Welcome to "Stories of Appalachia," the podcast where hosts Steve Gilly and Rod Mullins have been unraveling the captivating history and folklore of the Appa…
17:021.4K views · 6d ago · 17:02
In 1806, twelve-year-old Mary Doherty was accused of killing her father in Hawkins County, Tennessee. At her trial in Jonesborough, she remained silent and apparently unaware of the proceedings. The court found her mute by “visitation from God” and sent the case to the jury for a verdict.
12:3813K views · 1w ago · 12:38
David Hix was one of the earliest settlers in the high country of western North Carolina. He built a fortified home known as Hix’s Fort and became known for offering food and shelter to anyone who came to his door. During the American Revolution, that hospitality drew the attention of Patriot militia officer Benjamin Cleveland. When Cleveland came after a Loyalist sheltered at Hix’s Fort, Hix refused to give him up—and paid a terrible price.
15:514.4K views · 2w ago · 15:51
This week we have a traditional Appalachian folktale to share with you: the tale of Wicked John, a mean-spirited man whose dealings with a mysterious stranger set him on a path that leads to...a place between Heaven and Hell.
16:396.5K views · 3w ago · 16:39
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.
22:2768K views · 1mo ago · 22:27
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.
Topics: The Wright and Reynolds feud · Rise of the local clan · Sam Wright strikes back · Escalation of hostilities · The tragedy at Hall Cabin · The hunt for the culprits
22:5711K views · 1mo ago · 22:57
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.
17:581.8K views · 1mo ago · 17:58
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.
17:303.1K views · 1mo ago · 17:30
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.
23:523.1K views · 2mo ago · 23:52
In 1935, the trial of 21-year-old Wise County schoolteacher Edith Maxwell became a national sensation. But the story soon grew beyond the courtroom, as newspapers and magazines from across the country descended on Appalachia to cover not just the case but the Appalachian people who lived there in a most sensational way.
13:044.8K views · 2mo ago · 13:04
Guest: Mad Anne Bailey
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.
22:162.9K views · 2mo ago · 22:16
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.
29:4132K views · 2mo ago · 29:41
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?
14:434.8K views · 3mo ago · 14:43
Guest: Old Dill Asher
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.
15:122K views · 3mo ago · 15:12
In 1779, on the Georgia frontier, a group of armed Loyalist soldiers forced their way into Nancy Hart's cabin, demanding a hot meal from a helpless woman and her daughter. Instead, they found themselves face to face with one of the American Revolution's toughest and fiercest patriots.
22:414.9K views · 3mo ago · 22:41
The infamous Killing Rock massacre ended with the deaths of a moonshiner and his wife and several of their friends on a mountain along the Virginia-Kentucky border. It began years earlier with a lawsuit, a bitter rivalry, and two determined men on opposite sides of the law.
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