Appalachian History

"That’s a god-damned lie!" cried out Joel Elkins as John Amis spoke to those gathered in the Clay County court. He reached behind the door, grabbed William Strong’s gun, purposely loaded and placed there, then shot and killed Amis.

Accounts differ as to why John Amis was in that Kentucky court on August 5, 1807, and why Elkins shot him.

“Judge John Amis, born in North Carolina, was of the first generation born in America, and was a successful lawyer, was Circuit Judge in Kentucky, and was shot by an outlaw while holding the first Circuit Court ever held in Clay County,” claims the 1891 volume “Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Western Arkansas.”

“He was killed at the first session of court in Clay County in 1807 by Joel Elkins, whom he had partly reared,” recalled John Eversole, a Manchester, KY resident, in 1898.

“It is said that a peddler had been killed, and Amis and this man were accused of the crime. The man told Amis that if he swore against him he would kill him.

“Whether he testified against him or not I do not know, but the man came into the courthouse and shot Amis' brains out, in the presence of the court.”

More likely than these two interpretations, however, is that John Amis was on trial for provoking a ‘cattle war’ the previous year, between a group of farmers living on the Kentucky River’s North Fork and farmers on the Red Bird, a branch of the South Fork.

Oneida, KY as seen from the area where Red Bird and Goose Creeks merge forming the South Fork of the Kentucky River., c. 1905-10.

Amis had grown up in Rogersville, TN. His father Thomas had built a house at the mouth of Big Creek River, about four miles west of Rogersville. When the father died in 1797 he deeded to John “the tract of land he now lives on adjoining the town of Rogersville and lying the east side of the main road, also the lower part of my six hundred and forty acre tract of land to be laid off by a line to run square with the upper end of the above tract he now lives on, to him and his heirs forever.”

It didn’t take long for the 24 year old John to run into trouble. By 1802 a ‘fieri facias’ (a writ ordering a levy on the belongings of a debtor to satisfy the debt) had been issued against him in “Richard Mitchell vs. John Amis (Hawkins County).”

About 1800 he had moved with his wife Kate and their baby son into Madison/Clay County Kentucky, presumably to escape that debt and get a fresh start. John sold much of his land in Tennessee to purchase a partnership in the Goose Creek Salt Works, near Manchester, where the northern section of Goose Creek joins the Red Bird River to form the South Fork of the Kentucky River.

So vital was salt to frontier life and trade that Daniel Boone had offered to re-route the Wilderness Road to pass the Goose Creek salt works. (He did not get the approval, however, and the area had no suitable roads for some time.) Clay County went on to become the leading salt producer in the state during the nineteenth century. The struggle behind the scenes to control the industry was fierce.

“On August 12, 1806 John White made good to John Amis the title of one fourth of 375 acres including the Goose Creek Salt Works’ lower works, White reserving for himself the privilege of ‘wood and water’ for one furnace,” says historian Mary Verhoeff in ‘The Kentucky River Navigation.’ “Two acres of the most eligible and advantageous land of the tract was to be reserved for mansion houses upon which neither party could dig for water without the consent of the other.

“Within one year the reservation was to be equally divided between White and Amis. The tract of land, including the salt works, had on June 22 of the same year been sold to Amis by John Crook for the sum of $2,300, one half of which was to be paid in cash and the remainder in ‘good salable salt at two dollars per bushel.’ By the deed one half of the buildings and half the garden owned by Crook were secured to John White.”

At the same time John Amis was establishing himself on the south side of the Kentucky River, William Strong and a group of Virginia farmers and cattle ranchers were setting down roots on the North Fork of the river.

"About the year 1800 or 1801, a party was organized in Scott Co., VA, to come to Kentucky,” relates Mrs. J. C. Hurst in 'Strong Family in Kentucky .' ”This party was composed of Edward Callahan and family ~ William Strong and family ~ Daniel Davidson and three sons Samuel, John, and Robert, with their families ~ also Roger and Robin Cornett. Some reports say that the Cornetts came a year or two previous to this time. The above-mentioned parties brought along with them their livestock ~ household goods ~ slaves and other possessions.

"William Strong, Samuel Davidson and the two Cornetts had married daughters of Edward Callahan. After arriving in Kentucky the parties settled on the North Fork of the Kentucky River at and near the mouth of Grapevine Creek in (current day) Perry County.

"William Strong acquired a tract of land on the opposite side of the river from the mouth of Grapevine. It extended from near what is now Chavies down the river so as to include Strong's Branch. On this land he erected a log building where he made his home for some eight or ten years. He, as a deputy assessor, made the first assessment of all land and personal property on the North Fork, which was then embraced in the new county of Clay.”

Trouble was about to brew between John Amis and William Strong.

(end of part 1 of 2)


sources: “The road to poverty: the making of wealth and hardship in Appalachia,” by Dwight B. Billings, Kathleen M. Blee, Cambridge University Press, 2000
"Strong Family in Kentucky," by Mrs. J. C. Hurst, Lexington, KY, privately published, 1960
www.combs-families.org/combs/marriage/dd.txt
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brockfamily/ChiefRedBird.html
www.bellcountypubliclibraries.org/crm/ky/knox/decker.html
The Kentucky River navigation By Mary Verhoeff, Filson Club Publications/John P. Morton & Co, Louisville, 1917
http://home.fuse.net/jerry.johnson/FamilyHistory/JohnsonFamilyHistory1.HTM
www.oblevins.com/Blevins/d0024/g0000077.html

Closed for Thanksgiving vacation break; regular posts will continue tomorrow.

"The principal outcrops of granite in Surry County are found in the northern part of the county near the Virginia line in the vicinity of Mount Airy, the county seat. The granite is exposed in flat surfaced masses in rather an advanced stage of decay immediately to the north and south of Mount Airy where quarrying on an extensive scale has been conducted for some years.

"The North Carolina Granite Corporation's Mount Airy quarries, located less than 1 mile northeast of Mount Airy, were opened in 1889, and the first shipment of stone from them was made in July 1890. The total shipment of granite from these quarries from 1890, when 135 carloads were shipped, to 1904 when 1,282 carloads were shipped, was 13,232 carloads.

"Quarrying is confined to a 40 acre tract of continuously exposed granite over the slope and top of a long hill which rises about 125 feet above the valley bottom. The company holds more than 1,200 acres additional of ground over which granite is exposed.

"Quarrying has extended over practically the entire 40 acre tract, the greatest depth of working being about 30 feet. The rock is a biotite granite of very light gray, nearly white color and medium grain. The biotite is not, except in one opening, equally distributed through the granite, but is entirely absent from some parts of it, is uniformly distributed through others, and shows a marked tendency to segregation in still other parts.

"Quartz feldspar areas of extreme whiteness, ranging from several inches to as many feet in diameter, in which biotite is entirely lacking or represented by only a few shreds, are common through the granite.

"This unequal distribution of the characterizing accessory (biotite) renders the granite in places less uniform in color than might be desirable for some purposes. The granite that has a uniform color is most pleasing in appearance and forms excellent and desirable stone for all uses except for monumental stock, for which the contrast of color between the cut and polished faces is not great enough.

"The company is adequately equipped with all the necessary machinery and appliances for quarrying and handling the stone. In 1905 a large stone cutting plant was erected. The stone is carried from the quarries to the railway cars by a system of inclined ways run by gravity. The limit in size of dimension stone is the capacity of the railroad cars. Blocks weighing 20 tons are reported to have been frequently shipped from the quarries.

"The product is marketed over a large territory, chiefly in States south of New York. It is used for general building and paving purposes. The quarry waste is utilized for roofs on cotton mills, macadam on streets and roads, ballast along the railroads, and granolithic work.

"All the stone used in the dry dock at Newport News, VA and the concreting material used in the Fort Caswell fortifications, Cape Fear River, NC, came from the Mount Airy quarries.

"The method of quarrying the granite consists in drilling a hole about 3 inches in diameter perpendicular to the surface to a depth equal to the thickness of the stone desired, usually 5 to 7 feet, then firing a succession of light blasts.

"The operation is begun by discharging about one fourth of a pound of dynamite in the bottom of the hole; this small charge pulverizes the stone slightly and forms a small chamber. The tamping is then cleaned out and hole is recharged in the same manner; this time however, with about a handful of powder.

"Small charges of powder are exploded in the hole until a small seam has been started at the bottom extending parallel with the surface. To determine if this has been done a small steel rod bent at the lower end and sharpened to a point is passed up and down the hole until the crack is located. After the crack has once been started the charges are gradually increased until it extends a distance of 75 feet or more from the hole.

Aerial view of the North Carolina Granite Quarry, Mt Airy, NC.

"The use of explosives is then discontinued, and a watertight connection to the hole is made by fastening a piece of iron pipe in the hole with melted sulphur. To this connection is attached an ordinary force pump and water is pumped into the crevice formed by the explosives. The crevice is extended by continuous pumping for a few hours until finally it covers an area of perhaps 2 acres and the pressure finds vent by tearing the rock out to thin edges on the side of the hill.

"This method is used in the warmest weather when the surface of the rock is naturally somewhat expanded and more raised. It is very doubtful whether it could be employed during cold weather; experience shows that the hotter the weather the easier the work.

"Sheets of stone covering areas of 1 to 2 acres from 6 to 8 feet thick close to the hole are easily raised by this method. It is often found necessary to clean off a ledge of stone made in this manner before attempting to form or raise another sheet on the surface below. For this reason the quarry covers considerably more area than one having natural seams ---horizontal sheeting."


source: ‘Granites of Southeastern Atlantic States,’ in Bulletin - United States Geological Survey, Issue 426, 1910, pp. 148-151

What we’re missing is the voice of our elders, explaining why things happened as they did, and what it was like there, then. Without this context names and dates are just abstractions, as real as a virtual kiss. Without knowing the challenges and compromises our ancestors faced we're like machines making lists of rare ingredients for foods we can never taste.

Our stories are never just our stories. My father’s story is also mine, and my children’s. The John Henry legend pitted a steel-driving man against a steam drill, but it also foretold of the coming mechanization that would send so many Appalachians off to work in northern factory towns. Wendell Berry urges that "The young must learn from the old, not necessarily and not always in school... The community knows and remembers itself by the association of old and young." If we commit ourselves to preserving our elders' memories we can ensure that when our children are ready to listen, we will have something to tell them.

--- David T. Miller, “Oral Histories: Recording your family's voices of the past”

Ellen Fridley was a central figure in the economic and cultural flowering of Big Ridge, VA during the 1910s and 1920s. An entrepreneur, she ran the Big Ridge Supply Company, lodged in a small building near her home, where mountain residents could buy gum, tobacco, groceries, clothes, kerosene, and other items. She often accepted butter, chickens, eggs, and home produce in barter, which her husband later peddled in White Sulphur Springs.

Her economic ties with a larger world of commerce were complemented by a literate and intellectual curiosity. She read newspapers, ordered books through the mail, and apprised herself of events of the day. Like her sister-in-law Lelia Belle, Ellen had "modernist" leanings; she believed that scientific and cultural innovations elsewhere could benefit her family and her community, and should be embraced.

Hezekiah Fridley, Ellen's husband, was in the same respects almost the opposite of his wife. Illiterate, with a resentful suspicion of book learning, Hezekiah was also deeply superstitious. When their last child, Ruth, was born with a severe but surgically correctable cleft palate, the stage was set for a protracted battle between these headstrong individuals and their different points of view.

Ellen resolved that her daughter would not go through life with her speech and physical appearance impaired by a condition she knew could be improved. Hezekiah, skeptical that any human being could or should correct what God and nature had ordained, steadfastly refused to permit an operation. Aunt Ellen prevailed. I don't know how, but I suspect that her independent sources of income had something to do with her ability to carry on with her own plans.

When Ruth was one year old, she and her mother boarded the train together in White Sulphur, bound on the C&O line for Huntington, West Virginia. Through her contacts with physicians, Ellen had located a surgeon trained to carry out the operation on Ruth's cleft palate. Uncle Hez railed against her decision and predicted dire outcomes from the surgery. Ellen ignored him, although his wrathful predictions increased her own anxiety about the operation and its consequences for Ruth's health.

It was an all-day trip, and Ellen entertained her restless daughter with stories, games, and the extraordinary sights of the New River gorge through which they traveled. They spent their last night together away from home, boarding with strangers in Huntington.

Ruth died on the operating table the next day. The doctors speculated later that her tiny body housed a weak heart that could not withstand the operation. Ellen Fridley returned to Big Ridge alone, riding all day on the train with her daughter in a coffin in the baggage car.

Enraged with a grief that was compounded by self-righteousness, for months Uncle Hez upbraided Aunt Ellen for her foolish and fatal decision. Ellen first tried argument, then silence and avoidance, but he kept on. Submerged by her own grief and guilt, and well aware of his stubbornness, Ellen knew she must find a way to stop his tirades.

Uncle Hez's greatest weakness was his superstitious nature. One night, many months after Ruth's death, when he had fallen asleep, Aunt Ellen quietly brought a small lantern and set it on the floor next to their bed. After settling herself back under the covers, she reached over and turned up the wick. Shadows flickered through the rafters as she dangled her hand around the chimney. Presently Uncle Hez awoke.

"Ellen! Ellen, wake up!" She feigned sleep. "Ellen, wake up, there's a haint [ghost]!"

"Hez, what are you shaking me for?," she asked drowsily. "I don't see no haint."

"Ellen, it's there! Yonder in the corner!"

Ellen moved her long fingers and the ghost danced. "Hez, get on back to sleep. You're seeing things." Ellen slowly turned down the lantern, and the house darkened. Hez grumbled and tossed, then fell into a fitful sleep.

The next day, unnerved by the ghost and irritable from his restless sleep, Uncle Hez continued to rail against Aunt Ellen for sending Ruth to her grave. That night, Ellen once again set the lantern next to their bed. When the light began to flicker in the same corner, Hez woke up.

"Ellen! Ellen!"

"Oh, Hez," she said sleepily. "Let me rest."

"Open your eyes, Ellen! It's over yonder!"

Ellen peered around the room, then turned to Hez. "I don't see no haint, Hez. I reckon that means it's come for you." She soon turned down the lantern, but her words had reinforced what Uncle Hez already feared. He lay in watchful terror most of the night.

By the third night, Uncle Hez was so frightened of the nocturnal visitations that he could scarcely fall asleep. It was the wee hours of morning before his snoring finally persuaded Aunt Ellen that he slept. She turned up the wick.

"It's the haint! Wake up, Ellen, it's back!"

Ellen feigned sleep. He poked her with his elbow and shouted in her ear: "Wake up!"

"Oh, Hez, can't nobody sleep with you having all these haints."

"It's there! Over yonder in the corner! Same place for three nights!"

Aunt Ellen finally delivered her punch line: "Well, Hez, if it is a haint, it must be Ruth's. You won't let her rest in peace, fussing about her all the time."

Uncle Hez was silent. Aunt Ellen made the ghost dance just a few more times for effect, then she lowered the wick.

Ever after that night, Uncle Hez was afraid to speak of Ruth at all. The ghostly visits ceased, and the lantern stayed on the shelf. As for Ruth, Uncle Hez and Aunt Ellen separately offered up their silent prayers for her peaceful slumber beneath the sheltering trees of Big Ridge.


From "Beyond the Mountains": The Paradox of Women's Place in Appalachian History,” by Barbara Ellen Smith, NWSA Journal Volume 11, Number 3

“I’m proud to see you,” said Aunt Cynthy. “Go in, ef you can get in for the children, or ef you are willin’, we can talk right hyar. I couldn’t miss the first good quiltin’ weather this spring. All winter I piece and patch, me and the gals, and when pretty weather comes I set up my frame right hyar under this beech tree.

“I’d rather piece as eat and I’d rather patch as piece, but I take natcherally delight in quiltin’. I’m an old woman, honey, and I tell ye, a woman can do her work better ef she has something pretty to her hand to take up whenst she air plumb worried out.

“Whenst I war a new married woman with the children round my feet hit ‘peared like I’d git so wearied I couldn’t take delight in nothing; and I’d git ill to my man and the children and what do you reckon I done them times? I just put down the breeches I was patchin’ and tuk out my quilt squar’. Hit wuz better than prayin’, child, hit wuz reason.

“I don’t reckon you want to see my quilts, do you? I reckon you’ve seen a sight better, but they are always new to me. Thar's hist’ry in ‘em, and memory.

“Now this Swarm ‘o Bees---I made that when my man and me were a-talking. [i.e. courting---see King Lear.] Thar's right smart of this speckled pink in hit, see. I put hit in because Tom ‘lowed I looked mighty pretty when I wore hit. A body's foolish child.

“I always liked this here Flower Basket. I made hit when Jack war the baby. He had a little green dress like this here base, and Tom and me ‘lowed he looked so sweet in that dress that I put ever’ bit an’ grain I could cut out of it in this here Flower Basket.

“We buried Jack thirty-five year ago, but I can see him, crawlin’ into ever’thing and always a laughin’ so a body couldn’t scold him, as plain as the day I begun to make this quilt.

“Here's my Radical Rose. I reckon you’ve heared I was the first human that ever put black in a Radical Rose. Thar hit is, right plumb in the middle. Well, whenever you see black in a Radical Rose you can know hit war made atter the second year of the war. Hit was this way, ever’ man war a-talkin’ about the Radicals and all the women tuk to makin’ Radical Roses.

“One day I got to studyin’ that thar ought to be black in that thar pattern, sense half the trouble was to free the niggers and hit didn’t look fair to leave them out. And from that day to this thar's been black in ever’ Radical Rose.

“This here Rocky Mountain I made atter Belle's man went West and couldn’t stay away. But atter he come back he talked a mighty sight about the Rocky Mountains and about the way the sun come up over them mountains in jagged peaks, like he said, ‘Thar’s the sun, and thar's the road a-trailin’ back.’ Lor,’ no, I didn’t draw hit off out of my head, I reckon hit war made before my time, but I made mine to remember Loge's goin’ and comin’.

“Thar's one quilt here my grandmother made. Hit's the Wilderness Road and I’ve got it in my head that she made hit up herself, because I know she rid to Kentucky horseback behind her man over the Wilderness Road.

“A body can take comfort in layin’ herself out on the quiltin’ of patch quilt. Hit's somethin’ to show whenst you are gone.”


“Patch Quilts and Philosophy,” by Elizabeth Daingerfield, in The Craftsman: an illustrated monthly magazine in the interest of better art, better work and a better more reasonable way of living, Volume 14, 1908

Shortly after taking office in 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt announced plans for creation of a "conservation army." FDR at first saw the Civilian Conservation Corps primarily as a forestry organization -- fighting fires, planting trees, thinning timber stands, stopping soil erosion and floods -- but the field personnel of the State and Federal agencies involved soon realized that CCC labor might also be directed toward the construction of forest improvements--particularly roads, trails, buildings, and recreation sites. The CCC men literally built the foundations on which the national forests now stand.

Camp Ellison D. Smith F-l, located near the Whetstone Road in Oconee County, was the first CCC camp to be located in South Carolina. This and two others soon to follow employed approximately 800 men at their peaks, and remained operational for nearly 10 years.

The men of these camps built Oconee State Park, Long Mountain Fire Tower, and Walhalla Fish Hatchery, and rebuilt Highway 107. There were many other less obvious projects. Millions of trees were planted; girdling to kill undesirable rotten trees was done on thousands of acres; growth plots for long-term forest inventory were established. Erosion control work was done on eroding fields which were on farms purchased by the Forest Service; property boundaries were surveyed, painted, and posted, in addition to wildlife being stocked.

Hard work, fresh air, and plenty of food were considered essential for CCC employees to accomplish one of the goals established by the office of education, "to develop an appreciation of nature and of country life." And to that third end, here is the 1938 Thanksgiving menu for Camp 1:

OLIVES
GIBLET GRAVY
CANDIED SWEET POTATOES
GUAVA JELLY
FRIED CORN
FRUIT PUNCH
SWEET PICKLES
CREAM OF PEA SOUP
SALTINES
ROAST TURKEY
CRANBERRY SAUCE
ROAST PORK HAM
HOT ROLLS
LETTUCE SALAD
BUTTER
CELERY HEARTS
OYSTER DRESSING
CREAMED CAULIFLOWER
GRAPE JELLY
CREAMED POTATOES
PUMPKIN PIE
FRESH FRUITS
PLUM PUDDING
CIGARETTES
ICE CREAM
NUTS
COFFEE
MINCE MEAT PIE
ASSORTED CANDIES
BRANDY SAUCE
CIGARS
FRUIT CAKE

Oconee State Park was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on June 16, 2004.

sources: http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/sc/oconee/history/MR-03.txt
www.nationalregister.sc.gov/oconee/S10817737015/index_2.htm

related post: "He is now in the C.C. Camp"

CCC Oconee+State+Park Oconee+County+SC appalachia appalachia+history appalachian+culture

We post a new episode of Appalachian History weekly podcast every Sunday. You can start listening right away by clicking the podcast icon over on the left side of your screen. If you'd rather grab the show off itunes for later listening, click here.

We open today's show with a look at a dowsing in West Virginia. Water witching (rhabdomancy) is common throughout the region. According to a study done about fifty years ago, at that time there were twenty-five thousand practicing water witches in this country. The actual practice of divining with a forked stick, as we know it, began in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century in Germany.

We’ll pause in between things to catch up on a Calendar of Events in the region this week, with special attention paid to events that emphasize heritage and local color.

Next, a 1910 article from Berea KY newspaper ‘Citizen’ admonishes its readers to “Keep Busy!” ‘Idleness and there are filth and flies in the house, and the weeds hide the view from the window and door,’ the author reminds us. ‘Industry and the home, though it be a cabin, is a place of beauty and roses.’

In Appalachia Santa Claus comes the weekend before Thanksgiving. 

 Since 1943, the Santa Special, more commonly known as the Santa Train, has traveled 110 miles through the mountains of eastern Kentucky, southwest Virginia and northeastern Tennessee to distribute loads of candy, toys and other goodies to eager bystanders, most of whom have made it a family tradition. The train typically passes through more than 30 towns delivering Christmas cheer. Did you see it go by?

The ‘Walker’ is today the most popular of the American Foxhound dog breed. This breed can be traced to Madison County, KY and a stolen hound called Tennessee Lead. According to legend, drover Tom Harris stole the hound out of a deer chase in Tennessee a few miles south of Albany, Kentucky in November 1852. Harris carried this rat-tailed, tight-haired black and tan hound on his buckboard to Madison County, and sold him to George Washington Maupin.

James Camak started his career as a professor at University of Georgia, left to make a fortune in banking, and went on to become president of Georgia’s first railroad company, a respected newspaper editor, a professor at University of Georgia (again!), and a Trustee of the college. One thing he was not though, was an accurate surveyor. In 1818, early in his career, he was appointed by the state to help survey the boundary line between Georgia and Tennessee. He botched the job. Twice.

We’ll wrap things up with a short oral history from Curtis R. Pfaff, who was born in 1921 in Allais KY. "Thanksgiving and Christmas were our favorite days,” he recalls. “The turkey and ham dinners were the best foods I ever knew. The turkey would be purchased live and dressed out the day before. I will always remember the wonderful smell of the dressing cooking

And, thanks to the good folks at the Digital Library of Appalachia we'll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music by Tommy Hunter and Wayne Erbsen in a 1983 recording the of the classic fiddle tune ‘Cincinnati Hornpipe.’

So, call your old blue-tick hound up on the porch, fire up your corn-cob pipe, and settle in for a dose of Appalachian History.

Water witching (rhabdomancy) is very common in West Virginia. According to a study done about fifty years ago, at that time there were twenty-five thousand practicing water witches in this country. The actual practice of divining with a forked stick, as we know it, began in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century in Germany.

Martin Luther believed the practice violated the first commandment. Through the ages it has been roundly denounced as the devil's work and praised as a remarkable aid to a basic necessity of rural life---finding water. It is often categorized with such rural customs as planting by the signs.

There must be scientific reasons why some people have special powers to locate water through divining. We just have not determined what those scientific reasons are---or perhaps I am enough of a romantic to allow for belief in its efficacy. I agree with a quotation that sums up the situation: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

I once blindfolded a water witch so there was no possibility he could see. I set a large bucket of water within a 360-degree circle around him, turned him around until he was so dizzy I had to support him until he got his balance back, and then let him turn in a circle to locate the water. He found the water every time, and I conducted this test about half a dozen times.

In fact, when his divining rod got directly over the water, his arms would shake violently. When I tried to do this myself, I actually found the water the first time, but it was more guessing than feeling a specific draw on the rod, although I thought I felt something.

Another test I tried was to have a local Randolph County water witch find a course of water in an open field. At that exact spot, I clamped his rod to a supporting stand, where, without him touching the rod, it did not move on its own. I then had him walk close and reach out with one hand and touch the rod. It still did nothing. He then grasped the rod with two hands as I unclamped it from the stand. It dipped down again, indicating the watercourse.

Vogt and Golde reported one test with a water witch who had a brother without the power. He walked behind the powerless brother and held onto his ears. In doing so, the divining rod worked like normal in his brother's hands.

After knowing and working with this local Randolph County witch for awhile, I became comfortable enough with him to ask a personal question. This man did not cut his fingernails, and some, including one thumbnail, were about two inches in length, growing out in a long curve.

Some things seem best not questioned at first, but I was dying to know about this. At last, one evening when I was passing near his home and stopped by to say hello, I decided the time was right. At a pause in our conversation, I said, "Burt, I’ve been curious as to why you have such long fingernails." I then paused anxiously, waiting for an answer to my question, thinking that perhaps it related to some unknown occult methodology involving secretive aspects of divining. Barely looking up, Burt said, "To scratch my ass." It seems things don't always appear to be what you think they are.


source: Signs, cures, & witchery: German Appalachian folklore, by Gerald Milnes, Univ of Tennessee Press, 2007

In Appalachia Santa Claus comes the weekend before Thanksgiving.

Since 1943, the Santa Special, more commonly known as the Santa Train, has traveled 110 miles through the mountains of eastern Kentucky, southwest Virginia and northeastern Tennessee to distribute loads of candy, toys and other goodies to eager bystanders, most of whom have made it a family tradition. The train typically passes through more than 30 towns delivering Christmas cheer.

This year Wynonna Judd is joining CSX as the special guest on the 2009 Santa Train. Wynonna, who is originally from Ashland, KY, is revisiting her childhood as a part of her partnership with CSX, Food City and the Kingsport Area Chamber of Commerce.

The 67th annual Santa Train will make 14 stops on Nov. 21. Wynonna, Santa Claus and volunteers will deliver 15 tons of toys to thousands of Appalachian residents who live along the route. “Sharing the joy of the season with children who grew up just like I did is something that I am so privileged to have the opportunity to do,” Wynonna said. “Appalachia has always been close to my heart, and participating in the Santa Train is something very special to me.”

Train staffers throw candy, crackers, popcorn, bubble gum, cookies, stuffed animals, electronic games, hats, handmade gloves, mittens, toboggans, T-shirts, wrapping paper and other treats from the train’s caboose.

The Santa Special was the brainchild of Kingsport, TN businessmen who wanted to show their appreciation to the people of the coalfields for their patronage throughout the year.


Santa Special officials have said that the first Santa Train pulled just one car and a meager load of gifts. It reached towns and cities that at the time had no other means of transportation. Some believe the train provided many children the only toys they received during World War II.

Joe Higgins played the role of Santa Claus in 1943-44 --- the run's first two years.

sources: www.dickensoncounty.net/santatrain.html
www.kingsportchamber.org/portal/santaframe.htm
http://www.appvoices.org/index.php?/site/voice_stories/santa_train_rides_again_through_appalachia/issue/523


Santa+Train Joe+Higgins CSX Kingsport+TN Pikeville+KY Christmas+in+Appalachia appalachia+history +appalachian+culture

The ‘Walker’ is today the most popular of the American Foxhound dog breed. This breed can be traced to Madison County, KY and a stolen hound called Tennessee Lead. According to legend, drover Tom Harris stole the hound out of a deer chase in Tennessee a few miles south of Albany, Kentucky in November 1852. Harris carried this rat-tailed, tight-haired black and tan hound on his buckboard to Madison County, and sold him to George Washington Maupin.

“I am sure Tennessee Lead was taken from Overton County, Tennessee, and that his first owner was either John or Mark Jolly or Andrew Kraft,” maintains Bob Lee Maddux in Old Time Walker Hounds, from The Hunter’s Horn, December 1974 issue. “They were deer hunters who lived among the mountains near where the Kentucky Rock Island Road broke out of the Cumberland Mountains to enter Obey’s River valley."

George Washington Maupin (Left), Tennessee Lead and William J. Walker (Right)

The origin and breeding of this hound is unknown. Lead didn't look like the Virginia strain of English Foxhounds of that day. But he had an exceptional amount of game sense, plenty of drive and speed and a clear, short mouth. Most importantly, because of his speed and ability to run a red fox, he was used extensively at stud and was a major contributor to the development of the foxhounds as a whole.

The first hound bred to Tennessee Lead was a female called Red May, jointly owned by Thomas Howard Maupin (brother of George Washington Maupin), Speedwell Road and Alfred Johnson. This mating took place on November 20, 1852 the same day that George Washington Maupin obtained Lead from Tom Harris, and produced the hound White Mag, who was later sold to George Washington Maupin.

Tennessee Lead’s get were in turn crossed on imported hounds from England, native Kentucky hounds, Maryland hounds and Birdsong hounds from Georgia. Out of these crosses came the Walker and two other major strains: ‘Trigg’ and ‘Goodman.’

Bob Lee Maddux picks up the story once more: “Five years after Tennessee Lead was secured by the Maupins a rich banker and land owner of Madison County, KY, whose name was Jason Walker, imported three English hounds, two dogs and one bitch in whelp.

“From this English mating on the Native-Tennessee Lead bitches the Maupins produced a distinctive hound by 1868. For that year Wash Maupin died, leaving two sons to carry on, but their very serious fault was that they kept no records of any sort what-so-ever.

“The hound, Spotted Top bred by Wash Maupin’s sister’s son, Neil Gooch, was the first hound to have his breeding recorded for information of future generations. That hound was bred in 1864, but had no English cross. He was the offspring of Tennessee Lead stock on Native hounds.

“From about 1870 we are indebted, solely, to the Walker Brothers of Garrard County for the preservation of this breed. They bought from Wash Maupin, the year before he died, Spotted Top.

“Then they bought Scott and White Trav, littermates, from Joe Maupin, and from the other hounds they had previously purchased they preserved the blood in its proper ratio of 6-3-1 until about 1900, when the Striver cross enters.

“We are indebted to W. S. Walker, Arch Walker and Wade Walker for dispersing the blood to Missouri, Texas, Tennessee, and throughout the South. For Ed Walker, while the best hunter of the four, would not sell a hound. He bought every good one that he ever knew about, but kept them for his own hunting pleasure, and allowed them to be scattered only through his stud dogs.

“He never did like the Striver cross. One morning he and Tom Steagall of Crab Orchard were hunting on the Henry Baker Ridge. The hounds were working hard to lift their fox. One, a young bitch by Big Strive, was switching around too near the casting place to suit Mr. Walker, so Tom, out of his Irish devilment, asked Mr. Ed how he liked the new English cross. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘one eighth of it does fairly well, but one sixteenth is much better.’”


http://www.treeingwalkerhistory.com/History.html
http://fasdawg.tripod.com/history.html
www.foxhoundspastandpresent.com/oldtimewalkerhounds.html

Citizen (Berea, Ky.)
Thursday, July 7, 1910.

"Keep Busy"

It is not money that is the root of all evil. It is idleness. Idleness leads to poverty, Idleness invites disease. Idleness breeds crime.

Everywhere people are to be found who seem to put but little value upon time. They may know the full worth of a dollar, but they do not seem to have learned that a column of hours may be added and the result be dollars. Idleness and the pupil drops out of the class. Industry and he is at the head.

Idleness and there are filth and flies in the house, and the weeds hide the view from the window and door. Industry and the home, though it be a cabin, is a place of beauty and roses.

Idleness and the fence row encroaches upon the field, sprouts take the pasture, and the farmer complains that the soil is exhausted and he can’t make a living. Industry and the fence rows are clean, the sprouts give way to clover, and the farmer’s barns—and his pockets—are full.

Idleness and the mind feeds upon thoughts of disease, and the disease follows. Industry and the thoughts go in other channels, activity proves a tonic, and vigorous health results.

Idleness and the weeds grow. They only need to be let alone. Evil and crime are like weeds, and industry proves a good resistant. Is it not so? Look about and see.

Yes, that is the reason Bud Adler is out of school and no job in sight, while Willie Brown has his diploma and a good position awaiting. And you stopped at the Adler home the other day. There were the weeds up to the porch railing, the farm all run down and the barns empty. And there were filth and flies—no screens. Farmer Adler had no time, and Mrs. Adler had no time. But you found the farmer sitting on the porch whittling and his wife beside him with folded hands.

And what about Mrs. Burchett? She has been having spells of some kind for nearly a year. And the neighbors report her very sick, but the Doctor is your brother-in-law and he tells you there is really nothing the matter with her. It is all in her imagination. The fact is, the Doctor told you that nearly half of our ailments are imaginary to begin with. Didn’t he say “three fourths.” You remember how the Doctor laughed when he told you what he gave Mrs. Burchett on his last visit. A bread pill. He said she didn’t need a thing except to get interested in something, but, if he had told here that, she would have sent for the other Doctor. So he did not tell her.

And the Doctor, your brother-in-law, at the same time called your attention to Mrs. Newgate—a little mite of a woman that had never been strong—and said that she would have been dead long ago if death had ever found her idle long enough to get her scared about herself. But it couldn’t. When she got the house in order she went to the yard or garden, and no weeds could grow there for the flowers. And how happy she was, and how happy her family!

And you don’t have to go out of your own neighborhood to see that idleness leads to crime. Look at the Feltin boys. They didn’t have to work and their parents didn’t see the necessity of keeping them busy; so they drifted and the weeds grew, and two of them are in the “pen” and one in the house of reform. Busy now! Get busy and get wealth. Keep busy and keep health.

James Camak started his career as a professor at University of Georgia, left to make a fortune in banking, and went on to become president of Georgia’s first railroad company, a respected newspaper editor, a professor at University of Georgia (again!), and a Trustee of the college. One thing he was not though, was an accurate surveyor. In 1818, early in his career, he was appointed by the state to help survey the boundary line between Georgia and Tennessee. He botched the job. Twice.

When the State of Tennessee was created by an act of Congress in 1796, the state’s southern boundary (and thus the corresponding northern boundary of Georgia, already a state for eight years) was decreed to be the 35th degree of North latitude. At the time, the western boundary of Georgia was the Mississippi River.

In 1802, partly as a result of political maneuvers following the Yazoo Land Fraud, Georgia gave up all possession of what was then known as the Mississippi Territory (currently the States of Alabama and Mississippi). The Articles of Agreement and Cession described the new western boundary of Georgia to be, in part, "...thence in a direct line to Nickajack, on the Tennessee River; thence crossing the said last mentioned river, and thence...along the western bank thereof to the southern boundary of the State of Tennessee."

On June 1, 1818, James Camak, who was then teaching mathematics at the University of Georgia in Athens, joined with James Gaines, a mathematician hired by Tennessee, to survey the line between the two states. The survey began at a stone, two feet tall, that supposedly marked the corner of the states of Georgia and Alabama and on the 35th parallel, the southern boundary of the state of Tennessee. The stone was described as being “one mile and twenty-eight poles from the south bank of the Tennessee River, due south from near the center of the old Indian town of Nick jack”.

The accepted method of the day was to calculate one's position on the surface of the Earth by observing specific heavenly bodies at specific times of day and comparing their positions in the sky with published tables called ephemerides.

The survey results were only as good as the charts being used, as well as the apparatus employed. Camak expressed doubts about his astronomical tables, stating they "were not such as I could have wished them to be".

To compound that problem, the governor had refused Camak's requests for a ‘Zenith Sector,’ a state-of-the-art surveying instrument, so they were making do with a nautical sextant. Sextants, being primarily for marine use, only get you close to your destination.

The zenith sector, the tool Camak wanted to use, but didn’t. It pointed straight and directly overhead. A telescope rotated on a pivot and allowed astronomers to measure the zenith distances (the angle between the star and the highest point in the sky) of celestial bodies. This also necessitated aligning the instrument in the meridian (a line through the poles). Since the graduated scale was so low to the ground, the astronomer usually had to lie on his back or a special reclined seat in order to effectively make observations with the zenith sector.

The first session placed them anywhere from 11 miles north to 11 miles south of the target line. Wisely, the group decided to dispense with that particular instrument and all calculations to date. Camak observed for 10 more days and nights, finally to arrive at the conclusion to place the corner stone "...one mile and 7 chains [about 5700 feet] from the Tennessee River and about one quarter of a mile south of Nickajack Cave."

Only 26 days after they had begun, the survey party ended their task atop Unicoe Mountain, 110 miles east of the point of beginning. On July 13, 1818 Camak, along with appointed representatives of both states, met in Milledgeville, GA to certify the survey as correct.

Eight years later, after new observations for latitude had been taken, Camak ran the line again and discovered his original line was almost one mile south of the true 35th parallel in several places.

He again made ten days of celestial observations. This time, he determined that the northwest corner of Georgia was marked 37.9 chains (about 2500 feet) south of the 35th parallel. So that year, the "Camak Stone" was pulled up and moved north to its current, and still inaccurate, location.

If his original placement had been as accurate as we now could make it using GPS, the State of Georgia would include a section of the Tennessee River and the Nickajack Reservoir.

No one in Georgia seemed to care about the location of the border for more than 70 years. But the rapid growth of the rebuilt Atlanta changed all that. Because of typographical errors in a book of mathematical tabulations and use of the wrong measuring tools, the nearly infinite supply of water in the Tennessee River was not available to the citizens of Georgia. Atlanta depends upon Lake Lanier and the Chattahoochee River for its water, while the Tennessee River flows just out of reach with 15 times greater flow than the Chattahoochee.

2007 aerial photo with state borders superimposed shows just how close the Tennesssee River lies to the Georgia border.

Starting in 1887, the Georgia legislature began raising the border issue in the form of resolutions. In 1905, 1915, 1922, 1941, 1947, 1971, and again just last year, the state called for discussions between Tennessee and Georgia to resolve boundary issues.

Each time Tennessee did little or nothing to achieve any change. In 1947 Georgia went so far as to form a borderline committee and authorized it to look into the matter and the Attorney General of Georgia to bring suit to the Supreme Court if the committee could not resolve the dispute. Yet the border remained the same.

The long-held legal principle is simple, says modern day border expert Louis DeVorsey: The decisive fact is not where surveyors meant to draw the line -- it's where people have accepted the line to be over time.

"It's where people adjusted their lives to," said the retired University of Georgia geography professor.


Sources: www.amerisurv.com/content/view/4637/153
www.davidrmay.com/Related/gatnborder.php
www.math.uga.edu/about_us/history.html
Savage Historical Surveys at bit.ly/3B72lT
chat.augustachronicle.com/stories/2008/03/04/met_189638.shtml
www.tba.org/sections/EnvironmentalLaw/newsletters/enews_062008.htm
www.maconnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2171&Itemid=34
www.tba.org/journal_new/index.php/component/content/article/71

We post a new episode of Appalachian History weekly podcast every Sunday. You can start listening right away by clicking the podcast icon over on the left side of your screen. If you'd rather grab the show off itunes for later listening, click here.

We open today's show with an excerpt from Handling Serpents: Pastor Jimmy Morrow's History of His Appalachian Jesus' Name Tradition. “Service got started with the congregation singing,” he explains about his style of worship. “Then they had prayer request and there was prayer. They also had special singing. About that time Mullins from Virginia carried up front a big black rattlesnake in a box and set it next to a box with two copperheads in it.”

We’ll pause in between things to catch up on a Calendar of Events in the region this week, with special attention paid to events that emphasize heritage and local color.

Dr. Harriet B. Jones well deserved the laurels she earned as West Virginia's first woman physician, as the first woman to serve in the State Legislature, as the founder of numerous hospitals and welfare institutions, and as a vigorous pioneer in the fight against tuberculosis. In 1937 the Morgantown Post gave its readers an extensive overview of her long career.

Moses Cone learned men. He learned how to win them.
And by doing so he rose from being a traveling drummer in NC for his family’s grocery business to being the head of Cone Mills Corporation, which became a leading manufacturer of denim. His company was a major supplier to Levi Strauss and Company for nearly a century. In 'Moses Cone Remembered,' Josephus Daniels (Secretary of the Navy under Woodrow Wilson) describes the neighbor who he summered near in the Blowing Rock area.

Nationally recognized herbalist Tommie Bass (1908-1996) was the subject of scholarly and popular books, television features, a front-page essay in the Wall Street Journal. The Alabama native was also wickedly funny in his offhand observations of life lived. In this excerpt of a transcript from a 1993 documentary, Bass sums up his view of being pitched to vote for one or another politician.

In March 1782, Timothy Dorman and his family, white settlers of Fort Buckhannon (in modern day Upshur County, WV) were captured by Shawnee Indians. One hundred years later novelist Charles McKnight envisioned the party’s abduction from Mrs. Dorman’s point of view in "Simon Girty : "The white savage"; A romance of the border." Her sufferings will chill you to the bone.

We’ll wrap things up with a brief appreciation for the dried apple stack cake, one of the most popular southern Appalachian cakes. At holidays and weddings, early mountain settlers traditionally served stack cake in lieu of more fancy, and costly, cakes. Neighbors would each bring a layer of the cake to the bride's family, which they spread with apple filling as they arrived. It was said that the number of cake layers the bride got determined how popular she was.

And, thanks to the good folks at the Digital Library of Appalachia we'll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music by the band Wry Straw in a 1970s recording of the classic old-time fiddle tune “Kitchen Girl.”

So, call your old blue-tick hound up on the porch, fire up your corn-cob pipe, and settle in for a dose of Appalachian History.

Nationally recognized herbalist Tommie Bass (1908-1996) was the subject of scholarly and popular books, television features, a front-page essay in the Wall Street Journal, and numerous articles in newspapers and magazines. Bass lived almost his entire life in the Tennessee Valley and Ridge section of Alabama, primarily in Cherokee County.

"I don't ever get a letter, but what I answer it. One way or the other. And generally speaking, some of them sends a self-stamped envelope, but some of, a lot of them don't. But when you answer around a hundred letters for twenty-five dollars, twenty-five cents a letter, that runs into money (chuckles). But I answer 'em anyway.

[Looks through junk mail] "Most everybody gets something like that. And, course, this one here is from the Baptist Church at Centre, their bulletin. And this one here is a-wantin . . . this here is a politician they want me to send money to help me get along, you know, I get ‘em from the Democrats and Republicans, regardless of who they are, and I even get letters from the Catholic priests wanting me to help ‘em, you know, along.

Photograph of Tommie Bass by Tom Rankin, 1983.

"Course this is one of them get rich letters here this make you a million dollars in just a few days, you know, send five people five dollars apiece and then when your name gets to the top, why you'll go a-getting the five dollars -- but don't try it buddy it won't work.

"Course this here one, here's another politician. I get ‘em . . . when they's running here in our state from the Democrats, I'd average two or three letters a day, and then the same way about the Republicans, you know, it just didn't make no difference just so they can get some money. (chuckles) But I didn't give ‘em none. I figured . . . the fact of the business is a fellow running for office, a man or a woman, I'm like the little boy was about the peckerwood.

"Peckerwood pecked a hole in a hollow tree and he went over in there, and the little boy he drove a peg in behind it. Somebody said to him, “Son,” said, “you shouldn't of done the little bird that way.” He said, "Well the son-of-a-gun pecked in, now let him peck out.

"And so I'm that way about a politician. If he wants to get into office, let him get in there (chuckles), but I ain't gonna try to help him. Course, if he's a good guy, I'd talk for him, but as far as paying him in there, I don't go along with that."

---excerpt from 'Tommie Bass A Life in the Ridge and Valley Country,' 1993 video produced by Alabama State Council on the Arts and the Cherokee County Historical Society


sources: www.folkstreams.net/pub/ContextPage.php?essay=154
www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-2166

It was in the late 1870s that merchants of this section of the state came to know a young Hebrew grocery drummer who traveled the mountains on horseback soliciting orders for the Cone wholesale grocery firm doing business in Jonesboro, TN. He was an attractive and interesting young drummer who had genius as a merchant. People just could not resist his selling qualities. When Moses Cone came into their places of business their selling resistance vanished.

They tell us poets are born. So are great merchants like John Wanamaker and A.T. Stewart. If you will study the history of the cotton mill business in North Carolina, you will see that the men who won the largest measure of success with cotton mills were men who were merchants as well as manufacturers.

The early manufacturers like the Holts and Steeles and Fries and Chathams, to mention only a few pioneers, were also great merchants. They had the genius to sell what they made. And that is true of the Cones, most of them, particularly Moses H. Cone, the oldest of a dozen children. As young Moses Cone traveled through these mountains and took orders for groceries, the lure of the heights and the valleys and the fine stuff of the people got into his blood.

He loved the bracing air, the cool water from its sparkling springs, the grandeur of the mountain peaks, the lovely and sweet meadows, and the music of the streams. They held him and went with him as later, Moses and his brothers made connections with big textile mills whose products they sold all over the country.

It was not long before Moses Cone saw that southern mills received too little because they depended chiefly on selling yarns and cheaper fabrics, and so he and his brothers resolved to construct finishing mills, which they did at Greensboro, and later at other places. It was selling before making that laid the foundations for the big Cone fortune. It was said they could sell anything they offered.

As young Moses drank in the glory of the mountains and traveled from place to place, he spent his spare moments in reading. He later said that any man could read himself into a good education. That is what he did. He had received only the sort of public school instruction which Jonesboro, TN offered in the late 1860s and early 1870s. But he had great curiosity. Everything that concerned man interested him.

He first learned men. He learned how to win them. Then he learned books. An indefatigable reader, he mastered what he read. With remarkable mind and keenness of intellect of the best of the Hebrew race, he was as keen for knowledge all his life as he was for orders in his youth as a traveling drummer. Economics, history, literature, art --- all intrigued him, and by the time he saw the possibility of the Vision of Beauty he incarnated here and made it permanent in his noble estate he had become an educated man at the age of 40.

Thenceforward, he alternated business with the development of the Moses H. Cone Manor. He came here for his health after he became rich. The early lure held him fast. He purchased 3,000 acres of mountain and valley and meadow and set about developing it. He first bought land and started to build on the beautiful land that looks toward Lenoir. Later he caught the vision of Flat Top and Rich Mountains, and the farm which he converted into orchards of thousands of apple trees and into beautiful lakes.

Biltmore, near Asheville, is known the world over. Comparatively few people are familiar with the Cone Estate near here. Mr. Cone built a home that would be called a mansion in New York or a castle in the old country. It became in his last days the home of genuine and generous hospitality to his many friends and large family connections and so remains a place of delight to those fortunate enough to be friends of Mrs. Cone.

Indeed, she keeps the place as near as possible in every way to how Mr. Cone designed it, with his own constant improvements. The Cone apple orchard is one of the show places of America. Many see it. But the sight of sights on the Estate is the drive to Rich Mountains and to Flat Top.

On top of both mountains, Mr. Cone built observatories from which one can see five states on a clear day and feel literally that he is on top of the world. On Rich Mountain there are scores of haw trees---the most beautiful haw trees in all the world---and just now the red berries, to be crimson by September, are a riot of beauty and glory. Standing under the shade of such trees, you can see Grandfather and a score of other mountains.

Mr. Cone died early---soon after he had complete his home and laid off his 3,500 acre estate. He lived to see the work and to pronounce it good, and died at the comparatively young age of 50. But he achieved far more than most successful men of threescore and ten. His last days were brightened by carrying out his plans for the beautification of his Wautauga Estate. It is a memorial that will outlast his business structures, enduring as they are, and will give happiness to this and future generations.


From 'Moses Cone Remembered,' by Josephus Daniels (Secretary of the Navy under Woodrow Wilson; summered in Blowing Rock area), Greensboro Daily News, spring 1930; date not specified; online at www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/blri/moses_cone_estate.pdf

As the day was coming to a close and the evening was drawing on people started to the church. They came from the hollows and mountains where they lived. That night Lester Raines took two copperheads that Blackburn had caught early that week for the church service. Lester had a hole dug out in the bank at the back of his cabin. My uncle Hastel Presnell said that he saw six rattlesnakes and four copperhead in a cage back in the bank where Lester lived.

The church was small, about 22 by 31 feet. They lighted the church with gas lamps. That night the church house was full of people from everywhere. Oscar Pelfrey, Jacky Euel Blackburn, Oll McMahan, and family all from Virginia. Also there were Alvin Hall, Carl Hall and family, Cora James, Edward Lee Turner and family. Other people at church that night were Joe Frank Turner and family, Lester Raines and family, Mary Turner and family, Ed Arrwood, Riley Arrwood and family, Sarah Turner, and Della Mae Turner. Leote Wilford was also there with her children, Lepolian, Sarah Mae, Ruby, Maggie, Leon, Frances, and James. Several more families were there.

Caption reads: "Handling serpents at the Pentecostal Church of God. Company funds have not been used in this church and it is not on company property. Most of the members are coal miners and their families. Lejunior, Harlan County, Kentucky." Taken Sept 15, 1946.

Service got started with the congregation singing. Then they had prayer request and there was prayer. They also had special singing. About that time Mullins from Virginia carried up front a big black rattlesnake in a box and set it next to a box with two copperheads in it. Jacky Euel Blackburn, Lester Raines, Oscar Pelfrey, Oll McMahan, and Mullins were sitting up front.

Someone moved the serpent boxes and set them on the piano bench. Johnny Raines was singing "Jacob's Ladder" when Blackburn went to the serpent box and got the two copperheads out. After he handled them, he put the copperheads back in the box. He opened the box that had the big large timber-back rattlesnake in it. Gladys told me it was as big as a man's arm and over 6 feet long. As Blackburn was a handling it, he put it around Johnny's shoulder. The snake crawled down Johnny's arm. The large rattlesnake struck Johnny on the right hand.

Johnny let the serpent fall to the floor. Lester picked it up and put it back in the back. A few seconds after the serpent bit Johnny, he started to sink to the floor. He got real sick and passed out. The church member started praying for him. Still Johnny he got worse. They got him down to Valintine Shults where they talked Lester Raines into taking his son to the hospital. Johnny was only fifteen years old when he got bit.

On Monday, August 6, 1951, the ‘Newport Plain Talk’ had an article headed "Warrant Issued for Snake Handler: Lad Bitten: Reported Seriously." It said that the boy has fair chance of recovery. It went on to say that a warrant was issued this Monday morning by Esquire Walter Layman against Jacky Blackburn, a so-called preacher from Virginia, charging him with handling and displaying poisonous snakes to the endangerment of lives and health of others.

Officers were requested to destroy the rattlesnake if it was still in the county. The officers went to the Sand Hill Church of God in Jesus' Name and found the two copperheads and the big rattlesnake behind the church in the weeds. They got them and put them in the car and up the old 15th where they stopped at Timman Ball's store. Timman told me some thirty-five years ago there was venom all over the inside of the box. The rattlesnake that was in it would bite the box it was so mean.


excerpt from Handling Serpents: Pastor Jimmy Morrow's History of His Appalachian Jesus' Name Tradition, ed. Ralph W. Hood, Mercer University Press, 2005

The dried apple stack cake is one of the most popular southern Appalachian cakes--- no surprise considering apples are found aplenty in the mountains. Culturally it's akin to the classic European torte. It looks like a stack of thick pancakes, with apple preserves, dried apples or apple butter spread between each layer. At holidays and weddings, early mountain settlers traditionally served stack cake in lieu of more fancy, and costly, cakes. Neighbors would each bring a layer of the cake to the bride's family, which they spread with apple filling as they arrived. It was said that the number of cake layers the bride got determined how popular she was.

Kentucky lays claim to originating the dessert via Kentucky pioneer washday cake. "Some food historians say that James Harrod, the colonist and farmer who founded Harrodsburg in 1774, brought the stack cake to Kentucky from his home in Pennsylvania," observes Mark F. Sohn in Appalachian Home Cooking: History, Culture, and Recipes. "While Harrod may have brought the first stack cake to Kentucky, the cake could not have been common until more than 100 years later when flour became readily available." Tennessee proudly points to Tennessee stack cake as the first, but in fact variations of the cake abound throughout the region.

The cake is many layered, low in fat, and not sweet. It's made with layers of stiff cookie like dough flavored with ginger and sorghum and spread with a spiced apple filling. When served, the cake is tall, heavy, and moist.

Stack Cake

1/2 cup shortening
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 cups flour plus 1/2 cup for rolling dough

Cream shortening and sugar thoroughly. Drop in egg and beat well. Add vanilla. Sift all dry ingredients together.Add molasses; then add sifted dry ingredients alternately with buttermilk. Roll dough to about 1/4 inch thickness. Divide dough into si x parts. Roll each ball of dough over the bottom of an 8 inch round cake pan. Bake in 350 degree oven for 15 minutes. When the six round layers are done, put together with applesauce or with the following:

1 (8 ounce) package dried apples or peaches
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
When the dried fruit has been cooked according to directions on the package, add the sugar and cinnamon. Put between the layers of cake. Stack the cake until all fruit and layers have been used. Let set several hours or overnight before cutting.

sources: www.tngenweb.org/tntable/tabk5.htm
http://tennessee-guide.info/food/
Appalachian Home Cooking: History, Culture, and Recipes, by Mark F. Sohn, University Press of Kentucky, 2005

On the 8th of March, 1782, William White, in sight of Fort Buckhannon [ed.-in modern day Upshur County, WV], was shot from his horse, tomahawked, scalped and lacerated in the most frightful manner by the Indians. White's companions Timothy Dorman and his wife were captured. After the killing of White and capture of the Dormans, it was resolved to abandon Fort Buckhannon. A few days after the evacuation of the fort, some of its former inmates went from Clarksburg to Buckhannon for grain which had been left there. When they came in sight, they beheld a heap of ashes where the fort had been.

“Border Settlers of Western Virginia,” McWhorter

"My story's a brief but a most painful one for a wife to tell. My husband's name is Timothy Dorman. We lived in a little cabin near Buchanan Fort in the Kanawha country.

“Just about two months ago some fresh tracks of Indians were discovered, which, on account of its being so early in the season, created great alarm among the scattered settlers. As William White, a noted and active scout , my husband and myself, this little babe and little Eddy, my only other child, a curly-headed boy of six years past, were hastening to the fort, we were set upon by a lot of savages.

“Neighbor White was shot through the hips, fell from his horse, and was then tomahawked, scalped and mutilated in the most frightful manner, and we all taken prisoners.

"We were hurried rapidly through the woods, both my children having been repeatedly threatened by our captors, because, said they, their flight was impeded. The second day little Eddy began to fret and cry on account of soreness of his feet, and finally fell behind.

“This was the last I ever saw of him. An hour later some of the Indians having joined us again, I beheld — and what a sight to a fond mother!' — and here Mrs. Dorman shuddered at the harrowing memory — "the fresh, bleeding scalp of my dear boy fastened to one of the Indian's girdles. I knew it by its jetty curls, and boldly charged the cruel savage with killing and scalping it ; but he only laughed, crying out, "No, no, only otter skin." But I knew better, and from that moment lost all heart, and was indifferent to my fate.

"Three times did I throw down a heavy kettle which I was forced to carry; closed my eyes and bent my head to receive the invited stroke of the tomahawk, but no use. Each time the kettle was replaced with angry and scolding words.

“At last, I threw it off again and refused to go one step further, when a chief, kinder than the others, said I should not be made to carry the pot and my child, too.

"My husband had all this time been making up with the captors; laughed, ate and drank with them, and was so cheerful and contented and expressed himself so anxious to become an Indian, that we were now treated well enough.

“My husband, for some years, has been much given to drink and low company, and being of a very passionate disposition when in liquor, had made a number of enemies in the fort. It is a most painful and humiliating confession for a poor wife to make; but, indeed, Timothy was once a good, kind, loving man, but lately the drink seems to have so changed and debased him, that he is more cruel and revengeful than an Indian himself, and has thrice led parties against the border settlements.

"Alas, that I, once his loved wife, and the mother of his children, am compelled to confess it; but he is becoming more and more lost to all that is good. The one fatal misstep of betraying his own neighbors seems to have turned all that was good in him to gall.

“He has lost his own self-respect, and seems ashamed to show himself before white people. He is now back in yonder woods conversing with the Indians. I sometimes think, if God will not take me, that I will have to leave him, but then, again, I have hopes that by constant love and tenderness, I may win back the free, hearty and affectionate Tim of my youth — such as he was before he took to the drink.

"We were first taken to the Chillicothe towns, and there remained during the cold weather. Then we journeyed eastward along the Ohio, and fell in with a party of Cherokees from south of that river, who had the two children with whom you saw me.

“They were educated to decoy Ohio boats to the shore, and the poor little innocents seemed perfectly skilled in the use of all the arts to simulate distress. You would be perfectly amazed to see how these little ones would cry, kneel and clap their hands and run along the shore in the most artful manner. Oh, they are smart little things, and deserve a better life.

"It was only a couple of days ago that we fell in with [Simon] Girty's large party, who, marching towards the Ohio to take vengeance for what they call the Moravian massacre, easily arranged for the transfer of the children and ourselves to them.

“The result of their arts you know well, as you and your party were the first victims; but I must tell you that I long resisted every attempt to make me a party in their miserable decoy. The Indians, knowing how much their chances of success depended on having a supposed mother with children, repeatedly ordered me to play traitor. I even refused to obey my husband's commands.

"Finally, one grim, ferocious old Shawnee, made furious by my obstinacy, snatched my babe from my breast, and threatened to brain it against a tree unless I instantly complied. I wept and screamed and implored, but all to no purpose.

Your boat was just then in sight, and while I was running along shore playing the false mother, this brutal Shawnee kept behind me in the woods the whole way, holding my precious babe by one foot ready to dash out its brains at the first sign of failure on my part to do his bidding.

"Why did I not make signs? Oh, I did, I did, but they were not seen, and when I found your boat really coming in, I fainted outright, and had to be carried back out of sight."


excerpt from "Simon Girty : "The white savage"; A romance of the border," by Charles McKnight, JC McCurdy & Co, Philadelphia, 1880 online at http://www.archive.org/stream/simongirtythewhi00mckn/simongirtythewhi00mckn_djvu.txt
McWhorter citation from: www.eg.bucknell.edu/~hyde/jackson/George.html

We post a new episode of Appalachian History weekly podcast every Sunday. You can start listening right away by clicking the podcast icon over on the left side of your screen. If you'd rather grab the show off itunes for later listening, click here.

We open today's show with a look at President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1939 proclamation changing Thanksgiving from the last Thursday in November to the 3rd Thursday in November. FDR's break with tradition was prompted by requests from the National Retail Dry Goods Association to extend the Christmas shopping season by one week. Roosevelt had rejected the association's similar request in 1933 on the grounds that such change might cause confusion. The 1939 proclamation proved him more right than he probably would have liked.

We’ll pause in between things to catch up on a Calendar of Events in the region this week, with special attention paid to events that emphasize heritage and local color.

Albert Hash’s custom built instruments can today be found in the Birthplace of Country Music Museum of Bristol. The legendary fiddler was the founder and leader of the well-known White Top Mountain Band. Our next piece is a compilation of articles by his friend Muncy Gaultney, who wrote the My Ashe County Home column in the Ashe County NC newspaper “The Plow” during the 1960s-1980s.

Breaks Interstate Park, located astride the SW Virginia/eastern Kentucky border along the Russell Fork of the Big Sandy River, is one of only two interstate parks in the nation. Perhaps the scale of the 5-mile-long, .25-mile-deep gorge that forms the park's centerpiece cannot rival that of the Grand Canyon, but the 250 million year old "Grand Canyon of the South" IS the largest gorge east of the Mississippi.

Fall means that the persimmons are getting ripe and it's time to gather the sweet, pulpy fruit. The common persimmon, Diospyros virginiana, is a Native American tree in the southeastern United States. Diospyros is from the Greek, and means "fruit of the gods," and many country people would agree with the meaning. The Algonquin Indians called the fruit "pessamin," or "pasiminian" and are credited with its common name, and the Cherokee Indians are the ones who first introduced persimmon sweet bread to the Europeans.

Never say never! During World War II while the Army, Navy and Civil Aeronautics Agency were constructing airports for the war effort, attempts were made to have the agencies approve a field in Kanawha County, WV. All requests were turned down because of the large amount of grading that would have to be done. 

The county then went ahead and undertook the largest grading project on a commercial airport ever attempted.

We’ll wrap things up with an excerpt from “Memoirs of a Western Historian, by B. Dwaine Madsen, a Mormon missionary in the 20s and 30s. “Everyone in the headquarters seemed to pity me for being sent to such a godforsaken place,” he says. “My own feelings at the time were mingled apprehension and anticipation, because East Tennessee District was considered the 'pits' of the mission. However, I knew that Kirkham was not trying to 'punish' me and chose to regard it instead as a test of my mettle. In retrospect, I'm actively grateful for his decision.” Let’s find out what he learned from his time there.

And, thanks to the good folks at the Digital Archive we'll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music by Ernest Stoneman in a 1928 recording of “On the Banks of the Ohio.”

So, call your old blue-tick hound up on the porch, fire up your corn-cob pipe, and settle in for a dose of Appalachian History.