Hi, I'm Holly. And I'm Hailey. Welcome to Mountain Mysteries, Tales from Appalachia. Welcome back.
Hello. Hello. Hailey, do you believe in curses? Yeah.
You had a pause there? Yeah. You do believe in curses? Yeah, I think so.
I mean especially like I think land can be cursed. Like if there's been a really bad thing that happened there. Like a tragedy or something. Like a big tragedy.
Like Gettysburg. Yeah, like cursed land. Or I mean there's a lot of like, I'm not crossing like a native person. Because they got like some curses.
One like you know, more like Haitian and like to make it. Yeah. There's a lot of like belief in that person. Yeah.
And I think that's like, that's legit. I'm not messing with that. Hailey has a voodoo doll of me like, wrapped in bacon. She sticks in the oven.
She like, stabs it occasionally. I'm like, oh my back. You know? That was wrong with my other back.
It could be. It's my doll. I have a lot of time to play with voodoo. So just tons of time for my dolls.
Right. Yeah. If I could do that, we wouldn't have to worry about our afterlife plans of you haunting people. True.
So yeah, I don't have that skill set, but you know, definitely I do think that there are curses. Oh yeah. I think that there are. Yeah, definitely, definitely out there people that can do that.
And it's not, not one of them, but. Well, would you like to hear about a curse? I would. Okay.
Today's story is about the curse of Ivanhoe, Virginia. Oh. All right. So Ivanhoe is nestled in the Appalachian Mountains and is a very small town.
According to the 2010 census, the population was 551 people. Wow. Yes. However, in 1942 Ivanhoe had its highest population at 4500.
So I mean, still, very, very small. Ivanhoe is in Wyth County, Virginia and sits along New River. Oh yeah, that's where my, um, somebody important. Yeah, somebody brought my life lives in Wyth County.
But yes. There you go. That's where I was looking for. Ivanhoe is about an hour south of Roanoke and a little over an hour north of Abingdon.
So it's kind of in the middle, not a lot of big cities around it. Very, very small and pretty isolated. Very rural and has quite an interesting history as many small towns do. Oh yes.
Oh, indeed. So the story starts in Ivanhoe in the 1800s. Okay. At the time, Ivanhoe was a pretty popular town.
It had lead in iron mines. So these mines were essentially, um, like super important during the war. So it was very important during the Revolutionary war and apparently had been owned by the British until, you know, obviously we fought and won the war and so then it became American mines. Yeah.
Um, and then was very important during the Civil War. Um, they also were a town that had a lot of gambling, drinking, prostitution and all together debauchery. Nice. Yeah, you know.
Like being a minor is a very, very hard and dangerous job. So I can see the wanting to relax in your off time. Yeah. Kind of thing.
Yeah. It's like a intense job. Oh my gosh. And you know, gambling, drinking, consensual sex.
All fine in good moderation. Yeah. Right. Uh, but if folks start over indulging, well things can get pretty out of hand.
Yeah. I mean, you kind of see where, you know, like fights start and you know, you, oh my, my dirty rums. Cowroll. You know, and things just, yeah.
Punches being thrown and maybe not been the safest place to raise your family. Right. And apparently the town was over indulging. And one day a traveling Methodist preacher named, well those methods, they're just always traveling.
You know, a traveling Methodist preacher named Robert Sheffy wrote into town hoping to share the gospel with these fine folks. Sheffy was pretty horrified at the site he saw before him. Yeah. Lots of tawdry behavior, adulterous acts, drinking to drunkenness, you know, all the things that the Bible presents because it is in biblical stories, but greatly frowned upon.
Yeah. Not usually what God's like, yeah, let's do that. Yeah. God said no.
Don't do that. Ivanhoe and its wild scene had pastor Sheffy sweating like a harlot in church. He tried to mend their way with ways and present them the gospel, but the town's folks was pretty happy with their current situation. I was like, oh, we're good.
Yeah. And they didn't really care for, you know, what he had to teach them nor his Bible beaten ways. No, I'm so okay. I mean, if you think about it, if you're comfortable in your debauchery and you're comfortable getting wasted and having to, you know, like, why would you want to change that?
So, and I think in a sense they were sort of resentful of him even coming. Like, who are you? For for sure. So, you know, he's basically run out of town or so the story goes.
But before he left, he condemned the town and its people for their deplorable behavior. As preacher Sheffy was preparing to ride off to another town to save them for save their immortal souls as a good preacher does, he declared that Ivanhoe would never be worth a dam. And interesting for a preacher to say, Ivanhoe would never be worth a dam and he stated that he would never set foot in that wicked place again. So, did this, is this the cursing?
Well, yes. And I'm like, okay, when I think of someone cursing somebody, I'm thinking like a wronged witch or a like voodoo, practicer. I'm not thinking of the Methodist preacher from down the way. See, that's, mm-hmm.
And we'll get into that a little bit too and break that down. Yeah, that doesn't seem, doesn't seem too holy. No, from all the, the methodists that I know, I wouldn't think they could be capable of cursing something. Yeah, that's, I don't think they have that power.
Well, and I think it's one thing to make a statement of like, wow, this place is really crappy. I am never coming here again, you know? It's like when you have a bad experience at the Walmart and you're like, I'm just not going to go there. And then you end up needing something and you have to go there.
No, I go to Target. Oh, okay. Yeah, I was about to target money. I was about to freak out the Walmart.
It's interesting because, I know, but something you can actually find cheaper at Target. It's true, you gotta, you gotta do your bar. But my child was in diapers. Oh, yeah.
Target brand diapers are really good. Yeah. Just throwing that out. Nice.
Much cheaper. Anyway, so, back to our story. So he's saying Ivanhoe's never going to be worth a damn. He's never going to set foot there and then he declared.
And this is part of the curse, right? He declares Ivanhoe will sink into the earth and fall into the pits of hell. And then he, you know, got back on his horse and rode out of town. See, if somebody were to tell me that and I'm like drunkenness and everything else, I'd be like, Cheers man.
You got it dude. Straighten it out. We go. Drink it right up.
That's right. I'm sure he's laughed out of town. Probably. And I mean, it's pretty interesting because like we talked about, this is a preacher more or less putting a curse on the pot calling the kettle black.
If you think about it, since the Bible clearly teaches against curses and sorcery. In fact, Haley, I did my research and the Bible states in Deuteronomy, chapter 18, verse 18, verses 10 through 12. And I quote, Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft or cast spells or who is a medium or spiritual list or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord because of the same detestable practices, the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you.
The new international version. So basically. This is Old Testament, right? Well, yes, it's Deuteronomy.
Yeah. I think we scrapped a lot of that when we got into like Jesus time. Yeah, I think, you know, because like I've met many a spiritualist and a wickin and they're lovely. You know who I enjoy?
I can barely see you through these flowers. We have here. They're quite beautiful. There you are.
I enjoy Tyler Henry. Have you ever seen him? He's the medium. He's often on television.
Oh, yeah. He's so good. And he's so cute. He's adorable.
Like, I mean, I'm like, wow, he's so hot. But like he's cute. Like he could be my son. He's adorable.
Anyway, but yes. We've, we've, we've, I think we're more to the, at least in my version of church, it's more like, you know, we're just loving everybody. We're just, we're just loving people. We're, yeah, we're treating people with kindness and respect.
And we like our witches. Now we don't burn them. Please don't burn anybody. Like, if I was gonna, you know, I need to do it in my house now, but my house right now is okay.
But like if I were to buy a house, I would probably have some like, Catholic priests come over and bless it. I'd have somebody come do some type of prayer, but I'm also going to have somebody who practices witchcraft come in there and cleanse that sucker. Yeah. Yeah.
I'm covering on my bases. I think it's good. I think it's good. There's any other religious traditions out there.
You'll let me know. I get them all on board. I will come and stop. I'm an official stomp.
I'll come and just stop. Stop it out. Okay. But I do charge a fee.
Gotcha. So just be prepared and it's, it's not. It's not a small fee. I mean, my stomping is very costly, but very effective.
Okay. All right. Okay. So basically in the, you know, Old Testament, God said curses weren't cool.
Yeah. So curses are bad. And you know, like damning some places is pretty, really, it's not good. And I mean, he, you know, he was following Old Testament.
He knew this is what his biblical principles were on. So the fact that, you know, good old pastor, chef, he was like, uh, I shall curse this town. It seems not very preachery. Not preachery.
Not very like Jesus was actually. You know what we'd say nowadays? I'm going to pray for him. We're going to pray for that.
We're going to pray for that. We're going to pray on it. Yeah. Bless his heart.
Bless his heart. Bless his soul. Let's pray that he gets to heaven. Yep.
I'm going to pray on it. But in the 1800s, he was like, you shall cast thee down into the depths of hell. Both are you. And that's just what he tells me.
Yeah. So chef, he loved the town and continued his ministry for the rest of his life. So I read up a little bit on him. He appeared to actually be very kind towards people and animals.
He believed in the power of prayer for healing. And his prayers did heal the sick and injured actually. He would pray that specific liquor steels would be destroyed. Like, oh, dear God, let's destroy this still because here's the thing.
And it's true nowadays. But back then, people didn't realize the chaos that was caused from, you know, it wasn't like there was a rehab for people. Right. So when these individuals would drink, and this is where that temperance movement sort of comes in, a lot will become very violent and abusive.
And it would totally change their personality. So there's that piece where you can see why there's prayer for that. And just like people who are struggling with addiction, there weren't clinics. There weren't places that could help folks.
So, you know, he was praying. But he, in this case, would pray that these specific liquor steels would be destroyed. And lo and behold, the next day, like trees had fallen and destroyed. I'm sure he wasn't out there just like cutting trees.
Just chopping things down. I'd be like, oh, my, and he's like, see? We're hiring people to do that. Exactly.
He's like, see, it's me praying. See? Prayer, prayer, prayer. That's right.
I do too. I mean, that's pretty smart. He apparently was an odd guy though. Don't say.
Weirdly enough, he loved honey. Okay. This is an odd note here. He loved honey.
So he always purposely prayed for bees. Prayed for the bees. Okay. I like that.
Or I prayed these bees continue to make that sweet, sweet honey. I like the bees. They're necessary for... These are necessary.
Are you survival? Sometimes so is liquor. Also true. So, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if...
Oh, my gosh. Everybody who loves Jeff, he's going to come after me. I wouldn't be surprised if he's in a closet having a little wine somewhere. Yeah.
He's going to, I mean, how could you not be? Exactly. So while he was known for his gift of prayer, his preaching was not as fine-tuned. So many of Jeff's contemporaries stated that he was, and I quote, the most powerful person and I quote, the most powerful man in prayer, but he couldn't preach a lick.
I could see that. Yeah. We're not always good at everything. Yeah.
I mean, and I've seen that before where you've had ministers who are, you know, their prayers are like intense. You're like, wow, yeah, I feel like this is really going to change my life or impact my life. But then they're like horrible ministers. Then you get to like the preaching part and you're like, oh.
And fun fact about him. Because he didn't have a college education. They didn't give him a license to preach. He just did it on his own.
Yeah. And so... I thought if that still happens, like there's a lot of preachers that have not gone to like any type of education, they're schooling for that. Many.
Which is like fine, I guess, if that's your calling. But also, like make sure you understand the whole thing before we start preaching little pieces of it. Something I want to throw out is I think in order to be a good pastor or whatever, you know, you have to understand other religions. Oh, yeah.
And you have to be open to learning about other ways of doing things because I mean, it kind of falls flat. Like your message falls flat if you haven't explored other things, you know. Yeah. I don't know.
Just my thought. I don't know if you have the license to preach. But eventually he just kept going to these places and like setting up his tent revivals. So where they finally were like, oh, all right, fine.
Here's your license to preach. So they finally just gave it to him. He kind of wore him down after a while. Like the best preachers that I've heard or seen or been around are the ones who like have a full respect for other religions.
But also have a full understanding of not only just the Bible, but also the context of which it was written in and the historical context and understanding that we can acknowledge that. And you know, the Old Testament essentially is the same thing you're going to find in the Quran, the thing that you're going to find in the Torah. It gets a part of many religions and then it just kind of branches off. There's like one specific spot where like everybody just kind of goes there.
We split in different directions, which is like fine. I think it comes to the point where there's the sacrifice that the father's going to sacrifice his son. And then the other religions just sort of everybody kind of just moves off into their other, you know. Oh, well, they have their own other prophets and people and whatever.
It's very fascinating. So yeah, yeah, you show religion classics. Yes. It's really cool.
Really cool. So the real question is what happened to the town of Ivanhoe? Like was there really a curse? What happened?
Do they really follow the depths of hell? Well, sort of. Okay. So all right, as the years went on, the lead minds switched to zinc.
But after deaths, injuries and companies who were able to hire out work overseas, Ivanhoe was left with little industry and no way for his town folk to like live and make money. So many men who were like close to retirement had either fined other jobs, which was pretty hard to find because like I mentioned the town's pretty remote or just, you know, live off whatever you want to find like here and there, but most were traveling up to 63 miles to work one way, one way. The mines, you know, often change hands to like carbines and zinc and by the 1980s, the mines were closed and flooded. So the EPA has listed the zinc mines as clean up sites and they state that the water running through the old mines are so contaminated that they just need to be removed completely.
The only problem is if they remove it, it'll just refill with water that's coming from the new river, right? And the EPA was like, you know what, opening that up and like exposing people to all of that is probably more dangerous. So we're just going to leave it contained underground. Probably good, but here's a concern I was thinking about while reading through this.
What if it gets in the drinking water? Probably. Just you're really optimistic. Probably will.
I mean, I'm not like trying to, you know, bring everybody down, but it probably won't. So the new river that runs along it is the third most polluted river in America. Wow. That is right.
The land and water are both so polluted that these contaminants can affect the long term health of both humans and animals. So as the town struggled decade after decade, the population dwindled, as I mentioned, 4,500 like, you know, during World War II, all the way down to now 551. So remember how I said that Sheffi proclaimed that the town would sink into the earth? Well, he was right.
So slowly, potholes began to appear in the town and, you know, due to zing, and everything else, they grew bigger and bigger and one resident even claims that a sinkhole absorbed an entire house. Yeah. So much so that you can only see the roof of it left. Sinkholes fascinating.
They are? They are. Many of the shops and homes have been abandoned or burned down. So while chaos has ruled this town for so long, the few families that are remaining are pretty strong and determined individuals.
They're very proud of their town and could not imagine leaving. Yeah. Some of my research was through articles, but I also watched two documentaries on this town, which if you have a chance, you really should check out. So they're both on YouTube.
And the first one is called Real Stories, America's Legendary Sinking Town, the Curse and the Jubilee. I know. That one was interesting. That's a lot.
It's a lot. Actually, that one interviews a lot of the townsfolk. I'm going to preface this with, watch it with some caution because there is a man that they start talking to who tells you how he's like a grand wizard in the KKK. So, yeah, I was like, wait, what?
So I was watching this and I was like, oh my gosh, this town. And then I heard that was a little troubling. Anyway, so just note that. And there's another called Cursed.
I've been over to Virginia. And it's through this channel called Hood in the Woods and the Create Hood in the Woods. Yeah. And the creators really fascinating because he has so much knowledge about each area.
Like he really does a lot of research. And he says at the beginning of it, feel free to donate to my PayPal, which helps pay for a tank of gas, which is very cute because he does travel everywhere. And he really looks into things really well. His was much better than the other, I thought in my opinion.
And his was shorter. That's so cool. Apparently, there's also a movie about Pastor Sheffy called the Saint of the Mountains. And Sheffy's had a lot of influence in Methodist culture.
And there's a lot to cover on him. But I will maybe do that in another episode. But yeah, so that is my story. The Cursed Town still exists, but with very few people and essentially it's falling into the Pissipail.
It sounds like it. I mean, I wonder if the water causes a lot of sinkholes? Well, so the Zinc mines and the things that are getting into the environment. And one of the things that Hood in the Woods said was that when the river starts to overflow onto the land, they're not allowed to build anything on that because of the overflow.
It's so toxic that they can't build playgrounds. They can't build schools. So basically whatever they've already built just has to stand and they can't build other things. So the town really can't grow.
And then you think about once some of the other folks die off in the town, will it just become a ghost town? Probably. Yeah. I mean, there's not many people left to go through.
Exactly. I mean, exactly. I don't think there's a lot of people are going to be like starting their families there. No, I don't think so.
I mean, maybe you get some cheap housing. But then I wonder, what are the rates of cancer for folks who are living in the town? You know? So anyway, but really cool story of the Cursed Town of Ivanhoe, Virginia.
All right, y'all. If you are from there, know someone from there or you know, you just want to share your feedback, please do. You can email us at mountainmysteries.appolachin at gmail.com. Find us on Facebook at mountainmysteries.com.
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Let's do about Dearborn Indiana. Dearborn Indiana, thank you for listening. I like it. All right, guys.
We'll catch you next time. Have a great week. Bye. Bye.