Appalachian History

There was a class that were ignorant and no-account. They never had much of a chance; you’ve got to say that for them. Once in awhile, one of them would sort of pull himself up by his bootstraps and make something of himself. He’d work hard enough and not give everything to his no-account relatives. [...]

“Late fall we’d start getting up the wood for the winter. You couldn’t believe it would take that much wood. You would see wood from here, well, say a hundred feet long. You would think, well, golly, that’s a lot of wood! But it didn’t take long to get rid of that much wood in [...]

North Carolinians for many decades thought of them as the Lost Provinces. Prior to the early 20th century, Ashe, Alleghany, and Watauga counties were hemmed in and separated from the rest of the state by the Eastern Continental Divide— average elevation 2,500 to 3,000 feet— which forms their eastern and southern borders. Lowlanders joked that [...]

The vast majority of the 86,000 North Carolinians called into service during World War I served willingly, but four thousand of their number did desert during the war. Discontentment with conditions in training camp or bad news from home was the most likely reason for young recruits to go “AWOL” (absent without leave) long enough [...]

Shepherd Youth KilledAccidentally By Father Accident Occurred AsFather and Son WereOut Hunting Ashe County [NC] Journal, May 29, 1929— Blaine Shepherd, a youth of the Crumpler-Grassy Creek section of the county, was shot and accidentally killed by his father Wednesday morning of last week. The accident took place near the mouth of Helton Creek about [...]