Tom Moses’ Trips – West Virginia, 1885 as published in the Palette & Chisel newsletter (a Chicago fine art club that Moses belonged to).
“Our landlord’s name was McDonald, and he had lived in this old house since long before the Civil War. The house was close to the country road. A party of Federal soldiers marching through here during the Civil War were so incensed because they could not get enough to eat that one of them jammed his musket into the face of the old eight-day clock; the dent of the muzzle of the gun and the rammed dial are still there. The glass from the face of the clock was till inside of the framework; the clock could be wound without opening the door. You have it as it was told to me.
I offered to pay a good price for the old clock – also for the three-panel mirror, but I soon found there was nothing for sale.
Mrs. McDonald made the greatest variety of dishes from apples that one could imagine. While Tryon was making fun of it in a very sarcastic manner, the old lady misconstrued his meaning and thought that he was complimenting her. So she beamed on Tryon and he always had the best of everything. She actually had on the table at one time baked apple, fried apple, apple sauce, apple butted, pickled apple and apple pie. Some “Adam and Eve” dinner!
One of the loafers in the store was introduced to us a Mr. Murphy, I had expressed a desire for some more fungus and the following day he brought down from the mountain a lot of them, all shapes and sizes. We learned that he had a “still” for moonshine whiskey on the top of the mountain. I wanted to pay him for the fungus, but he would not accept anything, so I bought some cigars, eleven for twenty-five cents. Everyone seemed to enjoy them.
Each evening brought us together in the store, and out luncheons were hurried through. We were beginning to get the sketching fever and every minute seemed to count with us. We told many old yarns, new to most of them. We were asked many times whether we had no rocks in Chicago, and why we traveled so far into such wild country. Our sketches seemed to please them, but they could not appreciate the value we placed upon them.
On one of our rambles through the wilderness we kept ascending until we found ourselves on top of a very rugged and almost impassable mass of rock. Young discovered a line of thin, blue smoke ascending from a point of rock at least a hundred feet below us.
We crept to the edge and discovered an illicit still near which were two men – one of them our friend Mr. Murphy. We called to them. In an instant Murphy had a rifle trained on us. This looked a bit serious, so we hurried to show ourselves. We did not go down, but told Murphy we wanted to get a view of the valley from a high point – then retraced our steps.
The heads of the store loafers were close together that evening when we joined them, and it was hard to get them to listen to our country efforts. We did our best to make light of our having seen Murphy at his place of business, but he showed in his manner that he was not highly elated over the incident. The day following we went back to Davis; our departure caused many remarks and again aroused the suspicion of the loafers.
On arriving at Davis we went to the old log hotel. A few of the New York hunters were still in evidence. The nights were growing much cooler, but the days remained warm; a good long walk did not tire us. We found that Mr. Elkins had instructed the engineer of the locomotive which hauled the coal cars between Piedmont and Davis, and who was not always busy, to take us down the road to any point, allowing us all day for sketching, and to return for us at night – all of which he did, and we greatly appreciated Mr. Elkins’ thoughtfulness.
Historical note on the coal cars: Our previously mentioned friend Henry Gassaway Davis, with the help of his brothers, began pursuing the rich coal resources on the banks of the North Fork of the Blackwater River. In 1866, Davis founded the Potomac and Piedmont Coal and Railway to “furnish transportation” along with coal mining and timbering. The company was given the right to construct grades in Mineral, Grant, Tucker and Randolph counties.
In 1881, Davis’ first line entered into West Virginia, passing through Elk Garden in Mineral County. It became the West Virginia Central and Pittsburgh Railway and around this time acquired a great deal of coal and timberlands in present day Tucker County, WV. In 1884, the railroad expanded along the North Branch of the Potomac River to the North Fork of the Blackwater River at the newly formed town of Thomas. Remember that the town of Schell was located just across the border from Maryland on the the west side of the North Branch Potomac River. The year before Moses’ sketching trip and ride on the coal car, a railroad line was constructed from Elkins to connect to Thomas. Coal from the first deep mine in the area was ready to be loaded by the time the track was completed. Prior to the arrival of the railroad, the region was sparsely populated, due in part to the rugged and wild mountain landscape. A partnership between Davis and S. Elkins later formed the Davis Coal and Coke Company. By 1892 it was among the largest coal companies in the world. Information was taken from “Industrial Era Friends of Blackwater.” Here is the link: https://www.saveblackwater.org/history_industrialera.html
Historical note on moonshine: Historically, the thickets of the Blue Ridge Mountains were ideal for hiding small still operations where locals made moonshine. Making moonshine centered around wood-fired turnip stills making apple brandy or corn whiskey. The bootlegger typically set up in a secluded wooded area beside a stream or spring. He bought grain from local mills and fruit from local orchards. During the late nineteenth century, moonshine was hauled by wagon to any market destination or a railroad stop. Some oral histories tell of individuals making day trips by train to various locations with suitcases filled with jars of whiskey. By the time Virginia voted to become a dry state (1914), moonshiners were using cars and trucks to deliver their whiskey. It would be those “souped up” cars hauling their bounty and outracing the law that would form the basis for an American favorite past time – NASCAR.
Information from Moonshine – Blue Ridge Style. “Building the Moonshine Industry” article
http://www.blueridgeinstitute.org/moonshine/building_the_moonshiner_industry.html
If you want to know a little more on the history of bootlegging and NASCAR, here you go: https://www.nascar.com/en_us/news-media/articles/2012/11/01/moonshine-mystique.html
