The Hewer and Six Tons

"I keep straining my ears to hear a sound; maybe someone is digging underground. Or have they given up and all gone home to bed; thinking those who once existed must be dead." 

                                                                                                                                             Bee Gees (1967)

 

Possibly no other product or occupation has had a greater impact on the economy and the social fabric of a region as coal and coal mining has had on southwestern West Virginia.

 

As early as 1679 Father Louis Hennipin, a Franciscan missionary, noted the significant presence of coal.  The original impetus was the need for coal to heat water for processing salt. The first commercial coal company incorporated in 1834. Transportation was a major problem for the coal industry until 1870s when the Chesapeake and Ohio railway reached the rich Kanawha and New River coal fields, facilitating the growth of the coal industry and coal towns (also known as coal camps) in West Virginia.

A miner, dressed for work in the early 20th century, holds his lunch pail under his arm.
The whip around his neck indicates that he drove a team, hauling coal out of the mine 

Coal towns were located in relatively isolated areas and often the large coal companies created not only the work structure but the social structure as well.  Between 1817 and about 1930 coal essentially was mined by hand. Typically, mines operated six days per week, 20 to 24 hours per day, with two 10-hour shifts or three 8-hour shifts.  Work was difficult and dangerous. The companies expected miners to produce ten tons each per shift but the typical miner produced four to six tons.  Earning just 20 cents for each ton produced, it is no wonder miners found themselves, in the words of Tennessee Ernie Ford, "...another day older and deeper in debt."

 

A good way to get a better appreciation of the challenges faced by miners is a visit to the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine.  In 1960 the town of Beckley, West Virginia, purchased the low seam coal mine which had operated in Beckley from 1890 to1910. This exhibition allows a glimpse into the life of a coal miner by offering tours, lead by a former miner, into the mine. 

Starting into the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine on a small train



Our guide, Larry, was a retired miner, and a great story-teller



One ton of coal.  Miners were expected to dig 10 tons each per day, but usually
averaged 6-7 tons. They were paid 20 cents per ton in the early 20th century.



You can see the dark seam of coal is only about 24-30 inches high.  The ceiling has been
raised for tours; it would have been much lower, requiring miners to lay on their sides to work.



The ceiling was "pinned" with long bolts and steel plates to keep it from collapsing.



The Exhibition Coal Mine also features buildings which have been saved and relocated from actual coal camps in order to showcase living conditions in a coal company town.  Since most coal towns were found in remote locations with no other infrastructure, the coal companies and the "coal barons" would build the entire town...houses to rent to miners, the company stores which stocked and sold the only goods available from food to mining equipment.  Miners had to furnish their own clothing, boots, hats or helmets, carbide lamps, picks, shovels, breast augurs (drills) and dynamite to blast the coal loose.  (He even had to supply the fuel that he burned in his lamp.  Often, to save money, the grease left over from his morning bacon went into the lamp.)  Since the towns were nearly self-sufficient, companies started paying their workers and operating their stores with company "script" instead of U.S. currency.  Paper script was initially issued, beginning around 1855.  From the 1920's until as recently as the 1950's,  metal tokens were used, each stamped with its value and with the name of the coal company that issued it...and it could only be used to trade in that company's store.  It has been reported that at one time, the company store in Thurmond, WV did $6,000 in sales every week, and did not ever accept a single piece of U.S. currency.  So again, in the lyrics of Tennessee Ernie Ford's ballad, the miner could easily "...owe my soul to the company store." 

 

Bedroom of a married miner's house.  Houses were built with one or two
bedrooms for a family, and were rented from the company for $4 per month.



Living room in a married miner's house.  The family was responsible for
getting their own furniture.



Kitchens were fairly large, but also served as the dining room



A single miner would rent a one room house for $2 per month.
Every house in a coal camp did, however, have its own outhouse.

By contrast, the coal mine superintendent's house was large and luxurious.

The superintendent's house came furnished, but if he needed something
more, he could just requisition it from the company store.



In addition to running the mine, the superintendent was the mayor of the
coal town, responsible for everything that went on in town.



Supeintendents were sometimes transferred from one coal town to another.

The miner's lunch pail had three sections.  Water was carried in the bottom section.  The middle
section held his lunch or dinner, and the top section might contain a piece of pie or some biscuits.



Miner's cap with a "teapot" lamp.  Oil was put in the "pot" part, and a wick was inserted
in the "spout" part, and lit.  Imagine an open flame in a mine that could contain methane gas. 



Miners bought all their own tools from the "company store".

 





The coal town would have a barber/beauty shop with a shoeshine stand.  The tall device
in the center of the room is a hair curler for permanent waves.



Coal camps had post offices.  Often, the Post Office Department would request that

a town change its name because another town already had the same name.

Every coal town had a doctor's office.  Injuries and death were frequent

Life in a coal company town depended upon the benefice of the owners.  Some built schools, churches, and theaters while others pinched every penny.  In order to provide some recreation in an otherwise dreary existence, some coal towns had a town orchestra or band; most  had a baseball team, which competed against teams from other coal camps.

 

Churches were an important part of the social fabric of the coal town



Schools were built for the miners' children.  Ironically, many miners were African-American
and while they worked side-by-side with white miners, schools were segregated.





Most coal towns had company-sponsored baseball teams
that played against other towns' teams

Working in the coal industry was difficult and miners felt that they didn't have a representative voice in matters of safety.  The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) was organized on January 25,1890.  Miners wanted better working conditions and better pay.  Safety was always a concern...underground explosions were commonplace.  In 1907 one of the deadliest explosions occurred at the Fairmont Coal Company's mine in the Marion County town of Monongah.  Some 361 men died (the total is an estimate because was there was no accurate accounting of who was actually inside the mine) leaving behind 1,000 children.  Between 1912 and 1921 there was so much violence between miners and companies that some called the series of conflicts "the second Civil War."  The violence did not end until 1933 with the passage in Washington, DC of the National Industrial Recovery Act.




This was called a "kettle bottom" but miners referred to it as a widow-maker. A petrified
tree trunk, embedded in a coal seam, could fall, killing a miner if it hit him. It would be
brought out and displayed in front of the miner's home as a tribute to him.

This banner would be displayed at funerals of miners in Glen White (Raleigh County).
If a miner died, his wife had 2 weeks to marry another miner or she had to move out of
his company-owned home.  Glen White was a coal town with a large Gaelic population

Coal towns grew up in mountainous regions in West Virginia along the rivers and rail lines. They thrived while coal supported a growing industrial nation and the war production efforts during World War I and World War II.   As the country turned to other energy sources the coal industry took a dramatic economic hit, as did the towns built for the express purpose of supporting that industry. Some towns have survived while many have disappeared from the landscape.

 

Hinton is an historic coal and railway town on the New River in West Virginia.  It was once a main terminal for the C&O Railway, and featured a roundhouse and engine repair facility.  Hinton is the county seat of Summers County.  Today, one of its greatest connections to the railroad is a wonderful museum founded nearly a quarter of a century ago and still run by retired railway employee Dorothy Boley.

Dorothy Boley worked for the C&O (later, the CSX) Railroad for 43 years.  She
founded the Hinton Railroad Museum to keep memories of the past alive.  Now
in her 90's, Dorothy works at the museum every day and is a font of knowledge.

 

The museum houses a set of carvings (about 120 pieces) depicting every job performed on the
C&O Railroad. The figures are all about 18" tall. The central figure, John Henry, the "steel
driving man" who out-hammered the steam driver, is a little larger than the other figures.

 

The carvings are the work of the late Charlie Permelia, a local artist and former
railroad worker.  It took about 12 years to complete the "story in sculpture"

Parmelia used about 100 different types of wood in his carvings, all native to
West Virginia - primarily walnut, cherry and ash because of their color.

Walnut was used to carve the Black workers, cherry to depict Asian workers,
and ash for the white workers on the railroad gangs.

Conductor's caps and uniforms on display in the museum at Hinton

At one time, the C&O used "stewardesses" on some
of its passenger trains. The idea didn't catch on.

The depot at Hinton, West Virginia

 



The little town of Thurmond, which never exceeded a population of 500, was once the most important rail station and depot in the eastern U.S. due to the amount of freight handled.  In 1910 the depot handled four million tons of freight.  In the same year 76,000 passengers passed through the station on one of the fifteen daily passenger trains.

At one time, Thurmond had no roads accessing the town.  It could be reached only
by train or by water.  The town is located on the New River.



A CSX freight train rolls through Thurmond.  Never larger than 500 in population
today Thurmond has only a handful of residents, but Amtrak still stops there.



The National Bank of Thurmond, once a thriving financial institution,
is now an empty shell in a near ghost-town.



"Downtown" Thurmond, WV today.  Pretty, but empty.

The Bee Gees lyrics commemorated a coal mine disaster in 1945.  There have been at least 50 major disasters since 1886.  Many safety precautions have been put in place and mechanization has replaced much of the manual labor.  In 1947 there were 450,000 miners employed; today, the coal industry provides some 30,000 direct jobs in West Virginia¹.  Fifty-three of West Virginia's fifty-five counties have coal and coal mining operations to some degree¹.  But as the coal towns and coal camps disappear, so does a distinct way of life.  Thankfully, Beckley and many other places in the state are preserving the heritage of the coal industry in West Virginia. 

 

"Hewer" is a term for the miner who actually undercuts and extracts the coal from the seam.  A competent hewer could mine about six tons of coal a day...and he could provide us with tons of great Road Stories. 

 

 

1.  Source:  West Virginia Coal Mining Facts, produced by the West Virginia Office of Miners' Health, Safety and Training    http://www.wvminesafety.org/wvcoalfacts.htm

 

Special thanks to our guide, Larry, at the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine.  A former miner himself, he was a wealth of knowledge on the history and facts of coal mining in West Virginia.

 

Some of the statistical data in this blog comes from the book King Coal by Stan Cohen, published by Quarrier Press.