On the north end of the little community of Osbornville in Wilkes county, between Somers Road and Dugger Creek stands a modest little mountain. Despite rising to only 1400 feet above sea level, it appears on even the oldest maps of the area I can find.
For untold years it has remained a tree covered sentinel, watching over the area and it’s peoples. There’s no telling the stories it’s seen or participated in during that life, but recently I have discovered a few I that want to share with you.
Before white people took hold of the land around what is now called Hunting Creek, the native people’s had long been present. These would probably have been the people we now call Cherokee with the possibility of at least some Catawba “indians” in the area as well. Unfortunately, we don’t have much knowledge of their lives during the pre-colonial era, but stories filter down through the ages from the first whites to interact with them. It’s from these stories that the mountain got it’s name.
In the years before German, Scottish, and other settlers pushed out the native peoples, the legends tell of a hunting ritual. Using fires set around the base of the mountain, native hunters would drive game animals further up the mountain, making them easier prey. I don’t know if the hunters were waiting at the top or the method just tired out and hemmed in the deer and other animals in a place easier to find. Whatever the case, it must have been successful, because the native peoples were still doing it when the white man showed up. And it remained successful, as there is evidence that white men were also practicing the same method after the Cherokee and other people’s were forced out of the county. The name “Ringfire”, therefore, is not just fanciful or random, but descriptive and appropriate.
MYERS & HIS HAMMER
One of the first tales I heard of Ringfire was of a man in the area named “Myers” who lived in an unknown year, but was said to be a blacksmith by trade.
Myers was proud of his ability to swing a hammer, and as Mozelle Beam, writing in one newspaper put it was a “mighty man of bone and muscle.” So proud was he of his strength and vigor that it’s said he would purposefully work on his anvil during ferocious thunderstorms, seeking to drown out the thunder and the God who created it with his own hammering.
As is the case with all creatures, Myers grew old and was finally taken by the same God he battled during the storms. No more would the crack of his hammer on the anvil be heard around the mountain.
Myer’s family then took to fulfill one of his last requests. He had wanted to be buried on the very top of Ringfire Mountain so that in death he would have a good view of the fires and the hunting about the mountain. The problem was, it was winter, and the weather was horrendous. Despite this, his family grabbed any shovel or tool at their disposal and managed to haul his body up the hill, burying him on the summit as he had requested.
Looking at this story with a critical eye, it certainly lacks the important details to properly identify who the players are and if they ever really existed. The image of a vigorous man in the prime of his life competing with God during a thunderstorm sounds more like a tall tell than historical fact. It makes Myers seem like a contemporary of Paul Bunyan or John Henry.
Another oral version of the story I heard ends differently than the one told by Beam, with Myers being struck down by lightning during one of his battles against God, making it the perfect cautionary yarn to tell children.
The Myers name is also certainly not a stranger to me. Less than 2 miles down the road from Ringfire was the home of the reverend William Almon Myers, who I have written about previously. In Osbornville, which is the community where Ringfire is located there was a W.C. Myers that owned and operated a store in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. And there were certainly numerous other Myers in the area in the distant past.
Which Myers it might have been and if the man ever really existed is not something I have been able to discover. Certainly there is no record or indication of anyone being buried on top of Ringfire.
THE ORACLE OF RINGFIRE
In the late 1800’s, there was a peculiar woman who lived near the mountain named Margaret Jones. Margaret was known by a couple names. One was “Aunt Peggy”, or “Aunt Peg”. This is not terribly uncommon, and was a natural way you would address older women around these parts who weren’t your family. I even have an ancestor in my line who people called “Aunt Annie”. But the other title the locals gave her was a bit more grandiose. They also called her the “Oracle of Ringfire Mountain.”
Finding info about Aunt Peggy has not been easy. She managed to be missed by several of the census takers and only showed up a couple times. One of them was as a child in 1850 living with a 29 year old woman named “Sally” or “Sarah” Jones from Person county, who I assume was her mother.
The last was not terribly long before she died, and she was living in the home of her daughter.
Whoever he or they might have been, I have been unable to find who fathered Margaret’s three children, Alice, Mary, and Milas.
Milas’ death certificate lists a “John Jones” as his father, but there’s no way to know if this is true. There are several John Jones who lived in Wilkes during the right timeframe but most were married and there’s little chance of determining if any of them had children out of wedlock with Margaret.
Alice and Mary’s death certificates simply list their father as “unknown.”
But getting back to “Aunt Peggy”, she was what might be known as a “witch” back then. A seer, or fortune teller, a reader of signs. And, based upon the handful of accounts I have heard locally, was also remembered for her ability to heal- removing warts and creating poultices and the like. She probably practiced a lot of the same works as other Appalachian witches of her day, but we just don’t know what the full scope of her activities were.
We do know she claimed to be able to advise others of the future, and this is apparently what earned her the name “Oracle of Ringfire Mountain.”
It’s also unfortunate we don’t know much about what sort of things she was telling people. Only one real account survives in writing of her gift, and it doesn’t cast a positive light on her powers.
However, a local resident was quick to defend Peggy’s abilities, and by way of reply wrote this.
And a third writer further clarifies the story in another clipping from shortly thereafter.
So, if the papers can be believed, the problem wasn’t what Peggy prescribed but the late hour at which the man sought to follow her instructions and his “un-Christian” swearing.
I wish there were more in writing about Aunt Peggy, but an old seer on a modest mountain in a small rural community is not likely to make the papers, and it’s a fluke we have the couple articles we do.
Margaret Lucille “Peggy” Jones spent her last years living with her daughter Mary Lunsford (later Mary Heath), and died in 1917 at age 75 of pneumonia. She was buried at Shady Grove Church not far from Ringfire.
One final thing I can’t neglect to mention is her death certificate, which I found astonishing.
This will be the first time I have come across “Fortune Teller” as a profession on a death certificate, and maybe the first time I have seen an occupation listing in quotation marks. This was filled out by Dr. L.P. Somers, who lived not more than a mile from Ringfire and most likely knew her. One has to wonder if the quotation marks were a commentary on the legitimacy of her trade.
I wont pause long to talk about “witches” or “witchery” as it was back then, but it held a rather peculiar place in people’s lives. One one hand, many of the people who would patronize such “witches” thought themselves good Christians, and would nod in assent on Sunday mornings when the minister would tell them that those who practice such works of the flesh as sorcery will not inherit the kingdom of God. On the other hand, superstition was a big part of life, with some of the old ways being carried here from Germany, Scotland, and Ireland. These old ways were probably pagan in origin, but could be whitewashed by including the name of Jesus, or in many cases, the entire Trinity.
There was also some nuance to what one might call a witch. While Aunt Peggy was most certainly a diviner and fortune teller, there have been other women in the past in this part of the state who did things that might be considered “granny magic”, such as healing with plants and herbs, the ability to know when to sew crops based on the weather and the signs, and midewifery.
My own great grandmother even passed on one random piece of knowledge to me she received from the elder women in her family who knew about such things.
I remember when I was a child one of my cousins turned over his ankle while playing out side. It began to swell a bit and my great grandmother sent someone out to the road to walk along the ditches until they found a fuzzy green little plant to bring back with them. It turned out to be what people around here know as Wooly Lamb’s Ear, or stachys byzantina. She warmed several large pieces in water and wrapped them around the ankle in a bit of cloth, and sure enough, it took the swelling out. In more recent years, this plant has become known for it’s anti-inflammatory properties, and there have even been scientific studies to determine how well it works. People back then might have been superstitious but they weren’t dumb.
The Revenuer’s Banquet
Sometime during the winter of 1896 an odd banquet was held near Ringfire, probably along Little Hunting Creek or Dugger Creek.
It seems some local men had been making unlicensed liquor using the readily available waters and had come up with quite the stash of product to sell.
Their stills being cold and their labors over, they decided a celebration was in order. Preparing “a half dozen roasted rabbits and several chickens” which they supplemented with their new made liquor and other victuals, they were to all come together and have one raucous repast together to finish out the year.
Unfortunately for the local boys, the revenuers had gotten word of what was planned and where the feast was to take place. That evening, as the liquor making boys of Osbornville met, waiting in the wings were government men who crashed the party before it could ever really take off.
More malicious still, and to add insult to injury, after securing the moonshiners the revenuers themselves sat down and partook of the feast. Eating and drinking the best the Osbornville men had prepared for their own stomachs, they enjoyed a mighty banquet before hauling the shiners to Wilkesboro to answer for their crimes against Uncle Sam’s pocket book.
THE WARREN CEMETERY
Our last story from Ringfire is related the image we started with. The two graves are of William Warren and his wife Mary “Polly” Duffy. The Warrens moved into what would become Osbornville from Wake county. In their time it was customary to place family cemeteries near to the homeplace, so even though I can’t say exactly where it was, the Warren family must have lived near the foot of Ringfire Mountain.
I had originally thought the Warrens might have been the first owners of Ringfire but I received a message from Jason Duncan of WebJMD who was able to show me information about an “Isom Harvill” who had the original land grant around Ringfire in 1784 when he bought the land from the state. Harville owned 500 acres about the mountain and might have been the first white man to hear stories or maybe even see the practice of setting the mountain on fire. Jason was also able to tell me when the Warrens came into the area. William Warren bought land along Hunting Creek between 1814 and 1821.
I haven’t been able to find much about William Warren’s life, but his son Alfred Warren was well known in the area. Alfred helped construct the first bridge on the road that runs north to south through the area and which today makes up Warren Bridge in Iredell county and Somers Road in Wilkes county. The bridge Warren helped to construct sat on the creek that marks the boundary between the two counties not far from where the current bridge is. There are also rumors that Alfred had a small hotel just on the Wilkes side of the line where today there are only woods. He likely also for a time had a government (“government” meaning “legal”) distillery along the creek.
It would be Alfred’s grandson Claude Warren who would be murdered near the bridge in 1916.
These are a few of the stories that have managed to survive the years concerning Ringfire and the area around it. There’s no way to know how many more are lost to time, but if you know any or have any more details about the stories I’ve retold here, I’d love to hear from you.