Uncle Charlie Jones
and
Dry Fork Corncobs

By S. Dail Yeatts, 2005

“Pride of Dry Fork” (see flour bag at right) was one of several flour brands produced, along with cornmeal, by Dry Fork Milling Company in Dry Fork, Virginia.

It is difficult to imagine how much corn the Dry Fork Milling Company ground for cornmeal. There was a time when people not only ate cornmeal but many people drank it. It was told that, in the Callands community and in the Mountain View community, it was not unusual for an entire truckload of cornmeal to be delivered to a single house!

Since so much corn was ground there was always an abundance of corncobs just outside the mill where the corn sheller machine would shoot them out into a pile. They were there for the taking and the people of the Dry Fork community took advantage of them.

There was nothing better to start a fire than a few dry corncobs under some small wood chips with larger wood or coal on top. Uncle Charlie Jones made regular trips to the corncob pile and filled guano bags with them. He would take some to his house on the Dry Fork Road and to the post office building, where he was postmaster. He not only went himself, he also sent his sons Fred and Jake to gather the cobs for the same reason.

I myself went to the mill with both Uncle Charlie and Cousin Jake in order to help them gather corncobs. It was an excellent way to get a good fire going. Back at my home, I used to split kindling wood to start fires in the stoves, and often wished we lived nearer the mill so we could get corncobs, too.

The younger generation at Dry Fork will not remember that bit of history. The harnessing of corncob energy does not equal the discovery of electricity (see “When Electricity Came to Dry Fork”), but it did provide people of a bygone day with a quick and easy way to bring warmth to the heater for comfort, and to the cookstove for food — maybe corn bread, like my wife Claudine baked for me today!

Jake Jones, cousin of author Dail Yeatts and son of Charles Hannibal Jones, in his 1928 school picture.

In a photograph taken around 1950, Dry Fork postmaster Charles Hannibal Jones (left), and his son Jake Oliver Jones stand in front of the home of Charlie's sister Madie Jones Yeatts, 3968 Dry Fork Road.

Notes

At the time of the events described in this article, Charlie Jones was a widower. His late wife was Carrie Sue Yeatts, aunt of the author.
The image of the flour bag is provided by the author.
Photographs of Charlie and Jake Jones are provided by Patricia Mitchell, granddaughter of Charlie Jones.
Madie Jones Yeatts, mentioned above, was married to Benjamin Reaves Yeatts, brother of Carrie and uncle of the author.
See also a 1925 reunion involving the Yeatts and Jones families, and a 1905 photo of the Yeatts family.