“Fire on the Mountain”

by Dr Sunny Stephens

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, some of our ancestors came to the “New World” before it was the United States hoping for access to opportunities unavailable to them in Europe. They were rarely wealthy immigrants. Affluent Europeans of the time generally had no reason to leave their homes in Europe. Many English, Irish, and German immigrants settled in the Appalachian Mountain area, bringing little from their homeland but the arts they knew. Most notable were fiddle tunes and folk dances. Out of necessity, more of the women, regardless of origin, were also quilters.

During those early years quilt-making, particularly patchwork, evolved from the need to utilize small scraps of fabric when large yardage was scarce or costly. Some of the original patterns were so uniquely beautiful that patchwork quilting eventually became a true American art form.

At the same time, the English immigrants in Appalachia were dancing the Lincolnshire Clog dance. The Irish were step dancing and hard shoe dancing to such folk tunes as “Cotton-eyed Joe,” “The Irish Washer Woman,” “Sailor’s Hornpipe,” and “Shady Grove” brought from Ireland and played on the fiddle. The German immigrants to the area brought a folk dance called the polka, characterized by fancy footwork and high kicking. A combination of the various types of folk dancing eventually produced a brand new hybrid dance peculiar to the Appalachian area.

Additionally, the Cherokees were the original inhabitants of Appalachia. The U.S. military under President Andrew Jackson forced the removal of the Cherokees from their land by way of the “Trail of Tears” in 1836. But the European immigrants, friendly with the local Native Americans, had already integrated some of the steps from their ceremonial dances into this new form of Appalachian dancing referred to as “clogging.” Staccato taps were added to the shoes of the dancers much later. During the 20^th century, Kentucky musicians – most notably Bill Monroe – further Americanized the traditional Irish fiddle tunes and created another new art form called “Kentucky Bluegrass.” Today, traditional clogging is accompanied by Bluegrass music.

Appalachian families who moved west introduced the new American art forms of patchwork quilting, clogging, and traditional fiddle tunes to other parts of the country. The family of Linda Carolan, the director of the “Fire on the Mountain Cloggers,” left Appalachia in the early 1800’s and settled in Texas under the impresario system. She is committed to maintaining the original American art form for future generations. The “Fire on the Mountain Cloggers” (named for an old time fiddle tune, of course) are based in San Antonio but entertain throughout the United States and in other countries for the sole purpose of preserving the art form.

The quilt pictured is an original pattern called “Fire on the Mountain” and honors the “Fire on the Mountain Cloggers.” It was designed, machine pieced, and hand quilted by Sunny Stephens, whose family also left Appalachia and settled in Texas about the same time. It is a variation of “Delectable Mountains,” one of the oldest patterns documented in the United States. The red, orange, and gold suggest “fire” on purple mountains. The gold and navy borders are the colors of the costumes worn by the Cloggers. True to Appalachian tradition, no fabric was purchased for the quilt. All were scraps from other projects.

Dr. Stephens, an experienced quilter, is a retired English professor and the author of numerous books. She is also grandmother of Savanah and Alanna Stephens, two members on the Fire on the Mountain Junior Team. The Stephens family is actively involved in performing with and supporting the Fire on the Mountain Cloggers.

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