Duay O'Neill on River Heroes

Partial Transcript: I fell in it when I was 10 years old.
I did; I didn’t have 3 arms or 5 eyes. It had big foam, big caps of foam on it. We had a farm up alongside the river there and we ran water from one side of the mountain through the river to a big farm on the other, we had 300 acres and there was no water on it. And so we had a big farm on the other side, had this huge spring, and they, we ran the water. Of course, the pipe would break and all that and they were working on it. And it was like “Do not get in that water!”; well it burned, I remember that.

Partial Transcript: Well I am Duay Oneill and I have lived here for 67 years nearly in Newport, Tennessee, Cocke County. I grew up here; my families on both sides have been here since the beginning of the state. Taught school at Cocke County High School for over 30 years and have been associated with the newspaper the Newport Plain Talk here now since 2005.

Partial Transcript: Well in the early days, and I am talking about the pre-state days the earliest settlers for the most part were the revolutionary soldiers who moved into this area. They were paid with land. The new government of the United States didn’t have any money to pay the soldiers for their service so they paid them with land. And several of my own ancestors are among those people who came in here, mostly from Virginia, South Carolina and Pennsylvania moved in for that reason. For the most part the early settlers chose to settle along the rivers, as you know we do have three rivers, The Pigeon, and The French Broad and the Nolichucky. And, of course, settling along the rivers they had food, they had protection, transportation and then they gradually branched out from that. Most of the early settlers were farmers on a smaller scale. For the most part we did not have plantations that you associate with middle Tennessee and west Tennessee. There were a few but very few and then the Civil War came. For the most part our county was pro-Union. There were 2 different votes regarding secession and in both votes we voted 2:1 to stay in the Union. But, of course, that didn’t happen. What did happen was we the fact that we had a lot of in-fighting and a lot of tragedies because of that. Especially out in the outlying areas and by at that time people had settled up in the mountainous areas and these little homesteads were just very vulnerable to bushwhackers, and to both armies as they came through and following the war things changed quite a bit.
First of all in 1867 the railroad was finally finished. From Asheville to Knoxville, Greenville, Mars Town and so forth. It had not been. There had been several attempts to finish it, but we were rather quarrelsome with each other as to where it would go and it was not finished when the war broke out and actually that saved our bacon because we didn’t have anything for invading armies to destroy in the way of railroad tracks and bridges and things like that. But they finished the railroad in 1867; gradually then of course, it ran down, followed the Pigeon River, well gradually the town began to move from its original site on the French Broad River over to the Pigeon River and eventually the seat of government moved over, the Courthouse and so forth and so then that early settlement became known as Old Town and we’re Newport. And so then it’s been here since; we’ve like many other areas – we’ve had our periods of growth, we’ve had our periods of stagnation. I guess a big change in the 1950’s and 60’s came with the arrival of industries that were looking for non-union labor and we had some very forward thinking people that created the Industrial Board and they courted these industries. Some of them are still here.
And brought a lot of new people here and, of course, during the 1960’s the interstate project connected us with the outside world. We are right along the route you know from Atlanta all the way through and can be in most places in a matter of 4 or 5 hours you know on the east coast because we are so centrally located there.

Partial Transcript: Well in the late 1800’s, post-Civil War, early 1900’s there was a great deal of lumber industry that grew and came to the Western North Carolina, east Tennessee areas and there was a project here the Scottish Lumber company they came to town in 1880’s and had great plans for Newport, and new streets, a planned community you might say and then there was an economic turndown. And things sort of went south on the project but meanwhile you know this virgin timber just seemed like an endless supply for a while and we had communities such as Hartford and Sunburst, North Carolina and Mount Sterling in Crestmont over in the North Carolina areas. And at Hartford for example they had sidewalks and they had a movie theatre, and so forth as long as the lumber industry was there. And it was during this time that Champion began their operations. As you may know, they intended to come here first and didn’t and instead chose to make their home over in Canton, North Carolina. My mother’s family lived next to the river; and she was born in 1909 and so as a girl growing up alongside the river she said it was still pristine and she said they thought nothing of having the water from the river, nothing, they didn’t worry about eating the fish out of the river or anything like that. But then over the years things just became worse and worse. And by my earliest memories in the early 1950’s the stench was horrible, big clots of brown foam, and, of course, no one would dare eat any fish out of the river or drink any of the water from the river by then.

Partial Transcript: Well to be perfectly honest I wasn’t really aware of any strong feelings, concerted efforts. There had been; I just wasn’t aware of them until the mid-1960’s. And periodically there would be lots of noise about getting the river clean and of course it was about this time that Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, Wilma Dykeman’s works. And I always say Wilma because she was a family friend. Her son and I were in school together and she was a room mother before she was a published author, but we became more and more educated about pollution and the dangers of pollution was that there was a lot more at stake than just a smelly river that came through town. And so then by the time that the Dead Pigeon River project, the Dead Pigeon River Council came along, by that time, my mother had died of cancer. And it is one of those things I cannot prove but I will always believe that it was because of her life along the river.
By the time the Dead Pigeon River Council group became so established and working so hard, by that time my mother had died. Died in March of 1977 after a 10 month bout with cancer. And I will always believe that it was triggered somehow by the water, alongside the river there where she lived for so many years. There were 7 children in her family; and the other 6, as they got through high school, moved away, but she did not. She married and just moved up the river from where she grew up. And lived there for another 11 years. And of course, during that time their well water right next to the river and so forth. Of all the family members she was the only one who developed cancer. She never smoked, she never worked in a factory where there were chemicals or anything like that. And I firmly believe that somehow that played a part in her death.

Partial Transcript: Oh yes; during the hearings that were held at Cocke County High School they had a wall and it was sort of styled after the Vietnam Wall with all the names of the fallen soldiers from the Vietnam period; there was a wall with the names of all the people from the community who had died of cancer. And it was just a very sobering feeling to stand there and realize all the different people that I had known. And there was one family from the Hartford community that was pretty much wiped out at young ages from cancer.

Partial Transcript: After the lumber industry finished, and by that I mean when there was no more timber to cut, and they moved on to another location, gradually those communities that I named - Mount Sterling and Crestmont and Sunburst over in North Carolina and then Hartford here, the Gulf up that way also - for the most part the population dwindled, back to the original families pretty much. And then when the interstate came through in the late 1960’s Hartford was set to be obliterated. Because it would just go right over you know what was left of the little community there and the citizens banded together and managed to get the highway shifted just a few feet. As one drives from Newport to Asheville it would be to one’s left as you go up through there, just shifted a few feet and spared the village. There was a post office, there was an elementary school, a couple of stores and things and, but, that was about it until the river work really got underway and the cleaning of the river became obvious. It’s not finished of course but it’s much, much more clean than it was. And then with the whitewater rafting, arrival of that industry, Hartford has begun to bloom again.

Partial Transcript: Well as I said, we had the public hearings; you know they were held at Cocke County High School and it was really heartening because there was a huge turnout and people from all ages , from all walks of life, we were all free to speak our mind, speak our piece, as the saying goes. Our leaders at the time made numerous trips to Nashville, to North Carolina, to Washington. Now I cannot give you any specific dates and so forth, but there was a lot of work, a lot of work, that went on during that time. Very frustrating; one would think that you could just say “please quit polluting the river” and, but, at the same time I can see why there was such resistance from an economic point of view. You know to put in the features that would be needed to stop that but yet keep the business going in North Carolina would be going into the millions of dollars I’m sure and they were concerned about their community and the possible loss of jobs and the possible losses to their economy. I can understand why they resisted so. But I can certainly understand our feelings too being downriver. And we were the first large community downriver that got the poison, got the pollution.

Partial Transcript: Wilma Dykeman and her husband James R. Stokely were friends of our family, church friends, town friends and so forth. Her younger son and I are the same age and we were in school together at Newport Grammar School. Wilma was a room mother just like mine was and I do remember with the publication of one of her books she was interviewed by Hugh Downs on the Today Show and I remember watching that. And, of course, it was a black and white television and it wasn’t very clear but it was very exciting. And from that point we knew that she wasn’t like everybody else’s mom, even though she was very involved in the school as long as her children were there. She was in the PTA and all that sort of kind of stuff , she was very involved but she was different. We were too young to understand just how different she was and in what ways and then as I got older and read her works, and began, and heard her speak, her passion you know was so evident. Of course, she had a trained voice for speaking, having gone to Northwestern and majored in Dramatic Arts and all of that, she certainly knew how to project to the audience and you couldn’t help but just be drawn into her remarks and then in just speaking to her one on one she had that way that when she was talking to you, that you were the most important person that she had come across. And this is a woman who traveled to China, with one of the first groups to go into China in the 1970’s after China opened back up to the world and she was selected to go on that trip and had met the Dalai Lama and all these wonderful fine, world famous people but at the same time when she was talked to you , you were the most important person to her.

Partial Transcript: Well you know she wrote The Tall Woman, I guess you could say a blockbuster, still in print for all these years which says quite a bit and when I was at East Tennessee State University working on my masters in English, one of my professors, Dr. Jack Higgs, was so excited when he found out that Wilma was a friend of mine. And so he wanted to know about the town’s feelings about her books and so by that time of course she had written The Far Family about the canning industry and of course pollution plays a great role in that and its effects on people and so I was excited to learn that in the world of academia that she was so highly regarded - that my feelings that her works were very well done, very well-crafted and structured and so forth were not because of the fact that she was one of ours, so to speak. Now she was from Asheville but of course she spent a good portion of her life over here. But I remember this that when The Far Family came out that she denied on television that it was the story of the Stokely family. And so my mother who was still alive then, sat down and made a list of all the characters in the book and who they were and she sort of laughed and said “now Wilma can say that all she wants to but here’s who they are”. And now many years ,later after the deaths of all the people involved here, I was at a dinner with some of the Stokely grandchildren by that time and one of them asked the group about what they thought about being a member of the Stokely family, and I mean the Stokely family is the canning family and all that and one of the younger people said “Well until Aunt Wilma published her book about our family”, you know The Far Family, and I was sitting next to one of the Stokely grandchildren that I had grown up with and I leaned over and I said that is the first time I have ever heard anyone in your family admit , admit that that is your story and he said “It’s my first time”.

So she was a straight shooter, she really was a straight shooter, but at the same time she was a gracious straight shooter about things, and I think because of her a lot of us came to realize the importance of the environment, the importance of doing the little things and that if everybody does a little something that adds up to big things. And I know she influenced my thinking and I am sure she did others as well.

Partial Transcript: Well I think that the fact that bit by bit that the citizens here came to realize that if they worked together and put aside personality’s differences and community differences you know, this part of the county against that part of the county, that they can begin to see positive changes and came to understand that it might not be in our lifetimes, but it certainly won’t be in our lifetimes if we don’t do something now. And so several of the early workers in the project have died. But they died in a better world than what they had to start with.

Partial Transcript: Well we’re all part and parcel of those who came before us and I think it is important for us to know as much as we can about our forebears ; it helps us understand who are and why we perhaps think the way we do or believe the way we do or even act the way we do. I think we need to know that in the early days before the industrial revolution brought pollution to the river so to speak that the rivers were vital, you know water is always – you know you don’t have water you don’t have life. It is critical for us know this and not only to know this but to pass it on to our children and, in my case now, grandchildren.

Partial Transcript: Well, to be perfectly honest I’m not sure that I would want to go back completely to the lifestyle that existed before. I like my creature comforts, and I like, obviously to look at me, you know that I like food and lots of it. But I think that we do need to develop a greater understanding and appreciation of just why we need to take care of our environment where we are, our rivers, our communities, our mountains because once they’re gone, they’re gone. There’s no more rivers being created, there’s no more mountains being created and it’s something that we do not need to take for granted and think well it’s always been here, it always will be here because that’s not the case.

Partial Transcript: Well as you say the river is much cleaner, of course, I remember it in the days of the brown, sludgy stink and the huge, huge pieces of foam floating down through there and one would never have eaten any fish out of it , for example, I think some people might have fished, per se, but certainly not have partaken of anything like that. Since the 1990’s now and the beginning of the whitewater rafting, for example, we could not have done that in the days of the foam, for example. And to see the signs that used to be along the rivers “DO NOT EAT FISH FROM THIS RIVER” that is very sobering. You know it was almost like a Hollywood movie of the 1950’s or something – “Do not eat this fish, Do not swim in this water” but with the improvements, not only are we able to sit here next to the river and not gag from the stench but the economical benefits that have come to our county alone, over the years, through the whitewater rafting, just the fact that each rafter, each paid rafter, $2.00 of that goes into the county coffers. Well now over the past several years now, we’ve have garnered several million dollars from that and while the tourists are here rafting they spending money elsewhere you know if they spend the night. They buy gas, they buy food, they go to Walmart and buy a t-shirt or something like that. So it has certainly proven to be a boon to our community to have the river clean, the wildlife, the return of the wildlife. Now we have ospreys for example. It’s not uncommon at all for me to come out of the office at the newspaper which is basically in the middle of town and look up and see an osprey fly over. They nest you know along the rivers now. 50 or 60 years ago, 60 years ago when I was a kid we’d never have seen that. I had to go to the Atlantic Ocean to see my first osprey and now, you know, they’re back.

Partial Transcript: Well, to finish cleaning, to stop the additives of being poured into the river- the harmful additives. I don’t understand how you can say it’s okay to put this percentage into the river. Now I personally, just to me, a millimeter, not a millimeter, but just a tiny drop of a percentage, is pollution. I don’t understand how anyone can justify that it’s okay to put just a little bit into the river.