Tom Whitt Gravesite

Tom Whitt is likely buried in a fieldstone-marked grave near the grave of his wife, Celia Whitt Mullins, in this little cemetery known locally as the Whitt-Mullins Cemetery in Kirk, Mingo County, West Virginia. Local cemetery documenter, Zachary Fitzpatrick, has searched high and low for a marked grave for Tom, and until such a grave is discovered, we'll go with Tom being here.

On August 27, 1940, Thomas (Tom) Whitt of Kirk, Mingo County, WV, provided twenty-two selections for Louis Watson Chappell.  The selections consist of several unaccompanied singing songs, as well as fiddle tunes (several to which he adds singing tidbits) to Chappell. 

Tom Whitt was born on August 11, 1876 to Mary Smith Whitt in Wayne County, WV. Some sources list his father as Mose Marcum, while others say the identity of the father is unknown. Little is known about Tom’s life other than what can be gleaned from Federal Census records and a few family trees on Ancestry. Census records provide conflicting information, but it appears that by 1928 Tom was married to Celia Ann Dillon, and by 1930 he was living in Mingo County, WV, where it appears he spent the remainder of his life. Various records have a Tom Whitt from the same area and general time frame living on a farm, working as a logger, and working as a coal miner. While we cannot be certain at this point exactly what Tom did, it is likely a safe bet to say that logging and mining were his likely occupations. 

Regardless of what we don’t know about Tom, what we do know is that he was a wonderful singer and fiddler. One of the songs he sang, Catherina, is a pure tongue twister that Whitt pulls off quite nicely. Contrast that to his version of Waxford Girl, a song he sings in a more somber tone. It is an all too common tale of a grisly murder of a young woman by her male companion. The Waxford Girl mirrors the Cruel Miller (Roud 264). The song has made its way into the contemporary bluegrass song book as The Knoxville Girl.  Tom also sang an old ballad known by various references to Claudy, a small village in Sussex, England. Tom's version is titled, "Claudy Banks," and the lyrics closely resembled those sung by the ballad-singing Copper Family of Sussex. It tells the tale of a young woman longing for her love, a sailor who returns in disguise and is not recognized by his love. He can finally stand it no more and reveals his identify to his faithful love.

On the fiddling front, Witt plays several tunes, such as Sourwood Mountain, Forked Deer, Mississippi Sawyer, Soldier’s Joy, Old Joe Clark, and Wild Horse, for example. A few tunes are more common to the southwest Virginia area, Black-Eyed Susie, Old Molly Hare, and Sugar Hill. One tune of particular interest, Come Back Boys, is often identified as Come Back Boys and Let’s Feed the Horses—a tune from the Hammons family of fiddlers generally associated with Pocahontas County, WV. The Hammons family does have southern WV roots in Wyoming County, which borders Mingo, so perhaps that tune has a more southern WV origin, as well. Or, perhaps it was that Tom picked up fiddle tunes common in lumber camps from Webster and Pocahontas Counties in West Virginia, to camps in Virginia and North Carolina. Tom may or may not have travelled, but we know that the tunes certainly did.

-Chris Haddox, May 2021

• Ancestry.com for
• U.S. Federal Census Records
• Zachary Fitzpatrick (Whitt-Mullins Cemetery information)