This is the first part of the GALFORD transcript.
ALEX.: How long have you lived at this location?
GALFORD: Oh, I've been here. Now let's see, I can't figure exactly but . . .
I believe I built my house in 1919, I believe.
ALEX.: Nineteen and nineteen.
GALFORD: Somewheres along in there.
ALEX.: Now you worked, where did you work in the woods most of the . . .
again.
GALFORD: Ah, just everywheres pretty near. I couldn't tell you where.
ALEX.: You were all over this country.
GALFORD: Yeah.
ALEX.: Yeah.
GALFORD: Yeah, I worked all over it.
ALEX.: All over these knobs.
GALFORD: I was raised back in next this big knob here. Born and raised.
ALEX.: Born back next to big Spruce Knob there, huh? You can see the spruce
growing up there this morning. It’s beautiful out here this morning isn't it?
GALFORD: Yeah. Yes, it is. Nice morning.
ALEX.: Yeah. What are some of the lumber companies you worked for?
GALFORD: Well, I worked for Cherry River Boom Lumber Company a whole lot. I
even took little jobs all up this Tea Crick country, you know. Plum down Middle
Fork River. Different camps, you know, just different people I worked for. I cut
for, a little bit there. Used to be a railroad right down along there. Campbell
Lumber Company.
ALEX.: Campbell Lumber?
GALFORD: Yeah, Campbell time down there.
ALEX.: You say the railroad went right down through there?
GALFORD: Yeah, it went along . . . see yonder?
ALEX.: Yeah, I can see bed there. Yes.
GALFORD: Yeah, it went right up through there. This was all nearly in timber
when I bought it.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
GALFORD: Of course, I didn't work much. I was young and I worked for them
and cut some of this timber right on this hill up in here.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
GALFORD: Before I was married.
ALEX.: Yeah. What did you get paid a day for doing that?
GALFORD: Oh, they didn't pay you much. A dollar and something a whole day.
ALEX.: A whole day. Did you get your meals? Did they feed you?
GALFORD: No, no you fed yourself. Oh, some places you get more. I just kind
of, who you was workin' for and some of them fellows would pay you more, you
know.
ALEX.: Yeah.
GALFORD: I took a lot of it by the contract just to cut logs and scale would
give you so much. I'd make a little more than that a day, you know. If you made
three or four dollars a day in them times you were making big money.
ALEX.: Oh yeah. On the contract. When you say scale a log what were you
doing?
GALFORD: Well, you cut a log, you know, and you have a log rules.
ALEX.: Oh, yeah.
GALFORD: And it tells you, you can just hook it on across the end and the
logs, the little end.
ALEX.: Yes.
GALFORD: And it will show you just how many feet that's in that log.
ALEX.: Yeah.
GALFORD: How much you can cut out.
ALEX.: In other words you have to take the slap off, I guess.
GALFORD: Yeah, the slap off.
ALEX.: That's the reason you go to the little end of the log.
GALFORD: That's right. They figure all that slap in that saw ever’ time it
goes through takes out a quarter of an inch.
ALEX.: Yeah.
GALFORD: See they have that all figured out.
ALEX.: Yeah. On the scale.
GALFORD: On the scale rule.
ALEX.: What about, where did most of this lumber go to? Do you remember when
they sawed it out?
GALFORD: I don't know what all they did do with it, but there was a big lot
of down there where that garage is down there.
ALEX.: Yeah.
GALFORD: That big mill there that band mill.
ALEX.: Oh yeah.
GALFORD: That all was shipped away. I really don't know where they took it
sometimes. They just took the best of it first.
ALEX.: Is that right?
GALFORD: Yeah, there was a lot of good timber left when they finished up.
ALEX.: What would you say was the average diameter of most of those logs
that went out of here? How thick through were they?
GALFORD: Oh, on an average they'd go two feet. Twenty-four inches.
ALEX.: Everything would be about twenty-four inches. All hardwood . . .
GALFORD: No, there's a lot of big pine trees.
ALEX.: Oh yeah.
GALFORD: Just like . . . there's a spruce tree that little one there and
there was a lot of that too in here. But they grow two feet too a lot of times.
But that tree I was telling about the roots are here pretty near here yet, and
that tree I expect was five feet across the bottom.
ALEX.: Why there's a piece of stump right there.
GALFORD: Yeah, that's a root to it.
ALEX.: Yeah, I see.
GALFORD: They run way out you know take a big root you know. There's a rock
on there. You can't get a post put in here hardly at all.
ALEX.: Yeah, how long has this old rail fence been put in here?
GALFORD: Oh, several years now. I don't know. Twenty years or more.
ALEX.: Now you say there was a band mill at Campbellstown.
GALFORD: Yes.
ALEX.: Do you remember any other band mills around?
GALFORD: Well, there used to be a little they called it a small band mill at
Clover Lick, I think.
ALEX.: At Clover Lick, yeah.
GALFORD: And then the band mill here at Richwood.
ALEX.: Oh yes.
GALFORD: That was a big band mill. That was Cherry Boom. Cherry Lumber Boom
Company. Cherry Boom. And then the Spruce Company, of course that was back below
Cass.
ALEX.: Yeah.
GALFORD: In that country. It was at Cass for a while.
ALEX.: Well, did you boss any of these jobs?
GALFORD: No, just when I'd take a little contract.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
GALFORD: I have done that a few times for the Cherry River people. When I
had a job and I let it out you know.
ALEX.: Yeah.
GALFORD: I cut then for a little old company from Pennsylvania come here and
bought timber off of the government after they got a hold of it.
ALEX.: Yeah.
GALFORD: And I had jobs off of them and then I'd hire people or contract it
out.
ALEX.: Yeah.
GALFORD: I worked for them. They had their mill at Bluefield.
ALEX.: Uh huh. West Virginia?
GALFORD: Yeah. Part of it's in West Virginia. Part of it's in old Virginia.
ALEX.: Oh yes.
GALFORD: Yeah.
ALEX.: What about, did they employ a good many men around, did they hire a
pretty good amount?
GALFORD: Yeah, well, back when I was, back years ago when they run with
teams before they got using those old skidders . . .
ALEX.: Yeah.
GALFORD: They had teams, you know. They had five or six teams you know at
one camp.
ALEX.: Oh, I see.
GALFORD: Used, you have to have somebody to make road, somebody to make landing a place to put your roll your logs off. And they used a
hundred men a lot of times.
ALEX.: Yeah, a hundred men.
GALFORD: Yeah, I've stayed where there were a hundred men at a camp.
ALEX.: Need a lot of beans and potatoes for a bunch of men like that.
GALFORD: And a lot of beef.
ALEX.: And a lot of beef too. Had to eat hard, huh?
GALFORD: Yeah, you know Spruce Lumber Company they always, back in this
country, they always kept beef cattle through the summer . . .
ALEX.: Yes.
GALFORD: And they furnished beef all the time. Yeah, it was a big, big camp,
but Lawdy, back in them days, you know, I don’t know if you know what a bedbug
is . . .
ALEX.: Yeah, I've heard of bedbugs, yes sir, I've seen a few of them.
GALFORD: They get in them old camps, you know, man, they just eat you up
nearly. You could hardly sleep at night.
ALEX.: They'd get in the kind of clothes you wear, they'd get . . .
GALFORD: Oh, had to wear pretty good clothes most of the time.
ALEX.: Yeah, they'd get in those heavy wool clothes and hard to shake out
probably.
GALFORD: Yeah that’s right. Well, they didn't bother you much in the
daytime, they just come out at night. They crawl around the walls and around
your bed.
ALEX.: Oh yeah.
GALFORD: They didn't get much on you so you'd have them during the day.
ALEX.: Oh yeah.
GALFORD: If you didn't get some other kind of lice. They used to have
graybacks, they called them, and they were another kind of lice.
ALEX.: Oh yeah. I guess a lot of men sleeping in close quarters in makeshift
camps.
GALFORD: They did. You take some old fellow, back in them days; those old
fellows weren't very clean. They didn't care much how they went.
ALEX.: Yeah.
GALFORD: Wasn't near as particular in them days as they are now.
ALEX.: Yeah. They didn't have any kind of soaps.
GALFORD: No, didn't have. No, they didn't have medicine like they do now or
nothing of the kind. If you wanted to fight the bedbugs you had to do it mostly
with lamp oil.
ALEX.: Is that right? Rub it on you, huh?
GALFORD: And put cans around your bed and maybe have these beds and set the
posts down in a can with oil in it.
ALEX.: Uh huh. To keep them from crawling up.
GALFORD: Yeah, yeah. If they get up there and fall in that lamp oil it
killed them you know. They'd get on the wall, I’ve seen them traveling on the
wall and they'll fall down on your bed.
ALEX.: Oh yeah. My goodness. What about the horses? What kind of horses did
they use mostly?
GALFORD: Oh, different kinds. Big, little horses. I don't know what they
called them hardly.
ALEX.: Belgiums?
GALFORD: Yeah, some of them. Different names.
ALEX.: Yeah.
GALFORD: Big and heavy horses that’s what they used.
ALEX.: Big log chains?
GALFORD: Yeah. Yeah, grabs you know, what they call grabs. It’s a drivin'
log, you know.
ALEX.: Yes.
GALFORD: And hook up there. Going up that steep mountain yonder get a great
big trail made up together and just put up a lot of grabs in so that they all
hold together and the head one have a big log in front hook your team there and
had a grab there and had thing like that to hook on their spreaders. But when
they come to get to runnin' too much it just jayed that horse that team off and
that would come off you see and that logs would grate on.
ALEX.: Yeah.
GALFORD: If it didn't, it would pile up on 'em and kill 'em.
ALEX.: Oh yeah.
GALFORD: Sometimes it would get fauled and kill some of them.
ALEX.: Oh yeah. Break their leg.
GALFORD: Yeah. Break the horses' legs.
ALEX.: You say this old railroad run down here in back of your house. What
kind of engines did it run on that railroad?
GALFORD: Oh, it was what they call stem wind.
ALEX.: Regular stem wind.
GALFORD: Yes. They have one now that goes, that still goes to Cass there,
every now and then.
ALEX.: Call it stem wind.
GALFORD: Yeah, stem wind. Stem wind.
ALEX.: Yeah.
GALFORD: It just goes like that. It cogs on them.
ALEX.: Oh yes. What about back there in the head of Tea Creek, you was doing
some work back in there?
GALFORD: Oh yes.
ALEX.: Did they use, what kind of engines did they use the back the head of
. . .
GALFORD: Same kind. Same kind.
ALEX.: Same kind.
GALFORD: All the same kind. They couldn't, them roads are too crooked to use
these here big other kind, you know.
ALEX.: Yeah. So you say most of them were just were . . .
GALFORD: Stem wind were all in the mountains. Now way down on Elk they used
some of the other kind. Part of them.
ALEX.: Yeah. Well, most of these then were the old Shay engines.
GALFORD: That's right. Shay engines.
ALEX.: What time do you have to get up to a job back there?
GALFORD: Oh, sometimes it would get right blind, you know.
ALEX.: Yeah.
GALFORD: And I said right there's a sapplin'. You peel it. This is peelin'
time, you know. I says you peel that around. I said make it fit right around my
leg up to my knee.
ALEX.: Um.
GALFORD: And down to the ankle. I said we'll tie it, took the string out of
my other shoe, tied that around there tight so my foot wouldn't work, you see.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
GALFORD: Just so it out there straight.
ALEX.: Yeah.
GALFORD: And they made stretchers, you know what they call stretchers, put a
blanket on me, and they carried me in . . . it was a mile into the camp.
ALEX.: Oh yeah.
GALFORD: Took me in on that stretcher and then took me to Marlinton.
ALEX.: The hospital.
GALFORD: The hospital. And the doctor, he went to working on me right away.
Put me to sleep.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
GALFORD: But he fixed us up good. We were just as good after we got well as
ever.
ALEX.: You've been out here now this morning mowing your grass with that
mower scythe.
GALFORD: Yes, sir. I've mowed a many a stack of hay.
ALEX.: That's right outside . . .
GALFORD: Yes. I've mowed that barn full yonder several times.
ALEX.: You have to keep your scythe pretty sharp, don't you?
GALFORD: Yes, you do. If you don't, you ain't goin' to mow much. I don't do
much of it anymore only just trimming around where you can't mow with a machine.
My boy lives up here. He does the most for me.
ALEX.: Yeah. He lives up the next place?
GALFORD: Yeah. Up there above the road.
ALEX.: How many acres you have here?
GALFORD: I've got ten acres here.
ALEX.: Yeah. Ten acres.
GALFORD: They belong to my this boy not right here. He left that for his
home. You see, he was a twin brother.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
GALFORD: His twin brother died. He was a preacher.
ALEX.: Yeah. He told me about that. He told me about that family.
GALFORD: With cancer.
ALEX.: Yeah.
GALFORD: He was, we give it to him and the boys so they could take care of
him. I never thought about the other boy dying.
ALEX.: Yeah. How many children did you have, Mr. Galford?
GALFORD: Oh, I raised nine and it was two small ones died. There was eleven.
ALEX.: Yes.
GALFORD: They died when they was infants. One of them was born dead, but I
raised nine and put them through school.
ALEX.: Raised nine and went all the way through school with them. Well,
that's a wonderful accomplishment.
GALFORD: Yeah.
ALEX.: So you say you worked all over these hills here.
GALFORD: Yes, sir, I worked all over.
ALEX.: The Campbell Lumber Company.
GALFORD: Oh, I got my . . . when I built my house I got my logs from right
up in there.
ALEX.: Uh huh. Got them right off the ground right here?
GALFORD: Yes, sir, and took them over to my dad's sawmill over here where I
was raised. And he hauled them over for me.
ALEX.: Yeah. Nineteen and nineteen.
GALFORD: I think that's when it was. Now I best not right certain.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
GALFORD: Anyway, I was gettin' them logs out in 1918.
ALEX.: Yeah.
GALFORD: Nineteen and eighteen.
ALEX.: Nineteen and eighteen.
GALFORD: Yeah, was putting the logs out and I built it the next spring. Next
year when I guess I moved here.
ALEX.: When did you go to work in the woods, when did you get your first
job, how old were you?
GALFORD: Oh, I hardly know just . . . I took a contract when I was 19 years
old, me and my brother down here, and worked in as a . . . I don't know what
year now.
ALEX.: Yeah.
GALFORD: Anyway, I was 19 years old and I worked until I was . . . I didn't
get married until I was 22.
ALEX.: Uh huh. How long have you been married?
GALFORD: Oh, sixty-some years. Sixty-one years.
ALEX.: Sixty-one years. That's wonderful. Sixty-one years.
GALFORD: I was married in 1913.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
GALFORD: Nineteen and thirteen was when we were married.
ALEX.: Yeah. Well, you've described the camps pretty accurately I guess. The
barn-like buildings built back there with a hundred men or so.
GALFORD: Yeah.
ALEX.: And sleeping upstairs.
GALFORD: Yes, sir, sleeping upstairs.
ALEX.: Watching for the gray backs.
GALFORD: That's right.
ALEX.: And eating at a long table downstairs.
GALFORD: Yes, sir.
ALEX.: And plenty of food.
GALFORD: Oh, they fed you good. They fed you plenty.
ALEX.: Making about a dollar a day for about a ten or twelve hour day.
GALFORD: Yeah, a lot of times. And finally they got tired. The wages just
went up.
ALEX.: And good, good . . .
GALFORD: I've worked a many a day for a dollar and a half for a whole day
not just an hour. Now days they wouldn't do an hour’s work for that.
ALEX.: Yeah. Well . . .
GALFORD: Oh, it kept a building up. I finally got so I could get four and
five dollars a day, you know.
ALEX.: Did you quit the woods when you broke your leg then in '60?
GALFORD: Yes, sir, I never cut any more logs.
ALEX.: Yeah.
GALFORD: Yeah, it was on Cherry River. It happened on that road there.
ALEX.: But you had many good years.
GALFORD: Yeah, had a lot. I cut around on Cherry River over on what they
call Bear Run and I don't know what all.
ALEX.: Yeah, I know where Bear Run is over there. They've got something over
there called Hills Falls or something over there, too.
GALFORD: Yeah.
ALEX.: Do you know where that is?
GALFORD: Well, now . . .
ALEX.: A big water falls over there called Hills Falls or something up there
around Bear Run someplace.
GALFORD: Yeah.
ALEX.: Well, uh, Mr. Galford, it's been a pleasure talking with you again
this morning. We're going to hope your wife starts feeling a little better. I
know she's fighting a tremendous battle. She's fighting for . . .
GALFORD: She's doing better. Thank the good Lord for it. He’s supplied me.
Took care of me along. And I expect that as old as I'm gettin' and have these,
oh, aches and pains. I was mowing in there the other day and a pain kind of
stuck me . . . a cramp. I expect you've had cramps in your legs.
ALEX.: Yeah, I sure have. I've had bad ones. Yes, sir.
GALFORD: It wasn't a cramp. It just struck me all at once there and it just
got so sore on my hip. I'm still sore.
ALEX.: Yeah.
GALFORD: Two or three days ago it did that. I'll get better I think.
ALEX.: Yeah, you'll get along all right. Well, I appreciate your talking
with me and I . . .
GALFORD: Oh, I had bushels of apples here last year. Ever' tree on the place
was just loaded.
ALEX.: Loaded with apples.
GALFORD: There ain't an apple this year.
ALEX.: Well, we had a late frost and here it is June the 5th and you had a
frost here.
GALFORD: Yeah.
ALEX.: And today's June the 6th, 1976, and you got frost this late up here.
GALFORD: Yes, sir.
ALEX.: The air gets pretty warm in the daytime.
GALFORD: It frosted last week and bit my potatoes a little bit. But it
didn't hurt anything this week.
ALEX.: Yeah.
GALFORD: One year it had frost every month.
ALEX.: Every month up here. I guess you get a lot of frost back there on Big
Spruce. We can see it over there in the background.
GALFORD: Well, it doesn't frost that bad up that way high as it will down
lower.
ALEX.: Is that right?
GALFORD: Wind, air keeps it lower.
ALEX.: I see. It just gets cold back there.
GALFORD: Yeah. You know there was a big flat back in there lower. I expect
there's fifty acres on it, just quite level. It's right from that Spruce Knob
coming right down on it. And it don't frost there as quick as it will down here.
ALEX.: I see.
GALFORD: Too much wind, you see, hits it.
ALEX.: Uh huh.
GALFORD: Yeah, I've been all over that old mountain there. That’s what you
call ________.
ALEX.: Yeah. You seen any wild turkeys back there?
GALFORD: My brother's boy went back there fishing ________ back here last
week, and he was a comin' out back up here, way back up yonder and saw an old
gobbler, and oh, he had a Beard that long.
ALEX.: Is that right? You was back there on that mountain fishing just last
week. Yeah, we went around in a car, you see, and we walked down to fishing you
see. The road goes right around the edge of it.
GALFORD: Uh huh. Well . . . You've never been around that road have you?
ALEX.: No . . .
GALFORD: That's a good gravel road. It goes right plum around, goes in up
yonder to some church up yonder.
ALEX.: Yes.
GALFORD: It goes right around that mountain under this Spruce Knob up yonder
in there and goes right on back in yonder.
ALEX.: Well, there's a few trucks going by here. They’re working on that
Scenic Highway again.
GALFORD: That's what they're doing. They're just tearing this road all up.
ALEX.: Oh, heavy trucks just beat it to death.
GALFORD: Oh, yeah, just ruining it. They're building that on right in
yonder. In Tea Creek Mountain.
ALEX.: Yeah, come back across there. It's a beautiful drive the other way
that they've got completed.
GALFORD: Yeah.
ALEX.: Well, we're going to have to be going.
GALFORD: Come in with me.
ALEX.: No, I appreciate your time and your hospitality and I appreciated
your talking to me.
GALFORD: I'll just mow a while and rest a while.
ALEX.: Maybe we've given you a chance to rest.
GALFORD: Yes, that's right.
ALEX.: We'll get on through this gate and on out of here so your sheep won't
get out.