Transcripts: Southern Appalachian English

Newton Ownby

(Wears Valley, Sevier County, Tennessee) was age 77 when interviewed.  He had a second- or third-grade education and was a farmer and cattle raiser.

*.doc file for printing

Well, there's one time a man was passing my house and I lived up on Jakes Creek.  He started to North Carolina.  He missed his way and went the wrong way and got lost, and we hunted for him and inquired afterxx him and never could hear of him.  And about five year afterxx he passed my house, we found him a-layin' in a sinkhole back on what they call the Middle Prong of Little River.  And we, we went out there and took him up, held a jury over him with twelve men, and he'd got catched in a steel trap, and the jury give it in that they was a boy or he'd been killed by somebody and was catched in that steel trap, and they covered him up with what they call hemlock brushxx.
                                                                        PAUSE
They'd just left his bones a-layin' there, and we took him up.  Every bone was to its place but one.  We took that man in, put every, had a doctor to come to him, put every bone back right to its place, and buried him out there at Gatlinburg.  And they thought, they thought they knowed who it was catched him and took him up.  The law took him up, and they couldn't prove it direct on him and they just turned him loose.