Thurmond on the New River

From West Virginia (WV) Cyclopedia

"Captain" H. W. Doolittle, a conductor on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway during the late-1800s and early-1900s, wrote several poems about various local subjects, one of which spoke of the town of Thurmond, WV. We do not know if Doolittle had named this poem about Thurmond, however, in order to give the poem a page of its own we've taken the liberty of referring to the poem as Thurmond on the New River.

You have heard of the California gold rush,
Way back in forty-nine
But Thurmond on the New River
Will beat it every time.

There's people here from everywhere,
The colored and the white;
Some mother's son bites the dust
Almost every night.

On paydays, they come to Thurmond
With a goodly roll of bills,
Some gamblers get their dough,
And they sneak back to the hills.

Some though ne'er return alas!
And they meet a thug-
We find tehm on the railroad track
Or in the Thurmond jug.

Where handy is the blackjack
And the price of life is low
At Thurmond on the New River,
Along the C. and O.,

Where men are often missing
After the drinker's fight,
And the crime laid onto the river
And the trains that pass at night.