ALEX.: We've arrived at Marlington, a town established about 1900. There was
quite a battle here over the county seat. Eventually, it was established at
Huntersville, which is east of Marlington. But now, it is at Marlington. It's
just on the other side of the bridge across the Greenbrier River. It's May 25,
1975. We're at the junction of Route U.S. 219 and West Virginia 39. Looking at
the old Toll House which collected tolls for the county. We're waiting for Mr.
Bruce Crickcard, a surveyor, who is reported to have surveyed much of the county
for West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company. We'll be talking to him for about an
hour I suspect. It's quite warm. The temperature's gone to about 75 degrees. We
should be talking to Mr. Bruce Crickard within the next few minutes.
(Break)
CRICKARD: I went in there with West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company. I was
there until they finished lumbering in about 1920. We didn't do any coal mining
there. We built the railroad through, through Spruce to Slatey Fork. Up around
Little Spruce Knob there. I'd been a lumberman in some of the lumber camps in
that section.
ALEX.: Do you remember some of the names of any of those camps?
CRICKARD: Oh, yes. Camp 5 was right there at the edge of Cheat Creek. Camp 5
was there around Spruce.
ALEX.: Looking at the map there, Cheat Creek had a right fork and a left
fork. It was a pretty sizable stream there about five miles back from the
Williams River.
CRICKARD: Oh, yes. As I remember, they had the railroad down about three miles
from the Williams River.
ALEX.: Well, the train ran back there behind Cheat Creek. About how far did
it go? To the top of the mountain?
CRICKARD: Well, they crosses, went around through Little Spruce Knob and
then went up through ____ and then to the head of Cheat Creek. And they, the
railroad ran down two or three miles.
(Inaudible Section)
ALEX.: About what year was that? The date?
CRICKARD: It must have been about nineteen and twelve or nineteen and
thirteen. Wasn't that about the time your Uncle Bob was in the lumber camps up
there?
ALEX.: Did they take that timber down to Williams or back across the
mountain?
CRICKARD: Brought it back and brought it into Cass.
ALEX.: Brought it into Cass, huh?
CRICKARD: Bring it down Crooked Fork to Slatey Fork. They called it Lower
Bank then. Took it 14 miles to Spruce and then from Spruce to Cass. The log
trains ran out of Lower Bank to Cheat Creek. They had a railroad yard there a
Lower Bank. And the trains used to come out of Spruce and haul it up the
mountains. Let's see, that's the Western Maryland Railroad now. They purchased
it from Greenbrier, Cheat and Elk Railroad.
ALEX.: You were a surveyor. What did you do?
CRICKARD: I did everything from bossing a lumber camp to railroad track
superintendent. About every job they had. Worked in the
woods.
ALEX.: What do you remember about the lumber they pulled out of there? Was
it mostly spruce? You worked at Cheat Creek. What kind of hard wood did they
bring out of there?
CRICKARD: Birch and hard maple. But not very much, it was mostly
spruce and hemlock.
ALEX.: How about poplar?
CRICKARD: They didn't get much poplar. Wasn't much poplar in there. Had to
get further downhill to get much poplar over in Webster Springs was more.
(Inaudible)
CRICKARD: Curtin came in there and bought the poplar trees for one dollar a
piece that was the Curtin and Pardee Lumber Company.
ALEX.: You say there was West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company. What other
companies were there?
CRICKARD: Well, they sold to the Mower Lumber Company. The West
Virginia Pulp and Paper Company had lumbered all over that hill before they sold
it. They had lumbered it out. Then they sold it to the United States government
to the Forest Service. I didn't take hold of the engineer work until it was
taken over by the Mower Lumber Company. They sold them over 79,000 acres. Sold
to Mower. That's the Snowshoe Country, over in there.
ALEX.: Well, they took a lot out down at Cass in the early 1900's. What is
your age?
CRICKARD: I'm 85. Be 86 in December. I've been in every holler in the Elk
River, I think down to where the ____. And I've been up every stream going into
the Cheat River from its head to Spruce.
ALEX.: You said you worked about every kind of a job including bossing a
lumber camp. How many men would there be in a camp
like that?
CRICKARD: Run anywhere from 100 or 85 to 115 depending on how big a camp
they built. They had camps where they worked 15 teams and 115 men when they
could get 'em. And they had smaller camps. They generally had ninety to a
hundred men most of the time. They had 15 lumber camps and 200 head of horses
turned out to pasture up there.
ALEX.: What kind of horses did they have?
CRICKARD: Oh, big draft horses. Clydesdales and ____. They bought the horses
in Illinois. They bought them off the farms. They had a horse buyer there, then
someone would go out and gather them up and have them shipped to Cass, express.
ALEX.: Those horses came out of that flat country. What did they think
of the mountains here?
CRICKARD: Oh, they got used to it. Some of them were pretty smart horses.
ALEX.: Did they have what they call Perchans?
(Inaudible)
ALEX.: Did you know Shaffer? What can you tell me about him?
CRICKARD: I always thought a lot of Mr. Shaffer. Of course, I was just one
of his boys. When he wasn't very well, I would go around with him through the
woods. I operated his car most of the time. On the railroad, that is. He had a
motor-driven car. Shaffer was a fine man. He was very firm. Kept himself sober
and wouldn't use any tobacco. I've been with him many a time when people would
offer him a drink of whiskey. He always said, "I can't drink that anymore. Got
drunk on it one time. But perhaps Bruce there will have a drink." He always
said, "Bruce there will have a drink."
ALEX.: And did you?
CRICKARD: It just depended on where we were and what we were doing at the time.
ALEX.: He was a good boss then?
CRICKARD: Oh, yes. West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company made over a million
dollars a year on that job. He figured that was what he was worth to them.
ALEX.: He must have known his men pretty well.
CRICKARD: He knew the name of every man and practically every horse he had
working for them in the woods. He named every horse and every mule, put a tag
around their neck. He'd be working around where the horses were and he'd go up
and pat them on the neck and call them by name. When you turned out over 200
head or horses and paired them up again, it was a big job. He'd go up there on
the farm and he could tell which ones were mates. He knew their names. He had a
wonderful memory. One thing I found, if he told you something verbally that was
as good as his bond. He was just that way. I thought a lot of Mr. Shaffer. Of
course, a lot of men who worked in the woods didn't like him so well. That was
just naturally just like a lot of people don't like their boss.
ALEX.: But he was good to them wasn't he?
CRICKARD: Oh, yes. He believed in having plenty to eat.
ALEX.: What was food like?
CRICKARD: Oh, when they started there you couldn't buy a meal like they
served for breakfast. It'd cost you eight or ten dollars today. They served
beefsteak for breakfast. It was served hot at your table. The waiters would come
along with a pan of hot biscuits and hot steak and fork you out a big chunk of
it. Their meat was excellent. But in later years, their cooks wasn't as good as
the old timers. They had a lot of men who'd cooked in the Navy, the old timers,
and steamboat cooks. They didn't look for them to send in a lot of jelly and
stuff. They'd make their own. Peach preserves, because they had a lot of peaches
there. They had a lot of canned stuff. When they first started there, for the
first ten years, they really had good cooks. When they didn't have beefsteak,
they had ham. They always had plenty of meat. Of course, back when I started you
worked 11 hours a day, 6 days a week. Didn't have any coffee breaks. If you
couldn't keep a movin', the boss'd be standin' at the door when he turned you
out in the morning with your time wrote out and he give you that. A lot of men
ere settin' around there looking for work and they just hired someone else in
your place. That was how they handled that. I was lucky, though. I was never
worked too hard or anything.
ALEX.: Well, I think Spruce had a big paper mill up on top of it or
something.
CRICKARD: They brought those spruce logs in there and peeled them down and
cut them into two-foot wood. Then they shipped them to Piedmont, most of it.
They shipped it to Davis, Ohio. They just prepared the wood there to run through
the chipper. They sent it to Davis, had a mill there, where they made pulp. Then
the pulp mill over at Davis, they decided they wanted more money so they went
out on strike. So they just closed the mill down and moved it out. Well, the
pulp and paper company over at Davis supplied the water and furnished about
everything for the town, like they did over at Cass. At Cass they furnished
electric lights. For their buildings they had to rent, they furnished the
electric lights and water.
ALEX.: Did you know the store manager at Cass, this fellow named Hickman?
(Inaudible)
CRICKARD: I knew the owners of the Pulp and Paper Company, the Lukes. They
came once a year. When I went around with Mr. Shaffer, I met all of them, the Lukes, the Ables, ____, I knew all of them.
(Discussion of Dr. Alexander's wife between Crickard and wife, inaudible)
ALEX.: Can you tell me a little bit about the men who worked in the woods?
Any favorite stories?
CRICKARD: To build the railroad, they got Italians by the trainload.
Immigrants, out of New York. You'd order so many men. If you weren't getting as
much work as you thought you should out of your men, everything was done by hand
pick and shovel, you'd walk along and say, "You fellows better speed up, try to
get a little more done. There's plenty of men in New York." That would help 'em
a little sometimes. Italians would begin to jabber. One of the camp foremen and
I was at the lumber camp. I was in the office, had two beds in it, a man by the
name of Colbert*, a foreman, and I was there. These men would come to the office
store when they wanted something or to exchange an ax with a handle broke out of
it. Always had to bring their tool in out of the woods. This one man come in,
brought his ax in and said, "I want my time." The foreman sat down and wrote it
out. Another fellow was standing there with this old ax with the handle broke out
of it. This fellow, the boss said, "I want to go home. I'm not sick. I want to
cut some wood." He said, "All right, all right." This other fellow was standing
there with this broken ax he came in to exchange. He (foreman) looked around and
didn't see another ax so he just wrote out that fellow's time. He said, "I don't
want my time. I want another ax." "Oh yes," he said. "You better go home and see
your aunt. You can go on." He just let him go, too.
ALEX.: Guess they had some Austrians up there?
CRICKARD: Oh, yes. The Austrian boss. The lumber company furnished the stove
and coal but these Austrians would buy their own food. They'd order it from
Cass. The boss would generally have his WIFE or daughter or one of the other
men's wives to do the cooking. They always had plenty of meat, the Austrians.
They done pretty well. Then along towards the later part when they shut an
Austrian camp down, their equipment, their dishes, pots and pans, they had to
buy them I suppose. I was up there once when they shut an Austrian camp down.
Course a lot of them carried dinner buckets. They was out there chopping up them
and great big bowls, couldn't buy one of them now. They was just hitting them
with hammers, porcelain dishes. Just the very best porcelain dishes. The plates,
they were taking out to the railroad and hitting with hammers. Just break things
up in general. Well, they had a storage place there at Spruce. After the
Austrians moved out and took everything they wanted, why the company would come
in there and move a lot of that stuff. Maybe the next month they would come in
and open another Austrian camp so they moved a lot of the stuff and charge them
so much for it. They'd shut the camps down and have a hundred pounds of sugar
and all kinds of canned goods. They kept that stock at Spruce.
WIFE: What was the name they gave to the Austrians? I liked the
Austrians, they were so clean.
ALEX.: Where did they go after they left? Did some of them melt into the
local population or did they all leave?
CRICKARD: Some of them went to Ohio and bought farms near Cadig, two or
three of them or four of them. One went to New York. Well, I was down at a camp
in Cheat and this same foreman was bossing the camp. I'd been out all day and
the snow was about knee deep. I come up and said, "Matt, how about staying
here?" "Oh yeah, yeah," he said, "There's a bed here." I got my equipment. I had
a ____ on the railroad, they call it a spear ____. I'd took it up in there on the
train. We had about two more miles to build and I wanted to run a line so that
we could get some communications in up there. Well, I stayed with Matt, and Matt
got up but he didn't call me, I was dead to the world. He went over and eat
breakfast. Then he said, "You better get up or they'll be nothing to eat here."
"Oh, I'll wait and eat with the cooks." "The cooks is eating right now," he
says. Well, it was just as dark as it could be and it was snowin'. The snow was
about two feet deep. Anyway, I started from the office. I was walking to the
kitchen, and I fell off into a snow drift where they'd shoveled the snow off the
walk there and went into snow over my head. I dug myself out and went on in and
got the broom, went on over. The cooks were still eating and fixed me a plate.
When I come back, I put on my heavy coat and hat and mittens to protect my
hands. Then I said, "Matt, could you bring that lantern over here?" "Sure," he
said. And when he came over I jerked the lantern out of his hand. I got my
bicycle and put it on the railroad car. Matt came runnin' out and he called,
"Hey, where are you going with my lantern?" "I'm going down to Roy Hammond's
camp where I can spend the rest of the night. A fellow can't get no rest around
here." He says, "You give me my lantern." I said, "You go to hell. I'm going to
take the lantern with me." I just took it and went on. I went down to this camp,
a mile and a half below there and they were just eating breakfast. And he'd
already turned the men out. You had to get out of the at six o'clock whether you
could see or not. He was a funny man. They had a cook up and down at Cass on a
big drunk and come up there sick. Maybe I shouldn't tell this, but at that time,
he made the beds, swept the floors and was what they called a lobby hog. This
cook had been down to Cass, and he was laying around. He went into Matt's office
and said do you have any aspirin. Matt poured out a whole handful and gave them
to him. "How do you take these?" asked the cook. "Just take them all. Take the
whole bottle. They won't hurt you," said Matt. The cook went over to the water
barrel and took two, then he took a sip of water. He took the whole bottle. Then
he went in and laid down on the bed and never moved. It killed him dead as
anything. I kidded him that I'd have him taken up for practicing medicine.
ALEX.: Well, I guess a lot of things like that happened.
CRICKARD: Yeah, a lot of things.
ALEX.: Tell me about the paymaster.
CRICKARD: Well, in later years, we'd leave out of Cass, when they's building
a railroad in to Dracoon (Burgoon)* ____ all that. They had a lot of men, had
about 1,200 Italians at one time. We'd start out of Cass, and of course they
paid the Austrian camps, too. Well, Mr. Hickman would take the cash and Mr.
Graham, he was the head office manager there in Cass, he'd take the checks for
these men. He'd write out a check and take it up to the lumber camps, to the
Italian camps and around. He'd give the check to a man and he'd sign it or mark
it with an "X". None of the Italians could write. Mr. Hickman'd stamp it and
give the man his cash. We'd start out of Cass with $40,000 in cash in just an
old traveler's suitcase and in an open railroad car. Course they had a fellow
named Yeager, Paris Yeager, and he was a C & O detective. He always come. Of
course they all had shotguns. When the road would be blocked and they'd have to
walk in to pay the camp, they'd just leave me sitting there with 30 or 40,000
dollars. Just leave me sitting there. When they asked me what I'd do I said, "I
wouldn't do a thing." I'd say, "There it is, it don't belong to me" I'm not
going to get killed over your cash. And they said that was the thing to do. They
always paid by check. When they first started there at Cass, they held back 30
days on you. Then if you got fired or anything, they'd give you that and a time
check that maybe wouldn't be due to the twentieth of the next month. Well, a lot
of fellows, Mr. Hickman used to cash a lot of them, they'd cash these time
checks for five percent. It cost you ten percent to cash it if you went to a
speakeasy or something. I was there at Cass when there was nothing but a
four-wire bridge across the river there where the road is now. Just a swinging
bridge, and it swung, too. Their first camp was there about where that station
burned.
ALEX.: You say you taught out there? Now are you a sister to Miss Waugh?
What year did you go up to teach at Spruce?
WIFE: (Inaudible)
ALEX.: Nineteen twenty-five. How long did you teach up there?
WIFE: One year. We didn't have tenure, you just went around wherever you
wanted to go.
CRICKARD: Then they proposed that wooden mill down there and people moved
in.
WIFE: See there were no roads. It was all by railroad with no cars around.
Communication was all by telephone. Oh, we did
have a post office. But that was the most luxurious place to live I've ever
lived.
ALEX.: Up on top of Spruce?
WIFE: They had steam heat (Blank space on paper)*, and I don't know, they just
waited on you like you were rich. He'd take me riding on the train and we'd do a
little courting on the railroad. Oh, I had a wonderful time.
ALEX.: Everybody talks about this engineer, Piney Williams.
WIFE: I got to ride in a car with him when I was a courtin'. They set me up.
I was the billy goat Mr. Williams. He was awful nice. I'd ride up in the engine
with him. His ear was off, he'd been in a fight.
CRICKARD: It was bitten off.
WIFE: And later his son married Ruth ____. They're both dead now. Piney
Williams.