My Family: Chapter 2

Orville, West Virginia

My younger sister, Lucille, was born in Orville when I was two years and six month old. Where we lived, there was two rows of homes and in between the homes was a dirt road which was called an alley. The back of our house set up against this alley, it was used for delivery trucks. At the front of our house was a hill, at top was the main road which we call a hard road because it was paved with blacktop. This one time a salesman stopped at the house and was trying to sale a tricycle to Mom, I was ridding the tricycle while he was trying to talk Mom into buying it. She didn’t because cost too much. The tricycle was three dollars.

After Lucille was born, we moved next to the railroad tracks in a four-room house. Mom named Lucille after the lady who lived next door to us who were drinking buddies of my parents on the weekends. Mom and Dad would start to drink on a Friday evening and not stop until Sunday night. My parents would fight and drink most of the time on the weekends only.

Mom and Lucille

I remember this one night, when I was four years old, that we sat on the back porch and screamed for hours because we were alone in the house. Someone did come and hush us up; putting us to bed. Our bed was pushed up against the window of our bedroom. If we did go to bed early on Saturday night, some times I would get woken up by Mom or Dad stepping on me trying to climb threw the window. One night, Dad woke me up as he tried to get out the window, Mom was behind him in the doorway with an cast-iron clothes iron. One was always trying to get away from the other but mostly Mom getting away from Dad.

You didn't mess with my Mom, she would whop you in a heartbeat.  Once Mom got into an argument with our neighbor on the other side. The neighbor's husband was a drinker also so it probable had something to do with her husband drinking at our house. Everyone had a slop jar to use at night instead of going out to the outhouse after dark for fear of snakes or other animals. As the woman came around the corner of our house, Mom was standing on the porch waiting for her - it was late at night. I was in the doorway watching. Mom threw the contents of the slop jar in her face, as it went all over her there was a lot of screaming between the two but the woman didn't come any farther than the corner of the house.

end of homes in Orville

The neighbors couldn’t call the police and get them to come out and settle a disturbance since there was no law up any of the hollows. The nearest police was in Logan and that was twenty miles away. No one had a phone (phones at that time were not affordable) and Logan only had a sheriff. If there was a Constable that lived close by, they did not interfere for fear of my dad. 
Dad didn’t drink during the week and never miss a day’s work. I don’t remember my father ever taking a day off from work unless he got hurt in the mines. The miners risked their lives every time they go down in a cave. You never hear about the small cave-ins where only one or two would get hurt, because it was expected with the job. My father was forevermore having his bones broken. He had his neck, back, legs, and arms broken at different times. Someone was always throwing his miners clothes on the front porch; telling Mom he was in the hospital in Logan. His job was to put the timber to hold the cave up and sometimes accidents do happen. My fondest memory is when Dad was in bed with a broken leg and Shirley had carried home the measles. She gave them to Lucille and myself, so we all were sick (except for my mom) and laying in bed with my dad. Mom carried us scrambled egg with bologna sandwiches to eat. These were cheap sandwiches since the eggs came from our chickens and dad had the bologna for his lunches. Food wasn't a peculiar of ours.

We never had much food to eat. In my part of the south don't count on getting an offer of  food or drink when you visit someone. It's just not happening unless it's dinner time, then you will get invited to set down and eat but you are expected to have the manners to say 'no thank you, I was just leaving.'

My sister, Shirley, was the baby for three years before I was born. She didn't like me at all and she was spoiled. When my Mom gave us toys, she expected us to share but Shirley would claim everything as hers, so that's why I didn't have any toys to call my own. And if I did get toys, I don’t remember they lasted long. I was tough on everything according to Shirley which is why she didn’t let me touch anything that belonged to her. At six years old, Shirley went to school at Cham about a mile up the hollow from Orville in a two room school house that went to the fourth grade. I wanted to go to school real bad, so I decided to follow Shirley. She would walk along the roadway and I walked along the railroad tracks. She was dressed for school but I only had on underwear. The underwear at that time was a t-shirt and panties connected with buttons down the front and a split in the back at waist high (just like the one on the left).

We got to school about the same time. I don't know how the teacher let Mom know that I was there, because we had no telephone or a car. But I got to stay at school until Mom picked me up and after a spanking, I got the idea that I wasn't allowed to go to school. I stayed at home and played with Shirley's toys and when she came home from school she would beat me up if  I was still playing with her things. She had everything a little girl would want; doll, table, chairs, and dishes. I always tried to have everything put away by the time she would get home but sometimes she would catch me. Mom would always holler at her and tell her she had to share. My big toe nail is still cracked down the middle where she hit me with a hammer for touching her toys when she was playing with them.

Me and Shirley Ann

The only reason that I know how my toenail got cracked is she told me this is what happened after we got older in our teens. She once tried to get me to eat lye while Mom was washing clothes. Mom washed clothes in two big tubs with a scrub broad, she had to build two fires out in the yard and put a tub on each fire. One was for wash and the other one was to rinse the clothes in, she used homemade soap that she made with lye. It had cross-bones on the can, and Mom had set the can down on the porch with a spoon in it and Shirley tried to get me to take a taste. But I wouldn't, and I don't know who's idea it was, but we tried to get Lucille to taste it. We wasn’t trying to hurt her but we knew it was something that we shouldn’t be eating. At first, Lucille wouldn't take a taste but then I pretended to take a bite and then put the spoon to her mouth. She must have got one grain in her mouth because she started to scream. Mom came running, grabbed Lucille and asked us what was wrong. We told her that Lucille ate lye. She made Lucille throw up. Mom started to cry and scream while somebody went and got the Company doctor. When he got there, he gave Mom some medicine saying Lucille was a lucky girl that she didn’t swallow any of the poison. Her mouth was full of blisters. I don't remember getting a spanking for what we did. So I guess Mom thought that Lucille got into the lye on her own. Lucille was one and half years old, I was four, and Shirley was seven. And I will admit that I was jealous of both sisters.

                                                  

left to right: Shirley, Willa Jean, Patsy, Jimmy, me.
Mom standing in doorway of our two room house which had a bedroom and
kitchen with a wash room in Orville, WV.

Perry Francis and Hattie Sluss part 2

Remember my mom's parents, Perry and Hattie?    Perry Francis died on April 05, 1941, two weeks before I was born; he dislocated his shoulder from shoveling sand and died from blood poisoning. The Company doctor didn’t treat him for a dislocated shoulder but just gave him a pill that was a cure all. His whole arm swelled up to twice the normal size, but by the time he went to the hospital, it was too late. He was sixty-five years old. The cemetery where my Grandpa Francis is buried are still in Chambers.  The family Chambers owns the land and takes care of the cemetery. My cousin, Thurman, married a Chamber’s girl.  Harris Funeral Home made a mistake on their files, they had the location of Grandpa Francis' burial at Macbeth, but Grandma Francis and their children said that he was buried at Cham graveyard. Maybe they made the mistake because my mother lived at Macbeth and he was laid out at home - not in the funeral parlor. In those days the funeral home would bring the casket home, and set it up in a room for the family to sit up and view him all night.  However, Grandpa Francis was laid out at his friend’s home. My Aunt Hannah and my Grandma Francis told me, at different times, that something strange happened after Grandpa Francis' funeral.  Grandma had put Grandpa’s clothes in a box which was placed in a corner of the viewing room. While everyone was sitting around talking after the funeral, the box raised up off the floor. My Aunt Hannah said she never did understand how that happens.

My sisters and I went in search of Grandpa Francis' grave, but since the grave had no marker it is lost to us.  However, if we go by where Aunt Belvia said that he was buried in the Chamber's cemetery then we think that we found the grave but since it's unmarked, we have no proof. Especially since the Chamber's called the funeral home and they said that he was buried at Macbeth cemetery which is no longer there. Grandma Francis once told me she thought Mom was going to miss her father’s funeral because I was going to be born. Grandma said that Mom was washing clothes when she went into labor with me - Mom always did the wash on Monday. So I was born eleven days after my Grandpa Francis' burial.

Grandma Francis died on Dec. 26, 1964 at the age of sixty-six, she died from leukemia and a heart attack.  Grandparents had five children while living in Rum Creek hollow.   These are some stories about them:

Their oldest daughter, Alice, got to close too the fire place when she was about four years old and caught her dress on fire.  She had some ugly looking scars on one side of her body for the rest of her life.  She was lucky to be alive maybe that's why Grandma babied and favor her. Aunt Alice had a stroke and died in a nursing home in Logan, West Virginia.  She was eighty-seven. Two of her three children died from heart attacks in their forties.

My grandparent's oldest boy, Vondon, never had any children that he claimed.  Once, when he left our house in Orville and went to Ashland, Kentucky, which is across the river from Huntington, West Virginia, to work.  He met a girl from Huntington who later said that she had given birth to his son. But Uncle Vondon said that the baby didn’t belong to him and that was the end of that until the boy grew up. After his son grew up he went looking for his father, and found aunt Belva living in Logan and explain who he was and gave her a picture of himself  to send to Uncle Vondon who was living in North Carolina at the time.  When Vondon got the picture, he showed it to all his friends and asked them who they thought it was? The son looked so much like the father. Vondon had made arrangements with his son, through my Aunt Belvia, to meet in Logan at aunt Belva's but before they could Uncle Vondon died of a sudden heart attack. Aunt Belva went to uncle Vondon's  funeral  while there she ask his wife if she had something of uncle Vondons that she could give to the son ,  she gave her Uncle Vondon’s Air Force service ring. When the son show up for the meeting aunt Belva gave him the ring. Uncle Vondon never came home to visit his mother - he didn’t go to his mother’s funeral either. However, he did come home to visit my mom. Aunt Belvia said  one time she didn’t know that he was home until she saw him on the streets in Logan. He died from a heart attack at the age of forty-eight.

Aunt Tince was married twice and is still living.  She had five children.  She lost her youngest son, Ronny, to a heart attack just before his fifty-fifth birthday.

My mom died at the age of forty-eight also from a heart attack.    
Aunt Belvia married but never had any children.  She died at the age of seventy-eight of cancer.
     

William P. Francis 1876-1941

Hattie Sluss 1898 - 1964

                                                         

Golden Alice Francis 1919 - 2006

                                                    

Ida Marie Francis 1921 - 1969

                                                       

Vondon Lee Francis 1922 - 1970

Vicy Jane (Tince) Francis 1924 - ?

                                                                  

  Belva  Louise Francis 1926 - 2005

My Family: Chapter 1

Aunt Hannah and my mother, Ida Marie Francis (she hated the name Ida and would only answer to Marie) went to school together at Dehue. My father was seventeen years old when he fell in love with my mother after Aunt Hannah brought her home for lunch. Marie was fifteen years old, she lived in Yolyn behind Lowe's Beer Garden which is four miles above Dehue. The same place where my Aunt Belva was born, and my Grandma Francis had to stay in bed for two years after her birth - I don't really know why. Mom like to tease Belva about how she was force to take care of her, how she would feed her dishwater and give her a bath at the water pump that everybody got their water from. Mom was five years older than Belva.

Wilbur would walk all the way to Yolyn to see Marie. My Dad's brother, Bud (who all the miners nickname Dynamite because he blew the coal from inside the mines), own a modal “T” Ford and would sometimes give Dad a ride to Marie’s house. Mom said that Bud was always wrecking the car and the guys would have to pick it up and set it back on the road. Dad never own a car, if he wanted to go somewhere he always got someone to take him or he walked. All his friends had a car, and all his brothers, but he never wanted one. If he had a car, with the way that he drank, he would have drove it over the side of a mountain and kill himself.

At one of our family reunions, I was talking about how Dad couldn't drive and one of my cousins said once when his father was in the hospital and my dad was at their house, my dad told him that he would drive him to the hospital to see his dad. So Dad took their car and drove to the hospital. My cousin now understands why Dad scared him so badly with his driving, because he thought Dad was going to drive over the mountainside. My cousin said that Dad drove real slow.

Dad was eighteen when he married my sixteen year old mother. Grandma Francis didn’t want her and my father to get married - they were too young. However, Grandpa Francis had an idea, there was no waiting period in Kentucky (Logan had three day wait), so he planned a trip to Kentucky to visit his family and would take Mom with him - helping her and Dad get married once there. They picked up Dad on their way out of the hollow. So that's how they eloped to Beauty, Kentucky and got married. After they were married, Dad’s parents moved away from Dehue. Dad and Mom moved, too.

They went to Accoville up Buffalo Creek that's where my sister, Shirley, was born. My parents lived in a house that had a graveyard behind it. Dad work on the third shift (nickname hoot-owl shift). My mom was always afraid of the dark and she was scared to stay alone in a house, so she would stay up all night and do house work. Once she saw a black cat run across the floor in front of her and she chased it with a broom until it went under the bed.  One side of the bed was up against the wall, she got down on the floor and look under the bed but there was no cat. She searched for the cat but she couldn’t find it and she swore that there was no way for that cat to get out of her house. She thought that it was a ghost. We were all taught to believe in ghosts and witches.  When I was little, I would sit quietly and listen to the grown- ups tell stories. I'd love to hear their memories about things that went bump in the night.  When Dad came home from work, she told him that she didn’t like living in that house and ask him to move.

They next moved to Slagle where they had a house next to the mountain. My sister was still a baby.  Wild animals would come down off of the mountain very close to the house.  One day, Mom heard my sister talking on the porch calling, "here kitty, kitty." She went outside to see what she was calling and discovered it was a bobcat, they moved again.  In order for them to change houses, Dad had to get another job at a different mine, because all the homes were taken in that coal camp.

The mines always need men (they still do to this day) you don’t hear nothing about it in the news but if you read the newspaper in a mining town (such as Logan) a miner gets killed almost everyday in an accident.  On September 2, 1936, the Macbeth Mine blew killing ten men. Only six months after the first Macbeth explosion, on March 11, 1937, the Macbeth Mine blew again killing eighteen more men. Like the first explosion, the blast hit only one section of the mine about a mile from the bottom. Several men escaped without injury. Some by walking up the slope to the top of the cave that leads outside, and some by a screw-type escape ladder with 152 steps.  The reason I know that there's that many steps is because my sister counted them, she was the only one brave enough to go to the bottom and count them. It's pitch dark half way down and like a deep well with water at the bottom. Miners believed the explosion was caused by natural gas that was set off by a spark from one of the motor cars that takes coal to the top of the cave. The cause of the explosion was blamed on methane gas. Methane gas is colorless, odorless, and flammable. It is formed when plants decay in places where there is little air. It is the primary cause of mine explosions. The Macbeth Mine blew with such a force and intensity that it had to a large amount of gas to have caused so much damage.

Dad got a job working at Macbeth mines and that is where I was born, at home in a three-room house. Dr.Vaughn was the company doctor. My sister Shirley was two years eleven months old.  When I was two years old (I know this because I have a picture of Shirley and me standing in front of the porch and Mom standing in the doorway pregnant with my sister, Lucille), Dad went to work for Orville about one mile up the road from Macbeth, where his brother and all his drinking buddies worked. We moved into a two-room house with a wash room add-on. Our beds were made out of an iron head and foot-board while the springs were metal.

We had a high-tension box on the pole next to our porch; one night we had an electrical storm and lightening struck the box which bounced through a window and hit Dad and Mom’s bed. My mom jumps outs of bed and was going to go out the door when Dad stopped her. If she had open the door and stepped outside she would have been electrocuted. She was scare of storms after that for the rest of her life, when a storm came she always made sure we were all in the house.

My Dad, Mom, and sister, Shirley

                                                 

Marie & Wilbur Dillow (Mom & Dad)

                                

Perry Francis Cousins

When I was about 13, someone lent me a book (it was a very small book) about the Hatfield and the McCoy feud. It was a very bloody and gory story. I wanted to keep it but had to give it back as they brought it for my parents to read. The book said the feud started over a pig.  One of the McCoy pigs got loose and was in the middle of the river (closer to the West Virginia side) and a Hatfield rescue the pig.  McCoy wanted the pig back but Hatfield said he found it and he was keeping it. So began the feud.

A cousin in KY. sent me this story about the family being involved with the Hatfields when I went looking for
 Hatfields on line I found what looks like my grant uncle William H. Francis JR. with Devil Anse in a picture from the West Virginia  Archives.    
     
 William Perry Francis, three times remove Uncle William H. Jr., had two sons and a son-in-law involved with the feud. Other trouble for the families grew out of the 1882 election. When the polls opened on August 07, 1882, at the home of Jerry Hatfield, the West Virginia Hatfield appeared as was their custom. Among them was Ellison Hatfield, a brother of Devil Anse.  Tolbert McCoy accused one of the Hatfield (Bud Lias) of owing a small sun of money (1.75 ) for a fiddle. Ellison Hatfield denied owing the money, saying he had paid Tolbert about 3 years previously.  Tolbert's younger brothers Pharmor and Randolph Jr. backed up Tolbert's allegations and as the day wore on trouble flared anew,  the constable, Matthew Hatfield, was about to disarm the men but allowed the fight that had been brewing to take place with only fists as weapons.

Ellison Hatfield, who was drunk, made disparaging remarks to Tolbert, where upon Tolbert attacked him with a knife slashing away at his stomach. The two younger McCoys joined the affray and begun cutting away at Ellison.  Ellison grabbed a rock, at that instant Pharmer resorted to his pistol and shot Ellison in the back. 

While constable, Matthew Hatfield, and two Justices of the Peace took custody of the McCoy boys and were transporting them to Pikeville for jailing, Devil Anse and a large party of Hatfield followers (including John C. Francis and his brother-in-law Elijah Mounts) arrived and took charge of the McCoys.  They took the boys across the Tug River to an old abandoned school house where they were held until after the death of Ellison Hatfield  from 26 deep knife wounds and a bullet hole.

The McCoy s were taken back to Kentucky. There in a small depression not far from the riverbank, they stopped and bound the McCoys to some pawpaw bushes. Then within the space of a few seconds, the Hatfields fired some 50 rounds into the brothers. The boys were all buried in a single grave.  Elijah Mounts was indicted in their deaths.

John C. Francis, a Hatfield supporter and brother-in-law to Elijah Mounts, was served with a bench warrant for the state. Elijah Mounts was also called as a witness in the trial of Johnse Hatfield and others in the murder of two additional McCoy children.  Devil Anse called together all of his supporters, and it was agreed that Randolph McCoy and members of his family who might testify against them must be incriminated. Nine of the supporters, including two of Devil Anse sons, went to the McCoy house in the middle of the night and surrounded the house. One of the Hatfields called out for the McCoy s to come out and surrender as "prisoners of war. "  Calvin McCoy, age 25, heard the call and awakened his mother, father and sisters Josephine, Alafair, and Adelaide. The house was set afire and in an attempt to escape; Alafair opened the kitchen door and recognized Johnse Hatfield, although he was masked. Johnse told Elijah Mounts to shoot her which he did. Alafair mother's, Sarah, tried to reach her daughter, but one of the men hit her on the head with the butt of his gun. She continued to attempt to reach her daughter's body, but Johnse Hatfield used his revolver to beat Sarah over the head until she lay face down on the ground, senseless. These are only two of the incidents involving Elijah Mounts, He was a long time supporter of  the Hatfields and certainly was involved in other incidents.  Elijah Mounts went on trial in Pikeville, Ky, and was hanged in 1889.  Out of 20 men indicted 8 got life in prison, and  Elijah Mounts was the only one to get the death sentence. Two of the Francis boys were called upon to testify in court.

Frank Phillips, a very wealthy man in Pikeville, Kentucky took it upon himself to form a posse and go after the Hatfield clan. He was considered to be very dangerous.  He took a man to Bud's home to take him prisoner, but Bud killed the other man and Frank Phillips escaped through an open window. Eventually Bud moved back to his home on Peter Creek, but encountered other trouble and was sent to prison.

There is a story, that has been passed down by family, that one day John C.'s brother, William Riley Francis came to him and asked John if he would help settle an argument that had occurred between himself and John's brother-in-law Elijah Wolford. John C. (some people said) was a fair and accommodating man and said yes.  Elijah was with the Sheriff Department there in Pikeville. The end result was that John C. was stabbed to death by Elijah.

 Uncle William H., Jr.

                                                                    

Devil Anse Hatfield and the other man looks like William H., Jr.

Cousin John Calhoun
(William H. Jr. son)

                                                   

PERRY FRANCIS AND HATTIE SLUSS FAMILY

WILLIAM PERRY FRANCIS FAMILY

When my mother’s parents, Perry Francis and Hattie Sluss Stepp, got married it was a second marriage for both of them. Perry was previously married to T.C. and they both were born in Pike, Kentucky and they took to live with them, when she was an infant, a little girl named Belvia. His profession was a barber. They were divorce before Perry was forty-one.  Hattie Sluss was previously married to M.S.  and they both were born in Martin, Kentucky.   Her husband was a preacher by profession, and Great-Grandma Hattie said that he would go to church on Sunday, preach all day then come home from church and beat her up, She left Moses and went to live with her brother Ben.   Great-Grandma Hattie divorced him before she was nineteen.

Perry's mother and father, William (Bill) Francis and Sophia Maynard, moved to Dehue where Bill worked in the coal mines.  After Perry's divorce,  he went to live in Dehue, too, as he had other family that live in Slagle on Rum Creek Hollow.  Hattie had siblings that also moved to Slagle, that is how Perry and Hattie met in the year 1918, he was forty-one and she was nineteen.

They got married in Slagle and moved to back Martin, Kentucky.  They had four children; three girls and a son all born in Kentucky.  They were Alice, Marie, Vondon and Tince. Sometime, between 1924  and 1926,  Perry and Hattie moved back to Rum Creek, West Virginia. Perry went to work for the coal mines in Argyle and they had one more child, a daughter, whom they named Belvia. I don’t know if my Great Grandma Hattie named Belvia after my Great Grandpa’s daughter from his first marriage because she likes her or was jealous of her.  I have heard both stories.  I never saw a mine at Argyle but Aunt Belvia said that there was one when she was a little girl, and her father worked in the sand-house.

Hattie Sluss' father was born in Virginia and her mother, Mary Polly, was born in Magoffin, Kentucky.   Polly was Indian, and at the time, Magoffin, was the only part of Kentucky which allowed  the Indians and Colored to live peaceful.  Hattie's father moved to Kentucky with a couple of his brothers where he met Polly. When his brothers moved back to Virginia he stayed and married her.

 
Perry's grandfather, William, (three times remove) was born in Virginia and later his family moved to South Carolina.  He met and married an Indian woman and since his dad was in the  Revolution War and hated Indians, he took his wife and moved to Kentucky. They had five children; four boys and one girl.  He bought 300 hundred acres of land.  The oldest boy was named after his father, William Jr., and he also brought three hundred acres land in the same hollow as his parents but trouble began when Devil Anse had his eye on the same land for the trees or lumber. So this is the story as it was past down in the family and it goes like this:

William Francis Jr. was a farmer, he owned 300 acres of land in 1850.  He was elected (or appointed) Justice of the Peace from 1855 to 1861 in Pike, Co. Kentucky.  He enlisted in the Civil War in 1861 at the age of 41, as a private. He was promoted to full Lieutenant on May 15, 1862 and to full captain on November 10, 1863.   He was a "General" in the Union Army  and a Captain John Buchanan of the Confederate Army was reportedly charged with taking him "dead or alive".  According to a Logan Banner newspaper article dated 12-01-1938; military records show William Francis death as a captain attached to the 167th Va. Militia in Pike, Co. Ky. in 1863 but do not report cause of death. It is believed that just before the war ended, Ole Devil Anse Hatfield (of the Hatfield & McCoy Feud
Line) shot and killed William "Bill" and claimed it as a war shooting.  Family tales can often have some truth to them.

 
Upon Bill's death, he died Intestate, he was the legal owner of a large and valuable tract of land in Pike County on Peter Creek, the legal title to which was descended to his heirs and his widow, Margarette. However, a claim was made in the Pike Circuit Court sometime in 1865, naming James M. Francis and John Charles as administrators of the Francis Estate and they stated that part or all of the lands should be sold as necessary for the payment of descendant debts. The personal estate was insufficient. We know Bill was much in debt to a Richard Daniels and George Hatfield.

 Grandma Hattie, a granddaughter, Sue, and her brother Ben Sluss

Evan Sluss

Mary Polly Hale Sluss

Ida Marie, Hattie Sluss, Golden Alice, Vincey Jane Francis

                                             

                                             

William Francis

                                           

Uncle Vondon Francis

Aunt Belvia Francis

Massacre of the Sluss Family

Here is a story that was past down in our family.  Of all the stories that my grandmother, Hattie Sluss,  told me this wasn't one of them. I don’t know if she had even heard the tale herself, because if she had I believe she would have told me.  According to the Sluss family members that I've got on my family tree website, my great grandfather, Evan Sluss, is the grandson of Marian - the son in the Sluss Massacred.

The Massacre of the Sluss Family (Southwest Virginia Enterprise):
Interesting Paper Tells of Massacre Which Occurred at Sharon Springs, in 1774.

"Through the courtesy of our townsman, Mr. R. P. Johnson we are able to give the readers of the Southwest Virginia Enterprise, an interesting article, written by Mr. S. H. Williams, of Lynchburg, one of the descendants, on the massacre of the Sluss family.

According to the tradition a number of the Sluss family was members of the St. Paul's Lutheran Church on the Lee Highway west of Wytheville and they would walk from Ceres for the 11 o'clock sermon and back home that afternoon. The women of the family would accompany the men when they attended service, making the trip across the mountains on foot.

The massacre of the Sluss family occurred at Sharon Springs in what was then Fincastle County ( now Bland) near the present village of Ceres, Virginia, August 2, 1774, the year of the Indian uprising known as "Lord Dunmore's War" and just two months prior to the famous battle of Point Pleasant.

It was common knowledge among the settlers of this section of Southwest Virginia that Indians, particularly the Cherokees and Shawnees, had been on the war path since early spring and were committing depredations along the Ohio and Kanawha rivers and that scattered bands were gradually making their way up New River and across the Allegheny mountains toward the fertile valley where game was to be found in abundance, massacring all with whom they came in contact.

Warning of the close proximity of marauding savages had repeatedly sent the pioneers scurrying with their families to the protection of a blockhouse fort surrounded by dugouts or trifle pits, (constructed by them for just such an emergency) only to learn after days of self imprisonment that the rumors were without foundation, when they would return cautiously to their homes.

Like the story of the shepherd and the wolf, these false rumors had caused so much inconvenience and waste of time that crops in the valley were getting little or no attention, yet time after time, in response to repeated warnings they retreated within the walls of the block house to defend themselves against red skins that never put in an appearance.

Late in July 1774, rumors were rife that Elinipsico, son of the famous Shawnee Chieftain, Corn stalk, with a party of fifty or sixty braves were infesting the neighborhood and that a family in Giles County by the name of Lybrook had been massacred by them. Jared Sluss, the pioneer, believing this to be another wild rumor and loath to lose the remainder of his crop, decided to remain at home while keeping a vigilant watch for any indication of the presence of Indians in the vicinity, thinking he would then have time to seek refuge within the fort. Never permitting him to get beyond sight of his house for four days and satisfied that the Indians were nowhere about, on the fifth day he and his eldest son, James, a lad twelve years of age, proceeded to work in a field just over the brow of a hill and out of sight of home.

Two of his daughters being away from home at the time (one of them afterward married a Mr. Groseclose and the other a Mr. Sharitz) he left three of his children, Marion aged seven, Hazel aged ten, and Laura aged four, playing in the bright sunshine of a perfect summer morning, their laughter ringing in his ears as he passed out of sight. They had been cautioned to go no farther away than the "spring" a short distance from the house and to keep a sharp lookout for Indians. Christine, the mother, after rocking her six-months old baby, Mary, to sleep, had placed her tenderly in a cradle and shoved it under a high bed in a corner of one of the rooms to keep the flies from annoying her while she slept, little knowing that this act would save the child from a horrible death.

Unaware that savages lurking in the underbrush a short distance away had their beady eyes upon them, the children continued innocently at their play.

The mother was busy with her housework and the first intimation she had of danger was a terrified scream from one of the children closely followed by others from the trio. Looking through a partly opened door she beheld a sight against which she had for years vainly tried to steel herself. A party of Indians had stealthily worked themselves between the children and the house and before any one was aware of their presence had cut off all avenue of escape within doors, forcing them to flee for their lives in the direction their father and brother had gone earlier in the day. A rail fence some fifty yards distant obstructed their way. Laura was  overtaken immediately and her brains dashed out with a war club. Hazel managed to climb over the fence and was well on her way to safety when glancing back she discovered that her seven year old brother, Marion, would certainly be caught before he could get over unless someone went to his assistance. Without further thought of trying to save herself she darted back and bracing herself against the top rail, reached over and lifted him across, shielding his body with her own as best she could while they ran. But for this heroic act, she paid with her life.

The twang of a powerful bow-string drawn its full length and released from the grip of a Herculean savage and an arrow sped through to its mark piercing her frail body through and through while the impact caused its shaft to quiver for seconds in her lifeless form after she had fallen.

The sudden appearance over the brow of the hill of father and son just at this time who, greatly alarmed by the screams they had heard were on a dead run for home, was a moment too late to save this little heroine but did have the effect; however, of momentarily halting the pursuers; thereby, enabling the boy to make his escape.

Meeting his father and brother he was told by them to hurry to the fort for help and that was the last time he saw them alive. Arriving at the fort bruised and bleeding, the little fellow through his tears implored those within to hurry to the rescue. After some deliberation, a party sallied forth and reached the scene of the massacre without sighting the enemy. The scene they beheld was long to be remembered. James, though a lad of tender years, and fought and died valiantly by his father's side. The habit of the Indians to invariably carry off their dead and wounded made it impossible to estimate the extent to which they inflicted casualties upon their adversaries, but the condition of their bodies, the ground about them and scattered pools of blood was mute evidence they had sold their lives dearly in defense of their loved ones. Both had been scalped.

The body of the girl lay just over the fence, her scalp missing, and arrow still in the wound. The mother was found just outside the kitchen door, her body hacked to pieces by tomahawks, her scalp torn away, her forearm broken and bearing other evidences of a terrible struggle , but still alive. She afterward regained consciousness and was able to relate some of the terrible details of the tragedy, but was unequal to the heart rendering struggle for life and after three days of indescribable suffering with her torn and mutilated form, the light from Heaven streamed down through the gathering mists of death and her soul was wafted into that world of blessedness where the great riddle of life, the meaning of which we can only guess at here below, was unfolded to her in the quick consciousness of a liberal reward.

While their victims were being buried the people grouped around their graves could plainly hear the war whoops, howls, and jeers of the Indians who had appeared on a ridge in the distance in full view dancing in glee and defying the settlers to pursue them for their deed. Of three of the survivors the writer has been able to learn no more than has been mentioned in a previous paragraph, but Mary, the six-months old babe who was found in her cradle under the high bed in the corner where loving hands had tenderly placed her, somewhat fretful at having been so rudely awake but otherwise unharmed, under the care of a friendly neighbor grew to womanhood. The exact spot where the Sluss home stood can be located on a farm not far west of the North and South Highway near a stiff curve which leaves the valley to approach Walker Mountain. The graves of the victims are in an old cemetery near Ceres.  The fort itself was only torn away about forty years ago."
 

There is a plaque for the Sluss Family standing on the grave yard.

                        

Abraham Dillow Family part II

My Grandpa and Grandma Dillow moved to a farm in Gallipolis, Ohio when they left Dehue. My grandpa work for other farmers, where the farmer would live in another house close by and my grandparents would live in the farmhouse and work the farm for them.

In summer of July 4th 1947 when I was 6 yrs old, Mom and Dad took us on a vacation to visit our grandparents in Ohio. We went then because that's when the miners got their vacation - the first two weeks in July. Also at their house those weeks was my Uncle Woodrow and Aunt Gladys with their three sons and a daughter; my Aunt Wanda with her husband, Woodrow, and their two sons. Living at home still were Uncle Richard and Aunt Hope. So with my parents and my two sisters and myself, we had a full house.

All of us grandchildren were close in age. We would run and chase each other, and roll down the hills, and get ticks on us.

My Grandpa Abe was in the barn one morning, milking the cow while all of us children were running around upsetting the cow. Grandpa hollered at us and told us to stop. My Aunt Wanda's oldest boy, Jimmy, was showing off by pulling the cow's tail. My grandpa Abe told him to stop before the cow kicked him but he didn't listen. I can still see that cow kicking him, hearing him scream and watching him going up in the air to the first floor ceiling, it was a two story barn. I don’t remember how bad he was hurt, it couldn't have been too bad because later he still tried to drown me in the creek which was close to the house where our parents let us play. The other kids ran up to the house and told my Dad, he came down and pulled Jimmy off of me giving him a spanking. When we got older, Jimmy and I loved one another like brother and sister. I went to stay with his mom, my aunt Wanda, in the summers off and on from ages fourteen to seventeen - so we grew up together.

Another time, my sister, Shirley, and I found Aunt Hope's Shirley Temple doll that one of her brothers had sold chances to get for her. The chance was a push-out card and each number someone bought was a different price from five cent to ninety-nine cent. It was a lot of money for someone to be spending on a chance card but if you were lucky you got the prize. But this time it was for a Shirley Temple doll. It took her brother a long time to get that doll. The doll was thirty-two inches high so it was a big doll and my Aunt Hope had hid it while all the grandchildren were there. But my sister and I found it in a closet and started to fight over it, Shirley was pulling it one way and I was pulling it another and we pulled it apart that's when Aunt Hope found us. She screamed at us and our parents came to see what was going on. Aunt Hope was crying and Grandma told her that we were just babies and she was too old to be carrying on so over a doll, she was sixteen at the time. Now that I‘m older, wiser, and been married for all these years, I know what happen to that doll - it could have been fixed. All we did was break the rubber band that held its arms together, but at the time the doll was destroyed and had to be thrown away.

That was the best summer vacation, I remember my Grandfather put us all in the hay wagon to give us a ride out of the hollow to the bus stop so we could go home. The wheel broke off of the wagon and Shirley and my Dad spilled out - no one was hurt. We came away with pictures of the best time in our life. The next time that we went and visit my grandparents, they lived in Kermit, West Virginia across the river from Kentucky. By that time Hope had gotten married. I don’t remember how long that we stayed I only remember the house and yard.

Aunt Hope married Uncle Ray, a Minster in the Church of God. She would come to visit other relatives and I think she visited us only because we lived a couple of houses away. Dad would have not let her forget it if she should come up the hollow and not stop in. She only came to our house once that I can remember. She wouldn’t let us feed her three children, they weren’t allowed to have anything to eat or drink. We thought she was very strict. They made no fuss when she said that they couldn’t have the pop that we were offering them, most children would make a fuss especially them being so young. Later her daughter, Ruth, said something I think went for when they came to our house, too. She said that Aunt Hope didn't like the way Aunt Wanda kept the house. She didn't think it was clean enough.

Once when I was staying with Aunt Hannah, Aunt Hope asked me if I would come and watch her children, she had five children by then. Her and her husband wanted to go away on a retreat for the Church. I had no trouble with the children. Aunt Hope and Uncle Ray came home the last day and took us all back to the Church for the day. I stayed with them for an extra couple of days after we got back to their house and got to see my first couple to get married. The couple knocked on the door and asked Uncle Ray if he would marry them. He married them in his living room.

My grandparent moved away from Ohio to Kermit, West Virginia. I think it was because my Grandma Hester could no longer keep up with canning and take care of the farm. After living in Kermit they moved to Black Bottom in Logan, West Virginia. This one time, I remember Dad had taken us all for a visit. Grandpa Abe always would like to wrestle with us girls. Sometimes he would play with us all together and other times only one of us. If he got hurt, he would get mad and want to whip you. Grandpa and I were sitting on the front porch which had no banister and our feet were hanging off when he reach over and knock me backwards. I got up and pushed him backwards. Dad happened to come out of the house and this is what he said to his father. "You can play with her but if she hurts you, old man, and you get mad and want to hurt her back. I will hurt you."

Dad taught us girls how to wrestle and be tough, that is how he himself played with us. Sometimes as we walked by him, he would try to trip us or push us in our backs with his thumb which always started a wrestling match. I always enjoyed going to visit my Grandma Hester's, I remembered what a good breakfast she would cook for us when we stayed overnight with the house was always full. My grandparents lived in a three room house with a front porch. I fondly remember how she would show us that she could drop her front teeth. We didn't know it at the time what false teeth were. That's where they lived when my Grandma Hester passed away - I was ten years old.

Hannah Dillow

Hester and Abe Dillow

Stephen and Hannah Dillow

Uncle Richard and Aunt Lilly

Jimmy

Uncle Lewis

Aunt Oma and Great-Grandma, Mary Jane Perkins

Aunt Hope

Aunt Wanda

Uncle Woodrow

from left to right: Uncle Woodrow, his wife Gladys, Uncle Lewis, Aunt Hannah, Aunt Hope, Aunt Wanda