Basketmaker, Rugby Tennessee

The fellow in this study is Will Speed. A basketmaker from Clinton Indiana, Will plied his basket-making craft with great dexterity and precision on a shady verandah on a hot summer's day.

Will has strong native American roots - his mother being full-blooded Cherokee from Tennessee, and his father an Apache from an American Indian 'reservation' in Texas.

Time stands still at Rugby, Tennessee - the restored Victorian village founded in 1880 by British author and social reformer, Thomas Hughes. It was planned to be a cooperative, class-free, agricultural community for younger sons of English gentry and others wishing to start life anew in America. However, because the promised railway was re-routed to 100 miles away, the community lasted only 4 years. At its peak, some 350 people lived in the colony and more than 70 buildings of Victorian design graced the East Tennessee townscape. This would-be Utopia survives today as both a living community and a fascinating historic site, unspoiled by modern development. Twenty original buildings still stand at the southern edge of the Big South Fork National Park, surrounded by rugged river gorges.

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