Appalachian History

Like many locations in Georgia, many of Rabun County's place names are derived from Indian names. In Rabun County that would be the Cherokees. In most Indian place names, we know the English spelling of how the Cherokees pronounced the word, but no actual translation of what the word means. For example, both Chattooga and Chechero were the names of villages. Chattooga was derived from the town which once stood on the South Carolina side of the river, near the mouth of War-woman Creek.

It was abandoned, probably in 1760, because it lay on the route of two British Army expeditions. When explorer John Bartram passed by in 1776, he noted town ruins in the area.

The area where Clayton is now located was once an important intersection of major Indian trails known as Dividings. One route that branched to the southeast, along what is now Highway 76 East, passed an Indian village mapped by Henry Mouzon in 1777 and called "Chichirohe." That derivation is easy to see in the community we call Chechero.

The word "Tallulah" has often been said to mean 'terrible.' There was an Indian village near the great falls and gorge in the late 1600s called 'Talulu.' By 1725 there was another village in the same area called 'Turura,' a variation of 'Talulu.'

Some Indian names are Anglicized; Warwoman is one example. The most important route out of Dividings ran along War-woman Creek to the east, forded the Chattooga River, and forked in South Carolina to trails that then led to Virginia and Charleston. The creek name (later the community's name also) came from an honored titled among the Cherokee. It was their custom to take a woman along on war parties, primarily to cook and sew, but when one proved her mettle on several expeditions, she was given the designation 'War Woman.' We don't know which specific woman was referred to because the Warwoman Creek has held that name for more than 200 years.

Timpson Creek's name does not seem to have an Indian connection at first glance. But it is, in fact, name for a Cherokee, John Timson, who was the first convert made by Baptist missionaries in 1823.

Other Indian names abound in Rabun County. Stekoe Creek was first called 'Sticcoa' by the Cherokees, and Hiawassee Street is named for the great trail known as 'Hiwassee' that connected the Cherokee settlements around Franklin, NC to those of the valleys further south and west. Even Savannah Street, which many believe to be named for Savannah Bleckley, may actually be of Cherokee derivation because it is the English equivalent of 'Hiwassee,' meaning grassy valley.

When the Cherokee were removed and Rabun County was created in 1819, the white settlers started their own naming. Rabun comes from Governor William Rabun, who died in office shortly before the county came to be. Clayton, originally Claytonville, was named for Supreme Court Judge and Congressman Augustus Clayton of Clarke County. Dillard was named for the Dillard family, among the first white settlers in that locale. Mountain City was originally called 'Pass Over' by settlers because it was part of the great valley pass through the Blue Ridge. By 1915, it was known as Mountain City.

According to Mrs. Della Watts' recollections, Tiger was once called 'Kerbytown,' after a prominent resident who ran a general store there. Some say the name 'Tiger' derived from a Cherokee chief named 'Tiger Tail;' other oral history says the panther’s cry from the mountains reminded early settlers of English origin of the eerie cry of the tiger of India.


Source: ‘Rabun County Place Names,’ by Carol Law Turner, The Vintage Rabun Quarterly, Vol 3 No 1, January 2009



Rabun+County+GA Cherokees place+names appalachia history+of+appalachia appalachian+history

During the 1930s and 1940s Rose Thompson worked as a home supervisor with the Farm Security Administration in Georgia. While she worked with farmers and their wives -- teaching them to put up preserves, make cotton mattresses, and build chick brooders -- she listened to the stories they told.

Thompson spent some time during the summer of 1946 in Clayton, in Rabun County GA, where an elderly black preacher told her the tale of Fiddler’s Mountain.

“I had heard that there were very few blacks in Rabun County,” she recounted, “and I knew better than just to go rambling around. So I asked someone at the courthouse if it would be all right for me to go up there, and that person showed me the way to where an old black woman lived. She was nice enough about it, but she was a little vague about why she thought they called it Fiddlers Mountain.

“But she said the Reverend over there, he lived around a bend in the road, would know. She sent for the preacher, and sure enough he could and then they told it together although the preacher did most of the talking.”

“Why do they call it Fiddlers Mountain? Because nothing lives on it except those two musicians---just a fiddling and a swaying as they sit there and play. Any moonshiny night you can see them just a pulling the bow; and if you listen with a keen ear and a fearful heart, you can hear their music.

Bless your time, nobody knows how long they have been sitting there, but they are playing yet---to be sure. It was too long ago that a man came to one of the fiddlers and asked him to play the fiddle for him that night. Come to such and such a mountain. Going to be a big ball. And when night came, the fiddler went up on that mountain and took another man with him.

And when they got up the mountain there, they saw a great big house. Carriages and horses standing around. House all lit up. Laughing and talking going on---men and women all dressed up; women with trail train dresses on. Gave the fiddlers a seat and they went to playing. Every time they went through a cotillion, would come and pay the fiddlers. What a time they had! And just about that time the old Devil pranced in all dressed up and took his seat. They were all dancing and a bold gal walked up to the Devil and asked him to be her partner.

Devil got up and bowed and scraped and led the gal out in the ring. Then he set in to dance. He danced and danced. Cut so many capers that he pretty near danced that poor gal to death. Folks commenced to look at him and saw he had a pewter eye. After a while he cut so many fancy steps, they saw he had a club foot. All quit dancing. But the Devil kept on and danced the gal plumb to death. All the folks fell down on their knees and the Devil went out and took the side of the house with him---a braying like a mule.

And when the clock struck twelve, house went out of existence. House disappeared. House went down like a light going out. Nothing left but the two musicians still sitting up there on the mountain---just a fiddling and a swaying.

Hush, child! Can’t you hear the music?

Source: Hush, Child! Can't You Hear the Music? By Rose Thompson, Charles Allen Beaumont, 1982, Univ of GA Press
The book is illustrated with photographs taken by Thompson and WPA photographer Jack Delano

Rose Thompson was a native of Greene County, Georgia


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