like manna FROM GOD: THE AMERICAN CHESTNUT TRADE IN SOUTHWESTERN VIRGINIA

Environmental History, Jul 2004 by Lutts, Ralph H

The scale of the chestnut trade is difficult to determine. Published accounts differ. The 1914 Virginia Department of Agriculture publication placed the statewide annual value of the nut crop at $200,000. (At a return of ten cents a pound, this amounted to 2,000,000 pounds of nuts.29) On the other hand, a Virginia Writers Project history of Floyd County placed the value of that county's annual nut harvest alone at $100,000 (1,000,000 pounds). A 1937 University of Virginia economic study of Patrick County stated that "Patrick's chestnut crop, at one time, was a greater source of revenue than cattle." The author did not mention a dollar value, but he did note that after a twenty-year decline in the size of the herd (a drop of 2,416 head), the "7,143 cattle reported in 1930 were valued at $336,260. Dairy products sold totaled $52,164." That was the equivalent of over 520,000 pounds of nuts.10 The 1914 figure of $200,000 for the annual statewide value of the chestnut harvest may be an underestimate, or more likely the trade grew significantly in the years following 1914.

Country store record books provide much more accurate information, but they are difficult to find, especially day books. Records of hucksters' business and personal shipments are virtually nonexistent. There are, though, other clues. A set of Mayberry General Store shipping receipts from the Southern Express Company provide revealing details of the trade of one business. The store, which is located in the Patrick County Blue Ridge community of Mayberry, near the border of Floyd and Carroll counties, shipped its nuts through Stuart. As Table 1 shows, the store shipped at least 9,156 pounds of nuts in 1914, and another 6,560 pounds in 1915, with a total estimated wholesale value of $872, or about six cents per pound. (This store sometimes actually realized nine to eleven cents per pound.)31 Although some nuts went to wholesalers in Richmond and Norfolk, Virginia, most went to Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. The local trade in chestnuts linked even the poorest folks, who seldom if ever used cash, to the national economy despite the often-encountered myth that these mountain people lived in isolation. The roasted chestnuts sold by vendors on the streets of New York, or stuffed into turkeys in urban and suburban areas throughout the northeast, may have been gathered by poor children and adults in the Blue Ridge of southwestern Virginia.

Shipments from Stuart moved on the Danville & Western (D&W) railroad, which reached Patrick County, Virginia, in 1884. The narrow-gauge track began in Danville and extended westward to its terminus in Stuart, the county seat. Affectionately called the "Dick & Willie" by county residents, the D&W was upgraded to standard gauge by 1903. The arrival of the D&W expanded economic opportunities for the county and especially for the chestnut trade. The son of a station master recalled that the best money his father made was from shipping chestnuts. He also was an express agent and earned commissions on the shipments. The nuts were shipped at the higher rate for perishables. "His express commissions," his son recalled, "were just fantastic." His father told him that, "during the harvest time of chestnuts you could hardly find a place to put the bags of chestnuts down, because everyone was a chestnut dealer, just about. They harvested the chestnuts and brought them and shipped them to the big cities."32