Appalachian Dulcimer Traditions (16 page)

The instrument on the right in figure 6.1 was made by Homer Ledford of Winchester, Kentucky, in 1970 (see chapter 7). It shows the modifications to the old Kentucky pattern that were made with the coming of the folk revival after World War II. The body and fretboard have both been widened. The vibrating string length has been shortened from the old-time 28 inches, found on both West Virginia and Cumberland dulcimers, to 26½ inches. However, the broad-shouldered pattern has been faithfully retained.

The fretboards of the dulcimers made by Charles N. Prichard are hollowed out, and two long slots are cut in the instrument's top, underneath the fretboard, to make the fretboard part of the sounding box. The fret-boards of old Cumberland instruments are solid sticks of wood attached to the instrument's top, which is a single panel of wood with no openings other than the four sound holes.

Figure 6.1. West Virginia and Kentucky patterns compared.
Left,
dulcimer no. 18 made by Jethro Amburgey, Hindman, Kentucky, dated May 16, 1929.
Middle,
dulcimer made by Charles N. Prichard, Huntington, West Virginia, 1880–1900.
Right,
dulcimer no. 1,982 made by Homer Ledford, Winchester, Kentucky, 1970.

The strings of old Cumberland dulcimers are bridged in such a way that the bass and middle strings are close together. A wider space separates the middle from the melody string, providing more room for the use of a noter or one's finger on the melody string. Small staple-style frets of equal width run under the melody string. The other two strings cannot be fretted. 

James Edward “Uncle Ed” Thomas, the earliest Cumberland mountain maker of whom we have a record, and Charles N. Prichard of West Virginia both began to make dulcimers shortly after the Civil War. It is not known whether either of these makers saw the other's instruments and modified the other's pattern to suit himself, or if they worked from a common early prototype of the hourglass design or from different prototypes.

The example of transitional dulcimer maker Edd Presnell of Banner Elk, North Carolina (see chapter 7) shows that one can begin by making instruments in one style and end up making them in another style without being inspired by a new prototype. Presnell's first dulcimers, made in the 1930s, followed the narrow-shouldered, wide-bodied West Virginia/North Carolina pattern that was used by other Beech Mountain dulcimer makers. Yet over a period of about 10 years, he changed his pattern to a narrow body with broad shoulders, similar to the Cumberland Mountains design.

The broad-shouldered Cumberland Mountains design with heart-shaped sound holes had an immense influence on the post–World War II urban folk revival. Because of his relationship to the Hindman Settlement School beginning in the early years of the 20th century, Thomas enjoyed early access to Eastern Seaboard markets. Amburgey, Thomas's protégé, made dulcimers whose pattern was a virtual duplicate of the Thomas pattern and lived to provide old-style Cumberland instruments to folk revival players. The Kentucky traditional singer Jean Ritchie brought an Amburgey dulcimer to New York in the late 1940s and became a well-known performer during the folk revival. The Cumberland Mountains style became the layman's idea of a dulcimer.

It is hard to tell whether “Uncle Ed” is buried in Knott or Letcher County. On a mild, blue-sky-and-white-cloud day late in December 1992, my daughter Koyuki and I stood in a weed-tangled little graveyard high on the Cumberland ridge that runs along the border between the two counties. The dirt-and-boulder road that struggles up the mountain from the Letcher County side is nearly impassable. Few people ever come.

In the graveyard, two small footstones marked the graves of James Edward Thomas and his wife, Sarabelle. There were no headstones. A weathered board leaned aslant over the head of one of the graves. Nothing is written on it. But from the graveyard, beautiful vistas extend over the Cumberlands, symbolic, perhaps, of this old-time mountain man's durable legacy.

Home, Family, Occupation

Figure 6.2 shows Uncle Ed Thomas with two of his dulcimers. According to information that appears in Knott County, Kentucky, History & Families, 1884–1994, the Thomas family shares two characteristics with many other Appalachian families: the family arrived in the mountains at an early time, and it includes an admixture of Indian blood.

The earliest family member of whom there is a record is James Edward Thomas, the grandfather and namesake of the dulcimer maker. Grandfather James lived in Ashe County, which is in the northwestern tip of North Carolina. In either 1805 or 1815 he married Lucy Proctor, who was part Cherokee Indian. Their children included Greenberry, born about 1820, and James, born about 1826, who does not appear to have carried his father's middle name. Grandfather James died in Ashe County in 1831.

After Grandfather James's death, Lucy moved from North Carolina to Letcher County, Kentucky—from a wild and primitive world to one that was even more wild and primitive. Her reasons are not known. Green-berry and James went with her. “She says that they were called the white Indians,” the
Knott County History
states.

In 1849, James married Mary Madden of Letcher County. Records exist of 11 children, one being James Edward Thomas, the dulcimer maker. He was born in 1850.

In 1884, Knott County was formed from parts of Perry, Letcher, Floyd, and Breathitt counties. The county seat was established at Hindman, a town that, in 1886, had 17 houses and a population of about 100. Hind-man's population today is about 900. It remains the county seat. Neither Hindman nor the county as a whole has a traffic light, apart from yellow flashers at two intersections.

The Thomas family lived in a log cabin in Knott County, on Big Doubles Creek in a little community called Bath, which once had a post office. Labels inside Thomas dulcimers usually state that they were “manufactured” in Bath, Kentucky. You will not find Bath on the Rand-McNally Road Atlas map of Kentucky, so let me help you. On the Rand-McNally map, you can see Kentucky Route 160 proceeding south from Hindman about four miles to Littcarr. From Littcarr, and not shown on the map,little State Route 1410 heads east, takes the Cumberland ridge head-on, and winds precariously over it to Colson, on Route 7 in Letcher County, which the map does show. Before climbing the mountain to Letcher, Route 1410 runs beside a sparkling stream called Little Carr Fork on the right. Big Doubles Creek branches off Little Carr to the right, and a dirt road follows it. A few small houses along the dirt road constitute what now exists of Bath. Somewhere in the “holler” up Big Doubles—no one could tell us exactly where—stood the log cabin from which dulcimers were shipped to places as far away as New York and London.

Figure 6.2. James Edward “Uncle Ed” Thomas, with two of his dulcimers, probably in the 1920s. (Courtesy Hindman Settlement School)

The 1870 U.S. Census of Letcher County lists James Edward Thomas, age 20, as a farmer and gives the age of his wife, Sarabelle, as 15. The 1910 census of Knott County gives Thomas's occupation as house carpenter, which several of our informants confirmed. The 1910 census also states that Thomas could read and write, but that Sarabelle could not.

Thomas was a highly skilled woodworker, and he made many things in addition to houses and dulcimers. Hassie Hicks Martin of Hindman, who knew “Uncle Ed” when she was a child, said that he made furniture such as chests of drawers and pie safes.

Allen H. Eaton's book Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands, published in 1937, states that Thomas began to make dulcimers in 1871. Thomas's practice of numbering and dating his instruments indicates that this date is accurate or fairly close. The oldest Thomas dulcimer yet recovered is no. 469, dated January 10, 1891. It is shown in figure 6.3, along with another early Thomas dulcimer made in 1903. I bought no. 469 in the early 1980s from its owner/restorer, J. E. Matheny.

The most recent Thomas instrument thus far found was acquired in 1995 by Don and Betty Brinker of Latrobe, Pennsylvania. It is no. 1,465, dated February 1931, and was therefore made when Uncle Ed was 80 or 81 years old. The Brinkers obtained it from its original owner, to whom it was given by his aunt and uncle when he lived with them for several months as a boy in 1932 or 1933 at their home in Blackey, Letcher County, Kentucky.

Uncle Ed was a neighbor and good friend of Balis Ritchie, father of Jean Ritchie. Jean says that in 1923 McKinley Craft, another friend and neighbor, sent a Thomas dulcimer to his kinsman Joe Craft in Arkansas, and that Lynn Elder, the pioneer Arkansas dulcimer maker, based his pattern on this instrument.

Jean Ritchie also provides a down-to-earth explanation of why Uncle Ed painted many of his instruments black. “Did you know,” she wrote to me, “that Uncle Ed told us that the reason he painted some of his dulcimers black is that he had might-near a whole bucket of paint left over from painting his barn?”

Figure 6.3. Early Thomas dulcimers. Left: no visible number, dated October 28, 1903, with a carved dog's head. Right: No. 469, dated January 10, 1891. (Koyuki Smith)

The portrait of Uncle Ed that emerged from the accounts of the older people with whom we spoke was of an exceptionally well-liked, warmhearted man with a notable sense of humor. Lona Ward Gibson spoke for many others. “They say he was a wonderful person,” she told us. “Everything I ever heard about him is good.”

Mal Gibson, age 92 when we met him in 1992, a neighbor and friend of Uncle Ed's who is not directly related to Lona, adds that Thomas had a sly sense of humor. In her book The Dulcimer People, Jean Ritchie quotes James Still, a well-known Kentucky novelist and poet who lived on Dead Mare Branch, near Bath, for many years as saying that Thomas “was a unique personality. Anticky. Comical. Liked a joke on himself as well as others. Delighted in pulling a rusty [practical joke].”

In The Dulcimer People, Ritchie says that Uncle Ed traveled through Knott and Letcher counties in the summertime, carrying his dulcimers on a little cart, playing for anyone who would listen, staying overnight with families who were happy to exchange lodging for some dulcimer music, and seeking sales. He sold his instruments for a few dollars each or traded them for some food. All of this was confirmed by a number of older people with whom we spoke, and we learned of several persons who had bought instruments from him during his peregrinations. We also learned that Thomas sold his dulcimers at the general store in Hindman. The store's proprietor, Elijah Hicks (the father of Hassie Hicks Martin), was one of Uncle Ed's innumerable friends and did not charge him for leaving his instruments to be sold.

Uncle Ed was an excellent player with a good repertoire, and he loved to play. Mal Gibson says that Uncle Ed used to sit on the porch of the Thomas log cabin and play to his heart's content.

I interviewed Lone Madden, Thomas's 78-year-old grandson, by phone. Madden heard his grandfather play many times and named five tunes that, according to his recollection, Uncle Ed played: “Cripple Creek,” “Sourwood Mountain,” “Groundhog,” “Pretty Polly,” and “Darling Corey.” The presence of “Pretty Polly” on this list suggests that Thomas may have understood the Dorian and/or Aeolian tuning. But maybe not—I have heard Edd Presnell's wife Nettie (see chapter 7) play “Shady Grove” on the Dorian scale but with the instrument tuned Ionian.