I suppose this story starts or begins at the McCoig Family reunion a couple of years ago at Panther Creek State Park in Morristown TN. The usual cast of characters were there, my Mom and Dad, Aunt Mary and Uncle Charles, my brother and his wife and daughter, and many UN-named cousins. There were even a few distant relatives from Nebraska, South Carolina, Indiana, but mostly from Tennessee.

    I believe one of the comments made by a distant cousin, to his wife, was worth mentioning. My fourth cousin was putting his cooler down and his wife said “don’t put that down there, it might get taken by mistake” He replied, “don’t worry, I wrote my name on it”. There it was in big black Sharpie permanent marker “MCCOIG”, but I digress.

    Oh yea , just like a bad B movie, we need to go back farther in time. The real, real story begins back in the 1800s, when my Great Aunt Melissa was born, she was the oldest of thirteen children, yes thirteen, eleven by her mother (Jane Garner) and my Great Grandfather (John McCoig) and she was a stepsister to an additional two younger brothers. My Grandfather was in this smaller litter and given birth by my Great Grandmother Rhoda Coleman. Melissy along with the rest of the McCoig Clan lived in Chestnut Hill, Tennessee, many will only know of this town by its western proximity to Dollywood, or if they have a fondness for reading bean can labels. Chestnut Hill  is the home of Bush’s Beans.  So the story goes that Aunt Melissy grew up to marry a fellow named Dockery. It is said that the Dockerys have owned the base of English Mountain since before the War, The Civil War that is, or as southerners prefer, the War of Northern Aggression.  So Melissy and this Dockery fellow built a house (Cabin) near a creek at the base of English Mountain. Aunt Melissy’s husband passed on somewhere in the fifties or sixties, I am not certain of the exact date, but I do know that she continued to live alone on the mountain long after her children grew up and moved away. The family eventually built her a new home on the other side of the creek. They also raised the cabin and moved it down to one of her son’s farms to preserve it.

    My information about Aunt Melissy is second hand, as my older brothers would go with my grandparents to visit her and have shared some of the faded memories with me. This was in the sixties and it took a while to drive from Knoxville up the curve ridden small roads to Sevierville,  so they would often stay the night. My Grandfather would stay awake, in a rocking chair all night to watch for snakes and other critters that might have snuck in. Aunt Melissy lived without the conveniences of the modern world, such as pluming, running water, electricity, or even a road to get up to her place which was a short hike, but a hike nonetheless. The nearby creek was used to keep food and dairy cold, and it had a pipe from the running creek water to the cabin with a faucet on the end.  There was a fireplace, and a coal stove for cooking and of course candles, and lanterns. My Aunt Mellisy was a woman in her eighties with long gray hair up in a bun and living independently alone on English mountain. She would rock on her porch, hidden in the woods, with a shotgun somewhere at arms length. She didn’t hear well and this was the first thing she would grab if a visitor startled her. My mom told me that when visiting she would start “Hollering” loudly as soon as they exited the car and wouldn’t stop until they were within sight and recognized by Aunt Mellisy. I have heard on occasion people make references to “Hillbillies” or “Backcountry People” and it offends some of my fellow Appalachian Americans, but I take no offense to the term, I only think fondly of my relatives that have passed on knowing that some of what people think was true and some was not.

    My Aunt Melissy’s story is far too long to cover all of it, but I hope you got the gist of her remote living. Back to the present and the McCoig family reunion. My Dad (Bobby McCoig) was talking to his cousin (Bill Dockery) and I was just standing there nodding mostly as they reminisced. I was startled to attention when I heard my second cousin Bill talking about his Mom’s, Aunt Melissy’s, cabin, and how it was all just as she left it when she passed back in the seventies. I asked Bill more about the details of his mother’s life and he offered not only details but directions to his mom’s home place. I was giddy to learn it was still in the Dockery Family’s ownership as the land had been since 1830s. He said “why sure its still there, you can go up there and look at it if you want, any one says anything to you just tell them we’re related.”

 I wrote the directions down on the McCoig Reunion agenda and tucked it into a religious book another second cousin wrote and had given to me at the reunion. I rushed to tell the whole story to my wife Janet. 

    She had graduated from the University of Tennessee after studying Cultural Anthropology, Suma Cum Laude, I might proudly add, and had a tremendous interest in Appalachian Culture. She is also an avid outdoors person, and has hiked nearly all of the trails in the Great Smoky Mountains plus many in the Big South Fork. I knew she would be up for this adventure. Janet and I read the directions together, they read, travel up to Sevier County head toward Chestnut Hill/ Newport, turn at the --------------- Sign, go up the small road heading up the mountain, and go past the ----------- ----- through a four way, past the old church next to the new church (1930) and turn off the paved road down to --------, (Cant go any further) get out of the car, hike up the creek bed and your bound to run into it. We decided that it would be a great trip to take in the winter, when there were no fear of bears, snakes, or bug bites. The scribbled directions were shelved away until winter

     Soon after Christmas that same year Janet and I finally figured it was time to visit Aunt Melissy's cabin. We followed the directions from memory, (mine eeek) because the piece of paper from the reunion was long since lost or forgotten in a book somewhere.  It was just as Bill had said with the exception of many new buildings, houses and assorted mobile homes along the way. I drove and drove and drove, the road went up the mountain and continued to get smaller and more narrow until we were positive it couldn’t be that far up and we turned around in a drive way with a barn that had a rubber skeleton hanging there to greet us, and on the side of the barn it read (painted large) on the side EAT S**T AND DIE. Janet thought it a good idea to hurry and turn around. As we descended the mountain she spotted a rusty roof in the woods, and it turns out the road was put in long after Aunt Melissy’s place was no longer inhabited.  It was New Years day and oddly a warming spell had settled in on the East Tennessee Valley, it was an unusually hot seventy degrees! When we parked the car it was nearly impossible to see up the creek bed because the area was completely covered with thorn vines and brush. I was positive this was the place but didn’t think it was wise, given the message on the barn earlier, to travel up into the woods without an escort.  I was willing to give up and head back to the civilized city of Knoxville, but just as I was about to suggest we abort the mission,  Janet bolted from the car and headed into the brush.  I caught up with her about half way to the home place. Aunt Melissy’s place was perfectly situated next to a small creek in a beautiful flat area at the base of the mountain. Her new home was a frame house built on stack stone foundation and with the exception of a terrible floor in the kitchen the remainder of the house was mostly as she had left it some thirty odd years earlier. Looking in the old lead glass windows I saw a book that remained opened untouched on the dresser in the bedroom. It appeared that a few critters had made their home in the old mattress in the other bedroom/ dining room/ living room. I was pleased that there weren’t any signs of vandalism at all. We poked around for about a half-hour and we explored the old log corncrib, then dug through the old trash heap to find interesting bottles and such, and took many pictures to take back with us. While we were exploring we could hear dogs barking in the distance and a couple of shotgun echoes and I thought it might be time to start thinking about getting back. I mean it was getting late, four thirty or so.  Janet was about a hundred feet away from me and had already started toward the car. The tall thorns and brush made it difficult to see her clearly but we finally met up about halfway between the home place and the car. We heard more shotgun fire and we looked at each other. I took her hand and we started to move a little quicker. The gunfire sounded as if it was getting closer and we heard the dogs barking louder. We hurried. I could see clearly over the brush and was free from any thorns hitting me, but Janet was not as fortunate. The dogs got louder and we hurried more.  I was fearful of being chased down by dogs in an unfamiliar place, how does one explain to the canine species that it is ok to be on the property?

    I was attempting to quicken her step (Trying to drag better sums it up.) She told me that the thorns were sticking her and she couldn’t see. She finally convinced me to stop. I told her my concerns about the dogs and the shotgun sounds. We discussed the situation calmly and rationally as all married couples do, more so she discussed it calmly and I was still trying to tug her along. She said “if you will stop and listen you’ll realize that the dogs weren’t barking any louder or quieter. Their volume was consistent.  If they were running toward us up and down valleys they would fade and get louder.” This comforted me, but I still wanted to get back to the car as quickly as I could. I was staring up the ridge at the direction of the barking, when all of the sudden I saw a large hairy black bear was scooting rapidly down the ridge away from the barking and directly as us. You might ask what is a bear doing out in January? But it was seventy degrees that day, hardly hibernation weather. I’m not certain the bear knew it was January. With that, I began to furiously run to the car, of course I held Janet’s hand firmly. When we finally made it safely back to the car, she had brought back with her many thorns, and small red dots on her face, but we made it, we were safe in the car. I was expecting the relief and accolades of being the hero that saved the day, but Janet said “you must hate me.”  I wasn’t sure why at that moment she would say such a thing and asked, why?  She said “Those thorns were poking my face while you were dragging me” I told her that if I hated here, I would have left her for the bear and just ran back to the car by myself.

Janet continues to thank me for saving her life by adding, at the crucial point in the story, that it wasn’t really a bear but just a small puppy. I assure you it was a bear.

      I have not returned to Aunt Melissy’s cabin since, long after the scars have healed and the adrenaline subsided the pictures taken are some of my most valued possessions, I think of how she lived happily without things I cant even imagine doing without.

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