Appalachian History

But, strange as it seemed to him, there were minutes -- sometimes half-hours -- when, without his knowing why, the black burden seemed to lift itself again and he knew he was a living man and not a dead one. Slowly -- slowly -- for no reason that he knew of -- he was "coming alive" with the garden.
---The Secret Garden

Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924) left an indelible mark on children's literature, providing a path to the secret garden in all of us that is often lost in adulthood. But her own childhood was far from idyllic. Frances' widowed mother Eliza moved with her five children from England to Knoxville, TN in 1865 where her brother had earlier moved and was struggling to keep a dry goods store going. He next moved Eliza and the children to New Market, where he had a cabin.

This was a dramatic shift for the Hodgson family. Frances had been born in Cheetham Hill, outside of Manchester. In late 1849 Manchester was a thriving textile center fueled by the success of the cotton mills. Edwin and Eliza Hodgson had a successful home furnishings business, providing customers with such products as chandeliers, ironwork, and brass door fittings.

But it all changed dramatically in 1854 when Edwin died at age 38 of a stroke. Eliza tried to keep the business going but the start of the Civil War in the United States affected cotton imports and the textile industry experienced a tremendous rate of unemployment.

And so the Hodgsons were hurled from upper middle class comfort in Manchester to hard scrabble poverty in New Market, now often going to bed hungry. And yet the move from industrial England to rural America was for young Frances a journey to the green, natural world that would become a central theme in many of her later works, including 'The Secret Garden.'

The move would also prove instrumental in Frances' development as a writer. Although she had always been obsessed with storytelling and often amused her schoolmates by acting out tales of adventure and romance, the financial strain of the emigration caused her to turn to writing as a means of supplementing the family's income.

The Hodgson's neighbors were Dr. John and Lydia Burnett and their son Swan, whose great-grandfather was Adam Peck, the earliest settler of what would become Jefferson City. Frances and Swan would spend much time together and would begin a relationship that would lead to marriage in 1873.

Frances Burnett's first published story, "Miss Carruthers' Engagement," appeared in a magazine called Godey's Lady's Book in 1868. Her paper and postage-stamps for the venture had to be earned by picking and selling wild grapes. She began to write five or six stories each month, for $10 apiece and supported her family by writing. As stories began to be published in Harper's, Atlantic, Scribner's Monthly, and Peterson's Ladies' Magazine, she earned enough money to move her family back to Knoxville in 1869.

After the death of her mother in 1872, the family became increasingly dependent on Frances' writing income. She accelerated her career as a popular writer. Swan, whom she married the following year, was preparing to specialize in the treatment of the eye and ear. He wished to further his specialty by studying in Europe, and Frances financed his wish, once again becoming responsible for the bulk of her family's income. After the birth of their first son Lionel on September 20, 1874 in Knoxville, they left Tennessee, never to return.

Over the course of her life, Burnett wrote more than forty books, for both adults and children. While her adult novels are considered to be quite sentimental, her children's books have withstood the fickleness of literary fashions. 'The Secret Garden,' the story of how Mary Lennox and her friends find independence as they tend their garden, has been described as one of the most satisfying children's books ever written.


Sources: http://library.cn.edu/speccoll/burnett.html
http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/secret_garden.html
http://www.tickledorange.com/FHB/Biography.html

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, appalachian literature, Frances Hodgson Burnett, history of appalachia, Knoxville TN

The same Fall or beginning of Winter Col. G. Rogers Clark from Hanover was Fixing for a Campaighn to go down the Ohia to the Falls. The Virginia Legislator had authorized him to raise an army and go westward, and my Oldest brother—to wit, James Trabue---agreed with him to inlist some men and go with him as Lieut.

I agreed to go with him. I got well and hearty and in the last of January or February 1778 we set out for our Jurney. The most of the men that had enlisted with my brother had gone on to kentucky before christmas.

Their was only 7 of us and a negro boy went throug the wilderness together in March 1778. We all had good rifles and good Ammonition. On Holston we took provision for our Jurney. We understood a little provision would Do as we could kill a plenty on the way. We entered the wilderness in high spirits.

I was truly Delighted in seeing the mountains, Rivers, hills, etc., spruce, pine, Laurril, etc. Every thing looked new to me. Traveling along in Powls Valley where the Indians had broak up some people, seeing wast Desolate Cabbins I began to feel strange.

We went on our Jurney and came in sight of the noted place called Cumberland Gap. We encamped all night (yet we was 3 or 4 Mile off) in a wast Cabin, and it was a Rainey blustry night. When Morning came the weather was clear, and after we ate our breackfast a little after sunrise we persued on our Jurney.

When we got near to the Gap at a lorril branch where the indean war road comes in the Kentucky road (this Indian Road Crosses the Gap at this place from the Cherekeys to the shoney town). And at this branch where the Indian road comes in we saw fresh Indian tracks.

James Trabue ordered us every one to alight, prime our Guns afresh, and pick our flints if they needed it, and put 2 bullits in each man’s mouth. And if we could come up with the Indians we must fight our best. The Indians’ track was fresh and was Just gone the way we was going.

James Trabue and one other man went on foot about 100 yards ahead. And our orders was if they Discoved the Indians they would Jump one side behind trees. And when we saw that we must all Dismount and run up to fight, and the negro boy must stay and mind the horses.

We had one man with us that was named Lucust. He said he wishd he could come up with the Indians. He wanted so bad to have the chance of killing them. He said he knew he could kill 5 him self. He Could shoot. He could Tomerhack and make use of his bucher knife and slay them.

We still persued the Indians. Their track was plain in places and after we got through the gap going Down the mountain the Indian tracks was still their. It looked like I was going out of the world.

When we got Down the mountain my brother called on me and a nother man to go before and told us to go fast. We walked very fast and some times run. When I was on before I could have a plain view of their Tracks, and in one place where the Indians crossed a mirery branch I saw 3 Trails. I then supposed that their was many Indians as they was apt to step in one another’s tracks.

When I was returnd from going before and others in our places, I told my brother about the 3 Trails and told him my fear about the quanity of Indians. He said he had paid particular attention to the sighn and he Did not think their was more Indians than white men. He said we all had good guns and good powder and we could beat them if we could git the first fire, unless they was Greatly over our number and he Did not think they was.

And he said the main thing was to have a good resolution.

I was Giting very fraid we would be Defeeted, and as we went on I talked some with Lucust, again. He still talked the same way of killing several of them. I for my part began to feel chikinhearted. I was afraid I should be killed in this Drary howling Wilderness but I never mentioned it to any one. I thought if we come in contact with the Indians I would keep behind or in the reare, but I thought that would not Do as I might be called a coward. I thought, "I wish I could have courage like Lucust. I would be glad."

Mr. Lucaust was my main Dependence and a poor Dependence he was. I then wished I was back in Old Virginia.


Westward Into Kentucky: The Narrative of Daniel Trabue, by Daniel Trabue, Chester Raymond Young, Univ of Ky, 1981

In his youth Daniel Trabue (1760-1840) served as a Virginia soldier in the Revolutionary War. He recorded this narrative in 1827, in the town of Columbia, KY of which he was a founder.

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, Cumberland Gap, Daniel Trabue, early Kentucky pioneers, history of appalachia

Anderson, SC was the first city in the United States to have a continuous supply of electric power and the first in the world to create a cotton gin operated by electricity.

William C. Whitner, a native of Anderson, was largely the man responsible for the place becoming known as “The Electric City.” Born on September 22, 1864, he attended and graduated from the University of South Carolina with a plan to become a lawyer. After his father talked him out of that career, Whitner went back to USC and worked as an assistant to a mathematics professor while studying civil engineering. He graduated from USC for the second time in 1885.

Whitner’s early work was in railroad engineering, but a severe case of typhoid fever forced him into a long convalescence in his father's home. While there the town of Anderson hired the 26 year old to build a water works systems and an electric plant. In 1890 he completed a steam-driven electric plant. It turned out to be too expensive.

Whitner conceived the idea of generating alternating current electricity using turbulent river water. For advice he went to New York to see Nicholas Tesla, the great Serbian scientist who had perfected the alternating current motor. A turf war was in progress between Thomas Edison, an advocate of direct current, and Tesla, an alternating current advocate.

George Westinghouse, another associate of Whitner's, supported AC from the sidelines - and later became the big winner in the deal.

Whitner returned to Anderson in 1894 and leased a plant, in McFall's grist and flour mill at High Shoals on the Rocky River 6 miles east of town, for his newly formed Anderson Water, Light & Power Company. There he installed an experimental 5,000 volt alternating current generator to attempt to generate and transmit electric power to the water system pumps at Anderson’s Tribble Street power and water yard.

It worked, and ended up supplying enough power to light the city and also to operate several small industries in Anderson. The Charleston News and Courier promptly dubbed Anderson "The Electric City."

In 1897 Whitner’s initial success drew the attention of financial backers, which allowed him to replace the experimental plant with a 10,000 volt generating station at Portman Shoals, 11 miles west of town on the Seneca River. When it was placed in service on November 1, the Portman Shoals Power Plant was the first hydroelectric facility to generate high voltage power without step-up transformers in the nation and perhaps in the world.

These Stanley Electric Company built generators served not only the Anderson water system, the city street lights, other commercial interests and private homes, but more importantly, Anderson Cotton Mill, the first cotton mill in the South to be operated by electricity transmitted over long distance lines.

This bronze sculpture of Whitner by Greenville, SC artist Zan Wells was unveiled in downtown Anderson on October 12, 2004.

The Portman Shoals power plant was the start of what became Duke Power (now Duke Energy), one of the largest energy companies in the country.

Thomas Edison and General Electric had refused to wind a motor for high voltage alternating current, but Whitner proved Tesla to be correct. Building upon his early success in Anderson, William Church Whitner developed hydroelectric power generating stations for a number of communities throughout the South, including Columbus, Griffin, and Elberton, GA.

Today, Whitner is remembered in several places of distinction in downtown Anderson, including a statue in front of the Anderson County Courthouse and a street named in his honor. Also, at the corner of McDuffie and Whitner Streets sits Generator Park. On the grounds of this 10,000 square-foot park stands the century-old generator that was operated by Whitner at the Portman Power Plant.


sources: www.sc.edu/library/socar/uscs/cc/08sprSUPP.pdf
www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=10697
www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~scyork/LouisePettus/indiah.htm
www.downtownanderson.com/downtown-guide.pdf

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Labels: Anderson SC, appalachia, appalachian history, getting electricity, history of appalachia, The Electric City, William C. Whitner

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 oral history from one William T. Brown of Burke’s Garden, VA. He’s the first to admit that he was never much of a student, but as you’ll hear from his detailed verbal chart of who married whom, and who begat whom, he’s very much a scholar of social relationships in Burke’s Garden.

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.

It was born from a foreclosed company, and in the end had so little value as a railroad that it was simply abandoned rather than sold. Georgia’s Tallulah Falls Railway owners had a grand plan to connect to various other southeastern lines, but that plan was never implemented. Let’s take a look at what happened along the way.

Next, we’ll review “Spruce Pine,” the latest in Arcadia Publishing’s ongoing ‘Images of America’ monographs on small towns across America. It’s fitting that the book will release here in the US market on Sept 28. Locals of this western North Carolina community may appreciate that the book’s appearance coincides with the anniversary of the two week trek of the Overmountain Men, who made their way from Virginia and across the Blue Ridge during the Revolutionary War, passing through the area en route to the famous King’s Mountain battle of October 7, one of the turning points of that war in the southern theatre.

Have you ever seen a bread sponge? Christina Grueser saw plenty of them while growing up in Pomeroy, OH. “It was a foamy looking mess of stuff,” she tells us in this oral history. “But you had to keep it warm because cold will kill yeast no matter whether you make a sponge or just bake as people do now. Well, whether anybody else was warm or not, that sponge had to be. Because if it wasn't you didn't have any bread.”

Yes, Nashville has the Grand Ole Opry and the big name recording artists. But Bristol, the town that straddles the Tennessee/Virginia border, stakes its claim as the birthplace of country music. Victor Talking Machine Co. was the first record producer to catch wind of the (to them!) fledging "hillbilly" music scene (it wasn’t called country music in the 1920s). Come peek over producer Ralph Peer’s shoulder and see what he was up to in the summer of 1927.

We’ll wrap things up with a 1912 newspaper report that alludes to the famous Hatfield and McCoy feud. Dr. Edwin O. Thornhill at the time was a respected physician and businessman in Mullens, WV, and apparently wasn’t cowed by much. But he made the mistake of crossing Willis Hatfield, eldest son of “Devil Anse” Hatfield, and it cost him his life.

And, thanks to the good folks at the Digital Archive we'll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music by Ernest Stoneman and the Sweet Brothers in a 1928 recording of “I Got a Bulldog.”

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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"Uncle George Wynn did all the thrashing on the east side of the road that goes through Burke's Garden, north and south. John D. Greever did all the thrashing of wheat on the west side of this road. You know the biggest population was on the east side of that road, all the big families there. The Repass's, Alfred Repass. Grubbs, lots of Kitts, the Kitts, they kind of moved out and then the big bunch of Lamberts came in there, like a drove of sheep pretty near.

"Course Pierce Lambert, some of those Lamberts spelled their name different than others, some Lampert, and some Lambert. All the same I think, they all came from over around Bland. Now Uncle George Wynn he had some daughters that married into the Neel family. I think there was two of them, one married a Bud Heldreth, and one married Tiden H. Short. He had 4 boys.

"Morgan Wynn, Uncle George's oldest son, see Uncle George was married twice. First he was married to a Rhudy, John Rhudy's sister. Then next he married a Henry, Mag Henry, she had a daughter who married a Helmadollar out at Tazewell and then she had a son Will Henry who died in World War I. He is buried down there where my little brother Hubert is buried. So is his mother Mag Henry Wynn. Down next to where the Hoges are buried.

Postcard view of the road through the gap to Burke’s Garden, about 1915. Title continues: ... 'The road today is twice as wide and the bank twice as high.' Courtesy of Louise Leslie.

"This Morgan Wynn when he got married to the old lady Aunt Mag, she was pretty mean to those boys and they all left. Morgan joined the Army and he stayed years and years, until he was pert-in-near dead and they sent him home. He went down to ole Tiden Short's to see Maggie, Mag to live with his sister. He was crazy about buttermilk, and he was sick, they had churned and he drank so much buttermilk that he died, maybe from too much pressure on his heart.

"Levi Wynn, was I guess next and he was a holy roller preacher out there at Tazewell, I mean at Bluefield, Virginia. He was a singing master, too, in Burke's Garden. He used to do a lot of singing there in Burke's Garden. We all sang there. We lived near Laurence Felty's near an old woodshed. Do you know where the old wood shed is? We had it first we sold it to Hoback, then Mr. Gose bought it. Do you know at one time Mr. John Gose owned more property in Burke's Garden then any other man?

"Aunt Belle was there, we called them 'aunt' but they were not, just Aunt Letti, Uncle Fed's wife that was really our aunt. There was three of those girls, Aunt Belle stayed there all the time and Aunt Org married a Foglesong and they had land over in the east end over by Horse Snaps.

"We lived over there where Snaps owned that place in the east end at one time across the hill from Uncle Morg Wynne, from where Betty Meek lived. At that time it belonged to Mr. John Fox, Uncle Frank's daddy. One time Mr. John Fox put a bunch of oats in and they craddled it, and shucked it. Morgan and George were doing the tying. They always worked together, the four of them. After Uncle Pete Fox left there course Mr. John Fox was never satisfied there.

"They went down to Christiansburg and I guess they died and didn't get the place paid for. My dad always said that Uncle Fed Wynn always had the poorest place there was in Burke's Garden. They had so much pea gravel on the place. See my dad used to work for Uncle Fed Wynn when he had the sawmill. See Uncle Fed would go out and cut the trees down, bring in the logs and saw the logs, then build the building!

"He did it all, Uncle Fed Wynn. My dad used to work on the Fed Wynn place and it was the poorest place. He (Fed Wynn) bought the place from Mr. Pat Davis (William Patterson Davis). That's Leon Davis and Add Davis's daddy. So, Tyler Boling used to live---the road used to come through there where Harvey Dillo---and turned and went down and turned the corner by Davis's place where Mr. Mckenna lives now and over by Mr. Rush Moss's place and come out at the corner down there where Mr. Sam Meredith lives. Now we used to live right across the road from Sam Meredith. East of Sam's. There used to be a big wild cherry tree there. At one time there was a circus at Little Creek and they drove them back over the mountain to take them back and elephants and giraffes had no problem and ate the cherries/leaves.

Margaret Greever, born 1879, second from left, being photographed with sisters or friends at the Greever homeplace in Burke’s Garden June 28, 1899. Albert S. Greever may be the photographer under the hood. Courtesy of Edgar Greever.

"That saw mill that Grandpa Wynn bought was brought over there with 6 yoke of oxen, I mean 6 head of oxen, three yokes to pull that saw mill over there. Had to bring a stationary engine. Over the old road where Mary Lou Volun's place now it belongs to Dupont, in that field over there where it joins Bent Moss's place on the side, used to be a big chestnut orchard there. You can still see the old road that used to go up there. We used to live on the corner there.

"I used to catch rides to town on horseback at that corner from Uncle Pete and Mr. Fox and they used to pick me up. I had a blue serge suit, I was in school then, not really in it, but went and they used to pick me up take me to the store with them.

"Those Foxes liked to brag on their stuff, I was great at that and I always liked old people anyway. That was always my delight if I got with old people, I love it. Old Mr. Steve Mahood, the old fellow that lived right down there over by the Snap's silo in the east end, there. Mr. Steve Mahood lived there. He raised a boy, they raised a boy by them, I think he was related to Aunt Ann, I think his name was Crismond. I know his name was Crismond, Doc Chrismond. Old Mr. Steve Mahood, they raised him. He got to be a railroad man and married old man Grubb's daughter, Nannie Grubb. They went to school the same time Dr. Shawver went to school in Burke's Garden. Nannie Grubb, Carl Grubb and Kate Fox."


Bill Brown
January 23, 1981

Edited transcript from an audio tape made by William T. Brown of Burke's Garden, VA. Brown was born there November 21, 1902, lived there until 1917 with his family, and went back to live there at a later date.

source: www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~vatazewe/Burke.htm

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, Burke's Garden VA, history of appalachia, Tazewell County VA, William T. Brown

New Victim Falls by Hatfield Pistol
Charleston, WV: Jan 1—

Dr. Edwin O. Thornhill, aged 35, a well-known physician and business man of the southern section of West Virginia, was shot dead today in a drug store at Mullens by Willis Hatfield, son of the noted feudist, "Devil Anse" Hatfield.

The physician was attending an injured person when the shooting occurred. Hatfield, it is said, asked Dr. Thornhill to issue a prescription for a pint of whiskey. The doctor refused, and when Hatfield used abusive language the physician slapped him.

Hatfield, it is alleged, immediately drew a revolver and fired two bullets into Dr. Thornhill’s body. Stepping close, Hatfield fired two more shots, each taking effect in the head of the prostrate man.

Hatfield then ran from the drug store, but was captured in a few minutes by persons who witnessed the shooting. Fearing that he would be lynched, Hatfield pleaded with the officers to protect him, and he was taken to Pineville, the county seat, where Deputy Sheriffs tonight are guarding the frail prison.


source: NY Times, Jan 12, 1912, online at http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9801E0DA163CE633A25751C0A9679C946396D6CF

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, Hatfield McCoy Feud, history of appalachia, Willis Hatfield

"Well, we used to go to the neighbors and play cards, various different kind of games, and we popped corn. No pizzas, but we popped corn and made popcorn balls. And we made those with sorghum molasses. We didn't waste any sugar. And we made our own sorghum molasses. I never cared all that much for it as molasses but some of the rest of the family used to like that sticky, runny stuff on their bread. Not me, it was too sticky. But I loved it on popcorn balls or something like that.

"Then we used to make apple butter and we'd have apple peelings when a whole neighborhood group would go together and peel those bushels and bushels of apples and cut them up. Then the day you made it? That was an all-day job. You stirred and you stirred and you stirred. You kept building the fire. The same way with the molasses. I dare say, you have no idea how we did that.

"As I said, we visited and we did things together neighbors did, even to the men, and then when they threshed that wheat? Somebody came in with a threshing machine. He made a business of traveling around to all the farms. And they threshed the wheat. And if you were the lucky family that got those men when it was mealtime, why then you prepared a meal for a whole group of men.

"That was quite a day. And the neighbor women would go together and they'd cook up a awful mess of stuff. Those men would eat like hungry men do eat, you know. And we kids always had to wait until the threshers were through eating and sometimes the stuff they fixed for the threshers - there wouldn't be any left that we were looking forward to. But we liked to watch them do it.

"And let's see: they used to take the wheat, now this you'll find hard to believe too – I find it hard myself now that I look back – take the wheat to a flour mill and have that wheat ground into flour. And that is the flour we used. And in our kitchen, we had a flour barrel, can you imagine, I remember just exactly where it sat. It had a wood lid over the top of it.

"And we kept the flour in that barrel and when my mother baked bread she got the flour out of that barrel and she had a big board she kneaded the dough on, on the kitchen table. And I remember, my mother set a sponge which nobody does now if they bake, but she did. Did you ever see bread sponge? I don’t imagine you have.

Pomeroy Bend on the Ohio River, Pomeroy, Meigs County, Ohio, ca. 1940-1949

"She had a jar she had it in. It had yeast in it. It was a foamy looking mess of stuff. But you had to keep it warm because cold will kill yeast no matter whether you make a sponge or just bake as people do now. Well, whether anybody else was warm or not, that sponge had to be. Because if it wasn't you didn't have any bread. She would wrap an old blanket all around that at bedtime and that sat right by the only warmth in the house. All wrapped up in a blanket. I will say the bread was really better in the summer than it was in the winter because our house was cold. If I had to live in a house like that, I don't think I'd lived as long as I have. It was cold.

"I remember the kitchen, of course, was colder than the living room. The kitchen was long. And the stove was in one end and you had to have those old coal ranges hot in order to cook on them or use the oven. But it didn't penetrate to the table on the other end of the kitchen. Used to wear our coats when we ate breakfast and sit there and shiver, I remember. On cold days, that is. I remember on more times than one, grabbing something that I wanted to eat and taking it in to the living room where it was a little warmer."


Christina Grueser
Pomeroy, OH
(1909-2005)
1997 interview with Sarah Grueser

Oral History from the Countdown To Millennium Project, a partnership between Ohio University, Rural Action, the School Districts of Trimble, Federal Hocking, Meigs Local, and Vinton County and the communities, of Glouster, Amesville, Kilvert, McArthur, Trimble and Pomeroy.
online at http://home.frognet.net/~cntdown/OralHistoryPages/ChristinaGrueser.htm

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian foods, appalchian history, history of appalachia, Meigs County OH, Pomeroy OH

It was born from a foreclosed company, and in the end had so little value as a railroad that it was simply abandoned rather than sold. Georgia’s Tallulah Falls Railway owners had a grand plan to connect to various other southeastern lines, but that plan was never implemented, most likely because the mountainous terrain would have required many millions in construction costs. The TF’s nickname was the Rabun Gap Route, although is it any surprise that some local people jokingly called it the "Total Failure"?

The original line between Cornelia and Tallulah Falls was built by the Northeastern Railroad of Georgia, a railroad chartered in 1870 by a group of Athens businessmen to build a line between Athens and Clayton. It reached Tallulah Falls in 1882. As the northern terminus of the rail line for over twenty years, Tallulah Falls became a popular resort town. Trading opportunities also increased for this remote region and the depot served as a social center.

This line was purchased by the company that would soon become the Southern Railway, who were mostly interested in the southern end of the line as a way to tie Athens on to their Atlanta-to-East Coast mainline.



The Blue Ridge and Atlantic bought the northern end of this line from the pre-Southern Railway in 1887 as the first step in their effort to connect Savannah with Knoxville, which was supposed to use a new route to get from Tallulah Falls to Clayton, then use the route surveyed prior to the Civil War by the Blue Ridge Railroad to connect Clayton to Franklin, NC.

The Blue Ridge and Atlantic failed in 1897, and The Tallulah Falls Railway was organized the following year to take over the former’s foreclosed properties. With the financial backing of Southern Railway, the new owners extended the line to Clayton in 1904, to North Carolina in 1906, and to Franklin in 1907. The result was a 57-mile line from Cornelia to Franklin.

Perhaps the most distinguishing single characteristic of the Tallulah Falls Railroad was its fascinating variety of trademark trestles. Forty-two of these massive wooden wonders had to be negotiated along the scenic journey, each having to bear the full weight of a 140,000 lb. locomotive and its heavy load. It is these forty-two trestles which created much of the line's personality, and more than any other single feature dramatically reflected the type of country that the TF served - rugged, wild and often dangerous.

The trestles of the Tallulah Falls Railroad were quite varied. The shortest of the trestles was approximately 25 feet in length, while the longest is generally considered to be the 940 feet long scenic wonder which skirted the rooftops over the town of Tallulah Falls. The only exception to the wooden trestles along the line was the massive 585 feet long steel and concrete bridge spanning Tallulah Lake.

Though numerous accidents and mishaps occurred along the many TF trestles, most were rather minor. The dangerous reputation these structures held came primarily from two collapses: in 1898 at Panther Creek and in 1927 at Hazel Creek. Both mishaps resulted in fatalities. The accident at Hazel Creek produced some of the railroad's most memorable and dramatic photographs.

Around the time that the railroad was under construction between Clayton and Franklin, the Southern was considering a grander plan, one which would incorporate the TF and several other existing lines into a new route over the Appalachians to Knoxville, TN. If constructed, the railroad would have continued from Franklin down the Little Tennessee River valley to Southern's Murphy Branch (Asheville-to-Murphy, NC) near Almond.

From there, trains could proceed a few miles to Bushnell where the Tennessee & Carolina Southern branched off and followed the river 14 miles to Fontana. From Fontana, new tracks would be built alongside the Little Tennessee to Calderwood, where they would join existing lines to Maryville and Knoxville. None of it ever came about.

Passenger service came to an end in 1946. Ongoing repair costs and mounting debt forced the railway to cease operations in 1961; the last freight train ran on March 25 that year. A short section from Cornelia to Demorest remained in operation for several years longer, but was abandoned sometime before 1985.


sources: http://ngeorgia.com/railroads/trestlesofnorthgeorgia.html
http://railga.com/tallu.html

My thanks to Ed Kelly of Athens, GA for his help on the early history of the Blue Ridge and Atlantic

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, Blue Ridge and Atlantic Railroad, history of appalachia, short line railroads, Tallulah Falls Railroad

Book Review: 'Spruce Pine,' by David Biddix and Chris Hollifield, Arcadia Publishing, arcadiapublishing.com, $21.99

It’s fitting that Arcadia Publishing will release “Spruce Pine,” the latest in its ongoing ‘Images of America’ monographs on small towns across America, here in the US market on Sept 28. Locals of this western North Carolina community may appreciate that the book’s appearance coincides with the anniversary of the two week trek of the Overmountain Men, who made their way from Virginia and across the Blue Ridge during the Revolutionary War, passing through the area en route to the famous King’s Mountain battle of October 7, one of the turning points of that war in the southern theatre.

This volume follows the overall series pattern: at 126 pages and 222 photos, the book takes a ‘Life’ magazine photo-essay approach to its topic, and keeps in-depth analysis of big historical trends offstage.

That will suit genealogists with family connections in the area just fine, though. The authors have carefully captioned the individuals seen in page after page of group photos representing just about every conceivable small town organization: school groups, church groups, Boy Scouts, sports teams, mining workers, fire department members, and so on.

Local sons David Biddix and Chris Hollifield have seamlessly edited photographs from standard sources, such as the National Park Service and East Tennessee State’s Appalachian Collection at Sherrod Library, with personal photographs from a number of local residents, and it’s the latter that makes this book such a valuable addition to the bookshelf of anyone interested in the town or the region.

The authors could have delved a bit further in their fact checking in one or two instances: they tell us that the English Inn, one of the earliest hotels in the area, is reputedly the largest log structure in North Carolina. Well, is it or isn’t it? And at another point we’re told that the South and Western Railway cost more than $1 million per mile of track to build. In today’s dollars? Not made clear. These are minor quibbles, and thankfully not typical throughout the book. Overall the captions, like the arrangement of the photos, follow a clear narrative arc, from early settlers to the building of railroads and establishment of mining, through the two World War eras, and on into present times and the emergence of modern interactions with the outside world.

The book rightly keeps its main focus on local goings on, from a profile of Dr. Charles Peterson, the ‘father of Spruce Pine,’ down to entertaining shots of the Mayland Fair or folks hanging out at the White Swan Restaurant for a soda.

But county fairs and soda jerks are part of small towns everywhere. While tying Spruce Pine into broader American small town culture, Biddix and Hollifield have simultaneously done a marvelous job of capturing the specific soul of Spruce Pine. We meet, for example, the Woody family, who for seven generations has made ladder-back colonial chairs in town. They made one for President John F. Kennedy, and The Smithsonian Institution has a Woody rocker as part of its permanent American Crafts Collection.

Spruce Pine does have several more claims to fame on the national stage. The Chestnut Flat Mine produced the quartz that was used to cast the 200-inch mirror for the Hale Telescope at Palomar Mountain in California. Local son Roy Williams, who led UNC to NCAA championship glory in 2005 and again this year, is a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame. And businessman Brad Ragan’s Carolina Tire Company and its parent Brad Ragan Incorporated became Goodyear Tire’s largest retailer, with worldwide operations.

‘Spruce Pine’ is also quick to point out that plenty of well known people have been through town, from Presidents Nixon & Ford, to music stars Bill Monroe, Chet Atkins and Kitty Wells.

In her forward to the book, local children’s book author Gloria Houston waxes poetic about trying on prom dresses at Belk’s store, and the smells of disinfectant and popcorn butter at the Carolina Theatre, which sets the boosterish tone of the book overall, straight through to the end page photograph of a 1950s billboard promoting Spruce Pine as ‘The heart of vacationland.’ If you’re looking for labor strife, murders, or affairs between the choir director and the mayor, you won’t find any of that between these covers. And that’s a shame, because history isn’t only made up of the good old days, although those are fun to revisit.

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, appalachian literature, history of appalachia, Mitchell County NC, Spruce Pine NC

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 Cherokee myth titled “The Man Who Married The Thunder's Sister.” It was transcribed by ethnologist James Mooney, who interviewed Cherokee storytellers extensively between 1887 and 1890 and published the myths in a Smithsonian Institution book.

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.

Barbara Frietchie's story has been immortalized in plays, poems, and local Frederick, MD lore. The story relates that a 96 year old widow draped the Union flag from her window as Confederate troops rode by. Stonewall Jackson saw the display and ordered his troops to shoot the flag. Frietchie is reported to have said, "Shoot if you must this old gray head, but spare your country’s flag."

Makes for great storytelling; the problem is, when you go back to primary sources, the details don't quite add up to that exact story.

Until the late 1950's, when changes in federal and state laws, along with changing economic realities doomed the practice, many companies issued tokens, or scrip, for use by their employees in company run stores. This was especially widespread in the coal fields of Appalachia, where many miners also lived in company owned towns. In these company towns, or "coal camps," the only store in town was usually owned or run on behalf of the coal company.

“West Virginia has not, up to the present time, done much with its scenery except to mar it, mutilate it, and burn it up,” stated the WV Conservation Commission in its 1908 annual report. “A good many things must be done before West Virginia will take its due rank as a resort for tourists, health seekers, and sightseers.” The report goes on to spell out a few suggestions.

We’ll wrap things up with an article by Bessie Coleman Robinson of Calhoun County, AL. Robinson wrote a regular column on the early history of the county for The Anniston Times, which published from 1932-1943. In this piece she discusses local Creek Indian settlements and mound burial practices.

And, thanks to the good folks at the Digital Archive we'll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music by Jimmie Rodgers as he yodels his way through the 1928 recording “Dear Old Sunny South By the Sea.”

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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In the old times the people used to dance often and all night. Once there was a dance at the old town of Sâkwi'yï, on the head of Chattahoochee, and after it was well started two young women with beautiful long hair came in, but no one knew who they were, or whence they had come.

They danced with one partner and another, and in the morning slipped away before anyone knew that they were gone; but a young warrior had fallen in love with one of the sisters on account of her beautiful hair, and after the manner of the Cherokee had already asked her through an old man if she would marry him and let him live with her.

To this the young woman had replied that her brother at home must first be consulted, and they promised to return for the next dance seven days later with an answer, but in the meantime if the young man really loved her he must prove his constancy by a rigid fast until then. The eager lover readily agreed and impatiently counted the days.

In seven nights there was another dance. The young warrior was on hand early, and later in the evening the two sisters appeared as suddenly as before. They told him their brother was willing, and after the dance they would conduct the young man to their home, but warned him that if he told anyone where he went or what he saw he would surely die.

He danced with them again and about daylight the three came away just before the dance closed, so as to avoid being followed, and started off together. The women led the way along a trail through the woods, which the young man had never noticed before, until they came to a small creek, where, without hesitating, they stepped into the water.

Ayâsta, one of three Cherokee storytellers interviewed extensively by James Mooney between 1887 and 1890 for this collection. “She was the only woman privileged to speak in council among the East Cherokee.” Photo by the author, 1888.

The young man paused in surprise on the bank and thought to himself, "They are walking in the water; I don't want to do that." The women knew his thoughts just as though he had spoken and turned and said to him, "This is not water; this is the road to our house." He still hesitated, but they urged him on until he stepped into the water and found it was only soft grass that made a fine level trail.

They went on until the trail came to a large stream which he knew for Tallulah River. The women plunged boldly in, but again the warrior hesitated on the bank, thinking to himself, "That water is very deep and will drown me; I can't go on." They knew his thoughts and turned and said, "This is no water, but the main trail that goes past our house, which is now close by." He stepped in, and instead of water there was tall waving grass that closed above his head as he followed them.

They went only a short distance and came to a rock cave close under Ugûñ'yï (Tallulah Falls). The women entered, while the warrior stopped at the mouth; but they said: "This is our house; come in and our brother will soon be home; he is coming now." They heard low thunder in the distance. He went inside and stood tip close to the entrance. Then the women took off their long hair and hung it up on a rock, and both their heads were as smooth as a pumpkin. The man thought, "It is not hair at all," and he was more frightened than ever.

The younger woman, the one he was about to marry, then sat down and told him to take a seat beside her. He looked, and it was a large turtle, which raised itself up and stretched out its claws as if angry at being disturbed. The young man said it was a turtle, and refused to sit down, but the woman insisted that it was a seat. Then there was a louder roll of thunder and the woman said, "Now our brother is nearly home." While they urged and he still refused to come nearer or sit down, suddenly there was a great thunder clap just behind him, and turning quickly he saw a man standing in the doorway of the cave.

"This is my brother," said the woman, and he came in and sat down upon the turtle, which again rose up and stretched out its claws. The young warrior still refused to come in. The brother then said that he was just about to start to a council, and invited the young man to go with him. The hunter said he was willing to go if only he had a horse; so the young woman was told to bring one. She went out and soon came back leading a great uktena snake, that curled and twisted along the whole length of the cave. Some people say this was a white uktena and that the brother himself rode a red one. The hunter was terribly frightened, and said "That is a snake; I can't ride that."

The others insisted that it was no snake, but their riding horse. The brother grew impatient and said to the woman, "He may like it better if you bring him a saddle, and some bracelets for his wrists and arms." So they went out again and brought in a saddle and some arm bands, and the saddle was another turtle, which they fastened on the uktena's back, and the bracelets were living slimy snakes, which they got ready to twist around the hunter's wrists.

He was almost dead with fear, and said, "What kind of horrible place is this? I can never stay here to live with snakes and creeping things." The brother got very angry and called him a coward, and then it was as if lightening flashed from his eyes and struck the young man, and a terrible crash of thunder stretched him senseless.

When at last he came to himself again he was standing with his feet in the water and both hands grasping a laurel bush that grew out from the bank, and there was no trace of the cave or the Thunder People, but he was alone in the forest. He made his way out and finally reached his own settlement, but found then that he had been gone so very long that all the people had thought him dead, although to him it seemed only the day after the dance. His friends questioned him closely, and, forgetting the warning, he told the story; but in seven days he died, for no one can come back from the underworld and tell it and live.


Source: “Myths of the Cherokee,” by James Mooney, Bureau of American Ethnology, 19th Annual Report to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Congressional Serial Set, publ. by US Government Printing Office, 1900

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, Cherokee myths, history of appalachia, James Mooney

A country's natural scenery may have a good deal more than an aesthetic value. It may be worth money, and from a business standpoint its care and improvement is frequently of great importance. Fifty million dollars go into Switzerland every year to pay the board and traveling expenses of foreigners who journey there for pleasure and recreation. The money thus brought into the country constitutes a large part of the income of the people.

Nature gave fine scenery and pleasing summer climate to Switzerland, and the natives have built the best and most picturesque roads in Europe in make travel easy and exhilarating. Excellent hotels offer attractive accommodations. People go there to spend their money, and depart with the feeling that their money was well spent. Scenery and resorts pay in that country.

The people of Maine have found ways to make money out of their woods, lakes, rivers, and summer hotels. Fishermen and hunters who have plenty of money to spend go by the thousands to Maine to spend it. They are willing to pay well, and the thrifty Yankees see to it that their guests get their money’s worth. That brings the guests back year after year. Game is protected and is plentiful. Streams abound in fish because dynamiting and other destructive modes of killing are not permitted. The woods are in good condition because fires are not permitted to burn unopposed. The people of Maine find their scenery, resorts, hunting, and fishing an investment which pays big dividends.

Boating Group with their Canoe, Morgantown, W. Va., circa 1910.

West Virginia has not, up to the present time, done much with its scenery except to mar it, mutilate it, and burn it up. Except in the case of mineral springs, practically nothing has been done in this State to make scenery attractive or to bring it to the attention of the outside world. West Virginia may never rival Switzerland, but it can equal Maine. The summer climate is glorious among its high mountains and elevated valleys. A series of summer hotels from 3000 to 4400 feet above the sea might stretch across the State, following the Alleghany and parallel ranges of mountains.

Adequate highways connecting these resorts, and others for side trips to hunting and fishing grounds, with the surrounding forests cared for, and the innumerable mountain streams clear and clean, would attract to West Virginia many thousand wealthy tourists who now hardly know the state by name and who never think of visiting it, except to rush across it on the limited express trains of trunk railroads.

A good many things must be done before West Virginia will take its due rank as a resort for tourists, health seekers, and sightseers. It must first protect its woods and make them attractive. It must clean its streams and stock them with fish, and make and enforce civilized laws for protection of the fish. It must stop the senseless slaughter of birds and game. It must build roads that can be traveled with speed and safety by modern vehicles. In building these roads the value of scenery must be considered in regions where scenery is attractive.

The steps necessary to the carrying out of these recommendations are many, expensive, and difficult. No one should suppose that it is possible to do such things by simply resolving that they ought to be done. The immediate duty is to make a beginning and to make it in the right way and in the proper direction.

Then build upon that beginning as it becomes possible to do so. Check forest fires first; lessen the pollution of streams; put all new roads on the best grades, and when old ones are changed, put them on proper grades also; make it so dangerous for fish dynamiters and game destroyers to ply their trade that they will migrate. Follow these beginnings with constructive work; stock streams anew with fish; the forests with game and bird; build roads as circumstances will allow; and take pains to let the outside world know that West Virginia is in the scenery and resort business.


source: Report of the West Virginia Conservation Commission, 1908 (Charleston, 1909). lY-25, 38-39.
http://www.as.wvu.edu/WVHistory/html/doc_unit4.htm

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, conservation management, history of appalachia

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

‘Sixteen Tons’
Tennessee Ernie Ford

Until the late 1950's, when changes in federal and state laws, along with changing economic realities doomed the practice, many companies issued tokens, or scrip, for use by their employees in company run stores. This was especially widespread in the coal fields of Appalachia, where many miners also lived in company owned towns. In these company towns, or "coal camps," the only store in town was usually owned or run on behalf of the coal company.

In theory, scrip was an advance against unearned wages and usable only by the employee to whom it was issued. In practice, many miners were never able to fully retire their debt to the company store and scrip became the unofficial currency of the community, even being placed in the collection plates of some coal town churches.

Tierney Mining Co., Inc. Stone, Ky. Insurance Credit System

Scrip in the very beginning was more a trade credit or demand deposit at the single local general store. Ledger credit scrip, however, gave way to scrip coupon books, which eliminated the tedious bookkeeping chores involved in over the counter credit – transactions that must be followed by ledger entries.

The institutions that supplied coupon scrip were companies already in business printing tickets, tokens, and metal tags for various other kinds of enterprises. They advertised extensively in mining catalogues during the first half of the twentieth century touting the advantages of their own scrip systems.

The Allison Company of Indianapolis, for example, noted that when one of its coupon books was issued to an employee, he signed for it on the form provided on the first leaf of the book, which the store keeper tore out and retained for the company time keeper, who deducted the amount from the man’s next time-check. Then when the employee bought goods from the company store, he paid in coupons, just as he would pay in cash.

Other scrip producing ticket companies emphasized the safety of the scrip coupon system in coal mining communities where little or no police protection was available.

The Arcus Ticket Company of Chicago advertised a list of advantages of scrip for both the employer and employee, one of which for the employer was the fostering of employee good-will by eliminating misunderstandings on charge accounts. The advantages to the employee included keeping the head of the house better informed as to the purchases made by his family from day to day. This frequently put a check on extravagance and debt. Local scrip of this type was very similar to modern day traveler’s checks.

The transaction costs of coupon scrip eventually encouraged the increased use of metal scrip. This medium became cheaper overall than coupon scrip, in spite of metal’s higher initial costs, largely due to the invention and development of the cash register after 1880. Pantographic machines also were instrumental in reducing the unit costs of metal tokens.

In addition to metal tokens, there exist numerous examples of tokens made from "compressed fibre," a paper-like substance, most issued during World War II to save the metals for the war effort.

Miners and their families gather around the company store and office. Lejunior, Harlan County, Kentucky. Sept 12, 1946.

Scrip was usually denominated in the same values as U.S. currency. However, at least two companies issued a piece denominated three cents. The largest tokens were most frequently $1.00 face value. Pieces with a higher face value are very common. Special tokens, called "exploders," were used to facilitate the issuance of blasting powder, caps, and dynamite.

The obverse of the token usually indicated the name of the company or store issuing the scrip, and the value of the piece. A place name frequently appeared, not always where the token was used. Sometimes, the location of the general offices of the coal or store company appeared instead.

The reverse of the scrip usually contained the name and logo; designs changed fairly frequently. Other information, such as value and name of the issuing company is sometimes added. Pieces with no manufacturer identification exist in abundance and are termed "unattributed."


sources: www.moreheadstate.edu/library/collections/index.aspx?id=2516
www.nationalscripcollectors.com/ScripStories/AHistoryofScrip/tabid/1332/Default.aspx

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, company store, history of appalachia, scrip

Barbara Frietchie's story has been immortalized in plays, poems, and local Frederick, MD lore. The story relates that a 96 year old widow draped the Union flag from her window as Confederate troops rode by. Stonewall Jackson saw the display and ordered his troops to shoot the flag. Frietchie is reported to have said, "Shoot if you must this old gray head, but spare your country’s flag."

Makes for great storytelling; the problem is, when you go back to primary sources, the details don't quite add up to that exact story.

"Barbara Frietchie was loyal to her heart's core," Mrs. Shriver Tompkins confirms in a NY Times editorial dated October 25, 1899. "This I state from personal knowledge, though I believe she was the only member of her family who was.

"She was not bedridden at the time of the battles of Antietam and South Mountain, for I saw and conversed with her at that time. She had a small flag which she kept in her window during the memorable week of Gen. Robert E. Lee's occupation of Frederick. Barbara Frietchie was not a myth, neither was her loyalty. I have always understood and believed absolutely that she waved her flag as Gen. Reno passed her house, he looking at her and exclaiming, 'The Spirit of '76!"

So we've got the elderly Frietchie at the window, waving the Union flag energetically at the troops below. Except that General Reno is not leading Confederate troops or shooting at her flag. And Tompkins makes no mention at all of Stonewall Jackson.

George O. Seilheimer, in an article titled The Historical Basis of Whittier's "Barbara Frietchie," goes further:

"That Barbara Frietchie lived is not denied. That she died at the advanced age of 96 years and is buried in the burial-ground of the German Reformed Church in Frederick is also true.

"There is only one account of Stonewall Jackson's entry into Frederick, and that was written by a Union army surgeon who was in charge of the hospital there at the time. 'Jackson I did not get a look at to recognize him,' the doctor wrote on the 21st of September, 'though I must lave seen him, as I witnessed the passage of all the troops through the town.'

"Not a word about Barbara Frietchie and this incident.

"Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, too, was in Frederick soon afterward, on his way to find his son, reported mortally wounded at Antietam. Such a story, had it been true, could scarcely have failed to reach his ears, and be would undoubtedly have told it in his delightful chapter of war reminiscences, 'My Hunt for the Captain,' had he heard it.

"Barbara Frietchie had a flag, and it is now in the possession of Mrs. Handschue and her daughter, Mrs. Abbott, of Frederick. Mrs. Handschue was the niece and adopted daughter of Mrs. Frietchie, and the flag came to her as part of her inheritance, a cup out of which General Washington drank tea when he spent a night in Frederick in 1791 being among the Frietchie heirlooms.

"This flag which Mrs. Handschue and her daughter so religiously preserve is torn, but the banner was not rent with seam and gash from a rifle-blast; it is torn---only this and nothing more.

"That Mrs. Frietchie did not wave the flag at Jackson's men Mrs. Handschue positively affirms. The flag-waving act was done, however, by Mrs. Mary S. Quantrell, another Frederick woman; but Jackson took no notice of it, and as Mrs. Quantrell was not fortunate enough to find a poet to celebrate her deed she never became famous.

"Colonel Henry Kyd Douglas, who was with General Jackson every minute of his stay in Frederick, declares in an article in "The Century " for June, 1886, that Jackson never saw Barbara Frietchie, and that Barbara never saw Jackson. This story is borne out by Mrs. Frietchie's relatives.

"Barbara Frietchie had a flag and she waved it, not on the 6th to Jackson's men, but on the 12th to Burnside's.

"The manner in which the Frietchie legend originated was very simple. A Frederick lady visited Washington some time after the invasion and spoke of the open sympathy and valor of Barbara Frietchie. The story was told again and again, and it was never lost in the telling."


sources: The Historical Basis of Whittier’s 'Barbara Frietchie,' by George O. Seilheimer, "Battles and leaders of the Civil War, Vol 2," edited by Robert Underwood Johnson, Clarence Clough Buel, The Century Co, NY, 1884

NY Times editorial dated October 25, 1899, online at http://bit.ly/3tLBb

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, Barbara Frietchie, civil war veteran, Frederick MD, history of appalachia

"Boiling Spring"
The Anniston Times, December 30,1932
by Bessie Coleman Robinson


Our county abounds in beautiful springs, but no other surpasses Boiling Spring in beauty. It is located on the Manning Christian Place, originally called the Caver Place, situated in the Choccolocco Valley a few miles east of Oxford. In early days this spring gushed forth from the ground in a volume of water six feet high and some six inches in diameter. The white people coming into the county when it was first opened to settlement found the Indians living in huts all about this spring.

Knowledge of the location of Indian villages within the boundaries of Calhoun County is very scant. The fact that the Indian depended very little upon agriculture for his livelihood made a permanent location for his habitation unnecessary. Instead, the Indian lived mainly by hunting and fishing, and as both game and fish were plentiful, he moved about seeking new hunting grounds.

However, the Creek Indian lived in towns and had organized governments, one of these, Tallasseehatchie, is known to have been in the western part of the county. That there were others, we are sure, but their sites have not been fixed. It is interesting to know that there are evidences that point to a permanent Indian settlement at Boiling Spring.

Burial Ground

On a hillside, not far from the spring, there is an Indian burial ground. A field in front of the Manning Christian home is believed to be the site of an Indian village. When the ground was cleared for cultivation, quantities of arrowheads, stone ax heads and pieces of broken pottery were found scattered over the field and about the spring. A ceremonial ax found here, is now in the Geological Museum at the University of Alabama. In this field also an Indian grave was plowed up, which was enclosed with large rocks, and when opened, the bones quickly shattered to dust.

Another indication that an Indian village was located here is a large mound that has attracted a great deal of attention from archaeologists. It is 200 feet long and 50 feet wide and 30 feet high. Historians of Alabama tell us that Creek Indians lived in cabins of rather crude structure scattered about in small groups within the vicinity of a mound upon which the chief lived in a more pretentious dwelling.

Detail from: Benjamin Hawkins and the Creek Indians, c. 1805. Oil on canvas, 35 7/8 x 49 7/8 in. From the collection of the Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville S.C.

The mounds have been the subject of endless speculation among noted antiquarians. Since the period of mound building was over before the Europeans settled this country, their origin and use have been obscured. Pickett, early historian of Alabama believed that the mounds were erected by Indians. Other authorities contend that the mound buildings preceded the Indians. It is the opinion of Dr. J. H. McCullah, noted antiquarian quoted by both Pickett and Moore, that the large mounds "were sites for dwelling of chiefs, for council halls and for temples, which fancy and conceit have constructed into various shapes and variously situated one to another."

Mounds Explored

Dr. Moore, in his history of Alabama, says, "The small mounds have been thoroughly enough explored to demonstrate that they were for the purpose of sepulcher. Usually, they are five or ten feet high and fifteen to sixty feet in circumference." In a few instances, the small mound served as a tomb for one chief, but generally it contained numerous persons. From the size of the Boiling Spring mound, it is to be inferred that it belongs in the class with the large mounds.

On 10-29-1909, some young men, interested in Indian history, including Prof. Scott Lyon, Eugene Turner, Walter Stevens, Tulane Kidd, and Duncan Houser, decided to excavate the mound. They entered it from the top, digging a trench about twenty feet long. After going down for about five to six feet, they found a pot about the size of a quart vessel. Realizing that they were not skilled enough to get relics out of the mound unbroken, they abandoned the venture.


Bessie Coleman Robinson wrote a regular column on the early history of Calhoun County, AL for The Anniston Times, which published from 1932-1943. The articles are preserved on microfilm in the Bessie Coleman Robinson Collection at the Anniston Library. www.anniston.lib.al.us/archive/Bessie_Coleman_Robinson.htm. This article was transcribed by Erna Evans of Anniston and is online at http://bit.ly/VfFrq

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, Bessie Coleman Robinson, Calhoun County AL, Creek Indians, history of appalachia

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 transcript of a guest post from the Appalachian History blog by Matthew Burns of Pendleton County WV. Burns, who authors the Appalachian Lifestyles blog, relates the intriguing story of his great-great grandmother, who through various romantic twists and turns was the sister of her step-mother, and sister-in-law to her father.

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 we’ll listen to early 20th century Smoky Mountain guide Wiley Oakley spin a tall one about shooting a whole slew of turkeys with just one shot. ‘Born and rared’ in Gatlinburg, Oakley warns us right at the outset that any time his tales are true he won’t yodel at the end of the story.

“We need to be less aware of the picturesque, amusing or distressing differences, and more keenly conscious of the kinship of the mountain people with their kind elsewhere and everywhere,” states University of NC professor E.C. Branson, in a 1916 study comparing mountain poverty to statewide poverty benchmarks. “Otherwise we shall bring to noble effort in the mountains a certain disabling attitude that is fatal to success.”

Her work was published by a well known Boston editor for several years before he discovered that she was not a man. Tennessee author Mary Noailles Murfree, better known as Charles Egbert Craddock, was considered a master in delineations of mountain character, and in her descriptions of mountain scenery. We’ll hear a selection today from her 1897 work “The Young Mountaineers / Short Stories.”

John C.C. Mayo’s life story could have been lifted straight from the pages of Horatio Alger. He was born a poor mountaineer in Paintsville, KY. By the time of his premature death in 1914 at age 49 of Bright’s Disease, Mayo had amassed a fortune in the neighborhood of $20,000,000, making him Kentucky’s wealthiest man. He started as a schoolteacher but quickly learned how to buy up coal-rich land on the cheap.

We’ll wrap things up with an anecdote from the autobiography of Elkins WV
preacher Troy Robert Brady
(1906-1999). Reverend Brady was invited to the home of an Ohio River family after leading a revival service one evening. The family was used to keeping a lantern burning all night in the large room where the reverend was to sleep along with 4 teenage girls and a son. It was bad enough that he had to change his clothes in the open, but then the creaky bed assigned to him had bedbugs.

And, thanks to the good folks at the Digital Library of Appalachia we'll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music by Cousin Emmy (Cynthia Mae Carver) in a 1940 recording of “Arkansas Traveler.”

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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John C.C. Mayo (1864-1914) was born a poor mountaineer in Paintsville, KY, and by the time of his premature death at 49 of Bright’s Disease, had amassed a fortune in the neighborhood of $20,000,000, making him Kentucky’s wealthiest man.

Mayo became a teacher at age 16, interrupted his classroom activities to enroll in Kentucky Wesleyan College in Millersburg, and later returned to Johnson County to resume teaching at Paintsville, for $40 per month.

At college he heard geology lectures by visiting professor A.C. Sherwood, and learned about east Kentucky’s vast mineral resources. Some day, he felt, somebody would want that coal, and whenever he could get a little money saved up he would buy an option on a piece of land. He read geological surveys made by William Mather, David Owen, Nathaniel Shaler, and John Proctor and filled notebooks with mineral data.

He abstracted titles and paid a few dollars each for options to buy minerals underlying tracts of land. He pledged fifty cents to five dollars per acre if the option was later exercised.

In time Mayo saved $150 and with partners he formed the trading firm of Castle, Turner & Mayo, capitalized at $450. Mayo continued to teach and bought out his partners. At twenty six he engineered changes in the state’s land law. He read law and was admitted to the bar.

By the late 1880’s Mayo spent his days traveling around to purchase land for coal rights. He paid little attention to Alice Jane Alka Meek, who worked as a telegraph operator at the Alger House in Paintsville, other than when he wanted to send a message by telegraph to his sweetheart. But according to Carolyn Turner, co-author of the book John C. C. Mayo: Cumberland Capitalist, Miss Meek never sent those messages. When Mayo became deathly ill with pneumonia not long after they met, Miss Meek nursed him back to health at the hotel. Eventually, the two fell in love and were married in 1897. She was 20; he was 33.

When the constitutional convention met in 1890, Mayo knew many of the delegates, whom he lobbied to drop from the new constitution the ‘Virginia Compact provision’ that shadowed the title to hundreds of thousands of acres of eastern Kentucky land.

Mayo hired Floyd County attorney F.A. Hopkins to draft the broad form deed, and used this form in mineral buying to sever title to mineral rights from the remainer of the land title, making mineral rights dominant and residuary rights subservient ‘forever.’

Until the Mayo children were born, Mrs. Mayo traveled with her husband on business trips, often stashing gold – used to pay for mineral rights – in a specially made riding skirt ordered from Pogue’s, a store in Cincinnati. The gold could be tied to straps hidden underneath the skirt, and as much as $10,000 could be carried at a time.

The Mayo Mansion in Paintsville, built between 1904 and 1909.

Mayo had been collecting options for almost twenty years when he made his first sale --- a big parcel of coal land to the Merrits of Duluth. From them he took $200,000 in notes, and had these discounted. The Merrits failed, and he took it upon himself to make these notes good.

It was not until about 1901 that he began to be a really wealthy man, as the value of his land was still rather problematical. But he got Peter L. Kimberley, president of Chicago’s Sharon Steel Company, Frank Buell of Sharon, PA, and several other capitalists to help him form the Northern Coal and Coke Company in the beginning of 1902, and they started coal operating on a big scale, branched out into the Elkhorn field of Kentucky, and started the town of Jenkins. This concern finally sold out to the Consolidated Coal Company, in which Col. Mayo became a big stockholder.

"While never holding office, Col. Mayo always took a keen interest in politics," observed his obituary in the NY Times. "He was National Democratic Committeeman for Kentucky, and in the last presidential campaign took an active part and was a liberal contributor. Friends say his most remarkable trait was his personal magnetism. He was essentially a man of peace.

"In a lawsuit, he never settled by fighting it out, but always by compromise, instructing his attorney to see that the other fellow got what was due him, and a little more. To educational and charitable institutions in Kentucky he was a liberal contributor, and his private benefactions were large." At the time of his death his holdings included 75 companies.


source: NY Times, May 12, 1914 online at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9407E5D8173DE633A25751C1A9639C946596D6CF
Alka Mayo: Mountain matriarch, by Diane Comer, Ashland Daily Independent, October 29, 1985 – Page 8, Today’s Living online at http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/p/r/e/Clara-Preston-OH/GENE11-0169.html
The Kentucky Encyclopedia, by John E. Kleber, University Press of Kentucky, 1992
www.johnsoncountykyhistory.com/people/mayo.html

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, Consolidated Coal Company, history of appalachia, John C.C. Mayo, mineral rights, Paintsville KY

"The clouds were blowing away from a densely instarred sky; the moon was hardly more than a crescent and dipping low in the west, but he could see the sombre outline of the opposite mountain, and the white mists that shifted in a ghostly and elusive fashion along the summit. The night was still, save for a late katydid, spared by the frost, and piping shrilly.

"He experienced a terrible shock of surprise when a sudden voice—a voice he had never heard before—cried out sharply, 'Hello there! Help! help!'

"As he pressed tremulously forward, he beheld a sight which made him ask himself if it were possible that Alf Coggin had sent for him to join in some nefarious work which had ended in leaving a man—a stranger—bound to the old lightning-scathed tree.

"Even in the uncertain light Tom could see that he was pallid and panting, evidently exhausted in some desperate struggle: there was blood on his face, his clothes were torn, and by all odds he was the angriest man that was ever waylaid and robbed.

"'Ter-morrer he'll be jes' a-swoopin'!' thought Tom, tremulously untying the complicated knots, and listening to his threats of vengeance on the unknown robbers, 'an' every critter on the mounting will git a clutch from his claws.'

"And in fact, it was hardly daybreak before the constable of the district, who lived hard by in the valley, was informed of all the details of the affair, so far as known to Tom or the Traveler,—for thus the mountaineers designated him, as if he were the only one in the world."

---from The Young Mountaineers / Short Stories, by Charles Egbert Craddock, with illustrations by Malcolm Fraser, 1897


Tennessee author Mary Noailles Murfree (1850-1922), better known as Charles Egbert Craddock, was born in Murfreesboro, TN. For fifteen years she spent her summers in the Tennessee mountains among the people of whom she writes.

"Miss Seawell might have written her stories from anywhere, but that is not true of the greatest woman writer in the South, Miss Mary Murfree," commented Anna Leach in Literary Workers of the South(1895).

"It is her delineations of mountain character, and her descriptions of mountain scenery, that have placed her work in the place it holds. Her style is bold, full of humor, and yet as delicate as a bit of lace. To Mary Wilkins' gift of giving exact pictures of homely life, Miss Murfree unites great power of plot and a keen wit. The little old woman who sits on the edge of a chair in one of her novels, has added stores to America's proverbs. 'There ain't nothin' so becomin' to a fool as a shet mouth,' has taken its place with its older kindred."

"Her work was published by a well known Boston editor for several years before he discovered that she was not a man. Her handwriting is very heavy and black, and it was Mr. Thomas Bailey Aldrich's joke to say, 'I wonder if Craddock has taken in his winter supply of ink, and can let me have a serial.'

"One day a card came to Mr. Aldrich bearing the well known name in the well known writing, and the editor rushed out to greet his old contributor, expecting to see a sturdy Tennessee mountaineer. When a slight, delicate little woman arose to answer his greeting, it is said that Mr. Aldrich put his hands before his face, and simply spun around without a word, absolutely bewildered by astonishment."

"The sensation in the Atlantic office spread everywhere and gave tremendous vogue not only to the book but to the type of short story that it represented," observed the Cambridge History of English and American Literature in retrospect. "No one had gone quite so far before: the dialect was pressed to an extreme that made it almost unintelligible; grotesque localisms in manners and point of view were made central; and all was displayed before a curtain of mountains splashed with broad colours."

Murfree's critical reputation has not fared well more recently. "Her fiction has been consistently criticized for its stereotyping of the mountaineer and for its overblown, highly romanticized descriptions of the landscape," says Allison Ensor of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. "Almost every reader notices the wide gap between the tone and vocabulary of the narrator and the mountain dialect of her characters. Like many other local color writers, she felt it necessary to provide as narrator a cultured, sophisticated intermediary, someone like the reader she hoped to reach."


sources: http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/imagegallery.php?EntryID=M131
Literary Workers of the South, by Anna Leach, Munsey's, 1895 at www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/murfree.htm
The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21) VOLUME XVI. Early National Literature, Part II; Later National Literature, Part I.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20365/20365-h/20365-h.htm#pallid

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, appalachian literature, Charles Egbert Craddock, history of appalachia, Mary Noailles Murfree

"I've been a guide now for quite a few years, and I was borned and rared in the Great Smoky Mountains, at the foot of Mount Leconte, and when I was a boy, I didn't do anything but hunt. One day I went out to, to shoot some turkey, and just as soon as I entered the woods, here I saw a big flock of turkeys up on a limb, and I had this old cap and ball gun.

"Well, I was a little bit choicey, and I didn't want to just shoot one and all the rest of the flock would fly away. So I tried to figure out some way that I could line these turkeys up and kill more than one, as this cap and ball gun that takes you so long to load them, why, the whole flock of turkeys is gone.

"And I was a very good shot at that time, but the trouble was that I always made them, the meat, the feathers fly, but the trouble was the meat went with it the most of the time. So I decided I couldn't line these turkeys up, and I just decided that I'd just pick one out or aim at the middle of the limb probably would be better. So I just aimed at the middle of the limb where these turkeys was settin'.

Photo caption reads: "Doug Smith, Raymond Torrey, Wiley Oakley, and George Barber on a special hike. October 11, 1925”

"At the crack of this gun, why, I split the limb open and all these turkeys' feet fell right down in the crack of this limb. It closed in on them and fastened the whole flock. Here I had about a dozen or two fastened in this limb. By aiming at the limb instead of picking out one turkey, why, I got the whole business, but I had a hard time in climbing up the tree to get the turkeys out.

"Of course, when I yodel to the end of a story, that means you don't have to believe it unless you want to [YODELING]. Lord, Lord, this is about the best turkey hunt I ever made. Well now then, I have a true story. When they're true, why I don't yodel to end of the story, but when I was a boy, I did do quite a bit of hunting, and, and we had these old-fashion kind of guns.

"The first kind of gun was called the flintlock gun. You had to carry powder in the horn, and they had a little pan where you pour the powder in, and then the flint lock goes down and sets the powder off, and of course, of a rainy day you couldn't do much good a-huntin'. This was the first kind of a gun that I ever owned.

"Then a little later I had the cap and ball gun. You could go out on a rainy day and kill turkey, but you wouldn't kill them by the dozen. You'd only kill one at the time. The most of the time it was like I said before. They, usually you'd do a lot of good shooting, but they always knocked the feathers out, but the meat went along with them. So I'm not very good at story, story telling, not today, beg to be excused."

---Wiley Oakley
Gift shop owner and professional guide
born Sept. 12, 1885, Gatlinburg, TN

Joseph Sargent Hall interviewed Oakley in the Great Smoky Mountains in 1939. Oakley had a fourth- or fifth-grade education and some self-education.

As a graduate student, Hall began working for the National Park Service in the summer of 1937 collecting the speech of the Smoky Mountain inhabitants. He talked to people still living within the bounds of the park and to former Smoky Mountain residents who had been displaced by the park.

That first summer, Hall collected four notebooks full of details of the language, informant profiles, and bits and pieces of the mountain culture from songs to herbal remedies. The bulk of Hall’s work in the mountains spans from 1937 to 1941, but he continued refining and processing his collection for the rest of his life.


sources: Joseph Sargent Hall Collection/ East Tennessee State University/ Archives of Appalachia --- http://www.etsu.edu/cass/archives/Collections/afindaid/a422.html
http://www.cas.sc.edu/engl/dictionary/transcripts/oakley_wiley.html



Joseph+Sargent+Hall Great+Smoky+Mountains+National+Park Wiley+Oakley Gatlinburg+TN appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, appalachian mountains history, Gatlinburg TN, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Joseph Sargent Hall, Wiley Oakley

We need to be less aware of the picturesque, amusing or distressing differences, and more keenly conscious of the kinship of the mountain people with their kind elsewhere and everywhere. Otherwise we shall bring to noble effort in the mountains a certain disabling attitude that is fatal to success.

And so over against the types we find in the pages of Craddock, Fox, Kephart, and the rest, let us set the mountain people as they are related to the civilization of which they are a part. I therefore urge upon your attention the fact that they are not more poverty-stricken, nor more lawless and violent, nor more unorganizable than the democratic mass in rural North Carolina.

In the first place and quite contrary to popular notions, our mountains are not a region of widespread poverty. In per capita rural wealth Alleghany is the richest county in North Carolina. Among our 100 counties, five highland countines, Alleghany, Buncombe, Ashe, Henderson and Watauga, rank 1st, 5th, 6th, 13th and 14th in the order named, in the per capita farm wealth of country populations; and two more, Yancey and Transylvania, are just below the state average in this particular. The people of these counties are not poor, as country wealth is reckoned in North Carolina. They dwell in a land of vegetables and fruits, grain crops, hay and forage, flocks and herds. It is a land of overflowing abundance.

A view of West Jefferson, NC circa 1920.

It is not easy for such people to feel that they are fit subjects for missionary school enterprises. As a matter of fact, they need our money far less than they need appreciative understanding and homebred leadership. Their wealth is greater than their willingness to convert it into social advantages. They need to be shown how to realize the possibilities of their own soils and souls. Mountain civilization, like every other, will rise to higher levels when the people themselves tug at their own bootstraps; and there is no other way.

It is true that three of the poorest counties in the state in per capita country wealth are Graham, Cherokee, and Swain---counties set against the steeps of the Great Smokies. They rank in this particular 92nd, 94th, and 96th respectively; but their poverty is duplicated by that of Moore, Brunswick, Carteret and Dare---four counties in our coastal plain. The rank of these eastern counties is 93rd, 95th, 97th, and 98th in the order named. The two poorest counties in North Carolina in per capita farm wealth are in the tidewater region, not in the mountains.

Approaching the poverty of our mountain people from another angle, let us consider indoor pauperism in 11 mountain counties that maintain county homes or poor houses. The 1910 census discloses an average rate for the United States of 190 almshouse paupers per 100,000 inhabitants. In North Carolina the rate was 96; in these 11 highland counties it was only 79. Six of the mountain counties make a far better showing than the state at large. Buncombe with a rate of 125 and Watauga with a rate of 139, the two highest rates in the region, make a better showing than all the North Atlantic and New England states, where indoor pauper rates range from 153 in New Jersey to 447 in Massachusetts.

But we may make still another and better approach to the subject of poverty in our mountains by examining the outside pauper rates; better, because outside help is less repugnant to the feelings than residence in the poor house. In 1914 the state rate for outside pauperism was 234 per 100,000 inhabitants. In 12 highland counties the average rate was 205. Seven of the counties have rates far smaller than the state average, ranging from 35 in Mitchell to 184 in Cherokee; three are just below state average; and only two, Buncombe and Clay, are near the bottom.

It ought to be clear that poverty in the mountains of North Carolina is actually and relatively less than elsewhere in the state. Here both indoor and outside paupers in 12 counties in 1914 numbered only 559 in a population of 209,000 souls.


---excerpt from “Our Carolina Highlanders,” by E.C. Branson, professor of Rural Economics and Sociology, University of North Carolina, in the July 1916 UNC Extension Bureau Circular No. 2
www.archive.org/details/ourcarolinahighl00bran

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, E.C. Branson, history of appalachia, Our Carolina Highlanders, wealth and poverty

It's September; time to head back to school.

Here's an outdoor class being held at the Othello School in Cherokee County, GA, circa 1925. The teacher is believed to be Miss Corine Pace. Third student from left is Glenn Hubbard. This one room schoolhouse probably went out of use around 1938, and is no longer standing.

Happy Labor Day!

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, Cherokee County GA, education in Appalachia, history of appalachia, one room schoolhouse

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 story of the dramatic crash of the airship USS Shenandoah in southeast Ohio on September 3, 1925. At 3 A.M. a storm began to brew in the northwest, and a few minutes later Commander Zachary Lansdowne, the skipper of the Shenandoah, was back in the control car. The Shenandoah was making little progress against a strong head wind. Lansdowne ordered the man at the elevator controls to bring the ship down to 2,000 feet, in an effort to find a hole in the wall of wind. It was useless.

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 let’s follow the Keil family as they emigrate from Charleston to what was then the farthest wilderness of Upland South Carolina. The family’s farm is significant as an example of the evolution of an antebellum farmhouse from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century, and also symbolizes the role that a German immigrant family played in the settlement and development of Walhalla and Oconee County in SC.

“Wealth, great wealth, is now collectively possessed by the people of Tazewell,” observed William Cecil Pendleton in his ‘History of Tazewell County and Southwest Virginia: 1748-1920.’ What would they do with it, he wondered? Would the generation then coming of age be taught that money, position, power, idleness, and luxury are the prime essentials of an advanced civilization?

Before the organization of the Diamond Match Company in 1867, there were in existence throughout the United States over thirty match factories, several of which were found in Kentucky and West Virginia. The typical match factory consisted of anywhere between one and a dozen workers, often children, making matches entirely by hand in cramped and poorly ventilated conditions and for a very small wage. Soon after the turn of the twentieth century public concern nationwide was aroused over the health menace created by the manufacture of matches from white phosphorus.

Huntington, WV born Tom Kromer dedicated his novel about the Great Depression’s suicidally down and out to "Jolene, who turned off the gas." Kromer refused to romanticize the life of the hobo who had to hit the rails. “Where are they going? I do not know. They do not know. He hunts for work, and he is a damn fool. There is no work. He cannot leave his wife and kids to starve to death alone, so he brings them with him. Now he can watch them starve to death.”

We’ll wrap things up with an 1881 article from Cumberland MD’s ‘Evening Times’ about a famous local incident. We already know from the name of the mountain outcropping how the story will turn out, but nonetheless the stirring romance between settler Jack Chadwick and a beautiful young Indian woman makes the ending of “Lover’s Leap” that much more heart wrenching.

And, thanks to the good folks at the Digital Archive we'll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music by Adam Rennie and his dance band in a 78 RPM recording of “Scottish Reform.”

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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At 3 A.M. a storm began to brew in the northwest, and a few minutes later Commander Zachary Lansdowne, the skipper of the dirigible USS Shenandoah, was back in the control car. The Shenandoah was making little progress against a strong head wind. Lansdowne ordered the man at the elevator controls to bring the ship down to 2,000 feet, in an effort to find a hole in the wall of wind. It was useless.

For an hour and a half the slender airship struggled westward, drifting first to port, then to starboard. At a few minutes after 5 A.M., E. P. Alien, the elevatorman, turned to Lansdowne. "Captain," he said, a slight undertone of nervousness in his voice, "the ship has started to rise."

"Check her," said Lansdowne.

Alien turned the big elevator wheel clockwise to drive the ship down. It was obvious that the Shenandoah was not responding to the controls. Sweat covered Alien's forehead. "She's rising two meters per second. I can't check her, sir."

Lansdowne ordered engines 4 and 5 speeded up. But despite the increased power, the ship continued to rise.

"I can't hold her down," said Alien. There was a note of panic in his voice now. He started to pull the wheel even farther over.

Lansdowne stopped him. "Don't exceed that angle," he said in a calm, confident voice that reassured everyone in the cabin. "We don't want to go into a stall." He ordered Rudderman Ralph Joffray to change his course to the south.

Joffray tugged his wheel counterclockwise. He had to put his whole body into the effort. "Hard over, sir," he grunted, "and she won't take it."

"I've got the flippers down and she won't check," said Alien, his voice rising again.

"Don't worry," said Lansdowne, as if there were nothing to fear.

In spite of rudders, elevators, and motors, the ship continued to shoot up, tail elevated about fifteen degrees, and to head relentlessly westward, directly into the storm. The dirigible was rolling now like a raft in the sea.

The situation was more serious than the Shenandoah's crew, at least for the moment, suspected. Down on the ground, in a little Ohio town called Caldwell, a man awakened when the wind slammed the furniture around on his front porch. He went outside, looked up at the sky, and spotted the giant airship. Directly above it was a dark cloud that seemed to be in a great turmoil. It looked to him, he later told friends, "as though two storms had gone together." And in Ava a woman, seeing the same cloud, called her husband out into the yard. "Come out and see the boiling cloud!" she cried.

What they saw was a line squall gathering directly above the ship. Formed by a clash of opposing winds---one moist and warm, the other dry and cold—such a squall was capable of seizing the Shenandoah, twisting her in different directions, and wringing out her light metal frame. The ship's rise was carrying her right into the squall.

CLICK PHOTO TO SEE MORE DETAIL. The Navy dirigible USS Shenandoah left Lakehurst, NJ, on September 2, 1925, at approximately 4:00 P.M., headed for St. Louis and Detroit. Lieutenant Commander Zachery Lansdowne was in charge, with approximately 36 men on board.

They were traveling over southeastern Ohio when they flew into a severe electrical storm, at approximately 4:00 A.M. The crew changed course almost a dozen times — moving between altitudes of 1,800 and 7,000 feet. However, the air pressure and twisting were so great that the ship broke. The control car that was attached to the underbelly of the airship fell to the ground. Fourteen people died, including Lansdowne. This panorama shows the nose, which continued its flight for 12 miles, landing in Sharon, OH.


---excerpt from 'Death of a Dirigible,' by John Toland, American Heritage Magazine, February 1959, Vol 10, Issue 2
full article continues here

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, dirigibles, history of appalachia, USS Shenandoah

A GREY HUNTER
Cumberland [MD] Evening Times, May 18th & 19th, 1881

"Jack Chadwick lived in the wild country near Negro mountain with his mother and little brother Jesse. He was a great hunter and feared nothing. In one of his excursions he came across an Indian chief, who lived in the break in Will's Mountain a mile or two up the creek with his white wife and daughter, the latter just blooming into womanhood.

"The chief had sided with the whites against the protest of his tribe, and they forsook him. He took up his residence in the hollow. Jack fell in love with the daughter and it was reciprocated. But the chief wanted her to marry an officer at the fort and told Jack he was too poor. Disheartened but still determined, Jack left for his home. Stopping at a spring to drink he turned over a stone and uncovered a glistening ledge of rock, which he found to be rich silver ore.

"Returning to the home of his love, he told the chief what he had found, and proposed to show him the mine if he would give him his daughter. The Chief agreed, the silver mine was shown him, and the young man went home to prepare for the wedding. Returning, he brought his brother with him. The Chief, however, had changed his mind at the instigation of the officer of the fort, and declined to give his daughter to young Chadwick.

From: "Feldstein’s Top Historic Postcard Views of Allegany County," 1997.

"All day Jack protested, but the old chief was obdurate, and finally the lover seemed to acquiesce and asked for a few moments talk with the maid, which was granted.

"Sauntering among the trees and talking of the harshness of the parent, the lovers finally agreed to make for the fort and get married, and soon they slipped out of sight of the old home. The old Chief was watching, however and when he missed them he went in pursuit, overtaking them back of the cliff. He was very angry and attacked Jack with a club. The latter threw a stone at the Chief and unfortunately killed him.

"The daughter loved her Indian parent dearly, and amid her wailing declared she could die with Jack but could not live with him, now that he had killed her father. 'Then let us leap off the cliff yonder together and end our trouble,' said he. She consented, and arm-in-arm they walked to the cliff, where they clasped hands and leaped off together."


source: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/MDGARRET/2001-09/0999818266

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, Cumberland MD, history of appalachia, Lovers Leap

The Keil Farm is significant as an example of the evolution of an antebellum farm house from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century, and also symbolizes the role that a German immigrant family played in the settlement and development of Walhalla and Oconee County in SC.

John Henry Keil, Sr. (1817-1900), was born Johann Heinreich Keil, in Stotel, Germany, and spent almost 10 years in Charleston after migrating there in the late 1830s or early 1840s. He was listed as a grocer in the City of Charleston directory in 1842. His naturalization papers also list this occupation. He and his family were members of St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church of Charleston. Keil married Margurethe Henrietta Sahlmann in 1847 there, and all of their three children (Katherine Sophia, born July 24, 1848; Johann Heinreich Keil, Jr., born June 12, 1850; Gessina Sophia, born September 21, 1852) were baptized there.

The German Colonization Society of Charleston, led by John A. Wagener, purchased a large tract of land from Col. John Grisham of West Union and laid out the town lots and agricultural area of Walhalla in 1850. Getting to the frontier of settlement in Oconee County (then part of Pickens District) in 1852 from Charleston required a seven hour ride on the SC Railroad to Columbia, another long train ride to Honea Path or Anderson, and finally a seven or eight hour carriage ride to Pendleton and Walhalla.

John Henry Keil and family, about 1853, took up residence in the Bear Swamp area of Wagener Township. In 1857, he purchased 203 acres of land in the Bear Swamp area from J.F. Leopold for $1,015. Part of this purchase contains the current property. Keil, his family, and their pioneer friends initially must have labored in near isolation in the area in which they settled.

When the family moved to Walhalla, they began by 1855 an active association with the newly formed St. John’s Lutheran Church. The family was active in Sunday School and Keil Sr was active as a vestryman from 1878 until his death in 1900.

J.H. Keil Sr planted a variety of legumes and vegetable crops as well as having "milch" and beef cows, swine, and sheep.

Economic resources diminished during the Civil War and during Reconstruction, but by the turn of the century, conditions had improved to the point where the residence had been expanded from its original 700 square feet downstairs and another 400 feet in the loft to usable space measuring over 2000 square feet downstairs and 1000 feet upstairs.

The initial expansion, sometime between 1894 and 1900, was an addition to the west and south of the original house. It provided additional bedrooms and expanded the dining area. The final addition came about 1900 in the form of a large parlor and entrance hall. By that time, J.H. Keil, Jr's family had taken over the house and farm from Keil, Sr. The elder's wife had died in 1884, and he had already moved into his town house, which he had purchased in 1879.

John Henry Keil, Jr. died in July 1914 after a team of mules dragged him across a field. His widow, Margaret Jane Keith Keil, took over active management of the farm until her death in 1939. Her records contain agreements with sharecroppers William W. Brewer and Winfield Morton dated 1884 and another with Isaac Allen dated 1887.

The Keil Farm tenant house, also known as "Merrit's House" in the 1930s and 1940s, was likely used for the purpose of providing housing to sharecroppers and may date to 1884 or before. Margaret J.K. Keil's records contain a receipt for a new buggy purchased in 1905 for $80. As late as 1940, a buggy shed stood several hundred yards from the main house.

By the Depression, John & Margaret's children had moved away from Walhalla. But when hard economic times spread throughout the country, the Keil Farm provided the haven to which many of these children, spouses and their children returned, for various periods of time.


From National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, 1998
http://www.nationalregister.sc.gov/oconee/S10817737013/S10817737013.pdf

Posted by Dave Tabler at 5:00 AM | 0 comments Links to this post    
Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, history of appalachia, Keil Farm, Oconee County SC, Walhalla SC

IT IS NIGHT, and we are in this jungle. This is our home tonight. Our home is a garbage heap. Around us are piles of tin cans and broken bottles. Between the piles are fires. A man and a woman huddle by the fire to our right. A baby gasps in the woman's arms. It has the croup. It coughs until it is black in the face. The woman is scared. She pounds it on the back. It catches its breath for a little while, but that is all. You cannot cure a baby of the croup by pounding it on the back with your hand.

The man walks back and forth between the piles of garbage. His shoulders are hunched. He clasps his hands behind him. Up and down he walks. Up and down. He has a look on his face. I know that look. I have had that look on my own face. You can tell what a stiff is thinking when you see that look on his face. He is thinking he wishes to Jesus Christ he could get his hands on a gat. But he will not get his hands on a gat. A gat costs money. He has no money. He is a lousy stiff. He will never have any money.

Two hobos walking along railroad tracks, after being put off a train. Unknown date, unknown photographer. Library of Congress.

Where are they going? I do not know. They do not know. He hunts for work, and he is a damn fool. There is no work. He cannot leave his wife and kids to starve to death alone, so he brings them with him. Now he can watch them starve to death. What can he do? Nothing but what he is doing. If he hides out on a dark street and gives it to some bastard on the head, they will put him in and throw the keys away if they catch him. He knows that. So he stays away from dark streets and cooks up jungle slop for his wife and kid between the piles of garbage.

I look around this jungle filled with fires. They are a pitiful sight, these stiffs with their ragged clothes and their sunken cheeks. They crouch around their fires. They are cooking up. They take their baloney butts out of their packs and put them in their skillets to cook. They huddle around their fires in the night. Tomorrow they will huddle around their fires, and the next night, and the next. It will not be here. The bulls will not let a stiff stay in one place long. But it will be the same. A garbage heap looks the same no matter where it is.

We are five men at this fire I am at. We take turns stumbling into the dark in search of wood. Wood is scarce. The stiffs keep a jungle cleaned of wood. I am groping my way through the dark in search of wood when I stumble into this barbed wire fence. My hands are scratched and torn from the barbs, but I do not mind. I do not mind because I can see that we are fixed for wood for the night.

We will not have to leave our warm fire again to go chasing through the night after wood. A good barbed wire fence has poles to hold it up. A couple of good stout poles will burn a long time. What do I care if this is someone's fence? To hell with everybody! We are five men. We are cold. We must have a fire. It takes wood to make a fire. I take this piece of iron pipe and pry the staples loose.

This is good wood. It makes a good blaze. We do not have to huddle so close now. It is warm, too, except when the wind whistles hard against our backs. Then we shiver and turn our backs to the fire and watch these rats that scamper back and forth in the shadows. These are no ordinary rats. They are big rats.

But I am too smart for these rats. I have me a big piece of canvas. This is not to keep me warm. It is to keep these rats from biting a chunk out of my nose when I sleep. But it does not keep out the sound and the feel of them as they sprawl all over you. A good-sized rat tramps hard. You can feel their weight as they press on top of you. You can hear them sniffing as they try to get in. But when I pull my canvas up around my head, they cannot get in to me.


Waiting for Nothing, by Tom Kromer, Alfred A. Knopf, 1935
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma01/White/anthology/kromer.html

Huntington, WV born Tom Kromer dedicated his novel about the Great Depression’s suicidally down and out to "Jolene, who turned off the gas." He never completed another book.

Posted by Dave Tabler at 5:00 AM | 0 comments Links to this post    
Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, appalachian literature, history of appalachia, hoboes, Tom Kromer