Ruralite Cafe: Published 02/07/02

By Lynn Hotaling - Associate Editor

Bryson saw rattlesnake bite preacher

After reading what I wrote Jan. 17 about inconsistencies in the oft-repeated story of how a snake bit a preacher back in 1934, Joyce consulted her mother, Jerdie, who was in the congregation on the August Sunday a big rattlesnake sank its fangs into the hand of Holiness preacher Albert Teaster.

According to Joyce, portions of the story were still missing, but she said her mother was willing to tell me what had happened that day. I jumped at the chance to interview someone who was on hand for an event I've read about as long as I've worked at this newspaper.

Jerdie proceeded to tell me that Teaster was not bitten at Double Springs Church of God, as was previously reported, though it did happen during a service held by that congregation.

"The church had gotten burned down a week or two before," Jerdie said, and services had to be held elsewhere. On Aug. 5, the Sunday Teaster was bitten, the preacher and his flock had gathered at the new home Jerdie's father, Garfield Coggins, was building for his family on Cullowhee Mountain. The house had a floor and roof but no doors or windows, Jerdie said, and plank benches had been set up for the worshippers.

A group of young men in their early 20s carried in a box while the preacher was talking and put the crate down in front of Teaster, Jerdie said.

"Now prove to us that you can handle a snake," they challenged the preacher, who had previously preached that true believers can handle serpents without harm.

Teaster didn't hesitate, Jerdie said. He reached down, opened the box and took out a big, black rattlesnake.

"It didn't offer to bite him," Jerdie said. "He held it in the middle where it could have reached around and bitten him any time, but it didn't."

Teaster walked around the room talking, and all the while the snake was writhing back and forth in his hand, scaring everybody, Jerdie said.

After several minutes of holding the rattler, the preacher "just laid the snake down," Jerdie said, adding that at that point Teaster was unscathed.

But the youths who brought the rattler to the service demanded the preacher pick it up and put it back in the box.

When Teaster reached for the rattlesnake a second time, the snake buried its fangs into the preacher's hand.

"I figured it was because (Teaster) was obeying man instead of obeying God," Jerdie said.

Teaster dropped the snake after it bit him, Jerdie said, and there was quite a bit of confusion as the congregation climbed on benches to get out of the way.

Jerdie confirmed that Teaster's encounter with the serpent was not a routine occurrence during services at Double Springs.

"I'd been there all my life, and there had been no snake-handling there," she said.

While it's true Teaster survived the bite without medical attention, Jerdie said she doesn't know if he refused treatment or if it was just that no doctor was available.

The preacher stayed at least one night at her parents' home after he was bitten, but Jerdie, who was 16 at the time, doesn't remember if he stayed longer. She does know he returned to his own home before the week was out.

Jerdie seemed especially interested in correcting another error in the stories - including a report published in the Aug. 14, 1934, edition of The Ruralite, The Sylva Herald's forerunner - that maintain Teaster walked 6 miles the Sunday after he was bitten to preach at the home of a member of his congregation.

Services that Aug. 12 were held at the home of her grandfather, Mark Coggins, near the top of Cullowhee Mountain, Jerdie said, and she was there.

"It couldn't have been more than 2 miles from his house to where my grandpa lived," she said.

Teaster was not a local person, Jerdie said, and though she does not know where he was from, she thinks his first wife, who died before the rattlesnake incident, is buried in Haywood County.

And though Teaster achieved a great deal of fame after surviving his snakebite, Jerdie said she never heard of him handling a snake again.

Back to Archive: 02/07/02.