Here are excerpts from some of the chapters in Smoky
Mountain Mysteries for you to enjoy.
Chapter 1 - Why Are the Mountains Smoky?
Blue smoke drifts and swirls across the magnificent mountains in Southern Appalachia most of the time.
Watching it is akin to watching a master painter with a brush and a canvas. The painting looks beautiful and complete to the untrained eye, but as the artist adds a wisp here and there, it takes on greater perfection.
But why are the mountain smoky........................?
Chapter 4 -Ghosts Dance on Hazel Creek
Until Saturday, October 10, 1885, Lucius and Almarine Kinsland, mature
and God-fearing people, had believed that the Holy Ghost was the only ghost.
Thereafter, they knew there were at least five other ghosts, because they
had seen them dance and heard them speak.
It happened before dawn. Lucius and Almarine lit lanterns, picked up zinc
buckets, and set off over a path up the hill to the milk gap.
Then they saw the ghosts...
Chapter 14 - Do Angels Sing on Roan Mountain?
Question: Do angels sing on Roan Mountain?
Answer: Many ear witnesses say they do.
Legends declare that a choir of angels hovers over Roan Mountain to practice the songs they will sing on Judgment Day!
The ear witnesses report that the powerful "hallelujahs" they heard cannot be produced with weak human vocal cords.
Some call the sounds "Mountain Music." In 1888 Pere Libourel was a guest at the Cloudland Hotel on Roan Mountain. The hotel had been build in 1878 by Civil War hero General John Thomas Wilder, and attracted visitors from all over the world.
The mysterious "mountain music" was an amusing topic of conversation among the guests. Pere Libourel, a determined young man, told Wilder that he believed it was the Devil’s wind that kept the top of Roan Mountain bald, and he was going up on the mountain to solve the mystery.
Wilder warned Libourel of the dangers he would face, and urged him not to go alone. The warnings fell on deaf ears He set out one cool morning with no food, water, or jacket.
Late that afternoon Libourel returned to the hotel, and without speaking a word, grabbed his bags and left. It was years before he told what he had seen on Roan Mountain.
When he finally told what had happened to him, he said that
he was caught in a vicious thunderstorm, and thrown into a dark crevice, or
cave, in the side of the mountain.
There he had come face-to-face with the source of the mountain music...
