Appalachian History

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

We open today's show with the question: “Did Chicago mobster Al Capone ever set foot in Johnson City, TN?” During the 1920s the town was nicknamed Little Chicago. A reference acknowledging crime ties to the north? Or nothing more than an expression of local pride in the railroads, three of which ran through town?

We’ll pause in between things to catch up on a Calendar of Events in the region this week, with special attention paid to events that emphasize heritage and local color.

His beginnings were humble; he was born the son of an immigrant Scottish coal miner in the company town of Lonaconing, MD. But John Gardner Murray (1857-1929) rose to the heights of the Episcopal Church on the national level, becoming the first elected Presiding Bishop in 1926.

Some people have dark dark secrets, like the Aunt Mary of this next segment. Hers is the story of "The Hainted House," from ‘South from Hell-fer-Sartin: Kentucky Mountain Folk Tales,’ and before its over you’ll be wanting to lock the door, close the curtains, ---and especially---check the fireplace.

Alabaman James Pinkney Pittman wasn’t a bad man, but his fondness for liquor didn’t help his community standing any. In his handwritten memoirs he tells us how he was framed for the shooting death of a buddy in a hunting accident during a 3-man outing. He was booked for the killing in the St Clair courthouse, and amazingly, was able to raise bond from a group of strangers who were sympathetic to his position. Perhaps they knew a bit more about the other remaining hunter’s reputation than Pittman did.

What parent wouldn’t be utterly terrified to have their child kidnapped, never to be heard from again? It happened to Mr. and Mrs. James Sage of Clayton County, VA in 1793. Their daughter Katy was chasing butterflies in the side yard one morning, and suddenly she wasn’t there. Sixty years passed, when an Indian agent in Kansas mentioned to Katy’s now grown brother Charles that a woman who looked remarkably like him was living among the Shawnees.

We’ll wrap things up with a look at wooly worms. You could check to see if the bees are flying low, observe the size of the acorns on the trees, or pay close attention to how foggy recent mornings have been in order to gauge what kind of a winter it'll be. 

Easiest of all, you could get yourself over to Banner Elk, NC or Beattysville, KY to each town’s annual Woolly Worm Festival, where the little critters compete for the honor of proclaiming the official winter weather forecast.

And, thanks to the good folks at the Digital Library of Appalachia we'll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music by Jim Shumate and Wayne Erbsen in a 1977 recording of the traditional fiddle tune “Cumberland Gap.”

So, call your old blue-tick hound up on the porch, fire up your corn-cob pipe, and settle in for a dose of Appalachian History.

You could check to see if the bees are flying low, observe the size of the acorns on the trees, or pay close attention to how foggy recent mornings have been in order to gauge what kind of a winter it'll be.

Easiest of all, you could get yourself over to Banner Elk, NC this weekend to the 32th Woolly Worm Festival, where more than 1,000 of the little critters will compete for the honor of proclaiming the official winter weather forecast. Beattysville, KY also hosts a Woolly Worm Festival; this year is their 20th one. At either festival, the worm that most quickly reaches the top of a three-foot piece of string gains fame and glory, makes his mark in local weather history, and wins prize money.

Mountain folk use the brown and black stripes on the woolly worm to predict winter's path. Tradition says that the black stripes predict cold and snowy weather, while brown stripes point toward milder conditions. Furthermore, the narrower the band, the harsher the winter. Woolly worms have 13 different bands of color, each representing the 13 weeks of winter from December through March.

The woolly worm is known in the scientific world as Isia Isabella. Other common names for this caterpillar are woolly bears, black-ended bears and banded woolly bears (the name approved by the Entomological Society of America). After hunkering down in a tight ball for the winter, the Isia Isabella will emerge next year as a tiger moth.

The woolly worm’s genus---Pyrrhactia---includes many different species. Some are solid black without any bands, and others have bands of varying sizes. Woolly worms go through six larval stages before entering their pupal or winter cocoon stage. In other words, the caterpillar molts six times and the color and size of its bands may change from molt to molt. Scientists say variations in their bands are linked to differences in species and larval stage, not the weather. But you can still root for your favorites at your favorite Woolly Worm Festival every fall, regardless!

Sources: www.woollyworm.com/node/7
www.mountaintimes.com/mtweekly/2004/1014/isia.php3
www.wtov9.com/weather/9535109/detail.html


woolly+worms Banner+Elk+NC weather+prediction appalachia appalachia+history appalachian+culture appalachian+mountains+history

This is the story of the hainted house down by Mrs. Grundy’s house.

Well children, I’ll begin the evening of the quilting bee. When John and me was first married, the married women of the neighborhood all belonged to a club called the Quilting Bee. They met the first week after we’s married and invited me to join the club.

Well, I went to the Quilting Bee and all met at Mrs. Shutt’s, Aunt Mary as everybody called her. She lived in the house that is called the Hainted House now. This was one winter evening and Aunt Mary had a great big fire in the fireplace. We was sitting around the fire piecing quilt tops as fast as fingers could fly. The talk was flying thick and fast as fingers, or faster.

Then Granny Tucker began to talk about secrets. Granny Tucker said, “No one ever kept a secret all their lives without telling hit,” and she said if one person ever knowed anything that nobody else knowed that they always told one other person, at least, before they died.

Well, Aunt Mary rose and said, “I don’t believe this, for I have kept a secret all of sixty-five year without telling hit.”
We hushed and listened to her. Everybody knowed she was wanting to say something special.

“This,” Aunt Mary went on to say, “is my secret. All you kind people remember my good husband Tom, and have wondered why he left me to make a living alone. The fact is he never left me at all. He is still here---right in this house. Fact is Tom is in this very room.”

At this the women looked nervousness around. Aunt Mary never cracked a smile. She waited a second and then went on. “No, don’t look, for you can’t see him. He hain’t alive. He is dead, for I killed him with my own hands sixty-five year ago. I have kept my secret for sixty-five year, and if it wa’n’t for you---“ pointing at Granny Tucker, “I wouldn’t have never told it. Oh, well, it makes mighty little difference anyway. I may as well tell you the rest of it.

“Tom come in one night---the very night he disappeared---and told me he was tired of living here and wanted to move west. I didn’t want to go, and then Tom told me he had a good bit of money saved. I didn’t know he had. Well, he said it amounted to about a thousand dollars in all. I was already mad, and I became very angry when he told me this. I decided, with the place and that money, I could do without Tom purty well, and before Tom knowed what I was doing I grabbed the poker and hit him over the head. He fell, and I bent over and found he was dead.

Dear Reader: Please take a close look at the original version of this photograph. You’ll notice that the blue blob you see in the fireplace is NOT something I added! Trick of the light, OR…?

“Tom had been working on the fireplace and I put him in the opening that was there, and I finished the fireplace, a little at a time. Some of you know I went to my sister’s and stayed after I told that Tom had left me, and by slipping back and fixing a little at a time I soon had Tom sealed in. He is there now. If you don’t believe me, you can open the fireplace and see for yourselves.”

The tale broke up the Quilting Bee, and the women went home and sent their husbands back to find if what Aunt Mary told was true. Part of the men dug out around the fireplace and tore it down, and sure enough, there was a man’s bones behind the jamb rock. The law come to take Aunt Mary away but when they begun to look for her they found she was gone. Finally, they found her dead in the attic. She died the night she told her secret.

People tell now that you can hear Aunt Mary and Tom fussing about midnight if you will go and stand outside the house. No one will live there now. It is believed that the house is hainted.


"The Hainted House," from South from Hell-fer-Sartin: Kentucky Mountain Folk Tales, compiled by Leonard W. Roberts, Univ of Ky Press, Lexington, KY, 1955

The following was brought by my father's first cousin, Roy Hodges, to the family gathering following my uncle's funeral in 1985. It was handwritten, and in pencil. James Pinkney Pittman (1855-1946) was the grandfather of my father, Victor Randolph Pittman, Jr.

The handwritten text ended in mid-sentence on the last page of the steno pad. Obviously, there is or was at least one more steno pad like it that has been lost.

Judging from the markings on the pad, it appears to have been written some time in the late 1920s or early 1930s. I have endeavored to preserve the original misspellings. No doubt, I have added a few of my own.

---Victor Darrell Pittman, James Pinkney's great-grandson, June 1997



"I got into truble. I went hunting with two men, one was midal eag, the other was young. The young man got killed out in the woods and the other man told evry body that I killed him. Well, I was arested, tryed and put under a ten thousand dollar bond untill the grand jury met. The county seat was Ashville Ala. I did not know a sole in the town. I ask the Sharif what he was going to do with me. I dident want to be put in jale. "Can you make a bond?" "I can try."

"It w now getting dark when w come down out of the court house. Seemed I had the simpthy of older men. Went into a large store. The croud of men folowed us in. I ask the propreator if he would go on a tempry bond untill I could make bond, but when he found out how much the bond was he shook his head. One man in the crowed said he would, then another. So there was a lot of them went on the bond, a temporary bound. I gave my bond to a frend of mine from Springville to see if he could make bond in Springville for me. I wated sevrel days. So I ask the men that signed my bond if tha wood let me go to Springville and try to make my bond, that if I couldent make bond I wood come back. They told me to go.

St. Clair Courthouse, Ashville, AL

"Now there was a Mr. Wood and Miss Vick that was sumoned as witnesses at the trile. Mr. Wood had been going with Miss Vick and wanted her to mary him. So he told her that they w send me to the pen or hang him so she told him that wouldent do him no good, that she would mary me before I went. You see hur friend tryed to keep hur from maring me because I drink a little two much, but that dident do any good.

"Well, back to the bond. I made the bond and sent it in. My friends in Springville went to work on the case. They corned the man that acused me out where the young man was killed and ask him where he was standing when the young man was killed. He showed them & thay traced the shot came from on the undergroth that killed the man. So he got scared and run away. So whe the grand jury met, he was not there to appear against me. So my case w throon out of court and I was clared. You see, he was the onley wittnes. God knows I dident kill him. It was all done axedently."

Full memoir at: The Memoirs of James Pinkney Pittman

KATY SAGE
THE LOST GIRL OF GRAYSON

By Ex-Judge D. W. Bolen,
"Hillsville Advocate"
Wytheville, VA
Friday, November 5, 1897

The 11th of April, 1793, was a bright and balmy day. Early that morning James Sage went to his "clearing" to prepare his ground for crop. The day opened so bright and clear that Mrs. Sage decided to go and do her week's washing. She left her four children in the cabin and started to a little stream near by to build a fire to heat water to wash with.

As she was leaving the door she saw a number of butterflies wandering about among the shrubbery in the garden and she called her little five-year-old daughter Katy to come and look at the butterflies. The child came and went on into the garden to enjoy a better sight of the gauzy-winged creatures, while the mother went on to build the fire.

After a while the mother returned to get the clothes she intended to wash, but Katy was missing. Mrs. Sage thought the child had wandered off after the butterflies, for the last words she had heard Katy utter was her childish language talking to the pretty butterflies. She went in search of Katy but could not find her. She called her husband and they looked for Katy all day long and all night long, but they did not find her.

The next morning the neighbors for miles and miles around began to gather in and for several long weeks they searched in every direction for Katy, but in vain. After all had been done to find the child that human ingenuity could devise, the neighbors and friends gave up the search as fruitless and returned to their homes.

But James Sage began the search anew. Starting at his cabin door, he examined every square foot of ground for miles and miles around, hoping to find some rag of clothing or some mark, however dim, that might indicate to him the fate of his lost child. But he never found one trace. At last, in his despair, he heard of an old woman in North Carolina known by the name of Granny Moses, who was said to possess the power to reveal mysteries and look into and foretell all human events.

James Sage made a journey across the mountains into the Old North State to see Granny Moses. He found her and in his own way laid before her the whole story of his lost child.

The old women consulted her occult science, gathered up her faculties and told him that his Katy was still alive and well, but she added, "Katy is where you will never see her or hear of her again in this world, but your wife (Mrs. Sage) will outlive you and in her very old age she will hear of Katy but will never see her.”

With broken spirit and sick at heart the man returned home and resumed work in the forest around his cabin. Other children with bright faces and joyous prattle came to join the three that remained at his hearthstone. Other events and other transactions came into the lives of the parents, and to all outward appearances, as the years glided along, the memory of little Katy Sage became more and more like a faded dream.

But as long as the family remained together, when father and mother and children gathered around the embers that glowed between the jambs of the old fireplace on the long winter evening they talked of the missing one.

When thirty-one years had passed since Katy's disappearance James Sage was laid to sleep in a grave in the beautiful Elk Creek Valley, and the message of Granny Moses was the only tidings that had ever reached his ears of his lost child.

Mrs. Sage outlived her husband many years. Her children, as time rolled on, became widely scattered. Some remained in Virginia and others settled in different states and territories in the west. Her son Charles settled in Kansas, and in 1854 he met with an Indian agent there, who one day asked him if he had a sister or female relative among the Shawnee Indians.

Charles answered no. But on reflection he told the agent the story of his sister who had been lost or stolen more than sixty years before.

The agent said that there was a white woman among the Shawnee Indians that bore a most striking resemblance to Charles. The woman was sent for and when Charles saw her his face became pale. It seemed to him that the very image of his mother as she appeared twenty years ago, when he had left the old homestead, lived and glowed in the face and features of the strange woman. He believed her to be his long lost sister.

She could not speak a word of English, but through an interpreter she told them that she had been stolen away from her home in Virginia by a white man when she was a small child, that he took her to the Cherokee Indians and she never saw him again, that she had lived among the Cherokees awhile, and then with the Creeks, and finally with the Shawnees, that she had been three times married to distinguished Indian Chiefs and had bore one son, that her husbands had all died and she was a widow now for the third time and her son had recently died, that her name was Katy, and that she had retained that name in all her wanderings and travels through different countries and among different Indian tribes.

Charles got her to go home with him and he at once wrote to his brother Samuel, who lived in Missouri, to come and see if he could recognize her. Samuel was older and could remember Katy. Samuel came and saw the woman and heard her history and believed her to be his sister.

The brothers then wrote to their mother, who was still living at the old place on Elk Creek, and told her about the woman they believed to be their sister, and asked the mother to tell them all she could remember about Katy. The mother was then near her ninetieth birthday, but on hearing the letter read. her memory revived and she said almost instantly: "Write and tell the boys that my daughter Katy has a ginger-colored birth mark on her shoulder," and then she went on and described the mark, and the very spot described by the mother was found upon the shoulder of the woman in Charles Sage’s house.

Her identification was now complete and beyond question, and the brothers decided to take her home to their mother at once, and Katy was anxious to go. Arrangements for the journey were made, but just as they were ready to start Katy was seized with pneumonia and died, disappearing from the world just as suddenly as when a child chasing butterflies on Elk Creek.


source: http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=bobbuckles&id=I05261

His beginnings were humble; he was born the son of an immigrant Scottish coal miner in the company town of Lonaconing, MD. But John Gardner Murray (1857-1929) rose to the heights of the Episcopal Church on the national level, becoming the first elected Presiding Bishop in 1926.

Until the church began electing a Presiding Bishop in 1925, the fifteen previous holders of that office had automatically assumed the position by being the most senior bishop in the House of Bishops, measured by their dates of consecration.

The following ‘Tribute From a Boyhood Friend,’ published in the Baltimore Sun on October 8, 1929 shortly after Bishop Murray’s death, gives a sense of the man’s character formation at the start of his remarkable journey.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN:

Sir:
Now that the high tributes have been paid to the great leader of the Protestant Episcopal Church, the writer wishes to give a word of remembrance of the boyhood and youth of John Gardner Murray.

One year his senior, I think of him as far back as a boy’s memory can go and always with satisfaction. Born in Lonaconing, he often reminded me after he became bishop that my father was the physician that brought him into the world.

For awhile I was a year ahead of him at school, remembering back to the eighth year. He was soon in the same classes, and as the school years passed, he grew larger and stronger, and to me as a lad handsomer than any boy I knew. I found myself as a youth of 15 holding this boy of 14 before me as an ideal character, for in the mining town where boys heard on every side that one must "sow his wild oats" he had clean thoughts, clean lips and a clean life.

The day comes before me when (15 years of age) I stood with John and two other schoolmates in the vestibule of the school and we talked of having "found God," and what we should do concerning the church. I united with the church and soon went to Ohio to school. John did not join the Methodist church for some time, but as he put it to me later "I became a mule-driver in the Jackson mine." Of the right sort, I am sure.

The lines of our lives did not often meet, but when they did he seemed the older, and the boyhood attraction was there for a higher life. This summer I found a letter that I had written to my father from my first charge as a minister fifty years ago, telling him of a long letter from John, giving his plans for his lifework, asking about Drew Theological Seminary, and whether as a local preacher he could get a small church to help pay expenses. He entered Drew that October, 1879, remaining two years when he was called West to help support the family on account of the death of his father.

Portrait from 1896-1903 period, when Rev. Murray was rector of the Church of the Advent in Birmingham, AL.

It is well known what a successful businessman he was, both in Kansas and Alabama. He kept his connection with the Methodists until 1887, when he was confirmed in the Protestant Episcopal Church in Alabama.

When the call came in 1903 to become rector of St. Michael’s and All Angels’, Baltimore, he phoned me to come to the church and talk the matter over. He was in high spirits, for he had taken Mrs. Murray to "dear old Cony," as he called it, that he might show her the small house where he was born. He ought not have been disappointed that no one recognized the tall, handsome man as he walked through the town, but what an ovation they gave him in the store when they found out that he was John Gardner Murray!

This letter is not to call attention to the great churchman, but to tell of the influence of one boy upon another boy, the unconscious influence of a pure minded schoolmate that wrought for nobler living.

Frank Gibson Porter
Baltimore, Oct. 8, 1929

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

We open today's show with a look at ginseng’s place in Appalachia. Ginseng’s hold on our consciousness has been strong for a long long time. Its root is famed as being a cure for almost every sort of ill, and an antidote for every poison. Right now is the heart of plant’s harvesting season. The berry clusters have ripened. The leaves are yellowing. The roots are ready. But stay awhile. The best hunting is still to come, after the first hard frost.

We’ll pause in between things to catch up on a Calendar of Events in the region this week, with special attention paid to events that emphasize heritage and local color.

Halloween’s around the corner. What better time for a haint tale from east Tennessee? Jim Blevins, a school teacher in Clarktown, was no stranger to supernatural occurrences, so when strange things started happening in his cabin, he prepared for the worst. He got a surprise that was as embarrassing to him as it is amusing to us.

Eddie Crock and Joe Fisher, who owned establishments across the street from one another in Fulda, OH, spent a lot of time in each other’s place of business, visiting with each other and the customers. They got to having a morning eye opener each day until it got to be a must. This went on for years without missing a morning.
 They made a pledge with each other, that if one died the other would bring an eye opener and visit the grave. Joe died first, and Eddie made good on the promise, but with a twist.

Alabama is "updating its historical presence in the U.S. Capitol, swapping out a statue of a former congressman for a new bronze likeness of Helen Keller," the AP reports.

The Keller statue, unveiled October 7, 2009, is the first in the National Statuary Hall Collection depicting a person with a disability and the only one of a child. Showing Keller as a 7-year-old girl, it replaces one of Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry, a former Confederate officer, educator, ambassador and preacher who advocated for free universal education.

This year is the 229th anniversary of the Battle of King’s Mountain, a turning point in the Revolutionary War. Large thanks for the American victory in that engagement go to the Overmountain Men, whose patriotism had not been stimulated by any tax-gatherer — they had never seen one ; nor by any tax on tea — save the root of the sassafras, they drank none ; nor by any stamp duty — they knew no more of a stamp than they did of the King's signet ring. They rushed to the rescue of their country as a boy would fly to his mother, on a shriek of distress.

We’ll wrap things up with a look at the annual Plum Nelly Clothesline Art Show. Up until the early 1970s, if you found yourself surrounded by Lookout Mountain’s crisp autumn air, steaming apple cider and hot gingerbread, handmade dolls, working craftspeople and sawdust trails through the woods punctuated by the pottery of Charles Counts and the woodblock prints of Fannie Mennen, you had probably landed smack in the middle of it.
And, thanks to the good folks at the Digital Archive we'll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music by Ernest Phipps in a 1935 recording of “Don’t Grieve After Me.”

So, call your old blue-tick hound up on the porch, fire up your corn-cob pipe, and settle in for a dose of Appalachian History.

You could get the best refreshments in Fulda, OH at the Fisher Saloon. It was hopps fired brewed German beer, sparkling and crystal clear. Mrs. Frank Fisher grew the family's own hopps, fire cooked brewed the hopps, set them in a 10-gallon stone jar with sugar added, let it ferment for five days till worked off, then bottled, let set for five more days, then it was ready to drink. It was very good; people would come for miles to get a drink.

Frank came to this country as a single man. He married Margaret Hupp, and they built their home on Lot 7 in Fulda and raised 7 children there. Frank had learned the cobbler business from his father in Fulda, Germany. He ran the cobbler shop in the same room Margaret ran the saloon, so you could have a good drink while you got your shoes repaired or your harness or saddle repaired.

Fisher Saloon in Fulda, OH.

Eventually, Joseph Fisher took over the cobbler shop from his dad. Joseph was a bachelor. After his mother died he and Eddie Crock became great pals. Eddie and Rosey Crock bought the Ed Johanning home and store, which was directly across the street from the Fisher Saloon.

Eddie and Joe spent a lot of time in each other’s place of business, visiting with each other and the customers. They got to having a morning eye opener each day until it got to be a must. This went on for years without missing a morning.

They made a pledge with each other, that if one died the other would bring an eye opener and visit the grave. Joe died first and was buried in the 3rd addition to the cemetery, which was in sight of the church.

Each morning Eddie got up and poured two glasses of schnaps, one for Joe and one for himself. He would pick up Joe’s in his left hand and his in the right hand, tap them together and say “Here’s to you Joe,” then up and drink his, turn around and drink Joe’s.

He would then get his walking stick and along with old Shep, walk up past the church and down through the cemetery to Joe’s grave. He’d lean against Joe’s tombstone, take his left hand, open his fly and pee on the grass in front of the tombstone, and say “Here’s to you, Joe.” Then he’d rest a little bit and walk back home.

Eddie did this for several years each morning without fail.

Father Donaldson came to Fulda as the parish priest and noticed Eddie going by the church each morning at 8:00 AM prompt and that Eddie went to the same tombstone. One day when Eddie was going home, Father asked Eddie why he always went at exactly 8:00 AM and to the same tombstone. Eddie told him that was the grave of his pal Joseph Fisher, that he and Joe always had a morning eye opener for over 40 years, and that he was taking Joe’s down to him. Father said he never saw Eddie carrying an eye opener and it looked more like he was peeing on Joe instead. Eddie said he was just keeping his pledge to Joe, but he hadn't said he wouldn't run it through his kidneys first.


from Life of John Crock and Descendants, Born in 1811, Father of all Crocks in Ohio, by Leander Crock, publ. by Noble County University, Caldwell, OH, 1996 Online at http://bit.ly/qls9Z

Alabama is "updating its historical presence in the U.S. Capitol, swapping out a statue of a former congressman for a new bronze likeness of Helen Keller," the AP reports.

The Keller statue, unveiled yesterday, is the first in the National Statuary Hall Collection depicting a person with a disability and the only one of a child. Showing Keller as a 7-year-old girl, it replaces one of Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry, a former Confederate officer, educator, ambassador and preacher who advocated for free universal education.

Each state "has two statues in the Capitol as part of the Capitol collection, which was permanent until 1992, when Congress allowed for changes." The monument to Keller will permanently reside in the Main Hall of the new 580,000-square-foot Capitol Visitor's Center.

Below are the Speaker Nancy Pelosi's remarks at the unveiling:

"Members of House and Senate Leadership, Governor Riley, President Augusto and members of the Keller family: What a great day this is for America in the Capitol of the United States as we honor Helen Keller.

"Most people know about Helen Keller as a child - full of curiosity and wonder at the world that was opened to her. Today we recognize her as that child, but also as the woman she became: civic-minded, politically active, and a standard bearer for the great causes of her age and of ours.

"As Helen Keller said: 'My sympathies are with all who struggle for justice.' In her lifetime, Helen Keller worked for opportunity for people with disabilities, for racial equality, and for the rights of women.

"In demonstrating that passion that she had, Helen Keller, in this statue in the Capitol, will always remind us that people must be respected for what they can do, rather than judged for what they cannot. Helen Keller ignited a century marked by progress for people with disabilities. We have made progress rooted in our national ideal that we are all created equal.

"For more than 30 years, a free and appropriate education for all children with disabilities has been required. For almost 20 years, fundamental civil rights for people with disabilities have been assured by the Americans with Disabilities Act. For a generation, closed captioning for televisions and relay services have helped remove barriers to participation in society. Let me also thank our signers who are here today.

"And just last year - under the leadership of Majority Leader Hoyer and Congressman Sensenbrenner - Congress reasserted protections for anyone who faces discrimination on the basis of a disability.

"But more needs to be done. To honor Helen Keller's life, I know that our nation will continue its bipartisan commitment to ensuring full participation for people with disabilities in all aspects of our society.

"As science advances and technology opens new doors of opportunity, we must ensure that our laws keep pace with these new developments so their benefits are available to all people. We must remove all barriers to people with disabilities, so that they are able to exercise their right to vote, engage with public officials, run for office, and fully participate in the economic, social, and cultural opportunities that the Internet provides.

"In regard to these new opportunities, I am proud to tell you, in case you do not know, that soon the podium of the U.S. House of Representatives will be adjusted so persons with disabilities may preside over the proceedings of House of Representatives.

"I'll join my colleagues in quoting Mark Twain, who once wrote that 'Helen Keller is fellow to Caesar, Alexander, Napoleon, Homer, Shakespeare, and the rest of the immortals.' As Steny said: 'She will be as famous a thousand years from now as she is today.'

"Helen Keller's life is an example of determination and strength. Here, in this temple of our democracy, year after year, day after day, Helen Keller's statue will stand as a testament to her strength and to the American ideal of equality, which she promoted."

sources: www.cnbc.com/id/33210745
http://www.helenkellerfoundation.org/HK-statue.asp
http://senatus.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/alabama-unveils-helen-keller-statue

It is recorded that on the date agreed upon, every able-bodied gunman, with the exception of two, in that settlement, extending about one hundred miles either way, was there ready to march and ready to fight. Not only so, but the heart strings of many a wife had drawn her there, to bid the stay of the household again goodbye and again Godspeed, as he again went forth to battle. Many a mountain maiden was there, warned by a threatening danger to a brother, or to one dearer than a brother.

It was determined to take half the men, leaving half to defend the homes, but the mountains were on fire. It was decided that the old and young should go back home.

Still, too many crowded to go, and the military draft had to be resorted to. Black and white beans were placed in a gourd, and a little blindfolded girl drew a bean for each man, a black bean meant a draft, and the man that was drafted to stay at home. This is the only military draft, for war, in what is now Tennessee, and for this reason your only daughter— God bless her— is still called "TheVolunteer State."

John Sevier had two sons in that throng, Joseph, eighteen years of age, and James, two years younger. Joseph was to go with his father, and James to stay. But the mother, " Bonnie Kate," led the lad by the hand to his father, and, in words which would have honored a Spartan mother, told him her son's heart and her own would be broken, should he be left behind. The boy went, and — was buried on Kings Mountain. Twenty men could not be mounted, but they were allowed to go on foot.

Such things as commissaries, quartermasters, ordinance officers, were not known to these men, and, of course, not needed. Their patriotism had not been stimulated by any tax-gatherer — they had never seen one ; nor by any tax on tea — save the root of the sassafras, they drank none ; nor by any stamp duty — they knew no more of a stamp than they did of the King's signet ring. They rushed to the rescue of their country as a boy would fly to his mother, on a shriek of distress.

They started with a few cattle, which were soon abandoned in the woods, and what meat they used on the march was won by the rifle out of the woods. Their last act beside that babbling river, was to gather around the Saintly Doak, who, with hands outstretched to heaven, with all the fervor of Elijah on Mount Carmel, besought the blessing of The God of Battles upon that reverent host, and gave them, as their Amulet, the words, "The sword of the Lord and of Gideon."

Let me point my finger at those men as they file away, and show them to you. You will note that Sevier, like Ferguson, rides a white horse — always a mark of danger. They were mostly young men — hardly a leader among them as old as forty, sturdy of body — intent of mind. Some few had swords and pistols, all flint lock guns and hunting knives, on which you might usually see the imprint of the hammer. Behind the saddle was rolled a home-made blanket, of which many bed had been bereft, and around their shoulders hung strained haversacks.

The usual head covering was a coon skin, fashioned into a cap, with the tail, like a cue, hanging behind — bark-brown hunting shirt, ornamented with such fringes, as some woman devised, breeches of any kind or color of cloth, leather moccasins, buckskin leggings — all with shot pouches and powder. Occasionally an officer or a lucky man might be found with a Continental coat. Hunters in front and on flank deployed to capture any possible game, but the constant ration was parched corn, pounded into meal, sprinkled on water, and drunk from cup, gourd or crumpled leaf.

"The Battle of Kings Mountain." From a painting by F. C. Yohn.

I need not delay by telling how they climbed and went down the mountains by untraveled paths — how the two McDowell's, who had been among them, rejoined them on this side of the mountains, as did Cleveland, Williams, and others, with about six hundred more men, while they advanced in hot pursuit of Ferguson. The down east Whigs got news of the coming, and took courage.

Ferguson, constantly on the alert, got news of this "Coming of the Campbells" in reply to his letter, and, out of abundant caution, began to sidle towards Cornwallis. These men soon learned that their game was flushed, and all speed was to be made to prevent fortifications or escape.

Several dispatches to Cornwallis were captured, from which we knew that Ferguson was distrustful of the Tory part of his troops, and wanted Tarleton. The last dispatch was taken from a country young man named Ponder, from whom the location of Ferguson's camp was learned, and also his boast that "all the rebels out of hell could not drive him from it."

Following historical accounts, there is widespread opinion that this camp and battle were on Kings Mountain.


---excerpt from
KINGS MOUNTAIN AND ITS CAMPAIGN.
AN ADDRESS BY
Col. W. A. Henderson,
ON OCCASION OF THE
Unveiling of a Monument
to its Heroes
AT
Guilford Battleground,
July 4th, 1903.
Online at http://www.archive.org/stream/kingsmountainits00hend/kingsmountainits00hend_djvu.txt

Up until the early 1970s, if you found yourself surrounded by Lookout Mountain’s crisp autumn air, steaming apple cider and hot gingerbread, handmade dolls, working craftspeople and sawdust trails through the woods punctuated by the pottery of Charles Counts and the woodblock prints of Fannie Mennen, you had probably landed smack in the middle of the annual Plum Nelly Clothesline Art Show.

Trapunto Pillow (Plant) by Fannie Mennen.

Plum Nelly is not actually a town, but a sort of farm name. It is "Plum" out of Tennessee and "Nelly" out of Georgia. This two-acre crafts center in the New Salem community, located on a spur of Lookout Mountain, was owned by artist Fannie Mennen (1903-1995). And there she conducted her annual "clothes line" art show for 26 years starting in 1947.

The Chattanooga native did not consider herself an artist until after she had taught art in schools for many years. Stricken with polio in her first year of life, Fannie's childhood years in the early 20th century were marked by many doctor visits, surgeries and long convalesces. Despite her physical handicaps, Fannie studied music and art at Peabody College in Nashville, TN.

For many years she assumed that she herself was not an artist, but nonetheless recognized how she naturally inspired others to do artwork. For thirty years she taught art in Chattanooga, and on weekends she would retreat to her studio/home in Rising Fawn, GA. In the quiet of Plum Nelly Fannie would paint watercolor pictures of the wildlife around her.

One Christmas, she and a group of artist friends decided to make linoleum block-print holiday cards. Fascinated by the possibilities in printmaking, Fannie knew she had found her medium. For the rest of her working life she was a prolific printmaker, depicting scenes and sayings of the rural mountains. Working from a wheelchair most of the time, Fannie was known for her tireless commitment to her work and the arts community.

In 1947, on the second weekend in October, she invited local artists to hold an outdoor art show at her home. Called the Plum Nelly Clothesline Art Show, it attracted 300 visitors the first year, raising money for a local bookmobile. In the following years it became enormously successful, attracting as many as 16,000 people up the winding roads to the perilous bluff for the two-day, outdoor event. The arts and crafts represented were some of the finest in the region, and the Clothesline Art Show did much to develop the art community around Chattanooga. Georgia’s New Salem Mountain Festival continues this tradition annually every fall, and is now held at the New Salem Community Center.


source: www.carolinaarts.com/200folkart.html

It’s the heart of ginseng harvesting season. The berry clusters have ripened. The leaves are yellowing. The roots are ready. But stay awhile. The best hunting is still to come, after the first hard frost.

But don’t wait too long. Because of wild ginseng’s endangered status, the U.S.Fish and Wildlife Service has mandated that states allowing its export have protective regulations in place. Consequently, most states have adopted a late-summer through early-fall ginseng hunting season.

"I remember digging ginseng when I was six years old. I've always seen it as a big equalizer for people from Appalachia," says Fred Hays of Elkview, WV, spokesman for the West Virginia Ginseng Growers Association, noting that the harvest surges when unemployment is high or the region's coal miners are on strike and ginseng becomes an alternative income for many. Drought has taken a toll this year, deer have eaten the leaves, turkeys eat the seeds, and rodents go after the root itself. But the harvest makes it worthwhile. Full article here.

Notice the link above takes you not to the Charleston Gazette or the Dominion Post in Morgantown, but to Reuters UK! The British typify a widespread attitude beyond America’s borders, which is that, while ginseng can be found in many parts of the continent besides Appalachia---Panax quinquefolius' range includes the eastern half of North America, from Quebec to Minnesota and south to Georgia and Oklahoma---ginseng and Appalachia are seen to simply go hand in hand.

Ginseng’s hold on our consciousness has been strong for a long long time. Alice Lounsberry’s comments from "Southern Wildflowers and Trees," published in 1901, capture the gist of it well: "Its true value lies, as we know, in its curious rootstock, long famed as being a cure for almost every sort of ill, and an antidote for every poison. Even the word panacea is believed by many to have been derived from its generic name. In China, where it has been largely cultivated and also exported from that country in immense quantities, it is still regarded as being possessed of properties more powerfully stimulating to the human system than those of any other drug."

So if it’s such a wonder drug, and the Chinese are cultivating it, why hasn’t it simply taken its place in our country as a Big Agriculture cash crop, next to soybeans or tobacco?

“You can cultivate that stuff,” says Lake Stiles in Foxfire 3, “and it won’t bring you half as much as wild ginseng. If it’s cultivated, it makes a great big root. If it’s wild, it’s just a small root. But you can’t get by with cultivated sang with a [ginseng dealer] who knows what he’s doing.”

Wild ginseng favors mature hardwood stands where the terrain is sloping to the north and east. Panax quinquefolium loves a moist but well-drained and thick litter layer with more than just a tad of undergrowth. You will find yourself looking at a lot of other species of plants for the prize. A young hickory or Virginia creeper will confuse the beginner.

So: it’s highly sought, it’s an endangered species, its hunting season is fairly narrow, it's easily confused with other plants, and you have to look in very particular areas on a mountain or in a holler. Should be enough to keep British reporters intrigued for years to come.


sources: http://forestry.about.com/od/alternativeforest/ss/panax_ginseng_4.htm
http://uk.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUKN2836786520071001
Foxfire 3 (Anchor Press/Doubleday, Garden City, NY 1973) p. 254


Ginseng West+Virginia+Ginseng+Growers+Association Panax+quinquefolius appalachia +appalachia+history appalachian+culture appalachian+mountains+history

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

We open today's show with an excerpt from the journal of Daniel Trabue. In his youth Trabue (1760-1840) served as a Virginia soldier in the Revolutionary War. We’ll follow him through the Cumberland Gap tracking Indians as part of an expeditionary group authorized by the Virginia legislature; he admits he wasn’t always as fearless as a soldier was expected to be.

We’ll pause in between things to catch up on a Calendar of Events in the region this week, with special attention paid to events that emphasize heritage and local color.

Next we’ll trace the career of Ida Cox, a pioneering blues singer who, along with Gertrude "Ma" Rainey and Bessie Smith, founded the female blues genre. As Smith and Rainey achieved success and popularity, Cox’ record company countered by promoting her as the "Uncrowned Queen of the Blues.”

In the belly and guts of the Depression, Elmer Mullenax never succumbed to the great temptation to which so many did succumb—jump off a skyscraper, blow your brains out with a shotgun, or just go to bed and never get up, become an invalid, first through fear and then complete physical collapse.
His son Foster tells us how his parents reacted when the family’s West Virginia lumber business went bankrupt.

Anderson, SC was the first city in the United States to have a continuous supply of electric power and the first in the world to create a cotton gin operated by electricity. 

William C. Whitner, a native of Anderson, was largely the man responsible for the place becoming known as “The Electric City.”

Though few Civil War battles were fought there, Southwestern Virginia was critically important to the Confederacy. One reason was the salt works in Saltville, which provided the Confederacy's main source of salt, used as a preservative for army rations. 

Two battles took place there in an effort to control the works.

We’ll wrap things up with a look at Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924), who left an indelible mark on children's literature. Her writing provided a path to the secret garden in all of us that is often lost in adulthood. But her own childhood was far from idyllic. Her family was hurled from upper middle class comfort in Manchester, England to hard scrabble poverty in New Market, TN. Her rise from there was nothing short of amazing.

And, thanks to the good folks at the Digital Library of Appalachia we'll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music by Arthur Kuykendall in a 1965 recording of the classic “Ain’t Gonna Rain No More.”

So, call your old blue-tick hound up on the porch, fire up your corn-cob pipe, and settle in for a dose of Appalachian History.

"Over the dam," some would have said; others would say "Mark it up to experience"; and those persons with much greater financial means than Elmer might have said "Just write it off for tax purposes." Yet, in the belly and guts of the Depression, he never succumbed to the great temptation to which so many did succumb—jump off a skyscraper, blow your brains out with a shotgun, or just go to bed and never get up, become an invalid, first through fear and then complete physical collapse.

Had Elmer been living in the city when Keystone Lumber bellied up, he might have entertained an alternative to trying like hell all over again. He knew all too well that the old adage---that lightning never strikes twice in the same place---was not necessarily true. It could happen again.

Roosevelt was his hope for the future, and somehow, some day, he would clear the debt to the sawyer, and he would be able to struggle along with what he owed the banks. He told Sylvia, "Hell, if I give up now, that's it, we're through, never have a damned thing. At the rate things are goin' now we won't even be able to make the farm payment, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna sit down and pity myself."

"I don't know, Elmer, things look pretty bad, and as long as we owe Mr. Stalnaker we can't have anything," Sylvia remarked as they lay in bed in the dark contemplating the here and now, and worrying about the prospects for the future.

"Well, if I don't get paid, he can't get paid."

"He can sue you to get it," said Sylvia, propping herself up on her right elbow above her wide-awake man.

"Sue and be damned," Elmer stormed, irritated at the thought, for he was pretty sure that this is what would happen, and soon. "Let him go ahead and sue. Fact is, he's already said he's going to. But what can he get? Not an earthly thing. We don't own anything, not a damned thing he can touch, and I've already told him that."

"You've talked to him about it?"

"Sure, I've talked to him about it," Elmer said fiercely. "I went down to his house there on Quality Hill, back up there on Second Quality; they have a real nice house up there. I talked to him a long time, and he’s a reasonable man; he’s not mad or anything, but he needs his money."

"He knows you don't have any money, doesn't he?" Sylvia asked.

"Oh sure he knows, but he owes Herman Lambert's grocery store, and he owes Minear's Hardware store and Bell Swisher's service station, he told me, and he has borrowed some money at the First National Bank. So, I know he's gonna have to sue me to try to get what I owe him, because the people he owes will be pushin' him to get their money."

"Elmer, we'll never be able to have anything. I can see it right now. Never."


from Sugarlands, by Foster Mullenax, McClain Printing, Parsons WV, 2001

Mullenax (1927-2005) was born and raised in Sugarlands, WV. Sugarlands is a biographical novel of his parents Elmer Jackson Mullenax and Sylvia Catherine Knotts Mullenax.

Though few Civil War battles were fought there, Southwestern Virginia was critically important to the Confederacy. One reason was the salt works in Saltville, which provided the Confederacy's main source of salt, used as a preservative for army rations.

Two battles took place in an effort to control the works. In the first, on October 2, 1864, Brig. Gen. Stephen G. Burbridge's Union cavalry column struck, but was defeated by Southern forces patched together from several reserve units, commanded by Brig. Gen. John Echols & Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge. However, Union General George Stoneman's troops overwhelmed the town on December 20, and this time managed to destroy the saltworks.

Interior of Saltworks at Saltville, VA, 1864-5.

In its coverage of the battles, Harper's Weekly provided an interesting side bar discussing how salt was produced:

The salt manufactured here is of the very best quality. The works have been deemed so important by the rebels that a Richmond paper lately declared the loss of Savannah an inferior consideration.

"The valley at the head of which Saltville stands," says Porte Crayon [onsite sketch artist for the newspaper], "contains several hundred acres of rich meadow. It is surrounded by a chain of conical hills, from 500 to 800 feet in height, so regularly formed that, but for their extent, they might be mistaken for artificial mounds.

"At the distance of 230 feet below the surface is a bed of fossil salt. The salt is procured by sinking beds to the depth of the salt bed, when the water rises within 46 feet of the surface, and is raised from thence by pumps into large tanks, or reservoirs, elevated a convenient distance above the surface. The brine thus procured is a saturated solution, and for every hundred gallons yields twenty-two gallons of pure salt.

"The process of manufacturing it is very simple. An arched furnace is constructed, probably 150 feet in length, with the doors at one end and the chimney at the other. Two rows of heavy iron kettles, shaped like shallow bowls, are built into the top of the furnace. Large wooden pipes convey the brine from the tanks to these kettles, where the water is evaporated by boiling, while the salt crystallizes and is precipitated.

"During the operation a white saline vapor rises from the boilers, the inhalation of which is said to cure diseases of the lungs and throat. At regular intervals an attendant goes round and with a mammoth ladle dips out the salt, chucking it into loosely woven split baskets, which are placed in pairs over the boilers. Here it drains and drips until the dipper has gone his round with the ladle.

"It is then thrown into the salt-shells, immense magazines on either side of the furnaces. The salt thus manufactured is of the purest quality, white and beautiful as the driven snow. Indeed, on seeing the men at work in the magazines, with pick and shovel, a novice would swear they were working in a snow-bank: while the pipes and reservoirs, which at every leak become coated over with snowy concretions, sparkling like hoar-frost and icicles in the sun, serve to confirm the wintry illusion.

"To avoid land-carriage the brine is piped to the banks of the Holston, and manufactured on the spot. The salt is packed in barrels and is carried Westward down the river, or Eastward on the railroad. An immense coopering establishment is the characteristic adjunct of the lower salt-works."


sources: Harper's Weekly, January 14, 1865; online at www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1865/january/making-salt.htm
www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=2339

But, strange as it seemed to him, there were minutes -- sometimes half-hours -- when, without his knowing why, the black burden seemed to lift itself again and he knew he was a living man and not a dead one. Slowly -- slowly -- for no reason that he knew of -- he was "coming alive" with the garden.
---The Secret Garden

Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924) left an indelible mark on children's literature, providing a path to the secret garden in all of us that is often lost in adulthood. But her own childhood was far from idyllic. Frances' widowed mother Eliza moved with her five children from England to Knoxville, TN in 1865 where her brother had earlier moved and was struggling to keep a dry goods store going. He next moved Eliza and the children to New Market, where he had a cabin.

This was a dramatic shift for the Hodgson family. Frances had been born in Cheetham Hill, outside of Manchester. In late 1849 Manchester was a thriving textile center fueled by the success of the cotton mills. Edwin and Eliza Hodgson had a successful home furnishings business, providing customers with such products as chandeliers, ironwork, and brass door fittings.

But it all changed dramatically in 1854 when Edwin died at age 38 of a stroke. Eliza tried to keep the business going but the start of the Civil War in the United States affected cotton imports and the textile industry experienced a tremendous rate of unemployment.

And so the Hodgsons were hurled from upper middle class comfort in Manchester to hard scrabble poverty in New Market, now often going to bed hungry. And yet the move from industrial England to rural America was for young Frances a journey to the green, natural world that would become a central theme in many of her later works, including 'The Secret Garden.'

The move would also prove instrumental in Frances' development as a writer. Although she had always been obsessed with storytelling and often amused her schoolmates by acting out tales of adventure and romance, the financial strain of the emigration caused her to turn to writing as a means of supplementing the family's income.

The Hodgson's neighbors were Dr. John and Lydia Burnett and their son Swan, whose great-grandfather was Adam Peck, the earliest settler of what would become Jefferson City. Frances and Swan would spend much time together and would begin a relationship that would lead to marriage in 1873.

Frances Burnett's first published story, "Miss Carruthers' Engagement," appeared in a magazine called Godey's Lady's Book in 1868. Her paper and postage-stamps for the venture had to be earned by picking and selling wild grapes. She began to write five or six stories each month, for $10 apiece and supported her family by writing. As stories began to be published in Harper's, Atlantic, Scribner's Monthly, and Peterson's Ladies' Magazine, she earned enough money to move her family back to Knoxville in 1869.

After the death of her mother in 1872, the family became increasingly dependent on Frances' writing income. She accelerated her career as a popular writer. Swan, whom she married the following year, was preparing to specialize in the treatment of the eye and ear. He wished to further his specialty by studying in Europe, and Frances financed his wish, once again becoming responsible for the bulk of her family's income. After the birth of their first son Lionel on September 20, 1874 in Knoxville, they left Tennessee, never to return.

Over the course of her life, Burnett wrote more than forty books, for both adults and children. While her adult novels are considered to be quite sentimental, her children's books have withstood the fickleness of literary fashions. 'The Secret Garden,' the story of how Mary Lennox and her friends find independence as they tend their garden, has been described as one of the most satisfying children's books ever written.


Sources: http://library.cn.edu/speccoll/burnett.html
http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/secret_garden.html
http://www.tickledorange.com/FHB/Biography.html

The same Fall or beginning of Winter Col. G. Rogers Clark from Hanover was Fixing for a Campaighn to go down the Ohia to the Falls. The Virginia Legislator had authorized him to raise an army and go westward, and my Oldest brother—to wit, James Trabue---agreed with him to inlist some men and go with him as Lieut.

I agreed to go with him. I got well and hearty and in the last of January or February 1778 we set out for our Jurney. The most of the men that had enlisted with my brother had gone on to kentucky before christmas.

Their was only 7 of us and a negro boy went throug the wilderness together in March 1778. We all had good rifles and good Ammonition. On Holston we took provision for our Jurney. We understood a little provision would Do as we could kill a plenty on the way. We entered the wilderness in high spirits.

I was truly Delighted in seeing the mountains, Rivers, hills, etc., spruce, pine, Laurril, etc. Every thing looked new to me. Traveling along in Powls Valley where the Indians had broak up some people, seeing wast Desolate Cabbins I began to feel strange.

We went on our Jurney and came in sight of the noted place called Cumberland Gap. We encamped all night (yet we was 3 or 4 Mile off) in a wast Cabin, and it was a Rainey blustry night. When Morning came the weather was clear, and after we ate our breackfast a little after sunrise we persued on our Jurney.

When we got near to the Gap at a lorril branch where the indean war road comes in the Kentucky road (this Indian Road Crosses the Gap at this place from the Cherekeys to the shoney town). And at this branch where the Indian road comes in we saw fresh Indian tracks.

James Trabue ordered us every one to alight, prime our Guns afresh, and pick our flints if they needed it, and put 2 bullits in each man’s mouth. And if we could come up with the Indians we must fight our best. The Indians’ track was fresh and was Just gone the way we was going.

James Trabue and one other man went on foot about 100 yards ahead. And our orders was if they Discoved the Indians they would Jump one side behind trees. And when we saw that we must all Dismount and run up to fight, and the negro boy must stay and mind the horses.

We had one man with us that was named Lucust. He said he wishd he could come up with the Indians. He wanted so bad to have the chance of killing them. He said he knew he could kill 5 him self. He Could shoot. He could Tomerhack and make use of his bucher knife and slay them.

We still persued the Indians. Their track was plain in places and after we got through the gap going Down the mountain the Indian tracks was still their. It looked like I was going out of the world.

When we got Down the mountain my brother called on me and a nother man to go before and told us to go fast. We walked very fast and some times run. When I was on before I could have a plain view of their Tracks, and in one place where the Indians crossed a mirery branch I saw 3 Trails. I then supposed that their was many Indians as they was apt to step in one another’s tracks.

When I was returnd from going before and others in our places, I told my brother about the 3 Trails and told him my fear about the quanity of Indians. He said he had paid particular attention to the sighn and he Did not think their was more Indians than white men. He said we all had good guns and good powder and we could beat them if we could git the first fire, unless they was Greatly over our number and he Did not think they was.

And he said the main thing was to have a good resolution.

I was Giting very fraid we would be Defeeted, and as we went on I talked some with Lucust, again. He still talked the same way of killing several of them. I for my part began to feel chikinhearted. I was afraid I should be killed in this Drary howling Wilderness but I never mentioned it to any one. I thought if we come in contact with the Indians I would keep behind or in the reare, but I thought that would not Do as I might be called a coward. I thought, "I wish I could have courage like Lucust. I would be glad."

Mr. Lucaust was my main Dependence and a poor Dependence he was. I then wished I was back in Old Virginia.


Westward Into Kentucky: The Narrative of Daniel Trabue, by Daniel Trabue, Chester Raymond Young, Univ of Ky, 1981

In his youth Daniel Trabue (1760-1840) served as a Virginia soldier in the Revolutionary War. He recorded this narrative in 1827, in the town of Columbia, KY of which he was a founder.

Anderson, SC was the first city in the United States to have a continuous supply of electric power and the first in the world to create a cotton gin operated by electricity.

William C. Whitner, a native of Anderson, was largely the man responsible for the place becoming known as “The Electric City.” Born on September 22, 1864, he attended and graduated from the University of South Carolina with a plan to become a lawyer. After his father talked him out of that career, Whitner went back to USC and worked as an assistant to a mathematics professor while studying civil engineering. He graduated from USC for the second time in 1885.

Whitner’s early work was in railroad engineering, but a severe case of typhoid fever forced him into a long convalescence in his father's home. While there the town of Anderson hired the 26 year old to build a water works systems and an electric plant. In 1890 he completed a steam-driven electric plant. It turned out to be too expensive.

Whitner conceived the idea of generating alternating current electricity using turbulent river water. For advice he went to New York to see Nicholas Tesla, the great Serbian scientist who had perfected the alternating current motor. A turf war was in progress between Thomas Edison, an advocate of direct current, and Tesla, an alternating current advocate.

George Westinghouse, another associate of Whitner's, supported AC from the sidelines - and later became the big winner in the deal.

Whitner returned to Anderson in 1894 and leased a plant, in McFall's grist and flour mill at High Shoals on the Rocky River 6 miles east of town, for his newly formed Anderson Water, Light & Power Company. There he installed an experimental 5,000 volt alternating current generator to attempt to generate and transmit electric power to the water system pumps at Anderson’s Tribble Street power and water yard.

It worked, and ended up supplying enough power to light the city and also to operate several small industries in Anderson. The Charleston News and Courier promptly dubbed Anderson "The Electric City."

In 1897 Whitner’s initial success drew the attention of financial backers, which allowed him to replace the experimental plant with a 10,000 volt generating station at Portman Shoals, 11 miles west of town on the Seneca River. When it was placed in service on November 1, the Portman Shoals Power Plant was the first hydroelectric facility to generate high voltage power without step-up transformers in the nation and perhaps in the world.

These Stanley Electric Company built generators served not only the Anderson water system, the city street lights, other commercial interests and private homes, but more importantly, Anderson Cotton Mill, the first cotton mill in the South to be operated by electricity transmitted over long distance lines.

This bronze sculpture of Whitner by Greenville, SC artist Zan Wells was unveiled in downtown Anderson on October 12, 2004.

The Portman Shoals power plant was the start of what became Duke Power (now Duke Energy), one of the largest energy companies in the country.

Thomas Edison and General Electric had refused to wind a motor for high voltage alternating current, but Whitner proved Tesla to be correct. Building upon his early success in Anderson, William Church Whitner developed hydroelectric power generating stations for a number of communities throughout the South, including Columbus, Griffin, and Elberton, GA.

Today, Whitner is remembered in several places of distinction in downtown Anderson, including a statue in front of the Anderson County Courthouse and a street named in his honor. Also, at the corner of McDuffie and Whitner Streets sits Generator Park. On the grounds of this 10,000 square-foot park stands the century-old generator that was operated by Whitner at the Portman Power Plant.


sources: www.sc.edu/library/socar/uscs/cc/08sprSUPP.pdf
www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=10697
www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~scyork/LouisePettus/indiah.htm
www.downtownanderson.com/downtown-guide.pdf

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

We open today's show with an oral history from one William T. Brown of Burke’s Garden, VA. He’s the first to admit that he was never much of a student, but as you’ll hear from his detailed verbal chart of who married whom, and who begat whom, he’s very much a scholar of social relationships in Burke’s Garden.

We’ll pause in between things to catch up on a Calendar of Events in the region this week, with special attention paid to events that emphasize heritage and local color.

It was born from a foreclosed company, and in the end had so little value as a railroad that it was simply abandoned rather than sold. Georgia’s Tallulah Falls Railway owners had a grand plan to connect to various other southeastern lines, but that plan was never implemented. Let’s take a look at what happened along the way.

Next, we’ll review “Spruce Pine,” the latest in Arcadia Publishing’s ongoing ‘Images of America’ monographs on small towns across America. It’s fitting that the book will release here in the US market on Sept 28. Locals of this western North Carolina community may appreciate that the book’s appearance coincides with the anniversary of the two week trek of the Overmountain Men, who made their way from Virginia and across the Blue Ridge during the Revolutionary War, passing through the area en route to the famous King’s Mountain battle of October 7, one of the turning points of that war in the southern theatre.

Have you ever seen a bread sponge? Christina Grueser saw plenty of them while growing up in Pomeroy, OH. “It was a foamy looking mess of stuff,” she tells us in this oral history. “But you had to keep it warm because cold will kill yeast no matter whether you make a sponge or just bake as people do now. Well, whether anybody else was warm or not, that sponge had to be. Because if it wasn't you didn't have any bread.”

Yes, Nashville has the Grand Ole Opry and the big name recording artists. But Bristol, the town that straddles the Tennessee/Virginia border, stakes its claim as the birthplace of country music. Victor Talking Machine Co. was the first record producer to catch wind of the (to them!) fledging "hillbilly" music scene (it wasn’t called country music in the 1920s). Come peek over producer Ralph Peer’s shoulder and see what he was up to in the summer of 1927.

We’ll wrap things up with a 1912 newspaper report that alludes to the famous Hatfield and McCoy feud. Dr. Edwin O. Thornhill at the time was a respected physician and businessman in Mullens, WV, and apparently wasn’t cowed by much. But he made the mistake of crossing Willis Hatfield, eldest son of “Devil Anse” Hatfield, and it cost him his life.

And, thanks to the good folks at the Digital Archive we'll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music by Ernest Stoneman and the Sweet Brothers in a 1928 recording of “I Got a Bulldog.”

So, call your old blue-tick hound up on the porch, fire up your corn-cob pipe, and settle in for a dose of Appalachian History.

"Uncle George Wynn did all the thrashing on the east side of the road that goes through Burke's Garden, north and south. John D. Greever did all the thrashing of wheat on the west side of this road. You know the biggest population was on the east side of that road, all the big families there. The Repass's, Alfred Repass. Grubbs, lots of Kitts, the Kitts, they kind of moved out and then the big bunch of Lamberts came in there, like a drove of sheep pretty near.

"Course Pierce Lambert, some of those Lamberts spelled their name different than others, some Lampert, and some Lambert. All the same I think, they all came from over around Bland. Now Uncle George Wynn he had some daughters that married into the Neel family. I think there was two of them, one married a Bud Heldreth, and one married Tiden H. Short. He had 4 boys.

"Morgan Wynn, Uncle George's oldest son, see Uncle George was married twice. First he was married to a Rhudy, John Rhudy's sister. Then next he married a Henry, Mag Henry, she had a daughter who married a Helmadollar out at Tazewell and then she had a son Will Henry who died in World War I. He is buried down there where my little brother Hubert is buried. So is his mother Mag Henry Wynn. Down next to where the Hoges are buried.

Postcard view of the road through the gap to Burke’s Garden, about 1915. Title continues: ... 'The road today is twice as wide and the bank twice as high.' Courtesy of Louise Leslie.

"This Morgan Wynn when he got married to the old lady Aunt Mag, she was pretty mean to those boys and they all left. Morgan joined the Army and he stayed years and years, until he was pert-in-near dead and they sent him home. He went down to ole Tiden Short's to see Maggie, Mag to live with his sister. He was crazy about buttermilk, and he was sick, they had churned and he drank so much buttermilk that he died, maybe from too much pressure on his heart.

"Levi Wynn, was I guess next and he was a holy roller preacher out there at Tazewell, I mean at Bluefield, Virginia. He was a singing master, too, in Burke's Garden. He used to do a lot of singing there in Burke's Garden. We all sang there. We lived near Laurence Felty's near an old woodshed. Do you know where the old wood shed is? We had it first we sold it to Hoback, then Mr. Gose bought it. Do you know at one time Mr. John Gose owned more property in Burke's Garden then any other man?

"Aunt Belle was there, we called them 'aunt' but they were not, just Aunt Letti, Uncle Fed's wife that was really our aunt. There was three of those girls, Aunt Belle stayed there all the time and Aunt Org married a Foglesong and they had land over in the east end over by Horse Snaps.

"We lived over there where Snaps owned that place in the east end at one time across the hill from Uncle Morg Wynne, from where Betty Meek lived. At that time it belonged to Mr. John Fox, Uncle Frank's daddy. One time Mr. John Fox put a bunch of oats in and they craddled it, and shucked it. Morgan and George were doing the tying. They always worked together, the four of them. After Uncle Pete Fox left there course Mr. John Fox was never satisfied there.

"They went down to Christiansburg and I guess they died and didn't get the place paid for. My dad always said that Uncle Fed Wynn always had the poorest place there was in Burke's Garden. They had so much pea gravel on the place. See my dad used to work for Uncle Fed Wynn when he had the sawmill. See Uncle Fed would go out and cut the trees down, bring in the logs and saw the logs, then build the building!

"He did it all, Uncle Fed Wynn. My dad used to work on the Fed Wynn place and it was the poorest place. He (Fed Wynn) bought the place from Mr. Pat Davis (William Patterson Davis). That's Leon Davis and Add Davis's daddy. So, Tyler Boling used to live---the road used to come through there where Harvey Dillo---and turned and went down and turned the corner by Davis's place where Mr. Mckenna lives now and over by Mr. Rush Moss's place and come out at the corner down there where Mr. Sam Meredith lives. Now we used to live right across the road from Sam Meredith. East of Sam's. There used to be a big wild cherry tree there. At one time there was a circus at Little Creek and they drove them back over the mountain to take them back and elephants and giraffes had no problem and ate the cherries/leaves.

Margaret Greever, born 1879, second from left, being photographed with sisters or friends at the Greever homeplace in Burke’s Garden June 28, 1899. Albert S. Greever may be the photographer under the hood. Courtesy of Edgar Greever.

"That saw mill that Grandpa Wynn bought was brought over there with 6 yoke of oxen, I mean 6 head of oxen, three yokes to pull that saw mill over there. Had to bring a stationary engine. Over the old road where Mary Lou Volun's place now it belongs to Dupont, in that field over there where it joins Bent Moss's place on the side, used to be a big chestnut orchard there. You can still see the old road that used to go up there. We used to live on the corner there.

"I used to catch rides to town on horseback at that corner from Uncle Pete and Mr. Fox and they used to pick me up. I had a blue serge suit, I was in school then, not really in it, but went and they used to pick me up take me to the store with them.

"Those Foxes liked to brag on their stuff, I was great at that and I always liked old people anyway. That was always my delight if I got with old people, I love it. Old Mr. Steve Mahood, the old fellow that lived right down there over by the Snap's silo in the east end, there. Mr. Steve Mahood lived there. He raised a boy, they raised a boy by them, I think he was related to Aunt Ann, I think his name was Crismond. I know his name was Crismond, Doc Chrismond. Old Mr. Steve Mahood, they raised him. He got to be a railroad man and married old man Grubb's daughter, Nannie Grubb. They went to school the same time Dr. Shawver went to school in Burke's Garden. Nannie Grubb, Carl Grubb and Kate Fox."


Bill Brown
January 23, 1981

Edited transcript from an audio tape made by William T. Brown of Burke's Garden, VA. Brown was born there November 21, 1902, lived there until 1917 with his family, and went back to live there at a later date.

source: www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~vatazewe/Burke.htm

New Victim Falls by Hatfield Pistol
Charleston, WV: Jan 1—

Dr. Edwin O. Thornhill, aged 35, a well-known physician and business man of the southern section of West Virginia, was shot dead today in a drug store at Mullens by Willis Hatfield, son of the noted feudist, "Devil Anse" Hatfield.

The physician was attending an injured person when the shooting occurred. Hatfield, it is said, asked Dr. Thornhill to issue a prescription for a pint of whiskey. The doctor refused, and when Hatfield used abusive language the physician slapped him.

Hatfield, it is alleged, immediately drew a revolver and fired two bullets into Dr. Thornhill’s body. Stepping close, Hatfield fired two more shots, each taking effect in the head of the prostrate man.

Hatfield then ran from the drug store, but was captured in a few minutes by persons who witnessed the shooting. Fearing that he would be lynched, Hatfield pleaded with the officers to protect him, and he was taken to Pineville, the county seat, where Deputy Sheriffs tonight are guarding the frail prison.


source: NY Times, Jan 12, 1912, online at http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9801E0DA163CE633A25751C0A9679C946396D6CF