Matewan Oral History Project Collection
Sc2003-135

"Smokey" Mose Adkin Interview

John Hennen: Check on microphone number one. June sixteenth, 1989. (tape cuts off) Check on microphone #2, Narrator's microp hone. June sixteenth, 1989. This is John Hennen for the Matewan Development Center. I'm preparing to conduct an oral history interview with "Smokey" Mose Adkins of Hampden, West Virginia. It's approximately 3:00 p.m. Uh...the sixteenth is a Friday. (tape cuts off)

J: Okay. Mr. Adkins, just as a way of introduction, could you tell me when and where you were born and something about your uh..family background.

"Smokey" Mose Adkins: Well I was born in...on...in Williamson town. That was when they was first puttin',...my daddy was a uh... bricklayer and he uh...helped make the brick that paved that town and uh..we lived at Lick Creek at that time. Our home was up thair.

J: Okay.

SA: And I was born in Williamson.

J: In what year were you born?

SA: On November the nineteenth, 1900.

J: Okay. And what was your father's name?

SA: Alvin Adkins. Alvin W....Alvin Wicker.

J: And your mother?

SA: Micky Tiller Adkins.

J: Did you have brothers and sisters?

SA: Yes, sir. I had four sisters and one brother.

J: And were they all born in the Williamson area also?

SA: Well, around in the Varney area at...

J: Are any of your brothers and sisters living?

SA: None of them. They're all dead but me.

J: Okay. Now your father was a...a brick mason you say?

SA: Well, he was...he was a helpin' make brick there on the brickyard.

J: Oh. I see.

SA: And he'd lay brick too.

J: Where were his people from? Do you know?

SA: Kentucky.

J: Okay. And...

SA: Ash Camp, Kentucky where he come from.

J: Ash Camp. Okay. Do you have any approximate idea when they moved to West Virginia? Or did they?

SA: Well, when he got...well my grandpa come here first. That's...his name was Steve Adkins and uh...they all come, they...moved here in sleds and come over and come down Pond Creek to Williamson and thair (there) was no bridge in thair then and they hunted some logs and tied their sleds on it and boated their stuff across the river and landed up on Lick Creek.

J: Now how far, approximately, was Lick...is Lick Creek from...from Williamson itself?

SA: I'd say about ten miles.

J: If you wanted to go, when you were a little boy, if you wanted to go from Lick Creek to Williamson, how did you get there?

SA: I didn't get thair. We didn't no way of goin'. (Laughter)

J: No roads in and out of that area?

SA: We just, hardly scarcely any road at all up the river at that time.

J: And how did your father depend on uh...lining up work? Did he have a company that he worked for or independent?

SA: He was independent, I guess, honey. uh...He worked for some company. I don't know what.

J: How 'bout daily life where you lived. Did you all keep uh...keep garden?

SA: Yes, sir. We had a garden and we raised some things in the...out in the field too.

J: Did you attend elementary school?

SA: I did after I got older.

J: Um-hum.

SA: That was several years...we moved to Pigeon Creek before I went to school.

J: Okay. And what school did you attend when you lived at Pigeon Creek?

SA: Varney, West Virginia.

J: Do you remember the size of your class?

SA: Yes, sir. Thair was eighteen of us.

J: Now did that include all grades or was....

SA: Yeah. All grades.

J: Okay. Do you remember any of your teacher's names?

SA: Yes, sir. My first teacher was uh... U. M. Conley or Connaly.

J: Okay.

SA: My next teacher was uh...Riley Varney, Columbia Hatfield, and uh...Lon Totten.

J: What was that last name, now?

SA: Lon...Alonzo was his name.

J: Okay.

SA: Alonzo Totten.

J: Did you continue school after elementary school?

SA: I just...I just went to the sixth grade.

J: Okay. Then did you go to work after that?

SA: Well, I had to go to work, uh...thirteen years old. I...I...we just didn't have anything to live on. My dad, he got ruptured and was sick and couldn't...wudn't able to work and he just had to pick up a job now and then. He was a team driver, too, a ox team driver and a mule skinner too. He...back in them days they wudn't no...it's like it is now, thair's no work to do hardly and uh..we uh...if I..comin' up...when I got to be nine years old, I was a plowin' a mule around the side of these hills a farmin' and uh...tryin' to make a livin' on and if I wanted a little extra money all I done was, thair was no place to work anywhere, sometimes I could get fifty cents a day from daylight 'til dark a workin' for a few farmers who lived around close to us and uh...then uh...I'd plant me a little patch of uh...beans and potaters, and things like that uh.,.and peddle over to Red Jacket. They had a mine over thair. That's after I got bigger, now, that along about nineteen and eight or nine and uh...I'd peddle over thair and pick up a little money to buy me a few clothes and I got so destitute of clothes that I didn't have uh..none to wear hardly and I had to go to work.

J: Now when you say you...you peddle at Red Jacket. You mean you sold your goods at Red Jacket?

SA: I walked across that hill and carried them on my back and went up and down through the camp uh..askin' people if they wanted to buy beans or potatoes. Maybe a chicken or whatever I had to sell.

J: So you sold to the miners' families?

SA: Yes, sir. Mining families that lived in the camp thair. Had a coal camp thair.

J: And then later then did you go to work in the mines yourself?

SA: Yes. Yes sir. That same mines right thair in nineteen and thirteen.

J: What were your duties uh...in the mines?

SA: What did I...I didn't go in the mines when I first went. I went to greasin' cars on the outside and I worked at that about, I'd say, six months or a year uh..then I went to brakin' on the motor and I done that and worked thair 'til uh...nineteen and eighteen.

J: At Red Jacket?

SA: At Red Jacket Junior. Well, I worked at some of the other mines after that.

J: What companies did you work for?

SA: Red Jacket Junior Coal Company.

J: Okay. That's what I thought. Now then in 1918, did you leave the mines?

SA: I left...no I was just left thair and went down to...where the, see, down to Sprigg where they made the juice down thair. AT number two Gates.

J: Okay. Now, you said they made what down thair?

SA: Uh. Power. Had a, I reckon, must have been a substation of some kind. It might...they made thair own power...

J: Okay. And what was the name of your employer then at that point?

SA: Down thair, I don't remember who he was.

J: Un-hun.

SA: He was a contractor and I worked for him and I run the whole mine. I hauled the coal and dumped the coal and dropped the cars and dried the sand and everything uh...like that. We didn't have nobody workin' outside, I done all that extra.

J: Do you have an approximate idea how many men were working?

SA: Thair?

J: At that mine. Um-hum.

SA: I'd say about fifteen.

J: And 'bout how long did you stay thair?

SA: I stayed thair about a year-and-a-half or two years. I don't know how long just exactly.

J: And what was your next stop then?

SA: The next stop was uh...I went to work up at..well let's...it was a regular Gate mining company then. Had a big conveyor line come down the hill thair. And...and had a coal camp thair, Gates Coal Company.

J: Now, did you live in uh...company owned housing when you worked for Gates?

SA: No sir. I lived...my father and mother lived up on Pigeon Creek at that time.

J: And you...so your were still living with them.

SA: I stayed with them, un-hun.

J: Okay. Tell me if you will, what you remember about the...the period of the so called mine wars in...when nineteen twenty, twenty-one? Was that when the peak of that was?

SA: Well now, in nineteen...nineteen and nineteen, I went down to a little place right below Matewan called New Howard Coal Company. They call it Surosa now. I went down thair and got me a job a runnin' the motor. Then I done that for awhile and I shot coal for awhile and then I cut coal for awhile. I don't know just exactly how...how long I lived...worked thair. It was about I'd say two or three years though and they come some organizers in thair. Union organizers and they had a...they wouldn't let them come in the camp, so they had a meeting down below the camp between uh...what they call Gates and New Howard at that time. Surosa and something else now and uh...we all went down thair and on Saturday and joined the union.

J: Do you remember the names of some of the men who were working with you at that time?

SA: Well uh...I guess most of them's dead now uh...all the Hatfields that was in that Hatfield-McCoy war, they lived right thair around me and I lived by them. They was uh...Sid and uh...Everett and, few of their younger boys. I forget what their names was. They lived across the river. I...we lived on the Kentucky side and they lived straight across on the...we lived on the West Virginia side and they lived on the Kentucky side.

J: Okay.

SA: And uh....their daddy lived over on the Kentucky side, too, and uh...Monday morning after we joined the union, I went out to work. I'd walk...I'd walk upon the hill to get my mot...motor and oil it up and sand it. I...I had a brakeman. His name was Pat Jones. He had them fingers off right thair. His hand looked like that and uh...when I started up the hill I seen him goin' up in front of me and uh...he walked...I seen a...they had an old man by the name of Shorthouse. I don't know what his first name was but he was a big old stout man. I've seen him take a pony by the tail like that and hold it down and it just a diggin' and scratchin' and trying to pull him and he'd just hold it right thair. Everybody was afraid of him and uh...when Pat went up to where that...I noticed he was standin' outside of the road and Pat went out and I seen him give Pat a paper of some kind. And when he turned around to walk off, (Shorthouse) (Jones) he kicked him over a pile of slush and coal thair about I guess it was twenty-five or thirty feet high. I had a little thirty-two uh...owl head pistol. I just thought to myself, "well, I don't know what their doin' but I'll see what it is." I just to it out...I had it in my inside jacket pocket. I took it out and put it down in my front pocket. I went up thair and uh...I just kept goin' out and he's standin' thair and decided...I guess he was fifteen or twenty feet off the road. I just kept walking kindly sideways toward him with my hand in my pocket and he said "Now, Smokey, I'm not gonna do you that way." I said, "I know you ain't or the next kick you make will be in hell." And I went and got my money and just turned around and walked out. And we never worked no more thair 'til uh...the strike was over.

J: So he had...the paper he gave Pat Jones, was that a pink slip?

SA: Yeah. No. It was an order for his money.

J: And were you paid in cash or in company scrip?

SA: Well, I paid in cash. I think I drawed about fifteen or twenty dollars for my last payment.

J: So, then the strike began right about that time?

SA: Well uh...they brought in some mining guards and they had them hook up, hired up thair on the hill and uh...the uh...every so often in the evenings we...we'd moved over thair and my mother and daddy moved over thair to that camp. To New Howard camp at that time and they'd shoot off into the river them high powered rifles things. Boy you'd make an awfullest noise you've ever heard of and uh...they had this mining guard. He come down thair. I don't know where I was at. I must have been over here on Pigeon Creek or some place. I was single you know, I was goin' here and yonder and seein' the girls and all that good stuff and uh...he went to our house and the camp now, and went in...just come and walked right in, and my daddy, he was uh....gone too. I think he was up to my sister's at Matewan at uh...Walter Akers was my brother-in-law and uh...he just begin takin' down things and when he'd find something he wanted he'd just take it out and put it on the porch. I had a uh...little shotgun. A twenty gauge...had been a twenty gauge. Uh...one of them heavy bridge kind. It was a "Nitro Hunter" was the name of them and I'd a had it bored it out for a sixteen gauge. He liked that and he took it out and put it on the porch and uh...my mother told him says "That's my son's uh...gun. Don't take it out." He said, "I'll take what I want." And he threatened her. He told her he'd kick her down if she went out to get it. So she let him go and when I come home, why, I knew he was around thair somewhere. They didn't let us...they wouldn't let us go up on the hill or no place like that. We had to stay right in the camp. So they had a store thair in the camp and the next day, why, I went down to the store and I was lookin' for him. He finally come off and brother I worked him over good and uh...then, we both threatened to kill each other and I meant it. And I guess he did too so uh...we...I told my mother and daddy then I said, "We'll just get uh..." My daddy had a wagon and mules. I said, "We'll just get ready and move back home." We owned a place here on Pigeon Creek and uh...we moved out of thair and come over here and then I went to my sister's house up at Matewan and uh...they had uh..tent colony thair at the mouth of Reliford (Rutherford) Branch. I lived in that two years. Two winters and uh...I got five dollars...a five dollar check every week and uh...we just uh...we'd go from here to yonder and around and we didn't have anything to do. (He may be saying playin' setback (card game) Play and sit back and...and passin' the time.

J: Now where did you say that...that tent colony was located where you were livin?

SA: Mouth of Reliford (Rutherford) Branch.

J: Reliford? And this...the five dollar check was from the union strike funds.

SA: From the union.

J: Okay. How large a colony would you say this was. Tent colony?

SA: I have an idea they was something like a hundred in it. Maybe a little more or a little less.

J: Now was this miners and miners families?

SA: That's right. They was no...well thair's some other people live around thair. People that owned the land where we was at thair I think, he lived thair too.

J: And you were thair for two winters?

SA: Yes, sir, that's right. My brother...

J: 1920 and twenty-one or 1919 or twenty?

SA: No. I don't think it was that late. It must have been about nineteen and twenty.

J: Okay.

SA: Could've been twenty-one.

J: Now as you recall...I had a question about this uh...fellow who...who took your shotgun. Was he a local man?

SA: No, sir. He was brought in here. His name was John Yates.

J: And he was hired by the New Howard Coal Company?

SA: Yes, sir.

J: Where was he brought in from? Do you have any idea?

SA: I don't have any idea where he came from.

J: No who were some of the men who were directing the strike at this point? That you had contact with.

SA: Well, I don't know uh...now Mother Jones come down and stayed with us awhile and uh...Bea...these men. They was from Williamson thair. They was field representatives. Charlie Kiser was one of them.

J: Um-hum.

SA: And uh...these other fellers, I forgot, I forgot what their name was.

J: So Moth...you...Mother Jones had been to the tent colony where you were living?

SA: She'd come and visited us. Un-hun.

J: Did you meet her?

SA: Yes, sir. I met her.

J: What uh...what's your impression of Mother Jones?

SA: Well, you couldn't tell much about what she was. She was an old lady..she just didn't...thair's an old saying that she'd tell you, she didn't give a damn for nothin' and she'd come to see us and uh...she told us exactly what they'd do to us. Well, we already knew that and uh...she...she went back and now, made one or two trips to come back and then, why, they had struck up at, at...Stone Mountain. That was a little mine right behind uh...Matewan. Hit come out on the strike so uh...they'd fired all their men and noticed them...they had a camp just outside of Matewan town and they had a camp up thair. Lived right along by the side of the road. Railroad and uh...we'd go up thair, you know, and play cards and things like that and then uh...they decided they was gonna get rid of them too. Get them out of thair so they sent for the Baldwin-Felts men to come put them out of the houses. Well Sid Hatfield had...he had went to bein' a law officer by that time. He...I reckon he was chief police. Thair's no chief about it. Just the only police we had thair in Matewan.

J: Now this was the same...the same Sid that you had worked with?

SA: Huh?

J: This...this was the Sid...

SA: Yes sir.

J: Hatfield you mentioned before?

SA: Yes, sir.

J: Same sid. Okay.

SA: Um-hum. Yeah. He worked down thair with us and uh..they was several of the others. I can't recall their names right now but my brother-in-law, I mean my half brother. I had a half brother. I didn't tell you about him awhile ago uh...he was in that tent colony by the...he stayed in thair with us.

J: Un-hun. And what was his name?

SA: Joe Smith. Joseph Smith. And uh...when they come in thair, why, they would notify us when things was gonna happen you know, when they could find it out so uh...they told us that they would be in thair that day. The Baldwin-Felts men. Well, in fact they sent a man up thair to tell us after they come in. They come in on a train. I don't know which one...and, must have been along in the morning. They give us uh...a warning to not go up around thair and said they was all heavily armed and threatenin' people and was arrestin' some of them and puttin' them in jail and uh...so uh...Tom Accord, A.C.O.R.D. Accord, my first cousin. Him and me went down to Matewan and uh...we thought everything was over. They done went up and...I thought and put the men out of the houses. I don't know whether they put them out or not. But anyway, we was over in the depot, a little depot right across the uh...mayor's office and I saw Sid Hatfield and C.C. Testerman. He was the mayor. A comin' out and goin' in his office and then I seen the uh...Baldwin-Felts man or two come in and go in thair.

J: Go into the mayor's office?

SA: Went into the mayor's office.

J: Okay.

SA: Just a little while after they went in. I never noticed how many went in but anyway, Ike Brewer, uh...he was a very well known feller in this country and mean as a snake, he come out with one of them and they was a...apartment upstairs in...I think it was over uh...the dry goods store and they started up them stairs, him and that...they just stood thair and talked a little bit and started up the stairs.

J: This is Brewer and uh..one of the agents?

SA: Brewer and one of the...the Baldwin-Felts men and he uh...after they got started upstairs I...I heard a shot. Now that was before this shootin' started out in the back alley.

J: Um-hum.

SA: And uh...Ike come a rollin' back down the...the steps. He was shot. And he pulled out his gun and begin to shootin' back up the stairs. I don't know whether he was shootin' at that fellow or not. Tom and me shut the door. We was in the...we was...well I say, within fifty or sixty feet of 'em.

J: Now you were in the depot?

SA: I was in the depot and he was too.

J: Okay.

SA: So uh...we shut the door and then all, thair's old sayin', then all hell broke loose. (laughter)

J: Un-hun.

SA: Out in the back alley. But it was not in the back alley, it was out int he front alley. Right at the...right were you...well they had a (Nenni's) shoe shop thair and it between that shoe shop and...and the Urias Hotel and then, uh...they come across thair and...and run behind the depot uh...the Baldwin-Felts men did, and one of them fell down as they went around behind the depot and the other one was right behind him and he picked him, kinda helped him up and they went on out...I don't know where they went to then. Then they was a feller come down out of the uh...apartments up thair somewhere. Started walkin' down through thair and I seen him fall right thair in front of the uh...uh...by the railroad track then thair was another one fell and uh..then I got out and went...

J: Now these guys are falling as a result of shots?

SA: Yeah.

J: Okay.

SA: Yeah...yeah. Shots. And I got out and went behind the depot where them other fellers was and uh...we, Tom and me, went up in the hill and uh...I had a thirty-eight special and just had one shell for it and I got it out and got it ready and uh...they didn't foller us over thair. And I saw old man Reece Chambers come up...thair's a set of steps right between the squires office and the, well I reckon it was a little restaurant...I believe it was a restaurant. And he come up out of thair and he had a looked like a high powered rifle and he was...thair's some trash barrels around thair and he was lookin' behind them and so forth and he went down to the post office. The post office was down at the end of the houses down thair. It was right at the end of 'em, and uh...I had carried the mail and used it along before that and I seen him look in a barrel and shoot in that barrel. Now, I don't know what was in it. I couldn't see and uh...but I...I sold out. Now me and Tom took the hill and went up thair and we knowed how to...both of us was hunters and we knowed how them mountains laid and we went up thair and went out through the hill and uh...now when we was up in the hill, when the train come and took them Baldwin-Felts men out of thair...

J: These were the...the dead guys?

SA: Yeah. They was the one...some of them got killed too and they took them out of thair and uh...we went back up to the tent colony so uh...

SA: For seven dollars and twenty-five cents a day I believe. Somewhere right along thair. When we'd come out on the strike. And in less that two years, I was a doin' the same job and the rest of the fellows was too and I was workin' twelve hours a day for two dollars and forty-five cents a day.

J: So the union was broken, basically, during that strike?

SA: Broken by that time. We'd done lost the strike. Un-hun. It kept on gettin' worse and I went to...to Pigeon Creek to uh...Puritan Coal Company and got a job from them. I couldn't get no...they wouldn't work me back down thair at that other place so I went over thair and got a job and uh...I...I worked for them for 'til nineteen and forty-five I believe. Well you know, I worked a few other little places too. I worked for uh...Holden Coal Company for a long...not...about six or seven months I believe and uh....I run a mainline motor for them and uh...then I worked thair at Puritan Coal Company and they...they...finally we just worked and worked and, kept on cuttin' our wages. Now, Jake Henry was a mine foreman thair. You can put that down. He was general mine foreman and uh...

J: This is at Holden or, Puritan?

SA: No. That's Puritan.

J: Puritan. Okay.

SA: George Whitten was a...a superintendent and about every morning, why, Henry would come up on, Jake Henry would come up on the hill. He was a mine foreman. I was runnin' the mainline motor a haulin' the man trip. And he'd flop...stop me thair at the trip mouth before I'd go in. He said "Boys. We got to cut this mornin'. If you don't like it, just get out and go on back home." And that's what, them that didn't like it, 'course nobody drawing...drawin' no money and they had what they called a "pity slip", to go down thair and want to order dollar scrip, they'd write you a little something. They wudn't give you a metal piece of scrip at all and after I kindly got on my feet, I begin to buy that scrip. You could buy thirty-five and forty and fifty cents a dollar. I got to buyin' that and livin on it and that's the only way I could make a livin and uh...

J: Now this was scrip issued by the Puritan company?

SA: Uh...Puritan Coal Company. And them men, just before Hoover was elected...No, before Roosevelt was elected. Hoover was already in. They was a loadin' that coal for twenty-seven cents a ton and they put a board up across the mouth of the drip mouth and any a lump of coal raked off..on that board, they docked you a half a ton.

J: Hun. For any...anything that you lost?

SA: Yeah. Anything was off thair. And uh...oh, they beat the men up and and just treated them awful. That was done by so called uh...lawmen, too. Greenway Hatfield was...was sheriff. They lived right down below Matewan at the tunnel. He owned that, I think they call it Hatfield Bottom now. Down below thair now. He owned every bit of that and he had all of his deputies and they would call them if they wanted them to make...a, to run some fellers out of thair and put them in jail. They come up thair one time and they arrested fourteen of us. Took us to Williamson and the jail was so full they couldn't get us in so they took us to Pike County and put us in Pikeville jail and uh...their was an old lady and her son run that jail. She was an awful nice old lady. And they didn't have no beds for us to sleep on. They done had them all pulled up so she went up stairs, her and the boy, and was bringin' down some mattresses they had stored way up thair to put down on the floors for us to sleep and uh...one of these old boys, Akers boy, he said to here he says "You don't expect a man to sleep on them, do you?" She said "Son, you can remember, you ain't at home now, you're in jail." (laughing) I'll never forget that. I laughed about it for a long time but they kept us over thair I believe it was fifteen days. Brought us out to trial. They didn't have no...nothing against us....

J: I was gonna say, what was the charge?

SA: Nothing! Not just...brought us out and turned us loose.

J: Now this was uh..what year?

SA: That was uh...it was just before the...we'd lost the strike.

J: Okay. So this is 'bout nineteen...

SA: Nineteen and twenty-one and maybe somewhere along thair.

J: Okay. And so you were, you had been arrested basically for union activity then? Is that correct?

SA: Well, they just uh...well I'd whipped that feller (Yates) you know and I never did put me in jail for that. I left thair and come back to Pigeon Creek when I beat him up I come over thair and they never got to arrest me so they had a warrant out for me for that, but they never served it.

J: Um-hum. So they held you fifteen days...

SA: Fifteen days and brought us out for trial and nobody knowed anything about us. I mean we hadn't done anything so they just send us home. Now I mean they didn't give us any transportation. Just turned us out on the street to get home the best way we could. None of us had a car or anything.

J: So you walked home?

SA: Well, I caught a freight train. I could catch anything that rolled. I..I'd...I'd go to Williamson town to uh... we called it "goin' around the loop." We'd go down to Huntington and back up the old line and ride freight trains. I...I rode I guess a hundred or two. And uh...we had done moved out of thair and gone from thair then and I was stayin' with my dad and mother here on Pigeon Creek so I stayed with them 'til I got married and uh...

J: And when did you get married?

SA: Nineteen and twenty-two I believe.

J: Okay. Now, I'm gonna backtrack just a little bit. Immediately after the shootings took place in Matewan, now the Baldwin-Felts agents and the union men..

SA: Yeah.

J: What was the atmosphere at that time? I...were you expecting Baldwin-Felts to come into Matewan and try to clean you all out?

SA: Well, I...we expected that every day. At the tent colony. Yes sir. We expected that every day. And they did kill Sid and...and uh...Chambers boy. Lured them up thair like they had warrants for em and they did kill them. But now, I didn't hang around over thair after Sid...I...I come out of the tent colony when we lost the strike. I come home to my mother and daddy down thair.

J: While you were working for the Puritan coal company, you say you went to work for them in 1922, uh...did the union try to start up time and time again to try to get a foothold later on?

SA: Well, we did.

J: Okay.

SA: As soon as Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected. He give us a right to organize. And then we got a union then and got it started.

J: But in the interim, say between 1922 and 1935 or thirty-six, did the union make any attempts to organize then or was it just a hopeless cause?

SA: When was that now?

J: The union actually got a foothold finally in the thirties I guess. Is that right?

SA: Yeah. In about thirty-three.

J: How bout in the late twenties. Did the union try at all to organize?

SA: Well, they tried but they couldn't get a hold. Man, if you went up on that hill and said "union", they'd throw you off. They wudn't a way you could walk off.

J: So thair was really no chance to get any organizing done.

SA: No chance for a man to organize no way.

J: What was the...the miners reaction that you recall after the killing of Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers?

SA: Well of course we was all mad and wantin' to do something to them (Baldwin-Felts) but we never got a chance. We just...all them deputies that Greenway Hatfield had deputized through here and lots of them I don't reckon they ever drawed a dime from him but uh...anyway, if they saw three fellers standin' talking on the street, they'd go up and tell them to move and if they didn't move, they put them in jail. They didn't have to have no warrant or didn't have to have no charge. Put you in and hold you fifteen or twenty days or whatever they wanted to, bring you out for trial and throw you out in the street. Treat you like a dog, Buddy.

J: So that's basically what had happened to you then during that...

SA: Huh?

J: That's what happened to you when you got arrested?

SA: Yeah. Um-hum. Well some of the other boys, too. I know then you know what they'd do to them. My brother, my half-brother my...my real brother, he wudn't old enough then, and see I was only about eighteen and twenty. Along twenty-one along that, and uh...he was ten years younger than I was. He wudn't old enough to be into nothing like that. But a lot of the other boys that I run around with and uh...we just done the very best we could and now, when I went back to work at Puritan, we went back for practically nothin'. So that's what I would like to tell these fellers that's out on the strike now. They'd better stay with it if they want to...to live because brother, if they lose this strike, I'm a tellin' you right now, I look uh...and uh...well they just done us anyway they wanted to then. They'd tell you when to come and when to go. Now, you didn't get no money, they just uh...uh...give you a few dollars and give you some scrip to live on and if you...if you didn't draw scrip, they'd fire you. If you went on a whole year, half without drawin' any scrip, they give you your money. Didn't have to have no excuse at all, didn't have to write none and uh...but it was really bad back in them days and...

J: Did you uh...participate or were you aware of the events around what's now called the Miners' March uh...between oh..on actually the march ended, I suppose, at Blair Mountain in Logan County. Were you involved in that at all?'

SA: I went over thair.

J: What was that all about? What was that like?

SA: Well, I'll tell you what, they...the sheriff was against it and he wouldn't let nobody get in thair if he could help it.

J: This is Sheriff Chafin? (Don Chafin)

SA: Yeah. Chafin. Un-hun. So uh...they slipped us in thair in the nighttime and I believe I stayed over thair two or three days. I'm not sure which and they called it off. Said uh...didn't want us to fight with the United States you know and we lost that, too.

J: How did you, did you all live in uh...in tents during this period also? During this three or four day period on the mountain or did you have little encampments all around?

SA: No sir we...I was livin in a house. I was...I believe I was workin' at Puritan Coal Company at that time.

J: Un-hun.

SA: I think I was.

J: Did you happen to know a union man named Bill Blizzard?

SA: Yes, sir.

J: Tell me something about him. I've heard a lot about him.

SA: Well. He was a fine man. I liked him well but uh...they...they treated him awful and uh...,I don't know where he left here or...he disappeared from here. I never knew what became uh..with him. (Blizzard was president of Local #17 for years pushed out by John L. Lewis in 1955 power struggle. Blizzard was often referred to as the "general" of the miners army and was tried for treason. See Melvin Triolo interview, also Lon Savage)

J: How bout Frank Keeney. Did you know Frank Keeney?

SA: Yes, sir. And Fred Mooney too.

J: Um-hum. What kind of gentlemen were they?

SA: I didn't like either one of them,...In fact, I didn't think they were sincere in what they were doin'.

J: Is that right?

SA: I thought they was more spies than they was organizers.

J: How come?

SA: Well, the way they acted uh...I don't know, I'm pretty shrewd about my friends. I don't uh...I don't like a man don't stand up for what he says he'll do. (Melvin Triolo had a similar impression of Mooney and Keeney)

J: Un-hun.

SA: And I don't like a man that comes here and tells me something and then goes over and does something else. And I caught them a' doin' that a time or two and I didn't like it. That's how come me to not like them. (Thair is some suspicion that Mooney and Keeney set up Bill Blizzard as a sacrificial lamb in the Miners March episode)

J: Who were some of the organizers that you really respected?

SA: Well, uh...Charlie Kiser was our field representative here and uh...some of the fellers talk around about him doin' this that and the other but he was just a country boy like me...he was raised on the head of Mate Creek and I was raised on Pigeon Creek and I never saw a thing wrong with him. I went after him several times and he went after me several times but never for nothing that we done wrong. See, I was president of the local at...at six double o one (6001) my local at Puritan.

J: Um-hum.

SA: And I was president of that local for a year or two. I've got their pictures here if you'd want to see them.

J: I would. Yeah. After we finish I'd like to. Now...now when..when was that that you were president of the local?

SA: That was about nineteen and, must have been in the thirties and forties. In the forties. I stayed thair until I was forty-five years old and you see, every time it's forty-five years old, it's nineteen and forty-five to me.

J: Now in the wake of the uh...in the aftermath of the strike, did you at one time feel compelled to leave the area?

SA: Here?

J: Yeah.

SA: No. Not to leave. (S.A's daughter can be heard laughing)

J: Were you asked to leave?

SA: Well, I left uh...but I'm not gonna tell you what I left for. (laughing)

J: Awe, come on. That's a long time ago. (laughing)

SA: It's been a long time ago, yep. (He tells later)

J: Did you stay away for long?

SA: Well, I...I didn't come back. Did I...did I buy that place over thair (asking his daughter)? After I bought that place, I went down thair, didn't I? No. Before that. I came back here and worked awhile and got crippled up in the mines and uh...then I went back down thair. I own a little place down in South Carolina and uh...I went back down thair and stayed. I been up here two years, then. Huh?

J: Where you involved in...in a mine accident. Is that what you mean?

SA: Yes, sir.

J: Is that how you lost your leg?

SA: Um-hum.

J: What were the circumstances of...of that accident if...

SA: Well I was workin' at Ethel, Chilton Coal Company, at that time.

J: Un-hun.

SA: And uh...that was in the fifties, I believe. I worked thair from nineteen and fifty-one 'til fifty-eight. I'd forgot about comin' over thair and goin' to work. I worked several different places. I worked for William Ann Coal Company and Puritan Coal Company and Turney Coal Company and actually I can't get fingers enough to get them down...

J: Yeah. How did you get started playin' music. I understand you had quite a career?

SA: I can't remember the first tune I ever played. I can't remember the first cigarette I ever smoked. Can't remember the first chew tobacco I ever took and I can't remember the first oath I ever swore, either. (laughing) My daddy, when I was size of this boy right here, eight years old, we lived in the head of Pine Creek. He was an ox driver and he had a...and he took uh...contract at loggin' that Creek. When we lived over thair and they had a dinky he'd come up thair and he'd skid the logs with the...and they'd come and get them with a dinky. That's long before anything I could hardly remember.

J: Now, a dinky, is that a wagon?

SA: No it's a little...little locomotive.

J: Oh. Okay.

SA: I mean a little bitty one. Runs on a wooden track.

J: I know what you...on a real small track.

SA: Yeah. Un-hun.

J: Un-hun.

SA: Yeah. (pause) Yes, sir.

J: (Pause) Am...I'm interested in your musical career. What instruments did you play?

SA: I just played the five string banjo. Never did play nothing else.

J: Okay. But you don't recall who taught you or did you just kind of pick it up on your own?

SA: Picked it up and I ...well I've had three or four...where's them...them pictures of my bands I had. Do you know what...I got two or three pictures of them here somewhere.

J: Okay.

SA: And uh...

J: Yeah. That's what I'd...I'd really like to know. What...what were the names of your bands and some of the other guys you played with?

SA: Well, we called them the "Smokey Mose's Boys and Girls From the Hills."

J: Okay. Did you all play local clubs and parties and things like that?

SA: Yeah we...and go put on a dance. I'd...I had three places I put on a dance. Three nights a week and I...Matewan on, I believe it was on Monday night and Kermit on Friday nights. North Matewan on Saturday nights. Then I'd go other places, you know. I'd go to Delbarton and Williamson and places and play...and I...we had a union hall over on and uh...South Williamson. I put on a dance over thair for a long time.

J: Um-hum. What sort of crowds would you attract to your...to your...

SA: Well we'd have from...I'd say from fifty to two hundred.

J: Un-hun. Were they quiet crowds or wild crowds?

SA: No wild crowds. We didn't have that. No drinkin'.

J: Un-hun.

SA: Oh, they'd drink a little bit you know, they didn't get all woozy and come in and tear up the dance...We didn't put up with that.

J: Were they able to get drinks at...at the place or did they have to bring their own in?

SA: Had to bring their own. We didn't put on no dance in no dance hall. I mean no saloon, like that. One place in Delbarton we put on a few. Right by the side of the road and where you cross the creek thair on the right hand side. We put on a dance thair once in awhile.

J: Now when you played in uh...in Matewan. Do you remember where the hall was that you played thair?

SA: Well, I played up thair you know, like I was tellin' you where our tent colony was?

J: Un-hun.

SA: At the mouth of Reliford Branch, and I played for uh...he's a one-legged fellow, Collins I believe his name was.

J: So he had a club or a...hall, or something?

SA: Yeah. Had a little place thair, you know. A restaurant and things like that. They didn't sell no whiskey.

J: And you kept going until approximately when?

SA: Oh, I don't know about eight or ten years I'd guess. I don't know just how long.

J: Um-hum. Do you recall the names of some of the musicians in your band?

SA: Well, I've had four or five or six bands and I had one band thair that uh...hum...(pause) I know what their names was I can't...old lady Murphy. She owned the whole town of Delbarton. Her daughter played with me and uh...I had a boy from up at...Lando Downey, he played with me, and I can't remember what their names was.

J: Did you sing?

SA: Huh?

J: Did you sing?

SA: Yeah.

J: Okay.

SA: Course I didn't do much singin' at a dance you know. We just played straight music out for 'em to dance by. I'd play...I played on the radio over to Williamson and down to Logan, too durin' them times.

J: On a regular basis?

SA: Um-hum. Yeah. Uh...I had a regular program up at Williamson. I never would take a program down here. It wudn't close enough. I'd have too far to come to play. WLOG where I played uh...the...Williamson.

J: Un-huh. What did you call your radio show?

SA: Huh?

J: What did you call your radio show?

SA: Pardon?

J: What...what was the name of your show on the radio?

SA: That was...it was "Smokey Mose's Boys and Girls from the Hills"

J: Okay. Let's see. You told me a little while ago that you were married in 1922. Is that correct? And what was your wife's name?

SA: Nellie Land.

J: Where was she from?

SA: Kentucky somewhere.

J: Um-hum.

SA: Well, we lived together about six months.

J: Oh, is that right? Then you split up?

SA: Um-hum.

J: Okay. Then did you remarry?

SA: Oh, yeah.

J: Who...what was your next wife's name?

SA: That'll do..that'll do with that. (laughter)

J: Oh. Is that a sensitive issue?

SA: Huh?

J: So I...I can just assume that you've been married several times?

SA: Four times. Um-hum.

J: Four times? Are you currently married?

SA: No. Sir. My wife died, now, in 1978.

J: Um-hum.

SA: This is the only child we had. (referring to his daughter)

J: Um-hum. And what was your last wife's name?

SA: Her name was Farley.

J: Her maiden name was Farley? And her first name?

SA: (laughing) Tell him what your mamma's name was. Dolly Mary Farley Adkins.

J: Okay. And you had one child?

SA: Yeah.

J: And her name (another voice) (Daughter speaking) It's Christa. C.H.R.I.S.T.A. Darlene Adkins Thompson.

J: Okay. And I'd...I'm..I would assume that after your accident in the mine, that you retired as a miner after that?

SA: Yes, sir. I retired when I got crippled. That was 1958.

J: Um-hum. And were you able to draw some union compensation or workmen's compensation?

SA: Yes sir.

J: Okay. And what company were you working for at that time?

SA: Uh...

J: You've probably said already.

SA: Ethel Chilton Coal Company.

J: Okay.

SA: That's where I retired from.

J: Okay. is there anything that we haven't discussed that you'd like to uh...bring up on tape. We've got plenty of tape...

SA: Well, I tell you what. Stuff like that uh...I just don't talk too much about. I'm...I mean, you know, I knew the people personally and..and uh...if you say anything that nobody else had talked about I don't want to talk about it either.

J: Oh, I do have one last general question about the uh...shootings in Matewan. How many people would you estimate were down town at that time? Say union people and Baldwin-Felts Agents?

SA: Well I would say they was a pretty good bunch of them uh...we knew them people was in town and was lookin' for trouble. That's how come, us in thair, and I'd say they was uh..well, we could say twenty-five or thirty people that uh...more than just a general run of the people that lived thair.

J: Now were the Baldwin-Felts agents carrying weapons?

SA: Oh, yeah. And I mean they had loads of them.

J: Rifles?

SA: Rifles. Pistols.

J: How were they dressed? Do you recall?

SA: Yeah. They had on uniforms of some kind. Looked to me like I believe it was green or black one, dark uniforms. (B-F dressed alike, but no actual uniform)

J: Un-hun. (tape cuts off) Now Mr. Adkins, I understand at one point in the wake of the...part of the strike, you had to leave West Virginia. Why was that?

SA: Well, I'll tell you what. They got a...they claimed that I killed a fellow and they got a bench warrant out for me dead or alive and I knew it wouldn't be alive. I knew they'd kill me if...if they got a chance you know and they had a chance thair sayin' dead or alive so...this fella he floated down the river after I shot him off the bridge.

J: This is John Hennen uh...six..sixteen eighty nine in Hampden West Virginia continuing with side three of the Smokey Mose Adkins interview. Uh, the interview runs approximately ten to twelve minutes uh...on this tape 'til the end of the interview. (tape cuts off)

J: Okay.

SA: I had uh...bought me a ...two new pistols uh..they used to make a uh..twenty-two WRF. It's longer than a long rifle, and I had them guns made to shoot it and uh...we went down thair to...target pistols is what they was. And we's shootin'...comin' about I guess a four or five foot rise on the river and uh...we was shootin' cans and bottles and things that was floatin' down the river. They was another boy with me. Well two of them, they run, they'd seen him a comin' and I didn't see him. The first thing I knowed, somebody right up over top of me. I was settin' in the railroad tracks, said "give me that pistol boy." I had just shot it empty and reloaded it. I looked up and I seen who it was. That fellow that I'd beat you know. (John Yates)

J: Oh, the same guy?

SA: Yeah.

J: Um-hum.

SA: And uh...I said "Buddy, if you want this pistol, come and get it." He said "I'll kill ya." I said "No, you won't" He made a move for his gun and I shot him thair under the shoulder blade thair and he just took about two steps backwards and fell off of that bridge and hit right in that river. Well, I thought I'd killed him, and they claimed I had but he floated down thair and caught some uh...brush that hung out over the river and swung in. They got a bench warrant for me "dead or alive" and all that stuff and uh...so uh...I...my sister lived up thair in Matewan. Right just across, just like Matewan bank is right here now and uh..the alley go down thair and they's a house right over thair.

J: Un-hun.

SA: And she lived in that house right thair beside the road and she had a uh...attic up..way up in the...I got up in that attic and I didn't have no way of gettin' out of here. I couldn't get to my car. I had a car then and uh...I didn't have no way to get to it. I got up in thair and Walter, her old man, he's kindly chicken you know, he didn't want to get into things and you couldn't hardly blame him...

J: Yeah. What was his...what were their last name?

SA: Akers. Walters. A.K.E.R.S. Now they wasn't the A.C.O.R.D.S was my first cousins and he was my brother-in-law, Akers was. Well, I was tryin' to get him to go and get my car, 'til I get out of thair so my nephew, Tom Akers, had a car now, uh...he sent me word that he would get it and take it to Bluefield. I told him alright. And he told me where he left it at and everything up thair. So I got my sister to uh...well, I believe she had the clothes already thair. I'm not sure. Anyway she got me my...some of my mother's clothes, you know them old people used to wear a veil?

J: Um-hum.

SA: She got me the veil and everything and I dressed up just like a woman and the only thing was my feet was kindly big and uh...I had a big long skirt on, and they was watchin' for me. I went over to the train and got...

J: Who are...are these the local police lookin' out for you or...

SA: No. It's state police.

J: State Okay. That's right.

SA: State police lookin' for me. He was standin', walkin' up and down through thair. They watched for me all the time and uh...I went over thair to get up and he tipped his hat to me and helped me up on the...the car and I went back and got me a seat and got off in Bluefield and got my truck and I was headin' down, I didn't care where I was goin'. I was goin' down 21 and I'd been down thair one time. I been to Florida down thair one time on 21 one and when I got on my car, it was, day....by the morning after the...the halloween night, and, brother, that road was clittered and cluttered from here to Bluefield. I just...I...I started from thair at six o 'clock, and it took me 'til l about seven or eight that night to get into Statesville, North Carolina. Movin' debris everywhere. Finally got down thair and when I got down thair, I didn't tell them who I was so I went to an old farmer and helped him farm and I knew they'd trace me by my social security card you know. I went and stayed with him for eight months and got it fixed up back here and..

J: So then you came back home?

SA: Well, I came back for awhile. Where did...where did we live at then? Huh?

J: That's Okay.

SA: Well what...how did...(another voice speaking) (Daughter's voice) How did you get to come back. What...who did you pay off to get to come back. (laughing) How did you get to come back?

SA: Well I had to pay a lawyer. You can put that on. I...I had to pay a lawyer seven hundred and fifty dollars to eat that warrant up and he eat it. (laughing)

J: Now, what do you mean he...he...he

SA: He destroyed it.

J: Okay.

SA: And I can tell you who his name is but I ain't a goin' to. He's from Kentucky. Crippled fellow like I am right now and he got that thing fixed up for me and I come back and got me a house and got married then and uh...lived scrappily ever after. (laughing)

J: (Laughter) You got married and settled down for six months, huh?

SA: Yeah. Or a little longer than that, I guess. (laughing)

Matewan Oral History Project Collection