Visitors and a Series of History Related Tours (#2)

Our next historic adventure with our friends and guests, Gary and Belinda, took place at The Museum of Appalachia near Clinton Tennessee.  This museum is a living history museum that exhibits and interprets the pioneer and early 20^th century period of the Southern Appalachian region of the USA.  It is an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution. 

The Museum of Appalachia was founded in the 1960s by John Rice Irwin, an East Tennessee educator and businessman.  He believed in preserving both the structures and artifacts that pertain to the area’s history…but also in preserving each item’s history.  He recorded who owned it, when they owned it, how it was acquired or created and finally, how it was used.

Warning…while I do have more photos than usual accompanying this post, they just barely touch on the plethora…the overwhelming numbers…of artifacts displayed at this expansive museum which covers 65 acres and includes more than 30 buildings.  

Visitors to the Museum of Appalachia enter through this large entrance building.  In addition to being the admissions building, it also houses a craft and gift shop which features items made by over 200 local artisans, the “farm to table” Museum Café and the Heritage Hall, which is available for special events.

Upon our departure from the museum’s entrance building, we came across the Tom Cassidy House.  It is the smallest dwelling at the museum.  It was home to an old bachelor from Union County Tennessee.  He told folks that he had all he needed…a place to sleep, a stove for heat and cooking, a fiddle made by his grandfather…and his pistol.

I took this photo of Gary and Belinda as they scoped out Gwen Hubbard Sharp’s little playhouse.  It was built for Gwen when she was 5 years old, ca. 1929.  When she was 84 she donated it to the Museum.  Her family farm was part of the more than 42,000 acres that the Tennessee Valley Authority “purchased” for the creation of the Norris Dam and reservoir.

Moving along…we entered the huge, multilevel Appalachian Hall of Fame building.  Patient discerning historians could spend days studying the thousands of objects displayed in this building.  The building “is devoted to numerous displays belonging to notable, historic, famous, interesting, colorful and unusual folk from the surrounding region. 

To me, the most amazing part of the items displayed in this building is the inventiveness, “make-do with less” ability and craftsmanship evident as visitors explore the various topical areas throughout the structure.

In addition to the pioneer/early Appalachian artifacts, there also are exhibits of Native American crafts that date to the time before Europeans swarmed into Tennessee.   This is just a glimpse of the points, stone pipes and pottery on display.  Love the ca. 1600s Cat-Serpent bowl (head of a cat, tail of a snake) at the upper right hand corner of the photo.  I also love the simplicity of the straight Cherokee stone pipe (ca. 1700s) at the right center of the photo.  It was found nearby in the Tellico River area. 

Toys, toys, toys!  Without Hasbro, Playskool and all of the other big toymakers that exist today, toys in the early part of the 20th century were almost all handmade.  The fact that so many have survived their owner’s playtimes is a testament to their importance.  Love that little tractor from western North Carolina!  The “Little Lady’s Wagon” was made for Elsie Joe Henderson in 1893 when she was 3, by her friend and the farm’s caretaker, Old Jack Tate.

This is just one of the many displays of handmade baskets found at the museum.  Many of these were made using white oak as the primary ‘building material’.  Laurie loves baskets and this grouping is spectacular!

I love quirky, be it people or objects.  Doc Andrew (Andy) Osborne (1869 – 1937) was born and died in Blackwater Virginia.  He was a physician for more than 40 years, making house calls on his horse, “Old Joe”.  While he did serve 3 months in the Atlanta penitentiary for prescribing morphine to a patient, he was truly dedicated to his clientele, never charging them…getting paid when someone had the wherewithal to do so.  People would walk for miles to visit his medicine house.  When Dr. Osborne died, he was so poor that a local pastor had to find a suit to bury him in…

A significant number of old time country and blue grass musicians had and have their roots in the Appalachians.  The famous Carter Family is just one example and there are many other displays like this one paying homage to the talented performers from the region.

The Carter family is a traditional American folk music group that recorded between 1927 and 1956.  They had a massive impact on bluegrass, country, Southern Gospel, pop and rock musicians as well as the folk revival movement in the 1960s.  They were the first vocal group to become country music stars.  Sadly, the Carter family was included among the hundreds whose original material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal Studios fire.

Appalachian inventiveness plus a lack of resources combined with a love for music led to the creation of musical instruments from anything that could possibly strike up a tune.  Shapes of the instruments and materials used were all over the place.  Stringed instruments were made from corn sifters, commode seats, gourds, cigar boxes…and oh yes, then there was the ‘’Ukuweewee”, which was made from a bedpan.

There are huge displays of jugs, clay and metal pots, glassware and other related items that were used day in and day out throughout the region. 

Creation can happen anywhere!  This matchstick church was built by a prisoner in the Anderson County jail here in East Tennessee.  About all he could see from his cell was the church up the hill.  Other prisoners contributed their matchsticks as well.  The inside of the church is fully furnished too, complete with pews, a pulpit, piano and more!

Laurie and I both like quilts…especially the old style traditional ones.  Many beautiful quilts grace the walls or hang from the ceilings in the Hall of Fame building.

I don’t like to go to the dentist!  Still, when comparing my dentist’s office and facility to the McDaniel “Tooth” Dentist Office almost makes me look forward to my next appointment… The dentist’s chair is bad enough but that drill looks absolutely frightening!

Peacocks are just one of the variety of critters at the Museum of Appalachia.  FYI, they love bugs, especially ticks, so they are not only attractive to look at but they are also helpful to have around.  Other animals include cats, goats, sheep, cattle, turkeys, chickens and donkeys.

These jail cells are located just outside the Display Barn.  These cozy iron jail cells came from Madisonville Tennessee.  Built in 1874, each of these 6 foot by 9 foot cells held 4 steel bunks.  Must have been lovely inside on a 90 degree day in mid-summer…

The Display Barn is yet another building that is jammed with memorabilia, folk art, tools and much more.  This display is all about axes…and more axes!  There are a number of such displays of various basic tools used by people to survive in the Appalachians.  One such display consists of a wall full of drawing knives used to trim logs for building.  At the Museum, there is almost never a display of just one of anything unless it involved a crafts person producing one of a kind items for fun, trade or sale.

There just had to be a general store!  It is chock full of items that any respectable general store would have carried back in the early part of the 20^th century.  FYI, the red Coca Cola signage came into being in 1947.

There was even a display of rat traps…no useful or whimsical items are ignored in the exhibits.  I loved the bloody ingenuity of this rare type of trap.  It’s a gun trap… The vermin grabs the bait and that action trips the trigger…emitting a blast from a 12 gauge shotgun shell.  Who thinks of these things!?

Talk about creative!  With all the work that was needed just to survive on a dirt farm in the Appalachians, it’s amazing that the people had the time to be so imaginative.  Minnie Black, from up in Kentucky, sure came up with some amazing objects made from gourds…and I know that these little gourds are just a fraction of Minnie’s output.

Back in the day…while in her 90’s…Minnie appeared on David Letterman and Johnny Carson’s nighttime shows.  She’d put together “Minnie Black’s Gourd Band” after creating a pile of musical instruments.  Minnie passed on in 1996…but her story and her gourds live on!  On top of that, as recently as 2018, so did Minnie Black’s ‘New’ Gourd Band!  Check out the stories and videos at Minnie Black's Gourd Band | The Survival Gardener.

Carving was a big thing for the men…and some women too.  In this case, we have the John F. Kennedy funeral cortege which was carved by a West Virginian.  Behind it you can see a Wheat Binder carved by the same artist.  At the left rear of the photo, there is an ‘endless chain’ carved from one piece of wood.  Skill and patience required!

I included this photo to give readers an idea of how the Museum is spread out.  In addition to the building mentioned and soon to be mentioned, there is also a Leather Shop, Smokehouse, the General Bunch House, the Sharp Corn Mill, McClung House, Mark Monroe Kitchen, the Broom and Rope House, Cox Corn Crib, an underground dairy, a couple of barns, a schoolhouse, loom house and much more… An easy path leads visitors around the property but there are steep steps in a few spots.

This is the Harrison Mayes exhibit.  It is located in the People’s Building.  Henry Harrison Mayes (1898 – 1986), a coal miner from Kentucky, survived a mining accident in the 1920s.  He decided that his recovery was a miracle so he aimed to spend the rest of his life spreading the word of God.

Mayes built crosses and hearts using handmade molds and by pouring concrete crosses in his backyard.  Then he’d hit the road and, often without permission, he’d dig a hole near the highway and set one of his massive crosses in place.  He accomplished this task in 44 different states and many of his surviving pieces are on display here…

Woodcarver, James Bunch (1917 – 2015) was born in Eastern Kentucky, just 2 months after his father had died.  He moved with his mother and grandparents to Eastern Tennessee where his grandfather ran a farm for the Alcoa Aluminum Company.

Later in his life while living in Madisonville TN, James’ wife became ill and bedridden.  James quit his job to take care of her and he tended to her every need for 15 years until she passed away.  Working from memory and equipped with only a pocketknife and an occasional handsaw, Bunch produced an amazing body of work…estimated at between 175 and 300 pieces.  He even built a wooden motorcycle made of scrap wood…right down to his sparkplugs.  Sorry, ‘all’ I photographed was this display of amazing carved creations…and I missed the famous motorcycle.  

Another stop on our tour of the homes and buildings at the Museum of Appalachia was the Mark Twain Family Cabin.  It was moved to the Museum from ‘Possum Trot Tennessee” where it had once served as the home of Mark Twain’s parents and some of their children.  Mark Twain (aka Samuel Clemons) was born about 5 months after the family left Tennessee in 1835.

The combined blacksmith/wheelwright shop shows off the tools of the trade for 2 of the most important pioneer businesses.  The blacksmith shop…which is manned during busy times…features wooden bellows for feeding oxygen to the forge, as well as the tools of the trade.  Without wheels, nothing moves!  In the early days, it was all about wagon wheels and since they were mostly wooden, their life span was limited.  Hence, the fully equipped wheelwright shop…a key part of any village…

In this photo, Laurie, Gary and Belinda are all checking out the Old Sharp Corn Mill...typical of the thousands of small gristmills that sprang up throughout the mountains of the Appalachian region.

This is the “Dan’l Boone” Cabin.  Actually this one-room dirt-floored structure was used by 20^th Century Fox as the frontier home of Daniel Boone in the CBS TV series entitled “Young Daniel Boone”.  The reality is that the cabin was actually built in nearby Anderson County Tennessee way back in the early 1800s.  FYI, the cabin is completely furnished with the appropriate 1800’s artifacts…

Since Laurie and I appreciate donkeys more than almost any other animal, I thought that it would be appropriate to end this post with a couple of photos of these cute, endearing and smart critters as taken at the Museum!  Donkeys are used a lot here in East Tennessee to guard herds of cows, goats and sheep. 

The Museum is located at 2819 Andersonville Highway in Clinton Tennessee.  There is much more to see at the Museum than I could show in this posting.  Phone: 865-494-7680.  To learn more about the Museum of Appalachia, including the days and hours when it’s open, entry fees, special events, exhibits, etc., you can just go to https://www.museumofappalachia.org/.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave