The Appalachian Mountains themselves hold stories and tales of their own that date back before even the first of the trees whose presence gives them their brilliant seasonal tones of colors, but whose roots also slowly break them down and up. They formed as chunks of Earth’s crust stood on end over thousands of miles, then saw the very ground rip apart beneath them, forming a weird geological diaspora where they range through Morocco, Spain, Britain, Scandinavia, and Greenland. Waters eat the very ground from under them, producing hundreds of miles of caves that much of which no human may ever directly see.
As peoples came to fill their eroded valleys and climb their blunted peaks, they brought their own tales. Mysterious Mound Builders stand mute in history, leaving behind their curious burial structures. Iroquois and Cherokee empire builders rose into violent and brutal ascendance, then faded in the face of English, Scottish, and German settlement. The Allegheny range of the Appalachian Mountains in particular has often served as a contentious borderland between opposing peoples, cultures, and ideals, adding ferment to a rich mixture of traditions.
One of those who has devoted the most time, work, and care to the study of how traditional Appalachian culture has developed in the mountains has been Gerald Milnes of Davis and Elkins College. His work on traditions and cultures in the Alleghenies, particularly Pendleton County, has not only reawakened interest in traditions, it helps to define an area often misunderstood by outsiders.
For his lifetime so far of work, and more years yet to come, Milnes was named this year a National Heritage Fellow. This represents, as the National Endowment for the Arts describes, “the nation’s highest honor in folk and traditional arts” recognizing “recipients’ artistic excellence, lifetime achievement, and contributions to our nation’s arts heritage.”
As Eric Waggoner told West Virginia Public Broadcasting, “Without Gerry’s dedicated work, many of West Virginia’s songs and stories might otherwise have been lost.”
These mountains do not simply tell the stories of those generations, but also how the unimaginably ancient landscape welcomed, then cradled, then provided a full context to how life is, and should be, lived. This is at least as far as those whose families have lived on and worked the land for centuries feel.
Through songs, stories, and other methods, the families here passed the chronicles of their lives. And through those media, Milnes has in a way brought them back to life as well.
Milnes’ career, interestingly, followed the pattern of eastern Appalachian settlement. He shared that “I was born in Pennsylvania to a musical family, played guitar by age nine, banjo at 12, and fiddle at 19.” His family and home put him near “a place where there was and old-time fiddlers gathering in Chester County, Pennsylvania.”
There he started “recording old Pennsylvania Dutch fiddlers.” At the time, Milnes may not have even realized that the culture he was recording, he was also saving. By the mid-1980s, suburban Philadelphia poured into Chester County like a slowly rising lake, submerging what was there before in houses, shopping centers and highways.
In the 1720s and 30s, Germans seeking escape from the endless turmoil gripping the Holy Roman Empire made their way to America. They settled west of Philadelphia, hearing Benjamin Franklin’s lament that they refused to learn English and assimilate. Sons from each generation moved west to the Great Valley, then up the Shenandoah. Some families slowly expanded southwest into future North Carolina and Tennessee.
Others found homes crossing through the gaps and finding the hidden treasures of the different branches of the South Branch River. People with names like Hawse, Sites, McCoy, Conrad, Pitsenbarger, Hinkle, Hedrick, and the many variants of Heavner/Hevener, appeared in the region and stayed on.
They brought their German cultures and ways, picked up more from English, lowland Scots, and American Indians, took on the unforgiving landscape, and created something new and beautiful, in the occasionally dark, dangerous, and often deadly mountains.
Milnes during the 1970s followed his first love, traditional fiddle music, along the same directions as those settlers centuries earlier. “About 1970, I started making trips to West Virginia.” Like those doughty families and men of that earlier time, “this led to me eventually moving to the state in 1975.”
There, his passion for traditional music led him to seek out what lay behind the lyrics and melodies, including “other aspects of folklore and art.”
Milnes related that one of the first sites that attracted his attention was the Historic Annanias Pitsenbarger Farm near Dahmer, currently owned by Jeff and Theresa Munn who work diligently to maintain not only the site, but also the culture of what was once called “Loafer’s Glory.”
What made the site such a glory for the loafing inclined also brought Milnes to the site. In the early 1800s, the farm hosted raucous parties that featured lively music. He noted that there he also studied the “old esoteric German belief that went on there,” as well as the traditional building ways reflected in the study structures that still stand.
“This, with a lot of research in other areas led to my book ‘Signs, Cures, and Witchery: German Appalachian Folklore,’’ he said. His interest in the architecture of the site also spurred his interest in that field, culminating in his latest work, “The American Log Cabin: Folk Architecture and Lore on the Old Frontier of West Virginia.”
Just as Philadelphia largely submerged Chester County’s authentic German traditions, the national popular culture that dominated the 20th century held sway in the more connected and populated parts of West Virginia. In Pendleton, parts of Randolph, Pocahontas, and other counties, the mountains served as a fortress, jealously protecting traditional practices, including belsnicking, and traditional music, such as “The Battle of Droop Mountain.”
“The last time I visited an old fiddler before he died,” said Milnes, “he remembered the old Civil War tune ‘The Battle of Droop Mountain.’” He added that the fiddler “had a grandfather fighting on both sides. One had a horse shot out from under him.” Like Homer’s lyrical poems, the Odyssey and the Illiad, people recorded their histories to music.
“To me, “said Milnes, “not recording and documenting that tune and story would have been a sad loss.” In his mind and those of many others, “hundreds of tunes and similar oral history accounts, taken together and if not documented, would be like a library of one-of-a kind books burning down.”
“Traditionally, tunes were commonly made to commemorate events,” shared Milnes. Those tunes were often shared and creatively adapted by different artists to fit their or their audiences’ tastes. Beckley’s “Blind” Alfred Reed, for example, recorded songs about a major train accident and also the “Explosion at the Fairmount Mines (sic).” In that song, he grafted an older song about a young girl with supernatural powers to see the future onto the real life mine disaster at Monongah.
Jennifer Taylor-Ide, a Pendleton County native, who is actively with friends preserving culture and music through The Pendleton County Hot Mess, said, “I first met Gerry in the late 70s at the Augusta Heritage Arts summer program in Elkins.”
“Gerry was ever present with his fiddle,” remembered Taylor-Ide. While she admitted “I was not pursuing the fiddle,” when involved in “an Old Time environment, it is central to everything, singing, dancing, and playing music together.” She also noted that “his wife, Mary, called square dances and taught calling. I studied with her.”
Taylor-Ide shared that Milnes gained a great deal of cultural information “from our own local historian, Johnny Arvin Dahmer.” She also stated “I kept running into him at odd places,” here giving a presentation, there introducing a student to a local fiddle-maker.
While the “local color” movement that exploited elements of traditional culture will always carry an odious connotation, highlighting true local culture along with its context can help illustrate a place and educate those who come to visit.
“Many tourists are seeking out authentic and true, yet also unfamiliar experiences,” said Annie Humes, director of the Pendleton County Convention and Visitors Bureau. “People who do the work that Gerry does,” she explained, “are making sure there are good places for visitors to go when they want to understand the culture.”
“Our CVB is definitely not alone in having a lot of interest in our own community’s culture,” she added. Then She said, “Culture and arts information is definitely part of what we want to be sharing with the public.”
As a National Heritage Fellow, Milnes will continue as a leader in the field of researching, discovering, analyzing, and sharing traditional culture. Taylor-Ide said, “He so deserves this recognition that he has earned by quietly and thoroughly pursuing his fascination with the practical culture of the area.”
Milnes said, “I am extremely humbled by being named a National Heritage Fellow,” but adds that “I see myself as a conduit for this award that should rightfully go to the artists I have met, documented, learned from, and been impressed by.”
“I’ll never get to the bottom of things that interest me.” he said. “At almost 80 years old, my notebooks still contain subject matter to explore.”
