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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-0271, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern
Historical Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill”
Dock Hall's working life spanned a number of southern industries, including lumber, furniture, and mining. Hall focuses on mining in this interview, describing his work underground as a chucker (in which his task was to keep another miner's equipment cool with water), and above ground in a stamping mill, extracting valuable minerals from pieces of rock. While he and others preferred better-paying mine work to textile work, work in the mines could mean long hours and unpleasant conditions. As one of relatively few interviews in this collection that focus on mining, this selection should be of use to researchers interested in issues concerning that industry, ranging from daily routines to deadly accidents.
Dock Hall recalls his laboring life, focusing on his years as a miner.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
Mr. Hall, first what is your full name?
My name is Dock E. Hall, Dock Edward.
That was your given name, Dock, D-o-c-k?
D-o-c-k Edward Hall: that's what I get my Social Security
check about, and that's what you want. And that's
what everyone knows me by. They named me after
Yes. And when were you born?
I was born in Moore County, right close to Carthage.
And when was this?
1892, December the twelfth.
What did your parents do? What were your parents' names?
My parents were Dick Hall and Camoline Hall.
Camoline.
Camoline Harris it was before she was ever married.
Yes. She was a Harris?
She was a Harris.
And what did they do?
Well now, he was a sawmiller when I was born, when there was timber in there where the peach orchards and all that big long-leaf pine are.
What kind of sawmill did he have?
Well, he had about as big a one as you could have around this part of the country.
Really?
Yes. It wasn't one of these like they have now. It was a big sawmill where they worked seven, eight, ten men around the mill.
Was it run by steam?
Run by steam: burned the slabs that we cut off of the logs. Burned that in the boiler to heat steam. And it had an engine set on blocks that runs with a long belt: that's what run the saw.
Did he have anything there besides a sawmill?
Nothing but mules.
Well, I mean, did he have a flour mill there too?
No.
No flour mill? No cotton gin?
No. These would move around, the mill would: from sitting down where they cut out a bunch of timber, then it would move over further. I was born in a sawmill shack.
You were born in a sawmill shack?
Yes sir. And something else you'll be wanting to know, I have an idea: the morning that I was born there was thirteen inches of snow on the ground.
In Moore County?
In Moore County, right in close around the peach orchard, where it is now.
What was the name of your dad's mill? Was it called Hall's Mill?
Nobody was with him then that I know of. Maybe it was Russell and Hall—as well as I remember myself, you know, to go ahead and talk about it.
Russell?
Yes.
So your father didn't do any farming?
Well, not 'til after I was gone, no, did he go back to the
farm. But he owned the sawmill, and did public work—you know,
carpenter and stuff
What do you mean by public work?
Well, that's going out, you know, like you were hired and go into a job. Get a job here and maybe another one somewhere else. What we call public work is going working by the day or by the month; and farming's different than that.
OK. So public work is different from farming?
Oh yes.
Why?
Well, in farming you'd say, "I'm working for so-and-so on the farm." But, you see, public work, maybe you was going to one of these factories or shops or something like that: that's what we called public work.
Did it have to do with earning a wage?
Yes.
You got paid at public work?
Yes, paid by the day—not by the hour then, by the day.
But on a farm you didn't get paid?
Well, on the farm they did if they hired somebody, you know; but generally most of the people done their own work.
I see. So that's what you mean by "public work"?
Yes.
Did you do any work for your dad in the sawmill?
Oh yes.
What kind of work did you do?
Well, we was talking about firing and burning the slabs and all: I fired
a lot of the time. Then I'd off that lumber from the saw.
They had
I see. And was that hard work?
Well some of it was pretty hard work, yes sir.
Why?
Well, it was heavy, heavy wood: green, all of it green, you know. Mostly
a lot of pine, but it was green—heavy. Back then
they'd saw big timbers for you any time; these timbers were
long, twelves by twelves maybe. Now you can't hardly find a
piece you'd make a
That's true.
It's all cut out.
Did your Dad pay you for the work?
Well, yes, he paid me. You know, he'd pay off his men that worked his mill for him. He'd be cutting this lumber, and they'd put it all up on what we called skids: the slack end of it, put it on skids. And the man that was cutting for him would come in and check that lumber all out; then he'd pay him what he had on his skids. Then he'd pay his help—what we called the laborers, see—then.
How many people did he have working?
Well, around the mill sometimes he'd have anywhere from six to
eight around the mill, and maybe four to six in the woods cutting
timber, and
That was a big operation.
Oh yes, it was back in them days.
And what was the timber used for? Building houses?
All that, yes. And all that to different towns. Didn't have no trucks or anything like that, just wagons. They'd haul it to town, and then load it on cars where the trains were. They'd haul it up to the train station, and they'd load it on the car and ship it to people. It sold all over the country, everywhere.
He collected his own timber, then? The farmers didn't bring timber to him, did them?
No. They have done that, but in later years. Back then somebody'd go by this big pack of timber, and then he'd go in with the sawmill and he'd cut it and put it on skids. And then the man that he was cutting timber for would come and take up how much he'd sawed, and pay him so many feet of lumber that he had. Then he'd pay off his men, see.
I see. How long did your father operate this?
Well, in years I don't know.
Did he operate it past the first World War?
Yes, he was going along then; even in the first World War he saw-milled.
Did you have a chance to go to school?
Oh yes, I went to school up 'til I was in what we called then the fourth reader. That'd be about sixth grade now.
What is that called again?
Didn't have graded schools. Fourth reader: that was just like
Right. I see. So you went up to fourth reader?
Well, that's about as far as I got, yes. You might say fourth reader then would be about the sixth or seventh grade now.
Right. OK. Did you live right near the sawmill?
Oh yes, generally we always lived pretty close. Like I told you, I was born in the sawmill shack.
What do you mean by a sawmill shack?
Well, you see, they made this building for us to live in. They'd put them together the best they could, and never left enough floors (they wouldn't nail them down). And they'd tear that down when they'd get ready to move the mill, and set it down in another location. And then they'd put up the house and we'd move in there.
So that was the house your parents lived in, was a sawmill shanty?
Yes. It was when I was born. And don't forget that snow
business I told you: the morning I was born there was thirteen inches of
snow. I told my mother several times
Did you have any brothers or sisters?
Oh yes.
How many?
Well, I had six brothers and two sisters.
You were saying you had (was it) six brothers and two sisters?
Yes, there was nine of us children: I had two sisters, and the
In Montgomery County?
Yes, this side of Moore. I came here the twenty-first day of October.
Oh, you've only been here a couple of months.
Ain't nothing that wrong with me.
No, you seem about forty-three years old.
I tell you, I lived by myself since my wife died ten years ago last May,
but my people wanted me to come here and stay. But as soon as the birds
begin to sing I'm going back home—I've
got my own home, you see, back there.
OK, Mr. Hall.
I don't know where you stopped off at there.
Well, we stopped off where we were talking about your brothers and sisters. So you have six brothers and two sisters.
They're all gone but one.
Right. Did they also (your brothers) work at the sawmill?
Well, they worked sawmill, yes, 'til the last one come back from what I called public work
In Thomasville?
Thomasville.
What about your mother? Tell me something about your mother. Where was she from?
She was raised right around in Montgomery County, right around
Eldorado?
Yes.
And was your father raised in Montgomery too?
Yes, but he was over about four miles from that, called Uwharrie.
Uwharrie.
Close to Uwharrie, yes; they call it Uwharrie now.
And what kind of household did you have? Was it a big house you lived in, or just this shanty all the time?
No, not all the time. After he quit the sawmilling and come here and went to carpentry work, why, we always lived in a big house. We had a good house in Troy.
In Troy?
Yes. That's in Montgomery: Troy is the county seat for Montgomery County.
But you went to school when you were a young man around the mill.
You might say Eldorado school. Then when they come here, then I started in 1902 school here.
In Thomasville?
Yes.
I see. Do you remember any household possessions that you had in your house? Any pieces of furniture or anything like that that your parents felt strongly about?
No. I tell you, my parents have been dead a good long while. And it was never divided out; my older sister, she took care of that, and she got all that property. She sold part.
Did they have many furnishings, much in the way of household goods?
Well, pretty good. We was fixed pretty good at home.
But when you were growing up, you'd say your parents didn't have much of an income?
No, just what he worked out. And after the boys got big enough to work, of course they stayed at home. They helped out with the family and all that.
Did you have any other relatives live with you? Any grandparents or anything?
No, they didn't live with us.
Did you know your grandparents?
Well, I knew both my grandmothers, but both my granddaddys were done dead when I was born.
I see. And did they live near you?
Well, they lived now in close to where I told you in Montgomery, in Uwharrie—right around in through there.
How old were you when you moved to Thomasville?
Well, I lacked just a little bit of being ten years old: come in November, and I was ten years old the twelfth day of December.
But now, if your father came here in 1902, how did he keep the sawmill going?
He quit that; he done quit the sawmilling then and come here, and went to work here around. He didn't work in these furniture factories very much. He worked carpentry work most of the time what he was here.
For who?
Well, you know, different companies, different kind of contractors
What kind of work did he do for them: building their factories?
Building houses, and anything like that, you know. Regular construction work, you might say.
Yes. But then did he ever go back to sawmilling?
No. He went back down home where he had bought some land, and he went back in and build him home there and stayed down there. Had a home 'til my mother died. Then he stayed on a while there, and left and went up to Catawba County. He died up in Catawba County, in Hickory.
Do you remember anything about childhood games that you used to play with your chums?
Oh yes. We used to play marbles—peadabbles, we called them.
Peadabbles?
Yes. Put a bunch of them in, you know, and a ring around; then we'd shoot marbles. Then we'd do what we used to call ringman: put five in a flat place like that and, you know, first make that and shoot at them that way. Me and another fellow'd be shooting together, and two others, and then we'd match up to see which one beats, you know, in games.
Did you play any ball, any baseball?
Yes, played some baseball—back of the school, you know.
In school?
Back of the school.
What church did you attend?
Well, when I first began to go to church it was Massadona Church that I remember about, and that's at Eldorado.
Is that a Baptist church?
It's a Methodist church.
Methodist church. So what was your first public job?
Furniture: worked in a furniture factory here.
What did you do? What was your job?
Well, there was a machine called a molder, and I was a tailboy: I'd catch it coming out of that molder and lay it on a truck.
And you were called a tailboy?
That's right.
And all you did was take it from out of the molder and put it in?
As it'd come out, yes, I'd catch it and lay it on the molder as it came out.
And what did they pay you for that?
Well now, you wouldn't have no idea how much the pay was back then. I went to work when I was between eleven and twelve, and I'd work except school hours, you know, and on Saturday. And I made thirty cents a day (I mean thirty cents a day) for ten hours: that's what I made.
You could work ten hours and go to school at the same time?
No, no, no. I said
And you got paid thirty cents a day for that?
Thirty cents a day; yes, thirty cents a day, not hour. That sounds funny to people that's around and coming up now, but that was right then.
Well, what could thirty cents buy?
Oh, good, you could take thirty cents and buy more than you could, about as much as you could with a dollar now—no, you could buy more.
So you thought you were making pretty good money?
Well, I was, yes; at that time, yes, we thought so anyway.
What did you do with your money when you were eleven or twelve years old?
Well, I'd buy clothes with it, and buy my sisters thing with it. My Daddy'd never take anything I worked for.
He never took anything from you?
No, he never did. Looked out for me that and other ways himself.
Was your father a strict disciplinarian? How did your parents discipline their children?
You mean treated them
Yes.
Oh, just as good as people ever could be.
Oh really? Did they ever spank the children?
Oh, maybe spank them a little or something like that—never
enough to hurt one or nothing—or get a little keen hickory,
or something like that. No, my father didn't do very much of
that. My Momma'd do that; she'd do that kind of
thing. He was working always, and, see, my mother would do the looking
after us. But she didn't have to strike us much. She could
look over toward you that way with her eye right straight at you, and
you knowed you'd done something wrong, and she'd
tell you then. The neighbors used to visit a lot, you know, and
she'd tell us (and there was plenty to eat), "If you
want something to eat you go ahead and get it. You go down
You wouldn't ask down at the neighbors?
No.
Did your mother work?
No, at nothing but home: home work and garden work, like that, around the house.
Did she pretty much run the household?
Oh yes.
Did you have many neighbors over for parties or social gatherings?
Well, like I said them, we'd go visit other people and they'd come and visit us. We'd have meals together, you know, and all stuff like that.
What would be the occasion? Why would you have them over? Would it be on Sunday?
Just to come over. Well, sometimes on Sundays, sometimes through the week. Maybe a lady'd come and bring her family, and maybe stay all day and eat dinner with us, you see. And then she'd go back home in time to get supper;when her husband'd come home she'd be at home.
Who were the friends of your family? How did you meet?
Well, after I got up in size (before I come to Thomasville) it was Battons: Mr. John Batton and his family.
How do you spell that?
B-a-t-t-o-n, Batton.
How did your family meet that family?
Well, we lived maybe three-quarters of a mile from one another,
Did he meet most of his friends at work?
Yes, a lot of the friends; yes. My Daddy was known everywhere; they'd call on him from everywhere.
He was known everywhere?
Everywhere around through the country, yes.
Why?
Sawmilling and all like that, you know.
So when did you take your job at the mine?
Well, I was up then grown.
How old were you then?
Then I was around right on nineteen or twenty, along then, or twenty-one, twenty-two, all like that. He lived right close to the mine, my Daddy did then.
Now had he moved from Thomasville back to Eldorado?
Yes.
Why?
Well, he'd sawmill a little bit, but then he went to work up at this mine.
Oh, he went to work there too?
Carpenter work: building houses, building mill houses and everything at the mine. He worked at the mine too.
I see. And you went with him? The whole family went?
I had married when I was young, and then I worked right on there at the mine. And my Daddy run a big boarding house there at the mine,
He ran a boarding house?
Yes.
Tell me something about the boarding house. How big was it?
Well, I don't know. I expect it must have been about maybe twelve rooms, and he had maybe twelve or thirteen boarders. A lot of them would eat dinner there; you know, instead of bringing lunch with them they'd eat there.
Did your whole family live in the boarding house?
No. My older brothers were married and done gone away. There was me, and a brother just older than I am, and my two sisters and my father and mother.
Lived in the boarding house.
They did. I didn't live in the boarding house with them; I said that was when they lived there.
And how much would it cost for a room in the boarding house?
Oh, I don't remember how much they did charge. They charged by the month.
By the month?
That's when they'd pay, every month, you see. Let's see: then they got to paying the first and the fifteenth. But I don't remember just what they'd charge for board.
Did the company build the boarding house?
Yes.
Then they hired your father to…
To run the place.
And did your mother do the cooking?
Well, her, and they hired a couple of help.
And the company hired the help?
No, he done that himself, or my mother did. They didn't do anything—wanted us to furnish the house. What I mean, they gave the house but not any furnishing, and we furnished it ourselves.
Really?
Yes, they did (my father and mother).
He wasn't old by then, but he was not a young man anymore.
Not a young man, no. Not that big a family, you know.
Right. Well, what kind of work did you do at the mine?
Well, I fired a lot on top.
Fired the boiler?
Yes, fired the boilers, and worked underground in the mine, down in the mine.
You did work underground?
Yes, part of the time, yes. I worked down there.
What were you called? What was your job underground?
I was called a chucker.
A chucker?
Yes. They had these air drills, steam drills, and a man to run the
machine. And I'd throw water and all when it'd get
hot, and stuff like that: throw water and work with him. I just worked
with one man. And we'd be cutting what we called a level. And
the headroom would be up like that, you see, and we'd be
boring holes in that. And I'd take out bits and put in bits
for him, and all that, and change it whichever way he wanted to. If we
wanted to get over there, then I'd change the collar on the
shaft (the up-down
How was the air drill run? Wouldn't it run off electricity?
No, it was run by air or steam. It was mostly air at the Coggins when I was there, but they used to run them by hand. I have worked at different mines down there—Coggins's not the only one there is around there. In a ten mile radius there's at least (I could call the names of them) six in a ten mile radius around.
What are some of the other ones?
Well, there's what we call Stone Mountain, and Sally Coggins, and Morris Mountain, and … let's see now, the other one down next to …
Candor is down there, isn't it?
That's below, way on below. Yes, Candor's down there. The other one's Iola Mine—my dad used to work there some too. That was owned (when he was there) by Jones, M.L. Jones—I guess a company of them.
So, just to follow up what you had said, you were called the chucker. What was the other man called?
He was a miner; he was called a miner. He was the one running the machine.
So who were some of the miners? Who did you work with? Do you remember any of the people?
Oh yes. I worked with Arthur Lanier, and Paul Cranford, Walter Bean.
These are all miners?
Yes.
Were they from around these parts?
Right in that part; right around in Davidson County, right around this mine. A lot of them lived right on the mine, part of it.
Was a miner considered more skilled than a chucker?
Yes. In other words, a miner, he's the man that run the machine that would bore the hole. You see, what we'd call it was breaking the ground. They'd bore them holes the way they wanted to; then they'd load then with dynamite, and then they could know how to break the ground. That was the reason:they had the experience of that. And the chucker was his helper.
Where did they learn? Where did they get their experience? Were they older than you?
Part of the time they'd learn it there, and part of the time they'd come (a lot of them) from Gold Hill and places like that, other old mines way on up. That Coggins Mine was running back during the Civil War; but, you see, I didn't know anything about that then. Just what I'm telling you now is what I knowed while I was there.
That's what I want; that's great.
Now, you take the boilers: they had 150 horse boilers, and they fired them with hard wood. They'd buy timber, and they'd put maybe twelve or fifteen out to cut that timber for wood. Then they'd stack it (in a pen, we called it)…
A pen?
A pen five foot high and four foot long. That's where you would cut a pen of them. That's where he'd come around (we called him a checker); he'd come around and take that pen's number, put down how much it was and turn it into the office. That's the way we got our pay.
You were paid by the pen?
Yes.
How much would you get paid?
I tell you, I think it was about thirteen or fourteen cents a pen.
A pen?
It had to be five foot high, four foot long.
That's a lot of timber.
Yes. And we'd cut a lot of it 'til we'd put most anything we could in to make it "pen up," you know. And then we had what we called a head man, and he'd go through and pick out three or four of us, you see. And there'd come a big tree, or a bad tree or something, when you were through you had to cut that out, you see, yourself. Or swap with some other fellow, and get him to come over and help you pull the crosscut saw, or something like that.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
We were talking about the mine. When you worked there about how many people worked at the mine?
Well, I'll tell you. It's pretty hard to tell exactly. Part of the time we worked three shifts.
What were the hours there?
Eight hours.
Eight hour shifts.
You'd go in at seven and you'd come out at three; go in at three and come out at eleven; and go in at eleven and come out at seven. Then the day shift would come back.
I see. About how many would be on your shift?
Well, there would be maybe, I would say, (well, in the whole mine—we all wouldn't be, you know, in one place) in the whole mine underground there'd be maybe about eight. I'd say it would average somewhere about eight.
Eight?
Yes, that was the chuckers and the machine runners.
And miners?
Yes; miners is the machine runners. That's what we called them.
I see. And how about above ground? What kind of people would be working in the stamp mill?
On top there was the firemen, and what we called the hoist engineer (he run the bucket, the scooping bucket up and down, you know, in the mine), and a blacksmith, and a blacksmith's helper. Maybe you might say half a dozen right around on top.
How much would you get paid for chucking? Do you remember?
No, I don't exactly remember what they did pay. Didn't pay too much. I'd say maybe they'd pay maybe around eighty-five to a dollar a day back then.
That sounds about right. Were there many black workers?
Not but very few. I remember there was one old colored man and his son; he was a miner. And he and his son come over from Gold Hill and got a job there, him as a miner and the boy as a chucker for him.
I see. Do you remember his name?
No, I couldn't call you his name to save my life.
That's been a long time ago. And he'd come over
and stay the weekend. They had a batshanty, and they'd, say,
come on the weekend—say they'd come on Sundays and
go to
At night?
Yes. And most of the time when they'd come back, this boy didn't like it over there because there were no other colored people around. And he'd say, "Come day, go day, God send Sunday." He wanted to go back home, you know. I've heard him say that many a time, the young fellow.
And he lived in a little… ?
Little house they built out for him. Had several houses, but they was kind of small ones, like him and his Daddy back for the time they was there, you know, and go home on the weekends.
I see. And he went back to Gold Hill then?
Yes, old Gold Hill.
But Gold Hill had closed by that time?
Yes. I've never been around Gold Hill when it was ever running then.
Did he ever talk about Gold Hill at all?
Yes, once in a while he'd talk about Gold Hill, but, you know, I couldn't remember the words he'd say. But he'd talk about running machines over there, and the levels there was there; and sometimes he'd tell me how rich the place was.
Did he think it was richer than Coggins?
Oh yes. All the sayings, all I've ever heard say is that around Gold Hill is the richest mines there are in North Carolina.
That's what I've heard too. Did you ever work in the stamp mill at Coggins?
Yes.
You did?
Yes, I did.
What did you do there?
Well, I'd work around. Didn't feed the stamps so
much.
In the stamp mill, what you did there.
Oh, I would work for
There was no automatic belt that brought the ore from the mine into the stamper?
Yes, yes.
It was done automatically?
Well, it was run by a motor—not no motor, it was run by steam.
And it had a belt to carry that stuff over when it was coming over to
this place and put it in the chute, you see. Then he'd come
around and he'd
Stamp feeder. Did you do a little bit of everything in the stamp mill?
No, I was what you might say was a helper in there. They'd
have a man, an amalgamater they called him, and he was the man that
would scrape all that gold off and quicksilver, altogether. Then
they'd take that all and put it together that way. Then they
had what we called an house, and they'd take that and burn
that quicksilver off and make it out in pigs of gold, you know. Small
pieces of gold, we called that pigs. But we didn't see no
gold aside from that one. Now, them
This is underground?
Yes.
Did you ever find a little gold rock or anything and put it in your pocket?
No.
Did they ever check you when you would come out of the mine?
No, never thought enough about that; it wouldn't be useful. If you wasn't run through that mill there you'd never know nothing about what it was. We didn't hardly know what kind of ore we was working on; we didn't know 'til we went through the mill. The amalgamater and them would find out.
How about with the blankets? Did they wash out the blankets?
And wash out the blankets. And they'd strain that thing, you
know, through strainers, and the gold or quicksilver or anything would
catch at it, you know, and pick it up. Anything heavy, you see, and the
rest of it would go on over. That's the same way with going
across from the stamps
Into pigs.
That's what we called it.
Did you ever see any gold in the whole time you were there?
Oh yes, I've seen a little of it—when
they'd run it out, that is. They didn't show it to
many people. It wouldn't do good to be like it is now, nohow,
because if they did somebody'd go down and pull a gun on them
and take it.
We were back in the stamp mill. What was it like to work in the stamp mill?
Well, it wasn't such hard work, and you wasn't busy all the time. The man that had to run the steam engine, you know… And these stamps would raise up and go back down like that, you know, and you could hear them for ten or twelve miles.
Oh really?
Yes.
So what was it like to be in there?
You couldn't hardly be a'talking like me and you; we couldn't understand one another, hardly, in there.
So did you wear earplugs or something?
No, didn't have none then.
Where did you prefer to work, in firing the boiler or in the stamp
Well, that's what I done mostly, firing the boiler. But it kept you busy, now, firing wood, you see—cord wood. And it had two a hundred and fifty horse boilers, and you can imagine… Well, I'll tell you, it'd average about seven cords of wood on every twelve hours, you can just about figure. You see, the man on top worked twelve hours.
Oh, I see: only underground worked eight hours.
That's right. That's all the law would allow them to do, work eight hours, I think.
Underground?
Yes. Well now, what I mean is, that was like it is now—of course they didn't pay overtime or anything. Now, I've knowed them to, maybe when somebody'd be out or didn't come in (maybe it would be a chucker or maybe it would be a machine runner—what we called a miner), well, they'd give you so many candles (we used to use candles, you see) and send them down and tell them to stay down. That way he'd work sixteen hours before he'd come out of there.
I see.
Not too often, but every once in a while they'd do that.
You mean to make up for the person who wasn't there?
Yes, if anyone was out, see, sick or something, why this other fellow'd work in his place.
So the candles were a way of people knowing how many people… ?
And how to see around in there; that's all you had to go by
was them candles. And they had what we called candle holders, a thing
that you'd put the candle in. And it had a swirl on the end;
you could stick it in a timber or hang it on a rock (you got a hanger
for it too; you could hang it
But why couldn't they make someone stay down there sixteen hours? Why did someone have to be absent?
Well, that would be if there was somebody… They'd run then, like I told you, three shifts, you see. And if a machine runner was out (a miner) or a chucker was out, then they'd get somebody else up there to go down and make up for them, and send down for him to stay down 'til the other man would come in.
I see. Did people miss work a lot?
No: people back then had to work.
Six days a week?
Yes, we worked about six days a week; didn't work on Sundays, now. Come off at eleven o'clock Saturday night, and then go back Sunday night at eleven o'clock.
Did any children work at the mine at that time?
No.
They weren't allowed to?
No.
How about women? Did they have any jobs?
No, none. Maybe in the office they'd work a little, but that was all. No women around the mine work.
Did you ever see women on these wooden rockers, stand up on top of these wooden rockers and rock back and forth, and they'd put a little bit of ground-up gold in the rockers?
No, never seen women do that. I've seen them rockers.
You have seen them?
Yes. I know at the old Sally Coggins mine they cut down a big poplar and
hewed it out (cut it off, you know, just the top of it and each end of
it to get it about that far out). Then they had to take the
You lived there with your wife [at Coggins], right?
Right.
What kind of house did you live in?
Well, I lived in the valley. Let's see, the house I lived in there on the mine was about a four room house.
And the company built that?
Yes. They didn't have too many of them there then. They had one store there, a grocery store.
And you lived there alone. Did they charge you rent for that house?
Oh yes.
Do you remember what they charged you?
No, I don't, to tell you the truth. We'd pay by the month, or they'd it out at the office, and I just don't remember what it was.
Did you have a kitchen in the house?
Yes, a kitchen. That's the reason I was telling you it was about a four room house. Seems to me like the house we lived in had two rooms like this and a front porch. And then the living room run off, and I think the dining room and the kitchen and the little back porch or the stoop.
And you had an outside toilet?
Oh yes.
Apart from the house. And well water: we didn't have no water in no house, nothing like that. They had three or four wells of good water.
How long did you work there?
Well, I worked off and on there for, I'll say, four or five years. It don't run any now.
No.
My boy, if you go there now (of course back then they'd got different pumps from what we have now to what we had then, but we had what they called a number nine Cameron pump)…
Cameron?
Yes. And I'll bet if you go there now and start that thing up (that run by steam), and put one of them number nine Cameron pumps in there, I'll bet it would take you three months to even pump up what water was in there out (if you pumped day and night).
It's all filled with water, right?
Oh yes, and it's hollowed out all around every which way. Now, they didn't hollow all of it, but they had drifts, you know (we called them) back in like that. We'd have them at the fifty foot level and a hundred, a hundred and fifty and then two hundred; two hundred and fifty and then three hundred, three hundred and fifty and then the four hundred. And it went on down to sixteen hundred and eighteen feet, I believe.
Sixteen hundred feet deep?
Yes, on an incline.
Wow. And how did you get down there? By elevator?
Well, you'd go down on this bucket, until the last few years they had what we called a skiff. It was made like that thing there and had a lip run out on it like that, and it had four wheels on it (one here, one here, one here and one here) and then they had a track. And it was on an incline, forty degrees. But this hoister would have a pulley way up here and a poppy head (we called it), and then it would run right around to the hoisting engine here. And he had a little old thing there they could blow in and stick so many rings, and he'd know that they wanted to go up, or where they wanted to move, or how he understood all that. And sometimes we'd come out on that skiff, and a lot of them would climb out—that was a pretty good climb.
All the way out?
Climb the ladders too. And they had one of them solrays at the place I was telling you about. They'd have this place, you know, for a good-sized man to go through so that anything wouldn't fall. And that solray went on down to the next one; that ladder'd go on down through.
What did you call that, a solray?
Yes, a solray. They'd fix a lot of poles and timbers and stuff so in any blasting you came up there and it wouldn't tear up
Did you bring down any water with you to drink on the job down there, or anything?
No. They'd drink what water was down there; it was just as clear and clean as it could be.
You got paid twice a month, you said.
Well as I told you, the last few years they paid the first and
And what was payday like at Coggins? Did they have any parties?
No, no. You'd just go to the office and they'd give you a check, or you'd get paid in money—either one. Just went to the office and the superintendent would pay you off.
What did people do for entertainment there? Was there any kind of entertainment?
No, not around the mine much. We'd go to corn shuckings and all, and attend all the Fiddlers' Conventions and stuff like that. No movies.
Any card playing, or anything like that?
No.
No card playing?