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John. All were killed in the Civil War except Jones and he was badly
wounded. No one else lived on the Blue Ridge from Coffey's Gap west until after the
Grandfather was passed. Finley and Jesse Gragg probably moved to the top of the Ridge
after the Civil War.
Moses H. Cone.–He began to acquire real estate in the vicinity
of Blowing Rock about 1897, and secured over 3,500 acres of land before his death
at Baltimore, Md., December 8, 1908. The mansion he erected on Flat Top Mountain is
second only to that of George W. Vanderbilt near Asheville. The lake in front of that
residence is one of the picture places of the mountains. He died childless and interstate,
but his widow and brothers and sisters have joined in the creation of the Moses H.
Cone Memorial Park for the public "in perpetuity," after the death of his
widow, by donating the above land. Moses H. Cone was born at Jonesboro, Tenn., June
29, 1857. He married Miss Bertha Landau, of Baltimore.
An Established Pleasure Resort.–Blowing Rock went up top
as a pleasure resort soon after the completion of the turnpike from Lenoir and Linville
City. Many people bought land and built summer homes there. Hotels and boarding houses
began to go up and to multiply year by year. Livery stables, bowling alleys, automobiles,
drug stores, churches, stores of all sorts soon became numerous and provided for the
amusement and needs of a growing summer population. It has a flourishing bank also,
a long-distance and local telephone line, several physicians, and everything to make
life pleasant for the permanent resident and the transient guest. The views are unsurpassed.
Schools provide for the education of the children, and all sorts of games, entertainments
and amusements go on from from morn till night all seasons of the year. The mails
are adequate, and Charlotte and Raleigh papers reach "The Rock," as it is
called, on the day they are issued. In other words, everything that is essential to
a first-class pleasure resort is provided, and all tasts and purses can be suited,
as the range of hotel and boarding accommodation is extensive. Blowing Rock is established
beyond question as one of the finest and most popular pleasure resorts of the South.
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Brushy Fork.–John Holtsclaw, son of James D., who was the
son-in-law of Samuel Hix, moved from Valle Crucis in 1801, when the road was finished
down Brushy Fork and built and operated the Buck Horn tavern, which stood in the field
to the left of the road going down the creek opposite Floyd Ward's present home. Buck
horns were nailed to a large white oak which stood in front of the old tavern. Valle
Crucis was then off the main road to Tennessee, and John had come to Brushy Fork to
be in the current of the western movement. Later on a school house was built near
this old tavern, which has long since disappeared, and the small mound on which it
stood is still pointed out. Marcus Holtsclaw, son of John, lived at several places
on Brushy Fork. John also built and operated a grist mill a third of a mile below
the Brushy Fork Baptist Church, on the right of the road going down, a sycamore stump
still marking the site of the old dam. Almost opposite the old dam site, but to the
left of the road, still stands an old stone chimney which furnished a fireplace for
a cabin which stood on ten acres of land which John Tomlin in 1830 to 1835 contracted
to buy and pay fifty dollars for. He put up the walls of a large log house, Alfred
Hately hewing the logs, but Tomlin was unable to finish paying for the property and
it fell back to its original owner. Tomlin sold goods at what is now called Vilas.
His wife was a daughter of John J. Whittington, but she left him and went to Missouri.
What became of him is not known, except that he also left Brushy Fork, never to return.
John J. Whittington lived a quarter of a mile below and on the right of the road,
and the old Whittington graveyard is on the hill on the right of the road, while the
Hagaman graveyard is on the left. John Holtsclaw's youngest son is buried there. He
had married Nancy, a daughter of Moses Hateley. There was a sang factory at the Whittington
place as far back as W. W Presnell can remember. It was in charge of Bacchus J. Smith,
of Buncome, who in turn was the agent of Dr. Hailen, of Philadelphia. The sang factory
stood just below Joseph Ward's present home. M. Granville Hagaman first lived and
sold goods right after the Civil War in a house where Andrew Greer now lives. He also
bought sang
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there, and Col. W. W. Presnell gathered and sold to him $47.00
worth of sang at twenty-five cents a pound in exactly twenty-two days.(1) Where Samuel
Flannery now lives is the site of the original home of Thomas Hagaman, who settled
there before the Civil War, coming from the Fork Ridge. The Ben Councill house at
Vilas, built of brick, was completed about 1845 by a man from Tennessee by the name
of Mace, while Polly Cornell cooked for the work hands. In 1827 the parents of Col.
W. W. Presnell reached Brushy Fork, coming through the Coffee Gap on the old John's
River Road from near Taylorsville. His mother, Mary Munday, was born at the Black
Oak Ridge and his father, Solomon Presnell, in Union County in 1810. Where the widow
of ex-Sheriff A. J. McBride now lives, nearly opposite the Ben Councill brick house
at Vilas, is where the old Tomlin and Ben Councill store house stood. It was built
of logs. On the hill above the present residence of Wm. L. Henson is the site of the
first Methodist Church that was ever built in Watauga County, but it seems never to
have been completed, though Colonel Presnell says that his mother told him services
were held there soon after she came to this settlement in 1827. It is at Vilas that
Ben Councill built a large mill for that day and time (1845), and from that place
the road forked, one prong going through the Councill gap to Valle Crucis and the
other to Sugar Grove, from which point it went through the Mast Gap to Valle Crucis,
as well as on down Cove Creek to Watauga River and up the Cove Creek to Tennessee.
The Whittington family finally moved to Missouri. The Dugger family of Cove Creek
are descendants of Benjamin Dugger, who came from Yadkin Elk in 1793 or 1794 to Brushy
Fork and entered land there, and for whom the Dugger Mountain and creek east of the
Blue Ridge are named. There were three Dugger brothers who came from Scotland and
stopped awhile near Petersburg, Va., named Benjamin, Daniel and Julius. Ben stopped
at Yadkin Elk, Daniel went to Kentucky and Julius settled near Fish Springs on the
Watauga River, Tennessee. It was from Julius' children that the Banner's Elk Duggers
descended.
__________
Note: (1) One of the sons of Newton Banner has about a fourth of an acre in ginseng,
near Sugar Grove. Others have large patches of it also. Many have very small plots
of ground in shaded corners where a few plants are tended.
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Shull's Mills.--From this point to the Linville gap is full of
historical incidents and romantic occurrences. It was in the field in front of the
Joseph C. Shullhome, near the cattle barn, that young Charles Asher was shot by White's
men after the Revolutionary War, and soon after he had married a daughter of David
Hix and settled in the orchard below the Shull house. Here also came James Aldridge
soon after he had left the Big Sandy and his wife and five children to commence life
anew with Betsy Calloway, as a hunter and trapper. Rev. Henry H. Prout came there
too, and built Easter Chapel, and it was there that Edward Moody and his wife lived
lives of usefulness and inspiration to all who came into contact with them. There,
too, came Jesse Boone, a nephew of Daniel, and built a cabin on one prong of Watauga
River, which has ever since borne the name of the Boone Fork. Col. Walter W. Lenoir,
soldier, lawyer, legislator and philanthropist, settled just above Shull's Mill at
the close of the Civil War and built, or, rather, improved a mill there which has
ever since been known as Lenoir's Stonewall Mill. The Grandfather Mountain looms above
it on one side and the Hanging Rock on the other. It was in this neighborhood that
many of the most tragic events of the Civil War occurred, while just across the Linville
gap is the romantic valley of Altamont, the old home of the Palmers and Childses,
who had been lured from New York and Massachusetts to pass their days in these enchanting
surroundings. It was the broad bottoms and other attractions that made Bishop Ives
apply to Phillip Shull, the father of Joseph C., for a deed to what was then Shull's
Mills, embracing the present Shull holdings as well as those of Alex. Moody across
Lance's Creek. And it is as well to state here that Lance's Creek was so called because
Lance Estes first lived on its waters, but sold out to Len. Estes February 8, 1830.
The Shull Mills land was granted to Charles Asher in 1788, when it was supposed to
be in Washington County, Tennessee, and by him conveyed to Joseph White in 1792, and
by Joseph to Benjamin White in 1798. It was from this neighborhood, also, that Cobb
McCanless rode to Boone with young Levi L. Coffey on that January morning in 1859,
where he was confronted with
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the agent of the Weyeth's, for whom he had been collecting money,
but to return that night and take the fatal step of absconding with trust funds from
which there was no return. The old bridge across Watauga River, one mile below Shull's
Mills, still called the Old Bridge Place, and on which William Mast had been at work
when, in October 1849, the poison he and his wife had drunk that morning in their
coffee began to make their fatal effects felt, fell down in 1909 while Wood Young
was passing over it in a wagon drawn by two mules; while Zeb Dana was killed there
in 1883 at night when returning with horses which he thought he had borrowed and their
owners thought he had stolen. The old Caldwell and Watauga Turnpike crossed the river
at this point, but after the Civil War (1870) Col. Joseph C. Shull changed it so as
to cross at the present ford and run in front of his residence, instead of in rear,
as it had done before, thereby avoiding a moist and boggy place near his well.
Linville Valley.–One scarcely thinks of this region--from
Linville Gap to Linville Falls--as a valley, for it is more like a high ridge upon
the crest of which a silver stream winds its romantic way, with "here a blossom
sailing, and here and there a lusty trout, and here and there a grayling." And,
most wonderful, even incredible, it seems, is the fact that its course from Linville
Gap to the Linville Falls is east of the Blue Ridge. The Humpback Mountain lies between
the stream and the eastern lowlands, and looks for all the world like the Blue Ridge,
but such is not the case. And more wonderful still is the fact that just over Pisgah
Ridge is one prong of the Tow River, flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. Following this
ridge out, one comes to the ridge which divided the waters of the Watauga from those
of the Toe, and the Cherokee territory to the south from there under the cliff just
above Pisgah Church before the Revolutionary War, to which point they had been chased
by troops from below the Blue Ridge. A man named Fullward evidently lived ont he branch
between the old J. B. Palmer house and the store now occupied by Bickerstaff and Stroup,
as that branch is
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called for in grant No. 1 of Burke County land. This grant is dated
December 17, 1778 and is to J. McKnitt Alexander and William Sharp, for 300 acres,
covering what will always be known as the Palmer Place on Linville River.(1) It is
signed by Governor Caswell and has the old bees-wax seal hanging to the grant by an
old ribbon. Who Fullward was no one can now tell, but there was also another settler
whose name even has been forgotten and who lived where M. C. Bickerstaff now resides.
William White, after whom the Billy White Creek of this place is called, then lived
at the Bickerstaff place, but he moved to Missouri about 1821, when that territory
was opened up to settlement. White sold to James Erwin and he to J. B. Palmer. George
Crossnore settled in what is still called the Crossnore place, where Benjamin Aldridge
now lives, and he was probably a hunter. The postoffice and neighborhood still bear
his name. William Davis, a soldier of the Revolution, stole his wife, a Carpenter,
from Ashe, and settled at what is still called the Davis Mountain, now the Monroe
Franklin place, and which Warsaw Clark now owns, one mile and a half above the Crossnore
place, where Kate, the five year old daughter of Davis, is buried under an apple tree.
It is said that he first gave the name of the Cow Camp to a creek of that name which
runs into the Toe River because of the fact, that, having no feed for his cattle,
he camped near them on that creek and supplied them with lin tree limbs, called laps,
from the time the buds began to swell till the grass came. Another reason is given,
however, for this name, which is that there was abundance of stagger-weed on the creek,
and when the cattle ate it, as they did, their owners camped on the creek in order
to doctor them.
The Ollis Family.– John Ollis was one of the first to settle
in the Linville country, making his home just above Crossnore, where he cleared a
field, still called by some the Ollis Place, while across the Fire-Scald Ridge is
a rock called the Ollis
__________
Note:(1) Col. J. B. Palmer, afterwards colonel of the 58th North Carolina, came from
New York State in 1858, and built a large frame house there. Because of the execution
for desertion of some of his soldiers, condemned by court-martial, he could not return
there after the Civil War. His widow sold it in 1889 to Mrs. Anna K. Watkins, wife
of Maj. G. B. Watkins, of U. S. Navy, retired, and she to C. E. Wood, trustee in 1908.
Kirk having burnt the Palmer house, Major Watkins erected the residence now on the
old site.
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Deer Stand. He was of German extraction and was a soldier of the
War of 1812, but was discharged at Salisbury after serving only sixty days on account
of physical disability. His children were Boston, John, Jr., Daniel, James and George,
Sarah, who married a Harrel; Elizabeth, who married James Gragg, and Mary who married
Major Gragg. W. H. Ollis, one of John's sons, was born September 22, 1840, and married
Melinda Harstin, January 25, 1866.
Other Early Settlers.– Harvey Clark settled near the Harshaw
place below Pinola; Andrew Bowers, at the Bowers' Gap; Abe Gwyn lived above Scaly,
near Cranberry mines; Rad Ellis lived on the Fork Mountain, while Dr. Wm. Houston
lived at what is now called Minneapolis, where he bought sang. Dr. Houston is said
to have been seven feet tall. Bayard Benfield now lives where Abram Johnson first
put up a forge. It is said that Johnson frequently looked for his jacket, as the vest
is called here, while he had it on his person, and that the floor of his home was
made of red hickory six inches thick and so closely joined that cracks were invisible.
Tilmon Blalock lived on Beaver Creek, near Spruce Pine. Larkin Calloway built a little
mill and lived at what is now Linville City, a little above, and his brother-in-law,
Torry Webb, lived where the lake now is. Mathias Carpenter came from Pennsylvania
and settled on New River in Ashe. It was his daughter who married William Davis. His
son, Jacob, moved to Three Mile Creek, where he died July 18, 1856, aged eighty-six
years. His son, Jacob, of Altamont, was born January 4, 1833. Henry Dellinger came
from Burke about 1834 and settled where Linn Dellinger now lives. Henry salted and
tended cattle in the mountains for the Erwins; John Franklin lived at the Old Fields
of Toe and was one of Cobb McCanless's deputies. Wesley Johnson, a son of Abraham's,
went to Utah and died there in 1880, aged eighty-one years.
Elk Crossroads.–As Elk Creek comes into the South Fork of
the New River at this point, it has been a noted place for many years. Riddle and
his men passed there with Ben Cleveland after they had captured him at Old Fields
in April, 1781.
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Wm. Howell, Wm. Ray, Solomon Younce and G. and Joseph Tatum were
early settlers. It has always been a stopping place and a noted "stand"
for the sale of goods and provisions. James Todd and Hugh A. Dobbins kept a store
there before the Civil War and several others have sold goods there since. It is now
called Elkland by the Virginia-Carolina Railroad, having for several years born the
name of Todd. Col. E. F. Lovill, of Boone, kept a store there after the Civil War,
and then moved to Boone, where he has practiced law ever since. The completion of
the Virginia-Carolina Railroad to that place in 1915 promises to make of it a large
town in the near future. All of Elkland is now in Ashe County, the legislature making
the line follow the creek from its mouth to the Blackburn ford. The Tatum place was
first granted to Thomas Farmer 1788, when this was a part of Wilkes County. Farmer
sold to John Lipps in 1796 for 70 pounds, "current money." (Deed Book C,
p. 598.) Lipps sold to Susanna Holman in 1799 for same amount (E, p. 241),and she
sold to William Clawson in 1802 (A, p. 534), who held it till 1835, when he sold it
to Ebeneezer clawson, and he to Buckner Tatum in 1836 (L, p. 122), and in the year
1845 Buckner sold it to Elijah Tatum, the father of John L., its present owner (N,
p. 483).
[ Sharon's note: Elkland, ( later called Todd,) did become a booming little town.
I remember hearing folks talk about how "at one point Todd was bigger than Boone".
But the flood of 1940 washed out the railroad tracks and they were never rebuilt.
Now once again it is a quiet little community. Today there is the famous Todd General
Store where one can buy a cold pop and a chunk of hoop cheese along with milk and
bread and the other sort of things one expects to find in small country stores, as
well as some antiques of the area. The historic Todd store is still the nearest one
to my childhood home.]
Banner's Elk.-- John Holsclaw was the first permanent resident
of this place, though Samuel Hix had occupied a place in the laurel a short distance
away at what is now the Grandfather Orphanage. Baker King and Ben Dugger at some time
had a camp on that very land.(3) It was there, too, during the stormy days of 1863
to 1865 that Lewis and Martin Banner piloted many an escaped Federal prisoner and
Union man trying to get through the lines into Tennessee. Only a few in the secret
knew of the place -- Dan Ellis, of Elizabethon, Tenn.; Harrison Church, another conductor
of the underground railroad, and Keith Blalock were admitted into the inner temple.
Andrew Bowers lived in what is still known as the Bower's Gap and gave his name to
the Bower's Mountain between Banner's Elk and Valle Crucis. Down on Elk, Abram Gwyn
lived at what is still
(note 3 This camp is called for in deed from John Holtsclaw to Delilah Baird of date
May 2, 1838, to the Big Bottoms.)
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called the Ford of Elk. George Dugger came later on and settled
about where the road to Dr. Jenning's hotel leaves the turnpike. This, however, was
on the Shawnehaw side of the ridge. There were no clearings of any extent at Banner
Elk, except those at the Hix Improvement, which was very small, and at the Big Bottoms,
but there were two "deadening's," one called the Moses Deadening, and the
other the Lark Chopping. But nearly one hundred years ago Martin Banner had walked
through from Surry to Nashville, accompanied by a single companion and having one
horse between them. He passed through Banner Elk and determined to return there at
some future time. Accordingly, in 1845 he returned with his family, crossing Watauga
River at a ford opposite the place Walter Baird now lives, it being then the home
of Bedent Baird, and followed his cart way or wagon road to his place on Beech Mountain,
where he turned to the left by the Roland clearing and reaching Banner's Elk at what
is now called Balm. But he did not stop there, pitching his tent permanently near
what is now the Lowe Hotel. His brother, Lewis, came three or four years later and
built his cabin where his daughters, Mrs. Wetmore and Miss Nannie Banner, now live,
a mile above Martin's home. Levi Moody and Joel Eggers lived above Lewis Banner's
house. Martin Banner moved across Sugar Mountain Gap and built a new home near the
head of the North Fork of Toe River in 1866. Some time later he was on a visit at
Eb Harris's home near what is now Montezuma, where he died as the result of a fall.
He was born February 7, 1808, and died February 19, 1895. John Franklin and Marcus
Tuttle also lived near Montezuma at that time. It was then called Bull Scrape because,
being on the very crest of the Blue Ridge, there is a current of cool air constantly
stirring and the cattle on the ranges thereabout used to assemble there in the heat
of the day and lie under the trees while the amorous bulls pawed the ground around
and locked horns over their bovine love scrapes. Close to what is now Linville City,
a rather small city, but remarkably clean and attractive, lived Tyree Webb, then a
very old man. The road through the McCanless Gap, reaching from Banner Elk to Linville
Gap, was not constructed
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til about 1895, though a trail went through there "furder
back" than anyone now remembers.(1) Behind a thick laurel, near where Napoleon
Banner now lives, was the camp of a man named Ollis, who was hiding out during the
Revolutionary War. Ashes and coals can still be plowed up near that place. He used
to live, as did Samuel Hix, by hunting and making a crop of potatoes in a little patch,
ekeing out his simple fare with maple syrup and sugar from the maple trees which had
made this section their home time out of mind, and which gave its name to Sugar Mountain.
After awhile Burton Baird, Delilah's son, married the Widow Keller, and her daughter
Aurilda, called "Rildy" for short, married Levi Moody. Below Harrison Aldrich's
house on head of Watauga River lived Tom Fudge and two old maids, one of whom was
named Laudermilk, for whom he milked, tended garden and did other work.(2) He had
a little gun with a very short barrel. He was a little dried-up man, but useful to
these two forlorn women. William Baird lived at what is now called Matny. Mike Snider
lived at what is now called Elk Park, where he operated a small grist mill. Down at
Old Fields of Toe lived James Calloway and the Maxfield family, the Clarks and Braswells
living above that place, and there after the Civil War Gen. Robert F. Hoke and associates,
James Wilson and Sam. McD. Tate, decided that sheep raising in these mountains would
be profitable, got control of the Old Fields of Toe,(3) imported a genuine Scotch
shepherd and a genuine Scotch shepherd dog, several fine bucks, and then bought up
over a hundred natives ewes. It did not pay as well as had been expected, native dogs
being too much for the one imported collie. Even the tie-tie business for pipe stems
was carried on. John Hardin and his son, Jordan, moved from the Hardin place, a mile
__________
Note: (1) Shep. M. Dugger, the distinguished author of the "Balsam
Groves of the Grandfather Mountain," and his brother-in-law, J. Erwin Calloway,
built the Grandfather hotel, half a mile from Linville Gap, in 1885; but it was burned
in 1914. It served a good purpose as a resting-place for tourists to the Grandfather
Mountain.
(2) In 1857 Newton, Ab. and Luther Banner, caught trout in the North Toe River, and
ran with them to the head of Banner Elk, crossing at Sugar Gap, replenishing the water
as they went, and this stocked Elk Creek above Elk Falls. Rev. H. H. Prout also stocked
Linville River above the Falls from head of Watauga River. (3) A man named Birchfield
was probably among the first settlers at the Old Fields of Toe, dying there of milk-sick
many years ago.
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east of Boone, and lived at Crenberry forge from about 1850 til
after the Civil War, during which jordan had charge of the property. John Hardin died
in 1873. Between these places and Banner's Elk there was constant communication. The
rapid development of Banner's Elk and its surrounding country, including all the places
named herein, is too recent to need recording here. The coming of the Rev. Edgar Tufts,
however, was the most fortunate event in the history of that section. (See chapter
on Schools.)
On Foot to Banner's Elk.– Miss Morley gives us this account
of her trip to Banner's Elk. Does that "gold tree" still stand we wonder?
The only way to find out is to go and see.
"From Valle Crucis to Banner Elk, under the Beech Mountain,
is another day's walk, when again you take the longest way up Dutch Creek to see the
pretty waterfall there and where the clematis is a white veil over the bushes, and
up the steep road by Hanging Rock where the gold tree grows. This is an oak, known
far and near because its top is always golden yellow. The leaves come out yellow in
the spring, remain so all summer, and in the fall would doubtless turn yellow if they
were not already that color. The people say there is a pot of gold buried at the roots,
but this pleasant fancy has not taken a serious enough hold to menace the life of
the tree.
"Stopping at a picturesque, old time log house to rest, a
little girl invites you to go to the top of Hanging Rock, which invitation you gladly
accept, thereby getting one of the most enjoyable walks of the summer, your little
guide telling you all the way about the flowers and the birds and stopping under an
overhanging cliff with great secrecy to show you a round little bird's nest with eggs
in it cleverly hidden in the moss. One suspects it was the chance to show this treasure
that led the child to propose the long climb to the top of the mountain. The gooseberries
of Hanging Rock are without prickles, perhaps because the wild currants growing there
have stolen them. Imagine prickly currants! There is plenty of galax on Hanging Rock,
the mosses and sedum's and all the other growths that make mountain tops so agreeable.
The top of Hanging Rock is a
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slanting ledge, from which the mountain gets its name. At Banner
Elk you will want to stay awhile, it is so pretty, and you will also want to climb
the beautiful Beech Mountain with its grassy spaces and its charming beech groves.
"From Banner Elk you take the short walk over to 'Calloways,'
close under the shadow of the Grandfather, and from here the long and beautiful walk
down the Watauga River at the base of the Grandfather, then along the ridges back
to Blowing Rock, watching as you go details of the mountains beneath whose northern
front you are passing. The open benches, the rocky bluffs and abrupt, tree-clad walls
of this side of the mountain, which we call the back of the Grandfather, are not impressive
like those long southern slopes sweeping fom a summit of a little less than six thousand
feet down into the foothills. For the mountain on this side is stopped by the high
plateau from which it rises. Yet it is good to be at the back of the Grandfather.
From the Watauga road we see the profile from which the mountain is said to have received
its name, although one gets a better and far more impressive view of it from a certain
point on the mountain itself.
"And so you return to Blowing Rock after days of wandering,
only to rest awhile and start again, gaining endurance with every trip until the ten
miles' walk that cost you a little weariness becomes the twenty miles' walk that costs
you none. You cannot tire of the road for every mile brings new sights, new sounds,
new fragrances, new friends, new flowers, one charm of walking here being the endless
variety. No two days are alike; each has its own pleasant adventures."
Meat Camp.–This was one of the first places to be settled
in Ashe County, William Miller, the Blackburns and James Jackson going there from
the Jersey Settlement as early as 1799, while Ebenezer Fairchild, of the same colony,
settled on Howard's Creek, only a short distance away. Jackson's grave is still pointed
out in the woods near the site of the old Jackson Meeting House, while the cabin of
an old hunter named Abbey stood in what now is the garden of John C. Moretz. Brown
got the first grant to land on this creek, part of the Lindsey Patterson
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farm, before he had ever seen it, having entered it from the natural
boundaries furnished him by Daniel Boone and his associates. The cabin in which the
old hunters stored their meat and hides when on hunts in this region stood in a rocky
patch just above the bend of Moretz's mill pond, the foundation of the old chimney
still showing above ground. It was this camp and the use to which it was put as sort
of primitive packing house that gave the name of Meat Camp to the creek. John Moretz
and his wife and family came to Meat Camp in September, 1839. There was already an
old mill there when he came, which he bought form Samuel Cooper, who then moved to
Meadow Creek. The dam of the old mill was of logs, but John Moretz put sixty men to
work erecting the stone dam which still stands. With the grinding and other work of
the mill was also a carding machine. But late in the fall of 1847 the mill burned,
the supposed act of an incendiary, as it occurred just before day. But he rebuilt,
leaving out the linseed oil feature only. After his death Alfred J. Moretz tore that
mill down and built the one which still stands. Alfred Moretz moved to his present
home at Deep Gap in April 1885.
The Rich Mountain.–This mountain deserves its name, for it
is richer than most bottom lands. This is true of the top as well as of the slopes
and coves. It is said that Ezra Stonecypher lived in a cabin above T. P. Adams' barn,
and ashes and charcoal are still plowed up there. But, like Daniel Boone, Ezra loved
plenty of elbow-room, and so, when a man moved on to Cove Creek and settled there,
Ezra moved to Norris's Fork of Meat Camp and built a poplar log cabin. This was several
miles from the Cove Creek intruder, and Ezra was happy for a time, but only for a
time, as another pushing person obtruded himself on Meat Camp and settled there, which
was the straw that broke the camel's back, for Ezra pulled up stakes and moved to
Kentucky. One of his sons met Col. Thomas Bingham there during the Civil War, and
proved that he knew all about Rich Mountain and that section of the county. Then Dr.
Calloway, it seems, got a grant to two tracts called the Big and Little Cay-vit (Caveat?),
and after awhile, say about 1840 or 1845, Col. Edmund Jones got
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title to some of the mountain and pastured his cattle there. Several
people have lived at what is still called the Jones Place on Rich Mountain, but Allen
Beech went there from Caldwell in 1848 and remained several years, his son, Allen
W., having been born there February 11, 1854. The late Hon. R. Z. Linney bought the
Tater Hill and other land on the Rich Mountain about 1902 and had a turnpike built
from the Rich Mountain Gap above Boone to the gap in Rich Mountains above Silverstone,
through which a road from Meat Camp passes over to Cove Creek and Zionville. Dr. H.
McD. Little owns part of the Rich mountain and pastures many cattle there. The two-story
rock house on Dr. Little's land was built by Col. R. Z. Linney and stands on what
is also known as the Jones Place. Part of this rock house fell down in June, 1915.
The Tater Hill.–No one ever makes any apology for calling
this striking mountain peak by its real name--Tater Hill. For it wasnever a potato
hill, potatoes being mere ornaments for the skill of French chefs. Taters are what
we were"raised" on, while city children were "reared" on potatoes.
The first man to see the charm of this lonely spot was one Chapley Wellburn. He entered
it in April, 1799, four hundred acres of it, and lived there, probably hunting for
a living, the people who live on lower levels being the only ones who indulge in the
pastime of earning a "livelihood." Well, he thought he had a title to that
land, and in 1876 J.B. Todd, by order of the court, conveyed this title to one of
his descendants in Wilkes (Deed Book R, p. 108). But Alfred Adams knew a thing or
two, one of them being that adverse possession under color of title would "ripen"
that title into an "indefeasible estate of inheritance," or words to that
general effect. So he got the very best "color" "the air," to
wit, a grant from the sovereign State of North Carolina--not from Sovereign Linn,
who was living in this county at that time. Adams occupied about three hundred acres
of his grant, and when he locked horns with H. M. and W. N. G. Wellburn, through his
grantee, John H. Bingham, about the year 1902, over the entire four hundred acres
and other lands also, he won three hundred of them handily. (See Minute Docket E.
p. 154, Clerk's Office.) It developed in the trial of that suit that one
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Flannery, meaning not necessarily that he had no family, but that
he might have been almost any Flannery, claimed the land in the flatwoods under Tater
Hill, but left about 1849, after which a man named James, but whether John James or
James John is not known, came and brought a pack of hounds with him. Hounds have to
eat. So do wolves. In the duel to see which should eat the other, the wolves won.
James thought his turn might come next, either to eat or to be eaten, so he returned
to Alexander County, whence he had come, which, sad as that fate might be, was better
than furnishing the funeral baked meat for a lupine holiday. Then, about 1902, came
the late Romulus Z. Linney, who, remembering that his old namesake had been "fetched
up" by wolves, boldly entered on this demesne and retained possession til his
demise, demesne and demise having different meanings. But he built a rock wing to
his four-room dwelling, which still stands and in which he spent many happy days.
This is the gentleman who, before he had tasted of the delights of the Tater Hill,
was offered a high office in Washington, D. C. In declining it, he said that he would
not give up his spring rambles in the Brushy Mountains of Wilkes for any office within
the gift of the American people. But he gave them up for Tater Hill!
The Grandfather Mountain.–Following is Miss Morley's description
of this oldest mountain on earth: "The path beyond the river [Watauga] is cut
through dense kalmia and rhodendron maximum (our laurel) that make a wide band along
the base of the mountain, then it leads up and up through the more open forest. There
is no sweeter walk in the world than up Grandfather Mountain, where the path winds
among the trees, a canopy of leaves screening the sky, the forest shutting from view
the outer world. Once there were large wild cherry trees on the slopes of the Grandfather,
but the wood being valuable . . . there are only saplings left, and a few patriarchs
that, though useless for lumber, give an air of dignity to the forest in company with
the clear gray shafts of the tulip trees, the grand old chestnuts, the oaks, the maples,
beeches, birches, ashes and lindens that mingle their foliage with that of the pines
and spruces.
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"You pass beside or under large detached boulders covered
with saxifrages, sedums, mosses and ferns, and in whose crevices mountain-ash trees
and twisted hemlocks have taken root as though for purposes of decoration, and in
the damp hollows away from the path great jack vines hang from tree tops. The rock
ledges sometimes make caves where bears were wont to live, for the Grandfather was
once a famous place for bears. Squirrels still 'use on the mountain,' as the people
say, and a 'boomer' will be apt to bark down at you as you go along. You hear the
waters of a stream in the ravine below, and here and there you cross a natural garden
of 'balimony' or some other precious herb that the people gather in the season. About
two-thirds of the way up you take a path that branches off to the left and leads you
over the mossy rocks to an open place on the edge of a gorge, where, looking off,
you see the clear-cut profile of the Grandfather sculptured on the edge of a rocky
bluff, the bushy hair that rises from the forehead consisting of fir trees that when
whitened by the winter snow give a venerable appearance to the stone face. Somewhat
above this profile from this pint is also visible another, with smaller and rounder
features, which of course is the Grandmother.
"Returning to the main path and continuing the ascent, the
way grows wilder and, if possible, sweeter. One has a sense of rising spiritually
as well as physically. At the base of a high cliff, framed in foliage and crowned
with the rosy-flowered rhododendron catawbiense, gushes out the famous Grandfather
Spring that is only ten degrees above freezing throughout the summer. Up to this point
there is a bridle path; beyond here it is necessary to walk The rose-bay still in
bloom clings to the rocks, in whose crevices little dwarf trees have taken root along
with the mosses, ferns and saxifrages.
"The path gets very steep and rocky. You are now among the
balsam firs, those trees to name which is to name a perfume, and you go climbing up
over their strong red roots. The pathway becomes a staircase winding about moss-trimmed
rocks in whose crevices are tiny contorted balsams like Japanese flower-pot trees.
Enormous coal-black lichens hang from the
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cliffs and the ground is softly carpeted with mossy growths and
oxalis, out from whose pretty pale leaves look myriads of pink and white blossoms.
Long after the rhododendron catawbiense is done blooming below, one finds it in its
prime on the high peaks of the Grandfather.
"Up among the balsam firs and about the rocks grow large sour
gooseberries and enormous sweet huckleberries and it was here we found a new and delicious
fruit The bushes crowding the woods in places were loaded with bright red globes the
size of a small cherry, each dangling from a slender stem. These delightful berries
were mere skins of juice, tiny wine-bottles full of refreshment for a summer day .
. . we discovered them on other mountains, though never much below an altitude of
six thousand feet . . . Up through the spruces and balsams you mount in the resplendent
day, lingering at every step . . . Thus climbing through the resplendent day you reach
the summit, 'Calloway's High Peak,' the highest point on the mountain, but from which
one cannot command the circle of the horizon. It is necessary to get the view from
two points, which is all the better. The rocks at the lookout towards the south being
covered with heather, one can lie on the delightful couch studded all over with little
white starry flowers, to rest and receive the view . . . In the distance lies White
Top, on whose summit three States meet . . .
"Leaving this place and walking on to the point that looks
to the south, one shares the feelings and almost the faith of Michaux. The view is
very impressive, because of that steep descent of the mountain into the foothills,
the long spurs sweeping down in fine lines to a great depth . . . The Black Mountains
stand forth very high and very blue , and beyond them, among the many familiar forms,
are distinguished what one supposes to be the faint blue line of the Smokies, or is
it the nearer Balsams? . . . Sooner or later you will find your way to McRae's, which
is to the south side of the Grandfather what Calloway's is to the north side, a farmhouse,
where you can stay awhile. There is a trail over the end of the Grandfather by which
you can go directly from Calloway's to McRae's, but to
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strike this trail you have to walk down the Linville River, which,
rising in an open space but a ston'es throw from the head of the Watauga, flows in
quite the opposite direction, and through so narrow a pass that you have to keep crossing
and recrossing it, no small matter in a season of rains, for there are no foot logs
at all . . . But the Linville is one of the streams you are glad to know through all
its sparkling length, from the spring behind the Grandfather to where it escapes in
wild glee through the gorge below the falls. There are peacocks at McRae's, and Mr.
McRae has not forgotten how to play on the bagpipes that have so stirred the blood
of his race . . . But you will have to coax him to do it. McRae's stands on the Yonahlossee
road that connects Linville, just below the mountain, with Blowing Rock . . . From
McRae's there is a path up the Grandfather . . . to another peak reached by a very
sweet climb through the balsams, which, in this region, are smaller and more companionable
than the straight giants of the Black Mountains, these of the Grandfather being twisted
and friendly and profoundly fragrant. From this peak one can see in all directions,
excepting where one of the Grandfather's black summits obstructs the view.
"It is the lichens growing an [sic] the rocks that give so
sombre an appearance to the top of the Grandfather, those big, black lichens with
loose and curled up edges. Grandfather's black, rocky top is eight miles long, and
once Mr. Calloway (with the assistance of others) blazed out a rude trail so that
we could all take that wonderful knife-edge walk up in the sky over the peaks of the
Grandfather, Indian ladders--that is a tall tree trunk from which the branches have
been lopped, leaving protruding ends for steps--helping us up otherwise insurmountable
cliffs.
"The Yonahlossee road ought to be followed early in the summer,
for then the meadowy tops of the long spurs are like noble parks created for man's
pleasure. The rhodondendron catawbiense lies massed about in effective groups and
covered with rosy bloom, beyond which one looks out over a wide landscape of mountains
and clouds. From these open, flower-decked spaces
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the road passes into the shadowy forest, to emerge upon a bushy
slope where blazing reaches of flame-colored azaleas astound your senses. There are
other flowers along the way, but you scarcely see them, intoxicated as you are with
the glory of the rhododendrons, and after them the azaleas, for these marvelous growths
almost never blossom within sight of each other You would say they know, like ladies
at a ball, how important it is to avoid each other's colors.
"Under the trees along the roadside the earth is covered with
a superb carpet of large and handsome galax leaves, for the Grandfather is distinguished
by the great beauty and abundance of its galax. Laurel, too, claims standing room
on the side of the grand old mountain, and here, as elsewhere, one notices the apparent
capriciousness of the laurel, which forms an impenetrable jungle for long stretches
and then stops short, not a laurel bush to be seen for some distance, when with equal
suddenness it reappears again.
"The splendid slopes of the Grandfather are enchanting also
when autumn colors them--deep red huckleberry bald's, trees wreathed in crimson woodbine,
vivid sassafras, tall gold and crimson and scarlet forest trees--it seems more like
the brilliant display of a northern forest. You would say that the outpouring of fragrance
must pass with the summer. Not so. As you walk among the trees in their thin, bright
attire you have a feeling of their friendliness. The forest, as it were, breathes
fumes that distil from a thousand pines, firs and hemlocks. When the leaves of the
trees are growing scarce and changing to duller hues, into the open spaces witch-hazel
weaves its gold-wreathed wands and brightens the woods like sunshine.
"Turning to the right from the Yonahlossee Road, a short distance
up from McRae's, you walk along under the chestnut trees just beginning to open their
burs, away from the Grandfather out over a beautiful spur that ends in an open, rounded
summit. The road to this place has side paths that lead you to high cliffs, whence
you look off towards Blowing Rock, and where the sweetest of mountain growths cling
to the crevices
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and drape the edges of all the rocks. For some reason the trees
here are small, the chestnuts being not much larger than bushes, but the nuts are
proportionately large, the largest nuts one ever saw on our native chestnut trees,
and they are pecularily sweet, again a hint to the fruit-makers, who from this could
doubtless create a nut as large as the chestnuts of France and as sweet as those of
America. The summit of this little mountain of the large chestnuts is one of your
favorite places to go for a day of rest and contemplation. It is a lovely, soothing
place, as it ought to be, for it is the Grandfather Mountain." Grafting French
Chestnuts.--Mr. Jack Farthing, of Timbered Ridge, demonstrated some years ago that
French and Italian chestnuts, when grafted to the native trees, will produce as large
chestnuts as those imported as French and Italian, and Newton Banner also has several
trees so grafted which are never failing.
Dr. Buxton's Description.–A letter from Rev. Jarvis Buxton,
which speaks with greatest admiration of the grand sunrise seen from the top of the
Grandfather Rock, is thus quoted in the "Life of Skiles" (p. 50):
"I have seen the glorious sunrise at sea, but nothing of sky
at sea ever filled my vision with such deep impressions of glory as came from those
gorgeous skies--brilliant hues evershifting, dissolving and re-combining, ever growing
in brightness as the morning advanced, till the vast heavens seemed filled with the
glory and flame of color; while below, stretching far away into the azure, the hills
still slept their lowly sleep of silence, with the heavens all aglow above them."
Beaver Dams.–There is no more picturesque section than this
in all the North Carolina mountains, nor is there any population more self-respecting
and law-abiding. It has never known lawlessness, depravity or loose living. Schools
and churches have been common since it became sufficiently settled to support them.
From an account book kept by the late Dudley Farthing, his son, Col. Henry Harrison
Farthing, of Timbered Ridge, can tell most, if not all, of the residents in this section
in 1826 and 1827. George Wilson lived on Fork Ridge, which is between
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Cove and Beaver Dam creeks; Benjamin Harley lived where Lewis Farthing
now lives; Joel Dyer, father of Ben., lived where James Cable now lifes; Micajah Lunsforth
lived up under the Stone Mountain, where the Millsaps and Eggers now live, but his
family moved to Tennessee after the death of Micajah; a man named Wallace lived in
the "Pick Breeches" country, which is on the right of the Baker's Gap road,
going west, between where the Millsaps and Eggers families now live and the top of
the mountain. *7 Col. Phineas Horton told Mr. W. S. Farthing forty years ago (1875)
that he had helped to build the road up Beaver Dams and over Baker's Gap, which was
the main thoroughfare from North Carolina to Tennessee in 1826, and over which drovers
took their stock of all kinds, but principally hogs. Mrs. William W. Farthing, widow
of the minister of that name, lived just below Bethel Church, though the house is
now gone, and entertained the traveling public. Her husband died there in January,
1827, having lived there only since the previous November. Thomas Curtis lived where
Lee Osborn now lives at the foot of the George Gap road on the Cove Creek side, and
he said that the first clearing on Beaver Dams was the field in which the Farthing
graveyard now is and where a log cabin stood. It was there that the first log-raising
and log-rolling, or clearing, took place on Beaver Dams. Curtis's sons went west,
but in 1910 a great grandson, Webb Mast, by name, came back and had a picture taken
of the old Ben Webb house site. The Webb cabin stood above the place where Alfred
Trivett now lives, Webb having moved to middle Tennessee after he sold to Rev. W.
W. Farthing in 1826. One of Ben Webb's daughters married Reuben Mast and died in that
old cabin. Reuben Mast then married one of Thomas Curtis's daughters and moved to
Texas. It was in this first cabin that Bishop Asbury stayed on one of his trips through
Beaver Dams andwhen it was covered by only a few boards. When Mrs. W. W. Farthing
kept the tavern on Beaver Dams, and old man stayed all night there and
__________
Note: (1) Big and Little Hessian are names given to two peaks on
the Tennessee-North Carolina line, near Zionville. They are said not to be really
named Hessian, but Hay-Shin, because although they are the shin or shank of the mountain
they have hay on them, nevertheless. Some claim that they are named the Big and Little
Ration because "out-layers," during the Civil War got their rations there,
the rations being left by friends and relatives living near.
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started away the next morning. He was never seen again alive, but
some time afterwards a dead body was found at the mouth of the Stone Mountain Branch,
and it was supposed to have been his, and it was also thought that he had left the
road over the Baker Gap and gone to sleep in the woods, and, waking up, became bewildered
and followed the branch to its mouth, where he starved or froze. His name was never
learned. The body was buried in the graveyard where Rev. W. W. Farthing and his wife
are buried, just above where Alfred Trivett now lives. The first mill on Beaver Dams
was one mile above Bethal Church, where an old mill is still running today. The Timbered
Ridge, on which Coil. H. H. Farthing lives, was so called from the heavy timber which
grew there. Behind his house, on a high plateau, is a most commanding view, easily
reached by a well graded road, and from which the gorge of the Watauga River, the
gloomy slopes of the Beach Mountain, the valley of Cove Creek, and the Big and Little
Hessian, the Bald and the Elk mountains can be plainly seen. It invites a magnificent
hotel and summer resort adornments, and for climate is unrivaled. Boone's Beaver Dams
Trail.--The Cable family who first settled on Dry Run, just over the Baker Gap, claim
that they were living on Boone's trail into Kentucky. That trail is said to hae passed
down Cove Creek to the place where Dr. J. B. Phillips now lives, from which point
it left Watauga River, passed over Ward's Gap, and then followed a ridge down behind
the homes of W. S. and J. H. Farthing, crossing the Beaver Dam Creek near where Alfred
Trivett now lives--the old Ward and W. W. Farthing home--and passed on up the ridge
by the Star Spring over the Star or Stair Gap to Roan's Creek in Tennessee. The Star
Springs are at the foot of the Stone Mountain, one being at the head of the Stone
Mountain Branch, which empties into Watauga River near W. A. Smitherman's farm, one
mile below the Flat Shoals, the other being at the head of the Little Prong of Beaver
Dam Creek, the two springs being scarcely 100 yards apart, but on opposite sides of
a ridge. Star is the name given these springs because of particles of mica in them
which shine like stars. There is little doubt that this was
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Boone's trail, but it seems not probable that he would have gone
so much out of his way, when by going across the Grave Yard or Straddle Gap and over
the mountain at Zionville, he could have got to Shoun's Crossroads on Roan's Creek,
and thence followed to Laurel Creek almost directly to Abingdon, and thence to Cumberland
Gap, a route many miles nearer than by going by Sycamore Shoals, and thence to Cumberland
Gap, and over a more level country. He did go via Sycamore Shoals in 1775, but not
in 1769.
Beech Creek and Poga.–The first man Col. H. H. Farthing remembers
as living in the Beech Creek country was a man named Hately, who resided near the
mouth of Beech Creek. This was long before the Civil War. I. Valentine Reese has lived
a mile below since before the Civil War, where he has carried on a merchantile business.
After the turnpike was finished down the river, say about 1854, the country began
to settle up slowly, though it was used principally for ranging cattle, hunting and
fishing. There was also a Harman settlement near the mouth of Beaver Dam Creek, but
on the opposite side of the river, near what is now called the Cow Ford. But Golder
Councill Harman and John Tester settled there even before the turn pike was built.
The first settlers on Poga were Samuel Trivett, Phillip Church and Vincent Greer,
although some man had settled on the Dark Ridge Branch before these came to that section.
Vincent Greer lived in the Loggy Gap, he having married Jennie Brewer, "a big,
portly woman, sir," to use a quite descriptive phrase of one of the neighbors
All Poga has been cleared witin the recollection of men yet living. Poga is said to
have derived its name from the alleged fact that a man got lost in that section and
wandered around a long time. When found, he said he had been "pokin" around
all day--hence poky or pogy. But in his "Rhymes of Southern Rivers," M.
V. Moore claims that pogy is nothing but a corruption of boggy, which was also the
name of the Elk River.
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CHAPTER XV.
Schools.
Ante-Bellum Education.-- Much has been written about the want of
education of the mountain people. Some of it has been deserved and some underserved.
There have always been schools in Watauga County. Tradition tells of schools as far
back as the coming of the first settlers into this country. It is true that education
was not general, neither was it of an advanced type. But children were taught the
rudiments--the three R's--from time immemorial. The minutes of Three Forks Church
show chirography that would be a credit to the best pensman of today,(2) and while
the spelling is sometimes erratic andlacks uniformity, the language is terse and plain,
leaving no doubt as to its meaning. Some of the phrases are even more forceful than
any of the present time, and the tendency to follow Bible language is marked, showing
close Bible study. When a member was admitted to the church, the invariable formula
was "a door was opened and ----------received into the church." That the
church doors are always open to any who would enter, goes without saying, but that
"a door" was opened for the reception of that particular person seems far
more expressive and forceful. "She confessed her transgression," was another
phrase of strength and scriptural authority. And even now we have expressions which
transcend any that modern philology has substituted for those of the sixteenth century.
"He heired that land," is far more significant and direct than to say "he
inherited" it. We "mend" when we improve in health, which is far better
than to say that we "get better." "It don't differ" certainly
is more economical and quite as expressive as "it makes no difference."
__________
Note: (1) Space will not permit the record of public schools, a full account of which
can be obtained from the reports of the Superintendent of Education.
(2) John W. Owen appears to have recorded these minutes, which are correct in diction
and spelling. Thomas Morris, a kinsman of Mr. Geo. L. Van Dyke, was a fine scribe
also, his copy-book, still preserved by her, showing specimens of his writings when
he was a boy of twelve years, being remarkable. All writing of those days was done
with a quill pen.
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But an adept at such matters has given an entire chapter to our
short-comings, as well as to our long-goings in that respect. Hear him:
Peculiarities of Our Speech.-- In Chapter XIII Mr. Kephart sums
up many of the most striking peculiarities of our speech which differentiate us from
most people. Folllowing is a condensation of some of them: The insertion of sounds
where they do not belong, as musicianer; the substitution of one sound for anoth.er,
due to a change of vowels, as ruther for rather; difficulty in pronouncing diphthongs,
as brile for broil; the occasional substitution of consonants, as atter for after;
the conversion of nouns into verbs of action, as "that bear'll meat me a month;"
the coming of a verb from an adjective, as "much that dog, and see won't he come
along;" the creation of nouns from verbs, as "I didn't hear no give-out
at meetin'," or from an adjective, as "Nance took the biggest through at
meetin'," and "a person has a rather," meaning preference; the use
of corrupt forms of verbs, as gwine for going, het for heat; the formation of peculiar
adjectives from verbs, as "them's the travelin'est horses I ever seed;"
the use of verbs for adverbs, as "if I'd a been thoughted enough;" the use
of the old syllabic plural, as in nesties, posties, beasties; the great abundance
of pleonasms, as "I done done it," and "in this day and time;"
the use of double, tribble and even quadruple and quintruple negatives, as "I
ain't never seen no men-folks of no kind do no washing;" intensifying expression,
as "we had one more time", "we jist pintblank got to do it,' etc. Biscuit-bread,
ham-meat, rifle-gun, rock-clift, ridin'critter, cow-brute, man-person, women-folks,
preacher man, granny-woman and neighbor people are common everywher in the mountains.
We Are Commended for Much.-- This author in the same chapter credits
us with seldom being at a loss for words, even if we have to create them. They are,
however, always produced from English roots, but if all else fails, we fall back on
"spang," a coinage peculiarly our own. The use of the old English past tense
of holp, stunk and swum is commended, holp being used bothas a preterite and as infinitive,
and he gives examples of a strong preterite with dialectical change of the vowel in
brung,
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drap, drug, friz shet and shuck, and of weak preterites in div,
driv, fit, rid, riz, seed, throwed, etc. Even our most illiterate "startle"
the "furriner" by the glib use of such words as tutor for rear or train,
denote for signify, caviled for quarreled, discern for realize and proffered for offered.
He says that cuckold and moon-calf, which have none but a literary usage in America,
and often herd in the mountains, and of the much-derided "hit" he says,
"His, pronoun hit , antedates English itself, being the Angelo-Saxon neuter of
he;" and on another page, 280, he says hit and it are used indifferently, as
euphony may seem to require. We use fray for afray or fight, and fraction for rupture,
which we find in Torilus and Cressida. "Feathered into them" he says is
heard here, and refers to the time when arrows were dirven into the flesh up to the
feathers. We call married women "mistress" and "miz" for short,
and aged men "old grandsir." We still "back" letters, instead
of addressisng them, as was the custom before envelopes were invented. We call a choleric
person "tetchous," and, like Ben Franklin, we "carry" our wives
and daughters to different place when we accompany them there. To most of us molasses
is "them," and license to marry in variably is called "a pair of licenses."
Of women of our idioms he cites: "I swapped hosses, and I'll tell you for why;"
"Your name ain't much common;" "you think me of it in the morning';"
"The woman's aimin' to go to meetin';" "I had a head to plow today;"
"Reckon Pete was knowin' to the sarcumstance;" "I knowed in reason
she'd have the mullygrubs over them doin's," and "You cain't handily blame
her."
Place Names.-- He gives a number of names of places which have
adhered to them for years merely because of some event which happened there. AMong
these are Dusk Camp Run, Mad Sheep Mountain, Dog Slaughter Creek, Drownin' Creek,
Burnt Cabin Branch, Broken Leg, Raw Dough, Burnt Ponne and Sandy Mush. The fighting
spirit blazes forth in Fighting Creek, Shooting Creek, Gouge-eye, Vengeance, Four-Killer
and Disputantia. Personal names are common everywhere, as Jake's Creek, Dick's Creek
and Jonathan's Creek. But he had not heard of the Snow Wine Branch of the Beech Mountains,
so did not include it.
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Not Guilty in Watauga.-- Several words and colloquialisms are recorded
which seem strange to some of us in Watauga County, as gin for it, do' for door, dauncy
for mincing, doney-gal for sweetheart, toddick or taddler for the toll-measure at
a mill, swivvet for hurry, upscuddle for quarrel, etc.
Occult Errors.-- Both Mr. Kephart and Miss Morley are struck with
the use of "soon" for "early", but to most of us there is nothing
wrong in this use, and we "fling a rock" in South Carolina as well as in
the mountains when to "furriners" we throw a stone. Why, too, should we
not ask, "Are you plumb bereft?" if we wish to know if one is entirely bereft
of one's senses? What, too, is wrong with "Sam went to Andrews or to Murphy,
one," or "I don't much believe the wagon will come today," or "
'Tain't powerful long to dinner, I don't reckon?" They may be plainly wrong to
others, but to us they are "plumb right." In conclusion, he adds that instead
of having a limited vocabulary of three hundred words, he had himself taken down from
the lips of Carolina mountaineers some eight hundred dialectical or obsolete words,
to say nothing of the much greater number of standard English terms that they command.
No Foreigh Words Admitted.-- Mr. Kephart has detected only three
words of directly foreign origin in the vocabulary of the mountaineers (p. 289) --doney,
from Spanish or Italian donna; Kraut, from the Germans, and "Sashiate" or
"Sashay," from the French chasse. And he calls attention to the fact that,
although the eastern band of Cherokees have lived with the Smokey Mountain highlanders
for from seventy to eighty years, the mountain dialect contains not one word of Cherokee
origin. Many of the whites, however, do use the word "O-see-you," which
is the Cherokee for "Howdy do." What he calls the obsolete title of linkister
or interpreter, is nothing but a corruption of the present word linguister.
Our Literary and Moonshine Fame Secure.-- Kephart, in his "Southern
Highlanders, " agrees with us in thinking that ours is the purest English spoken
anywhere in the world today. As has been shown, he commends us for very, very much.
He condemns us for little, if anything. And to this high praise we can
Page 247
now add that of no less distinguished a literary lion than Mr.
Cecil Chesterton, of London, England--not Connecticut. This is how he is quoted in
the Literary Digest> for June 19, 1915 (p. 1469); "I do not want anybody to
suppose that I am suggesting that the American language is in any way inferior to
ours (the English!). In some ways it has improved upon it in vigor and raciness. In
other it adheres more closely to the English of the best period. Thus an American
uses the word 'sick' as it is used in the Jacobean Bible--to his not inconsiderable
embarrassment sometimes, I should think, when hef finds himself in European society.
Also he uses old forms like 'gotten,' which we have abbreaviated. If you want the
purest Shakespearian English, I believe you have go go among the illict whiskey distillers
on the Southern mountains. But I was never fortunate enough (in a double sense) to
come in contact with this ancient and delightful race."
Ante-Bellum School Teachers.-- Following is a partial list of school
teachers who taught at various paces in Watauga prior to the Civil War, as remembered
by several old men and women at various points in what is now and used to be Watauga
County: James McCanless, William Roland, George N. Evans, Vine Thompson, H. H. Prout,
Mack McCleard, Culver Wise, Josiah Wise, Levi Chandler, Joseph Culberson, Levi Chandler,
John Wise, Alex Dobson, John Patterson, Sterling Sallens, Wm. C. Wise, George Grissom,
Isaac and Harvey Wise, ----------Miller, Wm. Thomas, Pink Matheson, Erastus Longacre,
Samuel Watson, a one-armed man; Levi Heath, H. A. McBride, Joel Dyer, Wm., Reuben
and James Farthing, William Draughan, ----------Byland, Poovey, Wm. Cannon, T. C.
Coffey, Abner C. Farthing, Edward Faucett, Lewis Church, Thomas Hodges, Martin Harrison,
Joshua Rominger, Jonathan Norris, Joseph Woodring and Christian Woodring, L. Dow Allen,
W. W. Presnell, Hamilton Blackburn, H. B. Blackburn, Charles Lippard, T. C. Land,
Carroll McBride, A. F. and H. A. Davis, Timothy Moretz, Leonard Phillips, Thomas Bingham,
J. B. Miller, Frank Whittington, Christian Moretz, Dr. ---------- Thurman, David Calton,
Geo. Dyer, John Kennedy, Robert Coffey, Elbert Dinkins.
Page 248
Our Schools.-- The public schools of Watauga are matters of record
and need no extended mention in these pages. To rescue the story of ante-bellum efforts
in education is quite as much as there is occasion for in this work. In old days there
were no schools till after the crops were gathered in and secured for the winter.
Then men were employed to teach in various localities upon written contract, the teacher
boarding among the patrons. There is still preserved among the many valuable old papers
of Col. Henry H. Farthing, of Timbered Ridge, a contract duly executed between the
subscribers and Alfred Fox for a school to commerce on the 9th of November, 1835,
and last three months, for which the teacher was to receive $1.50 for each scholar
and board for himself, and the subscribers "agree to tolerate him with due and
legal authority in school." It is nowhere recorded that any school teacher in
these mountains got rich by teaching school, but Massachussetts herself has no such
record for any of her ante-bellum pedagogues, either. Then, too, there were what were
termed "Saturday and Sunday teachers," who taught on those days, or, sometimes,
only on Saturdays, when they were called "Saturday teachers." The coming
into Watauga County of Rev. Henry H. Prout in 1843, or 1845, to teach school was a
great step forward, and old men now living on wpper Watauga speak of him as the most
scholary man they ever met, and credit him with having taught them more than they
ever learned from any other teacher. Unfortunately, duting the first term of the regular
school at Valle Crucis, about 1845-46, several unruly boys were sent there from east
of the Blue Ridge, under the impression that the school was a sort of reformatory
for tecalcitrant youths. This disheartened several of the ladies connected with the
mission, and they withdrew one after another (Skiles, p. 20). However, after Mr. Thurston's
death, in 1846, Rev. Jarvis Buxton came, after which the school got a good start,
Mr. Prout going up to Mrs. Edward Moody's to teach.
"Straights and Pot-Hooks."-- Mrs. Battle Bryan used to
tell her son, Col. W. L. Bryan, of Boone, that the way in which writing was taught
in her girlhood was by requiring the beginner
Page 249to make numerous vertical lines, one after the other, till
a degree of perfection was attained, when the same straight lines were required to
be made, but with the addition of small curved lines, turning upward, and called hoods.
The arithmetic's that preceded Davies' were Pike's, Smiley's and Fowler's and the spelling
book that was the forerunner o Webster's blue back was Dillsworth's. A few of these
old school teachers are now distinctly remembered by Col. W. L. Bryan, who supplies
the following:
Phillip Church.-- When about twelve or thirteen years old, he went
to Phillip Church, who lived in the edge of Ashe County, near Riverside. He taught
at the old Lookabill schoolhouse, which stood close to David Lookabill's residence,
one mile east of Soda Hill, and on the road leding from the Deep Gap of the Blue Ridge
to the Deep Gap between the Snake and Rich mountains where these mountains came together
and where the road forks, one prong going to Zionville, N. C., and the other to Trade,
in Tennessee. It was a free school, which was usually taught in the fall and winter,
after the crops had been gathered and there was little for the children to do. He
attended this school about three months, or one session. Soon after the close of that
session Church married Samuel Trivett's daughter, and moved with his father-in-law
to the Poga Creek settlement between Beech Creek and Ford of Elk, where he died in
1914. Colonel Bryan got as far as "abase" at that time.
Jonathan Norris.-- This pedagogue was called "Lame Jonathan."
because he had rubbed brimstone --powdered sulphur--over a skin eruption and had then
gone in swimming. The result was almost complete bodily paralysis though his mind
remained clear. He taught at the Lookabill school house also, and Colonel Bryan attended
his school parts of two terms. NOrris lived till he was about sixty years old, when
he died at his home near Soda Hill.
Eli M. Farmer.-- Colonel Bryan's next teacher was Eli M. Farmer,
at the same school house. This gentleman married a Miss Austin, of Caldwell County,
and died on Cove Creek about 1890.
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