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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-0098-2, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
John W. Snipes was born in Chatham County, North Carolina, in 1901 and was raised in an agricultural family. Snipes begins the interview by describing in vivid detail various family gatherings, including the annual commencement ceremony at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, holiday celebrations, and community gatherings. In 1919, Snipes married Lessie Mae Smith, whom he had known since childhood. After describing their courtship, Snipes explains how he went about procuring a marriage license at the age of seventeen so that he could marry his fifteen-year-old bride. Although their families were initially displeased that they had married at such a young age, Snipes recalls that they were generally supportive and that his father allowed them to live in one of the tenant houses on his land. Snipes and his wife continued to farm throughout the 1920s, growing crops such as cotton and raising their own livestock. In 1929, the economic difficulties of the Great Depression made it impossible for them to continue to farm self-sufficiently, so they relocated to Bynum, North Carolina, so that Snipes could work at the Jay and Muldell Company cotton mill. Snipes worked there until 1946. In addition to describing the kinds of working conditions and workplace restrictions he experienced, Snipes describes life in the mill villages of Bynum. Arguing that there was only one—failed—effort to organize workers at his mill, Snipes explains that he generally felt like the "scum of the earth" because of his socioeconomic status during those years. During the 1940s, Snipes began to make forays into the timber industry, and in 1946, he left his job at the cotton mill in order to establish a sawmilling business. Snipes describes in great detail his endeavors in the timber industry, especially focusing on the various tracts of land he bought and sold in the process and the finances those transactions entailed. Throughout the interview, Snipes offers a unique perspective into the culture and labor of the working class in North Carolina.
John W. Snipes grew up in an agricultural family during the early twentieth century and worked on a farm, in a cotton mill, and in the timber industry. He offers a unique perspective on various industries, and he describes in vivid detail various aspects of workers' lives and culture.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
Back yonder fifty or sixty years ago anybody hardly ever went over the
eighth or ninth grade around here. Weren't one out of a hundred that
ever went off to college. The commencement at Chapel Hill, when I was
little, was a big day for us. My Daddy and Mother would prepare for that
day, and we'd hitch up a two-horse wagon and fill it full of wheat
straw. And my father and mother would sit on a spring seat, and us nine
young'uns would be back there on some quilts and wheat straw. And we'd
drive twelve miles to Chapel Hill in a twohorse wagon. There'd just be
hundreds of horses and mules tied out on the campus in them woods there;
I reckon it would be about where Memorial Hospital is, and a little
beyond Memorial. No, it'd be across the railroad there. We'd hitch
horses all down in there. We carried a big cracker box full of chicken
and pies and cakes, and people was just eating dinner everywhere. That
was the commencement. And we didn't care nothing about the baccalaureate
sermon or Doctor so-and-so making a big speech. We'd be out there around
the lemonade stand.
Well, what would you do when you got down to campus?
Well, we'd just march around. They'd sell two paper cups of ordinary
lemonade for a nickel, or one pink cup of lemonade for a nickel. We'd
always grab the pink and
Would you ever go to Chapel Hill any other times?
No sir, hardly. I never did see Chapel Hill no time much except at commencement. That was the first time I ever saw it in my life. And I didn't have no other business up there 'til I got up a bigger boy and all.
Would there ever be any music?
Yes sir. Well, sometimes we would listen at the band. They'd march, you know. We'd never heard a band; didn't know a drum from a clarinet or nothing else, I don't reckon. It was just to be in a crowd, it looked like.
When did people stop doing that?
It was looked forward to every year. I was born in 1901, and I reckon I was twenty years old before we stopped going. That was an annual event.
Why do you think people stopped going?
I don't know why they stopped. Just thousands and thousands of people. They was marching all over town. There'd be little ice cream stands and hot dog stands and lemonade stands and popcorn. I'd love to see some of the old pictures of the way it used to be at commencement.
Well, did you do any marketing when you were down there?
No.
Did your parents bring any kind of thing to sell?
No sir.
Just a holiday?
Just a holiday. It was a big day.
How about Fourth of July around here?
Fourth of July used to be, of course out in the country, ball games. We
had big ball games every Fourth of July. I've seen five hundred to a
thousand people right there in that ballground. They'd have a ballgame
in the morning and one in the afternoon, and have a little tent out
there selling drinks and lemonade and ice cream and sandwiches and all
of that. But them days is gone now. They've got this softball they play
at night. Of course we never did see a night ballgame. See, some of the
most famous, the especially famous people who have played on this
ballground are Bun Hearne, the coach of Carolina. He was raised here.
All these Hearnes and Bud Hearne was raised here; he played on that old
ballground. He got to be coach at Carolina.1
Let's get back to….
Commencement?
No, no. We could talk about holidays, because we're on Fourth of July. I was wondering whether there were any other kind of holidays where you'd have neighborhood get-togethers?
Thanksgiving. We looked forward to them, and Christmastime, of course, and Easter. Thanksgiving my grandfather, he was a possum hunter, and he'd always catch him two or three big possums along in the fall after the frost bit the persimmons. And he'd put them in a box and fatten them. And he loved possum. Of course we'd have the turkey, and they had big dinner spreads.
Did you ever eat any squirrel?
Oh yes sir. We used to set rabbit hollows and catch rabbits and eat
squirrels too, and quail. We looked forward to Thanksgiving. And
How about candy pulls?
Oh yes sir, old-fashioned homemade candy pull, you know.
How would that work?
Well, a boy and a girl. they'd love to… Have you ever seen them pull it?
No.
Well, they put this candy, sugar and water stuff, on and boiled it 'til it was a syrup. Then they let it cool a little. And then when you could work it up and get it in a ball, something like about the size of a baseball, then you could pull it out two foot long. You could work it down to small, say the size of a broomhandle. And then a girl and a boy face each other, and she'd pull that a'way and he'd pull this way, and maybe he'd reach over in the middle and that would double it. And she'd reach over and that would double it twice, you see. The more you pulled it the fluffier and the whiter it got. There'd be somebody to judge when it was pulled enough, you know. And then you'd get another ball.
Didn't your hands get kind of sticky with all that?
No sir. They'd put a little flour on their hands.
Oh, oh, I see.
Oh, candy pullings was big doings
Let's move on to when you got married and started your own farm. When would that be?
April 18, 1919 when I got married. My wife was fifteen and I was seventeen.
How come you got married so young?
Well, we got to courting.
How did you meet your wife?
She was a tenant that lived in a house on my father's place, a little old girl seven or eight years old. From then on I knew her from the day she was born at my father's old place there. Her mother died when my wife was, I believe she was about three years old or something like that. Then her uncle took her and raised her there on the farm in the tenant house where my wife's mother died. It was on our old big plantation, the old Snipes plantation. It was 640 acres, and it was a grant from England, a square mile.
Right, you mentioned that the last time. What was your wife's maiden name?
Smith.
What's her first name?
Lessie, Lessie Mae Smith.
So you knew her since she was a small girl. You grew up together.
Oh yes, yes sir. We were born and raised together.
How did you court?
Well, we went about a mile and a half to an old one-room schoolhouse
through the woods. There was about four or five families. I was thinking
about it the other night; sometimes there'd be as many as
To go to school?
To go to school. And it was just one room.
And that's how you got to know each other?
Yes sir, we went back and forth to school together, then went to church together (I mean the same church).
Which church would this be?
Mann's Chapel. It was originally the old Shady Grove. We lived adjoining that plantation.
Well, did you have a chance to be alone at all with your wife before you got married?
Not much. Just walking, and maybe we'd get behind sort of going to
school, you know.
Did people think that was kind of young to get married at that time?
Yes sir. We just surprised the whole neighborhood. My oldest brother, he
was in World War Number One; he's living in Florida now. There's not but
one in our precinct, a World War I veteran from November 11, Armistice
Day. I checked everywhere, and I knew this man Partin from up here near
Mann's Chapel. As far as I know he's the only living World War Number
One veteran in Baldwin township. There's some in Center township. I
remember when he came home. I remember I was plowing on November 11; I
was sowing wheat on November 11, 1918. And I
Well, you told the man that you were John Atwater?
Yes sir.
Oh, I see.
Did he know what you had come for?
Yes sir.
So what happened? You went home?
No, we didn't go home. We lit out and went up to a friend, Jack Norwood's and Nettie Norwood. They lived up there and they were friends of ours. And we spent the night there.
How do you spell that last name?
N-o-r-w-o-o-d, Norwood.
Oh, right.
Well, so next morning we got up, and we thought we'd go by my wife's
Daddy's, her foster father's. And he was out and about plowing, and he
was whistling. He looked up and seen us, and it done got out over the
neighborhood telephone. He done got the word. He didn't even quit
a'whistling; didn't come to the house or nothing. I think that her
mother said, "Well, now you've played it. You've made a mess now," or
something. That was about all that was said. But he was whistling, and
it didn't have a bit of tune in the world to it. If it'd been "Old Black
Joe" you wouldn't have known what it was. But he was a'plowing
Now this is her stepmother who said this?
Yes. Well, it was her foster mother that raised her, yes sir.
What did your folks say?
Well, we come on home, and
Now you didn't have a tractor or anything?
No sir, nothing but a mule. My Daddy had five mules. So he let us take one of the old mules, and we kept him. We planted our cotton.
What else did you plant?
I planted a little corn, raised us a pig for a little piece of meat. When
it come a rainy day she and I would go over in the woods, and it took
four oak trees to make eight crossties, about two lengths eight and a
half foot crosstie. About seventeen feet would be about all the running
feet we could get out of it. Well, me and her would saw them down with a
crosscut saw. And then she'd go back to the house and clean up the house
and cook dinner, and I'd jump on them and hew them. Then when I went to
dinner she'd come back with me, and we had to saw them off then with the
crosscut saw and skin them. And I'd take them eight crossties the next
morning on a wagon and carry them to Carrboro. They'd bring about
seventy-five cents apiece, something like five or six dollars
For the eight of them?
Yes sir.
That would be a day's work.
That would buy enough flour and meat and sugar and coffee; maybe get ten pounds of sugar and two or three pounds of coffee and maybe a forty-eight pound sack of flour. Well, maybe it wouldn't rain so I couldn't work no more then two or three weeks or maybe a month. But when it come another rain I'd do the same thing. And that's what we lived on that summer.
That was the only cash you got?
That was the only money we had.
So how large an area did you actually work farming? Now you had some timberland that you could cut down.
Oh yes, we had some big fields all around the house, different fields of maybe, oh across the branch there there'd be five or six acres, and maybe over yonder three or four acres.
So you couldn't hire anybody to help you?
Oh no sir. I wouldn't have had nothing to pay him with.
So you and your wife had to work the whole farm yourself? What did she do on the farm?
She went to the field with me. She chopped cotton, and then laid by the
cotton. She helped me pick cotton. Then I loaded it up and carried it to
the gin. And I think the first bale of cotton, a five hundred pound bale
of cotton, as I remember…. Cotton jumped up high right after the war. It
was thirty or forty cents. We'd never heard tell of
How much cotton could you raise in a year? How many bales?
I had about four.
Four bales.
It'd be approximately, gross, about eight hundred dollars.
Where would you take it to be ginned?
We had old Alliance Cotton Gin up there near Mann's Chapel church. It was an old community gin. My grandfather run a store and a post office; and the post office was Kilgo (K-i-l-g-o)—which this younger generation don't know nothing about.
It would be baled there also?
Yes sir.
They had a bale?
They ginned it and baled it. And my grandfather had a man that helped him there run a blacksmith's shop. And he pulled teeth. Everybody in that neighborhood, if you had a toothache and had one that had to come out, you just went there. And he'd put his first in your forehead. And you could sweat all you wanted to if he ever got a hold to it. I've got the old pulling tins in yonder.
Yes, you showed me the little… looked like a wrench or something.
Yes, you showed me that once before. Let me ask you a little bit
We moved down here on Thanksgiving Day in 1929.
Now how far was your farm from Bynum? Was that just on your old family home place, right?
It's up here at Polk's Landing. There's a thousand and four acres. The old Snipes place, where we turn off right up here and go up through the country it's about six miles, something like five or six miles.
So why did you finally give up farming?
The last year I raised four bales of cotton; and I carried a five hundred pound bale of cotton to Chapel Hill and it brought me twenty-five dollars: five cents a pound. The boll weevil hit. And I had four or five bales at four and five cents. And I told my wife, I said, "Never will I work on the farm and spend maybe seventy-five or a hundred dollars for fertilizer, and it'd take every bit of cotton I make to pay that fertilizer and not have a dime for the whole year for my work." So I quit.
So why would you bring your cotton to Chapel Hill?
Carrboro. When the old cotton mills was running there.
They would buy it.
They used it there, yes sir.
Now how many years did it go like that? Was it just that year, or had it been getting worse and worse each year?
Well, see, that 1929 in the fall of 1929 was the beginning of the
Depression. Everything just went all to pieces. You take now right after
1918, along about then people were wearing seventeen and
Well, during the twenties did you live pretty well?
Yes sir, we thought we did.
Did you ever move out of that tenant house?
Yes sir. My father moved down here then in 1921 out of the big house, and she and I moved in the big house. There were two or three tenants, four or five. We had some colored tenants and some white tenants. There were four or five families on the place. And I sort of kept the old place together there for ten years, about eight or nine years after my father moved on to Bynum.
Why did he move to Bynum?
Well, he had all them other children that needed to be in school. And at that time they were consolidating the school. When they was consolidating the school they built this big schoolhouse out here that took care of an area of twenty-five miles, eighteen or twenty miles, I'd say, around Bynum. They had some old Model T buses, and they was busing them in here. He moved right yonder in that two-storey house there in front of the post office. He lived there 'til he died in 1954. My father and mother were born the same year.
Where did you bring your corn when you raised your corn?
We'd carry it to the mill and grind it.
Which mill would this be?
About the only grist mill at that time was one here at Bynum that made
corn meal. And we'd bring wheat; we'd plant a little wheat and
So during this time, during the twenties, you wouldn't consider yourself prosperous but you weren't poor. You weren't starving.
That's right. Well, I hustled all the time. When I got through laying by there'd be about a month or two before you started to gather it. I'd get out and cut crossties. I worked public work here and yonder. I worked some on right-of-way to highway, to help cut a right-of-way. I worked some at the sawmill. Seventy-five cents a day, a dollar a day. It was mighty slow, but six days were six dollars. We kept going.
You said you had tenants.
Yes sir.
About how many during that time?
Well, at one time there was about three on the place, I believe after my father moved down here. There was about three left, and then one of them moved off. It got down to two, and then it got down to one.
They would farm some of your land and you'd take a percentage of their crops? Is that how it worked?
Yes sir. A third and fourth: a third of the grain, I believe, and a fourth of the…. Sometimes we furnished mules; they plowed with our mules. But sometimes they owned their own mules. It would depend on which a'way. Then we'd have to stand for the fertilizer and buy the fertilizer, and sort of look after them.
In order to get your money for fertilizer and seed and things like
Well, Atwater and Lambeth here had a big company store. After we got our land broke in the spring (in other words, we had started a crop) we could come down here and say, "Now Mr. Atwater, we want a ton of fertilizer 'til middle of November 'til we sell some cotton." We could buy it on credit. They furnished everybody for fertilizer, almost, around here.
What if you had a bad crop one year and couldn't pay? What would happen?
That's the reason that Atwater and Lambeth went broke.
Did they own the cotton mill too?
I mean the cotton gin, the J. Modell cotton gin. They ginned cotton and made corn meal and flour and all like that. Well, Mr. J. B. Atwater of the firm of Atwater and Lambeth, at one time he kept the whole time for the cotton mill on top of that. He kept the labor time.
What do you mean, kept their labor time?
Well, say there was a hundred people working in the mill that worked
twelve hours a day, they'd come in and put in their time.
Well, we were just talking about the farm you had and your reasons for quitting the farm. Were you sure of getting a job in Bynum?
No sir. I didn't even have a prospect. It was Thankagiving Day, 1929. And that old big house right over yonder, you can see the front porch post up and down right behind them trees. He had two rooms upstairs vacant.
Whose house was that?
Mr. Walt Hatley. And I rented those rooms for five dollars a month. We put in our application down at the mill, and I think they put me to work the next night.
Did you have any children with you at that time?
I had one daughter, Vivian. I think they started me off at twelve and a half cents an hour.
What were you doing?
I was sweeping, twelve hours a day. We worked fifty-five hours. We worked 'til Saturday at twelve o'clock. Fifty-six hours, I believe it was. Well, I don't know whether it was fifty-five or six. Let's see… sixty-five hours. Well, then about the middle of the week they put my wife to work in learning to wind. She got about twelve cents an hour.
Did they pay you every week?
They'd pay off every two weeks. And what we would do, if we had in sixty
hours at twelve cents an hour, when Saturday dinner come we wouldn't
have no money. We'd pawn our time to Mr. Durham, the merchant down here.
We'd pawn our time to him. We said, "Now we'll pay you for both weeks
next week," if we got five or six dollars worth of groceries. In other
words, we'd give him an order on our time, an order on our check. Then
when the two weeks was out…. It was rough; I'm telling you, it
Did he charge you interest for that?
No sir. He started with nothing, and he got to be wealthy fast.
So which Durham would this be?
Mr. C. E. Durham, the one that's had the stroke. Mr. Frank Durham was Warren Durham's father.
His brother, you mean.
Frank's his brother and Warren's his son, old Mr. son. Yes sir. Well, then later on when the World War Number Two, it started, well after Roosevelt come in and N.R.A. Let's see, that was in thirty….
That was in the early thirties.
We thought, well they was going to let us make eight hours and pay us
thirty cents an hour. Well I just thought, "What in the world would we
do from three o'clock 'til evening?" Go to work maybe at seven o'clock
and get out at three, and eight hours. And I'd think, "Well, then we've
got from then 'til night and going to get $2.40." I didn't see what in
the world…. I thought I could save that money. I didn't have no idea
what we'd do with all that much money. It just weren't conceivable,
hardly. Well, then things begin to move up to take good care of that
$2.40,
What hours would you work when you first started over there?
They put me on nighttime.
You'd get there at what time?
Go to work at six o'clock every evening, come off at six the next morning. Take some time off, for thirty minutes sometimes. Sometimes we'd work straight on through.
And would you eat a sandwich or something?
Carry a potato and a sandwich, a biscuit with a piece of meat in it or
something. And that was it. And we'd make it all right. I don't know
Well, what other kinds of jobs did you have there?
Well, I worked on there from 1929 'til '46.
Were you a sweeper all that time?
No sir. I run the lapper room. I got to head of the lapper room. And I run both sections, was responsible for both sections. And I got on daytime; later on I got on daytime. And I weren't getting nowhere, and I got to messing with timber in 1946.
Before we get onto that, I just want to ask you one thing about how you got from sweeper to the supervisor of the lapper room. What jobs did you have inbetween?
Well, I run the opener. That's where they open the cotton. We had a
little cement walk from the warehouse to the opener room, and we would
open about twelve bales of cotton. And I'd have to take the hoop off of
it and take the bagging off of it, and feed it in the hopper. And then
they had the finisher. And then I ran them openers three or four years,
and then I got to operating the finisher, where they finish the lap
before it goes to the card. I stayed on them lappers for, I don't know,
several years on daytime. I got on daytime. Then my wife still stayed on
nighttime. And that made it pretty well, 'cause one of us was there
Did you ever have any other children besides that?
We had a baby born, Jewel. She was born when we lived up at the old place. She was born and lived about three weeks. She wasn't healthy; I mean, she was sickly, and she died. And Vivian was born in 1923, December 21 (I believe), 1923. One reason we moved to Bynum: they had started these old Model T buses, and we were almost a mile from the public road back in the woods. My wife would have to go with her to the bus every morning. And she'd leave home a'crying; and then she'd have to go over there and stand on the side of the road 'til the bus come that evening, and march her back through the woods. We just couldn't put up with that, it looked like. So we moved here where she could walk to school.
How did you feel about working down there at the cotton mill?
I didn't like ne'er a day of it. I had too much ambition; I had too much ambition to work for somebody else. But the N.R.A., that's when we went on the forty cents an hour, or thirty cents an hour.
Did the mill stay open during the whole Depression?
Yes sir. Well, it got down into… Me and a Mr. Suet had to split five
days. He'd work three days one week and I'd work two, and then the next
week I'd work three and he'd work two. And he finally got mad about
something; he quit and I got the whole five days. Then when it went on
that there getting off at three o'clock I went to buying cedar. I'd
sharpen my axe at night, and when the lights blinked for three o'clock
I'd light out down here. There was a fellow that had about
Thirty-two… ?
Million: the biggest tract that's ever been sold. I helped Mr. Hancock. I was working with Hancock Lumber Company estimating timber then.
Well thirty-two million what?
Feet. And Mr. Hancock went there, and that was in World War Number Two.
He went there and run a plane mill day and night, and when he left there
they pulled him for between $500,000 and $600,000 of income tax. That's
been a long time ago; it was in the forties. But anyhow, then I started
buying timber. I bought some of the biggest tracts that's ever been sold
in North Carolina, I reckon. Then in 1946 I told my wife (living
Now all this time you were doing this in your spare time?
Yes.
You were still working at the mill?
Saturdays and after three o'clock. Me and Mr. Bryant, he lived right there. That extra outside work, I picked up four or five hundred dollars. And I told Bill one day, I said, "Let's go into saw-milling." I said, "The Moore boys up here have got some mills, two or three sawmills. So let's rent one of them, and me and you take that mill." And we'd buy the horses. We bought a pair of mules, a black mule and we bought a snaking horse.
Was he a cotton mill worker also?
No sir, he was a carpenter. But carpentry, it got dull. So we started in
1946. Mr. Moore bought an $800. International motor unit for power for
the sawmill. No, he bought an $800. Moffit mill and about a $1,000.
International engine to pull it with. And we started to buying our
timber, and sawing it and hauling it to Pittsboro and giving him half of
what we made just for the use. We paid him for four years. I reckon on
this $800. Moffit mill and $1,100. International motor (approximately
$2,000) we paid him back $30,000. interest on it. We'd give him half of
what we made for four years. And we got up there to where maybe we'd
have $700 or $800. profit on Friday. If we had $800. me and Bill'd take
$400. and give Bland $400. Me and Bill had to split ours. Then the Moore
boys put in a planing mill up there, and they had eight mills. And they
put me to buying for all the mills. I bought timber for
J. B. who was this?
J. B. Jolston Lumber Company at Carrboro.
How do you spell that?
J-o-l-s-t-o-n. They had about eighteen or twenty tracts of land where Mr.
Jolston had bought land, timber and all. He had some mighty poor sawmill
men. They'd cut it and mess it up, cut half of it and it'd get wet in
there and they'd move out, and they'd tell him all of it was cut. Well,
the Sanford Bank was going to close out on J. B. Jolston for $29,000, I
believe it was. I called Mr. Dawson in Connecticut and told him that I
wanted it. I said, "I'll handle it for you." He said, "What do you want
me to do?" I said, "Wire lawyer Jim Phipps at Chapel Hill a $5,000.
binder." And he said it'd be on its way in an hour's time. Well, I took
all that land then. Right out there where Bill Dixon is at Chapel Hill,
ajoining the University, there was 218 acres. Well, the bank had all
these eighteen or twenty acres, about twenty tracts of land appraised
and itemized. Well, I looked at the itemized sheet and I saw that two
hundred and something acres ajoining (250 acres, I believe it was)
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
You were saying about Cary Lumber Company?
Over yonder on the Durham-Raleigh highway I got land every-where: all over Durham County, Lee County, Chatham County and all up in yonder around where Chestnut Ridge Church is. There's five or six big tracts in there. I told Mr. Dawson, I said, "I'm going to start selling them off." We didn't take no capital gain on them. Well, I sold them off there, I sold off enough that he had his principal back and had $60,000 profit. Well, he was paying me this chicken feed all along out of what I'd sell. And he called me one night and he said, "John!" He said, "How much more land have we got?" I said, "You've got four more tracts." He said, "Well, if you'll sell them three tracts for $30,000 (that was the principal to start with) I'll set you up." No. "If you'll sell them four tracts for $30,000 I'll be all right." I said, "I'll do you right." I went and sold three of them for $30,000, and I had a hundred acres left up yonder where New Hope Camp is and Chestnut Ridge Church, way up yonder between here and Efland. And he deeded me that 96 acres as a commission. That 250 acre tract right here where Bill Dixon got a riding thing here in Chapel Hill….
Where is this now? What does he have out there?
You go down there and turn down by…. Go right opposite the DuBow's and turn this a'way.
Turn right?
That's right. Out there I think they have a riding ring out there. Well,
I believe that 250 acres of land five years ago was selling
But you sold it?
I sold it. I sold that 250 acres for $18,000.
What about the 96 acres he gave you?
Well, he gave me that. And I put the deed in the trunk. One day I was
sitting here and a friend of mine from Pittsboro come over and said, "My
father-in-law has got a lot of money to invest; he sold a lot of stock
at three or four times what he give for it, and he wants to put it in
land." He said, "Have you got any land?" I said, "No, I ain't got but
about 100 acres." I said, "I thought I'd give that to my grandboy." We
cut the timber off of it, and my wife asked me, "What's that land worth
since you cut the timber off it?" I said, "Oh, I reckon it would bring a
thousand or twelve hundred dollars; it was worth ten or twelve dollars
an acre." He said, "Well, my daddy-in-law is getting into something he
don't know a thing in the world about." He said, "Let's go look at that
hundred acres." I said, "All right." I said, "What can you sell it for?"
He said, "I can sell it (he don't know nothing about land) to him for
$3500." I said, "Well, if you can I'll give you $500. Just get me
$3,000. and you can have what you get over it." Well, he sold that. And
then a man come running to me one Saturday morning—no, one Friday
evening late. Right out on the Jones Ferry Road there was sixty acres
out there. He said, "That man wants to sell that." I said, "What does he
want for it?" He said, "He wants $6,000." And I run up there with him to
look at it. I said, "Well, what do you want out of it?" He said, "I want
$200." I said, "Well, I'll take it. I'll pay for it in the morning." My
son-in-law
Now how were you cutting this time? You had a tractor?
I got Mr. Bryant. I had quit and Mr. Bryant was running the mill. I was just messing with land and timber. He cut me about $7,000. worth of timber off of it. Then I come and I built that little old store. One night I was sitting there after I sold that (that was in 1953)….
But who would do the cutting for you? You'd hire somebody to do it?
A man'd cut it by the thousand. Yes sir, he'd cut it for thirty dollars the thousand. I had that much drag left; I mean, I had enough to pay for my stumpage. Well, I had the deed to that sixty acres of land. My wife says, "What're you going to do with that old land out there on the Jones Ferry Road?" I said, "I'm going to give it, the land, to the grandboys." I was sitting there one night; it was raining. And you know the little girl, I reckon, Wilbur Partin's wife.
Vinnie, Vinnie Partin.
Yes. Well, I was sitting there, and I'd never seen the little girl. She
come running in there and said, "Mr. Snipes, don't you own that sixty
acres out there across from my father-in-law?" I says, "I don't know.
I've got sixty acres out on the Jones Ferry Road." But my wife had asked
me, had said, "What are you going to ask for it?" I said, "I'm going to
ask a thousand dollars." She had a pocketbook about that long sitting
right in yonder; it was drizzling and raining. Her husband wasn't saying
a thing. She was a business little woman. And she said, "I want that
piece of land. What will you take for it?" I said, "I don't care nothing
about selling it. I'm going to give it to my grandboys." I said, "Just
what would you give me for it?" She said, "I'll give you $2,500. I'll
give you $2,500." Well, it just scared me so, I said, "Well, how about
$3,000?" She said, "I'll split the difference with you," and started
peeling off hundred dollars bills. She said, "I'll give you five hundred
dollars now, and you fix the deed tomorrow." Well, I almost had to take
her up. I let her give me $2,750. She told me in less than eighteen
months got offered $60,000. for it
Now she bought the sixty acres for $2,750?
$2,750.
Sure.
I done got a thousand dollars out of it.
She lives down there now, doesn't she?
She lives down there as far as I know.
I think her family lives down there. I think she's back in Carrboro now. She's an older woman, right?
I think that she married this Wilbur Partin; I think Wilbur probably was in the Army when he married her or something like that. She's from overseas, but I don't know where: Belgium, Ireland, I don't know.
Oh, she is?
Yes, she's from overseas.
Oh, I'm thinking of a different person then.
She's a ball of fire.
Her last name is Partin?
Wilbur Partin's wife. And they live out on the Jones Ferry Road, four or five miles out there. It's oak woods there, and the prettiest lots. The doctors and all built all around it there, and Mr. Ferguson lives right across the road from her.
I'd like to know if we could go back to Bynum for a minute, and to the Jay and Muldell Company. When you'd go there, did you have to punch a clock?
No sir.
Were there any rules?
No sir. Well, you were supposed to be there when the lights blinked. At six o'clock you were supposed to be on the job. And we were so afraid we'd lose our job I'd be there an hour sitting there and it dark, sitting there 'til it was time to start, or a half an hour.
Well, would they fire you if you were late?
If you stubbed your toe they'd fire you. They'd fire them here for not putting out the lights late at night, at one time in the history of Bynum. Old Mr. Bynum used to go around over the hill at nine o'clock and see who was up. And if you was up he'd knock on the door and tell you to cut the lights out and get into bed.
This is the man who first started the mill?
That's right. Well, it was almost as strict when I first come here.
Well, what kind of rules were there? Do you remember any of them? Could you smoke on the job?
Not in and around the office. Jobs where you'd start up all your machine and get them to running and maybe they'd run thirty or forty minutes (your doffers), well they'd step out in the road out there and smoke. But you didn't smoke in the mill because it was too inflammable.
Right. What other kind of rules might they have?
That Depression, the people marching every day wanting jobs. Of course the cotton mill was two storey. You'd start up your machine. If it was running all right you could go to the window and lean out and get fresh air out of that dust—because, you see, so many cotton mill people die of brown lung, they call it.
Did many of them get that?
Oh yes sir. We was talking about two men died. I set here and seen them
go across there coughing every breath. From here you could hear them
'til they got to the post office, coming along a path going out there
for groceries or something, coughing every breath. But totally during
the Depression just droves come in from Ramseur and Saxapahaw and
Burlington; all of them come hunting jobs. Well, they ain't got no jobs.
They said a fellow went down to the office, and as he was going on down
the walk there the fellow leaning out the window fell out and killed him
there on the sidewalk. But this other fellow going on down the road,
he'd been down there and asked for a job. He said, "No, we ain't got no
job for you, not unless somebody dies." He turned around and was
leaving; he started on back and this fellow fell out of the window and
got killed. So he was running back down to the office and said, "How
about that man just fell out of the window and got killed? Can I have
his job?" He said, "No." He said, "The man pushed him out gets his."
Well, did you know anybody who would get dismissed?
Yes, they fired them for nothing. Just get mad with them and fire them.
Was there a curfew in town where you had to be in by a certain time?
Not after I started working. But there had been, there had a curfew. They
had some restrictions. Some of them would send us to church every
Sunday. And if they'd get drunk and get in a fight or something down
there, the superintendent would say maybe, "Well, you can come back on
your
How about you? Did they ever…?
No sir. I never did. They threatened to fire me one time. I had never
seen no homebrew. They'd take and get a can of yeast and five pounds of
sugar, and take an old crock or five gallon jug down in the woods.
They'd put that yeast and sugar in there and fill it up with water and
let it work off. And it was strong! I never seen none. And then they'd
have reed quills, the boys'd go down there and suck it. You couldn't
tell how much you were drinking. And when you first started to drinking
it, it weren't no more than a Coca-Cola or sweet apple cider. Well, I
followed them off down there in the woods. Never been raised up there in
the sticks, and I didn't drink. Still don't drink, and I ain't never
drank. But I got to sucking on that thing with them, and first thing I
know the world started turning around. And somebody run (I reckon they
thought they'd get my job) and told the superintendent that I was down
the river drunk. He called me to the office next morning and asked me
about it. I said, "Well, yes sir. I drank some stuff that I had never
seen." I said, "I didn't know that stuff was like that. I got sick; the
world started turning around, and I laid down and went to sleep down
there. The mill was standing part of the time and
He tried to scare you, huh?
Yes. I reckon I got drunk. I didn't know what was going on. The world was
going around and around.
Let me just ask you a couple of more questions. Did you live up in a mill house up there?
No sir. I never lived in ne'er a one but this one, except Mr. Hatley's.
So you rented that from him?
And then I bought 80 feet by 180 feet from Bill2 from that house there, and paid him cash for it. I kept saving a little money, me and my wife. Then I decided I didn't want this lot. And I sold it to Andy Dawson yonder. He got a pinch into something and he started to building this house, and he got to where he couldn't finish it. I believe that I had let him have some money and sold him my lot, and he owed me fourteen hundred dollars. Then he let me take the house. I bought it and finished it.
When would that be? Around what time?
Lord have mercy.
Before the war?
About 1949. And then there was an old store sitting where that brick home is. I bought from down yonder the road up to this telephone post and that old store for $1,000.
Well now, on the village people didn't own their homes, did they?
No sir.
Now what would they be rented for?
Fifty cents a room a week: a three-room house a dollar and a half a week. I believe they've gone up to seventy-five cents now.
Was there indoor plumbing in those houses?
Where would they get their water from?
Well, I've known for years and years they toted it from a well right there. But since they built this new water plant about twenty-five or thirty years ago they got a spigot up and down the street. Then if you wanted to pick it up at the street and run you a pipe in the house, some of them done it on their own. But they run it up the hill; I think there are seven or eight spigots up and down the hill.
Where would this other well be? The first one?
The first well was right there in the mill yard down there. I believe they stopped that up. Now this is filtered water now. That at that time was an old well; there weren't no filtered water. Then there was a big well right yonder right in front of where that pick-up is right over. I think they've got a plank laying over it there—I mean, they've got a cement cap over it. But I've toted water from there and toted water from that house up there from that well, and all around here. They furnished plenty of water for us. Of course they didn't use no big site of water.
What about trash? Where would people dump their trash?
They didn't have none; weren't no garbage in the Depression. I never seen
a garbage can on the hill 'til money got plentiful
They never threw out any garbage?
No sir, they didn't have no garbage. Now, boy, Howard, John and Charlie,
I expect they're pulling down doubling $2,000 a month
Well, how about streets? What were the streets like in the village there? Were they paved streets?
No sir. I don't know when from around the church, around there, when that was blacktop (maybe twenty years ago, maybe about '55 or somewhere along there). But up until then it was for twenty-five years just dirt.
Were the people who worked there mostly families?
Born and raised here, the majority of them. Now this floating crowd, the people that would get fired somewhere, would come here.
Were there many transient people?
Yes sir, there were some a'going and coming all the time. Some wouldn't
stay a week. Now you take, there was a boy about…. This mill now they're
signing up for unemployment: letting them sign up to work two days, and
sign up for unemployment. There was a man worked here about two or three
years ago, moved and left here and had a full-time job. He came back
here two weeks ago and got himself a job here so he could draw
unemployment.
What do you think about that?
I can't see that. I can't see that, can you?
Yes sir. Well, when we first come here many or all of them were
kinpeople: the Abernathies, all the Abernathies and the Durhams. There
was three sets of Durhams at that time, and there was a gang of
How about the supervisors? Where were they from?
They were all in the family, mighty near.
So people got along with the supervisors pretty well?
Yes sir. Well, they were scared not to.
Nobody ever threatened to quit if things didn't get better?
No sir. They was afraid to.
How about a union? Did they ever talk about organizing in some way?
One of them there organizers come by and it was whispered around all over the mill that they was going to have a meeting to organize a union up at the schoolhouse.
When was this, about?
The old schoolhouse up here. I was working in the mill, and I went. I
didn't sign nothing. Next morning I hadn't much more than got in the
mill before Mr. Edgar come over, the superintendent, come in. "John, I
heard you went to that union meeting last night." I said, "Yes sir, I
did." He says, "Do you know if I wanted to I can fire you for not
walking fast down that path. I don't have to have no excuse to fire you.
I can fire you for not walking fast." I said, "I realize that, Mr.
Moore. I'm
Mr. Moore scared them all?
Yes sir.
Well, was that true? Could he fire you for just about anything?
Fire you for anything he wanted to.
Well, did people think that maybe it would be good if they had the union?
I think that the majority of people at that time would have loved to have a union, because they didn't have…. If you didn't trade at the right store—see, Mr. Moore's brother run that Robert Moore store over there—and if you went out of town and bought groceries, why if he didn't like it he could fire you. You'd soon know what to do, I'll tell you that. You better go there and get your groceries.
Hmm. So that was pretty strong control.
And old Mr. Manley Durham, these boys…. Say they paid off every two weeks. Well, when they got up to making twenty dollars a week, twenty-five dollars a week, they'd go to old Mr. Manley on Saturdays and say, "I'm going to draw two full weeks next week, fifty dollars, but I want to sell you my time." "Well, I'll give you forty dollars for your fifty dollar due bill." And you'd give him a due bill and he'd pay it off. When two or three or a hundred or so checks come over here, Mr. Durham'd just take it out, take your check out and cash it.
They would send the paychecks over to Durham?
Send them over to the office, and Mr. Durham would be responsible for the spinning room, Mr. Will Abernathy the card room, and the different departments, you know. Well, all the spinning room checks went in the hands of J. M. Durham. And if I had pawned my fifty dollar check to him for forty dollars cash, he took my check. He didn't give it to me; he put it in his pocket. Well, Mr. London's labor laws or something, that went on for years. He made thousands of dollars that route.
This is Durham or London?
Mr. Manley Durham, Mr. Carrie's father; he died here recently, ninety-two
years old. Well, he bought the time. Where they didn't pay off for two
weeks, he'd buy it every week at a discount (let's put it that way).
That went on for years. Henry Carter down yonder, he's sold his and
pawned his one a thousand times
Is he still around, Mr. Carter?
Yes, he still lives down there on the hill. He's the last one of the old ones, about, working in the mill.
When you were working in the mill did you ever feel like you were—you know, they always say the millhands, they called them "lintheads" and things like this—a second class citizen?
Yes sir, felt all the time just like the scum of the earth. I was too independent.
Did people ever make fun of you or tease you?
Well, appeared that if you went off to play ball, see…. "Bynum cotton
mill hands," they'd refer to it that way. It was a low-grade
But you stayed in Bynum?
Yes sir.
Did you ever think of leaving Bynum?
No sir. I've been satisfied out of that mill. But I built that store. I owned that, and I owned that, and I owned that, and I owned this and I owned that 'til my wife broke her…. I got to making money sawmilling. I've made as high as five hundred dollars a week; I've made as high as a thousand dollars or ten thousand dollars a week.
Did you and your wife ever go on a vacation?
No sir, never had one;
Did you ever want to take one?
Not specially, no sir, not as I know of.
How about newspapers and things like that? Do you take the newspaper?
Take five or six.
You do? Do you like to read?
Yes, I read about all the time. I've been taking the Durham
Herald for thirty years, I reckon. Then I took the Durham Sun; then it quit. Then I take the Raleigh
News and Observer; they just throw it out here on Sunday. Then
the Raleigh Times quit; we don't have an evening
paper. But I pick up one at Pittsboro or Sanford, the evening paper. I
get the Sanford evening paper, and I get the News and
Observer, and I get the Durham Morning
Herald. I get every one I can get my hands on. I mean,
I know that you want to watch your ballgame. I want to ask you one more question. Can you tell me pretty briefly what became of all your brothers and sisters, where they moved to and what they ended up doing?
Well Marvin, the oldest brother, he was a citrus inspector in Florida for the federal government for years. He left there, M. L., (stayed there about twenty years) and then he went to the Log Cabin Association in the mountains working for the government up there. There's a Log Cabin Association in the western part of the state; I believe it's owned by the old five-and-ten-cents Kresses or something that a'way.
So he came back to North Carolina?
Yes sir. He came back up there at Silver and stayed there. He's got a retirement under Florida's state law; he's got a retirement under North Carolina state law. And my sister-in-law Willamena (Billy), she had twenty-five years with Florida teaching and twenty-five years with North Carolina teaching. Marvin was born in 1896.
That was Marvin and his sister-in-law?
Wife. Then my other sister, she's in Roxboro.
What's her name?
Betty. She was born in '88, and her husband died a few years ago. He was with the State Highway Commission in Person County. And Jessie, my third sister, she died with kidney trouble. I don't remember just exactly when Jessie died; 1944, I believe.
Where was she living?
She was living here.
Living in Bynum?
Yes sir. Then I'm the next child; I was born in 1901. J. B., county agent for Chatham County, he's retired. He's at Pittesboro. And then Grady died. Let's see, Brooks was born in 1904; Grady was born in 1906. He died in '68. Edna was born in 1909.
Well now, let's go back. What did Brooks do?
He was county agent at Chatham County; he retired about five years ago.
What did Grady end up doing?
Grady ended up, him and his wife, in Rockingham, Richmond County. He done a little of everything, nothing particular.
Did he work in mills down there?
No. He done so many little things and nothing in particular outstanding about him. And Doc (Frank Snipes) he was born in 1913. He died in '54 with his kidneys.
Now Edna, you said, was a sister?
Edna, she was a schoolteacher. She died at Coates.
In North Carolina?
Yes sir, down near below Fuquay.
And Frank, what did he do?
He was with the A-C office; he was a chief clerk at the A-C office in Johnson County. He died in Smithfield in 1954.
What's the A-C office?
Agriculture. And Thomas (he's the baby, born in 1916), he's living here now. Lives yonder in my Daddy's old house.
Did he live in Bynum all his life?
Yes sir, lived here all his life.
Did he work over here at the mill?
That's the only job he's ever had.
All right. One last question I just remembered. You mentioned the word "public work" before. Now what did you mean by that? You mentioned that you took some public work.
Oh, I done everything.
But what do you mean by "public work"?
I'd go out and help a man at a sawmill a week when I weren't plowing the
ground. I've butchered hogs; I've castrated pigs. In the spring, maybe,
at one time everybody here had him two hogs/pigs down here in the woods,
male pigs. And when the moon got right…. I didn't ever pay no attention
to the moon, 'cause I planted my corn when I wanted to and I castrated
my pigs when I wanted to. But one time in the spring they'd say, "Well,
we want you to castrate our pigs Friday after you get off from work."
And I'd go from house to house, I think about thirty-five castrations.
And that old man living right over yonder—my father was old—-he said, "I
don't trust these young people. I'm going to get your daddy to castrate
mine, when the moon gets right." I told him, "All right." I never lost a
pig; and that old man, one of them died.
You had to wait 'til the moon was full? That's how your lard got… ?
Yes sir. I bought cows and butchered them.
Well, the thing is, by "public work" you mean works not on the farm?
Yes sir. Anything to make a little money. I bought out old
Well Mr. Snipes, I want to thank you very much.
END OF INTERVIEW