• Big Sandy Mush
• Southern Highlanders
• Our Mountain Neighbors

This prosperous land has been farmed by the same families for generations. The valley is breathtakingly beautiful, the road winding past fertile fields, big red barns, and small white churches, with the mountains always as a backdrop. As you drive through Big Sandy Mush, savoring the aroma of newmown hay, you may follow behind a tractor or a farm wagon. You may pass someone riding their horse to work. You may be stopped for a few minutes while black and white cows are driven across the road, going home to the barn for milking. And most folks will wave as you go by.

Randall Glen is located at the very end of Big Sandy Mush, in a mountain cove above the valley. Where the mountains meet the land, narrow valleys climb upward between the arms of the mountains. These are the coves of the mountain people who settled this land two hundred years ago. In their native Scotland, each Highland glen-or cove-was occupied by a closeknit family. The Scots who pioneered the Great Smoky Mountains claimed the coves in the same way. Each cove bears the name of the family who settled there, and you'll still see these family names on most every mailbox.

Farming the steep, rocky mountain coves was different, and much harder than farming the lush valleys, but it was the life the Highland Scots knew. Some coves are very remote-for instance, from Surrett Cove the smaller Randall Cove branches off, and from that the even smaller Randall Glen-and some families seldom met anyone from more than a mile or two away. These hardy settlers were self-reliant and incredibly resourceful. They grew, or made, or repaired everything they needed. From the chestnut trees they cut to clear their fields they built their houses and barns; with the stones they built their foundations and fireplaces. Their sheep provided their clothes; their crops, fresh or dried, fed them year round. They grew their own tobacco, they gathered wild honey and fruits, they hunted game for food and warm pelts,they made their medicines from native plants. They forged their own tools, tanned their own leather, and made their own instruments to play the music of their native Scotland.

As the centuries went by, the Southern Highlanders of the Great Smokies kept their ways. They had little contact with the outside world, and little reason to change. They still produced almost everything they needed, still wore the clothing and spoke the dialects of their eighteenth-century ancestors. The draft of World War I was the first time that most Southern Highlanders encountered the modern world. When these soldiers returned to their coves they brought some modern ways with them, but the overall impact was small and their lives continued much as before. Gradually the 20th century brought more contact and more conveniences, but today's Southern Highlanders live their lives surprisingly like those of the 1700s.

When you come to Randall Glen you'll travel through the enclaves of the mountain people who are our neighbors, the kindest and most generous people we have ever known, and true Southern Highlanders. They are as fiercely self-reliant as their ancestors, and just as universal in their life skills. Modern ways have been added to traditional ways and go side by side. The crops they grow and the game they shoot still feed them year round. Some of it now goes into a freezer as well as being smoked, canned, or dried, but often it's still cooked on a wood stove. They keep bees for honey, and the hive might be a section of a genuine bee tree. They may plow their fields with a horse, but they can repair a tractor-or even a bulldozer-when it breaks down. They have television and radio, but still play the fiddle and sing in close harmony. Their speech is still filled with the courtly cadences of the 18th century. They can split shingles, shoe a horse, build a house from scratch, make molasses, and run a trackhoe. The family's hundred-year-old cabin may stand alongside a mobile home that's heated with a wood fire. An antique church bus houses goats next to a two-hundred-year-old chestnut barn.

These are today's Southern Highlanders, and knowing them is a gift. If you're lucky, you may have a chance to meet our neighbors while you're at Randall Glen. The experience will stay with you always.