Appalachian History

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 1912 capture of fugitive outlaws Sidna Allen and Wesley Edwards. They were members of a family gang who months earlier had shot up the Hillsville, VA courthouse when it was in session, killing the presiding judge and others. Detective W.G. Baldwin, head of the Baldwin Felts Agency, trailed Edwards’ fiancé from Mt. Airy, NC to the boarding house in Des Moines, IA where the two were laying low.

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.

"My father is to be honored for his stick-to-itiveness,” says Barbara Lee Tate in this excerpt from a letter to her cousin Gerald Lively written in July 2001. “Everyday he went into the dark pits of the mines to earn what it took to care for us children.” Her upbringing in Mabscott, WV was not always easy. Tate was born in the poorhouse after her parents separated, and her brother later died in a truck accident. There’s no self pity in her letter, though. "West Virginia was a beautiful place to grow up. Thank God for the beauty around us.”

Next, we’ll take a look at the joys of winter from a child’s perspective in this memoir of growing up in Emmitsburg, MD by Michael Hillman. “When it came to skating, Emmitsburg was tops,” he remembers fondly. “Skating was so good, in fact, that kids in Thurmont would often be seen crying and even cursing their parents for not having the foresight to settle in Emmitsburg.”

He was a world famous cave explorer at the time he was trapped in Kentucky’s Sand Cave in January 1925. Rescuers tried everything to free Floyd Collins—digging and hacking at the passageway, sinking a new shaft, feeding him to keep up his energy, and sending down reporter Skeets Miller to chronicle the drama. At one point, rescuers even considered amputation. Nothing worked. Eventually, a passage just above Collins collapsed, cutting him off from aid. Fifteen days after being trapped, Floyd Collins pushed his last crawl.

Have you been to the little Niagara of the South? Geologists estimate that the rock over which the Cumberland River plunges is about 250 million years old. The falls is 65 feet high and is 125 feet wide. When the Cumberland River is at flood stage the width of the falls can quickly expand to 300 feet. Long known to Native Americans of the area, Cumberland Falls received its name from Dr. Thomas Walker during his 1750 exploration of Kentucky.

We’ll wrap things up with the story of the Brasemore family of Huntsville, AL. “With Daddy in jail it was up to me to run the business," Jim Brasemore recalls. "Before he got caught, Daddy had hid the worm (copper condensation coil) and I got a neighbor to build me a pot.
It wasn’t but just a couple of weeks ‘til I was back in business. When I run off my first batch they said the sheriff thought my father had escaped. ‘Nobody makes whiskey that good,’ the sheriff said, ‘except for old man Brasemore!’”

And, thanks to the good folks at the Digital Archive we’ll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music by Clarence Ashley in a 1929 recording of “Coo Coo Bird.”

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.

Floyd Collins was first to explore Sand Cave. Fallen rock trapped him in narrow passage 150 ft. from entrance, Jan. 30, 1925. Rescuers reached him with food and heat for short time. Aid cut off by shifting earth closing passage. Engineers sank 55-foot shaft but were unable to reach Collins' body until February 16. Rescue attempt publicized worldwide. Aroused sympathy of nation.

--Historical Marker at Sand Cave, KY erected in 1970 by The Kentucky Historical Society and the Department of Highways.

In 1925, Floyd Collins, one of the world's premier cavers, met a tragic and bizarre end in part of what is now known to be Mammoth Cave. Collins, determined to find a "show" cave as a source of family income, had signed a contract in the middle of January with a man named Doyle and another man named Ed Estes to explore a rock overhang called Sand Cave on Doyle's farm. Doyle and Estes agreed to give Floyd half rights to anything he found there. There was a story that men who worked for Mammoth Cave had once dynamited the overhang. The day before Floyd went down, he showed Estes a skull he’d found in a cave and then gave it to Estes’ son, Jewell. He said he was afraid of not coming out alive. His fears were well founded.

Floyd Collins examines fossil remains in Great Crystal Cave, several years prior to being trapped in Sand Cave. From commercial postcard.

On Friday, January 30, he went into the cave. He crawled down into the dark, on his belly, into a narrow passage. He slid fifteen feet straight down, then twisted through a hundred feet of loops that sloped at 30 degrees. He dropped straight for eight feet and then crawled for fifty feet more between loose rock walls until he reached a small cavern. He lay on his belly, looking down into a fifty-foot pit, twenty-five feet long and ten feet wide.

He went down into it, looking for a passage, but it was closed. He scaled the walls and headed back the way he had come. He kicked a rock that knocked some stones that started a slide that trapped him. He was caught a hundred and twenty five feet deep in the ground, in a space eight inches high and twelve feet long. The temperature was 16 degrees. He was facing up in the direction from which he’d come, but there was a seven-ton boulder on his left foot. He lay in mud and black night, with water dripping on his head.

Considering Floyd Collins' experience and reputation as a caver, it is astonishing that he broke what are considered today cardinal rules of safe exploration:

1) Went exploring alone.
2) Had only one light source.
3) Was poorly clothed.
4) Had no helmet or hard hat.
5) Did not tell anybody where he was going or when he would be back.

Relatives eventually noticed that he was missing, and a quick check in Sand Cave confirmed the worst. The rescue effort that ensued quickly turned into a publicity carnival. It lasted for 18 days and captured the interest of the whole nation through the relatively new medium of radio.

Rescuers tried everything—digging and hacking at the passageway, sinking a new shaft, feeding Collins to keep up his energy, and sending down reporter Skeets Miller to chronicle the drama. At one point, rescuers even considered amputation. Nothing worked. Eventually, a passage just above Collins collapsed, cutting him off from aid. Fifteen days after being trapped, Floyd Collins pushed his last crawl.

The authorities decided it was too dangerous to remove the body and left it in the cave. Eventually, his body was put in a glass-topped coffin in Crystal Cave where cavers from around the world paid their respects to him for many years. Then in the most dramatic and grotesque twist to the story, his body was stolen—and later found in a nearby field missing a leg. After this incident his body was placed in a chained casket.

Eventually, the National Park Service absorbed Crystal Cave and closed it to the public. In 1989, Collins was properly buried in Mammoth Cave Baptist Church Cemetery on Flint Ridge. Today Floyd Collins' final resting place has an extraordinary array of tokens on it -- coins, sunflower seeds, stones, and other objects left by cave explorers and others for whom Floyd Collins was, and is, a legendary symbol.


sources: www.ohranger.com/mammoth-cave/floyd-collins
www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1976/6/1976_6_34.shtml
www.nuttyputtycave.com/LFloydCollins.html
http://www.nps.gov/maca/historyculture/index.htm

Daddy got caught the first time in about 1916 or ’17. The law was paying informers to tell on people. They put his bail bond at fifty dollars. That was on a Friday, and we didn’t have any money, so the next morning Mama gets me to hitch up the mule and we loaded up the wagon with what whiskey we had left. Back then, Saturday was the big trade day downtown and the streets would be so busy you could hardly walk.

"We tied the wagon in front of the courthouse and just sat there all day, selling whiskey. Everybody knew what Mama was doing, so a lot of people who didn’t even drink would stop and buy some. "For medicine," they would say.

"On up in the morning a deputy came by and asked her what she thought she was doing.

"I’m gettin’ my man out of jail," she replied. Back then no one messed with Mama. "Anything else you want to know?" she asked the deputy.

"No ma’am," the deputy replied sheepishly, "but I reckon I’ll take a gallon if you got any left, my croup has been acting up lately."

They got their dad out of jail that day, but he didn’t stay free long. When his trial came up, he was sentenced to 12 months on the county farm. "Pickin’ peas," he called it.

"I was a pretty good size boy by then and with Daddy in jail it was up to me to run the business," the younger Brasemore recalls. "Before he got caught, Daddy had hid the worm (copper condensation coil) and I got a neighbor to build me a pot.

“It wasn’t but just a couple of weeks ‘til I was back in business. When I run off my first batch they said the sheriff thought my father had escaped."

"Nobody makes whiskey that good," the sheriff said, "except for old man Brasemore!"

“I hadn’t forgotten about the cur dog that had informed on Daddy, though. Giles was his name. Him and the deputy that arrested Daddy were big drinking buddies. This deputy lived out next to Chase Nursery and every Sunday like clockwork, those two would pitch a big drunk.

"Some of my cousins helped me and we took this old worn-out still, it only had a ten-gallon pot, and we set it up out back of his house in a brush patch. First thing Sunday morning we loaded it with mash and started cooking. If you have ever been around a still, you know you can’t hide the smell, and sure enough, on up in the morning the deputy gets a strong whiff and decides to investigate.

"Well, here we are, me and my cousins are hiding in the brush, and the deputy and Giles are stretched out in front of the still sipping free whiskey and acting like they are in hog heaven.

"Next thing you know, there’s this big ruckus and when the deputy opened his eyes, there was the sheriff pointing this big pistol at him," he relates.

"You and Giles are under arrest for making whiskey," the sheriff said.

Seems as if someone had sent the sheriff a note.

"Like I said, while Daddy was in jail I was running the business. One of the first things I did, after I got a little ahead, was to buy me a truck. Daddy wouldn’t have nothing to do with automobiles, he had worked with a mule all of his life. Well I was bound and determined to impress him, so the day he was to get out I took the truck and loaded it down with as much whiskey as I could put on it. It hadn't been picked up in a while and we had a sizable load.

"Daddy was sitting on the front porch when I pulled up..."

"Things didn’t work out the way I figured and the truck broke down a couple of miles from the house. I got the mule, hitched it to the truck and began to pull it on home.

"Daddy was sitting on the front porch when I pulled up in front of the house. He took a long look at that truck I had bought and then took an even longer look at his mule that was pulling it. Finally, after spitting out a long stream of tobacco juice, he asked me, ‘Well, what else can it do?’

"He never did like that truck. Every time I got stuck in mud or whatever, he was always there to tell me that with a mule it would not have happened."


Excerpt from “Making Whiskey,” by Tom Carney, Old Huntsville Magazine, 1992; profile of moonshiner Jim Brasemore, Madison County, AL; online at http://www.oldhuntsville.com/articles/Making Whiskey.php

Emmitsburg was a kid’s haven in the winter. With hills and ponds a many, it boasted some of the best sledding and ice skating around. While almost forgotten today, in younger days places like Bunker Hill, Havilah, and Popular Hill were names that every child knew.

At any given time, thirty to forty sleds raced down these prime sledding spots. But if it was time on the sled one was looking for, then Irish Town Road, as it was affectionately called back then, was the place to be. Starting at the top of the hill near Saint Joseph’s, one could slide clear down to the ‘Wharf’ at Flat Run Creek.

When it came to skating, Emmitsburg was tops. Skating was so good, in fact, that kids in Thurmont would often be seen crying and even cursing their parents for not having the foresight to settle in Emmitsburg. By far, the best skating was at Toms Creek’s Bridge.

Old Emmitsburg Road after winter storm of 1914.

A pond, almost a quarter of a mile long, formed behind the old Maxell mill race dam, and offered a smooth surface that twisted and turned through Tom’s Creek Valley. Whether your goal was to skate fast or to skim slowly hand-in-hand with the one you loved, Tom’s Creek offered it all.

Other prime skating destinations included Flat Run, whose thick tree screen provided protection from biting winter winds, and the Old Mount St. Mary’s Pond, drained long ago for a new student hall. But it was Fraily’s Pond that offered Toms Creek’s its greatest competition.

Located just to the west of town, 200 yards south of the Dough Boy’s statue, it was a popular spot for skaters who had grown too old to skate with their parents. Fraily’s Pond was laced with small caves around its perimeter, in which fires would burn all night. On the ice, or around the fires, those who would soon face the horror of terrible wars frolicked with friends and loved ones into the wee hours of the morning.

Whether you skated, sledded, or simply played cards, a winter storm offered a chance for everyone to stop and take notice of the good things in one’s life. But before winter play could begin, chores had to be attended to.

If you lived on a farm, milking was always the first order of business for girls. For boys, it was the stocking of firewood and coal, cleaning ashes from the stoves and burners, and drawing water for kettles that simmered all day, and provided the only warm water in many houses.

Winter storm breakfasts were reasons for feasts, too, often consisting of ‘pudding’ and corn cakes, pastries and other sweet treats. Pudding of course being a ghastly concoction of dead everything boiled down to pure artery choking lard. But boy did it taste good!

For those lucky enough to have a storm hit on their mother’s shopping day, a trip to town on a sled was the order of the day. Though the long walk back seemed a lot longer then the ride in, the sight of the town asleep in the snow provided memories that lasted lifetimes.

Snows were much deeper back then. Many tales are told of fences disappearing for months at a time - fences that still dot the countryside, viewable to all who dare to doubt. Snows were so frequent and heavy that it was often possible to step over fences that were otherwise insurmountable.

Clearing Emmitsburg Railroad tracks after snow storm of 1916. Houses in background are the guest house for St. Joseph's College and St. Josephs station on Emmitsburg railroad.

Winter storms of course meant money for enterprising kids. Work clearing driveways and walkways could be readily found at ten cents an hour. While cars were on their way to predominance, heavy snows often forced them to yield their role once again to horses. Untroubled by the cold, icy roads, or deep drifts, teams broke from the fields and pulled sleighs of gleeful children. Returning at dusk with their cargo full of joy, they were rewarded for their service with bran mashes and an hour long brushing.

As evening descended, all scattered toward home and the hot meals that waited by fires that would warm. Evenings were full of games of all sorts - Chinese checkers, gin rummy and games of that sort. But no snowy night was complete without the popping of corn. On really snowy nights, taffy pulling was performed.

Heated bedrooms were a luxury that few could afford and electric blankets were yet to be born. The fire did beckon as bedtime approached. The goal, need I say, was to suck up enough heat, in hopes of staying warm through the cold night to come. The one beauty of winter was it made friends of us all. It was impossible to be mad at one’s brother or sister, for you depended on them for warmth as you laid back to back.


"Reflections on Emmitsburg Winters of Old," by Michael Hillman, Emmitsburg Area Historical Society
online at www.emmitsburg.net/archive_list/articles/history/stories/winters_of_old.htm

New York Times.
September 15, 1912, Sunday

CATCH SIDNA ALLEN BY TRAILING GIRL; Wesley Edwards Also Captured at Des Moines -- His Sweetheart Gives Clue.

DES MOINES, Iowa, Sept. 14. -- With arms and feet pinioned in heavy irons and watched over by an armed guard, Sidna Allen and Wesley Edwards, members of the outlaw gang who murdered Judge Massie and others at Hillsville Court House, Va., in April last, and who were arrested here to-day, are now en route to Virginia in the custody of detectives.

Allen was arrested by Detectives W.G. Baldwin, H.H. Lucas, and William Munday of Roanoke, VA, at the Cameron boarding house at noon. Edwards, it was learned, was working with a grading gang in the western part of the city. As soon as Allen was in custody search was made for Edwards. The latter avoided discovery until this evening, when he was found on an Ingersoll Avenue car coming into the city. He dropped to his knees and tried to crawl out unnoticed, but was recognized as he reached the car door and was taken to the police station.

Allen and Edwards will not fight extradition, but express willingness to return to Virginia and face trial.
Wesley Edwards’ sweetheart, Maude Iroler of Mount Airy, NC, was the innocent cause of the arrest of the last of the clan for whom a country-wide search has been conducted. This eighteen-year old girl came all the way from her home in North Carolina with the secret of Wesley Edwards’ whereabouts. She loved him and determined to wed him despite the stain attached to his name since he fled from the courtroom in Hillsville.

Edwards lived here under the name of Joe Jackson, and Allen went under the name of Tom Sayres. The latter worked as a carpenter here, while Edwards was employed by the city with a paving gang. Not a hint of their identity was given to the members of the Cameron family.

The girl left her home last Monday, little thinking that dogging her trail were four detectives, led by W.G. Baldwin of the Baldwin Agency of Roanoke, VA. The men went on the same train that brought the girl to Des Moines. They followed her closely. She made her way where she expected to find her hunted fiancé.

She entered, telling Maude Cameron, who opened the door for her, that she had come to see Joe Jackson. A tall and powerfully built man entered the yard. A short distance off were three other men. The man who advanced to the door was Detective H.H. Lucas.

“I want to get a room,” he said to Miss Cameron.

“Set inside,” she said.

Lucas entered, and just as he reached the foot of the stairs Sidna Allen came to the top of the stairs. Allen evidently did not recognize Lucas, who started to ascend. When within a few feet of Allen the detective suddenly produced two revolvers.

“Hold up your hands,” Lucas ordered sternly.

Even with the odds against him Allen snarled angrily, but he knew that Lucas’ eye meant business. His hands went slowly up. Allen was looking for a chance to escape, but Lucas was joined a moment later by Detectives Baldwin and Munday, another member of the department. The trio closed in on Allen. One produced a pair of handcuffs. They were slapped over his wrists.

“I guess you’ve got me,” said Allen quietly as he sat down in a near-by chair.

“Where is the other man?” demanded Baldwin of the members of the frightened family, who were hovering near.
The detective was told that Edwards was at work on Thirty-eighth Street. Leaving Munday and Lucas to guard Allen, Baldwin notified the police. Chief Jenney, with Detective Badgley, responded.

Baldwin and Charles Cameron, a member of the Cameron family, leaped into an automobile and sped away for the place where Edwards was supposed to be working. They did not find him then, but captured him later on a street car.

Sidna Allen, in his cell tonight, talked freely of the events of the last few months, but declined to say anything of his movements immediately after the Court House tragedy. He and Edwards remained in the mountain country of Virginia and North Carolina for about a month, and then got over into Kentucky, going to Louisville, where they spent several days.

Their next stop was St. Louis, where they remained for a week. They had sufficient money for their needs, and traveled first class.

“I don’t know why we came to Des Moines,” said Allen, “unless it was that I thought we would be safer here. Several years ago I was in the Klondike, and I figured that the officers would think I had gone back there. So we came to Des Moines, and I got work as a carpenter, and expected to remain here until it was safe back home.

“I would have given myself up long ago if I had thought we could get a square deal, but see what they’ve done to Floyd my brother, and Claude.”


full article online at http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9D00E6DC1F3CE633A25756C1A96F9C946396D6CF

The Laurel County [KY] Public Library will host Appalachian lecturer Dr. Aaron Thompson on Tuesday, February 2nd from 6:00-7:00 pm. Dr. Thompson will be speaking on "Turning Obstacles into Opportunities: An Appalachian Upbringing."

In this talk, Dr. Thompson will tell how he was born in a two-room cabin in a Clay County hollow and grew up becoming a university professor with a PhD. His emphasis will be on the richness, as well as the difficulties, of his mountain upbringing.

He will touch on topics that include Appalachian history and customs, race relations, family influences and education. This uplifting story will be spiced with humor and lessons in life for any Kentuckian of any age.

This program was funded in part by the Kentucky Humanities Council, Inc. and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The event is free and open to the public. Registration is appreciated for planning purposes. Please call 606-864-5759 to register or register online at www.laurellibrary.org

In case of bad weather, please call the library for cancellation information.

The library is located just off the KY192 bypass in London between stoplights #9 and #10.

source: http://londonhotwire.com/2010/01/appalachian-lecturer-dr-aaron-thompson-feb-2nd/

"Everyone we knew worked in the mine or in the machine shop. Dad met Inez Thompson and at the encouragement of [his stepmother] Della, married. Then came us four children and later a divorce after a long separation (between 3rd and 4th year of school) from Inez. Later, Dad married Rose Mae Jackson at one of the Lively homes. Dad and Rose went to visit the Lively relatives on many occasions, but us children never went.

Della, Homer and Inez Thompson (background).

"My father is to be honored for his stick-to-itiveness. Everyday he went into the dark pits of the mines to earn what it took to care for us children. In the early days of coal mining the coal barons (who lived in other states) opened coal mines, built houses for the workers, built the company stores and entertainment centers for movies (bare rooms with wood benches and no back on them).

"They paid the men in scrip, with which the men bought clothes, food, and all they needed at the company store. Often the Post Office was in the company store; this leads to how my dad got into trouble. He went with a friend to get food for the family, the store was closed, and they broke into it - took nothing but milk. He was charged with a federal crime and sent to the "pen."

"This is when Dovie was left with her great-grandma Janie Miller who lived in Kentucky. My mother was pregnant with me, destitute (1930's). Mom went to the poor house in Stollings, West Virginia and that's where I was born. I didn't know this 'til I was in 10th grade. Della revealed it all. I don't know what she was trying to do. We got on a bus to go home the very next day. I was not about to stay with her any longer!

"Dovie grew up believing Janie Miller was her mother until the fourth grade, which is when Janie became ill and Dovie was sent to live with us. My father tried to get Dovie back after he was out of the pen but Janie was too attached and wouldn't let her go. It was a difficult adjustment for her to this new family she had only seen a couple of times.

"West Virginia was a beautiful place to grow up. Thank God for the beauty around us. My father went to work even when it was almost impossible to get through the snow. Ashes from burnt coal were often put in front and back of the tires to help get traction to get to the road.

"One early morning I recall vividly when dad left for work, it was still very dark. It had snowed and Rose woke us up to look out the window. The snow was deep, and so white, with no tracks at all. The moon was bright, shining onto the snow. It looked as though diamonds had been spread over the entire area, and the whole field was sparkling. I know dad enjoyed the view on the way from Mabscott to Mac Alpine Coal Mine that morning.

"The coal miners rarely saw the sun. They went into the shaft early and came out late, went to the bathhouse, then home. Carbide lamps were their source of light. I remember helping to fill the lamp with the dry carbide, and that smell when it was moistened and lit.

"Many miners ended up with poor vision and black lung disease, and until John L. Lewis fought for the miners to get better pay and health benefits, many men died with nothing for their families.

"After I graduated high school the folks bought a combination grocery store/restaurant in Piney View. We lived there for a short time. I joined the Navy and was to be gone except a short visit after Corps school. I did not see my dad until he came to California in 1957 when Glenda was a baby. That's when he went to visit his father John Lively and Uncle Edgar.

Homer Leo Tate and daughter Bobbie (Barbara).

"My brother, Homer Gene, was killed in a truck accident. He had ridden his bike up the road on Piney View to visit some friends. He got into the middle of the seat (three persons). Somewhere they hit a bridge abutment.

"He didn't get permission to go with these young boys. He was thrown through the windshield and was hospitalized. Folks did not find out for 2 days or more. Finally the boy up the road came and told Dad. He and Rose went to the hospital, but with the head injury and other injuries as well, my brother was hardly recognizable, too much swelling.

"He died I think, two weeks after Vanessa was born. I was alone, my husband, Don, was overseas, so the folks didn't inform me of this. They sent a notice to Don; he in turn sent it to me. What a shock, I thought at first it must be my dad! It wouldn't be 'til after the folks moved to Florida, 30 years later, that I could go home. West Virginia was not home without my brother!"


Excerpt from a letter from Barbara Lee Tate to her cousin Gerald Lively, July 2001. Online at www.livelyroots.com/things/homer.htm

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



We open today's show with a look at funerary practices prior to the funeral industry’s rise and its use of embalming. The deceased was instead prepared - laid out - and remained in the home until burial. This was a sacred, almost ritualistic, process.

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.

She was the inspiration for the movie ‘Songcatcher.’ North Carolinian Jane Gentry -- piano teacher and Appalachian folk-music historian, was eagerly sought out by folklorists in the early 20th century. Cecil Sharp, founder of The English Folk Dance and Song Society in England, visited her home on at least eight separate occasions and collected more songs from Jane (70) than from any other singer in the ‘Laurel Country.’

Next, we’ll take a look at the odd tools you’ll find tucked away in the corner of a barn. Antique gadgets that stump the experts frequently turn up. In the era of hand-made tools, it was logical that one-of-a-kind implements were created—the man who custom-made his own tools could allow himself the luxury of making tools to meet his needs.

Wherever North Georgia evangelist Samuel Porter Jones preached, liquor stores closed, theaters and jails emptied, and cursing was reduced to whispers. The Reverend Jones (1847-1906), or "just plain 'Sam Jones,'" as he preferred to be called, studied to be a lawyer, but drinking and gambling almost brought him to the brink of ruin.

In our next segment, Kentucky author James Still discusses the influences that gave his writing its voice. "How did you escape the stereotype 'hillbilly' writing?" -- a frequent question. That is, the stereotypical mountaineer and his dialectical speech as rendered by several authors of fiction in the past. I was hardly aware of them, didn't have access to their books. My experience was with the folks themselves.”

We’ll wrap things up with the story of convicted West Virginia murderer John Hardy. It seems he and another man were both enamored
of the same woman. A game of craps fueled by whiskey and envy led to Hardy killing his challenger. Hardy wrote a ballad about his fate while in prison, and sung it on the scaffold before they hung him. The ballad was preserved and later recorded by the likes of the Carter Family and Bob Dylan.

And, thanks to the good folks at the Country Music Hall of Fame we'll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music by the West Virginia Coon Hunters in a 1927 recording of “Greasy String.”

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.

"One of the most popular pages of the monthly publication of a tool collectors’ club is its Whatsis Column. Antique gadgets that stump the experts are frequently turning up. In the era of hand-made tools, it was logical that one-of-a-kind implements were created—the man who custom-made his own tools could allow himself the luxury of making tools to meet his needs.

"Then, too, there were devices that had many uses. Ladders were used as tobacco driers; the bars of a ladder-back chair held candleholders; meat hooks doubled as grappling hooks that retrieved things from the bottoms of wells. If you think it strange that a hook was so necessary to a household, remember that the well was used many times a day, that foods needing refrigeration were often lowered into it.

"Items lost beneath the water could not, of course, be seen, so they could be retrieved only by groping. The well hook was used as much as any other implement of the old-time household. After all, who wanted to drink water from a well filled with old pails?

"Today we think a hammer is a hammer—the same thing that lays a roof, cracks a nut! But the early craftsman (like a good golfer) knew that how you hit and what you hit with could make a difference in the job being done. See, in the drawing below, how the flail separates the grain while the pestle grinds it; yet both tools hit.

"The ‘flinting pick’ did the job of making gun flints; the ‘bricklayer’s hammer’ and ‘axe’ and ‘raker’ did work that is still admired after two centuries. The ‘printing mallett’ stamped designs on painted floor cloths (popular before linoleum). The ‘flood gate hammer’ didn’t smash the gate; its massive weight just moved it. The ‘zax’ cut roofing slate and made nail holes in it. The ‘trunnel hammer’ knocked trunnels in without smashing them. And so on. Each ‘hammer’ hit a special kind of blow to do the specialty the craftsman needed done."


Source: "A Museum of Early American Tools" by Eric Sloane, 2002, Courier Dover Publications


farm+tools appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history barn+implements

"Well, I have talked considerably over an hour. I did not intend to. But hear me, let's think about these things. I tell you I never - I tell you I never want to see a revival in this city, or anywhere else, that isn't bottomed on bed rock. Let's go down until you hear your boot heels grating and grinding against the Rock of Ages. None of your corn stalk revivals!

"We want the sort of revival that will make men do the clean thing. If we can have that sort of revival I want to see it - but not corn stalk revivals. Do you know what a corn stalk revival is? Well, if you were to pile up a lot of corn stalks as high as this house, and burn them up, there wouldn't be a hodful of ashes. We want a revival of righteousness - we want a revival of honesty; we want a revival of cleanness and purity, of debt paying, of prayer meetings, of family prayer, and of paying our brothers a little more salary. That's the sort of revival we want. The Lord give us this sort!

"One more illustration in conclusion. Some months ago a man was fearfully crippled in his right leg by a railroad accident. It was fearfully mangled and bruised. They wanted to amputate the leg, but he said: "O I don't want to lose my limb; preserve it if you can." They watched at his side until at last the surgeon said: "My friend, the crisis has come when we must amputate your leg." He said: "Doctor, has it reached that point?" "Yes," said the surgeon. "Well," said he, submissively, "if there is no chance to save my leg, get your knife and go to work."

"When they got all ready and laid the patient on the table to commence the fearful operation, the surgeons desired to administer chloroform, but the mangled man said: "I do not want to take that; if I die I want to die in my full consciousness, but I want you to let me know by some sign when I begin to sink, so that I can breathe my spirit out in prayer." They told him that he couldn't stand the operation without chloroform, but he said that he could.

"The doctor picked up the knife and said to the patient, "If you see me lay the knife down on the table you may know that you are sinking."

"The doctor commenced the operation, and the man did not flinch. When he struck the arteries he laid his knife down to adjust them, and the young man took it for a sign that he was dying, and commenced praying. The surgeon picked up the knife and resumed his work. In a few minutes the operation was over, and he saw he was saved, and he turned to the surgeon and said: "Doctor, when you picked the knife up from the table and began your operation, it was the sweetest sensation I ever felt in my life."

"What do you mean?" said the doctor. "I mean," said he, "that those sensations meant life for me." Now, brother, when God Almighty throws down the pruning knife it is a sign that you are sinking - the sword of the Divine Spirit cutting through the tendrils of sin; but, thank God, He has not laid down the sword. The sword of the Spirit means life. O brother, come to life in the presence of Jesus, and die in his love. God help us to take these things home with us!

--from Quit Your Meaness!

Wherever American evangelist Samuel Porter Jones preached, liquor stores closed, theaters and jails emptied, and cursing was reduced to whispers. The Reverend Jones (1847-1906), or "just plain 'Sam Jones,'" as he preferred to be called, was born at Oak Bowery, AL, and reared at Cartersville, GA. He studied to be a lawyer, but drinking and gambling soon brought him to the brink of ruin.

At his father's deathbed, he fell on his knees and repented of his sin. He preached his first sermon one week later and was licensed to preach in the Methodist Church after only three months. He served several pastorates but gained fame as a lecturer and evangelist. Soon he was conducting campaigns in some of America's largest cities, reaching the peak of his popularity in the early 1880s. Rarely spending time at his home in Cartersville, Jones preached his "quit your meanness" theology in cities across the United States.


Sources: www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-1606
www.biblebelievers.com/jones_sam/jones_s01.html
www.believersweb.org/view.cfm?id=147&rc=1&list=multi

Wheeling Daily Register
January 20, 1894

All Were Murderers

Four Men Suffer the Extreme Penalty for Their Crimes

John Hardy Hanged at Welch, McDowell County, for Killing Thomas Drews Last Spring...

Special Telegram to the Register.

WILD E, W. VA., January 19. - "John Hardy, for killing Thomas Drews, both colored, was hung at 2:09 p. m. to-day. Three thousand people witnessed his death. His neck was broken and he died in 17-1/2 minutes. He exhibited great nerve, attributed his downfall to whiskey, and said he had made peace with God. His body was cut down at 2:39, placed in a coffin, and given to the proper parties for interment. He was baptised in the river this morning.

Ten drunken and disorderly persons among the spectators were promptly arrested and jailed. Good order was preserved. Hardy killed Drews near Eckman last spring in a disagreement over a game of craps.

BOTH WERE ENAMORED

of the same woman, and the latter proving the more favored lover, incurred Hardy's envy, who seized the pretext of falling out in the game to work vengeance on Drews, who had shown himself equally expert in dice as in love, having won money from Hardy. Hardy drew his pistol, remarking he would kill him unless he refunded the money. Drews paid back part of the money, when Hardy shot, killing him. Hardy was found guilty at the October term."

-------------

"While awaiting execution in jail," says folklorist Alan Lomax in The Folk Songs of North America, "he is said to have composed this ballad, which he later sang on the scaffold. His ballad appears to have been based upon certain formulae stanzas from the Anglo-Saxon ballad stock."

Lyrics, as reported by Lomax:

John Hardy was a brave little man,
He carried two guns ev'ry day.
Killed him a man in the West Virginia land,
Oughta seen poor Johnny gettin' away, Lord, Lord,
Oughta seen poor Johnny gettin' away.

John Hardy was standin' at the barroom door,
He didn't have a hand in the game,
Up stepped his woman and threw down fifty cents,
Says, "Deal my man in the game, Lord, Lord...."

John Hardy lost that fifty cents,
It was all he had in the game,
He drew the forty-four that he carried by his side
Blowed out that poor Negro's brains, Lord, Lord....

John Hardy had ten miles to go,
And half of that he run,
He run till he come to the broad river bank,
He fell to his breast and he swum, Lord, Lord....

He swum till he came to his mother's house,
"My boy, what have you done?"
"I've killed a man in the West Virginia Land,
And I know that I have to be hung, Lord, Lord...."

He asked his mother for a fifty-cent piece,
"My son, I have no change."
"Then hand me down my old forty-four
And I'll blow out my agurvatin' [sic] brains, Lord, Lord...."

John Hardy was lyin' on the broad river bank,
As drunk as a man could be;
Up stepped the police and took him by the hand,
Sayin' "Johnny, come and go with me, Lord, Lord...."

John Hardy had a pretty little girl,
The dress she wore was blue.
She come a-skippin' through the old jail hall
Sayin', "Poppy, I'll be true to you, Lord, Lord...."

John Hardy had another little girl,
The dress that she wore was red,
She came a-skippin' through the old jail hall
Sayin' "Poppy, I'd rather be dead, Lord, Lord...."

They took John Hardy to the hangin' ground,
They hung him there to die.
The very last words that poor boy said,
"My forty gun never told a lie, Lord, Lord...."

sources: www.wvculture.org/history/crime/hardyjohn02.html
http://www.bobdylanroots.com/jhardy.html#jhardy1

Jane Gentry -- piano teacher, Appalachian folk-music historian, weaver -- was an inspiration for the movie Songcatcher.

She was born Jane Hicks in 1863, the first child of Ransom and Emily Hicks, in Watauga County, NC. "My pappy were a minister, name of Ransom Hicks. Mammy were always peckin' me over the head with a stick. She were turrible ill and cross, pore woman! I were that foundered with the peckin' that I declar'd that I would never whup ef God sent me childern. You'll whup as much into `em as you whup out o' em."

And later, Jane said of her life growing up, "Twere like a three-legged cat's. They didn't show me till I were nine yur old. I used to walk miles and miles bar'foot in the snow." She was twelve years old when the family moved to the Meadow Fork section of Spring Creek in Madison County. At sixteen, Hicks married Jasper Newton Gentry, though her parents were against the marriage because of her age. Around 1912, the Gentry family bought 'Sunnybank' in the town of Hot Springs, moving there so that their nine children could attend Dorland Institute, a Presbyterian mission school.

Irving Bacheller, New York newspaper editor and author of books, short stories and magazine articles, (his novel Eben Holden, published in 1900, outsold The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, To Have and To Hold, and other popular books of that year) met Jane Gentry in April 1914 when he came to Hot Springs on vacation.

"I could hear voices as I came near the house," he recounted in his novel, The Tower of a Hundred Bells (1916), "and chiefly those of young children laughing as if at play. Then I heard the kindly voice of Mrs. Gentry. She sat on her little verandah sewing with a number of small children grouped around her. She was amusing them as she worked."

"Go on with your story telling," I pleaded. "I am a child myself as young as any of these."

"I were tellin’ some mount’n stories," she answered. "It mout be they’d tickle ye. So if you’ll be one o’ the young uns, set down thar an’ I’ll scratch around an’ see what I kin fetch out o’ my ol’ brains."

I took the chair she offered and sat down with a girl of four on my lap while Mrs. Gentry opened a mine of old mountain folk lore which delighted me.

"Well here comes:
Eight humly, bumly bees,
Seven humpity, crumpity no horn cows,
Six hicketty, ficketty, custards,
Five bob-tail, bald-face, skewball nags,
Four colly birds,
Two ducks and an ol’ fat rooster."

Cecil Sharp, founder of The English Folk Dance and Song Society in England, and its American counterpart, the Country Dance Society in the United States, sought Jane out. Sharp visited her home on at least eight separate occasions and was clearly welcome there. He collected more songs from Jane (70) than from any other singer in the ‘Laurel Country.’ Many of the songs were those she sang for children, such as "Sing Said the Mother," "Froggie He Would A-Wooing Go," "The Farm Yard," and "There's Nothing to be Gained by Roving." He included forty of her songs in English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians(1932).

Jane Gentry’s stories received as much attention as her songs. Mrs. Isabel Gordon Carter visited her in 1923 and did the first collecting of Jack Tales, as told to Jane by her grandfather, Council Harmon ("Old Counce"), in which Jack is the third son, left behind when his brothers seek adventure. Fifteen of these tales, which Jane called "old Jack, Will and Tom tales," were published as "Mountain White Folk-Lore: Tales from the Southern Blue Ridge," in the March 1925 Journal of American Folk-Lore. Jane Gentry died two months later, on May 29.

sources: findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2386/is_1_113/ai_86063336
http://homepage.mac.com/wilsonh/jack/
www.bettysmithballads.com/bettysmithballads/play.cfm
Jane Hicks Gentry: A Singer Among Singers, by Betty N. Smith, Univ Press of Kentucky, 1998


appalachia Appalachian+ballads appalachian+folktales appalachian+history Cecil+Sharp Irving+Bacheller Isabel+Gordon+Carter Jack+Tales Jane+Gentry

My neighbor across the creek is already up and busy with his saw and hammer, despite it being Sunday, despite his having worked in the mines all the other six days of the week, often in water shoe-mouth deep, as he tells me, and in spite of there not being a plank requiring sawing or a nail needing driven.

He must be doing something, just as I, propped up here by pillows on my four-post walnut bed, itself a creation of Jethro Amburgey, the dulcimer maker. I find I've written seven pages in a notebook --- extraneous matter, hardly any page belonging in subject to any other, pages looking toward books or manuscripts partially written, or only projected to a number I could not possibly complete given my age and biological life span.

The lady who once asked me, "Do you do your own writing?" and to whom I replied, "No, I have seven dwarves," has lately inquired, "Where do you get your ideas?" For me ideas are hanging from limbs like pears, from fences like gourds. They rise up like birds from cover. They spring out of reports in the Troublesome Creek Times, from a remark in a country store, a happening.

From childhood I've been a reader, when there was anything to read, and I suppose I've read an average of three hours a day for half a century. Reading jaunts with mountain climbers in the Himalayas, the South Pacific, the American Civil War, World War I, the mysteries of Mayan civilization to name a few tangents, and the entire corpus of many an author. Curiousity like an itch that needs scratching.

The question is often asked: "Who influenced you to write?" Certainly it wasn't handed down in the family, and I can't think of an author I wish to emulate although I have admired the works of many. I was already scribbling before the great books came to hand. As an English observer of Appalachian folk in Harlan County, Kentucky, said, "Not knowing the right way to do things they did things their way." I did encounter the novels of Thomas Hardy during college days and the fact that I've always written about the common man may have been sparked by him.

The only class I ever cut was when I was deep in Far From the Madding Crowd and could not put the book down. The most memorable book read in college, and in French, was Alphonse Daudet's Le Petit Chose. I must grant some credit to a decade of issues of the Atlantic I came upon during the late 1920s. Otto Jespersen's The Philosophy of Grammar directed me toward "living language" as opposed to the formal.

It took time, my own time, to figure out the King of England is a myth, and all that implies --- the myths we live by, county lines, state lines, imaginary acts made actual by acceptance. I learned an apple is a modified leaf. My self-education proceeded from such facts. I am more an autodidact than a classroom scholar.

"How did you escape the stereotype 'hillbilly' writing?" -- a frequent question. That is, the stereotypical mountaineer and his dialectical speech as rendered by several authors of fiction in the past. I was hardly aware of them, didn't have access to their books. My experience was with the folks themselves.

As for handling dialect in my fictions and Notebooks, the way folk actually talk, well, now, dialect of any sort on a printed page always bothered me. Peculiar spellings can't account for the tone of voice, body language, the intent behind the statement. My aim is to invoke speech. To expect the true sound of it to happen in the reader's head. Aberrant spelling rarely accomplishes it. I trust to preserve the "voice" of the speaker.

I answered a set of down-to-earth questions at Carmus Combs' store the other day. A fellow inquired, "How many years have you lived amongst us?"
"This year makes forty-six."
"You're the last 'possum up the tree. Everybody your age when you come here are dead. Hain't that so?"
"I thought they'd live forever."
"What's your notion about dying?"
"Death is as natural as sleep," I said, quoting Benjamin Franklin. "We will arise refreshed in the morning."

My neighbor is still hammering and sawing. He has apparently decided on something to build -- a doghouse, a chicken coop, perhaps a playpen for his children. He will not halt until it is accomplished. It is his act of creation.


from "Autobiography of James Still," November 2003, Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series; vol. 17, Gale Research
online at http://faculty.colostate-pueblo.edu/sandy.hudock/jssection5.html

A native of Alabama, author James Still (1906-2001) spent most of his life in the Hindman Settlement of Knott County, KY. In addition to his writing, Still worked as a farmer, librarian and teacher. Winner of many literary awards, including two Guggenheim fellowships, Still published novels, short stories and poems which reflected his passionate feelings for the Kentucky mountains.

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 review of a new CD collection of ghost stories and ballads, “Beyond the Grave,” produced by storyteller Susanna “Granny Sue” Holstein of Sandyville, WV. Lots of real dates, places and people are mentioned throughout each of these delightful narratives. But are the stories themselves true? “I can only answer that if you believe, then it is true for you,” winks Holstein.

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 up, an 1898 ad for Dr. Pierce's Favorite Prescription. Every woman who is called upon to bear the ordeal of bringing many children into the world needs the support and reinforcement of that wonderful tonic, claims the copy. A testimonial letter from a TN user gives us a social window into a presumably typical view of menstruation of that era.

On January 17, 1781, American General Daniel Morgan scored a stunning victory over British Lieutenant Colonel Banastre "Barbarous Ban" Tarleton's regulars at the Battle of Cowpens, in what is now Cherokee County, SC. This win came at a crucial time for Revolutionary War patriots in the South, who had been repeatedly forced to retreat.

Winter's the quilting season. Laurel Horton interviewed 6 women in Blue Ridge, VA in 1999 for the Library of Congress’ American Memory project. In this excerpt from the recordings they share their experiences of quilting over the years.

In the tragedy of the Galveston hurricane of 1900 -- the most fatal natural disaster in U. S. history -- more than 6,000 souls perished. Yet that number would have nearly doubled had it not been for the efforts of Dr. Isaac Monroe Cline. Cline, born in 1861 near Madisonville, TN, was the weather-forecasting pioneer who went on to become the world's foremost authority on hurricanes.

We’ll wrap things up with an appreciation of the Appalachian dulcimer, by luthier Anthony J. Huvard. “The Appalachian Dulcimer is not to be confused with its biblical counterpart, the hammered dulcimer,” he tells us. “Rather, in its current incarnation, it is believed to have evolved from a northern European instrument, the German scheitholt which like the Appalachian Dulcimer is played with a bow and plucked or strummed as well.”

And, thanks to the good folks at the Digital Library of Appalachia we'll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music by Ray Alden, who just passed last fall, in an undated recording of the fiddle tune “Calahan.”

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.

"To be the mother of many children is ranked among nature's chief blessings but when the cares of the busy housewife are added to the trials of frequent motherhood, it is too great a burden for a woman who is not in prime health and condition. Every woman who is called upon to bear the ordeal of bringing many children into the world needs the support and reinforcement of that wonderful strength-promoting "Favorite Prescription" originated by Dr. R. V. Pierce, chief consulting physician of the Invalids' Hotel and Surgical Institute, Buffalo, N. Y., and one of the most eminent of living specialists.

"Mrs. David H. Langley, of Lancing, Morgan Co., Tenn., in a recent letter to Dr. Pierce, writes: I am now thirty-six years old and have given birth to ten children. Eight only are living. I have twin boys six years old. The same spring after they were born I was confined to my bed all spring and summer with female complaint; had it so badly I could hardly walk around the house without feeling worse.

"I was restless at night, sleep almost left me, and I was almost a skeleton. I did not call my doctor as I had tried the doctors twice before when I was down with the same trouble, and my husband paid out a great deal for me. I received no lasting benefit; I had almost lost all hope of being able to do anything. My husband had to work very hard and I could not even attend to the babies.

"No one can know the distress of my mind as well as body. Dr. Pierce's Favorite Prescription was the only medicine that seemed to do me any good. After I had taken the first bottle and part of the second. I could sleep well and all my troubles began to get better. I believe I took eight bottles and then I felt like a different person. I gave birth to another baby and my old complaint came back. I began using the "Favorite Prescription" and was soon relieved and was able to do my work, including the washing."


Source: Nebraska State Journal, Lincoln, Nebraska, December 25, 1898
Online at www.tngenweb.org/morgan/NEWSPAPERITEMSvariousdates.html

In the tragedy of the Galveston hurricane of 1900 -- the most fatal natural disaster in U. S. history -- more than 6,000 souls perished. Yet that number would have nearly doubled had it not been for the efforts of Dr. Isaac Monroe Cline. Cline, born in 1861 near Madisonville, TN, was the weather-forecasting pioneer who went on to become the world's foremost authority on hurricanes, or tropical cyclones, as they were called.


"Father and mother often told me that I was a problem and hard to handle even before I could walk. My inclination for research evidently developed at an early age; they said I investigated everything that came within my ken. …

"Stormy weather was of frequent occurrence in this locality (Madisonville, TN). Forked flashes of lighting and rolling thunder, vibrating through the hills, fascinated me. Father would refer to the thunder as Jupiter Pluvius announcing the approach of the corn wagon, because at the season on the year when thunder storms were frequent rain was generally needed for the corn crop.

"One Saturday night a tornado, with its funnel-shaped cloud and destructive swirling winds, moved down the Fork Creek Valley. Many residences were destroyed and several people were killed. The destruction was so great that messengers were sent out over the surrounding country for help. Father went early Sunday morning to render what assistance he could and took me with him.

"The brick residence of one of father's friends had been demolished and some of the family killed. A child was asleep in a bed on the second floor of the building. The tornado picked up the bed with the child and deposited them, with the bed intact and the child unhurt, in an orchard about one hundred yards from the house. …

"Hiwassee College, a school with a national reputation for its thorough teaching of English as well as Greek and Latin, and other subjects which constitute the foundation of learning, was about five miles from where I lived. It was a school where Methodist preachers were educated, but its curriculum enabled young men of limited means to prepare a foundation of learning on which they could build through the future.

"I entered Hiwassee College when I was sixteen years old, and took the liberal arts course leading to the Bachelor of Arts. In part payment for my tuition, I served as Librarian and assistant janitor, in which latter office I chopped wood for the fireplaces, and performed other chores. With another boy I rented a small two-room building on the campus in which we studied, slept, cooked, and ate our meals. There were several of these hutments we would call them today, which the college rented to poor boys who were striving to get an education.

"Mathematics, physics, chemistry, Latin and Greek had a special charm for me, and I studied them thoroughly as I went along so that I was well grounded in these studies.

"At the suggestions of friends I gave some consideration to preparing for the ministry, and so paid particular attention to Latin and Greek.

"However, my association with men who were preparing to become preachers convinced me that I could not follow the ministry and accomplish my objective in life. I must say that the mental training and discipline of the mind which the study of Greek and Latin gave have been worth more to me than any other of my studies except mathematics, and I have appreciated this fact more and more with the passing years.

"Among the students at Hiwassee were some young men from Louisiana and Mississippi, who were preparing to become lawyers. One of them was the late Robert Broussard, who served Louisiana in the United States Senate with distinction for many years up to the time of his death. I joined these students and studied Blackstone for a while more to broaden my field of knowledge than to make law my profession. I have been invited often to give talks before social clubs and business organizations.

"Frequently, I have told the following story: 'I first studied to be a preacher, but decided that I was too prone to tell big stories to be a preacher. Then I studied Blackstone for a while, and soon learned that I was not adept enough at prevarication to make a successful lawyer. I then made up my mind that I would seek some field where I could tell big stories and tell the truth; later the weather furnished that field.' "


source: "Storms, floods and sunshine," by Isaac Monroe Cline, Pelican Publishing, New Orleans, 1945

On January 17, 1781, American General Daniel Morgan scored a stunning victory over British Lieutenant Colonel Banastre "Barbarous Ban" Tarleton's regulars at the Battle of Cowpens, in what is now Cherokee County, SC. This win came at a crucial time for Revolutionary War patriots in the South, who had been repeatedly forced to retreat.

William Seymour, a Sergeant-Major of the Delaware Regiment, recorded the event in his diary:

"We lay on this ground from the twenty-fifth December, 1780, till the fourteenth January, 1781, and then proceeded on our march further up the river towards the iron works in order to frustrate the designs of the enemy who were coming round us, Colonel Tarleton on one side and Lord Cornwallis on the other.

"We encamped on the Cowpen Plains on the evening of the sixteenth January, forty-two miles, being joined by some Georgia volunteers and South [Carolina] Militia, to the number of between two and three hundred.

"Next day being the seventeenth January, we received intelligence a while before day, that Colonel Tarleton was advancing in our rear in order to give us battle, upon which we were drawn up in order of battle, the men seeming to be all in good spirits and very willing to fight. The militia dismounted and were drawn up in front of the standing troops on the right and left flanks, being advanced about two hundred yards.

Colonel William Washington at the Battle of Cowpens. Drawn and engraved for Graham's Magazine by S.H. Gimber.

"By this time the enemy advanced and attacked the militia in front, which they stood very well for some time till being overpowered by the superior number of the enemy they retreated, but in very good order, not seeming to be in the least confused. By this time the enemy advanced and attacked our light infantry with both cannon and small arms, where meeting with a very warm reception they then thought to surround our right flank, to prevent which Captain Kirkwood with his company wheeled to the right and attacked their left flank so vigorously that they were soon repulsed, our men advancing on them so very rapidly that they soon gave way.

"Our left flank advanced at the same time and repulsed their right flank, upon which they retreated off, leaving us entire masters of the field, our men pursuing them for the distance of twelve miles, insomuch that all their infantry was killed, wounded and taken prisoners. This action commenced about seven o' clock in the morning and continued till late in the afternoon.

"In the action were killed of the enemy one hundred and ninety men, wounded one hundred and eighty, and taken prisoners one Major, thirteen Captains, fourteen Lieutenants, and nine Ensigns, and five hundred and fifty private men, with two field pieces and four standards of colours.

"Their heavy baggage would have shared the same fate, if Tarleton, who retreated with his cavalry, had not set fire to it, burning up twenty-six wagons. This victory on our side cannot be attributed to nothing else but Divine Providence, they having thirteen hundred in the field of their best troops, and we not eight hundred of standing troops and militia.

"The troops engaged against us were the 7th or Royal English Fuzileers, the First Battalion of the 71st, and the British Legion, horse and foot.

"The courage and conduct of the brave General Morgan in this action is highly commendable, as likewise Colonel Howard, who all the time of the action rode from right to left of the line encouraging the men; and indeed all the officers and men behaved with uncommon and undaunted bravery, but more especially the brave Captain Kirkwood and his company, who that day did wonders, rushing on the enemy without either dread or fear, and being instrumental in taking a great number of prisoners.

"Our loss in the action were one Lieutenant wounded, and one Sergeant and thirty-five killed and wounded, of which fourteen were of Captain Kirkwood's Company of the Delaware Regiment."


source: "Journal of the Southern Expedition, 1780-1783,
by William Seymour, Sergeant-Major of the Delaware Regiment."
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 7 (1883): 286-98, 377-94.
Online at http://www.battleofcamden.org/seymour.htm

"I like to garden and travel . . . I'm an outdoors person,” says Lura Stanley. “And so I don't quilt in the summertime. Winter, when you have to stay in, when the roads are bad and the weather's bad. That's when I do my quilting . . . I sometimes quilt all day long . . . But it gets you in between your shoulders, and I have arthritis."

Mamie Bryan quilted during the winter months, setting up her frame in the living room near the fire. Quilting provided a pleasant way to keep busy and productive while her husband was working in West Virginia or out foxhunting at night.

Zenna Todd usually starts quilting during the winter, after Christmas. She sets up her frame in the bedroom and leaves it up until she has quilted four or five tops. It usually takes her about a week to quilt one quilt. "When I get started, I just go at it . . . I'd put maybe eight, nine hours on it. You can do a right much in that length of time."

During the summer Ila Patton had a lot of gardening and canning to do, so she generally quilted in the wintertime. She recalled that because the house was heated by the fireplace or a wood heater, there were three or four quilts on each bed to keep her family warm at night.

Maggie Shockley did her quilting in the winter months, when she had fewer farm responsibilities. She made quilts while her children were small. She typically put her quilt in the frame at five o'clock in the morning, when her husband left for work, and finished it by the time he got home in the evening. When the three boys were in school, she sometimes quilted "about all day long."

Donna Choate recalled that she generally quilted during the wintertime, after Christmas. After making several quilts in one winter, she developed bursitis in her arm, which made quilting painful. Her house [at the time of this interview] was warmer than in the past, so she and her husband did not need as many quilts at night. She had given many quilts to her daughter and grandchildren, keeping "just enough to cover the beds if I have company."

Blue Ridge (VA) quilters
Interviewed by Laurel Horton, July, 1999
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/qlthtml/qltmb.htm

"Beyond The Grave: Ghost Stories and Ballads from the Mountains"
Susanna "Granny Sue" Holstein
Audio CD

Appalachian storytelling isn’t a theatrical performance with sets and costumes and lighting and accents, though a good storyteller can conjure all those things in the mind of the listener. And it’s not a recitation of history, with famous battles, treaties, statecraft and dates, though it can draw from any or all those historical aspects as needed.

Rather, the best of Appalachian storytelling weaves an emotional human narrative that, while local in details, makes the listener realize just how universal the characters and situations described really are.

Susanna “Granny Sue” Holstein of Sandyville, WV places herself firmly in this living tradition with her new collection of ghost stories and ballads, “Beyond the Grave.”

One happy coincidence of CD packaging today is that a collection of stories runs for just about the length of time you might envision a group of family & friends gathering together on the porch or in the parlor after a meal to share a round of tale swapping. Holstein takes advantage of this time frame parallel by arranging her material in an order that suggests the unfolding of an evening together, rather than just a clump of recordings thrown together in a list. For example, she builds from one of the earliest known ghost stories in WV to a finish with “The Greenbrier Ghost,” the most famous of the lot.

She intersperses her stories with three a cappella tunes, two of which, “Pretty Polly” and “Railroad Boy” will be recognized immediately by many listeners, classics that they are. She maintains the feeling that she’s sitting on the rocking chair next to you RELATING these songs rather than PERFORMING them by wisely foregoing overproduced instrumental backup. She does use a touch of echo reverb combined with forest birdcalls, which adds a sense of longing and wistfulness to the tunes. Her singing voice is a crystal clear soprano and more than holds its own without any backup.

On the third tune Holstein shows us an important lesson in why traditional Appalachian storytelling remains so vital. It’s all too easy to assume that a storyteller neutrally transmits an existing body of tales to the next generation, but in fact the best storytellers invariably add their own material and personalities into the mix. Holstein, in “The Cruel Blacksmith” recording, has set her own lyrics for the story of Zona Shue, the Greenbrier Ghost, to the well known tune of ‘Barbara Ellen.’

Furthermore, she’s taken a historical account from a 1906 book “Jackson County: A History of Mill Creek and Sandy Valley,” and developed her own saga out of that. Holstein does manage to keep a delicate balance between her new material and the standards, so purists won’t feel abandoned here!

Good storytelling should raise the question: “How’s this connect to my world?” Holstein answers in several ways: after telling “Wizard Clipp” she invites her listeners to take a drive over to Middleway, WV where they’ll find a plot of land called “Priest Field” whose name came directly from this tale. Likewise she tells us about a plaque near Glenville, WV about the old “Village of Burnt House” that verifies the fire account she’s just laid out for us. And she graciously credits a young listener from Diana, WV who first shared the “Holly River Ghost” story with her before telling it herself. “My young informant,” she says in her liner notes, “told the story in a matter of fact manner that lent credibility to the tale.” So this set of recordings conveys a real feel of give and take between Holstein and her audience.

Lots of real dates, places and people are mentioned throughout each of these delightful narratives. But are the stories themselves true? “I can only answer that if you believe, then it is true for you,” winks Susanna “Granny Sue” Holstein.

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We open today's show with the story of Louie Wohinc, who dominated central WV’s glass industry in the 1920s and 1930s. At their height, his factories produced 144,000 pieces of glass every 24 hours - all by hand!

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.

“There is no question in my mind but that the present condition is largely psychological and that if everyone will get their liver to working correctly and forget their troubles of the past, and look forward with confidence to the future, we will have a better 1921 than the last half of 1920 has proven to be." James D. Hammett, of Anderson, SC, president of the Cotton Manufacturers Association of South Carolina, gives an overview of the industry in that state in
the 1920 Annual report of the Commissioner of Agriculture, Commerce and Industries.
Next, we’ll look at Joe Sharp’s lyrics for “Cotton Mill Blues.” Sharp played mandolin for the Skyline Farms square dancers, of Skyline Farms, AL when they performed for Eleanor Roosevelt at the White House in 1939, and his band was recorded by folklorists John and Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress on that trip.

In ‘The Journal of William Franklin Mason,’ 
the author (who was born in 1872 in Horton Flats, KY) relates how local residents earned a bit of extra money in his youth. “In that back country in the 1870's money was very scarce. Just how scarce we people of this day can hardly realize. Most trade in the store was exchange of goods for farm produce. In order to get some real money Father went to the county seat, Sandy Hook, and bid in a pauper.”

“Not much spectacular ever happened on North Fifth,” George A. Mosel tells us about the Steubenville, OH of 1914, in his book ‘Through a Rear-View Mirror’. “The people just wouldn’t allow it. No big fires, or robberies, juicy divorce cases or scandals that I can recall.

That is not to say life was one soft bed of roses.”

We’ll wrap things up with an oral history from Mrs. Mary J. Jones, who was born 1910 in Clifton, NC. She talks about the white trash who lived up at the very top of her grandmother’s cove. “They had all sorts of devious ways to try to get things from other people. One man, for several years, worked in different sections of the country on the fact that his wife had just died. She always died under very bad circumstances which left him in dire need. He made a lot of money that way.”

And, thanks to the good folks at the Digital Library of Appalachia we'll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music by John Lozier in a 1981 recording of the traditional tune “Blackberry Blossom.”

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.

Parcel post was one year old. The Pennsylvania Railroad ran six crack trains daily, right through the middle of town, headed for St. Louis or New York, not counting a dozen locals to Pittsburgh or Columbus. You stood under the shed of the station, enviously peering into the Pullman diners as supercilious patrons dipped into their soup and stared at you out there in the dark. Some day, you promised yourself, you’d sit in a diner too and stare too.

A nickel bought a shoe shine, a hamburger with onions, a box of Uneeda Biscuit, and a pound of soup beans. A pair of steel-rimmed spectacles from Doc Bougher cost a five dollar bill. Coal was 10 cents a bushel, dug out under the town itself by the High Shaft Coal Company. The best ice cream you’d ever taste, no matter if you lived to be a hundred, cost 25 cents a quart.

The people in 1914 took their politics, religion and their patriotism seriously. The Elks, K. of P.’s, the Masons, and the K. of C.’s were Very Big socially. So was the G.A.R. and Women’s Relief Corps, although their ranks grew thinner and thinner on Decoration Day.

331 South Seventh Street, Steubenville, OH, several blocks over from where this piece's author George A. Mosel grew up, typifies the look of the neighborhood he describes.

Thousands, young & old, thought nothing of toiling up Market Street hill to Union Cemetery on foot to hear some windbag froth at the mouth over the bravery of the boys at Gettysburg or San Juan Hill.

Automobiles were still pretty risky things to some people. They hadn’t learned to trust them much. Babies were conceived at home and not on a vacation trip to Niagara Falls or in a Tourist Cottage on the Lincoln Highway. Old folks died home-style. The shades were pulled down in the front parlor and services were held there and not in an antiseptic Funeral Home ten squares away.

The phonograph was coming of age. The little square boxes with the cornucopia horn and revolving disks were going out and “His Master’s Voice” was coming in. At Erwin & Robinson’s, you could squander your hard-earned money on “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” which had come out back in 1911, or on “It’s a Long Long Way to Tipperary”(1912); “Peg ‘o My Heart”(1913). If you wanted to be strictly up-to-date you’d go for the very latest songs, “The Missouri Waltz” or “When You Wore a Tulilp.” The really ‘hot’ record was “The St. Louis Blues.” Harry Lauder’s “Roamin’ in the Gloamin’” was a prime favorite on records.

Home was more than a place where they had to take you in, no matter what you did. Families did things together. They played games, sang songs; they went to church en masse; they fought and argues with one another and they entertained their friends under the family roof tree instead of the country club.

Not much spectacular ever happened on North Fifth. The people just wouldn’t allow it. No big fires, or robberies, juicy divorce cases or scandals that I can recall.

That is not to say life was one soft bed of roses. There were many a heartache back of those austere front doors. Babies died too young and old folks turned into vegetables. A favorite diagnosis of sudden death was “acute indigestion,” known now as a coronary thrombosis. The people were beset by the fears and desperations of a long lingering illness, unemployment, and a poverty-stricken old age, without the modern blessings of Social Security, Relief Checks and free nursing for the aged. Many lived low on the hog.

But they put on a brave face to the world. They “made do,” bearing the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune with the quiet courage of their forefathers.


from Through a Rear-View Mirror, by an ex-child of the city of Steubenville, Ohio. George A. Mosel, publ. by Hamilton I. Newell, Inc., Amherst, MA, 1963