Duncan Carpenter and family at entrance to Carpenter's Cave

“I could eat soup even it was made over a lizard”

Posted by

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Photo above: Duncan Carpenter and family at entrance to Carpenter’s Cave, Braxton County, W. Va. in July of 1932. Inscription on the back of the photograph reads , “Where first white child (Solomon Carpenter) was born”. 

“I’ve been all over Europe, Stirrup, Asia, Africa and parts of Hell, but Braxton County is the best God damned state in the university.” (said after he returned from the longest trip of his life, to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair).

“Bread is potato’s mother.”

“I could eat soup even it was made over a lizard.”

“It’s just my luck that if it was raining soup, I’d have a fork instead of a spoon.”

“In the old days we did everything by hand-power and awkwardness.”

“They say that money talks, but all it ever said to me was goodbye.”

“I’ve been as lucky as a one-legged man at an ass-kicking!”

“You have to believe in yourself, even if you know you’re wrong.”

Shelt Carpenter of Braxton County paddling the canoe he hand-made, circa 1930, Elk River.
Shelt Carpenter of Braxton County paddling the canoe he hand-made, circa 1930, Elk River.

Shelt Carpenter was an early 20th century fixture as a guide to fisherman on WV’s Elk River. He also entertained at the fishing camps with his fiddle and his tales. He was well known by the professional class of doctors and lawyers from Charleston who brought him to their fishing camps. He showed them where to fish, when to fish, and what bait to use. He told tales, played music, and drank their whiskey.

“His story telling came from the history of the county,” said The Raleigh Register, “based on tales recounted through generations of mountain folk—for Shelt’s grandfather, at least one history book vouches, was the first white child born in Braxton County.

“The history says three brothers, Benjamin, Jeremiah, and Enos Carpenter, came to the county in 1790 and settled on the Elk River at the mouth of Holly.

“Indians visited the section in 1792 and killed Benjamin and his wife. Enos and Jeremiah and his wife escaped, to a high cliff on the banks of the river opposite. There a son, Solomon, Shelt’s grandfather, was born.

Squirrely Bill Carpenter photographed in a double exposure.
Squirrely Bill Carpenter photographed in a double exposure.

“William Carpenter (photo at right), son of Solomon, was Shelt’s father. He lived to be 95, and like his father and son, was a hunter and fisherman.

“But Shelt’s story telling wasn’t confined solely to history, as exampled in his recitation of the proud moment when at the age of 73 he killed a record sized pike near his home:

“I set forth fishing on a beautiful day and all of a sudden I saw a pike lying paregoric ally and in a hyperbolic position near the boat. I did poise my spear and with great ease let fly, hitting him fairly behind the nape of the neck and killing him stone dead. He was a magnolias fish.”

Family lore has it that Shelton’s great grandfather Jeremiah and his son Solomon were fiddlers. Certainly Shelton’s father Squirrely Bill was, and Shelton passed the tradition down to his son Ernie.

“My father was a good old-time fiddler,” said Ernie. He used to keep that fiddle in a large safe that we had. The safe was never locked. He kept that fiddle on the top shelf. Just kept it laying in there on a cloth, never had a case for it. Not a kid on the place ever touched that fiddle or ever even went close to it. I was the first one to take an interest in it when I got big enough. As soon as I hit my first note on the fiddle, he said, ‘The fiddle is yours. I’m through. I won’t be a-playin’ no more. You’re going to do the playing from now on.'”

Ernie Carpenter was awarded the Vandalia Award, WV’s highest folklife honor, at age 80.

Sources: “Play of a Fiddle” by Gerald Milnes, 1999, University Press of Kentucky

‘Sportsmen Miss Shelt Carpenter,’ The Raleigh Register, Beckley, WV, Mary 14, 1937, pg. 2

More articles on backwoodsmen/guides:

When my stories are true, why, I don’t yodel to the end of the story(Opens in a new browser tab)

Drinking a quart of whiskey neutralizes the poison(Opens in a new browser tab)

Horace Kephart: A Great-Grandfather Appreciation(Opens in a new browser tab)

3 comments

  1. SQUIRRELY Bill was my grandmother, Eliza Carpenters, grandfather. Oh the stories that reverberated through my childhood. And folk music. It was an interesting family, even in more recent years. Full of story tellers and hard drinking men.

Leave a Reply