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�Western North Carolina:
Its Mountains and
Its People to 1880
I have discovered a
Country so delitious,
pleasant, and fruitfully
y* were it cultivated,
doubtless it would prove
a second Paradise (sic).
—Henry Woodward,
circa 1674
�This page intentionally left blank
�Western North Carolina:
Its Mountains and
Its People to 1880
Ora Blackmun
A P P A L A C H I A N C O N S O R T I U M PRESS
Boone, North Carolina 28607
�The Appalachian Consortium was a non-profit educational organization
composed of institutions and agencies located in Southern Appalachia. From
1973 to 2004, its members published pioneering works in Appalachian studies
documenting the history and cultural heritage of the region. The Appalachian
Consortium Press was the first publisher devoted solely to the region and many of
the works it published remain seminal in the field to this day.
With funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National
Endowment for the Humanities through the Humanities Open Book Program,
Appalachian State University has published new paperback and open access
digital editions of works from the Appalachian Consortium Press.
www.collections.library.appstate.edu/appconsortiumbooks
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license. To view a
copy of the license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses.
Original copyright © 1977 by the Appalachian Consortium Press.
ISBN (pbk.: alk. Paper): 978-1-4696-4136-2
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-4696-4138-6
Distributed by the University of North Carolina Press
www.uncpress.org
�Dedicated
to
George Myers Stephens
A Founder of
The Western North Carolina
Historical Association
The Cherokee Historical Association
The Museum of the Cherokee Nation
An Advisor to
The Appalachian Consortium
�This page intentionally left blank
�T A B L E OF C O N T E N T S
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII
Author's Preface
Introduction by Gratis Williams
Stagecoach Days at Sherrill's Inn
The Land of Mountains
Eden is Discovered
Two Races Meet
Along the Trading Paths
Lightnings Flash and Thunders Roll
The Lull Between the Storms
A New Flag for Western North Carolina
East-West Tug-of-War
In Search of Beauty—An Interlude
With Their Goods and Chattels
Weaving a Homespun Pattern of Living
Boundaries and Western Leadership
Gold in the Hills and on the Highways
Light and Shade in the Mountains
The Crack of Doom in the Mountains
More Government for Western North Carolina
The Lure of the Mountains
Whigs in the Mountains
War in the Land
War Comes to the Hills
The Rebirth of a State
Long is the Night
Dawn Breaks Over the Mountains
Chapter Notes
Sources
Index
vn
ix
xiii
xvi
1
25
43
56
73
88
106
125
139
152
166
189
207
222
241
261
284
306
328
343
356
364
380
400
437
452
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�AUTHOR'S PREFACE
years ago I stood atop a Western North Carolina
mountain and looked down upon a boundless and impenetrable
sea of motionless white mist. It was, I thought, not unlike the
"great void upon the face of the deep." Suddenly, as if at
command, a rushing wind swept over the ledge, and the sea of
mist began a gentle, undulating motion. As on holy ground, I
watched the growing force of the wind sweep the mist into
titan waves of white that seemed writhing in the urgency of the
first creation.
Suddenly the gray of the sky was broken by a narrow rift
and through it a shaft of light sped to touch the tossing sea
below me and to open first one path and then others. From
these paths arose the solid forms of earth as when the world
was new. Before my eyes these forms were clothed with
mountains, valleys, and streams, with woods and meadows, all
freshly dewed as with Heaven's first rain.
As I left the mountain in great humility of spirit, it came
over me that in beauty and majesty these, the mountains of
Western North Carolina, had been prepared for the habitation
of man. What, I asked myself, had man done to them over the
centuries and what had they done to and for the men and
women, who for the short spans of their lives, called these
mountains home?
To arrive at the answers to my questions I began the
absorbing task of research. The Sondley Reference Collection
and the North Carolina Collection in the Pack Memorial
Library in Asheville furnished a wealth of illuminating and
relevant material. Over a period of some ten years, Miss Myra
Champion, Miss Ida Padelford, and more recently, Miss Betty
Betz, librarians at Pack Memorial Library, were generous in
giving me both of their time and of their valuable assistance in
securing for me additional material. Miss Elizabeth Shepard,
�librarian at Warren Wilson College, furnished me with
information concerning the excavation of Indian mounds on the
campus of that college. To each of these librarians I wish to
express my sincere thanks.
Gradually the chain of events making up the shifting pattern
of life in the hills became clear. What rny sources had revealed
I then put into words and sentences and chapters. In the period
of time covered (to 1880) that pattern of life was, in truth, a
human drama of many scenes and acts performed by many
changing characters on a stage arranged by nature itself. Its
theme was the interplay of the best and the worst of man's
thoughts and deeds, of the noble and the base and of all the
gradations between. At its close in 1880 this drama was
brightened by the assurance of a new dawn breaking over the
ancient hills.
For the publication of this volume I am indebted to George
Myers Stephens, who called the attention of the members of the
Appalachian Consortium Press to the manuscript. I am also
grateful to Mr. Stephens for his encouragement of my efforts
and for his share in the selection of the illustrations for the
book and for his work on the maps. These maps also reflect the
professional skill of Hermon H. Rector. It is hoped that they
will prove helpful to readers of Western North Carolina: Its
Mountains and Its People to 1880.
I sincerely thank F. A. Ketterson, Jr., chairman of the
Publications Committee of the Consortium Press and editor for
the book. Especially do I appreciate his advice and his locating
for my use additional records of the period covered. I thank F.
Borden Mace, executive director of the Appalachian Consortium Press, for his careful reading of the manuscript and his
evaluation of the text. He has been tireless in his efforts to
make the book attractive in appearance and worthy of the high
standard set by the Consortium Press. The understanding, help
and encouragement given me by both Mr. Mace and Mr.
Ketterson have made my work of research and writing a
pleasant experience for me.
For the "Introduction" to this volume I am indebted to Dr.
Gratis Williams, who graciously took the time from an already
busy schedule to prepare a contribution that enhances the book
and makes clear its purpose of portraying the events that make
up the history of the mountain region prior to the coming of
the railroad. He makes clear, too, that while this book is
�complete in itself, it is at the same time a companion volume to
Western North Carolina Since the Civil War by Drs. Ina and John
Van Noppen.
I deeply appreciate the time given and the helpful
comments made by all who read sections of the manuscript.
Especially do I thank Dr. Richard W. lobst of Western Carolina
University; Dr. Evelyn Underwood of Mars Hill College; Mrs.
Mary Ulmer Chiltoskey of Cherokee; Mrs. Virginia Million of
Cherokee; and Paul Rockwell of Asheville.
I feel a deep sense of gratitude toward those who early
came into the mountain area and who left records in the forms
of letters, diaries, travel sketches, and histories. Their firsthand accounts brought into vivid focus both the land and its
people. Of those living in the mountains later I am indebted to
all who wrote histories or sketches of their counties. From all
of these sources I was able to understand not only the events
that took place but also the issues and motives that prompted
them.
My hope is that this volume will make a small contribution
to the knowledge of the history of this land of mountains I call
home.
Ora Blackmun
Asheville, North Carolina
Januaryf 1977
�This page intentionally left blank
�INTRODUCTION
people, whether of a nation or a region, in order to
understand their customs and institutions must know how the
present forms came to be. One way to gain this knowledge is
through the study of history. The history of a region, like its
customs and institutions, is constantly being added to; sources
of information not available to earlier writers come to light;
understandings of past events are seen from new points of view;
and the interpretation of the meanings of past events changes.
Thus there is a continuing need for historians to study and
evaluate and interpret the history of their nation or their
region.
John Preston Arthur's History of Western North Carolina ended
with 1913. Dr. Foster Alexander Sondley's Western North
Carolina was published in 1930, but it treated mainly the early
settlement of the French Broad River Valley. Thus the two
most authoritative works dealing with the history of the
mountain people of Western North Carolina were published
well over a generation ago and one of them was somewhat
narrow of scope. This Highland Region needed its history
brought up to date. It needed treatment both broad and deep.
The companion volume to this work, Western North Carolina
Since the Civil War by Dr. Ina Woestermeyer Van Noppen and
her husband, the late Dr. John J. Van Noppen, came out in
1973. The Van Noppen book was the end result of twenty years
of effort by the Western North Carolina Historical Association, an effort that involved the labor and planning of Dean W.
E. Bird of Western Carolina University, Dean Daniel J.
Whitener of Appalachian State University, and George Myers
Stephens of Asheville. Dean Whitener had planned to write a
history of Western North Carolina after his retirement, but,
before his untimely death, he had interested the Van Noppens
�in undertaking the task. President William H. Plemmons at
Appalachian State University worked out released faculty time
for them and Weldon Williamson of Asheville and Dean Bird
were successful in obtaining substantial contributions to an
author expense fund for research and travel. When the fund
was exhausted, the Van Noppens continued at their own
expense to complete the work they had begun nearly ten years
prior to its publication.
While the Van Noppens were working on their book, Ora
Blackmun arrived from Arkansas to make Asheville her home.
Miss Blackmun had recently retired from the English faculty of
the University of Central Arkansas. Sometime earlier she spent
a year as a researcher for the State Historian of Minnesota,
where her forebears had settled during Indian times. She grew
up in the Ozark Mountains at Fayetteville, Arkansas, and she
spent much time investigating the history of that region. Such a
background led her naturally to explore the riches of the
Sondley Reference Collection in the Pack Library. Her amazing
energy and keen mind took her through much of this source
material. She soon found herself writing a voluminous history
of this mountain region from early geologic times "for my own
satisfaction."
By good fortune, George Myers Stephens, then chairman of
the Western North Carolina Historical Association's committee
to obtain a new history of the region, learned of Miss
Blackmun's manuscript. The manuscript was brought to the
attention of F. A. Ketterson, Jr., historian for the Blue Ridge
Parkway and chairman of the Publications Committee of the
Appalachian Consortium. The Board of Directors of the
Consortium, after receiving reports of high praise for the
authenticity and artistry of the work, quickly realized that Miss
Blackmun's book was the ideal companion to the Van Noppen
volume.
Owners of both volumes will note a few years of overlap
between the end of the Civil War and the coming of the
railroad. Because the earlier and the later periods called for
different treatments this overlap served history well. In the
recent period life became so varied that such aspects as public
education and folklore demanded that the history of several
decades be treated in one chapter.
By contrast, the earlier history is clearer for treatments in
periods of time. What it meant for the Cherokees to live in an
XIV
�unspoiled land, for pioneers to live in a land of do-without—
these are parts of good history writing.
Above all was the meaning of a changed way of life after
the railroads came to the mountains. With her gift for taking
the long view of an era, Miss Blackmun's final chapter looks
forward to what the railroads would do to change, life in these
landlocked valleys. Landmarks of history are best used as points
for charting the future. Ora Blackmun writes with her mind on
the future as she did in her history of Asheville's First
Presbyterian Church in A Spire in the Mountains: The Story of
176 Years of a Church and a Town Growing Together, 1794-1969,
which was published in 1970. With the publication of Western
North Carolina: Its Mountains and Its People to 1880, the people of
the Carolina Highlands have a history that will serve the
present generation well and will be a guidepost to future
generations of historians.
Appalachian State University
Boone, North Carolina
Gratis Williams
�Stagecoach Days
at
Sherrill's Inn
J[ he pictures in this set are from wall paintings in the old
Sherrill Inn at Hickory Nut Gap. They are the work of Mrs.
Elizabeth Cramer McClure, an accomplished artist. After
she and her husband, James G. K. McClure, purchased and
then restored the hostelry, she began an extensive research
of its background and of the history of the region. She was
thus able to depict life as it ebbed and flowed about the
popular inn during the first half of the nineteenth century.
Mr. and Mrs. James McClure Clarke, present owners of
the building and grounds, together with Dr. Reuben A.
Holden, President of Warren Wilson College, and the
French Broad River chapter of the Garden Club of
America, made possible the color section reproducing these
pictures for this volume. Mrs. Clarke is the daughter of
Mrs. Elizabeth McClure.
���������C H A P T E R
ONE
The Land of Mountains
Vv estern North Carolina is far more than the sum of the state's
most westerly counties that make up its area. The Southern
Appalachian Mountains extend in lofty and rambling fashion
throughout its north-south length and reaching their greatest
height, spread themselves in range after range throughout its eastwest width. They have set the pattern for all human activity
taking place in North Carolina's valleys and on its mountain
slopes. Geographically, Western North Carolina differs sharply
from the piedmont section of the state to the east and even more
sharply from the sand hill and low coastal area that stretches to the
Atlantic Ocean. Both geographically and culturally it has been
indeed a region set apart, expressing itself in ways peculiarly its
own.
From the time a band of wandering, primitive people reached
its boundary to the present day, this land of mountains and valleys
has been many things to many people. To these first inhabitants it
was doubtless a land of refuge from their ever-pursuing enemies.
To the Cherokees it has been for many centuries a beloved
homeland, worth defending against other Indian invaders and
against the constantly encroaching white man. To the adventurous Englishmen it was a challenge, a fair land to be won and
occupied. To the botanist it has been a veritable Garden of Eden,
offering a wealth of vegetation beyond his fondest dreams. The
geologist has found it an open book from which to read the story
�•j//\r
m
^li-IJ
IIPJ
l
l^°M
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WJ<?|S<I
/M foMJM
��4 / Chapter One
t. ,
'.
1
1
CARL McINTOSH PHOTO
The exposed rocks of Grandfather Mountain in Avery County give evidence that this is
undoubtedly the world's oldest mountain.
of nature 's gargantuan upheavals since the world was young. To
the historian it has been the tale of the struggle of men and
mountains, the slow and costly experiment of building a way of
life suited to the ruggedness that isolates one community from
another. And to the engineer it has been the stimulus to prodigious
efforts in transportation— the spanning of broad rivers and the
tunneling through mountain barriers, the removal of hills and the
filling of gorges.
To the industrialist it has been a region of forests and raw
material, a land of pure water and abundant man power; and for
the mineralogist it has been an area of delight, rich in treasures of
mica and feldspar, of pliable clays, of copper and talc, of precious
and semi-precious stones. To the hunter and angler it has been a
paradise of undergrowth and streams, where deer and bear still
follow the ancient water trails and where the clear, cold water,
foaming over rocky beds, still yields the finest of nature's game
fish.
To the vacationist it has meant relaxation in invigorating air
and sunshine, often restored health and vitality, and always the
beauty and inspiration of cloud-tipped mountains against a blue
sky and of broad, green-clad valleys rimmed in by the hills. To the
�The Land of Mountains / 5
APPLACHIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION COLLECTION, N. C. DEPARTMENT
OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
Rivers, some older than the mountains themselves, have played a role in determining the
contour of this land of mountains. Cutting ravines and deepening them into gorges and
chasms, the busy rivers have worn down boulders and continue to nibble at the rocks in their
beds,
artist it has been a land of cascading waterfalls, of "balds"
crowned with the exotic blooms of rhododendron, of range after
range fading into a distant blue that defies any brush to capture.
And to those who live here by right of pioneer ancestry and to
those who have chosen it for their abiding place it is Home, with
all of the sacredness that the word implies.
The mountains that dominate Western North Carolina are a
part of the great Alleghany chain that stretches from Georgia
northeastward through Maine and into eastern Canada, finally
hurling themselves into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the
Gaspe Peninsula. In this great chain the ranges from Virginia to
Georgia are known as the Appalachians or Southern Highlands. In
Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee these massive
Highlands achieve their greatest width, varying from about a
hundred miles to a hundred and twenty-five, and here they rear
their loftiest peaks. Mt. Mitchell, at 6,684 feet, lifts its head above
them all, but within the boundaries of North Carolina forty-three
�6 / Chapter One
>**
E. DOUGLAS DE PEW PHOTO
The land of mountains is also the land of waterfalls. Whitewater Falls send their spray down
the steep mountainside near Sapphire.
�The Land of Mountains / 1
mountains have an altitude of more than 6,000 feet and eighty-two
others surpass 5,000 feet. v Hundreds of lesser peaks rise more than
4,000 feet above sea levelv. In the Tennessee section of the Great
Smokies many additional mountains belong in one of these
altitude ranges.
The Blue Ridge Mountain range, a long granite formation
which rises abruptly from the Piedmont Plateau in Virginia and
terminates in Georgia, marks the eastern boundary of the entire
Southern Highlands area. Early unknown English explorers gave
these mountains their appropriate name, for a nebulous blue haze
surrounds them, deepening late in the day to the soft, dark blue of
the night. In addition to their castle-like contours, their everchanging blue overtones have made them justly extolled in story
and song. The western rim of the Southern Highlands is more
broken and is formed by the Unaka, the Stone, and the Unicoi
ranges. These also form the boundary between Tennessee and
North Carolina. It is the Unaka range that rises in the majesty of
the Great Smoky Mountains, so named from the grey-blue haze
that often surrounds their summits.
In order for readers to visualize this lofty section, writers have
repeatedly likened the ranges to a gigantic ladder, with the Blue
Ridge as its eastern support and the roughly paralleling Unaka,
Stone, and Unicoi ranges as its western support. In the intervening
plateau, cross ranges serve as rungs of the ladder. The Balsams, the
Snowbird Mountains, the Nantahala Range, the Co wee—all lofty
in their own right—are some of these cross bars. Out from both
the supports and the rungs shorter mountain spurs extend. The
most famous of these is the Black Mountain range in which Mt.
Mitchell is the highest of twelve peaks above 6,000 feet above sea
level.2 Between the cross ranges are valleys of varying length and
width, each with its own river systvemv.
Man, with his less than pin-point of tivme, writes and speaks of
the "eternal hills." But the expression is, in truth, merely poetic
license, for restless nature is unceasingly making and wearing
away, remaking and again effacing the contours of this planet man
calls the earth. Sometimes the method is one of slow, bit by bit
erosion, quietly carried on through eons of time. Again it is one of
violence in which cataclysmic forces pummel earth's elements,
spew them in liquid form from white-hot craters, or compress and
fold and crack them into towering, jagged heights. Western
North Carolina over the span of millions upon millions of man-
�8 / Chapter One
CARL McINTOSH PHOTO
For untold centuries Table Rock, shown here, has been exposed to the snows of winter and
the pelting rains of summer. Yet its granite strength has continued to defy them all,
years has witnessed all of nature's moods and has undergone all of
the methods used to alter the earth's surface.
In the cliffs and crags the story of the constant changes that
have taken place in the region has been left to be interpreted by
those who have the eyes to see. The record, unfolded, explains
many mysteries of the present form of the land and the action of its
rivers. It makes clear why the Blue Ridge rather than the
generally higher Smokies constitutes the divide or watershed
between rivers flowing into the Atlantic Ocean and those flowing
into the great Mississippi system and through it into the Gulf of
Mexico. It explains, too, the wealth of minerals and clays and
stones and gems found in the area, and it throws light on the
unsurpassed richness of its vegetation.
The underlying rock formations throughout most of the
mountain area indicate an antiquity that baffles the imagination of
man. More than five hundred million years ago some of the base
rocks now visible on mountain sides were originally beds of sand,
some in shallow water, some in deep water, but all laid down by
long vanished rivers. Some of the base rocks were once flows of
steaming lava shot into the air by the force of raging volcanoes.
Others were layers of volcanic rock debris carried by the busy
streams into the sea.
The sedimentary rocks and the volcanic formations made
�The Land of Mountains / 9
CARL McINTOSH PHOTO
The winter storms and the summer rains, aided by the winds that swirl around mountain
heights, have battered and split this granite rock on Grandfather Mountain.
from these deposits were later subjected to such tremendous
pressure and to such extreme heat during the violent activities of
the young world that their very characters were changed or
metamorphosed. In their outcroppings today it is not always
possible to determine their origivnal natures.3 Where the
distinction between the types is clear cut, the metamorphosed soil
sediments of the long ago have given thve present mountains their
gneisses, schists, and slates, ranging inv vvvcolor from light through
dark grey and from greenish grey to black, depending upon other
elements embedded in their depths.4 Thev volcanic deposits of that
ancient geological age, compressed and changed, have produced
the granites of the region, predominating in the Blue Ridge range
and in the northern half of the plateau stretching from these
mountains to the Smokies. They also furnish the family of
peridotites that lie in a narrow belt from Clay and Macon to Ashe
and Alleghany Counties. This group of igneous formation gives
the region its vermiculite, soapstone, olivine, and asbestos.5
The rock formations of this most ancient of geological times,
changed as they were in character, do not appear in today's
outcroppings in either original horizontal strata or solidly in their
metamorphosed structures, for the Appalachian region is one of
nature's oldest and most complex geological creations. Writhing
in the throes of gigantic disturbances, these rocks were upheaved
and in the process were bent and twisted and tilted. Into the
crevices and fissures thus formed newer deposits were lodged,
brought from the soil of distant uplands by the gnawing rivers.
�10 / Chapter One
APPLACHIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION COLLECTION, N. C. DEPARTMENT
OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
Where the gnawing rivers have been powerless to wear down resisting granite walls, mighty
cliffs like this one in Hickory Nut Gorge stand as sentinels over the valleys below.
New deposits of lava from spewing volcanoes crept into
depressions and cracks, while fragments and powder of igneous
rocks were transported by the untiring streams to find resting
places in the niches and cuts of the older formations.
This part of the process of enriching the mineral resources of
the region nature carried on in what scientists have named the
pre-Cambrian period of earth's history. It was a period before
living creatures appeared upon the planet or when life forms were
too soft in structure to withstand the fierce forces at work in the
area. Since these ancient rocks form so large a part of the present
Appalachian Mountains, Western North Carolina is noticeably
lacking in fossils. Later formations, made during the early
�The Land of Mountains / 11
Cambrian period, are found in the Smoky Mountain area and
around Grandfather Mountain. They, too, have been metamorphosed, but by a less violent process than was the case with the
older rocks. These Cambrian deposits, sedimentary in their
original character, furnish shale, sandstone and limestone,
together with slate, schist, marble, and quartzite.6
Then over the very ancient rocks of the present Western
North Carolina crept the waters of a long, narrow sea. Into it
flowed the rivers from the east, for a great folding and uplifting of
the earth's surface had formed a towering mountain region over
the present Piedmont area, a high region that extended beyond the
present shore line of the Atlantic Ocean. The busy, tumbling
streams of that area nibbled and chiseled the lofty mountains and
plateaus in their efforts to wear them down. They deposited their
loads of sediment from mountain sides and their fragments of rock
and lava from the active volcanoes into the narrow sea. In time
that sea was partly or wholly filled with these layers of deposits,
and the waters began receding.
Then in the section today called Western North Carolina
extreme activity gripped the earth's surface in a terrific shrinking
movement. With power beyond human thought, this movement
pulled the base rocks of the mountains and land in the southeast,
the present Piedmont, forcing them, through a long series of
rumbling earthquakes, to push and crowd and slide northwestward.7 At the same time, land to the northwest was stable or
was more gently pulled toward the oncoming mass from the east.
The narrow, filled sea was thus squeezed between wedging
forces. It became the scene of cataclysmic events. With a force
and power in comparison with which man made explosions are
mere pop-gun efforts, the pre-Cambrian rock bed of the sea,
overlaid with newer deposits, was thrust upward and pushed from
both sides. It was crumbled and folded like paper, the ridge at the
top creaking and cracking and breaking into countless weird,
sharp shapes.
At last the earth attained ease from its internal turmoil and
nature lessened its strenuous activities, for jagged and towering,
the first Appalachian Mountains had been born. Life had
definitely come upon the earth by this time, and the lowly crablike creatures and snails were leaving their shells in the mud that,
becoming rock, would entomb these frail houses of earth's early
inhabitants. But in the Appalachian region they are rarely found
in the rocks of this period, for the violence of folding and tilting
and the sliding of the mountain masses ground the tiny shells to
powder.8
�12 /
Chapter One
In these new Appalachian Mountains that reared their massive
heads to Alpine heights, rivers began cutting ravines and
deepening them into gorges and chasms. The sun and the wind and
the rain combined their efforts in eroding the lofty peaks, and the
intense cold surrounding their summits aided with its ice and
snow. As eon after eon slipped into the past, the slow work of
erosion went on until the once noble Appalachians were no more.
The land where they had stood was a plain, broken only by low
hills where now stand the Unaka and Great Smokies.9 So level did
the floor of the plain become that the once swift rivers grew lazy
and meandering, wandering in leisurely fashion through their
shallow valleys. During the long geological age, there were
several periods of more or less gradual uplift, followed by periods
of erosion before the region achieved the monotonous level of a
plain.
But nature had not yet completed the task of creation in this
area, and again the region was greatly uplifted, but this time
without folding or twisting or tilting. The result would have been
a high plateau except for the work of the rivers. The sluggish
streams took on new life and vigor as their decline to sea level
increased. So, as the area was elevated, the rivers kept pace with
the process, eroding the land at about the same rate as the uplift
took place. The river beds straightened and a few rivers, because
of new sloping directions, reversed their water flow. Instead of
traveling south or east to the sea, they came to follow their old
beds north to join rivers that flowed west and, in turn, joined still
other streams flowing south and thus into the Gulf of Mexico.
Some, joining stronger streams, gave up their waters once and for
all, leaving their unused beds to dry and sear in the sun.10 Still
others that were mere rivulets or brooks at the beginning of the
uplift grew in length and size as they strenuously worked to cut
gorges through the rising mountains to reach lower levels on their
way to the sea. The region, then, during the chiseling of the
present Appalachian Mountains, saw a general rearrangement of
the existing river systems.
Because these streams are older than the present mountain
ranges at the western border of North Carolina, those ranges are
not a divide, although their general altitude exceeds that of the
Blue Ridge. With its hard, granite walls, the Blue Ridge was more
impenetrable than the western ranges, and prevented the rivers
that developed from cutting passages southeastward through it.
The Blue Ridge is, therefore, a true divide, the streams rising to
�The Land of Mountains / 13
the west of it flowing into the Gulf of Mexico by way of the Ohio
and Mississippi Rivers and the streams rising to the east of it
flowing into the Atlantic. In Watauga County, near Grandfather
Mountain, four rivers have their source, two of which finally
empty their waters into the Gulf and two of which empty their
waters into the Atlantic. Thus the mountains as they are today in
Western North Carolina are largely the result of the neverresting streams gashing through the uplifted plains and forming
gorges, wearing down the softer of the formations and leaving the
harder rocks to rear their heads in majestic mountains and peaks.11
Much erosion has taken place since those long ago days of
uplift, for the Appalachians are old mountains, some scholars
think they are the world's oldest mountains. In comparison with
them, the Rockies are still in an adolescent age. The peaks that
once rivaled or possibly surpassed any in the present Rockies have
been nibbled away through the thousands of centuries until not a
one of them today is above timberline. Many have acquired a
rounded, softened appearance, and all have been overlaid with a
generous blanket of soil which has become the home of a rich and
varied vegetation.
As a result of the many phases of creation employed by nature
in these mountains, the Appalachians abound in minerals and
rocks, both metallic and non-metallic. Some three hundred kinds
of minerals and rocks are accredited to North Carolina,12 and most
of them are to be found in its western counties. Of the nonmetallic group, the mountains for untold eons have held their
precious loads of mica and feldspar, of clays and sand and gravel,
of granite and slate and limestone and marble, of precious and
semi-precious stones. These stones are surprisingly diverse and
include rubies, sapphires, amethysts, garnets, quartz, emeralds,
zircons, even diamonds—all the products of the pressure and heat,
the filling in of crevices and fissures in older rocks. In short, they
testify to the tremendous processes of nature in its violent
activities in Western North Carolina. In 1756, a German engineer
by the name of John William Gerard de Brahm, coming into the
region to build a fort, wrote more truly than he could know when
he recorded in his Journal: "This country seems longing for the
hand of industry to receive its hidden treasures, which nature has
been collecting and toiling since the beginning ready to deliver
them up."13
Metals in varying amounts have also been among the hidden
treasures of the mountains. Gold, silver, and copper the Indians
mined and used as ornaments. The gold-greedy soldiers of De Soto
�" "'^
CARL McINTOSH PHOTO
Hoot Owl, an underground mine, yields its treasure of feldspar, one of nature's most useful
CARL McINTOSH PHOTO
Chalk Mountain mine is one of several open feldspar mines.
prospected for the same metals. For more than a century their
sporadic mining attempts probably returned small amounts of
gold and silver, for both appear in many places, although for
modern purposes, in commercially unprofitable quantities. The
gold deposits that gave the state its early title of the "Golden
State" and that produced many millions worth of bullion are on
�The Land of Mountains / 15
14
the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge. Copper, however, is in
greater amounts in the mountains, principally in Ashe, Jackson,
Haywood, and Swain Counties. Also locked in the hidden recesses
of the hills is iron, of all minerals the most useful to man, along
with lead, zinc, manganese, nickel, titanium (rich in its promise of
future uses), and tungsten.15
As plant life developed upon the face of the earth, Western
North Carolina became the home of those forms adapted to its
climate and altitude. In periods of uplift, plant forms requiring
warm, humid climates died or gradually moved out of the region
to homes more to their liking. Others, thriving in cool, dry
climates, moved in. Many such changes and reversals took place
over the ageless lapses of time that elevated and wore down and
elevated again this little section of the globe. In these changes a
few plants were able to adapt themselves to the gradually shifting
conditions of altitude and moisture and, in slightly modified
forms, stayed in the region.
Then late in time—geologically speaking—masses of ice
blanketed the northeastern part of North America and for
centuries crept steadily southward in what is now the United
States. These ice floes pushed ahead of themselves rocks and
boulders, in fact, everything in their paths. At their approach the
climate in front of them grew colder and increasingly forbidding,
so that both plants and animals beat a slow but constant retreat
southward. These Pleistocene successions of great ice sheets did
not reach North Carolina although they strongly affected both the
flora and the fauna of the Appalachian region.
Creatures and plant forms, yearly seeking new homes to the
south, found in the mountains (which were then similar to the
present mountains except higher) a climate comparable in
coolness to their former northern homes. In their new mountain
retreat these visitors settled down at the altitudes best fitted to
them individually to live in what harmony they could with the
animals and plant forms already in the region, many of which had
entered it from areas farther south. The result was a meeting of
Alpine and semi-tropical growth with all the graduations in
between. At the end of the Pleistocene period, when the
unfriendly ice masses receded and a more temperate climate
followed them northward, plants sheltered in the Appalachian
region of Western North Carolina spread out to repopulate the
vast stretches made barren by the grinding force and the arctic air
of the ice blankets. When that process had been carried out to the
�16 / Chapter One
to*
ELLIOT LYMAN FISHER PHOTO
Rhododendron: Each June the exotic blooms of the rhododendron turn the "balds" and
hillsides into fairy gardens. This picture shows a riot of blooms below Mt. Mitchell.
point of providing adequate pasturage and food, the animals
sojourning in Western North Carolina likewise returned to their
former habitations. But not all of each plant species left the
mountains. Some stayed, and their numerous descendants can be
seen today in the region. Thus the present Southern Appalachians
have a wealth of plant forms unsurpassed in any area of its size in
the world and greater than that of the entire continent of Europe.
In fact, the area has many plants found in no other section of the
United States; some, indeed, not found except in parts of Asia,
where conditions have perpetuated the ancient forms.16
Of all the mountain plants, the magnificent forests that sweep
up the hillsides and cover many of the peaks are the region's
crowning glory. In some sections, as in the highest altitudes along
the Blue Ridge Parkway, the forests of beech, yellow birch, and
yellow buckeye—usually found in moist valleys— are stunted and
�The Land of Mountains / 17
I ill
HUGH MORTON PHOTO
Upper Left; Western North Carolina is a veritable garden, where some 1,400 flowering
plants and shrubs make spring and summer colorful seasons. One of the lovely flowers is the
purple fringed orchid shown here; Upper Right: The Pink Moccasin Flower is also called the
Pink Lady Slipper; Lower Left: The Huckleberry is a favorite in the mountains; Lower
Right: The Osmunda is a very hardy mountain fern.
�18 / Chapter One
HUGH MORTON PHOTO
This beautiful picture was taken near Linville.
gnarled, but as much, perhaps, by the force of the winter winds as
by the altitude. Along much of this Parkway the trees are mainly
oaks, hickories, and maples, interspersed with pine and hemlock.
On Mt. Mitchell the present stand of red spruce is one of the finest
in the nation.17 In the Great Smoky Mountains National Park
spruce and fir predominate in vast areas of virgin growth. These,
with pines and conifers, cover other western ranges, and
throughout the entire mountain area tulip trees, yellow birch,
yellow buckeye, mountain silver bell, Fraser magnolia, sourwood,
Alleghany service berry, pin cherry, and American mountain ash
grow in profusion and often attain enormous size.
Both conifers and hardwoods make their homes in these
mountains, with more than 140 varieties of trees in the Great
Smoky Mountains alone. Many of these are relatives of the
migrants from Canada during the ice age. In fact, more than half
�The Land of Mountains / 19
APPLACHIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION COLLECTION, N. C. DEPARTMENT
OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
Summer foliage and sheer rock cliffs combine to bring their beauty to the hills and valleys.
of the woody plants in this area are species of the Canadian zone.
Since the mountain climate varies with altitude, most woody
plants have been able to find conditions favorable to their
growth.18 This is, of course, true of all the flora of the region so
that in traveling from the valleys to the high peaks, one travels
through vegetation zones ranging from the latitude of North
Carolina to that of central Canada.
This phenomenon of traveling north by climbing a Western
North Carolina mountain can, perhaps, best be noticed in May.
Starting from a valley where summer has furnished the trees with
fully grown foliage and has brought many trees and shrubs and
plants into bloom, the climber witnesses the gradual disappearance of the early spring flowers and the shrinkage in size of the
leaves of the trees until only leaf buds are visible. Then at higher
�20 / Chapter One
HUGH MORTON PHOTO
A fawn on Grandfather Mountain gets acquainted with his forest home.
levels one sees plants and trees still slumbering in their winter
quietness, awaiting the touch of warm spring winds and rains to
stir them into renewed life.19
Even today, after man has wastefully played havoc with much
of the timber of the region, in large areas of the Smokies, in the
Nantahalas, in the Unicoi and other ranges stands of magnificent
virgin timber—like that of the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest—
give evidence of the glorious growth of trees in the mountains
before the white man's advent into Western North Carolina.
While trees are the Applachian region's most common and
most magnificent clothing, and certainly the most valuable to
man, thousands of other plant forms spring up or nestle closely to
the mountain sides and crests and cover the intervening valleys
with prodigal abundance. For reasons not understood by
scientists, some of the mountain peaks are treeless, even though
trees grow on their slopes and on nearby mountain tops. They are,
on the whole, well rounded or domed in form and have acquired
the descriptive name of balds. They are of two types, depending
upon the growth that crowns them.
Some balds are covered with low grasses, used now for
pasturage. Whether some ancient forest fire left them denuded
�The Land of Mountains / 21
and grasses in time crept over the charred area before the forest
could regain the summit is not known. The prevailing winds and,
during the past century, the pasturing of cattle on them have
doubtless combined to help keep them bald. Other treeless balds
are covered with dense growths of laurel or rhododendron bushes
that sometimes reach considerable heights. These are known as
heath balds. On them the growth is often dense and tangled and
practically impenetrable. These individual growths are thought to
be a comparatively recent development, and it may well be that
under favorable conditions trees will attempt to reestablish
themselves where perhaps they once lived.20
Of the thousands of plant forms in Western North Carolina
(and the number reaches 3,600 in the Smoky Mountains) the
rhododendron and laurel covering the balds and their relative, the
flame azalea, growing both on the balds and on grassy slopes,
furnish spring's most spectacular display. But companions of these
throughout the section include some 1,400 flowering plants, over
1,700 species of fungi, 330 mosses and liverworts and 230 lichens.
From early spring, or even the last winter months, through late
autumn, the mountains produce a parade of color, ranging from
the vivid yellows and orange of the azaleas21 and the elusive purple
shades of the Catawba rhododendron to the soft, muted tones of
the trillium and the breath-taking purity of the rare Shortia or
Oconee Bell. In autumn the parade is intensified by the flaunting
colors of the trees as their leaves say goodbye with a brave burst of
glory.22
For untold ages this mountain region has been one of nature's
most thickly populated zoos, for the canopy of trees over valleys
and hillsides and the rich carpet of undergrowth have furnished
ideal coverts for bear and buffalo, deer and panther, and a
multitude of smaller creatures. Food has been on every hand, and
swift mountain streams, fed by the abundant rainfall blessing the
area, have provided reliable sources of water. Western North
Carolina was in former times a veritable Garden of Eden where
animals were rulers. Animals flourished and multiplied, roaming
at will and leaving their hardpacked trails across the mountain
gaps and down the valleys to protected drinking spots. The
climate, with its short winters and few snows and its long, cool
summers, has been kind to animals. Indeed their chief fears, before
man's coming into the region, arose from the depredations of one
species upon another and from an occasional rock slide or
lightning-set fire that swept a mountain side.
�22 / Chapter One
Uftjr,v
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,
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•' ~" -: *?.3fcfr '•••
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HUGH MORTON PHOTO
Tlie mountain region has been one of nature's thickly populated zoos. With trees and
undergrowth to serve as coverts and with food on every hand and with streams nearby, the
hills have been an animal's paradise. Many species have survived the inroads of man and his
gun. Among them is the American black bear. The bears we see here have their home on
Grandfather Mountain.
HUGH MORTON PHOTO
The mountain lion once stalked the forests of the North Carolina mountains, but the fearless
cat, along with the panther and cougar, is as extinct now as the prehistoric dinosaur.
�HUGH MORTON PHOTO
Upper Left: The little Carolina Chickadee sings his cheery notes whenever he lights on a
convenient twig or tree limb; Upper Right: The American red squirrel is also called the
mountain boomer; Lower Left: These young raccoons find a place to rest on an old rail fence;
Lower Right: The ruffed grouse is one of more than 200 species of birds that have found an
ideal habitat in the mountains of Western North Carolina,
Even today, after the bows and arrows and guns of men have
completely exterminated some forms of North Carolina wild life,
such as the buffalo, panther, and elk, and have made vast inroads in
the number of small species, and after the remaining animal
population has been forced to make room for land-greedy
humans, it is estimated that Western North Carolina supports
more than fifty kinds of fur bearing animals, in addition to an
untold number of insects and invertebrates.23 Back in the
mountain fastnesses the black bear, the white-tailed deer, and the
bob-cat live much as they have for thousands of years. But many
of the smaller animals such as the oppossums, raccoons, skunks,
squirrels, and chipmunks have compromised with man and often
share his territory.
�24 / Chapter One
Over two hundred kinds of birds have found an ideal habitat in
these mountains. Some yearly come from southern countries for
the summers; others arrive from northern countries for the
winter. Birds of the north and birds of the south meet, then, in
Western North Carolina. Many individuals in several species
forego the long, hard migratory flights to northern or southern
regions and, like the Carolina junco, are content with summer
trips to the high mountain altitudes, spending their winters in the
lower valleys.24 All through the year the calls or songs of birds
swell from tree tops on mountain sides and in wooded valleys.
Every breeze bears a message trilled by the air-borne citizens of
the world.
So it is that long before man's appearance, Western North
Carolina was prepared for his habitation. Man was to find the
climate to his liking. He was to find fish and game. He was to find
food and herbs abundant for his needs, and he was to find the
materials nature had stored there for the making of his tools.
Above all, he was to find an eternal awareness of the mountains—
their protection from outside turmoil, their offerings for his use,
their challenge to his ingenuity, and their unconquerable strength.
They were to make his life hard and isolated and at times narrow.
But they were to give him something of their own uprightness and
hardiness, a bit of their granite, and the spirit of the freedomloving winds that sweep their heights. They were to dominate his
work and his days until they set the pattern of his life and became
for him the "Hills of Home."
�C H A P T E R
T W O
Eden is Discovered
istory will never know the day or year when a band of
nomadic people wandered into what is now Western North
Carolina. These primitive people may have been a family group
fleeing from enemies or searching for better hunting grounds.
They belonged to one of the tribes or "nations" that resulted from
sporadic waves of Asiatic peoples entering America by way of
Alaska between eight and ten thousand years ago, perhaps much
earlier. By degrees these migrating people traveled south,
folio wing a route between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky
Mountains. Some continued into South America. Others skirted
the southern tip of the Rocky Mountains and turned eastward
across the plains. Many of these crossed the Mississippi River and
fanned out in all directions in the eastern part of what is now the
United States.1
Over the centuries, as family groups increased in size, they
developed tribes or "nations." These larger units were loosely
bound by ties of family, common racial traits, language, and an
ever growing wealth of customs and traditions. The tribes in the
east met, fought, and sometimes blended. By modern standards
the territory stretching from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic
Ocean was sparsely inhabited during the entire period of Native
American occupation, both pre-historic and historic. But the
tribes, depending upon hunting for food and clothing, required
vast hunting grounds. Competition must have become keen and
25
�26 / Chapter Two
bitter as eastern tribes increased and as more eastward-moving
groups crossed the Mississippi River. So it was that on an
unrecorded day a band of nomads sought a new home in the
present Western North Carolina.
Glimpses of the way of life of some of the pre-historic Indians
have been gleaned from artifacts found on the sites of their camps,
villages, battlefields, and from their man-made mounds. These
mounds, differing in size and shape, dot wide areas of the eastern
section of the United States. Leveled by the plows of farmers,
many small ones have disappeared, and their treasures have been
lost for all time.
In North Carolina, as in other states, mounds have been
opened in attempts to piece together the history of the American
Indians. In Western North Carolina the earliest explorations
were in Burke, Caldwell, and Wilkes Counties. Excavations of
both mounds and town sites have been carried on in practically
every county west of the Blue Ridge. In addition, extensive work
has been done in the old Cherokee country and along the
Nolichucky River in Tennessee.2
At the excavation site in the Swannanoa valley on land
belonging to Warren Wilson College, the oldest culture found
furnishes an idea of the first possible human discoverers of
Western North Carolina. Their camp was small and probably a
temporary one and may have been used over a period of time by
wandering family groups. These people were hunters and
gatherers. Their homes were crude shelters and their clothing was
made from skins. Their spearpoints were fashioned from
soapstone as were their cooking pots. Animals killed in the hunt
were skinned and the meat roasted over a fire in a pit. Hunters and
gatherers like these people roamed over a wide area from Maine
to Florida, leaving evidences of their passing throughout much of
North Carolina. It is estimated that groups of them were in
Western North Carolina at least 10,000 years ago.
The village above the Swannanoa camp clearly showed the
cultural development that took place during the thousands of
years that separated them. Artifacts found in the last Native
American town built on this site, long after the village below was
in ruins, are proof of further cultural development. That
development was the result of internal improvement and outside
influences. The scientists working at the site suggest that this
culture is the primary base from which the Middle Cherokee
culture developed.3
�Eden is Discovered / 27
Excavations farther west have provided evidence of a
succession of primitive groups or tribes living along the Little
Tennessee, the Hiwassee, and other western rivers. The earliest
of these people have conveniently been called the Upper Valley
People. Numerous man-made pits indicate where their fires
were made for cooking the family meals. They made pottery,
some of it decorated by pressing the soft clay with fiber cords. In
their compact villages they lived in circular houses; they buried
their dead in a flexed position. Their tools were crude stone
implements.
In time these people were followed by a group with a similar
racial background but with slightly different customs. Known to
scientists as the Middle Valley People, this second group seems to
have lived for a long period of time in eastern Tennessee and the
western counties of North Carolina. They lived in family units
with their homes strung along rivers and they made pottery that
was without cord markings, a fact that indicates they had had no
contact with the people they followed. The great number of
mussel shells on their home sites and in their refuse heaps points
to the fact that they lived partly on mussels and may have come
from a coastal area, possibly from the area around the Gulf of
Mexico. They were mound-builders and buried their dead in a
partly flexed position, one body in a grave but hundreds of
graves in a mound.
Following the Middle Valley People, came another tribe,
known today as the Hiwassee People. They brought with them a
decidedly higher culture than that of the preceding groups. Some
of their customs were similar to those of Mexican tribes,
indicating an origin far to the south. They lived in villages
protected by stockades. Inside the enclosures were rectangular
homes made with a framework of saplings set vertically at close
intervals in trenches. They built their public buildings on
mounds, for they were mound-builders. On one of these mounds
was their temple, which may also have served as a community
house for tribal business meetings. In it was an eternal fire since
they were fire-worshippers. They cord-marked their pottery
and also painted some of the earthenware, using a red dye or red
on a buff background. No burials made by these people have been
found, and it is supposed that they cremated their dead. On plots
outside the stockades they raised grain and some vegetables.
These Hiwassee People lived for a long period of time in the
area that included the mountain land. They were a part of a
wide-spread culture that extended from the Mississippi River to
�28 / Chapter Two
:
:
»i ^
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V
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'#:*/^C,^l|jr%f^V to, ..-"" *•*• ''•
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E. DOUGLAS DE PEW PHOTO
The Judaculla Rock in Jackson County carries a message that for centuries has remained a
secret. Its hieroglyphics are the work of some pre-historic tribe or person or of some early
Cherokee. Later Cherokees viewed the rock with awe and its markings as the work of
Judaculla, a superman or god. A present-day theory is that the inscription on it may depict a
battle, possibly between the early Cherokees and their enemies, the Creeks.
Florida. Yet in time, they were forced to make way for a new
group, today called the Dallas People. For some time these two
tribes seem to have lived in fairly close relationship in their
separate villages. They were similar in culture, although the
Dallas mounds were oval and their council houses differed
slightly from those of the Hiwassee. Yet in the end the Dallas
People drove out or absorbed the Hiwassee People.4
After this tribe, came the Cherokees, who came with a
background of struggle and warfare that had made for them bitter
and powerful enemies. Early Cherokee history is necessarily a
matter of legends, traditions and myths, of tales of distant lands
and heroes and battles told by the wise old men of the tribe to
each succeeding generation of braves. Yet from these tales—
even with their frequent contradictions and evident
interpolations—and from tales current in enemy nations,
together with the study of the movements of various native
�Eden is Discovered / 29
*1±™™''%"fei .«*-:. L • %
FROM AN 1890 PHOTOGRAPH IN MOONEY, MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEES
This ancient mound at Franklin in Macon County was the siteofNikwasi, for long periods
of time the Principal Town of the Middle Cherokees. Donations made by schoolchildren and
citizens of the county made its preservation possible.
American stocks and of their physical, linguistic, and cultural
similarities, the pattern of life of the Cherokees' prehistoric
ancestors can be at least partly sketched.5
The Cherokees are of Iroquoian origin, a relative nation of
the mighty Iroquois.6 A separation of the two groups came early
(perhaps before the crossing of the Mississippi River, but more
probably afterward) when the migrants sought a permanent
dwelling place. The Iroquois spread north of the Great Lakes and
into central New York, while the Cherokees took possession of
the vast territory stretching from the Great Lakes to the Ohio
River. In time, they entered New York from the south and again
came into contact with the Iroquois. The centuries of separation
had brought many differences between the two related groups,
and although their languages were still similar and their type of
arrows still identical, they were now distinct nations. Competing now for the same territory, they developed into bitter
enemies.
�30 / Chapter Two
Also, as the Cherokees advanced east, their struggle with the
Delawares intensified. According to their traditions, the state of
sporadic warfare existing between the Cherokees and the
Delawares dated from the long-past appearance of the latter
nation on the west bank of the Mississippi River. From the
Cherokees the Delawares had asked permission to cross over and
share the vast Cherokee territory. That request had been denied,
but the privilege of passing through the country to the eastern
lands had been granted. During the undoubtedly slow trek,
however, trouble arose between the two groups, at times
amounting to a state of war.
When the Cherokees later pushed into the eastern territory,
the Delaware settlers were unable to stem the invasion and
enlisted the aid of the powerful Iroquois, who were also fully
aware of the dangers of Cherokee encroachment. The result was
an open war climaxed by a fierce battle near the southern border
of Lake Erie in which, despite their fortifications and breastworks, the Cherokees were so soundly defeated that their dream
of land in the north and east vanished.
Following this humiliation, they retreated by slow degrees to
the Ohio River and down it to the Kanawha. Passing up that,
they entered the present West Virginia. Ruins of fortifications of
Cherokee design over a rather wide area of that section testify to
the opposition they met from nations and tribes in the territory.
Because of this opposition and doubtless to gain elbow room,
they gradually moved south and west, eventually reaching
Western North Carloina, possibly by way of the Holston and
Tennessee Rivers.7
In the mountain section of Western North Carolina they had
an almost impregnable position with a climate favorable for
comfortable existence and with abundant food available for the
shooting. The Cherokees, as time passed, increased in numbers
and in strength, claiming as their hunting grounds regions far
distant from their villages strung along the rivers of the present
Western North Carolina and Tennessee. In fact, by the time the
English speaking people appeared in their territory, they were
second only to the Iroquois federation in population and military
strength. Their vaguely defined national boundaries included the
Appalachian region from the headwaters of the Tennessee into
the present Georgia and from the Blue Ridge to the
Cumberlands, a tract of some forty thousand square miles which
took in all of Western North Carolina, parts of Kentucky, West
�Eden is Discovered / 31
Virginia, South Carolina, and the eastern section of Tennessee,
together with sections of Alabama and a claim on hunting rights
throughout Kentucky,8
Protection of their immediate mountain homeland kept the
nation at almost constant warfare with surrounding tribes. In
addition to their ancient foes, the Delawares and Iroquois, they
now counted as enemies the Catawbas east of the Blue Ridge,
the Sara, Cheraw, and the Tuscaroras farther to the east and
southeast, the Creeks in upper Georgia, the Chickasaws to the
west, and the Shawnees wherever wandering bands of that
nomadic group appeared. On hunting expeditions to the "Land
of Kaintuck," they were always prepared to enter combat with
any roaming bands of hunters from still other nations. Thus the
Cherokees did their share in making that lovely land "a dark
ground and a bloody ground." They were considered in all
Indian councils as a powerful nation and a formidable foe.
With their homes favorably located and well protected, the
Cherokees thrived and expanded. Their towns and villages
sprang up along the rivers and streams in eastern Tennessee,
Western North Carolina, northern Georgia, and northwestern
South Carolina. The remainder of their vast domain they kept as
a hunting preserve. As the years passed, the homeland became
geographically divided into three distinct areas, each one
developing a dialect and certain individual customs and group
traits. The settlements in eastern Georgia and South Carolina
made a unit known as the Lower Towns where the language,
acquired a predominantly rolling "r" sound. The villages along
the Tuckaseigee River and along the headwaters of the Little
Tennessee, together with those on the Hiwassee and Valley
Rivers, became the Middle Towns. There a liquid "1" sound
supplanted the rolling "r," making the language spoken the
most musical of the Cherokee dialects and the one eventually to
become the literary language of the nation.
Farther to the west in Georgia and along the Little Tennessee
and Tellico Rivers were the Over Hill Towns where again the
"r" sound could be heard. It was in the Over Hill area that the
capital, Echota or Chota, was located. It was likewise regarded
as a sacred town and was a city of refuge. However, each area
had a prominent town, a sort of sub-capital, which also served as
a religious center and was therefore a sacred city. Nikwasi, on
the site of the present Franklin, North Carolina, was the
principal town of the Middle Cherokees. Keowee, on the Tugalo
�32 / Chapter Tu
ASHEVILLE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
From wood and reeds the early Cherokees fashioned their arrows and the slender darts used in
their blow-guns. This craftsman at the Oconaluftee Village in Cherokee is carrying on the
centuries-old art.
River in South Carolina, was the largest of the Lower Towns.9
The Cherokees lacked the strong propensity for organization
that their distant relatives, the Iroquois, displayed, and the three
parts of their nation were held together more by tradition,
customs, and a common though varying language than by
governmental authority. Until they made treaties with the
English colonies, they had no official head of the nation although
�Eden is Discovered / 33
English colonies, they had no official head of the nation although
now and then one individual doubtless wielded a determining
influence throughout the territory. Through a council made up
of male citizens, each town elected a chief, and most towns had
their wise men, whose calm, sage advice carried much weight. In
addition, the people were grouped into seven clans with
complicated requirements of clan loyalty. James Adair, an early
English trader, found them possessing devices of government,
religious rites, and moral concepts strikingly like those held and
practiced by the ancient Hebrews. Sometimes the nation as a
whole determined for or against war, but more often bands of
young warriors from a city or clan went on foraging expeditions
into enemy country. The use of weapons was a part of each boy's
education, and he was eager to prove his prowess by participating
in a war or raid.
It was possible, too, for a town or clan or one of the
geographical areas to go to war without the consent or aid of
other units or the nation as a whole, and there were even periods
of bloody intratribal contention. The fates of prominent captives
might be decided in council, and a major crime such as shedding
blood in a city of refuge would be an affair for authorities to
punish. But on the whole, justice (which meant as with the
Hebrews of old, "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth") was
left to be meted out by the injured person, and revenge was the
privilege of the wronged family or clan.10
Next to the excitement of war, hunting offered the
Cherokee youth satisfyingly thrilling experiences, and children
listened wide-eyed to the adventurous tales related by returning
hunters. Memorable was the day when a lad was told he might
join a party setting out for the far reaches of the Cherokee
domain. Each group of hunters was of necessity also a scouting
party, ready to give battle to any trespassers found within the
considered boundaries of the nation; the hunters brought back to
the home councils whatever information could be gleaned
concerning the surrounding enemy tribes. Game was abundant,
and the Cherokees knew each species, its migratory habits, its
breeding grounds, and its lairs. Parties armed with their bows
and keen, flint arrows, a supply of darts, and perhaps their
surprisingly efficient blow-guns with their poison-tipped,
slender arrows, set out from their homes along trails that were
well defined near their habitations but which narrowed as they
entered denser forests.
�34 / Chapter Two
EWART M. BALL PHOTO
In the council house at the Oconaluftee Village in Cherokee this maker of masks and designer
of feather robes demonstrates the ancient and intricate art of his ancestors.
Some of these trails the Cherokees had made during their era
of expansion in the mountain area, but many were ages old,
beaten firm by the tnoccasined feet of prehistoric predecessors in
their search for game or enemies. Others were still older, opened
through undergrowth and thickets by untold generations of
buffalo, deer, bear and other animals whose hooves pounded the
soft forest floor into solid highways leading to other coverts or
to suitable watering places. Over the centuries these slender,
single-file mountain and forest trails became numerous, crossing
and criss-crossing the territory, a veritable network of primitive
roads giving access to every part of Western North Carolina
from the Smokies to the Blue Ridge and on into the lands to the
east, north, and south.11
Aside from any punitive motive that the hunters might
secretly nourish, the aim of the hunting party was the
replenishing of the food supply and of material for clothing for
the home or clan; for until the white man came with his
�Eden is Discovered / 35
insatiable greed for pelts, the Cherokees killed only the needed
amount of game. Thus the entire nation was able to have both
meat and furs in comparative abundance without depleting the
wild life that roamed the area.
In fact, the Cherokees had a feeling of respect for all forms of
wild life that in some instances, judging from their myths,
amounted almost to a feeling of kinship. They gave their clans
animal names and bestowed animal titles upon their outstanding
warriors as marks of honor. They related animal tales to their
children and represented birds and animals in their ceremonial
dances. Animals and birds even played leading roles in their
stories of creation and of the formation of their mountains. All of
that had developed, it would seem, from an ancient animism and
animal worship, remnants of which had become woven into the
fabric of their religious concepts.12
Hunting was, perhaps, for the men an escape from the
monotony of daily life. But it was also a necessity, for it
furnished the towns with a supply of meat. Aside from game, a
goodly portion of the nation's food came from the rivers. From
the clear mountain streams the fishermen, expert with their bone
fish hooks, could catch a day's supply offish in a few minutes'
angling. In season the women and children gathered a variety of
berries, plums, grapes, cherries, persimmons, and nuts from the
open glades and the woods. At the proper time they also
gathered various herbs, roots, and shrubs to be used for
medicines and drinks. Each spring the leaves of many wild plants
were picked to be cooked as greens, and the air was then often
reeking with the perfume of the ramp, a mighty relative of the
onion.
Outside their villages were the fields and gardens. The
Cherokees had not yet acquired the concept of individual
ownership of land, and the fields were community fields where
each household worked its assigned plot. In some instances,
however, a family was allotted an additional strip of ground
nearer its home on which to raise more food. By the time history
unveiled "The Land of the Sky," the Cherokees were producing
as good corn and vegetables as could be expected in view of the
crudeness of the agricultural implements they had been able to
fashion. They grew corn, potatoes, squash, beans, and tobacco, a
choice product reserved for use in their ceremonial pipes. From
potatoes, from ground nuts, and from dried corn they made
breads, which they baked in coals or cooked over their open
fires. In big earthen pots they made soups and stews, combining
�36 / Chapter Two
meat and vegetables, often previously dried in the sun. Thus a
Cherokee meal could be surprisingly complete and certainly
vitamin filled, from soup through fish, meat, and vegetables to
berries sweetened with honey taken from a nearby "bee tree."
However, accounts left by English traders make it plain that the
Cherokee cooks were unhampered by the white man's methods
of preparing and serving food.13
To these mountain dwellers war was an ever present
possibility, a natural result of acquiring and protecting a
territory large enough to support a growing population. For
protection as well as for social advantages they lived in towns
which, by modern standards, were mere villages built along the
rivers. Early traders write of them as ranging in size from a
cluster of five or six dwellings to some thirty or more houses,
although there are records mentioning towns having more than a
hundred homes.
Like all Indians, the Cherokees were an outdoor people and
spent most of their days in the open. Their houses, used mostly as
sleeping quarters, could be adequate without being large. All
were constructed from the materials to be had for the gathering.
The earliest were simple buildings fashioned by bringing a circle
of saplings together at the top and weaving cane gathered from
the river banks to these supports. River clay served as a filler and
an outer coating for these cane walls. Somewhat more ambitious
than these stationary wigwams were the rectangular lodges or
cabins built of logs. Here, too, clay served as the needed
chinking.
In both types of houses low doors gave entrance into the oneroomed structure and admitted the only light that got inside
since there were no windows. The packed earth was the only
floor. Sometimes beside a house was a tiny structure with a door
so low that one entered it by crawling. This was the "hot
house," for here, in the cold weather that came so suddenly in
the mountains, a fire burned, and members of the family could
enter and enjoy the warmth. The outdoor fires used for cooking
and a variety of activities served to offset the chill of frosty
mornings and the damp of early evenings.14
The largest and most important structure in the village was
the council house, which served as an assembly hall and temple,
doubtless also as a "man's club." It was accorded an awed
respect, for in it burned the sacred fire. In it decisions were made
that affected the entire community and projects like the Indian
ball games and the ceremonial dances were planned. In it, too,
�Eden is Discovered / 37
were kept the medicineman's equipment and the paraphernalia
used in religious rites. It gained prominence by its position on a
mound, made as a temple site centuries earlier by the preCherokee mountain dwellers. At least some of these Cherokee
council houses had a symbolic structural form of seven sides,
each side representing one of the nation's clans.15 Furniture both
here and in the homes was practically unnecessary, since eating
was done out of doors where logs and stumps were plentiful if
chairs were desired and since the ground served as a chair in the
houses. Buffalo, deer, and bear skins made as good beds as any
Cherokee had ever known or imagined.
Like other primitive peoples the Cherokees were necessarily
a busy people, for, in addition to keeping the larder supplied
through hunting and fishing and farming, whatever was worn or
whatever was needed as tools had to be made amd fashioned
laboriously by hand. No wonder, then, that during the summer
months they reduced the dress problem to a minimum. At this
season the men were fully garbed when they wore simple loin
cloths of dressed skins. Children up to about ten years of age
enjoyed complete freedom from clothes. Girls and women wore
simple, knee-length skirts of dressed skins.
More clothing was required for the mountain winters. Robes
of buffalo or deerskin were used then by the men, and some were
fortunate enough to have squaws who could weave for them
warm robes of feathers, slowly gathered from the wild turkeys
or other birds during the molting season or when used as food.
Beautiful, matched feathers, some of them dyed, were worked
into rich ceremonial robes and mantles, often many thousands of
soft, tiny feathers being used in a single garment.16 For shoes,
pliable moccasins were made from deerskin. It was no simple
task to cure the buffalo, deer, and bear pelts, and it required skill
to transform deerskins into the cloth-like buckskin used for
clothing and moccasins. Even after the first process had been
completed, the garments had yet to be fashioned by sewing with
fine, thread-like thongs of leather passed through the eyes of
bone needles.17
The harvested grain and the gathered offerings of meadows
and woods were carried and stored in baskets of varying sizes
and shapes. These were made by the women from the river cane
and from oak and hickory splints made from saplings, then
smoothed and thinned with crude stone or bone implements and
made pliable by soaking. The splints or canes were then woven,
possibly in the double weave fashion characteristic of the
�38 / Chapter Two
Cherokee weaving. The women also made the pottery used as
pots and pans and the few bowls needed. The process was an
ancient one, evolved when the human race was young. Clay
from the river banks was formed into coils which were piled one
upon another and shaped by skillful hands, then scraped smooth
by pieces of sharpened stone or bone, becoming a pot or a bowl
or a jar destined to serve many uses. It was carefully fired to
withstand heat and to become waterproof.18
To the women fell the lot of tilling the fields. Henry
Timberlake, visiting the Over Hill Towns in 1761, reported that
the "country... is so remarkably fertile, that the women alone do
all the laborious tasks of agriculture/' The men at certain seasons
or on special occasions also did some work in the fields, quite
possibly as rituals or as punishment meted out by their chiefs.
Martin Schneider, in the Over Hill Towns in 1783, says that at
sunrise he saw the chief of Chota calling all the men to work in
the fields and that they were not allowed to return until
sundown, the women bringing them food during the day. It is
perhaps safe to assume that this was an unusual day.19
To some extent water travel was available even to these
mountain dwellers. They felled giant trees—poplars—by ringing them and leaving them to die so that the felling process
could be done easily. It was the same slow method that they had
used for centuries to clear forest tracts for cultivation. Then,
with a crude stone axe and the use of fire, the log was hollowed
out, shaped, and then scraped to the desired thinness and
lightness. The result was an efficient watercraft that could easily
be transported between streams and that was watertight and
capable of carrying several passengers.
The men, too, made the weapons used in war and hunting.
Their bows and arrows were similar to those used by other tribes
and their flint arrow heads were identical with those made by
the Iroquois. In addition they made blow-guns from river cane
by removing the pith and making slender, feathered arrows that
sped through the tubes with speed and accuracy, sealing the
doom of many a small animal and bringing to earth many a bird.
Stones of suitable size were also brought into the village by the
men and made into a variety of cutting and smoothing tools,
while others were gouged out and smoothed to hold the grain
and dried seeds and tubers that the women pounded into meal
with stone pestles.20
By the time the first traders entered Western North
Carolina, the Cherokees had long since passed the primitive
�Eden is Discovered / 39
stage in which they were satisfied with material possessions that
were merely utilitarian. They were adding touches of beauty to
the objects they made and the garments they wore. The women
gathered roots and barks from which they steeped dyes of
various rich colors and shades to lend aesthetic touches to their
multi-purpose baskets. Sometimes, too, they made simple designs
with combs on their pottery, and dyed feathers and even dressed
skins gave variety and beauty to their clothes and to their
ceremonial robes.
To add to their personal appearance, the women combed
their black hair with wooden or bone combs, rubbed it glossy
with oil obtained from the abundant sumac, and fashioned it into
a knot or club at the back of the head. Ornaments were made for
both men and women from shells, sometimes cut into beads, and
strung on thin, deerskin thongs or twisted grasses. Bracelets and
neck pieces were fashioned from the metals (silver, gold, and the
more plentiful copper) they mined in the hills. Additional
fineries were now and then brought home by warriors lucky
enough to slay enemies wearing them.21
Cherokee progress up the culture ladder was also evident in
their religion. While traces of earlier beliefs in many spirits that
entered both inanimate objects and animals lingered on in their
myths, such beliefs had doubtless become to them only halftruths, and the nation had come to believe in a "Great Spirit,"
maker of all things. Belief in a future life existed, but what was
to come to one after death seems not to have been a disturbing
thought to them. Their reverence for the Great Spirit and their
common prayers for blessings—most of them probably for
material forms and immediate needs—were often expressed in
religious dances that were beautiful in conception and stately and
dignified in execution. Sometimes those participating in the
dances were men only, sometimes both men and women, and
sometimes women only. One of these women performances
witnessed by a white traveler in Chota of the Over Hill Towns
lasted for four days. The "foreigner"was not able to learn its
purpose.22
Cherokee history and literature consisted of tales and myths
accumulated over a long past and told and retold to each
generation. The custom of absorbing groups and individuals
from other tribes greatly enriched the fund of stories but has
proved confusing to the modern historian attempting to see in
them the trend of actual Cherokee religious beliefs. However, as
a whole, the stories reveal vague, racial memories of other lands,
�40 / Chapter Two
HALL OF HISTORY COLLECTION, N. C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
The Cherokees developed many ritualistic ceremonies through a variety of dance forms. Some
depicted battles. Some were religious. Participants often made their meanings vivid by the use
of masks. Cherokee masks varied in size, shape, and expression's. Some, like the one with the
exaggerated nose, were doubtless designed for humor.
widely separated lands, of pride in heroes, of ancient hates and
wars and battles. They reveal, too, the Cherokee's closeness to
nature and record his primitive attempt to explain his world and
the creatures in it, to fathom the creation of his mountain land,
and to account for the strange natural formations. Some of these
stories show a surprising tenderness of treatment, while others,
like the Judaculla tales, are examples of man's universal love for
exaggeration. Many tales also show the Cherokee's sense of
humor, and it is entirely possible that groups of the old tales
which modern man reads seriously and accepts as the Cherokee's
superstition, brought roars of laughter when told evenings
around the village fire by an expert storyteller.
As with all primitive peoples, storytelling was a popular
form of entertainment, and the old, familiar tales were constant
favorites. Then, too, every returning warrior or hunter could be
sure of an interested audience as he related his experiences with
wild animals or with prowling bands of enemies during the
weeks or even months spent in distant regions of Cherokee
�Eden is Discovered / 41
country. The religious rituals and ceremonies and colorful
dances furnished not only an outlet for religious emotion, but
also a solemn social satisfaction. In addition, the Cherokees had
many games and contests of skill in which individuals, towns, or
clans participated.
The outstanding athletic event was their ball game that has
survived the inroads of the white man's civilization and today is
played yearly in the age-old manner. How it originated no one
knows, for its beginning fades into the obscurity of the distant
past. It was played by two opposing teams representing two
clans. It was—and still is—a rough and tumble tussle with almost
no rules, and the players took whatever treatment was given
them, returning it with interest if possible. At times of strained
relations between two clans, their ball game assumed the form of
group combat, and the feelings of the spectators seated or
standing on the hillside ran high, while an occasional casualty
occurred.23
By the time English speaking people discovered the hills of
Western North Carolina, the Cherokee nation was a powerful
people, happy and contented in their mountain homeland. In
fact, so powerful were they that they could call themselves
simply, but significantly, Yunwiya or Ani-Yunwiya, "The People"
or "The Principal People." True, other nations had other names
for them, designating them as Rickahockans or Rechahecrians,24 or
more often usejJ a name which the English corrupted into
Cherokee. This name, however, the People themselves did not
recognize since it had been bestowred by tribes who were
enemies.
Several meanings have been given for the word "Cherokee."
Dr. Swanton of the Smithsonian Institute suggests that it may be
from a Muskogee word meaning "people of a different
speech."25 A somewhat widely accepted meaning is cave or pit.
If this origin of the word is accurate, it may have had reference
to their mountain homeland. More probably it carried the still
smarting sting of their ancient defeat when they depended in
vain upon their pit-like trenches and their breastworks to ward
off the attack of the Iroquois and the Delawares, a defeat kept
alive in the fireside tales and in the jibes of their enemies.
How long it took the Cherokees to achieve the spreading
borders of their nation is not known. Nor can it be estimated
with any degree of certainty how many centuries passed as they
extended their homeland settlements south and east along the
Middle rivers and into the present South Carolina and Georgia
�42 / Chapter Two
and into the Over Hill Country. The gradual process of
settlement included driving any people they encountered out of
the region and absorbing the remnants left. By 1540, when the
curtain of antiquity was briefly drawn aside, they had not
reached the later Lower Towns section. They had, however,
attained more than a foothold in the Middle Towns area along
the Valley and Hiwassee Rivers, with an undetermined number
of scattered villages. They had a thriving settlement that the
Spanish transcribed as Gau-ax-u-le or Guasili, almost certainly
on the site of Peachtree Mound, five and a half miles east of the
present Murphy. This seems to have been the largest settlement
encountered by DeSoto within the present Western North
Carolina.26
So it was, that as spring came over the mountains in 1540,
trailing its robes of flashing color across the hillsides, the
Cherokees could look with confidence to the future, and security
could be taken for granted.
�C H A P T E R
T H R E E
Two Races Meet
X he serenity of the on-coming spring was shattered on a May
morning in 1540 when an Indian runner, spent with his race
along the ancient trails, stumbled into a mountain town with
news that brought the men of the village hurrying to the council
house. To them he poured out his fantastic tale. Stories reaching
southern towns, he said, told that men, strange men of pale,
ghastly hue and wearing clothes of metal, were traveling
westward along the paths from the east. They were many and
with them were strange beasts, some bigger than a bear
(although not so stockily built), and on these some of the men sat.
Others of the animals were small and black, grunting and
squealing as they were driven westward.
Through the lands of the nations to the east they had come,
for no tribe could withstand them and the sharp, popping
thunder that they hurled to slay opposing braves. One thing was
certain—they were on the warpath, for they stole or destroyed
crops. They were also forcing villagers to join them as
"tomemes" or burdeners and as guides from town to town.
Soon they would reach the land of the hills. The dire news was
sent from scattered village to village, and men, women, and
children stopped their tasks and play to listen in wonder, only
half believing the outlandish tale, yet not daring to ignore it.
Thus was the white man's coming heralded in Western North
Carolina.
The previous May, Hernando DeSoto, with a flotilla of seven
ships carrying six hundred men, had landed in the proximity of the
43
�44 / Chapter Three
CHEROKEE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
Indian women patiently gathered feathers which were
skillfully used in making a robe that was proudly worn by the
head man on ceremonial occasions. Such a feather robe was
made for the outdoor drama, Unto These Hills, which is
presented each summer at Cherokee.
present Tampa, Florida. As governor of Cuba, he was exercising
his official prerogative of exploring and possessing any lands he
might discover, together with whatever wealth they might
contain. Earlier in the century, he had taken part in the Spanish
conquest of Nicaragua and later, with Francisco Pizzaro, shared in
the fabulous wealth taken from the proud Incas. Through the
simple expedient of breaking their promise, they had killed the
Inca ruler and devastated his vast empire of Peru, robbing the
temples of their gold and silver. Surely in the mountains of North
America, reasoned DeSoto and his Spaniards, similar treasures
could be had for the taking.
The army wintered with the Apalachee Indians in northwest
Florida and learned of towering hills far to the west where lived
many Indians. They learned of gold and silver taken from the
�Two Races Meet / 45
ASHEVILLE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
DeSoto and his soldiers, dad in plate armor, confront the Cherokee chief, who is
wearing his ceremonial regalia. This dramatic event of 1540 is enacted effectively in the
outdoor drama Unto These Hills.
ground and of a mighty river toward the sunset. So in the spring
DeSoto and his men hacked their way through the dense
undergrowth of the forests to the Savannah River. After a devious
circuit to the north and east, they turned west, and picking up an
Indian trail, proceeded northwest. To the awed and frightened
Indians through whose lands they passed, they must have seemed
like an endless throng as they journeyed single-file or two, three,
or four abreast, as the narrow trails allowed.
At the bannered head rode DeSoto himself in his suit of mail,
and following him were his three hundred horsemen. Behind them
came a like number of footmen and laborers, while bringing up
the rear was a herd of some two hundred hogs to insure a food
supply. Lastly came more than three hundred captive Indians,burden bearers in chains. Near the vanguard were Indian guides,
impressed in each village to conduct the army to the next town.
One of these, captured in the present South Carolina, was a
woman chief or "princess," Co-fi-tash-e, taken possibly to serve
also as a hostage to prevent her people from attacking the
�46 / Chapter Three
invaders.1 With DeSoto were a few Spanish priests, who
entertained the vague hope of converting the Indians along the
way, but whose chief duties must have been to hear confessions
and to absolve the men from constant sins of atrocities committed
upon the hapless Indians, their villages, and their crops. DeSoto
appointed one of his men as historian, and the account left by this
scribe gives the name Cherokee, the first time it appeared in
writing. He had heard it from the tribes to the east and in
transcribing it to his alphabet, he spelled it Chalaque.2 It was left to
the French of a later century to write it Cheraqui and to the even
later English to perpetuate it as Cherokee.
In due time the Spaniards reached Western North Carolina,
entering from the present Georgia just east of Rabun Gap, and
going by way of the present Highlands to Nikwasi on the site of
the present Franklin, arriving there on May 26. In this region they
came for the first time upon a tributary of the Mississippi River. In
addition to the official record kept by Roderigo Ranjel, a short
account was written by Louis Hernandez de Biedma. A third was
written by "a gentleman of Elvas," probably Alvaro Fernandez.
Later a fourth one was written by Garcilasco de la Vega, who got
his material from what was told him by a member of the
expedition. As a result, various routes have been given by
historians.
In 1936 Congress created a seven-member DeSoto Expedition
Commission to determine from the original sources available the
Spanish line of march from the coast of Florida to the Mississippi
River and the route of return. This Commission, with Dr. John R.
Swanton of the Smithsonian Institution as chairman, made use of
the four accounts together with a map which the expedition had
worked out. The Commission submitted its detailed report in
1939. With this as a guide, the North Carolina Department of
Archives and History marked the one hundred mile journey
through the state's western counties as it was traveled by DeSoto
and his men.3
The mountain Indians treated their unwelcome guests with a
kindness and respect that must have been wisely considered the
better part of valor. Too, they must have been secretly elated and
amused that it was in their territory that the captive "princess"
made her escape, taking with her the priceless collection of pearls
entrusted to her care and leaving the "foreigners" without a
guide. From Nikwasi DeSoto pushed on over the mountains to the
headwaters * of the Hiwassee River, to the site of the present
�Two Races Meet / 47
Hayesville, and from there to the earlier mentioned Cherokee
village of Gau-ax-u-le, probably near the present Murphy. This
village, possibly like others along the route, he found partly
deserted, for many terrified Cherokees had fled to the safety of
the hills.
Here at Gau-ax-u-le, if not earlier at Nikwasi, the impressive
army was received by the Cherokees, who dared not refuse the
demands for supplies of food for both men and horses issued by the
uninvited visitors. Among the provisions given to the Spanish
were little "dogs that do not bark." It has been suggested that
these animals might have been oppossums, as unfamiliar to the
Europeans as horses and hogs were to the Cherokees. Perhaps two
days later DeSoto forged ahead to the site of the present Murphy
and some fifteen miles farther northwestward into the present
Polk County, Tennessee. From one of the villages he had sent out
exploring parties in search of gold and silver. The men are
reported to have returned with copper, possibly from the mines
later known as the Ducktown mines.4
The uneasy Cherokees seem to have told the Spaniards only
what was necessary and doubtless held out hopes for more success
in discovering the coveted gold farther west, much farther west.
Indeed, it must have been with relief that the Cherokee hosts saw
the long procession of strange men and beasts disappearing into
the land of their enemies toward the sunset. As they resumed their
normal summer activities, they could not know that the security
of their race was gone, that never again would the mountain
Redmen be free from the ever-darkening and lengthening shadow
of conquest and subjugation by an alien people. They could not
foresee that their mountain land was to become a battleground for
opposing nations of these Pale Faces in a bitter struggle for the
possession of the continent.
Twenty-seven years later Juan Pardo, an officer in charge of
the Spanish fort on Port Royal Island, led an expedition organized
by Florida's governor, Pedro Menendez de Aviles, into the Indian
country where a fort or two had been built east of the Blue Ridge.
With the discovery of gold and silver as his objective, Pardo led
his forces from one of these forts into Western North Carolina,
following approximately the route taken in 1540 by DeSoto. Even
more demanding and ruthless than his predecessor, Pardo left
death and destruction and terror in his wake.
His men were moderately successful in their prospecting,
locating limited amounts of gold and silver. For the next 125
�48 / Chapter Three
years groups of Spaniards sporadically carried on mining
operations both east and west of the Blue Ridge. A few of their
shafts, tools, and coin dies have been found, but for obvious
reasons they kept their mining activities a guarded secret;
reports of their presence, however, reached the Cherokees and
other tribes so that the first English explorers to the region
were told of "white, bearded men," trespassers on Indian
territory. 5
At this time on a distant island, even more important events
were taking place, events that were destined to upset the
pattern of living developed over the ages in the Western North
Carolina mountains. About the same time as Pardo's
expedition, England came to feel that if the Spanish in the
south and the French in the north along the St. Lawrence River
were to be checked in their greed for American possessions, the
time had arrived to plant colonies on the vast English claims.
These claims stretched from Florida northward to the Dutch
and French territories and from the Atlantic Ocean westward
to the Pacific or South Sea. Accordingly, on March 24, 1584,
Queen Elizabeth granted to her courtier, Sir Walter Raleigh, a
patent for "discovering and planting of new lands and Countries
[sic]" throughout the English area unsettled by "Christian
nations." The patent was good for six years and Raleigh set
about his planting of settlers upon the land he called Virginia.6
In 1585 his first colonizing expedition landed on Roanoke
Island on the North Carolina coast and built a palisaded village.
But practically all the discouraged settlers returned to England
on Sir Francis Drake's ships which put into harbor in 1586. In
1587 Raleigh sent a second expedition directed by John White.
The mystery surrounding the fate of this little band of men,
women, and children has never been solved. But its
disappearance meant failure for Raleigh and his patent lapsed.
Yet a beginning had been made. James I, breaking the extensive
territory into two sections with a buffer zone of a hundred
miles between, granted a patent to a company organized as the
London Company, which in 1607 established a tiny settlement
named Jamestown on the James River.
To this tiny, struggling settlement reports of western
mountains were made by the surrounding Indians. John Smith,
during his stormy year in the colony, learned from Powhatan
that far to the west were "mightie Mountaines [sic]." Some
thirty-five years later, in the 1640's, Governor William Berkeley
learned that to the west was "a huge mountaine within five
�Two Races Meet / 49
days journey, and at the foot thereof great Rivers that run into
a Great Sea, to which people come in ships [sic]."7 This report
convinced Berkeley that what is now Western North Carolina
bordered the South Sea and so was the long-sought passage to
India.
Enthusiastically Berkeley planned an expedition into the
region with the two-fold purpose of locating the passage and of
discovering gold and silver as he knew the Spanish had done.
But, he wrote, he was hindered by "Unusual and continuous
Raynes [sic]." The colony over which he ruled required much
attention, and he became deeply involved in matters of politics
until the years had sped by and he came to know that he would
never make the journey himself. In 1649, however, the Virginia
General Assembly offered grants of land and mining rights to
persons discovering new territory and minerals in the uncharted
area. There is no record of anyone taking advantage of this
offer.
But Governor Berkeley could not forget his dream, and in
1670 he equipped and sent out an explorer, a German physician
named John Lederer. With him were several aides and guides.
But when at the end of a few days, these men became
frightened and turned back, Lederer went on with only one
Indian guide and companion. In time he reached the .eastern
fringe of the Cherokee country and may have been the first
Englishman to see the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge."* But he
did not cross them. He learned, however, that over these
mountains lived the Rickahockans, or Cherokees, whose land
was "great waves." He was told also of bearded white men not
far distant. These men he thought to be Spaniards, and the
waves he interpreted to be those of the South Sea, confirming
Berkeley's belief that in this direction lay the passage to India.
He could get no information about gold or silver but was told
that from the mountains the Indians got a substance with which
they painted their faces.8
During the year of Lederer's trip, another physician made
the first of several journeys into the Indian country. He was
Henry Woodward, a young Englishman lately come from
England, who had thrown in his lot with the settlers on the
Ashley River. It was a tiny settlement that was to become
known as Charles Town and that was to have a direct effect
upon Western North Carolina. What Henry Woodward's
reasons were for risking his life in the Indian country he does
not say, but he may have had several. He was young. There
�50 / Chapter Three
was the thrill of new adventure and doubtless the hope of
finding gold, for he was sure to have heard of the Spanish gold
expeditions. And judging form the records he left, there seems
to have been a genuine interest in the native settlers and a
concern for the future possibilities of land.
It was largely due to the good will toward the English
which he was able to build up in the tribes and nations he
visited that the colony of South Carolina was able later to
secure trade treaties. Among those nations willing to make
such agreements were the Cherokees, or Chorkees as Woodward
spelled the name. With the delight of a true explorer,
Woodward viewed the "brave, new world" through which he
passed and wrote enthusiastically to an English friend, "I have
discovered a Country so delitious, pleasant, and fruitfull, yt
were it cultivated, doubtless it would prove a second Paradise
[SIC]."'
The motive that brought the earliest known travelers into
Western North Carolina was trade with the Indians. From the
time that frightened Indians watched from behind protecting
trees as the pale, grotesquely garbed Englishmen landed on
American shores, the Indians and the colonists were engaged in
a struggle for a continent—a struggle that was to last some 250
years. Yet during the first hundred of those years each race
became increasingly dependent upon the other for trade. At
first, the Indians brought their furs and pelts on the backs of
runners called burdeners to the white man's towns and villages.
In the same manner they took back to their own villages the
superior tools of the white man, guns and ammunition, cloth
and trinkets.
But some of the tribes were constantly shifting their living
places, and as time went on others became increasingly adverse
to going to the white settlements. Many Virginia merchants
then found it profitable to devote their entire time to the Indian
trade since they could sell the furs to good advantage on the
English markets. Thus they began the practice of supplying
white traders with goods and sending them into the Indian
territory over the age-old trails, now firmly packed into
trading paths by the bare or moccasined feet of hundreds of
burdeners. These men heard of tribes farther to the west, and
so the lure of profits enticed traders into the Cherokee country
of Western North Carolina.
In 1673 General Abraham Wood, a prominent Indian trader in
charge of Fort Henry near the present Petersburg, Virginia,
�Two Races Meet / 51
employed James Needham, a young Englishman who had recently
come from the mother country to Charles Town where he had
built his home. Needham was to go into the unknown territory
and "explore beyond the mountains" and to chart the rivers.
General Wood furnished him with supplies and horses, eight
Indian guides, and one of his own servants, possibly an indentured
laborer, Gabriel Arthur, as a companion. Needham was an able,
promising young man, apparently eager to make the exploration.
The little party followed the trading path westward to the Yadkin
River, which they followed southward, possibly into the Catawba
country east of the Blue Ridge.
At some undetermined point they turned west and crossed the
range. Three possible routes have been traced by historians. The
men may have veered west from the Yadkin, entering Western
North Carolina along the same path that was later used by Daniel
Boone. In that case, they would have crossed the site of the present
Boone and picked up one of two trails leading to the Watauga
River and then on to the Over Hill Towns on the Little Tennessee
River.10 They may have gone farther south in the Catawba
country, however, and selected a crossing at Swannanoa Gap
where an ancient trail led over the mountains. In so doing, they
would have passed through the southern part of the present
Asheville and, picking up a trail from there, traveled west to the
present Canton and Pigeon River. A trail there would have led
them west to the Middle Cherokee Towns and on to the Over Hill
Towns. Again, they may have continued in a southerly direction
until they turned west by way of Hickory Nut Gap, passing
through the present Henderson County, going up the French
Broad to Hominy Creek and along it (over land now occupied by
the Enka Corporation Plant) to the Pigeon River and west to the
Middle and Over Hill Towns.11
By whatever route they traveled, they were in one of the
Indian towns by mid-summer. The Indians of this village had
never seen a white man, and they gazed in wonder at these
washed-out specimens of the human race and with even more
amazement at the strange beast they had brought with them. They
made the men tie the one horse that had withstood the rigors of the
trip to a stake in the center of the village so that all might gaze at
the freak of nature.
After exploring for several months Needham returned to Fort
Henry, taking several Cherokees with him and leaving Arthur as a
hostage charged with the responsibility of learning the Cherokee
language and of fostering good relations between the Cherokees
�52 / Chapter Three
and the English. Needham and his party reached the fort and,
getting fresh supplies, set out again for the mountains. But he did
not arrive at his destination. One of the Indians, nicknamed John
by the whites, may have had misgivings about this friendship with
the white men and he killed Needham on a lonely stretch of the
trade route, taking the horse and what goods he could. He charged
his Cherokee companions to see that the same fate was meted out
to Arthur. Back in their village, the Indians set about carrying out
those orders. They tied Arthur to a stake and piled brush around
him. Then two Westoe slaves began to strike a fire. At that
dramatic moment the chief arrived, saw what was happening, and
in anger shot the slaves and took Arthur for his own personal
slave. He seemed to have treated the young man as his son.
With a hunting party, Arthur was taken by the chief into
Kentucky and was thus probably the first Englishman to see the
famous "Land of Kaintuck." He was later taken through South
Carolina and the Lower Towns of the Cherokee to eastern South
Carolina on a raiding expedition against enemy tribes. On another
occasion he was a member of a revenge party sent into Florida.
Among his various experiences was also that of being captured by
a band of Shawnees. But Arthur had by this time learned much
about Indians and was able to gain the good will of his captors,
who set him free and put him on the trading path back to the Over
Hill Towns.
It was a year before he could get the consent of the chief to
return home. Then the chief announced that he would accompany
the white man to Virginia. After a series of hairbreadth escapes
from raiding parties of unfriendly Indians during which the two
were separated, both reached Fort Henry. There Arthur related
his experiences to General Wood, who reported them to his
superiors.12 That record is disappointingly meager, for the journal
that Needham kept was lost. It is safe to assume that Arthur could
not read or write, and little came of this expedition into the
mountains. It was almost twenty years before other Englishmen
are known to have entered Western North Carolina.
Preceding and during this quiet interlude events were taking
place in England and along the American coast that insured trade
with the Cherokees—trade agreements which General Wood had
complained received no encouragement from his superiors and for
which young Needham had given his life. In 1629 the King of
England, Charles I, with bland unconcern for the Indians, gave the
entire Cherokee nation, with the exception of some hunting
grounds to the north, to a friend. This grant was issued to Sir
�Two Races Meet / 53
Robert Heath, the attorney-general, and it conveyed to him a vast
tract lying between the thirty-first and thirty-sixth degrees of
latitude and stretching westward from the Atlantic Ocean "so
farre as the Continent extends itselfe[sic]."
Thus the Heath grant was between the territory of the London
Company's tract, to which the once over-all name of Virginia had
by now been limited, southward toward Florida. In its westward
sweep it included practically all of present North Carolina,
Through this gift, Heath became one of the most extensive land
owners of all times. In return for this royal favor, he was to plant
settlers in the new colony, which in the charter was named
Carolina or Carolana, honoring Charles by using the Latinized
form of his name. But Heath brought no colonists from England to
his rambling estate, and shortly after 1660 the grant was declared
void. Fortunately for the peace of mind of the Cherokees, they
never learned of this kingly grant, but the ghost of this gift later
arose to haunt and harry the British government and was not
quieted until 1769.13
The idea of forming a new colony was not easily crushed. The
newly crowned Charles II, searching for a suitable, yet
inexpensive method of rewarding his friends active in restoring him to the English throne, bethought of this vast American
territory. Accordingly in 1663 he presented the former Heath
tract to eight of his Lords. They were to be known as Proprietors
of the region and were to make settlements, select governors,
establish a nobility, and, aided by an assembly of elected colonists,
otherwise rule the colony. The proprietors were to be answerable
to the Committee of Trade and Plantations which was set up in
England under the King and Council. Almost at once the
Proprietors found that 'they wanted more land and presented their
reasons for an extention of the grant.
From 1609, when John Smith sent a search party from
Jamestown into the territory to the south, hoping to locate
Raleigh's vanished colonists, Virginia trappers had been going
into the region west of Albemarle Sound. They had been followed
by occasional private traders and now and then by a company of
soldiers sent to avenge Indian attacks on Virginia settlements.
Just when the first Englishman decided to remain in this land is not
known, but by 1648 a few had acquired land from the Indians
along the Chowan River. From time to time other hardy pioneers
trekked into the region and settled around Albemarle Sound. By
1663 there was an unrecorded number of these settlers, but a large
enough group existed to attract attention to the area now called
�54 / Chapter Three
Albernarle. The northern boundary of the 1663 grant passed south
of these tiny settlements and left them isolated since they did not
come within the Virginia boundaries. Therefore, in 1665 Charles
II, by means of another grant to the eight Proprietors, extended
the northern boundary of their lands by half a degree latitude and
the southern boundary by two degrees. Thus was the colony of
Carolina established and the way paved for its mountain section to
be opened to the white man.14
The coast of the northern section of Carolina offered few
harbors suitable for populating the colony with English
immigrants. In 1667 a settlement was made on the Cape Fear River
but was shortly afterward abandoned.15 However, in 1670, a band
of English colonists formed a little settlement on the Ashley River
in the southern half of the colony. Almost from the first the village
grew, and in 1679 it was moved to the peninsula between the
Ashley and Cooper Rivers and named Charles Town. With its
harbor unhampered by the reefs which discouraged mariners from
landing along the coast farther north, this settlement grew and
became the chief Carolina port of entry for English ships.
Relatives and friends of the settlers arrived on every vessel, and
ambitious young men, some of them younger sons in families of
wealth and estate, came to cast their lots with the forwardlooking colonists. Soon there was a pleasing bustle of activity and
an infectious spirit of optimism in the village.
With the earlier Jamestown experiences to guide them, the
colonists set about adjusting themselves and their way of life to the
conditions of an American frontier. They enlisted the aid of
friendly Indians in learning to cultivate tobacco on the extensive
holdings they cleared along the Ashley and Cooper Rivers. Then
they looked about for other crops and products that could be
marketed in the mother country in exchange for English goods
needed for a degree of convenience and comfort in their new
homes. Like all of the earliest settlements, Charles Town was
surrounded on three sides by Indian tribes, and the safety of the
village and plantations depended upon gaining and maintaining
friendly relations with these natives. Happily, they discovered that
could be accomplished at a handsome profit, and from the first,
trade with the Indians became an important business. So
flourishing did the town become that it was designated as the
capital of the colony of Carolina in 1691 (or more accurately,
perhaps, as the home of the governor appointed by the
Proprietors).
Previous to 1670, the elected General Assembly of Carolina,
�Two Races Meet / 55
first convened in 1665, met in the district called Albernarle where
the first settlements in the vast new colony were steadily if slowly
growing, largely through newcomers from Virginia. In this area,
too, the first colonial governor, William Drummond, resided as
did several of his successors. Taking his title from the region, each
was called the Governor of Albernarle. The proprietors hoped as
soon as practicable to break their territory into three counties,
Albernarle in the north, Clarenden in the Cape Fear area, and
Craven in the south. They apparently did not take the shore line
into consideration and seemed to anticipate a gradual growth
from north to south. Instead, the first attempts at settlement in the
center region failed and Charles Town became the second
settlement.16
With one assembly for the two widely separated groups of
colonists, problems of a physical nature arose, for it proved almost
impossible for assembly members in one area to attend sessions of
the General Assembly held in the other. To alleviate this situation,
after 1691 separate assemblies were established and Governor
Philip Ludwell was told that "If you find it needfull you our
governor are hereby empowered to appoint a Deputy Governor
of North Carolina[sic]. "17 Governor Ludwell did, indeed, find this
"needfull," and several deputies served in Albernarle during the
following years. These officers were directly responsible to the
appointed governor rather than to the Proprietors.
The title North Carolina used in the permission given by the
Proprietors was unofficial, but had been locally in use for some
years. By 1700 it was appearing in reports and accounts recorded
by colonial writers. In 1710 Edward Hyde, deputy governor, was
chosen by the Proprietors as full governor of North Carolina
although he did not receive this title until 1712. For that reason one
of these dates has usually been given as the date of the separation
of the two parts of the colony into North and South Carolina. But
in either case both areas made up the colony of Carolina until 1729
when the Proprietors, with the exception of the heirs of Lord
Carteret, sold their territorial rights to the English government
and the colony became a royal colony. Then one of the first
official changes to be made was the separation of the territory into
the two distinct colonies of North and South Carolina.
Thus the mountain section, which had been a part of Carolina,
now became a part of North Carolina. Nonetheless, for many
years before and after that separation Western North Carolina
was influenced not by the laws or government of its own colony,
but by the government of South Carolina.
�C H A P T E R
F O U R
Along the Trading Paths
Jj 7 the time General Wood sent James Needham and Gabriel
Arthur across the Blue Ridge, Virginia merchants and traders
were carrying on a thriving trade with the Catawba Indians in
Carolina, just east of the mountains. With the way now opened
by the travels of Dr. Henry Woodward, accompanied on one of
his journeys by young Needham, Charles Town took steps to
link the tribes to the south and east of the Catawbas in bonds of
friendship and trade with the southern port. Accordingly, trade
treaties were made in which, for a promise of protection
against their enemies, tribal chiefs agreed to funnel their furs
and pelts to Charles Town and to allow only Carolina traders
in their territory.
In 1684 such a treaty was signed with the marks made by eight
chiefs of the Lower Towns,1 thus determining future trade
relations between the Cherokees and Charles Town. To
strengthen these new relations and to cast about for gold deposits,
James Moore, later to be governor of Carolina, and Maurice
Matthews made a trip of good will into the Lower Cherokee
country. However, hearing of mining operations being carried on
by the Spaniards just twenty miles away from an Indian village,
they decided that it would not be expedient to go into the
mountain section of the Cherokee nation.2
The Indians living in the Middle and Over Hill Towns learned
of the white man's goods that could be had for making little marks
on a white man's piece of paper. They learned, too, that such
56
�Along the Trading Paths / 57
ASHEVILLE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
English traders in the 1700*s brought glass beads into the Indian country. Shell ornaments
were then discarded, and women fashioned the colorful beads into many forms of adornment.
This woman at the Oconaluftee Village at Cherokee is carrying on the tradition of her
ancestors.
marks might bring the white man's aid against their enemies. In
1693, therefore, a group of Cherokees, including several mountain
chiefs, appeared in Charles Town with a request for protection
against eastern tribes attacking the eastern border of the
Cherokee nation. Some sort of promise seems to have been given
to the chiefs, although with no official sanction, and there is no
evidence that any active help was extended to the Cherokees at
that time. A basis for a trade treaty had been laid, however, and
shortly afterward Cherokee chiefs representing all sections of the
nation signed a trade treaty with South Carolina.3
About this time the colony took the first step in transferring
lucrative trade with the Indians from the control of private
individuals to the colony itself. This process was fully justified in
view of the fact that in 1703 the estimated population of all
Carolina numbered not more than four thousand white men,
women, and children, with perhaps only about eight hundred
available for military duty. 4 Traders dealing with the Indians and
�58 / Chapter Four
going into their territories wielded immense influence with the
tribes and their leaders. They could, if they were unscrupulous in
their dealings or imprudent in their words, endanger every white
settlement.
In 1707, then, South Carolina began its task of assuming full
control of this important trade by establishing a nine-member
Board of Commissioners of Indian Affairs, 5 later reduced to five
members. It also appointed for each tribe a Factor or
Superintendent, who was to spend at least ten months of each year
in the Indian country as supervisor of the trade and traders already
in the area and of those appointed as his aides.6 The first Factor to
the Cherokees was Colonel Theopholus Hastings. He made his
home on the Tugalo River in the Lower Towns, and was paid two
hundred pounds a year, a salary later increased to three hundred
pounds. He was given two aides, John Sharpe and Sam Muckleroy,
but later asked for and got more men. He served until the end of
December, 1717, when he was transferred to the Creeks.7
Another step toward trade with the Indians was taken with
the building of Fort Moore on the Savannah River near the site of
the present Augusta, Georgia, in 1716. It was both an armed fort
and a trading post, and under an agreement with the Cherokees (a
treaty which had been worked out by James Moore and the
Cherokee representative, Charite Hayge), South Carolina was to
transport goods from Charles Town to the fort, while the Indians
were to make new trading paths connecting the fort with their old
trails. They were to furnish burdeners to bring furs bought by the
traders and the agent to the fort. In addition, the Indians were to
carry back to the traders the coveted manufactured articles
brought from Charles Town by slow river transportation, by
hired Indian burdeners, or by pack horses over a land route often
made dangerous by roving bands of unfriendly tribes.8
On July 18, 1716, the Board of Commissioners ordered that
"the twenty-one Burdeners, that brought down the bever be paid
for that service and for carrying the Goods which we are to send
by them to our Factor at the Charikees each, one Yard and a Half
of blew Duffields for matchcoats, and a quarter Yard Strouds, for
Flaps [sic]/'9 As time went on, the burdeners were endangered by
marauding bands that attacked the slowly moving human caravan.
Often the result was loss of goods and occasionally loss of life. The
fort was opened in March, 1716, and by the end of that year some
ten thousand dollars worth of goods had been brought there from
Charles Town. During 1717 fine furs carried to the fort on the
backs of ninety-one burdeners from Western North Carolina
�Along the Trading Paths / 59
brought almost fifteen hundred pounds sterling to the English.10
The demand for the white man's goods rose rapidly in
Western North Carolina. Cherokee hunters and trappers
exchanged their furs for manufactured goods at a bartering ratio
worked out under the terms of the treaty by the Board of
Commissioners. A Cherokee purchaser paid 35 skins for a gun, 16
for a blanket, 30 for a broadcloth coat (provided it was laced), 14
for a callico petticoat for his wife, and 2 for a red girdle for
himself. Mirrors and teakettles were soon in such demand in the
mountain country that traders were allowed to charge whatever
they could get. Even at the high prices some traders asked, the
demand exceeded the supply.11
Cherokee chiefs were soon complaining to the Factor and the
Board of Commissioners of the hardships endured by their
burdeners on the long trip to the fort. A few Virginia traders were
in the area east of the Blue Ridge doing business with pack horses,
and the chiefs asked for a similar arrangement with South
Carolina. Feeling that it was unsafe to send pack horse trains into
the mountains, the Board at first refused the chiefs' requests. By
1718, after several Cherokee burdeners met death on the trading
path, the petitions became too insistent to be longer denied, and
the Board yielded.
The entire trading regulations were then revised. Under the
new order, the colony licensed traders for a fee of eight pounds
per year and the posting of a bond of a hundred pounds currency,
later raised to two hundred. Traders were given credit at the fort.
There they purchased a supply of goods to be transported to the
Indian country, at first partly by burdeners, but as soon as they
could procure horses, entirely by pack train. Then the trails were
widened where necessary into trading paths over which heavilyladen horses could take the wares into the chief Cherokee towns,
where, from the storehouses, traders could distribute them
throughout the nation.12 The earliest of these pack trains made use
of the old trail from the Lower Towns to the Middle Towns. It
was the trail, perhaps older than the towns themselves, traveled a
century and a half earlier by DeSoto and his Spaniards.13
The stout little ponies used for this work would carry from
150 to 200 pounds each and, over favorable terrain and with
good forage, could travel twenty miles a day. Over the narrow,
rugged, densely forested mountain sections the progress of the
trains was much slower. John William Gerard deBrahm,
transporting supplies for the building of Fort Loudon in 1756,
reported that in the mountains six miles was sometimes a day's
�60 / Chapter Four
journey.14 William Byrd, writing in 1728, mentions seeing a
pack train of a hundred horses and fifteen men going south on
the trading path from Virginia to the Catawba country.15 As
the demands for goods increased, these trains became longer,
and James Adair tells of seeing a train consisting of 360 horses
leaving from a South Carolina fort and heading for the
Chickasaw country.16
The horses were in the charge of drivers, each of whom had
one or more helpers, usually boys. Each driver was in charge of
a section of the train, often destined for a particular trader. At
the command of a leading driver, the train started, the horses
going in single file, while the drivers cracked long, leather
whips to get their charges in line. Each horse wore a bell, and
as the snake-like procession jogged along a comparatively
smooth stretch of the trading path, the discordant jangling of
the bells made a fitting accompaniment for the men's coarse
shouts.
Continuing its trading plans, South Carolina built the
second of its western forts in 1718. It was Fort Congaree on the
Congaree River near the present Columbia, and it greatly
shortened the distance from a supply station to Western North
Carolina. As time went on, privately constructed forts
appeared, some of which, like Gowdy's at Ninety-Six, were
also trading posts and aided in the rapid transportation of goods
into the mountain section. From Gowdy's a path extended
through the present Spartanburg area, entering the mountains
near the present Tryon and going westward to the Middle
Towns.17 The fort nearest to the mountain Cherokees was Fort
Prince George, built opposite the town of Keowee in the
Lower Cherokee section. But it was a much later one
constructed in 1753 that was destined to play a far grimmer role
in the affairs of the Cherokees than that of supplying them with
goods.
The first generation of traders going into Western North
Carolina became almost a race unto themselves. Those arriving
before South Carolina made the Indian trade a colonial
monopoly, purchased their goods from eastern merchants, set
their own prices, and got what they could on the Charles Town
market for their furs. After the appointment of a Factor,
traders were assigned stations, received their supplies from the
fort, and were required to observe the price list sent by the
Board. In receiving their licenses from South Carolina, they
assumed the duty of promoting peace and good will between
�Along the Trading Paths / 61
the races, of being fair and honest in all their dealings with the
Cherokees, of not selling firearms to enemies of the Cherokees,
of buying no Cherokee slaves, and of letting no whiskey come
into their territory.
Both the traders' lives and their livelihood were under the
supervision of the Factor. Of necessity these men isolated
themselves from their own race, making their homes in
Cherokee villages. They learned about the Cherokees and the
Cherokee language. Although they never forgot that they were
white men and remained loyal to the colony and to England in
all cases of trouble, they adopted enough of the Cherokee
customs and manners to make life in Western North Carolina
livable and at times very pleasant. Practically without
exception, they married Cherokee women.
In this way the traders played a unique role in the affairs of
the colony. They were in fact, interpreters for both races. To
the Cherokees they represented South Carolina and, indeed, all
Englishmen (at first, doubtless, all white men). To the Board of
Commissioners and to the Factors they furnished needed
information concerning the Cherokees and their attitudes. They
also reported on the activities of the French, both west of the
Cherokee nation and within it. They were thus able to advise
the home colony on its Indian policy.
After 1750 the tension between the colony and the Cherokees made future trouble seem certain. The early traders, now
old in years and in service, pleaded with the Board of Commissioners, the Legislature, and Governor Glenn for a course
of action that they felt would lead to a restoration of the friendly
relations existing from 1716 to about 1743. Those were the
years of closest contact and good will between the races and the
period during which trade flourished, a trade bringing to South
Carolina an annual harvest of 200,000 furs.18
Some of these men had come into Western North Carolina
as private traders, identifying themselves for the rest of their
lives with the Cherokees. Cornelius Dougherty is accredited by
most historians as being the first, going into the territory from
Virginia in 1690. That date may be too early, and it is possible
that Robert Bunning preceded him, if Dougherty was accurate
in a statement implying that.19 In any case, these two traders
were joined by James Beamer, Ludovick Grant, and other men
with a desire to carry out the responsibilities of their positions.
Still later others came, as did James Adair, and as new trading
paths were opened from newly built forts, others, like Richard
�62 / Chapter Four
Pearis from Try on, arrived to serve the Indians.20
Now and then traders from Virginia and later from Georgia
also entered Western North Carolina, purchasing licenses from
South Carolina for the privilege of trading with the Cherokees.
William Byrd voiced the opinion of many of his fellow
Virginians when he bitterly complained of the license
requirement and of the fact that the traders from his colony had
to make the long trip to South Carolina to secure the permits.21
With some exceptions that were deeply regretted by the Factor
and the other traders, this first generation of white men dealing
directly with the Cherokees lived up to their obligations and
gained the respect and confidence of the Indians.
The type of man attracted to the out-door life of a trader
and to the Cherokee life style could not be expected to be
interested in the art of writing. But with the goods sent to the
''Factor at the Charikees [sic]" went writing paper and ink
powder. He sent reports and wrote letters to the Board of
Commissioners, while traders wrote letters when the occasion
arose.22 One trader, however, had both the desire and the
ability to leave a record of the Cherokee nation as he had come
to know it, and to his History of The American Indians today's
historian owes a debt of gratitude. This author was James Adair,
one of the most influential of the traders. He was Irish, a
member of the powerful Fitzgerald family, Adair—or Adare—
being the name of the ancient family estate. He was a younger
son and arrived in Charles Town in 1735.
Deeply interested in the surrounding Indian tribes, Adair
seems to have taken up trading almost at once and in 1736 entered
Western North Carolina. With a background of learning and
culture, he was by nature forthright and honest and had a genuine
respect for the Cherokees. From their chiefs and headmen, who
became his friends, he was able to learn their traditions and myths,
their forms of government, and their moral and religious beliefs
and practices. For the rest of his life he was a staunch supporter of
the Cherokees, even though he fought them when they joined the
French in the bloody struggle known as the French and Indian
War.23
In 1721 chiefs from Western North Carolina joined a group of
Indian delegates representing thirty-seven villages at a council
called by Governor Francis Nicholson of Charles Town in South
Carolina. There they signed a new treaty in which new
regulations governing trade were agreed upon as needed to curb
evils arising with the expansion of trade. Pressed by the colonial
�Along the Trading Paths / 63
government, the Indians also agreed to determine a definite
boundary line, clarifying the eastern limit of their country. By this
treaty the Indians lost a goodly strip of hunting territory to the
whites, but the lost land was farther east than any portion of
Western North Carolina. At this same meeting the Cherokees
approved the presence of the Factor, his aides, and white traders in
their lands and agreed to elect one of their headmen as nominal
head of and spokesman for the entire Cherokee nation. A chief
with the unpronounceable name of Wrosetasatow was elected to
this honor, becoming the first Cherokee in all the long history of
the race to rule over the entire nation.24
During the entire trading period, despite treaty safeguards, it
took the combined efforts of trader, Commissioners, and loyal
chiefs to maintain a spirit of good will conducive to carrying on
trade to the mutual satisfaction of the races. In 1725, in answer to
letters of appeal and protest, the Board of Commissioners sent
Colonel George Chicken, a member ot that Board, into the
Cherokee nation to report on conditions. Colonel Chicken,
familiar with Indians and Indian affairs, made a thorough
inspection. In his report he recommended the revoking of some
licenses, gave the names of certain traders operating without
licenses from South Carolina, and asked that several traders be put
on probation of good behavior.
From Keowee in the Lower Towns to Great Tellico in the
Over Hill Towns he went, talking to the chiefs, hearing their
complaints, and telling them of the complaints lodged against
their people. His presence, tact, and diplomacy accomplished
much, and the renewed loyalty of the Cherokee was reflected in
an increase in trade with South Carolina. There followed several
years of harmony between the races.25
Forces were at work in Western North Carolina, however,
that brought concern to thoughtful traders and chiefs alike. Some
of these forces were inherent in the business of trading itself. By
1730, the demand for the white man's goods was coming from
every Cherokee village, however remote. Guns, hoes and axes,
knives and hatchets, blankets and cloth, pots and pans had become
necessities, and the Cherokees were gradually adopting parts of
the white man's dress. This swelling trade meant that more
drivers and their helpers were needed to man the everlengthening trains and that more traders and their aides must live
in the Cherokee nation.
These factors, in turn, meant that South Carolina, in its
attempt to meet the demand, was forced to issue licenses to
�64 / Chapter Four
traders without too fine a regard for their abilities or their moral
characters. In time, drivers and their helpers were hired whose
only recommendation was that they were willing to make trips
for the money offered. Every year increased the number of white
men heading westward along the trading paths into Western
North Carolina. They were now men of assorted abilities and
business ethics. The inevitable result was the gradual lowering of
the earlier high standards of trading and the slow growth of
unscrupulous practices.
Unsavory dealings were not, of course, confined to the whites.
Cherokees sometimes pilfered or openly robbed a pack train, and
those working with the trains often demanded their pay at the
beginning of the trip only to desert it along the way. Indian
trappers and hunters, too, shirked in the slow process of preparing
their furs; yet they asked as much for their inferior products as
traders were giving for perfect furs. There were even times when
traders complained that the Cherokees refused to bring them any
furs.26
The situation was further complicated by the growing
influence of the French in Western North Carolina. Even in 1725
Colonel Chicken had found that influence rather strong in the
Middle Towns. Because of the explorations in the sixteenth
century of John Verrazzano along the Atlantic coast and those of
Jacques Cartier farther north, France had laid claim to much of
the North American continent. Early in the following century
there were French settlements along the St. Lawrence River.
Checked in their southward advance along the Atlantic coast by
the English claims and by the Spanish occupation of Florida, the
French explored lands south of the Great Lakes and the regions
farther west.
French trappers and missionaries roamed over a wide
territory. On one of his trips Jean Nicolet discovered the upper
Mississippi River and explored the area around it. Sieur de la
Salle, on his exploratory travels, discovered the Ohio River. In
1673, the very year that Needham and Arthur made an English
contact with the Cherokees of Western North Carolina, Louis
Joliet and Jacques Marquette were drifting down the Mississippi
to the west of them (actually in territory covered by the Carolina
grant which extended to the Pacific Ocean.) Nine years later at
the mouth of the Mississippi River, La Salle took possession in the
name of France of that mighty stream together with all territory
drained by its tributaries, a region so vast as to be beyond the
�Along the Trading Paths / 65
imagination of the colonists of any nation.
All of Western North Carolina lying west of the Blue Ridge
was included in this French claim. With a definite claim now
established, France allowed her trappers and missionaries to roam
at will in any or all sections of the area, and in time these men
came into contact with all of the tribes and nations occupying land
east of the Mississippi River. The next step was to establish trade
relations with as many of the tribes as possible. With their ability
to learn the various Indian languages, to take up Indian ways of
living, and to ingratiate themselves into the favor of chiefs and
headmen, the French were soon sending traders into many of the
Indian territories.
In order to protect their trading interests and to maintain their
claims to the region, the French government gave commands for
the building of forts, and one by one a string of military and
trading posts arose, extending from the present Erie, Pennsylvania, southwestward to the newly established Mobile, Alabama. In
1714 Fort Toulouse was erected near what is now Montgomery,
Alabama. From it the French could and did transport goods into
Western North Carolina. By 1730 French traders were appearing
in the mountains in alarming numbers.
These French traders, like the English, were there on claims of
their government and had come to stay. Simply by virtue of their
location—a location that had served them well in the past—the
Cherokees now became the pawns of two opposing white
governments. They were swayed by promises or considerations
shown first by one and then the other of these foreign nations.
There followed, after 1730, a period of continuous fluctuation on
the part of the Cherokees, a period of great bitterness toward one
or the other of the encroaching peoples, a period of alliances and
treaties made only to be broken, a period of utter bewilderment
and confusion. All of these shifting moods brought sharp upward
or equally sharp downward swings in the trade with South
Carolina.
Unlike practically all other frontier regions in America,
Western North Carolina was never out of touch with the more
populous and settled sections in the East until after the
Revolutionary War. The Indian trade kept open a constant and
active line of communication with Charles Town and through it
with England itself. But like all other frontier regions, Western
North Carolina attracted colorful characters and had its quota of
men coming into the mountains for exploitation and adventure
�66 / Chapter Four
THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
These native Americans were taken to London in 1730 by Sir Alexander Cuming. There
they created a sensation. Dressed in the latest English style, they were presented to King
George II, As a token of the loyalty of their people, they gave him an oppossum "crown,"
four enemy scalps, and f i f e feathers. The youngest of the group was Attakullakulla, who
became the greatest of all Cherokee chiefs.
along with its share of dreamers aquiver with grandiose schemes
of accomplishment. In this category is Sir Alexander Cuming.
As an English lawyer, Cuming had come to Charles Town on a
trip involving banking business and had stayed to indulge in
several business ventures of his own. He was always alert to the
call of opportunity. It had become evident by 1730 that the
salutary effects of Colonel Chicken's visit to the Cherokees were
wearing thin, and there was a possibility of the nation making an
alliance with the Creeks and the French. The Board of
Commissioners then accepted Cuming*s offer to go into Western
North Carolina as a self-appointed ambassador of the King of
England.
In late March, accompanied by Colonel Chicken and several
traders, he entered the mountains from the Lower Towns.
Stopping briefly at Nikwasi on March 26 to order all chiefs and
headmen of the nation to assemble there by April 3, Cuming
�Along the Trading Paths I 67
passed on over the spring-clad hills to the villages on the Tellico
and Little Tennessee Rivers. Along the way he made friends with
Cherokee chiefs and gathered strange flowers and specimens of
rock to take back to England. As he turned east again, his retinue
steadily increased until it must have resembled a primitive
caricature of an Elizabethan procession; Indians of all ranks joined
him to form a long queue winding over the rough, tortuous
trading path to Nikwasi.
The Cherokees were eager to witness the colorful ceremonies
that they knew would take place. But the traders were filled with
misgivings as they recalled what had transpired at Keowee, where
Cuming had arrived on March 23 and, without benefit of
invitation but armed with pistols, had boldly walked into the
council house containing some three hundred Cherokees in
conference. For this arrogant display of bad manners and
unpardonable breach of Indian etiquette, Ludovick Grant, a
veteran trader, had later upbraided Cuming and had learned with
horror that the Englishman had planned to fire the building and to
guard the entrance against escape if the Indians resented his
intrusion. Of this detail, however, the Cherokees were happily
unaware. They were also unaware of the scheme that Cuming
may have had even then of planting a colony of perhaps a million
unwanted European Jews on a vast tract of land in their territory.
At the village of Joree the procession was met by both Indian
and white dignitaries, including traders, and escorted the few
miles into the awaiting Nikwasi and to the council house, where a
two-day celebration was begun. That night the gleeful Cuming
recorded in his Journal, "This was a Day of Solemnity, the greatest
that ever was seen in the Country [sic]." One feature of the
ceremonies was the impressive rites by which Moytoy of Great
Tellico was raised from the rank of chief to that of headman. As
Moytoy was crowned with a red dyed oppossum cap, symbol of
his new authority over his fellow Cherokees, Cuming's
imagination reached out for a use to which he might put the ritual.
He found it.27
After the crowning of Moytoy and the slow progress of the
peace pipe from one to another of the three hundred assembled in
the council house, the moment for which Cuming had made the
long trip came. In a pompous speech he brought the greetings and
love of King George to these, his loyal subjects, and he climaxed
his words by proposing a toast to the great English Overlord of the
Cherokees. He suggested that, to show their allegiance, they
�68 / Chapter Four
kneel before him, the king's representative. A tense moment
followed during which every white man present except the
eloquent Cuming felt sure that nothing short of a riot could ensue.
The Cherokees were a proud people. Never, in all their long
history, had they acknowledged allegiance to any foreign
country. In all their relation with the colonial governments they
had conferred and made treaties as an independent nation dealing
with foreign nations.
Perhaps it was the personal charm, together with the sheer
audacity of the speaker that hypnotized the chiefs. At any rate,
they came forward, knelt before Cuming, the self-appointed
ambassador, and (with good whiskey of the white man) drank a
toast to "their" king. Cuming then suggested that they present
him with the oppossum cap lately used in their ceremony , in order
that he in turn might present it to King George as a token of
Cherokee acknowledgment of the English ruler as their king.
Again the chiefs agreed. But Cuming went still farther. He
requested that he be allowed to select several prominent
Cherokees to accompany him on a forthcoming trip to England so
that they might present the crown to King George in person. Once
more they agreed. Perhaps in making his Journal entry, Cuming
had been right, after all. Certainly for the Cherokees it was a
"Day of Solemnity," and surely nothing comparable to it had ever
taken place in Western North Carolina.28
Cuming selected six men, a seventh joined him in Charles
Town, and with the Cherokee party he set sail for England on the
man-of-war Fox, arriving at Dover on June 6. In London, where
they were entertained at the expense of the government, these
Cherokees from the Carolina mountains created something of a
sensation. They were taken to see places of interest with stress on
the military and naval might of the island country, and they were
the guests of prominent Englishmen, even posing for their group
portrait. But the high point of the sojourn came when, dressed in
the "civilized habit" of knee breeches, lace-and ruffle-trimmed
shirts, white stockings, and shoes adorned with silver buckles,
they were presented to his Majesty, King George II.29 Attakullakulla, the youngest of the group and later to be an outstanding
chief, made a speech to the king and either he or Cuming himself
presented the English ruler with the oppossum crown, four enemy
scalps, and five eagle feathers as symbols of Cherokee loyalty.
What the king thought of his self-appointed "Ambassador to
�Along the Trading Paths / 69
the Cherokees" is not recorded. But letters of complaint about Sir
Alexander Cuming's business dealings in Charles Town reached
London during this time, and the Cherokee delegation was taken
from his supervision and placed under the sponsorship of
Governor Robert Johnson of South Carolina, who was in the
English capital on business, and under Sir William Keith of
Pennsylvania. For two months the Indians were in England since
they were not allowed to leave the country until a treaty had been
drawn up by the Board of Trade.
On this paper, known as the Treaty of Whitehall, the
Cherokees put their marks and in so doing acknowledged the
English government as virtual owners of their vast domain and the
English king as their ruler. They agreed to fight with the English
against any or all English enemies in America, to trade only with
the English, to allow only the English to build forts and to "plant
corn" in their territory, to return all runaway slaves to the
English, to allow crimes against the English to be tried in English
courts, and to notify the English of all trespassers of other
nationalities entering the Cherokee country.30
Back in their own land, neither these delegates nor the
Cherokee nation made any attempt to abide by this treaty. It
seems evident that not a one of the signers understood the
significance of making his small cross on the white man's piece of
paper. It is certain that the group had not been given the authority
by an Indian council to make treaties or to give promises in the
name of their nation. For some years, however, the Cherokees
swayed again to the English, and trade with South Carolina
increased. All of this may well have been the result, not so much of
the treaty to which the English tried to hold the Indians, as of
Cuming's spectacular trip and the exciting visit of the chiefs in
London.
But the French to the west, bent on making good their claim to
Western North Carolina, had no intention of permitting this new
Cherokee-English era of good will to endure. In 1736, just six
years after Cuming's visit, they sent into the region a man whose
influence and grandiose schemes presented the gravest threat to
English trade and prestige yet felt. He was a shrewd, shriveled,
little German, calling himself Christian Priber (although that may
not have been the name by which he had been christened some
thirty-five or forty years earlier). He was charged with the duty
of winning both Indian trade and Cherokee loyalty from the
�70 / Chapter Four
English to the French.
No better choice of a spy could have been made. Entering the
Over Hills section, he soon added a fluent use of the Cherokee
language to his long list of speaking languages which included
French, German, Spanish, Latin, and English. He adopted Indian
dress and the Cherokee manner of painting his body and face, and
he married a young Cherokee woman. In a short time he
succeeded in speaking, in looking and in living like a Cherokee. As
a result, his power in the Over Hills area was solidly established.
Priber had entered the Cherokee country for reasons
undreamed of by either the English or the French. His schemes
included nothing short of a vast Indian empire or confederacy
made up of all the tribes and nations living between the Blue
Ridge and the Mississippi River. The Cherokee nation was to form
the nucleus of this far-flung dominion. During a period of
expediency, he planned to ally with the French, but when the
time was ripe, anticipated throwing off all foreign control, thus
hastening the day he foresaw when "European nations will have a
very small footing on this continent."
Priber's first step in forming the empire was to select a capital,
and as a temporary one he chose Great Tellico where he made his
home. There in a colorful ceremony he crowned Moytoy, raised
to the position of headman at the time of Cuming's visit, as
Emperor to rule over the many nations. Then he had himself
appointed His Imperial Majesty's Principal Secretary. Under that
title he wrote arrogant and demanding letters to the colonial
governments, and when his requests were summarily refused, as
he knew they would be, he used the replies as propaganda against
the English. It was then comparatively easy to arouse in the
Cherokees a feeling for the importance of their position and hence
to make them aware of their bargaining power in the EnglishFrench struggle.
The resulting unfriendliness toward the English and the rapid
decline in English trade alarmed the traders, and South Carolina
at length sent Colonel Joseph Fox and two aides to Great Tellico
to arrest Priber.31 Priber received the officers cordially and freely
admitted that he was working out an alliance between the
Cherokees and the French at New Orleans. He also revealed his
hopes to bring into the Indian nation some qualified Frenchmen to
teach the art of ammunition making. He must have been secretly
amused at this naive gesture on the part of South Carolina,
knowing himself far too intrenched with the Cherokees to be in
�Along the Trading Paths I 71
danger from the three English officers. To their chagrin, Colonel
Fox and his men found themselves being politely conducted out of
the Over Hills section by Priber's men.
As his journal shows, Priber was meantime laying the
foundation for his Indian empire. He drew up elaborate plans for a
worthy capital which would be called Cusseta to be built in the
present Georgia. It would have a communal form of government
and would be a city of refuge, welcoming the oppressed of
Europe, those fleeing from justice, runaway slaves, in fact, any
one wishing a haven from political or personal storms. Trial
marriages • would be allowed, even encouraged, and children
would be the wards of the state. Property ownership would be, as
already with the Indians, a privilege of the community. Laws
were to be few, and the only crimes recognized in this city would
be an act of murder actually committed within it and laziness.
By 1743 Priber apparently felt that the time had come for
further developments in his plan, and with several Indian guides
he set out for Mobile, intending to stop enroute at the French fort
of Toulouse. But before he reached this first goal, he was captured
by the English and taken to Frederica in the new colony of
Georgia. There he was held a prisoner until General James
Oglethorpe's return from his campaign against the Spanish in
Florida. Both General Oglethorpe and the English soldiers were
deeply impressed by the charm, learning, and quiet courage of this
ugly, odd, little man.
On his person they found the manuscripts giving in detail the
plans for organizing the empire and the detailed plan of his capital
city. When they pointed out to him that this whole scheme was
treason from the angle of both the French and the English, his
reply hinted at a well organized group of which he was only one.
Priber implied that, regardless of his fate, the work would be
taken up by others.32 That there may have been some truth in this
is evident from the fact that he apparently intended to publish his
plans in Paris and to procure from there and from other European
cities and countries financial aid for the project.
Before the English brought Christian Priber to trial, however,
he sickened and died; and the dream of a vast Indian empire died
with him, although the English were never able to offset his
influence in the Over Hills area. His work and influence there
may have been a strong factor in the Cherokees of this section
joining the French some years later in the conflict known as the
French and Indian War. More immediate results were the
�72 / Chapter Four
frequent attacks on Englishmen and the burning of scattered
English villages on the fringe of the Cherokee country. Historians
have differed in their opinions of this extraordinary spy and
schemer. How much personal ambition entered into his plans can
not be determined. He claimed to have a genuine love for the
Cherokees, in fact, for all Indians and insisted that his aim was to
serve the interest of the Indians against white aggression. In that,
too, there seems to have been at least a kernel of truth, for at the
time he was arrested, he was carrying the manuscript of a
Cherokee dictionary which he had written and doubtless intended
to publish in Paris. Certain it is that English traders, while they
feared his influence and struggled to keep the Cherokees loyal to
the English, acknowledged Priber's brilliant mind and great
learning and ability. One of these traders, James Adair actually
kept up a personal correspondence over a period of several years
with the German in the pay of France.33
The removal of Christian Priber from the scene temporarily
relieved but did not solve the complicated problems of the English
in their relations with the Cherokees of Western North Carolina.
By the middle of the century many forces were being woven into
the dark fabric of contention and warfare. The clouds over the
mountains were threatening a deluge and gathering their
thunderbolts of fire and carnage.
�C H A P T E R
F I V E
Lightnings Flash
and Thunders Roll
XJL fter 1743 South Carolina's trade with the mountain Cherokees
was carried on with constantly increasing friction between the
two races. Part of the growing difficulties arose from sources that
the colony could not control, but much of the trouble was due to
general mismanagement in Charles Town. Virginia and Virginia
traders had been resentful of South Carolina's grip on the
Cherokee trade. When William Byrd voiced that resentment in
1728, he said that the colony of Virginia had been trading with the
Cherokees for eighty years.1 That seems hardly possible except as
some hunting bands of Cherokees may have come by chance to
eastern settlements. Yet it was a Virginia trader, Abraham
Wood, who had envisioned the possibility of trade with the
mountain nation and who had made possible the first contact with
it.
In the eighteenth century, however, two restraining factors
had kept Virginia traders from what they considered their fair
share of the lucrative Cherokee trade. One was the inconvenience
of obtaining licenses from South Carolina. The other was the
contour of the land over which they had to transport their goods
from the supply stations to the Over Hill Towns. From Charles
Town the trading routes were over fairly open country along
broad rivers and traders did not meet the difficulties of mountain
73
�74 / Chapter Five
trails until comparatively close to their destination in Western
North Carolina. This was not the case with Virginia traders.
Shortly after leaving their supply stations, they found themselves
in a mountainous region where the paths were winding and often
tortuous. The discomforts increased when they had to cross the
precipitous Blue Ridge. The shortest route, directly west from the
upper Yadkin River across what is now Watauga County and on
to the Indian towns, made far too strenuous a trip to be undertaken
by traders with loaded pack horses. In fact, as late as 1766, when
James Smith and his Negro companion left a Kentucky-bound
party and traveled eastward from the Tennessee River to
settlements on the Yadkin River, the colonists there could
scarcely credit Smith's story, declaring that they had never known
of any one coming directly over the mountains by that route.2
Virginia traders had to travel farther south, therefore,
crossing the Blue Ridge at Swannanoa Gap or at Hickory Nut
Gap. Even then they had a long mountain trip before reaching the
villages of the Cherokees. Frequently because of that fact, they
continued south on the east side of the Blue Ridge until they made
connection with the route passing through Keowee of the Lower
Towns. There they sold their wares or took the trail through
Rabun Gap into the mountain section, although this meant, after
1733, the purchasing of a license from Georgia as well as from
South Carolina. It is no wonder then, that in 1725 Colonel George
Chicken reported having seen not more than three Virginia
traders in Western North Carolina.
The physical hardships endured by Virginia traders were
overcome, however, when in 1740 Stephen Holstein, a hunter
from their colony, crossed the Blue Ridge farther north and west
of the Yadkin River and discovered the river that is now known by
his name modified into Holston. Explorers then found that it
connected with the Tennessee and thereby with the Over Hill
Towns. Consequently, a shorter and more convenient trade route
was soon in operation from Virginia to the Cherokee villages.3 In
1751 a group of chiefs, throughly disgruntled at the treatment they
were receiving from South Carolina, went to Williamsburg,
seeking a formal trade treaty with Virginia. In spite of the
immediate and vigorous protests of South Carolina's Governor
James Glenn, Virginia, under the governorship of Robert
Dinwiddie, openly laid claim to its share of the Cherokee trade.
He allowed its traders to enter Western North Carolina without
licenses from South Carolina.4
�Lightnings Flash and Thunders Roll I 75
One of the Cherokee grievances was the fact that South
Carolina was allowing its traders to deal with the Creeks and
other Indian tribes to the west who were Cherokee enemies
and with whom at times they were engaged in actual warfare. 5
These grievances were deeply felt in the Lower Towns, which
were almost constantly at war with the Creeks. The resulting
petty annoyances perpetrated against the English culminated in
1751 in an act of sabotage that threatened open war with the
English. Spurred on by inflamed Indians from Keowee, Middle
Town Cherokees looted the English storehouse at Stekoa on the
Tuckaseigee River, on the site of the present Whittier.
The rumor spread that a trader, Barnard Hughes, and three
other white men had been slain and that all English traders were to
be killed. Traders from the entire section fled to the safety of
English forts. The rumors proved untrue, and the English, with
the aid of Old Hopp, the revered Cherokee chief, succeeded in
regaining most of the stolen goods. But conscientious traders
could read in this incident the writing on the wall. Ludovick
Grant, James Beamer, Cornelius Dougherty, and Robert Bunning
all sent formal statements to Governor Glenn, pointing out the
explosive conditions prevailing, citing abuses perpetrated by
English traders, calling attention to the ever-strengthening
French influence, and pleading for a firm and just course of action
on the part of South Carolina.6
As a result, in 1753 Governor Glenn held a council with
Cherokee Chiefs. The Indians demanded more guns and
ammunition to fight the Creeks and a cessation of all English trade
with their enemies. They also wanted forts built for their
protection against western tribes and the French. A compromise
was reached by which Governor Glenn promised the forts in
exchange for a promise of peace between the Cherokees and
Creeks. In compliance with its promise, South Carolina built a
fort across the river from Keowee, which was named Fort Prince
George.7
Two years later still another treaty between South Carolina
and the Cherokees was signed when representatives from both
groups, including Governor Glenn himself and Old Hopp, met at
Saluda Old Town, some twenty miles west of the present
Columbia, South Carolina. By affixing their marks to this
document, the Cherokees agreed to an eastern boundary of their
territory that would run between the present cities of
Spartanburg and Greenville, South Carolina, thus ceding to the
�76 / Chapter Five
TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY
Fort London:
The English, at the request of the Over Hill Cherokees, built this fort on
the Little Tennessee River for protection against the French. The cannons were brought
over the mountains on the backs of stout little ponies. The Cherokees, angered at the
actions of the English shortly afterward, burned the fort in 1760. This picture shows an
ancient cannon and the restored stockade,
colony a vast stretch of land, none of which was in Western North
Carolina. In return, the colony agreed to certain trading reforms
and again promised a fort for the Cherokees in the Over Hill
country.8
Dilatory in carrying out the renewed promise of an Over Hill
fort, the colony took no action until rumors reached Charles Town
that the French were planning to erect a fort on the Hiwassee
River. In 1756 Fort Prince George, which had been built in 1753
only to be allowed to fall into ruins, was renovated and steps were
taken to construct the promised fort. A site was selected by the
Cherokees on the Little Tennessee River near the mouth of the
Tellico River, six miles from Chota, the city of refuge.
Then to Western North Carolina came its first architectengineer. John William Gerard de Brahm, a German, had earlier
pleased the colony with the ramparts he had constructed for
Charles Town.9 At first he refused to undertake the enormous task
of getting needed supplies and arms over the narrow trails leading
into the mountain section, even though he was offered three
�Lightnings Flash and Thunders Roll / 77
hundred men and five thousand pounds sterling for the project. He
accepted the mission when John Elliott, an able trader, assumed
the burden of transporting the materials from Fort Prince George
to the Tennessee River site.
In his Journal de Brahm described that job of transportation,
the most difficult so far undertaken in the mountain country. The
cannons presented the gravest problems. They were poised
crossways over the backs of the pack horses and lashed to the
bodies of the animals with belts. Occasionally, in fact,
distressingly often, one end of a projecting cannon would catch on
a tree and become twisted, throwing the horse and breaking its
back or neck. Over the rugged trails six miles proved to be a day's
journey. 10
On a location superior to the one selected by the Cherokees de
Brahm constructed a fort in the form of a rhombus. Captain
Raymond Demere came from Fort Prince George and was placed
in command of the forces at the new fort, so far the most westerly
of all those built by the English. It was named Loudon, in honor of
John Campbell, Earl of Loudon, who had recently arrived in
America to become governor of Virginia and commander-inchief of all British troops in the English colonies. Following a
disagreement with Demere, de Brahm left Western North
Carolina before the fort was completed and the work was finished
by Demere. Thus the engineer-architect became known among
the Indians by the title bestowed upon him by Old Hopp, "The
Warrior Who Ran Away In The Night."11
Even with their long desired fort a reality, the Cherokees
could not remain on amiable terms with the English. The Indians
and the whites—both the English and the French—were caught in
an eddying whirlpool of conflict that was international in scope.
Even had they so desired, they perhaps could not have stemmed
the tide of war in this remote frontier so far from the warring
European countries that had declared it. Locally, however, the
English were largely responsible for the nagging irritations that
eventually sparked open warfare and drove the Cherokees into
the French camp.
Much of the blame was attached to Charles Town itself. During the years since the Indian trade had been taken over by the
colonial government, the port city and the colony had grown and
prospered. Other industries, especially rice and tobacco raising,
had come to exceed Indian trade in importance as broad
plantations along the rivers were cleared and cultivated.
�78 / Chapter Five
Decreased interest in trading with the western tribes resulted, and
contact with the Indians lost its adventurous appeal for men of
ability, judgment, and character. Instead of going into the Indian
trading as many of their predecessors had done, newcomers were
now taking up other occupations, as were also the young men
reared in the colony. Then, too, a new generation of men had
come into political control of South Carolina with ambitions
along many lines other than the colony's relationship with Indian
tribes and nations.
As the fear of Indian attacks on coastal settlements vanished,
the securing of added territory and the desire to make money
became the chief motives in all colonial dealings with the natives.
The Commission of Indian Affairs failed to function, and when a
Superintendent of Indian Affairs was now and then appointed, he
was no longer required to spend most of his time in Indian
country. Any and all persons asking for trading licenses received
them, and there was scant supervision of their lives and business
methods. Complaints from older traders and from Cherokee
leaders got little attention in Charles Town. Finally there came a
time when Old Hopp, nominal head of the Cherokee nation, said
sadly, "Charles Town is a place where nothing but lies come
from.12"
Traders within the Cherokee territory kept the turmoil at the
boiling point. Two reasons had been given by South Carolina for
taking over control of the Indian trade: to correct the abuses
arising in connection with private trading and to introduce
Christianity among the natives. Over the long years this latter
motive had been a dead letter. No attempt had ever been made by
the colony to send or to sanction missionaries in the Cherokee
country. The only knowledge gained by the Indians of the white
man's Christianity had come through their contact with traders.
During the first years of the trading arrangement, with its rather
close supervision, that contact had been comparatively wholesome, and the Cherokees had respected many of the traders and
had even at times protected them. But by 1755 the English traders
in Western North Carolina were, with many exceptions, a motley
crew, bent on making money by whatever methods presented
themselves.
Henry Timberlake, in his notes on conditions he found in the
Over Hill Towns in 1761, states that on most of their wares the
traders were making five or six hundred per cent profit, although
he thought that they doubtless lost on some items. Diluted
�Lightnings Flash and Thunders Roll / 79
whiskey, which sold at the same high price of the pure product,
increased in volume each year. Before 1755 the vicious system of
selling on credit under a plan that held relatives responsible for a
Cherokee's debts had been firmly established so that hundreds of
Cherokees, now dependent upon English goods, were hopelessly
involved in debt and found themselves and their families at the
mercy of unscrupulous traders.13
It seems almost a miracle that influential Cherokee leaders
like Old Hopp, Attakullakulla, and Ostenaco should remain
friends of the English; yet these and other leaders were unable to
control their own people. A new generation of Cherokees had
arisen, young braves softened by the labor-saving devices of the
white man and corrupted by their contact with the conscienceless
traders whom they came to hate. Bands of these young Indians, on
pretext of hunting or of going on war raids against enemy tribes,
pillaged the small, white settlements east of the Blue Ridge and
stole horses and whatever else they could lay hands to. With no
respect or regard for each other, hotheads of both races were
quick to avenge real or fancied wrongs, rushing into rash actions
that were sure to have far-reaching repercussions.14
In 1757 the colony of North Carolina, within whose territory
the mountain section of the Cherokee nation lay, passed its first
law affecting that region. The division in 1710 of Carolina into
North and South sections, each with its own governor and
assembly, was later made official; yet, until 1750 North Carolina
had been in no way able to assume any of the trade with its
western Indians. Following the early settlements on Albemarle
Sound, groups of Europeans had made small settlements along the
Pamlico, Neuse, and Cape Fear Rivers. Later migrations had
brought settlers into the piedmont region. But not until past the
middle of the eighteenth century had white men reached the Blue
Ridge with plans for making settlements. Then for the first time
citizens of North Carolina were in danger of raiding parties of
Catawbas and Cherokees.
In 1756, Virginia had asked to join South Carolina in the
building of Fort Loudon, but the Cherokees wanted each colony to
construct a fort. Virginia built a small fortification, therefore,
near the ancient capital of Echota, but it was never garrisoned.15
At the same time North Carolina took steps to protect the
Catawbas east of the Blue Ridge from the ever-raiding Cherokees
by building a fort, thus strengthening the colony's relationship
with the Catawbas and safeguarding the westward moving
�80 / Chapter Five
settlers. Later, for protection against both the Catawbas and the
Cherokees, settlers just east of the Blue Ridge built Fort
Davidson, on the site of the present Old Fort.
During the far-flung ramifications of the French and English
conflict, the attention of King George was called to the
mounting tension at their meeting point in the wilds of Western
North Carolina. He removed all Cherokee affairs from the
control of the Board of Trade, placing them directly under the
supervision of the Crown. This brought an end to South
Carolina's monopoly of the Cherokee trade. Edmund Atkins was
then named as Superintendent of Indian Affairs in 1757, and in
December of that year the colony of North Carolina passed a law
putting all trade with the Catawbas and Cherokees within its
borders wholly under the supervision of Atkins and his successors.
The new law gave these men complete power to enforce their
authority. For the first time North Carolina took legislative
cognizance of the western portion of her territory. Upon the
death of Atkins in 1763, Captain John Stuart was named to succeed
him and held his position until after the Revolutionary War. 16
This attempt at centralizing the Indian program came too late
to save Western North Carolina from becoming a bloody
battleground, and if James Adair is to be taken as an authority on
conditions of the period, Atkins was inexcusably delinquent in
putting a constructive program into action. In spite of pleas from
Cherokee chiefs, Atkins did not go into the territory for a year. In
the interval, according to Adair, the French were steadily gaining
converts to their cause among the Cherokees. In fact, Adair
summed up the situation by declaring that the English forced the
Cherokees to become enemies through a long chain of wrong
measures that proved costly both to the English and to the
Indians.17
Two unfortunate incidents touched off the spark that
enkindled the raging fires of horror known as the Cherokee War,
one phase of the wide-spread French and Indian War. The details
of one of these incidents are not too clear since the episode was
reported to both Indians and whites by the excited, prejudiced
participants. This much seems clear. Some Cherokees returning
from Virginia to their Over Hill Towns, losing some of their
horses, replaced the animals by stealing those belonging to a band
of Virginia frontiersmen coming back from western Virginia
where they (and possibly the Cherokees) had been engaged in war
activities. The white men were quick to retaliate, and a skirmish
�Lightnings Flash and Thunders Roll / 81
ensued during which some Cherokees were slain and others taken
prisoners. This episode aroused the already French-inflamed
faction of the Cherokees, and they replied to the insult by laying
seige to Fort Loudon and its English garrison.18
The way for this action had been well paved by the operations
of the Chevalier Christian De Lantagnac, a Frenchman appointed
by the governor of Louisiana as liaison officer to the Cherokees.
His base was Fort Toulouse, but he seems to have spent much time
in the Over Hill Towns, possibly as a trader. There his propaganda
had been successful enough to worry the Cherokee leader and
Great Warrior, Ostenaco (known as Judd's Friend) and to alarm
Captain Paul Demere, who had succeeded his brother as officer in
command at Fort Loudon. Lantagnac's efforts also caused the
French governor to report to Paris that the Cherokees had been
won to the French cause.19
The second incident was a shocking example of South
Carolina's mismanagement of its Indian affairs. Cherokee
retaliation after the previous incident had included the murder of
two soldiers and a trader at Fort Loudon in 1759. Governor
William Lyttelton, who had replaced Governor Glenn, demanded
that the Cherokees surrender those guilty of the crime. The Indian
answer was to lay siege in September to Fort Prince George. To
Lieutenant Cotymore, in charge of this fort, this act signaled the
beginning of an Indian uprising. His spies had earlier brought him
rumors that the Cherokees had entered into an agreement with
the Creeks to join in a general attack against the English as soon as
the Creeks began hostilities by killing all English traders within
their nation. Learning of the siege, the Council at Charles Town
advised an immediate declaration of war. This action was delayed
when in October a large delegation of Cherokees, headed by
outstanding leaders, went to Charles Town in an attempt to
prevent a conflict and to ask for additional ammunition.
The Council then advised the new governor, inexperienced in
Indian affairs, to hold a specified number of the delegates as
hostages until the murderers of the white men were turned over
for punishment. Governor Lyttelton, however, suggested going to
the relief of Fort Prince George with an impressive number of
troops, and this plan was adopted. Accordingly, Lyttelton refused
to make any treaty or agreement with the Cherokee delegation.
At a meeting with the Indians he announced his intentions of going
to the fort on the Keowee unless the Cherokees surrendered the
murderers. At the same time, he promised the delegates safe
�82 / Chapter Five
return to their nation. It was thus an unpardonable breach of good
faith when, a few days later as the Indians were on their way
home, they were taken into custody and held as hostages, being
later taken to Fort Prince George.20
With an army of approximately fifteen hundred, Governor
Lyttelton reached Fort Prince George on December 19, 1759. In
the year that had followed since South Carolina had paid the
Cherokee nation an indemnity for the murders, earlier mentioned, of their warriors returning from Virginia, twenty-four
Englishmen had been victims of the Cherokees.21 The governor
now demanded twenty-four Indians for execution as the price for
releasing the three Cherokee peace leaders being held at Fort
Prince George—Oconostota, who had headed the delegation to
Charles Town, Ostenaco, and Fiftoe of Keowee. Largely through
the efforts of the Cherokee peacemaker and friend of the English,
Attakullakulla, a compromise was worked out by which several
unfortunate braves were substituted for the three leaders, who
were liberated. Three, and shortly afterward the fourth, of the
participants in the Fort Loudon siege were then turned over to the
English, and the Cherokees agreed to twenty-two of their men
being held at the fort as hostages until the remaining guilty
Cherokees were turned over to the English. In view of an
outbreak of smallpox that threatened widespread desertion from
his army, Governor Lyttelton then led his troops back to Charles
Town.22
As might be expected, this agreement was unsatisfactory to
the Cherokees, and the insult to their delegates on an avowed
peace mission rankled in the hearts of men in all sections of their
nation. The growing hatred of the English was fanned by the
propaganda of the French, and on January 19, 1760, some English
traders in the Cherokee country—reports reaching English
officials said twenty-four—were murdered and all Englishmen in
the territory fled for their lives to the hills. Fort Prince George
was again besieged, and the aroused Cherokees began attacks on
small white settlements on the South Carolina and Georgia
frontiers. On February 16, Lieutenant Cotymore, who was
roundly hated by the Indians, was enticed from the fort on a
pretext of truce and shot from ambush. Inside the fort, officers
were at once ordered to put hostages in chains. When the first
captive approached and stabbed the officer, the English soldiers
fell upon the group of hapless Indians, brutally slaughtering every
one of them. This atrocity crystalized anti-English sentiment in
�Lightnings Flash and Thunders Roll / 83
the Cherokee nation and united all sections. The war was on.23
Immediately white settlements along the Yadkin and
Catawba Rivers were attacked by bands of incensed Cherokees
led by the recently liberated Oconostota. All of this was a matter
for the king's government, and in June a revenge army made up of
Highlanders and colonial volunteers under command of Colonel
Archibald Montgomery arrived at Fort Prince George. They
succeeded in raising the siege and then moved on to nearby
Keowee, capital of the Lower Cherokees, and burned it. From
there they went systematically through that section of the Indian
nation, burning towns, destroying all crops, grain stores, and
orchards, and forcing frightened women and children to flee into
the mountains. When the scorched earth policy had been carried
to its completion, Colonel Montgomery sent word to the Middle
Towns to surrender. They refused, and he and his troops
proceeded over the mountain pass. After carrying out his mission
in this area, he planned to go to the aid of the besieged Fort
Loudon on the Little Tennessee River.
In this attempt he failed, for the Cherokees had assembled a
large force and met Montgomery's army at Echoee, a few miles
from Nikwasi. There, on June 27, a bitter battle was fought,
during which twenty Englishmen were killed and seventy-six
wounded. The Cherokee losses are not known. Although the
Cherokees withdrew, the English were compelled to retreat,
returning to Fort Prince George.24 This left the besieged garrison
at Fort Loudon with no hope of aid, and it was forced to surrender
or starve. Captain Demere capitulated on August 8,1760. Under
the terms of surrender, the garrison was to be allowed to leave the
mountain country unmolested and with sufficient arms and
ammunition to ensure a safe journey to Fort Prince George. The
English, in turn, were to leave all their stored arms and
ammunition in the fallen fort.
As the retreating Englishmen, two hundred strong, wound
along the Tellico Creek, they were suddenly attacked about ten
miles form the fort by the victorious Cherokees, who shot Captain
Demere and twenty-nine of his men, taking the others prisoners.
These soldiers, with the exception of John Stuart, who was
allowed to escape, were later ransomed by the English. The
occasion for this violence was the fact that the Cherokees,
inspecting the deserted fort, had discovered that ten bags of
powder and a quantity of cannon balls had been hidden under the
floor and that other small arms and ammunition had been thrown
�84 / Chapter Five
into the river by the departing soldiers. Furious over the white
man's perfidy, the Cherokees had rushed to avenge it. They later
burned the fort.25
As news of this atrocity spread eastward, resentment against
the Cherokees flamed up throughout Virginia, North Carolina,
and South Carolina. The colonists and British army planned a
convincing answer to this massacre and to Colonel Montgomery's
defeat in the form of an army of sufficient size to quell the
Cherokee uprising once and for all. No attention was paid to
Ostenaco's rather pathetic attempt at avoiding further warfare
made at Niwasi in September when the English flag was raised
over a group of Cherokees gathered there prepared to express
loyalty to the English.
Each colony organized its militia and received volunteers to
join the British forces placed under the command of LieutenantColonel James Grant. The Virginia troops, commanded by
Colonel William Byrd III, marched westward to the Holston
River. When Byrd found it necessary to return east, he left his
men in the charge of Colonel Adam Stephen. Stephen stationed
the Virginia sector of the army on the Long Island in the Holston
River, site of the present Kingsport, Tennessee, some 140 miles
from the Cherokee Over Hill Towns. There they constructed a
fort which would serve as a border protection, as a base of
supplies, and as a point of attack upon the Over Hill Indians.
South Carolina's force of seasoned Indian fighters under
Colonel Thomas Middleton and North Carolina's volunteers
under Colonel Hugh Waddell joined the British forces moving
west from Charles Town. That force was composed of regulars,
many of whom were Scottish Highland troops, and all were
experienced in border warfare. Indian warriors from tribes that
were century-old enemies of the Cherokees formed one unit in the
campaign. Catawbas from North Carolina, Mohawks from New
York, and Chickasaws recruited from Georgia by James Adair
were put under the command of Captain Quentin Kennedy.
Altogether, the colonies furnished about half of Grant's army of
three thousand men, a number in contrast with the two thousand
led by Montgomery the previous year.
On May 21, 1761, this army, the largest yet sent into the
district, had traveled three hundred miles from Charles Town
along the old trading path and had arrived at Fort Prince George.
There the peacemaker, Attakullakulla, brought renewed peace
overtures. They were rejected by Grant in view of orders given by
�Lightnings Flash and Thunders Roll / 85
Lord Jeffrey Amherst, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces
in America at the time. Grant had been instructed to punish the
Cherokees throughly before making any terms of peace. On June
7, therefore, the army started for the Middle Towns.
Entering the mountains by way of the trading path from
Keowee, the forces stretched in single file for a distance of some
two miles as they wound along the narrow, tree-lined trail. In
addition to the soldiers, there w^ere six hundred pack horses laden
with the officers' baggage, stores of ammunition, and a thirty day
supply of flour for the army. There was, also, a sizable herd of beef
cattle. All the animals were in the charge of rangers and herders.
As Grant had expected, the Cherokees, from six hundred to a
thousand strong, attacked the moving army as it passed through a
gorge. But by detailing added troops to protect the pack trains
from serious threat of being cut off and by ordering certain troops
to keep up a steady volume of shots into the woods where the
attacking Indians lurked, Grant succeeded in keeping the men
advancing to an open plain.
There, in spite of the constant fire of the Cherokees, he was
able to get his forces across the ford of the Little Tennessee River
and to defend his position through several hours of sharp fighting.
The Indians finally suffered such a casualty toll that they
retreated. Grant lost ten men and found that fifty-three others had
been wounded, one of them dying later. Thus, just short of a year
after Montgomery's defeat, this so called second battle of Echoee
(actually fought a short distance from the scene of the first
encounter) was ended. After burying the dead, Grant's troops
marched on into the village of Echoee.
News of the immense size of Grant's army and of the heavy
loss of life suffered by the Cherokees preceded them, and they
found the village deserted. They destroyed it. Without resting
the troops continued in the darkness to Nikwasi, destroying the
deserted village of Tassee on the way. At Nikwasi the tired army
rested several days. Then there began a thorough destruction of
towns, crops, gardens, and orchards, all of which had been
deserted by the frightened Indians, who had fled into the hills.
Passing through the country, Grant and his forces encountered
almost no opposition. The only casualties occurred when some
Cherokee sniper succeeded in killing a sentry or two. On this
punitive campaign the British forces traversed the most difficult
terrain yet crossed by a British army when, with a detachment of
fifteen hundred men, Grant passed over the wild, pathless Cowee
�86 / Chapter Five
range in the darkness and rain to reach the towns scattered along
the banks of the Tuckaseigee River. Wherever he went, the
pattern of total destruction took form until the villages of the
Middle Towns were mere heaps of ashes; the farms became ghosts
of burned and broken trees and scorched fields.26
The British Army was not without its losses. By the time that
Grant got back to his temporary base, he found that three hundred
of his men were ill and that one thousand more were without shoes
after their long marches over the rocky mountains. Grant sent a
detachment to the most westerly of the Middle Towns to prevent
the Cherokees there from joining the Over Hill warriors in an
attack on the Virginia troops and then led his men back to Fort
Prince George. He had been in Western North Carolina a little
more than a month and as a result, fifteen towns of the Cherokees
had been burned and fifteen hundred acres of growing crops
destroyed, while an estimated five thousand Cherokees had been
driven into the hills to survive as best they could. In a little short of
a year, Montgomery's defeat had been avenged with ample
interest.
The widespread devastation, together with the presence of
British troops at the site of the present Murphy, deterred the Over
Hill Cherokees from putting into action any plans they may have
had for attacking the Virginia contingent on the Long Island of the
Holston. In early autumn, therefore, a delegation led by Old Hopp
and made up of other chiefs and four hundred of his people arrived
at the fort to sue for peace. By November 19 the terms were
ready, and a cessation of war was granted to the Over Hill Indians.
Once more Attakullakulla led a delegation representing the entire
nation to Fort Prince George where terms of surrender and peace
were drawn up. That segment of the French and Indian War
known as the Cherokee War came to a close.27
Broken in spirit and with hundreds of its young warriors dead,
the Cherokee nation faced the task of rebuilding homes before a
winter that could well bring starvation and disease. The Principal
People were never to recover wholly from this national disaster.
The Indian trade was completely disrupted, and the people were
without needed supplies and without money. Nor could they fall
back on the French, upon whom so many of them had pinned their
faith. The French had had a large part in provoking the war and
had aided the Cherokees, perhaps, as some of the English soldiers
felt, even joining in their battles. But in the Cherokee defeat, the
French had also met defeat. Their mother country and their
�Lightnings Flash and Thunders Roll / 87
colonial empire had fared badly in other sectors of the long battle
line that stretched from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Their
bastions of defense had fallen like ten pins before the steady fire of
the British forces.
In 1758 the French fort at Louisburg had fallen as had the Fort
Frontenac and Fort Dusquesne. The next year Montcalm and his
French army were defeated by General James Wolfe, bringing
Quebec into the hands of the English. Fort Ticonderoga and
Crown Point were then given up, and Montreal surrendered in
1760. By the time the Cherokee War was over, the dream of a vast
French empire in the New World had vanished, and a treaty of
peace between France and victorious England was signed in 1763.
Through it England gained the French possessions in Canada and
forced the French to relinquish their claims to land east of the
Mississippi River. French traders in the Cherokee country packed
their wares, ceased their propaganda, and silently betook
themselves away from the councils of the Indians and out of the
Cherokee villages. As a permanent reminder of their old claims to
Western North Carolina, they left only the adjective French
attached to the Broad River west of the Blue Ridge.28
�C H A P T E R
S I X
The Lull Between the Storms
o Cherokee population statistics were available until well into
the nineteenth century, but from time to time South Carolina
officials and white traders made estimates of the number of
people, especially warriors, living within the boundaries of the
Cherokee nation. In 1715 Governor Robert Johnson reported to
the Proprietors that there were perhaps nine thousand Cherokees
trading with his colony and that the nation had eleven towns in the
Lower area, thirty in the Middle settlement, and nineteen in the
Over Hill area. William Byrd in his History of the Dividing Line gave
the number of towns as sixty-two and thought that there might be
four thousand warriors. 1 In 1735 traders estimated the population
at seventeen thousand and gave the number of towns as sixty-four.
In 1738, however, small-pox reached Charles Town by a
European ship and was unwittingly carried to the Cherokee
country by trading caravans. The rapidly-working disease swept
unchecked over the Indian nation. By the spring of 1739 every
home was mourning its dead, and not more than half the people
were left to till the fields and furnish the pelts and furs wanted by
the white traders. By the middle of the century the population had
greatly risen but was still apparently far below the 1735 figure.
When the Cherokee War broke out, traders estimated that the
Cherokees could muster not more than twenty-three hundred
warriors. 2 How many defenders were slain in the raids by
Montgomery and Grant and how many men, women, and
�The Lull Between the Storms / 89
children died in the starving times that followed is not known, but
the number must have been large.
During the trading period, Cherokee villages varied greatly in
size, many of them being merely clusters of five or six houses with
their outlying fields and gardens. In fact, no town approximated
the status of a city. No record left in pre-Revolutionary accounts
credits Echota with more than thirty houses, although mention is
made of a Lower Cherokee town of some five hundred dwellings.3
Over the years towns were destroyed by accidentsvby inter-tribal
conflicts, and by the whites. Some of them were rebuilt, but
others were not.
Now and then new towns were erected as was the case in the
Middle settlements when refugees from the Lower Towns fled
there after Montgomery's raid. Then, too, the importance of
towns changed, some losing their prestige to others. For example,
Great Tellico, during the time that Priber lived in it, superseded
Echota, although the latter remained the city of refuge. Also for a
period of time the capital of the Middle Towns seems to have
. shifted from Nikwasi to Joree, a few miles away. When the peace
treaties were signed in 1761, ending the Cherokee War, only
nineteen or twenty Over Hill Towns remained.4
When Old Hopp sued for peace at the fort on the Long Island
of the Holston River, some four hundred Cherokees were with
him. After the signing of the armistice, he requested that an
English officer be sent with the delegations to their towns in order
to explain the terms of peace and to receive the pledge of loyalty
from his people. Colonel Stephen felt he could ask no officer to
undertake a task so far beyond the call of duty as a journey into the
strongly pro-French towns might well prove to be. Henry
Timberlake, a young Virginian who had helped to draw up the
terms of the treaty, volunteered to make the trip. He refused,
however, to join the Cherokees and with one companion made the
one hundred and forty mile, adventure-packed journey to the
Indian capital. From there he went to town after town, smoking
innumerable peace pipes, being entertained with Indian dances
and games, and feasting on the choicest meats of the hunt and the
best of the stored vegetables. In the council houses he received
protestations of Cherokee loyalty, and he, in turn, expressed the
good will of the English and the hope of long peace between the
races.5
Timberlake became deeply interested in these people and
learned what he could of their customs and ways of life, of their
�90 / Chapter Six
beliefs and religious life. He made observations on the land and its
possibilities. He felt that in their thinking and basic manner of
living the Cherokees, even after fifty years of trading with the
whites, had absorbed little if any of the white man's civilization.
They had, Timberlake said, adapted some of the white man's
wares to their needs, and he saw that they had some European
vegetables in their gardens and some European fruit trees in their
orchards. He was pleased with the fine breeds of horses and the
fine droves of hogs he observed, although he noticed that there
were no sheep or cattle. Both men and women, he found, were
adopting the white man's dress, and the women had learned to
sew. In spite of the fact that the young Virginian was constantly
on the alert as a hostage, he was drawn to the Cherokees and
freely and sincerely gave them his friendship. 6
Timberlake was called upon to test that friendship in an
unexpected manner. When at last he was allowed to return to
Williamsburg, taking with him about thirty white prisoners held
by the Indians during the war, the Great Warrior of the Over Hill
Towns, Ostenaco, announced that he would accompany the white
men. Joining the party were also a hundred and sixty uninvited
warriors. In Williamsburg, Ostenaco saw a portrait of King
George and suddenly decided that he must go to England and
personally express the Cherokee loyalty. When he could not be
dissuaded, Governor Fauquier detailed Henry Timberlake to
conduct the Great Warrior and two of his Indian companions to
the English capital.
Like the chiefs taken to London by Sir Alexander Cuming
thirty years earlier, these Cherokees made a sensation in the
capital city. Among their noted visitors were Sir Joshua Reynolds,
who painted a portrait of Ostenaco, and Oliver Goldsmith, who
wrote an account of these American aborigines in his Animated
Nature. Sir Alexander, who was languishing in a debtors' prison,
was given a parole to act, as best he could, as interpreter for the
Warrior. The Cherokees were given an audience with King
George, and Ostenaco made a speech. He doubtless experienced
some difficulty in maintaining his native dignity and poise in the
English garb he wore, the latest word in ruffles and silks. The
Indian holiday seems to have been a delightful affair, thoroughly
enjoyed by the Britishers and the Cherokees, in fact, by all save
Timberlake. He had personally paid all the expenses and was
never able to gain complete reimbursement from the Board of
Trade.7
With the close of the French and Indian War in 1763,
�The Lull Between the Storms / 91
representatives of Virginia, Georgia, and North and South
Carolina met with a group of Cherokee chiefs and explained to
them the terms of the peace treaty. A royal proclamation that
same year restrained the whites in the two Carolinas from
entering or taking up land west of the Blue Ridge, that is, west of
the headwaters of streams flowing into the Atlantic Ocean. By
this means the king hoped to avoid further border conflicts. The
Cherokees were, of course, in no position to bargain to their own
advantage. Also that year the native Americans signed a treaty
ceding to South Carolina approximately one hundred square miles
of their land in that colony, pushing their eastern boundary west
to a line running north and south through the colony from a point
on the Savannah River and passing near the present Greenville, on
to the North Carolina line.8 Unaffected by the king's proclamation, Virginia gained by a forced treaty all Cherokee lands within
the present state of Virginia and West Virginia in 1770 and in 1772
won from the Cherokees all lands east of the Kentucky River.9
The Cherokees, scarred by memories of the recent war and
fearing the encroachment of the whites, asked for a clearly stated
eastern boundary line in the two Carolinas. That request was
granted, and by royal order in 1767 North Carolina's Governor
William Tryon, accompanied by two surveyors, two regiments of
militia, and sixteen servants and aides, made the trip to the
Cherokee country.10 The new South Carolina-Cherokee line was
surveyed and a line run from it into North Carolina. But to survey
the wild terrain of the Blue Ridge was an impossible feat.
Both Cherokees and whites agreed to a line declared from
Tryon Mountain, passing near the present town of Tryon and
following the crest of the Blue Ridge in a northeasterly direction
to the mines of Colonel Chiswell in Virginia. The Board of Trade
also agreed to this arrangement. While later surveys showed that
such a line would not pass the designated site in Virginia, the crest
of the range provided a boundary sufficiently clear to both races.
The Cherokees were to stay west of that line; the whites were to
stay east of it. The present Blue Ridge Parkway, along stretches of
its North Carolina length, follows that old line of demarcation.11
But there were loopholes in this agreement. In the first place,
the line did not apply to Virginia. In the second place, it was
possible that it would not govern the Lord Granville tract that
crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains in the northern part of North
Carolina. And in the third place, white men had already looked
upon the fair mountain land with covetous eyes, and spirals of blue
�92 / Chapter Six
smoke were already rising skyward from scattered cabins
dangerously close to the Blue Ridge. South Carolina traders had
entered the Cherokee country under treaty arrangements and
could in no way be called settlers, although many of them
remained in the territory for the rest of their lives. Even though
they married Cherokee women and their children were
Cherokees, their status remained that of visitors or sojourners.
They had no desire to own land, but they adopted the native
American way of life, becoming a part of the Cherokee
community.
How early daring hunters and trappers, with only their wits
and their guns to protect them from the natives, crept warily over
the mountains will never be known, for they were not the type of
men to write of their deeds. But like the traders, they were not
settlers and had no interest in owning the land they saw beyond
the Blue Ridge. Even before Governor Tryon's line was drawn, a
few hardy settlers east of the mountains had begun the practice of
taking their cattle over the ranges to the meadows beyond for
summer forage. For convenience, some of them had built tiny log
shelters. But these men, too, had no intention of settling in this
region, and when pasturing days were over, they took their way
back over the hills to their cabins to the east.12
But there were other men corning into the Cherokee country
on other missions who pictured the land as it might be under the
tillage of white settlers. As early as 1670-1674, Dr. Henry
Woodward had seen the western country as a "second Paradise"
beckoning to Englishmen with the vision and the courage to enter
it. The dashing Sir Alexander Cuming conjured up in his mind the
picture of Zion, its Jewish inhabitants dwelling in the midst of the
Cherokee Philistines. Apparently he also had visions of permanent
English occupants, for with a view to future mining, he took back
to England specimens of rocks and "iron stone."
A quarter of a century later the engineer de Brahm uttered a
surprisingly accurate prophecy of this land's future when he
wrote: "Should this country once come into the hands of the
Europeans, they may with propriety call it the American Canaan,
for it will fully answer their industry, and all methods of European
culture, and so as well for European produce (the rice only
excepted) for provisions of all kinds; indigo, silk, cotton, hamp
[sic] flax, oil, wine; be it for raising stocks of horses, cattle, sheep,
goats, and hogs; be it for metals, minerals, fossils, and stones, or be
it for rnanufacturys [sic] of all kinds. This country seems longing
�The Lull Between the Storms / 93
for the hands of industry to receive its hidden treasures, which
nature has been collecting and toiling since the beginning ready to
deliver them up."13 In 1752 an exploring party had actually
entered Western North Carolina with the aim of selecting a tract
of land upon which to settle a colony. The Cherokees were fully
justified in wanting a line drawn, past which the white man would
not be allowed to "plant corn."
In the years immediately preceding the Revolutionary War,
the population of North Carolina increased with amazing
rapidity. In fact, between 1759 and 1771 it practically doubled.14
Political upheavals and religious persecutions in various European
countries brought many thousands of immigrants to America.
From the German Palatine provinces individuals and organized
religious groups arrived in Philadelphia to join German
settlements established earlier. They became known as the
"Pennsylvania Dutch." Although fewer in number than the
Germans, many Swiss also landed at the Pennsylvania port city,
and there was a rather steady stream of Irish and a few French
Huguenots.
Two waves of migrating Scottish settlers likewise swelled the
tide of incoming Europeans. These newcomers sought both
religious and political freedom in the New World. One wave
brought men, women, and children from northern Ireland, where
Scottish settlements had been made more than a century before in
six counties of Ulster. The political and economic disorders were
generated by two acts of Parliament. The Woolens Act of 1699
restricted the sale of Ulster woolens and linens to markets in
England and Wales, thus destroying the woolen industry in
Ulster. The Test Act of 1704 was an attempt to coerce Ulster
Presbyterians (followers of John Knox) into adhering to the
Anglican Church. Both of these acts resulted in an uprising that
gave North Carolina a goodly share of its population by the time
of the Revolutionary War.
These Scotch-Irish arrived in America by way of Philadelphia
and Charles Town, or Charleston as the southern port was now
frequently called. From Scotland itself came the other wave of
immigrants, made up of both Highlanders and Lowlanders, most
of whom had taken part in the abortive attempt of "Bonnie"
Prince Charles to regain the English throne and reinstate the
Stuart rule. After the decisive defeat of the Prince's Scottish forces
at Culloden Moor in 1746, many participants, forced to take the
stringent oath of allegiance to the English king, were glad to put as
�94 / Chapter Six
PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS, 1964
The Bryan Settlement and Squire Boone Home, 1747-1773: Before 1750 people were
entering the Yadkin valley by way of this Great Wagon Road from Pennsylvania. Among
those early settlers were Bishop Augustus Gottlieb Spangenberg's group of Moravians
(1753) and the parents of Daniel Boone (1750).
�The Lull Between the Storms I 95
many miles as possible between themselves and the British crown.
At the orders of the English government, therefore, they came to
the colonies to start life anew.
Many of these immigrants, in view of the oath they had taken,
became Tories during the Revolutionary War. For the most part,
they settled along the Cape Fear and other rivers in the eastern
part of the colony; some of them found their way into the
piedmont. But the Scotch-Irish who came to dominate the "back
country" had taken no such oath, and their resentment against
English restraint and decrees made them ardent exponents of both
political and religious freedom. They became leaders in the movement that led to the struggle to win freedom and separation from
the mother country.15
After 1740 immigrants of all nationalities found that both
Pennsylvania and eastern South Carolina were fairly well settled,
with the best lands taken up by earlier arrivals. Then, too, the
gathering conflict with the French opened Pennsylvania's western
border to Indian and French guerrilla warfare. Thus the newcomers streamed westward. Those coming to South Carolina
followed the old trading paths to the west, settling south and east
of the Catawba lands or, turning north into North Carolina,
settled along the Pee Dee and Catawba Rivers and their
tributaries. The German, Swiss, Welsh, Irish, and Scotch-Irish
arriving at Philadelphia, followed an old Indian trail to the
Shenandoah valley in Virginia. They traveled along its length and,
crossing the mountains, reached the Dan River from whence they
crossed to the Yadkin valley and continued south to the land east
of the Catawba River. This "Pennsylvania Road" was a harsh,
unfriendly, tortuous, narrow trail, but over it, with their meager
belongings, came most of the families making up the settlements
in the piedmont and western sections of North Carolina.16
As early as 1740 daring settlers had begun the community that
was to grow into Charlotte, while others that followed during the
next few years took up land in the present Burke and Rutherford
Counties. It was to gain the good will of the Catawba Indians and
to protect these westward moving settlements that North
Carolina in 1757 built a fort east of the Blue Ridge. Even so,
during the Cherokee War these tiny villages were in constant
danger of raids, and occasionally a settler lost his life.
When in 1729 the English Crown had purchased the Carolina
shares from the Proprietors or their heirs, Lord George Carte re t's
heir had refused to sell and had been given his eighth of the vast
�96 / Chapter Six
territory from the Virginia boundary southward for a distance of
sixty miles and stretching, as granted in the 1663 charter, from the
Atlantic Ocean to the South Sea. By 1750 this strip of land, with
two thirds of the colony's population, was held by John, Earl of
Granville, and was known as the Granville Tract. Lord
Granville's agent set up a land office in Edenton to sell tracts of
land in the area to incoming settlers.17
To this office in 1752 went Bishop August Gottlieb
Spangenberg of Pennsylvania with a party of six "Brethern" and
was granted by Francis Corbin, the agent, a huge area in the "back
country" of North Carolina. The land was to be selected by
Spangenberg and surveyed by the men accompanying him on an
exploring trip into the region. This property was being purchased
in the interest of a group of Protestants, Germans of the Moravian
faith. They had come to Pennsylvania to colonize but had found
there no suitable tract large enough to serve their purpose. Bishop
Spangenberg, leader of their faith in America, hoped now to
locate land farther west where a colony might be settled to carry
out the religious beliefs and practices of the group and to engage,
if possible, in missionary activities among the Indians.
The little party started westward but because of illness two of
the men were forced to drop out, being left at the homes of friends
in Pennsylvania. The remaining four (Spangenberg, a surveyor,
and two guides) followed early trails and roads, which brought
them after a strenuous trip into the Yadkin valley. From this trail
they branched off on Indian trails and then onto the even narrower
buffalo trails in search of land. They stopped long enough to make
surveys around the present Hickory and Morganton areas. They
continued their journey by traveling north and west and on a day
in early December found themselves lost in the rugged Blue Ridge
range. After the loss of a horse on the pathless, precipitous hills
and after chopping their way out of laurel and rhododendron
thickets, they came to a valley, open and beautiful, in which three
creeks united. There, Bishop Spangenberg felt, would be an ideal
place for an Indian mission. The Moravians were looking at the
valley in the present Watauga County where today the city of
Boone stands near those three forks of the stream. In spite of the
inviting valley, the country did not appeal to the Bishop as a place
to settle his colony, for, as he wrote, "The western part of North
Carolina is all hills and valleys and that pours the water
together."18
�The Lull Between the Storms / 97
COURTESY OF DR. INA W. VAN NOPPEN
Daniel Boone: Boone was bom in Pennsylvania in 1735 but lived for 26 years in North
Carolina. He won fame as a hunter, an explorer, as a scout for the Richard Henderson
Company, and as a trail blazer. With a crew of men he hacked out the Wilderness Road to
Kentucky, Over it the Henderson Party traveled. This likeness of him at 80 is a copy of
the only portrait ever painted of him.
Unfortunately for the travelers, Western North Carolina
gave them an unfriendly welcome in the form of a blinding snow
storm. So it was with decided relief that a few days later they
chanced to meet and join with three hunters returning to the
�98 / Chapter Six
PHOTO BY BARBARA GREENBERG, FOR THE APPALACHIAN CONSORTIUM
Daniel Boom's Trail from North Carolina to Kentucky, 1769. Marked by N. C. Daughters
of The American Revolution: The rock on which the plaque is mounted was hauled from
Rich Mountain Gap (circa 1905) by Cicero Greer and Lewis Bryant ofBoone to its present
site in the yard of Mr. and Mrs. Howard T. Greer in Zionville in Watauga County.
Yadkin across the mountains. Back in the land of the Yadkin
Spangenberg's party surveyed a tract of land ten miles wide and
eleven miles long and gave it the name Wachovia, a word
meaning meadow and stream. The tract was approved by
Granville's agent, and an additional tract was later arranged for,
making the Moravian grant approximately 100,000 acres. There in
1753 a party of the "Brethern," having accomplished the
incredible feat of bringing with them a wagon over the
Pennsylvania Road, began their central village, Bethabara. This
palisaded town proved to be a haven of refuge to the scattered
families east of the Blue Ridge during the frightening days of the
Cherokee War.19
Although the hunters and cattlemen were not themselves
settlers in Western North Carolina, they furnished glowing
accounts of fertile valleys beyond the Blue Ridge to land-seeking
men streaming along the Pennsylvania Road into the Yadkin
�The Lull Between the Storms / 99
valley. Several of these hunters and trappers became guides for
exploring parties looking for suitable hornesites. The most famous
of these was Daniel Boone. His parents had been among the
earlier immigrants from Pennsylvania, settling in the Yadkin
section where in the present town of Mocksville, a marker
designates the site of his father's cabin.
Young Daniel grew up on the frontier and at an early age was
now and then crossing the mountains into the same valley viewed
by Bishop Spangenberg. There, on occasion, he is reputed to have
made use of a shelter cabin for herders built by Benjamin Howard.
The site of that cabin is today marked by a plaque on the campus of
Appalachian State University. Throughout this section Boone
hunted and trapped and explored until by 1767 he was familiar not
only with the best trails in the present eastern Tennessee, but also
with those running on west into the "Land of Kaintuck." In fact,
he had by that date conducted a party into that western land.20
Back at his home—now a cabin near the Blue Ridge in the
present Wilkes County—Boone's knowledge of lands and trails
beyond the mountains won him a local reputation. In 1761 he
was asked to guide a party of hunters from Virginia into the
eastern part of the present Tennessee, which was then a part of
Western North Carolina. In 1769 a hunter named John Finley
asked Boone to conduct an exploring party from Virginia into the
Kentucky country, where a site was selected for a village to be
known as Walker's Settlement. Along the route the men selected
farm sites for their friends back east under an open grant for
120,000 acres from the colony of Virginia. Some of the locations
chosen were actually within the colony of North Carolina, but no
settlements were made at that time.21
Colonel Byrd's troops in 1761 had passed through a part of
North Carolina's western lands on their way to quell the
Cherokee uprising, and some of the officers and soldiers, during
their stay on the Long Island of the Holston, saw the possibilities
for future settlement in the western valleys. At the end of the
French and Indian War with the danger of Cherokee raids
supposedly over, pioneer families from east of the Blue Ridge and
many arriving from Virginia and Pennsylvania took their
belongings over the mountains, selecting land and building their
cabins on the upper Holston, Watauga, and Nolichucky Rivers.
These scattered pioneers had received grants from Virginia.
The earliest came perhaps in 1769 and were joined in the following
three years by hundreds of others seeking cheap land and elbow
�100 / Chapter Six
SOUTHERN APPLACHIAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
Daniel Boone hoists a bear in an exciting scene from the historic outdoor drama, Horn in
the West, which has been performed for 25 consecutive years in Boone, North Carolina.
room. Soon the smoke of home fires could be seen up and down the
fertile valleys. The increasing numbers pushed the settlers south
and east, and one of them, running a surveying line, discovered
that many had claimed and were clearing land in North Carolina
and were therefore outside the protection of Virginia. William
Boen (or Bean) is said to have been the first of those settling that
area.22 To insure a degree of safety the settlers made a temporary
agreement with the Cherokees by which they were granted
settlement rights, and they notified the North Carolina
government. The new North Carolina settlement came to be
known as the Watauga Settlements, extending over a considerable area in the present Tennessee and along the Watauga River in
what is today Watauga County, North Carolina. They were the
first permanent white settlements in Western North Carolina.
Among the hundreds who came to make their homes in the
newly opened area were a surprisingly large number of able men
�The Lull Between the Storms / 101
with courage and vision. They were willing, even eager, to work
hard in order that they might create in this wilderness a home for
themselves and their children. But they were intolerant of
restrictions and demanded a just share in their political
organizations and freedom in their religious thinking. Out of this
number, two gradually assumed leadership, expressing in their
words and actions the finest and best of the pioneer spirit that was
common to all.
One of these was James Robertson, who arrived early in 1770.
He was a self-taught North Carolinian whose sheer ability and
impressive personality insured him immediate recognition by the
other settlers. He was by his very nature a pioneer, and others
caught the enthusiasm for the sentiments that he genuinely felt
and expressed. In fact, after a year in the section, he returned east
and led a party of sixteen families to the area. He was to prove a
tower of strength to these western settlers in the trying years
ahead.23
The second of these leaders was the educated Virginian, John
Sevier. Handsome, courtly in manner, and military in bearing, he
was able to adapt himself with poise and tact to any situation. He
understood men, and his unerring judgment, far-seeing plans, and
sound principles made him the most outstanding and influential of
all the Watauga settlers and one of America's greatest pioneers.
Without his leadership the story of the scattered Watauga
Settlements in the following eight or ten years might well have
been a sad, deeply tragic page in the history of Western North
Carolina.24
In the summer and fall of 1771 and throughout the next year,
men from the piedmont section of North Carolina, many of them
earlier settlers or sons of settlers there, arrived in the Watauga
Settlements to take up a new life in a territory where they hoped
to find economic security and justice, together with freedom from
the oppressions of the colonial government. They were the Regulators who were defeated at the Battle of Alamance and were fleeing west to avoid taking an oath of allegiance to the king's colonial
government. The experience through which they had just passed
still rankled in their hearts.
The Germans, Irish, and Scotch-Irish, together with a
sprinkling of English, who had made settlements on the choice
river lands in the piedmont section of the colony, had brought
with them a distrust of government and bitter memories of the
intolerance and injustice that had caused them to leave the lands of
�102 / Chapter Six
their birth and ancestors. In North Carolina they sought freedom
along many lines. They found themselves, however, a long
distance from the seat of the colony's government; moreover, this
area, especially after 1750, grew with such rapid strides that the
western representation in the colonial Assembly was increasingly
out of proportion to its population. The western delegates,
constantly urging reapportionment, always met with failure
because of the controlling votes of delegates from the older and
more stable section of the colony, who intended to keep a firm
grip on the legislative policies of the government.
To add to the general aggravation of the westerners, they
found themselves the economically poor section of the colony; yet
because of their rapid growth in population, they were furnishing
a large share of the colony's taxes. They came to feel that the
chief—perhaps the only—interest of the government in them was
the amount of taxes that could be raised in their settlements, a
goodly portion of which was spent in eastern communities.
Deepening their resentment was the unjust system of their courts.
Both civil and criminal cases considered important were tried in
the east, a regulation that brought bitter complaints from the
Western North Carolina and piedmont settlers. As an added
grievance, they were forced to support the Anglican Church
although they were, for the most part, Protestants.25
Whatever ties these newcomers from Europe might have
developed with the colonists along the coast were prevented by
the extremely meager means of communication between the two
sections. People in the "back country" were forced to rely upon
themselves for protection and for the solutions to their local
problems. The result was a growing spirit of independence that
led to opposition to the eastern delegates and to the often illchosen administrative officers which the Crown sent into their
area. At last these western discontents organized, calling
themselves Regulators. They issued a series of "Advertisements"
calling for reforms of stated abuses, held several large mass
meetings, and petitioned Governor Tryon to correct certain
flagrant injustices.
No redress was forthcoming from the Governor, Assembly, or
courts, and the rapidly growing Regulator organization made
plans to take affairs into its own hands. A crown officer (one
Colonel Lynch, sent into the area to collect special taxes levied to
pay for Tryon's "Palace") was hanged, and rumors that the
Regulators were planning an armed attack against New Bern
�The Lull Between the Storms / 103
26
caused Tryon to order out the militia. Under Hugh Waddell, the
troops marched west where a pitched battle took place on May 16,
1771, at Alamance. The poorly-equipped and untrained Regulators, no match for the disciplined militia, were defeated and
forced to take an oath of allegiance.27
The Regulator movement, arising out of geographic
conditions and pioneer economic problems, was pitted against a
comparatively stable eastern society and English colonial policy.
It left its scars in the hearts of the piedmont settlers that did not
completely disappear until the colonists of all sections of the state
were united in a common struggle against England itself. The
spirit of the Regulators was to crop up again during the long
process of welding North Carolina into a state, but the immediate
result of the Battle of Alamance was the westward movement of
many of the Regulators, who, rather than take the required oath,
fled across the mountains to join the Watauga settlers.
During the era of Indian trade with South Carolina, a
comparatively easy and continuous contact with the eastern ports
was enjoyed by traders in the Cherokee villages. That contact did
not exist for the pioneers in the Watauga Settlements. In fact, it
was not to exist in any part of Western North Carolina later
opened to white settlers. Roads and trails leading from the coastal
areas of North Carolina westward to the mountains were poor
and often circuitous. Men finding it necessary to travel to the
capital took the Pennsylvania Road to Virginia and at some
trading path in the east turned into North Carolina. An alternate
route went to Charleston by way of the old trading path from
Tennessee that ran east of the Blue Ridge into the Spartanburg
area, linking with the Great Path to Charleston. At Charleston a
boat could be taken to some North Carolina port.
Realizing, then, their isolation from the North Carolina
government, representatives from the scattered Watauga
Settlements met early in 1772 and drew up a document that they
called the Articles of the Watauga Association. The document
has not survived. Existing references to it, however, reveal that
although formal independence was not declared, it established a
real and impressive informal independence. It provided for a
Court of five elected Commissioners, a clerk of the Court, and a
sheriff. It recognized no higher authority and it authorized the
raising and directing of its own militia and the power to negotiate
with the Indians, British agents, and the colonies of North Carolina and Virginia.
�104 / Chapter Six
*r
'
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The injustices and political, economic, and religious oppressions suffered in their European home countries and again in the
piedmont of North Carolina had taught these settlers much. A
group of sturdy pioneers, able and far-sighted men, learned to
�The Lull Between the Storms / 105
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prize freedom above all things, and they now had a determination
to build a community in which justice and equality might rule.
The result was Western North Carolina's first constitution.
Democracy had come to the mountains.
�C H A P T E R
S E V E N
A New Flag
for Western North Carolina
Jjetween 1771 and 1776 the settlements along the Holston,
Nolichucky, and Watauga Rivers steadily grew as colonists from
central North Carolina, from Virginia, and families from
Germany, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales arrived to take up
holdings and to adapt themselves to a new way of life. Although
the Cherokees viewed this spreading colony with distrust and at
times with alarm, the temporary treaty they had made with the
Watauga Settlements remained in force. This was largely due,
perhaps, to the militia that had been organized under the able
leadership of John Sevier and Isaac Shelby. The native Americans
were probably further intimidated by the brave show of strength
displayed by the colonists in the palisades thrown up around their
villages and in the forts they erected. In addition, every Cherokee
recognized the fighting ability of "Nolichucky Jack" Sevier.
North Carolina, busy with the distressing events of a
gathering war, could not take—at least did not take—any steps to
make the agreement with the Cherokees permanent. The pioneers
were left to their own devices and continued to control their own
affairs, becoming the first colonists to isolate themselves from the
older, more stable seacoast areas of their colony.
The Western North Carolina settlers were, in these years,
106
�A New Flag for Western North Carolina / 107
practically unaffected by the chain of events taking place along
the Atlantic. From newcomers and from their own men returning
from infrequent trips to eastern ports for supplies or tor a meeting
of the General Assembly they learned of the passage of the Stamp
Act in 1765; and news also arrived of the subsequent taxes levied
by the English government upon the colonies, including the hated
tax on tea. They heard, too, of the active opposition in North
Carolina to all these acts and of rumors that other colonies were
likewise bitterly protesting the English measures. In 1774 people
of the mountains were informed that aroused citizens had taken
the reins of government from Governor Josiah Martin, who had
later fled to the safety of an English vessel, and had set up the
Provincial Congress of North Carolina. They also learned that in
September representatives from all the colonies had met in a
Continental Congress in Philadelphia to which North Carolina
had sent three men.
But the news of all these events reached the settlements west
of the Blue Ridge weeks—more often months—after they had
occurred and must have seemed to the pioneers unrelated to their
own immediate problems. Without doubt many among them felt
a sense of relief that they and their families were well away from
the scenes of turmoil. In 1775, however, came news that made
every pioneer aware that even the mountain settlements were to
have a part in the oncoming struggle with the mother country.
Before the Second Continental Congress was to meet in May, a
battle was fought at Lexington on April 19 at which the hastily
gathered Massachusetts militia forced Major John Pitcairn's
British troops to retreat to Boston. American blood had been shed
by the king's soldiers! It took no crystal ball for the West as well as
the East to read the future. War was inevitable.
Even before receiving news of this battle, the men of the
"Back Country" went into action. Thomas Polk, commander of
the Mecklenburg Council of Safety, issued a call for two delegates
from each county unit to meet at the courthouse in Charlotte on
May 19. These delegates were accompanied by approximately
half of the men of the county. During the meeting word of the
Battle of Lexington reached the village. In the fervor of
patriotism aroused by the news, a committee was reportedly
appointed to draw up a statement embodying the sentiments of the
delegates, a copy of which was to be sent by horseman to the
Second Continental Congress in session at Philadelphia. Much
�108 / Chapter Seven
controversy has raged around this document since it was never
read in the Continental Congress, and the original one was lost in
1794 when the home of John McKnitt Alexander, Secretary of the
Assembly, was destroyed by fire. It was rewritten from memory
in 1800, twenty-five years after the Mecklenburg meeting.1
If the facts recorded in this 1800 document are accurate, the
original contained the first declaration of independence from
England to be penned by American colonists. The belief that it did
contain such a declaration was widespread, and May 20, 1775,
became known as Mecklenburg Day. In 1861 that date was put on
the North Carolina flag. Whatever may have been presented and
approved by a majority of the delegates on that May 20 will never
definitely be known although a set of "Resolves" was drawn up
and adopted on May 31. These "Resolves" appeared in June in The
North Carolina Gazette, in The Cape Fear Mercury, and in The South
Carolina Gazette and Country Journal. Thus, although the original
copy was also destroyed in the Alexander fire, the contents of the
"Resolves" have survived. They declared all commissions issued
by the king "null and void" and any person accepting an office
under the crown an "enemy to his country."2
In the first year of the war a few men shouldered their smallbore rifles and left the mountains and "back country" to join the
American forces as volunteers. Since the scenes of combat were
distant, their number was small and almost from the outbreak of
the conflict it became evident that the western settlements would
have all they could manage with their own problems. Many of the
settlers had but recently come from Europe, and the influx into
the region had been too rapid for assimilation into the social
pattern that was shaping up in the area. Finding in the colony
greater freedom than they had enjoyed in their home countries,
many felt that the uprising against England was unjustifiable and
so took a stand as Loyalists. They were joined in their attitudes by
the region's Scottish veterans of Culloden Field, who, thirty years
earlier, had suffered from the might of England's power and were
bound to English loyalty by the strongest of allegiance oaths.
Many Regulators, too, remained true to the oath of allegiance
they had been forced to make after the Battle of Alamance.3
On the other hand, there were settlers of longer standing in
their communities as well as newcomers who, like the ScotchIrish, had brought with them grievances against England and who
had taken no oath. Both factions took up the cause of freedom and
independence. Throughout Western North Carolina, as in other
�A New Flag for Western North Carolina / 109
parts of the colony, neighbor was often lined up against neighbor.
In addition, there was in all the western settlements a sprinkling of
adventurers and opportunists, rough characters prepared to take
either side as expediency dictated. From them came a troublemaking element that stole horses and cattle and that pilfered and
plundered individual settlements and villages.4
The Cherokees, too, became embroiled in the conflict. Their
resentment against the encroaching white man yearly increased as
they were forced by treaties they dared not refuse to give up their
hunting grounds piecemeal. Under Colonel Evan Shelby,
volunteers of western settlers joined the Virginia militia in 1774 in
the campaign that, over the protests of the Cherokees, won for
that colony the land between the Kentucky and Cumberland
Rivers through the Henderson Purchase. Richard Henderson, a
North Carolina lawyer, had become the promoter for Boone's
plan to settle Kentucky, and with several other men he formed the
Transylvania Company to colonize the west and create a
fourteenth colony.
The treaty with the Cherokees, signed on March 17, 1775, at
Sycamore Shoals on the Watauga River, ceded to the newly
formed company twenty million acres of land. In payment the
Cherokees received approximately ten thousand pounds' worth of
goods. The colonial governors of Virginia and North Carolina
declared this Henderson Treaty "null and void," but neither
colony did anything to halt migration into the acquired lands. The
Cherokee chief, Oconostota, is said to have remarked, "The land
beyond the mountains is a dark ground, a bloody ground." No
longer did the Cherokees have any claim to lands north of the
present Tennessee.5
After the French and Indian War the Cherokee trade with the
colonists had been revived but amounted to only a trickle of its
former volume. It was no longer highly profitable and was kept up
by the whites largely as a means of gaining the good will of the
Indians, for other industries were engaging the energies of both
South and North Carolina. Moreover, after seventy years of
widespread and continuous commercial hunting, all forms of
game in the mountains were practically depleted. The Cherokees
were now a poor people, but a people with wants and tastes
cultivated by their trade with the white man and now with small
chance of satisfying those wants. That small chance grew less with
each loss of territory.
With the outbreak of hostilities, England, through its agents
�110 / Chapter Seven
and through Tories in the region, spread propaganda among the
Cherokees. Loyalists and English agents pointed out to the Indians
that as recently as 1763 England had proved its power and might
by defeating France, and the propagandists reminded the
Cherokees of Montgomery's and Grant's raids in their territory.
All too well did the listeners recall the destruction of their homes
and towns and crops, and the native Americans logically
concluded that in any struggle against England the colonists
would be destined to be defeated. Their logic fitted in neatly with
their desire to be rid of the settlers in Western North Carolina and
Virginia, and the Cherokees allied themselves with the English.
For encouragement England provided them with guns and
ammunition and offered bounties for the scalps of settlers. 6 For a
second time the Cherokees were drawn into an international
conflict not of their making, and for the second time they had
chosen the wrong side.
Cherokee warriors went on the warpath in June, 1776,
planning a war of extermination. At first their raids were
scattered and light, but by July they were striking at isolated farms
and small villages in Georgia, where they brought panic to the
settlers. Widespread attacks were also made on the whites along
the Broad and Catawba Rivers east of the Blue Ridge in both
North and South Carolina. In several instances they wantonly
killed entire families. Women and children fled for safety to the
fort built at the present Old Fort as terror spread throughout the
region.7
The Indians then crossed the mountains for a surprise attack on
the settlements west of the Blue Ridge. But here they were
repulsed, for the pioneers had been warned of the impending raid
by the Cherokee Beloved Woman, Nancy Ward, the daughter of
a white trader and a Cherokee mother, who was a friend of the
settlers but was respected and revered by her people. Yet there
was some loss of life in these settlements, for now and then some
one would be caught outside a fort and become the target of a
brave's gun. Throughout Western North Carolina the fear of
Indian attacks spread. No one was safe as marauding bands of
white desperadoes joined the Indians in their raids.8
It was during these tense days that leaders of the Watauga
Settlements, aware of the immediate need to protect their part of
North Carolina, met in convention and on July 5 drew up a
petition addressed to the Provincial Congress, asking to be
�A New Flag for Western North Carolina / 111
recognized as a part of North Carolina and to be called the
Washington District. This document, signed by 113 landowners,
was taken to the Provincial Congress by two representatives at
the convention, John Carter and George Russell. There the men
were received and were instructed to send five elected
respresentatives from their district to the Congress at its next
meeting in Halifax. This was done, and John Carter, John Sevier,
John Haile, Charles Robertson, and Jacob Womack were elected.
Jacob Womack did not report at the Congress and John Sevier
arrived at Halifax late; however, the others were present at the
opening of the session, and by a vote of 153 to 1, all four were
seated in North Carolina's war time legislative body.
As representatives of the district officially named Washington
County and given the boundaries of the present state of
Tennessee, the men from beyond the Blue Ridge took part in
drawing up the Constitution of 1776 by which the colony of North
Carolina became the state of North Carolina. At the same session
the Congress took steps to organize a county government for the
western area, the first area of any of the colonies to be named
officially for the Commander-in-Chief of the American forces.9
Retaliation for the Indian raids and massacres came swiftly
and with merciless thoroughness. Following the harrowing
experiences of settlers in the southern part of Rutherford County
and in adjacent sections of South Carolina, Captain Thomas
Howard set out with a small force of volunteers from the block
house just south of the South Carolina line, below the present
Try on. Guided by a friendly Indian named Schuyucha, Howard
crossed the mountains and went west along an Indian trail to
Round or Warrior Mountain. There he surprised the encamped
Cherokees and in a skirmish defeated them, capturing all those not
killed in the battle. This campaign brought a cessation of Indian
trouble to that section.10
But much more widespread action was imperative, and
Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, and North Carolina all sent
troops—mostly volunteers—into the Cherokee country. On the
orders of the Council of Safety of North Carolina, General
Griffith Rutherford of the Salisbury District was put in command
of the North Carolina campaign to be directed against the Middle
and Valley towns. South Carolina and Georgia troops under
Major (later Colonel) Andrew Williamson were to attack the
Lower towns and then join General Rutherford. Colonel
�112 / Chapter Seven
Williams Christian was to lead the Virginia forces against the
Over Hill towns. These attacks, coming from different directions,
were to take place simultaneously if possible.11
On September 1, General Rutherford with a force of two
thousand fighting white men, several hundred Catawbas, and
needed pack men (making a total of 2,400) left Fort Davidson and crossed the Blue Ridge into the Cherokee country
by way of Swannanoa Gap. Crossing the French Broad River, he
followed Hominy Creek across the present Enka Corporation
plant and then continued over the ridge to cross the Pigeon River,
marching on to Richland Creek near the present Waynesville.
From there he pushed on to the Middle towns, crossing the
Tuckaseigee River east of Whittier and going south over the
Cowee Range.12
Before the oncoming troops, the Cherokees fled into the
fastnesses of the mountains while Rutherford's men systematically
destroyed every dwelling and all crops and stored grain. When
nothing was left in what is now Macon County, the troops crossed
the Nantahala Mountains to the towns of the Hiwassee and Valley
Rivers and those on the upper Little Tennessee. Here, too,
destruction was wholesale. Except for the cattle, which the army
took with them, nothing was spared. Towns, most of them newly
built after Grant's raid in the region, became only blackened heaps
of ashes and charred wood. The fields and orchards were merely
abject specters of what had been. Here was devastation in its
ugliest form.13
Throughout the area Rutherford and his men met with little
opposition. There were numerous skirmishes, the fiercest of
which took place at Wayah Bald Gap near the present town of
Franklin and might be termed a battle. But the Americans found
most of the towns deserted. As a result, casualties were light for
both the white army and the Cherokees.14 At the native American
village on the site of the present Murphy, Williamson and his
forces joined Rutherford. That was on September 26, and shortly
afterward, feeling that their task had been completed, both
leaders left Western North Carolina by retracing their routes.
Back at the fort of the Davidsons, however, General
Rutherford learned that in crossing the Tuckaseigee and going
south, he had missed important Indian towns on the lower
Tuckaseigee and Oconaluftee Rivers. Accordingly, he dispatched
Captain William Moore with a detachment of some one hundred
men to the area. Following Rutherford's route, this contingent
�A New Flag for Western North Carolina / 113
reached the ford on the Tuckaseigee River taken by the earlier
army, but Moore and his men continued west until they reached
the Cherokee village of Stekoa. They destroyed it, crossed the
river, and following a trail to the Oconaluftee River, destroyed
the villages and camps encountered along the way. This part of the
campaign was a comparatively short one, for Moore and his men,
finding their rations running low, turned back east. They had left
the fort on October 29, and on November 7, Captain Moore
reported to General Rutherford that the assignment had been
completed and that the scorched earth policy had been
accomplished in the Middle Towns.15
Williamson had been late in joining Rutherford since he had
been delayed in the campaign through South Carolina and
Georgia by strong Cherokee and Tory opposition, made
especially ruthless by the additional lawless adventurers and
marauders.16 Yet Williamson had been successful in destroying
the towns of the Lower Cherokees and in leaving the district in
ruins as Montgomery had earlier done.
The campaign of Colonel Christian in the Over Hill section
also resulted in utter defeat for the native Americans there, and all
villages were blotted out except the sacred town of refuge,
Echota, which was also the Cherokee capital. Altogether in this
1776 campaign, sixty-six Cherokee villages and towns were
destroyed.17 This Cherokee uprising had brought the Revolutionary War to Western North Carolina in one of its most dreaded
forms. Now, although the Committees of Safety and the militia
units earlier organized in the Watauga Settlements would have to
continue combating sporadic Cherokee raids, the general uprising
had been quelled (and with a minimum of white casualties).
Rutherford's forces went east. The loss of life to the Cherokees
during the march of the white forces through their territory was
also small. But their casualties grew during the winter that
followed when the homeless people existed on roots and berries
found in the forests and constantly suffered from exposure and
disease. An unknown number of them died during that mountain
winter.
Sadly disillusioned with the English promise of restoring their
lost lands and stunned and weakened by the crushing blows struck
by the American forces, the Cherokees knew that they had once
again lost all bargaining power with the whites. Bowing to the
inevitable, the chiefs of the Lower Section signed a treaty with the
new American Republic on May 20, 1777, at Dewitt's Corner,
�114 / Chapter Seven
South Carolina. Through it the Cherokee nation lost all of its
remaining territory in South Carolina except for a narrow strip
along its western border.18 Two months later the chiefs of the
Middle and Upper Towns went to the Long Island of the Holston
and there made a treaty with Virginia, granting further
concessions of their land in Kentucky.19
At this time they also made a treaty with North Carolina
which relinquished forever all claims to hunting grounds east of
the Blue Ridge and which made permanent the grants of territory
made to the Watauga Settlements, including various areas which
for some time had been disputed territory. In this treaty North
Carolina arranged to purchase the eastern portion of the
Cherokee lands with goods to be delivered at such a time as the
financial condition of the new state would allow. Until that time,
when a new treaty was to be concluded, white settlers were not to
take up land in the area.20 The once vast domain of the Principal
People had dwindled to little more than the homelands in the
Middle and Upper sections. Only a fraction of the Lower section
remained, and the great hunting preserves were forever gone.
Throughout 1775 and 1776 a trickling of pioneers from west of
the Blue Ridge joined friends and relatives in the eastern foothills
and entered the American army. Some of these volunteers were
with Howe's unit when General Charles Lee's forces successfully
defended Charleston against an attempted British invasion in
1776.21 Many, of course, were members of Rutherford's western
campaign, and some of those went east with him. Others followed
in the next few years. But on the whole, the settlers in Western
North Carolina, even after the Cherokee punishment, remained
on the frontier.
The western frontiersmen were ever alert to the possibilities
of fresh Indian uprisings, and in their own forthright way they
dealt with the desperadoes and Tories in their area. When feelings
against the Loyalists rose to the fighting pitch, the king's men fled
to the mountains where they hid in rocky shelters, living on the
game they could shoot, on stolen cattle, and on the crops foraged
from the nearby farms. To most of the pioneers the words "Tory"
and "Loyalist" came to embody everything that was despicable.
The defeat of the Tories at Moore's Creek Bridge early in the
conflict had kept the British troops out of North Carolina, while
at Charleston Lee had discouraged their activity in South
Carolina; after 1776, the main fighting was done farther north.
But the South was not to be spared, and on February 26, 1780,
�A New Flag for Western North Carolina / 115
Charleston was besieged a second time. General Benjamin
Lincoln's troops, in charge of the city's defense, held out until
May. Then the city fell, and the American forces—officers,
regulars, militiamen—became prisoners of the English. Lord
Charles Cornwallis, British Commander in the South, was left in
command of the city and of the section.22 His plan was to subdue
South Carolina and then to enter the piedmont area of North
Carolina. For support in carrying out his plans Cornwallis relied
upon the Tories and Loyalists in the regions through which he
would pass. He was not then aware of the deterring power of
many small bands of aroused Patriots under leaders who knew the
territory throughly. But he was to learn.
Such North Carolina soldiers as Major Joseph McDowell,
General Griffith Rutherford, William Davie, and General
William Lee Davidson along with their Patriots became both
hated and feared by Cornwallis and his British. For months their
small bands carried out numerous surprise attacks on English
units, upsetting British plans and hampering British movements,
often preventing British regiments from getting supplies and from
foraging about the countryside. These soldiers of the "back
country" did much to put the fear of the Americans into the
Tories in that region, and using methods learned from the Indians,
they succeeded in being, if not an actual threat, at least a
continuous nuisance to the advancing British forces.23
The frontiersmen could hinder and delay, but they could not
stop the march of the Cornwallis army as it came westward and
northward. Then at Camden it looked as though all the efforts of
the "back country" men had been in vain, for the British
commander, surprising the American army under General
Horatio Gates, utterly routed the Americans, killing eight
hundred and taking a thousand prisoners. This victory completed
the conquest of South Carolina, and General Cornwallis and his
army marched into North Carolina and entered Charlotte.24 This
little village, he discovered, instead of being the rendezvous of
Loyalists that he had been led to expect, was a veritable hotbed of
seething opposition.25 Indeed, he found life in it disagreeable, at
times well nigh unbearable. From Charlotte he planned to march
his main army to Hillsboro, where supplies furnished by the
Tories in the region were to be waiting. Considering the daily
harassment by American Patriots that his men suffered,
Cornwallis felt the need for extra help and ordered Colonel
Patrick Ferguson to come from Ninety-Six with nine hundred
�116 / Chapter Seven
men and to form a flank defense to the west during the march.
Ferguson was to enlist the aid of all Loyalists in the area just east of
the Blue Ridge and was to subdue that region.26
Ferguson and his men arrived in North Carolina and took up
quarters in Gilbert Town in the newly organized Rutherford
County. Joined by Loyalists and adventurers, his soldiers foraged
through the surrounding territory, stealing cattle, destroying
crops, and taking a few prisoners, despite the efforts of small
groups of settlers to hamper the troops by a series of irritating
guerrilla raids. The defense of the foothill country depended
almost entirely upon the settlers themselves, for after the disasters
in South Carolina the Americans who had escaped imprisonment
had returned to their homes. Among the escapees was a unit of
men from west of the Blue Ridge recruited by Isaac Shelby. After
driving the last "Rebels" (led by Colonel Charles McDowell)
over the Blue Ridge and after a skirmish at Bedford's Mill in the
present McDowell County, it must have seemed to Ferguson that
the task of subduing the "back country" was nearing completion.27
Then he learned that beyond the precipitous Blue Ridge were
entire settlements of these stubborn, freedom-demanding
Americans, many of whom had already taken up arms against the
British forces. Ferguson promptly released a prisoner and sent him
over the hills with an ultimatum. Shelby was given the message
and rode in haste to John Sevier's home on the Nolichuky River
where the two men, in charge of the militia of Washington
County, grimly went about their task of recruiting. Busy with the
gathering of late crops and prepared as usual for a chance Indian
attack, the pioneers dropped their tools and reached for their rifles
as they listened to the account of destruction and havoc taking
place east of the mountains. Then the look of cold steel glinted in
their eyes as they heard Ferguson's ultimatum to surrender or "he
would march his army over the mountains, hang their leaders, and
lay their country waste with fire and sword." Up and down the
valleys to all the settlements went the word to meet at the
Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga River in the present Tennessee.
And swift horsemen took the call to arms into the Virginia
settlements.28
On the evening of September 25 they gathered at the Shoals,
240 strong, led by John Sevier, a like number led by Isaac Shelby,
and 400 from Virginia under William Campbell, together with
Colonel Charles McDowell and his 160 refugees. They were
�TENNESSEE
STA TE MUSEUM COLLfcC / ION, AV15hf I/ 1IX£; / ±:A A.
Sycamore Shoals: Frontiersmen, aroused by Colonel Patrick Ferguson's command to surrender, gathered at the Sycamore Shoals (also called Flats) on the
Watauga River on September 25, 26, 1780, From there, under the leadership of John Sevier, Isaac Shelby, and William Campbell, the Overmountain men
grimly began their march against Ferguson's army. On the way they were joined by men from Burke, Rutherford, and Surry Counties.
�118
Chapter Seven
N. C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
Isaac Shelby: Shelby, a prominent patriot, with John Sevier, in charge of the militia
of the Watauga Settlements, led 240 frontiersmen in the march of the Overmountain
men. At the Battle of King's Mountain he commanded one unit of the Americans. This
picture is a copy of a painting.
quietly determined men who had left their homes to face a
disagreeable task. They were all men of the woods and hills,
trained by necessity in self-protection, in quick decisions, in
precise timing. They spared not a thought on uniforms and army
equipment, and they had no time to enlist in the American army
(even had any of them by chance thought of such action).
To these settlers their immediate duty was clear and simple.
The war had come to their mountains, to their homes. They would
meet it east of the hills and either drive the "Tory Ferguson" from
their land or force him to fight until he and his troops were
destroyed. The next morning, outfitted in hunting shirts and
deerskin trousers or in homemade linsey-woolsey clothes, the
mountain militia was ready, armed with small-bore rifles and
�A New Flag for Western North Carolina / 119
ALBERT BARDEN COLLECTION, N. C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
Joseph McDowell: Joseph McDowell of Quaker Meadows in Burke County took part in
the Battle ofRamseur's Mill and the Battle ofCowpens. His home was the meeting place for
the groups of Overmountain men. After refreshing the men with his fine home brew, he
joined them as they followed Ferguson }s retreating army.
whatever hunting knives and tomahawks they had been able to lay
hands to. They solemnly listened to prayers offered by the
Reverend Samuel Doak, a Presbyterian minister, and then
marched southeast. Their simple noon meal was eaten, it would
seem, at a spring on the grassy bald of Roan Mountain, and that
night camp was made at Bright's Spring on Bright's Trail.
At dawn they discovered that two of the men, William
Crawford and Samuel Chambers, were missing. Breaking camp,
the mountain men traveled down Roaring Creek to the Toe River,
passed over the site of the present Spruce Pine, and crossing the
Toe River, camped for the night at Grassy Creek. By September
29, they were at Gillespie Gap. Here, aware that Ferguson would
by this time learn of their route from the two deserters, the group
�120 / Chapter Seven
divided, descending the mountain range by different paths,
neither of which was the route originally planned. One section
under Campbell continued along the crest of the Blue Ridge and
then descended to Turkey Cove to camp for the night. The
following day these men went on down to the Catawba River,
crossed the site of the present Lake James, and reached Quaker
Meadows, the home of Colonel Joseph McDowell.
They were joined by the other section, which had spent the
night at North Creek Cove and, after passing a couple of miles
farther up North Creek, had crossed the southern end of Linville
Mountain, descending the Blue Ridge by means of the old Yellow
Mountain road. At Quaker Meadows they were joined by 350 men
from Wilkes and Surry Counties, under Colonel Benjamin
Cleveland and Joseph Winston. They were also joined by a small
force from Lincoln County under command of Frederick
Hambright, by volunteers from South Carolina commanded by
James Williams and William Lacey, and by a few men from
Georgia.29
In spite of his bold threat to the mountain men, Ferguson, upon
learning of the gathering of the Americans, felt it expedient to
appeal for help to Cornwallis (still at Charlotte) and to send to
Ninety-Six for reinforcements. He then retreated.
Now that a battle was imminent, the Patriots paused long
enough to select a leader. At Shelby's generous suggestion,
Colonel William Campbell was chosen, and on October 4 Charles
McDowell set out to report to General Gates and to procure
confirmation for the commanding officer. By this time the army
had reached Cane Creek near Gilbert Town. Finding their
progress too slow, the leaders selected the best men and the ablest
horses and, taking no footsoldiers, pushed after the retreating
Ferguson. They chose again, at Cowpens, a select group of
riflemen—master marksmen—and pursued the enemy, who had
gone northwest. At King's Mountain, only a mile and a half south
of the North Carolina line, Ferguson ended his retreat and
established camp on a stony ridge of the hill, which was protected
by a steep descent covered with woods and underbrush. He no
doubt felt secure in his mountain retreat.30
During the steady rain of that dark October night, the
frontiersmen, accustomed to endure all kinds of weather and
familiar with mountain terrain, continued their pursuit from
Cowpens. Learning from captured spies the position Ferguson had
taken and the uniform he was wearing, the nine hundred men
�A New Flag for Western North Carolina / 121
�FROM A DRAWING IN DRAPER'S KING'S MOUNTAIN AND ITS HEROES, PACK MEMORIAL LIBRARY, ASHEVILLE
Ferguson's Death Charge:
Ferguson, leading his troops, fell from his horse, the victim of bullets fired by men he had called "Bandits."
�A New Flag for Western North Carolina / 123
were divided into four sections in order to ascend King's
Mountain from every direction on the next forenoon. The units
were instructed to advance in Indian fashion, from tree to tree,
and the men were told that after the order was given to advance,
each marksman was to be his own officer. Thus on the afternoon
of October 7, Colonel Ferguson, like a doomed Macbeth gazing
upon the approaching Birnam woods, saw the men scaling the
sides of his mountain position. They were the very men of the back
woods whom he had so lately defied. The opposing forces were
equally matched in number, for Ferguson had 906 men, equipped
with English guns and ammunition and bayonets. There was not a
bayonet among the Americans, but these men had tracked wild
animals in the forests and had more than once fought the
Cherokees. Every shot from their rifles reached its mark.
For an hour the fighting raged, the Patriots rallying after
every repulse and reattacking so that their gain was fairly steady
until they reached the top of the ridge. Ferguson, blowing his
silver whistle to rally his disorganized troops, fell, mortally
wounded by the bullets of the men he had called "Bandits." With
their leader gone, the English army surrendered. The British
counted 120 dead, including their slain commander, and 123
wounded. The remainder of their troops became American
prisoners. The victors lost 28 men and found 62 of their men
wounded, several of whom died on the way home.31
With their disagreeable task successfully completed, the men
of Western North Carolina, riding or trudging, weary and
footsore, began the trek back to their mountain homes. They
could not know that what they had done that day was unique in
the annals of war. An untrained, hastily-gathered militia of
frontiersmen, members of neither their state's nor their country's
forces, had utterly defeated a body of soldiers of equal size on a
battlefield of the enemy's choosing. Except for a group of Loyalist
volunteers, Ferguson's well-equipped soldiers had been trained in
the army of a strong world power. The Patroits could not know
that they had freed not only the "back country," but also their
entire state from the British armies* control. They could not
foresee that in this battle they had made practically inevitable
General Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown.
Surprised and dismayed at the defeat of his protecting army to
the west and realizing that English loyalty could no longer be
counted in the piedmont section of North Carolina, Cornwallis
withdrew from Charlotte and returned to South Carolina. That
�124 / Chapter Seven
winter, lured by the magnificently executed retreat of Greene's
American forces, he led his army back across North Carolina
where he won the costly battle of Guilford Court House in March.
With forces weakened by losses incurred during the long winter
march through unfamiliar territory and damaged by the too
dearly won battle, Cornwallis led his troops east to Wilmington
and then into Virginia where he reached Yorktown. There on
October 19, 1781, he surrendered the British army to the
American forces.32
The English flag that had flown over the colonies since the
days of the English explorers—the flag that had been taken by
Englishmen from the Atlantic Ocean to the farthest mountain
settlement beyond the Blue Ridge—was seen no more in all the
land. In its place over the cities in the east and over the mountain
forts in the western hills there now waved a flag of red and white
stripes and thirteen stars on a field of blue.
�C H A P T E R
E I G H T
East-West Tug-Of-War
X he return of the heroes of King's Mountain was neither as rapid
nor as orderly as their advance had been. The British dead and
wounded they had left on the field of combat to be cared for by the
neighboring settlers. With them they took their prisoners and
their booty, seventeen baggage wagons and some twelve hundred
stands of arms. Their own wounded they carried on horse litters.
The only surgeon in the two armies—an Englishman and now a
prisoner—did the pitifully little that he could to relieve the
suffering men during the slow trek. At least one of them—Captain
Robert Sevier, a brother of John and possibly others—died on
the way and was buried in what is now Avery County.1
Still keyed up to battle pitch, the men now became difficult to
control, and small bands occasionally deserted the ranks to pilfer
and burn property of known Loyalists. The Loyalist prisoners,
too, came in for harsh treatment, and nine of them were hanged
before the officers could enforce restraint. The remaining
prisoners and baggage wagons were left with local militias
east of the mountains as the men crossed to their homes to
tell of their experiences and to break the news of death to the
victims' families.2
It is doubtful that a single man among them thought of pay in
connection with what he had accomplished, and most of them
were perhaps surprised when the grateful states of Virginia,
Georgia, and North and South Carolina publicly thanked them for
125
�126 / Chapter Eight
N, C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
John Sevier; Sevier was the leader in the Watauga Settlements. In his own time he was a
legend as an Indian fighter, as a local politician, and as a statesman. He commanded one unit
of the Patriots at the Battle of King's Mountain. He served briefly as governor of the shortlived "State of Franklin,"
their heroic service and presented them swords.3 The impoverished state of North Carolina issued them certificates in the form
of pay, but since these were worth only two cents on the dollar,
they amounted to no more than a gesture of appreciation. Yet
the freely given thanks of their states must have been a deep
�East-West Tug-Of-War
/ 127
satisfaction to the western settlers and might have been pleasant to
recall in the stormy, confused years that followed. These years
would be filled with struggles and frustration, with repeated
campaigns against the resentful Cherokees, with bitter factions in
their own ranks, and conflict that bordered on revolt against
the General Assembly of their own state. But of all this they
were fortunately unaware as they trudged over the familiar hills
on an October day, hoping, perhaps, for a bit of time for "lazin'
'round" and hunting.
Such hopes were not quick to materialize, and the feverish
activity of the coming years began when the men learned that
what they had most feared had come to pass. Knowing that the
forts of the white people were practically undefended and
ignoring the pleas of their tribal leaders, bands of Cherokees from
the Middle Towns had attacked the settlements. That meant just
one thing—a campaign of retaliation. Under John Sevier and
Arthur Campbell, seven hundred men met and soundly defeated
the Indians in 1780 at a site near the present Sevierville, Tennessee.
In March of the following year the intrepid Sevier with 150 picked
men crossed the towering Smoky Mountains, and in a surprise
attack utterly destroyed one of the chief towns on the Tuckaseigee
River at the site of the present Whittier. On this compaign several
smaller villages were also destroyed as were quantities of stored
grain. That summer Sevier and his men felt it necessary to attack a
camp made by the Cherokees near the present Newport,
Tennessee, in order to prevent its use as a base for raiding parties.
There, thirteen native Americans were killed. The Cherokees had
had enough and sued for peace, which was granted. 4
But this peace was merely a lull in the chaotic relations
between the settlers and the Cherokees. In 1782 Old Tassel of
Echota begged Colonel Joseph Martin, Indian Commissioner and
Brigadier-General in charge of North Carolina's militia in the
west, to appeal to the governors of both Virginia and North
Carolina to restrain their people from settling in the Indian
territory along the Nolichucky and other rivers. It was, the
Cherokee said, impossible to prevent raids on such settlements.
Nothing seems to have been done about the plea, and white
settlers continued to take up and clear land in the disputed area.
This meant that Indian raids, followed by retaliatory campaigns,
also continued.5
In 1783 the North Carolina General Assembly, eager to
reward its Revolutionary soldiers with land grants, passed a law
�128 / Chapter Eight
that repealed the 1777 Treaty of the Long Island of the Holston
and opened to white settlers land beyond the Blue Ridge as far
west as the Pigeon River, extending to the French Broad and
thence to the Holston and Tennessee Rivers. The land was to be
paid for in goods to the Cherokees (as the state could manage it),
and no grants were to be issued west of the designated line.6
Two years later, in 1785, the federal government concluded its
first treaty with the Native Americans at Hopewell, South
Carolina. For ten days the bargaining went on between the
commissioners for the United States and the one thousand
Cherokees gathered for the event. When the document was at last
ready, thirty-seven chiefs signed it with their marks. In it the
Cherokees acknowledged the sovereignty of the United States,
and a boundary line was established that passed through the
present Hendersonville, Biltmore, Marshall, and in a straight line,
on to the Nolichucky River. A considerable strip of land formerly
opened for white settlement by the North Carolina law of 1783
was now restored to the Cherokees.
This first federal treaty also repudiated the Dumplin Creek
Treaty that Sevier had that very spring forced upon the unwilling
Cherokees. This treaty granted the settlers land lying to the
south side of the Holston and French Broad Rivers as far south as
the ridge that divides the water of Little River from the water of
the Tennessee.7 Under the terms of the new Hopewell Treaty,
white settlers in territory allotted to the Cherokees were given six
months to evacuate their claims.8
Only the Cherokees were satisfied with this treaty. Four
counties had by this time been organized in the western territory,
and they had recently been formed by the General Assembly of
North Carolina into Washington District, with David Campbell
presiding over its newly organized Superior Court and John
Sevier named as Brigadier-General of its militia.9 By the new
treaty the district now found itself reduced in size. To the chagrin
of its leaders, it was discovered that Greeneville, the town
selected as a possible capital when or if the territory was made
into the hoped-for state of Franklin, was now well within
Cherokee lands. The District of Washington bluntly refused to
recognize the Hopewell Treaty, and the so-called trespassers in
the territory given back to the Indians made no move to leave.
The Cherokees, as might be expected, made attempts from
time to time to force the settlers out by attacking the farms and
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/ 129
small villages. This, in turn, led to continued avenging campaigns
by Sevier and his militia. North Carolina proper was likewise
disgruntled by the new federal treaty with the Cherokees, holding
that the new boundaries would fail to protect the grants already
made to soldiers and civilians, (although the treaty did make
provisions for maintaining the rights of those who had received
such grants). The treaty that was intended to be a "peace
settlement" settled nothing and brought no peace.
The Indian uprising spread west to the little settlement of
Nashville, organized in 1779-80, when James Robertson led a
colony of pioneers from the Watauga Settlements to the site
known as the French Lick. This aroused not only the western
Cherokees, but also the more westerly Chickasaws, and the
trouble soon involved small settlements along the Cumberland
River. The assistance given by North Carolina (through its
Brigadier-General, Joseph Martin, and through its militia) was
always meager and often late in arriving on the scene. In fact, a
few times Martin received no order from the state for his militia
to join in the campaign; therefore, to insure the safety of the
settlers, Sevier and his militia continued to carry out their
campaigns against the Indians, who were now determined to force
the settlers from their territory.10
On one of these campaigns in 1788 an unfortunate event led to
severe criticism of the Watauga forces and their leaders. A young
volunteer named John Kirk took it upon himself to avenge the
brutal murder of his family by the Cherokees. While Old Tassel of
Echota, his sons, and a companion chief were waiting in a shed for
a conference with Sevier under a white flag of truce, the young
man attacked the group and killed all of them. The violent deed of
horror was deplored throughout the settlements, and the act was
condemned by Congress and by several state assemblies. Needless
to say, the infuriated Cherokees sought revenge, further
intensifying the warfare between the two races contending for the
possession of Western North Carolina.11
Not all of the problems that the western settlers confronted
involved disputes with the native Americans. Becoming the first
pioneers to isolate themselves from the more settled coastal areas,
these mountain people had early developed a spirit of independence and had learned an attitude of self-reliance in decisionmaking. It is possible that, without the looming dangers of the
oncoming Revolutionary War, the Watauga Settlements might
soon have struggled for independence from North Carolina. Be
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that as it may, they had petitioned the General Assembly of the
state for recognition and by legislative act had become
Washington County. Their representatives to the General
Assembly all voted for North Carolina's first constitution in 1776.
Both the representatives to the General Assembly from
Washington County and the settlers themselves soon became
aware that their interests and needs differed sharply from those of
the eastern part of the state. They also became aware that the
government of the new state would be dominated by eastern
leaders and that the laws passed would serve the planters and
business men of the settled coastal region. This realization created
a feeling of resentment which in time grew into general
dissatisfaction. There were many factors causing this east-west
tug-of-war. The basic factor was geographic—a great distance
lay between the settlements beyond the mountains and the seat of
government and the seaports in the east. It had taken weeks for
the pioneers to learn of events taking place in eastern North
Carolina and in other colonies during the crucial days of the
Revolutionary War.
Roads, even in the eastern section of the new state, were in
wretched condition as weary travelers repeatedly testified in the
early years of the Republic. The colony and later the state made no
provision for road construction except to authorize counties to lay
out public roads and to establish ferries and designate bridge sites.
Detailed road laws, conferring considerable power and responsibility upon the counties, had never been enforced. During the war
all roads—poor at best—had been utterly neglected. Consequently even the main north-south artery through the state had become
well-nigh impassable. Scant attention had been paid to possible
highways to the west, especially since construction would entail
bridging or ferrying the many streams flowing in northwestsoutheast direction. The obstacles to be faced were numerous,
including clearing tangled forests, avoiding or crossing streams,
and opening swamps while keeping up with maintenance on the
trade routes already in existence.
However, in 1755 a law had been passed by the colony
authorizing the building of a road from Hillsboro and one from
Mecklenburg County to the Cape Fear River. It had been urged by
merchants hoping to profit by western trade. But until some time
after the Revolutionary War, these roads, where an attempt had
been made to lay them out, were scarcely more than trails and
often poor trails at that. The old Pennsylvania Road to Virginia
�East-West Tug-Of-War
/ 131
and Philadelphia, unsatisfactory as it was, continued to be the
northern outlet of the piedmont and mountain settlers. The roads
following ancient Indian trails along the Yadkin and Catawba
Rivers still served settlers going to the southern port of
Charleston. From east of the Blue Ridge the mountain men
entered their own area on foot or on horseback over the trails used
by earlier hunters and trappers and native Americans.12
This physical road handicap, deplored by the profit-conscious,
eastern North Carolina merchants, meant that the settlers of both
the piedmont and the mountains maintained a connection with
Virginia and South Carolina rather than with their own state. It
meant, too, that the cattle and hides, meal, wheat, butter, hemp,
and herbs of the piedmont farmers and the furs and deerskins of
the mountain men reached Virginia cities and Charleston. There
they were exchanged for the manufactured articles, salt, and
sugar needed by the western settlers. But it meant even more, for
where their trade went, there to a marked degree, went also the
loyalties of an ever-increasing portion of North Carolinians.13
Another factor driving a wedge between east and west was
the difference in national background and interests of the two
sections. Eastern North Carolina, by the time of the Revolutionary War, was a fairly settled region. Its people were largely
English (with several generations of established Colonial
ancestors) and Scottish Highlanders, together with a small
number of French Huguenots who had arrived in the early
eighteenth century. Many easterners owned large estates, and
there was a substantial merchant class in the port cities. Through
trade, the easterners had kept in contact with England; their sons
were educated abroad, their clothes imported, and their homes
supplied with furniture, hangings, linens, pottery, and silver from
the leading manufacturers of England and France. Imported foods
and wines supplemented the products of their own fine gardens.
They held slaves as house servants and as workers on their
plantations, some of 'which were extensive.
In fact, the eastern section of the state had emerged from the
pioneer stage and had attained a considerable degree of culture,
with several fine private libraries, homes of architectural interest,
and talk of an institution of higher learning. The cultured and
wealthy class made up a decided minority of the state's eastern
population, but at the same time, its members made up the ruling
class. They dominated the General Assembly, which was held in
the east, and succeeded in getting laws passed that benefited
planters and merchants.14
�132 / Chapter Eight
All of this was in complete contrast with the mountain section.
The men and women living there were nearly all newcomers.
They were predominately Scotch-Irish, arriving over the
mountains from Philadelphia, Charleston, or from older piedmont
settlements. In addition, there were Germans from Pennsylvania,
Welsh, Irish, and more than a sprinkling of English. Many of these
were first generation, European immigrants, and on the frontier,
both east and west of the Blue Ridge, they were going through the
"melting pot" process of assimilation into an American society.
For them the difficulty and cost of transportation prohibited all
the luxuries and most of the necessities of life. Their actual wants
were reduced to a minimum, for they were pioneers carving out a
way of life in wilderness valleys isolated from each other by
towering ridges and hills. In the struggle against the mountains
and forests there was no place for fineries, and even while fighting
the Indians to keep the plots they had cleared, they sensibly
adopted many of the native American modes of living.
The mountain frontiersmen depended upon themselves for
most of their manufactured articles, and were satisfied with the
tools turned out at their forges and with the simple household
effects that they put together. They were people of the forest, and
the plantations of the east were outside their world and interests.
They keenly felt that the danger from Indian attacks which
hovered over them every hour of every day and night, an everpresent threat to life and to property, did not interest the eastern
people or the state's eastern law makers. To them their own local
government and their own militia were their assurance of life.15
Nor were these pioneers interested in slaves and the problems
that slave holding involved. The economy of the mountains
generated no need or desire for slaves. Small fields were cleared, a
few at a time, and cared for by members of the families—always
generous in number. Work, the hard work of a new country, was
taken for granted and was to most of the settlers a challenge.
When the crops were "laid by," there was hunting to be done by
the men and spinning and weaving by the women. The
neighboring settlers were always there to give a hand when work
exceeded the strength of the family, while all rallied at the fort in
times of danger to ward off Indian attacks. There was no class
consciousness since all worked and all were poor in worldly goods
but rich in energy and visions for the future. Each man was rated
according to what he could do.
Still another factor in the grievances harbored by the
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/ 133
mountain settlers against the easterners was the matter of taxes.
North Carolina in 1775 had been utterly unprepared for war and
had emerged from the five-year conflict impoverished. In order to
raise even a portion of its allotted soldiers for the Continental
army, the new state had issued paper currency. Then with the
cessation of all trade with England, the loss of bounties for naval
stores, the lack of manufactures and with the general disruption of
farm life and normal interstate trade, money became exceedingly
scarce. The bills of credit issued by the state were made legal
tender. But the state's paper money, like the currency issued by
the Continental Congress, depreciated at an alarming rate, and
prices soared to unheard of heights.
Since the early days North Carolinians had been opposed to
taxation, but the harassed, newly-formed state found it necessary
to levy taxes, increasing them from time to time as the war
continued and again during the hard-pressed years of recovery.
Poll taxes were the ones first levied, followed by a general
assessment on all property—land, buildings, animals, slaves, and
investments. These taxes proved difficult to collect, however,
partly because of the people's resentment and partly because of
the scarcity of specie. The returns to the state treasury were
disappointingly small; therefore, in 1780 the General Assembly in
desperation passed a law setting the ratio for taxes to be paid in
produce.16
With the exception of state representatives and a few other
leaders, the mountain pioneers did not understand the economic
basis for the drastic tax measures taken by the state. They saw no
returns from taxation in their own areas and felt that money was
far too hard to come by to be sent out of the mountains as taxes
that would be used to benefit the east. The tax rates, too, they
considered unjust, since cheap land of the west was taxed at the
same rate as the more valuable property of the east. Western
settlers depended upon their few exports to obtain necessities.
They, likewise, resented paying taxes in salable products.
Some of the westerners' complaints arose from the inefficiency and dishonesty of the local officers appointed by the
government, but most of the grievances against their state grew
out of geographic and economic conditions. These were problems identical to those faced by the piedmont pioneers following
1760. The Regulators, who had fled west of the mountains to
escape taking the British oath of allegiance required after the
Battle of Alamance, found themselves seething with the old
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Regulator anger. Eventually, the westerners adopted much the
same course of action taken earlier in the century by the protesters
against English rule. With the success of the movement for
American independence from England in mind, leaders west of
the Blue Ridge began planning for independence from North
Carolina.
Such a step was not as radical as it might at first glance seem,
for during the formation of a federal government to be set up
under the Articles of Confederation, representatives of the
thirteen states to the Continental Congress wrangled over the
question of western lands. Those commonwealths without claims
to frontier territory feared the future power of sister states when
their wilderness lands should be developed, and they insisted that
all such territory belonged, in reality, to the new nation.
Naturally those states with western claims held other views.
The heated discussions on this subject led to practical results of
a compromise nature. The federal government recognized the
rights of the individual states to their western lands but invited—
urged would be a more apt term—those states to cede all such
territory to the Republic. Several northern states responded to the
appeal and in 1787 ceded western lands which the federal
government accepted in 1789 as the Northwest Territory. During
the agitation North Carolina had been urged to cede its territory
west of the Blue Ridge, and the federal government continued to
bring pressure to bear on the state.17
In the Constitution of 1776, North Carolina renewed its claims
to all land granted to it as a colony under the Charter of 1663 and
its additions in 1665. In so doing the state claimed the Pacific
Ocean as its western boundary. But England in its treaty with
France in 1763 had taken a more realistic view of those old claims
"as farre as the Land extends itselfe" [sic] and had designated the
Mississippi River as the western boundary of English territory.
North Carolina made no attempt to enforce its claims to land
beyond the "Father of Waters," and when in April 1784, the
General Assembly agreed to cede its western lands to the United
States, that river was its boundary.18
There was bitter opposition to the Cession Act, which offered
the state's western land to the Republic. The law as passed,
however, safeguarded the state from having the inhabitants and
lands of the ceded territory increase its share of the national
debt incurred during the Revolutionary War. It also provided
that grants already made by North Carolina to its soldiers should
�East-West Tug-Of-War / 135
be respected and that one or more states should be made from the
area. A further precautionary clause was added. If the area were
not accepted by the federal government within twelve months, it
was to revert to the state of North Carolina, and in the meantime
the state was to continue its control of the region. The Act
reached Congress too late in that session to be acted upon, and its
opponents gained enough strength in the interval to have it
repealed when the General Assembly of North Carolina met in
October.19 It was at this session, in a gesture of appeasement, that
the state's western counties were organized into the Washington
District, made up of four counties.
As early as 1782 Colonel Arthur Campbell, a leader in the
Watauga Settlements, proposed a meeting to determine the
settlers' sentiment on the question of forming a new state.
Nothing came of the proposal. But in August, 1784, after news of
the Cession Act had crossed the mountains, a convention met at
Jonesborough with John Sevier as presiding officer. Davidson
County was not represented. A second convention met in
December at which a constitution modeled after the 1776 North
Carolina document was drawn up for six months' consideration
and at which the proposed state received the name of Franklin.
During this session news arrived of the repeal of the Cession Act.
The disappointed delegates promptly sent a memorial or formal
request to Congress asking that the territory be made into a state.
The convention and the memorial angered the easterners, and
Governor Alexander Martin roundly censured Arthur Campbell
as the instigator of the movement.20 Campbell then withdrew
from active leadership, but in March, 1785, a third convention at
Jonesborough set up a government under the temporary
constitution. John Sevier was elected governor. Correspondence
between Governor Martin and "Governor" Sevier became
equally bitter and threatening on both sides. But the unauthorized
state continued to function locally, and Sevier concluded the
Dumplin Creek Treaty between the new state of Franklin and the
Cherokees of the Middle Towns. In May it sent still another
request to Congress, and in August the Franklin Assembly met to
adopt a permanent constitution.21
By this time the western settlers had split into two camps.
Those led by Sevier claimed gross neglect on the part of North
Carolina and demanded immediate secession from North
Carolina, hoping for early recognition by the United States.
Those under the leadership of Colonel John Tipton were equally
�136 / Chapter Eight
eager for a new state but felt that its formation should come
through the regular channels set up as national policy.
Accordingly, this latter group advocated urging North Carolina
to cede the territory to the Republic as Virginia had recently
ceded its land of Kentucky. They favored the organization of a
government that could function as soon as a new state should be
authorized by Congress.
Confusion now entered the ranks of the pioneers as each
faction drew up and adopted its own constitution. The document
sponsored by the Sevier adherents and modeled after the North
Carolina Constitution of 1776 was adopted in November, 1785, by
the "State of Franklin." But for the next few years a virtual state
of civil war existed in Western North Carolina, with some
counties having two opposing sets of officers.22
Inevitably the difference between Sevier and Tipton and their
respective followers increased in bitterness until it reached open
conflict and the shedding of blood. In 1788 Sevier was arrested by
Tipton enroute to Jonesborough and taken under guard to
Morganton for trial as a traitor to North Carolina. But there
Sevier was among friends of King's Mountain days. The irons
were removed from his hands and two of the McDowell family
put up bail. Dr. James Cozby arranged an escape, and when Sevier
rode openly out of the village, Judge Waightstill Avery made no
move to pursue him.
With Sevier *s return to his home on the Nolichucky River, the
period of civil strife continued while he and his militia carried on
their campaigns against the Cherokees. To add to the general
confusion, the Spanish, who controlled the mouth of the
Mississippi River, threatened to close the river to American trade,
an act that would vitally affect the new settlement at Nashville
and those on the Cumberland River. Rumors circulated
meanwhile of a possible new country to the west.23
The harassed State of North Carolina, bombarded by both
Congress and the westerners with demands for ceding the area,
answered by censuring the pioneer leaders and appealing to their
followers. In 1788, as a gesture of conciliation, the General
Assembly passed an "Act of Oblivion" covering the unhappy
events of the past few years in the western settlements. But it
charged that John Sevier could hold no more offices. Strangely
enough, during the stormy existence of the "State of Franklin,"
except for a few months in late 1784, every western county in the
new "state" was also represented in the General Assembly of
�East-West Tug-Of-War
/ 137
North Carolina. Among the representatives at times were both
"Governor" John Sevier and John Tipton. Following the act
debarring him from office holding, the undaunted Sevier
appeared as usual at the next session of the North Carolina
Assembly and was seated and became a delegate to the convention
called to reconsider the state's ratification of the United States
Constitution. He voted for ratification. 24
By 1789 the opposition in the General Assembly to the cession
of its westernmost lands was weakened, and the state offered the
territory included in the old Washington County to the federal
government without reservations. It was accepted and organized
as the Territory South of the Ohio. In 1794 the Territory ot
Tennessee was formed, and William Blount was appointed by
President Washington as the territorial governor. In the
following year the territory became the state of Tennessee, the
first new state to be admitted to the Union from ceded western
lands. John Sevier was elected its first governor.25
Western North Carolina, which had at one time extended to
the Pacific Ocean, had shrunk in 1763 to the Mississippi River and
again in 1789 to its present western boundary. The state had lost
most of the estimated 25,000 settlers living west of the Blue Ridge
except for those along the Watauga River in the present Watauga
County and those who had crossed the mountains after the
Revolutionary War to take up land opened to soldiers and other
settlers east of the ceded land.
The men over the mountains had been a continuous thorn in
the flesh of the General Assembly of North Carolina. In addition,
the state had been in a turmoil over the questions of whether to
ratify the Constitution drawn up and adopted at the Philadelphia
Convention in 1737. There was bitter opposition to it on the
grounds that the central government for which it provided would
restrict the rights of the state governments. It was also feared that
under it agriculture would be sacrificed to business and industry,
and that its methods of electing the president and senators would
eliminate government by the direct vote of the people. Moreover,
the new constitution had no bill of rights and failed to insure
democratic principles vital to the young Republic.
It was not until July 21, 1788, that a convention to consider it
met at Hillsboro. There the delegates drew up a bill of rights and
passed a resolution stating the necessity for such a bill. They
declared that after such a bill had been presented to Congress,
there should be another federal convention called to consider
�138 / Chapter Eight
needed changes. Not until that had taken place, the resolution
stated, could North Carolina ratify the document.26 But before
the meeting at Hillsboro had opened, ten states had already
ratified the constitution, one more than the required three-fourths
majority. The new Constitution had already become the law of
the land, and North Carolina, like Rhode Island, was a
commonwealth unto itself, out of the union of states.
For a brief period, therefore, Western North Carolina was a
part of an independent state. That was far from a desirable status,
however, and on November 21, 1789, a second convention at
Fayetteville voted by an overwhelming majority to ratify the
Constitution. By this vote the present mountain counties became a
part of the twelfth state in the Union.
�C H A P T E R
N I N E
In Search of Beauty—An Interlude
It is pleasant to contemplate that during the frenzied, war-torn
years and the dreary time of recovery between 1760 and 1800, a
few people entered Western North Carolina on missions other
than those of profit or destruction. It is also encouraging to know
that some white travelers had neither sinister intentions of
exploiting the natives nor of planting unwanted settlers within the
confines of the Indian nation. Some whites had no idea ot
persuading reluctant chiefs to sign their marks on papers,
depriving the Principal People of century-old rights. These
unusual "tourists" to the mountains were in search of beauty.
Early explorers, understandably enough, wrote rather
copiously of the extreme hardships of travel across the towering
ridges and through the mountain section. A few of them went no
further in their description of the country; yet some of them
interspersed their accounts of struggles against the mountainous
terrain with expressions of appreciation for the majesty of the
green-clad hills, the arched beauty of the domed balds, the lush
greenness of the valleys, and the music of the rushing streams and
rivers. Such descriptions reflect the sense of marvel the travelers
experienced at the sight of the prodigal abundance and variety of
vegetation with which nature had endowed Western North
Carolina—vegetation which, during the long centuries of Indian
occupancy, had not been mutilated or destroyed.
139
�140 / Chapter Nine
traders in the region. Surely, it must have been comparatively
easy for colonial traders to transport and deliver goods to the
Indian tribes south and east of the Blue Ridge, even to the
Cherokees of the Lower Towns. But men like Ludovick Grant,
James Beamer, Robert Bunning, and James Adair, as well as scores
of others, after once entering the mountains of Western North
Carolina were held there largely by the spell of the country. They
endured the slow and tortuous travel along narrow, steep,
mountain trading paths for the compensating satisfaction derived
from the countryside itself. They became North Carolina's first
white mountaineers.
The possibility of metal resources in the area had attracted the
Spaniards to the mountains in the sixteenth century, undoubtedly
the first white men to enter them. Later English and colonial
explorers and travelers were ever on the alert for evidences of
gold, silver, and other useful metals. Sir Alexander Cuming on his
trip gathered rock specimens to have assayed in England, and John
William Gerard deBrahm foresaw the extensive mining that
could develop in Western North Carolina. He saw, too, the
possibilities of the rich, varied vegetation, once the land came into
the hands of the Europeans. Soldiers who were brought into the
region by the campaigns against the natives, like Henry
Timberlake, wrote of the wealth of products already produced by
the Cherokees and spoke of the beautiful gems reputedly held by
the Indians for their ceremonial rites.
From these travelers and from accounts given by traders
during their occasional trips to port cities, citizens of Charleston
and Virginia cities learned of the riches locked in the hills. They
also learned of the beauty of the towering ranges and the lush
valleys. Merchants and officials traveling to England spread the
news of the treasures to be found in Western North Carolina.
So it was that Josiah Wedgwood, English manufacturer of
fine, semi-vitrified pottery and of the nation's most prized
chinaware, learned of a superior grade of clay that the Cherokee
Indians of Western North Carolina owned and possibly mined.
After testing a sample obtained from the area, he realized that the
American product was vastly superior to the clays he was using.
He resolved upon an expensive course of action to get a sufficient
quantity of it to make more beautiful and lovely and delicate the
products of his factory that were finding their way into the
palaces of royalty and the homes of the discriminating and
wealthy. Accordingly, in 1767 he hired Thomas Griffiths of
�In Search Of Beauty—An Interlude / 141
Charleston to make what arrangements were necessary with the
Cherokees to procure a supply of the Indian clay.
With Grant's destructive raid still fresh in their memories and
protected by King George's line of demarcation at the Blue Ridge,
the Cherokees were unwilling to have white men other than
traders enter their territory. But Griffiths undertook the mission
and left Charleston in October for the mountains. He had been
told that the clay would be found in the Joree mountains—now
called Cowee—near an Indian village named Ayoree. Within a
month he had located the mine and had made an agreement with
the Indians to buy a quantity of the clay. Gaining that agreement
had not been easy, for in addition to their reluctance to bargain
with any white man, the Cherokees were suspicious of any one
coming for clay since, as they told Griffiths, white men had been
there before for this purpose and had taken off much fine clay with
only promises as payment. But this Englishman proved to be a man
of tact and diplomacy. He conveyed to the chiefs that he had come
from the English King, who a few years before had been happy to
entertain their Great Warrior, Ostenaco. With good will thus
restored, Griffiths was allowed to proceed with his mission.1
For three days he and his men worked strenuously to remove
the debris in the pit. He estimated that before reaching the object
of their search they took out ten or twelve tons of rubbish and dirt,
evidence that the Indians had not used any of this clay for some
years. It was also evident that earlier people, perhaps whites, had
removed a considerable amount at some time. When Griffiths was
ready to excavate what he planned to mine, a period of autumn
rains set in, which he and his men endured with impatience. When
conditions again allowed digging, he found it necessary to discard
what he had and replenish his supply. Then he loaded the precious
earth—five tons of it—on the backs of stout little pack horses,
some 150 to 200 pounds to the horse. He paid the Cherokees for
their fine product, and set out in a long caravan for Fort Prince
George where the loads were taken by wagon to Charleston. By
the time slowly drawn wagons reached the port city, it was
February, and Griffiths gave himself a month's holiday in the
active little city before taking the clay to England.
In England much interest attached to the import from
Western North Carolina; even the King made inquiries about its
use. The reply sent to his Majesty by the artist-manufacturer was
that the American clay was used in every piece of his jaspers, his
finest products. He rightly foresaw that these would need only
�142 / Chapter Nine
time and scarcity to command any price one might ask for them.
Today a marker designates the site in Western North Carolina,
near Burningtown, where Josiah Wedgwood got the supply of
fine clay which under his master hand, became the prized
possessions of kings and noblemen.2
Seven years later, the first of several botanists to visit Western
North Carolina came to revel in its spring splendor and to gather
and classify many of its rare plants. He was William Bartram, a
Quaker, of Philadelphia, and his trip was sponsored by Dr. John
Fothergill, a well known Quaker physician of London. Eighteenth
century Europeans were garden-conscious, and in the second half
of the century a craze for formal gardens with sweeping vistas and
with unusual hedges arranged in intriguing mazes spread over
England and the continent. Even earlier there had been an
awakening to the decorative possibilities of both the garden and
the flower arrangements it afforded for the home. This had given
rise to the profession of nurserymen. In 1730, for example, Robert
Furber of Kensington published a catalogue, not only listing the
plants and shrubs he handled, but also containing prints of flower
arrangements suitable for home decorations each month of the
year.
Housewives of all classes were soon getting flowers from their
cutting gardens and grouping them in a variety of containers—
Wedgwood jaspers, brass, porcelain, glass, delft bricks, fingered
posey holders—to add to the interest of their rooms. Owners of
fine gardens became intrigued with the idea of new and startling
effects and sought strange and exotic plants and shrubs from
distant countries with which to add charm and distinction to their
grounds. This interest in landscaping spread to the colonies, and
many are the accounts in old ledgers of orders made by colonial
planters and farmers for European fruit trees, ornamental shrubs,
and rare plant seeds. Both George Washington and Thomas
Jefferson, farmers of Virginia, recorded the pleasure with which
they received such orders and the care which they bestowed upon
their imported plants.3
But the transfer of flowers, shrubs, fruit trees, and ornamental
plants was far from one-sided. English and European garden
owners were held spellbound by stories of nature's lavishness in
plant forms in the southern colonies. Now and then one was
willing to incur the expense of sending a botanist-collector to the
region for specimens with which to "embellish" his estate.
Interest in botany was rather widespread, and the work of
�In Search Of Beauty—An Interlude / 143
Linnaeus in 1753 greatly aided botanists in making accurate
records of their findings. He established a binomial system of
nomenclature, giving each plant and animal two names, one for
the genus or family and one for the species or individual.4
In America the best known botanists and nurserymen were the
Bartrams of Kingsessing, Pennsylvania, whose fine gardens were
visited by Europeans and colonists alike. John, the father, and his
son, William, were scholars and were continuously gathering and
classifying the rich plant offerings of America. They were in
constant correspondence with English horticulturists and
gardeners and had a large group of English patrons like Peter
Collinson, Quaker wool merchant of London. Collinson not only
bought from them American plants, shrubs, and seeds, but also
introduced these imports to other garden lovers.
Prospering in their business, the Bartrams opened a second
garden in Charleston. In 1773 the firm was commissioned by Dr.
Fothergill to search in Florida, the western Carolinas, and
Georgia for rare and useful flora, which the London physician
wished to use in his garden at Upton, near Stratford. That garden
was the physician's prize possession, for in variety of specimens
and beauty it rivaled the Kew Gardens. It may be that Fothergill
also hoped to find some new medicinal herbs among the
collections sent by the Bartrams. For several years, then, either
John or William Bartram, occasionally both, made excursions
into the designated areas with rich flora rewards.5
It fell to the lot of William, in 1775, to make the western trip
that would take him into Western North Carolina. On April 22,
he set out from Charleston. He was at this time thirty-six years
old, a man of learning and charm and with the deep respect for
people that his Quaker beliefs inspired. He was supplied with
letters of introduction to the Agent of Indian Affairs and was well
provided by temperament with a love for adventure and a keen
appreciation of the beauties of nature. Moreover, he had a flair for
transferring his enthusiasm and delight to the pages of his
notebooks and from them to the record he later wrote. This
account must have given sheer pleasure to the eighteenth century
reader as it does to the modern historian.6
From Charleston, Bartram followed the old trading route
along the Savannah River, veering off at times to make
observations and to gather specimens. By this route he came to
Keowee, the new Keowee that had risen after the destruction of
the old capital in 1760. After some time spent in this area, Bartram
�144 / Chapter Nine
APPALACHIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION COLLECTION, N. C.
DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
A Carpet of Ferns: Open glades in the forest provide room for the waving plumes of ferns.
William Bartram on his journey through the mountains of Western North Carolina
doubtless saw and delighted in such displays.
did not wait for the return of the hunter who was to conduct
him over the mountains, but went on alone. He must have felt
uneasy as he entered a wild, lonely country whose inhabitants, he
knew, were becoming increasingly unfriendly to the whites and
who certainly would be suspicious of a stranger who peered
around rocks and gathered plants and roots,
Bartram realized how terrible had been the animosity
between the races fifteen years before as he passed the desolate
ruins of towns and orchards in the Lower Cherokee lands where
the forces of Colonel Middle ton had struck telling blows. His
record remarks that Fort Prince George, across from Keowee,
now bore little resemblance to a fort and was used only as a
trading post. Bartram also wrote that the old Keowee, which had
once strung along six or eight miles of the river, was now only the
tattered remains typifying the fall of a once mighty race. He
knew, however, that there was still strength enough in the
Cherokees to flare up into real war. But it was the month of May,
�In Search Of Beauty—An Interlude I 145
and the mountainsides were aflame with azalea blooms, and the
meadows were a rich carpet of ripe strawberries. He put aside his
misgivings and turned his attention to the beauties of nature and
the pleasantness of his task.
Later in the wilds of Western North Carolina Bartram found
hospitality awaiting him. He spent the first night in the area—
May 21—within the shelter of a hunter's cabin a mile or so north
of the Georgia line. The next afternoon, quite by chance, he met a
white trader who took the botanist to his home for the night. The
following morning, fortified with a hearty and delicious
breakfast, he went on to Estatoe and then on the three miles to
Nikwasi. A few miles farther he reached Whatoga, where the
chief of the village, a gracious host, smoked a four-foot peace pipe
with him and then accompanied him for some miles on his way to
Cowee, at the present West's Mill.
Cowee, he found, was a town of about one hundred houses
built along the Little Tennessee River and was at this time the
capital of the Middle Cherokees. There, through the letters he
carried, he met and was most cordially entertained by a greatly
respected and trusted Irish trader named Galahan, who had long
lived in the mountains. After an agreeable visit in Galahan's home
and after his rambles about the area (during which he made
observations and classified flora), Bartram set out alone on the
path along the Little Tennessee and across the Nantahala
Mountains toward the Over Hill Towns.
Twice during his progress along the trading route the botanist
had occasion to feel alarm. He records that, once, while resting,
he was surprised by the unannounced appearance of a young
Indian, rifle in hand and accompanied by his dogs. But his fears
proved groundless, for the hunter, after asking some questions,
accepted tobacco that Bartram proffered him, shook hands with
the white man, and proceeded "chearfully" on his way.
The second occasion also came suddenly. According to his
account, he saw to his dismay a company of mounted Cherokees
approaching along the narrow path. As they neared him, he saw
that the central figure was Attakullakulla, or "Little Carpenter."
With the courtesy that was a part of his nature, Bartram turned
off the path to let the party pass. The "Grand Old Man" of the
Cherokees was touched by this gesture of respect and drew up his
horse. Clapping his hand to his own heart, he then offered it to
Bartram in the Cherokee symbol of friendship and introduced
himself. The botanist responded, saying that he was from
�146 / Chapter Nine
APPALACHIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION COLLECTION, N. C.
DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
Carolina Clouds: Witnessing scenes like this, early botanists and other scientists coming
into the mountains must have felt they were indeed above the clouds. After a violent
thunderstorm, William Bartram noted in his Journal that the mists "Smoaked (sic) through
the valley and over the resounding hills."
Pennsylvania where the name of Attakullakulla was revered and
where the Cherokees were considered brothers of the white men.
The chief then inquired of John Stuart, Superintendent of Indian
Affairs, saying that he was even then on his way to Charleston to
see Stuart. Bartram in turn explained that he carried letters of
friendship to the Indians from Stuart. After these pleasant
remarks, the old chief welcomed Bartram to his country, and the
party continued on its way while the scientist resumed his journey
to the Over Hill Towns.
He again became uneasy, and as he rode along the feeling of
disquiet increased. He knew that Attakullakulla was on a mission
to Charleston, hoping to gain a peaceful settlement of the strained
relations existing betweefi his people and the whites; he knew,
too, that the fine old Peacemaker would fail to obtain his desires.
Already Bartram had much information about this region and had
�In Search Of Beauty—An Interlude I 147
a goodly supply of specimen—plants, roots, some seeds—to dry
for the Bartram herbarium of American flora. He had classified
dozens of plants and trees. It seemed pointless to go into the Over
Hill section, where the feelings against the Americans were
especially strong. Obeying his better judgment, Bartram turned
back, retracing his route to Keowee and from there to Charleston.
In the present Swain County on the highway that follows the
ancient Cherokee trading route a simple marker calls attention to
the spot at which two great men met on that day in late May. It
reads: "William Bartram, Philadelphia naturalist, author,
exploring this area, met the Cherokee chief Attakullakulla, May,
1776, near here." The year 1776 is doubtless an error made by
Bartram in writing his account from notes taken on the trip.
Those notes give the year as 1775. In June, 1776, the Cherokee
warriors went on the warpath against white settlements. No
white person would have been safe that May in Cherokee
territory.
During his mountain journey nothing escaped the alert eyes of
the scientist, and with the keen joy of discovery he filled his
notebooks with delightful details that, transferred to his account
of the journey, enable the reader today to meet a vivid personality
pulsating with life. His first view of Western North Carolina he
got from the mountain he called Magnolia. From its top he looked
in awe across the "Vale of Tenase" (Tennessee River valley), and
he watched the clear water splash down Estatoe Falls. Later he
paused to revel in the beauty of the "Vale of Cowee." Into his
notebooks went not only the records of his findings and the
classification of plants, but also remarks, it would seem,
concerning all the objects he saw—and he saw everything.
Bartram wrote of the delight he felt in seeing herds of deer,
flocks of wild turkeys, the flashing wings of soaring birds, and of
hearing the rich melody of their songs. His account describes the
Cassine yapon, which the Cherokees considered a sacred tree, the
rose rhododendron, and brings to life the astonishing variations in
the shades and hues of the blooming wild azaleas and the delicacy
of tiny mountain flowers. He transferred to paper the amazement
he experienced in seeing such a variety of trees and the sublimity
of the magnificent forests through which he passed. In crossing the
mountains he had for the first time the unforgetable experience of
seeing May disappear before his eyes until, upon reaching the top
of the range, he was in late winter. Even a sudden and violent
thunderstorm which drenched him could not dampen his spirits,
�148 / Chapter Nine
CLINE STUDIOS
Azaleas: The botanist, William Bartram, in the western mountains in May, 1775,
reveled in the beauty of the spring flowers. He wrote that the flame azaleas, splashing the
mountainsides with their vivid colors, gave the mountains {t the appearance of being on fire. "
HUGH MORTON PHOTOS
Indian Pipes: The nodding Indian Pipes find their homes in nonacid humus. As plants of
the woods, they refuse to be cultivated; Rhododendron: In the spring the white blooms of
the Rhododendron Maximum reward travelers trudging rocky mountain byways; Galax: The shining leaves ofthegalax delight those coming to the mountains in search
of beauty as William Bartram came in 1775. Today "galackers" find a ready market for
these leaves.
�In Search Of Beauty—An Interlude / 149
and he notes that it "Smoaked through the valley and over the
resounding hills."7 He mentions the glitter of mica and the sylvan
charm of a group of native American maidens gathering wild
strawberries and then splashing in the waters of a nearby stream.
Bartram was alive, too, to the cultivation in the area,
apparently surprised that he found so many fields. He reported
that the soil was rich and fertile and noted the fields of beans and
corn. He spent some time admiring the fine horses in a trader's
"horse stamp." These animals, he was told, would be taken to
Charleston for sale. His curiosity about Indian life led him to
investigate and record his impressions of the villages he entered.
He was very interested in the large, domed council house he saw
in the village of Whatoga and noted that it was on an artificial
mound. He passed and made note of the clay pit from which, he
said, clay had been taken to England. The fine foods served him by
the Cherokee wives of his trader hosts came in for comment, and
his Journal shows that he especially enjoyed the wild strawberries
covered with rich cream that they gave him.
Yet in the midst of all this natural prodigality in which his very
soul rejoiced, Bartrarn was saddened by the evidences he saw of
what man had done to man in this majestic region. Soberly he
viewed the rock-covered graves and the resting places of both
whites and Indians who had given their lives in the two battles of
Echoee during the "Cherokee War". He was appalled by the
desolate ruins of the towns and orchards and of homes never
rebuilt after Grant's march through the hills. Fortunately he could
not foresee that further destruction would come to the hills in the
autumn of 1776 when General Rutherford's punitive forces would
arrive in retaliation for the summer attacks by Cherokee warriors
on homes and villages of white settlers.
In England in 1791 the account of his plant discoveries and his
plant classifications in Western North Carolina, written from his
notebooks, appeared in his Travels Through North and South Carolina,
Georgia, East and West of the Muscogules or Creek Confederacy, and the
Country of the Choctaws. In this volume also appeared the most
complete and accurate list of American birds made up to that
time. Through his account the entire region and age spring back
into life, and it is surely permissible to assume that as he left this
mountain country, he paused again on the summit of his Magnolia
Mountain for a final view of the azaleas, splashing the sides of the
mountain ranges with a kaleidoscope of flame and red and orange.
As he remarked, they gave the region the appearance of being on
fire.
�150 / Chapter Nine
After the Revolutionary War the French botanist, Andre
Michaux, came to America on a mission sponsored by the French
government to study and collect American plants. This was in
1785, and with the wealth of material to be found in the new
republic, Michaux established a nursery at Bergen, New Jersey.
To it he brought a vast variety of plants, shrubs, and trees, and
from it he shipped choice specimens to his native country to be
used in the garden of Rarnbouillet and Versailles. Two years later,
he opened a second nursery at Charleston. That same year he
followed the route taken by Bartram and entered Western North
Carolina from Georgia, studying the flora along the Tennessee
River.
In the autumn of 1788 Michaux returned to Western North
Carolina, this time veering north from the route and going to
Camden, South Carolina, and then along the Catawba River. He
made observations and classified plants around Morganton and
Turkey Cove. He then crossed the Blue Ridge, exploring Yellow
Mountain and later that year returned to the area by way of
Charlotte, exploring the Blue Ridge and along the Toe River.
Again in 1793 the French botanist was on a western trip, this time
going as far as Nashville, Tennessee. Two years later, he visited
Western North Carolina for the last time, covering the territory
around Linville, Roan, and Yellow Mountains. 8
Francois Andre Michaux accompanied his father on some of
the later trips and after his father's death in 1802 was sent back to
America to study the forest of the country. Commissioned by the
French Minister of the Interior, he explored fairly extensively in
Western North Carolina, covering the area east of the French
Broad River, Roan, Grandfather, the Black, Yellow, and Indian
Mountains, and Table Rock. From that section the younger
Michaux headed east over the Blue Ridge to Charlotte and then
back to Charleston. Both of the French botanists wrote of their
American discoveries and explorations. Andre published a
volume entitled The History of North American Oaks, which was
used later by his son in writing his book, Sylva Americana.**
Still another naturalist was John Fraser, who explored the
southern states during the years when one or both of the Michaux
were carrying on their Western North Carolina observations. He
was a Scottish botanist with a nursery at Chelsea, England. In the
last years of the eighteenth century he had gone to Russia, where
he had interested the aged Catherine in new and foreign plants.
After her death Fraser was appointed by Paul, her successor, as his
�In Search Of Beauty—An Interlude I 151
botanical collector and in that capacity traveled in search ot
specimens with which to fill Russian gardens.
Upon Paul's death, however, Eraser was not reappointed to
that position, and in 1802 he came to America. He had been in
America earlier, engaging in botanical research in South Carolina
in 1785 and again in 1789, going west until he entered the
mountains of Western North Carolina. In 1799 he was making
observations around Roan and Grandfather Mountains, and he
recorded that from the top of Roan he had been elated at gazing
into five states—Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North, and
South Carolina.10
These early botanists would, of course, be followed by others,
but they laid the firm foundation for any study of plant life in
Western North Carolina that might be undertaken. It was the
Bartrams who found and classified the Lost Camellia or Franklin
Tree, and it was Andre Michaux who in 1788 discovered the rare
Shortia, a discovery that was of great interest to scientists for a
hundred years. Michaux found the plant only in its fruit stage,
however, and botanists needed to see it in bloom in order to
complete a life cycle description of it. It was not until 1877 that the
delicate plant was found in North Carolina in full bloom. In
addition, Fraser discovered on one of his explorations into this
section of North Carolina the glorious rhododendron that he
named the Catawbensis. The work of these men, together with
the specimens they sent to various countries of Europe
familiarized hundreds of people with the beauty of the mountains
and attracted their attention to Western North Carolina.
�C H A P T E R
T E N
With Their Goods and Chattels
X he position of the Cherokees in Western North Carolina has
from colonial times been a confused one. Their struggle against
the encroaching white race was basically a desperate attempt to
maintain their rights and status as a nation with a recognized
national territory. Neither the English government nor the
French respected this right of domain, and both included the area
in their claims to American lands. The issue became more
confused when England split the Cherokee nation into two units
in separating the two Carolinas. Under a decidedly complicated
and contradictory policy, both the Carolina colonies and the
English government had the power of treaty making, thus tacitly
acknowledging that the Indians were a responsible government
unit, if not an independent nation.
The Crown reserved the right of designating a boundary line
between the races beyond which the colonists were forbidden to
settle. But this responsibility was complicated by the Granville
Grant that extended across the northern portion of North
Carolina. Over this area North Carolina had no jurisdiction. Nor
was the line of demarcation between Cherokees and whites
strictly enforced, for the Watauga settlers crossed the Blue Ridge
after that line was drawn and were allowed to retain the land that
they cleared there. Moreover, this group of settlers made treaties
with the Cherokees by which they purchased settlement rights
and fixed boundaries without benefit of colonial or English
sponsorship. The new state of North Carolina further divided the
152
�With Their Goods and Chattels / 153
the boundary line between the new state and the western territory
passed through the Cherokee domain.
Under both the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution, each state was given control over the native American lands
within its borders, but the federal government reserved to itself
the power of treaty making with the tribes and nations. Under this
arrangement, North Carolina was free to dispose of lands
declared by the United States Government as cleared ot Indian
occupancy. The state tried to restrain its westward-bound settlers
from infringing beyond the boundary limits, even though, as in
1785, the federal treaty narrowed the zone earlier declared open
by the state.
During the Revolutionary War, North Carolina had confiscated the Granville Grant, declaring the land not already allotted to
settlers to be the domain of the state. That tract and its western
lands available to white settlers offered to the hard-pressed state
government a possible means of recuperating its depleted
treasury. These areas also offered a means of paying its veterans of
the recent war. It was largely for these reasons that the ceding of
North Carolina's western lands to the Republic had been
vigorously opposed, especially by the easterners. In 1780 the state
took the first step in making use of the Cherokee country for the
whites; the General Assembly passed the Bonus Act, which set
aside an area to be reserved for veterans' grants, both those of the
state's militia and those in the state's quota in the Continental
army. In 1782 a supplementary act set the scale for the land
allotments. Grants allowed to individuals ranged from 640 acres
for privates to 12,000 acres for brigadier-generals.1
Following the passage of these laws, a commission was
appointed to survey soldier claims. Many veterans took advantage
of the Bonus Law, taking up land in Western North Carolina,
some of which later became a part of Tennessee. Other lands
cleared of Indians were soon opened to white civilians. This
westward migration of both soldiers and civilians was given
impetus by two treaties made between the federal government
and the Cherokees. Under the terms of the Holston Treaty drawn
up in 1791 at White's Ford, at the present Knoxville, Tennessee,
the Indians gave up their claims to lands along the French Broad
and lower Holston Rivers. This area included the sites of the
present Knoxville and Greeneville, Tennessee, and Asheville,
North Carolina.
The second treaty, concluded in 1798, pushed the Cherokee
�154 / Chapter Ten
boundary westward to approximately the western boundaries of
the present Haywood and Transylvania Counties.2 Thus, a decade
before the beginning of the new century, the double barrier of
towering mountains and the presence of hostile Indians, who for a
century and a half had halted the white man's compelling urge to
go west, had been conquered. Into the fertile valleys of the
mountain country streamed men with their guns and axes, their
little bundles of household effects, their wives and children. They
were coming to these ancient hills to stay.
North Carolina had earlier taken cognizance of the rapid
settlement of the territory just east of the Blue Ridge. Land there
had been opened to settlers since Tryon's line of demarcation of
1767; however, a sprinkling of westward-bound men and women
had selected hornesites and built their cabins at the very foothills
of the mountains before that date.
Just when the earliest of these pioneers arrived is not known.
But during the third decade of the century a few hardy
frontiersmen were in the Yadkin valley, and a small number had
settled on land west of the Catawba River. By 1740 the Brittain
community in the present Rutherford County was the nucleus
around which newcomers took holdings, and in 1742 at least one
settler, Heinrich Weidner, and possibly others had taken up land
in the present Burke County.3 During the next score of years these
early settlers were joined by hundreds of immigrants who
streamed into the "back country" from Philadelphia and
Charleston until the valleys of the streams flowing east from the
Blue Ridge were dotted with the log cabins of those crowding
westward. These small pioneer communities weathered the
attacks and massacres of the Cherokees during the French and
Indian War. They were protected, although inadequately, by
forts erected by the government or by the settlers themselves,
such as Fort McGaughey near Brittain Church, Fort McFadden
near the present Rutherfordton, or Fort Davidson, for some years
the most westerly of English forts.
As early as 1769 settlers along the upper Yadkin River
petitioned the colonial government to be organized as a county.
Yet it was not until January 26, 1771, that the authorization bill
was passed creating Surry County from the northern section of
Rowan County. That bill designated that the county court should
be held at the home of Gideon Wright on the east bank of the
Yadkin River. The bill also appointed Griffith Rutherford as one
of the commissioners charged with surveying the boundary line
�With Their Goods and Chattels / 155
between Surry and Rowan Counties.
The new county was named for the Earl of Surrey. It extended
westward to the Indian nation and took in a territory along the
Watauga, the Holston, the Nolichucky, and the Clinch Rivers.
Later, portions of Surry territory would be formed into new
counties, while another section would become a part of the state
of Tennessee. Over a period of years the seat of county
government shifted from one small village to another. Then
Dobson was selected as the permanent county seat and a
courthouse was there built.
Settlers in the new county were caught up in the Regulator
movement and in May, 1771, a group of men went to join men
from other counties who were gathering at Alamance Creek to
confront Governor Tryon's militia. The Surry men, however,
arrived too late to take part in the two-hour conflict known as the
Battle of Alamance. But they were not too late to be forced to
subscribe to an oath of allegiance to the colonial government.
During the Cherokee uprising in 1776, several hundred men
from Surry County, under Colonel Joseph Williams, joined the
militia led by Colonel William Christian against the Cherokee
Over Hill towns. There they brought widespread destruction to
that section of the Cherokee nation. Other Surry men were in
General Griffith Rutherford's punitive expedition against the
Cherokee Middle towns.
Throughout the Revolutionary War the county was the scene
of conflicting loyalties. Many of the Scottish Highlanders who
had earlier settled in the area remained loyal to the king and to the
oath of allegiance that some of them had been forced to take
following the Battle of Culloden Field. Governor Josiah Martin in
1775 stated that Surry was one of four counties that had made
written pledges of allegiance to the colonial government and the
English King. Gideon Wright became one of the county's most
active Loyalists, while Tory sentiment was strengthened through
the influence of David Fanning and the activities of his Loyalist
militia.
On October 8, 1780, Tories and Patriots clashed in an
encounter at Shallow Ford (now in Yadkin County). Later that
month some 160 Patriots led by Major Joseph Cloyd, defeated a
gathering of Tories. Yet English sympathizers continued to keep
conditions in the county unstable and in both the Battle of King's
Mountain and the later Battle of Guilford Court House men from
Surry fought on both sides. This division of loyalty existed
�156 / Chapter Ten
FROM STATE MAGAZINE, MARCH 17, 1951
N. C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
King's Mountain: This view of King's Mountain is from the valley below. The flag on the
summit of the mountain marks the site of the battlefield.
throughout the western settlements, creating conditions that
would be long in the healing.
At King's Mountain, however, Surry Patriots outnumbered
the Surry Loyalists in Ferguson's forces. In response to Ferguson's
demand for surrender, men from Surry under Major Joseph
Winston, together with men from Wilkes County under Colonel
Benjamin Cleveland, totaling about 350, joined the Overmountain men on their way to meet Ferguson's army. They took part in
the Battle of King's Mountain. Both Major Winston and Colonel
Cleveland, for the gallantry they and their men displayed in that
battle, were later awarded swords by the new state of North
Carolina.
By the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, the everincreasing number of settlers now at the very foothills of the Blue
Ridge clamored for the formation of new counties. Their
arguments for establishing new governmental units were in all
instances the same—their distance from the county seats. With
the lack of roads, distance was a telling argument, and the law
creating Rutherford County recognized its validity by stating in
its first clause:"...the large extent of the County of Tryon renders
the attendance of the inhabitants on the extreme parts of said
county to do publick [sic] duties extremely difficult and
expensive."4 The newly organized state of North Carolina
�With Their Goods and Chattels / 157
answered the pleas of the frontiersmen by forming three counties.
In 1777 Burke County was created from the sprawling Rowan
County, with Morganton as its county seat. The following year
Wilkes County was formed from Yadkin with Wilkesboro as its
county seat, both county and village honoring John Wilkes.
Wiping out the name of Tryon, which to many Patriots was
synonymous with tyranny and oppression, the General Assembly
in 1778 separated Tryon County into two divisions, designating
that portion lying west of the Catawba River and south of the old
Granville line as Rutherford County. The name honored Griffith
Rutherford, hero of the Revolutionary campaign against the
Cherokees. The county seat was for some years Gilbert Town;
however, when the new court house was constructed in 1785, the
present Rutherfordton came into being, known first as Rutherford
Town.5 As soon as possible after the acts creating them, the new
counties set up their county courts with the voters meeting in
convenient homes. It was not until sometime after the
Revolutionary War that permanent court houses were constructed.
All three counties extended across the Blue Ridge and
included the Cherokee country not yet opened to white
settlement. 6 These new counties were caught in the lawlessness
attending the last years of the Revolutionary War, a lawlessness
that increased as Ferguson's army moved in. Neither the county
governments nor the county militia units could check the sporadic
acts of depredation committed as Patroits and Loyalists, often
neighbors, sought vengeance upon each other. Several citizens,
through their personal influence, were the preservers ot law
during these troubled months. The success of the forces of the
hillmen at King's Mountain had a quieting effect upon Tory
activities. Some Loyalists, fearing the wrath of the Patriots, fled
into the mountains or crossed the Blue Ridge into the western
sections of their counties.
After the war, many veterans and their families crossed the
mountains into the present Watauga County and on to the Toe
River valley. Coming from settlements in the Yadkin valley and
from eastern North Carolina, Virginia, and Pennsylvania by way
of the Pennsylvania Road, they found that a few settlers had
preceded them. Who these were is not known, but some had
entered the region before the battle of King's Mountain and had
joined the Watauga men on their way to fight Ferguson. Others
had come shortly after that battle. James Holtzclaw in 1780 and
�158 / Chapter Ten
Thomas Hodges in 1781 built cabins in the Valle Crucis area.
William Miller, Nathan Horton, Ebeneazer Fairchild, and a
Captain Jackson soon followed, and by 1790 there was a goodly
sprinkling of newcomers in what is now Watauga County.7
The federal census of that year listed eighty families in the Toe
River valley, making an estimated population of three hundred.
This fertile region had early attracted hunters and herders, and it
is probable that a few tiny cabins had been erected even before
1778. In that year, having confiscated the Granville Tract, the
General Assembly made an effort to protect settlers in the
Cherokee country by opening to white settlement all lands north
of the divide between the Swannanoa and Toe Rivers and
westward to include all known white settlements. By the end of
that year four large grants of land in the Toe River valley had been
made to John McKnitt Alexander and William Sharpe, who took
them out as speculation land and did not take personal possession
of them.
In March of the following year Samuel Bright, a Loyalist,
settled on land granted him near McKinney Gap. In addition to his
hunting and bit of farming, he acted as a guide to men passing
through the valley to the Watauga Settlements or to the land of
Kentucky. The road he followed, no more than a trail but later to
be known as a wagon road, was called Bright's Trail. Other
settlers followed Bright into the region, the earliest being a group
of Williams—William Wiseman, William Davenport, William
Davis, and William Pendley. Together with those who later
scaled the precipitous eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge and entered
the valleys by way of McKinney and Gillespie Gaps, they took up
the task of making life in this mountain-rimmed valley a selfsufficient one. Life for them was made up of hunting and trapping
and clearing the land for the raising of needed crops. To a far
greater degree than was true with most sections of Western North
Carolina, the Toe River valley was a unit unto itself and was
destined to remain so for many years to come.8
During the war years settlers along the Catawba and Broad
Rivers must have looked with covetous eyes toward the mountain
barriers, and almost certainly a few had now and then crossed the
Blue Ridge to hunt in the mountain sections of their counties.
News of the state's law opening up land to settlers in those areas
was received with enthusiasm by some of these daring individuals,
and they lost no time in taking advantage of it. The first of those
known to have taken his family from Rutherford County due west
�With Their Goods and Chattels / 159
across the Blue Ridge was Samuel Davidson, a member of the
Davidson family that had earlier settled along the Catawba River.
It was a family who had played a significant role in the history of
that region. Its members, Patriots all, had taken part in the
Revolutionary War.
In 1784 Davidson crossed the Blue Ridge by way of
Swannanoa Gap and built his cabin at the foot of Jonas Mountain.
To this new home he brought his wife, baby, and a Negro house
servant, and he cleared land for his fields. This area was "cleared
of Indians," although the ruins of a former village could be seen
where the Swannanoa River empties into the French Broad River.
The region had once been a part of the Cherokees' vast hunting
domain, and this fact soon spelled tragedy for the young veteran.
A band of Indian hunters saw smoke coming from the chimney of
a white man's cabin, and removing the bell from his horse, the
Cherokees lured Davidson up the side of Jonas Mountain where
from ambush they shot him.
Hearing the rifle shot, the wife and servant hid during the day
and then they made their way over the mountains to the fort.
Some members of the Davidson family and some friends returned
to find the body. After burying it, they searched for and found the
Cherokees, some of whom they killed. So it was that the first
attempt at a settlement southwest of the Blue Ridge was baptized
with the blood of both races.
In less than a year Major William Davidson, the twin brother
of the slain Samuel, and Rachel Alexander, his sister, along with
their families and several of their friends crossed the Blue Ridge
from the Catawba settlements to take up grants of land where Bee
Tree Creek enters the Swannanoa River. In 1787 William and
James Davidson were granted 640 acres of land on both sides of the
Swannanoa. To this valley came other families—the William
Gudgers from the Watauga Settlements, the William Forsters
from Virginia, the John Pattons, the Robert Pattons, and James
Patton. The Bee Tree and Swannanoa settlements soon became
the nucleus of a new county.
Additional newcomers went into other areas, taking up land in
the fertile valleys. Colonel David Vance, coming from Burke
County, got a grant in Reems Creek valley. There he found that a
few settlers had preceded him. Among these was John Weaver,
probably the first white man to build his cabin in that area.
Settlers continued to arrive in that valley, while still others took
out claims in the Beaverdam valley. Among these were George
�BOB LINDSEY PHOTO, ASHEVILLE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
Mt, Pisgah: General Griffith Rutherford and his force of some 2,400 men passed this
towering mountain on their punitive expedition against the Cherokees in 1776. To the
veterans crossing the Blue Ridge after 1783 this 5,745 foot peak became a landmark. It
was later given the name Pisgah, the biblical mountain from which Moses viewed the Holy
Land. An enthusiastic guest at one of the later hotels declared that a view of Pisgah was
"more effective than a dozen sermons,"
DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
Pioneers from the Rutherfordton area, in crossing the Blue Ridge, followed this lovely
Broad River and passed through Hickory Nut Gorge,
Swain, David Killian, and in 1793, Bedent Baird. These two
settlements were in Burke County, while the Bee Tree and
Swannanoa settlements were in Rutherford County. 9
Other men chose their tracts of land around the present
Asheville. Zebulon Baird, brother of Bedent, built his home near
the French Broad River, while John Burton got several tracts, one
of which was on the site of the present Asheville.10 To the south
other communities were developing. William Mills (his Loyalist
father had been a victim of the Patriots' wrath following the
battle of King's Mountain) took out land along the river that today
�With Their Goods and Chattels / 161
bears his name. Samuel Edney also made his home in what is now
Henderson County and became the first resident Methodist
minister southwest of the Blue Ridge.11 Others took out grants
near the present Saluda. One of those was John Morris, probably
the brother of Robert Morris, who had spent his energies and his
fortune in the cause of American freedom. The extensive grants
given him by the grateful new Government were both east and
west of the Blue Ridge.
The call westward was a strong one, and some of the men
crossing the mountains went beyond the little communities
already formed to get claims farther west. One of these was
William Moore. In 1787 he was granted land in the Hominy Creek
section, where he and his men had camped on their mission against
the Cherokees along the Tuckaseigee River in 1776. On this 450
acre tract he built his home and near it raised a small fort tor
protection against possible Indian raids. Today this is the site of
the Enka Corporation. Moore was later granted land farther to
the west. Settlers continued to enter the mountains, and in the
same year that Moore was building his cabin, Jonathan McPeters
was farming land on the site of the present Canton. When David
Nelson, his bound servant, completed his indentureship, he in turn
settled on Jonathan Creek. Here to the Pigeon River valley also
came John Davidson, James Chambers, Robert Martin, and John
Gooch. Other settlers followed.12
Still farther west were the extensive grants given to Colonel
Robert Love and his brother, General Thomas Love. They made
their homes on Richland Creek. The settlement that developed in
that area became the nucleus of a community that would in time
demand a new county, and Haywood County would eventually be
formed with Waynesville as its county seat. By 1790 the region
west of the Blue Ridge that had been declared "cleared of
Indians" had a surprisingly large population.
As mentioned earlier, one of the hardships of the pioneers was
the difficulty of getting to their county seats. This was
burdensome to all but especially so to the most westerly of the tiny
settlements. Going either to Rutherfordton or Morganton meant a
trip across the Blue Ridge over what were mere trails. Of the
communities that had so far developed, the Bee Tree-Swannanoa
and the Reems Creek-Beaverdam settlements were the largest.
From these two groups petitions for a new county west of the Blue
Ridge were sent to the General Assembly. In compliance with
those petitions, a new county was created in January, 1792, and
�162 / Chapter Ten
FLORETTA BRUMLEY PHOTO
Logs: A settler's first concern was his home. The trees he felled in clearing the acres for his
crops became logs for his house, usually a cabin about 12 by 24 feet. Notched into place, these
logs with their chinking insured a sturdy and warm home for his family. Some of these early
cabins still stand, monuments to their builders' fine workmanship.
was given the name Buncombe County, honoring Colonel
Edward Buncombe. It included all of Rutherford County west of
the mountains and most of the western part of Burke County.
Buncombe extended westward to the Territory of Tennessee and
southward from the present Mitchell County to the South
Carolina and Georgia lines; for obvious reasons it was facetiously
called "The State of Buncombe."13
As a compromise measure, the needed court house was built
on a plateau between the two most populous communities and
offered road access from all directions. As was the case in the
newly created counties east of the Blue Ridge, this courthouse was
a small, log structure. Adjacent to it were the prison and its
�With Their Goods and Chattels / 163
exercise grounds and the public stocks. The new structure faced
east approximately where today Patton Avenue enters Pack
Square in Asheville. John Burton, called "The Father ot
Asheville," from his holdings laid out a north-south street in front
of it to be known as North Main and South Main. Those streets are
today Broadway and Biltmore Avenue. Burton then sectioned off
forty-two town lots.14 On January 25, 1795, John Brown reached
Buncombe Courthouse on a trip through Western North Carolina
to select and buy up speculation land. In his Journal he recorded,
"there is a few cabins."15
These cabins described by Brown were places of business, and
more would be erected. Zebulon and Bedent Baird arrived in 1793
after accomplishing the almost miraculous feat of hauling a wagon
loaded with supplies over Saluda Mountain. They opened a store.
In addition, George Swain built a little hatter's shop, and in his
home James Patton served meals and offered lodging to travelers.
Silas McDowell had a tailor shop, while Phillip Smith made
wagons as well as tooling "shoes for men and horses, saddles and
hats." Robert Henry, coming into the Swannanoa community,
opened the first school west of the Blue Ridge. Also near this little
group of business houses John Burton erected a grist mill, and
Thomas Forster built a bridge over the Swannanoa River.
Buncombe Courthouse had become a town.
On a return trip to Buncombe Courthouse, land speculator
John Brown was apparently unimpressed with the village and
made the following comments in his Journal: "...this town stands a
mile distance from the French Broad and a mile Below where the
Swanno River empties into the Franch Broad the settlement is
very thin and they live but very indifferently. We had very poor
entertainment this town is but two days walk from the Cherokee
nation [sic]." Brown was right in saying that the town was
"thin." That was also true of the new county seats east of the Blue
Ridge. Whatever skills and trades the pioneers brought to the
shifting frontier, it was land that had motivated their coming. A
merchant or a hatter typically rode into the village from his farm
to ply his trade and at sunset closed his shop and rode home. Only
later did homes appear on the streets of these little towns.16
Buncombe Courthouse had been named Morristown, but the
name was not popular. When the town was incorporated, it was
renamed Asheville, honoring Governor Samuel Ashe. In a few
years there was noticeable growth in the village and as the only
town west of the Blue Ridge, it acquired a post office in 1801, with
�164 / Chapter Ten
Jeremiah Cleveland as postmaster. In 1806 Asheville was made the
distribution point for mail going to all parts of Western North
Carolina, eastern Tennessee, to the western sections of South
Carolina, and to northern Georgia. George Swain then became
postmaster.
The formation of Buncombe County promoted the growth of
the entire region, and a steady stream of settlers entered the area
through every gap in the mountains. Many of them had already
taken out grants or secured them upon their arrival. Other
newcomers merely picked out desirable sites for homes, felled a
few trees, built their cabins, and began life in the mountains. Most
of the grants were comparatively modest in size, but many
enterprising North Carolinians and out-of-state settlers secured
huge tracts of virgin land. Part of this was usually kept for
themselves and their families, and a part of it they sold to new
settlers. Since they had paid only fifty shillings per hundred acres
for their lands, they were able, by selling in small tracts, to make a
considerable profit. In order to sell their lands to advantage, they
sometimes advertised in the eastern cities. This helped to increase
the number of settlers entering North Carolina from other states.
In 1795 John Brown of Lewistown, Pennsylvania, traveled
through Western North Carolina. His mission was to select and
purchase tracts of land for William Cathcart and George and
James Latimer, eastern investors. In addition to purchases made
for Cathcart and the Latimers, he succeeded in getting land for
himself and for several local men whom he met during his travels.
Brown meticulously kept a journal, which today is an invaluable
source of information about the process of securing land grants.
He wrote in detail, too, about the poor roads, the rivers he forded
and reforded, the people he met, the villages through which he
passed, and the "thinness" of the country. His record furnishes
vivid word pictures of conditions in Western North Carolina
during its pioneer days.
At the same time men within the state and settlers in the
counties through which Brown passed were also taking out
speculation land. Among them were several members of the
Davidson family, Robert Henry, Waightstill Avery, Lambert
Clayton, and Ephraim George. These tracts varied in size.
Perhaps the most extensive of the speculation lands was held by
Tench Coxe of Philadelphia. His acres covered huge areas, both
east and west of the Blue Ridge. There were others who held
grants covering thousands of acres.
�With Their Goods and Chattels / 165
With demands for land coming into the county seats almost
daily, the county officials had difficulty in surveying, staking out,
recording the transaction, and sending the necessary information
to state officials. The fact that land was being sold both by the
state government and by individuals and the incidence of
numerous squatters caused some mistakes. Some lands were not
surveyed, and some plots were never cleared with the state;
therefore, vexing questions concerning land titles were in the
making to plague citizens and lawyers of a later era.17
So astonishingly rapid was the influx of settlers into the
opened Cherokee lands that early in the new century Colonel
Robert Love and his brother, General Thomas Love, led a
movement for the formation of a new county. These men had
extensive holdings, one tract of which was in the area of Richland
Creek, and they had built homes on the ridge above that stream.
Others had settled near them. The Pigeon River community and
the settlements along Crabtree, Fines, and Jonathan Creeks had
likewise flourished. In their requests for a new county, these
pioneers gave the same reason advanced for the establishment of
Buncombe County in 1792. They declared that the distance from
the courthouse in Asheville was too great for convenience at any
time, and they argued that the roads were frequently, especially in
the winter months, impassable. Thus an unnecessary burden was
imposed upon those having to make trips to the county seat.
A petition presented to the General Assembly by Thomas
Love resulted in the passing of a law in December, 1808,
authorizing the formation of a new mountain county from a
portion of Buncombe County's western lands. The new county
extended westward to the Tennessee line but was not open to
white settlers beyond the Meigs-Freeman survey line of 1803.
Robert Love donated the site for the courthouse and a lot for a
church, and he suggested that the new town be named
Waynesville, in honor of General Anthony Wayne, under whom
Love had served in the Revolutionary War. The county was
named Haywood in honor of John Hay wood, treasurer of North
Carolina. By 1810 the settled part of the country west of the Blue
Ridge had already reached the Cherokee boundary.18
Western North Carolina gained still another mountain county
to the north when in 1799 Ashe was created by an act of the
General Assembly. It was named for Samuel Ashe and the county
seat, Jefferson, was a reminder to its citizens of the author of the
Declaration of Independence.
�C H A P T E R
E L E V E N
Weaving a Homespun
Pattern of Living
J^ike the settlers east of the Blue Ridge, those crossing the
mountains represented many European stocks. There were those
of English descent like the Mills family, and many German names
coming from Pennsylvania or directly from Europe appearing
among the mountain settlers, including Shook, Gooch, or
Weaver. In addition, the settlers of Dutch Cove from the Yadkin
Valley were largely of German descent. There were Irish, like the
Pattons, and Welsh families with names like Williams and Welsh.
A few of the mountain people were of French extraction, and
there were many Scotch-Irish, giving the region its dozens of
names beginning with Mac. Entering the mountain area from the
earlier settlements in Burke, Rutherford, and Wilkes Counties,
from Virginia and Pennsylvania, from South Carolina, and from
the Watauga Settlements, these pioneers were, on the whole,
young men, single or with their wives and small children.
Some of these new arrivals had been trained in the ways of
pioneer life since childhood, and all of them came with an
optimism based upon a faith in the future of the new country.
Many of them had the ability, the personality, and the qualities of
leadership that would enable them to mold the trends of events
and thus to justify the faith of all. As they set about developing a
166
�Weaving a Homespun Pattern oj Living / 167
way of life compatible with their mountain surroundings, the days
must have been adventurous, often exciting, and sometimes
dangerous, but always hard. Behind them these men and women
had left whatever conveniences and cultural advantages they had
enjoyed, and individually as pioneers and collectively as
communities, they were faced with building a social structure
where none existed.
Each man's immediate concern upon arriving at his tract of
land was the building of his home. In most cases that meant first
the task of clearing a suitable spot near a stream. The forest was
boundless, and with so much clearing of fields awaiting his axe, a
man could not dawdle over the construction of a house to shelter
his family. If a dwelling could be made warm and safe, it would do
until the head of the household had the time to enlarge it or to
build a bigger one. As a result, the first houses were almost
unbelievably small. Often only twelve or fourteen by sixteen or
eighteen feet, they were one or two-roomed buildings made from
the logs of trees felled on the spot and notched into position for the
walls. The top log was split and smoothed, and on it rested the roof
of split logs, notched and held into place by poles or stones.
The floors were of rough puncheon or even, in some cases,
merely the ground that soon packed into firmness. The walls and
roofs of some of the cabins were high enough to allow for a loft,
which was reached by means of cleats notched to the wall or by
pegs below the ''scuttle hole." This loft became a storage place,
sleeping quarters, usually for the older children, and on occasion
served as a vantage post from which to shoot at prowling
Cherokees. Some lofts, like that in the home of Zebulon Baird on
the east side of the French Broad River, were equipped with gun
holes.1 The one or two windows of the cabin were without glass,
but puncheon shutters, hung by wooden pegs or hinges, provided
protection against the elements and enemies. One end of each
cabin was well taken up with the fireplace, used for both heating
and cooking. It was constructed of stones mortared into place
with clay. Clay or any available mud from the creek banks, mixed
with pebbles and stones and even with twigs, also provided the
chinking between the logs of the walls. The result of the pioneer's
carpentry was rarely artistic, but it was sturdy and warm. 2
The furniture for his cabin was also the work of the pioneer's
own hands. Often in those early years the beds were bunks against
the wall, sometimes attached to it with pegs. Over them the
housewife could put her feather beds if she were fortunate enough
�168 / Chapter Eleven
BOB LINDSEY PHOTO, ASHEVILLE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
The Vance Home (restored): This house, large for that time, was built by Colonel David
Vance about 1795. It has a sitting room and three bedrooms in two stories and a one-story
kitchen. Here David's grandson, Zebulon Baird Vance, was born on May 13, 1830. This
house has been the home of five outstanding members of the Vance family.
to be allowed to bring them from the east. If not, after the first
crop, she could have straw or husk mattresses, and until that time
she made out with grass or reed mattresses. Buffalo and deerskin
made the bed clothing, and the bunks served as seats during the
daytime. The children in the loft slept on husk-filled pallets or on
animal skins on the floor. Tables and chairs, which were only
backless stools fashioned according to the husband's skill,
completed the simple household effects.
A mantel and some storage space on the fireplace wall
sometimes added to the housewife's convenience. Over the door,
suspended on two forked sticks pegged to the wall, was the ever
ready rifle. It was handily placed and out of reach of the children.
As soon as possible a crib or cradle was made for the baby. The
pioneer's farming and household tools were likewise meager. He
brought into the wilderness his flint-lock, long-barreled rifle, his
hunting knife, his axe, possibly an adz or a froe, and a few plough
shares, together with some pot hooks and the seeds for his first
crop.
�Weaving a Homespun Pattern of Living / 169
The lady of the house usually had a scanty supply of "store"
cloth, an iron kettle and a pot or two, an inadequate supply of
pewter dishes and knives, a few spoons and forks, and sometimes a
spinning wheel. Frequently she guarded a small "library," which
typically included a copy of the Bible and an almanac. Perhaps in a
small chest she cherished a little assortment of family heirlooms.
The frontier couple brought or purchased from earlier settlers a
horse or two, a cow, and a few hogs.3
After his home and possibly a nearby barn had been
completed, the pioneer turned his attention to clearing the land.
With the tools he had, he grubbed out tangled shrubs and
underbrush and girdled the trees so that they would die in a couple
of years. In the first year or so he planted his corn among the
girdled trees, now leafless, fertilizing the crop by the Indian
method of putting a fish in each corn hill. When the trees were
dead, he felled them with the help of one or more of the
neighboring settlers, saving some of the logs for fuel and for
building. The surplus—oak, hickory, ash, walnut—was dragged
to a convenient spot to be burned.
A garden plot also demanded attention and was early cleared
near the cabin. It fell to the wife's lot to tend the beans, potatoes,
onions, and other vegetables grown there for the family's food
supply. Besides corn, as the land was cleared, the pioneer raised
crops of wheat, rye, oats, and some tobacco. As he built up his
herd of cattle, he used the nearby hillsides for his grazing grounds
and let his hogs roam at will to fatten on the wild nuts. Bells were
attached to the cows and hogs were marked with an ownership
symbol. The settler usually planned to raise a sufficient number of
horses to supply him with the needed farm animals and with a
means of transportation to markets. Some of the settlers used
oxen, and in time oxen became the beasts of burden on all farms.
These pioneers, no matter what else they were, were farmers, and
for the first few years of their lives in the mountains, they were all
subsistence farmers. 4
Still, the mountain settlers enjoyed a self-sufficient economy.
Food was plentiful, and the pioneer's rifle, used with superb
marksmanship, kept the family larder supplied with meat and
fowl. The stream rippling past the house offered refrigeration and
was a never-failing source of choice fish. The meadow furnished
an abundance of "greens" in the early spring and a carpet of
strawberries in their season. Bee trees yielded honey, and the
woods offered a variety of nuts. Many kinds of wild herbs and
�170 / Chapter Eleven
APPALACHIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION COLLECTION, N. C.
DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
When building a new house, a settler often kept his earlier house as a storage place or a bam.
Back of this farmstead the lofty Craggies rise.
roots were gathered yearly for the home remedies so vital to a
doctorless country. During those first years, the corn was ground
at home by means of a stone or wooden mortar and pestle, and the
many products of the garden were dried for winter use. The cows
gave their milk, and the spring or creek insured a constant supply
of drinking water.
For some years wild game from the surrounding forests
supplied the settlers of Western North Carolina with much of
their clothing. Deerskins became buckskin leggings, trousers, and
shirts for the men and sometimes provided skirts for the women.
Animal hides became shoes and moccasins for the entire family.
As time went on, many of the settlers built up a flock of sheep and
raised a field or two of flax. Then the men made hand looms, and
the women spent the winter afternoons spinning and weaving
�Weaving a Homespun Pattern of Living / 111
linsey-woolsey cloth for the family's wardrobes and for the fine
coverlets for their beds. If the women worked in the evenings,
they did so by the light of the fire or of pine torches, or by the
flickering light of home made beef tallow candles. Occasionally
some pioneer woman would possess a lamp of iron molded in a cup
shape in which floated a wick saturated in hog lard. In all the
phases of their living, mountain pioneers were repeating the
experiences of earlier settlers in the piedmont areas. They were
continuing and extending the life style of their friends and kin folk
in the newly created counties of Burke and Rutherford and
Wilkes just east of the Blue Ridge.5
At rare intervals the pioneer went to market on horseback.
East of the Blue Ridge and in the northern mountain section that
meant a trip to Morganton or to Rutherfordton. West of the Blue
Ridge it might mean a journey to Waynesville and often to
Asheville. There the Bairds took the furs and hides from the
pioneer's hunting and trapping and possibly a few hog or deer
hams in exchange for salt, sugar, a few tools, or bars of iron. A bit
of coffee and a tew yards of *'store" cloth for his wife and
daughters also made the return trip. The furs and hides and hams
the merchants would in turn take to Augusta or to Charleston on
their next trip, exchanging them for the supplies needed by the
early settlers.
Almost nothing except taxes was paid for in money, for specie
was scarce throughout the state, especially in the frontier areas.
When money was mentioned, however, it was in terms of English
coins. It was not until 1809 that the General Assembly authorized
the counties to keep their records in terms of American currency.
Some of the coins appearing in Western North Carolina up to that
date were English, but there was a sprinkling of French coins and
even more Spanish doubloons and pieces of eight. In hhjournal, for
example, John Brown recorded the constant difficulty of
exchanging the currency he had brought from Pennsylvania into
pieces of eight. Entry takers often refused to make the exchange.6
As had been the case with the earlier settlers in the
Catawba and Broad River sections, protection was every
mountain settler's concern, and those pioneers living in isolated
coves or along small streams had to be prepared for sudden
attacks from bands of Cherokees. Each member of the tamily
was taught to use a rifle and learned where to seek a hiding
place in case of need. When forewarned, those living in the
neighborhood ot a block house or fort fled to a previously
�172 / Chapter Eleven
THE STEPHENS PRESS, INC.
^4/ier a community or farm forge was set up, the settler had improved farm implements, and
the kitchen fireplace—always a busy spot—was well equipped. The one shown above is in
the restored Vance home.
designated one for safety. After 1783 there was no Cherokee
"war" against the white settlements, but some native
Americans, on the pretense of hunting, remained a constant
menace. For instance, John Burton's miller, having crossed the
French Broad River searching for his cow, was killed by a
lurking Cherokee.7 Several times the William Mills family
�Weaving a Homespun Pattern of Living / 173
narrowly escaped death by reaching the fort at Point Lookout
before the pursuing Indians.8 There were far too many instances
in which several family members became victims of a surprise
attack by prowling Indians.9
To protect the clusters of settlements, to prevent massacres
in remote districts, and to instill in the Cherokees the fear of
organized retaliation, the settlers worked out a system of
patrols. Each appointed armed watchman covered a six-mile
territory. Block houses or tiny log forts were erected at
intervals along the French Broad River and at other strategic
spots, such as Point Lookout, to which besieged families could
go. Some individuals built forts at their homes, like the one
constructed shortly after 1787 by Captain William Moore,
probably the first white settler west of the French Broad River.
His fort, which served as protection for his own family and tor
the families that came into the Hominy Creek region, stood on
or near the present Sand Hill Road just east of the Enka
Corporation plant. John Brown, in Asheville, noted that the
settlers kept "near Sixty men out about seven miles distant
from the Town in small garrisons to Prevent the Indians trom
come ing in on them [sic]."10
In case of need, the patrols, covering their districts on
horseback, could have the assistance of the local militia. North
Carolina's militia, during the Revolutionary War, had been a
signal factor in quelling the English-sympathizing Cherokees. It
had also been instrumental in driving the British armies from the
state. Now, in 1793, it was divided into four divisions. These in
turn were marked into districts, each to organize a brigade made
up of freemen and apprentices eighteen years of age and over. On
both sides of the Blue Ridge, Western North Carolina men, most
of whom were veterans of the late war, gladly accepted the call.
They furnished their own muskets, powder horns, and shotpouches, and without the benefit of uniforms they attended called
drills known as Exercises. Calls for active duty were responded
to, and once a year at places designated by law or by the
commanding officers, this self-made militia attended a review or
inspection and recruiting ceremony known as Muster Day. This
military organization, made up of seasoned soldiers, did much to
maintain a state of peace between the settlers and the native
American.11
One of the things that separates civilized man from his less
�/I n E^rly Ferry: Transportation for men and theirfarm products was long a problem in the
mountain communities. Until bridges were built over streams, ferries, like this one on the
French Broad River near Asheville, served settlers both east and west of the Blue Ridge.
developed ancestors and contemporaries is a system ot
transportation in which roads play an essential part. Simple
trails had first served the buffalo, the deer, and later the
Cherokee on his hunting and raiding expeditions. These
footpaths had been firmly packed into trading paths by the
hooves of thousands of pack horses. They brought early settlers
into the "back country," then to the foothills of the Blue
Ridge, and at last across the mountains. During the peak years
of this westward migration into the mountain valleys and
coves, hundreds of pioneers trudged over the old paths carrying
their possessions in bundles. Thousands of others rode over
them on horseback with their personal effects in their saddle
bags or on a pack horse or two or, in a few cases, on a crude
sled or "stone boat" pulled by a patient horse or ox.
But ambitious pioneers had visions of roads over which they
might use wagons in procuring needed supplies and in
transporting their products to Virginia or to South Carolina
markets. These visions became realities amazingly early. True,
"waggon road" was more often than not a polite term for a
steep, twisting, narrow, boulder-filled trail over the mountains
and along the streams, yet over such trails, by near-miraculous
combinations of good weather, back-breaking efforts, perseverance, and luck or destiny, determined teamsters sometimes
succeeded in keeping their wagons reasonably intact and
mobile.
As early as 1753 the Moravian "Brethern," arriving to build
Bethabara, had actually negotiated a wagon, considered the
first, over the Pennsylvania Road, a feat that had made
burdensome every foot of the five hundred miles. On some of
�Weaving a Homespun Pattern of Living / 175
the steep inclines, it had been necessary to take the wagon apart
and carry it piecemeal up the mountain, while on the equally
steep descents it had been necessary to lock two wheels and to
hang a log on behind to act as a brake.12 For many years,
mountain pioneers were to repeat these experiences. The first
established route across the Blue Ridge was undoubtedly the
one used by Boone. From his home on the Yadkin he made
early trips west by crossing the range at Cook's Gap and going
across the site of Boone to Hodge's Gap, then skirting the base
of Rich Mountain to the present Silverstone. Then, by
following a buffalo trail, he passed between the present
Zionville, North Carolina, and Trade, Tennessee. This Boone
trail has been marked by six markers.13
A later road scaled the Blue Ridge at McKinney or
Gillespie Gap and, following the North Toe River, crossed
Yellow Mountain or went over a gap between Yellow and
Roan Mountains and on to the Watauga Settlements. New and
trail-like as this route must have been in 1771, it was used by
James Robertson and the sixteen Wake County families that he
escorted to the western .settlements. It is thought that this
group took their belongings in wagons, and it is certain that the
later Bright's Trail, making use of this older road which
crossed over the gap between Yellow and Roan Mountains, was
known as a wagon road. In 1774 Daniel Boone and eight
companions, in preparation for Henderson's Transylvania
colony in Kentucky, hacked out the Wilderness Road. When
the settlers went over it a few months later, they took supplies
by wagon train as far as the Cumberland Mountains.14
To the southwest the enterprising Baird Brothers—Zebulon
and Bedent—in 1793 succeeded in getting a wagon and supplies
over the forbidding Saluda Mountain and on to Buncombe
Courthouse where they set up their merchandizing business.
Two years later, presumably the worse for their mountain
wear, two wagons rumbled into White's Ford, now Knoxville,
having achieved the feat of scaling Saluda Mountain and the
almost equally difficult feat of passing down the French Broad
River gorge.15
As communities developed in the western mountain sections
of Burke and Rutherford Counties, settlers laid out roads ot a
sort connecting the two counties and linking the homes of
prominent citizens. Some of these were somewhat figuratively
called wagon roads, and Reem's Creek boasted a "waggon
�176 / Chapter Eleven
ASHEVILLE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
Early settlers lightened their dawn-to-dark labor with home-made appliances. Here the farmer
uses a sled—called a sledge—to transport his heavy implements and other burdens about the
farm.
ford." When Buncombe County was created, roads were the
chief, immediate concern of the new government. On the
second day of the first court ever held in North Carolina west
�Weaving a Homespun Pattern of Living / 177
of the Blue Ridge, the problem of roads was taken up, and soon
provisions were made for roads to a forge, to outlying sections
of the county, and across gaps to markets. State subsidizing of
roads was still far in the future, and the mountain counties both
east and west of the Blue Ridge worked out a system of road
construction and maintenance.
The highway was marked off into sections with one man
assigned to oversee the construction and upkeep of each section.
His crew consisted of "warned in" citizens, ordered by the
county court to work a certain number of days. During the
early settlement period when roads were desperately needed
and when the lack of them might mean failure to his mountain
venture, each settler responded wholeheartedly to the county's
call for road duty. The system later broke down. But for the
area west of the Blue Ridge a tremendous step forward had
been accomplished when a usable wagon road over Saluda Gap
allowed incoming settlers to bring their belongings by wagon
to their new homes.16
Until the first quarter of the new century was ending,
however, roads continued to be the stumbling block to all
progress in Western North Carolina. All travelers to the area
who left records take up much letter, diary, or journal space in
lamenting the hardships endured on the roads over which they
had entered the region. The road linking Asheville with the
Hominy Creek settlement and with the Richland Creek and
Pigeon River groups farther west was scarcely worthy to be so
called. Its wretched condition, especially during much ot the
winter, was an eloquent argument for the formation of another
western county.
Most of the roads followed the streams. As was true in
many places along the French Broad River northwest ot
Asheville, a gorge frequently closed in to the river bank. This
necessitated fording and refording the stream or traveling some
distance by means of side fords, that is, with the wheels of one
or of both sides of the wagon in the stream bed. The rocks and
boulders made both types of stream travel hazardous. Bishop
Francis Asbury, for instance, on his way from Tennessee to
Asheville on Thursday, November 3, 1800, tried riding in a
chaise. Before he reached Paint Rock, just south of the
Tennessee line, he was so exhausted from bouncing over the
rocks that he abandoned the carriage for his horse. It was lucky
that he did, for shortly thereafter the "roan horse reeled" and
�178 / Chapter Eleven
fell, taking the light carriage with him. It landed bottomside up
and became wedged against a sapling. As Bishop Asbury and
the driver struggled to right the chaise, they saw a woman
spreading the water-soaked garments and bedding of her family
about on the rocks to dry. Her husband was laboring in the river to
retrieve his upset wagon.
The following Sunday, the Bishop again attempted riding a
chaise, this time from the Daniel Killian home north of
Asheville to William Forster's house in the present Biltmore, a
distance of some five miles. Again he gave up the carriage for
his more reliable horse, and that night he recorded in his Journal:
"This mode of conveyance by no means suits the roads of this
wilderness; we were obliged to keep one behind the carriage
with a strap to hold by and prevent accidents almost continually."17
Yet wagons were being used, and Asbury mentions that
Phillip Smith of Asheville made wagons, as well as shoes for
men and horses, saddles, and hats.18 Between 1800 and 1814
Bishop Asbury made almost yearly trips up the French Broad
Road, through the various communities surrounding the
Buncombe County courthouse, and down Saluda Mountain
into South Carolina. After the ordeal of getting from one
preaching point to another and after the agony of descending
the mountain barrier, the Bishop said farewell to Western
North Carolina with relief. In 1802 he wrote that in getting
down Saluda Mountain he "used time, patience, labor, and two
sticks." In the next year Asbury recorded: "Once more I have
escaped from filth, fleas, rattlesnakes, hills, mountains, rocks,
and rivers; farewell western world for a while!"19 Except for
the hardships imposed by the more mountainous terrain,
transportation conditions were scarcely better in the older
counties of Burke and Rutherford and Wilkes. The ancient
Indian trail from near the present Pickens, South Carolina,
passed through Rutherfordton and near Morganton and on to
the headwaters of Linville River and thence west to the present
Boone and into Tennessee. This trail continued to be a main
artery of travel.20 Roads going east were practically nonexistent, and the products of this rich valley region went
largely to South Carolina markets.
From time to time the counties laid out new roads or
repaired older ones, but they were always poorly kept and
frequently next to impassable. River transportation in this area
�Weaving a Homespun Pattern of Living / 179
just east of the Blue Ridge was necessarily stressed, and settlers
living along the prongs of the Broad River were required to keep
the streams navigable for small, flat-bottomed boats. Downstream the freight was reloaded onto larger boats bound for
Columbia and other South Carolina river ports. In fact, so
economically essential were the river highways that several
"artificial towns" along streams were authorized by the General
Assembly. Attempts were made by companies to build planned
villages such as Burr on the Broad River and Jefferson on "Main
Broad River". But all these attempts failed, for the settlers were
basically farmers.21
Until well into the new century, the county seats were mere
clusters of cabins, housing a few hundred citizens who were also
farmers. Their salable products, after transportation costs were
deducted, brought scarcely enough to pay for the needed but highpriced supplies. The area was forced to raise or make what was
needed or go without.
Uncomfortable as traveling was, Francis Asbury made his
difficult yearly pilgrimages to this frontier because, as he said,
"My soul felt for these neglected people."22 Many years later
another missionary characterized the mountain dwellers as "an
interesting population in great spiritual destitution."23 It is
estimated that in 1790 not more than one person in thirty in North
Carolina was a member of any church; there were only fourteen
to fifteen thousand church members in the entire state. Of the
Protestant denominations, the Baptists, with ninety-four
churches, had by far the largest membership.
Followers of John Wesley's Methodism had suffered during
the Revolution because of the faith's English origin. Yet in 1784
Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke were ordained as bishops in the
newly formed Methodist Church of America. After holding their
first Conference near Louisburg, they began their missionary
journeys that extended from Maine to Georgia.
Flocking into the back country, the Scotch-Irish brought with
them the Presbyterianism of John Knox, and in 1788 there were
twenty-eight Presbyterian ministers preaching in the state.24 The
Scotch-Irish Presbyterians in both Burke and Rutherford
Counties early organized churches, the first in the area being the
Westminster or Brittain Church in Rutherford County. Its
congregation of twenty members was organized in 1768,
probably by the Reverend Daniel Thatcher. That same year a
church building was erected, the first house of worship west of the
Catawba River; it became the first of three successive Brittain
�180 / Chapter Eleven
Churches, two of them on that site. This little church wielded a
wide influence and became the "Mother Church "of Presbyterian
congregations both east and west of the Blue Ridge. Established
later than the Brittain Church but before 1784, the Quaker
Meadows Presbyterian Church was organized in Burke County.25
However, adherents to this denomination had for some time held
meetings in the homes of settlers.
In 1794 the Reverend James Hall and the Reverend Joseph D.
Kilpatrick held a series of meetings in the Bee Tree settlement. As
a result a Presbyterian congregation was formed there along with
another in the Swannanoa community, and a third in the Reems
Creek settlement. At Bee Tree the first church building southwest
of the Blue Ridge was erected. It was a log structure known as the
Robert Patton Meeting House. After 1797 Reverend George
Newton, the first resident Presbyterian minister in the area,
preached to all three congregations and to one organized near
Cane Creek. In additon to his preaching duties he taught at Union
Hill School, later to become Union Academy and still later,
Newton Academy. The Swannanoa congregation eventually
became the Asheville Presbyterian Church.26
Benjamin Miller, a Baptist minister, was holding meetings in
homes along the upper Yadkin River in 1755 and learned that
itinerant preachers of his denomination had preceded him. By
1760 a little log church building was serving a newly organized
Baptist group in that area, and in 1777 a Baptist Church was
organized farther west. It was called Mullberry Fields Church and
was erected at the site of the present Wilkesboro. In 1779 Beaver
Creek Baptist Church was organized in Wilkes County, and King
Creek Church was built in what was to become Caldwell
County.27 By then itinerant ministers of this faith were entering
various sections of the counties just east of the mountains, and in
1785 the Bills Creek Baptist Church was built in Rutherford
County, followed two years later by the Mountain Creek Church.
All of these small churches led to the formation of new
congregations; and when in 1800 the Broad River Baptist
Association was formed, it included not only these congregations,
but also the Green's Creek Church in what is now Polk County
and three Baptist churches in Burke County.28
Leaving the Yadkin churches, Baptist ministers crossed the
mountains on horseback by means of the old Boone Trail as soon as
settlers took up land in the river valleys along the Watauga and
Toe Rivers. In the valley viewed almost forty years earlier by
�Weaving a Homespun Pattern of Living / 181
Spangenberg and considered by him as a favorable site for an
Indian mission, a little log meeting house was built in 1790 and
quite appropriately was named the Three Forks Church. Nine
years later the second church in the present Watauga County was
built and was known as the Cove Creek Church. These, together
with the few Baptist churches in Ashe and Wilkes Counties, were
members of the Yadkin Baptist Association. Over the years a
succession of preachers, the first of them lay-preachers, served
these widely scattered congregations.29
As the settlements moved westward, the Baptist Convention
attempted to keep pace with the pioneers, and early in the new
century Humphrey Posey assumed the duties of State Mission
Agent for the Convention, serving without pay. In addition to
teaching short terms of school in Rutherford County, Mr. Posey
made missionary journeys across the mountains. With James
Whittaker as his assistant, he held meetings in the Hominy Creek
and Pigeon River areas, organizing a congregation that
constructed a church at the site of the present Canton. It was
called the Locust Old Field Baptist Church and was the source of
spiritual influence throughout the new county of Hay wood. In
1817 Posey took up missionary work with the Cherokees and from
stations established farther west, preached to the Indians in the
western region of the state.30
During the Revolutionary War, a Methodist Circuit was
formed, covering the Yadkin valley and extending west across the
mountains and south to take in the Catawba area. The Reverend
Andrew Yeargin traveled at least portions of this vast territory
and may have been one of the first Methodist preachers to cross
the Blue Ridge. About 1790 the Lincoln Methodist Circuit was
formed, embracing a wide area that included Rutherford and
Burke Counties. As ministers, Daniel Asbury and Jesse
Richardson visited as often as possible the small churches
established in the circuit. Methodism as a force in Western North
Carolina developed largely, however, through the tireless efforts
of Bishop Frances Asbury.
By 1790 Asbury was traveling from the Yadkin valley to the
Catawba and west to the mountains. Wherever there were a few
scattered houses he went, holding meetings in homes or in yards.
In the small county seats the court houses served as meeting places.
Settlers, eager to hear religious messages and glad for the news of
the outside world, welcomed Asbury into their homes. In
Rutherford County his headquarters were at the home of William
�182 / Chapter Eleven
MARGARET MORLEY COLLECTION, N. C. DEPT. OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
As soon as water-powered mills were built along streams, the settlers laid aside their mortars
and pestles and took their grain to the nearest mill to be ground into flour and meal.
31
Mills. Riding over the long, muddy miles of Rutherford, Burke,
and Wilkes Counties from preaching place to preaching place, he
wearily recorded in his Journal, "This is a day of small things
here."32 But out of his sometimes tedious labors grew many
churches, among them the Gilboa Methodist Church, the second
religious congregation organized in Burke County.33
In 1793 after his journey through the counties to the east,
Asbury crossed the Blue Ridge and preached to the settlers living
along the Watauga River—"a neglected place," he called it.
From there he followed the old road into Tennessee. In 1800 the
French Broad River valley was added to his journeys, and for
fourteen years he made almost yearly trips from Knoxville,
Tennessee, to Asheville. From there he went to the frontier
settlements farther west and through the present Henderson
County, passing on into South Carolina.
In 1800 the Bishop was fifty-five years old and was already
suffering from the tuberculosis that in 1816 claimed his life. Yet on
�Weaving a Homespun Pattern of Living / 183
horseback he came, frequently dismounting to lead his horse over
the steep, slippery, rock-strewn hills. He slept wherever night
caught him, grateful if it might be a hunter's cabin where he could
stretch out on the hard, dirt floor. Without protection he endured
the beating rains of summer and the sleet and snow of winter, for
he came at all seasons of the year.34
The people of Asheville crowded into the court room to hear
him preach, and friends and neighbors filled the David Killian
home in the Beaverdam section as well as the Forster house in the
present Biltmore whenever word came that there would be a
meeting. Jacob Shook, in the fine log house he erected near the
Pigeon River, made a "preaching" room in the attic so that Bishop
Asbury could bring the Gospel message to all who hungered for
spiritual food. The home of Samuel Edney in the present
Henderson County was another of the Bishop's stopping places,
and on one of his trips Asbury ordained Edney "for preaching."
Then during the Bishop's absence from the mountains, Edney
carried on the work. As congregations were gradually formed,
small Methodist churches appeared in various places west of the
mountains.35
During the years of Asbury's missionary work in the area, the
camp meeting movement reached Western North Carolina. This
movement was a product of pioneer and frontier life. With their
previous religious background, American pioneers were interested in "preachings" and gained from them not only a needed
religious inspiration, but also the social satisfaction of mingling
with their neighbors. Regardless of creedal concepts and
convictions, whole families managed by one means or another to
attend the services held irregularly by ministers passing from one
frontier settlement to another. Eventually no pioneer house could
accommodate the crowds (not even Jacob Shock's with its
chapel), and overflow crowds filled the yards.
The sensible thing, then, was to hold the meeting out-of-doors
where all might see and hear. Nor was one meeting satisfactory to
either minister or pioneers. These itinerant preachers, covering
their vast circuits, arrived at meeting places badly in need of rest.
Their return to the area was always uncertain, and for their own
sake and that of the congregation they preferred to hold services
in a community for a week, possibly two. The pioneers, on their
part, felt the need of the preacher's message and, almost as
strongly, the need of social life. Yet getting to and from the daily
�184 / Chapter Eleven
WORLD METHODIST ARCHIVES, JUNALUSKA
Bishop Francis Asbury: Francis Asbury, the Bishop on Horseback, brought Methodism
to the little settlements east of the Blue Ridge and to the Watauga Settlements. After 1800 he
also visited the communities west of the Blue Ridge. On his trips he endured, as he said,
"filth, fleas, rattlesnakes, hills, mountains, rocks, and rivers. "In this painting, as he travels
the wilderness, he holds the open Bible.
meetings held by the preacher presented a very real problem. It
was solved with logic and good sense, and the camp meeting came
into being.
With bedding and a supply of food on a pack horse or in a
wagon if he owned one, each settler took his family to the meeting
or camp grounds. There, roads permitting, he joined his
neighbors, and all camped out for the duration of the preacher's
visit. Some member of each family rode home as often as deemed
necessary to see about the chores. Between the daily services,
prayer meetings and singing sessions were held, but there was still
time for much visiting of neighbor with neighbor and kinsfolk and
for shy courting among the young people.
This type of conclave required space far greater than any yard
afforded, and interested parties set aside land for campgrounds.
Temporary, bough-covered shelters could be erected for the
�Weaving a Homespun Pattern of Living I 185
meetings, and both settlers and their wagons and horses could be
accommodated. In time some of these grounds had permanent
shelters.36 Bishop Asbury, passing the ."encamping places" of
Methodists and Presbyterians in 1803, felt partially repaid for his
strenuous missionary journeys along the French Broad River, for
they made the land "look like the Holy Land/'37
The modern American is filled with respectful awe when he
realizes how much his ancestors sacrificed to settle in and tame a
wilderness. One of the sacrifices involved was education.
Textbooks could not be taken by settlers into the ''back country"
of North Carolina and certainly could not be included on the
already over-laden pack horses heading westward across the
mountain barrier. There was the unending task of clearing farms
in a vast, forest-covered region and of making on the place
practically all of the farm tools used and all of the clothing needed
by a growing family. There were the additional tasks of raising
and then marketing crops and of supplementing the family food
supply and the exchange income with hunting and trapping.
Every child in the large families was an economic asset, taking his
place at an early age as a laborer in the home or in the field and
woods.
If a boy had an unconquerable thirst for knowledge and if
there were some member of the family capable of teaching him,
the lad could learn his letters at night by the light of a pine torch or
a tallow candle, with the Bible and an almanac as text books. If the
compelling urge was lacking or if the boy was too work-weary for
evening study, he grew to manhood wise only in the ways of
frontier life. He became familiar with the mountains and their
wealth of vegetation and animal life. He became alert to all forms
of lurking danger; he was self-reliant, and well acquainted with
hard work. But frontier youth generally went without the
benefits of formal education.
The settlers coming to the mountains had had varying degrees
of education in their youthful days, and as soon as the tiny
settlements grew into communities, their leaders took steps to
provide education for the children. The first schools in the
Catawba and Broad River settlements were known as Old Field
schools. These were subscription primary and elementary schools
held in homes or in log houses. A teacher—usually a man, but
occasionally a woman—taught community children, both boys
and girls for a small fee per child. Terms were short and held
between crop times. The tiny school buildings were crudely
�186 / Chapter Eleven
furnished with split log benches, an occasional fireplace, and a
homemade desk and chair or stool for the teacher. A wooden
water bucket and a gourd dipper completed the physical
equipment.
Equally meager was the teaching equipment. Whatever books
the teachers or parents could procure served as texts. The
beginners frequently used a modified form of the old English
hornbook, a shorthandled, paddle-like board with a smooth
surface on which the great and small letters were written and
from which the child learned his A, B, C's. A leather thong passed
through a hole bored in the handle could be slipped over the head
so that the child could wear his "book." In these Old Field schools
the second generation, and in some cases the third, got their first
contact with formal education. Among these children was young
Zebulon Vance, who attended four such schools, one of which was
taught by Miss Jane Hughey.38
The churches, always advocates of education, established
elementary schools as soon as practicable, their ministers serving
as teachers. Then came the academies, sponsored by church
groups. The first of these in Burke County was the Morgan
Academy, erected in Morganton in 1783, in which the classes were
taught by the Presbyterian minister and his wife.39 Rutherfordton
Academy in Rutherford County followed, receiving its charter in
1800.40 But the settlers in the rural sections of these counties, as in
Wilkes County, continued to depend upon a bit of teaching now
and then by individuals setting up private or subscription schools.
Across the Blue Ridge, the Swannanoa and Beaverdam
settlements were fortunate in counting Robert Henry, a veteran
of the Revolutionary War and a man of varied interests and
manifold abilities, among their settlers. He opened the first school
west of the Blue Ridge, attended by the pioneers' children, both
boys and girls. His school became known as Union Hill School.
Although necessarily handicapped by the lack of text books,
Henry paved the way for the formal establishment of Union Hill
Academy that provided a solid educational foundation for
children of the communities. In 1797 George Newton replaced
Henry, who then took up one or more of his many occupations in
the pioneer town of Asheville.
In July, 1803, William Forster III deeded an eight acre tract of
land to the trustees of Union Hill Academy, together with the old
school building, a newly constructed one, and an additional frame
�Weaving a Homespun Pattern of Living / 187
dwelling. The same donor later added land on which was a brick
building in the process of construction. Footer's gifts called for
the dedication of the land and buildings to the maintenance and
furthering of the Gospel and to the teaching of a Latin and English
school. The academy was reorganized by the General Assembly in
1805, and soon after that date its name was changed to Newton
Academy. At one time or another practically every prominent
citizen of early Asheville and the surrounding territory served as a
trustee of the institution.
The ambitious little academy was hard-pressed financially
during those early years, and in 1810 it received permission from
the General Assembly to conduct a public lottery as a means of
raising funds with which to build new buildings and to establish a
"Female Academy" in Asheville. The odds in the lottery were
enticing, for the winner was to receive a prize of seven thousand
dollars for his four dollar ticket. But the plan failed, and the
outstanding tickets had to be recalled because, as the advertisement stated, there was extreme scarcity of cash, a prevalent
condition both in the mountain section and in the state as a
whole.41 Newton Academy somehow weathered the financial
crisis and for many years gave a firm educational background to
boys who were to become the second generation leaders in
Western North Carolina. Some of these young men were to take
their places in the political affairs of the state.
Under its 1776 Constitution, North Carolina was pledged to
encourage education. As a result, it established a state University,
although it made no appropriations for the operation and
development of the institution. Encouragement was given to
elementary education by legislative permission granted to private
schools and to church schools to raise money by means of lotteries
or other methods considered at the time as legal. However, the
day of state responsibility for carrying elementary education to
the far reaches of its territory had not yet dawned. As men and
women pushed beyond the villages into isolated sections,
scattered communities and individuals handled the problem as
best they could.
Those settlers living in more or less compact communities had
Old Field schools. Those in smaller settlements or in remote coves
could hope for nothing beyond a bit of teaching in the homes. It
was a long time before schools reached these places, and when
they did, the little log buildings were poorly equipped, books
�188 / Chapter Eleven
were few, and the terms were pitifully short. Through the fault of
no one, the second generation of remote mountain people—those
whose childhoods were spent in Western North Carolina—gave
an upward swing to the state's already high rate of illiteracy ,42 In a
few years the differences in available opportunity to mountain
settlers became apparent, differences largely due to location,
ironically enough, often a matter of only a few miles. That
difference was destined to increase and to encompass every phase
of life during the first third of the nineteenth century as distinct
social groups evolved and as a degree of progress and prosperity
came to the more accessible communities.
�C H A P T E R
T W E L V E
Boundaries and
Western Leadership
ven in colonial times boundary lines were bones of contention
between North Carolina and Virginia to the north and between
North Carolina and South Carolina to the south. The dissensions
arising from real and fancied infringements on one colony's
territory by another often became prolonged and bitter. Both of
the neighboring colonies laid claim to a narrow east-west strip of
land along the unsurveyed boundary, and both granted settlement
rights within it to westward moving pioneers. Some of these
settlers, unsure of their allegiance, voted in both colonies, and
dodged the tax levied by each. Overlapping land grants gave rise
to inflamed feelings, and local friction and feuds wasted the
energies of the newly arrived settlers and led to a state of
continual confusion which at times flared into violence. Under
such conditions economic progress in the border areas was
impossible.
As Western North Carolina was opened to white settlers,
these boundary problems were extended into the mountain area.
Here they were complicated by the shifting Cherokee boundaries
and by the conflicting claims of North Carolina and Georgia over
their common line—claims that, at the turn of the century, led to
what was locally called the "Walton War."
189
�190 / Chapter Twelve
Virginia and North Carolina took the first practical step in
solving their differences when in 1728 a commission made up of
representatives from each colony surveyed the area from "north
of Currituck river or inlet" westward. When the men had gone
fifty miles west of any white settlements, the North Carolina
commissioners, feeling it a needless expense to continue through
an uninhabited wilderness and having neither an interest in the
hardships arising from the surveying task ahead nor in the
companionship of the Virginians, returned home. But William
Byrd II, the leading spirit in the Virginia group, foresaw the
coming of settlers in perhaps ten years. He and his surveyors
pushed on westward until from a hill they caught sight of wave
after wave of distant blue mountains. At that point they set up
their marker and went home, 233 miles from the coast.1 In 1749,
with the arrival of the settlers envisioned by Byrd, a joint
commission representing the two colonies extended the survey.
Still another joint commission in 1779, this time representing both
states, surveyed the common boundary to about the site of the
present city of Bristol.
While they did much to establish settled, normal conditions
along North Carolina's northern boundary, these surveys could
not entirely banish the trouble, for the surveys themselves could
not always be accurate. Moreover, the incoming settlers could not
always locate the boundary markers, especially those on trees, and
the survey could not keep pace with the westward migration. 2 It
was for these reasons that one of the Watauga pioneers, running
his own line, discovered that he and many of his neighbors with
land grants from Virginia had actually settled and cleared land in
North Carolina. It was also revealed that they were beyond the
line of demarcation established between white and native
American country by the order of King George. Since to the
settlers vacating the region now was unthinkable and since they
must have protection, the Watauga Association, as related in an
earlier chapter, made a land treaty with the Cherokees and
petitioned the General Assembly of North Carolina to be
recognized as a county of that state.
When in 1789 North Carolina ceded its western lands to the
Republic, the boundary line was designated to start on the crest of
Stone Mountain where it is intersected by the boundary line of
Virginia, and the line was to follow that mountain to the place
where the Watauga River flows through it. From there it was to
go to the top of Yellow Mountain, along its crest to Iron
�Boundaries and Western Leadership / 191
Mountain, and then along its crest to the Nolichuky River; from
there it was to go to the crest of the Great Iron or Smoky
Mountains, thence to the crest of the Unicoi range, and thus to the
southern border of the state.
After the formation of the state of Tennessee from the ceded
land, each commonwealth appointed a commission to work
jointly in surveying the common boundary. That group included
Colonel David Vance, General Joseph McDowell, and Major
Mussendine Matthews as commissioners for North Carolina and
Robert Henry and John Strother as surveyors. They ran the line in
1799 from the point where Virginia, North Carolina, and
Tennessee met along the designated ranges to Paint Rock. Later
the survey would be completed.3
The last clause in the boundary line description as designated
in the Cession Act gave rise to a dispute between North Carolina
and its western neighbor. Tennessee held that there was no crest
or main ridge of the Unicoi range west of the Hiwassee River and
that a range east of that river was therefore the true boundary.
This claim, contrary to the intent of those formulating the Act,
would mean that North Carolina would lose a valuable strip of
western territory. Inhis Memoir on Internal Affairs in 1819 Archibald
Murphey urged a speedy settlement of that dispute. After the
Cherokee treaty of 1819, by which the native Americans
relinquished land south and west of the point at which the survey
had halted, another joint commission of the two states began
where the stone marker had been set up on the Cataloochee trail in
1799 and ran the survey to the Georgia line. James Mebane,
Montford Stokes, and Robert Love were North Carolina's
representatives on this commission, and the work was completed
in 1821. The boundary line thus established was accepted by both
states; yet a small area known as the "Rainbow" country at the
head of Tellico Creek later caused litigation between the two
states and was not settled until well into the twentieth century.4
The long period of dissension between the two Carolinas over
their common boundary led to charges and countercharges by
each state against the other and against certain governors. By
1772, however, an extension of the survey earlier made in the
eastern section was carried on by a joint commission representing
the two colonies, although the results were most unsatisfactory to
North Carolina. A part of the trouble stemmed from the
extremely irregular boundary line that jogged to the north in
order to include the Catawba Indian lands in South Carolina.
�192 / Chapter Twelve
According to this survey, however, the line through the western
Cherokee country was to be the thirty-fifth degree of parallel.
But that strip, surveyed later, also caused dissension.5
At the close of the Revolutionary War, South Carolina ceded
its western lands, a narrow strip just below the North Carolina
border, to the new Republic. Settlers from Georgia entered the
area as soon as it was cleared of Indians, but they were without
any state protection and petitioned South Carolina to be included
in that state. No action was taken. In ceding its western lands to
the federal government, Georgia asked for this territory, lying
between its border and that of North Carolina. Congress
complied, and Georgia created the county of Walton out of it.
According to the Georgia surveyors, the northern boundary of
this strip of land was north of the mouth of the Mills River, and the
county extended some twelve miles into what are now
Transylvania and Jackson Counties in North Carolina. By 1803 it
was estimated that this area had eight hundred inhabitants, some
of them from Georgia, some from South Carolina, and some from
North Carolina, which likewise claimed the region and had
granted land to settlers entering it.
Trouble arose between the "Walton Men" and the North
Carolinians, considered squatters by the Georgians. But the
Carolina pioneers were not to be driven from their claims, and for
a few years there was enough bloodshed in the newly created
county to warrant the term "Walton War." In 1808 Georgia sent
a memorial to Congress saying that North Carolina was
infringing on its territory. Since Congress took no action, the two
states appointed commissioners to locate the thirty-fifth parallel
through the area. This survey revealed that the entire strip of
disputed land was north of that parallel and had never actually
belonged either to South Carolina or to the federal government.
Nor did it now belong to Georgia. In spite of a protest from
Georgia and a second memorial to Congress asking that another
survey be made, the work of this joint committee stood.
Georgia continued to keep the county organization it had set
up, however, and North Carolina sent a militia into the region to
oust the Georgia officers. The tacit state of war that had existed
now broke into open conflict, and two skirmishes took place, one
two miles southeast of the present Brevard and the other on land
now occupied by the Ecusta Plant. At both of these clashes lives
were lost and some prisoners taken by the North Carolina militia.
These were taken to Morganton, but their ultimate fate is not
�Boundaries and Western Leadership / 193
known. Georgia, perforce, abolished the county of Walton, and
North Carolina set about restoring order in the region that had for
some years been an "orphan strip." As such, the area had been
infested with refugees from justice and outlaws who had been a
constant menace to the property and even to the lives of the
settlers in the region.6
It was necessary to survey the boundary designated in the
treaty of 1798 between the territory opened to white settlers and
the Cherokee lands. Although surveys for this purpose were made
earlier, the federal government did not pronounce the line as
established until 1803. In that year the third survey (made the
previous year by J. Meigs, commissioner, and Thomas Freeman,
surveyor) was approved. From a designated point already
surveyed in the Smokies, the line was drawn to run southeast. It
passed about a mile and a half east of the present Sylva, thence to
the headwaters of Little River in the present Transylvania
County, and then to the state line.
This survey accomplished what the other two had failed to
do—to work little hardship to either whites or Cherokees. By it
no white family was left in Cherokee country, and the fewest
possible Cherokees were left in white territory. This MeigsFreeman line of demarcation was destined to play an important
part in the counties through which it ran; since surveys were
frequently inaccurate, land grants and deeds described the
location of plots in relation to this government established line.
The new boundary also gave rise to innumerable law suits, for
after 1819, when the Cherokees moved farther west, the markings
on the survey route were not kept visible. In some areas questions
arose involving its actual location. These questions were not idle
ones, for the authenticity of many a farm boundary was at stake. It
has been estimated that at one time a third of all the deeds of
Transylvania County lands depended upon the Meigs-Freeman
line.7
Dividing lines between states and national lines of demarcation did not comprise all of the boundary troubles that plagued
Western North Carolina. Counties, formed in rapid succession in
the mountain region from 1808 to 1861, were created from older
counties. Some were made up of sections from two or more
counties. Each act creating a county designated its boundary, but
the boundary, or certain sections of it, frequently proved
unacceptable to the new county or to the old county or to both.
Appeals to the General Assembly resulted in acts making
�194 / Chapter Twelve
boundary adjustments. These acts were numerous, often several
for each county. In fact, Ashe County, in attaining its present
boundary, required twenty-three such acts.8
By 1812 the attention of the settlers in Western North
Carolina was sharply, although somewhat unwillingly, called to
national affairs. There were disturbing episodes of impressment of
American sailors into the English navy, incidents of seizure of
American ships, and interference in American trade by both.
England and France. General dissatisfaction was also aroused by
the passage of the Embargo Act of 1807 and by the later Alien and
Sedition Laws. All of these factors led to a struggle in Congress for
war against one or the other—the extremists said both—of the
offending European nations. Led by the young members known as
"War Hawks," the congressional fight culminated in June, 1812,
with the declaration of war against England.
Far from the coastal areas, with no exports involved in the
hazards run by the American merchant marine and busy with
more immediate problems, the Western North Carolina settlers
showed little interest in this war. Although men from every
county enlisted for service, there were no mass enlistments from
the area. Indeed, the counties just east of the Blue Ridge had as yet
not recovered from the ravages of the Revolutionary War, which
there had assumed the nature of a civil war. The depredations
made by the troops of both Cornwallis and Ferguson in that war
had brought destrucion of much property and intense suffering to
hundreds of pioneers. These people had little zest for another war.
North Carolina was at once assigned a quota of some seven
thousand men, however, to be organized into eight companies.
These were recruited largely from volunteers from the various
counties. But in 1814 a call came for an additional seven thousand
men. This quota was made up almost entirely by draft. 9
The Western North Carolina counties furnished their quota of
these men although most of them saw little if any action. They had
been called primarily to aid in quelling the Creek Indians, urged
by British agents to take the warpath against the Americans.
General Andrew Jackson was in charge of the Creek campaign,
and the North Carolina contingent was sent to join his forces. But
it reached him after his decisive victory of Horse Shoe Bend, in
which a company of Cherokee volunteers had been of service in
bringing him victory and in which the Cherokee leader Junaluska
had saved the American general's life. The North Carolina
soldiers were then called back to their state. But the volunteers
�Boundaries and Western Leadership / 195
from the state in Jackson's forces went with him to New
Orleans.10
The period of national prosperity that followed the close of
the Second War with England was short lived everywhere in
North Carolina and was utterly non-existent in the western
counties. The financial panic of 1819 was later to affect the
entire state. For the two decades after the Euro-American
peace treaty was signed, however, other states began turning
their attention to their own internal improvements and their
economic progress. North Carolina, in contrast, was strangely
apathetic. In fact, so few signs of progress were visible along any
line that the state received the derogatory nickname of the "Rip
Van Winkle State."
Several factors contributed to this static condition in the
progress being made by the nation as a whole. Lack of harbors
made North Carolina export trade a mere trickle, while lack of an
east-west highway continued to divert the products of the
piedmont region and the mountain area to adjoining states.
Adjoining states thus reaped the profits to be gained and in
exchange sent their own products into North Carolina. High
transportation rates made these imports costly and discouraged
farmers from raising more than they could consume. At this time,
moreover, agriculture was practically the only occupation of the
people.11
In Western North Carolina some farms along the rivers east of
the Blue Ridge were large enough to warrant slave labor. But the
census of 1790 showed that even in that area slaves made up a small
percentage of the population. For example, in Rutherford County
in 1790 only 164 of the county's 1,136 families owned slaves, and
even in 1830 out of a population of practically 14,000, the county
had only 3,500 Negroes.12 In the newer and more westerly
counties a few owners of extensive lands worked their fields with
slave labor.
Robert Love of Haywood County owned at least a hundred
slaves, and James McConnel Smith of Buncombe County worked
seventy-five slaves on each of two of his farms.13 Other men living
in the fertile mountain valleys found it profitable to own slaves,
but they were the exceptions. Most of the settlers neither owned
nor could afford to own slaves, although some, especially those
living in the towns and villages, might have an occasional house
servant. The Negro population in the mountains was, therefore,
almost negligible.14
�196 / Chapter Twelve
During the first two decades of the nineteenth century there
were no factories in the state with the exception of one small
cotton mill erected in 1816 in Lincoln County, some scattered iron
works, and three paper mills. In practically all parts of the state
the people continued raising the food they ate and making the
tools they used and the clothes they wore, fortunate if there was a
sufficient surplus of products to exchange for the bare necessities
not available in their immediate communities.
Every Tar Heel, east or west, objected to taxes in any form,
and during this period the state had an annual income so small that
its yearly expenditures could not exceed $132,000. Most of this
amount was required to pay governmental expenses, and when it
came to needed improvements, the treasury was chronically in the
dire condition of Mother Hubbard's cupboard. In other words,
North Carolina trailed other states in social projects while it
topped them all in illiteracy.15
Adding to the depressing governmental impasse was the
constantly intensifying struggle between East and West. As
settlers pushed westward and mountain counties were formed,
their representatives to the General Assembly sponsored
legislation favorable to their section. North Carolina, after 1815,
was a one-party state, with the Republicans (that is, the Jeffersonian Democrats) in control. But the gulf between eastern
and western members of the legislature did not represent a
struggle between parties; it was even more fundamental. The
clash was based on the geographic and climatic differences of the
two regions, on the difference in the racial and cultural
backgrounds of the people of the regions, and on their widely
separated interests.
It was, after all, the old Regulator struggle in a state guise.
And the western representatives were treated much as the
colonial representatives had been. Eastern members still
dominated the General Assembly and kept this domination by
forming new eastern counties as fast as western counties were
authorized. From the eastern representatives the governor and the
state officials were yearly elected. There seemed little hope for
the men from the mountains, and the struggle, bitter and personal
at times, absorbed much of the energies of the lawmakers and far
too much of their time. Moreover, the struggle created deepseated hatreds and prejudices between the two sections of the
state, some of which were long in the healing.16
During these years vast new territories to the west were
being carved into American states. Thousands of North Caro-
�Boundaries and Western Leadership / 197
linians, thoroughly discouraged over the future of their state,
joined the streams of westward trekking men and women. They
planned to make homes in the Ohio River country, on lands
bordering the Mississippi River, or on the beckoning plains of faroff Texas. In Western North Carolina a constant procession of
people trailed along the tortuous road following the French Broad
River and over the winding Wilderness Trail into Tennessee and
Kentucky and the territories beyond. Still others went into
adjoining states. All went in the hope of brighter prospects for
themselves and their children. By 1840, thirty-two of the state's
counties had a smaller population than they had had in 1830. This
meant for North Carolina not only the loss of its citizens, but the
loss of many actual and potential leaders.17
Crying for reform, the first voice in the wilderness was heard
in the piedmont section. In 1812 a young lawyer of Hillsboro took
his seat in the General Assembly as senator from Orange County.
Born in nearby Caswell County and educated at David Caldwell's
Academy at Guilford and at the University, Archibald DeBow
Murphey sought expression for the strongly democratic ideas
developing through rugged pioneer living in the piedmont and the
mountain sections. He was ready to voice the belief of the
westerners that government had a duty to perform for its
people—all of its people. Thoroughly informed on the economic
conditions throughout the state, Murphey offered, in 1815, the
first of a series of reform measures. During the next few years he
was tireless in his efforts to bring both the people and the General
Assembly to a realization of the benefits that his program would
bring to North Carolina.
In 1819 Murphey presented a Memoir on the Internal Improvements
Contemplated by the Legislature of North Carolina. It was a masterly
survey of geographic and economic conditions within the
commonwealth, and it summed up his recommendations for a
transportation system that would make use of the state's navigable
streams, and that would promote the use of its coastal inner
waterways. The program would also provide an east-west
turnpike, together with subsidiary roads leading into it, which
would funnel products from the piedmont and mountain regions
into the state's eastern markets.18
Western North Carolina received considerable attention in
these recommendations. Murphey's first suggestion concerning
the area was authorization for making a new state map. The
Price-Strother map, privately financed a few years earlier and
�198 / Chapter Twelve
N. C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
Archibald DeBow Murphey: Murphey led a crusade for an east-west highway, a state
public school system, and the revision of the state's constitution. After his death, western
leaders continued the crusade that in time led to reforms. Murphy, the county seat of
Cherokee County, was named in his honor.
based upon the information available at that time, was hopelessly
inaccurate in its depiction of the region between the Blue Ridge
and the Smoky Mountains. With the rich valleys of the
Tuckaseigee and Oconaluftee Rivers open to white settlement
under the Cherokee treaty of 1819, it was imperative, he pointed
out, to make information available to settlers. These lands,
Murphey hoped, might attract some of the North Carolinians who
would otherwise leave the state for western territories. To make
the lands accessible he advocated the construction of a road west
from Waynesville to the southwestern border of the state where it
could connect with the old Cherokee trail to South Carolina and
Georgia. He felt that the Cherokee land, when sold, should bring a
million dollars into the coffers of the state.
Murphey also urged that the two main highways in Buncombe
County be improved and kept in good condition. The one going
�Boundaries and Western Leadership / 199
south from Buncombe Courthouse to Rutherford County by way
of Hickory Nut Gorge was in deplorable condition, and the other,
from the courthouse to South Carolina by way of Saluda Gap,
was likewise in need of immediate repairs. This highway, he
considered "perhaps the most public road in the state." He
reflected his own recent visit to the mountain village when he
added, "The Traveller is astonished on reaching Buncombe
Courthouse (called Morristown on the map but now called
Asheville) to find people from six states in the Union in the same
Hotel."19
Murphey maintained that the road, which traversed the
mountain section from the South Carolina border to Tennessee by
way of the French Broad River would continue to be a main trade
artery and must be maintained as such. East of the Blue Ridge he
advocated making use of the Yadkin, the Catawba, and the Broad
Rivers as transportation arteries. He stressed the need of
converting the poorly constructed and illy kept roads leading
westward into all-weather highways over which products could
be brought from Tennessee and from the mountain section to river
towns for shipment south.20
To carry out his state-wide transportation project, basic to
any financial progress of the commonwealth, Murphey urged the
General Assembly to create a board of control and to make
appropriations for converting some feasible plan into a reality.
Inherent in his over-all plan were future possibilities for the
growth of manufacturing as well as distinct advantages for such
eastern cities as Wilmington and Beaufort; therefore, he hoped
that the plan would appeal to the eastern delegates to the General
Assembly. He knew that without their support any proposed bill
was doomed to fail. But Murphey was disappointed. The
easterners were, with a few exceptions, solidly opposed to the
transportation project, and in session after session the western
members of the General Assembly saw their economic hopes fade
into legislative limbo.
Murphey's vision for the progress of his state was not,
however, limited to his dream of a state system of water and
inland highways. He foresaw a partial solution to North
Carolina's problem of inertia through a public school system. He
was the first of the state's legislators to propose that the General
Assembly set up a fund, to be administered by a state board and to
be used in establishing a wholly or partially state supported system
of schools. He advocated the establishment of primary schools and
�200 / Chapter Twelve
above them academies or high schools with the state university
crowning the system. Murphey pointed out that, except for
establishing the University, the provision in the 1776 Constitution
enjoining the education of the people had been grossly neglected.
He then cited the state's disgracefully high rate of illiteracy.
Murphey also suggested the formation of two or more
primary schools in each county, supported jointly by state and
county, at which enrollment would be free for children unable to
pay the tuition set for other pupils. In addition, ten regional
academies would be operated partly by the state and partly by
local funds which would be raised in part by tuition from those
able to pay. The University, which had never received a penny
from the state for its running expenses, would be greatly aided by
state appropriations enabling it to expand its program. Schools for
the state's deaf and dumb children were, under his plan, to be
entirely state supported.21
Again the eastern planters who, year after year, represented
their respective counties were not interested. They had no desire
for public education for their own sons and saw no reason for
taxing themselves to educate the poorer children in their part of
the state or the children of settlers in the remote areas of the
commonwealth. Some of them went so far as to claim no
advantage in education for the masses. Every education bill was
promptly killed by the adverse votes of the eastern delegates. The
leaders from the West could see no hope for enlightening the
people living on small piedmont farms or in isolated mountain
coves.
It gradually became clear to Murphey and to the growing
group of western delegates rallying to his cause that there was,
after all, only one solution for the problems facing the state. There
must be either a new state constitution or a drastic revision of the
one in force. The West had long felt the injustices which had
grown up under the governmental regulations laid down by those
designing the state's first constitution. Under it, each county,
regardless of population, elected one senator to the upper house
and two representatives to the lower house of the General
Assembly. In addition, a few eastern cities—some of which were
mere villages—elected a member each to the lower house. This
borough system gave the east additional representation and
power.
As the number of counties increased, the legislative body
became too large, cumbersome in its work, and expensive in its
�Boundaries and Western Leadership / 201
operation. Since 1776 the sharp increase in population had taken
place in the piedmont and mountain sections of the state, where
one after another new counties had been formed until the
population of those sections considerably outnumbered that of the
eastern counties. But the East, with a just predominance of
members in the legislature in 1776, had kept that superiority by the
borough system. This was greatly resented by the mountain
settlers, and so was the creation of a new eastern county for
each authorized in the West.22
The democratic westerners, too, objected to other features ot
the constitution. Under it, the only popular vote enjoyed by the
people was for their representatives to the General Assembly.
That body annually elected from its members the state's governor
and other officials. Acting upon recommendation of the county's
delegates to the General -Assembly, the governor appointed the
county justices of the peace, the most influential county officers
since they made up the quarterly or county court. Their terms
were fof life, and they were answerable not to the people they
served, but to the governor. Under this system, the governor was
naturally subservient to the Assembly that elected him.
Then, too, the privilege of voting was dependent upon a
citizen's property possessions. Owning property entitled a man to
vote for the county's representatives in the lower house of the
Assembly, but he was required to own at least fifty acres of land
before he could cast a vote for a senator. State office holders were
likewise required to be land owners, one hundred acres being the
minimum for a man seeking a seat in the lower house, and three
hundred acres for one aspiring to a seat in the senate. Property
valued at a thousand pounds sterling or more was required for one
being considered by the Assembly for the governorship.23
All attempts made by Murphey to secure legislative
authorization for a constitutional reform convention met with the
same dismal fate as did his other reform measures. It must have
seemed to this far-seeing statesman that the energies he had
expended in behalf of North Carolina had been wasted. But such
was far from the case, for his labors had set the slow mills of the
gods to grinding. The progress-strangling control of the
easterners was doomed. The forward-looking measures he
advocated crystalized western opinions, and Murphey's dedication to the betterment of his state drew a following of younger
men from the West ready to take up his work. He did not live to
see any of his plans accepted, but before he passed from the scene
�202 / Chapter Twelve
N. C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
David Lowry Swain: Swain was born in Beaverdam valley near Asheville in 1801. He
became the first native-born lawyer southwest of the Blue Ridge. He served as a member of
the General Assembly, as Governor, and for 32 years as President of the State University
at Chapel Hill, where he was affectionately known as "Old Warping Bars."
in 1832, there were small but significant victories foreshadowing
the accomplishments eventually to come.
For instance, the General Assembly in 1819 created a Board ot
Internal Improvement and employed a state engineer. It
authorized subscriptions for several eastern navigation companies, and it created a small state fund for internal improvements, to
be garnered from proceeds of Cherokee land sales and from
certain state stock dividends. Under this board, steps were taken
for a few long over-due roads in the mountain section, shades
again of Murphey's plan. Accordingly, appropriations were made
for a highway from Old Fort to Asheville and for a turnpike along
the French Broad River that would connect Greenville, South
Carolina, with Greefteville, Tennessee, passing through Asheville
and Warm Springs.
�Boundaries and Western Leadership / 203
This road, known as the Buncombe Turnpike, was begun in
1824 and completed three years later.24 It was to be a major factor
in the life and progress of Western North Carolina for many years
and was, for some time, the finest road in North Carolina. In 1820
an appropriation was made for improving the navigation of that
section of the Broad River stretching from the South Carolina
border to Twitty's Ford, and twelve years later funds were
allocated for making the existing Hickory Nut Gap road an
improved artery across the Blue Ridge.25
In 1822 the General Assembly set aside a fund known as the
Agricultural Fund to aid in the program sponsored by the State
Agricultural Society, which had been incorporated three years
earlier. The Society had grown out of several county organizations formed with the aim of improving agriculture in the state.
This measure proved a somewhat premature step, and the fund
was later diverted to other projects.26 Still, it was a promise of
later developments. Another step forward was taken with the
publication of state geological surveys made by Denison Olmsted
and Elisha Mitchell, both members of the University faculty.27
In 1825 the General Assembly yielded to the increasing
pressure for state-sponsored education put forth by the delegates
from the West, by ministers of various faiths, and by men
connected with the State University. The legislature created a
Literary Fund to be built up and eventually used for .public
education. This fund was collected from dividends received from
state-owned bank stock not otherwise allocated, from dividends
of certain other state-owned stock, from taxes, from public land
sales other than Cherokee land, and from appropriations. The
Literary Fund was placed under a Board presided over by the
governor as president and by the state treasurer. By 1836 it had
received only $243,000, a part of which had been diverted to other
purposes. But it kept the idea of a future public school system
before the people, although the amount in the treasury of the
Board was always too small to carry out its purpose. It was to be
1840 before log school houses would appear in the mountain
coves.28
Yet the end of the do-nothing policy of the eastern
Republicans was fast approaching, and the "Rip Van Winkle
State" was arousing from its slumbers. Several factors were
converging to bring about a change. For one thing, the demands of
the now articulate West reflected the new and growing
democratic movement sweeping across the entire nation and
�204 / Chapter Twelve
expressed in the 1824 campaign of Andrew Jackson for president.
Seeing a hope for their progressive program under a "People's"
president, the westerners broke politically with the easterners,
and North Carolina ceased to be a one-party state.29
After 1832, when these same westerners had become bitterly
disappointed in Jackson as president, they joined the ranks of the
newly formed Whig party to oppose the easterners who had,
somewhat to their own surprise, found Jackson's policies to their
liking. A second factor in the forward movement was that now
the voice of one man had become the voice of many; in the
General Assembly a group of able and determined western leaders
was headed by David Lowry Swain of Buncombe County.
Swain was born in the Beaverdam settlement in 1801 and
received the thorough training given at Newton Academy to boys
in families of the first settlers in the mountains. When he appeared
at the State University as a student, he was placed in the junior
class. After a short stay at that institution, young Swain took up
the study of law at Raleigh under the tutorship of John Louis
Taylor, Chief Justice of North Carolina. In 1822 he returned to his
native county to hang out his shingle in Asheville, becoming the
town and Buncombe County's first native lawyer. With his
ability to make friends and his deep interest in the problems of
Western North Carolina, it was inevitable that he should turn to a
political career. By 1832, at the age of thirty-one, Swain had
served five terms in the General Assembly, had been Solicitor for
one year, and had been elected as judge of the Superior Court.
In the General Assembly he rallied the forces around Murphey
and in advocating reforms, became an authority on taxation and
on statistics showing the condition of the state. Those who
worked with him came to respect his utter honesty and sincerity
and forgot the ungainliness of his appearance, which was later to
win him the affectionate nickname of "Old Warping Bars." His
good will, tact, and diplomacy drew many friends from the
eastern bloc, and his personal charm and clear-cut arguments won
supporters to the cause of reform. He threw the weight of his
growing popularity and the force of his sound judgment based on
facts into the struggle for two of Murphey's reform measures—
highway improvement and constitutional reform.
It was largely due to Swain's efforts that such desperately
needed roads as the Buncombe Turnpike were authorized.
As Murphey, through a series of unfortunate circumstances,
withdrew from political prominence, Swain became the
�Boundaries and Western Leadership / 205
acknowledged leader of the Whig party in North Carolina and in
1832 was elected governor, winning the necessary support from
eastern delegates in the General Assembly. Thus Western North
Carolina was represented in the highest office of the state.30
As governor, Swain pointed out that not a major project along
any line of internal improvement was in progress in the state. He
set about an unrelenting campaign for the authorization of a
constitutional convention. He was extremely popular in the state,
and during his three terms as chief executive he led the General
Assembly, to which he refused to be subservient, into the most
receptive reform mood it had yet attained. By 1832 Governor
Swain's constitutional reform measure had, almost by accident,
found favor with two groups among the eastern delegates. One
was the Roman Catholic group, whose brilliant member, William
Gaston, could be removed from his position as Justice of the
Supreme Court if the General Assembly desired to carry out the
1776 Constitutional provision debarring Catholics from office.
The other group centered around Fayetteville, which, after the
destructive fire of the capitol, put forth an effort to have the
capitol moved from Raleigh to Fayetteville. Such a move would
require a constitutional change.
Some degree of support was now also forthcoming from the
area around Albemarle Sound because of the suggested waterway
improvements for that region. Thus by the untiring efforts of
Governor Swain and a group of able westerners, aided by leaders
from the interested eastern groups, a law was passed in the
Assembly in 1834 to submit the question of a constitutional
convention to a popular vote. In the referendum that resulted a
majority of almost seven thousand votes was cast favoring the
calling of such a convention. For the most part, each section voted
solidly according to the old line-up. At a second election delegates
to the convention were chosen, and these assembled in Raleigh in
June 1835.31
With the East and the West still opposed to each other's
program, it took the tact and diplomatic skill of all the leaders,
headed by the Governor, to work out acceptable compromises.
But by July 11 the Convention had a list of revisions to submit to
the people and adjourned. At the referendum the voters expressed
practically the same majority acceptance of the amendments as
they had for the calling of the convention. Again the votes were
sectional in their distribution.32 The amendments were made the
law of the land, and the first major step had been taken in making
�206 / Chapter Twelve
possible industrial and economic progress in North Carolina. At
last the "Rip Van Winkle State" was awake.
Under the revised constitution, the governor was to be elected
for a two-year term by a direct vote of the people. While he might
succeed himself, he could hold office not more than four out of any
six years. Equal representation in the General Assembly was
abolished. Instead, the upper chamber or Senate was to be made
up of fifty members representing districts into which the state was
divided. The lower house or House of Commons was to have 120
members elected by counties according to population; each
county was to have at least one representative. The General
Assembly was to meet biennially, and all voters, it stipulated,
must be white males, twenty-one years of age or over. Property
qualifications for voting for governor and for members of the
House of Commons were abolished. But each voter casting a
ballot for a senator was still required to show proof of possessing
at least fifty acres of land. There were many other changes.
Among them was the substitution of the word Christian for the
word Protestant in the religious tests for office, the abolishment of
the old borough representation, and the presentation of two
methods of constitutional revision.33
Although much would have to be done later in the amended
constitution, democracy had come to the people, and it had come
through the efforts and the ideals of the West, led first by a
piedmont leader and then by a man from the mountains.
�C H A P T E R
T H I R T E E N
Gold in the Hills
and on the Highways
iVluch of the story of the European conquest of the two
Americas had been the story of the white man's insatiable appetite
for gold. The precious yellow metal was the will-o-the-wisp that
lured DeSoto and his Spanish army into the mountains of Western
North Carolina in the sixteenth century. Gold also led hopeful
Spanish prospectors, during the next 125 years, to slip into the
region and carry on limited mining operations that they tried to
keep secret. The Indians—both the Cherokees and the
Catawbas—knew of these attempts and told English traders and
explorers, who, in turn, took rumors of Spanish gold discoveries
back to the coastal settlements. Accordingly, those areas sent men
out to "explore beyond the mountaine." Men who later pushed
westward to settle were ever on the alert for gold and silver.
Small amounts of both these metals had been found, and gold
in limited quantities had been panned from streams or mined from
surface mines during the colonial period of western settlement.1
But it was not until after the Revolutionary War that the cry of
"Gold!" brought a wave of hopeful prospectors into Western
North Carolina. The gold rush began around 1799 after twelve
year old Conrad Reed found an interesting looking seventeenpound "rock" on his father's farm in newly created Cabarrus
207
�208 / Chapter Thirteen
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A Bechtler Coin: These pictures show the obverse and reverse of a gold dollar coined by
Christopher Bechtler at his private mint near Rutherfordton. In his later dies he corrected
the N in ONE. He also coined two-fifty and five dollar gold pieces. Between January, 1831,
and February, 1840, the Bechtler mint coined $2,241,850 in gold coins.
County. The "rock" proved to be ore rich with its lode of gold. In
the Reed mine that was there developed unbelievably large gold
nuggets were later discovered, a few weighing from twenty to
twenty-eight pounds.2
New discoveries continued, and mines were opened in
thirteen counties, those in Burke and Rutherford being so rich that
by 1825 these counties were the scene of the nation's most
extensive gold mining operations.3 These operations were carried
on by any available method of mining. Gold dust floating in the
waters of the streams was collected by the slow process of
panning—by letting the water run through sieve-bottomed pans.
A somewhat more elaborate method for the amateur was to run
the gold-laden water from sluice boxes into a trough made by
hollowing out a log. This log was kept in motion as the water
flowed through it to keep the silt and sand afloat and moving with
the water. The heavier gold sank and was caught by cleats nailed
across the floor of the trough. To improve the system quicksilver
or mercury might be mixed with the sand.4
The gold particles and dust thus obtained could be put into a
cloth or leather bag to be weighed out for purchases or, if taken to
the mint in Philadelphia, made into coins. Where the metal was
found in the rocks, men hacked out the nuggets with pick axes and
shovels. It was all slow, hard work, but it was rewarding. For
example, according to Rutherford ton's newspaper, The North
�Gold in the Hills and on the Highways I 209
Carolina Spectator and Western Advertiser, a man in 1830 could pan
two dollars worth of dust a day from gold-carrying streams and
get a similar amount from a surface mine. In 1830 in Western
North Carolina the sum of two dollars, with its high purchasing
power, was indeed hard to come by.5 It has been estimated that in
Burke County alone, over a period of years, a thousand men were
devoting their time to this individual method of mining.6
As might be expected, the publicity given to the discovery of
new mines spread far afield and into the gold area came thousands
of eager people who had just one interest in common—the finding
of gold. Indeed, these newcomers, crowding along the narrow,
muddy roads of the back country and on to the foothills of the Blue
Ridge, made up a motley group, representing perhaps all of the
nationalities and the races that Europe was sending to the
"Melting Pot" that was America. Their ideals and morals were as
varied as their backgrounds. Towns and mining communities
mushroomed into being, and many were the tales later told of the
lusty, boisterous life of these camps.7
Men with money to invest, especially if it might quickly be
doubled or tripled, arrived from northern states and European
countries to form mining companies that were readily incorporated by the General Assembly. These men bought up mines already
in operation or leased lands that gave promise of rich deposits.
There they sank shafts, set up machinery to pulverize the rock and
get the gold, and hired hundreds of the incoming men as "hands."
The newspaper accounts, bristling with the excitement of gold
fever, told of mines selling for $4,500 and $6,000. Two men
declined to accept $5,000 for their joint interest in a mine, while
one owner even refused the fabulous offer of $35,000 for his land.8
Some, although far from all, of the mines opened in the state
gave satisfactory returns to the investors, who brought into the
state an estimated capital investment of $100,000,000.9 By 1814
some of the yield of the mines was reaching the government mint
in Philadelphia, which that year recorded receiving $11,000 in
North Carolina gold. Much more was forthcoming, and prior to
1829 the state was furnishing all of the gold minted at Philadelphia
where the records show that during the period of extensive
mining it received more than $9,000,000 of gold from the state, the
largest amount in any single year being $475,000 in 1833. North
Carolina was justly crowned the "Golden State."10
But that record is only a small, perhaps a very small, part of
the picture of North Carolina mining. How much gold was
�210 / Chapter Thirteen
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/I Drovers} Road: Horses, hogs, geese, and turkeys from states to the north joined droves
that each autumn thundered and squawked along the Buncombe Turnpike. Other droves
made use of roads farther west and still others passed over roads east of the Blue Ridge. AII
the animals were destined for markets in southern states.
�Gold in the Hills and on the Highways / 211
extracted from the streams and mines from 1799 to 1860 will never
be known. For an estimate one can only hazard a guess, for the
records of most of the companies have been lost or destroyed,
while the amounts panned by thousands of individuals were not
kept. An untold amount went into jewelry for home demands and
some was used to fill orders from other states and European
markets. An estimated $600,000 worth was used for that purpose
in 1832 alone. Then, too, some of the companies sent their gold to
European countries. Much gold was undoubtedly lost in
transactions, for both gold dust and gold nuggets or ore passed as a
medium of exchange. It may well be that only a small portion of
the estimated $50,000,000 to $65,000,000 worth of gold actually
mined ever reached a mint.11
The gold boom came at a period when money was exceedingly
scarce throughout the piedmont and mountain sections; in fact,
many a home saw pitifully few coins of any kind—American,
English, or Spanish—during a year's time. The widespread
method of all purchasing was barter. Thus gold in any form meant
an advantageous purchasing power to the man fortunate enough
to pan a bit of the precious metal. Although coins were far more
convenient than dust or ingots in making business transactions,
few men had the time or the inclination to carry their gold in
saddlebags that could not be protected over the long, difficult
road to far-away Philadelphia. Nor were they willing to transport
it by stage coach, a method slow, costly, and dangerous. So the
ancient method employed by Abraham in buying a plot for Sarah's
tomb was resorted to in nineteenth century Western North
Carolina, and gold dust was measured or weighed out for the
purchase of land or goods.
It is no wonder, then, that when in 1831 the Bechtlers set up a
mint in Rutherfordton, they were able to do a thriving business.
Among those arriving in Rutherfordton in 1830 were the
Bechtlers—Christopher, his sons, Augustus and Charles, and his
nephew, Christopher, Jr. There the elder Christopher bought land
and built his home a few miles from the village. They had arrived
by way of the Pennsylvania R3ad and on their way from New
York harbor had stopped in Philadelphia long enough for
Christopher and Augustus to set in motion the process of
naturalization. In the Grand Duchy of Baden, their native
country, they had been trained as metal workers. Now in their
Rutherfordton home they again set up a shop and made and sold
necklaces and brooches, cufflinks and shirt studs, rings and watch
�212 / Chapter Thirteen
chains, "executed to order, in the neatest and most skillful
manner."12 In addition to jewelry, the inventive Bechtlers also
designed and manufactured rifles that would fire shots at a greater
rate per minute. Since every settler was also a hunter, there was a
ready market for these guns.
Christopher, who with his son Augustus, was proud ot his
newly acquired American citizenship, found himself deeply
interested in conditions in his new country. In 1831, he took the
first step in helping to solve one of its pressing problems—the lack
of currency. After he and his family had designed dies and had
laboriously made the necessary machinery, he advertised the
opening of a mint at which, for a modest fee, he would assay gold
and for a coining charge of two and a half per cent would coin a
customer's gold into pieces valued at $2.50 and $5.00. The next
year he added gold dollars, and for those having coins made he
assayed the gold without charge. Always he gave back to the
owner a sufficient amount of the gold for another assay, together
with his record, so that, should the customer choose to do so, he
could confirm Bechtler's record.13
In a shed built over a cellar the goldsmiths worked. There they
assayed, refined, and coined the gold brought to their mint. Using
the United States coins as their standards, the Bechtlers made each
of theirs equal in value to the corresponding federal coin. But
since the gold brought to them often varied in fineness, coins in
each denomination varied in size and weight. Each contained the
exact amount of gold used by the government, however, and each
was stamped with the fineness of the gold and the weight of the
coin. The name Bechtler with the initial C or A also appeared as
did the name Rutherford.
In addition to North Carolina gold, the Rutherford mint also
received small amounts from South Carolina and some from
Georgia. Since the metal varied in color according to its source—
that from the mountains being somewhat duller in color than that
mined farther east and south—the coins varied in brightness. Each
was stamped with the metal source. Dies had to be designed and
made not only for each denomination, but also for each variety in
a denomination. Until 1834 the coins bore no date, but in that year
the government set up a new standard for its coins. The Bechtlers,
in order to conform, had to discard their complete set of dies and
make new ones. Thereafter, each coin carried the date 1834 to
indicate that it belonged to the new series and thus conformed to
the national standard.14
�Gold in the Hills and on the Highways / 213
The federal government had established a mint in Philadelphia
in 1792, but the coining of gold and silver had not yet been
designated as a function of the national government alone. The
Bechtler mint was the first private mint in the nation, but later
contracts were entered into by the government with other
goldsmiths. The government felt responsible for the integrity of
the country's currency and in 1834 sent investigators to
Rutherfordton to inspect the Bechtler mint. Their report was
most favorable, showing that the coins made there had a slightly
higher gold content than did the corresponding federal coins. No
attempt was made then or later to halt or to hinder the coinage at
the Rutherfordton mint. Instead, the federal government
recognized the service being rendered by this mint in furnishing
the region with badly needed currency, thus helping to raise the
economic level of the area it served. In order to further that
progress, a federal mint at Charlotte was established by an act of
Congress in 1835. The new mint was open for coining in 1837.15
Although records are not available, from an 1840 report of the
superintendent of the Charlotte mint, it would seem that the
Bechtlers, during the first nine years of their mint, coined
$2,241,855 worth of coins and assayed a far greater sum. No
Bechtler coin carried a national symbol; yet all coins turned out by
the mint were accepted at face value throughout the region and
the state, in fact, throughout the nation. Many a contract called
for payment in Bechtler coins, and many a westward-bound
North Carolinian took with him enough Bechtler money to buy a
farm when he reached his destination in some new territory. So it
was that Rutherford coins sometimes came to light far from the
mint that coined them.16
After the death of the elder Christopher, his son moved the
jewelry and rifle shop into Rutherfordton. Soon afterward the
work was divided, with Christopher, the nephew, taking over the
mint. It continued operation until some time during the 1850's
with, it seems sure, a decreasing amount of business, for after 1837
much of the gold mined was taken to the Charlotte mint for
coming. In fact, many owners of Bechtler coins in time took them
to the new mint for recoining into money stamped with the
national symbols. That fact combined with the small size of the
coins, making them easily lost, accounts for the comparatively
few Bechtler coins in existence today. Still, it is impossible to
overestimate the part played by these skilled artisans and their
coins in the economic progress of Western North Carolina. It is a
�214 / Chapter Thirteen
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Early settlers drove their surplus hogs to local markets. Later these small droves were taken
to the turnpikes to join animals trudging to market. The short-legged hogs could cover only
eight to ten miles a day. An estimated 140,000 to 160,000 hogs squealed and grunted their
way through Asheville in a single season.
shining tribute to the Bechtlers that in the years when they
handled gold valued in the millions of dollars no question of their
honesty ever arose. Their business transactions conformed to the
same high standard of integrity that they required of their coins.17
While east of the Blue Ridge the economic pressure was being
eased by the gold from the hills and the coins from the Bechtler's
mint, the settlers west of that range were discovering a different
kind of gold. The General Assembly, which in 1819 had
reluctantly created a state fund for internal improvements, was
induced in 1823 by delegates from the West to appropriate money
for subsidizing a highway that would connect the mountain area
�Gold in the Hills and on the Highways / 215
with eastern markets. The next year the Buncombe Turnpike
Company was incorporated with an authorized capital of $50,000
to be raised by the sale of shares at $50 a share. Contractors began
work on the road, which connected at Saluda Gap with South
Carolina's road from Charleston. It passed through the present
Henderson County to Asheville, then stretched along the French
Broad River to Warm Springs, and at Paint Rock joined a
Tennessee road. The Turnpike thus connected Greenville, South
Carolina, with Greeneville, Tennessee.18
In spite of the narrowness of the French Broad Gorge,
necessitating numerous fords and side fords, a road had long
followed the stream. The first one could have been no more than a
path or trail, and it is amazing that a vehicle of any type could
negotiate its ledges and rocks, its mud and its fords. Yet in 1795 at
least two wagons coming from South Carolina accomplished that
incredible feat. The citizens of Knoxville must indeed have had
difficulty believing their eyes as the wagons rumbled into the
village. Just two months earlier, Governor William Blount of
Tennessee had advocated a French Broad road from his state to
the Buncombe County Courthouse to be constructed by the two
states.19
By the turn of the century such a project seems to have been
undertaken, not by the states but by the prevailing method of
requiring local residents along its route to do road work in their
own sections. The best that could be said for the results of their
rather haphazard labors was that a rider on horseback could get
over it, and a wagoner with perseverance and luck might succeed
in saving his stout wagon during its upsets over rocks and across
fords. All travelers testified that a trip on the road required not
only patience, but fortitude and endurance. As time went on, the
repeated workings improved conditions somewhat, so that in 1812
Bishop Francis Asbury, making his annual journey to Asheville,
commented on the "fine new road."20 Despite improvements it
was never a highway conducive to commercial travel. The
mountain section had no hope of economic progress until a road
suitable for trade could be constructed. With the completion of
the Turnpike in 1827, therefore, a new day dawned in Western
North Carolina.
With the finest highway in North Carolina to travel, settlers
with their wagons piled with household goods and farm
equipment now came into the region to make their homes. Strings
of covered wagons wound along the Turnpike from east of the
�216 / Chapter Thirteen
mountains, taking their owners to the hoped-for greener pastures
of unseen western territories. High stepping horses hitched to
light carriages—now brought into the hills for the first time or
made by resident wagon makers—dashed along the road. They
made unbelievably rapid time in getting their masters from
Asheville or Greenville to Warm Springs, which had mushroomed into a health and recreation center.21
Stores in Asheville were soon showing a large and varied
assortment of merchandise brought over the new highway, and on
the streets of the village were hitched more horses from the
surrounding areas than ever before. Wagon yards were opened to
accommodate the stream of travelers. Inns and taverns sprang up
along the route and carried on a thriving business, and land offices
helped the incoming settlers to locate suitable real estate.
It was as a means of getting the products of the farms and
woods to markets that the Buncombe Turnpike played its most
important role, however, and proved to be a veritable gold mine to
those living along or near it. No longer did a man have to think in
terms of transporting his surplus by horseback. Wagon makers in
their enlarged or newly established shops tried to make wagons
fast enough to keep up with the demands. But the wagons could
not be used for the meat the farmers took to market on the hoof.
Up and down the French Broad River, beyond in the valleys of
Tennessee and Kentucky, and north of the Ohio in Illinois the
problem was—in fact, had been since the earliest settlers
arrived—the task of getting products to market. The Southern
Appalachians everywhere presented a barrier to towns to the east.
The enterprising pioneers partially solved the difficulty by
feeding the grain they raised in the broad, fertile, river valleys to
live stock and fowls and then herding the animals to South
Carolina towns. There planters with broad acres of cotton tended
by battalions of Negro slaves were always in the market for food
for men and animals. Even before the Turnpike was constructed,
the old French Broad River road had echoed with the squeals of
hogs being driven along it to the Charleston highway. The new
Turnpike increased the number of these drives of four-footed
animals to astounding figures.22
When the crops had been harvested, the cool, dry days of
October arrived to spread their flaunting colors over the
mountain sides, and a thin blue haze veiled the peaks and sifted
through the valleys. The men now rounded up their horses and
mules from lush meadows or from the high, grassy balds of the
�Gold in the Hills and on the Highways / 217
uplands. They brought in their hogs from the woods, each one
marked with its registered, mutilated ear or its branded flank and
each one now fattened and sleek from a rich diet of nuts and
acorns. Or perhaps the farmers collected the turkeys from their
roosting trees and gathered the quacking ducks from the
farmyard. They then began the long, slow trek to the Turnpike
that crossed the mountains and followed the river that wound
over Saluda Gap to connect with the road leading to distant
Augusta or Charleston. For the next two months the Turnpike
was alive with noisy, dust-raising animals, unwilling travelers to
the slaughter.
Usually each owner preceded his drove, leading the way on
horseback. Appropriately enough, he was known as the drover.
Sometimes, however, a speculator would take the combined herds
of neighbors and become the drover, hoping to make a profit for
himself as well as for the owners when he disposed of his charges.
The drover had several helpers, often young men or half-grown
boys, who walked behind as drivers or at the sides of the herds to
keep the animals in line and moving. These men—husky, outdoor men—cracked their long, snapping whips in the air above
the backs of laggards or strays, while their strong voices rang out
in calls and commands that the animals understood and sometimes
obeyed.
The drovers of horses and mules had the least transportation
difficulties and made comparatively rapid time from their homes
to their destinations. But from eight to ten miles a day was as far as
fowls would travel or as far as the short legs of hogs could take
their owners.23 The demand for hams, lard, and fatback was
practically limitless, and more hogs made their deliberate way
along the Turnpike than did any other live stock. Drovers of hogs
entered the broad highway at any and all toll gates along its
length. The animals came protestingly into it from subsidiary
roads, poor and narrow, from the valleys to the east, and from the
regions to the west. Roads, like the Cataloochee road, were
widened from the ancient Indian trail that connected the Pigeon
River area with the territory around Cosby and Newport,
Tennessee.
Sometimes nightfall caught a drove of hogs some distance
from a tavern, although such a mishap was more apt to occur
when the travelers were turkeys. These fowl were unpredictable
in their movements and at the coming of early dusk were apt to
take to the first trees they saw for a well-earned night's rest.
�218 / Chapter Thirteen
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The Alexander Hotel: At Alexander's Inn and stand on the French Broad River north
of Asheville men and animals could spend the night. Drovers were lodged in rooms with
other drovers. Drivers slept rolled up in blankets on the floor of the "great room."
When that happened, the drivers stretched out on the softest spot
of ground available and spent the night with the flock. But
customarily, drovers and their drivers tried to manage the animals
and flocks so that they would reach a stand by nightfall.
All of the live stock had to be fed enroute, and the men
themselves needed food and lodging. These demands were ably
met by enterprising citizens along the highway. Privately erected
and operated inns and their accompanying stands were built at six
to eight mile intervals along the entire route, where both men and
beasts could find rest and food. The first concern of the men upon
reaching the stand was for the stock. The animals were driven into
wide pens enclosed with rail fences and given the day's one
feeding, eight bushels of corn for each hundred hogs. With their
appetites satisfied, and supplied with water, the hogs, after a few
happy grunts, slept the sleep of the travel-worn. The turkeys
gobbled up their portion of grain and took to the trees, and the
horses contentedly swished their tails as they munched their quota
of oats.
Their chores completed, the men then removed the outer
layer of the day's dust from face and hands and went into the inn, a
�Gold in the Hills and on the Highways / 219
rambling one or two story building, where they did full justice to
the hearty meal that awaited them. Cooked as the mountain men
liked them were vegetables from the inn keeper's garden, meats
from his own hogs and from the surrounding woods, hot biscuits
made in his kitchen and dripping with newly churned butter, all
washed down with milk, strong coffee or, if one preferred, with
more potent drinks. The drovers might be lodged in rooms with
several fellow travelers, but the drivers were more than content
to roll up in blankets on the floor of the great hall, unmindful ot
the hardness of the boards beneath their thin pallets. No charge
was made for those sleeping on the floor, but meals cost the
drovers twenty-five cents per man. For corn for his hogs and fowl
the drovers paid the inn keeper seventy-five cents per bushel.
Long before sun-up the entire establishment was astir, for the
men were eager to be finished with their breakfast and to get their
droves and flocks onto the Turnpike, each hoping to be the first in
the onward moving van and thus to avoid the great volumes of
dust left hanging in the air by previous travelers. Moreover, they
wanted to make all possible mileage before the heat of the day that
slowed the pace of the animals. So, one after another, the drivers
got their animals from the pens and their fowl from the trees.
Giving their calls and snapping whips, they got the animals and
flocks once more tramping stolidly down the highway, soon
screened from view by a curtain of dust.
Upon leaving the tavern, the drover might pay the innkeeper
in cash, but he frequently gave a due bill, which he redeemed in a
few weeks on his return from the markets. Frequently, too, he
paid a part or all of the bill with hogs. The habitual laggards, the
limping, and the sore-footed, together with the cantankerous,
were left along the way as payment for lodging and food. These
animals would later be killed and as hams, sausage, and roasts,
appear on the inn keeper's table or be taken to southern markets
on his next purchasing trip into South Carolina. The innkeeper
was, perforce, a man of many trades. To supply the drovers with
corn, he bought vast stores, filling his immense cribs. To avoid
confusion, he sent word throughout the countryside that at a
certain date, well in advance of the autumn drives, he would
purchase corn. On that day the farmers came, their wagons
bursting with corn for which they received fifty cents per bushel.
They might receive payment in money. But more often each man
took what was coming to him in trade, for the stand keeper was
the neighborhood merchant.
�220 / Chapter Thirteen
Once or twice a year the stand owner put the surplus products
he had received from the drovers and those he had bought from
the farmers into one or more stout wagons and traveled the
Turnpike to Augusta or even to Charleston. There he exchanged
his load for the merchandise needed in his community. It often
took six horses to pull his heavily laden wagons over the steep,
curving roads. Farmers fortunate enough not to need all their
payment in goods might leave the remainder due them with the
stand keeper, who thus also became the community's banker.
Often, to be sure, the debt went the other way, and a farmer
received supplies during the year to be paid for when his corn crop
was ready to deliver to the stand.24
For longer than most men's life-times these drives continued,
and it was not until the railroads crossed the mountains and
traversed the area to the west that they ceased. During those years
untold numbers of men and animals traveled south over the
Turnpike and through the villages of Western North Carolina.
Records indicate that between 150,000 and 160,000 hogs grunted
and squealed their way through the village of Asheville in a single
season. David Vance, stand keeper at Marshall, said he had fed as
many as ninety thousand hogs in a single month. Often fifty to a
hundred men were fed and lodged, and several thousand hogs
were kept in a stand during a night.25
Although the Buncombe Turnpike was the scene ot the largest
and most continuous drives, other Western North Carolina
highways also served as links between farms to the north and
markets to the south and east. Along the old Wilderness Road,
Tennessee and Kentucky men drove their horses and hogs to
Jordan Council's stand at the present Boone to sell them to
Council, inn keeper and merchant. He in turn hired drivers to get
the animals down the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge, then east to
Virginia markets, or once off the mountains, they might turn
south on the highway leading through Morganton and Rutherford ton to Spartanburg or go by way of King's Mountain to
Charleston. Farther west in the mountains, on the old Indian trails
widened into roads, the droves sometimes went into Georgia and
then continued east into South Carolina.26 In the mid 1850's new
east-west roads were built by incorporated companies, connecting the extreme border counties of the state at both the Tennessee
and the Georgia lines with Asheville and thereby with the section
east of the Blue Ridge. Horses, mules, hogs, and turkeys trudged
and thundered along these roads every autumn.27
�Gold in the Hills and on the Highways / 221
This autumn traffic was destructive to roads, necessitating
frequent and expensive repairs. But the great, moving river of
livestock brought the first wave of prosperity that the region west
of the Blue Ridge had experienced. The livestock trade did even
more, for it set the entire economic pattern of the mountain
section. Although they were being aided economically by the gold
mining that was the spectacular feature of the period, the counties
east of the Blue Ridge also felt the impact of the great droves
tramping southward along their highways. Farmers there profited
economically, perhaps, more from the cattle and from the sale of
their corn at the many stands along the trade routes than they did
from the precious yellow metal being taken from their hills.28
�C H A P T E R
F O U R T E E N
Light and Shade in the Mountains
the first the Buncombe Turnpike set the pattern of living
along its route. To a lesser degree that was true with every road
along which the drivers passed. The farmers could now market
comparatively easily all the grain they could raise. Instead of
feeding their corn to hogs that had to be taken to distant markets,
they took it to the nearest stand. Because the demand was
insatiable, they cleared more land and planted more corn,
abandoning the worn out fields for new ones with no apparent
concern for the future of the soil. But they prospered, those
farmers whose acres lay in the fertile river valleys and so did the
entire area.1
The pleasant new economic status of each prospering farmer
was soon evident in his new house, for the original log cabin of a
few years before became the "summer kitchen," a storehouse, or
a shop. A roomy, comfortable home took its place as the residence
of the family. The new dwelling might also be of logs or of broad,
axe-hewn timbers; however, with the coming of the saw mills,
some of which were water driven, it might be constructed of
dressed lumber if its owner were willing to wait months or a year
to cut, dress, and cure the lumber. In the villages some of the
newly built homes were of brick. In any case, the new house was
far more pretentious than the one it replaced. In most instances it
belonged to the architectural design that became known as the
"dog-trot" house or to the style called a "saddle-bag" house.
222
�Light and Shade in the Mountains / 223
In both of these styles the builders surmounted the difficulty of
preparing and handling lengthy logs or timbers by erecting two
small, two-roomed buildings of equal size with a floored space
between and enclosing all under one roof. In the "dog-trot" house
the wide, intervening space, usually about ten feet, was open at
the ends, affording the family a delightfully cool breezeway for
summer days and allowing room entrances sheltered from
inclement weather. This middle section served as a sheltered spot
for storing gear and provisions, for curing pelts, and as an ideal
retreat for the hounds. Sometimes a stairway on the breezeway
led to the full height second story that practically duplicated the
design of the first floor and replaced the old low-ceilinged loft.
Chimneys were constructed at the outer sides of the units, and
windows were placed in the ends. Except for the inconvenience of
shivering across the "dog-trot" in winter to go from the kitchendining room section to the opposite bedroom unit, these houses
were extremely comfortable and the style persisted. Many are
still standing, and a few still serve as homes.
The "saddle-bag" design differed in that the space between
the two units was narrow and closed at the ends. In this space the
chimney was built and the stairway placed. It also provided rather
ample storage space. The Sherrill Inn at Hickory Nut Gap, which
for many years afforded rest and abundant refreshment to
travelers weary with a day's mountain trip, proved the practical
value of the "saddle-bag" style of architecture. 2
Around his house—the old and the new—the prosperous
farmer constructed a cluster of buildings, many of them still made
of logs, at least until the coming of the steam-powered saw mills.
Long after the Turnpike could bring finished products into the
mountains, homemakers continued to need a shop and forge
where tools could be made and repaired. The farmer needed barns
and built large, cantilever type structures to house his horses and
to store his hay. He needed shelter for the cattle, storage buildings
for his grain, cribs for corn, and sheds for his gear. Essential to
his food problem were the smoke house for curing and storing a
supply of meat, a vegetable cellar, a spring house, and, if he had
an orchard, an apple shed. Most of the farmers, too, had a structure and equipment for making brandy and a still for manufacturing a part of their grain into liquors.3
These stills had appeared as soon as settlers entered the region
and could be found in all sections of the "back country" and the
mountains. The stills enabled the farmer to get his bulky crop of
�224 / Chapter Fourteen
THE STEPHENS PRESS, INC.
Over the Buncombe Turnpike, called the "finest road in the state,)} came settlers with
their belongings and wagons. Many found homes in the mountains. Others sought greener
pastures farther west or north.
corn to market in the form of potent liquids sealed in jugs and
strung together with long leather thongs so that they could be
balanced over the back of a horse. In this way one horse could,
without protest, carry the equivalent of eight bushels of corn to
market. 4 The first Western North Carolina farmers had been
unaffected by the early government attempt to collect an excise
tax on whiskey and by the subsequent quelling of the Pennsylvania
farmers who, in defiance of the tax, had instigated the so-called
"Whiskey Rebellion."
The federal government later repealed the tax,5 and the
mountain settler, probably unaware that it had ever been in force,
continued to take his jugs of homemade whiskey to the county seat
on court days and to all the muster days of the local militia. If he
were fortunate, a permit was obtained from the judge to sell his
wares in the village. Failing in that, he could always find a means
of disposing of the contents of his jugs. As the Turnpike led to
better subsidiary roads, the farmers prospering from them and
from the Turnpike itself discontinued this method of selling their
corn. Instead they sold all they had to the stands. But most of them
continued to distill their own year's supply of spirituous drinks.6
As the years rolled by, the wagons continued to rumble into
Western North Carolina with their loads of supplies and luxuries.
The droves of hogs continued to thunder along all the roads each
autumn, and the demand for corn continued to increase. It looked
as though good times had come to stay. Both east and west of the
Blue Ridge every passing decade brought larger and more
�Light and Shade in the Mountains / 225
pretentious homes, more cleared land and larger fields, more
conveniences for home and farm, and better machinery and tools.
In time there developed more schools and churches, broader social
contacts and more connection with the outside world.
The new roads and the improved older ones opened the way
for comparatively rapid and dependable connections between
communities by means of the stage coach, making regular mail
service possible for the first time in Western North Carolina.
Rutherfordton had acquired a post office in 1798 and Asheville in
1801.7 Five years later Asheville was designated as the mail
distribution center for a wide surrounding area that included parts
of Tennessee, North and South Carolina, and Georgia.
In 1831 two-horse stagecoaches were taking both passengers
and mail once a week from Lincolnton to Asheville by way ot
Rutherfordton and Edneyville. Departing at four o'clock on
Saturday morning, passengers could be in Asheville by eight
o'clock Sunday evening, having covered a distance of 110 miles.8
A stage and mail route from Salem to Greenville, South Carolina,
passing through Morganton and Rutherfordton, allowed for fourhorse coaches making two trips per week. In fact, in 1831
Rutherfordton could boast of being on six stagecoach routes and
of having a three-times-a-week mail service.9
Passengers preferred traveling on the mail coaches since their
operators, under contract with the federal government, could
require all road overseers along the route to keep the highways
cleared of animals and fallen trees and to fill all mud holes. But all
of the passengers were grateful for the rapid transportation
offered by all the stagecoaches. Coaches appeared on the
Buncombe Turnpike soon after its completion and in time
furnished daily service. People jolted uncomplainingly along it in
the springless coaches, making hitherto unheard of time from one
Greenville to the other. On good roads the four-horse coaches,
stopping at stands at short intervals to get fresh horses, could
cover the incredible distance of sixty miles in a day.10
A coach could carry eight passengers inside, while several
others could find traveling space on top with the driver. The
baggage was carried at the rear of the conveyance and was
protected from rain and dust by leather coverings. The coaches
were highly decorated, and their entrance into a village,
announced by the driver's horn, was the most exciting event ot the
day or week. As it came to a dramatic stop before the inn, men and
boys gathered to witness the loading and unloading, to receive an
�226 / Chapter Fourteen
DORIS ULMANN COLLECTION, N. C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
Dye Pots: Until after the Civil War, mountain women made their dyes from vegetables,
roots, and bark. With these dyes they colored the linen thread and the woolen yarns which
they wove into the linsey-woolsey cloth for their families* clothing. This picture, taken at
the John C. Campbell Folk School, shows the process of dyeing as it was done in pioneer
days.
occasional family letter, and to watch the driver's dextrous use of
his long whip and his skillful maneuvering in getting the coach
again on its way. Every young boy had hopes that some day he
might hold the reins of such a fleet vehicle and guide the destiny of
a glittering coach. Life in Western North Carolina had become an
exciting and pleasant experience with comfortable prospects for
the future.11
But that was not the complete story. The changes wrought by
the trade arteries did not reach back into the mountain coves and
small isolated mountain valleys. The groups of men and women
living in these remote areas were made up of settlers arriving after
the best lands had been taken, together with those who, through
misfortune or their own dislike of or failure at farming, lost their
rich acres and retreated to less productive land. They were joined
in these more remote areas by those who were frontiersmen at
heart and whose primary interest was in hunting and trapping and
who had, like Daniel Boone before them, no desire to be restricted
by the demands of farming on a large scale. These men and their
�Light and Shade in the Mountains / 227
MARGARET MORLEY COLLECTION, N. C. DEPT. OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
Cabins like this one long continued to shelter families living in remote coves and away from
the main highways.
families built their little log cabins in the secluded coves and in the
sharp, narrow valleys on the sloping sides of the mountains. They
cleared a bit of ground and with the help of their wives and
children raised a few patches of corn, later one of tobacco, a field
or two of other grains, and a vegetable garden. They set out a tew
apple and cherry trees and erected stills.
The family stock usually included a horse or two, perhaps an
ox for the plowing, a cow, the hogs needed to furnish the year's
supply of hams and lard and fatback, and a "passel" of hunting,
hounds. Most of the livestock could forage for themselves in the
woods and mountain glades. The family larder received meats
from the hunts, and the men took furs, a few hams, and jugs of
whiskey to trade in the nearest village. They brought back the
sugar, salt, and the few tools needed, along with a few yards of
calico. The housewife's loom supplied much of the cloth for the
family clothes, and a traveling cobbler made the family shoes.
These men and women continued to live as had all the mountain
settlers during their first years in the hills.12
Nothing worthy the name of a road entered these isolated
�228 / Chapter Fourteen
, 'T>»^$&<T^&
r^i ••*' ; .<"•'
MARGARET MORLEY COLLECTION, N. C. DEPT. OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
For several generations, farm women very sensibly did their laundry out of doors near a
stream. They boiled the clothes in a wash pot and beat the dirt out of them with a battling
stick.
areas, and usually only the men made the necessary trips out of the
community. With almost no opportunity for outside contacts,
these mountain people were by-passed by the progress that came
to other areas. Groups of neighbors and relatives made up the little
world of cove and mountain families, walled in by the majesty of
the towering hills. For this reason the types of tools they brought
with them, the style of clothes worn when they first crossed into
the mountains, the kind of cabins first built, the games they knew
and the songs they sang, even the language spoken when they
arrived as first settlers persisted while neighboring areas
progressed. Daily life for these highlanders of Western North
Carolina was hard. Their farming tools were crude and few, and
the soil was, on the whole, unfriendly to cultivation. Conveniences were unknown. Children were born, grew up, suffered
mishaps and illnesses, became old and died without the attention
of doctors.13
Traveling ministers on horseback brought occasional messages of religion, married the young people, and sometimes
succeeded in organizing a congregation and building a "churchhouse." There services could be held more or less regularly;
summer camp meetings could be conducted; and in the
�Light and Shade in the Mountains / 229
MARGARET MORLEY COLLECTION, N. C. DEPT. OF ARCHIVES AND
HISTORY
This school house in the cove had no need for a chimney. The six or eight weeks' sessions
were held when the weather was mild. Text books were few, and the teacher received about
$16 a month.
surrounding grounds those who died could be laid to rest. Schools
did not appear in these areas until after 1840, and long after that
date the school facilities remained small and inadequately
equipped. The sessions were brief, and the teachers on the whole
unprepared for their work.14
Yet life was not all hardships. When land was being cleared,
neighbors gathered for the "log rollings"—getting the felled trees
into huge piles for burning. They gathered, too, for "house
raisings" whenever a cabin was being erected for a newly married
couple. There were quilting bees and shucking bees that brought
neighbors together, while everyone went on horseback or afoot to
the church services, the camp meetings, and the cemetery
cleanings. On all of these occasions the rough, hand-made tables,
frequently set up in the shady yard of a church or home, were
laden with a cornucopia of home-grown foods. In addition, there
were the "play parties," where, if the restraining influence of the
local church was not too strong, young and old went through the
�230 / Chapter Fourteen
'•»'•% '"-K"^ : 4#^ !
S^it/^ljLw*-
F;i' . • ' '
< ;5/ " L?
w:
• ,'~«
' •vjr.'Sr
HUGH MORTON PHOTO
Many old cabins and farm buildings, like these in the shadow o/Mt. Dunvegan, continued
to be in use until well into the twentieth century.
rollicking, intricate figures of square dances, guided by the
directions chanted by the neighborhood caller and inspired by the
neighborhood fiddler.
Sometimes the community's recognized singer "histed" a
tune, and all joined in on one of the many familiar ballads, ancient
English and Scottish folk songs brought to America a generation
or more before and eventually taken into the mountain fastnesses.
There, in time, they were modified or lengthened by a succession
of singers. Weddings and funerals also meant neighborhood
gatherings. These became as the years went by not only family
affairs, but also community events, for there was much
intermarrying among early settlers. There came a time when all
families of an entire community might be related in intricate ties
of kinship.
From the mountain settlements on the border line of
accessibility the men went into the villages for the gala muster
days of the militia and, after 1840, for political rallies, taking with
them their easily salable home-brewed whiskey, thus combining
�Light and Shade in the Mountains / 231
THE BARDEN COLLECTION, N. C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
A study in contrast (circa 1880's)-—the lowly beast of burden on mountain farms plods
along in the shadow of the state's new capitol.
business and pleasure. Also for the men and boys there was
hunting, and a trusty rifle or shotgun was each man's most prized
possession. Undoubtedly the happiest hours of the mountain men
were those spent tramping over great stretches of mountain
forests, following the tracks or signs of animals and now and then
stopping to "set a spell" on some hilltop boulder. There the
mountain man could spend the time whittling and letting his gaze
travel across the green ridges to the soft blue, peaceful haze of
distant ranges. Around the evening firesides tales were told and
repeated of the life and death struggles between men and beasts,
and honor accrued to the outstanding hunters. Each community
had its renowned bear hunter, a man to be respected by his
neighbors and to be envied by every growing boy.15
�232 / Chapter Fourteen
APPALACHIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION COLLECTION, N. C.
DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
As circumstances permitted, many settlers enlarged their homes by adding a new section to
the early cabin. Here the addition is larger than the original house and a porch has been
added.
The turnpikes that brought their economic prosperity and
broadening influences to those living along them or accessible to
them played a definite part in widening the gulf between those
settlers and the highlanders, who came to be known as
mountaineers. On their trips to town, the hill men looked with
distrust at the changing conditions they saw and came to feel that
those in the towns and open valleys were getting soft with their
new luxuries and "uppity" attitudes. The townspeople and valley
farmers, on the other hand, came to consider the dress, speech, and
habits of the hill people as old-fashioned, even quaint.
As the years passed, the isolation of the mountain communities
bred evils. Illiteracy developed, increased, continued, and finally
became a virtue, so that in some areas schools were not welcome.
When they came, sometimes over protests, attendance at them
was poor and spasmodic. Not infrequently teachers were run oft
by half grown boys whose only standard of superiority was
physical prowess. With life following a routine that tended to
become monotonous and with a still on every farm, drinking
became customary as it was in all the nation's frontier regions.
�Light and Shade in the Mountains / 233
ASHEVILLE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
The Oconaluftee Farmstead: In the river valleys farmers prospered and their cultivated
acres became farmsteads, with a cluster of needed outbuildings near the house. At the
Oconaluftee Farmstead, shown here, original buildings have been assembled from the area.
After the strong corn "likker" had gone the rounds or when
potent concoctions like *'cherry bounce" had burned its way
down the pioneers' throats, there was always the probability of
some social event exploding into a scene of violence. Rifles,
necessary in the social order of the mountains and ever present and
always sure of aim, even when fired by men whose brains were
reeling with too much of their own brew, were apt to crack
sharply with fatal results.
To those living a different type of life, it has been a thing of
marvel that the Southern Appalachian mountain men should shoot
their friends and relatives. But often there was no one else to shoot
since with entire communities made up of relatives of varying
degrees of kinship, a man, no matter in what direction he pointed
his gun, aimed at a kinsman or neighbor. And tempers were easily
aroused when the affairs of every family—even every
individual—were the common knowledge of all. No one could so
rile a man as his friend or brother or cousin.
In the early settlement days protection had of necessity been a
personal or intra-community affair, and to a large extent it
continued to be so in the remote mountain areas. Thus there grew
up a feeling that what happened in an isolated cove was the
concern of the settlers alone. To the close relatives of a slain man
belonged the revenge for his death, a code which inevitably
�234 / Chapter Fourteen
N, C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
Quaker Meadows:
Quaker Meadows in Burke County, the home of Major Joseph
McDowell, gave evidence of the growing prosperity of farmers east of the Blue Ridge. It
was here that the Overmountain men met on their way to meet Ferguson's forces.
developed feuds, some of which might rage for years (even into
the second or third generation) and might result in a series of
deaths. Inevitably, too, the code gave rise to resentment toward
outside law. Entering these regions in attempts to carry out their
duties, sheriffs were regarded as intruders and fair marks for the
rifles of local hunters. Later, the federal revenue officers were
'Varmints" sneaking into the private affairs of mountain men to
�Light and Shade in the Mountains / 235
deprive them of their rights. Many such an officer, entering a
cove, made a one way trip. 16
Yet the isolation of the mountain also developed much that
was admirable. Thrown upon their resources, the mountain
families built up a self-sufficient way of life. Many of the women
became expert in collecting and preparing the healing herbs that
abounded in the woods and were skilled in caring for the sick and
wounded. For example, the entire family gathered ginseng. It is
said that it was Andre Michaux on his visit to the Blue Ridge
Mountains in 1794 who taught the people living near Grandfather
Mountain how to gather and prepare the plentiful ginseng for the
Chinese markets. The information spread throughout Western
North Carolina, and many a mountain family, both adults and
children, gathered "sang," which could be taken to markets in the
towns. There it was made ready for shipment. For some areas,
"sang" became the principal cash crop, but the slow growth of
ginseng discouraged its cultivation. Gathering the wild roots
continued to be fairly widespread throughout the mountains until
recent years.17
Another of the attributes of self-sufficiency was that hundreds
of mountain men became adept at making their simple tools. A
few achieved the construction of rifles that met their own rigid
standards. Others, with no tools except knives, carved out fiddles
that gave forth tones of sweetness and grace, while some unknown
artist designed and made the first mountain dulcimer, an
instrument that has been copied hundreds of times. This
instrument has a body somewhat like a guitar except that it is
much narrower and is strung with a varying number of strings,
often three. It is held across the player's knees, and the strings are
plucked to give the surprisingly tuneful notes that make a perfect
background for the ancient ballads of English and Scottish origin.
Perhaps the greatest gift of isolation has been the spirit it
engendered in the hearts and lives of the mountain men and
women. Cut off from the world at large, they cherished the spirit
of independence and the love for freedom that had first lured them
into the untamed Appalachians to carve out with their own minds
and hands a satisfying way of lite. This spirit intensified as the
years passed and took on the character of the mountains
themselves. The deep, silent language of the hills spoke to the men
who tramped over them and built their cabins by the streams that
splashed down from the heights.
The hills of home imparted to the people something of their
�236 / Chapter Fourteen
own strength and uprightness, something of their mystic
revelation of infinite greatness and goodness and peace. The
mountains also instilled something of their own towering poise
and quietness, something of their own lofty, wind-swept heights
of calm. The dwellers in the uplands, both east and west of the
Blue Ridge, sometimes misused the outward strength and inner
power gained from their mountains. But when they turned these
traits to their proper uses, the mountain people made contributions to their state and nation that were distinct and worthy of
their land of majestic peaks and beauty.
It was, however, largely from the prosperous valley farming
areas, benefiting from the turnpikes and roads both east and west
of the Blue Ridge, that the early leaders came. And it was largely
from the towns and from these areas that the demands for public
schools and for general improvment in economic and living
conditions came. It was this area that gave David Lowry Swain to
Western North Carolina and to the state.
Completing three terms as 'governor, Swain went to the
University as president in 1835, followingjoseph Caldwell, who
had recently died. During his term as a delegate from Buncombe
County in the General Assembly, the young Swain had favored
Murphey's program for public education and as governor had
recognized the dire need of enlightening the people of the state.
His energies were necessarily concentrated, however, on the task
of getting a constitutional revision. He felt, too, that because of
the poverty of the masses and the remoteness of many sections, a
state-wide public school system would not at that time be feasible.
Now with the constitutional reform an accomplished fact, he
found himself, as president of the state's only authorized
educational institution, in charge of a faculty and of a student
body made up of ninety boys. That number, he realized, was a
pitifully small enrollment for a state having a population of almost
750,000.
With characteristic energy and tact, he set about the task of
improving educational opportunities for the youth of North
Carolina.18 Since the state admitted that a third of its adult
population was illiterate, that task had to include a consideration
of the general educational conditions throughout its length and
breadth. At the beginning of 1836, the outlook for establishing
public schools was dismal indeed. The Literary Fund established in
1825 by an act of the General Assembly had scarcely increased
since that date and was far too small to allow for financing a state
�Light and Shade in the Mountains / 237
system of elementary schools. Additional funds were nowhere in
sight.
But in that year a happy incident opened the way for taking
the first step in Murphey's plans for education of the masses. The
federal government had by that time paid its debts and found itself
with a large surplus in the treasury as a result of the rapid sale of its
western lands. In 1836, therefore, Congress passed the Distribution of the Surplus Act, by which the funds in the federal coffers in
excess of $5,000,000 were to be distributed to the states on the
basis of each state's representation in Congress. It was hoped that
the states would use the money for needed internal improvements
and education. North Carolina received as its share $1,433,757.39,
and in the state legislature the eastern bloc of Democrats, satisfied
as always with the status quo, urged that the sum be applied to the
state's debt. Once more they were defeated by the Whigs,
including those from Western North Carolina, and except for the
sum of $100,000 allocated to meet governmental expenses, the
entire amount went into the Literary Fund. To state it more
accurately, perhaps, the federal allotment went into investments,
the proceeds of which under the 1825 law went into the Literary
Fund.19
When the Public School Law was passed in 1839, it set up a
system based upon Murphey's plan, although greatly modified in
details. Whereas Murphey had advocated tuition for those able to
pay and had suggested that only boys continue past the lower
grade levels, this bill provided for free schools for all white
children, both boys and girls. Under it, each county was to lay off
school districts and appoint a school committee for each. Every
district was to raise the sum of $20 by taxation, which would be
supplemented with $40 from the Literary Fund, the resulting $60
to cover the expenses involved in operating a two or three
months' term of school a year. The decision to establish this
system was not to be thrust upon the counties, for in a general
election voters could cast their ballots for or against the
establishment of schools in their county.20 In the remote areas of
Western North Carolina, where illiteracy was prevalent and
where schools were desperately needed, many of the people were
either indifferent to the issue or were opposed to the necessary
taxation or to education in general. Yet only one western county,
Yancey, which had been created only a few years earlier and had
an extremely mountainous terrain, voted "No Schools." At a
later date that vote too was reversed.21
�238 / Chapter Fourteen
N. C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
Pleasant Gardens: This home in McDowell County was built before the Revolutionary
War. The logs of the original house have been covered with clapboards and a porch has
been added. The interior oj the house and its jurnishings have kept the character of the early
home.
In 1840 the state's first public schools opened, and during the
next ten years there were 2,657 such schools established. A portion
of these were little, one-roomed log buildings in the mountains
where for two or three months a year (in some sections, six weeks)
the children who attended could learn their letters and whatever
else the teacher could crowd into that time and had the knowledge
to teach. In the villages and in many of the prosperous farming
communities the privately operated and the church-owned
schools and academies continued the fine and thorough work that
they had performed for decades. And in these regions the public
schools attracted only those pupils whose parents could not afford
the tuition charged by the older and better equipped schools. In
these areas, naturally, the public schools acquired no prestige.
Even in sections where there were no other schools, many district
schools were given little respect or support. Advocates of the
public schools system were openly disappointed in the results
obtained and began a careful study with revision in mind.22
�Light and Shade in the Mountains / 239
The lack of popularity and the slow acceptance of the public
schools, they found, were due to several defects in the system.
Perhaps the chief cause of the slow progress made by the system
was the lack of a general directing head. Allied to this
shortcoming was the poor teaching carried on by untrained
teachers, poorly paid men with no supervision. Joseph Caldwell
had recognized teacher training as a basic need in a state system
and had urged, unsuccessfully, the establishment of a school for
that purpose.23 Swain, trying to increase the enrollment at the
University, was also deeply interested in the teaching problems
involved in the system. But there were other weaknesses. The
school law had been revised in 1841 so that counties were
authorized but not required to raise in taxes half the sum allotted
from the Literary Fund, and some counties took advantage of that
escape clause, thus reducing their school money.
Still another fault in the system was the allocation of the
Literary Fund, which was based not upon the white population,
which it actually served, but upon the total population of a
county. The counties lying just east of the Blue Ridge had a small
Negro population, but except for Buncombe, those west of that
range had practically no Negro population. Thus the schools in
Western North Carolina received less money than was their just
due, often too small a sum to accomplish anything like satisfactory
results. Perhaps the best that can be said for those first mountain
schools is that they helped to get people used to the idea of schools
and that in them a few children learned their A.B.C.'s.24
One of the most vigorous advocates of the public school
system was Calvin Henderson Wiley, a University graduate and a
young lawyer. He went to the General Assembly with a
determination to further education in North Carolina. To do so,
Wiley became an authority on conditions throughout the state and
succeeded in getting a bill through the General Assembly for the
appointment of a state superintendent of public instruction.
Under the law, this official was to plan a course of study, set up
teaching requirements, assist and advise the local school
committees, select proper texts, and keep the public informed on
the schools' progress and their needs. Wiley was appointed to that
position and became North Carolina's first Superintendent of
Public Instruction in 1852.25
He faced a task of staggering proportions, but strong in his
knowledge of conditions and armed with the courage of his
�240 / Chapter Fourteen
dreams for the state, he went to work. He set up a system of
licensing teachers through examinations and established
Teachers' Associations and Library Associations to inform,
encourage, and make professional those teaching in the public
schools. The new Superintendent selected, even wrote, suitable
text books, and gradually brought unity and order out of the
chaos. In time the Educational Associationof North Carolina was
organized and began its official publication, the North Carolina
Common School Journal later to become the North Carolina Journal of
Education. As he worked, Calvin Wiley gained friends for the
public schools.26 As the years passed, his labors brought visible
results. In the towns and villages of Western North Carolina and
in the prosperous rural sections, the public schools steadily grew
in prestige. Better buildings were erected and more able teachers
hired. At last these schools rivaled and then surpassed the private
schools in enrollment and took their respected places in the life of
the communities.27
But in the remote areas the schools' progress was not that
rapid. In time the mountain people came to realize that the schools
had come to stay, and opposition to them died down. But the
buildings remained small and inadequately equipped, and the
pittance paid to the teachers— in some counties as little as $16 a
month—attracted men who perhaps had failed at other
undertakings and had managed by hook or crook to pass the
required examination and to obtain a license.28 It was to be
another decade followed by a war with its devastating aftermath
before the dream of education envisioned by Murphey, Wiley,
Caldwell, and Swain would become a reality in Western North
Carolina. Yet a light had been kindled, a light that would one day
dispel the darkness of illiteracy and give added beauty to life in the
land of mountains.
�C H A P T E R
F I F T E E N
The Crack of Doom
in the Mountains
In a weirdly Satanic mood, Fate took a lump of gold picked up in
1815 by a little Cherokee boy in northern Georgia and in the
boiling caldron of the white man's hatred and greed, spun it into
lightning that cracked over the child's nation with the
unmistakable warning of swift doom. With DeSoto's flamboyant
appearance in the mountains in 1540, a cloud of destruction arose
on the horizon of the Indian nation. But the Cherokees became a
strong people, and the cloud was no bigger than a man's hand. It
was all but forgotten as a century and a half passed into the days
that are gone.
Then came the English and the French, and there were times
when the cloud grew and darkened. But the Cherokees always
retreated and ceded land, treaty by treaty, until their vast hunting
grounds were no more and their homelands had shrunk into the
westernmost section of North Carolina beyond the MeigsFreeman line, spilling over into the mountains of Tennessee and
Georgia.1 In 1815 there was nothing more to give up except the
fields of grain and the orchards and*the gardens, except the yards
and the cabins. Now the white man demanded even these.
241
�242 / Chapter Fifteen
In the fifty years following the coming of white settlers into
the region west of the Blue Ridge, the Cherokee nation developed
with phenomenal strides. The raids on the first isolated
settlements were soon over, partly because of the effective system
of sentries and the strength of the local militia units, but partly
because of the restraining influence of Cherokee leaders. When
the second war with England seemed inevitable, the great
Shawnee chief, Tecumseh, one day appeared in the council of the
Cherokees. To the gravely listening chiefs and braves he spoke of
his plan for a concerted Indian uprising against the Americans,
soon to be weakened through their war with the English. All of
the tribes and nations east of the Mississippi River were being
asked to join in a widespread federation to make a last struggle
against the constant encroachment of the Americans, an
encroachment that would eventually mean destruction for all
native Americans.
The Cherokees heard him through, and restive young braves
nodded approval of his plea. But the leaders spoke through the
answer that Chief Junaluska gave. That answer was "No." War
against the whites had been tried by their fathers, and it had
always brought loss of life and of land. It would again. The
Cherokees must be content with the twelve thousand square miles
left them. They were now unused to war. They must live in peace
with their American neighbors. They must stay out of the white
man's wars.2
^
The Creeks gave another answer, and in 1813 they went on the
warpath, massacring some five hundred men, women, and
children at Fort Mims. Then it was that a group of Cherokee
volunteers led by Junaluska joined the forces of General Andrew
Jackson against their century-old enemies. It was the Cherokee
warriors at Horse Shoe Bend on March 27, 1814, who turned a
probable defeat into victory for the Americans. On a punitive
campaign against the Creeks in January, Jackson had been forced
to retreat when his camp was attacked by warring Indians led by
the brilliant Billy Weatherford. He had withdrawn to Fort
Strother. By March his inadequate forces had been strengthened
by the addition of troops from Tennessee and by six hundred
Indians, some of them Cherokees from the Lower Towns, some of
them Junaluska's volunteers from Western North Carolina, and a
small number of them friendly Creeks.
�The Crack of Doom in the Mountains / 243
Learning that Weather ford's army was assembled at the bend
in the Tallapoosa River, Jackson returned with a force of two
thousand men to find the Creeks intrenched behind breastworks
on an island in the river with their women and children on the
nearby fortified peninsula. Jackson divided his forces. Sending
General John Coffee with seven hundred Tennessee men and the
Indians, under the command of Colonel Gideon Morgan, three
miles down the stream with instructions to cross the ford there,
the General gave orders to take a position opposite the rear of the
fortifications. They were to prevent the Creeks from escaping
while he led his main force in a frontal attack.
With the Creeks doubly protected by the stockade and the
river, the Americans gained no headway in the day's fighting.
During this impasse Junaluska and another Cherokee, braving
possible fire from the guns of their own side, swam across the river
and, tying together the canoes that the Creeks had in waiting for
escape in case of need, brought them back. Swarming into the
light boats, the soldiers, both Indians and Americans, crossed the
stream and reached the stronghold for hand-to-hand fighting,
while Jackson's army stormed the opposite side. The result was
the annihilation of the Creeks. Two weeks later, Billy
Weatherford surrendered, and the Creek War was over.
The battle of Horse Shoe Bend has been considered the
greatest of all Indian battles in the long history of the westward
moving American frontier. It prevented further Indian uprisings
against the Americans in the southeast and forced the removal of
several Indian nations to western territory. This battle also paved
the way for the formation of two new states—Alabama and
Mississippi.3 It was before this battle that Junaluska saved General
Jackson from the poised weapon of an attacking Creek. So in 1815
the Cherokees were living peaceably with their American
neighbors.
The native Americans were learning something of the white
man's government and in 1820 reorganized their nation, following
a pattern similar to the government of the United States. They
divided their country into eight districts and drew up a
constitution modeled after that of the white man's nation. New
Echota in Georgia, named in memory of their ancient sacred
town, was their capital and there the legislative body met. The
Cherokee assembly was made up of two houses, to which four
�244 / Chapter Fifteen
representatives from each district were elected by popular vote.
At the head of the nation was the president of the council, who
was also elected. John Ross was first chosen for this high office.4
The Cherokee people had a group of able leaders. A few of
these were revered chiefs, conscientiously guiding their people
with the paternal love and solicitude felt by their ancient
predecessors. They had the wisdom handed down by generations
of wise men and possessed the knowledge gained by their own
long years of living. Perhaps most honored in this group was
Yonaguska, who lamented that his people had adopted so many of
the white man's evils. One of these evils he had been able to
combat. During an illness, when his people grieved that he must
soon leave them, he spoke to them of the sin of drinking. He said
that he must come back from the very grave to save them from the
curse placed upon them by the white man's whiskey. Slowly he
recovered, and more than a thousand of his people took a solemn
oath of temperance. Those who broke their pledges—and they
were few—were whip-lashed as a public disgrace.
Yonaguska, also known as Drowning Bear, governed his
people like a father. Through his wisdom and understanding and
with his gift of oratory, he exerted a telling influence upon the
nation and won the deep respect of the Americans. In the unhappy
days during which exile faced his people, he was known as a
"peace chief." Yet when removal came, he refused to go west.
Going to a new land was useless, he maintained, for it would be
merely a matter of time until the white man's greed would
demand these western lands, too. Along with many others, he fled
into the Smokies.
After the withdrawal of federal troops, he led the remnants of
the Cherokee nation back to the acres that were no longer theirs.
Now more than three score and ten years of age and enfeebled by
the privations and exposure endured as a fugitive, he was not
equal to the task of leading the destitute Cherokees. At his
suggestion, William Holland Thomas was asked to assume that
responsibility. With the leadership of his people thus provided for,
Yonaguska was ready to depart. In 1839, at the age of seventyfive, this man, one of the great Cherokee chiefs, closed his eyes in
his last sleep.5
Younger than Yonaguska was Junaluska, whose parents had
called him Gul-nu-la-hun-ski, "One who tried but failed." The
name was bestowed when he admitted failing to fulfill his earlier
�The Crack of Doom in the Mountains / 245
boast to destroy all Creeks. This title the white man corrupted
into Junaluska. He was a brilliant strategist and in 1811 was strong
in the strength of mid-manhood and clear in his thinking. He was
not content to remember the past glories of the Cherokee nation.
Sanely and sensibly he looked at the present and did what he could
to build the future security of his people. He counseled against the
alliance with Tecumseh and the English, and for this gesture of
friendship with the Americans the Cherokees won a promise of
aid in case of Creek attack against their nation.
The attack came, instead, against the Americans, and true to
the pact he had made, Junaluska led a band of perhaps a hundred
men from the mountains to join General Jackson's forces. After
Horse Shoe Bend, Jackson extended to Junaluska and his
volunteers the gratitude of the American people. Personal
gratitude was given to Junaluska for the Cherokee's quick action
in averting a death blow meant for the American General.
Junaluska returned to his home, carrying in his heart a deep
friendship for Andrew Jackson and sure that, if wisely led, his
people in the future could live in peace and harmony with the
Americans. He did not realize what a lump of gold could do.6
Of their able leaders, John Ross was chosen to head the
reorganized government of the Cherokees. He was well fitted for
the position. The son of a Scottish father and a Cherokee mother,
he was one of the few men of his nation to receive a formal
education. His selection for their highest office proved the
confidence his people placed in him and the respect they awarded
him. So did the name they gave him—Guwisguwi—the name they
had bestowed upon a rare bird reputedly seen only once in their
land. Both their confidence and respect were well placed. In the
crushing and chaotic days ahead he was to exert all of his energies
and all of his personal fortune in the struggle to avert the
oncoming catastrophe. Perhaps no other Cherokee was so well
equipped to present the cause of the Indian nation to Congressional leaders in Washington. There, however, by a narrow margin,
he failed. In spite of the fact that he was able to win the support of
a few outstanding men, he could not stem the avalanche of
destruction already crashing down on a helpless people.7
The greatest of all Cherokee leaders never attained the title of
chief. He was a shy, retiring man, given to thinking. He had no
ambition to sway his people in the council and no desire for
power; yet deep within him was a driving urge that would not let
him rest. It was an urge not understood by neighbors and family,
�246 / Chapter Fifteen
an urge that set him apart. Possibily he himself did not understand
this strange thing that was in him.
On an unknown date shortly before the time that the
Cherokees became involved in the American Revolutionary War,
this man had been born in the Over Hills country not far from the
ruins of old Fort Loudon. His mother was a Cherokee named
Wut-tah, a sister of the influential chief Old Tassel of the Over
Hill Towns. His father was Nathaniel Gist, a white man who was
in Western North Carolina only temporarily and whose name was
his only gift to the Cherokee boy whom he never saw but whom,
years later from his home in Tennessee, he acknowledged as his
son. The mother called her baby Sequoyah, a name with no
descriptive meaning.
As the boy grew to manhood, he became adept at handwork
and without training began drawing and then fashioning metals
into tools and jewelry. After watching white men at their forges,
he made his own forge and set up a blacksmith shop where he
worked iron into the tools his neighbors needed. He also loved to
make silver into a variety of trinkets. But he longed for something
he did not have, something his people did not have. He learned
that, by making symbols on a piece of bark or paper, white men
could know each other's thoughts. In curiosity, he asked his
friend, Charles Hicks, who had attended one of the mission
schools, to write the name Gist. Hicks, probably following
Sequoyah's pronunciation, wrote the name Guess. Sequoyah made
a die of the queer marks and with it stamped each piece of his
silver. He knew then the meaning of the urge that was within him,
and he set about devising a set of symbols that would give the
Cherokees this power of silent speaking when absent, the power
that the white man possessed.
For years Sequoyah worked, moving into a small house alone
and ignoring the ridicule and scorn of his neighbors. In time he
was swamped with the characters he had designed, and he knew
that unless he could reduce their number, he would fail. He put
aside what he had done and started his self-appointed task anew,
using a different approach. Now instead of trying to make a
symbol for each word, he reduced the Cherokee language to its
elemental sound units—syllables, the white man would call them.
He found there were eighty-six such units. He then set about
devising a symbol for each one of them.
In this endeavor he was aided when, quite by chance, he came
by a piece of American printing. The Roman type letters, he saw,
�The Crack of Doom in the Mountains / 247
were far simpler to form than many of his own and, without
knowing the sound that each English letter represented, he
borrowed what he needed. The result was a queer looking but
easily learned set of syllable symbols covering every Cherokee
sound out of which words were made. By 1821 he had completed
this supreme task of his life. He had in his hands the means by
which his people could become literate. At the time, no one was
interested—not his family, not his neighbors, not the missionaries,
not even the Superintendent of Indian Affairs. Sequoyah turned to
any who would listen, teaching little groups of children and young
people. Quickly they learned and proved to the skeptics the
marvel of this thing that the inventor, untutored and unaided, had
brought to pass.8
In less than a year Cherokees were a literate people. The
Council voted to establish a newspaper and through the
recommendations of the Reverend S.A. Worchester, President of
the Brainard Mission School, his Mission Board in Boston had the
type of the new symbols cast in that city. The type, together with
a press, was shipped by water to Augusta, Georgia, and from
there by wagon to New Echota. Two white printers worked with
a Cherokee apprentice to put out the first issue of the Cherokee
Phoenix, which appeared on February 21, 1828. The editor was
Elias Boudinot, an educated Cherokee. During the struggle over
the removal to a western reservation, the paper was forced to
suspend operations, but was later continued at Tahlequah,
Oklahoma, under the name of the Cherokee Advocate. For some
years it was printed in both Cherokee and in English and was
distributed free to all Cherokees who could not read English.9
Four years before the arrival of the press at New Echota, John
Arch had translated a portion of the Gospel of St. John and had
circulated the handwritten copies. It was the first Bible
translation ever made in a written native American language.
David Brown, a half-Cherokee preacher, later translated the
New Testament into Cherokee. In the first four and a half years of
its operation, the press printed some 14,600 copies of the
Testament, hymns, and religious tracts. Practically every
Cherokee could read them.10
In grateful recognition of his gift to them the Cherokees,
through their Council, presented Sequoyah with a silver medal,
and the Nation gave him a life pension. News of what he had done
reached Washington where the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the
Government of the United States presented him with a gift of
�248 / Chapter Fifteen
FROM McKENNEY AND HALL'S COPY OF THE ORIGINAL PAINTING OF 1828, THE
STEPHENS PRESS, INC.
Sequoyah: Unlettered and untutored, Sequoyah spent long, lonely years perfecting a
system by which his people might "speak when absent.'' With his syllabary the Cherokees
became a literate nation within a year.
money. In 1917 the state of Oklahoma presented a statue of him to *
be placed in the Hall of Statuary in the nation's capitol. But the
most fitting tribute to this man, who, in the short span of twelve
years, bridged the gap of thousands of years and lifted himself and
his nation into the sphere of literate peoples, came when his name
was given in honor to the giant trees of California. They too, lift
their heads above the lowland up into the clear, pure realm of light
and sunshine.
Sequoyah went with the Cherokees on the long trek to their
new home. From there, when he was an old man, he set out in
search of the "lost Cherokee tribe," said to have gone into
Mexico. He was not equal to the arduous journey, and he sickened
and died. There by the Rio Grande, the boundary of the land he
�The Crack of Doom in the Mountains / 249
sought, he was buried, this greatest of all Cherokees and one of the
most remarkable of all men.11
The Cherokee nation during the decade of the 1820's
developed a stable government. The people were reasonably
prosperous on their little farms, raising their grain crops, fruits,
and vegetables, and tending to their cattle. The clack of the loom
sounded from every cabin. Many of them were accepting, or at
least listening to, the white man's religious teaching. Early in the
century the Moravians had established missions in their territory,
followed by the Baptists, who, in 1820, had four missions in
Western North Carolina. The most influential mission school,
however, was the Brainard School in Tennessee. It was
established by the American Foreign Mission Board in Boston,
with the Reverend S. A. Worchester as its president. The federal
government aided this school in its industrial education program;
it was perhaps the first school in the nation to carry on such work.
During this decade, too, the Cherokee nation became a reading
and writing nation, reaching a rate of literacy that shamed the
white section of Western North Carolina. The Cherokees were
also far more temperate and law-abiding than their neighbors.12
But unfortunately, gold had been discovered on their land.
That fact the white men could not tolerate. The idea spread that
the Cherokees must leave. There was Indian land beyond the
Mississippi River. Let them go there. In 1817, cajoled by the
whites, a few chiefs signed a treaty ceding their territory and
agreeing to a removal to the west. This settlement was at once
repudiated by the Council, and sixty-seven chiefs signed a
memorial of protest, pointing out that the signers of the treaty had
no authority to represent their government. This document was
sent to Washington, and John Ross began a series of trips to the
national capital to present the case of his people. Such
Congressional leaders as Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, and
Henry Clay championed the rights of the native Americans. The
unauthorized treaty hung fire; yet the Cherokees felt that it would
not come up again.13
Agitation for removal continued in Georgia, and in 1819,
hoping to appease the whites, the Cherokees by treaty sold their
land along the Tuckaseigee River, thus ceding all land north and
east of the Little Tennessee River and east of the Nantahala
Mountains. It was a big price to pay, and for the Indians it availed
little.14 Georgia became vociferous in its demands for removal,
and the ensuing ten-year period was a time of growing confusion
�250 / Chapter Fifteen
and bitter feelings. The possibility of expulsion from their
homeland hung over the Cherokees like a Damocles sword.
Georgia then began a series of petty indignities that developed
into persecution. The Indian leaders kept their people in check
only with the hope that the government at Washington would
protect their national rights. John Ross continued making trips to
confer with congressmen and justices.
This explosive state of affairs flamed into warlike activities
when in 1828 new gold discoveries were made on the Georgia
holdings of the Cherokees. That state, snatching at any angle that
would present a legal facet, grimly and determinedly set about
getting possession of the Indian land. No quarter was to be
extended to the Cherokees. Seizing upon the convenient political
theory that no nation could exist within the confines of the
American government, the General Assembly of Georgia
declared that the Cherokee nation did not exist. Hence the
Cherokee laws were also non-existent. By another act, it declared
that the Cherokees living within its boundaries were incapable of
owning land. Thus the state acquired the power of removing
unwanted Cherokee occupants, who were given until June 1,
1830, to leave the state.15
Remembering the service rendered to General Jackson at
Horseshoe Bend and recalling his declaration of friendship of the
Cherokees, their leaders still had high hopes of saving their nation.
Junaluska tried to quiet the fears of his people with the conviction
that Jackson, now entering the White House as President of the
United States, would champion their righteous cause.
The confusion that existed before now swelled into a state of
pandemonium. Georgia sent state surveyors into the Cherokee
territory to mark off the land into "land lots" of 160 acres each
and "gold lots" of 40 acres each. These were offered by lottery to
the white residents of the state and to the inrushing hordes of goldhungry speculators. At the same time the Cherokees were
forbidden to hold meetings of the Council, in fact, to hold any
meetings. Friend and industrial advisor of the Cherokees, the
Reverend Worchester, was imprisoned; and at one time John Ross
and his guest, John Howard Payne, were held prisoners in the
home of Joseph Vann, a well-to-do Cherokee. The Cherokee
Phoenix was forced to suspend operation.16 °
Protests against Georgia's treatment of the Cherokees as
criminals were sent to the federal government, and in 1831 the
Indian nation appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States
�The Crack of Doom in the Mountains / 251
for an injunction against the state of Georgia. They also appealed
to that court concerning the seizure of a Cherokee charged with
murdering a fellow tribe member, a case, the Cherokees felt, that
was within the jurisdiction of their own courts. John Marshall's
decision that the Cherokees had the right to their land until an
authorized and voluntary treaty with the federal government
compelled them to relinquish it brought some hope to the Indian
nation. But Georgia openly defied the decision, and President
Jackson, besieged by appeals from that state, uttered the crisp
rejoiner that rang through the Cherokee nation like a death knell.
"John Marshall has made his decision," said Jackson, "now let him
enforce it. "17 The faith in General Jackson, to which Junaluska had
clung, crumbled, and a hopeless spirit of fatality gripped the aging
warrior.
Two factions now divided the Cherokees. One, led by the
brilliant young John Ridge, who had been educated in the white
man's schools and who had a white wife, argued that compromise
with the Americans was no longer possible. His followers felt that
the only practical course open to the Indians was to conclude a
treaty with the federal government on as favorable terms as could
be arranged and to move to the western lands. On March 14,1835,
this faction agreed to a treaty drawn up by the Reverend J.F.
Schermerhorn, commissioner for the government. Under its
terms the Cherokees were to receive $3,250,000—a sum later
raised to $4,500,000—for their eastern lands, and they were to
move west. This treaty was not to be in effect, however, until it
was approved by the Indian nation meeting in full council.
In October the Council met and overwhelmingly rejected the
treaty. In desperation the federal government called for a meeting
of all Cherokees at New Echota for the purpose of drawing up a
new treaty. John Ross, who opposed any removal plan, was held
prisoner in Georgia until after this meeting. Other leaders were
also absent. Out of the total Cherokee population, only some three
hundred men, women, and children gathered at New Echota.
Although this small group was in no way respresentative of the
nation, a committee was appointed and another treaty worked out
by which the Cherokees agreed to cede all their eastern domain in
return for government land in Indian Territory and which offered
a sum amounting to about fifty cents an acre for their homeland.
This forced treaty was ratified in the Senate on May 23,1836, and
a Removal Bill arranged for evacuation by May 26, 1838.18
The frantic appeals of John Ross were fruitless. Near the end
of the allotted time, however, only some four thousand Cherokees
�252 / Chapter Fifteen
;
WOOLAROC MUSEUM, BARTLESVILLE, OKLA.
The Great Migration:
Because gold had been discovered on their land, the Cherokees,
now a literate people living under a written constitutional government, went from the land
of their fathers in what has been called "The Great Migration," On their way to Indian
Territory many died from exposure and exhaustion.
had gone west, leaving approximately seventeen thousand still on
the eastern domain. The government, impatient with this lack of
response to orders, sent General John E. Wool with an army into
the area to implement the removal. Upon learning that the
Cherokees were being removed against their will and after seeing
conditions at the fort "at the mouth of the Valley River," General Wool asked to be relieved of the assignment. He was replaced
by General Winfield Scott, who was given an army of seven
thousand regulars whose orders were to complete the evacuation as rapidly as possible, although Martin Van Buren, now
President, agreed to extend the time beyond the designated
date.19 What followed is stark tragedy, a total eclipse of all the
principles of freedom for which the new Republic had been
formed. Stockades were erected in various parts of the Cherokee
country (North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama), and
into them the soldiers herded the men, women, and children taken
without warning from their fields and homes. In June, 5,000 of the
people, traveling in bands of 800 to 1,000, said a tearful goodbye to
the land of their ancestors and started west, going by water as
much of the way as possible. They were removed on governmentprovided steamers down the Tennessee River to the Ohio River
�The Crack of Doom in the Mountains / 253
THE TRAIL OF
TEARS
milfoil
_/•
ATHENfc
cHiioiiC;
.A10UMA
ALABAMA
"|
FROM THE 19TH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
The Trail of Tears: The second group to leave the Cherokee land numbered more than
12,000 and traveled in groups of 1,000. They began their journey in October, 1838, and
reached their new home in March, 1839. An estimated 4,000 died on the way.
and then to the Mississippi, eventually crossing Arkansas into
designated Indian Territory. It was a hot, dry summer and the
wanderers suffered greatly. In the intense heat of a western
August they reached their destination. Word sifted back to the
mountains that many had died enroute. It was reported that in one
group of 875, some 350 had died and had been buried along the
way.
John Ross then requested that the remaining twelve thousand
of his people be allowed to go in the autumn and asked that they
have charge of their own removal. His request was granted. In
October the heartsick people, in groups of a thousand each, set out
by an overland route for the remote land they had never seen.
Government-furnished wagons held household goods and tools
and carried the children, the aged, and the sick. The few who
owned horses, rode, but most of the men and women, each with a
bundle on back or in hands, trudged every step of the thousand
miles on foot. Starting from the north bank of the Hiwassee River,
their course led through Nashville, Tennessee, where they got
government supplies, and then headed northwestward through a
forested area of abundant game to the Ohio River. They crossed it
by ferry near the mouth of the Cumberland.
The exiled people then crossed southern Illinois, fording the
Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau, and passed across southern
Missouri into Indian Territory. The journey which had begun on
October 4 ended in March. Six months of daily plodding through
the rains, sleets, and snows of an exceptionally dreary and cold
winter had proved disastrous to a third of their number. About
�254 / Chapter Fifteen
four thousand died along the "Trail of Tears."20 So powerful was
a lump of gold!
The best known tragic episode in this macabre drama took
place, however, back in the mountains. A Cherokee farmer with
no understanding of the causes behind this historic event or of its
future significance was its hero. He was a little-known man in his
sixties named Tsali and called by the whites "Old Charley."
Through his death, a thousand Cherokees hiding in the fastnesses
of the Smoky Mountains received government permission to
remain in the hills and thus eventually to build for themselves a
new nation—the Eastern Band of the Cherokees.
During the gathering of the people at the departure forts,
scattered individuals, families, and groups of neighbors escaped
into the mountains, seeking whatever shelter the towering
Smokies afforded and existing on the scanty food supplied by the
autumn forests. Among these refugees was Tsali, and with him
were his wife, his grown son Ridges, a second son (still a child),
and his brother-in-law Lowney. Over the years, as the story of his
death was told and retold around the nation's camp fires, the man
Tsali was clothed with heroism. His death was regarded as a
sacrifice, the voluntary assumption of the role of scapegoat for the
salvation of a thousand of his people.
According to the traditional story, two soldiers came to
Tsali's cabin home to take him and his family to the fort. Along a
steep stretch of the path one of the Americans prodded the lagging
Indian woman. Tsali, controlling his wrath at this indignity to his
wife, spoke in Cherokee to his son and Lowney. At the first turn in
the path, he said, he would fall, pretending injury to his ankle.
Then the soldiers would halt momentarily, giving the Indian men
an opportunity to leap at them and sieze their guns. The
Cherokees would then flee into the nearby hills. The plan almost
worked, but one soldier rushed to the fallen Tsali while the other
was being overpowered by Ridges and Lowney. From the ground,
Tsali tripped the man bending over him, and in his fall the soldier's
gun went off, killing him instantly. Sadly picking up the dead
man's gun, Tsali led his family up into the mountains.21
The sequel came after the autumn departure of the Cherokees.
General Scott's troops attempted to round up all fugitives hiding
in the mountains. They were unsuccessful, for these hills had been
the hunting grounds for generations of Cherokees. The refugees
were familiar with hiding places that no strange white men could
locate. Nor was it possible to starve them out of their hidden
�The Crack of Doom in the Mountains / 255
recesses, for the Indians knew how to exist on the nuts and roots
and plants they found in the forests. It began to look as though this
final phase of the removal would drag on indefinitely. With his
men eager to be finished with this unpleasant task, General Scott
sought some way to bring it to an ''honorable" close.
He found it. If he could capture Tsali and publicly avenge the
death of an American soldier, he would forget the others.
According to tradition it was William Holland Thomas who took
Scott's message to Tsali and brought back to the American officer
Tsali's reply, "I will come in." True to his promise, the Cherokee
farmer, unaware of the heroism of his sacrifice, stood unblindfolded with Ridges and Lowney, while at his request his own
people fired the shots that made them martyrs. His younger son,
because of his youth, was allowed to live.22 This is the traditional
story of Tsali, familiar to every Cherokee and to thousands of
white Americans who have seen it come to life in the
Mountainside Theater at Cherokee Village.
The reports of the officers rounding up the Cherokees,
however, present a somewhat different version of the episode. In
an attempt to gather in the fugitives, General Scott assigned
Colonel William S. Foster and his Fourth Infantry to the upper
Oconaluftee River valley and the Smoky Mountains. In October
Colonel Foster, detaching units of his men to various sections of
his territory, sent Second Lieutenant A. J. Smith and three soldiers
through the upper Oconaluftee valley district. These men, finding
no Cherokees, started for Fort Scott. On their way they surprised
a camp of fugitives near the Little Tennessee River. Tsali and his
family were reportedly among the dozen men, women, and
children taken into custody by the soldiers.
In a report to his superior officer, Lieutenant Smith told of the
ensuing tragedy. He was aware, he said, of the spirit of resentment
seething through the captive group and, fearing trouble, ordered
his men to seize a long knife that one of the Indians had. The
officer later gave a similar order when he discovered that one of
the refugees had an axe. This second order came too late, for,
apparently at a signal, the men in the group attacked the soldiers,
killing two and wounding the third. Lieutenant Smith owed his
own escape to the dexterity of his horse. This act, the only
instance of bloodshed during the removal of the Cherokees from
Western North Carolina, called for drastic and immediate
retaliation. The members of the Indian band were identified by
�256 / Chapter Fifteen
William H. Thomas, James Welch, a settler, and Lieutenant
Smith. General Scott sent Captain C. H. Larned after Tsali,
considered the leader of the outlaw group.23
It was at this juncture that General Scott, evidently wishing to
avoid a search of undetermined length and hoping to enlist the aid
of other refugees, issued an order of immunity to all hiding in the
hills, provided that Tsali and his men were captured and turned
over to the army. After a two weeks search the men were brought
in by two of their own people, Wecheecha and Euchella, and were
taken to Fort Lindsey, which had been erected at the junction of
the Nantahala with the Little Tennessee River. According to
Lieutenant Smith's report, Wacheecha and Euchella had asked
permission to capture Tsali and to mete out his punishment in
order to expiate the disgrace that the murdering of two white men
had brought to their nation. In carrying out Tsali's execution the
deaths of the two American soldiers had been avenged. And what
was of supreme importance to the hundreds of Cherokees still
hiding in mountain caves, the terms of the conditions upon which
their immunity from punishment depended had been met. General
Scott and his army, considering their removal assignment
completed, withdrew from the mountains of Western North
Carolina.24
Then from their hiding places came the pitiful remnant of a
once proud and populous nation. They now owned not an inch of
ground in the land that had once been theirs. They had neither
money nor personal possessions. Their great chief Yonaguska was
old and now ill from the months of privations in the mountains.
They were bewildered and without confidence in their own
power or in the justice of the federal government. In their
extremity they turned to the one man they could trust. They
turned to a trader named William Holland Thomas.25
They could not have done better. Born in 1805 near what was
to be Waynesville, William Thomas grew up on the frontier and
in the Cherokee country. Since his father had died before the boy's
birth, young Thomas assumed a man's work at an early age.
Already at age twelve he had gained the confidence of business
men and was manager of an Indian trading post at Qualla. He was
hired by Felix Walker, a farmer, trader, land speculator, and
representative to Congress, who in 1808 had come from
Rutherford County to the newly organized Haywood County. In
his work Thomas came to know and to admire the Cherokees, and
�The Crack of Doom in the Mountains / 257
THE BARDEN COLLECTION, N. C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
William Holland Thomas: Thomas, who was reared in the mountains, became the
white chief of the little band of destitute people left in the hills. Through his efforts these
native Americans became the Eastern Band of Cherokees.
they grew to love and trust him. They approved when Yonaguska
adopted the white boy as his own son, and they accepted him as a
member of their nation. Before he was fourteen, young Thomas
found himself, through the gift of the now financially hardpressed Walker, the owner of a trading post with its meager stock
and of a set of law books. He was now not only the manager of the
post, but also its owner.
William Thomas was educated in Cherokee through
Sequoyah's syllabary, and he had studied the law books until he
was familiar with American law. Politics already interested him.
He had prospered in business and had been justified in the
establishment of five trading posts. At maturity he lived on a farm
on the Tuckaseigee River near the ancient Indian town of Stekoa,
�258 / Chapter Fifteen
destroyed in 1776 by Moore. What was more important, as events
proved, was that he could feel, think, and speak like a Cherokee. It
was logical, then, that when the aged Yonaguska died, Thomas
should be chosen chief of these eastern Cherokees.
It is hard to visualize the fate of these men, women, and
children—a thousand of them—had William H. Thomas refused
the responsibility of becoming a later-day Moses for a persecuted
people. The first step taken before he became chief was to go to
Washington in behalf of his people, pleading for aid for them and
asking for their share of the $5,000,000 that the federal
government had agreed under treaty to pay the Cherokees for
their eastern land. It was a slow, strenuous task, this wresting
from an unwilling government even a token of justice for a forlorn
group of defenseless people. It was only after years of effort and
after the expenditure of much of his own financial resources that
Thomas succeeded in his aims. He was eventually appointed the
Federal Agent for these eastern Cherokees and as such could hold
in trust the money turned over to him for the Indians under the
Removal Treaty of 1836.
Consistent with the theory adopted as a basis for their
expulsion, the Cherokees were not granted the right of citizenship
by either North Carolina or by the United States, and they could
hold no land. Both as the government's representative to the
Cherokees and as the Cherokee spokesman to the government,
Thomas purchased with the Indians* money paid to him a tract of
some 57,000 acres around the present village of Cherokee in
addition to a smaller tract known as the Snowbird Reservation
near the present Robbinsville. This land he held in trust for his
people until they could become citizens and have the right to own
it individually. Once more there was land in the mountains of
Western North Carolina that the Cherokees could call home.
Under Thomas' guidance, the Cherokees divided the area into
five communities called Bird Town, Paint Town, Wolf Town,
Yellow Hill and Big Cove. Thomas helped them devise a form of
government, and this eastern segment of the Cherokees began the
slow process of rebuilding a nation.26 In time, a few of those who
had gone west came back and were allowed to remain. Among
them was Junaluska, old and homesick. Somewhat tardily, North
Carolina manifested its gratitude to him by conferring citizenship
upon him and by giving him land on which to live out his life. On
November 20, 1859, in his little cabin near the present
Robbinsville, he died.27 He had lived, some have thought, more
�The Crack of Doom in the Mountains / 259
1
-
THE BARDEN COLLECTION, N. C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
Junaluska: Tired, footsore, and disillusioned, Junaluska, the great Cherokee warrior and
leader, returned from Indian Territory to the mountains he loved.
�THE STEPHENS PRESS, INC.
7^e Grave of Junaluska and His Wife Nicie: In recognition of his having saved the life
of Andrew Jackson at the Battle of Horse Shoe Bend, Junaluska received citizenship and
was allowed to return from Indian Territory. He was given a farm on the Snowbird
Boundary reserves of the Cherokees. There he died on November 20, 1859.
than a hundred years. He had seen his people rise to their brief
period of greatness and then fall before the greed of the white
man. He had been a great warrior and a revered counselor of
his nation. He had been a wanderer and a refugee. But he had
come back to the land of his birth and the hills he loved, and he
died as he wished, in the mountains of his ancestors.
�C H A P T E R
S I X T E E N
More Government
for Western North Carolina
/\fter the formation of Haywood County from the "State of
Buncombe" in 1808, the two counties furnished local government
for an extensive area west of the Blue Ridge for twenty years.
Rutherford, Burke, Wilkes, and Ashe Counties continued to serve
both their more settled sections east of the Blue Ridge and their
mountain lands west of that range. For the mountain regions
especially, it was a period of settling and of evolving a mountain
way of life. It was a time for developing the river valleys into
comparatively large farms and a time of organizing self-sufficient
communities in many rich but mountain-rimmed geographic
pockets. In time, however, several factors combined to raise the
familiar clamor for the creation of new counties out of portions of
these far-flung older ones.
Perhaps the basic factor was what might be considered the
normal influx of settlers. The general restlessness giving rise to a
westward trend of migration that characterized the national life
style also affected Western North Carolina, bringing people
seeking new homes in western areas. Some of these westward
moving people passed along the mountain highways into
Tennessee or on to more distant territories. But many of them
stayed to take up land in Western North Carolina. After the
261
�262 / Chapter Sixteen
APPALACHIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION COLLECTION, N. C.
DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
Settlers going into the remote sections of newly formed counties often encountered rushing
mountain streams and virgin forests.
completion of the Buncombe Turnpike in 1827, a second factor
entered the picture. The prosperity that the road brought to the
mountain region increased the number of incoming, mountainminded travelers. Because of this new, easy access to the hillcountry, men could now bring their families and household goods
in wagons over the finest road in the state of North Carolina.
For some thirty years the Turnpike rumbled with heavily
laden wagons, some of which used the road as a passageway out of
the state, but a far greater number of which came to rest in
mountain coves and along mountain streams. Thus, during the
1830's half of the counties of the state declined in population, but
the population of Western North Carolina increased.1 Still
another factor in the demand for new counties was the opening of
Cherokee lands. The Meigs-Freeman line of demarcation
between the races was no longer in effect after 1819. The
reduction of the size of the Cherokee nation allowed North
Carolina to open such "cleared" acres for settlement.2
In 1819 the Cherokees, in a desperate attempt at appeasement,
�More Government for Western North Carolina / 263
sold the federal government all their homeland north and east of
the Little Tennessee River together with the rich Tuckaseigee and
Oconaluftee River area, as well as a more southerly strip
extending to the Nantahala Mountains. The area was then opened
for white settlement. White settlers rushed hastily into every part
of the opened territory, taking out grants and building homes.
Their successors settled near them or bought lands still left in the
older sections. In once remote parts of Hay wood County the
population became sufficient to justify the machinery of a new
government. Buncombe County also had areas in both its
northern and its southern districts that were fully ready for their
own local government.
The reasons advanced in the petitions for the formation of new
counties were the familiar ones of distance from the county seats
together with poor road conditions. Farmers in the valley of the
South Toe River had to travel a distance of about forty miles to
reach their county seat of Asheville. At certain seasons of the year,
the roads, scarcely more than trails, were impassable. Even at best
they were wretchedly poor, the "pooriest, rockiest roads in the
country," according to one traveler.3 It took a man on horseback
two days to make the trip and the farmers living in the valley of
the North Toe River had a similar distance to go to reach
Morganton, their county seat. They had to descend and, on the
return trip climb, the forbidding Blue Ridge Mountains. Not only
did this waste precious work time, but also the slowness of travel
could well impede the process of justice.
The first western petition acted upon favorably by the
General Assembly after the formation of Haywood County came
from the citizens recently flocking into the lands opened for
settlement in the western portion of that county. Many settlers
had purchased land tracts in the area in September, 1820, when a
general auction sale of Cherokee lands had been held in
Waynesville, the county seat. The number of residents increased
steadily. In fact, so populous did the region become that after 1824
it was necessary for Haywood County to keep a deputy sheriff in
the area as the county's officer of law enforcement.4
The new county was named Macon, in honor of Nathaniel
Macon, leader of the North Carolina Republicans and at one time
Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. There for
many years he was his state's outstanding political figure. It was
somewhat ironic, however, that this western county should
receive Macon's name in view of the fact that Western North
�264 / Chapter Sixteen
ASHEVILLE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
Dry Falls: These falls are so called because one can pass behind them without getting
splashed by their spray. They are in Macon County.
Carolina opposed practically all of his economy measures and
eventually helped to bring about the end of Republican control of
the state. The county seat was named for Jesse Franklin, governor
of the state for a term prior to the bill authorizing the formation of
the county.5 The town of Franklin was built on the site of Nikwasi,
the ancient sacred city and capital of the Middle Cherokees.
The mound near the new town was made by a people of the
�More Government for Western North Carolina / 265
forgotten past and had been used by the later Cherokees as an
elevation for their council house. There they may have
entertained DeSoto and his Spaniards in 1540, and there in 1730
they drank to the health of King George with the persuasive
Cuming. Today the mound broods over a modern mountain town,
a sub-capital known as a county seat. That its brooding may be
undisturbed by thoughtless persons seeking relics of a past
civilization, the citizens and school children of Macon County
purchased the mound in 1946 and presented it to the city of
Franklin to be held as a public trust. A marker designating the site
of old Nikwasi has been placed at the mound.6 As soon as the new
county was formed, the county court set about its road building.
Citizens working in shifts under an appointed overseer opened a
road from Franklin along the Little Tennessee River to the mouth
of the Tuckaseigee River. This connected with a highway being
constructed to the Tennessee line.7
In the third decade of the century three more petitions from
mountain sections received favorable action in the General
Assembly. Yancey County was authorized in 1833, Henderson
County late in 1838, and Cherokee County in 1839. The new
Yancey County comprised all the Toe River valley. It was an old
country, bearing evidences of ancient battles between the
Cherokees and the Catawbas, who had spasmodically contended
for coveted hunting rights in the fertile region. Here, too, was
evidence of Spanish invaders, coming after 1540, not to settle, but
to sink mine shafts in search of gold and silver and possibly other
metals.8
Across this area in 1771 James Robertson had led sixteen
families from Wake County to the new Watauga Settlements to
the west. And through it in September, 1780, had tramped the
aroused frontiersmen on their way over the hills to stop once and
for all Ferguson's raids east of the Blue Ridge. Scattered settlers
along the North and South Toe Rivers had joined these marching
men and had taken part in the battle of King's Mountain. Here,
too, a few years later speculators like Waightstill Avery, John
Gray Blount, and William Cathcart had received vast grants of
land with an eye to the rich wealth of minerals known to be locked
in the hills.9
From 1777 to the formation of Buncombe County in 1792,
both the North and the South Toe valleys had been a part of Burke
County, and the northern section remained so until 1833 when
both areas were again united in the county of Yancey. Contrary to
�266 / Chapter Sixteen
ASHEVILLE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
Linville Gorge: The Linville River makes its way between Linville Mountain and Jonas
Ridge. This wildly beautiful gorge in Burke county was viewed by the French botanist
Andre Michaux in 1802. Today it is designated as a Wilderness Area.
the experience in many new Western North Carolina counties,
the selection of a site for the county seat submitted by
commissioners pleased all sections of the county. The selected
town was named Burnsville in honor of Captain Otway Burns, an
officer in the navy during the second war with England. The
county name honored Bartlett Yancey, twice a member of the
United States Congress from North Carolina.
Much of the legislative energies of the new county was
consumed during the succeeding years in forming plans for
making the county seat accessible to all its sections by the
construction of badly needed roads. Ambitious plans were also
drawn up for an east-west highway across the county, giving
access over the Blue Ridge to Morganton and connecting in the
west with Buncombe Turnpike along the French Broad River.
Access routes to both Tennessee and South Carolina markets
would thus be established. An alternate plan for the western
section, should the original one prove impractical, called for a
highway going directly south to Asheville.10
�More Government for Western North Carolina / 267
PHOTO BY BARBARA GREENBERG FOR THE APPALACHIAN CONSORTIUM
The Valley Crucis Mission School: Originally purchased for (<a shotgun, a pair of
leggins, and a hound dog, " acreage in this beautiful valley was later purchased by Bishop
Levi Silliman Ives in 1842 and became the site of a training school for the Episcopal
ministry. In later years the Mission School has served as a classical and agricultural school
for boys, a preparatory school for girls, and a parish training center for theological students.
The original structure, shown here, today serves as part of a year around conference center
for the Episcopal Diocese of Western North Carolina.
Some progress was made in these projects by improving the
narrow, inadequate existing roads and by constructing a few new
local ones, all by the system generally employed of impressing
citizens for road construction and maintenance. But the new
county was pathetically poor and not enough help was
forthcoming from the state to convert the dream of an east-west
artery of trade into a reality. As time went on, however, sections
of it were built and maintained after a fashion. Because of its lack
of anything like an adequate system of roads and the resultant
difficulty of getting its products to suitable markets, mountainencompassed Yancey County was thwarted in its economic and
social progress until well into the present century.
Henderson County, created by an act of the General Assembly
in December, 1838, comprised the southern section of Buncombe
�268 / Chapter Sixteen
MARGARET MORLEY COLLECTION, N. C. DEPT. OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
Ploughing small patches of ground with an ox or a horse or with a mule as this boy is doing
was long a familiar sight -in many Western North Carolina counties.
County and was a well-developed and populous area with several
well-defined rural settlements. The first road ordered built by the
new Buncombe court in 1792 extended into this area, and in it
some of Buncombe County's first industries had been established.
Around the turn of the century Phillip Sitton had built ironworks,
getting his ore from what is now known as Forge Mountain. His
output of needed iron justified the bounty he received from
Buncombe County. Matthew Gillespie set up a forge nearby
where he and his sons, Harvey, Phillip, and Wilson, made long
rifles for the pioneer hunters. Both of these enterprises had been
invaluable to the early settlers west of the Blue Ridge.11
The southern boundary of the new county was also the
dividing line between North and South Carolina, and throughout
the county's length had passed the first roads built as links between
the mountain area and the distant South Carolina markets. There
were several of these, most of them following original native
trails that had been glorified into pony paths during the days of the
�More Government for Western North Carolina / 269
N. C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
Back in the hills getting to the "church house "on Sundays often meant crossing a stream on a
foot log.
Indian trade. One of these roads crossed the mountains into South
Carolina by way of Caesar's Head. Another took the mountain
traveler—one presumes on horseback—southeast by way of
Hickory Nut Gorge into Rutherford County, while a third led
over Saluda Gap, connecting with a road to Greenville, South
Carolina. Still another link was the widened Indian and traders'
path leading to the Spartanburg area of South Carolina.12
It was the Saluda Gap road over which the dauntless Bairds
had brought their wagon and goods to set up merchandizing in the
newly created Buncombe County in 1793. It was this same
mountain road that, nine years later, Bishop Asbury had found
negotiable only on foot and with the aid of two sticks. In 1806
Asbury had tried the road into Rutherford County, finding it
equally bad and recording that for nearly a mile its descents were
like the roof of a house.13 These roads, poor as they were, had been
the means of developing the region west of the Blue Ridge.
The area that became Henderson County had been especially
favored by these highways over which settlers first entered the
mountains. The geography of the country had also been an asset to
this territory, for in it was the broadest, most open valley to be
found in all Western North Carolina. Its fertility was early
recognized. By 1838 the county had well established settlements in
�270 / Chapter Sixteen
THE STEPHENS PRESS, INC.
In remote coves and on hillsides in both old and new counties families continued to live much
as the first settlers had. Their cabins were small; they tilled a few acres; they raised their food;
and they hunted for game. Away from the changes brought by the improved highways, they
kept the habits, the dress, and the speech of their ancestors.
the Mills River and French Broad region as well as along the
Green River and along Mud Creek and its tributaries. These
farming areas profited greatly after 1826-27 by the Buncombe
Turnpike that ran through the length of the county. The Turnpike
furnished the farmers with a ready market for their corn at the
many stands along it and also provided a means of getting their
hogs and horses and turkeys to South Carolina.
The westernmost parts of North Carolina continued to grow.
Hotels and inns catered to the travelers entering by every gap. At
Fruitlands, the home of the Edneys, apple raising was proving
practicable. Each community had its established private school,
like the Mills River Academy, as well as churches of various
denominations. And there were already several camp grounds for
the annual summer religious meetings.14
�More Government for Western North Carolina / 271
m
PRINT FROM THE ORIGINAL GLASS PLATE NEGATIVE, .BARBER PHOTO
Henderson County's First Court House: Although the formation of Henderson County
was authorized in 1838, a dispute over the site of the county seat was not settled until
1841. In 1842 the new court house in Hendersonville was ready for use. This picture was
taken at a much later date.
Both the new county and its county seat were named in honor
of Judge Leonard Henderson, one of the associate justices of the
state's Supreme Court. A county government was duly set up in
1839 at a court held in the home of Hugh Johnson in the French
Broad area, but disagreement arose among the eleven commissioners appointed to select the site for the county seat. On the
location of the town the citizens were also divided into two
bitterly opposing camps, one contending for a site on Shaw's
Creek (on land offered by Hugh Johnson) and the other for a site
on Mud Creek that would take advantage of the Buncombe
Turnpike. For two years the court held its sessions in the Mills
River Academy; meanwhile, the Grand Jury asked permission to
heat and use one of the permanent shelters on the camp ground
that adjoined the campus of the Academy.
During this time litigations concerning the county seat
location dragged through the courts. At last the General Assembly
ordered the matter settled by a direct vote of the county's citizens.
At the elections held in January, 1841, the Buncombe Turnpike
site received a majority of 109 votes. In spite of the fact that fraud
was at once charged in connection with the voting in the Flat Rock
�272 / Chapter Sixteen
DORIS ULLMANN, HANGING PHOTOGRAPHS, N. C. DEPT. OF ARCHIVES AND
HISTORY
The inner strength and the spirit of accepting daily toil as a way of life have been bequeathed
by mountain women to their daughters and their granddaughters.
area, the courts upheld the election returns. The town of
Hendersonville was then laid out on land given by Mitchell King,
John Johnson, and James Brittain, and in 1842 the courthouse was
ready for use. Although no deeds to lots were recorded until 1846,
a village had grown up around the courthouse by that time. In 1850
the General Assembly altered the boundary line between
Henderson and Buncombe Counties, and by another act in 1844 it
ceded a small portion of Rutherford County to the newly formed
county. This strip of land was to become a few years later a part of
Polk County.15
�More Government for Western North Carolina / 273
DORIS ULLMANN, HANGING PHOTOGRAPHS, N. C. DEPT. OF ARCHIVES AND
HISTORY
Aunt Curtis: For several generations the life of a woman in the mountain sections of the
newly formed counties was hard. Yet there were chores in which a woman's heart
delighted—gathering the fruit, weaving at the loom} and planting the garden. Good times
came in joining neighbors at church and at "play parties."
In 1839 a portion of Macon County was formed into the state's
most westerly county, Cherokee County. Along its rivers in an
age long past, primitive people had come to build their homes and
to live their simple community lives. But the region was destined
to be a land of changing nations, and these first citizens of the
mountains had been forced to give way to successive tribes of
mound builders, who, in turn, succumbed to the Cherokees. Now
�274 / Chapter Sixteen
I
N. C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
A Cherokee Home: By the time the most westerly counties were formed, the Cherokees
had long been accustomed to the white man's dress. They no longer lived in lodges but in
cabins like those of the white settlers.
the Cherokees had been deported by the white man, who had built
his little government village on what had been the site for a
succession of native American towns. Above the site on a knoll
along the Hiwassee River was Fort Butler, erected at the time of
the Cherokee removal. To it the reluctant Indians had been
brought, and from it they had started on their weary westward
journey.
On this old village site, where a hundred years earlier English
traders had distributed their wares to the Cherokees, was a
trading post built before 1835 by Colonel Archibald Russell
Spence Hunter. The county seat was for some years known as
Huntersville. In 1873, however, it was officially named Murphy in
honor of Archibald D. Murphey. Through an error, the "e" in his
name was omitted in naming the town. The county's name of
Cherokee perpetuates that nation's long association with the land
of mountains and streams. By 1839 there was a sufficient number
of settlers in the area to justify a county government, for people
had followed Hiram Lovingood, who had come from Burke
�More Government for Western North Carolina / 275
County back in 1830, building a log cabin in the upper Andrews
section and taking out land.
The newly organized Cherokee county already had a forge or
two in operation, and each community had its church, the oldest
being the Whitiker Church where George Washington Lovingood, brother of Hiram, preached on Sundays and labored at his
land clearing during the week. The first court was held at Fort
Butler on March 19,1839. Two years later a courthouse was ready
for use and served the county until it was destroyed by a fire set by
raiding Federal troops in the Civil War.16
East of the Blue Ridge two additional counties were
authorized shortly afterward, Caldwell in 1841 and McDowell in
1842. Named for Dr. Joseph Caldwell, first president of the state
University and one of the state's early advocates of educational
reforms and internal improvements, Caldwell County was
formed from portions of Wilkes and Burke Counties. From
Wilkes it received Fort Defiance, the Happy Valley plantation
home of William Lenoir. He was an outstanding officer at King's
Mountain and an early community leader. Lenoir's private fort
had offered protection to settlers during the Indian raids
preceding and during the War for Independence. Since 1805 there
had been a post office at Fort Defiance with mail brought by
carrier on horseback from Wilkesboro. Caldwell received from
Burke County another early fort, Ford Crider. Also privately built
around 1765, it was the gathering place for nearby settlers in times
of danger. Near this fort, in 1841, James Harper operated a store
and for nine years a post office as well, getting mail once a week
from Salisbury.
In a log house in 1843 Judge Frederick Nash presided over the
county's first court that set up the machinery of government. The
county seat was happily named and located, honoring William
Lenoir and being placed at Tucker's Barn. This structure, large
for a pioneer building, had been built by the Tucker family near
Fort Crider. As the most commodious structure available, and
with the added advantage of being close to the fort, the barn early
served as a gathering place and social center for the settlers. There
meetings were held, speeches given, celebrations conducted, and
barbecues enjoyed. For more than a gene ration much of the life of
the surrounding settlers had centered around Tucker's Barn, now
Lenoir. As was the case with other counties, Caldwell at once
concerned itself with road building and in time had a highway
�276 / Chapter Sixteen
JUNE GLENN, JR. PHOTO, ASHEVILLE CITIZEN-TIMES
COMPANY
Transylvania County's Looking Glass Falls are in the present Pisgah National Forest near
modern Highway 276.
connecting over the Blue Ridge with Boone and one going south
to Morgan ton.17
The following year, 1842, by an act of the General Assembly,
Burke County's southern portion and Rutherford County's
northern portion were combined to form McDowell County. It
was named for a local hero, Major Joseph McDowell of Pleasant
Gardens, whose patriotism had been an embarrassment to
�More Government for Western North Carolina / Til
Ferguson's forces. McDowell had been one of the leaders in the
Battle of King's Mountain. With the Blue Ridge on its western
border, the more gentle South Mountains to the east and
southeast, and with the broad, fertile Catawba River valley
traversing it, the area had early been settled. In it Fort Davidson,
now Old Fort, had protected the settlers from the Cherokees and
had provisioned pioneers crossing the Blue Ridge to make the first
communities in the country beyond. Many of the settlers coming
into the area after the Revolutionary War had been veterans of
that conflict, and some had become large land owners.
Among those holding large grants was Robert Morris. He had
been financial director of the Revolution and had been given some
200,000 acres in this region by an impoverished new national
government unable to repay the patriot for the use of his time and
fortune in the cause of liberty. Robert Morris's will was recorded
in the McDowell courthouse. The county seat was named Marion
in honor of Francis Marion, leader of the guerrilla band dogging
Cornwallis's army on its march through South and then through
North Carolina. Both Caldwell and McDowell Counties had been
scenes of pillage and struggle during the War for Independence
and had suffered at the hands of Tories and Loyalists.18
In 1849, still another county was formed west of the Blue
Ridge. It was made up of the southern portion of Ashe County, the
western part of Wilkes County, the northeastern portion of
Yancey County, and a small section of the new Caldwell County.
The name Watauga selected for it was an old one and an
appropriate one, for the settlers in its western borders had at one
time been a part of the old Watauga Settlements. It had been the
country of hardy hunters and herders, the country of Howard and
of Daniel Boone. It was fitting, that its seat of government should
receive the name Boone, although it was 1850 before that name
was given to the village.19 The site selected for the seat of
government was located near Howard's cabin for herders where
it is thought that Boone was in the habit of seeking shelter when
on hunting expeditions in the region. This was also the valley
viewed earlier by Bishop Spangenberg and his party and
considered by them as a site for an Indian mission.
In 1849 the community was known as Council's Store. On the
highway running through it from Tennessee and Kentucky and
connecting with roads leading into Virginia and South Carolina,
Jordan Council, Jr., had his store and stand and, after 1823, a post
office. Council was active in urging the formation of the county
�278 / Chapter Sixteen
•.' <*/ iisi
^
'"•"&
THE STEPHENS PRESS, INC.
The sheer cliffs of Whiteside Mountain have long been landmarks for travelers through
Jackson County. High on one of the cliffs Spanish writing has been found, a message perhaps
left by some gold-seeking Spaniard.
and donated the land for the town's first school house. Although
the Watauga County government was set up in 1849, it was
allowed no representation of its own in the House until 1851 and
was allowed none in the Senate of the General Assembly until
1864. During the intervening years it was represented by
legislative members from Surry and Wilkes Counties.20
The formation of western counties had been long over due
because of opposition on the part of the eastern bloc in the General
Assembly. Frequently petitions were not considered until eastern
counties were ready to be formed. Their rapid authorization after
1836 is a considerable indication of the growth of population and
of its distribution in Western North Carolina, for opposition in
the east decreased after that date. In fact, while nine counties
were formed in the mountain region, between 1835 and 1860 only
two were authorized for the east.21 Four of these western counties
came into being during the decade of the 1850's. They represented
four sections of the total area: Madison, bordering Tennessee;
Alleghany, bordering Virginia; Polk, bordering South Carolina
�More Government for Western North Carolina / 279
between Henderson and Rutherford Counties; and Jackson,
farther west and bordering South Carolina between Henderson
and Macon Counties,
The authorization bill for the formation of a county to be
carved from Buncombe and Yancey Counties and to extend to the
mountain border of Tennessee was passed in 1851, and the new
county was given the name of Madison, honoring the fourth
President of the United States. The first court was held on the last
Monday in February at the tavern operated by Adolphus E. Baird.
Attempting to profit by the dissensions over the selection of
county seats that arose in Henderson and Polk Counties, the
General Assembly arranged for a popular vote in the event that
two or more sites were suggested. Jewel Hill, now Walnut, was
selected and several terms of court were held there, although no
courthouse was erected.
The dissensions foreseen by the General Assembly developed,
and in its 1852-53 session that legislative body appointed a new
committee to make the choice. The committee selected the site on
the French Broad River where Baird had his tavern on land
belonging to T. B. Vance. In 1855 this site was chosen by the
voters by a one vote majority, and plans were made for building a
courthouse. Court continued to be held in Jewel Hill until 1859
when apparently, the new building was ready for occupancy. The
village along the French Broad River was named Marshall in
honor of John Marshall, first Judge of the United States Supreme
Court.22
That same year, 1851, Jackson County was formed from
sections of Hay wood and Macon Counties and named for Andrew
Jackson. It embraced a rugged mountain area that for an
uncharted time had been a part of the Cherokee homeland where
the native Americans had left one of the few hieroglyphic
inscriptions to be found in Western North Carolina. This writing
appears on an outcropping of slanting rock, called by the Indians
the Judaculla Rock. Its weird markings were uncipherable to both
the later Cherokees and to the coming white men and gave rise to
a whole cycle of Cherokee myths and sagas dealing with the
exploits of its mythical maker, the giant Judaculla. Whether its
inscriptions were made by the Cherokee or by an earlier people is
not known at the present, but some students of history think that it
is a Cherokee description or diagram of a battle.23
Jackson County had been more than once the scene of
bloodshed during the struggle between the Cherokees and the
�280 / Chapter Sixteen
whites. In 1776 Rutherford's forces had traversed it to leave its
villages in ruin. Through it had passed the Meigs-Freeman line,
running north and south about a mile and a half east of the present
Sylva. On the white man's side of this line that divided the two
races, the Foster Trading Station had early been established for
trade with the Cherokees. Somewhat later Colonel Robert Love
had built a trading post between what is now Sylva and Webster.
These posts had prospered, and settlers had come into the area,
crowding to the line. Some, without doubt, slipped across into the
forbidden territory. Among the early settlers in the county was a
group of French Huguenots, coming from South Carolina and
going into the Tuckaseigee valley where they established at the
mouth of Caney Fork Creek, a settlement they named East
LaPorte. Today that name is one of the few reminders of the presence of the French in Western North Carolina. The first court was
held by Judge John W. Ellis, later to be governor of the state, at the
home of Daniel Bryson, Sr., and the second session was held at
"Allen Fisher's new store." The county seat was established at
Webster on a broad elevation above the Tuckaseigee River. It was
not until the railroad made the village of Sylva more desirable as a
center of county government that the citizens voted in 1913 to
move the county seat to that town.24
When war or opposition struck Western North Carolina from
without its borders, its citizens, strong in their sense of
independence and jealous of their democracy, fought it as a unit.
Whether the disturbance came from the Cherokees to the west,
from the forces of Ferguson to the east, or from the dominating
eastern members of the General Assembly, these mountain settlers
were quick to respond. But, like a family, they could and often did
fight each other fiercely over issues arising within their own
borders. As happened in Henderson County, factions now and
then developed that split the county and that, in the case of Polk
County, led the General Assembly to repeal its Authorization
Bill.
Early in its 1847-48 session, the General Assembly authorized
the formation of Polk County from a western section of
Rutherford county and an eastern portion of Henderson County.
This county, named in honor of Colonel William Polk, straddled
the Blue Ridge Mountains. Its eastern section had been settled
before the Revolutionary War, and the pioneers there had been
divided in their sympathies during that conflict. As a result, it had
suffered from the violence that had flared up. It had suffered, too,
from Cherokee raids.
�More Government for Western North Carolina / 281
Under the Enabling Act, the new county was to set up its local
government but was to have no representation in the General
Assembly for some years, its citizens being represented as in the
past by members from Henderson and Rutherford Counties. The
county seat was to be named Schuywicker in memory of Captain
Howard's Cherokee guide and was to be not more than five miles
from the residence of Marvil Mills at whose home the first court
met.25 But dissension over the site immediately broke out and
became bitter, resulting in an injunction to stop the appointed
commissioners from selecting the site and ordering the laying off
of lots. Although meetings of the county officers were held from
time to time during the next year and a half, little was done as the
quarrel went through the courts.
At last, on January 16, 1849, the General Assembly repealed
the act authorizing Pplk County, and the legislature's right to do
so was upheld by the state's Supreme Court. It was not until
January, 1855, that a new bill was passed, identical to the first one
except for the clause concerning the county seat. This bill
provided that the town should be situated in the center of the
county. It was named Columbus for Dr. Columbus Mills, who had
been instrumental in getting the county formed a second time.
Before March of the next year, a temporary courthouse was
erected, and the machinery of government was set up. Polk had
finally become a permanent county.26
The most northeasterly corner of Western North Carolina
became the county of Alleghany in 1858. It was formed from Ashe
County but later received small strips of land from other counties,
necessitating numerous boundary adjustments. It was given the
name of one of the Appalachian mountain chains, which was also
the name of an Indian tribe early met by the Spaniards. Alleghany
County's first court met at Shiloh Church and continued to meet
there until a courthouse was built at the county seat, Sparta. It was
ordered by the General Assembly to be established in the center of
the county. The new county bordered Tennessee and the trade of
the settlers there had long been with that state and continued to
be. The government of this mountainous area was incomplete
when war broke out, and the county was caught in the turmoil of
internal dissension.27
Just at the outbreak of the Civil War, Western North
Carolina gained three additional counties—Transylvania and
Clay along its southern boundary, and Mitchell on its western
border. Across the territory organized into Transylvania County
�282 / Chapter Sixteen
was the ancient Indian trail leading from the present Henderson
County to the Davidson River. From there it ran over the
mountains to the French Broad and on to Estatoe, the most
easterly of all the Cherokee towns and now the site of Rosman,
and then down into South Carolina. This trail was early made into
a road, and along it had passed the volunteers on their way to the
Mexican War.
This region had been settled earlier when a grant of 640 acres
had been made to Colonel Charles McDowell of Quaker
Meadows in 1787. After 1790 a little colony was established along
the Davidson River, and other settlers went to the forks of the
French Broad. A private fort erected by John Carson was
reassuring to these first settlers who were living so close to the
Cherokee country. When Henderson County was formed, the
settlers in its western area voted solidly for the French Broad or
"River" site for a county seat. They were never reconciled to the
returns of the election that placed the seat of government on Mud
Creek, or the "Road" site, and they began an agitation soon
afterwards for the formation of a county out of the western
portion of Henderson.
After years of impatient waiting, the petition for such a
county was presented in the General Assembly and granted in
1861. An organizing group met at James Neill's Hattery Shop on
the old Boylston road near the site of the present Ecusta plant.
Contrary to the custom of naming counties for prominent North
Carolinians, this district received the name Transylvania, a name
possibly suggested by residents who had in mind the Transylvania
colony in Kentucky. Brevard, the county seat, was ordered
established within five miles of the home of W. P. Poor. It was
named for Ephraim Brevard, secretary of the Mecklenburg
Convention. The new county was to have no direct representation
in the General Assembly until later and was in the meantime to be
represented by the members from Henderson and Jackson
Counties.28
In the same year that Transylvania was formed, Clay County
was formed from Cherokee County and named for Henry Clay.
Its county seat was established at Hayesville, honoring George W.
Hayes. Like the other counties formed just prior to the outbreak of
war, its government was incomplete when the conflict came, and
the county suffered greatly from the unsettled conditions.29
The third county to be formed that year was Mitchell County,
named for Dr. Elisha Mitchell, explorer of the peak that now
�More Government for Western North Carolina / 283
bears his name. It was formed from portions of Yancey, Watauga,
Caldwell, Burke, and McDowell Counties. The county seat was
to be named Calhoun. Like the history of many counties,
however, there was again disagreement over the placing of the
county seat, and the justices refused to levy taxes for the
courthouse at the village of Calhoun. They pointed out that it was
inconvenient for at least three-fourths of the residents of the
county. The deadlock that resulted was referred to the General
Assembly and that body in 1863 ordered a site to be selected in the
geographic center of the county. Under that stipulation, Davis
was chosen, but the name of the village proved unsatisfactory to
the citizens, who were, for the most part, Union sympathizers. In
1868, therefore, the name was changed to Bakersville. Over a
period of time, by act of the General Assembly, the boundary lines
of this county were adjusted and readjusted.30
By the beginning of the Civil War, Western North Carolina
had twenty-one counties, although several of them had as yet not
been permitted to have representation in the General Assembly. A
few had not yet erected courthouses, and most of them would
require boundary adjustments. Moreover, the local governments
in those established last were still incomplete and not strong
enough to cope with the unsettled conditions arising in connection
with the turmoil of war.
�C H A P T E R
S E V E N T E E N
The Lure of the Mountains
X\fter 1838 the first stage of frontier life rapidly disappeared in
Western North Carolina as settlers took up land in the old
Cherokee nation and transplanted their ways of living to the
newly opened areas that extended to the borders of the state. That
is not to say that the pattern of living throughout the region
became one of prosperity and progress. On the contrary, until the
Civil War every county had mountain sections in which people
lived much as the earliest settlers had, but they were no longer
experimenting with a type of living suitable for their mountains.
The pattern had already been formed, and they were following it
as a settled way of life. Indeed, they were to follow it, with a few
gradual changes, for years to come.
Occasionally the people coming to these isolated areas left
records of the conditions they found. The Reverend W. W. Skiles,
for example, taught from 1842 to 1862 in the Episcopal school at
Valle Crucis and had a tiny, log church nearby in which he
preached on Sundays. He saw in the people "an interesting
population in great spiritual destitution." The community, he
declared, was "of the rudest kind," while in his congregation he
observed "more feet than shoes."1
Natives of Western North Carolina also recorded illuminating word pictures of conditions in areas more or less remote and
hence cut off from the benefits of rich river valleys and from the
turnpikes. Riding the circuit in 1853-54 to county courts in
284
�The Lure of the Mountains / 285
Buncombe, Henderson, Yancey, Madison, Haywood, Jackson,
and Cherokee, Judge Augustus S. Merrimon of Asheville
complained of the wretched state of the roads he had to travel. He
complained of the filth he found in the little villages and of the
lack of anything like comfortable or clean accommodations to be
had in the little log houses that served as inns. He recorded the
residents' utter lack of outlook or interest in anything beyond
their own problems of hog marking, "boars, mountain boomers,
and the like," and he lamented the low moral standards
everywhere in evidence. Merrimon was shocked at the prevalence
of ill will and vengefulness, which it seemed to him, rankled "in
the bosom of every one." County officers, appointed by the
governor upon the recommendations of the General Assembly,
were, he found, often "ignorant as heathen, and corrupt as
demons/' He deplored, too, the prevalence of drinking that
characterized all court days.2
Temperance societies had appeared in the state before 1830,
and the North Carolina Temperance Societies had held a meeting
in Rutherford County that year, while a local society was formed
at Brittain Church the following year.3 After that, temperance
agitation soon crossed the Blue Ridge to the regions beyond. But
in a country where every farm had its still, where no form of
license or supervision was required for the manufacture of
spirituous drinks, and where it was held that a man had the right to
do what he chose with the grain he grew, the temperance cause
got little support from either the people, their leaders, or the
church congregations.
Yet even in these sections of Western North Carolina in the
years before the outbreak of war there were signs of better times
to come. The establishment of schools, both church sponsored and
public, the gradual improvement of roads, and the broadening
outlook gained from general political meetings, together with the
building of churches were all factors which could bring about the
improvements desired by Judge Merrimon.
In the areas opened to trade, however, the picture was a
brighter one. In the quarter of a century before the war, easing the
transportation situation brought not only a degree of prosperity to
people living in these favored regions, but also an economic
stability. Luxuries were slow to cross the Blue Ridge and did not
appear in mountain homes until well into the 1850's. Yet the
homes were comfortable, with the growing cluster of outbuildings and twisting rail fences enclosing the fields as testaments to
�286 / Chapter Seventeen
N. C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
St. John-in-the Wilderness:
This church, built before the Civil War, is one of the three
Episcopal churches constructed by South Carolinians and Georgians who had summer homes
in and near Flat Rock. It is still in use.
the high standard of well-being enjoyed by the farmers. They
told, too, of the efficiency of operation and the diversification
practiced on their farms.
Speaking at a meeting in Asheville just before the Civil War,
Nicholas W. Woodfin deplored the fact that looms had
disappeared from the homes, and homespun was no longer seen on
the village streets.4 More forges and mills and tanyards made work
easier, and when the plank road came into the region, so did a
steam engine for the saw mill that cut the lumber into planks.
Schools, both private and public, and churches in this area
increased in numbers; overall, a greater social life was enjoyed. In
�The Lure of the Mountains / 287
fact, with all of the hard work and continuous grind still involved
in a self-sufficient economy, there was enough leisure time to turn
every election day, every political rally, and every muster day
with its fifes and drums, its parades and drills, into festive
occasions. The protracted church meetings continued their social
character. The highways, the stagecoaches, the newspapers, more
imports, and incoming travelers widened the interest and horizons
of Western North Carolina citizens. They developed a sense of
being a part of the greater state unit. An increased interest in state
politics brought with it plans and demands for their section's share
of good roads and railroads, the ante bellum version of a "Finer
Carolina."5
In the quarter of a century preceding the war, the complexity
of life that was gradually coming into the mountains was apparent
in the many events taking place simultaneously in the same or
widely separated parts of Western North Carolina. They were
events varying in character, but all looked both to the present and
to the future. While Rutherford—including Polk—and Burke
Counties were caught in the fever of the gold mining earlier
described and were reaping the benefits of coins coming from
Bechtler's mint, people in the western counties were watching
with eager interest the struggle between the federal government
and the Cherokees. Many were ready to rush into the opened lands
as soon as the last Cherokee had been rounded into the stockades.
As the long queue of dejected, displaced native Americans
disappeared into the west, the voters in all sections were rejoicing
over their victory in gaining, through the revised state
constitution, a fuller degree of democracy for Western North
Carolina. While county after county eventually gained selfgovernment, William H. Thomas was welding his remnant of the
Cherokees into a nation. So well did Thomas succeed in this task
that Charles Lanman, visiting the reservation in 1848, considered
the Cherokee community self-sufficient, including churches and
native preachers, its own courts, well-kept farms, and locally
made farm tools. And the Cherokees now had a population at least
three-fourths of whom were literate. He considered the
Cherokees the happiest community encountered in his southern
tour.6
While local dissensions in some counties were dividing the
people into factions, roads and highways were being chartered
and built to unite all Western North Carolina into a single district.
�288 / Chapter Seventeen
••'IF
BARBER PHOTO
The Farmer Inn: Members of the Flat Rock community built this inn before the Civil
War. Henry Farmer was its manager and later its owner. It was the earliest of the resort
hotels west of the Blue Ridge. Today it is operated under the name of Woodfield Inn.
Every county established its county seat, and a few additional
towns came into being during this period. But the pattern of life
that was set and maintained remained a rural one, and the towns
grew slowly. Asheville and Rutherfordton were the only
incorporated villages in the area. In 1850 Asheville had a
population of 800, and Rutherfordton claimed 484. It was 1860
before Asheville could boast of having passed the thousand mark
with a population of 1,100. For an ever-broadening area, Western
North Carolina came to mean to its citizens no longer merely a
place to wrest a living from the hills, but a place of settled life and
prosperity and future hopes.
To travelers coming in over the fine Buncombe Turnpike or
plank roads it meant still other things. For some years before the
Turnpike was built, a sizable colony of men of wealth and
influence from Charleston and the surrounding coastal area had
brought their families to northwestern South Carolina for the
summers. A little summer community on the Reedy River was
�The Lure of the Mountains / 289
N. C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
Warm Springs Station: After the railroad was built along the French Broad River, summer guests could arrive at Warm Springs by the "cars." They could find accommodations
at the nearby Warm Springs Hotel.
formed and given the name Pleasantburg. A resort hotel was
opened in Greenville for the accommodation of these summer
guests. From time to time groups of these low-country people
made excursions into the foothills of the Blue Ridge, and some of
the more adventure-loving braved the poor, rocky roads to cross
the range. After the opening of the Turnpike, it was possible for
them to travel in comfort across the mountains into that section of
Buncombe County later to become Henderson County. These
excursions made the South Carolinians recognize Western North
Carolina as an ideal place to escape the enervating heat of the flatland summers as well as a place which furnished a complete
change from their customary environment. They became the
region's first "summer people."7
Their idea of a summer home in the mountains, however, was
not the modern one of a rustic retreat in an undisturbed natural
setting. Nor did their idea of life in the hills imply reverting to a
simple, unencumbered mode of living combined with the study of
nature that their contemporary, Henry Thoreau, was advocating.
To them a summer in the mountains meant transplanting the life
they knew and enjoyed to the new environment. Between 1826
�290 / Chapter Seventeen
N. C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
Warm Springs Hotel: At the warm springs, considered medicinal, an inn was opened in
1831. It was later enlarged as a resort hotel. It could accommodate 250 guests and their
servants and could provide for their horses. It attracted summer visitors and turnpike
travelers. Drovers stayed at the stand that it operated.
and 1830 perhaps a half dozen South Carolinians, soon followed by
friends and relatives, bought mountain land, acquiring hundreds
and sometimes more than a thousand acres each.
The early comers chose an area surrounding an outcropping of
flat rock pitted with holes. These man-made depressions and the
fact that several Indian trails converged at this rock gave rise to
the belief that the rock had at one time been of special significance
to the Cherokees, possibly as a station for fire signals.8 It was
known as the Flat Rock. Unlike the people living in Western
North Carolina, these purchasers were not interested in raising
corn for the tramping hogs and horses. In fact, most of them were
not interested in any phase of mountain farming, and as the years
went by, only now and then did one clear land for crops. Instead,
they made of their acreages great estates with winding, tree-lined
avenues over which elegant carriages arrived at the elegant homes
that sat, mansion-like, in expansive park settings. The extensive
grounds allowed for hunting in the English and low-country
manner and for tracks for horse racing. Several estates could boast
of having deer parks.9
Following the custom of the coastal area, these estates
�The Lure of the Mountains / 291
received charming names, and the houses were built in the styles
their owners would have chosen for low-country homes. Most of
them were of English or modified English architecture, taking on
the appearance of English manors, complete with porter's gate
and lodge, rambling stables, servant quarters, and kennels. A few
were modifications of French architecture, while others were
created according to the unrestrained ideas of their owners or of
employed architects. All were large, with spacious parlors and
drawing rooms allowing for lavish entertainment and for balls and
for the presentation of the popular private theatricals. These were
directed by Mrs. Charles Baring, for years the acknowledged
social leader of the colony.
Some of the furnishings for these homes came from the coastal
cities, but much of it was made on the grounds by cabinet makers
brought from Charleston or by those in Asheville or those in the
little factory set up by Henry T. Farmer in Flat Rock. The
hangings, china, and silver were brought with the family. The
Barings, who were Episcopalians, as were most of the group,
were accompanied by their rector. Besides furnishing him with a
home, they built a little church known as St. John-in-theWilderness, which was attended by many of the summer
residents.10 The colony grew, and as it expanded so that distances
became too great to travel easily, a second Episcopal church was
established by those living in the area known as Fletcher. A
building there was constructed of hand-made bricks on land
donated by Alexander Blake. It was dedicated on August 21,
1859.n Still another Episcopal church was formed through the
efforts of Robert Hume of Charleston, and a building was
constructed farther west in the present Transylvania County. It
was called St. Paul's-in-the-Valley and served the summer
residents of that area.12
After 1836 the number of South Carolinians making Western
North Carolina their summer home increased rapidly until
"Charleston in the Mountains" extended from Flat Rock to
Fletcher and west to the Davidson River and the upper French
Broad River valley. In the group were many men of prominence.
Judge Mitchell King, owner of some seven thousand acres, was
one of the promoters of the plan for a Charleston to Tennessee
railroad to pass through the mountain area. He later gave a part of
the land needed for Henderson's county seat. Charles Baring, who
with his wife was a leader in the social life of the colony, had come
to Charleston from England as a representative of the English
banking firm of Baring Brothers.
�292 / Chapter Seventeen
APPALACHIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION COLLECTION, N. C.
DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
The Paint Rock:
With its mysterious colors, this rock was a favorite for sightseers. Guests
at the Warm Springs Hotel were taken to it on picnic jaunts. Those daring enough climbed it.
�The Lure of the Mountains / 293
Another prominent summer resident was C. G. Memminger, a
Charleston lawyer. He was an advocate of public schools in his
state, and as an able political leader, he helped to draft the
Constitution of the Confederacy. For a short time he served as
treasurer of that republic. Marie Joseph Gabriel St. Xavier, Count
de Choiseul, at one time a political refugee from France, was now
French Consul at Charleston, and the members of his family found
their mountain estate, The Castle, so satisfactory that they
became year-round residents of Western North Carolina.
Christopher Hampton, brother of Wade Hampton, who was later
to be governor of South Carolina, built his home near the present
Cashiers. Other "summer people" included the Reverend John
Grimke Drayton and Dr. Mitchell C. King, son of Judge King.
Scores of others before 1860 enjoyed their mountain homes, either
for the summer months or for the entire year.13
Each spring the families of these "summer people "arrived by
stagecoaches or more often by carriages, traveling over the good
turnpike that South Carolina had constructed on the route of the
old trading path. It had been used a hundred years before by the
state's traders as they took their wares by long pony trains into the
Cherokee country. The carriages, for the most part, crossed the
Blue Ridge by way of the Buncombe Turnpike to reach the
summer destinations by the end of the second week of traveling if
all went well. Wagons bringing baggage, necessities, and servants
trailed them or, more often, preceded them. To accommodate
these discriminating travelers and those arriving later for visits at
the estates, hotels were built and suitably furnished along the
route. Flat Rock itself early had a hotel.14
The mountain "Charleston" was, of course, practically selfsufficient, and socially there was no connection between this
group and the farmers of Western North Carolina. Yet a new way
of life had come to the hills, and a fairly extensive strip of
accessible territory was now the home of people who, although of
the same stock as the mountain dwellers, had for several
generations been removed from pioneer life. As the family
fortunes made on the rich, spreading plantations increased, they
had acquired a broad, even cosmopolitan, culture and outlook.
This segment of Western Carolina's population brought to their
summer homes an ease of living, a degree of luxury, a charm, and a
diversity of interests never before seen in Western North
Carolina. Their presence had an effect, even though slight, on the
region. For one thing, they created a small but noticeable market
�294 / Chapter Seventeen
N. C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
Round Knob Hotel: The coming of railroads into the mountains made possible such luxury
hotels as this one at Round Knob, Here an added attraction was the fountain known as
Andrews Geyser.
for grain for their horses and for meat and vegetables and fruits for
their own tables; futhermore, they paid for these commodities in
welcomed cash. A few mountain people worked when needed
with the cabinet makers turning out furniture for the estates, and
still others found employment in the hotels that catered to the
"summer people."
A more noticeable result of the growing summer population in
the community was the opening of resort hotels by the local
owners of springs considered medicinal. In 1831 James Patton
bought the hot springs located on the French Broad River. He
improved the grounds around them and built a magnificent hotel
on the Buncombe Turnpike. The springs had long been known.
The Cherokees, believing in the curative powers of the water, had
made pilgrimages to them for perhaps centuries. In 1778 Thomas
Morgan and Henry Reynolds, two settlers of the Watauga
Settlements, had stumbled upon them as they searched for horses
stolen by the Indians.15 Built more than fifty years later, Patton*s
two-story hotel, with its wide, pillared piazza facing the river,
was designed to accommodate 250 persons and had an ample
�The Lure of the Mountains / 295
dining room, a bar, parlors and a ball room. Clustered near it were
a half dozen brick cottages for guests, and nearby there were
stables to take care of the horses that brought these guests.
These buildings, together with those necessary to such an
establishment, and coupled with the nearby stand operated during
the autumn drives, gave Warm Springs the appearance of a little
village. The fame of Patton's hotel spread along the length of the
Turnpike, and to it in fine carriages drawn by high-stepping
horses came people from North Carolina, Tennessee, and South
Carolina. All hoped to benefit from the water, and they were
certain of enjoying the fine fare and entertainment offered. Patton
and later his sons, John E. and James. W., were genial and lavish
hosts. To occupy the hours pleasantly for their guests, they
arranged sightseeing and picnic excursions to the Paint Rock and
to other places of interest. Musicales and balls and parlor games
were organized for the evenings, and for those desiring more
manly forms of enjoyment, there were deer hunts in the
surrounding forests and hills.16
West from Asheville some four miles another resort was
developed at the sulphur springs discovered in 1827 by Robert
Henry and his servant. There three years later Henry's son-inlaw, Colonel Reuben Deaver, built a resort hotel, and by 1848 it
was also village-like, with a little cluster of buildings which could
accommodate two hundred guests and their accompanying
servants and horses.17 Stopping there that year on his journey
through the mountains, Charles Lanman found the resort
occupied, apparently to capacity, by South Carolinians from
Charleston and Georgians from Augusta. He was deeply
impressed by the magnificence of the resort itself and was
charmed with the delightful guests and the pleasing entertainment
they enjoyed. He declared that both in natural beauty and in the
society gathered there, Sulphur Springs was superior to the better
known Saratoga Springs in New York.18
Shortly after Lanman*s visit, other sulphur springs were
discovered near Waynesville by a slave of James R. Love, and
some time afterwards a resort was also developed there called
White Sulphur Springs.19 This resort attracted its share of visitors.
These spring-inspired resorts caused glowing reports of Western
North Carolina to be taken far beyond the borders of the state.
They foreshadowed the time when the pure water of the
mountain streams, the buoyancy of the mountain air, and the calm
and majesty of the hills themselves would yearly attract not
hundreds, but thousands of visitors in search of renewed health.
�296 / Chapter Seventeen
THE STEPHENS PRESS, INC.
Mount Mitchell: This view is from a
drawing that appeared in Scribner's Magazine
soon after Dr. Mitchell lost his life on its
heights. The Half- Way House: This small
cabin was a stopping place for those climbing the
rugged Mount Mitchell.
Dr. Elisha Mitchell: In the summer of 1857
Dr. Elisha Mitchell returned to the Black
Mountains to verify his former measurements of
their highest peak. That peak, later named for
him, became his final resting place.
�The Lure of the Mountains / 297
As mentioned earlier, for succeeding generations of scientists
the land of mountains continued to be a divinely equipped
laboratory in which to gain further knowledge of nature's lavish
gifts. In the early years of the nineteenth century, John Lyon, a
Scottish botanist who had recently resigned his position as
manager of a Philadelphia nursery, came to Western North
Carolina. Here he roamed the hills, reveling in the wealth of
mountain offerings and leisurely gathering plants to send to
European gardeners. He made Asheville his headquarters, taking
up lodging at the Eagle Hotel. His interest in the surrounding hills
and the charm of his personality made him an admired visitor.
When the ravages of tuberculosis at last confined him to his
room, he was the concern of many citizens. He was tenderly cared
for by another lodger at the hotel, James Johnston, one of the
town's blacksmiths. This devoted friend carried the frail Lyon to
the window on September 14, 1814, to view for the last time the
western range of mountains silhouetted against the flaming
afterglow of the setting sun. Unlike the earlier visiting botanists,
Lyon left no written record of his experiences in Western North
Carolina, but this gentle, sincere lover of nature deeply impressed
the mountain people, who long cherished his memory.20
A glossy-leafed mountain plant bearing ethereal, bell-shaped,
white flowers was the will-o-the-wisp enticing Harvard
University's botanist, Asa Gray, to the Southern Highlands and
sending searching parties scouting over the hills and along the
streams. The modest little flower had earlier intrigued Andre
Michaux, who had taken a plant and its fruit back to Europe. But
Michaux's trip had not been at the blooming season for the plant
and he was only able to note, "blossom unknown." Yet this
discovery held so much interest for him that he left a detailed
description of the location in which he had found it in 1788. Asa
Gray, in France in 1839, saw the preserved plant and read the
French botanist's record of it. He resolved to locate this mountain
dweller, and he gave it the name Shortia galacifolia, honoring his
friend and fellow botanist, Dr. Charles W. Short.
In 1840 Gray visited Western North Carolina, searching for
the plant on the mountains of Ashe, Watauga, and Yancey
Counties, but all efforts of his searching parties failed to locate the
elusive, little mountain plant. Another expedition three years
later also ended in failure, and for years the Shortia was known to
botanists as a "lost" plant.21 The failure to find it had been due,
however, to the difficulty of locating the region described by
�298 / Chapter Seventeen
ASHEVILLE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
Mount Mitchell Falls: On his way to engage "Big Tom" Wilson for his guide, Dr.
Mitchell followed a stream. At the head of these falls he slipped and fell to his death in the
pool below.
Michaux. In 1877 George McQueen Hyams, seventeen-year-old
son of a herbalist, finally discovered the plant growing east of the
Blue Ridge at an altitude much lower than Gray's party had
searched. Upon receiving the plant, Gray made another trip to
Western North Carolina, but the Shortia was not in bloom.
It remained for another botanist, Dr. Charles S. Sargent,
director of the Arnold Arboretum of Cambridge, Massachusetts,
to locate the area described by Michaux and to see the carpet of
�The Lure of the Mountains / 299
Shortia plants just where the earlier botanist had witnessed them.
Michaux's account applied to a section of the Toxaway country in
the present Transylvania Couny. Dr. Gray at last received a
blooming Shortia, although he did not see the expanse of
blooming plants in their mountain home. Thus almost a hundred
years after Michaux first noted the delicate, charming little
Shortia, its blooms could be added to the botanical information,
for the mountains had given up their secret of the Shortia or
Oconee Bell.22
During these years interest developed not only in the flora of
the mountains, but also in the mountains themselves (an interest
foreseen by Sir Alexander Cuming and John William Gerard
deBrahm a century earlier). Local people and scientists became
interested in the contours of the individual peaks and ranges, in
their rock formations, and in their minerals. Increasing attention
was likewise given to their heights. Naturally the two areas
attracting the greatest attention were the Smokies, with their
many jagged, towering peaks and domes, and the Blue Ridge
where Roan, Grandfather and the Black Mountain groups claimed
special consideration.
The question of mountain altitudes became quite controversial. Many were the conjectures by local enthusiasts and by
scientists regarding the relative heights of Western North
Carolina mountains and those in New England. New Hampshire's
Mount Washington was at that time considered the highest peak
in eastern United States. John C. Calhoun of neighboring South
Carolina, familiar since young manhood with the mountains of
Western North Carolina, expressed the belief that the great
Alleghany chain reached its greatest height as it did its width in
the Southern Appalachians.23
This opinion was shared by Thomas Lanier Clingman. This
statesman from Buncombe County was always deeply and
genuinely interested in his mountain district, and he took up the
study of measuring land elevations in order to test his theory. He
spent several summers trudging over the Smoky Mountains and
the Black Mountains. With him he took his measuring instruments
to estimate altitudes and to record his findings for publication. On
these scientific excursions he sometimes worked with only a guide
and the necessary helpers; at other times he was one of a party, as
was the case in 1858. Of the peaks he measured, two have special
significance, for he measured in the Smokies the towering dome
that now bears his name. In 1855 he measured the present Mount
�300 / Chapter Seventeen
"
MARGARET MORLEY COLLECTION, N. C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND
HISTORY
"Big Tom" Wilson: f'Big Tom" Wilson, famed bear hunter, had earlier acted as guide
for Dr. Mitchell, Heading a searching party of Yancey County men, he located Dr.
Mitchell's body and the long search was over.
Mitchell, which he found to be 6,941 feet above sea level. That
same year he published his findings, claiming that his measurement of the highest peak in the Black Mountains was the first ever
to be made. Clingman thus refuted Dr. Elisha Mitchell's claim of a
much earlier measurement and asserted that the scientist's
measurement was actually that of another mountain, one in
Buncombe County. Dr. Mitchell, he maintained, had never been
on the peak now bearing his name.24
Dr. Elisha Mitchell was one of two outstanding men of science
�The Lure of the Mountains / 301
who did pioneer work in geological studies in Western North
Carolina's mountains, including the measurement of several
peaks. He actually measured seventeen peaks during two of his
many trips to the region. Elisha Mitchell had been trained
originally for the ministry, but like many of his profession in the
first half of the nineteenth century, he combined preaching with
teaching. After a year as tutor at Yale, his alma mater, he joined
the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as
professor of mathematics. He was a man of abundant energy and
almost limitless interests, and as President Caldwell broadened
the scope of the University's offerings, Dr. Mitchell added to his
teaching load classes in chemistry, minerology, and geology. He
was also keenly interested in botany. Under a meager appropriation made by the General Assembly, he and Dennison Olmsted, his
colleague at the University, carried out a geological survey of
North Carolina, publishing their findings. These reports were the
first of such summaries to be published in the nation.25
Dr. Mitchell was acquainted with the records of Western
North Carolina trips made by the two Michauxs and by William
Bartram and from the first he was eager to make excursions into
this section of the state. In the summer of 1828 Mitchell was using
Wilkesboro as headquarters for geological excursions into the
surrounding areas. These took him into Ashe County and through
Watauga County where Henry Holtzclaw acted as his guide.
During this trip he climbed the rugged Grandfather Mountain,
arriving footsore and weary but feeling well repaid by the view he
saw. He felt sure, however, that this mountain, high as it was, was
not the highest point in the Blue Ridge.26 It must have been the
fulfillment of a long desire when he took upon himself the task of
exploring the majestic mass known as the Black Mountains, with
their peaks reaching skyward. With barometric measuring
instruments, Mitchell found the highest of these peaks he climbed
to be 6,476 feet above sea level. He published his report in 1835.
The Black Mountains called him again and again, and altogether
he made five trips to them, carefully measuring and rechecking his
earlier findings. As a result, he revised his first records to 6,708
feet and again to 6,672 feet.27
Dr. Mitchell was amazed at the allegations in Clingman's
publication of 1855 and wrote an article refuting them and giving
his account of his work. Clingman, never one to give up an
opinion or to retract a statement, replied with a bitter article, and
the difference between the two men took on the nature of a
�302 / Chapter Seventeen
personal quarrel aired in the newspapers. Perhaps the only gain
derived from this unfortunate turn of affairs was the widespread
publicity given to the North Carolina peak. But the measurements
offered by both men answered the question about the 6,288 foot
Mount Washington. The New Hampshire peak was definitely not
the highest in eastern America. Clearly that distinction, whoever
was right, belonged to a North Carolina mountain.
Politically devoted to Clingman as the mountain voters were,
they knew him as a man whose self-confidence often reached the
stage of arrogance and as one unrelenting in a quarrel. It may be,
therefore, that the sympathies of the local residents were with Dr.
Mitchell from the start. It is certain that the wholehearted good
will of the people went out to this professor painstakingly doing
his work in the interest of science when the aftermath of the
pamphlet warfare led to tragedy.
In June, 1857, Dr. Mitchell, with his son, Charles, a daughter,
and a servant, came back to the Black Mountains for still another
excursion and additional measuring. He hoped this time to prove
his claims. The little party set up camp headquarters at the home
of Jesse Stepp at the foot of the mountain. From there Dr. Mitchell
and his son worked. On June 27, he left Charles at the Half-Way
House, a lodge built as a summer home on a ledge of the
mountainside by William Patton of Charleston, but now operated
as an inn for mountain climbers by Colonel T. T. Patton of
Asheville. The scientist planned to go to the home of Big Tom
Wilson, who had been one of his guides during the 1844
explorations, and to arrange for assistance in the final phase of the
work. It was already afternoon, and Tom's mountain cabin on the
other side of the mountain was a goodly distance to cover. He told
his son that he would return Monday afternoon, but no one saw
him alive after that parting.
When he did not return to camp at the appointed time and still
did not arrive Tuesday or Wednesday, Stepp and Charles began a
search. At Big Tom's cabin they learned that Dr. Mitchell had not
arrived there. Now, thoroughly alarmed for his safety, searching
parties were organized to scour the wild mountain country. Big
Tom Wilson, Yancey County's honored bear hunter, who had
tramped the tangled sides of the Black Mountains with his gun in
search of wild game, now headed a party made up of other Yancey
men, men of the hills and the woods, bent on a solemn mission.
When the news of Dr. Mitchell's disappearance reached
Asheville, citizens of the town, including Zebulon Baird Vance,
�The Lure of the Mountains / 303
and men of Buncombe County formed another search party. For
two days hundreds of men fanned out over the mountains and
pushed through laurel and rhododendron thickets, over boulders,
and up steep, uncharted inclines through the dark, wood-covered
slopes of the massive peak. It began to look as though the mountain
would not reveal its secret.
But in the end it yielded. The Yancey men found Mitchell's
trail along the narrow Caney River. It was their Big Tom
Wilson, whose keen hunter's eyes noted the broken laurel
twigs, the crushed moss, then the prints of a heel on a rotten
stump, some leaves turned wrong side out as though they had been
grasped by some one, and finally unmistakable ground evidence of
some one slipping. The men followed the stream until they
discovered it flowing over a rocky ledge into a pool forty feet
below. In this basin their search ended, and the chain of events
became clear. Dr. Mitchell had attempted to follow the little river
which he knew flowed eventually through Big Tom's small farm.
But darkness had over-taken him in this wild region, and he had
slipped and fallen to his death. His watch had stopped at ten
minutes after eight o'clock.28
News of the discovery was taken to the other searchers. They
began the difficult task of getting the body down the mountainside to Asheville where services were held at the Presbyterian
Church, with burial in the churchyard. Perhaps no event had so
stirred the men of the mountains as did the death of Dr. Mitchell,
The people of Yancey, recognizing that "Greater love hath no
man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends," knew
now that the highest peak in the Black Mountains belonged not
only to them, but also to this man of science who had given his life
to it in his search for truth. The people asked that he be buried on
its crest, and in the following year, when the family consented, the
men of Yancey tenderly carried the body of Elisha Mitchell up the
mountain to its final resting place on the peak which was later
given his name.
The next summer, 1858, a slightly-built, energetic, bespectacled man arrived in Western North Carolina to study the
Southern Appalachians. He was a scientist of international
reputation. Arnold Henry Guyot, like Mitchell, had been
educated for the ministry in his native Switzerland. Also like the
American, his intense interests had branched out into many
fields—languages, botany, physics, the work of glaciers,
minerology, geology, and geography. His studies in these fields
�304 / Chapter Seventeen
took him to many European universities, and in 1848 he came to
America to lecture in Boston. In America he stayed and in 1854
accepted a position at Princeton as professor of physics,
geography, and geology. The list of Guyot's accomplishments is
an amazingly long one. He wrote books in many fields of science,
including geography text books. He established a museum at
Princeton. He began weather observations under the Smithsonian
Institution, and he undertook the exploration and measurement of
all outstanding peaks in the Alleghany chain, from Maine to South
Carolina.29
In connection with his mountain work it was inevitable that
Guyot should be drawn to the Southern Appalachian region, and
with the exception of 1857, he spent the summers between 1856
and 1860 in Eastern Tennessee and Western North Carolina.
During these months he lived in mountain homes and employed
mountain men as guides and assistants in his work. From them he
learned the tales of the country, the history of the region, and the
names given locally to the peaks and ridges. Guyot tramped up and
down the mountains in the Smokies, determining their altitudes
by barometric pressure. Not only did he measure the mountains,
but he also gave them names. To some he gave significant Indian
names. To others were attached the names of early settlers, and
still others received names appropriate because of their contours
or the appearance gained through their woods and vegetation.
Arnold Guyot's work in the Black Mountains was also
extensive, and he found the highest peak there to be 6,701 feet
above sea level, a figure later revised to 6,707, differing by only
one foot from one of Dr. Mitchell's findings. As a summary of his
work in the southern mountains, Professor Guyot made
topographical maps of the Applachian region. His studies in the
long chain of mountains in eastern America justified John C.
Calhoun's belief that the Alleghanies reached their greatest height
as well as their greatest width in the Southern Highlands.30
New and more accurate instruments and methods have
changed the measurements of Western North Carolina mountains
arrived at by Clingman, Mitchell, and Guyot. The official
measurement of Mount Mitchell has been established at 6,684 feet,
with Clingman*s Dome in the Smokies approaching it at 6,642 feet
above sea level. The third highest mountain in the Southern
Appalachians, a 6,621 foot peak in the Smokies on the boundary
line between Tennessee and North Carolina, has most appropriately been given the name Guyot in honor of perhaps the most
eminent scientist ever to study these mountains.
�The Lure oj the Mountains / 305
To Charles Lanman, yet another visitor, Western North
Carolina meant a country of wonder and majesty with waterfalls
of sheer beauty and sunsets of unbelievable range and intensity of
colors. It meant spectacular views from mountain tops and a riot
of color up the hills. It meant hospitality in mountain cabins and in
little villages. Western North Carolina also meant being
christened "The Wandering Star'' by the friendly Cherokees. It
meant riding alone over the crest of wild mountains and then
spending a few days in the company of the charming, cultured
South Carolinians gathered at Sulphur Springs. To him it also
meant a trip to the Black Mountains and back in a deluge of rain
that completely obscured the famous peak. It meant, too, a deer
hunt arranged by John Patton at Warm Springs. But above all,
Western North Carolina meant to him the unforgetable
experience of seeing Hickory Nut Gorge, of viewing Grandfather
Mountain, and of climbing Roan Mountain.
Charles Lanman did not come to Western North Carolina to
buy land and settle. He did not come to study its plants. Nor did he
come to drink its medicinal waters or to pass a season at one of its
resorts. And he brought nothing to sell. He came to see and to
revel in the rugged expanse of mountain scenery and to catch
glimpses of life in the hills. He was, perhaps, Western North
Carolina's first "tourist." What he saw of the land and its people
and his impressions of the trip that took him from Murphy to Roan
Mountain, he expressed in accounts written in the form of Letters.
These he published in magazines so that others might also enjoy
the region.
To the modern mountain dweller these Letters, penned in 1848,
make fascinating reading. They must have been the finest pieces of
"advertising" that the region received before the Civil War. One
wonders how many, if any, of their readers were lured by them
into experiencing for themselves the spell and beauty of the
Southern Highlands. Yet it is somewhat significant that when
Lanman later collected his many travel sketches, he included
Letters From the Alleghany Mountains and named the two-volume
work Adventures in the Wilds of the United States and British American
Provinces.
By 1860 the widely diversified future development of Western
North Carolina was clearly foreshadowed. It is intriguing, even
though futile, to envision the next two decades in the mountains
had there been no interruption of progress, no devastation, and no
crushing of hopes by man's most destructive self-made force—
war.
�C H A P T E R
E I G H T E E N
Whigs in the Mountains
people were coming to the mountains for many reasons, and
while local government was being brought close to the people of
all sections of Western North Carolina, state and national politics
were claiming an increasing share of their interests. As noted in an
earlier chapter, mountain voters in 1824 rallied to the banner of
Andrew Jackson, considering him a representative of their own
independent and democratic frontier politics. From him they
expected to gain national action on issues that promised
betterment of their counties. They were disappointed when, in
the close election that gave no candidate a majority of electoral
votes, John Quincy Adams was chosen by the House of Representatives as President of the United States.
Four years later, the mountain people again pinned their faith
to Andrew Jackson, who had actually been born in Western North
Carolina according to those living near the South Carolina
border. During the years of Jackson's two terms as president,
however, the mountain people learned, both to their surprise and
disappointment, of his defeat of the bill to turn the federal surplus
over to the states for improvement projects. They learned of his
successful fight against the national bank and of his veto of the bill
for granting federal aid for improvements. All of these economy
measures meant for them no help in their economic struggle. At
the same time President Jackson's states rights theory, as it applied
to letting the commonwealths work out their own improvements,
crushed the hopes of the westerners for their section since the
opposition of the eastern representatives in the General Assembly
was strong enough to kill all improvement and reform bills.
306
�Whigs in the Mountains / 307
David Lowry Swain, then Western Carolina's representative—at first in the General Assembly and then as Governor of
the state for three terms—had been opposed to Jackson as early as
1824. As the easterners gradually came to accept the President as
representing their own economy policies, Swain, fighting for
reforms, switched to the Whig party. It was nationally organized
in 1834 in opposition to Jackson's Democratic Republicans, or
Democrats, as they came to call themselves.1 Except for the Toe
River area, the voters in Western North Carolina followed Swain
into the Whig Party along with voters in the piedmont and sound
regions. Soon there were enough to warrant a formal organization of the Whigs in North Carolina in i835.2 Standing for federal
and state aid for road and waterway improvements and favoring
railroad building and state educational and constitutional reform,
this party gave North Carolina a two-party system. The Whig
party became the party of Western North Carolina, to remain so
until the 1850's.
As the western voters saw their leaders achieve places of
prominence and influence, they won decisive victories on such
issues as constitutional reform, public education, and transportation projects. The mountain people were gaining a feeling of
political importance in the state. They rightly felt so, for the
Whig Party in the next fifteen years elected satisfactory
majorities in the General Assembly four times and continuously
kept their candidates in the office of governor as well as a goodly
number of their representatives in Congress. They controlled the
state's most influential newspapers and, through their closely knit
organization, carried their issues directly to the people.
In the election of 1836, the first held under the new
constitution, voters for the first time cast their ballots for the
governor of the state and were eligible to vote for candidates
seeking seats in the state House of Representatives without having
to present property qualifications. But until 1857 only voters
possessing at least fifty acres of land could vote for senators.
Throughout Western North Carolina this election took on the
nature of a victory celebration, and the new Whig party swept its
candidate, Edward B. Dudley, into the governorship.3
Even more colorful was the election of 1840. It had been
especially prepared for by the organizations of both parties, and it
established a pattern for future elections. Party conventions—
new in the state—were held in Raleigh to draw up the party
�308 / Chapter Eighteen
platforms, and county organizations were set up throughout the
state. Candidates for governor along with other office seekers
jolted and bumped over the roads in stagecoaches or rode on
horseback to county seats to "electioneer." The crowds traveled
the back roads to see these aspirants for office and to hear them
explain the issues before the state.
The political rallies that characterized this and succeeding
elections were, in effect, glorified court days. They reached their
climaxes when rival candidates—of necessity traveling together—debated the issues. Political debates in the years preceding the Civil War became exceedingly popular throughout
the nation. Some, like the Lincoln-Douglas series, became
historically famous. But often in Western North Carolina, as
elsewhere, the debates had increasingly little to do with logic and
much to do with personalities and jibes directed at the opposing
speaker and his party. This enhanced their entertainment value for
the mountain men, who appreciated broad wit on either side.4
As on court days, the men from the coves and from farms
along the little streams and creek banks brought their jugs of
whiskey, and it also became customary to have a general barbecue
at noon. Since a political meeting meant an entire day, the men
made the most of it. To these meetings and rallies the candidates
distributed copies of their political newspapers, tracts, and
broadsides, often bitter attacks on the opposition. These the
mountain men took home to be read by or to those who missed the
rally and to be discussed at firesides or along rail fences as
neighbor met neighbor. As might be expected, the rallies were
used by some spectators as occasions for settling personal grudges,
and when political fervor rose dangerously high, angry words
were exchanged and brawls resulted.
They were lively affairs, these early rallies in Western North
Carolina, for the men of the hills were men of action, determined
in their opinions, bitter in their disagreements, and quick to resent
real or fancied insults.5 Along with his political tracts, a man
might take home from the rally a resentment against neighbor or
acquaintance, even a heretofore stranger, that deepened into a
lifetime animosity. The candidates themselves were quick to
anger when insulted. Today in reading the broadsides, filled with
personal attacks and what seems like fantastic charges against the
other party, the historian wonders how the listeners or candidates
knew that the "unpardonable insult" had been uttered. That they
�Whigs in the Mountains / 309
knew that the * 'unpardonable insult" had been uttered. That they
did know when that delicate line had been crossed is evident from
the duels arising out of political differences. In remote areas these
duels between voters took the forthright form of shooting,
without the frills and niceties of dueling etiquette. Most of these
incidents are today forgotten, but a few between candidates of
prominence and position are remembered.
In November 1827, for example, bad blood was engendered
between Dr. Robert Brank Vance, Buncombe County's first
native physician, and Samuel B. Carson over allegations and
counter-allegations hurled during the campaign in which they
were rivals for a seat in Congress. The resulting duel was strictly
carried out according to the rules of dueling and took place just
south of the dividing line between the two Carolinas. Dr. Vance, a
promising young politician and uncle of Zebulon Vance, died
from the wounds inflicted by Carson's gun.6
Another memorable incident occurred in 1845 when Thomas
L. Clingman, then in Congress, was a participant in a duel with
William Yancy of Alabama. It took place just outside the capital
city and was brought about by political animosity aroused by
debates concerning the bill for the annexation of Texas, which
Clingman opposed. It was conducted in the approved fashion for
"affairs of honor." Fortunately, neither of the principals was
injured. Apparently for both men "satisfaction had been given,"
and the affair was over before officers of the law appeared.7
Going to a political rally on horseback or on foot over the
rocks and around the fallen trees and mud holes that obstructed
their roads, the mountain men could look expectantly to a day
filled with pleasant social contacts with friends. They could
anticipate feasting and entertainment, with the enjoyment of
humor and clever sallies of the speakers, high political emotions,
and probably moments of tense excitment. Yet these rallies, with
their speeches and debates, served a far deeper purpose and
performed a more serious service to the voters of Western North
Carolina than mere entertainment.
By 1840 Raleigh newspapers, both Democratic and Whig,
were entering the mountain region by means of the stagecoaches,
and for ten years Rutherfordton had had its own paper, The North
Carolina Spectator and Western Advertiser, which gave way in 1836 to
The Carolina Gazette. In 1840 under new management, it became
the weekly Western Star of Liberty, espousing the Whig principles.8
In 1840, too, The Highland Messenger appeared in Asheville. It was
�310 / Chapter Eighteen
PACK MEMORIAL LIBRARY, ASHEVILLE
Thomas Lanier Clingman: Clingman was a lawyer, a scientist, and a Congressman. In
honor of his achievements in measuring the heights of Western North Carolina mountains,
one of the peaks in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park bears his name. As a
Congressman in the trying times preceding the Civil War, he became a spokesman for the
South.
the first newspaper to be printed west of the Blue Ridge, and in
1849, The Ashevilk News, expressing Democratic party principles,
printed its first issue.9 These newspapers were small, usually four
pages, with little attention paid to local news. As Rutherfordton's
rapid succession of newspapers indicates, they were all financial
risks to the owner-editors and many were short-lived. Others
survived by becoming mouthpieces for one or the other of the
political parties. Their subscription rates were high and their
circulation was limited; yet they had more readers than their short
subscription lists would seem to indicate. They all played a
�Whigs in the Mountains / 311
definite part in molding the political thinking of their readers.10
But these politically biased newspapers did not reach far
beyond the main roads suitable for stagecoaches. An overwhelming majority of settlers in Western North Carolina never saw
newspapers except as they might acquire one at a political rally.
And a distressing proportion of the population could not read
them. The people living back from the arteries of trade came to
depend upon the rallies, therefore, for their political information.
Knowing this, each candidate or speaker was quick to stress the
advantages to the mountain section to be gained by the measures
and policies he advocated. He was sure to point out how the planks
in his party's platform would result in concrete benefits to the
mountain district, and at the same time he demonstrated how all
that the mountain men held dear would be swept away if the
opposing party or candidate came into office. Largely through
verbal information, thousands of small farmers came to believe
that the Whig party would achieve economic improvement for
their section of the state in the form of better roads, railroads, and
freer money. For this reason, Western North Carolina became
one of the state's Whig strongholds.
The western Whigs were not disappointed in their political
faith. By controlling the state offices, the Whig party was able to
inaugurate reforms and to set in motion the machinery for statewide improvement projects. David Lowery Swain of Western
North Carolina, who had been the leading force in the first
realizations of these plans, which took the form of constitutional
revision, left the governorship and took up work as an educator.
He exerted his energies mainly in behalf of the state's school and
university problems. Swain's place of political influence within
the party was taken by another man from the mountains.
In 1836, Thomas Lanier Clingman, a twenty-four year old
lawyer from Surry County, opened a law office in Asheville. He
had graduated with honors from the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill in 1832 and, after studying law in Hillsboro, had
served a term in the General Assembly as representative from
Surry County. He was both striking in appearance and forceful
and convincing as a speaker. Born of pioneer stock which included
a Cherokee ancestress, Clingman could readily identify himself
with the mountain people who were struck with his ability, his
fearlessness, and his honesty. The voters of the 49th District, made
up of Buncombe, Hay wood, and Macon Counties, elected him on
the Whig ticket, therefore, to the state Senate in 1840. Although
�312 / Chapter Eighteen
FROM DOWD'S LIFE OF VANCE, THE STEPHENS PRESS, INC.
Vance s First Law Office:
After being licensed as a lawyer in 1852, the twenty-one year
old Zebulon Baird Vance opened his law office in this small building on College Street in
Ashemlle.
he was too much of an individualist to adhere strictly to party
lines, Clingman took over the leadership of the Whigs in the
Senate. He threw his energies into the improvement measures
they advocated, always taking the side of the West in sectional
differences arising within the state party.
The Senator worked for east-west highways, championing the
construction of a turnpike from Raleigh to Tennessee by way of
Wilkesboro and Jefferson. He also advocated another from
Fayetteville to Asheville, which would connect with the
Buncombe Turnpike, thus giving access to Tennessee. Clingman
asked for state aid in building these roads, and he proposed the
incorporation of a Nantahala Turnpike through the western
section of his mountain district. He favored improved educational
conditions in the state and the establishment of more colleges. In
addition, he vigorously advocated state aid for railroads.11
�Whigs in the Mountains / 313
In 1842 Thomas Clingman was elected as one of the state's
representatives in Congress, taking office in the January, 1843,
session. He was returned to this office, serving until 1855 as a
Whig, except for the 29th Congress when he was returned as a
Democrat. In 1858 he was appointed by Governor Thomas Bragg
to the seat in the United States Senate left vacant by the death of
Asa Biggs. Clingman won the seat in his own right at the next
election and was a member of the Senate until war broke out in
1861. In Congress he threw his tremendous energy into upholding
the interests of his state. Although he was frequently charged with
inconsistencies in his policies, he gradually helped to crystalize not
only North Carolina's position on slavery but he also became a
voice of the South. As such, Clingman interpreted the attitude of
the South and warned against measures ignoring the economic
problems and welfare of that section of the nation.12
Attending political rallies and early imbibing political
opinions, still another Western North Carolina leader was
growing to manhood in the hills in the 1840's. Zebulon Baird
Vance was a grandson of David Vance, who had presented the
petition for the formation of Buncombe County from the Burke
County settlers living west of the Blue Ridge. He was also the
grandson of Zebulon Baird, Buncombe County's resourceful first
merchant. Members of the Vance family, who derived from
sturdy English stock of Norman French extraction, were
politically minded and alert to local needs. Those of Zebulon's
grandfather's generation had done their parts in the Revolutionary War to win independence and democratic principles for their
country.
From these ancestors, Zebulon Vance inherited a talent for
leadership, which was intensified by his inheritance from the
Baird family. Zebulon Baird, his maternal grandfather, was born
in Scotland. Coming to Asheville in 1793, he had represented the
new Buncombe County in the General Assembly, first in the
lower house and then in the Senate. From the Bairds, Vance
inherited the flashing wit, the shrewdness, and the quickness of
mind that characterized his mother's family.13
For the part he was destined to play in the history of this state,
Zeb Vance had the advantage of a boyhood in the mountains. He
was born on a farm in Reems Creek valley some ten miles from
Asheville. Like the other boys in the neighborhood, he attended
"Old Field Schools" (short-term, subscription, elementary
schools). He later attended Washington College at Jonesboro,
�314 / Chapter Eighteen
BARBER PHOTO
Judson College: Until after the Reconstruction Period the education of children and young
people was largely the concern of the churches. In addition to private schools, churches
established academies, often called colleges. Some of those in operation before 1860 were
Rutherford College in Burke County, Mars Hill in Madison County, and Judson College in
Henderson County.
Tennessee, which was under the management of the Reverend
Samuel Doak. Still later, he was a student at the University of
North Carolina where David Lowery Swain was President.14
As a farm boy and for a time as a helper earning his living at
John Patton's stand in Madison County, Vance came to
understand the economy of the area as it ebbed and flowed
according to the droves of livestock thundering down the
Buncombe Turnpike to southern markets. From the farmers
bringing their corn and from the drovers and drivers, he became
familiar with conditions on the broad, river bottom farms and in
the coves with their mountain grazing lands. The young Zeb
Vance was genuinely interested in people. He had a word, a jest,
and a genial, infectious laugh to share with all who passed. As he
went through his teens, he was learning to understand people—his
mountain people, all people.
From his forebears and from his environment Vance
�Whigs in the Mountains / 315
developed a fearlessness of opinion and action, together with an
honesty that was never questioned, a singleness and loftiness of
purpose that seemed to be gifts from his native hills, and a dogged
determination that smacked of their granite. Perhaps more than
any other individual, Zebulon Baird Vance typified the strength
and sturdy virtues, as well as the independence and the intellectual
capacities of the people making the mountains of Western North
Carolina their home. Perhaps it was for those very qualities that
he became one of his state's most beloved citizens.
Following his study of law in 1854, Vance, then twenty-four
years old, was sent by his native county of Buncombe to the
General Assembly and four years later was elected to Congress as
a Whig. His career there was interrupted for twenty-four years
by the Civil War. During that time he gave his abundant energies
to the cause of the Confederacy and to the welfare of North
Carolina, serving as Governor during the war and for one term
afterward.
It was during this period of Whig activity that the little log
school houses, discussed in a previous chapter, appeared in every
western county. These schools gradually increased their service
to the people as Dr. Calvin H. Wiley's educational program
strengthened their curricula and increased the efficiency of the
teachers. Although from today's standpoint these schools left
much to be desired, they were a leaven raising the degree of
literacy, and hence the outlook, in Western North Carolina. By
1860 in the prosperous areas, these mountain schools were as
efficient, perhaps, as the schools in most of the new areas of the
nation.
The Buncombe Turnpike and the road connecting the citizens
of Watauga County with Morganton, Rutherfordton, and with
South Carolina markets, together with other north-south roads,
continued their beneficial services to Western North Carolina;
nevertheless, roads and their upkeep remained the major problem
of the mountain country. For the first time the region looked to
the state with some degree of confidence for aid in constructing
additional trade lanes. In Governor Morehead the section had a
champion in its road demands. John Motley Morehead had been
one of the young liberals supporting the reforms advocated earlier
by Murphey. In his 1840 campaign he had promised to work for
state aid for internal improvements. Western North Carolina
received encouragement from his 1842 message to the General
Assembly in which he listed as one of the state's most pressing
�316 / Chapter Eighteen
THE STEPHENS PRESS, INC.
The Young Congressman: In 1858, at the age of twenty-eight, Vance won a seat in the
House of Representatives in the Thirty-Fifth Congress of the United States. He took the
seat made vacant by the resignation of Thomas Lanier Clingman, who became a senator,
needs the construction of the east-west highway earlier
envisioned by Joseph Caldwell. Extending from the coastal area
westward through the mountains to Tennessee, such a highway
would, he pointed out, open the mountain-locked region to
eastern markets.
�Whigs in the Mountains I 317
Morehead echoed the convictions of the mountain people
when he pictured the development that such a highway would
bring to Western North Carolina. "When good roads shall be
established in that region," he contended, "it is believed the
population will increase with rapidity, agriculture will improve,
grazing will be extended, and manufactures and mechanic arts
will flourish in a location combining so many advantages and
inviting their growth. The improved highways will be additional
inducements to the citizens of other sections of our State to
abandon their usual northern tours, or visits to the Virginia
watering places for a tour more interesting among our own
mountains, much cheaper, and much more beautiful—a tour in
which they will inspire health in every breath and drink in health
in every draught."15
The first road that could be considered an adequate highway
across the Blue Ridge, linking Buncombe County with the
counties directly to the east, came when a company was chartered
in 1840 to construct a road from Rutherford ton to Asheville. Six
years later the Hickory Nut Turnpike was chartered, authorizing
a road from Rutherfordton across the mountains to Henderson
County and on to Asheville and the Buncombe Turnpike. These
improved highways made possible regular stagecoach travel
between the areas.16 The citizens of Western North Carolina still
impatiently awaited the coming of the east-west highway
advocated by Governor Morehead. But the waiting period was far
too long, for it was not until 1849 that the General Assembly
authorized the chartering of a company to construct the western
section of the long promised road.
With a capital stock made up of shares owned by the state and
shares purchased by citizens of the counties through which the
road passed, the turnpike company constructed the highway from
Salisbury to the Tennessee line. It went by way of Morganton,
Old Fort, Asheville, Waynesville, and continued westward to
Cherokee County and Tennessee. A southern branch extended to
the Georgia line. Thus the new highway was somewhat the
fulfillment of Clingman's plan for a Nantahala Turnpike. By 1855
this highway was linking the western border counties with
Asheville and the Asheville and Greenville Plank Road.17 During
these years, too, western counties were constructing new,
subsidiary roads and were improving others. Yancey County had
a fairly adequate road from Burnsville to the Buncombe line, and
in other counties roads were built to connect with turnpikes. But
�318 / Chapter Eighteen
the secondary roads in all mountain counties continued to be poor,
often practically impassable during the winter months.18
By the time the Whigs gained control of the state
government, railroads had made their appearance in North
Carolina, and Western North Carolina joined in the clamor
coming from all counties for state aid for railroad construction.
Many leaders saw in the railroads the solution to North Carolina's
vexing transportation problem, and the Whig party advocated a
complete network of railroads. As early as 1833 a privately
constructed, mile and a quarter stretch of railroad at Raleigh had
been the means of hauling stone from the quarries on mule-drawn
flat cars to the site of the capitol then being built.
Following that successful venture, private capital had
succeeded in building and operating two railroads. The
Wilmington and Weldon was built 161 miles in length, and in 1840
it was the longest in the world. The Raleigh and Gaston was
86 miles long. But the cost of construction and maintenance of
these railroads, with their iron-covered rails, was too excessive
for private enterprise, and by 1836 both faced bankruptcy. It was
then that the Whigs succeeded in inaugurating the policy of state
aid. By 1845, when the state had actually had to purchase the
Raleigh and Gaston line, North Carolina had spent (lost, the
conservatives claimed) almost a million dollars in its railroad aid
program.19
The building of railroads was recognized, however, by many
leaders in all sections of the state as being so necessary to the
economy of the commonwealth as to warrant further state aid to
this enterprise. The question of railroads was the popular topic of
the day. Their value to the state and state aid for their
construction were themes debated pro and con by speakers.
Newspapers also aired the rising controversy over state aid for the
roads. Politicians envisioned railroads passing through the
counties of their constituents.
Many plans, both practical and visionary, were advanced for
the development of intrastate lines, some running north-south and
others east-west, but all with an eye to funneling the state's
products to its eastern markets. Interstate railroads were also
discussed, and Joseph CaldwelFs plan for a Beaufort to Murphy
line was revived.20 Governor Morehead expressed the belief that
such a line would bring products from as far west as Memphis
through the length of the state to its eastern ports. It might even
serve as a European market line for cities in California.21
�Whigs in the Mountains / 319
In Western North Carolina this cross-state plan was welcomed as the solution to its transportation problem; yet the
region's first hope for a railroad came from a plan for an interstate
line from Charleston to the growing West. South Carolina was
profiting from the trade that passed south over the Buncombe
Turnpike, connecting with the fine new road that Joel Poinsett
had constructed along the ancient trading path to the Cherokees.
Charleston, Robert Y. Hayne pointed out to his fellow statesman,
was the natural outlet for products not only from the mountains,
but also from Kentucky, Illinois, and Ohio—indeed, from all
territory in the Mississippi valley. Moreover, a railroad from
Charleston to this area might offer a political link between the
new west and South Carolina, an advantage not to be overlooked.22
With such leaders as Hayne, Mitchell King, Joel Poinsett, and
James Bennett interested in the project, plans progressed, and
investigations were made for a route through or around the
mountains. The choice settled on a line from Saluda Mountain to
Asheville and down the French Broad, which had an easy grade of
thirteen feet per mile, to Knoxville. The road would thus extend
107 miles through Western North Carolina and could be
constructed, engineers estimated, at a cost of two million
dollars.2*
Following the pattern set for crystalizing public sentiment for
railroads, delegates from the states concerned attended a railroad
convention in Knoxville in 1836. Reports were heard from
committees earlier appointed to make investigations into all the
phases of such a far-flung project. Then the Louisville, Cincinnati,
and Charleston Railroad Company was formed with Robert Y.
Hayne as president. The plan was that each state would
incorporate a company within the larger framework to build the
section passing through its territory. An atmosphere of optimism
pervaded the convention, and the meeting closed with an
admonition to state representatives "not to suffer the work to
fail."2*
During the next few years enthusiastic citizens of Western
North Carolina subscribed for stock in the company. They
attended meetings of stock holders to hear reports of the
company's progress and of the surveys made by the engineers. At
such a meeting in Asheville in 1839 Robert Y. Hayne was stricken
with a fatal illness and died. Mitchell King was then elected
president of the company. The ambitious plans for the railroad
�320 / Chapter Eighteen
collapsed soon afterward when South Carolina refused to
incorporate a company that would be a part of an out-of-state
organization, and Tennessee followed her example. Western
North Carolina's hopes for getting a railroad faded.25
That hope was later revived when in 1848, under the Whig
controlled government, the state began the policy of issuing and
selling interest-bearing bonds as a means of raising money for aid
for improvements, including railroads. The following year the
North Carolina Railroad, to run from Goldsboro to Charlotte,
was incorporated with the state subscribing two million dollars
and private capital sponsoring another million.26 The state later
found it necessary to subscribe an additional one million dollars.
The bill authorizing this road was a bipartisan, compromise
measure. It called for the construction of a railroad that would
connect Goldsboro with Charlotte by way of Salisbury. John M.
Morehead was elected president of the company.
Construction began from the two terminal points, and in 1856
the 223-mile line was in operation, opening the piedmont to the
markets of the state. Almost at once its effects throughout that
section and in the mountain counties east of the Blue Ridge were
apparent. Freight rates were cut in half; prices of incoming
commodities were drastically lowered. Farmers, able to get their
products to market and at a cost insuring profit, raised more grain.
A general air of prosperity came to the region that was once
known as the lagging "back country."27
The construction of this railroad brought again into
prominence the idea of extending lines across the Blue Ridge and
on to the Tennessee border. Joseph Caldwell in 1828 in his Numbers
of Carlton had pleaded for a line stretching from the eastern cities
of Beaufort and New Bern westward to Tennessee.28 Now that
plea was revived. Accordingly, the Western North Carolina
Railroad was incorporated in 1854. It was to be the western
extension of the North Carolina Railroad, and construction was
to start at Salisbury.29
This railroad, which was favored by both Democrats and
Whigs, was to be constructed in sections. The bill designated that
each section was to be in full operation before any work might
begin on the succeeding section. That clause included the selling
of stock. The maximum stock was to be $6,000,000 and the state
was to own two thirds, with one third raised from private capital
in the counties through which the road would pass.30 Four possible
routes were presented, but because of the absence of gaps in the
�Whigs in the Mountains / 321
precipitous Blue Ridge, only two seemed practical enough to
warrant surveys.
One of these proposals would take the railroad across the Blue
Ridge into Watauga County and along the Watauga River,
entering Tennessee at a point thirty-three miles from the East
Tennessee and Virginia Railroad. This was the shortest of the
suggested routes, 121.77 miles from Salisbury. Because of the
extreme construction difficulties it presented, however, Walter
Gwynn, the surveying engineer, recommended the longer route
going by way of the Catawba valley and crossing the Blue Ridge
at Swannanoa Gap. This route would necessitate a series of
tunnels. From the west portal of the last tunnel the road would go
to Asheville and from there down the French Broad River to Paint
Rock. This line would be 186.78 miles long.31
Almost at once another route from Asheville to the Tennessee
border was suggested. It would go west from Asheville to
Waynesville and on to connect with the Blue Ridge Railroad or on
to the Tennessee line near Ducktown. Both of these routes were
later surveyed, and the advantages of each became the subject of
much local publicity. Citizens of Buncombe and Madison
Counties favored the French Broad route. Citizens of the western
counties favored the Ducktown route, pointing out that such a
road would reach the thriving copper mines of eastern Tennessee
and would, as Morehead had made clear, open for Memphis its
shortest route to sea ports.32
East of the Blue Ridge counties were contending for routes
stretching west from Salisbury. Caldwell County had favored the
Watauga route but gave up the struggle for that, demanding that
the line pass north of the Catawba River. Burke County urged
that Morganton be made the terminal for the first section of the
Western Railroad and, winning its point, its citizens subscribed
$100,000 to the capital stock. R. C. Pearson of Burke County was
elected president of the company and James C. Turner was
appointed chief engineer. Rutherfordton, which was not on the
route of the Western North Carolina Railroad, looked forward
after 1854 to a road from Charlotte. The year before the western
division had been chartered, the General Assembly had passed a
bill under which the Wilmington, Charlotte, and Rutherfordton
Railroad was incorporated. Work on it began almost at once. As
the project progressed, the company made plans to extend the line
over the Blue Ridge to the Tennessee border in Watauga County
where it would connect with a road fromjonesboro, Tennessee.33
�322 / Chapter Eighteen
In the meantime, South Carolina revived its earlier plan for a
Charleston to Cincinnati railroad that would cross Western
North Carolina by way of the French Broad River, and it
incorporated the Greenville and French Broad Company. It also
chartered a company to construct a railroad from Anderson
through a section of Georgia, to continue for a distance of
seventy-three miles across the western counties of North Carolina
into Tennessee. This line was to be called the Blue Ridge Railroad.
By 1855 it looked as though Western North Carolina might have a
network of railroads.34
It soon became evident that the clause requiring the
construction of the Western North Carolina Railroad to be done
in sections would greatly impede the progress of the work and
therefore delay its advent into the counties west of the mountains.
To the citizens of Western North Carolina this delay was both
unwarranted and intolerable. For several reasons they felt that
haste was imperative. In the first place, it was felt that the state
would be unwilling to invest in two roads across the mountains
and that contentions arising over a choice between the Western
North Carolina Railroad and the Rutherfordton line would
inevitably lead to a prolonged delay, resulting in the abandonment
of both plans.
In the second place, the mountain citizens much preferred that
the road west of the mountains be constructed by a North
Carolina company; yet, unless the Western Extension reached the
area within a reasonable time, the South Carolina company would
doubtless have its line along the French Broad in operation. As a
solution to the railroad problems facing the area, the residents of
the mountain counties began agitating for the removal of the
sectional clause in the Western North Carolina Railroad Bill.
Feelings ran high, with railroads an issue in the 1858 campaign. A
bill presented to the General Assembly for striking out the
objectionable sectional feature failed to pass. The reaction of the
citizens west of the Blue Ridge was immediate and bitter.
The editor of the Asheville News wrote a stinging economic
declaration of independence from the eastern part of the state,
declaring, "We have no doubt the people of the West will readily
embrace this tender of a dissolution of every tie that binds us
together as one people, and will henceforth regard themselves as
having neither part nor lot in the internal improvement system of
North Carolina." He went on to predict "that the people of the
�Whigs in the Mountains / 323
French Broad Valley will never again ask for a connection with
any North Carolina Road."35
Aroused citizens gathered at a mass meeting in Asheville and
heard Nicholas W. Woodfin, who had led the section's struggle for a railroad, deliver a fiery speech, advising his fellow
westerners not to invest a penny in the Western North Carolina
road. Instead, the people of Henderson, Buncombe, and Madison
Counties were urged by Woodfin and other leaders to purchase
stock in the South Carolina road. At elections held in these three
counties in the summer of 1859, each county was empowered to
purchase stock in the Greenville and French Broad Railroad. On
July 28, 1859, the officials of that road met in Hendersonville with
citizens of Henderson, Buncombe, and Madison Counties to
formulate plans.36
During this time, the construction of the first section of the
Western Extension was progressing slowly, far more so than had
been anticipated. The contractor was badly in need of additional
state funds, but under the bill, these could not be forthcoming
until the completion of that section. To alleviate this embarrassing
situation, the General Assembly early in 1861 revised the
incorporation bill, making the entire distance from Salisbury to
the western end of the Swannanoa tunnel the first section.
At the same session the Assembly ratified the Ducktown route
for the line from Asheville to the Tennessee border, the route
earlier adopted by the stockholders upon the recommendation of
the surveyor. The act allowed for a branch road, however, to be
constructed from Asheville to Paint Rock, but that could begin
only after the western portion had reached Waynesville.37 With
the prospect of a state-sponsored road reaching their area, citizens
of Western North Carolina were somewhat placated. Surely one
of the many plans under consideration would result in a railroad
for the area. But the western citizens were again to be
disappointed.
By April, 1861, the Wilmington, Charlotte, and Rutherfordton road had not yet reached Rutherford County, while the
Western Extension lacked more than five miles of entering
Morganton. When the Civil War broke out, the contractor of this
section left for the army and was later among those killed at the
First Battle of Manassas. Another contractor was employed to
carry out the work. But with workmen enlisting or being drafted
and with the added difficulty of getting the necessary metal for
�324 / Chapter Eighteen
the rails, the work could go on only at a snail's pace. It stopped
altogether before reaching Morganton. The Rutherfordton line
ceased construction activities at Cherryville, and at the time of
the Civil War only a few miles of track had actually been laid in
Western North Carolina, none of them across the Blue Ridge.
The early railroads in the state furnished conclusive evidence
of the prosperity that would follow with adequate systems of
transporation. But the excessive cost of railroads, even when
partly assumed by the state, and their expensive upkeep made
them financial risks. Those risks often prevented private capital
from being invested in stocks of the incorporated companies or in
state bonds issued to aid them. Then, too, as Western North
Carolina painfully learned, railroad construction was a slow
process.
For those reasons engineers and interested citizens sought a
quicker, cheaper way of supplying satisfactory highways in areas
untouched by the existing railroads. As a solution to this problem
some inventive person came up with the idea of the plank road,
and in the 1850*s the building of plank roads took second place only
to railroads in the interest of transportation-conscious Carolinians. The first of these roads, later called the "Appian Way" of
North Carolina, was chartered in 1849 and opened in 1854,
connecting Fayetteville with Salem. It proved to have many
advantages over the old type of highway.38
A plank road was constructed by allowing the graded bed to
settle and then placing over it pine sleepers or sills placed end to
end lengthwise. Across these sills pine planks, from nine to sixteen
inches wide and from three to four inches thick, were laid. Wider
than the turnpikes, these roads were usually about eight feet in
width, with frequent turnouts to allow for the passing of vehicles.
With their firm beds and their two thicknesses of planks, they
were all-weather roads, enabling the farmers to market their
grain at all seasons of the year. Over them a team could haul a
vastly heavier load than on the old highways. Their cost,
compared with railroads, was modest, for the plank roads usually
followed the old roads, whose beds could easily be put into
condition for the sills. The pine lumber used was cheap, costing
about three dollars per thousand feet. They seemed to be the
answer to the needs of several sections of the state in Western
North Carolina.39
The Buncombe Turnpike by 1850 was badly in need of repairs
from years of heavy animal traffic. The company was dissolved,
�Whigs in the Mountains / 325
and in 1851 the Asheville and Greenville Plank Road Company
was incorporated, taking over sections of the older turnpike bed.40
Over the new plank highway the great droves continued until the
incoming railroads in states to the north could take the livestock
to market by rail cheaper than the animals could transport
themselves. By the late 1850's the number and size of the droves
passing along Western North Carolina roads decreased, although
they did not cease until the Civil War and were continued for a
time after the end of the conflict. But the plank road era was of
short duration. Even without the destruction brought by war, it
would probably have passed, for the life of a plank highway was
from seven to nine years. By that time even the sills had to be
replaced, and long before that, expensive repairs were necessary.
These were often made by using crushed rock, a more durable
material.
In the decade before the war the Whigs, who had given to
North Carolina its greatest period of internal improvements, lost
their control over the state offices. Now fully aware of the
prosperity brought about by the Whig projects, the Democrats by
1850 had shrugged off their cloak of inertia and were espousing the
continuance of improvements. They had also become alert to the
ominous trend in national issues involving the slave question. To
safeguard the state's economic order, the Democrats stressed their
old policy of the state's right, as opposed to the national
government, to deal with all matters concerning its internal
affairs. In so doing, the Democrats became the party of the South
and of Southern interests.
By 1850 the party was revitalized and vigorous enough to
place its candidate, David S. Reid, in the governor's chair, and
the Democrats continued to control that office until the outbreak
of the war. They also gained a majority in the General Assembly. Within the next few years, the slavery issue assumed a
larger place in national politics and, therefore, necessarily in state
politics. As a result, many of North Carolina's political leaders
left the Whig Party, which remained silent on the slavery issue,
and joined the Democrats. Among them was Thomas L.
Clingman, who found the rejuvenated Democratic Party
expressing his own views of the slavery question.41 William W.
Holden, later to play a partisan role in North Carolina affairs, also
left the Whigs to become a spokesman for the Democrats through
his newspaper, The North Carolina Standard.
The Democrats now made a bid for western votes by a
�326 / Chapter Eighteen
movement for free suffrage, long desired by the small farmers of
the western counties. In 1857 the movement crystalized into
action, and by a constitutional amendment property qualifications
for voting for state senators were discarded.42 This constructive
and long overdue action won adherents for the party in the west.
The party also gained followers as it took up its new role of
sponsorship of internal improvements, including turnpikes, plank
roads, and railroads for the mountain section of the state. In fact,
even though originally planned by the Whigs, whatever highway
improvements reached Western North Carolina in the 1850's
came through Democratic sanction.
As a series of slave measures came up in Congress, the feelings
of both Northerners and Southerners became ever more bitter.
The Southern men in Congress now came to foresee in the near
future a predominance of northern Congressmen with steadily
growing anti-slavery views. They recognized that the passage of
each slavery bill into law was a defeat for the South. Accordingly,
North Carolina leaders continued to leave the Whig party, which
still took no stand on slavery issues, to join the ranks of the
Democrats. A decisive blow came to the national Whig Party
with the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill and the subsequent
bloodshed in that unhappy area. Those events were followed by
the formation of the Republican Party, pledged to slavery-free
territories and to the belief that the Union was indissolvable.
Many northern Whigs went into this new party, while in protest
to it, many Southerners joined the Democratic Party.
During the 1850's the North Carolina Democrats actively
took up the issue of slavery, favoring the extension of slavery in
the new territories and incoming states and denying the
expediency of federal restrictions in the territories as advocated
by some Whig extremists. In all these policies the Democratic
Party was, as it had earlier been, the party of the slave-owning
plantation East. But the growing tension throughout the nation
and in the state made these policies, especially the state's rights
policy, the platform of the South against the increasing
abolitionism of the North. The Democrats now took into their
ranks former Whigs who had become alarmed at the turn in
national affairs and who feared "Black Republicanism."
Many of the voters in Western North Carolina were still
unwilling to join the Democratic Party, and a goodly number of
them cast in their lots with the United American or KnowNothing Party, which formed an organization in North Carolina
�Whigs in the Mountains / 327
in 1855. This party had no slavery policies and very little to offer in
the way of a constructive platform. In its origin and character it
was generally negative in its approach to the problems with which
it concerned itself.
The Know-Nothing Party centered its attacks on the
unrestricted European immigration to the United States, which
annually brought into the nation hundreds of thousands of
economically low-class families from southern European countries. Thousands of these were poverty-stricken people who entered regardless of their physical, mental, or moral ability to be
absorbed into the American pattern of life. A high percentage of
these undesirable immigrants was Catholic, and the KnowNothing Party, which veiled its objectives in secrecy, was antiCatholic. For the voters of Western North Carolina this party was
a poor substitute for the Whig Party, and when in 1859 the Whig
Party was briefly revived in North Carolina, the Know-Nothings
disappeared from the state. The mountain members then returned
to their old party. Among them was Buncombe County's Zebulon
Baird Vance, who that year was elected to the Congress on the
Whig ticket.43
�C H A P T E R
N I N E T E E N
War in the Land
X he presidential election of 1860 was a tense one. The Union was
literally at stake. The series of hotly contested slavery issues had
weakened the Whig Party four years earlier and brought into
prominence the Republican Party, organized in 1854. Differences
brought about by the slavery issues also caused the Democratic
Party to split over its platform in 1859. The Southern delegates
walked out of the Convention, organized their own wing of the
party, and nominated John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky for
president. The Northern or Regular Democrats nominated
Stephen Arnold Douglas of Illinois. The newly organized
Constitutional Party, made up largely of Whigs unwilling to join
other parties, nominated John Bell of Tennessee, and the
Republicans named Abraham Lincoln. Voters in North Carolina
had only three presidential choices, however, for Lincoln's name
was not on the ballot for the presidency.1
Chiefly because of the split in the Democratic ranks, the
Republicans succeeded in electing Abraham Lincoln as President
of the United States. South Carolina's reply to the election returns
was prompt and emphatic. Considering the state sovereign and
endowed with the right of self-determination, it seceded from the
Union in December. Early the following year Mississippi,
Alabama, Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Lousiana also seceded.2
In North Carolina the idea of secession had earlier entered
political discussions. The Republican Party had nominated John
328
�War in the Land / 329
Charles Fremont as its presidential nominee for the 1856 election.
Thomas Lanier Clingman of Western North Carolina was then a
member of the United States House of Representatives. In 1855 he
voiced his belief that, should Fremont be elected, the Southern
States would be justified in withdrawing from the Union, and he
outlined a plan of secession. His views were echoed by several
other state leaders.3
North Carolinians knew that Lincoln had been active in
opposing the extension of slavery into western territories. They
also knew that he was outspoken in his belief that the Union could
not be dissolved. The idea of secession was repugnant to most
Whigs and ex-Whigs and to most of the members of the
Democratic Party. As a result many state leaders were active in
their efforts for peace. In February, 1861, delegates from North
Carolina attended a Peace Conference in Montgomery, Alabama.
There the delegates hoped to work out settlements of a
compromise to the sectional differences. Nothing constructive
came out of that meeting, however, and in that same month a
Peace Conference, called by Virginia, met in Washington.
Delegates from twenty-one states attended, including those from
North Carolina. As compromise measures that might be
acceptable to both North and South, seven proposed amendments
to the Constitution were presented to Congress. All were
rejected. Here and there within the state Peace Rallies were held,
but they also failed in obtaining their objective.4
Among those opposing secession was Zebulon Baird Vance of
Buncombe County. In 1858 Thomas L. Clingman was appointed
to the United States Senate to fill the unexpired term of Asa
Higgs, and Vance was appointed to fill Clingman's seat in the
House of Representatives. He was elected the following year and
served in the Thirty-Sixth Congress, the last before the outbreak
of the war. Throughout the session he was a staunch supporter of
the Union, and back in his native state he vigorously urged
adherence to the Union.5 On February 26, 1861, in response to the
Convention Act passed by the General Assembly, citizens went to
the polls to vote on calling a convention to consider secession, but
the convention proposal was defeated. Vance and other Union
leaders were disappointed. They felt that Unionists would
dominate the convention and thereby insure a negative vote for
secession.6
But that spring the tide of public opinion abruptly turned. On
April 12, troops of the new Confederacy fired on Fort Sumter.
They captured it two days later before reinforcements could
�330 / Chapter Nineteen
THE STEPHENS PRESS, INC.
Young Confederate Colonels: Vance opposed secession, but his views abruptly changed
when North Carolina was ordered to furnish federal troops. f(If war must come/'he said, (<I
prefer to be with my own people, "He entered the war as a Captain of the Rough and Ready
Guards but soon achieved the rank of Colonel in the Twenty-Sixth Regiment.
�War in the Land / 331
reach it. Both North and South knew that this was war, and
almost at once public opinion became unified. President Lincoln's
call to arms included an order from the Secretary of War for two
North Carolina regiments. In a speech delivered before the
Andrew Post No. 15 of the Grand Army in Boston on December 8,
1886, Vance told of his own experience. News of this order
reached the village of Marshall while he was "pleading for the
Union" with his arm upraised in a gesture. When that arm came
down, he said, it fell sadly by the side of a secessionist. If North
Carolina had to fight, he pointed out, it must be against
Northerners. 7
The days following the first shut at Fort Sumter were
brimming with excitement and crowded with war preparations.
Governor John W. Ellis called a special meeting of the General
Assembly. He ordered Forts Caswell and Johnson seized at the
mouth of the Cape Fear River, as well as the Federal Arsenal at
Fayetteville and the Government Mint at Charlotte. Ellis then
issued a call for 30,000 volunteers, promising the Confederacy to
get from 1,000 to 10,000 state troops within a few days. He made
arrangements with the Confederate Government to have these
volunteers enter training as state troops, and he entered into an
agreement with the Confederacy whereby North Carolina was to
clothe and arm its own soldiers, the only Southern state to do so.8
In the emergency the General Assembly dispensed with the
referendum and called an election for electing delegates to a
convention to be held in Raleigh on May 20. These delegates, after
organizing the convention, voted to withdraw from the union
existing between North Carolina and the other states of the
United States. They declared North Carolina a sovereign
commonwealth and ratified the Provisional Constitution of the
Confederacy. Thus Western North Carolina became a part of a
new Republic, and to its mountains was to come yet another war.9
The war began with an outburst of patriotism and enthusiasm.
James Green Martin was appointed Adjutant General of the state
troops and was put in charge of organizing the military program
and mobilizing supplies. Under the county units that he set up, the
volunteers offered their services for six months. Military
companies were hurriedly formed as both the state and its people
prepared for what all considered would be a short war. Western
North Carolina was active in these preparations.
Even before secession, Burnt Chimney, now Forest City,
organized a unit which it proudly called The Burnt Chimney
�332 / Chapter Nineteen
.
THE STEPHENS PRESS, INC.
The Battle of New Bern: Taking a prominent part in this battle was Colonel Vance with
his Twenty-Sixth Regiment, which was largely made up of men from the western counties of
North Carolina. This picture is from an 1863 drawing.
Volunteers. This unit left for Raleigh on June 3 to become
Company D in the Sixteenth Regiment of North Carolina
Infantry. The unit formed at Rutherford ton, called The
Rutherfordton Riflemen, became Company G in the Sixteenth
Regiment.10 The first volunteer unit in Western North Carolina
was formed in Buncombe County, however, by William Wallis
McDowell of Asheville. It was organized prior to Governor Ellis'
call for troops and was called The Buncombe Riflemen. On April
18 it left Asheville for Raleigh to become Company E of the First
North Carolina Volunteer Regiment. On June 10 these men from
the mountains, with little more than a month's intensive training,
saw action at Big Bethel, the first land battle of the Civil War.11
On May 4 Zebulon B. Vance organized another company, called
The Rough and Ready Guards. It left Asheville to become
Company F in the Fourteenth Regiment. Later as a part of General
Robert E. Lee's army, it fought brilliantly in Virginia,
Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Vance, now Colonel Vance, was
later transferred to the Twenty-Sixth Regiment. He left that
Regiment in 1862 after being elected Governor of his state.12
Haywood County organized a unit that became Company A
of the Sixteenth Regiment.13 On May 18 The Henderson County
�War in the Land / 333
Guards left Hendersonville, filled with zeal to fulfill the motto on
their banner, "To the Henderson Guards: Follow your banner to
victory or death."14 In August Thomas L. Clingman helped to
form yet another unit in Asheville, made up of men from
Buncombe, Haywood, Cherokee, Henderson, Jackson, and
Transylvania Counties. This unit was mustered in on September
18. Eleven days later it reached Wilmington and became a part of
the Twenty-Fifth Regiment.15 In Madison County Lawrence M.
Allen formed a mounted company called Allen's Rangers, later to
be known as Allen's Legion. These men became a part of the
Sixty-Fourth Regiment.16
What was happening in these counties was repeated in every
section of Western North Carolina as young men from the hills
volunteered in county units or joined with men from neighboring
counties to organize groups leaving for Raleigh or Wilmington
where they went into training. During the next year this
volunteer effort continued, and in 1862 two companies were
organized at Brevard,17 while the Sixty-Second Regiment was
made up almost entirely of mountain men. Hundreds of others
entered state regiments already formed, while still others joined
the armies of the Confederacy. In their first outburst of
enthusiasm, some of the counties, like Rutherford, backed by their
county courts, levied a tax to provide money for clothing and
equipment for their own soldiers. Transylvania County went so
far as to borrow fifteen hundred dollars from the Cape Fear Bank
at Asheville in order to give each of its volunteers the sum of
fifteen dollars.18
As these first volunteers prepared to leave home, the
communities made each occasion a public demonstration of
patriotism. The villages from which they were mustered were
crowded with friends and relatives of the departing men.
Speeches were made by prominent citizens. Prayers were offered
by ministers, and in some instances the men were presented with
Bibles. Flags made by young women of the town were presented
with appropriate remarks. After these colorful ceremonies,
weeping families and well-wishing friends followed the marching
men until darkness compelled them to return to their homes.
There the awful reality of war became a part of their daily
living.19
Volunteers responding to the first call enlisted for six months,
but the General Assembly in May authorized the calling of an
additional fifty thousand volunteers for a year's service in addition
�334 / Chapter Nineteen
THE BARDEN COLLECTION, N. C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
The Ad- Vance: Purchased for the state by Governor Vance through an agent, this sturdy
blockade runner, named The Ad-Vance, made eleven cargo-filled trips into Wilmington
before its capture in September, 1864.
to the organization of ten regiments of state troops for the
duration of the war. Although the state hoped for a short war, it
prepared for a long one. Recruiting offices were opened in
villages, and training camps and drilling grounds were laid out in
the mountain counties. Mountain men continued to enlist in the
armies of their state and in those of the Confederacy.
Products of the forges of the mountains (and there were
perhaps a score of them) were contracted for by the state, and new
forges were established to furnish the iron needed for the
manufacturing of rifles and for the various purposes of war. A
private factory for the manufacturing of rifles was set up in
Asheville. The following year it was taken over by the
Confederacy, and Major Benjamin Sloan, a West Point graduate,
was placed in charge. At first much scrap iron was used, but Major
Sloan was able to get iron from the Cranberry mines to enable the
Asheville factory to turn out, at the rate of three hundred guns a
month, thousands of the best rifles made in the South. Later in the
war the factory was moved to Columbia, South Carolina, but
before the end of the war it was blown up to prevent its falling
into the hands of the Federals.20
The issue of slavery affected the mountain counties very little,
�War in the Land / 335
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
Cherokee Veterans of the Thomas Legion: To protect citizens in the western counties
William H. Thomas in 1862 formed what became known as The Thomas Legion. Of its 17
companies, two were made up ofCherokees. This picture was taken in New Orleans at the
last reunion of these Cherokee veterans. Those in the picture, as named by the son of Colonel
Thomas, are: front row, 1 Young Deer; 2 unidentified; 3 Pheasant; 4 Chief David Reed; 5
Sevier Skitty; back row, 1 the Rev. Bird Saloneta; 2 Dickey Driver; 3 Lieut, Col, W. W.
Stringfield of Waynesville (officer); 4 Lieutenant Suatie Owl; 5Jim Keg; 6 Wesley Crow;
7 unidentified; 8 Lieutenant Calvin Cagle (officer).
for geographic conditons had made slave labor impractical. Only
a few owners of river valley farms had found it profitable to invest
in slaves. In the villages and on some of the farms a few slaves were
used as house or stable servants, and the summer residents in
Henderson and Transylvania Counties brought with them from
the low country the slaves they needed to staff their estates. But
the majority of mountain people had neither the money nor the
need to own many slaves.
The counties on the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge with their
broad river farms had more slaves than did those farther west. In
1860 Rutherford County, with a total population of 11,573, had
2,391 slaves; Burke County, with a population of 9,237, had 2,371
�336 / Chapter Nineteen
slaves. Across the mountains Buncombe County (population
12,654) had 1,905 slaves, while Cherokee to the west had only 520
slaves out of a population of 9,166. Madison County, with a
population of 5,678, had 213 slaves and 17 free Negroes. Other
counties varied in their slave population, depending largely upon
the area's terrain.21
For years the western counties had been aligned in interests
against the eastern plantation section of the state and had opposed
governmental concessions to the slave-owning planters; however,
there had been no special movement in the area directed against
slavery itself. Nor is there evidence that such publications as
Hinton Rowan Helper's The Impending Crisis had exerted any
influence upon the few readers it may have reached in the
mountains. But certainly the men of Western North Carolina had
no desire to give their lives for the cause of slavery. They justified
their participation in the war on other grounds. Both their
environment and their heritage enabled the mountain men to
espouse the cause of a state's right to determine its own course of
action and caused them to resent what was considered the insult of
Lincoln's call for North Carolina troops.
Not all mountaineers accepted as justifiable the causes for war
as explained by the state's leaders and by the newspapers. During
the Revolutionary War the mountain area had been a region of
divided loyalties with accompanying bitterness and destruction.
That pattern was repeated from 1861-1865, and since the
settlements in Western North Carolina were more numerous than
in 1776, both the hatred and the devastation were more
widespread. Thus while the boys and men were reporting to
camps to be enrolled in the state's troops, a trickle of men quietly
disappeared from their mountain homes to cast their lots with the
Union.
Neighborhoods were thus divided, and men long friends went
in opposite directions to enlist, some to don the uniforms of gray
and others to wear the uniforms of blue. All hoped not to meet
again until after the conflict had ended. The number of those
joining the Union forces from mountain counties will never be
definitely known. They had to enlist in other states, and their
home counties were not listed in the records of their units. But
during the four years of war there were many who took up arms
against the Confederacy.22
Union sentiment was evident throughout the region but was
especially strong in Henderson and Transylvania Counties and in
�War in the Land / 337
the Toe River valley counties of Yancey, Madison, the newly
created Mitchell County, as well as in Watauga, Ashe, and
Alleghany Counties. In Henderson County in 1863 a Union
company was organized with James Hamilton of Little River as
captain. It became Company F in the Second North Carolina
Federal Volunteers. It has been estimated that for every ten men in
Watauga County who enlisted in the Confederate armies, one
man enlisted in the Union forces. The ratio of Union soldiers was
probably higher in Mitchell County, and in Gloucester and Little
River Townships in Transylvania County more than half of the
men were Unionists.23
Early in the war secret means of getting Unionists safely to
Northern recruiting stations were set up and remained active
throughout the conflict. They were known as "underground
railroads," one of which took men coming from east of the Blue
Ridge to Boone. Working in relays, scouts got them from there to
the underground station at Banner Elk where they were taken on
or directed to the Cranberry station or to the one at Crab Orchard
in Tennessee.24 Another of these "railroads" crossed Polk County
from South Carolina and linked with one in Henderson County
that passed men through the Bat Cave community and on north to
Buncombe County where they were aided on their way to
Tennessee.25 Still another underground network along which
escaping prisoners from Andersonville, Georgia, passed, entered
Western North Carolina in Transylvania County, passed through
Little River Township and through Gloucester Township into
Jackson County, and continued on to the Tennessee line. Over
these "railroads" went Unionists, escaping prisoners, deserters,
and fleeing slaves.26
In addition to the men whose Union sympathies were strong
enough to compel them to take up arms in its defense, many within
the age limits of soldiers were too loyal to the Union to join the
Southern armies but were unwilling to fight against their fellow
Southerners. They were called Tories, the word used for the
English sympathizers in the Revolutionary War. They avoided
enlisting in either army, and when they were in danger of being
conscripted, many of them hid in the hills to become known then
as "outliers." During the first year of the war many families
added to the worries and heartbreak of family division the
growing distrust that came to characterize community relationships.
By the end of the first year, hopes for a speedy end of the
conflict had almost vanished, and life in the hills grew increasingly
�338 / Chapter Nineteen
austere. As the months passed, the weakness of a largely
agricultural South pitted against a more industrial North became
distressingly apparent. The South had few factories. It shipped its
cotton and wool to England and to Northern industrial markets
and did the same with its other raw products. Turpentine and
naval stores were its chief manufactured exports. North Carolina,
like the other Southern states, depended upon imports from
England and the New England area for its cloth, tools, guns,
railroad metals, and other manufactured articles. In 1860 North
Carolina had 39 cotton mills, 49 ironworks, more than 300 saw
mills, and 639 grist and flour mills. With the exception of three
cotton mills employing more than a hundred workers each,
however, these factories were small, often operating in
connection with the owners' other little enterprises and often
designed to supply only local needs.27
With the beginning of the war the state took over most of the
cotton and woolen mills to insure uniforms for the soldiers, and
even then it had to purchase additional cloth from other countries.
The state could and did stress raising grain needed to feed its
troops and to supply the Confederate armies. To insure the
hundreds of manufactured articles needed for civilian and army
use, North Carolina and the South had to depend upon two things:
the establishment of factories that could begin rapid production of
essential articles and the importation of supplies from other
countries.
The Federal Arsenal at Fayetteville had yielded 37,000 guns,
and the state bought more from private citizens. It established
several gun and ammunition factories, some of which it later
turned over to the Confederacy, and the state bought products
made by owners of ironworks already in operation. Increased
production was encouraged in all the existing mills, and stores of
meal and flour were bought from the owners of grist and flour
mills. The state also levied its first tax on the manufacturing of
spirituous drinks in an attempt to funnel more grain into food
channels. It also encouraged raising more hogs and cattle for food
for armies and civilians. All of these efforts, however, could
furnish only a small amount of what was needed. In the end
winning the war would depend upon getting manufactured goods
from other countries.
Whatever hopes Southern leaders might have had of
recognition by Great Britain faded when Parliament passed the
Neutrality Act in May, 1861. English ship owners and manu-
�War in the Land / 339
facturers were willing to sell their products to private buyers,
however, or to states in the new Confederacy. The major import
problem consisted in getting the goods and ships into Southern
ports. As one of the first war measures Congress declared a
blockade of all Southern ports, and thereby set the pattern for one
of its war objectives—cutting off the South from all sources of
manufactured goods. Until this plan became effective, Southern
ships managed with comparative ease to reach their destinations.
But as the months went by, Wilmington became the only Atlantic
port city still held by the South. It was thus the only port of entry
for the sturdy little blockade-runners that were zig-zagging
through the Federal defenses and worming their way around the
dangerous shoals to discharge their precious loads. By the second
year of the war the shortage of goods was beginning to be felt
throughout North Carolina and the South.
To supply the armies and, as much as possible, the civilian
population with needed goods, civilian owners of vessels were
daring the hazards of blockade-running to bring in machinery for
the factories, hand cards, shoes and leather, cloth, arms, coffee,
hospital supplies, food stuffs, and items of merchandise. On the
advice of Adjutant General James G. Martin, Governor Vance
purchased through an English agent a blockade runner for North
Carolina. Captain Thomas M. Crossan christened it the AdVance. The ship was captured by Union forces in September,
1864, but it had completed eleven trips. The state also purchased
interests in other blockade-runners, and the civilians sold their
cargoes at an enormous profit after turning over to the
Confederacy the share required of all runners. This profiteering
was allowed because of the great demand for the goods and
because of the odds against the success of each venture. At least
half of the ships participating in this dangerous business were
captured or destroyed by the Union forces.28
Governor Vance and his officials hoped to allocate the civilian
portion of these imports equitably, but transportation was greatly
hampered and by 1864 was completely disrupted in some sections
of the state. Western North Carolina, having to depend upon
cross-state transportation for its share, received only an uncertain
supply. According to needs, definite amounts were allotted to the
counties and stored there to be supplemented by local agencies and
used for the relief of the families of soldiers. Wagons of salt from
the Virginia salt mines and those from Wilmington were also sent
to the western counties for distribution, but those amounts were
�340 / Chapter Nineteen
often meager. Some counties, like Buncombe, arranged for one of
their own citizens to go east for salt at the expense of the county,
and at times individual citizens took the long trip east in order to
supply the neighborhood merchants. Even so, before the end of
the war some farmers in desperation were digging up the earthen
floors of their smokehouses to extract the salt deposited there over
a long period of usage.29
North Carolina's military and civilian leaders were responsible for supplying men, animals, and food to the armies of the
Confederacy, in addition to raising, equipping, and feeding its
own state troops. Much dissatisfaction with the Confederacy tjius
early arose. Dissension also flared within North Carolina's state
Democratic Party, which was now the state's only political party.
Gradually two factions took shape, the Confederate wing and the
Conservative wing. The Conservative group became strong
enough to defeat the Confederacy-inspired movement to
eliminate the 1862 election and thus to retain as governor Henry
C. Clark, a Jefferson Davis sympathizer. As a result, on the ticket
offered the voters at the election were the names of William J.
Johnston as the Confederate candidate and Zebulon B. Vance as
the Conservative candidate for the governorship. Neither man
campaigned, but the general opposition to the Confederacy's war
policies and its recent war measures was reflected in the election
of Vance, who carried sixty-eight of the state's eighty counties.30
Western North Carolina now had a leader in the highest office in
the state.
When the six months' term of the first mountain volunteers
was over and the year's enlistment period for those volunteering
under the May call terminated, many of the men from Western
North Carolina, as from other sections of the state, reenlisted.
Others had had their fill of battles and, after the first brave
enthusiasm, returned home. This failure to reenlist and the
decreasing number of men volunteering became fairly general
throughout the South; therefore, the Confederate Government
felt it necessary in 1862 to pass a Conscription Law under which
men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five were subject to
draft into the Confederate army.31
That law was especially offensive to the mountain men. They
resented the stigma attached to being drafted; moreover, to insure
a continuing supply of food stuffs, the law provided that overseers
of twenty or more slaves on plantations would be exempt from the
draft. To the mountain men this was evidence that, regardless of
�War in the Land / 341
the speeches they heard, the war was based upon slavery and the
protection of plantation owners. This law was one of several
factors in the breakdown of morale in the mountains. Governor
Vance also objected to the Conscription Law, although he had
considered conscription necessary when the law was first passed.
Its administration, he found, resulted in forcing men into the
armies of the Confederacy at the expense of the pledged quotas of
state troops. Conscription also resulted in unpleasant incidents
between state recruiting officers and out-of-state officials sent in
to man the Confederate draft offices.
By the end of the second year of the war the mountain section
was keenly feeling the lack of essential imports. Farm and
household tools were now needing replacement, and no new ones
were available. Nor could iron be procured for fashioning tools at
the farm forges, since the forges in the area were under orders to
send all their products to the state or to the Confederacy for war
equipment. "Store cloth" was no longer on the shelves of the
village stores, and the supply of thread and yarns had long been
depleted. Whatever new clothes the members of the family got
now were of the old pioneer material, linsey-woolsey, made in the
homes. The state was asking for any products of home looms that
could be spared, but in home after home the task of making cloth
was becoming increasingly complicated as new hand cards, used
in making thread and yarn, were needed to replace the ones
rapidly wearing out. Coffee, although it had been carefully
hoarded that first year, now disappeared altogether, as did sugar,
prepared medicines, and the all important salt that preserved the
meats.32
The women, with their vein of pioneer iron, were raising
more products than their farms had ever yielded. The pattern of
life in the hills was made even more grim as the men began to
return too crippled or ill for further soldiering and too
incapacitated to take up work on the farms. Even worse, word
reached village homes and mountain cabins of sons, husbands, or
brothers who had fallen on far-away battlefields or who were
suffering in war hospitals. Some, too, had been captured and were
enduring the horrors of war prisons. Mountain women must have
now and then wondered at that first outbreak of patriotic
enthusiasm. Also in many sections there was a growing animosity
between the Union sypathizers and those faithful to the
Confederacy, developing into a distrust of former friends and
neighbors.
�342 / Chapter Nineteen
Because of the need of more protection for their citizens than
the western counties had, William Holland Thomas in 1862
recruited what became known as the Thomas Legion. It was made
up of men from Haywood, Jackson, Macon, and Cherokee
Counties, with a few other counties being represented. Of its
seventeen companies, two were made up of Cherokees who
probably had been influenced by a visit to their region by Colonel
Gideon Morgan, an Indian who had commanded the Cherokees at
Horse Shoe Bend. The Legion was assigned to patrol and scout
duties, which took on great significance as guerrilla warfare
swept into Western North Carolina. It may be that Colonel
Thomas' Legion did some mining at Alum Cave, actually a bluff
overlooking a river valley. This place had long been known to the
native Americans for its medicinal treasures. If the mining took
place, the medicinal treasures were sent to Confederate hospitals,
along with the herbs and medicinal roots collected and sent from
Asheville and Wilkesboro.33
In addition to its assigned duties, the outstanding achievement
of the Thomas Legion was the construction of the Indian Gap
road. No road had ever been constructed across the main ridge of
the Smokies, and to those entering the region early, a road over
the forbidding heights seemed a permanent impossibility. Now a
road allowing direct access between Western North Crolina and
Tennessee was needed as a supply line and as a means of defense
for the mountain area. The road began at Quallatown or near it
and followed the Oconaluftee River. From there it wound up the
steep inclines of the high range to Indian Gap and then down the
Tennessee side to near Sevierville. Today sections of it can still be
discerned along the Oconaluftee River at the Pioneer Farmstead
Museum north of the village of Cherokee. Travelers to
Clingman's Dome cross it at Indian Gap. Travel over this road
was never a pleasure, and from a modern car owner's viewpoint it
was impassable. Rugged and narrow and crude as it was, however,
it was used during the remainder of the war. In January, 1864,
Brigadier General Robert Brank Vance took his soldiers and
equipment over it. In many respects this road, a product of the
Thomas Legion's efforts, remains one of the engineering achievements in Western North Carolina.34
�C H A P T E R
T W E N T Y
War Comes to the Hills
the middle of 1863 affairs in Western North Carolina were
getting desperate. In addition to the extreme scarcity of needed
goods, there was no money to buy what trickled in.1 Taxes were
steadily rising, and they were many, reaching into every avenue of
life. Some of the counties had earlier levied extra taxes to enable
them to clothe and equip their own troops. State taxes had been
drastically raised, and it had been necessary to levy new ones.
Then, too, the Confederacy ever needed new sources of income in
order to meet its needs; thus it levied taxes on occupations, on
necessities such as flour, corn, oats, and drygoods, on salaries over
one thousand dollars a year, and it placed an eight percent tax on
all agricultural products on hand July 1, 1863.
The Confederate tax that most drastically affected the
mountain people, however, was the tax in kind. It required that
ten per cent of all farm products above a specified exemption for
home use must be delivered by the producer to the nearest railroad
for shipment to Confederate warehouses. This tax tended to
reduce surplus raising of food, and it meant transporting the grain
and the vegetables produced on farms in the hills to the railroad at
Greenville, South Carolina, or to the station east of Morganton.
Such journeys would be difficult at best and sometimes almost
impossible as women took over practically all the work on the
mountain farms.2 That problem ceased to exist by 1864, for by that
time raiding troops that lived off the land and bands of outliers
343
�344 / Chapter Twenty
from the mountain recesses were taking not only the surplus but
much of the food raised for families.
From the first each county had had its militia, which was
charged with local defense. In 1863 these units, which had been
under county control, were disbanded, and Home Guard units
were organized as a part of the state's military program. All men
between the ages of eighteen and fifty years not already enlisted in
the State Militia or the Confederate armies automatically became
members of the Home Guards, and training centers were set up in
the counties. John W. McElroy was made Brigadier General in
charge of the western units and made his headquarters at
Burns ville .3
In addition to guarding the counties against enemies, both
those from the outside and those on the inside, the Guards were
charged with the duty of rounding up deserters and renegades.
The Home Guards were an improvement over the county militia
units, but by the end of 1863 they were made up almost entirely of
young boys and old men. In the counties bordering Tennessee they
were unable to cope with the spreading lawlessness. Then, too,
members in these Guards constantly decreased in numbers.
Lieutenant Colonel William W. Stringfield, in charge ofdefending the most westerly counties, by 1865 had only some three
hundred Home Guards for covering the area from Asheville to
Murphy. This made it necessary to keep several regiments of State
Militia in Western North Carolina to insure order, to protect
property and citizens, and to render assistance to the Home
Guards.
Except for two small skirmishes in 1865—one at Craggy near
Asheville and the other near Waynesville—Western North
Carolina saw no battles during the years of the war. Instead, war
in the hills took the form of raids, and as bitterness and distrust
among the citizens deepened, personal attacks by individuals or
small bands became frequent. There was also the problem of
deserters and "outliers." Deserters from both the State and
Confederate forces steadily and stealthily returned to the
mountains. Some of them, satiated with the scenes of war, came
back to work on their farms. Others were unwilling to return to
their homes or having returned, found themselves unwelcome in
their communities. They became "outliers." As the war went on,
bringing each month greater privations and suffering to the
families of soldiers, men, with no criminal intent, sometimes left
the ranks in response to appeals from members of their families.
�War Comes to the Hills / 345
Men from Western North Carolina served in every area of
war activities and took part in most of the battles. North Carolina
topped all of the Southern states in its numbers of deserters, but
some eight thousand of these later returned to the armies. Since
North Carolina had furnished more soldiers than any other
Southern state, the ratio of desertion was about that of both the
Confederacy and the Union. During the entire conflict about
23,000 soldiers and 423 officers from North Carolina deserted the
army.4
Madison County, with its many Union sympathizers, was
reported in 1862 to have some 160 deserters. Many of them lived
at their homes although some became outliers, and all, in case of
need, could get into the hills. The Shelton Laurel section of the
county had been from the first almost solidly for the Union. In
January, 1863, a group of perhaps fifty armed men from there
went into Marshall where they broke into stores, taking salt and
whatever else they desired. They claimed that because they were
Unionists, they were denied salt and other commodities being sent
into the county. After the looting, they set a few fires and
ransacked the home of Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence M. Allen,
whose Legion made raids against Unionists in Tennessee.
Brigadier General William G. Davis, whose headquarters
were at Warm Springs, sent Lieutenant Colonel James A. Keith
and his command in pursuit of the Shelton Laurel men with orders
to arrest all known to be of "bad character," whether involved in
the looting party or not. He was to have the aid of the Thomas
Legion, which was already in the county engaged in scouting
duties along the North Carolina-Tennessee border. Keith's
command rounded up thirteen of the renegades in the Shelton
Laurel area. Governor Vance was then notified by Brigadier
General Davis that the mission had been successfully carried out.
The Governor's reply was to have those captured turned over for
trial. Instead, all thirteen were shot and buried in a common
grave.
Upon hearing this, Governor Vance asked Augustus S.
Merrimon, State Attorney for this Judicial District, to investigate
the affair. Merrimon gave Vance a preliminary and then a detailed
report in which the names and ages of those shot were listed. Two
were mere boys—thirteen-year David Shelton and fourteenyear-old Aronnota Shelton. Another victim, James Shelton, was
more than fifty years old and therefore beyond the age for
conscription. The handling of this affair shocked Governor Vance
�346 / Chapter Twenty
as it did both Union and Confederate sympathizers throughout
Western North Carolina. In a letter to James A. Seddon,
Secretary of War, Vance enclosed the Merrimon reports. He
closed the letter with these words, "I desire you to have
proceedings instituted at once against this officer, who, if the half
be true, is a disgrace to the service and to North Carolina." As a
result, Lieutenant Keith was removed from command but was
never tried.5
Another incident of looting (but without the loss of human
lives) took place in Burnsville on April 10, 1864. There some
seventy-five Union sympathizers broke into the ammunition
magazine. The group, said to have been led by Montravail Ray,
took what ammunition and guns they wanted and destroyed the
remaining weapons. The previous day a group of angry women,
wives of Union sympathizers, charging that the state had food for
the families of Confederate families but not for their families,
broke into a storehouse and carried off bushels of government
wheat and other food items. Brigadier General John W. McElroy,
who had moved his headquarters to Mars Hill College, wrote of
the affair to Governor Vance. With only a hundred men under his
command, all of whom were needed to protect against the raids of
Colonel George W. Kirk and his volunteers, and with the Home
Guards few in number, it was impossible, he said, for him to
prevent such incidents. Besides, men who were arrested
immediately applied for a writ of habeas corpus and so could not
be brought to trial. He also reported that swarms of men, fearing
conscription, had become Tories and that people were leaving the
county.6
In June, 1862, with the sanction of his government, President
Davis suspended the writ of habeas corpus under certain conditions. As a result, some forty persons in North Carolina were
arrested and imprisoned at Salisbury without trial. On charges of
disloyalty to the Confederacy, several men in Cherokee County
were arrested by armed soldiers and taken to Georgia where they
were forced to join the army. Of these, two were past the draft
age. Perhaps no act of the Confederate Government so aroused
Governor Vance as did the suspension of the writ of habeas
corpus, for it involved the right of a fair trial by jury for the
citizens of North Carolina.
Vance wrote letters of protest to Secretary Seddon and to
President Davis. When he received only negative responses, he
insisted that the North Carolina General Assembly nullify the
�War Comes to the Hills / 347
Confederacy's decree by passing a law making it mandatory for
North Carolina judges to issue the writs. After learning of the
arrests in Cherokee County, he ordered the State Militia to resist
by any means necessary the arrest of any persons discharged by the
courts of the State. But there continued to be instances of misuse
of the state law guaranteeing the protection of citizens against
unwarranted arrests. By invoking it, citizens seized in raids could,
and did, escape arrest to repeat their offenses.7
Governor Vance also objected to the seizure of private
property permitted by the Confederacy under certain conditions,
and he condemned the right given the Confederate troops of
impressing food and horses in the areas of their operations at set
prices, which were always lower than the current market value.
Another act of the Confederacy that brought sharp words from
Governor Vance was the pasturing of broken-down cavalry
horses in counties where the civilians were held responsible for
their food and care. This, he pointed out, worked an added
hardship upon the women and children in a region where food was
exceedingly scarce. Also, in these western counties the unsettled
conditions were rapidly approaching a state of lawlessness, a
condition which would be made worse by the act. The Governor
declared, therefore, in a letter to Secretary Seddon on February
25, 1863, that unless this burden was taken from citizens of these
counties, he would be compelled to call out the State Militia and
drive the animals from the state. When the Confederacy had done
nothing about the horses a month later, Governor Vance wrote a
second letter of protest in terms that could not be misunderstood.8
By mid-summer of that year Western North Carolina,
because of existing conditions there, was organized into a separate
military district. Brigadier General Robert Brank Vance was
placed in command of the area. In his address to the General
Assembly at its 1864-65 session, Governor Vance told the
lawmakers, "The western border is, however, subject to constant
raids and the situation of the inhabitants is distressing in the
extreme. Bands of lawless men, many of them our own citizens,
acting or pretending to act under commission from the enemy,
swarm into the mountain frontier, murdering, burning and
destroying. Totally regardless of the laws of civilized warfare,
they have inaugurated a system of cruelty at which humanity
shudders."9
During the last years of the war deserters from both the Union
�348 / Chapter Twenty
N. C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
The Carson House: This house, built about 1810, had briefly served as McDowell
County fs first court house. It was a stagecoach stop, and during the Civil War a small
private school for girls was conducted in it, Emma Rankin, a teacher, has left a vivid account
of the destruction caused by a unit of Stoneman 's raiders searching for Colonel Carson.
and the Confederate forces and draft evaders continued to come
to the hills. They were joined by roving outlaws. All lived off the
land, and from their mountain hideouts they swooped down on
valley farms, taking horses and food and frightening the woman
and children. At times several banded together for these forays,
but occasionally the raids were made by individuals. There were
those, too, working alone or in small groups, who seized the
opportunity of settling old grudges or striking at those considered
personal enemies.
Transylvania County was the victim of such groups. This
county had been formed just before the outbreak of the war and
had only a skeleton government. It was wholly unprepared,
therefore, to cope with these bands of deserters and renegades that
used its mountains and those of Henderson County for their
rendezvous. Some appeared at the farms in uniforms, either blue
or gray as they had been able to get them, and occasionally they
posed as members of the Home Guards.10 In addition to stealing
�War Comes to the Hills / 349
horses and cattle and stored grains, they sometimes murdered an
official or officer. Among their victims were Robert Thomas,
Henderson County's first sheriff, General Baylus E. Edney, and
Huett Allen. William Deaver, answering a knock on the door of
the Deaver home, was shot by a band seeking his son, Captain
James Deaver, conscription officer in the area.11
The fine mountain residences of the South Carolinians likewise became their targets. Members of the South Carolina
"summer people," many of whom were living in Western North
Carolina the entire year to escape the dangers threatening
Charleston and the Southern ports, buried their jewels, silver, and
money. Occasionally a group of raiders would force entrance at
one of the estates and loot the house, destroying the furnishings
and taking whatever of value they found. On one such raid
Andrew Johnston of Flat Rock, owner of the Beaumont Estate,
was killed. In Polk County Dr. Columbus Mills was badly beaten,
and in Macon County William West, a mill owner, was attacked
by a band of roving outlaws and left for dead. Fortunately, his life
was saved by members of his family.12
Distressing as conditions were in the counties just mentioned,
they were worse in the northern border counties. Madison,
Yancey, Mitchell, Watauga, Ashe, and Alleghany Counties were
subjected to almost constant raids, while their neighboring
counties in Tennessee were subjected to frequent raids by bands of
Confederate units. As early as December, 1862, some officials in
Yancey County considered it unwise to call out any more men for
the State Militia or for Confederate armies. They felt that all
those at home now would be needed to maintain order in the
county in view of the growing intensity of emotions and the rapid
deterioration of the people's morale, coupled with the fact that
deserters were entering the county in increasing numbers.
Alleghany County was forced to ask Surry County for aid in
handling its local problems.13
Governor Vance was well aware of the tense situation in the
area he had known since boyhood and acknowledged in a letter to
Secretary Seddon that, "in Yancey, Mitchell, and Watauga the
tories and deserters are in strong force." Yet he clung to the hope
that tolerance and understanding might be used in dealing with
the rising disturbances.14
All counties suffered from sporadic raids, but the raids most
feared were the invasions of Colonel George W. Kirk's Third
North Carolina and Tennessee Federal Volunteers. One of the
�350 / Chapter Twenty
policies of the Union was to take the war directly to the people
and thus destroy their morale and arouse among them a feeling of
futility for carrying on further resistance to the Union. With
headquarters in Greeneville, Tennessee, Kirk's Volunteers were
assigned to guerrilla warfare in Western North Carolina. Colonel
Kirk was bitterly condemned by the Confederate forces and by
Confederate sympathizers in the regions he entered. By them he
was looked upon as an outlaw, and his Volunteers were considered
ruffians and brigands. But he was considered by his superiors in
the Union forces as an able military leader carrying out a
successful, guerrilla operation.15
The chief targets of Kirk's men were public offices and
records and buildings connected with military operations and
military supplies. They frequently took horses and food supplies
from private citizens, however, and in the villages and
surrounding countrysides they engaged in some looting. In
August, 1863, about 120 of the Volunteers crossed the mountains
into Cherokee County. At Murphy they set fire to the courthouse,
destroying the county records. Outside the village they took
horses and mules and killed a few work oxen.16
In early March, 1865, Haywood County, which had been
comparatively free of border raids, girded itself for defense as
scouts reported the approach of the Kirk Volunteers, estimated to
be six hundred strong. The hastily gathered local forces, few in
number, were unsuccessful in preventing the invaders from
crossing the Smokies and entering Waynesville, which could offer
little resistance. There Kirk's men liberated the county prisoners
and burned the jail. After setting fire to the home of Colonel
Robert Love, Revolutionary patriot and founder of the village,
they left the town. A small force led by Lieutenant Robert Conley
of Cherokee County, a member of the Thomas Legion, forced the
Volunteers across the Balsam Range, but they returned the
following day by way of Soco Gap. The Thomas Legion succeeded
in preventing depredations in the territory of the native
Americans and the Legion, augmented by three hundred Home
Guards directed by Lieutenant Colonel William W. Stringfield,
turned the Kirk Force back at Soco Gap as they attempted to
return on March 6.17
In the spring of 1864 a contingent of Kirk's Volunteers went
through Watauga and Alleghany Counties, taking horses and
arousing the hatred of the citizens there. In July of that year, Kirk
himself appeared at the head of some 120 Volunteers, a few of
�War Comes to the Hills / 351
them Indian deserters from the "Thomas Legion. Accompanying
them as scout was David Ellis, a Unionist who had been active in
the underground railroad in the region. After burning the home of
a Confederate officer, the Volunteers crossed the Blue Ridge and
went on to Camp Vance, six miles from Morganton. The hundred
or more Junior Reserves stationed at the Camp were no defense
against Kirk's men and surrendered. The Volunteers then
destroyed a locomotive, some cars, and a few commissary
buildings. They captured 1200 small arms, some ammunition, and
took or destroyed about 3,000 bushels of grain. The Volunteers
failed, however, in their main objective of destroying the railroad
bridge across the Yadkin River. On their way back to Tennessee
they took the Reserves as prisoners and took horses and mules to
carry the food and goods taken from homes.
The returning Volunteers were pursued the next day by the
Burke County Home Guards and a group of citizens. At the
overnight campsite of the invaders a brief battle took place during
which Kirk suffered the only wound of his military career. In that
same skirmish North Carolina lost one of its outstanding political
leaders when William Waightstill Avery, at that time a member
of the Guards, was mortally wounded.18
While most of the guerrilla raids conducted by Confederate
units took place in Tennessee, there were others directed against
Union sympathizers in the mountain counties. One of the most
effective of these took place in 1864 when Colonel John C.
Vaughn's Confederate Cavalry entered the border counties. This
unit, ignoring the North Carolina law against seizure of property,
took what they wanted and destroyed more. They came, as one
staunch Confederate sadly admitted, *'seeking whom they might
devour." In this unfortunate region where it was from the first
inevitable that suspicions should deepen into hatreds, these raids
by both sides in the conflict added fuel to the lightly slumbering
fire, and the citizens themselves came to open battle. Those
sympathizing with the Union met with those on the Southern side
near the present Banner Elk in a skirmish that was later called
Beech Mountain Battle, an affray in which blood was shed on both
sides.19
In the following year Captain James Champion of Indiana and
a small force entered Western North Carolina, rounding up
deserters from the Union army, Northern sympathizers, and men
who could act as scouts. Some local men joined the force at
Banner Elk and, with James Isaacs as guide, the unit reached
�352 / Chapter Twenty
FROM BRADY'S HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR, N. C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES
AND HISTORY
General George Stoneman: General Stoneman, shown here seated with his staff,
conducted a series of raids during the final months of the Civil War. The counties just east of
the Blue Ridge suffered much during those raids.
Camp Mast, about four miles from Valle Crucis, during the night
of February 5. The men were stationed in groups around the
Camp. Major Harvey Bingham, who was in charge of the Camp,
was absent on a mission attempting to get help needed due to the
unsettled conditions existing in the county. At daybreak Captain
Champion gave the men in the camp ten minutes to surrender. At
�War Comes to the Hills / 353
the end of that time some seventy-five Home Guards appeared
and were taken prisoners. These men represented about half of the
local Home Guard unit since the men weekly alternated their
camp service. The surrendering group was made up largely of
boys and disabled Confederate soldiers.20
On April 3, 1865, the citizens of Asheville, so far spared the
devastation of guerrilla warfare, learned that some nine hundred
infantrymen of the Hundred and First Ohio Infantry under the
command of Colonel Isaac M. Kirby were approaching the town
from Tennessee by way of the old Buncombe Turnpike. Asheville
had little protection against this number of men, and there were
those who counseled surrendering. But to most that was
unthinkable. Hastily assembling a group of volunteers, some of
whom were home on furloughs, Colonel George W. Clayton led
his volunteer troops northward. They met the Union army at
Craggy, four miles from the town, at a place now on the campus
of the University of North Carolina at Asheville. After a fivehour skirmish during which no Condederate was injured and only
two Union men were reportedly wounded, Colonel Kirby's
troops withdrew and returned to Tennessee.21
The best organized and most devastating Union raid in
Western North Carolina took place in the last weeks of the war.
Knoxville and eastern Tennessee had been taken by the Union
armies late in 1863, and Knoxville had been made the headquarters
of General Ambrose Everett Burnside. From those headquarters
General George Stoneman, with a select cavalry unit of veterans,
was sent into the North Carolina mountains for a rapid but
destructive raid. His men traveled light, carrying only rations of
bacon and coffee (which could not be obtained in the raiding
area), extra sets of horse shoes and nails, and their fire arms and
ammunition. They were to live off the land, but General
Stoneman gave orders for no looting and no needless destruction
of private property.22
The hand-picked cavalry reached Boone on March 28. There
was only ineffectual opposition from the weak Home Guards,
who lost several men in the exchange of shots. A few public
buildings were burned, including the county courthouse and its
records. Colonel George W. Kirk's Volunteers entered Boone
and General Stoneman's troops went on across the Blue Ridge to
Wilkesboro. The Volunteers did further damage to property. One
contingent of the cavalry under Brigadier Alvan C. Gillem went
from Boone to Lenoir where the men destroyed public buildings
�354 /
Chapter Twenty
and a cotton mill. This unit then joined General Stoneman at
Wilkesboro. From there the General swung northward into
Virginia, returning to Salem, where little damage was committed, and then pressed on to Salisbury.
When Salisbury was taken, the prison, cotton mills,
government storehouses, and supply depots were burned.
Detachments were sent to tear up the tracks of the railroad, and
fifteen miles of tracks were thus destroyed. Railroad shops and
water tanks were burned, bridges and roads were damaged
beyond repair, and some railroad equipment was destroyed.
General Stoneman's Cavalry continued on to Statesville. Among
other buildings destroyed there, was the office of the Iredell
Express. By April 15, the Cavalry was in Lenoir, and two days later
General Stoneman left for Blowing Rock and Boone, heading
back into Tennessee. Before that he dispatched a part of the
Cavalry under the command of Brigadier General William J.
Palmer to go south into the Catawba country to Lincolnton.
Palmer attempted to enforce General Stoneman's rule of no
looting or useless destruction of private property. In fact, in
Statesville he ordered some soldiers to return articles belonging to
Mrs. Zebulon B. Vance, who was at that time living in the village.
But it was not always possible to restrain his men, especially those
sent on foraging expeditions.23
Another contingent of General Stoneman's Cavalry under
Brigadier General Alvan C. Gillem was sent to Asheville. On
April 18 his men entered Morganton, destroying whatever might
be of use to the Confederates. From there this unit went to
Marion, planning to go to Asheville by way of Swannanoa Gap,
but Confederate forces west of the Blue Ridge had effectively
blocked that road. The Cavalry then returned to Marion and took
the longer route through Hickory Nut Gap, arriving in Asheville
on April 25. This unit was followed by the arrival of Colonel
Kirk's Volunteers. Here the old gun factory, and a few other
buildings were burned. The guns of Porter's Battery atop the
town's western hill, the slight fortifications on Beaucatcher Hill
to the east, and the Confederate flag on its pole were all captured.
But little looting took place, and order was maintained
throughout the incidents.
Brigadier General James G. Martin with his command was in
Asheville at this time. There under a truce made possible by the
armistice agreement between General Joseph E. Johnston and
General William T. Sherman, he furnished the Federal troops
�War Comes to the Hills / 355
with a three-day ration allotment. The Cavalry left Asheville,
preceded by Kirk's Volunteers. On the morning of the twentysixth, however, a unit of the Cavalry, made up of the Tenth and
Eleventh Michigan Regiments, returned to Asheville. They took
captive some Confederate officers and soldiers and looted some
homes and burned others, including that of Brigadier General
Martin and that of Dr. Robert H. Chapman, minister of the
Presbyterian Church. Upon receipt of an order from Brigadier
General Palmer, written at his headquarters in Hickory Nut Gap
on April 28, the captured officers and men were released. Federal
soldiers roamed the countryside during the next few days, however, taking animals and food stocks from the farms.
Early in May Lieutenant Colonel William C. Bartlett of the
Federal forces stationed in Asheville broke the proclaimed truce
and went through Buncombe County and Haywood County
"requisitioning" horses. On May 6 he was surrounded on the
grounds of the White Sulphur Springs near Waynesville by the
Thomas Legion and Home Guards under the direction of Colonel
James R. Love. In the skirmish that took place a Federal soldier
was killed; thus the final shot of the Civil War in North Carolina
took place in the hills of Western North Carolina. Upon receiving
official word of the cessation of hostilities, Lieutenant Colonel
Thomas disbanded his Legion, and Lieutenant Colonel William
W. Stringfield took his troops into Tennessee to surrender them.
There he was jailed for a month.24
Whatever means of communication Western North Carolina
may still have had with the outside world had been utterly
destroyed by General Stoneman's raid, and news of the surrender
of General Lee at Appomattox did not reach the people of the
mountains until the soldiers returned. It was even then hard for
the people, who for four long years had been the victims of a war
that filled their region with bitterness and suffering, to grasp the
fact that the war had ended.
�C H A P T E R
T W E N T Y
O N E
The Rebirth of a State
yy ar ceased, but long months and even years were to pass
before peace would come to North Carolina and to sections of its
mountains. In April, 1865, mountain men laid down their arms at
Appomattox Courthouse and at other formal surrenderings. They
took the oath of allegiance and began their slow walk back to the
hills. Others, learning that the war had ended, left their camps and
started for home without the ceremony of taking the pledge of
loyalty to the Union. Men long in Federal prisons were released
and with aid or through their own efforts made their way back to
Western North Carolina. Over all the mountain passes they came,
weary of war and eager for the sight of the hills of home. Reaching
their valley farms and their cove cabins, they found their waiting
families somber and gaunt, the hardships of the past years written
in their faces and stooped shoulders. The eyes of their children
filled with horror at the sight of their fathers' uniforms.
Sections of Western North Carolina lay prostrate. Many of
the fields were untilled, and there was little if any grain for the
spring planting. Tools were worn out or had been destroyed by
the marauding bands that had driven off the horses and some of the
cattle and hogs. In a few cases anything of value that the homes
possessed had passed into the hands of raiders. Signs of the
destruction of orchards and occasional charred buildings gaped
like wounds on the spring landscape.1
On their own tables the men found the kind of food that had
sustained them as soldiers during the last years of the war—bread
356
�The Rebirth of a State / 357
made of coarse, handground corn, cowpeas, perhaps sweet
potatoes, and with luck, a bit of sorghum or honey. To some of
those living in the remote coves this was the food they had known
since childhood. Now even this humble fare was limited in
quantity. Had a wider variety of foodstuffs been available, there
was no money with which to pay the high prices brought on by the
increasing inflation. That inflation resulted from the steady
depreciation of state bonds and the even more rapid depreciation
of Confederate bonds and money. With the fall of the
Confederacy, its bonds were repudiated, and the State war debt
was repudiated in October, 1865.2
By early 1865 the cost of bacon had soared to $7.50 a pound,
and the price of wheat flour had reached $500 a barrel. The pay of
a Confederate soldier had been insufficient for even one person;
thus the families of soldiers had been, from the beginning of the
war, dependent upon what they could raise. At first in the
mountains that amount had been enough to supply the family with
food, but as the men steadily left for the war fronts and as the
armies of both the North and the South sent foraging units
through the countrysides, want became widespread. Money,
never plentiful in the western counties, had practically
disappeared by the time the soldiers returned. Barter, which in the
newer or remote sections of the counties had never been
completely abandoned, was again the trading system in the hills.3
In the few western counties in which slavery had been a part of
the economic pattern of life, the owners of large farms had
suffered, in addition to their other misfortunes, a loss of thousands
of dollars as their slaves were freed. These men faced the problem
of arranging for laborers to plant and later to harvest the year's
crops, but there was far more work to be done than could be
accomplished by the reduced number of men available. North
Carolina furnished more soldiers than any other Southern state
and suffered proportionately more casualties than any other state.
A considerable number of these men had come from Western
North Carolina. In addition to those slain, many men returned
home hopelessly crippled or incapacitated by lingering illnesses.4
Also adding to the labor pinch were some Negroes who
sought out their new freedom and left the fields and their old
quarters. 5 To alleviate the labor shortage, Major William Wallis
McDowell of Asheville wrote to his friend, Gilbert B. Tennent in
London, to investigate the possibility of arranging for Scottish
immigrants to Western North Carolina. The reply he received
�358 / Chapter Twenty One
Carolina. The reply he received was discouraging since workmen
coming to America would have to come under the auspices of the
Emigration Society of Scotland, which was under government
patronage. They would thus command higher wages than the
mountain farmers were able to pay. The task of raising food crops
and farm products that might be marketable became each man's
private problem. Both men and women set about solving it in light
of what they had and could do. In many sections of the mountains
life for the people was again at subsistence level.6
Sections of Western North Carolina shared in the unsettled
conditions that prevailed in the state during the Reconstruction
years. The bitterness that had disrupted communities and
unleashed the horrors of guerrilla warfare in the border counties
continued to embroil mountain men in long-drawn-out lawsuits
and murder cases. These consumed the energies of those involved
and retarded the restoration of their sections to normal activities.
There were instances of men returning from the Confederate
army to find themselves objects of persecution in their own
neighborhoods. There were even more cases of men released from
the Union armies who dared not return to their homes.
Men known to have been in the foraging units of either army
or in raiding groups were almost certain to be the victims of
mistreatment. Many were indicted on these charges. In Madison
County, for example, trials of this type dragged through the
courts, and many cases involved men who had been in General
Stoneman's forces or in Colonel George W. Kirk's Volunteer
Infantry. Some were of a more serious nature. One such
concerned the murder of Ransom P. Merrill, sheriff of Madison
County, on May 13, 1860, when the citizens had gathered in
Marshall to vote on the secession question. Barrels of liquor had
been brought into the town, and at least a part of it had been
consumed by the time of the shooting. Merrill, a shouting
secessionist, started a near riot during which a bullet he fired
wounded Elisha J. Tweed. Tweed's father then shot the sheriff.
Both the Tweeds later entered the Union army and the father was
killed in a skirmish in Kentucky. When Elisha Tweed returned in
1865, he was charged with creating a riot and with murder while a
group of others were charged with being accomplices. The trial
was still in progress in 1867, and lawyers were getting affidavits
from men involved in the broil.7
Madison County was not alone in these unfortunate cases.
�The Rebirth of a State / 359
Trials on similar charges occurred in the courts of many of the
western counties. All of them kept alive the spirit of disunity and
partisan emotions. Added to the unhappy atmosphere thus created
was the fact that the mountains in these counties offered hiding
places for men afraid to go home, for bitter and disillusioned men
planning vengeance on society, for refugees from justice, and for
many coming for these or other reasons from other states. These
men, riding singly or in bands, rendered property and crops
unsafe. As the months passed, some of them organized into gangs.
One renegade group—the Adair gang—roamed Rutherford
County, stealing horses and mules and burning well-filled barns.
They went fully armed and on at least one occasion were present
at voting places, bent on preventing the citizens from casting their
ballots. They were open in their activities and boastful of their
depredations. The Adair gangsters were known to have killed a
Negro and his family. They aligned themselves with whatever
Reconstruction organization served their purposes, and they
perpetrated crimes in the names of organizations to which they
did not belong.8
In Wilkes County such gangs so menaced the region that in
desperation citizens formed a posse and captured "Fort Hamby,"
the mountain hideout of the desperadoes. This counter attack cost
the lives of several citizens. Those members of the gang that were
taken prisoners were brought to trial, and the leaders were
executed.9 Conditions in nearby Ashe County reached such a
stage of lawlessness that the citizens appealed for help to the
federal military unit stationed at Salisbury.10 Many communities
throughout the mountain counties organized Home Guards for
protection of life and property during the months following the
end of the war.
Confusion and unrest were- general throughout North
Carolina. Govenor Vance was for more than a month a prisoner in
Washington. Both the southern states and the Confederate
government had been repudiated, resulting in a period of
uncertainty. It was a new situation in American history, and it
presented many problems and challenges to the national
government. Mistakes in judgment and execution were almost
inevitable. North Carolina leaders could understand but they
clung to the repeated assertion that the federal government
had undertaken the war to preserve the Union. They held
to the hope, therefore, that the way would be opened with all
�360 / Chapter Twenty One
possible speed for the readmission of their state into the Union in
order that it might evolve from its shattered economy a new and
stable way of life.
On April 29, 1865, General John Schofield, federal officer in
charge, issued a proclamation declaring hostilities over and
announcing the emancipation of all slaves within the state. He
then divided the state into three districts, placing General Jacob
D. Cox in charge of the western area. On May 29,1865, President
Andrew Johnson issued an Amnesty Proclamation in which he
pardoned all who would swear allegiance to the United States and
its Constitution. In this he was following the program earlier
worked out by President Lincoln. Whereas Lincoln had excluded
six classes from the pardon, this Proclamation excluded fourteen
classes of Southerners. Among those excluded were men in high
civil and military offices in the Confederacy, all who had resigned
federal service to join the Confederacy, and persons whose assets
totaled more than $20,000. These restrictions affected leaders in
all southern states; yet pardons might be granted to persons
requesting them through petitions. The rather liberal administration of petition granting resulted in about 13,500 Southern men
receiving pardons.
On the same day that President Johnson issued the Amnesty
Proclamation, he issued an order appointing William W. Holden
as Provisional Governor of North Carolina. Holden was charged
with calling a constitutional convention which would define the
qualifications for future office holders and voters and which
would abolish slavery in the state. He was also to set up the
machinery for a November election for members of the General
Assembly.11
The people of North Carolina were not pleased with the
amnesty terms, and many leaders were opposed to the choice of
William W. Holden as Provisional Governor. Holden's political
career had been a long one, and as owner and editor of the North
Carolina Standard) he had exerted much political influence
throughout the state. Like many other leaders, he discarded the
Whig Party in 1843 and joined the Democratic Party. He was an
able and energetic writer, and his paper had endorsed free
suffrage and state aid for internal improvements, helping to
incorporate into the Democratic Party the policies once advocated by the Whigs. This endorsement won him the support of
voters in Western North Carolina, who felt the need of state aid
for highways and railroads in their mountain counties. 12 At the
�The Rebirth of a State / 361
Democratic Convention of 1858 most of the delegates from the
West had voted to nominate him as their Party's candidate for
governor, but the eastern bloc had stopped that movement. John
W. Ellis headed the Democratic ticket in that election year and
won.
As slavery became a national issue, Holden had urged the
annexation of Texas and the protection of slave property by the
national government. He had attacked abolition and free soil
sentiments to the extent of getting a Free Soil University
professor dismissed from the faculty for expressing a desire to see
John C. Fremont, the Republican candidate, elected as president
of the United States. Largely because of the editorial in the North
Carolina Standard, the man was hounded out of the state.13 In 1860
Holden voted against secession. During the first year of the war
his paper crystalized the Conservative attitude developing within
the Democratic Party, and he had thrown the weight of his
influence and the force of his editorials into getting Colonel
Zebulon Baird Vance elected as Governor in 1862.
As the war went on, Holden came to oppose the Conservative
wing of the Democratic Party. After the disastrous loss of
Vicksburg and the defeat at Gettysburg, he realized that the cause
of the Confederacy was lost. He was then accused of sympathizing
with, if not instigating, the rash of peace meetings held
throughout the state.14 His attitude precipitated a break with
Governor Vance, and in the bitter election in 1864 he opposed
Vance as a candidate for the governorship. In the election Holden
received over 14,000 votes but carried only Johnston and
Randolph Counties. Able as he was, the various political shifts he
made lost Holden the confidence of various blocs of voters. For
these reasons many opposed his appointment as Provisional
Governor of North Carolina, a position he was to hold until
December 12, 1865.
As mentioned earlier, the new Provisional Governor Holden
called for an election to be held on September 21, for the purpose
of electing delegates to a Convention to be held in Raleigh. At the
meeting of the Convention the Act of Secession was repealed, and
slavery was declared abolished in the state. Additionally, the
machinery was set up for an election in November for governor
and for representatives to the General Assembly. The Convention
members also repudiated the state war debt, arousing opposition
both in the Convention and throughout the state, for it meant the
loss of most of the state's assets and of its credit, as well as the loss
�362 / Chapter Twenty One
of thousands of dollars to private holders of state bonds. In the
November election Holden was defeated in his race for the
governorship, and Jonathan Worth became Governor of North
Carolina. Union men were elected as the state's representatives to
Congress, and the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified.15
When Congress met in December, 1865, the members sent to
it by the Southern states were refused their seats on the grounds
that not the President but Congress alone had the authority to
determine a state's readmission to the Union. In March, 1867,
Congress enacted the Reconstruction Act, making it a law over
President Johnson's veto. Under its terms, whatever had been
done under President Johnson's plan was set aside, and the entire
South was put under a military government. North and South
Carolina were designated as the Second Military District and
were put under the command of General David E. Sickles, who
was later replaced by General Edward R.S. Canby. Each state was
required to draw up a new constitution to be ratified by the voters
and then submitted to Congress for approval. Negroes were not to
be denied the right to vote and the General Assembly to be elected
under the new Constitution would have to ratify the Fourteenth
Amendment before the state would be readmitted to the Union.
Jonathan Worth was allowed to continue as Governor of North
Carolina, but his authority was limited since the military regime
in each district was given rather full powers over its territory,
including authorization to remove state and local officers from
their positions.16
It was the military commander, General Edward R. S. Canby,
who issued the call for an election of delegates to a state
constitutional convention. Some of the state's leaders were not yet
eligible to vote, and many others, thoroughly disgusted over the
Reconstruction Act, did not register or if they did, failed to vote.
At the prompting of Republicans who had come into the state,
more than 72,000 Negroes registered for the election.17
A year before the convention was called, the Republican Party
had been formally organized in North Carolina through the
efforts of Northern men who had entered the state in connection
with the various phases of the Reconstruction program. During
the year the Party had attracted newly enfranchised Negroes and
thousands of white Union sympathizers, together with small
farmers long opposed to the plantation system. There came into it,
also, some very able men, but on the whole these were not the
�The Rebirth of a State / 363
Party leaders. At the Constitutional Convention meeting in
Raleigh from January 14 to March 17, 1868, the Republican Party
had a majority of delegates.18
The Constitution drawn up at this Convention was, to a large
extent, modeled after those of Northern states. Most of the
provisions it contained were progressive and democratic and
forward-looking. Many of them have stood the test of time and
are today in force. In addition to abolishing slavery within the
state and repudiating the state war debt, it contained a bill of
rights. It forbade the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and
upheld the freedom of the press. The new Constitution abolished
property and religious qualifications for voting and for holding the
office of governor; furthermore, it provided for a "general and
uniform system of Public Schools" to be in operation for at least
four months each year. It provided for a superintendent of public
instruction. And finally, this improved model provided for the
election of local officers by qualified voters, and it set the voting
age at twenty-one years.19
A month after the close of the Convention, voters went to the
polls where they ratified the new Constitution. They elected state
and county officers and representatives to the lower house of
Congress, and William W. Holden, now Republican candidate
for governor, swept into the state's highest office. The Republican
Party won most of the seats in the General Assembly, carried most
of the county elections, and won all but one of the representative
seats in Congress.20 The General Assembly, at its convening,
elected Republican Senators to Congress and ratified the
Fourteenth Amendment. Congress received the newly elected
Representatives and approved the state's Constitution. After four
years of war and more than three years of Reconstruction, North
Carolina was again a state in the Union.
�C H A P T E R
T W E N T Y
T W O
Long is the Night
he federal officers sent into Western North Carolina by
General John Schofield and under command of General Jacob D.
Cox administered the oath of allegiance to all county and town
officers appointed by the Provisional Governor. They set up a
county police force charged with arresting marauders, maintaining law, and seeing that justice was carried out. As might be
expected, the mountain people resented the presence of federal
troops. Their resentment increased when, in 1867, under the
Reconstruction Act of Congress, a more or less permanent
military government was set up.
Almost immediately trouble arose as military officials began
setting aside some decisions of the civil courts. Eventually a
compromise was worked out. Civil authorities were to be allowed
to arrest both Negroes and whites. Civil courts were to have the
authority to try the accused whites, although no civil court could
inflict corporal punishment. Negroes were to be tried in military
courts only, and the military officials also had the authority to
make arrests. The governor had the power of pardoning those
sentenced by civil courts.1
Many, perhaps most, of the military personnel worked to
maintain law and order, but some had no understanding of or
sympathy with the people among whom they were stationed. A
few did not rise above the character of conquerors chastening a
364
�Long is the Night / '365
defeated people. There were some who saw in their assignments
the opportunity for financial gain and others who caused friction
between the races. It is true, however, that some complaints
against the military personnel were unjust.2
The Civil War began as a means of saving the Union;
furthermore, after the Emancipation Proclamation, it had the
added objective of freeing the slaves in the Southern states. Now
the Southern states were in the process of attaining the
requirements for readmission into the Union, and the slaves had
been freed from their bondage. One of the difficult problems
facing the bankrupt South was dealing with its Negro citizens,
who had been suddenly released from their old pattern of life with
no preparation for a new economic and social pattern. Except for
a small number of educated and free Negroes, the race had
generally had no opportunities to learn to read or write, and it had
no funds and no land to call its own.
Because of the increasing numbers of Negroes following the
Union armies, Congress in 1862 established what became known
as the Freedman's Bureau. Its purpose was to be of service to the
Negro refugees in the army camps. On March 3, 1865, Congress
passed a new Freedman's Bureau Bill, which provided for
headquarters to be established in Washington with General
Oliver O. Howard as chief. Units were then set up in all the
Southern states. The Bureau's work as outlined by the law that
created it, was to help the Negroes establish themselves
economically through work, through an opportunity for
education, and through favorable relationships with both whites
and fellow Negroes. It was to aid the Negroes in securing
employment, in getting land, and in establishing schools. Its work
in North Carolina extended over a three and a half year period,
and it accomplished much that was beneficial to the newly freed
race. The Freedman's Bureau also served needy white people.
The immediate problem was food. The Bureau distributed
about $1,500,000 worth of food to needy Negro and white
families. It gave vast amounts of clothing and supplies of
medicines. In addition, as it could, it aided Negro farmers to
secure land. One of this agency's fine services was the
establishment of schools. It established or supervised day schools,
night schools, Sunday schools, and industrial schools; moreover, it
aided colleges, among them Hampton Institute and Fisk
University. During the years of its activities in North Carolina it
set up and operated 431 schools, which had an enrollment of more
�366 / Chapter Twenty Two
PACK MEMORIAL LIBRARY, ASHEVILLE
Nicholas W. Woodfin: During the Civil War Nicholas W, Woodfin served as the agent
for the distribution of salt from the mines in Virginia to the mountain counties of North
Carolina. In 1870 he was appointed chairman of the legislative committee charged with the
investigation of the railroad dealings of George W. Swepson and Milton Littlefield.
than 20,000 Negro children. It also established hospitals which, its
records show, treated some forty thousand Negro patients.3
The manifold activities carried on by the Freedman's Bureau
necessitated a large staff of workers and administrators. This need
brought into the South several thousands of Northern men and
several hundreds of Northern women, who became teachers in the
Negro schools. Most of these men and women were sincere in
their efforts and served well. Many had a missionary zeal to bring
the enlightenment of the North into the dark South. But few had
any concept of what the people in their assigned areas had
undergone during the war years. On the other hand, the North
Carolinians felt that these men and women were interfering in a
problem southern in character and wholly within the province of
the state. They felt, too, that these outsiders were responsible for a
growing resentment against white people by the Negroes.
�Long is the Night / 367
Teachers in the Negro schools were especially disdained. The
Freedman's Bureau was never intended as a propaganda or
political medium, but its influence helped to draw the recently
franchised Negroes into the Republican Party. In the counties
west of the Blue Ridge there was little work for the Bureau, but in
the counties on the eastern slopes of the mountains, with their
larger Negro population, it was active. The Bureau was abolished
in 1872.4
Growing out of the bitterness of war and the Reconstruction
were several secret organizations. During the last desperate years
of the war, men sympathizing with the Union organized in
Tennessee a "society" that was made attractive and binding by its
secrecy. Either before the end of the conflict or soon after that,
units of it appeared in North Carolina where it gained hundreds of
members in the western counties. It had been given the patriotic
name of Heroes of America, but because its symbol was a red
string, it became known as the Red Strings. It was complete with
ritual, password, and oaths obligating the members to obedience
to its orders.5
After the war the Heroes of America became a perfect
instrument through which leaders could direct the actions of
members and shepherd them into the Republican Party. Its
membership was made up of mountain men who had been
sympathizers with the Union (perhaps soldiers in the Union
army), small farmers, laborers, and some Negroes, together with
a few "blockade runners," that is, men making and selling
whiskey illegally. For a time Albion W. Tourgee, one of the most
influential and active of the Northern men who had come into the
state, edited a paper called The Red Strings. It was intended to be
the official organ of the Heroes of America. The organization was
active in all the western counties with Rutherford County having
the largest membership. There its activities were directed by
George W. Logan, who had been a slave owner and in 1860 had
been an ardent secessionist. He had come out of the war a Unionist, however, and had been made a judge. Using the wide powers
granted him in that position, he was able to dominate the
organization in his territory. At its meetings guards were
stationed outside the building to preserve the secrecy of its
proceedings.6
For the Negroes there was the Union League, founded in
Philadelphia in 1862 to promote loyalty to the Union. It entered
the South with the conquering armies. There it began organizing
�368 / Chapter Twenty Two
N. C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
Augustus Summerfield Merrimon: Judge Augustus S. Merrimon of Asheville (<rode
circuit" to the county seats of western counties. He deplored the state of the roads and the
general ignorance he found everywhere. In 1870 he served as one of the three members of the
House Legal Council Committee at the impeachment of Governor William H. Holden.
the Negro branches of the League. At first the mountain
membership included some white men, but as the months passed,
the white members gradually withdrew. The organizer of the
branch would initiate those joining into the secrets of the
organization, which included a ritual, a password, a catechism,
and oaths. Then followed a period of instruction in which the
rights and political duties of the members were dwelt upon.
Governor Holden was for a time president of the state
organization and was succeeded by General Milton S. Littlefield.
James H. Harris, a Negro, was vice-president of the clandestine
organization.
�Long is the Night / 369
After its introduction into the state in 1865, it spread rapidly
until it was estimated that most of the male Negro population
were members. Both the Union League and the Freedman's
Bureau were accused of forcing their members into the
Republican Party, but it is more probable that the members
voluntarily became Republicans because of the interest shown
them by the leaders of the groups. To the "stable" citizens there
was much that was pathetic about the gatherings and motley
parades of the men who had but recently been workers on their
plantations. There was also a lurking fear of what might happen
should these members of the Union League be supplied with
arms.7
The general state of affairs was further complicated by the
federal officers sent into the region to enforce the revenue laws.
From the time of early mountain settlement, farmers had
constructed stills on their farms just as they had built barns and
granaries. They stocked their cellars with homemade liquors,
selling whatever surplus they had. Since colonial days there had
been regulations governing the conditions under which intoxicants could be sold at taverns and inns; yet after the repeal of
the excise tax on whiskey in President Washington's administration, no restrictions had been placed by state or nation upon the
manufacturing of spirituous drinks.8
But Civil War made imperative the conservation of grain for
food purposes. Two laws were passed by North Carolina during
the early years of the conflict, prohibiting the manufacture of all
alcoholic drinks by banning the use of the farm products that went
into their making. A tax was also levied upon imported liquors. In
1862 the federal government had levied a twenty-five cent tax on
every gallon of spirituous drinks, and that tax had been raised
from time to time until by 1864 it amounted to two dollars per
gallon. When the Reconstruction was set up in North Carolina,
federal officers were sent into the state to enforce this revenue
law. The men coming for that purpose were roundly hated by the
farmers, who looked upon the tax as a war punishment and a
flagrant interference into private affairs. 9
The result of this situation was that the mountain men placed
their stills in secluded spots not too easily ferreted out and "ran the
blockade" in selling their surplus products. During these stormy
Reconstruction days the attitude prevailed that, however
extreme, all methods were fair in outwitting the revenue officers
trying to thwart those making and selling their products without
�Zebulon Baird Vance—Post-War Governor:
of North Carolina for the third time,
THE STEPHENS PRESS, INC.
In January, 1877, Vance became Governor
benefit of licenses or taxes. Despite the tacitly declared war
between officers and farmers, stills were occasionally taken and
men arrested for violations of the federal law. Jn a four-year
period from 1877 to 1881, more than 4,000 illicit stills were seized
in North Carolina, and more than 7,000 arrests were made. That
was accomplished at a price. In fulfilling their duties, 26 officers
lost their lives, and 57 others were wounded. There were further
casualties on the civilian side during these raids.10
By 1870 the excesses of the outlaw gangs, coupled with stories
alleging the destruction of property (including the burning of two
churches) had produced a condition of fear and unrest in the
piedmont and mountain counties just east of the Blue Ridge.11 This
unsettled situation gave rise to another secret organization, the
Ku Klux Klan. This group was organized in Tennessee probably in
June of 1866, and on June 5,1867, it held an anniversary parade in
�Long is the Night / 371
Pulaski, Tennessee. Its original purpose was stated as being the
protection of women and families and defense in case of attack.
The attack, it seemed to assume, would come from the Freedman's
Bureau or the Union League or the Heroes of America. Under
three separate but allied "Brotherhoods" the Klan entered North
Carolina in 1867.12
The Klan was a secret organization, and its activities were
directed against members of both the Union League and the
Heroes of America. Its leaders saw in it a means of maintaining
white supremacy; however, many of the small farmers joining it
were not concerned with far-reaching or philosophical objectives. They were led to believe that they were avenging atrocities
committed by the newly freed Negroes and the white people who
had joined them in the Union League or the Heroes of America.
Klan members, along with their leaders, objected to the Negroes
being given the political right of voting and the opportunity of
getting an education. They readily accepted the stories related to
them by their leaders of atrocities committed by Negroes. The
Klan at its secret meeings made plans for revenge and the methods
of carrying them out. Then a group of members usually masked
and riding at night, "warned" the victim. If the warning was not
heeded, Klansmen at a second visit administered whippings and
might also destroy property. In some cases this or a third visit
resulted in the murder of the victim. It is estimated that the Klan
in North Carolina had a membership of 40,000 and it has also been
estimated that in this state the Klan was responsible for 260 attacks
that included seven murders and the whipping of 141 Negroes and
72 whites.13
In Western North Carolina, Rutherford and Polk Counties
suffered the most from Klan activities and from raiders going
about the countryside in Klan disguises. Recently returned to
Rutherfordton from a newspaper venture in Asheville, Randolph
Shotwell was asked to take over leadership of the Klan there. He
agreed to the request although he claimed never to have been a
member of the organization. It may have been too late for
moderation. At any rate, Shotwell was unwilling or unable to
control the lawless element now working inside the lodges and
those carrying out their midnight rides. Several incidents of
violence aroused widespread tension.
One such "visitation" was to the home of Aaron Biggerstaff, a
former Union scout, now considered a community trouble maker.
His daughter saved him from an attempted hanging, and he
�372 / Chapter Twenty Two
N. C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
Vance at Lenoir in 1876: Wherever Vance went during his many campaign trips about the
state, crowds like this one at Lenoir greeted him and eagerly listened to his speeches.
claimed to recognize some of his assailants. These men were
arrested under federal warrants. Aaron Biggerstaff and his
daughter, on their way to court as witnesses, were again "visited"
as they stopped at Grassy Branch on May 12 to spend the night.
Little known as these people were, this case created a tense
situation. George W. Logan, Judge of the Superior Court of the
Ninth District, reported the incidents to Washington. Officials
entered the scene and arrested thirty-five of the old man's
neighbors.14
Other incidents involved people holding more prominent
positions. One of these was James M. Justice, Republican
Representative from Rutherford County in the General
Assembly. He had been a frequent speaker at the Union League
meetings. On Sunday night, June 11, two groups of masked men
rode into Rutherfordton and captured Representative Justice,
demanding that he stop his propaganda and that he leave town.
Justice later claimed to have recognized some of his attackers, and
those he named were arrested. The riders on that Sunday night
�Long is the Night / 373
also broke into the office of the Rutherford Star and wrecked its
equipment. They arrested Robert Logan, son of Judge Logan, and
J. B. Carpenter, owners of this active Republican newspaper.15
All of these outrages were reported to Washington, resulting
in the passage of the Ku Klux Klan Act. It banned all secret
societies and increased the penalties for the violations of the
Fourteenth Amendment. It also established punishments for
violations of the newly ratified Fifteenth Amendment and
allowed suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in areas of
disorder. Additional troops were sent into the state, and a
detachment of soldiers was sent to Rutherfordton. There many
arrests were made, and among the men arrested was Randolph
Shotwell. In September he was taken from the Rutherfordton jail
to Marion and then to Raleigh where he was one of the 981 North
Carolinians indicted by the Federal Grand Jury on charges of
participating in Ku Klux Klan activities. He was sent to a federal
prison in Albany, New York, where he spent two years before
being pardoned by President Grant.16
As early as 1868 the Reconstruction Assembly eyed with alarm
the spread of the Ku Klux Klan. In October, 1869, William W.
Holden, now Governor by popular vote, issued a proclamation
declaring the conditions in Lenoir, Jones, Orange, and Chatham
Counties bordering on insurrection. In January, 1870, the General
Assembly passed the Shoffner Act enabling the Governor to
declare a state of insurrection in lawless counties and to call out
the militia to squelch disorders. He was also granted the privilege
of hiring detectives. In light of the numerous 'Visitations" by the
Klan that resulted in the deaths of a Negro office holder and a
white senator, who was also a detective, Alamance, Chatham,
Caswell, and Orange Counties were considered dangerous
counties by the administration. Two of these counties, Caswell
and Chatham, were declared to be in a state of insurrection.
Orange County was later added to this list as the condition in these
counties steadily deteriorated.17
In June Governor Holden asked Colonel George W. Kirk to
organize state troops and to police the area. In Marshall,
Burnsville, and Asheville handbills then appeared calling upon all
those who had been in Kirk's Third North Carolina and Tennessee
Volunteer Infantry of the Union to rally to their old Colonel and
join his regiment. Recalling the havoc Kirk's raiding units had
wrought in the mountains, distressed citizens of Asheville
petitioned Governor Holden not to raise troops, and above all, not
�374 / Chapter Twenty Two
E. DOUGLAS DE PEW AND BOB LINDSEY PHOTO
A Still in the Mountains: Until the Civil War no restriction had been placed on the
manufacturing of spirituous drinks. Almost every farm had its still. After that war, federal
officers came into the mountains to collect the liquor taxes levied by the national government.
Farmers then hid their stills and protected them with whatever means necessary. Stills
continue to be hidden in unlikely places as is shown in this posed picture.
to put Colonel George W. Kirk in charge of them. The petition
went unheeded, and by early July Kirk had raised a force of about
600 men, ranging in age from 16 or 17 to 60 or 70 years of age.18
Military courts were set up, and Kirk obtained from Governor
�Long is the Night / 375
Holden a list of men to arrest, a list that had been made up by
Republicans.19 The list included men from almost every official
position, every age bracket, and every social position. Many were
prominent men.
Among them wasjosiah Turner, editor of The Raleigh Sentinal
in which Governor Holden had been sharply criticized. Arrests
made in these counties aroused the entire state. One of the
sharpest criticisms was the refusal to honor writs of habeas corpus
issued for the release of those arrested. In an attempt to restore
order, George W. Brooks, Federal Judge, then issued writs of
habeas corpus requiring all prisoners taken during the purge to
appear before him at the next session of the court at Salisbury. To
Governor Holden this constituted interference by a federal
officer, and he appealed to President Ulysses S. Grant. In reply the
President ordered Governor Holden to honor the writs. The only
course left open to the Governor then was to order Colonel Kirk
to produce the prisoners and then to disband his regiment.
Following that, the Governor declared the state of insurrection at
an end. Technically, the "Kirk-Holden War" was finished.
Under pressure of the Enforcement Act passed by Congress on
May 31, 1870, and as a result of the "Kirk-Holden War," the
activities of all secret organizations gradually subsided.20
Another reason for the lessening of Klan activity was the 1870
election, which brought new Democratic members into the
General Assembly. The Democratic Party had been steadily
gaining strength during and after the Reconstruction Period;
moreover, Holden, both as Provisional Governor and then as
Governor, had lost the support of many politically prominent
leaders. The militia campaign conducted during the elections
meant his political defeat. At the December session of the General
Assembly the Democrats were strong enough to present a
resolution of impeachment against Governor Holden. Of the eight
charges placed against him, the Governor was found guilty on six,
which accused him of exceeding his authority in raising a militia
and of making illegal arrests. Western North Carolina was
represented at the trial, which lasted from February 2 to March
25, 1871, and was presided over by Judge Augustus S. Merrimon.
Joining him as counsels for the House Committee during the
proceedings were William A. Graham and Thomas Bragg.21
Neither at the impeachment nor later was Governor Holden
charged with personal misuse of state funds or of using his high
office for bettering his own financial fortunes. But certain
�376 / Chapter Twenty Two
decisions he made and certain acts of the Reconstruction
government, while not corrupt in themselves, almost completely
destroyed the assets of the state and also its credit. These acts
affected every section of North Carolina. The repudiation of the
state debts and the war debts brought widespread financial loss to
citizens already suffering from the loss of slaves, property, and
crops. This repudiation also closed every bank in the state and
swept away most of the Literary Fund, a large portion of which
had been invested in bank stock.22
With its state source of income gone, the state school system
could no longer survive. Making the collapse complete, Governor Holden refused to recognize Calvin Henderson Wiley as
Superintendent of Common Schools and declared the position
vacant. The General Assembly promptly abolished the office and
that of treasurer of the Literary Fund and turned what assets
remained in it into the public treasury. By almost superhuman
efforts, Calvin H. Wiley had kept the public schools in operation
during the years of conflict and had saved the Literary Fund from
being invested in Confederate and State war bonds. Now, he was
forced to watch the schools close, and for two years not a public
school in the state was in operation, from the first grade through
the University. In Western North Carolina the little log school
houses that had brought the beginnings of educational enlightenment to the hills stood silent, with sagging doors and empty
benches.23
Even though Governor Holden could not be accused of using
his office for personal gains, the government that he headed could
be. Before his downfall came, every county in the state had
suffered from the waste, extravagance, and in some instances,
from the deliberate fraud of men in positions of political
responsibility. Western North Carolina was a victim of the most
devastating of all of these frauds perpetrated in the name of
government.
The debilitating state of North Carolina's government during
Reconstruction had far-reaching ramifications. For example, in
answering Major William W. McDowell's plea for laborers from
Scotland, Gilbert B. Tennant in 1865 had offered the suggestion of
industry as a means of relieving the economic stress in Western
North Carolina. He pointed out that the region was admirably
adapted for industry, and he thought the time was ripe for forming
corporations in the mountain area. But industrial development
was not possible during the Reconstruction days. There was little
�Long is the Night / 377
private money to invest in business enterprises, and the lack of
transportation facilities and the tense, post-war conditions discouraged outside capital.
Roads and highways, neglected and abused during the war
years, were badly in need of repairs, even of rebuilding. Projected
railroads into the area had been halted soon after the outbreak of
the war. In 1865 stagecoaches were again in use, although they
were frequently delayed by the highway conditions. Mail service,
completely abandoned in 1861, was also resumed, but it was slow
and uncertain.24 At the close of the war, the railroads seized by the
federal government were returned to the state practically unfit
for use. Lack of equipment and materials needed for repairs—
even spikes—crippled the efficiency of those lines kept in the
hands of the state. Both Federal and Confederate armies had
destroyed bridges, water tanks, shops, cars, and rails. The state
and Confederate debts owed the railroads could never be
collected, and the sinking funds were almost a total loss. Damage
claims against the roads took most of the remaining assets; yet if
the railroads were to function, vast amounts would have to be
spent on repairs and new equipment.25
In spite of the bleak outlook, the people of Western North
Carolina still looked forward to the extension of the railroad over
the mountains. Stoneman's raiders had seriously damaged and in
some places utterly destroyed the completed section of the
Western North Carolina Railroad running from Salisbury to
Icard Station east of Morganton. In 1865 this railroad had only
three engines, one usable passenger car, and a small number of
freight cars. During the summer of that year temporary repairs
made it possible to provide three trips per week over the line. By
1869 there was daily service.26
At a meeting in Morganton in 1868 plans were revived for
extending the line westward. By this time a series of encouraging
legislative acts relating to the Western North Carolina Railroad
had been passed. The Assembly repealed the old clause on
sectional construction and authorized the state to subscribe two
thirds of the capital stock after the remaining one third had been
subscribed by private capital. The line was divided into two
divisions, with Asheville the line of separation. The Western
Division was to include both the Ducktown route and the Paint
Rock route. The Buncombe Turnpike Company was empowered
to grant the necessary right-of-way along the French Broad
River. Each division was to be organized into a new company,
�378 / Chapter Twenty Two
possessing a capital stock of $6,000,000.27
In 1867 contracts were let for that section of the Eastern
Division between Morganton and Old Fort and in the following
year for that from Old Fort to the western end of the projected
Swannanoa tunnel. George W. Swepson was made president of
the company that was duly formed for constructing the western
road. When the required $2,000,000 of stock had been subscribed
by citizens, Swepson let the contract for the Paint Rock branch to
Samuel Tate and the longer Ducktown route to General Milton S.
Littlefield. All of this Swepson reported to Governor Holden,
preparatory to receiving the state's bonds for its pledged
$4,000,000. During the next two years, Swepson and Littlefield
engineered a fraud for which Western North Carolina paid a high
price.28
General Milton Littlefield had come into North Carolina
during the Civil War and at its close had made his presence felt as
a banker in Raleigh. George W. Swepson was a native of the state.
He too, was a banker and through the influence of Governor
Holden was granted political favors, including the presidency of
the Western North Carolina Railroad.29 These two men formed
the nucleus of a small group of opportunists who used not only the
Western North Carolina Railroad, but eastern lines as well as a
means of funneling money from the state treasury and from
private capital into their own pockets. General Littlefield's role
was that of a lobbyist. He bribed members of the General
Assembly to pass laws favorable to Swepson's railroad interests,
and he bribed attorneys to secure decisions favorable to Swepson.
It has been estimated that more than $333,000 were paid out in
bribe money coming from the illegal sale of bonds intrusted to
George Swepson.30
During the year of Swepson's presidency, little actual work
was done on the roadbed of the Western Division. Because of a
rising tide of complaints, Swepson, as was permitted under the
original contracts, relet contracts for a 45-mile link of the Paint
Rock branch and a 55-mile link on the Ducktown road. Some
grading was done on both of these stretches, most of which was
useless by the time the road was actually constructed. At a
Director's meeting in Asheville in 1869, Swepson, using a
complaint of excessive criticism as his excuse, resigned as
president of the company. General Littlefield was then given that
position. He promised to push the work on the road, but by that
time there was little left with which to pay contractors and
workmen.31
�Long is the Night / 379
In March, 1870, a legislative committee was appointed to
investigate Swepson's widespread railroad affairs. With Nicholas
W. Woodfin of Asheville as chairman, this committee found the
transactions of both Swepson and Littlefield so involved that they
were never able to clarify all of them. Swepson was arrested and
for a time was held in Raleigh, and Littlefield was finally located
in London. Upon orders of the General Assembly, the committee
tried to retrieve what it could by making arrangements with the
two men individually for certain settlements. These yielded little,
however, since Littlefield made no attempt to honor his
agreements and the Florida railroad stock which was put up as
security by Swepson could not be collected because of a previously given lien on it.
Of the millions of dollars worth of state bonds that
disappeared, the committee was able to collect only $295,876.26.
The General Assembly repealed the railroad appropriation bills of
1868 and required all unsold bonds returned to the State
Treasurer. Later, all the bonds originally issued to Swepson were
repudiated. Because of this scandal, the state debt rose from
$15,000,000 to more than $28,000,000. Out of that vast fund the
counties west of the Blue Ridge got two short strips of graded
roadbed.32
Meantime, however, work on the Eastern Division had
progressed steadily, and late in 1869 the section from Morganton
to Old Fort was ready for use. The "Iron Horse" finally puffed its
way into the town where the fort built by the pioneers once stood
guard. Two years later much of the work of grading was
completed on the section between Old Fort and the projected
Swannanoa tunnel. Grading work was also in progress on the
section westward toward Asheville. By 1871 the Eastern Division,
although free from corruption, was in serious financial straits, but
it refused to purchase the Western Division offered it at a
foreclosure price. Four years later, on June 22, 1876, the Western
North Carolina Railroad was put up for sale and was purchased
for the state by Augustus S. Merrimon. Again the people of
Western North Carolina dared to hope for a railroad across their
mountains to the Tennessee border.
The Swepson-Littlefield scandal broke about the time of the
"Kirk-Holden War" and may have been a factor in the
Governor's impeachment. In 1874 the Democrats took full control
of the General Assembly, and in that year many of the Federal
troops were withdrawn. By 1876 the Reconstruction days were
over.
�C H A P T E R
T W E N T Y
T H R E E
Dawn Breaks Over the Mountains
the Reconstruction days, with their high taxes, their
unrest, and their secret organizations, hundreds of peace-loving
men and women said goodbye to their mountains and joined the
thousands of fellow North Carolinians leaving for new homes in
the beckoning West. Discouraged over conditions in their native
state, they sought, as had their forebears in coming to the
mountains, a place where they and their children might live in
peace and might prosper. But many of the veterans, discontented
with post-war conditions or preferring the life of woodmen, did
not leave the state. Instead, they moved west into the sparsely
settled sections of their own or nearby counties. They joined the
small number of hardy pioneers who had preceded them and were
joined by those coming from farther east. As a result, during this
period Western North Carolina gained two new county governments.1
In 1871 Swain County was formed from the western parts of
Jackson and Macon Counties. Quite appropriately it was named
for David Lowery Swain, the state's first Governor from Western
North Carolina. In this new county was one of North Carolina's
last great uninhabited areas. Its wild and magnificently forested
mountains culminated in the lofty Smokies, along whose crest
runs the dividing line between North Carolina and Tennessee. It
was in this region that Tsali and his band took their last stand
against the encroaching white man.
380
�Dawn Breaks Over the Mountains / 381
The bill for the formation of the county passed the General
Assembly on February 24, 1871, and the commissioners met for
their first meeting at Cold Springs Church. A tiny settlement on
the banks of the Tuckaseigee River, along which Indian villages
had once flourished, was selected as the county seat. The
following year a two-story courthouse was constructed there,
which also served as a school building and a church. The village
was known as Charleston, but when it was incorporated in 1887,
the name was changed to Bryson City, honoring Thaddeus Dillard
Bryson, through whose efforts the county had been formed.2
When, years later, the Smoky Mountain National Park was
formed, approximately two thirds of the area of Swain County
were transferred by North Carolina to the Federal Government.
Its lands were also taken for the T V A project at Fontana. For a
quarter of a century after its organization citizens of the county,
except those in the village of Bryson City, lived the lives of
mountain pioneers, repeating the farmer-woodsman type of life
practiced by their forebears. It was not until the mid 1880's that a
railroad would pass through the county on its way to Tennessee.
This would link Swain County with the counties farther east and
would foreshadow the coming of industries to be followed by a
slowly changing pattern of life.
In 1872 the second of these westernmost counties was formed
from the northern section of Cherokee County. It was given the
name of Graham, in honor of William A. Graham, who as a young
Whig member of the General Assembly had advocated Murphey's
reform measures, including railroads for the western section of
the state. Graham's later political career had included a seat in the
United States Senate, the governorship of his state, and the post of
Secretary of Navy. The village of Robbinsville, the last home of
Junaluska, was selected as the county seat and a courthouse was
there erected. Like Swain to the east of it, Graham is an area of
mountains with only a small amount of its land suitable for
farming. Its first citizens combined hunting with working their
hillside farms in sheltered coves. This county, too, borders
Tennessee and reaches its highest altitude in the Unicoi Range that
is shared by the two states.3
In spite of the dissatisfaction and unrest of the people in this
Reconstruction period, thousands of men and women in every
county in Western North Carolina remained on their farms.
Looking for a better future as they quietly repaired the damages
wrought by the war, these tenacious people planted and harvested
�382 / Chapter Twenty Three
! ij: . ,...." ?J*B-^
*5l5:^j^2i?J'!<«iSI?'V*'W€ll: ,* . 5'f 1 " •;.
'j*?' - '""
•~i'?9ii?f? ; *J^f'fw^i '. ; ' ; '??^ "' z!¥r^'.-f'TV-js^KJL'"st*'-/
:
.
�Dawn Breaks Over the Mountains / 383
ILLUSTRATED MAP BY AURION PROCTOR IN THE RAILROAD
MAGAZINE,
DEC., 1943
The Railroad Crosses the Blue Ridge: Spanning the Blue Ridge with bands of steel was a
constant contest between determined men and resisting mountains. Between Old Fort and
Ridgecrest, a distance of 3.4 miles as the crow flies, the curving tracks made 10 complete
circles and covered 12 miles.
w-v,': .-i'.!=•:'*;"." ***••*:
�384 /
Chapter Twenty Three
their crops and built up their herds of cattle, horses, and hogs.
Under the old county system main highways were gradually made
passable again. Once more in the autumn months clouds of dust
billowed over them as the noisy droves of animals made their way
to southern markets. Again the stand keepers bought the farmers'
corn and furnished them with supplies in return. But compared
with the pre-war droves, these tramping animals were few in
number, for neither the South Carolinians nor the freed Negroes
on the plantations could now afford to "eat high off the hog."
Then, too, railroads were pushing westward resulting in fewer
tramping animals from states to the north.4
Forges were once more turning out tools as well as iron bars
that could be fashioned into needed articles at the home forges.
The water-powered mills continued grinding the farmers' grain
into flour and meal, and new cards were now available, making
the housewife's work easier. On winter days with a rhythmic
thumping of her loom she turned out the coverlets and yards of
linsey-woolsey that made her family comfortable. The traveling
cobbler resumed his rounds, working up the tanned leather into
sturdy shoes that ranged in size from the miniature ones for the
toddlers to the boots large enough and strong enough to endure a
man's tramping in all kinds of weather over the fields and hills and
through the woods. Returning ministers opened many of the
closed "church houses," and "preachings," "singings," "cemetery workings," and family gatherings gave a sense of restored
normal living to the mountain communities.
Gradually, too, a sense of security returned. With the
exposure of the government excesses and scandals, resulting in a
Conservative majority in the General Assembly and the
impeachment of Governor Holden, many of the carpetbaggers
left the state. The federal enforcement of the Ku Klux Klan Law
subdued the activities of that organization as well as those of the
Union League and the Red Strings, allowing for the restoration of
law and order.
In 1875 Western North Carolina sent its quota of delegates to
the Constitutional Convention called by the General Assembly.
This Convention, made up of an equal number of Democrats and
Republicans and three Independent members, revised the 1868
Constitution by the addition of some thirty amendments. Among
the changes was one by which the county justices of the peace
were to be appointed by the General Assembly. The number of
Supreme Court Judges was reduced from five to three, and the
�Dawn Breaks Over the Mountains / 385
number of Superior Court Judges from twelve to nine. Negro and
white schools were to be separately but equally maintained, and
secret political societies were banned.5
In 1876 the pre-war spirit of political fervor again sprang into
life throughout the mountain area, as it did everywhere in the
state. Zebulon Baird Vance, Western North Carolina's favorite
son and North Carolina's honored war-time Governor, was again
a candidate for the state's highest office. He represented the
Conservatives, who earlier had affiliated with the national
Democratic Party. His opponent was Thomas Settle of
Rockingham County. Settle was a man of recognized ability and
integrity and was a former Supreme Court Judge of North
Carolina. The campaign was carefully planned by both party
organizations, and Vance and Settle toured the state together and
faced each other on open-air platforms. Their main speeches
lasted an hour and a half, after which they refuted and ridiculed
each other's claims in half hour rebuttals. Each man interspersed
his speeches with jokes, anecdotes, and jibes at the expense of his
opponent.
The people of Western North Carolina crowded into the
county seats for these political rallies. Mountain-bred Zebulon
Baird Vance spoke the language of the mountain people.
Hundreds had heard him in earlier campaigns, and there were
those who had been in his regiment in the early part of the war.
They knew that nowhere was his equal in clear, forceful thinking
and speaking, in hilarious story-telling, and in witty rebuttal. So it
was that Rutherfordton, boasting a population of slightly more
than 1,000, overflowed with a crowd of more than 4,000 when
Vance and Settle appeared in the village.6
On August 3, 1876, the farmers of Mitchell County, many of
whom had fought each other through four years of war (and had
continued to do so in trials and law suits and feuds during the
troubled years that had followed) jostled each other along the
roads and trails leading into Bakersville. They stood shoulder to
shoulder as they listened spell-bound to the verbal battle between
Vance and Settle. The town had prepared for the rally and was
gala with banners made by the women and strung across the
street. Processions of party members formed and, led by their
musicians, marched out of the village to meet their respective
candidates and to escort them with proper fanfare to the rallying
place.7 Never had this border county witnessed such an
assemblage, and political fervor mounted as each candidate aimed
�386 / Chapter Twenty Three
N. C, DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
Hydraulic Work: In the absence of explosives such as dynamite, railroad workers poured
water over heated rocks to crack away jutting ledges.
his barbs and shafts at vulnerable spots in his opponent's
arguments.
Similar rallies were held in other Western North Carolina
towns, and perhaps nowhere in the state were the election returns
more eagerly awaited than in the western counties where a man's
Republican vote might be offset by his neighbor's Democratic
ballot. With the election of Vance by a comfortable if not large
majority, the Democrats were once more in full control of North
Carolina, and Western North Carolina again had a man in the
governor's chair. The carpetbag rule was over, and in 1875 federal
troops were withdrawn from the state. The mountain people,
�Dawn Breaks Over the Mountains / 387
even those who had cast their votes for Settle, now hoped for
economic recovery.
Both the Governor and the General Assembly were concerned
with economy measures that would inspire confidence. They
were also eager to fulfill campaign pledges of reduced taxes, but
at the same time two projects were recognized as worthy of state
aid and demanding immediate attention. One was the westward
extension of railroads; the other was the acute problem of public
education. The Constitution of 1868 made provision for a state
system of schools that would furnish free education to children
and young people between the ages of six and twenty-one.
Primary schools were to be operated for at least four months each
year.8 But little had been done to carry out these provisions, and
for two years all schools in the state were closed. In 1870 in North
Carolina fifty per cent of all citizens over ten years of age were
illiterate.9 In his 1872 report to Alexander Mclver, State
Superintendent of Instruction, Haywood's county official
described the school conditions in Western North Carolina when
he penned this dismal statement: "Our school system is a
failure."10
Many factors combined to counteract the efforts to reopen
and to maintain the public schools. The basic one was lack of
funds. The remaining assets of the old Literary Fund had been
diverted to other purposes, and the appropriation made by the
General Assembly in 1869 was never paid.11 In 1870 the State
Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a clause in the state law
providing for local school taxes. New and more effective school
laws were from time to time passed, but no effective machinery
was set up for their enforcement.12 Under a law passed in 1873,
however, a township without funds for operating even one school
could levy, upon the vote of the people, a special school tax.13
Paying an extra tax was impossible for most farmers in Western
North Carolina, many of whom were fortunate to have twenty to
thirty dollars in cash in a year.
During the early years of Reconstruction some of the teachers
sent into the area were from the North and were distrusted by the
people.14 But more important was the fact that many of the little
log school houses had been destroyed during the war, and those
remaining were badly in need of repairs. The state would assume
only half of the cost of construction or repairs. Textbooks were
also a problem.15 The supply of school books, purchased from
Northern printers, was cut off at the beginning of the war.
�388 / Chapter Twenty Three
N. C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
Round Knob and Mill: From Round Knob three levels of tracks can be seen. In the
foreground is a water-powered mill.
Following an educational meeting in July, 1861, school books were
hastily written by school leaders in the state. They were printed
on the poor, yellowing paper turned out by newly established
mills, and once in the hands of pupils, they were short-lived. As
late as 1876 there were no depositories for books in the counties,
and old copies were soon lost.16 Like those in the early pioneer
days, the schools were then forced to use as texts whatever books
could be gathered from the homes, regardless of subject matter or
grade level. "Anything we can get" was the standard many an
official reported concerning books used in his district. A majority
of the pupils had no texts of their own.17
To make practical use of the meager and varied assortment of
books at hand required skillful adaptation by experienced
teachers. But their number was few. Certification of teachers had
from the first been generously done, and now as schools reopened,
county examiners at times issued certificates on the basis of the
financial need of the applicant or to any neighbor who could be
induced to apply. The pay was low, as it had always been, and the
four months' term could not be reached. Often it was ten weeks in
a year. No attempt was made to enforce the compulsory
attendance law, requiring at least sixteen months in either public
�Dawn Breaks Over the Mountains / 389
or private school between a child's sixth and his eighteenth
birthday.18
In the western counties having a Negro population there was
the added burden of maintaining separate schools for the Negro
children. Some mountain counties had no Negro children of
school age. Some had too few to justify the expense of a school and
had to make other arrangements for the education of those
children. One township in Macon County reported one little
Negro girl for whom the officials were making arrangements for
schooling. Mitchell County reported too few Negro children in
any one district for a school, and the children were too scattered
to attend a centrally located school. One district in Transylvania
County reported no Negro school in operation because no teacher
was available.19
In his opening address to the General Assembly Governor
Vance urged the establishment of at least two normal schools. As a
result, a summer normal school for white teachers was set up at
the University at Chapel Hill, and one for Negro teachers was
established at Fayetteville. Both proved popular.20 After 1877 any
township having a population of five thousand or more had the
authority, upon a petition of a hundred voters, to submit to the
public the question of establishing a graded, eight-month school
through the levying of a special school tax. Under this law
Buncombe County voted such a tax, and two years later the
village of Lenoir was empowered to submit a similar referendum
to the voters.21
In order to bring the teacher training program closer to the
people, the summer school at the University was discontinued, to
be replaced by short term normals held in various parts of the
state. Three of these were held in Western North Carolina—at
Sparta, Franklin, and Asheville.22 From time to time new laws
were made under which more taxes were appropriated for the
school fund and more efficient use was made of each county's
share. In 1881 a county Superintendent of Schools replaced the
county examiner, and the lax third grade certificate for teaching
was discarded.23
Later the short term normals were replaced with county
institutes, which teachers were required to attend. Then Edwin
A. Alderman and Charles D. Mclver, two dedicated educators,
were employed by the state as institute leaders. They worked with
the teachers, citizens, and local organizations in bringing improvement and prestige to the public schools. They were aided
�390 / Chapter Twenty Three
N. C. DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
The Swannanoa. Tunnel: The Salisbury, one of two locomotives used, was taken across
the mountain so that this tunnel might be worked from both directions. On March 11, 1879,
(t
Daylight entered Buncombe County, grades and centers meeting exactly."
in this by the Farmers' Alliance, in which thousands of the state's
farmers held membership. Even so, in many of the mountain
communities schools continued to be taught by poorly paid and
poorly prepared teachers. Equipment and books were still
inadequate, and in some districts not more than fifty per cent of
the community children attended school. In far too many
mountain valleys and coves this condition prevailed until the
dawn of a new century.24
Since the public schools of Western North Carolina were
inefficient or lacking, church and privately owned schools that
had closed during the war were reopened, and new ones were
established. Many of the new ones were made possible by funds
from Northern people genuinely interested in the educational
problems of the mountain area. Other private institutions were
established by North Carolinians who saw little prospect of the
public schools meeting the pressing needs for education.
In Rutherford County both the Male and Female Academies in
the county seat were reopened. Oak Hill, Round Hill, and Burnt
Chimney Academies also resumed operation, with several private
schools giving instruction to primary children.25 In 1868 Robert
�Dawn Breaks Over the Mountains / 391
Abernethy began the school in Burke County that grew into
Rutherford College.26The Academy in Sparta also reopened, and
others were established in Alleghany County. In spite of the fact
that its boarding house had been destroyed during the war, the
Finley School for Boys at Lenoir reopened as students returned
from the army.27
The same pattern prevailed west of the Blue Ridge. At
Burnsville the Yancey Collegiate Institute, in operation for some
years prior to the war, reopened its doors to continue serving until
the 1890's. The college established by the Baptists at Mars Hill
weathered the stormy Reconstruction days and had continued to
serve the mountain area and the state as an outstanding church
college. Weaverville College, incorporated in 1856, occupied the
site of an old Methodist campground. It, too, reopened after the
war. In Asheville the Lee School for Boys reopened while in 1887
the Northern Presbyterians established a Normal School on a tract
of land which today is the site of the Memorial Mission Hospital.
A school building was started in Hendersonville by the
Baptists on the eve of the war. A part of the unfinished building
was used briefly as barracks by federal cavalry units during their
passage through the town. The school was completed in 1873 and
became the home of the Western North Carolina Female College.
Among its students for a period of time were about one hundred
Cherokee girls placed there by the federal government. In time it
became a co-educational school and, when sold by the Baptists,
was reorganized as Judson College.28 During the last decade of the
nineteenth century practically every town or village had an
academy and a mission primary school. Some of those academies
have today become parts of the University of North Carolina.29
During the last score of years of the fading century the longcherished dream of the mountain people for a railroad became a
reality. As the new century dawned, railroad engines were
puffing their way along the rails, trailing strings of freight cars
along the valley floors, over the mountain grades, and through the
tunnels. The clouds of smoke that testified to the efforts they were
forced to make could be seen from Old Fort to Murphy and from
Tryon to Paint Rock. Gleaming, newly laid rails connected towns
in the eastern foothills with each other and with the east and the
south.
With the incompleted Western North Carolina Railroad
now the property of the state, construction of the Western
�392 / Chapter Twenty Three
N. C.DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
The Salisbury: Locomotive 25, the little wood-burning Salisbury, is on a trestle by the
French Broad River near Asheville.
Division began on the first day of October, 1875. By the end of
1876 the records showed a disappointingly small profit. Despite
the cheap convict labor furnished by the state for pushing the
road westward, only three additional miles of track had been laid.
The General Assembly then declared the Western Division a
corporation, having a total stock of $850,000. The next year a
twelve-member Board of Directors assumed control with Major
James W. Wilson as president.30 During the next three years,
working under the most difficult physical conditions and under a
constant financial strain, Wilson and his chief engineer, Colonel
�Dawn Breaks Over the Mountains / 393
Thaddeus Coleman, and their assistants took the road across the
Blue Ridge.
Since Colonial times, the abrupt and forbidding granite walls
of this range had said to the white man, "This far shalt thou go and
no farther." At last the mountains were conquered by parallel
ribbons of steel, making the East and the West one. The gaily
bedecked stagecoach drawn by "six fine horses" that had taken
passengers from the railroad terminal at Henry, just west of Old
Fort, over the Blue Ridge to Asheville could now eliminate the
precipitous curves of the Swannanoa Gap.31 Early in 1880 it was
picking up its westward traveling passengers at the terminal near
Azalea, seven miles from Asheville. Freight wagons rumbled with
their loads over the shortened route to warehouses in the
mountain towns.31
The Blue Ridge had not tamely submitted to man's determined efforts to conquer it. Every step of the way it fought
the engineers and their laborers with slides of rock and rainsoaked earth and with grades so steep that the only hope of
successfully navigating them was gouging out tunnels through the
solid rock walls. Indeed, the story of this engineering feat reads
like a modern version of the ancient tale of the Aegean stables.
Work on the short sections of grading done four years earlier was
practically lost, and new surveys were necessary over the range
itself. These showed that the only method to combat the sudden
rise in altitude would be a looping track and a series of tunnels.
With the help of five hundred convict laborers furnished by
the state, Wilson and his assistant engineer, H. Heaton Coleman,
laid a curving track that doubled and redoubled on itself, enough,
it was said, to make almost eight complete circles. This looping
required 9 miles of rails to cover 3.4 miles, but it insured a
negotiable grade over the 1,092 foot ascent. Shearing the jutting
towers of rocks down to the level of the roadbed meant removing
tons of mountain wall and often the forming of narrow gorges, a
backbreaking task for the convicts. They had picks and shovels as
their tools, and with the help of ox and mule teams, the laborers
dragged away the boulders and carted off the finer debris in
wheelbarrows.32 Now and then a sudden storm or a landslide
would undo the labor of days or even of weeks. These events were
numerous, but the most disastrous of them all occurred at Mud
Tunnel. There, when all but some 8,000 of the 77,000 cubic yards
�394 / Chapter Twenty Three
of earth and rock necessary to be removed had been cleared away,
a series of landslides crashed down the mountain sides. They filled
the man-made cut with 110,000 cubic yards of rock and debris,
every boulder and pebble and grain of which had to be removed.33
The blue prints called for seven tunnels, ranging in length
from 89 to 1,800 feet. Their construction presented the project's
greatest problems, both to the engineers and to the workmen.
Holes for the blasting of the rock had to be hand-drilled and are
visible today, mute evidence of the prodigious human efforts
expended in the struggle between determined men and resisting
mountains. These holes were filled with a paste made on the spot
by mixing nitroglycerine with sawdust and corn meal.34 When
work began on the Swannanoa Tunnel, longest of the series,
Wilson and Coleman conceived the bold idea of getting a
locomotive over the crest of the ridge so that work could be
carried on from the western as well as the eastern portal. In
defiance of the mountain's forbidding slope and height, temporary
skid tracks were laid across the range. Over it the "Salisbury,"
one of the two locomotives in use on the eastern end of the tunnel,
was hauled and pushed by the sheer, main force of straining oxen
and crews of sweating men.
With the construction proceeding from both directions, the
work progressed so that Major Wilson was able on March 11,
1879, to send the following well-known telegram to Governor
Vance: "Daylight entered Buncombe today through Swannanoa
Tunnel. Grade and centers met exactly." The seemingly
impossible had been accomplished. But the Blue Ridge had taken
its toll, not only in the form of physical efforts that sometimes
stretched the point of human endurance, but also in accidents
claiming lives. Nearly 125 convicts, toiling under the poised guns
of guards, paid the supreme sacrifice in order that the counties of
Western North Carolina beyond the Blue Ridge might have the
benefits of a railroad.35
On October 3, 1880, every one of the 2,610 citizens of
Asheville who were able to put one foot ahead of the other
assembled to see the town's first train pull into the tiny station.
The village was in a holiday mood, for each one prophesied that
this long awaited event was the dawn of a new day for the
Western Highlands, a day that would bring a prosperity never
before known in the mountains. In addition to the freight cars
bringing commodities into the area and taking out the produce of
the region, the trains now crossing the Blue Ridge from Salisbury
�Dawn Breaks Over the Mountains / 395
soon boasted one passenger-coach. It had a central division so that
one half of it was the first-class section on the westward trip, and
the other half claimed that distinction on the returning eastward
journey. Once out of the mountains, these trains gained enough
speed to cover the distance of 120 miles from Henry to Salisbury
between daylight and dark, stopping at Hickory for the mid-day
meal.36
Shortly before the road reached Asheville, it was sold by the
state to William J. Best of New York City and his associates. They
took over the $850,000 mortgage and agreed to extend the line
westward to Murphy and along the French Broad River to Paint
Rock. The state, which in the transaction lost all it had invested in
the road prior to October 1, 1875, agreed to furnish convict
laborers for the company's combined projects. For several years
an economy group in the General Assembly had been advocating a
retraction of the state's railroad enterprises. The income received
by the state from the three lines in which it had significant
investments had always been negligible, and it was argued that the
roads could be leased or sold, using money thus realized to
advantage in furthering education in the state.
As a result, a proposal to merge the three roads, making a
great east-west trunk line extending from the coast to Murphy,
failed; and in 1871 the North Carolina Railroad was leased to the
Richmond, Danville System for thirty years, thus passing out of
the control of North Carolina. Shortly afterward, the lessees
further separated the road from other North Carolina lines by
changing its guage to conform to the Virginia lines held by the
company. Now the old Western Division of the Western North
Carolina Railroad likewise passed out of the hands of the state. For
the third time it was organized as the Western North Carolina
Railroad, but it, too, shortly became the property of the
Richmond, Danville System. Later, when that road was
transferred to the receivers, these lines were taken over by the
newly organized Southern Railway Company. In 1895 it secured a
ninety-nine year lease of the Western North Carolina Railroad.37
In the meantime, both routes through the mountains to points
on the Tennessee border were completed. The route following the
French Broad River used a part of the old Turnpike bed, but in
some sections a new roadway had to be blasted from the solid
walls of the river gorge. The work was slow, but it progressed
steadily until 1882 when the last spike was driven that connected
the newly laid tracks with those in Tennessee. Because of the
�396 /
Chapter Twenty Three
difference in the gauge of the lines, however, all freight had to be
unloaded from one train and reloaded onto the other. The
workmen from the completed section were transferred to the
western route. Construction of this segment had been progressing
satisfactorily, and in 1882 a train puffed its way into Waynesville,
to be enthusiastically welcomed by the citizens of that village.38
From Waynesville westward the engineers ran into construction difficulties, for between Waynesville and Murphy the road
had to cross both the Balsam Range and the Nantahalas. Earlier
plans for tunnels through these barriers had to be abandoned,
necessitating a rerouting of the track through wild mountain
terrain and over the crests of these towering ranges. In the
Balsams that meant attaining an altitude of 3,315 feet above sea
level. The problems connected with the work in this difficult
territory greatly delayed the completion of the road. The
company asked for and received an extension of the construction
time allotted in their contract with the state. But by 1891 these
lofty mountains, like the Blue Ridge to the east, had been
conquered, and freight trains were pulling into the switching
yards at Murphy.39 The great east-west line envisioned by
Caldwell and advocated by Clingman had at last become a reality.
But it was not the transportation system of their dreams. Nor did
the educational fund ever receive one penny from the sale of this
western road.
Chartered in 1855, the Spartanburg-Asheville section of the
old French Broad Railroad began long-deferred westward
construction from its Spartanburg terminal in 1873. Slowly the
track crept over the Blue Ridge. The original plans called for the
road to pass through Columbus and along Tryon Mountain and
across Howard's Gap, passing through a series of tunnels. These
plans were now abandoned and a new survey made. To avoid the
tunnels the track was laid up the steep mountain to Saluda. This
was a prodigious feat of mountain construction, for in one threemile section the bed had to climb 600 feet and at some points the
grade was 220 feet per mile. On the steepest part two safety tracks
were laid, and the trains required an additional engine from
Melrose to the village of Saluda.
As on the Old Fort-Asheville road, convict labor was used on
this line after it crossed into North Carolina. Once again, the wild
terrain took its toll of lives, and nineteen graves mark the resting
place of convicts killed in accidents. But the Blue Ridge was
forced to yield to the human endeavor, and in 1882 trains were
�Dawn Breaks Over the Mountains / 397
passing over the rails into Hendersonville. There the road
terminated until work was again resumed in 1883, and the line
reached Asheville in 1886, connecting with the roads to Paint
Rock and the branch creeping westward from Waynesville.40
The old pre-war plan for a line from Georgia to Knoxville,
worked out by the Blue Ridge Railroad Company and intended to
pass down the Hiwassee River, took form in the shorter Marietta
and North Georgia Railroad with thirteen miles of track in
Cherokee County on the route to Tennessee. Its tracks reached
Murphy three years earlier than did those of the Western North
Carolina line. In 1894 a line was constructed from Henderson ville
to Rosman. Chartered as the Hendersonville-Brevard Railroad, it
was reorganized as the Transylvania Railroad and later, like other
roads west of the mountains, became a part of the Southern
Railway System.41
During the last two decades of the nineteenth century the
railroads extended their lines, and the General Assembly
chartered new ones in the counties just east of the Blue Ridge.
Some of these progressed no farther than the charters, but others
sold the required amount of stock and set about building their road
beds. The enormous cost of railroad construction and the heavy
upkeep of road beds and equipment after the lines were in
operation, together with the nation-wide depression following
the 1873 panic, affected railroads throughout the country.
Bankruptcy was the fate of some of the new companies, resulting
in reorganizations and recharterings. There were also consolidations of roads through merger, purchase, lease, or the
absorption of small lines by larger ones. With all of these frequent
changes in the railroad pattern, Western North Carolina was
being supplied with needed railroads.42 By 1890 a line was in
operation from Spartanburg, South Carolina, through Rutherfordton to Marion. To the towns in Western North Carolina this
meant connections also with Camden, South Carolina. In 1884 a
road linked Lenoir with Lincoln ton and Charlotte.43 One more
railroad would come to this area in the new century, and once
more the Blue Ridge would submit to parallel rows of steel linking
counties to the west with their neighbors to the east.
Western North Carolina was, after long years of waiting,
getting its railroads. With them came the beginning of a new day
in the mountains. It would be a day when once more the people
could follow the pursuits of peace, and they could say, as Henry
Woodward had written two hundred years earlier, "We have
discovered a country so delitious."
�398 / Chapter Twenty Three
THE STEPHENS PRESS, INC.
The Statue of Vance in the U. S. Capitol: In 1879 Governor Vance resigned his office to
enter Congress as a United States Senator.
�Dawn Breaks Over the Mountains / 399
THE STEPHENS PRESS, INC.
The Vance Monument:
Square in Asheville.
This monument to Buncombe County's native son is on Pack
�CHAPTER NOTES
Explanation: In the Chapter Notes, references to Collections
are by title only. After their first appearance, other references,
where clear, are by authors only.
CHAPTER 1
The Land of Mountains
1. Jasper L. Stuckey and Warren G. Steel, The Geology and Mineral Resources
of North Carolina, 3.
2. Ibid.
3. H. J. Bryson, The Story of the Geological Making of North Carolina, 13.
4. Stuckey and Steel, 5-6.
5. Ibid., 6.
6. Ibid.
7. In some places in the Smokies the shales and limestones of the
Ordovician period are actually below the older Ocoee rocks owing to
this over thrust.
8. The oldest life forms found in the region are in Cades Cove. These
fossils belong to the Ordovician period. Stuckey and Steel, 31.
9. Ibid., 4.
10. The ancestor of the Pigeon River flowed east and south into an ancient
French Broad River near the site of the present Asheville. It reversed its
flow northward, leaving a section of its old bed dry. Other Haywood
County streams show that they once flowed east, while beds of yet
other ancient rivers can still be discerned, mute evidences of the work
of pirate streams. See W. C. Allen's Annals of Haywood County, 11-12.
11. The fascinating geological history of Western North Carolina is traced
through succeeding geological ages by Bryson and by Phillip B. King
and Arthur Stupka in "The Great Smoky Mountains—Their Geology
and Natural History," Scientific Monthly, LXXXI, 31-43. See also Henry
S. Sharpe, "The Geologic Story" in The Great Smoky Mountains and the
Blue Ridge, 290-319.
12. Stuckey and Steel, 9.
13. Early Travels in the Tennessee Country, 193. Henry Timberlake, in the
Upper Cherokee towns on a good will tour in 1761, found that the
400
�Notes / 401
13. Early Travels in the Tennessee Country, 193. Henry Timberlake, in the
Upper Cherokee towns on a good will tour in 1761, found that the
Cherokees had ornaments of gold and silver and copper and that they
had gems. Some of these were so fine that they were used only in the
religious ceremonies. See his Memoirs, 57-103.
14. The gold deposits and their effects upon Western North Carolina are
treated in Chapter XIII.
15. See Stuckey and Steel for a list of the mineral deposits, 26-33.
16. King and Stupka, 41; Charles A. Shull, The Lure of Western North Carolina
for the Explorer-Naturalists,
17. Bill Lord, Nature Notes on the Blue Ridge Parkway,
18. Donald C. Peattie, "Men, Mountains, and Trees," in The Great Smoky
Mountains and the Blue Ridge, 152-171; King and Stupka, 40.
19. William Bartram, climbing up the mountain ranges in May, 1775,
recorded his amazement as he watched spring give way to winter.
Travels Through North and South Carolina, 273-275. Charles Lanman,
traveling on horseback from Franklin to the Qualla Reservation in May
1848, noted this same rapid shifting of the seasons. Adventures in the Wilds
of the United States and the British American Provinces, 1, 385. See also King
and Stupka, 41.
20. King and Stupka, 43.
21. The display of wild flowers is not as extensive as it was before the
white man came to cultivate the land and to clear the forests. William
Bartram, viewing the flame azalea on a mountainside, wrote: "We are
alarmed with the apprehension of the hill being set on fire," Travels
Through North and South Carolina, 264.
22. The parade of blooms and hence of color through the months is given by
Stupka in "Through the Year in the Great Smoky Mountain National
Park, Month by Month," in The Great Smoky Mountains and the Blue Ridge,
263-289.
23. King and Stupka, 40.
24. Ibid.
CHAPTER 2
Eden Is Discovered
1. Miguel Cavarrubias, The Eagle, the Jaguar, and the Serpent, Chap. II. John
R. Swan ton traces the pre-historic Indian movements in the southeast
in his The Indians of the Southeastern United States, 21-33. Although
writing in an unorthodox style for a scientific study, Harold S.
Gladwin in his Men out of Asia has presented an interesting discussion of
the movements of Asiatic migration to America, 1-183.
2. Cavarrubias, Chap. V; James B. Griffin (ed.), Archeology of Eastern United
States, 207 ff.; Powell, "Mound Explorations in Caldwell, Burke,
Wilkes, Hay wood, Buncombe, and Henderson Counties," Report of the
Bureau of American Ethnology, XII, 331-350, and Powell, "Mound
Builders," in the same volume, 595-730.
�402 / Notes
3. Dickens, Roy, The Pisgah Culture and its Place in the History of the Southern
Appalachians.
4. Extensive excavations have been made at Hiwassee Island at the
junction of the Hiwassee and Tennessee Rivers. See Thomas M. N.
Lewis and Madeline Kneberg, Hiwassee Island, and their Tribes That
Slumber.
5. See Note 4.
6. Mooney, 14-22; Adair, 11-15.
7. See Note 6.
8. The map (Plate III) given in Mooney's Myths of the Cherokees shows the
Cherokee boundaries at the period of the nation's greatest expansion
and its subsequent losses of territory.
9. Mooney, 14-23; Adair, 237-241.
10. Adair, 16-20. See also his "General Observations,'' 405-480.
11. The most important, and doubtless the oldest, of these trails was the
Warrior Path. It entered from the north by way of the Tennessee River,
passing up the Hiwassee River, where, near a village on the site of
Peachtree Mound, it forked, one branch going to Nikwasi, on the site of
the present Franklin, and the other continuing along the Hiwassee to its
headwaters, then crossing the mountains to villages in the present
Georgia. From Nikwasi the other branch passed through a gap in the
mountains into northeastern Georgia and then southeast into the present
South Carolina. Along this in 1540 came De Soto and his army. Frank
M. Setzler and Jesse D. Jennings, Peachtree Mound and Village Site, 9-10.
Branches from these main trails led to the scattered Indian villages. The
early trails eventually brought English traders into the mountains and
became pack horse routes. They were later widened into wagon roads,
and some of them are today serving as paved highways. The -white
man's railroads also used these ancient trails. Sections of a few of the old
Indian paths are still visible.
12. See the myths given by Mooney.
13. Adair, Timberlake, Bartram, and Schneider all tell of Cherokee food
and its preparation. Adair says that one method of cooking potatoes was
to boil them in bear's grease, \dair, History, 337; Timberlake, 57, 61, 68;
Schneider, "Journey to the Upper Cherokee Towns," Early Travels in the
Tennessee Country, 257.
14. Adair, 442-446; Swanton, 386-439; Timberlake, 57-103; Schneider, 260.
Until the English traders, as more or less permanent settlers in the
Cherokee nation, brought the white man's way of constructing log
houses, the Indians made the walls of their lodges or houses of upright
poles or saplings set close together in a trench.
15. William Bartram was impressed with the village of Cowee and
recorded a description of it. He pictured the council house in detail. It
was, he said, in the shape of a rotunda that would seat several hundred
people. In it he witnessed some of the Indian activities typical to the
Cherokees. Travels, 297-298. See also Timberlake, 59.
16. Such a feather robe was made by Cherokee women for use in the
drama, Unto These Hills,
17. Adair, 342-446; Swanton, 351 ff. Schneider also describes the food,
crops, dress, and customs of the Cherokees, 250-265.
�Notes / 403
16. Such a feather robe was made by Cherokee women for use in the
drama, Unto These Hills.
17. Adair, 342-446; Swanton, 351 ff. Schneider also describes the food,
crops, dress, and customs of the Cherokees, 250-265.
18. Schneider found that the Cherokees made earthenware that was so
efficiently treated that it looked like ironware from a foundry, 257.
19. Ibid.] Timberlake, 68.
20. At the Oconaluftee Indian Village at Cherokee the visitor can enter a
typical, seven-sided council house. In this village, too, he can watch the
processes of making boats, fashioning implements, making pottery, and
weaving baskets, all according to the ancient methods employed by the
ancestors of the present Cherokees. He can also see demonstrations of
the amazingly efficient blow-guns. The buildings in the palisaded village
are authentic types used by the Cherokees in 1750, some of them
showing the influence of the white man's method of construction.
Under the general sponsorship of the Cherokee Historical Association,
research work for this project was done by the Anthropology
Departments of the Universities of North Carolina, Tennessee, and
Georgia.
21. They also used the semi-precious stones found in the mountains. Henry
Timberlake was told that, according to an ancient Cherokee legend, an
especially brilliant stone, considered too sacred to be used except in
religious rites, was found in the head of a serpent. Memoirs, 73-74.
22. Schneider, 262.
23. A special game was arranged for Charles Lanman when he was the
guest of William H. Thomas at Qualla in 1848. He describes it in his
"Letters From the Alleghany Mountains," 414-416. See also Chapman J.
Milling, Red Carolinians, 378-380.
24. It would seem that this name was not applied to the Cherokees alone.
Lederer was told that beyond the Blue Ridge lived the Rickahockans,
who would at that time have been the Cherokees, but Indians appearing
earlier in coastal towns and so designated were not Cherokees.
Swanton, 217.
25. Ibid.
26. The Smithsonian Institution, working with the Civil Works Administration, made excavations between December 21, 1933, and April 1, 1934,
at Peachtree Mound, five and a half miles east of Murphy, near the
confluence of Peachtree Creek and the Hiwassee River. Much interest
attached to this excavation, since it was thought the mound might prove
to be the site of Gau-ax-u-le (Quasili) visited by De Soto in 1540. Its
location, both in relationship to the rivers and to the Indian trail, aptly
fitted the description of that town left by the Spaniards. The excavation
revealed only one culture, which was "probably Cherokee." Setzler and
Jennings, Peachtree Mound Site; 9-10; Final Report of the De Soto Commission,
188-191.
CHAPTER 3
Two Races Meet
1. Final Report of the De Soto Commission, 187-188.
2. John R. Swanton and the members of the Commission suggest that the
�404 / Notes
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
word Chalaque in the Spanish records may not have reference to the
Cherokees, since it seems to have been applied to Indians farther east,
who were not Cherokees. Final Report, 49-51.
Final Report, 2-3, 103-105. Extracts from these four accounts are given in
Early Travels in the Tennessee Country, 5-14.
Final Report, 187.
Sondley, History of Buncombe County, 130-137.
North Carolina History Told by Contemporaries, 3; Lefler and Newsome, 6ff.
Sondley, I, 329.
Ibid., I 330-334.
Colonial Records, I, 208. Woodward made four western trips, on one of
them going as far west as the Chattahoochee River, through the lower
Cherokee country.
This is the route given by S. C. Williams in his "Introduction" to
Wood's account of the Needham trip. Early Travels in the Tennessee
Country, 24-38.
The Hickory Nut Gap has been considered by many writers as the most
likely taken by Needham.
Early Travels in the Tennessee Country, 24-38.
Heath conveyed rights to others. One of these men made claims upon
the English government for his share of the Heath land. The claim was
finally settled in 1769, when the Crown and Council substituted for the
Carolina land some 100,000 acres in New York. Sondley 1, 265-272, 386.
W. S. Powell, The North Carolina Charter of 1663.
Sondley, I, 324-329; Lefler and Newsome, 34.
Lefler and Newsome, 32.
Sondley, I, 345-352.
CHAPTER 4
Along the Trading Paths
1. Mooney gives their names: Coran, the Raven; Sinnawa, the Hawk;
Nellawgitechi; Gorhaleke; Owasta (all from Toxawa); Canacaught, the
Great Conjuror; Gohama; and Caunasaita (these three from Keowee),
31.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid, 31-32.
4. Logan, History of the Upper Country of South Carolina, 188. In 1694 the
taxable population of the entire colony of Carolina was 786, making an
approximate total white population of 3,000. Hugh T. Lefler and
Newsome, Albert R., North Carolina, 50.
5. The act to make public the Indian trade passed the South Carolina
Legislature on June 30, 1716. While the previous arrangement could not
be called a colonial monopoly, the process leading to one had begun
with the establishment of the first Board of Indian Commissioners and
the beginning of supervision over traders.
6. Journal of the Commissioners of Indian Affairs, 126.
7. Logan, 262.
�Notes / 405
8. Journal of the Commissioners, 2. Burdeners were allowed whiskey at the
fort, but the Board ordered, "Mix what rum is disposed of to the
Indians, one third part water," 103. Logan says that this order was an
attempt to halt Indian drunkenness at the fort. Workers there more often
than not diluted the whiskey two thirds. Logan, 256-257.
9. A separate trading house was arranged at the fort. For a vivid description
of a busy day's bartering there, see Logan, 252-253. For the attack on the
burdeners in 1717, that resulted in the loss of 770 skins and in the death
of several burdeners, see Logan, 263-264.
10. Ibid.
11. The price list is given in the June 30, 1718, entry of the Journals of the
Commissioners. On July 19, 1718, William Hatton, Hasting's successor,
asked that the list be revised to compete with prices used by Virginia
traders in the area, 306.
12. Duncan D. Wallace, South Carolina, 33-44, 125-130.
13. It is interesting to note that the white man constructed his Georgia to
Tennessee railroad over sections of this ancient trail from Keowee to
the Over Hill Towns.
14. "Journal," Early Travels in the Tennessee Country, 192.
15. History of the Dividing Line, 298.
16. "Introduction" to Adair's History, IX.
17. Logan, 321-322; Sadie S. Patton, The Story of Henderson County, 37.
18. Logan, Chap. 12.
19. Milling, 268. See also Logan, 167-203.
20. Sadie S. Patton, Sketches of Polk County, 136.
21. Byrd, 246.
22. While the factor made reports and occasionally went to the fort, the
Board appointed Ludovick Grant as reporter. His duty was to keep
Charles Town informed of events taking place in the Cherokee country.
He served in that capacity for many years and to his accounts the
modern historian is indebted for much information.
23. For a brief biographical sketch of James Adair, see S. C. Williams's
"Introduction" to Adair's History.
24. Mooney, 34.
25. His "Journal" is given in Early Travels in the Tennessee Country, 63-104.
26. Logan, Chap. XII. James Adair deplored the influx of unscrupulous
traders into the Indian nations. See his History, 444-445.
27. Ludovick Grant wrote the account of the Keowee incident, asking that
the traders present sign it with him as proof to the Board that the
incredible event actually took place. For that account, see Early Travels in
the Tennessee Country, footnote, 133.
28. Early Travels in the Tennessee Country, 136.
29. The picture shows the Cherokees stiff and unnatural in their English
finery—and a bit frightened.
30. The terms of the treaty are given in Early Travels in the Tennessee Country,
138-143.
31. Ludovick Grant had earlier been given the task of arresting Priber, but
had failed. On December 12, 1739, the Commons House of the Assembly
of South Carolina ordered that Colonel Joseph Fox and two men be paid
�406 / Notes
of South Carolina ordered that Colonel Joseph Fox and two men be paid
402 pounds for "going to the Cherokees to fetch down Dr. Priber."
Journals of the Commons House of South Carolina, II, 111.
32. Priber's reply was "We have a succession of agents to take up the work
as fast as others leave. We never lose sight of a favorite point; nor are
we bound by the strict rules of morality in the means when the end we
pursue is laudable." Quoted by Sondley, I, 201. For Ludovick Grant's
account of Priber's elaborate plans for an Indian confederacy, see Adair,
footnote, 252-253. Antoine Bonnefoy, one of three Frenchmen captured
in Ohio by the Cherokees and held as slaves in the home of an Over Hill
chief from 1741 to 1742, recorded in the account of his experiences that
Priber, visiting in the Indian home, asked the three Frenchmen to join
his "society." He told them of his plans for an Indian empire and
explained the system of government he proposed to put into operation
in it. These rather full details tally with those given by Grant and Adair.
Priber, in introducing himself to these Frenchmen, called himself Pierre
Albert. See Bonnefoy's "Journal" in Travels in the Tennessee Country, 149162.
33. Priber was a controversial figure to his contemporaries and he has
remained so. Ludovick Grant wrote the account of his schemes and his
arrest. So did Adair. Grant saw no good in the man, but Adair was
charmed with the spy's personality and was challenged by his intellect.
For a year—until the Indians got suspicious of the exchange of letters—
he wrote to this German in the pay of France. A letter from Frederica,
printed in the South Carolina Gazette of August 15, 1743, is gleeful over
the arrest of Priber and points out the wickedness of his plans for his
"Paradise." Yet the writer admits that the empire idea "has several
flights full of invention" and charitably concludes, "It is a pity so much
wit is applied to so bad a purpose." Adair, 253.
CHAPTER 5
Lightnings Flash and Thunders Roll
1. History of the Dividing Line, 246.
2. "Account," Early Travels in the Tennessee Country, 204-207.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Sondley, II, 514.
Milling, 281-282. See also Logan, 417-443.
Milling, 283-285.
Over a period of years letters of advice and protest had been sent to
officials by these traders. On April 14, 1746, such communications were
read in the House of Commons from Beamer, Grant, Dougherty, and
Bunning. Journal of the Commons House, VI, 187-188. David H. Corkran
gives a detailed account of the affair at Stecoe in an article, "The
Unpleasantness at Stecoe, North Carolina," N.C.H.R., XXXII (July,
1955), 358-375.
7. Governor Glenn, attended by a company of soldiers and some fifty
civilians, made the trip to the capital of the Lower Towns. He bought
several thousand acres of land on the Keowee River, refusing to accept
the plot as a gift from the Cherokees. He remained in the Indian
country while the fort was being built. It was a square structure, with
�Notes / 407
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
the plot as a gift from the Cherokees. He remained in the Indian
country while the fort was being built. It was a square structure, with
sides about two hundred feet in length and was constructed of earth and
timbers. The fort itself was allowed to fall into decay so that in three
years it was in ruins, although the barracks were still usable. Wallace,
171.
This treaty was signed on July 2, 1755. Under its terms the land was
ceded to the king of England and for it the Cherokees received presents
•worth less than $350. David D. Wallace, South Carolina, 173.
deBrahm had been an engineer in the German Imperial Army. He was
surveyor-general of Georgia in 1755, when South Carolina employed
him to build adequate ramparts at Charles Town after the older ones
had been destroyed by a hurricane. Wallace, 172.
Early Travels in the Tennessee Country, 187-194.
"Introduction," Early Travels in the Tennessee Country, 188.
Milling, 287.
Timberlake, Memoirs, 97-99.
Milling, 281-285.
This log structure was soon destroyed by the Cherokees. Wallace, 173.
R. D. W. Connor, The Colonial and Revolutionary Periods, 257. Virginia and
South Carolina passed similar measures. Mismanagement characterized
the trade with all Indians within these colonies, although Atkins singled
out South Carolina's trade with the Cherokees for special criticism. He
was given the task of unifying the trade. After a study of conditions, he
reported to "the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners For Trade
and Plantations" [sic], submitting his "Plan of a general Direction and
Management of the Indian Affairs throughout North America under one
uniform Regulation of their Commerce, for retrieving and establishing
the British Interest among the Indian nations, and thereby the future
Security of our Colonies against the Designs of the French." [sic] The
plan is signed Edmond Atkin. [sic]
Adair, History, 266.
Milling, 293; Connor, 280.
See his "Account," Early Travels in the Tennessee Country, 177-184.
Milling, 296-297; Wallace, 173-178. Wallace says there were 31
Cherokees in the delegation.
Wallace, South Carolina, A Short History, 171.
Ibid, 178-179; Milling, 296-297; Mooney, 4-42.
Milling, 298-310; Wallace, 179.
Milling, 302-303; Wallace, 179-180.
Milling, 303; Wallace, 180; Mooney, 42ff.
Milling, 304-305; Wallace, 180-182; Adair, 259-273.
See note 26.
Adair is accredited with being the first to write the name French with
the Broad River west of the Blue Ridge, saying "It is natural for
strangers to drink thereof, to quench thirst, gratify their curiosity, and
have it to say they had drank [sic] of the French waters." History, 243.
Sondley says the French had earlier called the river the Frank River.
Buncombe County, II, 580.
�408 / Notes
CHAPTER 6
The Lull Between the Storms
1. History of the Dividing Line, 246.
2. Except for Byrd's estimate, the population figures are from Mooney,
31-34. Adair says that the small-pox epidemic of 1738 reduced the
Cherokee population one half. History, 244.
3. Bartram says that before it was destroyed by Montgomery, Keowee
extended six to eight miles along the river. The village was in ruins
when he was there. Travels in North and South Carolina, 271.
4. For twenty-five years the Over Hill Towns had been the fertile soil for
the seeds of French propaganda and in spite of Old Hopp's efforts, the
Over Hill Cherokees became and remained strongly pro-French. It
seems somewhat ironic, then, that of all the Cherokee towns, only these
Over Hill villages should have been spared in the Cherokee War.
5. Timber lake, Memoirs, 26-56.
6. Timberlake has left one of the most valuable sources of information
concerning the Cherokees during the late trading period. See his
Memoirs, 57-103.
7. Ibid., 115-148. Timberlake sacrificed his inherited estate and his small
fortune to serve his colony and England. He received practically no
recompense from either Virginia or the mother country and he died in
England in poverty. The Gentleman's Magazine carried this notice of his
death: "Died, September 30, 1765, Lieut. Henry Timberlake of the 42
Regiment. He came in with the Cherokee Indians, and attended them."
XXXIV, 491. Quoted by S. C. Williams, who edited Timberlake's
Memoirs, footnote, 175.
8. Mooney, 45-46.
9. Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning of the West, I, 187-188, 193 ff.; Felix Alley,
Random Thoughts and the Musings of a Mountaineer, 302-303.
10. Tryon made a colorful military parade out of the trip from his "Palace"
to the mountains of Western North Carolina. He was escorted by two
regiments of militia, sixteen servants and aides, and two surveyors—
altogether, some 100 persons. The two surveyors, with their Indian
assistants, did most of the actual work after Tryon and the regiments
had returned east. Carrying out the King's orders cost the colony the
substantial sum of 1,490 pounds sterling, a sum that brought bitter
complaints from the taxpayers, especially those in the "back country,"
where frontier conditions made money a rare commodity, indeed. Lefler
and Newsome, 172.
11. Sondley, II, 514; Samuel A'C. Ashe, A History of North Carolina, I, 332333.
12. John P. Arthur, History of Watauga County, 19. It was in such a herder's
cabin that Boone is thought to have found shelter on some of his trips
west of the Blue Ridge.
13. "Journal," Early Travels in the Tennessee Country, 193.
14. In 1771 the colony's population was estimated at 250,000. In the century
preceding the Revolutionary War the population of North Carolina
increased ninefold, making it the fourth most thickly populated colony.
Lefler and Newsome, 71.
�Notes / 409
15. Ashe, I, 208-288; Sondley, I, 362-372; Lefler and Newsome, 71-81.
16. Lefler and Newsome, 77-78; Chalmers G. Davidson, Piedmont Partisan, 114; Colonial Records, IV, p. XXL
17. On his vast stretch of land, Granville established a territorial system of
land tenure. Settlers receiving grants paid annual quit-rents. These, they
claimed, were exorbitant. The tract, which was subject neither to
England nor to the colony, was a constant source of irritation to North
Carolina. The settlers within it paid no taxes to the colony and the
colony had no authority to deal with trouble arising between settlers
over irregularities in land grants. There was much dishonesty in the
dealings of Granville's agents in connection with both the settlers and
Granville. When men crossed the Blue Ridge to make their homes in the
lands to the west and learned that they were in North Carolina, they
ignored the fact that they were in the Granville District, leasing their
area from the Cherokees. E. M. Coulter, "The Granville District,"
J.S.H.P., XIII, 35-51; Alonzo T. Dill, Tryon and His Palace, 96-97.
18. "Spangenberg Diary," Records of the Moravians, I, 28-64; quotation, 43.
The Spangenberg trip and the Moravian settlement that followed is
presented by Adelaide Fries in her Road to Salem. The book is based upon
the Autobiography of Anna Catherine Antes, who went to Bethabara in
April, 1759, as the wife of the settlement's physician, Martin
Kalberlahn. Her Autobiography, now in the Salem Moravian Archives,
covers events in the first temporary stockaded village and in Salem from
1759 until 1803. While the Moravian settlement was a religion-centered,
communal organization and not actually in Western North Carolina, the
conditions these men and women found and the economic pattern of
living they developed were repeated by settlers moving farther west to
the foothills of the Blue Ridge and by those crossing the mountains to
the valleys beyond.
19. "The Bethabara Diary." Records of the Moravians, 117-216, 227-238. The
account of the journey of the "Brethern" from Pennsylvania to Wachovia
is also given in Travels in the American Colonies, 327-356. See also John H.
Clewell, A History of Wachovia in North Carolina, 4-18, and Fries, Road to
Salem.
20. In that year, 1769, Boone went with a party that included Finley into
Kentucky. He was asked by Finley to be the guide, since he knew the
country. John Bakeless, Daniel Boone, 45-48; Arthur, Watauga County, 2952; Roosevelt, I, 135-146.
21. Bakeless, 23.
22. Roosevelt, I, 166-175; Chap. VII; North Callahan, Smoky Mountain
Country, 1-9; William E. Fitch, The Battle of Alamance, 42-55.
23. Roosevelt, I, 177-180.
24. Ibid., 180-183; Lyrnan Draper, King's Mountain and Its Heroes, 418-422;
Carl S. Driver, John Sevier: Pioneer of the Old Southwest.
25. Dill, 135; Davidson, Chap. III.
26. This act of violence, according to one account, gave the term "lynching" to
the American language.
27. For accounts of the Battle of Alamance, see Records of the Moravians, I,
473-474, 450-476; R. D. W. Connor, Rebuilding an Ancient Commonwealth,
I, 264-288; Lefler and Newsome, 171-178; Ashe, I, 340-342; Fitch, Chaps.
�410 / Notes
I-II; William S. Powell, The War of the Regulation; Howard White, The
Battle of Alamance.
28. Roosevelt, I, 183-185; Connor, I Chap. XIV.
CHAPTER 7
A New Flag for Western North Carolina
1. Lefler and Newsome, 191-192; Ashe, I, 437-459. For the document as
written from memory see Colonial Records, IX, 1263-1265; History Told By
Contemporaries, 99-100; Mecklenburg in the Revolution, 27-29; George W.
Graham, The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence.
2. On August 8, Governor Josiah Martin denounced the action of the people
of Mecklenburg. For the Resolves, see Colonial Records, IX, 1282-1285;
History Told by Contemporaries, 100-103; Mecklenburg in the Revolution, 34-41;
Ashe, I, 450-453.
3. Lefler and Newsome, 197-198; 215-218.
4. These desperadoes increased in numbers as war entered the counties east
of the Blue Ridge in 1780, and the mountains became hideouts for
individuals and gangs. Davidson, Chap. V; Fries, Road to Salem.
5. Roosevelt, I, 249; Bakeless, 66-88; Stewart White, Daniel Boone:
Wilderness Scout, 148-149. It was to make possible the migration to
Transylvania that Boone and eight companions hacked out the
Wilderness Trail. A few months later Henderson and his settlers
actually took wagons over it. Bakeless, 93. The governors of both
Virginia and North Carolina declared Henderson's treaty null and void,
Connor, I, 295.
6. Roosevelt, I, 278-279. A print coming out of this attempt of the English
to enlist Indians against the colonists shows an Indian presenting the
scalps of white men to an English officer.
7. Ibid., I, 281-282; Clarence W. Griffin, History of Old Tryon and Rutherford
Counties, 34, 36.
8. Roosevelt, I, 283-294.
9. Ibid.', Ashe, I, 549-550; Samuel C. Williams, The Lost State of Franklin, 28.
10. Patton, The Story of Henderson County, 86-88.
11. Alley, Random Thoughts, 304.
12. The Department of Conservation and Development, cooperating with
the State Department of Archives and History, has erected markers
along the route taken by Rutherford and his army. The first is at
Swannanoa Gap.
13. Connor, I, 406-407; Ashe, I, 547-553; Milling, 314-324; Griffin, 33-35.
14. Roosevelt says that Rutherford lost three men and that he killed twelve
Indians. Winning of the West, I, 302. Ashe says that he also took nine
prisoners. History, I, 547.
15. Ashe, I, 553; Ashe, "Rutherford's Expedition Against the Indians, 1776,"
N.C.B., IV (December, 1904), 3-28. Moore's account of his mission is
given in Colonial Records, X, 895-896.
16. This guerrilla band was led by Alexander Cameron, who had been
deputy Indian agent.
17. Roosevelt, I, 302; Lefler and Newsome, 228.
�Notes / 411
18. Felix B. Alley, Random Thoughts and Musings of a Mountaineer, 305-306;
Mooney, 53.
19. Mooney, 53; Sondley, I, 378 ff.
20. Sondley, I 378 ff.; Lefler and Newsome, 228; Archibald Henderson,
"The Treaty of the Long Island," N.C.H.R., III Qanuary, 1931), 55-116.
21. Williams, Lost State of Franklin, 2.
22. Lefler and Newsome, 229.
23. Ibid., 230-231; Griffin, 52; Mecklenburg in the Revolution, 53; Davidson,
Piedmont Partisan, Chap. V.
24. Lefler and Newsome, 232-233.
25. Ibid., 232-233; Mecklenburg in the Revolution, 54-56; Davidson, Chap. VI.
26. Lefler and Newsome, 233; Griffin, 52-58; Draper, 144-146.
27. Griffin, 54-56; Draper, 147-149; Lieutenant Anthony Allaire of
Ferguson's forces recorded in his diary the movements and activities of
that army through the land just east of the Blue Ridge. The Diary is
given in Draper, King's Mountain and Its Heroes, 484-515.
28. Roosevelt, II, 242-254; Lefler and Newsome, 233; Griffin, 58-59; Draper,
169-174.
29. Roosevelt, II, 255-263; Griffin, 59-60; Draper, 175-187. Shepherd
Dugger in his War Trails of the Blue Ridge gives a detailed account of the
route of the mountain men. See Chaps. I-II.
30. For the detailed movements of both Ferguson's troops and those of the
mountain men, see Draper, 199-222; Lefler and Newsome, 233-235.
31. Draper, 233-309; Driver, Chap. Ill; Davidson, 85-90; Ashe, I, 629-636;
Connor, I, 355-358; Roosevelt, II, 272 ff. For the official report of the
losses at this battle, see Colonial Records, XV, 163-165.
32. Lefler and Newsome, 235-238. During the entire Revolutionary War,
men enlisted as volunteers in the forces furnished by the state to the
Continental Line. Some were drafted. Others were members of local
militia and saw service in their areas. In addition, men casually joined
organized units for guerrilla warfare under one of the partisan officers
dogging the British army. Still others joined to accomplish some specific
objective. When that had been accomplished or the local campaign was
over, they drifted back home. After the defeat at Camden, men
straggled back to the "back country" and the mountains. McDowell's
men made up such a group, and if Ferguson had not arrived, the men
would have returned to their homes. In July, Isaac Shelby had led a band
across the mountains to badger Ferguson's forces. Then they had
returned home. Like the mountain men at the Battle of King's
Mountain, most of these in the guerrilla bands were not, technically, in
the army. Roosevelt, II, 248-251.
CHAPTER 8
East-West Tug-of-War
1. Arthur, Watauga County, 182; Dugger, 15.
2. The executions took place after a court martial, presided over by two
men appointed as justices. Thirty-two men were condemned to death,
�412 / Notes
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
but after nine had been hanged, Colonel Shelby stopped the atrocities.
The most prominent citizen losing his life was Colonel Ambrose Mills, a
respected settler of Rutherford County. Draper, 330-343.
Roosevelt, II, 262-293; Griffin, 67-70.
Roosevelt, II, 295-323; Milling, 326 f£; Mooney, 57-59; Driver, Chap. II.
Alley, 308-309; Mooney, 56-16, 75-76.
The Bonus Act, passed by the General Assemby in 1780, since it opened
Cherokee land to veterans, made necessary the repeal of the Treaty of
the Long Island of 1777. Lefler and Newsome, 241-242.
Roosevelt, II, 295-323. The Dumplin Creek Treaty is given in State
Records, XXII, 649-650, also in History Told by Contemporaries, 72-73. See
also Williams, The Lost State of Franklin, 75-86.
For the text of this treaty see Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, II, 8-11.
Ashe, I, 549-550; Lefler and Newsome, 259.
Roosevelt, II, 295-323; Williams, 165-171; Driver, Chap. II.
Williams, 207-212; Mooney, 60; Driver, John Sevier, Chap. II.
Lefler and Newsome, 95-97. It took from twelve to fifteen days to get
from the Watauga Settlements to a meeting of the General Assembly at
an eastern town. If the roads were in bad condition—and they
frequently were—it took longer. Williams, 37. For a first-hand
description of the roads in 1795, see John Brown's "Journal of Travels in
1795," edited by A. R. Newsome, N.C.H.R., XI (October, 1934), 284313.
Lefler and Newsome, 300-301.
Ibid., 106-114; Davidson, Piedmont Partisan, Chap. III.
Williams, The History of the Lost State of Franklin, 268-272, Chap. XXXIII;
Driver, Chap. I.
Lefler and Newsome, 218-221, 251-252; Ashe, II, 5-6; Records of the
Moravians, II, 627-633; Griffin, 86. The basic issues in this east-west
struggle are discussed by Connor in his Rebuilding an Ancient
Commonwealth, I, 469-474.
Charles Beard and Mary Beard, Basic History of the United States, 179-181.
Williams, 18-25.
Lefler and Newsome, 258-259.
For Martin's letter of censure, see State Records, XXII, 642-647. See also
Williams, 65-69.
The most detailed account of the stormy times in the struggle of the
Washington District to become a state is given by Williams. See his Lost
State of Franklin, Chaps. IV-XVI. See also Driver, Chap. V.
Williams, 193-204; Driver, Chap. V.
Williams, 193-204, 226-228, 119-121; Driver, Chap. V.
Driver, Chap. V.
The brief—and lost—state of Franklin, developing out of geographic
conditions and local interests, makes a colorful, if stormy, chapter in the
history of Western North Carolina. For other treatments of it, see Fitch,
The Origin, Rise, and Fall of the State of Franklin; Connor, I, 408-412; Ashe,
II 35-41, 51, 58-69.
Lefler and Newsome, 268-269.
�Notes / 413
CHAPTER 9
In Search of Beauty—An Interlude
1. George W. McCoy, "Wedgwood Used Western North Carolina Clay
in Making Famous Ware," Asheville Citizen-Times, August 13, 1950; J. P.
Brady, "Wedgwood Wrought His Genius in Clay From Macon
County," Asheville Citizen-Times, October 20, 1956.
2. McCoy; Brady.
3. Louise B. Fisher, An Eighteenth Century Garland, 9-10.
4. Ibid., 75; Charles Shull, The Lure of Western North Carolina For the ExplorerNaturalists.
5. Sondley, II, 522; The Dictionary of American Biography, II, 28.
6. The sections of his travel account dealing with Western North Carolina
cover pages 263-302. This section furnished the Bartram material in this
chapter. His papers and notebooks give 1775 as the year of his travels.
7. Travels, page 279.
8. Sondley, II, 519-522; The Dictionary of American Biography, XII, 591-592;
Andre Michaux, "Travels," Early Travels in the Tennessee Country, 329342.
9. Sondley, II, 519-522.
10. Ibid., 522; Shull.
CHAPTER 10
With Their Goods and Chattels
1. Lefler and Newsome, 241-242.
2. Ibid., 291. For the text of thest treaties, see Indian Affairs, 11, 29-33; 5155.
3. Cordelia Camp, Burke County Sketches, 6.
4. Griffin, 7-8.
5. Ibid., 42-45.
6. George H. Smathers, The Story of Land Titles in Western North Carolina, 1015; 20-22; David L. Corbett, The Formation of North Carolina Counties, 1117, 38-48; 188-192; 227-238.
7. Arthur, Watauga County, 19.
8. Jason B. Deyton, "The Toe River Valley to 1865," N.C.H.R., XXIV
(October, 1947), 428-438.
9. Sondley, I, 396-398, 420-421.
10. The grant given to Burton is given in Sondley, II, 838, and in Smathers,
42. For the grant to William Moore, see Smathers, 31-32, and for the
one to Davidson, see Smathers, 9. Other early grants are given by
Smathers, 42-43; 50-52.
11. Patton, The Story of Henderson County, 20-25, 27-32; Allen, Chap. 11.
12. Allen, The Annals of Haywood County, 35-39.
13. Sondley, I, 444-447.
14. Ibid.
15. "John Brown's Journal of Travel in 1795", in N.C.H.R., Vol. XI,
(October, 1934), 304.
16. Ibid.
�414 / Notes
17. Patton, Pages From the History of Speculation Land; Patton, Sketches of Polk
County History, 11-19; Arthur, Western North Carolina, 135-141.
18. Allen, The Annals of Hay wood County, Chaps. II, VI.
CHAPTER 11
Weaving a Homespun Pattern of Living
1. Sondley, I, 398 ff., 428-441.
2. The pioneers were faced with the necessity of constructing their first
homes in the shortest possible time, and they considered these structures
temporary. The size of each house was determined not by the number of
members in the family, but by the length of the logs to be used.
Twenty-four feet made logs about as long as would insure uniformity of
size and about as long as could easily be handled. However, many of the
mountain cabins, perhaps most of the earliest ones, were not twentyfour feet long. Frances Johnston and Thomas T. Waterman, The Early
Architecture of North Carolina, 3. See also Patton, Henderson County, 17-18;
Arthur, Western North Carolina, 256-259, 263-264; Davidson, 6-7.
3. Alley, 257; Davidson, 6-7.
4. Alley, 260-271; Sondley, I, 427-430; Davidson, 6-7.
5. Williams, Chap. XXXIII; Arthur, Western North Carolina, Chap. XI; D. J.
Whitener, The History of Watauga County, 29-41.
6. Griffin, 120, 144; Sondley, I, 481, II, 711-723.
7. Sondley, I, 398, 400.
8. Patton, Henderson County, 24.
9. Sondley, I, 402-404.
10. Ibid., I, 339-400; Griffin, 52, 82, 141-143; Arthur, 284. John Brown's
"Journal" in N.C.H.R., vol. XI, 304. Used with permission.
11. Arthur, Western North Carolina, 284; Sondley, II, 497-500; Patton,
Henderson County, 26-27; Guion G. Johnson, Ante-Bellum North Carolina: A
Social History, 105-110; John Brown's Journal.
12. "Diary of a Journey of Moravians From Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to
Wachovia, North Carolina," Travels in the American Colonies, 350.
13. Whitener, 28-29; Arthur, Western North Carolina, 82-83.
14. Arthur, op. cit., 232-235.
15. Sondley, II, 608-610.
16. Ibid., II, 463; 600-606.
17. Francis Asbury, Journal, II, 481.
18. Aid.
19. Ibid., Ill, 91, 134. For the conditions of the roads, see John Brown's
"Journal of Travels in 1795," N.C.H.R., XI (October, 1934), 284-313.
20. Griffin, 2.
21. Ibid., 149-150.
22. Asbury, II, 189.
23. Susan F. Cooper (ed.), William West Skiles, 10.
24. Lefter. and Newsome, 250-251.
25. Griffin, 5, 584-587; Camp, 13-14.
26. George W. McCoy, The First Presbyterian Church, Asheville, North Carolina,
4-12.
�Notes / 415
27. Charles B. Williams, A History of the Baptists in North Carolina, 19-20.
28. Griffin, 587.
29. Williams, 100-107; Arthur, Western North Carolina, 223-226; Arthur,
Watauga County, 71-77; 98-113.
30. Williams, 107; Sondley, II, 780-781.
31. Griffin, 590-592.
32. Asbury, II, 77.
33. Camp, 13-14.
34. Sondley, II, 676-685.
35. Patton, Henderson County, 27-32.
36. Ibid, 1., 30; Sondley, II, 708; Johnson, Ante Bellum North Carolina, 370-402.
37. Asbury, Journal, II, 133.
38. Arthur, Western North Carolina, 421-423; Clement Dowd, Zebulon Baird
Vance, 12.
39. Camp, 12.
40. Griffin, 151.
41. Sondley, II, 705-708; McCoy, 4-12.
42. When in 1776 the Watauga Settlement petitioned the General Assembly
to be recognized as a part of North Carolina under the name of
Washington District, the petition was signed by 463 settlers. Only ten of
them had to use marks. See Williams, The Lost State of Franklin, Appendix
B; State Records, XXII, 705-714.
CHAPTER 12
Boundaries and Western Leadership
1. North Carolina's commissioners were Christopher Gale, Edward
Moseley, William Little, and John Lovick. The surveyors were Samuel
Swann and Edward Moseley. At the place from which the Virginians
turned back east, Byrd wrote; * 'Hereabouts from one of the Highest
hills, we made the first Discovery of the Mountains, on the Northwest
of our course ... They looked like Ranges of Blue clouds rising one
above the other." [sic] History of the Dividing Line, 194. This early
colonial survey is perhaps the best known one in American history due
to Byrd's record of it. Written in an urbane, ironic style copied from
eighteenth century English writers, it was the first writing produced
in the colonies to have literary value. The mileage figures have been
differently given. The one used here is from Lefler and New some, 6667. See Connor, I, 5-9.
2. William K. Boyd, The Federal Period, 74-76.
3. Arthur, Western North Carolina, 37-38; Arthur, Watauga County, 117-121,
John Strother, Diary and Field Notes, 1799.
4. The "Rainbow" dispute was not settled until 1914. Arthur, Western
North Carolina, 48-49; The Papers of Archibald D. Murphey, II, 119; 190.
5. Lefler, History of North Carolina, II, 172-173; Lefler and Newsome, 149152; Arthur, Western North Carolina, 28-32; Connor, I, 5-9; Wallace,
Chap. XX. A detailed study of the North Carolina-South Carolina
dispute over their common boundary is given by M. L. Skaggs in his The
North Carolina Boundary Disputes Involving Her Southern Line, part I.
6. Skaggs, part II; Arthur, Western North Carolina, 32-37; Connor, I, 5-9; D.
�416 / Notes
R. Goodloe, ''North Carolina and the Georgia Line," N.C.B., no. 12, 122; Papers of Archibald D. Murphey, II, 189-190; E. M. Coulter, Georgia: A
Short History, 223.
7. Arthur, Western North Carolina, 51-55. The text of this treaty settling this
boundary is given in Indian Affairs, II, 72-73. For a history of the
difficulties arising over the Meigs-Freeman line, involving a long series
of law suits, see Smathers, The History of Land Titles in Western North
Carolina, 59-132.
8. The Formation of North Carolina Counties, 11-17.
9. Lefler and Newsome, 294-297; Griffin, 155-162.
10. Ashe, II, 235; Mooney, 93-96.
11. Connor, I, 443-474; Lefler and Newsome, Chap. 20; Griffin, 167-168.
12. United States Census for 1790 and 1830.
13. These lists of slaves are among the McDowell family papers, now in
possession of Miss Margaret Ligon of Asheville.
14. Lefler and Newsome, 298-302.
15. Ibid., 303-304; In urging his program of internal improvements, Murphey
admitted that "few men have the courage to impose taxes." Papers of
Archibald Murphey, II, 179. In 1817 the state received from the western
counties of Ashe, Burke, Rutherford, Wilkes, Buncombe, and Haywood
a total of $4483.14 in taxes. Murphey, II, 171.
16. Lefler and Newsome, 308-311; Ashe, II, 200-201; Connor, I, 469-474.
17. Lefler and Newsome, 304-306; Griffin, 163-169. The census of 1850
showed that one third of all natives of North Carolina then living in the
United States lived in states other than North Carolina. Some 400,000
had left the state. Connor, Ante Bellum Builders of North Carolina, 24.
18. Connor, op. cit., 18, 24, 33-62; Connor, Rebuilding an Ancient Commonwealth, I, 475-495; Ashe, II, 246-249; Lefler, History of North Carolina, I,
309-315; Boyd, 91-100.
19. The Papers of Archibald D. Murphey, II, 189.
20. The "Memoir" is given in full in The Papers of Archibald D, Murphey, II,
103-195.
21. Murphey, "Report of the Committee on Public Education, December
19, 1816," Papers of Archibald D. Murphey, II, 49-56; History of North
Carolina Told by Contemporaries, 164-168; Lefler, I, 315-319; Boyd, 101-104;
M.C.S. Noble, A History of the Public Schools of North Carolina, 34-42.
From 1790 to 1802 the General Assembly considered not one bill relating
to education and the same can be said of it from 1804 to 1815. Connor,
Ante Bellum Builders, 15.
22. Between 1776 and 1833, eighteen new counties were established in the
piedmont and mountain sections of the state, and fifteen were
established in the eastern section. Yet between 1790 and 1840 the
population of the piedmont and mountain sections increased 156 per
cent, while that of the eastern section increased 53 per cent. Connor, op.
cit., 29. For western legislators to get a bill passed creating a new county
it was necessary for them to vote for a new eastern county; moreover,
they were forced to have their new counties named for eastern leaders.
Boyd, pp. 147-148. See also Boyd, 139-165; Lefler and Newsome, 307311. For the Constitution of 1776, see State Records, XXIII, 980-984. It is
also given in History of North Carolina Told by Contemporaries, 105-111.
�Notes / 417
23. Lefler and Newsome, 332-336; The Constitution of 1776; Connor, Ante
Bellum Builders, 25-26.
24. Ashe, II, 255-260; Lefler and Newsome, 316-317.
25. Griffin, 186-187.
26. Ashe, II, 277.
27. Ibid., II, 290, 305.
28. Ibid., II, 293-295; Lefler and Newsome, 317-318; Noble, A History of the
Public Schools, chap. V.
30. Connor, Ante Bellum Builders, 66-95; Lefler and Newsome, 326-331; Ashe,
II, 350-363; Sondley, II, 765-767.
31. Lefler and Newsome, 334-337.
32. Ibid.; Ashe, II, Chap. XXIII. For the voting returns by counties, see North
Carolina Manual, 1913, 1010-1013.
33. Lefler and Newsome, 337-341; Connor, Rebuilding an Ancient Commonwealth, I, 518-536; Ashe, II, Chap. XXII.
CHAPTER 13
Gold in the Hills and on the Highways
1. Lefler and Newsome, 371-372; Griffin, 195. The name Dahlonega, site
of the rich Georgia gold mines, is a corruption of the Cherokee word
tah lo ne ga} meaning yellow or gold colored. Lanman. "Letters From the
Alleghany Mountians," Adventures in the Wilds of the United States, I, 344.
See also T. Conn Bryan, The Gold Rush in Georgia,
2. Lefler and Newsome, 371; Fletcher M. Green, "Gold Mining: A
Forgotten Industry of Ante Bellum North Carolina," N.C,H.R.,XIV
(January, 1937), 7. According to tradition, the lump of gold ore was used
for two or three years by the Reed family as a doorstop. Then the
father, John Reed, sold it, returning home with $3.50. See Bruce
Roberts' The Carolina Gold Rush,
3. These counties, listed by state geologists, are sections of Montgomery,
Anson, Mecklenburg, Cabarrus, Randolph, Rowan, Davidson, Burke,
Union, Stanley, Catawba, Guilford, and Rutherford. Adjacent areas in
South Carolina produced limited amounts, while mines in northern
Georgia were heavy producers and played a decisive part in the history
of Western North Carolina from 1815 to 1838. Griffin, 195.
4. Bryan, op, cit.; Green, 8-9.
5. The North Carolina Spectator and Western Advertiser, March 26, 1830. In
Griffin, 205.
6. Green, 12.
7. Ibid., 15-17.
8. Various issues of The North Carolina Spectator, quoted by Griffin, 204-205.
9. Green, 152; Lefler and Newsome, 371.
10. Green, 138; Lefler and Newsome, 372. See Bruce Roberts, The Carolina
Gold Rush.
11. Green, 138, 152, Griffin, 204-207; Lefler and Newsome, 371-372.
12. Bechtler's advertisement in the North Carolina Spectator of August 27,
1831. It is given by Griffin, 197-198.
13. Ibid.
�418 / Notes
14.
15.
16.
17.
Ibid., 196-204; Green, 139-145.
Griffin, 201-202; Green, 142-145.
Green, 140; Lefler and Newsome, 372; Roberts, 30.
For contemporary descriptions of the gold mines, Bechtler's mint, and
the gold country, see History of North Carolina Told by Contemporaries, 244249.
18. Lefler and Newsome, 316-317; Sondley, II, 617-619.
19. Sondley, II, 609.
20. Journal, 111, 133.
21. Sondley, II, 609, 617-619.
22. Ibid., II, 619-621. Wilma Dykeman gives a vivid description of these
autumn drives in her book The French Broad, Chap. 9.
23. Sondley, II, 619.
24. Ibid., II, 619-621.
25. Ibid.
26. Arthur, Watauga County, 114-115; Griffin, 163.
27. Arthur, Western North Carolina, 239-240.
28. Small scattered passages pertaining to the Turnpike appeared in this
author's Spire in the Mountains, pages 26-27. They are used with the
permission of the First Presbyterian Church of Asheville, copyright
holder.
CHAPTER 14.
Light and Shade in the Mountains
1. Sondley, II, 626.
2. Lefler and Newsome, 107-110; Johnston and Waterman, Early Architecture
in North Carolina, 3-8.
3. Such a farmstead has been reconstructed by moving buildings from
various farms to a site in the Floyd Bottoms, bordering the Oconaluftee
River between the village of Cherokee and Smokemont Camping
Grounds in the Smokies. This project, called the Pioneer Farmstead,
consists of a house and some dozen out-buildings, the barn being the
only structure originally on the site. After the Civil War, the Floyd
farm was a stand for drovers bringing their cattle over the road that
William H, Thomas and his Cherokee Legion had constructed across the
Smokies by way of Indian Gap. George McCoy, "Farmstead Depicts
Early Days in Western North Carolina," Asheville Citizen-Times, August
30, 1953.
4. Kephart, Our Southern Highlanders (1913 edition), 110-125.
5. Beard and Beard, History of the United States, 168.
6. Griffin, 142; Arthur, Western North Carolina, 284.
7. Griffin, 130, 136; Sondley, 11, 617-619.
8. Sondley, II, 622.
9. Ibid., II, 621-622; Griffin, 184-186.
10. Ashe, II, Chap. XXV; Sondley, II, 621-622.
11. See note 10.
12. Deyton, "Toe River Valley/' 450-454. Except for minor changes, this
manner of life persisted in the isolated coves for a century. See Kephart
(1913 edition), chaps. XI-XII.
13. Of necessity people learned to set bones and to care for the sick. Many
women became expert nurses, and all learned to gather healing herbs.
�Notes / 419
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
For a list of these, see Johnson, ^4«fe Bellum North Carolina, 752-753, and
Patton, Henderson County, 56-58. A list of diseases suffered by mountain
people and the names of physicians practicing in Asheville from 1793 to
1885 are given by G. S. Tennent in his Medicine in Buncombe County Down
to 1885.
Guion G. Johnson, Ante-Bellum North Carolina, 309-330.
The Plott family in the Plott Balsam area have for generations been
renowned as hunters. They developed a breed of fine hunting dogs
known as Plott hounds. Of all the many hunters, however, perhaps the
best known was Big Tom Wilson, whose hunting domain was the Black
Mountain range. It was Wilson who located the body of Dr. Elisha
Mitchell. See Chapter XVII.
Kephart (1913 edition), 305-353; (1922 edition), Chap. V.
Ibid. (1913 edition), 40-41; Deyton, 454.
Connor, Ante Bellum Builders, 87-88; Ashe, II, 374-375.
"Report of the President and Directors of the Literary Fund, November,
1838," Beginnings of Public Education in North Carolina, 827-850, 893-912;
Lefler and Newsome, 350-352.
Lefler and Newsome, 350-352. The School Law of 1839 is given in
History Told By Contemporaries, 188-189.
Deyton, 448.
Arthur, Western North Carolina, 420-447; Boyd, 243-251; Ashe, II, 406407; Deyton, 448-449; Johnson, 309-330.
See his "Letters on Public Education," The Beginnings of Public Education in
North Carolina, 548-613.
M. S. C. Noble, A History of the Public Schools in North Carolina, Chap. VI;
Lefler and Newsome, 351-352.
Lefler and Newsome, 363; Connor, 95-100.
Noble, 145-187.
Ibid., 210-229.
Deyton, 449.
CHAPTER 15. .
The Crack of Doom in the Mountains
1. In addition to the treaties so far mentioned, the Cherokees in Tennessee
lost land through treaties with the federal government in 1804 and 1805.
See Indian Affairs, II, 82-91. On March 22, 1816, the Cherokees sold their
remaining land in South Carolina to that state for $5,000. Mooney, 84,
97.
2. An account of this historic meeting has been left by an unknown "writer.
The complete manuscript is quoted by W. C. Allen in his Annals of
Hay wood County, 44-46. Alley has quoted it from Allen in his Random
Thoughts, 327-328. It is also given in John Parris, The Cherokee Story, 3537, and in Glenn Tucker, Tecumseh, 212-213.
3. Among Junaluska's volunteers were Sequoyah and John Ross. Jackson
had Cherokees from the Lower Towns in his forces when Junaluska and
his warriors joined the campaign. He also had a small number of Creeks
loyal to the Americans. Of these Creeks, 5 lost their lives and 11 were
wounded in the battle. Of the Cherokees, 18 were killed and 36
�420 / Notes
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
wounded. Mooney gives the total number of Indians with Jackson as
500. Some writers have given the number as 600. Mooney lists the
casualties among the Creeks as follows; 557 warriors killed; 253 more
shot in the water as they attempted to escape; 300 prisoners taken,
mostly women and children. Only 20 men escaped. Of the Americans,
26 were killed and 107 wounded. Mooney, 87-97; Ashe, II, 235; R. S.
Cotterill, The Southern Indians, 176-190; Marion L. Starkey, The Cherokee
Nation, 22-26; H. C. Wilburn, Junaluska, 7-8.
There was some opposition within the Cherokee nation to this
reorganization and to the constitution. Among those opposing both was
the influential chief, White Path. This leader distrusted the Americans
and foretold catastrophe to the Cherokees if they adopted American
institutions and forms of government. He gained a small following of
nationalists or anti-Americans, known as Red Sticks. However,
sentiment in the nation as a whole was against White Path and he was
deposed. He lived to see his prophesies come to pass and he trudged
west with his people. He did not reach the new land, for he died on the
way. Mooney, 106-114; Milling, 341-343.
In 1839 Robert Strange published a novel based on the Cherokee
removal and named it for Yonaguska. He spelled the name Eoneguski. This
was the first piece of fiction dealing with a North Carolina subject
written by a North Carolinian. Lefler and Newsome, 389; Lanman,
"Letters From the Alleghany Mountains," 417-421.
Alley, 328-330; Mooney, 164-165. It is possible that Junaluska was never
chosen a chief. The title may well have been attached to his name out of
respect for his achievements. See Wilburn, Junaluska.
Parris, 46; Mooney, 112-114; 224-225; Milling, Chap. XVII.
Parris, 51-58; Milling, 342-343; Starkey, Chap. V; George E. Foster, SeQuo-yah: The American Cadmus, Chaps. VIII-IX; Mooney, 106-135.
Mooney, 111-112; Parris, Chaps. VII-VIII.
Parris, Chaps. VII-VIII; Mooney, 111-112. John Eliot in New England
translated parts of the Bible into an Indian language or dialect in 1653,
but did not, of course, work out an Indian written language.
Mooney, 109-110; Starkey, 99.
Mooney, 83-84, 112-114; Starkey, 29-42.
R. S. Cotterill, The Southern Indians, 191-210. The text of this treaty is
given in Indian Affairs, II, 140-144.
Mooney, 106. For the text of this treaty, see Indian Affairs, II, 177-181.
Mooney, 116-127; Starkey, 100-118; Cotterill, 211-230.
See Note 15.
Mooney, 120; Grant Foreman, Indian Removal, 233, 238. The Indian
tenure of lands in Georgia had been a festering sore with that state since
its cession of western lands to the federal government. Georgia lost
much land through this cession and was eager to open land within its
borders to white settlements. The federal government in 1802 agreed,
therefore, to move all Georgia Indians west as soon as such a step could
be taken peaceably. By the time its gold mines attracted wide attention,
Georgia felt that the removal was long overdue and that the national
government was grossly negligent in fulfilling its promise. The state also
resented the federal government's handling of the Native Americans
since it led these unwanted residents of Georgia to expect permanent
�Notes / 421
occupancy of the lands that had once been the Over Hill and Lower
Towns section of their nation. See E. M. Coulter, Georgia: A Short
History, 223-237.
18. Mooney, 125-126; Starkey, 53-59, 118-129; Foreman, 265-269. The
Treaty of New Echota is given in Indian Affairs, II, 439-449.
19. Milling, 349. Foreman, 272, gives this statement made by General Wool,
"The whole scene since I have been in this country has been nothing but
a heartrending one/'
20. The treatment of the Cherokees from 1815 to 1839 is a dark blot on the
history of the white man's relation with the Native Americans. It has
been the subject of much research by scholars and has been the theme of
much writing. Its dramatic features made it the subject of the first piece
of North Carolina fiction produced by a North Carolinian on a topic
concerning his own state, and the conflict has come to life for 4,000,000
people who have viewed Kermit Hunter's drama, Unto These Hills,
presented each summer at the Mountainside Theater at Cherokee. For a
detailed account of the removal and of the chain of events leading up to
it, see Grant Foreman's Indian Removal. See also Starkey, Chaps. XVXVIII; Thomas Parker, The Cherokee Indians, Chaps. III-IV; Milling, 332382.
21. Parris, 71-77; Mooney, 157; Hunter, Unto These Hills; Milling, 368-370.
22. See Note 21.
23. Through the efforts of Samuel E. Beck of Asheville, a trustee of the
Cherokee Historical Association, and Robert B. Barker, a lawyer in
Washington, D. C., and a native of Andrews, official documents
concerning the Indian removal were located in the War Department in
1957, some 119 years after the events they describe transpired. These
documents, in the form of letters giving official reports of army officers,
contain the story of Tsali's role in Cherokee history. Copies of these
letters, presented to Mr. Beck, are now in the Cherokee Museum at
Cherokee. The account given in this chapter is based upon the letters of
Lieutenant Smith and Captain Larned to Colonel Foster and upon
Colonel Foster's report to his superior officer, all of which were
forwarded to General Scott. General Scott, in turn, sent the letters,
together with a brief note, to Brigadier-General R. Jones, Adjutant
General of the United States.
24. While the account given by the American officers removes the aura of
martyrdom from Tsali, it confirms the fact that through his death a
thousand Cherokees were allowed to stay in the mountains of Western
North Carolina. It also confirms the fact that the younger son was
allowed to survive.
25. Thomas's ability and sincerity were felt not only by the Cherokees, who
had accepted him as a member of their nation and the adopted son of
their beloved chief, but also by white men coming into the Indian
country. In his report to General Scott, Colonel Foster wrote: "I should
do my feelings great injustice were I to omit to represent to you, and
through you to the government—Mr. Wm. E.fsic] Thomas in the most
favorable light and as an individual deserving the confidence and
patronage of the Country—both for himself—and the Oconolufty[sic]
Indians—on whom he appears to exercise unbounded influence for good
purpose."
�422 / Notes
26. It was barely ten years after the forlorn group of Cherokees straggled
down from the hills that Charles Lanrnan made his horseback tour
through Western North Carolina. As a guest of Thomas, he spent
several days at Qualla, where he had the opportunity of studying
conditions in the new nation. He found the Cherokees a well organized
governmental unit with a practically self-sufficient economy. They
raised their food, grain, vegetables, and fruits on their small, allotted
farms and owned herds of cattle and their farm animals. They
manufactured their guns and their plows, axes, and other tools. The
women wove the cloth that they fashioned into clothing. The people, he
learned, were temperate, moral, responsible in their obligations, and
faithful to their professed religion. They had their own courts and kept
up their own roads. In fact, he found the Cherokees the "happiest
community that I have yet met in this Southern country/' Letters From
the Alleghany Mountains, 407-409.
27. In 1910 the General Joseph Winston Chapter, D.A.R., erected a marker
at the tomb of Junaluska and his wife. It carries the following
inscription: "Here lie the bodies of the Cherokee Chief Junaluska and
his wife, Nicie. Together with his warriors, he saved the life of Andrew
Jackson at Horse Shoe Bend, and for his bravery and faithfulness, North
Carolina made him a citizen and gave him lands in Graham County. He
died November 20, 1858, aged more than one hundred years." The date
of Junaluska's birth is not known, but H. C. Wilburn, a student of
Cherokee history, states that it is unlikely that he attained the age
generally ascribed to him. See his Junaluska.
CHAPTER 16
More Government for Western North Carolina
1. Lefler and Newsome, 334. By 1830 the piedmont and mountain counties
had a population of 374,092 as compared with 363,896 in the eastern
counties. Between 1830 and 1840 the piedmont population gained
rapidly, greatly widening the difference between the sections.
2. Such treaties were also opening Cherokee lands in Tennessee to white
settlements.
3. Dowd, Zebulon Baird Vance, 149.
4. Colonel Joab L. Moore served as deputy sheriff. He was responsible to
Colonel James McKee, sheriff of Hay wood County. C. D. Smith, A
Brief History of Macon County, I.
5. Mrs. Lester Conley, "Macon County Was Created in 1828," Asheville
Citizen-Times, March 26, 1950; The State, July 4, 1942, 1-2, 17-18; June 26,
1943, 19-23, 28.
6. "Indian Mound Deeded to Macon Residents," Asheville Citizen-Times,
October 13, 1946.
7. C. D. Smith, A Brief History of Macon County.
8. In 1867 General Thomas Clingman became interested in mines in the
present Mitchell County, especially the Sink Hole and the Clarissa,
believing that they might profitably be worked. He based his faith in
their output upon the fact that a slab taken from one of them showed
marks made by metal tools. These tools, he felt, had been those of early
�Notes / 423
Spanish prospectors. Deyton, 428; Selections From the Writings of Thomas L.
Clingman, 130-133.
9. Deyton, 432 £; The State Magazine, May 2, 1942, 1-2, 16-18.
10. Deyton, 442-443.
11. Patton, Henderson County, 54-55.
12. Ibid., 63, 88-90.
13. Journal, 111, 237.
14. Patton, op. cit., 85-96.
15. Ibid., chap. 7.
16. The Formation of North Carolina Counties, 62-64; Mrs. C. W. Savage,
"Cherokee Was Named for Indians," Asheville Citizen-Times, March 26,
1950; Margaret W. Freel, Our Heritage; The People of Cherokee County,
Chaps. I-V.
17. The Formation of North Carolina Counties, 51-54; Fred G. Mahler, "Created
Out of Burke and Wilkes, Caldwell Established in 1841," Lenoir NewsTopic, October 25, 1934; "Forts and Stockades Protected Citizens of
Caldwell Territory From Threatened Invasion of Indian Attacks," Lenoir
News-Topic, September 9, 1941; The State Magazine, September 26, 1936,
12-15; January 31, 1942, 1-3, 18-22; May 20, 1944, 16-24.
18. The Formation of North Carolina Counties, 142-144; "Interesting Facts
About McDowell County," Asheville Citizen-Times, November 27, 1936;
"McDowell County is Described by Story on Radio," Radio speech by
Paul J. Story and reported in Asheville Citizen-Times, November 27, 1936;
The State Magazine, December 25, 1937, 23-28; July 19, 1941, 3-6, 24-25;
April 15, 1944, 18-24.
19. Whitener, History of Watauga County, 36-37.
20. Ibid., Arthur, Watauga County, 114-116; The Formation of North Carolina
Counties, 220-223.
21. Lefler and Newsome, 334; Appendix B.
22. The Formation of North Carolina Counties, 144; George W. McCoy,
"Madison County to Mark Its Centennial," Asheville Citizen-Times,
January 14, 1951; The State Magazine, April 25, 1942, 1-2, 16-19.
23. Parris, 93-97.
24. The Formation of North Carolina Counties, 129-130; John Parrish and
Clarence Griffin, Historical Sketch of Jackson County; Larry W. Mull,
"Jackson County," Asheville Citizen-Times, March 26, 1950; The State
Magazine, June 27, 1942, 1-2, 16-18; July 3, 1943, 16-21.
25. Patton, Sketches of Polk County, 25-27; Griffin, 231-233.
26. Patton, op. cit., 27-31; Chap. 4; Griffin, 233-236.
27. The Formation of North Carolina Counties, 4-7; The State Magazine,
September 5, 1942, 1-2, 19-20.
28. Patton, Henderson County, 103-116; The Formation of North Carolina
Counties, 204-205; Ora L. Jones, "Transylvania County—What it Was
and Is," Asheville Citizen-Times, January 7-March 24, 1917;_ The State
Magazine, June 20, 1942, 1-2, 16-18; June 19, 1942, 16-21.
29. The Formation of North Carolina Counties, 63-64; Mrs. Robert Penland,
"Clay County Makes Progress," Asheville Citizen-Times, March 26, 1950;
The State Magazine, October 4, 1941, 5-6, 20.
30. The Formation of North Carolina Counties, 53; The State Magazine, June 14,
1952. The laws creating many of these counties and those adjusting their
boundary lines are given by Smathers in his History of Land Titles, 133142.
�424 / Notes
CHAPTER 17.
The Lure of the Mountains
1. The Reverend Mr. Skiles described the people coming to his first service
in these words: "Men and women came straggling in, many on foot,
some on horseback, the wife in sun-bonnet and straight, narrow gown,
riding behind her husband. Here and there a woman was seen mounted
on a steer, with a child or two in her arms, while the husband, walking
beside them, goad in hand, guided the animal over the rough
path...There were many more feet than shoes in the congregation."
Cooper, A Sketch of a Missionary Life, 6-13.
2. A. S. Merrimon, "Journal, 1853-54," N.C.H.R., VIII (July, 1931), 318329.
3. This organization was given the name of Little Brittain [sic]
Temperance Society, Auxiliary to the American Temperance Society. A
constitution was formulated and a record made by the secretary, Henry
M. Kerr. The group had 87 members. Griffin, 179-181.
4. Johnson, 88-89. In 1859 F. L. Wilson of the North Carolina Standard,
Raleigh newspaper, visited Asheville and seemed surprised to find that
the westerners, instead of being savages, were "intelligent, high-minded,
hospitable, and civilized." Quoted by Johnson, 34.
5. Sondley, II, 621-624.
6. "Letters From the Alleghany Mountains," 408-413.
7. Patton, Henderson County, 96-97; Wilbur Zeigler and Ben Grosscup, In
The Heart of the Alleghanies, 350-351; Edward R. Memminger, An Historical
Sketch of Flat Rock.
8. Patton, Flat Rock, 96-99.
9. Ibid., 216-217; Memminger, op. cit.
10. The rectory was built between 1832 and 1836 for the Reverend T. W. S.
Mott and it later became known as the Diamond-in-the-Desert. From it,
according to tradition, the first Confederate flag displayed in Western
North Carolina waved. Shortly after 1850, the Reverend John Grimke
Drayton came to Flat Rock as a resident at Ravenwood and was for
many years rector at St. John-in-the-Wilderness. Patton, op. cit., 200213.
11. It is said that the Fletcher Church, completed in 1857, owed its
organization to a meeting of estate owners held in the back parlor of the
home of Alexander Blake, who gave the land for the edifice.
12. A. W. Long, "History of Transylvania County," Asheville Citizen-Times,
May 8, 1941.
13. The names given to a few of these estates were: Mountain Lodge, home
of the Charles Barings, who later built Highland Lake; Argyle, home of
Judge Mitchell King; The Meadows, home of Daniel Blake of Fletcher;
Rock Hill, home of C. C. Memminger and later the home of Carl
Sandburg and called Connemara; The Castle, home of Count Joseph
Marie Gabriel St. Xavier de Choiseul; Piedmont, the home of the
Reverend Charles Cotesworth Pinckney; Beaumont, the home of
Andrew Johnstone; Brookland, the home of Edmund Molyneaux;
Glenroy, the home of Dr. Mitchell King; and Ravenwood, the home of
the Reverend John Grimke Drayton. See Memminger, Historical Sketch of
Flat Rock and Patton, Flat Rock.
�Notes / 42514. In order to have a hotel, estate owners formed a company, each
contributing $1000 toward the project. Henry Farmer, nephew of Mrs.
Charles Baring, became the manager and a year later purchased the
hotel. It was the first of the resort hotels for which Western North
Carolina was in time to be famous. This hotel is still in operation under
the name Woodfleld Inn.
15. Sondley, II, 587-596, 609.
16. Charles Lanman, visiting Patton's hotel at Warm Springs, has left a
vivid description of it and of the Painted Rock in his Letters From the
Alleghany Mountains, 433-435.
17. Sondley, II, 609, 769.
18. Lanman, 427.
19. Sadie S. Patton, "Fame of Western North Carolina as Major Health
Resort Dates From 18th Century," The Asheville Citizen-Times, March 26,
1950.
20. Sondley says that the grave of John Lyon, whose remains were moved
from the churchyard of the First Presbyterian Church in Asheville to the
newly opened Riverside Cemetery, was the first one there to have a
stone. The marker was made possible by contributions sent by friends in
Scotland. Buncombe County, II, 625-626, 715-719.
21. Sondley, Appendix M.
22. Ibid.; Charles A. Shull, "Fringed Bell: A New Name for Rare Shortia"
Asheville Citizen-Times, March 26, 1950.
23. Sondley, II, 528-529.
24. Sondley traces the dispute between Clingman and Mitchell. See his
Buncombe County, II, 529-565.
25. Mitchell, Diary of a Geological Tour. This was edited by Dr. Kemp P.
Battle, who wrote the introduction.
26. Mitchell, 52.
27. Sondley, II, 532.
28. An account of the search written by Judge David Schenck, together
with the story as told by Big Torn Wilson, appeared in the Asheville
Citizen of November 20, 1887. A reprint appeared in the Anniversary
issue of the Citizen-Times, March 26, 1950. See also Dykeman, Chap. V.
29. George W. McCoy, "Guyot: Greatest Explorer of Appalachian
Mountains," Asheville Citizen-Times, June 18, 1950; Sondley II, 555;
Dictionary of American Biography, VIII, 63-64.
30. Guyot, "Measurements of the Mountains of North Carolina." This
information was given in a letter written to the editor of the Asheville
News and printed in the issue of July 18, 1860. It is given in The Writings
of Thomas L, Clingman, 138-147, and in Sondley, Appendix A. See also
Guyot, "Notes on the Geography of the Mountain District of Western
North Carolina." These notes, dated February 22, 1863, were found in
1929 in the library of the Coast and Geodetic Survey and were edited by
Myron A. Avery and Kenneth Boardman in N.C.H.R., XV (July, 1938),
251-290.
�426 / Notes
CHAPTER 18
Whigs in the Mountains
1. Lefler and Newsome, 328; William K. Boyd, The Federal Period, 166.
2. Deyton, 460.
3. Almost 22,000 of the 33,993 votes returned for Dudley came from the
"back country" and the mountains. However, in addition to Yancey
County, Ashe, Haywood, and Macon Counties returned majority votes
for Richard Dobbs Spaight, the Democratic candidate. Hamilton, Party
Politics in North Carolina, 39; Lefler and Newsome, 343.
4. Hamilton, op. tit,, 553-568; Lefler and Newsome, 343-345; Samuel A'C
Ashe, The History of North Carolina, II, Chap. XXVI.
5. For the candidates these canvasses were strenuous, especially in the
mountain section of the state with its wretched roads. In 1840, John
Motley Morehead spent from March to August traveling by any means
available to all parts of the state. The towns and villages greeted him
with bands and parades and barbecues, arranged by the county party
committees. These committees distributed the party's broadsides and
newspapers to the assembled crowds. A vivid description of these
meetings is given by Boyd, 266-270, 278-280, and by Hamilton, op. cit.,
553-568. The party platform in the 1840 election is given in Porter,
National Party Platforms, Chap. 1.
6. Arthur, Western North Carolina, 359-363.
7. Ibid,, 367-368; Gilbert, The Public Career of Thomas L. Clingman, 36-40.
Among other political figures in Western North Carolina choosing to
settle their differences by dueling was Zebulon B. Vance. When he and
David Coleman were campaigning for a seat in Congress and, as was
customary, were traveling together, Coleman demanded an apology for
a personal remark made by Vance. Vance refused, and preparations
were made for a duel. Before the date set, Dr. J. F. E. Hardy of
Asheville prevailed upon the men to settle their grievances in a more
peaceful manner. Clement Dowd, Zebulon B. Vance, 37-38.
8. Griffin, 549-553.
9. Sondley, II, 711.
10. Clarence N. Griffin, The Public Career of Thomas L. Clingman, 549-550;
Guion G. Johnson, Ante-Bellum North Carolina, 774-780.
11. Gilbert, 1-22.
12. Ibid, 24-99.
13. Dowd, 2-12.
14. Ibid., 12. Vance's father, moved to the present Marshall when Zebulon
was a child.
15. Given in Connor, Ante Bellum Builders, 135.
16. Griffin, 214.
17. Cecil K. Brown, The State Highway System, 3-19. In 1851 the General
Assembly passed a bill appropriating $12,000 for a survey for a road
from Salisbury to the place where the French Broad River enters
Tennessee. The money was to come from Cherokee land sales and from
the income from Cherokee land bonds. Too small a sum was realized
from these sources to make the survey. Cecil K. Brown, The State
Highway System, 97.
�Notes / 427
18. Deyton, 444. It was during this period that Judge Agustus C. Merrimon
was finding travel over his circuit both disagreeable and time
consuming. He could, if fortunate, get from Waynesville to Asheville
between noon and bedtime, but when the weather was unfavorable, it
took a full day to cover thirty miles. See his Journal,
19. Lefler and Newsome, 345-347; Cecil K. Brown, A State Movement in
Railroad Development, Chaps. III-1V.
20. Agitation for state aid in railroad building began as early as 1833, and in
that year and the following one, North Carolina issued no less than 10
charters to companies hoping to construct railroads. The state did not
promise any of these companies aid. Brown, op. tit., 27.
21. He expressed this view in his message to the General Assembly. Connor,
op. tit., 135.
22. Address delivered by Hayne in Charleston, October 22, 1835. Proceedings
(Meetings connected with the Louisville, Cincinnati, Charleston
Railroad,) part I.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid., part II.
25. Patton, Henderson County, 220-221; Wallace, 449.
26. The bill was written by W. S. Ashe, a Democrat, and the deciding vote
in the .Senate was cast for it by another Democrat, Calvin Graves.
Brown, 63-69.
27. Ibid., 90-91..
28. See his Numbers of Carlton.
29. Romulus S. Saunders, the Democrat defeated by John M. Morehead in
the 1840 gubernatorial race, wrote a substitute bill for two pending bills
concerning extension of the North Carolina Railroad. His bill provided
for chartering two companies, one for an eastern extension and one for
a western extension. It easily passed both houses of the Assembly.
Brown, 98-99.
30. Ibid., 104.
31. Ibid., 101.
32. In the General Assembly William H. Thomas of Hay wood County
argued for the Ducktown route. B. E. Edney of Buncombe County and
J. A. Fagg of Madison County argued for the French Broad River route.
Brown, op. cit., 140.
33. Ibid., 127-128; Griffin, 239.
34. Arthur, Western North Carolina, 469-473; Brown, op. cit., 142.
35. The Asheville News, February 24, 1859. Quoted by Brown, op. cit., 141142.
36. On June 2, 1859, the voters of Buncombe County voted to authorize the
county to subscribe $125,000. Henderson County voters, at a special
election, pledged the county to subscribe $100,000. Madison County
voters authorized their county to subscribe $50,000. The Asheville News,
August 11, 1859. Quoted by Brown, op. cit., 142.
37. Brown, 143-145.
38. Lefler and Newsome, 362.
39. Brown, The State Highway System, 16-17. The Raleigh Register of February
28, 1849, carried an article discussing the cost, the income from, and the
advantages of plank roads, "The Poor Man's Railroad." See North
Carolina History Told by Contemporaries, 228-235.
�428 / Notes
40.
41.
42.
43.
Patton, Henderson County, 143; Sondley, II, 623-624.
Gilbert, 56.
Ashe, II, 486, 491, 503, 512-513.
Connor, Rebuilding an Ancient Commonwealth, II, 74-76; Porter, National
Party Platforms, Chap. 5; Hamilton, Party Politics, 173-174; Selections
From the Writings of Thomas L. Clingman, 355-356.
CHAPTER 19
War in the Land
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Boyd, 296-329; Hamilton, Party Politics in North Carolina, 194-200.
Porter, Chap. 6.; Eaton, Clement, A History of the Southern Confederacy} 1-22.
R. D. W. Connor, North Carolina, 113.
Lefler and Newsome, 423.
Frontis W. Johnston, The Papers of Zebulon Baird Vance, "Introduction"
XXXVI and XXXVII.
6. Lefler and Newsome, 422-423; Dowd, 62-64; Ashe, II, 536-546.
7. Dowd. The entire speech is given, 441 ff.
8. A full discussion of events leading up to the war is given in Lefler, North
Carolina, II, Chap. XXVIII.
9. Hamilton, North Carolina Since 1860,1-6; See Governor Ellis' letter to Leroy
Pope Walker, Secretary of War, April 24, 1861, in History Told By
Contemporaries, 290.
10. Griffin, The History of Old Tryon and Rutherford Counties, 249-250.
11. Sondley, II, 813-815; Walter Clark, "The Raising, Organization and
Equipment of North Carolina Troops During the Civil War." N.H.C.,
Bulletin 23.
12. Dowd, 62-70; Sondley, II, 813; Johnston, op, cit., XXXVIII.
13. Allen, Hay wood County, 64.
14. Patton, The Story of Henderson County, 125.
15. Clarence N. Gilbert, The Public Career of Thomas Lanier Clingman, 100-107.
16. Manly Wade Wellman, The Kingdom of Madison, 81.
17. Ora L. Jones, "Transylvania County," Asheville Citizen-Times, February 24,
1917; Griffin, 251-252; Patton, Henderson County, 125.
18. Ora L. Jones "Transylvania County."
19. Sondley, II, 813-815; Griffin, 249-253; Patton, Henderson County, 125.
20. Sondley, II, 691.
21. The United States Census figures for 1860.
22. Alley states as typical his own family. His father joined the Confederate
forces and his father's brother the Union forces. Random Thoughts, 2-3; See
also Patton, op. cit, 127; Griffin, 249.
23. Deyton, 460; Whitener, Watauga County, 47; Jones, op. cit.
24. Dugger, War Trails of the Blue Ridge, 110-125.
25. Patton, Henderson County, 128; Patton, Polk County, 43-45.
26. Jones, op. cit.
27. Lefler and Newsome, 376-377.
28. Clark, "The Raising of North Carolina Troops,'} N.C.H.C. Bulletin. In an address before the Association of the Maryland Line at Baltimore on February
�Notes / 429
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
23, 1885, Vance gave a summary of the goods brought into Wilmington by
the Ad-Vance and other state owned blockade runners. See Dowd, 489-490.
North Carolina appointed Jonathan Worth as state salt commissioner.
Eaton, 249. Nicholas W. Woodfin of Asheville was made an agent for the
distribution of salt from the mines at Saltville, Virginia, to Western North
Carolina. Hamilton, op, cit., 49; Digges, George, Historical Facts Concerning
Buncombe County Government, 206-207.
Lefler and Newsome, 437-439; Johnston, op. cit., "Introduction" XLIIXLIII.
Clarence D. Douglas, Conscription and the Writ of Habeas Corpus in North
Carolina During the Civil War, 5-35.
The North Carolina Standard for November 19, 1862, carried a letter from a
farmer in Transylvania County telling of the desperate need for salt.
Douglas, 5-39; With her husband and five sons in the Confederate army,
Mrs. Lane, wife of Captain Lane, is said to have driven with a servant from
her farm home in Henderson County to the salt mines in South Carolina to
bring back a supply of the precious salt. Patton, Henderson County, 131.
Mooney, 168-172; Asheville and Wilkesboro were centers for collecting
medicinal herbs and roots gathered by the women and children of the
mountain region. Hamilton, op. cit., 48.
Mooney, 168-172; Arthur, Western North Carolina, 609; George McCoy,
"Trace of Old Thomas Road is Part of Farmstead Museum," Asheville
Times, September 13, 1953.
CHAPTER 20
War Comes to the Hills
1. North Carolina banks suspended payments in specie in November, 1860.
Both the State and the Confederacy issued treasury notes. These
depreciated with alarming rapidity. By November, 1864, a State $100
bond was worth $7.50, and a Confederate bond of the same
denomination was worth $4.00. As the value of the paper money fell,
prices rose. In 1865 enough calico for a woman's dress cost $500. There
was, of course, widespread speculation in spite of the efforts of a State
Board appointed to set the prices of commodities every two months.
Hamilton, North Carolina Since 1860, 46-55; Eaton, 239-240.
2. Eaton, 233-236; Lefler and Newsome, 443-444; Lefler, II, 520-521.
3. Ashe, II, 858-859; Arthur, The History of Western North Carolina, 603-604.
4. Many counties of the State had so many deserters before 1863 that the
attention of officials was called to them. Wilkes County had "a whole
regiment organized and under arms." Hamilton, op. cit., 40. North
Carolina during the conflict had 23,694 deserters. Other Confederate states
had proportionate numbers. Eaton, 261, 271-279; Ashe, II, 775-776; Lefler
and Newsome, 445-446.
5. Wellman, The Kingdom of Madison, 83-84; Ashe, II, 860; Arthur, op. cit., 603;
Dykeman, The French Broad, 96-98; See also Governor Vance's letter,
Dowd, 74.
6. Ashe, II, 858-859; Arthur, op. cit., 603-605.
�430 / Notes
7. Governor Vance insisted upon putting into practice the state's rights
doctrine to which the Confederacy owed its being. Thus he held that the
military power of the Confederacy must not interfere with the civil rights
of citizens and the laws in operation in North Carolina. See his letter of
November 11, 1862, to President Davis in which he makes these views
clear. See also his letter of March 21,1863, to Secretary Seddonin which he
said he had ordered the State Militia to shoot the first man "who attempts
to perpetrate a similar outrage without the authority of the marshall of that
district." Dowd, 75, 81, 87. See also Lefler and Newsome, 445.
8. Lefler and Newsome, 443; Douglas, 5-39; Eaton, 278-279; Dowd, 78, 81.
9. History Told by Contemporaries, 295; Used with permission of the University
of North Carolina Press.
10. Patton, Henderson County, 132; Patton, Polk County, 41; Jones, Transylvania
County,
11. Patton, Henderson County, 127-128; Stephens, "Bushwhackers, Renegades,
and Ruffians in the Western Mountains."
12. Stephens, op. tit.; Patton, Henderson County, 128; Hughes, Hendersonville in
Civil War Times, 25-26; Patton, Polk County, 46.
13. Deyton, 465; Ashe, II, 860.
14. For Governor Vance's letter to Secretary Seddon, April 7,1863, see Dowd,
82.
15. Van Noppen, Stoneman's Last Raid, 20; Dykeman, 117-118.
16. Ashe, II, 860.
17. Allen, 81-82.
18. Dugger, 126-133; In his History of Western North Carolina, 605-608, Arthur
gives the details of this raid as told by the guide.
19. Dugger, Chap. Ill; Arthur, History of Watauga County, 174.
20. Dugger, Chap. Ill; Arthur, op. cit., 174-176.
21. Sondley, II, 690; 692-694; Ashe, II, 1006-1007; Sondley, "The Battle of
Asheville," Asheville Citizen, September 10, 1927.
22. Terror spread throughout the countryside as word came that Stoneman's
troops were approaching. Emma Rankin, a private teacher in the home of
Colonel Logan Carson of Pleasant Gardens, four miles from Marion, has
left a description of what took place on that plantation. Silverware and
jewelry were hastily buried. Clothes were hidden in slave quarters, and
food was cached in unlikely places. The farm animals were driven to the
wooded hills. Colonel Carson, at the urging of his family, sought personal
safety in the hills, and the women were left to face the Union soldiers and
carried out their part with bravery. See her Stoneman's Raid, also Hamilton,
36-38; and Lefler, II, 503-504.
23. Patton, Polk County, 45; Ashe, II, 994 ff; Chester S. Davis, "Stoneman's
Raid into Northwest North Carolina," Winston-Salem Journal and Sentinel,
October 4, 1953; Alfred M. Waddell, The Last Year of the War in North
Carolina. See also Spencer, Cornelia Phillips, The Last Ninety Days of the
War. The most complete account of this raid is given in Ina Van Noppen's
Stoneman's Last Raid.
24. Allen, 83-85. An account of the surrender at Waynesville as written by
Lieutenant Colonel William W. Stringfleld of his Memoirs is given by
Allen, 91-92.
�Notes / 431
CHAPTER 21
The Rebirth of a State
1. By May, 1865, thousands of North Carolina families were penniless. In
some cases their homes had been stripped of furniture. Clothing
consisted of badly worn garments. These people had no credit and no
way of establishing credit. Randolph Shotwell, The Shotwell Papers, II,
215.
2. The General Assembly appropriated, during the four years of the war,
$6,000,000 for relief work. When hostilities ceased, the State had on hands a
six months' supply of food for 60,000 soldiers. All through the war the fare
of both state and Confederate soldiers was simple and monotonous. During
the final year, the meals consisted largely of corn bread and black-eyed
peas, called by men "The Confederacy's Best Friend." At times sweet
potatoes and sorghum varied the menus. Dowd, 489-490; Hamilton, North
Carolina Since I860, 48.
3. Prices of other food stuffs were in proportion. Between September, 1860,
and March, 1865, the cost of eggs rose from 30 cents a dozen to $5.00 a
dozen; corn from $1.00 a bushel to $30.00; and potatoes from $1.00 a bushel
to $30.00. Hamilton, 46-48. The Pay of a Confederate soldier was $11.00 a
month. As editor and owner of TheAsheville Citizen in 1868-1869, Randolph
Shotwell received as payment for subscriptions and job printing "wood,
wheat, corn, apples, dried fruit, feathers, and rags." When he sold the
paper and returned to Rutherfordton in 1869, he had the sum of $2.50 as his
year's net profit. Shotwell, II, 310.
4. Out of the state's total white population of 629, 942, it furnished 124,000
men to the State and Confederate armies, that is, one out of every six
persons in the State. Dowd, 465-470. More than 40,000 were killed in battle
or died from disease. Thousands of others were maimed for life or suffered
through the remainder of their lives from ailments connected to the war
service. This appalling number does not include civilian deaths or
incapacitating illnesses brought on by sufferings or privations of war.
Leiler and Newsome, 448.
5. Griffin, 306, 314.
6. Tennent's letter, dated November 18,1865, is among the McDowell family
papers, now in possession of Miss Margaret Ligon of Asheville.
7. From every section of the state lawyers and other leading citizens wrote
letters to President Johnson, describing conditions and making appeals for
aid. Among them are letters from Western North Carolina, portions of
which deal with court cases in the hopelessly war-torn Madison County
and Yancey County. Several of these give details of the proceedings
connected with the case of the death of Sheriff Ranson P. Merrill. "Letters
of North Carolinians to Andrew Johnson." N.C.H.R., XVIII (October,
1951), 507-516; XXIX Qanuary, 1952), 115-117; 264-268.
8. Silas Weston, a Negro, and his family were shot by the Adair gang.
Shotwell, II, 478-493. Columbus and Govan Adair, together with another
member of their gang, were later hanged for this crime.
9. Ashe. 1016.
10. Ibid.
11. History Told by Contemporaries, 316-317; Lefler and Newsome, 453-455;
�432 / Notes
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
Hamilton, Reconstructs in North Carolina., 106-147. See also Francis Butler
Simkins, A History of the South, 255-257.
Lefler and Newsome, 459-460.
Benjamin S. Hedrick was a chemistry professor at the University.
Responsibility for his dismissal from the faculty in 1856 was placed upon his
colleagues. At a faculty meeting called by President David L. Swain,
Hedrick was dismissed by a unanimous vote of the faculty members. He
narrowly escaped mob violence in Salisbury and hastened to leave the state.
Lefler and Newsome, 419.
Late in the war a peace meeting was held in Asheville. It was inspired,
however, not by Holden, but by the desperate conditions prevailing in
Western North Carolina. Patton, Henderson County, 127.
Ashe, II, 1023-1026; 1031-1036; Hamilton, North Carolina Since I860, Chap.
V.
Ashe, II, 1040-1060; Hamilton, op. cit., 85-113; Hamilton, Reconstruction in
North Carolina, 207-252. The Reconstruction Act is given in History Told by
Contemporaries, 333-334.
Lefler and Newsome, 460.
Ibid., 459-460; H. A. Herbert (ed.), Why the Solid South, 70-84; Connor,
Rebuilding an Ancient Commonwealth, II, 293-299.
Ashe, II, 1064-1070; Hamilton, North Carolina Since 1860, Chap. VI. The text
of the Constitution is given in History Told by Contemporaries, 336-340.
The Republican Party was formally organized in North Carolina on March
27, 1867, although for a year before that date, the word Republican had
been applied to many citizens. Lefler and Newsome, 459.
CHAPTER 22
Long is the Night
1. Hamilton, Reconstruction, 207-252.
2. Griffin, History of Old Tryon and Rutherford Counties, 326; History Told by
Contemporaries, 344-345.
3. The relief work done by the Freedrnan's Bureau for needy in North
Carolina has not been generally known. Because of this aid, doubtless many
of these people became members of the secret organization looked upon
with favor by the Bureau and also became members of the Republican
Party. See History Told by Contemporaries, 328-329; Lefler, II, 531-532; John
Hope Franklin, Reconstruction After the Civil War, 36-39; Allen W. Trelease,
White Terror, Introduction, XXIII-XXIV.
4. Sirnkins, A History of the South, 261-262.
5. The password is given in Dykeman, The French Broad, 121.
6. The symbol of a red string was chosen from the story of Rahab, who
betrayed her country to the Israelites. She, with her family, was saved by
the conquering Hebrews when they saw the red cord with which she had
let their spies down over the walls of Jerusalem. Randolph Shotwell
estimated that at least 250 of the educated, well-to-do citizens of
Rutherford County and surrounding territory had not registered to vote.
Shotwell Papers, II, 276 ff. This view is upheld in the excerpts given in History
Told by Contemporaries, 318-321.
�Notes / 433
7. Franklin, op. dt., 124-126; Ashe, II, 1108-1109; History Told by Contemporaries,
318-321; Hamilton, Reconstruction, 327-343.
8. Ashe, II, 1109; Hamilton, Reconstruction, Chap. VIII.
9. Whitener, Daniel J. Prohibition in North Carolina, 1-14; 50-51.
10. Ibid., 53.
11. These churches were Round Hill and Liberty. They were probably
destroyed by the Adair gang. Shotwell, II, 479.
12. Trelease, op. cit,, Note 1, 430; Franklin, op. cit., 153 ff.
13. Mrs. T. J. Jarvis, "The Conditions That Led to the Ku Klux Klans,"
N.C.B., I (April 10, 1902), 3-24; History Told by Contemporaries, 331-333;
Ashe, II, 1061-1071; Hamilton, Reconstruction, Chap. XII. The North
Carolina figures given are from Franklin, 157.
14. Griffin, op. cit., 327-328; Shotwell, II, 355; On July 22, 1871, The
Rutherfordton Star carried a summary of this event.
15. Griffin, op. cit., 326-327; Hamilton, Reconstruction, 480-481; Shotwell, II,
421.
16. Lefler and Newsome, 470; Hamilton (ed.) "Prison Experiences of
Randolph Shotwell," N.C.H.R., II (April, 1925), 147-161; (July, 1925), 332350; (October, 1925), 459-474. When Federal troops entered Rutherford
County, citizens of Burnt Chimney drew up a set of resolutions protesting
this action on the part of the National Government. The document was
printed in The Rutherfordton Star of June 10,1871. It is given in Griffin, 332333. Shotwell was sentenced on the grounds of having participated in the
raid on Justice. He was also fined $5,000.
17. Trelease, op. cit., 209.
18. Ibid., 292; Hamilton, North Carolina Since the Civil War, 149-153.
19. Trelease gives the names of the men on Holden's list. 217.
20. Lefler, II, 568-577; The excesses of the "Kirk-Holden War" acted as a
boomerang to the leaders in state government and was a factor in the
downfall of Governor Holden. At the same time, the anti-Ku Klux Klan
laws it called forth brought the beginning of restored order to North
Carolina. See History Told by Contemporaries, 341-344.
21. Charges upon which Holden was tried included: declaring martial law in
the state, illegally arresting citizens in Alamance, Caswell, and Orange
Counties, illegally recruiting soldiers, and refusing to honor writs of
habeas corpus. Ashe, II, 1128-1131; Hamilton, Reconstruction, 537-558;
History Told By Contemporaries, 341.
22. Lefler and Newsome, 448; 499.
23. Ibid.
24. Hamilton, Reconstruction, 201-206; Griffin, 336.
25. Cecil Brown, A State Movement in Railroad Development, 148-151.
26. Ibid., 188-205.
27. Ibid., 190.
28. Ibid., 191-193.
29. Ashe, II, 1078.
30. Ibid., 1104-1105; Brown, op. cit., 193-196; Hamilton, Reconstruction, 427-451;
Hamilton, North Carolina Since 1860, 120-127; Lefler II, 561-566.
31. Brown, op. cit. 195-196.
�434 / Notes
32. Ibid,, 199-205; Hamilton, Reconstruction, 426-451. The Report of the Commission
to Investigate Charge of Fraud and Corruption Under Act of Assembly. Session 187172.
33. Brown, op. cit., 206-224.
CHAPTER 23
Dawn Breaks Over the Mountains
1. Griffin, 324; Hamilton, North Carolina Since I860, 161-169; Arthur,
Watauga County, 182; Shotwell, II, 421.
2. Formation of North Carolina Counties, 202-205; Arthur, Western North Carolina,
208-212; Smathers, Land Titles, 139-140; Guy Paul, Jr., "Swain County
Emphasizing Its Scenic Attractions," Asheville Citizen-Times, March 26,
1950; The State Magazine, July 18, 1942, 1-2, 16-17.
3. Formation of North Carolina Counties, 107-108; Smathers, 135; Dorothy
Childers, "Graham Emphasizes Lumbering," Asheville Citizen-Times,
March 26, 1950; The State Magazine, July 11, 1942, 1-2, 17-18.
4. Even in reconstruction-torn Rutherford County a trend toward normal
conditions was discernible by 1871. Academies were reopening by 1873.
Mail service was resumed with some degree of regularity, and in 1874 the
county's first textile plant was in operation. Griffin, 336-339.
5. Hamilton, Reconstruction, 642-643; Hamilton, North Carolina Since 1860. 188189. The texts of many of these amendments are given in History Told by
Contemporaries, 350-351.
6. Griffin 340; Hamilton, North Carolina Since 1860, 170-191; Dowd, 147.
7. The Raleigh Sentinel printed an account of the Bakersville rally. The crowd
represented a wide territory. Fifty men from Yancey County swam their
horses across swollen streams and rode over "the roughest, rockiest road in
the United States" to see and hear Vance and Settle. Dowd, 149.
8. For Article IX of the Constitution of 1868, see History Told by Contemporaries,
333-340.
9. In North Carolina 38,649 white men and women and children over ten
years of age could neither read not write. During the decade 1870-1880
illiteracy in the state increased. History Told by Contemporaries, 346; Lefler
and Newsome, 503; Whitener, Public Education in North Carolina During the
Reconstruction, 90.
10. M. C. S. Noble, A History of the Public Schools in North Carolina, 367. In 1870
only about one in ten of the state's children attended school. Whitener, 90.
11. Noble, 356; Hamilton, Reconstruction, 612-613; Mclver's report for 1872 is
given in History Told by Contemporaries, 345-347.
12. Lefler and Newsome, 503; Hamilton, North Carolina Since 1860, 359; Edgar
W. Knight, "One Hundred Years of Public Education in North Carolina,"
N.C.E., (February, 1936), 195.
13. Noble, 357-367; Lefler and Newsome, 502.
14. Noble, 367.
15. Ibid., 357-358.
�Notes / 435
16. After the Educational Meeting at Raleigh, text books for the public schools
were hastily written by North Carolina educators. The following year the
publishing house of Sterling, Campbell, and Albright in Greensboro had a
series called "Our Own" ready for distribution to the schools. Included in
the set were a primer and readers, the work of Charles W. Smythe, two
arithmetics by the Reverend S. Landers, and a "Geography Reader For Dixie
Children" by Mrs. M. B. Moore. Wiley had earlier written text books,
including the North Carolina Reader. William Bingham's Latin Grammar and
Caesar were used as was Webster's Blue Back Speller. The new books were
generously sprinkled with Confederate propaganda. Sterling and
Campbell in their readers gave Bible verses in support of slavery, and the
arithmetics presented problems with a war flavor. The most gleefully gory
of these problem states, "If one Confederate soldier killed ninety Yankees,
how many can ten Confederate soldiers kill?" Allison W. Honeycutt,
"Text Book Development," N.C.E., (February, 1936), 227-229, 261, 274;
Noble, 237-238.
17. The Bible was frequently used as a text as was whatever almanac happened
to be available. Noble, 325; History Told by Contemporaries, 345 ff.
18. At the end of the Reconstruction Period (1876) the school report listed
2,820 schools for white children with an enrollment of 119,083 pupils, less
than half of the state's white children. The number of white teachers given
was 2,108. Of these 613 were women. In the mountains the salary of
teachers ranged from $16 to $25 per month, and many of the schools were in
session only six weeks each year. Noble, 367-372.
19. Ibid., 367.
20. Lefler and Newsome, 502; History Told by Contemporaries, 367ff.
21. Noble, 399-409; G. B. Phillips, "The Development of the Graded Schools,"
N.C.E., (February, 1936), 211-212; Edgar W. Knight, "The Peabody
Fund," N.C.E. (February, 1936), 206. In the face of pressing war needs,
Wiley had succeeded on December 23, 1864, in getting a bill through the
General Assembly, making the state's public school system a graded
system. It also set up a six months' term. This law was never put into effect.
Noble, 260.
22. Noble, 399-409.
23. Hamilton, North Carolina Since i860, 349-350, 363-364.
24. Ibid., 364-365; Noble, 428ff; Knight, "One Hundred Years of Public
Education in North Carolina," N.C.E. (February, 1936), 195-199.
25. Griffin, 338.
26. Camp, 12.
27. The Reverend Jesse Finley had opened the school at Lenoir in 1857. It had
continued during the war.
28. James A. Hutchins, Yancey Collegiate Institute at Burnsville; Arthur, Western
North Carolina, 424-447; Arthur, Watauga County, 243-264; "Private Schools
of Asheville Gain Wide Recognition," Asheville Citizen-Times, March 26,
1950; "Old Judson College Building is Landmark, "Asheville Citizen-Times,
September 13, 1933.
29. Arthur, Western North Carolina, 430-439, 446-447; Arthur, Watauga County,
Chap. XV; Bill Sharpe, A New Geography, 230-232.
�436 / Notes
30. Brown, A State Movement in Railroad Building, 223-225.
31. In her Land of the Sky, Christian Reid (Frances C. Fisher Tiernan) describes
her ride in 1876 from the railroad terminal at Henry to Asheville. The
"thirsty men and dusty women" traveled the distance in a coach drawn by
"six fine white horses."
32. Lefler and Newsome, 486 ff.; C. R. Sumner, "Railroad Conquered the Blue
Ridge, "Asheville Citizen-Times, March 7, 1954.
33. Brown, 223-224.
34. Sondley, II, 630.
35. Sumner, op. cit. In 1881 H. Heaton Coleman, one of the assistant engineers,
made a map of the Western North Carolina Railroad and gave the length of
the tunnels through the Old Fort-Henry area as follows; Point—216 feet;
Jarret's—125 feet; Lick Log—562 feet; McElroy—89 feet; High Ridge—
451 feet; Burgin—252 feet; Swannanoa—1800 feet. The map was verified
byj. W. Wilson.
36. Sondley, II, 631-632.
37. Brown, 226-230; Lefler and Newsome, 486-487.
38. Lefler and Newsome, 487; Arthur, Western North Carolina, 473-479.
39. Arthur, op. cit., 473-479.
40. Ibid., 479-484; Patton, Henderson County, 222-226; Hamilton, North Carolina
Since I860, Chap. XVIII.
41. Arthur, op. cit., 482-484; Patton, op. cit., 226.
42. In the counties just east of the Blue Ridge a multiplicity of characters was
granted to companies during this period, and a confusing number of
consolidations took place. Griffin, Chap. 25; John F. Stover, The Railroads of
the South, Chaps. IX, XII-XIII.
43. Griffin, Chap. 25, and p. 361; Lefler and Newsome, 487.
�S O U R C E S
For those interested in doing in-depth study of certain periods
of the history of Western North Carolina, source material has
been broken into three time areas.
MOUNTAINS AND MEN—TO 1781
THE NEW FRONTIERS—TO 1860
THE CIVIL WAR—RECONSTRUCTION DAYS
Explanations: To avoid repetitions, the following abbreviations
are used:
D.U.P.
Duke University Papers
G.P.O
Government Printing Office
J.S.H.P
N.C.B.
N.C.C. and D
James Sprunt Historical Publications
North Carolina Booklet
North Carolina Department of Conservation
N.C.E.
and Development
North Carolina Education
N.C.H.C
North Carolina Historical Commission
N.C.H.R
North Carolina Historical Review
S.D.A. and H
State Department of Archives and History
437
�438 / Sources
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Saunders, W.L. (ed.). Colonial Records of North Carolina. 10 vols. Raleigh, State
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The
The
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�INDEX
Abernethy, Robert, 390, 391
Academies, 180, 186-187, 204, 390-391
Act of Oblivion, 136
Act of Secession, 331; repeal, 361
Adair, James, 33, 61, 62, 72, 80, 84, 140
Adams, John Quincy, 306
Ad-Vance (blockade runner), 339
Alamance, battle of (1771), 101, 102-103, 108,
133, 155-156
Albemarle, 53, 54, 55, 79, 205
Alderman, Edwin A., 389
Alexander, John McKnitt, 108, 158
Alexander, Rachel, 159
Alleghany County, 9, 337, 349, 350, 391
Allen, Lawrence M., Lieutenant Colonel, 333,
345
Allen's Legion, 333, 345
American Foreign Mission Board, 247, 249
Amherst, Lord Jeffrey, 85
Amnesty Proclamation of 1865, 360
Andrews (town), 275
Animal Drives, 215-221
Apalachee Indians, 44
Appalachian Mountains, 1, 4, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13,
15, 16, 299, 304
Appomattox Courthouse, 356
Arch, John, 247
Arthur, Gabriel, 50-52, 56
Articles of Confederation, 134, 153
Articles of the Watauga Association, 103
Asbury, Reverend Daniel, 181
Asbury, Bishop Francis, 177-178, 179, 181-184,
185, 215, 269
Ashe County, 9, 15, 165, 181, 194, 261, 277,
278, 281, 297, 301, 337, 349, 359
Ashe, Governor Samuel, 163, 165
Asheville, 51, 160, 163-164, 165, 171, 175, 177,
182, 183, 186, 187, 198, 202, 215, 216, 220,
225, 263, 266, 288, 295, 297, 303, 312, 317,
319, 321, 323, 334, 342, 344, 353, 354, 355,
371, 374, 379, 384, 389, 393, 394, 396, 397, 399
Asheville, battle of, 353
Asheville News, The, 310, 322
Asheville Normal School, 391
Atkins, Edmund, 80
Attakullakulla (Cherokee chief), 68, 79, 82, 84,
86, 145-146, 147
Augusta (Ga.), 171, 220, 247, 295
Avery, Judge Waightstill, 125, 136, 164, 265,
351
Baird, Adolphus E., 279
Baird, Bedent, 160, 163, 175
Baird, Zebulon, 160, 163, 167, 175, 313
Bakersville, 283, 385
"Balds," 20-21
Balsam Mountains, 7, 398
Banner Elk (town), 371
Baring, Charles, 291
Bartlett, Lieutenant Colonel William C., 355
Bartram, William, 142-149, 150, 301
Beamer, James, 61, 75, 140
Beaufort (town), 199, 320
Bechtler, Augustus, 211, 212
Bechtler, Charles, 211
452
Bechtler, Christopher, 211, 212, 213
Bechtler, Christopher, Jr., 211
Bechtler Mint, 211-213, 287
Bedford's Mill, battle of, 116
Beech Mountain, battle of, 351
Bell, John, 328
Bennett, James, 319
Berkley, William, 48, 49
Best, William J., 397
Bethabara (town), 98, 174
Big Bethel, battle of, 332
Biggerstaff, Aaron, 371-372
Biggs, Asa, 329
Bingham, Major Harvey, 352
Bird Town (Cherokee village), 258
Black Mountains, 7, 299, 300, 301, 304, 305,
320, 321, 324
Blake, Alexander, 291
Blockade Runners, 339
Blount, John Gray, 265
Blount, Governor William (Tenn.), 137, 215
Blowing Rock (town), 354
Blue Ridge Mountains, 7, 12, 48, 74, 95, 96,
150, 161, 162, 164, 175, 186, 275, 321, 322,
335, 337, 351, 354, 367, 369, 379, 391, 393,
394, 396
Blue Ridee Railroad, 321, 322, 397
Board of Commissioners of Indian Affairs, 58,
59, 61, 62, 63, 66, 78
Boen (also spelled Bean), William, 100
Bonus Act (1782), 153
Boone (town), 96, 175, 276, 277, 337, 353, 354
Boone, Daniel, 51, 99, 109, 175, 180, 226, 277
Boudinot, Elias, 247
Bragg, Governor Thomas, 315, 375
Brahm, John William Gerard de, 13, 59, 76-77,
92-93, 140, 299 ,
Brainard Indian School, 247, 249
Breckenridge, John C., 328
Brevard (town), 192, 282, 333
Brevard, Ephraim, 282
Bright, Samuel, 158, 175
Bright's Trail, 158, 175
Brittain, James, 272
Brooks, Judge George W., 375
Brown, David, 247
Brown, John, 163, 164, 171, 173
Bryson City, 381
Bryson, Daniel, Sr., 280
Bryson, Thaddeus D., 381
Buncombe County, 161-165, 175, 195,198, 204,
215, 236, 263, 268, 269, 279, 285, 289, 299,
303, 315, 317, 321, 323, 332, 333, 335, 337,
355, 389
Buncombe Courthouse, See Asheville
Buncombe, Colonel Edward, 162
Buncombe Riflemen, 332
Buncombe Turnpike, 202-204, 215-220, 222,
223, 224, 225, 253, 262, 266, 270, 271, 288,
289, 293, 294, 295, 312, 314, 315, 324, 353, 377,
387
Bunning, Robert, 61, 75, 140
Bureau of Indian Affairs, 247
Burke County, 95, 155, 157, 159, 160, 162, 166,
171, 175, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 186, 208,
209, 261, 265, 274-275, 276, 283, 321, 391
Burningtown, 142
Burns, Captain Otway, 266
�Index / 453
Burnsvifle, 266, 317, 344, 391
Burnt Chimney Academy, 390
Burnt Chimney Volunteers, 331-332
Burton, John, 160, 163, 172
Butler, Fort, 274, 275
Byrd, William, 60, 62, 73, 88, 190
Byrd, William III, 84, 99
Cabarrus County, 207
Caldwell County, 275-276, 283, 321
Caldwell, David, 197
Caldwell, Joseph, President of University, 236,
239, 240, 275, 316, 318, 320, 396
Calhoun (town), 283
Calhoun, John C., 299, 303
Camden (S. C.), 150
Camp Mast (raid of), 351-353
Camp Meeting Movement, 183-185
Camp Vance, 351
Campbell, Arthur, 127, 135
Campbell, David, 128
Campbell, John, Earl of Loudon, 77
Campbell, William, 116, 119
Canby, General Edward R. S., 362
Canton (town), 51, 161, 181
Cape Fear Mercury, The, 108
Cape Girardeau. 253
Carolina Gazette, The, 309
Carpenter, J. B., 273
Carson, John, 282
Carson, Samuel B., 309
Carter, John, 111
Carteret, George, Lord, 95
Cashiers (town), 293
Caswell, Fort, 331
Catalowhee (raid of), 217
Catawba Indians, 31, 79-80, 84, 95, 112, 191192, 207, 265
Cathcart, William, 164, 265
Cession Act of 1783-4, 134, 135
Chambers, James, 161
Chambers, Samuel, 119
Champion, Captain James, 351-353
Chapman, Dr. Robert H., 355
Charles I, 52-53
Charles II, 53-54
Charleston (S. C.), 54, 56, 57, 58, 62, 65, 73, 77,
81, 93, 102, 103, 114, 115, 131, 132, 140, 141,
143, 146, 147, 149, 150, 155, 171
Charles Town, See Charleston
Charlotte (city), 95, 115, 120, 123, 150, 213,
320, 397
Cherokee County, 333, 336, 342, 346, 347, 350,
381
Cherokee Nation, domain, 30-33, 157; daily
life, 33-41; trade with South Carolina, 5669, 78-79; "Trail of Tears," 251-260; trails,
33-35; treaties, 69, 75-76, 86, 91, 109, 113114, 127-128, 135, 153-154, 241-260, 262-263;
wars, 64-65, 78-86, 95, 98, 109-114, 129, 155,
156
Cherokee Phoenix, The, 247, 250
Cherokee Village, 342
Cherokees (mention), 74, 75, 140, 141, 144,
145, 147, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 159, 171,
173, 190, 193, 207, 241-260, 262, 264, 265,
273, 277, 287, 291, 294
Chickasaw Indians, 31, 60, 129
Chicken, Colonel George, 63, 64, 66, 74
Chota (See Echota)
Christian, Colonel William, 111, 112, 113, 156
Clark, Governor Henry C,, 334
Clay County, 9, 281-283
Clay, Henry, 249, 282
Clayton, Lambert, 164
Cleveland, Colonel Benjamin, 120, 156
Cleveland, Jeremiah (also spelled Cleaveland),
164
Clingman, Thomas Lanier, 299-302, 309, 311,
313, 317, 325, 329, 333, 396
Cloyd, Major Joseph, 155
Coffee, General John, 243
Co-fi-tash-e (Indian girl), 45, 46
Coleman, H. Heaton, 393, 394
Coleman, Colonel Thaddeus, 393, 394
Columbus (town), 281, 396
Confederacy, The, 331, 334, 335, 338, 339, 340,
341, 343, 345, 346, 347, 360, 361
Congaree, Fort, 60
Conscription Law of 1862, 340-341
Constitution of the United States, 137-138
Constitution of 1868 (state), 262-263, revised,
384-385
Constitutional Convention of 1868, 362-363
Constitutional Reform of 1835, 205-206
Continental Congress, 107, 108, 133, 134
Convention Act of 1861, 329
Cornwallis, Major General Charles, Lord, 114,
115, 120, 123-124, 194, 277
Council, Jordan, 220
Council, Jordan, Jr., 277
Council of Safety (N. C.), Ill, 113
County Institutes, 389
Cowee (Cherokee town), 145
Cowee Mountains, 7, 141
Cox, General Jacob D., 360, 364
Coxe, Tench, 164
Cozby, Dr. James, 136
Crawford, William, 119
Creek Indians, 31, 75, 194, 242, 246
Crider, Fort, 275
Crown Point, Fort, 87
Cuming, Sir Alexander, 66-69, 70, 90, 92, 265,
299
Davenport, William, 158
Davidson County, 135
Davidson, Fort, 80, 155, 277
Davidson, John, 161
Davidson, General William Lee, 115
Davidson, Major William 159
Davidson, Samuel, 159
Davie, Governor William R., 115, 158
Davis, Jefferson, President of the Confederacy, 340, 346
Davis, Brigadier General William G., 158, 345
Deaver, Captain James, 349
Deaver, Colonel Reuben, 295
Deaver, William, 349
Declaration of Independence, 165
Defiance, Fort, 275
Delaware Indians, 31
Demere, Captain Paul, 81
Demere, Captain Raymond, 77
Democratic Party, 325-328, 340, 361, 375, 384,
385, 386
�454 / Index
Deserters (Civil War), 344-345, 347, 348-349
DeSoto, Hernando, 13, 43-47, 207, 241, 265
Dinwiddie, Governor Robert (Va.), 74
Distribution of Surplus Act, 237
Doak, Reverend Samuel, 119, 314
Dobson (town), 155
Dog-trot houses, 222-223
Dougherty, Cornelius, 61, 75
Douglas, Stephen Arnold, 328
Drake, Sir Francis, 48
Drowning Bear (See Yonaguska)
Drummond, William, 55
Dudley, Edward B., 307
Duquesne, Fort, 87
East La Porte (town), 280
Eastern Band of Cherokees, 254-258
Echoee (town, also spelled Etchoe), 83, 85
Echota (town, also spelled Etchota), 31, 79,
89, 113, 127, 129
Edney, General Baylus E., 349
Edney, Samuel, 161, 183
Edneyville, 225
Educational Association of North Carolina,
240
Elizabeth I, 48
Ellis, David, 351
Ellis, Judge (later Governor) John W., 280,
331, 332, 361
Emancipation Proclamation, 365
Estatoe (Cherokee town), 282
Everett, Edward, 249
Excavations of Indian Mounds, 26-28
Fairchild, Ebenezer, 158
Farmer, Henry T., 291
Farmers' Alliance, 389-390
Farmsteads, 223-224
Fayetteville, 205, 312, 389
Federal Arsenal, 331, 338
Ferguson, Colonel Patrick, 115, 116, 118, 120,
123, 157, 194, 280
Fiftoe ot Keowee (Cherokee), 82
Finley (also spelled Findley), 99
Finley School for Boys, 391
Fisher, Allen, 280
Fisk University, 365
Flat Rock (community), 271, 288-294
Fletcher (community), 291
Forests, 16-20
Forster (also spelled Foster), Thomas, 163
Forster, William, 159, 178
Forster (also spelled Foster), William III, 186187
Foster Trading Station, 280
Foster, Colonel William $., 255
Fothergill, Dr. John, 142, 143
Fox, Colonel Joseph, 70
Franklin (town), 112, 264, 265
Franklin, Governor Jesse, 264
Frenklin, "State" ot, 128, 135-136
Frasier, John, 150-151
Fredericka (Ga.), 71
Freedman's Bureau, 365-367, 368, 371
Fremont, John Charles, 329, 361
French-Broad Railroad, 396-397
French and Indian War, 80-87
Frontenac, Fort, 87
Frontier Lite, 166-173
Furber, Robert, 142
Gaston, William, 205
Gates, General Horatio, 115
Gau-ax-u-le (Cherokee town), 42, 47
Geology of trie Mountains, 8-13
George II, 68, 80
George III, 90, 141, 190
George, Ephraim, 164
Georgia (state), 212, 220, 241, 250, 251, 252
Georgia-Norm Carolina Boundary Dispute,
(See "Walton War")
Gilbert Town, 116, 157
Gillem, Brigadier General Alvan C., 354
Gillespie, Matthew, 268
Gist, Nathaniel, 246
Glenn, Governor James (S. C.), 61, 74, 75
Gold Mining, 207-211
Goldsboro, 320
Gooch, John, 161
Government Mint (Charlotte), 213, 33.
Gowdy's Trading Post, 60
Graham County, 381
Graham, William A., 375, 381
Grandfather Mountain, 11, 150, 299, 301, 305
Grant, Lieutenant Colonel James, 84, 85-86,
88, 110, 112, 140
Grant, Ludovick, 61, 67, 75, 140
Grant, President Ulysses S., 375
Granville Tract, 91, 95-96, 98, 152, 153, 157,
158
Gray, Asa, 297, 298
Great Migration, 251-252
Great Smoky Mountains, 7, 18, 191
Great Tellico (Cherokee town), 63, 70, 89
Greenville (S. C.), 215, 216, 225, 253, 269, 289
Griffiths, Thomas, 140, 141-142
Gudger, William, 159
Guilford Academy, 197
Guilford Courthouse (battle of), 124, 155
Guyot, Arnold Henry, 303-304
Gwynn, Walter, 321
Haile, John, 111
Hall, Reverend Tames, 180
Hambright, Frederick, 120
Hamilton, Captain James, 337
Hampton, Christopher, 293
Hampton Institute, 365
Hampton, Wade, 293
Harris, James H., 368
Hastings, Colonel Theopholus, 58
Hayge, Charite, 58
Hayne, Robert Y., 319
Haywood County, 15, 154, 161, 165, 195, 256,
261, 263, 279, 285, 311, 332-333, 342, 350,
355, 387
Haywood, John, 165
Heath Grant, The, 52-53
Heath, Sir Robert, 52-53
Helper, Hinton Rowan, 336
Henderson County, 161, 215, 265, 266-272,
279, 280, 281, 282, 285, 289, 323, 333, 337,
348, 349, 376, 391
Henderson County Guards, 332-333
Henderson, Judge Leonard, 271
Henderson Purchase, 109
Henderson, Richard, 109
Hendersonville, 272, 323, 332-333, 397
Henry, Robert, 163, 164, 186, 191, 295
Heroes of America (See Red Strings)
Hickory (town), 96
Hickory Nut Gap, 74, 269, 305, 317, 354, 355
Hicks, Charles, 246
Highland Messenger, The, 309
Hillsboro (also spelled Hillsborough), 115,
130, 137, 138, 197, 311
Hodges, Thomas, 158
Holden, William H., 325, 360, 361, 362, 363,
368, (later Governor) 374-376, 378, 384
�Index I 455
Holstein, Stephen, 74
Holtzclaw, Henry, 301
Holtzclaw, James, 157
Home Guards, 344
Hopewell Treaty, 128
Horse Shoe Bend (battle of), 194, 242-243,
250, 260, 342
Horton, Nathan, 158
Hot Springs, 215, 216, 295, 345
Howard, Benjamin, 99
Howard, Captain Thomas, 111, 281
Hughes, Barnard, 75
Hume, Robert, 291
Hunter, Colonel Archibald R. S., 274
Hyams, George McQueen, 298
Hyde, Edward, 55
Immigration 1759-1771, 92-95
Impeachment of Governor Holden, 375-376,
384
Impending Crisis, The, 336
Indian Road Gap, 342
Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), 253, 254
Inflation (1863-1871), 356-357
Innkeepers, 218-220
Iroquois Indians, 29, 32
Isaac, James, 351
Jackson, General Andrew, later President,
194, 203-204, 242-243, 245, 250-251, 279, 306
Jackson County, 15, 192, 280, 285, 333, 337,
342, 380
James I, 48
Jamestown, 48
Jefferson (town), 165, 312
Jefferson, Thomas, 142
Jewel Hill (now Walnut), 279
Johnson, President Andrew, 349, 360, 362
Johnson, Fort, 331
Johnson, Hugh, 271
Johnson, John, 272
Johnson, Governor Robert (S. C.), 69, 88
Johnston, General Joseph E., 354
Johnston, William J., 340
Joliet, Louis, 64
Jonesboro (town, Tenn.), 322
Joree (Cherokee town), 67
Judaculla Rock, 40, 279
Judd's Friend (See Ostenaco)
Judson College, 391
Junaluska (Cherokee leader), 194, 242-245,
250-251, 258-260, 381
Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 326
Keith, Lieutenant Colonel, James A., 345, 346
Keith, Sir William, 69
Kennedy, Captain Quentin, 84
Kentucky, 216, 220
Keowee (Cherokee town), 63, 67, 74, 75, 81, 83,
85, 143, 144, 147
Killian, David, 160, 178, 183
Kilpatrick, Reverend Joseph D., 180
King, Mitchell, 272, 291, 319
King's Mountain (battle of), 120-123, 136, 156,
157, 160, 265, 272, 275, 277
Kirby, Colonel Isaac M., 353
Kirk, Colonel George W., 346, 349-351, 354, 358,
374-375
"Kirk-Holden War," 374-375, 379
Kirk, John, 129
Kirk's Raids, 346, 349-351
Know-Nothing Party, 326-327
Knox, John, 179
Knoxville (Tenn.), 153, 175, 182, 215, 353
Ku Klux Klan, 370-375, 384
Lacey, William, 120
Lanman, Charles, 287, 295, 304-305
Larned, Captain C. H., 256
LaSalle, Robert, Sieur de, 64
Latimer, George, 164
Latimer, James, 164
Lederer, John, 49
Lee, General Charles, 114
Lee, General Robert E., 332, 355
Lee School for Boys, 391
Lenoir (town), 275, 399
Lenoir, General William, 275
Letters from the Alleghany Mountains (by
Lanman), 305
Lexington (battle of), 107
Library Association, The, 240
Life in the Coves, 227-235
Lincoln, President Abraham, 329, 331, 336,
360
Lincoln, General Benjamin, 115
Lincoln County, 120, 196
Lincoln ton, 225
Lindsey, Fort, 256
Linville Mountain, 150
Literary Fund, The, 203, 236, 237, 239, 276,
387
Littlefield, General Milton S., 368, 378, 379
Logan, George W., 327, 367, 373
Logan, Robert, 273
Loudon, Fort, 59, 76-77, 79-84, 246
Love, James R., 295
Love, Colonel Robert R., 161, 165, 191, 195,
280, 350, 355
Love, General Thomas, 161, 165
Lovingood, George W., 275
Lovingood, Hiram, 274-275
Lowney (Cherokee), 254-255
Loyalists, 108, 109, 110, 113, 114, 115, 116,
123, 125, 156, 157, 277
Ludwell, Governor Philip (under Proprietors), 55
Lyon, John, 297
Lyttleton, Governor William (S.C.), 81, 82
McDowell, Colonel Charles, 116ff., 282
McDowell County, 116, 276-277, 283
McDowell, General Joseph, 191
McDowell, Mayor Joseph, 115, 276-277
McDowell, Silas, 163
McDowell, Captain William W., 332, 357,
376
McElroy, Brigadier General John W., 344,
346
McFadden, Fort, 155
McGaughey, Fort, 155
Mclver, Alexander, 387, 389
McPeters, Jonathan, 161
Macon County, 9, 112, 263-265, 273, 279, 311,
342, 349, 373, 380, 389
Macon, Nathaniel, 263
Madison County, 278-279, 285, 314, 321, 323,
333, 336, 337, 345, 349, 358
Marietta-Georgia Railroad, 397
Marion (town), 277, 354
Marion, Francis, 277
Marquette, Jacques, 64
Marshall (town), 220, 279, 345, 358, 374
Marshall, Judge John, 251, 279
�456 / Index
Mars Hill (town), 391
Mars Hill College, 391
Martin, Governor Alexander, 135
Martin, Adjutant General James Green, 331,
339, 354, 355
Martin, Brigadier General Joseph, 107, 127, 156
Martin, Robert, 161
Matthews, Maurice, 56
Matthews, Major Mussendine, 191
Mebane, James, 191
Mecklenburg Council of Safety, 107
Mecklenburg County, 130
Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence,
108
Mecklenburg Resolves, 108
Meigs-Freeman Line, 165, 193, 241, 262, 280
Memminger, C. G., 293
Merrill, Ransom P., 358
Merrimon, Judge Augustus S,, 285, 345-346,
375, 379
Michaux, Andre, 150, 151, 235, 298, 301
Michaux, Francois Andre, 150
Middle ton, Colonel Thomas, 84, 143
Military "Exercises," 173
Miller, Benjamin, 180
Miller, William, 158
Mills, Dr. Columbus, 281, 349
Mills, Marvil, 284
Mills, William, 160-161, 172-173, 181
Mims, Fort, 242
Minerals, 13-15
Mitchell County, 162, 281, 282-283, 337, 349,
385, 389
Mitchell, Elisha, 203, 282, 300-303
Montcalm, Louis Joseph, Marquis de, 87
Montgomery, Colonel Archibald, 83-84, 85,
86, 88, 110, 113
Moore, Fort, 58
Moore, James, 56, 58
Moore, Captain William, 112, 113, 161, 173,
259
Moore's Creek Bridge (battle of), 114
Moravians, 249
Morehead, Governor John Motley, 315, 317,
318, 320, 321
Morgan, Colonel Gideon, 243
Morgan, Thomas, 294
Morganton, 96, 136, 150, 161, 171, 178, 186,
192, 220, 225, 263, 265, 276, 315, 317, 323,
324, 343, 351, 354, 377, 378, 379
Morris, John, 161
Morris, Robert, 161, 277
Morristown (See Asheville)
Mount Mitchell, 5, 7, 18, 299-300
Mountain Animals, 21-23
Mountain Birds, 24
Mountain Flora, 15, 16, 18-21
Moytoy (Cherokee Chief), 67, 68
Muckleroy, Samuel, 58
Murphey, Archibald D., 191, 197-198, 199,
200, 201, 202, 204, 237, 240, 274
Murphey Improvement Program, 197-201
Murphy (town), 112, 274, 344, 350, 3%, 397
Muster Day, 173, 230
Nantahala Mountains, 249, 263
Nantahala Tunrpike, 312, 317
Nash, Judge Frederick, 275
Nashville (Tenn.), 136, 150, 253
Native Americans (see Cherokee Nation)
Needham, James, 50-52, 56, 64
Neill, James, 282
Nelson, David, 161
New Bern, 320
New Echota (Ga.) 243, 247, 251
Newport (Tenn.), 127, 217
Newton Academy, 180, 186-187, 204
Newton, Reverend George, 180, 186-187
Nicholson, Governor Francis (S. C.), 62
Nikwassi (Cherokee town), 31, 46, 47, 66, 83,
84, 85, 89, 145, 264, 265
Normal Schools, 389-399
North Carolina Common School Journal (later,
N. C. Journal of Education), 240
North Carolina Gazette, The, 108
North Carolina-South Carolina Boundary
Dispute, 191
North Carolina Spectator and Western Advertiser,
The, 309
North Carolina Standard, The, 325, 360, 361
North Carolina Temperance Societies, 285
Numbers of Carlton, The (by Joseph Caldwell),
320
Oak Hill Academy, 390
Oconostota (Cherokee Chief), 82, 83, 109
Old Field Schools, 185-186, 187, 313
Old Fort (See also Fort Davidson), 110, 317,
378, 379, 393, 398
Old Hopp (Cherokee Chief), 75, 78, 79, 86, 89
Old Tassel (Cherokee Chief), 127, 129, 246
Olmsted, Dennison, 203, 301
Ostenaco (Cherokee Chief), 79, 81, 82, 84, 89,
90, 141
Overmountain Men (march of), 116-120
Outliers (See also Deserters), 337, 344-345,
347-349
Paint Rock, The, 215, 295, 323, 331, 378
Palmer, Brigadier General William J., 353,
354
Pardo, Juan, 47-48
Party Newspapers, 309-311
Patton Hotel, 294-295
Patton, James, 159, 163
Patton, James W., 294, 295
Patton, John, 159
Patton, John E., 295, 305, 314
Patton, Robert, 159
Patton, William, 302
Payne, John Howard, 250
Peace Conferences (Civil War), 329
Peachtree Mound (See also Gau-ax-a-le), 42
Pearis, Richard, 61
Pendley, William, 158
Pennsylvania Road, The, 95, 96, 98, 130, 131,
157, 174-175, 211
Philadelphia Mint, The, 208, 209, 213
Pioneer Education, 185-188
Pioneer Life, 166-173
Pitcairn, Major John, 107
Plank Roads, 324-325
Poinsett, Joel, 319
Political Rallies, 308-309
Polk County, 180, 272, 278-281, 287, 337, 349,
371
Polk, Thomas, 107
Posey, Humphrey, 181
Priber, Christian, 69-72
Prince George, Fort, 60, 75, 81, 82, 83, 86, 141,
144
Provincial Congress of North Carolina, The,
107, 110, 111
Provisional Constitution of the Confederacy,
331
Public School Laws, 237-240
�Index / 457
Quaker Meadows, 120, 282
Qualla Trading Post, 256
Quallatown (Cherokee village), 342
Raids (local during Civil War), 345, 346
Railroads, Eastern, 318-320
Railroads, Western, plans for, 318-323; see
also Western North Carolina Railroads
Raleigh (city), 205, 208, 309, 312, 361, 363,
373, 378
Raleigh Sentinel, The, 375
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 48
Reconstruction Acts (1867), 262, 364
Red Strings, the, 367, 384
Regulator Movement, 101-103, 108, 133, 155156, 196
Reid, Governor David S., 325
Religious Denominations, 179-185; 390-391
Renegade Gangs (See also Deserters and
Outliers), 346-349, 359
Republican Party, 326, 328, 362, 367, 368, 369,
375, 384
Revenue Laws, 369-370
Revolutionary War, 106-124, 277
Reynolds, Henry, 294
Richardson, Jesse, 181
Ridge, John, 251
Ridges (Tsali's son), 254-255
"Rip Van Winkle State," 195, 203, 206
Roads (See also Plank Roads), 130-131, 173178, 315-317, 376
Roan Mountain, 150, 151, 175, 299, 305
Robbinsville, 258, 381
Robertson, Charles, 111
Robertson, James, 101, 129, 175, 265
Rock Formations, 8-11
Rosman (town), 282
Ross, John, 244, 245-246, 249-251, 253
Rough and Ready Guards, 332
Round Hill Acaclemy, 390
Rowan County, 155, 157
Russell, George, 111
Rutherford College, 391
Rutherford County, 91, 111, 116, 154, 156,
157, 158, 159, 160, 162, 166, 171, 175, 178,
179, 180, 181, 182, 186, 195, 199, 208, 212,
256, 261, 269, 272, 276, 281, 287, 288, 309,
315, 317, 321, 322, 323, 324, 333, 335, 367,
371, 372, 373, 390
Rutherford, General Griffith, 111-112, 113,
114, 115, 155, 157
Rutherford Riflemen, The, 332
Rutherford Star, The, 273
Rutherford's Cherokee Campaign (1776), 112113, 280
Rutherfordton, 155, 171, 178, 211, 213, 220,
225, 288, 372, 373, 385, 397
St. Tohn-in-the-Wilderness (Episcopal
church), 291
St. Xavier, Joseph Gabriel, Count de Choiseul, 293
Salem (town), 225
Salisbury (town), 317, 320, 321, 323, 346, 354,
359, 375, 377, 396, 397
Saluda, 161, 398
Saluda Gap, 215, 217, 269
Saluda Old Town (Cherokee), 75
Sargent, Dr. Charles S., 298
Schermerhorn, Reverend J. F., 251
Schneider, Martin, 38
Schofield, General John, 360, 364
School, Law of 1873, 387
Schools, private, 185-188, 229, 232, 236-240,
390-391; public, 387-389
Shuyucha (Cherokee), 111
Scott, Fort, 257
Scott, General Winfield, 252, 254-256
Seddon, James A., Secretary of War of the
Confederacy, 346, 347, 349
Sequoyah (author of the Cherokee Syllabary),
245-249
Settle, Thomas, 385-387
Sevier, John, 101, 106, 111 116ff., 125, 127,
128, 129, 135, 136, 137
Sevier, Robert, 125
Sevierville (Tenn.), 127, 342
Sharpe, Alexander, 158
Sharpe, John, 58
Sharpe, William, 158
Shelby, Colonel Evan, 109
Shelby, Isaac, 106, 116, 117, 120
Sherman, General William T,, 354
Shoffner Act, 273
Shook, Jacob, 183
Short, Dr. Charles W., 297
Shortia, search for, 297-299
Shotwell, Randolph, 371-372
Sickles, General David E., 362
Sitton, Phillip, 268
Skiles, Reverend W. W., 284
Sloan, Major Benjamin, 334
Smith, Second Lieutenant A. J,, 255, 256
Smith, James McConnel, 195
Smith, Captain John, 48, 53
Smith, Phillip, 163, 178
Smithsonian Institution, 304
Smoky Mountains, 254, 255, 299, 380, 381
Snowbird Reservation, 258
South Carolina Gazette and Country Journal, 108
Southern Railway Company, 397
Spangenberg, Bishop A. G., 96-98, 99, 181,
277
Sparta (town), 281, 389
Sparta Academy, 391
Stagecoaches, 225-226, 377
Stamp Act, The, 107
Stekoa (Cherokee town on site of present
Whittier), 75, 113, 257
Stephen, Colonel Adam, 84, 89
Stills, 223-224, 232-233
Stokes, Montford, 191
Stoneman, General George, 353-354, 377
Stoneman's Raid, 353-355
Stringfleld, Lieutenant Colonel William W.,
344, 349, 350, 355
Strother, Fort, 242
Strother, John, 191
Stuart, Captain John, 80, 83, 146
Sulphur Springs Hotel, 295, 305
Sumter, Fort, 329, 331
Surry County, 120, 155-156, 278, 311, 349
Suspension of Habeas Corpus, 346ff.
Swain County, 15, 147, 380-381
Swain, David Lowry, President of University
and later Governor, 204-206, 236, 239, 240,
307, 311, 314, 380
Swain, George, 159-160, 163
Swanton, Dr. John R., 41, 46
Swepson, George W., 378, 379
Swepson-Littleheld Scandal, 377-379
Sycamore Shoals, 116
Sylva (town), 192, 280
Table Rock, 150
Tahlequah (Okla.), 249
Tassee (Cherokee town), 85
�458 / Index
Tate, Samuel, 378
Taylor, John Louis, 204
Teachers' Associations, 240
Tecumseh (Indian Chief), 242, 245,
Tennent, Gilbert B., 357-358, 376
Tennessee, 216, 220, 225, 241-242, 247, 261, 265,
266, 278, 279, 281, 323
Thatcher, Daniel* 179
Thomas Legion, The, 342, 345, 350, 355
Thomas, Robert, 349
Thomas, William Holland, 241-242, 244, 255258, 287, 342, 355
Ticonderoga, Fort, 87
Timberlake, Henry, 38, 78, 89-90, 140
Tipton, Colonel John, 135-136, 137
Toe River Valley, 158
Tories, See Loyalists
Toulouse, Fort, 65, 71, 81
Tourgee, Albion W., 367
Trail of Tears, 253-254
Transylvania Company, 109
Transylvania County, 192, 193, 281-282, 333,
335, 337, 348, 389
Transylvania Railroad, 399
Tryon (town), 111
Try on County, 156, 157
Tryon, Royal Governor William, 91, 92, 103,
155
Tsali (Cherokee, also called Old Charley),
254-256, 380
Tucker's Barn, 275
Turner, James C., 321
Turner, Josiah, 375
Tweed, Elisha J., 358
Unaka Mountain Range, 7, 12, 191
"Underground Railroads," 337, 351
Unicoi Mountain Range, 5, 7
Union League, The, 3~67-369, 371, 384
University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill),
187, 197, 236, 239, 301, 311, 314, 376, 389
Valle Crucis (village), 284, 352
Van Buren, President Martin, 252
Vance-Carson Duel, 309
Vance, Colonel David, 159, 191, 220
Vance, Brigadier General Robert Brank, 342,
347
Vance, Governor Zebulon Baird, 186, 309,
313-316, 329, 331, 332, 339, 340, 341, 345,
346, 347, 349, 359, 361, 385-386, 398, 399
Vann, Joseph, 250
Vaughn, Colonel John C., 371
Wachovia, 98
Waddell, Colonel Hugh, 84, 103
Wake County, 175
Walker, Felix, 256, 257
Walker's Settlement, 99
"Walton War," 189, 192-193
War of 1812, 194-195
Ward, Nancy, 110
Warm Springs (See Hot Springs)
Washington College, 314
Washington County (now in Tenn.), 111, 116,
128, 130, 135, 137
Washington, President George, 142, 369
Watauga Association (Articles of), 103-105,
190
Watauga County, 13, 74, 100, 137, 158, 277278, 279, 283, 301, 315, 321, 337, 349, 350
Watauga Settlements, 99-106, 110, 113, 114,
129-130, 135, 158, 159, 166, 175, 265, 277,
283
Wayne, General Anthony, 165
Waynesville, 112, 161, 165, 171, 258, 263, 295,
317, 321, 323, 344, 350, 355, 396
Weatherford, Billy, 242-243, 244
Weaver, John, 159
Weaverville College, 391
Webster (town), 280
Webster, Daniel, 249
Wedgwood, Josiah, 140
Weidner, Heinrich, 155
Welch, James, 256
Wesley, John, 179
West, William, 349
Western North Carolina Railroad (See also
Railroads), 323-324, 377-379, 391-394, 397
Western Star of Liberty, The, 309
Whatogo (Cherokee town), 145, 149
Whig Party, 306ff., 325, 326, 327, 328, 329,
360, 381
Whiskey Rebellion, 224
White, John, 48
White Sulphur Springs, 295; battle of, 355
Whittaker, James, 181
Whittier (town), 127
Wilderness Road, 175, 220
Wiley, Dr. Calvin Henderson, 239-240, 315
Wilkes County, 120, 157, 166, 171, 178, 180,
181, 182, 186, 261, 275, 277, 278, 359
Wilkes, John, 157
Wilkesboro, 180, 275, 301, 312, 342
Williams, James, 120
Williams, Colonel Joseph, 115
Williamsburg, 74, 90
Williamson, Major (later Colonel) Andrew,
111, 112, 113
Wilmington, 124, 199
Wilson, Major James W., 392, 393, 394
Wilson, "Big Tom," 302, 303
Winston, Major Joseph, 120, 156
Wiseman, William, 158
Wolfe, General James, 87
Womack, Jacob, 111
Wood, General Abraham, 50, 52, 56, 73
Woodfm, Nicholas W., 286, 323, 379
Woodward, Henry, 49-50, 56, 92
Wool, General John E., 252
Worchester, Reverend S. A., 247, 249, 250
Worth, Governor Jonathan, 361, 362
Wright, Gideon, 155
Wrosetacatow (Cherokee Chief), 63
Yadkin Valley, 51, 74, 83, 86, 96
Yancey, Bartlett, 266
Yancey Collegiate Institute, 391
Yancey County, 265-267, 277, 279, 283, 285,
297, 302, 303, 317, 337, 349
Yeargin, Reverend Andrew, 181
Yellow Mountain, 150, 175
Yonaguska (Cherokee Leader), 244, 256, 257
Yorktown, 123, 124
��This page intentionally left blank
�ABOUT THE AUTHOR
OEA BLACKMUN was a native of Southern Minnesota^ but moved to
Fayetteville, Arkansas as a teenager. Blackmun earned her Bachelor's
and Master's
from the University of Arkansas. She did further
graduate work at the University of Chicago and at the University of
Southern California. She was an associate professor in the English
Department of the University of Central Arkansas at Conway She later
moved to Asheville; NQ where she taught at the University of North
Carolina Asheville.
�This page intentionally left blank
�This book was designed by Spencer Quails. The type face is Bembo, a classical Roman
design of the 16th century, set by Trade Typesetters, Inc., Greensboro, North
Carolina. Printed and bound by Publication Press, Inc. and Graphic Arts Finishing
Company, Baltimore, Maryland. Color printing is by Gilbert Printing Company,
Asheville, North Carolina.
�Other Books Published and/or Distributed by
A P P A L A C H I A N C O N S O R T I U M PRESS
Boone, North Carolina 28607
" . , . arightgood People," by Harold Warren
ArtisansYAppalachia/US'A, text and photographs by David Gaynes
Arts and Crafts of the Cherokee, by Rodney L. Leftwich
Bibliography of Southern Appalachia, edited by Charlotte T. Ross
Bits of Mountain Speech, by Paul M. Fink
Down to Earth — People of Appalachia, text and photographs by Kenneth
Murray
Laurel Leaves, an occasional journal of the Appalachian Consortium
Mountain Measure (hardcover and paper editions), by Francis Pledger Hulme
with photographs by Robert Amberg
Music of the Blue Ridge (LP Recording), by Bob Harman and the Blue Ridge
Descendants
'Round the Mountains, by Ruth Camblos and Virginia Winger
Symposium on Trout Habitat Research and Management Proceedings
Tall Tales from Old Smoky (hardcover and paper editions), by C. Hodge Mathes
The Birth of Forestry in America (hardcover and paper editions), by Carl Alwin
Schenck
The Good Life Almanac, edited by Ruth Smalley
The Southern Appalachian Heritage
The Wataugans, by Dr. J. Max Dixon
Toward 1984: The Future of Appalachia, Southern Appalachian Regional
Conference Proceedings
Voices from the Hills (hardcover and paper editions), edited by Robert J. Higgs
and Ambrose N. Manning
Western North Carolina Since the Civil War (hardcover and paper editions), by
Drs. Ina W. and John J. Van Noppen
DESCRIPTIVE CATALOG AVAILABLE
�
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Appalachian Consortium Press Publications
Description
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Appalachian Consortium Press
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Appalachian Consortium Press
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June 1, 2017
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<a title="Digital Scholarship and Initiatives" href="http://library.appstate.edu/services/digital-scholarship-and-initiatives" target="_blank">Digital Scholarship and Initiatives</a>
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Appalachian State University
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Western North Carolina: Its Mountains and Its People to 1880
Description
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<div class="supapress">
<div class="product-details">
<div class="sp-product__description">
<div class="sp-product__content-inner sp-product__description-inner">Published in 1977, <em>Western North Carolina</em> is a narrative history of the Southern Appalachian Mountains up to 1880. Ora Blackmun depicts the stories of native Cherokee and Sequoyah people and pioneers such as William Bartram, Daniel Boone, Bishops Spangenberg and Asbury, and Zeb Vance.<br /><br /></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=1cx_Ft3QexVZzy0O8zO6ZmGbK8OByNhMi" target="_blank">Download EPub<br /><br /></a><a title="UNC Press Link" href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469641362/western-north-carolina/" target="_blank">UNC Press Print on Demand</a>
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Blackmun, Ora
Publisher
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Appalachian Consortium Press
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North Carolina--History
North Carolina, Western--History
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1977
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English
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North Carolina
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PDF
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Text
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<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed" target="_blank">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed</a>
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<a title="UA 76 Appalachian Consortium records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/9" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> UA 76 Appalachian Consortium records </a>
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<a title="Appalachian Consortium Press Publications" href="https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/collections/show/82" target="_blank"> Appalachian Consortium Press Publications</a>
early settlement
history
Reconstruction
WNC Civil War