Have you ever looked up into the branches of your family tree? Shook it a little to see what might fall out?
Until recently, it had never occurred to me to wonder what effect the mass production of the automobile might have had on my ancestors. But then I did a little research...
While it is actually taking place, progress sometimes seems like the arrival of one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
So it may have been for my great-grandfather.
Andrew Jackson Cruey, Jr., (known to friends as "Bud" Cruey, born 1872) was the son of a wagon maker. He continued in the family business. Andrew Jackson Cruey, Sr. (born around 1842, depending on who you believe and where you look) and his father, Hamilton Cruey (born 1824), had both been wagon makers.
And by the time Bud turned 8, his father and grandfather were making wagons in Tazewell County, Va., in the Maiden Springs district. While the family had moved from Smyth County, Va., sometime after 1870 (they show up on the census there), Hamilton had been in Tazewell County as early as 1860, according to census documents, and their time in Smyth County in 1870 may have been brief.
As for the wagon making business, the truth is that Bud, was a fourth generation wagon maker. My great- great- great- great- grandfather, Christopher Cruey, (born 1790ish in who-knows-where?) was making wagons in Washington County, Va., perhaps as early as 1813, when he married a certain Ruth Hunnell (or Hunley) there.
But back to progress and the Four Horsemen...
I can hear the conversations my great-grandfather must have had with friends and cousins in the early 1900's.
"I tell you, I'm not sure what to think. These new motor cars are going to put us out of business one day. President Rossevelt should do something."
And I can here ministers preaching about the evils of the industrial revolution and the impending doom that would accompany the new "mechanical age". There may even have been talk of the required license plates for cars being the "mark of the beast."
Andrew Jackson Cruey, Jr., managed to cope. In 1911 he brought the first car to tghe Tazewell County town of Cedar Bluff, where he had moved.
And the family business adapted, as well.
Wagons take two things: wood and metal. In the wood category, Bud.'s, children managed to make a good living (with or without wagons, thank you) by running a cabinet shop and sawmills in Cedar Bluff and in the Hurley-Knox Creek area of Buchanan County, Va.. And as for metal (and things mechanical) the family is supposed to have designed an automatic transmission - which they failed to patent or market.
Go To Page: 1 2
