John / Billybob
Billybob,
Now this is my neck of the woods. My maternal ancestors are from Greeneville, near Jonesborough, settled there in the 1790s. Greeneville is the home of the State of Franklin, is where the Confederate General John Hunt Morgan "Thunderbolt of the Confederacy" was killed, and is on the banks of the Nolichucky River I told you about (class IV rapids).
The first emanicpation newspaper was published there, and President Andrew Johnson went from a lowly tailor (his tailorshop is a National Park Service historical site) to the Reconstruction President there.
Johnson's burial site is there, and his homeplace. There is a church there with a cannonball from the Civil War still inbedded in the brick. That place changed hands from conferate to Union hands nine times during the Civil War, and the Battle of Blue Springs (a CW reenactment) is held there every year.
The Storytelling Festival has been a major thing for several decades, beginning with a few hillbillies telling their "Haint tales" there back in the early 1980s.
BTW, President Johnson was a Tarheel, but was run out of there after getting into trouble with the law, and ended up in Greeneville, where he married a prominent woman, who taught him to read and write.
My grandmother's uncles were in the Civil War, and our homeplace was taken by Union authorities as a headquarters during that time. Grandma used to tell me the stories her aunts and uncles told her about the war, and also she passed down to us the "haint tales" that were brought to this country by the Scottish/Irish immigrants who settled there, my ancestors.
These tales (www.foxfire.org/prodframe.html) were what led to the "Storytelling Festival."
And, Davey Crockett was born on the banks of the Nolichucky River, on the Greene/Washington county line, lived near where my ancestors did at the same time.
The "Storytelling Festival" is wonderful, an extension of what was a communtitywide practice in the days before radio and TV, when folks got together and did a little picking, built a neighbor a barn, sat up with the sick and dying, and entertained the kids with their stories.
Wait till you hear the story of the Wampus Cat, now that's scary!!!
"We went over the mountains last weekend to attend the Smoky Mountain Storytelling Festival. Before I describe that, what do you think it was? Do you imagine a bunch of good ol’ boys in bib overalls, swapping outrageous fish tales? No such thing. It was far more interesting than that."
If you honestly hope to represent the people you describe in such a fashion, I'd suggest you step into their shoes and hear this as they would hear it.
I miss that place...
John, I'm less than a ten minute drive away from Jonesborough ... why didn't you at least call?
Thanks for the report.
So much I see and read about the US today makes me think
I should never return, but I am from Tennessee, and if I did come back, it would have to be to the mountains of East Tennessee.
I always thought the best NC storyteller was Andy Griffith.