Driving along a winding road that comes in from the
Williams River. Beautiful Sunday morning,
May 25th, 1975. Time 10:45. Hard rains over the night, but the dawn has brought beautiful
sunshine, birds are singing, the wild flowers are in bloom. We've
been told Mullens worked a lot in the woods and understands a
great deal about the lumber business. If we're lucky, we'll again
find Mr. Mullens at home and the next voice you'll hear will be
Mr. Howard Mullens.
ALEX.: Did they pull a lot of stuff out of Big Beechy?
MULLENS: Yeah. Big Beechy* had a lot of poplar. Big
Poplar. Only poplar timber I knowed of at that time.
The poplar timber was across the mountain from Big Beechy over on Mt. Briggs (Branch)*. The only poplar at that time was at Big Beechy, big poplar clear across the
mountains. The wind must have carried those seeds over there or something because I stood in one place, oh,
three or four years ago, I stood in one place and marked
the place I was going to start countin' and I must have
counted 155 poplar trees in sight of me. That was across the hill from Big Beechy across the river. Wind must
have blown the seed and scattered them. I was working for C. T. Shink over here about 40 years ago. There
came a fellow in to Elkins down there and told Mr. Wood. I went to Black
Mountain camp to map out a fire hazard, places where fire went where no one was cutting.
Said is there a man over there who knows them country.
There's a man over there by the name of Howard Mullens who
knows all that country. Well, he went in to meet with Mr. Greenbrier who was superintendent over
there. He said, "Mr. Greenbrier I want somebody to go with me." Mr. Greenbrier said, "Help yourself. Take
anybody we got, anybody we got." Well, he looked in the book
and wrote my name in the book, Howard Mullens. "Oh
no," Bill says, "You can't have him a tall*.: And he said,
"Oh my ____. Got a map crew of 80 men and you can have any
of them." He says, "Can I use your telephone a
minute?" "Yeah," Bill says, "Who are you going to call?" "I'm
going to call Mr. Wood and see if I can't have that man." Now Bill says, "Oh hell, don't call that old
son-of-a-bitch. Go ahead and take him." I rode along and I
take my shotgun to kill pheasants and stuff along the road. Three blocks. Had a good time. Once he had
a pack horse shooting, he thought that'd be the very thing
that pack horse shooting. He cut down Middle Fork. He
thumped up Middle Fork for a piece and looked up a map
and it showed about two mile of a slough. It showed about
two mile, I don't agree with it. He said, "Can you eat
that seal?"
(Bad tape just before second mark)
MULLENS: . . . the extent of that railroad seal. He
started in and got around there. When we got through I
didn't want, expected to be dropped off at Middle Fork,
started at Middle Fork. It was so rough, hard, slidin' around in there. It was hot in the summertime. Oh, it
was awful hot. We come up and after an hour had about a mile stretch still to go. Up to the troutman* the
office up there. He'd been to Paintville. Oh, he was
hot. I'd let him catch up and just about the time he'd
catch up I'd start on. I was tough.
ALEX.: How'd they bring that timber out of?
MULLENS: Took it down, Three Forks down Williams
River. They sawed the hardwood at
Camden on Gauley had a hardwood mill there. Hauled spruce into Richwood.
Sawed it in Richwood.
ALEX.: Get up there into what's called McClintock's
Run, don't you?
MULLENS: McClintock's Run, that's Middle Fork.
ALEX.: Bring that out on train?
MULLENS: No. They, well when they logged, they did.
McClintock had a job in there long before that, long
before we moved Three Forks. He had a job in there.
ALEX.: What year do you think that was?
MULLENS: Oh, I don't know what year. Before 1909. We
moved Three Forks in 1909 and, ah, back before that.
McClintock had a contract in there. He put the log pin to
the crank. And they'd pay him for. The B & O Company
was payin' him for it. B & O payin' him for, didn't have
enough water to splash them out of there. Kept supplies
from him. Tried to stop him and he wouldn't stop. And
why* they cut supplies off of him and he made a road to
Marlinton and hauled supplies from Welman, Milkwood(Bill
Wood)*.
ALEX.: B & O cut him off at the lower end then.
MULLENS: Yeah. Couple times.
ALEX.: So he just went across the mountain then.
MULLENS: Yeah.
ALEX.: Well, I guess Old Tram Road went up old Beechy, too.
MULLENS: Yeah.
ALEX.: Lot
of log camps on Big Beechy at that time?
MULLENS: Quite a few of them. I remember a lot of
them. Thick as stones (thorns)* in there. I remember one
time I was a carpenter. One pack (paint)* came out of Sheets Garden (Goren)* Holler and another came out of
Big Beechy and one just tore over top of the other, oh
about 2 or 300 yards, was all it was. I said, "Let's crowd this ____ up off the other one and get the other
one through. And they said, "Aw (blank space on paper)."
That don't show over there. That don't show any green
at all. I said (Not sure what part of page is said).
They put that in after the ____ banged. They'd agreed
there, that this one here hit over top of the other one a 100
yards or 2. No, no. No, no. I said, "I don't handle ____, you
better ____." So, then they started talking awful Gaelic*. (Blank space on paper)*. I said, "I
know this country, you don't." I got my lawn mower,
it's broken, it's over at the shop.
ALEX.: About what year were you back in Big Beechy?
Was that about 1909?
MULLENS: No, it was back
before that. Now's let's see. About 1920.
LIZY(WIFE): No. He came from there on down to Johnson
Branch the fall of '24. It must have been '23, he
was in Beechy 'cause he come on down to Johnson Branch
before we was married.
MULLENS: Must have come to Big Beechy in '21 when it
opened. When the RR* went in to Big Beechy in '21.
LIZY(WIFE): RR* went to the river in January of '21.
It wasn't quite up to the river, they hadn't put it
across, it wasn't to the crossing yet.
MULLENS: About '22.
LIZY(WIFE): It was in January '22 or '23.
MULLENS: This man is writing a book on, ah, the lumber
business.
LIZY(WIFE): I didn't
really know. Let's see. Ivory cooked up there. It must have been in '22 or '23.
They come to Johnson Branch in '24, I do know that.
MULLENS: She has better recollection than I got.
LIZY(WIFE): That's where Archie, no that was on
Cranberry wasn't it? Where he played with the parked car.
ALEX.: Who's Archie?
MULLENS: Archie Chaffins.
That's a nephew of mine. He got up there one day and a fellow had parked
and he let the brake off of it on a steep hill and he let
out of there, then it killed him.
ALEX.: The railroad car took off on him, huh?
MULLENS: Yeah.
ALEX.: You say there's some fine poplar back in that
country?
MULLENS: Yeah. There was at that time, yeah. I don't
know now. ____ been back there.
ALEX.: How long since you were back there?
MULLENS: It's been thirty
years since I ____ back there. Been long than that.
ALEX.: It's a long ways back there on foot.
MULLENS: Yeah, a long way back there.
ALEX.: I dug ramps back there this spring.
MULLENS: Did you?
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
Just above the waterfall there where Big Beechy runs into the river, you go up about
300 yards and there's a wide open place and ramps are
growing. Looks like a field of them. Man can dig several
bushel in a little while.
MULLENS: Mighty flow of water at the mouth there
where it pours out, ain't it. I've caught many a fish out
of that. Used to fish that when I was a boy. One time
. . . If there's any game warden, I didn't know it.
If there was any limit on them, I didn't know it. It
rained about ten o'clock of a day and I said to Mother, I
said, "I'm going fishing." She said how long was I going to be gone. Did
it take many hours? I said, "No, I'll be back for dinner." I got started to fishing and I
forgot all about it, they was biting so good. I left my
watches up Mt. Fuller Branch, five miles up the crick (creek)*.
Somebody gave me a double spool, it's been about that long, a little fly on the end of it. Put that on. I
didn't have no faith in it and carried it in my
pocketbook for a long time. And, ah, I put that on and they went
crazy over that thing. I put that fly on and cast it
just to watch them jump at it. Just a steady trout* from one end of the water to the other.
ALEX.: Those all native speckled trout?
MULLENS: Never heard of a fish hatchery at that time.
ALEX.: What did you do when you worked in the
woods? Were you a sawer or . . .?
MULLENS: Pulled a cross-cut saw most of the time.
ALEX.: Pulled a cross-cut?
MULLENS: Yeah, or ____, drove donkey. Whatever they
had to do, I done it.
ALEX.: How old are you now?
MULLENS: Seventy-one. How old are you?
ALEX.: I'm 45.
MULLENS: You're just
beginning to live good. I never thought about getting old when I was that age. No
one ever told me about gettin' old. Now I can't hardly get
around. There's an old fellow over here who's 84. I seen him walking down there going fishing yesterday.
ALEX.: Eighty-four going fishing, huh? I talked
with Odey Cassell. Do you know Mr. Cassell?
MULLENS: Yeah.
ALEX.: He's 89. He's having a hard time getting
around. He's having a bad day, the day I talked to him.
MULLENS: Huh. I slid on the stair over there, I lost
my sense of balance. Emmet Galford lives over there.
He can tell you more about the woods than I can.
ALEX.: Name's Galford:
What kind of engines did they use up there on Big Beechy?
MULLENS: They used Shays all the time.
ALEX.: Had the shays up there, too.
MULLENS: Then the
straight drives. They used them on the main line between Three Forks and Richwood.
They'd take two trains out a day. Them Shays'd bring it into
Three Forks and then . . . I got a geological survey book
here, got a picture of them loading at Three Forks, them old rattler cars. They hooked together with a
coupling piece about that long, pulled through this way. I
don't see how they hung them together. Yeah I wish I
could be a lot of help to you but I can't.
ALEX.: Well, you were a little help, quite a bit of
help. Gave me some idea of one of the fellas who worked
back in the woods.
MULLENS: If you could get a hold of one of them old
engineers like George Gum (Can't make out name on paper)*.
He died the other day, he'd been a good man to talk to.
Child*: What kind of
labor did they use when they built that railroad?
MULLENS: What kind of labor did they use? They had an
old steam shovel, the lumber yard had the first one.
Then they put in an electric shovel. But the first one, it run on mats. It would dig out three or four feet,
then it would roll on its mats and all ____ roll upon it
and seal the lumber. The last one they had, it ran on
caterpillar. It was all right. But the first one kept up,
dug up about all the time. Come a swampy place it
was pretty bad.
ALEX.: Who did you work for? What camps and what
men?
MULLENS: Mostly for Leslie.
ALEX.: Leslie, uh?
MULLENS: Chaffins. Henry Chaffins, Leslie.
ALEX.: When did you quit working in the logging
business.
MULLENS: Thirty-five, somewhere along in there.
ALEX.:
Thirty-five. You stayed with them 10 or 12 years. I guess you had to be a heck of a man to stand
up to that.
MULLENS: Pretty strong. I was a strong man. I used
to be strong. Pull a cross-cut ten hours a day. For a dollar and a half a day when I went in there. Dollar and
a half.
ALEX.: Work six days?
MULLENS: Yeah, six days. I'd like to see you get a
man to do it now.
ALEX.: Yeah, they're a little slow aren't they.
Well, you've got a good supply of wood. Looks like you've
told yourself you're not going to go cold.
MULLENS: Well, I've got
my power saw. I run a push mower here until I got all hot and bothered. Until I
went down and bought one I can ride on. Got a ridin' mower
now.
ALEX.: That's an old chair. Did you put that bottom
in it?
MULLENS: I bought that at sale. Didn't do much good
in it, though. That little one yonder, over there, it's
older than this one. Fuller Barr* made that chair.
ALEX.: Who did?
MULLENS: Fuller Barr (Barb)* up in Gauley.
ALEX.: How old is that chair?
MULLENS: Oh, I don't
know. And I seen one, one time in the auction sale. I didn't give up. Before
auction, half the rungs gone. Now that was old.
ALEX.: Yes, sir.
MULLENS: And I bought it,
cut initials in it. I think that's right. The boy, pretty near fifty now.
ALEX.: Your boy's fifty now?
MULLENS: Yeah.
ALEX.: Where is your boy?
MULLENS: He's in Hopewell. No, Peterburg.
A guard in the federal prison there. He's been there 20
years.
ALEX.: Twenty years. What did you make that bottom
of, hickory?
MULLENS: Hickory.
ALEX.: Looks like hickory.
MULLENS: It is.
Over in the sale, had four of those things. Auctioneer said, "Give me a bid for them."
Begging for a bid. Said, "Howard, give me 50 cents for them?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "Sold." Just like
that.
ALEX.: So you gave 50 cents for four of them.
MULLENS: Yeah. One of them had a rung broke right
there. Told 'em I'm going to take it back and get a refund of my money.
ALEX.: Well.
MULLENS: Bought that door (Blank space on paper)*.
____ Lumber Company put it in. They put it out before I
come to this country, though.
ALEX.: Who put it in?
MULLENS: Campbell.
ALEX.: Campbell Lumber Company?
MULLENS: Campbell.
ALEX.: Oh, Campbell, down near Campbelltown.
MULLENS: They had a mill down there.
(Recorder seems to have been off briefly)
MULLENS: . . . and he put out one of the tubs of a
daytime and he'd go off to the store. He'd tell about it
and she'd tell about it a thousand times. I've
listened at it 'til I know about it.
ALEX.: That was back in Webster County?
MULLENS: Yeah. All I know about it was Bishop
Robs (Bishop Flats)*.
ALEX.: The man actually existed?
MULLENS: Oh, yeah.
ALEX.: Bishop his name living in a cave all those
years.
MULLENS: He ran in a little girl one time. He was
gone one time about two weeks. Come back, he had a little
girl with him. Nobody ever knew where she come from or whether she's related to him or nothin'. Or if they
did I never heard it. He kept her and she growed up, up
there in the cave. Yeah, that man, he actually
existed. Bishop. He's married to this old, this lady name of
Diddle. She married him. Diddle, I knowed here many a,
many a, many a day. One time we's all at my brother's
working over there, my brother-in-laws, and I went over
there helping Brad. When they lost ten dollars in the
poker game they win it over there. Now, by God, (Blank space
on paper)* the people were playing poker at the Lolly.
We said, "All right." Next night we decided we'd have
a poker game. We'd all be quiet. (Blank space on
paper)*
MULLENS: Somethin' happened along about midnight, it's
a long ride back through ____. Wake George up, (Blank
space on paper)*. He come down and looked through the
window, wrote out our check and give it to us. Old Jim Mills
who went in with Diddle, he'd been asleep. Wake him up
and give him a check. Charlie, Jim says, "What are you firin'
me for, George? I wasn't playin' poker. Too damn tight
to play." Charlie Jim were.