Credits, Links, Resources and Suggested Reading:
1. To read the complete story, please pick up a copy of Greasy Cove in Unicoi County by: Pat Alderman.
2. To read the complete story, please pick up a copy of Walkin' With the Ghost Whisperers: Lore And Legends of the Appalachian Trail by: Junius R. Tate.
David Greer left South Carolina at an early age and at 21 found himself employed by Colonel David Vance. The Colonel’s 18 year-old daughter, Missy Brank was especially kind to every hired hand, and David soon fell for the bright-eyed girl. But, in 1802 she spurned his love and he set off into the mountains, vowing to have the least amount of contact with people, especially women, as possible. He ended up on the eastern fork of Higgins Creek in Unicoi County, on Big Bald Mountain. There, he found a shelf rock that he was able to fashion into a crude house, and he dug a ditch so he could raise hogs. Residents of Unicoi were well aware of his violent temper and stayed as far away from the mountain as they could; this is when he received the nickname Hog Greer. One day he shot and killed a Higgins man over a dispute about wild cherries that Mr. Higgins believed belonged to him since they were on his land. The local police hauled him into town, but since there were no eyewitnesses, he was never formally arrested and was released back into the wild.
The hermit died in 1839 when he left his tools with blacksmith George Tompkins and was passed up so the blacksmith could repair his neighbor’s plow, first. Hog Greer shot at the two men at the cabin, who shot back in self-defense and killed him. Local legend says that the old hermit still haunts the mountainside. 1
