The "Colored" Camp (Camp #3)


 

   One section of Bon at the head of the “holler” above the coal tipple was called “colored camp”. There were about 15 families of colored people who lived there from 1912 to 1916. The houses were four rooms, “boxed houses”, which were not weather-boarded as the other Bon houses were. Gambling games were held at one of the “colored houses”—usually on Saturday night after payday. On one such night a colored man thought that he was being cheated; so he shot and killed two white men. The colored man ran away into the hills and into the night; he was later arrested. The colored people were all sent away from Bon and that house was burned down. Never again for 22 years were any colored people allowed anywhere anytime at Bon.

   The Colored Camp then became Camp #3 and was filled with white families. Some of the families who lived there included Will (Bumper) Jones, Falis Parks, Bull Dog Reed, Robert Reed, Paris Owens, Roscoe Wilson, and Charlie Morgan.

This information was largely taken from interviews with Earl Lovitt by Williamsburg Grade School project, circa 1984.

Bon Jellico Doctors

   The first doctor at Bon was Dr. Ancil A. Richardson. He built an office on his dad’s (Mike Richardson’s) farm. It had two rooms, one for a waiting room and one for the treatment room with a grate for coal heating. Dr. Richardson never lived in the Bon camp.

  About 1914 Dr. Edgar (Baine?) Stonecipher came to Bon Jellico; he was there through 1937. Dr. and Mrs. Stonecipher lived in the big house, near the store that was built for the Bon Jellico General Manager, Mr. E.B. (Jack?) Taylor. Dr. Stonecipher’s office was housed in the same building as the commissary.

   Each family paid $2.00 per month for the doctor’s care. Each morning the doctor walked thru the camp to visit patients.

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