Appalachian Dulcimer Traditions by Ralph Lee Smith

Author:Ralph Lee Smith [Lee Smith, Ralph]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 978-0-8108-7411-4
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

Figure 5.4. Nathan Hicks holding one of his dulcimers. (Photographer unknown)

The Stranger from the West

The West Virginia dulcimer pattern found its way into western North Carolina in the 1880s. Some old West Virginia dulcimers, other than those made by Prichard, share their “sloping shoulders” pattern with his instruments, but only Prichard is known to have made dulcimers in any quantity, and only his instruments achieved significant dissemination. It is an odds-on likelihood that the original dulcimer to enter the Beech Mountain area of North Carolina was made by Prichard.

According to local legend, the agent of transmission was a mysterious “Stranger from the West.” The name Millard Oliver, born in the area about 1873 and listed in the 1910 U.S. Census as living there, floats through some of the tales, either as the Stranger himself or as having some other unclear relationship to events, but no one really knows. I am grateful to Greg Gunner of Riga, Michigan, who has been patiently researching the records of the ancient and ramified mountain families involved and sending me copies of old records, for some of the information that appears below.

The most widespread version of the tale is the one that was related to me by Clifford Glenn, son of Leonard Glenn, both leading dulcimer makers of western North Carolina (see chapter 7). Leonard was the grandson and Clifford the great-grandson of Eli Presnell (1845–1939), shown in figure 5.5 with his wife, America.

According to the tale, the Stranger passed through the region on horseback about 1885 and stopped at the little Beech Mountain home of Eli and America, whom everyone called Americy, and their four-year-old son, Nineveh, known to all as Ninevey. The Stranger requested a night’s lodging, and the kind mountain couple unhesitatingly offered it.

The traveler unpacked his horse, including a dulcimer that he was carrying. Eli Presnell, who had never seen or heard of dulcimers, was fascinated. As the Stranger sat together with the family that evening, it seems likely that he played it for them. With the Stranger’s permission, Presnell examined the instrument and made a tracing of it.

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