Chestnut Ridge people
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The Chestnut Ridge people are a tri-racial isolate community residing just northeast of Philippi, West Virginia, USA.
The local West Virginia historian Hu Maxwell was bemused by these people when he investigated Barbour County history in the late 1890s:
There is a clan of partly-colored people in Barbour County often called "Guineas", under the erroneous presumption that they are Guinea negroes. They vary in color from white to black, often have blue eyes and straight hair, and they are generally industrious. Their number in Barbour is estimated at one thousand. They have been a puzzle to the investigator; for their origin is not generally known. They are among the earliest settlers of Barbour. Prof. W.W. Male of Grafton, West Virginia, belongs to this clan, and after a thorough investigation, says 'They originated from an Englishman named Male who came to America at the outbreak of the Revolution. From that one man have sprung about 700 of the same name, not to speak of the half-breeds.' Thus it would seem that the family was only half-black at the beginning, and by the inter-mixtures since, many are now almost white. [1]
(The local pejorative term "guinea" was still current more than a century after these words were written.)
If related individuals in the surrounding counties of Harrison and Taylor are included, they probably now number about 1,500, almost all of which bear one of fewer than a dozen surnames. A 1977 survey of obituaries in The Barbour Democrat showed that 135 of 163 "Ridge people" (83%) were married to people having the last names Mayle, Norris, Croston, Prichard, Collins, Adams, or Kennedy. In 1984, of the 67 Mayles who had listed telephones, all but three lived on "The Ridge" [2].
The people of "The Ridge" have traditionally been subject to severe racial discrimination, amounting to ostracism, by the surrounding majority white community.
[edit] Citations
- ^ Maxwell, Hu (1899). The History of Barbour County, From its Earliest Exploration and Settlement to the Present Time, The Acme Publishing Company, Morgantown, W.Va. (Reprinted, McClain Printing Company, Parsons, W.Va., 1968), 310-311.
- ^ (31 December 1984) "My Melungeon Depot", Pittsburgh Post Gazette.
