The White River Chronicles of S. C. Turnbo

About

This highly readable folklore collection highlights the most representative and evocative tales in the twenty-five hundred pages of backwoods stories collected by Silas Tunbo toward the end of the last century. Turnbo and his informants, antebellum Ozarks natives, believed that the legends of the hunt were, as William Faulkner would write, “the best of all breathing and forever the best of all listening.”

With no apology, the first settlers on the southern frontiers became predators in their own environment. They embraced blood sport and sought its rewards at every turn. The chase promised them a sureness of profit more predictable than land speculation, timbering, or commercial agriculture.

These early opportunists believed that the greatest natural resource along the lush White River drainages in Missouri and Arkansas was large game. Although surrounded by living waters, climax forests, and luxuriant grasses, the tellers of Turnbo’s stories only incidentally made mention of flora. Silas Turnbo and his informants were fascinated by animals and the settlers’ ongoing relationship with them—a relationship often defined by contents for supremacy.

Significantly, Tunbo’s education included only a few years in subscription schools of the 1850s. His writing is direct and in the idiom of hte Ozarks, including spellings that are occasionally whimsical, perfectly befitting these “fireside stories” of the great outdoor drama of the southern frontiers.

Editors

James F. Keefe worked for the Missouri Department of Conservation for over thirty-five years, primarily as the editor of the Missouri Conservationist. His many publications include books on conservation for school children and articles in many outdoor and conservation magazines.

Lynn Morrow is a public historian whose articles about Missouri history have appeared in Missouri Historical Review, Missouri Folklore Society Journal, Gateway Heritage, and other professional journals. He is the former director of the Local Records Preservation Program, Missouri State Archives.

Review

“Written in the laconic style of the backwoods raconteur, these tales delight, smell of wood smoke, and echo with the cries of woodland birds.”
—The Kansas City Star