GATHERING IN THE 'SHINERS

A Tribe of Indians Which Continues
to Flourish In Floyd County

GATHERING IN THE 'SHINERS (Bill Cole - Cherokee Indian Chief)

Excerpted; Hazard, Perry County April 15 --..."Revenue officers are in great disrepute with all of them and the children are taught to run at the sight of a 'potcutter' and thus the older folks are often given warning by the screams of the youngsters at the sight of a strange man. The children are as wild as rabbits and can scramble over hillsides faster than men can go over them on horseback and hence they often get by the revenue officers where a man would be stopped with a shot. Near the line between Floyd and Magoffin county, signs of a still caused a search to be made back into the hills. When a quarter of a mile up a ravine a lot of yellow-faced children suddenly appeared under the horses' legs and with shrill squalls of terror sped off to a tiny cabin perched on a big rock. A woman with a very yellow face came to the door and after piling her youngsters into a box sardine -style informed us that she was Bet -the great-granddaughter of old Bill Cole, the aged Cherokee Indian chief who died on the same hill ten years before. Cole the head of a tribe of half-breeds and about a hundred and fifty of his people still live on the same ridge. He was 110 years old when he died and his grave is on the highest spur of the mountain where his house still stands. The Indians drink moonshine but have not yet begun to make it and no still was found on old Bill's great-granddaughter's farm.''

Documenting The Melungeons:

http://www.geocities.com/ourmelungeons/front.html