The 1974 Winter Edition of the Foxfire Magazine contains a compilation of newspaper articles written by Harvey Miller. At the time of the magazine’s publication Miller’s weekly column had been around for sixty years and was till being published in the Tri-County News located in Spruce Pine, North Carolina.
1954
The writer received a letter from James Hutchins of Windom. We will quote his letter in part of his vivid memory of yesteryear in this mountainous area. Also, he gives comment on our articles in issue of December 10.
His letter said: “I regularly read your article in the Tri-County News. Your last article had a sort of nostalgic appeal and a special interest. I guess that is because I am getting old. The basket made of white oak timber called up old times. I have seen many just like the one you described, sturdily built. We had a chair not long ago about seventy-five years old.
“Well do I remember the green coffee grains, my mother parched many a panful. The old oven in use on the fire hearth is a vivid memory to me. I have carried many a load of chestnut oak bark, which I removed from a tree that had been girdled a few years before, to keep the fire alive during hot summer days. I have known many a person to come to our house early in the morning bringing two boards to ‘borrow’ fire.
“I have gone with my father opossum hunting when he took for a light a board torch.
“We had a house-raising once in the dense woods with many large trees in the surroundings. We had one large room with the log walls and a lean-to room or two. The wild squirrels would run all around the house.
“Life was rather hard we thought, but we had many things then that we do not have now. We ate lots of raw foods rich in vitamins. I wish we had a full account of various things of long ago written up. The local papers should print more than they do. An article by you about things of long ago would be interesting.”
Thank you, Mr. Hutchins, for your interesting letter. I will file it for future reference in writing an article that I plan to write.
The country doctor is in the past through-out the Pigeon Roost mountainous area. About fifteen years ago, there were three doctors in easy reach of residents on Pigeon Roost Creek. The last one died about a year ago at 82. Now, the nearest resides in a town 15 miles away.
The last remaining chestnut trees of any commercial value are being made into oldtime fence rails and stakes and hauled to the rail factory in Erwin, Tenn., a business firm which began operation about three years ago. Pigeon Roost residents had previously been employed working the dead chestnut timber killed by blight disease several years ago into acid wood sticks for the market. The acid timber is now almost gone.
Horses and mules have replaced oxen for farm work in the Pigeon Roost mountainous area. Until a few years ago, oxen were used exclusively for farm work. Now not one ox is in use. The horses and mules are likely to stay on the farms as the land in general is too steep for mechanized farming.
Pigeon Roost Creek, which has the distinction of having had two post offices, is now serviced by a mail route from Relief. Barnett was the name of the first post office, located in the middle of the community. It was soon discontinued. The other office was at the mouth of the creek and was called Street. Both offices were located in little country stores. When a postoffice was opened at Relief many years ago, the Street office was closed and the present mail route established. M. F. Johnson, a postmark collector, has the postmarks of the two old offices in his collection.
Reuel B. Pritchett of White Pine, Tenn., noted evangelist and historical writer, is scheduled to visit the writer within the next few days and we will confer on some writing. Pritchett is setting up a museum at the college at Bridgewater, Virginia.
1/7/54
I hope you enjoyed this look back at Pigeon Roost as much as I do. I sure wish I could have talked to Mr. Hutchins and heard more about his life.
I recently heard about someone going out to gather ‘sticks’ to sell, but they were getting laurel sticks.
Jump over to the Foxfire website and poke around. They are still publishing the magazine and those wonderful Foxfire Books too!
Last night’s video: We Cut Open A 2 Year Old Pumpkin And It Was Still Good!
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My mom had all of the Foxfire books before she died and somehow I wound up with one of them and I treasure it, I don’t know what happened to the rest of them as I live in Kentucky and the rest of my family lives in Arkansas and they started getting rid of her things as soon as they knew she was dying. She had bookcases under her staircase and they were loaded with magazines about homesteading, canning, farming, and many many books and they all disappeared. So heartbreaking. I was the only other reader in the family.
This was before my time, but not by much. I know we are blessed with so many things now that make life easier or saves lives with medical technology. After reading so many articles from days gone by and then reading about so many problems of our world now days, I have to wonder if we are really better off now, than then.
Now I am wondering what board torch is. or borrowing fire with two boards. I assume hot coals would be placed between the boards?
The writer was right…they had some things better, but many things were worse. A lot of people romantize the old days, yet few would want to work as hard or give up the comforts of today. There is a middle ground, as many of us have found, that combines old and new. One thing that is definitely better is our longer lifespans!
I recall hearing how R.N.s would be recruited to serve medical needs of folks in Appalachian communities. So it was interesting to read that this community had 3 doctors at one time.
In more densely populated areas, we seem to have more M.D.s than we can shake a stick at. Here in central FL, our population increases about 1/3 from Oct or so until March & April.
I remember walking through the hollowed out half shells of a couple of huge chestnut trees that were fallen next to the old Junglebrook Trail in Gainburg. The trail was right down the road from downtown in the 1970s. It was less than a mile long if I remember right. It had a nice stream with big rocks to sit on in shaded spots. The walks y’all take remind me of that trail a little bit.
This article is so interesting, and like you mentioned – it brings many questions we’d love answered.
Hello, I really love reading the blind pig and the acorn.
This morning I was watching the news, Out Numbered, a woman there was a guest, she was from Spruce Pine, NC. What a small world.
Well, it’s almost a certainty that the James Hutchins, mentioned in the article, and I are cousins. The question is how far removed. I have a brother named James Hutchins, an uncle and 3 cousins all by that name. If we are cousins our original colonial ancestor was John Hutchins who came to the Virginia Colony in 1630 (or possibly 1634, records differ) from Towcester, Northampton Shire, England. William Shakespeare died in 1628, IIRC. I am a 12th generation descendant of John’s. It’s also possible that he was descended from Thomas Hutchins who was a governor of the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts. There is speculation that the John Hutchins of the VA colony was a brother or cousin of the one who went to Plymouth. This link has not been proved, to my knowledge. There was also a John Hutchins in the Jamestown colony but there are no records of him having offspring that I know of.
Thanks for posting the article and for the link to Foxfire.
Blessings to all . . .
Robert-love your family connections 🙂
I sure did enjoy this reading today! Pigeon Roost sounded like a very interesting community. I enjoyed watching you and Matt cut into that pumpkin last night. It’s just amazing that it kept like it did. I read your story yesterday about Pap to my husband, Robert last night and then played the song and I have to say, we still both agree your dad had the most beautiful tenor voice we’ve ever heard. You are so blessed to have these videos and we listened to some other songs Pap and Paul sang also. Tipper, you will never know how much that music means to so many people. Here at home, we always get such a blessing from watching your family sing and play. Thank you for doing all that you do. Have a blessed day everyone!! And one more thing, I know a lot of folks say you favor Granny more. I think you look so much like Pap.
I was born in 1954 so fun to read this post and hear what was going on back then.
I bought a set of the FOXFIRE books back in the early 80’s from a gal who was moving to Alaska. I always enjoyed them and that was even before I realized what a rich heritage I had from Appalachia.
I enjoyed the pumpkin video. I’d sure be curious if the seeds are still viable. Are you going to try planting any of them? If they actually produced I’d be saving seed from them because those would be some pumpkins to put by.
Blessings
I was raised in Wisconsin and lived on Elm Street. I remember the street sign as the only Elm still standing – the others all killed by disease. We even attended Elmwood Elementary. So sad.
Mary W
I was born on groundhog’s day 1947 in Plum City, Wisconsin. My family moved to a farm about 9 miles east of Ellsworth in 1949. My brothers, sisters and I attended a grade school that was one room, one teacher, for all eight grades with no running water. Two boys would carry a shotgun can on a broom stick to a farm house every day for our drinking water. One morning on the way to school a brother, sister and I made the sad mistake of throwing rocks at a skunk. When we got to school the teacher wouldn’t let us in, we had to sit on the pouch with our books. The teacher came out at 10 that morning and told us to go home, to say my mother was disappointed was an understatement. I joined the Navy in 1966, retired in 1991. My wife and I live in Middleburg, Fl
I have the collection of Foxfire books and they are a treasure!
I’ve worked with oxen as well as horses and mules. I remember a store with the system Lorie wrote about and wondered at the time about the person making the change. They were out of my sight. That store also had the first elevator I ever rode in. The first black man I can remember seeing operated it. I also remember seeing some of the chestnut “carcasses”. Many of them were higher than my Dad’s head in diameter. Only the redwoods are larger. It’s amazing to think about what I’ve seen and done in eight decades.
I would’ve liked so much to talk with Mr. Hutchins myself. Maybe I’d bring a fresh fruit pie and jug of sweet tea cause I just dont like coming empty handed. Can you imagine wild squirrels all up in your house? I bet those little tree “rats” would tear up Jack!!! Lol but it still beats city life where human rats will try to getcha. All in all country life is the best life!
I recently watched a commentary on the chestnut trees of Appalachia. What a devastating tragedy. The commentary said the blight was imported unknowingly from a foreign country. The same country from which we have all suffered from since 2020. When will we ever learn?
A good read. I was born on Feb, 20, 1954. Mother would tell me each year on my birthday about how stormy it was on the night I was born in the hospital at Anderson, SC. All daddy talked about was how the doctor from Belton, SC beat the ambulance to the hospital in the bad weather. They was concerned there would be problems when I was born. One story I have been told about the last country doctor in my area. His name was Dr. Knight and he died in 1952. He owned a good bit of land. My wife’s grandparents sharecropped and lived on 132 acres of land that he owned. He told them if they would farm this land (cotton) for him he would give it to them when he died. They had nothing in writing, only his word but it was good as a written contract. It was in his will to give them this land and house. It is interesting or amazing to see how much has changed in my life. They think it will be pretty stormy around my area this afternoon maybe even a few tornadoes.
Randy, I was born February 19th, 1958 and that night there was a large snow on the ground from the day before and daddy got mama in the car with my brother and had to drop him off at his brother’s house on the way and roads were so slick and slippery. Luckily, it was one main road and even though he had to go slow he made it to the hospital just in time. At one point, daddy said he thought he was going to have to bring me into this world his self. And to top it off, my husband was born Feburary 26,1956 and it was bad weather then also, but they lived in town and not very far to travel.
I never understood how folks raised cows and horses much less ox in these mountains.
Animals were a luxury and when I talked to most old timers they would say “law.. times was hard”
with a quiver in their voice and a sad seriousness. I think the raising of animals made it hard. Pigs were easier as they just turned them out and only had to keep them away from the house and gardens.
I suppose it would have been easier if folks were vegetarians. When I raised Goats I had to wonder about the past. One goat could wipe out an acre of land. And the grains I gave two gave two goats would have fed me well had I turned it into bread, grits and oat meal. I know animals are a major burden and we worked our tails off trying to keep up with the joneses so to speak. Just my thoughts.
Nothing better than listening to my husband’s grandparents tell us stories of yester-year and how things used to be. His grandparents lived to be 94 & 98 and were our closest relatives, by far. Grandma Marceline told us about going into the local JC Penny store (probably around 1920) and how you paid for the items you bought. She said you’d go to the counter, hand over the items you wish to buy, the clerk would wrap the items into one, brown paper, package, then they’d put your money in a basket (that was on some sort of clothes line type, guy wire) and hoist the basket to an upper level that would return it with any change for you. No money was ever handled at the lower counter. That JC Penny was still in our neighboring town when I was a young girl so it was very interesting to think of all the changes it had made over its 60 years.
I remember buying something in the uptown here probably 50 yrs ago. They also sent the payment up in a basket. I had never seen this and got worried about getting my change!
Lorie, the Belk store in Raleigh, Hudson-Belk, had a pneumatic tube system that ran to every register in the store. Any time the clerk had a charge-plate sale, the card was sent through the tube and a sales slip came back. This also worked for any large bills or large cash sales, too. Registers were not supposed to retain large bills or put large amounts of cash in the till. I’m describing the late ’40s and ’50s.
I was 9 years old when that was written, and it seems like a different lifetime!
I remember back in the 70’s reading the first Foxfire book. I got it from our library in Mancelona Mich. Even my husband liked reading it. Later in our life he found the 1st three editions at a flea market & bought them. When he died our daughter wanted to have them & read them, thoroughly enjoying them. I didn’t know they had a website or did the magazine yet. I will be sure to look them up. Thank you for the info.
Wow, I would never believed that a pumpkin, that old, would be viable. So enjoyed watching your preparing it for the freezer. I hope to get pumpkins this year and I will for certain try your method. I was not privy to the Foxfire magazine, and liked reading some of the material in the ones you posted. I love reading my Foxfire books and am still looking for the first 3 of them to finish my collection. Stay warm and well, and for sure tell Granny hello. God Bless
My father told me that he remembers as a boy seeing many American Chestnut trees standing dead, killed by the blight. The Foxfire books and magazines are a rich source of Appalachian history, culture and characters.
Good article!!