On a typical day, hundreds of cars whizz past Woody’s Chair Shop, located just a few steps away from Highway 70 West just outside of Marion. The building appears nondescript, and it is understandable why many speed right on by. For decades however, seekers of old-fashioned handmade chairs- as well as seekers of a warm welcome and a ready batch of stories- have sought refuge in Max Woody’s shop, and they have received it.
Max’s father passed away when Max was young, but his grandfather Martin Woody taught him the family trade of handcrafting custom-made ladderback chairs. He’s been at it for nearly 60 years, now with two sons following in his footsteps.
Max Woody knows his way around a fiddle as well as a lathe.
In addition to having received orders for chairs from all over the country (and beyond) and currently with a 3-5 year waiting list, Max Woody has another claim to fame. It was right here in his shop that the Friday night pickin’ parties that grew into the tradition known as Old Fort Mountain Music began. (You can watch our feature about Old Fort Mountain Music here.)
So sit back and enjoy this visit to Woody’s Chair Shop. Max tells us how his craft has been handed down through the family, plus he takes us into the workshop, where he still works on machines that he proudly declares “obsolete”:
In her book Heart Pine, McDowell County historian Anne Swann writes of the Cherokee people’s ancestors, ”…it was they who were the first to climb the peaks and drink from the streams that still exist here. It was their feet that found their way into this magical little place, their eyes which first looked upon its quiet splendor. They are the ones who accomplished the thing of which we can only dream. They were the first.”
In the video above, Anne talks more about the earliest inhabitants of what is now McDowell County and reflects upon the Cherokee way of looking at the world.
Anne continues the story in this next segment. She focuses on the Cherokee trails and trading paths that ran through the area, the relationship between the Native Americans and the earliest white settlers, and the forts that sprang up due to the conflict. She also relates the story of Lydia Birchfield, who was scalped during a Cherokee raid but survived.
The Burgin House was a center of social life in the community for many years. (Photo courtesy Peggy Silvers)
The Burgin family looms large in McDowell County history as well as in the history of our nation. Along with the Greenlees, Carsons, and McDowells, they were among the first settlers of what is now McDowell County. Phillip Burgin arrived in America in 1677, and his son Benjamin “Pioneer Ben” Burgin made his way to the Old Fort area around 1770. He built a two-story walnut log home in 1779 that was a local landmark until it burned to the ground 150 years later. The Burgin family sent over 30 of its men into service in the Confederate Army, with nearly a third losing their lives.
In the years just before his death, George Aden Burgin (1874-1959) wrote down many of his own memories as well as stories told to him by his father and grandfather. McDowell resident and Burgin family chronicler Peggy Silvers reads one of his heartbreaking Civil War stories for us and then talks about the forgotten victims of the Civil War- the families left behind in these mountains to battle raiders, deserters, outlaws, and starvation. (Peggy is author of Echoes in the Mist: The Burgin Family 1677-1989 and is beginning work on a book about the homefront in the Civil War based on diaries and letters from that era.)
Listen to Peggy Silvers here:(There is much, much more to learn about the Burgins. A good place to start is their astonishingly detailed family history website.)
If you’ve ever taken a drive up Highway 221 North from Marion toward Linville Falls, you’ve probably noticed the large rocks and boulders that dot the fields and pastures on both sides of the road. All those tons of rock tumbled down the mountainside and to their current resting place during the cataclysmic flood of 1916.
One of the many homes to be ruined by the flood. Others totally washed away, leaving hardly a trace that they had ever stood at all. (Photo from the Carson House Library)
Much of western North Carolina was devastated by the event, especially along the McDowell and Mitchell County line and down into North Cove. The Orchard at Altapass sits almost astride the continental divide, which was ground zero for this disaster. Bill Carson from the Orchard tells the story of the flood through the eyes of someone who lived through it.
The men in Mildred Kelly's family worked with the railroad for generations.
The McDowell community of Graphite, or Graphiteville, is located just down the mountain from Ridgecrest and takes its name from the mining activity that took place there around 1900.
Mildred Kelly has lived in Graphite her entire life, as did her mother and grandmother before her. Her home is located just across the yard from the house where she was born.
A few miles southeast of Graphite, the citizens of Old Fort dig out after the 1916 flood. (Photo courtesy of Peggy Silvers)
Mrs. Kelly welcomed us to her front porch to talk about the 1916 flood, the depression years,home remedies, the railroad, and the observations she has made in her 80+ years. (You’ll also hear the sounds of a late summer morning, the chickens in the yard, and Buddy the dog doing battle with a persistent flea…)
To drive up to Graphite or to see it on a map, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it is one of the most isolated places in western North Carolina. But as you can see in the photo to the left, which was taken from Mrs. Kelly porch during our interview, she has had good reason never to feel isolated at all.
Listen to Mrs. Kelly using the media player above.
In 1929, strikes began to break out at textile mills across the American South. The mill workers’ discontent stemmed from long hours at low pay, deplorable working conditions, and the general callousness with which they were treated by their employers. In the spring of ‘29 a strike began in Elizabethton, TN followed by Greenville, SC and Gastonia, NC.
In May of that year, workers at Marion Manufacturing sought assistance from the United Textile Workers Union after they were ordered to work additional time each day without additional pay. In about a month, the union was strong enough in Marion to hold an open meeting at the county courthouse with employees from Marion Manufacturing and nearby Clinchfield Mill attending. Officers were chosen and soon the organization boasted several hundred members.
The strike was so divisive that no church would hold services for the slain workers. Instead, their coffins were placed on saw horses in a field near the mill.
Differing opinions about the unionization of Marion’s textile mills tore families and the community apart. Tensions escalated through the summer and confrontations increased.
In the early morning of October 2, 1929, workers who had “walked out” and other workers picketing outside Marion Manufacturing soon found themselves in deadly conflict with the sheriff, six of his deputies, and seven anti-union employees who had been deputized on the spot. Tear gas was released and a flurry of shots followed. Three mill workers died immediately and three more died of their wounds over the coming days. Dozens of workers were wounded. The events at Marion Manufacturing became front page news across the country, and famed author and columnist Sinclair Lewis came to town to write about the situation.
In 2004, Mike Lawing published his book The Marion Massacre, the most comprehensive examination of the Marion events to date. The next year, Kim Clark and Ellen Pfirrmann of public radio WNCW produced “Strike”, a week-long series about the Marion strike largely based around Lawing’s work.
WNCW and its license holder Isothermal Community College have granted permission for all five segments of this program to be made available here:
Part One:Part Two:Part Three:Part Four:Part Five:
In segment 2 of “Strike”, we hear about the discovery of the union-related personal effects of Roy Price, an early organizer at Marion Manufacturing and the first president of the union. In the video below you can see many of these materials along with related photos and newspaper articles. The song that accompanies the images is “Cotton Dust” by The Carburetors, written by Jay Goree and used by permission.
To hear a happier account of life in the Clinchfield Mill Village, listen to our interview with Mrs. Glenys Gilbert, lifelong Clinchfield resident, by clicking here.
In the schoolyard in the 1920s. Mr. Burgin is third row, second from the left.
Willard Burgin makes his home on land originally cleared by his great-grandfather in the upper reaches of the Crooked Creek community, barely this side of the Buncombe County line. He’s just up the road from the old Mount Hebron Bible Institute where his parents met and where he briefly went to school himself. Nestled peacefully at the foot of the mountain, his home is a refuge from the rush of the modern world. We visited there for almost two hours, and only one car passed the entire time!
Mr. Burgin proudly displays his medals from WWII.
Mr. Burgin is a treasure-trove of memories and stories: from cutting wood for the tannery in Old Fort when he was a child, to seeking emergency assistance from the “snake doctor”, to searching the hillside behind his house so he could milk the family cow, to planting by the signs, to loading ammunition boats in Iceland during World War II.
Listen to our conversation with Willard Burgin here:
Members of the CCC from Camp Jim Staton on Curtis Creek (Photo courtesy Dee Daughtridge/Old Fort Library)
When Franklin Roosevelt became President in 1933, nearly one-fourth of Americans were unemployed. FDR set about immediately establishing the programs of the “New Deal” to address this critical problem. Two of the most successful were the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps). The WPA put men to work constructing public buildings, parks, bridges and roads while the CCC concentrated on natural resources conservation. Terrell Finley, Administrator of the Mountain Gateway Museum in Old Fort, talks about the profound impact that both organizations had on McDowell County:
Former rocket scientist (no kidding) and master storyteller Bill Carson of the Orchard at Altapass spins a yarn about romance, destiny, and the Overmountain Men- culminating in McDowell County’s pivotal role in the Battle of King’s Mountain and the Revolutionary War.
Due to the rugged terrain and distance from the closest towns, the North Cove and Ashford communities in the northern tip of McDowell County remained relatively isolated until the mid- twentieth century. Electricity didn’t arrive until 1947, and telephones were rare until about 1960. Nearly everyone farmed and the community was tight-knit.
Cousins and neighbors Clara McCall and Freddie Brown are members of two of the oldest families in the Cove. They came together at the old Brown house to reminisce about the railroad, the yearly arrival of the thrashers, kerosene powered refrigerators, memorable characters, grandma’s cooking and everyday life on the farm.
You can listen to Clara’s and Freddie’s conversation (in three parts) here: Part One:Part TwoPart Three:
For decades however, seekers of old-fashioned handmade chairs- as well as seekers of a warm welcome and a ready batch of stories- have sought refuge in Max Woody’s shop, and they have received it.
