Involves a West Virginia mountaineer family, father, mother, five
sons and daughter. Their complicated rise from abject poverty to
become multi-millionaires through their efforts in the coal-mining
industry. From a small outcrop of coal on their unproductive farm,
they eventually own thirty production mines and become the largest
coal corporation in the world, controlling the coal industry in
West Virginia for over sixty years. Poverty stricken but ambitious,
in the year 1850, Matt Mattison secretly kills Abe, a Jewish
itinerant peddler, who visits his home periodically, using Abe's
money to open a small drift mine on his farm. He is assisted in the
venture by his five sons who are unaware of their father's sudden
source of funds. (A true story). At the birth of his daughter's
illegitimate son, Matt realized that his daughter, Gem, and Abe had
a clandestine love affair, planned to marry and that Abe had
impregnated to comely Gem. Matt conscious-stricken becomes
psychotic. Gem, suspicious of her father, grieving that the father
of her child had given his life for her family's prosperity,
refuses any finances earned from their mining endeavors, leaves
home, adverse circumstances impel her to become proprietress of the
town's bawdy house. The plot involves Gem's life, embarrassing to
the family but offers amusing incidents in the bordello that
becomes public. Her brothers push the mining business to great
success becoming powerful financially and politically. Her bastard
son (known later as "A.P." in the industry), well educated but
burdened by his mother's profession, becomes president of the
world's largest coal corporation. Marries a socialite, interested
in breeding show horses, they build pretentious mansion on 365
acres, own private railroad train, ocean-going yacht, lavish
apartment in New York City. The novel follows several generations
of family, involving many complications, romances, pathos of the
five brothers, threatened loss of their mines through bitterly
fought union strikes and devastating mine explosions. Much of this
story is true and interwoven with fiction. All character names are
fictitious. Interesting coal mining facts as they effect the family
are included. As well as the complete portrayal of the cruel
exploration of the miners as the greedy and often inhumane madness
of the coal barons to accumulate excessive wealth. Now that coal is
becoming an important factor in our energy crisis, this story is
timely. Readers will become educated about the problems in this
important industry as the story of this once poverty stricken
family unfolds.
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