Artifacts from Vardy, TN

"Digital Library of Applachia

Artifacts from Vardy,Hancock County,Tennessee

Katherine Vande Brake, Professor of English and Technical Communication

King College, Bristol, TN

In the early twentieth century there were many families both farming in the valley and living on either Powell Mountain or Newman's Ridge. In many ways it was like other similar Applachian communities--isolated by geography but self-sufficient. People raised what they needed for food, bartered with their neighbors, built their homes from the lumber readily available on their land, worshiped in small churches they could walk to, worked together on house and barn raisings or homemade quilts, paid their taxes, and sent their young men off to war when the nation called for them. Selling timber, tobacco, and moonshine liquor were ways to raise cash. In fact one Melungeon woman, Mahala Collins Mullins, was famous for two things--the quality of her moonshine and her size."



How They Shine: Melungeon Characters in the Fiction of Appalachia ( Melungeon Series)