Frontier Landscapes

European settlement of the Southern Appalachians began as early as 1745. Long hunters cleared the first overland routes into the region, and the fur traders and settlers followed afterward. By 1788 more than25,000 individuals had settled the upper reaches of the Tennessee Valley and thousands more had settled the Cumberland Plateau and eastern foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. By 1790,80,000 residents were scattered across the mountain region. Many came as a result of federal land grants awarded to Revolutionary War soldiers or their widows. Most were of Scots-Irish, English, or German descent, and many were originally from North Carolina, South Carolina or middle Georgia (Rossiter 1967).

Mossy Creek Farmstead, 1842,
Jefferson County Tennesse

By 1840, the entire Southern Appalachianswas occupied by white settlers.The land of the former Cherokee Nation wassettled immediately after the Gold Rush and ensuing Land Lotteries. The majority of these first occupants of the southern Appalachians initially owned 160 to 320 acres.Many were able to purchase adjoining land lots for as little as $2 dollars. The best land along the main watercourses was settled first and immediately put under cultivation. However, most of the property was left forested--as much as three-fourths according to federal census records. Major crops included corn, oats, rye and wheat, but minor crops like sweet and Irish potatoes, peas, beans, flax, tobacco and sorghum molasses were also commonly grown in the mountains (Davis 1997).

The climate and soil of the Southern Appalachians made growing southern cash crops like tobacco and cotton difficult, relegating them to a position of relative insignificance in the agriculture economy. Faithfully committed to animal husbandry, mountain farmers raised hogs, sheep, horses, mules, oxen, and numerous beef cattle. Of less economic importance, but still acutely vital to the household economy, were the kitchen gardens, milk cows, and poultry yards--each responsibilities of mountain women, and all influential in shaping mountain life and culture.

In the Southern Appalachians, Scots-Irish immigrants settled in clusters of farmsteads patterned after their native Ulster villages or clachans. In Ulster, clachans were comprised of a number of small homesteads situated around a communally worked area of farmland. Nearest the dwellings was an infield, an area of cropland generally cultivated in staple crops such as oats, wheat, turnips, and barley. Beyond the infield lay the outfield, which was slightly poorer land reserved for wheat or oats.The outfieldwas allowed to periodically lay fallow and revert back to pasture. Beyond the outfield lay unclaimed wasteland, a grazing commons reserved exclusively for herds of cattle and sheep (Jordan and Kaups 1989, Otto 1989).

The topography of the Southern Appalachians allowed for almost the direct transference of the field, fallow, and forest agriculture system of Scotland and northern Ireland. In the New World, the Scots-Irish continued planting small vegetable gardens adjoining the house just as they had in the Old World. The New World equivalent of outfields were located farther from the house; these were cleared of timber and then annually planted with corn and wheat. The vast woodlands surrounding the mountain settlement were viewed as a communal grazing area in which livestock were free to range. In many respects, the practice or ranging cattle in the common woods mirrored the practice of transhumance, the traditional grazing system of 18th-century Ireland and Scotland (Evans 1966).

Transhumance, as practiced in the British Isles, involved the annual burning of the moorlandsin winter, so that livestock could graze on the regenerated forage that resulted in the spring, summer, and fall. When frost killed moorland grasses, owners collected herds, retained breeding animals, and sold surplus stock to professional drovers.

Similarly, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, cattle and sheep were grazed during the summer on ridges and mountaintops, far away from settlement croplands. Before ascending the mountains each year, Southern Appalachian herdsmen burned mountaintop pastures in late fall or early spring to encourage new growth. Most mountain cattlemen accompanied their livestock during the summer, often living in crude dwellings constructed solely for that purpose. As they had in Britain, southern mountain herdsmen often used salt to keep cattle and sheep from straying too far or to move them from pasture to pasture. In the fall, the herds were then taken down the mountains and sold to overland drovers, who took the livestock to regional markets in Asheville, Knoxville, Lexington, or Charleston (Davis 1997).

Thegrowth of livestock herding in the Southern Appalachians was due to the existence of a favorable ecological niche, which included the availability of mast open range and grazing commons The widespread prevalence of the Scots-Irish herding system in the region alsosuggests that many of the Southern Appalachian "balds"--treeless mountaintop fields--were created largely by human disturbance. Once an ecological mystery, the presence of mountaintop balds can be largely attributed to the once common agricultural practice (Gersmehl 1970).

The proliferation of hogs and cattle throughout the mountainshad environmental consequences. Across the uplands, particularly in areas going through natural secession or recovering from timber cutting, grazing livestock suppressed the growth of young saplings and herbaceous plants. Over time, particularly in areas receiving heavy livestock use,grazing createdpark-likestands withconsiderable distances between standing trees. In many of the disturbed areas, exotic species, such as privet, multifloral rose and mullein, rapidly replaced native vegetation. In areas receiving the heaviest use, cattle herdingcompacted the soils, reduced its productivityandincreased surface runoff. Cattle hooves exert on average of 24 pounds of pressure per square inch and thereforealter soil structure anddamage organic material in both wet and dry soils (Johnson 1952).

Crop production interested mountain men the most during the frontier period, and thus occupied most of their time around the homestead. A successful agriculturalist needed large grain supplies to feed his many horses, hogs, cattle, and poultry. Because it served as food to both livestock and humans, Indian corn, as it was then called, remained the principal mountain crop. Corn growing also took a substantial amount of land,but very few farmers tilled more than20 acres for that purpose. On average, corn production took up only about one-tenth of the farmers acreage, but that figure varied from community to community (Davis 2000).

Corn was a primary foodstuff, boiled or roasted in late summer. Corn was also ground into meal and made into whiskey; its husks and leaves were woven into hats, dolls, mops, and chair bottoms. Corn cobs served as primitive toilet paper, fire starters, bowls for tobacco pipes, and hog and cattle fodder. The harvesting of corn also greatly influenced social relations, bringing neighbors together for annual fall cornshuckings.

Corn shuckings or "frolics, as they were sometimes called, were ritual celebrations--yearly events in which community members assisted neighbors in the gathering and preparation of the corn harvest. On the day of the event, the ears of corn were gathered in the fields, loaded onto a wagon, and brought to the site of the cornshucking. There the corn was unloaded, stacked, and arranged into equal piles upon the ground. Participants, which included men, women, and children, divided up into teams and worked enthusiastically to shuck their piles of corn before the other teams. Song, dance, drinking, and speech-making often accompanied the corn frolics, which generally ended with the eating of a large meal prepared and served by the women (Owsley 1949).

The typical mountain farmer also grewa variety of other grains and vegetables, including wheat, rye, beans, barley, peas, beans, squash and pumpkins. Sorghum and buckwheat were also planted extensively by the19th century mountaineer. Farmers in the Southern Appalachians cultivated far more of these two grains than did farmersin the Deep South,for here such crops were forgone for the exclusive production of cotton and corn. In many ways, mountain agriculture resembled northern agriculture in that it placed much more emphasis on crop diversity as well as the production of home-manufactured goods like wool, butter, beeswax, and honey (Inscoe 1989).

The spread offarm fields and orchardsacross the mountains significantlyaltered theenvironment. More farms meant more improved land, more free-ranging cattle and hogs in the surrounding countryside--and fewer old-growth forests. Within decades, the largest farmsteads wereexperiencing soilerosion and loss of fertility. By the eve of the Civil War, crops yields had decreased dramatically enough in some areas that growers were forced to abandon their farms entirely. Soon sedge grasses and exotic weeds were flourishing in bottomlands that had for decades yielded50 bushels of corn to the acre.

Despite these changes, a significant amount of land in the regionwas untouched by human settlement. For areas that might have missed the axe and the plow, the Civil War brought additional environmental changes, accomplishing in a half-decade what had taken a half-century elsewhere. After the end of the War, recovery in the Southern Appalachians was slow. The uplands of Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina had sent more soldiers into battle than any other southern region and many did not return home. Farming suffered greatly, with notable reductions in improved acreage and crop production. Pines, sweetgum, and sassafras invaded untended fields, where corn and wheat once grew. Cash was scarce and political revenge frequent. Into this social and economic vacuum entered a new wave of mining entrepreneurs, land speculators, and northern industrialists who had an eye for profit.