Appalachian History

Just here it may not be amiss to refer to those broad, wholly enclosed valleys whose meandering streams are often bordered by rather marshy ground. Such valleys are known in Garrett County as Glades, while any valley which has steep bounding slopes and slightly marshy flood-plain is called glady country.

These poorly drained areas are calculated to attract attention in a district where the sharp relief of the country in general insures unusually well-drained soils. To one familiar with the poor drainage of the glaciated districts of the United States, glaciation at once offers itself as an explanation of this topography. There are, however, none of the other signs of glaciation, such as transported boulders, striated ledges or morainic material. Moreover, it is possible to adequately explain the Glade Country by appealing to processes acting there at present and during the past.

The Glades are Maryland's largest and most open mountain peatland. They are of great scientific interest because they are fed solely by rainwater (an ombrotrophic system), and contain peat up to a 9 foot depth. This area is one of the oldest examples of mountain peatland in the Appalachians. The Nature Conservancy has purchased 601 acres in the area to set aside as a preserve. This 2008 photo was taken in the preserve.

The following explanation, based on recent geological studies in the Glade districts, is offered by Mr. A. C. McLaughlin of the Maryland Geological Survey:

"The typical Glades of Maryland are located on the strip of Jennings and Hampshire shales which lies between Backbone Mountain and Hoop Pole Ridge in the vicinity of Oakland and Deer Park.

"This broad, gently rolling valley is drained by two rather sluggish streams known as North Glade run and Green Glade run, both of which unite beyond Hoop Pole Ridge to form Deer Creek, a tributary of the Youghiogheny. Hoop Pole Ridge is a monoclinical ridge of Pocono sandstone which offers considerable resistance to erosion and has retarded both of the streams crossing it. While thus retarded at the edge of the Glades by this sandstone ledge, the headwaters of these streams have been working on the yielding shales until they have been reduced very considerably, in fact, quite to the level of the stream crossing on the sandstone.

"The stream grades are now so flat here that they cannot carry away the debris washed by the rains from the low shale hills. The result is that immediately along the streams the accumulation of alluvium has been so rapid that the stream is slightly choked and has thus become marshy. The Glades therefore are simply a well-reduced local base-level plain determined by the marked contrast between the yielding shale and the investing barrier of resistant sandstone.

"It might be added that possibly the inability of the two streams to remove the alluvium may be due to decreased volumes, resulting from recent captures by the headwaters of the Savage or the Youghiogheny rivers, both of which have tributaries on the shales in the immediate vicinity of the Glades."


excerpt from "A general report on the physiography of Maryland," Cleveland Abbe, Jr, 1898 PhD dissertation from Johns Hopkins University online at: www.archive.org/stream/cu31924000080691/cu31924000080691_djvu.txt

In her book about growing up in Lonaconing, MD, Ruth Bear Levy (1898-1994) wrote about how "modern artists could create masterpieces out of the sights and sounds of Lonaconing," how a "painter could paint the shapes and dark and light contours of the area" and how "all the pastel colors could be rolled out of the tubes for the pink, green and brown syrups covering fruits and ices in the ice cream parlors."

The Garrett County native did not begin painting until later in life. Once she did start making pictures, she often drew from her memories of her hometown, primarily a Scottish mining community, during her turn of the century childhood.

In A Wee Bit O'Scotland: Growing Up in Lonaconing, Maryland, Levy depicted kids playing ball and jumping rope, her father's general store, interiors, people working, coal cars and scenic views of the Western Maryland countryside.

Ruth Bear Levy grew up playing ball with Hall of Fame baseball player Lefty Grove. They were childhood friends in Lonaconing. She always loved baseball and did a series of baseball paintings -- many inspired by Lefty.

Mine Mouths Open On The Hillsides, by Ruth Bear Levy, n.d. Oil Painting. 30 X 40 in. Reproduced in "A Wee Bit of Scotland: Growing up in Lonaconing, Maryland."

Her family was musical: her mother played the piano and Ruth played the mandolin. Her father's store was called "M. Bear's Daylight Clothing Store"; he served on the Lonaconing city council. Levy's paternal grandfather emigrated from Bavaria and settled in Frostburg. Ruth's father moved eight miles to Lonaconing where he opened his store and got married. Her maternal grandfather Eisenberg emigrated from Austria-Hungary and settled in Cleveland, OH and then in Cumberland, MD. He opened a store there with his three sons and became a founder of the Reform Jewish Temple.

Levy traveled throughout childhood to visit her three uncles in Baltimore and to tour Washington, DC, Pittsburgh and Cleveland with her family. Ruth Bear Levy eventually left Lonaconing for Baltimore in pursuit of a degree in English at Goucher College. In Baltimore, she met her husband, urologist Dr. Charles Levy, a Johns Hopkins graduate.

Levy wrote that it was not until after she was married for 21 years or more and her son returned from service in the Navy during World War II that she had met painter Herman Maril, whose work along with that of other important Maryland artists of the period is characterized in part by the use of pastel tones. She studied with Maril as a private student beginning in about 1954.

"I had never been interested in painting before," Levy wrote. "But now a childhood urge returned to express my most innermost feelings, to be productive, to record, and I began putting my thoughts on canvas under Herman's sensitive, skillful tutelage. Later I worked under Walter Bohanan's guidance. The pictures in this book are among the results."


sources: www.marylandartsource.org/artists/detail_000000106.html
http://whilbr.com/itemdetail.aspx?idEntry=2719



Garrett+County+MD
Ruth+Bear+Levy appalachia Saltville+VA appalachian+history

When you’re in Oakland or Grantsville, Maryland, you’re in Old Order Amish territory. If you’re not Amish yourself, you may be wondering just how that group got its name. You’d have to go back to the Zurich, Switzerland of the 1690s and make the acquaintance of one Jakob Amman. Amman’s roots were in the Anabaptists, a movement that had sprung up in 1525, in direct conflict with the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholics practiced infant baptism; the Anabaptists believed solely in adult baptism.

Originally known as Swiss Brethren, the Zurich group soon became referred to as Mennonites---a like-minded group led by one Menno Simmons had formed about the same time in the Netherlands, and the tag stuck with the Swiss Brethren as well.

By Jakob Amman’s time, a serious dogmatic dispute had arisen amidst the Mennonites over the practice of Meidung, or shunning of excommunicated members. This practice had been more important in former times, but had lapsed.

Amman, determined that the Meidung should be observed strictly, traveled extensively throughout Switzerland and Alsace between 1693 and 1697 preaching exactly that, and was so insistent that his followers formed a separate camp, excommunicating all other Mennonites who did not practice shunning.

Amman’s conservative Anabaptist followers became known as “ammanasch,” a name which was corrupted eventually to the present “Amish.”

Hounded constantly by the Catholic Church, the Amish immigrated to Pennsylvania, where other religious groups had fled, seeking religious freedom. Many Amish settled first in Lancaster County, PA, and subsequently migrated westward to other parts of Pennsylvania and down into western Maryland. Later Amish immigration from Germany in the 1800’s had more to do with avoiding military conscription than with physical persecution.

There is a difference of opinion as to whether the Amish are a church or an ethnic group, as they do not actively evangelize, and conversions to the group are not common.

The Amish prefer to let their strong and silent lifestyle serve as an example of Christian living. The most important institution within the Amish community is the church. The Bible is interpreted literally and directly. The Mennonite hymn book, the "Ausbund," is believed to have appeared in 1564 and is still used today by the Old Order Amish.

The worship service includes the singing of four hymns in High German. The German dialect used in everyday discourse, and the more formal German or High German used in worship services, tend to make the group exclusive, although everyone is welcome to attend church or convert to the faith.

Title page of the Ausbund Hymn Book, 1564

Garrett County, Maryland has two communities of Old Order Amish. German immigrant Peter Gortner purchased property four miles south of Oakland in 1850 and established a farm in an area that is today known as Pleasant Valley.

The Old Amish congregation was probably organized in 1855. Church services were held in Gortner’s house in the 1850’s-1860’s, and Peter Gortner is identified as the first minister of the church located there. Peter Gortner Jr. later enhanced the original farm by constructing grist and saw mills, a store, and a post office that was officially designated Gortner.

Joseph Slaughbaugh had a significant influence on the town when he purchased 723 acres in approximately 1857, referred to as Ashby’s Discovery Tract at a tax sale in Cumberland, MD. Slaughbaugh’s siblings moved to the area and developed farms on the expanse of land.

Joseph Slaughbaugh’s house served as the worship center during the 1860s. The Slaughbaugh family donated land for construction of Union Church in Gortner, aptly named as it combined Mennonite and Old Order Amish congregations. Through the preaching of John Holdeman several families left, including two preachers. Daniel Beachey was the first bishop in the congregation. After his death in 1897, bishops from the Somerset churches served the congregation until 1908, when Bishop Lewis M. Beachey was ordained.

Other families who settled in Gortner include Pfeil and Miller from Germany, and Yutzy, Slabach, Selder, Beachey, Gnagey, Schrock, and Petersheim from Somerset and Cambria counties, Pennsylvania.

The settlement always considered itself as one church district, even though in the early days of the settlement several families lived about ten miles west of Oakland, near Aurora and Eglon, WV.

The second western Maryland Old Amish community formed as an integral part of the Amish settlement along the border of Somerset County, PA. Grantsville was the Maryland side center of the settlement; it began in a small way about 1770. This area was in the valley of the Casselman River and so has long been called the Casselman Valley district.

The original settlement here was largely built up by German immigrants from Hesse and Waldeck in 1830-1860. Since numerous Grantsville Amish families moved westward to Holmes County, OH, and Johnson County, IA, before 1860, the community never grew large. The Grantsville Amish community ultimately became almost totally Conservative Amish or Beachy Amish.


Sources: Old Order Amish Settlement: Diffusion and Growth, by William K Crowley, Annals of the Assn of American Geographers, Vol. 68, No. 2, June 1978
www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/G3755.html
www.mountaindiscoveries.com/stories/ss2003/gortneramish_plain.html



Amish appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history Garrett+County+MD Mennonites Old+Order+Amish

"My father walked six miles carrying a bucket and a pick. The bucket was made of tin and in the bottom of the bucket was tea for lunch, and the top of the upper section of the bucket was a compartment for a couple of sandwiches or some fruit and then the lid. Inside the coal mines the temperature never varied, so the temperature that the food was as it was brought to the mines stayed the same temperature. After a short time every coal miner's bucket smelled of the coal mines. You could scrub and scrub and scrub but when you pulled that sandwich out, it smelled of coal.

"Each ethnic group had its own cuisine. The Germans used a lot of pork, and they would have a piece of pork between big slices of rogenbrote, as they called it — rye bread — or schwarzbrote — black bread. They didn't go in for white bread like the Welsh or the Scots or the Irish.

"I can still see my grandmother with one of those big loaves of bread that — when she sliced it she put it in the crook of her arm and held it with her right hand, and she sliced it off while holding it. The bread loaf was so big you didn't put it on the table, but you held it in your arm and sliced it this way. I never figured out why but that's the way she always did it.

"So that each group developed its own food styles. A very popular one was ham because it was easier to slice and to put into sandwiches, but almost everybody drank tea. I don't know why, but I can still see the coal miners going into the grocery store and buying tea by the pound. It was kept in large canisters on the counter where it would be handy because the store owner knew that would be one of the commodities they would be looking for—it was kept handy for the customers.

"I used to enjoy watching the coal miners around the church picnics, around the church activities, for instance, after a dinner at the church, there would be a lot of cake and cookies left over. Everybody would withdraw discretely and let the coal miners go 'round and pick up the cookies or the cake for the bucket. And we knew o'course that was their treat."


Howard Rees
b. Frostburg MD, 1911
1991 interview with daughter Elizabeth Rees Gilbert
Western Maryland Regional Library collection
Source: www.whilbr.org/itemdetail.aspx?idEntry=2895&dtPointer=5


appalachia appalachian+foods appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history coal+mining Garrett+County+MD Howard+Rees

"Sugar making time was looked forward to with pleasant anticipation by the young people," writes George Benson Kuykendall in a family geneaology published in 1919. His uncle, Isaac Kuykendall, purchased a 670 acre farm near Huttons, Garrett County, MD in 1881.

"It came along in the early spring when there were clear days and frosty nights and pretty hard freezing, but the days were warmer, with sunshine that started the sap flowing. In the groves of 'sugar trees' was the sugar camp, where the sugar makers camped and boiled down the sap. When 'sugar weather' came around, the trees were tapped by boring auger holes in them.

"Tubes or spiles were then inserted to conduct the sap to the sap trough. The sap trough was made by cutting a small green maple log or stick of wood into lengths two feet long and splitting them through the middle, then digging out the wood on the split side with an axe and adze. These troughs were set under the drip of the spiles to catch the 'sugar water.'

"When our forefathers first began maple sugar making, they boiled the sap in any kettles or pots they might have, brass or copper being preferable. Later, they made long, shallow box-vats of sheet iron which were placed on a long, low furnace partly made of masonry, on which the vats were placed. The sugar troughs when full of sap were emptied into the vat or the kettles and a fire kept up to evaporate the water, while, from time to time, the scum was skimmed from the surface.

Photo caption reads: Foster Yost, owner of the sugar maple grove, is pouring sugar water from a metal collection keeler into a large metal tank. (This sugar grove and farm, located on the Brethren Church Road, is now owned by John Schlosnogle.)Pat is the grey horse and Fred is the black.

"There was great fun in sugar making time, every stage of the process being enjoyed from the very beginning until the finished product was in cakes of sugar or vessels of maple syrup. Our good old great-grandmothers broke holes in the small ends of eggs, emptied their contents and then filled the shells with thick, granulated syrup to make Easter sugar-eggs for the children; and small cakes of sugar were moulded in receptacles of various shapes and sizes.

"When a kettle of syrup was boiled down to a suitable consistency, the 'sugaring off' process was gone through with to make the delicious old fashioned maple sugar. Those were sweet times, indeed, for everybody concerned in making maple sugar. Every step of the process was watched by them with frequent libations of the fresh sap--that which had been boiled to a more syrupy consistence, and with scraping of the kettles for the sweet, sticky maple wax."

History of the Kuykendall Family Since Its Settlement in Dutch New York in 1646
George Benson Kuykendall
Kilham Stationery & Printing CO. Portland, OR, 1919.

source: www.kjvuser.com/kuykenda3.htm

related post: When the wind's in the west, the sap runs best


maple+sugar Garrett+County+MD George+Benson+Kuykendall appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

There is a town in Maryland’s westernmost county of Garrett that got its name from a happy accident. In 1750, Maryland settler George Deakins was granted 600 acres of land as a payment of a debt from England’s King George II. Deakins sent out two corps of engineers, each without knowledge of the other, to survey the best land in this area. When the two crews presented their findings, to their surprise and to Mr. Deakins’ satisfaction, they had both marked the same oak tree as their starting and returning points. Doubly vindicated that this land was prime, Mr. Deakins had it patented "The Accident Tract."

The town was eventually settled by the Dranes. James Drane moved to the area in 1803 from Prince George’s County, which was part of the Maryland tobacco belt. Apparently Drane intended to turn his farm into a tobacco plantation. However, the climate of Garrett County proved unsuitable for growing tobacco, and he turned to normal farm crops.

The Dranes lived in a log cabin built by James’ brother-in-law William LaMar in 1797. LaMar owned Flowery Vale, a 900 acre tract of land. Half a century later, most of the town of Accident was built on that land; the Accident tract was incorporated into the Flowery Vale tract. James Drane added an addition to the cabin shortly after he arrived, giving the building a total of six rooms; three upstairs and three down.

Although it wasn’t the first log cabin in Garrett County, by the mid-1900’s the Drane House had been occupied by successive families for over 150 years. The last owners of the house were members of the Heinrick Richter family who purchased it in 1856. They leased it to a number of people; the last family left in 1952.

From the early 1950s, Mrs. Mary Miller Strauss, an Accident native who taught in the elementary schools of the Garrett County public school system for 33 years, took an active lead in the restoration of the Drane House. She ultimately made possible the placement of the Drane house on the National Registry of Historical Homes. The Accident Cultural and Historic Society was formed in 1987, and one of its main projects was the restoration of the Drane house. Restoration of the house, now owned by the town, began in 1992.

Photo caption reads: The Richter Tannery is located where the smoke is spewing from the stack. It was built in 1872. The Drane House is located to the right of the picture. (It cannot be seen.)

This tannery in Accident MD was operated by John Richter and later his son Adam for 56 years. Hides were tanned by the vegetable tannin method, using tannin obtained from the ground rock oak bark, furnished to the plant before World War I for four dollars and fifty cents a cord. It was put out of business in 1928 by the development of large tanneries.

sources: www.whilbr.org
www.accidentmd.org
www.hmdb.org/Marker.asp?Marker=2313



Accident+MD appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history Drane+House Garrett+County+MD Richter+Tannery

Barney was very industriously studying her history lesson when suddenly she looked up and asked: "Mr. Humbertson, what is beheaded?" "Why, beheaded is having the head cut off, of course." After a moment of thought, Barney suddenly exclaimed: "Well, then I guess defeat is having the feet cut off."

Miss Kraft who was given the children written exercises wrote this advertisement: Wanted—a milliner. Apply by letter to Miss Smith, 10 Bank Street. The children had to make application for the position. Louise Moon wrote—I saw you wanted a milliner. I hate to trim hats. Can't you get someone else? Please let me know at once.

IMAGINE—

Miss Kochenderfer on a diet.
Miss Kraft losing her temper in French class.
Miss Broadwater controlling Freshman boys.
Mr. Jenkins saying "Forty minutes."
Mr. Humbertson liking Nancy.
Mr. Speicher telling jokes.
Miss Engle with a girls' basketball team.
Mr. Graser having a date.
Miss Conley in the office alone.
Miss Rice being in a good humor.
Miss Fernald keeping her hair up.
Mr. Smith without his derby hat.
Miss Falkenstein cooking a meal.

HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS VICTORIOUS
John Stevenson, Lewis Lawton and Betty Hardesty were recently awarded gold medals in the recent Marathon Loafing Races, which were held in Vienna last week. These three popular young folks withstood the test and were voted the best and most efficient loafers of all the contestants.

ALWAYS POLITE

"What is wrong with this sentence, children?" asked Miss Engle. "The horse and the cow is in the lot." Crystal spoke up: "The cow and the horse is in the lot." "What makes you correct it in that way, Crystal?" "The lady should be mentioned first," answered Crystal.

Saint Peter—"Who's there?" Helen Sollars—"It's me." Saint Peter—"Come in."

KNOCKING

Saint Peter—"Who's there?" Wilmot Bowen—"It's me." Saint Peter—"Come in."

KNOCKING

Saint Peter—"Who's there?" Voice—"It is I." Saint Peter—"It must be one of those pert teachers again.—Come in." And in walked Miss Kraft.

A certain girl in the Senior Commercial room wrote the following letter to a Corn Syrup Manufacturing Company: Dear Sirs:—I have eaten three cans of your corn syrup and it has not helped my corns one bit.
Yours very truly, G. W. N.


Oakland High School Yearbook, 1930
Garrett County, MD

http://www.whilbr.org/itemdetail.aspx?idEntry=2926&dtPointer=3

Oakland+High+School +Garrett+County+MD +high+school+yearbook appalachia appalachia+history appalachian+culture appalachian+history history+of+appalachia

Maxine Broadwater was just 5 years old when she helped her brothers destroy the glass negatives so they could turn their late uncle's photography studio into a chicken house. Luckily for us they didn't finish the job.

Leo J. Beachy (1874-1927) is thought to have taken ten thousand photographs a year on five inch by seven inch glass plates of the people and places in his beloved Garrett County, MD between the years 1905 and 1927. Perhaps 10% of his output survives today. It's astonishing to consider that by the time he gave up his teaching career at the age of 31 to pursue his passion full time, he'd somehow found ways to prevent his multiple sclerosis from slowing this pace. He'd wrap his arms around people's backs to be dragged from camera to developing room, and had a special wagon outfitted to carry photographer and rigging.

"I have taken medicine by the barrel and as for doctors... I've been drugged by the allopaths, rubbed by the osteopaths and bilked by the quack-o-paths. They have doped me with caster oil, rubbed me with sweet oil and soaked me in hard oil. I've slept with my head to the north for polarity, and between a pair of electric sheets and with a bundle of shingles for a pillow, for cedaracity. In fact I've tried everything from sooth sayers to the ouija board. Now if you know of anything new, just trot it out and I'll put it through the paces." Leo Beachy, 1923.

Fifty years after she dumped her uncle's glass plates into a nearby creek, Maxine Broadwater was given about 2,700 Beachy negatives that had been gathering dust in a neighbor's shed. Broadwater has devoted the decades since to preserving those images of children, farmers and small-town Appalachia.

"When I was a child, I did exactly what I was told. I'm hoping Uncle Lee forgave me for that, I'm trying to make it up to him now," she said.

The pictures have been celebrated since their discovery. William Stapp, curator of photography for the National Portrait Gallery, praised them as "entrancing pictures, composed with naive charm" in his essay for the 1984 book, "Maryland Time Exposures, 1840-1940." And a 1990 Spread in LIFE magazine exposed Beachy's work to the world.

“When I first saw [the photographs], what struck me was how unposed and natural his portraits where, not anything like I had seen or associated in my own mind with what photographs looked like at the turn of the century," said Adele Rush, executive producer of 'Images of Maryland,' an hour long special aired several years ago by Maryland Public Television about the work of six great Maryland photographers.

Finally The Maryland Historical Society acquired the Leo Beachy Collection of Photographs. The collection includes 2,000 postcard prints, and 200 glass-plate negatives.


sources: www.rootsweb.com/~mdgarret/unclesphoto.html
www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=431
http://beachynews.blogspot.com/2007/03/leo-beachy-march-24-1874-1927.html

Related posts: "Photographer Doris Uhlmann"


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