WILSON:
Used to own.
ALEX.: Samworth, Leonard. He's been buying land in
Greenbrier. You graduated in 1937. Was Jim Comstock
there?
WILSON:
I didn't know him.
ALEX.: Your dad started the store?
WILSON:
In 1903 or '04. It was incorporated in 1904. Was owned by a group of men but they always called it a
company
store. Because the
superintendent of tanneries got my dad to come here and start the store.
He and my dad and three or four others owned stock. He would take the
accounts out of the payroll up at the tannery just like
a company store. It really wasn't owned by the
tannery. Half the people still call it a company store. About
1928 superintendent of tanneries and my dad, was getting ready to retire
and some of the other men was getting pretty old, so that group sold out. It was getting
depression years, about everything was credit so it was
getting pretty shaky. That group sold out to a new
group. My dad thought he would go someplace else.
Depression came along and it was risky to start anything. After a
couple years they got him to buy back in to take care of
the business
end of it. He took care of the books and all like that until he died in 1946. Mr. Prichard was
considered the manager, he did all the buying. He and my
daddy ran it. Then Mr. Prichard carried on until 1958. Nineteen fifty-eight was a slow year for the firm I was
working for and they didn't lay us off but they told us we
could have a leave of absence if we wanted to. I was home
on vacation, and old bachelor. The place should have
folded up then, there was no business here. But I thought I
would reorganize it and stay a couple months then go
back to my work and get some other guy to run it. But it
was in such a bad shape, I just had to stay with it.
ALEX.: You came in, in '58?
WILSON:
Really '59 full time. I did go back one winter.
ALEX.: Your dad put in a lifetime here.
WILSON:
They started in 1903 but the record shows it was incorporated in 1904.
ALEX.: This wasn't a part of the old Richardson
Hardware?
WILSON:
No. That's the Durbin Hardware. I don't think they had it very long before they sold it out to Steve Heiner*, then
he was an undertaker on the side. He had a building up there by side of
road he used for undertaking.
ALEX.: What about business has it been better?
Fifty-eight was pretty slow all over the country.
WILSON:
That was how I got involved. At first I thought I would just take a leave of absence. Mr. Prichard
was up in years and
in bad health. My mother still had a third interest in it. At that
time, there were three families involved: WILSONs, Prichards, and Winters, superintendent of tanneries. Really it was bankrupt. I got
involved more
out of sentiment than good sense. I jumped in without thinking. Accounting wise it looked good, but
I didn't stop to think there wasn't any business here.
Then I didn't really look at the records till I got myself involved. One day I had a good job, the next
day a practically bankrupt company I had to work
night and day with. I had to work a couple years without
any salary.
ALEX.: It's still going.
WILSON:
Oh yeah, going pretty good. I started handing Army surplus stuff. Well one thing's saved our
neck. ____ Evans,
kind of a wheeler-dealer. Some guy down in Richwood, another
wheeler-dealer, ran across some teletype tape they were ready to mask up for waste
paper. Sold for one cent* a roll and worth $1.50. There was a
restaurant next door and there was a couple guys there
who serviced pinball machines and they was talking about
this teletype
tape. There was a whole big building stored it in. I knew this tape was pretty valuable so I went
over to see him. He said he'd sell it for a dollar a
roll. Newspapers have to pay $1.50 or $2 usually.
There was 15 rolls to a case. He said you get me $10 a
case, you keep 5, give me 5. I'll give you the shipment. I
thought I got down to
Baltimore Sun and make a killing. There was about $15,000 there. I went down there and
I'd worked at the paper, but I couldn't use that. I did go
all the way up to the publisher but they didn't buy one
roll of that tape and it was the same thing they were
using. They'd had trouble with it at one time and they
wouldn't change not for $100,000. But on the way home I stopped off
at these small newspapers in Fredrick, Hagerstown, Winchester
Charlottesville, I sold quite a bit there. The Hagerstown paper had been bought out by a big chain out
of
Indiana and they started ordering from me. Somebody gave me
a teletype directory and I came home and started writing letters to all the newspapers. I went to
Roanoke, we get Roanoke on TV. See there's a big building over there that was the newspaper office and I went all the
way up to the head man there. He said, "Our policy is to
buy locally." Couldn't sell them anything. This guy in the
composing room told me to write this guy in Mobile,
Alabama, and I sold him. First time, ____ thousand dollar
order just for writing a letter. That's what saved my neck
really.
ALEX.: That's what saved the store?
WILSON: In the summer time, I'd say there's 10 or 20
times the traffic there was through here in 1959. Greenbank, Cass.
The first year it was up there didn't even have a
gift store. I never could get in with the observatory. It
started up then. That might have been another thing that
persuaded me to come back here.
ALEX.: Who were you working for, C.P.A. firm?
WILSON: Haskins and Sells.
ALEX.: Good firm, they still interview on our campus.
WILSON: I go down, it's
hard to get away, but I go to Charleston every spring. I go down to
Huntington, spend the night and look around. See Dan Love down there.
ALEX.: He has a hardware store and does a good
business.
WILSON: He was a fraternity brother of mine, went
through all four years together, Phi Tau Alpha.
ALEX.: Did they become the K.A.'s?
WILSON: Lambda Chi's. I had to take four courses to
pass the C.P.A. exam.
ALEX.: Those boys coming through now crack it the
first or second time. Everyone teaching now has a C.P.A.
They have eight.
WILSON: When I went to college I went just to be
going. I took Business Administration and we never had any
of that in high school. An awful lot of local boys from Huntington
went to Marshall then and they had bookkeeping in high school and they were
ahead of me. When I took accounting the only reason I passed was because
of experience in working with this type of firm. I took a
correspondence course.
ALEX.: Ted told me you had a lot of old store
equipment. He showed me the McCaskey system.
WILSON: I never put it in. The guy I was working with
had a heart attack. I've never had time to put the system
in. We had one. It was so heavy to put in the safe at
night. The girls played with it. It's no good but at
least it's not hard to put in the safe at night.
ALEX.: The McClaskey's a heavy piece of machinery.
WILSON: I'll show you some. There's some old office
equipment. They hooked on there and you could swing them
around.
ALEX.: Sort of like a Rolladex.
WILSON: You hooked those files in there and swing it
around. Could put it in the safe at night.
ALEX.: I noticed you have a Parson's Handbook of
Business and Social Forms.
WILSON: Old files.
If there was no one to put it in the safe at night it was too heavy. They
made them that you could fold up and lock.
ALEX.: But they wouldn't be fire proof.
WILSON: Were supposed to
be but I wouldn't trust them. The active accounts would have a number.
But there were so many miscellaneous accounts you
couldn't assign a number to. The thing would get so full things would fall out
the
back, that was one reason I stopped using it. But the main thing was it was so hard to get in the
safe at night.
ALEX.: You've got a lot of equipment here.
WILSON: My dad lived here at one time.
ALEX.: There's an old scale over there. Made by the
Computing Scale Company of Dayton, Ohio.
WILSON: We used it on (Blank space on page)*. Awfully
messy here.
ALEX.: Where do you find those? They sold in 1906
for $1.50.
WILSON: I've got an antique store down the street,
don't sell too much. I got those down in Fredrick at an
antique wholesale. They came from England, they used
them a lot down there.
ALEX.: I see you have a lot of jars, Atlas, with the
tops on. I see you have a lot of old record there. I
suppose some go back to the early 1900's.
WILSON: We threw some away.
ALEX.: Kind of hate to throw them away. They may
have historical value.
WILSON: Yeah, you see a loaf of bread sold here for 5
cents, hamburger 10 cents a pound.
ALEX.: Be nice if while
I'm writing this I collected a few of these and put them in the library.
WILSON: They threw a lot away a year or two before I
came.
ALEX.: How far do those
date back? They look like pretty old ledgers.
WILSON: I 'spect they
are. We threw some of the charter stuff away. These are from the '50's.
ALEX.: These up on top look older. Here's one, is it
a journal?
WILSON: Yeah.
ALEX.: It's from 1909. I'd like to borrow this one.
Would you sign it out to me?
WILSON: These are old invoices.
ALEX.: These journals here. That's a fantastic
accounting, goes up to 1915.
WILSON: Looks like my dad's writing.
ALEX.: Whoever it was,
was a good scribe. This is from 1904, April 30, 1904.
WILSON: I never saw that before.
ALEX.: I would guess
these would be quite old and valuable in business research.
WILSON: Might help you.
ALEX.: I'd like to borrow this one or sign it out.
WILSON: Might take it down.
ALEX.: Maybe I could use it in the store.
WILSON: Have you been down to Richardson Hardware?
ALEX.: Yes. I had
three of his books. Poured over them last night until after midnight.
WILSON: Did you see the one book they put out for
pioneer days? They might have 10 cents of nails and send it
up on the train, the train stopped everywhere. I guess they's digging for the railroad and the book had one
casket sent to Italian at such and such a place. Didn't
even have his name.
(Break)*
ALEX.: Somewhere in Kentucky. What is your name?
Man: Huglas Kincaid*.
(Break)*
ALEX.: That's an old chopping block. I guess when it
was giving, you cut a lot of meat back here. Still have
quite a lot of groceries.
WILSON: Still a general store to keep people coming.
(Break)*
WILSON: Look here.
Woman*: Nineteen and four.
WILSON: Here's where they first put the money in to
start it, $8,000.
Woman*: Started the store with $8,000.
ALEX.: Yes, that's
the original journal shows original stockholders Capital stock of $8,000.
Two people had $1,500 and five with $1,000.
WILSON: He was a dentist over in Elkins.
Woman*: Who was this? Strock?
WILSON: I don't know. I remember my dad talking about
him. My dad came here from Thomas. Mr. Goodsell came
from Davis. Thomas and Davis are put together.
ALEX.: In Tucker County.
WILSON: My dad and he were friends up there.
Woman*: And this is when it started April 30, 1904?
WILSON: One of these guys my dad used to work for in
Martinsburg or maybe in Thomas. There's a big store in
Thomas, my dad went to work there. The building's still
standing. Great big white brick building down in the bottoms
away from the town of Thomas.
ALEX.: Here they put some money in furniture. Here
they put $230.20 in real estate, and they had $5,629.33
in merchandise. And they say, it looks like, to Sunday creditors $5,909.53.
WILSON: It's probably(probable)* Accounts Payable for
purchases. This is a list of them.
ALEX.: There's another piece of real estate for $17.
It looks like what you've got here Mr WILSON . . .
WILSON: Here's where he paid for things and took his
discount.
ALEX.: Took a
discount of $53.36. They posted everything didn't they? United
States Collar Company, must have been a horse collar company. Maryland Rubber
Company. Detachable collars in those days from suits.
Pocahontas Supply Company, $15.20. Over at Cass wasn't
it?
WILSON: Could have been.
Was a wholesale by that name at one time.
ALEX.: That's an interesting one.
(Break)*
ALEX.: That's the beginning and it comes up to 1933
in that book. Goes from 1904 to 1933. I'd like to borrow
that.
WILSON: Now I've this ____ book. Got some information
in this book. There's the first purchase ever made.
ALEX.: This is the kind of information that should be
in an archive to be protected.
WILSON: I was just trying to see if any of these
companies . . . Atlantic Refining Company, that's one.
ALEX.: Standard Oil's in there, too. Armstrong
something, I thought it was Cork but it's not. Looks like
Gates.
WILSON: ____ up and down
these. Groceries . . . General Clark over in Elkins was where they bought a lot of
stuff.
ALEX.: There's a
WILSON and something here, Lumkins*
it looks like. Allegheny Paint.
WILSON: Still don't see . . .
ALEX.: You have in
that book the original entry of incorporation. Carries the business through to,
what did we say? The last entry in this book is July 31, 1933.
WILSON: Let's see 1928. My dad was out of there in
'28.
ALEX.: Here's 1928 and 1929. That's a different
writing. There are a few entries in '28, not many.
WILSON: In 1928 they sold out.
ALEX.: In 1928 there are a few entries from page 489
to 512. They closed out on December 31, 1928. It's
got a profit and loss statement showing if I'm reading it
right.
WILSON: That's his writing. He's charging profit and
loss with depreciation.
ALEX.: That's his closing statement.
WILSON: That's his, now that's different.
ALEX.: In 1930, that's a different handwriting.
Later on that's his again.
WILSON: He bought back into the business. The guy
they hired to take his place didn't pan out.
ALEX.: You should put it in the safe and keep it
safe.