July 31, 2024 • 17 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Harrison Mayes was destined for a life in the coal mines of Kentucky from a young age—though he wanted to be a preacher. After he survived a one-ton minecart smashing nearly every bone in his body, however, he would dedicate one of his two shifts in the mine to another way of spreading the gospel—becoming God's advertiser. J.D. Phillips, otherwise known as the 'Appalachian Storyteller', tells the story.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Up next, a story out of cold country about a
miner who would take on a hefty second job. You
to tell the story is the Appalachian storyteller JD. Phillips,
a YouTuber with a phenomenal channel. Let's get into the story.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
My name is Harrison Mays and I was born just
before the turn of the century, in eighteen ninety eight.
Our cabin was located on a place called Barren Creek,
just below the Kentucky Tennessee state line. Like most folks
(00:55):
back then, lawn Fall spent most days scratching out the
flinty soil on the rocky hillside farm, growing just enough
food to raise their eight children. Seems everyone had large
families back then. Heck, a man needed all the help
in hands he could get. How else were the chor
is going to get done? Like milking the cow and
(01:15):
collecting the chickened eggs, or the inlet's tote of water
from the creek to the homestead. Not that us kids minded, though,
it seemed like a privilege to help out our Paul.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
He was a hard working, god fearing man.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
And what I remember the most about him is it
seemed he always had a lot of worry written across
his face and behind his eyes, Not that he ever
said any of it out loud, but we all knew
it was there. He spent many a night standing on
the porch studying the position of the moon or the
shapes of the clouds. He always seemed to know exactly
(01:53):
when he was going to rain, and he could predict
a bad winter coming months in advance. In many ways,
was one of the last truly free men, men that
were part of the wilderness itself. Just like his father
and his grandfather before him, Paul had never worked a
day in his life for money. He had never clocked
in or out. Instead, he lived as one with both
(02:16):
the forest and the wild beasts that inhabited it. The
turn of the century brought many changes to everyone who
called these isolated mountains home, including my family. You see,
the coal industry was born out of the ashes of
the war between the States, and for the first time,
(02:37):
jobs found their way into this remote region. Within a
few short years, company towns had sprung up all up
and down the hollers, and they needed all sorts of workers.
Loggers to clear the land, hands at the sawmill, carpenters
to build the shack houses, more men to build a
new railroad. But most of all, they needed men willing
(02:59):
to work in total darkness for twelve hours a day,
deep inside a hole, dug for more than a mile
deep into the side of a mountain, armed with little
more than a pick axe. What they needed was men
to dig the coal. One by one, men moved their
(03:19):
families out of their ancestral cabins and away from their
ill side farms that they had worked all their lives,
and they moved them into these coal camps. And by
the time I was five years old, my Paul traded
his life as a mountain man for a lifetime of
coal dust. Paul moved us all a few miles outside
(03:40):
of Hillsboro, Kentucky, where he was hired on at the
Fort Mountain coal Camp. For the next several years, I
spent most of my days attending the company school and
helping Ma all around the house. Most of my siblings
were old enough to work in the mine.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
With Paul, but me no. I love school.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Bible study was my favorite part of the day, and
our teacher. Miss Sally would even let me take home
a few sheets of scratch paper each day for me
to practice writing Bible verses. I hoped i'd grow up
and become a preacher. I spent most nights after supper
using small pieces of coal that Paul had brought home,
drawing pictures with Bible verses underneath them to show Miss
(04:24):
Sally the next morning. One day, on my fourteenth birthday,
Miss Sally made cookies for me at school, and she
gave me a big hug. She told me she would
miss me. Oh, Miss Sally, I ain't going nowhere, I replied,
But Harrison, don't you know you're fourteen now. A boy's
(04:45):
schooling is done when he turns that age.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Well, what will I do now, I asked? Why?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
You'll work in the coal mine. Of course, you don't
need no more school into work in the mine. But
Miss Sally, all my life I've been aiming on the
I'm a preacher, not a miner. The young teacher paused
for a moment of reflection, and then she spoke, Son,
you don't have to be a preacher in a church
to spread God's message. Just trust in the Lord and
(05:15):
he'll show you the way, and just like that, in
that moment, my school days were over, and in many
ways so was my childhood. And I didn't know it
at the time, but I would spend the rest of
my life working in the darkness of a cold, damp
coal mine. So there I was just barely a teenager,
(05:42):
put somehow a man at the same time, working twelve
hours a day for the same coal company as my father.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
They called me a coupler boy.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
You see, electricity had come to the coal mine, and
no longer did mules carry the coal carts.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Out of the mine.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Instead, there was a metal cable pulley system. I pulled
an endless train of coal carts, each full with over
a ton of coal, up to the mouth of the mine.
Each of these carts were coupled together with a pen
that had to be removed at exactly the precise moment
to separate the cart from the cable pulley system. The
cart would continue down the tracks, and the pulley would
(06:18):
roll up and back into the mine and start the
process over again. Removing that pen at precisely the right moment.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Was risky business, to say the least.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
My friend Tommy and I we saw many boys lose fingers,
and even one boy lost an arm when he got
caught between the carts. It seemed it wasn't a matter
of if you would get hurt. The only question was
when I still remember that Friday morning like it was yesterday.
My pall and all my brothers and me, we set
out for the mine and a light mountain rain. As
(06:51):
we all entered the mine, my Paul looked back at
me as he grabbed his coal tags and his lunch bucket.
Be careful today. That rain is going to make everything slippery,
and we can't afford for you to get hurt, Yes,
sir Paul, I replied. And slippery it was that entire morning.
All us boys were slipping back and forth, and the
(07:12):
muck and the mud uncoupling those cars. My buddy Tommy
suddenly yelled out, Harrison, help me. My overalls are caught
at a pinch.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
When we come back, what happens next in that mine?
Here on our American stories. This is Lee Hibib, and
this is our American stories, and all of our history
stories are brought to us by our generous sponsors, including
Hillsdale College, where students go to learn all the things
(07:45):
that are beautiful in life and all the things that
matter in life. If you can't get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale
will come to you with their free and terrific online courses.
Go to Hillsdale dot edu. That's Hillsdale dot edu. And
(08:09):
we returned to our American stories and the story of
Harrison Mays. When we last left off, Harrison, who wanted
to become a preacher before becoming a miner, found himself
in a dangerous situation with his friend Tommy in the
mind they both worked in. Tommy's overalls were stuck in
a pulley cart system. Let's get back to the story.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
I looked up.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
He was being drug alongside a fully loaded cart that
he had uncoupled. Both the cart and Tommy were barreling
full speed down the track right at me. However, Tommy
was holding on tight to the side of the cart
to keep from getting ran over, while screaming the entire time.
His weight made the cart unsteady, and it looked as
if the cart was gonna tip over just enough to
(08:57):
make the cold jump the tracks. I stood frozen for
a split second. I didn't know whether to run, helped Tommy,
or get out of the way. In the blink of
an eye, I heard the crashing sound of the cart
jumping the track, tearing up the side of the wall
as it raced towards me. I took one step in
the mud and I slipped and fail. There was no
(09:20):
time to escape. I kicked my legs frantically trying to
move out of the way. By now Tommy had freed
himself and he had jumped off the coal cart and
he was.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Yelling, Harrison, get out of there quick.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I had nowhere to turn, and the entire cart barreled
into my chest. I broke nearly every bone in my body,
and folks who saw it said my eyes popped right
out of their sockets, and desperately the miners began to
dig me out of the rubble. As the company doctor
arrived on the scene of the accident, I had lost
(09:53):
consciousness and I was just laying there a heap of
broken bones when they pulled my body out of the mine.
The his head and he told my pau well, I'm sorry,
but there ain't nearly a chance that he'll make it
through the night. Ain't no sense in trying to get
him to a hospital in this weather. He'll never make it.
Best thing to do is to take him home, call
the family in and say you're goodbyes. As I laid there,
(10:20):
lifeless on that bed, I could feel my family all
around me, but I couldn't make out what any one
of them were saying. I just remember my Mama's tears
stricken face. And then I turned my head and I
realized I was looking down on my lifeless body from
up above.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
I was caught.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Somewhere in between this world and the next one that
instant when a soul separates from its body. I didn't
feel any pain, but I felt like I wasn't done.
My life hadn't even begun yet. God, please, please don't
let me die. I promise, if you'll let me live,
I'll spend all of my days telling the world about you.
I promise, I'll tell the entire world far beyond those
(10:58):
mountain ridges. Just let me live, and everyone will know
your name. Now I need to pause here for just
a moment. You see, there was no way Harrison Mays
should have ever survived that accident. No man could have
lived through it, much less a young boy. But sometimes
when we least expect it, even when there's no other
(11:21):
possible explanation. God can do the impossible.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Harrison did survive, and within three days he climbed off
his death bed, and he dedicated the rest of his
life to telling everyone he could about God. Once Harrison
returned to the coal mines, he was a changed man
in his mind. He had to get busy in a
hurry telling the world about God. Now, back in those days,
(11:48):
one of the biggest events to happen in rule Appolachia
was when a tent revival came to your town. Everyone
and their brother would go to these events to see
and hear everything from preaching, singing, nake hamlon, dancing, and
everything in between. Harrison figured the Lord said to make
a joyful noise, so he first tried his hand at singing.
(12:09):
The only problem was, well, he couldn't sing a lick,
and though he was making a joyful noise, well, it
was just noise that most folks could do without. When
the next tent revival came to town, he tried his
hand at preaching, but his combined fear of public speaking
and the blank looks on the faces of the church
(12:30):
goers told him that preaching wasn't exactly his calling either.
One day, the up and coming preacher was sitting on
the front porch asking the Lord for a sign on
what to do, when a new idea came to him.
Literally there standing right in front.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Of him was his pet hog, Isaac, just.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Standing there looking at him. Harrison quickly ran to the
lean to shed, and within a minute he re emerged
with a bucket of white paint and a paint brush.
He dipped his brush into the paint and began painting
sin not down each side of the black pig, since
pigs were on freely back then fattening up on chestnuts.
(13:14):
Within a few days, everybody in the mining camp had
read those words sin not. Harrison knew he was on
to something, and he began painting his simple message on
the sides of mountains, rocks, trees, barns, and even on
coal cars bound for far away places. He soon resorted
to making signs out of wood, cardboard, and oilcloth, carrying
(13:37):
messages such as get right with God and Jesus is coming.
To fund his ministry, he began working double shifts in
the coal mines, one for his family and one for
the Lord. All the miners knew of his signs, and
some would laugh.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
While others would shake their heads in disbelief.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
However, they admired his effort, and every now and then
they would donate ate a load of coil towards Harrison's ministry. Heck,
even the mining company let him use an abandoned building
on the property as his workshop. By nineteen forty, Harrison's
father had passed away from the dreaded black lung. As
was a common practice back then, the loving son made
(14:18):
his father's tombstone out of concrete right in the backyard.
He was in that moment that Harrison had another Aha moment.
He began making concrete crosses and hearts, weighing as much
as fifteen hundred pounds and placing them on the side
of highways for all to see. He first began by
placing them in nearby states Kentucky and Tennessee and Virginia,
(14:39):
and within a decade he had signs in nearly every
state on the East coast. He'd work in the coal
mines all night and build crosses in his backyard all day.
Once he had five or six ready, he would rent
a truck and a driver, and together the two would
strike out until he found a spot that looked good
to him, he would simply pull up and dig a
hole and use an a pulley system that he had
(15:01):
built on the truck, he would lower the fifteen hundred
pound cross into place. Many times property owners would run
out and yell, what.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Are you doing.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
You can't leave that here, get off my property. Harrison
would simply load up in the truck and make his getaway.
Nearly every week he would get a legal notice demanding
that he'd come back and remove a cross, but he
never would.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
He had the most trouble in Virginia.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Lawmakers there were fed up with its religious signs, and
they passed the law stating that all roadside signs must
be licensed and taxed by the state. Once the new
law was passed, the Virginia Highway Department dug up thirty
nine of its crosses, drove them to the Tennessee side
of the Cumberland Gap, and dumped them right on the
side of the road. For their trouble, they sent Harrison
(15:50):
a bill of thirty nine dollars. During the years in
nineteen twenty through the nineteen eighties, Harrison planted thousands of
crosses and forty four states across the America. He created
signs on the side of mountains near airports stating prepared
to meet God. He mailed and estimated fifty eight thousand
empty whiskey bottles containing scripture and fourteen different languages, but
(16:12):
all over the world. His bottles have been found in
the Philippines, the Netherlands, and even Africa. It's estimated that
Harrison Mays spent one hundred thousand dollars of his own
money funding his ministry during his lifetime. As he would say,
every penny I ever made his gods anyway, I'm just
one hundred and twenty six pounds of mud. Harrison Mays
(16:37):
never drove during his life, and he walked and rode
a bike everywhere he went. He even walked to and
from his marriage to his wife Lily, who supported him
his entire life and supported his ministry. Harrison was at
home at any church, and he spent his entire life
telling anyone he met about the Lord. Harrison Mays went
on to Glory and met his maker in nineteen eighty six.
(17:00):
Three months later his wife Lily joined him there. However, today,
if you look hard enough, you can still find many
of his roadside crosses and hearts dotted throughout the South.
There's even a permanent collection of his work at the Museum.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Of Appalachia and Tennessee.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Till next time, my friends, in the words of Harrison Mays,
get right with God because Jesus is common.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
A beautiful piece of storytelling by J. D. Phillips, known
as the Appalachian Storyteller. He has a YouTube channel that's phenomenal.
Such respect and regard for this part of the country.
Not enough stories on this show told about this part
of the country, and we're fixing that. The story of
Harrison Mays a classic American story about faith and so
(17:51):
much more here on our American Stories
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Up next, a story out of cold country about a
miner who would take on a hefty second job. You
to tell the story is the Appalachian storyteller JD. Phillips,
a YouTuber with a phenomenal channel. Let's get into the story.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
My name is Harrison Mays and I was born just
before the turn of the century, in eighteen ninety eight.
Our cabin was located on a place called Barren Creek,
just below the Kentucky Tennessee state line. Like most folks
(00:55):
back then, lawn Fall spent most days scratching out the
flinty soil on the rocky hillside farm, growing just enough
food to raise their eight children. Seems everyone had large
families back then. Heck, a man needed all the help
in hands he could get. How else were the chor
is going to get done? Like milking the cow and
(01:15):
collecting the chickened eggs, or the inlet's tote of water
from the creek to the homestead. Not that us kids minded, though,
it seemed like a privilege to help out our Paul.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
He was a hard working, god fearing man.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
And what I remember the most about him is it
seemed he always had a lot of worry written across
his face and behind his eyes, Not that he ever
said any of it out loud, but we all knew
it was there. He spent many a night standing on
the porch studying the position of the moon or the
shapes of the clouds. He always seemed to know exactly
(01:53):
when he was going to rain, and he could predict
a bad winter coming months in advance. In many ways,
was one of the last truly free men, men that
were part of the wilderness itself. Just like his father
and his grandfather before him, Paul had never worked a
day in his life for money. He had never clocked
in or out. Instead, he lived as one with both
(02:16):
the forest and the wild beasts that inhabited it. The
turn of the century brought many changes to everyone who
called these isolated mountains home, including my family. You see,
the coal industry was born out of the ashes of
the war between the States, and for the first time,
(02:37):
jobs found their way into this remote region. Within a
few short years, company towns had sprung up all up
and down the hollers, and they needed all sorts of workers.
Loggers to clear the land, hands at the sawmill, carpenters
to build the shack houses, more men to build a
new railroad. But most of all, they needed men willing
(02:59):
to work in total darkness for twelve hours a day,
deep inside a hole, dug for more than a mile
deep into the side of a mountain, armed with little
more than a pick axe. What they needed was men
to dig the coal. One by one, men moved their
(03:19):
families out of their ancestral cabins and away from their
ill side farms that they had worked all their lives,
and they moved them into these coal camps. And by
the time I was five years old, my Paul traded
his life as a mountain man for a lifetime of
coal dust. Paul moved us all a few miles outside
(03:40):
of Hillsboro, Kentucky, where he was hired on at the
Fort Mountain coal Camp. For the next several years, I
spent most of my days attending the company school and
helping Ma all around the house. Most of my siblings
were old enough to work in the mine.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
With Paul, but me no. I love school.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Bible study was my favorite part of the day, and
our teacher. Miss Sally would even let me take home
a few sheets of scratch paper each day for me
to practice writing Bible verses. I hoped i'd grow up
and become a preacher. I spent most nights after supper
using small pieces of coal that Paul had brought home,
drawing pictures with Bible verses underneath them to show Miss
(04:24):
Sally the next morning. One day, on my fourteenth birthday,
Miss Sally made cookies for me at school, and she
gave me a big hug. She told me she would
miss me. Oh, Miss Sally, I ain't going nowhere, I replied,
But Harrison, don't you know you're fourteen now. A boy's
(04:45):
schooling is done when he turns that age.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Well, what will I do now, I asked? Why?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
You'll work in the coal mine. Of course, you don't
need no more school into work in the mine. But
Miss Sally, all my life I've been aiming on the
I'm a preacher, not a miner. The young teacher paused
for a moment of reflection, and then she spoke, Son,
you don't have to be a preacher in a church
to spread God's message. Just trust in the Lord and
(05:15):
he'll show you the way, and just like that, in
that moment, my school days were over, and in many
ways so was my childhood. And I didn't know it
at the time, but I would spend the rest of
my life working in the darkness of a cold, damp
coal mine. So there I was just barely a teenager,
(05:42):
put somehow a man at the same time, working twelve
hours a day for the same coal company as my father.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
They called me a coupler boy.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
You see, electricity had come to the coal mine, and
no longer did mules carry the coal carts.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Out of the mine.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Instead, there was a metal cable pulley system. I pulled
an endless train of coal carts, each full with over
a ton of coal, up to the mouth of the mine.
Each of these carts were coupled together with a pen
that had to be removed at exactly the precise moment
to separate the cart from the cable pulley system. The
cart would continue down the tracks, and the pulley would
(06:18):
roll up and back into the mine and start the
process over again. Removing that pen at precisely the right moment.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Was risky business, to say the least.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
My friend Tommy and I we saw many boys lose fingers,
and even one boy lost an arm when he got
caught between the carts. It seemed it wasn't a matter
of if you would get hurt. The only question was
when I still remember that Friday morning like it was yesterday.
My pall and all my brothers and me, we set
out for the mine and a light mountain rain. As
(06:51):
we all entered the mine, my Paul looked back at
me as he grabbed his coal tags and his lunch bucket.
Be careful today. That rain is going to make everything slippery,
and we can't afford for you to get hurt, Yes,
sir Paul, I replied. And slippery it was that entire morning.
All us boys were slipping back and forth, and the
(07:12):
muck and the mud uncoupling those cars. My buddy Tommy
suddenly yelled out, Harrison, help me. My overalls are caught
at a pinch.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
When we come back, what happens next in that mine?
Here on our American stories. This is Lee Hibib, and
this is our American stories, and all of our history
stories are brought to us by our generous sponsors, including
Hillsdale College, where students go to learn all the things
(07:45):
that are beautiful in life and all the things that
matter in life. If you can't get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale
will come to you with their free and terrific online courses.
Go to Hillsdale dot edu. That's Hillsdale dot edu. And
(08:09):
we returned to our American stories and the story of
Harrison Mays. When we last left off, Harrison, who wanted
to become a preacher before becoming a miner, found himself
in a dangerous situation with his friend Tommy in the
mind they both worked in. Tommy's overalls were stuck in
a pulley cart system. Let's get back to the story.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
I looked up.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
He was being drug alongside a fully loaded cart that
he had uncoupled. Both the cart and Tommy were barreling
full speed down the track right at me. However, Tommy
was holding on tight to the side of the cart
to keep from getting ran over, while screaming the entire time.
His weight made the cart unsteady, and it looked as
if the cart was gonna tip over just enough to
(08:57):
make the cold jump the tracks. I stood frozen for
a split second. I didn't know whether to run, helped Tommy,
or get out of the way. In the blink of
an eye, I heard the crashing sound of the cart
jumping the track, tearing up the side of the wall
as it raced towards me. I took one step in
the mud and I slipped and fail. There was no
(09:20):
time to escape. I kicked my legs frantically trying to
move out of the way. By now Tommy had freed
himself and he had jumped off the coal cart and
he was.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Yelling, Harrison, get out of there quick.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I had nowhere to turn, and the entire cart barreled
into my chest. I broke nearly every bone in my body,
and folks who saw it said my eyes popped right
out of their sockets, and desperately the miners began to
dig me out of the rubble. As the company doctor
arrived on the scene of the accident, I had lost
(09:53):
consciousness and I was just laying there a heap of
broken bones when they pulled my body out of the mine.
The his head and he told my pau well, I'm sorry,
but there ain't nearly a chance that he'll make it
through the night. Ain't no sense in trying to get
him to a hospital in this weather. He'll never make it.
Best thing to do is to take him home, call
the family in and say you're goodbyes. As I laid there,
(10:20):
lifeless on that bed, I could feel my family all
around me, but I couldn't make out what any one
of them were saying. I just remember my Mama's tears
stricken face. And then I turned my head and I
realized I was looking down on my lifeless body from
up above.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
I was caught.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Somewhere in between this world and the next one that
instant when a soul separates from its body. I didn't
feel any pain, but I felt like I wasn't done.
My life hadn't even begun yet. God, please, please don't
let me die. I promise, if you'll let me live,
I'll spend all of my days telling the world about you.
I promise, I'll tell the entire world far beyond those
(10:58):
mountain ridges. Just let me live, and everyone will know
your name. Now I need to pause here for just
a moment. You see, there was no way Harrison Mays
should have ever survived that accident. No man could have
lived through it, much less a young boy. But sometimes
when we least expect it, even when there's no other
(11:21):
possible explanation. God can do the impossible.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Harrison did survive, and within three days he climbed off
his death bed, and he dedicated the rest of his
life to telling everyone he could about God. Once Harrison
returned to the coal mines, he was a changed man
in his mind. He had to get busy in a
hurry telling the world about God. Now, back in those days,
(11:48):
one of the biggest events to happen in rule Appolachia
was when a tent revival came to your town. Everyone
and their brother would go to these events to see
and hear everything from preaching, singing, nake hamlon, dancing, and
everything in between. Harrison figured the Lord said to make
a joyful noise, so he first tried his hand at singing.
(12:09):
The only problem was, well, he couldn't sing a lick,
and though he was making a joyful noise, well, it
was just noise that most folks could do without. When
the next tent revival came to town, he tried his
hand at preaching, but his combined fear of public speaking
and the blank looks on the faces of the church
(12:30):
goers told him that preaching wasn't exactly his calling either.
One day, the up and coming preacher was sitting on
the front porch asking the Lord for a sign on
what to do, when a new idea came to him.
Literally there standing right in front.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Of him was his pet hog, Isaac, just.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Standing there looking at him. Harrison quickly ran to the
lean to shed, and within a minute he re emerged
with a bucket of white paint and a paint brush.
He dipped his brush into the paint and began painting
sin not down each side of the black pig, since
pigs were on freely back then fattening up on chestnuts.
(13:14):
Within a few days, everybody in the mining camp had
read those words sin not. Harrison knew he was on
to something, and he began painting his simple message on
the sides of mountains, rocks, trees, barns, and even on
coal cars bound for far away places. He soon resorted
to making signs out of wood, cardboard, and oilcloth, carrying
(13:37):
messages such as get right with God and Jesus is coming.
To fund his ministry, he began working double shifts in
the coal mines, one for his family and one for
the Lord. All the miners knew of his signs, and
some would laugh.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
While others would shake their heads in disbelief.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
However, they admired his effort, and every now and then
they would donate ate a load of coil towards Harrison's ministry. Heck,
even the mining company let him use an abandoned building
on the property as his workshop. By nineteen forty, Harrison's
father had passed away from the dreaded black lung. As
was a common practice back then, the loving son made
(14:18):
his father's tombstone out of concrete right in the backyard.
He was in that moment that Harrison had another Aha moment.
He began making concrete crosses and hearts, weighing as much
as fifteen hundred pounds and placing them on the side
of highways for all to see. He first began by
placing them in nearby states Kentucky and Tennessee and Virginia,
(14:39):
and within a decade he had signs in nearly every
state on the East coast. He'd work in the coal
mines all night and build crosses in his backyard all day.
Once he had five or six ready, he would rent
a truck and a driver, and together the two would
strike out until he found a spot that looked good
to him, he would simply pull up and dig a
hole and use an a pulley system that he had
(15:01):
built on the truck, he would lower the fifteen hundred
pound cross into place. Many times property owners would run
out and yell, what.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Are you doing.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
You can't leave that here, get off my property. Harrison
would simply load up in the truck and make his getaway.
Nearly every week he would get a legal notice demanding
that he'd come back and remove a cross, but he
never would.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
He had the most trouble in Virginia.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Lawmakers there were fed up with its religious signs, and
they passed the law stating that all roadside signs must
be licensed and taxed by the state. Once the new
law was passed, the Virginia Highway Department dug up thirty
nine of its crosses, drove them to the Tennessee side
of the Cumberland Gap, and dumped them right on the
side of the road. For their trouble, they sent Harrison
(15:50):
a bill of thirty nine dollars. During the years in
nineteen twenty through the nineteen eighties, Harrison planted thousands of
crosses and forty four states across the America. He created
signs on the side of mountains near airports stating prepared
to meet God. He mailed and estimated fifty eight thousand
empty whiskey bottles containing scripture and fourteen different languages, but
(16:12):
all over the world. His bottles have been found in
the Philippines, the Netherlands, and even Africa. It's estimated that
Harrison Mays spent one hundred thousand dollars of his own
money funding his ministry during his lifetime. As he would say,
every penny I ever made his gods anyway, I'm just
one hundred and twenty six pounds of mud. Harrison Mays
(16:37):
never drove during his life, and he walked and rode
a bike everywhere he went. He even walked to and
from his marriage to his wife Lily, who supported him
his entire life and supported his ministry. Harrison was at
home at any church, and he spent his entire life
telling anyone he met about the Lord. Harrison Mays went
on to Glory and met his maker in nineteen eighty six.
(17:00):
Three months later his wife Lily joined him there. However, today,
if you look hard enough, you can still find many
of his roadside crosses and hearts dotted throughout the South.
There's even a permanent collection of his work at the Museum.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Of Appalachia and Tennessee.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Till next time, my friends, in the words of Harrison Mays,
get right with God because Jesus is common.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
A beautiful piece of storytelling by J. D. Phillips, known
as the Appalachian Storyteller. He has a YouTube channel that's phenomenal.
Such respect and regard for this part of the country.
Not enough stories on this show told about this part
of the country, and we're fixing that. The story of
Harrison Mays a classic American story about faith and so
(17:51):
much more here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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