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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview
H-0067, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern
Historical Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill”
Frank Durham discusses how his family first came to work in the mills and describes other people they got to know there. Over the course of Durham's life, he followed his father's path, working his way up through the mill's supervisory ladder to become superintendent. His broad experience enables him to describe the inner workings of the mill, the ways management negotiated labor complaints with the employees, the social structure of the mill village, and the commonalities of mill town life. He also discusses many moments in employee life, including the ways they hazed new hires. As a part of community entertainment, many of the locals put together bands. Durham and some of his friends were in the Chatham Rabbits, and he proudly recalls how popular they were across the region. He describes how his parents disciplined them. Several of his relatives struggled with alcoholism and other addictions, and he discusses why such problems were common in mill towns. He ends the interview by talking about all the changes that have taken place since he started as a mill worker early in the century.
Frank Durham discusses how his family first came to work in the mills and describes other people they got to know there. He describes the inner workings of the mill, the ways management negotiated labor complaints with the employees, the social structure of the mill village, and the commonalities of mill town life.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
Well, he died in 1909. Then they left in 1910, the whole family, and went to Hillsborough somewhere. They owned a thousand acres of land, they said, all up and down the river, and a big plantation. He had a brother lived right across the road, Luther Bynum, right across the highway in that big house over there. That was his brother, Luther Bynum.
Oh, so Luther Bynum lived over there. Wasn't it Luther that started the mill?
Yes. Them two brothers
So there were two different Bynum families, is that right?
Yes. There were two different families. Luther Bynum on that side and Carney Bynum on this side of the road, and the highway used to go right down through there.
How were they related to each other?
They were brothers.
I'd like to find out more about your family, because you seem to have been a very important family in town.
Well, not too much, I don't think, but. . . . I had a good family, as far as that goes, but my mother now is over here in the rest home. It's a nursing home. She's not able to do anything. She's and she knows me, and I was over there yesterday. She's ninety-six years old.
Wow.
Papa lived to be ninety-three. He died in '76.
Did your father move to Bynum?
Yes, he came here when he was a kid boy. His daddy died and his mother
married again, and he left home, he and his sister and two brothers. Up
here in the country around Brown's Chapel somewhere. They had a sort of
falling out before they was any age at all, hardly. His sister had done
left. She was the oldest. She'd left and gone to work somewhere. She
went to work when she was about fourteen years old. Well, Papa took his
two brothers and went to Saxapahaw. That's another mill town right on up
by the river. And he had an aunt that lived up there. He stayed up there
a while, and then they walked away from up there and walked down here.
He had another aunt that lived over there. She wrote and told them to
come down here and stay with her. It was his daddy's sister. So they
come down here, and he went to work in the mill and
Did he come back here to marry?
Yes, he come back here and married my mother. She was a Moore. And he was
made, finally, overseer. Second hand and then the overseer of the
spinning, and then he stayed that way till he retired. He had to retire.
He left the mill—oh, a long time—in '44. And after
that he just bought and sold real estate. He had a heart attack or
something. And he got over it. For about two years he didn't do
anything, but just like the doctor told him over here, doctor at Watts
Hospital. He got over that, seemingly, went back to work just doing what
he wanted to, buying and selling stuff to pick up a little money.
So he managed to save all that money working in the mill?
Yes. Lord, I don't see how he did it.
That's amazing.
Him and Mama built the house on up the road up yonder in 1909. They stayed there ten years and come down here in 1919. And I don't see how he ever done that. They didn't have nothing, you see. And I think he didn't have much money, but they had a mighty good living. But there was three acres of land up there with that thing, and he tended and did everything he could. He had a wonderful garden and kept two cows, and he raised hogs and chickens, and they raised everything they ate, just about.
So they were living over . . .
Over here up the road. Right above that store, the house on the left.
Then he sold that one when he found he could buy this place down here.
Thought it was a good thing, and sold that and bought this down here. Of
course he had to pay
So this is really your family house.
Yes, sir, I've been here Lord knows. Well, I was just a kid like when we come down here.
Did your mother work in the mill, also?
She did until they married. She never worked anymore. She did a lot of work around home. She learned to be a real good seamstress. She was real good with her hands; she could do anything. She sewed for a lot of people. Because I remember all over the place were dresses and things. They'd come over and try them on. I'd carry them when they was finished. I had three brothers and a sister. We was all young together; there wasn't quite two years between none of us. My oldest brother is dead, and my youngest sister. My oldest brother did live right out here.
In the house here.
Yes, and that belongs to their estate now, the other house out there. My brother Cary. He's the one that used to run that store down there. That's all gone now. And there's a boy now that closed it up, and he's selling cars for Coggin up there on the Boulevard, you know. They did a lot of business a long time. He was in business down there fifty years, Cary was.
Didn't another one of your brothers own a store, too?
Yes, Lewis Durham, right up above there. Yes, them Durham They sold and
made a dwelling out of that. He sold the house, only they owned this
home right down here. He sold that and then he sold and he built in
Durham County up there, right on the edge between Orange and Durham. He
don't live but two or three miles out of Chapel Hill.
How about your older brother, Cary? When did he start his store?
1926, and he closed up sometime in '78. But he'd had a stroke in '75. He run it all the time in his name, but he didn't actually run it anymore after he had the stroke because he wasn't quite capable. He got around pretty good for a year or two, but it finally killed him.
Your mother's family were the Moores.
Yes. Edgar Moore was superintendent of the mill down here for years, her oldest brother. They had four boys and four girls in that family.
Were they originally from Bynum?
No, they come from down here on the New Hope. They moved to Pittsboro and run a mill over there, a cotton gin and a grist mill. And her daddy got a farm and was coming out here between here and Pittsboro nights, farming over there. And he was a young man, and he died. Just died in about two days. They think now it was appendicitis, appendix busted, but they called it a kidney problem that killed him. So Uncle Edgar was the oldest one in the family, and he come across over here and got a job over here in the mill. He took a textile course. They seen something in him, and he was a brilliant fellow. The company helped him with the textile course, and he worked through the mill and he got to be superintendent.
Oh, really.
He stayed there. Then he left here and went to Edenton and down
So he started working in the mill as a young boy and . . .
Yes, he started here, and then he moved around. He went to Edenton and stayed down there a pretty good while. He come back here. Stayed here till he retired. He worked till he was eighty years old.
Wow.
He was in good health then. He lived sixteen years after that.
So he started working in the mill down here, and then did he take that textile course before he went to Edenton?
Yes. He got that before he. . . . He was taking that right here and was working in the mill and learned all the jobs.
He was taking that here. How?
Correspondence. You could do that. You can still do it.
How did he happen to go down to Edenton?
There was a fellow that moved out from here who was overseer of carding here, and when my uncle got to be overseer of spinning, this fellow Jim Cates moved here and went to work for Erwin at Durham. And he left Erwin at Durham and went to Edenton. And he wanted to know if they'd go down there. He got him down there. Mr. Cates got to be a big man down there sure enough. They were both good mill men, good, practical mill men, really.
It sounds like the foremen in the mill and the superintendent all were local people here.
Yes. I was foreman.
Yes, I understand you were the super . . .
For years and years down there. Lord, yes. I worked down there about fifty-some years. I was superintendent the last seventeen years of my life down there. My working life. I was overseer of spinning for several years, and then I went over all of it on the second shift, for a long time, twenty-five years.
I'm still trying to figure out how the whole management of the mill works. The superintendent is over everything, is that right?
Yes. Then we have a plant manager now that's over the superintendent. The plant manager, the superintendent, then the overseers of the different departments.
And was the superintendent in charge of all three shifts?
All of it, yes, everything. Both shifts, everything. He's responsible for the whole mill, all that's running, all the time.
And then the supervisor is over the card room and the spinning room.
That's right.
Did you have a different supervisor for each shift?
Yes. Every shift. Yes, there's a supervisor for each shift and each operation; carding, spinning, and winding. There were three in three shifts.
Who took care of the hiring and the firing?
I did every bit of the hiring when I was there. The head man
But now they have a plant manager.
Yes, they have a plant manager and a superintendent now.
Does the plant manager do sort of what Mr. London used to do?
John London was plant manager down there all the time that I was superintendent. But John's retired now. He went to Pittsboro. His brother died. He was secretary and treasurer. He died, and then John went to Pittsboro as that, and they hired another fellow over here. And there have been several fellows down there since this new company got it now. John and them sold out to a company out of Mount Pleasant. They own five mills; this makes the fifth. They had it leased, and then they bought it here about two months ago.
Oh, really.
John was the only one in his family connected with the mill. He's seventy years old, and he wanted to get out, so he just sold it.
I see. So now the mill is no longer owned by the Odell Company.
No. It don't belong to them, but it's still in the Odells' name. They own eighty-seven percent of it. There's thirteen percent of it somebody owned, and they wouldn't sell. They've still got it. But all the company wants is the controlling interest anyhow, I guess.
Could you tell me a little bit more about your career? How old were you when you started working in the mill?
Oh, Lord, I was twelve years old. And going to school
I'd have to eat everything, and I'd stand there and she'd . . . . I
learned to make up beds and sweep and all that stuff in the house, just
like a servant, you know, but she was good to me. Just as good to me as
she could be. I enjoyed it. The next summer, though, I had to go [Laughter]
Gosh.
They had those hours. And several of the boys would work from 6:20 till
3:20, and I come on at 9:20 and worked on. They had it fixed
When was that? That would have been in the 1920's?
1918 I went to work. And it had to have been, I think, about 1920 when that labor law came out.
Did you continue to go to school in the wintertime after that?
Yes, I did. I went to school. Yes, he'd stop us and send us to school,
Papa would. He was the foreman, you see. He'd put you to doing something
or another down there. He didn't make no money at all out of it, [Laughter]
So the money that you earned in the mill, that was your parents'?
Yes, because he bought everything for us. And he'd give us a little
money, but that was mighty little along in then. It didn't take much.
They wouldn't let you throw nothing away nohow.
The company helped out a lot, didn't they, with the housing and all of that?
Yes, there wasn't nothing to do to the houses or the rent, as far as
that. Papa didn't stay over there. After they married, I don't think he
stayed over there but about three years, and he built this house
How's that?
Mr. London and Mr.
Oh, really.
Yes, and he paid them back, and they didn't charge him no interest. Captain London. He was a captain in the Civil War. Captain London. And they always called him Captain London. He died in 1916. I remember seeing him a time or two and speaking to him, but that's about all.
Was your father a foreman by that time, when he built that house?
Yes, he was. Yes, he was foreman, but they didn't make much. When he
built that house, he was making $1.25 a day. That's all. And
I mean he had to work eleven hours a day [Crashing sound]
My goodness.
[Laughter]
Something fell off. They're doing some work in there. That's my boy; he's going to move in here with me.
Oh, good.
He's going to sell his home in Raleigh. See, I'm here by myself till they get up here. My wife died.
I heard about that.
And had to carry my mother over there. She fell and broke her hip. I was
going to the hospital to see my wife; my wife had a cancer. And from the
time we knew she had one until she died wasn't but about three months.
Just all right now. And while she was in the hospital, my mother fell,
and I was going up there to see her. My sister was up here with Mama,
but she got up to go to the bathroom and failed to take her walker some
way or another, and she just fell and got to going back. She said,
"I didn't fall. I just got to going backwards."
Something
Oh, gee.
She'd always been awful healthy, but it got her. They can't stay long,
but then a lot of times they linger on. Some of them don't do nothing
but linger on.
It's good that your son is going to be living with you. . . . How did you meet your wife? Did she work in the mill?
We just met in school. She moved here out of Burlington. Her brother and
her, just two children. And they moved from the mill in Burlington. Her
daddy was raised up the country here, and he come back down thisaway.
And we just met in school and married when we was young. I was seventeen
years old. Yes, sir, that's how old I was, about
A lot of people in town have told me about her mother, Mrs. Ida Smith. She took care of a lot of the people in town, didn't she?
Oh, yes, she did. Her mother was the same as a doctor, near about. And Louise did what she could, but her mother was real good. Children and people that's sick. They all did; they just sent them children.
Do you know how her mother learned to doctor like that?
No, I don't. They were just old-time remedies that were handed down, and
she was the best with babies that I ever saw. I declare, she could do
anything with a baby that a doctor couldn't do, it looked like, near
about. One thing: she knew these old remedies actually
better—I mean, at the time she was at it—than the
doctors knew a whole lot, it looked like. They've got the specialists
and all now, you know. But around a neighborhood like this one here,
years ago, there was no doctor, hardly. If you went to the hospital, you
had to go to Watts, or Rex in Raleigh; that was all. And you didn't go
unless you was dying or something about. Nobody didn't go to the
hospital; hardly ever in the world anybody went to the hospital. And
people in the neighborhood looked after one another the best they could,
and they did pretty good at it. And another thing, it's a fact that if
you lived along then and compare them times with now, [Laughter] [Laughter]
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
So your wife's mother was originally from Burlington?
They come out of Burlington, Alamance County. But they both originally come. . . . She come from over here. She was born and raised down below Pittsboro, come here from down there. And he was born back up here somewhere. But they'd met somewhere, I don't know where, and married, and they moved into Alamance and stayed there a long time. Then they come back down here.
What job did you first have when you went to work in the mill?
Just cleaning up. Cleaned up machinery. Stop them off, [Laughter]
You really learned all of the jobs in the mill.
Yes, sir, I did. And then they put me in the other room, and I learned to
run stuff in the card room, cards, lappers, drawings, frames, all that
stuff. You see, in a mill you start with the lapper, and every machine
drafts it down. The card
Twenty-five, that's the real fine yarn.
Yes, that's right. Then they'd run it on spools or cones in the winder. That's the way they set it down here, in little cones or spools. But everything is cleaning and drawing down; it's getting finer as it goes on through.
Didn't they have to keep a certain amount of humidity in the room
Yes, sir, they do now. I remember when they first put in the first
humidity. Before that it would get so hot and dry you'd sprinkle.
Sprinkle them down the walls and right on the spinning frames. Wet it.
It'd get to where it wouldn't half run sometimes. You'd wet in under
there. And then they put in these disc humidifiers with a fan back there
and a disc in front and teeth all around it. Throw out that spray,
br-r-r-r-r-r, just throw a nice spray on it. Oh, that was real pretty.
And they'd just shine. Then they took them down later on and got their
air system; it's air and water
Does that new air conditioning system help to keep the dust down?
Yes, sir. They've got a dust trick in now. It takes the dust away from the cards and brings it out there. It blows out onto a screen. The screen is turning like this all the time and just putting it out down here on the floor kind of in a separate place, just a sheet of it about that wide, that holds together. It just drops on down and dusts it. Oh, it's terrible. I mean in the air it is. When I was coming along up and for a long time, that was all in the air. It's a wonder I can breathe, but somehow or another it didn't affect me like it did some folks.
Did all that dust bother people?
No, not too bad. But it just killed some folks. They had to get out.
Couldn't stand it. I smoked up until about
Am I right that back then, when you first started working, when you caught up with your work on the machines that you could leave them running and take a break?
Yes, you could. The company was real lenient; they were a good company.
Now you take a fellow running card—I don't care what you was
running—they got good enough at it that they could catch up.
They'd get a little catch-up time, and especially one of them would
watch one another's work. You hardly ever left your work unless there
was somebody there watching. If you leave the thing running, it might
tear up before you got back. An end would come down, and
Do they have to turn off the machines to do that?
No, they don't. They do like that; they have certain ones go at a certain time. They've got a certain length of time; fifteen minutes is the usual break.
Were there some jobs that it was easier to do that than others? I've heard that you had to keep a closer watch on winding machines than you did . . .
Oh, yes, you did. You couldn't leave it; it just stops. It runs out,
those winder stems, they do. And spinning, it'll ball up on you if you
don't watch them. If you stay away from them very long, end comes down.
Now used to we had these lap sticks. Every time an end come down, there
was a lap stick under it just run for six ends. But now there's air that
floats under there, in case
Were certain jobs paid on production?
Yes.
Was that for all of the jobs in the mill?
No. The frame hands,
They were paid by the hour?
No. If you run ten sides, why, you got more, so much a side. At that time, twelve was the limit. Had several ten-side spinners. Make the sides come out right, and some of them just simply weren't as good as the others and couldn't handle them all. Sweepers and doffers. Doffers was paid by the side, most of the time. They work by the hour now, and I think they've got the winding hands and everything by the hour now, just about. But it's not as good, I don't believe, as the other, because, well, when I was down there we paid near about everything on the incentive system, either by sides or. . . . The doffers got paid by the side. They tend to keep them running better, trying to make another side, you know. And the pounds in the winding room: well, you just take somebody there that can wind 300 or 400 pounds a day and another one wind 250, why, that good hand just do well to drop down to the other one if he's going to make the same pay, you know. There's got to be some way or another, and I don't know how they handle it now. I haven't been down there to amount to nothing lately.
Winders could only wind if they had bobbins. Was there ever a problem . . .
Used to we'd catch up a bobbin some, but they tried to never let them
catch up. If you did, you'd allow for that. I did; we did; we would
allow. If they caught up and they had to sit down and didn't have
Did the people ever come to you with complaints about how the work was going?
Oh, Lord, yes.
What sort of things would they complain about?
[Laughter]
How about during breaks? What did people used to do during their breaks?
Usually, if they got coffee, they'd drink coffee and smoke a cigarette. All of them smoked in Bynum.
Inside the mill?
Yes, you've got a place for it, though, you know.
Oh, really.
Yes, there's a room in the winding room where the spinners and the winders use; that's the break room. They've got all these machines in there, sandwich machines, Coca-Colas, and a money changer and everything in there. And they go in there. Then there's tables around there. They sit around in there and drink coffee or drink their drink or eat a sandwich and smoke a cigarette. Then they're ready to go back to work, usually.
How about back when you started work? What did people do then?
Oh, they went on outside. Just smoked, that was all. We didn't have no
drinks nor nothing. There weren't nothing down there except water. And
if you smoked, why, you'd catch up long enough to go out and smoke.
[Laughter] [Laughter]
Were there families here in Bynum who did that, where the father didn't work?
Not too many here. They had a good bunch that worked here, ever since I come over there. I don't remember no real sorry folks that would do that much, but it wasn't that big. But around these big mills, they said they was bad about that, and there probably was some here, too. I'm sure there was. But as a young'un I didn't pay much attention to it. And by the time I began to get grown, they were getting away from a lot of it. They done pretty good.
Some people have told me that during their breaks they used to go down fishing or go to Pittsboro.
Well, they used to, them doffers, sometimes.
Could they do that?
Yes, but now you didn't give them any break; they earned it, but
sometimes they'd overdo it, and you'd have to lay them off for a day or
two at a time or something like that. They didn't do much of that, and
if they did you could break it up by. . . . Say a fellow makes a round.
He's doffing twenty frames, say, [Laughter]
Do you have any idea why the mill in Bynum was more lenient than other mills?
Yes, much more, they were, but they got along with them real good. None better.
Was there any particular reason that you . . .
No. Here it's just the management, tough management, just wanted that
tight. Now you get some fellows that have been here, they'd have had a
fit. You take these folks that come in down here and bought this company
out, they stopped that going out of the mill right straight. And it made
everybody. . . . A whole lot of them quit and left, and a whole
Oh, really?
Yes, sir. Yes, you didn't have to pay them as much. They didn't pay as much here as they did. One thing, you could live for near about nothing with the house rent, you know. It weren't but $1.25 every two weeks for a three-room house, and they were big rooms. That's mighty cheap rent.
Some people have told me that people used to play pranks in the mill. Do you remember any of that? Mrs. Gattis was telling me that, before they were married, her husband came down to visit somebody in the mill, and the man poured a bucket of dirty water over him.
Yes, they tried to do that. They'd let you off, too.
Oh, yeah?
Yes. They throwed a bucket of water on And they messed his clothes up. They finally found out who done it and laid him off for a week for that.
Oh, really.
Yes, the superintendent did. It wasn't me; I wasn't there. I was overseer
of spinning at that time. But they'd do things like that. One time there
was a colored girl—a good one and a good
cook—brought her lady that was spinning down there, that she
was working for, her dinner or supper. A fellow dropped a little paper
bag of water on her head [Laughter] [Laughter] [Laughter]
Can you remember any other things like that?
Well, not especially. There was something like that going all the time,
some little old tricks and then playing pranks. A new hand would come in
down there sometime to work, and they'd send him after a lefthanded
monkey wrench, and go down there and get the key to the elevator, and
the bobbin stretcher and all that stuff. Somebody that didn't know there
was no such thing. Send it to a foreman or something, and he'd send them
back. They'd say, "Well, I'll let So-and-so have it"
or something, then run him around a little bit. Some dumb folks come to
work, but they'd never been in a mill or nothing, you know. They'd play
stuff like that. Oh, they just enjoyed themself by doing a thing like
that. [Laughter]
Somebody was telling me that they used to sing during breaks. Did they get together outside and sing at all or tell stories?
Oh, yes, they would sometimes, yes. There was always somebody on the job
that was
A quartet?
Yes. The watchman, he'd come on. He used to sing tenor. [Laughter]
Do you remember what they used to sing?
No, I really don't especially. They'd sing a lot of songs that they knew at that time. Offhand I don't remember none. I don't remember none to amount to anything. But I know they were singing something.
You used to be in a band, didn't you?
Yes, we had a string band here, the Chatham Rabbits.
The Chatham Rabbits.
Chatham Rabbits, that was the name of it. Yes, it used to be rabbit
county, you know. I reckon there were more rabbits here than there were
anywhere in the state. They was everywhere, but there come a disease in
here and killed them out, and there never have been none. Aw, we had a
good band.
Who all was in the band?
Mr. Farrel and Patterson Farrel Louise Farrel up here, her granddaddy and her daddy were the fiddle players. They were real good, too. Her granddaddy played the first fiddle, and her daddy played the second. And they were good. Then we had a banjo player that worked in the mill, David Baker. They're every one dead but me now; they're all gone. And Bob Clapp and I played the guitar. And now he's gone. And the harp blower was a real good harp blower, and he's dead, Talt Riggsbee. And Briggs Atwater played the mandolin, and he's gone. They'd get together, and it was good. There was no radio; there was nothing much, you know. When I first started playing, there wasn't nothing. You had to use phonographs and little old. . . . They were oldtimey. But that's the way I learned about all my songs; I had an old phonograph that you wind up, you know.
How did you learn to play?
There was a fellow in the village that I learned to play with, a
McDaniel. He could play anything. And I just went and bought me a
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
. . .and want us to come to
WPTF.
"We Protect the Family." That's what they said.
Where is that?
In Raleigh. It's there now, WPTF. They'd call up here and want us to come down and play. But every one of them was married, and some wouldn't allow us. They went so much, they'd get tired of them going.
[Laughter]
If they said yes, some would come with us. They was all young enough to
get around a little; they had a pretty good time. But they got to where
they didn't. . . . We went down there I think it was three or four
times. But they had a pretty good audience down there.
About when would that have been?
That was in the late twenties, '28 or '9. We got a telegram, I know, one time from somebody in Alabama.
Geez.
Said that they enjoyed the music and told us a certain song they wanted
us to sing the next time we played, one time we went down there. And
they hoped that the Chatham Rabbits didn't get in the cabbage patch on
the way home. [Laughter] [Laughter]
I don't want to take too much of your time, then, but I'd sure love to talk to you more about this. Shall we end here, and I could come back some other time?
Okay.
Okay, that'd be great. Well, thank you very much.
Yes, sir. You
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 3, SIDE A]
We were talking about the Chatham Rabbits the last time. How old were you when you first started playing?
I was about nineteen or twenty years old. I don't know whether I was over eighteen or not; I don't recall for sure.
Were there many boys in the village that played instruments?
There wasn't many, no. There wasn't but one, the guitar player.
Who was that?
He could play anything. He was a guy who didn't mind learning and teaching. In fact, he finally had a class of them. But I was out then. I'd done gone into another band. I'd gone into the Chatham Rabbits band. I started playing with McKinley McDaniel. We had an Hawaiian band started with, so I played a Hawaiian guitar.
You played the Hawaiian guitar?
No, I just played a straight guitar. He played the Hawaiian guitar, piano, or anything; he could play anything. But I had never fooled with nothing much but a guitar. And we played every whichaway around.
You told me that you'd played on the radio, on WPTF.
Yes, we played there on WPTF.
What sort of things did you play for around town?
We played for dances mostly, around out in the country and around. We
hardly ever played except Saturday night, and sometimes Wednesday. Most
of the time it was on Saturday night. And they was asking you to play
more than you could play a whole lot of the
Where were the dances usually held?
A village down here they called
Did they have the dances in the schools?
People's houses. No, we never did charge for them or nothing. We just played for them for pleasure. They would offer us money, but we never. . . . I don't know that we ever made any money playing at a dance, except during World War II we played over here every Saturday night at the American Legion hut. They paid us over there, and they charged. We got paid for playing for them every Saturday night. Lord have mercy, that place was full all around.
What kind of dances were they?
Round dances, square dances. Square dance mostly.
Did people do any clogging?
Oh, yes, they'd have a little. But mostly they called figures and square danced. It was kind of like that clogging, a whole lot of it was. That figure caller come out of Sanford. I forget his name now, it's been so long. The poor fellow's dead now.
So it wasn't somebody in the band that did the calling. It was somebody from Sanford that would come up.
You had to have a good figure caller. He run the dance, and he kept everything on a. . . . You had to learn them figures, to know what move to make with your partner.
Do you remember any of the tunes that you used to play for those dances?
Oh, yes, most of them. "Mississippi Sawyer" and
"Cindy" and
I've talked to a fiddler from outside of Sanford named Lauchlin Shaw. Have you ever heard of him?
No, sir, I don't. No, I've been out of it a long time. I really don't know him.
I was just wondering, because I think he was playing about the same time. Did your band ever do any singing?
I sang in the band right smart, me and Bob Clapp, the guitar player. We sang some.
So that was separate from the Chatham Rabbits.
No, it was in the music. Like when we'd play, they'd want you to sing sometimes. Between dances, while they was resting a little bit, they'd want you to play and sing something. And we knew right many songs then, but I don't know.
Do you remember the names of any of the songs?
No, sir, I tell you the truth, I've just lost. . . . I haven't played any now in so long, I don't even hardly remember none of them. They were songs in that day and time that was pretty good at that day and time, I guess, but I don't. . . . Most of them we had the violins to lead; we didn't sing much. Violins and banjo picking out a lead all the time.
Yes.
I heard there was a lot of singing in town, though. I've heard people used to get together in houses to do singing.
Oh, yes, they did, over there in the village. Yes, all around here. Yes, they'd have singings a whole lot. Little old parties and candy pulling and stuff like that in the wintertime and singings. There wasn't nowhere else to go much, except to entertain yourself in your own. . . . Well, way back there was no way to go much. There was no transportation to amount to nothing. I can remember when the first car that ever was in this place. I was just a boy. My uncle and a store owner bought it together, a Model T in 1912, I believe it was. Or '14, somewhere along in that day. There weren't no cars, nothing but a horse and buggy. A lot of them, horses and buggies and mules was working. The blacksmith's job and the grist mill and all that stuff going then that's gone now. They had a big old grist mill down here that ground wheat and stuff, run night and day in the fall, never stopped. It would rush.
Who is it that ran the grist mill?
Atwater and Lambeth's store. They run a sawmill and grist mill and a cotton gin. And they were big for a little old place. They were said to be the largest general store in Chatham County. They handled everything. They advertised "from the cradle to the grave." They handled all sorts of caskets, and cradles they had. They did; they handled them; I've seen them.
They went bankrupt, didn't they, eventually?
They did.
How come?
I'm sorry, I didn't understand.
Guano, you know that stuff you put in the field?
Oh, yes, fertilizer.
They said they broke him. It had to be paid, and they got him in such bad shape that they finally closed him sometime in the thirties.
So they used to give this to people on credit.
Yes, let out. Yes, they had an office manager. Mr. Atwater run the office. Mr. Lambeth run the store with his help; he had help in there. Mr. Atwater looked after the office. And they'd let farmers have one