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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of The Workbench, Words and Silences, Many Hands - The Complete Collection, Forest Listening Rooms, Many Hands (Volume Two), Many Hands (Volume One), Shawnee, Ohio, Ohio National Forest, and 5 more.
1. |
Jim
05:56
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Interviewer: What, uh, what did you do when you was a kid growing up that you had the most fun doing?
Jim: Well, I uh, told you. Playing basketball and shooting marbles and knocking the can and stuff like that.
Interviewer: What did you do on Saturday night as a teenager, growing up?
Jim: Uh, I used to like to get out, out on my grandmother’s and grandfather’s front porch, and watch the people go up and down Main Street.
Believe it or not, on a Saturday night, the people in town, the town was crowded. But then you had, uh, you had –– Senator’s was a restaurant. Then you come on down then you had, uh, Peyton’s had a Red and White store. You come on down and Yank Hartson had a store for various things.
Come on down to Eddie Welches, or Charles Welches, and he had a little bit of everything in that store. It was mainly, uh, mining supplies and feed. But he had a lot of other stuff in there, too. And if you went in there and asked for something, and he didn’t have it, he’d probably have it in there in the next week or two, like pottery, and different things like that.
Uh, but I would be up there on the front porch. The fire station was knocked down there. There was uh, Nicolas’ store. It was still standing, maybe. It might have fallen down by the time you get this printed, but right now it is still standing. And then you uh, there was another building in there, Daugherty’s. They had a music store in there at one time. And then when the bar across the street burned out, they moved the bar –– and the music store had been out of business for years ––they moved the bar in there. Uh, Hazel Matthews, that was before she bought the bank and moved everything up to the bank.
And then, the next building to us was the funeral home, and furniture store. Mainly funeral home and the furniture on the side. Sam Coin was the owner of it, and Doc Hill was the undertaker from, uh, Zanesville. He’s dead now. He came in to Shawnee and he met and married the Richards girl in Shawnee, here.
And uh, he uh, and then there was my grandfather’s two buildings. And then there was, uh, at one time, years ago, there was a real jewelry shop. It was in the other building that burnt, Dogherty’s side. Shore, Mrs. Shore had a jewelry store in there. Up there in Hannah’s building was a restaurant, and it was run by, uh, oh shoot, he’s from Hemlock, and Peyton’s...
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2. |
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Boy: May Third.
I’m going to ask my grandma questions of the olden days.
Um, Grandma? In the mines, um, do you know how many people died?
Um, do you know anybody that was in the mines?
Uh, can you tell me three people?
Can you name ‘em?
Yeah...yeah...yeah...
Who else?
Shawn Henton? Oh.
Do you know a couple people that died in the mines?
Can you name ‘em, too?
Uh, ok, uh...uh when you was little, what kind of chores did you have?
Um, did you ever wash on a washboard?
You did?
Did you ever feed the cows and the yard animals?
What about the other animals?
Uh...
Did your dad work in the mines?
How much did he get a day?
A dollar?
Uh, well, I hope you give me an “A” Mr. John Winnenberg.
Thanks for letting me do this.
Bye.
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3. |
Amanda
05:18
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Anne Grimes: We’re in Jacksonville, Athens County, and, uh, this is in September, 1958. And this is Mrs. Amanda Hook. And you were born here in Athens County, although you live now out of Glouster in Perry County.
Anne: Was Terrill generally sung around when you were a young child, or do you remember?
Amanda: Yeah, it was sung, but...
Anne: Yeah. Do you happen to have a memory of where, from whom you learned it?
Amanda: My mother, and my grandmother.
Anne: Your mother and grandmother. Okay. And, uh, you say this is, this tune, is, well, let’s just do it.
Amanda: Hah, Yeah!
Terrill was born near Gore, my boys
A place you all know well
Brought up by honest parents
The truth to you I’ll tell
Brought up by honest parents
And proved most tenderly
‘Til Terrill become a roving boy
Which proved dishonesty
Terrill’s character was taken
And he was sent to jail
His parents tried to free him
But it was all a fail
The judge he passed the sentence
And quickly wrote them down
Then Terrill was cast in the county jail
That stands in Logan town
Terrill took a ride on the west-bound train
All on one summer’s day
And every station he passed by
He heard the people say
“There goes that noted murderer
Bound down with armor strong
He killed the Weldon family
He’s bound for Columbus town”
When he arrived at Columbus
Stood pleading at the gate
He took a view around him
How I pitied his sad face
The green hills and the meadows
No more to see for years
While Terrill stood there with a broken heart
His poor eyes filled with tears
His dear old aged father
Stood pleading at the bars
Likewise his dear old aged mother
How she tore her old gray hairs
She tore her old gray hairs, my boys
‘Til the tears came rolling down
Saying, “Son, oh son, what have you done
This prison you are bound”
Come all you false-hearted people
Take warning from me
Never go a’courting
For spite or jealousy
For if you do you’ll surely rue
And someday be like me
Be hammering hard in hash my boys
In the Ohio penitentiary
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4. |
Lucy
04:13
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Lucy: ...played for church every Sunday.
Woman: Where did you learn?
Lucy: What?
Woman: Where’d you learn to play?
Lucy: Right here at home. Just in the... We had a piano at home. I used to play. We used to play with a bunch and we would go to, uh, Zanesville every Sunday and play over the radio.
Woman: Really?
Lucy: Uh-huh, and we played for dances and different things. When the mines were working at Millfield and all, they had safety meetings and everything... Well, it started out––how I got in to all that––I, I was the only one around here who could play the piano, I guess––But anyway, they had the safety meetings at their uh, oh for the mine, you know, so they would not get killed and everything. And we’d always, uh, have music and everything. And I got down there and got with a bunch of guys that played instruments, and uh, mmm, hmm.
Man: Hmm. That’s interesting. And these mines have been closed, right?
Lucy: Yeah.
Man: Yeah.
Lucy: I can remember when they had that explosion, down... Now, I lived in this house when they had that explosion, I remember that, cause I was papering, or doing something. And, um, it killed a lot of people, you know. Millfield Mine.
Man: Really, no kidding.
Lucy: And, uh. And we’d stand on the corner, at, see there was no places for the groups to get, or anything. We’d stand on the corner and flirt with the boys, and––ha ha! And we lived right there on the corner right where the highway was, you know.
Man: Oh, right.
Lucy: And lots of times I’d be playin’ the piano I’d have a whole crowd out listenin’...
Man: All right!
Woman: Yay! [clapping]
Man: That’s excellent.
Lucy: That’s the kind of songs that I like.
Man: I like those, too.
Lucy: Well, maybe we’ll even get on the radio someday.
Man: Yeah, who knows?
Lucy: Or the television!
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5. |
Judd
04:56
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Interviewer: Judd, what is your full name, just for the tape, so we have it for the record.
Judd: My full name is Joshua Edward Matheney. Very few people know me by Joshua, though. Judd is much easier to say.
Interviewer: Yeah, ok. Uh, what was your father’s name?
Judd: Joshua, too.
Interviewer: What did your father do? Where did he work at?
Judd: My father was a miner.
Interviewer: He was a coal miner?
Judd: He was inclined toward farming. He enjoyed farming very much, but he owned no land or anything. He, uh, would plant every foot of ground he could have access to, but living on company ground, like we did, it was very limited.
Interviewer: Now, do you, did he ever own land himself, own a farm?
Judd: Never owned a foot of ground in his life.
Interviewer: I see.
---
Interviewer: When did you start working, uh, Judd, when did you start...
Judd: In 19...
Interviewer: ...working at a job?
Judd: In 1928, when I finished, uh, high school at Murray City. And my father never wanted me to work in the mines. He, uh, worked...insisted against it all of the time––If... this story isn’t gettin’ too long, why...
Interviewer: Oh, no.
Judd: I was working Carbondale Number 2.
Interviewer: Yeah?
Judd: Yup. Hand loading.
Interviewer: You were hand loading there.
Judd: Could I tell you a little story about that?
Interviewer: Yeah, I’d love anything. That’s the thing I’d like to have....
Judd: I went in a little mine up Pittsburgh Holler one day, couple of men working by themselves. And, I looked up at the roof and there was just like a circle around it. And I said, “Fellas, what do you got up there?” And they said, “Ohhh, they call ‘em ‘pots,’ but it’s alright.” And I said, “Let me have your pick a moment.” And, uh, I sounded it with a pick, a customary way of checking the roof. And it sounded a little drummy, and I said, “Fellas I believe that’s, uh...dangerous.”
“Ahh, no,” he said, “don’t think so.” I said, “Let me have your bar for a moment.” One of ‘em handed me a pinch bar, and I pinched a little bit, and finally got a pretty solid hole after I got chipped in a little way... Gave a good pry on it, and...there was this cone shape. Ran up in a cone... It would’ve mashed those two men easily, if they’d... But all, of course, all men didn’t escape them kind of conditions. Many men got tangled up with them and lost their lives.
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6. |
Sigmund
05:06
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Sigmund: It’s just the enormity of the thing. After we got outside, and realized how bad it was. And, uh, how many friends –– almost every man in there was of course a friend of mine. There were a few that I was more aquatinted with than others but –– some of those people that I grew up with and I went to school and played with and worked with and everything and it was just, it was just hard to realize that they were gone.
Immediately after the explosion, it was chaos, as you can imagine, because––so many of the families had lost a member of the family in the explosion. And of course you know how even when one person dies the rest of the neighbors and the friends and relatives and all those are all––they, they try to support them the best way they can. But when there’s so many, so much of it, so many of it, you can imagine what a chaotic time that was in that town, in that camp. It was just a terrible... It was so huge, so much...death and so huge that it was um, everybody was numb for weeks.
But, of course, eventually –– mining towns being what they are, and how they’re situated and everything and as far as work and living is concerned –– things get back to normal. The mines opened up again and they start working. And eventually, gradually, why, people begin to live normal lives. Miner’s lives, coal miner’s lives.
And, uh, I don’t know, you, you, kind of get a, a, kind of numbness or something. It’s not that you get insensitive, but, you’d just don’t... It’s just hard to realize that everywhere you look –– you look around through the camp –– and almost every house was touched by death.
And, uh, it’s just like I say, you get kinda numb to the fact that there were so many dead people in one place like that, and that it happened that suddenly. That was the thing that bothered me more than anything. It was hard to realize that, that could occur like that, young as I was.
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7. |
Reuben
05:16
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A man who fights for his honor, none can blame him
May peace be with him wherever he will roam
No child of his could ever go to condemn him
A man who fights for his honor and his home
It was a frosty morning when the fire was set
The band was playing in the snow
But nobody knows except the union leader
That what was taking place in the hole
When they heard the boom
When they heard it boom
And the men come running up
Anne: What do you call it?
Reuben: Uh, “Homestead Strike.”
Anne: “Homestead Strike,” and this you say it dates from the fires down here in us, is that Morgan County?
Reuben: No, uh.
Anne: Is that Licking? It’s, it’s uh, it must be within twenty miles of Zanesville.
Reuben: Yeah, that’s right.
Anne: And the fire started at that time. They set the fire?
Reuben: They set the fire. The mine’s been burning ever since.
Anne: And you say it’s about 60 years ago, when you were a young man.
Reuben: Yeah. It was... I’ll tell you. It was right after the...
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8. |
Ina
07:13
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Anne Grimes: Next recording, made January 15th, 1954, in Columbus, Ohio. Mrs. Ina Simmons, now a resident of Columbus. However, she was a native of Hocking County, as was Mrs. Neva Randolph. Nelsonville, which she mentions as being the place where she spent her young girlhood, is in Athens County. That’s where she learned many of the songs that follow. “Pearl Bryan,” however, seems to have been a Hocking County version of that gory ballad. She thought that this particular version was made up by a local editor there, uh, near Gore. ...Her reminiscences of the Terrill murder, at Gore, which is another murder, of course, earlier, which happened in that section, uh, are interesting.
Anne: Ina Simmons, and where were you born?
Ina: I was born in Carbon Hill, Hocking County.
Anne: Ohio.
Ina: Twenty-second day of March, in eighteen-hundred and eighty-three.
Anne: Okay, well, let’s hear you sing this, Mrs. Simmons. It’ll be fine.
Pearl come to your lover
A villain once cried
Pearl come to your lover
And stroll by his side
Though I have betrayed you
I’ll make it all well
So none will upbraid you
Or know what befell
Sobered and with sorrow
And fear of disgrace
That may on the morrow
Bring shame to her face
Gave heed to his calling
Was touched by his cry
For fear of her falling
Concluded to fly
So off to the city
Of Cincinnati
To one without pity
This lady went she
Yes went from her father
Her mother and home
Her sisters and brothers
To perish alone
Now shrieks from the Highlands
Rose faint on the breeze
And folks from the Highlands
Were robbed of their ease
Her body found gory
And headless and bare
The Pearl of our story
So gentle and fair
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9. |
Jack
04:18
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Jack: Fresh off the press.
You rulers of the forest
This song to you I’ll tell
Do the impact study
Save us from fracking hell
Which side are you on, boys, which side are you on?
Which side are you on, girls, which side are you on?
Jack: I think I’ll try to raise it, just a little bit.
All: [laughter]
Come all you good people
Good news to you I’ll tell
If we stick together
We’ll save our water wells
Which side are you on, boys, which side are you on?
Which side are you on, girls, which side are you on?
We’re fighting for the future
And for our sons and daughters
To make our world secure
And leave them with clean water
Which side are you on, boys, which side are you on?
Which side are you on, girls, which side are you on?
Jack: One more thing: they can’t put it back. Let’s all say it. They can’t put it back! They can’t put it back! They can’t put it back! Thank you.
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10. |
John
04:49
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11. |
Neva
05:33
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Anne Grimes: Murray City, Hocking County, November 1953. Mrs. Neva Randolph. When we went to her home, we found her sick in bed. In fact, her daughter and her neighbors thought it was her death bed, and a number of people had come in. ...But she, before we left –– although she had been down flat in bed when we went there –– before we left she was sitting up in bed, signing, and asked us to come back again.
Oh, the station’s gonna be changed after ‘while
Oh, the station’s gonna be changed af[ter ‘while
When the Lord Himself shall come
And shall] say, “Your work is done”
Oh, your station will be changed after ‘while
The gospel train is coming
It’s coming around the curve
Stopping at every station // after ‘while
When the Lord Himself shall come
And shall // Straining every nerve
Get your ticket ready
Prepare to get on board
For your station’s gonna be changed after ‘while
Oh, your station’s gonna be changed after ‘while
Oh, my station’s gonna be changed after ‘while
When the Lord Himself shall come
And shall say, “Your work is done”
Oh, your station will be changed after ‘while
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Brian Harnetty Columbus, Ohio
Interdisciplinary artist using sound and listening to foster social change. Recordings on Winesap, Karl, Dust-to-Digital, Atavistic, and Scioto Records.
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