ALEX.: What I want to do, I just started is to record. I sort of like to get
you to tell me about what you do. You were born, when?
DUNBRACK: May 1st, 1897.
ALEX.: May 1st, 1897. And you've worked partially as a salesman. Tell me
about your work.
DUNBRACK: I started in as a waterboy for the J. R. Joney Lumber Company. Old
Mr. Joney, he came up in New York and came down to this farm down here, it's
eight miles down the road here, down the railroad. Eight mile. And he bought the
land and everything and built a sawmill there. And it was run for a while as the
J. R. Joney Lumber Company.
ALEX.: How do you spell that last name?
DUNBRACK: J-O-N-E-Y. J. R. Joney Lumber Company. Then he switched it over to
a man by the name of Tomb. T-O-M-B Lumber Company. And it was still run as Tomb,
T-O-M-B Lumber Company when they finished up. Now, I carried water for the yard
crew there in the mill. See, Mr. Joney came there in 1906, and purchased real
estate there and everything and began building a mill. Now, he built a large
mill, what they call an eight-foot band mill, and the feet was what they called
a twelve-inch, shotgun feet. If you know anything about those. Anyway, it was a
great long cylinder or so big around. Ran out there and carried and the
carriage, the saw carriage was operated from that. You see, it was a piston and
it had a head to it and it worked in this here cylinder. And the sawers, he who
worked the lever back and forth, when he shoved his lever forward, it would put
the steam in behind and that's between the carriage, uh, pack, you see. Forward,
and when he got through he would pull it back and it would exhaust the steam out
from in front of the cylinder and shove the steam in behind, and shove the
carriage back, you see. Back to the log pack. Rolled around the log or turn the
log or anything like that. And then they also had another job there, a big
stripper mill. It was stripper saws, I think, seven feet in diameter. And they
sawed quite a bit of stuff on it too.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
DUNBRACK: Now I worked, begin carrying water when I was ten years old. I
picked wood out of the conveyer change. You see, it runs from the mill. It had a
conveyer change. It had to burn. It would burn all over the shoes, you know. And
I got ____. That's what I did when I was about eleven years old. Anyway, then
when I got a little older I went inside. Worked on the flasher and got a dollar
seventy-five a day from there. ____, oh, several chains across. Sawed up here on
the main bar, I guess what you call a, I guess that's what you call the thing.
But they're four feet apart. My job was to place that ____ to or from so that
the ____ cut it into with a ____. Going down into a ____ and make ____ or make
stakes. ____ stakes out of them.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
DUNBRACK: And I worked on that then until I was twelve years old and then they
drove the carriage a little bit ____. And so, I guess, I was pretty good size
for my age and pretty stout. But anyway the dog had quit. I asked the mill
foreman for the job, a doggin'. Now that was, you work on the end of the
carriage. Let's see, you don't have any pictures of sawmills inside, do you?
ALEX.: Yeah, yeah, I have some but your description would be very helpful to
me.
DUNBRACK: Well, on the end of the carriage there were two blocks there that
had a hammer dog that went over to catch the dog and they had what they call a
ward dog that would come out of the blocks and grab the sawer sights. But I
worked those too. Now the center he had to work one block . . .
ALEX.: Uh huh.
DUNBRACK: And he ____, you see.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
DUNBRACK: And so, when I was twelve years old, going on thirteen, the dogger
quit.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
DUNBRACK: And I asked the mill foreman, of course, they paid two dollars a day
for doggin', and slacks were a dollar seventy-five. And I asked the foreman for
the job of doggin'. And West said, "Marvin, that's a man's job." And I said,
"Well, I'm a boy but if I do a man's job will you pay a man's wages?" And he
said, "Certainly will." So I went on the carriage and went to work there. Now I
was on the carriage on my thirteenth birthday. And they gave me two dollars a
day and that was a lot of money. Twenty cents an hour.
ALEX.: Yes.
DUNBRACK: Ten hours a day, you see. And I stayed with it until they finished
up there, and they finished there about nineteen-sixteen I believe it was. And
the of course, the old mill shut down and they had two climax engines to haul
the logging. Had their own track, railroad track, out into the woods there and
they had one that came clear up here in Huntersville. Up in here. They hauled,
they had a railroad track up in there. Not right in Huntersville but down in Big
Creek. About six miles from Huntersville down in that way. And so, after that, by
then I had finished up there and I went to Totalwick and went to work in a
store. And the center, I learned to set ____ on the carriage ____, you see, so
anyway I went to work in this store at Totalwick.
ALEX.: I see.
DUNBRACK: Mr. Young. Now my job was sawmill work, you see, but still I could
____. I had a pretty good knowledge. So anyway the center, he quit. Their
carriage, it was small, what they call a ten-inch shotgun feet, but it had
armstrong setboards. What I mean by that is that you had to pull ____ to set
your ____ and all that. Now the one at Watoga had steam. A little lever came up
and you set your space bar, whatever you want. One inch, six quarter, or two
inches watt, and all you had to do was work a little lever like that and it
would set it out. When I went to Totalwick, I had to get hold of a lever and
pull it like that to get it out. Well, anyway, I asked for a, I asked the mill
foreman for a job there settin' blocks. And he said, "If you can do it, okay."
ALEX.: Now, what lumber company was that?
DUNBRACK: Now that was for F. S. Raise. F. S. Raise Lumber Company at
Totalwick. And he was a fine old gentleman to work with and everything. He would
come in to the mill and visit us there and he would come along the carriage
track and he would motion to the sawyer to stop and give motion to him and he
would walk right over in front of the sawyer and stand there and talk to him and
tell him a big joke or two. Now the owner of the company, he was a sole owner of
it and he would talk sawyer and maybe give him a joke or two and talk to him
maybe three to four to five minutes while the whole mill the whole crew wasn't
doing a thing. But he was just that type of old fellow and we just loved him and
we just worked real good for him.
ALEX.: I see.
DUNBRACK: So, I went from there then to Raywood.
ALEX.: Now, when were you at Totalwick?
DUNBRACK: I was ____ there at nineteen . . . I left about October 1916.
ALEX.: You were there about a year?
DUNBRACK: Uh huh. And then I went from there to Raywood and they needed a
setter up there and of course, there were team sets on that job. A whole lot
easier. So I went on up there and worked for them. That was my single days. I
was just, you know, go and the way it was I didn't make any before I went. I
could go anyplace. Raywood, Sitlington, or Deer Creek, Clover Lick, or down the
road and I would tell the right Mr. Foreman that I wanted a job; what can you
do? I would say, "Well, I'm a box setter." "We don't need you but we'll put you
on keep you anyway so in case we do need you, we have you."
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: So, I set off for Raywood. That was nineteen sixteen. The
beginning of nineteen seventeen. Now, I left the state about that time and I
wanted to settle over at Mount Grove, Virginia. They had a big band mill over
there. And the sawyer, Farmer Setter, on the mill at Watoga. But he knew me
well, you see. He set locks there before my brother did.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
DUNBRACK: And so he got in the saw business and he was sawing over at Mount
Grove. Well, they couldn't get a setter to stay on the mill at the Cash Farm. He
was fast sawyer, and he would call now, he would just have to be quick and
active on figures, you know.
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: What I mean by that you take off a slab and maybe then he'd call
and maybe then he'd say he wanted two 2". He's make a sign like this. Two 2".
I'd go and set out one 2" and then go back and set out another 2". And maybe
then he'd mention that he'd want board, you see, and then I'd have to set my
space bar on the board.
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: And we'd run that out and then he'd turn the log and then we'd
work then on the other side. Like that everything. So they had on this mill they
had what they called a nigger ____. Someone said did they have a nigger? Said
yeah, they had two. Had a nigger and a Negro. And that man of course he'd have
to turn his logs and everything like that and we went by sign because you
couldn't talk with the noise in the mill. We had to make all signs. We got so we
could talk pretty good. We had, I'll tell you this too, and it happened. We had
a colored turnin' down for us. That was the man after the board come from the
saw, he pulled it out from the bottom, dropped it on the roll and went on down
the roll so they had ____ straight on out you see. Then they went to the
trimmer. But anyway pulled a saw. They turned down a man there for Mr. Beatty
the sawyer, because he was a fast sawyer and he just didn't much on you.
ALEX.: I see.
DUNBRACK: So someone said something about we get this man, Walter Kibbs, a
fine colored man. A big stout hearty fellow. And he was well respected and well
liked. So the talked to him, the foreman did, and he agreed to come. So the
foreman came back and he wanted to know if we would work with a Negro. Of
course, we didn't have a nigger on the job. There was two families, the ____ and
the ____ that lived just above my farm there. So he asked me about it and I was
sittin' blocks and I said, "That's all right. I'll pass him a hundred times a
day and never speak to him." So he said, "What do you mean?" I was on the
carriage ____.
ALEX.: Yes, yes, yes.
DUNBRACK: But he and I was special friends. Got along fine. So anyway, while
I was there he pulled a saw off. And that big old band saw, you know, ____ I
forget how many feet around it, you know, it was what they called a big band
wheel up at the top and one down at the bottom now. It was powered from the
bottom one. The one on the top run independent, just loose you know. But when
the sawyer pulled that saw off, kicked up a lot of dust there and everything and
part of it went right down in where this colored man, this turn down man was
standing. But he got out of there in time, and he went clear out of the mill and
down through and up on the hillside. That was the first experience he had ever
had, but my goodness I had been on the carriage pulled the saws off, carriage
run off, and everything of the kind and never did get hurt. But anyway, some of
them said when the dust settled in and everything said, "Where's Walter?" Begin
looking around thought well maybe he was hurt there. The saw hit him. Someone
looked out on the hillside and said, "There he is. Over on the hillside there."
Well, one of the men out there said, "All right, Walter. Come on back.
Everything's over. No ____ or anything." He come on back. So the sawyer said to
him, he said, "I stood my ground." Said, "Why did you run for?" He said, "Looky
here, Mister." Says, "I got a family to support and keep. I takin' no chances."
So he stayed with us then and I stayed there until November 30, 1917.
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: Then I came back from there and my wife and I were married. See
down in Greenbrier County. I went down there and we went to Greenbrier County
and to Lewisburg and was married there on December 5th. Well, I quit my
sawmillin' for a time being and went to Roundsville, Pennsylvania. I went to
work on the Pennsylvania Railroad as a brakesman. I was only twenty years old. I
weighed about 145 pounds. So imagine me up there working with those big husky
men and everything. We got along but still I didn't like it very well. My wife
came up and we had a room just upon a knoll above the yard office. That was
their terminal too, you know, the engine and everything. And every time I was out
on a trip and there was a wreck, of course, a wrecked train or whatever you want
to call it, they had the moaning whistles started. My wife, she would go and if
they'd happen to go in the direction ____. They had three ways out of there. You
could go to Pittsburgh. You could go to Pittsburgh on freight. And up the other
way and up into Pennsylvania up in that way and back then to Fairmont and come
back into West Virginia and so I railroaded up there up until August, I believe
it was and I decided that it wasn't for me. I quit there and came back and went
to Spice Run.
ALEX.: That's Spice Run.
DUNBRACK: That's Spice Run. That was a sawmill town. I'd say, have you been
in the town of Denmar?
ALEX.: I'm on my way down there, I haven't . . .
DUNBRACK: You see, Denmar, there was a big sawmill there. I believe it was
known as the Maryland Lumber Company. I'm not too sure about that. They was in
and out and gone, I was too ____.
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: But I went to Spice Run . . .
ALEX.: What company was that sir?
DUNBRACK: At Spice Run?
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: They were known as the Spice Run Lumber Company.
ALEX.: Spice Run Lumber Company.
DUNBRACK: Uh huh. Oh, I can't think of the man's name--the owners of it.
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: Anyway, I set blocks with them until May in 1919. So I give it up
and then quit sawmilling and then I come back up here to Campbelltown and I
open up a little store in there--a grocery store. We had a little money ahead
and a nice place to get rid of it is to put it in a store and buy merchandise
and put it out on credit. So anyway, we had an experience in that.
ALEX.: What year was that again?
DUNBRACK: That would be 1919.
ALEX.: Nineteen nineteen. Okay.
DUNBRACK: That's when come up there and started a little store business. Now
I'll mention that while I was in the store business there, they uh, Sawyer
Raywood took down with the flu and I set blocks for him and that man, he
wouldn't allow anyone to touch his equipment except Marvin Dunbrack. Well, the
foreman called me--I lived in Campbelltown at the store and he called me and
that was in the winter of 1919. You almost had to run to keep fuel enough to
keep the pipes warm with steam and water and so forth to keep it from freezing.
So this Mr. Barnhart was mill foreman. Well, he called and wanted me to come up
and told me how important it was to go up there and saw for him. And Bob Raywood
had the flu. And he says, "Marvin, he won't let anyone touch his equipment
except you." Of course, I've done a little extra sawin' when he needed to rest.
I'd hop over and saw for him.
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: So I said, "Barnhart, I'm not any good at sawing." He says, "Well,
you can cut enough here to furnish wood to keep our broilers hot and the pipes
hot." He says, "You can do that, can't you?" I says, "Yes siree, if you put 'er
all through the hog." Now a hog, I don't know if you know anything about that .
. .
ALEX.: No, sir.
DUNBRACK: It was a big thing to grind wood up and they cut such size pieces
as four feet long and it would take up maybe something like a four by four or
maybe a three by six o something like that and it would grind it up and come out
the feed as feed to go to the broiler room. So I went up there and sawed then
for one week for that man there. And believe it or not the last cut I made at
noon, 12 o'clock noon, the sawyer was supposed to be out that day at 12 o'clock
noon. It was on a Saturday and I had to get on the evening train to come back to
Marlinton here to go back up Campbelltown so I pulled a saw off. What happened
though, what they call offset things, they didn't work very good on the
carriage. You see, when they stopped the carriage and started back, there was a
jigger on the things right on the thing, on the axle that towed the blocks back
just a little so it wouldn't hit the saw going back. Well, I let the saw on the
carriage go back just barely by and the log caught right at the end of the log
caught right in the end of the saw there and as I pulled why here come the saw.
Right off. Well, I just seen the thing coming and I knew there wasn't nothing I
could do just stand my ground and I just shoved the carriage lever head and
shoved it out of the way, and off come the saw right there, it flocked around
right there you might say in my face . . .
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: And as I was within that close of it and I tell you I was taking
quite a chance.
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: And I held on to the rig there, I didn't let the carriage get
away. I centered her and held her right there until that saw got off and quit
and everything quit runnin' cause it was runnin' fast and it had a catcher. What
they called a catcher hood up there and it hit that instead of going down the
pit. And that thing oh, it made a probably hundreds of revolutions before that
thing ever stopped. But anyway, I stayed with it. And that finished up my
sawmillin' up there.
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: And then later there was three of us brothers. Burgess, he was a
sawyer; Marvin, myself, was a blocksetter; and I had a brother Forrest who was a
dogger. So down here at Hillsboro, the Barthalathews, Mr. George Barthalathew
and Sam Barthalthew had a nice little small mill out there on next to Lobelia
Road. Well, he found out about us and he contacted me and wanted a sawyer, a
dogger, and a setter. I said, "The Dunbracks will do it." There's three of us.
So I went down there and I set blocks for him. Now that is 1921.
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: And I set blocks for him and my brother sawed and my other brother
dogged. And that's the way we done it. I kid some of them. Now Mr. Sam
Barthalathew and George Barthalathew was great big husky men. And I told them, I
said, "The reason we got three Dunbracks, it takes three Dunbracks to stay up
with the Barthalathews." So anyway, I finished up there and that was my last
sawmillin'. So when I come back up here and, uh, then I got into some road work.
This old road between here and Campbelltown, it was water bound. The rock
quarry was at Edray. We'd go up there and get out rock and run through the
crusher, load them up and bring them down and we'd spread them on the road from Campbelltown to Marlington. And that was around 1921. Then after that I heard
about the man who worked for the Cliffton Forge Grocery Company. Had a branch
house here. And the man was quittin' and I, of course, was kind of grocery
minded and I thought well I'll make application for a job in their shipping
department. I did and Dave McLaughlin was manager. He came up and we talked a
little and I went down and went to work in their warehouse on April the 5th,
1922.
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: And then in my town work, I had to work town trade. And I didn't
have any knowledge at all about selling, you know. Of course, I worked town
trade on first trip around was in 1922, was April 7, 1922. So I had to work all
over the town with--Mr. McLaughlin turned it over to me and said, "Marvin, the
town is yours." And he worked out of town from Frankfurt to Huttonsville and
Durbin and Cass. Clear up in there. So I took on the town trade and I'm still
taking care of it. The Clifton Forge Grocery Company went out of business and
so we bought the little old warehouse. Excuse me just one minute. I'll show you.
I have a picture of that old warehouse. It's quite an antique.
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: The home center?
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: All right now. The picture's on the other side here.
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: The picture . . .
ALEX.: That's up next to the tannery.
DUNBRACK: Uh huh.
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: Now that one was built there in the place of this one here. Now I
was manager when this one was built. We built it by 60 feet by 120. One story of
course. Now on this old building over here, that was there about 1892 or 3.
Somewhere along there. Now that's just nothing but single boards and the cracks
was stripped.
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: Now the upstairs part was their office. And they had a fine
office. It was plastered and everything was real nice. But the downstairs, it
went back so far. They used it as a wareroom for feed and their supply of
equipment and things like that.
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: And the Clifton Forge Grocery Company bought that building in
August of 1915.
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: And then they used this as a warehouse you see. Then I went to
work in this. I put in, let's see. From 1922 to 1949, just a second. We built
that new building there, that's right but then I worked in this building here. I
put in forty years in that spot there from 1922 to 1962.
ALEX.: Forty years.
DUNBRACK: I quit there.
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: Now that building there was built by Captain Smith. St. Lawrence
Lumber Company.
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: And he was manager for them here about 1895.
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: Now that was built before this railroad came up through.
ALEX.: Yes, sir. Fairly close to the railroad though.
DUNBRACK: Well, it is right close. We had to sidetrack from right around
close here. Over there are the scales, this is the way for coal, and this piled
up there, this is coal there.
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: And they have a open-end side track that comes clear down through
and down past Richardsons and out right over here somewhere. Now this building
here was within, oh, I'd say about thirty feet. We had a ramp built from this
warehouse over to there so cars come we could run down in the warehouse. So in
about 1949 it was, they tore this building down, we moved it and built this new
one over here and I stayed in it until 1962. I'll show you something here it's
got Clifton Forge Grocery's name on it. See that smokestack in there and say,
boy you must have had a big heating plant in there. Look at what a smokestack.
But the secret of it was it belonged to the tannery over there.
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: It was the tannery's smokestack. We just had a little ole flue to
come up here like that, you see.
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: But we had a big concern. That building there now is the one
that's still up there now.
ALEX.: I see.
DUNBRACK: So I stayed in that until 1962 and I resigned as manager then I
went to work as a salesman working in Hillsboro, Marlington, and Huntersville
for Covington Grocery Company and I worked for them then until . . . I'm getting
just a little bit ahead. Clifton Forge sold out to us. We had several
stockowners over here that owned stock in the company.
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
DUNBRACK: And they sold this old warehouse and everything and all the
business to us in 1955. We operated on there and as I told Mr. Bradley, of
course we were the ones that made the money and kept them in business at
Clifton Forge.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
DUNBRACK: When we bought out and everything I said Mr. Bradley who was
general manager and Mr. John Donavan ____ he past on so John took over. So I
told Mr. Bradley when we built and separated from him. I said, "Mr. Bradley, I'm
just giving you people six to twelve months to go out of business."