Excerpt from The Third Rainbow Girl by Emma Copley Eisenberg, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Pocahontas County had already been intimately exposed to outsiders for years in the form of their Back to the Lander neighbors, and though it was difficult to avoid hearing about the Rainbows' impending arrival, there is little evidence to suggest that all or even most of the people of Pocahontas County harbored serious ill will toward the Rainbows.

Governor John "Jay" Rockefeller, a New Yorker who had come to West Virginia as an Appalachian Youth volunteer and stayed, called the Rainbows' impending arrival "disruptive." Other government officials called them "leeches" and "derelict misfits." 1980 was an election year, and in what was likely a bid for votes, Secretary of State James Manchin fanned the embers of hostility by declaring that Rainbow people were not welcome in the state because they did not practice West Virginia values. Encouraged by Manchin, several prominent Pocahontas County residents filed a request for an injunction in federal court to block the Rainbow Family from gathering in the Monongahela, but a judge threw it out. The Rainbows would come, and they would camp where they liked.

They came by car and by VW bus. They came on bike and on foot. "By not having a camera, we missed an opportunity Monday to take a picture of a young lady walking to the Rainbow Gathering with her mule; the mule was well-loaded with gear and supplies," wrote McNeel for the Pocahontas Times. "She walked all the way from New Jersey, and had been on her way for a month."

Estimates vary, but between two and six thousand people arrived in Marlinton throughout the month of June 1980 and into early July and then made their way further into the forest for the festival. Some say they stole. There were reports of Rainbows going into Foodland and using the vegetable crispers to wash their mud-caked hands. Some scandalized citizens reported that Rainbows had run naked through a car wash near Main Street. Other citizens were excited and set up lawn chairs on the bridge that spans the Greenbrier River to watch the visitors roll in. In nearby Richwood, some Rainbow People showed a slide show of past Gatherings and then answered questions from more than a hundred locals. "While some were a little stunned by such Rainbow exotica as a young man who introduced himself as 'Water Singing on the Rocks,' " reported the New York Times, "the meeting ended with Rainbows and Richwood residents alike joining hands and singing the old hymn 'Will the Circle Be Unbroken?' "

More than five hundred local people from Marlinton and the surrounding hamlets drove the switchbacked roads into the national forest to check out the Rainbow scene, a far greater local presence than usually showed up at the Gatherings. The one-lane dirt road to the Gathering was littered with hitchhikers—some locals picked them up; some didn't. Rainbow volunteers directed traffic, inquiring of visitors if they were just staying for the day or planning to camp overnight, and parking was suggested accordingly, with cars arranged in neat rows.

A half mile farther down the road was a gate with a sign that said no alcohol, drugs, or weapons beyond that point. The camp was meticulously clean, as if the Gathering was instead a convention of Boy Scouts. Some visitors were greeted near the gate by a Rainbow bluegrass band, totally naked behind their strings.

Handwritten signs on tree trunks divided the camp into sections— drug-free, clothing, clothing optional, organic foods. A Rainbow man passed out copies of the unofficial newsletter, printed with each day's events on a press set up in the back of someone's VW bus. Food, carried in from across the country and supplemented from the grocery in nearby Cowen, was prepared by a team of designated volunteers at five canvas-topped kitchen tents. Inside each tent, men and women stirred enormous pots—soupy mixes of brown rice, tomato paste, potatoes, and carrots— and gave it away to anyone who was hungry; all you had to do was listen to the talk and maybe peel a potato or two.

Excerpted from The Third Rainbow Girl by Emma Copley Eisenberg. Copyright © 2020 by Emma Copley Eisenberg. Excerpted by permission of Hachette Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.