Chapter 23

Then Sid put down his fiddle and his mouth harp and drawing from his coat pocket a crumpled paper, he began again. "My friends, I want to read you this piece in the _Chicago Daily News_. This is the place to read it. We ought to be warned about what can happen in this country to our music, by what has happened to some of our people. Though maybe sometime it's been for the best. This piece was writ by a mighty knowing man. His name is Robert J. Casey and he flew from Chicago for his paper the _Chicago Daily News_ to hear with his own ears the music of the mountains from the lips of mountain singers at Traipsin' Woman cabin on the Mayo Trail the second Sunday in June, 1938."

There was a moment's breathless silence over the great gathering there in Snead's Grove. The look of fear and apprehension gave way to that of eagerness and hope as Devil Anse Hatfield's kinsman read with quiet dignity:

"'One breathes a sigh for the Hatfields and McCoys who maintain the Democratic majority in cemeteries along the West Virginia line. One voices a word of commendation for the Hatfields and the McCoys who drive taxi-cabs in Ashland or run quiet, respectable and legal beer parlors in Huntington. And looking from one group to the other, one realizes that something has happened to the hill country.

"'A person of imagination standing on the tree-shaded porch of the Traipsin' Woman cabin up in Lonesome Hollow probably still can hear echoes of "the singing gathering" which only a few hours ago demonstrated the essential durability of the hill folks.... Where a day or two ago there was only a neutral interest in such proceedings, now people are talking of Elizabethan culture preserved completely for a matter of centuries by people who lived on the wrong side of the tracks, just a few rods from the fence of the rolling mills.

"'There is a tendency in some quarters to look upon the sing-festival as a permanent and predictable community asset. But that is because the sophisticated and urban population is ignoring the present status of the McCoys and the Hatfields, as for many years it has ignored the crack-voiced "ballet" singers and the left-handed virtuosi in its own backyard.'"

Sid Hatfield paused in his reading to say a few words on his own. "There is one, not calling any names, who discovered a forgotten England in the Kentucky uplands." He turned again to read from the paper. "'One who set down the words of the amazing ballads and studied music in order to capture the changeless arrangements for psaltery, dulcimer and sakbut, who has no such illusions. The music of the hills today is a thin echo of tunes that were sung on the village greens in Shakespeare's time. Tomorrow it will be gone!'" Sid Hatfield's voice lifted in warning. "'And with it will vanish the early English idiom of the hill folks--their costumes, their customs, their dances, the singing ritual of their weddings. Pretty soon there aren't going to be any more hill folk--if indeed, there are any now.

"'"The Hatfields and McCoys, they were reckless mountain boys," whose history is now as stale as that of the Capone mob. Their feud, which ... threatened to provoke a civil war between two states, gave rise to the general belief in the lasting endurance of the hill dwellers. A race must be hardy as the ragweed when it could not be exterminated even by its own patient effort. The tenantry of the flatlands might be excused for believing that a special Providence intended it to survive, despite poverty, malnutrition, bad housing and wasting disease forever and ever.

"'And so it might have survived, for the hill people had "the habit of standing." They had set a precedent of fertility and hardihood and the will to live for a matter of centuries.... But there had come influences over which not even the carefully nurtured stubbornness of 300 years could prevail.... The railroad and the concrete highway and the automobile and the black tunnels of the coal mine.

"'... The day of isolated communities and isolated culture in the United States is already past.... The hill folk have been known to the flatland people chiefly for feuds and moonshine. Perhaps tempers are no less quick, but it's less trouble to get to court and have grievances adjudicated according to law. And the music is going--and the traditional dances. It is one of the defects of all educational systems that they make it easier for a person to forget by removing the necessity for his remembering.'"

Sid Hatfield again voiced his own observations. "Time was when old folks could recall every word of hundreds of ballads." He turned once more to read from the newspaper in his hand. "'... and every note of a music whose disregard for melodic rule made it exceedingly difficult to remember. Now, when such things can be written down, no "grandsir" will bother to repeat them to the youngins and the youngins will get their music from the radio. By that time there will be no doubt that Queen Elizabeth is dead.'"

Devil Anse's kinsman surveyed his listeners. "My friends, we've got a-bound, me and you and you," he singled out a lad here a man, a woman there, "to put our shoulders to the wheel and save our old ways and our old music."

Then he told about the American Folkways Association and its purpose. "We aim to unify efforts to conserve and cultivate the traditions and customs of the Blue Ridge Country where conditions are ideal for a renewed emphasis on living a simple and natural life ... to preserve the past and present expressions of isolated peoples in the Southern Appalachians which are untainted by any form of insincerity or make-believe. There is growing interest among city-bred people in the folk-ways, and through research and actual experiences, they are learning to appreciate the simple folk-life that is still intact."

Sid, like Devil Anse, understands crowd psychology, though neither calls it by that name. Sid had the attention of his hearers and he told them more. "We're getting our eyes open more every day to the boundless treasures in America. People all through the Blue Ridge don't aim to stand by and see things disappear because new ways have come in. They've started all sorts of gatherings and festivals to keep alive the things that mean America!"

With quick gesture he enumerated upon his fingers as he named some of them: "There's the Forest Festival held in October at Elkins, West Virginia, with a pretty mountain maid for its Queen; the Tobacco Festival in Shelbyville, Kentucky, that pays homage to the leading product of the Blue Grass country, next to the race horse, of course; there's the Mountain Laurel Festival at Pineville, Kentucky, in May, glorifying the beauty and profusion of the mountain flower; the Virginia Apple Blossom Festival in April in the Shenandoah Valley at Winchester, Virginia--a wilderness of blossoms that has made beautiful a once lonely valley; the Rhododendron Festival in Webster Springs, West Virginia, in July, that vies in charm with a like event in Kentucky; the Sweet Potato Festival in Paris, Tennessee, that pays tribute to the yam; the American Folk Song Festival in the foothills of Kentucky. Then there's the Snead Picnic that our good friend Grady Snead has been carrying on every summer ever since he got back from the war across the waters; there's the Mountain Choir Festival over in Oakland, Maryland, in the month of August, when hundreds of mountain boys and girls gather together to sing hymns and old ballads too; there's the Arcadian Folk Festival and the Poet's Fair and the Arcadian Guild all bunched together at Hot Springs National Park and McFadden Three Sisters Springs where down in the Ozark Country folks welcome the advent of 'the Moon of Painted Leaves' and pattern new dreams in the valley of pastoral fancy, listen to the Pipes of Pan, meet old friends, and make new ones in a sylvan environment, where poetry slides down every moonbeam. Every sort of gathering right where it belongs, where it was cradled through all these long generations."

Sid paused a moment for second wind. "When we look about we're bound to own this is a mighty changing world. Time was when the mountain people rode to the gatherings in Brushy Hollow in jolt wagons. They kept it up a while, loading the whole family in the jolt wagon. But times have changed.... A body has to sort o' keep up with the times, like Prof. Koch. Bless you, he loads his whole pack and passel of boys and girls in a bus and packs them hither and yon 'crost the country to show out with their play-making. The Carolina Playmakers just naturally fetch the mountain to Mohammed." Sid flung wide his hands, brought them slowly together. "To get all such folks to work together that's why we formed the American Folkways Association. What's more we've got us a magazine to tell about what we've done and aim to do--the _Arcadian Life_ magazine, with our good friend Otto Ernest Rayburn as editor, 'way down in the Ozarks." Sid Hatfield smiled pleasantly. "There's no excuse for folks not being neighborly nowadays. No matter where they live, what with good roads and the automobile--we've just got a-bound to be neighborly. To sing together, to make music together, to show out our crops and our posies and our handiwork together. Here in Snead's Grove today is the third time we've bore witness that our Association is not just a theory. We made our first bow in the Kentucky foothills in June, the second in Maryland in August, and now in Tennessee. In October we aim to join hands and hearts and our music in Arcadia under the Autumn moon."

That day in Snead's Grove in Tennessee they wanted Sid Hatfield to keep right on but taking a squint at the sun sinking in the west, he said in conclusion, "I've got a long ways to travel back to the West Virginia mountains but I hope we'll all be together again here in the Grove next summer, this day a year, the Lord being willing."

VANISHING TRAIL

Perhaps it is merely the result of evolutionary process, economic rather than intentional, that man has wiped out many reminders of the past; that the forest primeval has passed to make room for blue grass, tasseled corn, and tobacco; that forts and blockhouses gave way to the settler's log house encircled by a garden patch; that the windowless cabin has gone to make room for the weather-boarded frame of many rooms and glass windows; that the village has vanished for the town--the industrial center.

The Wilderness Trail broken first by mastodon, then panther and bear and frightened deer, has been transformed into a modern highway. The Shawnee Trail along which Indians lurked and tomahawked white men has become Mayo Trail, taking its name from a country schoolteacher. He was a far-seeing man, who stumbled sometimes hopelessly along the lonely way, when he needed help to bring out of the bowels of the earth the treasure in coal he knew to be hidden there. Mayo Trail is an amazing engineering feat that connects mountains with level land. Limestone Trail in Mason County has left along its course only a vestige of vegetation to remind us it was once the path of buffalo and Indian. To motorists hurrying onward it is merely U. S. 60 that leads to another city.

The rugged, unbroken path once pursued by the lad Gabriel Arthur, a Cherokee captive, called on Hutchins Map in 1778 the "War Path to the Cuttawa Country," uniting today with the Wilderness Trails, has become the open gateway to the West. Boone's Trace, or Boone's Path, leading from Virginia through Cumberland Gap, to the Ohio River, still is called Boone's Path. Since 1909 it has been a national motorway, being a part of the Dixie Highway which runs from Michigan to Florida. It was over this same path that Governor Duncannon of Virginia built the first wagon road in 1790. During the Civil War the region of the Gap was fortified and occupied by Confederate and Union soldiers in turn. Later, in 1889, the first railroad entered the Gap. Today Skyline Highway--U. S. 25 and 58--leads from the saddle of the historic Gap to the top of Pinnacle Mountain, commanding a view of six states, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama.

And the scene has changed.

Spring has come to the Blue Ridge. The hum of industry echoes along once lonely creeks, through quiet hollows. We see no more the oxcart lumbering, creaking laboriously along, higher and higher up the rugged mountain side. The latest model motor glides swiftly over the smooth surface, winding its way upward and upward. Off yonder the TVA has harnessed the waterpower of the Holston and Tennessee, made a great valley to burst into a miracle of man's genius. Modern industrial plants steam along the banks.

Good roads, the automobile, schoolhouses, the airplane have wiped out all barriers between mountain and plain. The Blue Ridge casts a long, long shadow across blossoming valleys. The mountaineer of yesterday with his Anglo-Saxon speech of Elizabeth's time, his primitive plow and loom, has vanished before the juggernaut of progress. But the children of the hills are blessed with a rich, a priceless heritage in tradition, song, and love of independence that will not die as long as mountains stand and men of the mountains survive to defend and preserve it.

INDEX

Abingdon, Virginia, Declaration of, 31-32 aborigines, 8 adventurers, 15 agriculture, 112-21, 283-89 Alabama, 310 Alamance, Battle of, 28 Allegheny Mountains, 4 American Folk Song Festival, 241 American Folkways Association, 320-27 animal life, 8 Appalachia, 3-4, 5 "Appalachia," by Martha Creech, 210 Apple Blossom Festival, 326 Arcadian Folk Festival, 326 Arcadian Guild, 326 _Arcadian Life_, 327 art exhibit, Kentucky, 250 Arthur, Gabriel, expedition of, 17-18, 328 Ash Lawn, 293 "Ashland Tragedy, The," by Peyton Buckner Byrne, 228 Athiamiowee Trail, 9 _Atlanta Journal_, 319 Audubon Memorial State Park, 304

Bailey, "Mad Anne," 300 ballads, 132, 152, 154, 159, 210-47, 249, 306; and music, 43-44; patriotic, 239-47 Baltimore, Lord, 7, 12 Bankhead-Jones Tenant Purchase Act, 286 baptism, 60-61 Baptists, 161-64, 268; Regular Primitive, 161-64, 266 Bardstown, Kentucky, 304 Barker, George A., "Norris Dam," 245; "Skyline Drive," 215 Barton, Bruce, 268 Barton, William E., 268 beliefs, women's, 120-21 belting a tree, 113 Berea College, 259, 307 Berry Schools, 259, 307-10 Big Bone Lick, 8 Big Meeting, 57, 71 Big Sandy Breaks, 301 Big Sandy Improvement Association, 287 _Big Sandy News_, 286, 317 Big Sandy River, 4, 18, 19, 48, 116, 271, 304; canalization, 287; superstition, 168 "Big Sandy River," by D. Preston, 211 birds, 6-7 black cat, legend of, 189-94 Blackberry Association, 288 blessing the hounds, 305 blindness, conjured, 180-85 block houses, 22 blue grass country, 303 Blue Lick, 35 Blue Ridge Mountains, 4 Blue Ridge Parkway, 292 boats, river, 272 books, 16, 29, 34, 306 Boone, Daniel, 19, 21, 22-39, 295, 302; capture by Indians, and escape, 35-36; death and grave, 39 Boone, Mrs. Daniel, 24-25 Boone's Trace (Trail; Path), 33, 328 Boonesborough, 35, 37, 39; Battle of, 36 Braddock, General, 23 Breaks of the Big Sandy, 301 Breathitt County, Kentucky, 73, 74, 75, 79, 88, 316 Breckinridge, Alexander, 13, 261 Breckinridge, Mrs. Mary, 261 Bryan, William Jennings, 314 Bryans, trek with Boone, 29-30 Buckley, Noah, 169-72 Buffum-Dillam feud, 88-91 "Bundles for Britain," by Jilson Setters, 242 Burchett, Luke, "Jennie Wylie," 219 Burning Spring, 21, 26, 270 Byrne, Peyton Buckner, "The Ashland Tragedy," 228

CCC, 288, 290 CIO, 289-90 Callahan, Ed, 75, 76, 77, 78, 80, 81, 82 Campbell, John C., Folk School, 259, 307 canalization, river, 287 candy pulling, 143-44 "Captain Jinks," 147 Carolina Playmakers, 305-06, 326-27 Carter, Nannie Hamm, "It's Great to Be an American," 239 Casey, Robert J., 322 cat, black, legend of, 189-94 Catlettsburg, Kentucky, 116, 271-72 Caudill, Mrs. Lydia Messer, 250 caverns, 186, 292, 300, 303, 313 Cawood, Mrs. Herbert C., 283 Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 306 Charette, Missouri, 38 Cherokees, 18, 32, 312, 328; legend, 186-89 _Chicago Daily News_, 322 Child, lost, finding of, 170-72 Christmas, Old and New, 158-61 "Church in the Mountains," by Jessie Stewart, 222 church music, 268 churches, new, 266 cider press, old, 302 Civil War, 47, 55, 72, 231, 310, 313, 316, 328 Civilian Conservation Corps, 288, 290 claims, land, 32 climate, 7, 41 Clinch Valley, 30 coal mining, 250-51 coal mining and miners, yesterday and today, 273-83 "Coal Queen," 283 Cockrell, James, 74-81 Cockrell-Hargis feud 73-88 Collins, Floyd, 303; ballads of, 235, 237 Confederacy, White House, 310 Congress of Industrial Organizations, 289-90 conjuring, 180-85 conservation, 288 Constitution, first American, 29 "convicts," early, 16 corn, grinding of, 112-13 Cornstalk, Chief, 300 corpse, winking, legend of, 203-05 country dances, 148 County Coal Operators' Association, 283 courting and song, 122-34 cow, poisoned, 174-75 Craft, Uncle Chunk, 72-73 Crawford, Bruce, 294-99 Creech, Martha, "Appalachia," 210; "The Robin's Red Breast," 218; "Woman's Way," 226 Crisp, Adam, "Floyd Collins' Fate," 237 crocheting, 120-22 Crockett's Hollow, legend of, 180-85 crops, 112-21 croup, curing, 171 crown, death, 177-78 Crystal Cave, 303 Cudo's Cave, 313 "Cumberland," origin of use of name, 20 Cumberland Falls Park, 302-03 Cumberland Gap and Mountain, 4, 20, 26, 30, 33, 46, 313, 328-29 Cumberland Plateau, 4, 19 Cumberland River, 3, 19 customs, religious, 155-67 Cuttawa country, 17, 19

dancing, 145-50; modern, 264-65; wedding, 153 Darrow, Clarence, 314 Davis, Esther Eugenia, "West Virginia," 214 Davis, Jefferson, 310 Dayton, Tennessee, 314 death, omens of, 177-79 death crown, 177-78 "Death of Mary Fagin, The," by Bob Salyers, 232 Declaration of Abingdon, Virginia, 31-32 Declaration of Independence, 34 deer woman and fawn, legend of, 194-99 Delisle, map, 19 Dillam-Buffum feud, 88-91 dipping snuff, 289 divining rod, use of, 169-72 Dixie Highway, 328 doctor, mountain, ballad of, 223 doctor, wizard, 190 doctors, 173-74, 261 Donegal, Lord, 12 "Downfall of Paris, The," by Coby Preston, 246 drives. _See_ highways Dug Down Mountains, 105, 310 Duke, Effie and Richard, ballad of, 234 Duncannon, Governor, 328 Duquesne, Captain, 36

Eaton, Allen, _Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands_, 306 education. _See_ schools electrification, rural, 263-64 Elizabeth, Queen, 10, 43 Evans, Lewis, map, 19 evolution trial, 314 excise laws, hatred of, 11, 43 explorers, 16

Fagin (Phagan), Mary, ballad of, 232 fairs, state, 284 families, large, 285-86 family honor, 106-11 Farm Security Administration, 284, 285, 286, 287 farming, 112-21, 283-89 "Fate of Effie and Richard Duke, The," by Coby Preston, 234 "Fate of Floyd Collins, The," by Jilson Setters, 235 fauna, 8 feather, white, 178-79 festivals, 325-26 feuds, 45-111; ballad on, 216; vanishing feudist, 248-55. _See also_ family names fighting and singing, 317-27 Flanery, Mrs. Mary Elliott, 262-63 flora, 5-6, 56 "Floyd Collins' Fate," by Adam Crisp, 237 Foley, Ben, 105-11 Foley, Jorde, 105-11 Foley Sods, 105 folk festivals, 325-26 folk lore, and conservation of, 320-27 folk singing, 317-27 Folk Song Festival, 241 Folkways Association, American, 320-27 foot-washing, 161-64, 266, 268-69 Forest Festival, 325 forestry, 288 forests, national, 300, 301 Fort Boone, 39 fortunes and riddles, 135-50 fox hunting, 305 Frank, Leo M., ballad of, 232 Franklin D. Roosevelt Highway, 309 Frazier's Knob, 302 Frontier Nursing School, 261 Fugate, Chester, 74-75 funeralizing, 155-58, 267 furs, 17, 19, 22 Future Farmer Association, 283

games, kissing, 144 Gandy Sinks, 300 Garrett, Aunt Sallie, 55-72 Garrett, William Dyke, 55-72, 201, 202, 295 Gentry, Pol, legend of, 189-94 geography song, 128-29 Georgia Warm Springs, 308-10 Good, Professor E. S., 303 "Good Shepherd of the Hills," 55-72 Great Kanawha River, 37 Great Meadows, and Battle of, 23, 26 Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 292, 312-13 Green River, 19, 303 Greene, General Nathanael, 19 Greenup (Hangtown), Kentucky, 231

Hamm family Eisteddfod, 239 handicrafts, 306-07 _Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands_, by Allen Eaton, 306 Hangtown (Greenup), Kentucky, 231 Hargis, Beach, and murder of father, 79, 82-87 Hargis, Elbert, 254-55 Hargis, Judge James, and murder by son, 75-87 Hargis-Cockrell feud, 73-88 Harkins, Hugh, 269-70 Harkins, Walter Scott, 269-71 Harlan, Kentucky, 283 Harlan Mining Institute, 283 Hart, "Honest" John, 15 Hart, Nathaniel, 32 Hatfield, "Devil Anse," 46-67, 250; anecdote of, 62-63; conversion and baptism of, 63-67; ghost, 199-202; statue of, 199-202; stories told by, 49-54 Hatfield, Jonse, 251 Hatfield, Levisa Chafin, 46-72; grave, 200 Hatfield, Sid, 320-27 Hatfield, Tennis, 251 Hatfield burying ground, 199-202 Hatfield-McCoy feud, 46-72 Hatfields and McCoys, reunion, 254-55; singing together, 317-27 haunted house, legend of, 205-09 Hedrick, Ray, and his "haunted house," 205-09 Henderson, Archibald, 305 Henderson, Richard, 32, 37 Hennepin, Louis, 18 Henry, Patrick, 30 highways, 291-93, 309, 315, 328, 329 hill people, tribute to, 322-25 "hill-billies," 41-42 Hindman Settlement School, 259 Hodgenville, Kentucky, 304 Holden, West Virginia, 282-83 Holston River, 17, 33 home industry, 117-19, 262, 306-07 honor, family, 107-11 horses, race, 303-04 hospitality, 42 hounds, blessing of the, 305 house with the green gables, legend of, 205-09 hunters and trappers, 17 Huraken and Manuita, legend of, 186-89 Hutchins, Thomas, map, 19, 228 hymns, 66, 67, 70-71, 157-58, 162-63

illiteracy, 40; adult, school for, 260 improvements, modern, 263-64 Indents, 15 independence, spirit of, 286 Indians, 9-10, 13, 15, 17, 18, 21-22, 28, 30, 33, 35; legend, 186-89; picture language, 9-10; ways and customs, 9-10 industry, home, 117-19, 262, 306-07 infantile paralysis, 308-10 infare wedding, 151-54 Ireland, English invasion of, 10-11; oppression of, 11-12 "It's Great to Be an American," by Nannie Hamm Carter, 239

Jack Knife Shop, 307 James I of England, 10 James, Frank, 49, 51-52 Jefferson, Thomas, 293 Jefferson National Forest, 301 "Jennie Wylie," by Luke Burchett, 219 Jett, Curt, 74-81, 88 John C. Campbell Folk School, 259, 307 Jones-Wright feud, 73

Kentucky, art exhibit, 250; beginning of colonization, 32; first white man in, 18; past, commemoration of, 301-02 _Kentucky Progress Magazine_, 259 Kentucky River, 18, 19, 33, 35 Kentucky Woodlands Wildlife Refuge, 305 Kernersville, North Carolina, 306 killings, 42, 43 kissing games, 144 Koch, "Prof.," 305-06, 326-27

labor, coal-mine, yesterday and today, 273-83 land claims, 32 _Land of Saddle-Bags, The_, by Dr. James Watt Raine, 16, 34 land-purchase program, 286 land reclamation, 284 Lawton, John and Dessie, story of, 58-59 learning. _See_ schools legends, 180-209, 218 Levi Jackson Wilderness Road State Park, 302 Levisa River. _See_ Louisa River Limestone Path, 9, 328 Lincoln, Abraham, 304 Little Theatre, 305-06 Logan Wildcats, 47, 55 logging and loggers, 5-6, 112-17, 270, 271-72, 288; superstition, 168 London bombing, ballad on, 241 Louisa (Levisa) River, 21, 46 "Love of Rosanna McCoy, The," by Coby Preston, 216 Loyal Land Company, 19-21, 49 lumbering. _See_ logging lynchings, 74, 96-97