ARTICLE:
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THE CARPENTER'S, AN EARLY PIONEER FAMILY OF BRAXTON COUNTY
The following excerpts are from the "Tales of the Elk River Country" as told by Ernie Carpenter, also from the "History of the Carpenters of Fort Carpenter", 1746-1949.
Ernie Carpenter can tell you a great deal about the early history of Elk River. His family down through the generations have been fiddle players living on the upper Elk.
His family home on the river was inundated after the construction of the Sutton Dam in 1955. Ernie 'refugeed" to a small place just north of Sutton. He built a new house using lumber from the old house, but has never gotten over his sense of loss.
The stories and conversations held with Ernie have been recorded and have been published in Goldenseal Volume 12, Number 2 in the article, "Tales of the Elk River Country".
Ernie's great-great-grandfather, Jeremiah Carpenter. One of the first settlers in Braxton Co. Jeremiah the son of William. Carpenter a descendant of the New England Carpenters. This William, the son of the pioneer Joseph Coles Carpenter, who was waylaid and scalped in an attack by Delaware and Mingo Indians. This is said to have taken place about October, 1763. (State Library in Richmond, Va. says Sept. 1750) along with William there were nine other people killed in this raid on the Jackson River - Nicholas Carpenter, James Mayse, Nicholas Nutt, Stephen Sewell, James Montgomery, John Byrd, Mr. Boyle, Mr. Fry and George Kincaid. Joseph Coles Carpenter a son of Nathaniel Carpenter (1668-1729) a native of Musketo Cove, Long Island, New York. Joseph settled in Allegheny Co. Va. in the spring of 1746 where he cleared land on his survey of 782 acres that he had obtained by patent or grant 1 June 1750, from King George III. After clearing the land and putting in a crop, he returned to New York for his family. On his return to his land, he brought with him Peter Wright, who also obtained a grant for the entire site of what is now Covington, Va. In 1792, Peter divided his land between in sons, John & William. Old papers on file in the Court House at Fincastle, Botetourt Co. Va. it states that the Carpenter pioneers of this region erected a Stockade-Fort as a place of refuge during Indian attacks. (More can be found on the Carpenter family in the "History of the Carpenters of Fort Carpenter" 1746-1949,Chapter. III.)
Solomon Carpenter, a son of Jeremiah Carpenter, is the grt-grandfather of Ernie, and he is the son of Shelt Carpenter of Braxton.
Ernie Carpenter: "My grandfather is where I got the most of my information from, what I know, what happened. He would set and talk to me by the hour and tell me those things. I was just a youngster, just a kid then. Because I would set and listen to that kind of stuff it made him interested in it, made him want to tell me all these things." And he told him about the county side where his ancestors settled, when it was untouched by civilation. All about the county side, and the valleys, were now the Sutton Dam is located.
Ernie: "If you'd have ever saw that back years ago before the backwater was up there from the dam, you could have easily understood why they picked that spot when they come in there. That's as far as they went. They settled right there. There were fish, game, bear,deer, there were elk, and they didn't only have Elk River to fish in but they had Laurel Creek.
All they had to do was build a cabin with a roof on it to keep them dry. They didn't even have that for a while. They stayed under rocks until they could get something built. When they did build cabins they was log and the roof on them was old clapboards.My father learnt me how to make clapboards."
(William "Squirrelly Bill" Carpenter, is the grandfather of Ernie.)
About the year 1760, Benjamin and Jeremiah Carpenter were young boys growing up on the outer fringes of the frontier in Western Virginia. The Indians, by then pushed west of the Blue Ridge, were nervous about the advancing whites, and peace between the two peoples was unreliable and at times nonexistent. Ernie tells his family's story of how his great-great-grandfather, Jeremiah, and a neighbor boy adventured too far into the wildwoods one day and were jumped by an Indian hunting party.
Ernie tells the story of how Jeremiah was captured by the Indians when he was twelve years of age, along with a Holcomb boy. And taken to the Indian Village, the Holcomb boy was killed by the Indians, but Jeremiah was saved because of a young Indian maid who begged for his life. Jeremiah and the Holcomb boy were captured by a small band of Shawnee from the Ohio country, and taken to a Village called "Old Town" in Ohio. Jeremiah escaped from this Village when he was about 18 or 19. And returned to his family.
The family stories say that two brothers, Benjamin and Jeremiah, and their families came from Ole Virginia in the late 1700's, carrying their belongings on their backs of oxen. They followed creeks and valley paths through the wilderness until they reached what is now Centrailia, near the Braxton-Webster county line. They thought it was the prettiest place they had ever seen, with clear rushing waters and tall trees. They became substantial landholders in this part of the Elk Valley and on nearby Holly River. "My great-great-grandfather and his family once owned just about all of Holly River," Ernie relates. "He traded it off for a horse and saddle, a mountain rifle and bear dog."
Ernie tells about how the brother of Jeremiah was killed by two Indians at his cabin. The Indians then captured Benjamin's wife and scalped her.
When Jeremiah came home and found his brother and sister-in-law he went to get his wife, who was with child at the time, and went up the Laurel Creek to hide from the Indians in case they came back. They waded in the creek so not to leave footprints for the Indians to track. They waded up to the mouth of Camp Run, and then another mile above that to a large rock that hung out, like a big ledge, they called them shelf rocks. They hid under that shelf rock, and here Solomon (Solly) Carpenter was born, the first white child born in Braxton county. That [fiddle tune] "Shelvin' rock" come from the camp rock that my great-grandfather Solly was borne under.
Another story relates to Jeremiah's wife, having to go get the cows in for the night, and how she hid the children under the floor of the cabin and then she went to search for the cows. They had gotten themselves across the Laurel Creek, and she had to go across to get them. After she had gotten across the creek, a sudden downpour of rain caused the Creek to raise almost out of it's banks. It rained so hard she had to take shelter, and wait until the storm passed. She knew how to swim, but in such a fast and furious water, she knew she could never make it across again.
But her children were alone and she had to get back to them. So she herded the cows into the creek, and then the bull, she grabbed the tail of the bull and let him carry her across. She got the cows back home, and when she got back to the cabin, found her children were just fine. Ernie tells a lot better story, but this gives you an idea what a woman had to do back in the early settlements of this country.
Also about the time when his grt. great grandfather Jeremiah tracked down the big elk,and killed it for their food. Being a extra large elk and to heavy for him to carry over land, he had to find another way to get it back to the cabin. So he skinned the elk, and out of the hide made a canoe which he could float the meat back up to the cabin. He waded the water pushing the elk hide canoe in front of him back to the cabin, which was about twenty miles from where he finally got the elk.
He also tells of the first Christmas tree in Braxton and how it saved them from a band of Indians who had hidden and planned to attack them before they could return to their cabins. He tells that this was when his great-grandfather Solly Carpenter was a young boy. Solly had heard of a Christmas tree, but had never seen one, so Jeremiah found one of the largest pines standing on top of a hill, he took two pieces of wood made it like a cross, and tied them together, and put tallow on it, beef tallow, to make it burn fast and bigger. They took the cross to the top of that tall pine, and tied it on. That evening everyone in the village gathered at the site of the pine to see the Christmas tree. While they were all on top of the hill, a band of Indians had come upon the empty cabins. The Indians went on the look of the people, and when they saw them all standing on top of the hill, they made plans to hide in the rocks at the bottom of the hill, and when they came down they would surprise them and kill them all. Well to make a longer story a little shorter to tell. After dark they lite that cross, and it did burn, fast and bigger, and bigger until it caught the whole top of that big pine on fire. It finally burned itself though the top, and rolled right down that big pine tree, and right on down toward them Indians hiding in the rocks.The Indians thought that something from the sky was coming after them. They were so scared they run off and never bothered one of the village people. A good many years later, when Solly was a young man, he went hunting in the woods, and heard a terrible scream. He went toward the sounds, and found this young Indian boy, who had killed a deer and had it shouldered up and a panther was attacking him for the meat. Solly shot the panther and carried the young Indian boy back to his cabin in the hope that he could be saved, he was badly injured. Well the Indian improved a little, and told Solly about the Christmas tree, and how they had planned on killing them all. Sad to say the Indian did not survive his wounds and Solly took him out and buried him.
Ernie, tells of the respect he has for the Indian people, and how they just wanted to be left alone in their woods, and fought for their homes just like you or I would if someone threaten to take away your homelands.
And he said, "My people are kind of turned like the Indians. They like to live out where it's quiet, off to themselves where they got privacy. That was the nature of the Indian, you know. He wanted to be out in the woods."
Later on, when the country was more settled, Solly Carpenter once witnessed the death of a raftsman on Elk River.
They used to hew out what they called gunwales. They would hew them out of very large trees and they'd just hew two sides of them flat, you know, like hewing a cross tie. They would hew them things out 30,40,50,60 feet long and would float them into Charleston." When they put a couple of them together, they made a good-sized raft. They made barge gunwales out of them for freight barges.
There was a fellow by the name of Gibson had made a couple of those gunwales, and he was going to float them to Charleston. He would not listen when grt. grandfather,told him,"that big of a gunwales was to much for one man to handle, there was a shoal down here that you're going through." It was a short shoal, but it was very rough. The name of the shoal was Breechclout, and it was the next little shoal below Stony Creek. He said back to my great-grandfather, "I don't thank God Almighty for advice on this river, I know all about it." He said, "I'll eat my supper in Sutton , or in hell!" that's just the words he repeated to my great-grandfather." Well he did not say much more to Solly for he hit a huge rock in that shoal, and it threw him off into the river, and he drowned. From that time on many spook stories were told about that place.
Ernie goes on to tell one of the spook Stories, that shook him up a little, sort of scared him after he saw something that he knowed nothing about.His grandfather and his brother, his great-uncle, went fishing, and they took Ernie along with them, mostly to catch bait. They went up there to the mouth of Stony Creek, where all them spook stories have been told about,to fish. They started up that creek, and near a large rock he looked up the creek and saw some honey bees, watering in a little puddle of water. His grt.-uncle knew when he saw them honey bees watering there was a bee tree around close. So they went to find the honey tree. After they had walked a ways he saw a man and he looked like he had on long underwear. He was just moving like slow motion towards us, coming down that creek. His uncle was standing right there by me, looking up that creek, and he never did see that! He never saw that at all. More on this story found in the "Tales of the Elk.River"
Ernie recalls the time his uncle Jake "Squack" Carpenter got spooked into getting a dunking near this same place on the river.
Another good story by Ernie, about his uncle who caught a big pike fish, and how even tho he got himself dunked into the river, the fish never got away.
Ernie's grandfather William "Squirrelly Bill" Carpenter and his exploits are legendary around Braxton County. Brady Randolph, octogenarian and longtime county newspaper editor, said of William, "Elk River and its surrounding streams, fields, and woods were his transportation, his livelihood, and his play -ground." Ernie remembers that his grandfather never wore shoes, but stuck to moccasins in the style of the old settlers. Author William Byrne wrote in Tale of the Elk that, "Squirrelly was an all-around fisherman, a canoe builder and operator, flatboat builder, and steersman, raftsman and general waterdog and fisherman; he was the most inveterate, persistent and uncompromising fisherman ever known in the valley of Elk."
Ernie: My grandfather made canoes and sold them. They got a dollar a foot. they would build these canoes and then take them down to Charleston and sell them. He tells of the two boys who bought two of these canoes, one was a new one and the other was a used one. The boys got into a fight over who got the new one. And few days later, his grandfather came back up the river and saw the canoe setting there cut in two down the middle. He found out later that those two boys had got into a fight and the one sawed it in two. There it was, not worth a cent to nobody.
Sutton was just a village, but there were two or three general stores there and they would give Ernie's grandfather an order for what they wanted. So his grandfather would go down the Elk river to Charleston and get the orders. He explains how many men it usually took to take them big raft type boats down the river, and if the weather was bad how they stayed at certain houses along the way until the weather improved.Sometimes it would take them a few weeks to return from Charleston.
His grandfather, had an instinct for the country side, and Ernie tells of the time that his father, Shelt Carpenter, and Jehu Carpenter his uncle, and his grandfather went on a fishing trip, and how his grandfather saved them all from camping under a huge old dead chestnut tree. He told them to move the camp, since that ole tree was about to come down right on them. They did not believe him, but moved to the camp, and of course the old gentleman was right and about an hour or so later down it fell right where the camp had been located shortly before. Good thing they listened to him and moved that camp or some of them would have surely been killed or injured. When they went on these fishing and camping trips they always took along a special friend of theirs whose name was, Bill Thomas. That Bill was an extra good cook and they took him along to do the cooking for them.
Ernie's grandfather had a gallon bucket almost full of dirt and fish worms. Fish worms was a prize,in them days. That was your bait. His grandfather had this gallon bucket all fixed up to keep them fish worms for four or five days they were going to be camping. In taking the stuff out of the boat, somebody got accidently got the bucket out of the boat along with the other camping equipment. When they made their coffee, they used an open bucket. In those days you just dipped that bucket into the creek or right out of the Elk River, it was good clean water in those days, better than the water we drink today. Well when it was time to get set up for breakfast, Bill Thomas who had gotten up way before day light,and the only light was an old oil lantern scooped up that bucket of worms, thinking it was his bucket to make coffee, and dipped it into the river for some water, and put it on the fire with some coffee in it, When breakfast was ready
and someone said, "Pour the coffee." Well somebody took a look at it and said, "What in the world's in this coffee?" His grand -father just raised up and said, "My God, you've got my fish worm bucket and boiled my fish worms!"
Ernie's grandfather learned to play the fiddle when he was very young. In later years he would go and play for the log rollings, and dances. Ernie tells, "They'd send horses for miles, when they'd have one of these log rollings, and get him to play for that log rolling and dance. The boy that brought the horse would walk, and he would ride the horse. The next day they brought him back the same way. A man that played the music in that day and time was really something special." The fiddle that Ernie played was his grandfather's, it was passed down from one generation to the next, Ernie did not say who owned the fiddle originally, but that it had passed down many times from Uncles, cousins, his grandfather, father and then finally to him.
Ernie's father worked in the lumber woods almost all his life, and also farmed. Ernie was born on the farm which was located about three miles above Sutton. His mother dyeing when Ernie was about ten years old or close to that time. He does not say what caused his mothers death, but his father raised the children by himself. His father did not own a sawmill, but he had a fellow that did his sawing for him and then he would hew ties for the B & O Railroad. Ernie says, "At one time, he cut about all the poles in this area for Monongahela Power and Bell Telephone. They were chestnut only, so when the chestnut timber all died they could not get no more poles in this part of the country, so they started getting those creosote pine poles."
When Ernie was about ten years old, his father would take Ernie with him and he would put Ernie on the lower end of a log, this way his father could pull the saw back toward him and it would almost go by itself downhill. Ernie says, "you know. About all I had to do was keep it straight." There was a lot of danger in doing this, but Ernie's father knew all about the danger and always made sure of his sons safety, by having him move to the upper side of the log before it was sawed clear though.
When his father and the boys went to log, they had to cross the river and he had marked a special place on the bank to show where the river could be crossed, the water here was low enough for the horses. Ernie remembers on one of these trips, the river had rose, and the marker clearly showed that he water was a bit too high. But his father was behind in his logging and had to get work done. He sent Ernie and his brother, both riding on one horse across the river, well the horse finding the water too high lost his footing and off went the boys into the high river. His father seeing this, threw his axe off to the bank of the river, jumped from his horse and into the river.His father was a tall man over six foot, so he waded out to the boys and took them back to shore. The horse was standing out in the river, just nickering and pawing at the water, when Ernie's father called to the horse he came right back to the shore. Although this was an exciting but adventure and probably even a little frighting, no one was hurt, and when evening came and the work was done, his father told the boys," "You fellows go around by Sutton." That was about a five-mile trip down to Sutton and back up Ernie's side of the river. He didn't try to ford it any more when the water was at that stage.
Although Ernie had to give up his education at an early age to work with his father, he accepts the fact that it was necessary to help support the family after his mother's death. The six children cared for one another and stayed together as a family until they were old enough to get married. Mabel in 1930, his father Shelt lived with them on the old homeplace until his death in 1937.
Ernie worked the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company in Clarksburg for 38 years before retiring back in Braxton County in 1972. During his years in Clarksburg, he made regular weekend stays at the homeplace on Elk River. It was during this period that Ernie witnessed the planning and building of the Sutton Dam by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers. This flooding of his old home and boyhood surroundings was a bitter experience.
When they started surveying for the dam it was not long before they started buying up the land, and of course Ernie's property was right in the way of that dam. They offered him twenty five dollars and acre, and nothing for his apple orchard. He also has a house, barn and outbuilding, Ernie says," The house wasn't anything fancy, but it was livable. We lived there."
They offered him two dollars an acre for his oil and gas, and
ten dollars a thousand for his timber, and ten dollars an acre for his coal. Ernie says, " You imagine! You can't buy stove wood for that kind of price. I told them they was robbing me, they was stealing me blind. No way would they give me a cent more, so I took it to court. I gained quite a little bit by taking it to court, but I had my lawyer fees to come out of that."
It was not long after that they sent him word that he had to be off the property by a certain date, and Ernie replied, "
"You tell them that the men that come up here to set me out won't be going back on their own. Somebody will have to come and get them." Of course he finally had to leave the old homeplace, and build somewhere else as close by as he could find. They cut off the road to his old place, so he would go down Bee Hill and up the river, they found out what he was doing, so they cut off that road. This did not stop Ernie, he went over to Hyre, over to Newville and down the river, and they finally cut him off from going back to his old homeplace that way. Ernie would drive out to the top of the hill and walk down the hill to his place when no one was around, He then would go down and tear down his house piece by piece, and he took it back to his new place and built his new house out of part of the old house.
Down though the generations Ernie says that their music always played an important role in their lives. The Carpenters had passed down their music for generations. His brother, Carl Carpenter played the guitar, and Goldie the banjo, and Ernie played the old fiddle. His music was influenced mainly by his father, and grandfather William. Their music is still cherished by Ernie, tunes such as "Betty Baker," "Yew Piney Mountain." "Ole Sledge," "Shelvin' Rock".
Ernie says, another contributor of these older, special tunes was "Uncle Jack" McElwain, who Ernie states" was the best fiddle player I ever heard." Wallace Pritchard, a neighbor and family friend, also taught Ernie tunes as a boy.
Many of the people of the area gathered together to hear the music at the wood alcohol plant near Sutton, Ernie remembers many of the Calhoun County musicians stopping by to play their music. He remembers one old gentleman, called George Hammons, he would come and stay with people for sometimes a week or so and play, he would walk there in the springtime , carrying all his possessions with him, from Clay county,where he tended cattle for someone in the winter.
When Ernie went into the service, and for a period lasting nearly twenty years, he stopped playing his fiddle music. He tells in the "Tales of the Elk River" how he started back to playing after all this time. And how the song "Golden Slippers", stirred up the music down deep inside him again. If you have ever heard them "Golden Slippers" played on a good ole fiddle, then you would understand just how Ernie felt when he heard the Propst boy playing that song for the people down at Sutton.
When Ernie finally got that fiddle down off the closet shelf, he was really scared at what he found. The ole fiddle was covered with a white mold all over it from one end to the other. But after a careful cleaning up by Ernie, it was back to it's old self again, and fit to play. So Ernie started back with his first love his fiddle playing, and has many tunes about the wilds of Braxton county, most of them have been recorded and are now available for us to enjoy for many more generations to come.
To obtain the complete stories by Ernie Carpenter and other West Virginia articles, contact Goldenseal, "the magazine of West Virginia traditional life".
About the authors: Michael Kline and his wife Carrie Nobel Kline operate a business in Elkins, WV: "Talking Across the Lines : Worldwide Conversations." They do book and radio productions of spoken histories. Gerry Milnes is folk arts coordinator at the Augusta Heritage Center. The music of Ernie Carpenter is available on record and cassette from the Augusta Heritage Center. It's titled "Elk River Blues."
Looking for more Carpenter information? "Carpenter Chronicles" by Bette Butcher Topp Or check out the Carpenter Family Report.
Compiled by: Donna (Maxwell) Tivener, 4th great granddaughter of Jeremiah Carpenter, contributed to the Braxton County Web Site March 1998.
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