Digital Library of Applachia
Katherine Vande Brake, Professor of English and Technical
Communication
King College, Bristol, TN
The items from Vardy that E. W. King Library at King College contributes to the DLA collection restate the themes so clearly outlined in Michael Joslin's introductory essay to the digital library project--community, isolation, religion, literacy, and hard work. However, these photographs, records of the Vardy Presbyterian Church, and other documents also expand the collection in an important way. Many of the people who lived in the Vardy community were descendants of the Melungeons and can trace their family lines back to the first Melungeons in Tennessee--Vardiman Collins, Shepherd Gibson, and Irish Jim Mullins who came to take up land grants in what was then Hawkins County shortly after the end of the Revolutionary War. So the Vardy artifacts provide an opportunity to see and understand how a significant Appalachian minority group lived and worked in the first half of the twentieth century. They also show the effect of missionary work in the southern mountains
Vardy, named after early settler Vardiman Collins, is a narrow valley between Powell Mountain and Newman's Ridge just north of Sneedville, Tennessee, the county seat of Hancock County.
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.
There was some history of trouble at the courthouse in Sneedville when certain valley residents had gone to vote in the 1840s. They were told they couldn't vote--it was against the law for "free persons of color." Records show that fines were levied. Other records show that the proud Melungeons refused to attend a segregated Negro school, instead they built a "subscription" school in their valley and hired their own teacher.
In 1897, a man named Christopher Humble visited Vardy and set a process in motion that has had far-reaching effects. Humble was a "reconnaissance man" for the Presbyterian Church USA and was looking to begin a mission in the valley. He had heard of or met Batey Collins, whom he calls the "chief" of the Melungeons. Soon after Humble's visit missionary women arrived to hold Sunday schools and to visit the families of the valley. By 1899 a church was built and in 1902 there was a new school building.
A mission was not unusual; there were many denominational efforts throughout the southern mountains that started churches, did health work, and built schools. However this one was unusual in several ways:
The artifacts presented here in the digital library include
I discovered these remarkable photos and documents in my research on the Melungeons that will culminate in my Ph.D. dissertation at Michigan Technological University. I have spent time in Vardy and interviewed two women who own these artifacts. One is Willa Mae Gibson Mullins Moore. She has many early photographs and printed documents that chronicle the history of the Vardy Presbyterian Mission. These valuable items came to her from the last person to serve at the mission, Louise Avery. Avery thought that the photos and documents should stay in Vardy. Many of them have notations on the back written by Josephine Leonard, wife of Chester Leonard. Mrs. Moore was a cook at the Vardy School in the 1960-70s.
The materials that tell the story of the Batey Collins family are the property of DruAnna Williams Overbay, his great-granddaughter. DruAnna's mother stayed in Vardy after her marriage to Drew B. Williams, who taught under Chester Leonard's direction at the Vardy Community School. Batey Collins donated the land for the Presbyterian center with the stipulation that should the mission cease to exist, the land would revert to the family. DruAnna and her brothers and sister still own the land today and sold the church property to the Vardy Community Historical Society for the museum.
The Vardy Community School is history now. What was left of the proud three-story building that boasted 96 windows collapsed in a strong wind in October 2003. But, the legacy lives on. The artifacts from Vardy tell a unique and fascinating story.
Links (type
"melungeon" into your favorite search engine or click one of
the links below):
The
Melungeon Heritage Association
Melungeons.com
A
bibliography of print resources