l. Theodore Given Barnett (my great-grandfather)
2. Unknown
3. Unknown
4. Unknown
5. C___(Charles?) Cantrell
6. Unknown
7. Roy Foster (my grandfather)
8. Unknown
9. Unknown
10. Henry Loving
11. Unknown
12. Unknown
13. Clint Floyd (mill foreman - died in an accident at the mill in 1924)
14. Brent Monroe
15. Unknown
l6. Crockett Mullins
17. Unknown
18. Adam "Shorty" Roberts
19. Unknown
20. Frances Murphy
21. French Barnett (my great-uncle)
If you know any of these men that I do not have identified, or if I have any of them misidentified, Please let me know at wannago4aol.com. Thanks.
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On September 27, 1881, Alexander Hamrick and his wife Lydia (Mullins), granted a right-of-way to the Baltimore, Cincinnati, and Western Railway for a new railroad on a 145-acre tract of land along both sides of Big Buffalo Creek. By 1905, they had deeded another 1,000 acres to Elk River Coal and Lumber Company, which had been organized at Dundon in 1904-05. Alexander and Lydia reserved a portion of their land for a Hamrick Cem- etery. Alexander's grandfather, Joel, was the first to be buried there, in 1860. On April 1, 1904, Harvard-educated, New Jersey native Joseph Gardner (J. G.) Bradley chartered the Buffalo Creek and Gauley Railroad to run from Dundon to Huttons- ville, 104 miles to the east. The actual length of Buff- alo Creek and Gauley's line was 18.6 miles, covering the area between Dundon, Widen, and Swandale. Most likely, Bradley never intended the full length of 104 miles to be a reality, but a young budding developer could hardly ad- mit to aspirations of only 18 miles. In 1905, Bradley, president of Elk River Coal and Lumber Company(ELRICO), located to Dundon to personally oversee the company's operations. He began building his Clay Coun- ty Empire on the nearly 93,000 acres of virgin timberland that he had inherited from his great grandfather, Simon D. Cameron. Cameron had been granted the land by the Federal government in appreciation for his service to the United States, first as President Lincoln's Secretary of War and later as a U. S. Senator. A few years later, ELRICO's headquarters relocated to Widen. J. G. Bradley would con- trol Clay County for over fifty years. In 1910, Charlie Deal began building a circular saw mill at the mouth of Barren She, where Barren She Branch enters Buffalo Creek. Captain Swann was the mill's first super- intendent and one of the original nine shareholders of Elk River Coal and Lumber. Tom Boggs was mill foreman. Barren She's name was changed to Swandale in honor of Captain Swann. In 1918, Bradley began earnest development of his timber- land, and on April 6, 1919, a new bandsaw mill began oper- ation at Swandale with the cutting of a mighty chestnut log. Carl V. Straw was superintendent. Adam "Shorty" Roberts, the sawyer, saved some of the sawdust from that first log and sent it to Captain Swann, who was by then living in the Carolinas. Under J.G. Bradley's influence, Swandale and the surround- ing areas grew and prospered. Logs were cut and brought to the mill directly from the woods, where they were placed in the millpond. Five days a week, three proud Buffalo Creek and Gauley 2-8-0 locomotives took turns moving coal from Widen and lumber from Swandale along Buffalo Creek to Dundon. The trains returned with empty cars for the next load and with boxcars full of supplies for the company towns. Bradley's payroll included the Buffalo Creek and Gauley crew, the Widen miners, and the Swandale mill crew and yard crew. The new and modern Cressmont Dairy opened, stocked with ELRICO-owned cattle. Widen became the center for Clay County's coal production, employing nearly 1,000 men. Swandale's lumberyard was one of the largest in West Virginia, storing almost 5 million board feet of lumber, representing about a years production. Swandale's lumber was shipped to the eastern and northern United States, as well as Canada and even England. By the late 1950's-early 1960's, Buffalo Creek and Gauley was North America's lar- gest 100% steam powered, common carrier standard gauge rail- road. Being so isolated (there was no "car road" into Swandale until the early 1930's), a strong and unified community developed at Swandale. As residents of a company town, the people depended on ELRICO for everything. Swandale had a community building that was also used for a church and a school, and there was a company store, a big white building with green trim, that carried everything from food, clothing, toys, sundries, and even furniture. The company store's prices were set at the Widen store, but since a miner's sal- ary was higher than a mill worker's was, there was some grum- bling about the inequity. There was discussion of lowering the prices at Swandale, but it was never done for fear that everyone would flock to Swandale to shop where the better bargains were. Company scrip was used for the purchase of everything. My aunt, Louise Foster, worked at the store, as did Jay Rhodes, Veraline Gregorich, and Beulah Loving, who later would marry my uncle, Wade Foster. My mother had two snowsuits for me when I was a baby that she bought there. She said they still had their "OPA" (Office of Price Admin- istration-a federal price control plan developed during World War 11) price tags on them when she bought them in 1959 or 1960. Noble Conner was assistant superintendent of ELRICO and bookkeeper of the company store. The building that hous- ed the store also provided space for the Land Office, run by Mr. Pat Butler, and the Boy Scout Office (Dennie McClung was the Scoutmaster), and the doctor's office. Early on, res- idents had to go to Widen to see a doctor, but Dr. C.N. Brown became the first physician to settle and stay in Swandale in 1923. He delivered my dad in 1936. Dr.Brown remained until 1952, and then Dr. Harper took over. Dr. Harper later moved his practice to Clendenin. Madge (Young) Conner, Noble's wife, taught school in Swandale for 27 years. My dad was one of her pupils. He had a phe- nomenal memory, and as a first grader had everyone fooled into thinking he could read. He easily remembered a story or a book after it had been read to him only once, and then would recite from memory as thought he was reading. Mrs. Conner, however, was not fooled, and did in fact teach him to read. I saw Mrs. Conner just this past September at the Swandale re- union. Golda McClung was another of the teachers there, and Carl Dodrill did double-duty as a teacher and the Principal. E.D. Currence became superintendent about 1936. Different men held many jobs over the years on the Buffalo Creek and Gauley and at the Swandale mill. Some were Creed Truman, an engineer, and Dow Keen, the fireman. Brooks Litton was a tong hooker, and Hobert Hamrick worked as a log load operator. Tom Graham, Silas Belt, Dale Nutter, and Leff Gray worked alongside Free- man Nottingham, Virgil Ayers, Dub Key, and Ken Painter. Others were Guy Frame, Theodore Barnett (my great grandfather), French Barnett (my great uncle), Junior Gray, Mack Hamrick, Roy Smith, Nolan Johnson, and Chester Truman. Hagg Goden was yard foreman, and Vernon Acree was mill foreman. Roy Foster (my grandfather) was mill engineer, and would shut down the mighty saw when Shorty sounded three whistles: Quitting Time! Others of their neighbors and co-workers included Harold Hilde- bran, Bob Carruthers, Gene and Frank Gregorich, Sam Turner, Bee Jarvis, Clarence Fisher, Dencil Paxton, and Curt Sirk. Daddy worked there for a little while after he graduated from Clay High School in June of 1949, at a pay rate of one dollar per hour, and then he joined the Air Force. The men of Swandale organized a Town Band. There was a barber, and a baseball team, complete with uniforms,and a ballfield just up from the Hamrick Cemetery. Uncle Wade played for the baseball team, and they were quite good, travelling all over West Virginia to play, and winning some championships. The second floor of the community building had a basketball court, and it was used for a roller skating rink, too. Tuesday was movie night at the community building. Mr, Johnson, from Widen, came to Swandale to show the movies. Roy Foster's wife, Susie (Barnett), my grandmother, lead a Gospel Choir that used music written with the old shaped notes, singing along with Aunt Louise, Arnold Loving, Junior Gray, Erma Johnson (she ran the boarding house), Glen Davis, and Helen (Drozdick) Foster, my mother. My mother isn't a native West Virginian (she's from New York), but I once saw a poster that described her adopted home well: "I wasn't born in West Virginia, but I got here as quick as I could." My grandparents lived in the first house on the street up on the hill, looking right down at the community building. All the houses were painted with red lead paint and had white trim. At the far right side of their front yard was a horseshoe pit, and badminton net, then a fence and a little patch of woods. On the other side of these woods was the superintendent's house. It had a fireplace with bookshelves built into the walls on ei- ther side. The grass at the horseshoe pit was loaded with four- leaf clovers, and Uncle Wade could trip and fall and find a hun- dred of them. My mother still has one, pressed and preserved, that Uncle Wade found for her and Daddy. Granny had a back porch where she kept a sandbox for me and my little brother to play in when we came to visit. We would find pinecones,the really big ones, and I can remember pouring sand in a thin rib- bon down over the cones, and the whispery shushing sound that it made. Next door to Granny and Granddad, Aunt Louise lived with her husband, Dennis (we called him Dene) Gray, and their daughter, Donna Gail. There was a big rock by the path between Granny's and Aunt Louise's back porches. Uncle Dena liked butter kept really cold, and Aunt Louise (good-naturedly) complained that he kept the butter so cold it tore up the bread when you tried to spread it. Uncle Dane was the first on the street to run a wire from the top of the mountain to their house for tele- vision reception. When Donna married there at the house, my brother (then about 2) stood there in his little suit and sang "I've Been Working on the Railroad" for Uncle Dane and Aunt Louise, a very appreciative audience. The road up to Granny and Granddad's house was rocky and un- even, and dusty, so it was often sprinkled down with used mo- tor oil to help keep down the dust. Today when I smell that oily, dusty aroma (many times around old-fashioned style wood- en roller coasters), just like a time machine, I am going back up the road to that happy house, with the squeaky sound of crunching rocks under the car wheels. We always came for Christmas. Once I got a sled (I still have it), and Daddy pulled me up the road to the company store and back. One of my favorites was a child's china tea set, white with red roses, which came from Santa Claus by way of Granny by way of the Sears catalog. Aunt Louise sewed my Barbie a brown velvet skating dress with silver rickrack trim. I still have it, too, along with several pieces of the tea set. I recently saw that tea set in an antique dealer's booth! I had one of those hobbyhorses mounted on a stand with springs, and I named him "Skyball Paint." I still know all the verses of that song and I sang it to my kids when they were small. After a couple of crippling strikes at the Widen mine in the 1950's, things began to unravel for J.G. Bradley and his towns. The strikes got ugly and there was some violence. Aunt Louise was pretty scared and upset by the situation. She was drawing a bird for one of Donna's grade-school homework assignments, and was so distracted that she gave it four legs! On November 25, 1958, Mr. Bradley sold ELRICO to Pittston Coal, surrender- ing all of his and his family's shares and resigning all his directorships. He left Clay County and spent his remaining years in Boston. He died in Needham, Massachusetts, in 1981 at 89 years of age. At its peak, Swandale was home to probably about 300 people. The streets were never paved, but nice wooden sidewalks were constructed early on. During the war years, the sidewalks deteriorated and were never replaced. Daddy broke his arm as a child when he fell while running along one. He was trying to avoid going to Sunday school, and was hurrying to catch up to Granny when he realized his plan wasn't work- ing. Now, only a couple of houses remain there. If you know where to look, you may still see a set of stone steps that now lead to a grassy field instead of a home. We did locate the steps that led to the superintendents house. Granny and Granddad's yard is just a big tangled jungle now, but I bet there are still four-leaf clovers underneath it all. And what I wouldn't give to have a milk bottle from the Cress- mont Dairy, now only a silo and a barn foundation. Clinchfield Coal Company, a Pittston subsidiary, kept the mine at Widen and the railroad, but sold their logging in- terest to the William Ritter Company of Huntington, which later merged with Georgia Pacific. Clinchfield closed the Cressmont Dairy and the Widen company store. December 30, 1963, was the last day of railroad service to the Widen coal mine. Granddad retired from the Swandale mill in 1964. On February 27, 1965, Buffalo Creek and Gauley 2-8-0 Number 4 pulled the last train between Dundon and Swandate. Georgia Pacific ended the logging operation at Swandale in 1968. Un- cle Wade died that November 20th in the mine explosion at Consol #9 at Farmington, and by then Granny and Granddad were living in New Haven, Mason County, near us and Aunt Louise. The town of Swandale is gone, but Swandale itself is not. Sunday of every Labor Day weekend, former residents, fami- lies, and friends gather for the Swandale Reunion-a day of picnicking and reminiscing. I was born in 1959, so I am among the younger folks who have solid memories of Swandale in the good days. Most of my growing-up years were in Mason and Cabell Counties, in the Ohio River Valley, but those mountains and trees and air and coal and sawdust are in me just as deep and as strong as my bones are. My children at- tend the reunion with us every fall. They weren't born un- til well after Granny and Granddad were gone (Jay is 15 and Kelly is 13), but I have pictures, and I have stories, and I have made sure they know about it all. The kids had a book in elementary school titled "When I Was Young In the Mountains," (by Cynthia Rylant) about a little girl and her brother and the home they shared with their Grand- parents in the sheltering hills. The book ends: "...1 was in the mountains, and that was always enough." It's still enough. It always will be. Kathy Louise Foster Gaskins July 2, 1998