Tom Moses’ Trips – West Virginia, 1885, Enter John Young
“During the night a heavy thunder storm passed over us, and the wind through the big pine and hemlock trees, together with the constant baying of the hounds, made the night one of unpleasant dreams. Tryon and I had a double room. As he was very careless with his clothes – the floor was better than a chair – he stepped on his derby hat. A fine kind of hat to take on a sketching trip! Strips of paper glued to the inside of it put it in good working shape again. The storm soon cleared, the sun was warm, the howling hounds were fed, and the wild huntsmen were ready for another day of slaughter.
So were we. After a big breakfast Mr. Elkins, Mr. Davis young Elkins, young Davis, Tryon and myself started out on an exploring trip. We tramped through the wet underbrush and found a great many places for good sketches. We returned for luncheon, then took our sketching outfits and Tryon and I started out for business. I found a big mass of rock that was very interesting. We were quite a puzzle to some of the natives, who could not understand why we had come all the way from Chicago to sketch rocks and trees. “Didn’t we have any of these anywhere near Chicago?” One trouble we experienced in the eastern mountains, especially in Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and the Carolinas, was the constant quizzing by the natives to find out whether we were really what we said we were, or revenue men looking for moonshine whiskey in the general stores.
A few days of sketching at Davis with some success rather encouraged us to remain longer. We each had an idea that something awaited us further down the valley, so we started for Schell. Mr. Elkins had left a day ahead of us, and we found that he had stopped at Schell, instructing the store-keeper, the proprietor of the only boarding-place, to take good care of him, and we appreciated the courtesy. Tryon had told Mr. Elkins that he was writing an article for the Chicago Tribune and that he would send him a copy; Mr. Elkins was much pleased.
The General Store at Schell was some store and included the post office. Back of that was the living-room and kitchen and there were three rooms upstairs. Tryon and I occupied one of these. John Young joined us here and entered into the spirit of the outing.
The evening of Young’s arrival we were all in the store. Young was stretched out on the counter, with his head resting in the scoop of the scales, and Tryon, with his immense meerschaum, was hitting it up like an engine. We missed the talkative huntsman, but everyone here was interested in us and our work because Mr. Elkins had told them who we were.
We had two beds in our room, but had to pass through a room occupied by the landlord’s son. If he happened to be awake when we retired, Tryon would always stop and talk with him. The landlord was an infidel, which pleased Tryon, for it gave him the opportunity to assist in tearing all of the religion of the world into shreds. In one way, Tryon did not believe all he said. I believe he only wanted a chance to argue.
The store loafers were a motley crowd. As there was a train arriving every evening at seven o’clock, it was an excuse for the men to for their mail, though some of them never received a letter. The landlord was also the postmaster. The government paid him a salary according to the number of canceled stamps that passed out of his office. Some salary! There were only about one hundred people living in Schell and these were mostly miners, so the post office probably did very little business.
The chief topic of conversation while it varied at times, was “moonshine,” and denouncing the government for keeping so many revenue men about. It was policy, of course, for us to enter the fight and stick with the men. We had felt, in spite of what Mr. Elkins had told them, that they had their suspicions regarding us; we had too much money for artists. Some of the mountain people did not know who was President of the United States, and others hardly knew that the Civil War was closed. A very shiftless and lazy crowd, although a few of them had good positions in the mines. This particular quality of coal mined here was used for sea-going vessels; it was very small and dusty.”
To be continued…
Historical note: Schell is now an extinct town in Garrett Country, Maryland and Mineral Country, West Virginia. A post office called Schell was established in 1883 on the West Virginia side, where it remained in operation until it was discontinued in 1931. The community was possibly named after Augustus Schell, a New York politician and lawyer. There is a brief mention of this town in Hamill Thomas Kenny’s book, “West Virginia place names, their origin and meaning, including the nomenclature of the streams and mountains” (1945).
