The South and Western Railroad

[NW Mailing List]

Having been away for a awhile I missed the interchange on the South and Western RR and M.J. Caples.

Caples, WV is named after Caples.  Caples first caught the eye of the N&W when he was working on the Elkhorn Extension.  By 1899 Caples was general manager of Ritter Lumber Company.  The following is from an email I sent to a Clinchfield entheuiast.  The see XX pages are from a book I am working on

Caples was started as part of the W.M. Ritter lumber empire.  Ritter installed a lumber mill at the location and it was known variously as Ritter or Shannon (after the local creek).  The April 15, 1913 N&W time table refers to the location as Shannon.  The Standard Pocahontas Coal Company started sinking a mine shaft at the location in 1910 and on May 19, 1913 a post office was established at the location with the name of Caples.  The community was named for Martin J. Caples (although I don't know why).

 

Ritter had a number of business dealings with Martin J. Caples.  W.M. Ritter letterhead from March 1900 lists M.J. Caples as the General Manager of the company. On February 5, 1900 M. J. Caples became one of the five stockholders and member of the Board of Directors of the Tug River & North Fork Railroad Company (see xx).  On April 2, 1900 Caples was elected to the Board of Directors of the Iaeger and Southern Railway (see xx).  When the Pocahontas Coal & Coke Company, a former William Ritter company, became part of the N&W in 1901, M.J. Caples went to the N&W as the chief engineer and superintendent of the newly acquired company.  By February 1904 Caples had become the superintendent of the N&W's Pocahontas Division.  He held that post until August 1, 1905 when he was hired by George L. Carter for the Clinchfield.  It was in 1905 that George L. Carter (developer of Coalwood and its mines) hired Caples away from the N&W to serve as his chief engineer in building the Clinchfield Railroad.  Ritter helped finance the Clinchfield Railroad and was on its Board of Directors.  Caples ended his career as Vice-President of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad.



Pages 39-41 of "Gary Hollow" provides information of the relationship of Ritter, I.T. Mann, M.J. Caples and the Pocahontas Coal & Coke Company and how it became part of the N&W.



The Tug River and North Fork RR became the basis of the N&W's Tug Fork Branch.  The Iaeger and Southern RR became the basis of the N&W's Dry Fork Branch.



While my book "Coalwood" is about coal mining and George L. Carter and his son James, it touches ever so slightly on the building of the Clinchfield mainly to illustrate Carter's financial adventures.



Alex Schust



The following is additional info on Caples from Ken Marsh:



Alex, I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation yesterday and news that you have developed so much information on people, firms and places of mutual interest.  Your e-mail received today adds details on Caples that are new to me and I appreciate this new data.

May I add some information from my own files to the data bank.

First of all Caples name was Martin J. Caples, born in Ireland on April 28, 1864.  He came to the South & Western, renamed the Carolina, Clinchfield & Ohio Railway in April 1908, in the late summer or fall of 1905 from the N&W.  He resigned from the CC&O on October 31, 1911, and moved to the C&O, as 4th VP of the C&O and Hocking Valley.  He supervised and built the extension from the Ohio River to Columbus.  In August 1918 he went to the Seaboard Air Line Railroad in Norfolk as Vice-President.  He left there in 1928 and became a consultant, the profession he occupied when he died at Trenton, NJ, on July 29, 1931.

W. M. Ritter shows as a director of the CC&O in its first annual report on 1911 and continued at least until the railroad was leased to the L&N and ACL in 1924.   M. J. Caples is shown as VP & GM of the CC&O in its first annual report.  He departed before the second report.  I understand that Caples, WV on the N&W became Capels, WV, after he went to the S&W/CC&O, perhaps a slap at M. J. for leaving them.  It is a fact that several dozen N&W managers and workers abandoned the N&W, especially around Bluefield, for the apparent greener pastures on the CC&O.  No doubt Caples recruited some of the better people to come help him build the new railroad.   

Although I lack any confirmation from documents, it is likely that W. M. Ritter invested in the S&W/CC&O project.  Without a doubt he financially benefited from his relationship with Blair & Company via the surface rights to Clinchfield Coal Corporation (owned by Blair & Co. as was the CC&O) lands in SW Virginia and perhaps WV & KY.  Ritter established giant timber operations at Clinchco and Freemont, VA to harvest the hardwood in Dickenson County and other nearby tracts.  They lasted until just after WW II.

The famous picture of Carter, Kent, Mann, Ritter, Ryan, et al. was made at the Cranes Nest Mine, Georgel, VA, very close to present day Tom's Creek, probably in the late winter of 1904 or early 1905.  Carter lost financial control of the coal company and
railroad when the Blair & Company interests took charge in 1905.  However, he did stay around to see the majority of the railroad project completed before moving on to WV and Coalwood.  He was not one to share control of anything so his style and manner was inconsistent with New York financial control.  

It is fascinating to study these early leaders and the way they fit the economic pieces together to develop the Southern Appalachian coalfields and related infrastructures.  I am very happy to find another researcher interested in the same issues and people.  Your book on George L. Carter will be a great insight into this mysterious man and his son.

Ken Marsh
  



  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: NW Mailing List 
  To: NW Mailing List 
  Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2007 2:05 PM
  Subject: Re: The South and Western Railroad


  In case Mailing Listers did not notice it, in my Dec. 15 posting on the 1904 colored YMCA in Bluefield, it mentioned the support of Mr. M. J. Caples, Division Superintendent in Bluefield.  It is interesting to learn of his later role in the development of the Clinchfield Railroad.

  Does anyone know whether there was any relationship between M. J. Caples and the mining town of Caples, WV, located on the N&W mail line a couple of miles west of Welch?

  Gordon Hamilton
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: NW Mailing List 
    To: NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org 
    Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 11:27 AM
    Subject: The South and Western Railroad


    The South and Western Railroad is what became the Clinchfield.

     

    "Carter began operations under the name of the South and Western.  It has been told that he purposely chose this vague name to confuse his competition from knowing his intended terminal points." 

     

    Carter was convinced by his chief engineer to build this railroad to superb standards.  It is now part of CSX with minor changes to carry today's trains.

     

    Mr. M. J. Caples was the engineer and had worked for the Norfolk and Western before coming to the South and Western Railroad.

     

    Work began in April 1905.

     

    There is a picture showing most of the syndicate in the book.

     

    From "Building the Clinchfield" by J.A. Goforth.  

    A great little book on the Clinchfield.3

     

    Pete Heimbach

     

      

     



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