rl rs aK * dA FgoRt 5 eal Logical sem Divisio LEO ‘ - es a is Te S : % » vs de 7 oes “ uy x ae a Wig LARgy . aL Fm ma) i dee Os i: i a =a 4 geet, Re nna . TO DISREGARD PHYSICAL COMFORT, TO MEET EMERGENCIES. TO FACE DANGER WITH COURAGE AND COOLNESS, TO EXERCISE RESOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE OF SPIRIT—THESE ARE ESSENTIALS TO:A RIDER IN THE LAND OF SADDLE-BAGS. The Land of Saddle-bags A Study of the Mountain » People of Appalachia By James Watt Raine Head of the Department of English Berea College Published jointly by Council of Women for Home Missions and Missionary Education Movement of the United States and Canada New York COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY THE COUNCIL OF WOMEN FOR HOME MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA Printed in the United States of America TO MY FATHER Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/landofsaddlebagsOOrain CONTENTS Chapter 1 Introducing Ourselves, 1 The Spell of the Wilderness, 19 Adventurers for Freedom, 33 Elizabethan Virtues, 65 Mountain Speech and Song, 95 Moonshine and Feuds, 127 The Mountains Go to School, 163 The Religion of a Stalwart People, 191 Health and Happiness, 207 Wealth and Welfare, 221 The Challenge, 241 NO OO NE Oy PS Oye. ers Sn at be Mm S&S ILLUSTRATIONS In the Land of Saddle-bags, rrontisrmce From a Mountain Top, 4 A County Seat, 5 A Windowless Cabin, 52 Where Rivers and Streams Abound, 53 Quilts and “‘ Kivers,’’ 68 Cooperation and Compensation, 69 When a Road Isn’t a Road, 148 The Secret of the Future, 149 A Modern Priscilla, 164 Five Miles from a Store, 165 A Meeting at Wildcat Mountain, 212 Reminders of Elizabethan Days, 213 The Warp and Woof of Mountam Art, 228 A Class mm Cheese-making, 229 PAP ’ tt a oe *| t PREFACE HE Mountain People are the inhabitants of the region whimsically, but happily, called Appalachia. They are the descendants of the Scotch-Irish, driven from the North of Ire- land by the stupidity of the Stuart kings. By the time the Declaration of Independence was signed they constituted one sixth of the population of the American colonies. They arrived in such shoals that they could not be assimilated by the sparse population of the colonies. Being of pioneer mettle, they naturally surged beyond the western limit of settlements and civilization. There were fierce Indians to the west and fiercer French, so they turned southward and swarmed down the inviting Valley of Virginia, in the heart of the mountain region. In this migration they swept along with them Palatine Germans, Protestants driven out after the Thirty Years’ War, Hugue- nots similarly driven out of France, the more adventurous Quakers from the western reaches of Pennsylvania, and a good sprinkling of Virginia English. These latter were the less conservative element—the restless young blood, bolder uncon- ventional spirits, men rebelling against the routine of commerce, some of plebeian and some of gentle blood. They preferred the free life of the wilder- ness, hunting, trapping, and exploring. From these pioneers the Mountain People sprang. 1X Me Preface While the rest of the nation has grown far from our revolutionary ancestors, the Mountain People have been marooned on an island of mountains, and have remained very much the same as they were at that time. Does the area that I have called the Land of Saddle-bags cover all this Appalachian region? Formerly it did, but not today. All sociological progress is the result primarily of passable roads. The interchange of products and of ideas, and even the infusion of new blood, are all contingent upon transportation. Wherever the currents of contemporary life can flow in, or seep through, all the different human elements blend into a composite, in which the characteristics are shared in common. Whenever a river is made navigable or a railway is built, the adjacent area eradually emerges from the Land of Saddle-bags. All these survivals from ancestral days are like prized heirlooms, with their own quaint atmos- phere of dignity and romance. But they are rap- idly disappearing. Yet under all changes the fun- damental qualities persist. In the colossal task of Americanizing America we can wish for noth- ing better than these simple virtues of the pioneer, who has always been hardy, honest, hospitable, and fearless. JamES Watt Rainer BEREA, KENTUCKY January, 1924 Introducing Ourselves Introducing Ourselves HE backwoodsmen were Americans by birth and parentage, and of mixed race; but the dominant strain in their blood was that of the Presbyterian Irish—the Scotch-Irish as they were often called. Full credit has been awarded the Roundhead and the Cavalier for their leadership in our history; nor have we been altogether blind to the deeds of the Hollander and the Huguenot; but it is doubtful if we have wholly real- ized the importance of the part played by that stern and virile people... the pioneers of our people in their march westward. THEODORE ROOSEVELT The Winning of the West CHAPTER ONE Introducing Ourselves NE infers from the picturesque stories in the magazines that the Southern High- lander or Appalachian Mountaineer is in person tall, hairy, gaunt, and loose, his joints ap- parently tied together with bits of string. His garments consist usually of trousers and the re- mains of a shirt, surmounted by an enormous flapping hat. As to occupation, he is represented for the most part as sitting rather permanently on a rail fence gazing at very intelligent and well- dressed visitors; or, more sketchily, running a moonshine still; or shooting down his enemies in a feud. For which purposes he is picturesquely decorated with an old muzzle-loading squirrel rifle nearly six feet long, and the powder horn and deerskin pouch used by his grandfather. Of course I am not personally acquainted with all the Mountain People; but for thirty years the circle of my acquaintance has been steadily en- larging, and this composite picture from the maga- zines does not fit very many of them. [ would not say that magazine writers have a malicious intent to deceive. They are doubtless reasonably honest, but they are also temperamentally selective, and write with prolific swiftness. Men that habitually carry their pencils at half-cock, and are so eagerly 1 2 The Land of Saddle-bags sensitive to fresh impressions, are naturally star- tled when they see the unusual conditions in which some of us live, and hear the peculiar names our places bear. Who could write a commonplace paragraph about a news item from Beefhide, Mad Dog, Barefoot, Jamboree, Hogskin Creek, Burn- ing Springs (a well of natural gas, discovered in early days), Contrary, Poor Fork, Viper, Trav- eler’s Rest, Hell fur Sartain, Troublesome, King- dom Come, Disputanta, Fish Trap, Squabble Creek, Quicksand, Cutskin, Feisty or Hazard? These naturally overstimulate the fertile imagina- tions of literary men, and the colors of their sketches are instinctively heightened; or perhaps, by mere natural selection, what is gray and dull and average fades out and the residue of color ‘‘strikes fiery off indeed.’’ Perhaps you have read a popular author’s bril- hiant little thumb-nail etching called ‘‘Hell for Sartain.’’ JI have been on Hell fur Sartain sey- eral times myself during Christmas season. Once { was riding alone on the east side of the river, which was frozen solid on each bank, but the strong current kept it clear of ice in the middle of the stream. Meeting a man whose square saddle- bags suggested that he was a physician, I said: ‘‘T suppose I’m on the right road for Hyden?”’ ‘‘Yes,’’ he replied, and then, stopping his horse, he called after me: ‘‘Are you acquainted with the fords in the river?’? Introducing Ourselves ui ‘‘Why, I—I’ve been over the road once.’’ ‘* Well, I reckon maybe you’d as well cross the river back here, and shun the quicksand up yon- der.”’ Would a stranger find more thoughtful courtesy in the streets of Chicago or Washington? Of course there are plenty of killings in the mountains. The doctor was then on his way home from attending a young fellow who had been ‘‘stobbed’’ by another. Such casualties are a natural consequence of ‘‘celebrating’’ Christmas. This term has a meaning not found in Webster, a deliberate intention to drink one’s self into hilari- ous and glorious exultation. And the day before I had met a dead man on the headwaters of Squabble Creek. Some eight or ten grim-faced men were walking or riding be- side a ‘‘slide’’ where on an armful of cornshucks lay the body, a gray blanket spread over it. They were taking it back home to his father and mother, fifteen miles away. More celebrating! It was startling to meet death in this raw and un-hearsed fashion. Yet I met a great many men that were not dead. | On another occasion, it was growing dark, I was riding a strange mule, and forded the swollen river with some difficulty. Turning up on the far- ther shore of the river, I started across lieu fur Sartain Creek. I was unable in the dusk to see where the road emerged from the creek on the 4 The Land of Saddle-bags opposite side. The mule sank to his belly in the quicksand, while I slipped off his back, and, having larger feet, waded safely to the bank. After I had rescued the mule, I found the path, followed it through a cornfield and reached a house. Mak- ing a place for me at the roaring fire, the master urged me to stay all night, while his wife arose quickly to cook me some supper. But it was nec- essary to reach the county seat that night, so as soon as the moon was up I rose to leave. The host called to his fifteen-year-old son to saddle the gray mule and guide me back across the dangerous creek and the swollen river, and get me safely across Baker’s ford, two miles farther up the river: ‘‘A man cain’t handily cross thar, less’n he knows whar the bottom is.’’ The lad conducted me across the three fords and bade me good night, adding in response to my hearty thanks—for it would have been an insult to offer him money— ‘Well, ye better go home with me and stay all night.’ Perhaps you would call that boy ignorant. It is true he never saw a railway, or an electric hght, or a kitchen sink, or water piped into a house. But neither did Shakespeare ever see any of these things. Indeed, if Shakespeare could re- visit the earth today, he would feel more at home among our Mountain People than anywhere else. His mother cooked on an open fireplace like ours. She used the same spinning wheel; wove her home- ‘sosmoy YIM MOTd 03 dvoqs pue Yysiy 00} saovid uo uazjo ‘spfeyusoo pojuxrd pue puvy Aq sjso10f aq} porvepo ATgnor10qe] dABY UU ‘SYSTUL UTeJUNOUL oY} Suowe ‘olofT ‘ssvq pur ArToOYyoIyY puw yeo ‘ynuyem puv ourd JO YJMOLS osuap B YIM SjIUMUINS AIA IBY} 0} potaaod sT[Iy oy} Jo Aysolew oy} Sployog oug dOL NIVINOQOW V WOd ‘AIQUNOD 9Y} UOIZ UT poo o[doed uoyM < SUT}aeW pozorajord,, Jo sKep r0 sAvp-yinod uo ydooxe pojsoSuoo ATPeoa ToAoU St avd of, ‘191BA IO ‘S]YBIT ‘spros ‘Sy[BMOpIS OU 9B OLY} ING ,.‘[e}-o0y,, B puB ‘out, sucydaye, w ‘o104s B ‘YornYo B ‘OSNOY-JANOD B St LOU, aVOWNIVa AHL WOU SATIN ALYOA LVAS-ALNOOO V Introducing Ourselves B spun on the same rough-hewn loom; lighted her house with the same grease-lamp, and sang her children to sleep with the same old ballads that our Mountain women use today. Fave you ever thought, when rummaging in an- attic, how delightful it would be, by some Alad- din’s magic, to visit the home that your great- great-grandfather built after he left this Eliza- bethan England and came to America? In imag- ination you can explore the solid old house with its home-built furniture and enjoy the quaint charm of pioneer life, long, long past. But in our Mountains it is not past. Here we are still among Shakespeare’s people. This is the real Forest of Arden. From the old log house where I live upon the outskirts of this forest, we can ride in four hours into the seventeenth century. After a few miles on the smooth dirt road, the hills begin to squeeze closer together, their slopes grow steeper, and we turn up Napier’s fork, a narrow glen with a stream at the bottom.) The sides, now rocky, now park-like, are covered with luxuriant foliage to the very top. Our ‘‘road”’ runs along the side of the creek, crossing and re- crossing it continually, and sometimes, where there is no level space on either side, the road runs for several hundred yards in the bed of the stream itself, thus ‘‘fording it eendwise.’’ In one day’s journey you may ford the river a hundred times; 6 The Land of Saddle-bags or you may ‘‘take up’’ a ‘‘branch”’ or ‘‘fork”’ or ‘‘trace’’ to its source in a spring near the top of a ridge, then follow the trail across the ridge, through the ‘‘gap,’’ till on the other side you come upon another little brooklet, which you fol- low down till it empties into a larger stream. Then you go up or down its bank till you come to ‘‘the third left hand holler,’’ and so on—up and across and down—all day. /No wonder ‘‘salt gits — mighty expensive time hit’s hauled sixty miles.’’ And when, on a steep hillside, the path is blocked by a fallen tree or a landslide of earth and rocks, we must let our horses pick their way through the underbrush down to the creek and wade down its bed. The creek is very steep, it is full of rocks or boulders two to three feet high, it is swollen with melted snow. Such traveling is certainly inter- esting, but neither safe nor comfortable, and prog- ress is very slow. The horse gropes for every foothold, and you wonder each time whether he has found bottom or whether he is stepping on a submerged boulder, and will slip two feet deeper and perhaps throw you over his head. Going down stream, his head is considerably lower than his tail, even when he does not slip or stumble. After you have succeeded in thus running the rapids of the St. Lawrence on horseback, you feel rather proud of your horsemanship. It is quite different from your well-groomed ride in the park Introducing Ourselves ii at home. Naturally, when you stop for dinner at the mouth of the branch, with ill-concealed elation you tell your hostess of this daring ride. But she quietly remarks, ‘‘Yes, the road’s a plum sight. I went up thar to the store yesterday—hit’s five mile back, I reckon you come apast hit. Well, I was clean out o’ bakin’ powders, and Susie broke my needle—I’m sewin’ her a frock, and I jest had to git another—so John slapped the saddle on the mare, and I tuk a basket of eggs to do my tradin’ with, and them eggs got powerful heavy afore I got thar because my baby was restless.”’ ‘*Your baby! You don’t mean that you carried a baby and a basket of eggs up and down that stream on a side saddle?”’ ‘‘Shore,’’ she smiles. ‘‘Well, no, I never brung the eggs back, I traded them,’’ she corrected, with the usual regard for the exact truth. And this ‘ride, which you will remember your hfe long as a daring adventure, is her usual method of getting her groceries! But another surprise awaits us. It rains all night, and next morning all the snow is melted from the hillsides. ‘‘Is that roar the noise of water?’’ ‘‘Yes, sir, they’s a big tide in old Greasy; come out and see. Hit’s over the step- rock.’’ And sure enough, everything is under water to the very door. The volume of water in the creek is ten times what it was when we went to bed. The water swirls past fiercely, sweeping 8 The Land of Saddle-bags along on its muddy surface logs, tree-tops, some- body’s boat, a cow still alive and pitifully moan- ing. Our horses could never swim that water, and our clothes would be soaked if they could. No traveling today! Now we begin to realize how important roads are to human progress. They are not only chan- nels for commerce, but the avenues of education, socialization, and civilization. In such weather, of course, the children cannot go to school, and in this rough country (the adjective refers to geo- graphical conditions) there are often more absent marks than any other on the school record. In- terrupted attendance is fearfully discouraging to both teacher and pupil, and it is not strange that many pupils drop out altogether when they can barely read and write. Only those endowed by a propitious fate with the ability to ‘‘take larnin’ easy’’ can successfully make such roads a high- way to learning. Now, we understand why funerals occur in the late summer or fall. Of course, burial takes place immediately, but there can be no ‘‘funeral’’ until the weather is good, and roads ‘‘air fitten to travel.’’ Then the kinsfolk and friends can gather and the favorite preacher ‘‘kin labor successf’ly to honor the appintment.’’ It is such conditions of belated travel that some- times cause ludicrous complications. Our friend Felix lost his wife one winter, and the following Introducing Ourselves 9 fall, when Marthy’s funeral would naturally have been preached, her brother was away in Ohio. The next year Felix himself was involved at the adjoining county seat in a long-drawn-out trial. So when the funeral did finally occur, Felix was Sitting in the chief mourner’s place with a new wife by his side, and as the preacher rose to the heights of pathetic eloquence, Felix sobbed upon the shoulder of his new wife for the death of Marthy. . In such geographic conditions Puck, who is not dependent upon good roads, can play his mischievous pranks, which make such fools of poor mortals. With all due respect to modern education, and to the invention of printing behind it, with all due respect to modern inventions, and to the steam en- gine back of them, civilization is primarily de- pendent upon good roads. Martin Conway re- marks that civilizations have always arisen upon the meeting places of ideas. And ideas do not meet unless the men who think them can get to- gether The isolation is even worse for the women than for the men. Men take out logs, go to the monthly Court at the county seat, drive cattle, and occa- sionally go to earn some ‘‘cash money’? at ‘‘pub- lic works’’ (by which is meant any enterprise em- ploying a number of men, such as building a court- house or a bit of railway, work at a sawmill or ata coal mine). When there is a house-raising in the 10 The Land of Saddle-bags neighborhood, the women congregate and have a quilting. But such gatherings are not very fre- quent, and the steep hill slopes rising on all sides shut women in to a lonesome life. ‘‘I’d love to git to a place once whar I could see a big passel o’ land that hadn’t been stood up on edge lke,’’ said one woman out of her experience of precipitous and imprisoning horizons. Where hills are some- what rounded, a ‘‘house-seat’’ is often chosen upon one of the knobs. But in the sharper and steeper valleys the only place level enough to build on is at the edge of the creek, and as there is a little larger level where a branch runs into the creek, there we usually find the home, with a ‘‘picketin’ ’’ fence around all the level land. This rich silted soil forms the garden. The house is probably built of logs, perhaps two cribs, one roof extending over both, making a covered passageway between, with an outside chimney at each end. One crib of logs was built first, perhaps without a window, and as the family grew the house was enlarged and ‘‘improved’’ by building the second crib. A porch overgrown with vines or roses runs ali along the front, a smoke-house stands near by in the rear, the cave- like hole beyond the smoke-house is the family coal mine. The barn is across the branch, a log crib in the center with shed roofs on all sides. At the edge of the branch just outside the picket fence is the big iron wash kettle and the ‘‘battling’’ Introducing Ourselves 11 bench for the family laundry. Upon it les the batler or batlet such as Shakespeare’s T'’ouchstone sentimentally kissed. There are apple trees near the house, and perhaps a few peach trees, and along one side of the garden paling stand fifteen or twenty bee-gums.* The ‘‘woman’’—that is, the wife—tends the garden after it has been plowed and fitted. She raises onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, beans, tomatoes, and sometimes squash. She raises a few chickens and geese and fattens a few hogs. She dries apples and corn and shucky beans. The latter she strings with a needle and thread, and hangs overhead. She cans tomatoes and blackberries, raises a patch of sorghum and makes molasses. She barters eggs and honey and feathers at the store for sugar, salt, coffee, needles, thread, and various feminine trinkets. -30me women in the remotest coves have never had « dollar in their own hands. Many of them have never been more than a few miles away from the place where they were ‘‘borned.’’ Some of the children make their way out to the settlements to work or to school. But those who have no ambition for an education or professional training are likely to marry young and settle down in the woods higher up the creek, where ‘‘his’’ 1So called because each hive is made from a thirty-inch log sawed from a hollow gum tree. These are set on end upon a smooth rock or slab, and are covered with split shingles or a thin flat stone. eae The Land of Saddle-bags father gives him land if he will clear it. The wife is perhaps sixteen or fifteen or, in an extreme case, thirteen. Such a couple has very little money © or property to start with. But her mother says, ‘‘They’re pretty well fixed. He’s got some pota- toes and corn and some hay and a nag. And he’s got a bed (bedstead) and she’s got a bed (feather bed). And he’s been off workin’ at public works and got a leetle money for gittin’ some tricks and fixin’s for the house. For pore folks that’s a right smart to start on.’’ Of course, many mountain homes _ have ‘‘brought-on’’ furniture. Organs are not uncom- mon, and even formidable kitchen ranges are brought in by some adventurous agent and sold at an exorbitant price. One is frequently con- fronted by framed family portraits, as lifeless and ugly as any in Indiana or Pennsylvania. But whether the people are ‘‘jest pore folks”’ or. ‘‘right prosperous,’’ whether they live on a passa- ble road or in the remotest valleys, ‘‘in the head of the holler,’’ there is often an air of plenty and comfort. Their patriarchal simplicity does not mean penury. Their free and lavish hospitality is not strained or forced. It is the natural expression of open minds and generous hearts. It does not depend upon how much they have to offer. They are a hardy and self-respecting race. None of the men considers it a hardship to lie down and sleep wher- Introducing Ourselves 18: ever night may find him, in a feather bed or in the woods. They eat whatever food comes to them with the same superiority of mind. I have never seen a Mountain man that was a glutton, but have often been impressed by their abstemious habits. This superiority to mere comfort, this cleanness from the temptings of luxury is an inherent char- acteristic of the Mountain People. I have never known Mountain folk to refuse to extend hospi- tality from any false shame at the bareness of the fare or the meagerness of the accommodation. ‘‘We’re pore folks, we hain’t got much, but you’re welcome to what there is.’’ ‘‘If you can stand our fare, jest he’p yerself.’? And after this no more apologies. They have an inherent. self-respect which instinctively and unconsciously feels that what is good enough for them is good enough for an accidental guest. I once stayed overnight in a home where the mother was in bed in the front room with a week- old baby. In the lean-to kitchen at the rear the half-grown daughters cooked supper. The table was small and would not hold everything they pre- pared for us—fried chicken, fried ham, fried eggs, potatoes, beans, corn, tomatoes, coffee, sweet milk, buttermilk, cornbread, hot biscuit, butter, apple preserves, honey and layer apple pie.t. Then the eldest girl, constantly swinging a ‘‘fly-bresh,’’— a branch from a lilac bush,—kept passing the vari- 1The progenitor of the strawberry shortcake. 14 The Land of Saddle-bags ous dishes and urging us to ‘‘try to mek out a meal.’’ After the men and half-grown boys had eaten, the women and children had their supper, while we sat on the porch and talked under the starry sky. After the dishes were washed, the girls and children, bringing the small glass lamp without any chimney, climbed up the ladder into the loft to sleep. I and the old man who was guid- ing me were assigned to the unoccupied bed in the front room, while the host lay down with the mother and baby. But the baby was restless, and the host walked the floor with it and at intervals fed it paregoric. Perhaps this situation strikes you as funny. It seemed to them quite natural. In the Mountains hospitality is a sacred and glad duty, no matter in what predicament the family may be. This man was patriarchal in his simple, pioneer living—patriarchal also in his whole- hearted hospitality. Nor is this hospitality merely occasional, when a chance traveler comes along. Stopping at an- other home, I saw the old grandmother cowering over the fire in a shawl, as she sat in a low hickory splint chair, smoking her pipe. ‘‘How are you, Mrs. Browning?’’ ‘‘I ain’t no ’count much. But I hain’t no right to complain. I’ve had my health for nigh onto sixty years, but now I’m foolish? and kind 0’ drinlin’. But all I want in this world’s a chance to git to a better.”’ 1 Frail. Introducing Ourselves 15 When Mrs. Browning was a young woman, with only five or six children, word came that a neigh- bor woman up the next creek was very sick. Mrs. Browning went to her at once. ‘‘Miz Browning, I’m a dying woman, and I bin wantin’ mightily to see ye. I bin a-watchin’ ye and I’ve noted that your perfession and your practice hits,t so. I’m goin’ to give ye my six children.’’ As soon as the mother died, Mrs. Browning brought the children home. It was not even necessary to consult her husband. Highteen months later another woman died and left her six more orphans, as another tribute to her real Christian character. Her hus- band’s only remark was, ‘‘ Where ye goin’ to put ’em all, Bettie?’’ ‘‘Oh, there’s allus room for a few more, and the big ’uns can help wait on the least ones.’’ She reared them all with her own children, and I do not suppose she ever saw a hun- dred dollars. Now she is modestly hoping for a chance to get to a better world! It is time to pause a moment to remark that there are just as many different kinds of people in the Mountains as there are outside, whether you consider them morally, mentally, socially, or finan- cially; or consider their skill, energy, disposition, or culture. It is practically impossible to make any interesting statement that would be true of 1A term from weaving. Coverlids are woven in strips thirty- six inches wide, and two strips are sewed together. Sometimes the pattern does not “hit.” 16 The Land of Saddle-bags three million people. What applies to people far up the creeks and coves does not apply to those on the rich farms along the river bottoms. What is true of folk marooned on inaccessible mountain tops is not true of folk living in towns with all the resources of communication and transporta- tion. But, wherever they go and whatever they do, the fundamental traits of the Mountain People crop out, as do those of Scots, or Jews, or any other race. The only help I can give toward understanding and appreciating these people is to point out the traits that are fundamentally and vitally charac- teristic. I ask you to note those Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Celtic qualities which you must not ignore nor obscure, if you would rightly appreciate the Klizabethan simplicity, the power and the man- hood of the Mountain People. Accidental cireum- stances usually catch the attention of the casual observer. But cireumstances are not of dominat- ing importance. The important question here, as with any people, is, how does the man act in these circumstances? Does he master them? or do they swamp him? And when he moves into other cir- cumstances, does he quickly adjust himself and master them too? Such examples of these Moun- tain People as Daniel Boone, John Sevier, Patrick Henry, Chief-Justice Marshall, and Abraham Lincoln forbid a supercilious judgment., The Spell of the Wilderness The Spell of the Wilderness ITHIN the boundaries of this territory are included the four western counties of Maryland; the Blue Ridge, Valley, and Alleghany Ridge coun- ties of Virginia; all of West Virginia; eastern Tennessee; eastern Kentucky; western North Carolina; the four north- western counties of South Carolina; northern Georgia; and northeastern Ala- bama. Our mountain region, of approxi- mately 112,000 square miles, embraces an area nearly as large as the combined areas of New York and New England, and al- most equal to that of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. JoHN C. CAMPBELL The Southern Highiander and His Homeland CHAPTER TWO The Spell of the Wilderness HE Appalachian Mountain chain extends along the Atlantic coast from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the low lying lands on the Gulf of Mexico. It is cut almost in half by the two rivers—Potomac and Monongahela. The southern half of this mountainous country is the home of those people variously referred to as ‘‘Southern Highlanders,’’ ‘‘Southern Mountaineers,’’ or ‘‘Appalachian Mountaineers.’’ They usually call themselves ‘‘Mountain People.’’ Some thirty years ago this sweep of territory crossing so many state lines was whimsically but happily named ‘‘the State of Appalachia.’’ lt 1s about six hundred and fifty miles long and two hundred miles wide, being half as large as Ger- many or France. Along its eastern edge stretches in a northeasterly direction the Blue Ridge Moun- tains, while the Cumberlands and Alleghenies stretch along its western edge. Between these two ranges lies what was often referred to in earlier days as the Valley of Virginia, but this central de- pression, a Paradise of beauty down which the increasing stream of explorers and settlers flowed, is really a series of elevated valleys, the most famous of which are the Shenandoah and the Holston. There are more mountains in Appa- 19 20 The Land of Saddle-bags lachia, the valleys are deeper and more frequent, the surface rougher and the trails steeper than in any other section of our country. A journey of fifty miles almost anywhere in Appalachia has far more ups and downs, and steeper ups and deeper downs, than a five-hundred-mile journey across the Rocky Mountains. One writer has described it as follows: ‘The Blue Ridge is not especially difficult: only eight transverse ridges to climb up and down in fourteen miles, and none of them more than two thousand feet high from bottom to top. Then, thirteen miles across the lower end of the valley a curious formation begins. ‘‘As a foretaste, in the three and a half miles crossing Little House and Big House Mountains, one ascends twenty-two hundred feet, descends fourteen hundred, climbs again sixteen hundred, and goes down two thousand feet on the far side. ‘‘Beyond lie steep and narrow ridges athwart the way, paralleling each other like waves at sea. Ten distinct mountain chains are scaled and de- scended in the next forty miles. There are few ‘‘leads’’ rising gradually to their crests. Hach and every one of these ridges is a Chinese wall magnified to altitudes of from a thousand to two thousand feet and covered with thicket. The hol- lows between them are merely deep troughs.’’? F’rom the Atlantic as far west as Montana, Wyo- 1Kephart, Our Southern Highlanders, p. 20. The Spell of the Wilderness 21 ming, and Colorado there is, outside of Appa- lachia only one peak six thousand feet high. It is Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. And you can count on your fingers all those that are over five thousand feet. But in Appalachia there are more than forty peaks over six thousand feet, be- sides forty miles of unnamed ‘‘saddles’’ or divid- ing ridges that attain that altitude. In North Carolina alone there are twenty-one peaks higher than Mt. Washington; and in the whole of Appa- lachia there are nearly three hundred peaks over five thousand feet high, besides three hundred miles of saddles and ridges. {These mountains of Appalachia are crowded so close together that there is comparatively little level land. While this rough, broken steepness is, perhaps, the most noticeable physical feature of the coun- try, the second characteristic is unquestionably its wonderful growth of forests. Here is the finest and largest body of hardwood timber in the United States. The mountains are green to their very summits, with a thick growth of trees and under- brush. There are few bare rocks or naked cliffs. And even the peculiar ‘‘bald’’ that is occasionally seen on the crown of a mountain is green with an excellent natural grass. There are usually many shades of green in the great variety of trees; and color is a winsome and peculiar quality of the landscape. In the spring the delicate tan fluff of the beeches, the red flowering of maples, the feath- 22 The Land of Saddle-bags ery white blossoms of the ‘‘sarviss,’’ are succeeded by the redbud’s blaze of purple that covers the whole hillside, which after a week’s triumph is kindled into renewed freshness by the jets of white dogwood that flicker through it. Higher up the mountain the delicate orange of the azalea startles us like tongues of flame, and a little later the waxy pink of the laurel, and the superb glory of the rhododendron stretches away for hundreds of enchanted acres. These have scarcely vanished before the coves are golden with the blossomy yellow of the chestnut, and we are lifted into Elysium by the fascinating fragrance of wild grape blossoms. As we climb one of these mountains from valley to summit on a summer day, we can find successively all the wild flowers of the eastern United States in a profusion un- known elsewhere. In the fall of the year the au- tumn foliage lights up these mountains with a many-hued magnificence of color that no other re- gion can rival-—while above, in the magic blue- ness of a mysterious sky, the ever-burgeoning clouds reflect all the silken tintings of the celestial hosts. pf ‘hese marvelous forests are as valuable as they are beautiful. They are the virgin forests of the new world and contain the finest hardwood tim- ber of America. Black walnuts are so plentiful, and so easy for the carpenter to work, that they have been used very freely, not only for gunstocks The Spell of the Wilderness p23 and furniture, but for common uses. In taking down an old barn, built of thirty-foot logs, I found walnut logs among them; when I tore up the porch floor of my old log house, I found that the planks were black walnut; and in repairing old fences, we occasionally find a walnut rail. White and yellow poplars grow sometimes six to nine feet in diameter, and their trunks are sixty or seventy feet to the first limb. Chestnuts are even thicker, although not so tall. White oaks grow to enormous size. Groups of hickory, maple, chestnut oak, lynn, beech, birch, and hemlock fill the forests. Scattered in infinite variety are syca- more, elm, gum, buckeye, basswood, cucumber, sourwood, locust, ash, holly, cedar, persimmon, and pine. A lumber company buys seventy thousand acres of forest. It keeps its own railway busy hauling out the lumber it cuts. ‘‘It will take twenty-five years to cull out all the large timber, and by that time there will be another growth ready to cut.’’ Perhaps there will, but in most places it looks doubtful as one sees the wasteful methods of lum- bering, the frequent forest fires, the utter care- lessness of the future, the universal callousness to the country’s needs in timber, water supply, and reforestation. _Appalachia, with these wonderful forests, is also remarkably well watered. Innumerable springs, swelling into ever-present branches, 24 The Land of Saddle-bags creeks, and forks—navigable for the most part only on horseback—empty into rather shallow rivers. But when these are swollen by ‘‘tides,’’ they carry countless rafts and millions of logs to the sawmills. As I traveled up one creek, a man told me he had ‘‘splashed out’’ thirteen thousand logs that season. A creek is usuaily too shallow to float logs down to the river where they can be assembled into rafts. At some suitable place, between high banks, a splash dam is built. Square cribs of logs are filled with great stones, and a dam is built against these anchored piers. In the middle is set an enormous gate or door. One side of this pushes against two projecting logs in the gateway of the dam. The other side is held in place by the trig- ger, a long slender log like a telegraph pole, ar- ranged on somewhat the same principle as the figure ‘‘4”’ trap-triggers that boys set to catch rabbits. This dam makes a long and deep lake, into which the logs are thrown. This done, they wait for a ‘‘tide.’? The most sudden tides are the result of heavy rains back in the mountains, when there are a few inches of snow. Then, overnight, creeks will swell to ten times their volume of water and rush down, a strong sullen stream. This is the long expected moment. The logs that are in the creek-bed or on its banks will be quickly carried away. When all is ready, the trigger pole will be The Spell of the Wilderness 25 thrown up, the gate released, and the dammed-up water, with its freight of logs, will rush through the dam with the roar of an avalanche, sweeping the logs down to the river. Men work with intense energy to roll into the stream those logs that lie farther back, so that the oncoming waters may carry a continuous current of logs. The feverish haste keeps up until the waters of the creek sub- side, as rapidly as they rose, and the tide is past. In sharp contrast to the frequency of streams is the’scarcity of lakes. There are no large lakes in the whole region, and very few small ones. Much more characteristic of its geography than the pel- lucid deeps of mountain lakes are its cascades, rapids, and waterfalls. For the most part, the streams are swift with rapid and sudden fall. A fall of five hundred feet in forty miles is com- mon, even in streams of considerable size. In small streams, a fall of five hundred feet in a mile is not rare. In spite of the great rainfall, the absence of lakes and ponds and the quick drainage furnished by these swift streams, together with the constant breezes, reduce the humidity. The climate is mild and bracing. While the sun’s rays are hot, one is always comfortable in the shade, and a blanket is needed at night. This network of little streams running down every valley determines the avenues of travel, for the roads or paths follow the watercourses, You 26 The Land of Saddle-bags ‘‘take up’’ a stream for a mile or two, now on one bank, now on the other, sometimes in the bed of the stream itself, until you come upon its source, a spring near the top of the mountain. You go on to the top, and on the other side, a few hun- dred yards down, you come upon another spring, which you follow till it empties into another creek or branch. This necessary custom of making the paths along the streams accounts for the peculiar directions the inquiring traveler receives: ‘‘Ye take up the left fork for half a mile, and then hit’s the second right-hand holler; ye foller the branch till ye come whar ye can mighty nigh see a hay- stack on a sort o’ clift above the road. Wa/al, jest afore ye kin see that haystack, ye cross the branch and go through a patch o’ saxifras and take up Peter’s Trace till hit turkey-tails out into a lot o’ leetle forks that head up in coves agin the saddle. Wa/’al, right thar ye cross the gap, and ye’re on the headwaters of Leetle Laurel. Ye’ll find hit’s jest six miles.’’ I have forded the Middle Fork of the Kentucky River a hundred times in a jour- ney of sixteen miles. The rapid fall of the streams offers unlimited water power which is used on the small creeks to turn tub-mills or overshot wheels. On the larger streams it is sometimes dammed up and used for factories. Although there is no coal in the Blue Ridge or Hastern Belt, there is more coal in Appalachia The Spell of the Wilderness 7 than in the seven chief coal-producing countries of Kurope. As one follows the paths along the creeks, coal crops out, often in very thick seams. The workable coal area is estimated (by the United States Geological Survey) to be about one eighth of the total coal area of the United States. It is at present supplying nearly one fourth of all the bituminous coal. Tron is found in such quantities that Appalachia ranks second in importance among the iron dis- tricts in the amount of ore produced. The juxta- position of coal and iron ore in this region, thus cutting the time and cost of transportation and handling, constitutes a great additional advantage. Marble, mica, and asbestos, building stone, kao- jin, and fire clay, copper, gold, and corundum are profitable mineral resources. The Mountain region is suited in soil and climate for the production of nearly all the grains and fruits of the temperate zone. It grows to perfec- tion wheat, barley, oats, corn, sorghum, timothy, _ clover, peas, beans, potatoes, asparagus, sweet po- tatoes, tomatoes, cabbage, celery, apples, pears, peaches, plums, cherries, blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries. But the lack of transportation is disheartening and discourages improvement and production. The market for such stuff is ‘‘a mil- lion miles away.’’ The only products worth rais- ing (aside from one’s own living) are those that can walk to market—cattle, sheep, horses, and tur- 28 The Land of Saddle-bags keys. Large droves of turkeys are driven in the autumn fifty or a hundred miles to market. Agriculture is often very primitive. What could you expect with fields tilted at an angle of forty- five degrees? And the farmers in the past have had little assistance. The Agricultural Colleges of the various states have comparatively few Mountain students, and naturally their instruction is, for the most part, adapted to the problems pre- sented by the characteristics of the farm lands of their own state. Most of the agriculturists have never even been in the Mountains and would not know what to do with a farm steep enough to be the hypotenuse of a triangle. It is entirely possi- ble for a man to fall out of his cornfield and break his neck. I have a field up under the cliff that has been in corn for seventy-five years, yet is too steep to plow. It is planted and cultivated with the hoe. Parts of it are so steep that the only safe plan is to hoe the row from the bench up to the cliff, then slither down and climb up the next row. Sometimes an enterprising man buys a bale of heavy wire, fastens one end to a tree on top of the mountain, stretches it down, and fastens the other end below. He puts pulleys on the wire, from which at ‘‘ gathering time’’ he hangs sacks of slip- shucked corn and lets them slide down by gravita- tion. \When I asked an old man why he preferred ‘‘cushaws’’ (a large crook-neck squash) to pump- kins, he spat reflectively and answered, ‘‘If we The Spell of the Wilderness 29 growed punkins up in yan cove, they’d break loose and roll down and kill somebody. So we plant cushaws so they kin hook theirselves onto the corn- stalks and stay thar.’’ In spite of his turn for humor, he did not exaggerate the situation. One rainy spell I noticed a great raw area where a large landslide had evidently just occurred, and as I mentioned it at the house where I stopped for dinner, a man recalled with a chuckle a similar ‘‘ship.’? ‘‘You remember Pete Bolin? Pete were a quar-turned, droll-natured feller. Hit were rainin’ mightily, and he’d been out drivin’ some yearlin’s up under the clifts, and he felt the yarth tremble and knowed pint-blank he were on a slip, so he throwed his arms around a big sugar-tree, and hilt on. Well, boys, the hull side 0’ that moun- tain slid down.”’ ‘‘Trees and all?’ ‘‘Yes, sirree, them trees is thar today; they never did stop growin’. Well, Pete come into the house kinder yaller lookin’ and sat down by the fire and warmed awhile ’thout sayin’ nothin’. Atter awhile he sez, ‘I reckon I have rid a bigger eritter than ary one of you fellers ever seed.’ ‘Why, Pete, have you been a-ridin’ the elephant at a circus?’ ‘Naw, sir, hit warn’t no elephant. I have rode four acres of land for two hundred yards.’ ’’ Such land-slips are no joke. They oc- cur every rainy season. But steep areas are, of course, not thickly settled. 30 The Land of Saddle-bags In earlier days a settler would locate at the mouth of a creek. He would first clear the lower levels, then part of the hillsides, not by cutting the trees down, but by belting them. He would notch a six-inch band around the tree and remove the bark therein so that the sap could not go up to nourish the tree. In a few weeks the leaves would wither and the tree die. A field of such trees is called a ‘‘deadening.’’ This is the quickest way to make a cornfield. The wood soil, or humus, however, is soon washed away from the hillside, and the field loses its fertility. Whereupon more land is cleared, higher up. As the sons of a family marry, they must settle higher up the hillsides or farther up the creeks. Thus the creeks determine not only the original routes of travel, but also the trend of population and the development of settlement. While this Mountain region covers about one third of the area of the nine states mentioned at the head of this chapter, in each of them, except West Virginia, it constitutes such a small part of its state that its population cannot’secure legisla- tion suited to their needs. ‘The geographical situa- tion has constantly worked against the Mountain People, making them dependent politically and economically upon majorities who have had no interest in their peculiar problems, whose inter- ests, indeed, have often naturally worked in an- tagonism, Adventurers for Freedom Adventurers for Freedom ETWEEN the years 1632 and 1750, numerous groups of Pennsylvanians —Germans and Irish largely, with many Quakers among them—had been wending their way through the Mountain troughs and gradually pushing forward the line of settlement, until now it had reached the upper waters of the Yadkin River, in the northwest corner of North Carolina. Trials abundant fell to their lot; but the soil of the valleys was unusually fertile, game was abundant, the climate mild, the country beautiful, and life in general upon the new frontier, although rough, such as to appeal to the borderers as a thing desirable. REUBEN G. THWAITES Daniel Boone CHAPTER THREE Adventurers for Freedom HE Mountain People have not a strong sense of history. Even personal traditions are vague. ‘‘My foreparents came in through Hurricane Gap, date of four (1804). Where did they come from? Hit were Virginia they moved from, but the McKee generation was Irelandish. IT reckon they come from ’cross the water. Granny never knowed whar the Carriers come from.’’ But the history of these people is written into the fabric of America far more indelibly than in their memories. Besides documentary evidence, we have abundant testimony in their family names, their language, their customs, their traditions, their characteristics, and their ballads. All these elements have a Shakespearean flavor and take us back to the ‘‘spacious times of Great Elizabeth.’’ Then, Englishmen stimulated by the strong wine of the Renaissance were all eager ‘‘to seek beyond the sunset for the Western Isles.’’ These voyages of romantic exploration and rest- less adventure opened the way for more sober and permanent efforts. As soon as trading posts were established, large masses of folk who lived under intolerable pressure in various countries turned their thoughts to these new lands as places of refuge from their oppression. By a natural proc- 33 34 The Land of Saddle-bags ess of selection, successful colonists must be re- sourceful, powerful, and self-controlled. It is one thing to go into the woods for a week’s picnic; it is vastly different to go into the wilderness for the rest of one’s life. People who do this must be sus- tained by a great purpose. This purpose has usually been to achieve freedom, and frequently religious freedom. The Huguenots from France, the Dunkers, Mennonites, and Moravians from Holland and Germany, the Puritans, Quakers, and Catholics from England, together with Scots (es- pecially from the north of Ireland) landed all along the Atlantic coast. They gave up home, property, even civilization, that they might be free. Political refugees there were also: Cromwellians fleeing from the vengeance of Charles II; Scottish Highlanders loyal to the Stuarts, fleeing from King George; Germans from the Palatine States fleeing from the petty princelings whose voracious taxation would finish the awful desolation of the Thirty Years’ War. These, so widely different in race, religion, and social rank, were all seeking freedom, and there was, therefore, in them all an underlying similarity, a strong basis for union. ) Even those that came for trading and the hope of gain, af they remained and established homes, en- tered into the liberty-loving spirit, and readily coalesced with the other settlers, until they were more or less completely fused with them. All the early settlers were perforce pioneers; Adventurers for Freedom 35 and in general new settlers, not having property interests or established professional positions, drifted out on the edges of previous settlements to find or make a place for themselves. The more energetic and independent they were, the less likely would they be to become laborers or under- lings in projects already under way in the settle- ments. ‘Thus the most resourceful of the newcom- ers tended always to settle deeper and deeper in the wilderness. Only such could maintain them- selves in the arduous struggle with primitive con- ditions, hard fare, and the constant danger from forest life and Indians. As a community acquired the comforts and luxuries of urban society, the bolder spirits of the younger generation tended naturally to join the drift to the more adventurous outskirts and become hunters, trappers, and pioneers. | There was thus a continuous movement of popu- lation to unoccupied lands on the west, stimulated or retarded by local circeumstances—such as In- dian attacks, crop shortage, governmental inter- ference, or unusual influx of immigrants. These conditions applied to all the settlements in all the colonies, and must be remembered as the back- ground for the great movement of population that settled the Mountain region. To understand this sudden and voluminous movement, we must go back to the English inva- sions of Ireland. Again and again English kings 36 The Land of Saddle-bags ‘‘planted’’? large numbers of colonists in Ireland after killing or driving out the previous residents. So that ‘‘the Irish’’ in many districts were largely of English blood, and they resented each new in- vasion with as much vigor and hatred as did their more Celtic neighbors. Queen Elizabeth took her turn in donating Irish lands to courtly favorites if they would ‘‘pacify’’ the districts. This they proceeded to do by war and famine. Three gen- eral attempts to ‘‘plant’’ colonists wholesale upon these sequestered lands failed, because the pacified Irish made it too uncomfortable for the new- comers. Shortly after Klizabeth’s death, however, James I succeeded in making a ‘‘plantation’’ in Ulster by inducing the hardier, ruggeder, and stubborner Scots to settle there in great numbers. These transplanted Scots are called by American historians Scotch-Irish. In 1610 the land was off- cially opened for settlers, and permanent com- munities were soon established.