To be a really expert "fiddler"
is no mean accomplishment, as many will witness who have attempted to master the
technique, but to be an expert "fiddler" at the ripe age of 94 is something
infinitely more.
Yet the latter distinction
is claimed by at least on Galvestonian. He is William H. Bristol, now residing
with his granddaughter, Mrs. J T. Toles, at 3316 R. And although he is within six
years of the century mark, it is no uncommon event for him to appear in recital
before local groups.
His physical vigor and his
mental alertness are in themselves little short of amazing, but no less so is
the skill and adeptness with which he still handles his favorite instrument.
Physical stamina is, of course, one requirement of longevity, but if one wonders
at Mr. Bristol's activeness, it is easily understood once he has explained his
ancestry which can be traced back authentically to the eleventh century.
...
From such stock as that came
William H. Bristol and perhaps that is an explanation of how at the age of 94
he is still able to hold his own with more youthful rivals in the manipulation
of the fiddle.
All his life, ever since he
was a very small boy, he has been "fiddling," and now, with his three-score and
ten passed by 24 years, he is still at it.
There is a striking parallel
between the rovings of the hardy Northmen and the colonization of the American
wildernesses many generations later. The men who came first to the Atlantic
seaboard of this country and then, restless, ambitious and romantically
adventurous, pushed their frontiers over farther and farther westward were not
unlike their nomadic ancestors in character.
Of this early American pioneer
type is Mr. Bristol, who years ago left his home in North Carolina and trekked
westward to Texas. Life was hard and rough and crude in this country 94 years ago.
As Mr. Bristol puts it, "It seems the world had just begun to function about the
time I was born, everything was so crude."
But the hardships of the
wildernesses gave birth to a wealth of folk songs and music which furnished some
brightness in the lives of these pioneer people. It was a type of music best
suited to the banjo and fiddle. A few of those early American musicians still
survive, and they alone can produce in this music its natural color and
atmosphere. Therein lies the romantic appeal of that proud tribe of "old fiddlers"
who scorn the more aesthetic name of violin now applied to their instrument.
Mr. Bristol has an extensive
repertoire of these old tunes which were in vogue six or seven decades ago
with the same enthusiasm that he regales his friends today with numbers such as
"Shoot That Turkey Buzzard," "Sugar in the Gourd," "Devil's Dream," "Leather
Breeches" and dozens of others.
His physical hardiness and
his ability to handle his instrument with ease at the age of 94 is little short
of astounding. One begins to be amazed and then immediately remembers the racial
stock from which he is descended... And Mr. Bristol himself served in the
civil war.
As to modern music and jazz,
Mr. Bristol does not know whether he likes it or not. He has had no occasion to
hear it, he explains, but he is curious. He would like to hear what it is like
sometime and may even learn to play "The Peanut Vender" along with "Turkey in
the Straw."
He recalls with surprising
clarity most of the episodes of his life, but he still thinks that the most
exciting thing that ever happened to him was the acquisition of his first
"fiddle."
He was born Dec. 3, 1836 on
a farm in Burke County, N.C., at the edge of a mountainous region. Settlers of
that section were mostly of Puritan descent and few of them looked with
tolerance upon dancing or the musical instruments associated with it.
When he was about 12 years
old, Mr. Bristol's father sent him and a negro man to Camden, S.C. to dispose
of a wagon load of large, red apples. After these were sold, about a bushel of
culls [rejects] were left over. In the show window of the store where the deal
was made, there was a small "fiddle" that attracted the boy's attention greatly.
He had watched a neighbor boy make a similar instrument from a gourd. He wanted
the "fiddle" in the store badly, but he did not dare buy it. What would his father
say? Anyway he had no money.
"I knew if I spent any money
for a fiddle, I would never hear the last of it," Mr. Bristol said, with a
twinkle in his eye.
The clerk in the store,
however, observed the boy's interest and attempted to negotiate a sale. The
Youngster offered, after some debate with himself, to trade the storekeeper
the bushel of cull apples for the instrument. The bargain was made, and the boy
set out on the six-day trip back home, unspeakably happy, sawing it all the way.
"That was the happiest six
days of my life," said Mr. Bristol.
But forgotten difficulties
came to mind as he approached home. "I knew my father would give me a licking
for buying the fiddle," he said. "So I told the negro man to stop the wagon. I
got out with my little fiddle and hid it under a fallen tree, covering it with
leaves. Parting with it was the hardest act of my life. The negro man had to go
back that way to see his wife that night so I told him to take the fiddle home
with him and keep it for me. He did, but I never saw the fiddle again, for his
children tore it up.
A short time after this
incident Mr. Bristol's sister borrowed a fiddle from a neighbor boy thinking
she would learn to play it. She finally gave it up and let her brother, then
known as Sweet William, have a try at it. In a little while he could play a tune,
and his father liked it so well that one day when sending a load of corn to town
to sell he told his wife to buy William a fiddle of his own.
Mr. Bristol has some other
very interesting recollections of pioneer life during his childhood. In order to
facilitate the work of the reporter interviewing him, he sat down at a typewriter
and dashed off the following notes in a form that most stenographers a fraction
of his age could well envy:
"I lived from the date of my birth to March 4, 1837, under the administration of Gen. Andrew Jackson. I came of a numerous family. My father had 20 children bore unto him, 19 of whom he raised to be grown. All except one brother who was killed during the civil war, lived to an old age, 80 and above. We lived on a farm and everything that we ate or wore except sugar and coffee was raised, and we produced the stuff traded for the sugar and coffee.
"The farmers in this section
of North Carolina, near the Tennessee line, kept a few cattle and for milk and
beef, some sheep for wool to make clothing, and some cotton and flax for the same
purpose. We dried apples, peaches, pumpkin, made kraut, dried blackberries for
pies during the winter, raised geese to make feather beds and pillows. We also
dried beans, peas, turnips, sweet and Irish potatoes, beef, and some venison
hams, so we had meat and vegetables all through the winter. We would usually put
up a wagonload of walnuts and cabbages.
"Money was very scarce and
everything was cheap. Wheat was about 50¢ a bushel, corn 25¢,
chickens 10¢ and 12¢, whiskey 10¢ a quart or 37½¢ a
gallon, beef 2¢ and 3¢ a pound, and labour 25¢ a day.
"Many a farmer had a good
orchard and, if he owned the farm, he had a still house and made whiskey and
brandy. He could make three gallons of whiskey from one bushel of corn and thus
sell it for more than a dollar. The farming implements were very crude. The
blacksmith made the shares for the plows. Some used a small bulltongue plow
for cultivating and had to make six trips down each row.
"Wagons were made by the
blacksmiths, also guns and pistols. All out houses were built without a nail,
and some dwelling houses. For the school houses, logs were hewn for the body of
the building and split boards about three or four feet long. The last end logs,
one at each end, extended out from the wall of the house to hold up the gutter.
This gutter was made by cutting a trench in a straight log about 8 inches in
diameter and of the same length as the house and eaves. It was laid on the end
logs and served to hold the first course of boards. The gable ends were built of
logs and the boards rested on what they called a rib. The first gable logs were
slooped off so as to give the roof the proper pitch. Doors were fastened to the
wall with wooden pins.
"At school the children sat
on split logs with wooden legs and no backs. There were no windows. On one side
of the room, the upper half of a log was cut out nearly the entire length of the
building so as to furnish light. There was a plank for a shutter when it rained
or snowed. The floor was of dirt. There was usually a long-split log bench in
the school room and a plan to write on.
"The farmers cut their wheat,
oats, and rye by hand, and threshed it with a with a wooden flail or by treading
it out with horses or mules. We had a large log barn where we stacked the wheat
in the center, leaving enough space around the sides for the stck to walk. After
turning down anough bundles of wheat to cover the floor, the stck was turned in,
muzzled, and kept moving until all the grains were treaded out. I was nearly
grown before I saw a threshing machine.
"We mowed our grass by hand
and raked it up the same way with a woodenake. We had wooden forks to handle it.
The first windmill was a sheet with a man at each end of it.
"The children never wore
shoes until they got large enough to work. I can remember when I ran around in
the snow barefooted. Kids wore only one garment and that was a shirt, and that
is why they were called 'shirtails.'
"Tippecanoe and Tyler, too!"
That was the slogan which
swept the whigs into power in 1840 and made William Henry Harrison, hero of the
Indian wars, ninth president of the United States.
Although only three or four
years old at the time of that campaign, Mr. Bristol remembers at least one
incident of it. It seems there was an old "toper" living in his neighborhood
who was inclined to take too much "over-joyful" when he had the opportunity.
One day he came to the Bristol home and feeling rather pleasant began singing
a new tune. As Mr. Bristol remembers it, it contained the following line: "We'll
roll down a keg of hot cider and vote for old Tippecanoe and Tyler, too!" He
recalls the tune distinctly.
"There was more excitement in
the political world those days," Mr. Bristol commented. "My father was a Democrat
and had many a tilt with the whigs. I have voted that ticket for 73 years except
for the one year when I voted for a republican for county commissioner. I have
been sorry for it ever since and wish I had kept a clean record.
"In 1844, when Polk and Clay
were candidates for the presidency, a hog driver, driving several hundred hogs
from Kentuck through Tennessee and North Carolina to South Carolina, stayed all
night at ur home. In settling the bill, father took a couple of large fat hogs
in part payment. He named the prettiest one Polk and other Clay."
With the outbreak of the
civil war, Mr. Bristol organized a company to protect the people of his section
from marauders of East Tennessee and Western North Carolina who carried on their
pillaging under the leadership of a man named Brownlowe and Andy Johnson [later
a US president]. The residents of East Tennessee were unionists, and were opposed
to secession and slavery. They carried on their depredations, according to Mr.
Bristol, in all the regions bordering on the mountains.
The need for such a company
as Mr. Bristol organized was so great that its services were recognized by the
confederate government, which extended its duties to include the apprehending of
deserters who hid out in the mountains, the rounding up of men who sought to
evade military service, and the examining of all strangers and suspicious
looking people who happened along.
"Toward the close of the war,
the soldiers were not properly clothed or shod," Mr. Bristol said, "My brother
told me he went into the battle of Gettysburg barefooted. They conscripted all
able-bodied men and left me for my company only men who were over age or
deficient in some way. All my lieutenants, however, were able-bodied."
After the close of the war,
Mr. Bristol, then married and the father of several children, wished to come to
Texas. He wrote to a relative in Collin County, who advised him against it
unless he was adept at branding other people's cows. About 1870, however, he and
his family started for Texas. They first went to Richmond, by water to Baltimore,
across the country to Illinois, back southward to Kentucky, and finally to East
Texas by way of Shreveport and the Red River.
Several years were spent
working in a sawmill near Longview. Later he moved to Collin County and farmed.
Still later he went to New Mexico and resided on a claim three years. It was in
1912 that he came to Galveston.
In tracing his family history,
Mr. Bristol attributes its founding to Sir Hugo Bristol, ...
Gideon Bristol served six
years in the revolutionary ...
Mr. Bristol traces his
maternal ancestry back to Sir John McCall, who was born in 1520...
Herbert McCall, Mr. Bristol's
great-grandfather, ...