Arthur, Susan
Cassette Tape Content Outline [CRM:PW\KHM\ARTHURS.INT] Cassette Tape No. 91/11
Knox Historical Museum Oral History Project
General Topic: Tour of the Knox Historical Museum
Date of Interview: March 6, 1991
Date of Transcript: October 28, 1997 [Corrected]
Original Computer word processing program: Professional Write
SUSAN ARTHUR (Born: November 5, 1917)
Cassette Tape date 6 March 1991 on file at the Knox Historical museum. Notes by Lucien Gabriel Holmes.
[KHM:PW\KHM\ARTHURS.INT]
Interviewed by Charles Reed Mitchell on 6 March 1991 at the Knox Historical Museum at the Municipal Building at the corner of Daniel Boone Drive and Liberty Street, Barbourville, KY. Susan Arthur walked through the museum describing artifacts and items in its several rooms. The purpose of the interview was to help preserve the stories behind the items for the future.
One 60-minute cassette tape. Total playing time: approximately 45 minutes. Open. Releases signed.
Abbreviations:
Charles Reed Mitchell (CRM)
Susan Arthur (SA)
INTRODUCTION: On March 6, 1991 Museum President Susan Arthur walked through the KHM describing artifacts and display items room by room. While there have been several changes in the displays and room arrangements since Ms. Arthur's 1991 tour, her description still serves as a good general introduction to the collections.
SIDE 1
1. RECEPTION ROOM
SA [Susan Arthur]: Welcome to the Knox County Museum, and we will start in this room, and if you have any questions as I tell you about the different things, would you please ask us. On our left you will see the pieces of the old Knox County Barbourville railroad station. [CRM {Charles Reed Mitchell} mentions that the room referred to is the entrance room.] These are from the L & N depot. If you look at it carefully, you will see a floorplan with three different waiting rooms. There are many artifacts from the L & N: we have a railroad lantern, an old oiler, and some bricks. The big wooden pieces are the eaves supports of the train station. Pictures on the right are from the Owens family and other people who were in the old train station as telegraphers, operators, or ticket salesmen.
Over here [in a glass case] we have some of the things that we sell. This [larger glass cased] display is our special display which changes from time to time. At the present moment, it is a tribute to our 149th Infantry, 38th Division, Company C. On the wall, we have a great coat that was worn during both World Wars, and a mine detector, a replica of the flag that the Nazis used, and some things we have for sale.
2. PIONEER BEDROOM
The room on the left here is a copy of a bedroom, and the bed is a hand-turned bed that was made by Columbus Mills' grandfather for Mrs. Messer's parents; I would say that it was probably made right after the Civil War. It is cherry and maple, is a feather bed and a rope bed, and if you look, you can see where the ropes go. The spinning wheel is from the DeWeiss [sp] family, and we have a picture above it of Mrs. [Lucy] Oxendine's mother using one of these standing spinning wheels. [CRM clarifies that Mrs. Oxendine's mother is Mrs. Hubbard]. In the picture you see things like the basket and other things that they used; evidently they did their spinning and weaving in a room not in the regular house. The little thing by it is a yarn-winder and you see where the holes are in it. After you have put your yarn on the wheel, you wound it around, and after it made so many revolutions, it clicked, and you knew how many yards were in that hank. There is a basket of wool and a set of wool cards by it, and an old quilt that was made for Reverend W. M. Patterson by his church members when he retired. It has [squares] with different people's names on them. This was 1937.
The trunk that you see is one from Mrs. Messer's family also. It is a standard wooden and metal trunk. Hanging an the wall is a duster that they used in the old cars because they didn't have tops or air conditioning, and that is from the Cole family. Ms. Ollie Jones was her daughter, and she wore this coat to California in 1919. Imagine what the roads were like then. And if you read Mr. Marks' book on Laurel County, I don't know how they got through Laurel County in 1919. The footpedal Singer sewing machine is also from Mrs. Cole. It is from approximately 1900, and we have all the pieces for it and the manuals. The oil lamp is Jewel Wilson's, and Mrs. Cordell Miracles' mother's lamp. The pictures on the wall are Charles Reed Mitchell's family's: his great-grandmother, his grandmother, and Grover, June, and John [Mealer]. And also Mr. McKeehan. Now we had the whole lineage for Mr. McKeehan, and I forget how many thousands of descendents he has in Whitley and the lower end of Knox County. He was born in 1780 in Scotland and is supposed to come over in an apple barrel from Edinburgh. [CRM points out the stained glass windows from the Owens house].
These little wooden things are part of an old loom that was out on the Wilson farm. Now we have a loom at Union College but we don't have the room to put it up; it would take up the whole room. We have a visitor's log that we'd like to have you sign either now or as you leave.
3. PIONEER AND NATIVE AMERICAN ROOM
This room we call our pioneer room. On the left is our collection of arrowheads, most of which were picked up by David Moses, who donated them to the Museum. We have a cup stone, and an ancient mortar and a pestle, tomahawks, game balls, shaman stones, pieces of pottery, shoes, an Indian bow made by Jeff King. [CRM mentions that Jeff King and Union professor Ron Rosenstiel have classified this room's items by historical period.] We also have a little brochure that Mr. Rosenstiel wrote, if you'd like a copy of that. And Jeff King went out and took pictures of places in Knox County that he thought had been Indian sites. This item [atlatl – LGH {Lucien Gabriel Holmes}] goes back to the time before they had bows and arrows. The projectile is at the end of it, and you had a piece you held on to your shoulder, and you stuck that in it and then you threw it. When you hit the target, the projectile on the end stuck in the animal. Here is some deerskin and a bowl. Also we have some dried corn and beans.
Behind us we have pieces of a rail fence that was donated by Christian Coffey.[sp?] Jeff King had split them years ago, and they're out of wormy chestnut. Inside the rail fence is a mallet and a froe, used to make the shingles on a house. There is an old barn plane, which is used to smooth the ?, an hand-powered augur to bore holes, a muskrat board and a muskrat trap. People used to sell these furs. After you skinned the muskrat, you'd put the skin on the board to dry. You had to cure it, because you couldn't send it through the mail unless it had been dried there.
And that is a drawing knife and a carpenter's square, loaned to us by Mr. Harry Mills at Flat Lick. He's one of the pioneer marksmen that come here every year. This is a broad axe, one they used to build the cabins, and I don't know how they carried it over Cumberland Gap, because it's a heavy thing. Above it is a grain cradle. It is used to cut things like wheat or oats, or buckwheat. After you cut them, you'd lay them on that and you could tie it in a bundle and take it someplace. The doubletree is really just two single trees. A mule was hitched to each one of the single trees. The picture above it shows a group of Knox County loggers, and over here is a picture of one side of a wagon tongue.
On the wall is a big piece of wood which was the bottom of a dugout canoe. It was found after the big flood in 1905 on Davis Bend at the Hendricks farm. They used it to cross the river until a bridge was made. After they didn't need it, they were building a barn, and they decided to cut the sides of it off, and use it as flooring in the attic. You can still see the hole at the back where the seats went in. It's made out of yellow poplar, which if left out in the open, will last forever, because it's wood that the insects don't really care for. It's like the chestnut and the locust.
This case below it has primitive and pioneer farming things in it. The top shelf has the diary of Dr. Thomas Walker, which was published by the Filson Club and is no longer in print, and an old Tennessee rifle. Notice the stock of the Tennessee rifle is smaller, and usually without elaborate brass, silver or pewter common to Kentucky rifles. It's a muzzle loader, not loaded from the front, and you used the long ramrod here for it to push it back to where the percussion caps could reach it. This is a permission rifle, not a flint-lock. We have two bullet moulds in this, and some powder horns. One of them still has powder in it.
We have a set of old keys and ancient locks they used to use in houses, a set iron (heated on top of the stove or in the fire), three tintypes [photographs]. Tintypes is a different kind of photography, where the image is made directly on the tin, and that was the negative. We have ox shoes, which are divided because ox feet have two pieces, some clay pipes and an old sundial, and a baby's shoe with buttonhooks because babies' shoes — and a lot of women's shoes — had buttons instead of laces.
The book at the end is an original and was printed before 1800, and it is "Acts of Virginia." On the left-hand side is the act that makes Kentucky a state. That and Dr. Thomas Walker's book belong to Earl Cole. Below that shelf, we have solidified stones of trees, and maybe that one at the back is a turtle. It's not the same as petrified because in this case, the sandstone replaces the wood. In petrifaction, the wood becomes rock. That is a firkin, or grain-measure behind it, and the meal man had it. When he ground your meal, he would take a tenth of it and that was his tithe. He could use that to sell, or for himself, or feed for the stock. And they also had wheat and cornmeal [firkins). Cornmeal was the one they used more around here.
We have a barbed wire cutter, some old files, square nails, wire pliers, and the shoe ? — if you got a heel off or needed to repair your shoes, you did it at home. We have tongs, and a knife, another set of wool cards, and the hackle which they used to straighten out the flax. Flax you had to rot in the ground or in water for so many months, and then you broke it up and straightened the fibers out on this.
This book in the back is a survey book of Knox County. It begins about 1801, and it tells what they entered to survey.
All these cases you will see from now on come from the Costellow drugstore. They were given to us by Charles Black and his family, In the corner is a part of a machine that was used to re-rifle the barrels of these old guns. After you used it so long, you had to re-rifle it: if it got worn, it would not go very far. It was given to us by Mr. Elliott of the Bacon Creek Gun Shop, and he said it went back to the early 1800s. One revolution of that re-rifled a barrel for a 60-inch gun, Around the walls we have some maps of Kentucky and Knox County and a picture of the old Thomas Walker cabin, Daniel Boone, and a picture of General Knox.
In this corner are artifacts from the old Owens house; there's a picture of it here on the right in the fall. The pictures down below it show views inside. The ornate piece above it [filigree] was used between the parlor and the library, and there are pictures below it of the interior. The chair, the picture album, and the glasses [pince nez] are all from the Owens house. Near the fireplace, we have a brass and copper spittoon from the old Faulkner hotel. Mr. Mitchell says it was not supposed to be used. The black object is a coal hood, used in a parlor. The picture over the mantle was in Mrs. Owens' bedroom. This footstool is from the Gilberts, the walking cane is Mr [John A.] Owens'.
4. BARBOURVILLE ROOM
Now we will go into the next room which has the doctors, mining, and Blackstone Hotel displays in it. So if you look on the left here, you will see the tools of Dr. Logan and Dr. Jones. There's a picture of all the doctors in Knox County in 1915, in front of the First National Bank on Knox Street. You can see the instruments here: the blood pressure machine is still usable, and the jars are what the doctors kept their medicine in. In those days, people couldn't afford to come to town and get the prescriptions from the drugstores, so he would prescribe from his [jar]. This is Dr. Jones' medical bag and the one up on the shelf there is Dr. Burnside's. We have a picture of Dr. Burnside over there with his buggy and white mule and his top hat on. Over behind it is the old Flat Lick hotel and the depot and the yard of the Ely house up at Ely's. There's a picture of Aunt Fane Word, who was supposed to be the last living slave in 1932.
We have the Blackstone Hotel sign, and the register for 1927, which has a lot of people's names who are still remembered in the community. And one of the ones on this page is still alive. A room for a dollar and a half, breakfast was thirty cents, lunch was fifty, and dinner was seventy-five. We have an old telephone that was used in the rooms and a part of a sign that was used outside of town saying that Kiwanis Club met at six thirty p.m. We have silverware and china and a bread plate from the old hotel. The hotel glass sign was in the window. I don't believe it was out on the street; I can't imagine them not shooting it up.
SIDE TWO
Barbourville Room (continued)
SA: These cases are from the Costellow drugstore. The ones facing you know are the ones that having mining items in them. There are carbide lights on the bottom in little holders. Carbide was in little pieces — looked like gravel — you put it in a cup and poured water on it, and it made a gas and you lit it. Smelled terrible. The one on the left is a more modern helmet that was never used. It has a lot of logos on it, and the logos are valuable now, they say. Right above it is a picture of Commissary, and the scrip that was used. People collect the scrip; it's hard to find it. It was used in place of money. Some scrip could be changed between one store and another. Most of the places wanted their scrip used in their store. Really the company store was supposed to give a discount for using their scrip in their store. Now, I don't know whether they did or not. And they ranged from fifty cents to a quarter. Some of the stores in Barbourville also used scrip. I don't know for what reason: maybe they did instead of change. Croley's had a scrip, and another one or two did.
Right above that are some song books which use the shape notes and a picture of the First Baptist Church in Barbourville when it was on North Main Street at the corner of North Main and Pine, The baptizing is in the river, and we think that is near Artemus, judging by the banks and the bridge in the background. Bible storybooks (one of them's an old "Rebus") which you read by the picture and telegraph keys, and the Artemus-Jellico railroad. Mr. [Philipp] Fox let us have a lot of these. Below it is a picture of the shoe shop, and that goes back about 1900 to 1930. The bottom on the right hand side of the case has the entire bookkeeping department according to Mr. Keith Wilson, who was the bookkeeper at that time of First National Bank. We also have the roll of honor from there. The adding machine was hand powered, and the check machine was also hand powered.
Right above that are some old beautification things. We have a lot of men's toiletry items which Mr. Ollie Cole Jones' brother gave us: a cigarette case, and the nail buffer, and the soap carrier, the straight razor, and the old hair clippers. Behind it is our lead pencils, and they're lead, there's no wood in them. It's just a piece of paper wrapped around the lead. Here are some things ladies used to wear: combs, curling irons, and hairpins which came from the Owens family (which were lethal weapons). We have a pair of shoes over here that were ninety-five cents back in 1920 or so. They were found in the old store where Frederick's had it. The top shelf has another pair of ladies' glasses and a ladies' purse. The Barbourville Police Chief badge of "Highpockets" McDonald, the menu from the Hotel Jones (which was before the Blackstone), and bottles from the old pharmaceutical company here. Oh, we had an old bottling company here, too, and those are bottles from the old bottling companies.
[CRM talks about the nice selection of checks from local banks.] The John A. Black one is here, and First National became Union National Bank after the big 1932 reorganization of all the banks. We don't have any of that famous one up on Stinking Creek that made their own bank. They didn't have a bank, they just printed [the checks] and the letterheads and sent money off to Spiegel's and ordered all this stuff. Then when they tried to collect, nobody knew anything about it.
The pictures behind this show a touring car, probably like the one they went to California in, and a breast augur. This was used in the mines to drill holes for the dynamite. And that's a picture of the square, and the building toward the side here is like Mr. Jewels and Mr. Millward. It's just like that, now, except they don't have that little pediment above it.
In the corner over here is the wheels from the streetcar in 1919. There are different pictures here: one shows it leaving the depot with Tuggle driving it, and you can see the water tower in the back, since these were steam railroads then. There was a McDonald also who drove the streetcar. It had a stove in it which they'd use in the wintertime. One time it almost turned over and set the place on fire, but I don't know about that. When you got to the end of the line, all you had to do was unhitch the mule and move it to the back; you didn't have a turntable.
Behind us are some pictures of Barbourville in the early days, and a school desk. There are also copies of the old Knox County fairs that go back to 1884, There's even one colored fair in it. And we have a picture of the old Jones Hotel, which later became the Blackstone Hotel when they changed the wood on it, because too many fires. So they said you had to put stone around it. And they added another store to it when they put another one on it. On the right hand side, on Knox street, that building is still there: Flossie's beauty parlor is there now. It was a bank then, I think.
Above it is a picture of the fair and notice the ladies riding sidesaddle in the competition at the fairgrounds. The picture above it is of the flood in Knox county, showing part of Knox Street. Knox Street didn't get underwater, so the boats landed there and took food and supplies to the people who were refugees in the higher places, especially the courthouse. There is a picture here of the Barbourville Brick and Tile company which is now the Recreation park and the ponds are still there. This is a cornfield here, and notice the kilns in the background there.
5. ORGANIZATIONS ROOM
This room we call our organization room, because we've featured several organizations in it, such as the bands, the fire department, the Daniel Boone Festival, the women's clubs (such as the women's study, younger women, junior study, Daughters of the American Revolution, the Garden Club, the Tuesday Club), and some that are no longer in existence, like the Ku Klux Klan (we hope) and the Red Man's Band. Now, the Red Man's was an organization like the Kiwanis, it was a service club. [CRM wondered if Red Man was sponsored by the chautauquas.] There's still a lot of that old Red Man stuff over there in that old Wilson building. We've got the seal for [the club], and the red I think was the first [in command], and the blue was the second in command.
Down at the bottom was a printing press for a postcard and an old typewriter. Both of these came from the [newspaper] The Advocate. We've got an old Oliver typewriter also, which is not on display. Right above it is an interesting thing from the Owens family. It was a doll house made for Ruth Owens who became Ruth Owens Sowders. It was made by Mr. Owens' father in law, Mr. Elzemann, and originally had all the furniture in it, built through the years with all the children playing with it and different floods, the only thing left is the cuckoo clock in the bedroom and sort of a washstand-looking affair in there, and in the next room, the telephone and the table at the back. Now around the top of it, as it was in the house, are the paintings that he painted. And you really need to be a child to see it better, because if you lean down, you get a better view of it. The top of it is also one of those cases, and this must have been where they put their chains out, because it is very rough. So the pictures around it are very good.
Over here are pictures from the Daniel Boone Festival, and the bicentennial in Dr. Thomas Walker Park. Below it is a quilt of the nine patch variation, given to us by Mrs. Bargo. It had been in an old trunk of some friend of hers, and she said it was over two hundred years old. We have a double seat from an old school that it's resting on. That's the charter of the old Cane Treaty there. We haven't been able to find the right globe for this parlor lamp. It's probably a gas lamp, and it was in the things Mr. Hammonds gave us from Dr. Jones'. We thought it was a street lamp at first, but Keith Wilson said it was a parlor lamp. That's an old piece of a newspaper, or an old print. We have an old fireman's hat there, which was never used. We have two ladies' dresses of black silk from about 1900.
The machine is a beaten biscuit machine. You put it through what looks like an old-fashioned wringer till it breaks. Then when it breaks, you can bake it. Originally, they were beaten with a rolling pin and you beat it 160 times for family and 300 times for company, they say.
The pictures from the DAR and old cameras, and a picture of the filming of one of Pearl White's serials. She was the first movie actress who ever made more than one million dollars, and she retired to France. [CRM asks where the cameras are from, and SA responds that they're David Cole's.] One of them may be from Mr. Engle. He found it in his shop, he said, when he bought it from somebody else.
This is a baby dress here, and a child's dress, and then a ladies' cotton dress from about 1870. And the bonnet is what we call a slat bonnet, because to hold it that way, there are little holes poked in. Now behind us is the National Society of the DAR; it's their charter.
6. CELEBRITIES ROOM
This is the politicians' room, and on the left hand side we have things from the Powers family and the famous Goebel assassination. We have Caleb Powers' tombstone, because they have replaced it in the cemetery. We have the desk that was in his office — he was secretary of state for Kentucky — and at the time, feelings ran high, especially in the east, in the mountain section because nobody in this section wanted Mr. Goebel to be governor. He was from next to Ohio up by Covington. He was suspect because he had German ancestry. At the time that this happened, he had just been elected, but he hadn't been inaugurated. So Mr. Powers' office was in the corner — you can still see his office in Frankfort — and this was the desk that was used in it. Mr. Powers and his brother took the train. They were on the train to Louisville when this happened. Someone in the office shot Mr. Goebel as he came up the sidewalk, and if you were in the museum of Kentucky at the Kentucky Historical Museum, you can see the coat. And he fell and there's little plaque. They burst into the office and the gun was there and they got two people who were leaving the office, two men from Clay County. And they implicated the Powerses, and there was a big trial.
The Powerses were convicted, and also the men from Clay County, but when a Republican governor was elected, he was vindicated, and said the trial was not good, so he came back to Knox County, and the biggest crowd of people met him. And he was elected to the United States Congress. So we have some things from the trial and a notebook of things he has from his office in Frankfort.
Then over here we have the T.W. Minton hickory mill. They made spokes for wagons, later for cars; they made wooden golf sticks, they made canes for the blind — they were supposed to be the first company to do that. His sister, Miss Nola, liked horses, and she had a horse farm, and she showed horses even in Madison Square Garden. She also judged and trained horse shows. We have her scrapbook here which shows many of the fine horses. Mountain King was her famous horse.
Over behind us, we have the pictures from the courthouse: the one on the left at the top was the courthouse before the wings were added. And notice the difference between the two ones with the wings? One of them looks very Spanish because some of the people who came back from the Spanish American War decided they wanted that look to the Courthouse. On the right is a picture of the hanging of Jesse Fitzgerald, who was supposed to be the last legal hanging in Knox County. Mike Mills says there were seven hangings in Knox County. The picture of the old jail, and some other signs.
Pictures over here are of Mr. [Samuel] Miller, who was a supreme court judge and practiced law in Barbourville at one time, Mr. [Kenneth] Tuggle, and Mr. John A. Black [read James Dixon Black], who was a governor of Kentucky. We had two governors: the other governor is in this case here, Mr. [Flem D.] Sampson. . . . Well, a picture of him. He's not in the case really. We have his desk, a signature, and a brief biography here of Mr. [James D.] Black. The gavel and the chain are his. Now Mr. Black, we have his wife's inaugural gown, which we display on special occasions.
We also have the original minutes of when Barbourville became an city. They start in 1873 and go to 1890. We also have a gun that's like the one that Jesse James used, and then we have a cane and a gun of Mr. Cole's. We've got the originals of the fair catalogs and the song of Caleb Powers, the ballad, the original rope of the hangman's knot, because Jesse Fitzgerald is supposed to have shown them how to make the hangman' knot. We have a lady's sidesaddle. They are said to be very comfortable. It's leather and was loaned to us by Mrs. Genople Jackson. It was her mother's, I believe.
7. MILITARY ROOM
And this we call our military room. We have the plaque that came from the post office, which was built in 1934, with the names of the people who were killed in the first World War. Next to that we have the Knox County veterans of World War One which came from the American Legion: the wounded, the deaths, the roster, the decorated, and the deserters. Below that, we have a flag that was used at Union College showing the people who were in the war. The white ones were the nurses and the blue stars were the other people in the service. If you look very closely you can see stars, and those are for the ones who were killed. In the cabinet on the wall, there are some things from the Spanish American War and the first World War. There's a big picture of a soldier in uniform, and then a star that was shown in the window to show you had a son or a relative serving. There are pictures of the uniforms of the Spanish American War.
Below that are things from the first World War: a helmet, the ammunition belt, and first aid packet, canteen, bayonets, another little star that went in the window, and pictures from a book that shows snapshots of the first World War. That's from Nathan Greves, I believe, from Flat Lick. This case, we haven't filled but we're going to put World War Two in it. On the floor is a sleeping bag used in World War Two by Col. Ben Herndon. This case also is from World War Two. Notice then they didn't use the camouflage as much then as they do now. You notice that the ones from Desert Storm are gray with brown spots on them. And since these were in the jungles, these had to be green with darker green.
We have a copy of a purple heart and of a purple heart citation. Mr. Ossie Birch was in the Merrill's Marauders, and we have several pictures from there. We also have helmets and stripes for officers, the different insignias and army patches, and overseas hat. The pictures here are from the Baptist Church during World War Two.
This is a picture of the Clark house in Clay County — he was a relative of Marie Croley's — and these are his Civil War letters. Below it in this case is from Mr. Howard Turner, and he has a Bible in there that he carried with him all during World War Two, and different pictures, different books, money, an abacus, his ID card, and two swords. In the bottom part we have a Kentucky rifle, and a Kentucky powderhorn and the pouch bags that they carried their powder and bullets and their measures for the powder in. We have a Civil War cannonball and Col. Ben Herndon's picture, done by German prisoners of war.
END of tape 1.
TAPE TWO
SIDE ONE
MILITARY ROOM (Continued)
SA: Behind us then is an army blanket from World War Two and we have a map case and an overseas cap that belonged to Mr. Herndon. We have a sand-brown belt that the officers wore, a mess kit and the big hat that they wore, an ammunition belt, a roster of the 149th Infantry on January the 17th, 1941. We also have a picture of Company C in 1931. Notice that they are all wearing the wrapped leggings. Down here is an old munitions box from Richmond, and Ben Herndon's backpack and duffel bag.
8. THEATRE [now the William Sherman Oxendine Memorial Library]
We'll go into our little theater. The seats came from the Magic Theatre, and we have repainted them and cleaned them to be the same color that they originally were. They are not fastened down, but they are fastened to a piece of wood so that they can be moved. We have a Kentucky flag, and I forgot to mention that we have a 48-star flag in the military room. [CRM says the seats were obtained before the building was gutted to turn it into a hardware store.] We show slides in this room of different things to groups.
ARCHIVES
This is our work room which also has our little library and different pictures of different people, and also a history of the Baptist Church in Knox County, our computers, our files, and our tape collection, our video tapes, oral history tapes and there is a storeroom over there that we keep supplies in. CRM mentions that the better portion of the photographs are in the storeroom.]
9. COMMUNITIES HALL
From here, we'll go out into the hall, which has one end of the farming equipment, and on the wall, it has the Little League people of 1951 and 1959. A lot of people like to come and look at these because they like to see their parents.
This is the grindstone, which still works, if you put a little manual to it and a little water. Somebody has to hold it and one has to hold the object being ground. The wagon wheel and plow came in through the Younger Women's Club, who used it in a Daniel Boone window, and then donated it to us. A few of the things are not theirs, but most of the things you see here are. We have something from Paul Lewis (the cabinet was made by him), and we have stuff here that was given or loaned by Ford Wilson, and then there's the stuff from Mr. Davenport of Artemus. That ?, the canhook, the corn-planer, the mole trap, and the grinder are all Mr. Davenport's, plus this thing which sharpens the tines on a horse. The foot ?, and the augur, the fan-powered drill are from Mr. Ford Wilson. The things on the wall like the bow saw and the singletrees and the horse hands, the hose, the wool clips, the pitchfork and the pick axe are from the Younger Women's Club. And that's a canhook there, that they use in logging, to float the logs down the stream.
This here is part of a waffle iron. It had a collar, you took the cap off of the stove, and you set the collar there and then you put your dough in it. You baked it on one side and then you flipped it and baked it on the other. You cooked it on a stove. These pliers were used in blacksmithing, to hold the shoe while you were beating it into shape. Next to it is a pick axe used in coal mining. This thing that looks like a harness is the reins fastened to the side of the horse.
These are the old Knox county schools, the one-room ones. Then we have some pictures of BBI, and some school desks with old school books on them. The scales came from BBI. The teacher's book came from the county school. The first-grade seat work was done out here at Barbourville City School. They used hand-bells to bring the children in to school. We have the Blueback speller, and Ray's Arithmetic, which were models in their time. Behind you is an old sheepskin diploma from Union College in orange and black, and pictures of Union back in 1930 and 1910. This is a grade school diploma from Union.
These are pictures that were made in 1980 by Lynn Prichard of the churches in Knox County. She displayed them one Daniel Boone Festival, and she's loaned them to us to display. She doesn't show all of them because some of the older ones are gone. She said she may have missed two. We have a picture of Barbourville High before the fire, and here's a brick from the old one after the second fire. Both of them were caused by lightening, I think.
The next part is our country store, and we have the cash register from Knox County Supply, and that was when they were down the river. It only goes to a dollar and it's not electric. The next is a scale from the Messer store which was at Artemus. It's also not electronic. We have some old fountain pens, some old glasses, the old books of account that they used. These are from the Wilson store, I believe. The next one is their cash register. We have the little cabinet they used out at the Messer store to keep his patent medicine he sold. The Messer store was next to the depot in Artemus. It was there till about 1932. The gun is from there; it's a single shot. I guess he used it to frighten people away. This object is a tobacco plug cutter. The store had a plug and they would sell you a penny's worth if you wanted instead of buying a whole one. These are the different iron pieces of different shoes. And we have the leather working tools: the knife, the hole-punch, and an awl. These are also Messer Store, as well as this nail keg.
The checkerboard was one that Mr. Arthur used. The reason it has numbers on it is because he played by the books and it said 10-15, and your moves were governed by that. I don't know what happened to his books, because he had a whole stack of them. We have a coal oil can (it's really kerosene, of course).
This is from Mr. Ferris, and he found it where there had been an old [moonshine] still, and this barrel was the only thing left of it because they had hacked it up so it couldn't be used again. You had to cook the mash in this. It was made of corn and sugar and yeast. The things above it were some of the things they used to store. The little white jug goes back to about 1880. I don't know how old the little brown jug is. The little clear one was used during prohibition; the men carried it in their inside coat pocket. It was flat enough so you wouldn't see it. The picture shows a still that was captured. And you can see how it works from that. It went through that pipe to the ''thump keg."
This is a topographical map from when they were changing 25 to the four-lane. And I always locate anything on it by trying to locate the drive-in. If you can locate the drive-in, you can locate yourself because it's right on 25. Barbourville is in the top left-hand corner, and it just shows to the courthouse. You can see the river, bordered by the trees. I had never realized what a bend there was there.
Then, we have a corner chair from the old Owens house. They're called corner chairs because one leg is in front, and they sat in the corner on it. The hat rack came from the Blackstone Hotel, and Mr. West had this from the Bridge Company — the bridge up in Artemus — mounted for us on walnut with the commissioners and when it was built.
We didn't mention the quilt; we have two quilts. This one is made from flour sacks, and at that time they came in patterns. When you went to the store, you tried to match up the pattern with something that you already had so you could make something from it.
END OF THE TOUR