A Novelist of the Silver Bridge Disaster

The Silver Bridge came down on this date in 1967. Forty-six people died because of it, on the bridge and in the waters of the Ohio River. Even now, in the area of Point Pleasant and across the river in Gallipolis, Ohio, there are people who remember the disaster or knew or are related to someone who died there. Novelist, poet, essayist, and book collector Jack Matthews was born in Columbus, Ohio, but had roots in Gallia County, of which Gallipolis is the seat of government. (His father was born on a Gallia County farm.) I don't know that Jack Matthews knew or was related to anyone who died in the Silver Bridge disaster, but he took on the identity of a fictional survivor in his novel Beyond the Bridge, from 1970.

Beyond the Bridge is brief but dense and complex, a much different book than Matthews' first novel, Hanger Stout, Awake! (1967), which is more a song of innocence than of experience. Beyond the Bridge takes the form of a diary of a man who has put his old life behind him and assumed a new one on the other side of the river--beyond the bridge--in West Virginia. The book ends with an entry for July 18, 1968--four days before Jack Matthews' forty-third birthday--as the protagonist sets out to cross another bridge and begin another diary. Jack Matthews lived for another forty-five years and passed away on November 28, 2013.

In Beyond the Bridge, Matthews' protagonist, a dishwasher and diarist named Neil, is friends with a fallen preacher named Harlan and becomes the lover of a local woman, Billie Sue, who knows all the superstitions of Appalachia. Neil writes of himself and Billie Sue:

     Only before we went to sleep, I myself wondered why I should be so interested in these silly superstitions and Harlan's insane theology.
     I couldn't figure it out, except for the possibility that I could feel human breath in them. And I can't help feeling close to people who have long been dead, and have no other voice left. (p. 138)

I like to think that those who are gone still have a voice, even if it's one we can no longer hear. But if Jack Matthews' only remaining voice for us--whether we are vast seas or merely islands of readership--is in his books, then I must share the feeling of his diarist, that of being "close to people who have long been dead, and have no other voice left." His books speak, have the breath of life in them, and, though their author has been gone two years now, still live.

In memory of Jack Matthews and the forty-six people who died on December 15, 1967.

Original text copyright 2015 Terence E. Hanley

A Cartoonist on the Silver Bridge

Forty-six people died when the Silver Bridge collapsed on December 15, 1967. Among them was a cartoonist who was about to begin a new life. His name was Thomas Allen Cantrell, and he came into the world on November 3, 1941, in Gallipolis, Ohio. His parents were Owen and June (Hartley) Cantrell. A younger brother, William Owen Cantrell, was born on October 2, 1944.

Thomas Cantrell went to school in Gallipolis and graduated from Gallia Academy High School in 1960. He joined the U.S. Navy and served for a time at Great Lakes Naval Training Station, north of Chicago, Illinois. Cantrell worked in his hometown for the Ohio Publishing Company, publishers of the Gallipolis Tribune, and lived at 325 Fourth Avenue. He was a member of the First Baptist Church of Gallipolis.

By about rush hour on December 15, 1967, Cantrell had delivered a load of newspapers from Gallipolis to Point Pleasant and was on his way back home when the bridge fell. His vehicle went into the water with scores of others. Unlike so many who died that day, he was not found until months later, on May 12, 1968. The forty-third of forty-six bodies recovered from the disaster, his was pulled from the Ohio River at Clipper Mills, Ohio, across from Gallipolis Ferry, West Virginia.

Cantrell's delivery of a load of newspapers from Gallipolis to Point Pleasant was to be his last job of the day on the day the Silver Bridge fell. December 15, 1967, was to be his last day on the job. Not long past his twenty-sixth birthday, Thomas Cantrell was going to California to work as a cartoonist. Instead, his dream died with him, and he was buried at Mound Hill Cemetery in the city of his birth.

We as cartoonists remember him. Gary Gibeaut has dedicated the first issue of his Mothman comic book to Thomas Allen Cantrell, a fellow local cartoonist, and to Tim Corrigan.

Copyright 2015 Five Star Comics

Mothman Festival 2015

The Five Star crew had their best shows ever at the fourteenth annual Mothman Festival, which took place on Saturday, September 19 and Sunday, Sept. 20, 2015, in Point Pleasant, West Virgina. Larry Blake, Gary Gibeaut, Jay Gibeaut, Terence Hanley, and Matt Marshall had tables this year at the festival. They all had a mix of new and old merchandise, including Jay and Larry's newest collection of Mothman 'Toons. Everything we had sold well, as the crowds this year seemed bigger than last year and the weather was good both days.

For 2015, Gary Gibeaut had new poster designs and a new comic book, a single-character issue called simply Mothman. Gary's new book has two complete stories. The first, "This Mysterious Entity! This . . . Mothman," explores one possible origin of the eponymous creature. The second, "The Abridged Mothman," begins with the story of the first sighting of Mothman but then segues into the fall of the Silver Bridge and the artist's response to the events of the 1960s, in his childhood and now in adulthood. Gary dedicated Mothman to Tim Corrigan, who passed away on August 22, 2015, and to Thomas Allen Cantrell, a fellow cartoonist who perished in the cold waters of the Ohio River on December 15, 1967.

Like we said, everything we had sold well at this year's Mothman Festival. That includes Gary Gibeaut's Mothman comic book. In fact it sold out. Look for a second printing in 2016.

The cover of Gary Gibeaut's Mothman comic book, with coloring and effects by Jason Roush.

And the splash panel from the same book.

Art copyright 2015 Gary Gibeaut
Text copyright 2015 Five Star Comics