The County Farm and Old Time Coal Mining in January 1897

 These two interesting articles appearing in The Crittenden Press, January 7, 1897 107 years ago.

The County Farm.

Ever since the gold standard was fastened upon this country I have had a feverish desire to visit the county poor farm, as being the prospective future residence of myself and many other deluded silverites.  

Early Christmas morning Lynn Phillips and I started out for a general hunt, taking the road "over the hill to the Poor House."  

The poor farm is rightly names, for as it now stands it is about the poorest specimen of a farm I ever saw, consisting principally of a 15 or 20 acre field of gullies without any fence around it, adjoining the garden on the north, and a small fenced field of beautiful yellow clay opposite the house.  (This county poor farm was located at the end of W. E. Newcom Rd, off of Hwy 365)

 I learn that the farm of some 200 acres was originally purchased by the county for $2,200; that some $500 or $600 worth of timber has been realized from it and that 150 acres were sold to Eli Nunn for $500.  The land purchased by Mr. Nunn lays well, and is the only part of the farm worth shucks.

My informant tells me that Mr. Nunn offered two mules for the remainder of the farm, including the buildings.

The dwelling is beautifully located, and appears to be in a fair state of preservation. 

OLD TIME COAL MINING.

Among other old time veterans of that section I met Mr. J. W. Phillips, who is still hale and hearty in the 79th year of his age, and who has been a subscriber to the Press ever since the paper started.

Mr. Phillips at one time owned a large body of land in Bells Mines.  He told me that sixty years (1836) ago he hauled coal from what is now known as the Sneed tract to the old Lamb blacksmith shop and to old Salem.

The coal cost 12 1/2 cents a bushel at the mine and he was paid the same for hauling it.

Mining in those days was evidently in its infancy.  The dirt was first dug from the top of the coal with a pick, and the coal then cut out with an old ax and measured up in a bushel basket.

It is needless to say the miners of "stone coal holler" never went on a strike.