Fiddler's Grove Collection, 1968-2010

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Summary

Abstract:

Fiddler's Grove, an old-time-music and family-oriented campground, which hosts traditional music and dance events throughout the year is owned and operated by Harper and Wanona Van Hoy in Union Grove, N.C. The Ole Time Fiddler's & Bluegrass Festival, a fiddling competition, has been held annually in the spring since Fiddler's Grove's founding in 1970, and the Square-Up, a clogging competition was held in the fall until 1982. The fiddling festival, however, traces its history in Union Grove to 1924 when Harper Van Hoy's father, H. P. Van Hoy, founded the Old Time Fiddlers Convention as a school fundraiser. The collection provides an overview of the history and operation of Fiddler's Grove, and its main entertainment events, the Ole Time Fiddler's & Bluegrass Festival and the Square-Up. The work of Harper Van Hoy and Wanona Van Hoy in building the reputation of Fiddler's Grove as a gathering place for old-time music and family entertainment is documented throughout the collection. Also documented is the split between Harper Van Hoy and his brother, J. Pierce Van Hoy, which resulted in two competing Van Hoy-operated spring fiddling events in Union Grove, 1970-1979. General correspondence, newspaper clippings, promotional material, and other items go back to the founding of the Old Time Fiddlers Convention. Festival materials include participation registration information, lists of winners, judges' notes, and correspondence, and other items. Also included are open-reel tapes, an eight-track tape, compact discs, and a videotape, all of which relate to the Ole Time Fiddler's & Bluegrass Festival.

Extent:
17275 items (22.5 linear feet)
Language:
English
Library Catalog Link:
View UNC library catalog record for this item

Background

Biographical / historical:

Fiddler's Grove, an old-time-music and family-oriented campground, was developed on land purchased in Union Grove, N.C., by dairy farmer and fiddler Harper Van Hoy and his wife, Wanona, in 1970. From the beginning, Fiddler's Grove was envisioned as the site for an annual fiddling competition. Central entertainment events at Fiddler's Grove have been the Ole Time Fiddler's & Bluegrass Festival, a spring fiddling competition held annually since 1970, and the Square-Up, a fall clogging dance competition held until 1982.

The history of Fiddler's Grove, and particularly the Ole Time Fiddler's & Bluegrass Festival, is rooted in Van Hoy family history and the history of fiddling competitions in Union Grove, N.C. In 1924, Harper Van Hoy's father, H. P. Van Hoy, a school teacher and musician, started the Old Time Fiddlers Convention as a fundraiser for the Union Grove school. Held annually on the school grounds every Easter weekend, the fiddling convention was a popular community event that brought many area old-time fiddlers into the small unincorporated town of Union Grove to compete. With the folk music revival in the 1950s and 1960s, however, this small-town community event became increasingly popular with young people who would travel great distances to attend. The unconventional lifestyles of many of these young people, particularly their long hair and consumption of illegal drugs and alcohol, disturbed many residents of the conservative farming community. After the 1968 convention, a group of Union Grove residents, led by a Methodist minister, protested the immoral and illegal conduct attributed to the young people attending the event from outside the community. The Iredell County School Board decided that the fiddling convention would have to find a new home after the 1969 event. Harper and Wanona Van Hoy purchased land near the Union Grove school with the intention of developing Fiddler's Grove into a family campground that would be the new home of the fiddling convention. However, Harper Van Hoy and his older brother, J. Pierce Van Hoy, disagreed over the direction the convention should take. The disagreement resulted in two rival fiddling events being held each spring in Union Grove from 1970 to 1979.

Since it was no longer a fundraiser for the school, Pierce Van Hoy felt the convention should be promoted and developed commercially into a profitable business while promoting and preserving old-time music. He held his event on his farm and called it the World's Championship Old-Time Fiddlers Convention. Financially committed to Fiddler's Grove, Harper Van Hoy felt it was important to focus on the music and the community by creating a family atmosphere and enforcing a ban on alcohol and illegal drugs. He called his event the Ole Time Fiddler's & Bluegrass Festival and received early support from Doc Watson, Lee and Jean Shilling, Alan Jabbour, and Allein Stanley, among others. While the World's Championship Old-Time Fiddlers Convention attracted large crowds and was immediately financially successful, Harper Van Hoy's Ole Time Fiddler's & Bluegrass Festival deliberately stayed small, despite early financial losses, by implementing an invitation-only attendance policy in 1973. Both fiddling events were held simultaneously in Union Grove over Easter weekends. After newspaper accounts erroneously reported drug-related incidents and other problems occurring at the Ole Time Fiddler's & Bluegrass Festival instead of the World's Championship Old-Time Fiddlers Convention, Harper Van Hoy moved his festival to Memorial Day weekend in 1974 distance it from his brother's festival. Community residents continued to protest the influx of illegal drugs, alcohol, and promiscuity attendant with the huge crowds at Pierce Van Hoy's World's Championship Old-Time Fiddlers Convention. The enactment of a bill to regulate rock festivals and other mass gatherings eventually resulted in the closing of the World's Championship Old-Time Fiddlers Convention by court order in 1980.

Fiddler's Grove continued to host the Ole Time Fiddler's & Bluegrass Festival on Memorial Day weekend along with a number of other events. The Festival's commitment to the preservation and perpetuation of old-time music is particularly reflected in its special competition categories of Old-Time Fiddler (fiddlers 55 years and older who play strictly by ear with no formal violin training) and Heritage Tune (in which the fiddler must not only perform but tell the origin and story of an old tune). The Square-Up, an annual dance competition, held over Labor Day weekend was an institution at Fiddler's Grove until 1982. This dance competition featured traditional mountain, precision, and smooth clogging teams as well as individual buck and flatfoot dancers. Fiddler's Grove and the Ole Time Fiddler's & Bluegrass Festival were nominated in the Local Legacy category by Senator Jesse Helms as part of the Library of Congress Bicentennial in 2000.

See also online exhibit: Fiddler's Grove: Retrospective 1970-2000.

Scope and content:

The collection provides an overview of the history and operation of Fiddler's Grove in Union Grove, N.C., and its main annual entertainment events, the Ole Time Fiddler's & Bluegrass Festival, a fiddling competition held in the spring, and the Square-Up, a clogging dance competition held in the fall until 1982. The work of Harper Van Hoy and Wanona Van Hoy in building the reputation of Fiddler's Grove as a gathering place for old-time music and family entertainment is documented throughout the collection. Also documented is the split between Harper Van Hoy and his brother, J. Pierce Van Hoy, which resulted in two competing Van Hoy-operated spring fiddling events in Union Grove, 1970-1979. General correspondence, newspaper clippings, promotional material, and other items go back to the founding of the Old Time Fiddlers Convention by Harper Van Hoy's father, H. P. Van Hoy, as a fundraiser for the Union Grove school in 1924. Festival materials include participation registration information, lists of winners, judges' notes, and correspondence, and other items. Also included are open-reel tapes, an eight-track tape, compact discs, and a videotape, all of which relate to the Ole Time Fiddler's & Bluegrass Festival.

Acquisition information:

Received from Harper Van Hoy in October 1990 (Acc. 89008, 89009), February 2000 (Acc. 98553), August 2001 (Acc. 99061), October 2001 (Acc. 99096), February 2002 (Acc. 99183), and 2004 (Acc. 99874). Website harvested using Archive-It, beginning in October 2013 (Acc. 101956). Received from Brenda Blake in March 2022 (Acc. 20240207.2).

Processing information:

Processed by: Elizabeth Matson and Steve Weiss, May 2004

Finding aid created by Elizabeth Matson, May 2004

Updated by: Amanda Loeb, May 2014; Jodi Berkowitz, April 2019; Camilla Crane, October and December 2025

Preservation of the Fiddler's Grove Collection was made possible through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Sensitive materials statement:

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Access and use

Restrictions to access:

This collection contains additional materials that are not available for immediate or same day access. Please contact Research and Instructional Service staff at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu to discuss options for consulting these materials.

Use of audio or moving image materials may require production of listening or viewing copies.

Access to streaming audio or moving image materials may be restricted to researchers who can authenticate with an ONYEN or who are physically present on campus. For further information about access to streaming audiovisual materials, contact Research and Instructional Services staff at Wilsonlibrary@unc.edu

Restrictions to use:

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], in the Fiddler's Grove Collection #20016, Southern Folklife Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Location of this collection:
Louis Round Wilson Library
200 South Road
Chapel Hill, NC 27515
Contact:
(919) 962-3765
wilsonlibrary@unc.edu