Descendants of slaves hold out against coal mining [Coal Companies Now are RACIST?]

AP/yahoo ^ | 9/1/13 | RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI

[SoFloFreeper]

DIRGIN, Texas (AP) — Ida Finley smiles wistfully, recalling how she used to cook for an entire East Texas community — nearly all descendants of slaves...

Now, just weeks from her 102nd birthday, Finley faces the prospect of losing the land worked by her husband and his parents, slaves who toiled for a master.

For three years, Luminant Mining Co. has tried to purchase this 9.1-acre plot, which is currently owned by a bevy of relatives spread across the country. The company owns more than 75 percent of the parcel but can't mine it because of a complex inheritance arrangement and the refusal of some family members to let go or accept Luminant's offer.

[TweetEBird007]

Knew one named Laura. She supposedly 7 or 8 in 1861. She
lived in a house on our place. She told me about the Indians
that came to the red clay hill for 6 days or so every year
until the late 1930s. She said everyone around had to pen up their chickens when they were present. Hill was on our place
and was less than a 1/4 mile from her house.
She told me this in 1946 to 48 time frame, I was born in 40.

[vladimir998]

You, sir, are a genius! You have unlocked the liberal mindset!

[BwanaNdege]

My grandmother was born in 1896. She heard about the War of Northern Aggression from her grandparents who endured Sherman’s “March”.

In 1995 I read the obituary of Percival Hopkins Spencer, an aviation pioneer who had just died at the age of 97. His pilot’s license had been personally signed by Orville Wright. His father, Christopher Miner Spencer was 64 when he was born and was the inventor of the Spencer repeating rifle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Miner_Spencer

“Although the Spencer rifle had been developed as early as 1859, it was not initially used by the Union. On August 18, 1863, Christopher Spencer walked into the White House carrying one of his rifles and a supply of cartridges. He walked past the sentries, and into Abraham Lincoln’s office. After some discussion, he returned the following afternoon, when Spencer and Lincoln were joined by Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War and other officials, and the group then proceeded to walk out on the Mall. Near the site of the Washington Monument, they engaged in target shooting.”

[JCBreckenridge]

You must be getting up there sir!

[stormer]

Her house, her rules. It’s not like she’s got a lot of time left. Let an old woman live in peace.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks SoFloFreeper.

[Milton Miteybad]

What “complex inheritance arrangement”? They hardly ever follow the law regarding title and transfer. East Texas Holderpeople rarely record land transfers in inheritances.

Anytime trying to purchase land connected to such undivided heirships is a title nightmare and invariably there is one in the bunch that refuses to go along thinking they should get 10 times the value.

The 9 acres is probably one of 15 heirs and likely 1/2 mile long and 50 feet wide an not useful for doodley except extorting the power company.

Yeah...the "complex inheritance arrangement" is probably the Texas statutes on intestate descent and distribution, which is generally the only type of estate planning used by East Texas Holderfolk.

[Ben Ficklin]

"the land mined is almost always uninhabitable due to harsh slopes"

You are confusing mountain top mining and strip mining.

For those unfamiliar with Luminant, it is part of Energy Future Holdings which is the company formed as the result of the leveraged buyout of TXU a few years ago. This was the largest LBO in US history and it took two private equity firms to pull it off.

EFH is one of many, including Sarah Palin and T. Boone Pickens, who didn't get it right on the price of natural gas

This story gives a double entrende to the term vulture capitalism. First: LBOs, corporate raiders, vulture capitalism. Second: Luminant being the vulture waiting for these old people to die.

Luminant is having severe emissions problems from burning the soft brown lignite, but they are so far in debt they don't have the money to burn the bituminous coal imported from the Powder River.

[old gringo]

72

[JCBreckenridge]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Williams_(centenarian)

Is this your man?

[Berosus]

The company should have shown it is even-handed by mining some white coal.

[Robert DeLong]

The link you provided did not work. Here is a working link:

Walter Williams

[JCBreckenridge]

Thanks. Unfortunately for the real veterans - William’s a fraud. The census shows he was born 12 years later than he claimed, and was just 11 when the war ended, showing a Walter Williams from Itawamba County Missippi and his family born 1854, and travelled to Texas in 1870 - exactly when Walter claimed he moved there.

[Eagles6]

You are using White math and that’s racist.

[X-spurt]

Lots of folks walk away when its a passel of “chillrins (adult)” heirholders. Sometimes Title companies have had to research back to before “Reconstruction” to find unclouded. Still there are horror stories of years later another one popping up “wantin dare parit”.

The oil co. is probably only wanting the minerals. My Ol Granddad told us to never sell your minerals. Even on small mineral holder portions leases usually will get that $300 offer to sign + 15 / 18%.

[X-spurt]

You got it.

I think they think if heired land is undivided they won’t have to pay taxes on it. This is where tax appraisal districts have to really earn their money figuring those messes out and taxes ever being paid ahead of a sale.

[TennTuxedo]

No. I am a supplier to the coal industry. I am in coal pits almost daily. IN Alabama and Eastern KY, and West Virginia, the coal pits are in hilly areas, but not so much in the mountains.

[Ben Ficklin]

This coal mining area in Texas is not hilly. The removed overlay is piled up which results in hills.

Often times these operations are classified by how they dispose of the overlay. In those mountainous areas close to your location where they are mountain top strip mining, the overlay aka waste aka fill is dumped in ravines or hollows.. It is often called "head of the hollow" dumping. And as you pointed out, these ravines, or hollows, that get filled become level land which can be developed.

[Robert DeLong]

Perhaps, or perhaps not. Unfortunately record keeping of births were not exactly known for their accuracy back in those days for the entire country, and even worse in the south. The other side of the coin is that the Civil War had more than a few child soldiers, especially on the South's side. So it is really unclear if he was a fake or not. Being from the South though means that he did indeed see action in the Civil War even if he was in fact not a soldier in the Civil War. The problem is there really is no way to definitively state if he was or was not a fake.

Last soldier to die during Civil War - Private John J. Williams of the 34th Indiana Regiment Volunteer Infantry. Died in the Battle of Palmito Ranch on may 13, 1865.

Albert Woolson of Minnesota was a Union drummer boy who died in 1956, and the Civil War’s last authenticated survivor.

Albert Woolson: The Last Living Civil War Veteran

Walter Williams, last Civil War vet, in his bed with a cigar in his mouth and Confederate flag.

All Posters website

Child Soldiers

Unlike later wars in American history, young people were involved in all aspects of the Civil War, including fighting on the battlefield. William Black, the youngest wounded soldier, was twelve when his left hand and arm were shattered by an exploding shell. An unknown number of soldiers—probably around five percent—were under eighteen, and some were as young as ten.

Statewide Civil Vital Records in the United States

Following is a chart showing the dates when the law for registering births and deaths was passed in each state and when the state reached the 90 percent registration required for entering the National Registration Area (see reference 5). A state-by-state synopsis follows the chart.

 

State	Date Birth & Death Registration Required by Law	90% Completeness Admitted to U.S. Registration Birth                          Death
Alabama	1908	1927	1925
Alaska	1960 (1913)	1950	1950
Arizona	1909	1926	1926
Arkansas	1914	1927	1927
California	1905	1919	1906
Colorado	1907	1928	1906
Connecticut	1897	1915	1890
Delaware	1861-63, 1881, 1913	1921	1890
District of Columbia	Births: 1873. Deaths: 1854, except 1861-65	1915	1880
Florida	1899	1924	1919
Georgia	1919	1928	1922
Hawaii	Births: 1847    Deaths: 1841	1929	1917
Idaho	Jul 1911	1926	1922
Illinois	1916	1922	1918
Indiana	Oct 1907	1917	1900
Iowa	1 Jul 1880	1924	1923
Kansas	Jul 1911	1917	1914
Kentucky	1911	1917	1911
Louisiana	1918	1927	1918
Maine	1892	1915	1900
Maryland	1898	1916	1906
Massachusetts	1841	1915	1880
Michigan	Births: 1906    Deaths: 1898	1915	1900
Minnesota	1908	1915	1910
Mississippi	1912	1921	1919
Missouri	1910	1927	1911
Montana	1907	1922	1910
Nebraska	1904	1920	1920
Nevada	1 Jul 1911	1929	1929
New Hampshire	1883	1915	1890
New Jersey	Jul 1878	1921	1980
New Mexico	Jan 1920	1929	1929
New York (except New York City)	1915	1915	1890
North Carolina	1 Oct 1913	1917	1910
North Dakota	1907	1924	1924
Ohio	10 Dec 1908	1917	1909
Oklahoma	1917	1928	1928
Oregon	1903	1919	1918
Pennsylvania	1906	1915	1906
Rhode Island	1896	1915	1890
South Carolina	1915	1919	1916
South Dakota	1920	1932	1906
Tennessee	1914	1927	1917
Texas	1903	1933	1933
Utah	1905	1917	1910
Vermont	1919 (1777)	1915	1890
Virginia	1912	1917	1913
Washington	1907	1917	1908
West Virginia	1925	1925	1925
Wisconsin	1 Oct 1907	1917	1908
Wyoming	1909	1922	1922

[JCBreckenridge]

“Unfortunately record keeping of births were not exactly known for their accuracy back in those days for the entire country, and even worse in the south. The other side of the coin is that the Civil War had more than a few child soldiers, especially on the South’s side. So it is really unclear if he was a fake or not.”

Again - he claimed he and his family moved to Texas in 1870. This is corroborated by the census which shows someone of his name with the same family that he had moved from his county in Mississippi to Texas.

However - that fella was born in 1854, and would just have been 10 at appottomattox. He claimed that he slaughtered cattle to help feed the troops. Would you be doing that at 10? All the information that we do have seems to point to him being just 105 or so when he passed on in 1959.