Life and Death in the Construction of the Great Bend Tunnel

Act 1 Home with Rollinsons

1870 Scene: cabin interior

Aunt Bettie Rollinson is cooking oats eggs and bacon for breakfast. She has just mixed some biscuit dough.  Charles Rollinson is dressed for work overcoat, bibs, pocket watch…

Charles : I am hurting in my back and legs and shoulders something awful today Aunt Bettie.  I work hard every day here on the farm but working the land, hauling timbers and building barns, and driving the oxen  is nowhere close to the work of breaking into that hillside. You know we worked all day yesterday and barely left a hole no bigger than a  root cellar. They are talking about this being a five year project but I say 10 years. I hear them say it is well over on a mile through to the other side. 

Bettie: Charles, I see they are digging all over that hillside I always thought you dig a tunnel from one side of a hill to another. 

Charles : Well Aunt Bettie I was explained how they are doing that. Let me see that dough and I will show you. Okay this big lump of dough is the mountain. Here is your farm. Here is Rollysonburg and here is the railroad coming from the west.




They could go all the way around the hill with the Greenbrier and it would be nine twisty steep miles; but by going up the holler here and drilling through the mountain they can have a level grade tunnel of about a mile.


   It takes time to dig in from both ends but they decided if they dig some shafts from the top like this (pokes holes in dough) and then have men working on each face and in each hole they can move  lots of material and open the tunnel up in just a few years.  So now they have three crews working drilling shafts down through the hilltop to work digging the tunnel in either direction from the bottoms of those shafts and another two crews working from the ends,

Bettie:  Blamed fools the lot of them -I would say, and you right along with them – I first thought we were the most blessed in the valley to have that railroad coming through my Daddy’s farm so we could take our produce eggs and milk east into Stanton and Roanoke but so far all I have seen is them taking our pasture and stealing our timber not only under our noses but hiring you to do it. How much do they owe you now? Have you seen the first red cent yet?

Charles: I am keeping account Aunt Bettie. Captain Johnson  told me just yesterday how it won’t be long now till we are paid for the right of way and the shanties we built. His railroad is going to keep us making money from now on - we can wait a while yet.  Major Menifee just brought  a whole passel of freedmen who used to work down there as contract slaves in the mines  of Virginia to do the drilling and the mucking. 

Drilling is done by short stout workers who swing hammers in the tunnel and hit longs steel rods that are rotated by other men called shakers with each hammer strike.  The ends of the steel rods are shaped like stars so each time the hammer strikes pieces of stone shoot out. Once a team of drivers and shakers get a hole a couple feet into the face of the rock a powder man comes and loads a charge of dynamite in the hole with a fuse hooked to it. Everyone backs away and the charge is set off blasting the hole bigger.

Then the muckers come with picks and spades to clean all the small pieces and haul them out of the tunnel.

 The teams of workers are swarming the mountain now. Working two and three shifts in those shafts and both ends- they are calling the ends "approaches".

Bettie: I can tell you are getting some education down there I just hope it isn’t a bought lesson.  The mail carrier told me that a couple of the neighbors have been down to Union to file suit on Mr Johnson to get paid – nobody has been paid yet. You need to hit him up to get some of what is due you. Spring is coming and we need seed money– they ruined the crops last year with their surveying and moving of equipment and cutting our timber-that which they didn’t downright steal.  You haven’t even got paid for any of that yet.

Betty now gets the dough and opens a large cabinet beside the stove to reveal a moonshine still steaming away. She pinches off some dough and presses it into the steaming pipes on top of it. 

Charles-:  I know.  I know. I am going to be paid but I will ask today again. 

Barrels behind the still rattle spotlight shines on them a big puppet rat jumps on top of them smells the steam coming off the still squeaks and falls back behind the barrels. End of Scene. 

Act TwoEastern Portal Approach

Charles is dirty now from working

Taking a break talking to a pair of freeman diggers: Frank Echols a grizzled older man, and Henry Meadows heavier well fed clean shaven.

Henry:  I tell you I am done in from this tunnel digging I am sore from yesterday and now it is dark in that hole , I’m scared it’ll cave in around me all the time. I am done with this digging work.  I saw young Buck Johnson get knocked in the head when a piece of loose shale fell out of the roof while he was mucking after that last charge.  It knocked his light plum off his head and he lay there in his cart for a good ten minutes.  When he did get up he had blood running out of his ear and he was spitting out teeth. Yes sir it wrung his bell right.  I just want out of here before I get done in by a loose piece of shale like that. 

Frank:   This is good money and room and board I guess it is all right for you to up an quit but I have to get my groceries.  I am just as much stuck in this hole as I was down at the Lewis Tunnel Working for the Virginia statehouse. At least I don’t have to wear the shackles anymore. I learned all about digging down there. I started out mucking, then I was a shaker, spelled the driver a while, and now I can say I am a trained powder man. But this ain’t like those  tunnels. This is all shovel work -old red shale. This slate dries out and what was solid rock yesterday splits and busts today if you just peck it.  If I didn’t have to I’d never crawl down that hole again.

Henry Meadows:  I just want to get my six month contract over with. I load and push a cart all day 12 hours I been through 4 pair of gloves this month sharp edges on this shale rip them to ribbons in less then a week.  If we stay on here a year we get 2 weeks wages and a raise. I don’t care nothing about the raise but if I save a  a nickel every week between now and when my year is up I ought to have near on  five dollars then I can buy … 

William R Johnson approaches with a young man dressed in city clothes:  What’s all this standing around? Echols, I need to you move up to shaft 2 and work as shaker for a piece they have run into some limestone and your experience will be better suited to that.  This here is Booker Hunter,  Mr Hunter he will be the paymaster starting this week. Hunter this here is Frank Echols– he is a good worker trained in tunneling and using a transit.  He is even pretty fair at arithmetic since he learned it while he was working in the warehouses down in Richmond before he was picked up for Vagrancy. He had to pull a year down next to Lexington in the state house. He is going to be the second shift lead on shaft two so make sure and see that his pay reflects it.

Booker :Yes sir Captain Johnson

Rollinson:  Speaking of pay Bill – I am done working  here until I am paid for all that I have already done. I know a few of the others have gone down to Union to ...

WM:  Charles don’t you talk to me about no Union , matter of fact you aren’t needed on this job anymore I have told you am paying you in a few days – as a matter of fact you clear out I don’t have time for you on this job.  You trying to get rich off 20 acres of hillside and swampland and now you come down here taking about unions and making demands. I treat these men well, they have a dry shanty to sleep in

CHARLES: “That I built from timber I still haven’t been paid for”

WM: They have food twice a day

CHARLES “That your cooks  steal from my fields”

WM: And they have a wage and a fine store to spend it at just up the way.

CHARLES: Yes Ridgeway and you have some racket paying these men just enough to keep them in boots and gloves while you work them three shifts and he cheats them at the till.

WM: CAPTAIN Ridgeway is a fine businessman and gentleman. Don’t forget he served and even lost a brother in service to the Grand Army of the Confederacy – so it is no surprise he feels due all he can fairly get from this bunch. They get fair wages , a sight more they would be getting plowing a Virginia field. Now Clear out! That’s the end of it before I decide the Chesapeake and Ohio needs a siding going through the middle of your house and barn.”

Charles leaves and the other workers Start singing as they trek toward the  face of the stone work.

FRANK:
Mother keep your lamp trimmin and a burnin 
Keep your lamp trimmin and a burnin 
Keep your lamp trimmin and a burnin 
For dis world most done 
So keep your lamp & burning for Dis world most done. 

Harry:Brudder keep your lamp trimmin and a burnin 
Keep your lamp trimmin and a burnin 
Keep your lamp trimmin and a burnin 
For dis world most done 
So keep your lamp & burning for Dis world most done. 

Act Three

Booker Hunter is calling names at payroll from the pay shanty that looks liek a kids lemonade stand .

Booker: Phillip Hess

Hess :Right here Booker

Booker: Richard Rhodes

Rhodes: Thanks Book

Booker: Frank Echols 
Echols: Heah Boss

Booker: Henry Meadows
Heah Boss

Booker: William... Johnson?

BUCK: Heah I am boss William Johnson that’s me Boss.

Booker: Hold on now! Do you mean to tell me you are William Johnson same name as the main engineer over this whole tunnel William Johnson.

Buck: Why that’s my name boss but I go by Buck everybody know me as Buck.

Booker: Well I will have to hold your pay to make sure I don’t get the paperwork crossed up- I’m not losing my job just because you.

Buck: But I need my pay boss I have to have boots, and gloves beside that I have a toothache and need some medicine.

The other men start telling Booker to hand over his pay. Mumbling and grumbling.  About that time Captain William Johnson appears on the scene.

Captain Johnson:  looks down his nose at Buck and says: What’s all this about?  You’ll get paid. What is the problem? 

Booker: Captain I was about to pay this man when he claimed to share the same name as you.

Captain Johnson: You don’t say… In that case this pay is mine see here on the paperwork William Johnson.

Buck: Oh Captain Johnson I need my pay I got this tooth that is giving me fits and I need gloves and ..

Captain Johnson: Stop that caterwauling! I’ll give you your pay. Everybody on this railroad is worried about a dollar - from Huntington to this lowest mucker in the tunnel. Now I am going down to Ridgeway's store. You come along and we can see about something for that tooth.

Booker: James  Cain?

Booker starts to stamp his papers and starts a rhythm the workers line up and start banging on wheelbarrow and shovels.

*--

All true children gwine in de wilderness

Gwine in de wilderness

gwine in de wilderness

True believers gwine in de wilderness

To take away de sins ob de world

We re gwine to dig a tunnel De steel is a ringing

De steel is ringing,

De steel is ringing

Drivers and the shaker has de steel a ringing

To take away de sins ob de world

Gwine to build a rail railroad De steel is a ringing

De steel is ringing,

De steel is ringing

Mucker and powder has de steel a ringing

To take away de sins ob de world.

Trust believer 0 de steel is a ringing

De steel is ringing,

De steel is ringing

Satan s behind me De steel is a ringing

To take away de sins ob de world.

Act Four Welcome to Ridgeways

Captain Johnson:Afternoon Captain,

 Captain William Ridgeway: Howdy Bill, you come shopping?

Captain Johnson: Not at your prices Will but we need to get Buck here something for a bad tooth.

Captain Ridgeway: We don’t carry medicine for his kind. And the barber down Stauton don’t pull their teeth either.

Captain Johnson: I had the idea you might sell him some of Aunt Bettie’s  corn liquor and some of that Bayer soothing oil.  I have been noticing young Buck here - he can out work any two of the muckers we have but look how swollen his face is.

Captain Ridgeway: So you are Buck?  It suits you. As a favor for Captain Johnson I’ll let you get some of this medicine for your tooth – but it isn’t cheap let me see your wages. yes bettrt ahn anything  that new Limey Dr Tom Bray would give you even if he would consent to treat you. 

BUCK Gives him $3. 

Here is your part back- fifty cents and the medicine.

Buck:  But I need some gloves and boots.

 Captain Ridgeway: You ain’t a getting any boots for what you have left.  Here is one pair of gloves. Now get out of my store.

They exit stage as spotlight zooms in on some moonshine jugs on a shelf where the puppet rat appears and prys on the corks in the jugs squeaking angrily.  

Act Five Buck's shanty

Buck goes back to his shanty and takes medicine and lays down. His mind gets to tumbling and racing.  He sees the paymaster making fun of him, and Ridgeway saying over and over about his kind, he wakes up in a cold sweat and runs out to the quiet woods near the shanties. his can be depicted by the actors in other parts of the stage being back lit and saying these lines over and over while Buck lays in his cot moaning and tossing and turning. He tips over a mostly empty small jug and heads out the door. 
Spotlight on spilled jug and from under cot comes Squeaky rat that laps up the spilled moonshine and then smiles hiccups and stumbles and falls back under the bed as the spotlight turns off.

 Scene 5B In the woods.

Buck comes up on a card game. He isn't sure if he is awake or asleep. 

John Hardy is playing poker. He is dressed up real sharp with feather in his hat and a fine suit of clothes : He introduces himself in a drunken soliloquy.: 

I am John Hardy and I am a Hammer Man. I drive steel all around the land. 

I work all day. At night I play

I am John Hardy. Stay outta my way.  

John gets mad at the way the game is going, he is very drunk and kicks over the table spilling drinks and card everywhere. then he slaps one of the girls. Without thinking skinny inebriated Buck stands up to the big man. 

Buck : You there! That's enough!

And knocks him out cold.  The girls scatter except the one who had been smacked. She gets to her feet and picks up the money left scattered  on the table   She grabs Buck and leads him off into the mountainside.

When the sun rises Buck sneaks back into Rollysonburg his part of the money squirreled away back in the woods. The girl let out for parts unknown.

Buck worked that day harder than ever, he had a ringing in his ears and a pain in his head. That tooth felt like a hot poker in his mouth. When the shift was over he went straight to get some of the money and then called on Ridgeway again.

He carried on like this for a 2 weeks till the money ran out. Work like a devil all day and then take the medicine- oh it was good medicine.

Then his money ran out again three days before payday. He worked. He was sick in body and mind and he needed more medicine. 

He left out  early that morning and hid out in the woods near the county road where he found Mister Booker Hunter walking in with the weekly payroll.

His mouth watered for more medicine – he so dreaded having to go through the whole William.. my name is Buck argument again.

He was about to approach Booker to ask for his pay, there on the spot when a big man with a feather in his hat popped out of the woods across the way. And dragging with him the girl from the other night. She had a bruised up face and was limping as he drug her through the woods  he handled her roughly.  
Right in front of them Booker stopped to pic up a pile of walnuts that were piled int he middle of the trail. 

John  Hardy jumped form his hiding place and slugged him with his cane - first across the temple and then on the back of the head.

He fell to the ground and dropped his satchel.

That’s when Captain William Johnson stepped out of the shadows. He fired a shot at Hardy who ran down the path. He then grabbed the satchel and ran over to a hollow tree where he placed it deep inside. Others showed up as he  returned to the cooling body.

The workers carried the dead man away and only then did Buck and the girl come out of the thick laurel. They both made for the Hollow tree but the satchel was deep too deep inside to retrieve. Buck barely was able to secure a few bills between the tips of his fingers. $39 in single bills. This was more than he had ever seen much less held in his hands. They flew off back into town. They gathered up their belongings and headed up river only stopping first to see Mr Ridgeway about some more medicine. Buck found he needed it all the time now so he bought $10 worth.

“Where are you getting all this money?” asked Ridgeway as he took 10 dollars for 3 bottles of medicine. I know you don’t earn this much in a week. I guess you are pretty good at the cards. But you don’t seem smart enough to be a card player.

Act Six 

the jail in Staunton VA

It was a week later when he was caught in Stauton,

They said they knew it was him.

They said that he might as well confess.

He studied on it.  The girl would come to see him and sneak him his medicine. It made his pain go away. But then he started to have flashbacks and doubt what was real and what was not. His dreams were tormented with falling rocks and stale air and laughing men with feathered hats.  His only solace was the girl and his medicine. Then one day the jailer refused to admit her and he was not able to get his medicine. He confessed to the murder he confessed to another murder. He confessed to anything they would ask him

He got his visitor and her potion.

He got a trip back to Union WV and a trial where he was sentenced to hang for Murder and Armed robbery.

Act Seven 

Ridgeway’s store

Ridgeway has been drinking pretty heavy since Henry Booker was killed , it brought back memories of his brother dying n the battle field. He still has the store open but is increasingly hard to get along with  for his customers and even his wife. 
Echols is buying some gloves and boot strings.

How much for these gloves? Leather ones are .40 cloth ones are .25. Echols lays the leather gloves and some shoe strings marked 5 cents on the counter. And slides two quarters over to Mr Ridgeway. He places them in a brown paper sack and hands them to him.  Echols stands there looking at him waiting for his nickel in change. Finally he says I believe I have five cents due back to me.

Ridgeway looks icily at him knowing he has been caught cheating the till. The bile and contempt rising in him as he thinks about how just 15 years ago it was illegal for a black person to know any math or to read, and how he lost his brother in the war that let them get educated.  He Said “Don’t you dare talk to me about what you are due.” You are due nothing don’t you come back into my store again. Who do you think you are I will not stand by and be disrespected by the likes of you!” he drew his revolver and shot Echols in the face. Other customers run for help and carry the dying man away.

Ridgeway drunkenly waved the gun around telling everyone to get out “Shells cost a nickel each so I would say now we are even.” He locks the store and leaves.

Rat puppet on shelf again this time pushes on a small moonshine jug cork and tips it off the shelf.  It leaks on the floor and he laps and laps then sits on the shelf and dozes off.

Act Eight 

Back at Charles and Aunt Bettie's house

The Hanging as described by Charles to Aunt Bettie.

Charles: Bettie you sure have been a putting out a mess of that shine in the last few weeks.

Bettie: It is good thing Charles because you still haven’t got any money coming in from the railroad and if it weren’t for my shine money we wouldn’t have bread or meat to eat. Besides that everyone from Ridgeway to those men working have been drinking a lot lately with all the worries about the murder and the hanging.  It wasn’t bad enough with the rumors of that fellow being innocent spreading among the other workers then that old greedy fool had to go shoot one over a blamed nickel.  

Charles: Don't that beat all? Shoot a man over a nickle? Got the whole valley riled up wanting to kill each other.  I heard Ridgeway was upset because his wife had been seen talking to some of the railroad men and that brought all that about. Can't blame her much he don't treat anyone fair probably not her either.  He isn't getting much business lately and is convinced someone has been stealing from the store. said there was liquor spilled out from a different jug every night Everyone has started going across the hill to Cummings grocery now. He is talking about setting up shop up the river a piece.

Bettie:  Did That batch you took into town get delivered okay?

Charles:  Well it was ordered special by the jailer and the sheriff.  I heard they sat right down and drank it with Buck as they took his third confession. This time he confessed to the killing that Booker with a hatchet and stealing $58. Last time it was a stick of wood and $96 and the time before that it was a walking cane and $42.

He came out the next morning with the jailer convinced he would not die. He road on a wagon down into Union. He was sitting on his casket as he rode to the gallows. The sheriff did not want to trip the trap but finally the crowd of blacks seemed like they were going to save him and the others who came from miles around demanded that he be killed. There was people on stages and every tree had people in them trying for a better view. Every porch and rooftop was crowded. They let him have his last words.  He stood up there and said even if his head popped off he still wasn’t going to die. Said he saw that in a dream.

Wasn’t no truth to it though cause when the trap fell his finger caught on the edge of the floor and skinned his hand to the bone slowed him down so his neck didn’t break. He just hung there until he stopped moving.  The women went to crying for him and even a few of the men had to pull out their handkerchiefs. It was a sight.

Aunt Bettie:Oh that is a dreadful tale and I hope not to hear no more of it.

Charles: I brought you six more orders from them crowds.

Act Nine

Captain William Johnson talking to James Cain:

I know you signed up for 6 months and you just are just about done but I am going to need you to pick up the pace.  Shaft 2 was the hardest limestone of the whole job and it is finished already.  

Captain Johnson :  Shaft 3 is softer and I already lost Reid falling from the derrick and Charley Devine fell 53 feet down the shaft.   

There is no reason for this continued delays and accidents and I don’t care if you have a week left on an hour left we need to get to drilling shooting and digging.

CAIN: Now hold on boss this soft rock shale does not mean it is easy digging. Far from it. It is like digging in sand every time you remove a bucket two more fall where it was. We have propped up the approaches with timbers as called for in the plans but the shale just falls through the gaps between the timbers. The drivers drills keep getting stuck in the soft stuff and the shakers can’t turn them. Every shot that is put off is apt as not to loosen what it is designed to. 
 We are making good progress but I am glad my time in this hole is nearly through. Not a day has gone by I have not given it my all and tomorrow I’ll draw my last pay.

Johnson: You know if you stay on another six months you will have a better salary and I will let you run your own crew.

CAIN: No thanks. I don’t like this shale. It is hard to work around.   

Steam whistle blows

CAIN: What? Who was the genius that thought a Burleigh drill could do any good in this soft shale? 

Capt Johnson: Oh that’s not a Burleigh drill that is a steam donkey engine being used to drag buckets up out of the shaft, I don’t see a steam drill doing much good here not unless the rock was to get a whole lot harder on the last approach.

Act Ten

Bettie and Charles

In the kitchen talking about the accident.

Charles:There’s been another death down there at the tunnel. That is near on a dozen I can recollect in the past couple years since they started.  

Bettie: Yeah I heard about that a crew about to go back to Stanton to their families’ wasn’t it?  

Charles: No I am talking about the latest one down on the rubble dump it was  two boys about 17years old  were a horsing around throwing clods and rocks at each other and the little one named Hess hit the oldest one named Rhodes in the head with a rock and killed him just like that.

Bettie: You don’t say? They ought to have known better than that.

Charles:  Yeah and the Rhodes boy was a pretty good worker too.  Hess has run off towards Goshen  and the constable has gone after to arrest him. 

Bettie: Do you expect there will be another hanging?

Charles:  No these kids were just roughhousing besides Hess didn’t rob anybody.   I heard that shaft 1 and 2 and the western approach are all tied together now and they are talking about being anput through to the eastern approach.

Bettie:  So they actually lined up inside the mountain? Must have took a great deal of figuring and a little bit of luck to get all the way through that mess with all the cave ins and such. 

Charles : Yeah old Johnson is giving most of the credit to Captain Talcott– I didn’t really know him but seems he did most of the calculations to make it all come out right.   I ain’t never seen him in the tunnel but a time or two in the past two years. Never seen him with a shovel, hammer or a cart. They are supposed to let him drive the last few inches between shaft 1 and the eastern approach though.  It is hard to imagine a tunnel over a mile long. I will be glad when it is over and I finally get paid.

Bettie:  Well sounds like it is getting close. I just have a little more time to keep making and selling all the liquor I can so I sure hope you get that money you are owed soon. At least things will slow down some around here.

Charles K Rollyson
Sued Captain William B Johnson in the court of Union WV on Sept 1880 for $606.15

 for building 2 Shanties

Hauling 15 sets of shanty  logs

Hauling one set Cookhouse logs

1 day Hauling with 2 ox teams

1.5 days work in tunnel

87 braces cut

Timber for set of braces for West Approach

Timber on 20 acres of land for tunnel

Timber on 30 acres

Damage to farm and crop – cutting timber unlawfully

600 foot of track timbers