Fred Pennington Interview on The Virginia Hardwood Lumber Company

Remembering Virginia Hardwood

Fred Pennington worked in the Virginia Hardwood mill for many years. He and his wife Effie are interviewed by his granddaughter Mary Beth Pennington.

Mary Beth: Tell me some of your recollections of the Virginia hardwood Lumber Company.

Fred: The whole outfit, the mill, the woods all connected about 250 men. We worked 10 hours a day and the wages were low. During the Depression they were down 18 months with no work and some people were in debt to the company store. Then when the mill started up they paid.

Effie: You were allowed a dollar a week at the store but a pound of coffee was like 20 some cents a pound, sugar was 2 or 3 cents a pound and a big bag of flour would be like 69 or 79 cents.

Fred: It was about a dollar and a quarter a month doctor bill. Water was about a dollar seventy-five a month.

Fred: You had script. You'd go to the office and draw script .

Effie: Yeah. They were little old coins.

Fred : You'd go to the office and get your script and then go to the company store and trade and they'd take it out of your time.

Fred: They had 46,000 acres in one boundary. They operated close to 24 years. They had what they called double bands. The average cut per day was 80,000 board feet and some 120,000 board feet in softwood. At one time they had 20 million feet of lumber. They had tracks up and down the bottoms and had lumber stacked on each side. You had a trailer that pulled the cars up and down to load them. Then, from Bastian to Suitor they had a third rail. At certaiin times of the day they'd run up there and get their logs when the N&W wasn't using it and maybe at night they would haul it.

Fred: You had script. You'd go to the office and draw script .

Effie: Yeah. They were little old coins.

Fred : You'd go to the office and get your script and then go to the company store and trade and they'd take it out of your time.

Fred: They had 46,000 acres in one boundary. They operated close to 24 years. They had what they called double bands. The average cut per day was 80,000 board feet and some 120,000 board feet in softwood. At one time they had 20 million feet of lumber. They had tracks up and down the bottoms and had lumber stacked on each side. You had a trailer that pulled the cars up and down to load them. Then, from Bastian to Suitor they had a third rail. At certaiin times of the day they'd run up there and get their logs when the N&W wasn't using it and maybe at night they would haul it.