02 Sunday Mar 2014
Posted in Big Sandy Valley, Ed Haley, Music, Women's History
Tags
Appalachia, culture, fiddle, fiddler, history, Josie Cline, Kentucky, Kermit, life, music, photos, Tug River, Warfield, West Virginia
The fiddle of Josie (Spaulding) Cline, “Lady Champion Fiddler of Kentucky, Virginia, Ohio & West Virginia”
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Genealogy and History in North Carolina and Beyond
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Brandon Ray Kirk 
Thank you, so much, Brandon! Posting the information about the Spaulding family, and the picture of Aunt Josie’s fiddle means a lot. I hope we can someday find out more about Mont and Josie’s connection with Ed Haley, & Johnny Hager. Somewhere out there I’m sure their “knockin down” a verse of Sourwood Mountain. God Bless You!
Scott Spencer
Thanks to you for contacting me with the wonderful family stories and photos. These old people, they sure led interesting and enviable lives. By collaborating, each of us, with what we know or have, assembling it piece by piece, we reconstruct the lives of those who have come before us and preserve their memory for posterity.
We have this same fiddle! Do you know how many were made like this and would it be worth anything
No idea. The value for me is in who has owned it. Difficult to put a price on this standard of appraisal.
I once thought this fiddle with the engraved “berry” design must be one of a kind, and somewhat unique. I visited a museum in Deadwood, S.D. and was surprised to see the exact same fiddle on display. The museum could not provide any specific details about where the fiddle came from other than it was donated by a family who lived in this rowdy town in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s. Needless to say I realized our fiddle was not “one of a kind”.
Our family history is with the Spaulding family from Kermit, W.V., and Warsaw, KY. We have relatives traced to the Kirk, Marcum, Hale, Vermillion, and Cline families. We inherited four fiddles that belonged to Josie Cline, who was married to J.W. Cline. Our family seemed to like to play the fiddle, and stories about hearing them play “Sourwood Mountain”, or a variation of this song were known.
They apparently played with others including a man named Hager (Johnny?) who played banjo, and Josie’s brother (Mont) was a blind fiddler. Babe Hale told a story that Josie and Mont sometimes traveled or played with Ed Haley. We don’t know much about this part, but family stories claim Josie and Mont even played at the Grand Old Opry in its early years. No proof of this has been found to date.