with me 'til the weather cleared up where he could get out and go and at different uh times, why. She fed hobos that'd stop there. (unintelligible) Be on a train. They'd be on a train and stop and peck on the door and want to know if they...we had any work that they could cut some wood, (unintelligible) or get some coal in or something and other. I'd tell them no and she'd give them something to eat. They'd stand there and take their plate and walk off. But she fed a many hobos...hobos on the train and back down. There's a lot of hobos that were travelin' at that time. THey'd go up and down all the time.

B: What did um...

FM: Hard times back then.

B: What do you remember about the Great Depression? Did you work through it? I mean, did you have solid work through that time?

FM: Yeah. I had a regular job, you see, I wudn't cut off, I...my brother was a boss and I worked for him at that time and he...he wouldn't cut me off cause he...he helped me all the time and I learnt how to be a section boss myself, under him up until I got promoted. I got promoted in 1933. I took first section, Thacker. I had that job twice. A fellow died and I left there and went, I had the Delorme section. Of course, I lived in a company house there. I didn't like it there. That's when I went to Williamson yard. I didn't like that Williamson yard, neither. I..I come back to the main line.

B: Why didn't you like working in the yard?

FM: Huh?

B: Why didn't you like working at the yard?

FM: I just couldn't like the men that was a working there. Couldn't...this fellow, the main boss there, I was just a assis..(tant) I'd been that job in the assistant foreman under him and he didn't like it cause I wanted the men to work and he didn't want them to do nothing but stand around and look. Well, I...I wouldn't let them stand around cause I knowed they was out there to work and it wudn't right to let them stand there and dead beat around so I would make them work when they went out with me and I, well I, go back to the, where I can be my own boss. I won't have to contend with a boss over me out on the job that away.

B: What was...what was different about working in the yard from workin' on the mainline? Was there any difference?

FM: What was the difference in it? There wudn't no difference in it. Same thing and you had to service the track just like you would a main line type. I had that Thacker section and them trains would wreck on that West leg of the "y". I had two tracks went in there. One went in on the left, and the other went out on the right. They'd turn around there lot of times and go back to Williamson. They'd call me, I'd be here in Matewan. I was down here at this Matewan, once, I had a brand new suit of white clothes on that I'd bought and they call me up Thacker and said the engines was off of the track up there so I had to go up there and retrack that engine. Wrong elevation was what...couldn't get the right elevation. We didn't have the track uh..proper elevation to run the steam engine, they'd climb off. And couldn't get it because uh...we cut the ties down and got all that we could get on the ties (unintelligible) but it just didn't stop them. It stopped them a whole lot but once in awhile, they'd get off'n the track. Kind of turn around there.

B: Were there ever any bad accidents while you were workin' that you remember?

FM: Yeah. I was in an accident comin' out of Williamson in a motor car one time. Right out here. There was a train a stopped here and I was supposed to be a runnin' a motorcar myself, but I, customary that you let a man run the motorcar and you done the watchin' out,so we come around this curve here and there was a work train settin' out there a dickin' up stuff from the post office. The post office used to be right there on the end of this building. That's where all these Hatfields and McCoy's got killed. They got bullet holes in that brick (unintelligible), I guess and it took them out. And uh...so, I set in front of the motorcar and I...I feared the motorcar was gonna run into the rear end of that train and I jumped off and got hurt. I...my right leg hurt. I had to go to the hospital. I'd been in that accident, huh? That's the only accident that I was in.

B: Un-hun. So, were there um...were there ever any bad accidents, where say, trains jumped the...jumped the tracks or anything?

FM: No.

B: That people got hurt through in this area?

F: No. One feller got killed up Iaeger there. He went across, going up to Jivefork, there on that wide uh...uh...where they turn the train and he wrecked on that bridge and went into the river. He got scalded in there and we had go there and we got all bosses, doubled up their men that didn't have two men back then, four or five men, to work. That's all the could allow you to work. So, sometimes they would get em started, they'd have a big train wreck somewhere and they'd give us orders to hire them some men and we'd hire up for a period of temporary work and have to cut them off after everything was fixed back right. Then, they had a big uh...passenger train to wreck there on the Cedar Curve. It didn't hurt nobody there. I had a cousin that, he looked, was a hobo then evidently, he, he uh...put the air on and turned the air on the train and stopped the train all at once and throwed him off and killed him right there on that Cedar Curve. Hit was a five inch uh...elevation curve in there. He got killed there at Cedar at the track. Then I had a brother-in-law got killed in Glen Alum Tunnel. I don't know what happened to him. I think he was a goin' with a girl up there across the river on the East End of that tunnel and he probably been over there and he got in that tunnel and got all fuzzed up or something another and got killed right in there. Section boss had had that Glen Alum section. He's not livin' now. John Johnson. Uh...he called me and said we didn't know who he was. I went up there and identified him. I said, "Yeah, that's my brother-in-law. Well I took my motor car and men. Went up there and picked him up and brung him back to Cedar and they buried him across the river there at the old home farm place where my daddy-in-law owned his property.

B: Okay. Do you remember the um...the station house here? Do you remember the depot or whatever? What kind of building wa here at the...for the railroad?

FM: They had a depot. They was a big depot here. They kept an agent, honey, there all the time. Just like you workin' here. They kept books for railroad and they had these here things you'd clip and send a message and all. It got time yet, if you want to sen a message to Williamson uh...workin' things, and sendin' messages. They don't have to talk or nothing. Only, just work them buttons and send...Fire checked that a way.

B: Like um...okay. What um...what did that building look like?

FM: This building? Oh, it was a fine looking building. It was oh, he kept it painted up about every two years, repair it. And this agent, old man, T.J. Blankenship, I reckon, he got killed out there on the railroad. He belonged to church he got messed up with the train and he got killed out there after so long. Uh...that ain't been too long ago. I don't know what year it was when he got killed but, but anyhow, he kept the depot (unintelligible) in there all the time. Uh...through the day. He just worked eight hours. THe trains, all passenger trains, that is not all of them, number 9, they used to run a local train out of the...out of Iaeger, Bluefield, one of the other. I think they come out of Iaeger. He'd stop at these uh..places like Matewan, Thacker, and Delorme. Pick up passengers going into Williamson. THat's as far as they could go on that train. And he'd, the train would stop here and this agent had to put a cap on that said agent right on it. On it...on his cap....N & W Agent. He sold tickets for these trains. Everywhere they were goin' you know, but uh...if they had a through passenger train. Number 4, that used to run early in the mornings. It went directly into Norfolk, Virginia. And you could get a ticket that depot late at night, you have to pay for it, a ticket to ride that train and he had to get a stop to pick you up or he had to go to Williamson to get on it to come out goin' into Norfolk, Virginia or Bluefield, one or the other.

B: Can you hold on just a minute? (tape cuts off) You were saying that the number 4 was an early train that ran to Norfolk?

FM: Yeah. It run through here right uh...oh about four, a little, not...not twenty minutes after four o'clock in the morning, it went into Norfolk, Virginia. All they had to do was change crews. One crew would have to get on at Williamson, and the brakeman, and the conductor got on at Williamson. He was a flagman, the brakeman was. The conductor took the tickets up. He come through the train and say," tickets please." And you had a ticket or you had a pass. I had a pass. I got old passes now and I could ride any train and didn't have to, you know, press them at all, I...get my pocket and show them my pass and (unintelligible). I went down to Norfolk, Virginia, me and my wife did and took that youngest girl of mine that lives over Hardy, Kentucky, Shirley Marie Mounts. Married Raymond West. He...he works in the mines or he did work. He's trying to retire now. And pay on our own property over there. I built the chimney on their house when they bought that. He drove taxis and I lived...while I lived in Williamson, I got my wife a job dispatcher there for the taxi company. Fifteen. SHe got fifteen dollars a week and sometimes she'd work twelve hours and fifteen hours. Just settin' there. Checkin' them drivers out. I drove a taxi in my spare time when...when I wasn't a workin'. They'd get a new car, they wouldn't let nobody drive it. Them others drivers and me, they knowed I'd take care of it,the car.

B: Okay. Well what other, can you remember some of the other trains that used to go through here? I mean, how many trains a day would got through this area?

FM: Trains?

B: Un-hun.

FM: Well, let's see. Number 9, Number 10, went...come out of Williamson in the evenin', number 10 did. Pickin' up local, state, like (unintelligible) and different places he'd stop and pick up passengers. That number 10 did. And this number 9 come out of...of Iaeger, I reckon, where he could come out of, he'd pick up passengers going west, goin' into Williamson. That was two, then they was number 4, and number 10, number 9, number 4, and fifteen. THere was fifteen passenger trains goin' one way or the other.

B: Un-hun. Okay.

FM: Either going east or going west. They had one train named, was a called a fifteen. Just, you had to have plenty of money to ride that train.

B: Why was that?

FM: That fifteen was a high class train. They run it through here onced, not the same train, but they run a passenger train through here onced a year. Comes out of the Norfolk, Virginia, he goes over a different railroad, but it really could, I knew, it would cost a fellow a fortune to ride it, I guess.

B: Was it uh...a train where you could sleep and...and eat and stuff like that or...

FM: Yeah. Yeah. At that fifteen, you could uh...they had places for you to sleep, eat, and relax on the train. I never did do it though. I went down to Norfolk, Virginia once, me and wife and that Shirley over there. Went out there on the ocean and fished. Got uh...(unintelligible) around us out there in the ocean and we stayed there in Norfolk, Virginia. We went there on number 4, took us, we got on at Williamson on that evening and it took us all night to get there, to change trains in Bluefield, the crews. We...we had an electric train haulin' it out there and we come back and this old conductor, (unintelligible), at Bluefield, come into Bluefield to change trains there and this conductor got on the, come on there, got on that train to come into Williamson, he said, "We don't stop at Thacker. I said, "Okay." That was before we got to Bluefield. I told my wife, we settin' there, I was settin' there with my feet up in my seat, restin' I said, "Now, when you get down to Bluefield, I'll go up there to the Dispatcher and get a message from him to stop that train and let us off at Thacker and that will save them from goin' plum into Williamson and me a havin' to call a fellow to keep my car to come after us." So I did. Train had about ten or fifteen minutes to stay there in Bluefield. So I went up to Dispatcher's office up on the hill and I told the dispatcher, I said, "I'm section boss at Thacker and I'm on a vacation. I been down to Norfolk, Virginia, I'd like you to stop the fifteen and let me and my wife off at Thacker where I live." He just got on the thing there and wrote out a message. Said, "He'll get a message, they'll hand the message up there and down in Bluefield, Virginia." They had, that brakeman on that train, he had to stand up with the door open and watch for the message and they had a old hook made just like that with a handle on it and they put message on that thing and that there brakeman would run his hand through that and catch it and the train would just keep going. (tape cuts off)

FM: We got that message and the conductor come back to where I was at, "Cap. we're going to stop and let you and your wife off at Thacker," "I thought you would," I never said no more. (Becky laughs) And he...he had to do it 'cause Superintendent...would of got after him, if he hadn't let (tape cuts off) it didn't cost anything to ride that train, did, except it, sometimes uh....different crews would take number in the past, hardly ever they would take their number of the past...and the railroad is nothing like it used...When I was on it, you had to do it all by hand, now they do it by machinery...That track used to buck when I was on the railroad, my brother,I worked for him, and one time they...he had both track, they had to cut seven inches out of...out of that track and get it back together...for him, had to run the train down the eastbound track, train by...We worked uh...oh, I worked from the time I left here, when they called me to go to Ieager up there, engine turned over in the river, and Sunday night to Monday night, before I ever come home. We had motor cars to haul the men on.

B: Did you all have trouble gettin' material to work on the tracks during World War II...

FM: No...

B: did you ever...?

FM: We got anything in the war, anything, material what we needed, why, we just ordered it, they run a stock supply train once a month, and if you needed any tools, why you could fill out a requisition book, and send it in, and if he had that he looked on that book and see what you ordered and lay it up for it...and they stop the train, lay it off for you. For the road master, bring up tools what we needed, anything different than what we had...crowbars to pull slack with, hammer and wretches, tie dogs anything of that kind. We...we all had...had a toolhouse, plum full of tools, but sometimes you double up with (unintelligible)you lose some of those tools they take for you and you had to order new tools.

B: What uh...

FM: My toolhouse burn up while I was section boss at Delorme, I was off on vacation, got burn up, burnt my motorcar up, and all my tools and when I went back to work, I had to use old lever cars, that you pumped up and down. The boss didn't do nothing he just stand there where the brake was, put the brake on, they'd pump it up and down and take you over there, your territory where your sectioned on. Well, they ordered me a new motorcar, that road master did, three or four months before I ever got it, when put a car in there at Delorme on spur track there, at depot. We had a big depot at Delorme too. And uh...had a agent there, he lived right there. He'd get all that mail, alot of time he bring mail up to my house, and I had Delorme section.

B: Where did the...the uh...agent live?

FM: Uh?

B: Where did the agent here in Matewan live?

FM: He lived...lived here in Matewan, somewhere back out of the way I think he lived.

B: Up in Warm Hollow?

FM: Yeah, evidently did.

B: Is uh... T.J. Blankenship, the only agent you remember, do you remember any others?

FM: That's the only one, he holt (held) the job whole time, he was on the railroad, up until he retired, and by that time, why N & W began to uh...do away with all that. You see...now they ain't even gotta uh...uh...depot out there.

B: Okay...

FM: They got a little, they kept a lot of there equipment over there, machinery on that...They got a house they keep oil and stuff out there on that crossing.

B: Did you ever want uh...um...advance any further, and say work on the train, say as a brakemen or anything like that? Did you ever want uh....

FM: No, I never did work on the train, brakemen or anything.

B: Why is that?

FM: Huh?

B: Why...why is that? Why didn't you ever go on...?

FM: Couldn't never get a job, back before I was promoted, they wrote a hiring book, man's brother trains and time I got...get on the train or put it off until time that I could get off, go over Williamson to apply for a job they done hired all they done, needed to hire...Yeah, they had new men going to work on the railroad, all around it. I never could get down there in time to put an application in fer a job. I tried my best to get a job as brakemen, everytime I'd go they's hired all they gonna hire. That's when I worked with my brother.

B: Did uh...when you were workin' on the railroad through this area, did blacks ever work on the railroad, did you all ever work with blacks or colored people?

FM: Yeah. Yeah, we had colored people, not on these regular jobs, I, like on the area here of Matewan, we didn't have no niggers there...We had all whites. Williamson is the only place that had niggers...That's another thing I didn't like, Williamson yard when I was there...nigger, I told a nigger do something one time and he said something back at, at me and I jerked their, shovel off his back. I told him I would run him off. The road master told me, said, "You can't talk to men like that." I said, "I don't want a fellow to refuse to do what I tell him to do and if he's going to work for me, he's going to do exactly what I tell him to do." I ain't going to tell him nothing wrong, put him a doing nothing that he ain't suppose to be doing.

B: Okay...

FM: I told the road master one time, I said, "Some of you fellows, you oughta have to come up like I've come up from the labor and learn how to handle these jobs, without get promoted from Bluefield, and or...Nor...(Norfolk) Virginia or something come down here tell, try to tell us old fellers what to do." He just walked off. He was the type of feller when you see him coming he had his head hung down, like he was studying about somethin' and he's old and I'm a huntin' for something new to tell you about it. He...he wanted, I went to his house a time or two, there where he lived in railroad house in Williamson. The depot there-they got a big depot in Williamson now-they give that...N & W give that to the town there, their using that for the town...They kept two or three agents there, on that depot, relieving one or another. But out here on the main line, they just used the one, and were there had depot was to uh...people uh...buy tickets and get the express, boxes and stuff. And you was a travelin' anything, why the agent would carry that to the uh...and give it to the brakemen, the put it in uh...on the train for yeah, take it on.

B: Do you remember uh...you were about twelve years old when the Matewan Massacre happened, do you remember anything about that, do you remember hearing about it, the fighting down here?

FM: Down, about the track?

B: The at the, the Mate...the shoot out down here at Matewan, in 1920?

FM: Yeah, I can remember when they was having that trouble here in Matewan, I can remember that, I was a great big boy. My... I had brother-in-law was a state police here, he got a job, he came up at Lindsey Oil, look like a state police, he guard, just like a guard here, when Baldwin Felts, was in here shootin' people and killin' them.

B: What was...

FM: I don't remember what year's that was in.

B: What was his name do you remember?

FM: Who's that?

B: Your brother-in-law, that was the state police.

FM: Oh, his name was uh...J.P. Blankenship, he was uh...my mother's boy. She married a Blankenship.

B: Okay.

FM: He'd been in the army...this Blankenship had. He married a women he lives out in the Island there up there Linsdey, in a tent. He had a great farm, raised, got it when it when he was young, people worked like the lord...where he had that tent.

B: So do you, do you remember anything, hearing about that shootin' or anything, did he tell you about it?

FM: About what?

B: The...the shoot out down here in Matewan, in 1920?

FM: No, nobody talked to me about it, except just, I heard it, from other people that...wudn't no such thing as the people around uh...Lindsey there where we lived, they finally did get uh...Cincinnati Post there I uh...sent in a clipping to get that job handling Cincinnati Post, threw it off the train there at the station ground. There wudn't no depot there at this station ground for people to get on and off the train, they throw that paper, rolls of paper, I go there and pick it up and I sold Cincinnati Post to that few people that lived around Lindsey, there just a house here and yonder, about a mile apart... They all burn before I left here. That would be a good place to live if they put power in there, put they never put no power in there...

B: Uh-huh...Did uh...say you worked as a newspaper boy, did...did you sell 'em?

FM: Yeah, I sold them.

B: How much money did you make doing that?

FM: Well, I got, they...help me. All the papers I didn't sell, all I had to do is cut the clippin's out of the Cincinnati Post, send it back to the company, they give me credit for it, I didn't make anything off it. Glory that...

B: Okay...

FM: But there wudn't no, such as thing as the Daily news, you know, nothing like that, Williamson Daily News. Only news, only there wasn't no such thing as a radio back then-my brother told me when he was living, he said "Some of these days they'll come out with somethin' or another."-and they finally did get radios out. He bought him a radio...a guy he use to trade with on a credit there, run an account with him, paying him every payday, fifteenth and thirtieth, when the N & W paid, he got his check, and he paid the bill off. He bought uh...a radio for him and he tell 'em come out there, telling us men what he got over the radio. I didn't believe in it. He said, If you don't believe that a radio is true, you come back down my house some Saturday night and we sit up and listen at it." So I went down there and we sit up and played some music from Nashville Tennessee, The Grand Old Opry, they play all night long. I began to believe in a radio then, and I ordered me one from Sears and Roebuck's. A radio after I got to believing in it, it was so old, and keep it a long time, finally it went bad and I sold or get, traded it off.

B: Where did you get the radio from? Where did you get your radio from?

FM: Sears and Roebuck catalog. I ordered it out of a catalog, Sears and Roebuck, they're located in Chicago, I think... Got it through the parcel post there, at the Post Office.

B: When did uh...when do you remember, your first car or remember seeing, when do you remember seeing your first car?

FM: Oh, first car I ever seen, that...that was when I was just a boy, I had left home or anything, I wouldn't know eighteen year old at that. We living up Ru...Glen Allum holler. There was a old jitney...they call them a bus now, and they haul the express up from Glen Allum Depot, if all the express come in the depot, that's what they had agent for to take care of boxes like this, and express and he hauled them, hauled that up there once a day. He could, go, come out the mouth of the creek and get the express and take it back Allen Coal Company, and he come back that evening. Uh...if anybody wanted a ride out of the holler, why they'd ride that bus back...and that's, that must been 'bout nineteen and I don't remember what year it was in.

B: Uh-huh. Do you remember the first World War?

FM: First, cars that I remember of havin' was a 1924 model, I bought...I bought, it here in Matewan. It had a rumble seat in the back in it, and it had brake was right in the middle of it, it had two clutches you had to work. I kept it 'til, I traded it back in uh...I bought... They sent me here to, that was before I got a regular job, to relieve a feller for two months and I didn't have nobody, just me and my wife, I had a little dog. We come in on this holler jobs here, he had that section, of uh...at Red Jacket, all that track to look after. I came down on train, and me and my wife did. This here Matewan wudn't even hard topped here when my brother got killed, we had to wade mud to get from this side to the other side. Hope's Department (store) over there run a music store, organs, typewriter, and guitars, and banjers, (banjos) we come down on number nine to buy some stuff like that...and you could get through, Matewan wudn't even hard topped, when he got killed.

B: Uh-huh... Who did you uh...buy your car from here, when you bought it?

FM: It was a fellow named Chancey....here run a garage, bought it from him, it was a 1924 model...Model T.

B: Where was his garage, do you remember where it was here, was it here in town, by the underpass, or do you remember where it was?

FM: When uh?

B: That...that fellow you bought the car from, his garage?

FM: Uh-huh, he didn't he owned his own property as you go up the hill as you go up right, toward Delorme now. He lived right over that hill, that were he lived.

B: Okay...

FM: Old man Chancy.

B: Okay. Was...

FM: I...

B: Was the garage here in town, or was it up over?

FM: Yeah, he had a garage, up, up, up here, he had, bought them cars...uh...in the 1924 model. I kept hit a while and I traded it back for another Ford that was in a little better shape than the one I had...but wasn't a 1924 model. I couldn't drive it, I had to. When I got through relieving this fellow, he..he, took his boy with him and he said he take me home and he did...Drove the car home, so I got to thinkin'. That old boy I got acquainted with here and he said, "What time do you come in, on...off the railroad?" I said, "About four o'clock." He hung around with me and I got acquainted with me, he said,"I learn you how to drive." Why he never did let me get under the steering well I didn't learn nothin'...So that's where I lived up there, I couldn't get the car to close to the house. I had to leave it on, the car on the highway. I got to thinkin' well there ain't nothing to it, only just push the clutch in and make sure you put in, bound to put in one other gear and...So I didn't know you had to have operator's card and I went over there one day and got that, got in that car and uh...I put, pushed the clutch in and put it in some kind of a gear, and off, I came down that ole hill. And then, they had a company garage there, I pulled in there, that feller said, "You got a operator's card? I said, "No, I don't know what, what it, that is. I bought this car and nobody can drive it but me, unless I let them drive it." He said, "You got to have a operator's card." And I said, "What do you do to get a operator's card?" "Fill out a blank, send it into Charleston." I said, "You got any blanks?" He said, "Yeah." He filled me out a blank, said and operator's card, and I had a operator's card every since.

B: Uh-huh. Do you remember what year that was?

FM: That was...that was way back about 19...58...I guess somewhere along through there...

B: Okay, alright, uh...let's see, when do you remember seeing television?

FM: First night, I ever seen was at my brother's house he bought one...He bought a television after he got away from the radio... when he said some of days come out with a television, you can set right - he didn't call it television - he said they come out with some kind of a thing you can set right in your house and watch New York, when it come out it was a television. He's the one, no not during his lifetime he didn't have a television, I'm a little ahead on that. But the first time I knowed anything television was after I got married and long, long time after... that I knowed anything about a television.

B: What do you remember coming into Matewan to shop or anything, what do you remember about Matewan?

FM: Well, that's about all I know about Matewan, I wudn't too much acquainted with it, except fifteen days I stayed here on this holler and I came down here and walked around over one thing another, here in the town of Matewan...There was a lot of lots of good (stores); Hope's had a Department store over there, Nenni, John Nenni, had a store, he still got a store there, old John is dead...That boy has got everything he had, I reckon'.... Mrs. Nenni...

B: Okay...

FM: I buy shoes there sometimes...

B: Uh-huh...okay. What uh...were...were you raised in any particular religion?

FM: Huh?

B: Where you raised in particular religion or do you go to church?

FM: Yeah, I'm not going now, I ain't went to church since my wife was sick...I went...all I have to do is go back going to church, that's all they have to accept you, when you don't go... Yet,I just ain't had the uh...get up too much work to do around the house, seem I can't leave to take time to go to church, but I will go back when I get catched up on the my work...Lord's will. I lost them bunch of keys the other day, I said, "Lord, I lost my keys, I don't know what I done with 'em, I don't know what I done with 'em, I dropped them somewhere..." I hunted everywhere I been around the house, feeding chickens and everything, couldn't find my keys nowhere...So I was coming back from the chicken house then, and the keys dropped just like that in front of me. Lord put them right where, I just went, I said thank you God Master, Jesus' brother, there's two of 'em...Uh...Jesus, lots of people, preachers their ain't but one...one God, but there bound to me a hea...head over the Jesus....just like you and me or one. If you got a son...that's your son...so you take the Lord... why, you got to live for both of 'em, you can't just leave, you got to take the son and the Lord both....But alot of people don't believe in that Jesus, talking in no...tongues and all that stuff...I don't believe in that...You go to church, your supposed to uh...everybody suppose to keep silent, if you want to know anything then ax (ask) the preacher, preacher don't know why, you have to pray for 'em. Find out about it.

B: Okay. Did...how many children did you and your wife have?

FM: We didn't have but two, two girls, I got a girl I sent to College, she made a nurse...I didn't even hardly know she was going with a fellow. She married off, with uh...fellow, I knowed it, I knowed the whole family. I use to run around Beech Creek. Where she lives now, in a trailer, mobile trailer that their building over, I was over there the other day, and stayed a while and she fixed me something to eat. And after she got married then, she...before she got married, I sent her to college and she made a nurse. I let her use my car and she went down, way off somewhere and she done examinations for nursing, she worked hospital, both hospitals, three hospitals in Williamson, she worked there, and after she got married she had three kids. I told her, I said you don't need to have no more kids, you better do something to not have no more, she did...she told me, her man said if he knowed it was gonna do like that, he would of had it done to hisself. But she won't have no more kids, she's gained weight since, they she don't have no more kids. She's got three now, she got one boy and two girls, that go to school over there. It don't look like they gonna have more school, mighta as well cut it out...yeah, still off yet...

B: Uh-huh... What about your other daughter?

FM: Oh, she never did have no kids, I don't know what's the matter...She been married twice, she slipped off and got married, when I lived in uh...Hatfield Bottom....She slipped off with a feller, he had four kids, his wife had died and he had four kids, and she got to gong with with him sneakin' around...and they slipped off and called me in Pikeville and said she got married. But he did...and she uh...divorced, divorced, I got her a divorce from him, he wudn't no count, all he wanted to do is drink whiskey and he'd go out to work two or three hours and he come in and he act like he was jealous of her all the time...She wouldn't live with him, so I got a lawyer and got her...it cost me a hundred and twenty five dollars lawyer fee...and uh...she got away from him. She never did housekeep with him, no how... He wudn't no good, she just got messed up there. She got a pretty good feller now, she been married twice, she still ain't got no kids, never did have any. She's the oldest girl, the girl I was telling you about being a nurse, she's my baby girl, Harriet(?) Ann, was her name. My wife named her after her mother, her mother was named Harriet(?)...and she named Harriet Ann after her.

B: Okay, Well, I can't think of anything else to ask you, is there anything else....

FM: This railroad here is nothing like is was. When I was on there, they got it made wide now, they got double rail creepers on every tie, on the rail and track can't buckle like it is now. That's the reason them trains they run, they can run a little faster than that if they wanted too. They took the elevation out of these diesel, they don't have to have that elevation like they did when I was on it.

B: You say the trains had to have the elevation?

FM: Yeah, the engines did.

B: Why was that?

FM: Well, they had uh...two big wheels right under the fire box where the coal went into the boarder, and them big wheels there would climb off if you didn't have the track elevated or something like that. This curve right here carried five inches of elevation...

B: Uh...

FM: They got it all pulled out now, about two and half inches elevation, these trains, these trains they got now, is uh...runs by diesel oil...and they got boosters they put between those engines, give 'em more power, and they fill them up with that oil, diesel oil in Williamson I reckon'. They go on less elevation then, then them steam engines, wouldn't...wouldn't they slide off...If they run a steam engine through here now, if it didn't go pretty slow he'd trail off...they run that passenger train through here but he runs slow...

B: Uh-huh...Did uh...did the tracks always run like this?

FM: Yes, as far as I can remember that track always runned like that, you take....

B: Was it that high?

FM: If there was a train happen to wreck there it would tear these, this outfit plum horror lookin', seem like it a train happen to wreck...like that...

B: Was it always built up that high?

FM: Yeah, no not all the time, they just kept pulling it, raising it, raising it got it up as high as it is now. Yeah, no it use to be right down in the dirt, you see, they just kept pulling it and raising it, and taking the elevation and changing it around, and it's high up now.

B: But it was always this close to the buildings?

FM: Yeah, it's always been, fer as I know, remember it is, but it's been close to the building ever since they put they railroad in. They got...the way I understand it, they going to change this highway, they are going to put a flood wall in Matewan here, it take, and all this property in this flood zone, the rail, the government startin' in January and gonna buy that property. I've got a house in a lot up here standing up here right now, that won't rent...Let people in, everytime they get in they tear up more than worth fooling with it. They oughta pay it, uh...third of the month and you go peck on the door and can't pay it. So I just quit rentin' it...I got a letter now, in my car, it's startin' in January buying this property, gettin' ready for this uh...flood wall. They're gonna put that flood wall down in there or it will be some other outfit, but they're going to put a flood wall in there, a bye pass this underpass out here and put that road around that holler there...That's what there sayin'

B: Okay, well, thank you for talking to me.

FM: Yeah.

Matewan Oral History Project Collection