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In the fall
of 1910, the Lovitt Family – Melt G and Flora
Meadows Lovitt and children Luther (b. 1897), Hester B. (b. 1899), Minnie
(b. 1902), Earl (b. 1905), Virgil (b. 1909) moved to Briar Creek into the
four-room house on the Mike Richardson farm where the Snyder family had lived.
They came to Briar Creek so that their five children (later seven) could
have a better chance to attend school. They moved from Rians Creek (a tributary
of Jellico Creek) in two horse drawn wagons to Brair Creek to sharecrop for
Mike Richardson on the farm later owned by Mrs. A.C. Meadows. The 10-mile
move was an all day job with the road running up the creek and the creek
running down the road. The road followed Paint Creek through the gap at the
top of the mountain, which is now Highway 92 and then down Briar Creek to
the Richardson’s. They moved into the rent house where the Synder family
had lived. The house was one of the last standing at Bon Jellico until it
was burned in 1998.
Mr.
Lovitt hauled coal from the seam of coal on the Richardson property two
miles
to Williamsburg and unloaded it by hand and a No. 3 Red
Edge coal shovel for
$.50 a load (a ton). By getting up early and working late, he could haul two
loads the first day and bring another load off the mountain. In this way the
second day he could haul three loads.
In
the summer of 1912, Bon Jellico Coal Company bought the part of the Richardson
farm
where the Lovitt family lived and began the coal
operation that lasted
25 years. Mr. Lovitt worked for this company the first and the last days
they operated
and every day in between. After the mines closed the Lovitt family purchased
the house and continued to live there for a total of 40 years. Back Next
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