The man behind the books

Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer

Every now and then, a character comes along whose name is remembered long after they have passed.

Warren “Tweard” Blackhurst was one of those characters.

Blackhurst is known for his books such as “Riders of the Flood” and “Sawdust in Your Eye,” which tell about the history and people of Cass during the logging boom. 

His writing career was just one part of the fascinating life led by the man called Tweard. His life’s story is kept alive by family members who inherited his zeal for storytelling – including his great-nephew, Bob Sheets, of Green Bank.
Blackhurst was the sixth child of Rev. Harry Blackhurst and Lula May Burner, and the first of their 11 children to be born in Arbovale in Pocahontas County. His five older siblings were born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the five younger ones were born in Cass.

Many of the children were given nicknames, including Harry, who was known as Buzz; and Homer, who was known as Butter. Tweard got his nickname from his sister, Liz.

The family was sitting around the dinner table when Liz spoke up about Warren not having a nickname.

“I guess they were just talking and Liz said, ‘everybody at the table’s got a nickname except you, Warren, and you’re just weird,’” Sheets said. “She had a lisp. She had a bit of a speech impediment, and it came out Tweard, and it stuck. From then on, he was Tweard.”

Tweard attended Cass Graded School and graduated from Green Bank High School. He worked at the Cass mill for several years before attending Glenville State Teachers College, where he earned his education degree. He also took classes at West Virginia University and Davis & Elkins College.

He returned to his alma mater, Green Bank, and taught English and Latin for 32 years.

“You ascribe a lot of the success of that family to Lula May Bruner because of her love of literature and her love of reading,” Sheets said. “She was quite a writer, a poet, in her own right. She was insistent on education and reading and engendered it in all her eleven kids. They were fluent, and they read and there were always books in the house.”

Tweard carried on his mother’s love of literature, reading, writing and English, but he also continued his work at Cass during the summers. After the town became a state park, Tweard was hired as the first commentator on the Cass Scenic Railroad. 

He started with the Whittaker ride and then moved up to the Bald Knob ride when it was finished.

Sheets said he remembers working with Tweard on the railroad. The teenaged Sheets had, as his first job, selling concessions for Jack Kane and his second was as a brakeman on the train.

“So I was listening to Uncle Tweard talk to people and tell stories going up the mountain,” he recalled. “Every time he got to Whittaker station, people just flocked to him to ask him questions and he would talk with those folks when all he really wanted to do was go off and smoke a cigarette.”

Once the Bald Knob run was complete, the railroad needed a second commentator and Tweard recommended Sheets, who took the Whittaker run when Tweard moved on to the Bald Knob run.

“Tweard wrote out this script of all his lies and exaggerations which, essentially, it was,” he said, laughing. “It’s nothing like they do now. He really had fun with people.”

Even after all these years, Sheets can still recite the beginning of Tweard’s speech that he gave three times a day for the Whittaker run:

“‘Ladies and gentlemen, we welcome you aboard the Cass Scenic Railroad. As we start our trip up Cheat Mountain, we’d like to remind you of the three rules we have on the railroad as we get underway. First of all, please don’t pass from car to car while the train is in motion. It makes a real mess on the tracks when you fall down there.

“‘Second rule is please don’t set your children up on the side rails because we have blackberry bushes and when they fall off in those, they scream so loudly and disturb everybody,’” he continued. ‘’Third rule we have is get to know your neighbors. Look to the right, look to the left, look behind you. Introduce yourself. Get to know those people. It’d be terrible if we should have an accident – and you’d have to die in the arms of a stranger.’”

Of course, while Tweard had fun with the passengers and joked around, he also made sure to educate them about the history of the area.

“You did those things – about the number of board feet the mill would cut and why the whistles were blown at a particular place and explained about the switchbacks, but we had fun with it, too,” Sheets said. “I did that three times a day. I came to understand why he had such a dry sense of humor because you’ve got to have that if you’re going to do that three times a day, up and back.”

With summers filled by the railroad and the rest of the year teaching high school English and Latin, it’s hard to see where Tweard found time to write his books, but he managed to do so during in his free time.

“He gave up coaching,” Sheets said. “Nobody ever talks about that. He was coaching up until 1949. He was doing other things. He was doing taxidermy. He had his hands in a lot of stuff. By 1954, he’s got ‘Riders of the Flood.’ Then follows that up with ‘Sawdust in Your Eyes’ and ‘Of Men and a Mighty Mountain.’”

Tweard stepped down to let Howard Mosier coach football and his timing was unfortunate. To those who know the history of Green Bank High School football, Tweard left coaching at the same time that famed football player Bruce Bosley started his career.

“He gave up coaching as Bruce Bosley was coming to school,” Sheets said. “He may have coached Bruce one year, but then Mosier had all the success with Bruce. Uncle Tweard could have hung on to that. He had some talent coming, but he went to writing, and we’re fortunate he did.”

As Sheets mentioned, Tweard was a taxidermist on top of all his other professions. 

“I have memories of that and then going upstairs in the top of that house where Uncle Tweard had his taxidermy display, which Stella [his wife] then later turned into the whole museum over at Cass,” he said. “It’s interesting how he ended up with those. Because he was a well-respected taxidermist, people would bring him things to be mounted and, in a lot of cases, they wouldn’t come back to get them. He had a whole attic full.”

One piece of taxidermy in particular had a unique story only a Blackhurst could share. Tweard’s brother, Harry “Buzz” Blackhurst, was out on Bar Ford in Cass and picked up a snake. He didn’t know what it was so he took it back to Tweard who told him that it was a copperhead. The story and snake were preserved for future generations to enjoy.

With all his endeavors, it seems that Tweard was most destined to be a writer.

“He was a good storyteller,” Sheets said. “He really was. He was well- respected for his ability to spin a yarn.”

When it came to writing, Tweard told what he knew. He wrote about the lumber mill and people who worked in the lumber industry at Cass. He wrote of the town of Cass and its colorful people – good and bad. Some of the stories he shared in “Of Men and a Mighty Mountain,” where not appreciated by the people who saw themselves in them.

“He got in trouble because there are some unflattering descriptions of people in there that they could recognize,” Sheets said. “Not everybody was pleased with his account. We know this happens when you put words on paper and are writing about people.”

Whether or not the stories were flattering, they were true. They serve as a history of Cass and the people who lived there.

Tweard published five books during his lifetime and his wife, Stella, published one of his after he passed, titled “Afterglow.”

Tweard’s collection includes “Riders of the Flood,” “Sawdust in Your Eyes,” “Mixed Harvest,” “Of Men and a Mighty Mountain” and “Your Train Ride Through History.”

– – –

Warren Blackhurst was a lay preacher, a lifelong Sunday school teacher, Cass Railroad commentator, County Commissioner, active Conservationist and a recognized authority on the subjects about which he wrote; but, above all, he was a TEACHER.

Opportunities beckoned in other places, other fields; but he preferred to spend his life in his native county – teaching, directing, leading the youth. It was with them that he felt he could accomplish the most. \
~ Jessie B. Powell