2019-02-05 05:00
The Knoxville Journal
1890-02-03
‘An Elopement’
Chattanooga, February 2,-News reaches the city of a romantic elopement, with an unhappy ending, in Polk County, Tennessee, yesterd… Read More
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Folktales, anecdotes and quotes drawn from Appalachia. Emphasis on the Depression era.
2019-02-04 05:00
The Dust Bowl crisis of the early 1930s for the first time brought national attention to the acute dangers of soil erosion. Southern Appalachian farms, for their part, suffered from poor soi… Read More
2019-02-01 05:00
“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… Read More
2019-01-31 05:00
“A discourse on The Use of Tobacco was delivered by evangelist M.S. Lemons and discussed by others. After due consideration this assembly agrees to stand, with one accord, in oppositio… Read More
2019-01-30 05:00
Old Fort: the name says it. It is indeed one of the oldest towns in western North Carolina, and it was originally a fort, built by the colonial militia before the Declaration of Independence… Read More
2019-01-29 05:00
During the early decades of the 20th century, hundreds of short-line railroad existed across the nation, and most all were regarded by the local people as their railroad. There was something… Read More
2019-01-28 05:00
When non-union miners in Mingo County, WV went on strike for the right to join the United Mine Workers in the spring of 1920, mine guards from the Baldwin-Felts detective agency evicted mine… Read More
2019-01-25 05:00
“The administration of justice in the isolated areas still surprises the visitor with its differences from the ways of the town. Despite a few modern touches, a cuspidor or two missing… Read More
2019-01-24 05:00
Wheeling Daily Register
January 20, 1894
All Were Murderers
Four Men Suffer the Extreme Penalty for Their Crimes
John Hardy Hanged at Welch, McDowell County, for Killing Thomas Drews Last Sp… Read More
2019-01-23 05:00
Daddy got caught the first time in about 1916 or ’17. The law was paying informers to tell on people. They put his bail bond at fifty dollars. That was on a Friday, and we didn’t… Read More
2019-01-22 05:50
“The ladies would cook dinner, and maybe five or six of them would quilt. They would put up a quilt. I can’t remember doing any of that, but I’ve heard, you know, my family… Read More
2019-01-21 05:00
Emmitsburg [MD] was a kid’s haven in the winter. With hills and ponds a many, it boasted some of the best sledding and ice skating around. While almost forgotten today, in younger days… Read More
2019-01-18 05:00
This is an excerpt from a 1949 letter written by Capt. Tom Greene, owner of Greene Line Steamers, to his friend Dan Heekin, a Cincinnati industrialist and river buff. The letter was discover… Read More
2019-01-17 05:00
(…continued from yesterday)
The “Anesthetic Prowler” or “The Phantom Anesthetist,” he was supposedly a dark, mysterious figure responsible for dozens of Virgin… Read More
2019-01-16 05:00
Whether or not gas will be employed in future wars is a matter of conjecture, but the effect is so deadly to the unprepared that we can never afford to neglect the question.
General John Per… Read More
2019-01-14 05:00
Prior to the funeral industry’s rise and its use of embalming, a practice that gained legitimacy during the War Between the States, the interior of a corpse was generally not accessibl… Read More
2019-01-11 05:00
In that back country in the 1870’s money was very scarce. Just how scarce we people of this day can hardly realize. Most trade in the store was exchange of goods for farm produce &ndas&hell…Read More
2019-01-10 11:09
This article ran January 9, 2019 on the ‘Front Porch Blog’ at the Appalachian Voices site. It is reposted here with permission.
An addition to the coal tipple in Dunbar, V… Read More
2019-01-09 05:00
We need to be less aware of the picturesque, amusing or distressing differences, and more keenly conscious of the kinship of the mountain people with their kind elsewhere and everywhere. Oth… Read More
2019-01-08 05:00
Edna Lynn Simms’ original photo caption accompanying her portrait of him reads simply: “George D. Barnes, collector of Indian relics, Dayton, Tenn.” Sounds straightforward… Read More
2019-01-02 05:00
This photo, from the ‘Museum of Found Photographs’ on Flickr.com, measures 8 x 10 inches, photographer and exact location unknown. It was found in southern Ohio. Everyone in this… Read More
2018-12-28 05:00
John Holt (1870-1918), a coal miner in Murray City, OH, kept a journal of his daily life.
John Holt and the coal miners he worked with outside of the mine in Murray City.
April 1907- “… Read More
2018-12-27 05:00
The [North Carolina Forest Service] offered me a job then, late that summer or early that fall. I went to work, I had a fancy title: in charge of visual education. They had a three-quarter t… Read More
2018-12-24 05:00
JOSEPH was an old man,
And an old man was he,
When he wedded Mary
In the land of Galilee.
Joseph and Mary walk’d
Through an orchard good,
Where was cherries and berries
So red as any b… Read More
2018-12-21 05:00
Jesus, Jesus, rest your head.
You have got a manger bed.
All the evil folk on earth,
Sleep in feathers at their birth.
(But) Jesus, Jesus, rest your head.
You have got a manger bed.
Have you… Read More
2018-12-20 05:00
“I don’t think I was ever any more excited than on that last day at school before Christmas when Miss Dumire asked three of us girls to untrim the tree. She gave each of us a box… Read More
2018-12-19 05:00
DECEMBER 1915 FRIDAY 24
“Well, the chittlings, a part of them Alice sent over by Pete. They were intestines cleaned ready to cut into short pieces to fry. I told Tillie she needn&rsqu&helli…Read More
2018-12-18 05:00
Mary sure did have some problems living in that barn. When baby Jesus was born, Joseph needed a crib, so he put some fresh hay in Ms. Horse’s feeding trough. Nobody asked Ms. Horse if… Read More
2018-12-17 05:00
“Late fall we’d start getting up the wood for the winter. You couldn’t believe it would take that much wood. You would see wood from here, well, say a hundred feet long. Yo… Read More
2018-12-14 05:00
Lydia Ann Kimble married Isaac Graham, who’d served as a drummer boy in the War of 1812, in 1869, when he was an elderly man and she was a woman of 32. Her husband by a previous marria… Read More
![It’s Only In The Mountains That You Can Raise These Frazier Firs [for Christmas Trees]](https://cdn.blogarama.com/images/posts_thumbs_site_id/470/46996-4125465342.w320.jpg "It’s Only In The Mountains That You Can Raise These Frazier Firs [for Christmas Trees]")
2018-12-13 05:00
ED- Are there people you know in the Konnarock area with these Christmas tree plantations?
JG – Yes, we have a little Christmas tree plantation here, too. We planted them ourselves and… Read More
2018-12-12 05:00
Chattanooga Daily Times, December 12, 1915–
Mark Morrison, manager of Morrison’s, well known local drug firm, was arraigned yesterday before Esquire Kerby, charged with violating… Read More
2018-12-11 05:00
Franklin NC
Dec. 10, 1926
Mr. F.M. Lida.
Dear Sir
I am going to write you for a little information about R.E. Gilliland if you know any thing about him. Last Thursday night two week ago he a… Read More
2018-12-10 05:00
For Pennsylvania Dutch children Christmas starts tomorrow, the beginning of ‘chriskringling’ (or ‘Kris Kringling,’) the two-week period culminating in Christmas. It&r&hell…Read More
2018-12-07 05:00
You hear young folk singers today sing happy work songs about mule drivers and mule-skinners. I sometimes wonder if any of them know what driving a mule is really like, and if they’d s… Read More
2018-12-06 05:00
“Andy Orville Bozzel is the son of Mr. And Mrs. George Bozzel. He was born in Andover, VA in Wise County, November 24, 1922. His education is limited, he having completed the fourth gr… Read More
2018-12-05 05:00
CARSKADON’S
Raisins, figs, currants, citron, orange and lemon peel, mince meat and all those things which go to make the Christmas table attractive and beautiful. Do not fool your mone… Read More
2018-12-04 05:00
Up until the second World War, if a Shenandoah Valley [VA] family was a member of the Lutheran or Reformed church, the children could expect a Christmas Eve visit from the Belsnickle. The pr… Read More
2018-12-03 05:00
As long as I can remember there has been a Spies Jewelry Store in Steubenville, OH. The one I am thinking of now was on Market Street across from Beall & Steele’s Drug Store. Spies… Read More
2018-11-30 05:00
(continued from yesterday…)
When the Union forces first reached Atlanta, Callahan sent his daughter word not to go in for more goods, but to stay home with the children. From 30 miles… Read More
2018-11-29 05:00
She said she was 101 at the time of the interview in the January 28, 1928 issue of the Progressive Farmer, but she remembered the early days of childhood well.
There is no doubt that Nancy E… Read More
2018-11-28 05:00
The extremes of wealth and poverty do not now exist and have never been existent in Tazewell. There are many comfortably wealthy men in the county; and, perhaps, half a dozen millionaires. B… Read More
2018-11-26 05:00
“One time we were hauling long timbers for the railroad company. 30 ft. long and it required 2 cars to haul the timbers on, a car under each end and it was pulled with 2 mules, one in… Read More
2018-11-23 05:00
Colonel Ruby Bradley (1907-2002) was the US Army’s most highly decorated nurse. She was born on a farm outside of Spencer, WV and taught four years in one-room schools in Roane County… Read More
2018-11-22 11:24
The post Happy Thanksgiving appeared first on Appalachian History.
You Might Also Like:Happy Thanksgiving to all! Read More
2018-11-21 05:00
“In my younger days, during the 1920s, work was very good, and I would see men at the commissary company store, flipping gold and silver coins in the air and catching them as they fell… Read More
2018-11-20 05:00
The ‘Walker’ is today the most popular of the American Foxhound dog breed. This breed can be traced to Madison County, KY and a stolen hound called Tennessee Lead. According to l… Read More
2018-11-19 05:00
“Back in the days when I knew him, Uncle William [ed.– William Creech 1845-1918] was the sage of Pine Mountain; he was the leader to whom the creek dwellers far and near turned f… Read More
2018-11-16 05:00
I spent a large portion of my life in the Chief Vann house with my old master, Mr. Edmondson. He had a daughter by the name of Jennie. Jennie had a waitress who was named Tein. Another of hi… Read More
2018-11-15 05:00
The scent of locust wood smoke and the sound of crackling fires permeated the early morning scene on hog butchering day.
Guided by the predawn glow of a flickering lantern, Daddy lit the kin… Read More
2018-11-14 05:00
In 1943, a group of Kingsport, TN businessmen wanted to do something special for their neighbors in Southwest Virginia to thank them for their patronage. Flem Dobyns of Dobyns-Taylor Hardwar… Read More
2018-11-13 05:00
English law in the American colonies could get a bit florid on the topic of illegitimate children. A bastard child (or ‘bastarda’, if female) could become a ‘special bastar… Read More
2018-11-12 11:01
The post Happy Veterans Day! appeared first on Appalachian History.
You Might Also Like:One of the oldest Confederate veterans Read More
2018-11-09 05:00
“The log cabin no longer adorns the landscape. Instead, is the stately mansion, indicative of wealth, of taste and of hospitality. There are spacious, nicely painted barns, hedges, orc… Read More
2018-11-08 05:00
Fall means that the persimmons are getting ripe and it’s time to gather the sweet, pulpy fruit. But you’d better try to get to them before the woodland critters beat you to it. R… Read More
2018-11-07 05:00
South Carolinians have known about the mineral springs of Glenn Springs, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains near Spartanburg, for centuries. In the latter part of the eighteenth ce… Read More
2018-11-06 05:00
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 let… Read More
2018-11-05 05:00
It’s a great winged beast, with scales like a reptile and the wings and talons of a great bird. No. It’s half bird, half wildcat with yellow and black stripes. No. It’s a s… Read More
2018-11-02 05:00
“For the last three or four years, or until the middle of 1920, the cotton mills passed through a very prosperous period, just as did every other kind of business that was properly man… Read More
2018-11-01 05:00
To the locals, he was an arrogant and self-serving businessman, responsible for the dislocation of over 400 families when he sold his mountaintop acreage to create the core of the Shenandoah… Read More
2018-10-31 05:00
KY
Death comes in threes in a congregation.
A wild bird in the house means someone’s going to die.
A dog howling three nights in a row means death is near.
If you get shingles all arou… Read More
2018-10-30 05:00
This tale of the shrewish wife who terrifies even the demons is ancient and widespread. The Hindus have it in a sixth century fable collection, the Panchatantra. It seems to have travelled… Read More
2018-10-29 05:00
Reprinted from Kingsport Times News
January 23, 1966
by James M. Evans, United Press International
HILTONS, VA – It’s likely that most folks at one time or another have wondered… Read More
2018-10-26 05:00
In this excerpt from interviews of coal miner Joseph Ozanic, Sr. (1895-1978), Ozanic discusses the conflict between the Progressive Miners of America (of which he was president) and John L… Read More
2018-10-25 05:00
There was a notable character, a Mrs. Henagar, who had the reputation of being a witch. Her upper eye-lids were paralyzed and drooped over her eyes, giving her the appearance of being blind… Read More
2018-10-23 05:00
“Hancock and its surrounding area during the main span of the 20th century was one of the largest fruit producers in the nation,” begins the Maryland Historical Marker along West… Read More
2018-10-23 05:00
This is the story of the hainted house down by Mrs. Grundy’s house.
Well children, I’ll begin the evening of the quilting bee. When John and me was first married, the married wom… Read More
2018-10-22 05:00
“One of boyhood’s traditional toys has come of age. Jim Gasque, North Carolina sportsman, has proved that the ordinary slingshot, when properly made and used, can be an adult wea… Read More
2018-10-19 05:00
“Our study of the situation at Rabun Gap [GA] gives us the keenest interest in Mr. Ritchie, principal of the Rabun Gap Industrial School, himself a mountain boy and struggling to place… Read More
2018-10-18 05:00
Loraine Wyman, accompanied by Howard Brockway, a composer and arranger, was among the first persons to systematically search for folk songs in the Southern Appalachians.
The musical adventur… Read More
2018-10-17 05:00
“The celebrated mountain lands, of which Mark Twain writes in the Gilded Age, lie in Fentress County; and the picturesque village he describes under the name of Obedstown is none other… Read More
2018-10-16 05:00
Between Ohiopyle and Dunbar, PA in Fayette County is a belt of brooding rock-crested ridges, tumbling streams, and abandoned hill farms known to local folks as the Dunbar Mountains.
A park r… Read More
2018-10-15 05:00
This past weekend Cullman, AL hosted the Alabama Gourd Society’s 17th Annual Alabama Gourd Show.
This year’s crop of art gourds builds on a grand old Native American tradition of… Read More
2018-10-12 05:00
On October 14, 1947, Chuck Yeager became the first man to pilot the Bell X-1 faster than the speed of sound, above the California desert at Muroc Dry Lake Bed.
“We just didn’t kn… Read More
2018-10-11 05:30
“This valley is perhaps 3 miles long and a mile wide and is one of the prettiest and most tranquil in all Ohio. It was settled by men and women of a rather serious turn of mind and giv… Read More
2018-10-10 05:00
“Pa bought a mountain farm of about eighty acres that was located about five miles up Coon Creek from where the state road went from Pikeville, Kentucky to Williamson, W. Va. This farm… Read More
2018-10-09 05:00
Always keep Grit from being pessimistic. Avoid printing those things which distort the minds of readers or make them feel at odds with the world. Avoid showing the wrong side of things, or m… Read More
2018-10-08 05:00
His beginnings were humble; he was born the son of an immigrant Scottish coal miner in the company town of Lonaconing, MD. But John Gardner Murray (1857-1929) rose to the heights of the Epis… Read More
2018-10-05 05:00
The Rugby Colony was founded by English author and social reformer Thomas Hughes in the eastern Tennessee mountains, and was officially christened on October 5, 1880.
Rugby colony founder Th… Read More
2018-10-04 05:00
The Leader
October 4, 1917
Meigs County OH
SCRAP OF HISTORY
From the Interesting and Eventful Life of T.H. Gold of Bedford
By invitation the editor of The Leader was a guest Sunday of the… Read More
2018-10-03 05:00
If you’re anywhere near Knoxville, TN this weekend, head on over to the Museum of Appalachia for the Tennessee Fall Homecoming. Crafts and demonstrations include weaving, pottery makin… Read More
2018-10-02 05:00
A headline on page 594 of the 1908 Sears Catalog probably startled readers used to page after page of plows, obesity powders, sewing machines, and cook stoves. It announced: “$100 set… Read More
2018-10-01 05:00
It’s right there on his gravestone:
Harry C. Gibson, June 8, 1876; April 19, 1938; Carried First Rural Mail in the United States; October 1, 1896.
“He was so anxious to deliver m… Read More
2018-09-28 05:00
You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store
‘Sixtee… Read More
2018-09-27 05:00
In the old times the people used to dance often and all night. Once there was a dance at the old town of Sâkwi’yï, on the head of Chattahoochee, and after it was well starte… Read More
2018-09-26 05:00
Sturdy oak rocking chairs beside a pot-bellied stove, shelves generously filled with the needs of farm families, and, more than anything else, Mrs. M.M. Shepherd herself, accounted for the p… Read More
2018-09-25 05:00
Some of America’s most famous entertainers of the 1930s era, because they were African-Americans, were barred from staying in Cumberland, Maryland’s mainstream hotels. Such nota… Read More
2018-09-24 05:00
But, strange as it seemed to him, there were minutes — sometimes half-hours — when, without his knowing why, the black burden seemed to lift itself again and he knew he was a liv… Read More
2018-09-21 05:00
You could get the best refreshments in Fulda, OH at the Fisher Saloon. It was hopps fired brewed German beer, sparkling and crystal clear. Mrs. Frank Fisher grew the family’s own hopps… Read More
2018-09-20 05:00
Part 2 of 2
In Atlanta Gid Tanner was recommended and Tanner brought blind guitarist Riley Puckett with him to New York on March 7, 1924 to back-up his fiddle. Puckett became Columbia’… Read More
2018-09-19 05:00
Part 1 of 2
In 1984, the Tennessee General Assembly recognized the town of Bristol, with one foot in Tennessee and one in Virginia, as the “Birthplace of Country Music.” The Comm… Read More
2018-09-18 05:00
It was the Chesapeake & Ohio’s first luxury passenger train – the Fast Flying Virginian, or F.F.V. It debuted on May 11, 1889, shortly after the Ohio River Bridge between Cov… Read More
2018-09-17 05:00
Oh, Lady Margaret she sat in her high chambers.
She was sewing her silken seams.
She lookit east and she lookit west
And she saw those woods grow green.
So, picking up her petticoat
Beneath… Read More
2018-09-14 05:00
Did Chicago mobster Al Capone ever set foot in Johnson City, TN? During the 1920s the town was nicknamed Little Chicago. A reference acknowledging crime ties to the north? Or nothing more th… Read More
2018-09-13 05:00
No more important fruit tree graces the homesteads, farms, and backyards of Appalachia than the apple. When early settlers headed west from the eastern seaboard, they took apple seeds becaus… Read More
2018-09-12 05:00
Up until the early 1970s, if you found yourself surrounded by Lookout Mountain’s crisp autumn air, steaming apple cider and hot gingerbread, handmade dolls, working craftspeople and sa… Read More
2018-09-11 05:00
“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 Virgi… Read More
2018-09-10 05:00
The following was brought by my father’s first cousin, Roy Hodges, to the family gathering following my uncle’s funeral in 1985. It was handwritten, and in pencil. James Pinkney… Read More
2018-09-07 05:00
Call it the American Custard Apple or the West Virginia Banana, but it’s neither apple nor banana. It’s the Paw-paw (Asimina trilob), the largest native fruit of North America, a… Read More
2018-09-06 05:00
The Carolina coast was the site of the earliest evidence of pottery making in North America, with pieces dated 4,500 BC and tempered with Spanish moss.
In 1540, when Hernando De Soto travele… Read More
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