By Mike Conley | The McDowell News
Published: April 15, 2009
Johnson County, Tenn. sits in the far northeastern corner of the Volunteer State. It is located along the Tennessee-North Carolina state line, just north of Ashe, Avery and Watauga counties.
Johnson County has a strange local landmark called Fiddler's Rock. This stone outcropping is located over a ravine near the top of Stone Mountain between the county seat of Mountain City and the community of Laurel Bloomery.
But this landmark also goes by another name, the Screaming Rock. An old tale explains the reasons why the rock outcropping is called both of those names. Folks in Johnson County say the rock is haunted by the ghost of an old fiddler who used to play there many years ago.
Martin Stone was well known in those parts for his talents as a fiddler player. Whenever someone held a dance or a party, they called on Martin to provide the music. The mountain folk of Johnson County said that he could make babies stop crying, tame wild animals and even make the sick well again through his fiddle playing, according to a Web site about the legend.
Some folks said he could also charm rattlesnakes.
On Sunday afternoons, Martin would often climb up onto the rock and start playing his fiddle. It is said that the rattlesnakes would come out from underneath the rocks and lay in the sun while he played. Then, when enough snakes had gathered, he would reach for his shotgun and kill as many of them as he could. He must have gotten some kind of amusement from doing that.
However one day, a neighbor found the fiddler's lifeless body on the rock that is now named after him. Apparently, he had not reached for his shotgun quick enough because his body was covered with snakebites.
To this day, people say the rock seems to give off a high-pitched screeching sound on cold winter days. They said it is ghostly fiddle of Martin Stone. Others report that it is the sound of him screaming as all those poisonous serpents bit him to death. Residents of Johnson County reportedly avoid the place, believing that it is haunted.
***
Last week's column about the strange sounds reported by a Mitchell County family during a camping trip in 2000 resulted in an interesting response from one of my readers.
William M. Dranginis of Manassas, Va. wrote saying he enjoyed reading the column about the strange sounds in the wilderness. He is a Bigfoot researcher who has started a Web site about the reported sightings in the Old Dominion.
"Not many people know it but Virginia has had a long history of Bigfoot sightings through the years," he writes. "When I follow up Bigfoot sighting reports in person, the witness gets very excited to tell their story and wants to learn everything they can about these creatures."
He goes to say that he too once saw one of these creatures in the woods of Culpeper Va., while metal detecting with two FBI agents.
"My whole world changed," he writes. "Since that time, every available second has been spent learning more about these creatures and trying to devise special camera systems to film them in their own habitat."
Back in 2004, he also had a one-on-one conversation with Jane Goodall, famed researcher of primates and noted animal welfare activist, while she was visiting Washington, D.C.
"The scheduled 15-minute meeting lasted 2 ½ hours, what a wonderful couple hours that was," writes Dranginis. "Dr. Goodall believes these Bigfoot creatures do exist and even stated so on NPR."
His Web site contains more than 150 Bigfoot sighting reports from all over Virginia, submitted by everyone from doctors to state police officers.
"The research is very exciting, meeting new people and seeing every section of this great state," he writes. "It's been a blast. The most interesting part about this research is that you learn more about yourself after spending countless hours in the woods searching for the creature, that in itself was a discovery of a lifetime."
You can check out his Web site at www.virginiabigfoot research. org.
Contact Mike Conley at 652-3313, ext. 3422 or e-mail nconley@mcdowellnews.com
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