Blue Ridge Lore - Northwestern North Carolina Folklore, Stories and Articles by Kelly Coffey of Blowing Rock NC

True Tales, History, Geography, Folklore & Wildlife of the North Carolina Blue Ridge Mountains and Foothills...

Appalachian legends, ghost stories, mountain flora and fauna, Appalachian natural history, extinct and extirpated species, crafts, colorful historic characters, woods lore, mountain landforms, Blue Ridge weather, mountain cooking, Appalachian herbal remedies, past Blue Ridge landscapes, and historic sites.

Blue Ridge Lore contains articles written by Kelly Coffey that have been published in various periodicals, as well as new essays that are presented here for the first time. More stories are added occasionally, and old ones are revised with new information, so check back every once in awhile for fresh material.

Indian Encounters Along the Blue Ridge

Numerous archaeological sites in North Carolina's northwestern mountains and foothills reveal that Native Americans lived here for thousands of years. Yet when European settlers arrived, they found no Indians living in the territory they were settling. Diseases from Europe unknown in the Americas had spread quickly and wiped-out Indian populations even before Europeans entered an area. While Indians did not make the area their home, that doesn't mean they were absent as white people moved in. They hunted, travelled through, traded, and, at times, violently attacked early European settlers.

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The Devil's Stairs

A rock formation in Ashe County, known as the Devil's Stairs, is the site of numerous paranormal incidents.

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When Wolves Wandered Our Woods

In this article I examine the lives of wolves in the context of their former presence in western North Carolina. Their existence quickly became intertwined with early white settlers, much to the wolves’ detriment. Their story from then until today is a sad natural history, but yet we can imagine a time when they wandered free and unmolested through these hills.

(A much abbreviated version of this article was originally published in the Fort Defiance Chronicle February 2023.)

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Coldass Creek, Long Hope Mountain and Elkwallow Knob

Coldass Creek, Long Hope Mountain, & Elkwallow Knob

Colorful Place Names Tell the Story of the Blue Ridge Region

U.S. Geological Survey maps tell the names of the earliest hunters, explorers, and settlers; give clues about the early economy, reveal what crops were grown, and inventory native plants and animals that were living there when white people arrived.

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Panther Legends & Modern Sightings

No animal in the southern Appalachian Mountains can match the panther for legend, drama, and persistent modern-day sightings despite official consensus that the cat was eradicated in the East over a century ago. An older generation of mountaineers grew up hearing tales from their grandparents of panthers stalking people, panthers stealing livestock, horrifying panther screams in the night, and epic fights between panthers and bears.

(A shorter version of this article was published in High Country Magazine August 2022.)

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Fort Defiance, Lenoir, NC

Fort Defiance

Learn about the 1792 Caldwell County home of Revolutionary War hero and influential western North Carolinian William Lenoir.

Lenoir is a familiar name in North Carolina, with a city in the west and a county in the east named in honor of Revolutionary War Gen. William Lenoir. But it’s at the secluded home this prosperous plantation owner built in Caldwell County that you get the measure of the man.

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The Plantation at Fort Defiance
A spin-off article about the farm that was originally published in the Fort Defiance Chronicle.

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Bordertown Showdown

On the Carolina frontier in 1788, Waightstill Avery, one of western North Carolina’s most prominent citizens, clashed with young Andrew Jackson.

Today, Andrew Jackson is well known for his military exploits against Indians and the British, as well as his success in politics and government. Few modern Americans, on the other hand, are familiar with Waightstill Avery. Ironically, the distinction of the two men was entirely different in 1788.

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Nelly’s Tale

A supposedly true story of an encounter with a Bigfoot-type creature on Thunder Hill, as told to me by an old woman in 1980.

Near the town of Blowing Rock, Thunder Hill rises prominently from the Blue Ridge, dividing the streams of the Atlantic-bound Yadkin River from the waters of the New River headed for the Mississippi. The site has been known as Thunder Hill for generations, even before the Blue Ridge Parkway overlook of the same name was constructed near its crest.

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Making the Cut

The essence of frontier America is embodied in the knives and sheaths produced by Watauga County natives Daniel Winkler and Karen Shook.

Few tools are as ancient and functional as a knife. With so many functions, a knife touches on almost all aspects of life at a particular time and place. Accurately designed and made, it can distill the essence of a culture like no other single object. A gun, for example, suggests warfare, and a cast-iron skillet evokes log-cabin domestic life, but a knife calls to mind both.

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Fried Apples

Fried apples are a staple in traditional mountain cooking, but they rarely get the praise they deserve.

Fried apples are a simple yet distinctive dish widely served in the upland South. They can be found on tables at any meal and with a variety of other foods. They shouldn’t be confused with stewed apples, applesauce, fried apple pies, or other apple dishes. Genuine fried apples are a cuisine all their own with roots in agricultural history, pioneer subsistence, and plain home cooking.

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Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute. Photo Credit: NASA.

Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute

The story behind this high-tech facility in the middle of an extensive forest is an intriguing tale of space exploration, espionage, wilderness isolation, Cold War history, and astronomical discovery.

Pisgah National Forest, that sprawling stretch of federal government land between Boone and Brevard, is hard to miss as one travels around western North Carolina. Less visible is the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute, located on the site of a former NASA tracking facility.

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Watauga County Sheriff Heads West

The tale of Cobb McCanles’ and Sarah Shull’s adventure in the Old West and his murder by Wild Bill Hickok.

No one was surprised when twenty-three-year-old David Colbert McCanles declared he was running to be sheriff of Watauga County. “Cobb”, as he was known, was a natural politician, with an outsized personality and a striking appearance.

(Originally published January 2018 on the High Country Press)

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The Buncombe Turnpike

The story of the great mid-19th century livestock trail through the North Carolina mountains that foreshadowed the later epic cattle drives in the trans-Mississippi West.

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[I wrote this paper for a class in graduate school. While it is obviously a scholarly essay, I still think the general reader will find it entertaining. If you have a hard time getting into it at first, skip over to the third page where it gets more interesting.]

The Bushwhacking Blalocks

The Civil War adventures of this husband and wife guerilla team are filled with shoot-outs and revenge killings.

Keith Blalock’s first experience with the Civil War came early in 1862. He was persuaded by James D. Moore to assist the Confederate cause by joining North Carolina’s Twenty Sixth Regiment. Keith insisted that his wife, Malinda, be allowed to join also. Moore agreed to the condition. Malinda dressed as a man, went by the name Sam Blalock, and claimed to be Keith’s brother.

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The Atlantic in Appalachia: Shad and Eel on the Move

The shad (Alosa sapidissima) and eel (Anguilla rostrata) are aquatic equivalents of migrating neotropical birds; connecting the Appalachians to parts of the planet totally unlike our mountains.

In the past, the yearly shad spawning run reached deep into the continent, in the south as far as the Blue Ridge where they simply ran out of water. It influenced the location of Indian villages and, after European settlement, provided the culinary basis for annual riverside feasts in many communities.

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Return of the Natives

Indigenous grasses- big bluestem, Indiangrass, Eastern gamagrass, & others- make a comeback in the East.

In 1752 a group of American settlers entered a territory yet unreached by Europeans, which their chronicler described as “a large plain” containing “more meadowland than one could make use of”. He observed that “a man could make several hundred loads of hay of the wild grass. For stock raising, it is also incomparable; pasture in abundance.”

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Worldwide Weather

The world’s largest climate data center calls Asheville home.

The tour of the agency begins in a small museum room containing an assortment of artifacts and information from the agency’s past, like a weather logbook from the 1870s and several historical weather-measuring instruments.

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Alleghany County

Alleghany County is mountainous, but not remote; traditional, but not antiquated; agrarian, but not unrefined.

A leisurely drive through Alleghany County reveals its abundant treasures: The two-lane road is part of the scenery, not just a passage through it. Aging barns seem to have grown from the soil.

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Ghost Stories

This is a collection of ghost tales I’ve collected over the years from elderly people in the community, along with a couple of stories drawn from Roy Weaver’s Aho history books, where I’ve added my own comments and analysis.

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Bobcat – Photo by U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

The Naturalist’s Notebook

A series of 28 articles on plants, animals, and other natural features in the southern Appalachians.

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	©2023 Blue Ridge Lore, Blowing Rock, NC. All Rights Reserved. Folklore, Stories and Articles by Kelly Coffey.