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

Following is a family history written in 1985 by Ethel (Barrows) Shilling, of Washington County, OH. Grand Ma & Grand Pa Seevers were: Mary A. Severs (1821-1909) & Samuel Severs (1809-1877)

Some History of Grand Ma / Grand Pa Seevers.

Reports are and have been they have Indian blood, and perhaps they have; who hasn't? But, I too perhaps think Grand Father might of been of the Indian Tribe. I'm that age. Seems the public wants to class them of the Indians. I never heard of any comment from my mother as such. They surely could of been associated with them in those days.

Grand Mother knew a lot about wild life, nature, etc. You name it. She was a great Herb Doc. She was the main Doc of the county, and saved a lot of lives and brought many lives into the community. Emma Limpert says Grand Ma brought her into the world. Also she saved one of her sisters from diphtheria, from her herb doctoring.

Grandma lived in a log house as I remembered, one side sloped down to ground like a shed, an outside dug cellar with sod banked at the side, herbs of all kind were hanging inside drying. She had curly hair (of which I don't think Indians have), wore black, and a black hood or a fascinator, she chewed tobacco, pieced comforters and quilts (by hand sewing) in the winter. She also knew how to rob the squirrels of their winter nuts; by finding them in rotten logs and stumps she would always come up with all she could pack.

I used to sometimes sleep with her. Before going to sleep she would make noises of different animals, especially like a bear. I used to curl her hair when a little girl.

When she got older, so I understand she pieced each grandchild a quilt. These pieces were very small; she never had no waste to throw away. Her fingers were very much drawn crooked by her age.

She stayed with us when she got old. My father built her a bedroom all her own. We lived down on Fountain St. Uncle Jim Seevers her son was her guardian. This log house was joining Uncle Sam Seever’s farm, back a lane, perhaps a mile. She went fishing in what you call Little Lake close to her home. She was a great fisherman.

She was quite a person in her age. She passed away at the age of 87. Her funeral was at the Logan Church. I was about ten years old and well remember it all. She passed away at Aunt Tan Cole’s home. She and Grandfather and two babies lay at Six Corners Cemetery about in middle of the big section with a large brown marker. The only brown I think in that side. You cannot miss it.

I cannot give you any dates. I don't have any records of such. Only as I remembered down through time. My mother never said much about the life or I was too young to get it.


Source: http://www.geocities.com/mikehall7142003/histories.html



granny women, Washington County OH, appalachia, history of appalachian history,

Fans like it because it is short, completely independent (in more ways than one), and sticks staunchly to steam power---represented by three extraordinary locomotives, the like of which there is not anywhere else. They like also its galloping rails, which are rough enough to thrill but not sufficiently out of line or surface to derail more than once a trip.

Railroad historians are well hardened to tales of corporate vicissitude, but even they grow weepy when confronted with the hard luck story of the Smoky Mountain Railroad—a fit subject for Voltaire’s “Candide.” It never did have a smooth middle class existence; from the year it was opened it never found a visible means of support and, like a street Arab, wandered from lease to lease with a reducing trip through the courts in between tries.

W.J. Oliver is said to have built the old Knoxville, Sevierville & Eastern in 1909 for the purpose of selling it to the Southern, but somehow, the sale fell through. Local banks took over the property and tried to get as good a deal as possible for trackage rights of 2.2 miles between Vestal and Knoxville over the Southern’s Marysville branch. Since lumber formed most of the traffic in those days, rapid deforestation brought the line to its first financial crisis: in 1921 the little railroad took its first whirl through the courts and emerged shirtless, though still trousered, as the Knoxville & Carolina Railroad.

SM Pacific No. 110 takes the mixed train over Boyd’s Creek trestle. Baldwin built the low-drivered (47-inch) 4-6-2 for the Little River Railroad, which sold it to the SM back in 1940.

Five years later its management eyed the courts once more---this time with a threat to take the matter up with a junky. But the taxpayers of Sevier County were still paying interest on the $150,000 in bonds issued to aid original construction and were anxious to keep the road going. Hence, they offered to waive county taxes for five years, and the local trade volunteered to order in its merchandise by rail.

With these as talking points, the road’s management offered the property to the Tennessee & North Carolina then operating a lumber road from Newport, TN 21 miles up the Pigeon River to Crestmont, NC and a separate 25-mile line which, connecting with the Southern’s famed Asheville-Murphy branch at Andrews, ran in circles through the woods to Hayesville. Neither of these T&NC roads was located anywhere near the other or the Smoky Mountain.

Nevertheless, their owners liked the proposition; they announced plans to run motor trucks for l.c.l. (less than container load) over the 24-mile gap between Sevierville and Newport; and, with personal funds amounting to $75,000, acquired the Smoky, the territory of which was described at the time as 75% in timber, 15% under cultivation and 10% in pasture.

Weaklings united do not make for strength. Late in 1937 the T&NC interests sold their Smoky stock to Max Kesselman and Joe Silverstein, acting as the Midwest Steel Company, of Charleston, WV—a junk outfit. On the first day of 1938 the T&NC, with approval of the Interstate Commerce Commission, abandoned its Newport Division, ending the daily service of a quaint “gasoline passenger bus” for passengers, l.c.l. and mail.

In April the T&NC sought to abandon operation of the Smoky, while, at the same time, Midwest Steel asked for permission to dismantle the property. The latter proposal was not successful, and on October 14 the Smoky undertook independent operation under its scrap dealer managers.

Arguing that the road was in terrible shape, President Silverstein asked the ICC to approve an RFC “rehabilitation loan” of $40,000, a request which the Commission denied promptly, on grounds that present and future earning power was insufficient to sustain it and that the movable security which the Smoky offered comprised but two combine cars, two flat cars and one box car---all exceedingly old and disheveled.


Source: ‘Smoky Mountain,’ by William H. Schmidt, Trains magazine, December 1949, pp. 28-30
full article here



appalachia, appalachian history, history of short line railroads, Smoky Mountain Railroad

An open letter to the readers of the Appalachian History blog, from Cynthia Fife Coughlin, a student at Radford University:

I began reading the mission of Radford University as included in RU's 7-17 Strategic Plan after my major, Anthropology, was eliminated from Radford's curriculum two days into the semester.

It reads, "The vision and mission of this student-centered community of learners are driven by these core values:" one "being an active partner in the viability of our region." Of course our region is our Appalachian region. Two other core values pertinent to this conversation are "diversity and the richness it adds to our University; and shared governance and participation at all levels within the University community."

I believe the Radford University administration has not acted in accordance with its own stated values by failing to make transparent and public the University's plans to recreate our school into something other than a liberal arts school. Furthermore, the decisions heretofore (eliminating the Anthropology department, giving departments only days to justify their programs) have clearly not been born of the collaborative, inclusive, and honest tenets of our country's new president, Barack Obama. In his inauguration speech he said, "And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account-to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day-because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government."

Appalachian Studies is being considered for elimination as are many of the diverse departments that, collaboratively, define the erudite liberal arts experience at Radford University. I would like to be considered for Radford University's graduate school program in English and I would like to work for a certificate in Appalachian Studies. I would like to cultivate in Americans a heartfelt attachment to Appalachia which is the second most bio-diverse region in the world. In the event of the catastrophic climate changes predicted, it will be the seed and fruit of the Appalachian mountains that will revive the United States and maybe the world. The rate of development in the United States makes the Appalachian mountains to the nation what Central Park is to New York City. I would like to complete my studies at Radford University precisely because there is an Appalachian Studies component.

The Appalachian Regional Studies Center at Radford University.

Ours is a simple request. Please practice fidelity to our stated core values and begin to practice shared governance and participation at all levels within the University community. Please make public all data used in making program decisions and allow the students, parents, and alumni input. Please agree to refrain from making decisions over the summer break, agreeing instead to move on the public forum immediately or wait until the return of students in the fall semester.

Trusting that President Penelope Kyle and Provost Wil Stanton welcome our input I invite you, dear Appalachian History readers, to share your concerns about their plans to reduce Radford's Appalachian presence. President Kyle is from Galax, Virginia and will, no doubt, be relieved that so many of us are proud of our heritage. They receive correspondence at the following addresses:

President Penelope Kyle
Radford University
Box 6890 Martin Hall
Radford, Virginia 24142
president@radford.edu

Wilbur Stanton -Provost
Radford University
Box 6910 Martin Hall
Radford, Virginia 24142
wstanton@radford.edu

Thank you for kindnesses and your support.


Cynthia Fife Coughlin
Radford University Senior
March 13, 2009
ccoughlin45@yahoo.com


Ms. Coughlin kindly requests that you cc: her if you email Ms. Kyle or Mr. Stanton

From the 1927 divorce case filed by James R. Seawall against Dorothy Elizabeth Seawall in Knox County Fourth Circuit Court, Knoxville, TN:

"After their marriage, and in the year 1923, the defendant began to neglect him, and to absent herself from his home, and to spend the greater part of her time with her parents; that from December 1923 she has wholly separated herself from him and has lived with her parents.

"He respectfully avers that he has done all that he knows how to do to make her a loyal husband, and to properly provide for her and their children, but avers that she has not reciprocated, and that she has wholly separated herself from him, willfully and maliciously and without any just or reasonable cause, for two whole years and more, to wit four years next preceding the filing of this bill. And so complete has been the separation that this Complainant has not so much as seen the defendant since January 1924.

"Complainant would further show that he is a traveling salesman covering all the Southeastern part of the United States, and that as such he was sent to Knoxville more than two whole years ago next preceding the filing of this bill, and that he took up his bona fide residence at Knoxville on or about April 1, 1925. That he has since continually resided here, as his home, and that he is a bona fide citizen and resident of Knox County, TN.

"He would show that the separation herein complained of took place in the State of New York on or about December 30, 1923, and was wholly uncalled for, and inexcusable, and that it was without any just or reasonable cause. That the only cause which could have been assigned was a difference in religious affiliations, but this Complainant respectfully avers that the defendant knew his affiliations before their marriage, and that she, a Catholic, could not convert him to her belief, and therefore, and for no other cause, deserted him and his home."

INTERROGATORY PROPOUNDED to Mrs. Lela Guerard by the Complainant in the above styled cause, and answered by the said witness under oath.

Q. Please state your name, age and residence?
A. Lela Seawall Guerard, 32, San Antonio, TX.

Q. Do you know whether, during the marriage relation, or during the time when Mr. Seawall and his wife were living together, the Complainant supported his wife as a husband should?
A. I saw a good bit of them for about two months after the marriage; at that time his wife and her family seemed very much attached to Mr. Seawall. She wrote me several times between that time and the time I heard of the separation; there was nothing in the letters to suggest that she was not happy with him; certainly no complaint of his conduct towards her.

Q. State fully, if you know, how Mrs. Seawell conducted herself with reference to properly keeping her home, remaining with her husband, preparing his meals, doing his mending and housework, and general work that is ordinarily done by a housewife for her husband?
A. So far as I knew up to the time I left there was no complaint; from the time that I came to Texas I only know of what happened by complaints he made about the way things were going. He complained in his letters about her frequent and repeated absences from the home and neglect of household duties.

Q. Did you know Mrs. Seawall's parents?
A. Yes.

Q. What was their attitude toward the homelife of James R. Seawall and his wife? That is to say, did they at any time so interfere with the affairs of his home as to cause his wife to be less affectionate toward him? And did they, or either of them intermeddle in the affairs of his home so as to estrange his wife from him?
A. The attitude of Mrs. Seawell's parents up to the time I came to Texas was very friendly; their attitude later I only know from his letters to me, and what he told me when I visited him about two years ago during the time he was separated from her; in those conversations he attributed his entire trouble to differences in religion and interference in their affairs by his wife’s mother and father.

Q. Was Seawall kind and good to his wife?
A. Judging from what I saw during the time I was with them, from his and her letters, and his talk of her with me, I would say that he was.

Q. Was there anything in his conduct toward her that would justify her in leaving him and going to her parents and remaining out of his home for days at a time, or weeks, and finally deserting him?
A. Nothing in the world that could be imagined from what I know of their affairs, or know of the parties.

Q. Have you been in frequent and continued correspondence with Mr. Seawall since he and his wife’s marriage and separation?
A. Yes; I am his sister.

Q. Do you know of any reason why these parties cannot get along and live happily together except what you have already stated?
A. None in the world; I verily believe that though she is an ardent Catholic and he a Protestant, that this obstacle could be overcome, but for the interference of her family. With those two situations I see no chance of happiness for them. She has evidently chosen her parents and their wishes in preference to those of her husband, and between him and her parents there is a gulf that can not be bridged.


Full document here, from collection of Tennessee Electronic Library/Volunteer Voices



religion+in+Appalachia divorce+cases appalachia +history+of+appalachia appalachian+history

I've got a '40 John Deere, and I've got the biggest part of equipment for it, and it's . . . it's up there in the barn. It'll still run. And we . . . we worked around here and worked for other people and, you know, in a small community like this, you . . . you helped other people and they helped you. And there was no money exchanged. You was a helping somebody, and then when you got ready to house tobacco they would help you, and . . . and that's the way you worked it. It's not like it is now. You know, you got a transaction of money anytime that somebody helps you, where back then you didn't have.

Back in the late . . . I guess it would be in the late '40s, there was a . . . there was a log barn there, and my uncle built the other barn around it which you can see over there and it's got his initials cut in the . . . in the logs, and my grandfather's initials were cut in the logs.

They kept mules in there and they . . . they also had a "A" over the top of it that was kind a loft where they stored their . . . their corn that they took . . . they took corn . . . they didn't take money. When they ground the corn they took a toll from the corn, and they . . . they stored that up there, and then if you would want to come by and buy, if you had money to buy it, they would sell the . . . the meal to you or sell the corn to you or whatever.

Caption reads: Laurel County, Kentucky. A pair of jacks - there are tens of thousands of such teams. This pair owned by Erwin Hensley of E. Bernstedt, hauling coal. Pre-1954, no other date.

[My mom] grew everything. She grew potatoes and corn and beans and broccoli. Just anything that we could grow in this location, she'd grow it. And stick her own beans. Last year she canned probably fifty quarts of beans and gave 'em to the neighbors when she didn't eat 'em herself.

Back when the older generation, which is deceased now, they had a June meeting every year and they congregated at the graveyard and had big meals and everybody brought a dish and . . . and that's where that . . . I can relate back to that is . . . is a lot of the history that I'm telling you about because, you know, I had heard people talk about there.

But the . . . like I said, there's only one of my mother's people that is living, which is her sister, and my father's people never migrated into here. They . . . they were all over, out of state and everything, and they never came in. But the . . . the Wilsons, they . . . they had a reunion year every year.

But, like I say, after my mother has died and my aunts and uncles, they don't . . . they didn't have any last year.


1991 interview with Euell Sumner
(b. 1938 in Cane Creek, KY)
Family Farm Oral History Project
Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History
University of Kentucky
Interview edited; orginal transcript here



Laurel+County+KY farm+chores appalachian+farming appalachia +history+of+appalachia appalachian+history

In May of 1926, President Calvin Coolidge signed a bill authorizing the establishment of a 521,000-acre Shenandoah National Park. The bill stipulated that no federal funds could be used to acquire the land for the park. The job of obtaining the land therefore fell to the Commonwealth of Virginia.

In order to avoid the slow and painful process of negotiating prices with each landowner, Virginia in March 1928 passed the Public Park Condemnation Act. The Act allowed the state to acquire the necessary land by filing a single condemnation suit in each of the eight affected counties, and purchasing the land by right of eminent domain. In effect the state simply confiscated all the lands that would make up the park.

Officials then formed a three-man committee to assess the value of each property to be paid its owner. Once the condemnation had been signed into law, the next task was to remove the inhabitants. Complicating matters was the fact that many residents did not own proper title to their land and were uncertain as to the exact boundaries of their property. Ultimately 2,800 people were forced from their homes. By 1935 most of the inhabitants had left voluntarily. But the ones who chose to remain didn't go down without a fight.

---

Mr Zerkel.

Dear Sir I have moved to the George Herring place. and under the Contract was to use all buildings an be responsible for them.
Mr. Herring have been to the C C. Camp no 3. trying to get the store room from them. this room would be of use to me as the roof is bad on the corn house. He also has it locked. and orders me not to touch it. Also has a few hundred pounds of hay in the barn. Would like for him to move it out so I will have room for my cows. If you desire me to hold all buildings please let me no at once so I can show the foremen my permit when he comes to tear them down.

Yours sincerly

(Signed) Mr. Boss. Morriss
Swiftrun
Va.

---

UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK
LURAY, VIRGINIA

March 13, 1935

Mr. Boss Morris
Swift Run, Va.

Dear Sir:

Your letter of March 10 which you wrote to Mr. Zerkel and in which you state that Mr. George Herring is trying to get the store room from his former place on which you are now living has been handed me to answer.

This is to advise that Mr. Herring has no rights to any of the buildings on the place and is not to tear down and move any of them.

I am sending a copy of this letter to Mr. Herring at Proffit, Va., so that he can make arrangements for the removal of his hay from the barn and also removal of whatever he has locked up in the store room, if anything.

Yours very truly,

J. R. LASSITER
Engineer in Charge

CC Mr. Herring
Mr. Bert
Mr. Zerkel

JRL - gh
Dictated but not read.

---

Mr Zerkel.-

Dear Sir+

I'm now answering your letter I recived from you. so called a Copy to Boss Morris.
I'm very mutch suprised to get a thang like that. I have not said or even thraught of tearing dawn any thang up there. that is some of Boss Morrises lies he reparted to you. his wife told me she had a wretten permatt to stay there tell fall and said you had given them the buildings to move a way this fall. and I do know the C C C boys has been giving a way the buildings, and I can proved this to you they gave the George Shifflett house and all to Andry Mawbray. and the also gave G. M. Shiflett buildings to Bernard & Warren Shifflett and the also got N. C. Herrings buildings and the gave Mr C J Begoon buildings to William Sullivan. and Mr Sellars buildings to ame Shifflett. and I wretten to W.C. Hall Chairman Richmond and he said you all had no right to give a way the buildings. and I say if you all were a goning to give them a way wouldent it be more nicer to give it to the one who awned the property and Boss Morris moved from his house he taken the windows & doors I do not know what he did with them. and Bosses wife. told me you had promised Ame Shifflett the store building to move a way. and that is the way you all are doning and sending me your harble letters to which I havent had nothing to do with eny of the buildings up there. I thank you had better send some letters to the ones who are halling out the buildings and the fence. I'm very mutch suprised at you sending to me sutch a thand. I thraught you were a man of a better standing than that. I want you to know that my husband or I nether one have not been messing. with the mess of people up there or the buildings either and Boss Morris Cant come to my face and tell his lies. and that place was mine and not G.R. Herrings. They are up there a beating the park aut of every thang they can and a living on what has moved aut and do you up hold sutch as that. if you do you wont be mutch thraought of as they are. and every body knows what sutch thangs as Boss Morris is. Boos is up there lieing on my husband and he was here down with the grip I'm not lieing on no one. an I'm not telling you one ward mare than I can prave end I am living up to what I say. and I'm a goning to keep your letter and show it to the nicest of people who knows you lisent to Boss Morris lieing on us. and know we had nothing to do with Boss morris or his bueldings they clam you give to him. I want you to answer this at once

Yours Truly (Signed) Lillie Herrg
wife of G. R. H.

C
O
P
Y
of a pen written four-page letter.


sources: www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/frazier2.html
Shenandoah National Park Archives - www.lib.jmu.edu/special/manuscripts/hoepfner.aspx


Shenandoah+National+Park Public+Park+Condemnation+Act appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

On March 10, 1920, the West Virginia Legislature passed a joint resolution ratifying the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution giving women the right to vote.

The original constitution of Virginia allowed only white men who owned property to vote. The property qualification was dropped in the revised 1850 constitution. When West Virginia joined the Union in 1863, its constitution provided for the same voting privileges as Virginia's. With the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1870, black men were granted the right to vote, although local laws often prevented them from actually voting.

Women's Suffrage League, West Virginia University, 1920

Historian Anne Wallace Effland dates West Virginia's suffrage movement to the formation of the West Virginia Equal Suffrage Association (WVSEA) in Grafton in 1895, which combined nine smaller clubs into a statewide organization. Within the first year, seven of the nine clubs were dissolved.

In addition to suffrage organizations, other women's groups played an active role in campaigning for a woman's right to vote. Groups such as the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), which lobbied to prohibit the sale and consumption of alcohol also advocated women's voting rights. The WCTU believed women would elect more virtuous public officials and vote to ban the sale of alcohol, considered to be the source of many domestic problems.

Effland suggests a second wave of interest in suffrage in West Virginia began around 1905. By 1915, suffragists pressured the West Virginia Legislature to such an extent that a referendum of the state's voters was authorized. In November 1916, the all-male electorate decisively rejected women's suffrage. During the World War I years of 1917 and 1918, many suffragists adopted a different strategy. Their support of the war effort was ample proof of their patriotism.

After the war, the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was proposed, giving the vote to women. The Constitution requires three-fourths of all states to approve a constitutional amendment before it becomes a law. In February 1920, the West Virginia Legislature met in special session and was lobbied heavily by the state's suffragists, led by Lenna Lowe Yost.

On March 3, the House voted for the amendment. In a fifteen to fourteen vote on March 10, the state Senate made West Virginia the thirty-fourth of the thirty-six states needed to ratify the amendment. That summer, Yost became the first woman to chair a major party convention at the Republican National Convention, which nominated Warren G. Harding for president.


source: www.wvculture.org/history/thisdayinwvhistory/0310.html



suffragists womens+suffrage appalachia +appalachian+history history+of+appalachia

If you’re a lover of classical chamber music living in Asheville, NC, you can thank the efforts of Jeanette and Joe Vanderwart for helping make that performing art available locally. This couple moved to the area in the 1950’s, and Joe’s work in the lumber industry provided a good living. They were able to introduce the idea of forming the Asheville Chamber Music Series, a program they then helped support for over thirty years.

Jeannette’s parents had given their only child a cultured family life that included seats at the opera back in Kassel, Germany. But by 1936 the Nazi rise to power had become alarming, and so that year 24 year old Jeannette Goldberg was able to arrange passage to New York City based on an affidavit submitted by a US resident. Her parents, lacking such an affidavit, had to stay behind.

Jeanette had a cousin whose friend worked for the same wealthy family employing Josef Vanderwart as a butler and chauffeur. Jeanette's cousin's friend was a companion to the lady of the house. Jeanette's cousin invited Jeanette to dinner to meet Josef.

Josef Vanderwart, at twenty-four years of age, escaped the initial Jewish roundup in Ober-Riedenberg, Germany in 1939. Adult males were the first targets for concentration camp deportations, and Vanderwart understood it was only a matter of time before the Nazis would find him. He knew two Jewish women in a larger city whose father had already been taken away. Since the registered male of that house had been picked up in the first round of deportations, he reasoned that they might not return to that location. He reasoned incorrectly.

One day the Nazis circled the house, and when Joe tried to escape he was caught. He was taken to a police station. There, one of the policemen happened to know one of the Jewish women who had hidden Joe, so he released him---an incredible stroke of fortune. As a diabetic he needed daily insulin shots. He could not have survived for more than two days in jail.

By this time Joe and his sister Gerda had applied for visas at the consulate and were waiting for their quota number to come up. It is unclear from family records who had sent them an affidavit.

While waiting at the consulate one day, Gerda met another hopeful immigrant named Kurt Loewensohn who was applying for a visa for South America. They later married and Kurt changed his last name to "Vandewart" as it sounded "less Jewish." Together Josef, Gerda, and Kurt came to the USA.

Joe took up residence with a German rabbi in Flushing, New York. This rabbi had been sponsored in the USA by one of the owners of Sears - Roebuck. "The rabbi was brilliant and worked as a doorman," Jeanette Goldberg recalled. He married Joe and Jeanette two years after they first met, and Joe's sister Gerda and her husband Kurt were the witnesses.

At first Joe, Jeanette, Gerda and Kurt all lived in Forest Hills, New York. Later these four moved into the same apartment building in Queens, New York.

After World War II ended, an American soldier contacted Jeanette to inform her that Marie and Moritz Goldberg were alive and in Germany. Jeanette wrote the Department of Justice requesting visas for her parents. As a result Marie and Moritz joined their daughter and son-in-law in the Queens apartment.

In the 1950's, Jeanette and Josef moved permanently to Asheville, NC. He died in 1985 and she ten years later.

sources: http://toto.lib.unca.edu/findingaids/oralhistory/SHOAH/vanderwart2.htm
http://toto.lib.unca.edu/findingaids/oralhistory/SHOAH/vanderwart.htm



Asheville+NC Appalachian+Jewry appalachia +appalachian+history history+of+appalachia

Report on Construction Products Plant, Mar 6, 1920
West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company
Covington Va

"Herewith picture taken 3:15 p.m. 3-4-20 of construction grounds taken from a point lower down on the sand cliff as the one taken 1:30 p.m. 2-26-20.

"You can notice hardly any difference in it from last week’s picture. This picture shows all the building walls for the Soda Mill run except a short piece south end of Digester Room which we expect to run Monday; and the wall between Pan Room and Screen Room which is still under the track used for loading pyrites cinder, and Mr. Lamb is doing all in his power to push this along.

"For the Evaporator Building we dug a trench 3 feet wide (18 inches on each side of centre line of bolts, being about the width of foundation required for this wall. This gave us good information as to the condition of soil for Mr. Wadleigh. That is, we found good, solid clay all around the wall at about El. 8’00”, and the entire inside of the building has about three feet of bark that we will have to take out and replace with suitable fill. The Bleach Room also has about the same amount of bark to be removed. We will take out most of this with the Byers Crane. To date we have received four carloads of steel from Piedmont for the Evaporator Building.

"All grading ready for the Soda Mill siding and we are waiting on the Railroad people. This siding is greatly needed right now.

"We have a good many men now and unless we receive more work soon we will have to lay some off. This we would hate to do as they will get away. We know that Mr. Wadleigh has his hands more than full and is doing all he can. I only make the above remark to let him know exactly the condition we are in. Bridge piers or stack foundation would give us a good job if he has them ready.

"I have marked points of interest on the picture as follows:

1. Storage House
2. Steel for Evaporator Building.
3. Evaporator Buildling Grounds.
4. Lime Sludge

E.G.F."



source: Stephen Nicholson’s Alleghany Highlands http://hometown.aol.com/snickelsn/index.html?f=fs

Says Nicholson: "Whitman Ellis found these old photographs in an garage in Rosedale. They appear to be photographs and text describing progress on the new pulp mill constructed in 1920. I have finer resolution scans of these photographs if anyone is interested. This text is addressed to Mr. W.A.L. (William A. Luke). Note the description below: year/month/day."


appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+moutains+history Covington+VA Kraft+Pulp+Mill paper+industry

Doctors once prescribed a tonic.
Sulfur and molasses was the dose.
Didn't help one bit.
My condition must be chronic.
Spring can really hang you up the most.

"Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most" (1952)
lyrics by Fran Landesman; music by Tommy Wolf

Time to shed the sluggishness of winter!

Up till the middle of the 20th century, many Appalachian residents, like Americans elsewhere, downed an annual spring tonic of sulfur and molasses. It was believed the family needed a good “spring cleaning” after a sedentary winter eating dried vegetables and salted meat. Each member of the family would have their dose of this mixture to purify their blood, thin or “cut” the blood, and make them feel better after the long winter.

This particular blood tonic was fashioned from a pure yellow crystalline form of elemental sulfur known as sublimed sulfur, or "flowers of sulfur." We now know sulfur is in the nucleus of cells and is fundamental to regeneration of strong healthy tissue. Mixes of sulfur with cream of tartar were also used and more exotic variations may include powdered pearl as well.

The name "molasses" is derived from a Portuguese word, "melaco", and means "resembling honey." The unsuphured tastes stronger but has more nutrients. Sulphur treated molasses is sweeter but has fewer nutrients.

Blackstrap molasses is the thick liquid separated from the solid granules of cane sugar during refining. It is not only a source of energy but contains iron and other minerals including a fair amount of calcium. It also has several B-Complex vitamins.

The use of spring tonics revolved around Victorian theories of high blood, low blood, thick blood, and thin blood.

High blood has very little to do with the modern concepts of high blood pressure and hypertension but instead is derived from the belief in humors and the practice of blood letting. It can be thought of as high blood volume which results in symptoms like headaches, nosebleeds, dizziness, feeling "flushed", fainting, rapid pulse and nausea.

By contrast, low blood is a low volume of blood or blood that lacks vitality. Symptoms of low blood are fatigue, dizziness, pale complexion and listlessness.

Thick blood is thought to be due to the presence of toxins and waste in the blood which makes it more viscous; this is viewed to be a source of sickness if left untreated. Heat intolerance, obesity and sluggishness are symptoms of thick blood.

A person who is cold-natured, frail, and slow to heal is thought to have thin blood, which is watery and lacks vital properties.

These four blood states express seasonal variation just like the sap in trees. During the winter, blood becomes thicker and lower because of the cold weather and a more sedentary lifestyle. A poor diet of canned and dried food in the winter also contributed to this change in blood state.

Springtime blood tonics help the sluggish blood rise like sap in trees in preparation for the hard work to be done in the growing season. Sulfur and molasses is just one of the options; there are lots of regional variations on the spring tonic formula throughout Appalachia, depending on availability of particular roots and herbs and also on local traditions and preferences.


sources: www.appvoices.org/index.php?/site/voice_stories/spring_tonics_and_appalachian_herbals/issue/151
www.otherworld-apothecary.com/articles/spring_tonics.html
www.breaman.net/ValleyFeverInfo/
www.wildcrafting.com/appalachian_healing_traditions.htm



spring+tonics sulfur+and+molasses blood+tonics appalachia appalachian+history history+of+appalachia

At the first call of the robin in the spring, Aunt Emmie on Honey Camp Run, in clean starched apron and calico frock, dragged her rocker to the front stoop of her little house and there she sat for hours rocking contentedly while her nimble fingers moved swiftly with crochet needle and thread. "Aunt Emmie's crocheting lace for Lulie Bell's wedding garments." Folks knew the signs. Hadn't Lulie Bell ridden muleback from Old Nell Knob just as soon as winter broke to take the day with the old woman?

"Make mine prettier than Dessie's and Flossie's," she had said.
Or, "I want the seashell pattern for my pillowcases."
Or, "I want you to crochet me a pretty chair back."
"I want a lamberkin all scalloped deep"--another bride-to-be measured a half arm's length.
"I want my edging for the gown and petticoat to match."

Passersby overheard the talk of the young folk. "Wouldn't you favor the fan pattern?" Aunt Emmie offered a suggestion now and then while the shiny needle darted in and out of scallop and loop. Sometimes she dropped a word of advice to the young, how to live a long and happy married life, how and when to plant, what to take for this ailment and that. There were things that brought bad luck, she warned, and some that brought good.

"If a bride plants cucumber seed the first day of May when the dew is still on the ground, the vines will grow hardy and bear lots of cucumbers and she will bring forth many babes, too," her words fell on willing ears of the young bride-to-be. "If you sleep under a new quilt that no one has ever slept under, what you dream that night will come true." Many a young miss declared she had experienced the proof of the saying. There was something else. "Mind, don't ever sew a ripped seam or patch a garment that's on your back. There will be lies told on you sure as you do." That could be proved in most any community in the Blue Ridge.

Yards upon yards of lace Aunt Emmie crocheted, the Clover Leaf pattern, the Sea Shell, Acorn, the Rose, and if a bride-to-be had no silver, the lacemaker was content to take in exchange a pat of butter, eggs, or well-cured ham. Her delight was in the work itself.


Source: American Folkways: Blue Ridge Country, by Jean Thomas, New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1942



Jean+Thomas lacemaking marriage+customs appalachia appalachian+history history+of+appalachia

Tales have circulated for years, telling of counterfeiting operations somewhere in the Unakas - all the way from the Ephriam Place to the Beauty Spot, from the Lose Cove to Iron Mountain. Some of the stories tell of rich silver mines still there somewhere for the finding.

Lewis Banner’s family told this story, which took place while they lived at Indian Grave Gap. Somewhere on the North Carolina side of the mountain, someone, someday will probably find a trove of counterfeit dollars - at least a peck or so, as the story goes.

A stranger rode up and asked Lewis Banner (1811-1883) if he would rent his blacksmith shop for a week, no questions asked and complete privacy assured. Lewis could not refuse his generous offer, but did make exceptions in case of dire need for repairing customers' equipment. After they agreed, the man moved in a few things, and everybody stayed clear of the shop.

The man took his meals at the house, but went back to the shop to continue his work and to spend the nights. On the afternoon before the last day of the contract, the fellow came out, locked up the shop, mounted his horse, and headed down to the settlement of Rock Creek. When he returned, he had a jug of good old Tennessee corn squeezings, and after a few swigs of the nectar, he became quite talkative.

On the genuine coin, the reeding (the corrugated outer edge) is even and distinct. On the counterfeit coin, the ridges are crooked and indistinct.

'Well, Banner,' he said, 'I believe you are all right; so I'm going to tell you what I've been doing - I been making money'.
He could tell by his look that Lewis did not believe him, so the man showed him several genuine-looking specimens, which he then put in his saddle bag. Turning back to Lewis, he said, 'I want you to make a strong box that will hold at least two gallons of coins, and make a lid that I can nail on when I'm ready'.

When the box was ready, the stranger put a few coins in it and carried it on his horse down the Carolina side of the mountain - apparently planning to find a good hiding place and then come back for the rest of the coins. He was about forty five minutes. He came back without the box, picked up the rest of the coins, and put them in his saddle bags; and then taking a claw hammer, he headed back down the mountain. No one followed or heard his hammering. When he returned, he had the hammer, but there was no sign of the box or money, except for a few coins he was keeping in his saddle bags.

After paying Lewis for the box and for the use of his shop - in real money- he rode off toward Rock Creek, saying that he was going on to Jonesborough. Sometime later, word came back that he had been caught passing the coins and had been arrested, ending up in a federal prison, where he later died. At any rate, he was never seen again at Indian Grave Gap.

Lewis and his boys attempted to find the hidden money, but without success; Matt and Henry searched from time to time throughout the years. Others, including Walter Day and Ike Nelson, also tried and failed. No one ever knew just what it was that tripped up the counterfeiter - whether it was a poor job of molding, or someone noticing the duplicate dates on several coins - whatever the reason, the treasure hunters today who might find them have little more for their trouble that a box full of souvenirs of an early enterprise.


source: Around Home in Unicoi County, by William W. Helton, The Overmountain Press, 1986, 1994



counterfeiting Unicoi+County+TN appalachia appalachian+history history+of+appalachia

Please welcome guest blogger Betty Cloer Wallace. Ms. Wallace resides in Western North Carolina and is a direct descendant of Roderick Shelton, first English settler in Madison County,NC. She teaches writing and literature at a local community college.

Bill O’Reilly’s recent contemptible rant against Appalachian Americans is only the latest example of the widespread and multigenerational problem of Appalachian hillbilly stereotypes.

Quite simply, O’Reilly reminded the world once again that people of the Appalachian Mountains are still the only cultural group in America that many people have the audacity to ridicule publicly as being of low intelligence, and worse.

Can you imagine if O'Reilly had made the same despicable statements about ________ in _________, or ________ in ________, or _______ in ________. (Fill in the blanks with any racial or ethnic or cultural slurs you can imagine, the more insensitive the better.)

How can we as a people ever overcome this pervasive hillbilly stereotype? Why do we continue to pull in our heads like turtles and pretend we don't care and that we will survive regardless of the outside world? Well, I do care—for myself, my family and friends, and my culture—and I don't believe that we are surviving very well or will survive in the future as a culture with a shred of honor and dignity if we do not rise up, en masse, and protest at every opportunity this kind of insensitive abuse.

We continue to loll about in our insular Snuffy Smith, Lil Abner, Mammy Yokum, Jed Clampett, grits-and-possum stereotype as if the opinion of the rest of the world does not matter, even while we are being brutalized every time someone laughs at our dialect or accent, or asks WHERE are you from, or rejects us for a job, or does not publish our writing because how could an ignorant hillbilly possibly have something to say.

A professor at the University of Colorado once said to our own Charles Frazier, "Imagine that! A hillbilly with a Ph.D.!" Even worse than the professor thinking such a misbegotten thought was that she felt entitled to publicly say it right to his face. Can you imagine her making that statement to a person of any other racial or ethnic or cultural group? "Imagine that! A ______ with a Ph.D.!"

As much as I love COLD MOUNTAIN, both book and movie, I hated the "Young Mammy Yokum" portrayal of Ruby by Renee Zellweger who won an Academy Award for it. (Frazier’s Ruby in the book had a quiet strength and wisdom, as do most native Appalachian people.) As much as I love our bluegrass music, I hated the stereotypical portrayal of ignorance in "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"

And, when I worked in the Alaskan Arctic, an Eskimo woman who had seen a "Songcatcher" DVD asked me why hillbillies don't fix up their houses. She thought the stage-set ramshackle buildings in that movie were really the kind in which we actually live—rather like us stereotyping Eskimos as living in ice-block igloos, the difference being that we are stereotyped as being too dumb or lazy to fix up our houses while Eskimos are stereotyped as being intelligent enough to survive in an extreme place.

In the age of global communication, this debilitating hillbilly stereotype is pervasive even internationally, and it affects us negatively on so many levels.

For the past century, companies that have considered our region for placing new enterprises have looked for local "hands" to do their low-level jobs, while bringing in management and executives (the “brains”) from outside; and now no one even considers Appalachia as a place where management would want to bring their own families to live or where intelligent local people might be available for employment.

Further compounding the problem, too many of our local governments are now made up of second-tier pseudo-leaders who are interested primarily in promoting tourism; but who, we should ask ourselves, will own the new hotels and mountaintop second-homes and assorted eateries the appointed tourist boards and self-serving chambers of commerce say we need—and who will be paying increased taxes for infrastructure to support them, and cleaning their rooms and waiting their tables and manicuring their lawns?

The local "hands," of course, are expected to do those low-level jobs. This servant mentality is deeply embedded in our history and culture and language, and all of us have perpetuated it simply by not rising up and fighting it. “He/she is a good hand to_____," we say.

Zell Miller of Georgia is the only well-known person who has ever stood up publicly to try to end this crippling multigenerational Appalachian stereotype. He single-handedly created enough flak several years ago to prevent television producers from creating a Beverly Hillbillies Reality Show that would have placed an Appalachian family in a Beverly Hills mansion and ridiculed them for a year. Can you imagine if the producers had even suggested doing the same with a Beverly _____ Reality Show? (You fill in the blank with the most insensitive racial or ethnic or cultural slur you can think of.)

The reality show producers even advertised in our local newspapers for an ignorant mountain family, all expenses paid. Can you imagine the justifiable outrage if they had placed such advertisements in the Atlanta or Birmingham or New York papers for an ignorant _____ family to send out to Beverly Hills and ridicule for a year.

While some racial and ethnic and cultural groups recently tried to get a newspaper cartoonist fired, and rightfully so, for depicting the shooting of a "stimulus plan gorilla,” O'Reilly was shooting down the future of an entire culture by perpetuating a century-old stereotype in the most egregious and offensive manner—and we ought to be outraged. We ought to care, and care deeply, because the issue is infinitely larger and more far-reaching than simply our own personal irritation with O’Reilly.

Actually, O'Reilly is small potatoes when one considers what we as a culture are up against. This negative stereotyping of our culture is becoming more focused and pronounced than ever before, simply because it has become politically incorrect to target other groups. Think of all the other minorities in this country who are discriminated against. Are any of them summarily and publicly declared to be ignorant and of low IQ? Can you name any other such group?

Other minorities may be insidiously stereotyped and discriminated against for assorted other reasons, but they are not blatantly and openly ridiculed as ignorant. And now, O'Reilly has added "immoral" and "drug-addicted" to our litany of Appalachian stereotypes, as well as our being unworthy to live in our own mountain homeland. Our children should move to Miami, he says. Oh, my.

Even "rednecks," who are everywhere and are a social class rather than a culture, are not dismissed as ignorant and inferior to other people because of intelligence. In fact, rednecks are often praised for their many independent and self-sufficient attributes, except for those rednecks who also happen to be classified as ignorant hillbillies in one-gallused overalls sleeping with their sisters and the farm animals.

Fortunately some "outlanders" do "get it" and are embarrassed by the likes of O’Reilly, but the fact remains that no one outside of an abused group can truly "feel" it without having "felt" it. No one without minority physical characteristics or other personal differences can truly "feel" that discrimination. No one outside someone with a mountain accent (or any other accent or dialect outside the prevailing norm) can "feel" a job interviewer lose interest when you open your mouth to answer
a question.

O'Reilly is hate-filled, but he is not a fool. He has built an empire by spouting the poisonous hatred that millions of people want to hear. They do listen to him and are influenced by him. While he himself is not fully the issue, he is a flash point for bigotry and intolerance, and that is why he is dangerous.

Yes, O’Reilly is a catalyst, but he is not the source of our problem. We are. We are to blame for not doing everything we can to root out such ignorant O’Reilly-type bigotry, to expose it for what it is, and then to replace it by honoring who we really are—by honoring our centuries-old heritage of persistence, perseverance, courage, loyalty, and love of freedom nourished for generations by our Scottish, English, Irish, German, Welsh, and Cherokee ancestors.

Why can we not pick up our pine knots and go to war against this blatant, insidious destruction of our culture? It will not take care of itself, and no one else is going to do it for us.

For the past 125 years, especially during wars and periods of economic depression, people have come into our mountains to exploit us as easy targets as they irreversibly destroy our forests, scalp our mountaintops, pollute our rivers, turn our community schools into mega-institutions, raise our taxes, rape our land with roads and airports and cookie-cutter shopping malls, and ultimately pollute our DNA.

It becomes increasingly harder to identify real native mountaineers, and within a few more generations our real culture, like that of the Melungeons, may fade into oblivion long before the stereotypes disappear.

Our centuries-old physical characteristics will be gone, along with our language, values, customs, ethics, and morals; and that is why it is important for writers and storytellers and videographers to work overtime now to record our rapidly vanishing culture, to record who we are.

Children in the future may be asking, "Who exactly were the hillbillies? Where did they live? Where did they come from? Where did they go?" And their mothers will respond, “You must not say that ‘H’ word. It is politically incorrect.”

Let us now pick up our pine knots and go to war—to save ourselves.



hillbilly+stereotypes appalachia +history+of+appalachia appalachian+history

Lent is here, and that means that many residents of Helvetia, WV will be foregoing hosenblatt meat pastries deep-fried in lard for awhile. Luckily last Saturday folks there had ample opportunity to consume that delicacy, along with donuts and rosettes, at the annual Fasnacht celebration. The Swiss settlers of Helvetia combined the Catholic celebration of Lent with the Protestant Winterfest of Zurich, when Old Man Winter is burned in effigy to hasten the advent of spring, to produce this annual February revel.

Fasnacht is the most famous city and canton in Switzerland's Basel Stadt. And Helvetia is the Latin name for Switzerland. In West Virginia's Helvetia, homes are decorated with scary figures to frighten Old Man Winter away. These after all are the Rauhnächte (rough nights), the nights between winter and spring, when evil ghosts are supposed to go around.

This photo of musicians in Helvetia is undated; prior to the construction of the Star Band Hall in 1910 Fasnacht celebrations took place in homes, with the musicians off to one side of the parlor as in this photo.

Helvetians decorate the community hall in colorful ribbons and Swiss lampions (paper lanterns with candles), and hang a gruesome Old Man Winter by the neck in the middle of the dance floor. And they create elaborate masks.

At dark on the Saturday night before Ash Wednesday, the villagers and guests don their masks and congregate at Star Band Hall. This plain rectangular frame structure, built in 1910, was for many years home of a quite famous brass concert and marching band.

“The Helvetia Star Band will rank favorably with the best in the State,” declare the authors of ‘The Story of Helvetia Community,’ an undated article most likely from the early 1920s. “This band is frequently asked to play for occasions at various distant points over the State.

“There is band practice twice a week, Wednesdays and Saturdays, and in this way the players are always able to measure up to the expectations of those asking them to perform. Several of the members of the band served their country as buglers or musicians in the bands of the respective branches to which they belonged while in the army.” The Star Band was active for 65 years.

The assembled parade marchers light the lampions, then proceed up the road Mardi Gras style to the Community Hall where they parade around the dance floor as their masks are judged. They dance schotisches, waltzes, polkas, and squares until midnight, when the fiddler announces the hour to burn Old Man Winter. The prettiest maiden then mounts the shoulders of the tallest man and cuts down the ghoul. He is dragged out into the snow, roughed up and cursed, then thrown onto the bonfire amid shrieks and applause.

A group of Swiss immigrants from Brooklyn, NY calling themselves 'the Gruetli Verein' settled the tiny community of Helvetia in 1869. The members had agreed that they would all emigrate to another section of the country together when the time was right.

A member of the society named Isler surveyed large swaths of the eastern West Virginia mountains for a Washington-based firm, and reported back to the society on the richness of the country. A committee of six men was assembled, and left Brooklyn by rail on October 15, 1869. They arrived at Clarksburg and began the difficult work of traveling by foot over the mountains.

At one time there were three Swiss colonies in Randolph County: Helvetia, Adolph, and Alpina. In the early 1900s Dr. Hanz Gruber was Helvetia’s village doctor for about ten years. He was a nephew of Franz Gruber who wrote for his Austrian church choir the much loved carol "Silent Night, Holy Night." Dr. Gruber's house still stands.


Sources: 'The Story of Helvetia Community,' by Eugene Daetwyler, Annie Teuscher, and E. Metzner at www.wvculture.org/history/agrext/helvetia.html
Helvetia, West Virginia : a study of pioneer development and community survival in the Appalachia, by Atje Partadiredja, Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, 1978
One's own hearth is like gold : a history of Helvetia, West Virginia, by David H Sutton, New York: Peter Lang, 1990
www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi/es/wv/fasncht_1
www.timeswv.com/entertainment/local_story_042191843.html
www.wvhumanities.org/fasnacht.htm
www.wvculture.org/history/agrext/helvetia.html

Many thanks to Elvira Niles of Lithia, FL for her input on this article.



appalachia appalachian+history Fasnacht Helvetia+WV history+of+appalachia Randolph+County+WV

MIMI CONWAY:
I think we're talking about when you were in Pulaski County [KY], and you were talking about how it was the year that you learned the most in your life. Did you take notes at the time, some notes?
HARRIETTE ARNOW:
No, I took no notes. I did, to practice writing, write some descriptions of scenes and things. You see, this was a remote place, a log house, and many of the things they used were much like those of the pioneers. For example, I had never seen a watering trough made of the hollowed-out trunk of a poplar tree.
MIMI CONWAY:
Oh, wow.
HARRIETTE ARNOW:
And other things around. I was especially intrigued by their language. They were as definite as Shakespeare. For example, the children never said "tree"; they named the tree: white oak, black oak, post oak, poplar, they knew them all.
MIMI CONWAY:
Now this was in fact a place only fifteen miles from Burnside.
HARRIETTE ARNOW:
That is right.
MIMI CONWAY:
Was it for you the first close contact you'd had with hill people?
HARRIETTE ARNOW:
Well, yes and no. My people were hill people, after a fashion, but I had never been in a community that was so remote. Though Burnside was only fifteen miles away, it was on the railway-this place was not-Burnside had also been served by steamboats since 1833. It was more or less in the world. Like at home, we had a daily newspaper and magazines and books and other things we could buy.
MIMI CONWAY:
Right. And also you had doctors and dentists, isn't that right?
HARRIETTE ARNOW:
In Burnside, yes, but not these people. Most of them had never been to a physician or a dentist.
MIMI CONWAY:
Now when you went to teach in the school in Pulaski County, what was the name of the town or the actual place?
HARRIETTE ARNOW:
Well, they called it Possum Trot School. I've forgotten if it had a better name; I don't know.
MIMI CONWAY:
Was that also the name of the place, Possum Trot?
HARRIETTE ARNOW:
Was it Hargis? No. Perhaps it was Hargis; I've forgotten. I should know, because there was a post office there, where the mail came three times each week in saddlebags on a mule. And rarely did one see a wagon, and my schoolchildren, most of them, had never at that time seen an automobile, the road was so rough. Most of the men, however, had. They'd go to Somerset. And they did most of what they called the "trading": they didn't use the word "shopping". They traded. This, I think, arose from the fact that they usually had something to sell. It was too far away for milk and butter, but they could, as I say, trade eggs at a small store across the river. Others dug ginseng-it was about all gone-dried it and sold it to a company in Burnside. Some dug yellow root and May apple root. There were few furbearing animals left, but several of the boys sold raccoon and opossum hides.
MIMI CONWAY:
How did these people feel about you coming in? Do you know how they reacted to you? Were you as unusual in your education and in coming from Burnside as if you had come from four or five hundred miles, from outside the whole culture?
HARRIETTE ARNOW:
I think they thought I was peculiar. On the other hand, I tried very hard. I stayed over many weekends. When they went to church, I went to church with them. We had a bit of trouble with speech sometimes. Most of the younger children used the word "ungen" for "onion" and other words which I had never heard and didn't have sense enough to know. I just thought, "Queer!" Like they'd say, "So-and-so carried his wagon to town to the railway," and it seemed queer to me, and then later I found the word "carry", meaning to go with or to take, in Shakespeare. Had I had an Oxford English Dictionary, unabridged, with me, I would have understood a great deal more and appreciated a great deal more.


Oral History Interview with Harriette Arnow, April, 1976. Interview G-0006.
Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection,
Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
source: http://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/G-0006/excerpts/excerpt_2466.html



Harriette+Arrow Pulaski+County+KY appalachia appalachian+history history+of+appalachia

St. Patrick’s Day is only a couple of weeks off, and one of the things you'll always find plenty of at that celebration is shillelaghs.

The shillelagh [siúil éille is an old Gaelic word meaning "oak club"] is a wooden cudgel associated with the Shillelagh Forest in County Wicklow, Ireland, famous for its once massive stands of oaks.

As often seen in depictions of leprechauns, shillelaghs appear to be nothing more than Irish walking sticks, and they certainly are that. But consider another Gaelic term for the staff: ‘bata,’ which means ‘fighting stick.’

Both the Scots and the Irish used them this way, especially during the historical era when neither group was legally allowed weapons for self-defense. And at other periods the shillelagh served well for those who simply could not afford a gentleman's sword. The Scots called their staff a ‘kebbie’ or ‘kebbie stick.’

In addition to being used as a weapon to ward off wild animals, muggers, and thieves, shillelaghs could be brought out to settle disputes---a ‘kebbie-lebbie’ to a Scotsman. Stereotypes of drunken shillelagh-swinging louts have overshadowed the existence of a disciplined martial arts training with the stick.

In his 1790 book, 'Personal Sketches of His Own Times,' Sir John Barrington wrote that stickfights were exhibitions of skill...."like sword exercises and did not appear savage. Nobody was disfigured thereby, or rendered fit for a doctor. I never saw a bone broken or a dangerous contusion from what was called 'whacks' of a shillelagh (which was never too heavy)."

The preferred material for shillelaghs is oak or blackthorn (‘pear hawthorn’ to us) due the density and hardness of those woods. The blackthorn, in particular, also has longstanding religious connections to staffs. One old legend says St. Joseph's staff was cut from the same hawthorn tree that produced the Crown of Thorns placed on Jesus' head at the crucifixion. Another states that the first hawthorn bush grew from the staff of St. Joseph.

The knobby end can be bored out and filled with molten lead, transforming the shillelagh into a ‘loaded stick.’ To keep the wood from splitting during the drying process and to harden it, sticks were often buried in a manure pile, or smeared with butter and placed in the chimney to cure, which gives them their distinctive black patina.

When the Scots-Irish settled in Appalachia, they had very little trouble locating materials for shillelaghs: The forests of the southern and central Appalachians are full of black, northern red, white, chestnut and scarlet oaks, and several species of hawthorn are common throughout the region, including may, pear, fanleaf, cockspur, and rome, all of which grow in woodland thickets at altitudes up to 8,500 feet.

In Appalachia as elsewhere, the fighting stick continues to be a symbol of pride for all Celtic and Gaelic cultures.


sources: www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/AEmblem/shillelagh.html
www.motherearthnews.com/Green-Homes/1981-01-01/Shillelaghs-Make-and-Market-Them.aspx
www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/shillelagh_and_walking_sticks-t13650/index.html?s=866301538806e6579404e48f05fe42d0&t=13650
The Holy Thorn Ceremony: revival, rivalry and civil religion in Glastonbury, (Presidential Address by Marion Bowman to the Folklore Society, March 2005)
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-5677803/The-Holy-Thorn-Ceremony-revival.html
Jamieson's Dictionary of the Scottish Language, by John Johnstone, John Longmuir, W.P. Nimmo, 1867



shillelagh Irish+fighting+sticks Scots-Irish appalachia appalachian+history history+of+appalachia

"Once we hit a place where a feud was being settled. It was back in the hill country of Virginia and the place was called Rocky Comfort. It really wasn't a town. There was a water-power grist mill, a store, a blacksmith shop and about a quarter of a mile up the little valley there was a meeting house, where traveling preachers would sometimes hold revivals which were called camp meetings.

"The feud was between the Buxton --or Bruxton-- and another bunch of natives named Greenberry,--I think that was the name.

"Old Uncle Jed Buxton, a tall, sharp-eyed old fellow with a yellowish-gray, hang-down, moustache was boss of the Buxton bunch and Grandpappy Lindsay Greenberry was head of the enemy tribe.

"I never heard what the feud started over, probably some Buxton stole a Greenberry pig, or some Greenberry shot a Buxton cow. But whatever it was that started it there'd been killing on both sides and from what I heard about it they were always gunning or ganging up on each other, or cutting each other up with Bowie knives. The cause of the feud wasn't important, though; it was the way it ended that seemed funny to me.

"And a queer thing was that both tribes were religious and when they'd go to the camp-meetings they've have a temporary truce while the meeting was going on.

"It was at the camp-meeting the feud ended. The preacher was a big raw-boned Hard-shell Baptist, and he certainly believed in hell-fire and damnation; and when he'd get up and start to preach he'd always pull out a twist of long-green tobacco and pull off a big chew--then he was ready to go at it. And he went.

"He was almost as good as Doc Porter when it came to oratory. He talked hell-fire and brimstone...sizzlin' and bilin' and smokin' until he'd have the whole audience sweating and groaning. Finally he got under the hides of the Buxtons and Greenberrys and had them all tremblin' on the brink as he called it...jest hangin'over eternal damnation by a brickle thread!

"The payoff was that old Uncle Jed Buxton and Grandpappy Greenberry both got more religion than they'd ever got before and decided to make peace and stop their tribes from carving and shooting and beating each other up.

"The preacher got them together at the mourner's bench and got them to agree to make friends and be brethren. But they had to do something to prove the treaty would last and they could trust each other... And that's where the funny part of it came in.

"Old Uncle Jed Buxton and Grandpap Greenberry acted for the whole bunch of each of their tribes. The peace ceremony was performed at the camp-meeting in the presence of the whole audience, the Hard-shell Baptist preacher acted as master of ceremonies. You'd never guess how they pledged themselves and proved that they trusted each other. Those two old mountain codgers who had been killin' enemies shaved each other! And not with safety razors either!

"They did it right on the preacher's platform while the whole congregation looked on and muttered a lot of 'Amens' and 'Praise the Lords.'

"They drew straws for to see who should shave who first, and Uncle Jed Buxton got the chair first. Grandpappy Greenberry lathered Uncle Jed up, took that wicked long-bladed razor (the preacher supplied the outfit) and whittled the whiskers off of Uncle Jed's face and neck...but when he got down around Uncle Jed's wind-pipes I noticed the Buxton clan got mighty tense and silent. But Uncle Jed didn't bat an eye while his old enemy was fooling around his neck with that darned sharp razor!

"When Uncle Jed was well shaved, Grandpappy Greenberry sat down in the chair, which was a common hickory split-bottom kitchen chair, and Uncle Jed took the razor and went over him!

"That settled the feuds. Each had trusted his neck to the other when the other had a sharp razor in his hand...and as far as I know they never feuded again. But I'll say those two tough old mountain hillbillies had a lot of nerve."


Source: Library of Congress, American Memory, American Life Histories: Manuscripts for the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940. From an interview conducted with William D. Naylor on Sept, 19, 1938; Sept. 27, 1938; Oct. 1 and 3, 1938 by Earl Bowman



appalachia appalachia+history camp+meeting feuds history+of+appalachia revival+meeting