Brown Mountain

Daddy has long talked of a song he used to hear about the Brown Mountain Lights. We chose the weekend in early October to try out his new knee on a road trip and also see if we could find Brown Mountain. Jim, Daddy, and I traveled to North Carolina and found an overlook near Linville Falls called Wiseman's View. Jim pushed Daddy's transport chair down the paved trail toward the overlook. We were disappointed when we reached the end of the trail because the viewpoint was not handicapped accessible. The scenery was spectacular and Brown Mountain could be seen in the distance, however Daddy wasn't able to see it from there. Jim pushed Daddy back up the trail and we loaded up in the car again. We got on the Blue Ridge Parkway and headed south toward Asheville, stopping at overlooks along the way including one where we could see Mount Mitchell, the highest point east of the Mississippi River. After lunch in Asheville, we went on to Morganton and found a road called Brown Mountain Beach Road. We followed this road to a recreational area popular with ATV riders. It was too close to the mountain to actually be able to see it so again we continued on our journey. As we were climbing a mountain back toward Linville, we came upon an overlook near Jonas Ridge where we all could easily see Brown Mountain. The view (shown above) was spectacular. Daddy enjoyed the trip, he fared well, and he looked forward to hitting the road again.

I Owe My Soul To the Company Store

Trammel, Virginia, was a coal mining town that was built by the Virginia Banner Coal Corporation in 1917. The last spike of the Carolina, Clinchfield, and Ohio Railway, which was completed in 1915, had been driven near here.

In the 1970s, coal resources started drying up and coal companies began laying off employees. The economic conditions hit coal mining towns hard. The company that owned Trammel eventually went out of business and became an estate. In 1985, the estate decided to sell the town, including 50 homes, the company store, post office, and water and cable systems. All were put on the auction block. Local residents, most of whom were unemployed and disabled, banded together with the help of churches and foundations to raise money and form a homeowners association. They purchased the auctioned homes and saved their town.

While their efforts gave them possession of their homes, conditions have not improved in Trammel. There are no businesses or industries and therefore no jobs. Unemployment is extremely high. Many of the residents are elderly and depend on black lung compensation or social security. The economic outlook for the residents of Trammel is grim.

Information from In Motion Magazine and Dickenson County by Victoria L. Osborne & Dr. Ralph Stanley.

Mahala Mullins' House

Mahala Collins was born in 1824 and died in 1898 in Hancock Co., TN. She married John Mullins. Mahala was probably the most famous Melungeon in the Newman's Ridge area. Haley, as she was called, openly sold moonshine in her log house high on Newman's Ridge. Legend has it she weighed about 600 pounds, but most people agree her weight was actually around 400 pounds. Another legend tells that, since her house was built on the Tennessee-Virginia line, when the Tennessee authorities came looking for her she would go to the Virginia side of the house and when the Virginia authorities came she would go to the Tennessee side. In reality, her house was in Tennessee about two miles from the Virginia line. She undoubtedly was too large to be taken out of the house if the authorities tried to arrest her. One deputy reportedly told the sheriff, "She's cetchable, but not fetchable."

When Haley died, she was carried from the house through an opening left in the wall for a chimney. According to one source, she was buried in her bed which had the legs removed and boards added to the sides to form a coffin. Another source claims she was buried in a piano crate. She now rests in a small cemetery that had been started with the deaths of some of her infant children.

According to an affidavit signed by Haley's son, Reuben, Solomon D. Collins (Haley's father) was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian. The affidavit states that "Solomon Collins is said to crossed into Tennessee and married Jincy Goins and settled there because he was afraid the chief would kill him if he returned to the tribe."

Mahala Mullins' house was moved to the Vardy community and is now open to the public. Newman's Ridge can be seen behind the house in the photo above. Haley's brother, Bailey Collins, was my g-g-grandfather.

Clinch River Bluff

In April 1777, a group of young Indian men devised a plan to lure the militiamen from Blackmore's Fort in southwest Virginia. They climbed Copper Ridge and the bluff (shown here) across Clinch River from the fort. They could see inside the fort from this vantage point. One of the men climbed a cedar tree while the others hid in smaller shrubs. At daybreak, the brave in the tree cupped his hands and gobbled like a male turkey. He repeated this call every five or ten minutes. When the militiamen heard this, they imagined how good that turkey would taste for breakfast.

As they were planning how to climb the bluff and retrieve their meal, an older, wiser man named Matthew Gray advised them to leave the turkey alone if they wanted to keep their scalps. He took some of the militiamen to the river and had them splash around to distract the Indian party. While this was going on, Gray took his long rifle and one that belonged to another man and sneaked down to the river. He forded the Clinch, climbed Copper Ridge and the bluff behind the Indian party where he waited until the next 'turkey' call from the young man in the tree. At that moment, his shot rang out and the Indian crashed to the ground with a lead ball in his head.

With the Indian party in pursuit, Gray ran for his life to the ford where he crossed the Clinch back toward the fort. The militiamen gave him cover as he dashed up the river bank and through the gate. The war party, unable to besiege the fort, turned toward Castle's Woods (modern-day Castlewood). Gray grabbed two rifles, jumped on a fast horse, and headed off toward the party. Firing a shot to confuse them, he sped past the war party and made it to Castle's Woods in time to warn the settlers who sought shelter at Moore's Fort.

Source: "Benge!" by Lawrence J. Fleenor, Jr.

Jett Ford

On April 6, 1794, Chief Benge and six warriors raided the home of Sarah Livingston near Mendota, Virginia. They killed Sarah in her garden where she was working. They tomahawked three children, killing one of them. They set fire to the Livingston home, forcing those inside to come out. They took three women, two men, and three children hostage and retreated across the North Fork of the Holston River here at this location. They stopped for a while near the home of Abraham Fulkerson where they watched as settlers had gathered there for a house raising. When they continued on, they crossed Clinch Mountain at Hamilton Gap. At nightfall, they camped at Copper Creek.

Source: "Benge!" by Lawrence J. Fleenor, Jr.

Abraham Fulkerson House

From the application for National Register of Historic Places: "The two-story Fulkerson-Hilton House, built around 1800, is of mixed log construction consisting of oak, pine, and poplar hewn logs. The logs are joined using half-dovetail notching. The house rests on a limestone foundation on its original site. The south side of the house, which is the front, has a roofed veranda that was added in 1936. In 1949, a kitchen and dining room shed-roof extension was added to the north side of the house. At present, the exterior of the house is covered with yellow-poplar siding painted white. The west side of the house has a two-story sandstone chimney. Single-beaded tongue and groove vertical boards divide the interior of both floors of the log portion of this house. In addition, the two log rooms constituting the first floor are lined with similar tongue and groove boards. The two upstairs rooms are not lined. The lean-to added in 1949 is of frame construction with a sheetrock interior. Both rooms have pine floors and are structurally unaltered to this day."

The house was built by frontier settler Abraham Fulkerson for whom the Fulkerson District of Scott County, VA, is named. Fulkerson, who "fought in the American Revolution, purchased the designated land in 1782, and subsequently operated a mill there before becoming one of the first Scott County commissioners at the time of the creation of the county in 1814."

Frontier preacher Samuel Hilton "established two Baptist churches in the area and purchased the designated land and house in 1816. The Fulkersons and Hiltons intermarried, and the house remained in possession of their heirs . . . until 1871." Samuel's grandson, Enos Bird Hilton, built a house nearby that would serve as a post office, thus establishing the name of "Hilton's."

Scott's Station

This beautiful valley lies between Powell Mountain and Wallens Ridge in Lee County, Virginia. The Wilderness Road, which Daniel Boone helped widen for migration to the western lands of modern-day Kentucky, passed through this valley. The rich meadow, through which Wallens Creek flows, was settled by Archibald and Fannie (Dickenson) Scott in 1782. The Scotts planted ten acres in corn and, by the "corn right law," received a land grant for 100 acres for each acre of corn. They build a blockhouse, which became known as Scott's Station, on a hill beside a creek.

In the spring of 1785, a band of Cherokee and Shawnee warriors led by "Chief" Benge started from what is now northern Georgia and made their way to this area. They were outraged when they found what had once been a meadow where deer grazed was now occupied by the Scott family. Late that evening, the war party attacked the house, shooting and killing Archibald Scott. His four children were killed, three of them were tomahawked and had their throats slit as they lay in their beds; the fourth was tomahawked in her mother's arms as Fannie pleaded for the child's life. The Indians then tried to attack the home of the Ball family some distance away but were driven off. The party then returned to the Scott house, stole what property they could carry, burned the house, and kidnapped Fannie. They took her with them through Powell Valley by Big Stone Gap, forcing her to walk endlessly and slapping her with the scalps of her husband and children. Their destination was the Shawnee towns on the Miami River in Ohio.

About eleven days into their journey, Fannie managed to escape from her captors when she was left alone with the oldest man in the group. For days, she wandered in the wilderness, hiding in a hollow log when the party came looking for her. She became lost, she was starving, and she was weak from exhaustion. Still she trudged along, eating berries, cane, bark, and herbs, until she came to the Big Sandy River. She followed the river to a fork and had to decide which way to go; if she took the wrong fork, it would certainly be a fatal decision. She chose the left fork but, as she started up the trail, a bird lit on her shoulder and then flew into the valley of the right fork. A moment later, a second bird did the same thing. Fannie believed these birds were the spirits of her murdered children so she turned around and took the right fork. Two days later, on August 11, she reached the settlement at New Garden in present-day Russell County. Newspapers as far away as Philadelphia told of her ordeal.

Sources: "Benge!" by Lawrence J. Fleenor, Jr. and Virginia historical marker K-5