Joseph S. Hall

In 1937, as the nation slowly crawled out of the depths of the Great Depression, a young outlander named Joseph Sargent Hall (1906-1992) took a temporary summer job in the recently established Great Smoky Mountains National Park. 

A doctoral student in Columbia University’s linguistics program, Hall was a native of Montana with no previous contact or particular interest in the Smokies. He was simply a young man for whom the three months of summer employment promised needed funds to continue his education.

Hall’s job was one aspect of a wider effort to decide how to record, protect, and perhaps perpetuate folkways of the people who had lost their land with the creation of the Park. Along with Hiram Wilburn, profiled earlier in this publication, and a handful of others, Hall was charged with studying the area’s culture with specific focus on mountain speech. His three-month stint would prove to be life changing—it gave him subject matter for his doctoral dissertation, launched a lifelong love affair with people of the Smokies, and led to numerous visits to interview true sons and daughters of the area. Those interviews, always meticulously covered in Hall’s notebooks and often preserved through phonographic recordings, cumulatively provided an incredible wealth of information on what has sometimes been described as “mountain talk.” They also laid the foundation for the 700+ page Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English, lovingly compiled by a modern scholar, Michael B. Montgomery, a man Hall befriended late in his life and to whom he entrusted his literary and linguistic legacy.

When it comes to reading for leisure or pleasure, common sense suggests that surely the only thing recommending a dictionary would be as an antidote for insomnia. Yet for those enamored of the steep hills and deep hollows of the Smokies, The Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English offers a delightful example to the contrary. To peruse its pages, sampling and savoring entries while noting the meaning of each word or phrase and how it has been used in published form, is to delve into a world of literary wonder. No one interested in the region, its people, folkways, and distinctive speech patterns, can fail to be enchanted.

Yet the Dictionary was a long time in coming and it seems fair to say that during his lifetime Joe Hall was largely unappreciated and to a considerable degree unknown. Other than a few scholarly articles in obscure journals, his only publications were three short books. Two of them, Smoky Mountain Folks and Their Lore (1960) and Yarns and Tales from Old Smoky (1978) essentially combine stories told by residents of the high country with selections of supporting photographs and information on the Hall’s field work methods. The third volume, Sayings from Old Smoky (1972), is a 150-page precursor to the Dictionary comprised of material taken from Hall’s voluminous notebooks and recordings.

His lack of renown outside select scholarly circles comes in part from Hall’s self-effacing nature and a seemingly conscious avoidance of self-promotion. Paradoxically, and speaking as someone whose roots run deep in the Smokies and whose own life has connections with some of the folks Hall interviewed and their descendants, I feel it was the man’s unassuming nature and obvious ability as a good listener that endeared him to mountain people. Inward looking, often distrustful of outsiders, especially those brash or pushy ones, and perfectly comfortable in their parochial world, the individuals with whom Hall interacted typically would have avoided someone from such a different background photographing them, recording their stories with a strange looking machine, or intruding into their world and way of life. 

Yet Hall established not only a high degree of trust with scores of old-time Smokies residents; in many cases he fostered lasting friendships with them, took part in family reunions, staying in their homes, attending church services and funeral services, and in effect became almost one of them. That was the hallmark of his genius, and it came from being easygoing, through showing deep respect for mountain folkways, and thanks to genuine sensitivity to those with whom he interacted. 

An anecdote from his initial meeting with Mrs. Clem Enloe, an eccentric widow living on Tight Run Branch near the juncture of Raven Fork with the Oconaluftee River, speaks to his innate ability to do gain trust. Some of his finest sources on suggested interviewees were young enrollees in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Several of them suggested he ask Mrs. Enloe about her fishing rights. A degree of mischief likely underlay mention of the woman and this particular subject, because she was notorious for her feistiness and fishing Park waters without any regard whatsoever for existing regulations. When Hall first met the elderly matron at her home, she immediately asked him whether he was “a big Park man or a little Park man.”  Without waiting for an answer, she continued, “big Park man or little Park man, you son of a bitch, I fish when I please, winter or summer.” She then pointed to a can of worms she used as bait, never mind that Park regulations stipulated artificial lures only, before launching into a tirade about the Civil War and proudly proclaiming “I’m a Rebel yit.” Possibly forewarned, Hall was equal to the occasion. He tendered a box of powdered snuff as “peace offering,” and from that point forward they got along famously.

Not only was Hall gifted with a personality that established trust; over time he developed a knack for selecting ideal interviewees. These were mostly individuals locally renowned as gifted storytellers such as famed sportsmen Mark Cathey and Wiley Oakley; recognized matriarchs and patriarchs of the region of the ilk of the squire of Hazel Creek, Granville Calhoun; highly respected locals such as members of the Palmer clan in Cataloochee; or simply those whose distinctive personalities made them genuine characters. 

Wisely, before he ever made the first recording, Hall spent his initial three months in the Smokies listening, subsequently recording what he had heard in notebooks, and getting a “feel” for how to gain trust and respect. That he was able to do so derived in no small part from being able to convince those he interviewed that he cared about them as individuals, cherished their way of life along with harboring a keen desire to preserve it for posterity, and wanted no part of the stereotyping which had been a prevalent feature of numerous books on the mountaineers.

Joe Hall let mountain folks tell their own tales in their unique way, and along with preserving their distinctive language and speech patterns he documented their lore in areas such as music, superstitions, folk medicine, religion, social events, and indeed almost every aspect of mountain culture. In his words, “as the old hearth fire burns dimly, and poor old granny nods her head, evening comes to the Smokies.” But as the twilight of a way of life gave way to night, Hall was determined to get it all down before it was all gone. Thanks to his passion, his keen awareness that aspects of traditional ways of life were vanishing, and what can only be viewed as an ongoing love affair with those he styled “Smoky Mountain Folks,” Joe Hall left a legacy and preserved much of a way of life that otherwise would have forever been lost.

Voices From the Past

The admirable industry of Michael Montgomery in continuing Joe Hall’s work on multiple fronts has given us not only the Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English; it is now possible to read transcripts and listen to original recordings of some 62 individuals he made in 1939. This visit, Hall’s second to the Smokies, spanned nine months and marked his first use of a recorder. A new website, Appalachian English, can be accessed at artsandsciences.sc.edu/ appalachianenglish. It has several sections, including a lengthy bibliography; a section on the man often styled “Mr. Appalachia,” Cratis Williams; Montgomery’s “Grammar and Syntax of Traditional Smoky Mountain English” from the 2004 Dictionary; and all the entries from the Language section of the Encyclopedia of Appalachia. The focal point of the site, however, is 10 hours of recorded material and accompanying transcriptions. Users can listen to the speaker and read simultaneously. To accompany Mark Cathey on a bear hunt, or to listen to Cataloochee octogenarian Steve Woody reflect on memorable moments from younger years, is to tread once more forgotten paths of wonder.

Also available is a CD, Old Time Music of the Smokies, which features 34 examples of Hall as a song catcher. It is based on Hall’s original recordings and in addition to the songs features liner notes, a 40-page booklet with lyrics and photos, and essays by Dr. Montgomery and Dr. Ted Olson of East Tennessee State University, where the Joseph Hall Collection is deposited.