Through history there have been many tales about people whom have become folk legends. People such as: John Henry, Casey Jones,David Crockett,Kit Carson,Jim Bowie, Billy The Kid,Paul Bunyan,and Wyatt Earp. Alas, where you have your well known legends there are some whom are rarely mentioned in history. Here are the stories of: Tom Dooley, Snowshoe Thompson, and Jim Bridger.
1. Tom Dooley
In 1866, Laura Foster was murdered.Confederate veteran Tom Dula (pronounced Dooley in the Appalachian Southern English dialect) , Foster's lover and the father of her unborn child, was convicted of her murder and hanged May 1, 1868. Foster had been stabbed to death with a large knife, and the brutality of the attack partly accounted for the widespread publicity the murder and subsequent trial received.
Foster had been Dula's lover before he left for the Civil War as had her cousin, Anne Melton. Although Anne had married an older man named James Melton, during the war, when Dula returned, he became a lover again to both Anne and Laura. Anne's comments led to the discovery of Foster's body, but Melton was acquitted in a separate trial based on Dula's word that Anne had nothing to do with the killing. Dula's enigmatic statement on the gallows that he had not harmed Foster but still deserved his punishment led to press speculation that Melton was the actual killer and that Dula simply covered for her. (Melton, who had once expressed jealousy of Dula's purported plans to marry Foster)
Thanks to the efforts of newspapers such as The New York Times, and to the fact that former North Carolina governor Zebulon Vance represented Dula pro bono, Dula's murder trial and hanging were given widespread national publicity. A local poet, Thomas C. Land, wrote a popular song about Dula's tragedy soon after Dula was hanged, titled "Tom Dooley". This, combined with the widespread publicity the trial received, further cemented Dula’s place in American legend.
Dula's role in the murder is unclear.He fled the area before Laura's body was found, after locals accused him of murdering Laura. Under the assumed name Tom Hall, he worked for about a week for Colonel James Grayson, across the state line in Tennessee. Grayson would enter folklore as a romantic rival of Dula's, but this was not true. It was simply an incorrect inference drawn from the lyrics of the song and became more widespread as the facts of the case were largely forgotten.Grayson did, however, help the Wilkes County posse bring Dula in, once Dula's identity was discovered. The trial was held in Statesville, North Carolina the next county over instead of Wilkes County where the murder took place due to the fact it was not possible for a fair trial to take place there.
2. Snowshoe Thompson
Snowshoe Thompson (April 30, 1827 – May 15, 1876) was a nickname for the Norwegian-American John Albert Thompson, an early resident of the Sierra Nevada of Nevada and California. Between 1856 and 1876, he delivered mail between Placerville, California and Genoa, Nevada and later Virginia City, Nevada. Despite his nickname, he did not make use of the snowshoes that are native to North America, but rather would travel with what the local people applied that term to: ten-foot skis, and a single sturdy pole generally held in both hands at once. He knew this version of cross-country skiing from his native Norway, and employed it during the winter as one of the earlier pioneers of the skill in the United States. Thompson delivered the first silver ore to be mined from the Comstock Lode. Later he taught others how to make skis, as well as the basics of their use. Despite his twenty years of service, he was never paid for delivering the mail.
Thompson typically made the eastward trip in three days, and the return trip in two days. Thompson carried no blanket and no gun; he claimed he was never lost even in blizzards. A rescue attributed to him was that of a man trapped in his cabin by unusually deep snow. Thompson reached him, realized the damage to the man's legs from frostbite was sufficient to kill him, skied out to get chloroform, skied back in with it, and delivered the chloroform in time to save him.
3. Jim Bridger
James Felix Bridger (March 17, 1804 – July 17, 1881) was among the foremost mountain men, trappers, scouts and guides who explored and trapped the Western United States during the decades of 1820–1850, as well as mediating between native tribes and encroaching whites.
Jim Bridger had a strong constitution that allowed him to survive the extreme conditions he encountered walking the Rocky Mountains from what would become southern Colorado to the Canadian border. He had conversational knowledge of French, Spanish and several native languages. He would come to know many of the major European American explorers of the early west, including Kit Carson and George Armstrong Custer. In fact it was Bridger who warned Custer to not wage war with the Sioux . Custer did not listen though and thus was defeated at Little Bighorn. Bridger was part of the second generation of mountain men and pathfinders who explored the American West that followed the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804.
Three folk legends that are rarely ever mentioned in history. Yet, made history themselves. These are the people your history books rarely ever talk about. But should be told about. Their legends live on in songs and movies, but they rarely ever tell the whole truth. I hope you enjoyed this mytake on forgotten folk legends.
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I liked this, great take.
Also tom dooley was a real person named tom dula,
An ex-confederate
homas C. "Tom" Dula (June 22, 1845 – May 1, 1868)[1][2] was a former Confederate soldier, who was convicted of murdering Laura Foster. National publicity from newspapers such as The New York Times, turned Dula's story into a folk legend. Although Laura was murdered in Wilkes County, North Carolina, Dula was tried, convicted, and hanged in Statesville. Considerable controversy surrounded the case. In subsequent years, a folk song was written (entitled “Tom Dooley”, based on the pronunciation in the local dialect),
Yes All of these were real people
And Dooley was later acquitted of the charges because they pretty much speculated it was his lover that killed her
There are a fuckload of really impressive gunfighters from the old west no one talks about
Bass Reeves, the first African American U. S Marhsal and former slave.
Sheriff Eflego Baca who fought off twenty men by himself
Clay Allison,
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One of Reeves' crowning moments of badassitude occurred when he rode out to serve a warrant on the Brunter brothers, a notorious trio that enjoyed killing lawmen and robbing stagecoaches, as well as the occasional round of Ding Dong Ditch and not rewinding their Blockbuster videotapes. However, to serve this extremely high-risk warrant, Reeves simply handed a copy to the Brunters and politely informed them that they were under arrest, and that it would be best for everyone involved if they just came along quietly. You may recognize this as a common practice in movies but something that real-life policemen rarely attempt, because real-life bad guys will shoot you directly in the face.(Cracked. com)
Which is exactly what the Brunter brothers tried to do to Bass Reeves. However, Reeves was faster, and he instantly shot two of them dead before snatching the third brother's revolver away and pistol-whipping the everloving Xanadu out of him. Reeves then took the beaten but still living Brunter brother to jail, as promised.
At the end of his career, Bass Reeves Bodycount was fourteen dead bad guys
As he was deputy sheriff of Socorro County, New Mexico, in 1884, it seemed inevitable that Elfego Baca would start a feud with a local gang of Texas cowboys, because the cowboys loved to ride into town and shoot things up for fun, and part of your job description as sheriff is to discourage that sort of behavior. Baca didn't respond to intimidation, because he was apparently born without the portion of the brain that allows human beings to experience fear, and began the feud by arresting a cowboy named Charlie McCarthy for firing his pistols at the feet of several locals in an effort to get them to dance. (Daft Punk did not yet exist, so at the time this was the most surefire method.)
(Cracked. com)
However, McCarthy worked for a big-shot rancher named Tom Slaughter, who dispatched a gang of cowboys to threaten Baca into releasing McCarthy. Baca responded by killing one cowboy and wounding another (see "born without fear," above). With one Texas cowboy dead, another wounded, and a third cooling his heels in the county drunk tank, Slaughter rallied 80 (that's 80, as in eight-zero) of his lackeys to ride into town and put Baca in his place. And by "put him in his place," we mean "murder the terror-soaked pants-dook out of him."
Cornering Baca in a tiny adobe shack, the veritable army of cowboys laid siege to the building overnight, firing somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,000 rounds through the shack's flimsy walls. They even tried to burn the place down and almost blasted it from the face of the Earth with a stick of dynamite, collapsing most of the roof on top of Baca. Essentially, it was the scene from Die Hard 2 when the bad guys trap Bruce Willis in a plane, riddle the fuselage with bullets, and toss in some grenades for good measure.
But Baca never took a single hit, and during the 33-hour ordeal actually managed to kill four of the cowboys and wound 10 others. Ever the iron-scrotumed lawman, Baca turned himself in after it was all over to face down possible murder charges, of which he was acquitted.
From that day forward, Baca rode the crest of his fame as an unkillable justice machine to become one of the most feared lawmen of his time. His reputation became so great that he was eventually able to serve warrants just by sending the following letter, politely requesting that his quarry turn themselves in:
"I have a warrant here for your arrest. Please... give yourself up. If you don't, I'll know you intend to resist arrest, and I will feel justified in shooting you on sight when I come after you. Very truly yours, Elfego Baca, sheriff."
Being a native of the Appilacian mountains , I have heard stories of Tom Dula growing up ; but not so much in detail. Thanks for putting more light on it
Oh where about are you from?
North West Ga. But I lived a good long time in Andrews North Carolina
That's near the Smoky Mountains ain't it? I'm from Lenoir, NC about 70 miles from Charlotte and Asheville
This was informative yet another good my take
Thanks! I guess you being from Nevada you might have heard of Snowshoe Thompson.
I heard tons about him in elementary school
The only one we ever heard of in elementary school here was Tom Dooley but then that information was limited due to the fact that it was a messed up story that involved a love triangle and murder.
www.girlsaskguys.com/.../a28119-cat-memes-to-make-your-day-better-if-you-re-having-a-bad-day
Made this up just out of bordeom