Trees Above with Coal Below

TREES ABOVE WITH COAL BELOW By John Nuttall, II NEYENESCH PRINTERS SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA 1961 TREES ABOVE WITH COAL BELOW 2 Preface In 1870 my grandfather, John Nuttall, purchased his first parcel of land on the C&O (Chesapeake and Ohio Railway), that followed the north bank of New River which cuts Fayette County West Virginia in two. Annually buying more lands during the next 26 years, he acquired a large boundary none of which has yet been sold, and my granddaughters inherited a fourth part of that property upon the death of my son in 1952. With all of their sights focused on the future, the girls are not yet old enough to have any particular interest in the past. Believing the time will come when the girls and their possible children will have dozens of questions they would like to ask about their lands and the activities of their ancestors, with no living person able to give the answers, I have undertaken the task of telling them everything that comes to my mind on back to their great-great-grandfather. This history is intended and believed to be a truthful, factual account, but due allowance must be made for the fact that the writer is not an authority on any of the subjects discussed unless it possibly be about corner trees. I am simply telling what I saw, heard, did, and believed as a layman, ostensibly for the benefit of the granddaughters, but it will soon be discovered that it is principally an old man enjoying himself reminiscing. Inasmuch as I was named for my grandfather, it occurred to me that I could escape the odium of spelling out my own name a hundred times amd also eliminate a few hundred personal pronouns if I used only his initials when referring to my grandfather, then I went a step further by euphonizing his J.N. initials into the name of Jayne. TREES ABOVE WITH COAL BELOW 3 TREES ABOVE WITH COAL BELOW 4 Table of Contents Chapter One ...................................................................................................................................14 Chapter Two...................................................................................................................................26 Chapter Three.................................................................................................................................42 Chapter Four ..................................................................................................................................58 Chapter Five ...................................................................................................................................66 Chapter Six.....................................................................................................................................76 Chapter Seven ................................................................................................................................90 Chapter Eight .................................................................................................................................98 Chapter Nine ................................................................................................................................110 Chapter Ten ..................................................................................................................................120 Chapter Eleven .............................................................................................................................130 Chapter Twelve ............................................................................................................................136 TREES ABOVE WITH COAL BELOW 5 TREES ABOVE WITH COAL BELOW 6 Photographs Photograph 1 - John Nuttall .............................................................................................................8 Photograph 2 - John Nuttall and Children .......................................................................................9 Photograph 3 - Laurence William “Will” Nuttall and Katharine DuBree .....................................10 Photograph 4 - Laurence William “Will” Nuttall – Botanizing ....................................................11 Photograph 5 - John Nuttall II, author ...........................................................................................12 Photograph 6 – Hawksnest at C&O Bluehole ................................................................................15 Photograph 7 – Fayette Rock Seam ...............................................................................................16 Photograph 8 – McVey Patent .......................................................................................................36 Photograph 9 – 150 Feet Below Nuttall Station ............................................................................52 Photograph 10 – Taylor Family on Short Creek ............................................................................53 Photograph 11 – Coke Oven Area .................................................................................................54 Photograph 12 - Looking eastward up New River from top of cliffs above Nuttall which is entirely hidden by trees. .....................................................................................................80 Photograph 13 - When this recent picture of Hawks Nest Bridge was taken, a dam backed up the waters of New River. ............................................................................................120 TREES ABOVE WITH COAL BELOW 7 TREES ABOVE WITH COAL BELOW 8 Photograph 1 - John Nuttall Born: April 9, 1817 Cupola Clough, Lancashire Died: September 17, 1897 DeBree, West Virginia TREES ABOVE WITH COAL BELOW 9 Photograph 2 - John Nuttall and Children Top Row (left to right): John Nuttall, Elizabeth Alice Nuttall (McGaffey) Bottom Row (left to right): Martha Nuttall (Taylor), Laurence William “Will” Nuttall Not Pictured: Susanna Nuttall (Todd), Thomas Nuttall (drowned) TREES ABOVE WITH COAL BELOW 10 Photograph 3 - Laurence William “Will” Nuttall and Katharine DuBree TREES ABOVE WITH COAL BELOW 11 Photograph 4 - Laurence William “Will” Nuttall – Botanizing TREES ABOVE WITH COAL BELOW 12 Photograph 5 - John Nuttall III, author TREES ABOVE WITH COAL BELOW 13 TREES ABOVE WITH COAL BELOW 14 Chapter One New River arising in North Carolina flows 200 miles northeast until it is 50 miles due west of Roanoke, Virginia. Here it makes a left turn to its gap through the Allegheny mountain, then flows 200 miles northwest all the way through West Virginia to the Ohio River. Thirty-five miles inside of West Virginia it receives the waters of the Greenbrier River coming from the northeast along the western side of the Allegheny and 65 miles farther northwest, New River is again augmented by the Gauley River which also comes from the northeast. Between these two confluences, New River had to abrade its channel through innumerable seams of rock that were slow to weather away and still remain to protect the stratums under each one of them, thereby giving the river such steep sides as to place the canyon in the category of a gorge that is a thousand feet deep. From the Greenbrier to the Gauley, New River flows to almost every point of the compass in its tortuous journey. To avoid confusion to the reader we will assume that it flows due west. Meadow River with its source about 20 miles north of New River and 20 miles west of the Greenbrier flows west parallel to New River to empty into the Gauley 30 miles above its mouth. New River, Meadow River and the Gauley with steep banks, boulders in their beds and along the banks, never had any trail of any kind nor could any canoe negotiate those rivers. Fayette County excepting the roadbed blasted out by the railroads. TREES ABOVE WITH COAL BELOW 15 Photograph 6 – Hawksnest at C&O Bluehole New River below Hawksnest at C&O Bluehole tunnel which can be seen near left center of picturee. Photograph was taken by M.R. Campbell and published in the U.S. Geological Survey, Sevenntteenth Annual Report, part 2 TREES ABOVE WITH COAL BELOW 16 Photograph 7 – Fayette Rock Seam Picture taken from on top of the Fayette rock seam, looking eastward up New River shhowing the Hawksnest bridge. The river is at food stage which covers the boulders. The Fayette rock can be seen not yet at the top of the canyon. Photograph by M.R. Campbell, published in the U.S. Geologicaal Survey, Seventeenth Annual Report, part 2. The crest of the Allegheny became the boundary line betwween Virginia and West Virginia. The first adventurere , who followed the James River up to its source then went straight up and over the Allegheny, crossed about 50 miles north of the New River gap and entered Greenbrier county West Virginia. Here he found good soil with fine grasslands along the Greenbrier River that flows only 12 miles below the crest at this place. Greenbrier County reaches 50 miles westward from the crest; the north half of Fayette County carries on for another 50 miles, then Kanawha countyy extends another 50 miles down the Kanawha Rivere with Charleston located 38 miles below the Gauley junction. West of the Gauley, New River met no more thick rock seams. Therefore it has no boulderss in its channel, level ground along its banks, and more gently receding hillsides. Because of this sudden peacefulness after dashing through the New River gorge, the stream iss given a new name to become the Kanawha River from the Gauley on to the Ohio, some 85 miles. TREES ABOVE WITH COAL BELOW 17 From the Gauley up to the Greenbrier the strata

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