Rail Fences
“Something there is that does not love a wall,” poet Robert Frost once wrote. Likewise, many mountain people felt something there is that does not love a fence. Fences were built for the purpose of keeping certain creatures out—and keeping other creatures in. During early days of settlement there were no stock-laws in the mountains. Cattle, mules, horses, hogs, sheep, and fowls ranged freely over the countryside. Each farmer had to build fences to protect his garden and crops from these domestic foragers as well as some of the wild “varmint” marauders. Rail fences had several distinct merits: they provided a practical use for some of the trees felled to clear crop and pasture land; they required little repair; they blended esthetically into the surroundings and landscape. Mountain fences have been described as “horse-high, bull-strong, and pig-tight.” W. Clark Medford, of North Carolina, has told us how worm fences ([right]) were built:
H. Woodbridge Williams
Charles S. Grossman
“There was no way to build a fence in those days except with rails—just like there was no way to cover a house except with boards. First, they went into the woods, cut a good ‘rail tree’ and, with axes, wedge and gluts, split the cuts (of six-, eight- and ten-foot lengths as desired) into the rail. After being hauled to location, they were placed along the fence-way, which had already been cut out and made ready. Next, the ‘worm’ was laid. That is, the ground-rails were put down, end-on-end, alternating the lengths—first a long rail, then a short one—and so on through. Anyone who has seen a rail fence knows that the rails were laid end-on-end at angles—not at right angles, but nearly so. One course of rails after another would be laid up on the fence until it had reached the desired height (most fences were about eight rails high, some ten). Then, at intervals, the corners (where the rails lapped) would be propped with poles, and sometimes a stake would be driven. Such fences, when built of good chestnut or chestnut-oak rails, lasted for many years if kept from falling down.”
One of the most valuable fences ever constructed in the Smoky Mountains was surely that of Abraham Mingus. When “Uncle Abe,” one-time postmaster and miller, needed rails for fencing, he “cut into a field thick with walnut timber, split the tree bodies, and fenced his land with black walnut rails.”
The variety of fences was nearly infinite. Sherman Myers leans against a sturdy post and rider ([below]) near Primitive Baptist Church. Other kinds of fences are shown on the next two pages.
In this post and rider variation, rails are fastened to a single post with wire and staples.
National Park Service
Mary Birchfield of Cades Cove had an unusual fence with wire wound around crude pickets.
Charles S. Grossman
The Allisons of Cataloochee built a picket fence around their garden.
Charles S. Grossman
In the summer, farmers enclosed haystacks to keep grazing cattle away.
Charles S. Grossman
Ki Cable’s worm, or snake, fence in Cades Cove is one of the most common kinds of fencing.
Charles S. Grossman
Poles were used at John Oliver’s Cades Cove farm to line up the wall as it was built.
Charles S. Grossman
The plight of their Cherokee ancestors is revealed in the faces of Kweti and child in this photograph taken by James Mooney.
Smithsonian Institution