By Brian Sewell “Murdered in May of 1865,” a white gravestone on the banks of the Yadkin River in Wilkes County, N.C., reads. “Tom Dula hanged for crime.” The grave belongs to Laura Foster, the victim in one of the…
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Old Folktales Die Hard
TAGS: Folktales Foothills Conservancy of North Carolina Happy Valley Fiddler’s Convention Sharyn McCrumb Tom Dooley Tom Dula Wilkes County
Writing the Ballad Novels: Sharyn McCrumb In Her Own Words
My father’s family settled the North Carolina mountains in the 1790s, and I grew up in a swirl of tales: mountain legends, ballads and scraps of Appalachian history. My first ancestor to settle in these mountains was Malcolm McCourry, chronicled…
