Folklore and Literacy Interpretations: The Witcher-Clement Feud, Part 1

Categories
Appalachian Collections > Appalachian Folklife Archive
Subject
Appalachia
Oral histories--Appalachia
Folklore--Appalachia
Clement, James R., -1860
Clement, Victoria C.
Creator
Swanson, Charles A.
Kendrick, Desmond Jerry
Swanson, Eugene Addison
Stephenson, Rex
Type
text and audio
Coverage - Temporal
2003
Date
2003-12-02
2020-08-05
Identifier
203.648.1.pdf
Language
english
Publisher
Appalachian Regional and Rural Studies Center. Radford University
Archives & Special Collections. McConnell Library. Radford University
Description
In this project, Charles A. Swanson interviewed Desmond Kendrick, Eugene Swanson, and Rex Stephenson about the Witcher-Clement feud. This feud dates back to February 25, 1860 and involved a shoot-out in a store in Franklin County, Virginia in which Victoria Smith Clement was giving a deposition as part of the process of filing for divorce from James R. Clement. Several people were killed in the shoot-out, and a feud was begun that in some ways, still exists today, but in other ways has long since been resolved. Included in this project are files of a short story written by Gail Swanson, and a play written by Rex Stephenson about this feud. This interview is among projects created by students enrolled in English 446 (initially English 452), “Appalachian Folklore,” 1981-2019, and in graduate level counterparts English 548 and 648 “Appalachian Folk Culture(s)” offered 17 fall semesters between 1987 and 2009. Minimally contain collector’s introduction and analysis, transcribed informant interviews, and excerpted and labeled examples of oral, customary, and/or material folklore/folklife collected primarily within the Appalachian region. Most include also tables of contents, informant information, indexes (outlines) of interviews, photographs, miscellaneous paper items, and indexes of informants, genres, and geographic locations. Accompanying audio recordings (several minutes to 2+ hours). Transferred to McConnell Library Archives & Special Collections from Appalachian Regional and Rural Studies Center, Fall 2013.
Rights
All rights are reserved by the original creators and their informants, excepting those expressly provided in a permission form on file in the Archives offices. Content is available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. McConnell Library Archives and Special Collections, Radford University, Radford, VA). Any commercial use of the materials, without the written permission of Radford University, is strictly prohibited. Please refer to the McConnell Library Archives and Special Collections website for more information.