- About me
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- Cenantua’s pages (bio sketches & so on)
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Not an OTD piece, today, but rather one which just caught my eye when looking for an OTD piece. While some might think it’s just a little early for ghost stories, this piece from the Jan. 21, 1854 issue of the Richmond Dispatch is still entertaining. Clearly, the author had a little fun, tying what was […]
May 14, 2016 by Robert Moore
Perhaps it’s the mountain fires we’ve had in the Shenandoah Valley recently, but I’ve found myself thinking about something more commonly associated with summer… that incredible wild fruit known as the humble huckleberry. What do mountain fires have to do with huckleberries? Well, ultimately fires help huckleberry crops, of course. Yet, these raging mountain fires […]
March 24, 2016 by Robert Moore
I touched base with Mr. Hamner last year, in the hopes of having an interview with him. Regretfully, it wasn’t long after his surgery, and he encouraged me to reach out to him again, later. Regretfully, things continued to decline. Hamner was, without a doubt, an incredible inspiration to me. Sad, sad news… You can’t […]
March 12, 2016 by Robert Moore
Seeing a Facebook friend’s post, today, of all that remained of an ancestral home… a hearth and chimney… I felt compelled to post one of my own. While I can’t say for sure if it is the remains of an “ancestral” homestead, it is located in Nicholson Hollow. If not an ancestral homestead, it’s likely a place […]
July 13, 2015 by Robert Moore
I’m going to go off topic for just a bit… Still sitting back, watching all that’s taking place… Anyway, I drove down a long country back road in the Shenandoah Valley yesterday. It’s not unusual to see an occasional Confederate flag… not at all. Before mid-June, you’d zip past it in a car and might not […]
January 26, 2015 by Robert Moore
In digging backwards from the Civil War, through the literature that mentions the Shenandoah Valley, I came upon a great work written by James Kirke Paulding. In 1816, Paulding ventured into the Valley and apparently stuck around a bit, providing some details as to what he encountered. So, what is the value of reading experiences […]
December 30, 2013 by Robert Moore
First, I sincerely hope everyone had a pleasant Christmas and holiday season. I meant to post prior to Christmas, but time got away from me. So, back at it, then… This is a different sort of post, but… I’m in a discussion elsewhere, and this is the result. I’ve heard, on more than one occasion, where […]
October 24, 2013 by Robert Moore
Since it’s October, I figured I’d bring up a ghost story… not that I care much for it. To be honest, I see it amounting to something along the lines of the tall tales told by George Freeman Pollock. Anyway, there’s this “ghost story” about Corbin Cabin, in Shenandoah National Park, that came out and got attention a […]
August 27, 2013 by Robert Moore
For the (over) five years in which I’ve been blogging, I’ve focused mostly on the American Civil War. As the title of the blog suggests, however, I have room to roam whenever I get the whim. I don’t like to keep myself too “hemmed-in”. The title has given me enough flexibility that I feel comfortable moving in just […]
October 19, 2012 by Robert Moore
Earlier this morning, I took a “stroll” through FaceBook entries and saw one* which revealed a photo of a clear bourbon glass… the contents of said glass were ice cubes and… Moonshine. On top of that, it was served at Skyland, on the Skyline Drive. As if instinctively, I felt my soul seem to cry out… “Oh, […]
October 3, 2012 by Robert Moore
I was surfing the Web the other day and ran across a couple university pages in which Folklore is the focus of masters degrees. I have to say, it felt a bit strange to see such a thing. Even as one who holds two masters degrees, I feel as if the art of the folklorist/storyteller […]
April 12, 2012 by Robert Moore
This clip was uploaded to YouTube earlier this year and I just found it… and wow, what a great piece! The description states: It’s not commonly known that there were many southerners who fought for the union during the Civil War. Most of them were from the mountains. This song is about one such southern unionist. […]
November 13, 2011 by Robert Moore
Sorry for the delay… busy week. O.K., where was I? Oh, yes… First, I need to say, this has been a very fluid set of posts, and all are subject to modification at this point (the beauty of blogs… they aren’t really “set-hard in ink”). I started off writing this with an idea of where […]
November 6, 2011 by Robert Moore
Though Pollock’s first contact with Madison County took place in October, 1886, and it was the beginning of a long series of events that would impact the mountain people there, it seems unlikely that he actually visited Nicholson Hollow (also known as “Free State Hollow”) at the time. He does, however, mention it briefly, in […]
September 20, 2016 by Robert Moore
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