A couple of weekends ago, consort and I headed over to Trade, Tennessee, for the second annual Trade Mill and Native Heritage festival. The event is held on the grounds of the Trade community center where the old trade mill is located. The grounds are the original location of a trading post established in the early 1700s by Daniel Boone. The Trade Gap trading post was established for Native Americans, pioneers, and fur traders to come together to buy and sell their wares. This natural mountain gap, an old buffalo trail between Snake and Rich mountain, was the easiest route through the mountains to the west and connected the Great Warrior Path through the Shenandoah Valley and Tennessee Valley to Piedmont, North Carolina. Trade is known as the oldest community in Tennessee with English-speakers arriving as early as 1673.
Trade's claim to fame is the story of Tom Dula who was made famous by the song Tom Dooley (Dula is pronounced Dooley in the local dialect). The song is a North Carolina folk song based on the 1866 murder of a woman named Laura Foster in Wilkes County, North Carolina. After allegedly committing the nefarious act, Tom Dula took off from North Carolina and eventually arrived in Trade, Tennessee, where he went into hiding. It was in Trade that the posse finally caught up to Dula and arrested him. He was taken back to North Carolina where he was tried, convicted, and ultimately hanged for the murder of Laura Foster.
The story of Tom Dula and Laura Foster is intriguing. The two knew each other as children and grew up playing together. His true love was Anne Foster, Laura's cousin. As the story goes, Tom and Anne were intimate at a very young age, but the affair was ended when Anne's mother found the two in bed together. A couple of years passed and then Tom enlisted and served in the Confederate Army.
I'll skip over Tom's military career, although it is fairly interesting.
After the war, Tom returned home and renewed his relationship with Anne while at the same time beginning a relationship with Laura, Anne's cousin. Folklore has it that when Laura became pregnant, she and Tom decided to elope. The morning she and Tom were to take off together, Laura left her home early in the morning on horseback and was never seen again.
No one really knows what happened that day, but local speculation is that Anne killed Laura in a fit of jealousy when she found out Laura was pregnant. Anne was the one who led authorities to where Laura was buried. At the trial, another cousin of Anne's, Pauline, testified that Anne had previously taken her to Laura's gravesite to ensure it was still well hidden.
Witnesses at the trial testified they heard Tom Dula make the incriminating statement that he was going to "do in" the one who gave him the "pock" (syphilis). The testimony suggested that Dula believed Laura had given him syphilis which he then passed on to Anne. However, the local doctor testified he had treated both Dula and Anne for syphilis, as well as Pauline Foster who, in fact, was the first to be treated. Many believe that Dula caught the disease from Pauline then passed it on to both Anne and Laura ~Wikipedia.
This is a 1927 Ingraham Viceroy pocket watch. The vendor has fashioned it into a necklace.
I couldn't resist. It now belongs to me. I'm not sure I'll ever wear it as a necklace; it seems a bit too large.
In my stays-in-one-place home I had four wind-up, chiming clocks.
When we took off in the fifth wheel, all of the clocks found a new home with my daughter.
This little pocket watch fills the void with its very loud ticking and need for winding.
When Tom arrived in Trade, he introduced himself as Tom Hall and took a job working a farm belonging to Colonel James Grayson. Grayson is also mentioned in the song, Tom Dooley, which started the myth that Grayson was Tom's rival for the affections of Laura Foster. The truth is that Grayson had no previous connection with either Dula or Foster. Once Dula's true identity became known, Grayson was instrumental in his capture and arrest by the posse from Wilkes County, North Carolina.
Maybe it's just me, but I thought this was a great story!
It was a beautiful sunny day when we arrived at the Trade Days festival, but after only an hour or so, it began to rain. Consort and I took shelter, with D.O.G., under a large tree. While waiting out the rain, the above pictured little girl happened along and asked if she could pet our dog. She was very friendly and outgoing. Her name is Jada and she is ten years old. She is a member of the Cherokee Tribe. The boots she is wearing were originally made by her great-great grandmother for her great-grandmother.
I asked her if she had been dancing that morning. She said that, in fact, she had just finished participating in the rain dance. I said, Well, it certainly seems to have worked! Do you know how to do any "make the sun shine" dances? She said, Yeah, I believe I do. She then began to do her sunshine dance. Believe it or not, within ten minutes of her finishing her dance, the sun came out and we were once again blessed with a beautiful sunny day!
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