Often when I'm telling stories, I find that I need to stop to define some term of mountain geography that is not familiar to someone from another part of the country.
I'll start with the top and work down:
Ridge: mountain, usually refers to the top where it is suitable for a trail or even a road. This is where you get those long-range views.
Head of the holler (hollow): where a small stream starts, beginning the valley or cut into the side of the ridge (or mountain, take your pick). There is usually a spring that is the source of the stream.
Spring: where an underground stream of water finds its way to the surface. Usually detectable by lush vegetation, soft ground, animal sign. The trees around a spring are sometimes different--willows, for example.
Run: the small stream that "runs" from the head of the holler and down the mountain. A neighbor once explained to me that it is called a run because "sometimes it runs, sometimes it don't!" Runs are often dry, especially in the summer months, but run very briskly after a storm. I saw a few good road names on these today: Whiskey Run, Cider Run, Cow House Run, Skull Run. The one on the sign above we saw while traveling to Twin Falls State Park. I passed Gamble's Run today, the scene of a murder in 1894, and the resulting ghost story.
Hollow (holler): small valley with a run or creek running through it.
Flat: a piece of relatively flat land that is located on the side of a ridge. Not completely flat, but flatter than the land around it!
Creek: (and pronounced that way, not "crick" in my part of WV) When several runs join together as they head downhill, they form a larger stream called a creek. Creeks usually have water in them year-round. Some creeks are very large and deep. When creeks join together and form a large enough stream, they may be designated as a river.
My favorite creek name in WV is Strange Creek, named for William Strange who got lost in that area in the 1790's and carved a poem into a tree saying ""Strange is my name and strange the ground, and strange that I cannot be found." His rifle was found propped against the tree where he died.
Bottom: the flat land alongside a creek. Usually very rich and desirable soil, but prone to flooding in downpours or periods of heavy rain. Many people in WV live in the bottomland, but most try to locate their houses in places less likely to be in the water's path. Some of these names are downright funny too--like Boomer Bottom, Roundbottom, Young Bottom, and Green Bottom.
Valley: the land along a river. Often wide, usually flat, and prime cropland--again, prone to flooding. River bottomland has always been the most valuable in the mountains. Even George Washington staked his claim to large tracts in West Virginia in his surveying days! Many towns and cities in WB are located in river valleys.
Lick: a place where the spring that reaches the surface has salt in it. Animals, especially deer, will find these places, and lick the ground to get the salt. Pioneers boiled the water down to get salt. Licks can have funny names too--Mud Lick, Gee Lick, Frozen Lick, Fork Lick.
I think that about covers it! I've probably missed a few, but these are a good start.
There are a few a few you left out, but then there are so many.
ReplyDeleteLike Gap, which is a place where two two hollers have their heads on opposing sides of a ridge at the same place. It results in a swag in the ridgeline called a Saddle. This places are often used to get through a ridgeline because it is easier to cross there.
Some variations on names in my part of eastern Kentucky might be:
What you call a Run, we always called a Branch.
What you call a Flat, we always called it a Bench.
There are several others I can think of, but that is prolly enough.
Thank you, Mike! I knew I'd missed some.
ReplyDeleteI also forgot fork, which is when a run, creek or river divides into two streams. My holler, Joe's Run, has a left fork and a right fork. The Potomac River in eastern West Virginia (is that an oxymoron? can you be east and west at the same time?) has a north and a south fork.
There are a few branches here, but not many. I hadn't thought of those. Some people here also use bench instead of flat.
Thank you, Mike! I knew I'd missed some.
ReplyDeleteI also forgot fork, which is when a run, creek or river divides into two streams. My holler, Joe's Run, has a left fork and a right fork. The Potomac River in eastern West Virginia (is that an oxymoron? can you be east and west at the same time?) has a north and a south fork.
There are a few branches here, but not many. I hadn't thought of those. Some people here also use bench instead of flat.
On our old farm, "Up Home" as we always refer to it, there are about 1k acres. So you can imagine the number of hollers and branches there that run into Mill Creek that flows right through the center of it. Actually, the creek 'heads' at the very back of the property from a spring and flows the total span of our property, past Mt. Carmel School and into the North Fork of the Kentucky River.
ReplyDeleteWell, you have to have a way to navigate and naming hollers and branches and gaps is one way to do that. For instance, no matter where you are on the place, you are always "up" or "down" the creek (indication direction of flow) from where ever you are headed.
The names of hollers have history in them. For examle, the School House Holler, just below the homestead was so named for the one-room school house the mouth of the holler there before Mt. Carmel was built. The old teacher used to board there at the house of my grandparents.
Or the Granny Holler, so named because of the old woman everyone just called 'Granny' that used to rent an old cabin there from my grandfather at it's mouth. Just below that place was a deep hole of water in the creek the we used to dam up even further with rocks to swim in. It was aptly named 'the Granny Hole'. lol
I have always been fascinated with Appalactian heritage and were the title of Hillbilly with pride. One of the projects I have been working on is a book, "Growing Up Hillbilly," about the history of our old place up there in Breathitt county and how it effected my rearing and outlook on life.
Thanks, I was trying to figure out the geographic meaning of a lick.
ReplyDeleteWhat is a rill in relation to a lick?
ReplyDeleteI am not sure till is a word generally used in the Appalachian region. A ril, as I understand d it, is a small stream or run as it was be called here, that runs over stones, with perhaps some tiny waterfalls. A lick is a stream that contains salt at its origin spring, where the deer and other animals would come to "lick" the mineral.
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