Guest post by Bob Robert Foster Most people sleep in the same bed each night. They shower in the same bathroom each morning, and brush their teeth at the same sink. While it’s true that people are creatures of habit, most of us don’t really have a choice about this-we have one bedroom, and if [...]
The Mountain Dulcimer was a “highway baby”. It was born somewhere in Virginia, along either the Great Wagon Road or the Wilderness Road, just prior to the Revolutionary War. Back before the American Revolution, many European immigrants (Mostly Scots, Irish, German and Swedish) landed in Philadelphia in search of a new beginning. Since shipboard space [...]
Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains just a little southwest of Roanoke is the town of Ferrum, VA. Ferrum is the home of Ferrum College, a 4-year liberal arts residence college sponsored by the United Methodist Church. Ferrum is also home to the Blue Ridge Institute and Museum. The Blue Ridge Institute & Museum was created [...]
It started with a kiss and ended with a courtroom shootout. Five people died in the shootout and seven were wounded. A year and two weeks later, Floyd Allen and his son Claude were executed in Virginia’s electric chair for the courthouse murders. The offending kiss simply lit the fuse on a pre-existing political powder-keg. [...]
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wIzbiihgE4 During the first great American immigration wave from 1740-1750 the Irish and Scots, finding that land in the Northern Colonies was expensive, travelled south along the Great Wagon Road from Philadelphia through the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia. Unlike the Germans who travelled the same route, the Scots-Irish tended to [...]
They call it that old mountain dew And them that refuse it are few You may go ’round the bend But you’ll come back again For that good old mountain dew The folks of the Blue Ridge Mountains take their moonshine seriously. Moonshine liquor was always a part of the colonial Virginia culture: just 13 [...]
