Appalachian History

Coin collectors today consider the hobo nickel a numismatic treasure, a tribute to long- forgotten folk artists who often literally carved for their supper. The Buffalo nickel debuted in 1913, but it wasn’t until the Great Depression struck that hobo nickel carving reached its peak. During this period, buffalo nickels were the most common nickels in circulation.

The sudden scarcity of jobs in the early 1930s forced a huge number of men to hit the road. Certainly some coins were carved to fill the idle hours. More importantly, a 'knight of the road,' with no regular source of income, could take one of these plentiful coins and turn it into a folk art piece, which could in turn be sold or traded for small favors such as a meal or shelter for a night.

The nickel was an ideal coin from which to fashion such a token. The large profile of the Indian on one side and the classic image of the very wide American bison that complemented it on the reverse side provided an adequately sized canvas for the wandering hobo artist to use. It was portable, and the nickel (a copper-nickel alloy) is the hardest U.S. coin in circulation, ideal for carving.

In a community of generally anonymous drifters, two carvers rose to prominence among hobo nickel creators. Bertram 'Bert' Wiegand was born in 1880 and carved from 1913 to 1949. He signed his coins by removing L I and Y from L I B E R T Y, leaving only B E R T. He tutored the man coin collectors consider the giant of hobo nickel carving: George Washington 'Bo' Hughes (born between 1895 and 1900 in Theo, Mississippi). Bert met the young teenager in a jungle, or hobo camp, along the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio railroad line, and Bo’s first nickels appeared two years later, in 1915. Bo carved till about 1980, when he was last seen by his friend of 40 years, Williard Chisolm, in a Florida camp.

Life as a hobo took its toll: the rigorous manual labor Bo undertook to survive during the money-tight, poverty-ridden 30s rendered his hands stiff and permanently damaged. Frequent beatings by ruthless detectives prowling railroads (where many hobos resided) in search of freeloaders and thieves compounded his dexterity impairment.

Nevertheless, devoted to his craft, Bo worked through the pain and frustrating impediments throughout the 1940s and into the 1950s, but in 1957, while he was working on a nickel, his chisel suddenly slipped and struck his hand. The injury forced the once-great hobo nickel engraver to resort to a haphazard punching method. Bo continued his work, but with less frequency and diminished quality, and as America moved into the post-war era genuine hobo nickels became a thing of the past.

The U.S. Mint ceased striking Buffalo nickels in 1938.

Related posts: Riding the Rails

sources: http://www.hobonickels.org/scraps19.htm
www.pcgs.com/articles/article2766.chtml
www.montgomerycoinclub.org/bulletins/2006/club_mccc200607.html


appalachia appalachian+mountains appalachian+mountains+history Bert+and+Bo Bert+Wiegand Bo+Hughes Hobo+Nickels

Kentucky began a campaign in the 1880s to attract Western European immigrants to the state, which had been losing population to America’s new westward movement at alarming rates. The Kentucky Bureau of Immigration, the State Geological Survey and the newly created Bureau of Agriculture, Labor & Statistics worked together to send agents abroad, loaded with broadsides and pamphlets, to describe Kentucky’s bright future prospects.

The Swiss jumped first. Many from Canton Bern came to Laurel County, drawn by the new coal mining jobs available in the north and east sections of that county, to found Die Kolony Bernstadt. This village was the largest of several Swiss colonies in the region, others in Laurel County being Die Kolony Langnau, Die Kolony Lily, and a group near Stanford, in Lincoln County.
The Bernstadt Colonisation Company, founded by Paul Schenk, the son of the Swiss President, and Otto Bruner, both agriculturalists, and Karl Imobersteg, the owner of a large passage office, bought 40,000 acres for the cultivation of vineyards. They encouraged German-speaking Swiss, who were suffering as a result of a farming crisis and high land prices in their native country, to come to Kentucky.

From 1881 to 1886, 336 families bought land and erected Protestant churches and two schools. The First Evangelical Reformed Church, also known as the Swiss Colony Church, was built in 1885. The Catholic Swiss families who immigrated here initially celebrated Mass at the home of one of their countrymen. Father Joseph Volk officially brought the Roman Catholic Church to East Bernstadt in 1888, when he established St. Sylvester’s. The Swiss immigrants’ improved farming methods produced well-known wines- Chasselas, Pinor Noir; and cheeses – Emmental, Gruyere, Raclette.

In addition to the Swiss colonies of Laurel County, an Austrian one gathered in Boyle County, a German one formed in Lincoln County, and the Ohio River towns attracted some French immigrants, but overall Kentucky’s effort to import Western Europeans to empty countryside pockets wasn’t a strong success. The Bernstadt post office, which had opened in 1881, finally closed in 1964.

sources: http://snipurl.com/2625m [www_triptrivia_com]
Kentucky Place Names, by Robert M. Rennick, Univ of Ky Press, 1987
The Kentucky Encyclopedia, by John E. Kleber, Univ of Ky Press, 1987
http://snipurl.com/2625t [saintwilliamhistory_cdlex_org]


Swiss+colonies Die+Kolony+Bernstadt Kentucky+Bureau+of+Immigration Swiss+immigrants+in+Kentucky appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history,

An Extraordinary Story
Told by a West Virginia Girl who was Kidnapped Sunday Night

[New York Times, April 8, 1891]


Wheeling, West Va., April 7. ---Since Sunday night, about 9:30 o’clock, there has been much excitement in this city and vicinity over the sudden and mysterious disappearance of Miss Amy Morgan, niece of Henry Morgan, Assistant Cashier of the Exchange Bank of Wheeling. The family resides two miles from the river on the Ohio side, at the extreme western end of Bridgeport.

Sunday evening the young lady left home and attended a neighboring church. She was escorted home by a gentleman friend, and after chatting at the gate for a few minutes, they separated, Miss Morgan proceeding toward the house. From that moment all trace of the girl was lost until noon to-day, when she was driven home by Charles Hill, who found her at the Bridgeport station in an exhausted condition.

Miss Morgan states that when she left her friend at the gate she found that she had dropped a letter and walked back a few steps to look for it. While thus engaged she was seized by two men, who choked her and hurried her into a closed carriage, threatening her with death if she offered to scream. After turning the carriage around several times they started off and drove all night.

About daylight they stopped and one of the men got out and pounded at a door several times. He came back and said “There’s no one there, I guess the game’s up.”

Then they deliberated as to whether they should kill her or let her go, and finally fixed upon the latter course, telling the girl that if she attempted to follow them they would kill her.

After walking several miles, the girl struck the Bellaire, Zanesville and Cincinnati Railroad and followed it. She reached Kelsey Station, fourteen miles from Bellaire. There she was given food and kept last night, and to-day a ticket was purchased for Bellaire and money given her to ride from Bellaire to Bridgeport, where she was found by Hill, as stated.



crime+in+Appalachia kidnapping Wheeling+WV appalachia appalachian+history history+of+appalachia

The most serious difficulty that arose over the stateline issue, and one which threatened bloodshed, was what has been termed the "The Water-Works War." In April, 1889, the Bristol-Goodson Water Company, then just completing their plant on the Tennessee side, desired to extend their water-mains to the Virginia side. This evoked a loud protest from the Virginia authorities and public.

Sam L. King, president and principal owner of the water company, ordered his workmen to extend a pipe to Everett's restaurant, located near the corner of Main and Front streets. No sooner had the workmen reached the disputed territory than officers arrested them and they were fined for trespass.

Front Street, Bristol, VA. No date. Courtesy Bristol Historical Association.

As a further test the president himself stepped into the ditch and began digging, when he was arrested by officer James Cox — taken to jail and afterwards fined. The Goodson council issued an injunction, restraining the water company from working beyond the middle of Main street. This injunction was respected. The Goodson authorities had engaged some of the leading lawyers on the Tennessee side as council- N. M. Taylor, C. J. St. John, Sr., and W. D. Haynes.

When the Bristol-Goodson Water Company desisted in their work the Goodson council ordered work to begin on a line of pipe down Main street. They had a large force of men and made considerable speed. King appealed to Gov. Taylor of Tennessee to prevent them from trespassing, claiming that the agreement between the two councils as to the location of the line had never been approved by the legislature of either state. The governor in answer referred him to his legal advisers, who were also representing the city of Goodson. Warrants were issued for E. H. Seneker, acting mayor — in the absence of Mayor Fanning Miles— and all his councilmen.

The matter being laid before Judge John P. Smith, chancellor of the first Tennessee division, an injunction was issued, restraining the Virginia authorities. N. M. Taylor withdrew from the case.

Sheriff R. S. Cartwright, with his deputies, was placed in charge. Sheriff Hughes, with his deputies, hastened to the scene to protect the interests of Washington County and the State of Virginia.

Gov. Taylor being notified of the injunction, immediately wired, "The laws of Tennessee must be upheld."

Cartwright hurried his deputies through Sullivan County and summoned a posse comitatus. Several hundred responded. They came with all kinds of weapons, as determined as their forefathers were, when called to defend their country.

King's forces seized the armory of the A. D. R. Rifles and appropriated all the guns. The hardware stores found eager buyers for all the weapons in stock.

On account of King's life having been threatened, Sheriff Cartwright made him a deputy sheriff so that he could go armed, to protect himself.

The Sullivan County forces rendezvoused on Alabama street— they marched out Fifth Street to Main and lined up and down the street, facing the ditch on the Virginia side. The workmen in this ditch were armed, as were the line of deputies put there to defend them.

Sheriff Cartwright, with a warrant for James Cox, stepped over to serve it, when Cox, in his effort to elude that officer, caught his foot on a water pipe and fell, with the sheriff on top of him.

Charles Worley came to Cox's rescue, when H. C. Caldwell, Chief-of-Police of Bristol, and Tip Powell, a deputy, rushed to Cartwright 's assistance. It became a general scuffle and the tenseness of the scene was such that, had a cap exploded, it would have been followed by a fusilade of bullets, for the guns were not loaded with blanks that day.

Officer Worley, who had not taken the situation so seriously as had some of the others, said to Caldwell, "Oh, let's get out of this," and the two men got up and walked off together.

Mayor Seneker, acting under reasonable advice, withdrew his workmen from the ditch and placed them in another part of the town. Influential citizens addressed the assembling crowds and urged peace. After much persuasion the leaders agreed to settle the matter in court, and so the friction between the two states, that had threatened a bloody conflict, was tempered by the prospect of an amicable adjustment.

In 1890 the state-line controversy came up before the United States Supreme Court. The state of Virginia was represented by Rufus A. Ayers and William F. Rhea — Tennessee by A. S. Colyer, Abram L. Demoss, N. M. Taylor Thomas Curtin, Hal H. Haynes, C. J. St. John, Sr., and W. D. Haynes. Rhea for Virginia, and Curtin for Tennessee were the examiners. Many witnesses were introduced — among them the sole survivor of a former survey, Col. George R. McClellan. Gen. J. D. Imboden and Gen. James Greever were also witnesses.

As usual the ridiculous side developed in the testimony of some of the witnesses. One confused the Henderson-Walker line with the Mason and Dixon line.A complete history of the dispute was submitted and the Supreme Court decided in favor of Tennessee — that the compromise line of 1802 was the correct line.

In April, 1900 a commission composed of William C. Hodgkins, of Massachusetts, James B. Baylor, of Virginia, and Andrew Buchanan, of Tennessee, was named to retrace and re-mark the old compromise line of 1802. This was completed in 1901-02.

On January 28, 1903, the State of Tennessee ceded to Virginia the northern half of State street, thus ending a long and tedious controversy.


from "Historic Sullivan; a history of Sullivan County, Tennessee, with brief biographies of the makers of history," by Isaac Shelby, King Printing Co, Bristol, TN, 1909
online at http://www.archive.org/stream/historicsullivan00tayl/historicsullivan00tayl_djvu.txt

They’re the first greens of the season, and they’re coming up right about now. Ramps, (Allium tricoccum or Allium tricoccum var. burdickii, Alliaceae) also known as wild leeks, are native to the Appalachian mountains. Ramps can be found growing in patches in rich, moist, deciduous forests as far north as Canada, west to Missouri and Minnesota, and south to North Carolina and Tennessee.

Back before supermarkets arrived they provided necessary vitamins and minerals following long winter months without access to fresh fruits and vegetables.

The salient feature of ramps is the smell. The Menominee Indians called it "pikwute sikakushia": the skunk. "Shikako," their name for a large ramp patch that once flourished in northern Illinois, has been anglicized to Chicago: "the skunk place."

Ramps are pleasant to eat and taste like spring onions with a strong garlic-like aroma. They are often prepared by frying in butter or animal fat with sliced potatoes or scrambled eggs. They are also used as an ingredient in other dishes such as soup, pancakes, and hamburgers. They can also be pickled or dried for use later in the year.


On the heels of ramps a host of other greens start popping up: dandelions, poke, shawnee lettuce, woolen britches, creasies, and lamb's tongue. And around these, women have fashioned womens' worlds. "That was the big deal, when everybody used to go green picking," says Carrie Lou Jarrell, of Sylvester, WV.

"That was the event of the week. Mrs. Karen Thomas would come up and she always brought Jessie Graybill with her, and then Miss Haddad would come, and most of the time Maggie Wriston came with her. And usually Sylvia Williams was always there to do green picking with them. I knew from the time I came into the world that she was just a good friend. But that was the thrill of my life to get to go with all of these women, because they talked about good stuff."

The women laugh over how Violet Dickens once mistook sassafras tea for bacon grease and poured it over the frying ramps: "We need you to come season the ramps," Mabel kidded her. They compare the aromas of poke and collard greens, and marvel at how window screens get black with flies when you're cooking them. They wonder where the creasies (dry land cress) are growing this year, and Jenny points out that creasies won't grow unless you till the soil.


Sources:
“Tending the Commons: Folklife and Landscape in Southern West Virginia”; Library of Congress/American Memories http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/tending/essay4b.html
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/ncnu02/v5-449.html


appalachian+history appalachian+culture history+of+appalachia appalachia

"RECENTLY I observed a peculiar behavior of a film of bichromated gelatine after it had been exposed to the action of light for a short time and then immersed into an aqueous solution of picric acid or sodium picrate and dried.

"Those parts of the gelatine film which have been exposed to light are found to be raised and if the exposure has been made under a negative the image will stand out in relief. This behavior of a gelatine film, when treated as above described, may possibly be utilized in some branch of photography.

"I will briefly describe the manner in which one of these relief images may be obtained. An ordinary dry plate composed of a good thick coating of gelatine emulsion is sensitized in a solution containing about thirty grains of potassium bichromate to a pint of water and dried in a dark place.

"After drying, the plate is exposed to light beneath a negative for two or three minutes, then removed from the printing frame, and then washed in cold water to remove all soluble chromium salts. The plate is then put in a saturated aqueous solution of picric acid. This solution should be at a temperature of about 75 F and the plate should remain in same for at least five minutes.

"On examining the plate after its removal from the solution, aside from its yellow colour, it will present the same appearance as if it had been treated with plain water, those parts of the film which have been protected from the light being higher than the other portions. On drying the condition of the film is exactly the reverse: those parts that were protected from the light are in reality depressed. This depression of the film is proportional to the strength of the light acting on said film.

A Knaffl & Brakebill 'relief image' portrait from 1920. Joseph Knaffl (1861-1938) and his brother Charles opened a photographic studio called Knaffl & Brother in Knoxville, TN in 1884.

They specialized in unusual photographs, many of which depicted historic and religious themes. Their best known photograph was the "Knaffl Madonna" (1890), which won praise at the Photographer's Association of American Art Convention in Lake Chatauqua, NY, in 1899.

James Henry Brakebill partnered briefly with photographer William J. McCoy at the turn of the 20th century in Knoxville. But by the end of that first decade he merged his business with the Knaffl brothers to form Knaffl & Brakebill.

Knaffl & Brakebill went on to receive widespread acclaim for their photographic work in the early decades of this century.

"My explanation of this phenomenon is that the picric acid forms a compound with the gelatine, which when dry is much more dense and compact than normal gelatine. That this is the correct explanation, I believe, and is borne out by the fact that if the gelatine film has been exposed beneath a positive, and afterward treated with the picric acid solution, on drying the image will be represented by a depression in the gelatine.

"The exposed portions of the film have become more or less insoluble, and the solution of picric acid is therefore unable to penetrate the film as freely as the unexposed parts and form the compound mentioned above. It appears possible to utilize a relief image of this nature for obtaining prints photo mechanically. The plate in this case should be exposed under a grained negative instead of an ordinary one, and then the image would be composed of numerous small raised dots of very hard gelatine, which should make a good printing surface retaining ink readily."


sources: "Relief Images," by Dr. Braxton D. Avis, in 'The American annual of photography, Volume 34,' 1920, edited by Percy Y. Howe, publ. by The American Annual of Photography, Inc., New York

http://dlc.lib.utk.edu/f/fa/fulltext/3122.html

Easter’s around the corner. If you keep chickens, be sure to color those biddies' eggs; otherwise they won’t hatch! Ever heard that before? Appalachia’s full of such superstitions. Here’re a few:

Weather:
Aching joints indicate rain.
When a bobwhite calls, it’s praying for rain.
Thick, tight shucks on corn indicate bad weather.
Killing a black snake and hanging it on a fence with its belly turned to the sun will bring rain before the next sunset.
If it rains on Monday, it will rain 3 days that week.
An owl hooting high on the mountain signals fair weather; the owl hooting in the lower lands signals foul weather.
There will be as many snows in a winter as there are fogs in October.

Marriage:
If a girl sleeps in a strange bed and names each bedpost a boy’s name, the post she looks to first upon waking will name the boy she’ll marry.
A girl won’t get married if anyone sweeps under her feet.

Dreams:
A dream about the dead means you’ll get a letter.
If you sleep in a strange bed, whatever you dream will come true.

Death:
If a cow moos after dark, someone will die.
If a bird flies against a window pane, there will be a death in the family.
If a dog howls before the moon rises, someone will die.



You’ll have good luck if you:
Find a 4-hole button.
Always put your right sock and shoe on first.
See a bluebird.
Look at the new moon over your left shoulder.
Find a red ear of corn.
Find a pin and pick it up.
Find a penny lying “heads-up” and put it in your right shoe.

Source: Gathering Up Memories: A Collection of Appalachian Stories
By Ann Goode Cooper
Published 2003
Parkway Publishers, Inc.


appalachian+history appalachian+culture history+of+appalachia appalachia

When asked what brought him to this community, Joe Raines said the Lord had sent him here as a pest on the Maynors and Williames for their meanness. That is the only reason Joe ever gave for coming to Cirtsville, WV. However, he came, and once here, he proceeded to make the most of the generosity of the people of the community.

He established a circuit of enough homes that he would spend a night with so it took him two weeks for him to cover his route. If Joe was delayed in making his rounds, the people became worried about him and began to inquire about his whereabouts.

Joe liked to fish and spent many hours fishing in Paint Creek. Next to Dr. Billy Feazell, Joe was said to be the best fisherman to ever fish in Paint Creek. After fishing all day Joe would take his string of fish to the home he was going to spend the night with. He would dress them and give them to the cook to fry for supper.

Cirtsville, WV. No date. Collection of Carol Sue (Lively) Beavers.

Joe was always welcome whether he had fish or not. He was not a lazy man and always had some kind of project underway, but it was usually something that was of no benefit to him or anyone else. His first project in the community was a school. There was a small building at the foot of Spruce Mountain that was vacant and Joe took it over for his school. Some of the people paid a small fee and enrolled their children in Joe's school. A few of them learned to read and write and a little arithmetic. Joe's school lasted two months. All his pupils were tired of school and quit going, so the Raines School closed.

Joe was the slowest man I ever saw. The method used to speed up someone who was dragging behind was to say: "Come on, you are as slow as Joe Raines."

Another project Joe tried that was hard work and very little profit was to gather up surplus from the gardens and haul it to Mount Hope and sell it. Then he would take the money he received for the products and buy such items as soda, soap, matches, and other things that the farmers needed and bring them back and sell them to the people who had given him the garden products.

One summer he used a wheelbarrow to transport his products. Another summer he used a small wagon which he pulled himself. Each year in April he would leave Cirtsville and go to Sandlick and spend a month with the Sandlick people, but he would return to Paint Creek by May 1.

Another visit that Joe made every summer was to the Tollison Stover home. This place was on Lick Run of Coal River. The route traveled was to go to the top of Spruce Mountain, then take a footpath along the Lick Run ridge. It was a good half day's journey for any man, and at the speed that Joe traveled, it took most of the day.

So on this occasion Joe started early in the morning, and it was late afternoon before he arrived. He was tired and hungry. The girls of the family were good cooks and they were all glad to see Joe again. They prepared a good supper for him. Among the things that they had were biscuits, butter, and honey. That was Joe's favorite food. Joe just could not quit eating honey and hot biscuits, so he overate. A short time after supper he began to feel pain in his stomach. Joe's remedy for all ills was Japanese oil [ed- this is the liquid portion remaining after the separation of menthol from Japanese peppermint oil]. He is the only man I ever knew that could drink Japanese oil full strength from the bottle. Joe took several swigs of Japanese oil but it did not help.

The pains continued to get more severe so Joe decided to go to a higher power. Joe went to prayer and his prayer was: "O Lord, I need your help. If you don't help me Lord, I am going to die, Lord, I know you can help me. I know you have the power to help me but the H--- of it is, will you." Joe's prayer was answered. He recovered from the honey colic but from that time on, he put a limit on the amount of honey he consumed.

Joe stayed with the people of Cirtsville until he became too feeble to make his rounds and he was taken to the poor house at Shady Spring where he died. He made his boast that he lived in Cirtsville for 40 years, and had as much to eat and was as well dressed as anyone else, and had never done any useful work.


Okey R. Stover
Upper Paint Creek, WV
b. 1895
online at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ggracie/okey16.html

Bunny is derived from the old or Middle English root word "bun" and describes a rabbit, a young one in particular. Rabbits are small furry mammals that belong to the order Lagomorpha. If you happen upon a rabbit in the wilderness of Appalachia, it will definitely have come from the Leporidae family, and will usually be one of three different species of cottontails that inhabit the eastern United States.

Eastern Cottontails Silvilagus floridanus are the most abundant rabbit found here. Appalachian Cottontail Sylvilagus obscurus and New England Cottontail Sylvilagus transitionalis are similar in appearance to the Eastern, but each has differences in coloration unique to their species. Debate exists whether the latter two species should be classified as one species or two.

If you live in suburban areas and small towns and see a rabbit or two or three, usually these will be Eastern Cottontails. They prefer bushy undergrowth with mixed habitats. Outside suburbia, a little bit of analysis may be needed to determine which species is present. Physical differences can be too subtle for the average observer. The Appalachian and New England Cottontails are found more in wooded, mountainous areas with higher elevations but Easterns may live there as well.

All three cottontail species found in Appalachia have brown fur and fairly long ears that give them excellent hearing ability. Full grown rabbits normally weigh several pounds. Rabbits hop because their hind legs grow longer than the front legs. Most memorable about these animals is their cottontail, a white ball of fur.

It's too late to hunt fresh rabbit for your Easter dinner; regular hunting season ended in February.

If you happen to see the Easter Bunny while out enjoying nature, please let him or her know to be very careful. Four leaf clovers may be popular lucky charms, but so too is a rabbit’s foot.

May you have a Joyous Easter.

Sources:
http://tinyurl.com/344mzy
http://tinyurl.com/2trvqy


appalachian+history appalachian+culture history+of+appalachia appalachia

At Easter, kids would hide eggs. Go around to hen nests and get a egg or two every day and hide them so you'd have some for Easter. Well, Papa had about twelve or fourteen old Rhode Island Red hens. And Papa said, “I know good and well them hens ain't laying.” Well, I'd go around every evening late before Mama and them would come home from work. And I'd steal me two or three eggs. And we had an old barn with a big old loft to it, and he had it full of hay.

Well, I'd steal two or three eggs every day and I'd carry them up to the loft and hide them up under that hay. Well, Easter come and Mama said, “Well, I don't know what I'm going to do.” Said, “I ain't got too many eggs for Easter.” I said, “I got some, Mama.” She said, “How'd you get any eggs?” I said, “I hid me some.” Said, “Well, go get them.”

And I went down there and got to pulling in that hay, and she had a little old basket—it was about that big around and about that high with a handle on it. I took that little old basket and went down there. I said, “I've got a few eggs.” When I got down there and got to pulling that hay back, I had that basket piled plumb full of eggs. You never seen so many eggs in your life as I had. And I carried them back home, and I thought I'd done something good, you know.

Papa got that old razor strop down, he said, “If you ever do anything like that again, I'll beat you good.” Said, “Me a-worrying about my hens and you hiding the eggs!” I said, “Well, I thought I was doing something good. I thought it would be good. And I was a-hiding…” “—not no more you won't!” He didn't see the humor in it.

Eula Durham (b. early 1900’s)
Bynum, NC


North Carolina new Oral History Interview with Eula and Vernon Durham, 1978 November 29. Interview H-64. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)


source: http://tinyurl.com/2ook4a

appalachian+history appalachian+culture appalachia history+of+appalachia

The Possum used to have a long, bushy tail, and was so proud of it that he combed it out every morning and sang about it at the dance, until the Rabbit, who had had no tail since the Bear pulled it out, became very jealous and made up his mind to play the Possum a trick.

There was to be a great council and a dance at which all the animals were to be present. It was the Rabbit's business to send out the news, so as he was passing the Possum's place he stopped to ask him if he intended to be there. The Possum said he would come if he could have a special seat, "because I have such a handsome tail that I ought to sit where everybody can see me." The Rabbit promised to attend to it and to send some one besides to comb and dress the Possum's tail for the dance, so the Possum was very much pleased and agreed to come.

Then the Rabbit went over to the Cricket, who is such an expert hair cutter that the Indians call him the barber, and told him to go next morning and dress the Possum's tail for the dance that night. He told the Cricket just what to do and then went on about some other mischief.

In the morning the Cricket went to the Possum's house and said he had come to get him ready for the dance. So the Possum stretched himself out and shut his eyes while the Cricket combed out his tail and wrapped a red string around it to keep it smooth until night. But all this time, as he wound the string around, he was clipping off the hair close to the roots, and the Possum never knew it.

When it was night the Possum went to the townhouse where the dance was to be and found the best seat ready for him, just as the Rabbit had promised. When his turn came in the dance he loosened the string from his tail and stepped into the middle of the floor. The drummers began to drum and the Possum began to sing, "See my beautiful tail." Everybody shouted and he danced around the circle and sang again, "See what a fine color it has." They shouted again and he danced around another time, singing, "See how it sweeps the ground." The animals shouted more loudly than ever, and the Possum was delighted. He danced around again and sang, "See how fine the fur is."

Then everybody laughed so long that the Possum wondered what they meant. He looked around the circle of animals and they were all laughing at him. Then he looked down at his beautiful tail and saw that there was not a hair left upon it, but that it was as bare as the tail of a lizard. He was so much astonished and ashamed that he could not say a word, but rolled over helpless on the ground and grinned, as the Possum does to this day when taken by surprise.


'Myths of the Cherokee,' by James Mooney
From Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology 1897-98, Part I. [1900]
online at www.sacred-texts.com/nam/cher/motc/motc018.htm

There are a few things that can be said about Kennamer Cove that probably cannot be said truthfully about any other community in the state.

There have been only two murders in the Cove, which occurred ninety years ago. I am sure there has never been a divorce case in court in the whole 130 years since Hans Kennamer, with a large family of children, settled among the Indians. Hans Kennamer and some of the five generations of his descendants are buried in Pisgah Cemetery, which is in sight of the D.A.R. school located on the brow of Gunter’s Mountain.

John R. Kennamer (1873-1952)
From The Progressive Age, August 22, 1929

Granddaddy of reunions in state
by Boone Aiken
The Birmingham News, page 13
Tuesday, Sept. 5,1972

AUBURN There are family reunions and more family reunions in Alabama, particularly around this time of the year, but how many can claim their very own cove, complete with a pavilion in case of rain or a too enthusiastic sun?

Furthermore how many have their very own museum? Or a commercial picture postcard with their name and a picture of the ancestral home site?

No one knows exactly how many Kennamers there are today but at last count in 1942 there were 2,400 families.

John R. Kennamer, Sr. (1873-1952) organized the first Kennamer family reunion.

On Aug. 21, Kennamers, from as far away as Oklahoma and "cousins by the dozens" gathered again at the Pisgah Church in Kennamer's Cove in Marshall County for the 44th annual reunion.

Earl Kennamer, Auburn University extension wildlife specialist, recalls when the first reunion was held he rode in style in the rumble seat of the family car from Selma to Kennamer's Cove. He also reports the huge picnic basket of food beside him arrived intact at the Aug. 15, 1929 affair, but his friends rather doubt this astounding bit of information.

At that time more Kennamers arrived by buggy and wagon than by automobile, he said.

Always there has been a good crowd on hand whether the reunion was held on Thursday, Saturday or Sunday. One of the smallest occurred in 1942 when only 350 persons attended due to war conditions, lack of transportation and Kennamers in the armed services.

The Kennamer clan proudly announces its annual reunion is held “rain or shine, war or peace, depression or inflation, hot or cold, Republican or Democrat, pollution or smog, mini or maxi, hair or bald.”

They report their membership is made up of “farmers, preachers, teachers, merchants, students, retirees, secretaries, lawyers, housewives, beauticians, radio announcers, contractors, doctors, salesmen, bankers, druggists, and what-have-you.”

A famous family member is Dr. Rexford Kennamer Hollywood, physician to Elizabeth Taylor and Gary Cooper.

In 1965 a concrete block structure, 10'x30' was built to house family mementoes. Included are pictures of pioneer families, old family Bibles, family records, a 150-year-old quilt, a 50-year-old baby dress and arrow heads.

Although no one knows just how many persons actually showed up Sunday at the pavilion in Kennamer Cove Earl Kennamer, vice president of the Kennamer Family, Inc. said estimates between 500-1,000.

All with well-filled picnic baskets, of course.

Modern day view of Kennamer Cove.

Minutes from the 1st Kennamer Family Reunion

On August 15th, 1929, six miles south of Woodville, at Pisgah Church, in Kennamer Cove, was held the first Kennamer Family Reunion.

By actual count five hundred Kennamers and their kinfolks assembled. Many members of this large family from a distance were present to enjoy the day, a day long to be remembered by all present.

The morning was given over to meeting and greeting each other in social conversation.

At the noon hour was taken in enjoying an old time picnic dinner. There was enough food to feed a crowd three times as large. It is generally agreed that the day of miracles has passed, but when I saw some of the baskets of food taken up, after every one had eaten, I involuntarily thought of the Savior feeding the five thousand, and the baskets remaining.

In the afternoon many short speeches were made to the great delight of all. First on the program, was our genial editor, Hon. J. S. Benson, who kept the audience in laughter by his funny and appropriate stories. He was followed by Federal Judge Franklin Elmore Kennamer, of Tulsa, Okla., who made the principal speech of the day. He made a strong plea for the sanctity of the home, reverence to God, and obedience to Constitutional Government. Next Mr. D. P. Woodall, postmaster at Hillsboro, Ala., made an interesting speech. Dr. L. G. Kennamer, of Richmond, Ky., made a short and very appropriate speech.

Mr. P. H. Woodall, of Columbus City made a stirring appeal to the young folks to live for God and the Church. He was followed by Hon. T. J. Kennamer, U. S. Marshall of Birmingham, Ala., and in a happy speech. The last speaker on the program was Hon. Chas. B. Kennamer, District Attorney of Guntersville, Ala. It is needless to say that he made a good one. He said the majority of persons convicted by the courts are young educated men, and stressed the great need or moral training in the schools. That the colleges were not now giving this training as they should.

All speakers urged the parents to train their children in matters right or wrong and to learn obedience to parents and reverence to God.

The occasion was such a success that it was unanimously voted to hold another reunion next year.


sources: www.docftp.com/pdf/komab3-A+FAMILY+IN+REUNION
http://bellsouthpwp2.net/p/u/publicw/history1st.html

The work of the mountain mother is burdensome and she bears more than her share of responsibilities of the household. Her housework includes washing, ironing, cooking, cleaning, sewing, and often spinning and knitting for the family. Handicapped by lack of modern conveniences, her task involves undue hardship.

In most of the homes cooking is done on a small wood stove, with none of the modern conveniences; often the only implements are iron kettles, pots, and ovens which may be used interchangeably on the stove or in the fireplace; the latter is still preferred by many for baking corn bread and sweet potatoes. A scant allowance of fuel is provided from meal to meal. During a rainy spell, or when the father is away or sick, or the children off at school, the mother may be left without fuel, though wood grows at her very door.

Woman holding an infant, early 1900s. McDowell County, NC.

Carrying water, a toilsome journey up and down hill several times a day, usually falls to the lot of mother and children. No one of the families visited had water in the house or on the porch, and only 1 out of 5 within 50 feet of the house. Twenty families carried water over 500 feet and 8 families were from an eighth to a quarter of a mile distant from their springs.

The wash place, consisting of tubs on a bench and a great iron wash pot in which the clothes are boiled, is usually close by the spring. Much straining and lifting and undue fatigue are involved in this outdoor laundry. Sometimes even a washboard is a luxury, substituted by a paddle with which the clothes are pounded clean on a bench or a smooth cut stump.

Much of the family bedding is homemade, the work of the women and girls in their leisure hours, after the crops are laid by or in the evening by the fireside. Besides the time-honored log cabin pattern, their collections of patch-work quilts include such quaint and intricate designs as "Tree of Life," "Orange Peel," and "Lady of the White House." Many a mountain home has its spinning wheel still in use and occasionally one finds an old-fashioned hand loom.

Some homes display a collection of coverlids and blankets, handmade at every step of the process. The wool was grown on the home farm; sheared from the sheep; washed, carded, and spun by the women and girls of the family; dyed, sometimes with homemade madder, indigo and walnut dyes; and woven on the loom into coverlids and blankets. Even the designs are often original or variations of old favorites, like the "Whig Rose," "Federal City," and "High Creek's Delight by Day and Night."

The other duties of the mother are largely seasonal. From December to August the children are home from school and she has their help. Together they make the garden; help plant the com and peas for winter; gather them when ripe ; pull fodder and dig potatoes ; feed the stock; and perform the usual farm chores of milking, churning, and carrying water. In many homes the mother may be found doing chores which are usually considered a man's work, unduly prolonging her working hours and exposing herself to more stress and strain than is compatible with her own health or that of the children she is bearing.

A woman spinning thread, early 1900s. McDowell County, NC.

It is uncommon for help to be hired in the home, except occasionally for a few days during confinements. Moreover, with the exception of sewing machines, household conveniences are totally lacking. Hard-working women complained that the men have planters, drillers, spreaders, and all kinds of "newfangled help," but that nothing had been done to make women's work easier.

Practically all the mothers visited, besides their housework and chores, had helped in the fields more or less — hoeing corn, pulling fodder, and so forth. Of 212 mothers, 188, almost nine-tenths, had worked in the field before marriage; 167 since childhood; and 166, or three-fourths of the mothers visited, had helped in the field after marriage.

A woman's field work in the mountain country is not so extensive or fatiguing as in the lowlands where the cotton crop requires the constant labor of the entire family many hours a day during a long summer and autumn. In the mountains, little farming is done, the average family raising no appreciable farm produce for sale. The woman helps plant and hoe the corn and in the autumn helps harvest the crops — stripping fodder, carrying it to the barn, making sirup from sorghum cane, picking beans, gathering apples, and digging potatoes. Her field work is not arduous in itself, but only because it is undertaken in addition to her already numerous duties — caring for the children, housework, sewing, canning, and chores.


"Rural Children in Selected Counties of North Carolina," by Frances Sage Bradley, MD, survey published in 1918, U. S. Department of Labor, Children's Bureau
online at www.archive.org/stream/ruralchildrenins1918unit/ruralchildrenins1918unit_djvu.txt

Big Pharma had not yet perfected the widespread manufacture of synthetic drugs in 1932. Instead, the industry relied on “western North Carolina, southwestern Virginia, eastern Kentucky, and eastern Tennessee [to] furnish 75% of the crude botanical drugs which the continent of North America supplies to the drug markets of the world,” according to an article in Economic Geography that summer. “The productive area is not more than 200 miles in extent in either north-south or east-west direction.

“The southern Appalachians are very rich in variety of planet life. Of the 250 botanical drugs produced in the United States, more than two hundred are found in this region. The causes for this botanical wealth are to be found in its intermediate position between the North and South; the ancient ice-sheet invasion, crowding northern species southward; and the great diversity of climatic conditions, relief, and soils.”

Black cohosh. From "The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English."

Henry C. Fuller discusses the particulars of commercial medicinal herb gathering in a book titled ‘The Story of Drugs:’

“There is an important industry in the Carolinas engaged in collecting the many hundreds of our native botanical drugs. The firms thus engaged receive their wares from the mountaineers, and their own collectors sort the drugs, bale them, and ship them to the crude-drug dealers in the large cities, and to the larger pharmaceutical manufacturers.

“Ewing and Stanford have written an interesting account of a personal survey of the botanical resources and the methods pursued by the drug-collectors in this region. They found that crude drugs are collected in small amounts by a large proportion of the people of the mountains. Few, or none, gather drugs as a chief occupation. The mountaineers, in general, make their principal livings on tiny hillside clearings. “Because of the rugged character of the land, which unfits it for machine farming, large plantations are rarely found. Marketing of farm crops in large amounts is also difficult, owing to the steep grades and poor repair of the mountain roads, which in many places are little more than bridle-paths. Work away from the farms is normally scarce and wages are extremely low.

“Drug-collection is carried on largely when no other work offers, chiefly by the women and children, and is a rather haphazard process. The men, in general, consider such occupations beneath them, and collect, ostensibly, only heavy and bulky products, such as barks of the larger trees, and bring in the other products with an apologetic "Here's some yarbs the women got."

“The principal collecting seasons are spring, when most barks and some roots are gathered, and late summer, when the crops
no longer need cultivating, and herbs, leaves, and flowers abound, and roots may be distinguished by the herbage.

Goldenseal. From "The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English."

“Probably twenty tons of boneset pennyroyal and thorn apple leaves come from these Southern mountain districts every year (1897 figure) and forty to fifty tons of mandrake, Culver's root, golden seal, garget root, blood root and black cohosh.

“The firms of the Blue Ridge region, with one exception, grind no drugs.

“Incoming stocks are, in some cases, inspected by the dealer in person. A number of firms employ comparatively young men as inspectors; in other cases, veterans grown old in the trade pass on the drugs. These inspectors, apparently without exception, are without scholastic training in science, and in some cases are quite illiterate.

“Scientific names of drugs are almost unknown. Microscopic and chemical tests are not resorted to. Even a hand-lens is rarely or ever used. Appearance, odor, taste, and "feel" are the chief criteria.

“With long experience, these inspectors attain a remarkable proficiency. Some even claim sound as definitive. One veteran, in search of certain material, went through a pile of unmarked bags, announcing the contents of each after a thrust or shake. Interrogation brought forth the modest response, "I reckon I tell 'em by the rattle."

“Colored help is frequently employed in the warehouses, but the inspectors are almost invariably white. One colored veteran, however, boasted an experience of forty-two years. While unable to read or write, he has a wide reputation as a "doctor" among his own race, and even is said to "send medicines North."

“The knowledge of these inspectors as to the various properties of the products they handle, and of other locally used 'medicinals,’ is an interesting blend of hearsay, superstition, tradition, and folklore.”


Sources: Botanicals of the Blue Ridge, by C.O. Ewing and E. E. Stanford, 'Journ. Amer. Pharmaceutical Assn.,' Vol. 8, 1919, p. 16
Wild Plant Industry of the Southern Appalachians, by Ina C. Yoakley, 'Economic Geography,' Vol 8, No 3 (July 1932)
The Story of Drugs: a popular exposition of their origin, preparation and commercial importance, by Henry C. Fuller, The Century Company, 1922

Most of the boys carried an old Russell Barlow pocket knife. You could get a one blade at a store for fifteen cents and a two-blade---that is, a long blade and a short blade---for a quarter. So every boy around, practically, carried a Barlow. Not the brand of Barlows that you see for sale in stores, because the manufacturers of the old Barlow discontinued that line many years ago, because they could not maintain the quality and still sell them at the cheap price that they were selling them at.

'Popular Science,' Dec 1920, ad for Russell Barlow knife, manufactured by John Russell Cutlery Co. of Greenfield, MA.

There was a big beech tree situated on top of a little hill that you had to go up going out to the schoolhouse. The tree was in the bend of the road, not too far below where that old house was recently torn down over from the graveyard there on the old county road.

On that big beech tree, I know the first time I saw it, it looked a little weathered then, someone had carved a magnificent picture. It was a large cowboy, from the waist up. He had a strong profile, he wore a sombrero, he wore a kerchief around his neck held by a ring in the kerchief, he wore a leather shirt with fringes hanging down from the sleeves, he had on cuffs.

The cuffs he wore were up above the wrist, maybe six inches long made out of leather. It showed those so plainly. He also had some gloves which had fringes hanging down. He was delicately carved in a realistic manner. If I remember right he had on cross gun belts with a pistol in each holster. It didn't show all of it. The artist didn't go that far. He was in a natural position.

It was a magnificent carving on that big beech tree. Thousands of people over the years saw the carving. I was never able to find out who carved it, but no one seems to know. But, it must have taken a great deal of time. I remember it was there for at least twenty years, maybe not hardly twenty years, but nobody tried to carve anything else on it or spoil it.

Probably if it were today and when someone had carved it, it would have been vandalized that night or the day after. This is just a comment on our society the way it is this day and time and how it was at that time. I passed it many times going to and from school.

The old state road up Elkhorn Creek was not built until 1936. When the road was built out there the beech had already begun to die and the bark was shredding up and breaking, and the cowboy's torso and all of the magnificent details were drying out and obliterated.

I think the state people, the state contractor, had to cut down the beech in building the road. I have regretted so many times that I did not go out and take that bark off that tree when they were getting ready to destroy the tree. I don't think any objections would have been made because the tree was going to be destroyed anyway.

But I have never been able to find out who carved that picture of that cowboy. Apparently, it was someone from out west and a person of great artistic talent, because it was in such intricate detail. In fact, just about every time I went by there as a boy, I had an urge to go west and to become a cowboy and dress like that. You know how boys are.


Clyde Mullins (1914 – 1989)
Elkhorn City, KY
online at www.dickensoncounty.net/clyde.html

There died in Logan County, in June, 1885, Christopher Stahley, aged 104 years and 10 months. He was a last survivor of the Grand Army of Napoleon; a native of Alsace; a typical veteran of the wars, scarred and crippled. He was a man of culture, and grew eloquent when describing his campaigns; and, like all of Napoleon's soldiers, adored his leader and worshipped his memory. We give herewith extracts from Stahley's story, as related to the correspondent of the Cincinnati Enquirer:

"I became a soldier at fifteen, and was one of the thirty thousand men who went with Napoleon to Egypt, and was one of the first to enter the city of Malta. I was with my command at the Pyramids, and participated in the terrible conflict with the Mamelukes. Thence across the desert and through the Isthmus of Suez to Gaza and Jaffa, and saw the 1,500 put to death for breaking their parole, and helped to annihilate the allied army of 18,000 at Aboukir.

Foot grenadier of Napoleon's old guard.

"It was in 1804 that we helped to proclaim him Emperor, and saw the preparations made to invade England. But England was spared and Austria punished instead.

"Three years of preparation and we were on the road to the Capital of Russia in that memorable campaign of 1812. There were 480,000 of us who went forth to glory. Less than half that number returned, and the most of them after being detained as prisoners. I saw them fall by battalions at Smolensk and Borodino, and perish by grand divisions on the retreat from Moscow to Smorgoni. I personally attended the Emperor to France, when he bade adieu to his soldiers at the latter city.

"I was one of the Old Guard. There is a blank in my memory, and I do not know how I got back to Paris; but I found myself there, and learned that my old commander was a prisoner at St. Helena. Then came the news of his death. I had taken part in fifty engagements, great and small, and had seen men die by the thousand; but that death affected me more than all the rest put together.

"In 1822, in company with my wife, I emigrated to America. We reached Pittsburg by stage. From there we floated down the Ohio on a flat-boat to the mouth of the Muskingum, and ascended that river to Zanesville in a canoe. From Zanesville I trundled all my earthly possessions in a wheelbarrow to St. Joseph’s, near Somerset, where I bought a farm and settled down.

"Then began my disasters. My oldest son was with me in the forest hewing logs for a barn, and by a false stroke of the broad axe cut off my thumb and finger. A few years later a vicious horse kicked me in the forehead and left this scar that looks like a sabre cut. The next year I fell from a tobacco-house I was helping to raise, and broke four ribs and my collar-bone. Ten years later I slipped and fell into a threshing-machine, and I had my foot torn off. A few years ago I was on my way to church, and my horse ran away, threw me out of the carriage, shattered my elbow, and left me with a stiff arm.

"I am in constant dread of meeting a fatal accident. Had I remained in the grand army of the Emperor I would feel perfectly safe."


Historical Collections of Ohio, Vol. I, by Henry Howe, 1888
online at: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~henryhowesbook/hocking.html

The following is an excerpt from an unrehearsed taped interview with Mrs. Leora Rhodes Brooks Franklin (b. 1920), long time resident of Richmond, KY. The interview was conducted by A.G. Dunston, Assistant Professor of History at Eastern Kentucky University, for the Oral History Center of EKU. Professor Dunston spent several years interviewing the black community of Richmond. He interviewed Mrs. Franklin in her home on October 9, 1992. This segment is midway through the interview.

AG: Oh, okay. Alright. Let’s see, I can’t think of anything else I need to dig into your past (laughter) . . . Listen, let me ask you this: Was there any problem that you can remember when
Richmond City Schools, when Richmond High became . . . when students became integrated? Was there any problem that you can remember?

LF: Yeah. It was a problem there then because it got so that the school . . . Well, let’s see, how can I put that. You know, a lot of times they say, well, we shouldn’t have taken that school away. But that wasn’t so. Because I took my daughter, my baby, my youngest daughter, I took her out.

Well, they had to teach so well when she went there in the first and second grade . . . well, she passed the second grade, and that year, they had the first and second grade together, and I, um . . . she was a B average reader and she went from a B average to a D average reader.

Well, that didn’t bother me because I said, well, she gets out of that class, that teacher, and I got the teacher, you know, the woman that I worked for, she got her a book because their books were raggedy. They just got second things, so that’s what they did. They didn’t, and I worked with the N.A.A.C.P. and all of this stuff. So, we went in and checked on the school.

They didn’t have hot water. They didn’t have toilet paper. They didn’t have doors on the bathroom . . . the girl’s bathroom. The men’s toilet looked like I don’t know what and the soap . . . they didn’t have no soap, and what they were doing . . . Now, they could get that up there, but they said that [they] didn’t know how to use it. The children didn’t know how to use hot water. I said, who in the world now doesn’t know how to use hot water. That’s what they . . . that’s what they said.

And, and, of course, everybody said, we ought to kept it. No, we couldn’t if we hadn’t ruined that. So, my kids went there until about the seventh grade, I believe. Sixth or seventh grade.
One of them was in the sixth and one was in the seventh.

Well, anyway, when they got up there, they thought that my youngest daughter . . . was changing the school . . . done something to it. [They thought that the daughter was having problems because she changed schools.] Now, they left before the school was closed, and they thought she wasn’t getting along with the people or was scared or something.

And, Mrs. Jennings and Mrs. Willoughby, they got together and they watched her. When she went to get something off the board, she didn’t know what she was getting there and when they had problems on the board, she would miss them.

So, she called me up and I went up and she told me, she said this child has been crippled in her first or second grade of school, and [the teacher] said, “I was that way because I had to go live with my grandmother.” And, she said, “I thought it was her bringing her up here to school, but she gets along fine with the students and things,” but said, “I watched her until she couldn’t . . . anything I have on the board, she couldn’t get. She’d be so long getting it, she didn’t know what she was doing.”

And, she said, “I don’t know whether I can do anything about it or not.” Said sometimes it’s awful hard. But, that year was the year that they started remedial reading, and so Mrs. Willoughby, Hortense Willoughby, that was a wonderful teacher up there. So, she told me she said, “With you all’s income, I can’t get her in that class.” Said, “But I’m going to put her in it anyhow.” Said, “When it’s time for that,” said, “I’ll let you know and we’ll put her in there.”

You know what, they got her. She called me, and they put her in that class, and that child didn’t look back. She was a . . . she got on the honor roll.

AG: They just messed with her.

LF: Messed it up. Messed up. And, she went . . . she went right on and went right on through and didn’t have any trouble at all. But, we talked, we had a mother’s group that was connected with the school. You know how they have something like Parents-Teachers.

One of the teachers told us that they have other students grading their papers and all of that. And if the student don’t seem like they want to get anything, you just leave them alone, just pass them on. They don’t have to get it.


online at http://www.library.eku.edu/collections/sca/oralhistory/1993oh144.pdf

The Meaders family of potters is probably the most influential family in the history of Southern Appalachian folk pottery. The White County, GA family was featured in Allen Eaton’s 1937 book, Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands, and was honored with a special event at the Library of Congress in 1978, when the Smithsonian Institution’s documentary film on the Meaders pottery was released. The 'face jugs' created by Lanier Meaders are highly sought by collectors and can fetch as much as $3,000 per jug.

In the days before the advent of mass-produced tin cans and glass bottles, before the mechanized commercial dairy and the home refrigerator, the potter functioned as an indispensable adjunct to rural life. Through the nineteenth century, general stores in all parts of the South maintained large stocks of preserving vessels, pitchers, churns, and jugs freighted to them by pottery entrepreneurs.

The potters themselves clustered around naturally occurring clay deposits, thereby creating numerous "jugtowns" of a dozen shops and more. While the ceramic product turned out by these potters varied with the area, its clays, its traditions, the basic steps in the production process varied little throughout the South. Most of these men fashioned their own tools with the assistance of local blacksmiths, built their own kilns of homemade bricks, and processed their own clay and glaze materials.

Pots drying in the Meaders pottery yard, waiting to be fired. Circa 1920.

And while the potters and the society around them regarded pottery-making as a respectable and reasonably profitable trade, its adherents rarely sought —or found —the professional status of their fellows in the North. More often than not, southern stoneware potters worked anonymously, characteristically combining pottery-making with farming.

“I remember very distinctly about Pa talking with my older brother, said: ‘We'll just put us up a ware shop, we'll have something to work at.’ And course they were young, chucky boys, that just suited 'em. They just cut the logs and pulled 'em right up to that place where that old chimley's at and built the shop.”

The founding of the first Meaders Pottery during the winter months of 1892-93 was hardly an auspicious occasion. If the account of L.Q. Meaders, one of the founder's sons, is to be believed, it began as something of a whim, as a diversion from farming and as a means to gain a small supplemental income. Since the Meaderses had virtually no antecedents in the field (unlike many of their potter neighbors in the hill country of White County), it was mostly chance circumstance that brought them to pottery-making at such a late date.

John Milton Meaders, a taciturn, humorless man noted mainly for his unusual strength, had very little disposition for farming. Rather, for years he maintained himself at odd jobs like blacksmithing, wagon building, and carpentry. At other times he found solace hauling wagonloads of farm vegetables between north Georgia hamlets.

As his youngest son remembers: "Well, Pa was a-wagoning. He was a terrible fellow to go back over the mountain and take a load of produce and buy up a big coop, chicken bed full of chickens. Take 'em off to Athens and he'd make money on 'em."

Along with his staples, John M. Meaders also freighted jugs, churns, and pitchers for his potter neighbors.

Given his background and personality, it seems surprising that John M. would elect to enter into such a disciplined craft as pottery making. Nevertheless, he apparently found his neighbors' success at the trade irresistible: "They was other pott'ries around here that was making good about it and he decided he had the boys — let them go to making it."

His son also suggests that the decision was influenced by his experience as a merchandiser of ceramic ware: "Well, he'd always try to take a load of this pott'ry ware over there [to Athens] to swap for chickens. They'd trade for the ware. And [if] he hadn't a-been a-wagoning so much with his team across there and buying up stuff and selling it, I don't think he ever would have put [a shop] up." In any event, the germ of an idea had taken hold, for at length John M. Meaders called his growing family together in the fall of 1892 and announced his intention to build a "ware shop."

Because of their late entry into pottery-making, the Meaderses did not enjoy too many years of great stability in their chosen craft. Even as they developed skills and built a clientele, changes were on the horizon, changes that would bring about a social and economic transformation with the dawning twentieth century.

For a few years, however, they worked in an environment not very different from that of the previous decades.

During these years, the economy of White County depended upon agriculture. Settlers for the most part occupied subsistence farmsteads, congregating occasionally at a few tiny general stores that dotted the countryside. Of these, the Leo store and post office stood closest to the Mossy Creek voting district. Several times a year, business took the family a three-mile distance to the county seat, Cleveland, which boasted a physician, a dentist, an attorney, a courthouse, and two dry-goods stores; these trips, however, depended on necessity.

The trade network, in which the Meaderses participated actively, relieved the isolation of their rural existence to an extent. Wagon freighters criss-crossed the region, trading produce and bringing news to the outlying settlements. After 1895, these wagoners introduced commercially manufactured glaze materials to the potter's benefit and, after 1900, introduced vast numbers of glass bottles and tin cans to his eventual disadvantage.

By 1910, Q. Meaders took over his father's role as principal sales representative and spokesman for the Meaders family potters. Two decades later, he further documented the family’s importance to Southern Appalachian folk pottery when he taught at Brenau College in Gainesville.

Today, John Milton Meaders' great grandson Clete Meaders, of Cleveland, GA, is dedicated to preserving the traditional process of making folk pottery, from digging his own clay to firing his face jugs in a wood kiln. Indeed, Cleveland holds an annual Meaders Pottery Face Jug Festival to recognize the more than century old contribution of this one North Georgia family.


sources: www.sil.si.edu/SmithsonianContributions/Folklife/text/SCFS-0001.txt
http://brownsguides.com/diytours/folk-potter-musem-of-north-georgia/
www.gainesvilletimes.com/news/archive/24483/

Great numbers of Hungarian immigrants came to the United States around the turn of the century. The wave of immigration from 1880 to about 1915 was called the 'Great Economic Immigration' for Hungarians, and it drew about 1.7 million Hungarian citizens, among them 650,000-700,000 real Hungarians (Magyars), to American shores. These immigrants came almost solely for economic reasons, and they represented the lowest and poorest segment of the population. The outbreak of World War I in 1914 halted mass migration, but by 1922 7,300 Hungarian-born Magyars had found their way to West Virginia. The exclusionary U.S. immigration laws of 1921 and 1924 pushed the Hungarian quota down to under 1,000 per year.

Many Hungarian immigrants came hoping to make money and then return to their home country with enough capital to make themselves into prosperous farmers. Few of them achieved this goal---25% of Hungarian immigrants returned to Hungary---and virtually all of them became unskilled or semiskilled workers in America's bustling industries. They were the peons of America's Gilded Age, who contributed their brawn to American coal mines and steel smelters, and who produced the mythical Hungarian American hero, Joe Magarac, who could bend steel bars with his bare hands. It was they who unwittingly created the negative "Hunky" image of Hungarians, which then was transferred to all of the East and Southeast European immigrants.

Michael Bartucz’ story is fairly typical: born in Debrecen, Hungary in 1879, he became a barber in the Hungarian Army, according to his grandson, James Nagy. When he read in a newspaper that he had been declared dead, he deserted a wife and the army and fled to the U.S. around 1900. With his uncommon name, he feared that he would be easily found out, so he changed his name to Charles Nagy. He became a coal miner in West Virginia but finally settled in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area.

Family structure was very important to Hungarian immigrants, and they created close knit communities with their churches and other cultural societies. For example, the Hungarian Evangelical and Reformed Church in Morgantown, WV offered Sunday school instruction in Hungarian between the two World Wars.

Hungarian immigrants were likely victims of exploitation: they were handicapped by language barriers, used to abominable working conditions and were usually willing to take almost any kind of work. Traditionally, Hungarians typically look down on government aid and very few Hungarians ever received handouts. Some Hungarians, totally unaware of the labor conditions in this country, were brought to the coal mining regions of West Virginia and Virginia as strikebreakers. Much hatred and violence was directed against them because of this.

Új Elore, a Hungarian-language labor newspaper based in Cleveland, published countless short stories and poems, starting in 1921, which conveyed the many hardships endured by Hungarian immigrant laborers. The stories were written about fictional characters, however, they were based on actual incidents related by the immigrants themselves.

There were short stories published about the mining towns of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, where many of the Hungarians found initial employment. The writings conveyed the degradation of living in shabbily constructed company shanty towns, of having to work underground and breathing the soot and smoke of the mine. There were many other stories as well: of children who were orphaned due to industrial accidents and of young girls who worked in sweatshops under stifling, unhealthy working conditions for meager wages.


sources: www.clevelandmemory.org/Hungarians/pg241.htm
http://feefhs.org/ah/hu/hurl.html
www.energyofanation.com/f2790e65-0b2d-438e-925d-1175535c4053.html?NodeId=:
www.everyculture.com/multi/Ha-La/Hungarian-Americans.html


Hungarians+in+West+Virginia Magyars Morgantown+WV Új+Elore appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history west+virginia+history Joe+Magarac

Napoleon Hill’s book 'Think and Grow Rich' is the all time bestseller in the success motivation field, with over 100 million copies sold around the world.

Napoleon Hill was born in 1883 in Wise County, in the western part of Virginia, not far from the West Virginia border. Hill's view of his childhood was very negative and would probably have resulted in little if any success in his life were it not for Martha Ramey Banner. Napoleon Hill’s mother, Sarah, died when he was ten years old and his father James married Martha when Napoleon was twelve. Up to this time Napoleon was the scourge of Wise County, running wild and even carrying a pistol.

She saw the value in young Napoleon where most had written him off as a ne'er-do-well. Martha did something that was a turning point in young Napoleon's life. She asked him to give up the pistol that he had been carrying for the past several years and replaced it with a typewriter. This typewriter opened a new world for the young boy. He would eventually turn to writing articles for the local paper and achieve recognition for his accomplishments rather than his infamy.

Napoleon Hill in a 1904 portrait.

This developed Napoleon’s writing talent and established the skills needed to write his books about the power people possess for achieving success.

In 1900, after graduating from high school, Napoleon left Wise County and traveled a little less than one hundred miles to attend business school in Tazewell, VA. The school’s one year curriculum consisted of shorthand, typing and basic bookkeeping. Though this sounds like training for a secretary, at the time, it was the traditional entrée into business for even the most ambitious young man. And Napoleon Hill was determined not to return to Wise County ever again without being a singular success.

As Hill neared graduation from school, his goal was to work for a prominent attorney with many business holdings named Rufus Ayres. Ayres was a very powerful figure in the region and Napoleon would have a difficult time to find a more influential person to work for at the time. Through his audacious approach to Ayers for a job, even saying he would pay Ayers for the first three months to have the privilege to learn from him, Hill got the job.

He took to the job quickly, arriving early, staying late, providing meticulous service by “going the extra mile to render more service than compensated for”…a future principle of success. Through a series of circumstances that allowed Napoleon to shine by exhibiting his ability to handle difficult situations and extreme honesty, he became manager of one of Ayers’ mines at the age of nineteen responsible for three hundred and fifty men.

A 1906 cover of Bob Taylor’s Magazine.

One of the traits Napoleon Hill exhibited throughout his lifetime was first demonstrated when, though he held a lofty and influential position, he decided there were other things he wanted to do than manage a mine. Hill set his sights on becoming a lawyer. At this same time, his young brother Vivian was determined to go to law school. Hill announced to his family his intentions and that he would pay his and Vivian’s tuition at Georgetown University in Washington, DC by going to work for Robert L. Taylor, a former governor of Tennessee.

Taylor published a magazine called Bob Taylor’s Magazine that was based on the possibilities that ordinary people have to achieve wealth and power. Napoleon’s law school ambitions lasted less than a year. He realized he could not do the curriculum work, nor make the money as a freelance writer he had achieved as the mine manager. He told his brother he could not pay his tuition and Napoleon dropped out of law school.

Hill’s next stop was a lumberyard where he took the job as sales manager. Again, Napoleon excelled and by age twenty-two, he was a partner in the business. His success continued for the next two years but in early 1907, the economy was in turmoil. The stock market was reeling with large corporations and banks failing. By 1908, the lumberyard was out of business and so was Napoleon. Here was a young man at twenty-four who had achieved great success twice only to find himself broke with no job or prospects. Hill returned to Washington, DC and went back to work for Bob Taylor’s Magazine.

Andrew Carnegie in 1913.

As a correspondent for Bob Taylor’s Magazine, Hill managed to schedule an interview with Andrew Carnegie, at that time, the richest man in the world and a leader in the steel industry. Hill went to Carnegie’s home in New York City with enough money to return to Washington after he completed his interview.

During the interview Carnegie liked what he saw and heard from the young writer. Hill was looking for information from Carnegie about how someone achieves the kind of wealth and success Mr. Carnegie had achieved. Carnegie talked about the men he knew, and he knew many…Edison, Ford, Firestone, and every other person of prominence at the time. He focused on their success and what a great a gift it would be if someone were to organize this information.

In the Author’s Preface of ‘Think and Grow Rich,’ Hill relates “When he saw that I had grasped the idea, he asked if I would be willing to spend twenty years or more, preparing myself to take it to the world, to men and women who, without the secret, might go through life as failures. I said I would, and with Mr. Carnegie’s cooperation, I have kept my promise.”


From “A Lifetime of Riches: The Biography of Napoleon Hill," by Michael J. Ritt and Kirk Landers, Duttons Books, 1995