The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1900-08-03
A GOODLY HERITAGE
In East Tennessee Valleys and
Mountains.
A Most Primitive People, Who Live Near
to Natures Heart and Reek Little
of the Outside World-An
Interesting Folk.

Within scarce two hundred miles of
the center of population of the United
States there is an unknown land, and
a strange folk live therein.
II was in 1884 that Gen. John Sewer
and his band of sturdy pioneers and
Indian fighters crossed the Great
Smokes from Virginia, drove back the
redskins, built Fort Wautaga on the
banks of the HolstOn and established
the state of Franklin" For four years
Gen. Sewer was governor of the puta-
tive commonwealth. Then the right
full authority of North Carolina, to
whom the territory belonged, was re-
asserted and the State of Franklin
ceased to exist. Some years later North
Carolina ceded the section to the Fed
eral government and the State of Ten
nessee was organized. Gov. Sewer
again became the chief executive.
1t was a goodly land that the brave
governor and his followers reclaimed
from the savages. 1t was a land of
rolling mountains, of fertile valleys,
of mighty streams and sparkling
springs. 1t was a country clad in a
forest wealth of giant trees-with pop
lar, oak, ash, black walnut, pine and
hemloc,.. 1t was underlaid with rich
deposits of coal and iron. Above all it
possessed a climate of salubrity and
healthfulness not excelled by any in
the world.
In all these more than a hundred
years, in the great land of East Ten
nessee-as separate and distinct in
thought, people, climate, interest and
employment from Middle and Western
Tennessee as Maine is from Texas
there has risen but one considerable
community, and that one is of COM
parative insigni6cance in size and in
huence.
Depart from any point on the line of
one of the few railroads that traverse
the country, and a half days journey
astride of horse will land the traveller
in a region as primeval and untamed as
when the good Sewer laid down his
life for it in 1915. He will find few
roads worthy ne name; he will cross
rivers by primit We fords or ferries; he
will see vast timber-clad mountain
sides; he will feast his eyes on scenery
unspoiled by the hand of man. He will
find the agile mountain deer, and great
bronze turkeys, and lesser animals and
fowls stalking the woods, almost un-
afraid of their arch enemy. On the
higher levels the brooks will be found
swarming with trout, speckled beauties
who know naught of sportman's fly
and reel. Depart but few miles from
any line of transportation and East
is an unknown land!
The mountaineers of Virginia and
Western North Carolina, who emigrated
and made their homes on the western
slope of the Great Smokes, were
people, loyal TO their friends
and implacable to their enemies. With
the determination or withdrawal of the |
Indian they scattered along down the
rich bottom lands of the French Broad |
and Holston and made homes for them |
selves. To large extent the women |
have always been the Indifferent tillers !
of the soil; idling with ''fice," gun and |
fishing rod has been the masculine en-
ployment. In this earlier settled por
ton of East Tennessee some of the |
amenities of civilization have prevailed |
Of a later day, still it is crude, unlearned |
and primitive.
StiI Further Westward.
AS time progressed some of the more |
adventurous spirits again moved west
across the Holston and |
Ao
ranges, away to the rough |
and broken surface of the Cumberland |
plateau, where the tempestuous Big |
South Fork of the Cumberland had
carved a ragged channel for itself be-
tween stupendous sandstone cliffs. Be
yond this narrow valley they never
gentured, for mountaineers they were
oy birth and education, and to go fur
her was to leave the mountains be-
hind.
Here. for a distance of many miles,
along the main stream or in the little
aurel entangled ''coves," through
which some mountain torrent had burst
is way, numbers settled. Little, low
loored, stickchimneyed log 'shacks"
we're DullJ, anu IlO OCCdSiOAdl AdTTOW
racts of arabic land were forced to
yield sparse ''craps" of corn and vege-
ables. Available soil for the produc-
ion of the necessities of life was far
rom being as plentiful as on the slopes
md bottom lands of the Great Smokes,
which they had abandoned. But here,
n the fastnesses of the Cumberlands,
or well toward a century, this strange
people has existed in the self-same way.
The sons and daughters have married
md intermarried until the entire re-
rion is made up of ''kin-foiks," ultra
.lannish and exclusive. Of the outside
world they know little and care less
schools are scarcely known, and few
an even read.
But these strange denizens of the
lalf-desert mountains, these forgotten
md unknown inha bitants, though sur
on all sides by progressive and
prosperous sections-poorer in substan-
ial wealth than the veriest gutter-snipe
# the great cities-have worth and vir-
ues and happiness. They are deeply
eligious, extremely hospita bic and, ac-
OrQlDR 10 IHelT UNDERSTANDING, HOn6Sl-
scarce ten miles can be traversed that
oes not disclose the log church
Iouse" News of the coming of the
tinerant preacher man" is hailed with
oy, and the congregation present at
hese semi-occasional gatherings of
lines represent the total population of
score of square miles. These meet
ngs consist not only Of religious ex-