COYNER: Standard Railroad. Went up Clover Creek here brought all the lumber
out here. (Blank space on paper)* had a circular saw. That was in 19 and 08 or
10. I can remember the old mill up here. They tore it down in the teens I guess.
Then the next one I reckon was F. P. Wise (F. S. Wise). Come in here and he had
a mill in here. Several miles of railroad track and Shay engines. Bridge across
the Greenbrier River. He sold out to A. D. Neil. He run it for a few years, then
he sold out to Raine. Raine run it for a few years. He closed down in about
1920 through '25. Unidentified Man(Woman?)*: Nineteen twenty-six. When I was in
high school or thereabouts, a couple kids that lived over there, they went to
school. They wasn't there the next year.
ALEX.: Changed hands four or five times, then.
COYNER: Yeah, there were different mills. That one over there isn't, reckon
first Wise had it then he sold out to Neil. Neil had it a while and it was
vacant a year or two, maybe they’s repairin' it, anyway, it was vacant, sittin'
there. Then it went to Raines.
ALEX.: How many men would they have employed over there at a peak time?
COYNER: Oh, it's hard to say. I wouldn't have any idea. Would you, Bo? One
hundred, would you say? In the woods and the mill.
ALEX.: About what year did they quit usin' the railroad up to Clover?
COYNER: About 1910 or '11. I 'spect, I don't know. I remember the railroad
track runnin' up there but I was just a little kid. I remember the old mill. It
sat vacant for a year or two, all the machinery taken out. Then my dad tore it
down, built a barn up around on the hill. Out of the old mill, the timbers and
all out of it. It's still sitting up there on the hill.
ALEX.: That's helpful.
*Other: They had a lot of portable mills.
COYNER: There were a lot of portable mills, just go up any of these hollows.
Go up there and cut that hollow. Then they'd move the mill somewhere else. But
that was the biggest thing; they all had railroads and rode in on railroad cars.
ALEX.: About the last milling activity of any size was about ’26 or '26,
then?
COYNER: Course my father came here in the lumber business. He and his two
brothers came here from Virginia. They called it the Coyner Lumber Company. They
had one sitting up the river here about 1900, I reckon. Had one up above Waness, above Cass. It was up there along about the time the railroad got up
there. That was 1902 or something.
*Other: I think they cut a lot of timber along the right-of-way. Moved along
in front of the railroad.
COYNER: Cut over the right-of-way, you know. They used to be a big staves*
mill over there when we were kids. Don't ever remember it running, but I
remember the big pile of sawdust and the big building.
ALEX.: Made barrel staves*?
COYNER: I reckon. They called it the stave mill. They had a little
tram-road that ran up the hollow here with wooden rails like 2 x 4's. They had
some kind of little old trucks. They'd pull them up with horses and then they'd
coast them down. Gravity. They'd have brakes on them because it was pretty steep comin' down in places. If they hung them up they'd put horses on and pull them
down, I reckon. My brother's got a sawmill on the farm now. He and another
fellow got a little portable thing. Timber's getting kind of scarce here now.
It's been cut over. Government's got a lot of it, and they can't turn loose of
it. (Blank space on page, tape skips)* Fellow by the name of Neunan*, he was a
friend of ours. He worked on the skidders up there.
ALEX.: He live in Clover Lick?
COYNER: Used to live up there. He told me one time, he died about a year
ago, that he worked for my daddy and my uncles. He went to work when he was
about 14 years old. His job was to carry the sawdust away from the machines. One
of my uncles had to take him down and show him how. He said you got to put your
hand out but about that time he got it too close and it cut his hand off right
like that. He said he quit right then. He'd only been there a couple hours and
he never has been paid for those two hours. I don't know where they took him,
somewhere. But I remember he just had that one finger and all the rest cut off.
ALEX.: Who was that?
COYNER: Sam Coyner, my uncle. He had a mill up there on the river not far
from where Odey Cassell lived.
ALEX.: It's Cassell then?
COYNER: He went to work there as just a kid. Yeah. He was to wheel the
sawdust away from the saw. He made a pass and went too close. It cut it off just
like that. Cassell said he quit right then. He said it happened early in the
morning and the train hadn't gone by when it came by they flagged it down and
took him to Ronceverte, I believe he told me that. Course you could flag a train
down. We had a passenger train going up and down. We had one go down in the
morning, used to get here about seven o'clock, go back up about 11 or 11:30,
then go back about 2:30, then back up about seven in the evening. Used to have
to four passenger trans run up and down here. All you'd have to do was stand out
anywhere along the road, flag and they'd stop and pick you up. In those days you
didn't have to get to a station. They had regular stops and stations but if you
got caught between they, you could flag them down. Save you walking several
miles. You could flag them down and they'd stop and pick you up. I'm kind of
careful talking into these recording things after all we've been having about
Watergate and all. Had log ties on the Greenbrier. They'd log it out and float
the logs down here. Had what they called an ark, took horses on and floated
along down here.
*Other: ____ tells about that.
ALEX.: Yes, in Riders of the Flood. I don't think he tells who the fellow
was who fell off, swam under and came out on the other side. The account in the
book says the fellow said he was giving up the logging business, going to become
a preacher. He never did say who it was.
COYNER: I don't know, either. A lot of the people we knew he was talking
about. I remember Cameron, met somebody down at Ronceverte. Come up here for a
job. Dr. Lukes and all, Hanna. You could pretty well tell who they were.
ALEX.: I remember him talking about getting his breakfast down there.
COYNER: Come on this log hick or something.
*Other: Rutherford had a mill up at Clover Lick. There was a dude down at
____ and he come up on the train one night. Had an old Model T Truck to ride on
up. He said, "I'm going up to Clover Lick to pick up some lumber, going in the
lumber business and I'd like to see that old Paw* was sitting there and he said,
you'll see one hell of a sight."
ALEX.: I guess people were coming from everywhere trying to make money.
COYNER: They tell the story about Paul Overhold who ran up to a big tree,
threw his arms around it and said, "My, my I wish it were a white oak instead of
a wormy chestnut." Got him a mill pond up there. Got it about built when he
looked out. He said, "Hell, I've got a dam by my mill site but I don't have a
mill by my dam site."
ALEX.: When was that?
COYNER: About '20 wasn't it?
(Skip)
COYNER: . . . drugs for a company out of Bristol, Tennessee. Frank Schmidt*
and I had a little dealership for a garden tractor they had down there, Elmwood
Industries made a little garden tractor. We had the distributorships on that and
I traveled around and opened up dealerships on that for a few years.
ALEX.: When?
COYNER: Oh, 1946-47-48, I reckon.
ALEX.: After the war?
COYNER: I came back from the navy and they put me over the Huntington
Charleston territory. No. 1946.
ALEX.: What was the month and day?
COYNER: January 29. It was a deed for 200 acres of land right where we're
sitting now.
ALEX.: Back in 1700.
COYNER: Jacob willed this land to his son. John Warren*. I don't know if it
was my great, great-grandfather or my great, great, great-grandfather.
ALEX.: Been here a long time.
COYNER: In Price's History he talked about Jacob Warick's*, having people
spend the night with you, 40 or 50 people at Clover Lick. It was an oasis where
people coming from Virginia going to Ohio and other places come through here.
ALEX.: Is there a three-pronged valley here?
COYNER: Yes, there's a creek comes down here.
ALEX.: Goes back 8, 10 or 12 miles.
COYNER: Yes, I'd expect 10 or 12 miles.
ALEX.: But the people'd be coming up the river from Virginia.
COYNER: No, they came through the hollow.
*Other: Most came through this hollow here, through Durbin.
COYNER: And they'd come through Huntersville.
ALEX.: Where were they going?
COYNER: Oh, I don't know. In Price's history, it says to Ohio and Kentucky.
ALEX.: Going on west?
*Other: Talked about Traveller's Repose about 25 miles up where they could
stop.