The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-04-20
THE SIX BILL RAINESES.
A PICTURE QUE HALF-DOZEN TEN
NESSEE MOUNTAINEEGS.


From the Mem York World
HARRoGATE, Tenn. April 3.-If, instead
,of going off down into Mexico and getting
lost Rider Haggard had come here into the
mountains Of Tennessee and devoted him
saf to the study of the primitive noun
tsneers, more interesting even than those
WON Charles Egbert Craddock made
famous in the Great Smoky mountains
whose misty outlines form the southern
barrier of the landscape here, he might
well have struck much richer lead of ro-
nance.
Eere are hills as everlasting as those
which hold liking Solomons MinesA Here
are simple children of nature, as tall and as
brawny and as destitute of fear as Umslop.
ogaas. Here are caves as weird and en-
chanting as the great cavern of the dead in
which the royal mummies of thousand
years held their CHASTITY state Here are
landscapes which have been for their wild
beauty famous since the time of Daniel
Boone. Here are great rivers whose names
even are almost unknown to the ordinary
reader. Here are the descendants of the
soldiers Of the revolution, who. after the
peace of Paris, came out here about
1893, drove the Indians into Kentucky and
built cabins and titled the hillsides and val,
leys in much the fashion of to-day Here
they were joined by fugitives from Justice,
the scapegraces Of noble houses, whose BLACK
sheep were sent to Virginia from England.
the ne'er-do-wells of the old estate all up and
down the Atlantic coast all of whom were
by the irresistible presence of natural causes
forced down towards the famous Gap, which
is the only highway over this great con-
tinental divide.
NUTS FOR HAGGARD.
Until within the last three years, when a
food of foreign capital has engulfed the
shacks and redeemed the clearings of these
picturesque natives, who were, and still are.
for the matter Of that, living Just as their
forebears did hundred years since, no
vehicle more fashionable than two-wheeled
OK cart had penetrated these mountain
roads, the shrek Of the steam whistle
was an unknown sound, since not
even such magnificent attitudes could
carry its echo sixty miles from the
nearest railroad; store clothes and store
"fxins" were alike despised and unused,
aud the land on which $40, 100000 steel aud
iron plants and $4,000 900 hotels and
casinos are now being erected was to be
had for 81 an acre or less.
There are stories enough here to keep
Rider Haggard busy five years. Let me try
now to tell the story of the Bill Raineses.
Some younger son Of the distinguished
Raines family Of England, whose successes
sJthe bar and in parliament are well known,
was no doubt the progenitor of the six Bill
RalneSes. The RaineseS have been living
here ever since anybody has, and like their
Ieighbors have intermarried and preserved
an even mOnotony Of life-barely enlivened
n at short intervals with rife shots, which has
resulted in type of man so peculiar as to
be instantly recognizable and almost in
dgenous Sto this locality. The intermar-
riage Of the Raines family soon exhausted
the rather limited stock of Christian names
which was in use here and there came in
time naturally enough to be six Bill Raineses.
Easily the most famous of these is big
Foot" Bill Raines No explanation of how
he came to get this appellatlOn is necessary
to any one who has ever seen him. "Yankn
Bill Raines. so named because, during the
war of the rebellion, which most of the
mountalneers looked upon as bushwhack-
ing spree, Yank took sides against his
namesakes with the union forces. and at
once and involuntarily acquired the dis
tinction which enables US to differentiate
him from his fellow Bills. "Slow1 Bill
Ralnes got his name early in life when
he was sent to mill with sack Of corn one
fine fall day and didn't come back with the
meal until early the following spring
"Skeeter" Bill Raines-fOr mosquitoes In
these attitudes are so rare as to be objects
Of curiosity-develope when quite a lad
into such q leggy specimen OF humanity
that he was promptly named for the leg
gtest Of all insects, a solitary specimen of
whicn on particularly warm day in Au-
gust-a warm August day here means about
about 70o-his mother had shown her for the
first time in her life.
"Monkn Bill Raines it is generally con-
ceded, was named from his facial resem-
blance to some particularly ugly specimen
Of the monk in metropolitan parlance
associated with the org How in the
4 name of Barnum, Bailey 81 Hutchinson
h monkey ever got loose in these hills or was
H ever seen by one OF these mountaineers it is
hard to say. The nearest city, when Bill
was born, at least, was Knoxville, seventy
miles away, and strolliug Italians, like
strolling clrcusSes, were rare enough then
even there. In the handsome museum at
the new city Of MiddleSborough lust across
the Gap, is al embalmed monkey so much
like Bill, that is, this Bill Raines, that one
OF his little children, who accompanied its
4 mother there on Il shopping excursion, cried
bitterly to be taken to its father.
CAN EAT BREAKFAST OFF THE ROOF.
"Slim" Bill Raines is tall enough to eat
his breakfast off the roof Of the Harrogate
people, with newfangled clothes and ideas,
4 came here a couple of years ago and bought
& all this valley and built railroads through
4 II, and tunneled the mountains to Kentucky,
ana projected hotels and sanitariums,
slim" Blll Raines was one of many others
who felt and expressed the most unmiti-
4 gated contempt for the "whole circus" as
ne called it, and if he had imagined that by
ealng his breakfast off the top Of Harrow
gate railway station, or jumping like
hemus over the foundations of the Cumber
iand Gap Park casino he could have
inundated the "blarsted foreigners" and
frightened them away, it is by no means
impossible that he would have done 70.
Bacon" Bill Raines is the last Of the six,
and his traditional fondness for the we'll
olhoked hams of the country and perhaps
some extra knack Of his own in smoking
ana curing mountain pig gave him his
Curlsclan name readily enough. There they
are, all six of them, each differing from the
olher In stature, but all with the sams gen
Graz cast of countensnce, long stumbling
saiI, hardy constitution, and absolute de.
nance or convention and bullets
Inc six mountain rifles with which the
SIX Bill Raineses habitually go armed are as
allSe as six peas in a pod. Any one Of them
> I'VE feet long easily, end heavy enough to
IHasn IN the skull Of bear The photog-
TDaPher who could get q picture Of the six
4 OH halneses all in a row, leaning on their
h SIX rifles, might launch the work Of his cam
+ era on sea of success more glittering even
. fhnN /, n -