Mandy Collier Frazier 3/5/1900 - 7/10/1994

MANDY COLLIER FRAZIER
Mandy Collier Frazier, 94, of 1102 Carlton Rd., Charlottesville, devoted and loving mother, departed this life July 10, 1994, to be with the Lord. She was born March 5, 1900, in Greene County, a daughter of the late May Collier and Louzia Conley Collier. Her husband was the late Bluford Frazier. She is survived by two sons, James H. Frazier of Charlottesville and John E. Frazier of Palmyra; five daughters, Vernia P. Shifflett of Charlottesville, (Helen) Christine J. Thompson of White Hall, Nettie Virginia Thompson of Crozet, Dolly A. McCauley of Dyke and Audrey Davis of Scottsville; one sister, Nettie Thomas of Orange; 28 grandchildren; 59 great-grandchildren; and 19 great-great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by one son, Delbert Frazier. Mrs. Frazier was a member of Owensville Pentecostal Church. A funeral service will be conducted at 1 p.m. Wednesday at Ryan Funeral Chapel in Quinque with interment in Holly Memorial Gardens. The Rev. Dennis Collier and the Rev. Jesse Shifflett will officiate. The family will receive friends from 7-8:30 p.m. today at Ryan Funeral Home in Quinque.

Charlie & Mazie Corbin Nicholson

Charlie Nicholson was born 1902, in Madison, VA to David Nicholson (born Nov 1863 in Madison, Madison County, VA) and Martha L. Buracker Nicholson (Born Mar 1866). He was tenth born of twelve children.

Mazie (M.A.) Corbin was born 1900 in Madison, Madison County, VA to
Phinnel Corbin (b: 27 Jun 1867 in Madison, VA) and Eliza E. Nicholson (b: Mar 1868 in Madison, VA). She was nineth born of ten children.

•Charlie & Mazie married 22 Dec 1920 in Madison County, VA.
They had 8 children: Lilly Pearl, Esther, Polly, Merdell, Ruth, Jordan, Charles Jr. and David.

Charlie Nicholson chopping wood for the school. Circa 1933-1935

 Mazie Corbin Nicholson  circa 1936

Charlie Nicholson with young children circa 1936

Strother & Mary Ann Morris CORBIN

Strother Corbin was born 1817 in VA, to Bluford and Rebecca Jane Nicholson Corbin.

Mary Ann Morris was born 1823 in VA to John Allen and Elizabeth Welker Morris.

Strother & Mary Ann married on 20 Sep 1841 in Page County, VA.

They had 12 Children:
1. James Henry Corbin b: 4 Mar 1840 in Page County, VA
2. Ambrose Booton Corbin b: 16 Jan 1845 in Nethers, Madison County, Virginia
3. John Wesley Corbin b: 1847 in Madison, Madison County, VA
4. Bruce B Corbin b: 1848 in Madison, Madison County, VA
5. William Corbin b: 1851 in Madison, Madison County, VA
6. Joseph W. Corbin b: 1853 in Madison, Madison County, VA
7. Isaac Corbin b: 1854 in Madison, Madison County, VA
8. Peggy J Corbin b: 1855 in Madison, Madison County, VA
9. James Madison Corbin b: Jul 1857 in Madison, Madison County, VA
10. Mary T. Corbin b: 1859 in Madison, Madison County, VA
11. Amos Corbin b: 1863 in Madison, Madison County, VA
12. Phinnel Corbin b: 27 Jun 1867 in Madison, Madison County, VA

Strother Corbin was a Pvt. in Co A 18th VA Calvery aka Imboden's Cav. Co. B - The only record is a single card from the records of NARA stating that the name of Strother Corbin appears on a Register of Prisoners of War at Fort Delaware, Delaware, and that he was received from Camp Chase on 17 March 1864. It was noted that most of the members of the 18th Virginia Calvery served in the 1st Regiment Virginia Partisan Rangers subsequently the 62nd Regiment Virginia Infantry.

Notes: Fort Delaware was completed in 1859 on the swampy island known as Pea Patch Island. This Union fortress constructed in the shape of a pentagon and covering approximately 6 acres was used for Confederate prisoners of war.

General Albin F. Schoepf was commandant of Fort Delaware and was dreaded by the Confederates. He was known by the soldiers as "General Terror".

The majority of Confederate prisoners contained within Fort Delaware during the Civil War were captured at Gettysburg. Many of these were from the 26th Georgia Regiment.

Prisoners were held in wooden barracks, providing shelter unlike many other Civil War prisons during the Civil War. After the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, the prisoners swelled to almost 13,000, leading to horrible conditions. Water and food became scarce. Scurvy, smallpox and severe malnutrition were rampant.

According to Captain John S. Swann (a prisoner at Fort Delaware), "We formed in line and marched to the mess hall, in which were several long rows of plank tables with pieces of bread and meat arranged along the sides at intervales (sic) of some two feet. When we were in place each prisoner took one ration. The bread was made of rye and wheat flour, well cooked, but the piece very small, about half enough for a well man. The meat a small chunk of beef. Occasionally all sinew or mostly bone. It was cut up very carelessly and very small, not half a ration. Some days the bread was substituted with crackers, and these were hard days on us. We were permitted to take these rations to our bunks. I ate mine but remained very hungry. When dinner came the same thing was repeated, except there was occasionally a tin cup of what was called corn soup very tasteless and insipid, with little or no grease."

He also wrote: "Not long after my arrival I heard a cry "Rat call! Rat call!" I went out to see what this meant. A number of prisoners were moving and some running up near the partition, over which a sargeant (sic) was standing and presently he began throwing rats down. The prisoners scrambled for the rats like school boys for apples, none but some of the most needy prisoners, and the needy were the large majority, would scramble for these rats. Of course but few were lucky enough to get a rat. The rats were cleaned, put in salt water a while and fried. Their flesh was tender and not unpleasant to the taste."

According to one prisoner, Randolph Shotwell, "The bacon was rusty and slimy, the soup was slop…filled with white worms a half inch long." One prisoner from Georgia wrote that the food was of poor quality and so scarce that he went from 140 pounds to 80 pounds during his stay at Fort Delaware.

According to Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, July 1863:

"The prisoners were afflicted with smallpox, measles, diarrhea, dysentery and scurvy as well as the ever-present lice. A thousand sick; twelve thousand total on an island which should have held four; large numbers of deaths a day of dysentry and the living having more life on them than in them. Lack of food and water and thus a Christian nation treats the captives of its sword!"

Some famous Confederates who saw the inside of Fort Delaware Civil War Prison were Burton H. Harrison (private secretary of Jefferson Davis) and General James F. Archer.

Approximately 2700 Confederate soldiers died while being held captive at Fort Delaware. About 2400 Confederates are interred at Finn's Point National Cemetery located across the Delaware River near Fort Mott State Park.

A marker reads:

ERECTED BY THE UNITED STATES TO MARK THE BURIAL PLACE OF 2436 CONFEDERATE SOLDIERS WHO DIED AT FORT DELAWARE WHILE PRISONERS OF WAR AND WHOSE GRAVES CANNOT NOW BE INDIVIDUALLY IDENTIFIED.

Bluford & Rebecca Jane Nicholson Corbin

• Bluford CORBIN was born 4 APR 1788 in Madison County Va, and died 1 MAR 1861 in Madison County Va. He was the son of John CORBIN and Sarah MORRIS.


• Rebecca Jane NICHOLSON was born ABT. 1795 in Madison County Virginia, and died 23 APR 1915. She was a daughter of Benjamin Nicholson and Mildred "Milly" Sandy. She died After 1880 as she was recorded in the 1880 Census as LIVING with her son William.

Children of Rebecca Jane NICHOLSON and Bluford CORBIN are:

i. John CORBIN was born 1816 in Madison County Va. He married Sarah ALGER 25 APR 1842 in Page County Virginia. She was born 1814 in Virginia.
ii. Strother CORBIN was born 1817 in Madison County Va. He married Mary Ann MORRIS 20 SEP 1841 in Page County Virginia, daughter of Allen MORRIS and Elizabeth WALKER. She was born 1823 in Madison County Va.
iii. Lucinda CORBIN was born 1818 in Madison County Virginia. She married Henry CUBBAGE 1 NOV 1842 in Book 1 pg 283 Madison County Court House. He was born ABT. 1818 in Madison County Virginia.
iv. Mildred CORBIN was born 1822 in Madison County Virginia. She married Jefferson JENKINS 5 AUG 1839 in Book 1 pg 281 Madison County Court House. He was born ABT. 1822 in Madison County Virginia.
v. Wallace CORBIN was born 1825 in Madison County Virginia, and died BEF. 10 NOV 1865 in Madison Virginia. He married Susan A. JENKINS 29 JUN 1850 in Book 1 pg 291 Madison County Court House. She was born ABT. 1830 in Madison Virginia.
vi. Madison CORBIN was born 23 FEB 1827 in Culpeper County Virginia, and died 7 MAR 1910 in Quincy Illinos. He married Margaret MORSE 8 APR 1869 in Lacon Marshall County ILL. She was born 19 NOV 1850 in Pennsylvania, and died 27 AUG 1920 in Livngston Illinois.
vii. Early E CORBIN was born 1830 in Madison Virginia.
viii. Simeon CORBIN was born 1830 in Madison County Virginia.
ix. William CORBIN was born 1832 in Madison County Virginia, and died 23 FEB 1910 in Spotsylvania Virginia. He married Rebecca Jane NICHOLSON 8 OCT 1855 in Book 1 pg 3 Madison County Court House. She was born 9 MAR 1840 in Madison County Virginia, and died 23 APR 1915 in Stafford County Virginia.
x. Edmond CORBIN was born 1833 in Madison County Virginia. He married PAULINA. She was born 1858 in Culpeper Virginia. He married Sidney A NICHOLSON 18 MAR 1855 in Book 1 pg 3 Madison County Court House, daughter of Moses NICHOLSON and Cassandra RAMSBOTTOM. She was born 1840 in Madison Virginia.
xi. Frances Ann CORBIN was born 1836 in Madison Virginia. She married Russell Edward JENKINS 24 NOV 1864 in Book 1 pg 15 Madison County Court House. He was born ABT. 1835.

Lillie Florence Jackson Purks 1942-1975

Lillie Florence Purks, 33, of Rochelle, VA died Thursday March 20, 1975, at her home. A native of Madison Co., VA, she was the daughter of Ohmer and Evelyn Beahm Jackson of Madison. In addition to her parents she is survived by her husband, Norman Raymond Purks, of Rochelle; a brother Edward Jackson of Ruckersville, VA and four sisters, Mrs. Rachel Haymes of Ruckersville, Mrs. Virginia Berry of Wolftown, VA, Mrs. Mary Stanley of Rochelle, and Mrs. Barbara Dobson of Brightwood, VA.

Services will be held Sunday at 2pm at the Preddy Funeral Chapel in Orange, VA. The Rev George Jackson and Jerry Whiteheart officiating. Interment will be in the Rochelle Christian Church Cemetery.

God’s Garden

God looked around His garden
And found an empty place.
He then looked down upon the earth
And saw your tired face.
He put His arms around you
And lifted you to rest.
God’s garden must be beautiful,
He always takes the best.
He knew that you were suffering,
He knew that you were in pain.
He knew that you would never
Get well on earth again.
He saw the road was getting rough,
And the hills were hard to climb.
So He closed your weary eyelids
And whispered, “Peace be thine.”
It broke our hearts to lose you,
But you didn’t go alone.
For part of us went with you
The day God called you home.
Author Unknown

PAINTING: "Spring" by John Collier

Blanche Virginia Collier 4/14/1914 - 8/8/1987

The Daily Progress, Charlottesville, VA,
BLANCHE VIRGINIA COLLIER
Blanche Virginia Collier, 73, of Rt. 1, Scottsville, VA, died Saturday, August 8, 1987 in a local hospital. She was born April 14, 1914, in Greene County, VA. She was the daughter of the late May Collier and Louise Conley Collier. She was the wife of the late William Collier. She is survived by five daughters, Alice Marie Collier of Shipman, Irene Frazier of Earlysville, Faye Morris, Shirley Hagee and Kathleen Cline, all of Scottsville; two sons, Dewey Lee Collier and Elwood Collier both of Charlottesville; two brothers, Dewey Collier of Alexandria and Billy Collier of Crozet; two sisters, Mrs. Mandy Frazier of Charlottesville and Mrs. Nettie Thomas of Orange; 26 grandchildren and 26 great-grandchildren. Funeral services will be held at 11 a. m. Tuesday at the Hill and Wood Funeral Home Chapel. The Rev. Dennis Collier will officiate. Interment will be in the Mt. Paran United Methodist Church Cemetery. The family will receive friends tonight from 7 to 8 at the funeral home.

Margaret Loney Collier Raynor

Margaret Loney Collier Raynor

Russell David Raynor and Margaret Collier Raynor

1984 Margaret Collier Raynor with great granddaughter, Autumn.

RUSSELL DAVID RAYNOR 3/01/1901-11/17/1971

Retired farmer, Russell David Raynor, 71, died Wednesday at his home in Orange County, VA.
He was born March 1,1901, in Green County, VA, son of James and Laura Warren Raynor.
The funeral will be at 2pm Sunday at the Full Gospel Pentecostal Holiness Church in the Eheart community of Barboursville, VA.
Mr. Raynor will be buried in Mt Paran Methodist Church Cemetery in Quinque, VA.
Preddy's Funeral Home in Orange is in charge.


Survivors include his wife Margaret Loney Collier Raynor of Orange; four sons, James William Raynor and Albert Carroll Raynor of Orange, Richard Russell Raynor of Gordonsville, VA and David Warren Raynor of Rapidan, VA; four daughters, Lucille Raynor Smith of Achsah, VA, Dorothy Lee Raynor Taylor of Standardsville, VA, Helen Marie Raynor Dyer of Orange and Ester May Raynor Beahm of Madison; two brothers, Gaines Raynor of Quinque and Emmett Raynor of Charlottesville, VA; two sisters, Bessie Raynor Kramer and Lucy Raynor Guazza of Brandywine, MD and 16 grandchildren.


He was proceded in death by his parents and one infant daughter, Minnie Pearl.

Joseph Lee Beahm 6/16/68 - 2/23/06

Joseph Lee Beahm, 37, of Warrenton, VA died February 23, 2006 at Kettering Hospital. He was born in Falls Church, VA on June 16, 1968 to Clarence Joseph Beahm and Katherine M. Vance Beahm. He is survived by his mother Katherine M. Vance Beahm Robey of Warrenton; VA; a brother, Stephen Beahm of Timberville, VA and a son, Elijah Logan Beahm and a large extended family.  He was preceded in death by his father, Clarence J. Beahm and his step-father, Robert A. Robey.
 Joe was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  He worked in the computer industry in customer service.
The family will receive friends on Monday, February 27, 2006 from 5- 8 PM at Moser Funeral Home, 233 Broadview Ave, Warrenton, VA. Funeral service is Tuesday, February 28, at 10 a.m. at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Warrenton. Interment in Stafford Memorial Park in Stafford, VA. Arrangements by Moser Funeral Home in Warrenton.  In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to a fund for Elijah to be set up in the near future.

Lilly Pearl Nicholson Beahm

Mrs. Lilly Pearl Nicholson Beahm, 44, died Thursday, July 16, 1964. She is survived by her husband, John W. Beahm of Culpeper, VA.
She was the daughter of Charlie and Mazie Corbin Nicholson.

Mrs Beahm is also survived by three sons: Clarence J. Beahm of Rochester, NY, Benjamin S. Beahm and Thomas A. Beahm of Culpeper, VA;

two daughters, Mrs Betty Ann Raynor of Gordonsville, Va and Mrs. Gladys Marie Nicholson, of Brightwood, VA;

three sisters Mrs. Ester Leake and Mrs. Tazwell Blankenbaker, both of Fairfax, VA and Mrs. Carroll Nicholson of Culpeper, VA; brother Charlie Nicholson Jr and six grandchildren.

A graveside service will be held at 2pm at the family cemetery near Brightwood.

"Those who are bound together by pure love are never seperated."

"JUST SLEEPING"
Now the laborer’s task is o’er;
Now the battle day is past;
Now upon the farther shore
Lands the voyager at last.

There the tears of earth are dried;
There its hidden things are clear;
There the work of life is tried
By a juster Judge than here.

“Earth to earth, and dust to dust,”
Calmly now the words we say;

Left behind, we wait in trust

For the resurrection day.

Father, in Thy gracious keeping

Leave we now Thy servant sleeping.



 Lilly Pearl Nicholson holding infant brother Jordan Nicholson circa 1935



THE DISPLACED

Newt Nicholson, Andrew Nicholson & Luther Corbin: Mountain residents to be relocated from within the park. NPS PHOTO
"When Past is Present : Archaeology of the Displaced in Shenandoah National Park" by Audrey J. Horning - Colonial Williamsburg Foundation/ The Queen's University of Belfast.

"On October 29th, 2000, a cold windy day in the Virginia Blue Ridge mountains, three separate wildfires were ignited by careless human hands within the boundaries of Shenandoah National Park, a 193,000 acre slice of relative wilderness situated near the nation's capitol. Over the next thirteen days these wildfires burned across a 24,000 acre zone entirely encompassing three mountain hollows which had recently been the subject of a National Park Service-sponsored archaeological project. Within those hollows were the traces of vernacular log buildings dating from the eighteenth through 20th centuries, some substantial, some ephemeral, but all unique for their continued survival.

In the 1930s, Shenandoah National Park was pieced together from over 3,000 individual tracts of land, purchased or condemned by the Commonwealth of Virginia and presented to the Federal Government. In the process, at least 500 families -described as "almost completely cut off from the current of American life" were displaced in what was considered by some to be an humanitarian act. To restore, or rather create, a 'natural' landscape out of the patchwork of recently abandoned settlements, Civilian Conservation Corps volunteers dismantled buildings and obscured the detritus of human habitation with the purity of imported vegetation. The only exception was Nicholson Hollow, where a number of log structures were spared in a selective nod to the park's human history. By 1995, 14 buildings still retained above-ground wooden components, albeit in ruinous condition.
Ironically, the transformation of these relics from the unremarkable shacks of vanquished 20th-century hillbillies to valued examples of vernacular folk architecture was nearing completion just as the flames danced through the hollows. After decades of being administered as a 'natural' park, Shenandoah now employs several cultural resource professionals and has been proactively reviewing and enforcing archaeological protection measures. The Survey of Rural Mountain Settlement, which emphasized the documentation of historic resources, recorded 88 sites in Nicholson and nearby Corbin and Weakley Hollows between 1995 and 1998. But before any decisions concerning the treatment of the documented architectural survivals had been finalized, all but two of these relic log buildings, along with the remains of countless rail fences, burned to the ground.

The park's new focus on cultural resources coincided with agitation from a descendant's organization known as the Children of Shenandoah, which resulted in the removal of questionable interpretive displays. Continuing this discourse, the results of the recent archaeological study, which draws on extensive material, documentary, and ethnographic data, have been widely disseminated to the local community - a community which holds strong opinions about presentations of park history. Like their counterparts throughout southern Appalachia, Blue Ridge residents have ample reason to be suspicious of the motivations of outside scholars. After all, it was a series of sociological studies imposing Dogpatch history on the Shenandoah National Park region that succeeded in fostering widespread support for the removal and effective disenfranchising of residents. In many ways, the pre-park settlements exist most strongly today, in the minds of descendants and even in the perceptions of modern park visitors. The very establishment of the national park imposed the boundaries and the physical isolation which subsequently created both a unity amongst the displaced and a bounded, if now unpopulated, 'homeland.'
To the social science community of the 1930s, the isolated Blue Ridge hollows contained "a wealth of material for science and laymen who are interested in the growth and decline of human culture" according to Fay Cooper Cole of the University of Chicago. Since the eighteenth century, the hollows had existed "without contact with law or government" claimed sociologist Mandel Sherman and journalist Thomas Henry in their 1933 work Hollow Folk, which purported to describe the degraded state of Nicholson, Corbin, and Weakley Hollows and two neighboring communities. Here the pair discovered "families of unlettered folk, of almost pure Anglo-Saxon stock, sheltered in tiny, mud-plastered log cabins and supported by a primitive agriculture." Residents had "no community government, no organized religion, little social organization wider than that of the family and clan, and only traces of organized industry." They were "not of the 20th century."

Deliciously contradicting this particular claim is a battered 1931 cellulose card calendar, featuring artwork of Maxfield Parrish on the reverse, discovered during the surface collection of a site in Corbin Hollow. Throughout the hollows, the universal presence of an array of kitchen and dining wares, pharmaceutical glass, military items, mail order toys, 78 RPM record fragments, specialized agricultural tools, store-bought shoes, and even automobiles all suggest that mountain residents were as equally bombarded by mass consumer culture as were other early 20th-century rural Americans. Hollow residents clearly participated within that milieu on their own terms - terms that were dictated not so much by environment or regional identity, but by disparate local and household economies.

European settlement was inaugurated in the broad Weakley Hollow valley in the mid-eighteenth century with the legal patenting of large tracts of land which quickly attracted farmers, millers, and merchants. The strongly-flowing streams of the hollow supported at least one grist mill, two sawmills, and a host of legal distilleries, while a road through the hollow connected these businesses with two villages. By the early 20th century, Weakley Hollow boasted its own village, complete with a post office, two churches, two stores, and a school. In 1932, residents owned properties varying from one to 470 acres, living in frame and log houses ranging from the spacious three story home of Haywood and Daisy Nicholson, to the single-story log home of Tera Weakley. Perched high on the slopes of Old Rag Mountain, the newly-abandoned Weakley home was easily missed when the CCC boys swept through the hollow on their mission to restore nature. The house and nearby henhouse stood nearly intact until November 2000.

Unlike Weakley Hollow, Nicholson Hollow never developed a central village, remaining agricultural and boasting large and small family farms, extensive orchards, and associated distilling facilities. The log buildings in the hollow reflect the complexity of historic settlement; ranging from once-substantial farmhouses to early nineteenth-century slave quarters; to the more modest dwellings of early 20th-century tenant farmers. The most famous home in the hollow is that of Aaron Nicholson, a charismatic and unfairly-caricatured local figure who actually owned 241 acres in the upper end of the hollow. The logs of his architecturally unique stone-gabled house, built in the 1880s, had collapsed into a heap by 1980. By contrast, the stark walls of the home built by Newton and Emily Nicholson on a 32 acre farm they purchased in 1902, remained standing. Wistfully described by their daughter as "the sweetest place I was at in my whole life," the building was a total loss.

The emerging portrayal of 20th-century life in Nicholson and Weakley Hollows, where residents owned farms and businesses, went to church and school, listened to the radio, visited with neighbors, and journeyed afield in their own automobiles, provides an indisputable refutation of the claims of the 1930s scholars. While this revised portrait of Blue Ridge life has been well-received by descendants and park staff alike, weaving tales about the archaeology of the recent past remains a challenging exercise. Within the dizzying array of available sources are the very individuals around whom our tales revolve. No matter how responsibly drafted, our versions often do not gel with the remembered past, personal histories, and present-day concerns of those individuals whose history we struggle to present. As informants, these people provide singular insights at the same time that their involvement with the research raises thought-provoking issues of ownership, agency, and the validity of multiple histories.

Now that the pendulum has finally swung towards presenting a more positive view of pre-park life in the Blue Ridge, few are interested in the evidence of slavery, discord, and economic inequality in the hollows unearthed during the course of the Survey of Rural Mountain Settlement, or necessarily wish to explore the possibility that some truth may lie within the 1930s reports. Clearly much of the language in works such as Hollow Folk are derivative of studies and local color fiction focusing on the Appalachian region, yet there must be some truth in the images presented at the time of park creation.

The search for such 'truth' leads inexorably to Corbin Hollow, the third hollow in the archaeological project area and one which was examined in a 1930s study by the Washington Child Research Center. According to a May 1932 newspaper article: "An investigation has been made by a Washington physician and social worker of the condition of the people, and shocking are the results…There are six families living in the hollow, all named Corbin or Nicholson. All the adults are cousins. The ancestors of these two families settled there at the close of the Revolution and their descendants have intermarried and had very little to do with the outside world since…. Ray Lyman Wilbur, Secretary of the Interior, visited Corbin Hollow and heartily approved of the plan to move the Corbins and the Nicholsons… They will be out of the national park then, and better located."

Careful examination of the material, documentary, and ethnographic record from Corbin Hollow reveals a far more complex portrait than that painted by the sociologists or preferred by non-Corbin Hollow residents and descendants forced to distance themselves from the well-publicized poverty in the hollow. As of 1932, a total of 40 individuals within six households resided in Corbin Hollow proper, 29 of whom were children and grandchildren of the elderly Finnell Corbin, who purchased land in the hollow in 1894 near a road leading the nearby Skyland resort, established in 1888. According to the proprietor of this resort, George Freeman Pollock, "…those of Corbin Hollow depended altogether on us for their livelihood. We gave them a market for their baskets, fruit and berries; gave them employment working in the garden and cutting wood; and all of the trails for miles around Skyland… were built by mountain people." Reliant on the resort, Corbin's offspring occupied properties without title close to the road leading to Skyland as revealed in park tract records. The uncertainties of squatter life are reflected in part by the ephemeral traces of their homes, perched on steep, un-cleared slopes.
By eschewing more traditional agriculture in favor of wage labor and craft sales at Skyland, inhabitants had little to fall back upon when the Depression hit and the already rocky financial fortunes of the resort plummeted. The resultant poverty in the hollow made it a convenient photographic subject for park promoters, and by his own admission, Pollock paraded potential Park supporters through Corbin Hollow: "I knew that without actually visiting these people in their homes one could never conceive of their poverty and wretchedness." Pollock also hired schoolteacher and self-styled social worker Miriam Sizer, encouraging her to join up with his Washington acquaintances to perform the study of Corbin Hollow, carefully timed to coincide with the debate over the removal of park residents.

Former neighbors were not blind to Pollock's blatant manipulation of Corbin Hollow, and continue to blame Pollock for his role in the creation of the park. One neighbor felt "especially betrayed by George Pollock…[for] "pushing the people out. And, you know, coming up with all the stories of the areas that were just, really poor. They didn't ever say anything about the people who worked , and made a good living and, and lived there peacefully and nicely."

Significantly, sites in Corbin Hollow exhibit a range of goods not encountered on the sites in Weakley and Nicholson Hollows. In addition to reflecting differences in subsistence strategies - for example, far higher percentages of tin cans and commercial food jars are found in Corbin Hollow than in the neighboring hollows-other items reflect connections with Skyland and hint at the material impact of the visiting tourists, journalists, and social scientists. While decorated and undecorated whitewares predominate on 20th-century sites in Weakley and Nicholson Hollows, ceramics represented in Corbin Hollow assemblages are primarily bulk-produced hotel wares of vitrified porcelain which closely match varieties unearthed in a dump at Skyland. These wares may have been acquired by the hollow residents often surreptitiously, however, as Pollock routinely took legal action against his employees for incidents as minor as cursing, any thefts - even of discards-- would not have passed unnoticed. More likely, the materials were either purchased outright from Pollock, or even more likely, the notoriously cash-impaired resort owner may have paid his employees with cheap tablewares that he purchased in bulk.

Corbin Hollow sites also yielded the highest percentages of costume jewelry and toys found in the project area, including toy trucks, porcelain doll fragments, a baseball, a harmonica, and even a portion of a 33 repeater pop ray gun made in Wyandotte, Michigan. This ample archaeological evidence contrasts sharply with Mandel Sherman's claim that "The children have… no toys nor do they know the meaning of the term toys…". The plethora of toys and leisure items (including 78 RPM records) reflects two possible scenarios. One, the availability of cash generated by wage labor allowed for the purchase of such items, even if it was to the detriment of subsistence; or two, a percentage of the toys and records were donations. The truth likely lies somewhere in between.

Some items encountered on Corbin Hollow sites clearly were acquired by way of charity. For example, the second largest class of surface artifacts encountered on one site was footwear, totaling 178 individual artifacts or 24% of the overall assemblage. Significantly concentrated an arm's throw downslope of the front porch, the assemblage consists of a minimum of 38 different pairs of shoes which range from men's boots and dress wingtips to ladies' heels to girl's "Mary Jane" buckled loafers. Only one example shows any evidence of wear, suggesting that the discarded shoes simply did not fit or otherwise suit any one in the household. While the women and girls of the family may have enjoyed the ownership of the dress pumps, heels were hardly practicable for everyday wear. Such donations likely assuaged the consciences of their contributors, but they were hardly useful to the Corbin family, as evidenced by their inauspicious deposition.
Whether or not objects found on Corbin Hollow sites were acquired unconventionally, by means of charity, barter, or even pilfering, the materials were used and discarded by residents in much the same way as those items which were purchased at local stores, from itinerant peddlers, or via mail order catalogues. Showcasing her complete misunderstanding of the valid and self-aware nature of such means of material acquisition, Miriam Sizer complained bitterly about one Corbin Hollow family that "often sells or trades supplies they are given", expressing disbelief at one woman who "trades off everything she gets, often for milk." Most likely milk was of more immediate use than a city dweller's cast-off clothing!

Hollow residents were not blind to the widespread interest in their mountain lifestyle, and readily co-opted the imposed identity. Just as the Skyland proprietor exploited the labor of the hollow dwellers, they in turn exploited his guests. The practice of traditional basketmaking rapidly expanded in Corbin Hollow owing to the proximity of this ready tourist market eager to own a piece of authentic mountain culture, while the local production of whiskey concomitantly expanded. As Skyland guests absorbed local color in the form of moonshine, 'true' mountaineers poured measures of bonded products sold in the numerous embossed liquor bottles found in all three hollows.

The partially rebuilt mountain home constructed by George Corbin (the primary supplier of moonshine to Skyland) in 1909 is one of only three log structures to have survived the recent forest fire. Once the smallest home on the smallest farm in the hollow, the National Register-listed Corbin Cabin now serves as the primary example of housing in Nicholson Hollow, officially but inaccurately described as "representative of the typical mountain cabin traditional in the park area". Stripped of its outbuildings, fields, and neighboring homes, the cabin exudes an a-historic aura of isolation, falsely enhancing both the image of isolation and hardship pandered in the 1930s and the ideal of the self-sufficient hardy mountaineer often proffered in the present. Two sides of the same coin, both 'useable pasts' deny the complexity and reality of past life in the hollows, which like human life anywhere else was punctuated by conflict and resolution, peace and discord, selfishness and generosity, tenderness and violence.

By the turn of the 21st century, the disparate early 20th century history of the pre-park communities became melded to promote a unified present-day identity, just as the people in the present, through memory and the politics of park creation, have projected a unified community identity into the past. While emphasizing the complexity of pre-park life, the recent archaeological research has clearly contributed to overturning the negative history of the region and helped to return it to the control of the displaced and their descendants. The challenge now is to continually strive for accuracy in our understanding and presentation of the park's complex historic past while remaining ever aware of the impact of the past upon the present. “

Fennell / Finnell / Phinnell Corbin & Eliza E. Nicholson Corbin

Phinnel Corbin was born June 27, 1867 in Madison (Madison County) VA. He was the son of Strother Corbin (b: 1817 in VA) and Mary Ann Morris (b: 1823 in VA).
Eliza E. Nicholson was born March 1868 in Madison County, VA. She was the daughter of Peter (1837) and Rutha (1833) Nicholson.

August 18, 1888, Phinnell & Eliza married in Madison County, VA.

Phinnell and Eliza had 10 Children:
1. Dicey Corbin b: 27 May 1889 in Madison, Madison County, VA
2. Samuel Corbin b: May 1891 in Madison, Madison County, VA
3. Benjamin Corbin b: Aug 1892 in Madison, Madison County, VA
4. Blanche B. Corbin b: Jan 1894 in Madison, Madison County, VA Married Edward  "Eddie" Nicholson
5. Harrison Corbin b: 1895 in Madison, Madison County, VA
6. Edmonia Corbin b: Nov 1896 in Madison, Madison County, VA
7. George Warren Corbin b: Feb 1897 in Madison, Madison County, VA
8. Mary A. Corbin b: May 1899 in Madison, Madison County, VA
9. Mazie (M.A.) Corbin b: 1900 in Madison, Madison County, VA Married Charlie Nicholson
10. James F. Corbin b: 1908 in Madison, Madison County, VA

Phinnell Corbin "Shot & killed Clark Dodson ca 1910. Clark was drunk and throwing rocks at Phinnels cabin trying to get Phinnels daughter's to come outside - Haywood Nicholson was with him. Clark passed out and Haywood was still yelling. Phinnel told him to get on his way but he threw more rocks. Phinnel shot at Haywood and hit him in the rear with buckshot. He went yelling to Clark and Clark got up and went back to Phinnels daring him to shoot him and Phinnel did."

"Aug 1915, George Pollack of Skyland had a special fair at Skyland and the proceeds went to provide a better home for Fennel & family. They raised $350.00 and built him a nice little cabin."

In 1935 Phinnell Corbin listed as Head of Family.

Eliza died before Phinnell as his death certificate lists him as a widower.
Phinnell died May 23, 1945 in Staunton (Augusta County) VA of Heart Disease. He was buried May 25, 1945 at Western State Hospital Cemetery, Staunton, VA.

Fennell on his bed.

Fennell with grandchilden circa 1935

FINNELL CORBIN
Page News & Courier, Friday 30 Apr 1937
"Sighs For The "Swish" of Broken Back River
Finnell Corbin, who during his life..., has had several tilts with the law, though always coming out on top in court, a resident in the Corbin Hollow neighborhood in Madison county, not far from the Page county line, has been removed to one of the Old Folks Homes in a different part of the State.
Corbin, a familiar figure in Page county at intervals for the last half century, dispensing his wares- axe handles and split baskets- has had a friend in that institution where he is spending the closing days of his life write one of his relatives in Corbin Hollow, saying: "My treatment here is good, but I long for the roar and swish of Broken Back River along which I have always lived. I would like again to have a chance to show younger folks how to carve out axe handles and weave split baskets, but my days for that kind of work are over forever. Even if my fare in Corbin Hollow was meagre, often corn bread and potatoes and sometimes not these, I would again like to have a morsel of them as they were prepared by my mother when I was a boy and by myself when there was no one else to prepare them. Ever since I was a boy, Broken Back River even when it went on a tear, was music to my ears as it swirled and snarled by my cabin's door."

Edward Nicholson, 46, a son-in-law of Corbin, died a short time ago at his home in Corbin Hollow. The cause of his death was tuberculosis. Nicholson has many relatives living in Page county, where for the last thirty years, like his father-in-law, peddled baskets and axe handles in this county. His wares for that long have been kept on sale at the Kiblinger and Jenkins stores in Marksville district and at the Lee Judd store in Luray district.

Finnell Corbin years ago, shot and killed Clark Dodson, a youth, who was making himself an intruder in the Corbin home. Corbin was promptly acquitted by a Madison county jury. It is said that the then Commonwealth's Attorney of Madison refused to prosecute the case against Corbin before the charge had been half aired in court."