White Pine news weekly mining review. [volume] (East Ely, Nev.) 1910-1920, 1914-04-12
HUMAN INTEREST IN
MOUNTAIN DISTRICT


illness and the reticence of the people
of the mountain districts of Kentuc-
ky. Tennessee and Virginia were de
scribed In an address by Miss Ethel
Mountain, KY, at the annual public
meeting of the Southern Industrial
Educational Association at the Shore
ham hotel. For upward of an hour
Miss De Long held the interest of
400 or 500 "fotched-on" folks or
"furriners" as all outsiders are term
ed by the mountaineers says a WASH
ington dispatch.
Miss De Long was introduced by
Chief Justice Seth Shepard of the
District Court of Appeals, president
Of the Southern Industrial Educa-
tional Association. who explained
that the work of the association was
to aid the very mountain people that
Miss De Long was to discuss by TAX
ing to them education along indus
trial lines.
Disregarding the stories of illness,
lack of sanitation and poverty which
might have been told of the life in
the mountains. Miss belong plunged
Immediately into a description of the
romance that is to be found there.
She used the quaint language and
expressions of the mountains. words
and phrases which have been handed
down from ancestors of E~lizabethan
days. and which have been preserved
in the cold storage of the mountains
shut in from the outer world. She
explained that the mountaineers were
not TO be considered poor white
trash" They are the direct descen-
dants of the English. Scotch and
Irish settlers of colonial and revo-
lutionary days and carry in theiI
veins some of the best blood of the
country.
Miss De Long told incident after
incident to show the genuine court
esy and kindness these people ael
corded to ''furriners" and to each
other. Take them your culture;
they have civilization" she said.
Pointing to the white. linsey-woolsey
suit which she wore, Miss De Long
said hat the material had been made
on a hand loom by one of the noun
tain women These women raise
sheep. shear them and weave all the
cloth they use for clothes, towels,
linen. etc, she said, just as did WON
en- Of 200 years ago. They make theii
own dyes. in many cases from bark
and leaves and roots. And these
dyes they frequently find more fast
than cheap dyes sent in by the out
side world.
She said she had found carved on
an old tree the inscription: This is
whar ! first kissed Nance" She de-
clared that she was Immediately fill
ed with a desire I learn of this
Nance. Nance, she found. had neveI
been married and had died an old
maid at the & of 81. This was not
because of a lack of sweethearts OF
not being talked to-" as the noun
tain boys and girls say when they
mean "courted." She had been a girl
full of spirit and a beauty. But she
had set her heart on one young
mountaineer. He rode away one day
to get the marriage license. and com
ing home with the license in his poe
ket. he fell in with a gang OF young
men and stayed to drink with them.
1t ended in a fight. and they hanged
Nance's intended husband to a pop
lar tire Then they took the body
home. and gave Nance the marriage
license. She never said. much about
the death of her fiance. but she never
would listen to any other young maj
when he came to talk" to her. She
used to carry always with her her
purse, and folks thought that she
must have money. But when she
came to die she made a last request
that she be buried in her wedding
dress, made by her own hands. and
kept for more than half a century
in a small pine box.
They put the little old gown on hel
before they laid her In the coffin. All
they found in the pocketbook was the
marriage license and some Confeder-
ate money SO they buried the peck
etbook with her, too.
Miss De Long told another story
of a mountaineer who had owned
several thousand acres of land. When
the railroad came into that section
he sold off the timber on his land