Chapter IX: Introduction (8)

A long period elapsed from the time emigration from the north of Ireland began until the Pennsylvania and Virginia plains had been filled; and the Yadkin, in North Carolina, was reached near the middle of the last century. So strong was the opposition, natural and human, encountered at every point, that only dauntless courage and determined spirit was able to overcome it. A wilderness had to be reduced in the face of a cruel and cunning foe. Being poor, they purchased small farms, and the number of their slaves was never large. Unlike the plantation lords of the South State coast, they devoted themselves to rigorous labor, the number being few who had time to devote to the cultivation of manners, or to pleasure, and fewer still had the financial ability to educate their children.

Between 1750, the date of the first settlement on the upper Yadkin, and the Revolution, a period of 25 years, the best lands were occupied to the base of the Blue Ridge. Even that barrier was scaled, and the germs of civilized industry planted along the Holston before 1770.

A character of the times, typical of a class of early settlers, was the famous Daniel Boone, whose life is the inspiration and light of western annals. Being but a lad, when his father removed from Pennsylvania, and settled on the Yadkin in 1754, the wildness and beauty of his new home made him a recluse of nature. In early youth he became a hunter, a trapper, and fighter of Indians. When the country around him filled up, he left his home and plunged again into the depths of the wilderness beyond the mountains. After a period, crowded with blood-chilling adventures in Kentucky, he returned to his old home, but the growth of settlement had deprived it of its romance. He again crossed the Blue Ridge and pitched his camp in the Watauga plateau. There is a curious old church record in existence, which shows that he cursed “with profane oaths” a fellow Baptist for building a cabin within ten miles of his. His ideal of complete happiness was to be alone in a boundless wilderness. He once said: “I am richer than the man mentioned in Scripture who owned the cattle on a thousand hills. I own the wild beasts in more than a thousand valleys.” He expired at a deer stand, with rifle in hand, in the year 1818. It was of him that Byron wrote:

“Crime came not near him, she is not the child
Of solitude. Health shrank not from him, for
Her home is in the rarely trodden wild.”

The class of settlers of which Boone is mentioned as a type, is not large; but it was the class, to paraphrase a line of Scott, which dared to face the Indian in his den. They were hunters of wild animals and wild men. But there was a larger class, the equal in sturdiness of the former, and though less romantic in conduct, entitled to recognition by posterity. They were the men who cleared farms and built up houses and towns. In the valleys of the Yadkin and Catawba, is found a large percentage of population of German descent, which is the source of the German blood found in the western counties. Not far behind the Scotch-Irish pioneers, by the same route, came the astute hard-working ancestors of this class of citizens. Many were scattered through Virginia, and some drifted even beyond the line of the old North State. The least mixture of blood is found in the valley of the Catawba. It is a mongrel German, known in the North as “Pennsylvania Dutch.” The traveller from central Pennsylvania will frequently forget, while in the Catawba valley, that he is away from home. Governor Vance, whose long political career has familiarized him with all sections of the state, declares that in agriculture, as a general rule, they have excelled all other classes, especially in thrift economy and the art of preserving their lands from sterility. “To this day there is less of that desolation, known in the South as ‘old field,’ to be seen among the lands of their descendants, than amongst any others of our people.... A sturdier race of upright citizens is not to be found in this or any other state. Their steady progress in wealth and education, is one of their characteristics, and their enduring patience and unflinching patriotism, tested by many severe trials, proclaim them worthy of the great sires from whom they sprang.” Like their kin in Pennsylvania, and scattered over other states, west and south, “they are Lutheran in religion and Democratic in politics, and they are as steadfast as the hills in each.”

The Scotch and Germans of the upper plains and valleys, from which the trans-montane counties drew the bulk of their population, exist in the rural districts unmixed. There has been, until very recently, little immigration since the opening up of the great West soon after the Revolution, the growth of population being almost wholly a natural increase. It is further a fact, to the disadvantage of this community, as a similar condition of things is to all other old communities, that many of the most enterprising children of each generation leave their homes for fields of industry in new sections. Conservatism in the old community is an inevitable result. The western section of North Carolina is a conspicuous example. The same statesman, whom we have already quoted, a native there, has said:

“A very marked conservatism pervades all classes of North
Carolinians. Attachment to old forms and institutions seems to be
deeply implanted in them, as a part of their religion. They almost
equal the conservatism of Sydney Smith’s man, who refused to look
at the new moon, so great was his regard for the old. . . . North
Carolina was, I believe, the last state in the Union to abolish
property representation and suffrage in her legislature. The name
of the lower branch, house of commons, was only changed in 1868.
John Doe and Richard Roe died a violent death and departed our
courts at the hands of the carpet-bag invasion the same year. This
horde, also, with the most extraordinary perversion of its possible
uses, unanimously deposed the whipping-post as a relic of
barbarism, to which our people had clung as the great conservator
of their goods and chattels.”

The present generation of Highlanders may be proud of the revolutionary record of their ancestors, though there were among them numerous tories, the proportion being one King George man to four revolutionists. Representatives from the west are found among the signers of the Mecklenburg declaration of independence in 1775, and by subsequent conduct they proved their enthusiasm in the cause of liberty. Their chief peril was to be apprehended from tory brigands and the Cherokees, incited to blood and cruelty by British agents. The danger was greatest in the summer of 1780, after Lord Cornwallis had made his victorious raid through the South. The liberty men were disheartened, and not a few went over to the tory militia, of which Colonel Patrick Moore appeared as the commander in North Carolina. He published both inducements and threats, as a means of increasing his forces, and was meeting with a degree of success dangerous to the patriot cause, when three companies of old Indian-fighters, under command of Colonels Shelby, McDowell, and Sevier, attacked him, with successful results. This was a small event in itself, but it encouraged the liberty party, and showed the British commander that there was a force in the scattered settlements of the mountain foot-hills which he had reason to fear.

Colonel Ferguson, with a nucleus of 100 regulars, had collected a band of 1,200 native Tories, from the foot of the mountains, in South Carolina. His progress northward was “marked with blood, and lighted up with conflagration.” For this reason he was selected to operate against the western settlements of North Carolina.

The mountain men made one dashing and successful onslaught on his advancing divisions, and then retired to the mountain fastnesses, for consultation and organization. Ferguson pursued as far as Rutherfordton (then Gilbert town), whence he dispatched a messenger to the patriots with the threat that if they did not lay down their arms he would burn their houses, lay waste their country, and hang their leaders.

This cruel threat aroused the settlers adjacent to the mountains, on both sides, and north, into Virginia. More men were willing to go to the field than it was prudent to have leave the settlements. Their fame as “center shots,” with the rifle, was well known to the British regulars, who feared to meet them; but the chivalric Ferguson was stimulated by this fact to greater watchfulness and exertion.

Ramsey draws this picture of the Revolutionary forces.

“The sparse settlements of the frontier had never before seen
assembled a concourse of people so immense, and so evidently
agitated by great excitement. The large mass of the assembly were
volunteer riflemen, clad in the homespun of their wives and
sisters, and wearing the hunting shirt of the back-woods soldiery,
and not a few of them the moccasins of their own manufacture. A few
of the officers were better dressed, but all in citizen’s clothing.
The mien of Campbell was stern, authoritative, and dignified.
Shelby was stern, taciturn, and determined; Sevier, vivacious,
ardent, impulsive, and energetic; McDowell, moving about with the
ease and dignity of a colonial magistrate, inspiring veneration for
his virtues, and an indignant sympathy for the wrongs of himself
and co-exiles. All were completely wrapt in the absorbing subject
of the Revolutionary struggle, then approaching its acme, and
threatening the homes and families of the mountaineers themselves.
Never did mountain recess contain within it a loftier or more
enlarged patriotism--never a cooler or more determined courage.”

Carrying their shot-pouches, powder-horns and blankets, they started from the Watauga, over Yellow mountain, to the head of the Catawba. Ferguson broke up his camp at Gilbert town (Rutherfordton), on the approach of the patriots. This was the most westward point he reached, in the execution of his threat to lay waste the country. The tories of his command quailed on the approach of so large a body of riflemen, and many of them deserted the royal standard. Ferguson dispatched for reinforcement, and took his position on King’s mountain, from which he declared “God Almighty could not drive him.”

After being in the saddle thirty hours, in a dashing rain the patriots, on the afternoon of October 7, 1780, arrived at the foot of the mountain. This, one of the most historic spots in the South, is located on the North Carolina border in Cleveland county. The area of its summit is about 500 yards by seventy.

The mountaineers approached the summit in divisions so as to make the attack from opposite sides simultaneously. The center reached the enemy first, and a furious and bloody fight was commenced. The royalists drove the attacking division down the mountain side, but were compelled to retreat by an onslaught from the end and opposite side. The battle became general all around, Ferguson’s forces being huddled in the center. The mountain men aimed coolly, and shot fatally, giving away before a fierce charge at one point, and charging with equal fierceness from another. The British commander, at length, gave up the idea of further resistance, but, determined not to surrender, made a desperate attempt to break through the lines. He fell in the charge with a mortal shot. A white flag asked for terms of capitulation; 225 royalists and 30 patriots lay dead upon the field; 700 prisoners were taken in custody; 1,500 stand of arms captured, and a great many horses and other booty which had been taken from the settlers, restored to the rightful owners. More than all, the frontier was freed from the ravages of a merciless foe.

The captured arms and booty was shouldered upon the prisoners and taken to a point in Rutherford county, where a court martial was held. Thirty of the tories were sentenced to death for desertion and other crimes they had committed, but only nine were executed. One of these was Colonel Mills, a distinguished leader. The remaining prisoners and captured arms were turned over to General Gates, commander of the Continental army in the South.

John Sevier, one of the leading spirits in the King’s mountain affair, and commander of the transmontane militia, was a brilliant, daring, dashing character; the idol and leader of bold frontiersmen, who nicknamed him “Nollichucky Jack.” The whole of Tennessee then belonged to North Carolina, but the settlers on the Holston were so far removed from the seat of government that, practically, they were without government. Sevier and his friends conceived the idea of organizing a new state, which, being in the nature of a measure for self-protection, was unquestioned west of the mountains as a just and proper proceeding, but by the home government denounced as an insurrection. The new state was named Franklin, in honor of the Philadelphia philosopher and patriot. For four years there was civil contention, which, in one instance, resulted in contact of arms and bloodshed. After this the parent state adopted a radical policy for the restraint of her premature liberty-seeking child. “Nollichucky Jack,” the governor of the insurrectionary state, was arrested for “high treason against the state of North Carolina,” and taken to Morganton for trial.

The prisoner’s chivalric character and gallant military services, on the one hand, and the extraordinary nature of the indictment on the other, gave the trial momentous interest. The village streets were crowded with old soldiers and settlers from far and near, eager to catch a glimpse of the court. There were others there with different purposes. The chivalry of the infant settlement of Tennessee; the men who had suffered with the trials of frontier life and savage warfare, who had fought under him to establish their country’s freedom, and who loved him as a brother, armed to the teeth, had followed the captive across the mountains, determined to “rescue him, or leave their bones.” Their plan was to rescue him by stratagem, but if that failed, to fire the town, and in the excitement of the conflagration make their escape.

On the day of trial, two of the “Franks,” as they were called, leaving their companions concealed near the town, and hiding reliable sidearms under their hunting shirts, rode up before the court-house, one of them on “Governor” Sevier’s fine race mare. He dismounted, and with the rein carelessly thrown over her neck, stood with the manner of an indifferent spectator. The companion having tied his horse, went into the court-room. Sevier’s attention, by a slight gesture, was directed to the man outside. During a pause in the trial, the bold “Frank” stepped into the bar, and with decided manner and tone, addressed the judge: “Are you done with that there man?” The scene was so unusual, the manner and tone of the speaker so firm and dramatic, that both officers and audience were thrown into confusion. The “Governor” sprang like a fox from his cage, one leap took him to the door, and two more on his racer’s back. The quick clash of hoofs gave notice of his escape. The silence of the bewildered court was broken by the exclamation of a waggish by-stander: “Yes, I’ll be damned if you haint done with him.”

Sevier was joined by his neighbors with a wild shout, and they bore him safely to his home. No attempt was made to re-arrest him. The State of Franklin died from various causes, and a few years later the new State of Tennessee honored “Nollichucky Jack” with the first governorship, and later, by an election to the United States Senate.

Recall a picture of the mountain soldier a century ago, during the heroic or military period: a tall, athletic form, hardy appearance, noiseless step, and keen pair of eyes--attired in an upper garment of blue home-spun, fringed at the bottom, and belted with wampum; deerskin leggins and buckskin moccasins, and armed with a large knife, tomahawk, and long rifle. This emblem of antiquity is now found only in museums.

Before the close of the Revolution there was a well-beaten road from the Catawba to the Watauga, the path of travel from Carolina to the incipient states west of the Alleghanies. South of this, except by hunters and Indian traders, the passes of the Blue Ridge had not been crossed. The fame of the luxuriant highland valleys was widespread, however, when an extinguishment of the Indian title opened them up to the settler.

It was a miscellaneous throng that filled the narrow roads leading from the head-waters of the eastward streams, in search of homes and lands in the cool upper plateau. Ahead, on horse-back, was a far-seeing man of middle age, a member of the legislature, whose industry had rewarded him with a small fortune, with which he would purchase a fertile tract of wild land, and hold it for an advance of price. Slowly moving along behind was a boat-shaped, great covered wagon, drawn by four oxen. It contained the family and household goods of a man whose earthly possessions amounted to but a few dollars besides. Then followed the foot emigrants of a still poorer class, badly clad, and scantily fed. The man and woman and larger children carried upon their backs, an axe, a few agricultural tools, a couple of cooking pots, and a light bundle of bed clothing. The man with the wagon would purchase a few hundred acres of valley land, erect a cabin, such as may yet be seen any where in the rural districts, make a clearing, and eventually become a prosperous citizen. The foot emigrant, without examining titles or running lines, built a hut where it suited him, deadened the trees on a few acres, which, cultivated with the hoe, yielded bread for his family. A flint-lock rifle, saved from the soldiering times, supplied meat and clothing. Neither the freehold settler nor the “squatter” was able to convert more than the hides of wild animals into money with which to make annual purchases of such supplies as could not be raised. The squatter had the advantage from a cash point of view over the land owner, for he had no taxes to pay, and more time to devote to the chase. Alive to this advantage he had no incentive to aspire to the ownership of property; an indifference to worldly condition characterized his simple life, an indifference which his children and his children’s children have inherited. It was different with the freeholder; he knew of the luxury of low country civilization; he had himself tasted the sweets of a substantial prosperity, and looked forward to their full enjoyment in his new home in the mountains. When times grew better he was able to purchase a few slaves, give his children an elementary education, and live in a comfortable house. From this class of the settler ancestry is descended the substantial element of the present generation of native mountaineers. They are famous business and professional men, who would be a credit to any community. They own nearly all the land, and inhabit the most inviting farms. Many of the wealthier land owners were not far behind the first settlers, and their posterity may be found in almost every county, some of them continuing to control large boundaries.

The nucleus of settlement was on the French Broad, at the mouth of the Swannanoa. It was there that the first white child was born, in the inter-montane plateau--James M. Smith. In the year 1795, a wagon passed from South Carolina, through Mill’s gap, down the French Broad, to the prosperous settlements in Tennessee. Scores of emigrants, intending to go on to the West, were charmed by broad stretches of valley between the mountains, and went no further. The Indians frequently showed hostile intentions, but the occasion for alarm was never great enough to deflect the tide of settlement. The best lands on the French Broad and Pigeon were occupied by freeholders, and the smoke of squatters’ cabins rose in almost every cove, before the Cherokee treaty of 1819 opened up the valleys beyond the Balsams, which were rapidly occupied by settlers mainly from the piedmont and trans-Blue Ridge regions. East Tennessee made slight contributions. The buying up of cove lands, by actual settlers, from speculators, or the state, began after the valleys were filled, and many small farms on mountain sides have been acquired by “undisturbed possession.”

The counties of Western North Carolina, in the year 1777, were all
embraced in Burke, Wilkes, and Tryon. Ashe was carved off Wilkes,
in 1799, and Alleghany off Ashe in 1859. Tryon, which bore the name
of the most obnoxious of the colonial governors, was divided into
Lincoln and Rutherford, in 1779, and the hated name obliterated.
Cleveland was cut from both these counties in 1841. Caldwell was
taken from Burke in 1842, and McDowell was erected out of territory
from Burke and Rutherford; and Catawba from territory from Lincoln,
in the same year. Easton was carved off Lincoln in 1846. Buncombe
was erected in 1791, out of territory previously embraced, partly
in Rutherford, but mainly in Burke. It is the parent stem of all
the trans-Blue Ridge counties, excepting Ashe and Alleghany. The
first branch was Haywood, in 1808, from which Macon was taken, in
1828, and Jackson in 1850. From territory of both these Swain was
made in 1871. Cherokee was cut off Macon in 1839. From its
territory Clay was formed in 1861, and Graham in 1872. Henderson
was cut off Buncombe in 1838; Polk from Henderson and Rutherford in
1855; and Transylvania from Henderson and Jackson in 1861. Yancey
was erected from Buncombe in 1833; Watauga from Yancey, Wilkes,
Caldwell, and Ashe, in 1849. Madison was erected of territory from
Buncombe in 1850; and Mitchell in 1861, from territory from Burke,
McDowell, Caldwell, Watauga, and Yancey.

Two elements, in the settlement and population of the mountain country, have not been considered in the foregoing pages. The one is, happily, well nigh extinct, the other is the main hope of the future. In early times, criminals and refugees from justice made the fastnesses of the wilderness hiding places. Their stay, in most cases, was short, seclusion furnishing their profession a barren field for operation. A few, however, remained, either adopting the wild, free life of the chase, or preying upon the property of the community. The latter occupation has been entirely abandoned by their posterity. There was a time when it was unsafe to turn a good horse out to range on the grassy mountain tops, but that time is passed. There are communities in the mountains in which all the commands of the Decalogue are not punctiliously observed, but “Thou shalt not steal,” is seldom violated. Cattle and horses pasture on every range, stables are everywhere without locks, houses are left open, and highway robbery is remembered only as a tradition of the past.

By the element in the settlement referred to as the hope of the future, we mean those classes who have come for the purpose of engaging in business, and to establish summer homes, attracted by salubrity of climate and beauty of scenery. Representatives of the latter class have handsome estates at several places in the French Broad valley and along the Blue Ridge.

Immigration for business purposes is just starting. The mineral deposits and the lumber stores are bringing in good citizens from abroad. With abundant resources, both of material and power, there is a wide field here for manufacturers. The native population has not husbanded the capital needed to start the ball rolling. Although settled for 100 years, Western North Carolina is a new country in many respects, but the day of its rapid development is near at hand.

The great obstacle to development in the past has been the section’s isolated position, an obstacle now almost removed. The building of a turnpike from South Carolina to Tennessee was justly regarded a great public improvement when it was completed in 1827, but during the last half century horses have been too slow to carry on the world’s work. General Hayne, of South Carolina, was one of the first projectors of a railroad through the mountains. It was to run from Charleston to Cincinnati, a line which there is good reason for believing will be pushed to completion at no distant day. The original project was given chartered form in 1835.

The Western North Carolina road was also an early project, and is a part of the system of public improvements contemplated by the state government. A charter was granted in 1855. The state authorized the issue of bonds for three-fourths of the stock, the remaining one-fourth being subscribed by private individuals. R. C. Pearson was chosen president, and J. C. Turner engineer. It was the latter gentleman who first surveyed a route over the Blue Ridge via Swannanoa gap. The construction of this road reached to within five miles of Morganton, when the war opened and all operations were stopped. After the war, under the successive administrations as president of A. M. Powell, S. M. D. Tate, and Major J. W. Wilson, work was continued. The latter gentleman, combining the office of engineer with that of president, took the first locomotive around the coils and through the tunnels into the Swannanoa valley. The road was sold and passed under its present management, which is associated with the Richmond & Danville company, in the spring of 1880. It has been completed to its junction with the E. T. V. & G. R. R., and is being pushed over and through the massive transverse chains of the plateau to its western terminus. The scenery along its lines is spoken of at various places in the following pages. The Blue Ridge has been crossed by the Spartanburg & Asheville railroad, and there is good ground for hope that the Carolina Central will be extended from Shelby to Asheville at an early day. All these enterprises are necessarily expensive, and consequently show the confidence which capitalists place in the future of the region whose resources will be opened up.

On account of the secluded position of Western North Carolina, there is little to be said under the head of military reminiscences. The mountain men, in the War of 1812, shouldered their rifles and marched to distant climes, in defense of their country’s honor.

During the late struggle, this section escaped the desolation which the greater portion of the South suffered. Stoneman’s Federal cavalry made a raid, after the “surrender” of Lee into the trans-Blue Ridge country. He passed by Hendersonville and Asheville, whence a Confederate fort had been erected. Dividing into small squads, his men pillaged the country as they went west.

A dare-devil expedition was accomplished by the Federal raider Kirk, who, with his company of 325 East Tennesseeans, crossed the mountains, through Mitchell county into Burke, surprised a larger force of Confederates, and succeeded in capturing all their stores and taking the men prisoners of war.

The mountain men were divided in sentiment and action during the war. Most of the property holders joined the Confederate forces, while the poorer classes refused to volunteer, and, when conscripted into the service, deserted at the first opportunity. There were exceptions, of course, with respect to both classes--some of the larger freeholders being Union men, and some of the poor people in the coves being enthusiastically loyal to the state.

The Southern Alleghanies, though “the oldest in the world,” have not yet settled down to a state of absolute rest. Shocks and noises in several localities have frequently been felt and heard, much to the discomfort of inhabitants of the vicinity. There are reminiscences in the northern part of Haywood county of shocks as early as 1812, and from time to time ever since. The restless mountain is in a spur of the New Found range, near the head of Fine’s creek. General Clingman was the first to call public attention to it, which he did in an elaborate paper in 1848. There are cracks in the solid granite of which the ridge is composed, and towards its foot, chasms four feet wide, extending at places in all directions, like the radiating cracks made in a rock by a light blast of gunpowder. There are evidences of trees having been thrown violently down, and a trustworthy gentleman declares that a huge oak was split from root to top by the opening of a chasm under it. General Clingman says:

“I observed a large poplar tree which had been split through its
center so as to leave one-half of it standing 30 or 40 feet high.
The crack or opening under it was not an inch wide, but could be
traced for hundreds of yards, making it evident that there had been
an opening wide enough to split the tree, and that then the sides
of the chasm had returned to their original position without having
split so as to prevent the contact of broken rocks.”

A great mass of granite was broken into fragments, and after one of these shocks every loose stone and piece of wood was moved from its original place. These jars, accompanied with noise, used to occur at intervals of two or three years, but none have been felt for some time.

About the year 1829 occurred a violent earthquake, covering a limited area, in Cherokee county. One of the Valley River mountains was cleft open for several hundred yards, making a chasm which is still visible.

Silas McDowell, a careful observer, late of Macon county, stated, in a paper, that there was a violent shock on the divide between Ellijay and Cullasaja many years ago. A chasm opened in the north side of the mountain, accompanied with crashing sounds. Satoola mountain, bounding the Highlands plateau, it has been stated, has crevices from which smoke issues at intervals.

In Madison county there is a mountain which has been known to rumble and smoke. The warm springs are heated by volcanic action, probably by hot gas from the earth’s molten interior, seeking an outlet through crevices in the rocks and coming in contact with underground water currents.

The most famous of the restless mountains of North Carolina is “Shaking Bald.” The first shock, which occurred February 10, 1874, was followed in such quick succession by others, as to cause general alarm in the vicinity. This mountain for a time received national attention. Within six months more than 100 shocks were felt.

The general facts of these terrestrial disturbances have never been disputed, but concerning their cause, there has been widely diversified speculation. Is there an upheaval or subsidence of the mountains gradually going on? Are they the effect of explosions caused by the chemical action of minerals under the influence of electric currents; are they the effect of gases forced through fissures in the rocks from the center of the earth, seeking an outlet at the surface? These are questions on which scientists differ. Be the cause what it may, there is no occasion to fear the eruption of an active volcano.

The scientific exploration of the grand summit of the Alleghany system, was hinted at in the introduction, but on account of the great names associated with the subject it is worthy of fuller treatment. The extraordinary botanical resources of the mountains were first made known by one of the most distinguished botanists of his day, Andre Michaux, who made a tour of the valleys and some of the heights in 1787. In 1802 his son, an equally distinguished botanist, scaled the loftiest range. Both these naturalists reported having found trees and other specimens of alpine growth, that they had observed nowhere else south of Canada. This was the first hint that the Black mountains were the highest summits east of the Rockies. This judgment was based entirely upon the plant life of the region explored.

It was from entirely different data that John C. Calhoun arrived at the same opinion in 1825. David L. Swain, afterwards governor and president of the State University, was then a member of the legislature from Buncombe, his native county. Calhoun was Vice-President of the United States. Meeting each other in Raleigh, the latter made a playful allusion to their height, saying that in that respect they were like General Washington. “We can also,” said the Vice-President, “congratulate ourselves on another fact, that we live in the vicinity of the highest land east of the Rocky mountains.”

“The suggestion,” says Governor Swain, “took me entirely by surprise, and I inquired whether the fact had been ascertained? He replied that it had not been by measurement, but a very slight examination of the map would satisfy me it was so.”

Dr. Elisha Mitchell, of the State University, five years later, concurred in the opinion of Vice-President Calhoun, and announced to the Board of Public Improvements his intention to make a systematic geographical exploration. In the year 1835, with no other interest than that of contributing to scientific knowledge, he made the first barometrical measurements west of the Blue Ridge. With great labor and infinite patience he climbed the several peaks of the Blacks. In the language of a subsequent explorer: “At the time Dr. Mitchell gave his observations with regard to the height of the Black mountain it was more inaccessible than now, by reason of the progress of the settlements around its base, so that he was liable to be misled, thwarted by unforeseen obstacles, in his efforts to reach particular parts of the chain, and when he did attain some point at the top of the ridge, nature was too much exhausted to allow more than one observation as to the immediate locality.” Any one who has left the beaten path, and attempted to penetrate the tangled thickets of laurel on the slopes of the Black, will have some conception of the explorer’s difficulty.

Dr. Mitchell’s report was the first authoritative announcement of the superior altitude of the highest southern summit to Mt. Washington. This report gave rise to much controversy among geographers, but its correctness was soon universally yielded.

In 1844 Dr. Mitchell again visited the region, making observations in the interest of both geology and geography, and to confirm his former measurements. About this time Hon. Thomas L. Clingman, then a member of Congress, and a man of scientific tastes, began to make observations in different sections--the Balsams, Smokies, and Blacks. In the latter group he subsequently published that he had found a higher peak than the one measured by Professor Mitchell. In the controversy which followed, the fact of General Clingman having measured the highest point of ground was undisputed. The question was: Had Dr. Mitchell measured the same peak, or had he mistaken another for the highest, and ceased his investigations without going to the top of the true dome?

Admitting the possibility of having been mistaken, the Professor, in the summer vacation of 1857, embraced the first opportunity to review his measurements. Accompanied by his son, Charles Mitchell, he began at the railroad line to run a line of levels, that he might test the accuracy of his barometer. They reached the Mountain house, half way up the Black, at noon on Saturday, June 27th. Dismissing his son and assistant, the professor left, saying he intended to cross the range by the route he had gone in 1844, desiring to see the guide who at that time accompanied him. On Monday Charles Mitchell climbed to the place appointed to meet his father, but the day passed without his appearance. The next day passed. “He must have met with some accidental delay,” was the consolation. But another day’s absence dispelled this hope. On Thursday morning the alarm was spread. Messengers were sent across the range to the valleys below. He had not reached the place for which he had started. Friday evening the report of his disappearance reached Asheville. From every direction came men of all grades and avocations in life. Following them came their, wives and sisters, anxious to help in the search for the lost man’s body in that wilderness of more than 100,000 acres, whose funereal gloom conceals caverns and pitfalls into which the incautious traveler may disappear.

At least 500 men were engaged in the search, which began on Friday, within one day of a week after the professor was last seen. It was Tuesday before the trace of human footsteps was discovered. Thomas Wilson, who had acted as the professors’s guide, in 1844, in following the course they had then taken, distinguished a mark in the green turf, near the highest summit. Wilson declared it to be the summit they had both been on, and the professor had measured. The old hunter, followed by rugged mountaineers, hurried down a branch of Cane creek. The marks of the wanderer became plainer, as the ground became rougher. Down a splashing stream they followed for more than a mile, to a sheer waterfall of about forty feet. A broken laurel branch and torn moss told the story. Below in the circular pool fourteen feet deep, of crystal water, lay the body perfectly preserved.

The place has been thus described:

“The pure waters enveloped him in their winding sheet of crystal;
the leaping cataract sang his requiem in that wondrous and eternal
song, of which old ocean furnishes the grand, all comprehensive
key. Cream and white flowers flaked the billowy thickets of the
dark green laurel, and tall conical firs, delicately tapering
spruces, interlocked their weeping branches, from shore to shore.”

Enveloping the body in a sheet, they carried it up the mountain to the summit, whence, at the request of the family, it was conveyed to Asheville for burial. A year later it was dis-interred, re-carried, and amid a large concourse of people, deposited on the very pinnacle of the Appalachians. There rests the “Christian hero’s dust.”

Since his death, Professor Mitchell’s claim to the credit of having measured the peak which bears his name is admitted. He measured a great many other pinnacles, but owing to the imperfection of his instruments and other causes, he was somewhat inaccurate. The credit of having made the first extensive survey and accurate measurements, is due Arnold Guyot, professor of physical geography in Princeton college. He was assisted in his long and unremunerated task, covering three summer vacations, by General Clingman, M. E. Grand-Pierre, and E. Sandoz. Their survey was begun in the Blacks in 1856. Professor Guyot’s report has been revised and completed by Dr. W. C. Kerr, the late state geologist of North Carolina.

To Dr. Curtis, of the University, the state is indebted for an exposition of its botanical resources. He embodied in his collection and several reports, the researches of Professors Gray and Carey, who, as early as 1841, traversed the highest ranges. Had Dr. Curtis’ labor been appreciated by the state government, North Carolina would have one of the best collections of botanical specimens in the country.

We have now briefly sketched the settlement and leading incidents in the progress of this highland country. The reader has no doubt reached the conclusion that the mountaineers must be a happy people, for “their annals are tiresome.” Should he visit the region, and stop in the homes scattered through the picturesque valleys, he will find the confirmation of that conclusion. If the inhabitants have little beyond the lavishments of nature to boast of, they have the compensating knowledge that they have little to be ashamed of. Their race and blood has furnished to the country three of its Presidents--Jackson, Polk, and Johnson; but greater than any of these, of the same kin, was that splendid specimen of statesmanship, John C. Calhoun, born in the sub-montane district of South Carolina. The same race has given to the gallery of frontier heroes, Daniel Boone, of the Yadkin, and David Crockett, of the Nollichucky. Old Buncombe itself has filled the governor’s chair with two incumbents, Swain and Vance; has given the State University a president, Swain; and to the United States Senate two of the most useful representatives the state has ever had--Clingman and Vance. Of such ancestry, and of such representatives of its capacity for development, any section might be proud. Of the attention its natural features has received from the outside world, it has scarcely less reason for pride and congratulation.

IN THE SADDLE.

And the steed it shall be shod
All in silver, housed in azure,
And the mane shall swim the wind;
And the hoofs along the sod
Shall flash onward and keep measure
Till the shepherds look behind.
--_Elizabeth Barrett Browning._

here is something in a long ride on horseback that time cannot obliterate. At its recollection one feels again the motion of the horse, and can well imagine the bridle-reins in his fingers. With these sensations come the cool breath of morning, the smooth stretches of road through sunlight and shadow, the rough trail by wild, rushing waters, the vistas of rich meadows and fields, and the green and purple outlines of mountains. Such scenes become so impressed upon the memory that one might well question with Byron:

“Are not the mountains, waves, and skies a part
Of me and of my soul, as I of them?”

This sketch is of a ride taken by the writer, through some of the most scenic sections of the mountains. Treating, as it does, of the country and people as they are, the tourist in quest for information, preparatory to a trip through the same region, need look no further than these pages.

In the interest of my pocket, I hired a sound young horse, at thirty-three and a third cents per day. He was my selection from several that could have been taken from the same class of people, at a schedule of prices ranging from twenty-five to fifty cents. If the tourist intends traveling for a month or more, the wisest plan is to buy a horse, and then sell at the finish. Money can be saved by this operation, unless being ignorant concerning horse flesh, he falls into the hands of an unscrupulous jockey.

It was in August, and clear bright skies for a season were predicted by the weather prophets, when, early one morning, I mounted my steed before an Asheville hotel. In the saddle-bags for myself was an extra suit of blue flannel, two pairs of socks, a rubber coat, comb, and brush; and for the horse two shoes and a paper of nails, to provide against losses which might occur twenty-five or more miles from where a horse-shoe could be procured. Country blacksmiths depend to a large extent upon their customers to furnish the materials for their work.

There is a road that winds from the center of Asheville, onward down hill and up, by pleasant door-yards, white-washed, stone-wall fences, and trimmed groves, to the bridge over the Swannanoa-river. Just beyond it, a wide road, turning sharp toward the left, is the route to Hickory Nut gap, and the comparatively level county of Rutherford beyond.

From this point the road runs through pleasant valleys, by mills, small streams, dwellings, and under forests, for eight miles, to the base of the mountains, whereon is the opening of the noted gap--the gateway to the picturesque region of Broad river. On the summit of the pass a limited view can be had of Buncombe county valley lands, dotted with cornfields, checkered with forests and mountain-bounded.

The road now begins to descend through beautiful sylvan scenes, combining all the gloom, luxuriance, wildness, and beauty of rocks, vines, pines, rhododendrons, crystal waters, dark ravines, and blue streaks of sky.

Where the Broad river crosses the road with a wide sweep, I drew rein before a frame dwelling, whose scanty farm lands gave no promise of yields which would afford enough extra money, by ten years’ savings, to be used in painting its dingy sides. Fastened to it was a porch with one end concealed by trailing vines, choked with dust. Before the weed-grown potato patch was a rickety, board fence, on the top of which was seated a man dressed in seedy, dusty, brown shirt, pantaloons, hat, and shoes.

Upon my inquiry whether dinner could be afforded here for horse and man, he slid lazily off his perch with the remark:

“Plenty oats an’ hay; no corn. Will ye lite?”

The man started with my horse for the stable, and I went toward the house. High steps reached up to the porch. On the latter stood a table, white with powdered plaster of Paris, and covered with dental instruments and teeth for false sets. Before it sat at work a middle-aged man.

“Pleasant day,” I said.

“Eh? What’s that?” wrinkling his narrow forehead.

“Fine weather,” I repeated.

“Can’t hear you,” shoving his chair a little nearer mine. He was evidently deaf.

“A pleasant day, this!” I thundered.

“Damn the weather! Where you from?”

“Asheville.”

“What’s your business?

“Seeing the country.”

“Seein’ the country?” Then with a cynical curl of his lip, “Poor business,” and he continued, whittling at his plaster cast.

I felt interested in the man. His cordial manners prompted me to fall on his neck, but I restrained myself. Then I took up the examination.

“You’re not a native. You have a foreign air about you, you have,” I shouted.

“You’re right.”

“Where do you hail from?”

“Been living with the Osage Indians for the last twelve years.”

I thought as much. He was all Indian, and I concluded to avoid him, but he did not intend to drop the subject so easily.

“Do you see that Osage relic?” pointing to an Indian blanket hanging on a hook against the wall. “That’s one of the things I brought back with me. I’m a man with a history. I can give you some points about a country that is a country.”

He again lapsed into silence. On the invitation to procure points, I determined to interview him.

“What were you doing among the Indians? Hunting?” I asked.

“No.”

“A trader?”

“No.”

“A dentist?”

“No.”

“What then?”

“None of your damn business!”

I felt disconcerted. Evidently, the man was a gentleman,--he objected to being interviewed. The tack looked like a bad one; clouds a little too electric for fine sailing. A thin-haired woman in a calico dress and rough shoes, with a care-worn expression on her pale face, was sitting at one end of the porch. She now spoke, in a voice inaudible to the unapproachable:

“Don’t pay any attention to him. He’s been drinkin’. Hit allers makes him ugly.”

“Who is he?” I whispered.

“My husband. We’ve been married a year; soon arter he cum from the West.”

And then she sighed and looked out across the rickety fence, the roaring waters of the Broad river, the brown mill and the few houses by it, and then at the stony-faced mountains beyond. I sighed in sympathy.

A bare-footed black girl stuck her head out of the door and announced that dinner was ready. Being tired and hungry, I was not backward in answering this notice, and moved into the dining-room. On my plate, after helping myself from everything on the table, were a chunk of fat pork, a piece of doughy, hot, wheat bread, and some boiled green beans. A tin cup of butter-milk was beside the mess to wash it down. Let me say right here that this was an exceptional meal! I have been on many tramps and rides through the Carolina mountains, but never had I met with such a reception and such fare. They were not backward in demanding half a dollar, the usual price asked by the mountaineer for supper, lodging and breakfast for man and his horse.

The man in brown, as he mended my saddle bags after dinner, filled my ears with a recital of the mysteries of Bat cave. He represented it as the wonder of the mountains. Its gloomy depths contained chambers of marvelous dimensions, while bats, the unholy habitants of darkness, stuck to the walls and flitted in its precincts. He volunteered as a guide, and as it lay on the way to Chimney Rock hotel, I mounted and rode along with him.

By the bouldered river, before the guide’s cabin, I tied my horse, and, by means of a foot-log, crossed to the opposite bank. It was a half-mile walk. We waded through the soft soil of several corn-fields, pitched almost perpendicular on the mountain side; climbed a number of rail fences; and after a steep ascent over tree-trunks and rocks, we arrived at the mouth of the cave. An air as cold as a winter lake breeze came from the darkness. It chilled us through and through. We went in without torches. There were rifts in the apex of the roof, high above, through which sunlight poured, dimly lighting up the whole interior. It failed most miserably to meet my expectations.

“Where are your bats, Dotson?” I asked.

“Hit’s cu’rous; I don’t see nary one.”

Dotson shaded his eyes, as he spoke, and peered down into a well-like hole, that broke away from our feet, and whose opposite wall, rock-piled in front, ascended straight upward till the sides closed.

“Nor do I,” I returned; “where are they?”

“Hit ’pears they aint ’ere. I ’low they been skeered out,” he drawled, rubbing his cheek.

That was all the satisfaction I obtained in regard to bats. A little curiosity is connected with the cave, from the fact that it is in granite rocks. At some convulsion of the mountain’s crust, the walls of granite were rent asunder, and then their tops, meeting again, left an opening between them. The air in it is cold and dry, for there is no water dripping in its interior. There is another smaller, but deeper, cave near the one just described. Torches are needed and one must crawl to enter it. The rocks around it are also granite.

I was on my horse again. The scenery for the next two miles is of a sublime description. The stone portals of a collossal gateway rise against the sky. The large mountain on the north is the Round Top. It presents a red cracked-stone front, and resembles the venerable ruins of a massive building, once swept by fire. Opposite to it is a line of Titanic stone cliffs--the front of Chimney Rock mountain. A luxuriant forest grows half way up its precipitous slope to the foot of the cliffs of bare rock, in height over 1,000 feet. A silver thread of water can be seen springing from the top-most edge, and falling down the bare face. It is the highest water-fall in the mountain system. The eastern end of the mountain projects its top forward, an abrupt headland. Its summit is covered with trees. From the glimpses caught of it along the shaded river, one might liken it to the bare forehead of some Cæsar, with laurel crown, overlooking the distant lands of Rutherford county.

Around the traveler, as he rides, are beautiful wood-land landscapes. A river, dammed with brown boulders, flows by the roadside. Where its channel narrows, it runs deep and smooth under the birches, oaks and pines; then at the shallows, among the rocks, it becomes a foaming torrent. The road is on a stone causeway, high above the crooked stream. Between the over-arching trees, glimpses of level road, yellow and dusty, can be seen at times. In the center of the valley, that widens out from the foot of the stone-fronted mountains, is a comfortable farm-house, enlarged for summer boarders, and kept by General G. W. Logan. It is the central point to view this scenic region of the mountains. It is reached by good roads from Rutherfordton, seventeen miles; Hendersonville, nineteen miles; Asheville, twenty-three miles; and Shelby, the terminus of the Carolina Central railroad, forty miles distant.

One mile from the hotel are the Pools. The stream is known as Pool creek. It seeks its level down a steep ravine, clothed principally with pines and oaks. Over three ledges of brown rock, whose edges still remain abrupt, the crystal waters of the stream plunge in quick succession, in as many thundering cascades. Where the cascades fall are basins, or pot-holes, formed perfectly round by the whirling of the waters. They are from ten to fifteen feet in diameter and of fabulous depth. The lower one is the largest, and has been sounded (as any one in the neighborhood, with straight face, will tell you) to the depth of 200 feet without striking bottom. Fifteen feet of the stock end of a giant pine projects out of it. The beauty and wildness of the spot could not be enhanced by a knowledge, even if true, that a depth of more than 200 feet of water lay in the lower pool.