Fate Wiggins, Deep Creek, Swain County, North Carolina
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Fate (Lafayette) Wiggins, 79 years old when recorded in 1939, was from Deep Creek, in Swain County, North Carolina. He had probable two or three years of formal education and worked as a farmer, cattle herder, and hunter.
[transcripption copyrigh Michael Montgomery and Paul Reed, 2017]
[W = Fate Wiggins; I = Interviewer Joseph Hall]
W: Way back I guess forty year ago, there’s a crowd of us going up Deep Creek a-deer driving, and me and Mark Cathey, we played off on them, we let them go and we took up Nettle Creek, and we went up Nettle Creek, we had a coon dog, he treed a coon in the cliff, I had some red pepper parts before I left home and some rags to make a smoke, I said to Mark when he went in, Mark says, “now God, Wiggins, he’s at home,” “no,” I says, “that coon ain’t at home, I’ve got some pepper here and you cut me that pole and I’ll run some of it in there and set it afire and that coon will have to die or come out of there,” Mark, he cut the pole and I wired the rags on and the pepper and put them in and the coon went to coughing, Mark says “aye, God, he’s a-giving trouble, ain’t he, he’s into trouble,” so pretty soon I raked the leaves away from the hole, and the coon was smoked down a-lying there and I jerked him out on the ground and we got him, we went across the mountain to where the other fellows was camped that night and they had a pot over there at the camp and we cooked that coon and all lay down and went to sleep, and the coon cooked into crackling, we didn’t have anything but cracklings and a pot of grease next morning, next morning we went a-deer driving, they didn’t start ary deer, but they scared up some turkeys and one of them come out by me and I killed it, we come on back to the camp and John Parris and Henry Ellis had killed three squirrels, they put them up before the fire to barbecue them that night, and Billy Morris and West Cathey stole the squirrels in the night and eat them up, they got up a-cussing about their squirrels, but the squirrels was done eat, we all had a good time, we didn’t kill ary deer then, but I did kill a deer pretty soon after that, the last'un ever I saw in the woods, I killed it with a pocket knife, I was fishing and going up the creek and it had sunk itself, some dog had run it in and it had hid under a rock, and I happened to see it, and it jumped out into a deep hole, and I jumped right on it and cut his throat with a Barlow knife, and we took uh, we skinned the little deer and took him on to the camp and eat him, that’s all of that.
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Back when I was a boy, I can remember back when they was only three houses in Bryson City, old Johnny Shuler, Alf Cline and Lucy Ann Cline, I’ve saw all this place in wheat and corn on both sides of the river, and Deep Creek was settled up with about six families on it, when I can reecollect, up here and, of white people, and above there they was Indians, several Indian family lived up Indian Creek and Deep Creek, Indians lived by hunting mostly, the while people farmed, steers mostly, just a few horses.
I: xx.
W: Well, back in my time I stayed in the Smoky Mountains for five year and cattled for people, and in August I was going up to my cabin with a pack of rations on my back and the uh, I run on an old she bear and two cubs, I killed the old'un and one of the cubs, one of them got away, it was in August, they was about the size of a dog, the cubs was, I’ve killed several bear, seven or eight in time, I’ve killed lots of deer and lots of turkey and catched lots of fish, me and Mark Cathey used to dispute about which was the best fisher, and Mark’s the best'un, we went by ourselfs to the head of Forneys Creek and fished, and we, we fished about a day and we brought three hundred and thirty out besides what we eat, Mark beat me thirty, Mark’s the best fisher in the county as far as that goes.
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W: Back about forty-six year ago, I lived in the mountains, and D. K. Collins in Bryson had a Jersey bull, and he turned him out in the mountains, they all got afraid of him, I come to him and talked to him and tried to get him, to do something with him, and he wouldn’t do it, and the bull run on to me and I had a thirty-eight Winchester, I shot him nine shoots and killed him and skinned him and brought him the hide, he was dangerous, that’s about all, I reckon, of that.
I: Wiggins.
W: Yeah.
W: Well, I don’t know what, I could, if you’d like to have it I can tell you how I started out to live back nearly fifty-six year ago, I married a girl on Indian Creek, Mary Beard, and we went to housekeeping, we didn’t have anything, my brother moved us on a sled, to a cabin I put up, we lived there, I plowed a steer for several year till I got able to get a horse, we’ve raised eleven children, ten of our own and raised one grandchild, we’ve had a hard time, I started with nothing, I’ve not got very much yet, I have a pretty good home now, I worked at it, that’s about all there is to me, I guess.
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W: Wiggins, yeah, Fate Wiggins.