A Peek into Summers County’s Past: Crumps Bottom

TALCOTT W.Va. (Hinton News) - It wasn't until I started writing this column over a year ago that I realized just how much of an influence my grandfather Bernard Thompson had on me. I have mentioned this in several of my pieces pertaining to my collection of local history items.

This wooden hay rake you see here, I had always admired hanging in Granddad’s barn in Talcott, growing up. Granddad had always told me growing up every time we were in the barn, which was packed to the brim BTW that the rake had come from Crumps Bottom.

Crumps Bottom is now underwater behind the Bluestone Dam in Hinton. It was a little unincorporated community that was also known as the “Mouth of Indian.” I never thought twice about it until one John Henry Days around 2009 when the car show was still held in the grass area to the right of the fire department in Talcott.

As usual, we had the Travlin' Hillbillies Truck in the parade and then at the car show the next day. Here, we would sit around all day in the shade and talk to friends who wandered by. Granddad, Mom, John Kessler and I were sitting by the truck when Swanson Carter stopped by.

Carter was a former FBI agent and a retired professor from Williamsburg, Virginia. We started talking about history, no surprise huh? Ha. John brought up the topic of the wooden hay rake and how it had come from Crumps Bottom. Carter was very intrigued and wanted to see it.

He started telling about the date of the piece, which is from the 1870s, directly connecting it to this area. Andrew Culbertson was the first settler in what is now Summers County who made his elaborate plantation in Crumps Bottom in 1753, he then constructed a lavish home.

Thomas Farley acquired the property about a year before the Revolutionary War broke out. He erected what became known as “Farleys Fort.” Farley had the property for around 18 years before William Crump acquired it, hence the name “Crumps Bottom.” He was a very wealthy man, and soon started building the elaborate brick mansion you see here.

The house was built from bricks made by his slaves on site and consisted of 22 rooms. The large white columns on the front of the house were built of solid single poplar logs that had been cut from the local virgin timber supply. The interior of the house was finished with local walnut and cherry and was of high polish.

While writing this piece I can not find the book, but I have an old local history book in my collection that mentioned this house when it fell into disrepair. It has a photo of the house where a large section of the corner brick wall had caved in and you could see inside of the house. The title of the article was “Fall of the House of Crump.”

John Kessler told me on one of our many local history chat sessions that these columns were removed and used on a two-story brick house in Speedway, which is right up the road from where it was located. The rake is missing one of the wooden teeth, I have always wanted to have it replicated until recently. I have decided not to as it tells part of its story and the history of its use.

I have no proof that this rake came from what was William Crump's plantation. But after reading its history, which is more extensive than what I have written about here. And the fact that John Kessler and Professor Swanson Carter both agreed with Granddad, I am inclined to believe it. It now takes a place of privilege hanging on our living room wall, displaying other antique farm-related pieces that belonged to my family.

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