SILAS BUTTS FAMILY CEMETERY, Oconee County, SC A.K.A. Brasstown & Long Creek, SC Version 2.2, 29-Sep-2012, C024.TXT, C24 **************************************************************** REPRODUCING NOTICE: ------------------- These electronic pages may not be reproduced in any format for profit, or presentation by any other organization, or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. Paul M Kankula - nn8nn Seneca, SC, USA Oconee County SC GenWeb Coordinator **************************************************************** DATAFILE INPUT . : Paul M. Kankula at (visit above website) in Apr-2002 Linda Flynn at (visit above website) in May-2002 G.P.S. MAPPING . : Gary Flynn at (visit above website) in Apr-2002 IMAGES ......... : Gary Flynn at (visit above website) in Apr-2002 TRANSCRIPTION .. : Carlie G. Butts of Toxaway SC & Augusta GA in 1980 CEMETERY LOCATION: ------------------ - Find intersection of US123 and US 76. - Drive north on US 76 11.8 miles to Brasstown Road(County Road 37-48). - Turn left onto Brasstown Road and drive 0.7 miles. - Cemetery on right side of road, up hill in woods about 150 yards. - Look for cabin on left side of Brasstown Road. - Also look for 2 electric poles together on left side of road across from where you enter woods. - This cemetery is now located on private property. Latitude N 34 44.979 x Longitude W 83 15.393 CHURCH/CEMETERY HISTORY: ------------------------ It is rather difficult to trace the lineage of the Butt(s) family as the ancestors arrived in Georgia, the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Old Virginia. They were listed as being named - But, Butt, and Butts. The original ancestors spelled their name "Butt", or at least until 1765, when it began to be found as "Butts". However, again in 1766, the "s" was dropped, and until 1863 it is listed as "Butt", and then again changed to "Butts". To give an example of how some names were changed, a record of property transfers pertaining to only one family shows the names: Bot, Botts, Butler, Butt, and Botl. Jacob Beriak Butt, Sr., also known as "Big Jake", was one of four sons of Jack Jacob Butt, born in Rockingham County Virginia, and came with his father, mother, and brother John Butt to Edgefield County South Carolina in the year 1790. His father's brother whose name was John Butt had come to South Carolina in the year 1781 and had settled in Pickens District of South Carolina. In 1802, Jacob Beriak Butt, Sr., (28 years old) came to Pickens District from Edgefield County and met a girl by the name of Betsy Gassaway, the daughter of John Aaron Gassaway, and they were soon married. In the year 1829, Jacob Beriak Butt either purchased or was granted 180 acres of land in Pickens District of South Carolina, where Cedar Creek runs into Chauga River, or near what is now known as Rich Mountain area, just northeast of Westminster, South Carolina. At the time he occupied this land, all other land surrounding his was vacant, except for a portion of land owned by Almond Powell. According to Census Records of 1820, neither his father Jack Jacob Butt nor his uncle John Butt showed up as living in South Carolina, for Jacob Butt was the only head of house listed at this time. However, his uncle John Butt appears in Virginia Census records in 1820; therefore, it appears that his father and his uncle had moved to Virginia about the year 1818, and his father died in Virginia in 1826. Jacob Beriak Butt, Sr., was a thrifty person who bought and sold land not only in and around Long Creek, but as far away as Greenville, Pickens, and Abbeville. He seemed to have some connection with district officials and would buy land for almost nothing when it was put up for sale. There is no proof, but it seems as though he bought 200 acres in the name of Jacob Hoppy, let it be put up for sale, then bought it back in his name for $3.00. He sold 688 acres of land to his son, Jacob B. Butt, Jr., on March 10, 1863; however, his son joined the Confederate Army and left for duty on July 1, 1862 and didn't return home on furlough until fall of l864. "Jake" went back to Virginia, and in March 1865 he surrendered to troops from Ohio and was granted permission to travel to Columbus, Ohio. According to the findings, Jacob Butt was one who either liked to move around, or he was dealing in land and it required his moving, for he was forever buying and selling land. It is known that he owned slaves, but the exact number is not clear, for compromise was reached by the northern and southern states allowing the south not to have to report all slaves. In the year 1850, Jacob lived in Union County, Georgia, but by the year 1853 he was back in Pickens District, for he bought 457 acres of land on Long Creek and Wells Creek. However, the last transaction found on record is in 1863, when he sold 400 acres of land on Toxaway Creek to a man by the name of William Duke. There is no proof of the following, but according to information handed down by his father, Jacob B. Butt, Sr., came to this area so that his sons could work the Blue Ridge Railroad, and help dig a tunnel through Stumphouse Mountain, just a few miles north of Walhalla, South Carolina. The railroad would have linked the south with the north, but the Civil War started, and the tunnel was never completed. It is now a tourist attraction and was once used for storing and preserving special cheese process by Clemson University. Jacob Beriak Butt, Sr., and his wife Betsy Gassaway Butt had 4 children. Susan Butt was born 2-10-1828 and died 11-9-1901. She married Jacob Rothell. John B. Butt was born 1-6-1831 and died 2-2-1896. He married Jane English. Jacob Beriak Butt, Jr., was born 1-12-1837 and died 7-10-1905. He married Mary Moore. Anner Rebecca Butt born 3-6-1841 and died 9-11-1904. She was married to Silas Corn. Jacob Beriak Butt, Jr., also known as "Little Jake", was born near Ducktown, Tennessee and lived almost all his life in Pickens District South Carolina. His home-place is now known as "The Old Silas Butts Place" near Long Creek, South Carolina, in a community known as Brasstown. He and his wife Mary Moore Butt are buried along with his parents in the family graveyard there. Carlie Gene Butts, grandson of Jacob Butt, Jr., and Mary Moore Butt and son of Ira Jacob Butts and Agnes Chester Davis Butts, has attempted to restore the Old Butts Graveyard and is now in process of erecting markers for each person buried there, including one for himself, as it is his desire to be buried among those ancestors he liked so well. Mary Moore, daughter of William Riley Moore and Hannah Cox, was born in Oconee County, South Carolina and married Jacob Beriak Butt, Jr., and was buried at the "Old Butts Graveyard" in the Brasstown Community near Long Creek, South Carolina. She had 4 sisters and 5 brothers. Jacob Beriak Butt, Jr., and his wife Mary Moore Butt had 13 children. Samuel Maxwell Butts was born 3-24-1865 and died 1-5-1932. He married Addie Lyles. William Grisham Butts was born 7-25-1866 and died 6-10-1904. He married Anna Blackwell. Ira Jacob Butts was born 2-1-1868 and died 6-6-1939. He was married to Beadie Blackwell (1), Tommie Mulkie (2), and then to Anges Chester Davis (3). Julie Hannah Butts was born 5-17-1869 and died 5-12-1947. She married Preston Lee. Sue Pickens Butts was born 2-9-1871 and died as an infant 1 month later on 3-10-1871. James Lawrence Orr Butts was born 11-12-1872 and died 11-30-1942. He married Martha Annah Lyles. Mary Francis Melinda Butts was born 8-26-1874 and died 5-24-1928. She married Joel Idell Vinson. Jerry Hampton Butts was born 2- 11-1877 and died 2-12-1961. He married Addie Moore. Sara Josephene Butts was born 6-1-1878 and died 3-11-1920. She married John Tom Carter. Silas Noah Butts was born 1-25-1880 and died 8-26-1956. He married Louisa Rholetter. Texas Annah Butts was born 4-2-1882 and died 11-27-1963. She married Joel Clifton Vinson (1), Henry Lee (2). Nancy Savannah Butts was born 7-16-1883 and died 4-4-1960. She married Charlie Roscoe Phillips (1), Robert F. Carter (2). Dovie J. Butts was born 2-5-1886 and died 5-12-1948. Dovie never married; however, she had one child out of wedlock. Two of their children are buried at the family cemetery - Sue Pickens Butts and William Grisham Butts. William Grisham "Bill" Butts was a son of Jacob Beriak Butt, Jr., and Mary Moore and was born in Oconee County, South Carolina in a small community known as Brasstown. He was born on July 25, 1866 and died June 10, 1904 and is buried in the Butts Graveyard near Long Creek. He was married to Anna Blackwell, the daughter of John H. Blackwell and Rebecca Turner. He was the father of four children. Their daughter Lillie Mae Butts died at the age of 16 and is also buried at Butts Graveyard. Two of his children grew up to enjoy a musical talent, and even though being blind from his youth, his son Clarence became Band Director of Westminster High school. He taught music, tuned and repaired instruments, and became a teacher of other blind persons. Bill and Ira married sisters, and the two families are very close and friendly with each other. Bill married at the age of 24 and died at the age of 48. His wife died 17 years later and is buried at Holly Springs Baptist Church near Westminster, South Carolina. William Grisham Butts was named in honor of a Revolutionary Soldier, Private John Grisham born 1761 and died in Virginia in 1835. Private Grisham was buried at Bethel Presbyterian Church off Highway 11 north of Walhalla, South Carolina. Jerry Hampton Butts and his wife Addie Moore had 5 children. Three of their children died as infants and are buried at the "Old Butts Graveyard". They are Mary L. Butts who was 3 years of age, Noah Butts who was 1 month old, and Savannah Butts who was 1 month old. Samuel Maxwell Butts and his wife Addie Lyles had 13 children. Two of their children are buried at the "Old Butts Graveyard". They are Amanda Butts who was 1 day old and Nettie Lou Butts who was 3 years old. Silas Noah Butts and his wife Louisa Rholetter had one child born dead, who was given no name and was buried at the "Old Butts Graveyard" at Brasstown, near his father Jacob Beriak Butt, Jr., and mother Mary Moore Butt. Submitted by: Carlie G. Butts, May-2002 ------------------------------------------- BUTTS, Carlie Glen b. 21-jun-1928, w. sara dorelen suttles, 101 eagle road, north augusta, sc 29860, 803-279-5988 p. (*)ira jacob butts (1868-1939) & agnes chester davis (3rd w.)(1900-?) 1st gp. jacob beriak butt (jr) (1837-1905) & mary moore (1845-1929) 2nd gp. jacob beriak butt (sr) (1774-1869) & betsey julie gassaway (1780-1853) 3rd gp. beriak butts (1742-1812) & ann powell (1740-1809) 4th gp. peter butts (1714-a1790) & elizabeth ann carmel (a1720-a1794) 5th gp. thomas butt (1675-1745) & catherine mcgee (a1693-a1761) 6th gp. peter butts (1638-1700) & alice(?) butts (1718) 7th gp. john butts (a1608-a1680) & (3 wives) author of the butts generations, a man called jake, a scream in the night, pebbles along his path & where the wild rose blooms. it's possible that at a future date, carlie might be buried at this cemetery. (*) Ira Jacob Butts was a son of Jacob B. Butt Jr. and Mary Moore, and was raised in the upper part of Oconee County, South Carolina, in a small community known as "Brasstown", near Long Creek. He never learned to read or to write, but as is known of all mountain men, his keen wit and his ability to reason, made up for a great amount of this handicap. In earlier days, education was something for those who did not want to wok, for so long as a man could provide for his family, this was most important, even though he signed his name with an -"X". Ira was the third child in his family of thirteen, and during his lifetime he was three-times married. First to Beadie Blackwell, second to Tommie Mulkie, and last to Agnes Chester Davis. He was the father of nineteen children, including four sets of twins by his last wife. Ira was a tough, ruggid, six- foot tall man, with a straight back, and broad shoulders. He in many ways was a stubborn man, and once his mind was made up, all h--- could not stop him for attempting to do things in his way. He did not believe in education, and never insisted that his children to school, even though many of his children continued their schooling, and gained an education, even though some accomplished this after his death. Prior to his first marriage, and mainly because his father was so cruel to his brothers and sisters, Ira left home with his sister Julie, and his brother Hampton, and went to stay with his aunt (his fathers sister) who had married a man by the name of Silas Corn, This aunt lived near Clarksville Georgia, and Silas Butts was named in honor of her husband, Silas. I am not sure just how long they stayed with their aunt, but it was for a few years at least, and then Ira returned back to the home of his parents in the Brasstown Community, of Oconee County. Shortly after his return, Ira met a girl by the name of Beadie Blackwell, the daughter of John and Rebecca Blackwell of the Holly Springs section, and they were soon married, and became the parents of five children, Jessie James, Ida Gladys, Thomas Patton, Stephen William, and Cokie Butts. I am not certain of the year, but he bought some Land near the Toxaway Baptist Church about five miles west of Westminster, where he made his home until just a short prior to his death in 1939. He went into the woods and cut sills, sleepers, framing and plates with which to build his new house. All sills, sleepers, corner-post, and rafters were hewn from logs with an ax, which was razor-sharp, and was always kept under his bed to prevent damage to it by others. His father owned a saw mill and a shingle mill, so the lumber and shingles were sawed and hauled from Brasstown to Toxaway by way of ox carts. The entire house consisted of only three rooms. Living Room, one Bed Room, and a Kitchen. From his own property, and the property of his neighbors, he gathered rocks, and with red clay he mixed with water into a paste, he built a double fireplace, with one fireplace to heat the living room, and the other to heat the kitchen. Of course the town filled with wood, hardly kept the house warm, because there were cracks in the floor, no ceiling on the walls, and only loose boards lay over the ceiling joist and served as a ceiling, The house had no electricity, no inside plumbing, nor kitchen cabinets. The house was lighted with kerosene lamps and lanterns, and just in case you had to go, head for the woods, and pray that you do not stumble. Cabinets consisted of a corner cubbard, and one kitchen safe, which had one drawer. The loose boards mentioned above which lay loose in the ceiling, was select heart pine, free of knots, and uniform in size as best could be selected. There was a reason for this, just as most old folks had a good reason for everything they did. When a death came to the community, these boards would be taken down, and would be used in making a coffin for the deceased. I personally recall when my baby brother died in 1936, and how the neighbors gathered in the front yard, and made his coffin from these very same select heart-pine boards. When he died early in the morning, he was bathed and stretched out on a small table, two coins were placed on his eyes to keep them closed, and he was covered with a small blanket. When daylight came, he was measured, the coffin was made and lined with some soft cloth, and he was gently placed inside, awaiting burial. Some of the same boards were placed on top of the coffin in the grave, and until this day, forty-four years later, caving has never been noticed, for the pine boards are still in good condition. One would simply have to experience the hardships persons faced in order to really understand how rough it was. When you hear someone speak about -"The Good Old Days", they either never lived during those days, or they were among the fortunate few who were not hit by hard times. Ira Butts learned to be a Blacksmith, but most of his work was done during rainly days,, or during the cold winter months, for most of his time was spent trying hard to beat out a living on his farm. He would go into the woods near Long Creek and erect a small tent made from sacks, and would stay and work until he has cut and hewn a wagon load of crossties, which he would haul to Walhalla and sell for about 20 cents each, unless they were select grade. In those days, the Oconee Mills at Westminster fired the boiler with wood, and he would cut wood and haul to them, but most every one tried to do this, and his turn didn't come too often. He was noted for being the best wagon-builder in his day, and it has been said that he could hear a wagon coming down the road, and tell which wheel was in need of repair. He, like most old timers, believed hard work was a honor, and if that be the case, he certainly was an honorable man, for his whole life was centered around hard work. Ira smoked a pipe, but he never bought a pipe, neither did he every buy tobacco. He grew his own tobacco, and would hang it in the barn until it cured to a golden brown, and would either fold it, or twist it and then store it in a special box for future use, and to sell to his neighbors. Sometimes he would place mellow apples in the box, giving the tobacco a special flavor. He would gather blue clay from creek banks, remove all foreign matter, and would with his hands form this clay into a pipe to his liking. The soft clay pipe would be placed in a fire, and baked until it became hard, and would then be removed, smoothed with a piece of broken glass, becoming a master-piece of workmanship. Like his other brothers, Ira was smart and talented man, even though he had none of our modern machines or conveniences on which to rely. He and his brother Silas Butts designed and built the Mill Pond, which still stands at the old homeplace. When it was completed, someone cared Ira's name on top of the dam in the wet cement, and the name can bee seen there today. As already stated, he could neither read nor write, so if he wanted to keep an account of his chickens, sacks of corn, or other items, he would make a notch in a stick representing each item. In case he wanted to check to see if any was missing, he would look a the item, and would place a knife blade in a notch for each one he saw. If he wound up with more notches than items, he knew some was missing, but he could not county the notches and tell how many. From his father, Jacob B. Butt Jr. he learned how to mix certain roots and leaves of grass together for a cure for snake-bites. He never told which weeds and roots he used, and I would not attempt to try to describe them. Anyway, he would boil and roots and leaves, and would then strain away the particles, leaving only the water in which they were boiled. This would be deluted with whiskey, and be given to the victim to drink. The whiskey, I am told, caused the blood to thin, allowing faster flow to the bitten area. Then too, it might have taken the whiskey to kill some of the taste until a person could rink the solution, who knows. One thing I am certain, of, and that is, that the same medicine worked on all snake-bites, and modern doctors seem to not agree with this today. Personally, I witnessed him curing his grand-daughter, Vera Mae Butts when she was bitten by a Copper-Head, and again curing Dave Pitts when he was bitten by a Rattle Snake. Once a victim started drinking the solution, he could drink a little or a lot, but once the bottle was taken away, another drink was sure death, for it was stronger than the poison from the snake. Samuel Burton, Ira's son-in-law had a dog bitten by a snake, and was given the solution, then soon recovered. Sam said if a little helped, then some more would do better. No sooner had he poured some more solution into the dogs mouth, the dog died instantly. On one occasion, when Samuel Burton was fishing on Chauga River, he was bitten by a Rattler, and was then carried to his mothers home on Rocky Fork. They sent for Ira, who lived some ten or more miles away, and he came to the scene, and prepared a solution from leaves and roots located nearby. At that time, Samuel's tongue had swollen out of his mouth, and very little hope was left. Within thirty minutes from the time he had been given the solution, Samuel Burton began to talk, and within a hour he was walking. Ira was living near Toxaway Baptist Church when his first wife died, leaving him with five children. He soon married his second wife, who died shortly during the time of child-birth, again leaving him alone. Shortly thereafter, he being about forty-eight years old, married my mother, who at that time was about sixteen years old, and they had 14 children, including four sets of twins. At the time of typing this, she still lives near Prathers Covered Bridge, in the Madison Community, and will be 80 years old September 29,m 1980. Prior to his death in 1939, he rented a place from his brother Silas Butts near Holly Springs, at the foot of Grassy Mountain, where he lived until his death. He had sold the homeplace to his son Thomas Patton Butts, for Ira was unable to keep up payments, $28.00 twice each year, one in the spring and one in the fall. Times were hard, and money was hard to get in those days. Ira was just another example of a true mountain man, and knew nothing but hard work all his life. The following pages will be pertaining to activities during his last day alive, including each move from the time he left his home hear Holly Springs, until his death that afternoon near Toxaway Baptist Church. The following in no way attempts to recall old unpleasant memories, neither is it intended to degrade anyone, but is included as a bit history and happenings of the past. The children of Ira Butts and the children of Clifton Pitts could not help what their parents did, and today both families are very close friends, for we understand about the problem. The story will be told partly as I remember, and partly as was told to me, laying blame or guilt on either party, for in my own opinion, it was useless from any way it can be viewed, and is deeply regreted on both sides. I am sorry if this happens to upset anyone, and if some thinks this should not be entered, I respectfully beg forgiveness, and in other editions, this will be striken from the book. Happenings on June 6th 1939 For many years Ira Butts and a neighbor Clifton Pitts had been arguing over the boundry line of a small pieve of property, being seperated between the neighbors by a small creek, which headed on property owned by Butts. As was customary in earlier days, property was divided or cornered by rocks, stumps, creeks, or other moveable objects, and a lot of confusion sometimes arose between the best of friends. In this case, the problem between the neighbors, was that each thought the branch ought to run in another location, or that someone had caused the branch to run opposite from its original location. Anyway, problems arose between two long-time friends and neighbors, and in the end, my father lost his life in a useless manner. Early in the morning, on June 6, 1939, Ira Jacob Butts left his home in the Holly Springs Community, for a trip back to his old homeplace near Toxaway Baptist Church. He had no way to travel, so hesitated out walking by way of old foot-paths and wagon roads, for this was nearer than by way of the main roads. He was born and raised in the mountains, and this was no problem, for he knew every inch of the woods for miles around. On his way he visited his sister Julie Lee near the Welcome Baptist Church, and Dandy Lee, who lived then at the old Joel Vinson place. Never had it occurred to him that this was the last time he would make the trip, and that it was the last time he would see his family. Just before noon, he arrived at the home of his son Tom, but he was not there, for he was employed at a Textile Mill in Greenville, South Carolina. Toms family was there at the time, and Ira spent a short while talking with Toms wife Bessie. She offered to fix lunch for him, but he refused to eat with her. I am not sure abut this, but persons told me that he visited with other neighbors prior to his coming to see Bessie. Pitts had seen Ira that day, or someone had told him of Ira being in the area, for it is obvious that he knew. After talking with Bessie for awhile, Ira started walking down a path leading to a spring from which they carried, water, and which was close to the property which had caused problems for years between Pitts and Butts. Toms son, Edward, had gone to the spring for water, and was at the spring when Ira arrived, and he talked with his grand-father for a few minutes. The well at the homeplace had gone dry while work was being done on the Southern Railway, and it is believed that blasting probably cracked a rock in the bottom of the well. Several attempts had not gained water in the well. What is now known as Highway 123, used to be the railroad bed, until it was changed in 1917 to its present location. The water from the spring formed a branch, which was also a property dividing-line. After talking with Edward for awhile, Ira started walling down the branch bank toward a road which lead from the Toxaway Road to the home of William Carson, another neighbor of Ira Butts and Clifton Pitts. Edward ran back to the house, leaving his water bucket, and told his mother that he thought trouble was going to occur between the two men. Rumor has it that he saw Pitts coming toward the place where Ira would enter the road, but his I can not say. Regardless to whatever happened, he was frightened terribly when he reached the house, and it is evident that Pitts was already at the scene when Ira arrived. A Negro man, and a long-time neighbor and friend of Ira Butts, whose name was Felix Bradley, was walking up the road just at the time Ira stepped into the road. Ira had not seen Pitts, for some pine bushes along the road had blocked hi view, so he turned toward Felix and started to talk to him. Just then, Felix saw Pitts behind Ira with a shotgun, and he yelled - "Look behin ju Pharoah". This was a name he used when addressing the aged man, for Ira was 72 years old then. Turning, Ira was facing a 12 gauge shotgun aimed directly at his chest from not more than thirty or forty feet away. Ira was wearing his usually overalls, and he reached into his pocket and drew a revolver, but it was too late, for that instant a blast from the gun as it struck Ira in the left side of the chest, knocked him around, and he fell dying in the dusty country road, being shot by his own neighbor. Even though he lay on the ground with a two inch hole in his chest from the shotgun, with the last bit of strength left in his body he continued to squeeze the trigger, but there was no strength left. The Negro man moved foreword, and by that time Pitts had also moved closer. Ira must have thought Pitts was intending to shoot him again, for with the last breath in his body, Ira said - "Don't let him shoot me again, he's got me." These words marked the end of a long hard life, one that had been taken for a piece of property which valued not more than Ira had in his pocket, $3.50. As soon as Bessie heard the shot, she said to herself - "My Lord, they've killed grandpa." She ran down the trail toward the spring, and on to a knoll where she could see the road below. She could see Clifton Pitts, Lee Holbrooks, and Felix Bradley standing in the road, but could not see Ira. Just then, Felix saw Bessie standing on the knoll, and taking his hat off and placing it under his arm aid - "Here it tis miss Bessie, de ole man is daid." Bessie was afraid, but her love for her father-in-law compelled her to go, and she ran quickly, for she hoped there was something she might do to help. According to her statement to me, when she arrived at the scene, Pitts still had the gun in his hand, and was standing close to Ira. When she attempted to kneel down and place her hand on the brow of the fallen Pharoah, Pitts demanded that she step away. She was afraid at what had already happened, therefore she stepped back to the edge of the road. The hot June sun beaming down on Ira, was more than she could bear, so she asked Pitts to allow her to break some branches to place over his face, but this was not permitted. In a short while several neighbors had heard of the tragedy, and began to arriev, but none was willing to shade his face. Shortly, a son-in-law of Ira's brother arrived, Ira Bradbury Lee, and he too heard her plea. Placing his hand on her shoulder, he said - "If it will make you feel better, I'll shade his face regardless to the circumstances." He cut some Poplar branches and placed over his face. Word reached the Holly Springs area shortly after noon, and Jim Burnside came to the field where my mother and we children were working, and told us about his death. By the time we ran to our house, Silas Butts came by to take us to the scene. When we arrived, it was awful. There lay my father on the hot ground, with ants all over his body, and the man who killed him standing near by. This was too much, for I was only eleven years old, and I ran with Harold Butts to the home of William Carson and borrowed a sheet with which to cover his body. Times were hard then, and money was scarce, so in order to save Hurse expense of $10.00, his body was placed on some quilts in the back of Silas Butts pickup, and he was carried to Shelton-Miller Funeral Home in Westminster. Later that night, a friend from the Madison area, Isaac Adams, came by and took us back to the home of Tom Butts, where Ira was brought back later that night. His body remained at Tom Butts until the funeral the next day. Sometimes during the night, at least three truck loads of men with arms came with one of Ira's brothers, and they pleaded to allow them to revenge Ira's death. My mother begged that they not do that, for it would not better the situation. His funeral was conducted at the Toxaway Baptist Church by his nephew, Rev. Henry Blackwell, and he was laid to rest in the church cemetery beside his two children. The following page copied directly from the Keowee Kourier Ira Butts Is Slain By His Neighbor In Dispute Over Land Funeral To Be Held At Toxaway Church J.C. Pitts, 65, was recommended to be "held for grand jury investigation" by a corner's jury in connection with the fatal shooting of Ira Jacob Butts, 71, Tuesday afternoon about 2 o'clock in the Toxaway community, Coroner Manley of Westminster stated last night. Butts died from a 12 gauge shotgun wound in the breast, Manley said. The coroners jury at the inquest held Tuesday afternoon returned a verdict that "Butts came to his death by a gunshot wound at the hands of J.C. Pitts" and recommended that Pitts be held for the jury trail. It is alleged that the shooting was the result of a long-time dispute over a land boundry. Pitts was arrested by Deputy Sheriff Seab Moss and was lodged in the Walhalla jail. Manley said Pitts had not as yet asked for bond. Mr. Butts was married three times. His first wife was Mrs. Beadie Blackwell Butts. He was married the second time to Mrs. Tommy Mulkey Butts, and his third union was to Mrs. Agnes Davis Butts from which marriage fourteen children were born, including four sets of twins. Surviving are his widow, Mrs. Agnes Davis Butts and the following children: J.J. and J.P. Butts of Westminster, S.W. Butts, Newry, Jacob Butts, Madison; Louie, Louis, John Henry, Carlie, Willie, and Miss. Francis and Franklin Butts. Three brothers also survive, S.N., J.H. and Jim Butts; four sisters, Mrs. Charlie Phillips, Mrs. Henry Lee, Mrs. Julie Lee, and Miss. Dovie Butts. Funeral services are to be held this afternoon from the Toxaway Baptist church at 4 o'clock with the Rev. W. H. Blackwell officiating. Grandsons will serve as pallbearers: Luther, Curtis, and Glen Burton, and Ralph Fletcher, and Edward Butts. Honary pallbearers will be K.L. and W.J. Burton, B.M. Lee, J.M. Davis, L.H. Holbrooks, and Carl Smith. Note: The names of daughters by his first wife - Ida and Cokie were left out when this was published, also one daughter by his last wife - Margie. Submitted by: Carlie Butts **************************************************************** 10-Oct-2002, The Westminster News According to Carlie Butts of North Augusta, SC someone has felled large pine trees across the Butts Family Graveyard that is located on "The Old Silas Butts Place" near Long Creek, SC, and these pictures describe the pathetic scene that is there for everyone to see. Since Claude Terry of Atlanta purchased the Butts old home place he has forbidden anyone to visit the graveyard, or to keep it clean. This doesn't set well with folks in the community, for the Butts family helped to settle this part of the country long before it became known as Oconee County. To make bad matters worse, according to Mr. Butts the landowner acts as though when he bought the land he also bought the graveyard, and he admitted to taking down the sign that once stood at the road, to keep anybody from knowing where the family graveyard is located. According to South Carolina Code of Laws Title 16, Chapter 17 - "It is unlawful for a person to willfully and knowingly, and without proper legal authority to obliterate, vandalize, or desecrate a burial ground where human skeletal remains are buried, a grave, graveyard, tomb, mausoleum, or other repository of human remains" . . . "and, upon conviction, must be imprisoned not more than ten years or fined not more than five thousand dollars, or both." It makes no difference if a grave is on private property, or even in your own backyard, The State of South Carolina will not tolerate such acts. It is evident by the way that the trees were felled directly across the graves that this was intentionally and deliberately done by someone to destroy the graveyard, or at least to show their disrespect. Mr. Butts says that he will take the matter up with the South Carolina Office Of The Attorney General, and is reporting this to all the newspapers, television and radio stations across the state, and that he will not stop until the person or persons who did this are punished. He went on to say that "it's a disgrace to other citizens of Oconee County to have such as this happen, for to destroy a cemetery that was started long before the Civil War, and isn't in the way of progress, is downright stupid. Keeping someone away from a graveyard might work in some cases, but there is no way that anyone has a right to destroy, damage, or do harm to a graveyard like has happened to this old family graveyard, even though it is on private land." Mr. Butts went on to say, "To be asked to stay away from my family graveyard is one thing, but it would take a fool to stand by while somebody deliberately destroys the sacred burial place of their great- grandparents, and other loved ones, just because a person bought the property 140 years after my folks were buried there. This might be a long and hard battle, and I might have to fight it alone and without any support from my own folks, but I do not intend to let up until I have exhausted all legal means that are available to me under the law." According to the County Sheriff¹s office "anyone has a right to visit the gravesite unless has been personally presented with a written trespass notice." The public should go and see for themselves how far someone has gone to show their disrespect for others, even for those who are dead. The cemetery is located on top of a knoll on the Old Silas Butts Place, near Long Creek, on the Brasstown Road. Mr. Butts says that he is not talking about "rotten trees that have fallen," but large pine trees that were "felled by a chainsaw and directly aimed at the graveyard." He also said, "If the trees were bug infested, and even cut by The Forestry Service, they should not have been felled across the graves in such a disrespectful manner. I am not accusing Mr. Terry of personally doing this, but as landowner, he should know what takes place on his own property." Released for publication by Carlie Butts, 101 Eagle Road, North Augusta, SC 29860, 803-279-5988, sara_18281@msn.com **************************************************************** THE FORGOTTEN RESTING PLACE By: Carlie G. Butts, 2003 This guide is intended to help descendants learn more about their rights to restore and care for the graves of their loved ones even though the family graveyard might have gone unattended for many years, or even if it is located on private land. Laws vary from state to state, but South Carolina recognizes the rights of citizens to care for, restore, and preserve their old family graveyard. Although state laws protect all graveyards throughout the state regardless to where they are located, no state funds are appropriated to cover expenses required to care for them. The obligation to see that graveyards are properly cared for rest in the hands of the city, or the county in which each graveyard is located. Before doing any work on your family graveyard you should speak to an attorney, if the graveyard is located on private land. Even attorneys disagree, as was the case when an attorney misinformed me of my rights to restore our family graveyard, so please don't take anyone's word over that of an attorney, and even then, question his word as well. CONTENTS: Because so many persons have asked how to go about in restoring their old family graveyard, what to do if it is located on private property, and whether or not the property owner has a right to keep descendants from restoring and caring for the family graveyard, I have submitted this guideline. In no way do I wish to imply, or leave the impression that I am offering legal advise in any way, for that is not the case at all. Because of a problem that I faced in getting permission to clean off our family graveyard, I though that you might be interested in some things that I learned along the way, and I hope that it will make the road much easier for you and others to follow. Page 1 = Respect For Deceased Loved Ones Page 4 = Our Legal Rights As Descendants Page 7 = Other Noteworthy Information . NOTE: One of my novels entitled - A Man Called Jake tells all about the Butts family from the time my great-grandfather came to South Carolina in the latter part of the 1700's, how they blazed their way into the wilderness area, and when and how the old Butts Graveyard was first started in 1853. This, and other novels by me can be found at Booksmith Bookstore, located in Dogwood Plaza, Seneca, SC. You may call me at (803) 279-5988, or if you live in upstate South Carolina call (864) 647-5766. (Page 1) RESPECT FOR DECEASED LOVED ONES Even as a very small boy I was taught to respect graveyards as being the sacred resting place of friends and relatives who have gone on before, and should I do anything to desecrate, destroy, or bother their resting place it would be the most horrible crime that I could ever commit. I was also taught not to step on, or even to step across a grave, for in doing so it would show my disrespect for the dead, and was a sign that I considered them to be no more than trash under my feet. I was also taught that persons must be buried so that while in their grave they would be facing eastward, for the Lord will appear in the eastern sky when He returns, and folks wanted their loved ones to be looking eastwardly when the Lord returns. Even older folks today, including myself feel like we can rest much better at night if we sleep facing the east, and my son Jerrie even took a compass and made sure that my final resting place would be facing the east, and he made sure that the bed in which I sleep when visiting him also faces the east. This might seem stupid, but it goes to show that some folks do respect older folks, and especially those who lay in their grave looking eastward, and awaiting the return of the Lord. The question has arisen many times about who should take care of the old family graveyard, if they should be abandoned and forgotten, or if there is a law that demands the care of these sacred resting places. First of all, out of respect for deceased loved ones folks throughout the community used to get together and clean off the graveyard that was near the church that they attended, and folks who had a family graveyard located on their property were responsible for keeping it clean, but no graveyard was ever left unattended. Then as years passed and old home places were sold the old family graveyards became neglected for one reason or another, but the responsibility for keeping them clean didn't cease to exist. Even though rules pertaining to family graveyards vary from state to state, no state allows them to be vandalized, damaged, or deliberately destroyed. Even though there are laws in all states authorizing the proper removal and relocation of "abandoned graveyards," it must first be proven that they are abandoned, which is very hard to do. It is almost an impossibility to declare an old family graveyard "abandoned" unless all the graves have been moved. Although it might have been neglected for several years, and family members seem not to care about it anymore, or it might be on private property, still there are laws protecting it. I'm not sure about the laws of other states, so I'll try to explain the laws of South Carolina pertaining to all the graveyards throughout the state. Even though the State laws makes it a felony to destroy, disturb, or to vandalize a graveyard, the responsibility of enforcing the state laws rest in the hands of the county sheriff if the graveyard is located within the county, or the local police department if it is located within town limits. (Page 2) Even though it is a large family graveyard, or one with only a few graves it is still considered to be a respected burial place, and if it isn't cared for by relatives, then the county or the city in which the graves are located must take care of it. The fact is somebody is obligated to take of all the graveyards, no matter where they are located. If you live in the county in which a family graveyard is located, or if you have relatives buried there, then you have a legal right to care for the graves of your relatives without having to get permission. In the event that a family graveyard is located on property that has been sold to an outsider, and even though there is no record designating it as a graveyard, if it was used as a graveyard before the present owner purchased the land, it still remains as a graveyard so long as the graves are still there. Even though the headstones might have been moved, if it is common knowledge that a graveyard was once there, then it is still considered as a graveyard unless the landowner can legally prove that it has been abandoned, which will be awful hard to do. Even then, if he wishes to develop the area he must first notify the next of kin to all those who are buried there, and get their written permission, and only then can he have the remains moved to another designated resting place, and then under proper supervision. Companies such as Duke Power, Santee-Cooper, or U.S. Corps of Engineers have relocated old graveyards, but even then it required a tremendous amount of legal work, and strict local, and state supervision. It has been argued that unless a family graveyard is officially shown on a Plat or a Deed it cannot be recognized as such, and those buried there are resting on ground that was never officially designated as a graveyard, thus, they were illegally buried on private land. If that is true, then many of those who are buried in church graveyards are also buried on private land, and illegally buried, for many of the graves that are there, extend far beyond the plot of ground that was originally set aside as a graveyard. If you check the records of any church in Oconee County you would find this to be true, and it was only out of respect for the dead, that adjoining property owners allowed the graveyards to enlarge without having to go through "and act of Congress," so to speak. Of course, back then a man's word was all that mattered, his word was his bond, and he had respect for the dead, as well as for his neighbors and friends. Otherwise, the property owner on whose land these graves are located that extend far beyond the original boundary of the original church graveyard, has a legal right to have the graves moved, or forbid anyone to go near them, or to keep them clean. There comes a time when legality must yield to common sense and respect for others, and each of us must consider the other person as human, and act toward him as we would like them to act toward us, for a person can be legally right, and morally wrong at the same time. Not so very long ago The Butts Family Graveyard was desecrated when someone felled large pine trees across the graves, and I was criticized even by some of my kinfolk for publishing the pictures in the paper, and notifying radio and TV stations about what had taken place. They didn't know that I was doing exactly what the law ask me to do in such a case, for the law clearly states as follows: "If you learn that a cemetery in being vandalized, or destroyed, contact your local law enforcement authorities immediately. The responsibility for enforcing state cemetery laws belongs to the county sheriff or local police department. After contacting your local law enforcement, then notify other interested groups, such as your local historical organizations and local newspapers. (Page 3) Prosecute offenders who are caught, and publicize the arrest. Suits can also be filed in civil court to seek compensation for damages." No matter where a graveyard is located, even if it is on private property and hasn't been properly cared for in recent years, if you should see, or discover that the graveyard has been vandalized, then you should report it to local law enforcement. Cemeteries are an important feature of South Carolina's diverse heritage. In addition to them being the final resting place of our ancestors, they afford us with valuable information about social, religious, artistic, and cultural heritage as well. They also contain valuable genealogical information that cannot be found anywhere else, and the state urges individuals to involve themselves with the care and preservation of old graveyards. Contact your local Heritage Foundation, and they will put you in touch with organizations in your own county that are interested in having you support them. Although it seems like some churches aren't interested in what goes on around them anymore, you might discuss it with your church just the same, for if you are very lucky you just might be able to get some members involved in preserving and restoring old graveyards in your community. You might get their attention by asking where their parents are buried, how long has it been since they visited their grave, and how long has it been since they placed flowers on the grave, or saw if it was being properly cared for. (Page 4) OUR LEGAL RIGHTS AS DESCENDANTS As far as I know the only state that says that the property owner has control of a family graveyard that is located on his property is Virginia, unless the cemetery is shown on the Platt before he purchased the property. Even then, he doesn't have any right to vandalize, disturb, or bother the graves in any way, and even though relatives must ask for permission to enter the graveyard, by law he cannot refuse. Should he refuse to give permission, then they have two options: They can either apply to the State of Virginia for permission to have the graves moved and relocated somewhere else, or they can demand that unless the property owner allows them to visit the graves, that he have the graves relocated at his own expense, and to a place that is suitable to the ancestors. In other words, if a property owner doesn't want persons visiting a graveyard that is on his property, then he must move the graves to a place where relatives can visit any time that they wish, but the move must first be approved by the state, and by relatives. According to the laws of South Carolina, if an old family graveyard is located on property that is now owned by an outsider (not a relative), and it hasn't been officially recorded on the Platt as being a cemetery, then the cemetery becomes a part of the land that he owns, the same as any other part of the property. However, the laws protecting graves that are located on his property are quite different from laws protecting other parts of his property, for the fact that the graves are there is proof that it was intended to be a graveyard, or was set aside as a graveyard by the person who then owned the land on which the first person was buried. Then too, the present landowner does have a right to ask that descendants notify him before visiting the graveyard, however, he does not have a right to refuse their request, so long as entry to the graveyard is done in such a way as not to damage the property, crops, streams or roadways. If he should refuse to allow relatives to clean off the family graveyard, then he must care for it at his own expense, but at no time does he have a right to forbid relatives from visiting the graves. When someone felled trees across the Butts Graveyard they committed a felony, and they became subject to imprisonment and a fine, for they committed a serious crime against the state, even though neither of the relatives did anything about it. The state leaves it up to descendants and relatives to report it to the county sheriff, and to prosecute the guilty party for what was done to the graveyard, even though all the trees might have been moved from off the graves. The graveyard was vandalized and desecrated either by the present landowner, by someone under his employ, or by someone who slipped onto the property without the property owner's knowledge. Just because the graveyard is located on his property he could be held accountable for what happened to it, even though he had nothing to do with what happened. (Page 5) This is not a threat, nor do I intend to pursue this matter any further because the landowner has removed the trees, and claims that he was unaware of what had been done by someone whom he had hired to fell the trees. The point that I wished to make, is that even though a family graveyard is located on private land, that does not mean that state and local laws cannot be enforced, nor does it give the property owner a right to forbid relatives to visit the family graveyard. Having a right to do something, overstepping our rights, and failing to exercise our rights are each quite different, and now that we have discussed the rights as descendants, let's take a close look at the mistake in overstepping our rights, and failing to exercise our rights. And then let's not forget the landowner, for he has rights the same as anyone else, and we must respect his rights, the same as we want him to respect our rights. Let's not forget that we do have folks who will "post" their land just in order to keep anybody off, whether or not a cemetery is located on their property, and we have folks who will do damage to our property if we allow them to fish, hunt or go hiking on it. I had a nephew who had his land "posted," yet he had gall enough to fish and hunt on land that belonged to someone else. I guess what I'm really trying to get across to you, is the fact that we have all kinds of persons out there, and we must treat each of them in a certain way, and while dealing with them, be sure that we stay within the realm of the law. Even though your family graveyard is on property that belongs to someone else, or even to another member of your own family, and even though it has been officially set aside as a graveyard there are laws protecting the landowner against intruders, or having folks wandering around on his property anytime they wish. Like stated before, relatives do have a right to visit their family graveyard during daylight hours anytime they wish to do so, but it must be done with respect for the landowner, and in such a way as not to do any harm or damage to the property, or anything that belongs to the landowner. By law he must allow you to have a path leading from the nearest road to the graveyard, but the path doesn't have to lead straight across his planted fields, through his yard, or in such a way as to damage, or harm to his property in any way. The path leading from the road to the graveyard should be the shortest possible route, taking in mind that elderly folks will be using the path, and it must be as easy as possible for them to travel. In other words, it would be unthinkable for the landowner to demand that the path lead through a swamp or straight up the side of a steep mountain, if there was an easier and less strenuous way to get to the graveyard. Even though the landowner gives you permission to enter upon his property to tend to a family graveyard, that doesn't mean that you are allowed to do as you please and wander all around over his property, for other than to visit the graveyard and to keep it clean, you have no right to be on his property without permission. By all means, we must not forget the "power of money," or the influence that some "big shots" have over officials in law enforcement, or "crooked judges" who cater to those who think that they own the county, or town in which the graveyard is located, for in such cases we will be facing an almost losing- battle. Also keep in mind that some of your own folks will promise to stand by you until you enter into battle, and then they will "high-tail," and leave you to fight the battle alone. If you are planning to restore a graveyard that is located on private property you might as well plan on going about it all by yourself, for even though there are those who will help they are few and far between, for the majority of folks don't have the backbone, or the guts to stand up for their rights. (Page 6) Not so long ago I bucked against something that was wrong, and instead of folks standing behind me like they promised, they went to the other party and apologized for what I was doing for the betterment of everyone, including the one who fumed against me. Some of my folks even said that it was a disgrace for me to fuss about an old graveyard, but after I fought and defended our rights to restore it, they want to claim credit for what happened. Nobody is willing to help push the wagon to the top of the hill, but after you get it on top, everyone wants to jump in and ride back down the hill. Always remember, no matter how many persons promise to help you do something, don't ever plan to do anything that you aren't able to do all by yourself, just in case no one helps you. I don't know of a case, nor have I ever heard of a case in South Carolina where a landowner has kept a person from taking care of a family graveyard that is located on their property, but in these changing times anything is liable to happen, and it's not too late for such as that to happen as well. The landowner does have control of the land that he purchased and whatever might go on there as well, and he does have certain rights to a graveyard that is located on his property, unless the cemetery was shown on the plat as being a graveyard prior to the time that he purchased the land. However, he doesn't have a right to prevent descendants and relatives from caring for the graveyard, so long as they do not deliberately destroy or do harm to his property while visiting the graveyard, and that they notify him prior to the time that they intend to do any work on the graveyard. It is still questionable whether or not each person must get permission, or notify the owner before visiting the graveyard, unless the owner so specifies such restrictions in writing to each person. According to the laws of South Carolina, and as already mentioned herein, if the landowner refuses to allow descendants and relatives to care for the graveyard, then the landowner must care for it at his own expense. In the case of The Butts Family Graveyard, the owner, through his attorney gave us permission to clean off and restore the graveyard and visit it whenever we wished to do so, even though he did set certain guidelines, and he did ask me to notify him before I intended to visit the graveyard, but nobody else has to notify him. I'm sure that it upset him because of the pictures that were in the newspaper, and because I was the only one who fought for our legal rights to visit and care for the graveyard, but I am very grateful for permission that was granted, and I will gladly notify him each time before I plan to enter the graveyard. I promised to be liable for any damage done by, or injuries sustained to anyone who helps me to clean off the graveyard, but not for others who visit it, or do work on it without my expressed permission. I also promised not to replace the old rock headstones with authentic-looking concrete headstones, however, I didn't promise that it wouldn't be done by someone else later, for they have as much right to the graveyard as I have, and I cannot speak for everyone. I intend to keep my promise to the homeowner as stated above, however, if someone did eventually install headstones, it would be a felony for the landowner or anyone to remove them, even though they went against my promise. I did question why the landowner didn't want markers put up with proper names and dates, for I visited an old family graveyard just off Highway #81 near Calhoun Falls, South Carolina where it had been done, and it really was nice. At the entrance to the old graveyard was a marker telling when, and who restored it, and some of the dates shown on the tombstones were back in the 1700's. Maybe some day the landowner will change his mind and let someone do the same for The Butts Family Graveyard, or who knows, one of the other concerned descendants might decide to do it on his own. (Page 7) OTHER NOTEWORTHY INFORMATION (Please Be Advised That Most Of The Following Was Copied From Other Sources) Neither the South Carolina Department of Archives and History nor any other state agency enforces the cemetery laws. This responsibility belongs to county and municipal law enforcement officials. What to do if a cemetery is being willfully damaged: If you learn that a cemetery is being vandalized, disturbed, or destroyed, contact your local law enforcement authorities immediately. State law makes it a felony to destroy or desecrate burial grounds, and it does establish a legal framework for moving abandoned cemeteries when necessary. The responsibility of enforcing state cemetery laws belongs to the county sheriff or local police department. Because local authorities may not be as familiar with the details of cemetery statutes as you are, be prepared to inform them of all pertinent laws. After contacting law enforcement, notify other interested groups, such as local historical organizations and the local newspaper. Prosecute offenders who are caught and publicize the arrest. Suits can also be filed in civil court to seek compensation for damages. Discouraging Vandalism: 1 - Ask local law enforcement agency to put your cemetery on its patrol route. Ask their advice when planning any security measures. 2- Ask the neighbors to watch for suspicious activity in the area and to report to the police or sheriff if they see any. 3- Maintain the property. Vandals are attracted to property that appears neglected. 4- Protection devices like fences, lights, and alarms may help. Make sure they are in working order at all times. Fences should keep livestock out of rural cemeteries and deter vandals, while allowing people to see in. High, solid fences can hide illegal activities. 5- Consider posting rules and regulations to show that the cemetery is maintained. (Page 8) Maintenance & Restoration: Cemetery restoration projects need to consider cemetery landscape features such as walls, fences, and walkways; plantings; and grave markers. Though they do require hours of hard work, restoration projects reflect our respect for our ancestors and their culture and for our history. Keep these key guidelines in mind: 1. Educate yourself about appropriate maintenance and conservation techniques for historic cemeteries before you begin. 2. Research and record all the unique history and physical characteristics of your cemetery. 3. Develop a master plan and establish priorities. 4. Respect and preserve distinctive historic features of the cemetery including walls, fences, and walks; trees and shrubs; vines, flowers, and ground covers; and grave markers. 5. Use the gentlest procedure possible for cleaning headstones. Never use abrasive cleaners, sandblasters, or harsh chemical cleaners on grave markers, fences, or on other features. 6. Use an experienced professional to repair gravestones. Inappropriate work can damage historic gravestones or speed their deterioration. 7. Assume that unmarked graves do exist, and avoid disturbing either the ground or the remains. 8. Where only unmarked rock headstones exist, and if someone has the proper name and dates pertaining to the deceased person, leave the original headstone in place, and erect an authentic-looking marker next to the original marker to show others who is buried there, when they were born, and when they died. You might wish to speak with other relatives and descendants before doing such work. Suggested Materials For Gravestone Cleaning Projects. Lest We Forget: Preserving Historic Cemeteries. This video produced by South Carolina Educational Television for the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, 1977. Featuring Lynette Strangstad, a nationally recognized expert, the 26 minute video summarizes guidelines for recording, preserving, and maintaining historic cemeteries. Available on loan from public libraries in South Carolina. To purchase a copy, call 1-800-553-7752 or write to: ETV Marketing, Box-11000, Columbia, SC 29211 Preservation Hotline #6: Questions Asked About Cemetery Preservation. South Carolina Department of Archives and History, 1999. This fact sheet includes brief information about planning a cemetery restoration project. (Page 9) Preservation Hotline #1: Grave Concerns: Protecting and Repairing Damaged Historic Cemeteries. South Carolina Department of Archives and History, 2001. This fact sheet outlines how to plan and earn7 out the restoration of a cemetery damaged by vandalism or acts of nature. South Carolina's Historic Cemeteries: A Preservation Handbook. South Carolina Department of Archives and History, 1997. This book describes the different types of cemeteries and gravestones and their historic context, guidelines for planning and carrying out a cemetery preservation project, and cites the laws protecting historic cemeteries. A Graveyard Preservation Primer: By- Lynette Strangstad Association for Gravestone Studies, 1995. Intended for the nonprofessional, this is a step-by-step manual for planning and carrying out a graveyard preservation project. May be purchased on the Association for Gravestone Study website. Cemeteries are an important feature of South Carolina's diverse heritage. In addition to marking the final resting places of our ancestors, they yield information about out state's social, religious, artistic, and cultural heritage. They also contain genealogical information that cannot be found anywhere else. Deterioration from natural forces such as weathering and uncontrolled vegetation and insensitive development threatens our historic cemeteries. Involvement of individuals and organizations with an interest and commitment to saving local history and culture is critical to protecting and preserving the state's historic cemeteries. The Department of Archives and History had compiled this information to aid local efforts. The Department does not have funds for maintenance of historic cemeteries or legal authority to acquire cemeteries or enforce laws protecting cemeteries. SUMMARY: I hope this helps you to understand the importance of restoring and preserving the family graveyards throughout the state, and that it shows that an old cemetery is more than just a few rocks sticking out of the ground almost hidden by brush and trees, and left to the mercy of nature. I also hope that you have learned something about your rights to preserve your family graveyard no matter if it is located on private land, what you can, and should do if it has been vandalized, and other legal aspects pertaining to any graveyard in South Carolina. This is not intended as legal advise by any means, and you should speak to your attorney if you are having problems of any kind in reference to your own family graveyard. Carlie G. Butts 2/7/2003 ------------------------------------- Due to the efforts of Carlie Butts, Paul Kankula and Senator Martin, the following Bill actually became a SC Cemetery Law..! Some landowners who have cemeteries located on their property, are preventing family members from visiting and maintaining the graves of their love-ones. Some landowners or their livestock are desecrating/destroying their cemeteries. A cemetery is a place not only for the burial of the dead, but for an expression of love and respect by the living for the dead... Descendants have the legal right of burial, visitation, maintenance and beautification of graves. Visit http://chicora.org/sc-cemetery-law.html. -------------------------------------- NOTE: THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION REPRESENTS A MASTER OF ARTS THESIS THAT WAS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF CLEMSON UNIVERSITY IN 2003 BY NICHOLAS BARKER GAMBRELL. WHEN PDF/OCR SCANNING THIS DOCUMENT INTO A .DOC FILE AND THEN CONVERTING TO .TXT, MANY PAGE FORMATTING ERRORS OCCURRED. AS A RESULT THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION IS A LITTLE DIFFICULT TO READ. USE PERMISSION GRANTED IN 2008. SHA' HELL... AND GOOD CORN LIQUOR: THE LEGACY OF SILAS BUTTS A Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of Clemson University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts History by Nicholas Barker Gambrell December 2003 Advisor: Dr. Alan Grubb ABSTRACT Silas Noah Butts was known as "the mountain man" in Oconee County, South Carolina. During the first half of the twentieth century, Silas and his wife, Louisa, maintained an unofficial orphanage at their home where they took in children of all ages. Silas built a schoolhouse for the orphans on his farm and yet, he could neither read nor write. He was most notorious for his moonshining and humor, especially within the courtroom. This thesis deals with the legacy that Silas Butts has left behind. His intentions for "adopting" the children are examined as well as their education and his moonshining. Louisa Butts has remained in the shadow of Silas' legacy and yet her role at their home was crucial to their survival. This thesis utilizes newspapers and court records combined with personal interviews to illustrate how Silas Butts is remembered nearly fifty years after his death. The memories of Silas Butts differ with each account and thus, provide an illustration of how time and memory often work together and at times, against one another. DEDICATION I dedicate this to my Granddaddy, Ray N. Gambrell, who began my interest in Silas Butts as a young boy and has encouraged my schoolwork ever since. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Grubb for his "down-to- earth" help that he has provided over the past two years. The mere "organization" of his office and the talks therein encouraged me get this thesis finished. I would also like to thank Dr. Anderson, who unknowingly kept me from dropping out of the program because of his sincere enthusiasm and interest. I wish to thank Dr. Smith as well. She has provided the Appalachian "touch" that I so needed in my research. I want to express my appreciation to Dr. Phipps at Appalachian State for encouraging me to go to graduate school and without whom, the need for a chapter on Louisa Butts would never have been realized. I am greatly and sincerely thankful for the people of Oconee County who were willing to tell their stories. This thesis would never have been possible without their generosity. I thank everyone who called over the past two years and those who sat down and allowed me to interview them. Jerry Alexander has been extremely helpful in lending information and I would especially like to thank Evelyn Walker for her willingness to share her stories. Also, I want to thank my family: Grandmama, Granddaddy, Papa, Granny, Mama, Daddy (Richard), Nathan and April. My brother summed it up once when he said, "It ain't not been done yet." TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE PAGE i ABSTRACT ii DEDICATION ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv INTRODUCTION 1 PREFACE 8 SILAS NOAH BUTTS 11 LOUISA RHOLETTER BUTTS 29 EDUCATION 41 MOONSHINING 59 ORPHANAGE 75 LEGACY 92 CONCLUSION 103 APPENDIX 107 BIBLIOGRAPHY 117 INTRODUCTION I put an ad' in the local paper seeking information on Silas Butts. I included my phone number and address. I am often naive. In search of information about Silas Butts, I decided to let those who wanted to talk to get in touch with me. My phone rang for a solid week. From 5:30 in the morning until well after dark each day, over fifty people called that week, and they have continued to call these many months afterwards. Calls came from family, friends, and seemingly anyone who had ever heard of Silas from South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia and even New Mexico. The very first call came at 12:30 p.m. while I was in a bookstore and the man simply told me to find someone else to write my paper about. The mail had obviously just run because another call came as soon as he had finished, followed immediately by another. I began scheduling interviews, as many as four a day. I had hit the thesis jackpot. I talked with and met all sorts of people, from the "little ol' blue-haired ladies" in town, to people at the end of dirt roads as long as the list of directions it took to get there. Some people hesitated when they met a college student with long hair and a beard whereas others had their daughters call back and ask me out. Not being able to answer all the calls at once, many- left messages while I was talking to others. I immediately got excited at a message from a man named "Jim." Jim was not his real name, as he said he would not tell me his real name. He claimed to have something about Silas Butts never seen by anyone else. I was excited. "Jim" left no number but said he would call back at 9:00 p.m. sharp. At 9:00 that night, I could only be found in the field beside my house. It was the only place I was sure to get a signal on my cell phone. I did not want to miss Jim's call. At 9:00 sharp, my phone rang. The number was "Restricted." "Jim" agreed to meet me but not at his house or mine. He suggested that we meet at Silas' farm up in Brasstown, Tuesday at 2:00. I waited impatiently until Tuesday. In the meantime, the owner of the Butts' farm suggested that we not meet there as the neighbors would immediately alert the police of trespassers. I was in a bind. A man with "something about Silas never before seen" was to meet me at Silas' where we would get arrested and I had no way of getting in touch with him. Come Tuesday, I drove to Brasstown, parked at the locked gate to the Butts' farm, got out and sat on the hood of my jeep and waited for God knows what. At 2:15, a car drove up, the passenger window rolled down and an old man with a beard and cane asked me if I was having car trouble. When I assured him that I was not and that I was waiting on someone, he casually noted that he would just get out and look around at the farm. He told his driver to park the car. After a few minutes of casual and awkward chit-chat, the man stuck out his hand and quietly stated, "I'm Jim." "Jim" proceeded to check me for a gun as he assured me that he was not gay. I played along. We began to talk about many things. It seemed that we talked about most everything except Silas. Somewhere in this conversation, "Jim" came up with secret code names for us both. I will not include these names here because, as we agreed, they are secret. We were to use these names to contact each other. I got little out of Jim that day on the side of the road about Silas. I did learn a lot about cars, welding, Jim's deteriorating health, as well as where the buck-eye tree was on down the valley. What he did have to say about Silas was not flattering. He also informed me that I owed him $2 0. For what, I was not sure. I showed him the three dollars that I had on me but that did not suit him. Finally he got around to showing me what he had that had "never before been seen about Silas." He went back to the car, where his driver still sat patiently, and came back with a framed picture. He showed me. It had nothing to do with Silas. Then he proceeded to take the back off of the picture where a photograph was hidden. He showed me this old photograph of Silas and his wife drawing water from the well. This is what had "never before been seen." I did not have the heart to tell him that someone had given me a copy of the same photograph two days earlier. And with that, Jim said he would be in touch. I have to admit, the secret games were fun and I wondered what would happen next. Two days later, while I was building the bed for my dad's 1917 Model T, my dad found "Jim" banging on the side of his house with his cane. I had given the paper my parents' address. I said I was naive, not stupid. I looked up, and here came Jim, followed by my dad with a strange look on his face. Apparently, Jim would not speak to my dad. I guess this was because he didn't have a secret code name. After nervous chit-chat, I took Jim for a walk away from my dad. Jim had decided to sell me his information and the picture for an amount that I will not mention. I still couldn't tell him that I already had the picture. I told him that I would have to think about it. At that, he stopped dead in his tracks and started heading back to his car, where the same mysterious driver sat again. On the way, he informed me that I still owed him $20. I showed him the same three dollars in my pocket. At that point, "Jim" realized that he was getting no money from me and I realized that I had not changed my overalls in three days. I laughed with many people about the crazy stories they told about Silas. I almost cried with one woman though. Most people would not tell details about the "dark side" of Silas. Evelyn Walker did. She called one day and asked me if I wanted to know "the good or the bad." I asked if she would talk on tape and she humbly accepted. When I arrived, I sat v/ith her and her mother at the kitchen table. She was cautious but she proceeded to tell me stories of "the bad," including those of rape and abuse. Her mother sat quietly at the other end of the table. In the middle of the interview, I thanked her for telling me those kind of stories. With that, she offered me a glass of tea. I accepted. Ms. Walker made good tea. I realized that I had gained her trust. I first learned of Silas Butts listening to my own Granddaddy tell his stories, which are included in the following pages. What is not included is Grandmama's story. Grandmama was from London and had never met Silas but had heard many stories about him. So many that when she bumped into him downtown one day for the first time, she knew who he was immediately. Grandmama died before I sat down and recorded her story. The importance of time became evident to me as I sat down and interviewed these older citizens of Oconee County. Ten years ago, this thesis would have been easier to obtain information for and the outcome may very well have been different. Ten years from now, it could probably not be done. The other problem that many historians face is how much information is enough? Reluctantly, there are many people that I did not get to speak with. Many people, I know, have information but are unwilling to share it. There comes a time when one has to use just what he has and make what one can of it. Silas Butts left a legacy with Oconee County and far beyond. This is not, however, the history of Silas Butts. Rather, it is a look at his legacy and how local people remember him and what he did. Being born twenty four years after his death, I am not in the position to write a complete history of Silas' life. However, I am in the position to listen and create a synthesis about how people remember and retell the ever-present stories about Silas as well as the community itself. PREFACE Silas Noah Butts did something most people never accomplish. He created "a legacy," to such an extent that people still talk about him nearly fifty years after his death. Silas is known for being a mountain man in northern Oconee County who ran an orphanage, a grist mill and moonshine. He and his wife, Louisa, never had children of their own, yet they helped to raise as many as fifty "orphans." Silas built these children a one-room school on his farm and used the children to work his large farm in Brasstown Valley. Silas is known for his wit and humor which he displayed during his many trips into nearby towns. He is known to have been his own lawyer in court, despite his inability to read or write. There are many characteristics about this mountain man that, together, helped to create his legendary status that lingers even to today. However, not all recollections of Silas describe him as the humanitarian that he is often remembered as. Some recall that there was nothing good about the man at all and that he simply took in children because he needed farm hands. It is interesting, therefore, to take a closer look at how and why such differing opinions exist all these years after his death. It is also interesting to explore the fact that Silas' wife, Louisa Rholetter Butts, is often forgotten. In fact, many of those who retell these stories about Silas, never even knew that he was married. Louisa served an important role at the remote "orphanage" and why she is forgotten not only reveals details about her life, but inadvertently, illustrates how Silas used aspects of his life to promote his own legacy. Silas Butts is obviously of local interest but his legacy also serves a larger purpose. Silas' legacy represents a transition between the stereotypical uneducated mountaineer and the progressive, modern world outside of Appalachia. At a time when railroads and textile mills were creating towns along the border of Appalachia, Silas was able to use both worlds to his advantage. Also, at a time encompassing two World Wars and the economic hardships in between, Silas most likely never realized the shift that he has come to represent. In fact, whether he actually served as this transition or not is not the point. It is his legacy that, through hindsight, shows a man who becomes a truck farmer instead of a subsistence farmer and the overseer of an "orphanage" which serves his own needs as well as those of the community. SILAS NOAH BUTTS Silas Noah Butts, the "old man of the mountains," was born the tenth of thirteen children to Jacob and Mary Butts in 1880. Born and raised on the farm settled by his grandfather, Silas would eventually gain control of the farm and there raise his "adopted" children. Silas' character and personality help to illustrate why he was able to create a legacy that has lasted in Oconee County for nearly fifty years after his death. His humor and apparent "backwardness" helped to cause his fame but his underlying progressive ideas have also been part of his legacy. Silas Butts was, no doubt, an old, funny man who lived in the mountains. But he also serves as a transition between isolation, self-sufficiency and ignorance, and the new modern world outside of Appalachia with jobs and schools. Loyal Jones, an Appalachian historian, once described the characteristics of mountain life in the essay "Appalachian Values." He described ten general categories that help people to understand native mountaineers as a "compendium of the best qualities of the Appalachian people."1 Whereas "Appalachian Values" was not the initial recognition of these characteristics, the brief summary of each characteristic provided by Jones allows for easy comparison, especially with Silas. So who was this "old man from the mountains" who kept all these children up in the mountains? Almost everyone quickly remembers his voice. Johnny Ballenger and David Pitts, both from Oconee County, stated that Silas "talked real loud," and "Oh, by me, he hollered all over the mill hill!"2 James Nix, a mechanic in town, saw Silas in court once and remarked, "And he talked... He talked right, real loud-- keen like, you know. You could hear him, sitting right there, you could hear him. . . you knowed he was there."3 Silas' voice helped to gain him recognition, not just v/hen he was around, but among those who had never met him as well. John Bigham, a journalist who traveled up from Columbia to find Silas, remarked that he "wanted to hear his booming voice. His thunderous speech is one of the things responsible for his fame and Walhalla folks say that his presence in town is often - 1. Loyal Jones, Appalachian Values (Berea: Bcrea College Appalachian Center). 2. David Pitts and Johnny Ballenger, personal interview, 13 June 2003. 3. James Nix, personal interview, 13 June 2003. - advertised by the stentorian tones he employs even in ordinary conversation."4 It is interesting to note that when people retell these stories about Silas, everyone imitates his high pitch, loud voice when they come to something that Silas would say. Silas' voice is often remembered and associated with his involvement with politics. An article that appeared in 1990 reminisced that, "He took an active role in politics and with his distinctive voice, would heckle unmercifully candidates who did not meet his approval."5 An article at his death described this same scenario: Silas brought the roof down, figuratively speaking at more than one political speaking. He once told us he didn't believe in aggravating the speaker, "but it shore don't hurt to ask him some questions." It was almost natural to hear his voice asking some fellow he opposed "how you done this" or "how come you didn't do that"... and for the candidate he liked... "You're doin' all right, boy."6 Bigham learned of Silas' involvement in politics when he visited him in 1953 and wrote: Although he has never run for public office, he is a potent factor in county politics to the extent - 4. John Bigham, "Silas Butts: Oconee's Rugged Individualist," The Stale, 23 August 1953. 5. Lowell Ross, "A Legend of Brasstown," The Oconee Legend, 24 May 1990. 6. "Silas Butts, Adopted Father of Fifty, Passes," Keowee Courier, 29 August 1956. that candidates would rather have him as a friend than a foe. He talks loud and long, usually saying what he thinks and allowing the chips to fall where they may. As a result a lot of chips have fallen in many places.7 One of the characteristics that Jones describes is "patriotism." He writes, "We [Appalachian people] have an abiding interest in politics... we tend to relate personally to politicians who catch our fancy and appear trustworthy."8 Silas, particularly, left his impression at these political stump meetings. The pitch and volume of Silas' voice were not the only unique characteristics about his speech, it was often what he said. Several interviews revealed a byword that Silas often used. Each account was slightly different but included "Sha," "Sha' Hell," and "Sha-by- doe."9 People often included these bywords when quoting Silas in his high-pitched voice. Silas is also known for his wit and antics in the courtroom. Besides his appearances in court for moonshining, he appeared at the courthouse in Walhalla - 7. Bigham. 8. Jones. 9. Carlic Butts, A Man Colled Jake (Haverford: Infinity Publishing, 2002); Mack Lee, personal interview, 11 April 2002; Randolph Phillips, personal interview, June 2003. - once after fighting a man named Broadus Hare. Each filed charges against the other, Butts against Hare in July of 1948 and Hare against Butts in March of 1949. Each time, the newspapers were sure to note Silas' performance in the courtroom: The charges were filed by Silas Butts, Long Creek farmer and well-known Oconee county man. Mr. Butts' antics on the stand provided entertainment and amusement for the courtroom crowded with spectators.10 The next year, when Silas was on trial, the papers reported: Butts, charged with assault and battery against Nelson Hare, conducted his own case in a hearing which fairly rocked the courtroom with laughter all afternoon.11 Others present still remember Silas' appearance and performance in the courtroom on those days. David Pitts was there one of those days and explained: They was trying him for Assault and Battery with Aggravated Nature and Intent to Kill. And after they presented all the evidence and the witnesses testified... He [the judge] asked him [Silas] if he wanted to say anything. "Yes sir. I want to show you what that man done to me. He was trying to kill me instead..." He got down in [sic] the floor and rolled and tumbled and he said, "That man was bear- hugging me and trying to kill me. I wasn't trying to - 10. "Court Opens Busy Session Here Tuesday," Keowee Courier, 8 July 1948. 11. "Special Court," Keowee Courier, 10 March 1949. - kill him. He was the one that was trying to kill somebody." That court just hollered.12 James Nix was also in the courtroom during one of Silas' court appearances and remembers: Yeah, back in 19 and 49, I was in court on two murder cases and Silas had a case in court that same week. And what it was, was this... They had got in a fight sometime and this boy went into the service. And before they picked him up, the boy shipped out and went over seas. Well, after he come back, after he served his time over there and come back home, they picked him up you know because Silas had this warrant against him. I think assault and battery, attempt to kill, or whatever. Anyway, they got in the court and they was questioning him and he said the boy hit him in the head with an ax. So he had to show them that the... Got down and pulled his hair back and said, "You see there!" I don't even remember what they... What they ever did with the boy, whether they him time or what but you know I just happened to be there when all this motion went on.13 More than fifty years have passed since those two court cases but people still recall Silas' appearances in court. Silas' choosing to represent himself in court has definitely been one of his greatest claims to fame. It is almost always noted in articles about him, even in those that appeared before his death. John Bigham described, "On occasions Mr. Butts has had differences of opinion - 12. David Pitts and Johnny Ballenger, 13 June 2003. 13. James Nix, 13 June 2003. - with the law as represented by Oconee County. Scorning the services of an attorney at such times, Silas brilliantly argues his case with varying degrees of success."14 At Silas' death, one obituary remembered the time(s) when Silas acted as his own lawyer: Many recall one instance several years back where Silas was both a defendant and a plaintiff in one day. It seems some fellow in Westminster grew angry and whacked him on the head one day... and Silas, not one to back away, put in a few whacks himself. When court time arrived, both had sworn out warrants for the other. The other fellow was tried first with Silas taking the stand as the star witness. He was found guilty and then it was Silas' turn. He served as his own attorney, and so swayed the jury with his homemade legal terms that he came clear with jury hardly having to retire. His short stint in the attorney's role was perhaps his most memorable moment. He referred to it many times afterward... while grinning practically from ear to ear.15 Interestingly, the story at his death combined the two court sessions, did not mention the "other" fellow's name, and reported that Silas got off clean. This method of "remembering" is an example of why Silas is remembered so many years after his death. Another characteristic of Appalachian people explained by Jones is "Individualism, Self Reliance and - 14. Bigham. 15. "Silas Butts, Adopted Father of 50, Passes." - Pride." Silas' acting as his own lawyer fits this description. Jones writes, "the person who could not look after himself and his family was to be pitied." Jones tells the story of one old lady back in some hollow who became snowed in for weeks and the Red Cross volunteers finally got to her house to offer their assistance. When she learned that they were from the Red Cross she replied, "'Well, I don't believe I'm going to be able to help you'ns any this year. It's been a right hard winter.'"16 Obviously, mountain people, including Silas, figured that they could take care of themselves. One interesting characteristic about Silas is his dual personality between the "backwards," old, traditional mountain man and a very modern man for his time. Traditionalism is one characteristic often associated with the "mountaineer." One historian, Jack Weller, explains this in an essay entitled, "Introducing the Mountaineer." He explains that the mountaineer is "bound to the past in an amazing way... Mountain life, as it has continued in its more or less static way, has preserved the old traditions and ideas, even encouraged - 16. Jones - them."17 Weller uses two sets of words to set the mountaineer apart from the rest of American culture: progressive versus regressive, and "existence oriented" versus "improvement oriented." Silas is often termed "the old man of the mountains" and yet, he represents the progressive and improvement aspects of American culture as well. First of all, there is no doubt that Silas represents the romanticized view of a mountaineer. Silas was a moonshiner who could not read or write, living on land at the edge of Appalachia settled by his grandfather. His mountain, "backward" ways are often remembered in stories. For instance, one story that is often told about Silas that illustrates his humor as well as his isolation is best recalled by Dot Jackson, a local journalist and author, in an article in the Charlotte Observer: You know he used to take his boys and go down into Anderson selling produce. Well, he had never seen a traffic light. And they put some up in Anderson, and one day he came to town and he ran one. Well, a cop came after him and said, "say-- you just ran a red light." And Silas said, "Boys, lets get out and see what this man's a-talking about." So - 17. Jack Weller, "Introducing the Mountaineer," Appalachia: Its People, Heritage and Problems, ed. Frank S. Riddel (Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 1974), 43.44. - they looked under the car and all around, and finally Silas says, "We've not run over any light as I can see." And the cop says, "Oh, go on back up yonder where you come from." And let 'em go.18 Whether or not this is true and, whether or not Silas was playing dumb, is beside the point because this is how Silas is often remembered. Silas' traditional values are also characterized in a civil court dispute over property lines. A typed statement, crudely signed by "S. N. Butts" reads: I am the defendant in this action. I have promised to buy the land described in the complaint for $450.00 net to the plaintiffs. That is all or more than the place is worth. It is my father's and grand-father's old home place, and that is one reason that I am willing to pay that sum for it. It is [sic] was not for that I would not give that much for the place.19 Jones claims this to be another of "the best qualities of the Appalachian people" in what he calls "Love of Place." He writes, "It is one of the unifying values of mountain people, this attachment to one's place, and it is a great problem to those who urge mountaineers to find their destiny outside the mountains."20 Silas obviously - 18. Dot Jackson, "Orphanage Ran on Corn," The Charlotte Observer, 16 October 1974. 19. Mary T. Butts, et al. vs. Silas N. Butts, 1939. 20. Jones. - maintained a connection with the land as well as his traditional views associated with the family "home place." Silas was also noted for certain abilities in medicine, or as a healer. When John Bigham visited Louisa at the Butts' farm, he found Louisa "discussing among other things whether Mrs. Chastain, a boarder with the family, should visit the faith preacher and be healed of her rheumatism or risk it being "rubbed away" by Silas who possesses some reputation in the countryside as a man of medicine."2' Clem Smith remembers that, "He knew how to stop blood, draw fire and different things, cure the thrash on the baby and everything."22 Silas seemed to represent all that was characteristic of a "mountain man. " However, Silas was not all tradition, nor does he fit all the stereotypes that Weller and Jones describe. Silas supposedly had the second tractor in the area.23 In fact, one article described him as "no old-fashioned farmer in spite of his lingo and constant guffawing over - 21. Bigham. 22. Clem Smith, personal interview, 25 February 2003. 23. Ibid - 'these new-fangled notions.' He never allowed a mule or horse where a tractor would go."24 Reporter, John Bigham, picked up on Silas' modern twist in one of the pictures he took on his visit to Brasstown Valley. The captions read, "Note modern farm tractor. Silas once had a TV set but it kept the boys from their chores so he returned it to the dealer."21' A posthumous article reveals this same notion that: Silas believed in the modern way of doing things and this attitude was evident in the bountiful crops grown on the Butts' farm. In fact, Silas was among the first few farmers in upper Oconee to raise beef cattle on a sizable scale.26 These characteristics, along with Silas' short career in town working in the mill (as will be seen), and the schoolhouse that he built for his orphan children, portrays Silas as a progressive man instead of a man opposed to change. Silas' demeanor is another characteristic that is often remembered in many different ways. Usually, he is described as a kind and generous man. Obviously, people - 24. "Silas Butts, Adopted Father of 50, Passes." 25. Bigham. 26. Jerry Alexander, "Silas Butts Remembered as 'Old Man of the Mountains'," The Anderson Independent, 27 February 1968. - recall his generosity in taking in all the mountain children who needed a home, but, this is not the only generosity exemplified by Silas. Randolph Phillips, Silas' nephew, recalls, "He helped a lot of people. My wife's mother, they brought them food one time when they were about to starve to death, Silas did."27 This reflects yet another of Jones' characteristics: "Neighborliness and Hospitality." He explains that mountain people are "hospitable, quick to invite to you in and generous with the food." In essence, this is remembered of Silas in a very broad sense due to his hospitality portrayed by "taking in" the orphans. Also, an obituary noted, "of how he often helped people out financially, even paying bond to get the errant out of jail."28 Another recalled this same generous aspect, "if he thought there was merit to some defendant now and then, he wouldn't hesitate to post bond for him."29 It appears that Silas did just that for Calvin Blackwell, charged with Housebreaking, Larceny, etc. 27. Randolph Phillips, 12 June 2003. 28. "Silas Butts, Kindly Mountaineer Dies of Heart Attack Sunday," Seneca Journal and Tugalo Tribune, 29 August 1956. 29. "Silas Butts, Adopted Father of 50, Passes." Blackwell, however, did not show for court when his time came, and Silas was summoned to court. Blackwell had since been sentenced to seventeen years in jail in Georgia for another crime.30 No matter the case, Silas did post bond for Blackwell and this was remembered of Silas for years to come. One characteristic that Jones describes, "Modesty," is difficult to attach to Silas. A neighbor to Silas remembers, "If he [Silas] didn't like you, he'd tell you right quick."31 Jones claims that "there is little competition among mountaineers, except in... who has the best dog." The latter part, at least, seems to be true of Silas. A nephew to Silas told a story about a bear hunt in which everyone's smokehouse in the area had been broken into. So, the men of the community got together with all of their dogs. 0l' Silas said that bear whipped all them dogs. Said that his dog, said that "If they'd a-just let my dog in there," said that "we wouldn't of had to went no further than... My dog would have killed it, and dressed it and had it gutted and sliced up and... waiting on them when we got there."32 30. The State vs. S.N. Butts, 1952. 31. Clem Smith, 25 February 2003. 32. Randolph Phillips, 12 June 2003. Silas does not seem to be the type to withhold his thoughts on anyone or anything. Describing Silas Butts is not complete without mentioning his humor. Most of the stories that remain about him recount some amusing aspect of his personality. Johnny Ballenger remembers: Well they had waited about a day before Halloween and they had a little girl, Carol, and they hadn't bought her a pumpkin to make a jack-o- lantern. All the pumpkins was sold. And she said, "Well, let's go up to Silas'. If anybody's got one, Silas has got a pumpkin." It was on Sunday and she had come home and we all got in the car. She was still dressed like she went to church. Drove up there in the yard, Silas and his wife, three or four kids sitting on the front porch. She got out, Jerry did, and had on high heel shoes, walked about like from here to that tree out there going toward... Silas raised up, looked, and said, "Lord God woman, them shoes killing your feet?" He didn't speak, "How ya'll doing?," "I'm Silas Butts." Them high heeled shoes is what bothered him.33 Almost all casual encounters with Silas left people laughing about it for years. One well-known humorous incident concerning Silas was when word got out that he had drowned. John Bigham picked up on this story on his visit to the mountains to find Silas and wrote: There was the time when the radio reported that Silas had fallen in his millpond and drowned. Great - 33. David Pitts and Johnny Ballenger, 13 June 2003. - gloom fell upon the county and a truckload of flowers, a tribute from people in all walks of Oconee life, headed for the home in the hills. Silas had to literally live down the false report and later informed Enos Abott that "Don't you think I would have been the first one to know about it if I had been drowned?"34 As with many other stories, these illustrate the humor that is almost always present when stories are told of Silas Butts and helps to fuel his legacy. Jones describes "Sense of Humor" as the characteristic that "has sustained us [mountain people]." He writes: Sometimes the humor reflects hard times, like when a woman went to the governor to ask him to pardon her husband who was in the penitentiary. "What's he in for?" The Governor asked. "For stealing a ham." "Is he a good man?" "No, he's a mean man." "Is he a hard worker?" "No, he won't hardly work at all." "Well, why would you want a man like that pardoned?" "Well, Governor, we're out of ham."35 In many ways, the times were hard during Silas' life. His "hay day" involved two World Wars and the Great Depression, not to mention the poverty often associated with rural Appalachia. As Jones suggests though, it was humor that helped to sustain mountain people like Silas. 34. Bigham. 35. Jones. According to Jones, "one must understand the religion of mountaineers before he can begin to understand mountaineers."36 Not much is known about Silas' religious thoughts or practices. His neighbor, Clem Smith, told: And they's one thing about Silas, he carried them kids to church. He had a Ford pickup and he'd take, five, six, seven of them. One night, they's having a meeting up there and he drove plumb back down to Brasstown and left one of them laying on a bank asleep... They'd join every church they'd go to.37 Silas is buried at Damascus Baptist Church with his wife's family (Rholetter) instead of at the Butts family graveyard. Before he built his own school, the children attended school at the nearby Brasstown Church. If Jones is correct, then a certain understanding of Silas cannot be obtained due to the scarcity in information about his religious beliefs.38 Silas Butts was no ordinary man. Few people have left such an impression on people as to cause them to - 36. Ibid. 37. Clem Smith, 25 February 2003. 38. One interview did reveal a certain amount of information about Silas and religion but at the interviewee's request, the information is not included here. The insistence to exclude the information does reveal the seriousness associated, especially amongst the older generations of Oconee County, with personal religion. - recall stories of them time and time again. Silas had many traits that, when combined, created this impression. He was traditional in some respects, though in many ways, a very modern man. With a man such as Silas, legends often play an important role in how someone is remembered. LOUISA RHOLETTER BUTTS Louisa (pronounced Loo-eye-za) Rholetter married Silas Noah Butts in 1905. However, many of the people who know stories of Silas today do not know her name, can not remember it or never even knew that Silas was married. Louisa, however, served as the maternal role in their large adopted family, and as such, had a daunting task. Louisa, when remembered, does not carry the complex legacy that Silas' name holds. But, with what is remembered about Louisa, it is clear that without her, Silas would not have been the man he was, much less the man he is remembered or misremembered to be. Louisa's role at the mountain orphanage was complex and vital. The first thought that comes to mind is the food preparation that took place in a household of up to twenty five people. Several people recall certain details of the cooking that went on in the house. Randolph Phillips, their nephew, remembers: I can remember them a-cooking, and they cooked beans in a big ol' pot: a big ol' wash pot on the outside, especially in the summer time. I guess, because it would heat the house up or what not. You could smell those beans a-cooking. But I remember, they had a big stove in the house and he had a great big ol' long table. I think it was more or less boards put up. They had a fireplace at the end of the kitchen and they done a lot of cooking on that fireplace- just about most of it, I guess, except for the winter time. They'd crank that ol' stove up in the winter time, but they was so many kids, they probably cooked on both ends, you know. The best I can remember, I've eat in that kitchen many a-time because daddy would go there and get liquor because Silas made and sold liquor.39 Even with all the orphans to feed, a family as large as the Butts', as well as visitors, would probably account for extras at the table. Clem Smith vividly remembered eating with the Butts family as well, along with the cases of cornbread as big as a small table top.40 Years later, a nephew to Silas recalled: Silas killed half-a-dozen hogs at a time and the kitchen table of the Butts' home measured about 14 feet long. Cornbread was cooked in pans measuring a foot across and three inches deep. Four or five cows supplied the huge family with butter and milk. There was always plenty of food on the Butts' large "eating table.""1 It is easy to imagine the amount of food that was required to feed all of these people. It is not so easy to imagine, though, the amount of work required to be that self-sufficient for such a large number of people. 39. Randolph Phillips, 12 June 2003. 40. Clem Smith, 25 February 2003. 41. Alexander. Many people who remember the food preparation at the Butts' farm tend to remember these events near the end of Mrs. Butts' life. Louisa would then not have been the only cook for the "family." Barbara Haynes recalls that Pearle Sheppard would "cook the meal, but him [Silas] and his wife [Louisa] sat down and ' et first, and when they ' et, then all them kids came in and ' et."42 Evelyn Walker remembers their help as well. "She always had two or three women in the kitchen preparing the meal for everybody. And they fixed the meals after she told them what to fix," she recalled.43 All of these recollections come nearly fifty years after Silas and Louisa's death. Therefore, the people who still remember these instances are few, and naturally what they remember is when Silas and Louisa were old. And as Clem Smith pointed out, "She [Louisa] was a good cook before she got crippled up."44 Louisa's health hindered her from her kitchen duties in her older age. However, as Evelyn Walker pointed out, Louisa would still be in control of what was going on in her kitchen. 42. Barbara Haynes, personal interview, 19 April 2002. 43. Evelyn Walker, personal interview, 13 June 2003. 44. Clem Smith, 25 February 2003. Louisa's work went far beyond the kitchen, though. Claude Gaillard recalls that "she would take the boys and take them out to the field and work them. She would. Silas didn't do it. In other words, he was either selling whiskey, or making it."'15 When Evelyn Walker was questioned about this, she replied that "He [Silas] didn't do nothing."46 Louisa's position as a woman, responsible for many children in a remote Appalachian setting, may have required that she be in the fields with the children anyway, but the absence of Silas in these fields illustrates her extraordinary burden. This seems to be another factor that Silas used to his advantage and yet Silas is given more credit in bringing up all those "orphan" children than his wife. When John Bigham traveled from Columbia, South Carolina, to Brasstown to find Silas, he found Louisa as well. Bigham came because he had heard of Silas, not Louisa. His article in The State, however, speaks of Louisa in abundance. When Bigham arrived at the Butts' farm, Silas was not at home, which gave Bigham the opportunity to visit with Louisa. Bigham described her as - 45. Claude Gaillard, personal interview, 21 February 2003. 46. Evelyn Walker, 13 June 2003. - "a keen person of an intelligent nature and our visit interrupted some letter writing activity which she had been accomplishing without glasses although she is approaching 70 years of age." Further into his article, he acknowledged that "Luisa [sic] would not consent to pose [for a picture] until arrayed in her best dress and this was a signal for the boys to vanish indoors and emerge later with clean overalls on and hair slicked down to the scalps."47 This rare glance at Silas' wife reveals several interesting characteristics. First of all, unlike Silas, Louisa could obviously read and write. Her ability to do so is attested to in her neat and delicate handwriting that appears in court documents. Also, Bigham's article indicates that Louisa was a lady of pride and manners. Despite her ruffian husband and remote location, she felt it necessary to wear her best for the picture. One step further reveals that the children's notion of doing the same is reflective of her influence on their behavior and her role in their lives. As Evelyn Walker put it, "She [Louisa] went about the house looking after the kids, made sure they had clean clothes on, a bath, and that... That was just like her own kids to her - 47. Bigham. you know, 'cause she didn't have none."48 One can only wonder, though, if Silas had been home that day, how much would Bigham have written in his article about her? As mentioned above, Louisa is remembered to have been crippled, at least to some degree in her older age. Several people recall that, "Louisa was kind of crippled... She had something wrong with her legs. She limped when she walked,""19 and "She didn't never work too much, she's old when we lived down there. She got out and done what she could."50 Clem Smith attributed this to the fact that she "fell and broke her hip. She couldn't do much."51 It is unclear at what point she became crippled, but she did live until 1958, when she was 75 years of age. Louisa's maternal role in the hills of Oconee County, despite her unique situation in a make-shift orphanage, must not have been too unlike other women in the region. In the study, All We Knew Was to Farm: Rural Women in the Upcountry South, 1919-1941, Melissa Walker - 48. Evelyn Walker, 13 June 2003. 49. David Pitts and Johnny Ballenger, 13 June 2003. 50. Barbara Haynes, 19 April 2003. 51. Clem Smith, 25 February 2003. - looks into many characteristics that would have influenced Louisa's life. One example of the difficulties of their lives came from the shift many families experienced from subsistence farming to a participation in a market economy. Due to this shift, Walker notes that "While men were responsible for field work and large- scale livestock production for the market, women managed most of the farm's subsistence activities." She goes on to explain that in the upcountry South, "Men rarely assisted with tasks more clearly labeled 'women's work,' such as laundry and cooking, but farm women often assisted their husbands with field work, reflecting the high priority that commercial agricultural activities received."52 Louisa must therefore have been crucial to the maintenance of her home and "family." This shift from subsistence agriculture to market participation is evident in the Butts' lives in the number of recollections that remain in Oconee County about Silas' truck farming. Further evidence of this shift is seen in one specific court record, Piedmont Motor Company vs. S.N. Butts. It appears that Silas - 52. Melissa Walker, All We Knew Was to Farm: Rural Women in the Upcountry South, 1919-1941 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 22- 23. - appeared in court in 1926 due to the fact that he had not fully paid for a car he purchased in 1924. The total amount for the car was $321.20 The amount owed was $35.60.53 Melissa Walker notes that, "the drastic fall in farm prices after World War I ravaged the upcountry South's small farmers."54 However, twenty years later, Silas supposedly purchased $10,000 worth of War Bonds and at his death, his Probate Records show he still owned $5,000 in Government Bonds. Obviously, the Butts' financial stability improved over the years. This shift probably paralleled the shift from subsistence to market agriculture. There is no doubt that between liquor and produce sales, fueling as well as fueled by, a large family helped the finances of the Buttses. Melissa Walker goes on to explain the importance of women's roles, such as Louisa's, saying, "Women were primarily responsible for the complex, reciprocal support that had formed the basis for rural 'social services' for generations."55 Louisa seems to fit this description. With - 53. Piedmont Motor Company vs. S. N. Butts, 1926. 54. Melissa Walker, 35. 34. Ibid., 34. - land to farm, Louisa's "responsibility" in the community seems to have created her maternal role in her "family." Another technique used by women like Louisa during the inter-war years was the creation of boarding houses. Whereas the Butts' farm was not a direct profit-making "boarding house," the idea that the family had to do something to survive is similar. Melissa Walker provides several examples of families who created "low-capital" boarding houses and even "grew truck crops." She provides a fitting analysis when she writes: Not only was rural industrialization producing a mixed economy that provided new off-farm jobs for both men and women, but the collapse of the agricultural economy and government interventions to aid victims of that collapse were restructuring the region's agricultural system, pushing subsistence farmers into commercial agriculture or off the land.56 In this inter-war period with a changing economy, taking in children fulfilled the needs of others as well as the needs of Silas and Louisa. What little is remembered about Louisa is often quite the opposite of what is remembered about Silas' personality. When Barbara Haynes, who lived in one of Silas' tenant houses, was asked about Louisa, she - 56. Ibid., 70. - replied, "You know, I don't know anything about that lady. I just knowed she was an old lady. But she was sweet as she could be."57 Evelyn Walker, who had nothing good to say about Silas, recalled that Louisa Butts "was a good woman. Never done anything wrong."58 Randolph Phillips remembers her in Silas' shadow, much in the same way, saying, "When I was around, she had very little to say and I didn't really ever hear her say anything... She was old timey."51' However, John Bigham, reported that Louisa "turned out to be a good talker."60 This does not seem to match other descriptions of her. This could be for several reasons though. Was it because Silas was not home that day and she felt more at liberty to talk? Were the other people's descriptions of Louisa quietness just because they were children at the time? Was Louisa being her mannerly self with the reporter, as he also described? In any case, these descriptions describe the woman who was married to Silas Butts for fifty one years, yet they also describe a lady who seems to have been the - 57. Barbara Haynes, 19 April 2002. 58. Evelyn Walker, 13 June 2003. 59. Randolph Phillips, 12 June 2003. 60. Bigham. - opposite of Mr. Butts, and is therefore, not as remembered. Louisa Rholetter Butts lived less than two years after Silas died. In the Keowee Courier, her obituary was headlined, "Mrs. Silas Butts Taken By Death" and she was described as "a well known matron of the Long Creek community."61 It goes on to briefly mention the fact that she and Silas raised many children during their marriage. The obituary, however, is nowhere near the length of Silas' at his death, nor is it on the front page, as were many of Silas'. One power that Louisa would have been able to use, to a certain extent, against Silas, was brought up by Evelyn Walker. In her own words, she states, "But what he [Silas] done, was use the kids... the girls, a different one every night. And his wife caught him and they never had no children. She wouldn't sleep with him... She wouldn't do it."62 This places Louisa as a victim in her home, with very little control over the situation. Louisa Butts obviously played an important role in the Butts' adopted family. Her duties seemed to span from - 61. "Mrs. Silas Butts Taken By Death," Keowee Courier, 15 January 1958. 62. Evelyn Walker, 13 June 2003. - the kitchen, to the field, to entertaining unexpected guests. Whether or not this is cause for her to stand out from other women at that time is not the point. What can be gained from this is the fact that during her life, and ever since, she has remained in Silas' shadow, so much so that she is most often forgotten. Louisa seems to be another variable in Silas' life that, all together, gave him the opportunity to create a lasting impression on the Upstate of South Carolina and beyond, whether he is "mis- remembered" or not. However, with so little information about Louisa, who is to say that she too is not misremembered? EDUCATION Silas Noah Butts, a mountain man who could neither read nor write, somehow saw the need to educate the children who lived with him at his farm. What made him realize the importance of education? If the sole reason for his taking in all of the children who lived with him was working his farm in the Brasstown Valley, why would he insist that they obtain an education? His reasons for providing for their education may never be completely understood but a closer look at his school provides some help. A recent pictorial history, Images of America: Oconee County (1998), places Silas Butts on the pages following Thomas Green Clemson in a section entitled "Education and Institutions." The caption to his picture even reads, "Like Mr. Clemson, Silas Butts offered land and money in an effort to promote education among the hill people of the county."6"1 Comparing Silas' one-room school to Clemson College may seem exaggerated but - 63. Piper Peters Aheron, /mages of America: Oconee County (Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 1998), 63. - clearly illustrates that Silas has been seen as a humanitarian who worked for the good of the people. Spec Jameson, a former member of the Civilian Conservation Corps in Oconee County, remembers seeing Silas at the tax office once and recalls, ' I never seen so many tracks of land. He signed the line and all he was doing was putting an 'X' on it. He looked up at me, and he says, VI can't write,' but said, *I trust this man here, he's a good fellow.'"64 Later, obviously, Silas learned to crudely write his name as "S. N. Butt" in cursive writing since many court records have his signature on them. Someone obviously taught this to Silas. This shift illustrates that, for some reason, Silas realized the importance of writing, at least in learning to write his own name. Tom Smith, who lived with Silas for only two months, remembers that Silas Butts was insistent on two things: working the kids and making sure that they went to school.65 While, this does not help in discerning Silas' priorities between the two, it does suggest that the orphan children were not there merely to work for him. 64. Spec Jameson, personal interview, 12 June 2003. 65. Tom Smith, personal interview, 30 July 2003. Barbara Haynes, who lived with her family in one of Silas' tenant houses in the valley, also went to Silas' school which indicates that the school served more than just Silas' personal needs and those of his children.66 Mary Arve taught thirteen of Silas' children in a school of forty three children sometime between 1937 and 1938. This was at Brasstown Church, which also served as a school at that time. During the one year she taught there, she remembers, in her own words: [I] looked out into that crowd of children: - two sets of twins, in the first grade -two boys that were 16 and 17 years old, barefooted and in the first grade. They were Silas Butts' adopted children. I had 13 of his adopted children in that 43. And one morning, the water bucket just kept getting empty. It was a tin bucket, with a tin dipper in it. And I went back to the little girl that was sitting on the back bench, and asked her, "Nancy, what's going with the water?" And she said, "You better go to the spring and see." Well, I still didn't know what she was talking about, so I declared a recess and we all went down the path to the spring. And I looked over into the spring and there sat a half a gallon fruit jar, half full of whiskey. So, I poured it out in the road- in the path and we went back to the little one room school. And I couldn't get those big boys quieted down because they had been to the spring. And so I expelled them- thirteen of them, and carried them to the door and sent them on down the road and told them to go home.67 66. Barbara Haynes, 19 April 2002. 67. Mary Arvc, interview by Betty Plisco, 4 August 1992. If it was Silas' insistence that made them go to school, apparently and ironically, it was his liquor and moonshining profession that prevented them from going that day forward to Brasstown School. Later that same afternoon, after Silas found out what Mary Arve had done, he drove by, looking for the teacher on his way down to town. She recalled: He was going to Walhalla to get that ol' teacher fired. So, he went up, and the Superintendent of Education was a friend of mine, and he said, "I'll tell you what. You say you've got thirteen adopted children?" He [Silas] said, "Yeah, I got more than that but I got thirteen in school." And the superintendent told him that, "If you'll go back home, and saw you some lumber, and build you a schoolhouse, we'll furnish you a teacher." And so he went back home, sawed up the timbers, built the schoolhouse and its still standing up there- Silas Butts' schoolhouse.68 Silas' anger over what Mary Arve had done also illustrates his interesting devotion to the education of his "adopted" children. One of his lengthy obituaries recalled that, "In the days prior to the present school laws, Silas realized the value of reading, writing and 'rithmetic... Built a school for his 'chillun' and the county furnished a - 68. Ibid. - teacher. Silas served as the trustee, taking some of the time off being a progressive farmer, livestock grower, and truck farmer. "6:I This obituary presents the widely held view that Silas was an active and avid supporter of the children's education. But this still does not explain the juxtaposition between Silas, who could not read and write, and the need he saw for education. One obituary explains that "as a young man, he worked in the Oconee mill in Westminster, where both he and his wife, Louisa Rholetter Butts, were weavers."70 Another article, many years later, quoted a nephew as remembering, "lAs a young man Silas and his wife worked at Equinox mill in Anderson but Silas was just not cut out to be a mill man."71 Also, Jake and Cleo Gambrell recall that Cleo's father, Rev. King, taught Silas to weave when he came to work in the mill. Every time Silas saw Rev. King after that he would shout, "%Hey King, you the fellow that taught me how to weave checks!'"72 Perhaps, Silas' experiences living in town - 69. "Silas Butts, Adopted Father of 50, Passes." 70. "Silas Butts, Kindly Mountaineer Dies of Heart Attack Sunday." 71. Jerry Alexander. 72. Jake and Cleo Gambrell, personal interview, 13 June 2003. - before he took control of the family farm caused him to see the importance of education. Silas never forgot who had taught him to do his job in town. He gained control of the Butts Farm in Brasstown when his older brother, Jim, moved his family into the Walhalla mill village in 1915 where Jim operated the Walhalla Cotton Mill Elevators.7' Silas was therefore well aware of the world outside of his home nestled down in Brasstown Valley in the mountains, and perhaps this is what caused him to realize the importance of formal education. That is not to say that Silas Butts was not smart. He may not have been able to read or write, but he certainly had intelligence and understood things. Many newspapers, before and after his death, were quick to point out his knowledge despite his lack of formal education. In 1990, in an article published in a campaign newsletter for local elections, Silas was described this way: "Although Silas could neither read nor write, he demonstrated beyond a doubt that he was bright."74 In 1953, three years before his death, The State newspaper - 73. Aheron, 62. 74. Ross. - featured him in the magazine section. The article introduces Silas as, No statesman or politician is the bewildered Mr. Butts, nor is he in the ranks of education and religion. In fact, Silas can neither read nor write and in his 72 years of life in the hills he has exposed his own mental faculties to little or no book learning. Yet the man on the street in Seneca, Walhalla, or Westminster will inform you that this rugged man from the hills packs more brains and native common sense in his frosted cranium than 99 percent of the surrounding populace and that includes preachers, teachers, and business men.75 It seems, therefore, that despite Silas' lack of formal schooling, it was widely believed that he was a smart man. The historian Richard Drake points out that, the Appalachian region has strong anti- intellectual tradition... Yet it is true that the folkish, yeomanesque Appalachian often found little of value in the 'book learning' of the school, since what was emphasized at school had relatively little applicability to his real needs.76 Silas, a smart man himself, had seen and experienced the coming of the mills, been to town, and been to court. He saw and appreciated the value of this "book learning." Even today people remember Silas for his common sense notwithstanding his scant education. Clem Smith, a - 75. Bigham. 76. Richard Drake, A History of Appaluchia (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2001), 227. - neighbor and friend, remembers that "Silas was smart. He wasn't no man's fool." When asked if Silas could read or write, Mr. Smith responded with, "God no! He didn't know where he was at. But I'll tell you one thing, you couldn't beat him out of a penny. He know'd what it was all about." People often comment that Silas' crazy notions were the way in which he won people over. "Everybody thought Silas was crazy, but he was a smart man."7 The Butts family history indicated that "his wit and mountain ways often disturbed the most educated," and that Silas was "uneducated according to modern standards, but his wit and humor as a mountain man made up for this lack of schooling."78 An article in the Charlotte Observer nearly twenty years after his death described him much as Mr. Smith had done, as "nobody's fool... Not many folks with strings of degrees could run an orphanage-- of sorts --on produce and moonshine whiskey."79 Humor always plays into Silas public appearances as will be seen in his court "escapades." 77. Clem Smith, 25 February 2003. 78. Carlie Butts, Butts Generations, (Owensboro: Cook-McDowell Publications, 1981), 822-823. 79. Jackson. It seems that there were at least two teachers over the years at Silas' school: Mater Watkins and Laura Thrift. There are differing accounts as to how Silas paid a teacher and where she lived. Many say that the county provided a teacher whereas others say that Silas paid her out of his own pocket. Personal memories also differ as to whether she lived with Silas or boarded elsewhere. Gladys Elliott, who knew Mater Watkins, remembers, though, that, "Miss Mater Watkins was the teacher and she felt like it was a mission. Even though he paid her a small salary, she worked for that small salary because she wanted to help the children to learn."80 Watkins, who lived down in Westminster, felt the need to help the children up in the mountains. Others like Watkins, especially in town, would see Silas' efforts to educate as humanitarian, helping to justify his "orphanage" and his use of the kids on the farm. In terms of formal education, the need can be seen in Mary Arve's recollections of the year she taught at Brasstown school. The two boys mentioned above as being 16 and 17, barefooted, and in the first grade, also could not read at the time. Mary Arve remembered sitting on the - 80. Gladys Elliott, personal interview, 17 June 2003. - bench between them and making them take turns, back and forth, at trying to read.81 This is not to say that these boys were ignorant, just that in the eyes of organized schools, they seemed to need an education. Somehow, Silas saw this need as well. As with a great deal of the legacy that Silas Butts left in Oconee County, humor played a role in the children's education. Mary Arve decided that she would teach the children Literary Society on Friday afternoons and give them a lesson in public speaking. Friday afternoon came around and it was time for one of the same first-grade, barefooted boys to give his speech. "He walked up to the front of the room: flop, flop, flop, flop, flop and turned around and said, XI chew my tobacco, I spit my juice, I go to school, but it ain't no use!' Flop, flop, flop, flop and he went back and sat down."82 Where there is talk of anything related to Silas Butts, there is often humor. Appalachian historian, David Whistnant, writes of the Hindman Settlement School in Kentucky in his book All That is Native and Fine. At one point in the school's - 81. Mary Arve, 4 August 1992. 82. Ibid. - history, an old mountain man, strikingly similar to Silas in physical features, walked twenty-two miles to "implore the 'quare women' to start a school for his 'grands and greats.' His reasons, he explained, were: "When I was jest a chunk of a boy... And hoeing corn on the steep mountainside, I'd look up... And down... And wonder if anybody'd ever come in and larn us anything. But nobody ever come in, and nobody ever went out, and we jest growed up and never knowed nothin'. I never had a chanst to larn anything myself, but I got chillern and grandchillern just as bright as other folkses', and I want 'em to have a chanst."83 This man, Uncle Sol, was used as an icon for the school following his journey to see the ladies. Uncle Sol represented an internal realization among people in the mountains of the need for formal education. Like Uncle Sol, Silas too must have felt the need for this "chanst to larn." Whistnant goes on to explore the relationship that was created between the Hindman School and Uncle Sol and his popularity. Sol is described as "at once a recognizable cultural archetype and stereotype... A regional and national patriarch... An idealistic and progressive hillbilly, barefoot and ignorant himself, of - 83. David Whistnant, All That is Native and Fine (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983), 81 -82. - course, but properly ambitious for his multigenerational progeny." This sounds not too unlike Mr. Butts and his view of what he did for his "orphans." Uncle Sol understood the need for formal education "not as a result of painstaking historical, economic, social or cultural analysis but in the midst of one's essential innocence, guided and transformed by a miraculous vision."84 Whether this is true or not of Silas, it is what he is often remembered for, that same internal realization that his poor, orphan, mountain children needed to go to school. Other evidence of this same attitude towards the need for education in Appalachia is illustrated in the booklet Old Andy the Moonshiner. Written in 1909 by Martha Gielow, this short story recounts the fictional life of a Tennessee mountain man who, along with his wife, raises their granddaughter after her mother died during childbirth. Isolated and uneducated, Andy hears of a school and saves money earned from moonshining to send the young girl to school. It is the child's persuasion of the court in the end that saves Andy from going to jail when caught running moonshine. On the final page of the booklet, the author notes: 84. Ibid., 84-85. An unenlightened farmer who can not read knows little of the advantages of trade, and where there are no facilities for knowledge there can be no progress. Illiteracy in this enlightened age is a crime against humanity, and a shame to the nation. The high percentage of illiterate native born whites in the Appalachian mountains is a menace to the future welfare of this country. We give millions every year for foreign missions, millions for the education of emigrants and negroes. Let us give the same chance to these American children of the Nation.85 Gielow used this story to bring attention to the need for education in Appalachia. Andy, much like Silas, used the means available to him to support the education of the orphans. Historian Wilbur Miller notes this same practice in yet another case, writing that, One moonshiner, Samson, told a sympathetic reporter that he was not "making this whiskey to speculate on." Instead he was only making enough to buy books and shoes so his three children could attend school and "get a little taste of education."86 Obviously, people like Silas, Samson, and Uncle Sol from within Appalachia, as well as certain outsiders, like Martha Gielow and the women of the Hindman School, 85. Martha Gielow, Old Andy the Moonshiner (Washington D.C.: W.J. Roberts Company, 1909). 86. Wilbur Miller, Revemiers and Moonshiners: Enforcing Federal Liquor Law in the Mountain South, 1865-1900 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 29. - realized the importance of education for mountain children. Silas' school was not in operation all the years in which he ran his orphanage. When the reporter from Columbia traveled to the mountains to find the legendary- Silas Butts in 1953, he noted that, At one time Silas built a school for his children and hired a teacher to give them an elementary education. With some help from the county, he maintained this school for several years but today it is an abandoned building and the children attend public school in Westminster.87 Sending the children to school in town would also "mainstream" them into the modern society. When it became available to bus the children into town in order to go to school, it made Silas' efforts to make use of what he had to educate his children an even greater sign of generosity. When they were expelled from the school at Brasstown Church, Silas made sure they received an education even before it was readily available to them through the county. So what happened to the children after Silas' school? Spec Jameson tells that, "a lot of the kids, though, went through school there, and went on to the DAR - 87. Bigham. - [school] and finished and went to college."88 Barbara Haynes, who attended Silas' school during the 1940's, followed up her two or three years at his school by moving on to the Long Creek Academy.89 The Tamassee DAR School and the Long Creek Academy were established "for underprivileged children living in the mountainous areas of Oconee County." The Long Creek Academy, built by the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1914, "operated as a grammar school and high school and also offered Bible and missions courses." After eventually becoming a private school, the Academy closed in 1956.90 Martha Gielow, author of Old Andy the Moonshiner, was influential in the creation of the Tamassee DAR school. In a conference of the South Carolina Daughters of the American Revolution in 1914, she spoke "most feelingly of the needs of these Saxon-Americans and urged the South Carolina Daughters to do all possible to help educate and uplift these worthy people." The selection of - 88. Spec Jameson, 12 June 2003. 89. Barbara Haynes, 19 April 2002. 90. Oconee Historical Society, Historic Sites of Oconee County, S.C., 1991. Tamassee as the site for the new school encompassed several reasons, including: The great need for such a school in this immediate section is emphasized by the pitiable condition of the neighboring district schools - short term, one teacher sessions held in one-room, delapitated [sic] buildings. These children are eager but have no opportunities. Their outlook is barren and the future holds nothing for girls of this class except heavy field work or the cotton mill. Their ignorance of housekeeping, cooking, caring for the sick is appalling. The only hope for community betterment and the uplift of this class is through the children. These mountain children living at the foot of the Blue Ridge are waiting for the glow of education to brighten their darkened horizons. Their fathers and mothers have expressed their willingness to help and co-operate with this school in every possible way.91 Even before Silas' school, there was a recognition of the need for education in the mountains of Oconee County. The idea that Silas wanted his kids to be educated and even the humorous stories remembered by Mary Arve provide a quaint and romanticized view of a one-room schoolhouse in the mountains. However, realistically, this is not all that is remembered. Evelyn Walker, who lived with her grandmother in one of Silas' tenant houses and later married a man raised by Silas, remembers - 91. Grace Ward Calhoun, Tamassee's First Decade: 1914-1924. - another side of Silas Butts' legacy and the community in Brasstown Valley. Evelyn Walker recalls that as her future husband was pulling his younger sister home from school one day, two of Silas' boys "took her out of the wagon, up in the wooded area, and they raped her and from that day forward, she never took another step. It crippled her for life."92 Mary Arve also recalled another story that was funny to her nearly sixty years later, but not at the time: One day, two boys were out fighting at recess with knives. I always carried my lunch on Monday morning, enough to do me a whole week and I hid it in the organ. And I marched the children out and then I went to the organ and ate my lunch. I was eating lunch and I heard this awful hollering out in the yard and I went out and it was two boys- big boys, fighting with knives. And I went out and took them away from them- wouldn't do it now for anything- and one of them said, "We can't do anything to you and we know we can't do anything to you. Silas got us from Clayton, Georgia, out of jail, for throwing rocks at women. And we know we can't bother you. But we've got a sister at home, and we'll bring her tomorrow and she'll get you. She tried to commit suicide yesterday by jumping in the lake, and we got her out. And we'll bring her tomorrow and she'll get you." But, I didn't sleep much that night but she didn't come the next day, thank goodness.93 92. Evelyn Walker, 13 June 2003. 93. Mary Arve, 4 August 1992. These stories suggest a far different side of living and going to school in the mountains than the attitudes portrayed in the newspapers. However, it could be instances like these that the formal education was hoping to prevent. Silas Butts served as a transition between his own generation, which was uneducated by schools, and the children that he raised in a modern society tearing at the isolation known to previous generations of mountain people. Before they were able to be bussed into town and after Mary Arve had expelled them for drunkenness, Silas built his own school to provide this education. Perhaps it was his experiences outside of his home in the remote Brasstown Valley, or something within him, like Uncle Sol, but nevertheless, he made sure that his "adopted" children received "the things the old man had never had a chance to learn himself."94 94. Silas Butts, Kindly Mountaineer Dies of Heart Attack Sunday." MOONSHINING Silas Butts is most notorious and best remembered for making and selling liquor. In fact, as one newspaper article suggests, "Orphanage Ran on Corn," Silas' liquor sales supported his "homemade" orphanage. Living in the mountains, but not too far from town to travel to and fro, Silas had many customers. They would travel to him and he would go to them, usually under the pretext of selling his farm produce. Stories remain, even fifty years later, of how he made and sold liquor, got caught doing it, and ended up in court. First, and naturally, Silas' act of making moonshine and selling it is what people remember. Jake Gambrell, who was scared of Silas as a little boy, remembers: Another time some doctor had prescribed some corn whiskey to somebody [who] was sick and need something to stimulate the heart. And Harold Richardson and his uncle didn't know of nobody that had any pure corn liquor but Silas Butts. Silas, up there in them mountains, to support these orphanage children, and he made liquor. He had about two or three stills scattered around over the mountains. So the revenue officers found one, they wanted to put him out of business. A lot of people would go to Silas to buy whiskey and the revenue officers sort of found out how they did it. So they'd dress up like a beggar and go up there and want to buy half a gallon or gallon of corn whiskey. Then when he'd come out with it, he'd show him his badge and carry him- make him pay a fine or put him in jail. So when Richardson and his uncle got there, they was in a buggy, and they called him out and told him what they wanted. They wanted... I think it was a quart of corn whiskey. "Ahh fellows, just hitch your mule and sit here and take it easy and I'll see you again after a while." And he went around through the woods and he was going to watch them and see what they done. And he went over yonder and they saw him crawling on his all-fours through the woods, looking back toward the house. And he see'd they was just going to sit there in the buggy 'til he got back, and so he figured that wasn't nobody was going to turn him in. He got them whiskey and come back and let them have it.95 This mistrust and caution was a common characteristic amongst moonshiners. Historian Wilbur Miller lists several unique ways in which blockaders could and did reach their customers including hollow trees, ringing a bell and even freshly cut branches lying on the ground and pointed in the direction of the liquor. Miller comments that "such marketing of course depended on local people's trust of each other."96 Silas is remembered as implementing several of these clever business maneuvers including leaving cash for liquor under the stop-sign post at the junction of Brasstown Road and Highway 76.97 Ironically, Silas' school also sat - 95. Jake and Clco Gambrcll, 13 June 2003. 96. Wilbur Miller, 34. 97. Jack Freeman, personal interview, 18 April 2002. - at this junction. Another option for Silas, though, was to use his kids. Johnny Ballenger recalls: 01' Ken Abies, he wanted to go up there one time. He wanted some Apple Brandy. He said if anybody's got it, Silas Butts will have some. I run around with Ken a good bit back then and me and him went up there. And he asked Silas, he said, "Silas, I want some Apple Brandy, you got any?" "Aw yeah." And he called one of them boys, "Go up on the side of that mountain, you know where that certain log is up there? Scratch them leaves back on the upper side and bring him a quart."98 Silas, along with many moonshiners, used their common sense and knowledge of their surroundings when using caution in order to not get caught and therefore stay in business. For a while, Silas would also have had customers from the men at the Civilian Conservation Corps camp, which was nearby. The CCC built the road that passed immediately in front of Silas' house and down through the valley in 1935. Spec Jameson, working for the CCC, remembers sitting and drinking with Silas until nearly midnight at the lake behind the mill. Then he would either have to walk back or have a ride back to the camp." Claude Buff, while surveying timber, stumbled - 98. David Pitts and Johnny Ballenger, 13 June 2003. 99. Spec Jameson, 12 June 2003. - across a hidden keg of whiskey. Later, he and another man stashed it in the rumble seat of a 1928 A Model to transport it to the CCC camp. Nearly sixty five years later, Mr. Buff remembers, "Mister, that was the best liquor I ever tasted in my life. It didn't last too long because we was freely giving drinks away."100 Whether or not this whiskey was Silas', it does show that Silas had customers, and plenty of them. The neighbor and friend to Silas, Clem Smith, remembered going to Silas' for liquor with his brother- in-law many times: Silas would be in the bed, if he wanted it good, he'd reach over here and get a jug [to his right], if you wanted just regular liquor, it'd be over here [to his left]. And be able to make change, he'd reach over here- different sizes of money. Never get out of bed and do business like that, I seen it happen. Many times.101 This does not reflect the caution that Wilbur Miller notes was characteristic of moonshiners. Having different qualities within reach of the bed shows a calm and relaxing business of someone not worried about raids or getting caught. The time span between such occurrences could be the cause of this as to the fact that everyone - 100. Claude Buff, personal interview, 7 March 2003. 101. Clem Smith, 25 February 2003. - eventually knew that Silas made and sold liquor, so why bother? Validity of stories could also be cause of this difference. However, the fact remains that Silas made and sold liquor, and like other moonshiners, found unusual ways of selling it, ways which fuel stories of his character and behavior even until today. Running one's own corn mill and owning several hundred acres of bottom land was sufficient to supply one with enough corn to make liquor. However, sugar was not so readily available, especially during World War II. During the war, one obituary recalls, Silas is remembered for his "generosity and patriotism" because "during a rally in Walhalla one night... He bought $10,000 worth of war bonds."102 Another article at his death remembered this same act with, "Silas is attested to by the fact that during World War II he purchased in a lump $10,000 worth of war bonds." The article stated that Silas "pridefully pointed out 'I had boys a-fightin' all over the world.'"103 His Probate Records allow for this to be true in that he still had $5,000 in Government Bonds when - 102. "Silas Butts, Kindly Mountaineer Dies of Heart Attack Sunday." 103. "Silas Butts, Adopted Father of 50, Passes." - he died.104 However, it may not have been complete "generosity and patriotism" that made Silas buy all these war bonds. Johnny Ballenger explains: Back during the war, the Second World War, there wasn't no such thing as buying sugar. And they was wanting to sell war bonds to help the war along you know. So up there at Mack's Chevrolet in Westminster, someway or another, some of them got a hold of several hundred pounds of sugar. And they was going to have a sale... a war bond sale down there at the Chevrolet place and the one that bought the most bonds, got the sugar free. And Silas got it.105 Gladys Elliott, as a young girl living in town, recalled that they would allow an army jeep ride to those who bought these bonds in town. Silas, not caring to take the ride, would pass the opportunity on to one of the boys or girls present. Ruth Hardy was one who got to ride because of Silas' generosity and she always remembered that Silas had done that for her.106 But Silas obviously had other things on his mind that day. The amount of money he spent leads to the understanding that he was not in it completely for the sugar. Would that amount of sugar bring him more than he paid for the bonds, even after - 104. "Inventory and Appraisement of Personal Property of Silas Butts Deceased," 1956. 105. David Pitts and Johnny Ballenger, 13 June 2003. 106. Gladys Elliott, 17 June 2003. - their trade-in value? Or was he there to sincerely support the government- the same government that would try to stop him from "using" the sugar? Or was it a combination of both: giving the public the notion that he cared and fueling his future obituary as well as getting the sugar for his mash? Perhaps the best known and often repeated story about Silas Butts is of how he sold his liquor in town. There are probably as many versions of this story as there are people who tell it. Basically, Silas would travel the streets in one of the towns in the county, often in a mill village, and holler in his keen, high pitched voice, "Corn, Cabbage, Beans... and Good Corn Liquor!"107 Miller writes of this same sales pitch, "Other wildcatters marketed their product directly from their wagon, usually hiding the liquor under apples or other produce, to customers in valley towns or to drovers who passed by on the way to market."108 Whether people believed him or not, whether they laughed at him or not, and whether he sold great amounts of his liquor this way - 107. Jake and Cleo Gambrell, 13 June 2003. 108. Miller, 35. - or not, this method of selling his liquor is, by far, the most remembered tale of Silas Butts and his moonshining. Most stories of Silas and his moonshining activities are of him selling liquor, but one story surfaced about Silas buying liquor. Randolph Phillips, a great nephew to Silas, recalls a time when Silas bought a truckload of liquor from a man out of Tennessee. One can almost hear the high pitched voice of Silas bargaining over an entire truckload of liquor. The man from Tennessee opens the truck, and pulls out a jar to let Silas sample the whiskey from out of state. Silas, impressed, buys the entire truckload from the man, real cheap. A few days later, Silas goes to the liquor that he purchased only to discover that it is all water except for the little bit that he had sampled. "01' Silas was mad," Silas' nephew recalled. "Man, he was mad. He had done got ripped off."109 As luck would have it though, Silas himself got caught from time to time. James Nix, from down in Seneca, recalled another infamous story about Silas: One time... Silas was downtown and at that time, Sam Hunnicutt was the sheriff, and I believe Seab Moss was his chief deputy. And they run into 109. Randolph Phillips, 12 June 2003. Silas... [and] said, "Silas, we cut your still this morning." And he said, "Where at?" And he said, "At the end of your garden." He said, "Which end?" So they'll go back up there and they'd cut another one on the other end. So he had two stills working.110 Yet again, it is Silas' wit and humor that are remembered as well as his nonchalant attitude concerning his illegal stills. It is important, though, to explore a little bit about the two law officers mentioned above. Sam N. Hunnicutt, affectionately known in the community as "Mr. Sam," and his chief deputy, Seaborn [Seab] Moss, are recalled as friendly and personable law officers not too unlike those portrayed by Andy Taylor and Barney Fife in The Andy Griffith Show. At the death of Mr. Sam, his obituary explained it as "one of the final vestiges of a era when Oconee politics were robust, colorful, and warmly personalized."111 Memories from older folks in Oconee County, and the imaginations of those younger, recreate the scenes on the streets of town. Thus, on the same streets on which an old mountaineer was selling corn and corn liquor, Mr. Sam - 110. James Nix, 13 June 2003. 111. "A Political Era Fades At Passing of Mr. Sam," Keowee Courier, 22 July 1959. - could be seen walking with his trademark "diamond stickpin and broad-brimmed western style hat." As he passed a lady walking down the sidewalk, he would "sweep off his big hat, bow his head perceptibly, and greet her as 'little lady'." As he continued down the street, he might stick his head in someone's door and ask, "vHas anybody seed Seab?'"112 Mr. Sam, as well as Seab, obviously left an impression among the people of Oconee County. On the twelfth of August, 1937, the Keowee Courier reported the following story: Officers S. V. Rackley and L. P. Sanders cut down a forty gallon moonshine still in the Battle Creek section on Wednesday night. Arrested four; three men for having illegal liquor in possession and confiscated a pick-up truck-- this happened on Brasstown road. Arrested one drunk driver and six drunks; arrested three under warrants.113 The three arrested under warrants were Ed Swafford, John Derrick, and S. N. Butts.114 It seems that Silas had been caught. When this trial came around during General Sessions Court in November of that same year, a true bill was - 112. Ibid. 113. "Rural Police Raid Another Distillery," Keowee Courier, 12 August 1937. 114. The State vs. Silas Butts, "Arrest Warrant and Affidavit," 1937. - given for Silas and John Derrick but not Ed Swafford. Witnesses sworn for the State were the two arresting officers and Seaborn Moss. Silas and John Derrick were not represented by counsel. The verdict was: "Both guilty of having in possession. Not guilty of transporting." And "the sentence of the court is that the Defendants, John Derrick and SN Butts, each be confined upon the Public Works of Oconee County, or in the State Penitentiary, at hard labor for a term of 3 0 days, or pay a fine of $200. "115 But, Silas, who never separated his personal life from his "business," was not through yet. In March of 1938, a letter was sent to "His Excellency Governor Olin D. Johnston" petitioning in favor of Silas Butts. It read: ...the undersigned citizens of Oconee County are well acquainted with the defendant, Silas Butts, and believe that on account of his advanced age and the feeble condition of his health, and knowing that his supervision is badly needed at this time on his farm, and over the fifteen orphan children he has been caring for, and who reside at his home, we respectfully petition Your Excellency to grant to the said Silas N. Butts clemency to the extent of releasing him from the sentence imposed and the subsequent bond. The letter was signed by eleven men, including the Superintendent of Education, the County Supervisor, the - 115. The State vs. John Derrick & SN Butts, 1937. Magistrate, the Judge of Probate, Sam Hunnicutt, and Seab Moss.116 Along with this letter, two notes, one from Wm. A. Strickland, M.D. and the other from Dr. F. T. Simpson, v/ere sent to the Governor stating that Silas was ruptured on his left side and had several ribs broken which would hinder him from doing hard labor.117 Another letter was also sent to the Governor of South Carolina from Rufus Fant, Solicitor of the Tenth Circuit, in which he stated: I understand these parties are petitioning for clemency and that a number of prominent citizens of Oconee County have recommended clemency. It will be satisfactory with me for you to suspend their sentences upon payment of $2 5.00, - that is, payment of $25.00 by each defendant.118 As a result, Governor Johnston released the two men for a fine of $25.00 each.119 So why the change of heart? Seab Moss had been a sworn witness against Silas and yet he signed the petition to release Silas. The answer may be found in yet another tale that is often repeated, with many versions. Spec Jameson told it as follows: 116. W.C. Hutchinson, et aL, letter to Governor Olin D. Johnston, 15 March 1938. 117. Wm. A. Strickland, letter to Whom It May Concern, 9 March 1938; F. T. Simpson, letter to Whom It May Concern, 13 March 1938. 118. Rufus Fant, letter to the Governor Olin D. Johnston, 17 March 1938. 119. Olin D. Johnston, letter to G. W. Shirley, 19 March 1938. They had him [Silas] up for selling whiskey. And he come to the courthouse in Walhalla. So, the old judge told him, he said, "Silas, you've been down here so many times, I'm going to have to give you a little time this time." He said, "OK judge," he said, "I'll have to go home and get my kids straightened out." He said, "Well you go home and do that." And when he come back he had all his kids and set them right on the front seat and he said, "Now, kids" he said, "this judge is going to send me away awhile but he's going to take care of you so you be good." He said, "Silas, you take them kids and go back home."120 Silas' humor and keen wit shines front and foremost yet again. Seeing as how the petition to the Governor mentions an exact number of children living with Silas, it is very possible that this tale corresponds with this court case. The petition does clearly illustrate a network that Silas created. This provides yet another variable to the question: Why did Silas take in all of these children? All aspects of his life intertwined together and created who he was. In essence, the Superintendent of Education signed a petition for Silas to be forgiven for moonshining because of his unofficial orphanage and humor in court. Silas knew this and he used it to his advantage. He was, in short, "no man's fool."121 120. Spec Jameson, 12 June 2003. 121. There are many references to Silas appearing in court for moonshining other than this case in 1937. The Walhalla court records only provide this criminal court case and his Assault and Battery case in the late 1940s. Ray Gambrell remembers As Wilbur Miller points out in his study of moonshiners, letting Silas slide for running the orphanage would not have been too uncommon, especially in a small tight-knit community where everyone knew everything about everybody's affairs. He notes the case of a woman who "confessed that she had been moonshining for several years, but the revenuers let her go because she had a small baby with her."122 In the courtroom scenario, Miller also points out other obstacles to convicting moonshiners since "When moonshiners were arrested, sympathy continued to provide allies. It was very difficult to find men to serve on federal juries who were willing to indict or convict blockaders."123 Another story that arose about Silas' court appearances for Violation of the Liquor Law was told by Clem Smith. According to Clem Smith: They caught him at his liquor still one time, and carried him to Walhalla and trying him in court. Old judge says, "Mr. Butts, I'm gonna fine you five hundred dollars." He had a bunch of them kids with him. And he hit the floor and just moaning and roaning. And the judge told him, says, "Mr. Butts, - Seeing Silas Butts on the Chain Gang building roads in the 1920s. Other interviews mention that Silas may have been tried in other courts besides Walhalla but this remains uncertain. 122. Miller, 36. 123. Ibid., 51. - get up." Says, "I'm gonna fine you three hundred dollars." And back to the floor he went. Next time he come to the stand, judge said, "How much can you pay?" He said, "Sha' I can pay two hundred dollars." He reached down in his overall's pocket and come out with a roll of hundred dollar bills. Judge says, "I thought you couldn't pay?" "Sha'!" and then [he] got out with two hundred dollars.124 Miller also notes the humor of many moonshiners in their court appearances. One moonshiner, he observes, "appeared in federal court many times between the 1870s and 1890; at first he was acquitted because his wit and repartee won over both judge and jury. Once Judge Dick told Owens that he had given the court "lots of trouble," to which the sprightly Irishman replied, "This hyar court's give me lots of trouble too."125 Assuming that these stories and the stories about Silas are true, Silas played on the same sentiments and made the same pleas that Miller mentions in order to reduce his sentence. Silas Butts made and sold liquor. He also got caught for making liquor. But he somehow managed to get his punishment reduced, proving thereby his sharp mind and his social abilities. He made use of time, setting, - 124. Clem Smith, 25 February 2003 125. Miller, 50. - people, and humor to win the community over. All of this came from a mountain man with no formal education. ORPHANAGE Silas Butts raised no children of his own. However, his front-page obituary recalls him as an "Adopted Father of 50. "126 Silas took in children, and even some adults, and treated (or used) them as his own family. The main question, though, is why did he do this? Was it because he actually cared for these children? Or was it because he had no children of his own but needed hands to work his bottom lands at Brasstown? Why did he have no children of his own? Or did he? Silas would take in children from wherever he could get them. Mary Arve commented that "he got a lot of them in Clayton [Georgia]." Silas' farm is not far from the Georgia line, and as one progresses up Highway 76, Clayton is the first town across the state line. According to Mary Arve, two boys told her that "Silas got us from Clayton, Georgia, out of jail, for throwing rocks at women."12' This suggests that Silas was giving them a home and another chance. But - 126. "Silas Butts, Adopted Father of 50, Passes." 127. Mary Arve, 4 August 1992. - was he out looking for children for field hands or did he take them in because they needed him? One young boy, Tom Smith, living in town as the only child of a lady working in the mill, found himself going up the mountain one day with Silas and his wife, Louisa, to live at Brasstown. Tom remembers not being scared at the time. Silas had learned of Tom during one of his trips to town to sell vegetables, and more than likely, liquor. However, Tom remembers running away from the farm several times over the next few months and eventually, Silas took him back down the mountain to his mother.128 Another time, Johnny Ballenger recalled that he always saw a young boy standing on the side of the road on their way to Westminster. He was an Anderson, that's who he was. Little ol' boy about five, six, maybe seven years old. Every time we'd go up through there, he'd be standing on the side of the road. He'd catch the v/agon and swing on the coupling pole. . . Coupling pole sticking out and ride to town. And Silas got him.129 Silas just seemed to get them when and where he could. One newspaper article included the word "handicapped" - 128. Tom Smith, 30 July 2003. 129. David Pitts and Johnny Ballenger, 13 June 2003. - when describing some of the children that he raised.131" Depending on the degree of their handicap, this would tip the scale towards Silas' humanitarian character rather than the mere need for farm hands. Many stories remain to this day of Silas threatening to take little children for some reason or another. He would either joke with their parents or threaten to take them if they did not behave. Gladys Elliott tells one of these stories: My dad and my little twin sisters, who were about ten at the time, were in Westminster and Mr. Silas Butts came up to daddy and asked if he would like to have him take his little twins and it scared them. They thought he really was going to get them.131 Other stories, very similar to this one, are also still told all these years later. Johnny Ballenger told of Silas asking for a boy named Floyd: Floyd said him and his daddy was up town there and Silas come along up the street. And he didn't make no difference who it was. He looked over and seen that he was a little boy and looked at him and said- told his daddy, said, "Give me that boy!" Said he liked to have scared him to death. He just knowed his dad was going to give him away. But he would, everybody that come along there, if they had a little boy, "Give me that boy!"132 130. "Silas Butts Dies At 76." 131. Gladys Elliott, 17 June 2003. 132. David Pitts and Johnny Ballenger, 13 June 2003. Even Mary Arve, who had taught Silas' "adopted" children when she was fresh out of college, recalled Silas asking her if she wanted to get rid of her grandson many years later. Mary Arve also sold insurance, and as Silas sat on her front porch one day waiting for her to fill out papers, he saw the young boy in the yard and simply asked if he could have him.133 These children that Silas asked for are often who keep these stories alive. The stories are often told as if Silas was speaking in jest, but as with Tom Smith, would Silas turn down someone willing to send their child home with him? Ray and Jake Gambrell remember as very small children, nearly 85 years ago, Silas riding by on his mule. My first recollection of him [Silas] was when I was about four years old. It was always said around there that he would get bad boys and throw them in a sack, and put a rock in it, and throw them in the river and drown them if they were bad boys. Of course, we as young boys didn't know how bad he was. So, one day when I was four years old, he came down the road, riding his mule with a sack tied around the neck of the mule, and something hanging down. We were afraid of him, because we had heard what he would do to us. So Jake, my older brother, was two years older than I was and I was four, was wrestling with me in the yard. And we looked down the road, and saw this man coming with a mule, and a sack - 133. Mary Arve, 4 August 1992. - around his neck. We knew he was Silas Butts and we were afraid of him. So, there wasn't time to get in the house, they were tall steps. We lived in the Sam Brown Dairy Barn House; at that time we owned that. And we ran around under the steps and hid and watched him pass. And our mother came out on the porch and says, "What on Earth is the matter with you boys?" We said "Sila' Butts' coming." I couldn't even say "Silas." I said, "Sila' Butts' coming! Sila' Butts' coming! And we're hiding from him."134 Jake continues with: And he [Silas] hollered, "Ms. Gambrell, them boys don't quit that fighting up there, I'll take this Croker Sack I'm sitting on, put them in it and tie a rock to it and I'll throw them in the river when I go across over yonder." Shooo Boy! One of us went one way and the other, the other way. It tickled Mama. And he went on.135 These boys were scared of Silas. But how did they know about Silas and his children? Jake and Ray's story ends with another common characteristic of Silas' orphanage and that was the ability of children's parents to use Silas as a threat. Jake concluded with, "And every time me and Ray would get into it about something or another, she'd tell me, 'I'm going to give you to Silas Butts.' Boy, that would settle - 134. Ray Gambrell, personal interview, 21 February 2003. 135. Jake and Cleo Gambrell, 13 June 2003. - it right there."136 Randolph Phillips remembers this same fear: We was afraid of Silas because anything we would do, they'd holler, "We're going to give you to Silas Butts." And it scared us to death. They said, "Here come Silas." I must have been about three years old, or four. And I run slap off of the end of the porch and liked to have broke my neck. I was running because Silas was a coming.137 The Charlotte Observer mentioned this same threat in an article when they quoted someone saying, "My mama used to tell us, 'You be good or Silas Butts gon' gitchee.'"138 Silas Butts and his orphanage left an impression among more than just the children that he raised. Silas Butts' orphanage, however, is often referred to as "unofficial." Shortly after Silas death, James Lawing sent a letter to Judge of Probate. Lawing was, at the time, serving time in the State Penitentiary but knew of Silas death. In the letter, it stated, "Being the adopted son of Silas Butts by legal adoption, I presumed that by law I would be considered his nearest of kin, excepting of course, his wife, Louisa Butts, in the - 136 Ibid. 137. Randolph Phillips, 12 June 2003. 138. Jackson. - distribution of the deceased said Estate."139 However, a letter was sent back to Mr. Lawing from the Judge of Probate, and in it was written: ...Please be advised that the County Attorney has carefully checked all the records here in the Oconee County Court house and has failed to find that you were ever legally adopted by the late Silas L. Butts [sic] . In fact the matter is, he made a second search just to be sure and certain after we received your letter. Mr. John M. Schofield, who represented you, was contacted and he stated that you were never legally adopted by a Court Order. I am sorry to inform you that you are not a legal heir so you will not come in for a share of his Estate.140 It appears that since Mr. Schofield knew that James Lawing was not legally adopted, James Lawing was not under the impression that he really was. But, this letter illustrates the "unofficial" description often associated with Silas' orphanage. Another instance that portrays Silas' orphanage as "unofficial" is a method of adoption that he is known to have used. It seems that at some point, as the story goes, someone supposedly deeded their child/children to Silas. A lawyer in town received $10 for this "unofficial" service. Yet again, though, this of course - 139. James Lawing, letter to the R. C. Carter II. 140. R.C. Carter II, letter to James Lawing, 30 September 1957. - did not make the "adoption" legal.141 E. Wayne Carp, editor of Adoption in America: Historical Perspectives, comments that this type of transaction was not all too uncommon, claiming that early adoption statutes "merely provided legal procedure to 'authenticate and make a public record of private adoption agreements,' analagous to recording a deed for a piece of land."142 This is partially due to what another historian points out in saying that "Adoption was unknown at common law," and "prior to the enactment of these statutes, parties informally "adopted" children through wills, voluntary and involuntary indentures, private legislative acts, and other means."143 Obviously, at least some of the children were treated as property and their transaction was done in a business-like manner. Historian Barabara Melosh comments on this type of "adoption" in her study, Strangers and Kin: The American Way of Adoption. She notes: - 141. Charles Barrett, personal interview, 2 May 2002. 142. " E. Wayne Carp, ed. Adoption in America: Historical Perspectives (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2002), 5. 143. Chris Guthrie and Joanna L. Grossman, "Adoption in the Progressive Era: Preserving, Creating, and Re-creating Familes," American Journal of Legal History 43 (July 1999): 236. - Apprenticeship and indenture were established forms of labor regulation and child exchange, with reciprocal obligations between master and apprenticeship or servant stipulated by contract and longstanding social practice... Outside the boundaries of formal legal institutions, children circulated among extended families and neighbors when economic pressure or a parent's death left children without adequate means of support.144 However, these forms of "adoption" are often associated with the nineteenth century prior to adoption laws. In the article, "A Good Home: Indenture and Adoption in Nineteenth-Century Orphanages," historian Susan Porter also notes that "Adoption may have been understood more as an offshoot of indenture (an economic and conditional contact based on the exchange of labor) rather than as a legal arrangement based on mutual sentiment."145 Silas' "orphanage" does appear, though, to be a form of indentured care. Even with the possibility of legal adoption, Silas still implements this indenture-like form of adoption with the children. Many sources also report that he cared for adults in his house as well. One obituary indicates that "Besides - 144. Barbara Mclosh, Strangers and Kin: The American Way of Adoption (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), 15. 145. Susan Porter, "A Good Home: Indenture and Adoption in Nineteenth-Century Orphanages," Adoption in America: Historical Perspectives, cd. E. Wayne Carp (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2002), 28. - the children he adopted, Butts also took elderly people into his home for care. Two of the elderly women he befriended, Pearl Sheppard and Nanie Evans, still live with Mrs. Butts at the home."146 Another article that appeared in the Anderson Independent claimed that Silas took in and cared for "a dozen adults."147 Whatever the actual number of elderly cared for, Silas does seem to have taken adults into his "orphanage." So how many children (and adults) did Silas actually raise or care for? The numbers vary. In the late 1930's, Mary Arve remembers that there were thirteen of his children in school. But, she also quoted him as saying he had more than that, and that thirteen was just the number in school.148 The petition to the Governor for Silas' pardon claims that he was responsible for fifteen children in 1938. This would seem to correspond with Mary Arve's numbers. In 1953, when John Bigham showed up from The State to take a picture of Louisa and the children (for Silas was in town), "eight or ten boys and two girls showed up for the purpose of having their pictures - 146. "Silas Butts, Kindly Mountaineer Dies of Heart Attack Sunday." 147. Alexander. 148. Mary Arve, 4 August 1992. - taken."149 However, this leaves the door open for a larger total. After his death, many variations as to the total number children he raised have been used to describe his "orphanage." One obituary claimed "approximately 45 orphaned or homeless children" and "as many as 18 children in the home at one time."150 Another claims "50 or more youngsters."151 A family history follows along these same lines with "more than fifty persons."152 Other articles claim "nearly 50 children"153 and that he "raised 45... [and] at one time he had, maybe, 25."154 The general consensus seems to be that there were a total of around fifty. But how long did Silas run this "orphanage?" A caption to one picture of Mr. and Mrs. Butts with the orphans notes that "mountain children have been finding a - 149. Bigham. 150. "Silas Butts, Kindly Mountaineer Dies of Heart Attack Sunday." 151. "Silas Butts, Adopted Father of 50, Passes." 152. Carlie Butts, Butts Generations, 823. 153. Alexander. 154. Jackson. - home with the Butts since World War I."155 Other claims, such as an obituary, indicate that "...during the past 51 years [in 1956]"156 and Bigham speaks of "...a unique practice carried on by them for more than 25 years."157 The total number of years that Silas and Louisa ran the orphanage is a little less clear. However, his brother, Jim, moved his family into town in 1915.15a Silas would have needed farm hands from the very beginning. More than likely, there was never a true count of the total number of orphans or the total number of years that they lived with Silas. In fact, a total number was probably not important for Silas and Louisa. If they took in children as a humanitarian effort, numbers would not have mattered and if they needed the help on the farm, numbers would have only been important at specific times of the year. Delving deeper into Silas' orphanage, one wonders what life was like for the "orphan" children there. One can imagine waking up as a child there in the large attic of the house amongst ten to fifteen other children. Only - 155. "Silas Butts Speaks Up," unknown newspaper. 156. "Silas Butts, Adopted Father of 50, Passes." 157. Bigham. 158. Aheron. - two chimneys served the house and with wooden shingles, it must have been cold in the winter, nestled down in the valley. Silas had taken "creek willows... and made little places in the attic where them kids all slept [and] put a little mattress in there."159 However, Tom Smith, at age eight or nine, remembers sleeping downstairs in one of the five bedrooms.160 For this many people in one house, there must have been a great need for food and thus, the need to work in the fields. Randolph Phillips remembers as a young boy, seeing everyone out in the fields at Brasstown and "seeing the girls, they had bonnets on and had them long dresses that went all the way to the ground and sleeves and they'd be out hoeing beans and corn and stuff out in the field."161 Countless other chores were surely a part of their daily lives including chopping wood and gathering leaves for the stables.162 But life for the children does not seem to have been romanticized, at least not as some remember it. Evelyn - 159. David Pitts and Johnny Ballcngcr, 13 June 2003. 160. Tom Smith, 30 July 2003. 161. Randolph Phillips, 12 June 2003. 162. Tom Smith, 30 July 2003. - Walker, who lived with her grandmother in one of Silas' tenant houses, recalls a darker side of Silas, less often remembered and spoken of even less. She states that one of the girls who lived there with Silas, they put her down in the well. Fifty foot well and had a rope around her neck and she stayed down there for... eight hours? And they was a man that lived down the road that go up there and told him "Get that kid out of the well or I'm going to call the law." She stayed there eight hours until the sheriff of Oconee County came up and made him pull her out of the well. And they would not press no charges against him no matter what he done.163 Randolph Phillips told a similar story: A couple of the orphans that he had, they liked to have beat 01' Silas to death. And 01' Silas chained him up in the tater shed he had out there, little ol' round tater shed he had out there and said when he got to where he could, he turned him loose, but he told him, "Now you go to a certain- certain still." They say he made him stay in that still shack for about three years. Silas was scared of him. He liked to have beat Silas to death.164 There was always the rumor that Silas sexually abused the children that stayed with him. Evelyn Walker talked about this cautiously, saying that Silas would "use the kids... the girls, a different one every night."165 Mr. Phillips - 163. Evelyn Walker, 13 June 2003. 164. Randolph Phillips, 12 June 2003. 165. Evelyn Walker, 13 June 2003. - hinted at this same subject, except amongst the children themselves, saying: They separated the boys from the girls, you know, and stuff. I've heared several stories about that, you know... Where you have boys and where you have girls, you going to have mischief. I've heard several stories but some of it, I won't tell it, ain't no use in telling that. I thought it was kind of funny, kind of bad too, but I guess it all happened.166 What went on there at Silas' seems to be a hush subject and maybe, for good reason. It is often difficult to explore a topic as sensitive as this within a community in Appalachia. The point derived from this, though, is that things were not as romanticized as they are often remembered and retold. The next question that arises is: Why did Silas and Louisa not have children of their own? As a matter of fact, some say that he did. The Family History, Butts Generations, states that, "Silas and Louisa had one child born dead, [who] was given no name, and was buried in the 'Old Butts Graveyard' at Brasstown."167 When Evelyn Walker was asked why Silas had no children of his own, she commented that, "he started with his family, and his - 166. Randolph Phillips, 12 June 2003. 167. Carlie Butts, Butts Generations, 822. - family passed away, then he opened his doors to outside children." Evelyn Walker also claimed that when Silas would, "use the girls, a different one every night," that "his wife caught him and they never had no children. She wouldn't sleep with him... After they all... He got through with them, he thought he would go back to his wife and go to bed with her. Well she wouldn't do it."168 There is also one account of a lady living in Pickens County whose mother told her that she was the child of Silas Butts.169 Whether or not these stories had anything to do with why Silas and Louisa had no surviving children is unclear and unproven. However, yet again, the point is that most people believed or assumed they could not have children and thus they created a family by helping others who were in need. Was this the only reason, or did the rumors mentioned above play a role? This leads back to one of the central questions: Why did Silas take in all of those children? Was it because he really was a big-hearted man or did he just need help on his farm? Was it another reason completely? Mary Arve, when asked this question outright, responded, "I think it - 168. Evelyn Walker, 13 June 2003. 169. Carlie Butts, A Man Called Jake, 402. - was really for work on the farm because he had a big farm in there."170 There are probably as many answers to this question as there are people who could be asked. The answer, as is often the case, likely lies somewhere in between. Silas knew how to play his game. He combined a lot of aspects of his life, drawing from one thing to help out in another. Whether he planned it or not, everything in Silas' life seemed to work together for his own gain. 170. Mary Arve, 4 August 1992. LEGACY When Silas Butts died in August of 1956, he completed his contributions to what had already become "his legacy." Being so widely known and popular in his life, it is therefore possible to use his legacy to illustrate how history and memory work together and oftentimes, against one another. It is also worth observing which aspects and characteristics of Silas' life are remembered. How true are they? Why do people remember what they do? Whereas these questions cannot completely be answered through Silas' legacy, a closer look can provide a better understanding of the relationship between history and memory. Silas was a legend even before he died. This is illustrated in John Bigham's article about him in The State in 1953. He opens the article by explaining his assignment: The assignment was to find Silas Butts in Oconee county and determine what kind of character he was and whether the tales concerning him which had drifted down the state were of whole cloth or fabrications arising from rumors, legends, and folklore circulating in South Carolina's hill country. Taking advantage of a weeks vacation at the State Park above Walhalla this past July, I made a thorough study of a truly fabulous mountaineer and found that here was a human landmark towering head and shoulders in renown above his fellow citizens in the state's northwest corner and whose fame spilled over into neighboring areas of North Carolina and Georgia. All this in spite of the fact that Silas Butts is hardly known down state below Anderson.171 Bigham's use of words such as "fabulous," "human landmark," and "fame" illustrates a legend or legacy that had already been created even before he died. Indeed, he had made enough of an impression on this man 150 miles away for Bigham to come and seek him out. Silas created a legacy that portrayed him as a good- natured hero who saved little mountain children. In fact, Silas' life resembles that of a fairy tale. Bigham describes his departure from Brasstown: As we drove away that morning from Silas' Castle in the hills, his children waved us farewell and the time honored injunction to "Come back again" rang in our ears as we headed the car down the rocky road toward US 76 and Westminster.172 Views such as Bigham's have led to how Silas is remembered today. Perhaps romanticized notions of Silas and his efforts as a humanitarian have helped create the memory of him that lingers. A family history, Butts Generations, notes that Silas was scheduled to appear on the television show, - 171. Bigham. 172. Ibid. - This Is Your Life, just before he died. While the Library of Congress could not confirm his scheduling, the fact that many people found this rumor feasible well illustrates the legend of Silas as an exceptional man and a man of some significance. The show was in reruns at the time of his death but episodes immediately preceding his - death included people such as Milton Berle. The idea that I Silas would appear on This Is Your Life, the same show in which someone like Milton Berle appeared, denotes him, for those who knew him or thought they knew him, as more than just another "old man from the mountains." 173 Another interesting connection to popular culture mentioned in an interview with the current owner of the Butts' farm, linked Silas Butts with the well-known comic character Snuffy Smith. The immediate comparison encompassed the similarities in the moonshining of two funny men who lived up in the mountains. A closer comparison revealed similarities in their wife's names: Louisa Butts as compared to Lowizie Smith. An article exploring "The Appalachian Backgrounds of Billy De Beck's Snuffy Smith" explains that "Snuffy Smith, Lowizie, and their nephew Jughaid embody stereotyped Appalachian - 173. Rosemary Hanes, email to author, 21 October 2002. - language and situations. This is more than coincidence." De Beck did travel through parts of Appalachia in order to gain knowledge for his comic character Snuffy Smith. It is unlikely, though, that there were any connections to Silas Butts. In the article, Appalachian Historian Thomas Inge notes: What first sparked De Beck's interest is unknown. We do know, however, that in preparation for the new episodes he traveled through the mountains of Virginia and Kentucky, talked to natives, made numerous sketches, and read everything he could lay his hands on that treated mountaineer life. Just how extensive and thorough his reading was has not been generally known...174 Nonetheless, the fact that people found the thought of Silas' inspiration of the cartoon character plausible and talked about it played its part in the creation of local myth and the legacy of Silas Butts. It is not all too outrageous that Silas' character and personality could have done this, despite the fact that they probably did not. Further evidence to the notion that allows the possibility of Silas' fame to reach far beyond the Upstate of South Carolina came from Randolph Phillips. Mr. Phillips recalled: 174. Thomas Inge, "The Appalachian Backgrounds of Billy De Beck's Snuffy Smith," Appalachian Journal 4 (Winter 1977): 121. I seen a picture sometime- somewhere here awhile back, him [Silas] and Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt was... It was a shooting match somewhere or another. And 01' Silas was in that picture- a very young Silas... You could see that that was Silas Butts. Ain't three or four people look like Silas.175 Whether or not Silas did pose for a picture with Teddy Roosevelt is unknown. However, the believability in people's minds that this is possible is very much a part of Silas Butt's legacy. His legacy allows for the possibility that he is pictured with Teddy Roosevelt. Stories of Silas visiting and being visited by the Governor of South Carolina, Olin D. Johnston, have also fueled and supported the legacy of Silas Butts. In an article appearing in the Anderson Independent in 1968, Jerry Alexander writes of some of what he calls "the true episodes that have been almost forgotten down through the years." He notes: One concerned the new stetson that Silas received from Gov. Olin D. Johnston following the Governor's visit to Silas' mountain home... Silas prized that black stetson more than anything else and often showed it to his many friends. After all, it wasn't everyday that one received a new stetson as a gift from the Governor. ...Silas had previously met Governor Johnston on a business trip to Columbia in which he sought help from the Governor. According to reports, Silas got the aid he went after. Then Silas asked the Governor if he might sit in the Governor's chair - 175. Randolph Phillips, 12 June 2003. - saying, "I always did want to sit in that chair." Needless to say, this wish was granted, amidst whoops of good-natured laughter in which, Silas himself joined in.17S A visit to the Governor as well as from the Governor (not to mention the gift) illustrates the range of Silas' legacy, even before he died. The effort to place the Butts Farmstead on the National Register of Historic Places also gives evidence to Silas' lingering legacy. Although the farm was begun by Silas' grandfather, it was the fact that Silas "turned the place into an orphanage" that occasioned its consideration for The National Register. The buildings at the time included the log barn, which served as the first house, the gristmill, the main house occupied by Silas, his wife and the children, his schoolhouse, the corn crib, hen house and Model T car shed.177 For whatever reason, the farm was not accepted onto the National Register; however, the mere fact that it was nominated illustrates the legacy that Silas Butts left behind. What is also interesting to note about Silas is the differences in the stories told about him. Two of the - 176. Alexander. 177. "The Butts Farmstead," nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. - most popular stories, told and retold for over fifty years, are of his selling produce and liquor in town as well as his using the kids in court to get himself free. Many people who never knew or even saw Silas tell these stories, so often and in so many different versions, that it is hard to discern what really happened. First of all, a look at the variations in the stories of his truck farming illustrates why his legacy lives on. Silas used everything that he could to his advantage. The children helped him grow produce to sell, and no doubt, helped him to make liquor in some fashion. In turn, he used the money from selling the produce and liquor to "support" the orphanage. Silas left an impression on many people throughout Oconee County on his many trips to town to sell his produce. He would travel to mill villages in Westminster, Walhalla, Seneca and Newry. It was his wit and humor that helped his business. Stories about these visits to town differ in many ways. People recall him selling produce from a wagon pulled by horses, a wagon pulled by oxen, the rumble seat of a car, and out of the back of a truck. When telling this story, people almost always imitate Silas' loud, high-pitched that seemed to travel great distances. Words here cannot explain the similarities between the imitations performed by old men and sweet old ladies alike. However, they always rattle off a list of the produce available, just as Silas would have done. These include apples, cabbage, corn, beans, watermelon, cantaloupe, green beans, Irish Potatoes, and turnips. Out of twelve interviews, eight included some variation of this story. Despite the differences in the produce and/or what Silas was driving, the story almost always ends with a pause, followed by, "...and good corn liquor!" The variations more than likely reflect the many times that Silas performed this act, as well as the fact that the importance of the story is that he sold liquor, not the produce. Another story with as many variations as those who tell it is the episode about Silas taking his children to court. Yet again, Silas used all available means to keep his life together. His liquor sales to support the orphanage got him in trouble with the law. So, his humor and children served him in escaping this trouble. Of the twelve interviews, five tell of this incident. Other stories repeated by several include Mr. Sam and Seab cutting down one of two stills, the false report of Silas' drowning and the incident with the stop light, which has been told to have happened in Westminster, Seneca, Anderson, and Greenville with a stop sign and a stop light. The variations in the stories can be attributed to time as well as memory. Newspapers over the years that report a certain story themselves provide different variations. They fill in gaps in people's minds as well as provide additional information, much of it secondhand. However, the fact remains that these stories, variations notwithstanding, have helped to create the legacy of Silas Butts that began even before he died almost fifty years ago. These few stories that are often retold account to only a small portion of Silas' life. Yet they often provide the entire knowledge that is remembered about his life. This fuels the fact that Silas is remembered for different things. Phrases used by those interviewed describe Silas as a "colorful character,"178 "good personality,"179 as well as "good hearted, in ways, he was wicked as he could be,"180 and "good to some people, some - 178. Gladys Elliott, 17 June 2003. 179. Spec Jameson, 12 June 2003. 180. Claude Gaillard, 21 February 2003. - people he wasn't... He wasn't good at all."181 These views seem to contradict one another, despite the fact that they are about the same man. This occurs in many aspects of Silas' life. One remembers that Silas "brought them food one time when they were about to starve to death,"182 whereas another recalls, "my grandmother, when she lived there, and a lot of mornings, she got up to make breakfast, all the family had was cornbread and water gravy. He [Silas] wouldn't let them have no food."183 This does not sound like the same man. In writing about the life of Silas' father, a nephew to Silas also notes this "other side" to Silas. The story goes that following the death of Silas' father, Silas promised that his mother could always live there in the house. However, Silas added a room onto the back porch that was "5 feet wide and 7 feet long... with no window, and a door with a slot cut in it." Apparently, Silas intended to keep his mother locked in this "tiny room" and send her food in through the slot.184 Yet again, this - 181. Evelyn Walker, 13 June 2003. 182. Randolph Phillips, 12 June 2003. 183. Evelyn Walker, 13 June 2003. 184. Carlie Butts, A Man Called Jake, 388-389. - does not illustrate the same man that people often remember as a humanitarian. Silas' legacy allows for this dichotomy. Isolated in Brasstown Valley on the edge of the Appalachian Mountains, Silas could be and most certainly was both of these characters. Evelyn Walker clearly summed this up when she said, "These papers here, you know, these books, if they only knew that man for what he really was, everything that they wrote, it wouldn't be good."185 Silas was "no man's fool," and knew how to turn things in his favor. After almost fifty years, his legacy does this same thing. 185. Evelyn Walker, 13 June 2003. CONCLUSION Silas Noah Butts signed his last will and testament on the 14th day of August, 1956. Twelve days later, he died at his house in Brasstown of a heart attack. Lengthy obituaries appeared that week in the local newspapers, often on the front page. The "old man of the mountains" had lived 76 years which encompassed the growth of an industrial society in nearby towns, two World Wars and the Great Depression. Silas created and maintained a unique lifestyle. As mentioned throughout this study, everything in his life seemed to work together for his reputation as a local legend. Somewhere in the midst of time and all of the stories, Louisa Butts' name got lost. Her efforts and accomplishments are not remembered despite her obvious contributions to Silas' legacy. By taking in the children, Silas fulfilled a need within the community while at the same time, he fulfilled a need for work on his farm. Silas would make and sell liquor to support his "homemade orphanage" but when he found himself in trouble with the law, it was the children that helped to get him out of trouble. Silas built these children a school on his farm but yet he could not read or write. Despite whether he actually realized the need for education or just used the school to sway public opinion in favor of his humanitarian efforts, education of the children worked to his advantage as well because people now remember him as a good man who did good things. Realistically, there is no doubt that Silas was not perfect. Whether he is to be praised or blamed is beyond the reach of this study. However, almost fifty years have passed since his death and yet his name is known by nearly everyone native to Oconee County. It is not so much Silas as a man that is remembered as it is what Silas "accomplished" that lingers today. He was a legend long before he died and his legacy lives on. Memories often work for another purpose besides unbiased remembering. They often serve a purpose. The legacy of Silas Butts, created by those who "remember" and retell stories, serves as the transition that he represents. Silas, "the old man from the mountains," represents a shift from the romanticized memories of self-sufficient living to the realities of a modern world. Whether the "romanticized memories" and the "modern world" are truly separate and distinct with Silas as the mediator is not the issue. The fact that people believe that Silas' legacy represents a shift between these two "worlds" has created its own truth. Further evidence that Silas serves as a transition can be seen in the Butts family itself. Originally from Ducktown, Tennnesse, his grandfather moved into the Brasstown Valley in the early part of the nineteenth century. This denotes a move down through the mountains. The location of Brasstown, at the edge of the Appalachian region also fuels the notion of Silas as a transition. With railroads and textile mills creating towns such nearby Westminster, Seneca and Newry in the late nineteenth century people such as the Butts came closer and closer to people moving westward, up through South Carolina. Silas, therefore, was simply in the right place at the right time to serve as this transitory figure, exposing Appalachia to the "modern world." There is still, for local people, a mystique about the Butts' farm today which remains much as it was during Silas' life. Parents still take their children up to Brasstown to show them the house, school, grist mill or graveyard that are all no longer in use. There is something about the stories of Silas Butts that evokes images of a romanticized time in history that obviously is no more. Seeing the two rock chimneys, the huge, open attic and the large, overshot waterwheel touches even the hearts of those who never experienced this type of lifestyle. John Bigham, the reporter from Columbia, understood this when, in 1953, he accurately predicted, "When Silas and Louisa are dead and gone, the stories about them will live on and the mountain kids they have befriended will for years to come keep their memory alive in the foothills of the Blue Ridge." 186. Bigham. APPENDIX Silas Noah Butts - ( MISSING ) (photo courtesy of Jerry Alexander) Silas and Louisa Butts - ( MISSING ) With "Adopted" Children (photo courtesy of Jerry Alexander) Silas Butts - ( MISSING ) Photo by Bell Studio- Early 1950s Picture that Appeared in The State in 1953 - ( MISSING ) Louisa Butts on the Far Left (photo courtesy of Jerry Alexander) The Butts' House - ( MISSING ) (photo courtesy of Jerry Alexander) Silas and Louisa Butts at the Well - ( MISSING ) (photo courtesy of Jerry Alexander) Silas Noah Butts - ( MISSING ) (photo courtesy of Jerry Alexander) The School on the Butts' Farm - ( MISSING ) (photo courtesy of Jerry Alexander) Silas Butts at a Political Barbecue - ( MISSING ) in Oakway, South Carolina (photo courtesy of Jerry Alexander) SILAS BUTTS' CORN MILL - ( MISSING ) Drawing by Robert Springs Silas Butts - ( MISSING ) Drawing by Chris Bolt 14 September 1985 Silas Butts' Corn Mill - ( MISSING ) (photo by Cassie Robinson- 2002! BIBLIOGRAPHY "A Political Era Fades At Passing of Mr. Sam." Keowee Courier. 22 July 1959. Aheron, Piper Peters. Images of America: Oconee County. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 1998. Alexander, Jerry. "Silas Butts Remembered as 'Old Man of the Mountains.'" The Anderson Independent. 27 February 1968. "Arrest Warrant and Affidavit." The State vs. Silas Butts. 1937 . Arve, Mary. Interview by Betty Plisco. 4 August 1992. Barrett, Charles. Personal Interview. 2 May 2002. Bigham, John. "Silas Butts: Oconee's Rugged Individualist." The State. 23 August 1953. Buff, Claude. Personal Interview. 7 March 2003. Butts, Carlie. A Man Called Jake. Haverford: Infinity Publishing, 2002. Butts, Carlie. Butts Generations. Owensboro: Cook-McDowell Publications, 1981. Calhoun, Grace Ward. Tamassee's First Decade: 1914-1924. Carp, E. Wayne, ed. Adoption in America: Historical Perspectives. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2002. Carter II, R.C. Letter to James Lawing. 30 September 1957. "Court Opens Busy Session Here Today." Keowee Courier. 8 July 1948. Drake, Richard. A History of Appalachia. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2001. Elliott, Gladys. Personal Interview. 17 June 2003. Fant, Rufus. Letter to Governor Olin D. Johnston. 17 March 1938. Freeman, Jack. Personal Interview. 18 April 2002. Gaillard, Claude. Personal Interview. 21 February 2003. Gambrell, Jake and Cleo Gambrell. Personal Interview. 13 June 2 003. Gambrell, Ray. Personal Interview. 21 February 2003. Gielow, Martha. Old Andy the Moonshiner. Washington D.C: W.J. Roberts Company, 1909. Guthrie, Chris, and Joanna L. Grossman. "Adoption in the Progressive Era: Preserving, Creating, and Re-creating Families." American Journal of Legal History 43 (July 1999), 235-253. Hanes, Rosemary. Email to Author. 21 October 2002. Haynes, Barbara. Personal Interview. 19 April 2002. Hutchinson, W.C., et al. Letter to Governor Olin D. Johnston. 15 March 1938. r Inge, Thomas. "The Appalachian Background of Billy DeBeck's Snuffy Smith." Appalachian Journal 4 (Winter 1977), 120-132. "Inventory and Appraisal of Personal Property of Silas Butts Deceased." 1956. Jackson, Dot. "Orphanage Ran on Corn." The Charlotte Observer. 16 October 1974. Jameson, Spec. Personal Interview. 12 June 2003. Johnston, Olin D. Letter to G.W. Shirley. 19 March 1938. Jones, Loyal. Appalachian Values. Berea: Berea College Appalachian Center. Lawing, James. Letter to R.C. Carter II. Lee, Mack. Personal Interview. 11 April 2002. Mary T. Butts, et al. vs. Silas N. Butts. 1939. Melosh, Barbara. Strangers and Kin: The American Way of Adoption. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002. Miller, Wilbur. Revenuers and Moonshiners: Enforcing the Federal Liquor Law in the Mountain South, 1865-1900. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. "Mrs. Silas Butts Taken By Death." Keowee Courier. 15 January 1958. Nix, James. Personal Interview. 13 June 2003. Oconee Historical Society. Historic Sites of Oconee County, S.C. 1991. Phillips, Randolph. Personal Interview. 12 June 2003. Piedmont Motor Company vs. S.N. Butts. 1926. Pitts, David and Johnny Ballenger. Personal Interview. 13 June 2003. Porter, Susan. "A Good Home: Indenture and Adoption in Nineteenth-Century Orphanages." Adoption in America: Historical Perspectives, ed. E. Wayne Carp. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2002. Ross, Lowell. "A Legend of Brasstown." The Oconee Legend. 24 May 1990. "Rural Police Raid Another Distillery. "Keowee Courier. 12 August 1937. "Silas Butts, Adopted Father of Fifty, Passes." Keowee Courier. 29 August 1956. "Silas Butts, Kindly Mountaineer Dies of Heart Attack Sunday." Seneca Journal and Tugalo Tribune. 29 August 1956. "Silas Butts Speaks Up." unknown newspaper. Simpson, F.T. Letter to Whom It May Concern. 13 March 1938. Smith, Clem. Personal Interview. 25 February 2003. Smith, Tom. Personal Interview. 30 July 2003. "Special Court." Keowee Courier. 10 March 1949. Strickland, Wm. A. Letter to Whom It May Concern. 9 March 1938. "The Butts Farmstead." Nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. The State vs. John Derrick & SN Butts. 1937. The State vs. S.N. Butts. 1952. Walker, Evelyn. Personal Interview. 13 June 2003. Walker, Melissa. All We Knew Was to Farm: Rural Women in the Upcountry South, 1919-1941. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. Weller, Jack. "Introducing the Mountaineer." Appalachia: Its People, Heritage and Problems. Ed. Frank S. Riddel. Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 1974. Whistnant, David. All That is Native and Fine. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983. TOMBSTONE TRANSCRIPTION NOTES: ------------------------------ a. = age at death b. = date-of-birth d. = date-of-death gp = grandparent h. = husband m. = married p. = parents w. = wife BUTTS, Amanda b. 23-jul-1886, d. 23-jul-1886, p. samuel maxwell butts & addie lyles BUTT, Betsy Julie Gassaway b. 12-feb-1780, d. 20-may-1853, h. jacob b. butt (sr), p. john aaron gassaway & sara ann mcgee BUTT, Jacob Beriak (Jr)(Little Jake) b. 12-feb-1837, d. 10-jul-1905, w. mary moore, p. jacob b. butt (sr) & betsey julie gassaway BUTT, Jacob Beriak (Sr)(Big Jake) b. 15-jan-1774, d. 10-mar-1869, w. betsey julie gassaway, p. beriak butts & ann powell BUTTS, Lillie Mae b. 16-oct-1892, d. 2-feb-1908, p. william grisham butts & anna blackwell BUTTS, Mary L. b. 26-sep-1908, d. 30-sep-1911, p. jerry hampton butts & addie moore BUTTS, Mary Moore b. 7-jan-1845, d. 10-dec-1929, h. jacob b. butt (jr), p. william riley moore & hannah cox BUTTS, Nettie Lou b. 26-nov-1905, d. 15-jan-1908, p. samuel maxwell butts & addie lyles BUTTS, Noah b. 27-feb-1911, d. 13-may-1911, p. jerry hampton butts & addie moore BUTTS, Savannah b. 11-mar-1905, d. 10-apr-1905, p. jerry hampton butts & addie moore BUTTS, Sue Pickens b. 9-feb-1871, d. 10-mar-1871, p. jacob b. butt (jr) & mary moore BUTTS, William Grisham b. 25-jul-1866, d. 10-jun-1904, p. jacob b. butt (jr) & mary moore