Appalachian History

The extremes of wealth and poverty do not now exist and have never been existent in Tazewell. There are many comfortably wealthy men in the county; and, perhaps, half a dozen millionaires. But, with a population of 27,840 souls in the county, as shown by the census of 1920, there are only 53 paupers here.

The paupers are of a class that are unable to work on account of the infirmities of age, or other physical causes, and mental deficiency. Fifteen are entirely dependent and are maintained at the county farm, while thirty-eight are partially dependent and receive aid from the public funds.

The county owns a valuable farm, situated one and a half miles east of the county seat, its estimate value being seventy-five thousand dollars. During the fiscal year which ended the 1st of July, 1919, the products of the farm amounted to $4,890; and the live stock on hand at that date was valued at $8,760. The annual expense for conducting the farm and maintaining the paupers is, approximately $6,000.

Friends at Wardell, VA, August 1911.

As long as present conditions continue society here will be contented and prosperous; and, apparently, it will be best for the county to remain, as it always has been, primarily an agricultural community. Adherence to this system will give comfort and security to the energetic worker, and will not furnish asylum to the idler.

God forbid, that Tazewell shall ever have a system with paupers at the base and idle rich at the top of the social scale. May its social system never be like that of modern England, of which Matthew Arnold affirmed: “Our inequality materializes our upper class, vulgarizes our middle class, and brutalizes our lower class.”

Wealth, great wealth, is now collectively possessed by the people of Tazewell. What will they do with it? Under the spell of modern civilization, shall the rising generation be trained to place a negligible value upon the instrumentalities of civilization that were recognized and utilized by the pioneer fathers; and be taught that money, position, power, idleness, and luxury are the prime essentials of an advanced civilization? This is the gravest question the Christian world has to solve.

What part will the people of Tazewell enact in its solution? Shall civilization continue to advance here on definitely true lines, or retrograde into a refined barbarism? Shall we continue to teach but neglect to practice the great social and political truths of Thomas Jefferson, embodied in the Virginia Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence?


History of Tazewell county and southwest Virginia: 1748-1920, by William Cecil Pendleton, W.C. Hall Printing, Richmond VA, 1920

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, class issues, history of appalachia, Tazewell County VA, wealth and poverty

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 the story of siblings Molly and Harry Dotey. They came from one of the richest families in turn of the century Stuebenville, OH. She married a German baron; he idled away days collecting art and nights at the opera in Pittsburgh. She ended up in a WV poorhouse, he in the Massillon Insane Asylum.

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.

Scholars and archaelogists have been duking it out over the authenticity of the Grave Creek Stone since it first surfaced in 1838. Local amateur archaelogists in what was originally called “the Flats of Grave Creek” and is today Moundsville, WV reportedly found the stone during the first recorded excavation of Grave Creek Mound, and the arguments began immediately.

By the time 31 year old Loraine Wyman made her way to Kentucky in 1916, she already had a strong training in, and knowledge of, many of the original English folk songs that Kentucky's early settlers had carried in with them. Wyman, accompanied by Howard Brockway, a composer and arranger, was among the first persons to systematically search for folk songs in the Southern Appalachians.

Next, a letter written by former Chattanooga resident George A. Barrows captures perfectly the gold fever that swept the region and the nation shortly after the yellow nuggets were discovered in Alaska's Yukon. News reached the United States in July 1897 at the height of a significant series of financial recessions and bank failures, and held out hope for adventurers willing to try their luck. In this letter Barrows describes the mishaps that struck when he lit out for the gold fields.

After seeing and hearing the squealing pigs, bawling calves and cows, the preaching, string music, black faced comedians, political speeches, humorous conversations and crying babies, you could not come away without a lasting impression of first Monday, an open air farmer’s market in Scottsboro AL that started up in 1918. Sue Williams, of the WPA Alabama Writer's Project, describes her impressions 20 years into the market’s existence.

We’ll wrap things up with a look at an old African American funerary practice in North Carolina---the creation of memory jugs. It's easy to conclude that memory jugs existed as inexpensive memorials for poor families who couldn’t afford headstones for loved ones. But that explanation too easily overlooks the influence of Africa’s Bakongo culture on slaves brought to America.

And, thanks to the good folks at the Digital Library of Appalachia we'll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music by Walter Ford in a 1991 recording of the traditional mountain tune “Cherokee Shuffle.”

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.

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Here's a memory jug from the collection of Melver Jackson Hendricks (1867-1933) who served in the North Carolina House of Representatives in the early 1920's. Memory jugs made from bottles, urns, bowls and other vessels have been found on graves, particularly in the South, and almost always on African American graves. Often they are decorated with trinkets including seashells, glass shards, jewelry, coins, mirrors or other visual reminders of a loved one.

The memory jug shown here is currently in the North Carolina Museum of History. The museum's information on the provenance of the jug is a bit sketchy. Its creation date is estimated at about 1900, probably because of the gray salt glaze used on it and the specific items attached to it, and the museum assumes it was local to Davie County, where Hendricks lived.

It's easy to conclude that memory jugs existed as inexpensive memorials for poor families who couldn’t afford headstones for loved ones. But that explanation too easily overlooks the influence of Africa’s Bakongo culture on slaves brought to America.

The Bakongo culture believed that the spirit world was turned upside down, and that they were connected to it by water. Therefore, they decorated their graves with water bearing items such as shells, pitchers, jugs or vases, which would help the deceased through the watery world to the afterlife. They also adorned graves with items such as crockery, empty bottles, cooking pots and/or personal belongings of the deceased that he/she may need in the afterlife. Items were placed upside-down, which symbolizes the inverted nature of the spirit world.

Items were also broken to release the loved one's spirit and enable it to make the journey. The fragmented possessions, reconformed in the memory jug, paid homage to and simultaneously appeased the spiritual beings, encouraging them not to interfere with the lives of the living. The container could be placed on a grave or held in the home to contain the unquiet spirit.

A memory jug can be any type of vessel or container that has first been covered with a layer of adhesive, such as putty, cement, or plaster. Then, while the adhesive is still damp, a variety of objects are embedded into the surface, including beads, buttons, coins, glass, hardware, mirrors, pipes, scissors, seashells, tools, toys and watches. The endless variety of adornment causes the surface to take on such importance that the form becomes secondary. Memory jugs are also called forget-me-not jug, memory vessel, mourning jug, spirit jar, ugly jug, whatnot jar, and whimsy jar.

A grass-roots revival of 'Memory Jug Making' swept through Appalachia and the African-American south in the 1950’s and 60’s.

See also Blue Bottle Trees


Sources: www.americanmosaics.org/pdffiles/GL_V1I4_Winter2000.pdf
www.palmettoroots.org/Tombstones.html
http://infosys.murraystate.edu/KWesler/Student/research/South-Price,/Tammy/Paris/Landing/SP/Bradford/Cemetery.pdf

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, Bakongo culture, grave adornments, history of appalachia, memory jug

Loraine Wyman, accompanied by Howard Brockway, a composer and arranger, was among the first persons to systematically search for folk songs in the Southern Appalachians.

The musical adventurers traveled hundreds of miles on horseback and on foot through an inaccessible world to which radios, roads and cars had not yet come. They made friends in isolated log cabins, and transcribed some 200 song treasures, some of which they published in complex arrangements in two books that are now out of print and rare: Lonesome Tunes: Folk Songs from the Kentucky Mountains (1917, New York), and Twenty Kentucky Mountain Songs (1920, Boston).

"In publishing this collection of Folk Songs, we wish it to be primarily an impression of Kentucky music," says Wyman in the preface to Lonesome Tunes, "that is to say, songs reproduced as nearly as possible as we heard them sung by the people, regardless of their extraneous origin or defects. To correct these melodies and to perfect the poetic versions would give them a totally different character. Our main effort has been to give this volume the simplicity and the naivete which is the great quality of these mountain songs."

By the time 31 year old Loraine Wyman made her way to Kentucky, she already had a strong training in, and knowledge of, many of the original English folk songs that Kentucky's early settlers had carried in with them.

Wyman was born in Evanston, IL on October 23, [1885?]. When their parents separated, Loraine and her sister Florence accompanied their mother's move to Paris. There she studied singing with Blanche Marchesi. Wyman spent much of her adolescence in France, and there began her career as a professional singer, studying voice with Yvette Guilbert. She developed an extensive repertoire including classical and romantic lieder and chansons, opera and English and French folk songs.

Around 1910, Wyman moved back to the United States and became a popular recitalist, giving performances in New York, Chicago, Montreal, Cleveland, Newport and many other cities. By 1916 she was eager to expand her repertoire, and Kentucky beckoned. Wyman and Brockway only spent a total of 6 weeks gathering Appalachian songs. But in doing so and publishing and performing the results, they helped the world see the value of preserving these amazing songs, many of which might otherwise be lost to subsequent generations.

Here are the lyrics of "William Hall," a typical song from Lonesome Tunes:

I
As William crossed the briny ocean
And landed safe on the other side,
Says “If Mary’s alive and I can find her
I’ll make her my lawful bride.”
II
As I went walking up Cold Iron,
There my mind was on my girl;
Cool drops of rain fell as it happened
My true love I there did meet.
III
“Good morning to thee pretty fair one
And how would you like to fancy me?”
“O my fancy’s placed on a brisk young farmer
Who has lately crossed the sea.”
IV
“Come describe your sweetheart unto me,
Describe your lover unto me;
Perhaps I’ve seen some sword pass thro’ him
On the ground your love did fall.”
V
“He was both tall, both neat and handsome
And he had pretty blue eyes withal,
O he had black hair and he wore it curly
And his name was William Hall.”
VI
“I saw a French cannon ball shot thro’ him,
Upon the ground your love did fall;
O he had black hair and he wore it curly
And his name was William Hall.”
VII
She wrung her lily white hands saying
“Lord have mercy, what shall I do!”
“O now to prove my story to you,
Here is the ring that I gave you.”

http://www.folkharp.com/product_info.php/cPath/22_56/products_id/755
http://dl.lib.brown.edu/bamco/bamco.php?eadid=mswyman

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, folk song collectors, history of appalachia, Loraine Wyman

It has been a custom for more than twenty years to have trade days in Scottsboro on every first Monday in the month; this is also when Probate Court meets. This custom was started by the business men of the town to stimulate and encourage business and it really has had the desired effect as it is almost impossible to get along the streets, and during noon hour it is extremely hard to enter a restaurant or cafe as they are so crowded.

The crowd starts assembling early in the morning, coming in wagons, cars, riding horses, mules and in most every conceivable manner. People coming from all parts of Jackson County, the adjoining counties and adjoining states, bringing with them anything they wish to exchange. You would find almost anything here on these days that is grown in the country.

On one side of the courthouse square you would find the horses and mules and cattle, along with these you would find hay and straw in large quantities. There is some real horse trading and trafficking going on here. Some men make their living in this manner sometimes starting out with a worthless animal of some kind and by a series of good trades, they come out the winner; on the contrary if you are not a good judge of stock you are likely to get gyped.

Main Street, Scottsboro, AL. The postmark date on the back of this postcard is November 20, 1917.

On another side of the square you find the pigs and hogs and it is not an uncommon sight to see a man meandering across the courtyard with a squealing pig in his arms, or you may see them leading dogs around trying to exchange them, and then you see men carrying old guns of various makes and calibers, hunting a trade of some kind.

There are vendors of all kinds such as fruit, vegetables and home made chairs. In one corner of the court yard you find a crowd gathered to hear a preacher (probably Holiness) preach from a truck bed and again you will find the same preacher in a different part of the yard preaching.

In one corner you find a black faced comedian attracting a crowd for a medicine show. More than likely you would find a few darkies scattered around the town well, which is located on the square, strumming on their banjoes and guitars. You would be sure to find string music and singing of some kind on the street.

If during some political campaign you will be certain to hear some speeches, as all the candidates make it a point to be in Scottsboro on first Monday. The crowd starts breaking and going home about three or four o’clock in the afternoon, as some of them have a long distance to travel and some of them may have a difficult time in getting home some of their newly acquired possessions.

After seeing and hearing the squealing pigs, bawling calves and cows, the preaching, string music, black faced comedians, political speeches, humorous conversations and crying babies, you could not come away without a lasting impression of the first Mondays.


Sue Williams, WPA Project
Bridgeport, AL
Jackson County
Oct 5, 1938
WPA Alabama Writer's Project Collection/Alabama Department of Archives and History

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, farmer markets, First Mondays, history of appalachia, Scottsboro AL

Here's a letter written by one George A. Barrows to a Lewis ______ (perhaps Coleman) in Seattle, Washington, dated June 16, 1901. It's from the James B. Frazier Papers Collection in the University of Tennessee Special Collections Library. James Beriah Frazier (1856-1937) was admitted to the Tennessee bar in 1881, and began his practice in Chattanooga. This partially explains the presence of this letter in Frazier's possession: Barrows (1863-1909) got his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1885, and during the next three years practiced law in Chattanooga. So they traveled in the same circles, and clearly were friends.

"[Barrows] was also largely interested in real estate matters in that city," says his obituary, "but with the decline in prices in 1888 disaster overtook him and many others, and he returned to Philadelphia."

Frazier & Barrows must have remained in contact after Barrows left Chattanooga in order for this letter to find its way back to Frazier after Barrows died. But we don't know the identity of 'Lewis,' the letter's recipient, and his connection to the other two men.

Why is this letter relevant to Appalachian history? It captures perfectly the gold fever that swept the region and the nation shortly after the yellow nuggets were discovered in Alaska's Yukon. News reached the United States in July 1897 at the height of a significant series of financial recessions and bank failures, and held out hope for adventurers willing to try their luck.

Barrows first lit out for the gold fields in May, 1899 with a government expedition, under Captain E. F. Glenn, to Cook Inlet, Alaska. By that point in his life he'd left the law, gone back to school and become a doctor. The following November he sailed for Nome as a surgeon on the Laurada. The ship sprang a leak in Bering Sea and went to pieces on St. George Island, but everyone on board was rescued.

-----

Dear Lewis: Many thanks for your long and very interesting letter. I am very glad the news personal to yourself is so good. A man of family, of position and of aldermanic proportions, you are certainly in luck. May all sorts of good fortune continue.

Klondike prospectors, no date.

I hardly know how to start to tell you of my very eventful career during the last few years. I have not time now to write a book, so will send you my diaries of '98 and '99 wherein you will see among other things how I was twice wrecked at sea, on one occasion being cast away on an island in Behring [sic] Sea.

As soon as I stopped keeping a diary I stopped getting ship wrecked. Last summer I was Ship Surgeon on a large Steamship--the "Oregon"--running between Seattle and Cape Nome. A great deal happened then but I have no record of it and it would take too long to tell.

Since last Fall I have been teaching Obstetrics and Diagnosis of diseases in an Institute here; but this job is now over - for the summer vacation - and we are "up against it" again almost as badly as when we struck Seattle. I hoped to get the "Oregon" again this summer - but a doctor who is a great friend of the owner has thus far euchered [sic] me out of it.

You see I am as far off as ever from my "Four Million," although the experience I have had may sometime help me to get it. I know Alaska pretty well and how they work the ropes there, very well. The country is full of gold and if we are ever so fixed that we could get there - with the means to stay a year or two - I believe the "Four" would be on the way.

One must winter there in order to get a chance at new diggings before news of them reaches the States. Before the rush of people to Nome got there every valuable claim had been taken up by men who had wintered up the Yukon.

The Laurada in 1896, courtesy of Illustrated American Magazine.

People who are not Capitalists who go in for the summer, invariably, are sorry -- others too, for that matter, who lack necessary knowledge and judgment. This is a great country out here. You ought to take a long vacation sometime and come out and see what God’s country really is like. Magnificent scenery and climate, living cheap, things civilized and a bracing move and get-up to affairs that would make the effete East hold its breath. Let me hear from you soon. No hurry about returning the diaries.

Your sincere friend Geo. A. Barrows. 16 June 1901.


Sources: James B. Frazier Papers / University of Tennessee Special Collections Library at http://idserver.utk.edu/?id=200800000003486

OBITUARY RECORD OF GRADUATES OF YALE UNIVERSITY DECEASED FROM JUNE, 1910, TO JULY, 1915, No. i of the Sixth Printed Series, and No. 70 of the whole Record at www.archive.org/stream/1910t15obituary00yaleuoft/1910t15obituary00yaleuoft_djvu.txt

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, Chattanooga TN, George A. Barrows, gold mining, history of appalachia, James B. Frazier

The Calvin B. Doteys, a wealthy and greatly respected family, had a very fine old home with spacious grounds on South Third Street. Old Mr. Dotey made his fortune in, and was president of, the Jefferson Iron Works in the lower end of town. He had a daughter Molly, who became the one and only titled person in Steubenville. Long before I was born, it was said a German, Baron Lagerfelt, came to town and married Molly. Only a few months later he left his bride and skipped to parts unknown, taking with him most of his wife’s fortune. He never returned, and so far as I know, all the Doteys, probably Baroness Lagerfelt included, felt it was good riddance.

Another child of the Calvin B. Dotey family was Harry. He wore his hair long, played the piano and pipe organ, and never worked a day in his life. He left the Episcopal Church and became a devout Roman Catholic. Among his many eccentricities was his adoption of the name Harry Linwood Marie Dotey y Carr. He wore gaudy scarves and ascot ties, pink shirts, flashy suits, and always carried bright yellow gloves. A large Catholic medal on a heavy silver chain hung ostentatiously from his neck. With very large jeweled rings on both fingers and thumbs and heavy bracelets with lockets, he attracted attention wherever he went.

It can well be imagined what a stir such a person created in a small sleepy town over sixty years ago. He loved to ride for hours on the old streetcars engrossed in reading books and magazines. A great student of art and an accomplished musician, when grand opera came to Pittsburgh, Harry Dotey always bought two seats and appeared at every performance. He placed his hat, gloves, coat and cane on the adjoining seat. Music lovers in the city of Pittsburgh wondered who the strange man was sitting alone on the aisle.

Both he and his sister, the Baroness, did a tremendous job at squandering the money which their father had worked so hard to accumulate. The walls of the old house on South Third Street were hung with rare paintings, and the home was filled with priceless objets d’art. Most of these treasures were bought from the Wunderly Brothers of Pittsburgh, who for generations have owned an epecially fine art store. One of the Wunderly Brothers told me years ago that Harry Dotey’s knowledge of art was amazing. He bought extravagantly and was notorious for never paying his bills. About the time the Wunderlys felt forced to bring suit against him, he would come into the store and pay a long outstanding bill. But, according to Mr. Wunderly, when he left the Gallery he invariably had bought additional treasures, and owed the Wunderlys an even larger amount than when he came in.

At Christmas Harry and the Baroness sent the most elaborate and expensive presents to all their friends, including my father and mother. They were always beautifully wrapped and tied with wide satin ribbon in tremendous bows. For many years a framed picture of a nude was turned to the wall on the floor of our bedroom closet. Harry and the Baroness had given it to my father and mother, but my parents immediately relegated it to the darkness.

Unfortunately, old Mr. Dotey made my father guardian of his two spendthrift and eccentric children. Father had a terrible time with them. Harry could have made a little money by playing the church organ for pay, but he pretended righteous indignation when any such degrading suggestion was made to him. The Baroness finally died, and poor Harry lived on for several years in the Massillon Insane Asylum, which while he wasn’t actually insane, seemed a more suitable place for him to end his days than in the Jefferson County Poorhouse.

When Baroness Lagerfelt signed herself in to the poorhouse, it made national news. Here’s a June 17, 1909 writeup from the New Orleans newspaper L’Abeille de la Nouvelle-Orleans.

Father, who was the epitome of generosity, preached economy to us incessantly, and frequently held Harry Dotey and his sister, Baroness Lagerfelt, up to us as horrible examples of what happens to people who spend more than they should. The Dotey family’s going from riches to rags and the Poorhouse was a shocking example. Father told us that when the old Dotey home was dismantled, the third floor was filled with the most expensive and beautiful toys which Mr. and Mrs. Dotey had bought for Harry and Molly when they were children. This great store of playthings, any one of which would have made some child happy, was allowed to accumulate dust over the years. The old colored man who spent his life working for the Dotey family had many children of his own, but in the end Harry Dotey stood adamant over him and watched closely to see that every sacred article which he had enjoyed in his childhood was burned, so that no lesser child could defame it.


Father and his Town A Story of Life at the Turn of the Century in a Small Ohio River Town, by Wilma Sinclair LeVan Baker, Three Rivers Press, 1961

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, Calvin B. Dotey, history of appalachia, Steubenville OH, the poorhouse

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 guest post from bloggers Roger and June Lowe, a writing/photography team in Bluff City, TN. Appalachian history can be found in the oddest places and attached to the strangest things, they tell us. A cookbook, for example, can dish up a nice serving of history in addition to recipes. Especially a book published in 1890 and passed down from mother to daughter through the years.

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.

In our next piece, Georgia storyteller Chuck Larkin will try and bend your ear with a shaggy dog story about his Uncle John and Aunt Irene in the Georgia mountains. Seems their place was hot enough one August day to actually melt a hog. “I know you may not believe this but I do not have any reason to lie to you,” winks Larkin. “Oh I might tell you something seven or eight different ways but I wouldn’t lie.”

In August 1931, Jean Thomas found herself invited to the Governor's mansion in Frankfort, KY to discuss the creation of an American Folk Song Society and an annual festival open to the public. How did Thomas get to this point, and why did she call herself the “Traipsin’ Woman?”

Visitors love Chained Rock at Pine Mountain, Kentucky's first state park, established in 1924. But why is there a chain around it? 
Some children of Pineville, goes the story, were having troubles sleeping at night because they were afraid that the large rocks that loomed over Pineville on Pine Mountain would break free, come tumbling down the mountain, and smash into Pineville. Some of the town fathers decided it would be a great publicity stunt to draw tourists if they could bring this folklore to life.

Farm life is never as bucolic as non-farmers imagine. Waucella Gregory of Rocky Gap, VA was milking a cow one morning, when the cow got overly protective of its nearby calf. It kicked Waucella in the face, and then broke her leg. She managed to drag herself out of the barn and across a fence to safety, but still nearly died in the field because no one heard her calls for a long time.

We’ll wrap things up with a selection from a 1901 novel titled “Winning or Losing; a story of the West Virginia hills.” While waiting together under an awning for the rain to let up, two friends get to ribbing one another about the relative merits of each one’s town. Naturally they both have terrible things to say about where the other lives.

And, thanks to the good folks at the Digital Archive. we'll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music by Gerry Dempsey, Ian Jacks and Tom Joad in a 2004 recording of the traditional mountain tune “St. Anne’s Reel.”

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.

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Well, a cow had a little calf and I was going to milk them. Had her in the barn. I went to put her in with the calf to let it eat and I was going to finish milking. But when I went to put her out, the calf got out and I went to put it back in and couldn't get it back in so I turned around to fasten the gate of a thing to keep her out of the stall and when I turned around I guess she butted me, I don't know. All I remember is turning around.

Next thing I know I was sitting down. My leg was sticking out. She had already hit me in the face. So she was going to come at me again, knowed I couldn't get up. And the big old doors to the shed had two buttons on it, one at the top and one across. I looked up at those buttons and said, "Oh Lord, help me...." The old cow come at me and them doors flew open as pretty just as you please. No one could open them as pretty as they flew open.

She (an angel) got me on to the outside and old dog heard me holler and he come up there and got her off me and I scooted a long ways. I sit down and scooted a long ways and I climbed up on a rail fence. I looked back and saw both cows and I thought she was going to come after me so I climbed up a rail fence. I don't know how in the world I got up there, but I got up on it.

And I could see our neighbor across the creek, so I hollered and hollered. Pete and Mary was down at the house, they were just little. Charlie Gregory had gone somewhere to walk up the road to feed and I hollered and hollered, no one come. Sat there awhile and saw one of the neighbors that lived on up the road, come through the gate, the yard gate and I hollered. He looked up and saw me and he'd come up there and got me and carried me to the house. They had to call an ambulance to take me to the hospital. Pete and Mary stayed with John and Pauline Gregory. I had to have three or four operations before I could walk.


Waucella Coburn Gregory (b. 1920)
raised down Wolf Creek below Rocky Gap, VA


Source: http://63.160.254.53/wgregory.html
The Bland County History Archives



appalachian+history Waucella+Coburn+Gregory farm+accidents appalachia +Bland+County+VA history+of+appalachia

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, Bland County VA, farm accidents, history of appalachia, Waucella Coburn Gregory

The August morning was overcast and a drizzly rain was falling. The few men around the courthouse door drew underneath the porch. The group was made up of three or four townspeople and a half dozen male teachers. The acquaintance existing among the latter was limited, or else they did not feel in a chatty mood. At all events they stood idly by, holding their hands in their pockets. One of them was glancing over the legal notices posted on either side of the entrance. Now and then a later arrival would pass over the diagonal path, generally exchanging salutations with members of the group.

On the stone facing of the porch stood Dr. Pellam, his hands in his pockets and a broad smile resting on his features. A short, stout man was approaching him.

"Hello, Doc," he exclaimed. "I see that Irish grin on your face. How are you, anyway?"

"Fine as silk, Tolby."

"The same crackerjack?"

"The same one. And have you come over from Terra Alta to look for trouble?"

"Trouble? How can a man get into trouble in this dry old town?"

"Just cut loose and try 'er on. We'll lay you out every whipstitch. The lockup is on this street and we keep it ready for such heathen as you."

"How big some people can talk," replied Tolby. "What in the mischief would you fellows do if it wasn't for court and one or two other affairs that come around about once every fly time? We let you have the institute this year just to keep you from getting totally discouraged. You have the dullest old shell of a town one can find in a month's drive. You can't even hear a railroad whistle except when the wind is favoring. Where would you come out at, if we fellows from the other side of the river didn't come over here and trim you up once in a while?"

"Now you remember our bargain," said the doctor, "I was to shave off my mustache if you would quit telling yarns for three months."

"Have to tell yarns over here to keep from feeling dead."

"Pshaw, you can't see straight. No stale, musty, second-hand jokes from you Terra Alta fellows. Suppose I would live in that one-horse town of yours, all chugged in among the hills? Just to see a few plow joggers jolt in over your bumpy roads and have to windlass themselves up to get from one street into the next? And when you see half a dozen old broken-down wagons blocking your street, you say business is lively. Why, the snowdrifts lay on your hills over there till the middle of June.

"Well, the rain's let up."


---excerpt from WINNING OR LOSING? A Story of the West Virginia Hills, by Oren F. Morton, Sincell Printing Company, Oakland, MD, 1901

text at www.archive.org/stream/winningorlosings00mort/winningorlosings00mort_djvu.txt



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Visitors love Chained Rock at Pine Mountain, Kentucky's first state park, established in 1924. But why is there a chain around it?

Some children of Pineville, goes the story, were having troubles sleeping at night because they were afraid that the large rocks that loomed over Pineville on Pine Mountain would break free, come tumbling down the mountain, and smash into Pineville.

Well, the parents of these children invented the story that the rocks were chained to the mountain so the children wouldn't worry and would go to sleep. Before long the story of the chained rock spread to neighboring communities, and people started showing up in town inquiring about the whereabouts of the chained rock.

In 1933 50 local citizens, plus members of the CCC, the Kiwanians, and the Boy Scouts, assembled the “Chained Rock Club” with the express purpose of turning folklore into a reality, a publicity stunt they hoped would generate added tourist revenue for the park and town.

On June 24, the club obtained an obsolete steam shovel from a Virginia quarry. The machine’s chain weighed 2,500-3,000 lbs. It had to be cut in half before a four-mule team could pull each portion up the mountain in two trips.

When the mules gave out, the Chained Rock Club’s 50 members carried the chains the rest of the way. Atop the mountain, the crew welded the chain back together, and stretched it 101 feet across the abyss. It is anchored at each end with steel pegs 1-1/2 x 24 inches, sunk into holes star drilled by hand.

The publicity stunt was a smashing success; over 6,000 daily newspapers reported the accomplishment of the "Chained Rock Club."

Today the visitor driving through Pineville who looks up at the big rock, 200 feet long and 75 feet wide, can see the chain which "protects the city." A hiking trail within Pine Mountain State Resort Park leads to Chain Rock, which affords a magnificent view of Pineville and the surrounding area.


sources: www.bellcountypubliclibraries.org/pvlhis.html
www.blueridgecountry.com/travel/ky-travel-guide.html



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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, Chained Rock, history of appalachia, Pine Mountain KY, Pineville KY

The first time I ever visited Georgia was in Habersham County. Uncle John and Aunt Irene had a ridge farm in the Georgia mountains. You may never have seen a ridge farm or if you did you may not have realized how they farm the ridges. You can’t use a tractor. It would roll over on you the first time you tried to turn a row. Folks use mules for the ploughing, planting, weeding and harvesting.

Not my Uncle John, he was a gentleman farmer. He raised razorback hogs, a mountain species of the wild piney wood rooters. The mountain variety have long back legs and long ear lobes with holes in the bottom of the ear lobes. The first time I saw one I thought they wore ear bobs in their ear holes. They are ugly. Their heads look like their necks had barfed. One fell into the pond up in front of the farm house. They had that 550-pound hog out of the water in about five minutes. Aunt Irene told me they had to scum ugly off that pond for a year.

My Uncle John raised that species of mountain, razorback hogs, because of the long back legs. The hogs could root right up the side of a ridge turn around, tuck them long back legs into their ear holes and slide right back down the root path. Then they would turn right around and root their way back up the ridge.

When it was time to plant, Uncle John tied little disks on the hogs’ tails. Disks look like Frisbees and they break up clods of fresh turned dirt. Uncle John would throw table scraps out over the ridge and at dusk turn the hogs loose. By morning the hogs would have rooted and disked the whole side of the ridge. Uncle John would sit on his rocking chair on his back porch with a bag of seed grain and his sling shot and plant the side of the ridge.

When the harvest was ready all he had to do was hit the side of the ridge with a two-by-four piece of wood, wham bam! All the vegetables would roll down off the ridge to the catch fence. I mean that does make farming a whole lot easier.

Uncle John never had to worry about drought and lack of rain like other farmers did. Across the top of the ridge he would always plant three rows of onions and potatoes mixed together. He surely was a smart farmer to have worked this out. You see if you mix the onions and potatoes together at the top of the ridge the onions would make the tater eyes weep and keep the whole side of the ridge irrigated.

The only mistake Uncle John ever made was the summer he planted some of those hot, hot, hot Mexican jalapeno peppers along the catch fence. When those fiery, hot peppers got ripe, they put off an incredible amount of seething heat that just rolled up the side of the ridge. Well that summer, so happened to be a summer so hot that I’ve watched stumps in the pasture tear themselves out of the ground and on their roots crawl underneath the trees to cool off. I have even seen the shade in the middle of the day creep under the trees to cool off. Hot and Dry!

We had the Health Department out to spray the fish in the cat fish pond for ticks. The fish would come out of the pond around noon each day and swim around in the dust to keep away from the boiling water.

Well to make a long story short let me tell you what happened. I know you may not believe this but I do not have any reason to lie to you. Oh I might tell you something seven or eight different ways but I wouldn’t lie. On the hottest day you could imagine coupled with the scorching heat waves coming off those Jalapeno peppers and rolling up the ridge a 465 pound hog got into the middle of the ridge field and flat out melted! That’s a fact. Though I admit some might tend to argue but I was there and I seen it for myself.


Chuck Larkin (1931-2003), self-proclaimed bluegrass storyteller, folk singer, humorist and speaker, was a featured teller at The National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN and was a charter member of the Southern Order of Storytellers.


source: http://chucklarkin.com/stories/Short_Tales.pdf



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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, Chuck Larkin, Habersham County GA, history of appalachia, tall tales

Please welcome guest bloggers Roger and June Lowe, a writing/photography team in Bluff City, TN. They travel the highways and byways of the Appalachians searching for descriptive words and photos. Their work appears in several outdoor publications, and at Appalachian Outdoor Recreation Examiner.

In addition to recipes, a cookbook can dish up a nice serving of history. Especially a book published in 1890 and passed down from mother to daughter (and in some cases, grandmother to granddaughter) through the years. Appalachian history can be found in the oddest places and attached to the strangest things.

“My daughter is the fifth owner of this book,” Granny Laura said, tapping the antique book with a finger. “I remember her grandmother getting it out occasionally to look up something. It was starting to fall apart even then and she wouldn’t let anyone hold it. I can’t remember a time while she was alive that I had this book in my hands.”

The book can only be described as deteriorating rapidly. The cover (front and back), along with the first 22 pages and who knows how many back pages, were missing. The leaves, yellowed and brittle, were pulling free from the fragile sewn binding.

“These old cookbooks were way more than just a collection of cooking recipes,” Granny continued. “A book would offer recipes for cooking. Then you’d find a section of hints and tips for many health issues including invalid cooking. The toilet and bath was covered with details for taking care of the skin, hair, and other various parts. And a book always had a section of housekeeping suggestions and tips.”

Leafing carefully through the brittle pages uncovers a wealth of knowledge about how we lived ‘way back then’. For example, details on preparing wild game are presented. Want to know how to prepare Frog on Toast or Squab Pie? Recipes can be found on page 59.

Worried about graying hair? Page 523 in the Toilet section describes one way to cover the gray. The recipe calls for an infusion of butternut (walnut) hulls and daily dampening of the hair with strong cold tea or coffee. Today’s HBA section in the local retail store is much more convenient.

The title of the book “Three Meals a Day” is printed at the top of every left page. Researching the title revealed additional information (along with photos that ascertain this is the same book). “Three Meals a Day” by Maud C. Cooke, copyright 1890, printed in Chicago by ACME Publishing House was sold by subscription only.

Is it a history book? Not by any stretch of the imagination, but insights about the socio-economic standards of the time can be found throughout the book. Old cookbooks—interesting reading.



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Labels: appalachia, appalachian foods, appalachian history, cookbooks, history of appalachia, home making

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 breathless closeup report of events in New Martinsville WV during one August week in 1925. Glamorous screen star Gloria Swanson had swooped in with her entourage from New York to film “Stage Struck,” about a small town waitress who gets her big break on the local showboat. It was a box office disaster. "About the only people who made any money out of Stage Struck," moaned the show’s producer afterwards, “was the guy in New Martinsville who owned the hotel and the showboat."

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.

The Battle of Blair Mountain, in which 10,000 WV miners marched to demand their rights as workers, ended in 1921. The battle to preserve Blair Mountain’s listing on the National Register of Historic Places is just heating up. Modern day strip mining interests would just as soon have at the coal that the mountain still holds. C. Belmont Keeney, great grandson of Frank Keeney, one of the march’s three organizers, weighs in with his view of the current situation.

In our next piece, an anonymous author for the Bulletin of the Virginia Department of Agriculture speaks to farm mothers on best methods for dealing with over-wrought, nervous children at bedtime. The article is from July 1921 but many of the techniques are ones you might very well have used just last evening!

Ben Robertson, a journalist in Pickens County, SC in the early 20th century, was a keen observer of human foibles. In this excerpt from his memoir, “Red Hills and Cotton,” a cousin of his faces off with a hard headed pig, which in turn leads Robertson to stop and consider the larger fate of his circle of family and friends.

Reverend John J. Dickey, a traveling Methodist minister who roamed southeastern Kentucky in the late 1800's, came across his share of unexpected surprises in his wanderings. In this diary entry from 1898 he seeks out Harrison Napier, a merchant living two miles above the mouth of Wooton's Creek near Hyden. Napier apparently holds the power to hire a teacher for the local school. Rev. Dickey is not at all pleased that this 44 year old man has just married a 14 year old girl.

We’ll wrap things up with a pitch letter to join the KKK, in which North Carolina’s Grand Dragon claims the group is seeking to recruit men who are “thoroughly American, Protestant to the core, a law abider and lover of our Constitution, and one who has had the welfare of our country close to your heart.” No mention of burning crosses.

And, thanks to the good folks at the Digital Library of Appalachia we'll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music by Danielle Fraley in a 1973 recording of the dulcimer classic “Forked Deer.”

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.

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Forest City, N.C.
August 15, 1928.

Dear Friends,

You have been vouched for as a man who is thoroughly American, Protestant to the core, a law abider and lover of our Constitution, and one who has had the welfare of our country close to your heart. As such you are invited to attend a Lecture on “Americanism” by Dr. W. Earl Hotalen, a Lecturer of National reputation, at

8:00 P.M., TUESDAY NIGHT, AUGUST 21ST, IN THE HALL ON THE THIRD FLOOR OVER RECTOR’S CAFÉ, 7-1/2 W. PACK SQUARE, ASHEVILLE, N.C.

Dr. Hotalen will appear in Asheville under the auspices of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. If your only source of information regarding the Klan has been obtained through the Newspapers, many of which are unfriendly to us due to lack of information regarding our Organization, then you have no doubt a biased opinion toward the Klan and the principles it espouses.

Now, just be fair and come out and hear our side. Dr. Hotalen will have some facts and statistics to present that will astound you.

If you wish, bring a good Protestant friend whom you can vouch for. You will be under no obligation in attending this meeting.

Yours very truly,
Amos C. Duncan
Grand Dragon
Realm of North Carolina
Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Inc.



Ku Klux Klan pitch letter sent to Edgar M. Lyda (1873-1956), who was Chairman of the Buncombe County Commissioners and Finance at the time he received it.


source: http://toto.lib.unca.edu/findingaids/mss/lyda/series_lyda/folder_03_1927_1928.htm



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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, Asheville NC, Edgar M. Lyda, history of appalachia, Klu Klux Klan

May 31, 1898

Yesterday morning, Monday, I left Hyden to come to this neighborhood to see about getting permission to furnish a teacher for this school district. There are 109 scholars in the census. I want to put a Wilmore teacher here, full of the Holy Ghost, to get the people saved.

Storefronts in Hyden, KY, 1928. The Filson Historical Society collection.

As I passed near the school house there were 10 or 12 men sitting at the roadside on blankets or coats, playing cards. There were two games going on. I stopped and warned them mildly; they never stopped playing or made any reply.

I went to see Harrison Napier, a trustee, a merchant living two miles above the mouth of Wooton's Creek. He is 44 years old or nearly so, and five weeks ago married a girl not quite 14 years of age. He has grandchildren, several children at home. She came to the store, looked as she is, a little girl, with short dress on, very childlike in her manner and appearance.

Mr. Napier told her to go back to the house as that was the place for the children. He is a very bright man, is considered the best salesman in the county.

He said that he would employ any teacher that the district wanted, but I am told he has a man whom he wants to put in.

He gave me no encouragement, was not disposed to talk about the matter. He is very impure and his impurity led him to kill a man whose wife's affections he had alienated, a man named Bailey.

Hiram Napier or Harrison Napier, collection of Pamela Walker Robinson, New Albany,IN

His excuse for marrying a child was that he knew that she was pure and being a child she and his children would get along pleasantly together. This is a hard community though there are some good citizens in it. There is a lawless element; two stills were cut up a few days ago.

June 1, 1898

I visited the county jail, and held services twice. Monday morning last, I went to Wooton's Creek again to see further about the school at that place. During my stay, Emanuel Wooton received an appointment to raise a company for the Cuban War from the governor. He got it the 27th and the 31st; he led 46 men. Then young men in the county were enlisting very fast. Some married men were volunteering also.

The creeks are full of timber. They have had no tides yet in Leslie County, and very little in Clay. In the two counties there are 80, 000 logs ready for market, worth $240,000 or at least $200,000. The young corn is very vigorous in the bottoms and on the hillsides men, women and children are cultivating it. I hardly past a field that did not have women in it, where work was being done. The people have an abundance of corn this year. This staple is worth little more than last year, and there are thousands of bushels in this county, and plenty in Leslie County to do the people.

The people are strong in intellect considering their lack of culture. The children are both handsome and bright. The young people make a much more attractive appearance than in former years. They have more money, more knowledge of what other parts of the world are doing, and have a greater desire to keep up with the customs and fashions of the world.

From the Diaries of Reverend John J. Dickey, a traveling Methodist minister who roamed southeastern Kentucky in the late 1800's


sources: www.globalgraffiti.com/family/sizemore/dickey.htm
http://files.usgwarchives.org/ky/bell/bios/napier310gbs.txt



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One of our cousins had a fight once with a fertilizer spreader, with an inanimate machine. He was pouring fertilizer into cotton rows with this spreader, a brand new expensive labor saving device, and he could not get it to spread the proper amount. It dropped too much, it dropped too little. He worked for two hours on the adjustments; then in a sudden tempestuous frenzy of temper he picked up a rock and beat the thing to bits. Throwing the broken pieces over the pasture fence, he yelled: "You dirty low-down evil contraption, stay there!" and going to the barn, he got out the old cow horn and from then on spread fertilizer as his father and grandfather had spread it.

This same cousin also had a row with a pig. This pig refused to eat when he came down to feed it. It pawed the ground and ran to the other side of the sty. "All right, said our cousin, "you either get some manners and eat when I feed you or you’ll perish to death."

He came to the sty the second day with a bucket full of buttermilk mash, and again the pig pawed and ran away. On the third day he said to the pig: "All right, damn you, you can just perish." On the fourth day, however, the pig ate ravenously as soon as my cousin put the bucket down, and from then on my cousin and this pig understood each other.

We slopped the pigs; we spread fertilizer and mixed fertilizer; and about us were the cotton fields and the fine blue hills, and on the walls of our houses were shotguns.

We drove into town to swap butter and eggs for coffee and sugar and black pepper; we swapped smoked hams for tobacco and cloth. We wasted opportunity, we wasted chance, but we held on to an attitude of living that some people had lost who did not waste opportunity and chance. We weighed and balanced many intangible things. We made up our minds about how we wanted things and where we wanted them.

I remember once my Uncle Wade saying to us he had decided when he was twenty-one years of age that he didn't choose to live more than two days’ drive from the Southern Railroad – he didn't intend to live any farther south than Greenwood nor any farther north than Pickens.

And I remember a great-uncle who started off to Texas and then returned, saying he found out in Mississippi that old Mr. No Account was moving right along with him, and he decided if old No Account had to hang on to him, he had rather deal with the scoundrel in South Carolina than 'way out in Texas. We talked about great rains and great winds and great droughts --- about all kinds of wonders. Once I remember Mary telling us she had seen an infidel. He was a Georgian, a fine-looking man, and he did not believe in God. Mary said to us Georgia was a wild place ---preachers drank whisky in Georgia.

We discussed ultimate destinies --- the asylum, the poorhouse, the graveyard, the jail. We considered chance and the power of faith over chance, and how strange and hidden was chance. We were caught by it like fish in nets and like birds snared in traps. And the race in our valley no more went to the swift than it had in Ecclesiastes, nor did the battle go to the strong, nor did riches come to men of understanding. When our time would arrive, it would arrive.


---Red Hills and Cotton, an Upcountry Memory, by Ben Robertson, University of South Carolina Press, 1943



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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, Ben Robertson, farm chores, history of appalachia, Pickens County SC, Red Hills and Cotton

The following article was originally written for the Preservation Alliance of West Virginia under the title "Still Fighting the Battle of Blair Mountain," by C. Belmont Keeney. Keeney reprinted the article on his blog, The Appalachian Scholar, on 7/31/09. "I'm an author, historian, musician, professor, and mountaineer," he says. "I have published two books, To Live Again, a classical myth set in contemporary Appalachia, and Defending the Homeland, a collection of essays on radicalism and national security."


On August 7, 1921, just one week after Sid Hatfield had been murdered on the steps of the McDowell County Courthouse, Frank Keeney, the president of the UMWA District 17, gave a stirring speech to thousands of miners on the capitol grounds in Charleston. He told the crowd that there was no justice in West Virginia and declared, “The only way you can get your rights is with a high powered rifle!” He then told the miners to go home and await the call to march.

And march they did. Over 10,000 miners carved a path of rebellion from Charleston to the doorstep of Logan County. We all know what happened next. Mine guards and miners fought it out until federal troops intervened. Over 500 “rednecks” were charged with treason, murder, and conspiracy to commit murder. The state used coal company lawyers in the prosecution, and our own governor testified against the miners. Among those charged, of course, were the leaders of the movement: Frank Keeney, Fred Mooney, and Bill Blizzard.

Author C. Belmont Keeney

Frank Keeney was my great-grandfather. I learned about the Mine Wars and the Battle of Blair Mountain at family cookouts and around my grandparents’ fireplace. My family has a long history in these mountains—I was proudly told. The Keeneys settled in the Greenbrier Valley in 1751 and even have a few rapids on the New River bearing the family name. However, in the decades after Blair Mountain, you did not want to walk into Charleston with the last name Keeney. The name meant treason.

For many years, restaurants refused to serve Frank Keeney, but in the working class pubs he never had to buy a drink. Unfortunately, I never learned about any of this in school. In fact, my eighth grade West Virginia history teacher had never even heard of Frank Keeney. But, naturally, she had no trouble naming all of the counties in alphabetical order. As a teenager, I was left to wonder if anybody remembered or even cared what had happened in the coal fields of southern West Virginia.

Thankfully, with the inclusion of Blair Mountain on the National Register of Historic Places, we have another means of remembering and we know that some people care. Remembrance without action is pointless. We are indebted to those who have worked to preserve this historic landmark and save Blair Mountain from becoming another casualty of a coal operator’s greed. To strip mine Blair Mountain is to strip us of our own history, and this cannot be allowed.

Blair Mountain reminds us of who we are as West Virginians. I believe Frank Keeney summed it up well when he said, “I am a native West Virginian and there are others like me in the mines here. We don’t propose to get out of the way when a lot of capitalists from New York and London come down and tell us to get off the earth. They played that game on the American Indian. They gave him the end of a log to sit on and then pushed him off that. We don't propose to be pushed off." Blair Mountain reminds us of a time when West Virginians refused to be pushed off the log.

Blair Mountain also reminds us that the fight is not over. In a speech to a crowd of striking miners, Keeney reassured them that the cause for which they suffered was not in vain. “One day there will be no more tent colonies, no more gunmen, because right now you people are going through what you are.” He was right. Today, there are no more tent colonies, and the mine guards are now found only in books or pieces of fiction.

But the absence of these things does not signify that the conflict over coal, people, and history in West Virginia has ended. As recent events clearly demonstrate, there are some who would have us forget Blair Mountain. There are those who are fighting to have it taken off the National Register so that the mountain can be open for strip mining. They must be reminded that we will still not be pushed off the log.

A friend of mine once asked me in a joking manner, “You think if Frank Keeney were alive today that he’d have a Friends of Coal bumper sticker?” I responded that Frank Keeney was no Friend of Coal, but he was a friend of coal miners. There is a big difference. If we are to be friends of the miners who stormed Blair Mountain so many years ago, we must keep it on the National Register of Historic Places. If we give up on this fight, then we give up on the ideals of the Redneck Army of 1921. If Frank Keeney were alive today, I believe he would still be fighting.


References

C. Belmont Keeney, “Rank and File Rednecks: Radicalism and Union Leadership in the West Virginia Mine Wars,” Defending the Homeland: Historical Perspectives on Radicalism, Terrorism, and State Responses, Melinda M. Hicks and C. Belmont Keeney, eds. (Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2007): 20-43.

C. Belmont Keeney, “A Republican for Labor: T. C. Townsend and the West Virginia Labor Movement, 1921-1932,” West Virginia History, Volume 60, 2004-2006: 1-23.



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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, Battle of Blair Mountain, history of appalachia

Bulletin of the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Immigration,
published in Richmond, distributed statewide
July 1921, Bulletin No. 166, p. 74

“Have you studied this subject seriously—the nervous child?”

Should there be one rigid rule for the training of all children? I am convinced that there should not. And if there is one exception it is for the over-sensitive, over-nervous child about being put to bed.

The average country child gets too little sleep. This is partly due to living in few rooms, to busy mothers and to lack of understanding of what sleep means to children. The very nervous child should have even more sleep than the average child, but it is not always easy to get her to sleep.

In the first place, she resists going to sleep with every fiber of her being and this makes people think her cross. The more she resists the more nervous she becomes until she is in a perfect quiver. To whip her then, the natural impulse of worried adults, is to give her a shock from which she might never be quite the same again.

The over-wrought child requires the quiet methods of one who has herself under control. This is easier said than done, I grant you, but who will say that a little child’s welfare is not worth any effort of self-control? Not you and not I. When she screams take her in your arms gently and smilingly; keep a soft old blanket around her, particularly around her feet and rock her slightly, singing a low tune as soon as she quiets a little.

“But you object to rocking a child to sleep,” some one will say. The well, sturdy child, yes, but there is something about the movement of rocking that will often tempt the sick, overwrought child to slumber.

Regularity is one of the important factors in training a nervous baby to go to sleep easily. Have her bed comfortable, with sheets and all-wool covers. Quilts are heavy and overburden her.

Then lie down beside her every night and tell her stories, not exciting ones about bears and bad men, but tell her about the quiet affectionate lamb you had when you were a little girl, about its fleece and how funny it looked.

Never give her more than one story a night, string the same one out if need be. Then when she is over her nervous spell in a week or two, talk to her reasonably and explain to her that you must darn some socks for Daddy that night and you want her to see what kind of stories she can tell herself.

If often helps to wrap a soft blanket around her feet when you lay her down. Remember that the brain requires blood to think and blood that is in the feet is not in the brain. Sometimes if she has not eaten much and is restless, a glass of warm milk or a cracker or two will attract the blood from the brain to the stomach.

A soft doll is a real comfort to the nervous, restless child, especially if you do not seem to listen to her when she talks aloud to it. Some children like to hold a flower. I know one mother who sometimes puts a single drop of violet water on the baby’s pillow, and she lies there so long smelling it that she drops off to sleep.

New-born babies should sleep nearly all the time; children of about four should sleep about thirteen hours; of seven, twelve; of eight or nine, eleven; of twelve, ten. A child sleeping in the open air can get best development with a little less than this, but one with her head in the corner of a room requires a little more sleep.

Things to be avoided are:

1) Teasing.
2) Tickling.
3) Tossing.
4) Anger.
5) Great fear.
6) Terrifying stories.
7) Violent rocking.
8) Bright sunlight in unshaded eyes.
9) Glaring windows.
10) Hard white walls.
11) Places of public gathering.
12) Food difficult to digest.



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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 Appalachian folktale with the curious name of “Sody Sallyraytus.” Saleratus appeared on the market in 1840, replacing pearlash as a baking ingredient to produce rising in dough. By the start of the 1860s baking soda in turn replaced it. For a short time some people called the new baking soda ‘saleratus.’ This story, then, probably dates from that period when both terms were used simultaneously: “soda/saleratus.”

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.

One day in February 1909 the building’s landlord suddenly died. The Children’s Mission Home orphanage in Knoxville TN,
after 19 years in the same location, and with nowhere to move, stood on the edge of the extinction. “Friends came to sympathize, enemies to sneer,” recounts Rev. JR Lauritzen, the superintendent. “They said to me, ‘You’re in a bad fix now; what are you going to do?’ I told them I was going to do nothing, but to trust in the Lord, and the Lord would provide.”

Ever heard or used the expression duke's mixture? It has nothing to do with royalty, unless you consider the tobacco titans of the nineteenth century to be such. In this next piece we’ll go back to the Reconstruction era in North Carolina and follow the footsteps of Washington Duke. His tobacco products, in particular the brand known as “Duke’s Mixture,” rose to national dominance by 1900.

Her schools earned plaudits from Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, and Franklin Roosevelt. The Boys Industrial School motivated communities throughout the South to begin educating their young people in earnest, blazing a trail for the establishment of an agricultural and mechanical school in each of Georgia’s congressional districts. As a result of her 40 years of work in education, Martha Berry---the Sunday Lady of Possum Trot--- is among Georgia's most prominent women of the first half of the 20th century.

By 1914, the art of manually hewing a log into a finished board was already dying. The author of our next piece explains step by step how the pioneer artisans of old made their boards by that method. The Foxfire books were still decades in the future, but after reading this you’ll probably want to head out to the back lot, harvest an oak or two, and start ‘cracking’ logs.

We’ll wrap things up in this, the season of baseball, with a nod towards baseball legend Cy Young. On August 6, 1890, Young pitched his first professional game against Cap Anson’s Chicago White Stockings. Anson had scouted Young while he was with the Canton, OH minor league team and rejected him as being “just another big farmer.” Have you ever heard of the ‘Cap Anson Award’? Didn’t think so. ‘Cy,’ by the way, is short for ‘cyclone.’

And, thanks to the good folks at the Digital Archive we'll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music by G.B. Grayson and Harry Whitter in a 1927 recording of the traditional tune ‘Handsome Molly.’

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.

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Those who never lived in a mountainous country are often surprised at the sight of what we call sleds, slides or sledges, made of the bodies of small trees with crooked ends, turning upward like those of sleigh runners, though much more clumsy and heavy.

As these runners wore down they were "shod" by tacking split saplings under them. Sleds can be hauled on steep hill-sides where wheeled vehicles would turn over or get beyond control going down hill. Our "Union" carpenters of this day could not build a house with the materials and tools of their pioneer ancestors, nearly all of whom were carpenters.

Modern carpenters would not know what "cracking" a log was, for instance; and yet, the pioneer artisans of old had to make their boards by that method. It consisted in driving the blade of an ax or hatchet into the small end of a log by means of a maul, and inserting wooden wedges, called "gluts." On either side of this first central "crack" another crack was made, and gluts placed therein.

Photo caption reads: "Mr. Stewart, cross-tie maker, working a log in Brasstown, NC." (about 1932)

There were usually two gluts placed in each crack and each was tapped in turn, thus splitting the log uniformly. These two riven pieces were next placed in a "snatch-block," which were two parallel logs into which notches had been cut deep enough to hold the ends of these pieces, which were held in position with "keys" or wedges. The upper side of this riven piece was then "scored" with a broad ax and then "dressed" with the same tool, the under edges being beveled.

The length of these pieces, now become puncheons, was usually half the length of the floor to be covered, the two ends resting on the sleeper running across the middle of the room. The beveled edges were placed as near together as possible, after which a saw was run between them, thus reducing the uneven edges so that they came snugly together, and were air tight when pinned into place with wooden pegs driven through augur holes into the sills and sleepers.

Hewed logs were first "scalped," that is the bark was removed with an ax, after which the trunk was "lined" with a woolen cord dipped in moist charcoal, powdered, which had been made from locust bark. This corresponded to what is now called a chalk line. Then four of these lines were made down the length of the log, each pair being as far apart as the hewed log was to be thick-usually four to six inches-one pair being above and the other pair below; after which the log was "blocked" with an ax, by cutting deep notches on each side about four feet apart. These sections were then split from the sides of the log, thus reducing its thickness to nearly that desired. Then these sides were "scored" and then dressed till they were smooth.

The block on which the "Liberty Bell" of Philadelphia rests still shows this "scoring" or hacks made by the broad-ax. Houses were framed on the ground by cutting the ends of the logs into notches called "saddles" which, when placed in position, fitted like joiner work--each log having been numbered while still on the ground. When the logs were being placed in position they were lifted into place on the higher courses by means of what were called "bull's eyes." These were made of hickory saplings whose branches had been plaited into rings and then slipped over the logs, their stems serving as handles for pulling.


source: Western North Carolina, A History (1730-1913), by John Preston Arthur, published by National Society Daughters of the American Revolution of North Carolina, Edward Buncombe Chapter, 1914



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On August 6, 1890, baseball great Cy Young pitched his first professional game against Cap Anson’s Chicago White Stockings. Anson had scouted Young while he was at Canton and rejected him as being “just another big farmer.” When Cy beat the White Stockings 8-1 and allowed only three hits, Anson strove to purchase him from Cleveland.

Over the course of his 22-year career, Young won at least 508 games (511 is the generally accepted number) and averaged more than 23 victories per season. Young set Major League records for most wins all-time, most losses all-time, most innings pitched all-time, most games started all-time, and most complete games all-time. His accomplishments and records can be attributed to his longevity, durability, and consistency.

Denton True Young was born on a farm in Gilmore, OH, on March 29, 1867. While pitching for the Canton (Ohio) club of the old Tri-State League in 1890, Mr. Young was nicknamed Cy. "I thought I had to show all my stuff" he recalled years later, "and I almost tore the boards off the grandstand with my fast ball. One of the fellows called me 'Cyclone,' but finally shortened it to 'Cy,' and it's been that ever since."

Cy Young played for the Cleveland Spiders from 1890 until 1898, spent the next two years with St. Louis, and then signed with the Boston Americans (renamed the Red Sox in 1908) in the American League. Young's final season was 1911, which he split between the Cleveland Naps and the National League's Boston Rustlers. Continuing to follow the game closely after retiring to his farm near Peoli, Ohio, Young felt wounded when he was passed over in the initial Hall of Fame election in 1936. The oversight was rectified the following year, however, allowing him to be among the original group of inductees in 1939.

Shortly after Young’s death on November 4, 1955, commissioner Ford Frick originated the Cy Young Award, an annual honor bestowed upon the pitcher deemed most valuable.


sources: memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/aug06.html
www.baseball-almanac.com/deaths/cy_young_obituary.shtml
entertainment.howstuffworks.com/cy-young-hof.htm



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Ever heard or used the expression duke's mixture? It has nothing to do with royalty, unless you consider the tobacco titans of the nineteenth century to be such.

Washington Duke of North Carolina was a serious and thrifty man. By the start of the Civil War he’d attained a 300-acre farm four miles north of Durham, NC, and four children: Brodie by his first wife; Benjamin, Mary and James by a second.

A widower, Duke did not enter the Confederate army until 1863; he was captured in the retreat from Richmond before Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House. In 1865 the forty-five-year-old veteran was released from Libby Prison and sent to New Bern, North Carolina, 137 miles from home.

He walked the 137 miles, having only 50 cents in hard cash, obtained from a Federal soldier in exchange for a five-dollar Confederate bill. The farm had been ransacked by Federal troops, except for a little Bright tobacco leaf and some flour. To raise working capital Duke sold his land and rented back a few acres of it. After sending for his children, whom their grandparents had kept, he pulverized and cleaned the tobacco in a small log barn. Packed in muslin bags labeled Pro Bono Publico, it was loaded onto a wagon drawn by two blind mules.

Reins in hand, Duke rattled east toward Raleigh, sleeping by the roadside at night and cooking his own food in a frying pan-bacon, corn meal, sweet potatoes. The expedition was a success. Duke exchanged his flour for cotton, which he sold in Raleigh; part of the proceeds went into a present for his children---a bag of brown sugar. (Buck, the youngest, ate so much of it that he lost his "sweet tooth" for the rest of his life.) More important, the tobacco found a ready cash market, and yielded enough money to buy a supply of bacon.

By 1889 the loose, or 'granulated' roll-your-own tobacco, Pro Bono Publico, now renamed Duke's Mixture as a challenge to Blackwell's Bull Durham, had become the Duke Tobacco Company's top brand. Production jumped from 3,600,000 to 5,500,000 pounds between 1896 and 1897, and even after 'the Bull' was brought into American's brand stable, Duke's Mixture continued to grow, topping the 11,000,000 pound mark by 1900.

'The granulated business of the American Tobacco Co. between 1896-1910 was almost entirely made up of medium and low price brands, of which Duke’s Mixture was by far the most important," states the Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on the Tobacco Industry, published in 1915 by the Department of Commerce. "The granulated business of Blackwell's Durham Tobacco Co, a subsidiary of the American, averaged much higher in price than that of the granulated business of the American Tobacco Co proper and was also made up very largely of a single brand, namely, Bull Durham."

The public snickered that Duke's Mixture brand, because it was low end, was a thrown together stew of tobacco odds and ends, and this led early on to the phrase duke's mixture we sometimes still hear used today, to mean a hodge-podge of something. Here's a September 5, 1917 diary entry from North Carolina doughboy William Bradley Umstead:

"Sept. 5, 1917.

Came out to camp to stay on Monday Sept 3.

First drafted men came in today. Regular Duke's mixture as I expected. Men from all social castes, professions, and walks of life, brought together for a common purpose which many of them do not understand."


Sources: Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on the Tobacco Industry, 1915, Department of Commerce
Diary of William Bradley Umstead, 1895-1954, Academic Affairs Library, Call number SHC #4529, Manuscripts Dept., Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Cigarette Pack Art, Dr. Chris Mullen, 1979, Galley Press



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Since my last annual report the Children’s Mission Home has moved its location; we are now located at No. 120 West Cumberland St. For seventeen long years we were located at 918 State St. in the house which is now known as the Old Mission Home. Twenty-five dollars per month I paid for many years out of the scanty income the Mission Home ever had.

In the year 1903 I took the Home and the church grounds on a lease for ten years and from then I paid only twenty dollars rent per month for the Home, and some more money on the grounds on which we had built the church. It was hard work for me to find money enough for provisions, clothes and shoes for twenßty-five to thirty-five inmates, and then to find also twenty dollars per month to pay rent.

But we did succeed in doing this for nineteen years in all without faltering and the Mission Home had no debts at no time and to nobody than to live and to do good to our neighbors. But the load we had to carry was keenly felt as the years passed on and on.

One day in February 1909 the unexpected news came to us that the owner of the house had suddenly died. This meant for us that the lease might become void and that the Old Mission Home might be sold at any time, and that we had to move. As soon as we heard the news, I said, “Praise the Lord I am now done paying rent. If this work is worth anything, it will be worth a free house.”

Friends came to sympathize, enemies to sneer. They said to me, “You’re in a bad fix now; what are you going to do?”
I told them I was going to do nothing, but to trust in the Lord, and the Lord would provide. They went away sneering. But we people of the Mission went together to the Lord in prayers, and told him to give a home to his orphan children, a home where we would have to pay rent no more.

New mission home at 120 W Cumberland Avenue.

I was well acquainted with one philanthropist of Knoxville, Mr. Rush B. Strong, who had been one of our supporters from the very beginning of this work. I knew he had a large and well built brick house in a very good location of the city, which he had designated for charitable purposes. It was just now empty. I earnestly prayed to the Lord while on the way to see Mr. Strong about that very house. As soon as I had told him what I wanted he said with the greatest friendliness, “Why sure, Mr. Lauritzen, why did you not come to ask for it long ago? As far as I am concerned you shall have the use of the house but for the repairs, free of charge.”

And now, we want you to rejoice with us, dear reader, and give praise and thanks to the Lord, who has enabled us to carry on this blessed work for twenty years of the past.

Most sincerely yours,
REV. & Mrs. J.R. Lauritzen, superintendants
20th Annual Report of the Work of the Children’s Mission Home
at Knoxville, TN


source: http://idserver.utk.edu/?id=200700000001621


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A long time ago there was an old woman and an old man and a little girl and a little boy and their pet squirrel sitting up on the fireplace. One day the old woman wanted to bake some biscuits but she needed some sody. So she sent the little boy to the store to buy some sody sallyraytus. The little boy went running down the road singing, “Sody, sody, sody sallyraytus.” He ran across the bridge and on to the store to get the sody sallyraytus. Then he went running back home. When he got to the bridge a mean old bear stuck out his head and said, “I’LL EAT YOU UP – YOU AND YOUR SODY SALLYRAYTUS!” And he swallowed the little boy – him and his sody sallyraytus.

The old woman and the old man and the little girl and the pet squirrel waited and waited and waited but the little boy didn’t come back. Finally, the old woman asked the little girl to find the little boy and see what was taking him so long. The little girl went a’skipping down the road – a’skip a’skip a’askip. She skipped across the bridge and to the store. The storekeeper told her that the little boy had already been there and left, so she started a’skipping back home – a’skip a’skip a’skip. When she got to the bridge, the mean old bear stuck out his head and said, “I ATE A LITTLE BOY – HIM AND HIS SODY SALLYRAYTUS. AND I’LL EAT YOU TOO!” And she swallowed her down.

Well the old woman and the old man and the pet squirrel waited and waited and waited, but the children didn’t come back. Finally, the old woman asked the old man to go find the little boy and the little girl. He walked down the road – Karumpf! Karumpf! Karumpf! and across the bridge until he came to the store. The storekeeper told him that both the little boy and the little girl had already been there and left. “Hmmm….they must have stopped somewhere to play,” the old man thought. So he started a'walking back - Karumpf! Karumpf! Karumpf! When he got to the bridge, the mean old bear stuck out his head and said, “I ATE A LITTLE BOY – HIM AND HIS SODY SALLYRAYTUS. AND I ATE A LITTLE GIRL AND I’LL EAT YOU TOO!” And he swallowed him down.

Well, the old woman and the pet squirrel waited and waited and waited but the old man and the little boy and the little girl did not come back. So finally, the old woman went a’hunchety-hunching down the road – A’hunchety-hunchety-hunchety-hunch! She crossed the bridge and went into the store. The storekeeper told her that the old man and the little boy and the little girl had been there and left. So the old woman started back A’hunchety-hunchety-hunchety-hunch! When she got to the bridge, the mean old bear stuck out his head and said, “I ATE A LITTLE BOY – HIM AND HIS SODY SALLYRAYTUS. AND I ATE A LITTLE GIRL AND AN OLD MAN AND I’LL EAT YOU TOO!” And he swallowed her down.

1884 logo for the Arm & Hammer brand soda or saleratus. Saleratus appeared on the market in 1840, replacing pearlash as a baking ingredient to produce rising in dough. By the start of the 1860s baking soda in turn replaced it. For a short time some people called the new baking soda ‘saleratus.’ This story, then, probably dates from that period when both terms were used simultaneously: “soda/saleratus.”

Well, the pet squirrel waited and waited and waited. He was running back and forth on the fire place mantel and he was getting hungrier and hungrier. Finally, he jumped down off the fireplace and onto the floor. He shook out his tail and went a’frisking down the road – A’frisk a’frisk a’frisk a’frisk! He frisked across the bridge and into the store. He stood up tall on his hind legs and asked the storekeeper if he had seen the little boy or the little girl or the old man or the old woman. “Yes – they’ve all been here. Surely they didn’t all stop to play.” So the squirrel stretched his tail out behind him and frisked back. When he got to the bridge, the mean old bear stuck out his head and said, " I ATE A LITTLE BOY – HIM AND HIS SODY SALLYRAYTUS. AND I ATE A LITTLE GIRL AND AN OLD MAN AND AN OLD WOMAN AND I’LL EAT YOU TOO!”

The pet squirrel stuck his tail up in the air and chirred at the bear. By the time the mean old bear lunged at him, the pet squirrel was already halfway up a tree. The mean old bear went clamoring after him. The squirrel scurried out on a limb and the mean old bear started after him. Then the squirrel jumped onto a limb in the next tree. “SURELY IF YOU CAN MAKE IT THAT FAR ON YOUR LITTLE LEGS, I CAN MAKE IT ON MY BIG LEGS!” the bear bellowed. The mean old bear tried to jump but he didn’t quite make it. He tumbled down down down and hit the ground with a thud! As soon as he hit the ground, out came the old woman, the old man, the little girl and the little boy. The old woman looked at the little boy and said, “Well, where’s my sody sallyraytus?” “Here,” said the little boy and handed it to her.

So they all walked back to the house singing, “Sody, sody, sody sallyraytus.” When they got back, the pet squirrel climbed back up on the fireplace mantel and curled his tail around him while he watched the old woman until she took the biscuits out of the oven. They each had a biscuit – the little boy, the little girl, the old man and the old woman. The old woman broke off a piece of a biscuit and handed it to the pet squirrel. He turned it over and over in his paws and nibbled until it was gone. Then he chirred for more. He was so hungry that the old woman had to feed him pieces until he’d eaten almost two whole biscuits!


http://childrensprogrambank.pbworks.com/
http://www.ferrum.edu/applit/bibs/tales/sodysal.htm



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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 the story of Daintry Allison’s first experience teaching school in the second decade of the 20th century. She’d been trained in Old Fort, NC to use the switch liberally with unruly students in her nearby Catawba Falls schoolhouse. Trouble was, the daughter of the town bully figured that rule didn’t apply to her. And the girl’s father had run more than one teacher off the mountain.

"Drifting" on the Ohio River was a great pastime for those who owned a skiff or johnboat. There was always something floating down stream. In the early days many things of value could be caught, logs, railroad ties worth a dollar, new sawed lumber, boat and barge planks, frames of small buildings. If there came a sudden raise in the river - the better the drifting.

Odis Isaacs started working for the mines when he was 12 and worked in Moore Hollow, KY until Howard Smith got killed in Marlow’s mine in 1946. Smith ran a motor in the mine when the accident happened and Odis was coupling at the end of the cars that Smith was pulling. It was the last trip of the day and Smith wanted to get out as much as he could so he was pulling 22 cars, which was way too many.

Your mouth will water when you hear Olga Hardman of Clarksburg WV discussing the sumptuous French style cooking of her extended family. At one of her noon meals with Aunt Clarice and Uncle Augie, she has her first encounter with frog legs. As she watches the muscles of the frog legs contract and appear to jump in the pan, she becomes quite reluctant to try them.

We’ll wrap things up by tagging along on the road with Miss Lester, a Boone, NC district nurse. Her job involves traveling up and down the hollers in search of local granny women, and encouraging them to come into town clinics to get additional medical training.

And, thanks to the good folks at the Digital Library of Appalachia we'll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music by the Wheat Valley Bluegrass Band in a 1984 recording of the traditional tune ‘Alabama Gals.’

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.

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