Stories of Appalachia

167 years ago this weekend, on the night of October 16, 1859, fiery abolitionist John Brown and his men set out toward Harpers Ferry and the federal armory located there.  Brown had a vision of an expansive Appalachian mountain campaign to free Southern slaves and establish a free state for them, a strategy that slowly unraveled through delays, betrayal, and Brown’s dismissal of a warning not to proceed from Frederick Douglass at a clandestine meeting the two had in Pennsylvania.

This week, we tell the story of John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, another one of the Stories of Appalachia.

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This week we tell the story of the Wright-Reynolds feud and the legendary figure at its center: a man folks often called “Devil”:  John Wesley Wright. Riding through the rugged mountains of eastern Kentucky and southwest Virginia, Wright forged a reputation as a fierce lawman, detective, and feudist whose very name struck fear into outlaws and rivals alike. At the turn of the 20th century he also found himself involved in a family feud with the Reynolds family, who’d formed a group of nightriders to “enforce morality” in Letcher County…and protect themselves from the Wrights. 

It’s another one of the Stories of Appalachia.

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This week Steve and Rod share the true survival story of Captain Robert A. Ragan.

A schoolteacher and Union supporter from Cocke County in East Tennessee, Ragan was forced into hiding for 18 months after Confederate soldiers dragged him from his classroom.

Living as a fugitive in the mountain wilderness, Ragan survived close encounters with rebel patrols, a brutal foot injury, and near-executions. He went on to become a mountain “pilot,” guiding hundreds of Unionists across enemy lines into Kentucky, through a perilous sprint across Powell Valley. 

It’s another one of the Stories of Appalachia.

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Before Robert Fulton, there was James Rumsey, an inventor who defied his skeptics and the power of the Potomac River at Shepardstown, in what’s now West Virginia.

Today we tell the story of how a chance encounter with George Washington led to Rumsey’s water-jet propelled steamboat twenty years before Robert Fulton’s Claremont and a patent war with another inventor.

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Before Elkmont became a tourist destination and eventually a ghost town, it was home to Levi Trentham, a mountain landowner, businessman, hunter, guide, and unofficial mayor.

As railroads, lumber companies, wealthy tourists, and then the Great Smoky Mountains National Park transformed the Smokies, Levi watched the world he knew disappear. He also fought against the stereotypes outsiders used to portray Appalachian people, insisting that the people he knew were intelligent, capable, and independent.

This is the story of Levi Trentham and the changing world of Elkmont.

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In 1906, escaped convict Will Harris arrived in Asheville, North Carolina, and unleashed one of the most violent crime sprees in the city’s history. After killing several men, including police officers, Harris fled Asheville, sparking a massive manhunt involving hundreds of armed citizens.

This is the story of Will Harris, the outlaw who claimed he came straight from hell… and brought with him to Asheville.

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Richard Trotter was killed at the Battle of Point Pleasant in 1774, leaving behind his wife, Anne. Instead of living quietly, raising their son, she became a scout and courier on the Appalachian frontier, earning the nickname “Mad Anne” for her fearless rides through dangerous territory before marrying another man she met on the frontier.

Her life was full of adventure, including the often told story of her daring mission to bring gunpowder to an isolated frontier fort threatened with attack by the Shawnee.  Behind that story was a real woman who lived an extraordinary life on the Appalachian frontier.

This is the story of Mad Anne Bailey, the heroine of West Virginia’s Kanawha Valley, another one of the Stories of Appalachia.

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For decades a preacher would come to the Bristol, Virginia, train station to meet the incoming trains, looking for couples who’d come to the city to elope.  He claimed to have married 5,142 couples, over 10,000 people, in a matrimonial career that included rival preachers, angry fathers, runaway couples, a “matrimonial hotel,” and even a plea to the state of Tennessee for a state pension based on his marrying work.

This week we tell the story of Alfred Harrison Burroughs, known as “The Marrying Parson,” another one of the Stories of Appalachia.

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In 1794, thousands of federalized militia marched into western Pennsylvania to put down an uprising by American farmers. Their crime? Making whiskey and refusing to pay a federal tax on it.

The Whiskey Rebellion was the first major test of the new federal government’s authority, and George Washington personally accompanied the troops sent to suppress it. But why did a tax on whiskey bring the young United States so close to civil war?

It’s another one of the Stories of Appalachia.

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Dillion “Old Dill” Asher was one of the early pioneers of southeastern Kentucky, a frontier soldier and farmer who became the toll keeper at the Cumberland River ford at what’s now Pineville, giving him a front row seat to the early settlement of the state.

In this episode, we tell Old Dill’s story, from his connection to the first settlers in what became Tennessee, his military service, his journeys into Kentucky along the Wilderness Road, the settlement of Red Bird Valley, and his, shall we say, “complicated family life.”

Along the way, we try to separate what can be documented from the rich folklore that grew up around one of eastern Kentucky’s most colorful pioneers. 

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