Lived in an 8 room double home. 4 rooms to each side. It was a rental. Rented for $5.00 each side.
Major Fountain was 38 years old. Born in the vicinity of San Toy, Ohio. He had been a miner since 13 years of age.
WWII Era. 1944
Preferred Citation: United Mine Workers of America, Historical Collections and Labor Archives.
Special Collections Library, University Libraries, Pennsylvania State University.
Duke University
Archive Of Documentary Arts
James Karales Photographs
Major project documents Rendville, Ohio, a coal mining town and one of the first racially integrated towns in Appalachia.
https://repository.duke.edu/dc/karales?f%5Bcommon_model_name_ssi%5D%5B%5D=Item
When we talk about Appalachian people it is crucial that we keep in our minds that we are talking about a diverse population. For the Urban Appalachian Community Coalition, advocacy has always been for the many and varied populations that make up greater Cincinnati and the people who define themselves as urban Appalachians. With this in mind, we would like to share that at The Ohio State University Center for Folklore Studies presenting three short films in a program entitled “Black Appalachians: Leadership, Legacy and Village Life in Rendville, Ohio.”
Rendville, Ohio is one of the first integrated coal mining towns in southern Ohio and remains something of a monument to living history as an example of the central place of black people in Appalachia. These short films are part of the efforts to preserve the history and legacy of Rendville, Ohio by the Rendville Historic Preservation Society (RHPS), Little Cities of the Black Diamonds, and Black in Appalachia. (Links to these organizations are below).
Rendville, Ohio is located about 25 miles north of Athens, Ohio. The village was established in 1879 by the Ohio Central Coal Company. Historically, coal companies exclusively hired white men to work the mines, but the founder of the Ohio Coal Company, William Rend, hired large numbers of African Americans from the area and from further into the Appalachian regions. This led to rising tensions between black residents and workers in Rendville and neighboring white communities. The claim was that hiring black men to work the mines would drive down wages.
In 1888, mobs from nearby Corning and other areas descended upon Rendville with the intention of driving out black coal miners and their families. While no significant violence occurred, they did bring in weapons hidden in wagons. Then Governor Charles Foster dispatched the National Guard to disperse the mob. This event is still known as “the Corning War.”
From the very beginning of Rendville, Ohio, black residents made up a sizable percentage of the population. The town flourished for a short time until over-production of coal led to a loss of jobs. At one time, Rendville was made up most of male residents. It was home to numerous bars, and a spirit of general lawlessness pervaded the town. Fights and brawls were not uncommon. Rendville experienced a resurgence during World War I, but the Great Depression put things back into decline. Since 1940, Rendville, Ohio has experienced a steady decrease in population.
Nevertheless, Rendville, Ohio remains, and the town has given us some distinguished and prominent Americans. Isaiah Tuppins was the first African American Mayor in Ohio. Sophia Mitchell was the first African American woman mayor on the State of Ohio. And Rendville native Roberta Preston was the first African American woman postmaster in the United States. Rendville, Ohio is the site of some of the most important history for black people not just in Appalachia, but also in American history. Just as importantly, this small town was one of the first places in the United States to blur the color line that divides so many people this day.
Janis Ivory, a member of the Board for the Rendville Historic Preservation Society, remembers growing up in a town that was one community. Ms. Ivory lived in Rendville from the age of ten (her mother was from Rendville) until she graduated high school in 1959. “When I first came to Rendville, I was struck by the fact that it is a place where white people and African Americans lived like one family. It is such a small town, and everyone simply lived as one community,” Ms. Ivory remembers. She recalled a time when a white minister in town became the first person to own a television. She said, “we all gathered outside her house. She would turn her tv on her porch, and everyone gathered to watch.” This was typical of the small tight-knit community of Rendville.
The crossing of the color line began in many ways with the founding of the town. William P. Rend, the founder of Rendville, hired black and white laborers to work his mines. Janis Ivory explained that “Mr. Rend paid all his workers the same no matter who they were.” Ms. Ivory also added that while Rend started a company store like many mining towns, he set it up so that it could be taken over by townspeople. Rendville is exceptional in many ways, and this appears to have begun with the town founder himself. With such a unique place in Appalachian, African American, and United States history, the presentation at Ohio State University is a rare opportunity to learn more about this little patch of Appalachian Ohio.
The Ohio State University’s Center of Folklore Studies is sponsoring the presentation at the OSU Thompson Library that will include three short, community-produced documentaries that illuminate the history and community of Rendville, Ohio. These films include “Rendville Across the Color Line,” “Stories of Decoration Day” and “Water for Life.” The films were produced in a partnership with the Rendville Historic Preservation Society (RHPS), Little Cities of the Black Diamonds, and Black in Appalachia. A Q & A and discussion will follow the screening of the films. The event is to be hosted at Thompson Library, but there is an option to participate online.
The Urban Appalachian Community Coalition looks to these types of presentations and projects as part of the ongoing work of providing depth and richness to our understanding of Appalachian history and culture. These short films bring the history of Rendville, Ohio alive for all of us, and we hope everyone will take advantage of this event, either in person or online. Links for all of this are provided below.
Sponsored by the Center for Folklore Studies and The Ohio State University Libraries.
Southeastern Ohio is known for its rolling hills, scenic views and its rich Appalachian history. Small villages nestled in the valleys of Athens, Perry and Hocking counties make up “Little Cities of Black Diamonds,” former coal mining towns that brought workers from near and far to achieve the common goals of landing a job and making money.
Sitting about 25 miles north of Athens is the small coal mining town of Rendville. The town is so small, it’s easy to miss — the only indication of its main street is a historical marker. A small white church stands at the end of the street. Some of the houses there are now vacant, their owners either passed on or moved away with no family interested in moving back in.
City hall, a two-story white building at the other end of the street, shows its age. Chipped paint flakes from the exterior and the only sounds that can be heard in the afternoons is the American flag flapping in the wind.
But you shouldn’t be fooled by the near silence here. Rendville’s contribution to this region, and to equality, speaks loudly and clearly for anyone who takes the time to read that historical marker.
This village, established in 1879 by William P. Rend, was the first integrated village in the state of Ohio.
It was all about the sense of community and ethnic diversity that moved the town of Rendville forward. It was progressive for its time.
Everyone in the town looked out for everyone else, and on the backs of those who lived in the village came people like Isaiah Tuppins, Roberta Preston and Adam Clayton Powell Sr., notable figures that went on to make an impact.
Isaiah Tuppins, the first mayor of Rendville, was African American. He was also the first African American man to earn his medical degree in Ohio at the Columbus Medical College which is now The Ohio State University. Tuppins was critical in protecting the rights of the African American majority in Rendville.
Rendville stood apart from the other coal mining towns in the area, who often had white minors who disapproved of William Rend’s hiring of immigrants from Europe and African Americans.
Roberta Preston was the first African American to serve as postmistress in Ohio and the United States. Adam Clayton Powell Sr., the pastor who developed the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, also has roots in Rendville.
“It’s just amazing to see what the people that came through Rendville accomplished,” Jackson said. “When I look back on it now and think about the people who lived there … it just gives you a feeling of being proud that you are from Rendville.”
While Rendville’s history runs deep, some of the residents have been trying to preserve the memory of the important historical figures who came through Rendville.
Former residents, including Ohio University Hall of Famer Jerry Jackson, got together to form the Rendville Historic Preservation Society. Their goal? To leave a legacy for future generations through the preservation of the history, heritage, and the physical structures of the Village of Rendville.
As president of the RHPS, Jackson wants the younger generation to hear about what he experienced growing up in Rendville in the 1950s.
“It was a quiet little town,” he said. “When I was growing up the streets were dirt, so we did a lot of playing in the streets – [we played a lot of] basketball or football.”
When asked about the current political climate and divisiveness in our country today, Jackson pointed to Rendville as an example – the story of the small village in the middle of nowhere, with a reported population of 34, had an impact unlike any other at the time.
“It’s very divisive now, but it was amazing to see how a small village like Rendville got along earlier in the 19th century,” he said. “Growing up there was never any racial tension or anything like that.”
“It was an integrated, coal mining town … there were a lot of immigrants from different countries. There didn’t seem to be any problems there in Rendville … they were there to work and that’s what they did. They worked with each other, and everybody got along just fine,” Jackson said.
With racial tensions being the highest they’ve been in the United States, it’s almost as if we’re moving backward. Rendville, as far back as 1879, was an example of a community that looked out for one another. The people of Rendville all had the same goals – they worked together regardless of race.
It’s instances like these, moments in history, where we can learn from the past in order to avoid repeating what has already occurred. Rendville can be used as an example for what could be if we all got along and treated each other with respect.
“The goal then was to work in the coal mines. That’s what they came there for and that’s what they did,” he said. “They lived together, they worked together, they went to church together … the goal financially was just to make money and work. People got along there in Rendville just by living together and trusting each other.”
https://woub.org/2018/11/15/learning-from-the-past-the-story-of-rendville-ohio/
This annotated edition of the History of the Jones Family (ca. 1930) by John L. Jones (1857-1938) puts back into print an important historical book. Published forty years before Roots, History of the Jones Family also tells the story of a remarkable African-American family. Alex Haley was a professional writer and Roots was a best seller.
John L. Jones was a businessman and he probably gave away all 100 copies of his own book. Nevertheless, Jones wrote in a natural, conversational, unpretentious style that is delightful to read. He mixes family stories with family fact in an absorbing narrative tracing his father's activities as a conductor on the Underground Railroad to his own accomplishments in business and civic affairs.
Along the way he recounts the considerable achievements of other family members, including his well-known brother, James McHenry Jones, president of what is now West Virginia State College. Even rarer than a copy of the first edition of History of the Jones Family is In Memoriam, a tribute to James McHenry Jones. In Memoriam is reprinted here also. Found in the files of the late Beulah Johnson, who researched African-American history in the Gallipolis, Ohio, area.
In Memoriam likely represents the text of orations made at James McHenry Jones' funeral. The Jones family's story reaches from Richmond, Virginia, at the turn of the nineteenth century to the Ohio River cities of Cincinnati, New Richmond, Southpoint, Middleport, Pomeroy, Gallipolis (Ohio), and Wheeling (West Virginia), throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. John L. Jones spent most of his adult life in the Perry County, Ohio, mining town of Rendville.
Rendville is particularly interesting because of its African-American citizens' early involvement in the beginnings of the labor movement. Notes by Michel S. Perdreau and Nancy E. Aiken describe some of the significance of Rendville and other places and events in the History of the Jones Family. The History of the Jones Family brings into sharp focus the ambitions, frustrations, and determination of a free African-American family from the antebellum era to the early twentieth century. Their sense of family, their loyalty to each other, and their singular accomplishments belie the common stereotypes.
https://books.google.com/books/about/History_of_the_Jones_Family.html?id=acLeAAAACAAJ
But blacks did not receive equal treatment with whites even in the UMW. Many complaints surfaced in the union’s paper, the United Mine Workers’ Journal, regarding the inadequate representation of blacks at all levels of leadership. Also, negroes complained that they were discriminated against in the skilled and better paying positions. Promotion was a slow if not impossible process, and they charged that white union officials often ignored their grievances. Moreover, black and white miners frequently were segregated into separate locals, especially in the South. Segregation also extended inside the mines, where the two races worked in separate sections, and often changed clothing in different wash-houses. In most mining communities, housing, education, and other public facilities were segregated as well. Thus, local folkways inevitably found their way into the pits, and into the union itself.
During the 1890s, these grievances flared into a heated public debate in the UMWJ. The most articulate of the black miners was Richard L. Davis. Davis was born in Roanoke, Virginia, in 1864, where he worked in the tobacco factories. After laboring in the coal mines of West Virginia for a time, he moved to Rendville, a small mining town in southeastern Ohio. A delegate to the founding convention of the UMW in 1890, Davis subsequently served on the Executive Board of District 6 (Ohio), and in 1896 and 1897 he was elected to the international executive board.
Throughout the 1890s Davis helped organize black miners in Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Alabama. In his letters to the UMWJ, Davis warned white miners that if their black brothers were not treated equally, they would provide the operators with a vast industrial army which could enter the pits as strikebreakers. https://temple.manifoldapp.org/read/the-black-worker-a-documentary-history-from-colonial-times-to-the-present-volume-4/section/d89a9315-6511-443a-bc96-93886e4e9cf3
Jerry Jackson, a resident of Rendville, is serving as the chair for the Rendville Historic Preservation Society in order to preserve the history of the town he loves. Jackson is an Ohio University alumnus who had a career in basketball and even served in a Vietnam War. When he looks back on his experience in Rendville, he realized that race was not a big part of it.
“I never heard anything about race relations growing up or staying away from white folks or anything like that,” Jackson says. “But I mean, we all grew up here together. It was probably half black and half white. Everyone was here for the same purpose: to work in the coal mine. So, we got along just fine.”
Janis Ivory, who grew up with Jackson, is also serving as a member of the Rendville Historic Preservation. She recalls a very similar experience to that of her co-chair.
“We began to see on those old, early, fuzzy TVs and get articles in the newspaper that there was all this stuff going down South with the Civil Rights Movement,” Ivory says. “I thought, ‘What is the big issue?’ … I really had to ask and look into it to understand that Rendville is a paradise socially compared to what other people were going through.”
Jackson and Ivory, now as adults, understand how significant the town is not only to the state of Ohio, but to the nation as a whole. Despite the significance of the town, community members are struggling to maintain the existence of Rendville. With the diminishing job market, residents are leaving the town at an expedited rate.
“A lot of the people aren’t here anymore … they passed away. A lot of their children … obviously, are not going to stay here,” Ivory says. “You go where the jobs are … quite a lot of them went to Columbus and different places.”
Instead of seeing this as a barrier, those who remain in the community are using the diminishing population as motivation to continue their preservation efforts in Rendville.
“My generation, we had good memories,” Ivory says. “We had a desire that if we could just reach back, I’m sure we would have been glad to preserve what had been left behind.”
https://southeastohiomagazine.com/2020/09/21/gold-mine-sparks-racial-integration/
Architectural historian Jeff Darbee visits a unique artist space in Rendville, Ohio, which was at one time a thriving, mostly African American coal mining town.
Tecumseh Theater in Shawnee. “Rendville: Across the Color Line” is a new video documentary by Burr Beard, MFA student in Media Communication Arts at Ohio University. Under the tutelage of Professors Art Cromwell and Brian Plow.
“Rendville: Across the Color Line” looks at the racially integrated mining town in southern Perry County whose founder welcomed African American and white immigrants from some seven European countries based on their abilities to endure the work of late 19th Century coal-mining.
Rendville’s most illustrious miner, Richard L. Davis is chronicled though a new book by Dr. Frans Doppen, Richard L. Davis: The Color Line in Ohio Coal. The book provides the primary narrative source for the film, and Doppens is one of the primary participants interviewed on camera.
Members of the Rendville Historical Preservation Society who grew up in Rendville in the 1950’s and 60’s were interviewed, including Jerry Jackson, Janis Ivory and Harry Ivory.
Information from Ivan Tribe’s publication Little Cities of The Black Diamonds, Urban Development in the Hocking Valley Coalfields, 1870-1900, is visualized though information graphics thought the film. Professor John Grimwade was particularly helpful in this regard.
Beard completed the writing, editing and narration for the film, as well as directing and producing. Media Arts PhD student, Franklyn Charles was Director of Photography. Jan Hamilton and Devilish Merry provided the music.
Rendville's unusual demographic profile, a mixed population of African Americans, native whites, and foreign-born immigrants, was the product of distinctive historical settlement processes. Employing historical records, this thesis argues that Rendville's distinctive character was the result of a variety of factors including the efforts of a progressive coal operator, William P. Rend, whose hiring practices and equal pay policies offered economic security for African Americans.
This thesis argues that African Americans in Rendville were agents of their own social change during the nineteenth century. By utilizing a network of social organizations and an interracial labor union, they established the framework for a successful African-American community.
https://etd.ohiolink.edu/apexprod/rws_olink/r/1501/10?clear=10&p10_accession_num=ohiou1307303263
Rendville, population 36 by the latest census count, is the smallest village in Ohio, but one with a rich legacy in the civil-rights and labor movements.
The quiet of Rendville’s block-long downtown in the hills of southeastern Perry County is broken only by the whistle of the coal trains that still travel alongside Route 13.
Village Council meetings don’t take long. Usually, it’s a matter of voting whether to fill this pothole or whack the weeds.
Many of the people who live in the small collection of tidy clapboard houses in town are well into their years.
Asked if she is the eldest, Lenora “Babe” Jackson, 88, paused to think as the aroma of the pinto beans and corn bread she had prepared for dinner rose from her kitchen stove. “I’m the oldest since Ruel Harris died,” she said after a moment. “He was 93.”
Jackson started life here and will end life here, if she can. “Sometimes, people ask me, ‘Why are you still there?’ I say, ‘I like it.’ I want to stay here till I die. Don’t put me in a rest home.
“I miss a lot of the people that used to be here. A lot of them are dead.”
The village must live on, no matter how small it is, say residents and others who have taken an interest in Rendville.
With a population of about 1,000 people at its height during the boom years of the 1880s, Rendville was home to black miners who lived and worked alongside white immigrant miners who were newly arrived from central and eastern Europe.
The town was named for William P. Rend, a Chicago industrialist who operated a coal mine here and paid black and white miners the same wages. The town was filled with saloons and gambling, and stores and churches. It hosted a big Emancipation Day celebration every year to commemorate President Lincoln’s ending of slavery in the South.
Adam Clayton Powell Sr. was a hard-living miner here in the 19th century before he surrendered his vices and was “saved” at a religious revival at the local First Baptist Church. He later became pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood and a civil-rights leader.
Richard L. Davis, another black coal miner, was an organized-labor leader in the Knights of Labor and then the United Mine Workers of America in the late 1800s. He worked to make sure black miners had the same opportunities as white miners. He is buried in Rendville Cemetery.
It is because of its significant history that there is value in maintaining the village,” said John Winnenberg, whose nonprofit development corporation, Sunday Creek Associates, based in nearby Shawnee, is helping to restore and promote the region.
Rendville is among the former coal-mining communities in Perry, Athens, Hocking and Morgan Counties known collectively as the Little Cities of Black Diamonds.
The coal boom that began in the 1870s was bust by the 1930s, and the glory days of Rendville are long gone.
The village will better preserve its identity and history if it stays incorporated rather than dissolving and being absorbed into surrounding Monroe Twp., said Winnenberg, whose German-immigrant grandparents ran a grocery in Rendville in the late 1880s.
Mayor Bryan Bailey also wants the village to remain as it is. “It’s such a peaceful little town,” he said. “It’s a quiet piece of heaven.”
Bailey, 41, grew up here and lives at the family “home place” caring for his mother, 81-year-old Orpah Bailey, who is on the Village Council.
“We’re so small, we don’t spend a lot of money. If a road needs patching or graveling, we’ll do it ourselves,” said Mayor Bailey, who is self-employed and does welding and fabricating, excavation, trenching and hauling work.
The county sheriff and the nearby Corning Volunteer Fire Department provide police and fire protection if it is ever needed. It seldom is.
The small size brings some challenges, though. The six-member Village Council is rarely at full strength because it’s hard to find and keep people willing to serve.
The most-recent state audit, covering 2008 and 2009, found inadequate record-keeping by the village government. County Auditor Teresa Stevenson sent village fiscal officer Kathie Renick a letter last month admonishing her for not having submitted the village budget since 2007.
The village operates on little money. Its general-fund budget is approximately $4,700, Stevenson said.
As the population dwindles, others are stepping in to help keep the village going.
The church where Powell Sr. was saved from sin now is Rendville Art Works, where developmentally disabled people paint and sculpt.
Frans Doppen, a Dutch-born historian and professor of social-studies education at Ohio University, and his students raised money to erect a historic marker downtown last year.
He and his students are remodeling a vacant clapboard house next to the village hall for possible use as a small museum, welcome center or restaurant. Doppen also is writing a book about Davis, the labor leader.
The mayor appreciates the efforts of Doppen and his students and said their work is the latest chapter in the story of Rendville.
The Ohio State University Thompson Library Room 150A/B offered a film screening of three short documentaries and a panel discussion about the history and community of Rendville, Ohio.
Established by William P. Rend in 1879, Rendville was one of the first integrated coal mining towns in southern Ohio. In the late 1880s, Rendville’s surging population of 1800 mine workers included 300 African American workers and their families.
The town’s African American community maintained a strong tradition of leadership, serving as mayors, postmasters and pastors, including figures such as Richard L. Davis, Isaiah Tuppins, Adam Clayton Powell Sr., Sophia Mitchell and Roberta Preston. Although Rendville’s population has steadily declined since the 1940s, the town’s residents and families have developed a close-knit community that continues to gather annually for Decoration Day in May and Emancipation Day in September.
The Rendville Historic Preservation Society (RHPS) has led efforts to preserve the town’s history and tell its story, often through partnerships with The Ohio State University’s Center for Folklore Studies, Ohio University, the Little Cities of the Black Diamonds and Black in Appalachia.
This event screened three short, community-produced documentaries about Rendville’s history and community: “Rendville Across the Color Line,” “Stories of Decoration Day” and “Water for Life.” Afterward, a panel consisting of RHPS board members, Rendville community members and others working with the RHPS led a Q&A and discussion session about the town’s history, community and legacy. https://guides.osu.edu/blackappalachia
