Now here are some varied links through which you can find out more about serendipity, then indulge in some yourself in the People and Places section:
By origin I am an authentic hillbilly, born in Mountain City, the seat of < b>Johnson County, "where the sun first rises on Tennessee", just a few miles from North Carolina to the East and South, Virginia to the North, and the Appalachian Trail to the West. You may not believe it, but Mountain City is as far from Memphis, Tennessee as it is from Newark, New Jersey or Buffalo, New York. Check it out on the map!
Now I propose to introduce you (if you like!) to some very interesting and unusual people and places, and the logical place to begin is the land of my roots - Upper East Tennessee:
After the Native Americans this area was settled mostly by Scotch-Irish (more properly Ulster Scots) immigrants who moved down the mountains from Pennsylvania. But there was another group before them, whose origins are quite enigmatic - the Melungeons, a dark-skinned but often grey- or green-eyed race about whom I heard a great deal in my youth, but who have only recently been extensively investigated. The link given above is full of information about them, as well as some analogous groups such as the Lumbee of North Carolina.
Another strange group of people of whom you have probably never heard is the Koreshans, a sect who believed that the heavens are at the center of the Earth and we view them from inside the Earth's crust. The place where they settled in Southwestern Florida is now the Koreshan State Historical Site, and is well worth a visit if you find yourself around Bonita Springs (Estero, to be more precise). The website contains a biography of the founder, Dr. Cyrus Teed, a tour of the grounds and information on other proponents of the Hollow Earth theory.
As are so many unusual sects and cults, the
Koreshan Unity was the creation of one man, but
sometimes one man creates a whole world for himself,
by himself. A prime example of this was the
eccentric genius (?) who called himself St.
EOM (derived from his initials and pronounced
"ohm") and built a fantastic and colorful world for
himself called the Land of Pasaquan, in rural Georgia
near the city of Columbus. At the above website
you'll find lots of information about St. EOM and
Pasaquan, including a fascinating gallery of forty
color photographs.
[updated 2/27/00]
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