A Slave Graveyard, Kay Jay/Anchor, Kentucky
Sunday, February 6, 2005

The name of this graveyard is offensive. I don't want to use its name here,
so instead of calling this what local folks call it, I'll call it "A Slave Graveyard"
The history of this graveyard, if true, is wretched.

Kentucky is coal mining country. Years and years ago, coal miners lived in mining camps -
clusters of small wood houses - close to the mines. The miners bought what they needed from the
company stores. These stores were owned by the same people who owned the coal mines, who
instead of paying their employees with money, would pay them with script. Script was a
sort of 'voucher' the miners would exchange at the store for the things they wanted to buy.

Warren's Camp is the name of a small community in Kay Jay, Kentucky. The mines (and mining camps)
and company stores) at Warren's camp are no longer in operation. Old timers have long passed
down the story of the "Backtrack" - which is an old railroad track that used to go up into
the hills at Warren's Camp. The train would then haul out the coal that the miners had
taken from the mountain.

The tracks have long since been removed, or buried beneath 30 or more feet of dirt. Obviously,
the train doesn't run there anymore.

Where you see road, there used to be train tracks. Only now, the road is elevated, 30+ feet.

You can't tell where any of the graves are, but the old folks say that along this road, on
both sides, are the graves of slaves. It's said that the old mining railroad owned these slaves,
and worked them here keeping the tracks navagable. When a slave died naturally, or when
a slave became too sick or too old to work, or if they dropped with exhaustion, they
were killed then buried along side the railroad tracks, up and down this hill on the
Backtrack.

Again, I don't know if all of this is true, or if this is just a legend passed down from
old folks who loved to tell stories.

Some folks say that after midnight up here on the Backtrack, you can hear the slaves working.
They say some of them are singing lonesome songs, but you can't make out the words. Some of them
can be heard moaning, some are crying, and some pray. I do know, that one night this coming summer,
I'm going to go after midnight and see for myself.

Before you mail me to ask for more informtaion about this place, know that I don't
know any more about it, but for the fact that in those days, Kay Jay may have been
known as "Nip and Tuck". Other than that, I can't help you with more history of the Backtrack.

From high on the hill, you can look down and see the curves of the backtrack in the woods.

Almost at the top of the mountain.

I took this shot from the "mountain across the street". It's a little fuzzy, but
you can clearly see the old mine entrances in this shot.

This is the end of the road. From here we had to get out and walk the rest of the way
to the top. Boulders kept us from going on up in the truck. As far as I know, there are
no graves up here.

Our final goal today was to get to the top of these rocks, called "Fat Man's Misery". Once here,
I was told the rocks weren't "Fat Man's Misery" at all, those rocks were
across another mountain entirely, and I surely wasn't gonna walk down Backtrack Mountain and
up another one to get to Fat Man's Misery! Noway! A photo will have to suffice!

The real "Fat Man's Misery"

I took this from the top of Backtrack Mountain

Some more shots of the mountain:

Another side story about the backtrack...this vehicle:

A local man's son was killed in an automobile accident, in this vehicle.
The man couldn't stand looking at the wrecked vehicle, and had it hauled here to
the Backtrack. One night, it's said, he went hunting close to this vehicle, and he said
he heard his son calling to him from the car. He ended up sleeping here, waiting
for his son to talk to him again.

My tour guides on the Backtrack:

My daughter, Sarah and my son-in-law, Roy.
Thank you, youngins! Love ya!

Added Jan 1, 2006:
There's been a lot of response to this page about the 'backtrack' and the old Anchor/Tway
Mining camp. The following posts were left on my guest book and I wanted to post them here,
in case the guest book ever crashes, so that this info isn't lost. Thanks, Hazel, and
The 'good ol' boy' for taking the time to leave these posts!

Hazel Jana (don't know where she got my address but that's ok) e mailed me to ask if Anchor and Tway
was ever known as the backtrack and provided me with the link to your site. I know quiet a
bit about Anchor, Tway, Kay Jay and Warren but the only thing I know about the "backtrack"
is that is what many of the locals call what used to be the railroad and now
that the rail road tracks are no longer there they walk or drive on the "backtrack". Within the
last year I asked my step sister who lives at Warren exactly where she was talking
about when she was telling me that one of her former neighbors now lived down by the
backtrack. I felt I knew but wanted to be sure. Sure enough she said the backtrack is the old
railroad bed. The area she was talking about is down farther toward Artemus than Warren is.
I think probably that many just consider everwhere the railroad used to be, all the way
from Anchor back to Artemus as the backtrack. I do not think that when they say backtrack
they are referring to any one certin mining camp. In case you wonder how I know about these
former mining camps, I am 74 years old, was raised on the Bain Branch of Hubbs
Creek in Knox County KY across the mountain from Anchor and if you went across the
mountain another direction you could go to Kay Jay and a little farther around the mountain
you could go down into Warren. I have gone "Peddling" with my Mom to Anchor and Tway many
times when I was very small. (If you happen to have a copy of the Feb. 2001 issue of the
Kentucky Explorer there is a memory I wrote in in about my Hubbs Creek Christmas in
which I mention this. Also the current copy of the Barbourville Mountain Advocate, in the
column by Mildred Higgins, she uses a very condensed version of that story with a few of my words changed.
Later, after Anchor mining camp closed we would go to Warren and then one of my
Uncles, Jim Shelton, moved to Warren where he died in the mines when slate fell on him as he
was on his way out at the end of his shift. That was 1941.

Just to clarify a point, Warren is not a part of Kay Jay but a very seperate mining camp
owned by different companies and they both had their own company store and I think post office.
If you are going from Barbourville on 225 several miles after you pass through
Artemus, Warren is on the right side of the road, you turn right and go down a small hill
which takes you into the camp. If you do not turn there you will find Kay Jay a short distance
on up 225. Remember when I went to Anchor and Tway I came across the mountain
so got to Anchor first. I am not familiar with the road from Kay Jay to Tway and Anchor but do
know that going that direction you would get to Tway and then actually as far as I could
ever tell Anchor joined it. They were also two seperate mining camps and each had their own
store and I think own post office. I know our address was Anchor until it closed as we were
closer to it than to Bryants Store. Phil Fox used to have some wonderful articles in the
Barbourville Mountain Advocate about the years he drove the Jitney on that railroad line
all the way to Anchor and back. I think he published a book but have never had the opportunity
to see it. He passed away a few years ago.

I am sorry I have taken so much space. Please feel free to delete this if you wish.
Oh yes, Very good pictures of the "old hospital" but there is an older "old hospital" which you
might be too young to be aware of. The Logan building next to Mitchell's Market on the court
square was where the hospital was for many years before the "new" "old hospital" was
built. Our first child was born at the old-old hospital in 1952.
31 December 2005 - Barbourville, KY Knox Co.

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Webmaster comments: - No WAY am I going to delete this! Thank you for taking the time to post
it. Hazel, you're wonderful!

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Good ole' boy
Well thanks for posting my message, but I have some more info....The graveyard was actually only
three grave sites that were placed with the remains of the slaves, turns out they were blown
up in an explosion. I was unable to find out the actual number of slaves that were
blown up but there were only three graves marking the site. the backtrack is a road that
runs between warren camp and kayjay camp the road in which the graveyard is located is refeered
to by the old timers as anchor but the site is actually closer to the old tway
mining camp than any other, also according to the old timers the road is actually lower
now than when the tracks were on it due to the grading of the road by logging and gas
companies. I dont have any pictures of the places but i am not that old any way, however
i have traveled that road many times and i have even been there in the middle of the night and
i've never heard the songs or moans but have been told by others that you can hear them
sometimes.
29 December 2005 - KayJay

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Webmaster comments: - ohhh lol.. i'd love to talk to you about it! This fascinates me! Thanks
for leaving the info, I appreciate it. If you can think of anything else, or more ghost
stories about this area, please let me know!

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A good ole' boy from the hills
First of all the Backtrack should be refered to as Anchor or Anchor and Tway because these are
the two mining camps that were there.....no one calls it "the backtrack" secondly the
african americans were not burried along the tracks as it went along, there was one giant pit
dug inwhich they were put in, and when the machines came through to make the road,(in later
years) it is said that they pushed the unmarked tomb over the hill side, and actually the

road is not thirty feet higher than what it was then, because i used to find railroad
spikes all along this road when i was a kid. I am not trying to be rude but if the story is
told i feel that it should be as accurate as possible.
29 December 2005 - KayJay

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Webmaster comments: - I've spoken to several residents in Kay Jay and they do refer to it
as the backtrack. I'm glad you left this post, but I wish you'd left an email address, or a way to
contact you. I'd sure love to know more about this slave graveyard. You wouldn't happen
to have any photos of it from when you were a kid would you?

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Added May 24, 2006:
Kathy is the sister to the boy who's car is up in the mountains at the Back Track. She
wrote me a nice mail asking me to use his name...and agreed that the haunting stories about the
back track are true. She added a few stories of her own concerning the backtrack and
kindly gave me permission to post them here. Thank you, Kathy!

Hi My name is Kathie (Logan) Myerly. My dad is the one you wrote the story about the one of his son.
If you want to write about things it would be nice to refer to people by name. His
name is Durell Logan. His son my brother was James Durell Logan Jr. He wasn't just in a car wreck
he was killed by a drunk driver! The rest of what you wrote is correct, dad couldn't
stand seeing that car nor could anyone else in the family. There are ghost in the
hills of KayJay that's for sure. But I like to refer to them as sprits not ghost. There
is so much history in that area, and since my Grandpa and Grandma knew so much of it
we heard the stories all our lives. Maybe that's why when we are children we believe we
hear things up there on the back track. That we heard so many stories in our minds it was all true. Or is it that it is true and as children we are more open to the sprints? All I know is
that me, my sister Karen were lost in those mountains once, and I heard whispers. My two
cousins that were from there all their lives could not help us to find our way home, but,
me who had just moved there in 1968, found the backtrack by listening to what I always called
"the black man". I hear him loud and clear, and he helped me find my way home.

So was it tells from my Grandparents? Or was it all true and I found a sprit to guide us?
I don't know. All I know is I was home.

Thanks
Kathie
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Another exerpt from a second mail from Kathy, posted with permission:

your right about the "black mans" sprit. I never told anyone about how I found our way out
because at 11 I knew nobody was going to believe me anyway. But there were other times he was
there, and many times I would go up in them mountains on my pony to just find him. He didn't
really talk, not like we would talk, he made movements. or he would point out something to me.
There was a bunch of us kids up there one time playing hide-no-seek. I was found so
I had to sit on a log while the others were being found. It was just dusky dark, and I saw him.
I can still remember this stupid grin on my face for some reason he always made me smile. He
was telling me something and I couldn't figure out what he was saying or trying to say, so I
started to get up and go where he was standing, and he put his hand up. like a traffic cop
would to say stop. I sat there didn't move and it started to scare me, just then one of
my friends showed up, she went pale as could be, and said what ever you do don't move. This
of course scared me really bad, and I started asking why and yelling for my brother Jimmie.
He came running and when he got there he locked up too. He said Kat don't move close your
eyes and don't look and don't move. So I closed my eyes, and the next thing I heard was
a gun. I opened my eyes to see my friends dad standing there with a shot gun. He told me to
move real slow toward him, so of course I did. Once I moved he picked up a can of gas and
poured it on the log. Copperheads went every where. He shot a bunch I have no idea how
many but the one laying stretched out right under the log by my feet he shot it for sure. He
asked me why I was so still and I started to tell him, but I looked past my friends and there
was my buddy walking away into the woods. I just said "don't know why I didn't move, just lazy
I reckon". True story. If you post it, my friends and family will think I've gone
crazy, but if they think about it and remember the snakes I'm sure their going to have to
wonder about it.
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Thanks, Kathy, I love the stories about the backtrack - if you have more to share, just let me know!

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