Matewan Oral History Project Collection
Sc2003-135

W. Jeff Webb Interview

BECKY BAILEY: This is Becky Bailey for the Matewan Development Center, Wednesday, August 1, 1990. I'm in the Development Center with Mr. Jeff Webb.

JEFF WEBB: Yes.

B: Okay, and Mr. Webb, for the record, would you give me your full name?

JW: William Jefferson Webb.

B: Okay. And when were you born?

JW: May 27, 1932.

B: Okay. And what were your parents names?

JW: My father was Mark Webb and my mother was Ella Jane Hatfield Webb.

B: Okay. And was your um...family originally from this area?

JW: My mother's family were.

B: Okay. And, now your mother was a Hatfield?

JW: Yes.

B: Would you tell me something about her family?

JW: My mother was a granddaughter to Rev. Anderson Hatfield uh...she being the daughter of his oldest son, George Hatfield who lived on Blackberry Creek all their lives and my mother, of course, was raised there and we always lived there.

B: Un-hun. Okay. Did uh...your great grandfather die before you were born?

JW: Yes, about ten years before I was born.

B: What do you remember about your grandfather?

JW: My grandfather lived with uh...my mother and father and of course, we were growin' up. I was about ten years old when my grandfather passed away in nineteen and forty-one, January, 1941 and, of course, I remember as a little boy, sitting and talking and telling the man, him telling us the things that happened in life and so on.

B: Un-hun. Okay. What kind of stories did he tell you? Did he ever tell you stories about the feud?

JW: Well, really uh...it would be mentioned but uh...as we often find today, you know, they didn't want to bring it up too much you know, but, we would always, we'd always knew the highlights of, the beginning of the Feud, you know, how it started and the locations, things of that nature.

B: Un-hun. Okay. Now, I've heard some stories that uh...Preacher Anderson tried to be a peacemaker when all that was goin' on.

JW: That's right, uh...he was a minister, a preacher and the uh...Baptist church. The old primitive baptist church and he was always trying to make peace between the Hatfields and McCoys.

B: Un-hun. Okay. What kinds of things did he do, do you know?

JW: Well, he would meet with them from what I understand, you know, and uh...about the, just get them to, not to be violent and not do the things that they would, were nearly doing and uh...I guess, you know, being a minister, uh...trying to teach them the way that was most right, you know.

B: Un-hun. Okay. How many children did he have? Do you know?

JW: Preacher Anderson?

B: Un-hun.

JW: I don't know. Probably uh...I'd say he had a pretty good family. Eight or ten children.

B: Okay. And how was he related to Devil Anse? Do you know?

JW: They were cousins.

B: Okay. Now, was he the self taught preacher or did he go to school?

JW: Yes. Yes. No. He was a , I guess he got the calling from the Lord, you know.

B: Un-hun. Okay.

JW: Cause most old ministers did, you know.

B: Okay.

JW: And still do in this area.

B: Un-hun. Okay. Okay. Um...do you, did anybody ever talk about may've, how much education he had? Did he have any?

JW: No. I never heard that uh...but he was uh...he was quite a brilliant man.

B: Un-hun.

JW: Very well, uh...read the bible and uh...he's a very, very good educated man in those days, about him, you know.

B: Okay. Let's see. Uh...your grandfather, um...now they all lived over at Blackberry City, right?

JW: No. They live at Blackberry Creek.

B: Blackberry Creek.

JW: Yeah.

B: Okay.

JW: At the mouth of the hollow, they call it, I think, Hatfield Fork. Where you're goin' towards Hardy.

B: okay. Now, just to get some of the genealogy down, um...now, was your grandfather related to say, Basil Hatfield at all? Do you know?

JW: Basil Hatfield at uh...Belfry?

B: un-hun.

JW: No. Basil HAtfield was relation to my mother, my mother through her mother who was a Hatfield.

B: Okay.

JW: Uh...my mother's mother was a Hatfield.

B: Okay.

JW: Which was relation of course to the Devil Anse Hatfield family.

B: Okay.

JW: Made my mother a, you know, full Hatfield.

B: Okay. What was her mother's name? Your mother's mother?

JW: Martha.

B: Okay. And how was she related to Devil Anse?

JW: I just don't know exactly, uh...other than the fact mother, mother used to say that uh...probably, maybe in the second cousin line or something.

B: Okay.

JW: Now that's where uh...mother's relation to Basil to that side too.

B: Okay. You know, um...how did your parents come to meet?

JW: My father was a young man living around, his father came into the coal fields around the start of the century, around Thacker and matewan and moved onto Blackberry Creek where my grandmother, where my mother of course was a young girl and they met then.

B: Un-hun. Um...you say your grandfather had come from Blaine, Kentucky?

JW: My grandfather Webb did. My father's father.

B: And did he bring a wife with him or did he marry a local girl?

JW: His wife came with him from uh...my grandmother Webb is form uh...Princess, Kentucky.

B: Okay.

JW: Around Gracen [sic], Kentucky, in that area.

B: Okay.

JW: They came here as a young husband and wife with young, a couple young kids or something.

B: How many children did they end up having?

JW: My grandfather Webb?

B: un-hun.

JW: Well, can I count them?

B: Un-hun. Go ahead.

JW: Let's see, nine children I believe.

B: Okay. Alright. Now, this uh...the Webb family, uh...from over in Kentucky, what do you know anything about them? Did they work in the, were there mines over there or were they farmers or...

JW: I don't really have any idea. I don't think they had mines in that area back in those days uh...probably, I'd say, farmers or loggers or something.

B: Okay.

JW: Back in , back in the turn of the century, uh...we had a influx of people that came into this area according to history and form what we've heard, a new flux of people who came into this area for jobs, you know, employment in the coal mines.

B: Okay. When were your parents born? Do you remember their birth dates?

JW: My mother was born in uh...April 24, 1892 and my father was born April 13, 1895.

B: Okay. I assume from...from their uh...birth dates that you wouldn't have been their first child? We're you?

JW: Definitely not. No, I had a brother that, I'm the youngest of the five children, mother and dad had.

B: Okay. um...when were your siblings born? Your brothers and sisters?

JW: My oldest brother was born in nineteen and sixteen, George was his name. He died at the age of fifty-six. My sister Mary was born, August 5, 1923.

B: Okay.

JW: In between George and my sister Mary, my mother had a couple kids that were born and died soon there after. I don't know the dates on those. Then, after Mary was my brother, James E. Webb. He's born 1925. Uh...December 17. Then my next brother was Mark Jr., was born December 24, 1928.

B; Un-hun Okay. Alrighty. Um...Now, what did your dad do for a living?

JW: Dad was a coal miner. Worked fifty-three years in a coal mines.

B: My goodness. What mines did he work for?

JW: Various mines, uh...he worked for New Alma Coal Company out of, my first recollection and he worked for the Ford Motor Company, Uh...Fortune Coal Company, which of course was owned by Ford Motor Company.

B: Un-hun.

JW: And then he worked for Crystal Block at Sarah Ann, West Virginia.

B; Un-hun.

JW: And then Red Jacket Coal Company and Red Jacket and remained there until Island Creek bought them out and then he worked for them when he retired.

B: Un-hun. Okay. Did your dad ever work his way up and say become section boss or anything like that or...

JW: He had the opportunities but he preferred to stay in the laboring force, you know.

B: Did he ever say why?

JW: Not really other than the fact uh...I guess, he just happy where he was.

B: Okay. Was your dad a union man?

JW: Definitely, yes.

B: Okay. How did you know? How did he talk about it?

JW: Well, he was very, very uh...very much for the union all my life because, he would reminisce about small wages and so on before they got the union and then uh...of course, he was a union paying member and attended meetings, the union meetings in very, very supportive in the union all the way through.

B; Un-hun. Okay. Did he ever tell you about the uh...unionization troubles that they had down in this area?

JW: No, my dad never discussed that very much with us at all uh...other than the fact that he used to occasionally would mention something about when the union was being organized and of course, their president, John L. Lewis, you know, he was John L. Lewis man all the way.

B: Un-hun. Okay. Um...were you all in this area, well...well, was your family in this area when the Matewan massacre happened. Do you know?

JW: Yes, my father, mother and father had been married, probably, about seven years when that happened. They lived on Blackberry Creek.

B: Okay. Did they ever talk about the...the shooting that went back and forth between day, McCarr and over, I know Black...they were shooting between McCarr and Blackberry City.

JW: You know, I've wondered why they didn't discuss those things more with us. They might have maybe thought it to be...be big moments or something and didn't want us to really get disturbed about it or something until...

B: Right.

JW: Uh...those things like that weren't discussed, really a lot with our, with children, you know.

B: Why did people in your family hide the, or didn't want to talk about what had happened during the feud? Do you know why they didn't talk about it?

JW: I guess they sort of liked to bury the past.

B: Un-hun.

JW: You know.

B; Un-hun.

JW: No think of it as being history, you know.

B: Un-hun.

JW: Uh...I very much think of it as being history.

B: Right.

JW: you know, and uh...the back bone of our valley that we live in you know. People stood up for their beliefs and so on, you know.

B: Right.

JW: But uh...it just wasn't discussed uh...as I said earlier, my grandfather would tell us things but not too much, you know. And then, of course, we learned enough to be inquisitive as we got older, you know.

B: Right.

JW: And uh...we'd find it out for ourselves or through just like recently, I went to the Hatfield and McCoy drama in Beckley and that was uh...very informative and it just, you know, brought back some of the things that I have heard, you know.

B: How did...how did you think of uh...cause you know there's been movies made about the Hatfield and Mccoy feud. How did you feel about that drama in Beckley. How it depicted your family.

JW: Pretty much, pretty much so, uh...from what I've heard. Pretty much uh...the story. Uh...the facts of why the feud started and uh...those things were brought out quite well and uh...the portrayal of everything that happened, it just brought back things that we heard that were ferric, you know, when we were growin' up and then you put it all together, you know, you got the story and it just sort of, brought everything to the end, what we've heard you know. There's a lot of stories that's been told thought that, people have come in and make big uh...news items out of them and things of that nature that uh...I think were off the cuff or something you now, but uh...

B: Can you think of any in particular?

JW: Well, like uh...there's an example, the uh..the television program on the family feud. That was really off, you know, I just uh...I turned it off. I live in Florida and I started viewing the channel and pretty soon I just got, you know, I got annoyed with it and I just turned it off and walked away because uh...there wasn't any decedents that was really close other than a couple. The other people that were involved in it, of course uh...were people that probably never heard of it other than what they were told, you know. u h...not having people, uh...not being in families that probably told them, sketchy things as much, you know, as we had heard but it was just uh...thing that was built up, that, they didn't, I didn't enjoy it at all. Uh...the movie, I watched some of it then I didn't, I didn't watch all of it because I thought it was dramatized too much you know, and what have you, uh...the only thing that I've really seen, I've read several books and even the books that they read, stories, but uh...then I...I had book that I've lost or misplaced somewhere that was written my a Hatfield man over on Gilbert. I guess it was most accountable for what I thought was right and uh...I think it's all been, you know, there's been some things that I didn't' like about it but uh...I don't mind, you know, knowing the pure facts.

B: Right.

JW: I don't like nothing fabricated or any of that nature.

B: When you say fabricated, the things that I think about is when I hear people talk bout the Hatfield McCoy Feud as if it was just a bunch of ignorant hillbillies shootin' at each other.

JW: I don't think so really, I think it was people who had pride in themselves and what they owned and, they just do it for what they owned and they protected it, they protected their families. Uh...both sides of them were generous people.

B: Un-hun.

JW: Uh...even down in our day and time now we have some pride, you know, and we still have some of those philosophies that they taught us.

B: What's it mean to you to be a Hatfield?

JW: Well, I mean uh...I'm proud of my heritage.

B: Un-hun.

JW: You know. I certainly am. I love my people. Uh...what more can I say.

B: Tell me some of the, we were talking in the restaurant down the street about principals and things, philosophies, you've grew up with. Will you share some of those with me?

JW: Well, we were always taught to respect of our elders and be kind to people uh...never go out and start anything, you know, I mean, of course, we were always taught that uh...we weren't the first ones to hit you know, or to strike or....

B: Right.

JW: Start a fight or anything of this nature. Yet, on the other hand, we didn't, if uh...someone started something with us, we usually would get involved with the point of protection. Same as a man who will protect his home in this day and time you know uh...those were and, honesty and you know, all the basics of life that were.

B: What were you told, say, about Devil Anse as...as a child. What were you told about him? What did you now about him?

JW: He was a good man. He was kind. He was gentle. Uh...he liked people. People would stop by and he would welcome them to a meal or to a bed if they were in need, he...he would help them, but uh...so many of us, I guess uh...uh...probably, even today, if someone does you wrong, uh...I guess you look for revenge. You know. So uh...the philosophy of the family as a whole, I think, Hatfields as well as the McCoys is...is good.

B: wE've heard some stories that...that DEvil Anse, ended up basically, uh...finishin' up what his uncle um...Jim Vance would get him into. That Jim Vance was a trouble maker. Did you ever hear those stories?

JW: He was a mean man from what I studied in history about him. Definitely portrayed himself as being a, a trouble maker and a mean man in the...in the drama.

B: Un-hun. Um...what about some of the, we were talking about the family politics that there were some Hatfields that were democrats and some that were republicans. How did that play out in your family?

JW: I think most of the uh...Hatfield's and Preacher Anderson's family. majority of them are republicans. Probably following his, you know, we kind of want to be what our father is so I would suspect the majority of his family were uh...republicans uh...some of them probably are democrats, same as the other family of Hatfields that we often refer to. Which of course was my grandmother's family but uh...politics was a big thing in those days, they really made a big, big thing out of it. People would come from everywhere you know on election day and they'd have their picnics and their get togethers and their social gatherings. Usually wound up somebody in a fight, you know. Even when I was a kid at uh...raised on Blackberry Creek uh...we all looked forward to election days.

B: Un-hun.

JW: And uh...many times we'd see fights and people get drunk from a party, I guess. Let it all hang out, you know.

B: Okay. Um...now, were you all related to Greenway Hatfield?

JW: Yeah.

B: How were you related to Greenway hatfield?

JW: Greenway was on the uh...Greenway Hatfield was on the DEvil Anse side so, thought my grandmother, we were relation. Same as, of course, you know, she was relations to the Devil Anse family so Greenway and Governor Henry D. Hatfield came out of that family. He was a doctor.

B: Okay.

JW: That's the connection.

B: Un-hun. Did your grandmother know them?

JW: I don't remember. My grandmother died at an early age. My mother is, my mother was like six years old when her mother passed away.

B: Okay.

JW: And uh...the only thing we knew about our grandmother's family was, you know, with her cousins and the ones that we stayed in touch with over the years, uh...Valentine Hatfield, and Basil and all those you know. First cousins to mother, uh...grandmother.

B: Okay. Did your um...did your mother's father raise her or um...did somebody else take care of her because her mother died when she was young?

JW: No, my grandfather had uh...eight or ten kids and the oldest daughter, my aunt Mary, uh...was probably a teenager or mauve even married or ha married during this time. And uh...my grandfather remarried and my mother was quite young and his family was always together. They just kept them intact.

B: Okay. Do you know, did any of your relative uh...did you hear, did they ever fight in World War I?

JW: I had some uncles on my father's side that was in World War I.

B: U n-hun. Did they ever, did, did you ever hear any stories about...bout that?

JW: No I didn't.

B: Okay.

JW: What was the war prior to the World War I?

B: The Spanish-American war?

JW: My grandfather Webb was in that.

B: What do you know about his involvement in that?

JW: I don't. I don't really know anything about his involvement. I was quite young when my grandfather Webb passed away. And of course, dad never did tell us too much. Most of the family that we knew other than my father and my father's side was his brother's who live Pigeon, over on Pigeon Creek and Belfry, Kentucky area uh...most of them are dead now. He has some brother's still living in Detroit, Michigan and he has a brother from Pikeville Kentucky, but we didn't really know about dad's family a lot. We knew about mom's family. The Hatfields.

B: Right.

JW: DAd married mother and they just remained in the community with mother's family.

B: Okay. Um...did your family ever talk about the flu epidemic?

JW: I've heard them mention it.

B: Okay.

JW: Not to any effect, you know, what I remember of anything they told me.

B: Okay. Alright. I was just wondering. YOur...your parents were a young married couple and sometimes there were people that lost children, you know, small children would die and I was wondering if...

JW: I remember Matewan as a young kid, very much, uh...it was a thriving community, a busy place. I remember when the Buskirk building was a hospital, as a matter of fact, I put my eye out when I was five years old with a pocket knife. And, they brought me down to the doctor, of course, they couldn't keep me in town for the night, I had to go back home. But uh...that's, that's been a long time. FIfty-three years ago.

B: What did um...what part of the Buskirk was the hospital? Do you remember?

JW: The part over the liquor store. The parts store and so on through there.

B: Un-hun. What was the doctor that...that worked in that hospital?

JW: The doctor that treated me was a doctor Hodge, or doctor Hall. I forget which.

B: Okay. Okay. Let's see. When you were born, did your mother uh...was she helped by a doctor or midwife?

JW: By a doctor.

B: Do you think it might have been Dr. Hodge?

JW: No. No. It was Dr. uh...William J. Smith of Belfry.

B: Okay.

JW: Been dead for many years.

B: Okay. Did they ever tell you any stories about...about the day you were born? How'd they get...how'd they get him over?

JW: How was there besides me?

B: Right.

JW: Of course, back in those days, all the neighbor women came in, you know. There was people there, I'm sure. My mother and naturally, she had to be there. Some of her friends and the doctor.

B: How long did it take him to get from Belfry to...to blackberry creek?

JW: In those days, probably thirty minutes or forty-five minutes.

B: Okay.

JW: I don't even know how he was called or, you know, or any thing of that nature. But I was born at the mouth of Doll's Branch when my sister and I lived, of course, we lived in an old big, two story home that was my grandfather's where my mother and father lived with my grandfather.

B: Un-hun. Okay. (tape cuts off) Um...you were born when Franklin Roosevelt was elected president. Did they ever talk about the effect of the great depression on your family?

JW: I used to hear a lot of people talk about the Hoover days.

B: Un-hun.

JW: you know. Um...the first president that i really remember, I remember the day that Franklin Roosevelt died and Harry Truman was appointed as, he was the Vice and appointed, was president.

B: What do you remember about that day? My mother says that was the first time she saw her mother cry.

JW: Was that right? It was a solemn day. Uh...course, back in those days, we didn't get news real fast. Somebody came along on a horse and tell us or something you know, but uh...no TV's or, we had a radio probably, we didn't listen to but Saturday nights, you know, but uh...I remember that my father was killing hogs that day and uh...there was a neighbor came by and told us about it.

B: How did your father react? Do you remember?

JW: Well, naturally uh...we hated to lose. I mean, I'm sure that he hated to lose our president, you know, but uh...I guess you take those things as they come.

B: Okay.

JW: It was nothing, nothing, back in those days, I mean, if a president died, I guess they thought, hey you know, his times up, you know. It wasn't anything like the Kennedy assassination, of course, you know. Everybody became totally shocked. closed businesses and everything else down. People kept on with their chores and their way of life, you know.

B: Um...you say your father was...was killing hogs that day. How much property did...did your grandfather have there where they lived?

JW: Probably ten or twelve acres.

B: So your family was probably pretty self sufficient then?

JW: O H, we were...we were all that way. Everything that we ate. Everything that we had uh...I remember my dad worked in the mines for three or four dollars a day uh...that didn't do us any good because we didn't need money. Everything that he worked in the miens for he usually, we get it out of the company store and coffee or a pair of shoes or a pair of overalls or something that nature. Uh...we were...we were self sufficient to the point that mother made our shirts, all of our meat that we ate, we grew, grew all of our vegetables and our...our fruits and things of that nature. We didn't need money because we didn't have lights. You know.

B: How old were you before you all got electricity?

JW: How long, I can even tell you 1941, when we got screen doors.(laughing)

B: How do you, why do you remember that?

JW: Cause my grandfather didn't like screen doors and we didn't have, it was about the same time we got electricity, we got a refrigerator and everybody in the neighborhood came to look at it, you know. I got my foot on it. I got my chair on it. I got something on it. Them were good days. Just slip out and made fudge candy of the night and mother and dad be asleep. Fudge even tasted better then?

B How did you all make fudge candy at night?

JW: I had a sister who's very good in the kitchen. And uh...she treated us pretty often with fudge and popcorn balls. Things of this nature, you know.

B: Un-hun. (tape cuts off)

B: What did your neighbors think of the refrigerator?

JW: Well, they all liked it. They stood and watched it. (laughing) You know what we kept in our refrigerator in those early days? Alright, we lived in a big two story house. The picture of it's in this William Daily News. I'll show it to you before I leave.

B: Okay.

JW: But, anyway, our cook, cooking part of the house was like forty feet away, you know.

B: So it was separate kitchen?

JW: Kitchen and dining room is out there and the main, the living house, as I said, forty foot away. That was all bedrooms and living room and what have you and uh...mom and dad would go to bed at night and of course, we'd stay over in the kitchen area and we had a big fire place and uh...we'd stay over here and make, do our thing, you know. We got too noisy, of course, dad would make us go to bed. We had neighbors to come in, you know.

B: Okay. Well, when um...when the electricity got put him, did it get put in in both the...the little, both buildings?

JW: Oh, yeah. Yeah. We had those sockets that hung down from the ceiling. Out light bill was two dollars a month.

B: Oh, my goodness. How old were you...

JW: It was exciting, it was exciting when they put the power folds up for us you know cause, we had somebody to talk to and someone to see and someone to invite in to eat dinner with us and, you know. Those were exciting days.

B: When did you all get telephones?

JW: Well, telephones were in the '50's I'd say.

B: Okay.

JW: TV's were in the '50's, of course, we had, seems like my first TV in Detroit, Michigan when I was about sixteen years old then of course, if we had one at home, we had to run the mountain top, there would be mountain tops that set antennas and wires down off the hill. If the picture got bad, we'd have to go back and twist the antenna and somebody'd honk the horn and whistle real big.

B: Un-hun.

JW: You know. We only got one channel. And it would be bad. (laughing).

B: Where did you go to school when you started school?

JW: I started school at uh...back...back in those days, we had about six schools on Blackberry Creek. We had an old wooden school out, sitting out on a hill, where the new edition is built on the blackberry grade school now. And, then I remember, as I was going to school there my first year, I had to quit because I'd only gone like a day or two and I had this accident with my eye and then of course, they took me out of school. I started when I was five, in those days, school started in August and ended March, seven months. They had to send us home early so we could help put out the gardens and, you know, things of that nature.

B: Right.

JW: Our livelihood depended on that, you know, and then they were building the new school at Blackberry Grade School now, and that's where I went to grade school. Belfry High School.

B: What stands out in your memory of your school days?

JW: I always enjoyed school. It was a challenge. School was never a problem for me uh...I guess getting...getting out of work at home to go to school.

B: There was...

JW: I remember those lunches my mother used to pack for me with biscuits and gravy in them, buttermilk and all that good stuff.

B: This town down here in town, there always seem to be a little pack of boys runnin' around through the years. Did you have a little pack of friends that you ran with?

JW: Oh, yes. We had neighborhood kids, but we were never, very seldom we were ever out uh...out of hearing, my mother could call for us. She really had a good voice because you could hear her half a mile a way so we could not get very much out of the sound of her voice, you know, she could call and we'd got home, you know. If we didn't trot home real fast, she'd meet us. She'd bring us home faster. (laughing) We weren't like the kids this day and time, you know. We had to be home at dark. I guess we fudged a little bit though once in a while.

B: What did you all do for fun when you all were runnin' around with your free time?

JW: Chase girls. No, not really, our free time, we didn't have much free time, we had to work to earn our free time. It was well earned and uh...my free time is visiting with people uh...family and friends. Usually it was on a Sunday cause mother didn't let us do anything on Sunday other than, you know, maybe, once a month go to church or something cause mother and dad went to church like once a month. In those days, they had church in different areas each Sunday so, go swimming, pitching horse shoes. Fishing.

B: Where did you all swim?

JW: Well, we had, we had the finest swimming pools ever was. We'd block up the creek. We'd build big barricades across the creek and run water holes ten foot deep.

B: If you don't mind me askin' uh...would you tell me how...how you put your eye out with a pocket knife?

JW: My brother Mark, the one older than me, mother had been in the hospital. Had come home and she was, it was on my second day of school, as a matter of fact, and she was patching a pair of jeans for someone. My other brother, Jim, or James was at the well drap...drawing water for the washer and mother was needing his knife, like to cut her thread and I went to borrow his knife and I brought it back and I opened it and my brother Mark was sitting, stooped in the stoop position beside my mother, she was sewing, and I was on the other side and he asked to see the knife. I'd reach it to him and pull it back. (unintelligible) games, you know, and finally, he got a hold of it and when he did it, I jerked it and it just went into my eye and that was it you know and uh...that's when they brought me to the hospital in Matewan.

B: How did they get you down there from...from your home?

JW: I had a young teenage cousin that borrowed his brother's A-Model Ford and they brought me down, it was real exciting. It was a trip. I remember singing all the way.

B: Didn't your eye hurt?

JW: No...No...mother patched my eye up and she through a handkerchief or something around my head. Patched, you know, put a bandage on it and so on and brought me to the doctor. Uh...doesn't seem like a long time ago but it was, you know.

B: What were you singing?

JW: Oh, I don't know really.

B: Okay.

JW: Wasn't no use getting blue then, it'd already happened, you know. It's a part of life.

B: What do you remember about your first trip to Matewan. What did it look like? Was that your first trip?

JW: I could only see out of one eye. No, my first trip to Matewan was uh...a few days before I got my eye put out, I had an uncle that lived at McCarr in a camp and that's before we could come across the bridge and come on down through Buskirk. We went across McCarr. Used to be a big bridge there where they haul coal across the top to a tipple over on the railroad and they let cars under it.

B: Right.

JW: And we'd come up a hill. Came through a...come through a toll gate and come out up on Blackberry City hill and my uncle brought me to Matewan one day at the old B & C oil station on the corner from the parts store out there. He brought me a coca cola. And...and I took a big drink of it and, that was my first when I remembered and it came out of my ears and my nose (laughing).

B: You weren't used to the carbonation or...

JW: No. I've liked Coke ever since though. I used to sell them. That was after I grew up.

B: Okay. What do you remember about comin' to Matewan when...when you were growin' up. Did you all come down to the movies or...

JW: Very seldom we dame to the movies because we didn't have money. We used to come, we used to walk from where we lived to Matewan. We came to McCarr, we came across the train, bridge off the railroad track down there and I remember my first suit was bought in Matewan at the Abysis Department store or something, you know.

B: How old were you?

JW: Probably seven, eight, years old. It was exciting to come to Matewan. We got to count the rails, crossties between McCarr and Matewan...

B: Do you remember how many there were?

JW: We got to walk the rails, you know, how long you can stay up on the rails.

B: How long did it take you to walk from up there?

JW: Usually an hour. We played as we walked, you know, play along.

B: Un-hun. Okay. What are some of the stores that you remember being here or...

JW: In Matewan? I remember the theater. I remember the barber shop. I used to get my hair cut there. Landing Keessee had the barber shop and then we had the theater and they had Hope's Department Store and of course, Nenni's has always been here and Abysis were here at that time and if I recall, well, uh...back where the parts store is was a food store. Used to be a number of beer joints in Matewan uh...recalling after I became a teenager and being down, running around, uh...it was hard to drive through Matewan on Friday and Saturday nights because the streets were, even the streets were full of people uh...Matewan was a...was a really boomin' town at that time, you know.

B: Un-hun. Um...speaking of driving, when did your family get a car? Did your father ever own a car?

JW: My father never owned a car until after he retired. He couldn't drive then. He...he bought a pick-up truck. Uh...but, we never owned a vehicle when I was growing up.

B: Why was that? Do you know?

JW: Very few people in the neighborhood did, you know, uh...I guess the necessity wasn't there as much because you didn't have to go to town so often, we...we had our farm animals, our horses, that we needed, you know.

B: Okay. How many people, say, when you were growin' up um...still kept horses and things like that and used horses instead of say, having an automobile?

JW: Ninety percent of the people in the neighborhood. Just about everyone had their own animals or livestock. Uh...very few people owned cars back in those days, of course, we didn't have roads up Blackberry Creek. We rode in the creeks most of the...most of the cases.

B: When people said that, I had this image, hopefully, were the creeks dry or was there water that you drunk or...

JW: Pretty shallow in the summer time, you know.

B: Un-hun.

JW: Uh...we would have, when the, have the tide or something you know, the creeks would get up, of course you were stranded or we'd walk around that hill. The next point, you know. That even happened when I was in high school, I mean, back in the '40's. Some evening's get home in our bus or sometimes we'd have to park and walk the hills, you know. But uh...it just weren't necessary in those days as in, if somebody in the community had a car and somebody got sick, they'd take them to a hospital real fast or something and they were pretty neighborly.

B: Okay. Um...I was gonna ask you, what did people up from around where you live, what did they think of Matewan? Did they ever say oh, you don't want to go there, they're a bunch of crazy people or oh, they're wild?

JW: No. No. No. No. They had friends in Matewan. Everyone liked, you know, when you came to Matewan, you were recognized as a neighbors uh...people were very friendly. Drunk come staggering out of a beer joint, you just dodge them and go on.

B: Right. Did anybody ever, when you came to Matewan, did anybody ever say, oh, there goes so and so, he was in the massacre or did people talk about it?

JW: No, it was pretty hush hush.

B: Okay.

JW: It healed, it healed pretty fast, you know.

B: Okay.

JW: I would, I mean, I think it did. I don't think it lingered.

B: Un-hun. Okay. When you graduated from high school uh...

JW: I didn't graduate.

B: Oh, you didn't graduate?

JW: I quit my junior year. End of my junior year.

B: Why was that?

JW: Well, I'd...I'd say probably, I didn't feel that I had, maybe it was the beginning, kids like they are now and days, I didn't have what the other would have or, I felt inferior or things of those, that nature.

B: Un-hun.

JW: So I went away and got me a job and I made sure that I stayed until school got started real strong and I came back home and went to work and luckily I got, I got a career, I built a career in finance business and, this day and time, it would take, it would require a college education to get into the business, you know, but uh...luckily I got into it during the Korean War when there was shortage of men. Young people and I built myself a career, stayed in it twenty-three years.

B: When you say finance, could you tell me a little bit about the nature of your business?

JW: We were in consumer lending. Uh...back in those days, you couldn't borrow money at the bank very easily. You had to get two or three uncles and a grandfather to sign for you and in the small loan business we, we'd lend people on the merits of their credit uh...with collateral, automobile or their furniture and we'd make them the loans, you know, and it was very, it was very different from the banks in those days. We were liberal and they weren't. You know. And uh...we didn't have to know someone to lend them money or know their uncle or some of that nature, you know.

B: Right.

JW: Which is the way we used to look at the bank. If you had somebody at the bank you knew well, you could borrow money. But uh...

B: Now, is this the uh...the banks in the area, or say the Matewan National Bank in particular?

JW: That was banks in general uh...they all were, none of them were too liberal until, well, as our younger generation of guys came in, got into the banks, you know and of course, you could travel around the area now, you don't see loan companies. I think there's one that's still in Williamson and I opened that office myself in 1965, National Finance Company and at one time, we had four loan companies in Williamson, of course, we serviced the Mingo-Pike area, you know, so there was no need for one in Matewan. You know, and, then it got to the point later in years that the bankers just becomes liberal as the guys in the finance company, you know. So that was the end of that I guess.

B: When you say small loans, say, would that be before five hundred to a thousand dollars or...

JW: When I first got into the business in '51, our loan limit was three hundred dollars and that was a lot of money.

B: Okay.

JW: Uh...people had a, some people had a hard time paying that back. Course, as the laws changed in the years past, the loan limits would raise, you know, I opened Ashland Finance Company in October, '65 and as an example, in West Virginia, it was still three hundred dollars and Kentucky, across the river in South Williamson where I opened my office, we could lend eight hundred dollars, so a matter of time is when the loan limits began raising until the point now I think, I don't think we even have a small loan limit anymore. I think, you know, whatever you're qualified for is whatever you can borrow, you know.

B: You don't have much of an accent for around here. Did you move away?

JW: No. No, I spent uh...most of my life here. I've lived in Florida for twelve years, lived in Tennessee for a while. About four and a half years but uh...my accent, I guess, is where, I maybe worked on it, you know. As a kid. English and so on and uh...like people often says that but I think I talk normal, very normal.

B: Did your teachers, say your teachers, work trying to get rid of your accent?

JW: No. No, we were, we were talk to speak explicive [sic], fluent, you know. Just writing as well as learning to write well.

B: Okay. Um...we talked a little bit off...off tape about your um...business interest in, in Florida uh...you got involved in real estate ventures there?

JW: I got involved in development of real estate and the building of new homes, and of course, my years in the finance business was quite helpful to me being in sales and secured financing for homes, you know. That took me, they gave me a good out for that position and, everything worked together I guess, you know. Then I had to retire in '81 due to health problems. I came to Tennessee. And, since that time, I've been retired but still I, I...I still try to be constructive in mine and, you know.

B: Okay. Un-hun. Given your experience in the...in the finance business in this area, what did you learn about the economy of this area?

JW: I watched it over the years uh...economy in this area and coal mining has always been up and down, every few years you'd see uh...it'd spring up and you could look for it to go back. Over the years I've seen uh...large companies and very heavily populated coal camps uh...disappear, you know, it was just a normal thing and new companies comin' in and the other companies sellin' out, you know, change of hands and so on. Sometimes I wonder where all the people have gone, you know. You had to understand that uh...there's this, was more people here now, then there was then, but you drive through Red Jacket and through Delbarton and through Stone and McVeigh and those areas like that, those places were so congested and every community had, some had theaters, company stores uh....places that people gathered. They didn't really need to go to town in those days, you know. But uh...it was like, it was always like a rubber band that'd just spring up and spring back, you know and uh...we'd have people that would pay well enough that when they had hard times, we'd go along with them for several months until they would come back again you know. Those people you can count on because they would be back.

B: They, some people um...I've...I've read things where people will look at the economy by, by the way of what people get loans for. Did you have many customers say, would have to take a loan just to get by, to pay their bills?

JW: Yeah. Tied over, tied them over all, either during the time that, their hardest times would be there uh...if they would need debt consolidations uh...bills they'd gotten behind on during their slow times and that's where we would come in and rescue them uh...paying off their debts, you know, and the normal procedure was, they turn right around and do it again you know, but uh...most of our, we had a, on our applications purpose of loan of course, most of them were bill consolidation debts, you know.

B: Was that related to say the...the boom and bust of the coal economy or strikes or...

JW: I would say so, yes. Yeah, definitely so. It's just like you know, seem like people always in the area would just get going real good and something would happen again, you know and then you've probably told, you know, uh...people in the coal mines was always, always had it tough, you know. They weren't consistent. Work wasn't consistent. People weren't consistent. Being able to handle their obligations and things so, it was just a part of life, way of life, you know.

B: Did your own family, did your father have trouble with...with those kind of problems as long as he worked in the...

JW: My father very seldom ever owed any bills, maybe a grocery bill. And, most, most of the time, he didn't owe grocery bills. We had local stores that uh...grocery stores but uh...he didn't go to town to make bills. He didn't own a car uh...our bills, once a month used to be a power bill, you know.

B: Was he a pay as you go kind of person?

JW: Well, either that or go to the company store and get it. But as I said, we grew most of our food so we didn't have to worry about eating, you know, uh...clothes weren't important. (unintelligible) Didn't need a lot, you know.

B: Some people said that was one or the biggest things that changed in West Virginia was when miner's quit growing their own food and...and things like that and...

JW: Well, definitely so. It's been, when you start, when you start depending on having to buy everything that you need and then you have sharp times and your money's not plentiful. But times are tough.

B: Do you remember when that started changing about the time of that transformation?

JW: It's been all my life and of course, in the mid '60's, came out with the War on Poverty program and we seem to get a lot of lazy people around here then and I think it's something for nothing. You have that everywhere but a lot of people in that time just seemed to, that's back in the ADC days when people get a check for aid for the dependant [sic] children of unemployed fathers and any time you start giving people things, they're gonna wait for it, not do nothing to earn it. We had that very strong in the area. Uh...that's really when we began to see the big downfall in the area. Uh...it was, when I...when I first got in the finance business, very seldom, you ran across anybody that was retired. Nobody was workin' uh...people have a back ache this day and time, they don't work. Back in those days, we had to get my father out of the bed in the morning and straighten him up and push him out the front door to go to work and then he'd walk five miles to report to the job. You know. You couldn't...that wouldn't happen in this day and time and uh...you very seldom, as I said, see anybody retired, occasionally, you might see a man who'd been torn up badly in the mines and couldn't work that would have to go into retirement. And people, particularly the coal miners and the people who were in timber business or something of that nature in labor, they were in class of people. They...they worked until they got older in there '60's it seems as though, now, people are retiring in their forties. In their forties. And uh...I'd say if there's a survey ran, there's more people drawing a check than there is working.

B: Un-hun. Your, so your father worked fifty three years in the mines. When did he retire?

JW: My dad went into the mines when he was eleven years old, which would have been nineteen and six and nineteen and sixty-three, he retired. It was in it fifty-three years.

B: Fifty seven years.

JW: Well, okay, he went in maybe when in, a little later than this. He was eleven years old when he went in, he might have retired earlier. I just don't recall but uh...he retired at, from Island Creek when they had a big cut off, he was old enough. Dad lived until he was seventy-nine and died in 1974 and when he was seventy years old, he would have preferred working in the mines and drawing his retirement.

B: Did he ever talk about the...the changes in the business because when he started that would have been the days of hand loading and...and mules.

JW: Yeah. We started with carbide lamps and big wide shovels loading uh...the ponies pulling the wagons out of the mines.

B: When he started, he would have been such a young boy. Where did he start off working?

JW: He worked, he worked uh....I don't know the name of the company but, back in those days, they had large doors in the mines where they circulated the air, controlled the air, you know. They used him as a uh...person to open the doors when they drove the mules or the horses or...

B: A trapper.

JW: Yeah.

B: Okay. Did he ever talk about...did...did it seem to change where he worked, when he worked for Island Creek? A lot of people said that there was a big change after Island Creek took over the mines there at Red Jacket.

JW: You mean in Red Jacket?

B: Un-hun.

JW: I think they, I think they, that was in the time, probably, they started lookin' at numbers rather than people uh...just like this day and time uh...and any kind of big business, industry or anything else, mining or anything else, uh...the companies don't look at uh...well, after they first started they looked at uh...I guess more or less the guys were, felt more like slaves or something, you know. And one of, this coal companies want to make it and if they worked out a mines, they'd just move out and everybody set but uh...they begin looking, becoming more conscious with numbers and I guess with Island Creek, and uh...of course, they had a lot of protection in the union at that time you know, but their benefits and retirement and so on which protected them you know, which still, i think I've heard them mention, you know, that maybe they would demand much more than Red Jacket or Red Jacket Coal Company or smaller companies.

B: Okay.

JW: Any time you worked for a smaller company you're better, you're treated better than you are at larger companies.

B: Un-hun.

JW: It's just the law of average.

B: Did he ever take you all, did you all ever go to the, the uh...company baseball team games?

JW: Oh, that's where we used to spend our Sunday's. Every uh...(tape cuts off)

JW: Every coal company sponsored two or three teams in the area where you lived normally uh...I remember as a...as a kid on Blackberry Creek, we had two separate locations where that ball field and that was...that was our Saturdays and Sundays, you know. They had some good ball clubs back in those says.

B: Okay. Let's see. (tape cuts off) Now, I've never heard, is that Alan Hatfield? He was called "Chicken Allen"? Would you tell me about that?

JW: What about it?

B: Well, we, I've never heard him call that.

JW: He was a cousin to my mother. He was a cousin to my mother on the, through her mother. Her mother's side. He was a friend of Basils. Allen was. I don't know why they ever gave them that name. But anyway, he was a, he was in law enforcement for a few years. Used to be chief of police here as well as Ernest. Ernest Hatfield who was a nephew to Allen and uh...

B: What stands out in your mind about Chicken Allen? How did he get that name?

JW: I don't know really. I've no idea. That must have been a family thing they put on. He was good fellow. Very kind. He was short in stature. Quite a talker. Wasn't afraid of anything. He only died just a few years ago. You'd would have loved him. He's more friendlier than George Warren but he was a...he was a very likeable person. And uh...he didn't fear anything or anybody.

B: Did um...did he have much trouble with...with people here in town, I mean...

JW: I think he was in one thing that happened that was pretty bad here in town. Uh...I don't know. I wasn't around or anything, you know, but I think that uh...there was an incident that happened that even probably he regretted.

B: Was that the uh...the shooting back here across the railroad tracks?

JW: No. No, this was a shooting in one of the (unintelligible) in town.

B: Un-hun.

JW: You mean, you're talking about back in the Matewan massacre days?

B: Uh...no. There was a, I guess during the '40's, a Hatfield that was chief of police supposedly shot a McCoy. He was arresting him.

JW: That happened just at the end of this building where the, down where they used to have a beer joint called the Rainbow Grill, or something.

B: Un-hun. Was that him?

JW: Yeah.

B: Okay. What about um...Ernest Hatfield?

JW: Ernest was a son to V. T. that used to run a grocery store. He was a policeman here for a year, he's the chief uh...tough man, tough laws. That's all I can say.

B; Okay. Now you were telling me off tape I believe, your, was it your mother, was this the brother's of, of your mother that were involved, sir, you said you said you had several...

JW: Mother had uh...six brothers and they were all officers over the Pike County across the river.

B: Do you remember their names?

JW: It was uncle Boyd Hatfield and Uncle Ira Hatfield. Uncle Ira was never a law, law officer I don't believe. And there was Uncle William J. Hatfield, of course I was named after, Uncle Ansie Hatfield. Uncle Ansie, at one time, ran for sheriff of Pike County. He didn't get elected. Then there was Uncle, she had two half brothers, Uncle Taylor Hatfield and Uncle Cash Hatfield, that were officers for many years. That was their profession of life.

B: Un-hun. What qualified a man back then for being a law officer?

JW: I say the desire and uh...same as in Pike County now, all you have to do is be in the, get bonded and carry a gun.

B: Un-hun. I've heard people...

JW: No civil service required.

B: Okay. I've, we um...there was saying that we ask people about last year. We heard in Matewan, you had to be, you had to be able to stare or whip anything that came into town to be police chief of Matewan.

JW: You had to be tough to be in Matewan and be chief of police.

B: Why is that? Because everybody always talks about what a good town it was. Why would a police chief have to be tough?

JW: Well, we had people that came out of these creeks and so on, that came into town to clean up, you know, so it's uh...that normally was the problems with, was brought into town, you know. From the Kentucky area. Phelps and Peter Creek and Blackberry, Beech Creek and all the different areas, you know. You have your...you have your type of people that's gonna go in clean town up tonight, you know, somebody's got to plot it.

B: Un-hun. Now, would these be um... the people that, like, some people always wanted to blame the miners comin' into town on the weekends to drink or...or were these trouble makers that came down out of the hills?

JW: Well, you probably have some miners that came into town to drink and party, you know, for that (unintelligible), uh...I wouldn't say that uh...basically, it was a group of them that was at fault, you know. And uh...a lot of people would get into arguments out in the county or out in the outlining areas and they'd just happen to confront each other, maybe in Matewan. That's where they tried to settle it.

B: Everybody came to Matewan to settle their problems.

JW: A lot of them did in those days.

B: Okay. Um...where, we've had some town personalities that we ask people about um...this may have, some of these people will probably be before your time but I'll ask anyway. Um...do you remember John and Mary Brown? They were a black couple?

JW: I remember a Brown I believe that worked at the funeral home. Buster?

B: Okay. That would have been another one. Buster Darwin?

JW: I've heard the name, I mean uh...

B: They had a dry cleaning...

JW: Don't know anything about them. I don't remember anything bout them.

B: Or the Dew Drop Inn or...

JW: I don't remember.

B: The CUrtis Club.

JW: I remember the Dew Drop Inn name.

B: Un-hun.

JW: I don't recall anything about them though.

B: Okay. Do you remember, we, I just found out about it today, a club up in North Matewan called the Cabaret?

JW: I've heard the name of that but I don't remember anything about it.

B; Okay. um...what about Aunt Carrie? Did you ever hear that name?

JW: I remember Aunt Carrie.

B: What do you remember about her?

JW: She's a kind old lady.

B: Okay. Now, we've heard different stories about her. We've heard one story that she was a bootlegger and another story that...that she quote, unquote "had girls". Did you ever hear?

JW: I didn't go after either. (laughing)

B: Did you ever hear any of those stories about her?

JW: I've heard it, you know, gossip.

B: Un-hun. Okay. As far as you know uh...were there, were there um...basically, how would you say it, houses of prostitution in Matewan?

JW: Not to my knowledge.

B: Okay.

JW: There's a lot of women in Matewan though.

B: Women that were disposed to that kind of work?

JW: No. No. Women came down from the hollows. (laughing)

B: Okay.

JW: Good lookin' women.

B: Okay. Okay, the last group of questions I have for you is about uh...the floods. Up on Blackberry Creek, were you all flooded like they were flooded down here?

JW: No. No. We used to have some big floods on Blackberry Creek but they, wash on out, you know, they come down, furthest the floods got Blackberry Creek, to my knowledge was around New (unintelligible) in that area at the underpass just above the underpass up the road and those houses in that area but, we'd have wash outs, you know, uh...they used to take our bridges and things out, of course, back in those days as I said earlier we, most of our roads went under the creek or, you know, level with the creeks. And with the bridges we have, usually, we lose all of our bridges, you know. But, nothing as devastating as the '57, ''67, '77 floods.

B: Were you um...working in this area when those floods hit?

JW: '57 and '67 yes.

B: Okay.

JW: And a few between, you know, not really major but uh...in '77, I...I watched it on TV from Florida. Williamson was under it, of course, Matewan too, you know, it was terrible.

B: Un-hun. During the '57 flood, you would have been in the finance business.

JW: I was in the finance business.

B: Did that affect your business?

JW: We had water, good water. On Second Avenue in Williamson. Our office was across from Sears, where Sears used to be the Right Aid Pharmacy's there now. We were in that round glass curved building all the years we were in business there. We had water in there a couple feet deep. Second Avenue, '57. '67, I was across the river and uh...with Ashland Finance Company which is, I was in the building adjoining or a part now of J. D. Wescott's. Their office, now, what used to be my office in a finance business course, our waters, I mean, they got big (unintelligible) and you'd see the local areas like the mouth of Pond Creek and down around Chattaroy and Goodman in those areas under...under water, you know, Turkey Creek, the mouth of Turkey Creek around the hospital. I think that was about the year they built the floodwall around the hospital. Right after that.

B: Okay. Okay. I just thought of one more quick question if you don't mind uh...since your family had its own property, did your father try to avoid, some men when they...when they had land like that would try to avoid having to deal with the company store system or the company doctors as much as possible. Was your dad like that because, because they didn't like to get into debt or something like that?

JW: My dad was a conservative person. We, he only bought what we needed. Always was that way in life uh...and then money was not much then, you know, six or seven dollars a day.

B: Un-hun.

JW: And uh...very seldom dad drew money in the coal company. Usually, is was consumed by a lease account or something. It had like two accounts where you'd have like groceries and then if you bought something like a, you know, of course, they had a lease account like you'd buy something larger, you know, where you'd pay so much a payday.

B; Un-hun.

JW: But uh...he only bought necessities. Clothes for us. Uh...buy us a pair of shoes in the fall, you know, the winter. Clothes or something. Usually it was overalls.

B: Un-hun.

JW: But uh...I guess about, dad's probably major purchase at the company probably in the early days was maybe, a refrigerator. You know on a lease account.

B: Did you all get, were the same quality of goods in the company stores as there were in stores, say, in the down town area?

JW: I would think so, I would think so. Except exorberent [sic] prices.

B: Okay. Cause historians have tried to track that to see if they had worse quality goods but a higher price at a company store.

JW: No. No. No, I don't think so. I mean, quality of meats and stuff like were, they usually had a butcher and the quality of meats, I know from dad buying it at Red Jacket and Island Creek, later years after I got married and left home. The quality of foods and meats and things were good. They were just high.

B: Un-hun.

JW: But that was the way the company had them. Usually you ended up gettin' back what you'd earned from them, you know, if you trade with them. Then we had scrip. Like at New Alma, I remember New Alma Coal Company up Blackberry Creek. It's all gone now. But I remember if, after they subtracted what dad owed them, his earnings, they'd pay him in scrip and if we spent it, we'd have to go back there because they were the only ones that would take the coins with the holes in them and you know, you couldn't take it down to another store.

B; Right.

JW: And cash it.

B: Un-hun. Okay. Let's see.

JW: Same as with, when he was with Fortune Coal Company. Paid off with scrip the difference that you, you know.

B: Okay. Did your dad ever work with blacks in the mines? What did...did he have any opinion of that?

JW: We lived with blacks and we worked with blacks uh...we lived with blacks in my young days at Belfry. Sharondale. We called it that. We had blacks in our neighborhood.

B: Un-hun.

JW: Matter of fact, we had a grandma, grandma we called her was black. We got sick, mother would send for them, she'd come take care of us and things. Mother'd get sick, she'd come take care of her and her husband would cut our hair and so on. Uh...

B: Did she treat you all with home remedies or...things like that?

JW: Yeah. Usually home remedies.

B: Do you remember any of them?

JW: No. Not really.

B: Okay.

JW: We got stoned back in those days, we'd run to the doctor. Mother'd scrape a potato and put on it and dad a chew a was of tobacco and put on it, you know.

B: Okay. How did you spell the uh...the place that you said, that was before they called Belfry, Belfry. How did they spell? Is it Sharondale.

JW: Sharondale was located in above Belfry. It was another, it was another community. See, Belfry, Belfry was a community within itself and the upper end of Belfry, just even behind Belfry across the creek where the Baptist church is now, there was coal company there that was called Arnoca, you know. And then, on up, are you familiar with Belfry?

B: A little.

JW: Just on above Belfry and around the fifth, began another community with coal company houses, lignite out by the creek. A couple rows of them and some on this side of the road and that was called Sharondale and we had our own school up there. We had our own school in Belfry. Every community had their schools and had their doctors, had their company stores. Now.

B: Could you spell Sharondale for me? Do you remember?

JW: Sharon. S, H, A, R, O, N, D, A, L, E. Sharondale.

B: Okay. How about the name of the coal company that you said was right where the Baptist church is now? Belfry.

JW: I don't remember the name of the coal company but it was Aronoca. But they still, Belfry post office still serve them as a mailing address but I remember their...there being a coal company store uh...just in behind Super America a cross the creek.

B: Un-hun.

JW: The coal company store and uh...company houses.

B: Okay.

JW: Just in the bridge you can see some of the little long houses that still set there. People that remodel them and so on.

B: Un-hun. Well, is there anything I haven't ask you about today that you'd like to express?

JW: Not really.

B: Okay. Well, thank you for talking to me.

JW; You brought out some things I'd forgotten years ago. (tape cuts off)

Matewan Oral History Project Collection