During the time the white pine timber was being cut and transported to the mill at Ronceverte by water, the movement of cut logs to the stream banks was mainly a matter of man and beast, involving horses, slides, and tramroads. Most logs were probably moved by the direct application of a horse or team of horses to the logs and dragging them to the stream bank. When the weather was cold enough, slides were constructed of split logs which were watered in order to cause ice to form which facilitated the movement of the logs. Simple railroads, or tramroads, were sometimes constructed. The motive power for the small cars which carried only a log or two, was gravity or horses for the trip to the log dump and horse power for the trip back to the cutting site. The white pine was located at lower elevations along streams, thus distances were not great for the logs to be transported and man and beast were generally the most economical way to move the timber. Also, getting larger equipment to cutting locations, such as a locomotive for a tramroad, would not be easy with only primitive roads available.
However, there are two steam locomotives known to have been used during the white pine era for logging purposes.
The best documented was a small engine that went under the name “Jim.” This engine was the solution to a problem facing “Captain” Abner E. Smith, one of the logging contractors for the St. Lawrence Boom and Manufacturing Company. A native of Canada, he was born on July 1, 1851, near St. John in New Brunswick, but came to the United States as a child.1
In a newspaper article about his father, Emory H. Smith, oldest of Smith’s two sons, wrote that Smith was working as a logging contractor in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, when he got a contract from SLB&M. Smith brought to West Virginia experienced lumbermen who had come with him to Pennsylvania from his former home in Maine. The men who purchased SLB&M in 1881 were from Indiana County, so Smith may have already worked for the company’s new owners.2
Smith came to the Greenbrier Valley in 1882 and his first logging contract from SLB&M was for cutting on several sites on Deer Creek. His first camp was near the George Siple place — need location — not far from its mouth. He cut tracts of timber on the same stream in 1883 and again in 1884.3
In 1885 Smith was given the contract to cut timber on the 3,300 acre McCutcheon Tract, which is now part of Seneca State Forest. Robert McCutcheon originally sold the rights to his timber in 1871. After several changes in ownership, these rights had become the property of SLB&M in 1882.4
The timber was located on the headwaters of Thomas Run, a tributary to Sitlington Creek. Since Thomas Creek is not large even in time of flood and the distance to Sitlington Creek, a stream with sufficient water for floating, was several miles, Smith decided to use a railroad and for motive power, a steam locomotive. He ordered from H. K. Porter and Company a seven ton, narrow gauge, wood burning saddletank engine with a 0-4-2 wheel arrangement. The engine was built by Porter in November 1885 and given construction number 719. Prior to shipping the newly constructed engine, the company asked Smith what name should be stenciled on it. They were no doubt thinking of the name of his railroad, but the Captain thought of his youngest son and told them to call the engine “Jim.”5
From the Porter factory in Pittsburgh, the locomotive was shipped by rail to Staunton, Virginia. There it was dismantled and hauled by wagon the 85 miles across several mountains to the cutting site. A company representative, Frank Genge, came with the engine to put it into operating condition after the move. Emory Smith recalled going into to the water tank to tighten bolts.6
Emory Smith also remembered the interest this locomotive created:
This was the first railroad in Pocahontas County and it was the cause of much excitement. The trial run was the occasion for a big celebration. Platforms were placed on some trucks and people came from all over the neighborhood to see the train and get a ride. Most of them piled on with alacrity, but some were timid and doubtful. One old lady declined, saying she was not ready to die!
I still have a vivid picture in mind of that excursion. The train must have attained the enormous speed of ten miles per hour. When they crossed a trestle, some of the passengers nearly died of fright. My father, in the engine cab, cautioned the engineer about crossing a trestle that would have carried the weight of the great locomotives of today. The reply was, “what the hell did you build it for.”7
Today, the route of the logging railroad built in the McCutcheon Tract is unknown, but it is assumed the logs were hauled down Thomas Creek to a landing on Sitlington Creek. It seems unlikely that the additional track needed to reach the Greenbrier River – slightly over a mile – would have been built.
“Jim” was used in the McCutcheon timber through the winter of 1889-90. During this time, one accident involving the engine made the newspaper. In February 1890, the engine turned over and threw Smith out of the cab window. Fortunately, neither he or anyone else was injured.8
In May of 1890 it was reported that the railroad had been taken up and ready for shipment to a new location. At some point Smith sold his railroad equipment to the company; whether it was at the end of the logging on the McCutcheon tract or earlier is not known.9
It is not known if “Jim” was used during the 1890-91 winter logging season. During that winter Smith did a cutting job for St. Lawrence on Meadow Creek in Greenbrier County and it seems very unlikely the engine would have been hauled that far.10
In the summer of 1891 Smith was back in Pocahontas County and preparing to cut timber on Cummins Creek. The company had started the work, which included use of “Jim.” However, with a July 1891 contract the work was turned over to Smith, along with the improvements the company had already made, the railroad and its equipment, and camp/logging equipment. (The contract also included handling the log drives in the river for 1892, 1893, and 1894.)11
As related in the previous chapter, the construction of the railroad caused a lawsuit. However, the legal action must not have slowed the progress on the railroad by too much, because in September 1891 The Pocahontas Times had the following account on the work:
The St. Lawrence Boom & M’f’g Co.’s lumber railroad, which starts near the Buzzard place – location – on Beaver Creek and which passes near this place [Huntersville], making the terminus at Knapps Creek, a few hundred yard below here, a distance of about three miles, under the management of Capt. E. A. [sic] Smith and his efficient foreman, Mr. R. R. Mason, is about completed. They have been at work on this road something less than two months, with a force of about 15 men, and have built a most excellent lumber railroad, which undoubtedly, considering the immense work it took speaks well for both the employers and the men employed. Capt. Smith is one of our most highly esteemed and one of the best businessmen of our county, and believes in and always practices the principal, that if anything is worth doing it is worth doing right.12
In November a writer in the Times, probably the editor, John E. Campbell, reported on a trip to the camp:
A party of ladies, and ourself with crowd, took a trip on E. A. [sic] Smith’s R. R. to his camp last Saturday, and were shown a most enjoyable time, and an incident we are pleased to note especially was the dinner set before us by Mr. Guay, the French cook. We had dinner at least twice, at Mr. Guay’s table and we hereby testify that we have never set down to one that would surpass it, and to only a few in our lifetime that would equal it. We are also pleased to say that Mr. Robt. Beals, the manager of the train is an obliging and courteous gentlemen in every sense of the word.13
Guay, “the French cook,” must have worked for St. Lawrence for a number of years. An earlier newspaper reference was in an account on Christmas dinner at Smith’s camp in 1888. The dinner was “largely attended and greatly enjoyed. Mr. Gay [sic], the expert French cook of the camp is hard to excel in his art, as all will testify who have ever partaken of his preparations.” In a September 1890 news item, Guay was the cook at the SLB&M camp on Knapps Creek and his cooking was highly complimented. In a report on the Smith and Whiting camp on Knapps Creek in August 1895, it was noted “Mr. Quay has charge of the commissary department.”14
In a 1978 interview, William Buckley made reference to the French cook on the log drives when his father John was a pilot. Guay’s first name was given as Onesime in the only reference with a full name.15
Robert Beals was one of the Canadians who came to the Greenbrier Valley for the white pine logging. A native of Nova Scotia, he became a United States citizen on April 4, 1894.16
The railroad is reported to have gone as far as the Beaver Creek Cemetery with the main camp and shop located about one mile from Huntersville.17
In four months of work, ending in January 1892, “Jim” is reported to have hauled some three million feet of white pine logs to the landing on Knapps Creek.18
“Jim” was back at work at Huntersville in the fall of 1892. By the middle of November the hard working locomotive had moved many thousand feet of logs to the landing in preparation for the 1893 log drive. Reported in the style of the day, the newspaper depicted “Jim,” “(it) comes and goes from early morn to frosty eve, and makes noise enough for locomotives of much greater size and pretensions.”19
As related in the last chapter, about this time Smith took on as partners James A. Whiting and Frank Griffith and they operated under the name Smith, Whiting and Company. After Griffith died in October 1894 the company was known as Smith and Whiting.
On September 26, 1893, “James Berry was severely hurt last Thursday by falling from a truck attached to the engine that plies between the Huntersville landing and the Beaver Creek lumber camp.”20
Smith, Whiting and Company also had a contract with the Cumberland Lumber Company to cut the white pine from a 2,302 acre tract on Moore’s Sugar Camp Run on Knapps Creek for the 1893 and 1894 log drives.
Whether the engine was used for the 1894-95 and 1895-96 logging seasons is not known. There was a reference in March 1895 to a log drive in Anthonys Creek with Smith as the contractor. In June of 1895 there was a news item on the the railroad being removed from the – Loury farm, need location – and one result was “an immense supply of stove wood from the cross-ties.” That summer Smith and Whiting had a logging camp on Knapps Creek, — Harper land – miles above Minnehaha Springs, but it is unlikely they would have moved “Jim” to this site.21
In the summer of 1896 Smith and Whiting moved to a cutting job on Allegheny Mountain on the waters of Laurel Creek near Rimel and again used their engine.22
In September of 1896 there was the following news report on the locomotive:
The locomotive used by Smith & Whiting on their log tramway, has been recently overhauled and thoroughly repaired. It has been rechristened “Jim.” It was named after Capt. Smith’s son, Jim., who was a baby when the engine was new. The boy Jim goes to the West Virginia Univesity (sic) and works in the woods in the summer time, being a veritable chip out of the old block. The engine has hauled the cutting of each year, and changed its road be each year. It has left behind it at each move, large tracts of land devoid of marketable timber.23
During the 1897-98 and 1898-99 timbering seasons, the available information suggests that Smith and Whiting did not do any cutting for St. Lawrence and thus “Jim” was probably inactive. (However, the main source of information on the engine, Friel, stated S&W worked on Laurel Creek “like four years.”)
For the 1900 drive Smith and Whiting had a camp on Cochrans Creek, south of Rimel. The following winter, 1900-01, their camp was on Douthards Creek, near Minnehaha Springs. Smith and Whiting had logs in the 1902 drive out of Knapps Creek, but the source of the timber has not been determined. How much “Jim” was used on these locations is not known for certain. In a July 1901 deed of trust to secure a $1,500 note at the Pocahontas Bank in Marlinton, Smith and Whiting used the locomotive as the surety. According to the trust deed, “Jim,” 4 1/2 miles of sixteen pound steel rail, plates and spikes, fourteen cars, and other equipment were located on Cochrans Creek.24
The 1901-02 timbering season seems to have been the last time that Smith and Whiting worked as contractors for St. Lawrence. No references have been found to a 1903 log drive and in 1902 or 1903 they began their own sawmill operation on the C&O two miles south of Durbin. The railroad flagstop for the mill was named Whiting (See Chapter XII).
The engine used in the white pine woods was not moved to Whiting. Instead, it was sold in February 1902 to the Marlinton Lumber Company for use on its tramroad on Brushy Lick Run. The company’s mill was located at August. In early 1905, a new owner of this operation, P. P. Griffin, decided to replace all of his old equipment with new. In April he advertised for sale a variety of equipment, including “One Seven Ton, Straight Connected Saddle Tank, 36 in. gauge, Porter Locomotive. Good Condition.”25
The replacement for “Jim” was an eighteen ton Climax locomotive that was advertised for sale in late 1909 with the sawmill when Griffin closed the operation.26
The last known use of “Jim” was by the Kidd, Kirby and Lilly Lumber Company on its logging job in southern Pocahontas County. For this company, the Porter hauled logs off of the side of Droop Mountain to the mill on Trump Run. As this company did not begin operating until 1907, “Jim’s” whereabouts between 1905 and 1907 are unknown. Perhaps, the engine sat at August waiting for a new owner.
Whether “Jim” moved on to be used elsewhere or went from work on Trump Run to the scrap heap is not known. Kidd, Kirby and Lilly finished its lumbering on Trump Run in 1912. Frank P. Kidd ran a mill near the mouth of Locust Creek and then at Kennison. He did not have a railroad at Kennison; whether he might have used “Jim” at the other site is another unknown at this time.
Craig Friel, the author of the 1928 article in the Times on the locomotive, recalled last seeing it “run out on the dock” in junk condition. In his article he commented on his disappointment at being unable to to find out the final disposition of “Jim.” Emory Smith, son of A. E. Smith, remembered “The last I saw of it was on the dock of a lumber operation near Marlinton.” However, by the early part of the Twentieth Century, logging locomotives of much greater size were so common in the Greenbrier Valley that the fate of a small, seven ton machine would not have been an item of much interest.27
A number of men worked as engineers on “Jim” but James Watson probably ran the engine more than any other. Like many in the white pine woods, he was native of Pennsylvania, coming from Centre County. Mr. Watson lived in Pocahontas County after the logging years and died on July 29, 1933, at age 76.28
Other engineers for “Jim” mentioned in news articles include _ Moore, Russell, __ Jones, Bob Beales on the McCutcheon Tract and Bob Beales and Len Townes on Cummins Creek.
James O. Smith, the namesake for the locomotive, was born in Pennsylvania on September 9, 1880, before his father came to Pocahontas County. He remained in the county for the rest of his life. He attended West Virginia University and was associated with S. B. Wallace, a wholesale and retail drug firm in Marlinton. Mr. Smith died on July 21, 1944.29
The other locomotive in the white pine woods in the Greenbrier River Valley was the one used by the Beaver Lick Lumber Company on Laurel Run and then by the Cumberland Lumber Company on Spice Run.
Dewing and Sons had a small Shay at its operation on the Shavers Fork of Cheat River.
1 PT, 11/14/1929; as far as is known, “captain” was a title of the lumber woods and did not refer to an actual military rank; the giving of military titles to lumber foremen and contractors was a common practice
2 Emory H. Smith, “First Lumber Operations,” PT, 10/6/1949
3 Friel, “Little Jim,” PT, 8/9/1928
4 Friel, “Little Jim”; PCDB 10, p 241, 2/9/1871; numerous deeds involving the leases in PCDB 11, 12 , 14, 16, and 17; to SLB&M in DB 15, pp 240 and 242, 8/1/1882
5 Friel, “Little Jim”, the name given to the engine varies in the sources, with “Jim” being the most common; from a partial list of H. K. Porter locomotives used in West Virginia in West Virginia Hillbilly, April 25, 1964
6 Friel, “Little Jim”; Smith “First Lumber Operations”
7 “First Lumber Operations,”
8 PT, 2/20/1890
9 PT, 5/15/1890, Smith, “First Lumber Operations,”
10 PT, 5/29/1890
11 Copy of contract, dated 7/26/1891, in case file for GCCC, SLB&M vs. O’Connell, et al
12 PT, 9/17/1891; Penick Underwood, interview on 10/14/1978, put the log dump near the mouth of Cummins Creek and Amos McCarty, interview on 1/10/1970, stated it was on the Isaac Barlow land
13 PT, 11/5/1891
14 PT, 1/3/1889, 9/18/1890, 8/30/1895
15 Friel, “Little Jim”; William Buckley interview on 2/12/1978
16 PCCC, Common Law Order Book 6, p 69
17 Underwood interview
18 PT, 1/21/1892
19 PT, 11/17/1892
20 PT, 10/5/1893
21 PT, 3/22/1895, 6/28/1895, 8/30/1895, 12/13/1895, 3/13/1896
22 Friel, “Little Jim”
23 PT, 9/4/1896
24 PCTDB 1, p 350, 7/15/1901
25 PT, 4/6/1905, 4/13/1905
26 PT, 10/12/1909
27 Friel, “Little Jim”, Smith, “First Lumber Operations”
28 Friel, “Little Jim”; PT, 8/10/1933, both PC death records, Book 3, p 223, and marriage records, Book –, p –, give his name as Robert James Watson, he is buried in the Dunmore Cemetery – check In Loving Memory, Book 5, p 59
29 MJ, 7/24/1944; PT, 7/27/1944; check MJ date – PC death records, Book 3, p 194, middle name Oatis
Logging The Greenbrier Valley 