THE LAST SOUL OF WITHERSPOON takes a "global" approach in its history of the school. Readers will find this book to be autobiographical as well as a social history told on three levels. Herein is a story of a person from Long Shoal in Lee County, Kentucky, whose childhood innocence collides head-on with adolescence while a student in the mountain settlement school of Witherspoon. Readers will find at the end of the story a battle-scarred but still standing youth, heading off to the next stage in his life, having gained much in the way of character development, one who "gave as much as he got" The second level of the story traces four generations of families from the Civil War to the 1950s, including their pedigrees, feuds, and religion. Also included is a history of Witherspoon College itself, with an emphasis on benefactors from Brooklyn, New York. The story here provides a personal contrast of "old-time religion" versus what one writer has termed "denominational imperialism" Religion is referenced a great deal, but this is not a religious book. The Last Soul of Witherspoon Life in a Kentucky Mountain Settlement School By Alex Browning Balboa Press Copyright © 2013 Alex Browning All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4525-7176-8 Contents Foreword—A Man's Character Is His Fate.....................................ixAcknowledgements...........................................................xiiiReferences and Recommended Reading.........................................xvChapter 1—The Trip from Hope Road..........................................1Chapter 2—Why Witherspoon?.................................................25Chapter 3—Friends in High Places...........................................41Chapter 4—The Future of Farming and Keen Comfort...........................89Chapter 5—Latin Is a Dead Language.........................................111Chapter 6—Round Ball Mutiny................................................123Chapter 7—The Psychology of Chickens.......................................135Chapter 8—McKenzie Meltdown................................................143Chapter 9—Bovine Bitterness and Union Organizing...........................157Chapter 10—Oh, Henry!......................................................173Chapter 11—Angles, Trapezoids, and a Tumultuous Twelfth....................193Afterword—Erosion..........................................................207 Excerpt CHAPTER 1 The Trip from Hope Road A brilliant sheen of anticipation blanketed Hope Road on analready bright day in May, 1952, when Preacher McClure,our mission pastor from Booneville, Kentucky pulled up at ourhouse on the head of the holler on Long Shoal in his heavy dutystation wagon. Of our location, my father often said, "Boys, this is it. We'llbe all right here." In making this statement, Dad had to be uttering more ofa prayer than dealing with reality; for to my knowledge, noone has ever prospered from living at the head of our holler.What my father meant was that this could be our last stand.He had already spent most of the money he had saved fromworking at the Kings Powder Company in Ohio during WorldWar II, where the work was so dangerous those employedthere were not sent to fight at the front. In fact, my earliestmemories as a child are of standing in front of a window inour living room every day worrying whether Dad would comehome and adding to my mother's concerns by saying, "I hopehe doesn't get `bwode up'." Once there was an explosion at theplant that blew out the windows of houses in South Lebanon,which was located five miles from the powder mill. Imagineour anxiety that day. Although he was not saying it, my father was making notethat our house was as far as anyone could go up the holler.Behind us was a mountain, and there was a mountain on eachof our sides. The road to our house was mostly on creek bed,which meant when the water was high we could only get outby riding a horse or walking over the hill. And sometimesthe creeks did rise. Once when Dad came home from "CourtDay" where he had been trading horses, he brought homea clear light fool of an unbroken horse. Somehow the horsewas accidentally startled which caused him to break free fromwhere he had been tied. When we tried to catch him, he ranright by us and straight into the raging creek. That horse hasnever been seen again. With further regard to what my fathersaid, had anyone actually tried to find us, it is for sure no onecould have done so by any road signs; for there were none.The road did not get its name Hope until fifty years later. I amsure my uncle Ben was being sarcastic and not idyllic whenhe named it. Preacher McClure, however, knew where we lived and howto get there. And he had business on this day; for he was totake me to visit Buckhorn, about twenty-five miles away—tovisit the school. If things worked out, he was also going to helpme make arrangements to attend boarding school there for myhigh school educatio