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Chapter 10: The Union Chapel Mine and its Surroundings: A
History
We’re looking at these tracks … and we’re piling them in our cars. And then to
realize that … no human has ever seen these…. To think that you go all over the
world and these are some of the best…. Thank heavens Ashley taught the child
who had the relative that owned the place…. Also, Ashley went over there one
time before any of us to look. What if he had looked at a really unproductive
spot? 'Well, no. They’re not here.' We’d never have known! So his persistence, or
perhaps, sheer luck on that really made that place. – Kathy Twieg1
Compared to the No. 11 mine of the Galloway Coal Company, the Union Chapel
Mine/Minkin site is a small piece of real estate. Located only about 3.5 miles north and
slightly east of Cordova, Alabama, the site occupies an area of about a dozen acres, or
only a half a percent of the area of the No. 11 mine. The quality, diversity, and numbers
of tracks found over such a small area make the Minkin site what paleontologists often
refer to as a “lagerstatte,” or “motherlode.” Lagerstatten are exceptional paleontological
sites. A website2 lists the best-known lagerstatten around the world.
The natural history of the Union Chapel Mine (and virtually all the other coal
mines in Walker County) is basically the history of the Pottsville Formation, which as we
have described is a fascinating blend of giant continental movements, rising and sinking
land, tropical climates and swamps, and cyclic geological processes. It is indeed
astonishing how much we know about the time period when those events occurred. Here
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we move away from natural history to more recent history. Our narrative revolves
around Fig. 10.1, which shows the Minkin site relative to various old roads and some
landmarks. The discussion is based on interviews with John L. Southard, a neighbor to
the site. A man of gentle southern charm and natural curiosity, Mr. Southard (Fig. 10.2a)
has lived his whole life in Union Chapel, working on the same land his parents,
grandparents, and great-grandparents had worked, and attending the same church that
they had attended. We introduce a few of these stories to give those interested in the
Minkin site a perspective on the people who have come and gone in the area.
The APS, and the Union Chapel Mine project, were extraordinarily lucky to have
someone like Mr. Southard nearby. Far from being disturbed by the unusual influx of
visitors, Mr. Southard was fascinated by what people were finding in the area and often
went out of his way to meet people and talk about the things he knew about the area. His
demeanor and easy-going nature made visitors very comfortable and welcome in his
presence.
The Civil War in Alabama
The Union Chapel Mine is located in Walker County about 7 miles east of Jasper,
23 miles east of Carbon Hill, and 35 miles northwest of Birmingham. The area is steeped
in Civil War era history that provides an interesting backdrop to our story. Considerable
lore and legend exist about the time, near the end of the Civil War, when Union army
troops passed through Alabama on their way to Georgia. The path these troops traveled
was studied in detail by Rowland,3 who provided evidence that Union troops passed very
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near the UCM area in late March, 1865. The troops came to Walker County in the form
of a Cavalry Corps distributed into 3 separate divisions (the 1st, 2nd, and 4th), each
subdivided into two brigades. They were commanded by 27-year-old Brevet Major
General James Harrison Wilson. Before coming to Alabama, Gen. Wilson had worked
with Union luminaries such as George McClellan and Ulysses S. Grant. He had gained
valuable cavalry experience with General Sheridan and later with Sherman's cavalry in
what was known as the Military District of Mississippi. Gen. Wilson came to Alabama as
a veteran of many important Civil War campaigns, which was remarkable for someone so
young.
The drive into north-central Alabama apparently followed the Union victory in
the Battle of Nashville, which took place in December 1864. It turns out that this was the
last major Civil War battle this far west. Lt. Gen. Hood's Confederate army was soundly
defeated by the Union Army under the command of Maj. Gen. George Thomas, and with
Hood's army crushed and scattered, the area south of Nashville was left relatively free of
Confederate forces, possibly all the way to Tuscaloosa. This was when Gen. Thomas sent
Gen. Wilson into Alabama. His 17,000 troops came in through the northwest corner of
the state with the objective of carrying out a "raid", or some sort of strike, against any
remaining pockets or symbols of resistance. North-central Alabama may have been free
of Confederate soldiers, but this did not mean no resistance would be met. Gen. Wilson
ended up taking 13,500 of his troops armed with Spencer 7-shot repeaters to fight all the
way to Columbus, Georgia, passing through Tuscaloosa and Montgomery on the way.
Although the original plan was to carry out the raid in early March, rain delayed the
move until late March. Prof. Rowland wrote that one of Wilson's 3 divisions sent to fight
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included an officer who later fought with Gen. Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Each division followed a different path from the initial starting point at or a little
east of Waterloo, Alabama, reconnecting at places on the way, and separating again.
Eventually, the entire Corps would try to meet at Saunder's Ferry (now called Lynn's
Park), after passing through Jasper. The 1st Division camped in Kansas, Alabama, on the
way to Jasper. As we have previously described, a mine in Kansas later yielded valuable
surface tracks about the same age as those found at the Minkin site.4 The troops that
passed near the Minkin site were the 1st and 2nd Divisions and the 2nd Brigade of the 4th
Division. No official record of the route exists, but the likely path closely followed what
is now Old Birmingham Highway (Rowland3). Visitors to the Minkin site will recognize
this as the road they take from Highway 78 to get to the mine. On March 27, 1865, the
troops passed Gardiner's Gin and Union Chapel, thereafter crossing Highway 78 near
what was until recently Uncle Mort's Restaurant. Uncle Mort's also will be familiar to
many Minkin site visitors because this is where groups used to meet up before heading to
the mine. Uncle Mort's was a charming venue for trackway enthusiasts until it closed in
about 2006.
What did Union troops do in Alabama? Sometimes they had to raid local farms
and homes for food supplies. There were skirmishes with local residents. But perhaps the
most infamous incident was the detachment of the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division, under
the command of Brig. Gen. John T. Croxton, to make a raid on Tuscaloosa and destroy
the University of Alabama, the Alabama Military School, and other public buildings.
This took place just a few days after the troops passed near the Minkin site. This incident
left a scar on the city (including the burning of a library) that is still talked about.5
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Life in Union Chapel
The Civil War narrative is just one of the interesting stories related to us by John
Southard. When APS members started to visit the Union Chapel Mine to collect fossil
trackways, many got to know Mr. Southard because he lives so close to the mine. He told
the story of the Union troops to several members, and brought our attention to Prof.
Rowland’s pamphlet. Mr. Southard's great-grandfather was a Confederate soldier.
We asked him about the origin of the name Union Chapel. He recounted it this
way: "... according to the way I have been told, when this area was settled there weren't
enough of the different denominations of churches to justify building like a Baptist
church, and a Methodist church, and different churches, so they said well let's just build a
chapel, and we'll all use it.... They called it Union Chapel, and that's how the community
as a whole got its name. And up there where the Methodist church is now (the small box
to the right of Buttermilk Road in Fig. 10.1) is basically where the old church was. I can
remember the old church building when I was a child but I'm sure that's not the first one.
It was probably just a little one room church....”6
It turns out that “Union Chapel” is a common church name in the US. The church
in Union Chapel, Alabama is called the Union Chapel United Methodist Church (Fig.
10.2b), but a search on the internet produces many churches around the country that
either have the same name, or once had the name “Union Chapel.” For example, the
Flohrville United Methodist Church in Sykesville, Maryland was once called “Union
Chapel” because its founder, a German immigrant, wanted a non-sectarian church, one
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that would be a “union of all churches.”7 This church was built in 1911, but the name
Union Chapel goes back much further, to the UK. The Union Chapel Church in London
was established in 1806 to “unite Christians of different denominations in religious
worship and brotherly affection.”8 Thus, Union Chapel is more than just a location in
Alabama, it represents a concept that was popular at one time at many locations around
the country and even the world.
On 17 February 2010, Mr. Southard took one of us (RB) on a historical tour of the
area of the mine. For him, there was little or no ambiguity about the path Union troops
followed on their way to Lynn's Park: they went right past his great-grandfather’s house
(located in Fig. 10.1 as the small box to the left and a little above his house). The house
where his great grandfather lived is still there, and is one of the few still-standing preCivil War-built buildings in Union Chapel. His great-grandpa's name was Nathaniel
Black.
It was next to this house where he pointed out the "old road" where Union troops
passed by. (This path is mapped using GPS coordinates as the dashed lines in Fig. 10.1.)
The path was covered in leaves. Instead of following the hill up by his house, the path
curves more towards the north. He said part of his driveway is on the path. We were
walking past the old house going east and he said “Right on out through there, this old
trail, and when it went around the curve, it just kept bearing back and it went between
those big pine trees there, and went on towards Lynn's Park.” This area is shown in Fig.
10.3a.
John pointed to a hand-drawn map in Professor Rowland’s pamphlet. He was
convinced we were indeed standing on the old trail from Jasper to Birmingham. He said
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the Union troops came along what is now part of his driveway and that they went over a
nearby hill where “Old Man (John) Madison” and his family once lived. The trail went
over this hill, and then on down to Lynn's Park. The former location of Mr. Madison's
house is near the north side of the top of the high wall at the Minkin site. We visited the
area later, and saw debris that pinpointed the house's approximate location. Mr. Madison
had 13 children.
We then went on a driving tour of the area. The main paved road near John’s
house is called Old Kirkpatrick Road. The old path crossed this road running roughly
parallel to Old Birmingham Highway. Pointing on the left side of the road while we
drove left from Old Kirkpatrick Rd onto to Old Birmingham Highway, he said: "Right
there it goes. See that bank? That's part of the old road. You can see the trail of it going
right through there. It went on in behind this house right here.”9 The area he is referring
to is the dashed path between Old Kirkpatrick and Buttermilk Roads in Fig. 10.1.
As we approached Buttermilk Road, he pointed out the Union Chapel cemetery.
"That old road come right by them pine trees right there, coming on across. Of course
most of this cemetery [the Union Chapel Cemetery] wasn't even here then, this part over
here. The old part was over there." He pointed to the cemetery next to the church.
As we passed the cemetery on the left, he said: "Now this is the original Union
Chapel. This place right here. The old Methodist church - I guess the Methodist
Conference bought it or something, I don't know really how they acquired it." We turned
left onto Buttermilk Road.
Transcript of Interview9
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RB: But this is fairly new.
JS: This was where Union Chapel started off. This is where Mom and Dad and I went to
church.
We walked towards a mounted bell (Fig. 10.2b). He said it was the original
church’s bell. A plaque under the bell dates the old church from 1859-1976. We then
walked towards the cemetery.
JS: Now here's where the folks that lived in that house down there [his great-grandpa's
house, and later his grandparents and parents house] was.
He then pointed out a tombstone and said: "This right here is my grandma and
grandpa. They’re the ones who lived in that old house down there." (John and Sarah
Black). He was referring to the old house on his property near the Minkin site.
He then pointed to three smaller tombstones nearby, all sons of John and Sarah
Black who had died young. John’s mother was the only child of John and Sarah Black
who survived to adulthood. An especially sad case was Samuel Otis Black. He was born
on February 4, 1909 and died on August 6, 1918. John said: “He was the first traffic
fatality in Walker County. He was coming home from school and a man ran over him. He
was a small child, Samuel Otis.” Apparently, the day before Otis’s accident, John’s
grandfather had given the young boy a violin, which he played. But after the accident, the
violin was never played again.
Otis’s two younger brothers, Clifford and Emmett, died during a fever epidemic
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that passed through the area. John thinks it was typhoid, but given the time frame (1918),
it’s also possible they were victims of the flu epidemic that raged near the end of World
War I.
Nearby we came to the grave of a man John called “the old Confederate fogie,”
that is, his great-grandfather. The tombstone says:
Nathaniel Black
PVT CO F 28 REGT 6 CAV
CONFEDERATE STATES ARMY
Nov. 27, 1846 - May 23, 1900
"And this is his wife, Francis Black," John said as he pointed to another grave.
The marker with the information above is one of two stones for Mr. Black. His
main gravestone is behind the marker. A flagpole near it is for a Confederate flag. Some
private flags were mounted that day. A big tree is behind Mr. Black's main stone. John
said “relating to you'all [Minkin site] - he [Nathaniel Black] owned the land that comes
right up to you'all, that I own now. He was the owner of that property.”
Ron then asked him the origin of the name "Southard". “It's an Irish name,” he
said. “I come from Ireland. It come in through New York, and then it went through
Michigan, and they farmed there for a while, and then one went to the California gold
rush, and then some came to Alabama, and I understand one went to Texas. They was
pretty adventurous.”
He recalled more about the possible typhoid (or flu?) episode. “There are some
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graves back down there off of that old trail, I don't know where they are at really, but
they was traveling through this area, and that typhoid fever or something must have hit.
They died, and they buried them there. Of course they couldn't embalm them, they
couldn't take them with them like on a wagon train, so they just had to bury them. I know
about where they're at, but I couldn't walk up and say there's the grave. Don't even know
who they were.”
We walked on and looked at a few more Confederate graves. Then we stood in
front of the grave of someone who knew Nathaniel Black, a man named Joseph William
Gardner who was born in 1837 and died in 1920. John tells this about Mr. Gardner: “The
one right there [Mr. Gardner], and this one [Nathaniel], they was friends. They's a bit of
history behind this old fellow that his great grandson told me. And he's gone now. But
this old fellow was in North Carolina when Robert E. Lee surrendered, and he killed two
Yankees after the war ended. And he become a fugitive from the law. The Confederate
officials obviously didn't really want him, but he couldn't go pay his taxes on his
property, and my great grand-dad would pay his taxes for him, to keep him from having
to go into court house you know.” Mr. Gardner evidently did not know the war was over
when he shot the Union soldiers. While on the “lam”, he camped in Alabama and realized
land was available, and decided to stay. But he couldn’t pay his taxes in person because
he would have been arrested. Thus, Mr. Gardner managed to avoid capture after the war
ended, due to the generosity of Nathaniel Black.
We then crossed the street [Buttermilk Road] and visited the graves of his Mom
and Dad. John said: "I wish you people in the society could have met Mom and Dad. I
guarantee Dad would have loved to have been with you'all every time you come over
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there, and brought you a cup of coffee or something, just to be with you all. He was just
that kind of person."
Next we went down to see Lynn's Park. We saw the trail that went down to the
ferry – Saunder’s Ferry - that was mentioned in Allen Rowland's 1993 pamphlet.
Saunder’s Ferry is on the Warrior River (Fig. 10.3b). Union troops had camped close to
this area. In this area, we also saw Sardis Primitive Baptist Church, a large white building
across from a modern restaurant. This was not the original church, which was once
located near Peach Orchard Road a little south and east of the Minkin site. John related
the story of how the church got to its different location. Apparently, a woman in the
church had an affair, and was forced to leave the church. She reacted to this by burning
the church down. And when the church was rebuilt, it was burned down a second time
and she was the chief suspect. The church at Lynn’s Park was built in 1876 after the
woman had died. John says that perhaps this is why it still stands!
At this point our round trip ended, and we passed through the gate at UCM. We
saw the hilly land to the left that John says was previously mined. Then we went to the
mine and looked around for a while. John wanted to show me the “crab” fossils he had
seen. We climbed a slope near the south side of the high wall, and I saw that he was
talking about Arborichnus, a trace fossil (see chapter 20) which was abundant in that
area.
John also filled us in about the mining history of the area. Almost all of the land
in his "backyard" is reclaimed mine land.
K & S Coal Company was the first mining company to come in here. My
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granddad was still alive, and they dealt with him there first. And he passed away
in I believe '67. So they started this in the 60s. I'd say early 60s.
[K & S] came in here and he didn't have too heavy equipment. And he more or
less just rim-cut the hills. And then Marigold Coal Company come in behind ...
K&S Coal Company. And then Marigold was bought out by Drummond's I
believe. And then Drummond's sold it to New Acton Coal Company....
… our backyard here is fill dirt really. You start up this bank here behind the
house, that's actually spoil.... From our backyard on has been mined.... it started
back there in the very back.... Marigold Coal Company owned the mining rights
in here. While Kerland come in and he had clay contracts. And he, so I was told,
made an arrangement with Marigold to uncover their coal for the clay. Well,
gradually they gained the contracts and all, and Marigold kind of got out of it. Of
course, Drummond's come in and took over and bought out from Marigold....
Kerland he was the first one to come in.... He had a machine that augered the coal.
It was a twin auger, about a 27-inch auger, and they would bore back onto those
hills. And I believe it could go 200 feet from each side. They wasted lots of coal
with that thing.... there is a lot of coal left under those hills not really worth going
after....
Marigold had an old shovel back then. Right there in that little hay field's where
they cut the thing up for scrap iron.... And the old shovel itself they said had a lot
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of history - it was a steam shovel before they converted it to electricity. And
Marigold worked that thing a long time. But it finally got so wore out that it
couldn't go no further and they cut it down for scrap iron back there on our back
forty.6
Thus ends our remakable odyssey with John Southard.
Surprisingly, Mr. Southard does not seem to have been disturbed by all the
mining taking place in his backyard. Other residents in the area were less forgiving.
Dolores Reid recalls: “The land [where UCM was located] was just sort of ‘holding the
world together’, way in the boondocks back there. We had to build roads in, you know,
get right-of-ways and all that stuff. We had a good bit of trouble with a lot of the
residents out there you know. You can’t blame them. Nobody wants a mining site at their
back door. But that’s the procedure you do. You go in, you lease the land or buy the land,
then you drill, and then you start the mining process.”10
For a moment, let us look farther back, and review what was happening in the
vicinity of the Minkin site 300-some million years ago. To do this one we have to look at
the stratigraphy, the layers of rock, in the highwall at the site, and fortunately someone
has done this. This is discussed in Chapter 12. But now, let's examine what the amateurs
found when they first visited the Union Chapel Mine.
Figure Captions:
Fig. 10.1 – A map of the immediate area of the Union Chapel Mine/Minkin
Paleozoic Footprint Site.
Fig. 10.2 – (a) John L. Southard, at his home in Union Chapel; (b) the mounted
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bell of the old Union Chapel United Methodist Church, seen as the box to the left of
Buttermilk Road in Fig. 10.1.
Fig. 10.3 – (a) Mr. Southard pointed to this area near his house as having been
part of the old road used by Union troops in 1865 to reach Saunder’s Ferry on the Black
Warrior River. (b) This is where Saunder’s Ferry was located during the Civil War.
1
K. Twieg, personal communication, 2009
http://www.peripatus.gen.nz/paleontology/defLagerstatten.html
3 Rowland, 1993
4 Lacefield, 2000
5 B. Windham, Tuscaloosa News, Feb. 13, 2011
6 J. Southard, personal communication, 2010
7 http://www.flohrvilleumc.org/history
8 http://www.unionchapel.org.uk/history-of-union-chapel.html
9 J. Southard, video interview February 17, 2010
10 D. Reid, personal communication, 2009
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