The Ballad of Eugene Butcher

A few years ago, I remember hearing a true central West Virginia folksong about Eugene Butcher, a brakeman for the railroad. I got to thinking about it a few days ago, and decided to do a little research on it.

I believe our folk hero was born Eugene F. Butcher and that he was the son of Granville & Madura Butcher. Eugene was born in October of 1890 in the Salt Lick District of Braxton County, WV. He married Bessie Beatrice Butcher, daughter of J.N. and Margaret Butcher on July 21, 1909 in Weston, Lewis County, WV. Eugene’s father Granville went mostly by his initials G.S.M. Butcher, and he worked at the lumber company’s planing mill in Weston, so I’m sure Eugene grew up near the lumber industry and the mills, and that he was very capable at his job.

After the horrible accident that claimed Eugene Butcher’s life, there seems to have been several children (both boys and girls) born in that area of West Virginia that were named after Eugene Butcher. I found several instances of boys with the first and middle names of Eugene Butcher, and even several instances of girls with the first name of Eugenia or with their first and middle names being Eugenia Butcher. I even found one instance of a middle name of a girl being Eugene. The births of these children all fell within a 15 month window of Eugene’s death, so I’ve no doubt they were named in his honor.

Here is a link to a recorded version of “The Ballad of Eugene Butcher” that was performed by Georgie Carr of Gilmer County, WV in 1986. The recording comes from the Oral History Collection at Glenville State College in Glenville, WV.

Below I’ve transcribed the words to the Ballad and I’ve done my best to get them correct. I may be off a few words here or there, but I think it is complete.

The Ballad of Eugene Butcher

Eugene Butcher was a brakesman,
Toiling for the B & O,
While enlisted, 33 wrecked,
And threw him far below.

When his comrades found him later
He was fastened ‘neath the rod
“Release me, please,” he pleaded
And in prayer he turned to God.

“Lord, receive my soul in Heaven,
Give to me a home on high,
Where I’ll meet my own dear mother,
God, protect my wife and child.”

Yes, he had a wife and baby,
Toiling for them day by day.
And perhaps for him she is kneeling,
“God have mercy” hear her say.

Someone brings to her the message,
See her kiss her darling babe,
as she reads the fateful story,
“Killed last night on Hawkins Grade”.

In obedience to the engine,
O’er the icy rails he sped,
Twas the first of February,
And he was carried back home dead.

It was the first of February,
In the year of Nineteen and twelve,
It was in the town of Weston
that Eugene he did dwell.

To the home of Melvin Meadows,
he was taken that fatal night,
and there he lived eleven hours,
and as though asleep he died.

And we trust he entered Heaven,
Earnestly, he prayed while here
And we hope sometime to meet him
Up there with our Savior dear.

And it was his brother trainmen,
That greets him as he rushes by,
Though it may be our last greeting
‘til we meet again on high.

The Tale of a Southern Belle

I never met my great-great grandmother Rebecca, but my mother did. This may not seem remarkable but it is. You see, my grandma Rebecca was born before The War of Northern Aggression (that’s the Civil War to all you Yankee folk) and she was a bonafide southern belle. Like everyone else in that time and place, Rebecca’s family had strong southern sympathies.

Petersburg, WV, circa 1900.

Grandma Rebecca told of how when she was born in 1853, it was customary for a father to give a slave girl to each of his children to care for them and to be their mammy. My grandma Rebecca said that the slave girl done everything for them, she'd dress them, wash them, feed them and even cleaned them after using the chamber pot. When the War came, life forever changed for my grandma Rebecca, her family lost its money but they did retain the land. A few years after the War, Rebecca’s father, Aaron, was killed in a farming accident and the family was forced to sell the ancestral farm and move to town. Through it all, Rebecca said the most difficult thing about life after the War was learning to lace up and tie her own shoes, she said neither her nor her sisters knew the first thing about common everyday tasks.

After moving to town, Rebecca met and married my great-great grandfather, Jacob. While his family name was respected, he certainly didn’t come from a poor genteel family like Rebecca’s. For all of you who aren’t aware of the class difference, poor genteel is used in reference to people who were wealthy and came from good families before the War but lost their money in the War, and it was used to differentiate them from the common poor. The poor genteel were welcome in all society circles, regardless of their economic woes. After the marriage, my grandfather Jacob worked a small farm in Hardy County until the rails and the mills opened up the Potomac Highlands, and they moved to the then growing town of Petersburg, WV. Jacob then worked as a brakeman for the railroad and they lived in a row house for a few years until Jacob could afford a house on Virginia Avenue, which they lived in for the rest of their lives and where they raised their 7 children. Jacob died in the early 1900’s, and Rebecca was left a widow for the nearly 50 remaining years of her life.

Above: Building the Railroad Bridge below Petersburg, September 1910.

Above: Petersburg Railyard where Jacob worked, about 1920.

Later in her life, Rebecca shrunk up so until she was a tiny slip of a woman, and she slept in baby bed. When my mother visited her as a child, she said that Grandma Rebecca’s skin was so thin that it was almost clear and that you could see the blood right in her veins but she was very clear minded. One of the most memorable things that my mother recalls is how Rebecca took up chewing tobacco and could spit several feet and hit an old coffee can that she used as spittoon. Rebecca had a little ole housedog that was nearly as ancient as she was and she called him “Old Blue”. Her and Old Blue had some exploits, which may appear in a future post.

Virginia Avenue in Petersburg, circa 1940.

Many remnants of the teachings of my Grandma Rebecca still live on in my family. For example, you have to have clean shoes, only “trashy” people wear dirty shoes. Rebecca said that it doesn’t cost hardly anything to keep your shoes clean and clean shoes say a lot about the person wearing them. Even today, when I meet someone for the first time, one of the first things I look at is their shoes. You can really size up a person that way. Another teaching from Rebecca was anything that you write, you have to write it in black ink, you can’t use blue ink or a pencil, it shows good breeding to use black ink, I think this probably has roots in both her antebellum upbringing as well as her devout Presbyterianism. Yet another thing passed down from grandma Rebecca is the rule that you have to eat everything with a fork or spoon. There is no such thing as finger foods. You always have to have a utensil no matter what the food, and whether you use them or not. “It’s a matter of culture”, Rebecca said. I drive Shirley crazy with my quirky always-having-to-have-a-fork, I just smile and tell her, “Thank my grandmother for that.”

Petersburg, WV circa 1910

My grandma Rebecca died in 1966 at the age of 113, she died peacefully in her sleep and was the pillar of her family and community. It makes my head spin to think of all she saw and the knowledge that she must have had from living through several decades of American life.