C.C. Chambers was one tough judge

By Dwight Williamson

When it comes to nostalgic places in Logan County, it is difficult to beat a little place in the town of Logan that has survived and even thrived since 1928. It has seen the coming and goings of a bus terminal, a state-operated whiskey store, a furniture store, and a music store operated by former Logan High School band director Don Elkins — all of which were located in the same building that was opened 94 years ago on Dingess and Main Street as the most modern bus terminal in West Virginia.

Of course, I’m speaking of the barber shop building known today simply as “Choppers” that remains in operation directly across from Logan Exxon and adjacent to Logan Boulevard. In reality, the barber shop has never closed since its opening in 1929, one year after the building was completed.

The shop that remains pretty much the way it looked when it was first opened in 1929 by Herschel Williamson has had only three names in all of these years — H.C. Williamson’s Barber Shop, Grant’s, and Chopper’s. Williamson, who walked to and from work from High Street every day until he finally retired at the age of 90, handed over the barbering reigns to Grant Dunford, who then operated the shop for 20 years prior to Chad Browning, who now, along with Walker Gibson, are the barbers at the historic shop that for many years featured three full-time barbers, including my own father, Carlos Williamson.

For the past several years part of the building has also served as home to what is known as Chapmanville Primary Care.

At one point in Logan’s colorful city history, there were nine barber shops, at least five beauty shops, five boarding houses, 10 hotels, six general stores, three jewelry stores, three movie theaters, and four banks, as well as several taxi cab operations, several billiard parlors (pool halls) and numerous taverns, generally known as “beer gardens.”

If you enjoy listening to tall tales, true stories, political opinions and especially local gossip, then you’ve probably been drawn to a barber shop or a beauty shop at one time or another. Frankly, sometimes one can learn more news at such “hairy” places than you can discover in a newspaper or via radio and television.

So, here’s an interesting story that is the product of a former local beauty salon in downtown Logan. You might say it is a ‘hair-raising” tale that involved former Logan Circuit Judge C.C. Chambers before he was judge and when he was mayor of Logan in 1926. By the way, Judge Chambers was bald at an early age. There is a reason, as you shall see, for me pointing out that simple fact.

The newspaper account had to deal with an incident that occurred at a local beauty parlor in which a woman by the name of Josephine Kitts entered the Sanitary Beauty Shop and feloniously assaulted Ruby Adams, who was in charge of the parlor, and Lee Chambers, part-owner of the place.

According to her story in court, Miss Adams had previously cut the hair of the cousin of Miss Kitts. Kitts later came into the shop enraged over the haircut and attacked Adams, pulling out a handful of hair and knocking her to the floor. When Lee Chambers (no direct relation to Mayor Chambers) tried to stop the fight, he said the woman proceeded to viciously bite him and then tear off his shirt before local police arrived.

She was taken before Mayor Chambers who at first chose to turn the case over to a grand jury, but it wound up in front of a justice of the peace who fined Miss Kitts $100, which was a healthy amount of money in the 1920s. Upon hearing of the fine, the hair-pulling “lady” threw an ink bottle at Mayor Chambers, and — still possessing the hair pulled from Mrs. Adams’ head — tossed it to Chambers, saying, “Go get a wig.”

The story does not indicate any further legal actions being taken by the man who would become a feared judge in 1936, four years after defending Clarence Stephenson, who was convicted of the brutal slaying of Mamie Thurman. However, to display how the judge’s temperament was, here’s what happened to the very first defendant Chambers saw 10 years later after serving as Logan’s mayor.

According to The Logan Banner account, 51 persons were brought before Judge Chambers in a “rain-darkened and gloomy courtroom” to answer “guilty” or “not guilty” to the charges upon which they were incarcerated. Of those charged, eight were found to have not been indicted and Chambers simply told them “to get out of the way.”

The first sentence to be meted out by Judge Chambers was to “Skeeter” Austin, who pleaded guilty to the theft of an overcoat valued at $27.50. Chambers set a stiff precedent for future sentences by pronouncing “five years in the penitentiary.” He also did not allow for time already served in jail by Austin.

In today’s comparison that $27.50 coat would be valued at about $536, which makes me wonder just who could afford such an overcoat in 1936 and what type of coat it was.

There are not too many people alive today who knew Judge Chambers, but one guy who is still hanging tough is former 22 Holden resident Loren Tomblin, now 81 years old and a Vietnam veteran living in Douglasville, Georgia. The following is Loren’s assessment of his appearances before the crafty judge.

“C.C. Chambers gave me 10 days back in 1958,” explained Tomblin. “He asked me if I needed a deputy to escort me. I told him ‘No, your Honor’.” I know where it is.”

Chambers gave him his commitment papers and the youthful Holdenite promptly reported to the jail that was then located near the current Logan post office. “I did my 10 days,” said Tomblin, while my dad would sometimes look in at me and laugh.”

The jail menu, according to Tomblin was “pintos at lunch and navy beans at night.” The next day the menu was reversed. He added that breakfast consisted of “rice soup the first day and oatmeal soup the next day. On Sunday they gave us ‘mystery meat.’ “

Loren, like numerous young men who came before the infamous judge for one crime or another were given the option of Pruntytown, jail, prison, or the military. Loren Tomblin was one who chose the military option.

“That was a long time ago, when he sentenced me to 21.5 years in the military,” says Tomblin, only halfheartedly. “Chambers was the best recruiter the Army ever had. I am 81 now and quite content with what he had me do.”

Loren Tomblin retired from the Army as sergeant major.

Dwight Williamson is a retired magistrate in Logan County. He writes a weekly column for HD Media.

Published with permission.

C.C. Chambers was one tough judge

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