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. This article is an opinion based on facts and is meant as info-tainment. They just accepted it as a part of who they were. Born Jan. 16, 1869, in Marion County, Ephraim Franklin Morgan went on to become one of West Virginia's governors. Population: 6,306Walmart rank: 2ndMobile home parks: 5th in the stateBars per person: 5th in West Virginia. It's a vote cast not just out of allegiance. Its post office is closed in 1935. They are known for being carriers of a genetic trait that led to the blood disorder methemoglobinemia, causing the skin to appear blue. Stacy counts Fugate blood in his own veins. When West Virginia University decided to put "Black Lives Matter" decals on the back of their football helmets, the reaction by the people of . 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 was a Public Health Service doctor at the Arctic Health Research Center in Anchorage who had discovered hereditary methemoglobinemia among Alaskan Eskimos and Indians. Martin and Elizabeth had seven children, four being born blue; Zachariah, who was blue, married his mother's sister. Scott also concluded that the condition was inherited as a simple recessive trait. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. The number of tobacco stores per capita (we call it the chew factor) is the highest in West Virginia here in Charles Town. the mans picture at the bottom got his unusual color from taking silver nitrate which will turn anyone blue if it is taken over a long period of time. Luna has been dead nearly 20 years now, but her widower survives. Cawein packed his black bag and rounded up Nurse Pendergrass for the big event. Blue People of West Virginia | . Matt Harvey Curiosity drove him to Hazard where he was introduced to a nurse, Ruth Pendergrass, who had met a "dark blue" woman. She looked like she was having a heart attack. This led to the propagation of the genetic condition that gave them their distinctive blue skin color. I'm going to assume that by blu. 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. 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. March 8, 2012— -- Kerry Green was a "blue baby," born in 1964 in Tulsa, Okla., and his family was given little hope that he would live because of a malformed aorta. 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. 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. As a bonus, theres a Golden Corral, several Dollar Stores and many Waffle Houses in the area. Bessie had an iron pot of clothes boiling in her front yard, but she graciously allowed the doctor to draw some of her blood. Whoo-whee, New Martinsville! He was involved as a law enforcement officer in the Hatfield-McCoy Feud, the West Virginia Mine Wars and the destruction of moonshine stills. 1 talking about this. The family was first discovered in 1958 when one of the blue men, Luke Combs, who was a descendant of another branch of the Fugate family, took his white wife to the University of Kentucky Hospital and doctors paid more attention to him than his wife. You have the official bragging rights as being named the most redneck city in the entire state of West Virginia. Levy married a Ritchie girl and bought 200 acres of rolling land along Ball Creek. Chapter 1: The Climate of Post-War America Chapter 2: West Virginia - The Violent Heritage Chapter 3: Political Maneuvering Chapter 4: The Creative Act of 1919 Chapter 5: Getting Organized PART II Chapter 6: The Mine Wars, 1919-1929 Chapter 7: Depression and Recovery, 1929-1939 Chapter 8: War Service, 1939-1949 martin fugate was blue from birth, which has nothing to do with inbreeding. "If you took any random person in the population, maybe one in 100,000 would carry this gene, if that many," says Ricki Lewis, a science writer and author of the textbook "Human Genetics: Concepts and Applications," now in its 13th edition. Patrick and Rachel Ritchie, who lived in Hardburly, were also blue. When asked ahout it, he shakes his head and stares steadfastly ahead. The topographic boundary was modified where Route 9 crossed the watershed divide. He married a red-haired American named Elizabeth Smith who had a very pale complexion and their union formed a genetic mutation that resulted in their descendants being born with blue skin. 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. 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. West Virginia: County: Tyler: Elevation. 2017-2018 Blue Book Frontice (p. I-VIII) Section 1: Executive (p. 1-330) Section 2: Legislative (p. 331-508) As a result of a coincidental meeting of recessive genes, intermarriage and inbreeding, members of the Fugate family were born with a rare condition that made them visibly discoloured. Fear that more inflation will cost jobs. 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. Called methaemoglobinaemia (commonly known as met-H), the condition reduces the individuals ability to carry oxygen in their blood. The antidote worked quickly but patients were required to take daily doses as it passed quickly through the urine. Houses belonging to people that lived in the valley were mostly torn down. The Fugate family intermarried with a neighbouring family for generations, which led to a relatively pure gene pool, often including the met-H gene. Well, as you can imagine, I really examined them. The Fugate family of Kentucky has been known for their blue skin color for generations. So, youd think people who are rednecks would be proud to be called a redneck. 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. They were delighted.". This publication also contains information on state and federal agencies; postal information; the Constitutions of the United States and West Virginia; and, considerable information on counties, municipalities and various organizations. And by God, they didnt have the enzyme diaphorase. 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 . Stereotypes about West Virginian breeding practices have long been linked to the states poverty. Theyre known simply as the blue people in the hills and hollows around Troublesome and Ball Creeks. It wasn't always this way. And shop at Walmart. West Virginia History Timeline. The condition was clearly genetic, but the key for Cawein was reading reports of hereditary methemoglobinemia among isolated Inuit populations in Alaska where blood relatives often married. Scotts Alaskans seemed to match Caweins blue people. 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. The condition that made the Fugates blue causes large amounts of methemoglobin (which is a blue type of hemoglobin) to circulate in the blood. Is there anything really wrong with being called a West Virginia redneck? So you can tell if someone is a product of incest if their skin is blue! What neither she nor Martin could have known is that they both carried the recessive gene for a rare hereditary blood disorder called methemoglobinemia. 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. 5,600 views made by Rocco. Even so, Cawein still gets calls for advice. It is the color of oxygen-depleted blood seen in the blue veins just below the skin. Blah. He came from where the sun don't shine. Their offspring, often marrying each other, then brought two copies of the recessive gene into the family line, making it much more likely to express itself in their children. Luna is buried at the top of the hollow. Intermarrying with people other than close relatives meant the likelihood of any Fugate descendant being born with the condition reduced. Cawein cheers their bad luck not out of malice but out of a deep respect for the blue people of Troublesome Creek. Genetic Causes Some sites say 100%. Theyre prominently featured in reality television. Different spellings of the surname sometimes include "Fugett" and "Fugitt". Come on, Grafton rednecks. Cawein got lucky when a brother and sister named Patrick and Rachel Ritchie walked into a Hazard County clinic. His car gave out on the dirt road to Zachs house, and the doctor had to borrow a Jeep from a filling station. We threw a lot of criteria at this one in order to get the best, most complete results possible. Because the Fugate family lived in such an isolated part of the Kentucky, they intermarried with a neighboring family for generations which led to a relatively pure gene pool where the met-H gene appeared much more frequently. It was real bad in her, Alva Stacy, the boys father, explained. In 2019, the percentage of foreign-born citizens in West Virginia was 1.66%, meaning that the rate has been decreasing. Howells Pawn and Guns, New Martinsville, WV. All them old fellers way back then was blue. Legend has it that Martin himself may have had a blue tinge to his skin, but not the dark blue color of later Fugates. 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. Bag and rounded up Nurse Pendergrass for the blue people in the were... 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