Appalachian History

Water witching (rhabdomancy) is very common in West Virginia. According to a study done about fifty years ago, at that time there were twenty-five thousand practicing water witches in this country. The actual practice of divining with a forked stick, as we know it, began in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century in Germany.

Martin Luther believed the practice violated the first commandment. Through the ages it has been roundly denounced as the devil's work and praised as a remarkable aid to a basic necessity of rural life---finding water. It is often categorized with such rural customs as planting by the signs.

There must be scientific reasons why some people have special powers to locate water through divining. We just have not determined what those scientific reasons are---or perhaps I am enough of a romantic to allow for belief in its efficacy. I agree with a quotation that sums up the situation: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

I once blindfolded a water witch so there was no possibility he could see. I set a large bucket of water within a 360-degree circle around him, turned him around until he was so dizzy I had to support him until he got his balance back, and then let him turn in a circle to locate the water. He found the water every time, and I conducted this test about half a dozen times.

In fact, when his divining rod got directly over the water, his arms would shake violently. When I tried to do this myself, I actually found the water the first time, but it was more guessing than feeling a specific draw on the rod, although I thought I felt something.

Another test I tried was to have a local Randolph County water witch find a course of water in an open field. At that exact spot, I clamped his rod to a supporting stand, where, without him touching the rod, it did not move on its own. I then had him walk close and reach out with one hand and touch the rod. It still did nothing. He then grasped the rod with two hands as I unclamped it from the stand. It dipped down again, indicating the watercourse.

Vogt and Golde reported one test with a water witch who had a brother without the power. He walked behind the powerless brother and held onto his ears. In doing so, the divining rod worked like normal in his brother's hands.

After knowing and working with this local Randolph County witch for awhile, I became comfortable enough with him to ask a personal question. This man did not cut his fingernails, and some, including one thumbnail, were about two inches in length, growing out in a long curve.

Some things seem best not questioned at first, but I was dying to know about this. At last, one evening when I was passing near his home and stopped by to say hello, I decided the time was right. At a pause in our conversation, I said, "Burt, I’ve been curious as to why you have such long fingernails." I then paused anxiously, waiting for an answer to my question, thinking that perhaps it related to some unknown occult methodology involving secretive aspects of divining. Barely looking up, Burt said, "To scratch my ass." It seems things don't always appear to be what you think they are.


source: Signs, cures, & witchery: German Appalachian folklore, by Gerald Milnes, Univ of Tennessee Press, 2007

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, dowsing, history of appalachia, Randolph County WV, water witching

In Appalachia Santa Claus comes the weekend before Thanksgiving.

Since 1943, the Santa Special, more commonly known as the Santa Train, has traveled 110 miles through the mountains of eastern Kentucky, southwest Virginia and northeastern Tennessee to distribute loads of candy, toys and other goodies to eager bystanders, most of whom have made it a family tradition. The train typically passes through more than 30 towns delivering Christmas cheer.

This year Wynonna Judd is joining CSX as the special guest on the 2009 Santa Train. Wynonna, who is originally from Ashland, KY, is revisiting her childhood as a part of her partnership with CSX, Food City and the Kingsport Area Chamber of Commerce.

The 67th annual Santa Train will make 14 stops on Nov. 21. Wynonna, Santa Claus and volunteers will deliver 15 tons of toys to thousands of Appalachian residents who live along the route. “Sharing the joy of the season with children who grew up just like I did is something that I am so privileged to have the opportunity to do,” Wynonna said. “Appalachia has always been close to my heart, and participating in the Santa Train is something very special to me.”

Train staffers throw candy, crackers, popcorn, bubble gum, cookies, stuffed animals, electronic games, hats, handmade gloves, mittens, toboggans, T-shirts, wrapping paper and other treats from the train’s caboose.

The Santa Special was the brainchild of Kingsport, TN businessmen who wanted to show their appreciation to the people of the coalfields for their patronage throughout the year.


Santa Special officials have said that the first Santa Train pulled just one car and a meager load of gifts. It reached towns and cities that at the time had no other means of transportation. Some believe the train provided many children the only toys they received during World War II.

Joe Higgins played the role of Santa Claus in 1943-44 --- the run's first two years.

sources: www.dickensoncounty.net/santatrain.html
www.kingsportchamber.org/portal/santaframe.htm
http://www.appvoices.org/index.php?/site/voice_stories/santa_train_rides_again_through_appalachia/issue/523


Santa+Train Joe+Higgins CSX Kingsport+TN Pikeville+KY Christmas+in+Appalachia appalachia+history +appalachian+culture

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Labels: appalachia history, appalachian culture, Christmas in Appalachia, CSX, Joe Higgins, Kingsport TN, Pikeville KY, Santa Train

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 legend, drover Tom Harris stole the hound out of a deer chase in Tennessee a few miles south of Albany, Kentucky in November 1852. Harris carried this rat-tailed, tight-haired black and tan hound on his buckboard to Madison County, and sold him to George Washington Maupin.

“I am sure Tennessee Lead was taken from Overton County, Tennessee, and that his first owner was either John or Mark Jolly or Andrew Kraft,” maintains Bob Lee Maddux in Old Time Walker Hounds, from The Hunter’s Horn, December 1974 issue. “They were deer hunters who lived among the mountains near where the Kentucky Rock Island Road broke out of the Cumberland Mountains to enter Obey’s River valley."

George Washington Maupin (Left), Tennessee Lead and William J. Walker (Right)

The origin and breeding of this hound is unknown. Lead didn't look like the Virginia strain of English Foxhounds of that day. But he had an exceptional amount of game sense, plenty of drive and speed and a clear, short mouth. Most importantly, because of his speed and ability to run a red fox, he was used extensively at stud and was a major contributor to the development of the foxhounds as a whole.

The first hound bred to Tennessee Lead was a female called Red May, jointly owned by Thomas Howard Maupin (brother of George Washington Maupin), Speedwell Road and Alfred Johnson. This mating took place on November 20, 1852 the same day that George Washington Maupin obtained Lead from Tom Harris, and produced the hound White Mag, who was later sold to George Washington Maupin.

Tennessee Lead’s get were in turn crossed on imported hounds from England, native Kentucky hounds, Maryland hounds and Birdsong hounds from Georgia. Out of these crosses came the Walker and two other major strains: ‘Trigg’ and ‘Goodman.’

Bob Lee Maddux picks up the story once more: “Five years after Tennessee Lead was secured by the Maupins a rich banker and land owner of Madison County, KY, whose name was Jason Walker, imported three English hounds, two dogs and one bitch in whelp.

“From this English mating on the Native-Tennessee Lead bitches the Maupins produced a distinctive hound by 1868. For that year Wash Maupin died, leaving two sons to carry on, but their very serious fault was that they kept no records of any sort what-so-ever.

“The hound, Spotted Top bred by Wash Maupin’s sister’s son, Neil Gooch, was the first hound to have his breeding recorded for information of future generations. That hound was bred in 1864, but had no English cross. He was the offspring of Tennessee Lead stock on Native hounds.

“From about 1870 we are indebted, solely, to the Walker Brothers of Garrard County for the preservation of this breed. They bought from Wash Maupin, the year before he died, Spotted Top.

“Then they bought Scott and White Trav, littermates, from Joe Maupin, and from the other hounds they had previously purchased they preserved the blood in its proper ratio of 6-3-1 until about 1900, when the Striver cross enters.

“We are indebted to W. S. Walker, Arch Walker and Wade Walker for dispersing the blood to Missouri, Texas, Tennessee, and throughout the South. For Ed Walker, while the best hunter of the four, would not sell a hound. He bought every good one that he ever knew about, but kept them for his own hunting pleasure, and allowed them to be scattered only through his stud dogs.

“He never did like the Striver cross. One morning he and Tom Steagall of Crab Orchard were hunting on the Henry Baker Ridge. The hounds were working hard to lift their fox. One, a young bitch by Big Strive, was switching around too near the casting place to suit Mr. Walker, so Tom, out of his Irish devilment, asked Mr. Ed how he liked the new English cross. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘one eighth of it does fairly well, but one sixteenth is much better.’”


http://www.treeingwalkerhistory.com/History.html
http://fasdawg.tripod.com/history.html
www.foxhoundspastandpresent.com/oldtimewalkerhounds.html

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Labels: American Foxhounds, appalachia, appalachian history, dogs, George Washington Maupin, history of appalachia, John W Walker

Citizen (Berea, Ky.)
Thursday, July 7, 1910.

"Keep Busy"

It is not money that is the root of all evil. It is idleness. Idleness leads to poverty, Idleness invites disease. Idleness breeds crime.

Everywhere people are to be found who seem to put but little value upon time. They may know the full worth of a dollar, but they do not seem to have learned that a column of hours may be added and the result be dollars. Idleness and the pupil drops out of the class. Industry and he is at the head.

Idleness and there are filth and flies in the house, and the weeds hide the view from the window and door. Industry and the home, though it be a cabin, is a place of beauty and roses.

Idleness and the fence row encroaches upon the field, sprouts take the pasture, and the farmer complains that the soil is exhausted and he can’t make a living. Industry and the fence rows are clean, the sprouts give way to clover, and the farmer’s barns—and his pockets—are full.

Idleness and the mind feeds upon thoughts of disease, and the disease follows. Industry and the thoughts go in other channels, activity proves a tonic, and vigorous health results.

Idleness and the weeds grow. They only need to be let alone. Evil and crime are like weeds, and industry proves a good resistant. Is it not so? Look about and see.

Yes, that is the reason Bud Adler is out of school and no job in sight, while Willie Brown has his diploma and a good position awaiting. And you stopped at the Adler home the other day. There were the weeds up to the porch railing, the farm all run down and the barns empty. And there were filth and flies—no screens. Farmer Adler had no time, and Mrs. Adler had no time. But you found the farmer sitting on the porch whittling and his wife beside him with folded hands.

And what about Mrs. Burchett? She has been having spells of some kind for nearly a year. And the neighbors report her very sick, but the Doctor is your brother-in-law and he tells you there is really nothing the matter with her. It is all in her imagination. The fact is, the Doctor told you that nearly half of our ailments are imaginary to begin with. Didn’t he say “three fourths.” You remember how the Doctor laughed when he told you what he gave Mrs. Burchett on his last visit. A bread pill. He said she didn’t need a thing except to get interested in something, but, if he had told here that, she would have sent for the other Doctor. So he did not tell her.

And the Doctor, your brother-in-law, at the same time called your attention to Mrs. Newgate—a little mite of a woman that had never been strong—and said that she would have been dead long ago if death had ever found her idle long enough to get her scared about herself. But it couldn’t. When she got the house in order she went to the yard or garden, and no weeds could grow there for the flowers. And how happy she was, and how happy her family!

And you don’t have to go out of your own neighborhood to see that idleness leads to crime. Look at the Feltin boys. They didn’t have to work and their parents didn’t see the necessity of keeping them busy; so they drifted and the weeds grew, and two of them are in the “pen” and one in the house of reform. Busy now! Get busy and get wealth. Keep busy and keep health.

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, Berea KY, history of appalachia, idleness, work ethic

James Camak started his career as a professor at University of Georgia, left to make a fortune in banking, and went on to become president of Georgia’s first railroad company, a respected newspaper editor, a professor at University of Georgia (again!), and a Trustee of the college. One thing he was not though, was an accurate surveyor. In 1818, early in his career, he was appointed by the state to help survey the boundary line between Georgia and Tennessee. He botched the job. Twice.

When the State of Tennessee was created by an act of Congress in 1796, the state’s southern boundary (and thus the corresponding northern boundary of Georgia, already a state for eight years) was decreed to be the 35th degree of North latitude. At the time, the western boundary of Georgia was the Mississippi River.

In 1802, partly as a result of political maneuvers following the Yazoo Land Fraud, Georgia gave up all possession of what was then known as the Mississippi Territory (currently the States of Alabama and Mississippi). The Articles of Agreement and Cession described the new western boundary of Georgia to be, in part, "...thence in a direct line to Nickajack, on the Tennessee River; thence crossing the said last mentioned river, and thence...along the western bank thereof to the southern boundary of the State of Tennessee."

On June 1, 1818, James Camak, who was then teaching mathematics at the University of Georgia in Athens, joined with James Gaines, a mathematician hired by Tennessee, to survey the line between the two states. The survey began at a stone, two feet tall, that supposedly marked the corner of the states of Georgia and Alabama and on the 35th parallel, the southern boundary of the state of Tennessee. The stone was described as being “one mile and twenty-eight poles from the south bank of the Tennessee River, due south from near the center of the old Indian town of Nick jack”.

The accepted method of the day was to calculate one's position on the surface of the Earth by observing specific heavenly bodies at specific times of day and comparing their positions in the sky with published tables called ephemerides.

The survey results were only as good as the charts being used, as well as the apparatus employed. Camak expressed doubts about his astronomical tables, stating they "were not such as I could have wished them to be".

To compound that problem, the governor had refused Camak's requests for a ‘Zenith Sector,’ a state-of-the-art surveying instrument, so they were making do with a nautical sextant. Sextants, being primarily for marine use, only get you close to your destination.

The zenith sector, the tool Camak wanted to use, but didn’t. It pointed straight and directly overhead. A telescope rotated on a pivot and allowed astronomers to measure the zenith distances (the angle between the star and the highest point in the sky) of celestial bodies. This also necessitated aligning the instrument in the meridian (a line through the poles). Since the graduated scale was so low to the ground, the astronomer usually had to lie on his back or a special reclined seat in order to effectively make observations with the zenith sector.

The first session placed them anywhere from 11 miles north to 11 miles south of the target line. Wisely, the group decided to dispense with that particular instrument and all calculations to date. Camak observed for 10 more days and nights, finally to arrive at the conclusion to place the corner stone "...one mile and 7 chains [about 5700 feet] from the Tennessee River and about one quarter of a mile south of Nickajack Cave."

Only 26 days after they had begun, the survey party ended their task atop Unicoe Mountain, 110 miles east of the point of beginning. On July 13, 1818 Camak, along with appointed representatives of both states, met in Milledgeville, GA to certify the survey as correct.

Eight years later, after new observations for latitude had been taken, Camak ran the line again and discovered his original line was almost one mile south of the true 35th parallel in several places.

He again made ten days of celestial observations. This time, he determined that the northwest corner of Georgia was marked 37.9 chains (about 2500 feet) south of the 35th parallel. So that year, the "Camak Stone" was pulled up and moved north to its current, and still inaccurate, location.

If his original placement had been as accurate as we now could make it using GPS, the State of Georgia would include a section of the Tennessee River and the Nickajack Reservoir.

No one in Georgia seemed to care about the location of the border for more than 70 years. But the rapid growth of the rebuilt Atlanta changed all that. Because of typographical errors in a book of mathematical tabulations and use of the wrong measuring tools, the nearly infinite supply of water in the Tennessee River was not available to the citizens of Georgia. Atlanta depends upon Lake Lanier and the Chattahoochee River for its water, while the Tennessee River flows just out of reach with 15 times greater flow than the Chattahoochee.

2007 aerial photo with state borders superimposed shows just how close the Tennesssee River lies to the Georgia border.

Starting in 1887, the Georgia legislature began raising the border issue in the form of resolutions. In 1905, 1915, 1922, 1941, 1947, 1971, and again just last year, the state called for discussions between Tennessee and Georgia to resolve boundary issues.

Each time Tennessee did little or nothing to achieve any change. In 1947 Georgia went so far as to form a borderline committee and authorized it to look into the matter and the Attorney General of Georgia to bring suit to the Supreme Court if the committee could not resolve the dispute. Yet the border remained the same.

The long-held legal principle is simple, says modern day border expert Louis DeVorsey: The decisive fact is not where surveyors meant to draw the line -- it's where people have accepted the line to be over time.

"It's where people adjusted their lives to," said the retired University of Georgia geography professor.


Sources: www.amerisurv.com/content/view/4637/153
www.davidrmay.com/Related/gatnborder.php
www.math.uga.edu/about_us/history.html
Savage Historical Surveys at bit.ly/3B72lT
chat.augustachronicle.com/stories/2008/03/04/met_189638.shtml
www.tba.org/sections/EnvironmentalLaw/newsletters/enews_062008.htm
www.maconnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2171&Itemid=34
www.tba.org/journal_new/index.php/component/content/article/71

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, border disputes, GA/TN border, history of appalachia, James Camak, surveying

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

We open today's show with an excerpt from Handling Serpents: Pastor Jimmy Morrow's History of His Appalachian Jesus' Name Tradition. “Service got started with the congregation singing,” he explains about his style of worship. “Then they had prayer request and there was prayer. They also had special singing. About that time Mullins from Virginia carried up front a big black rattlesnake in a box and set it next to a box with two copperheads in it.”

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

Dr. Harriet B. Jones well deserved the laurels she earned as West Virginia's first woman physician, as the first woman to serve in the State Legislature, as the founder of numerous hospitals and welfare institutions, and as a vigorous pioneer in the fight against tuberculosis. In 1937 the Morgantown Post gave its readers an extensive overview of her long career.

Moses Cone learned men. He learned how to win them.
And by doing so he rose from being a traveling drummer in NC for his family’s grocery business to being the head of Cone Mills Corporation, which became a leading manufacturer of denim. His company was a major supplier to Levi Strauss and Company for nearly a century. In 'Moses Cone Remembered,' Josephus Daniels (Secretary of the Navy under Woodrow Wilson) describes the neighbor who he summered near in the Blowing Rock area.

Nationally recognized herbalist Tommie Bass (1908-1996) was the subject of scholarly and popular books, television features, a front-page essay in the Wall Street Journal. The Alabama native was also wickedly funny in his offhand observations of life lived. In this excerpt of a transcript from a 1993 documentary, Bass sums up his view of being pitched to vote for one or another politician.

In March 1782, Timothy Dorman and his family, white settlers of Fort Buckhannon (in modern day Upshur County, WV) were captured by Shawnee Indians. One hundred years later novelist Charles McKnight envisioned the party’s abduction from Mrs. Dorman’s point of view in "Simon Girty : "The white savage"; A romance of the border." Her sufferings will chill you to the bone.

We’ll wrap things up with a brief appreciation for the dried apple stack cake, one of the most popular southern Appalachian cakes. At holidays and weddings, early mountain settlers traditionally served stack cake in lieu of more fancy, and costly, cakes. Neighbors would each bring a layer of the cake to the bride's family, which they spread with apple filling as they arrived. It was said that the number of cake layers the bride got determined how popular she was.

And, thanks to the good folks at the Digital Library of Appalachia we'll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music by the band Wry Straw in a 1970s recording of the classic old-time fiddle tune “Kitchen Girl.”

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

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Nationally recognized herbalist Tommie Bass (1908-1996) was the subject of scholarly and popular books, television features, a front-page essay in the Wall Street Journal, and numerous articles in newspapers and magazines. Bass lived almost his entire life in the Tennessee Valley and Ridge section of Alabama, primarily in Cherokee County.

"I don't ever get a letter, but what I answer it. One way or the other. And generally speaking, some of them sends a self-stamped envelope, but some of, a lot of them don't. But when you answer around a hundred letters for twenty-five dollars, twenty-five cents a letter, that runs into money (chuckles). But I answer 'em anyway.

[Looks through junk mail] "Most everybody gets something like that. And, course, this one here is from the Baptist Church at Centre, their bulletin. And this one here is a-wantin . . . this here is a politician they want me to send money to help me get along, you know, I get ‘em from the Democrats and Republicans, regardless of who they are, and I even get letters from the Catholic priests wanting me to help ‘em, you know, along.

Photograph of Tommie Bass by Tom Rankin, 1983.

"Course this is one of them get rich letters here this make you a million dollars in just a few days, you know, send five people five dollars apiece and then when your name gets to the top, why you'll go a-getting the five dollars -- but don't try it buddy it won't work.

"Course this here one, here's another politician. I get ‘em . . . when they's running here in our state from the Democrats, I'd average two or three letters a day, and then the same way about the Republicans, you know, it just didn't make no difference just so they can get some money. (chuckles) But I didn't give ‘em none. I figured . . . the fact of the business is a fellow running for office, a man or a woman, I'm like the little boy was about the peckerwood.

"Peckerwood pecked a hole in a hollow tree and he went over in there, and the little boy he drove a peg in behind it. Somebody said to him, “Son,” said, “you shouldn't of done the little bird that way.” He said, "Well the son-of-a-gun pecked in, now let him peck out.

"And so I'm that way about a politician. If he wants to get into office, let him get in there (chuckles), but I ain't gonna try to help him. Course, if he's a good guy, I'd talk for him, but as far as paying him in there, I don't go along with that."

---excerpt from 'Tommie Bass A Life in the Ridge and Valley Country,' 1993 video produced by Alabama State Council on the Arts and the Cherokee County Historical Society


sources: www.folkstreams.net/pub/ContextPage.php?essay=154
www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-2166

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Labels: appalachia, appalachian history, Cherokee County AL, history of appalachia, mountain herbs, Tommie Bass