© Jerry F. Couch

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is a memoir written by Henry Washington Cleek, an early resident of Hamlin, Virginia.  Cleek (pronounced “Click” in the Appalachian vernacular) was born July 10, 1877 and died December 29, 1942.  His parents were among St. Paul, Virginia’s first residents.

The original Cleek home & store was located on Russell Street, on the lot beside the present-day Clinch Valley Times office. Next, the family built a large 2-story home and blacksmith shop near St. Paul’s original Rosser Bridge. Remnants of that bridge can be seen near the present-day Clinch River Little League’s Ma Whitenack Field. The Rosser Bridge was built to connect St. Paul to its stillborn sister town of Minneapolis on the Russell County side of the Clinch River.

We have added contemporary newspaper clippings and photos to Cleek’s story to help our readers visualize what he was describing.

Childhood photo of Henry Washington Cleek

In the very early years in Hamlin, lumber was dressed, tongued and grooved by hand or manpower with a hand plane.  The log was fed into the saw as the saw came down.  The log was cut only as the saw came down.  This was the way lumber was sawed.

In around the year 1880 they ran a whipsaw in Hamlin.  They built a scaffold about 4 feet high.  They rolled a log in on the scaffold (or skid).  They had a saw about 6 or 7 feet long and about 4 inches wide with teeth on the edge.  Handles on each end like a crosscut saw.  One man went on top and one man on the bottom.  They started the saw up and down.  One man pulling up and one man pulling down.  The saw cut as it went down.  So when the slab was cut off, they took a chalk line and lined a board the thickness they desired and then sawed the board off.  This was the way the whipsaw was operated.  This work was very slow.  Most of the time they hewed the first side of the log off with a broad axe.  This was quicker and easier.

In the year of 1882 the people graded an 8 feet road or widened out the 5 feet road from Castlewood, Virginia to Hamlin.  This way they could haul on wagons and sleds with horses and cattle from the water sawmill.  Then they extended the 5 feet road on up the Lick Creek to the top of Sandy Ridge.  This was a distance of about 8 miles that was called at that time a mill road.  There were also roads about 2 or 3 feet wide they called toe paths or trails.

In and around Hamlin the people discovered some black stuff in the edge of the mountain’s end in the bed of the branches and creeks.  They had no idea what it was.  The only thing they knew about was wood and charcoal.  Here, they burned lots of charcoal.  Hauled it out and sold it to the blacksmiths and tin shops.  They used charcoal to weld iron and to heat their solder irons.  Some of them discovered that this black stuff they found in the creek in seams or ledges would burn.  So, they would go and dig it up and haul it home and burn it in their fireplaces for fuel.

About the year 1877 the blacksmiths learned to use it in their shops for heating their irons.  They would only heat irons and hammer them out in the shapes they wanted.  They would weld with charcoal.  They later learned to weld with stone coal.  This was the name they first gave the black stuff.  They didn’t know to go in the mountains after coal.  For several years, all they used, they took the dirt off of and dug or shot it up.  So you see they could only dig stone coal where it didn’t have much dirt over it, because they had to move the dirt by hand and shovel.  They didn’t have any scrapers or steam shovels.  The way they got their charcoal was they dug a long pit in the ground about 4 feet deep and as wide and long as they wanted it.  They piled chestnut wood in the pit, filled it close and tight.  They set the wood on fire.  Then they covered the wood up with dirt.  Just let it get enough air to barely burn.  This wood burned into coals.  They they put the fire out with water.  Next, they uncovered the pit of coals.  Then they had charcoal.  This charcoal would take fire easy and last well, so the blacksmiths could weld iron and steel fine with it.

About 1900 there was only three houses in Hamlin.  One log house occupied by Jole Ramsey, near the mouth of Gravel Lick Creek.  One log house just up Lick Creek occupied by James Hensdill.  One in the center near the iron bridge leading to St. Paul, Virginia.  It was occupied by a colored man in 1901.

ABOVE: From the January 31, 1937 edition of The Roanoke Times

John White came here and cut the brush and laurel.  He built a store and dwelling combined.  He put up goods.  By this time the country around Hamlin had been thickly settled.  A mines had been opened at Dante, Virginia just above Hamlin.  A railroad had been built to Dante, Virginia from St. Paul, Virginia.  A distance of eight miles.  They had also widened the road to Dante and on to the top of Sandy Ridge.  They built a road up Gravel Lick to Dumps Creek, a distance of four miles, then on to Cleveland, Virginia six miles further.  At that time Boice and Clark put up a band mill.  Just below or in the edge of Hamlin there was a large circle sawmill at the mouth of Hamlin Creek, a distance of one half mile from the center of Hamlin.  That gave John White a good stand for the goods business.  White ran his store until 1903.  One morning he and Lee Campbell got into an argument.  White hit him in the head with a weight from his scales, and killed Campbell.  White left the country.  He went to Oklahoma.  He was never arrested.  F. R. Stinson bought the store from White’s wife.  He moved in.

Walter Kiser built a house and moved in it.  Acey Kiser built a house and moved in.  Stinson built a house and also built one for his mother and sister.  Florney Wheeler then moved in.  Alfred Turner built a house and moved in.  Nathan Blevins built a house and moved in.  Henry Fortner built a house and moved in.  Then they began to build rapidly for a small town.

Then they graded a road to Castlewood, Virginia from Dante, Virginia.  Hard surfaced it with limestone and asphalt.  Then they graded a road to Clinchfield and graveled it.  They also built a road from Hamlin to St. Paul, Virginia and hard surfaced it.  Built a $35,000.00 bridge leaving Hamlin to St. Paul, Virginia.  Now we have four leading roads running direct from the same spot.  They call it the Four-way Road.  It is 3-½ miles to St. Paul, 3-½ miles to Dante, 3-½ miles to Castlewood, 3-½ miles to the Norfolk & Western railroad.  It is 6 miles to Carbo, 6 miles to Clinchfield, and 6 miles to Carterton, Virginia.

(ABOVE) CECIL ENNIS AT THE HAMLIN BRIDGE – 1930’S

We now have one-hundred and nine houses.  We have had four fires and have had four houses burnt down.  In 1911, there were about thirty-two people, now we have over six-hundred.  In 1911, there were about thirty-two people. Now we have over six-hundred.  The old citizens that used to live here that have died since 1903 were, F. R. Stinson, Jole Ramsey, William Ramsey, William Darby Ramsey, Alfred Turner, John McGoldrick, Rossie Fraley, Noah Fraley, Valid Turner, Loran Vickers, William Wilkerson, Clarence Couch, John Johnson, Mike Dosick, and others.

Because it was located at a busy intersection, Hamlin’s tearoom was a popular place.

We have a Clinchfield Coal camp in ten miles of here.  We at one time had a post office here.  The name was Collins, Virginia.

George Lemon shot and Killed Charles Amburgey at Hamlin Station in August of 1902.  He came clear.

We have had seven colored families living here.  Four Polish families.  Since 1901, the first settlers here at Hamlin were Jole Ramsey, Nelse Nash, Tavis Bickley, Joe Boyon, Sam Minton, William Minton, James D. Fraley, and Johnnie Jones.

The C. C. & O. Railroad company named the city of Hamlin.  We are on the divide between the limestone (bluegrass) and freestone (coal).  We have the finest and purest water in the state.  We have limestone water on one side of town and freestone on the other side.  We have fine coal wagon mines.  We have two railroad mines shut down (Hamlin Coal Company and Litton Coal Company).  We have the best bluegrass farming land on one side up the town limits and have abundance of coal land on the other side.  We are in 3-½ miles of a large mines and mining town, Dante, Virginia.  Eight to nine hundred men work there.  They put out sixty gondolas of fifty tons per day.

ABOVE: From the April 18, 1934 edition of The Roanoke Times

ABOVE: From the June 28, 1934 edition of The Roanoke Times

The United Mine Workers of America tried to organize Clinchfield Coal Company at Dante.  They came out on strike the ninth day of April, 1934.  Stayed out until June 16, 1934.  Then they held an election.  The Clinchfield beat by three to one.  The company is still running non-union known as the Clinchfield Employees Association, this February 11, 1938.  Then in 1940, Dante and Clinchco joined the United Mine Workers of America.

In 1930, a $6000.00 Baptist Church and a three-room schoolhouse was built in Hamlin.  There is one sawmill, one gristmill, a blacksmith’s shop, three gas stations, and four stores to date, this February 11, 1936.

ABOVE: From the Oct. 3, 1930 edition of the Bristol Herald-Courier

Hamlin citizens owned fifty-five milk cows, twenty-five head of horses and mules, and twenty dogs.  Hamlin has been noted for its trading.  At one time, it was a great horse trading center and is now a great center for trading cattle and hogs.  They pay the largest prices for Chickens, eggs and butter than any where in this country.

The first cook stove bought and brought to Hamlin was in 1874.  Jole Ramsey bought the stove from Scott Dickenson for $20.00.  It was a little box step stove.  It had four eyes in the top.  The front half of the top was three inches lower than the back.  The people of Hamlin cooked on fireplaces in the chimney.  The fireplaces were about five feet wide and three feet back and four feet high.  They had an iron rack built-in or over the fireplace.  They would hang their big cast iron pots over the fire.  They baked their bread in ovens in the fireplace.  They were cast iron heavy built about twelve or fourteen inches in diameter and about four inches deep with a heavy lid.  They had a flange turned up around them to hold the fire and coals.

In 1876 John Jones had the only grissmill.  It was built by cutting out a square hole in a solid rock about twenty-four inches wide and twenty-four inches deep.  Cut a stone square to fit loose in the hole.  Placed a pole on the post about the center.  Fastened it with a pin.  Built a box on the other and with a trip bottom.  They would let the water pour in the box until it would raise the stone.  The box would go down until it struck a stake and tripped the bottom which let the water run out.  Then the stone would drop back in the hole.  The corn was placed in the hole.  The stone hitting the corn smashed it up into meal.  It took twenty four hours to make one bushel of meal.  Then later on about 1880 John Jones went to Abingdon, Virginia and bought a hand gristmill.  The mill was turned by hand.  One man fed the corn at a time.  It took two men to operate this mill.  It took twelve hours to grind one bushel of meal. 

They had here furniture such as bedsteads.  They bored holes through the railing about six inches apart.  Then run a rope through and across the bed until they filled the holes.  They used this for slats or springs.  Lumber was hard to get or manufacture.  So in making the floors in the best rooms, they took small logs split them in halves.  Smoothed the split side and laid them with the round side down.  They called them puncheon floors.

Believe it or not, we now have a store manager and clerk that commenced working on March 22, 1932, and has worked until March 22, 1936 and is still working.  He has only missed one day during the entire four years.  He commenced working at 6 a.m. and worked until 9 p.m.  He also worked on Sundays.  Solid time fifteen hours every day makes 21,900 hours with 15 hours lost time, makes him 21, 885 hours.

Believe it or not in the year 1909, Crocket Kiser was shot by a Negro through the temple.  Lost one eye and lived about three years.  After that he got hurt and he died.  We also have a man John Johnson that shot himself through the brain.  He went blind but is still living, making music.

There were twenty-two northern soldiers and forty horses drowned at Wheeler’s Ford. [Editor’s note: To read about this incident, click this link: DEATH AT BLUE BELL ISLAND – CLINCH VALLEY TIMES ]

Two miles below Hamlin we have a junk dealer.  He buys furs and hides, ginseng and herbs, and chickens and eggs, this February 15, 1936.

In about 1859 there was a man by the name of Jones.  He traded a homemade hog rifle for the land now where Clinchfield Coal Company has their operation at Dante, Virginia.  Known then as the Turkey Foot Land.  It got its name from the forks of the creeks.  At Dante there are three forks at the same spot.  Before the company took charge, where the hotel now stands was a salt lick where deer and cattle came for salt.

ABOVE: The Clinchfield Inn at Dante as it appeared prior to its demolition in the 1950’s. Photo Credit: Archives of Appalachia Collection at ETSU

There are five different coal veins running through Hamlin.  They lay on a pitch of about forty-five degrees.  One vein is six feet thick, and one is six and one-half feet thick.  One is four feet thick and one is five feet thick.  The last one is three and one-half feet thick.  The Clinchfield Coal Company owns the land on the west side of Lick Creek and the citizens own it on the other side.

We have a bus running from St. Paul to Grundy, Virginia.  We also have four buses running through Hamlin.  We have four taxicabs that run out of Hamlin.  The owners live here.  We have two passenger trains running through here daily.

Our town is pretty well divided in politics, about on-half Democrats and one-half Republicans.

We now have very few drunks and no stealing at all.  We have a good Sunday School teacher, Missionary Society, and B.Y.P.U.  We hold prayer meeting every Wednesday night.  We have large crowds at our meetings.  We have dinner on the ground once every year.

ABOVE: From the Oct. 1, 1932 edition of The Roanoke Times

About six years ago Ray Johnson and Tom Meade caught three bank robbers in Hamlin.  They held up the Cleveland Bank about ten miles from here.  They started to leave Cleveland in a car.  They went about five miles and wrecked the car.  They then went on foot down towards Castlewood, Virginia and across the Dickenson Farm to the C.C. & O. railroad.  Then up the Railroad to Hamlin.  There the officers caught them.

ABOVE: From the October 7, 1929 edition of The Portsmouth Star

AND because every story has an addendum, here’s what happened to two sisters who lost their savings when the Bank of Cleveland failed in the 1920’s. This is obviously a good story, so perhaps it deserves a separate CVT article of its own. What do you think?

ABOVE: From the May 21, 1930 edition of The Roanoke Times

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