Matewan Oral History Project Collection
Sc2003-135

John McCoy Interview

John Hennen: It's May 31, 1989. This is John Hennen conducting interview number one for The Matewan Development Commission, or "Center" Oral History Project. I'll be interviewing Mr. John McCoy of Matewan, West Virginia, a long time resident and retired business man. We're in Mr. McCoy's apartment in the McCoy building on Main (Mate) Street in Matewan, WV. Okay, Mr. McCoy we'll begin with just some background on you and your time here in Matewan. When and where were you born sir?

John McCoy: Here.

J: In Matewan?

JM: Uh-huh.

J: In the town itself, or in the county?

JM: Well, about a mile up the road it was...this is now...it's now in a jurisdiction of the town. But, back in then it was a rural district. It's up on the creek up here.

J: Is that Mate Creek?

JM: No, no, uh...Sulphur Creek.

J: And when was...what date was that?

JM: The day I was born?

J: Yeah.

JM: The 23rd day of March 1913.

J: 1913. Okay. Had your family been in this area? uh, for a while before that?

JM: Well, my father's people, they're originally the McCoys of the Hatfield and McCoy feud.

J: Uh-huh.

JM: They were born on, up here on Blackberry Creek. Raised there.

J: Your mother also from...

JM: No, my mother is from Logan County. She was a Buskirk.

J: I see. Uh...your fathers connection to the, to the McCoy Clan, was that, can you take it back to another generation, or so?

JM: No, I can't as far as the...just the McCoys, I know that uh... Uncle Kay, my daddy's uncle, why he lived here all his life. My grandpa, he lived here all his life, well he, in the early 1900's he moved to Fort Gay, West Virginia.

J: Uh-huh. Okay. Did you have brothers and sisters?

JM: I have four brothers, three brothers, and seven sisters.

J: Are any of them living, or...?

JM: Well yeah, my three, youngest brother, and three, two younger sister, and my oldest sister is living now.

J: What sort of occupation were your parents involved in?

JM: Well, my father was a retired businessman all his uh...in the early '20's, he was....before the prohibition come in he was a saloonkeeper across the river here in Kentucky.

J: Okay. Now was that...the only saloon, I'm familiar with is the Blue Goose, was that the one or was there another one?

JM: Yeah, the Blue Goose.

J: Okay.

JM: And my daddy, he kept that uh...Uncle Bob Buskirk died in 1918, and his widow sold the business to my dad in 1918. Now, he kept it 'til the prohibition come in the '20's and he went out of business. And, of course he never did do anything after that.

J: So, he retired after that?

JM: He retired after that.

J: Was this the Buskirk that owned the Blue Goose? was that your ...was that a grandfather of yours?

JM: Well, he...he was a great uncle of mine, my mother's daddy's brother.

J: I see. Did you attend local schools when you were growing up?

JM: Here at Magnolia High School, yeah. In fact, we were...our class was the one that changed it from Matewan High School to Magnolia High School. Because, we took care of the whole district, Magnolia District at that time, and we didn't...instead of being the Matewan High School, we wanted the whole district to have the name of the school, you see.

J: How about elementary school, where was, do you remember where the elementary was that you attended?

JM: Yeah, it's uh...you know where the high school, the old high school is up here now?

J: Right, the old school.

JM: Well, right down below there on the left hand side of the road was a big wooden building, it had four rooms upstairs and four classrooms downstairs.

J: Uh-huh.

JM: And, that was the grade school that I went to at that time. With the...the uh use of the Matewan big building, the high school building not the present building the one down below that one. That they're tearing down, or I guess it's torn down by now.

J: Uh-huh.

JM: And uh...they had classroom, grade school in that. In fact, I went to the...through the sixth grade there and into that building then.

J: So, you would roughly attended elementary school between 1920 and 1927 or 8 something like that?

JM: Yeah.

J: Okay. Uh...

JM: I went into high school 1928.

J: Uh-huh. Did you proceed with your education after high school?

JM: I went one semester at Bluefield College.

J: And then after that semester did you return to Matewan?

JM: I come back home, uh-huh.

J: And what uh, what business did you take up or uh...?

JM: Well, I went to work for Burt Shannon selling groceries, or peddling groceries, you can say.

J: Now did he have a store, or did you work....?

JM: He had a store and worked out of a truck, too. He had the store downstairs here.

J: Uh-huh.

JM: And uh, his son, who I worked for, had the truck on...store on wheels, we went up these creeks and peddled groceries.

J: Did you get, where did you get your produce from, local folks?

JM: Biggest part of it, we went to Huntington and picked it up.

J: At the farmers' market there?

JM: Well, yeah. At the end of sixth street, uh...market there. Used to be a market down 'fore you go across the bridge there, in Ohio (bridge crosses to Ohio). Used to be big market down there.

J: Now Mr. Shannon's store was in this building?

JM: Yeah, originally he started this building in 1927.

J: Okay.

JM: This building was started sometime in uh...'25 or' 26 and wudn't completed until, '27. Mr. Shannon moved in with the downstairs in 1927, I believe it was. I'm pretty sure it was 1927.

J: Was there a building on this site before?

JM: It burnt down in uh...this is the old...originally what they call the old Dew Drop Inn. It was on this property, and it burnt down,in the sometime uh...oh...I believe it was '20 or '25 I believe it was. 1925 is when we had the big fire here, yeah.

J: So, was it a frame or a brick structure?

JM: Frame, frame structure. And, my dad built it back, which is the present time building here now.

J: Did your father own the building which burned also, or did he...?

JM: Yeah, yeah.

J: Do you have any idea when that building was built?

JM: No, I don't have the least idea.

J: Un-huh. Okay, how long did you, oh excuse me..

JM: It was bought from my uh.. mother's sister's children, the Hamiltons, Uncle John Hamilton owned it at that time, his children, owned it, at that time.

J: Did you stay in the grocery business then for a while?

JM: Well, about uh...I believe it was 1938...I went into theater business. I stayed in that 'til around '40. And from then I went into the mines for D. H. Prichard Contractors and Island Creek Coal Company, I stayed in that until, well, in fact, I stayed in that until 1951.

J: Uh-huh. So you were a miner?

JM: Yeah.

J: Different jobs...?

JM: But, not at heart...not at heart, but I was a coal miner at one time, yeah.

J: Uh-huh. So, you...you operated the movie theater here in town?

JM: Yeah.

J: Where was that located?

JM: Well, I didn't, uh...I operated the theater when uh...it's there where Ibos's store is there now. I don't know whether she calls it Ibos's now or not, but right across from the Matewan Center there, from you all are, across the street there.

J: Okay. And you got in that business in the late '30's you said.

JM: Well...

J: In the movies?

JM: I got to runnin'...my brother-in-law owned it. Frank Allara owned the Matewan...and uh...and I worked for Frank and went to high school at the same time. I run the projectors at night and uh...went to school through the day time.

J: Uh-huh. Mr. Allara was very active in the community.

JM: Yeah, sure, until his stroke that he had, he was very active.

J: That brings up a very interesting point to me, I didn't realize that you were involved in that business. Was movies, were the movies a pretty...pretty big recreation in Matewan in the '30's and '40's?

JM: Well, it was the only, about the only recreation you had in the '30's and '40's. In fact uh...it uh...I don't...the movie we had to start with burnt down in about nineteen and twenty-five. Down under the old bus terminal lot down there. And it burnt in about 1925; when they built it again they; built it up where it is at the present time, the building is, at that time.

J: Well...

JM: A fellow...a fellow by the name of Tom Carroll owned it at that time, and Frank bought it. Frank and Terry Hope bought it from Tom Carroll, at that time.

J: So, when you were, when you were a kid in Matewan and there was a movie, a movie theater, there was a movie theater?

JM: A silent movie, yeah, yeah. A silent movie, yeah. We uh.. after the movie burnt down we went to Red Jacket, run to Red Jacket every time we wanted to see a movie we'd run up there, it was only about three miles, three and a half. We'd run up there and run back.

J: You say run, did you have vehicles or did you just...?

JM: We just run, ran it, just got out and dogged it up there.

J: Uh-huh. How much did it cost you to get into a movie in those days?

JM: Ah, about a quarter. But, down here when, 'fore, when that... before the movie burnt down, Tom Carroll used to let me in free just to hear me laugh in there, it was a silent movie you know, and it seemed that liked everything tickled me at that time.

J: Yeah.

JM: Well, still everything is funny tickles me yet, you see.

J: Your laughing is good for business?

JM: Yeah, oh yeah. Gave him a..idea to let me come free in order to keep the, the, the, uh...customers satisfied, you know.

J: Yeah. Good marketing.

JM: Yeah, sure was.

J: Now, I've been informed that you uh...were the manager, or the owner of the bus station at one time?

JM: I was the owner of the bus station. I still own that property out there.

J: Uh-huh. And when, uh... when were you involved in that business?

JM: Well, uh...I come over here in uh...'53 I believe it was. In 1936 I went to Delbarton, and I started running the theater over there for Frank and Terry. And, uh...after uh...oh, after the war uh.. well '39 I guess it was or '40 I left Frank and I's getting ready, I had to go to service, you know, after the '41 bombing of Pearl Harbor. And, I took off and went to uh...doing uh...other work in the grocery field, and things. I worked for Dewey Hatfield Wholesale Company over here for a while. I just done, just about a little bit of everything, and uh...after the war why, I went over to Delbarton. I have three children that...they was all educated, my wife seen that they got education at Marshall, big...?

J: Uh-hum.

JM: One's a doctorate. Head of the...he's second in command of the National Resource Department in Charleston at now.

J: And his name?

JM: Ely. E. L. McCoy.

J: Uh-huh.

JM: And uh... Tommy is a teacher down here at the high school. And, he has a master's degree. Ely has a doctor's degree and my daughter she lives in uh...lives, Hezebeth Georgia, and she has a master's degree also. She's teaching school there.

J: And they all three went to Marshall?

JM: Yeah. All graduated from Marshall. And, Ely got his doctors degree at uh...University of Louisville.

J: Uh-huh. When did you marry?

JM: When did I marry?

J: Uh-huh.

JM: 1938.

J: And, is your wife deceased or...

JM: Yeah.

J: And her name was?

JM: Quinnie C. McCoy. Quinnie Curry McCoy.

J: Now, I'm a little confused; were you in the service during World War II?

JM: Yeah.

J: Okay. And were, did you enlist or were you a draftee or...?

JM: Well, I guess...I enlisted 'cause I had two friends that went into Naval Aviation and they come back here to...right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Oh...they had their Navy uniforms on and I wanted Navy blue, wanted to wear Navy blue. Well, I always did want to go on in the Navy, because when I was a kid, my brother and I, we wore little Navy suits, at that time. And we always were pretty partial towards the Navy at all times. Jim uh...Jim Chambers and uh...Paul Hoskins were both, we all connected with Hoskins and Chambers family here in Matewan for years, well all their life, and they were the two Naval cadets that came back, you know, showing off their uniforms and everything right after the, well the '40, I guess in '42. And, it gave me a little more inspiration of joining the service. So, I took my preference, I took the Navy instead of the Army. But, actually I was bein' run through draft board. But not...I did it because, I told them to take me, you know, at that time. I just had the one kid anyway. And uh... Ely he was born when I was over in the Philippines. Tommy wudn't born until 1951.

J: Uh-huh.

JM: So...

J: So, you were stationed in the South Pacific uh...?

JM: Well, I started off with my Naval Career at uh...Great Lake Naval Training Station. In fact, I went in one day and Johnny Mize went in the next day. I guess you remember Johnny Mize?

J: The ballplayer?

JM: Yeah.

J: Yeah.

JM: And uh...we went in there at the same time. And uh...I went from the Great Lakes Naval Air Station to the hospital compound there at the Great Lakes Naval Air Station. Then I went from the hospital compound,I come out to Tan Feran,(?) a race track in California. And while there they uh...well no...I went from Tan Feran to, I'm getting a little ahead of myself. What I meant to say I went from uh... Great Lakes Hospital Compound to the uh... Naval Training Station at uh...oh Farragat, Idaho. And after graduating from shore patrol school there at Farragat, Idaho I went to Charleston, South Carolina. And then from Charleston, South Carolina I went to Tan Feran or San Jose whatever they want to call it now. It's a, Tan Feran race track area where we settled at. And then from there to the ah...there was another Naval Air Station right around there. I went to...I can't think of what the name of it is now, I'll tell you later.

J: Okay.

JM: But uh...then I went from there to the Philippines. And I stayed there practically all of ah...about ten months, I'd say it was about ten months I was in the Philippines. And left there in December of uh...'45, come back to Portland, Oregon where I was discharged. I wudn't discharged at Portland, I was sent from Portland to Bainbridge, Maryland for discharge.

J: And then you came back to Matewan?

JM: Came back to Matewan after I was discharged, yeah...come back to Delbarton. Lived there 'til oh...I lived there all my life, I mean here. But, I lived over there from '36 to '51, I guess it was when I moved back over here; when I came back over here. My wife and I were separated for all those years.

J: After World War II, I know generally in the United States economic times were pretty good. Was that the situation in this area?

JM: Yeah, business was good. Coal was big, the only thing you had here you got the railroad and the coal industry, you see, is the only thing you got in this county.

J: Uh-huh.

JM: And the coal industry is uh... projected itself a lot more in the last 10 to 15 year than it had before. Of course there wudn't too much uh...Island Creek Coal Company was a pretty good size coal company over on this other side of the mountain; and then eventually they in about 1955, something like that, why they come over here and bought Red Jacket Coal Company out.

J: Uh-huh.

JM: And then they started the, of course the employment wudn't so great but, the Red Jacket had so many people overstaffed on their payroll, why, Island Creek cut it down and eventually shut down all of their operations up there. Oh, it was about twelve years and after.

J: They shut down the old Red Jacket operation or...

JM: Shut down 90% of it.

J: Uh-hum.

JM: And the payroll, I'd guess it went uh... off a quite a bit too. Because Red Jacket had so many people doing nothing that it just wudn't feasible for them to try to operate with the people that they had. Old man Ritter he was in the lumber business to start with and W. M. Ritter...W. M. Ritter Lumber Company is still operating now, and their headquarters I think is in Columbus if I'm not mistaken. And uh.. a lot of their Red Jacket employees went with the W. M. Ritter Lumber Company to Columbus, and uh... after, what stayed around here would, uh...they was, eventually, if they didn't ...wudn't belongin' with the Island Creek Coal Company they soon left, gone. Their service wudn't wanted anymore.

J: Getting back again to the immediate postwar period ...uh... you came back. Did most of the young men who left the area and who survived the war return to take up their lives again here?

JM: Oh yeah, yeah... there...you had some that drifted away but some stayed; come back and stayed.

J: And when you...okay, you moved back them from Delbarton in about 1951 and that's when you got involved with the bus station, is that correct?

JM: Yeah I bought the, bought the Matewan bus terminal out at that time. My brother-in-law owned it and I bought it from him.

J: What kind of, what lines service, did you have local lines which connected with the major companies....

JM: Well we had uh... Scott Nichols Bus Company from Matewan to Williamson, and from Matewan to, well it could be from Williamson to Majestic, Kentucky. Oh up the river and uh... of course those buses run to Matewan and then there was a Matewan Transportation Company that took over then. A feller by the name of C. C. Miller owned it originally at that time. And uh...when I, when I come back out of the service here why they, they had built a new building down here of course I wudn't, I wudn't over here at that time, but Charlie Gott from Williamson and uh... and uh.. Mr. Nichols, they built this bus terminal out here and after for a while there, I don't know when it was but uh... Frank Allara and Mr. O'Brien bought it. And uh... Charlie he went back, he went into the pinball business and he went back to Williamson to start running his pinball business.

J: Uh-huh.

JM: Uh... about '52 or '53 I bought uh...'53 I believe it was, I bought uh...the bus terminal from uh...bought it from Earnest Ison. Of course, it still, it was belonged, the stock and everything in there belonged to Frank Allara originally. The building belonged to O'Brien and Frank, and Mrs. Henry Nichols. And after Henry died why Mrs. Nichols, or Mrs. Charles Ferguson she, that's who I bought her share. I bought her share of that property; was three people owned it at that time Frank, and Allan and Mrs., Mrs. Nichols or Ferguson or whatever you want to call her. Katheryn Ferguson I believe it was.

J: I often hear that uh...oh I guess in the mid 50's there was a lot of migration out of areas such as Mingo, uh... to work in industrial centers and people would return on the weekends, now you being in the transportation business is that, was that the case here, a lot of, a lot of business on the weekends in and out of town?

JM: Well yeah. Its' uh.. it was at that time you had a lot of bus traffic into here and it brought a lot of people then but yet, the people from away that went away and worked in the coal mines and went away to work in the factories in Columbus, and Cincinnati, Cleveland, they all eventually come back and some are still drifting back, you know, but the biggest part of them are, well, satisfied where they're located now.

J: Uh-huh.

JM: I had a brother, and two sisters went to Cincinnati of course, they've never come back they've stayed down there all the time.

J: What sort of work did they get involved in?

JM: Well one was a bartender, and the two girls one's a nurse and one's a, she's retired from Scovill Manufacturing Company Forty-three years there as a secretary there at the Scovill Manufacturing Company She retired under the name of American Brass Company.

J: Now, how long then did you stay in the bus, the bus, business?

JM: Well, the 1977 flood worshed (washed) out, I moved the bus terminal up here at John's Place. And the 1977, the flood worshed me out, and in about 1960, '60...something '67, '68 I went into the Ford business. The Hatfield McCoy Ford business.

J: The Ford business?

JM: Ford, yeah.

J: Selling Ford uh...vehicles?

JM: Well I bought the Matewan Company off of L. G. (Elgie ?) Grace. I, me and V. T. Hatfield.

J: So you ran a company called the Hatfield and McCoy Ford Company? [in Matewan, WV]

JM: Yeah Uh-hun. And later we bought the White Motor Company out of Williamson and we took the franchise down to Williamson.

J: Uh-huh. Hmm. That's uh.. an interesting partnership, did you, did you capitalize on the Hatfield and McCoy partnership with you marketing your sales...?

JM: Well...

J: Techniques or anything?

JM: I don't think we went that far with it. We, see the Hatfield and the McCoys, I'm related on both sides of it.

J: Uh-huh.

JM: My daddy's sisters, they married into the Hatfields, and uh...I got a lot of the Hatfields are kin people of mine and up on the creek up here. And the McCoys they, they spreaded out through marriage, you know. Ramey Hatfield up on the creek here, he's my daddy's sister's offspring. Well he's a grandchild of one of them. And uh...the Clays in Williamson, Pond Creek, I've got so many different people or kin people that I wouldn't know; they live around here the bigger part of them are Gooslins'.

J: Uh-huh.

JM: Daddy's oldest sister married Amrose Gooslin and he had a pretty good size family up here on Blackberry Creek.

J: Uh-huh.

JM: I think the biggest part of them except the children they are all deceased now.

J: I'm going to ask you a couple, a few questions at least about some of the more dramatic or I guess significant historical events in the history in the Matewan area, and the one that lends itself currently and that were working on is the uh...is the uh...the uh..events around the socalled "Matewan Massacre". Do you have any personal memory of that time or...?

JM: Well I was seven years old at the time that it happened, nineteen and twenty, and uh...I was just in the school, and I remember when the shooting started uh...my mother took us from the house, we lived in the house right up the street here through the (viaduct), and uh...from there up to the gymnasium at that time was a high school building we went in there, and running up through there, I fell down and skint my knees and elbows and I cried all the day that I was up, time that I was up there in the building. And we come home at dark. The shooting subsided and we came home at dark, and uh...stayed in the house, we wudn't allowed to get out any place, and they next day why we'd go back to school during the daytime when the shooting started again, why we'd go back to school and stay down in the basement of the schoolhouse. And uh...

J: So there was shooting two days, two consecutive days...

JM: Oh there was several days of shooting...(probably referring to shooting from Kentucky side during strike)

J: I see...

JM: The militia come in here and they took up a point right across from our, down below our home there on the mountain over here on this point, its come down right around the curve here...

J: Uh-huh.

JM: The militia went in there on this side and the miners was over here in Kentucky on the other side of McCarr, and they was shooting across there and the bullets come across over high, a little bit higher than the house...

J: Un-huh...

JM: But still, they were coming over our area there of a night, daytime, ya know, and that's the reason we went into the school to stay where the gym was down below ground you know, and just a little cracker box, but it was still the gym to the high school. We would stay there, it would be several, it was several times we went up there not just a one or two times. It was several times, I don't, it was so many times I don't remember how times we did go up there. And uh...I was in grade school at the time and I remember, I'd seen them cross over what we call Stony Mountain side there, where the colored camp is up here now...

J: Uh-huh..

JM: Uh...at, with the Baldwin-Felts was setting those people out of their homes. And my school teacher at that time, it was Lena Downs, she said "you kids can go on home; we're gonna have some trouble " and says "we don't want you to get hurt or anything," so we left school there at that time; And it was a that was a morning. Sometime of the afternoon around four o'clock I believe that the shooting started down town, that's when Cable Testerman was killed. Of course all of those families was closely knitted together at that time, the Hatfields and the Chambers, McCoys, well the McCoys didn't participate in it then or anything, but the Chambers, and Reece Chambers, Ed was participants in it and so was Hallie Chambers and C. W. Overstreet was into that, and Art Williams, a fellow by the name of Bowman, and uh...Charlie Kiser, Ed, Fred Burgraff, and the--Ed Chambers and Sid Hatfield--Sid later, on the first day of the eruption of the strike why Cable Testerman was killed uh...they always said, I've always heard it when I was a kid a growing up that uh...Sid had killed Cable because he wanted his wife. When I--whether that's the truth or not I don't know--but uh...what I'm a telling is just what I was have heard from that the time after it happened.

J: Uh-huh...

JM: I know not, not bein' old enough to be down in town and be running around, I'd only come down with my mother or father, whenever she'd come down shopping through the day or night, why, we'd come down and spend around but not, not to loaf around on the street or anything, we'd have to be inside the store or wherever she'd shopping with, and uh...that uh...grew until the uh...courts down here cleared Chambers's and the Hatfields of any wrong doing down here, but still they went back to McDowell County and indicted those people. And had they told them not to go--that's what would happen--Baldwin-Felts would get them up there and kill them you see. But, old Sid being as stubborn headed as he was he went ahead and talked Ed into going with him, and he and Ed got up there and on the courthouse steps a walkin' up the steps going in from down on the level of business district of Welch to the top of the courthouse set up there was a big flight of steps and they was going up those steps and they were gunned down. And I think that happened about uh...September or October of that 1920. [August 1921]

J: Do you remember much of the reaction in town here when that happened?

JM: No...

J: When it got back?

JM: No, I don't really know, really that much because my mother wouldn't let us children out of the house at that time.

J: Uh-huh...

JM: The three, three youngest brothers and sisters, three youngest brother and uh...well uh...yeah Jim was born in September of 1920 and the girls was born in '23 and '25 oh...the rest of us had to stay at home at all times you know, and after; we wudn't allowed to get until after they had, the strike was settled and all the shooting was secured and everything that they'd they didn't think that we were taking any chances by going out, why, then we could go we went back to town. We never was allowed to get out and loaf around like that, we had to stay there in the yard the biggest part of the time.

J: Mr. McCoy I...I understand that at one time you were involved while you were running the bus station? At the same time, uh...?

JM: Well, it, that's when I started it in 1953, I believe it was. Then in nineteen and sixty, uh...'63 or '64 why I moved downstairs here and just called it John's Place. Then I, and I had a restaurant there until the flood in 1977 destroyed it, and I never did put it back in, after a few years my son he got to working down there and put it in and opened it back up, but uh... I only had the equipment in there and not anything else that I had in there.

J: Yeah, is that the Chatterbox now?

JM: Yeah. They just changed that since, since last October or someplace to Chatterbox. But way back in, in the early '40's that was the original name of it the Chatterbox, when James Gobel had it. These people they just opened it up here in October and bought it out in October from Edwin Kiser and they had used the name of Chatterbox instead of callin' it John's Place.

J: Uh-huh. Was this a, when you operated, was it like a lunchstand or family restaurant?

JM: Well, it just mostly, I was a not what you call a restaurant, it was a sandwich, you'd buy sandwiches and soups is all the thing I had. I wouldn't, and I'd have breakfast you know for 'em, and sandwiches and soups through the noon hour, you know I didn't go into the family restaurants like they use, what they have at the present time.

J: Now, one woman [Yvonne DeHart] told me that her husband said that he grew up in your restaurant. Now was this sort of a gathering place for the young kids in town or, or the community people?

JM: Well it was the only place at that time, yeah...

J: The only restaurant around?

JM: Yeah. Well uh...I don't know who it was unless it was uh...uh...can't think of what Pat, Patsy's, Patsy Hat...Patsy uh...what is her name? Ernest Hatfield's daughter. Her son's, that's the only thing, only was that I knew would say that but, uh...he, he, he's wudn't him, Ernest Hatfield's grandchildren who they were that stayed there the biggest part of the time, they ate there. And the, Hub Cline, his two children, they, those boys would eat their breakfast, dinner, or lunch time or whatever you want to call it. They go home at night you see, uh...they didn't have uh...Hub raised them up, certain years until they got in high school why he, Hub and his wife divorced. And Rod and uh...and his brother they always come in there and eat their breakfast and when then after breakfast they'd go back up to school and come back down at noon time, sometimes they would and sometimes they'd just eat at school you know, and of the evening they'd come down and get them a couple of hot dogs or hamburgers or something and they would finish their breakfast and lunch and then they'd go home, they eat at night. They lived over here at Buskirk, Kentucky at that time, but their mother Goldie, I don't know where, she went back to Michigan I believe...

J: Uh-huh...

JM: And they lived there until Hub remarried and they moved down to South Williamson. And uh...Hub was connected with, he was a coal operator, he and his brother John. And they went down Martin County Kentucky. But uh...still he lived at, at that time John lived at Blackberry City, and Hub lived down in South Williamson. And uh... they commuted daily by car when, from here to the mines you know. And they opened up, I'd say that they were what you call the original operators of the Martin County Coal Company down there or whatever you want to call it. They went in and opened up Martin County to begin with, there wudn't any coal mines down there until John and Hub went down there.

J: And...I'm sorry I missed, what was the last name on that...

JM: Cline...

J: Cline. Okay.

JM: C.L.I.N.E.

J: Okay. About what time would that have been that they got into the coal business in Martin County?

JM: Well, they were located, Cline and Chambers, was located across the river at that time, well I come over here and went into the business at '53, so it was uh...about 5 years, I guess '58 that they went down there and opened up Martin County.

J: You have mentioned a couple of times in the course of the interview the effects of the flood in 1977, and that's, that's an a, apparently had a big impact on life in, in Matewan for a while. JM: Well...

J: ...Tell me the circumstances around the flood?

JM: Well, the, when it flooded, the buildings here across the tracks, you know it have to be a pretty big, devastating flood to get that big. And it lacked two foot being to the ceiling down stairs here inside.

J: Of your restaurant?

JM: Yeah, well actually it just destroyed everything. As well as I lost a lot awful, lot of, I didn't lose any real estate, but I lost some uh...homes. I mean I didn't lose any ground but I still got to maintain the ground, but I did lose about six houses during that flood. And destruction of the garage, the Hatfield and McCoy garage. The building belonged to me at that time, but uh...the business belonged to me and Aileen Phillips and Ernest, V. T. Hatfield. But it did have the real devastating effect on the community when we had the flood, not only in Matewan, but all surrounding areas here. It's just one of those things the water, no one ever expected the water to be that high. The biggest water we ever had was in 1917. And I remember being boated out of our place across, up above there, the old home place that we lived in and, we went over here on Stony Mountain side and stayed with Uncle Bob Buskirk, and his, Bob Compton not Buskirk, Uncle Bob Compton and Aunt Rhody (Rhoda) Compton. (pronounced as if spelled "Cumpton")

J: And that was in '17.

JM: 1917, yeah. I was about four years old, of course I remember staying over there with Uncle Bob and Aunt Rhody (Rhoda), just as well as staying at home that.

J: Yeah.

JM: I remember that.

J: And how did that one, there, in your memory compare with '77, '77 flood...

JM: Oh, it was nothing, nothing compared to '77. All that up the other side of the viadoct (viaduct) was a lowlying community. I don't, as far as the '77, I'd say that it didn't even get up, up until '77 it didn't even get up over the sidewalks here.

J: Uh-huh...And then it got to the ceiling...

JM: Yeah.

J: What do you recall about the, you, you said nobody expected the water to get that high. Was it a flash flood or had it rained for several days and you were expecting some flooding or you just weren't prepared for what....?

JM: Well, back in 1917 it uh...down at the tunnel, they said that the debris and stuff that's going down the river made, it formed a dam and caused the water to rise so high up this way, up above the bridge in the Matewan area and everything. But uh...that, that was a time well I was only four years old so I don't know too much about it at that time other than being taken from our home up here and we went over to Uncle Bob Buskirk's, uh...Bob Compton's place home over there on the Stony Mountain side and stayed there for three or four days. And uh.....

J: I had one question, and I didn't want to interject it while we talking about it earlier but I want, I'll bring it up now just for as a reminder. When you father worked across the river at the Blue Goose uh...did you ever go see him at work, were you ever inside the place?

JM: Yeah, I carried his lunch over to him all the time.

J: What was that place like? I've heard a lot about it.

JM: Well, it, it just was uh...what you'd have, call a bar, it wudn't anything else. Just had bonded liquor in there and uh...I guess they played cards around, I just went in and stayed at the front with, when I took my dad's lunch to him. And uh...couldn't be too awful bad Uncle John Hamilton's people, family lived right on the lower side of it. They didn't have too much trouble over there. The name of the Blue Goose and things I don't know what really, what name they used it back in them days, but the Blue Goose. I didn't thing originated until after the bonded, state went dry, [1913] and they started bootlegging there. And I thought that was when originally...when the Blue Goose come into effect there. But...

J: So they started uh...would they still have access to like hoarded liquor or did they sell moon.., sell home, homebrew uh...?

JM: Well it would be, I would say uh...up until the state went dry we went to Cattlettsburg and boated the river, oh..liquor or spirits or whatever you want to call, up to the Blue Goose on barges. And they, they transported the liquor back and forth like that. And then the people up in McDowell County, and those would come down they'd buy their liquor or whatever they wanted, and then the they'd get on the train and go back up McDowell County or up Bluefield or where ever. But uh...after the West Virginia 1920, when the, West Virginia went dry in 1913, Kentucky went dry in 1920. And after Kentucky went dry my daddy, he just got out of the business all together. Because he did it legally, only time that he would do it. He stayed in the business for oh...I don't know 1918 until 1920 and '21 when I believe it was 1921 when they give, the grace period run out on the, to get rid of their bonded whiskey. Of course now, after, after the building, the old Buskirk building over there the Blue Goose building they called it, after still up until oh...I'd say up until sometime in the, well, when Franklin D. Roosevelt, they'd come into power 1934 or '32, about '34 why uh...they had what they call a little beer joint thing in that building, and they sold beer legally over there, well I imagine they bootlegged a little bit too, I don't know, I don't even remember who had it after '32. But it uh...the old building there, Buskirk building it uh...several people had it after my daddy got out of it, I don't know, in fact I don't know who all did have it.

J: Speaking of Franklin Roosevelt in the mid '30's, was there much public works going on in uh...uh...Mingo at that time during the new deal or the Depression era?

JM: Well, I don't remember whether he had a great big uh...program goin' on in this section or not. If he did, I don't remember. The WPA was in effect at that time, that's when they built the first sewer line up the river here toward North Matewan, in that area. They built that back in uh...'32 after '32 when Roosevelt come in, and but, uh...other than that in.....I don't uh...know whether this Matewan Church was built with WPA/labor or not, but uh...I know at that time the boy that built that he, Joe something, I can't think of what his last name is he, he married a Vinciquerra girl, Vinciquerra I guess (pronounced two different ways) and uh...they lived up at Thacker at that time. And he stayed--Joe worked up there and go back home at night--he'd built, they'd built, he built this stone church over here, and I think old man Chris Cananna (?) had something to help him do with cutting the stones. But those, the church wudn't built about 1936, it was uh...originally it was an old uh...wooden frame building that burnt down sometime oh...it had, it had to of burned down after they built this other church, because sometime after 1936 I would say it was.

J: And, and where was the...frame church located?

JM: Right in front of the un...lower, whatever lower or upper end, the main auditorium of the church was built first and then this other classrooms and things down below it was built down after that other place had burnt down. Or it was tore down or burnt down I believe, I don't remember, it burnt down I'm pretty sure it did. I went to Sunday School there when I was a young fellow.

J: And what denomination church is that?

JM: It was a Methodists Church.

J: Methodist.....What other churches were active in the area when you were growing up?

JM: Well, we had--when I was a kid we had--the Baptist, and the Methodist. The only two that I know of, 'course, had four or five branches of the Baptists they call it the Hardshell Baptists, and Freewill Baptists whatever they want to call it, had several names for them. But actually the Baptists and the Methodists was about the only two churches around here at that time.

J: Okay. We've covered a lot of territory uh...appreciate your time and your efforts, I wonder before we wrap this up if there is anything that we haven't talked about that you would like to talk about, something of importance to you personally or uh...the importance of the town that we haven't...haven't discussed that you would like to go into?

JM: Well I don't, I don't know unless somebody starts talking about something I can bring, pick up the subject and take it on, just try to think or go back in memory lane why I, it's pretty hard for me to do right now, being 76 years old it's hard enough, and being crippled too. Little handicapped to get out do anything that I want to do.

J: Okay. I thank you.

JM: Your entirely welcome, if anything that I can do or if anything that I can think, can think of or anything I'd be glad to tell you I can set around here and start reminiscing, why I can pick up a lot of things that I'd probably forgotten about.

Matewan Oral History Project Collection