1863 – J Bertrand Norris Diary – Star Furnace KY

Note this a relatively long article that includes the 1863 transcribed diary in spreadsheet form with several columns. The article is likely best viewed on a computer, not with the tiny screen of a cell phone.

Gathering information so one can understand the past in a personal manner is difficult. It is especially difficult for rural areas that do not have a newspaper dedicated exclusively for that specific region or community. The communities of the Williams Creek Basin (abbreviated WCB) had no such surviving newspapers. The Ashland, Grayson, Louisa, and Portsmouth newspapers on occasion would provide personal and newsworthy snippets of information on these WCB communities, but this coverage was lean, infrequent, difficult to find, and difficult to access.

In addition, in the 1800’s and early 1900 many, likely most, of those living in these communities were either illiterate or only semi literate. Even if individuals could read and write well, life was so hard few had time to engage in writing and preserving information about their lives and community.

This is why finding surviving diaries for Star Furnace from the 1860’s is exciting. Dairies are typically packed with very personal information about the writer, their family and friends, and the surrounding community.

I first learned of the diaries of young adult J Bertrand Norris for the 1860s for Star Furnace KY from reading excerpts from these diaries in a book by George Wolfford (1935 -2016). These excerpts are on pages 20 and 21 of George’s book, “Carter County a Pictorial History”. George included only the most interesting diary entries, not the entire diary.

Reading these diary excerpts started me wondering about the entire contents of these diaries. George was a friend of my Mother, Frances Tiller Coleman (1921 – 1999), and I had personally chatted and exchanged emails regarding local history with George many times, but I had never discussed these diaries.

Before George’s death he donated some of his personal papers to the Boyd County Public Library. So with the help of an efficient librarian there, Jim Kettel, I located a letter between George and Kaye Koontz Jones from the early 1980’s. Kaye Koontz Jones was J Bertrand Norris’ great-granddaughter and had transcribed some of J Bertrand Norris’ diaries. George worked from Kaye’s transcriptions.

With a bit of internet detective work I was able to locate Kaye in Texas. Kaye agreed to provide me with a copy of her 1980 era transcription of the 1861 diary.  Kaye’s 1863 transcription was lost due to a computer crash and she does not possess an 1862 diary.

I visited Kaye in her slightly later home near Omaha NE in Sep 2018 and meticulously photographed the entire 1863 diary.  I finally finished my own transcription of this 1863 diary and it is available for your review, both the daily text transcription and my associated photographs of the individual diary pages.

Historically this is a very interesting time as the Civil War is in progress and J Bertrand is hard at work, mostly as a collier making charcoal for the iron furnace at Star KY.

J Bertrand includes many references to the civil war.  He and virtually all at Star Furnace are dedicated Union supporters, as are the owners of the Furnace, the Lamptons.  The diary notes a raid on the Star Furnace Facility where “the rebels’  absconded with “horses, quilts, and children’s stockings”.  Note that some of these Civil War references are likely from his dedicated reading of the Louisville Journal Newspaper that he received via the US Mail.  Possibly others are via local rumors.  Many of these civil war citations are just incorrect, or sometimes premature, like the very important fall of Vicksburg MS to Union forces.

Producing charcoal from locally cut timber was very physically demanding and time consuming.  The necessary large and heavy volume of timber was converted to far more compact charcoal close to the timber source, and then transported to the iron furnace site.  The charcoal was produced in what was called a pit, that was actually not a pit but an above ground fixture of systematically stacked timber covered with leaves and dirt.  The dirt and leaves allowed a partial seal to control oxygen to the burning timber.  This precise oxygen control allowed the formation of the desired charcoal, without completely burning everything in the pit.

J Bertrand Norris’ local vernacular of charcoal related terms used in the 1863 diary:

Coal – term for charcoal.  In one or two places in the diary it also means coal, the mineral.
Coaling – the process of making charcoal
Pit – not actually a pit but an above ground structure where the charcoal was produced
Leveling – creating a very level cleared spot on a hillside for the charcoal pit(s)
Hearth – the first constructed innermost part of the pit where the wood is stacked to create a vertical chimney like structure to net the necessary draft of air for combustion
Setting or Sit Wood – carefully stacking the wood in the pit around the hearth for efficient charcoal production
Green Dust – outer covering of previously unused dirt to seal the pit
Blackened Dust – outer covering of recycled pit sealing dirt that has residual amounts of fine black charcoal
Drawing Coal – physically removing the charcoal from the ad hoc pit
Hot Drawing – a serious pit production mistake of prematurely removing the charcoal from the pit before it is sufficiency cooled
Green Wood – cut wood for charcoal production that has not yet dried sufficiently
Watching or Watched Coal – standing watch over the burning pits to immediately remedy any pit faults, like burning through of the outside sealing layers of leaves and dirt
Gutter Work – not a charcoal related term.  It is work to create a network of connected channels and standard sized “pig” holes, in a level sand base, where molten iron from the furnace is poured.  When cooled, the iron in these holes makes “pigs” that are the finished goods of the iron furnace (pig iron).

For more detail describing this charcoal making process read this National Park Service Document called “American Charcoal Making”, just click on this line.

J Bertrand’s penmanship is a real challenge and in numerous places I have just been unable to decipher his intended word.  The entries with these word omissions are noted in the “?” column with an x.  To see the photographed pages of a diary just click on the leftmost column at the desired date(s).

There is also a short biography of J Bertrand Norris, with photographs, from information provided by Kaye Koontz Jones. This bio may help you understand J Bertrand Norris a bit better.

Click on this sentence to see this J Bertrand Norris biography.

Click on this link for the 1861 – Q1  Diary of J Bertrand Norris

A big thanks to Kaye Koontz-Jones for access to the 1863 diary and Thomas Straka, Professor Emeritus from Clemson University, for his focused help with the charcoal production terminology. And as always, thanks to Linda Newman for her website programing accommodation.

Enjoy! Lon

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