In this episode of Roots & Shadows: The Real Appalachia Podcast, we travel into the mountains of Southwest Virginia for the story of Robert Sawyers Sheffey, a Methodist circuit rider, mountain preacher, and one of the most unusual religious figures remembered in Appalachian history.
Robert Sayers Sheffey was born in Wythe County, Virginia, on July 4, 1820. Orphaned as a young child, raised for a time in Abingdon, and later converted at a Methodist revival meeting, Sheffey became known across the mountains not for polished preaching, but for prayer. He rode horseback through Appalachian communities, visited homes, preached where people had no regular church, helped the poor, gave away what he had, and became remembered as a man whose prayers seemed to carry unusual weight.
But around Sheffey’s name grew stories that live somewhere between history, faith, and folklore. Stories of him praying against liquor stills hidden in the mountain hollows. Stories of fire, falling trees, sudden judgment, and moonshiners who feared being on the wrong side of his prayers. Stories of a preacher who could be tender enough to rescue insects and tadpoles, yet stern enough to make grown men uneasy when he knelt down to pray.
And then there is the story that still follows one Appalachian town.
According to local tradition, Sheffey returned to his hometown to hold a revival. The people mocked him, ignored him, and went back to the very things he had preached against. Before he rode away, the story says he dusted off his shoes and spoke words over that town that people would remember for generations.
Was it a curse? A biblical warning? A piece of mountain folklore shaped by hardship and memory? Or was it a way for a struggling community to explain the loss, collapse, sinkholes, closed industry, and pain that followed?
This episode explores the real life of Robert Sheffey, the religious world of old Appalachia, the Ivanhoe curse legend, the decline of an industrial Appalachian town, and the way the people of Ivanhoe, Virginia later tried to answer loss with faith, community, Jubilee, music, gospel singing, and hope.
This is not just the story of a preacher who supposedly cursed a town. It is the story of a man remembered for prayer, a community remembered for survival, and the strange place where Appalachian history and folklore meet.
Topics include Robert Sayers Sheffey, Ivanhoe Virginia, Southwest Virginia history, Appalachian folklore, Appalachian religion, Methodist circuit riders, mountain preachers, Christian revival, the Bible Belt, moonshine stills, Appalachian industry, Jubilee Park, and the faith traditions of the mountains.
New episodes of Roots & Shadows: The Real Appalachia Podcast release weekly, sharing true stories from Appalachia rooted in history, folklore, crime, faith, memory, and the things people do not always say out loud.