(SNP033) George Corbin, transcribed by Victoria M. Edwards
Dublin Core
Title
(SNP033) George Corbin, transcribed by Victoria M. Edwards
Subject
George Corbin
Description
Records an interview with George Corbin, who leads a party of researchers from the National Park Service (NPS) and the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC) on a walking tour of the Corbin homestead in Nicholson Hollow. The primary interviewer does not identify himself on the tape, but does name Edward Garvey of the PATC as a member of the group, and another participant gives his name as Paul Lee. The Corbin homestead was located on part of the land turned over to the NPS by the state of Virginia in the 1930s. Corbin identifies the sites of a number of homesteads and the names of their former occupants, including a tour of the cabin he built in 1909, which was turned over to the PATC for use as a trail shelter and is listed on the National Registry of Historic Buildings as the George T. Corbin Cabin. The tour includes a visit to the Corbin and Nicholson family cemetery and the site of the local schoolhouse. Mr. Corbin speaks at length of the genealogies of the Corbins and the Nicholsons, as well as many of the other local mountain families. Included are numerous anecdotes regarding businessman and entrepreneur George Pollock, owner of Skyland resort, and a discussion of the activities of several area moonshiners, including Mr. Corbin. The last quarter of the interview features the comments of an unidentified woman presumably a relative of Mr. Corbin.
Creator
George Corbin
Edward Garvey
Paul Lee
National Park Service
Victoria M Edwards
Source
SdArch SNP-33, Shenandoah National Park Oral History Collection, 1964-1999, Special Collections, Carrier Library, James Madison University
Publisher
James Madison University
Date
April 20th, 1969
Contributor
Transcribed by Victoria M Edwards
Interviewee: George Corbin
Interviewers: Edward Garvey, Paul Lee
Rights
George T. Corbin interviewed by Edward B. Garvey and Paul Lee, April 20, 1969, SdArch SNP-33, Shenandoah National Park Oral History Collection, 1964-1999, Special Collections, Carrier Library, James Madison University
Format
Audio file
Language
English
Type
oral history
Identifier
Oral history of George Corbin from 1969.
Coverage
1930s Shenandoah National Park
Oral History Item Type Metadata
Interviewer
Edward Garvey, Paul lee
Interviewee
George Corbin
Location
Shenandoah national Park, VA
Transcription
PL: The following is an interview with George Corbin, on a hike through Nicholson
Hollow. On this hike, Mr. Corbin will be pointing out some of the old home sites and
giving an account of the life in the Hollow. During the interview, I will number each
home site. These numbers will correspond to numbers on an enlarged section of the 1930
topographical map. Parts of this interview will be conducted by Mr. Edward Garvey of the
Potomac Appalachian Trail Club.
[00:00:34, the tape makes a very quick break and renews with a good deal of background
noise, apparently the sounds of walking and moving outdoors.]
GC: This one's Mr. Pollock's [unintelligible].1
UM: Yeah, liked to have killed him! (chuckle)
GC: Because, Pollock was up [unintelligible].
UM: Huh?
GC: We never did know where Fletcher come from. He’d visit my father.2 He wouldn't
take nothing, carried his gun and his buckle on him all the time. (chuckle)
EG: Well his wife did, too, didn't she?
GC: Yeah. (laughter) Nobody never did know where he'd come from.
UM: Nor where he went.
http://mdid.cit.jmu.edu/media/get/116836/r-6817883/129243/snp033-2/
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GC: No, that's right.
UM: Some said he'd get his wife to hold a gun on 'em while he'd beat 'em, wouldn't he?
GC: That's what they said. I know it was true about Pollock, he come across Kin (??)
Mountain and thought Pollock was a spy taking pictures, [unintelligible] he took him and
he smashed him [unintelligible] for good. (laughter) They never [unintelligible] him or
his book, he added a lot there, a lot of stuff. (laughter)
UM: Well, you have to make it, you know—
GC: Yeah.
UM: Yourself.
GC: And the pathway, from the top to the cabin.
[00:01:45, loud MH for a few seconds before resuming with continued MH of walking
combined with wind.]
GC: [unintelligible] just lived over in, what they called Corbin Hollow.
PL: Right.
GC: And he lost his first wife and he come down in here for some reason, and he met my
mother and married her.
PL: She was a Nicholson, though, wasn't she? 3
GC: She was a Nicholson. She was Old Man Aaron Nicholson's daughter. One they call the
King of the Blue Ridge, got pictures in the book. (chuckle)
PL: Got a beautiful home there, too.
GC: Yeah.
PL: But, so he just married—what sort of Nicholsons was this [unintelligible]?
GC: She was my mother, was Old Man Aaron Nicholson's daughter. They called him the King
of the Blue Ridge, claimed everything in here one day. (chuckle)
PL: Right here, yeah.
GC: From my cabin here to Nethers, is originally called it Nicholson Hollow.
PL: Are they most of your own—
GC: We MH all Nicholsons.
PL: We can't figure it out, he knows of a preacher would go up there, you say all the
houses were MH. I was thinking, you came up, two months ago, we came up from Meadows, we
took a side track right in the hollow and I don't know who had the place, but there was
no Model T, rusting away around the place.
GC: Oh. That was way down below the cabin.
PL: Yeah.
GC: Yeah, that was way down.
PL: They still deliver from down that road?
http://mdid.cit.jmu.edu/media/get/116836/r-6817883/129243/snp033-2/
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GC: Yeah, they was buying when you lived there in far on down, within a mile of
Nethers. You could lift that Model T.
PL: Well, parts of it there, the car itself is gone, but like, there was a radiator and
a fender.
GC: I see.
PL: And it was very obvious one had been there.
[00:03:28, audio clears up slightly after this point.]
GC: MH the old chestnut trees. Me and my first wife—MH We chopped one tree and got a
sack of chestnuts, bushel of them, sixty pound. But I lived with my father then, I never
did go them with her, she never lived long, my first wife—right out in back of that rock
somewhere—and we got that chestnut so at four o'clock the next morning, I'd put them on
my back, walk this two miles and down the other side three and five through the valley to
Luray. Got there and weighed them, they weighed plum sixty pound. They give me twelve
dollars for them. It was the early e’en and I got, hauled the groceries I could tote
back and had money left.
EG: Yeah, well, twelve dollars was good money then.
GC: Yeah. Big money.
EG: This was an old chestnut area, then?
[00:04:21, someone close to the microphone speaks indecipherably while ED and GC speak]
EG: Different prices, huh?
GC: He tried for five years to catch me.
EG: Well, I'm sure of that.
Hollow. On this hike, Mr. Corbin will be pointing out some of the old home sites and
giving an account of the life in the Hollow. During the interview, I will number each
home site. These numbers will correspond to numbers on an enlarged section of the 1930
topographical map. Parts of this interview will be conducted by Mr. Edward Garvey of the
Potomac Appalachian Trail Club.
[00:00:34, the tape makes a very quick break and renews with a good deal of background
noise, apparently the sounds of walking and moving outdoors.]
GC: This one's Mr. Pollock's [unintelligible].1
UM: Yeah, liked to have killed him! (chuckle)
GC: Because, Pollock was up [unintelligible].
UM: Huh?
GC: We never did know where Fletcher come from. He’d visit my father.2 He wouldn't
take nothing, carried his gun and his buckle on him all the time. (chuckle)
EG: Well his wife did, too, didn't she?
GC: Yeah. (laughter) Nobody never did know where he'd come from.
UM: Nor where he went.
http://mdid.cit.jmu.edu/media/get/116836/r-6817883/129243/snp033-2/
1 of 34 8/30/2016 11:19 AM
GC: No, that's right.
UM: Some said he'd get his wife to hold a gun on 'em while he'd beat 'em, wouldn't he?
GC: That's what they said. I know it was true about Pollock, he come across Kin (??)
Mountain and thought Pollock was a spy taking pictures, [unintelligible] he took him and
he smashed him [unintelligible] for good. (laughter) They never [unintelligible] him or
his book, he added a lot there, a lot of stuff. (laughter)
UM: Well, you have to make it, you know—
GC: Yeah.
UM: Yourself.
GC: And the pathway, from the top to the cabin.
[00:01:45, loud MH for a few seconds before resuming with continued MH of walking
combined with wind.]
GC: [unintelligible] just lived over in, what they called Corbin Hollow.
PL: Right.
GC: And he lost his first wife and he come down in here for some reason, and he met my
mother and married her.
PL: She was a Nicholson, though, wasn't she? 3
GC: She was a Nicholson. She was Old Man Aaron Nicholson's daughter. One they call the
King of the Blue Ridge, got pictures in the book. (chuckle)
PL: Got a beautiful home there, too.
GC: Yeah.
PL: But, so he just married—what sort of Nicholsons was this [unintelligible]?
GC: She was my mother, was Old Man Aaron Nicholson's daughter. They called him the King
of the Blue Ridge, claimed everything in here one day. (chuckle)
PL: Right here, yeah.
GC: From my cabin here to Nethers, is originally called it Nicholson Hollow.
PL: Are they most of your own—
GC: We MH all Nicholsons.
PL: We can't figure it out, he knows of a preacher would go up there, you say all the
houses were MH. I was thinking, you came up, two months ago, we came up from Meadows, we
took a side track right in the hollow and I don't know who had the place, but there was
no Model T, rusting away around the place.
GC: Oh. That was way down below the cabin.
PL: Yeah.
GC: Yeah, that was way down.
PL: They still deliver from down that road?
http://mdid.cit.jmu.edu/media/get/116836/r-6817883/129243/snp033-2/
2 of 34 8/30/2016 11:19 AM
GC: Yeah, they was buying when you lived there in far on down, within a mile of
Nethers. You could lift that Model T.
PL: Well, parts of it there, the car itself is gone, but like, there was a radiator and
a fender.
GC: I see.
PL: And it was very obvious one had been there.
[00:03:28, audio clears up slightly after this point.]
GC: MH the old chestnut trees. Me and my first wife—MH We chopped one tree and got a
sack of chestnuts, bushel of them, sixty pound. But I lived with my father then, I never
did go them with her, she never lived long, my first wife—right out in back of that rock
somewhere—and we got that chestnut so at four o'clock the next morning, I'd put them on
my back, walk this two miles and down the other side three and five through the valley to
Luray. Got there and weighed them, they weighed plum sixty pound. They give me twelve
dollars for them. It was the early e’en and I got, hauled the groceries I could tote
back and had money left.
EG: Yeah, well, twelve dollars was good money then.
GC: Yeah. Big money.
EG: This was an old chestnut area, then?
[00:04:21, someone close to the microphone speaks indecipherably while ED and GC speak]
EG: Different prices, huh?
GC: He tried for five years to catch me.
EG: Well, I'm sure of that.
Original Format
Audio file
Duration
4:30
Citation
George Corbin et al., “(SNP033) George Corbin, transcribed by Victoria M. Edwards,” "Map of The Stony Man Region in the Shenandoah National Park" Digital Map, accessed April 26, 2024, https://ashleypalazzo.org/SNPdigitalprojectcollection/items/show/21.