Appalachian History

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

Right up till the early years of the 20th century, a bite from a rabid animal could strike terror in the hearts of Appalachian residents. Rabies slowly destroys the nervous system. It finally attacks the spinal cord and its victim may froth at the mouth, scream and fight. Before Louis Pasteur developed a successful vaccination in 1885, death from rabies was a forgone conclusion, unless a madstone could be obtained. This trusted folk medicine gets its name from the delirious behavior caused by hydrophobia, a condition produced by the rabies virus.

"The mad-stone? People believe it will cure snakebites and hydrophobia," hunter Ben Lester told the authors of 'The Heart of the Alleghanies' in 1883. "Here's one. It was found in the paunch of a white deer I shot this fall was a year ago; and, mind you, the deer with a mad-stone in him is twice as hard to kill as one of ordinary kind. Five bullets were put in the buck that carried this one."

Ben Lester's madstone, "smooth and red, as large as a man's thumb, and with one flat, white side," was technically a calculus, a stone-like object sometimes found in the stomach of animals who chew their cud.

According to beliefs surrounding this folk medicine, a madstone from a brown deer will work in a bind if another cannot be found. A better grade of madstone comes from a white or spotted deer. The very best madstone comes from an albino or witch deer.

To treat someone bitten by a rabid animal you'd boil the madstone in sweet milk and then, while it was still hot, apply the stone to the wound, states Douglas Mahnkey in 'Hill and Holler Stories.'

"If the dog was actually mad, the stone stuck to the wound and would draw the 'pizen' out," he continues. "Once the stone was filled with the poison it would drop off, and it was again boiled in sweet milk and applied to the wound. The milk would turn green. This process was repeated until the stone no longer adhered to the wound."

Madstones have always been greatly prized by anyone fortunate enough to come into possession of one, and would be handed down in the same family for generations. Before Pasteur's immunization came to North Carolina in 1915, some owners charged up to $100 for lending a madstone, or required a $1,000 bond to guarantee its return.

And in North Georgia "Faith Cochran advertised his madstone every week in the county paper. People came from as far away as Alabama to be treated," according to Floyd C. Watkins and Charles Hubert Watkins in 'Yesterday in the Hills,' a portrait of farm life in Cherokee County at the turn of the twentieth century.

The Mad Stones of Vacherie [LA] featured in "Dixie Roto Magazine" June 19, 1949. The NC Museum of History has a madstone in its collection (no photo available, sorry!) whose catalog description reads: "Light brown trapezoidal stone; 'R.L. Steel/1829' scratched into 1 end of stone; '809' scratched into other end; small black leather pouch."

"It looked like a worn creek rock about the size of a partridge egg with a chip broken off one end. Faith dipped the stone in milk and stuck it to the wound. After it had sucked out the poison, it dropped off the wound."

Worn creek rock? What happened to white deer calculi? Dr. Thomas M. Owen, Director of the Department of Archives and History of the State of Alabama, in a letter dated September 22, 1917, wrote:

"Some of these stones are reputed to have been taken from the stomach of a deer, but they were in fact nothing more than native rock, worn smooth, and which, because of their porosity, were capable when heated of drawing out or absorbing liquids."

We know today that rabies is caused by a virus that is usually spread through contact with an infected animal's saliva. Whether madstones were made from deer stomach calculi or rock, was their ability to absorb quickly and efficiently the real issue, was it a chemical reaction (the tight bonding of the madstone to the wound and the milk), or some combination of both?


sources: www.nchealthandhealing.com/topic/33/
http://thelibrary.org/faq/files/momadstone.cfm
www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~okmurray/stories/mad_stone.htm
www.smokymountainnews.com/issues/02_06/02_01_06/mtn_voices.html
www.folkmed.ucla.edu/FMDetail.cfm?UID=22_4353
"Yesterday in the Hills," by Floyd C. Watkins, Charles Hubert Watkins, Quadrangle Books, 1963
"The Heart of the Alleghanies, or Western North Carolina," by Floyd C. Watkins, Calvin S. Brown, A. Williams & Co., 1883
"Hill and Holler Stories," by Douglas Mahnkey, S of D Press, School of the Ozarks, 1975



appalachian+folk+medicine madstones rabies Louis+Pasteur appalachia appalachian+history history+of+appalachia

The North Carolina historical marker skirts the issue diplomatically: there’s much more to the story of how Felix Walker ‘gave new meaning to the word’ than the sign is letting on.

The verb debunk means to expose or ridicule the falseness or hollowness of a myth, idea or belief. It is made up of the prefix 'de-', meaning to remove, and the word 'bunk'.

On February 25, 1820, the Missouri Question, whether Missouri should be admitted to the Union as a slave or free state, was being hotly debated in Congress. Near the end of the debate and amidst calls from the floor to have a vote, Felix Walker, representative from Buncombe County, NC, rose to speak. And speak. Did I mention that Felix Walker spoke?

When asked by other members to desist, he replied that he was bound ‘to make a speech for Buncombe,’ and continued to hold forth.

Walker was elected as a Republican to the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Congresses, serving from 1817 to 1823. One can only wonder if his long-windedness got him hounded out of North Carolina, for he moved to Mississippi in 1824.

But he left in his wake a masterful symbol for empty talk that could not be ignored by the speakers of the language, and buncombe, actually spelled bunkum in its first recorded appearance in 1828 in "Niles' Weekly Register," must have been widely used. Bunkum, noted that journal, was said to be a 'very useful and expressive word, which is now as well understood as any in our language.' And "The Wilimington Commercial" referred in 1849 to 'the Buncombe politicians --- those who go for re-election merely.'

In George Ade's 1900 book "More Fables in Slang" the –um ending has been dropped: "he surmised that the Bunk was about to be handed to him.'

The term debunk originated in a 1923 novel "Bunk," by American novelist William Woodward (1874–1950), who used it to mean to take the bunk out of things. And H. L. Mencken, the sage of Baltimore and a connoisseur of the American language, entitled one of his books "A Carnival of Buncombe."


sources: www.ncmarkers.com/Results.aspx?k=Search&ct=btn
www.lib.unc.edu/ncc/ref/nchistory/feb2004/feb.html
Safire's Political Dictionary, by William Safire, Random House, 1978
Word Myths, by David Wilton, Ivan Brunetti, Oxford University Press US, 2004



Felix+Walker Bunscombe+County+NC appalachia history+of+appalachia appalachian+history

On October 1, 1755, while returning home from Fort Cumberland [MD] Trading Post several miles away, white settler Jane Frazier was captured by Miami Indian warriors and taken to the Miami River in Ohio. "By a person who arrived in town last Monday from Col. Cresap's (Oldtown about ten miles from Ivitts Creek)," reported The Maryland Gazette on October 9, "we are told that last Wednesday the Indians had taken a man prisoner who was going to Fort Cumberland from Frazier's and had also carried off a woman from Frazier's Plantation which is four miles this side of Fort Cumberland."

Fort Cumberland in 1755, from "History of Cumberland, Maryland", 1878, by William Lowdermilk.

Jane Frazier miraculously escaped after thirteen months and made her way back to safety. She wrote a detailed narrative of her experience, which has been preserved by successive generations of her family: "Thus to be torn away from home and friends and all that was dear to me, and consigned to live like a brute among savages, and then to lose my only comfort, my first born, and have it buried in this wilderness, was more than my frail nature could bear, and I was nearly crazy for a time. Still the Indians were kind to me, and when they saw my child was dead, they cut a hickory tree, peeled off the bark and made a coffin, and wrapping it in some of the clothes they had stolen, they placed it in the coffin they had made and buried it near our town in their own burying ground.

"I remained with these Indians 13 months, in the summer time helping the squaws in their corn and vegetable patches and in the winter time assisting them in their cooking operations. While I was with this tribe they determined on another raid into Pennsylvania, consequently they performed their powwows and war dances, in order to give them good luck in their expedition, then left for their long trip. They took all their best warriors, leaving a few old men and some boys to hunt game and food for the squaws and papooses.

"The chief and warriors were gone about seven weeks. They returned bringing with them two Dutchmen from Pennsylvania, whom they adopted into the tribe. One of them was a tanner by trade, and they employed them to tan their skins for them. He worked a little ways from the town where there was a large spring and the other man was allowed to help him. These men were very restless in their confinement.

"A little later the Indians determined on another raid, and in a few days departed. The Dutchmen now determined to leave, and let me into their secret, so we procured an old rifle which they repaired, and we hid all the provisions we could find, and a week after the warriors were gone the game became very scarce, so the hunters had to be out nearly all the time for provisions for the squaws and children. We now concluded this would be the best time to gain our liberty, so obtaining a small amount of ammunition we gathered up our old gun and some provisions and left our new connections without stopping to say goodbye, and taking advantage of the warriors and hunters we left for home."

Full version of her narrative here



Ft+Cumberland+MD Jane+Frazier Miami+Indians Ohio+River appalachia appalachia+history history+of+appalachia

"We go to bed at night and get up in the morning, and our Milk Bottles are standing on the back porch waiting for us," observed Rev. W.L. Stidger in a sermon titled 'Milk Bottles & Monotony.'

"Fifty years ago we got up at five o'clock, dressed in the cold, shivering as we dressed, went out to the barn, knocked ice from the buckets, primed the old iron pump with hastily heated hot water, and milked the cows before breakfast. We worked for our milk then. Now it is brought to us. That is monotony."

William Stidger in Missouri, about 1925.

Stidger published this sermon in 1926, the same year that writer Sinclair Lewis was spending time shadowing the famous preacher as part of his research for a forthcoming novel about the Chautauqua circuit and the preachers it produced.

Stidger himself apparently wasn't bored having his milk brought to him. He had a full time maid and gardener when he wrote these words.

William Leroy Stidger (1885-1949) attracted Lewis' attention for the modern marketing methods and publicity tactics he brought to his crusade to save souls.

Long before Sinclair Lewis appeared in his life, the future preacher grew up to the slow tempo of late nineteenth century daily life in Moundsville, WV. This town of 5,000 souls was disrupted each summer by Methodist revival camp meetings that more than doubled the population.

"The town rocked with religion each summer," says John Hyland in Evangelism's First Modern Media Star: Reverend Bill Stidger. "It was a form of group hysteria. People would climb over chairs to get down the aisles to confess their sins."

Religious fervor wafted through the heat in the summer of 1901 as Rev. William B. King pressed his followers to find salvation. One audience member, 16-year-old Bill Stidger, decided then and there to follow the ministry. "He learned about evangelism from the exhorters," notes Hyland, his grandson.

Moundsville, West Virginia in 1899.

Stidger went on to become an ingenious innovator whose marketing abilities filled churches wherever he pastored: San Francisco, San Jose, Detroit, Kansas City, and Boston. He wrote 52 books, ran FDR's radio reelection campaign in 1936, and taught techniques for sermon writing at Boston University's School of Theology. He was one of the first radio preachers. By the mid-1930s, Stidger had a radio audience of half a million listeners.

Sinclair Lewis and Stidger first met in Terre Haute, IN in August of 1922 when Stidger was lecturing on the Chautauqua circuit. He challenged Sinclair Lewis to write a "real preacher book" about a minister "who lives and walks and has a being; not all good, not all bad---some of both---a human being."

Four years later Lewis accepted the Reverend's invitation to stay at his house to help get the sense of a preacher's world. Lewis wasn't the best houseguest: he stayed with the Stidgers for several weeks, during which time he was visited by Ethel Barrymore, Edwin Markahm, William Allen White, Gilbert Frankau and Harpo Marx. They came to attend a wedding between Stidger's maid and a gardener - a ceremony which Stidger had planned to conduct quietly. But Lewis slipped out and called a newspaper and the wedding made the front page.

When Elmer Gantry released, Stidger was pastoring the Linwood Boulevard Methodist Episcopal Church in Kansas City, MO. He'd let it be known that Lewis would be writing about him, which led many to think he was the model for Gantry (which, in part, he was). Naturally, he was outraged when he saw how Lewis had shaped the novel---nearly every man of God is either a hypocrite or a closet agnostic.

This photograph of Sinclair Lewis was taken by Nikolas Muray for Vanity Fair magazine in the 1920s.

The Gantry publication created a church backlash and the book was banned and burned in many cities. Stidger declared that the book contained fifty technical errors in its account of church practices and that the author had been drunk all the time he was working on the book.

Shot back Lewis: “Stidger was a flamboyant man who in many ways resembled Elmer Gantry…unaware of the kind of novel that Elmer Gantry was to be, he went to Kansas City…boasting that the central character was to be modeled on himself.”

A bitter battle ensued between the two men, conducted in the press and from the pulpit, which neither of them ultimately won.


Sources: "Stidger," Russell Maloney, The Talk of the Town, The New Yorker, March 2, 1940, p. 9
Evangelism's First Modern Media Star: Reverend Bill Stidger, by Jack Hyland, Cooper Square Press, 2002
www.stidger.com
www.archive.org/stream/MN40290ucmf_8/MN40290ucmf_8_djvu.txt
Sinclair Lewis, by Richard R. Lingeman, Minnesota Historical Society, 2005
Sinclair Lewis: an American Life, by Mark Schorer, New York, McGraw Hill, 1961



are delightfulappalachia William+Stidger Moundsville revival+meeting Sinclair+Lewis Elmer+Gantry +appalachia+history history+of+appalachia

(continued from yesterday...)

Gib Morgan never wrote down his tall tales before he died. But in the hands of two early 20th century men, working independently of each other, and with different motives, the real life of Gilbert Morgan of Callensburg, PA, created Gib Morgan, the myth.

Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio oil field workers picked up Morgan's stories and retold them after 1900 in the Texas, Oklahoma, California and Illinois oil fields. Subsequently they came to the attention of Mody Boatright, a University of Texas professor active in the Texas Folklore Society from 1943 to 1964.


Boatright compiled 51 tales reputed to have been told by Morgan into the folklore study Gib Morgan, Minstrel of the Oil Fields. The 1945 publication was the first of its kind to study the impact of the oil industry upon the folklore and the folkways of the American people. It won Boatright national recognition as a folklorist.

Meantime, back at the turn-of-the-century, traveling salesmen for the Red River Lumber Company of Bemidji, MN (which probably supplied rig timbers to California and Illinois oil fields) had also heard Morgan’s tall tales. Many oil field workers, who knew the Morgan stories, simultaneously went to work for the Red River Lumber Company’s logging camps and sawmills (in California and Minnesota).

In 1914, Archie D. Walker, secretary of the Red River Lumber Company, employed his cousin William B. Laughead, a former lumberjack turned free-lance advertising man, to develop an advertising campaign for the sale of lumber produced in his company's new Westwood, CA mill. Most of his buyers at that time purchased soft white pine, traditionally harvested on the east coast, and were apprehensive about the quality of the wood grown in the west.

Walker wanted an imaginative advertising campaign which would catch the interest of prospective buyers, while reassuring them that west coast timber was indeed of good quality. Walker urged Laughead to incorporate the Paul Bunyan folk myths into the advertising campaign, hoping that the use of such an unusual gimmick would spur the company's sales.

Frontispiece illustration of Paul Bunyan, by William Laughead, from "Paul Bunyan and His Big Blue Ox" pamphlet.

Laughead developed a series of postcard-size pamphlets in which Paul Bunyan tales and cartoons of the character he'd drawn accompanied the Red River Lumber Company's ad for its goods and services. Some of these tales were based on Laughead's recollections of stories he had heard --Gib Morgan's stories--ten years earlier in a Minnesota lumber camp.

A total of three advertising pamphlets for the company were sent to prospective buyers within the industry during the 1910s and 1920s. Introducing Mr. Paul Bunyan of Westwood Cal. was published in 1914. Tales About Paul Bunyan, Vol. II rolled off the press two years later.

Few buyers, apparently, appreciated Walker and Laughead's efforts, and most threw away the Red River Lumber Company advertisements. And thus, first editions are scarce. Those that do remain are rare collectors' items due to the immense popularity of Laughead's third pamphlet, published in 1922.

The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan was really a revamped version of Laughead's first work. Although intended for the same specialized audience of lumbermen, this booklet unexpectedly had a much more far-reaching impact on society at large. The popularity of a lengthy review of the pamphlet appearing in the Kansas City Star served to introduce the legendary folk hero to the general public.

The instant success of the work necessitated the reproduction of new editions for years to follow, culminating in 1944 with the Thirtieth Anniversary Edition. It was occasionally given other titles in subsequent reproductions, one of the most common being Paul Bunyan and His Big Blue Ox.

William B. Laughead, through his Red River Lumber ad pamphlets, created much of the Paul Bunyan canon we're familiar with today. Gib Morgan's tall tales are an integral part of that culture.

And Sistersville? Make a point to visit it in September to attend the WV Oil and Gas Festival. The Gib Morgan Wrench Throwing Contest is a highlight.


sources: www.oil150.com/essays/2008/09/emlentons-lumber-industry-was-intertwined-with-oil-production-and-traditions
http://oilstorieshistories.blogspot.com/
www.foresthistory.org/ead/Laughead_William_B.html
www.wvculture.org/shpo/nr/pdf/tyler/75001899.pdf
www.marietta.edu/~crowthes/sishistory.html
Gib Morgan, Minstrel of the Oil Fields, Mody C. Boatright, ed., Dallas: Texas Folklore Society, 1966
Handbook of American Folklore, by Richard Mercer Dorson, Indiana University Press, 1986
Folksongs and Their Makers, by Henry Glassie, Edward D. Ives, Popular Press, 1971


Gib+Morgan Sistersville+WV appalachia +history+of+appalachia appalachian+history

Sistersville, WV mushroomed into a boom town overnight with the discovery of oil there in 1891. The rural village of 300 people suddenly had to house 15,000 souls from the massive influx of oil men, drillers, leasers, speculators, camp followers, floaters, wild-catters, and hangers-on. By the end of 1892 164 wells and 55 drilling stages were producing up to 20,500 barrels of oil a day.

A 1936 article from the Cincinnati Enquirer ranked the Ohio River town of Sistersville as one of the wickedest turn-of-the-century towns:

"Houses were even torn down to make room for a drilling derrick. Shacks and tents were thrown together to help house the people; houseboats lined the river banks on both sides of a mile or more up and down the river--moored so closely that one could walk by stepping from one to the other without going ashore--and helping to feed and sleep the people and at the same time furnishing liquor, amusement and entertainment of every kind to suit the taste of those seeking it, for nearly every houseboat was a speakeasy, gambling room or worse.

"Saloons, gambling houses and theaters sprang up over night. One popular saloon was burned down during the night during the Hey-Day and early the following morning before the ruins had cooled and ceased smoking the erection of another building on the site commenced."

Enter Gilbert 'Gib' Morgan.

Gib Morgan (1842-1909) was a tool dresser, driller, roustabout and pipe-line laborer. He was never a rich man, he never owned an oil company, he could hardly be considered important at all, except for one thing. Gib Morgan was a brilliant story teller.

Wherever he went, this gypsy oil man carried his stories with him, and left a little piece of himself behind before moving on. We know some of his stories today, both under his own name, and as a portion of the Paul Bunyan tales.

Gib Morgan was already getting noticed during the Civil War for his yarns while a private in the Tenth Pennsylvania Infantry. Because of poor organization at the war department, his company was hunkered down in the same location for months. To help keep up his comrades' spirits, he passed the time with stories.

Morgan returned home to Emlenton, PA in June, 1864, and began working steadily in Pennsylvania's Venango County oil fields. He married Mary Ritchey, and they had three children. It was not until his young wife died and their children were adopted out that Gib Morgan began wandering from oil field to oil field.

Oil field crewmen used huge wrenches in the backbreaking work of connecting steam lines or laying pipeline. It was dangerous, it was exhausting, but a drink from the saloon and a trip to the local house of ill repute would ease the pain. As would the levity and camaraderie provided by men like Gib Morgan.

Photo caption: First Oil Well Drilled in the Great Sisterville Field, Tyler County, W. Va. Taken 1907.

By the time the Pole Cat Well (pictured above) blew the lid off Sistersville, Morgan had worked fields in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, and his 30 years of tale-telling had earned him the nickname 'Minstrel of the Oil Fields.' In the stories he spoke of himself in third person, as in the following tall tale from the boomtimes in Sistersville:

"When he was in West Virginia, Gib Morgan, more as an accommodation to his friends than anything else, put up a boarding house for oil field workers."

Then word gets out about his delicious buckwheat cakes, and he draws so many oil field workers he’s forced to develop mass production methods:

"He bought a dozen of the largest concrete mixers and steam engines to turn them…Into these mixers his workmen dumped flour and milk and eggs…[the batter] was turned into a pipe line leading to the kitchen. The griddles were bottoms of 43,000-barrel oil tanks, each heated by a gas well underneath it…Seven big strapping men skimmed over the hot surface of each griddle continuously [on sides of bacon fat under their feet]…followed by another crew who handled the batter hoses…

"Another crew with shovels turned the cakes…a fourth took them up and tossed them to the waiters…Melted butter and maple syrup flowed through pipes along the half-mile counters, and at each seat were spigots from which the customer drew…Gib fed twenty-five thousand oil field workers at a time…[He] had to put up a sign: ONLY DRILLERS AND TOOL DRESSERS FED HERE."

(continued tomorrow...)


sources: www.oil150.com/essays/2008/09/emlentons-lumber-industry-was-intertwined-with-oil-production-and-traditions
http://oilstorieshistories.blogspot.com/
www.foresthistory.org/ead/Laughead_William_B.html
www.wvculture.org/shpo/nr/pdf/tyler/75001899.pdf
www.marietta.edu/~crowthes/sishistory.html
Gib Morgan, Minstrel of the Oil Fields, Mody C. Boatright, ed., Dallas: Texas Folklore Society, 1966
Handbook of American Folklore, by Richard Mercer Dorson, Indiana University Press, 1986
Folksongs and Their Makers, by Henry Glassie, Edward D. Ives, Popular Press, 1971


Gib+Morgan Sistersville+WV appalachia +history+of+appalachia appalachian+history

Middlesboro Daily News
Middlesboro, KY
Feb. 5, 1921

There are some persons who are emotional to such an extent that they completely lose control of themselves and let their emotions sway them. When persons of this nature are overcome by their emotions, they cannot control themselves and they are not in a position to judge of their actions.

Mrs. Lucy Chadwell, a member of the church of "Holy Rollers," who lives in the East End, by her own admission in police court today, is such a person. When Mrs. Chadwell, accompanied by her daughter, attended the services last night in the Second Baptist church, and her religious feelings overcame her so that she shook and rolled, thereby throwing those present at the service into a state of alarm and disturbance, the Rev. A.L. Chadwell of the Second Baptist church, swore out a warrant for the arrest of Mrs. Chadwell on the grounds of disturbing the peace and breaking up religious services. 

When arraigned before Judge Wood in police court this morning. Mrs. Chadwell declared that she did not mean to create a disturbance or to break up the services. "I was so overcome with the spirit of religion," she told Judge Wood, "that I could not hold myself back. The Holy Ghost was within me and I could do nothing but give demonstration to my feeling."  During the hearing, which was attended by a large number of the members of Mrs. Chadwell's church, a demonstration was given showing how services are conducted by "Holy Rollers." 

Judge Wood placed Mrs. Chadwell on probation, with the warning that if any more complaints of a similar nature are made, he will be compelled to deal more severely with the offender.


source: http://kykinfolk.com/bell/newspaper_abstracts.htm



Holly+Rollers religion+in+Appalachia Bell+County+KY appalachia appalachia+history history+of+appalachia

Prior to easily retrievable birth certificates, marriage licenses, death certificates, and digitized record keeping in general, the family Bible held the ultimate narrative of ancestral history.

They’re a treasure trove for both genealogists and historians. For example, here’s a simple entry in the Lampton family Bible, which was carried from southwest Virginia as the household migrated to eastern Kentucky: "Jane Lampton, born 1803, married John M. Clemens" Lampton and Clemens were the mother and father of Samuel L. Clemens --Mark Twain.

More often than not, the family Bible was the only written record of births, marriages and deaths of loved ones. In addition, between the leaves of this precious possession one could expect to find a wealth of newspaper clippings, letters, photos, and other ephemera pressed for safekeeping over generations of forbears.

It was understood that the book was to be carefully guarded and passed along: "1960 -- This Bible goes to Mary Rose. after I am done with it. Momie [sic] Promised it to her. Dad" And: "I wonder how old this old Bible is. Gert gave it to me sometime after Mother Hawkins died. Someday it will be yours. Love, Mother."

Most family Bibles present dates without any embellishment, but every now and again a quirky personality shines through. The transcriber of Thomas Snelling’s death entry seems obsessively precise in noting the time: "Thomas C Snelling died Dec 25, 1884 half past 1 o'clock and burried ten minuts of 12 the 26" [original spellings].

It was illegal for any printer in the Colonies to produce the English Bible. Publication of the King James Version of Scripture was controlled by Oxford and Cambridge University Presses as well as other printers licensed by the king.

In response, Colonial printers created a ‘family Bible’ with the addition of record keeping ability to circumvent the copyright restrictions of English law. They frequently included blank pages for multi-generational notes and commentary, as well as engravings and illustrations. These Bibles were sold in inexpensive serial editions.

After the Revolutionary War, the budding American legislature wasn't any more friendly to Bible printers. "An effort was made in its first Congress to restrict the printing of the [Bible] to licensed houses," says the Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature.

However, this political attempt to continue regulated distribution "was cut short by the first amendment to the Constitution, and the book was thrown into the hands of the trade at large, with anything but a beneficial effect on its general integrity."

Isaac Collins Bible from 1782; one of only two surviving copies.

England refused to send its former colonies any more Bibles, so demand for the Good Book was high and supply was low. Isaac Collins rose to the challenge in his Trenton, NJ print shop. He pre-sold 3,000 copies before the project was even begun, and by the time the presses stopped, 5,000 copies awaited eager hands.

Rag cotton linen paper was a precious commodity in early America, which forced Collins to resort to wood-pulp paper. His choice of stock was somewhat thicker than that used for books today. The resulting folio had the unintended benefit of more heft, greater durability, and a therefore a built-in likelihood of arriving at heirloom status.

Isaac Collins produced the most influential American Bible from the late 1700’s until the mid 1800’s, originating the “Family Bible” format we’ve come to know today.


source: "Imperial Bibles, Domestic Bodies: Women, Sexuality, and Religion in the Victorian Market" (review): English Studies in Canada - Volume 32, Issue 2-3, June/September 2006, pp. 203-206
The First American Bible, by Margaret T. Hills, American Bible Society, 1968
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, edited by John M'Clintock and James Strong, Vol. I, pg. 563, Baker Book House, 1981
www.greatsite.com/ancient-rare-bible-leaves/collins-leaf.html
www.biblerecords.com/news.html



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