Cumberland Homesteads: Where We Came From
By Charles Tollett, Special to the Crossville Chronicle
Jan 2, 2017
The Great Cumberland Coal Field or Bon Air Mountain
Before the mines. Settlers on Bon Air Mountain, on the border of Cumberland and White Counties, had faced struggle and challenge for many years, even after finding coal deposits available to them by pick and shovel. One could go out back and pick up a few lumps of coal to burn in the fireplace or stove. Successful coal mining required, as a key component, a way to get the product to market. The railroad was extended from McMinnville to Sparta in 1884. By 1905 the train was able to reach the mines at Clifty and Ravenscroft and the boom was on. That railroad never reached Crossville where rail service through Monterey arrived in 1900.
Company Coal Towns. Bon Air Coal, Land, and Lumber Company and Clifty Coal and Coke Company (later merged) built Company Towns at Bon Air, Ravenscroft, Eastland, and Clifty between 1888 and 1904. There were other mines, e.g.Corolla and another town DeRossett, which did not have mines. It was the switching point for the spur lines to the mines and had a depot, water tank, scales to weigh the coal, and a section house from which workers maintained the tracks and extinguished fires from engine sparks. The Section House still stands and serves as a museum and offices for the Bon Air Mountain Historical Society. Here visitors can learn more of the fascinating story of the mines, the communities, and the people who stood tall and helped to shape the communities that gave them livelihood. Each spring at Homecoming one of the communities is selected for a field trip back in time.
Good times on the Mountain. Prosperity came to the mountain and thousands of tons of coal were mined and hauled to market. Relations between miners and companies were not always harmonious, They did lack the hostility and violence found in neighboring counties of Fentress and Overton. A message in camp papers on July 14,1920, told of a pay increase of 14 percent for miners, bringing them to the class of skilled labor at $3.10/hour and more than $80/month. The newly found prosperity enticed families to allow their boys to go to the mines as young as 12 years of age.
Anovel approach. There was union activity as early as 1926 when United Mine Workers organized at Eastland and the mines shut down. With little experience in labor relations beyond “we’ll furnish the jobs and you do the work,” the mine operators and miners saw few options. One interesting strategy used at Eastland was for owners to contract with well-respected Jim Bohanan to get miners to get the coal out. The company paid Jim and he paid the miners in a departure from the usual employer-employee contract. This arrangement continued until 1931. Some mining was done as late as 1935; the railroad was shut down in 1936.
The way it was. A visitor to the area today might have difficulty imagining the vitality of the mining towns in boom days. Clifty, where there is signage about the past and remnants of the post office, was once the largest mine in Tennessee; payday at Clifty was a great social occasion for dressing up and celebrating. Eastland and nearby Clifty once had at least 500 homes. With a family size of parents and four children, we would have 3,000 in the two towns. Ravenscroft was built by Bon Air Coal and Iron Co. in 1903; in 1917 the population was 500 and two passenger trains ran daily to Sparta. Speed Rollins, a Bon Air miner stated at a later time: “The sun has set on Bon Air many years ago, it’s only Route 7 now, but to me a beautiful dream. As they say at the ballpark, rounding third and heading home.” The reference to baseball is timely, since every town had a team that was a source of pride and focal point of community spirit. The teams were good and well equipped with some help from the Chicago Cubs (World Champions in 1908). Yes, William Wrigley of the Cubs and Spearmint gum was a principal investor in the mines.
No more blows the whistle. During mining times the whistle blew each day to call the men to work; the whistle has not blown since 1936. The connection between the miners and the CH Project was not accidental. The Subsistence Homesteads Project of the New Deal was designed with “stranded Miners” in mind. When word of the opportunities for work and hope reached the Mountain, the locals responded with great interest and took necessary steps to participate in the building of a new community and a new life. These folks never lost their love for and identity with The Mountain; they just added a new loyalty and a new set of friends.
Ravenscroft and Earl Webb. The memoriesof the folks from the Mountainare strong and precious. There is a sense of sadness for the loss of economic vitality associated with the mines in their heyday. There is also a sense of pride and identity for who we are and what we did. One of several communities reclaiming this pride is Ravenscroft, where a shaft coal mine was sunk in 1902 and worked until 1936. A park with walking trails around the no-longer worked mines is being built on 25.02 acres. This mine is the only one listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. Philip Dale Smith wrote of Ravenscroft: “And the wheels of the mind try to turn backward to see it as it was — and the heart thrill, yet aches, as it can never fully get there.” One of the great sets of memory lingers around the local baseball team and its all-time hero Earl Webb, who still holds the Major League records for doubles — 67 in 1931 with the Boston Red Sox. One of Earl’s favorite tales concerns his walking eight miles to Pleasant Hill for a pitching duel with Walter Stewart, another White Countian who later cast his lot with Crossville.
A Special case from the Mountain, Harry Wellons
Have you heard of Cumberland Homesteads? When Cumberland Homesteads started, Harry Wellons was on the Mountain at Todd Town near Eastland but not of the Mountain. He was a young man on a mission. His mission with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) was to serve where needed in the Gulf (Scott’s). As a Friend with friends in high places, he learned about CH long before those around him were aware. It’s a fact that Eleanor Roosevelt was impressed with the work of AFSC and its leader Clarence Pickett in their efforts to help the needy. She stated that she appreciated the Friends because they spent more time serving others and less time debating theology. Pickett and Homer Morris, who had very early impact on CH, were advisors to FDR. By the way, Wellons called these men and himself Quakers and so will we. He used his friendship with these prominent Quakers to learn about CH. He applied, was interviewed by Miss Clara White, sister of his friend Rev. Edward White of Pleasant Hill, and was accepted with the condition that he marry. Wellons used the occasion to propose to his fiancée Esther Lindley and she chose to accept. The great contribution of this young couple illustrates the truth that folks of special privilege are not necessarily poorly qualified. They also represented a very different worldview and perspective that some fellow Homesteaders found challenging.
Moving on and moving in. Leaving his work in the Gulf on April 1,1934, he loaded his belongings into his old Whippet car and headed, as have hundreds of others, to No. 1 Grassy Cove to report for work. He was one of 40 men reporting for work that day and they were given jobs, a place to stay in the men’s barn (there was no women’s barn), and meals at the new barn with J.T. Vaden as cook. This may be a good time to report that, after his new wife arrived, he traded his Whippet car to J.T. for a Jersey cow. The food was good, but greasy to Wellon’s taste and to his over-sensitive stomach. His first job was digging post holes and putting up fence; his second job was carpentry. He was soon assigned to shingling roofs with a young Frenchman named Defoe. One of his first tasks out side of work was to organize the first baseball team on the CH.
Making our mark. Young Wellons left a very detailed account of his years at CH from which we are able to learn much about daily life and especially the social life of young Homesteaders with whom the new couple worked. He wrote of moving into the loft of Lon Watley's barn on July 1, 1934, then to their own barn in September with the Maynards moving into the loft, and finally to their own house in October 1935. He was promoted often and was soon assigned to management duties. Wellons served with second Manager Stanton and then with Oliver when he replaced Stanton as manager. His stories of the labor union and operation of cooperatives, though very revealing, must be spared for another article. He left in 1938 as he came to us in 1934 — on a mission for the AFSC, this time, in Jamaica. His position was filled by Owen Metzger, who was responsible for much of the documentation that informs us of the early years of the Project. Please do not be surprised if the name of Quaker Harry Wellons shows up again in this series.