Our Southern Highlanders

CHAPTER I

"SOMETHING HIDDEN; GO AND FIND IT"

In one of Poe's minor tales, written in 1845, there is a vague allusion to wild mountains in western Virginia "tenanted by fierce and uncouth races of men." This, so far as I know, was the first reference in literature to our Southern mountaineers, and it stood as their only characterization until Miss Murfr...