Tom Haddix Recalls

(An Interview From Late 1930s)

Editor's Note - In the last part of the 1930's as Breathitt County's l00th birthday was approaching, the Federal Writer's Program was established. We are very lucky that through the efforts of Mrs. Marie R. Turner and the Breathitt County Board of Education, Breathitt County was chosen as one of the two counties to be featured in the project. The result is the official history of our county, In The Land Of Breathitt. Mrs. Margaret Bishop of the Federal Writer's Program was sent into our county about 1938 to gather information for the forthcoming book. She did much research and she visited many of the older citizens of our county. As she finished her reports she would send copies to a central office. Luckily, those copies have survived and much of her unpublished material which was not used in the final book remains today. She did several oral history interviews which add greatly to the story of Breathitt County. We will, of course be using much of her valuable work here in this little publication. Here is the first of her articles written about 1938. As you will see, it takes us back over a hundred years in some cases to a time when life in Breathitt County was much different.

A Talk With Mr. Haddix

Mr. Thomas Haddix, born October 2, 1861, lives on the old home place, the home of the first Haddix, his grandfather, William Haddix, at Haddix:

My father's name was William G. Haddix. He was about seventy-five years old when he died. He died about 1885. He was the son of William Haddix, my grandfather, who came here from North Carolina about 1790. They may have come by way of the Clinch River, but I always heard they came from North Carolina. Three brothers, John, Colby; and Henley came with him. John was called 'Colonel'. He had fought in the Revolutionary War. He settled in the northern part of what is now Breathitt County, on what is now the Bill Back farm. (This is on the Panbowl section of Breathitt.) He was a member, Representative of the State legislature and helped secure the survey of the State Highway through here to Virginia. State highway no.15 follows the same survey.

Colby Haddix settled in Wolfe County. He is father of Samuel of the letter to the Jackson Hustler, J.J. Dickie's paper, of 1884. Colby had about seven children. In 1837 the State Legislature changed the voting precinct from "House of Colby Haddix to the house of William Haddix, at Troublesome, (this was a part of Perry County then).

Henly Haddix was the father of Butler Haddix. He lived on the old homestead. He settled on Lost Creek. He was thrown from a horse and killed before I was born.

Henly Haddix owned much land on North Fork and the Middle Fork on the Kentucky River. He paid taxes on the following property during 1840, first year following the organization of Breathitt County: 5,000 acres on the Middle Fork, value $9,000; 3,000 acres on the Middle and North Fork of the Kentucky River, value $1,000; 2 slaves, value $800; four children between ages seven and seventeen years; total value of property on which he paid taxes, $10,800.

William Haddix married a Miss Miller; they had four sons and six(?) daughters. One of the daughters, Cynthia, married Louis Bohanan and later immigrated to Texas a few years before the Civil War. One daughter, Nancy, married Judge E.C. Strong, or "Red Ned" as he was called. Another daughter married a Williams and two of them married McIntoshes. The McIntoshes came here not long after William Haddix. William and Henley settled on Lost Creek, near the mouth of Troublesome. The settlement has always been known as "Haddix". One of William's sons was named William Grey, and known as William G. Haddix. He was the father of Thomas Haddix.

My grandfather enjoyed fighting with his fists, prizefighter. He was about five feet and ten inches tall and weighed 180 pounds. He was a muscular giant. One day a fellow came along here, up the creek near his home, met up with my grandfather and said, "I want to find Billy Haddix." Grandfather told him, "You've found him." Hooley was the man's name. He told grandfather he had come to fight him. Grandfather stripped and fought Hooley and broke several of his ribs. Then he took Hooley to his home and kept him there, took care of him till he was well. He had no hard feelings toward Hooley, for it was a contest. My grandfather had frequent prize- fights, but was never defeated. The Haddixes are large, heavy men and women, most weighed from 160 to 180 pounds. Most of them are dark brunettes.

William Haddix paid taxes on the following property during 1840, the year following the organization of Breathitt County: 500 acres land on the North Fork of the Kentucky River, value $2,000, 100 acres on the North Fork of the Kentucky River, value $50; 500 acres on the Middle Fork of the Kentucky River, value $300; 500 acres on Cane Creek, value $600; 300 hundred acres on Lost Creek, value $400; ten slaves value $3,900; 5 horses; thirty head of cattle; three children between ages of seven and seventeen, total value of property of $8,168.

When the Haddixes came here they had horses and pack horses on which they carried their food, bedding, clothing and a few things for their new home. The women rode much of the journey, sit ting in front of or on top of the loads on the horses.

My grandfather, William Haddix, built a two story long house on the same site where I now live. He first settled on what is now the railroad crossing, over there; then he moved across the Kentucky River and built a house of logs twenty feet square. It had a flat rock chimney for the fireplace. The arch rock is in different pieces with a keystone in the middle of the arch. Some of the pieces of the arch may be lying around the yard now. The house was torn down along about 1879 or 1880. In 1904 I tore down the chimney, afraid it might fall.

I first built a plank house of two rooms. Later I tore it down and built the present one; along about 1936. It is one and one-half stories and has seven rooms, including the rock basement rooms. We had water, supplied from a spring, for family use. We concreted a basin for the water in the side of the hill. Yes, we used oxen a great deal in farming and hauling. They are slow, but they are strong. They can travel where horses and mules can't. A horse or mule would sink in the quick- sands, but the feet of the oxen spread and they don't sink. They can travel through quicksand. About the only team of oxen now in the county is owned by Sewell Roberts up here a ways on the Lost Creek road, after you cross the Troublesome. We used large grapevines for roping in the early days. I've seen big grapevines, as big as my leg (he put his hand on his thigh). They used the vines to tie up their boats to some tree or a rock on the shore. In the early days, besides clearing the new ground so the women could plant and work the crops, the men did logging and hunted, for they could always sell their furs.

The flintlock rifle was the only one used in early years. Then the gunsmith re-made these into cap-locks. John B. Haddix, son of Henly Haddix was the locksmith. He was always known as, 'Butter Haddix,' just a nickname. Yes, we used bows and arrows; I used them when I was a boy. I've used them many a time for killing squirrels and fish. We did most of our fishing that way. We made the bows from cedar; the arrows were made from sourwood sprouts in preference to the Indian arrowwood. Sourwood sprouts were more plentiful, too. Then we had spikes made from iron for arrow points.

Most everybody had dogs, just cur dogs. The hound dogs came in later. The dogs we had were cur dogs, big, strong dogs and severe. They had to be to tackle the wild animals.

Daniel Boone had just two dogs and a rifle; they were cur dogs, large dogs, severe dogs. Once Daniel Boone came in at the head of Kentucky River and came down the North Fork, right all the way through Breathitt County. His wife has relatives in Breathitt.

When the early settlers first came, game was plentiful: wild hogs, deer, elk, bear, 'coon, possum, and squirrels. Squirrels were so thick some years I could kill them with stones. Many a time I've killed enough for a mess with nothing but stones. Wild fowls were plentiful, as were turkeys and pigeons. I've seen the pigeons fly so thick they darkened the sun. That's about 65 or 70 years ago. There was a pigeon roost about thirty miles up Troublesome Creek, in Perry County now. So many would roost on the trees the branches bent away down. We could get meat easy then. The pigeons all left suddenly, many years ago.

There is a place named Beaver Dam, about seven miles up on the Troublesome. When the beavers were first found, they had a real large dam built there. There were large otter there, too. The hunters killed nearly all of them out and the few left disappeared. The next we learned of the beavers they were over the Middle Fork of the Kentucky River. They moved down about two miles below the mouth of Buckhorn Creek. Tip Bailey has a store there; he knows about the place where the beaver are. (Lower Beaver Dam Creek is in Perry County, about an equal distance from the Breathitt-Perry line. The latter empties into Troublesome Creek.)

When my grandfather first came here the Big Bottoms (land lying along the large creeks and the Forks of the Kentucky River) were covered with walnut and yellow poplar timber. The canes grew so thick one could scarcely get through them. In some places they'd meet overhead along the streams.

During the early days ginseng, or "Sang" as they all called it, was very plentiful. It brought $7 a pound then, but about $3 now. It was always good money. One time two women were gathering "sang" out in the wilds and a panther came real close to them, but they got away from it. The women gathered the "sang" and they always had to keep watch for wild animals. Ginseng has been cultivated, one man trying a quarter-acre about 1914, but it did not fetch the high price of the wild growth. Some have tried transplanting it, during the first year of its growth to the same soil and shade in a part of the woods near their homes. They did so, that they might have more "sang" and be able to watch it.

In the early years shoes, or boots were made from deer skins, but mostly from cowhides. The skins of the groundhog were dressed and used for making string for the boots. These strings would scarcely ever break or wear out.

Most of the people around here were Baptists. Our preacher came from Morgan County, one that we had. He came on horseback. They used the schoolhouse for preaching in. When the Methodists came in here they came on horseback, too. Their preachers were called Circuit-riders. We had a schoolhouse on Lost Creek. The old site lies on the Highway No.15. It's this side of Strong's store, up at Lost Creek. I went to school about five years at our first school; then I went to the school at Lost Creek when I was about ten years old. R.S. Landrum was my teacher then. Reuben S. Landrum taught school at Lost Creek about 1865. He taught at other places in the country. He taught here in Jackson, too.

My father had four sons and four daughters. I remember during the Civil War he left here and went to Miller's Creek in Estill County. He returned from there in April 1865. I remember the day Abe Lincoln was killed.

My grandfather owned about thirty slaves when he died. He always gave some of his slaves to each child when they married. When the slaves were freed, many of ours did not want to leave the place. We always kept plenty of sheep till the Legislature passed the stock law preventing the sheep from running wild. We always had from fifty to seventy head of sheep. They always roamed through the hills and fed; they were fat, too. We would gather them and bring them home for lambing and we'd feed them some then. I've carried wool to Booneville to a carding factory; grandfather and me took it many a time. We'd have the men carded and then the women made clothing and blankets and wool spreads from it. They made everything we wore in those days. The women wore linsey dresses. Linsey is wool cloth. The chain is of cotton (warp) and the filling is of wool (woof).

The women gathered a lot of wild herbs and roots from the wood and we always sold them. "Sang", yellowroot, snakeroot, bloodroot, walnuts, hickory nuts, and chest-nuts were always plentiful. They gathered elderberries and made wine from them; it's good wine, too. Blackberries were plentiful. The women gathered them and put them up, sweetened with maple sugar made from the sugar trees (Maple Trees). They made blackberry wine and peach brandy, too. They made whiskey from the corn, but our people did not make as much of it as some of the other families. During the early times we sold logs, timber, hogs, cattle, sheep, salt, coal, and "sang". It brought good money. The women raised fowls and used the feathers in making pillows and beds. We sold cattle and hogs in Virginia. Sometimes the buyers came here for furs, especially.

The early salt works was right here, in Haddix, when my father was a boy. It was right where the Haddix depot now is (L & N Railroad). They drilled four hundred feet for the well. At two hundred they struck a vein of coal about eleven feet thick. They drilled on through it till the salt water came. This salt water was piped into a cistern and then piped so it would run into the salt kettles. We built a furnace of stones, made a hot fire in it, and put the kettles of water on to boil. The water boiled down and left the salt. The most of the kettles were large. I have a small one, a thirty gallon one at my home now. Yes, you may have a picture of it. There's another kettle up at Beech Davidson's, see Henly, Beech's father. Another old salt works was at the end of the Lost Creek bridge. William and his son-in-law worked at the salt works. (Bohanan was in the Confederate Army; then he went to Missouri; but returned later, then he worked at the salt works. We got $2 a bushel for salt about 1875. People bought salt as fast as we could make it. In early years when they first came here they had to go to Clay County for salt. One salt well was above where Copeland Station now is. It was at Lick Shoal, the mouth of Shoal Branch. It was operated and closed before the Civil War. Each welL had to be bored through a vein of coal. They always struck the coal about two hundred feet down. I was about twelve or fifteen years old when the salt works closed. During the war we made just about enough salt for the people around here. The Nobles had a salt well, too.

The land speculators, the ones that stayed awhile till they took out nearly all the timber, came here about 1883 or 1884. They paid $2 an acre for the fine timberland. They own a lot of the land now. We sold lots of fine timberland to them. The Kentucky Union Land Company bought up thousands and thousands of acres. All the Haddix land had been marked in boundaries. My people did this when they first came here. We used to have a sawmill, a water-mill. We ran a sash saw. It worked up and down, something like a crosscut saw. We sawed boards the length of the logs. We sawed boards, yellow, poplar, twenty-four inches wide. When we made whiskey here, we cut a length of log, length of a barrel, and hollowed it out, then plugged a top in it. We cut lengths for staves and sent them away to stave mills, but this was later. Our first stave mill was put up here in 1908.

My father, William G. Haddix, mined coal. Coal was first mined here during 1852 or 1853. I can remember going on coal boats, and on log rafts to Frankfort. We took coal in boats to Frankfort, took it out at Clifton, Boonesboro, and at Clay's Ferry.

John Wilson had the Wedge mines close to Haddix. He married my father's sister. (He later left here and went to Missouri, after his wife died). We had a big Cannel Coal mine, too. We picked coal in those days; yes, with a hard pick This is how we did it: We used a mattock, a grum bing hoe, and picked away the dirt; then we'd shovel the dirt off. We kept this up till we struck rock, then we'd pick through the rock with a pick. These have two points, the handle runs about the middle of the metal part. We used these hand picks to cut the coal. In the the Cannel Coal min. what is known as the common coal lies on top of the vein. It is about one foot thick. We cut his away before the Cannel Coal could be Cannel Coal is the most valuable of the coals. It can be split very thin with an axe and the this pieces catch fire from a lighted match. One place near here, we mined through a hill from one side to the other, about 600 feet through.

I helped get out the largest block of Cannel Coal ever mined in those days; the largest block ever to leave the Kentucky River. A Scotchman came here, looked at the Cannel Coal, then he wanted a block to take to the World's Fair at Chicago, in the 1890s. Leroy McIntosh helped me do the cutting. Yes, we cut it with a hand pick. It was four feet square and thick. We had to hitch up a yoke of oxen to pull it out of the mines. The Scotchman gave us $10 for getting it out. It took the premium at the World's Fair. It has always been called "Premium" coal since. These mines shut down in 1928. We always mined in the winter. Yes, some of the openings have been sealed by the health department, the ones that are mined out. About fifteen or twenty years ago we commenced to shoot the coal. Yes, use dynamite. Many mines now cut coal with electricity, but I think there is only one in Breathitt that does that.

I surveyed the line for the Lexington and Eastern Railroad when they were here. (It is now the L & N Railroad.) I surveyed through Breathitt and into Perry County. I gave one hack to mark a tree, picked a letter or painted it on rocks. We mostly used a pick and made the letter "X" on the rocks. The Kentucky Union Land Company painted rocks and trees, both. Mobray and Robinson came in here about 1914. They built their own railroad from the mouth of Quicksand to run up Quicksand through their land, connecting with the L & N. This was the Lexington and Eastern when first surveyed and it runs through the Haddix land for about four or five miles. The depot used to stand right there in front of us, in front of the store. Then they moved it up where it now stands, Haddix Depot. This village was named for me. We had the Post Office, too. The first Post Office in the village was about 1911. The depot was built about 1911. We had only about three houses along here, between the Post Office and the depot. (Haddix is a pretty village, even a sidewalk for a short distance, cottages painted white with tree-shaded lawns and gardens trimly kept. The village lies along the river, but lying between the railroad and the State Highway No.15).

Yes, all forks of the Kentucky River are navigable when the water is high enough. I live on the home place where the first Haddix lived. I live with my son, Charlie. He served in the World War, across in France. He was wounded while there. We have fifty acres, more or less. I had eight sons and tour daughters. Two families of Haddixes moved out to Wisconsin about 1910. They still live there. I have one sister in Perry County and one in Powell County. Judge Strong, "Red Ned" married a sister of my father. The graves you speak of in the Strong burying ground as "Rock Tombs" will be Henly Haddix and his wife. My grandfather and his wife are buried on the home place across the river where I live. It's just along there a little ways. They are buried in a rock tomb. The slaves of the family are buried there, too. My father, William G. Haddix and my mother, his other sons, and my children, are buried about one and one-half miles from here, up along this road. You cross a railroad bridge over the river to reach my home. This road, up along here, goes through yo Chavies, Perry County.

We cover the graves, for we don't like to think of the storms disturbing our dead. We have great respect for the dead. We may walk around the graves, but it's not right to disturb the graves. Yes, the dead come back. For God's sake don't bring Red Ned back for he'll have mortgages on everything in Breathitt County.

After the Civil War when the Amises and the Strongs returned they had one of the first feuds I remember. Both families had been on the Union side. The Strongs killed out the Amises, many of them. They run off the rest of them, most of them, anyway.