TALCOTT W.Va. (Hinton News) – This week’s piece I just happened to acquire by accident. I purchased several items at the auction in Talcott, for the contents that had been used in Chatten’s Store that sat on the opposite side of the river from Talcott proper. It had been discarded in the bottom of a box and had been destined to go to the trash.
I purchased the old tabletop platform scales, an old paper roll holder and a few other pieces. One of those was a box of vintage paperwork. I am a sucker for old paperwork because of the chance there may be something local mixed in with them.
It just happened to work out this time. This little label that was used on jars of honey was stuck on a magazine. I worked and worked with it, got it to come loose and was able to save it. It says “…PURE…Honey Producer and Packer W. R. Boyd Talcott West Va Net Wt….”
This piece ended up having a family connection tied with it also, no surprise, right? Ha. W.R.’s daughter, Betty, married my Great Uncle, Leonard Thompson, in Talcott. Aunt Betty’s father was quite a man of many talents. Besides being a producer of honey. He was a Telegraph operator for the C&O Railroad.
While doing a little research for this article, I found out that he also served as President of the Summers County Board of Education after being elected in 1937. He was listed in a 1951 story in the Independent Herald for his 124-acre farm being chosen for a soil and water conservation program in Summers County.
His house in Talcott sat on Penny Lane, basically a little more than a block from the old Thompson home place. It was built by my great-great-grandfather, L.W. Thompson, in the 1920s. My Uncle, Bob Thompson, was recently telling me a very interesting fact about this house and Mr. Boyd.
Since he was a telegraph operator for the railroad he had a special phone line that ran into his home. He could pick up his phone and call anywhere in the country at any time “day or night.” And even better, the calls were free of charge, which was unheard of at that time. Especially in a small town like Talcott when many people were on the “party line” back then. The insulators where this line was connected to the house are still visible to the right of the front porch.
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