Hert Bonds interview with Oscar Bonds (part one)

The John Burrison Georgia Folklore Archive recordings contains unedited versions of all interviews. Some material may contain descriptions of violence, offensive language, or negative stereotypes reflecting the culture or language of a particular period or place. There are instances of racist language and description, particularly in regards to African Americans. These items are presented as part of the historical record. This project is a repository for the stories, accounts, and memories of those who chose to share their experiences for educational purposes. The viewpoints expressed in this project do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the Atlanta History Center or any of its officers, agents, employees, or volunteers. The Atlanta History Center makes no warranty as to the accuracy or completeness of any information contained in the interviews and expressly disclaims any liability therefore. If you believe you are the copyright holder of any of the content published in this collection and do not want it publicly available, please contact the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center at 404-814-4040 or reference@atlantahistorycenter.com. Please note that this audio is poor quality and difficult to understand. This is the first of a two part recording which begins with Oscar Bonds reminiscing about moving from a farm in Paulding County, Georgia, to Atlanta in 1930. He conducts his interview while driving around the property where he lived in Paulding County along with an unidentified friend. As they drive, he points out wells he dug for his neighbors, specifically the first one he dug with his partner in 1914; the house where his son was born; and a creek. Then, at minute 37:45, Oscar Bonds discusses inflation, and his friend explains that he quit smoking because it became too expensive. Next, they ride to a small, two room house, with a beech tree in the front, where Bonds used to live. Then, at minute 43:03, they discuss how little the area has changed in the last 30 years. From minute 44:58 until the end of the recording, the audio is very low and more difficult to understand. Oscar Bonds (1891-?) was born in Paulding County, Georgia. He married Margaret Farr (1900-?) and they had two children: Roy Hulen (1925-2005) and Sara Ann (1927-1996). Oscar Bonds worked as a carpenter and a well digger. Additional biographical information has not been determined. WELL DIGGING A Report F"or Professor JOHN BURRISON by Hert Bonds FOLKLORE 401 November 26, 1973 My Grandfather was a man of many talents, but the one he used most often and the one he considered the most lucrative was that of digging for water. At first, I questioned if digging a hole in the ground was folklore. Grandpa's partner helped me to decide that it had to be folklore because he had never gone to school, has never owned nor driven an automobile, and although he's eighty-four years old, had never seen part of the county he has spent his whole life in until October, 1973. There were areas ten miles from his house he had never seen, yet they knew many kinds of wells, the types of soils, how deep they would have to go, and exactly when they had dug deep enough that the well would have a five foot water level when they finished. Both o} these men have stopped digging wells, and the business has become mechanized by drilling companies. There was no way that I could get pictures of a well during progress, so we visited old wells that had remained over the past fifty years. The present home of Oscar Bonds is located next to the Baptist church in Temple. This home, a duplex to the west, and a duplex f 200 j'eet north, are all supplied with water from this well. Dug in the thirties, it is only twenty feet deep, but has never gone dry in all that time. A robbed bee hive is the only indication that a human being had ever set foot on the birthplace of Oscar Cleveland Bonds. He was born on March 21, 1891 in Paulding County, Georgia about sixty miles northwest of Atlanta, in an atmosphere that must have been almost frontier type. He places little more emphasis on the fact that he killed a man than he would about clearing a stump out to make a field. Partnership The lady on the left is Lenore, the wife of Beullah Camp (center) and Bonds. The partnership between these two men started with the digging of their first well in 1904 on Charley Farr's homestead. 1904 Well This well is now fifty-five feet deep. The original was forty-five feet with a water depth of six feet. The recent digging was done by a motorized drill making the last ten feet only fourteen inches in diameter. This is the second pump that has been installed, and until this new construction, the original well was unlined for seventy years. The home of eighty-one year old P. B. "Bo" Camp. Bonds did not dig this well, but cleaned it out just before "The First War". Bonds ca 11 ed it a typhoid well. "Boots, 'possums, fi shheads, cats 'n' dogs, nearly ever'thing you can think of was in it. Cleaned it out fer five dollars 'n' ain't been paid till 's day." "Goddamit-to-hell Oscar," Camp replied, paid, y'ud never come a'roun' agin." The well has not been used in almost five years now. The Camps pump water from a spring two hundred yards away. The original white settlers that homesteaded the "Bo" Camp farm. Note: Mr. Leathers built this crypt himself. Relocating an old Well This farm belongs to Mrs. Jeanie Hix, who will be one hundred years old in April, 1974. I took two shapshots of her, but they were without flashbulbs (for her eyes) and not worth developing. This was one of the few wells that Beullah Camp did not help Bonds 5011- ,n. ,.,..,, H<>,-..,~c wccs<l dig. Mr. HixAdropped the bucket of dirt back down on Bonds and broke his leg in three places. "Got his first drop to slosh on me," Bonds remarked about Camp. Looking down into the Hix well that was dug in 1908-10. The well is forty inches in diameter and forty-five feet deep. The well began caving in 1972 and a new well drilled twenty feet from this one. Agnes Fuller Well 1911-15. Bonds not only dug the well here but was chief carpenter on the house. This wen is sixty feet deep and has absolutely no lining of any kind. "Th' clay tha's ther' is nearly as hard as ar'y brick ya might find." There was a complete well porch over this with a wash-tub area, but it was blown down in a storm during the early forties. Homer Furr home built in the late thirties. The well here is unique in that the walls are lined the same as the chimneys. The well is only fifteen feet deep and in soft soil. Bonds also built the chimneys. Q. Whenever you went out to find it (a location for a well) did you just go where they told you? Went from house to house wher'ever people had water trouble. Q. You did more cleaning than digging, didn't you? "Naw, I dun mor' diggin, I dun sum cleanin ... over on the highway n all down thar. But I'd dig a bran' new well fer 35 cents a foot, me an that ol' boy thatsa over heah. We wuza makin plen'y o' money at thet time - wadn't nothin now. Q. Then .35 a foot was pretty good price? Plenty good price, if I wuz bout 30 yars ol ', I druther be a well digger than anything I know of. D'you know what they gettin' fer it out here at my house? From any whar to clean outa dam well - thuty dollahs. As man right down th' highway ova yonda, doin' it a 11 ova this county - got his '1own equipment, an he want go in one for one bucket a water or a bucket o' mud for less than thuty dollars. Q. If people say, "Dig me a well," do you find the place? Naw! But I can find the place. Most of the time they show me wher they wants it an' I start t'dig. That's all I ever knowed. -2- Q. You didn't ever have to look fir water? Nope. I could look at th' groun' and look at th' branch. Way down yonder, I could figure in my mind how far it wuz and how deep th' well 'as gonna have t~be. Twen'y feet, thuty feet, forty feet, I've dug 'um 65 feet and still not hit a damn drop of water, then go back a next day, dig that deep (approximately 6 inches by hand gesture) or maybe a foot, goddamn water come bustin' out like I dunno what. Thats a way that works. There ain't a instrument in the world that kin tell you wher' the water's at under th' ground. Now these city water fellers can put a machine on the line to.tell you wher the sewer's stopt up. Q. But you never did have a divining rod? No. Q. Did you ever believe in that? These, these damn eyes is all I ever had. Q. What kind of rig did you have? You said that when you got down eight to ten feet, it was too deep to throw the dirt out. Win'lass, rope and a bucket. Draw it out! -3- Q. Yes, but how did you get up and down out of the well? I wudn't do it. A's a man stood on top drawin' n' dumpin' th' bucket n' I stayed in the well n' dug it up and shoveled it up. Q. Yeah but didn't you have to get down into the well? No, he didn't, but I did. Q. No, you did! To start the day, how did you get down into the well? Well up'n' down on a bucket 'er dig steps. You can dig steps in a well you can putcher feet in - like that - from one to another one. Q. You mean just put your legs from one side to the other side? Yeah. an startin' them steps. I put my hands in a step up there, say 20 inches an' put my feet in a step an' go down another step. I believed that worked. Q. Seems like to me though, when I was little, that I saw a double handled windlass . Yeah, it had a .,l t1iandle on each end of it made out of pole the size of a stovepipe, and that was cut out about two inches thick so they'd be a piece of wood on one side of it and a piece on th' other. -4- Then you put a board down through that and beyond about fourteen to sixteen inches you'd have a handle an' you'd have that bolted through th' board that's 'bout four inches wide and this what he'd crank by. Q. Do you actually have one man on each end though? Mosta th' time, not always. I druther have that man on down the road (Bullah Camp) by himself than to another man on the other end because he's more particular and knows what he's doin'. You put some man on ther that hatten ever fooled with a well, he'll tip a bucket over on ya, ya mud am' water falls, or rock or whatever ya doin'. There's one place, since we got t~talkin' I'd lov'd t' a-showed ya. And that was the al' Boyd Roberts home. That went ona sixty foot deep, now that'sa well, that's three foot in diameter. That well caved out from ten foot at the bottom jus' like a damn auger, coming to the top, then it came out about three feet at the top. I lined that with flat rocks, them rocks was all let-down in a big cotton basket. I braced em one at th' time, jus' like you wuza building a wall outside somewhers. Had a be straight. \ ,,,,,,, ... , /,,..., / / I I I I I I \ \ I I 1 ,, i,' I, /! ! I Now the wa1ls to get down were planed on the sides jus' like a auger. Maybe for forty feet and I lined that we rocks all the way. Now I'd place a board across the top my rocks then I'd move the board, a two by twelve, see I'd stan' on that 'n' let my basket down, picking big 'uns an' little 'uns an' place 'em in that wall plum' up. When I got to the top I 'us done. It taken me five days to do the last 'un I done that way. Q. How many wells would you say that you've dug? Oh shit, there ain't no tellin' how many. By God, probably cover both sides a th' road from here (Temple) to Austell diggin em. Use t drive it in a al' "T" model back in the forties. I dug one over ther' on Oakdale Road, and one right across from the railroad bridge in Austell, ther wher' you go to Mar-retter (Marietta). I dug one 'er, and one at Fullers. I dug several even aroun' Austell. When I 'us init, by God, I would drive aroun' clear to wher' "Dutch" 'us born, cleaning out wells (McBraer farm in New1 Georgia) for two an' three dollars, in an al' Buick . .,;P ,:\ I made a lot a money at it, but I didn't get nothin for what I done in them days. Q. What was the deepest well you ever dug? Ninety-two feet. Q. You just kept going, kept going, and kept going? I just kept beating' an' blastln', beatin' an' blastin', an' that was in the city limits of Villa Rica. Old fella name Jude Linn owned a house over there an' he didn't have no water, so I started on top o' the ground and struck rock 'fore I'd gone two foot. Went to blastin' and shootin' and I had ninety-two feet went down there one day an' drilled a tole with a piece of iron pipe, "T" Model drive shaft, took to a shop an' had a dri 11 made out of it. Had to drill it by hand, the drill I had was about five foot long. I drilled two holes in it, went to Douglasville, bought dynamite and caps 'n' stuck two sticks of dynamite in each hole. Holed slowburnin' fuse, wudn't electric caps, and I lite 'em, 'n' they drug me out on a bucket and rope like you drawed, 'n' I had plenty o' fuse, plenty o' time to get out. I went and got back about three o'clock that e'ning, went back down inthat damn well, when I got off the bucket, one of them fuses - you know how a firecracker fuse is? - well tha's how a dynamite fuse is - it had about that fer (6 inches) to go before it blowed the dynamite. Reached an' got it jus' like that (made a grabbing gesture) threw it down, 'n' by the time I throwed it down, I reached and got th' other one cause it had just a little more fuse on it, I got about half way back up before it burned out (in his hand) 'n' tha 's how much I liked gettin' killed. (This site is located just behind Frank Ford's place in Villa Rica.) Q. Did you ever have a well to cave in on you? Yeah, I had one cave in on me, first time one buried me right up to thar (mid-hip) had to throw a rope around my waist and pull me out. Q. Who was helping when you broke your le!j' q 01' Tommy Wood, the idiot husban' of that ol fatlfal 'at was there (Jeanie Hix home). (Bonds had used a 55# nail keg instead of a bucket for removing the soil faster. The weight was too much for Mr. Wood, and the windlass handle knocked him down. Bonds was standing as close to the wall as he could squeeze, but the keg bounced off the wall and struck his leg.) (Discussion of syrup cane mi 11 s) Q. How can you just scrape your finger across the bottom and tell how much further you're going to have to dig for water? Just by the moisture in the ground? No, but that had a good deal to do with it. You make a mark in a well forty foot deep, make a stab eleven inches long and run it into the ground, withdraw it, count to see how long it takes to fill up and that's how long it will take to get a well with four or five feet of water in it. I never dug a well in my life that I didn't leave at least five feet of water. Q. That's a good level, huh? You can take that branch down ther, runnin' down below the next house, I can tell you within three foot of how deep the well'd have to go to have five foot o' water. But I can't do it by reading a damn rule (ruler) er pacing nothin'. I just have to make a mark and study it in my own head to see how deep it'd have to go. You have to know the main drain that comes under the ground, you hit that vain and you'll get it three or four feet above the creek level. Balance of tape refers to making and selling whiskey - A PDF transcript exists for this recording. Please contact an archivist for access. Professor John Burrison founded the Atlanta Folklore Archive Project in 1967 at Georgia State University. He trained undergraduates and graduate students enrolled in his folklore curriculum to conduct oral history interviews. Students interviewed men, women, and children of various demographics in Georgia and across the southeast on crafts, storytelling, music, religion, rural life, and traditions. As archivists, we acknowledge our role as stewards of information, which places us in a position to choose how individuals and organizations are represented and described in our archives. 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