History of Watauga County”
by John Preston Arthu

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until the arrival of Colonel Miller, who had orders, after supplying his command, to destroy the remainder and burn the factory. The order was executed . . ."(1) According to General Stoneman's report (p. 324), his command was detained on the Yadkin River three days by a freshet, but the tithing depots along the route traversed by their various parties furnished them with supplies in the greatest abundance. "The number of horses and mules captured and taken along the road, I have no means of estimating. I can say, however, that we are much better mounted than when we left Knoxville. Have a surplus of led animals and sufficient besides to haul off all of our captures, mount a portion of the prisoners and about a thousand contrabands [negros], and this after crossing Stone Mountain once and the Blue Ridge three times and a march made by headquarters since the 20th of March of 500 miles and much more by portions of the command. The rapidity of our movements has in almost every instance caused our advanced guard to herald our approach and made the surprise complete."

A Real Home Guard.-- The men who met in Boone on the day Stoneman arrived were Confederate soldiers at home because of wounds or illness or on parole. They had met to form a real home gurad, not against the Federals, but against the robbers and marauders of both sides. Soon after the close of hostilities and Federal authorities at Salisbury authorized some of the Confederate soldiers who had been officers in the army to organize a home guard for Watauga County. Col. Joseph W. Todd, who then resided in this county, was made captain, and he soon restored order in and about Boone. He moved to Jefferson, where he became a practicing attorney. He was born September 3, 1834, at Jefferson, and died there January 28, 1909. He married Miss Sallie Waugh, of Shouns. For his ancestry, see sketch of Jos. W. Todd, his cousin.

Robbing Mrs. Jonathan Horton.-- While Kirk's men were stationed in Boone, about the first part of April, 1865, John
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Note: (1) Clem Osborne, of North Fork, was at the factory for the purpose of buying thread. He was chased to the top of the factory, and when about to be killed, gave a Masonic sign, which saved his life. Some time afterwards when apparently "tipsy" he was urged to tell what sign he had given and what words he had used. He gave a sign, and mumbled certain words indistinctly, but which turned out to be "Calf rope." He wasn't nearly so drunk as he pretended to be.

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Ford, William Thomas Benson and John Roland were said to have been concerned in the robbery of Mrs. Jonathan Horton, on Shearer's Hill, near Three Forks Church, and taking from her clothing a purse containing some jewelry. She was made to dismount and give up her horse, but as she got down she gave the horse a lick with her fiding switch and he ran away home, thur esaping capture. Later on Ford and some of his compainions stopped at the home of Ransom Hayes, at what is now known as the Green Brick House, and one of Hayes' daughters, now Mrs. W. L. Bryan, noticed that he was wearing on the lapel of his coat a gold brooch, containing a miniature of Mrs. Horton's husband, Col. Jonathan Horton. She asked him what he was doing with it, and he said he had no use for it, and gave it to her and requested that she return it to Mrs. Horton, which was done. In the "Worth Correspondence" (Vol. II, p. 267), Colonel Carr, of the commission to investigate oppressions of Union people, claims that Benson, who,with two others, was indicted for highway robbery from the person of Mrs. Horton, was of the Union army and had been ordered to impress horses, to which Solicitor Bynum replied that the evidence before him showed that if Benson "ever had belonged to the Union army he had deserted, and the robbery was under no authority, but for his own private gain and done under circumstances of wanton outrage and cruelty." It cannot be determined from the sourt records that the facts were as to the indictment, but several old men yet living were at the trial of John Ford at least, and remember that Judge Buxton, who presided, held that the evidence showed that the robbery had been committed before Lee's surrender and was not indictable under Andrew Johnson's proclamation of amnesty. It is not at all certain that John Roland was even charged with that offense, and itis well established now, from the general opinion of his neighbors near Cook's Gap, that Benson had nothing to do with the robbery, even if he was indicted for it. The facts about Benson are said to be about as follows: William Thomas Floyd Benson was a member of a regiment in the Confederate army and lived near Wilmington, N. C. He, with several others, deserted and got to Buck's Ridge,

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near where Jordan Hampton's residence now stands. Here they camped and rested a week, buying a heifer of William Cook and paying for other rations they consumed while there. They then went to Carter County, Tennessee, where Benson enlisted in Stoneman's command as William Thomas Floyd, enlisting at Jonesboro. He now draws a pension in that name. When some of his relatives some years ago came from Wilmington to Blowing Rock and enquired for Thomas Benson, they were directed to go to Cook's Gap, where they identified him as their kinsman. He is said also to have drawn his share of his father's estate some years ago. His character is good.

"Peace, Peace, When There Was No Peace."-- The great Civil War was over at last, and the harassed and impoverished people of Watauga County hoped for a cessation of hostilities and the burial of all animosities, feuds and misunderstandings. Most men and women "took heart of hope" and began all over again. Ploughshare and reaping-hook took the place of sword and rifle. But others were completely discouraged and inclined to move away and seek homes elsewhere. Among these was Jordan Councill, the second, who had been the foremose and only merchant in this section from about 1820 till Boone was formed into the county seat. He decided to sell out before the United States government confiscated all he had. Squire Daniel B. Dougherty, however, took a more hopeful view of the future. Councill offered to sell out to Dougherty for half the value of his land, and Dougherty, who is said to have had little or no money, agreed to buy. Accordingly, on the first day of August, 1865, Jordan Councill Gave D. B. Dougherty his bond for title to all his land and property in and around Boone when Dougherty should pay him $3,000.00 cash. (Deed Book M, p. 248.) Councill moved away, but returned and recovered all the property Dougherty had not sold, the proceeds of that which had been sold having been applied on the bond. But that hd not been all. In the May and June following Appomattox, a sort of guerilla warfare had been going on "below the Ridge." and the returned Confederate soldiers at the request of the Federal authorities formed themselves into a Home Guard for the protection of

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such little personal property as had escaped the robbersduring the war, for the country was for months infested with all sorts of roving characters, returning soldiers, adventures and desperadoes of all kinds. Henry Henly, who lived just below Blowing Rock, was killed at the capture of Fort Hamby, and anarchy seemed to have "come down on us like night."

Fort Hamby.-- Even after the surrender the trouble comtinued. "Several worthless characters deserted Stoneman's command along this march and formed with native bushwhackers bands under the leadership of two desperate men, Wade and Simmons. Wade's party located in a log house on a high hill half a mile north of Holman's Ford of the Yadkin River, in Wilkes County. Being heavily armed with army rifles and pistols, they made daily raids into the surrounding country, robbing, plundering and terrorizing the citizens, taking everything they could find to eat, as well as horsed, etc. Their practice was to ride up to a house, dismount and enter, pointing loaded guns at any persons occupying the house, threatening to shoot if they opened their mouths, while others were searchilg closets, trunks, drawers, etc., taking what suited them. The people for miles and miles in the country surrounding lived in constant dread of them, as they seemed filled with a spirit of hatred and revenge, treating all persons not in sympathy with them with the greatest cruelty. The house they used was finely located for offensive as well as defensive operations. On a high hill, facing the Yadkin River on the south and front, and Lewis' Fork on the west, their guns could sweep the country for a half a mile each way up and down the river. The house was two stories, with portholes cut in the upper story. It was formerly occupied by a family named Hamby, and after being fotified was known as Fort Hamby. The robbers, numbering probably twenty-five or thirty, made several raids into Caldwell and Alexander Counties . . .insulting in the grossest manner the women and children . . . Major Harvey Bingham, with a small home guard, followed the raiders out of Caldwell County on May 6th (1865) . . . surprising the defenders in the fort at night. . . . The men begged for their live, and no arms being in sight, Major Bingham

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gave them time to dress. The prisoners . . . rushed for their guns and fired on the attaking party, killing two, Robert Clark, son of General Clark, and Henry Henly . . . the others . . . made their escape, leaving the dead bodies on the ground. The next week they raided the home of Rev. J. R. Green in Alexander County. But his son was home from the army and fired on the robbers, driving them off. Col. Washington Sharp, of Iredell County, gathered about twenty men, pursued . . . and rushed up to within a few yards of the fort, when Wade's men opened fire and killed two, Mr. James Linney, brother of Hon. R. Z. Linney, and Mr. Jones Brown . . . the others made a hasty retreat, leaving the two dead bodies. Colonel Sharp then collected a squad of about twenty returned soldiers, and sent a message to Caldwell County for help . . . Among those who went were A. S. Kent, T. L. Norwood, Jas. W. Norwood, George H. Dula, Robert B. Dula, and S. F. Harper. They collected others along the way . . . and waited a Holman's Ford for the Alexnder company about May 18th. The robbers had killed a woman at the ford the day before. The fort was surrounded, and at nightfall a kitchen near the fort was set on fire and from it the fort itself caught. Sharp was in command. The besieged asked what whoul be done with them if they surrendered, and were told that they would be killed. They came out, with Wade in front holding up his hands as though he intended to surrender, but kept running and excaped. His comrades, four men, then surrendered and were tied to takes and shop, after the Rev. W. R. Gwaltney had prayed for them. This ended the marauding and robbing in that section. Henry Hamby was from Watauga County. The above was condensed from "The Capture of Fort Hamby," by S. Finley Harper (p. 45): "Reminincenses of Caldwell County, North Carolina, in the Great War of 1861-65," by G. W. F. Harper.

Blalock's Threat.-- When Keith Blalock was told that John B. Boyd had arrested Austin Coffey and that Coffey was dead, he swore he would kill Boyd if it took forty years after the war to do so. It did not take nearly so long, for on the evening of February 8, 1866, when Boyd and William T. Blair were going

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from a house on which they had been at work they met Blalock and Thomas Wright in a narrow path at the head of the Globe. Blalock asked, "Is that you, Boyd?" and Boyd answered, "Yes," at the same time striking Blalock with a cane, the blow being aimed at his head. Blalock caught the blow on his left wrist, ran backwards a few steps and shop Boyd dean with a seven-shooting Sharp's rifle. Keith made Blair turn Boyd's body over, and finding that all life was extince, turned and left the scene, stopping at Noah White's house to tell him what had been done. Blalock was examined before the Provost Marshal at Morganton, and he sent the case to Judge Mitchell at Statesville, but Governor Holden pardoned him before trial.(1)

Post Bellum Echoes.-- From "Correspondence of Jonathan Worth," published by Edwards & Broughton Printing Co., Raleigh, 1909 (Vol. II, p. 725, etc.), we learn that Major Frank Walcott, one of the military commissioners sent to investigate alleged persecutions of Union men in Watauga County, wrote that "Union Men were pursued with malicious persecutions;" that Austin Coffey was murdered by the Home Guard and that no steps were taken to prosecute his slayers, and that "a clearer case of self defense than Blalock's killing of John Boyd could not be made out." To these charges W. P. Bynum answered that Blalock had killed Boyd since the war, but not in the discharge of any military duty or order, and that the grand jury found true bills against all implicated in the killing of Austin Coffey, and that the cae would be tried at the fall term of the Superior Court of Watauga County. The destruction of the records by fire in March, 1873, precludes any record evidence from that source, but tradition says that the solicitor failed to make out a case and the men were acquitted.
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Note: (1) John Boyd was born in Caldwell County. Blalock was born June 21, 1836, and died near Montezuma, N. C., August 11, 1913, the result of an accident on a hand-car.

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Chapter XIII.

Some Thrice-Told Tales.--

The Calloway Sisters.--Benjamin Calloway was one of the pioneers of this section, having his home on the upper Watauga. Two of his daughters, Fanny and Betsy,(1) must have been women of unusual physical charm. That each was possessed of a character on motherly devotion which halted at no sacrifice can never be doubted by anyone who knows their true story. It was the fate of one of these women unconsciously to supplant another woman in the affections of her husband, and of the other to be supplanted by a "mere strip of a girl." But the time came when each was widowed while yet the father of her children lived. Still, notwithstanding the ruin of their affections, each "found a way out of the wreck to rise in, a sure and safe one," through her children, each emerging from the fiery furnace of affliction without the smell of fire upon her garments, nay, glorified and almost apotheosized beneath her crown of martyrdom.

Pioneer Hunters.-- There was much in the wild, free life, no less than in the picturesque costume of the backwoods hunter of this period, garbed in hunting shirt, fringed leggins, moccasins, powder horn and bullet poucch, to attract the fancy of young girls in this mountain wilderness. Light-hearted, care-free, debonair, they sang and danced and frolicked when they came in from their traps and camps in the pecks and crags of the wilder mountains. For they hd regular huts or homes at different places on their "ranges," where they lived in solitude, often, for months at a time. One of them is thus described in the "Life of W. W. Skiles" (p. 53, etc.).

"They pushed bravely on, however, and at nightfall came to a small clearing in which stood the solitary cabin of a hunter. It

Note: (1) Ben Calloway was closely related to Col. Richard Calloway, of the Kentucky pioneers, and named his daughters for the two daughters of richard Calloway, Fanny and Betsy, who, on the 17th of July, 1776, were captured by Indians with Jemima, second daughter of Damiel Boone, while boat-riding on the Kentucky river, one of whom, Betsy, married Samuel, a brother of Richard Henderson.

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was built of unhewn logs; the chimney consisted of sticks, crossing one another, well daubed inside and out with clay. The roof was shingled with oak boards three or four feet long, kept in place by logs laid lengthwise, well pinned down, with here and there a Chevy stone to give additional strength against winds. The floor was of hewn lumber, three or four inches thick. There was but one room in the cabin, with a rude bed or two in one corner, three or four rough chairs of home make, a bench or two, a table to match in the center, and a huge fireplace where logs of six or seven feet could be piled together. Over the door, on wooden pegs, lay the rifle, always within reach and always loaded. Against the outer wall of the cabin were hung antlers of deer, while skins of wolf, bear and panther were hung up there to dry. Here, in the heart of the forest, lived Larchin Calloway, a famous hunter, and here the party from Valle Crucis was made heartily welcome. They were hungry and dripping wet from head to foot, but the latch-spring of a mountain cabin door always hangs outside in token of welcome."

James Aldridge.--This hunter and pioneer has been, of late years, somewhat overshadowed by the fame of his son, Harrison, probably as great a marksman, trapper and backwoodsman as his father. As well as can be now ascertained, James Aldridge came to what is now called Shull's Mills about the year 1819 or 1820, his first son by Betsy Calloway having been born December 15, 1821. James claimed to be a single man, and soon persuaded Betsy Calloway to marry him. He must then have been at least thirty-five years old, for he had left a wife and five children in Virginia on the Big Sandy River(1), his first wife having been born a Munsey, according to James A. Calloway, one of James' grandsons. It is claimed that he married Betsy, but as such a marriage would under the circumstances have been a nullity, it is immaterial whether he did or not. Certain it is that she always went by the name of Betsy Calloway and that she bore him seven children: Harrison, who married Jensey Clark; Tempe, who married Benton Johnson, Jane, who married Ensley

Note:(1)The Big Sandy separated Kentucky from Old Virginia, now West Virginia, and rises about 100 miles north of Abingdon. It was visited by Boone in the autumn of 1767, accompanied only by a man named Hill, according to Bruce (p. 48), who says he then visited the West Fork of that stream. Aldridge may have lived on the Virginia or the Kentucky side of the Big Sandy, but his descendants in Watauga always speak of his home as having been in Virginia.

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Issacs, Perrin Winters, Henry Shull, of Virginia, and John Calhoun; Ellen, who married Frank Fox; Benjamin, who married Millie Burleson and yet lives, Crossnore being his post office; Waightstill, who married Polly Johnson and lives near Benjamin, and Emeline, who married Abram Johnson. Harrison, in memory of a faithful dog which saved his life from wild hogs, had that dear friend buried on a ridge above the home of his son, James A. Aldridge, and requested that he be buried there also. His tombstone, surrounded by a substantial stone wall, records the fact that he joined the Baptist Church October 22, 1870, and died January 11, 1905.

James Aldridge was seen and remembered by very few men or women who are living today. Those who saw him say he was slightly above the average in stature, with dark hair and blue eyes. He was a great fidler and hunter and of a happy disposition. He first lived near where G. W. Robbins' hotel now stands, but after the birth of Harrison moved to the Hanging Rock Ridge, near Nettle Knob, a mile from James A. Aldridge's present house, for it seems that he had been "squatting" where he first settled, but entered and obrained grants to land in 1828. There he built two substantial cabins, with large fireplaces, so deep, in fact, that the dogs frequently went behind the fire and between it and the back of the chimney, where they sat and blinked at the people in front of the hearth. There is a cleared place in the "swag" of the ridge above Robbins' hotel which is still pointed out as the place where James Aldridge burnt willow logs and limbs to make charcoal for powder, which he manufactured for his own use.

The Real Wife Appears.-- The exact date of the coming of the real wife into the life of Betsy Calloway is not certain, but shortly after the birth of Waightstill, her last child, which must have been about two years after the birth of Benjamin, he having been born about 1834, say, 1836, a fur peddler of the name of Price, as Levi Coffey remembers it, came to the home of Edward Moody above what is now Forcoe.(1)

Note: (1)In his geological tour through Ashe in 1828, Dr. Elisha Mitchell speaks of a hunter as living on the head of the Watauga River with the children of his real wife, who was then risiding on the Big Sandy, in Kentucky, and his own children by another woman with whom he was then living as his wife. If this refers to James Aldrich, then Betsy Calloway had two children by him after his first wife appeared in the scene, for both Ben and Waightstill were born after 1828.

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James Aldridge, and , knowing something of his past, returned to the Big Sndy and told Aldridge's wife what he had discovered. Soon afterwards a woman riding a fine house stopped at Edward Moody's, asked the way to James Aldridge's house, and was directed there. The next morning, before day, Aldridge came to Moody's nd bought a bushell of wheat, which he had ground on Moody's little tub-mill at the mouth of what is still called Moody's Mill Creed, near Foscoe. After it had been ground it was "hand-bolted," that is, sifted through cloth by hand. James explained that "the cat was out of the bag at last," meaning that his wife had appeared on the scene. When asked how Betsy "took it," he answered that she was sulky, but that he himself was treating both women exactly alike, and had no doubt that Betsy would soon get over it. But she never did. She told Aldridge plainly that he had deceived and outraged her and her children, and that while she had no other home than his, and must perforce remain there in order to rear her children, their relations had ceased. Finding that Betsy was not disposed to contest her rights, Mrs. James Aldridge lost interest in James and returned to her former home on Sandy. Soon afterwards several of her children appeared on the scene, the boys being Sam, Frank and James, while a girl, Rachel, married William Calloway, ad remained permanently, the boys returning to Big Sandy. James followed his wife back to Big Sandy, where he remained awhile, but soon came back to Watauga, but finding no welcome from Betsy, he again returned to Big Sandy. It is likely that his real wife would have no more of him either, for Betsy and her oldest son, Harrison, visited his hut there and found him living with a young girl. He threw some bear skins on the floor, where she and her son passed the night, leaving at dawn the next day. James came again to Watauga, when Ben was four years old, gave him a dime and patted him on the head. But he brought two large brindle bear dogs with him, and his little son was afraid to put foot out of doors while they remained. This must have been about 1838, since which time no one has seen James Aldridge in Watauga County. His grandson, James A. Aldridge, says he heard that his grandfather died on Big Sandy during the Civil War, aged 110 years.

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Betsy Calloway.--Ben Calloway says that his mother told him that she had dug many a pound of sang with a child strapped to her back. That is, she had had to go into the mountains to dig sang when her youngest children were too small to be left at home, and carried them with her from the necessity of the case. "She was the master sanger you ever seed" is the way one old man expressed her industry and devotion to her children. For sang was the only cash article in those days, and it brought only about ten cents a pound. But Betsy could make a living in no other way, except when, occasionally, she could get a job of scouring or washing to do for some friendly woman for her meals and meals for her children. She was also a master sugar maker, if accounts may be trusted, and worked several "sugar orchards" through the mountains. Her old kettle, in which the sap was boiled, is still to be seen at Foscoe in the yard of the home of former Sheriff W. H. Calloway. The first shoes Ben Aldridge ever had were bought by Betsy with the proceeds of the sale of sang dug by him. She had to take the sang sometimes as far as Abingdon, and this particular sang which Ben had dug was sold by her at Blountville, Tenn. As the sang was gradually becoming scarce, she went to Big Sandy to sang, taking Harrison with her. It was while on this trip that she pent a night at James Aldridge's cabin. She had no feeling against James Aldridge's first wife, but told him, though he had lied to her, to bring his children and she would do the best she could by them. Once when in a sugar camp on Watauga she saw tracks of a bear in the snow and knew that they were those of a she-bear with cubs, as beard do not come out of winter quarterswhen snow is on the ground except to get sustenance upon which their cubs could draw. Harrison, her eldest son, killed the mother bear and caught the cubs. Betsy sold the maple sugar for ten cents a pound and the syrup for ten cents a gallon. When Harrison was seven years old his mother was baptized in Linville River, near Fred Ledford's, by Rev. Robert Patterson, at the Elkhorn Meeting house, She took care of all preachers who came to her home, and Ben was always glad to see them come, as then he "got something good to eat." He used to put corn

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into dried bladders and tie the bladders to chickens, which, when they heard the rattle, became frightened and flew across the table at which the preachers were eating. Once he tied such a contrivance to the horns of a "billy-buck," as he terms a goat, and he nearly ran himself to death. Betsy Calloway died about 1900 and is buried in the Moody graveyard above Foscoe.

Delilah Baird.-- She was born about 1807, and when eighteen years of age left her home with John Holtsclaw, who had been a member of Three Forks Church and a moderator of that congreation at its meeting in October, 1821. There is evidence also that he was a preacher. He had a wife and seven children living at the time Delilah eloped with him, about the year 1825, for their first child, Alfred B. Baird, was born March 7, 1826.(1) Delilah knew of his marriage, but she went with him, claiming that the believed that he was going to take her to Kentucky. Instead, he took her to the Big Bottoms of Elk, one mile from what is now Banner Elk, where he kept her in a camp at the mouth of a branch which empties into Elk almost directly in front of and about three hundred yards distance from the residence of James W. Whitehead. This was a bark camp, built against the trunk of a large fallen tree. It was here that her first child was born. Later on they moved into a rude cabin lower down the creek nd near an apple tree which still stands in Mr. Whitehead's meadow. It was there that she fought wolves with firebrands when they came too near the house, seeking to devour a young calf which she kept in a pen near her chimney. She also "sanged" on the Beech Mountain, and finally recognized one of her father's steers, with a large bell fastened to its neck, and knew that she was not in Kentucky. She soon established communications with her home connections, and would ride up a ridge and across Beech Mountain to get such supplies as she required and sell her sang and maple sugar. She knitted socks and stockings while riding on the road to and from her old home. She brought dried grass in a sheet in order to get seed for the meadow around her new home.

Note:(1) According to Mrs. Sallie Hackney, of Neva, Tenn., Delilah Baird was three years younger than her first cousin, Alexander Baird, who was born April 5, 1804.

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After awhile poor Fanny Calloway, whose place in her husband's heart and home Delilah had usurped, came, an humble suppliant, to her door, asking to be allowed to spin, weave, wash, hoe or do anything that would provide John Holtsclaw's children with bread. John Holtsclaw was getting old and it behooved him to provide for his real wife before he should go to his long account. Instead, he made a deed to Delilah Baird for 480 acres of land in the Big Bottoms of Elk, which had been granted in 1788 when that part of the state was in Wilkes County. But he made her pay him $250.00 for it.(1) His wife, Fannny, was thus left to the cold charity of the cold world and his and her children had to make their own way as best they could. That way, we may be sure, was not an easy one, especially for poor Fanny. But nothing is surer in this world than the solemn asseveration of the Bible: "Vengence is mine, saith the Lord: I will repay." He kept that promise. He always keeps that promise. Among Fanny's children was a girl named Raney. Raney had a hard time at first, but she finally married Abraham Dugger, for years the chief owner and mananger of the Cranberry mine. After his death she married Daniel Whitehead, and their son, James W. Whitehead, now owns all the broad acres which John Holtsclaw had deeded to Delilah Baird and away from his own legitimate children, and not one foot of that land or any of the land nearby which Delilah got from the State belongs to her descendents.(2)

A Sordid, If Belated, Romance.-- Sometime in the summer of 1881, when Delilah Baird was seventy-four years old, she spent the night with Ben Dyer's mother on Cove Creek. It was there that she determined to write to Ben, offering him a home and support for his life, and adding, "my folks are lawing me to death," asking him to come and help her defend her rights. At this time she dressed gaily and was supposed to be demented, but a commission de lunatico inquirendo, consisting of Smith Coffey and two others, found that she still had mind enough to manage her own affairs. After the unusual manoeuvres of courting

Note:(1) The deed is dated May 2, 1838, Book N, P. 515, Ashe County.
(2)Deed Books R., p. 274, A., p. 498. amd U, p. 98. She had a daughter, names Aurilda, who married Levi Moody.

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couples, Dyer agreed to come upon the terms stated, and Miss Delilah wrote in September following that she was delighted that he was to come, assuring him again that she had plenty "and all we will ahve to do is to sit back and enjoy ourselves." But Miss Delilah was too non-committal for Dyer, and he did not come, neigher did he write again till November 14th, when he wrote acknowledging her "second letter," indicating that she had written "twice to his once," a thing no coy maiden ever should do. Just what that last missive really contained is not known, for the judgment roll in which this romance is preserved (Judgment Docket A, p. 172, Clerk's Office, Watauga County) does not contain it. But in Dyer's answer he states, "You make me a new proposal in your last letter, which is more than I could expect you to do," adding that he could never repay her except "with my love and kindness towards you." As he himself stated, in 1883, that he was then seventy-two years old, three years Miss Delilah's senior, these old people amy be said to have been progressing rapidly and smoothly along the primrose path of love and should, therefore, have known that they were rapidly nearing a precipice.

So, to make a long story short, he came, saw and was not conquered. Neither was she. For she paid him nothing, gave him no home, and allowed him to return to Texas "loveless and forlorn." Then, in May, 1882, in an action before D. B. Dougherty and J. W. Holtsclaw, justices of the peace, he sued Miss Delilah for his expenses going and coming and while here. They gave him exactly $47.50, railroad fare to and from Texas. He appealed, and a jury of "good men and true" gave him exactly the same amount and not one cent more. Moral: Better let the women have their own way. Miss Delilah died about 1890 and is buried in the Baird graveyard at Valle Crucis. Sometime prior to her death, October 20, 1880, she lived with her son, Alfred Burton Baird, in a small log cabin, which still stands directly in front of Jme W. Whitehead's home. This cabin was shingled with yellow pine shingles when it was built in 1859, and, although it has never been repaired, the roof does not leak to this day.

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"Cobb" McCantless.--David Colvert McCanless was a son of James McCanless, whose wife was a miss Alexander, said to have been nearly reladed to Hon. Mack Robbins, former congressman from Statesville. James McCanless came from Iredell County to Shull's Mills and resided near the present Robbins hotel at that place. James was a man of education and taught school where Mrs. Martha Phipps now lives. He was also a cabinet-maker, some of his work being still preserved. James and his brothe, David, of Burnsville, were both "fine fiddlers." For some reson, now unknown, Phillip Shull refused to grind Jame's corn for him on his mill. This mill, built about 1835, was washed away about 1861 and never replaced, though the neighborhood still retains its name. McCanless went before a magistrate and got the usual penalty for such refusal to grind corn without good excuse. Shull still refused and McCanless still collected the penalty till at last Shull gave in. Colvert was always called "Colb" or "Cobb," and he was Jack Horton's deputy when the former was sheriff from 1852 to 1856. It was then that "Colb" announced himself as a candidate against Horton. It is said that the oral duel that then ensued, on Meat Camp, was fierce. "Colb" ran and won. He and Horton had frequent fist fights, both being powerful men physically-- Horton, of medium height, but thick set, and McCanless tall and well proportioned. McCanless was a strikingly handsome man and a well-behaved, useful citizen till he became involved with a woman not his wife, after which he fell into evil courses. As sheriff he was tax collector and also had in his hands claims in favor of J. M. Weath, a Frenchman, who sold goods throughout this section in Job lots. As there was no homestead then, whatever an officer could find in a defendant's possession was subject to levy and sale. January 1, 1859, came and soon afterwards came also a representative from Weath for a settlement with McCanless.

On the morning of January 6th "Colb" set out for Boone, accompained by Levi L. Coffey, a near neighbor, then about twenty-seven years of age. "Colb" told Weath's man that he had made many collections for Weath, but had offsets against some of them

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and could settle the balance due only by an interview with Weath himself. Therefore, he would join Weath's man at Blowing Rock the following morning and go with him to Statesville. He and Jack Horton, who was on McCanless' official bond, then took a ride together, after which Horton sold his horse to one of the Hardins and McCanless immediately bought the same horse to one of the Hardins and McCanless immediately bought the same horse for the exact price Hardin had paid for it. During the same day McCanless conveyed certain real estate to his brother, J. Leroy McCanless. Subsequently, on the first day of March, 1859, J. L. McCanless conveyed the same land to Jack or John Horton, and on that day Jack Horton conveyed it to Smith Coffey. In a suit between Calvin J. Cowles against Coffey it was alleged and so found by the jury that these conveyances from D. C. to J. L. McCanless and from him to Jack Horton had been given to defraud the creditors of D. C. McCanless (88 N. C. Rep. p. 341). Horton is said also to have secured McCanless' saddle pockets with many claims in them against various people in Watauga County, these pockets having been left by McCanless in a certain store in Boone for that very purpose, thus securing Horton as far as possible from loss by reason of his liability on McCanless' official bond. McCanless also had the proceeds of a claim which as sheriff he held aginst Wilson Burleson, who then lived near Bull Scrape, Now Montezuma, Avery County. This money was due to J. M. Weath also, and which, for safe-keeping, had been placed by McCanless with Jacob Rintels in Boone, in whose store Col. W. L. Bryan was then clerking, then known as the Jack Horton Old Store. Late that sixth of January McCanless called on Rintels for the money, with the request that as much as possible be paid in gold and silver. This was done. McCanless then started on the road to Wilkes County, where he claimed he was to pay the money over to Robert Hayes on an execution, having told Levi Coffey not to wait for him, as he was not going to return home that night. But instead of continuing on to Wilkes, McCanless went only as far as Three Forks Church, where he doubled back and went up the Jack Hodges Creek and through the Hodges Gap to Shull's Mills, where he was joined by a woman. They went

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together to Johnson City, where their horses and saddles and bridles were sold to Joel Dyer. There they took the train for the West. After D. C. McCanless had been away several months, J. L. McCanless, his brother, followed him, but soon returned and took west with him D. C. McCanless' wife, who was born Mary, daughter of Joseph Greene, her children, her father and mother and his own sisters, who had married Amos Green and Isaac Greene, sons of Joseph Greene.

"Wild Bill" Kills McCanless.-- News came to Watauga during the Civil War that "Colb" McCanless had been killed in Kansas, but it was not till 1883 that the details became known. But in that year D. M. Kelsey published "Our Pioneer Heroes and Their Daring Deeds" (pp. 481, et seq.), Scanned, publishers, from which the following facts were gleaned; that what was knows as the McCanless Gang were impressing horses in Kansas, as they claimed, for the Confederate government, but in reality for themselves. James Butler Hicok, otherwise known as "Wild Bill," was connected with a stage line at Rock Creek, fifty miles west of Topeka, Kansas. There he occupied a "dug-out," the back and two sides of which were formed of earth of the hillside, into which a thatched cabin had been built. There, also, on the 16th day of December, 1861, in a fight with ten of McCanless' gang, all but two of the latter were killed by "Wild Bill" and his friends. Among those killed are mentioned Jim and Jack McCanless. It is supposed that one of these was David Colvert McCanless. J. LeRoy McCanless is now living at Florence, Colorado, as a good citizen and highly respected man. Rev. W. C. Franklin, their nephew, resides at Altamont.

Bedent E. Baird.-- There is probably no more picturesque character among the pioneers of this section than that of Bedent E. Baird. He was a man of fine education and possessed the best library west of the Blue Ridge. He was what would be called these days as agnostic, and was independent in thought and deed. He ws one of the first to represent Ashe County in the legislature and was for many years a magistrate. He named one of his sons for Euclid, the geometrician. It is said that his testimony was once challenged on the score of his unorthodox

Page 197 belief, and that when he answered that he had taken the oath as a magistrate, the presiding judge at the trial refused to allow the challenger to go behind that statement.

No Water-Power by a Dam-Site.--It is also related of him that he told Bishop Ives, who was looking for a good site for a water power, that he could show him the finest site for such a power in the world. The Bishop, keen to develop the country, then folllowed Squire Baird to the top of the Beech Mountain over the cart-road which Baird had had constructed nearly to the highest point, after which they followed a trail to the north prospect or pinnacle of the Beech. This is a sheer precipice, or rather overhanging shelf of rock, overlooking the head of Beech Creek. "This," remarked Baird to the Bishop, "is the finest site for a water power in the mountains." "But where is the water?" asked his Reverence. "That is your part of the business," returned Baird, chuckling; "I have provided the site -- all I agreed to do."

Who Were These Old Bairds?-- That many of the first settlers of this county came from New Jersey seems to be confirmed by the fact that D. Gilbert Tennent, of Asheville, has a book which is called the "History of the Old Tennent Church," compiled by Rev. Frank Symes, its pastor, and printed by George W. Burroughs, at Cranberry, N. J. In it is published a diagram of the pews of the church, one of which in 1750 was held by Zebulon and the other by David Baird. The church was then called the Freehold Church, but is now known as the Tennent Church. It still stands in Monmouth County, New Jersey. Just what relationship these Bairds hold to the Bedent Baird of Watauga aand the Bedent and Zebulon Baird of Buncombe in 1790 seems to be a riddle beyond solution at the present day. But that Zeb Vance's mother, who was a Baird, was related to the Bairds of Watauga is about as certain as any unprovable fact can well be, for family names, family traits and physical family resemblances are so marked as to be unmistakable.

A Mysterious Enquiry.-- Early in January, 1858, Bedent Baird received a newspaper, on the margin of which was written a few lines, in which the claim was made that Bedent E. Baird

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was akin to the writer, who, however, failed to sign his name.(1) But he had given his post office, that of Lapland, in Buncombe County, but now called Marshall, the county seat of Madison. Bedent E. Baird, then, in 1858, in his eighty-eighth year, answered this unknown writer, sending his letter to Lapland, but he received no answer. From this letter we learn that John Baird and a brother came from Scotland in the Calendonia and settled in the Jerseys, meaning in New Jersey. This John Baird had married a woman named Mary Bedent, and they named their first child Bedent Baird--the very first of the name "that was ever on the face of the earth." Their seventh son was named Ezekiel and he married Susanna Blodgett, whose father was killed in the ambuscade near Fort Duquesne at the time Braddock also net his death. Ezekiel Baird moved to North Carolina, where Bedent E. Baird was born about 1770. Ezekiel Baird's brother, Bedent, was married three times "and reared three numerous families at or near the German Flats, Canada." Ezekiel Baird's other five brothers also married and reared families "who helped to break the forests and settle five or six of the southwestern States."

Peggy Clawson.-- One of the strongest characters of the past was that of Peggy Clawson, who resided in the neighborhood of Elk Cross Roads. She was the wife of William Clawson, though for some time it was doubtful w.hether this was to be the case, as her evident inclination was to have him simply the husband of Peggy Clawson. For, tradition says, in a most friendly spirit, that they occasionally "fell out and kissed again with tears." One one of these occasions, as the story goes, for it is also told of Ezra Stonecypher, she had driven him to take refuge under the bed. Thinking she had him conquered at last, she told him that if he ever said another "crooked word to her, she would kill him." "Ram's Horn, Peggy, if I die for it!" came the prompt and defiant answer to her challenge. She was a member of the Three Forks Church in July, 1832, for at that time she was excommunicated from that church for "beating her son." However, in due time, namely, in the following October,

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she "made open acknowledgment for her transgression and was restored to full membership." One morning she was near the cliff or bluff between John L. Tatum's present home and Todd, covered with laurel, pines and ivy bushes, making maple sugar. A dog chased a bear into the river, and she got into the canoe tied near by, poled out to the bear swimming in a deep hole at the base of the cliff, and drowned it by holding it head under the water with the canoe pole. After this exploit, it being Saturday, she walked down to the Old Fields Baptist Church in time for morning sevice.

Some Other Old Stories.-- Welborn Waters was employed after the Civil War to exterminate all the wolves from the Virginia line to the Bald Mountain in Yancey. He undertook the task and succeeded, howling in imitation of wolves when on the mountains, and they, unsuspectingly, coming to him, he killed them. It is related, however, of the old Lewises, as the first wolf hunters in these mountains were called, that wishing to get the bounty offered for wolf scalps, they would not kill the grown wolves, especially the females, as they wished them to bear as many litters as possible, the scalp of a young wolf being paid for as well as that of an old one. It is related till this day that the Wolf's Den on Riddle's Knob took its name from the fact that the Lewises went in there in search of wolves and usually found and killed a litter every spring.

Joseph T. Wilson,commonly called "Lucky Joe," was in jail in Boone at the November term of the Superior Court during a very cold spell, and, pretending to have frozen in his cell, was removed in an apparently unconscious state to the Brick Row joining the Critcher hotel, then the old Coffey hotel. Here he was resuscitated by the late Dr. W. B. Councill, but instead of taking him back to jail to freeze all over again, they left him in the Brick Row with a guard. He persuaded that guard to go out and get some more fuel, and while he was gone the frozen man escaped from the room and the State. He was recaptured in Ohio by Alexander Perry, of Burk, however, brought to Elk Park and thence taken by the then sheriff, David F. Baird, to Morganton to jail, where he remained till the next term of Ashe

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court, to which his lawyers had had his case moved on account of alleged prejudice in Watauga County. He was convicted in Ashe and served ten years in the penitentiary for stealing horses from Alloway and Henry Maines, of North Fork. While in the penitentiary he became superintendent of the prison Sunday School, and by apparent good conduct had earned a reduction from the full term of his sentence. When, however, his belongings were examined it was found that he had pilfered many small articles from the penitentiary itself, and consequently lost what he had earned by good behavior in all other respects. When he got back home he studied law and led an exemplary life till about 1904, when he again came before the court, was convicted and sent to the Iredell County roads for five years' sentence. There he died, aged nearly sixty years.

Elijah Dotson and Alfred Hilliard quarreled once, standing at a safe distance apart, a mile or more, one being in his own field and the other in his own field also. This occurred on Beaver Dams before the Civil War and no telephone wires connected them. This difficulty arose from a cordial and sincere invitation extended by Dotson to Hilliard to visit certain grid-irons "where the worm dieth not and the fire is not 'squinched.'" It is also said that Hilliard and his wife late in life joined the church, and being dissatisfied with their marrieage, which contract had been solomnized by an unsaintly justice of the peace, had and knot retied by a minister of the gospel regularly ordained.

An African Romance.-- On the 16th day of October, 1849, Mr. and Mrs. William mast, then living where the shipleys now live, near Valle Crucis, were poisoned by drinking wild parsnips in their coffee. It was said by some that a slave woman named Mill or Milley had been whipped for having stolen twenty dollars from Andrew Mast, and poisoned William Mast out of revenge. Others say the crime was committed by Mill and her slave lover, Silas Baker, in the hope that if Mill's master and mistress were dead, she would have to be sold, and that Jacob Mast, who was about to marry Miss Elizabeth Baker and move to Texas, would buy her and thus prevent these dusky lovers from future separation. Although there was no direct evidence against either, Mill

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was sold to John Whittington and taken to Tennessee, while Silas was taken to Texas with his mistress and her husband, Jacob Mast.

James Speer lived on Beaver Dams and had no more brains than were absoutely necessary. He and two others agreed that all three should go to South Carolina, where Jim was to color his face with lampblack and suffer himself to be sold as and for a slave of African parentage, and that after the money had been paid over, he was to remove the lampblack and escape back to Beaver Dams, where the proceeds of the little game were to be divided into three equal parts. This may have been doen, but as Jim did not get his third, he and one of his partnerw were heard to quarrel about the division at one of the Big Musters near Boone. It was not a lawer who insisted that the letter of the bargain had been fully carried out when the proceeds of the sale had been simply divided into three equal parts, but one of Jim's own partnere, who had never studied law an hour in all his life. Nor was it in accordance with any sentence of any court of record or otherwise that jim disappeared from the face of the earth and had remained "gone" ever since. A skeleton was found about 1893 in some cliffs, usually called "rock Cliffs," in rear of J. K. Perry's residence on Beaver dams, and some have supposed that these bones used to belong to Jim Speer.

Joshua Pennell manumitted his slaves by his will, and his nephew, Joshua Winkler, as executor, took them to Kansas and set them free. Many still remember their passage through Boone just prior to the Civil War. Joshua Winkler and Joshua Pennell had lived in Wilkes County, but Winkler soon after his return from Kansas bought land in Watauga and removed to this county, where he died. Among other valuable properties accquired by him wa sthe old Noah Mast farm near St. Jude post office, afterwards conveying one-half thereof to his son, William F. Winkler.

Jesse Mullins' "Niggers."-- Jesse Mullins and his wife were getting old just prior to the commencement of the Civil War. They owned two negroes in addition to the farm which still goes by the name of the Mullins farm, on the South Fork of

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New River, about four miles from Boone. There is also a small hill or mountain which is still known as the Mullins Mountain. There were two "interests" who had their eyes on those slaves, and one night the slaves disappeared. The next heard of them was the arrest of two yound men in a Southern city for trying to sell slaves without themselves being able to show how they got them. It is supposed that the "interest" which had been outgeneraled by the one abducting the slaves had caused the arrest of these young men. they were released and the slaves returned to their true owners. It is said that the most famous Grecian Sphinx, that of Thebes in Boeotia, once proposed a riddle on the Thebans, and killed all those who tired but failed to give the correct answer. CEdipus solved the riddle, whereupon the Sphinx slew herself. There is many an CEdipus yet living in Watauga County who might solve the riddle of the taking and carrying away of these darkies and of the arrest and imprisonment of their captors. So, too, they might tell who was one of Jim Speer' partners, and whose grave is said still to smoke in a certain church yard in this county of Watauga.

Cross-Cut Saw and Cross-Cut Suit.-- Just before the Civil War, how long no one now knows, Noah mast, claiming that he had loaned Hiram Hix a cross-cut saw, sued him for its recovery. Hix had some affliction of the eye-lids, rendering it necessary that he should prop them open with his fingers in order to see. He and his wife lived under a big cliff near the mouth of Cove Creek, called the Harmon rock-House.(1) This cliff projected out a considerable distance and the open space was enclosed with boards and other timbers, thus affording some degree of comfort even in winter, the smoke going out of a flue built against the side of the cliff. here hix kept a boat and charged a nickel to put passengers across the river. He also built a sort of cantilever bridge, the first in the world, most probably, using two firm rocks which extended into the stream, thus forming a narrow channel at that point. based upon these immovable rocks were two long logs, hewn flat on the upper surface, one projecting from each bank toward the other, but not
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Note: (1) The first white child born in Watauga County is said to have been born in this rock cliff; but its name is not known. Page 203 Page 204 Page 205 Page 206 the above is from W. S. Davis himself, the only survivor of the incident. This Lee Carmichael loved the cup that first cheers and inebriates a little later on. That, probably, is why Davis had to fee O'Neil. Then Carmichael ran for Congress and was defeated. He died soon afterwards.

The Musterfield Murder.-- As an aftermath of the Civil War, say about 1870, there turned up in several of the more secluded sections of the Southern mountains "men with a past." Whence they came and whither went, no one knew. Among these was a man who called himself Green Marshall, who suddenly and without invitation put in an appearance on what is now universally and enthusiastically called Hog Elk, just east of the Blue Ridge, but still in Watauga County. He lived in the family of young Troy Triplett. Together they came to Boone one day and had a quarrel near the court house. Later on that day they left town together, and when they got half a mile away the quarrel was renewed at the old Muster Ground and Marshall stabbed Triplett, wounding him so hadly that Triplett died several days later at the house of Henry Hardin, one mile east of Boone. Marshall hid that night in the house of a colored woman named Ailsey Council,(9) her home being beyond the ridge in rear of Prof. D. D. Dougherty's present home, almost south of Boone, ultimately escaping for a time, but being caught later near Hog Elk. He was tried and convicted of manslaughter and served his sentence. No one knows where he came from nor where he went after his term was up. It was remarked after this murder that Marshall had never been seen without an open knife in his hand. Luke Triplett, the dead man's father, put up a rough mountain rock in the shape of a rude slab, four feet high and twelve to fourteen inches broad, on the spot on which his son bad been stabbed: He had chiseled on the stone his son's name and a rude effigy, showing the outline of a man's form and a wound from which blood was apparently flowing. It stood there several years, but disappeared. It is said that the blood from the real wound changed the color of the vegetation on which it had fallen for several years. Note: Ailsey Councill is said to have named what is now known as Straddle Gap, between Brushy Fork Baptist Church and Dog Skin Creek, in which a Boone Marker has been placed. This gap used to be called Grave-Yard Gap.

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Chapter XIV.

Some of Our Show-Places.

Fine Scenery.--The scenery of Watauga County is as fine as any in the mountains of North Carolina. From Blowing Rock, the Grandfather, the Bald, Howard's Knob, Riddle's Knob, Elk Knob, the Buzzard Rocks and Dogs Ears views can be had that are sublime. Between Banner Elk and Montezuma are two immense rocks, called the Chimneys, seventy-five and ninety feet high, which have never been photographed, but which are striking objects of nature. Hanging Rock above Banner Elk and the North Pinnacle of the Beech Mountain are accessible and afford fine views. Dutch Creek Falls, within half a mile of the Mission School at Valle Crucis, slide over a rock which seems to e eighty feet high, and Linville Falls, now in Avery County, have two falls, each about thirty-five feet in height. Elk Falls, three miles from Cranberry, are well worth a visit, while the rapids of Elk Creek below the old Lewis Banner mill are wild and attractive. Watauga Falls, just west of the Tennessee line, and, therefore, in Tennessee, are not really "falls" in the sense of having a sheer fall of water in a perpendicular direction, but they are a series of cascades pouring over gigantic rocks in a gorge grand and gloomy in the extreme. It is rarely visited, however, many people imagining that a post office called Watauga Falls between Beech Creek and Ward's Store are the real falls, while in fact there are no falls there whatever. The turnpike leading from Valle Crucis to Butler, Tenn., passes in less than half a mile from the real falls, which, however, are not visible from the road. The "walks" are a series of natural stepping stones across the Watauga River below Flat Shoals, near the Tennessee line. At all times of ordinay high water one can cross on these stones dry-shod. The Wolf's Den on Riddle's Knob is well worth a visit. From the Rock House at the Jones or Little place, and from Tater Hill, both on Rich Mountain, fine views can be had.

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Cove Creek.--From Sugar Grove to the Tennessee line Cove Creek is so thickly settled as to be almost a continuous village. Several creeks come down from Rich Mountain and Fork Ridge, and on such streams many people live and thrive. For Cove Creek is recognized as the Egypt of Watauga County. It contains some of the most fertile land in the State. Its people are progressive and co-operate in all public enterprises. beginning at Zionville, near the Tennessee line, there is a succession of villages, including Mable, Amantha, Sherwood, Mast and Sugar Grove. Two large flouring mills are on the creek, while there is the first cheese factory ever established in the county in flourishing condition at Sugar Grove. Churches, schools and masonic lodges dot the hillsides. Hospitality reigns in every household. The people are prosperous and happy and helpful. From a point near the mouth of Sharp's Creek, looking toward Rich Mountain, is a view that is as beautiful as any in the mountains. A forest of young lin trees has been set out on one of the wornout hillsides and will soon be in fine condition; also grafted chestnut trees--that is, native chestnut trees on which have been grafted French and Italian shoots. A sang garden or orchard is flourishing nearby, while the town of Sugar Grove and vicinity is lighted up with electric lights. Bath tubs supplied with clear spring water are found in many of the dwellings, and an air of prosperity and progress pervades the entire community of Cove Creek. Automobiles and the latest improved farm machinery show the temper and spirit of the people. In short, there is not forward step which can be taken at this stage of its growth that Cove Creek has not taken. Silverstone, in the shadow of the Rich Mountain, is one of the lovliest of all the villages of this vicinity, though it is some distance from Cove Creek. It is, however, part and parcel of that locality.

"The Biggest Show on Earth."-- This is the boast of the Barnum-Bailey shows, but it falls far short of being as fine a show as the wild flowers of Watauga County make from May till December. Nowhere else on earth do the rhododendron, the azalea and the mountain ivy or calico bush called kalmia grow to such perfection as here. Nowhere else on earth do botanists find

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so large and fin a a variety of wild flowers of all kinds. The rhodendron maximum is, as its name indicates, the largest of the rhodondendron family, which derives its name from two Greek words meaning a rose tree. Both its leaves and its blooms are larger than any other variety. It is what we call mountain laurel, as distinguished from the ivy or calico bush, which has spotted, bell-shaped blooms. But we make no distinction between it and what botanists call the rhodondenron catawbiese, which has a smaller leaf and bloom and the bloom being more like the rose in color. The largest trunks of the rhodendron are six inches in diameter and the trees twenty feet high. In her "Carolina Mountains" Miss Morley gives most impassioned and poetic descriptions of the Watauga flowers, saying, among other charming things, that "all flowers are imprisoned sunshine in a figurative sense, but of no others does that seems so literally true as of 'the flame-colored azaleas' (p. 50), to see the perfect fire of which you must come to their mountains." She also calls attention to the fringe bush, and asks how it came to the Grandfather Mountain "when all the other members of its family live in that remote Chinese empire so mysteriously connected with us through the life of the plants?" In this class she places the silver bell tree, the azalea, the fringe bush, the wisteria and ginseng. And she calls attention to the rhodondenron vaseyii, which sheds its leaves in autumn. This was thought to have become extinct, but it is still found on the north side of the Grandfather (p. 59). But all these flowers are surpassed by the lovely blooms of our apple and cherry trees in May and June, for nowhere in the world are apples and cherries finer or more abundant than here, the Moses H. Cone orchard at Blowing Rock at that at Valle Crucis producing fruit as fine and in greater abundance than almost any other orchards in the world. Kelsey's Highland Nursery at Linville City makes a business of selling all our wild flowers. Rev. W.R. Savage, of Blowing Rock, cultivates many of them in his garden. Mrs. W.W. Stringfellow, of the same town, also takes great pride in cultivating both tame and wild flowers and in distributing bulbs and seeds gratuitously among the mountain people.

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Valle Crucis.-- According to a tradition well supported by the statements of many reputable citizens of the present day, Samuel Hix and his son-in-law, James D. Holtsclaw came in 1779 from Cheraw, S.C., through the Deep Gap, to what is now known as Valle Crucis, and erected a palisade of split logs, with their sharpened ends driven into the ground, so as to enclose about an acre and a half surrounding the Maple Spring between the present residence of Finley Mast and that of his brother, Squire W. B. Mast. This was because they feared Indians, not knowing of the agreement between the Watauga settlers and the Cherokees as to the land between the Virginia line and the ridge south of the Watauga River. After a time Hix became uneasy and retired to the wilderness near what is now Banner Elk, where he made a camp and supported himself by hunting and making maple syrup and sugar, thus avoiding service as an American or a Tory. At some time in his career he is said to have had a cabin in a cove in rear of the present residence of Squire W. B. Mast, then to have lived in the bottom above James M. Shull's present farm, afterwards moving down the Watauga River near Ward's Store, where he died long after the Revolutionary War. It is said that he never took the oath of allegiance ot the American cause and that whenever he came home for supplies his mischievous sons would frighten him by firing off a pistol made by hollowing out a buck-horn and loading the cavity with powder, the same being "touched off with a live coal." Just here it may be remarked--a fact not generally known--that a dead coal, which yet has elements of immortality in it to such an extent that, unless it is ground to powder, it remains charcoal indefinitely. Such coals, in beds of ashes, are still plowed up near the Lybrook farm, now the Grandfather Orphanage, one mile from Banner's Elk, still called by old people from the Hix Improvement, that being the place where Samuel Hix "laid out during the Revolutionary War." Whether he had a grant or other title to the Valle Crucis land seems immaterial now, as he had possession of it when Bedent Baird arrived toward the close of the eighteenth century, for Baird, with a pocketful of money, had to go a mile down river to get a home in this wilderness

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of rich land. Then Hix is said to have sold his holdings to Benjamin Ward for a rifle, dog and a sheepskin, Ward selling it later on to Reuben Mast, while Hix moved down to the mouth of Cove Creek. Ward soon got possession of this also, and sold it to a man named Summers, who was living in a cabin on the left bank of Watauga River during a great freshet which lifted the cabin from its foundation and carried it and its inmates, the entire Summers family, to death and oblivion in that night of horrors. A faithful dog belonging to the famiy swam after the cabin and when it finaly lodged against a rock, the dog would allow no one to enter til he had been killed. The Hix Hole, just below David F. Baird's farm, is still so called because of the drowning there of James Hix and a Tester about 1835, when a bull was ridden into the river in order to recover the two bodies. Reuben Mast lived where D. F. Baird now lives, while Joel Mast lived where J. Hardee Talor resides. David Mast lived where Finley Mast's large mansion now stands. Henry Taylor, whose father was Butler Taylor, came from Davidson County to Sugar Grove about 1849, married Emeline, daughter of John Mast, of that place, then moved to Valle Crucis in time to get some of the money paid out for the construction of the Caldwell and Watauga turnpike. This road must have been begun prior to October, 1849, for Col. Joseph C. Shull remembers that William Mast had the contract to build the bridge across Watauga River one mile below Shull's Mills, and was at work on it the morning on which he drank the poison the slave girl, Mill, is supposed to have put in his coffee for breakfast, for he came to Col. Joseph C. Shull's father's home for medicine and returned to work on the bridge, but soon had to go home, dying that night at about the same time his wife died. It was to the valle above this that Bishop Ives came in 1843, where he erected the school and brotherhood described elsewhere. This valley was what the editor of the "Life of W. W. Skiles," Susan Fenimore Cooper, a descendant of Fenimore Cooper, author of the "Leather Stocking Tales," says the Indians would call a "one smoke valley" (p. 17), from the fact that but one family dwelt there in 1842. That family was that of Andrew Townsend, the miller, whose descendants still live nearby.

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Sugar Grove.-- Cutliff Harmon came from Randolph County to this place in 1791 and bought 522 acres of land from James Gwyn, it having been granted to him May 18, 1791. Cutliff married Susan Fouts first and a widow by the name of Elizabeth Parker after the death of his first wife. It is Sugar Grove that is the most progressive of the Cove Creek towns, having electric lights, a roller mill, the first in the county, and a cheese dairy, established 5th June, 1915. It has also one of the finest school houses in the county. It was here also that Camp Mast was located during the Civil War. The land in this section is considered as about the best in the county. Col. Joseph Harrison Mast, who died September 8, 1915, had his residence here. He was in his prime one of the best and most substantial citizens of the county and still holds the respect and affection of all who knew him. The first roller mill in the county was established here. These people know what co-operation means and act accordingly. The cheese factory is the first that was established in the South, and promises to be successful.

Blowing Rock.--From the "Carolina Mountains" (pp.350, 355) we learn that "from Blowing Rock to Tryon Mountain the Blue Ridge draws a deep curve half encircling a jumble of very wild rocky peaks and cliffs that belong to the foothill formations. Hence, Blowing Rock, lying on one arm of a horseshoe of which Tryon Mountain is the other arm, has the most dramatic outlook of any village in the mountains. Directly in front of it is an enormous bowl filled with a thousand tree-clad hills and ridges that become higher and wilder towards the encircling wall of the Blue Ridge, the conspicuous bare stone summits of Hawk's Bill and Table Rock Mountains rising sharp as dragon's teeth above the rest, while the sheer and shining face of the terrible Lost Cove cliffs, dropping into some unexplored ravine, come to view on a clear day. From far away, beyond this wild bowlful of mountains, one sometimes sees a faintly outlined dome, Tryon Mountain, under which on the other side one likes to remember Traumfest, Fortress of Dreams.

"Off to the left from Blowing Rock, seen between near green knobs, the shoreless sea of the lowlands reaches away to lave

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the edge of the sky. And looking to the right, there lies the calm and noble form of the Grandfather Mountain, its rocky top drawn in a series of curves against the western sky. Long spurs sweep down like buttresses to hold it. Trees clothe it as with a garment to where the black rock surmounts them.

"The view from Blowing Rock changes continually. The atmospheric sea that encloses mountain and valley melts the solid rocks into a thousand enchanting pictures. Those wild shapes in the great basin which at one time look so near, so hard and so terrible, at another time recede and soften, their dark colors transmuted into the tender blue of the Blue Ridge, or again the basin is filled with dreamlike forms immersed in an exquisite sea of mystical light.

"Sometimes the Grandfather Mountain stands solidly out, showing in detail the tapestry of green trees that hangs over its slopes; again it is blue and flat against the sky, or it seems made of mists and shadows. Sometimes the sunset glory penetrates, as it were, into the substance of the mountain, which looks translucent in the sea of light that contains it. As night draws on, it darkens into a noble silhouette against the splendor that often draws the curves of its summit in lines of fire.

"Blowing Rock at times lies above the clouds, with all the world blotted out excepting the Grandfather's summit rising out of the white mists. Sometimes one looks out in the morning to see that great bowl filled to the brim with level clouds that reach away from one's very feet in a floor so firm to the eye that one is tempted to step on it. Presently this pure white level floor begins to roll up into billowy masses, deep wells, open down which one looks to little landscapes lying in the bottom, a bit of the lovely John's River Valley, a house and trees, perhaps. The well closes; the higher peaks begin to appear, phantom islands in a phantom sea; the restless ocean of mists swells and rolls, now concealing, now revealing glimpses of the world under it. It breaks apart into fantastic forms that begin to glide up the peaks and mount above them like wraiths. The sun darts sheaves of golden arrows in through the openings, and these in time slay the pale dragons of the air, or drive them fleeing into

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the far blue caverns of the sky, and the world beneath is visible, only that where the John's River Valley ought to be there often remains a long lake of snowy drift. Sometimes the clouds blotting out the landscape break apart suddenly, the mountains come swiftly forth one after the other until one seems to be watching an act of creation where solid forms resolve themselves out of chaos. The peaceful John's River Valley, winding far below among the wild mountains, is like a glimpse into a fairyland, and one has never ventured to go there for fear of dispelling the pleasing illusion.

"Near the village of Blowing Rock, at the beginning of those green knobs between which one looks to the lowlands, is a high cliff, the real Blowing Rock, so named because the rocky walls at this point form a flume through which the northwest wind sweeps with such force that whatever is thrown over the rock is hurled back again. It is said that there are times when a man could not jump over, so tremendous is the force of the wind. It is also said that visitors, having heard the legend of the rock, have been seen to stand there in a dead calm and throw over their possessions and watch them no more in anger than in mirth as they, obedient to the law of gravity instead of that of fancy, disappeared beneath the tree tops far below.

"Blowing Rock, four thousand feet above sea level, is a wonderfully sweet place. The rose-bay and the great white rhododendron maximum crowd against the houses and fill the open spaces, excepting where laurel and the flame-colored azaleas have planted their standards. And in their seasons the wild flowers blossom everywhere; also the rocks are covered with those crisp, sweet-smelling herbs that love high places, and sedums and saxifrages trim the crevices and the ledges.

"Blowing Rock is also noted for the great variety of new mushrooms that have been captured there, though one suspects that this renown is due to the fact that the mushroom hunters happened to pitch their tents here instead of somewhere else. For other parts of the mountains can make a showing in mushrooms, too."

Some Blowing Rock Attractions.-- Besides the Blowing Rock itself, from which a fine view can be had, there are the Ransom

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and Grand Views. There are several drives and trails in and near the Rock, some of which surpass in sylvan beauty any to be seen on the Biltmore estate, as the former are through primeval forests, noteably the drive between the Stringfellow and Cone Lakes. The Randall Memorial Work Shop was conceived by the late W. G. Randall, who was born in Burke County, North Carolina, and after many hardships obtained an education and became a famous artist in oils. He spent his summers in Blowing Rock, where he died, after living nearly twenty summers there. His remains lie in Washington, D. C. His wife was Miss Anna Goodlow, of Warren County, North Carolina. It is in this Work Shop that the manual industries of the mountain are preserved and fostered. There are an old-fashioned hand loom, spinning wheels, etc., in this building. The Blowing Rock Exchange is near by, and its object is to afford a greater opportunity to the home people to sell home-made articles, such as woven rugs, coverlids, embroidered bedspreads, laces, articles made of laurel, baskets, etc. In it are a library, a fine collection of Indian relics and mineral specimens. In front of the Work Shop is a garden of rare wild and cultivated plants and one of the two sundials in Watauga County. This garden is the result of the labors of Rev. William Rutherford Savage, who was born in Pass Christian, Miss., October 20, 1854; was graduated at the Episcopal Theological Seminary, Alexandria, Va., and moved to Blowing Rock in September, 1902. He is a worthy successor to the late Rev. W. W. Skiles, of Valle Crucis fame. In the words of Rev. Edgar Tufts, Mr. Savage has done more than any other to create a fraternal feeling among all the denominations of the mountains.

Ante-Bellum Residents.-- Col. James Harper, Sr., of Lenoir, built a frame summer residence at what is now the H. W. Weedene Fairview house, about 1858, and spent the summers there till the Civil War began. John Bryant lived where the Blowing Rock hotel stands, on land belonging to Col. James Harper. Edmund Greene lived near the present site of the German Reformed Church. Amos Greene lived on the opposite

Page 218 side of the road from the present residence of Mrs. Dr. Reeves, and Lot Estes had his home between the present residence of Col. W. W. Stringfellow and the creek. Len Estes, his son, built the mill and dam after the Civil War, but sold out to Colonel Stringfellow and went West. He kept summer boarders and looked like General Grant. William M. Morris bought the Amos Greene place about 1874 and opened a house for summer boarders. He was most successful, and the good things he furnished for his boarders to eat will be forever remembered by all who had the good fortune to sit at his table. He had a most remarkable little bench-legged cow, which gave oceans of the richest milk imaginable. His deep featherbeds were good for tired legs after a day's wading in the creeks fishing for speckled trout. He sold out to Dr. L. C. Reeves, however, and moved east of the Blue Ridge. W. W. Sherrell bought the Harper property and opened two or three small houses for summer boarders about 1877 or 1878 at Fairview. This is now the Weeden place. Robert Greene, father of the late Judge L. L. Greene, lived where the Cone Lake now is. The Kirk Fort was in the Blowing Rock Gap, and trees were felled for some distance down the road so as to give an open view of the country to the east. After Gen. M. W. Ransom became interested in the place, its growth was rapid, and the completion of the Yonahlossee turnpike in 1900 assured its success.

Along the Blue Ridge.--We will now notice the people who originally lived along the Blue Ridge, from Deep Gap to Coffey's Gap. Solomon Green lived in the Deep Gap, and was a good citizen and entertained the traveling public. He was the son of "Flatty" Isaac Green, who lived on Meat Camp near the noted Brown place of 640 acres, the lower part of which is now owned by Lindsey Patterson, of Winston-Salem, and the upper part by L. A. Green, who lives near. L. A. Green is a son of "Little" John Green, who was a son of Richard Green, all of whom are well to do people. The next settled place on the Ridge was called the Old Ellison place, where William Blackburn now lives. The next was the home of the Rev. John Cook, a Baptist minister and a son of Michael Cook, of Cook's Gap, and he lived six

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miles east of Boone, where his grandson, A. B. Cook, now lives, and is better known as "Burt" Cook. From this point, going west along the Ridge, we next reach the home of the old pioneer, Michael Cook, who first settled in the noted Cook's Gap and from whom it took its name. He had six sons, to wit: John, Adam, David, Robert, Michael and William. There were at least two daughters, one of whom married Aaron Hampton and the other Rice Hayes. From this point we go to John and Joshua Storie's, where George Storie now has a store. George is a grandson of John, his father having been Walter, who married a Miss Powell, of Caldwell. Walter lost his life in the Civil War. These two families were hard working and industrious people and owned adjoining farms, the voting place being called Storie's Barn. Jesse, son of John Storie, is probably the only one living of the two old families. This takes us to what is now Blowing rock, four miles further west, to the old Green settlement, where the two noted brothers, Joseph and Benjamin Green, lived. These brothers were so much alike that their neighbors could scarcely tell them apart. Isaac Green, called "Mountain" Isaac, lived at what is now the Boyden place, where he reared a large family. Amos Green lived where Mrs. Sallie Reeves, widow of the late Dr. L. C. Reeves, now lives. He had a large family. Alexander Green, son of Benjamin, lived where Mr. Lance now lives, one mile east of Blowing Rock. His father used to live there before him, while Joseph Green lived east of Green Park hotel. He was the grandfather of Mrs. W. L. Bryan. A small Reformed Lutheran Church stands on part of the land. Warren Green, youngest son of Joseph, was killed when Stoneman raided Boone. Robert Greene lived where Cone's Lake now is. He was the father of Judge L. L. Greene, his wife having been Chaney Elrod, whose father lived two miles south of Boone, where J. Watts Farthing now lives. Lot Estes married Chaney Green, a daughter of Benjamin Green, and lived where Colonel Stringfellow's house now stands. Five miles west lived McCaleb Coffey at what is called Coffey's Gap. He married Sally Hayes, a sister of Ransom Hayes. They had four boys and no girls. The boys were Jones, Thomas, Ninevah and

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