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The Indians didn’t kill him. . . . It was white thieves. ONE Frontier Times Frank Kilgore: Coal was formed about 320 million years ago in this area when this was a flat, inland sea that was filled with swamps that would be inundated every few million years by water and silt and sand. That silt and sand would cover the matted, rotted plant life that was pressured first into peat moss, then lignite, and later under more pressure and heat, it became more and more pure, and it’s now bituminous coal. The further east you go, the coal seams there have been upended and pressured more from geologic forces pushing from the east. There’s a streak of anthracite coal in Virginia that runs parallel with the Blue Ridge system. Anthracite coal is one of the harder, more purer forms of coal and it’s been under more intense pressure. And it’s more pure. Its hallmark is that it is almost smoke-free, it has high BTUs. That means British Thermal Units. So it heats well and has very little ash because it’s been purified over years, and the impurities—the iron and the sulfur—have been burned out, squeezed out for lack of a better term. Because it’s been there longer and it’s been exposed to more severe geologic forces. Pennsylvania still mines some anthracite coal. But bituminous coal is by far the most plentiful coal throughout the world. The Appalachians have been the major source of coal for the United States for a century. LeRoy Hilton: When you come into town I think you will see the sign that says, “chartered in 1912.” But really St. Paul started about 250 years ago in the early 1700s. And the reason for the settlement here—we’ll get to that later. But let’s just go back 250 years. In 1769 the first settlement was just across the river in Castlewood, Virginia. That was the first settlement. So in 1769 they come to Castlewood to settle, when all the Indian wars were going on. 1 Frank Kilgore: A lot of people view the central Appalachians as 99 percent Caucasian and western European influence. And that’s true to a certain extent . But there’s a lot bigger story than that, especially when you count the Melungeon influence. Brent Kennedy over at the University of Virginia at Wise studied it, found out he is of Melungeon descent, and has written several books on them.1 According to his theory, the Melungeons had traces of Turkish blood and Portuguese blood, some African American blood, Native American blood, but the bloodline DNA goes back to the Middle East, where, after a battle or some invasion between the warring factions there, captured prisoners were pressed into servitude. These were traded around. They ended up with some of the Spaniard barons, who then either brought them to the New World, or some of them escaped to Portugal and the Portuguese brought them to the New World around the 1500s. They settled on the coast of the South, most likely South and North Carolina, intermarrying with the Indians. They had a lot of native intelligence. Instead of fighting with whoever was the perceived enemy, they would trade with them, make friends with them, intermarry with them. And so when the white Europeans would want the Native Americans’ land, they would just kill the Native Americans and drive them out. Whenever they wanted the Melungeons’ land, the Melungeons would say “okay,” and they’d just back up further into the mountains and settle high, dry ridges. And that’s where they remain today. It was just sort of an unspoken truth around here for years that these dark, curly-haired, dark-skinned, olive-skinned children that came to school— every one of them has the same story: “My grandmother was full-blooded Cherokee.” That’s what every one of them said. And that was their political position as to their characteristics. And it dawned on me even in high school: where are these Cherokees? I’ve never seen one. If it was their grandma, it looks like she would still be around. But what it was, they were of Mediterranean descent, maybe some Negro blood, and Indian blood. And they chose to say “Cherokee” because in the Appalachian Mountains Native Americans are honored much more than they are out west. So that seemed to be to them a more digni...

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