Hearing this story and conducting some research of my own led me to believe that people love to come up with their explanation for things they cannot explain, no matter how perplex. Researchers believe this to truly be the case, a result of the family suffering from a genetic condition called methemoglobinemia, which is an excess of methemoglobin in the red blood cells of the body. (Baltimore: Gateway Press 1986). 6,674) Teays Valley (Pop. As the story goes, Martin Fugate, a French orphan, settled on the banks of eastern Kentucky's Troublesome Creek around 1820 to claim a land grant. The address on file for this person is 319 Main St, Madison, WV 25130 in Boone County. Not myth or legend; The Blue People of Kentucky were an isolated enclave of Appalachian people who lived with an embarrassing skin discoloration until a young hematologist took notice and found a solution. “They vary in color from white to black, often have blue eyes and straight hair, and they are generally industrious. West Virginia. Their ethnic origin has been a source of debate for nearly as long. Informant: “So, what my brother told me is that there’s a story that there are people in the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia, near the campus I guess, and there is skin is blue. Neighboring Virginia has more than 200 per square mile. Tests for abnormal hemoglobin were negative. Start your free trial today to learn more about your ancestors using our powerful and intuitive search. There is evidence for connections between some of them, going back to common ancestry in colonial Virginia. “And going forward, West Virginia needs Medicare for All and billions of dollars of federal investment to put people back to work building the infrastructure the state needs to move forward. Written family records do not indicate Martin's skin color, but family legend says he was blue. Its county seat is Beckley. Mary (Dawley) Fugate, who answers quite a few queries and also helped compile the genealogy book, indicates that the siblings of Martin Fugate were not blue but he must have been a carrier. Cawein, in researching the family lines in Perry County, Kentucky and with the help of Fugate Family Bibles, found in fact, that the Fugates had married Fugates, had married first cousins, and had intermarried with families whose surnames were: Combs, Smith, Ritchie, and Stacy. 13,357) There was a Zachariah Fugate who was married to a Mary Smith; both carried the gene which resulted in blue children. “They vary in color from white to black, often have blue eyes and straight hair, and they are generally industrious. The entry was on the blue men, not of West Virginia, but of the Mountain State’s neighbor, Kentucky, and it focused primarily on an article published in Science way back in 1982 – you can find that article here, but I want to quote a couple points for you.. Madison Cawein began hearing rumors about the blue people when he went to work at … He married a red-haired American named Elizabeth Smith with a very pale complexion. In online research, there was no mention made of "blue" people as recorded in the genealogy book, The Fugate Family of Russell County Virginia, published in 1986, but it has been confirmed in the Fugate discussions on the Genforum. Legacy records, cemeteries in Kanawha County, West Virginia . West Virginia has a lot of great people, but did you know about these 4 truly evil people who also lived in the Mountain State? Little did they know that their uni… Old woman smoking a pipe, Appalachia, USA, c1917. Informant: “So, what my brother told me is that there’s a story that there are people in the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia, near the campus I guess, and there is skin is blue. She remembers the story very easily, most often humorously, because she remembers the manner in which her brother told her. It was real bad in her.” Benjy Stacy was the latest child born in a long line of Fugates – the blue people of Kentucky – who had lived in the Appalachian mountains of Kentucky for the past 197 years. Others might be put down to good old West Virginia quirkiness. West Virginia could employ thousands of people in building rural broadband, upgrading drinking water and wastewater infrastructure, and fixing the damage that coal and gas … They lived in isolation and married the girl next door, even if they had the same last name, and consequently passed the gene on to many generations. The two lawsuits were filed by American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia and the West Virginia Education Association. Upon further research, I saw that the original story was based on a specific family that was said to be suffering from blue-tinted skin. - rather than say "I'm going mountain biking in the Blue Ridge on Saturday." “There is a clan of partly-colored people in Barbour County often called Guineas, under the erroneous presumption that they are Guinea negroes,” observed WV historian Hu Maxwell in the 1890s. Faris, David. Then he began to construct the family genealogy and traced their roots back to Martin and Elizabeth Fugate. … 6,674) Teays Valley (Pop. The county was founded in 1850 and is named for Sir Walter Raleigh. Laughing, the Informant launched into a story of the “West Virginia Blue People”, a story about a genetic condition the resulted from intermarriage. He recounted how, after hearing the story for the first time, he and his roommates would make a show of continuously checking to see if their other friends’ lips or skin ever looked blue. At that point, Benjy’s father, Alva Stacy, explained to the doctors, “My grandmother Luna on my dad’s side was a blue Fugate. “West Virginia has a very strong tradition of being jealous and guarding individual liberties, including those that are protected by the Second Amendment,” West Virginia … Mary Fugate said that the gene is very dominant in the Smith line but there is still no concrete answers as to what couple started the shades of blue people. Little did they know that their union would create shades of blue people! If you’re analyzing smaller cities in West Virginia with blue collar workers, where people have lots of options for drinking, smoking, hunting and Walmarting, this is an accurate list. West Virginia is one of the nation’s most rural states, with 77 people per square mile. So blue, in fact, that his skin was the deep purple color of a plum. The early hunters lived in small family units. Stacy is the great-great-great-great-grandson of Martin Fugate and Elizabeth Smith – but by this point, the blue people of Kentucky are just a memory. The address on file for this person is 515 Highland Avenue, South Charleston, WV 25303 in Kanawha County. He married a red-haired American named Elizabeth Smith with a very pale complexion. Laughing, the Informant launched into a story of the “West Virginia Blue People”, a story about a genetic condition the resulted from intermarriage. Laughing, the Informant launched into a story of the “West Virginia Blue People”, a story about a genetic condition the resulted from intermarriage. It’s blue, and their people have always had blue skin because of all the intermarrying and incest. Informant: “So, what my brother told me is that there’s a story that there are people in the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia, near the campus I guess, and there is skin is blue. Sometimes, it can be really faint though, so you have to look closely at their lips or fingernails. For More City Stories, Follow Link *Note: All information is provided through people of the community, outside sources, and research. Chestnut Ridge people of Barbour County (also known as Mayles or, pejoratively, "Guineas") Each of these groupings of multiracial populations has a particular history. The most populated city in West Virginia is Charleston with 47,929 people. One of the girls, the “Informant”, was discussing an upcoming trip to visit her brother at West Virginia University. Blue People of Kentucky Why the Fugate Family Had Blue SkinA Frenchman arrived in Kentucky in 1820, bringing with him his strange blue skin. Scott's research had found hereditary methemoglobinemia among Alaskan Eskimos and Indians caused by an absence of the enzyme diaphorase from their red blood cells. The Melungeons from Wicked Delicate Films on Vimeo. These murder stories may make your skin crawl! One could inherit the gene, not get the blood disorder, but pass the gene on to a child. Residents of Blacksburg or Roanoke may refer to specific mountains - Tinker Mountain, Brush Mountain, etc. The filing status is listed as Active. The total surface area of West Virginia measures 24,230 square miles (62,755 square kilometers), which means that an average of 77.1 peoples live on every square mile of West Virginia land. As legend has it, the Moon-Eyed people were an entire race of physically small inhabitants of a wooded area near what is now Murphy, North Carolina. Photograph taken during Cecil Sharp’s folk music collecting expedition: British musician Sharp (1859-1924) and his assistant Dr Maud Karpeles (1885-1976) collected folk songs from the mountain singers of the Appalachians (North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky), between 1916 and 1918. It is almost certain that Martin was a descendant of the Fugate family of Russell County, Virginia and probably of French origin. Neighboring Virginia has more than 200 per square mile. Dozens of people in West Virginia were mistakenly given Regeneron’s Covid-19 antibody treatment instead of the Moderna vaccine, the West Virginia National Guard announced Thursday. The population expanded during the early part of the 1900s, even though many families would leave for jobs in northern states like Ohio and Michigan during the 1940s and … Different spellings of the surname sometimes include "Fugett" and "Fugitt". Curiosity drove him to Hazard where he was introduced to a nurse, Ruth Pendergrass, who had met a "dark blue" woman. Cancel any time, no strings attached. This small enclave was no longer isolated and they began to disperse and marry outside of their little clan diminishing the effect of the "blue" gene. Congress granted statehood to West Virginia on June 20, 1863. 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