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Coal Miners'
Supper
Interviewed by: B. L. Dotson-Lewis
Enon, WV, August 19, 2001, supper time
On the hot summer
Sunday evening of August 19, 2001, Bill McCutcheon and wife,
Elsie invited me to a coal miners' supper. John Adkins and his
wife, Grace were there and so were Delano Barnett and his wife,
Rayjean. Combining these three men's work experience accounts
for approximately 100 years of coal mining in the hills of West
Virginia.
Below are stories as
they were told to me of actual happenings in and around the coal
mines. Also expressions of opinions on issues relating to the
coal fields of West Virginia.
John
Adkins:
I was raised in Widen, West
Virginia. My brothers mined. My dad was disabled.
I asked; when did you start
working in the coal mines?
John told me:
I started in 1956. When
my first son was born. Hand loaded coal for years. Four or
five years loaded coal with an old #4 coal shovel. My pay was
$1.00 per ton. When I first started there was two of us hand
loading and got it out by the buggy and the two of us shared
$1.10 per ton, each of us got 55 cents per ton for loading and
hauling it outside. Coal didn't sell for very much back then,
probably around $4.00 per ton.
They were non-union
mines. It was hard work and a bad time. They didn't care
anything about the top. Loaded it in the buggy and hauled it to
the outside. We dumped it in a bin and the trucks hauled it
off. I quit the mines and went to work in the timber business.
Worked at that for 4 or 5 years, then I went back to the coal
mining business.
I asked; do you recall the
Hominy Falls Mining Disaster - "Black Monday?"
John told me:
Island Creek Coal Company
sent me over there to help out in anyway I could when the miners
got trapped in the mines at Hominy Falls. I was bossing for the
coal company where I worked. Drift mouth of the mines was all
you could see. You had to go back about a mile and 1/2 to get
to them; the trapped men.
They donated each
one of us a live one to bring out. We were there working when
they found them and the inspector assigned each one of us one to
bring out a live miner and keep them slowed down and from going
into shock. I was bossing and went in to bring them out 3 0r 4
of them dead.
Grace
Adkins:
John would say that no one
could still be alive in there. Some of them were still alive,
though.
John
Adkins:
I think I brought that
Martin boy out. He outran me. I had to keep saying, "Slow
down, slow down," and when they saw daylight they took off
running, no one could slow them down. The mine had a big dip in
it and when they saw daylight, they took off running.
The boy never went
back in the mines.
Back in those days
they didn't keep accurate maps, they didn't know where they
were. According to the map they should not have been within
500' of where they were. It was an old abandoned mine.
I wouldn't go back
in and help bring out the dead.
The dead was covered
in water. One man had his hands locked around a post and one
was washed clear back in the mines. It washed the miner 50 or
60 foot down the ridge.
Delano
Barnett:
My wife's mother's brother was trapped in
there and when they drilled the hole they went and got her to
sing hymns down the hole to those men and they had her picture
in Playboy Magazine. Her name was Ruby Lester. She was very
religious and they had a gospel quartet.
I pumped water.
I worked for Island
Creek 27 years in the coal mines. It was one of the best places
to work I ever worked at.
Comments on Mountaintop Removal:
John
Adkins:
It is hard to say what is going to happen
with mountaintop removal, they are trying to do away with it,
but I don't know whether they are going to get it done or not.
Peabody is one of the big outfits, A.T. Massey is a big outfit.
Mountaintop removal
-- there is some I am glad to see stripped, some of those old
rocky mountains, I can't see as it hurts. An old rocky hill or
something. One mountain was pure old rock. A goat couldn't
stay on it.
I
asked; how do you feel about women in the mines?
John told me:
Never worked with women in the mines and glad of it.
I liked to pull pillars and take blocks of coal out
better than anything I ever did.
Delano
Barnett:
39 years in the coal mine.
I was born in Clay County. My dad was a coal miner. He
worked at Widen Buffalo Coal Company, then, he left when they
tried to organize the union and he worked small mines around the
area.
Both of my brothers
worked in the mines. One is disabled and the other one is still
working.
I started working in
the mines when I was 16 years old. Actually I started in the
mines because I was running around with Johnny Adkins and his
brothers and went there to be with them and didn't get paid
because on one knew I was there working. The guy who owned the
mines didn't know I was there. We called him Papa Hickman, so
Papa caught me, he said, "How long have you been working, boy,
how old are you?"
I said that I was 18
but I was really going to be 17, so he sent me over to the other
mines which was across the road, he put me to work and paid me
cash, because I was not 18. That was where we loaded coal into
track cars, like railroad cars and it was transported by mules.
We hand loaded the
coal into the buggy like John was saying and brought it outside
and dumped it in the truck.
When they put the
2nd shift on, you (John) and Raymond would put it in the cars
and the mule would take it out and then come back. The mules
would do that all day long but when quitting time came they went
outside and they went to the barn. No one told them anything,
they knew when it was quitting time. One mule, one car to pull
out. They knew more about coal mining then men.
Comments on mining accidents:
One accident that happened after I started being foreman, a
guy broke his ankle. After I went to Birch Mines, the
superintendent got killed, rock fall. They didn't bolt the roof
back in those days. I was on the 2nd shift and a 3rd shift man
got killed with a rib roll.
Comments on Miners Health and Safety Bill Passed in 1969:
In 1969 we had
already figured out we had to do stuff but some of the things
didn't help. Some of the laws didn't do anything. When
companies put laws and rules in, it does better.
When the fed got
into it, in my opinion and they made federal laws and put
federal people in them they would have been better if they had
used state people and enforced it. It would have been better
but they put on more federals and they didn't help any.
John
Adkins:
The feds just made a mockery out of it and never done
anything.
Comments on Coal Camps:
Delano
Barnett:
Coal mines and timber, coal mine towns and timber towns,
they would get together and fight on weekends like in Davis,
WV. Davis was timber town and Thomas was coal mining camp and
they would get together and fight on weekends. Just like a feud
between two families.
I don't have black
lung.
John
Adkins:
I have black lung and emphysema. I was diagnosed with
black lung in the 70's at the hospital at Richwood. The state
gave me 40% and then I signed up for federal and the fed gave me
100% disability for one year and the coal company hired a bunch
of lawyers and took it back.
They had a hearing
on it in Charleston and I went before a woman judge in
Charleston and she ruled against me in the company's favor, said
that it was from smoking, not coal dust.
It is in appeals
court. The lawyer called me and wanted me to make a settlement
and I said, "No deal." They said we are going before the
Supreme Court and I haven't heard no more from it.
I know it was from
coal dust. I never could wear a respirator and back them when I
first got black lung they didn't have such a thing.
Dr. Rasmussen gave
me 100% disability with black lung. The federal government sent
me to Rasmussen and he gave me 100% disability.
I take a breathing
pill everyday and I have 3 respirators and they tried to put me
on oxygen but I wouldn't go on it. I have to go every 2 months
to a lung doctor.
The company lawyers
say they can tell what causes black lung.
Grace
Adkins:
The federal laws say he deserved
black lung benefits, so we did a waiver so we don't have to pay
back what we have received.
Comments on women in the mines:
Delano
Barnett:
I was superintendent and I hired 5 women and I didn't
physically work with them but I was their superintendent.
I had one girl that
actually started running a buggy underground and the rest of
them did general work, cleaning belts, taking care of belts,
etc.
The women I had working
for me, I expected them to do a man's work because they took a
man's job and they did. One woman came and said that she needed
a smaller shovel and I said, "No." I treated them just like the
men working for me.
Tucker County, a
woman 68 years old, she ran the longwall shearer, that is a
piece of equipment that cuts the coal down. You had a hard time
slowing her down inside the mines, deep inside the mines.
Superstitions:
One superstition:
The old people used to say when a woman went in a coal mine, a
man would get killed.
I
asked; what has changed about coal mining?
Coal mining now days
is not like it used to be. It is not brute work. It is easier.
The modern equipment
is the biggest thing. If you look back at the hand loading days
it took a lot of people. They say the longwall has taken a lot
of the jobs but you have to prepare for the longwall, you have
to move it and it takes about as many.
I don't think women
are trying to work in the mines now. I think women back in
those days worked when there was a shortage of coal miners and
women went to work in the mines. They are not going to be
taking on inexperienced women.
I
asked; did blacks and whites work well together in the coal
mines?
In Logan County
there were probably more blacks than whites in the mines.
Back in the old days
in Widen, 1/2 of them working were black. In Widen the town was
marked off, 1/2 black, 1/2 white. They had their own churches,
their own stores, their own bootleggers. Daddy used to take me
with him to the bootleggers.
I
asked; what was it like living in a coal camp?
Widen was a coal
camp. The mining coal camp had its own stores, own doctors,
banks, self-sufficient, a town owned by a coal company. Buffalo
and Gauley Railroad. They had their own railroad, their own
trains. They built their own houses. They had their own judge
and jury.
My daddy used to go out
and get drunk and they would give him 5 days off. For getting
in trouble, 5 days off from your job without pay.
Elsie
McCutcheon:
I can remember going up there to Widen and they would dress
up in their very finest clothes to walk down to the store, white
shoes, white gloves and the coal dust would cover them. They
would spend hours washing their cars and one trip down the road,
coal dust 2 inches thick would cover it.
John
Adkins: on Widen:
The coal companies made the laws, they were judge and jury.
Me and my brother got
drunk one weekend and on the following Monday, my other brother,
who was a runner, sent him for me and my brother to come into
the office. I sent back that it was just as fast for them to
come to me.
Widen was a coal
camp running when I was a boy and it was still running when I
left home.
They even had a
sawmill to saw the logs. They even had a dairy farm. It lasted
for a long time. My dad worked there for 16 years. It was
there when I was born and it lasted for many years.
About 1/2 the people
were colored people. They were there, always there.
At the mines, the black
and whites worked together at the coal mines but they didn't
play together.
Elk River Coal and Lumber
Company - Widen Coal Company
Rayjean Barnett:
We lived in the town of Widen for a little while when I was
growing up and then we moved outside of town. People still live
in Widen but 70% of the people are gone.
John Adkins:
That boom lasted over 40 years. Widen and old man Moss up
Donegan Hollar was the only mines around.
Delano
Barnett:
There is a lot of coal left in West Virginia and it seems
to be coming back. I heard that Bush is pushing coal. The
future of coal mines in the next years is, coal business is
going to be pretty good but I have been out of the mines for 4
years. Coal mining gave me a good living.
Comments on coal miners and the media:
The media is
disgusting to me, whenever you see something about coal mining
it is in Logan showing a miner living in a house built on
stilts. That is how they want to live. They choose to live
that way; they would live that way in Ohio or Florida.
Rayjean Barnett:
I am a coal miner's wife and a coal miner's daughter.
John
Adkins:
My wife 's dad was for the union trying to help organize
and he was on the picket line and he lost his job.
They had a shootout
at Widen between union and nonunion. The union had a place
where they met and had big dinners and one day the company men
drove by and was yelling and somebody fired a shot and one guy
was killed (this happened around ’49 or ’50). The guy that
killed the company man went to the pen for several years.
Delano Barnett;
Back in the old days the coal miners’ wives had it rough
but since modern days with bath houses and other conveniences it
is not so bad. For my wife it was hard with me in management, I
was gone a lot. She had to get up 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning
and get me out.
I
asked; if you had a son who wanted to work in the mines, what
would you tell him?
Delano
Barnett;
If I had a son going into the mines, I would not encourage
him but I would not discourage him. It is a good place to
work. For the future holding a job, I would have him get
certified to be an electrician. As far as foreman, you can get
them anywhere.
I
asked; if you had a daughter who wanted to work in the mines,
what would you tell her?
I don’t think I
would encourage my daughter to work underground, I would send
her to school.
Grace
Adkins;
I don’t approve of women in the mines. If they had a bunch
of kids and no other way to make a living. I feel like they are
taking a man’s job that has a family.
John
Adkins;
I got a boy on a
strip and one hauling coal, Boone County, Red Warrior Strip job.
Comments on explosions in the mines;
John
Adkins;
Down the road here
one morning, lightning ran in and blew two mines up.
Comments on mining
accidents;
Delano Barnett;
The ratio between underground and
strip mining accidents, I think is about the same. Accidents in
and around the coal mines are less than driving up and down
these roads now days. Companies are enforcing more safety laws,
they can’t operate if they have too much going on.
Delano
on Hominy Falls Mining Disaster – Black Monday Disaster:
I was Section Boss at Birch Mines
for Island Creek Coal Company mines. Well, when I went to work
they told us about the men being trapped at Hominy Falls mines.
I was working the afternoon shift. They announced it at the
mines and the biggest part of the crew left and went to Hominy
Falls; the hourly employees. Me and Sheldon Wayne asked to go
but the company wouldn’t let us go. They told us, “No.”
So at the end of
the shift (4 to 12) everybody that was left was gathering up big
pumps and equipment. We were gathering up everything we had to
send over there to Hominy Falls. It was about 20 miles away.
We worked our shift
and at midnight when our shift ended they told us to go to
Hominy Falls. When we got there they told us to start up the
pumps. I started the first pump. I didn’t know much about what
was going on. We were all hoping for the best but we thought
more of them would be dead, especially where they cut into the
mines.
We worked that shift
from midnight to 8 in the morning (16 hours straight in a row).
People were all over the place.
After we got the
pumps started up the water started going down. It just
emptied. The next day we returned to Birch mines and asked them
(the company) to let us go back over to Hominy Falls and help
but they told us “No”. They wouldn’t do it, so we worked our
regular shift at our jobs from 4 until midnight and then went
back to Hominy Falls that night and worked another 8 hour shift.
The way I understand
it happened; the old abandoned mines they cut into had water in
it and on the other side of the hill was another mine on the
back side of the abandoned mines.
The second night,
we set up an Elcom miner in the old mines the plan was to cut
into the old mines and get to the first bunch but the water was
laying down in a sway below the normal water level, so it
couldn't be done.
They were talking on
the telephone to one bunch of the men who were trapped and then
they shot a hole through that old mines. Me and another guy and
2 inspectors went through to where the second bunch of trapped
men were but we ran into black roof damage and had to turn
back. We were still a long ways from them at least a couple of
miles.
After the second
day, my job was to keep the water pumped out of the two old
mines located on around the hill that we had cut into. I had
two men and our job was to keep the water pumped out of the 2
mines until they got the last bunch out.
A lot of the men just don’t want to talk about it.
end of interview. |
