Appalachian History

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The day they hung Murderous Mary the elephant
2007-09-13 14:30:00
On September 13, 1916 a five-ton circus elephant was executed, hung from a 100-ton Clinchfield railroad crane car, in the little town of Erwin, Tennessee. ‘Murderous Mary ’ had killed a man, and for that she had to die. Shooting her in the four soft spots on her head would be both difficult and dangerous. She wouldn't eat poison. And the town didn't have enough power to electrocute her. The bizarre story of the hanging of Mary the elephant begins in St. Paul, Virginia, where Sparks World Famous Shows stopped for a one-day stand. By 1916, Sparks World Famous Shows had blossomed into a successful, 15-car circus with clowns, acrobats, horses, lions and elephants. The star of their show was Mary, a giant Asian elephant. She was advertised on Sparks posters as "The Largest Living Land Animal on Earth," weighing "over 5 tons" and standing "3 inches taller than Jumbo," the star elephant of the Barnum and Bailey Circus. At 30 years old, she could "play 25 tunes on the musical horns w...
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Kentucky's fotched-on women
2007-09-12 14:30:00
In the late 1800s, the Progressive Movement was sweeping the industrialized cities of the North. One of the key features of this urban social and political reform movement was the creation of settlement houses and schools to meet the needs of economically deprived families. Beginning in 1899, two intrepid young women, Katherine Pettit and May Stone, spent three summers in social settlement work in Kentucky at Camp Cedar Grove, Camp Industrial, and Sassafras Social Settlement. They became educational lamplighters in an area of eastern Kentucky where there was little opportunity for boys to get jobs and education was considered superfluous for girls, who often married at thirteen. Loaded with books, games, and a small portable organ, they proceeded to hold “school” for the people of the mountains. The activities of the summer camp were practical in nature—crafts, reading, singing, learning to make biscuits and bread. In the summer of 1900 Stone and Pettit pitched their tents o...
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A road opens -- bring on the flying machines!
2007-09-12 00:32:00
“The old mud road is a road that leads down to perdition. The improved road leads upward to a better land; to better homes; to a better and broader civilization,” said West Virginia Governor Ephraim Morgan as he, along with the mayors of Kingwood and Terra Alta, untied the ceremonial ribbons and let the barrier of bunting fall away. The Terra Alta-Kingwood Road was officially open. The weather had been cold and rainy for several days prior to September 11, 1924 and it looked as if celebrations could not be held; but on the appointed day the sun appeared and dried the roads and grounds to everyone’s satisfaction. It’s hard today to imagine a mere road opening being followed by a ball game, basket picnic, airplane rides, band music and various athletic events, but the automobile was still a novel way to get around in Preston County—only 30% of the state’s residents had a car yet. And this stretch of highway was seen as a major connector to the outside world.The road fro...
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He brought the deer back to North Georgia
2007-09-10 14:30:00
Deer hunting season got underway in Georgia this past weekend. It’s all too easy to forget that in the early part of the 20th century, there simply were no deer to be had in the northern part of the state. Arthur Woody never forgot that, and today’s hunters in Appalachian Georgia owe him a debt of thanks.Arthur “Kingfish” Woody (1884-1946), served the U.S. Forestry Service from 1911 to 1945, starting out as a surveyor. In 1918 the Federal Government combined various local land holdings into the Cherokee National Forest, part of which extended into North Georgia. A short time later additional land the government purchased was consolidated with portions of the Cherokee into the Georgia National Forest (later renamed the Chattahoochee National Forest) and Woody became the Blue Ridge District’s first Forest Ranger. The district was the first wildlife management area in the South. In the midst of the depression the CCC began to improve the area around Suches, GA thanks to e...
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Who let the bedbugs bite?
2007-09-07 14:30:00
"One night during a revival, we had a very heavy rain. Besides myself, only one other person showed up at the church, a young man. I read a scripture lesson, and had prayer before the young man said, 'Now, Preacher, you have to go home with me tonight. There is nobody else here.' Well, we walked for a mile up a steep hill in the red mud. "The boy hung up his lantern and said, 'Hey, Paw, guess what we have for breakfast? Preacher!' "'Put him in your bed. You can sleep on the cot,' said Paw. Man and wife were in a bed in the front room. "The son picked up the oil lamp from the table and led the way up a steep stairway to the second floor. It was a story and a half house, with the sloping ceilings common to such. There were four teenage daughters, lying in two double beds in a room without partitions. The boy put down the lamp, took off all his clothes, and lay down on the cot. "'You can have my bed there,' he said, indicating another double bed. "'Do you blow out this lamp?'...
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You really had to work to keep them molasses
2007-09-06 14:30:00
“[My grandparents] had a molasses mill; they made molasses. I used to help make them, too. [They made molasses to sell.] And they made for people. They'd make molasses for six weeks or longer at a time, every day except Sunday. Sometimes they didn't make them on Saturday. It was usually five days a week. “They'd start grinding the cane in the mornings about four o'clock, and it'd usually be ten or eleven before they'd get the last ones cooked and off of the pan, before they quit. [My grandmother] was in charge of the cooking of the molasses, and she was really good at it. She stayed right there from the time they got juice on that pan and started cooking till it was all off at night. She didn't even go to the house to eat her meals. They'd bring her meals to her. Photo caption reads: Boiling juice of sugarcane into sorghum molasses. Racine, West Virginia. Sept 1938.“They cooked them with wood. It was a big long pan, and you let the juice come on first, and you'd ke...
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A school for subversives and Communists?
2007-09-05 14:30:00
It’s back to school time. How would you like to have attended the same school that Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Martin Luther King Jr., Andrew Young, and Fanny Lou Hamer all attended?That would be Highlander Folk School , near Monteagle, TN, for many years the only place in the South where white and African-American adults could live and work together, something that was illegal in that strictly segregated society. The 1950s brought Highlander to national attention, as civil rights legends and social activists learned the ways of non-violent protest there in the school’s “Citizenship School Program.” Rosa Parks’ participation in a Highlander workshop in the summer of 1955, 5 months before her back of the bus incident, had a crucial influence on her. And during the subsequent Montgomery bus boycott, Highlander co-founder Myles Falls Horton introduced Rosa Parks to Eleanor Roosevelt as “the first lady of the South.”Political enemies angrily...
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He answered the call, not by a natural death
2007-09-04 14:30:00
'Wright’s Fork of the long ago -- McRoberts of Today'by Burdine WebbSeptember 4th, 1941 edition of The Mountain Eagle [KY]"A few days ago I saw Wright’s Fork and the town of McRoberts that lies along its waters, Shea’s Fork, Chopping Branch, Tom Biggs and Bark Camp– but it was a different picture to that of the long ago when, as a barefoot, one-gallused boy I trudged along pebbled creeks to the old school house which stood exactly where The Consolidation office and the post office have quarters now, where two of my older brothers taught “the young idea” in the olden days, when settlements were scant in these parts. "It was a house now and then, one on Shea’s Fork, the hospitable home of Uncle Bill Wright, one on Chopping Branch, one on Tom Biggs, one at its mouth, and one or two further up. Uncle Jess Wright, brother of Capt. John Wright of the old days, had his log cabin home on the extreme head of the creek, and like the home of Uncle Bill, it was a haven of res...
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Labor Day! Picnics, parades, dove shoots
2007-09-03 14:30:00
In the hunting world, it's a fast growing sport. Dove season opened September 1 in North Carolina, West Virginia, Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, and Georgia. Federal authorities regulate the sport, because mourning doves are considered to be migratory birds just like ducks and geese. Therefore, the season dates, bag limits and specific regulations are set each year by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The mourning dove is one of the most populous birds in the United States: fall populations nationwide have ranged from 350 to 600 million doves. Three historical trends in Appalachia have enabled the dove to expand its numbers to regional abundance. At the beginning of the 20th century timber companies inadvertently enhanced the dove population by clearing large areas of deciduous forests. These birds need some hardwoods to roost and nest in, but gravitate to overgrown prairie lands dotted by small clusters of trees. Secondly, expanding grainfields and farmsteads have created a...
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A national treasure almost lost forever
2007-08-31 14:30:00
Maxine Broadwater was just 5 years old when she helped her brothers destroy the glass negatives so they could turn their late uncle's photography studio into a chicken house. Luckily for us they didn't finish the job.Leo J. Beachy (1892-1927) is thought to have taken ten thousand photographs a year on five inch by seven inch glass plates of the people and places in his beloved Garrett County, MD between the years 1905 and 1927. Perhaps 10% of his output survives today. It's astonishing to consider that by the time he gave up his teaching career at the age of 31 to pursue his passion full time, he'd somehow found ways to prevent his multiple sclerosis from slowing this pace. He'd wrap his arms around people's backs to be dragged from camera to developing room, and had a special wagon outfitted to carry photographer and rigging."I have taken medicine by the barrel and as for doctors... I've been drugged by the allopaths, rubbed by the osteopaths and bilked by the quack-o-pa...
More About: Lost , National , Forever , National Treasure , Treasure

Only play this game with an honest man
2007-08-30 14:30:00
The game was described on images in Theban tombs. Romans played a variant called“micare digitis” (of which Cicero said “you must have great faith in the honesty of any man with whom you played in the dark.”) The French, who still teach it to their children, call it “la mourre.” And in Appalachia, starting tomorrow on through Sunday, you can find morra contests being played at the 29th annual Italian Heritage Festival over in Clarksburg, WV.To the un-initiated, morra may appear to be a convoluted, grownup version of rock, paper, scissor that we’ve all seen kids play. It is played by two contestants, and merely consists of holding up, in rapid succession, any number of fingers desired, calling out at the same time the number one’s opponent is showing. In Italy, centuries ago in the town of Massa, close to the marble mines of Carrara, this game was imported by woodmen and coal dealers from the northern regions. It was played at home or at some inn with good wine. A...
More About: Play , Game , Honest

I want to go back
2007-08-29 14:30:00
"I would like to go back and carry a few lap-links in my pocket, just in case the hoss busts a trace chain. I want to tie the rawhide ham-string once more and adjust the back-band til it is just behind the hoss's withers. I want to tie my shoes again with laces made of groundhog hide. "I want to go back where the ducks and geese are picked every month; where corn and taters are planted, and soap is made by the signs of the moon; where "warnits" and hickory nuts are gathered in the fall for the winter mast; where the folks still dig roots and herbs to buy their winter boots and shoes; and where these same boots and shoes are greased with sheep or beef taller; where the peggin' awl is still in use; where Arbuckles coffee is parched in the stove and ground in a mill held in grandpa's lap; where some of the menfolk tied the brooms with home-grown broomcorn; where they make popguns out of elders and shoot paper wads in them. "Yes, I want to go back where they drink sassafras tea in ...
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The city was awakened by nineteen lusty charges of dynamite
2007-08-28 14:30:00
Richwood, WV Aug 26, 1937 --- "The Cherry River Navy's flagship 'Clothespin' is riding at anchor this morning, resplendent in gala attire awaiting her christening this afternoon in ceremonies to be attended by the Governors of Maryland and West Virginia, both Admirals, by Congressmen Andrew Edmiston and Jennings Randolph, also Admirals, and some five hundred line Admirals coming here from points all over West Virginia and many adjacent states to participate in the colorful ceremonies, the Admirals banquet and ball featuring today's program of Spud and Splinter Festival week. "At dawn this morning the city was awakened by nineteen lusty charges of dynamite, the salute from the flagship to the Admirals of the Navy. Shortly afterwards a bugler, supposedly on board the flagship anchored off Fork Mountain Light, blew revilee [sic]. At ten o'clock this morning Admirals will begin to call at headquarters here, where they will meet Admiral E.C. Bennette, M. D., chief of staff. "Follow...
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And the goats are fine, thanks
2007-08-27 14:30:00
The poet who penned “the fog comes in on little cats’ feet” moved to western North Carolina for the sake of the little goats’ feet. Pulitzer Prize winner Carl Sandburg and his wife Paula had lived for 17 years on Chicago's foggy shores by Lake Michigan, but left it all behind in 1945. Flat Rock, NC, twenty-four miles south of Asheville, offered greener pastures and a longer browsing season for their Chikaming goat herd. The Sandburgs paid $45,000 for 248 acres of land, a three-story, 22 room main house of over 9,000 square feet on a hill fronted by green pastures with various lakes, a barn complex and several outbuildings. Plenty of room for them, their three daughters, two grandchildren, their library of more than 10,000 volumes, and the goat farm operation. The hill approaching the house is steep and the climb ascends 100 feet over a third of a mile. Sandburg believed they had bought a "village" and Mrs. Sandburg a "million acres of sky."Photo caption reads: "Carl Sand...
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Don't kill snakes on the Sabbath! Or else.
2007-08-24 14:30:00
"Another Floyd County murder-victim, his skull crushed, the body of 20-year-old Wilson Kidd, of Mud Creek, was hauled from the Big Sandy River at Harold, Sunday. "Because of renovation started this week on the circuit courtroom, the September term of that court may have to be held in some other building, Circuit Judge John W. Caudill said this week. Floyd County, Kentucky - Prestonsburg Court House 1942"Green Castle, 35, of Hueysville, was shot and instantly killed by three blasts from an automatic shotgun, Sunday, at Hueysville, when a neighbor objected to Castle's killing of a snake on the Sabbath ."Congressman A. J. May informed County Judge W. L. Stumbo, Monday, that federal aid in the restoration of roads in flooded sections is now available through the state highway department. "Fire destroyed the Floyd County relief office and all its records in the Fitzpatrick building on the Mayo Trail, here, Wednesday morning. "Raids made on three West Prestonsburg establishments, Saturday...
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Bald is beautiful
2007-08-23 14:30:00
Ah, southern Appalachian ‘balds,’ those curious subalpine meadows. From northern Georgia to southwestern Virginia, there are scores of such grassy peaks sprinkled along the Appalachian mountain chain. They are an enigma, being largely devoid of trees and other woody vegetation where one would normally expect to see a continuation of the surrounding forest. In places, these balds are expansive, measured in the hundreds of acres. Elsewhere they are tiny summit caps. Some 90 are cloaked in grasses and sedges. These so-called grass balds are especially rich in botanical finds.Researchers have looked for evidence of bald creation through climatic factors related to the Wisconsin glaciation and the effects of mega-fauna during the last ice age. Wood bison, deer, and other native grazers also contributed to keeping the balds cleared.Native Americans probably used the balds as hunting areas and lookouts and may have used fire to maintain them, says Kristine Johnson, supervisory forester...
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Colonel Sanders isn't the only Kentucky Colonel
2007-08-22 14:30:00
For all the jokes about KFC's Colonel Harlan Sanders or the ABA's "Kentucky Colonels," the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels is for real. It is also not very Kentuckian anymore. Once upon a time it was common throughout the region for a governor to reward political supporters with a glamorous title via an appointment in the state militia. In Kentucky this tradition began in 1813 during the second term of Governor Isaac Shelby. Shelby had just returned from leading the Kentucky Militia on a highly successful ?War of 1812? campaign. He named one of his officers, son-in-law Charles Todd, an ?Aid-De-Camp? on the governor?s staff with the rank and grade of Colonel. Local notables were often "majors" or "colonels" who had never and would never lead troops. Kentucky was no exception, but the state took the idea a step further. In 1885, Governor William Bradley appointed the first "Honorary" Kentucky Colonel, making the military standing even more tenuous. In 1928, an effort began to o...
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Queen of the Meadow cures all
2007-08-21 14:30:00
If butterflies are about this week, you can be sure you will find them on the heads of sweet Joe-Pye-weed (Eupatorium purpureum). This perennial herb, found in moist woods and fields throughout Appalachia, is at its height of bloom right now through September. Atop each stem is a rose pink to whitish domed cluster of flowers, about 1 foot in diameter. Gardeners delight in this towering, showy plant, as another common name for it, ?Queen of the Mead ow?, clearly suggests. However, the plant?s name is the first clue that we?re dealing with far more than just another pretty flower. It?s named after a New England American Indian named Joe Pye, who was said to have cured typhus with it. Tea made from the dried root and flowers can still be used to induce sweating and break a high fever.The entire plant, in fact, is used in native medicine, with the roots being the strongest part. Crushed leaves have an apple scent and can be dried, then burned to repel flies. Joe Pye was used by the Ir...
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If we were going to quit, they'd quit, too
2007-08-20 14:30:00
?We didn't even know what a union was. We'd never heard tell of a union. But we just decided that we wasn't going to work for this wage. We just wasn't going to work for $10.08 a week. But as it happened, there was a carpenter and a union man, John Penix. He called someone that he knew in the labor movement, and they came here and organized, and it was just one big mess, and they just panicked. [Everyone else in the plant was] getting the same wages, and I imagine that they decided that if we were going to quit, they'd quit, too.?At that time they paid a flat scale. You started out at $8.96 a week; $10.08; $11.20. I don't know whether you got past $11.20 or not. I never did hear any man say how much they made, but I don't think they paid them more. If they did, they didn't pay them much more. [The supervisors] were American, most of the people from up close by, the close counties. A lot of people worked there from Johnson City and way back up in Pogey. One time, I think ...
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Where the Hillbilly Highway ends
2007-08-17 14:30:00
If you?re an Ohio briar and you?re in Dayton this weekend, stop by the 21st annual Mountain Days Festival, a local celebration of the culture and heritage of Appalachian people. Those not familiar with the connection between Dayton and the official center of Appalachia might find it puzzling to encounter an Appalachian celebration in that city, and therein hangs the tale of the Appalachian Diaspora."Briars," first off, are what (some) Ohioans call migrant workers from Appalachia, and the term refers almost exclusively to Kentuckians and West Virginians, as Michael Ralstin recently explained in an excellent commentary on the Rednecromancer blog."It has been said that all mountain regions must import capital or export people," says John Alexander Williams in his thoughtful Appalachia: A History. "During most of the twentieth century, Appalachia did both. Photo: Women workers making sparkplugs at the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company, Akron, Ohio, ca. 1930. "With only their labor to inv...
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All kinds of tricking in those times, you know it
2007-08-16 14:30:00
?They brought their produce into town on wagons and they brought hallows to trade horses and all that kind of stuff and vegetables like string beans, tomatoes, corn, watermelons and all that stuff. Bring down and set it right down there on that shelf on the trading ground. And they would sell and people would come and buy stuff just like you were going to the Farmer's Market. And all that produce was traded right there and once a month on the first Monday of the month they had what they called a Court Day. Photo: Court Day in Franklin County, VA?And that was the day that the farmers would come into town to trade horses, cattle, sheep or whatever they had that they wanted to trade or what they wanted to sell. And my father and his uncle they were horse traders. Out of all the peddlers he used to feed them baking soda in order to make them look like they were fat. Take them home and two days later he had a skinny little horse already. "But there was all kinds of tricking in those tim...
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I wish they'd a threw it in the New River sometimes
2007-08-15 14:30:00
Twelve-year old William P. ?Punch? Jones and his father, Grover C. Jones, Sr. were pitching horseshoes in Peterstown, WV one day in April 1928 when one of the shoes landed on an unusually beautiful stone. Believing the item to be simply a piece of shiny quartz common to the area, the family kept it in a wooden cigar box inside a tool shed for fourteen years, throughout the Depression. Punch Jones, meantime, worked his way through college during that time while his father struggled as a county school teacher to provide for his large family.On May 5, 1943, Punch brought the stone to Dr. Roy J. Holden, a geology professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute in nearby Blacksburg, Virginia. Holden, shocked at Punch?s discovery, authenticated the find as a diamond. The ?Jones Diamond,? also known as the ?Punch Jones Diamond,? "The Grover Jones Diamond," or "The Horseshoe Diamond," is an 34.48 carat alluvial diamond. It's the largest alluvial diamond, and the third largest diamond overal...
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Jean Thomas: Kentucky's Traipsin' Woman
2007-08-14 14:30:00
She had hosted Susan Steele Sampson, wife of Kentucky?s governor, the previous year at her first American Folk Song Festival, held at the Traipsin' Woman Cabin. Now, in August 1931, Jean Thom as found herself invited to the Governor's mansion in Frankfort to discuss the creation of an American Folk Song Society and an annual festival open to the public. How did Thomas get to this point, and why did she call herself the ?Traipsin? Woman??Photo: Jean Thomas and Susan Steele Sampson at Governor's mansion, Frankfort, Kentucky, August 1931. Thomas presents Mrs. Sampson a copy of her newly published book, ?Devil?s Ditties.?Jean Thomas was born Jeanette Mary Francis de Assisi Aloysius Marcissum Garfield Bell in Ashland, Kentucky in 1881. She earned the nickname "Traipsin' Woman" when, as a teenager in the 1890s, she defied convention to attend business school, learn stenography, and become a court reporter, traveling by jolt wagon to courts in the mountains of eastern Kentucky.Using ...
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North Carolina Ghost Town
2007-08-13 14:30:00
You can still see part of the boiler room and a few intact boilers from the old cotton mill in Mortimer if you know where to look. There's also a white maintenance building built by the CCC during the 1930s, and some other CCC building foundations remain behind it. Today these silent remnants welcome hikers and campers at the entrance to the Mortimer campground in the Pisgah National Forest. What a story they hide!Mortimer, NC had been built rapidly to house workers for the Ritter Lumber Company, which had bought the land for timber in 1904. Ritter Lumber Company's sawmill and a small textile mill provided jobs for the community's 800 residents. Substantial logging took place between Wilson and Steel Creeks, and the trees were hauled to the mill via Ritter's narrow gauge railroad, which followed Wilson Creek much of the way before ending in the village of Edgemont. The Hutton-Bourbannis Company operated various other narrow gauge logging railroad lines fanning out from Mortim...
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That'll be cash on the barrelhead son
2007-08-10 14:30:00
Got in a little trouble at the county seatLord they put me in the jailhouse for loafing on the streetWhen the judge heard the verdict I was a guilty manHe said forty five dollars or thirty days in the canThat'll be cash on the barrelhead son you can make your choice you're twenty oneNo money down no credit plan no time to chase you cause I'm a busy manFound a telephone number on a laundry slipI had a good hearted jailer with a six gun hipHe let me call long distance she said number pleaseAnd no sooner than I told her she shouted out at meThat'll be cash on the barrelhead son not parting cash but the entire sumNo money down no credit plan cause a little bird tells me you're a travelling manThirty days in the jailhouse four days on the roadI was feeling mighty hungry my feet a heavy loadSaw a greyhound coming stuck up my thumbJust as I was being seated the driver caught my armThat'll be cash on the barrelhead son this old grey dog is paid to runWhen the engine stops and the whee...
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Who's kidnapping whom? Indians and settlers mix it up
2007-08-09 14:33:00
?When Kentucky was first being settled, emigrants from either North Carolina or Tennessee, headed by a man named Cornett, reached the Kentucky River late one evening. They decided to camp and wait until daylight before crossing the river. They had wives, children, livestock and equipment with them. After supper they were sitting around their campfire talking, when suddenly Indians [ed. -thought to be Creek] dashed into camp and captured two of the girls. "Three of the white men saddled horses and went after the Indians. Late in the night they caught up with the Indians, who were not expecting pursuit and had made camp. The men advanced near enough to see the girls asleep on pallets near the fire. Each man agreed to dash in and grab one of the girls. This they did and got away without a fight. When they came to their camp the men discovered that they had also captured a little Indian girl. The next morning, after crossing the river, the emigrants decided to keep the Indian girl. Mr....
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Somebody ought to give the true picture of them
2007-08-08 14:30:00
?So many outside writers had come in and . . . and given such a terrible account of the people. They had put 'em down a lot in their articles that I didn't think this was true, because the people that I met were very intelligent and they were very civilized. They were not like they were pictured in these articles at all. And I thought that somebody ought to come through here and give the true picture of them. Left: 1937 LIFE magazine article profiling Mary Breckinridge's Frontier Nursing Service, for which Mary Brewer worked at the time. "And, you know, the Mary Breckinridge . . . the hospital. Mary Breckinridge, of course, was the first one, I guess, that put the people in this area on the map by going out and soliciting aid, and naturally most of their material was slanted toward the poorer class of people. They didn't tell anything about the fine homes that were here. It was always the little shacks on the hillsides and people going without clothing and half-starved and baref...
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Eats 2,000 mosquitoes a day?
2007-08-07 14:30:00
America?s most sociable bird is getting ready to pack up and head south for the winter in the next couple of weeks. That would be the purple martin (Progne subis), whose usefulness was already recognized in Appalachia by the early Cherokees, who hung bottle gourds horizontally on long poles to attract them. Not only did the birds eat prodigious amounts of insects, but they also (and still do!) drove crows away from cornfields and vultures away from meat and hides hung out to dry. Purple martins are the largest member of the swallow family in North America and the only species of martins on the continent. Worldwide, there are more than 70 kinds of swallows and martins. Appalachia has six kinds: purple martin, and barn, cliff, tree, northern rough-wing, and bank swallows.One of the great myths, one of the things that makes the uninitiated want to attract martins to their land, is that each bird can eat 2,000 mosquitoes a day. Martins, like all swallows, are indeed aerial insectivor...
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August 8 is Emancipation Day. But not everywhere.
2007-08-06 14:30:00
On January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation declared that all slaves held in locations in conflict with the United States were henceforth free. Black communities in Virginia, Georgia and North Carolina have observed Emancipation Day on that day ever since. Not so elsewhere in Appalachia.When Union soldiers took control of an area, they would, amongst other things, read the proclamation and enforce it. Because of this, various states, territories, and municipalities celebrate emancipation on the day when the law was enforced in their region. Tennessee and Kentucky, for example, have long informally recognized August 8 as the day. As early as 1875, the African American community in the vicinity of Greene County, TN had begun to hold annual celebrations on August 8 th, known as the "Eighth of August Celebration" according to local accounts in The Greeneville American. Last April Tennessee governor Phil Bredesen went a step further and signed House Bill No. 207 into law, offici...
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Rhododendrons?...no, no. Folk music!
2007-08-03 14:30:00
The 80th annual Mountain Dance and Folk Festival got underway last night in Asheville, NC. It?s the oldest continuously running folk festival in the United States. "Even the moon came out over Beaucatcher Mountain and laughed in the spirit of the occasion," said one of the local newspapers at the inaguaral festival in 1928.What started as the Rhododendron Festival of 1927 was transformed into what we today recognize as a ?folk festival? by Bascom Lamar Lunsford (1882-1972). Lunsford was a superb mountain musician who spent his life hunting down the songs, dances and unknown performers of the Appalachian region. Friends said he would cross hell on a rotten rail to get a folk song. He performed at the festival every year until he suffered a stroke in 1965. As a young man, Bascom Lamar Lunsford practiced law, sold fruit trees, managed democratic political campaigns, worked as an auctioneer, and waltzed through other professions before returning to his first love, mountain music and...
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