[I haven’t seen Silverback Jon, since (my guess) 1964. He was the older brother of one of my classmates, and we walked to school together occasionally. Our paths crossed again when we both had achieved Silverback status, and his work has been proudly featured in this Digest. His book Coal Country is now available, and additional images may be seen on his website. I recommend the photos from his re-visitation of Coal Country in 2024. Today’s feature photo is of Jon taken on a cross-country trip with his brother, SB Jerry. SB SM]
From his online bio:
Jon Chase was a University Photographer at Harvard University for 30 years. Before Harvard, he worked for Associated Press and the Boston Globe. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, Time, and various other publications.
Photo projects include coalminers in Appalachia, prison inmates, orphanages in China, pueblos in New Mexico, and a residential hospice. In addition, Jon published a book entitled The Fight for Newton Corner, which documents a neighborhood-development controversy in the Boston suburb of Newton. The book was funded by the Mass. Foundation for the Humanities, and subsequently won a Mass. Artists Foundation Fellowship. Jon lives in Acton, MA with his wife and daughter.
Here’s a sampling of images that have, with Jon’s permission appeared previously in Silverback Digest:
Protestors are hit with fire hoses at the Seabrook Nuclear Plant in 1980. Jon Chase photo
Solitary man fishing from an inner tube in a flooded field, Hubei province, China, 1996. Jon Chase photo
(Brockton, MA – 1973) – Brockton Fair “Freak Show”. Bill Cole, who allegedly lost his legs when he was run over by a train, lifts his upper body off the ground beside the circus tent. Jon Chase photo
Mother and daughter, Rowe Restaurant, Algoma, WV, 1978. The back story here makes the photo particularly poignant. This combination restaurant/bar was like many in coal country, open early and late to accommodate miners working around-the-clock shifts. Men came in for beers after the graveyard shift ended, while others ate breakfast before starting work. The day I came by a fist fight broke out between two burly brothers in their late teens. A few punches were thrown, but it was quickly broken up. I was sitting with the woman pictured, whose husband was the owner. She got very teary and upset, despite no one getting hurt. When I asked why, she explained she hated to see brothers fight. She went on to relate how years earlier two brothers began fighting, and the place was getting torn up. Her husband told them to stop, to no avail. He raised his shotgun from behind the bar and repeated his demand. The two charged him, and he fired his gun. Seconds later, two brothers lay dead on the barroom floor. No charges were ever brought. That was justice in the back hills of West Virginia. Jon Chase photo
Hired hand in a tobacco field, Jackson, KY, 1978. Jackson is nestled in the heart of the Cumberland Plateau of the Appalachian Mountains. Kentucky produces more tobacco than any other state except North Carolina. For centuries, tobacco barns dotted the central Kentucky landscape, but as health risks from smoking became clear, sales of the state’s longtime top crop plummeted. Now farmers are turning to hemp as a less labor-intensive, more profitable alternative with a growing market for the extracted CBD oil. Jon Chase photo
A woman handles a rattlesnake at a church service in Micco, West Virginia in 1979. The minister standing behind her with arms outstretched lost his 15-year-old son to a rattlesnake bite a month earlier. Snake handling is based on a verse from Acts 28:3-6 in the Bible saying, “They will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.Ó Snake handling has declined considerably since the time I took this photo, with very few practicing churches remaining. Micco is named for the Main Island Creek Coal Company. Jon Chase photo
Protests at the Seabrook Nuclear Plant. Jon Chase photo
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One thought on “Silverback Jon Publishes Coal Country”
Steph, an unexpected surprise! Thanks so much, and I’m crashing your reunion with my brother. See you therein May! Jon
Steph, an unexpected surprise! Thanks so much, and I’m crashing your reunion with my brother. See you therein May! Jon