Granddaddy in the Timber Camps

In the 2nd row (just to the right of the tear) is my great-great grandfather, Charley Burns, who worked the timber camps around the turn of the century.

I grew up hearing about the timber camps ever since I could remember. I heard stories about my Granddaddy Don, who filed saws in the timber camps. I heard stories about Don's father, Charley Burns, who worked in the early timber camps of the region. I heard stories about my Aunt Mid who worked as a cook in the timber camps out in Bemis, WV. So, as you can see, I have heard alot of stories about the timber camps that were set up when the vast forests of the Potomac Highlands were cut.

In the early logging days there were quite a few men who wandered from timber camp to timber camp looking for work. Some of these camps were several miles apart so these men, having no other family or home, would stop at various homesteads between the camps. None were never turned away and they were all given a meal to eat and a place to sleep, but the faces that kept turning up on a regular basis were figured out to be men who weren't necessarily looking for work in the timber camps, but rather just trying to get by without having to go to the camps. You see, up until the time that the timber barons came in and set up these camps, there was no such thing as wage labor in these mountains. People would just barter for goods and services, and they would sell surplus farm goods or animal hides for cash. Hired hands were paid with a place to live and food to eat, so wage labor was an entirely foreign concept for some of these men. That isn't to say they were lazy, not at all, it is just they were brought up in a society where people worked until a job was done, and not when someone in authority told them when to begin work and when to lay off work. Before the coming of the timber camps, these men worked jobs that the seasons and weather necessitated! In addition, many of these men didn't take well to instruction and orders either, but after the timber companies came in and bought up so much of the land, a large contingent of these folks were left without a home, work and a means of support. That is why some of these men would walk the countryside, pitching in here and there and doing whatever needed done in order to stay out of the timber camps.

My granddaddy Burns would talk about how rough these men were in the timber camps, and how dirty some of them would become. Granddaddy told that it was expected of men to bathe only one day a week, and that was after work on Saturday (bathing more frequently than that would reportedly make you sick). Granddaddy said they worked six days a week and 10 hours a day, so you can begin to imagine the smell. Granddaddy said that the bunkhouses where these men lived would make a mans eyes water whenever you would walk in the door.

Granddaddy said there was always laughter and some running jokes going on in the timber camps. He told that one of the best tricks some of the older wood hicks would pull on the new boys just coming into the camps was to pull the humongous gray lice out of their beards and hold them between their fingers and talk to the lice like they were a favorite dog. They'd pet the louse, and talk to the louse, and then reach it out to the "green" boy like they expected him to pet and talk to the louse too! When inevitably the newcomers would shy away from the huge louse, the old wood hick would stick it back in his beards and tell the louse to "not pay any mind to people who didn't know any better." Granddaddy said they pulled that trick every year and it never did get old!

Speaking of the big gray body lice that were common in the timber camps, Granddaddy told of how some of the men would put a big louse under the glass face of their pocket watch just for the novelty of it, and they would keep the louse that like for months. It was a thing of pride to have the biggest louse!

Granddaddy Don said the roughest place that he ever worked was in Davis, WV, for the West Virginia Pulp & Paper Company. Granddaddy would tell us that "the fastest way to get to Hell was to go through Davis." He said the men there would just as soon shoot or stab you as to look at you, and the management of the company didn't try to stop the violence because having the workforce constantly in a state of fear kept down wages. Granddaddy said that one time a bunch of them were playing cards while riding the train from Davis to Dry Fork, and that a man who was known to be unruly was playing with them. Granddaddy told us that the game was going fine until the man started losing, and he said to everyone playing in the game that "the next damn man who wins a hand against me is going to bust Hell wide open before they get a dime out of me." Well, the men didn't pay much mind to him because after all, it was a card game with timber men so you kind of expected rudeness and rough talk. It just so happened that Granddaddy Don won the next hand of cards and as he started reaching for the winnings, he saw the man going for the pistol that he had tucked in the belt that held up his britches. Granddaddy said he never was so scared in his life but he done the only thing he could do, he jumped off the train! He said the fall just about killed him because he landed in some cut down tree-tops about 4 miles outside of Dry Fork. Scraped and bruised pretty bad but luckily with no broken bones, Granddaddy walked alongside the tracks into Jenningston on the Dry Fork line where he got on the train headed back to Davis. But he learned his lesson, he never again played cards with that man.

Granddaddy worked in the WV timber camps until the timber was cut out, and then he started his own small timber company and hired some of his friends to work for him. They cut timber for a few years on the old Fredericksburg battlefield in Fredericksburg, Virginia, but Granddaddy lived longer than the timber boom so he went out of business in the early 1940's. He then decided to go to Baltimore, MD, like so many other men who had worked the timber camps of the Potomac Highlands, and he found work in the Glenn L. Martin airplane factory, which was booming because of the War Effort. Granddaddy worked there until he retired in the early 1960's, at which time he returned back home to the old Burns homeplace on North Mountain, where he lived out the rest of his days.

A Sunny Day in Autumn

Theodor Kramer, German Poet (1897-1958)
Give me to die some sunny day in autumn…



Give me to die some sunny day in autumn-
already raw and sharp - when frosty lines
and breezes sweep round house and barn that fraught'em
with smells of dying weeds and rotting vines.



Let me inhale the scent of shells decaying
that fall from nuts, and let me watch the plow
uproot and bury fraying stubbles swaying
in fat soil furrows to the final bow.



For then I might believe that such law's ending-
as rots the grape draff and thereby
renews the soil - would grant me equal standing:
It will ensure not all of me will die.

Autumn Splendor

Here are some beautiful autumn photo's from around Pendleton & Randolph Counties in West Virginia. All photo's courtesy of Jason Burns.

October
By Robert Frost (1874-1963)

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
To-morrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.

The crows above the forest call;
To-morrow they may form and go.

O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow,

Make the day seem to us less brief.

Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know;
Release one leaf at break of day;

At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away;

Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!

For the grapes' sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,

Whose clustered fruit must else be lost--
For the grapes' sake along the wall.

Buried Treasure in Pendleton County

Riverton Gap. This is in the vicinity of the treasure.

Mysterious Strangers Do Strange Things in Riverton
The Pendleton Times, January 8, 1932.

For several months a party of three mysterious strangers with a Maryland license on their automobile have been noticed by the inhabitants of Riverton. On the week of Christmas the party was around the hills near Riverton and seemed to be avoiding the local people. Then on Sunday during the Christmas holidays they stopped for the day on the road that leads up Roots Run across the river from Riverton. They seemed to be working on the car. In fact they told one boy the car was broken down and that they had sent to Franklin for a mechanic.

That night while the people of Riverton were at preaching, the three strangers began to dig a place in the ground and by the time the service was over they were starting away. Some of the citizens went over to investigate and found the hole they had dug partially filled. Later in the night it seems the strangers came back and filled the hole and made a couple of marks as though someone had been buried.

Later an investigation showed that a hole had been started in the shape of a grave and that at the bottom of the hole, three feet down, it seemed that some round object like a stone jar had been removed.

Old residents declare that the spot, which is on Elmer Lambert's farm, was once covered by a very large flat, thin rock. This was beaten up as a part of the foundation of a nearby bridge.

Naturally such happenings set people to wondering and the prevailing theory is that they were fortune hunters. It reminds one of the tales of the pirates or gold holders of the Spanish Main.

Old residents declare that after the Civil War a large quantity of gold was stolen in Virginia and brought to this country; that later the two brothers who were supposed to be guilty were apprehended and a party went to arrest them, which resulted in a fight in which one of the brothers was killed. It happened to be the one who had hidden the hold the night before in a new place.

The other brother fled from the county and has not been seen since. Inasmuch as one of the three strangers who was in the party of last week appeared to be between ninety and a hundred years old, many people believe he was the brother who fled.

Naturally this is news of great interest. If the gold was hidden and found we hope that the truth may be discovered and some one found who will divulge the secret. The only clue to the strangers is the fact that the car had a Maryland license. Any further clues as to the identity of these strangers would be much appreciated.

Another View of the Riverton Gap, where this treasure is supposed to be buried.

Hidden Gold at Riverton
The Pendleton Times, January 15, 1932
Editor Times;

This is a reply to the article of last week in regard to the legend of the lost or hidden gold in the gap along Root's Run east of Riverton.

This legend is strong and I have heard it ever since I can remember and I heard it from different old people, some yet living--people who had heard it from older ones who were nearly grown when the incident took place.

The legend as I have heard it is this; During the War of 1812, twelve men came one evening, traveling from no one knew where and camped at or near where J.E. Lambert now lives. I do not know that there was any house then built there.

The descendants of old John Justice Hinkle had scattered and built over most of the Germany Valley section and farther up Root's Run. Anyway, there were dwellings, and dwellers lived on the Stringtown Run where Claude Nelson now lives.

The twelve men camped for the night at the spring where the two runs fork, and they had with them a half-bushel camp pot or kettle, level full of gold coins, and they told the local people who saw them that they were getting away from the war and taking their gold so that it would not be taken from them.

The people supposed they were robbers or pirates; my guess would be the latter, for this was about the time when the American colonists got a navy strong enough to make the pirates along the Atlantic coast think about scattering. As these men stated, they divided up and carried the gold with them during the day, but being afraid to keep it with them during the night it was their custom for one of them to slip out from camp after dark and hide it away. At this they took turn about, one hid it one night, another one the next night.

On this particular night one of them shouldered up the kettle and went down Root's Run, which at that time was almost covered with timber and underbrush. I presume there was some kind of trail there at that time for it was the natural outlet for the settlers to go down to North Fork river.

This man disappeared and came back in a short time, and he alone knew where he had hidden the kettle full of gold, And now the sad part of the story comes in. Before the time to get the gold next morning this man was a corpse. Probably a row started and he got in the way of a long knife or stopped a slug from a flint-lock pistol.

When the remaining eleven men went out to get the gold, they were unable to find it. A month's search with the help of the settlers who lived in the section failed to disclose the hiding place, and finally the travelers had to abandon the search and left for parts unknown. So far as anyone knows this gold has been hidden there for 120 years, and is still there unless the three mysterious strangers mentioned last week who did the digging during Christmas week did really locate it with a divining rod, magic needle, or whatever dinkus is called that they locate buried treasure with. For my part, I did not see the hole that was dug by the strangers until it was so trampled up by people that I could not tell anything about it.

Now, if this legend about the gold was really true, according to my judgment the digging was done at a very favorable place, for the trail that was there 120 years ago was probably right where the road is today, for the reason that there is no other place for it to have been, this man, loaded down with 200 pounds or more of gold did not leave that path very far, or he would have had to up into the rocky bars along the cliffs on either side where the old settlers for many years did most of their hunting for the gold.

About 15 years ago, or about the time of the advent of the Model T Ford in this section, I was going through the gap one evening and saw three men wandering up and down through the rocks on the opposite side of the Run. One had some sort of dinkus in his hand,"sorter" carrying on like Calvin Ruddle does when he is witching for water. The men were strangers to me and had their old Ford parked down where the school house was then.

I also saw, last summer, a party of men in the gap who were probably on the same business. So it looks like the search has been carried on at intervals all down through the years. W.L. Warner.

Eva Lena, This Here is My House!

For some reason, today I was reminded of a story about my Dad’s childhood that he still talks about. It starts when he was about 6 years old and lived with Grandmaw and Granddad Thompson in Bennett Gap near Riverton. Dad lived with them until Granddad died in 1966, at which time, Dad moved up on the mountain with Grandmaw Mary and Grandaddy Don. You see, Dad was the oldest grandson, and it is a family custom for the oldest grandson to live with his grandparents.

Dad, Age 6

Anyway, when Dad started to school, he went to the Old Dixie Schoolhouse in Riverton. It was an old school that had served the area since right after the War. Sadly the school was destroyed in the Great Flood of 1985. One day Dad’s older sister, Barb, was put in charge of getting him off to school, and Dad was being cantankerous. Well, when they got to school, Dad was wearing one of Barb’s dresses! Of course, Dad was always raw-boned and much larger than the other boys, so he didn’t get picked on about it!

Dad and Barb in Bennett Gap.

Thinking back on Dad’s stories, he tells of how he and Barb played in the holler road going up Bennett Gap. He said they used to love to go out on hot summer day and let the road tar squish up between their toes. Also, he said that they used to chew the road tar and pretend it was bubble gum.

Dad also tells of a giant grapevine that hung over the holler that the kids used to swing from one side or the other. It was a big drop and was between two cliffs. Well, it come to be Dad’s turn to swing and he was a little afraid, so Barb hollered “Grab ahold” and give him a big shove. Dad said he was trying for all he had to cling to the grapevine but sure enough, he lost his grip and fell. All the kids were sure he was dead and took off running for home. Dad said he took to cussing them and calling them “chickenshits” for running off like that. They then knew he was okay and came back to play, but as they got closer they could see that Dads arm was badly broken. Dad said that was the only broken bone he had in all his years, and he still says that Barb caused it.

Barb standing in the road in Bennett Gap.

Dad also tells of his first swimming lesson, which happened when he lived up Bennett Gap. He said someone hollered, “Let’s Go Swimming” and they all took off for Bland Hole, which was the deepest nearby swimming hole. This was before the big Flood and you could dive off the river cliffs into the water, after the flood, it is still deep enough to swim in but not deep enough to dive off the cliffs, which are now around 20 feet above the water. Well, at this time, Dad couldn’t swim at all, and he was planning on just wading around in the water to cool off. That is until his Uncle Dave grabbed him and threw him off the cliff into the water, and hollered “Swim or Drown”. This may sound cruel, but that is the way most kids learned to swim. Interestingly enough, Dad didn’t swim, he flailed around in the water and after a while, started to go under. It was quite apparent he chose the latter of the “Swim or Drown” scenario. Well, his uncle saw this and dived in to save him. After they pulled Dad out of the river, they couldn’t get him even close to the river after that. It wasn’t until Jason and I were in our early teens that we were able to convince Dad to get back in the water. He still won’t venture in over about chest deep, and never puts his head under the water.

Dad and Barb after being in the road tar!

I think the one of the best stories of Dads childhood was when he and Grandmaw Eva (pronounced Ehv-uh) were gathering eggs one morning. Grandmaw Eva’s full name was Evalena. Well, that morning just as they got to the chickenhouse, the great big ole rooster jumped up on the roost and crowed. This wasn’t an ordinary crowing though, Dad says to this day that the rooster talked as clear as anything. He said the rooster looked at Grandmaw Eva and said, “Eva Lena, this here is my house.” Nothing or nobody can convince Dad otherwise, he knows that that rooster talked that morning.

The Independent State of Webster

Today, I thought I'd share with my readers a little of the colorful history of Webster County, WV. When I think of Webster County, several things come to mind...to name a few...the largest hardwood tree in West Virginia (and perhaps the world), Custard Stand Hotdog Chili, the site of the last buffalo killed in WV, the excellent quality of potatoes grown there, and of course, The Independent State of Webster.

This post is dedicated to the Independent State of Webster, an oft-forgotten segment of West Virginia history.

Be sure that you read the county court records at the end of the article, it has been said that the truth is stranger than fiction and in this case...it is the stuff that legends are made of.
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Printed in the Parkersburg News, April 1902
"Webster County and the Foreign Press. The Independent State of Webster"
by H. Coleman Thurmond.

"Webster county was formed in 1859 by an act of the legislature of Virginia, but there was no county organization until about 1864, as the Civil War came on and delayed the organization. But long before that date the section called Webster was and is now known as "The Independent State", and even before it was formed it had a Governor and other officers of its own, who recognized no superiors and paid tribute to no other authority.

The Independent State was then almost an unbroken forest, with a few settlersalong the rivers, without roads of any kind, except mere bridle or cattle paths, over which the natives transported their seng, pelts and other produce to Charleston or Clarksburg, and brought back coffee, calico and such articles on horseback, attached to a pack saddle.

At that time this was indeed a hunter's paradise, as deer, bear and all kinds of game were abundant, and every family could, if they desired, have venison for breakfast by simply going out in their yard or "patch", and shooting such game as they wished. The country was indeed flowing with "milk and honey", and even now no other section of this state equals it for pure, nice white honey.

Such grain as the settlers wanted was raised and in the littlemills, so common now, along the streams, each man who had a grist could go in and grind it himself, which he always did, as there was no such thing as a miller, and "toll" the grist, putting the toll into a barrel or box and taking his meal or buckwheat home to his family.

The Independent State of Webster at that time was not taxed, and had no representation, but the people cared little for that matter, as it was immaterial to them who was President or Secretary or whether slavery was abolished or not, as there were no Negroes here to be freed. Long before the War the Independent State was organized.

George M. Sawyers was Governor and had under him a full set of State officials down to constable, and ruled the land to theentire satisfaction of all concerned, with none to molest or make afraid, as the roads were such that not even soldiers of an army could invade the Independent State, and the people enjoyed their freedom, as well as buckwheat cakes, honey, and moonshine.Such things as these were good enough for any king and it is no wonder that many of the Governor's subjects lived to be over 100 years of age and deaths were few and far between.

It is said that when the county court of Nicholas heard that the Independent State had chosen a governor and officers that "the court doth appoint Pat Duffy as ambassador to the Independent State to make a treaty of peace and friendship and to arrange for our people to go inthere and buy 'seng and to hunt in the fall of the year", and Pat came and was so overjoyed at this reception that he decided to stay, and did stay, reporting to his court as follows:

"I came, I saw, but they conquered, and I am now one of the natives, having been chosen sheriff. Their venison, buckwheat, honey, tree molasses and moonshine cannot be excelled on earth. The governor extends a hearty welcome to the court and all people, languages and tongues to come here and live, hunt, fish, dig ramps, and trade among the natives".

On receipt of this report the court acknowledged the independence of the Independent State, and this action was followed by the county courts of the adjoining counties.

A few items from the proceedings of the county court of the Independent State may be of interest, which are about as follows:

"Ordered that hereafter the price of seng and pelts shall be this: One pound of dry seng for one pound of coffee; one deer or wolf pelt for one pound of coffee, or a yard of jeans or calico; bear pelts, one dollar, or four pounds of coffee; and further, that taxes may be paid in seng, pelts or coffee."

"Ordered that slavery be abolished in this State."

"Ordered that the license on moonshine shall be one-eighth of the 'juice'."

"The court expresses its sympathy of Kelly Ben Hamrick as he fell out of his tater patch into the river and hurt his back."

"Ordered that Dave Lilly be admitted to practice law in this court, and be licensed to preach and celebrate matrimony."

"This day came the parties in the case of Benny Cogar vs. Silas Clifton, and the jury rendered the following verdict:

'We the jury find that the mule sued for had only one eye and was hip-shot, ring-boned and clumsy, and not worth much of any thing, so we fix its value at one pound of green coffee, one bear pelt and two pounds of seng, which said Clifton can pay said Cogar next fall or winter'

"Ordered that Tunis McElwain, Bob Clevinger and Andy Shanks be and they are appointed a committee to go and locate the grave of Moses, and also to locate the landing place of the Ark, and report to this court next summer."

"This day came the parties in the case of Pat Carr vs. Pat Duffy, sheriff, and the jury rendered the following verdict:

'We the jury find that Pat Duffy did imprison said Carr and big old sow in the same cell of the county jail, and that said Carr being full of moonshine did wake up in the night and beat the old sow nearly to death, but that said Duffy did not know the old sow was in the jail when he put said Carr therein, and as the said old sow is still alive and said Carr was turned out as soon as the noise of the old sow awakened Duffy and he could get there, we find a verdict in favor of said Duffy.'"

It being reported that the Yankees are coming, it is ordered that court do now adjourn."

Times they are a-changin'!

The Pendleton Times, 17 December 1943
North Fork News

A tower has been erected on the Nige Rocks on North Mountain. The soldier boys constructed a phone line to the tower. This gives a panorama view of Monkey Town, Spruce Knob, Allegheny Mountain, North Mountain and different other places.

W.A. Judy has been appointed to teach Hunting Ground school vacated by Luke Crossland. Rev. Ray Hinkle has been placed in the high school to a place vacated by Mrs. Cornelia Dyhre.

A human skull was found along route 33 on the east side of North Mountain and it was sent to the office of Dr. J.L. Lambert. On examination he pronounced it to be a girl’s skull about sixteen years old.

Okey Day is loud in his praise of the Democratic Party for giving him a pension in his declining days.

Everything is quiet in the peaceful little village of Circleville. Large chicken houses have been erected by Mr. Parker from South Carolina, C.A. Warner, Forrest G. Lantz and Doll Lantz. Saw Mills must have been erected on the edge of the village. Martin W. Nelson is building a hotel. Every thing points for a boom for that town in the near future.

The cry of the terrible Snoligaster as it seemed to be at the moment sent the dogs scurrying to safety. A mournful howl filled the air and sent chills up the backs of the inhabitants. On investigation it was found to be a false alarm. It was the good women of the neighborhood moving in a slow procession with filled chaffticks from the writer’s straw stack. This procession reminded one of the covered wagons in by gone days.

Blessed are the peacemakers. A convoy went all night Friday night. These boys are fighting for our freedom. We respect them and should do our part in making their lives pleasant.

We don’t know whether it is right to mutilate and destroy women, mothers and little children. The great teacher took little children in His arms and blessed them.

We have no great feasts to mention. We are living on bacon, beans, cornbread and mush. Now and then a pound cake for which we are thankful.

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.

Flinging Apples and Shooting Goldenrod

In late summer, we all got excited when the little green apples would start getting a little size to them. Some kids would eat the little sour apples, but we never did. We were always warned that eating green apples would give us the "green apple runs" so we avoided eating them. The reason we got excited over green apples was the anticipation of apple flinging. Us kids would get a small but sturdy sapling about 3 feet long and an inch around and sharpen one end of it. We would then stick a little green apple on the sharpened end, bring the stick over your shoulder, fling the apple and watch that little sucker fly away into the distance. I recall we were only allowed to use certain apple tree's for flinging, those tree's being the one's that had scabby or wormy apples. The Red Delicious tree on the turn and Granny's apple tree were off limits to us.

You’d be surprised just how far you can fling an apple this way, some of them would sail several hundred feet. Eventually, everyone would join in and we’d have a huge apple war with each person finding a team and attacking each other. These apples would sting you pretty bad if they hit you so you learned real fast to take cover. It was a very fun way to pass the humid summer evenings on the mountain.

Another game we played was bows and arrows. We’d craft a crude bow out of a hickory sapling and a piece of bailing twine. We’d use goldenrod weeds for arrow by stripping off the leaves from the stalk. We’d shoot these arrows at different things, and later on when we got bicycles, we’d make a gauntlet of sorts, where one person would ride their bicycles through a group of people with bows, the object was for the bow shooters to shoot into the spokes of your bicycle and wreck you, but usually that never happened, usually the bicycle wheel would throw the goldenrod back out.

We weren’t allowed to use real wood for our arrows because when Dad was little, he was playing bows and arrows with the kids his age and he accidentally shot my Uncle Fudgy in the eye with a stick arrow, it nearly put his eye out and even to this day, Fudgy has a slight squint in his one eye. That didn’t affect is much since Goldenrod was more plentiful and worked just fine for us anyway.

Coon Branch

Today, I’m going to post a story from my wife Shirley’s family. Her family were the first settlers of Wyoming County in southern West Virginia so all of her people are from down that way. The story I’m going to share with you is about her father whose name was Neely, her uncle and a cousin back in the 1960’s when they left southern WV in search of work.

Left to right: Neely, his older brother Charles and their cousin Kennis, photo taken in Coon Branch abt 1945.

Neely was looked up to by his cohorts as a fellow who knew his way around the world. He was a little older than most of them and he had been in the Korean War so he knew his way around outside of southern WV. Aside from Neely, none of his close friends had ever lived anywhere besides Coon Branch.

Neely around the time of the infamous job search. Photo taken in Coon Branch.

In the 1960’s, times were really hard and work could not be found anywhere so Neely suggested to some men that they go to other states to look for work. They did. First, they started in Virginia but everywhere they went, nobody would hire them because they were from West Virginia. They then went on down through the Carolinas where they received the same treatment. This was a problem for many men of that time since West Virginians had the reputation for working just long enough to earn enough money to return back home. Everywhere Neely and his two kinfolk went, they always heard the same response, “we don’t need anyone right now” or “we just hired someone for this position” when the employers found out where they were from.

Home for Christmas. Neely in Coon Branch in the 1960's

Neely caught on really fast to this ploy and told his two kinfolk, “the next job we interview for, when they ask us where we are from tell them we are from anyplace except West Virginia”. The men felt really good about this plan and sure enough the next day they found a place in Florida that needed three able bodied men for immediate openings. In the interview, which was conducted at the same time for all three men, the boss eventually got to the inevitable question, “So, where are you boys from?”

Before Neely could answer with the white lie, his cousin who was fresh out of the holler piped up and responded, “Coon Branch”.

At this point in the story, years later Neely would recount, “Needless to say, we didn’t get the job. I should have told them to say we were from any other STATE than West Virginia.”

Soon thereafter, the three men gave up and came back home and Neely went on alone to find work in Chicago. He did very well for himself there until the mines opened back up and he was able to come back home to Coon Branch, where he lived out the rest of his days.


Neely and oldest son, Ricky, on the streets of Chicago.

Neely’s life in Chicago in detailed in the book, Appalachian Odyssey: Historical Perspectives on the Great Outmigration edited by Phillip J. Obermiller.

The Devil's Apron Strings

There never was a shortage on rocks on the Burns property, and in that we were truly “blessed”.

On the Burns Property...my Mom & Dad's house.

Grandmaw Mary used to always tell us that the devil broke his apron strings when he walked over Burns property. She’d tell about a great fight between God and the devil. In the days when the world was young, God & the devil each lived in separate caves high up on the North Mountain Rocks, and as in every telling of the epic battle between good and evil, they got into a great rock fight. The devil would throw rocks at God and God would in turn throw rocks at the devil. According to the legend, when gathering more rocks for an impending battle, the devil broke his apron strings while carrying a giant load of rocks over the Burns property. Just as the devil broke his apron strings and lost his rocks, God attacked and defeated the devil, forever driving him from Germany Valley. I’ve often wondered if this story has deeper meaning, perhaps it has its roots in the early settlement of Germany Valley, back when the Native Americans who knew of the valley referred to it as “the valley of the demons”.

The North Mountain Rocks that tower over the Burns property.

The rocks probably came from the North Mountain rock cliffs that tower over Burns property. Over the eons of time, rocks flaked off and rolled down the mountain onto the property. As soil formed, it just covered the rocks and so on. Regardless of how they got there, I know we’d pick rocks for hours, and no matter how many were picked, there'd always be more.

In our futile attempts to pick all the rocks from our garden, we quickly realized that we’d just have to settle for having the larger rocks being picked out of the garden if we ever hoped to get anything planted. There were huge rock piles all around the garden, proving that past generations had struggled with this very thing.

A view of the North Fork rocks from Germany Valley.

The most notable rock pile in the garden was the one with a huge lilac bush growing out of it. Family lore maintained that during Civil War days, the Yankee army had camped in our garden. When hearing about the approaching Confederate homeguard, a strongbox full of gold that was to be used to pay the soldiers was buried under that rock pile. I remember during the late 1980’s when dozer work was being done on one end of that rock pile, many family members gathered around and cast an ever-watchful eye on the activities. To date, this strongbox has never been found and the family legend lives on.

Grandmaw's Lilac Bush

My great-grandmaw Mary was always a special person to me, and besides my parents, was probably the person who most influenced my life.

Yes, Grandmaw Mary was a remarkable woman. I remember stopping by her house when I was a little boy, she seemed to always have something good to eat and just the right amount of encouragement for a young boy. I remember she made the best sausage links in the whole world, I don't know what she did to them but I do believe I’d give my eyeteeth just to have a taste of one of them now. My grandmaw Mary would often tell me stories of her childhood and the things she did when she was my age.

My great-grandmaw Mary (Kile) Burns

My grandmaw Mary was also a healer of sorts, if you came to her with an illness or “war wound” as she called them, she could usually patch you up in no time flat. If you had poison ivy, she’d tell you to go hunt her up a big piece of milkweed, which she would administer with the best of care. If you had a burn that hurt, she would say a Bible verse over it to take the fire out of it. Also, if you had a really bad cut, she could stop the blood by saying a Bible verse over it too. She knew all the plants on the mountain and what cured what. Like I said, she was an amazing person.

I remember when grandmaw got up in years, she went to spend the winter with her daughter in Baltimore. Grandmaw never did like Baltimore but knew it was probably for the best, winters on the mountain were hard. But first thing every spring, everyone would gather at the old homeplace when grandmaw came back to the mountain. Grandmaw’s only stipulation to her children when they talked her into leaving for the winter was that she had to be back in time to see her lilacs bloom. You see, Grandmaw Mary loved her lilacs, she had a large lilac bush that had grown on the property ever since her and granddaddy Don built the house in the mid 1940’s.

Grandmaw Mary's Lilac Bush

She once told me that she was a lot like that lilac bush, she might not be in the best spot in the world, but every year she saw the spring of the year as a fresh new start…a time for new beginnings. She said the lilac was a special thing and its smell was the sweetest of any blossom, and that it thrived even in the harshest of conditions. I do believe Grandmaw Mary was the happiest when her lilac bush was blooming, she made frequent trips every day to the bush to smell the fragrant blossoms and to taste them. I remember how grandmaw showed me how to taste the sweet nectar of a lilac blossom, it was ever so subtle…even the essence of the lilac was better than honey.

Can you taste the nectar of Grandmaw's lilac bush?

In the early Spring of 1988, the family decided to have some dozer work done in order to put in a bathroom. However, to do this, Grandmaw’s lilac bush would have to go. Since there were other lilac bushes on the property, nobody thought to get a slip of it to start it somewhere else, so the bulldozer shoved the bush over the hill and covered it with rocks and dirt. Everyone was sad to see it go, but we needed a bathroom. A few weeks after the dozer work, word came from Baltimore that grandmaw had fallen on an icy sidewalk and had broken her hip, she would not be returning to the mountain that year. As with many elderly people, a broken hip was essentially a death sentence for grandmaw, she lingered for nearly another year before she passed away, but she never got to return to her home on the mountain. I remember at her funeral, as we went to the graveyard where grandmaw was laid to rest, out from her grave a lilac bush was blooming.

Two years after the dozer work and a year after grandmaw’s passing, I noticed a green sprout of something growing up out of the rocks and debris that was shoved out of the way in order to put in the septic system…it was a lilac bush…Grandmaw’s lilac bush! I was overjoyed to see that it was still alive. I told mom and dad what I had found and they too were happy and said I could move it to the center of our front yard if I could get a sprout of it. I did and transplanted Grandmaw’s lilac bush to a spot in our front yard, where it remains to this day.

Even today in the springtime, I love to visit mom and dad when the lilacs are blooming so I can smell the fragrant blossoms of grandmaw’s lilac bush and taste the lilac nectar. I swear sometimes I can feel Grandmaw standing right there beside me.

A Malodorous Memory

Having grown up in Pendleton County, WV, in the 1980’s, I am perhaps among the last generation of Appalachians’ ever to remember the outhouse of yore in something other than a vision of times past. My family arrived on the mountain where I grew up in the early 1700’s and most of them are still there. In many ways, the world has passed us by several times over and in other ways we are very thankful that it has.

The Burns family outhouse, originally obtained from the old Hopewell School this outhouse served my family for many years until we got an indoor toilet. We then moved the outhouse to its current location at my great-grandmaw's house.

During a recent discussion with a group of Appalachian enthusiasts, nostalgia for the outhouse ran rampant. Speaking for hours on the noble privy and needed efforts to preserve the humble structure, it was obvious that most of these folks had never thought of the outhouse on any terms other than aesthetics. I felt otherwise. My family lacked running water until the spring of 1988, and I was perhaps the only person in this discussion who truly remembers the outhouse for its practical purpose. As such, I hold an entirely different perspective on the topic.

I vividly recall as a child answering the call of nature in the middle of many blistery nights and returning back indoors with both sets of my cheeks rosy red. I don’t ever remember anyone "relaxing" in the family privy during the winter months. There certainly wasn’t anyone who took time to read the local classified ads during his or her morning constitutional. I’m sure these wintry trips to the privy were the basis for the old adage “blue-ass cold”. The summer months were not much better due to the inevitable swarms of biting insects and flies that inhabited the privy. An occasional snake was not unusual. This was the everyday reality of life with a privy. I believe with every fiber of my being that this was the rule, not the exception.

I’ve been in outhouses of all sizes (one-holers, two-holers and even a three-holer at one point), and they were all pretty much the same regardless of the care given to them. Some were in worse condition than others to be sure, especially the ones that weren’t kept clean and the older ones that brought more fear than relief. My grandparents’ outhouse was so old that the floor gave under my weight when I was still quite young. It would have probably been safer for an adult to slip out into the nearby bushes. My parents outhouse was kept immaculately clean and hydrated lime was put in the hole on a weekly basis to keep down the stench and to prevent it from filling up. Even with the constant cleaning it was still far from pleasant by today’s standards.

The old grainhouse sits beside the current home of the family outhouse. You can kind of make out the outhouse in the middle right hand side of this photo.

This brings me to another recollection sure to spark the memories of anyone who has ever used an outhouse…splinters!! How many times have I imposed upon family members to pull a splinter out of my backside? I can just imagine today’s youth asking a loved one to do that.

Perhaps the one thing that I do miss is all the newspaper and magazine articles that lined the walls of the outhouse, some new and some that were beacons of times long past. It is remarkable the things I still retain today that I learned from reading the outhouse walls.

Lucky for me, by the time I was born my family had already discovered the miracle of toilet paper so I never had to deal with the uncomfortable cob or the obligatory Sears catalog. I guess I “missed out" on any memories dealing with that aspect, although I don’t believe such memories would be fond for anyone who honestly remembers them.

A photo of me, my brother and my Aunt Patsy, taken about 1979.

My wife is always telling people that I am the “oldest” young person that she knows, and my childhood in the 1980’s is more akin to her mother’s childhood from the 1940’s. She finds it odd that a person my age in this day and time can still remember when they first got electricity, a telephone, running water and an indoor toilet. While I miss many things about growing up on the mountain, such as the farm itself, the livestock and all the family close-by, I certainly don’t miss the old outhouse. It is but a dim, malodorous memory in the faded recesses of my mind.

Old House in the Woods

Last weekend, while in for the 4th of July, a few of the family went berry picking in an area we called the flats. To tell you how flat it is, you have to walk down into this place, and back up out of this place, it is far from flat, but when compared to the surrounding hillsides, it is the flattest part of the land.

While walking down an old country road with huge oak tree's and berry briers that surrounded to road on both sides, we decided to go on down where the old house used to stand. As we walked among the ancient oaks, I marvelled at their size and beauty, and wondered how they had survived getting timbered back in the early 1900's when much of Pendleton County was cut over. You can't tell it from the below photo, but these tree's are so large that it'd take at least a half-dozen men to reach around them.

After going through what appeared to be an old forest remnant, the woods opened up into meadows interspersed with a few trees. On one side you had a dark and foreboding looking cedar grove, and the other is wide open fields. In between these two extreme's sits what is left of an old house.

This old house used to have the most beautiful old-timey rose bushes around it, there were pink ones, red ones, yellow ones and white ones. They smelled so good when they were all blooming. I remember that we used to make a trip down to this old house every year when the roses were blooming.

There used to be a hand pump on the porch of this old house when I was little, and we'd all pump it until water flowed from the earth, it was a sight to see for us. We lived further up on the mountain and the water table was down too far for us to use hand pumps where we lived. Part of the old pump is still there today although it doesn't work anymore.

Over the door of this little cottage hangs an open end up horseshoe, reputed to ward off evil spirits, and since it hangs open end up, prosperity would collect at this house. These superstitions are remnants of our German heritage brought over by our ancestors who settled Germany Valley in the early 1700's. We still have many of the old customs, but we've lost even more. It makes me sad to think of how culturally disadvantaged my children will be not to hear these stories and see the things that I've seen in my lifetime. I'll try my best to tell them what I know but I've forgotten alot of it. Then on the heels of these melancholic thoughts is the realization that my parents and grandparents must have felt the same way as I do now when they thought of these very things. Life is definately a circle, I just wish now that I had realized that earlier in life and really listened to my granny and granddaddy when they told me stuff. Live and learn they always said, and a bought lesson ain't soon forgot.

Out from the little cottage is what I take to be the old shed, probably it housed the chickens and such. It is in a bad state of disrepair now but still would be the envy of any modern country garden. The wildflowers grow around it now as they must have 100 years ago. That's makes me think of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, which among other things says,

"To everything there is a season,

a time for every purpose under the sun.

A time to be born and a time to die;"

That put's in all in perspective doesn't it?

Below is the old shed that I was talking about.

It was good to be out in nature again and to see places that I hadn't seen in a few years. It was good to reminisce about times past and to spend a few precious moments with my family. It was good to be home!

I look forward to the time when I can do that again.

Berry Picking

In the summers of my childhood, my whole family would all get together and go berry picking, usually for raspberries and blackberries. We’d usually go up on North Mountain to pick raspberries or back in “Brown Bear Lodge” to pick blackberries. We’d usually pick gallons at a time and we would can most of them but we’d also save enough fresh berries to make pies and cobblers. I also recall that fresh raspberries and milk with sugar was a favorite.

To pick the blackberries we’d go back in Brown Bear Lodge where the blackberry briers would grow up over the road, and we’d just stay in the truck bed and pick berries which was a lot easier to do that go traipsing through the underbrush. We didn’t pick as many blackberries as we did raspberries because we didn’t like them as well…we thought they tasted like ink. We’d usually make pies and jelly out of the blackberries. Very few of them were eaten fresh.

One time when we was up on the mountain picking raspberries and mountain berries, we were picking on one side of a huge berry patch and heard something on the other side of the berry patch making noise and thrashing the brush. We wondered what it was but didn’t think too much of it until we heard the snorts and grunts getting closer and then we saw a pretty good sized black bear eating the berries as well. After that it didn’t take us too long to get out of there.

In late July we’d also go up on Spruce Knob or out in Dolly Sods and pick huckleberries, we’d use a picker for those and it wasn’t such a big deal to us as picking our favorite, wild black raspberries.

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