Articles & Stories
Granville
"Mountain Man" Burke,
His Heart Is In The Mountains
An Outdoor
Enthusiast, This Old-Timer Spent Days
In The Woods Hunting Game, Snakes, And Indian Relics
By Kedrick Sanders - 2007
From the
time he was a teenager, Granville Burke
was known as "Mountain Man." Though his chrono-
logical age is 72, his countenance and lifestyle suggests that
he is much younger. Granville was born in the Rocky Hollow, Jenkins,
Letcher County, Kentucky, in 1934. He grew up helping his parents
in their general merchandise store at the mouth of the hollow.
He recalls times when a customer would be in the store talking
with his dad, L. L. Burke. The customer would order a sack of
feed for his livestock then continue socializing and shopping
for various hardware and groceries items. Granville would overhear
the conversation, slip back to the feed room, and put a 100-pound
sack of feed on his shoulder and in a show of aestheticism, run
to the head of the hollow and place it on the customer's porch.
When he would return to you deliver that sack of feed?"
Granville would reply proudly, "It's already on your porch."
Granville has always enjoyed the outdoors. As a kid he would
go out into the woods and stay for days hunting game, snakes,
and Indian relics. On one occasion, when he was about 12 years
old, he had his older brother, Arville, take him to High Knob,
Norton, Virginia, and drop him off. He instructed Arville to
come back in a week and pick him up. To develop his survival
skills, he took only a hunting knife, hatch-et, flint rock, and
a steel striker. He found a rock cliff to provide shelter and
built a fire with the flint rock, striker, and dry leaves. For
food he ate berries, various edible leaves, and roots. He caught
birds, squirrels, and groundhogs and cooked them over an open
fire on a stick. When Arville returned a week later, there sat
a tired and worn young boy in the same spot where he had left
him but with a proud smile on his face. On his way back home
to Kentucky, he excitedly related each chapter of his adventure
to his brother. In the comfort of the car and the gentle sway
along the narrow, curvy roads, a tired boy dozed and dreamed
of his next venture into the wild.
Granville "Mountain Man" Burke cooked buffalo stew during the Indian summer Folk Festival sponsored by the Cumberland Mountain Arts and Crafts Council in Jenkins, Letcher County, Kentucky, in October 2006.
When he
was about 12 or 13 years old, Granville recalls that he became
intrigued with the exploits of his fictional hero, Tarzan. He
watched every Tarzan movie that came to the local theater and
read every Tarzan comic book he could find. He especially liked
the parts where Tarzan swung through the trees like his wild
animal friends. Granville decided to try to duplicate his hero's
antics. He went back to Grapevine Flats on Pine Mountain to begin
his new adventure. Enroute he charted himself a course where
he could swing on saplings and grapevines all the way back down
the hill. He stripped down to his loin cloth (undershorts) and
swung all the way back to the settlement. "There was snow
on the ground, and I darn near froze to death," he laughed.
"People called me Tarzan, and I even had a pet monkey I
named Cheetah."
Granville has been hunting rattlesnakes since he was about nine
years old and still enjoys the sport today. He has many hours
of videos of his snake hunts, and they have been shown many times
on local television. He relates the time he pitted a rattlesnake
and a copperhead snake with two mice. The rattlesnake ate one
mouse for an appetizer, ate the live copperhead for its main
course, and then ate the other mouse for dessert.
Wendell "Butch" Boggs, a lifelong resident of Jenkins,
recalls when he was a grade school kid riding the school bus
from Burdine to Jenkins. When the bus stopped at the mouth of
Rocky Hollow, Granville, who was then a teenager, in a feat of
athleticism would walk out of his front door, across the porch,
down the steps, across the yard, and out to the bus on his hands.
Granville graduated from Jenkins High in 1953 then attended North
Carolina State College for one year studying forestry. He wanted
to make a career of forestry, but the big paying jobs in the
north beckoned him. He migrated to Marion, Indiana, and went
to work at the General Motors Fisher Body Stamping Plant. When
he was filling out his application he asked the interviewer,
"Do you want me to write my full name?" "Certainly,"
he replied. "There is not enough space here," explained
Granville. When Granville gave him his full name, which is quite
lengthy, the interviewer said, "Well, just put your first
and last name." The interviewer looked at Granville's rugged
physique and hired him right away. He learned every job on the
line and eventually got into quality control as an inspector.
Although it was a good job, Granville's heart was still in the
mountains. In the industrialized north the sun didn't shine right,
the wind didn't blow right, and the birds didn't sing right.
At every opportunity he returned to the Kentucky mountains to
enjoy hunting, fishing, trapping, camping, and digging medicinal
herbs. He said he once sold 13 pounds of ginseng when it was
only $250 a pound. Today, the herb sells for $300-$400 a pound,
depending on whether it is of the wild or cultivated variety.
"What about the use of ginseng as an aphrodisiac?"
I asked. "Well, it does give you a lot of energy,"
he replied with a shy smile.
Granville "Mountain Man" Burke demonstrates his .50 caliber muzzle-loader using black powder, ball, and cap.
Living
in Indiana for more than 31 years did not make Granville a city
boy. As soon as he retired in 1987, he returned to Jenkins to
stay. His expertise in identifying the flora and fauna indigenous
to the area is well-known. (Flora and Fauna? I thought that was
a couple girls that lived up the hollow). Throughout his adult
life he has sidelined as a master tree arborist. Even at the
tender age of 72, he is frequently seen in the top of tall trees
trimming, shaping, or taking them down completely, one limb at
a time.
Granville has always enjoyed hobbies dealing with nature and
utilizing old time tools and techniques. He proudly shows his
homemade bed, tables, and seats all made without power tools,
nails, screws, or metal brackets. All joints are made to fit
and are put together with wooden pegs. He has a collection of
wooden bowls, which he carved with only a chisel and mallet.
Much of his collection of Indian goods is made from leather,
bone, and willow sprigs. Some of the snakes he catches are kept
for exhibit and others are utilized. He cooks and eats the rattlesnake
meat and uses the skin to make belts and hat bands. The skin
is processed by scraping the fatty membrane from the inside of
the skin to keep it from rotting. The skin is then treated with
alum and salt water and tacked to a board to dry slowly. He says
he has never been bitten by a snake. "I'm not bragging,"
he said, "I've just been very careful." Granville frequently
attends Indian Powwows as an exhibitor and to learn their customs,
crafts, and to trade relics with them. When he wants a little
more excitement in his exploits, he rappels off Raven Rock or
better still, off the 800-plus foot high bridge across New River
Gorge in West Virginia.
"I've done a lot of hunting, fishing, and trapping, but
my greatest catch was my wife, Learlene," says Granville.
They have been married 30 years.
Granville is a patron of the Cumberland Mountain Arts and Crafts
Council in Jenkins and is a trusted advisor with the development
of the 15-acre site where the amphitheater will be built. He
also acts as a tour guide for the council's nature hikes scheduled
each spring and fall along Pine Mountain.
Incidentally, the "Mountain Man's" whole name is Granville
Eagley Orgly Thorp Everly Burke. Somehow, I don't find that name
at all unusual for a man like Granville Burke.
Kedrick Sanders, 245 Forest Hill Center, Jenkins, KY 41537, shares this article with our readers.