Document text
Revision code 43B
SOUTH CAROLINA WRITERS' PROJECT
LIFE HISTORY
TITLE: MRS. GLASSON
Date of First Writing
December 15, 1938
Name of Person Interviewed Mrs. Richard Glasson (white)
Place West Springs, S. C.
Address Pauline, Route 1
Occupation Retired housewife
Name of Writer
Name of Reviser
Date of Revision
Caldwell Sims,
Union, S. C.
E. F. Kennedy
May 9, 1939
Mrs. Richard Gleason her neighbors spoke of her always as "Old
Ids Glasson" died in April. After she became a widow she lived with her
married daughter, Mrs. West. Last December a visitor found her rodking con-
tentedly in a comfortable chair before an open fire of hickory logs, burning
an substantial fire dogs made in the blacksmith shop in the backyard. This
shop belonged first to William West, for whom West Springs was named, long
*ago. An old spool bed in the room was made by him,
Mrs. Masson wore a plain gray housedress, with a small white apron
tied around her thin waist. A gray cotton bonnet covered her head. Her stick
rested on the arm of her chair and a well -morn Bible lay an the table beside her.
A small radio shared the table. In spite of her 91 years Mrs. Glasson's com-
plexion was still florid and her hair a reddish gray. Her keen 'yes sparkled
when she talked of Mr. Glasson.
"Yes, he often spoke of London. His name was Richard Gleason, and
he was born in Caldwell, England. Jes' how close it was to London, has done
left my mind, it's been so long since he talked about it. Mr. Glasson was a
quiet man who never talked about himself; I've known him to go all day with-
out saying a dozen words. When he did talk, his voice was clear and deep,
but he never did call words like we do, and he never fell into our way of
talking as long as he lived.
"Mother was a Miss Cannon her first name was Polly -ef Spartan-
burg County. She knew Mr. Glasson long before I knew him. Mr. Glasson's
first wife was a Cannon, my first cousin. Be had two mnall children by her
when I married him. Their grandmother, my aunt, took them when their mother
died and raised them. Father and Mother, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Cannon, were
born and raised near Cannon's Camp Ground. I was born there, and lived there
until I married Mr. Glasson, and came to West Springs to live when he started
working in the Opal gold mine here. Cannon's Camp Ground is in Spartanburg
County where I always went to the camp meetings. They don't have them any
more, but I reckon the settlement will always go by that name. My folks have
always been Methodist, that's why I'm a Methodist. I was sprinkled as an in-
fant at Cannon's Camp Ground, and I've been in the church ever since; but I
never joined until last summer. I kept my religion all these years, but I
wasn't taken into the church until Rev. N. K. Polk, received me into the
Bogansville Methodist Church in the summer of 1938: I was converted when I
was a very little girl though, at one of the meetings at Cannon's Camp Ground.
"Since I haven't been able to walk for over a year I don't go to
church, but I listen to good sermons over my radio. It's a great blessin' to
me. I don't like fancy music on Sunday, I stick to my religion, and I
listen to the big pipe organ concerts and the choirs. I've heard the organs
in Spartanburg, and they are heap prettier and finer than the little reed
organs folks used to use in their homes and in the churches around here. The
old hymns seem even prettier when they're played on those powerful organs and
sung by those big choirs. God surely must have inspired the man who made the
first pipe organ. So you see religion changes and improves, too. Folks have
gotten away from religion. They like the kind of music that comes over the
radios Sundays, or the programs wouldn't play that sort. The entertainers
have to please their public to sell the radios, and the change isn't good
for the folks.
"My father was a school teacher. He trained us like he did his
scholars to keep regular hours and to have a certain time to do certain things.
That's haw I brought my children up. They are not bringing up theirs like
that though. I had four brothers and two sisters. Father was fond of the
preachers who came through the country. He always entertained them at our
house. They did not have homes, like they do now. Lots of them were single
men. Now I believe all of the preachers marry young.
"Every summer, after lay-by, Camp Meetings started at Cannon's Camp
Ground. That's where the name came from the camping ground was on the Cannon's
land, where the camp meetings went on for seventy -odd years. I remember those
meetings from earliest recollections. Going to camp meeting was an annual event
until after the Confederate War started. We went to the camping ground on
Thursday and remained through Sunday, pullin' up and going home an Monday.
All the land owners sent their wagons filled with plenty of provisions and cots,
blankets, chairs, beds, and fodder, corn, oats, and wheat for beast and man.
4
Fmmilies set up their awn camps. Same even built comfortable cabins and
stables for the horses and mules. Strangers and their turn -outs were taken
in and treated as guests. Relatives and friends from a long may off were
invited to came and stay for the camp meeting. Sometimes the camp meeting
lasted until harvest time. Spartanburg, Union, and York people came for it.
Stands for the singers were built and from time to time the camp ground was
enlarged. A place was reserved for the darkies who came to wait on the big
crowd of white folks. Frying -size chickens were kept in large pens. Every-
thing imaginable was fixed to eat. Ladies exchanged new recipes' with each
other. People talked about news at hone and all over the state, and the whole
country around the camp. Pretty often a whole congregation came from some
church and brought their own pastor with them. Each family group held morning
and evening prayers. Everybody at these meetings was good, neighborly and
kind. The Spirit of the Lord was really abroad there.
"I know of one night just before the Confederate War broke out when
eighteen preachers attended the Camp Meeting. That session lasted until mid-
night, there were so many to 'came through' and give their personal experiences.
The singing was more beautiful and solemn than usual that night. Tunes of course,
were raised with a tuning fork, or by an elder or a deacon with a deep bass voice.
Lordy Mercy, you newer heard the like of shouting in your life as I heard there
that night when those eighteen preachers were on the platform: People had to
stop shouting because they got exhausted. The darkies would fall down on the
ground to shout out their good tidings of redemption and conversion. The
mourners' bench, for lost sinners, was full every night. But on this particular
night there wasn't roam on the mourners' bench for the converts: Several hund-
red were converted. Special prayers were raised in the family group for some
friend or loved one who was about to 'come through', but not quite persuaded.
Oh, but people really had religion in those days: You don't see anything
like that anywhere nowadays.
"I had two second cousins, Lewis and Gabriel Cannon, brothers.
Lewis married a woman who believed in rejoicing, instead of crying, when folks
died. She belonged to the Bogansville Methodist Church. More than once she
put her gold and diamond rings in the collection plate, when Lewis would not
put in as much money as she wanted him to. After the services, Lewis always
sent up and redeemed his wife's jewelry. Once this lady went from Charleston
to New York an the boat to a Methodist Convention in New York. Her daughter,
Bright Alice Cannon, was in New York studying voice. People who knew her
thought she was a sweet singer. One nigkt her mother was missed on the boat)
when she was returning to Boganaville. The crew never found her. She got up
from her chair on deck and went to her state roan. Her bed wasn't touched;
the port hole was open; so the crew thought that she must have jumped into
the ocean.
me
"Now you want/to tell you about Mr. Glasson, and what I'm going to
tell you to start with, happened before I was born. He was a little boy way
back in England when his mother, Blanche Corner,
father married again. Richard loved his mother
his step -mother, and went to his uncle, Charlie
died. In a few years his
so much that he ran away from
Gleason, I reckon it was. His
step -mother was good to him, but he couldn't bear the thoughts of another woman
taking his mother's place in the house. He asked his uncle not to tell his
father where he was. I don't know haw long he stayed at Uncle Charlie's. Finally
his aunt Fannie Stevens told Richard's father where he was. She'd put some money
in the Falmouth Bank in England for Richard. Richard's father made him promise
6
to came back home. His uncle Charlie wanted him to stay with him, but his
father wasn't willing. His uncle Charlie told Richard's father that if he'd
let Richard stay he'd give him a fine horse to ride. But Richard's father
would not consent for him to live on with his uncle. When Richard got home
his little heart ached as much as it ever did for his mother. His step-
mother gave him money to spend so he'd he happy. But he wasn't. He -wanted
to came to America. He asked his aunt Fannie to get his money out of the
bank so he could came. After he sailed from England, he never received any
more money out of the Falmouth Bank, and his people didn't send him any. My
daughters have tried to trace this money. There's unclaimed money in the
Falmouth Bank in England in the name of Gleason. I can't say haw my husband's
name got changed to Glasson, but it must have been on the vessel that he came
over on. We haven't got any written records of his voyage, or of his departure,
and my children can't get that money out of the bank over there.
"My husband said the sail vessel he came to America on was tossed
about on the Atlantic for eight weeks. When they were half -way across, the
winds swept the ship back in sight of the English mainland! Many were the
times they thought they were lost and would never see land again. The crew
often had to bail water from the hull to keep the vessel from sinking. They
were miserably cold, hungry, and often wet. They had to stand hardships of
all kinds. I don't know the name of the ship; I didn't write down a thing
he told me, as I should have done. Soon as the vessel landed, Mr. Glasson
wrote his people. His letter made them happy; for they thought he had been
lost at sea. He had to work so hard on that old ship coming across that he
said he didn't enjoy sea life. I don't remember where they landed,4-eemewherla.
likti-e-etpueetry.,
"He had soft brawn eyes, brown hair and beard and weighed about
170 pounds. Be was over six feet tall. He died when he was 72 in 1912,
and he's buried in the Bogansville graveyard, where I'll be put along-
side of him.
"He did some work on the Seaboard Airline Railroad when it came
across Goshen Hill to Carlisle from Whitmire. When I first took notice
of him, he was a -selling maps. He got $30 a month and his expenses for
that, so I have heard him say. He came to the old William West home,
where I spent a lot of my girlhood. It was falling dusk and so, uncle
William asked him to rest for the night, for in those days peddlers were
always coming around selling their wares. Folks kept them for the night
when they happened at the house after sundown. That was the best may to
get the news of the countryside in. those days. Roads stayed muddy from
October through April; traveling was hard; so folks generally stayed home
until the hot sun dried the roads enough to make traveling easy. Mud holes
stayed in the roads from season to season, and peddlers were about the only
folks who traveled regular. The stage was out of date and not many people
lived on the new railroad tracks that had been built. Just a few people
lived near the stations, but of course, they got news quickly from the trains.
So country folks were glad to have travelers spend the night so they could
talk to them. Everybody was honest and kind then, and nobody had much money.
So teams were cared for and fed, and the mistress of the house fixed the best
she had for her visitor, and there was no thought of charges. If the stranger
did offer money when he left; it was taken as an insultiand that person wasn't
asked to came again. When he did show manners he was asked to return and
spend a spell under the roof.
8
"Ws usual, Richard jes' set around at my uncle's that night with-
out much to say. Of course we were well acquainted as he had been in our
family for a number of years, and he was now a widower. We went to bed
early. I was disgusted. He left soon after breakfast was over. They
teased me and said the reason he didn't talk none, was because he was eyein'
me. I bristled and said I didn't like him a bit; everybody laughed. Two
months passed before I saw him again, and he was still sellin' maps. This
time I was at Aunt Sally Cannon's house on Zion Hill. He came up there
to see me. Aunt Sally liked Richard, and she made me do a lot of fixin' up
for him. From then on, he came to see me regular. I got to the place where
I was fond of him. In less than a year we were married at Aunt Sally's house.
She was mother's sister. A notary by the name of Holt that she and Richard
liked married us in 1888.
"My dress was pretty, but it wasn't fine. Aunty Sally and I went
to Spartanburg to buy it and we didn't get hoops with it, they cost too
much. Some of the women at the wedding had muscadine vines run in pleats in
their petticoats to hold out their dresses. Mr. Glasson had on a blue suit.
He ware a moustache then but no beard and his eyes sparkled the day we married.
The weather was hard cold, and they used a sled to haul wood to the house for
fires. Our wedding supper was a great spread. Aunt Sally had chickens and
hames and everything to go with them. The table was covered with a heavy
white linen cloth. After supper was over, we talked a while and then left for
Grandpa James Cannon's where we stayed three days. Then we went to Clifton,
where we lived a little while. We came to Nest Springs to the mines, for Mr.
Glasson had been brought up in the mines in Dover, England, where he worked
as a boy for almost nothing a day. He told of also having worked in mines
9
in Pennsylvania and Kentucky, where he went down as far as 4,000 feet
under the ground. He worked a short while in some silver mines, but I
have forgotten which ones.
"We had five children Charlie, William, Alice, Maude, and Wallace.
Charlie was killed by a train in Spartanburg; William lives at Tucapau with
his wife and six children; Alice grew up, but died young and is buried by her
father; Maude there, married Johnny West; and Wallace is single and lives
here with us. Johnny's father, Pack West, was the first owner of Nest Springs.
Maude has a son, Ray, who lives here and works for the State Highway Depart-
ment in Spartanburg.
"It was a lot easier for me to raise five then than now. The women
here said that I had an easy time, and 'reckon I did. Their husbands depended
on nothing but the farm for a living. Those that did work in the mines were
green at it. Nobody knew haw to sift ore but Mr. Glasson. He'd been doing it
all his life. He knew haw to grade and classify the ore, and he did for all
who worked in the mines. As long as Itr. Glasson worked in the lest Springs
BIMBS he never made less than $80 or a $100 a month. In those days it didn't
take over $10 a month for the family to live on. Mr. Glasson was a good trader,
and when he was not in the mines he was going over the countky in his buggy
selling things. On those trips he picked up things for me that he knew I needed
or thought I'd like, He bought pretty rugs, fine laces, serviceable bed clothes,
and vegetables for the house, and he bought the children toys, fruits, and all
kind of candy, and things for them to play with. No other children anywhere
around had such things except at Christmas or maybe on a birthday. On these
trips he'd pick up chickens, eggs, turkeys, hogs, mutton and the like at bar-
gains law prices. All this was a great help in more ways than one. Our
garden was good in season, and so was our corn patch and sweet and irish potator---
patches, peanut and watermelon and canteloupe patches. We had chickens, but
we didn't keep a cow. Mr. Glasson, bought all of our milk and butter from a
family living near the Thomson mine. We fattened our hogs from my kitchen
and from roastin' ears. Mr. Glasson got our dry goods in Spartanburg, and I
made a lot of the clothes we wore. Before I was married I carded and spun
regular, but haven't done a speck of it since. Big families are lots harder
now, I see that watching my children. They have to face problems I never
dreamed of. People live such complex lives now. Every day they have to
dress fine. When I was young, folks had Sunday clothes and every_day ones.
Now, from the cradle to the grave, they dress up every day. This fashion
takes a lot more and it also costs. Today we ride in automobiles everywhere,
and they tell me it costs twenty-five cents to run one a miles In my day we
never thought of riding a mile or so, but walked, unless the weather was bad;
then we rode horseback. Why, then a lot of people who were well-to-do didn't
even have conveyances! Now every little Tom,Dick, and Harry has an automobile.
We walked to church in groups, to Sunday School and to the Missionary Society,
when it was started, and to the quilting bees. These were the main amusements
when I was young. At the quilting bees we spent the day, and the men folks
were out husking corn or rolling logs.
'The corn was piled on a gallon jug of likker 9,nd all the men folks
in the neighborhood came to the husking. I have in mind now a husking at
Uncle Larkin Lancaster's house. He had all his friends in to shuck his corn.
When the last ear was shucked the jug was passed around for all who wanted
to take a little nip. igumte. At his wife's signal, Uncle Larkin invited all of
them into the dining room to supper. This time she and the ladies who had been
-11
quilting all day had cooked a big chicken stew. After supper three negro
fiddlers came in and the young folks danced a little, with the older ones
joining in when they felt like it.
"You ask me about log rollings? A log rolling was held when new
ground was being cleared for a corn field, there wasn't any place to pile
the cut trees. So the trunks and limbs were piled to dry so that they
could be burnt in the very early spring. The owner of the new ground mould
invite his neighbors to help him with the cutting and piling and log rolling.
Ac
They were rolled and piled in a clearing vide enough to peep the woods from
catching on fire. I have seen a field of six or eight acres burning at one
time. They day of the burning, all the men folks who had been at the cutting
came back to guard stray sparks that might set fire to the woodlands nearby.
Sometimes the fire would last two or three days before it burned dawn. The
men stayed there and cooked and roasted rabbits and birds and other meat over
the coals, and they even had barbecues there. Once I went with Uncle Simp
Cannon to a log rolling at Grandpa James Cannon's house. I road horseback
on a side-saddle with a riding skirt. Some came in buggies, and there were
one or two in carriages there. We stayed several days watching the fire,
singing hymns in the open, and cooking and eating there. What a sight to see
those logs burning and to hear them crackling and to match the leaping flames
which seemed to go up to the very sky itself. At night the glow of live coals
covered several acres. One night it rained and put out all the fire. In
three days the ashes were plowed under to make the soil light and loose.
"And now look how scarce wood is, and how much we have to pay to
get enough out to last through the winter. And these times you have to pa,
to get it hauled. In the good old log -rolling days all theAe things were done
12
without spending money. This has made country folks get in the habit of
burning black sooty coal. It's easy to get and folks in town have been
using nothing but coal for a number of years. But I'll burn nothing but
mood as long as I live. Look at those glowing coals and the hickory and
oak ashes piled up in the fireplace. They'll do my garden soil so much
good this spring. Tonight I'll cover that back log with ashes and in the
morning it'll be a bed of live coals and all I'll have to do will be to
throw on same kindling wood and the fire will be burning again. They tell
me these CCC boys are planting trees to make new forests that'll keep land
from washing and minds from sweeping over the cleared fields so strong. You
see plenty of gullies now, but when I was young you didn't see a gully in
Union County. I hope folks will learn haw to stop up the gullies and keep
them from coming and how to make the land soft and loamy like it used to be
when the country was first settled. I'm old now, and I don't go out much;
so I can't tell you much about the new mays of living, but in my day, I've
lived well. My children are having a harder time than I did and it's a good
thing they don't have big families, for if they did they couldn't get along
well with them like I did.
"When I was a girl, folks was more neighborly than they seem now.
If you happened to get sick or to get a fall, or if there was a funeral,
then everybody turned out to favor you. But ordinarilly folks don't stop
in like they used to because oars are so fast and stopping takes up too much
time. It takes something special to bring them. Christmas Eve of 1937 I
was walking around in my yard when I suddenly fell and somehow broke my
ankle. It was near Christmas again before I could get around on this old
stick. I hadn't been laid up a week before half of West Springs, Coleraine,
13
and Bogansville Townships had been to see me and fetch me anythiullfrom a
ball of yarn to a whole pound cake. Folks I'd never seen came because I
had a broken ankle. I laid in bed and thought how much more I'd have enjoyed
their company if they had come while I was well and spry and felt like talkin'
a lot. But you got to dress up and go to a big ball game or to the show to
how
see your friends nowadays. I know/6 live, for I go to bed at eight and get
up at five; then, after dinner, I lie down and rest and nap. You've got to
stay still long enough to let your muscles rest and build up. Some of these
younguns are jes' coming in from a frolic when I get up in the morning. When
I went to frolics, I got home by midnight. You can't work all day and frolic
all night and expect to be well. The younguns have to get down sick to get a
good rest in bed: Quick ways of traveling have changed ways of living more
than any other one thing, is my way of thinking. This rush makes people
have nerves. I never had a thing like nerves in my life.
"I can beat my grandchildren spellin', and they have diplomas. I
think my school was the best, but they laugh at me for saying so. I learned
readin', writin', and irithmetic. I walked to school at sunup and stayed tilt
an hour by sun. I kept my mind on my business at school, or got the teacher's
hickory. Now the children leave home at eight o'clock in the busses, hurrying
and making a lot of noise. Two o'clock sees them home, grabbing a bite to eat
and out again. They don't have time to let their lessons settle in their
heads, so they soon forget what the teacher's told them.
"When I first came to lest Springs, people from Charleston, Columbia,
Newberry, and Union came in fine turnouts to drink this water. During the
Confederate War people from the lower part of the state left their homes and
came here hunting safety from the deeperadass-umesca s Yankees. Our first
-14
refugees were Charlestonians. They soon filled the hotel. Old Aunt "Patty"
West, who awned land all around the spring, built cabins to rent the refugees.
The West Springers liked the Charleston aristocrats and treated them with every
kindness they could. The city folks returned the favors in ways never to be
forgot. When they went back to their hones after the war was over, people saw
them go with a feeling of
to be less popular. Aunt
built out of the lumber.
Aunt 'Patty', dawn by the
regret. Soon after the war the watering places began
'Patty' tore her cabins dawn and had negro houses
The year after that, we moved into a house next to
spring. About this time well -digging machines came
to West Springs, and people had wells in their yards, and then they did not
have to make long trips to the spring for water.
"Brother Virgil Green Cannon went to Columbia in 1864 to join 'The
Boys of Sixteen.' During the war he worked in a sock factory in Columbia,
and when it closed he came back to his home in Spartanburg County. He stopped
with us for a month's rest and to drink the spring water. Mother had two
brothers in the war, Uncle Barry and Uncle Thomas Cannon, who joined the army
in Spartanburg. Lift the lid of this old trunk, and I'll show you some of my
husband's Confederate money; but it'll never be any account again. See these
ten and fifteen -cent pieces, that they used to call 'shin plasters.'
"When this money went out-of-date and the slaves were freed, living
in the South got hard for the first time in its history. Things were a little
hard for me, but I didn't have as hard a time as some. Mr. Glasson gave up
his peddlin' and spent all his time in the Opal and Thomson mines. He worked
hard to make all he could an the gold he dug. NY. Ruff Hopkins had come here
and bought all the gold the miners got and shipped it to Washington, D. C.
He bought a many a bag from Mr. Glasson. We had money right along, and Richard
would still go to Spartanburg to buy the things we wanted. It was hard to
get things during Reconstruction. Those old carpetbaggers and scalawags were
hanging out all around Spartanburg, so they told me, but I never went there
a single time to see them. Men. -folks did the going, and the women stayed
at home where they were safe. Mr. Glasson got things for neighbors, for
he'd been used to travelin' around the country and so he kept on going more
than the other men folks around here did. After things got to running regular,
my husband to4 me on the train from Glenn Springs to Spartanburg, one day.
He had been on the train a lot, but it was my first time. I wore a bonnet
tied under my chin and had pasteboard slats to make it stand out. My
dress was gray worsted.
"Mr. Glasson could be witty when the notion struck him. Mr. Tease
came to be a foreman in the mines after the mar. He and his wife were from
Pennsylvania. One day Mrs. Tease came along driving her horse and buggy. She
met Mr. Gleason walking home from the mine. She drew rein and said, 'Mr.
Glasson, where are you going?' He told her, I'm on my way home, but I'm going
by the Thomson mine.' She said, 'Well, Mr. Glasson, I wish you'd look at my
horse and see if I have the harness on right.' Mrs. Tease's turnout was new
and she had never hitched up one in her life before. Mr. Glasson had never
hitched up a horse in his life, either. He just looked at the turnout for a
long time and finally he said, 'Lady, I'm very much like you, but I do know
that you have the right end of the horse in front!' iirey-beith-went en their
"I like company, you don't have to go. Is it dinner time? Well, you
may as well stay and have a bite, we're having hog jowl, collards, and cracklin'
bread today. T'ain't fine, but it's good eating. I like buttermilk with my
cracklings, don't you? We had partridges for breakfast this morning.
"Came back and sit a long spell with me again, I like for folks
to sit a long spell, seems like olden timesx Good-bye:"