Margaret Parton, Copeland Creek, Sevier County, Tennessee
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Mrs. Margaret Parton was 66 years old when recorded in 1939. She was from the community of Copeland Creek, in Sevier County, Tennessee. She had three to four years of formal education and was a farm widow.
[transcripption copyrigh Michael Montgomery and Paul Reed, 2017]
[P = Margaret Parton; I = Interviewer Joseph Hall]
P: I was borned on Grassy Fork and was brought here, turned into six years old r- bor- uh was raised here, my father’s name was Michael Teague, of course, he’s dead now, has been, and I can’t never remember seeing my daddy as far as that goes, I was raised by a stepfather, and that’s all right, yes?
I: Can you tell us your name, please.
P: Well, it’s Mag L., it’s Mag L. Teague, Parton now.
I: How many children did you have, Missus Parton?
P: I have twenty, five girls and the balance of them boys.
I: And how many are living now?
P: Five is all.
I: Could you tell us a little bit about the story of the woman who was drinking with the men down in Sevierville?
P: Well uh she uh left here and went to Rhode Loveday’s, and she was, was there and left in the night, her and the man’s name was Teague, I can’t call his other name, of course, but his first name I can was Teague, and they come on to the Shinbone on the river, and there was, they was both drunk, and there they ru- fell off of the bank into the river and was both killed there and drownded together, and they brought her home the next day, and we buried her the next day after that.
I: What did she say before going out to the river?
P: Well, she said that she was going to see, Uncle Rhode Loveday had asked her to stay all night, he says “you can’t get home,” he says “I won’t at all,” “yes, but” she says, “I’m going to see home” she sa- uh uh, “see Emerts Cove or hell one before daylight,” now that’s what she said.
I: Uh were the White Caps and the Blue Bills up in this country?
P: Yes sir, they was up here, a plenty of them, they whipped Jerome Russell and Ida Cook and Rhoda Breeden over here on Copelands Creek, tarred them, feathered them, well then they, Nance Mayner out on Scatter Ridge, they like to beat her to death there at Julia Newcome’s, well Henry Proffitt and Julie hid theirselves, they went there to whip them and they hid theirselves in a shuck bin, and they went in to draw her out to whip her and they brought, they couldn’t find her, and they come on back out and as they passed by, why, they took fire on them and shot two of them, Llewallen Sneed and Brooks, that’s all I can tell you about that.
I: Could you tell us a little bit about that woman that they treated so badly?
P: How about ...
I: They treated her so badly.
P: Well that was Nance Mayner, and uh she come then, her and Rhoda Breeden come to my house, well I, there’s a little dirty trick that I done, they come there and they teased when Mitchell and brother Bobs went possum hunting, well they come there and they, they was a, a stake, a fence built above the house, and they was a stake that the moon shined on, or rail, well it just looked like someone there, well they was scared to death about the White Caps, so then they got in under the floor in the cellar, and they stayed there, I hid them in under there, told them to be still, I told them, though they went on so that Rhoda, she got to laughing and making fun of Nance, well, so Nance, she turned in to crying, well hit sort of made me mad, I was acquainted with Nance Mayner, but I wasn’t much acquainted with Rhoda, so she said that uh she’d uh help the White Caps hold Nance, and I saw that and it looked like somebody, I says “yes,” I says, “right now,” I says, “yan’s the White Caps now,” well, of all the hiding you ever seed they just hit the floor and run from under then, it tickled me, I couldn’t keep from being tickled because I ...
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P: Other than just commence and tell it over again?
I: Just tell about the White Caps and how you came to meet them.
P: Well, my husband, he was sick, and I, he sent me to his grandma’s about, near about two miles after the sun went down, well hit was dark as I came back, cause of course the moon shined very nice and bright and I came near to the top of the hill and they was a, near a flat, sort of a flat place and I came on, there set six White Caps out on the right of the road from the trail in a bunch, I passed on up and the last one, I was aiming to trot on and not let on like I saw them, I was sort of afraid of them, well, the last one that I came to, why, he says “don’t you say nothing about this” he says, “at all,” he said, well, I just passed on, just went on, I didn’t give no answer, come on to the next six, and there the last one says, “now do you be certain” he says, “that you say nothing about this” he says, “if you do” he says, “the penalty” he says, “will be yours,” now that’s the last of that.
I: Why, why were these White Caps made an organization? how did they come to be?
P: Well, I couldn’t say about that for I don’t recollect, but they were sworn in to it and disguised, they all had on masks and uniforms, you know, of, made out of black cloth, just like mother hubbard dresses, now that’s the way they first started out in our country here, they wore, wore them, Missus Price and Missus Brooks made them at Squire Price’s house, I saw them making them, and I never did say anything about this at all till the, after the White Caps was done put out, the Blue Bills cut them out, and now that’s all.
I: Would you like to tell us a little bit about your sanging uh when you were a girl, uh how you used to pick the sang, to gather the sang?
P: Well, of course, I had to pick sang up and pick up chestnuts for to buy what we had to wear, I went barefooted from the time that I w-, I never can remember of having a pair of shoes till I was big enough to go to the b- Birds Branch, what they call, that’s way in the head of Greenbrier, and crack out chestnuts for to buy me a pair of shoes and a dress, we wove, spun, and made, carded and spun and made our cloth with looms them times what we had to wear, but we went barefooted through the winter season, I’ve waded the snow knee deep just as barefooted as I ever come into the world, we had no shoes, we had no, nothing to make no shoes out of, they was no stores for us to get anything, a- and mother and pap would take their sang and go to Cosby to the store, what they call the Kings, Kings Store on Cosby, and buy our coffee and our cloth for it and thread to make our clothes, they had to buy clipped thread and weave it.
I: Could you tell us a little bit about your mother’s remedies when you were sick? did she make tea and ...
P: Why, she'd gathered the herbs and made teas, we had no doctors, of course, we, she just gathered the herbs and made teas and we drunk it, that was our doctoring, we’d make sang tea.