Chapter Ten
“Times Are A Changin'”
Robert Shiflett:
Blacksmiths were a prominent thing then. In fact, the blacksmith was animportant man in the country in those days. He could also pull your teeth. And the storekeepers. But most, they didn't do extensive farming. You might say most of 'em were sorta happy-go-lucky. They made enough to live on, and then there were mountain resources like chestnuts to gather in the fall of the year. That was free money for 'em. They would sell the chestnut crop, then they'd dry fruit. I remember when I was a boy my father had so many dried cherries, sump'n you never hear of today, and dried apples. It would take a good team of horses pullin' just to carry 'em to the depot. So there were lots of resources here. There weren't near as many in population.
I came from Green County over in Shiflett Hollow. I was born, though, on the line between Albemarle and Green over at the old Mission. And so my father bought out a little store down in Shiflett Hollow.
They still call me Raz's Robert. Raz's Robert to distinguish between so many Robert Shifletts. There are numerous Robert Shifletts. When I go to the hospital it's hard for 'em to find any previous history. They bring 'em out that thick sometime, just keep comin' and goin', and when I deny 'em they say, "Some of these is bound to be you." I knew a time when strangers were free to journey through this territory. The most hospitable people you ever saw lived in the mountains. No stranger was ever turned away from anywhere. Now back in Prohibition days and certain parts where there was moonshine stills runnin' even before Prohibition days -- now people were suspicious but never to the extent of harmin' anyone. Not to my knowledge.
In those days, lumber was not nearly as valuable as it is today, not by ninety per cent, and there was trees everywhere except the little cleared fields that people -- now down on the bottoms, people had meadows that they'd cleaned off, and most of these mountain people just had small patches of ground for the potatoes or corn, and 'course they had a wide range of pasture for the cattle and a wide range for the hogs of chestnuts and acorns and things like that. They done all right as far as food, but it was easy for people to fall out amongst themselves, you know. They'd hold shootin' matches and apple butter boilin's and cornhuskin's and ev'rything -- beanshellin'. People used to raise beans in the cornfield by the barrels, you know, and pick 'em off in the pod and have the neighbors to come in on a certain night and ev'rybody would hull 'em. You'd have barrels of beans hulled out and then 'nother night we'd go to some other neighbor. That's since I was a boy. I mean, I can remember. And same thing with cornhuskin'. Always a jug of whiskey or hard cider or sump'n other. Always had to be sump'n to drink for those that wanted it and there are very few didn't. I didn't drink anything when I was a young man.
And my father kept a store and there were a lot of vagabonds in those days -- tramps they called 'em -- and they would pass through the country regular. And my father's place down there -- 'course they would stop at places and ask for a night's lodgin' when night began to fall. And the people, some of 'em, didn't want to keep 'em or they'd look dirty or, well, maybe -- lice wasn't uncommon thing on people of that type, you know, and no one wanted it in the house, but on cold nights a man ask for lodgin', well, "You go down to Raz Shiflett's. He'll keep you. If he don't, come back." So many a one has come in here very dirty askin' for a place to sleep. Now my father didn't put him in our beds, but we always keep blankets and plenty o' hay in the barn. He'd carry warm blankets out. Make him a good bed in the hay. And my mother would cook a guest-type meal for 'em and feed 'em good. And so they'd sleep in the hay. Next mornin' my mother would prepare a mighty good breakfast and then they were on their way, and my father give 'em a partin' gift. There's never no one turned >from my father's door. We were brought up that way. It didn't matter how unfortunate, how dirty or lousy-lookin' they may have been, he had a place to put 'em.
Hilma Yates and Lloyd Powell:
The people over in the valley called the people that lived here "Tuckyhoes." I don't know where that word comes from, but I've heard Maybird sing a song about the po' Tuckhoes. But I heard what it originated [from] and they called the people on that side the mountain the Cohees -- the Dutch people. The people on that side of the mountain they said was all Dutch. I imagine the reason they'd call 'em Tuckhoes over here 'cause they look like mountain hoosies or hillbillies or sump'n nother, I don't know. But do you notice the people on the other side of the mountain are lots different from what are on this side? In the first place, the people on the other side of the mountain are nowhere near as sociable as they are on this side. You go to a person's house, you never open the door unless it's friends that they know, nobody never asks you in. It's just like goin' through a city someplace. Did you ever go anywhere over on this side the mountain? People's always friendly and always invites you to come in, invites you to eat or sump'n. On that side they never invite you in or anything. They don't even talk the same way. Don't have the same voice. No, they don't have the same brogue or nothing. They don't have the same dialect or nothing that they do over here.
Before the park everybody just rode horses, yeah. Most everybody had horses then. Just red dirt roads and mud roads and had horses and buggies and when the cars first come about, they used to go on the mud roads and ev'rything. They'd get stuck up in the cars and the people'd have to go down -- ev'rybody had horses then or mules or sump'n. They'd get hung up on the hills or in the mudholes or somewhere. They'd go and get horses and pull 'em out. I 'member we had an old T-model Ford and I'll tell you who was drivin' us. It was Robert Shiflett -- where you was at today. We went over there in Batesville. He had a sister lived over there at Batesville and he wanted to go over there to see his sister and we had an old T-model Ford, 'bout a 'l8 or 'l9, I think it was. But anyway, had to stand there and crank it up and Robert wanted to take her home and wasn't very many people could drive a car then, so Robert, he could drive a car, and we took his sister home. Etta -- she married Elan Thompson, went over Batesville. Lawd, there wasn't nothing but mud roads then. Mud was deep and there was rain in the wintertime, and it was rainin'. Roads was full of mud and we got over in there and got hung up in a mudhole and we didn't have no chain or nothin'. Wasn't no mudholes, it was just mud roads. It just scraped up to the runnin' boards in the old cars in them days, 'fore ever heard tell of a new road through here. And I 'member went down in the field. His sister's husband's daddy was workin' over there for somebody and they had two old mules and they went down in the field and got these two old mules and pulled us up a great long old hill over there at Batesville. And we got in the road and Robert -- he was drivin' the car -- he drove the car home. Never did see no plank roads. All ever I seen was rocks and mud, and red mud. All these roads that went out to Whitehall was windin' roads. There was so many turns, and crooks in the roads then. They've straightened so many of the roads now. You'd go 'round and wind and turn, you know, and go up a hill and red mud, and there'd come a little bit of thunderstorm or rain or anything, well, they'd be stalled. They'd take their horses off of the wagon and pull old cars and things up the hill when they first started. 'Course there wasn't nothing but T-models then. Way back and didn't have no power, you know, no gear and stuff like that in 'em. But people thought they had sump'n though when they had them T-models. They did have sump'n then.
They brought the park in here, yea, it was in the thirties, somewhere like that. That was the worst thing they ever coulda done. They fooled the people in to signin' their land and all away to 'em, you know. Ev'rybody was gonna have a right to go through the park and what all they was gonna do. People thought it was gonna be a park like a city park, you know. They's gonna have animals in there and have pens in 'em, you know, and put 'em in just like a park, like the zoo or sump'n like that. That's what they make ev'rybody believe. They'd all run all the poor mountain people out of the mountains and ever'thing. Some of 'em, they never did get over it after they chased 'em through the mountains. The people up in the mountains, they was the only ones that ever had anything 'cause they raised the stuff and the people down in the bottom lands would go up in there and buy cabbage and buy potatoes and buy whiskey and ev'rything. They had all kinda whiskey up there, you know, and they always had a pocketful of money, them people that lived up there in the mountains. Them was prohibition days. The early prohibition days way back 'fore the park come through and chased 'em. I think the state went wet about 1933 wasn't it, commenced sellin' legal whiskey. About 1933 I think it was. I know they had one man on the revenue force and he was a regular moonshiner and a bootlegger hisself, and he made more than he'd catch and he knowed when they was gonna make a raid or goin' off to some other part of the country, you know. He 'ways made arrangements to have his whiskey made. He had whiskey made all the time of prohibition. Made small fortune at it and then was gittin' money for bein' a revenue officer, too. They used to have real wars up in here with the revenuers.
Not up in Brown's Cove, but they did in a lot of places, 'round over in Bacon Hollow and down in Louise Den and the big country where they had -- made a lot a whiskey down in there. The officers went up in there to make a raid on 'em and they asked a little boy w back. He said, "Yeah, I will." But when the man started on he said, "Well, in case you don't come back, what must I do with your horse?" He says, "Oh, I'm gonna be back. I'm just goin' up here a little ways. I'll be back." Boy said, "Yea, but there's been ten went up in there and ain't any of 'em never come back yet." Said, "I just wondered what to do with your horse when you don't come back." I don't know whether he went or whether he come back. If he went, I don't think he ever come back. I believe they told that one up on Piney River, up in Nelson County, up towards Rockfish Gap around up in that section over in Nelson County. Goin' up Piney River after liquor. One way to go up there, on this narrow road, you had to get up there through a field somewhere. You come out of there, all right; if you didn't, allright. But the sorriest liquor they tell me that ever was made, was made up around Piney River, up in that section. That there fellow he lived up in Bacon Hollow and he killed a man just for drinkin' out of his hen barrel. That's a mash barrel to make the whiskey out of. They call it a hen barrel 'cause it has to set long, 'cause of settin' hens, you know, settin' the old hen. Yea. While it's settin' they call it a hen barrel 'cause it takes so long. Called him to the store and killed him.
Used to be shows come around. Used to pick peaches in summer. Ev'rybody had orchards and just about ev'ry year at peach season they'd always come through with the shows, the carnival shows. We always called 'em the peach shows. They'd come in and last through the peach season, you know. Ev'rybody went to them shows. Have a big time. Well, they'd have the sideshows. Lot of times they'd have the music in the shows and dancin' and all.
The missionary people, why they been here about fifty of sixty years I know of. Maybe longer than that 'cause my daddy built all them missionary houses over there. Up there at that Mission Home, he built all them up there. 'Course, you know, with help. He was boss, you know. 'Course the preacher and all, but he was the contractor, he was the head man.
When they built the buildin's and all 'cause the missionaries come through takin' pictures kinda like the park. Takin' ev'rybody's picture. Goin' up through the mountains takin' pictures and get the families. Showin' how the people lived in this country. Showed how the people lived, you know. That they wasn't civilized and all. And they come through tryin' to civilize the people. That' what brought the missionary people in. And they'd have these missionary homes and then they'd send these clothes, all kinda clothes and ev'rything all the way through to divide up with the poor people.
We don't have much of that anymore though. No, don't have any missionaries any more. They done quit. They call theirselves civilized now. Well, the Mennonites are still up there. Now, they're a good people. They'll help you. They'll help to build your house if you get burnt out, anything. Or they'll bring you food if you're sick. They are real Christians, them Mennonites is.
They was what they called the Pentecost. Them was the Holy Rollers Maybird used to -- they's Pentecost. Well, there's one over at the Grottoes. There's one down there at Nortonville. I don't know whether they still have preachin' down there or not, on down below Nortonville. I been down at that'n many times. Yea. The purtiest music you ever heard, they have it. That's the only thing that we used to love to go down there for. The Pentecost. Yea. They have the purtiest hymns. All them hymns that Maybird -- and have them tambourines and things.
Nora Herring Shiflett:
It's inter'stin' to know what is the past. Now I like the old things that the old people used. That's what I like. I have my daddy's old reapin' hook they called it. And there's something they call the cradle and the thing's made a long blade to it. Oh, the blade's a longer than this. And then it has these stripes to it, somethin' about the size of this is in curves and they used to cut the whole fields of grain with it. I have the reapin' hook where they used to cut the grain with. And you just think how anyone could stand it now to git out and cut a whole field of grain with a thing like that. Yea. See, cut it out and then sometime someone would bind it back down and they'd jump over the shocks when they go down, old men jump over the shocks of wheat.
Well, we've been farmin' in here all our life, sixty-nine years old. I have kept that reap hook, yes, I have got it. I wouldn't take anything for it. Ain't that a tool? Now you cut with this wheat, rye, oats. You gather the grain with your hand and hold the grain and cut your handful with that. Like a hand scythe. You see them little sharp teeth on there? Oh, if your hand been cut with that it's sump'n. T'ar a whole plug out. His initial is on where he put on there when he was a boy. I have an old lamp holder belonged to my great-grandmother. That there's old sho'nuf. Right near a hundred fifty years or more.
They used to have a lotta music so they said, the old people. They'd git the corn in and they'd have what they called corn shuckin'. Ev'rybody come and have a big meal and maybe have somethin' to drink and play the music. I've heard 'em tell about that. And then they'd have the apple butter makin' in the fall after the apples got ripe. Make the apple butter and maybe put it on late so it'd be all night. We'd have a dance and music and ev'rybody got along good. I have been to some of 'em when I was younger. They would dance single. That was what they called flat-footed dancin'. My father used to do that for us. Ev'rybody else'd just watch and enjoy it. And ev'rybody'd take a turn or maybe two would dance together that way, flat-footed dance. Maybe a man and a woman would dance together and then they'd have what they call a set. So many get together and dance around and call figures. Used to play "The Girl I Left Behind" and "Little Brown Jug." I remember that very well. And let me see. "Liza Jane." I don't know if I can think of any more or not. "Sugar Girl," that was another one. The one that played the music would sing. Well, then sometimes at night when they was in the home after the work'd be done up and the children all git in. Maybe somebody'd be gathered in or come in with a banjo or sump'n and want to hear a little singin' and music. They'd git together and sing. And then I used to hear my father sing one about "The Ship that Never Returned." That's one my daddy used to sing. And that used to be one of his favorite songs. His grandmother, I believe, he told me is who he learned it from.
Well, back in the real old days my family raised vegetables and sold. They used to raise potatoes, onions, beets, cabbage, corn and haul it on a wagon to Harrisonburg. Can you imagine that? But they used to live themselves off what they grew, and sell what they didn't need themselves. They all had cattle now, but I don't know whether any depended entirely on that for a livin' but ev'rybody mostly had some.
And there used to be some people that run mills. Yes. Old water mills. There's one right down the road here, but it's not used anymore. A doctor in Charlottesville owns it. It's still there. I've heard that he wants to sell it. Has a small lot. Building's still there and the old mill's still in it.
Hobert and I have taken corn there and have it ground for meal. Yes. People used to come from all over these mountains. You couldn't imagine. We were talkin' to a minister over here about it, Mr. Yoder, and he said you just couldn't imagine now and he went a-walkin' the other day just to see where people used to live away back up in the hollow. All these mountains used to be just plenty of people. Churches back upon these mountains. Churches on this mountain way over here.
I remember when the park came in then. Yea. My brother and father was livin' in the park, They moved out when the people had to go.
I went to the school on Simmon's Gap, the Episcopal church school on Simmon's Gap.. Have you ever heard of Mr. -------? Well, he was the first one that ever come in and he started this mission work. Then others come, you know, and then Mr. Mason come and got charge of it and he, ain't been too long, retired from bein' a bishop in the Episcopal Church. And there was a school over here at Mission Home. There was a school on Frazier Mountain. All of 'em had churches too. There was a school at Simmon's Gap. A school at Wyatt's Mountain and a school over in Blackwell Hollow where George Fisk has that retarded home for boys. That was Blackwell Hollow Mission. We had to walk to school. It was kinda hard sometimes in the winters but we were just brought up to it. We just didn't realize it. We walked to school and we walked up a hill, I can show you. We lived down in the hollow so we walked up there to school ev'ry day.
All the grades together and one teacher. One teacher and one room. 'Round on the average of twenty I think. There weren't any age to it then. They could send 'em as young as they wanted to or they could come as old as they wanted to. We had grades but the seventh grade was the highest we could go. I finished seventh grade. They had good teachers. They did mission work and they was Christian ladies. They would have Bible teachin'. That was the first thing ev'ry mornin'. We'd have prayer, sing a hymn and then a short Bible class. Some people up here didn't care much for the Episcopal Mission. Well, I did. I tell you now, I just love to think about it. It done so much good, and you know there's things that now that the children come back and tells from schools now that you didn't hear then in the schools. I mean just junk talk. We had differ'nt teachin'. We just didn't do it. There was what we called a county school. There was one down the road here. It's a barn now. There was one down there that some children went to in this hollow. But then it was kinda divided. Some went over to Mission Home to the church school. We had a schoolteacher once, she come from England. She said the Shifletts come from England, that she heard the family name called in England. That would have to be years back if it did happen that way.
People in the mountains used to make a lot. They made more on the mountain land than they make now. They used to plant a lotta corn, make that, wheat, make that. The old steam thrashin' machine come in. Old thrashin' machine come thrash the wheat and go from place to place. They went up on this mountain back here. They used to have a thrashin' 'machine. I remember seein' her, but I don't know anyone that's got any more, though. I remember when we were children that these horses would have to pull, and there'd be so many horses -- they all in a circle just goin' around and 'round, 'round and 'round when they thrash with those kind. Then it got from that to the steam engine come along with it. Didn't have the horses. You know Mary Woods? Well, her father used to have a steam engine thrashin' machine. More of the land was cleared and most of the old folks have died -- passed on -- and the young ones have better jobs. Now this whole mountain back up here's a huntin' club where it used to be people livin' on it. The huntin' club wants it to grow up. We have a hundred and seventy-some acres here back in this place and Hobert's father used to make right much wheat here, plenty corn. Have corn to sell. Way 'round two hundred bushels of wheat. Mary's father would come in here and thrash the wheat with the old steam engine.
Bacon Hollow is right over the mountain over there. Used to be pretty tough over there. Moonshine, that's what ev'rybody said was the cause of it. They'd fight one another. Pretty bad over there at one time. Not lately -- I haven't heard much about it, but the years around -- back in the twenties, 1920 or sump'n like that. Prohibition? During those days, yes, that's when it was. That was when the law come into effect moonshinin'. Yes, it was pretty bad over there. Lot of murders. Young people just in their youth, just went down. Just drinkin' and git to fightin' and all like that. Lot of people lived in there. It was kinda dangerous to go in there at one time. Well, you know, people that didn't want trouble did think that. Yes. I've been out of the mountains. I've been to Washington. I just went on visits with the mission worker. Oh, most of the young people gits out. Most of the old people gits out some, though not Iike it used to be.
Mervin Sandridge:
They was real old people when I was just a kid like. Now you talkin' about stories, now they could tell things, and they never forgot nothin' and they could tell ev'rything that happened when they was back from just little bitty kids as they growed on up. They used to tell how they used to, when they had, certain days of the week, they had market days tradin' in Charlottesville. Then the day before they'd go huntin'. They'd try to kill all the squirrels they could and wild turkeys and rabbits and then they'd go back home at night and skin all that stuff and git up early and leave the next mornin', way before daylight, two or three o'clock in the mornin', and try to be in Charlottesville early to sell that stuff, sell it or trade it or anything.
And they could really tell you tales. They could set and talk all night and I could set and listen at 'em all night. Said one time they had a bunch of turkeys and they's always tryin' to kill 'em for to take to market and they never could git close enough. So finally the first breechloadin' guns ever come out; the two brothers they bought a double barrel with the hammer on the side. So they decided that the only way they's ever gonna kill any turkeys was to reload the shells. So they took the shot out and put more powder and more shot and they had the old timey shell that they used to load 'em theyselves. It was made out of metal or copper and you put your caps in it like you did to muzzle-load it -- but anyway, they loaded their own shell that time. So they went huntin' that day and they both had loaded their guns, so what they's gonna do they's gonna reload their shells and they see any turkeys they's gonna pull both triggers at the same time. So they went out that day and they didn't find 'em that day so they decided to shoot one of them just one barrel to see what it would do. He said he shot one of them and he said he liked to killed 'em. He said if he'd a seen any turkeys he'd a pulled both of 'em and he said he knowed it would a killed him. He said he just shot one of 'em and liked to killed him. But that was a rough time.
They said they used to raise tobacco and only place they could sell it was Richmond. They could git more money down in Richmond. And they'd pack these big hogsheads full of 'bacco. You ever see one? And bore a hole in each end of it and put it on and put one hoss to it and have it roll, then they'd stop along the road and when they'd wear the hoops, out to cut down a hickory and nail that on there for the steel 'stead a rollin' on the barrel wearin' the barrel out, they'd wear the hickory out. And they'd wear that'n out, they'd stop and nail another one on. Said it'd take 'em a week to go to Richmond and back with the hogshead full of tobacco.
That'd be the big barrel with the strips around the side like a runner? Yea. They'd just cut down a little hickory, you know, 'bout a inch or so in diameter, you know, then they'd bend that and nail it around. Then when that'n wore out they'd stop and cut another one and nail that'n around.
Course the roads were mostly just dirt then. They were all dirt, yea. This road here was dirt until '45. 'Bout '46 when they built this road through here. When they had corn shuckin's, the first one got the red ear, he could git a drink. And then ev'ry time somebody'd uncover a red ear he'd git a drink. So if you uncovered enough red ears you could git yourself drunk. I guess that was just sump'n to git 'em all speeded up. Yea. Git more corn shucked. Well, is there that many red ears in a load of corn? Used to be. You don't see it no more. Back in them times, there didn't but one grow on a stalk. Now they have two and three but back in them times they had corn and it didn't grow but one ear.
They didn't use that red corn for meal. That was to feed stock -- chicken, cows, hosses. Lawd, I've been to the mill, I used to hate that the worst in the world, to take a sack of corn and go to the mill. You could divide it up, you know, just right and lay it across the hoss and before you got out a sight of the house it would be a-flipped over this way, you know, and if it fell off you weren't big enough to git it back. Man, I've been to the mill a many and many a time and I couldn't put it on. They'd have to put it on at the mill for me and put it on at home. You had to keep it balanced to keep it on there. If it fell off, I'd just have to sit there or stand there 'til somebody come along and put it back on 'cause I weren't big enough to lift it. And that would worry me. Time you'd git started it would be flipped over this way, then it would flip back that-a-way, then it'd flip over this-a-way. I used to dread that. I used to just as soon they'd kill me as to send me to the mill. I didn't mind sometime they used to -- a bunch of 'em would get together and they'd go in a wagon. They'd go by and they'd pick up this man's corn and the next man, next man. That was all right, you know.
The millers used to just take so much out like a share. You didn't have no money to pay 'em. Then they'd keep a certain amount, well, they'd sell it maybe to stores or sump'n. I reckon they sold it to stores. They bagged it. Some of 'em wrapped it. We got 'em here, you know, they sell it and then you could buy ten pounds or twenty pound, twenty-five pound bags. Yea, it used to be if you wanted sump'n from the store, well, go catch a couple of chickens. Go to the store. Got to have some sugar; got to have some coffee. Yea. Go catch a couple of chickens and 'bout time you got to the store, you know, you'd be messed all the way down the side. Whew! Great God Almighty! And if you could find a dozen eggs, you know, and sneak 'em out the side you'd git some candy. You git a penny a piece for 'em. You git twelve cents. If you could just find a hen next back, then, when I was a kid, boy, you was rich.
Yea, but they'd tear you up if they caught you doin' that. Oh, my God. You wouldn't set down for a week. Used to sell rabbits. Git ten cents a piece. Used to set rabbit traps and snare 'em. And I'd hunt bee trees. Walked a million miles. I walked a million after 'em. Just love 'em. I got two hives out here now. And I got one bee tree down here been down here for fifteen years. Used to have a lot of bees and that storm come up here, that hurricane blowed 'em all over and rolled 'em down the hill and tore 'em all to pieces.
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