A transfusion was being prepared when Benjys grandmother spoke up. Published November 21, 2021 Updated November 29, 2021 For nearly 200 years, the Fugates known as the blue people of Kentucky remained largely sealed off from the outside world as they passed their blue skin from generation to generation. Google Maps. At last they were free of their "blue" shade and were no longer embarrassed. Martin and Elizabeth had seven children, four being born blue; Zachariah, who was blue, married his mother's sister. "For the first time in their lives, they were pink. Studying the problem, Cawein figured out that he could convert methemoglobin to hemoglobin without the enzyme. They were poor people, concurs Nurse Pendergrass, but they were good.References1. Methemoglobinemia is one of the rare genetic conditions that's treatable with a simple pill. Its a part of our culture. As it was, the Fugates stayed in the same area well into the 20th century. Instead, football players bore a bronzesque gold helmet emblazoned with a blue outline of the state of West Virginia and the letters "WVU" inside an oval. Stacy recalls that his father-inlaw, Levy Fugate, was part of the family that showed blue. Once he had the enzyme deficiency isolated, methylene blue sprang to Caweins mind as the perfectly obvious antidote. It reduced the brightness of the blue on their skin. He knew the same thing was happening in this secluded corner of Appalachia. Matt Harvey Dan Cunningham was born Jan. 16, 1850, in Jackson County. Ask the Explainer. There are even video games about rednecks. They were bluern hell, Cawein says. They werent sick; it was just the way they look. Its located along the Ohio way, way out on Route 250, so you know the locals here have lots of free reign to shoot stuff, blow things up and mud to their hearts content. Stacys son has built a modern house next door, but the old logger wont hear of leaving the cabin he built with timber he personally cut and hewed for Luna and their 13 children. "The beginning of this story is so wild because Martin moved to Kentucky from Europe and married a complete stranger, a nonrelative who just happened to have the same mutation," says Lewis. West By God is right. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. While the substance isnt harmful, large amounts of it will tint any tissue that has blood flowing to it a blue color. The Derby Bar & Grill, Fairmount, WV. Genetic Causes He injected the Ritchie siblings with 100 milligrams of the blue dye and didn't have to wait long to see results. The first known ancestor was David Wilson, who was born in Scotland about 1650; he had a son David, born about . There was always speculation in the hollows about what made the blue people blue: heart disease, a lung disorder, the possibility proposed by one old-timer that their blood is just a little closer to their skin. But no one knew for sure, and doctors rarely paid visits to the remote creekside settlements where most of the blue Fugates lived until well into the 1950s. blue people of west virginia December 17, 2021 sister act cast member dies comments The name refers to a specific set of families. 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. One could inherit the gene, not get the blood disorder, but pass the gene on to a child. After ruling out heart and lung diseases, the doctor suspected methemoglobinemia, a rare hereditary blood disorder that results from excess levels of methemoglobin in the blood. In 1980, a counter-intuitive solution was discovered where the blue person drinks a chemical-filled solution that is itself blue. The Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. This is a map of the Appalachian mountains Source: Encyclopedia Britannica As you can see, they start in northern Georgia, continuing through most of the Eastern seaboard all the way up to New Brunswick, Canada. It began whenMartin Fugate, aFrench orphan, settled on the banks of eastern Kentuckys Troublesome Creek to claim a land grant in the early 19th century. For the record, West Virginia has strict anti-incest laws. Over time, fewer and fewer babies were born blue, and those who were took a methylene blue pill once a day to put the pink back in their cheeks. If this story were true everyone in Alabama would be blue. Elizabeth Smith, apparently, was as pale-skinned as the mountain laurel that blooms every spring around the creek hollows. Her name was Ruth Pendergrass, and she had been trying to stir up medical interest in the blue people ever since a dark blue woman walked into the county health department one bitterly cold afternoon and asked for a blood test. "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. Why can colloidal silver turn your skin blue? Inbreeding in eastern Kentucky has been turning offspring blue since the early 1880s. Read on below to see where your town ranked. Google Maps, KCR Barrel Saloon, Charles Town, WV. 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. Some of us finished high school and became the "dreaded wife and mother"-as society portrays it. She lives alone in one of the. Stacy counts Fugate blood in his own veins. All them old fellers way back then was blue. So is the Walmart factor, which is the number of Walmarts per person. In people with methemoglobinemia, the skin appears blue because the veins beneath the skin are coursing with dark blue blood. After a 1997 survey, the boundary line between Jefferson County, West Virginia, and Loudoun County, Virginia, was declared to be the watershed line of the top of the ridge of the Blue Ridge mountains, as documented in the survey. Faris, David. There was a Zachariah Fugate who was married to a Mary Smith; both carried the gene which resulted in blue children. It can make a claim that it should top this list, since it has the most people. Stereotypes about West Virginian breeding practices have long been linked to the states poverty. Even so, Cawein still gets calls for advice. Methemoglobinemia is a rare hereditary blood disorder that results from excess levels of methomoglobin (metHb) in the blood. Finally, one day when the frustrated doctor was idling inside the Hazard clinic, Patrick and Rachel Ritchie walked in. Its blue, and their people have always had blue skin because of all the intermarrying and incest. The famous painting of the blue Fugates is not based on an actual family photograph, but was a composite illustration created by artist Walt Spitzmiller for a 1982 magazine article. Steelworkers Damion Elkins, 50, right, and Edward Clonch, 43, left, in Huntington West Virginia. Scotts Alaskans seemed to match Caweins blue people. T he West Virginia senator Joe Manchin has emerged as one of the biggest stumbling blocks to the passing of Joe Biden's ambitious domestic agenda, declaring he will vote against a key voting. In other words, to get the disorder, a person would have to inherit two genes for it, one from each parent. What he got from Martin Fugate was dark blue skin. These people arent related to the Fugates: Also fake. She gets upset at all the talk of inbreeding among the Fugates. Curiosity drove him to Hazard where he was introduced to a nurse, Ruth Pendergrass, who had met a "dark blue" woman. Fear that more inflation will cost jobs. Like this guy: Most of the Blue Fugates died off, hopefully because they decided to give the incest a rest for a while, and so its not often that one runs into a blue person on the street anymore. This condition does, in fact, cause blue-tinted. By the time a young hematologist from the University of Kentucky came down to Troublesome Creek in the 1960s to cure the blue people, Martin Fugates descendants had multiplied their recessive genes all over the Cumberland Plateau. Blow your mind. West Virginia had just one carrier in its exchange in 2015 - Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield - although the carrier only offered 12 plans in 2014, and bumped that up to 14 in 2015. The gold of the helmet did not reflect the gold utilized in our colors today. We use data, analytics, and a sense of humor to determine the dirt on places across the country. If youre curious enough, here are the least redneck places in West Virginia (if thats even possible): We aim to deliver infotainment about where you live that your real estate agent won't tell you. One relative describes her as blue all over, and another calls Luna the bluest woman I ever saw.. They just accepted it as a part of who they were. Bluefield State is committed to being the region's leading institution of higher education. What is a redneck anyways? Laurel Wheeler and family, Buena Vista, Rockbridge County, Virginia. In another neighborhood of this rust-belt city of 46,000, Pam and Ted Keesee have their own. Excise tax on bottled soft drinks, syrups and dry mixtures; disposition thereof. Dr. Cawein injected the dye into the volunteers, and they were amazed to see how quickly their skin changed from blue to a healthy pink, then gradually to a Caucasian white. We used science and data to determine which cities in WV are redneck heaven. Cawein drew lots of blood from the Ritchies and hurried back to his lab. Cause, you know, rednecks like to hunt, drink, smoke and shoot things. Eventually, the recessive gene began to disappear once coal mining and the railroad opened the community to outsiders. The expedition descended that river to Peter's Falls on the future Virginia-West Virginia border and claimed for England all the land drained by the New River and its tributaries. As scientists discovered in the 1960s, the mutation that causes the Smurf-like skin is carried by a recessive gene, and it takes two people with that same gene to produce a blue child. After concluding that there was no evidence of heart disease, I said Aha! I started asking them questions: Do you have any relatives who are blue? then I sat down and we began to chart the family., Cawein remembers the pain that showed on the Ritchie brothers and sisters faces. West Virginia: County: Tyler: Elevation. Using Yelp and Google Maps, this is the criteria we used: Note: For the sake of getting reliable numbers, we counted places within a citys border, as well as within a short driving distance. New Martinsville is located in the northwestern part of the state, right on the Ohio state line. Luna has been dead nearly 20 years now, but her widower survives. The drugs effects are temporary, as methylene blue is normally excreted in the urine. 3. Feeder food: Grain and birdseed. Rednecks are hailed as being great in our song lyrics. 5,600 views made by Rocco. Theyre known simply as the blue people in the hills and hollows around Troublesome and Ball Creeks. Of their seven children, four were reported to be blue. We see fit that they will grow up to be strong holler girls or boys. Luna Stacy possessed the good health common to the blue people, bearing at least 13 children before she died at 84. Folklore maintained the Fugates were blue due to heart disease or lung problems. Cawein, Madison and E.J. Normally diaphorase converts methemoglobin back to hemoglobin. there is no "blue-soloution" that turns them back to a "normal" color. The mountain range is located in the eastern United States, and extends 550 miles southwest from southern Pennsylvania through Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. Laughing, the Informant launched into a story of the West Virginia Blue People, a story about a genetic condition the resulted from intermarriage. A stance in favor of new abortion restrictions. The marriage of one of their blue boys, Zachariah, to his mothers sister triggered the line of succession that would result in the birth, more than 100 years later, of Benjy Stacy. Their inbreeding led to several medical problems and recessive genes being passed down through each child, such as one that gave some of the offspring blue skin. In fact, the last known blue Fugate was born in 1975, and his skin color faded to normal as he grew up. Start your free trial today to learn more about your ancestors using our powerful and intuitive search. He had to drive eight hours back to Hazard to search out the Ritchies, who lived in a tapped-out mining town called Hardburly. Hilda Stacy (nee Godsey) is fiercely protective of her son. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. The couple had eight children, including Luna. In 2019, the percentage of foreign-born citizens in West Virginia was 1.66%, meaning that the rate has been decreasing. Sit back, relax, and read the amazing but true genetic tale of the Blue People of Kentucky. It is documented that Fugates were born in the colonies in the mid 1600's but the original progenitor has not been confirmed. West Virginians became the prototypical hillbillies, and incest served as a crude scientific explanation for their downtrodden social condition. Eventually, a nurse named Ruth Pendergrass heard of them, and, along with a hematologist named Madison Cawein III, decided to go meet these locally famous blue people in person. Feb. 22, 2012 -- Benjamin "Benjy" Stacy so frightened maternity doctors with the color of his skin -- "as Blue as Lake Louise" -- that he was rushed just hours after his birth in 1975 to . ( Returnto the corrected sentence.). The Blue Ridge was reached in 1670, and in 1671 another expedition encountered the first westward-flowing stream, the New River, in southwestern Virginia. What neither she nor Martin could have known is that they both carried the recessive gene for a rare hereditary blood disorder called methemoglobinemia. Population: 18,763Bars per capita: 6th in West VirginiaFishing/bait shops per capita: 4thMobile home parks per capita: 5th. As a result of a coincidental meeting of recessive genes . However, only 89% are white, and a whopping 83% finished high school. Cawein packed his black bag and rounded up Nurse Pendergrass for the big event. Im a hematologist, so something like that perks up my ears, Cawein says, sipping on whiskey sours and letting his mind slip back to the summer he spent tromping around the hills looking for blue people.. THE town of Odd, West Virginia is a quiet, rural countryside, despite all the buzz surrounding the infamous inbred family, The Whittakers, who live within it. Fortunately, Cawein was able to find an antidote for the blood disorder - methylene blue which acted as an electron donor. The American Heart Association had a clinic in Hazard, and it was there that Cawein met a great big nurse who offered to help. When they settled this country back then, there was no roads. The Fugate familys condition caused the blue members to be missing that enzyme; because their methemoglobin couldnt be converted, large amounts of it built up in the blue Fugates, even before birth, causing a very obvious blue tone to their skin. score: 5 of 27 (18%) required scores: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 list stats leaders vote Vote print comments. Dating back to the early 1800s, an isolated family in eastern Kentucky who can trace their roots back to a French orphan started producing children who were blue. Lappat, Hereditary Methemoglobinemia in Hemoglobin, Its Precursors and Metabolites, ed. Fugates married other Fugates. So you can tell if someone is a product of incest if their skin is blue! Answer (1 of 3): Depends on what you mean by blue. You may now brag to your friends and share this endlessly on your Facebook walls. It is the color of oxygen-depleted blood seen in the blue veins just below the skin. Films That People Feel Guilty for Not Seeing. As coal mining and the railroads brought progress to Kentucky, the blue Fugates started moving out of their communities and marrying other people. Of their seven children, four were blue. his wife happened to be a carrier for the gene, so in turn about half of their children were blue. Theyre prominently featured in reality television. Within a few minutes. And when you look at the data, its clear this is a really solid place for a redneck to make home. The story of an Appalachian malady, an inquisitive doctor, and a paradoxical cure. The enzyme eventually builds to normal levels in most children and to almost normal levels in those like Benjy, who carry one gene. She and her husband Alva have a strong sense of family. In fact, change is seen as a negative to many West Virginians and disruptive to their way of life. It was painful. Learn how your comment data is processed. She was one of the "blue" Combses who lived up on Ball Creek and was a sister to one of the Fugate women; her brother, Luke, was also blue. Woodburn Hall at West Virginia University in Morgantown (old gold and blue are the official University colors); photo by Swimmerguy269 on Wikipedia (use permitted with attribution / share alike). 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. But by 3 years old and . The entry was on the blue men, not of West Virginia, but of the Mountain State's neighbor, Kentucky, . Blue skin. In 1980, anthropologist Robert Tincher published a study titled Night Comes to the Chromosomes: Inbreeding and Population Genetics in Southern Appalachia, based on 140 years worth of marriage records. However, the disorder didn't seem to cause any special health problems. 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. What Happened to the Blue People? When young people started moving away from the farms surrounding Troublesome Creek in the mid-20th century, they took their recessive blue genes with them. They were delighted., They changed colors! remembered Pendergrass. Green human are possible. Benjy lost his blue tint within a few weeks, and now he is about as normal looking a seven-year-old boy as you could hope to find. Stumped, the doctor turned to the medical literature for a clue. Wait. God Bless America. The number of tobacco stores per capita (we call it the chew factor) is the highest in West Virginia here in Charles Town. Definitely not a poaching bunch, these Hurricane rednecks. For the first time in their lives, they were pink. Written family records do not indicate Martin's skin color, but family legend says he was blue. yes, saw that years ago, colloidal silver, damn asshole medias, just state facts, you can prove., thanks for this honest reply. Zach took the doctor even farther up Copperhead Hollow to see his Aunt Bessie Fugate, who was blue. That was the pain of being blue in a world that is mostly shades of white to black. The people of West Virginia are deeply proud and they don't particularly like change of any kind. By the end of this spectacular journey, you'll be saying "I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT JUST HAPPENED BUT I LOOOVED IT." Read more Blue Man Group 4,830 reviews Her name was Ruth Pendergrass, and she had been trying to stir up medical interest in the blue people ever since a dark blue woman walked into the county health department one bitterly cold afternoon and asked for a blood test. Legend has it that Martin himself may have had a blue tinge to his skin, but not the dark blue color of later Fugates. Google Maps. Trudging up and down the hollows, fending off the two mean dogs that everyone had in their front yard, the doctor and the nurse would spot someone at the top of a hill who looked blue and take off in wild pursuit. Cawein needed fresh blood to do an enzyme assay. She was a sister to one of the Fugate women. About this same time, another of the blue Combses, named Luke, had taken his sick wife up to the clinic at Lexington. Dark blue lips and fingernails are the only traces of Martin Fugates legacy left in the boy; that, and the recessive gene that has shaded many of the Fugates and their kin blue for the past 162 years. References 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. "But if you're marrying your cousin, it's one in eight. 2019 Foreign-Born Population 30.2k people As of 2020, 1.64% of West Virginia residents (29.6k people) were born outside of the United States, which is lower than the national average of 13.5%. (Baltimore: Gateway Press 1986). Besides the number of bars, mobile home parks and places to buy shotguns, its at the base of the hills, where you know the deer and turkey probably walk right into town. "She had been out in the cold and she was just blue!" recalls Pendergrass, who is now 69 and retired from nursing. Before Cawein ended his study of the blue people, he returned to the mountains to patch together the long and twisted journey of Martin Fugates recessive gene. Eventually, Cawein gained their trust and began taking blood samples. Between 1880 and 1920, southern West Virginia's population grew from 93,000 to 446,000, due almost entirely to the coal industry. Just like the Alaskans, their blood had accumulated so much of the blue molecule that it over- whelmed the red of normal hcmoglobin that shows through as pink in the skin of most Caucasians. "That's crazy.". Having blue children did not concern them. At 55%, people may feel extremely lethargic and go in and out of consciousness. I can see that old blue running out of my skin, he confided. All lived in isolation from the world, bunched in log cabins up and down the hollows, and so it was only natural that a boy married the girl next door, even if she had the same last name. Oh, and they had blue skin. Hemoglobin gets its red color from a compound called heme that contains an iron atom. The doctor was recently approached by the producers of the television show Thats Incredible. They wanted to parade the blue people across the screen in their weekly display of human oddities. I looked at other enzymes and nothing was wrong with them. Diet: Insects, seeds, and grains. Blue Man Group will rock your world. Funding was made available through a $75 million facilities bond, $25 million in private donations through the Mountaineer Athletic Club and $6 million from West Virginia's multimedia rights contract with IMG. The Fugate Family of Russell County, Virginia: A Genealogy of the Descendants of Francis, Benjamin, Colbert, Zachariah, Henley & William Fugate, Settlers of Moccasin Valley from 1772. This genetic defect comes from a rare recessive gene, so most people arent affected by it unless they happen to reproduce with another person who carries it. , he confided hills and hollows around Troublesome and Ball Creeks faded to normal levels in those like,... Questions: do you have any relatives who are blue would have to wait long to see his Aunt Fugate... Their own Virginia December 17, 2021 sister act cast member dies comments name! Poaching bunch, these Hurricane rednecks and her husband Alva have a strong sense of humor to determine dirt! 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