ALEX: What is your first name?
MCCARTY: Richard McCarty
ALEX: Now you’ve worked, you say, in some of the lumber.
MCCARTY: Yes sir, I done a lot of lumber hauling and a right smart bit of
logging. Worked around and got ill. . . for several years there. Most of
my work was roadwork.
ALEX: I see.
MCCARTY: The lumber business got bad here at about 1920. . . It played out in
the county. But before that I went to work… the last I reckon
the last job of logging I done was over about joined MCCARTYNeel I logged about
seven hundred thousand feet there for about. . .a number of year. But I quit
then. . .sold off the teams and went out of the business.
ALEX: Yeah, when did you first start.
MCCARTY: Huh?
ALEX: When did you first start in the lumber business? How old were you?
MCCARTY: I was about eighteen.
ALEX: Eighteen.
MCCARTY: The first work I done was hauling export logs. When
the rail road was after it was built I work two years there for a feller who
came in here buying big white oak and red oak. . . well all kinds walnut and
popular.
ALEX: I see.
MCCARTY: We put out a lot of logs for him.
ALEX: What was his name do you remember?
MCCARTY: Yeah, Kellog was his name. Yeah, Kellog. Yeah,
Payne and Kellog. Payne lived over here at Hillsboro. But they lumbered a right
smart. Hauled a lot of lumber off from around here. People had done logging here
and there. Worked some up on the side of Cheat Mountain. This side
of Cheat Bridge one winter up there. Skidding logs and getting out bark. You had
to put in about eight months. . .on Doddards Creek over here. Worked there with
a fellow Huntley, George Huntley.
ALEX: Uh huh.
MCCARTY: We worked for him. Then we done just a lots of little jobs
around here and there, people, sawmills, and,. so forth.
ALEX: Were there any mills down in this area here, any band mills in this
area?
MCCARTY: No, no, there was one down at Denmar here. . .where the
Denmar hospital now is. Fellow had a mill there. .Dennison, J. A.
Dennison, he was there for about ten or twelve years, I reckon, working that
country, across the river there. Then there was one at Millpoint, just below
Millpoint, up there around Seebert, , just about Seebert. The Warn Lumber
Company-band mill. Then one just a little further-up the river, Watoga, then one
at Campbellstown at Marlinton.
ALEX: Uh huh.
MCCARTY: Then Ed Williams, up there, he had a big mill, a pretty
good size mill, down below Marlinton. Well, the mill is sitting there now, I
reckon, where he sawed, in there for four or five years.
ALEX: Well you say you worked some on Cheat?
MCCARTY: Just this side of Cheat Bridge. We worked had a contract
there, took a contract there,. worked one,. from January up until the end
of March we finished up in about three months in there.
ALEX: What?
MCCARTY: Skidding and putting out bark,
Hemlock.,. didn’t pay. We skidded and put out the bark to the rail road. .
. to the tram road, or Track. They had come up in there from down on the main
line of the Western Maryland Railroad. They had a track up in there, tram road,
rather, they didn’t give us any engine used horses to bring the trucks up to get
the logs and the bark. Then, they went down themselves. . . they run down.
ALEX: Well, what year would that have been?
MCCARTY: That was in 1907.
ALEX: 1907?
MCCARTY: Yeah, the winter of 1907. And then by 19---by 1907, we went
in on Doddard’s Creek, worked up there, went in there in August and finished
that up in March, working for a fellow, Huntley. Got done in there along in
March and then went that was the last drive that ever went out of the Greenbrier
River.
ALEX: Uh huh.
MCCARTY: We went up, it came off of Knapps Creek. We went up there,
. and uh, helped bring it down to what they call Minnehaha Springs now.
It was called Driscol land then, that was before Minnehaha got up there, but,
the water went down and we quit and come home and they sent for us to come
back but none of us never went back. We had our own team and had work to
do without going back up there. It wouldn’t have lasted only but a few days.
Well in fact the team work was all done, as far as coming out of Knapps Creek
was concerned. Might have been a little bit there in Marlinton, some logs that
got out, scattered.
ALEX: Uh huh.
MCCARTY: But, we never went back.
ALEX: So you saw a few of them float out, you’re saying?
MCCARTY: Huh?
ALEX: You saw a few of the logs float out?
MCCARTY: Oh yeah, yeah, that valley up there they were all over that
country. They brought the landing in and there was too much water in the creek.
.It kept raining.. and, then the logs, . you know, that helped force the
water on up.
ALEX: Uh huh.
MCCARTY: They went all over that country up in there.
ALEX: Washed out the banks?
MCCARTY: Oh yeah, washed out the banks. Piled up everywhere,
.one big pile of logs up there, washed-out down in the sugar cane they had you
know, it was about fourteen of us I reckon , took us pretty
near two days to put them back into the creek, get them back, they
jammed up in a curve in the creek, and the water up, you know and they just took
them straight on down into that sugar cane over in them peoples fields
everywhere. They was all over the country. Pretty near looked like a
lumberyard down through there.
ALEX: Hum.
MCCARTY: Started out on Easter Sunday.
ALEX: Then? What year, about what year was that?
MCCARTY: About 1908.
ALEX: About 1908?
MCCARTY: Yeah, Easter Sunday.
ALEX: Hum.
MCCARTY: Yeah.
ALEX: When you say you did road work. What kind of road work.
MCCARTY: Uh?
ALEX: Road work. . .when you talked about that.
MCCARTY: Road work, I worked as a grader man for a long time, roller
man. Yeah. Run the old steam rollers here for several years.
ALEX: Yeah. Do you remember them putting the road across Millpoint?
MCCARTY: Yes, I put that, started, way down in, put pretty near all this
road, main road clear through from down in Renick Valley on into Marlinton,
rolled the biggest end of that road that’s in there.
ALEX: Uh huh.
MCCARTY: On up even into Durbin, I went from Marlinton down into Durbin.
ALEX: Is that right?
MCCARTY: Put the first blacktop on up there, I don’t know run the
old steam roller through there.
ALEX: Un hum.
MCCARTY: I run the grader then for the county here a long time and,
then, I worked twenty about twenty—two years for the state. I ran a grader for 9
years for them and then I took over a foreman’s job. And, I worked at that for
about 12 or 13 years. Went to work for the state about 1920 I reckon,
then, I worked really more than 20 years. I worked off and on from 1920 up ‘til
1930. Then one-year there, I was county superintendent of the road here. Built
worked on the county roads around here, built, widened a little bit of the road
from down there at Denmar about four miles, 3 miles I suspect. Widened it and
based it, put in a bridge.
ALEX: Hum.
MCCARTY: That summer, that was in’30, the summer of ’30, then I went
to work for the state and I worked for them right on up ’till I quit, quit
in ‘58
ALEX: 1958?
MCCARTY: Yeah.
ALEX: Well, I’ll declare. When were your born?
MCCARTY: Huh?
ALEX: When were you born?
MCCARTY: I was born in ’86, if I live ’till the 3rd day of next
month I’ll be 90 years old.
ALEX: 3rd of August? Huh?
ALEX: You’re saying the 3rd of August?
MCCARTY. Yeah. Yeah. Well that’s, I was born the 3rd day of August
1886.
ALEX: Uh huh.
ALEX: You’ve seen a lot then, in that period of time.
MCCARTY: I’ve seen a lot. I think I’ve seen the best of it.
ALEX: Yeah. (laugh). Yeah, you’ve seen a lot I’m sure of that.
MCCARTY: Yes sir, I think I seen the best of it. The way it’s going now.
ALEX: Yeah.
MCCARTY: I think I’ve seen the best of it. I was talking to an old
fellow in Marlinton just the other day, he’s not as old as me, by about 12 or 14
years, but we was talking about it. He was an old roadman too. . .had been. .
.he retired or quit and we was talking about it I told him I didn’t know but I kinda thought we’d seen the best of it. He says you and me both, he says I think
we’ve seen the best part of it.
ALEX Yeah. (laughs)
MCCARTY: He says. Well it was tough but people enjoyed it just so they had
living in these lumber camps, of course, they feed you. They had plenty for you
to eat. But, you didn’t lack for anything to eat. They expected you to work. We
worked in there for eight months and then the eight months, we were in there we
just lost a half a day because of bad weather. Rain didn’t stop us, snow either.
ALEX: You just kept going.
MCCARTY: It never rained too hard nor it never snowed too hard. The reason
we was off that evening, a fellow had a mill over on this side of the mountain
and he had a bill of lumber over there. Huntley the same man we was
working for, and he wanted us to go over there that morning and, bring a load of
lumber, haul enough lumber over to the docks to make a finish his carload. He
had to have it out, and it took more than a half a day to go over there and
back. We didn’t get back in ‘till there till after 2 o’clock. We eat our dinner
and went over there and then unloaded their lumber. We didn’t lose really a half
a day. We just didn’t turn out to the woods. We didn’t go to the woods that
evening. It was pouring the snow down and everything. .
ALEX: Yeah.
MCCARTY: So we never but you put in straight time. Aw. Some camps
they didn’t work you that way but most of them took there take Cheat
Mountain,they never turned in for weather. It didn’t bother them unless it
was just awful bad. They never quit. Snow would get deep up there. One
winter up there, the snow got so deep, they had to shovel roads for the teams to
get into the woods to the logs.
ALEX: (Laughs)
MCCARTY: Got deep up in there, that was in 19, 1918 I reckon it was. They
had to, just took the crew and cleaned the roads, shoveled them out . . . so
deep they couldn’t, horses couldn’t clut the snow to get into the woods and
uncover the logs so they could find them.
ALEX: Yeah. (laughs)
MCCARTY: Times were rough up there, oh, it was all rough as far as I
was concerned.
ALEX: You enjoyed that though!
MCCARTY: Oh yeah. People enjoyed it. They didn’t mind it. But,
I’m the only one that was there was thirteen men, one of my brothers was there.
There was thirteen men that worked on that Doddard’s Creek job for Huntley, and
I’m the only one that’s living of the thirteen.
ALEX: Well, I’ll declare.
MCCARTY: They’ve all been dead for several years Well,
the last one died here 5 or 6 years ago. He died there in Marlinlton.
Harold McElwee, he was one of two brother that worked there all them
people, some of them off of Anthony’s Creek and, that worked in there, they’re
all, as far as I know they’re all dead. One fellow died. He was just a
young fellow when he worked in there, him and his father. He died here about
four years ago, three or four years ago in Denmar down there hospital. Oh
it’s been, Littlepage was his name.
ALEX: Littlepage?
MCCARTY: Yeah. Frank Littlepage.
ALEX. I’d like to get a picture before it gets too dark.
MCCARTY: We had a lot of big logs here in this country.
We had some pretty big white oaks and red poplars. The walnut, the big part of
the walnut, the big walnuts had practically gone, We handled a lot of nice
walnut. But you find poplar logs sometimes would have 300 hundred feet in it.
One red oak, we put it in from up at Edray into Marlinton, it was ten feet long
and had nearly 1400 hundred feet of lumber in it. Broke that old covered
bridge that went through, covered bridge that went through, my brother was
driving the team then when it went through. It happened that it broke right at
the end where it dropped in it didn’t hurt anything much.
ALEX: Yeah.
MCCARTY: Got jacked up and got it back out of there.
ALEX: What kind of teams did you have?
MCCARTY: We had good heavy teams, horses, all horses, all of
them good ones. I’ve seen as many as 6 teams hooked on to one wagon. We
just put a wagon. . If it was a hard place to get out and we could get a wagon
to it. We just put a wagon down to it and roll the log on, put the teams
on and take her back up the hill and around instead of taking it into the
hollows and having it skidded back out of them.
ALEX: Yeah.
MCCARTY: Or block out. That big log it growed way up against the hill. We
had to put the wagon up to it, then stubbed it with a block and chain, block and
rope, down out of there, down out of the woods, out of the hills.
ALEX: Hum.
MCCARTY: We stubbed it and let it down with a block and chain.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah.
MCCARTY: We had lots of experience.
ALEX: Yeah. I’d like to take your picture.
MCCARTY: Huh?
ALEX: I’d like to take your picture.
MCCARTY: Oh.
(begin to look over some pictures McCarty wanted to show)
?: Carpenter. .
?: Jim Carpenter.
?: That’s Sam Kannut (sounds like). That Harold McElwee. There’s Sherman
Piles. No, there’s Sherman and that’s his brother. There’s Larry Clendenon.
There’s several more, if I could see good, I could, that’s Sheets, there.
ALEX: Uh huh.
MCCARTY: From up at Green Bank and that’s that fellow there he was the
cook, he was standing there in the door.
ALEX: Uh huh.
MCCARTY: Got a picture of Cheat Mountain in there.
ALEX: Oh yeah. Well you did a good job of putting all those pictures
together.
MCCARTY: Yes I did.
ALEX: And preserving them.
MCCARTY: Yeah. There’s old fellow came to work.
ALEX: Is that Frank Champion?
MCCARTY: Uh huh. He built the first camp (tapes gets very bad here).
That’s the fellow that wrote the book.
ALEX: Blackhurst?
MCCARTY: No another fellow you know, oh, I can’t think of his name. Okay.
MCCARTY: We hauled big oaks, white oaks and red oaks had fifteen,
eighteen, hundred feet some of them.
ALEX: Uh huh.
MCCARTY: Two thousand feet in them.
ALEX; Yeah.
MCCARTY: Took a big wagon, stout wagon to hold them.
(un-intelligible) big wagon --- Then, we had 74 inch wagons.
(skip)
MCCARTY: 1910 or 11 I forget which it was. I got Walter Champion over
there too. One like that and then another one. It was the same picture but
of different teams.
ALEX: Yeah.
MCCARTY: Same thing, it was the same picture, but the teams different
teams.
ALEX: Yeah.
MCCARTY: I have an old picture there of an old road roller. That was taken
about the same time that work was done. It was taken right this side of
Marlinton. When we first started, Marlinton, you know, was a pretty small
town then, there wasn’t much to it.
There was old fellow he started a dairy up there on a hill this side of
Marlinton. They delivered the milk in cans in an old buggy and when the fellow
took the picture he drove right up behind the roller and got his picture took.
ALEX: Same time huh?
MCCARTY: Poor old fellow I told him I had it, but he died and I never---
ALEX: Uh huh.
MCCARTY: Got to give it to him.
ALEX: When was these taken Mr. McCarty?
MCCARTY: I don’t know, 1910 or 11.
ALEX: 1910 or 11 huh?
MCCARTY: Yeah, somewhere along there, I just forgot, I suspect more than likely
1911. I never kept any date or anything.
ALEX: Yeah.
MCCARTY: I gave Wilda one like this, and then she, I had two
another some other teams besides these here. .
On this tape at the end of McCarty contains an interview with Cain of Cass,
which has not been transcribed.