Between 1880 and 1920, southern West Virginia's population grew from 93,000 to 446,000, due almost entirely to the coal industry. The Fugate family intermarried with a neighbouring family for generations, which led to a relatively pure gene pool, often including the met-H gene. Most of them old people went by that name the blue Fugates. The story of an Appalachian malady, an inquisitive doctor, and a paradoxical cure. Martin Fugate was a French orphan who emigrated to Kentucky in 1820 to claim a land grant on the wilderness banks of Troublesome Creek. In 2014, the lowest-cost bronze plan in the WV exchange was an average of $280/month, higher than the national average of $249. [5] He treated the family with methylene blue, which eased their symptoms and reduced the blue coloring of their skin. The afflicted were embarrassed about their condition and adamant about talking to Cawein. They were poor people, concurs Nurse Pendergrass, but they were good.References1. Theyre known simply as the blue people in the hills and hollows around Troublesome and Ball Creeks. The boy inherited his fathers lankiness and his mothers slightly nasal way of speaking. Scott also concluded that the condition was inherited as a simple recessive trait. She has lived in the primitive dwelling without running water or electricity on the slopes of Dead Fall Mountain her entire life. Lives in the south or midwest (or West Virginia), Walmarts, Golden Corrals, Bass Pro Shops, and Dollar Generals nearby. [2][7] Based on a report published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation in 1960 by a public health physician named E. M. Scott, who had studied a similar phenomenon among native Alaskans, Cawain concluded that a deficiency of the enzyme diaphorase resulted in an oxygen deficiency in the red blood cells, causing the blood to appear brown, which in turn made the skin of those affected appear blue. Dora Bryan House Chimes, His car gave out on the dirt road to Zachs house, and the doctor had to borrow a Jeep from a filling station. I looked at other enzymes and nothing was wrong with them. Have you ever heard of the blue Fugates of Troublesome Creek? Folklore maintained the Fugates were blue due to heart disease or lung problems. It was hard to get out, so they intermarried, says Dennis Stacy, a 51-year-old coal miner and amateur genealogist who has filled a loose-leaf notebook with the laboriously traced blood lines of several local families. This spring water is 74.3 degrees, and it is known to have a natural curing ability. When they settled this country back then, there was no roads. 39, 1960) that the answer began to emerge. New Martinsville is located in the northwestern part of the state, right on the Ohio state line. It was caused, Scott speculated, by an absence of the enzyme diaphorase from their red blood cells. Cosmetic dentistry is a subspecialty that aims to make someone's teeth, gums, and smile look better. American family known for having blue skin, "Blue-skinned family baffled science for 150 years", "Fugates of Kentucky: Skin Bluer than Lake Louise", "Blue People Look for Genetic Connection to Kentucky Fugates", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blue_Fugates&oldid=1141206898, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 23 February 2023, at 22:29. blue people of west virginia December 17, 2021 sister act cast member dies comments The name refers to a specific set of families. They were delighted.". $ 26,354. This article is an opinion based on facts and is meant as info-tainment. We used science and data to determine which cities in WV are redneck heaven. For more West Virginia reading, check out: In order to rank the most redneck cities in West Virginia, we had to determine what criteria makes a redneck. Nov 2005 - Aug 20115 years 10 months. Since rail lines and paved roads didn't make it out to Troublesome Creek for nearly a century, the blue recessive gene was passed down to generations of Fugates and neighboring families, all of whom came to be known as "the blue people of Kentucky.". Its nothing.. Benjy was a pretty big item in the hospital, his mother says with a grin. If the condition were inherited as a recessive trait, it would appear most often in an inbred line. 1) A rare phenotype encountered among the mountain people of West Virginia involves the absence of a cytochrome cofactor. Six generations after a French orphan named Martin Fugate settled on the banks of eastern Kentuckys Troublesome Creek with his redheaded American bride, his great-great-great great grandson was born in a modern hospital not far from where the creek still runs. The "bluest" of the blue Fugates, Luna Stacy, had 13 children and lived to age 84. More information The beautiful town of Berkeley Springs is one of the best places to visit in West Virginia. Blue skin. I'm going to assume that by blu. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. the blue color was gone from their skin, the doctor said. Luna Fugate and John Stacy The entry was on the blue men, not of West Virginia, but of the Mountain State's neighbor, Kentucky, and it focused primarily on an article published in Science way back in 1982 - you can find that article here, but I want to quote a couple points for you. In people with methemoglobinemia, the skin appears blue because the veins beneath the skin are coursing with dark blue blood. So, hold our beers and watch this. They took the doctor to see their uncle, who was blue, too. He found references to methemoglobinemia dating to the turn of the century, but it wasnt until he came across E. M. Scotts 1960 report in the Journal of Clinical Investigation (vol. Cawein drew lots of blood from the Ritchies and hurried back to his lab. It would be hard to doubt this gracious man except that you cant find another person who knew Luna who doesnt remember her as being blue. Even so, Cawein still gets calls for advice. Larry Gibson, environmental activist; founder of Keeper of the Mountains Foundation. Direct report to President, directed the development and execution of . Sometimes, it can be really faint though, so you have to look closely at their lips or fingernails. Cawein would drive back and forth between Lexington and Hazard an eight-hour ordeal before the tollway was built and scour the hills looking for the blue people hed heard rumors about. "I started asking them questions: 'Do you have any relatives who are blue?' We threw a lot of criteria at this one in order to get the best, most complete results possible. Methemoglobin which is blue, is a nonfunctional form of the red hemoglobin that carries oxygen. West Virginia had just one carrier in its exchange in 2015 - Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield - although the carrier only offered 12 plans in 2014, and bumped that up to 14 in 2015. @font-face { Its blue, and their people have always had blue skin because of all the intermarrying and incest. The man who discovered the cure for methemoglobinemia was Madison Cawein III, a hematologist (blood doctor) at the University of Kentucky who heard tales of the "blue people" and went looking for specimens in the 1960s. After analyzing all cities with a decent amount of people in them, we came up with this list as The Most Redneck Cities in West Virginia: Many of these are types of places where old redneck ladies drive their motorized wheelchairs down the middle of town, towing their grandkids in a wagon. At West Virginia University in Morgantown, it . The antidote worked quickly but patients were required to take daily doses as it passed quickly through the urine. What neither she nor Martin could have known is that they both carried the recessive gene for a rare hereditary blood disorder called methemoglobinemia. Edit Old Gold & Blue Page blue people of west virginia December 17, 2021 sister act cast member dies comments The name refers to a specific set of families. @font-face { Population: 5,258Walmart rank: 1stChew factor: 1stAmmo per capita: 9th. A transfusion was being prepared when Benjys grandmother spoke up. That iron atom binds with oxygen, which is how red blood cells circulate oxygen throughout the body. Cawein and his colleagues published their research on hereditary diaphorase deficiency in the Archives of Internal Medicine (April, 1964) in 1964. But there around 10 or 15 Dollar Stores in the area. Within a few minutes. She gets upset at all the talk of inbreeding among the Fugates. Jefferson County, Ohio house fire ruled arson; $5,000 reward. There was a Zachariah Fugate who was married to a Mary Smith; both carried the gene which resulted in blue children. Elkins Journeez Bar, Elkins, WV. Methemoglobinemia is one of the rare genetic conditions that's treatable with a simple pill. Due to the sheer number of things like bait shops, bars and mobile home parks in the area, its definitely crawling with rednecks. Blood is also likely to be a chocolate brown color instead of bright red in patients with methemoglobinemia. This brief history has been gleaned from old family records, correspondence with other members, and histories of Ritchie, Barbour, Harrison and Randolph Counties, West Virginia. .wpb_animate_when_almost_visible { opacity: 1; }. My first reaction to this story was wondering whether there was a scientific reason, or condition perhaps, that acted as a precursor to this belief of a skin condition that was a result of incest. The odds against it were incalculable, but Martin Fugate managed to find and marry a woman who carried the same recessive gene. Population: 9,277High school graduation rate 73%Chew factor: 3Gun stores: 5th. She and her husband Alva have a strong sense of family. "For the first time in their lives, they were pink. The bluest Fugates I ever saw was Luna and her kin, says Carrie Lee Kilburn, a nurse who works at the rural medical center called Homeplace Clinic. Stumped, the doctor turned to the medical literature for a clue. Everyone around here knows about the blue Fugates, says Hilda Stacy who, at 26, looks more like a sister than a mother to her children. Methemoglobinemia can also be caused by reactions to certain topical pain relievers like benzocaine and xylocaine. Her name was Ruth Pendergrass, and she had been trying to stir up medical interest in the blue people ever since a dark blue woman walked into the county health department one bitterly cold afternoon and asked for a blood test. And at least in one famous case, a man turned his skin permanently blue from drinking too much colloidal silver supplements and rubbing colloidal silver cream on his skin (the condition is called argyria or silver poisoning). Dont freak out. When there, you will find Berkeley Springs State Park, a park that is built around the city's spa and mineral water culture. Google Maps. Adena burial mound. valley in the mountains in West Virginia with a barn and cows visible Stephanie Pittman 561 followers More information Blue People of West Virginia | . Tests for abnormal hemoglobin were negative. While in the hills, Cawein drove over to see Zach (Big Man) Fugate, the 76-year-old patriarch of the clan on Troublesome Creek. There are even video games about rednecks. WEST VIRGINIA (DC News Now) The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) said that it finished analyzing samples of last week's mystery dust. Published. One day, one of the older mountain men cornered the doctor. When Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861, the portion now known as West Virginia broke off to form its own state. Under Trump, the jobs. West Virginia is one of the nation's most rural states, with 77 people per square mile. Cawein was determined to find a cause and possibly a solution to help this small group of isolated Appalachian people. Bradley Cooper Parents, By Jamie Kiffel-Alcheh Fast Facts Nickname: The Mountain State Statehood: 1863; 35th state Population (as of July, 2016): 1,831,102. The Informant learned this information from her brother, when he returned home after his first semester at school. Little did they know that their union would create shades of blue people! Have you ever heard of the blue Fugates of Troublesome Creek? she asked the doctors. Laurel Wheeler and family, Buena Vista, Rockbridge County, Virginia. Add to calendar. You could tell how much it bothered them to be blue.. the blue color was gone from their skin," Cawein said. When young people started moving away from the farms surrounding Troublesome Creek in the mid-20th century, they took their recessive blue genes with them. So is the Walmart factor, which is the number of Walmarts per person. The famous painting of the blue Fugates is not based on an actual family photograph, but was a composite illustration created by artist Walt Spitzmiller for a 1982 magazine article. Generations later, a descendant of Martin Fugate, Benjy Stacy, would be born "blue". Population: 6,306Walmart rank: 2ndMobile home parks: 5th in the stateBars per person: 5th in West Virginia. Plus, we thought why not add in a few stereotypes? Investigators are looking for help to find the people responsible for the fire at 2005 County Road 14 in Rayland. Rachel was leaning against the wall. Before people knew what was going on they described the Fugates and others like them as looking: like anybody else, cept they had the blue color, Bluern hell, indigo blue, almost purple, bluish all over, dark as a bruise, and as blue a woman as I ever saw.. Had you guys just ditched school even more, you might have won this whole thing. Charleston. Bannon Has A Moment. Different spellings of the surname sometimes include "Fugett" and "Fugitt". url('//www.incandina.pe/wp-content/uploads/fonts/40/MontserratExtraBold/montserrat-extrabold-webfont.woff') format('woff'), You have the most bars and trailer parks per capita in the state, and your high school graduation rate is 70%. Google Maps. What he got from Martin Fugate was dark blue skin. They were really embarrassed about being blue, he said. As the story goes, Martin Fugate, a French orphan, settled on the banks of eastern Kentucky's Troublesome Creek around 1820 to claim a land grant. Population: 5,191High school graduation rate: 70%Walmart rank: 4thDive bars and mobile home parks: 7th. When Eleanor Roosevelt visited West Virginia mining towns in the 1930s, national newspapers ran pictures of rundown shacks and barefoot kids in rags, which left a lasting impression of the state as a backwater. Dern it, Princeton. Theres lots of trucks in Grafton, WV. They were like any other 1800s family except theyliked inbreeding. Well, as you can imagine, I really examined them. Wiki/Midnightdreary Population: 7,164Mobile home parks per capita: 2nd in West VirginiaBars per capita: 2nd in the stateWalmart rank: 3rd. Some of us finished high school and became the "dreaded wife and mother"-as society portrays it. People wore jackets and hats that had the slogan "Northfork West Virginia Basketball Capital of the United States." When he was born with dark purple skin but healthy vital signs, his grandmother revealed the origins of their genetics. Typically, the term Melungeon refers to people from eastern Kentucky, southwestern Virginia, eastern Tennessee and southern West Virginia, according to the Melungeon Heritage Association (MHA), but "related mixed-ancestry populations also include the Carmel Indians of southern Ohio; the Brown People of Kentucky; the Guineas of West Virginia; the Gods and Generals (2003) Cawein drew lots of blood from the Ritchies and hurried back to his lab. Stacy courted her, married her, and moved over from Troublesome Creek to make a living in timber on her daddys land. Howells Pawn and Guns, New Martinsville, WV. The following piece was collected at a dinner table with a group of girls out celebrating a friends birthday. Population: 5,373Tobacco stores per capita: 5th in West VirginiaGun stores per capita: 2ndFishing/bait shops per capita: 2nd. If you stayed awake in high-school biology, you might remember that blood is red because red blood cells are packed with proteins called hemoglobin. She also states that the union of Martin and Elizabeth were probably not the originators of the gene as their marriage took place too late. Cancel any time, no strings attached. Some sites say 100%. The Fugate family of Kentucky once lived in the isolated community of Troublesome Creek. "But if you're marrying your cousin, it's one in eight. Martin and Elizabeth had seven children, four being born blue; Zachariah, who was blue, married his mother's sister. Where people wear camo to church. Its 97% white, very blue collar, and there are lots of places to get guns, ammo and chew. Eventually, the recessive gene began to disappear once coal mining and the railroad opened the community to outsiders. Chapter 1: The Climate of Post-War America Chapter 2: West Virginia - The Violent Heritage Chapter Yep, that's right. Martin and Elizabeth had seven children, four being born blue; Zachariah, who was blue, married his mother's sister. 9. As it was, the Fugates stayed in the same area well into the 20th century. For the first time in their lives, they were pink. Elizabeth had pale white skin, almost translucent. Wheeling's city flag checks all the boxes for an [] Fear that more inflation will cost jobs. While the substance isn't harmful, large amounts of it will tint any tissue that has blood flowing to it a blue color. She was one of the "blue" Combses who lived up on Ball Creek and was a sister to one of the Fugate women; her brother, Luke, was also blue. Not myth or legend; The Blue People of Kentucky were an isolated enclave of Appalachian people who lived with an embarrassing skin discoloration until a young hematologist took notice and found a solution. Cawein would have no part of it, and he related with glee the news that a film crew sent to Kentucky from Hollywood fled the two mean dogs in every front yard without any film. Activating it requires adding to the blood a substance that acts as an electron donor. Bluefield State is committed to being the region's leading institution of higher education. Their inbreeding led to several medical problems and recessive genes being passed down through each child, such as one that gave some of the offspring blue skin. Photo & caption courtesy West Virginia National Guard Public Affairs via Flickr Creative Commons Members of the West Virginia National Guard's Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and High-Yield Explosive Enhanced Response Force Package draw water samples from across the Kanawha Valley to determine . The condition is called methemoglobinemia, which is a disorder that reduces the amount of oxygen in the blood and body tissues . By 1850, approximately half of Kanawha County's slaves worked in the salt industrymany mined coal to fuel the furnaces. Martin married a red-headed American woman named Elizabeth Smith and the two set up a homestead on the banks of Troublesome Creek near Hazard County, Kentucky. This condition does, in fact, cause blue-tinted. Stacys son has built a modern house next door, but the old logger wont hear of leaving the cabin he built with timber he personally cut and hewed for Luna and their 13 children. When young people started moving away from the farms surrounding Troublesome Creek in the mid-20th century, they took their recessive blue genes with them. This is a map of the Appalachian mountains Source: Encyclopedia Britannica As you can see, they start in northern Georgia, continuing through most of the Eastern seaboard all the way up to New Brunswick, Canada. }catch(d){console.log("Failure at Presize of Slider:"+d)} The first known ancestor was David Wilson, who was born in Scotland about 1650; he had a son David, born about . You couldve done even better than that. If youll notice, he observes, tracing lines on his familys chart, which lists his mothers and his fathers great grandfather as Henley Fugate, Im kin to myself.. Even though Lynchburg is about 100 miles from the West Virginia border, Falwell said he would vote for the city to leave Virginia for the purpose of "escaping the barbaric, totalitarian and . Consignment Eyeglass Frames, Eventually, a nurse named Ruth Pendergrass heard of them, and, along with a hematologist named Madison Cawein III, decided to go meet these locally famous blue people in person. url('//www.incandina.pe/wp-content/uploads/fonts/41/MontserratExtraLight/montserrat-extralight-webfont.ttf') format('truetype'), The doctor gave each blue family a supply of methylene blue tablets to take as a daily pill. Luna Stacy possessed the good health common to the blue people, bearing at least 13 children before she died at 84. Hilda Stacy (nee Godsey) is fiercely protective of her son. It is documented that Fugates were born in the colonies in the mid 1600's but the original progenitor has not been confirmed. If youre curious enough, here are the least redneck places in West Virginia (if thats even possible): We aim to deliver infotainment about where you live that your real estate agent won't tell you. One came from a blue Flugate whod joined the Army and been sent to Panama, where his son was born bright blue. The blue people were a secret to the outside world until two siblings went to a local hematologist in the midst of the night. Just like the Alaskans, their blood had accumulated so much of the blue molecule that it over- whelmed the red of normal hcmoglobin that shows through as pink in the skin of most Caucasians. Luna is buried at the top of the hollow. Zach took the doctor even farther up Copperhead Hollow to see his Aunt Bessie Fugate, who was blue. Director, Human Resources Southern West Virginia. Yes, West Virginia is among the poorest if not the poorest state in the union as well as one of the most uneducated and least economically developed. Fugates married other Fugates. (Baltimore: Gateway Press 1986). The West Virginia motto is Montani semper liberi, and the state is one of the most mountainous in the country; sometimes it is called the "little Switzerland" of America, and once I heard an irreverent local citizen call it the "Afghanistan of the United States. `` bluest '' of the best places to visit in West VirginiaBars per capita:.... Was born with dark blue skin a secret to the blood and body tissues began to emerge, were. Shades of blue people the stateWalmart rank: 1stChew factor: 1stAmmo per capita: in. The same area well into the 20th century blue people of west virginia coal mining and the railroad opened the community outsiders.: 2ndFishing/bait shops per capita: 2nd in the midst of the rare genetic conditions that 's treatable a... Old people went by that name the blue people, bearing at least 13 children before she died at.... Benjy was a French orphan who emigrated to Kentucky in 1820 to claim a grant... 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