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Transcript of Interview of Phil Fox and Sarah Jean Fox Woods about the first Daniel Boone Festival in 1948

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Fox, Philipp Paul and Sarah Jean Fox WoodsCassette Tape Content Outline [CRM:PW\KHM\FOXPHIL.INT]Cassette Tape No. 97/2Knox Historical Museum Oral History Project General Topic: Daniel Boone Festivals Specific Topic: First DBF - 1948 Date of Interview: September 25, 1997Date of Transcript: September 25,1997 (Revised: Oct. 7, 97)Original Computer word processing program: Professional WritePHILIPP PAUL FOX, SR.(Born: June 18, 1909)andSARAH JEAN FOX WOODS (MRS. IVAN W. WOODS)(Born: November 3, 1934)Cassette Tape date 25 September 1997 on file at the Knox Historical museum. Notes by Charles Reed Mitchell.[KHM:PWYKHMYFOXPHIL.INT]Interviewed by Charles Reed Mitchell on 25 September 1997 at the home of Philipp Fox at 100 West Judge Street, Barbourvi1le, KY, Philipp Fox and daughter, Sarah Fox Woods, discussed their memories of the First Daniel Boone Festival and its founder, Dr. Karl Bleyl. The purpose of the interview was to gather information about the first Boone Festival, May 20-21,1948. Sarah Jean Fox Woods, Mrs. Ivan W. Woods, of RR 1, Box 224-A, Hazard, Kentucky 41701, was visiting her father and added a few memories to the interview. One 60-minute cassette tape. Total playing time: approximately 45 minutes. Open. Releases signed. Almost complete transcript. Most repetitions, false starts, incomplete sentences, encouraging remarks and affirmations irrelevant to the data, and interruptions have been edited out. Summaries replace sections that lead nowhere or questions that are not adequately answered.Abbreviations:Charles Reed Mitchell (CRM)Philipp Paul Fox, Sr. (PF)Sarah Jean Fox Woods (SJW)Daniel Boone Festival (DBF)SIDE 1CRM: The first thing I'd like to ask you, Phil, is, did you have any role directly yourself [or were] involved in the first Daniel Boone Festival in 1948?PF: No.CRM: You did not take part in any way? Were you in town?PF: Oh, yeah. If I'm not, mistaken we were in the parade; the [Boy] Scouts I think marched in it. But I really got involved in it through Mary [PF's daughter, Dr. Mary Pauline Fox]. She was involved in it; she was Dr. Bleyl's assistant in the Biology Department at the college, and that's where I became acquainted with Dr. Bleyl. He had visited our home a time or two and one time while he was up there he told me that he was planning to go up to Worth Carolina to the reservation over there. And I said, ''Well, if you don't mind, I'll just ride over there with you." So I went over there, and we met Chief Standingdeer. Standingdeer and he got together and discussed the situation. The best I could figure out was some eastern conglomerate had cornered the cane market over there on the reservation and were charging the Indians an exorbitant price for cane. They used cane for their baskets; that's how they made their living, most of them. And Bleyl told him to take it easy, and he'd be back in touch and he came back here and went around to some of the various farmers here. They agreed to give all the cane they wanted, so then he got back in touch with him, and that was what I think the beginning of the Daniel Boone Festival. He made arrangements for them to come over here. Of course I didn't know what of those arrangements were, but the DBF was then inaugurated. Union College was pretty much involved in it because Bleyl was a professor there. He had a building that they had built over there that people could visit and had some beautiful window displays. There was quite a contingent of Indians came over the first time. And of course they had an Indian feast, which I attended, and also the parade. Well, the parade was nothing like it is today by any means; they had horse-drawn vehicles and people rode horses, and if I remember correctly the Indians walked in the parade along with other people there involved in the parade. And it went off real nice. Had a good time. They also had a pageant over at Union College, lasted quite a while that Dr. Bleyl wrote. And if my memory serves me correct the museum has a copy of that pageant. I think I gave it to them.CRM: ''The Song of the Cumberland," but that is the version that he wrote for the next year, for 1949.PF: I thought they had it twice.CRM: Well, he had a pageant the first year, but the text that we have, ''The Song of the Cumberland," was written later. It's probably based on what they did the first time, but I don't know. I don't know if you could remember whether there was any differences between the first year and the second year or not.PF: No, I cannot.CRM: If you remember the text, it looks like there are many times opportunities for dances, or Boone goes here or Indian goes there.PF: A lot of men dressed up as frontier people and women wore old-fashioned clothes. It was quite an event. The weather was cooperative during those early days. Everyone seemed to enjoy it. Then of course more and more people became commercialized in it; they had booths and sold things. You never saw a booth or anything on the square back in those days. It was just a regular DBF,' People came for miles around to watch it. I guess they had the biggest attendance they'd ever had in Barbourvi1le. And the Courier-Journal used to write it up every year but then they even quit writing on it.CRM: They sent reporters down for the first one. I may have that in my scrapbook. My mother kept a scrapbook in the 1940s but I remember seeing that spread in the Courier-Journal magazine section, the first one. And they did cover us thereafter, but I guess less and less after it became sort of formalized. Getting back to that cane, what you're talking about is just plain river-bottom cane, fishing pole cane; you're not talking about sugar cane, just stuff to make baskets out of.PF: Creek-bottom cane. No, it grew wild here in Knox County and still does. People used it for fishing poles and that's about the total use of it that I know of.CRM: I don't know any commercial use of it. We used to raise it on my grandfather's farm. We didn't raise it, it just came up naturally.SJW: You can use it to stake beans.CRM: Yeah, that's all I've ever used it for, to stake beans. At one point in 1949 I saw that the cane treaty is called ''Wautuaga Treaty" Did you ever hear of that word?PF: No.CRM: It must mean ''cane" in Cherokee or something, but we [the museum] did get a certificate from someone who had signed the cane treaty signed in 1949, and Karl Standingdeer had signed that as ''Wautuaga" Treaty instead of Cane Treaty. But I didn't see any reference to that Cherokee word in the 1948. I guess that was later on.PF: I guess that was the one that Mary wrote up after Dr. Bleyl dictated it to her.CRM: He [Dr. Bleyl] wrote or composed the cane treaty that we still use today?PF: Absolutely. That's right. And they framed it. I said, ''Didn't they sign that at the Indian feast?" She said they signed the first one, but the second one was signed over at the reservation. A group of us went over there one time for a picnic for the Indians. And we stayed over there and they had their first showing of Unto These Hills and we were their guests. And that's where they signed the cane treaty. All the Barbourville contingent got up on the stage during intermission and they signed the cane treaty right there, the second one.CRM: There was an article in the 1948 Advocate saying that the Cherokees decided to turn things around and have a ''Barbourville Day" over at Cherokee, North Carolina.PF: I think that's what it was.CRM: So that is what you're talking aboutPF: That's right, that's right.CRM: I didn't see a report or follow-up on that, that they actually did that, so it's nice to have that confirmed.PF: I was there and so was the family. Jean remembers it and Mary did too. We had quite a contingent going over there. We had a picnic. Fortunately we 'brought a lot of food along or we wouldn't have gotten anything. The Indians didn't furnish anything much.CRM: Let me draw you back to Dr. Bleyl. Tell me what you can remember about him, virtually anything. I know that he was Professor of Biology at Union College, that within two years he was Chairman of the Division of Sciences. He lived over here on Manchester Street somewhere. [PF cannot recall Dr. Bleyl's wife's name. Mary Pauline Fox later gives the name, Helen Bleyl.]CRM: Betty Townsend and Milt moved into the house that Dr. Bleyl had lived in and they told them that whenever Dr. Bleyl decides to move back to town they're going to have to skedaddle out.PF: He went to Texas for some reason. I think he was originally from down there. He did come back for one festival, maybe more. I don't know but I remember one time. He loved licorice. Everytime he'd come back, I'd buy him a box of licorice and give it to him. He just loved it. But he was quite a fellow. One of the things I recall has nothing to do with Daniel Boone, but he was an expert with poisonous snakes. I think I told you about buying this snake, a rattlesnake, from a fellow and giving it to the college. He milked snakes a time or two. They had a picture of him in one of the Courier-Journal's magazines. He gave a dinner one night for the faculty and a few folks. Of course we were there because I furnished the snake and Mary was there and they had rattlesnake for dinner.SJW: That was the Science Club.PF: Anyway, it was quite an event.SJW: The mystery dish.PF: That was a rat, wasn't it?CRM: A rat!?SJW: It looked like white meat and they cut it up and put it in the salad. You never knew what the "mystery dish" was. They had cream dog on toast. The year I helped fix it we had squeezed worms, squashed the juice out of them and put it on meatloaf. That's enough to make you sick.CRM: What a character.PF: Those were the days.SJW: One thing about the first DBF, there was no motorized vehicles in that parade. It was all horse and buggies or horses or people walking. That's the time I remember. I rode in a covered wagon. [Neither could remember whether the bands of BHS and UC. took part in the first parade.]PF: The Indians did put on a display. They went around and raided the various merchants.CRM: Oh, that was another question. That actually took place.PF: Oh, yeah. They did and most of them got them a cigar or something like that. They all liked that. Then they put on an archery demonstration and blowgun [show]. In fact, I've got picture postcards of that.CRM: In 1949 as an advertising gimmick they decided to release twelve photo postcards.PF: Yeah, the Courier-Journal made those. [PF says he will try to find them and some press clippings of the DBF for the museum.]SJW: Almost every merchant on the square decorated their windows, mostly with antiques. It was beautiful.PF: My wife had a good collection of what they called "mustard dishes," a little dish about so big [indicates 3 or 4 inches high] that they used to put mustard in. They had all kinds of them; she had a good collection of them. They had that in one of the windows.CRM: In your opinion, then, Dr. Bleyl decided to stage the DBF as an answer to this cane problem that the Cherokee had?PF: Well, that was the means of it and entertaining the Indians while they were here too and making them known to Knox County, If I remember correctly, it's the first treaty that the Indians got the best of.CRM: The question that arises in my mind, and since you knew Dr. Bleyl perhaps you can answer this—I'm sure Pauline can if you can't: Dr. Bleyl was a biology professor, a scientist. Why would a scientist have this much interest in history to come up with this idea of staging a DBF?PF: The only way I can answer that is, he had visited the Cherokee reservation and he saw the condition of the people over there because of this increase in cane [price]. I guess he came back and after thinking it over and seeing all this cane around here, why not? Why not help these people? That's the only answer I know.CRM: It seems to me a rather amazing thing that apparently--and you can tell me if I'm wrong if I am—apparently he just thought this [DBF] up, whether the spur was the economic- condition of the Cherokee or whether it was the publication of Kinkaid's The Wilderness Road which was published in 1947, or for whatever reason, he just thought this up and ran it by the senior class, and you don't see a blind word about this in the Advocate or anyplace else before April 9, 1948. He has probably had two or three months to plan it before that at maximum. It's announced and within two or three months, May 20th and 21st, of the same year, within that period of time he not only stages the first DBF but creates virtually every event that is still used today.PF: Yes, I agree.CRM: I think that's absolutely incredible, and it's been continued for fifty years. Yes, there have been modifications. The next year, '49, they introduce the long rifle shoot and then you get the old cars later on, but the essential plan is established right then. I just wonder if he ever said anything to you [about this].PF: No, I really wasn't that close to him. I do know that he was quite a guy and had plenty up here [brains] , and knew what he was doing, and a very likable fellow.CRM: Yeah, he seems to have been very active in the community as well as Union College.PF: He might have done that to kind of promote the college because they all participated in the first one or two. If I remember correctly they even gave one Indian student a scholarship to Union College. I don't know whether it's still in effect or not. If it is, it's not being utilized. [No knowledge of the city government's role in the festival.]PF: Later on various people in town became involved in it and they had the DBF committee. There's a list somewhere of who participated in it. As it progressed they came up with different ideas, such as the most senior citizen of the county and all that. [CRM reads the list of the first DBF committee members from a bag at the museum,] [Mary Pauline Fox was a freshman at Union in 1949 and so was not involved directly with the first DBF. CRM reads lists of UC students and faculty to see whether either Fox can recall their activities in the festival. Long segment here in which CRM recites information from the Advocate, which brings no news worth recording. Questions about individuals brings no result. No memory of 1st DBF souvenirs sold.]PF: The [Boy] Scouts had a float in it one year and we had a sign, ''From Boone to the Moon." I was Daniel Boone and Phil Connley was an astronaut. We had a truck. [Questions about, specific events elicit little.]CRM: Now, the pageant was held at night, wasn't it?PF: Yeah, we were there. It was on the football field.CRM: Where the football field is at present at Union College today?PF: It wasn't at night because they didn't have any lights. It probably started about, four or five o'clock.CRM: In 1949 they had spotlights. I don't know what they did the first year, because the last event on the program was the signing of the treaty. They had to have some kind of light, of course they also used torches.PF: See when that was going on I lived at Artemus. Maybe I'd come down and see one event and then I'd have to leave....SIDE 2PF: [PF corrects a statement about his working on the Artemus railroad busline:] I used to operate a passenger bus on the Artemus-Jel1ico railroad company, but it terminated in 1941, so I couldn't possibly have been running it in 1948. I was in West Virginia by then. [Asked to compare the early DBFs with other regional festivals:]
PF: I'd say the DB was the top most festival in town. The Masonic Lodge celebrated a hundred years back in 1948 and they had a parade and the Shriners came down here and helped out and we had a big banquet over at the Barbourville gym. Quite a few young girls acted as waitresses and quite a crowd. It only lasted an afternoon.CRM: Yes, it was just a day event, but I understand they did decorate the windows [with antiques].PF: Oh, yes. And also they had a small parade, the Shriners attracting the people there. [CRM mentions World War II military parades as a possible model. PF holds that most of the area festivals copied after the DBF. CRM implies that the floats, bands, cars, etc. that appear in later festivals may have come from the pattern of the neighboring festivals, as well as the local May Festival.]CRM: Do either of you remember any particular problems about having the DBF in May. You know they moved it to October the next year and it stayed in October so far as I know from then on. Do you have any idea why they moved it?SJW: Maybe it was for the fall foliage. It would be much prettier.PF: You can get a list of names of the heads of the festival. They can probably give you more information than we ever could.CRM: I thought this might be it. I looked at the papers.The DBF is May 20th and 21st; that's Thursday and Friday, no Saturday events. That's weird in its own right, and that shows that Union College is very much in charge, because the next year they add a Saturday event. Union College I assume even back then had a whole slew of students who'd go home on the weekends. But, look here. Barbourville May Festival was May the 15th, the Saturday before, so that again would seem to suggest that that was a pretty crowded time, that you wouldn't, have a whole lot. of Barbourville cooperation directly. Union College held their graduation May 30th, one week after the festival. Barbourville High School held their graduation May the 19th, the night, before the DBF. And the Pineville Mountain Laurel Festival was May 27th through the 29th, a week afterwards. That's probably the answer to my question. I just wanted to know whether this was a personal problem for either of you from your memory. [CRM asks about other DBFs.] They begin to blur in my mind; one DBF is pretty much the same as another.PF: If you've seen one, you've probably seen them all, except they gradually got, more commercialized in my mind and also they went from mule power to horse power.CRM: The first always sticks out. in most peoples' minds, the first of anything. I can tell you all about my first opera season, I've seen hundreds thereafter; most, of them are just [poof] gone. But that, first, season is firm in my mind. I thought maybe DBF would be the same situation for most people, that they would remember that vividly but not the successive ones. [Misinformation about the date that Cincinnatus came to festival:CRM incorrectly says 1964. Discussion of DBF records, photos and programs at the museum.][PF was not involved in the 1950 Walker event.] The only thing I can remember about that is that is the time they served burgoo. It was quite a crowd out there too. [PF says he has some clippings and photos of the event. CRM discusses the museum's resources on the Walker event.]CRM: That's about all I wanted to talk about today because I wanted to make this specifically on DBF and specifically the first DBF, but I'll be talking with Phil Fox again. We'd like to talk sometime about your years on the railroad memories. Of course, you've got dozens and dozens of columns that you've written in addition to the book that your children put together, Up Brush Creek Way,PF: I don't think I can give you any more than what's in those.CRM: Sometimes just talking about things gets stories a little more detailed, so we'll sign off now. Thank you.PF: You're welcome.END OF INTERVIEWNOTES ON TELEPHONE INTERVIEW WITH ANOTHER OF PHILIPP FOX'S DAUGHTERS, DR. MARY PAULINE FOX, FOLLOW:

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