Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1921-02-24
CATHOLIC WOMAN'S
CLUB SENDS REPORT

fore the Catholic Woman's cIup Dy
Mrs. Frank Plummer on Wednesday
afternoon. Excerpts from her paper
follow:
"Our Mountain Folk of the South
have better right to the title of real
Americans, than any class, except it
be the American Indians. They are
the stock that braved the unknown
dangers of the New World for relig-
ious and political convictions. They
are composed largely of Scotch-1rish
and English. They are marked apart
from all other folk by dialect, customs,
character and self-conscious isolation.
They call all outsiders "furriners."
Conceive shipload of immigrants,
cast away on some isolated spot far
from the regular track of travel and
left there for five or six generations
unaided and untroubled by the growth
of civilization. We find among those
people customs and ideas unaltered
from the time of their forefathers. Our
backswoOdsmen of the Blue Ridge and
it's connecting chains are still in the
same condition as in the days Of Dan
lei Boone 1t is not entirely their
fault They are people of keen in
telligence and strong initiative when
they can see anything to win Civiliza-
ton and progress are as aloof from
them as if they existed in another
planet. They moved into the mountains
to get cheaper lands and larger farms.
They became as isolated there as if
they were surrounded by stone wall.
featuring sprang up, south of them the
cotton industry developed, West of
them in the Mississippi basin the
wheat lands were cultivated. But in
the mountains nothing changed. They
found themselves beyond the reach
of mails, schools and churches. Every
great improvement that swept over the
country, swept around the mountains.
These highlanders obtain living by
fishing, hunting, trapping, gathering
herbs, digging ginseng, making moon
shine whisky and cu1tiNating their
small gardens Their implements of
labor are the most primitive. They
live as their forefathers and follow
the lines of least resistance Their
wants are simple Their clothes are
of the plainest and toughest and very
scanty Their diet is one round of
corn pone, beans, pork and drief ap-
pies in winter, varied by vegetables
in summer. The average mountaineer
is tall, lean, inQuisitive and shrewd.
Their outdoor life and pure water are
important factors in keeping the noun
taineer hardy and rugged Their dwell
ling houses are of the crudest. Both
sexes marry very young and Invariably
raise large families. An old maid is
an unknown product in the mountains.
The children are put to work at a
very early age. This in itself, is a
great drawback to progress. Amongst
the mountaineers you will find men of
powerful body and powerful mind,
with breadth and justice of view
simply astonishing, and with very little
or no book education. Numbered
among the early mountaineers are
Daniel Boone, David Crockett, Geo.
Rogers Clark, and George Sewer They
were as fine ancestors as anyone would
wish to claim, but their descendants
became side tracked on the road to
progress. From this same Scotch
Irish stock have sprung three presi-
dents of the nation, Andrew Jackson,
James K. Polk and Abraham Lincoln
In the main they are law-abiding citi-
zens, unless the law seems unjust to
them, as in the manufacture of moon
shine whisky. (When mountaineer
realizes that two bushels of corn will
make ten (10) gallons of whisky, and
takes the bad roads and price OF corn
into consideration he knows that it
is more money for him to make the
whtsky) This he finds a ready market
for and besides uses it as medicine
in his home. Years before the Revc-
lutionary war they fought brave1y
against the English Governor Tyron in
defense of the principle that taxation
without representation is tyranny.
They were -repulsed, however, and lost
over 200 Of their brave men. In the
Revolutionary war when CORVALLIS
was marching triumphantly through
the south he was met at Kings Noun
tain by a band Of mountaineers armed
with their long guns and marshalled
by their own leaders, and defeated,
thereby opening the way for the final
surrender of the English. They slip
ped quietly back home and were for
gotten. In 1912 under the leadership
of Andrew Jackson at New Orleans,
a band of mountaineers drove the
British forces before them Jackson
became president, but the mountain
,eers dropped back home again into
the mountains and were again forgot
ten. Again in the Civil war they went
forth 10000 strong into the Union
ranks. Their homes were left unpro-