SUMMERS COUNTY W.Va. (Hinton News) – I have been having to write so many of these memorial stories lately. My Uncle Paul Leslie Canterbury passed away on March 17, 2025. I always idolized Uncle Paul growing up. We shared a mutual love for antiques and history, especially local history.
Uncle Paul was born in Rainelle, WV, in 1950. His father, Kenneth, worked for the Meadow River Lumber Company there. This was one topic that he and I both loved to discuss. We both attended the auction of John “Chubby” Clay in Riverside Rest in 2014, and he purchased an original ledger book from Meadow River Lumber from the 1940s.
The three checks you see here from W. R. Chattin General Merchandise in Talcott, WV, were given to me by Uncle Paul when I was a kid. He stopped me at Pence Springs Community Church one Sunday when I was young and told me to come up to his house later that day, that he had found something he wanted to give me.
Mom took me to visit him and Aunt Debbie that evening. He handed me these three checks, knowing how obsessed I am with my local memorabilia. At the time, I didn’t know anything about this location; I only knew it was in Talcott, which is one of my favorite spots regarding local history.
It wasn’t until early 2022 when I purchased the bank stamp from the Talcott Bank and Gratuity Company in Talcott, WV, that I put two and two together and remembered having these checks tucked away. The bank stamp has a date of 1907, and the checks are from 1922.
The Talcott Bank and Gratuity Company never had a formal location and operated out of Chattins Store. I have looked ever since I first learned of this bank over a decade ago and have never found an envelope or letterhead, a cancelled check, or anything from the bank. But having these three cancelled checks from the store it operated out of is priceless to me.
I attended an auction with my mother and grandfather when I was in high school in Talcott. It had many of the original contents from Chattin’s store. The three pieces you see here were purchased at that sale.
The antique metal angled holder was used to hold the paper bags on the counter in Chattins Store. The paper holder was used to wrap most likely cheese or other items that were sold in the store that had to be sliced. And the white table top scales were used to weigh those items before they could be rang up at checkout.
There was no one like my Uncle Paul; very few people share a passion for this type of thing like we did. He took his love for it a bit farther than I do; he began going to Primitive Rendezvous more than 20 years ago. This was an aspect of our history connection that he held with a passion!
Growing up as a small child, I always thought of him as “Grizzly Adams.” A funny little side tale that is related to him being the “Mountain Man” he was. I am good friends with his niece Emily Cruse, and she recently reminded me of this. Uncle Paul nicknamed her “Half Pint” from the TV show Little House on the Prairie, and she called him “Whole Gallon.” Ha
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