• Walter made coffins for the locals

• Uncle Washy Mullins’s funeral story

00:00

Damon: Wasn't very much in farming. You know, back in those days, the biggest thing ya lived off of was the farm.

00:10 [DEWv3: Walter made coffins for the locals (00:10-03:00)]

Mike: You said he made coffins or something like that?

Damon: Oh, yeah, he built coffins...see back in those days, a lot of people, old people, they would have maybe a tree on their farm, or go and pick out their lumber for a coffin. And lay it up in the barn. A lot of those old timers…you'd go and look up in the barn and their coffin lumber would be up there, see. A lot of those old timers did that back then.

Mike: They'd have taken that to a sawmill to have it...?

Damon: Or go to the sawmill and get it; or take a log there and have it cut. Some people maybe would take a log and have it cut into their caskets, their coffins. And they'd have it all dried and ready, and everything, see. And then you got right up to the time when they died. Well, they'd bring that lumber to you, and you'd start shaving her down.

Mike: So, Grandpa made coffins?

Damon: Yeah. Mom would line 'em; put that ole blue stuff in it. I don't what it was...some kinda real cheap lining. You put it with tacks inside. Make it look real soft and nice. I can remember them making 'em. That porch was just high enough--just right for Daddy to stand and use that big ole hand plane, you know, planing the lumber. And he'd plane that lumber down, according, you know, ever how big the man was...how long to make it. And it was small at the bottom, you know, made just like you see coffins.

02:09

Damon: What did you say baby doll?

Mae: Tell them about the time that people stole the meat out of the house. [This story was told later.]

Damon: The ones that could afford it would put handles on 'em and hinges that of nature, you know. They'd open the lid up, you know (that was the fancy ones). But a lot of 'em didn't go that far. They'd just make it and lay the lid down beside of it, and when they got ready to put them in the ground, they just picked the lid up, put on there and nailed it on. And you're done. I mean that was, in other words, several dollars cheaper (or a few dollars wouldn't have to be several, but a little bit).

03:00 [DEWv3: Uncle Washy Mullins’s funeral story (03:00-05:44)]

Damon: I know I went one time, and I can remember that bothered me forever so long. Kids back then didn't have as many things to think about as they do now, you know. When they buried Uncle Washy (that was Mom's uncle).

Mike: What was his last name?

Damon: Mullins. And he died and they laid him out (as they called it back then). Some of the people just come in, shaved him, or whatever they did, put his suit on him.

Mike: Now, they didn't embalm or anything?

Damon: Oh no. They just put them in the box.

Mike: And when they died you probably would have had the wake or viewing right then?

Damon: Yeah.

Mike: Right there the next day, right?

Damon: Well, within a couple days, when they got them ready. And they said all Uncle Washy had was his watch--he had a watch with a chain on it.

Mike: What was his real first name?

Damon: They call him Uncle Washy. I don't know...Washington, or what they called him.

04:09

He had about four boys, and looking back, there was about three of them that were illiterate. The oldest one I think he had worked, went away maybe, had worked a little bit or something like that. But they couldn't agree on who was going to get the watch. (That's what my dad told me later, and I was just a little kid.) But the yard, you set up here on the bank, and looked right down on the porch where the coffin was, see. And the preacher got ready to preach the little, short funeral. Daddy had the nails and the hammer. They put the lid on it. And this oldest boy came up and knelt down beside of his dad's casket. He took that watch out (he had a vest on you know and that chain went across that vest). He took that watch out, and set it, and wound it. Boy, you could hear a pin drop, there wasn't nobody sayin' a word--nobody never said a thing. And he wound that watch, and set it, and put it back in his pocket, pulled his coat back over it, and they nailed the lid on it. Took him to the graveyard and put him in it. And that bothered me for years after that. I wondered how long that watch run, why they put that watch in there why didn't they....

Mike: They couldn't agree, couldn't...

05:44

Damon: But I didn't know that, see. I just thought what a waste it was to bury that watch, because that poor ole guy wouldn't never know what time...why, he couldn't check it anyway, you know. They put that watch right in his pocket and sealed him up in that box, nailed the lid on it.

Mike: So, would Grandpa have made that coffin?

Damon: Um uh. [Yes] Now some of the coffins he made, they put handles on them. Some of them they didn't--they carried the box. Usually, they'd put it on a wagon or a sled or something. Take it right to the graveyard, ya know, and put it in the ground and bury it.

Mike: So, when did he make that? Was he in that business when you were on Buffalo or was that before?

Damon: No, that was while we was up on Buffalo. Mike, there's all kinds of pop to drink.

Mike: Yeah, I'll get some.

Damon: What kind do you want? What do you want Brenford?

• Damon and Mae discussing these stories

• Buffalo Creek house: butchering the hog; someone stealing it

00:00

Mae: Damon, tell all those stories.

Damon: I know what she is talking about now.

Mae: Damon, tell all them good things!

Damon: Oh, stop, that’s a bad story.

Mae: Tell all them good things, because those grandkids and great grandkids will get a big kick out of it.

Damon: You tell it!

00:23 [DEWv4: Slaughtered hog stolen from house on Buffalo Creek farm, outside Damon’s bedroom (00:23-03:09)]

Damon: Back on the farm when it got cold weather, it would come time to kill your hogs. You always had a meat house to put it in. You always waited to the very coldest part of the winter, kill your hog, and hang it up so that it would freeze. My dad went and got this man to come and help. Daddy wasn’t a very good farmer, when it came to cutting up and killing hogs. He came, and they killed this hog and hung it up and washed it down real good. It froze that night, you see. So, the next day they cut it up…what they call quartering it. Cut it in four quarters, cut the middle part and the backbone and the tenderloin and all this. And they worked on it a long time. They were getting it cut up like it is supposed to be. They salted it real good and put it on this table. Well, the room is built right on the edge of the porch, the back porch. And mine and Denvil’s bedroom was right again that wall.

Mike: Where was this, up on Buffalo?

Damon: Up on Buffalo. In other words, I was sleeping right against the wall, and on the other side of the wall this meat was stored on that table. The whole hog it would be…never eat a slice of it, see. The whole entire hog was there on it. So along in about the middle of the night, something woke me. I was about 5 or 6 years old. And when I woke up, I could hear them pulling that meat off the table. Big hams and shoulders and stuff and taking out of the door, of the meat house on the porch, see. They carried that entire hog away that night. The next morning when we got up, why I jumped up and went in the kitchen. Well, you see when you went out the kitchen, you went out on the back porch right close—went right in that meat house. I run in the kitchen, and Mom had her butcher knife and big old dish pan. She was going out there to cut some of that fresh meat for breakfast, see. And I asked her what she was going to do, and she said told me. And I told her, “There ain’t no meat out there. Somebody stole it all last night.” She told me I was dreaming, see. And they lit the lantern and went out the back door and opened the meat house door. There wasn’t a thing there. They stole the entire hog, every bit of it. Took it all.

03:09

Mae: Tell about the hog and your mother and the dog that caught the hog.

Damon: Oh, no, Mae.

Mae: Oh, yeah, tell her about that and then the other one about Denvil working at school…do that and the other….and about your Grandma Mullins that went sangin’ [ginseng hunting], and all that.

Mike: That one is too long. We will get it later.

Damon: The time the people stole the hog, that was end of the hog stuff. We didn’t have any more hogs. Not for that winter.

• Damon and Bertha feeding the hog

• Bertha inadvertently “riding” the hog

00:00 [DEWv5: Feeding hog; Bertha inadvertently “riding” it (00:00-02:45)]

Damon: Back in those days and times, you didn’t keep you hogs on the farm and feed them through the summer. You put them out in the woods. They would eat off the mask [mast] in the woods: acorns, hickory nuts, and all that sort of thing. But you had to go out and feed them every so often, or they would go wild. So, we went out. It was mine and Mom’s time to go out and check the hogs. So, she took a bucket of corn, there was so much corn. We had a big ole collie dog. He went with us

So, the big mother hog, the big sow hog had a bell on. We could very faintly hear that bell, and we kept going closer and closer. As we got to it, that big ole hog had its front leg through that bell collar. It was just walking on three legs, and this leg was through that collar someway. It couldn’t get its leg out of that collar. Right up on the side of the mountain. So, Mom called the dog and said for him to catch that hog and hold it. Well, he really knew how to catch the hog. It would catch it and lay it right down on the ground, see, and hold it. He would catch it right in the mouth [Damon was using hand gestures to show Mike how] He would put it right down on the ground, and it would squeal and carry on and everything else, but it couldn’t move. It couldn’t get up.

So, Mom jumped on top of the hog, straddled the hog trying to get that bell collar loose, see. And then the dog let the hog loose. Down the mountain went Mom and the hog. She couldn’t get off and the hog…brush about beat her to death, see. The hog was just running on three legs. And boy she got drug off it after a while. We got on down the hill, and she called the dog and told it to catch it again. He caught it that time. She really laid that dog out good. She said, “I mean for you to hold that hog.” And he held it that time and she got that bell collar loose and got its foot out, see, and put it back on. We got almost home on our journey back to the house when she said, “Now you aren’t going to tell your dad about that are you?” I said, “No way!”

[So much laughing!!] But he said he knew it somehow.

02:45

Mae: Wasn’t there something about a snake…a snake that you and her were out one time…that you told me. And she did something…?

• Rheuhamey Mullins recollections by Damon

• Nathan & Juditha Workman recollections

• Nathan’s house

• Nathan & Juditha’s family

• Recollections of Grandma Juditha, by Damon

• Living in the log house

• Juditha’s death; other family history

• Workman family history; life in Enoch & Robinson areas

• Robinson Creek area

• Holly lived in Maysel before moving to Florida

00:00 [DEWv8: Rheuhamey Mullins recollections by Damon (00:00-02:08)]

Damon: I would say Grandpa [Mullins] was 20 or 21 when Mom was born.

Mike: She was the oldest in the family?

Damon: Yeah, then Pat.

00:17

But anyway, see Grandpa would have been about 78 or something like that...if he had been 20 years old when mom was born. Well, I can remember a sittin’ on his mother’s lap. That would have been Grandma Mullin’s mother. Now you think when she was born….

Mike: Would that have been Rheuhamey?

Damon: Yeah, Rheuhamey. And I would say she would have been born at least 20 years before…

Mike: Mike inserted that he knew that they had it documented somewhere how old she was. [Sidenote: According to the best records available, Rheuhamey was born February 10, 1849

Damon: And she had a pipe, smoked a pipe. I can remember that. But now I can only remember very, very sketchy things of it. Because I know they put new pants or shorts on me, they dressed me up. In other words, hard telling what I had on, you know. But I couldn’t have been but 4 years old or something. But I can remember sitting on her lap.

02:08 [DEWv8: Nathan & Juditha Workman recollections by Damon (02:08-05:24)]

Mike: I can remember Nathan Workman.

Damon: Yeah, this is on the Mullin’s side see.

Mike: Yeah, your grandfather, my great grandfather.

Damon: He died in…Grandpa Workman didn’t die until ’58 or ’59. [Actually, it was August 21, 1961] See you would have been 10 years old or so.

Mike: I can remember going over to that place, that old homestead. What do you remember about him?

Damon: Grandpa Workman? We used to go to his house and visit with him. Grandma was always good to the kids. She never said “no” to you…she was real quiet and everything. But she was always good to kids.

Mike: Now her name was Juditha?

Damon: Juditha! But Grandpa was kinda like the old Indian. He would plow Juditha’s garden, and his work was done for the summer. She did the planting and the harvesting and all that. That was just kinda the way it was, you know. That was a women’s work, the man done his work. So happened he didn’t do too much. [In Holly Workman’s account about his parents, he made the point that Juditha didn’t want anyone else working in her garden.]

Mike: What kind of man was he? Quiet man?

Damon: Oh yeah, yeah! Studied his Bible a lot and sat on the porch. He always had a lot of quotes out of the Bible. Of course, I didn’t know anything about anything or what he was doing. But he...he traded quite a bit you know. I don’t know if he made any money at trading. I can remember him coming up to Line Creek one time and getting a job cutting post timber. That was really the only work I remember. But I could have missed a lot that I didn’t know.

Mike: Now where that old house was, is that land that they had a garden on?

Damon: Oh, yeah, they gardened every bit of it. I cannot remember why those old timers back there didn’t hunt up a better piece of land. If it didn’t cost anything back then. Of course, they would settle on account of water…maybe find a good spring. Or a good place to hunt. I wonder sometimes what caused them to settle in certain areas, you know. And then they wanted to get back out of other people’s way, you know. They move back 15, 20 mile back in the woods.

05:24 [DEWv8: Nathan’s house (05:24-07:42)]

Mike: Was that house pretty much the way it is now when they were living there?

Damon: No, that old house I cannot remember that much about it, but they had some kind of weather boarding on it. Anyway, they had remodeled it and put, maybe if I am thinking right, strips up and down the outside of it. And then put weather boarding or some kind of board on it. And, then the people that went in there to restore it, they were in the family you know. Now I believe Kenneth O’Brien and some of them really went in there—that would be Daddy’s sister’s boy. And they tore all that off it. See, they wanted to get back to the original look on the outside as they could. Fixed all of them big old stones up under it good. But the bad thing about it, we went up there one time. That is something you really don’t notice when…but we went up there and it looked real good. I believe me and Doyle and my family and his family, believe that’s who went. I took a roll of film, you know. Came home and sent the pictures off and got them back.

06:67

An old lawn mower, old gasoline lawn mower, was in every picture. Didn’t even notice it when I was taking the pictures. You didn’t notice it then, but honest to goodness, got them pictures back and boy I wanted all that old scenery and everything. And I declare if right there didn’t set a lawn mower…right there on the floor. In every picture! I didn’t see that lawn mower when I was taking the pictures. Boy, it stuck out though. I bet you I have some of them out here, got the lawn mower in them.

07:42 [DEWv8: Nathan & Juditha’s family (07:42-10:38)]

Mike: Now they had how many kids? Thirteen?

Damon: Thirteen. And all of them was home at one time. You think of fathering 13 or mothering 13 kids. That’s what they tell me, and that they were all living. Every one of them was living; and their mother and father had never seen them all together but one time. That what they’ve…that’s what I’ve heard. [He might have been referring to a photo of all of them together.]

Mike: Now there is a picture. I got one. You’ve got one, too. All of them together.

Damon: All of them there.

Mike: Who was the oldest?

Damon: Aunt Idy [Ida}. She lived to be 102. She died here a couple of summers ago.

Mike: Where was Grandpa Walter?

Damon: Second. Yeah, he was the second. He was born in 1900, and Aunt Idy was born about 1898, along in there somewhere. See, Grandpa Workman was about the same age as Grandpa Mullins.

Mike: There are only two of them living now, right?

Damon: No, there’s Holly and Alton and...there is another, Alta Brady. She’s living. But I believe that is all of them. Alton, Lord, I wouldn’t have any idea how old is? I went to see him one time and that’s been years ago. I mean he was a powerful old man then. I don’t even know how they come in age, but Aunt Idy was the oldest and then Daddy. And then I would say probably…I don’t which…maybe a girl and then Alton.

Mike: And Alton is still living?

Damon: Yeah, I mean he wasn’t at the bottom of the family he was way up in it. He was way up in the family.

Mike: He has got to be in his 90’s anyway?

Damon: Alton’s got kids as old as I am or maybe older than I am. See, I am 74. Of course, he still could be 94 or 95 and have kids twenty years old, you know. But he has kids as old as me.

10:38 [DEWv8: Recollections of Grandma Juditha, by Damon (10:38-15:19)]

Mike: What do you remember about Juditha?

Damon: Grandma Workman was a real, real quiet person. Well, I mean around us. She might have been fiery when she was stirred up. But she was always very gentle and loving around the kids, that I could remember. We would go there and expect to get the very best treatment. Now she did not have much to give you. But she was good to you. I remember going there one time…she was a big ole tall, skinny…she was skinnier than a broom handle, you know. She made me a pair of mittens. They put that wool…they had those big old spinning wheels, you know. Made that wool into strings and rolled it up and then knitted it back into whatever, scarf or whatever. But she made me a pair of mittens. And I went back a long time after that to stay there, and I thought I might get her to make me another pair of mittens, see. She had broken her hand. She couldn’t make any more mittens.

12:20

She had a cow. That cow switched its tail around and smacked her right in the face. She hit that cow right in the side of her head with her fist and broke her hand. And she just got up and set her bucket down and just walked away.

Mike: She must have been…well with Grandpa being the oldest or next to the oldest, she must have been old then when you….

Damon: No, she worked a big garden and hoed. Now, she really took care of Grandpa. You could look back and see she really took care of Grandpa. They didn’t have much, but she would plant his tobacco. Grow it, take it to the barn and hang it up to dry. And tobacco was a pretty particular thing to handle, you know. Certain…all them bottom leaves had sand in them, you know. I do not really know how they did that, but you just used a very choice leaves for the chewing tobacco. I guess smoking tobacco wouldn’t make any difference, if you had a little sand it in. You were just smoking it. But she would dry that tobacco and then she’d lay it out

and sprinkle water on it with molasses in it. Put a little molasses, mix it…sprinkle it with her fingers on that tobacco. Leave it, I cannot remember, two or three days. Sprinkling, if I remember right something like you were getting ready to iron clothes or something. That tobacco would be too brittle to do anything with it until you sprinkled it a little bit. And then the reason she used the molasses—that is the only thing she had I reckon—to make a flavor. And then she plats it when it was damp, you see. Take a big, long piece like that and twist it. Then when you got it all twisted up, you would start again here and plat it. We called it plat, but it really was just twisted. You twisted it down until come here to the end, till you run out. And that is why you started right in the middle, come down there and twist that end real tight. Then you hung it back up and dried, right in that twist. Then he would take his knife and cut him off a piece of chew. He was chooking off, you see? [Damon is laughing, and I cannot get it.] But she took care of all of that. Dried all the beans and all that stuff.

15:19 [DEWv8: Living in the log house (15:19-17:00)]

Mike: Now I know that there is a stream right down below that old house. But there must have been a spring or something?

[Sidebar: As I think back on this recording, I believe Damon and I may not have been talking about the same house. I was thinking it was the log home, but it may have been another house he was talking about.]

Damon: There was a spring…when you went into the front of it there was a spring up that way. I remember. I think I could walk right to it, to where the spring was. But now that house had a kitchen back in its younger days. Of course, I never did see it that way. But the kitchen was built out away from the house. Then, when you got real luxury, you built a shed…a breezeway out from the house (I don’t know what it was called back then). Then the women folk could go from the house to the kitchen without going through the snow. That is when you got up in a little luxurious living, see. And they’d get up of the morning and the wife would go to that kitchen and build a fire, cook breakfast.

16:29

Mike: That is about all they did was cook?

Damon: Yep, and the men folk according to what they had been fed, company and anything they had a parlor. They sat in there and drank their…. I never really did know Grandpa Workman ever doing that, but historically back there they drank their drinks and smoked your tobaccos and so forth. Wouldn’t bother the women.

17:00 [DEWv8: Juditha’s death; other family history (17:00-21:37)]

Mike: Now when did she die?

Damon: Juditha died the same night that …let me think just minute and I will tell you when she died. She died about two nights about before Brenford was born. I remember Dale and Betty lived down below Montgomery, way down in there next to, can’t think of the name of the little town they lived in down in there. Marmet. Somewhere down in that section. And Dale took Betty to the hospital, and Brenford was born. He got his picture. You know how they do that with a newborn. And he was up there the morning that grandma was buried, and he was showing everybody the picture of his new baby. [Juditha died January 21, 1965.]

Mike: I do remember one time going over to that house and Dale was there, and you may have been there, and I was sitting outside talking. I would have been just about in college at that time. That may have just about been the time that Brenford….

Damon: That may have been what you were there for.

Mike: That may have been why I was there.

Damon: Now, see she died quite a while after Grandpa did. I was living down in Bentree when Grandpa Workman died. Gosh, we lived right here. I cannot get the date right off (I have it wrote down in there, of course), but we bought a new refrigerator. Sears and Roebuck delivered us a new refrigerator. I went to work that morning, and when I got to the plant somebody from over in that area told me that Grandma Workman had died. Well, you got paid for three days for being off to attend your grandparents, or your dad, or brother or sister, immediate family. So, I could work or come home either one. I could come back home and get paid for it I just caught the return bus coming back bringing the midnight shift back, you see. Rode it back up to Fayetteville. Got off and come out here. Sears and Roebuck delivered us a new refrigerator that day. We bought it was coming that day. So, I remember that real well.

19:46

Mike: Where were they buried?

Damon: Right there on top of that…you know where that old house is. You are looking at that house from out at the road. You go to the left, up there and there is enough room to turn around. Pretty nice little cemetery there.

Mike: Do they have markers up there?

Damon: Oh, yeah! Eugene used to go up there and mow. Eugene spent great big percent of his life right there in that cemetery mowing and cleaning and keeping that cemetery up. If it hadn’t been for him, I don’t know what might happened. But I know he really spent a lot of time up there.

Mike: Now there must be others up there besides Workman’s?

Damon: Oh, yeah! There were a lot of people, families, and different people that I didn’t even know. I went through there and looked at a lot of their names. It’s called old Hamrick Cemetery. I believe that’s what it is. You see Grandma was a Hamrick. Now Grandpa Workman, I don’t even know where his home was. Grandpa Workman didn’t have a very big family. And if I am thinking right, now that is when you could have gone back, and Grandma could have told you all about it. But that kind of stuff is done left now. There wasn’t nobody ask, I don’t guess. Unless Bernice might answer a few things like that. She might tell you a few things.

21:37 [DEWv8: Workman family history; life in Enoch & Robinson areas (21:37-26:00)]

Mike: Bernice?

Damon: That is Eugene’s widow. She is about my age.

Mike: I was thinking from this one book that Doyle has, that Wyoming County or someplace down in there, that somebody came from that area.

Damon: Well, I think the Workman’s came up, you see around…down in that section. There are a lot of Workman’s down in there, and one of them stayed off down in there. And I believe that as the story goes (now this is way I am thinking) that one come on up Elk River and out there to about the mouth of Birch. And he settled in there. Now I believe that is right. And Grandpa had one brother. Maybe he didn’t even have no family. He didn’t raise a family. So, there wasn’t any cousins or uncles out of that family at all. And one of them, I think he had a sister. I don’t believe Grandpa Workman (now I could be wrong and very possibly I just don’t know) but I don’t believe that. In other words, Daddy and Eugene and Holly I don’t think they had very many uncles and aunts and cousins on the Workman side. It was all on the Hamrick. What they had was on the Hamrick’s. But Daddy never did tell us anything about the Workman’s. And you know, what I was saying there about Grandpa. Maybe the right job just never did come along just right for him. But you know, Daddy was a good worker. Holly, those kids down the line you could just name just any of them and they were excellent workers. I mean they was hustler workers, you know. And Grandpa didn’t just get much excited about it.

Mike: Well, maybe you saw him when he was…

Damon: When he was relaxed. That is very possible, too. But I can remember going back there, that was one of our favorite places to go.

Mike: Now, you would have had a car by then, right?

Damon: Not when we first started going there, no. When we lived up on Buffalo.

Mike: How would you get there?

Damon: Walked. We walked up there. Mom would go with us, and we would go up there. I don’t know how they corresponded. Think about them writing letters, but I don’t know how they did. But anyway, they’d knowed when we was coming. And Mom would walk up there with us. A couple of us, maybe me and Freda and Dale or something and leave us and her or Dad would come back and get us. Just walking.

Mike: How far is it?

Damon: It was a long walk buddy. To walk up there and back in a day was a long walk.

Mike: I would have to look at a map, but my goodness that has to be 15 miles anyway, isn’t it?

Damon: I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t, yeah. You see by the time you, if you walked up…we would go up Hamrick’s Run and cut across the hill and come out over on Dog Run. Then you went to Enoch, up Dog Run. Then you’d cut back around the hill and come around, and that is where that old Hamrick place was. Then on off that mountain, Robinson, where Grandpa lived when we were kids. You see he didn’t live up on that hill when we were kids, see he lived in Robinson ‘bout all the time. That is one reason we liked to go there because we could play in the creek. That Robinson was pretty good size…little...but you would have to go in swimming, fishing, and all that.

26:00 [DEWv8: Robinson Creek area (26:00-26:40)]

Mike: What is the name of that little creek there were reunion is held?

Damon: That is on Robinson. Dumps into Buffalo Creek right down below it.

Mike: Because my boys, they were asking if we were going to go over there and get in that creek.

Damon: Oh yeah, Eddie’s boys used to like to go up there and get in that creek. Wasn’t anything up there to make it dirty, I guess. It was always cold. Oh, I been in that creek years and years ago, but it seems to me it was always cold, that Robinson was.

26:40 [DEWv8: Holly lived in Maysel before moving to Florida (26:40-28:06)]

Mike: Where did Holly live before he moved down there to Florida?

Damon: He lived out at Maysel. Holly and Mary Belle lived out…went right out to top of Maysel Hill and then turn on a little dirt road. Right up there a little piece is where they lived. Then they lived there awhile, and then they moved on down by the main road, by Route 4. They built a brick house down there. Pretty nice house. Then it had some fire damage and they remodeled it and rebuilt it. His daughter-in-law, I am sure it is straightest story, their son was old enough, was married and the daughter-in-law had a car. And where you would come into the house, you would come in the garage in the back. Looking at it from the road, it looked like it was all house. She pulled her car into the garage and got out—came into the house and her car caught on fire. Course, when the car caught on fire it wasn’t long until the house was on fire.

28:06

• Civil War events in Gauley Bridge

00:00 [DEWv9: Civil War events in Gauley Bridge (00:00-02:34)]

Damon: Back during the Civil War, the south moved up here, you see; they didn’t have too much power. They knew the north, down at Gauley Bridge, had a pretty good-sized army that moved in there from Ohio. So, they took a canon and went up that road you are talking about and down that ridge. Went all the way down that ridge like to the where they could see right down to Gauley Bridge. Like I said, they was small and lot weaker. So, they went down there and blowed that bridge up. They just hid that canon and high tailed it out of there and left it down there. There have been people come in there and hunted for that canon for years and years. I don’t guess they never did find it. Did you ever go up there and hunt for it, Mike?

Mike: No!

Damon: You heard the story, though, right?

Mike: I heard the story.

Damon: People brought in metal detectors, after they had those. I even talked to a fella one time, an old man, I cannot think what his name was. Buckshot would know what that old man’s name was. I think he lived around there, around in that hollow from Buckshot. Said when he was a kid that him and his dad or granddad, one of them, went down there. He showed him a wheel on that canon. It was all covered up but one wheel. But I kinda think maybe that fella seen something else. But now the story went they pulled that canon down there with a horse, just inching it along, see. Got it down there and got it set up and zeroed in. Then they shot that bridge out, right there in Gauley Bridge. And then they high tailed it out of there. They left the canon there and came out. Come back up that ridge and back off there where they were working on that house back up next to Fayetteville, you see. Then when the north did come in here, the only thing that was keeping the north out was that river, that mountain down here. That old lady told me that they had a watch down there, a man they called a watch. He rode his horse right up through here and hollered “the Yankees are coming”. Everyone was expecting it, you see. And the women and the kids all stayed at home and the men headed for the woods.

02:34