History of Western North Carolina

INTRODUCTORY

OUR LORDLY DOMAIN. Lying between the Blue Ridge on the East and the Iron, Great Smoky and Unaka mountains on the West, is, in North Carolina, a lordly domain. It varies in width from about forty miles at the Virginia line to about seventy-five when it reaches Georgia on the Southerly side. Running Northeast and Southwest it borders the State of Tennessee on the West for about two hundred and thirty miles, following the meanderings of the mountain tops, and embraces approximately eight thousand square miles. Nowhere within that entire area is there a tract of level land one thousand acres in extent; for the mountains are everywhere, except in places where a limpid stream has, after ages of erosion, eaten out of the hills a narrow valley. Between the Grandfather on the east and the Roan on the west, the distance in a straight line is less than twenty miles, while from Melrose mountain, just west of Tryon, to the corner of North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee, is over one hundred and fifty miles.

THE APPALACHIANS. According to the Smithsonian Institution, the name Alleghany is from the language of the Delaware Indians, and signifies a fine or navigable river.^[1] It is sometimes applied to the mountain ranges in the eastern part of the United States, but the Appalachians, first applied by De Soto to the whole system, is preferred by geographers.^[2]

THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. The Blue Ridge reaches its culmination in this hoary pile, with its five-peaked crown of archaean rocks, and nearly six thousand feet of elevation.

Of this mountain the following lines were written in 1898:

TO THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN.^[3] Oldest of all terrestrial things-still holding Thy wrinkled forehead high;

Whose every seam, earth's history enfolding, Grim Science cloth defy
Teach me the lesson of the world-old story, Deep in thy bosom hid;
Read me thy riddles that were old and hoary Ere Sphinx and Pyramid!
Thou saw'st the birth of that abstraction Which men have christened Time;
Thou saw'st the dead world wake to life and action Far in thy early prime;
Thou caught'st the far faint ray from Sirius rising, When through space first was hurled,
The primal gloom of ancient voids surprising, This atom, called the World!
Gray was thy head ere Steam or Sail or Traffic Had waked the soul of Gain,
Or reed or string had made the air seraphic With Music's magic strain!
Thy cheek had kindled with the crimsoned blushes Of myriad sunset dyes
Ere Adam's race began, or, from the rushes, Came Moses, great and wise!
Thou saw'st the Flood, Mount Arrarat o'er-riding, That bore of old the Ark;
Thou saw'st the Star, the Eastern Magi guiding To manger, drear and dark.
Seething with heat, or glacial ices rending Thy gaunt and crumbling form;
Riven by frosts and lightning-bolts-contending In tempest and in storm
Thou still protesteth 'gainst the day impending, When, striving not in vain,
Science, at last, from thee thy riddles rending, Shall make all secrets plain!

THE PECULIARITIES OF THE MOUNTAINS. Until 1835 the mountains of New Hampshire had been regarded as the loftiest of the Alleghanies; but at that time the attention of John C. Calhoun had been drawn to the numerous rivers which come from all sides of the North Carolina mountains and he shrewdly reasoned that between the parallels of 35° and 36° and 30', north latitude, would be found the highest plateau and mountains of the Atlantic coast. The Blue Ridge is a true divide, all streams flowing east and all flowing west having their sources east or west of that divide. The Linville river seems to be an exception to this rule, but its source is in Linville gap, which is the true divide, the main fork of the Watauga rising only a few hundred feet away flowing west to the Mississippi. There are two springs at Blowing Rock only a few feet apart, one of which flows into the Yadkin, and thence into the Atlantic, while the other goes into the New, and thence into the Gulf of Mexico; while the Saddle Mountain Baptist church in Alleghany county is built so exactly on the line that a drop of rain falling on one side of the roof goes into the Atlantic, while another drop, falling on the opposite side ultimately gets into the Gulf.

WHEN THE ALLEGHANIES WERE HIGHER THAN THE ALPS. What is by some called The Portal is the depression between the Grandfather on the East and the Roan mountain on the West. When it is remembered that the Gulf of Mexico once extended further north than Cairo, Illinois, and that both the Ohio and the Mississippi once emptied into that inland sea without having joined their waters, it will be easy to understand why these mountains must have been much higher than at present, as most of their surface soil has for untold ages been slowly carried westward to form the eastern half of the valley of the Mississippi from Cairo to New Orleans. Thus, the Watauga first finds its way westward, followed in the order named by the Doe, the Toe, the Cane, the French Broad, the Pigeon, the Little Tennessee and last by the Hiwassee. The most northerly section of this western rampart is called the Stone mountains, and then follow the Iron, the Bald, the Great Smoky, the Unaka, and last, the Frog mountains of Georgia. The Blue Ridge, the transverse ranges and the western mountains contain over a score of peaks higher than Mount Washington, while the general level of the plateau between the Blue Ridge and the mountains which divide North Carolina from Tennessee is over two thousand feet above sea level. Where most of these streams break through the western barrier are veritable canons, sometimes so narrow as to dispute the passage of wagon road, railroad and river. For a quarter of a mile along the Toe, at Lost Cove, the railroad is built on a concrete viaduct in the very bed of the river itself. The mountains are wooded to their crests, except where those crests are covered by grass, frequently forming velvety mountain meadows. The scenery is often grand and inspiring. It is always beautiful; and Cowper sings:

Scenes must be beautiful that, daily seen,
Please daily, and whose novelty survives
Long knowledge and the scrutiny of years."

THE ABORIGINES. This region was, of course, inhabited from time immemorial by the Indians. The Catawbas held the country to the crest of the Blue Ridge. To the west of that line, the Cherokees, a numerous and warlike tribe, held sway to the Mississippi, though a renegade portion of that tribe, known as the Chicamaugas, occupied the country around what is now Chattanooga.^[4] Old pottery, pipes, arrow- and spear-heads are found at numerous places throughout these mountains; and only a few years ago Mr. T. A. Low, a lawyer of Banner Elk, Avery county, "picked up quite a number of arrow-heads in his garden, some of which were splendid specimens of Mocha stone, or moss agate, evidently brought from Lake Superior regions, as no stones of the kind are found in this part of the country."^[5] None of the towns of these Indians appear "to have been in the valleys of the Swannanoa and the North Carolina part of the French Broad."^[6] Parties roamed over the country. Since many of the arrowheads are defective or unfinished, it would seem that they were made where found, as it is unlikely that such unfinished stones would be carried about the country. The inference is that many and large parties roamed through these unsettled regions.^[7] Numbers of Indian mounds, stone hatchets, etc., are found in several localities, but nothing has been found in these mounds except Indian relics of the common type.^[8]

AS ASHEVILLE ON AN OLD INDIAN BATTLE-GROUND? "There is an old tradition that Asheville stands upon the site where, years before the white man calve, was fought a great battle, between two tribes of aborigines, probably the Cherokees and the Catawbas, who were inveterate enemies and always at war. There is also a tradition that these lands were for a long while neutral hunting grounds of these two tribes."^[9]

INDIAN NAMES FOR FRENCH BROAD. According to Dr. Ramsey this stream was called Agiqua throughout its entire length; but Zeigler & Grosscup tell us that it was known as the Agiqua to the Over Mountain Cherokees [erati] only as far as the lower valley; and to the Ottari or Valley Towns Indians, as Tahkeeosteh from Asheville down; while above Asheville "it took the name of Zillicoah." But they give no authority for these statements.

ORIGIN OF THE NAME "FRENCH BROAD." Mr. Sondley^[10] states that "as the settlement from the east advanced towards the mountains, the Broad river was found and named; and when the river, whose sources were on the opposite or western side of the same mountains which gave rise to the Broad river [on the east]-became known, and that … its course traversed the lands then claimed by the French, this newfound western stream was called the French Broad."

ORIGIN of THE NAME "SWANNANOA." The same writer (Mr. Sondley), after considering the claims of those who think Swannanoa means "beautiful", and of those who think it is intended to imitate the wings of ravens when flying rapidly, is of opinion that the name is but a corruption of Shawno, or Shawnees, most of whom lived in Ohio territory, and he seems to think that Savannah may also be a corruption of Shawno, which tribe may have dwelt for a time on the Savannah river in remote times. He then quotes Mr. James Mooney, "that the correct name of the Swannanoa gap through the Blue Ridge, east of Asheville, is Suwali Nunnahi, or Suwali trail," that being the pass through which ran the trail from the Cherokee to the Suwali, or Ani-Suwali, living east of the mountains. He next quotes Lederer (p. 57) to the effect that the Suwali were also called Sara, Sualty or Sasa, the interchange of the Z and r being common in Indian dialects.

THE FIRST WHITE MEN. It is difficult to say who were the first white men who passed across the Blue Ridge. There is no doubt, however, that there are excavations at several places in these mountains which indicate that white men carried on mining operations in years long since passed. This is suggested by excavations and immense trees now growing from them, which when cut down show rings to the number of several hundred. It is true that these excavations may have been made by the Indians themselves, but it is also possible that they may have been made by white men who were wandering through the mountains in search of gold, silver or precious stones. Roosevelt (Vol. i, 173-4) says that unnamed and unknown hunters and Indian traders had from time to time pushed their way into the wilderness and had been followed by others of whom we know little more than their names. Dr. Thomas Walker of Virginia had found and named Cumberland river, mountains and gap after the Duke of Cumberland in 1750, though he had been to the Cumberland in 1748 (p. 175). John Sailing had been taken as a captive by the Indians through Tennessee in 1730, and in that year Adair traded with the Indians in what is now Tennessee. In 1756 and 1758 Forts Loudon and Chissel were built on the headwaters of the Tennessee river, and in 1761 Wallen, a hunter, hunted near by … In 1766 James Smith and others explored Tennessee, and a party from South Carolina were near the present site of Nashville in 1767.

DE SOTO. It is considered by some as most probable that De Soto, on the great expedition in which he discovered the Mississippi river, passed through Western North Carolina in 1540.^[11] In the course of their journey they are said to have arrived at the head of the Broad or Pacolet river and from there to have passed "through a country covered with fields of maize of luxuriant growth, " and during the next five days to have "traversed a chain of easy mountains, covered with oak or mulberry trees, with intervening valleys, rich in pasturage and irrigated by clear and rapid streams. These mountains were twenty leagues across." They came at last to "a grand and powerful river" and "a village at the end of a long island, where pearl oysters were found." "Now, it would be impossible for an army on the Broad or Pacolet river, within one day's march of the mountains, to march westward for six days, five of which were through mountains, and reach the sources of the Tennessee or any other river, without passing through Western North Carolina."^[12] But the Librarian of Congress says: "There appears to be no authority for the statement that this expedition[Hernando De Soto's] entered the present limits of North Carolina.^[13] In the same letter he says that Don Luis de Velasco, "as viceroy of New Spain, sent out an expedition in 1559 under command of Luna y Arellano to establish a colony in Florida. One of the latter's lieutenant's appears to have led an expedition into northeastern Alabama in 1560. " Also, that the statement of Charles C. Jones, in his "Hernando De Soto', (1880), that Luna's expedition penetrated into the Valley river in Georgia and there mined for gold is questioned by Woodbury Lowery in his "Spanish Settlements within the present limits of the United States" (New York, 1901, p. 367).^[14] There are unmistakable evidences of gold-mining in Macon and Cherokee counties which, apparently, was done 300 years ago; but by whom cannot now be definitely determined. However, there is no Valley river in Georgia, and the probability is that the Valley river of Cherokee county, N. C., which is very near the Georgia line, was at that time supposed to be in the latter State.

THE ROUNDHEADS of THE SOUTH. Towards this primeval wilderness three streams of white people began to converge as early as 1730.^[15] They were Irish Presbyterians, Scotch Saxons, Scotch Celts, French Huguenots, Milesian Irish, Germans, Hollanders and even Swedes. "The western border of our country was then formed by the great barrier-chains of the Alleghanies, which ran north and south from Pennsylvania through Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas." Georgia was then too weak and small to contribute much to the backwoods stock; the frontier was still in the low country. It was difficult to cross the mountains from east to west, but easy to follow the valleys between the ranges. By 1730 emigrants were fairly swarming across the Atlantic, most of them landing at Philadelphia, while a less number went to Charleston. Those who went to Philadelphia passed west to Fort Pitt or started southwestward, towards the mountains of North Carolina and Virginia. Their brethren pushed into the interior from Charleston. These streams met in the foothills on the east of the Blue Ridge and settled around Pittsburg and the headwaters of the Great Kanawha, the Holston and the Cumberland. Predominent among them were the Presbyterian Irish, whose preachers taught the creed of Knox and Calvin. They were in the West what the Puritans were in the Northeast, and more than the Cavaliers were in the South. They formed the kernel of the American stock who were the pioneers in the march westward. They were the Protestants of the Protestants; they detested and despised the Catholics, and regarded the Episcopalians with a more sullen, but scarcely less intense, hatred. They had as little kinship with the Cavalier as with the Quaker; they were separated by a wide gulf from the aristocratic planter communities that flourished in the tidewater regions of Virginia and the Carolinas. They deemed it a religious duty to interpret their own Bible, and held for a divine right the election of their own clergy. For generations their whole ecclesiastic and scholastic systems had been fundamentally democratic. The creed of the backwoodsman who had a creed at all was Presbyterianism; for the Episcopacy of the tidewater lands obtained no foothold in the mountains, and the Methodists and Baptists had but just begun to appear in the West when the Revolution broke out. Thus they became the outposts of civilization; the vanguard of the army of fighting settlers, who with axe and rifle won their way from the Alleghanies to the Rio Grande and the Pacific. "They have been rightly called the Roundheads of the South, the same men who, before any others, declared for American independence, as witness the Mecklenburg Declaration."^[16] "They felt that they were thus dispossessing the Canaanites, and were thus working the Lord's will in preparing the land for a people which they believed was more truly His chosen people than was that nation which Joshua led across the Jordan."^[17].

A NEW ENGLANDER'S ESTIMATE. In her "Carolina Mountains," (Houghton, Mifflin Co., 1913) Miss Margaret W. Morley, of New England, but who has resided about a dozen years in these mountains (Ch. 14) says that although North Carolina was originally settled "from almost all the nations of Europe," our mountain population, in "the course of time, became homogenious"; that many had come to "found a family," and "formed the `quality' of the mountains"; while others, "at different times drifted in from the eastern lowlands as well as down from the North." Indeed, the early records of Ashe county, show many a name which has since become famous in New York, Ohio and New England-such as Day, Choate, Dana, Cornell, Storie and Vanderpool. Continuing, Miss Morley says (p. 140) : "Most of the writers tell us rather loosely that the Southern mountains were originally peopled with refuges of one sort and another, among whom were criminals exported to the New World from England, which, they might as well add, was the case with the whole of the newly discovered continent, America being then the open door of refuge for the world's oppressed …but we can find no evidence that these malefactors, many of them `indentured servants', sent over for the use of the colonists, made a practice of coming to the mountains when their term of servitude expired. The truth is, the same people who occupied Virginia and the eastern part of the Carolinas, peopled the western mountains, English predominating, and in course of time there drifted down from Virginia large numbers of Scotch-Irish, who, after the events of 1730, fled in such numbers to the New World, and good Scotch Highlanders, who came after 1745. In fact, so many of these staunch Northerners came to the North Carolina mountains that they have given the dominant note to the character of the mountaineers, remembering which may help the puzzled stranger to understand the peculiarities of the people he finds here today… The rapid growth of slavery, no doubt, discouraged many, who, unable to succeed in the Slave-States, were crowded to the mountains, or else became the "Poor White" of the South, who must not be for a moment confounded with the "Mountain White," the latter having brought some of the best blood of his nation to these blue heights. He brought into the mountains and there nourished, the stern virtues of his race, including the strictest honesty, an old-fashioned self-respect, and an old-fashioned speech, all of which he yet retains, as well as a certain pride, which causes him to flare up instantly at any suspicion of being treated with condescension… " She gives the names of Hampton, Rogers, McClure, Morgan, Rhodes, Foster and Bradley as indicative of the English, Scotch and Irish descent of our people-names that "are crowned with honor out in the big world." It is also a well known fact that Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Admiral Farragut and Cyrus T. McCormick came from the same stock of people. She adds, very justly : "Bad blood there was among them, as well as good, and brave men as well as weak ones. The brave as well as the bad blood sometimes worked out its destiny in Vendetta and "moonshining," although there never existed in the North Carolina mountains the extensive and bloody feuds that distinguish the annals of Virginia and Kentucky." (P. 144).

THE MOONSHINER, she declares, (p. 201) is "a product of conditions resulting from the Civil War, before which time the moutnaineer converted his grain into whiskey, just as the New Englander converted his apples into cider. The act of distilling was not a crime, and became so only because it was an evasion of the revenue laws …. At the beginning of the Civil War for the sake of revenue a very heavy tax was placed on all distilled alcoholic liquors. After the war was over the tax was not removed, and this is the grievance of the mountaineer, who says that the tax should have been removed; that it is unjust and oppressive, and that he has a right to do as he pleases with his own corn, and to evade the law which interferes with his personal freedom." But, she adds : "Within the past few years the moonshiner, along with many time-honored customs, has been rapidly vanishing.

AN APPRECIATION. Such just, truthful, generous and sympathetic words as the above, especially when found eminating from a New Englander, will be highly appreciated by every resident of the Carolina mountains, as we are accustomed to little else than misrepresentations and abuse by many of the writers from Miss Morley's former home. Her descriptions of our flowers, our gems, our manners and customs, our scenery, our climate and the character of our people will win for her a warm place in the affections of all our people. "The Carolina Mountains" is by far the best book that has ever been written about our section and our people. The few lapses into which she has been betrayed by incorrect information will be gladly overlooked in view of the fact that she has been so just, so kind and so truthful in the estimate she has placed upon our virtues and our section.

POOR COMFORT. Very little comfort is to be derived from the fact that some writers claim ("The Child That Toileth Not," p. 13) that a spirit of fun or a "great sense of humor" among the mountain people induces them to mislead strangers who profess to believe that in some sections of the mountains our people have never even heard of Santa Claus or Jesus Christ; by pretending that they do not themselves know anything of either. Indeed, a story comes from Aquone to the effect that a stranger from New England who was there to fish in the Nantahala river once told his guide, a noted wag, that he had heard that some of the mountain people had not heard of God or Jesus Christ. Pretending to think that the visitor was referring to a man, the guide asked if his questioner did not mean Mike Crise, a timberjack who had worked on that river a dozen years before, and when the stranger replied that he meant Jesus of Bethlehem, the wag, with a perfectly straight face, answered : "That's the very pint Mike came from"meaning Bethlehem, Pa. Therefore, when we read in "The Carolina Mountains (p. 117) that "The mountaineer, it may be said in passing, sells his molasses by the bushel," and (p. 220) that "Under the Smoky mountain we heard of a sect of `Barkers,' who, the people said, in their religious frenzy, run and bark up a tree in the belief that Christ is there, " we are driven to the conclusion that Miss Morley, the author, was a victim of this same irresistible "sense of humor."

NOTES:

1. Letter of R. D. W. Connor, Secretary N. C. Hist. Corn., January 31, 1912.
2. Zeigler & Grosscup, p 9
3. This mountain is said to be among the oldest geological formations on earth, the Laurentian only being senior to it.
4. Roosevelt, Vol. III, 111-112.
5. T. A. Low, Esq.
6. Asheville Centenary.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Zeigler & Grosscup, p. 222.
12. Asheville Centenary.
13. His letter to J. P. A., 1912.
14. Ibid.
15. Roosevelt, Vol. I. p. 137. This entire chapter (ch. 5 5, Vol. I), from which the following excerpts have been taken at random, contains the finest tribute in the language to the pioneers of the South.
16. Ibid., 214.
17. Ibid.

SOLITUDE AND RELIGION. The isolation of the early settlers was conducive to religious thoughts, especially among the uneducated ministry of that day. This is impressively told in the following paragraph:

"There was naught in the scene to suggest to a mind familiar with the facts an oriental landscape- -naught akin to the hills of Judea. Yet, ignorance has license. It never occurred to Teck Jepson [a local preacher in the novel] that his biblical heroes had lived elsewhere… He brooded upon the Bible narratives, instinct with dramatic movement, enriched with poetic color, and localized in his robust imagination, till he could trace Hagar's wild wanderings in the fastnesses; could show where Jacob slept and piled his altar of stones; could distinguish the hush, of all others on the "bald," that blazed with fire from heaven when the angel of the Lord stood within it;… saw David, the stripling, running and holding high in his right hand the bit of cloth cut from Saul's garments while the king had slept in a cave at the base of Chilhowie mountain. And how was the splendid miracle of translation discredited because Jepson believed that the chariot of the Lord had rested in scarlet and purple clouds upon the towering summit of Thunderhead that Elijah might thence ascend into heaven?"^[1]

EARLY PREACHERS. Staunton, Lexington and Abingdon, Virginia, and Jonesboro, Tenn., and Morganton, N. C., have been largely Presbyterian from their earliest beginning. Not so, however, Western North Carolina in which the Baptists and Methodists got the "start" and have maintained it ever since, notwithstanding the presence almost from the first of the Rev. George Newton and many excellent ministers of the Presbyterian faith since his day. The progress of the Methodists was due largely, no doubt, to the frequent visits of Bishop Asbury.

THE FIRST METHODIST BISHOP. "In the year 1800 Bishop Francis Asbury began to include the French Broad valley in his annual visits throughout the eastern part of the United States, which extended as far west as Kentucky and Tennessee."^[2] He was so encouraged by the religious hunger he discovered in these mountain coves that he continued his visits till November, 1813, notwithstanding the rough fare he no doubt frequently had to put up with. Following extracts are from his "Journal":

AT WARM SPRINGS IN 1800. (Thursday, November 6, 1800.) "Crossed Nolachucky at Querton's Ferry, and came to Major Craggs', 18 miles. I next day pursued my journey and arrived at Warm Springs, not, however, without an ugly accident. After we had crossed the Small and Great Paint mountain, and had passed about thirty yards beyond the Paint Rock, my roan horse, led by Mr. O'Haven, reeled and fell over, taking the chaise with him; I was called back, when I beheld the poor beast and the carriage bottom up, lodged and wedged against a sapling, which alone prevented them both being precipitated into the river. After a pretty heavy lift all was righted again, an we were pleased to find there was little damage done. Our feelings were excited more for others than ourselves. Not far off we saw clothing spread out, part of the loading of household furniture of a wagon which had overset and was thrown into the stream, and bed clothes, bedding, etc., were so wet that the poor people found it necessary to dry them on the spot. We passed the side fords of French Broad and came to Mr. Nelson's; our mountain march of twelve miles calmed us down for this day. My company was not agreeable here-there were too many subjects of the two great potentates of this Western World whisky, brandy. My mind was greatly distressed."

CURIOUSLY CONTRIVED ROPE AND POLE FERRY. "North Carolina, Saturday 8. We started away. The cold was severe upon the fingers. We crossed the ferry, curiously contrived with a rope and pole, for half a mile along the banks of the river, to guide the boat by. And 0 the rocks! the rocks! Coming to Laurel river, we followed the wagon ahead of us-the wagon stuck fast. Brother O'H. mounted old Gray-the horse fell about midway, but recovered, rose, and went safely through with his burden. We pursued our way rapidly to Ivy creek, suffering much from heat and the roughness of the roads, and stopped at William Hunter's."

AT THOMAS FOSTER'S. "Sabbath Day, 9. We came to Thomas Foster's, and held a small meeting at his house. We must bid farewell to the chaise; this mode of conveyance by no means suits the roads of this wilderness. We obliged to keep one behind the carriage with a strap to hold by, and prevent accidents almost continually. I have health and hard labor, and a constant sense of the favor of God."

BLACKSMITH, CARPENTER, COBBLER, SADDLER AND HATTER. "Tobias Gibson had given notice to some of my being at Buncombe courthouse, and the society at Killyon's, In consequence of this, made an appointment for me on Tuesday, 11. We were strongly importuned to stay, which Brother Whatcoat felt inclined to do. In the meantime we had our horses shod by Philip Smith; this man, as is not infrequently the case in this country, makes wagons and works at carpentry, makes shoes for men and for horses; to which he adds, occasionally the manufacture of saddles and hats."

REV. GEORGE NEWTON AT METHODIST SERVICE. "Monday, 10. Visited Squire Swain's agreeable family. On Tuesday we attended our appointment. My foundation for a sermon was Heb. ii, 1. We had about eighty hearers; among them was Mr. Newton, a Presbyterian minister, who made the concluding prayer. We took up our journey and came to Foster's upon Swansico (Swannanoa)-company enough, and horses in a drove of thirty-three. Here we met Francis Poythress-sick of Carolina-and in the clouds. I, too, was sick. Next morning we rode to Fletcher's, on Mud creek. The people being unexpectedly gathered together, we gave them a sermon and an exhortation lodged at Fletcher's."

A LECTURE AT BEN. DAVIDSON' S. "Thursday, 13. We crossed French Broad at Kim's Ferry, forded Mills river, and made upwards to the barrens of Broad to Davidson's, whose name names the stream. The aged mother and daughter insisted upon giving notice for a meeting; In consequence thereof Mr. Davis, the Presbyterian minister, and several others came together. Brother Whatcoat was taken with a bleeding at the nose, so that necessity was laid upon me to lecture; my subject was Luke xi 13."

DESCRIBES THE FRENCH BROAD. "Friday, 14. We took our leave of French Broad-the lands flat and good, but rather cold. I have had an opportunity of making a tolerably correct survey of this river. It rises in the southwest, and winds along in many meanders, fifty miles northeast, receiving a number of tributary streams in its course; it then inclines westward, passing through Buncombe in North Carolina, and Green and Dandridge counties in Tennessee, in which last it is augmented by the waters of Nolachucky. Four miles above Knoxville it forms a junction with the Holston, and their united waters flow along under the name of Tennessee, giving a name to the State. We had no small labor in getting down Saluda mountain."

AGAIN AT WARM SPRINGS. In October, 1801, we find this entry: "Monday, October 5. We parted in great love. Our company made twelve miles to Isaiah Harrison's, and next day reached the Warm Springs upon French Broad river.

"MAN AND BEAST 'FELT THE MIGHTY HILLS.' "Wednesday, 7. We made a push for Buncombe courthouse: man and beast felt the mighty hills. I shall calculate from Baker's to this place one hundred and twenty miles; from Philadelphia, eight hundred and twenty miles."

CAROLINA RESTING AT GEORGE SWAIN' S. "Friday, 9. Yesterday and today we rested at George Swains.

QUARTERLY MEETING AT DANIEL KILLON'S. "Sabbath Day, 11. Yesterday and today held quarterly meeting at
Daniel Killon's, near Buncombe courthouse. I spoke from Isa. lvii, 6, 7
and I Cor. vii, 1. We had some quickenings."

A SERMON FROM N. SNETHEN. "Monday, 12. We came to Murroughs, upon Mud creek; here we had a sermon from N. Snethen on Acts xiv, 15. Myself and James that gave an exhortation. We had very warm weather and a long ride. At Major Britain's, near the mouth of Mills river, we found a lodging.

AT ELDER DAVIDSON's. "Tuesday, 13. We came in haste up to elder Davidson's, refreshed man and beast, commended the family to God, and then struck into the mountains. The want of sleep and other inconveniences made me unwell. We came down Saluda River, near Saluda Mountain : it tried my lame feet and old feeble joints. French Broad, in its meanderings, is nearly two hundred miles long; the line of its course is semi-circular; its waters are pure, rapid, and its bed generally rocky, except the Blue Ridge; it passes through all the western mountains."

AT WILLIAM NELSON'S AT WARM SPRINGS. "Wednesday, 3. We labored over the Ridge and the Paint Mountain: I held on awhile, but grew afraid of this mountain, and with the help of a pine sapling worked my way down the steepest and roughest parts. I could bless God for life and limbs. Eighteen miles this day contented us, and we stopped at William Nelson's, Warm Springs. About thirty travelers having dropped in, I expounded the scriptures to them, as found in the third chapter of Romans, as equally applicable to nominal Christians, Indians, Jews, and Gentiles."

DINNER AT BARNETT'S STATION. "Thursday, 4. We came off about the rising of the sun, cold enough. There were six or seven heights to pass over, at the rate of five, two or one mile an hour~as this ascent or descent would permit : four hours brought us to the end of twelve miles to dinner, at Barnett's station; whence we pushed on to John (Thomas) Foster's, and after making twenty miles more, came in about the going down of the sun. On Friday and Saturday we visited from house to house."

"DEAR WILLIAM MCKENDREE." "Sunday, 7. We had preaching at Killon's. William McKendree went forward upon 'as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God;' my subject was Heb. iii, 12, 13. On Monday I parted from dear William McKendree. I made for Mr. Fletcher's, upon Mud creek; be received me with great attention, and the kind offer of everything in the house necessary for the comfort of man and beast. We could not be prevailed on to tarry for the night, so we set off after dinner and he accompanied us several miles. We housed for the night at the widow Johnson's. I was happy to find that in the space of two years, God had manifested his goodness and his power in the hearts of many upon the solitary banks and isolated glades of French Broad; some subjects of grace there were before, amongst Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists. On Tuesday I dined at Benjamin Davidson's, a house I had lodged and preached at two years ago. We labored along eighteen miles, eight ascent, on the west side, and as many on the east side of the mountain. The descent of Saluda exceeds all I know, from the Province of Maine to Kentucky and Cumberland; I had dreaded it, fearing I should not be able to walk or ride such steeps; nevertheless, with time, patience, labor, two sticks and above all, a good Providence I came in about five o'clock to ancient father John Douthat's, Greenville County, South Carolina."

AGAIN AT NELSON'S. On October, 1803, we meet with this entry: "North Carolina. On Monday, we came off in earnest; refreshed at Isaiah Harrison's, and continued on to the Paint Mountain, passing the gap newly made, which makes the road down to Paint Creek much better. I lodged with Mr. Nelson, who treated me like a minister, a Christian and a gentleman."

IVY HAD BEEN BRIDGED IN 1803. "Tuesday, 25. We reached Buncombe. The road is greatly mended by changing the direction, and throwing a bridge over Ivy."

SISTERS KILION AND SMITH DEAD. "Wednesday, 26. We called a meeting at Kilion's, and a gracious season it was: my subject was I Cor. xv, 38. Sister Kilion and Sister Smith, sisters in the flesh, and kindred spirits in holiness and humble obedience, are both gone to their reward in glory. On Thursday we came away in haste, crossed Swamoat (Swannanoa) at T. Foster's, the French Broad at the High (Long) Shoals, and afterwards again at Beard's Bridge, and put up for the night at Andrew Mitchell's : In our route we passed two large encamping places of the Methodists and Presbyterians: it made country look like the Holy Land."

HE ESCAPES FROM FILTH, FLEAS, AND RATTLESNAKES. "Friday, 28. We came up Little River, a sister stream of French Broad: it offered some beautiful flats of land. We found a new road, lately cut, which brought us in at the head of Little River at the old fording place, and within hearing of the falls, a few miles off of the head of Matthews Creek, a branch of the Saluda. The waters foaming down the rocks with a descent of half a mile, make themselves heard at a great distance. I walked down the mountain, after riding sixteen or eighteen miles; before breakfast, and came in about twelve o'clock to father John Douthat's; once more I have escaped from filth, fleas, rattlesnakes, hills, mountains, rocks, and rivers; farewell, western world, for awhile!"

AT FLETCHER'S ON MUD CREEK. Again in October 1805 we find the following entry: "North Carolina. We came into North Carolina and lodged with Wm. Nelson, at the Hot Springs. Next day we stopped with Wilson in Buncombe. On Wednesday I breakfasted with Mr. Newton. Presbyterian minister, a man after my own mind : we took sweet counsel together. We lodged this evening at Mr. Fletcher's, Mud Creek. At Colonel Thomas's, on Thursday, we were kindly received and hospitably entertained."

BEDS A BENCH AND DIRT FLOOR OF SCHOOL HOUSE. Again in September, 1806, we find the following entry: "Wednesday, 24. We came to Buncombe : we were lost within a mile of Mr. Kilion's (Killian's), and were happy to get a school house to shelter us for the night. I had no fire, but a bed wherever I could find a bench; my aid, Moses Lawrence, had a bear skin and a dirt floor to spread it on."

HIS FOOD BRINGS BACK HIS AFFLICTION. "Friday, 26. My affliction returned: considering the food, the labor the lodging, the hardships I meet with and endure it is not wonderful. Thanks be to God! we had a generous rain- -may it be general through the settlement!"

CAMP MEETING ON TURKEY CREEK. "Saturday, 27. I rode twelve miles to Turkey Creek, to a kind of camp meeting. On the Sabbath, I preached to about five hundred souls it was an open season and a few souls professed converting grace."

RODE THROUGH SWANINO RIVER. "Monday, 29. Raining. We had dry weather during the meeting. There were eleven sermons and many exhortations. At noon it clears up, and gave us an opportunity of riding home : my mind enjoyed peace. but my body felt the effect of riding. On Tuesday I went to a house to preach: I rode through Swanino River, and Cane and Hooper's Creeks."

LITTLE AND GREAT HUNGER MOUNTAIN. "North Carolina, Wednesday, October 1. I preached at Samuel Edney's. Next day we had to cope with Little and Great Hunger mountains. Now I know what Mill's Gap is, between Buncombe and Rutherford. One of the descents is like the roof of a house, for nearly a mile: I rode, I walked, I sweat, I trembled, and my old knees failed; here are gulleys and rocks, and precipices; nevertheless the way is as good as the path over the Table Mountain-bad is the best. We came upon Green River."

WARM SPRINGS IN 1807. Again on October, 1807, we find the following entry: "Friday 16. We reached Wamping's (Warm Springs). I suffered much today; but an hour's warm bath for my feet relieved me considerably. On Saturday we rode to Killon's."

GEORGE NEWTON, AN ISRAELITE INDEED. "North Carolina, Sabbath, 18. At Buncombe courthouse I spoke from 2 Kings, vli, 13-15. The people were all attention. I spent a night under the roof of my very dear brother in Christ, George Newton, a Presbyterian minister, an Israelite Indeed. On Monday we made Fletcher's; next day dined at Terry's, and lodged at Edwards. Saluda ferry brought us up on Wednesday evening."

LABORED AND SUFFERED, BUT LIVED NEAR GOD. Again in October, 1808, we find the following entry.
"On Tuesday we rode twenty miles to the Warm Springs, and next day reached Buncombe, thirty-two miles. The right way to improve a short day is to stop only to feed the horses, and let the riders meanwhile take a bite of what they have been provident enough to put into their pockets. It has been a serious October to me. I have labored and suffered; but I have lived near to God."

MR. IRWON (ERWIN), A CHIEF MAN. "North Carolina, Saturday, 29. We rested for three days past We fell in with Jesse Richardson: He could not bear to see the fields of Buncombe deserted by militiamen, who fire a shot and fly, and wheel and fire, and run again; he is a veteran who has learned to endure hardness like a good soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ.' On the Sunday I preached in Buncombe courthouse upon I Thess. i, 7-10. I lodged with a chief man a Mr. Irwon. Henry Boehm went to Pigeon Creek to preach to the Dutch."

WOOTENPILE ASKS PAY IN PRAYER. In October, 1909, we find: "We crossed the French Broad and fed our horses at the gate of Mr. Wootenpile (Hoodenpile); he would accept no pay but prayer; as I had never called before he may have thought me too proud to stop. Our way now lay over dreadful roads. I found old Mr. Barnett sick-the ease was a dreadful one, and I gave kim a grain of tartar and a few composing drops, which procured him a sound sleep. The patient was very thankful and would charge us nothing. Here are martyrs to whiskey! I delivered my own soul. Saturday brought us to Killion's. Eight times within nine years I have crossed these Mps. If my journal is transcribed it will be as well to give the subject as the chapter and the verse of the text I preached from. Nothing like a sermon can I record. Here now am I and have been for twenty nights crowded by people, and the whole family striving to get round me."

JAMES PATTON, RICH, PLAIN, HUMBLE, KIND. "Sabbath, 29. At Buncombe I spoke on Luke xiv, 10. It was a season of attention and feeling. We dined with Mr. Erwin and lodged with James Patton; bow rich, how plain, how humble, and how kind! There was a sudden change in the weather on Monday; we went as far as D. Jay's. Tuesday, we moved in haste to Mud Creek, Green river cove, on the other side of Saluda."

AT VATER SHUCK'S ON A WINTER'S NIGHT. Again in December, 1810, we find the following entry:

"At Catahouche (Cataiouche) I walked over a log. But O the mountain-height after height, and five miles over? After crossing other streams, and losing ourselves in the woods, we came in, about nine o'clock at night, to Vater Shuck's. What an awful day? Saturday, December 1. Last night I was strongly afflicted with pain. We rode twenty-five miles to Buncombe."

GEORGE NEWTON ALMOST A METHODIST. "North Carolina, Sabbath, December 2. Bishop McKendree and John McGee rose at five o'clock and left us to fill an appointment about twenty-five miles off. Myself and Henry Boehm went to Newton's academy, where I preached. Brother Boelim spoke after me; and Mr. Newton, in exhortation, confirmed what was said. Had I known and studied my congregation for a year, I could not have spoken more appropriately to their particular cases; this I learned from those who knew them well. We dined with Mr. Newton. He is almost a Methodist and reminds me of dear Whatcoat-the same placidness and solemnity. We visited James Patton; this is, perhaps, the last visit to Buncombe."

SPEAKING "FAITHFULLY." "Monday. It was my province today to speak faithfully to a certain person. May she feel the force of, and profit by the truth."

THE HOODENPILE ROAD IS OPEN. In December, 1812, we find the following: "Monday, 30. We stopped at Michael Bollen's on our route, where I gave them a discourse on Luke, xi, 11-13. Why should we climb over the desperate Spring and Paint mountain when there is such a fine new road? We came on Tuesday a straight course to Barratt's (Barnett's) dining in the woods on our way."

BACK AGAIN AT KILLION'S. "North Carolina, Wednesday, December 2. We went over the mountains, 22 miles, to Killlon's."

AT SAMUEL EDNEY'S AND FATHER MILLS'S. "Thursday, 3. Came on through Buncombe to Samuel Edney's: I preached in the evening. We have had plenty of rain lately. Friday, I rest. Occupied in reading and writing. I have great communion with God. I preached at Father Mills's."

IN GREAT WEAKNESS. Again, in November, 1813, we meet with this entry: "Sabbath, 24. I preached in great weakness. I am at Killion's once more. Our ride of ninety miles to Staunton bridge on Saluda river was severely felt, and the necessity of lodging at taverns made it no better."

VALEDICTORY TO PRESIDING ELDERS. "Friday, 29. On the peaceful banks of the Saluda I write my valedictory address to the presiding elders."

Killian's, so often mentioned with different spellings in the foregoing extracts, is the present residence of Capt. I. C. Baird on Beaverdam.^[3] When the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, met at Asheville in May, 1910, a gavel made of a portion of the banister of the old Killian home was presented to the presiding bishop.

FIRST CHURCH IN THE MOUNTAINS. According to Col. W. L. Bryan of Boone, the first church established west of the Blue Ridge and east of the Smokies was at what is still called "Three Forks of New river in what is now Watauga county, a beautiful spot." It was organized November 6, 1790. The following is from its records: "A book containing (as may be seen) in the covenant and conduct of the Baptist church of Jesus Christ in Wilkes county,… New River, Three Forks settlement" by the following members: James Tomkins, Richard Greene and wife, Daniel Eggers and wife, William Miller, Elinor Greene and B. B. Eggers. "This is the mother of all the Baptist churches throughout this great mountain region. From this mother church using the language of these old pioneers, they established arms of the mother church; one at what is now known as the Globe in Caldwell county, another to the westward, known as Ebinezer, one to the northeast named South Fork … and at various other points. Yet, it should be remembered that the attendance upon the worship of the mother church extended for many, many miles, reaching into Tennessee." After these "arms" had been established "there was organized Three Forks Baptist association, which bears the name to this day, and is the oldest and most venerated religious organization known throughout the mountains. Among the first pastors of the mother church were Rev. Mr. Barlow of Yadkin, George MeNeill of Wilkes, John G. Bryan who died in Georgia at the age of 98, Nathaniel Vannoy of Wilkes, Richard Gentry of Old Field, Joseph Harrison of Three Forks, Brazilla McBride and Jacob Greene of Cove creek, Reuben Farthing, A. C. Farthing, John or Jackie Farthing, Larkin Hodges and Rev. William Wilcox, the last named having been the last of the Old Patriarchs of this noted church to pass away. They were all farmers and worked in the fields for their daily bread. To the above list should be added Rev. D. C. Harmon of Lower Cove creek, Rev. D. C. Harmon, Rev. Smith Ferguson, who, though they have been gone for many years, yet some of those left behind."^[4]

PROMINENT PIONEER RELIGIOUS TEACHERS.^[5] Among these were "Richard Gentry, Aaron Johnson, William Baldwin Richard Jacks, David Smith, all of whom were Baptists favoring missions; and among the Methodists were James Wagg, Samuel Plumer, A. B. Cox and Hiram and Elihu Weaver."

REV. HUMPHREY POSEY. Of this good man Col. Allen T. Davidson says in The Lyceum for January, 1891, p.11, that James Whittaker of Cherokee "and the Rev. Humphrey Posey established the leading (Baptist) churches in this upland country, to wit: Cane creek, in Buncombe county, and Locust Old Field in Haywood county, where the friends of these two men have worshipped ever since…. There they stand, monuments to the memory of these pioneers…. Perhaps the most remarkable man in this up-country was Rev. Humphrey Posey, who was born in Henry county, Va., January 12, 1780, was brought to Burke when only five years old and remained there until he reached manhood, was ordained a minister at Cane creek church in 1806. About 1820 he established a mission school at what is now known as the Mission Place on the Hiwassee river, seven miles above Murphy. He removed to Georgia in 1784, and died at Newman, Ga., 28 December, 1846. He was a man greatly endowed by nature to be a leader, of great physical force, with a profile much like that of the Hon. Tom Corwin of Ohio. He had a fine voice and manner, was singularly and simply eloquent…. In fact, by nature, he was a great man, and "his works do follow him." The effect of his mission schools have been seen for many years past, and many citizens of Indian blood are left to tell the tale. The Stradley brothers of Asheville were two other pioneer Baptist preachers of note. They had been in the Battle of Waterloo as members of Wellington's army before emigrating to America. Their record is known of all men in Buncombe county, and a long line of worthy descendants attest the sturdy character of the parent stock.

REV. BRANCH HAMLINE MERRIMON. He was born in Dinwiddie county, Va., February 22, 1802, and moved with his parents as far as Rogersville, Tenn., on their way to the Great West, when one member of the family becoming too ill to travel further, they stopped there permanently. He joined the Methodist Conference at Knoxville in 1824 and became an itinerant Methodist preacher, being assigned to this section. In 1829 he married Mary E. Paxton, a daughter of William Paxton and his wife Sarah McDowell, a sister of Gen. Charles McDowell of Revolutionary fame. William Paxton was born in Roxbridge county, Va., and came to Burke county, where at Quaker Meadows he married his wife. William Paxton and wife then moved to the Cherry Fields in what is now Transylvania county, where they bought and improved a large tract of fertile land, whither Mr. Merrimon and his wife followed. William Paxton was a brother of Judge John Paxton of Morganton, a Superior court judge from 1818 to 1826. He was also a near kinsman of Judge John Hall, a member of the first Supreme court of this State. Mr. Merrimon died at Asheville in November, 1886, leaving seven sons and three daughters. Chief Justice A. S. Merrimon was one of his sons, and Ex-Judge J. H. Merrimon of Asheville is another. Rev. Mr. Merrimon was a staunch Union man during the Civil War. The late Rev. J. S. Burnett was another pioneer Methodist preacher of prominence.

UNITED THEY STOOD. "It is a striking fact in the character of this primitive people," says Col. A. T. Davidson with a profile inThe Lyceum for January 1891, "that they. were entirely devoted to each other, clannish in the extreme; and when affliction, sorrow, trouble, vexation, or offence came to one it came to all. It was like a bee-hive always some one on guard, and all affected by the attack from without. They were the constant attendants around the bed of the sick; suffered with the suffering, wept with those who wept, and attended all the funerals without reward, it never having been known that a coffin was charged for, or the digging of a grave for many long years. Is it a fact that these men were better than those of the present day, or does it only exist in my imagination? When I look back to them I think that they were the best men I ever knew; and the dear old mothers of these humble people are now strikingly engraved upon my memory. The men rolled each others logs in common; they gathered their harvests, built their cabins, and all work of a heavy character was done in common and without price. The log meeting-house was reared in the same way, and it is a fact that this was done promptly, without hesitation--regardless of creeds or sect-all coming together with a will. The Baptists, "rifle, axe and saddle-bag men," or the Methodist "circuit rider" supplied the people with the ministry of the word; and it is pleasant to look back and reflect upon the enjoyment and comfort these humble people had in the administration by these humble ministers in the long-ago. Then they came together and held what they called "union meetings," under arbors made with poles and brush, or, at the private residence of some good citizen-often at my father's. I remember distinctly that Nathaniel Gibson, of Crabtree creek, converted the top story of his mill house into one of these places of worship; and Jacob Shook, on Pigeon, the father of the family near Clyde, turned his threshing floor, in his barn, into a place of worship; and near this was established about 1827 or 1828, Shook's Camp Ground. The good old Dutchman contributed or donated to the church ten acres of land, which have ever been kept for a place of public worship.

REV. WM. G. BROWNLOW.^[6] In the year 1832 Rev. Wm. G. Brownlow, a Methodist minister, afterwards better known as Parson Brownlow and Governor of Tennessee, served as pastor of the Franklin circuit in Macon county. These were the days of intense religious prejudices and denominational controversies. Rev. Humphrey Posey, a kinsman of the late Ben. Posey, Esq., was at that time the leading minister of the Baptist church in this section.

"It was impossible for men of the type of Brownlow and Posey to long remain in the same community without becoming involved in controversy. Nor did they. From denominational discussions their controversy degenerated into matters personal, a personal quarrel. Brownlow, as is well known, was a master of invective and his pen was dipped in vitriol, On July 23,1832, he wrote Rev, Posey a 24-page letter which is still on file among the records of Macon court and which that gentleman regarded as libelous. He thereupon Indicted parson Brownlow, as appears from the court records. The first bill was found at fall term 1832. It is signed by J. Roberts, solicitor pro-tem., and seems to have been quashed; at any rate a new bill was sent and the case tried at spring term 1833. Wm. J. Alexander was the solicitor when the case was tried. The defendant pleaded not guilty but was found guilty by the jury, whether upon the ground that the "greater the truth the greater the libel" or not does not appear. He was sentenced to pay a fine and the costs. The amount of the fine was not given but the record discloses that it was paid by J. B. Siler, one of the leading citizens and original settlers, and a prominent member of the Methodist church. Execution issued for the costs and the return shows that on July 1,1833, the sheriff levied on dun mare, bridle, saddle and saddle bags. Sold for $65.50. Proceeds into office $53.83.'

"There is a generally accredited story to the effect that when the sheriff went to levy on the Parson's horse, Brownlow was just closing a preaching service at Mt. Zion church-that he saw the sheriff approaching and knew the purpose of his coming. and before the sheriff came up Browniow handed his Bible to one lady member of his congregation and his hymn book to another and that these books are still in the families of the descendants of these ladies. It is also said that when Brownlow started to conference that fall, J. B. Siler made him a present of another horse in lieu of the one that had been sold."

William Gunnaway Browniow was born in Virginia in 1805, and became a carpenter first and then a Methodist preacher. In 1828 he moved to Tennessee and in 1839 became a local preacher at Jonesboro and editor of The Whig, but moved to Knoxville, taking The Whig with him and continued its publication till the beginning of the Civil war. He preached many sermons defending slavery, and was defeated by Andrew Johnson for Congress in 1843. He wrote several books, the most famous of which was called Parson Brownlow's Book, in which he gave his unpleasant experiences with the Confederates and his views on secession and the Civil War. He was a member of the convention which revised the constitution of Tennessee in 1865, and was elected governor in 1865, and again in 1867. He was sent to the United States senate in 1869 where he remained till 1875. He died at Knoxville in April, 1877.^[7]

CANARIO DRAYTON SMITH.^[8] He was a son of Samuel and Mary Smith, and was born in Buncombe April 1, 1813. His grandfather, Joseph Smith, was born on the eastern shore of Maryland, April 1, 1730, and his grandmother, Rebecca Dath (Welch), was born near the same place on April 1, 1739. In 1765 they moved to North Carolina, and on the journey C. D. Smith's father was born at a public inn in Albemarle county, Va., August 20, 1765. They first settled at Hawfields in Guilford county, where they were living when the battle was fought in 1780. His maternal grandfather, Daniel Jarrett, was born in Lancaster county, Pa., December 18, 1747. He was of English blood. His grandmother Jarrett, whose maiden name was Catharine C. Moyers, was born in Lancaster county, Pa., February 9, 1753. She was a German woman. They were married October 25, 1772, moving to North Carolina shortly afterwards and settling in Cabarrus where his mother, Mary Jarrett, was born June 23, 1775. Soon after the close of hostilities between the Cherokees and whites they moved to Buncombe county, where in 1796 his father and mother were married. They moved to Macon in the winter of 1819-20. At the sale of the Cherokee lands at Waynesville in September, 1820, his father bought the land known as the Tessentee towns, now Smith's Bridge, where C. D. Smith was reared to manhood. He attended the subscription schools of the neighborhood, and in 1832 went to Caney river, then in Buncombe, now in Yancey, to clerk for Smith & McElroy, merchants, where he spent five years, buying ginseng principally, getting in 1837 over 86,000 pounds which yielded 25,000 pounds of choice clarified root, which was barreled and shipped to Lucas & Heylin, Philadelphia, and thence to China. In the meantime Yancey had been created a county and John W. McElroy had been elected first clerk of the Superior court, making C. D. Smith his deputy. At a camp meeting held at Caney River Camp Ground in 1836, by Charles K. Lewis, preacher in charge of the Black Mountain circuit, he was converted and joined the church. At the quarterly conference at Alexander chapel the following June he was licensed to preach by Thos. W. Catlett, presiding elder. He continued to preach till 1850 when he went on the supernumerary list on account of bad health. In 1853 he became agent for the American Colonization Society for Tennessee and sent to Liberia two families of emancipated negroes. In 1854 he became interested in mineralogy, and continued this study of mineralogy and geology till his death. He was assistant State Geologist under Prof. Emmons and a co-worker with Prof. Kerr. He is mentioned in Dr. R. N. Price's works on Methodism, and has an article in Kerr's Geology of North Carolina. He died in 1894.

NOTES:

1. "The Despot of Broomsedge Cove," by Mary N. Murfree.
2. Asheville's Centenary.
3. Reference is to 1898.
4. From "A Primitive History of the Mountain Region," by Col. W. L. Bryan.
5. Facts Furnished by Hon. A. H. Eller of Ashe county, 1912.
6. By Fred S. Johnston, Esq., of Franklin, N. C.
7. McGee. p.173.
8. From the "Autobiography of Dr. C. D. Smith," and statements of Henry G. Robertson, Esq.

THEN AND Now. Probably there was no more difference in the manners and customs of the early days than we should now see in a community of modern people situated as were our ancesters one hundred and fifty years ago. There was a spirit of co-operation then that made conditions much easier to bear than they might othenvise have been. Those who remember the Civil War times in the South will recall that it is possible to get on without many things ordinarily considered indispensible; and that when it is the "fashion" to do without, simplicity becomes quite attractive. Calico gowns and ribbonless costumes used to look well on pretty women and girls during the war, and hopinj on was far better than no hopinjon. We imagine that we are far removed from a state of nature, but when the occasion arises we readily adapt ourselves to primitive manners and customs.

THE RUSH FOR THE MOUNTAINS. Long before the treaty of 1785 white men had passed beyond the Blue Ridge to hunt and trap. Ashe was sparsely settled long before Buncombe; but as soon as the land between the Blue Ridge and the Pigeon river was open for settlement legally, white men began to settle there, too.

WHERE THEY CAME FROM. Most of these early settlers came from east of the Blue Ridge, though many came from the Watauga Settlements in what is now Tennessee. Wolf Hill, now Staunton, contributed its quota, most of them going into what are now Ashe, Alleghany and Watauga counties. The charm of hunting lured many, but most who sought the mountains doubtless came from the mountainous regions of Scotland. After the French and Indian War several families that had gone into the Piedmont region of South Carolina, came through the Saluda gap and settled in what was then Buncombe, though now called Henderson and Transylvania. The Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania late in the Eighteenth century is also credited with having sent many good citizens into the mountains of western North Carolina.

THE PIONEER SPIRIT PERSISTS. Roosevelt was the first historian that gave to the pioneers of western North Carolina and Tennessee their rightful place in reclaiming from savage Indians the boundless resources of the Great West. Sam Houston, Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone went from our sacred soil, and added Texas and Kentucky to the galaxy of our starry flag; while Joseph Lane of Oregon first saw the light of day through the chinks of a dirt-floor cabin that once stood in the very shadow of what is still called Lane's Pinnacle of the rugged Craggies-a mute, yet eloquent, monument to that spirit of liberty, enterprize and adventure that still fills our army and navy with recruits- for----the Sandwich and Philippine Islands of the Pacific. Yet, what visitor to that matchless canon beyond Hickory Nut pass, knows that in passing through Mine Hole gap six miles east of Asheville he was within a stone's throw of the spot where Lane's father in the dawn of the last century spent laborious days while mining for the precious ore that was to furnish horse shoes, plough shares and pruning-hooks for those who first tilled the savannahs of the Swannanoa and the French Broad? Did the pearls Henry Grady's eloquence, erstwhile, drop scintilant, and thrill the nation from the Kennebeck to the Williamette, because his lightest gem was "shot through with sunshine"? Then know, O ye fools and blind, ye who never cast was once longing, lingering look behind, that his grandfather was once sheriff of that Buncombe county whose people are classed by such self-styled "national journals" as Collier's Weekly, with the scorners of all law and order, because, forsooth, of the sporadic Allen episode in Virginia. Who discovered that wonderland-the matchless valley of the far-famed Yosemite? James M. Roan of Macon county, North Carolina, in March of Fifty-one.¹ He, with the Argonauts of the world, won his way to the Pacific coast, and left to others to dig from the dim records of the past some frail memorial of his heroic deeds. The spirit that drove him forth has never died, and today, the mountains and hills of Idaho, Montana, Washington and Colorado, are dotted with the homes and ranches of those whose feet first trod "where rolls the Oregon." And Onalaska's ice-ribbed hills are peopled with our kin, as will be every frontier region till time shall be no more. Our ancestors were the Crusaders of American civilization, and "as long as the fame of their matchless struggle shall linger in tradition and in song should their memories be cherished by the descendants" of the peerless "Roundheads of the South." Still, the incredulous may ask "Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust, or flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death"? No; but if we will but heed while yet we may the silent voices of our worthy dead, and learn the lesson of the days now gone, we, taking hope, with Tennyson may cry:

"Forward to the starry track,
Glimmering up the heights beyond me,
On, and always on!"

THE FIRST INDIAN - MASSACRES. Samuel Davidson was killed by Indians in 1781 or 1782 at the head of the Swannanoa river, near what is now Gudger's ford; and Aaron Burleson was killed on Cane creek in what is now Mitchell county about the same time, probably, though the date has been lost. He was an ancestor of Postmaster-General Burleson of President Wilson's Cabinet in 1914. Davidson had belonged to a small colony of whites which had settled around what is now known as Old Fort at the head of the Catawba river in what is now McDowell county. Among those settlers were the Alexanders, Davidsons, Smiths, Edmundsons, and Gudgers, from whom have come a long line of descendants now residing in Western North Carolina. Burleson probably belonged to the settlers around Morganton, and had ventured beyond the Blue Ridge to hunt deer. Davidson's purpose, however, had been permanent settlement, as he had built a cabin where his family was living when he was killed.²

ASHE COUNTY. Except in a few localities, there are few evidences of Indian occupation by Indians of the territory west of the Blue Ridge and North of the Catawba. At the Old Field on New River, near the mouth of Gap creek, in Ashe county, was probably once a large Indian town, arrowheads, spear points, pieces of pottery, etc., still being found there; but this section of the mountains had not been populated by the red men for thirteen years before the treaty of 1785, the Indians having leased those lands in 1772, and in 1775, conveyed them outright.³

BUFFALOES. Thwaite's "Daniel Boone" gives much information as to the buffaloes that once were in this section. "At first buffaloes were so plenty that a party of three or four men with dogs, could kill from ten to twenty in a day but soon the sluggish animals receded before the advance of white men, hiding themselves behind the mountain wall" (pp. 17, 18). "They exhibited no fear until the wind blew from the hunters toward them, and then they would dash wildly away in large droves and disappear" (p. 90). Buffalo trails led down the French Broad; and just north of the Toe and- near the Indian Grave gap the trail is still distinctly visible where it crossed the mountain. The valley of the French Broad was a well recognized hunting ground and probably it had contained many buffaloes; but as the Cherokees occupied most of the territory west of the Pigeon, it is more than likely that the bison family was not so numerous there; although in Graham county there are two large creeks which have been called Buffalo time out of mind. Buffalo used to herd at the head of the Yadkin river, and their trails crossed the mountains into Tennessee at several places. But this part of the mountains had been free of Indians for many years before 1750, when the whites began to settle there. Col. Byrd, in his "Writings" (p. 225), says that when near Sugsr-tree creek when running the Dividing Line that his party met a lone buffalo-- a bull and already as large as an ox, which they killed. He adds that "the Men were so delighted with the new dyet, that the Gridiron and Frying Pan had no more rest all night than a Poor Husband Subject to Curtain Lectures." Roosevelt⁴ mentions that "When Mansker first went to the Bluffs (now Nashville) in 1769, the buffaloes were more numerous than he had ever seen them before; the ground literally shook under the gallop of the mighty herds, they crowded in dense throngs round the licks, and the forest resounded with their grunting bellows."

ONE VIRTUE IN LEATHER BREECHES. Col. Byrd in his "Writings" (p.212) has these observations upon the curing of skins by means of "smoak," as he invariably spells it: "For Expedition's Sake they often stretch their Skins over Smoak in order to dry them, which makes them smell so disagreeably that a rat must have a good Stomach to gnaw them in that condition; nay, 'tis said, while that perfume continues in a Pair of Leather Breeches, the Person who wears them will be in no danger of that Villainous insect the French call the Morpion"-whatever that may be.

SOME INSECT PESTS OF PIONEER DAYS. This same versatile and spicy writer makes these sage remarks concerning certain wood insects that have since that time cost these United States millions of dollars: "The Tykes (ticks) are either Deertykes, or those that annoy Cattle. The first kind are long and take a very Strong Gripe, being most in remote woods above the Inhabitants. The other are round and more generally insinuate themselves into the Flesh, being in all places where Cattle are frequent. Both these Sorts are apt to be troublesome during the Warm Season, but have such an aversion to Penny Royal, that they will attack no Part that rubbed with the juice of that fragrant Vegetable. And a strong decoction of this is likewise fatal to the most Seedtikes, which bury themselves in your Legs, where they are so small you can hardly discern them without a Microscope, Surely the man is talking about "chiggers."

HORSEFLIES AND MUSQUETAS. He says (p.213) that Dittany "stuck in the Head-Stall of your Bridle" will keep horse flies at a "respectful Distance. Bear's Oyl is said to be use by Indians (p. 214) against every species of Vermin." He also remarks that the "Richer sort in Egypt" used to build towers in which they had their bed-chambers, in order to be out of the reach of musquetas, because their wings are "so weak and their bodies so light that if they mount never so little, the Wind blows them quite away from their Course, and they become an easy prey to Martins, East India Bats," etc. (p.214).

FIRE-HUNTING. This Gentleman of Old Virginia (p.223) describes an unsportsman4ike practice of the early settlers of setting the woods afire in a circumference of five miles and driving in the game of all kinds to the hunters stationed near the center to slaughter the terrified animals. The deer are said "to weep and groan like a Human Creature" as they draw near their doom. He says this is called Fire-Hunting, and that "it is much practiced by Indians and the frontier Inhabitants." This, however, is not what was later known as fire-hunting, which consisted in blinding the deer with the light from torches at night only, and shooting at their eyes when seen in the darkness.

PRIMOGENITURE REVERSED. So hateful and unjust to our ancestors seemed the English rule which gave the eldest son the real estate, that a custom sprang up of giving the youngest son the family homestead, which persists till this good hour. Each girl got a cow, a mare and sufficient "house-plunder" with which to set up house-keeping, but they rarely got any land, the husband being expected to provide that. This latter practice still exists, though girls now sometimes get land also.

GAME AND HUNTERS. According to Thwaite's "Daniel Boone" (p. 18), "Three or four men, with dogs, could kill from ten to twenty buffaloes in a day," while "an ordinary hunter could slaughter four or five deer in a day. In the autumn from sunrise to sunset he could kill enough bears to provide over a ton of bear meat for winter use; wild turkeys were easy prey; beavers, otters and muskrats abounded; while wolves, panthers and wildcats overran the country." "Throughout the summer and autumn deerskins were in their best condition. Other animals were occasionally killed to afford variety of food, but fur-bearers as a rule only furnish fine pelts in the winter season. Even in the days of abundant game the hunter was required to exercise much skill patience and endurance. It was no holiday task to follow this calling. Deer, especially, were hard to obtain. The habits of this excessively cautious animal were carefully studied; the hunter must know how to imitate its various calls, to take advantage of wind and weather, and to practice all the arts of strategy" (p. 74).

COMMERCIAL SIDE OF HUNTING. "Deerskins were, all things considered," continues Thwaite (p. 74), "the most remunerative of all. When roughly dressed and dried they were worth about a dollar each; as they were numerous and a horse could carry for a long distance about a hundred such skins, the trade was considered profitable in those primitive times, when dollars were hard to obtain. Pelts of beavers, found in good condition only in the winter, were worth about two dollars and a half each, and of otters from three to five dollars. Thus a horse-load of beaver furs, when obtainable, was worth about five times that of a load of deerskins; and if a few otters could be thrown in, the value was still greater. The skins of buffaloes, bears, and elks were too bulky to carry for long distances, and were not readily marketable. A few elk hides were needed, however, to cut into harness and straps, and bear and buffalo robes were useful for bedding."

HOW GAME AND PELTS WERE PRESERVED. Thwaite continues (p.75), "When an animal was killed the hunter skinned it on the spot, and packed on his back the hide and the best portion of the meat. At night the meat was smoked or prepared for 'jerking,' and the skins were scraped and cured. When collected at the camps, the bales of skins, protected from the weather by strips of bark, were placed upon high scaffolds, secure from bears and wolves. Our Yadkin hunters were in the habit, each day, of dividing themselves into pairs for company and mutual aid in times of danger, usually leaving one pair behind as camp-keepers." Tow, rammed into the barrel of a "dirty" rifle took the odor of burnt powder, and was hung in trees near the fresh meat. This odor kept off wolves, wild cats, etc.

THE PLOTT DOGS. The motive which prompted the settlement of most of these mountain counties was the desire of the pioneers to hunt game. To that end dogs were necessary the long bodied, long legged, deep mouthed hound being used for deer, and a sort of mongrel, composed of cur, bull and terrier, was bred for bear. The Plott dog, called after the famous bear hunter, Enos Plott, of the Balsam mountains of Haywood county, was said to be the finest bear dogs in the State. A few of them still exist and command large prices. Although most of the settlers were Scotch, collies and shepherd dogs did not make their appearance in these mountains till long after the Civil War. They are quite common now.

WHEN LAND WAS CHEAP. Land was plentiful in those primitive times and as fast as a piece of "new ground" was worn out, another "patch" was cleared and cultivated until it, in its turn, was given over to weeds and pasturage. In all old American pioneer communities it was necessary to burn the logs and trunks of the felled trees in order to get rid of them, and the heavens were often murky with the smoke of burning log-heaps. The most valuable woods were often used for fence rails or thrown upon the burning pile to be consumed with the rest. Fences built of walnut and poplar rails were not uncommon. "New ground" is being made now by scientific fertilization.

CRUDE CULTIVATION. The ploughing was not very deep and the cultivation of the crops was far from being scientific. Yet the return from the land was generally ample, the seasons usually proving propitious. There was one year, however, that of 1863, when there was frost in every month. There was still another year in which there could not have been very much rain, as there is a -record of a large branch near the Sulphur Springs in Buncombe county having dried up completely. This was in August of the year 1830. (Robert Henry's Diary.)

UNERRING MARKSMEN. The flintlock, long-barreled Kentucky rifle was in use in these mountains until the commencement of the Civil War. Game was abundant. Indeed, if the modern repeating arms had been in use in those days, the game upon which many depended, not only for food but for clothing as well, would have disappeared long before it did. The fact that the hunter could get but one shot from his gun resulted in making every Nimrod a sure marksman, as he realized that if he missed the first shot the game would be out of sight and hearing long before his trusty rifle, charge it with powder and with his slim hickory ramrod ram down the leaden bullet encased in buckskin and "prime" his flintlock pan with powder.

USEFUL PELTRIES. The hams of the red deer were cured and saved for market or winter use, while the skins of both deer and bears were "dressed" with the hair left on them and made into garments or used as rugs or mats for the children to play upon before the wide fireplace, for bed coverings, or cut into plough lines and bridles, or made into moccasins. Out of the horns and hoofs of cows - they made spoons and buttons, while from hollow poplar logs they constructed bee-hives, cradles for their children, barrels for their grain, ash hoppers, gums for their bees and what not.

COTTON. Small patches of cotton were planted and cultivated in sandy and sheltered spots near the dwellings, which generally reached maturity, was gathered and "hand-picked," carded and made into batting for quilts and cloaks, or heavy skirts for the women and girls.

JACKS OF ALL TRADES. The men were necessarily "handy" men at almost every trade known at that day. They made shoes, bullets and powder, built houses, constructed tables, chairs, cupboards, harness, saddles, bridles, buckets, barrels, and plough stocks. They made their own axe and hoe-handles, fashioned their own horseshoes and nails upon the anvil, burnt wood charcoal, made wagon tires, bolts, nuts and everything that was needed about the farm. Some could even make rifles, including the locks, and Mr. John C. Smathers now (1912) 86 years old, is still a good rock and brick mason, carpenter, shoemaker, tinner, painter, blacksmith, plumber, harness and saddle maker, candle maker, farmer, hunter, store-keeper, bee raiser, glazier, butcher, fruit grower, hotel-keeper, merchant, physician, poulterer, lawyer, rail-splitter, politician, cook, school master, gardener, Bible scholar and stable man. He lives at Turnpike, halfway between Asheville and Waynesville, and brought the huge trees now growing in front of his hotel on his shoulders when they were saplings and planted them where they now stand, nearly seventy years ago. He can still run a foot race and "throw" most men in a wrestle "catch as catch can." He is the finest example of the old time pioneer now alive.

INDUSTRIOUS WOMEN. But it was the women who were the true heroines of this section. The hardships and constant toil to which they were generally subjected were blighting and exacting in the extreme. If their lord and master could find time to hunt and fish, go to the Big Musters, spend Saturdays loafing or drinking in the settlement - or about the country "stores," as the shops were and still are called, their wives could scarcely, if ever, find a moment they could call their own. Long before the palid dawn came sifting in through chink and window they were up and about. As there were no matches in those days, the housewife "unkivered" - the coals which had been smothered in ashes the night before to be kept "alive" till morning, and with "kindling" in one hand and a live coal held on the tines of a steel fork or between iron tongs in the other, she blew and blew and blew till the splinters caught fire. Then the fire was started and the water brought from the spring, poured into the "kittle," and while it was heating the chickens were fed, the cows milked, the children dressed, the bread made, the bacon fried and then coffee was made and breakfast was ready. That over and the dishes washed and put away, the spinning wheel, the loom or the reel were the next to have attention, meanwhile keeping a sharp look out for the children, hawks, keeping the chickens out of the garden, sweeping the floor, making the beds, churning, sewing, darning, washing, ironing, taking up the ashes, and making lye, watching for the bees to swarm, keeping the cat out of the milk pans, dosing the sick children, tying up the hurt fingers and toes, kissing the sore places well again, making soap, robbing the bee hives, stringing beans, for winter use, working the garden, planting and tending a few hardy flowers in the front yard, such as princess feather, pansies, sweet-Williams, dahlias, morning glories; getting dinner, darning patching, mending, milking again, reading the Bible, prayers, and so on from morning till night, and then all over again the next day. It could never have been said of them that they had "but fed on roses and lain in the lilies of life."

FASHION ON A BACK SEAT. There was little thought of "finery," no chance to display the latest fashions, few drives or rides for pleasure, and only occasionally a dance, a quilting party or a camp meeting. No wonder the sons and daughters of such mothers are the best citizens of the "Old North State"!

PEWTER PLATTERS AND POTTERY. The early settlers "burned their own pottery and delftware"⁵ but most of their dishes and spoons were of pewter, though horn spoons were also in evidence. "They made felt hats, straw hats and every other article of domestic consumption." Most young people never saw a bolster, and pewter plates are tied up with blue ribbons these days and hung on parlor walls as curiosities.

FRONTIER KITCHENS AND UTENSILS.⁶ "Dishes and other utensils were few-some pewter plates, forks and spoons; wooden bowls and trenchers, with gourds and hard-shelled squashes for drinking mugs. For knife, Boone doubtless used his belt weapon, and scorned the crock plates now slowly creeping into the valley, as calculated to dull its edge." Grinding corn into meal, or cracking it into hominy, were, as usual with primitive peoples, tasks involving the most machinery. Rude mortars and pestles, some of the latter - ingeniously worked by springy "sweeps," were commonly seen;⁷ a device something like a nutmeg grater was often used when the corn was soft;⁸ two circular millstones, worked by hand, were effective, and there were some operated by water power.

MEDICINE AND SUPERSTITION. "Medicine was at a crude stage, many of the so-called cures being as old as Egypt, while others were borrowed from the Indians. The borderers firmly believed in the existence of witches; bad dreams, eclipses of the sun, the howling of dogs, the croaking of ravens, were sure to bring disasters in their train."⁹ Teas made of burdock, sassafras, catnip, and other herbs are still in use. Lye poultices were considered Sovereign remedies for wounds and cuts. Hair bullets shot from guns against barn doors were sure to drive away witches. Tangled places in a horse's mane or tail were called "witches' stirrups," in which the witches were thought to have placed their feet when riding the animals over the hills.¹⁰ Mullein was cultivated for medicine for and cows.

NAILLESS HOUSES. Nails were scarce in those days and saw mills- few and far between, rendering it necessary for them to use wooden pins to hold their ceiling and shelving in place and to rive out their shingles or "boards" for their roof covering and puncheons for their door and window shutters and their flooring. Thin boards or shingles were held in position upon the roof rafters by long split logs tied upon them with hickory withes, or held in place by laying heavy stones upon them. There is still standing in the Smoky mountains a comfortable cabin of one large room, floored and ceiled on the inside, and rain and wind proof, in the construction of which not a single nail was used. This cabin was built in 1859 and is on the Mill Creek Fork of Noland Creek in' Swain county.

FIRST HOUSES. A single room was as much as could be built at first, then followed a shed, a spring house, a stable and crib. Then would come the "double" log house. In some of these houses there might be as many as six rooms, front and including two garret or loft rooms above the two main rooms of the house, and two shed rooms or lean-tos. After saw mills became more general, frame houses were erected, often of from eight to twelve rooms, with the kitchens detached from the main dwelling. But the log cabin in which Abraham Lincoln was born, and now enshrined in a marble palace at Hogdensville, Ky., is a fair sample of the average home of pioneer days.

"CHINKED AND DOBBED." The walls of these log houses were "chinked and daubed." That is, the spaces between the logs were filled with blocks or scraps of wood and the interstices left were filled with plain, undisguised mud-lime being too expensive to be used for that purpose.

THE GREAT "WAR GOVERNOR'S" HOME. The house in which Hon. Zebulon Baird Vance, the great War Governor and statesman of the Old North State lived for many years is on Reems Creek in Buncombe county. It consisted of a single large room below and a garret or loft above, reached by rude stairs, almost a ladder, running up in one corner near the chimney. The-re was also a shed room attached to the rear of this house. Some of us are quite "swagger" nowadays, but we are all proud of our log-cabin ancestry.

UNGLAZED WINDOWS. Windows, as a rule, were scarce. The difficulty and expense of glazing them were so great as to preclude the use of many. Most of those which found place in the walls of the house were made by removing about 18 inches from one of the wide logs running the length of the house and usually opposite the huge fire. It rarely contained any sash or glass and was closed by a sliding shutter running in grooves inside the wall. It was rare that upstairs or loft rooms contained any windows at all.

PRIMITIVE PORTIERS. Privacy was obtained by hanging sheets or counterpanes from the overhead sleepers or "joists" as the joists were almost universally called. Behind these screens the women and girls dressed when "men folks" were present, though their ablutions were usually performed at the "spout" or spring, or in the room after the male element had gone to their work. Sometimes a board partition divided the large down-stairs room into two, but as this made a very dark and ill-ventilated bedroom far removed from the light of the front and back doors and cut off from the heat of the fire place, this division was not popular or general.

THE LIVING ROOM. Usually, in more primitive days, the beds, mostly of feathers, were ranged round the room, leaving a large open space in the middle. The dining table stood there or against a wall near the fireplace. The hearth was wide and projected into the room two feet or more. A crane swung from the back of the chimney on which- pots were hung from "pot hooks," familiar to beginners in writing lessons and the ovens were placed on live coals while their lids, or as they were generally called "leds," were covered with other live coals and left on the broad hearth. In the kitchen of the old Mitchell Alexander hotel or "Cattle stand," eleven miles below Asheville on the French Broad, there is still standing and in daily use a deep old fireplace ten feet wide, the hearth of which projects into the room eight or nine feet. The water bucket with a curved handled gourd stood on a shelf just inside the door. Usually there was no wash pan, the branch or spout near by being deemed sufficient for all purposes. A comb in a box under a small and imperfect looking-glass usually hung on the wall over the water bucket. Around the walls behind the beds on pegs were hung the skirts of the girls and women; and, if the men of the house owned any extra coats or trousers, they hung there, too. On the tops of boxes or trunks, usually called "chists," were folded and piled in neat order the extra quilts, sheets and counterpanes. Some of these counterpanes or "coverlids" were marvels of skill and beauty in color and design and all were woven in the loom which stood at one end of the porch or shed in front of the house. There was also a wooden cupboard nailed against the wall which contained racks for the plates and dishes. Beneath this was a place for the pots and pans, after the cooking was over.

WHERE COLONIAL ART SURVIVES.¹¹ Mrs. Eliza Calvert Hall has discovered recently that "in the remote mountains of the South, where civilization has apparently stood still ever since the colonial pioneers built their homes there," they still make coverlets that are rich "in texture and coloring" and are "real works of art." Of course we are also told that this art was first brought to America through New England; but she fails to state that it was also brought to Philadelphia, Charleston and every other American port through which English, Scotch or Irish women were admitted to America. That it has perished everywhere else, and still survives among us, might indicate that civilization instead of having stood still in the mountains has at least held its own there, while it has receded in New England. That, however, is immaterial. Certain it is that Mrs. Finley Mast of Valle Crucis is now at work on an order from President Wilson, and expects soon to see specimens of her handiwork in the White House of nation.

SLANDERS BY THE "UNCO GUID" Because in the spring of 1912 the Allen family of the mountains of Virginia "shot up" the court at Hillville, the entire "contemporary mountaineer" is condemned as resenting "the law's intrusion," part1y, perhaps, because he himself enjoys few of the benefits of civilized society.¹² We regret the ignorance of this self-styled "national weekly" and others who defame us, and in view of the exploits of the "gunmen" of Broadway a few months later¹³ recall with complacency the louse that gave occasion for that immortal prayer "Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us." Little of good about the mountain whites is ever published North of Mason and Dixon's line. TheWatauga Democrat of July 10. -1913, records the fact that a few days before a journalist of New Canaan, Conn., and a photographer and illustrator of New York, had visited Boone, and that they had distinctly stated that their sole object in visiting these mountains was to look up "the destitution, ignorance and vice among the mountain whites." They were surprised to learn that the Appalachian Training School was located in Boone, and wanted no facts as to the good it was accomplishing. Their names were stated in theDemocrat. In "The Child That Toileth Not," by Thomas R. Dawley, Jr., (1912) has presented many photographs of most destitute and degenerate of the mountain population, ignoring the splendid specimens of health and prosperity he met every day. About 1905 a "lady from New York had two photographs taken of the same children at Blowing Rock. In the first they were dressed in rags and outlandish clothing; in the second, they wore most tasteful and becoming garb. She labeled the first "Before I Began," and the second, "After Three Weeks of Uplift Work." She had offered a prize to the child who should appear for the first picture in the worst clothing, and another prize for the child who should dress most becomingly for the second. The work of Miss Prudden and of Miss Florence Stephenson is appreciated by us; but our slanderers only make our blood boil. For, in the Outlook for April 26, 1913, appeared "The Case of Lura Sylva, "showing the filth, destitution, depravity and degrading surroundings of a twelve-year-old girl "which" we are told is "not an unusual" story of similar conditions "in a prosperous farming community of the Hudson river valley." Nothing worse has ever been written of any of the "mountain whites" than is there recorded of this girl. Let your charity begin at your own home. Charles Dudley Warner made a horseback trip from Abingdon, Va., to Asheville in August, 1884. He saw absolutely nothing on that trip which he could commend. ("On horseback," 1889) except two pianos he found in the home of the Worths at Creston. He was, however, lavish with his fault finding.

EVERY HOME A FACTORY. Manufacture means hand-made, Therefore, since few homes manufacture anything today, we have made no progress in manufactures, but have receded from the time when every home was a factory. We have instead simply adopted machinery and built factories.

SOME LOST ARTS. Those who never lived in a mountainous country are often surprised at the sight of what we call sleds, slides or sledges, made of the bodies of small trees with crooked ends, turning upward like those of sleigh runners though much more slumsy and heavy. As these runners wore down they were "shod" by tacking split saplings under them. Sleds can be hauled on steep hill-sides where wheeled vehicles would turn over or get beyond control going down hill. Our "Union" carpenters of this day could not build a house with the materials and tools of their pioneer ancestors, nearly all of whom were carpenters. Modern carpenters would not know what "cracking" a log was, for instance; and yet, the pioneer artizans of old had to make their boards by that method. It consisted in driving the blade of an ax or hatchet into the small end of a log by means of a maul, and inserting wooden wedges, called "gluts." On either side of this first central "crack" another crack was made, and gluts placed therein. There were usually two gluts placed in each crack and each was tapped in turn, thus splitting the log uniformly. These two riven pieces were next placed in "snatch-block," which were two parallel logs into which notches had been cut deep enough to hold the ends of these pieces, which were held in position with "keys" or wedges. The upper side of this riven piece was then "scored" with a broad ax and then "dressed" with the same tool, the under edges being beveled. The length of these pieces, now become puncheons, was usually half the length of the floor to be covered, the two ends resting on the sleeper running across the middle of the room. The beveled edges were placed as near together as possible, after which a - saw was run between them, thus reducing the uneven edges so that they came snugly together, and were air tight when pinned into place with wooden pegs driven through augur-holes into the sills and sleepers. Hewed logs were first "scalped," that is the bark was removed with an ax, after which the trunk was "lined" with- a woolen cord dipped in moist charcoal, powdered, which had been made from locust bark. This corresponded to what is now called a chalk-line. Then four of these lines were made down the length of the log, each pair being as far apart as the hewed log was to be thick-usually four to six inches-one pair being above and the other pair below; after which the log was "blocked" with an ax, by cutting deep notches on each side about four feet apart. These sections were then split from the sides of the log, thus reducing its thickness to nearly that desired. Then these sides were "scored" and and then dressed till they were smooth. The block on which the "Liberty Bell" of Philadelphia rests still shows this "scoring" or hacks made by the broad-ax. Houses were framed on the ground by cutting the ends of the logs into notches called "saddles" which, when placed in position, fitted like joiner work--each log having been numbered while still on the ground. When the logs were being placed in position they were lifted into place on the higher courses by means of what were called "bull's eyes." These were made of hickory saplings whose branches had been plaited into rings and then slipped over the logs, their stems serving as handles for pulling, etc.

ROOFING LOG HOUSES. Modern carpenters would be puzzled to roof a house without nails or shingles or scantling; but their forbears accomplished this seemingly impossible task with neatness and dispatch. After the main frame or "pen" of the house was up, two parallel poles were laid along and above the top logs, and "gable" logs were placed under these, the gable logs being shorter than the end logs of the house. This was continued till the gable end was reached, when the "ridge pole" was placed in position, being held there with pegs or pins. The frame of the roof was now ready, and "boards," or rough shingles were riven from the "blocks" or sections of chestnut, poplar or white oak, though the latter would "cup" or twist into a curved shape if "laid" in the "light" of the moon. The lower ends of the lowest row of "boards" rested against the flat side of a split log, called the "butting pole," because the boards butted upon it. Upon the lower row of boards, which were doubled in order to cover the cracks in the under tier, a single row of boards was then laid, the first row being held in place by a split log laid on them and made fast by pegs driven through their ends of and into the ends of the poles under the boards. These were also supported by "knees." The various pieces of roofing were called evebearers, rib-poles, weight poles, etc., etc.

TANNING HIDES AND MAKING SHOES. According to Col. W. L. Bryan, every farmer had his tan-trough, which was an excavation dug out of a poplar or chestnut log of large size, while some had two troughs in one log, separate by leaving a division of the log in place. Into these troughs ashes or lime was placed, diluted with water. Skins should always be salted and folded together a few days till all the blood has been drawn out; but salt was high and scarce, and this process was often omitted. When "green" hides were to be tanned at once, they were first "fleshed," by being placed on the "fleshing block" and scraped with a fleshing knife-one having a rounded edge. This block was a log with the upper surface rounded, the lower end resting on the ground and the upper end, supported on pegs reaching to a man's waist. Fleshing consisted in scraping as much of the fat and blood out of the hide as possible. When hides were to be dried before being tanned, were hung lengthwise on poles, with the flesh side upper-most, and left under shelter till dry and hard. Hair was removed from green and dry hides alike by soaking them in the tan-trough in a solution of lime or wood ashes till the hair would "slip" that is, come off easily. They were then soaked till all the lime or ashes had been removed, after which they were placed again on the fleshing bench and "broken" or made pliable, with a breaking-knife. They then went into the tan-trough, after having been split lengthwise into two parts, each of which was called a "side." The bottom of the tan-trough was lined with a layer of bark, after which a fold of a "side" was placed on the bark and another layer of bark placed above the upper fold of the side; then the side was folded back again and another layer of bark placed on it, and so on till the tan-trough had been filled. Then water was turned or poured in, and the mass allowed to remain two months, after which time the bark and water were renewed in the same manner as before. This in turn remained another two months, when the bark and water were again renewed. Two months longer completed the process, making six months in all. This was called "the cold-ooze" process, and while it required a much longer time it made better leather than the present hot-ooze process, which cooks and injures the leather. The hide of every animal bearing fur is thicker along the back-bone than elsewhere, and after the tanning process this was cut off for sole leather, while the rest was blacked for "uppers," etc. The under side of the thin or "uppers" leather was then "curried" with a knife, thus making it as smooth as the upper side. Sole leather, however, was not curried ordinarily. "Buffing" was the removal of the "grain" or upper surface of the hide after it had been tanned, thus making both sides alike. Smaller skins were tanned in the same way, and those of dogs, coons, ground hogs, etc., were used for "whang" leather--that is, they were cut into strings for sewing other leather with. Horse collars, harness and moccasins thus joined will outlast those sewed- with thread. The more valuable hides of smaller- animals were removed from the carcass without being split open, and were then called "cased" hides. This was done by splitting open the hind legs to the body and then pulling the skins from the carcass, fore legs and head, after which they were "stretched" by inserting a board or sticks inside, now the fur-side, and hanging them up "in the dry" till dried. Other less valuable skins were stretched by means of sticks being stuck into the four "corners" of the hide, tacked to the walls of the houses under the eaves and allowed to dry. The women made moccasins for the children by doubling the tanned deer skin along the back, laying a child's stocking along it so that the sole of the stocking was parallel with the fold in the skin, and then marking around the outline of the stocking, after which the skin, still doubled, was cut out around the outline, sewed together with "whang" leather, placed on a last till it was "shaped," after which it was ready for wear. The new moon in June was the best time for taking the bark from trees. White and chestnut oak bark was prereferred, the outer or rough part of the bark having been first removed with a drawing knife, which process was called "scurfing" or "scruffing." The bark was then piled, inside up, inider shelter, and allowed to dry. Among the personal effects of Abraham Lincoln's grandfather were "a drawing-knife, a currying knife, and a currier's knife and barking iron."¹⁴ Lime was scarce in most localities in this section, and ashes were used instead. Every deer's head was said to have enough brains to "dress" its hide.¹⁵ The brains were rubbed into the hair of the hide, after which the hide was folded together till the hair would "slip," when the hide was placed in the tan-trough and tanned, the brains thus taking the place of lime or ashes. After vats came in bark mills came also.

ELIZABETHAN ENGLISH? Writers who think they know, have said that our people have been sequestered in these mountains so long that they speak the language of Shakespeare and of Chaucer. It is certain that we sometimes say "hit" for it and "taken" for took; that we also say "plague" for tease, and when we are willing, we say we are "consentable." If we are asked if we "care for a piece of pie," we say "yes," if we wish to be helped to some; and if we are invited to accompany anyone and wish to do so, we almost invariably say "I wouldn't care to go along," meaning we do not object. We also say "haint" for "am not" "are not" and "have not," and we invite you to "light" if you are riding or driving. We "pack" our loads in "pokes," and "reckon we can't " if invited "to go a piece" with a passerby, when both he and we know perfectly well that we can if we will. Chaucer and Shakespeare may have used these expressions we do not know. We are absolutely certain, though, that "molases" is as plural as measles; and ask to be helped to "them" just as confident that we shall be understood as people of greater culture hope their children will soon recover from or altogether escape "them," meaning only one thing, the measles. Though we generally say we "haven't saw," it is the rarest thing in the world when we do things "we hadn't ought to," and we never express surprise or interest by exclaiming, "Well, I want to know." On the other hand we have Webster for our authority that "hit" is the Saxon for it; and we know ourselves that "taken" is more regular that "took"; Webster also gives us the primary meaning of "plague": anything troublesome or vexatious; but in th1 sense applied to the vexations we suffer from men, and not to the unavoidable evils inflicted on us by divine providence; while "tease" means to comb or card, as wool; to scratch, as cloth in dressing, for the purpose of raising a nap; and to vex with importunity or impertinence." Surely one may be in a mood or condition of consent, and when so, why is not he "consentable"? Webster also says that "care" means "to be inclined or disposed; to have regard to; with "for" before a noun, and "to" before a verb;" while "alight" is "to get down or descend, as from horseback or from a carriage," the very sense in which we invariably use it, our only fault consisting in keeping the "a" silent. Webster does not authorize the use of "pack" as a verb transitive, in the sense of bearing a burden, but he gives "burden or load" as the meaning of the noun "pack"; while a "poke" is "a pocket; a small bag; as, a pig in a poke." A "piece" is a fragment or "part of anything, though not separated, or separated only in idea," in which sense going "a piece" (of the way, understood) is quite intelligible to some of us who do not know our letters. Being, in our own estimation, at least, "as well as common" in this respect as in many others," we still manage to upstand and to be understood"; and claim that when we "want in," we generally manage to "get" in, whether we say "get" or not. Still in these respects, we may "mend," not improve; and who shall say that our "mend" is not a simpler, sweeter and more significant word than "improve"? But we do mispronounce many words, among which is "gardeen" for guardian, "colume" for column, and "pint" for point. The late Sam Lovin of Graham was told that it was improper to say Rocky "Pint," as its true name is "Point." When next he went to Asheville he asked for a "point" of whiskey. We even take our mispronunciation to proper names, and call Metcalf "Madcap"; Pennell "Pinion"; Pilkington "Pilkey"; Cutbirth "Cutbaird"; Mast "Moss"; Presnell "Pressly"; Moretz "Morris"; and Morphew - "Murphey." "Mashed, mummicked and hawged up," means worlds to most of us. Finally, most of us are of the opinion of the late Andrew Jackson who thought that one who could spell a word in only way was a "mighty po' excuse for a full grown man."

HORSE TRADING.¹⁶ "It is an interesting sight to watch the proceedings of a shooting-match. If it is to be in the afternoon, the long open space beside the creek, and within the circle of chestnut trees, where the shooting is to be done, is empty; but, just as the shadow of the sun is shortest, they begin to assemble. Some of them come on foot; others in wagons, or, as is most generally the ease, on horseback galloping along through the woods. The long-haired denizen of the hidden mountain cove drops in, with his dog at his heels. The young blacksmith, in his sooty shirt-sleeves, walks over from his way-side forge. The urchins who, with their fishrods, haunt the banks of the brook, are gathered in as great force as their "daddies" and elder brothers.

"A unique character, who frequently mingles with the crowd, is the 'nat'ral-born hoss-swopper. He has a keen eye to see at a glance the defects and perfections of horse or mule (in his own opinion), and always carries the air of a man who feels a sort of superiority over his fellow men. At a prancing gait, he rides the result of his last sharp bargain, into the group, and keeps his saddle, with the neck of his horse well arched, by means of the curb-bit, until another mountaineer, with like trading propensities, strides up to him, and claps his hand on the horse's mane.

"An examination on the part of both swappers always results in a trade, boot being frequently given. A chance to make a change in horseflesh is never let slip by a natural-born trader. The life of his business consists in quick and frequent bargains; and at the end of a busy month he is either mounted on a good saddle horse, or is reduced to an old rack, blind and lame. The result will be due to the shrewdness or dullness of the men he dealt with, or the unexpected sickness on his hands of what was considered a sound animal."

FROLICS.¹⁷ The banjo and the fiddle have been as constant companions of the pioneers of the mountains of North Carolina as the Bible and the Hymn Book. The country "frolics" or "hoe-downs", were necessarily less recherched than the dances, hops and germans of the present day, for, as a rule, the dancing had to take place on the uneven puncheon floors and in a very restricted space, often procured by the removal of the furniture of the kitchen or bed room, for usually a dwelling rarely had more than these two apartments, in the earlier days.

POOR ILLUMINATION. Owing to the fact that kerosene was unknown in the pioneer days, there was but poor illumination for those little mountain homes, generally consisting of but one large room and a shed or lean-to in the rear. Tin candle molds and heavy wicks were used with the tallow of beeves and deer for making of candles, which gave but a poor light. Bear's oil in a saucer, with a spun cotton thread wick also served to light the houses. As there were only a few books, the early settlers did not feel the want of good lights as much as we would at this time. So, when the days grew short and the nights long, our forbears usually retired to their beds soon after dark, which meant almost fourteen hours in bed if they waited for daylight. But, usually, they did not wait for it, arising long before the sun came above the horizon, building huge fires and beginning the day by the light of the blazing logs.

This is one reason so many of those people saw the "falling of the stars" on the early morning of the thirteenth of November, 1833. Twenty years ago there were still living scores of people who witnessed this extraordinary and fearful sight.

DANGER FROM WILD ANIMALS. Panthers, wild cats, wolves and bear were the most troublesome depredators and they were the means of much serious damage to the mountain ranges, settlers, most of which was driven to the mountain ranges where luxuriant grasses abounded from May till October. Colts, calves and pigs were frequently attacked and destroyed by these "varmints," as the settlers called them. But while there was little or no danger to human beings from these animals, the black bear being a notorious coward, unless hemmed up, the "women folk" were "pestered" by the beautiful and, on occasion, malodorous pole-cat or skunk, the thieving o'possum, the mink, weasel, etc., which robbed the chicken roosts after dark. Moles and chipmunks, also destroyed their "garden truck" in early summer, while hawks and eagles played havoc with their fowls, and crows pulled up the young corn and small grain which had not been sown deep enough. THE ORIGINAL "HOUN DAWG." Hounds were the principal breed of dogs employed by the pioneer. Crossed with the more savage species, the hound also made a good bear dog, and the Plott bear dogs were famous in the pursuit of Bruin. Some settlers kept a pack of ten or fifteen hounds for deer dogs.

THE DARK SIDE OF THE CLOUD. But from Thwaite's "Daniel Boone" we gather much that robs the apparent charm of pioneer life of something of its attractiveness. "Among the outlying settlers, much of the family food came from the woods, and often months would pass without bread being seen inside the cabin walls" (p.58). "For head covering, the favorite was a soft cap of coon-skin, with the bushy tail dangling behind; but Boone himself despised this gear and always wore a hat. The women wore huge sunbonnets and loose gowns of homemade cloth; they generally went barefoot in summer, but wore moccasins in winter" (p.29). These moccasins were "soft and pliant, but cold in winter even when stuffed with deer's hair and leaves, and so spongy as to be no protection against wet feet, which made every hunter an early victim to rheumatism." That many prisoner were massacred is also an evidence of the harshness these times.

TOUCHSTONE AND TERPSICHORE. There were shooting matches at which a young steer was divided and shot for foot races, wrestling bouts, camp-meetings, log-rollings, house-raisings and the "Big Musters" where cider and ginger cakes were sold, which drew the people together and promoted social intercourse, as well as the usual religious gatherings at the "church houses." Singing classes and Sunday Schools, now so common, were not at first known in these mountains, and, indeed, even Sunday Schools are of comparatively recent origin. When a young couple were married they were usually serenaded with cow horns, tin pans and other unearthly noises. This is still the custom in many parts of the mountains. Agricultural fairs were unknown in the olden days. Horse-racing over ordinary roads, horse-swapping and good natured contests of strength among the men were also in vogue generally.

BEFORE THE DAYS OF "BRIDGE." Among the women and girls there were spinning, carding, reeling and knitting matches, and sometimes a weaving match.¹⁸ Quilting parties were very common, and, indeed, the quilting frame can still be observed in many a mountain house, suspended from the ceiling above, even in the modern parlor or company room. All sorts of superstitions attended a quilting--the first stitch given being usually emblematic of the marriage of the one making it and the last of the death of the person so unfortunate as to have that distinction. Of course the coverlid or top of the quilt, usually a patchwork of bright scraps of cloth carefully hoarded and gathered from all quarters, had been prepared in advance of the gathering of the quilting party, and the quilting consisted in spreading it above the wool or cotton rolls spread uniformly on a white cloth and stitching the upper and lower cloths together. Hence the great convenience of the quilting frame which held the quilt and was lowered to a point about waist high.

THE "CASUS BELLI." At school it was customary for the larger boys to bar the teacher out when a holiday was ardently desired. This was accomplished by placing themselves inside the school room and barring the placing the rude and backless benches against it and refusing to remove them. As there was but one door and no teacher was helpless, and, after threatening and bullying for a time, usually left the boys in possession of the school house till the following day, when no one was punished. For anyone, be he friend or foe, but especially a stranger to holler "school butter" near a school was to invite every urchin to rush from the room; and the offender had either to treat the scholars or be soundly thrashed and pelted. In Monroe county, Tennessee, near Madisonville, in the year of grace 1893, this scribe was dared and double-dared to holler those talismanic words as he passed a county school, but ignommiously declined.

"ANT'NY OVER." A game almost universal with the children of that day was called "Ant'ny Over." Sides were chosen, one side going to one side of the house and the other to the other. A ball was tossed over the roof by one side, the problem being whether it would reach the comb of the roof and fall on the other side. If it did so and was caught by one on that side, that side ran around the house and tried to hit somebody on the other side with the ball; if they succeeded the one hit had to join the other side, and the side catching the ball had to throw it over the house and so on until one side lost all children. The rule was for the side tossing the ball to cry "Ant'ny!" as they were ready to throw the ball and when the other side hollered "Over!" the ball was thrown.

MOUNTAIN LAGER BEER. Methiglen, a mildly intoxicating drink, made by pouring water upon honey-comb, and allowing it to ferment, was a drink quite common in the days of log rollings, house raisings and big musters. It was a sweet and pleasant beverage and about as intoxicating as beer or wine.

LAWFUL MOONSHINE. "Ardent spirits were then in almost universal use and nearly every prosperous man had his whiskey or brandy still. Even ministers of the gospel are said in some instances to have made and sold liquor. A barroom was a place shunned by none. The court records show license to retail issued to men who stood high as exemplary members of churches. On November 2, 1800, Bishop Asbury chronicles that "Francis Alexander Ramsey pursued us to the ferry, franked us over and took us to his excellent mansion, a stone house; it may not be amiss to mention that our host has built his house, and taken in his harvest without the aid of of whiskey."

MOONSHINING. Before railroads were constructed in these mountains there was no market for the surplus corn, rye and fruit; and it was considered right to convert these products into whiskey and brandy, for which there was always a market. When, therefore, soon after the Civil War, the United States government attempted to enforce its internal revenue laws, much resistance was manifested by many good citizens. Gradually, however, illicit distilling has been relegated to a few irresponsible and ignorant men; for the penalty inflicted for allowing one's land to be used as the location for a still, grind corn or malt for illicit stillers, or to aid them in any way, is great enough to deter all men of property from violating the law in this regard. Moolishining is so called because it is supposed that it is only while the moon is shining that illicit stilling takes place, though that is erroneous, as much of it is done during the day. But, as these stills are located usually, in the most out-of-the-way places possible, the smoke arising during the day from the stills attracts attention and final detection. Stills are usually located on small, cold streams, and on wild land little adapted to cultivation. Sometimes, however, stills are situated in the cellar or kitchen or other innocent looking place for the purpose of diverting suspicion. Neighbors, chance visitors, the color the slops give to the streams into which they drain, and other evidence finally lead to life arrest of the operators and the destruction of the stilling plant and mash. The simplest process is to soak corn till it sprouts, after which it is dried and ground, making malt. Then corn is ground into meal, and it and the malt are placed in tubs with water till they sour and ferment, making mash. This mash is then placed in the still and boiled, the steam passing through a worm or spiral metal tube which rests in a cooling tub, into which a stream of running water pours constantly. This condenses the steam, which falls into the "singling keg"; and when a sufficient quantity has been produced, the mash is removed from the still, and it is washed out, after which the "singlings" are poured into the still and evaporated, passing through the worm a second time, thus becoming "doublings," or high proof whiskey. It is then tested or proofed-usually by shaking it in a bottle-when its strength is determined by the bubbles or "beads" which rise to the top. It is then adulterated with water till it is "right," or mild enough to be drunk without blistering the throat. Apples and peaches are first raashed or ground, fermented and evaporated, thus becoming brandy. Still slops are used to feed cattle and hogs, when practicable, but moonshiners usually have to empty their slops upon the ground, from which it is sure to drain into some stream and thus lead to discovery. Still slop-fed hogs do not as firm lard as corn-fed animals, just as mash-fed hogs do not produce as good lard as corn-fed hogs, though the flesh of mast-fed hogs is considered more delicate and better flavored than that of any other kind.

Blockading is usually applied to the illegal selling of moonshine whiskey or brandy.

THE STRENGTH OF UNION. The following account of the cooperation common among the early settlers is taken from "A Brief History of Macon County" by Dr. C. D. Smith, published in 1905, at Franklin:

"It was the custom m those early days not to rely for help upon hired labor. In harvesting small grain crops the sickle was mostly used. When a crop was ripe, the neighbors were notified and gathered in to reap and shock up the crops. The manner was for a dozen or more men to cut through the field, then hang their sickles over-their shoulders and bind back. The boys gathered the sheaves together and the old men shocked them up. The corn crops were usually gathered in and thrown in great heaps alongside the cribs. The neighbors were invited and whole days and into the nights were often spent in husking out a single crop. I have seen as many as eighty or ninety men at a time around my father's corn heap. If a house or barn was to be raised the neighbors were on band and the building was soon under roof. Likewise, if a msn had a heavy clearing, it was no trouble to have an ample force to handle and put in heaps the heaviest logs. It was no unusual thing for a man to need one or two thousand rails for fencing. All he had to do was to proclaim that he would have a 'rail mauling' on a given day, and bright and early the neighbors were on the ground and the rails were made before sundown. This custom of mutual aid, cultivated a feeling of mutual defence and brotherhood, and resulted in the most friendly and neighborly intercourse. Indeed, each man seemed to be on the lookout for his neighbor's comfort and welfare as well as his own. It made a community of broad, liberal minded people, who despite the tongue of gossip and an occasional fisticuff in hot blood, lived in peace and good will one toward another. There was then less selfishness and cold formality than now…. I am free to admit that there has been improvement along some lines such for instance, as that of education, the building of church-houses, style of dress, etc., but I am sure that there has been none in the sterner traits of character, generosity, manliness, patriotism, integrity, and public spirit."

GIANTS IN THOSE DAYS. It also appears from the same very admirable sketch of Macon county, that when a new road was desired a jury was appointed to lay it off and divide it into sections as nearly equal as possible, the work on each section being assigned by lot to the respective captains of militia companies, and that the work was done without compensation. Dr. Smith cites an instance when he saw "men taking rock from the river with the water breast deep to aid in building wharves. They remained until the work was finished."

FIST AND SKULL.

"There was another custom in those bygone days which to the present generation seems extremely primitive and rude, but which, when analyzed, shows a strong sense of honor and manliness of character. To settle minor disputes and differences, whether for imaginary or real personal wrongs, there were occasional fisticuffs. Then, it sometimes occurred in affairs of this kind, that whole neighborhoods and communities took an interest. I have known county arrayed against county, and state against state, for the belt in championship, for manhood and skill in a hand-to-hand tussel between local bullies. When these contests took place the custom was for the parties to go into the ring. The crowd of spectators demanded fairness and honor. If anyone was disposed to show foul play he was withheld or in the attempt promptly chastised by some bystander. Then, again, if either party in the fight resorted to any weapons whatever, other than his physical appendages, he was at once branded and denounced as a coward, and was avoided by his former associates. While this custom was brutal in its practice, there was a bold outcropping of character in it, for such affairs were conducted upon the most punctilious points of honor…. This custom illustrates the times and I have introduced it more for the sake of contrast than a desire to parade it before the public."

HORN AND BONE. Buttons were made from bones and cow's horns, while the antlers of the red deer were almost indispensable as racks for the long barreled flint-lock rifle, hats, clothing or other articles usually suspended from pegs and hooks. Dinner and powder horns were from cow's horns, from which the "picker" and "charger" hung. Irk bottles were made from the small ends of cow's horns, powder was carried in these water-proof vessels, while hounds were called in from the chase or "hands" were summoned from the fields by toots upon these far-sounding if not musical instruments. During the Civil War, William Sivei',s of Mitchell county made combs from cow's horns, filing out each separate tooth after boiling and "spreading" the horns into flat surfaces. He sold these for good prices, and once made a trip to Asheville with a wagon for a full load of horns as the neighborhood did not supply the demand.

GUNPOWDER BOUNTY.¹⁹ "In 1796 Governor Ashe issued a proclamation announcing that in pursuance of an Act to provide for the public safety by granting encouragement to certain manufactures, Jacob Byler of the county of Buncombe, had exhibited to to him a sample of gunpowder manufactured by him in the year 1799 and also a certificate proving that he had made six hundred and sixty-three pounds of good, merchantable, rifle gunpowder; and therefore, he was entitled to the bounty under the Act (2 Wheeler's History of North Carolina, 52). This Jacob Byler, or rather Boyler, was afterward a member of Buncombe County court, and in the inventory of his property returned by his administrator after his death in October, 1804, is mentioned "Powder mill irons."

ELIZABETHTON' S BATTLE MONUMENT. On a massive monument erected in 1910 at Elizabethton, Tenn., to the soldiers of all the wars in which Tennessee has participated is a marble slab to the memory of Mary Patton who made the powder with which the battle of Kings Mountain was fought. This was made on Powder Mill branch, Carter county, Tennessee. On what is still known as Powder Mill creek in old Mitchell, so long ago that the date cannot now be fixed with certainty, Dorry and Loddy Oaks made powder near where the creek empties into Toe River. Zeb Buchanan now owns the land.

WANDERLUST. Alexander Thomas, A. J. McBride, and Marion Wilson, all of Cove creek, Watauga county, went to California in 1849, crossing the plains in ox carts, and mined for gold. Captain Young Farthing helped to carry the Cherokees to the West in 1838, as did also William Miller, Col. James Horton and others of Watauga. They were paid in land warrants to be located in Kansas, but the warrants were usually sold for what they would bring, which was little. Jacob Townsend of near Shull's Mills was a pensioner of the War of 1812. Colonel J. B. Todd, Peter Hoffman and Jason Martin of Watauga were in the Mexican war. A number of others volunteered from these mountains, but were never called out.

FORGE BOUNTY LAND GRANTS. One of the first needs of these pioneers was iron, and in 1788 (Ch. 293, Laws of N. C. as revised by Potter J. L. Taylor and Bart Yancey, Esqs. 1821) the legislature passed an act by which 3,000 acres of vacant lands "not fit for cultivation most convenient to the different seats is hereby granted for every set of iron works as a bounty from this State to any person or persons who will build and carry on the same." One or more tracts for each set of works was to be entered and a copy of the entry transmitted to the next court that should be held in the county, when a jury of twelve persons of good character should view the land and certify that it was not fit for cultivation. Iron works were then to be erected within three years, and when it should be made to appear to the court that 5,000 weight of iron had been made the grant was to be issued. "Three forges where it was made grew up in Buncombe county, one on Hominy creek, upon the old Solomon Luther place, which belonged to Charles Lane; another on Reems creek at the Coleman mill place, which belonged to the same man, but was sold by him in 1803, to Andrew Baird; the third was on Mills river, now in Henderson county on what has ever since been called the Forge mountain, on which are also the Boilston gold mines. The iron ore for this purpose was procured at different places in Buncombe county."²⁰ The State granted to Thomas Calloway, November 21, 1807, 3,000 acres of land in Ashe county (Deed Book D, p.88) and to WilIiam Daniel, David Worth, Moses L. Michael and B. Murchison 2,000 acres in Ashe county, in 1854. (Deed Book U, p.62.) Grants were also issued to the late Messer Fain in Cherokee, and some of the pigs are still in existence there.

DATES OF WOREING OLD IRON MINES. From" The Iron Manufacturer's Guide" (1859, by J. P. Lesley) we find that Harbard's Bloomery Forge near the mouth of Helton creek was built in 1807 and washed away in 1817; that the Cranberry Bloomery Forge on Cranberry was built in 1820, and rebuilt in 1856; that North Fork Bloomery Forge eight miles northwest of Jefferson on New river, was built in 1825; abandoned in 1829; washed away in 1840; Ballou's Bloomery Forge, at Falls of North Fork of New river, 12 miles north-east of Jefferson, was built in 1817; washed away in 1832 by an ice freshet; Helton Bloomery Forge, on Helton creek, 12 miles north-northwest of Jefferson, was built in 1829; washed away in - 1858; another forge was built one and one-fourth miles further down in 1802, but did not stand long; Laurel Bloomery Forge, on Laurel creek, 15 miles west of Jefferson, built in 1847; abandoned in 1853; Toe river Bloomery Forge, five miles south of Cranberry Forge, built in 1843; Johnson's Bloomery Forge, six miles south of Cranberry Forge, built in 1841; Lovingood Bloomery Forge, on Hanging Dog, Cherokee county, two miles above Fain's Forge, built from 1845 to 1853; Lower Hanging Dog Bloomery Forge, five miles north-west of Murphy, built in 1840; Killian Bloomery Forge one-half miles below Lower Hanging Dog Forge, built in 1843, abandoned 1849; Fain Bloomery Forge, on Owl creek, two miles below Lovingood Forge, built in 1854; Persimmon creek Bloomery Forge, on Persimmon creek 12 miles southwest of Murphy, built in 1848; Shoal creek Bloomery Forge, on Shoal creek, five miles west of Persimmon creek Forge, built about 854; Palsey Forge, built by John Ballou at mouth of Helton in 1859 and rebuilt by W. J. Pasley in 1871 (it is now abandoned); New River Forge on South Fork of New river, one-half mile above its junction with North Fork; built 1871, washed away in 1878. Uriah Ballou of Crumpler, N. C., has gold medals for the best magnetic iron ore from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition and from the World's Fair at Paris immediately afterwards, which was taken from these mines. The lands are now the property of the Virginia Iron & Coke Company.

PIONEER THORS AND FORGES. Iron was manufactured at these old time forges about as follows : When the ore was in lumps or mixed with rock and dirt it was crushed by "stompers," consisting of hardwood beams 6x6 inches, which were raised and dropped by a cogged horizontal revolving shaft. When the ore was fine enough it was washed in troughs to separate it from as much foreign matter as possible. It was then ready for the furnace, which consisted of a rock base 6x6 feet and two and one-half feet high. On three sides of this base walls of rock were erected two and one-half feet high, leaving one side open. A nest was left in the bottom of this base or hearth, through the middle of which a two inch blast pipe ran, and projecting above it. Air was furnished to this pipe by a stream of water passing through wooden tubes 12x12 inches. A small fire of chips was started in this nest above the mouth of the blast pipe. Over this fire three or four bushels of charcoal was placed and blown into a white heat. Upon this charcoal a layer of ore was spread, and as it was heated, another layer of charcoal was placed above, and on it still another layer of ore. This was gradually melted, the molten ore settlin into the nest and the silica remaining on top. Into the mass of melted iron an iron bar would be thrust. This bar was used simply to form a handle for the turning of the ore that adhered to it after it had been withdrawn and placed on the anvil to be hammered. The melted ore thus drawn was called a "loop."

The hammer and the anvil were about the same weight, 750 pounds each, with an eye through, 6x12 inches. They were interchangeable. The anvil was placed on white-oak beams, about the size of a railroad cross-tie, which spanned a pit dug in the ground in order to give spring to the blow made by the hammer. Through the eye of the hammer a beam of strong wood was fastened, the other end working on a pivot or hinge. Near this hinged end was a revolving shaft shod with four large iron cogs, each about six inches long and five inches square and each having a rounded corner. These cogs lifted the hammer handle rapidly, while above the handle a wooden "bray" overcame the upward thrust, and gravity drove the hammer downward upon the heated mass awaiting it on the anvil. The blows thus dealt were rapid and heavy and could be heard under favorable conditions ten or more miles.

SILENT FINGER SIGNALS. It was the duty of the "tender, the chief assistant of the hammerman, to withdraw the loop from the furnace and place it on the anvil, when the hammer-man took the end of the handle and signaled with his fingers laid on the handle to the tender to begin hammering, which was done by the latter allowing the water to strike the wheel which worked the hammer shaft. Two fingers indicated more rapid hammering, three still more rapid hammering, and the withdrawal of all fingers meant that the hammering should cease. When the foreign matter had heen hammered out of the loop, it was divided into two or more loops of 25 to 30 pounds each; a short iron bar, to serve as handles, was welded to each piece, and they were again placed in the furnace and re-heated and then hammered into bars from 9 to 12 feet in length, or divided into smaller pieces for wagon-tires, hoe-bars, axe-bars, plough-shares, plough-molds, harrow-teeth bars, horse-shoe irons, and gun "skelps." There was an extra charge for "handage" in the case of wagon-tires because they were hammered out thinner. In finishing upeach bar or smaller piece of iron the tender would pour water on its surface to give it a hard and smooth finish.

GIANT "HAMMERMEN." The hammerman soon became a veritable giant in his arms, and it is related of one of the older Duggers that he could insert arm into the eye of the hammer and another into that of the anvil and strike the two together. For miles below the water powers which drove the streams were muddy with the washings from the ore. For years iron thus made was the principal commodity of trade. The ends of the iron bars were bent like the runners of a sled, and as many of these bars were bound together by iron bands as could be dragged over the rough trails by a single ox. In this crude fashion many tons of iron found a market on farms remote from wagon roads.

EXPENSIVE HAULING. It took from three weeks to a month to go from Asheville to Charleston or Augusta by wagon before the Civil War. The roads were bad, and those in charge of the wagons camped on the roadside, cooking their own meals. No wonder freight rates were high, and that people did without much that seems indispensable now. It is said that Waugh, Murchison & Poe, early merchants Of Jefferson, hauled their goods from Wilmington, N. C. The late Albert T. Summey says that: "goods were hauled from Augusta and Charleston and cost from $1.75 to $2.00 per hundred. Salt cost in Augnsta $1.25 for a sack of 200 lbs. Add $4.00 for hauling, and it is easy to understand why people thought it cheap when they could buy it for $5.00" As late as the spring of 1850 it took Deacon William Skiles of Valle Cruces three weeks to ride horseback from Plymouth, N. C. to Watauga.²¹

RIFLE GUNS.²² The word "rifle" is too generic a term for the average mountaineer; but he knows what a "rifle-gun" is. Some of the older men have seen them made--lock, stock and barrel. The process was simple : a bar of iron the length of the barrel desired was hammered to the thickness of three-sixteenths of an inch and then rolled around a small iron rod of a diameter a little less than the caliber desired. After this, the rolled iron was welded together gradually--only three or four inches being welded at a time because it was not practicable to do more at a single "heating" without also welding the rod which was inside. This rod was withdrawn from the barrel while it was being heated in the furnace and allowed to cool, and when the glowing barrel was withdrawn from the fire the rod was inserted and the welding would begin and be kept up till the bar inside began to get too hot, after which it was withdrawn and cooled while the barrel was being heated again, and then the same process was repeated till the work was done. The caliber of the barrel was now smaller than desired, but it was enlarged by drilling the hole with a steel bit operated by water-power. The spiral grooves inside the barrel were made by small pieces of steel, two inches long, with saw-teeth on the edges, which served the purpose of filing the necessary spiral channels. The caliber was determined by the number of bullets which could be molded from a pound of lead, and usually ran from 80 to The caliber of rifles is now measured by the decimels of an inch, regardless of the number of bullets to the pound of lead. No hand-made rifle was ever known to burst. The locks, hammers, triggers, guards, ramrods, etc., were all made on the common anvil.²³

PRIMITIVE TOOLS AND METHODS. Dutch scythes for cutting grass have been in the mountains time out of mind, but English scythes for the same purpose did not come into use in some of the counties till about l856-7. Cradles for cutting small grain were employed about 1846; before which time reaping hooks had been used entirely. Before thrashing machines arrived small grain was separated from the stems by means of flails, as in the old Bible days of the threshing floors-only in western North Carolina a smooth place was made in the hillside, if there was no level ground elsewhere, cloth was spread down over it, and the grain beaten out by flails. After this had been done, what was known as a "riddle" was used to free the grain of straw and chaff, sheets or coverlids of beds being used to fan the chaff away as the grain fell. Then came the sieve to separate the grain from all heavy foreign matter, after which it was ground in grist mills, and bolted by sifting it through thin, loosely woven cloth wound over a cylindrical wooden frame revolved by hand, a labor often imposed by the indolent railler on the boy who had brought the grist to mill. The miller never made any deduction from his toll because of this labor, however.

GROUND Hon THRESHERS. When the threshing machine came, about 1850, it was a seven days wonder. It was what was known as the "ground-hog" thresher, and required eight horses to pull it from place to place. It was operated by horse power also, which power was communicated to the machine by means of a tarred cotton rope in place of a band and sprocket chain, both of which came later. The grain and straw came from the machine together and were caught in a big sheet surrounded by curtains. The straw was raked from the top of the grain by wooden forks made from saplings or the limbs of trees. Steel pitchforks did not come into general use in these mountains till about 1850. A ground hog thresher could thresh out about 100 bushels a day with the help of about 16 hands, while the modern machine can easily thresh out over 400 bushels with the assistance of 10 hands; but as the extra hands of the olden time charged nothing for their labor, and felt honored by being allowed to take part in such glorious work, no complaint was ever heard on that score. Mowing machines did not come into general use in this Section till 1869 or 1870. Even the North refused them till England took them up.²⁴

THE HANDY BLACKSMITH. Tools of all kinds were made by the ordinary blacksmiths of the country at ordinary forges. They made axes, hatchets, drawing-knives, chisels, augurs, horse-shoes, horse-shoe nails, bolts, nuts and even pocket knives!

FISH AND FISH TRAPS. Fish abounded in all mountain streams, and "a good site for a fish trap" was the greatest recommendation which a piece of land could have. These places were always the first entered and granted. In them fish by the barrelful would sometimes be caught in a single night where the trap was well situated and strongly built. Fishing at night in canoes by torchlight with a gig was a favorite sport as well as profitable practice and it was much indulged in."²⁵ Above vertical falls trout could not pass. river, above the Great Falls, had no trout till 1857 (D. L. Low inWatauga Democrat, June 26, 1913), when men placed them there.

GRIST MILLS. "The first consideration, however, with these primitive inhabitants, was the matter of grist mills Hence at the first session of the Buncombe county court we find it 'Ordered that William Davidson have liberty to build a grist mill on Swannanoa, near his saw mill, Provided builds said mill on his own land.' This was in April, 1792. In January, 1793, it was 'Ordered that John Burton have liberty to build a Grist mill on his own land, on a branch the French Broad River, near Nathan Smith's, below the mouth of Swannanoa,' Apparently Davidson's mill was not built "but John Burton's was on Glenn's creek a short distance above its mouth."

WHEN THE CLOCK STOPPED. There were a few old seven-day clocks brought by the first settlers, but as a rule watches and clocks were few. Men and women learned to guess the time with some accuracy by looking at the sun on clear days and guessing at it on cloudy. Following is a description of the usual time-piece : "The clock consisted of a knife mark, extending north from one of the door-facings across the puncheon next to it. When the mark divided the sunshine that fell in at the door from the shadow of the facing, it was noon. All other hours were guessed at on cloudy days the clock stopped."²⁶

CULTURE AND MANUFACTURE OF FLAX. The flax seed were sown thick, and when the plant was mature it was pulled up by the roots and spread on the ground to dry. Then it was bound in bundles and placed in a dry place till the envelope surrounding the fiber was decomposed. Sometimes it was scattered over the snow to bleach the lint. It was then rebound in small bundles and when the farmer was ready it was opened and placed on the "brake," which consisted of four or five wooden slats parallel to each other through which wooden knives passed, driving the flax stems between. After the flax was thus broken a handful of it was placed on the end of an upright board which had been driven into the ground, and struck smartly by a wooden swing1ing knife in order to knock off the small pieces of straw from the fiber. Then the fiber was drawn through the hackle, which consisted of a board from whose surface projected five or six inches a row of iron spikes, which served to separate the tow from the flax. The flax was then spun on the low wheels now sometimes seen in drawing rooms, gilded and beribboned but never used. Then it was wound on spools from which it was reeled into hanks. In the elder day the women had to count the revolutions of the reels, but before the Civil War a device was invented by which, after 100 revolutions the reel crack, and the housewife thus knew a hank had been reeled off. The flax thread was ready to be spooled and placed on the warping bars from it was wound on the beam of the loom. From this beam it was put through greats and slays of split reeds, thus making the warp. After this, other flax thread was reeled off on quills from the hanks and and placed in shuttles which were shot through the warp as the tread opened it, and the thread thus placed between the warp was driven back against the first thread by means of the battern, thus making loose cloth. Wool was shorn, washed, dried, picked, carded, spun, reeled on to brooches with shuck cores from the spinning wheel, when it was ready to be woven or knitted.

CHURCHES AND SCHOOLS. The early settlers were Scotch-Irish, as a whole, and their descendants are a hardy, hospitable and enterprising population, They were about equally divided in the War between the States and are still almost equally divided in politics. Until the coming of the railroads there had been necessarily much of primitiveness in their houses, clothing and manners; but religion has always been a strong and controlling factor in their lives. Churches have always existed here; but school-houses had been few and small and very little attention had been given to education. But, since the railroads have penetrated into this region, all this has changed, and dwelling houses have improved, clothing and manners have changed, and it is the exception nowadays to find a boy or girl of twelve years of age who cannot read and write.

MILITIA MUSTER DAYS. On the second Saturday of October each year there was a general muster at each county seat, when the various companies drilled in battalion or regimental formation; and each separate company met on its local muster grounds quarterly, and on the fourth of July the commanding officers met at the court house to drill. The Big Musters called most of the people together, and there was much fun and many rough games to beguile the time. Cider and ginger cakes were sold, and many men got drunk. There was also some fighting, but seldom with stones or weapons.

SALABLE PRODUCTS. Apples, hog meat, deer hams, chestnuts, chinquapins, butter, honey, wax, lard, eggs were the commodities they usually took to market, returning heavily laden with salt, yarn, pins, needles, tools, crockery ware, ammunition and a few cooking utensils. They relied principally upon herbs for such medicines as they used; they wove their own cloth upon hand looms, spinning the wool into thread and hetcheling or hatcheling out the flax. As sewing machines had not yet been invented, the women and girls cut out and sewed together all the garments used by themselves, their children and "the men folks" generally.

NO MONEY. According to CA. A. T. Davidson inThe Lyceum for January, 1891, the older people "had no money to buy with…. All the necessaries of life were procured from the markets in Georgia and South Carolina. It was a three weeks' trip with a wagon to Augusta, Georgia. For this market the neighborhood would bunch their products, bring their forces together and make trips to Augusta loaded with bacon, peltries and such other marketable articles as would bear transportation in this simple way. The return for these products was sugar, coffee, salt and molasses; and happy was the family on the return of the wagons to be able to have a jugful of New Orleans black molasses. And how happy the children were to meet their fathers and brothers again, and have them recite the many stories of the trip. We then bought salt by the measure, a bushel weighing about seventy pounds. The average price on the return of the wagon was about three dollars per bushel. It was interesting to see the people meet to get from the wagons, their portion of the return load; and happy was the small family that got a half bushel of salt, 50 cents worth of coffee and a gallon of molasses. There was a general rejoicing, all going home satisfied and happy, content with their small cargoes, confident that they had enough to do them for the next year. It is remarkable how simply and carefully they lived, and with what earnestness and hope they went to their daily toil, expecting nothing more than this small contribution to their luxury for a year to come.

STOCK RAISING.²⁷ "The borders in the valley of Virginia and on the western highlands of the Carolinas were largely engaged in raising horses, cattle, sheep and hogs, which grazed at will upon the broad slopes of the eastern foothills of the Alleghanies, most of them being in as wild a state as the great roving herds now to be seen upon the semi-arid plains of the far West." The same occupation was followed by those who passed west of the foothills of the Alleghanies, and is kept up till this day. Those who had bought up the wild lands at low figures encouraged cattle herders to pasture or "range" their stock there. In the first place it gained their good will and in the second it enabled landowners to become aware of the presence of any squatters who might seek to hold by adverse possession. Two other reasons were that landowners could not have prevented the ranging of cattle except by fencing in their lands, an impossible task at that time, and the suppression of fires in their incipiency. Certain it is, that all sorts of stock were turned into the mountains in May, where they remained till October, with weekly visits from their owners for purposes of salting and keeping them gentle. After awhile a market was found on the coast for the cows, sheep, horses and hogs, and they were driven there in the late summer and during the fall. "There annually passed through Buncombe county an average of 150,000 hogs, driven on about eight miles daily, which required 24 bushels daily for each 1,000 and were fed on corn raised in Buncombe."²⁸

STOCK "STANDS." There were many ""stock stands" along the French Broad river in ante- railroad days, for the turnpike from Asheville to the Paint Rock was a much traveled thoroughfare. Its stockholders made money, so great was the travel.²⁹ James Garrett had a stand about one mile below the Hot Springs. Then there was another opposite the Hot Springs, known as the White House, and kept by the late John E. Patton. At the mouth of Laurel creek was still another stand kept by David Farnsworth. Just above the railroad station now called Putnam's is where Woolsey had a stand, while Zach. Candler had another at Sandy Bottoms. Then came Hezekiah A. Barnard's stand at what is still called Barnards, though it used to be called "Barnetts," and opposite the mouth of Pine creek Samuel Chunn gave bed and board to the weary drovers and feed to "his dumb drien" cattle, sheep, hogs, horses, mules or turkeys. At the end of what is now Marshall, Joseph Rice lived and upper end of that narrow village David Vance kept a tavern a long one-probably 150 feet in length, huddled between the stage road and the mountains. Samuel Smith accommodated all travelers and their belongings at the mouth of Ivy, and Mitchell Alexander was the Boniface at Alexander's.

Hezekiah Barnard used to boast that, while David Vance at Lapland, now Marshall, had fed 90,000 hogs in one month he himself had fed 110,000 in the same period of time. Aquilla Young, of Kentucky, also made his boast he had driven 2,785 hogs from Kentucky to North Carolina single drove.³⁰

OLD ROAD HOUSES. "The stock stands, as the hotels between Asheville and Warm Springs were called, were generally 'well kept.' They began four miles below Asheville, at five miles there was another, at seven and a half miles still a another, at ten another, and another at thirteen and a half After this, at 16, 18, 21, 22, 28, 33, 36, 37, 40 and 47 mileposts there were still other hotels. "Many of them have entirely gone, and actually the ground upon which some of them stood has disappeared. The road, with a few points excepted, is but a wreck of its former self. It was once a great connecting link between Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina and Georgia, and the travel over it was immense. All the horses, mules, cattle, sheep and hogs were driven over this route from the first mentioned States to the latter, and the quantities of each and all used then was very much greater than now. In October, November and December there was an almost continuous string of hogs from Paint Rock to Asheville. I have known ten to twelve droves, containing from 300 to one or two thousand stop over night and feed at one of these stands or hotels. Each drove was 'lotted' to itself, and 'corned' by the wagon road, the wagon being driven through each lot with ten or a dozen men scattering the corn right, left and rear, the load emptied and the ground literally covered. The drivers of these hogs were furnished large rooms, with immense log-heap fire-places and a blanket or two each, that they furnished themselves. They would form a semi-circle upon the bare floor, their feet to the fire, and thus pass the night; that they slept, I need not tell you. After driving 20 to 50 hogs from daylight to dark they could eat without coaxing and sleep without rocking. The travel over this thoroughfare was the; life of the country."³¹

OLD TIME COUNTRY STOREs. "Corn, sixty years ago, was 'the staple production'; the culture of tobacca was not thought of. These hotel men, many of them, kept little stores, bartered or sold everything on a credit; and in the fall they would advertise that on certain days they would receive corn in payment of 'store accounts', and then the farmers would bestir themselves. They would commence delivering frequently by daylight and continue it until midnight. I have seen these corn wagons strung out for a mile and as thick as they could be wedged. They were more anxious to pay accounts then than some of us are now; but it was pay or no credit next year. Each merchant had his 'trade,' and there was no getting in debt to one and then skip to another. The price allowed for corn was almost invariably fifty cents per bushel, the hotel men furnishing it to drovers at about 75 cents. They charged the drovers from twenty to twenty-five cents 'per diet,' meaning per meal for their drivers, asking the whole in lame hogs at so much per pound, or a due-bill from the manager to be paid as he returned horse after having made sale of his stock, cash being only rarely if ever paid. These lame hogs taken on bills were kept until a suitable time for killing--a cold spell being necessary to save the meat-when they were slaughtered and converted into bacon and lard."³¹

HOG-KILLIN' TIME. "This hog killin' was a big time, and 'away 'fo' day' as the negroes, who were the principal participants, would say, twenty to thirty hands would build immense log-heap fires; with, first, a layer of wood and then a layer of stones, which continued till satisfactory dimensions were reached, when the fire was applied and kept buring until the stones reached a red-heat. In the meantime a platform would have been made out of puneheons, slabs or heavy plank, at one end of which and very near the fire a large hogshead (or scalding tub), filled with water, was placed. Then the hot stones were transferred to the water till a proper temperature for scalding was reached, and a certain number of hogs having been shot and 'stuck' (bled by sticking long knives in the throat), two stout men would plunge each hog into the hot water and twist and turn it about until the all the hair would 'slip,' when it would be drawn out and turned over to other hands, who, with knives, would remove all the hair from the hog, and then hang it by its hind legs, head down, on a long horizontal pole, where it would we washed an and scraped down, opened, the entrails removed, and after cooling, be cut to pieces, thus making hams, shoulders and middlings. Then it would be salted down, the fat having been taken from all parts. This fat was stewed into lard, from which the boy's dainty 'cracklings' was removed. How well I remember the enjoyment I had on these occasions, in broiling upon the hot stones the 'melts,' making a delicacy that I think would be relished even now; and in blowing up and bursting the 'bladders,' frequently saving up a lot of them for Christma's 'guns.'"³²

OUR DEPOTS SIXTY YEARS AGO. "Forty years ago Charleston and Augusta were our depots; think of it-thirty to sixty days in going and returning from market! Our people then thought little or nothing of hitching up four or six mules, once or twice a year, and starting to market.. .with forty to fifty hundred pounds of bacon and lard, flour and cor meal, dried fruit, apples and chestnuts …and bring back a barrel or two of molasses and sugar, a keg or so of rice, a few sacks of salt and coffee, a little iron, a hundred or two pounds of nails and a box or so of dry-goods."³³ ROADS SIXTY YEARS AGO. "But the roads then were charming. I can remember when the road from Asheville to Warm Springs, every foot of it, was better than any half-mile of Asheville streets. Old Colonel Cunningham's 'mule and cart' and two or three hands traversed it from beginning to end of year, removing every loose stone and smoothing up every place. All travel was then by private conveyance or stage, there being several four-horse coaches out from Asheville daily."³⁴

AGRICULTURE AND WIT SIXTY YEARS AGO. Of the farming along the French Broad between Asheville and Warm Springs sixty years ago, we read that "the lands were in a high state of cultivation, exceedingly high a great deal of it, as one would infer in passing along the foot of many steep hills and looking up to the top, seemingly almost perpendicular; and yet I have ploughed over some of the worst of them many a day, and was often indignant at the surprise expressed and sarcastic remarks made by the passer-by. One would ask if we did our planting with 'shot-guns'! Another, when were we going to move, as he saw that we had our land rolled up ready for a start! The Kentucky horse-drovers would say the water of the French Broad was so worn out by splashing and dashing over and against the rocks that it for a horse to drink!"

HERBS AND ROOTS. Ginseng was for the principal herb that commanded cash in this section, but at first brought, when green, only seven cents a pound. It is now worth six dollars or more.³⁵ But gradually a market was developed for many other native herbs, such as angelico blood root, balm of gilead buds, yellow and white sarsaparilla, shamonium (Jamestown or gyrlipsum weed), corn silk (from maize), corn-smut or ergot, liverwort, lobelia, wahoo bark, Solomon's seal, polk root and berries, pepper and spear-mint, poppy and rose leaves, and raspberry leaves. Dried black-berries since the Civil War also find a ready market. Arthur Cole on Gap creek in Ashe county once did an immense business in herbs, and the large warehouses still standing there were used to store the herbs which he baled and shipped north. Ferns, galax leaves and other evergreens are gathered by women in the fall and winter and find ready sale.

A LOW MONEY WAGE. Laborers and lawyers were poorly paid in the old days, and the doctors of medicine fared little better. A fee of one hundred dollars in a capital case was considered the "top notch" by many leaders of the bar, while the late David Ballard of Ox creek, Buncombe county, who died about 1905 at the age of eighty-odd years, used to say that, when he was a young man, he "had worked many a day for 25 cents a day and found himself." But 25 cents in those days would buy more than a dollar would now, and as most of the trading was by barter, money was not misses as much as might be imagined. Stores were few and most of the things we now consider indispensable were unknown to many of the poorer people. Besides, everything that was indispensable was made at home, and things that were not indispensable were cheerfully dispensed with.

DYES. Madder dyed red; walnut bark and roots dyed brown; bedewood bark dyed purple; dye-flowers and snuff weed dyed yellow; copperas dyed yellow, and burnt copperas dyed nearly red. All black dyes rot wool. Dyes fade unless "set" in the thread-that is, made fast before the thread is placed in the loom. Laurel leaves, copperas, alum, and salt set dyes. The ooze from boiled walnut roots and bark was used to dye the wool before it was spun. It was dipped and dried, and dipped and dried again and again till the proper color had been attained. The dye pot stood on the hearth nearly all the time, as it had to be kept warm. Some dye plants were grown in the gardens, but they usually grew wild.

NOTES:

1. The Century Magazine for September, 1890.
2. Asheville's, Centenary.
3. Fifth Eth., Rep. 147.
4. Roosevelt, Vol. III, p.225.
5. Asheville's Centenary.
6. Thwaites, p. 30.
7. Hominy creek in Buncombe got its name from a hominy mill with a pestle worked by water.
8. These graters are still used in many places.
9. Thwaites, p. 32.
10. Thwaites, p. 32. The late Col. Allen T. Davidson used to tell of a famous hunter named "Neddy" MeFalls who traveled from Cataloochee to Waynesville to have a witch doctor-a woman-remove a "spell" he thought someone had put on his Gillespie rifle.
11. "Book of Hand-woven Coverlete," by Eliza Calvert Hall.
12. Collier's Editorial, April 6, 1912. John Fox, Jr.'s novels.
13. The murder of the gambler, Rosenthal, in August, 1912, on Broadway, New York, N.Y.
14. Tarbell, Vol.1, p.5
15. Byrd, 212.
16. Ziegler & Grosscup, p.96.
17. Ibid., 94-96.
18. There is a spinning-wheel on Grassy Branch in Buncombe county on which Polly Henry spun more thread than Judge Burton's daughter in 1824.
19. Asheville's Centenary.
20. Ibid.
21. From "A Life of Deacon Wirnam West Skiles."
22. Asheville's, Centenary.
23. Description furnished by Cal. David J. Farthing of Butler, Tenn. This applies only to the guns whose barrels were not bored out. The late Cal. Allen T. Davidson used to tell of a famous gun-maker, who lived near Cherry Fields at the head of the French Broad river, whose "rifle guns" were much sought. The iron bars from which they were made were called "gunskelps." His name was Gillespie.
24. Mace's "School History of U.S.," 1904, p.287.
25. Asheville's Centenary.
26. "Balsam Groves," p.17.
27. Thwaites, p.35.
28. A. T. Summey in Asheville's Centenary.
29. John A. Nichols' statement to J. P. A., July, 1912.
30. Upon the organization of the Western Divizion of the W. N. C. R. R Co., the stock and property of the Buncombe Turnpike Co. were exchanged for an equal amount of stock in the Western Division. Shipp's Land Com. Eeport, pp. 284-285.
31. Co1. J. M. Ray in Lyreum, p.16, December, 1890.
32. Ibid., p. 17.
33. Ibid., p. 16.
34. The reference was to a time shortly before any paving had been done in Ashevllle.
35. In the "Autobiography of Rev. C. D. Smith," p.2, we find that ginseng was "manufactured," and Col. A. T. Davidson in the Lyceum for January 1891, p. 5, speaks of the "factory." Dr. Smith also says this herb was gathered "in Madison, Yancey, a portion of Buncombe, Mitchell, Watauga, Ashe, and Alleghany counties." Col. Davidson speaks of Dr. Hailen and Dr. Smith of Lucius & Heylin of Philadelphia, as the merchants to whom it was shipped.

Bench and Bar^[1]

FIRST JUDICIARY ACT.^[2] In 1777 (Ch. 115, p. 281) the State was divided into six districts, viz. Wilmington, New Bern, Halifax, Hilisborough and Salisbury, in each of which places a Superior court for the trial of civil and criminal causes should be held, to consist of three judges who were to hold office during good behavior, The jurisdiction and terms being prescribed. It is sometimes thought that the Superior court was not established till 1806; but that is a mistake; the act of 1806 having simply prescribed two terms in each county after having changed the districts into so many circuits (Ch. 693, Laws 1806, p.1050) but with the same jurisdiction.

COUNTY COURTS OF PLEAS AND QUARTER SESSIONS^[3] These courts were provided for in the same chapter their jurisdiction and terms prescribed. (P.297, et #eq.)

APPEALS. Provision was made in the act of 1771 (Ch. 15) for appeals from the County coulits of Pleas and Quarter Sessions to the Superior courts, but none from the decisions of the Superior courts, till 1799. In that year was established (Ch. 520)^[4].

A CONFERENCE COURT, consisting of all the Superior court judges, who were to meet at Raleigh on the 10th day of June and December of each year, appoint a clerk and decide all questions of law and equity which had arisen upon the circuit before any of the judges of the Superior courts, which the judge sitting may be unwilling to determine, and shall be desirous of further consideration thereon, … [by] a conference with the other judges; or where any questions of law or equity have already arisen on the circuit, and have remained undecided by reason of a disagreement of the judges on the circuit." (See 2nd Murphy's Reports.)

NAME CHANGED TO SUPREME COURT. In 1805 (Ch. 674, p. 1039) "the name and style of the court of conference shall hereafter be that of the Supreme court of North Carolina," and it was made the duty of the sheriff of Wake county to attend its sessions. It was not, however, till 1818 (Ch. 962) that the Supreme court, composed of judges elected for the purpose of hearing appeals, etc., alone, was provided for. The court was to consist of three judges to be elected by the legislature and to hold office during good behavior. Terms were to be held in Raleigh May and November 20th of each year.^[3]

TENNESSEE SUPERIOR COURT.^[4] "The act of the general assembly of North Carolina, providing for or establishing a Superior court of Law and Equity for the counties of Davidson, Sumner and Tennessee, was not passed till November, 1778…. The first volume of the original record of the minutes of the Superior Court … for the District of Washington-then the 'Western District'-at Jonesboro, shows that David Campbell alone held that court from the February term, 1788 (which was the first term), until the February term, 1789, at which latter term the record shows that Judge McNairy appeared and sat with Judge Campbell."

JUDGE SPRUCE MCCAY. This judge held the second term of the Superior court of Ashe county, in September, 1807. He had married a daughter of Gen. Griffith Rutherford, and lived at Salisbury.^[5] It was he who had held the August, 1782, term of the "Court of Oyer and Terminer & Gaol Delivery, " in Jonesborough, in what was then Washington District, now in Tennessee. "He had the court opened by proclamation, and with all the formality and solemnity characterizing the opening of the English courts. On the first day of the term, John Vann was found guilty, by a jury, of horse- stealing, the punishment for which, at that time, was death. On the same day the record contains an entry to th effect that the Jury who passed upon the Tryal of Vann beg Leave to Recommend him to the Court for Mercy; but no mercy was shown him by the Honl. Spruce McCay…. During the week two more unfortunates-Isaac Chote and William White-were found guilty of horse-stealing; and, on the last day of the term (August 20), Judge MeCay disposed of all three of these criminals in one order, as follows 'Ord. that John Vann, Isaac Chote & Wm. White, now Under Sentence of Death, be executed on the tenth day of September next.' This is the whole of the entry."^[6] The author, John Allison, now a chancellor of Tennessee, says "It is not probable that a parallel proceeding can be found in judicial history." He adds that "tradition in that country gave Judge McCay the character of a heartless tyrant." But the juries of that day and section of North Carolina seem to have been equal to the occasion; for at the same term of court the following incident is mentioned "The juries could not be driven or intimidated into giving verdicts contrary to their convictions; and whenever they differed with the judge-and they always knew his views-in a case of weight or serious results, they would deliberately disperse, go to their homes, and not return any more during thst term of court. In a case styled'State v. Taylor,' the record shows that the jury was sworn and the defendant put on 'Tryal.' Nothing more appears except the following significant entry :'State V. Taylor. The jury having failed to come back into court, it is therefore a mistrial.' "^[7]

"LEWIS AND ELIAS PYBOURN." At the May Term, 1783, at Jonesborough, an order was iiiade allowing these men "who is at this time Lying out" to- return home upon giving bond for good behavior, which, probably was done. But whether it was done or not, seven years later, at the August term of the same court, 1790, Elias Pybourn was convicted of horse-stealing, and was sentenced to "the public pillory one hour. That he have both his ears nailed from his head; that he receive at the public whipping post thirty-nine lashes well laid on; and be branded on the right cheek with the letter H, and on his left cheek with the letter T…"

JOSEPH CULTON'S RIGHT EAR. At the November Term, 1788, at Jonesborough, Joseph Culton proved by the oath of Alexander Moffit that he had lost his left ear in a fight with a certain Charles Young, and prayed that the same be entered on record, and it was so ordered.

WITHOUT PASS OR RECOMMENDATION. When a stranger came into the Watauga settlement he was asked to account for his being there, and if his explanation proved to be unsatisfactory, he was required to give bond for his good behavior or to leave. Wm. Clatry was a "trancient person" and was required to give security for his behavior, and return to his family "within five months," he having confessed that he had left home and taken up with another woman.

However, it is not to Judge Spruce McCay to whom we are indebted for the following.

A GRUESOME RECORD. At the March Term, 1809, of the Superior court of Ashe, Judge Francis Locke presiding, case of the State v. Carter Whittington, indicted for perjury was tried, the following names appearing as those of the jurors James Dixon, Charles Sherrer, Daniel Moxley, Josiah Connolly, Young Edwards, Alex. Latham, Wm. Powers, Andrew Sherrer, Chris Crider, Thomas Tirey (Tire?), Charles Francis, Jesse Reeves. The jury found the defendant Carter Whittington "guilty in manner and form as charged in the bill of indictment." David and Elijah Estep, sureties, thereupon delivered up Carter Whittington, and he was ordered into the custody of the sheriff. "Reasons in arrest of judgement in the case of Carter Whittington were filed by Mr. McGimsey,^[8] his attorney-after solemn argument, the reasons are overruled by the court."

JUDGMENT. "Fined £10, and the said Carter Whittington stand in the pillory for one hour, at the expiration of which time, both his ears to be cut off and entirely severed from his head, and that his ears so cut off he nailed to the pillory by the officers and there remain till the setting of the sun, and that the sheriff of this county carry this judgment immediately into execution, and that the said Carter Whittington be confined until the fine and fees are paid ….Solicitor's fees of Ï1-6-8 paid by deft."

THE UNWRITTEN LAW IN 1811.^[9] At the March term, 1811, of the Superior court of Ashe, Samuel Lowery, judge presiding, an order was made for the removal to Wilkes court, to be held on the third Monday of March, of the case of the State V. William Tolliver, indicted for the murder of a man named Reeves; and the sheriff of Ashe was required to "procure a sufficient guard of eight men from the proper officers of the militia to convey safely the said William Tolliver to the Superior court of Wilkes county," thus indicating either that there was danger of a lynching or a rescue. Tradition says that Tolliver was acquitted at Wilkesboro on the ground that Reeves had attempted liberties with Tolliver's wife. Robert Henry of Buncombe defended him.

HANGING OF DAVID MASON. When Dr. W. A. Askew was about fifteen years old he stayed all night with the late James Gudger, the ancestor of most of the Gudgers of this section, in what is now Madison county. Young Askew was then on his way from his home on Spring creek to see the "hanging" of a man nanied David Mason who had been convicted of the murder of his wife by cutting her throat in Haywood county. Askew rode to "town" (Asheville) with Dr. Montraville W. Gudger, a son of "Old Jimmie." The evidence upon which Morgan had been convicted indicated that he had slipped up on his wife while she was carding in her cabin home and killed her. Pierce Roberts was the sheriff of Buncombe then, and the execution took place in the woods below and behind Col. Lusk's residence on College Street, or where J. D. Henderson's residence now stands-there being two accounts as to its location. This must have been between 1847 and 1850. When asked on the gallows if he had anything to say Morgan called up Aaron Fullbright and another man whose name Dr. Askew has forgotten and pointing his finger at them said "You have sworn my life away."

Twenty-five years ago (1887), according to Dr. Askew, a woman in Sevier county, Tennessee, confessed on her death-bed that she had killed David Mason's wife.

COL. DAVIDSON'S RECOLLECTIONS OF "BAR. The late Col. Allen T. Davidson, in the Lyceum for May, 1891, says:

"I entered the profession of the law January 1, 1845, with Gen R. M. Henry and J. A. B. Fitzgerald as my classmates. We were students of Michael Francis of Waynesville…. "The gentlemen then in full practice were Joshua Roberts, Geo. W. Candler, Felix Axley, John Rolen, Michael Francis, N. W. Woodfin, John Baxter, George Baxter, Col. B. S. Caither, Wm. Shipp, Gen. R. M. Henry and J. A. B. Fitzgerald. These constituted the bar and rode the circuit, as we did then, until about 1855, when Judge A. S. Merrimon, Senator Z. B. Vance, Maj. Marcus Erwin, Gen. B. M. Edney, P. W. Roberts, and Col. David Coleman were added to the list…. Several distinguished lawyers left the profession just as I entered, Gen. John G. Bynum and Gen.T. L. Clingman, who, added to the list, made an array of talent and sound ability rarely met with…. The court usually began in Cherokee (where I then lived) in March and September, and we all joined and. made the circuit from thence eastward to Asheville, where I usually stopped. We traveled together on horseback, stopped at the same hotels in the towns, and at the same wayside inns in the country; and it was not unusual to have ten or fifteen of us together at these country stopping places, where the wit and humor of the profession broke loose in all its force, and good humor ruled the house. It is a fact that nearly all of those mentioned were gentlemen of fine humor, and but few given to strong drink, so that the jest and humor were of the best character, without boistering or noise. Mr. N. W. Woodfin was remarkable for his humor, clear-cut and original. Mr. Candler excelled in his country stories… and when he took the floor he usually held it in silence till the climax, when there were uprorious bursts of applause. Mr. J. W. Woodfin was the sunshine of the circle, was always in a good humor, and told a story well…. I recall many of the stopping places, the first going from Asheville being James Patton's beyond the Pigeon. Here we would meet a good~humored fine old gentleman as landlord, with his big country fireplaces, and roaring hickory wood fires, a table groaning with all that was desirable to eat, good beds and plenty of cheer, supper, lodging and breakfast, horse well fed and groomed, brn fifty cents, and this was uniform for twenty years. So at Daniel Bryson's on Scott's creek, same fare and same bill. At Wm. Walker's at Valleytown, one of the best houses in Western North Carolina, the bill for man and horse was fifty cents. A great staying place was N. S. Jarrett's on the Nantahala, at a place called Aquone. Here we met, here we chased the deer, here we beguiled the trout in that crystal stream with the fly, here we whiled away many a pleasant summer noon in these attractive sports. Good, dear old friends! I can see you all now^[10] in fancy; but this vanishes and I remember that you are more…. I must be allowed to close with a general resume Intended to embrace the years between 1845 and 1861 : the profession was able, studious, painstaking and thorough. I have been an honest and careful observer of many deliberative assemblies; have watched with much care and interest the application and power of the human mind so as to learn from careful observation how great men, so-called, look at subjects and reach conclusions . . but after all I am bound to say that the trial of cases in the mountain circuit has impressed me more than the proceedings of any other body of men I have ever met for its sincerity, force and logic. Here we were, in a large and extensive district of country, the courts distantly situated, without books, at each town finding only the Revised Statutes and perhaps a digest; yet with these we tried our cases ably and well, and our contentions have been well sustained by adjudged cases. In court the common law pleading prevailed, beginning with the writ, thus bringing the defendant into court. Upon the appearance of the defendant the issues were joined and the case was ready for trial without circumlocution or clerical talent. The fight was an old-field, drawn out set-to. As Judge Read says "We drew the sword and threw away the scabbard; or, in less classical words, "The Devil take the hindmost." It is a fact, however, that with all the spirit with which the case was tried, often with the manifestation of temper, no unkind or angry feeling ever went outside the court house, and we all closed the circuit to enter our homes as friends."

JUDGE V. JUDGE. When the county seat was at Jewel Hill Dr. J. S. T. Baird was clerk. A church was used for this purpose and having a window the sash of which was made to open by sliding along horizontally instead of being raised, as is usual, the presiding judge, needing air, tried to raise this sash, and failing kicked a hole in the glass. For this the late Col. John A. Fagg, then Chairman of the County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions of Madison county, fined his Honor, the presiding Judge, ten dollars and his Honor paid it!

CERTIFICATE AS TO WHY RIGHT EAR WAS MISSING. From the minutes of the County court of Buncombe, October, 1793, it appears that it was "Ordered by court that Thomas Hopper, upon his own motion, have a certificate from the clerk, certifying that his right ear was bit off by Philip Williams in a fight between said Hopper and Williams. Certificate issued." This was necessary in order that the loss of a part of his ear might not cause those ignorant of the facts to conclude that the missing part had been removed as a punishment for perjury or forgery.

WHERE THE SOS-SKIN LAY As far back as 1840, probably, James Gwynn of Wilkes county was solicitor of this circuit, which embraced all the mountain counties except Ashe. James Gwynn of the East Fork of Pigeon river, Haywood county, is a near relative and bears his honored name. He married a Miss Lenoir of Fort Defiance, and was a man of very decided ability, though of little education. His spelling was execrable, but his power over a jury was great. Judge J. L. Bailey and Gen. Clingman knew and appreciated his ability, and through them two anecdotes survive. When Nathan asked David for an opinion of the man who took the ewe-lamb of another, and David had expressed himself thereon, then "Nathan said unto David, Thou art the man."^[11] When attempting to quote this to a jury Mr. Gwynn got the names of the principal actors confounded with two other Biblical characters, and after detailing the circumstances of a hog-stealing case, pointed with his finger at the defendant and exclaimed: "As Abraham said unto Isaac, Thou art the man." The other story was also of a hog stealing case; but had reference specifically to a sow. The sow had been stolen and her flesh eaten. But the sow's skin had been discovered, was upon it and the place of its concealment near-the defendant's home, that the solicitor relied for a conviction. "Where gentlemen of the jury," he asked impressively, "was the sow skin?" He raised himself on his toes and shouted the answer: "Far up under the shadder of the Big Yaller, where the rocks are rough, and the waters run deep, and the laurels wave high (crescendo) the sow skin lay!"

SAD ENDING OF A PRISON SENTENCE.^[11] About the year 1856 or 1857 a talented and highly respected physician of Hendersonville by the name of Edward R. Jones took umbrage at something a tailor by the name of A. J. Fain had said or done, both being politicians to some extent. Jones probably considered Fain his social inferior. At any rate, instead of appealing to the code of honor, as was the custom of that day, Dr. Jones entered Fain's tailor shop and literally carved him to death. He was indicted and the case removed to Rutherfordton, where the late Colonels N. W. and John W. Woodfin defended, while the late John Baxter prosecuted. Jones was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to a term of imprisonment in the Rutherford jail. While serving that sentence he, in a fit of despondency, cut his throat and died.

ASHEVILLE'S FIRST ATTORNEYS. "At its first session in April, 1792, the county court elected Reuben Wood, Esq; 'attorney for the state.' He is the first lawyer who appears as practicing in Buncombe county. Waightstill Avery, the first attorney general of North Carolina, attended the at the next session of the court and made therein his first was motion, which "was overruled by the court." At this term Wallace Alexander also became a member of the Buncombe bar. Joseph McDowell appeared at October term, 1793, presented his license, took "the oath of an attorney, and was admitted to the bar in said county." On the next day James Holland "came into court, made it appear (by) Mr. Avery and Mr. Wood, that he has a license to practice as an attorney-but had forgot them." He too was admitted as an attorney of the court. At January court, 1794, Joseph Spencer proved to the court that he had license to practice, and was likewise admitted as an attorney of the court, and at April term, 1795, upon the resignation of Reuben Wood, he was elected solicitor of the county. The next attorney admitted was Bennett Smith. Upon motion of Wallace Alexander in April, 1802, Robert Williamson was admitted to the practice.

ROBERT HENRY.^[12] "Then, in July, 1802, on motion of Joseph Spencer, and the production of his county court license, Robert Henry, Esq., became an attorney of the court. This singular, versatile and able man has left his impression upon Buncombe county and Western North Carolina. Born in Tryon (afterward Lincoln) county, North Carolina, on February 10, 1765, in a rail pen, he was the son of Thomas Henry, an emigrant from the north of Ireland.^[13] When Robert was a schoolboy he fought on the American side of Kings Mountain, and was badly wounded in the hand by a bayonet thrust. Later he was in the heat of the fight at Cowan's Ford, and was very near Gen. William Davidson when the latter was killed. After the war he removed to Buncombe county and on the Swannanoa taught the first school ever held in that county. He then became a surveyor, and after a long and extensive experience, in which he surveyed many of the large grants in all the counties of western North Carolina and even in middle Tennessee, and participated in 1799, as such, in locating and marking the line between the State of North Carolina and the State of Tennessee, he turned his attention to the study of law. In January, 1806, he was made solicitor of Buncombe county. He it was who opened up and for years conducted as a public res6rt the Sulphur Springs near Asheville, later known as Deaver's Springs and still more recently as Carrier's Springs. On January 6, 1863, he died in Clay county, N. C..; at the age of 98 years and was 'undoubtedly the last of the heroes of Kings Moutain….' To him we are indebted for the preservation and, in part, authorship of the most graphic accounts of the fights at Kings Mountain and Cowan's ford which now exist. He was the first resident lawyer of Buncombe county."

COLONEL DAVIDSON'S RECOLLECTIONS OF ROBERT HENRY.

"I must not omit … to mention Robert Henry, who lived, owned and settled the Sulphur Springs. He was an old man when I first knew 'him, say fifty years ago [that was in 1891]; he had then retired from the profession of the law which he had practiced many years. This was before I knew him well. He was tedious and slow in conversation, but always interesting to the student. He had been a fine lawyer, and remarkable in criminal cases.^[14] He could recite his experiences of cases in most minute detail. He insisted that, underlying all there was invariably a principle which settled every rule of evidence and point of law. I chanced to get some of his old criminal law books such as Foster's Crown Law, Hale's Pleas of the Crown, etc., and I found them well annotated with accurate marginal notes, showing great industry and thought in their perusal. He had a grand history in our struggle for independence; was at Charlotte when the Declaration of Independence was made;^[15] but, being a boy at this time he did not understand the character of the resolutions; but said he heard the crowd shout and declared themselves freed from the British: government. He afterwards fought at the battle of Kings Mountain and was severely wounded in the hand and thigh, by a bayonet in the charge of Ferguson's men."^[16]

MICHAEL FRANCIS. Col. Allen T. Davidson, in the same paper, has left this record concerning this man, once known as "the Great Westerner."

"Michael Francis was a Scotchman, educated in Edinburgh, a thorough scholar, was one of those warm hearted, florid Scotchmen so characteristic of Bonnie Scotland. He weighed three hundred and thirty pounds, was one of the most forcible and clear logicians at the bar, was remarkable for his study and observation of the human mind. He was always a complete master of the facts of his cases, and was able to deduce from them the true intent of the mind of the witness, and had a happy and forcible way of illustrating the methods by which the ordinary intellect reaches conclusions. He had studied human nature so closely that he could divine the secret intents of the heart. As a consequence, he was a power invincible before a jury. Added to this, he was a thorough lawyer, able to cope with the best, and remarkable for his power of condensation and forcible expression. He was a pioneer in the settlement of many new points of law in this circuit, as many cases argued by him before the Supreme court will attest…. He was a great platform speaker and a leader in the formation of political sentiment. He was a member of the house and senate and discharged every public duty with honor and credit…. He was my good preceptor whom I have closely studied and tried to follow."

ISRAEL PICKENS AND OTHERS.^[17] The next lawyers admitted in that county were, in the order in which their names are given: Thomas Barren, Israel Pickens, Joseph Wilson, Joseph Carson, Robert H. Burton, Henry Harrison, Saunders Donoho, John C. Elliott, Henry Y. Webb, Tench Cox, Jr., A. R. Ruffin, and John Paxton. These were admitted between January, 1804, and October, 1812, from time to time. Probably the most distinguished of them were Israel Pickens, representative of the Buncombe District in the lower house of the Congress of the United States from 1811 to 1817, inclusive and afterwards governor of Alabama and United States senator from that State; Joseph Wilson, afterwards famous as a solicitor in convicting Abe Collins, Sr. and the other counterfeiters who carried on in Rutherford county in the first quarter of this century extensive operations in the manufacture and circulation of counterfeit money; and Pobert H. Burton and John Paxton, who became judges of the Superior courts of North Carolina in 1818.

DAVID L. SWAIN.^[17] The first lawyer of Buncombe county who was a native thereof was the late Gov. D. L. Swain. Born, as has been already stated, at the head of Beaverdam, on January 4, 1801, he was educated under the Rev. George Newton and the Rev. Mr. Porter at Newton Academy, where he had for classmates B. F. Perry, afterward governor of South Carolina, Waddy Thompson, of South Carolina, distinguished as congressman and minister to Mexico, and M. Patton, R. B. Vance and James W. Patton of Buncombe county. In 1821 he was for a short while at the University of North Carolina. In December, 1822, he was of the Edenton Circuit, and in 1832 became, and for five years continued to be, a representative of Buncombe county in the House of Commons of the State, in 1829 was elected solicitor, admitted to practice law in 1824, became governor of the State. After the expiration of three successive terms as governor, he became president of the University of North Carolina in 1835, and continued in that place until August 27, 1868, the time of his death. He was largely instrumental in securing the passage of the act incorporating the Buncombe Turnpike Company, and to him more than to any other man North Carolina is indebted for the preservation of her history and the defence of her fame. His early practice as a lawyer was begun in Asheville. For further details than are given here in regard to the life of this truly great man, the reader is referred to Wheeler's History of North Carolina, and his Reminiscences, and to the more accurate lecture of the late Governor Z. B. Vance on the Life and Character of Hon. David L. Swain.

"OLD WARPING BARS."^[18] Governor Swain was tall and ungainly in figure and awkward in manner. When he was elected judge the candidate of the opposing party was Judge Seawell, a very popular man, whom up to that time, his opponents, after repeated efforts with different aspirants, had found it impossible to defeat. "Then," said a member of the legislature from Iredell county, "we took up Old Warping Bars from Buncombe and warped him out." From this remark Mr. Swain acquired the nickname of "Old Warping Bars," a not inapt appellation, which stuck to him until he became president of the University when the students stowed upon him the name of "Old Bunk." continued to be Old Bunk all the rest of his life. While he was practicing at the bar the lawyers rode the circuits. Beginning at the first term of the court in which they practiced, they followed the courts through all the counties of that circuit. Among Swain's fellow lawyers on the Western Circuit were James R. Dodge (afterwards clerk of the Supreme court of the State and a nephew of Washington Irving), Samuel Hillman and Thomas Dews.

DODGE, HILLMAN, SWAIN AND DEWS.^[19] On one occasion these were all present at a court in one of the western counties and Dodge was making a speech to the jury. Swain had somewhere seen a punning epitaph on a man whose name was Dodge. This he wrote off on a piece of paper and passed it around among the lawyers, creating much merriment at Dodge's expense. After the latter took his seat some one handed it to him. It read:

"EPITAPH ON JAMES H. DODGE, ATTORNEY AT LAW.
"Here lies a Dodge, who dodged all good,
And dodged a lot of evil;
But, after dodging all he could
He could not dodge the devil."

"Mr Dodge perceived immediately that it was Swain's writing, and supposed that Hillman and Dews had had something to do with it. He at once wrote this impromptu reply:

"ANOTHER EPITAPH ON THREE ATTORNEYS.
"Here lles a Hillman and a Swain-
Their lot let no man choose.
They lived in sin and died in pain,
And the devil got his Dews…"^[20]

THEIR LIVES A PART OF THE STATE's HISTORY. "Of the late Thomas L. Clingman, who was for many years a member of the Asheville bar, the late Gov. Z. B. Vance, who was born in Buncombe county, and began life as a lawyer in Asheville and to whose memory a granite monument upon her public square is now in process of erection,^[21] and the late A. S. Merrimon, chief justice of North Carolina, who studied law at Asheville and continued his practice here jill about 1867, it is unnecessary to speak here. Their careers have recently closed and are known to all who care for Asheville or her affairs."^[22]

COL. NICHOLAS W. WOODFIN. "Soon after Gov. Swain began the practice, Nicholas W. Woodfin became a lawyer, and served as the connecting link between the old times and the modern bar for many years. He was born in Buncombe county on the upper French Broad river, and began life under the most unfavorable circumstances, and for awhile labored under the greatest disadvantages. He became, however, one of North Carolina's most famous and astute lawyers. But few men have ever met with such distinguished success at the bar as he. He was Buncombe's representative in the State senate in 1844, 1846, 1848, 1850, 1852. In the course of his career he acquired a large fortune, and owned great quantities of land in Asheville and its neighborhood. With the practice of law he carried on an extensive business as a farmer, in which he was famous for the introduction of many useful improvements in agriculture. He it was who first introduced orchard grass in Buncombe eounty, and turned the attention of her farmers to the raising of cattle on a large scale and the cultivation of sorghum."^[23]

He was born in old Buncombe, now Henderson county January 29, 1810', and was married to Miss Eliza Grace McDowell at. Quaker Meadows, near Morganton, the 16th of June, 1840, afterwards residing on North Main street, Ashe ville, N. C., now a girls' school, till his death, May 23, 1875 she surviving him less than one year. He was always identified with any movement for the uplift and progress of his State, and especially of Buncombe county. Much has been written of his success as a lawyer, his humanitarianism, his devotion to his family and his care of his aged parents.

COLONEL JOHN W. WOODFIN. He was born in what is now Henderson county in 1818, married Miss Maria [Myra] McDowell at Quaker Meadows, and lived in Asheville. He was a brilliant lawyer, a brave soldier, and formed one of the first companies in Buncombe county, saying he had enlisted for the war. He was killed by Kirk's men at Hot Springs in fall of 1863.

THE FIRST TRIAL.^[24] The first case tried in Buncombe county was that of theState v. Richard Yardly , in July, 1792. He was indicted for petit larceny, was convicted, and appealed to Morgan [Burke] Superior court. The first civil suit was that of W. Avery V. William Fletcher, which was tried by order of the court on the premises on the third Monday in April, 1795, by a jury summoned for that purpose. The first pauper provided for by the court was Susannah Baker with her child. The first processioning was in April, 1776, when William Whitson, the processioner thereof returned into court "the processioning of a tract of two hundred acres of land, on the east side, of French Broad river about one mile and a quarter from Morristown, the place whereon James Henderson now lives," dated April 20, 1796. This embraces the property lying on Park avenue and in that vicinity. Its eastern boundary line is formed in part by the Lining Branch, the small branch immediately eastward of, and for some distance parallel with, Depot street. The first will admitted to probate therein was that of Jonas Gooch in July, 1792.^[25] The first dower assigned was to Demey Gash, widow of Joseph Gash, April, 1805."

To SUPPRESS VICE AND IMMORALITY.^[26] Mr. Sondley mentions also that at the October term, 1800, the Rev. George Newton, the first Presbyterian preacher in Buncombe, presented to the court a petition from the Presbytery of Concord which "humbly sheweth" many gross immoralities as abounding among our citizens all of which were in violation of laws already enacted. Wherefore, they asked that those laws be "carried into vigorous execution." At the January term, 1801, the court resolved to exert itself to suppress "such enormous practices."

JUDICIAL SANCTION OF A LOTTERY.^[27] In January, 1810, the court ordered that the managers of the Newton Academy lottery "come into court and enter into bond for the discharge of office and took the oath of office." This lottery was probably for educational purposes.

"TWENTY-FIVE LASHES ON HIS BACK, WELL LAID ON."^[27] Such was the order of the court in 1799, when the jury had found Edward Williams guilty of petty larceny. This was to be inflicted at the public whipping post; but an appeal was "prayed," and it may be that Edward Williams got off.

ADJUDGED FIT "TO BE SET FREE."^[27] At this term the court adjudged that Jerry Smith, a slave belonging to Thomas Foster, was a fit person to be set' free and emancipated, and the clerk was ordered to issue a license or certificate to the said Jerry Smith for his freedom "during his, the said Jerry's, natural life."

BUNCOMBE' S FIRST FAIRS.^[27] At the July term, 1799, the court ordered two fairs to be established in Buncombe to commence the first Thursday and Friday in November following and the first Thursday and Friday in June following, and continue on said days annually, "without said court should find it more convenient to make other alterations."

FIRST CASE OF MOTHER-IN-LAW.^[27] At the July term, 1802, it was ordered that the deposition of Caty Troxell, to the effect that her daughter Judith had married John Morrice on the nineteenth and twentieth of May, 1796, and that for two years they had lived together "for the space of two years in all possible connuptial (sic) love and friendship," after which, "without cause assigned or any application for a divorce," he had "absconded and has never been heard of by his said wife or any other person." In the description which followed he is described s having been at that time "upwards of twenty large odd years of age… with his speech rather on the key."

POWER OF COUNTY COURTS.^[27] "All elections to county offices at this time from sheriff and clerk, registers of deeds, coroner, entry taker, surveyor and treasurer, down to treasurer of public buildings and standard keeper, were made by the county court.

SUPERIOR COURTS.^[27] "It will be remembered, too, that at the beginning the Superior courts were held at Morganton. In 1806, the legislature of the State, after reciting that 'the delays and expenses inseparable from the constitution of the courts of this State do often amount to a denial of justice, the ruin of suitors, and render a change in the same indispensably necessary,' enacted 'that a Superior court shall be held at the court house in each county in the State twice in every year,' and divided the State into six circuits, of which he last comprised the counties of Surry, Wilkes, Ashe, Buncombe, Rutherford, Burke, Lincoln, Iredell, Cabarrus and Mecklenburg, and directed the courts to be held in Buncombe the first Monday after the fourth Monday in March and September."

RANDALL DELK'S CONVICTION.^[27] "Thus in 1807 was held Buncombe's first Superior court, in the spring of that year. The first trial for a capital offence in Buncombe county was that of Randall Delk. This trial occurred in 1807 or 1808. Delk had fled after the commission of the offence to the Indian nation, but he was followed, brought back, tried, condemned and hung. This was the first execution in Buncombe county, and took place just south of Patton avenue opposite to the post office. It is said that soon after a negro was executed in the county, but the third capital execution in Buncombe is the most celebrated in her annals.

JUDICIAL MUEDER.^[27] "Subsequent to the execution of Delk and between the years 1832 and 1835, inclusive, Sneed and Henry, two Tennesseans, were charged with highway robbery committed upon one Holcombe at the Maple Spring, about one-half mile east of the [former] city water works, on the road until recently traveled up Swannanoa. This was then a capital offence. They strenuously insisted that they had won from Holcombe in gambling the horse and other articles of which he claimed that they had robbed him. They were convicted, however, and hanged in the immediate vicinity of the crossing of East and Seney streets. The field here was until recently known as the Gallows Field. The trial created intense public excitement, and it has always been the popular opinion that it was a judicial murder. It is said that after their conviction they sent for Holcombe, who shrank from facing them, and that the subsequent life of this man was one of continued misfortune and suffering."

COL. A. T. DAVIDSON'S RECOLLECTION OF THIS EXECUTION.^[28] "The first time I ever was in Asheville was in 1835…when I was sixteen years of age. It was on the occasion of the hanging of Sneed and Henry. The town was then small; to me, however, it seemed very distinctly Wiley Jones, sheriff, and Col. Enoch Cunningham, captain of the guard. The religious services at the scaffold were conducted by Thomas Stradley and Joseph Haskew. What a surging, rushing, mad, excited was my introduction to the county."

DR. J. S. T. BAIRD'S REMINISCENCES. About the year 1855 Know-Nothingism was rampant even in Buncombe, and Dr. J. S. T. Baird was temporarily won by its wiles; but he soon deserted. From 1853 to 1857 Dr. Baird temporarily was clerk of Buncombe county court, and was called to attend a term at Jewel Hill, Madison county. Neely Tweed was the clerk and Ransom P. Merrill sheriff; the latter was killed by the former at Marshall in a political quarrel after the Civil War. Sheriff Merrill made a return on a fi. fa. as follows "Trew Sarch made. No goods, chattles, lands or tenements to be found in my county. The defendant is dead and in hell, or in Texas, I don't know which." For this facetiousness Judge Caldwell summoned the sheriff to the bar and gave him a reprimand. Dr. Baird defeated Philetus W. Roberts, incumbent, in 1853, J. M. Israel in 1855, and Silas Dougherty for clerk of court in 1857.

The following recollections of incidents and members of the bar are taken from Dr. J. S. T. Baird's sparkling "Reminiscences" [about 1840] published in the Asheville Saturday Register in 1905.

COURT HOUSE. "The court house was a brick building two stories high and about thirty-six by twenty-four feet in dimensions. The upper room was used for court purposes and was reached by a flight of stone steps about eight feet wide, and on the front outside of the building, commencing at the corners at the ground and rising gradually till they formed a wide landing in front of and on a level with the door of the court room. The judge's bench or pulpit, as some called it, was a sort of box open at the top and one side, with plank in front for the judge to lay his "specks" on. He entered it from the open space in the rear and sat on an old stool-bottom chair, which raised his head barely above the board.' There was room enough in this little box for such slim men as Judge J. L. Bailey, David Caldwell, David Settle and others of their build, but when such men as Judge Romulus M. Saunders came along he filled it plumb 'up.' Most of the lower story was without floors or door shutters and furnished comfortable quarters for Mr. James M. Smith's hogs and occasionally a few straggling cattle that could not find shelter elsewhere.

IN TERROR OF THE WHIPPING-POST. "It will be remembered that in those days the great terror set up before rogties was the whipping-post where the fellow convicted of larceny got thirty-nine lashes well laid on his bare back with switches in the hands of the sheriff. This writer never had the heart to witness but one of these performances. A fellow by the name of Tom G. had been convicted of stealing a dozen bundles of oats and ordered by the court to be whipped. The sheriff, Pierce Roberts, took this writer and some other boys, and went to Battery Park hill, which was then a dense chinquapin thicket, and there cut eight of the nicest and keenest switches to be found and, returning, took Mr. G from the jail, placed his feet and hands in the stocks, and stripping him 'stark naked' from neck to hips, laid upon his bare back thirty-nine distinct stripes from some of which the blood oozed out and ran down his back. Five strokes were given with each switch save the last, and with it four. The sheriff was merciful and made his strokes as light as possible, yet he gave him a blooming back to carry out of the state with him, for he went instanter.

"M" FOR MANSLAUGHTER. "In that day the penalty for manslaughter was branding in the palm of the right hand with a red hot iron shaped to the letter M. I saw one fellow taken through this barbarous process and this was enough for me. He was convicted and ordered to be branded. The sheriff went to the tinner's shop and procured a little hand stove filled with good live coals and brought it into the court room and, putting his branding iron into it, soon had it to a white heat. In the meantime the prisoner's hand and arm were securely strapped to the railing of the bar, and then things were ready. During the branding the prisoner was repeat three times the words : 'God save the state,' and the duration the branding was limited by the time in which he could repeat words. In this case the prisoner's counsel, General B. M. Edney, who was a rapid talker, had gotten the consent of the judge, inasmuch as the prisoner was much agitated and slow spoken anyway, for him to repeat the words for his client. When the hot iron was applied, for some reason, the general got tangled and his mouth did not go off well, but the iron was doing its work and the fellow was writhing and groaning all the sanie. At this juncture the general sprang forward, and knocking the iron aside, said: 'Mr Sheriff, you have burnt him enough.' The judge then taking his hands from over his face, heaved a sigh of relief and ordered the prisoner turned loose. A story was told of a fellow who, a few years before this, was branded by the sheriff whose name was David Tate. The prisoner was a man of wondaful nerve. He felt very resentful toward the sheriff whom he considered responsible for all his suffering. When the iron was applied he repeated the required words three times in a firm voice. Saying : 'God save the State, God save the State, God save the State,' and then raising his voice to a high pitch he yelled out : ' ______ d-n old Dave Tate'! This last is tradition. I will not vouch for the truth of it. Yet grotesque scenes often characterized the courts of that day.

OLD LAWYERS. "The bar of Asheville in 1840 was not large in numbers but was exceedingly strong in all the qualities that go to make up a grand and noble profession. General Thomas L. Clingroan early turned aside from his profession and gave his life to politics, in which field he maintained through a long career and to the day of his death the purity of his escutcheon. Although not as magnetic in his personality as some men, yet a wiser statesman or braver soldier or truer, grander man and patriot North Carolina has never produced. The people especially of Western North Carolina owe to his memory a lasting monument.

"Ezekiel McClure, was a man of good attainments in the law, but being enamored of rural life, gave up his profession at an early day and spent his life quietly in the country.

NOT A "SKELPER." "Willlam Williams went from the mercantile counter to the bar but failed to reach 'the top.' I wrn not class him with the 'skelpers'; but then he was what Capt. Jim Gudger would term 'shifty.' The word 'skelper' in fox hunter's parlance when applied to a dog means one that for want of bottom, cannot come down to 'dead packing' and follow the game through all its windings and doubliugs, but short cuts and skims the high ridges and jumps high to see and catch the game unawares.

GEN. BAYLES M. EDNEY, WIT. "General Bayles M. Edney was a man Of fine physique, who always kept his whiskers trimmed 'a la modi He was of commanding appearance and possessed of sparkling wit and infinite and pleasing humor. He was a stormer before a jury."

THE NOMINAL FINE AND THE REAL COW^[29] One of his clients in Yancey county having been convicted was called up for sentence. Col. Edney urged in mitigation that he was a poor man and a good citizen, and the Court said he would impose a nominal fine of twenty dollars. Whereupon, Bayles retorted that it would take not a nominal but a real cow to pay that nominal fine.

JOSHUA ROBERTS, OLD-TIME GENTLEMAN^[30]. "Mr. Roberts about the time of which I [Dr. Baird] write (1840), established a most pleasant and delightful home on the French Broad, about where the Southern depot now stands, and there he spent his life and raised a large family. To bear testimony to the high character and noble, sterling qualities of such a man as Joshua Roberts is a privilege of which I am glad to avail myself. He was truly a model old-time gentleman; a lawyer by profession, though not engaging largely in practice at the bar. It was said of him, by those who were capable of judging, that he had no superior as far as knowledge of the law was concerned. He was especially held in high esteem by the boys and young men toward whom his manzsr was always kindly and gracious. He took great interest and pride in the institution of Free Masonry and was the first and for many years, the Worshipful Master of Mt. Herman Lodge. He loved to bring men into the order for he believed in and practiced its principles.

ANOTHER CHARMING FAMILY.^[30] "His family consisted of four sons and four daughters. The sons were Philetus W., John M., William and Martin; the daughters were Miss Aurelia, who married a Methodist minister, Rev. Mr. Wells; Miss Sarah, who married Mr. John H. Christie; Miss Harriett, who married Rev. William M. Kerr, well known to many citizens of Asheville and father of Mr. J. P. Kerr; Miss Jane, who married Dr. George W. Whitson, who is also well known to our people.

PHILETUS W. ROBERTS.^[30] "Philetus W. Roberts was an able young lawyer and was just entering upon a career which promised great usefulness and success when the Civil War came up, in which he sacrificed his life for his country. This writer succeeded him as clerk of the Superior court of Buncombe in 1853… and I have never known a more scrupulously honest and conscientious man in all my life."

OTIUM "CUM" DIGNITATE.^[30] General Robert M. Henry, who came to the bar some later, was a fine lawyer, but a great lover of "rest and ease." He loved to hear and tell good jokes and laugh in his deep sepulchral tones. From 1868 to 1876 he was solicitor of the Western circuit.

JUDGE RILEY H. CANNON.^[30] Riley H. Cannon, who came in about this time, was a modest and even-timed man. He was not prominent until after the war when he was made a judge of the Superior courts of the State.

COL. JOHN W. WOODFIN.^[30] Maj. John W. Woodfin came to the bar, I think, about 1845. He was a man of splendid qualities all round. He was a magnetic man, a genial, sunny man. While not possessing the "heft" of his brother Nicholas as a lawyer, he was nevertheless a fine lawyer and succeeded well in his profession. In his forensic efforts he often found occasion to deal in bitter sarcasm and keen and withering invective, which he could do td perfection for he was a master of both. He was a handsome, dashing and brave man, and gave his life for his country's cause.

"How sleep the brave who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blast.
There honor comes a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay."

COL. N. W. WOODFIN'S CHARMING FAMILY.^[30] Mr. Woodfin married Miss Eliza McDowell, daughter of Col. Charles McDowell of Burke County. She Was a queenly woman and most gracious and lovable in her disposition. The family, consisting of three daughters, who are all now [1905] living in Asheville, are as follows: Miss Anna, so well beloved by all the people of Asheville; Mrs. Lillie Jones, widow of Mr. Benson Jones, who died many years ago, and Mrs. Mira Holland.

GEORGE W. CANDLER.^[30] Almost the exact counterpart of Mr. N. W. Woodfln was George W. Candler. Here was a sturdy, stalwart, rugged man of the people, with brawn and brain to match, a powerful frame encasing a big, warm heart, and all presided over by a masterly intellect. When he began to plant himself for a legal battle on the "Serug" style, it was he a mighty giant placing his feet and clothing his neck and gathering his strength to upturn everything that came in his way, and he generally did so. He, too, was a close student of human nature and knew where to feel for a responsive chord. This and his exceeding plain manner made him a "power" before a jury. He generally won his cases. He was fond of rural life and loved much more to wade in the creeks ,and fish than to "bother with courts." We shall see few, if any, more like him. He was my valued friend and I cherish with affection his memory.

NON-RESIDENT LAWYERS^[30]. Those who attended the courts of Buncombe from other counties were: Col. John Gray Bynum, Col. Burgess S. Gaither, Col. Walghtstill W. Avery, Col. John Baxter, George Baxter, Esq., Samuel Fleming, Michael Francis and William Bryson, with occasionally some others. These were all exceedingly strong lawyers and when they were all present with our local bar and with such judges to preside as Romulus M. Saunders or David R. Caldwell or John L. Bailey or David Settle, John M. Dick or Mathias Manly, it was "court right and commanded universal respect."

STICKLERS FOR FASHION AS WELL AS FORM.^[30] The lawyers of that day almost universally dressed in regulation style and not as they do now. A coat of the finest French broad-cloth of swallow-tail or cutaway style with fine doe-skin cassimere pants, silk or satin vest, "nine biler" silk hat, ruffled and fluted bosom shirt and French calf-skin boots and a handsome necktie, made up the lawyer's suit.

YOUNG MEN OF ABILITY.^[30] "From about 1849 to 1852, there came to the bar of Asheville half a dozen young men who, for brilliancy and real ability, have never been equaled at any bar in the State, coming as they did so nearly at the same time. There were Philetus W. Roberts, Marcus Erwin, Newton Coleman, David Coleman, Zebulon B. Vance, James L. Henry, and Augustus S. Merrimon. All these were men of the first order of ability and those of them who lived to maturer manhood all made their mark, not only in their profession, but in the councils of the State and nation as well and some have left their names emblazoned high on the roll of fame, but of all of those of whom I have written, there is no one left to greet me today. They have all passed to the 'other shore' and are resting with the great silent host. May we see them all again in that 'great bright morning.'"

JOSEPH W. TODD, ESQ., was born in Jefferson September 3, 1834, was admitted to the bar after the Civil War, in which he had served gallantly. He is said to have been the only lawyer who ever told a joke (successfully) to the State Supreme court. He was never a very ardent student, but his wit, humor and resourcefulness, at the bar and on the hustings, were marked. He died June 28, 1909. His contest with the Rev. Christian Moretz for the legislature in the seventies is still remembered for the vigor and energy displayed by both candidates. He gave senate the name of "red-legged grass-hoppers" to the internal revenue agents, who, soon after the Civil War, were the first to wear leather leggins in their peregrinations through the mountains in search of blockade stills. Those who remember the famous joint canvass of Gov. Vance and Judge Thomas Settle m the summer of 1876 for the office of governor will recall that Vance made much capital of the red- legged grass-hoppers, a name he applied to all in the service of the general government until Settle showed that two of Vance's sous were in the service of the United States, one in the naval academy and the other at West Point. Mr. Todd's daughter still preserves a caricature of this canvass. He married Sallie Waugh of Shouns, Tenn

"TWENTY-DOLLAR LAWYERS." Under the act of 1868-69, (ch. 46) any male twenty-one years of age could, by proving a good character, and paying a license tax of twenty dollars--that was the main thing in the eyes of the carpet-bag legislators of that time-get a license to practice law in North Carolina without undergoing any examination as to academic or legal knowledge whatever. Under it several lawyers began practice of this "learned profession." This act, however, was repealed in 1872.

MARCUS ERWIN. He was the son of Leander Erwin and a grandson of Wm. Willoughby Erwin and a great grandson of Arthur Erwin. His father removed from Burke county to New Orleans, from which place Marcus was sent to P College in Kentucky, where he Was a college-mate of Gen. John C. Breckenridge. After graduation Marcus Erwin was studying law in New Orleans When the Mexican War began, in which he served six months. After this war he came to Asheville and became editor of the News, a Democratic paper, after having changed from Whig polities on account of the acquisition of new territory. His connection with this paper led to a duel with the late John Baxter. Later he became a prominent lawyer and Democratic leader, and was elected solicitor of the large district extending from Cleveland to Cherokee. He was a member of the legislature in 1850, 1856 and 1860. "He was a powerful prosecutor, and maintained as high a reputation as B.S. Gaither and Joseph Wilson had established."^[31] He was a Secessionist, and in the discussion between himself and Governor John M. Morehead in the State senate in 1860-61 made an especially powerful and memorable speech. He joined the Confederate Army and became a major in a battalion of which O. Jennings Wise, a son of Henry A. Wise of Virginia, was lieutenant-colonel. This battalion was captured in the fall of 1861 at Roanoke Island. Major Erwin "rendered volunteer service subsequently in the southwest. He ran as a candidate for the Confederate Congress, but was defeated. In 1868 he cast in his lot with the Republican party, and afterwards became assistant district attorney of the United States, where he displayed great ability." He was a man of varied attainments and versatile talents, and spoke a number of modern languages. He was familiar with the best literature and was one of the most effective and eloquent of political speakers. Governor Vance is said to have dreaded meeting Major Erwin on the stump more than any other. Their debates may be likened to the storied duel between the battle-ax of Richard and the cimeter of Saladin.

CALVIN MONROE McCLOUD. He was born at Franklin, Macon county, N. C., February 9, 1840, where he obtained only a common school education. He volunteered in the Confederate Army, where he served till the close of the War. In 1865-66 he studied law in Asheville under the late Judge J. L. Bailey. On the 5th of July, 1866, he married Miss Ella Pulliam, daughter of the late R. W. Pulliam. He formed a partnership with the late N. W. Woodfin for the practice of law. He died June 20, 1891. He was a public spirited citizen and did much to promote the welfare of Asheville and the community, having been among 'the first to agitate a street railway, gas, telegraph, and other enterprises.

JUDGE EDWARD J. ASTON. He was born in November, 1826, in Rogersville, Tenn. He married Miss Cordelia Gilliland in November, 1852, moving to Asheville in 1853, where he engaged in the drug, stationery and bookstore business. He was three times mayor of Asheville and a director of the first railroad. He was among the first to see Asheville's great future as a health and pleasure resort. He not only donated books but supplied the first room for the Asheville public library. In 1865 he added real estate to his business, and later on insurance, soon becoming head of the firm of Aston, Rawls & Co. He is credited with having originated the idea of making Asheville the sanatorium of the nation. He devoted much time and large means to the distribution of circulars and literature setting forth the advantages of this climate. In 1871 he interested the Gatchel brothers in establishing the first sanatorium at Forest Hill. Then he got Dr. Gleitzman of Germany to open another in Asheville. It was largely through his influence that the Rev. L. M. Pease established his school for girls here. He also had much to do with getting the late G. W. Pack to build a home in Asheville. Judge Aston was so called because he had studied law, but had abandoned the practice. He died in 1893.

POST-BELLUM LAWYERS. Space can be given to only a few of the more prominent attorneys who came to the bar after the Civil War and have passed beyond the nisiprius courts. William Henry Malone wrote several valuable law books, his "Real Property Trials" being indispensable; Melvin E. Carter for years was one of the most prominent and able of the Asheville bar, enjoying an extensive practice, and being a sound lawyer; T. H. Cobb was one of the clearest and most forceful of attorneys; Kope Elias of Franklin enjoyed an extensive practice in Cherokee, Macon, Clay, Graham and Jackson counties. For a sketch of Gen. James G. Martin, who came to the bar late in life, after the Civil War, see chapter 27. He was one of the commissioners in the investigation of the Swepson and Littlefield frauds.

JUDGE JOHN BAXTER. He was the son of William Baxter and Catherine Lee, and was born at Rutherfordton, N. C., March 19, 1819. He was admitted to the bar in 1840. He married Orra Alexander, daughter of James M. Alexander of Buncombe, June 26, 1842. He was a member of the legislature from Rutherford county in 1842. He lived for several years in Hendersonville, but afterwards removed to Asheville. About 1852 he fought a duel with the late Marcus Erwin, Esq., and was wounded in the hand. He moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, in May, 1857. He was a strong Union man during and before the Civil War, He was appointed United States Circuit Judge by President Hayes in December, 1877, for the sixth circuit - Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan. Some of his decisions are said to stand high with the English courts. He died at Hot Springs, Arkansas, April 2, 1886, and was buried in Gray cemetery, Knoxville, Tennessee.

JUDGE J. C. L. GUDGER. He was born in Buncombe county, July 4, 1837. His father was Samuel Bell Gudger and his mother Elizabeth Siler Lowery, a daughter of Lowery who held a captain's commission in the war of 1812. He was educated at Sand Hill academy and Reems Creek high school, now known as Weaverville college. He was admitted to the bar in August, 1860. He enlisted in the 25th N. C. Infantry July 22, 1861, and served till the close of the war. He moved to Waynesville December, 1865. He was married to Miss Mary Goodwin Willis of Buncombe county August 28, 1861. He was elected judge of the Superior court in August 1878, and served eight years. He held a position in the United States Treasury for years. He died January 29, 1913.

JUDGE WILLIAM L. NORWOOD. He was born in Franklin county, N. C., July 1, 1841. His father was James H. Norwood, a native of Hillsborough and a*graduate of the State University. In 1846 James H. Norwood moved With his family to Haywood county and engaged in the practice of the law, and for several years conducted a classical school. In 1852 he was murdered at Sergeants Bluff on the Missouri river, while serving as agent of the Sioux Indians. W. L. Norwood was graduated from Bingham's School in 1856, after which he attended the school of Leonidas F. Suer in Macon county. He taught school in Haywood county till 1861, when he enlisted in Arkansas and served throughout the war. He was admitted to the bar in 1866, and was elected judge of the Superior court in November, 1894, from which position he resigned in 1899. On March 4, 1872, Judge Norwood married Miss Anna Duckworth of Brevard. He died about 1909.

JUDGE EUGENE DOUGLAS CARTER. He was the eldest son of Thomas D. and Sarah A. E. Carter, and was born May 18, 1856, in North Cove, McDowell county, was educated at Col. Lee's school in Chunn's cove, at Wafford College, at Weaverville College, and at the University of North Carolina. He married Miss Sallie M. Crisp in June, 1877, at Fayetteville, and began the practice of law at that place, but soon removed to Asheville, where he was several times elected solicitor of the Criminal court of Buncombe county, making an excellent prosecutor. He was appointed by Gov. Russell in the summer of 1898 to fill the vacancy caused by the supposed resignation of Judge W. L. Norwood as judge of the Superior court. But Judge Norwood denied that he had legally resigned, and began quo warranto proceedings to cover the office, which abated by Judge Carter's death, October 10, 1898. Judge Carter evinced throughout his life a high order of literary and oratorical talent. As an advocate he had no superior at this bar.

JUDGE JOHN LANCASTER BAILEY. He was born August 13, 1795, in eastern North Carolina; was married June 21, 1821, to Miss Priscilla E. Brownrigg; was admitted to the bar at some date prior to 1821; was representative from Pasquotank County in House of Commons in 1824 and a senator in 1828 and 1832; was a delegate to the State Convention of 1835; was elected judge of the Superior court January 11, 1837, and resigned there-from November 29, 1863, after a service of over twenty-six years; practiced law at Elizabeth City, and also taught law there, probably up to the time of his election as judge. It was about the time of his election as judge or a few years afterward that he removed to Hillsboro, and with Judge Nash taught school there. In 1859 he moved to Black Mountain, near what is now the intake of the Asheville water system and Mrs. J. K. Connally's summer home, where he taught a law school from 1859 to 1801. He movcd to Asheville in 1865 and taught a law school there until about 1876. He also practiced law in Asheville in co-partnership with the late Gen. J. G. Martin. He died June 20, 1877. Judge Bailey was loved and honored by all as an able and upright lawyer and a worthy and useful citizen. (For fuller sketch see "Biographical History of North Carolina, VoL IV, p.52, and Vol.VI, p.6.)

JUDGE FRED MOORE was born in Buncombe county on the l0th day September, 1869. He was the son of Daniel K. Moore, and the grandson of Charles Moore and the great-grandson of William Moore, one of the pioneers who helped to drive back the Indians and establish peace in this section. He attended school at Sand Hill near his home, and was admitted to the bar at the September term, 1892, of the Supreme court. He spent part of his youth in Macon and Clay counties, and began the practice of the law at Webster, Jackson county as a partner of his cousin, Hon. Walter E. Moore. In 1898 he removed to Asheville and formed a co-partnership with another cousin, Hon. Charles A. Moore. In 1898 he was elected judge of this judicial district. He died in August, 1908. Judge Moore's mother was a Miss Dickey of Cherokee, and his wife a Miss Enloe of Webster. He tried many important cases, and his rulings and decisions were fair and sound. His life was as nearly blameless as it is possible for human lives to be. When first made a judge he was probably the youngest who ever served on the Superior court.

JUDGE GEORGE A. JONES. He was born in Buncombe county February 15, 1849, a son of Andrew and Margaret Jones. He attended Sandhill Academy on Hominy creek while it was open during the Civil War, and early in the seventies removed to Franklin, Macon county, where he became an assistant in the high school and later principal. He was admitted to the bar in 1878, having married in December, 1875, Miss Lily Lyle, daughter of Dr. J. M. Lyle and Mrs. Laura Siler Lyle, his wife. There were six children by the union, and after the death of his first wife, he married, January 31, 1895, Miss Hattie B. Sloan, by whom he had four children. She was a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W. M. Sloan. In 1889 Judge Jones represented Macon county in the legislature. In 1891 he was elected solicitor of the twelfth judicial district, and was reelected in 1895, serving two fuil terms. In 1901 he was appointed by Gov. Aycock judge of Superior court of the newly created sixteenth judicial district and served about two years, when he resumed the practice of law at Franklin, where he died August 13, 1906.

JUDGE ROBERT P. DICK. Judge Dick was for many years U. S. district judge for the district of western North Carolina, having been appointed soon after the close of the Civil War, and serving continuously till July, 1898, when President McKinley appointed Hamilton G. Ewart of Hendersonville to that position; but as the senate failed to act upon this appointment the President sent his name to three successive sessions of the senate. But as that body persisted in its refusal either to reject or confirm this appointment, Judge Ewart's name was withdrawn and that of Hon. James E. Boyd sent in instead. This appointment was confirmed in 1900, Judge Ewart having served since July 13, 1898. Judge Dick had a great deal to do with the trial and sentencing of those who had violated the internal revenue laws, and was always considerate and merciful in imposing punishment on the poor people who were found guilty in this court, "thirty days in jail and a hundred dollars fine" being the almost universal sentence.

JUDGE LEONIDAS L. GREENE. He was born in Watauga county, in November, 1845, and was elected Superior Court Judge in 1896, and served as such till his death, November 2, 1898.

HON. CHARLES H. SIMONTON. Judge Simonton of Charleston, N. C., was Circuit judge of the United States for a number of years, succeeding the late Judge Hugh Bond of Baltimore of Ku Klux fame. Upon his death in May, 1904, President Roosevelt appointed Hon. Jeter C. Pritchard judge of this circuit, and he was confirmed by the senate without reference to the judiciary committee. He qualified June 1st, 1904, having remained in Washington as judge of the District court there to try an important case by special request of President Roosevelt.

COLONEL ALLEN TURNER DAVIDSON. He was born on Jonathan's creek, Haywood county, May 9, 1819. His father was William Mitchell Davidson and his mother Elizabeth Vance of Burke county, a daughter of Captain David Vance of Revolutionary fame. William Davidson, first senator from Buncombe county and a soldier of the Revolutionary War, was the father of William Mitchell Davidson, and a cousin of Gen. William Davidson who was killed at Cowan's Ford. Col. Allen T. Davidson attended the country schools of his day, and at twenty years of age he was employed in his father's store at Waynesville, and in 1842 married Miss Elizabeth A. Howell. He began the study of law, and in 1843 became clerk and master in equity of Haywood county, being admitted to the bar in 1845. In 1846 he removed to Murphy, Cherokee county, then a remote backwoods place. He at once took a leading place at the bar of the western circuit, and during his sixteen years residence there served as solicitor of Cherokee county, and became one of the leading lawyers of this section. In April, 1860, he became president of the Merchants and Miners Bank. The secession convention of him one of the delegates from Macon county to congress of the Southern Confederacy. He served out the provisional term and was elected in 1862 a member of the permanent congress, serving till the spring of 1864, being succeeded the late Judge G. W. Logan of Rutherford county. In 1864-65 he served as a member of the council of Governor Vance, and at the same time acted as agent of the commissary department of the State in supplying the families of Confederate soldiers in this section. In the fall of 1865 he settled in Franklin, Macon county, and in 1869 he came to Asheville to live, buying and occupying the Morrison house, which stood where the present county court house stands. He soon became leader of the Asheville bar, and continued in active practice till 1885, when he retired. He died at Asheville, January 24, 1905.

Following is an editorial which appeared in the Asheville Gazelte-News on that date:

"The last survivor of the Confederate Congress is no more. After a long and eventful life he has now been introduced to the mystery of the Infinite. He has read the riddle of life in the darkness of death He knows it all now. The veil has been lifted and the contracted vision of earth has been expanded into the measureless profundity of eternity. Born, lived and died-behold the great epitome of man.

"The announcement of the passing of this historic figure from the familiar scenes of life will awaken sorrow in many hearts from the Blue Ridge to the Unakas and the Great Smokies, for it was upon this elevated stage that his active life was spent. It was here that he began, a strong-limbed herder of cattle upon the verdant slopes and ghostly balds of the Cataloochee mountains, that career of activity that led him by successive stages to the bar, to the Confederate Congress, to the chancel-rail of the church, and to a warm place in the hearts of many of the best people of the State.

"Twelve years ago (1893) he stood on the Bunk mountain in Haywood county with a boyhood companion (Lafayette Palmer) and pointed out the place of the lick4ogs where he had been wont to repair at intervals to tend the cattle pastured there; and, looking fondly around at the once familiar scene, said, as great tears streamed down the age-furrowed face, 'Good-bye, world'.' That was his last visit to that sacred spot, and he said then that he would never look upon that scene again. Probably there was no tie that he had to break as age grew upon him that caused him a sharper pang than the parting from his beloved mountains. Certainly no man will be more missed by the people who live in these mountains than this man who bade them farewell so many years ago.

"Col. Davidson was a strong and rugged character. He had strong passions, strong muscles, strong intellect. He wore his heart upon his sleeve. He was open and above-board in his likes and dislikes. He was a true and faithful friend and a bold and unconcealed enemy. Meeting in mid-life the stormy discords of civil strife in a community rent asunder over the question of union or disunion, it was inevitable that he should have awakened animosities.

"But no man had any reason to doubt where Allen Davidson stood on personal, public or other questions. He spoke his mind freely and fearlessly. He hated shams and pretenses with holy hatred.

"From 1865 until 1885 he was admittedly the leader of the bar of what was then known as the Western Circuit, extending to Cherokee in the west and to Yancey and Mitchell in the north. There was no large case tried in this section between the years named in which he did-not take a conspicuous and important part. Bold, aggressive and persistent, he stormed the defences of his opponents with all the dash and elan of a Prentiss or a Pinckney.

"Like a true poet he was dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, the love of love.' His sense of humor was acute and never failing. No adversity could quench it. Some of his remarks will live as long as the traditions of the old bar survive. He knew the life and habits of the mountain people better, perhaps, than any other man at the bar, and his speeches always pointed a moral and adorned a tale. Juries and judges were swayed by his intense earnestness, for he always made his client's cause his own.

"Even in his old age he was yet in love with life and raptured with the world.' He rejoiced in his youth ah, with halting foot-step he went downward to the grave; but for him the evil days came not nor did the years draw nigh in which he said: 'I have no pleasure in them.' Strong, vigorous and healthy in mind and body, he enjoyed to the utmost the enjoyed to the utmost the good things of life and made no hypocritical pretense of despising them. With splendid physical development he towered among his fellows like a giant, and to him fear was an alien and a stranger.

"He was a kind-hearted and charitable man, loving to give of what ever he had of worldly goods, sympathy or kindly deeds. He was a faithful and affectionate husband, father, friend. A commanding and picturesque figure has passed from our midst."

His widow still survives him, and of his children the following still emulate his name and example most worthily: Hon. Theo. F. Davidson, late attorney general of the State; Mrs. Theodore S. Morrison, Mrs. W. B. Williamson, Mrs. William S. Child, Robert Vance Davidson, for several terms attorney general of Texas, Wilber S. Davidson, president of the First National Bank of Beaumont, Texas.

JUDGE JAMES L. HENRY. He was born in Buncombe county, in 1838, and received only such education as the schools of the county afforded. He was a son of Robert Henry and Dorcas Bell Love, his wife. He was elected Superior court judge of the eighth judicial district in 1868, and served till 1878, having previously acted as solicitor for that district.^[32] He was editor at the age of nineteen of the Asheville served in the Civil War as adjutant of the 1st North Carolina Cavalry, and on Hampton's and Stewart's staffs, and as colonel of a cavalry battalion stationed at Asheville. He died in 1885.

COL. DAVID COLEMAN. He was born in Buncombe county February 5, 1824, and died at Asheville March 5, 1883. His father was William Coleman and his mother Miss Cynthia Swain, a sister of Governor D. L. Swain. He attended Newton Academy and entered the State University, and just prior to graduation entered the Naval Academy at Annapolis, graduated, and served in the navy till he resigned in 1850, returning to Asheville and entering upon the practice of law. In he was the Democratic candidate for State senator, defeating Col. N. W. Woodfin, and was reelected in 1856, Zebulon Baird Vance, the only defeat by the people Vance ever sustained. In 1858 Coleman and Vance were rivals for Congress, but Vance won. Coleman was one of the few men of this section who were secessionists, and was was appointed to the command of a ship, but the delays in its fitting out tried his spirit beyond endurance and he entered the army, and was assigned to a battalion which afterwards became the 39th North Carolina regiment, of which he was colonel. He resumed the practice of the law after the War, and was eminent as a lawyer. He was solicitor for a time and represented Buncombe county with Gen. Clingman in the State convention of 1875. He was a highly cultivated gentleman, a brave soldier and a lawyer above all chicanery. He never married. Gov. Swain was the first boy to enter the State University from the west, David Coleman was the second, and James Alfred Patton, a son of James W. Patton, the third.^[33]

JUDGE RILEY H. CANNON. The following extract is taken from his obituary, written by the Hon. Robert D. Gilmer, late attorney general of North Carolina: "He was born in Buncombe county March 26, 1822, went to school at Sandhill Academy, was graduated from Emory and Henry College, Virginia; married Ann Sorrels October 18, 1850, to whom four children were born, namely, George W., once postmaster at Asheyille, Eva, Lula A., and Laura. He was admitted to the bar in 1851, was appointed judge of the Superior court in 1868, and wore the judicial ermine during a troubled period in our State history. It was said, even by his political opponents, that he never allowed it to trail in the dust of party rancor or become soiled by the stains of partial rulings. He was a member of the Methodist Church for thirty years. He died in that faith February 15, 1886. He was an honest man."

JACOB W. BOWMAN was born in what is now Mitchell county July 31, 1831, and died at Bakersville, June 9, 1905. He married Miss Mary Garland in 1850. He was admitted to the bar before the Qivil War, and was appointed United States assessor of internal revenue by Gen. Grant April, 1869. Governor Russell appointed him Superior court judge in November, 1898, to fill an unexpired term. He received the nomination of the Republicans for the full term, but was defeated by Judge Councill, Democrat.

JUDGE GEOEGE W. LOGAN. He was born in Rutherford county. He lived near the Pools at Hickory Nut Falls, where he kept a tavern. He was elected to the Confederate Congress and qualified in May, 1864. He was a Superior Court judge from 1868 till his death in 1874.

JUDGE JOSEPH SHEPARD ADAMS. He was born at Strawberry Plains, Tennessee, October 12, 1850, and died at Warrenton, N. C., April 2, 1911. His father was Rev. Stephen B. Adams and his mother Miss Cordelia Shepard. His father established a school at Burnsville, Yancey county, before the Civil War, which was known as Burnsville Academy. Joseph Adams was a pupil at this academy, and afterwards attended the school of Col. Stephen Lee in Chunn's Cove. He was graduated with honor from Emory and Henry College, Virginia, in 1872. He studied law at Asheville under the late Judge J. L. Bailey, and was soon afterwards admitted to practice, opening an office at Bakersville. He was elected solicitor of the Eighth district soon after beginning practice and served in that capacity eight years. In 1877 he married Miss Sallie Sneed Green of Greensboro, N. C. She died November. 16, 1901, leaving six children sur'viving. In 1885 he moved from Statesville to Asheville and began the practice of law, which he continued till his election to fill out the unexpired term of the late Judge Fred Moore in 1908. He was elected for a full term in 1910.

ALFONZO CALHOUN AVERY. He was the son of Isaac T. and the grandson of Waightstill Avery, and was born at Ponds near Morganton, Burke county, September 11, 1835. He died at Morganton, June 13, 1913. He attended Bingham School in Orange county and graduated from the State University as A. B. in 1857, first in his class. He was admitted to practice before the county courts in June, 1860, and before the Superior courts in 1866. He was an officer in the Sixth North Carolina regiment, and later became major and adjutant general of Gen. D. H. Hill's division. Later he was on the staffs of Generals Breckenridge, Hood and Hindman. In 1864 he was made colonel of a battalion in western North Carolina, was captured near Salisbury by Stoneman's army, and confined at Camp Chase till August, 1865. In 1861 he married at Charlotte Miss Susan W. Morrison, a sister of Mrs. "Stonewall" Jackson, and after her death he married Miss Sarah Love Thomas in 1889. She was a daughter of the late Col. W. H. Thomas of Jackson county. In 1866 he was elected State senator from the Burke district, and aided in building the Western North Carolina Railroad to Asheville and in locating the State hospital for the insane at Morganton. He was presidential elector in 1876, and in 1878 he was elected judge of the Superior court. In 1889 he was elected associate justice of the Supreme court and resumed the practice of his profession in 1897, at Morganton, and was active till his death. In 1889 the State University conferred upon him the degree of doctor of laws, and for more than twenty-five years he was a ruling elder of the Morganton Presbyterian church.

NOTES:

1. A sketch of the judges of this State to 1865 will be found in the fourth volume of Battle's Digest by W.H. Battle Esq. and in Vol. II Rev. St. N.C. p 527 et seq is a "Sketch of the Judicial History of North Carolina" with a list of the Judges and attorney generals since the adoption of the constitution It also contains a sketch of the judicial procedure under the proprietary government 103 N.C. Rep. has history of Supreme court.
2. Potter's Revisal p 281 and p 1050.
3. Ibid p 297.
4. Ibid p 887.

3. Chief Justice Pearson is said to have pronounced Judges Leonard Henderson and John Hall the most profound Jurists ever in North Carolina.
4. Dropped Stitches.

3. Potter's Revisal p 1039.

5. Battle's Digest.
6. Dropped Stitches pp 51-52.
7. Ibid., pp 52-53.
8. Mr. McGimpsy was one of the ancestors of Judge Jeter C. Pritchard of Asheville.
9. Ashe county record not paged.
10. Soon after the formation of one of the newer counties Judge Boy kin guve a defendant his choice between thirty days in jail and one week at the only hotel in town. The defendant chose the jail. This was since the war however.
11. Recollection of Hon. J.H. Merrimon and Dr. T.A. Allen Sr.
12. Asheville's Centenary.
13. Thomas Henry also was a soldier of the Revolution and although he died soon thereafter his name appears as a pensioner Col Rec Vol XVII p 217 where it appears that he was paid through. A. Lytle £60 15s 8d according to the "Abstracts of the NC Line" settled by commissioners at Halifax from September 1 1784 to February 1 1785 He fought at Eutaw Springs.
14. "I have myself heard my grandfather Michael Shenck of Lincolnton N.C. speak of Mr. Henry as a great land lawyer." D. Schenck Sr. March 28, 1891 in note to "Narrative of the Battle of Cowan's Ford," published by D Schenck Sr.
15. He said he asked his father what the shouting was about and he answered that "They are declaring for Liberty." W.L. Henry's affidavit filed with Mecklenburg Declaration Committee in 1897.
16. Col. A.T. Davidson in Lyceum p 24 April 1891
17. Asheville's Centenary.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. According to Judge James H. Merrimon Hillman and Dews lived at Rutherford ton He does not know the given name of Mr. Hillman but states that Mr. Dew's was Thomas and that in crossing the Green river he was drowned while yet a very young man not much if any over twenty five years of age. He says that the late Mr. N.W. Woodfin considered Dews the ablest man in the State of his age.
21. The reference is to 1898 the monument having been completed in that year.
22. The same is true of Governor Swain Generals Sevier Waightstill Avery the two McDowells Rutherford Shelby Piokens and others of Revolutionary fame and little or no space can be spared in this volume in re recording what has been already written and preserved of them.
23. Asheville's Centenary.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. The Lyceum April 1891 p 23.
29. Related by Judge Geo. A. Shuford.
30. From Reminiscences of Dr. J.S.T. Baird published in 1905.
31. From Mrs. Mattie S. Candler's History of "Henderson County."
32. J.H. Wheeler's "Reminiscences."
33. Miss Fanny L. Patton in the "Woman's Edition of the Asheville Citizen," November 28, 1895.

F A LAGGARD IN EDUCATION. North Carolina has little reason to be proud of her early history in the cause of education. For years there was greater illiteracy in this State than in any other, and the improvement of late years has not been any greater than it should have been. In 1816 the legislature appointed a committee with Archibald D. Murphey at its head to suggest a plan for State education. The plan suggested in 1817 provided for primary schools in each county and for ten academies in different parts of the State, with the State University at the head. A school for deaf, dumb and blind was provided for and the children of the poor were to be supported while at school. But this benevolent scheme to provide for the children of the poor defeated the entire plan.^[1]

THE LITERARY FUND. In 1825 the legislature created a literary fund which was to come from the sale of swamp lands and other sources. In 1837 part of a large sum derived from the United States was added, making the entire fund about $2,000,000.^[2]

PUBLIC SCHOOLS BEGIN. With the income from this and a tax voted by most of the counties public schools were begun in 1840. In 1852 Calvin H. Wiley was elected superintendent of public instruction, which office he held till 1865. The schools grew from 777 in 1840 to 4,369 in 1860. The number of all students in colleges, academies and primary schools increased from 18,681 in 1840 to 177,400 in 1860. This applies to the entire State.

LOSS OF THE LITERARY FUND. The State kept the literary fund intact during the entire period of the Civil War, keeping the schools open and conducting them with such books as could be provided. It needed the literary fund for the soldiers in the field, but it would not touch a penny except to educate its children. But this fund was held by the banks of the State, and when the Reconstruction legislature voted not to pay the Confederate debt, the banks were ruined, for the State owed them large sums. Thus one million dollars of the fund was lost.

THE EDUCATIONAL GOVERNOR. Gov. Aycock did much for education during his term from 1900 to 1904. Rural libraries were started and a loan fund provided.

PIONEER TEACHERS AND PREACHERS. In 1778 or 1779 Samuel Doak, who was educated at Princeton College, N. J., came to Washington county and soon after his arrival opened a good school in a log cabin on his own farm. This is said to have been the first real institution of learning in the Mississippi valley. In 1788 Doak's school was incorporated by North Carolina as Martin Academy. In 1795 the territorial legislature incorporated Martin Academy as Washington College, located at Salem, and Doak was made its president.^[3] In 1785 the legislature of North Carolina incorporated Davidson Academy, near Nashville.

THE FIRST SCHOOLMASTER OF BUNCOMBE. Soon after the Swannanoa settlement was established in 1782, a school was started in accordance with the principles of the Presbyterians. "Robert Henry taught the first school in North Carolina west of the Blue Ridge."^[4]

OLD-FIELD SCHOOLS. Col. J. M. Ray gives the following description of these antiquated methods of teaching the young idea how not to shoot In lieu of kindergarten, graded and normal schools "was the Old-Field school, of which there were generally only one or two in a county, and they were in session only when it was not 'crop-time.' They were attended by little and big, old and young, sometimes by as many as a hundred, and all jammed into one room-a log-cabin with a fire-place at each end-puncheon floor, slab benches, and no windows, except an opening made in the wall by cutting out a section of one of the logs, here and there. The pedagogue in charge (and no matter how large the school there was but one) prided himself upon his knowledge of and efficiency in teaching the 'three R's'-readin', 'ritin' and 'rithmetic-and upon his ability to use effectively the rod, of which a good supply was always kept in stock; He must know, too, how to make a quill pen from the wing-feather of goose or turkey, steel and gold pens not having come into general use. The ink used was made from 'ink-balls'- sometimes from poke-berries and was kept in little slim vials partly filled with cotton. These vials not having base enough to stand alone, were suspended on nails near the writer. The schools were paid for from a public fund, the teacher boarding with the scholars. The common plan was for all to study aloud, and this was universally so when getting the spelling lesson, which was the concluding exercise and most exciting part of the inside program. Two of the good spellers of the school were appointed by the teacher as captains, and they made selections alternately from the scholars for their respective sides in the spelling match. The first choice was determined by spitting on a chip and tossing it up, the captain tossing it asking the other 'Wet or dry?' and the other stating his choice. If the chip fell with the side up as designated, he had 'first pick' of the spellers, and of course selected the one thought best. If he lost, his opponent had first pick. Another plan was 'Cross or pile?' when a knife was used the same way, the side of the handle with the ornament being the cross. Some of these old pedagogues were very rigid in discipline-almost tyrants-a day without several fioggings being unusual. They sometimes resorted to queer plans to catch up with mischievous scholars; one I distinctly remember-it is not necessary to say why I so distinctly remember it-was to put the school on its behavior and leave the building, cut around to some crack or opening and watch inside movements. This watching generally resulted in something.

OLD SCHOOL GAMES. "The outside sports made bearable all inside oppression, however. 'Base,' 'cat,' 'bull-pen,' and 'marbles,' were the leading popular games, and were entered into with a zest and enthusiasm unknown in these times. The sensational occurrence of the session was, however, the chase given some party who, in passing, should holler 'school butter!' But such party always took the precaution to be at a safe distance and to have a good start, and stood not upon the order of his going, but went for all that was in him; for to be taken was to be roughly handled-soused in some creek, pond or mud-hole. The pursuers were eager and determined, sometimes following for miles and miles, and having but small fear of being punished for neglect of studies. On the contrary, the offence was of so high an order (and I never understood just why) that sometimes the teacher would join in the race.''^[5]

A PRIMITIVE SPELLING BOOK. Col. Allen T. Davidson gives this picture of a time earlier than any Col. Ray can remember: "The first schoolmaster I remember (on Jonathan's creek) was an old man by the name of Hayes. He was a good old man, and had a nice family, and had come to that back-country to 'learn' the young idea how to shoot. I was about six years old (1825). We could not then get spelling-books readily. I had none, and was more inclined to fun than study. The old man or his daughters dressed a board as broad as a shingle, printed the alphabet on it, bored a hole through the top, put a string in it, tied it around my neck and told me to get my lesson. I did not make much progress; but was greatly indulged by the old man, and 'went out' without the 'stick,' which was the passport for the others. The old man wore a pair of black steel-rim spectacles, with the largest eyes I ever saw, and was a great smoker. There were no matches in those days, and no way to get fire except by punk and steel; hence, he had to keep fire covered up in the ashes in the fire-place to light his pipe… When I would bring in the sticks with which to replenish the fire, I would usually bring in two or three buckeyes, which I slipped into the ashes as I covered the wood. The wood would smolder to a coal and the buckeyes would get hot, but they would not explode until the air reached them, when they would explode like the report of a musket, scattering the hulls, ashes and embers all over the house, in the old man's face and against his spectacles. This always happened whenever he uncovered the coals to light his pipe. The good old man never did discover the cause of the explosions. He has long since gone to his reward, and I remember him with tenderest affection."^[6]

THE BLAB SCHOOL. At the earliest period of the most isolated schools, there were but few books, and spelling was usually taught and learned by a sort of chant or sing-song, iri which all, teacher and scholars, joined. Young and old joined in this exercise, and children often learned to spell who did not readily distinguish the letters of the alphabet. These were often chalked or written with charcoal against the walls.

NEWTON ACADEMY. From 1797 to 1814 the Rev. George Newton taught a classical school at this place [Newton Academy] which was famous throughout several States.^[7] Mr. Newton was a Presbyterian minister, reported to the Synod at Bethel Church, South Carolina, October 18,1798, as having been received by ordination by the Presbytery of Concord (Foote's Sketches on North Carolina, 297). He lived on Swannanoa until 1814, when he removed to Bedford county, Tennessee. There for many years he was principal of Dickson Academy and pastor of the Presbyterian church in Shelbyville, and there he died about 1841.^[7] "At that time there was a building which had been used for church and school purposes, known as Union Hill Academy. The house, which was a log one, was removed and in 1809 a brick house took its place. In the same year its name was changed to that of Newton Academy."^[8] Here for many years the people resorted to preaching and sent their children to school, and buried their dead. In 1857 or 1858 the brick building between the present academy and the grave yard was removed and the brick academy now there was erected. (See Clayton v. Trustees, 95 N. C., 298.)

DR. ERASTUS ROWLEY. "The old Newton Academy was the only institution in the county which, up to 1840, had ever been dignified with as big a name as that of Academy. This was a very old structure when I first entered it in 1844. Dr. Erastus Rowley taught here that year. The house was a very long one and rather wide-one story, divided into two rooms-one very long room and one small one. It was built of brick and stood on the top of the knoll some distance above where the present one stands. Many of the older men of this section received their education at this widely known institution and its fame has always been almost co-extensive with that of Asheville."^[9]

DR. SAMUEL DICKSON. "In 1835 Dr. Samuel Dickson, a Presbyterian minister, established here a seminary for young ladies, which was most successfully carried on for many years. It was a school which even in this day of improved educational methods would stand in the highest rank. Miss Marguerite Smith of Rhode Island also taught in this building at the same time. At it were educated all the girls in this section of the country. Dr. Dickson lived and carried on this school in the first brick house put up in Asheville. It was a handsome colonial residence, known afterwards as the 'Pulham place,' on South Main street. The first woman who ever became a regular practitioner of medicine in America was a member of this school, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell."^[10]

COLONEL STEPHEN LEE, SOLDIER AND SCHOOLMASTER. "Dr. Frastus Rowley also taught the male school at the old Newton Academy for quite a while. He was a 'Yankee' but a most excellent teacher, as well as a fine preacher. Col. Stephen Lee, about this time, established a school for boys on the Swannanoa four miles from Asheville, which had a wide reputation and he did good in all this mountain section. It may be said without intended disparagement to others that Col. Lee's equal as a teacher has scarcely been found in this country; his memory lingers with and is blessed by many of the 'old boys' of today.

"Col. Lee's school for boys was far famed and many of the best citizens of this country and South Carolina remembered with gratitude, not only the drilling in Latin and Greek received from this most successful educator, but also the lessons in high toned honor and manhood imparted by this knight 'without fear and without reproach.' Col. Lee came from South Carolina and opened his school first in a large brick house built by himself on Swannanoa, known as 'The Lodge'- afterwards famous as the hospitable summer residence of Mr. William Patton. Colonel Lee afterwards moved to Chunn's Cove, where he taught until, at the call of his country, he and his sons and his pupils enlisted in the cause which they believed to be right. He was a graduate of West Point and distantly related to Gen. R. E. Lee."^[11]

Col. Stephen Lee, son of Judge Thomas Lee of Charleston, S. C., was born in Charleston, June 7, 1801, was educated at West Point and for some years after taught in the Charleston College. In September, 1825, he was married to his cousin, Caroline Lee, also of Charleston; they had fifteen children, nine boys and six girls. Some years after he was married he moved to Spartanburg, S. C., where he lived only a few years, moving with his family to Buncombe county, N.C. In Chunn's Cove he started his school for boys, which he kept up as long as he lived, except for two or three years in the sixties, a part of which time he was in, command of the 16th N. C. Regiment, serving his country in West Virginia and the rest of the time drilling new recruits and preparing them for service. Besides serving himself, he sent eight boys into the Confederate army, four of whom gave their lives to the cause. At the close of the war he returned to his school duties and prepared many young men for their life work. He died in 1879, and is buried in the Asheville cemetery.

MRS. MORRISON AND MISS COUSINS' SCHOOL. Another school now long passed away, and existing only in the tender memories of its pupils, was taught for girls by Mrs. Morrison and Miss Cousins, on Haywood street, the present residence of Dr. H. H. Briggs.

SAND HILL SCHOOL. Captain Charles Moore, son of Captain Wm. Moore, was a man of ability and learning, a strict Presbyterian and a most useful citizen, who early realized the importance of education to a people so isolated as were the men of his time. Consequently, early in the nineteenth century he erected a small frame building on his farm, since famous as Sand Hill School. It was a school house and church for ministers sent out by the Mecklenburg Presbytery, and later became the most useful institution of learning west of the Blue Ridge, to which boys from all the surrounding counties came as long as Captain Moore lived. Among them were the late James L. Henry, Superior court judge; J. C. L. Gudger, Superior court judge; the late Riley H. Cannon, Superior court judge, and Judge George A. Jones of Macon, who held the position of judge by appointment for nearly two years. Among those living, are Captain James M. Gudger, Sr., solicitor; J. M. Gudger, Jr., member of Congress; H. A. Gudger, chief justice of the Panama Canal Zone; Superior Court Judge Geo. A. Shuford, Judge Charles A. Moore, the late Hirschel S. Harkins, former internal revenue collector for this district; the late Fred Moore, Superior court judge; the late James Cooper, a prominent lawyer of Murphy; Hon. W. G. Candler, member of the legislature; Thomas J. Candler, Dr. James Candler, and Dr. David M. Gudger. Captain Charles Moore is said to have been largely instrumental in erecting the first Presbyterian church in Asheville. He insisted on employing only the most competent teachers for Sand Hill School, among them being Prof. Hood and W. H. Graves, both highly educated teachers. He died about the close of the Civil War. Professor S. F. Venable, a graduate of the University of Virginia, also taught at Sand Hill.

ANOTHER EARLY SCHOOL. Bishop Asbury records the fact that in September, 1806, he and Moses Lawrence lost their way in Buncombe county when within a mile of Killion' s on Beaverdam creek, and spent the night in a school house, without a fire. The floor of this school room was of dirt, on which Moses slept, while the Bishop had a "bed wherever I could find a bench." This was not Newton Academy, for he had already recorded the fact that he knew the Rev. George Newton in November, 1800. Besides, Newton Academy was more than three miles from Killion's. Just where this school house was seems to have escaped the knowledge of all our local historians.

SILAS MCDOWELL. He was born in York District, S. C., in 1795, and for three sessions was a student at Newton Academy, near Asheville. He was apprenticed to learn the tailor's trade at Charleston, S. C., and worked as such at Morganton and Asheville. He married a niece of Governor Swain, and moved to Macon county in 1830, where for sixteen years he was clerk of Superior court. He was a practical mineralogist and geologist, botanist and a scientist of ongizial views. His descriptions of mountain peaks attracted much attention; but his "Theory of the Thermal Zone" gave him great reputation and was published in the Agricultural Reports of the United States. He died in Macon county, July 14, 1879.

A BENEVOLENT "SQUEERS."^[12] A most unique character among the teachers of that day was Robert Woods or "Uncle Baldy," as he was generally called, for his head was bald as a door knob with the exception of a light fringe at the base of his cranium. Although a finished classical scholar and perfect in mathematics as well as all the higher branches taught in that day, he would not teach in the higher schools, but preferred to labor in what was then known as the "old field," where there was seldom anything taught but the elementary branches--such as spelling, reading, writing "ciphering." Occasionally he would have a boy who wanted to take a little Latin or Greek, or the higher mathematics, which he was thoroughly competent to teach. He was singular and very economical in his notions of dress. He made one suit last him for many years. I can see him now in imagination, with a long tail blue jeans coat that came down to his knees and which had seen service so long that the threads of white filling were showing plainly. The collar was large and when turned up came nearly to the top of his head. His pants were of heavy "linsey woolsey" of deep brown color and very baggy. His vest was of the same material and buttoned up to his chin, with a good flap at the top, his shirts were of heavy red or purple flannel, his shoes were of a style of heavy home made comfortable brogan that were very generally worn in that day. This was his dress and the only one I ever saw him wear. When he was not hearing recitations he constantly walked the floor of the school room from end to end with a swinging walk with his hands crossed upon his back and in one of them a six foot birch "tidivator," and when he would catch a boy with his eyes wandering or at meanness he would give him a keen rap across the shoulders and say in a savage tone, "mind your book." In the summer time when the flies were bad he would tie a large red bandanna handkerchief over his head which he could arrange something after the fashion of a woman's sunbonnet and thus he could save fighting the flies, but with all his queer ways and habits he was a most excellent, useful and successful teacher and a good old gentleman. For many years he taught acceptably in various parts of this county.

FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE IN ASHE. The first school house in Jefferson was of logs and stood on a branch in the eastern end of Jefferson in a lot owned by Felix Barr, just left of the blacksmith shop. He removed it in 1873 or 1874. A fine spring is near the former site.

BURNSVILLE ACADEMY. In 1851 Rev. Stephen B. Adams, now deceased, of the Methodist Church, established the Burnsville Academy and taught there several years. He was the father of Judge Joseph S. Adams, also now deceased. Out of this grew:

MARS HILL COLLEGE, which was established by the most prominent members of the Baptist denomination in 1857, after realizing the necessity for such a college. Thomas Ray, John Radford, E. D. Carter, Daniel Carter, Stephen Ammons, Shepard Deaver, Rev. J. W. Anderson and Rev. Humphrey Deweese were prominent in establishing this institution. During part of the Civil War the buildings were used by the soldiers, but after the close of that struggle the buildings were repaired and others added. It has done and still is doing great good.

WEAVERVILLE COLLEGE was established by the Methodist Church, South, about the year 1856. It is situated on land where formerly camp meetings were held. It has been greatly enlarged and improved of late years. It is co-educational. It has done excellent work in the past and continues to do the same now.

ASHEVILLE MALE ACADEMY. In 1847-48 the citizens of Asheville erected a brick building on the north side of what is now College street about a hundred yards east of Oak. It stood till August, 1912, when it was removed. In it Prof. James H. Norwood taught till about 1850, when he removed to Waynesville, where he remained till shortly before the Civil War, when, having been appointed Indian agent in the Northwest, he removed there and was afterwards killed by the Indians. During part of the time he taught at this academy Col. Stephen Lee also taught there, but soon removed to Chunn's cove.

ASHEVILLE FEMALE COLLEGE. About 1850 or 1851 this college was established on the land now bounded on the north by Woodfin, on the east by Locust, on the south by College and on the west by Oak streets. Part of it is used as a hotel and the remainder is now the high school's property. At first it was Holston Conference Female College, but was afterwards known as the Asheville Female College, and subsequently as the Asheville College for Women. It prospered and had a large patronage from the start under the presidency of Dr. John M. Carlisle, Dr. Anson W. Cummings, Dr. James S. Kennedy, Dr. R. N. Price, Dr. James Atkins, Mr. Archibald Jones.

ASHEVILLE SCHOOL FOR GIRLS. This was begun in 1911, with Miss Ford as principal, assisted by several competent teachers. It occupies the handsome and commodious residence built by Col. N. W. Woodfin at the corner of North Main and Woodfin streets, Asheville, and enlarged by the late Dr. J. H. Burroughs.

SULPHUR SPRINGS SCHOOL. William Hawkins taught in the school house on the hill above Sulphur Springs from 1838 till long after 1845. A school had been maintained at that place by Robert Henry's influence and largely at his expense since 1836. The grave yard still there is just back of the place where the old school house stood. The late Riley Cannon, the Jones, Hawkins and Moore children attended school there in the old days.

MRS. HUTSELL'S GIRLS' SCHOOL. Mrs. Hutsell, the wife of the Rev. Mr. Hutsell, a Methodist preacher, taught a school for girls about four miles west of Sulphur Springs from 1840 to 1853, and took some of the scholars to board at her house. Her husband and Francis Marion Wells of Grassy Creek, Madison county, were brothers-in-law.

"ORDER OF THE HOLY CROSS" AT VALLE CRUCIS.^[13] In 1840 a gentleman from New York, in search of rare wild flowers, wandered into Valle Crucis. He called this beautiful vale to the attention of Bishop Levi S. Ives of the Protestant Episcopal Church, who, on July 20, 1842, held services there and promised to send a missionary. In December, 1842, Rev. Henry H. Prout arrived and began work in the Lower Settlement, near the Tennessee line. In August, 1843, Bishop Ives returned and purchased 125 acres of land which was subsequently increased to 2,000 acres. His first intention was to "make this valley an important center of work for the entire diocese, to include a missionary station, a training school for the ministry, and a classical and agricultural school for boys." The necessary buildings having been constructed in 1844, school was opened early in 1845, with thirty boys which number increased to fifty during that summer. Rev. Mr. Thurston was at the head of the mission and of the school. There were seven candidates for the ministry, several of whom were assistant teachers. Upon the death of Mr. Thurston the Rev. Jarvis Buxton, then a candidate for holy orders, took charge of the school and Mr. Prout carried on the missionary work. But Dr. Buxton removed to Asheville in 1847, where he became rector of Trinity church, resigning that position in March, 1890. This withdrawal from Valle Crucis was in consequence of the introduction into the mission of Valle Crucis by Bishop Ives, in June 1847, of the "Order of the Holy Cross," planned by himself and which he intended, it was said, to develop into a monastic institution. The Bishop was the General of the Order, the members of which were divided into three classes: those in the abbey at Valle Crucis only taking the mediaeval vows of chastity, poverty and obedience; others taking lighter vows; and some taking lighter vows still.

Both the clergy and laity might belong to either class. The Rev. Mr. French was appointed Superior, Mr. Buxton having declined the appointment. Many divinity students became connected with the order, but none of them abandoned the church. The chapel having been destroyed by fire, the little band rebuilt it by themselves, locating it in a little grove at the foot of a hill. Instead of bells a bugle was used to summon them to worship, and to work. Rev. William West Skyles of Hertford county, had joined the mission in 1844 as a farmer, and was ordained a deacon in August, 1847. He was now called "Brother William," while the Rev. Mr. French was addressed as "Father William." All were required to work the farm two hours every day. But reports of the new order had spread through the diocese, funds had failed to arrive, but the committee on the State of the church at the convention held at Wilmington in 1848, favored the mission, saying that its importance is immense as the nursery of a future ministry because of its retirement,… its hardy and useful discipline and great economy." At the convention held at Salisbury in May, 1849, Bishop Ives gave assurance that "at this religious house no doctrine will be taught or practice allowed" not in accord with the principles and usages of the church, "the property of the establishment having been secured to the church for the use of the mission on the specified conditions." At a later day the Bishop declared that from the date of the convention at Salisbury the order had been dissolved. Its regular existence, therefore, scarcely covered two years. The committee on the state of the church having reported in 1849 that they had assurances on which they could rely that "no society whose character, rules and practices are at variance with the spirit if not with the laws of this church is at present in existence in this diocese," the convention ordered 1,000 Copies of the report distributed throughout the diocese. In July, 1849, Bishop Ives visited Valle Crucis, however, and addressed a pastoral letter to the diocese which was considered a defiance and a partial retraction of the assurances he had given the convention during the previous May. Consequently, funds for the mission almost entirely ceased, and some of the students sought work elsewhere. Mr. French left the mission in the winter of 1850 and Bishop Ives appointed the Rev. George Wetmore to take charge of Valle Crucis. At the convention of 1850, held at Elizabeth City in May, Bishop Ives alluded to his assurances of 1849, in which he had denied private confession, absolution and Christ's real presence in the Eucharist, etc., and still claimed that there had been no heresy or schism. A committee in 1851 investigated Valle Crucis and reported that the Bishop's explanation was satisfactory.

Bishop Ives visited Valle Crucis in the summer of 1852 and consecrated Easter chapel above Shull's Mills. In September, 1852, he asked for $1,000 and six months' leave of absence. He sailed for Europe and on the 22d of December, 1852, he resigned as bishop and declared his "intention to make his submission to the church of Rome." He had been bishop over twenty years. Dr. Thomas Atkinson, who had been rector of Grace church, Baltimore, was elected to succeed him May 22, 1853. The title of the Vaile Crucis property was never in the Episcopal church. It was sold by Dr. Ives' legal representatives to Robert Miller who worked the mission grounds as a farm.

The little chapel which Rev. Mr. Skiles had succeeded in having built on Lower Watauga at a cost of $700, was consecrated by Bishop Atkinson August 22, 1862. Mr. Skiles, who had done many deeds of charity and love, died at the home of Col. J. B. Palmer near what is now Altamont, in Avery county, December 8, 1862. His remains were interred in the churchyard of St. John the Baptist, December 18, 1862. This chapel was removed in 1882 to a spot higher up the Watauga river, near St. Jude post office, and in 1889 Mr. Skiles' remains were reinterred in the new churchyard under the direction of Rev. George Bell of Asheville.

The Episcopal church has purchased a large part of the original mission property and now maintains a flourishing school for girls there. The buildings are large, handsome and modern, the orchards and farms are well cultivated and the work accomplished is uplifting and enduring. The principal credit for this work is due Right Reverend Junius M. Homer, Bishop of Asheville, who since his consecration in 1900 has been untiring in building up at this favored spot a useful and elevating school for girls. An investigation of this work and the success which is already evident will convince the most skeptical of its value and importance.

VALLE CRUCIS SCHOOL FOR GIRLS. "The school property consists of a farm of 500 acres, woodlands, apple orchards, dairy farm, vegetable garden and poultry yard. It is in Watauga county. There are two fine buildings, Auxiliary Hall and Auchmuty Hall. Auxiliary Hall was built with that portion of money given the Bishop of Asheville, Rt. Rev. Junius M. Homer, from the united offerings of 1901, added to other smaller gifts. It is a frame building of handsome proportions, and contains the assembly hall for the school and six class rooms on the first floor; the dining room and kitchen on the second floor; and a dormitory for two teachers and twelve girls, on the third floor, with linen closets and bath rooms adjoining.

"Auchmuty Hall is the regular dormitory building for the school. It is built of concrete blocks, and has thirty rooms with capacity for six teachers and sixty girls. The ground floor has office for the principal, a living room, and a prayer room, where daily morning and evening prayers are said. This building was put up at a cost of $15,000, the gift of friends personally interested in the school and missionary work. These buildings are well designed for school purposes and those in authority are diligent in carrying out the deliberately planned policy of the school, viz.: that of making this a model school industry, that shall be sufficiently economic to be self-supporting after the equipment of $50,000 is completed and an endowment of $50,000 is added to insure the salaries of the necessary teachers in the school. It is the policy of the Bishop of Asheville to have here an industrial school which will educate women, home makers, so that the growing generation of men and women from the Appalachian mountains shall be the type known as 'faithful unto death.'

"Half a century ago a school for boys was opened at Valle Crucis by Bishop Ives who named the place because of the natural formation of the valleys, Valle Crucis, or the Vale of the Cross.

"The property of the school, however, was lost to the church until a few years ago when sufficient interest in the mountain region was awakened to enable the church to buy back the best portions of the old school farm and commence the erection of the present industrial school."

SKYLAND INSTITUTE at Blowing Rock was established about twenty-five years ago (1891) by Miss E. C. Prudden, and is supported by the American Missionary Association. It is a girls' school with industrial training.

MAST SEMINARY. This is at Mast post office on Cove creek, Watauga, and is the gift of Mr. N. L. Mast to the Presbyterian Church. It is only a little over two years old, but will flourish. Both sexes taught.

WATAUGA ACADEMY. This was established in the summer of 1899 by Messers D. D. and B. B. Daugherty at Boone, their childhood home. They are brothers.^[14] The Dougherty family, both men and women, not only in Ashe and Watauga, but in Johnson county, Tenn., also, have for years been zeal- ous in the work of education, religion and the uplift of their States. This was the beginning of the Appalachian Training School.

COVE CREEK ACADEMY. Twenty years ago (1893) this useful and successful school in the western part of Watauga county, was presided over by Mr. Julius C. Martin, now a distinguished lawyer of Asheville. It flourished under his management as principal, and has continued on the road to success.

ASHEVILLE FREE KINDERGARTEN. Miss Sara Garrison was a teacher in 1889 in a kindergarten school in the factory district. In the same year an association was formed and two kindergartens established and placed in charge of Miss Garrison and Miss Slack of Baltimore. They were so successful that a training school was established for fitting women to teach such schools, and Mrs. Orpha Quale of Indianapolis taught a class of eight young ladies. Four kindergartens were in operation. Mr. George W. Pack having donated a school building necessitated the incorporation of the association in 1892. He met most of the expenses of one of the teachers who worked at half rates rather than have the school suspend. In 1894 only two kindergartens were in operation and Mr. George W. Vanderbilt opened another for colored children in the Young Men's Institute at his own expense. A New England lady secured $200 from friends in Boston and the Asheville board of aldermen gave $150 for a kindergarten to be re-established in the factory district. The public kindergartens were suspended for want of funds in the year 1912, but arrangements have been made to reopen them.

BURNSVILLE BAPTIST COLLEGE. About the time the Presbyterians established their college at Burnsville the Baptists erected a large and handsome set of college buildings, which have done a great work ever since.

BINGHAM SCHOOL was founded in 1793, at Mebaneville, N. C., by Rev. Wm. Bingham, who was succeeded by the late W. J. Bingham, and he by the late Col. Wm. Bingham. After the death of the last named, in 1873, Major Robert Bingham became superintendent. The military feature, introduced during the Civil War, has been retained. This school was removed to Asheville under Col. Robert Bingham's superintendence in the fall of 1891; though the original Bingham School, as it is claimed, continues to flourish at Mebaneville. Both schools are doing well.

RURAL LIBRARIES. Small but carefully chosen libraries have been placed in our country schools. This means that six hundred thousand country children have such opportunities of enriching their lives by reading as were never before offered to the young people of North Carolina.

ALLEGHANY SCHOOLS. Sparta has had a high school almost from the beginning of the town, Prof. Brown having located there in 1870, and with the exception of short intervals, has had charge of it ever since. There are also a good many academy buildings at Whitehead, Laurel Springs, Scottville, Piney Creek, Elk Creek and Turkey Knob. In 1909 the Orange Presbytery established a high school at Glade Valley, there being four buildings, all steam-heated and modernly equipped.

BAPTIST MOUNTAIN MISSIONS AND SCHOOLS. Mr. A. E. Brown has furnished a list of schools which are maintained by the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Church. A tract gives the following information.

"Some Mountain Mission School work in this region is being done by Northern Methodists, the Congregationalists, the Disciples and the Southern Presbyterians. Aside from the work done by Southern Baptists, however, the Northern Presbyterians are doing the largest Mountain Mission School work in the South. Here and there in the mountain region Baptists have tried to operate schools all along during the past, but not until the Home Mission Board put the denomination behind the educational efforts in the mountains was there any permanency in the work. The people have responded nobly to the leadership and backing furnished by the Home Board. Southern Baptists are probably better equipped for this work than any other denomination. This is ground on which to base a deepened sense of responsibility and not ground for any unworthy pride.

"To sum up: There are more white people per square mile in the mountains than in any region of equal size in the South. The isolation of the mountains is for lack of means for inter-communication, and not for lack of people.

"There are more native born American whites ready to be trained and to profit by training in this district than in any other."

The schools in the mountains of North Carolina follow:

"Mars Hill College, Mars Hill. Five buildings, nine teachers, 360 students; territory, Madison county and part of Buncombe; draws students from every section of the South.

"Yancey Institute, Burnsville. Four buildings, five teachers, 261 students; territory, Yancey county.

"Mitchell Institute, Bakersville. Two buildings (with the third to be erected in the near future), four teachers, 140 students; territory, Mitchell and Avery counties.

"Fruitland Institute, Hendersonville. Four buildings, seven teachers, 221 students; territory, Hendersonville, Transylvania and Polk counties.

"Round Hill Academy, Union Mills. Three buildings, six teachers, 169 students; territory, Rutherford and McDowell counties.

"Haywood Institute, Clyde, N. C. Two buildings, four teachers, 80 students; territory, Haywood county.

"Sylva Institute, Sylva. Four buildings, three teachers, 87 students; territory, Jackson and Macon counties.

"Murphy Institute, Murphy. Three buildings, three teachers, 96 students; territory, Cherokee and Clay counties, N. C., and Polk county, Tennessee."

JOHN O. HICKS, PEDAGOGUE.^[15] John O. Hicks, originally from Tennessee, built a school at Hayesville just at the close of the Civil War that has been a noted high-school ever since. Hicks, after some thirty years of successful teaching, turned the school over to N. A. Fessenden of Boston, Mass., and went to Walhalla, South Carolina, and after a few years teaching at that place moved to Texas, where he died in 1910.

The same school that John O. Hicks organized and built up at Hayesville is still in operation with an enrollment of over two hundred. The influence that has gone out from this school has permeated the whole county until the public schools of the county are unsurpassed. From this school have gone out hundreds of men and women who are prominent over the United States. Among them are the Revs. Ferd. McConnell, Geo. W. Truett and T. F. Marr; the Doctors W. S., M. H., and W. E. Sanderson of Texas and Oklahoma; lawyers, O. L. Anderson, J. H. and Luther Truett and the lamented Judge Fred Moore.

APPALACHIAN TRAINING SCHOOL was incorporated in 1903, succeeding the private school of Professors B. B. and D. D. Dougherty, at Boone. It began in 1899 when $1,500 was appropriated on condition that an equal sum should be provided from private sources. In addition, $2,000 per annum was appropriated for maintenance. With the first $3,000 appropriated the present brick administration build ing was started. Other appropriations followed and other buildings were erected until in 1911 the maintenance fund was increased to $10,000 per annum for all succeeding years. There have been contributions from people in every State east of the Mississippi river except from New England. There are now 500 acres of valuable land, six large buildings, farm houses and barns, two dormitories and a mess hall. There are three sessions annually of four and a half months in the fall and spring, and two and a half months in summer. Average attendance is 200, while over 400 were taught in 1911. There is a full faculty. Board for women is $6.50 and for boys $7.50 per month. In 1913 the legislature appropriated $15,000 to erect a brick dormitory for girls capable of holding 200 students. It is in course of erection.

A CAMP SCHOOL. There is a summer camp which comes to Bryson City every summer, and is situated on the left bank of the Tuckaseegee river about half a mile below the town. It is composed of boys from various colleges who thus pursue their studies through the summer. They live in tents, but the kitchen and mess hall are of wood. The professors have their families with them and live in the same camps.

SOLITUDE, OR ASHLAND. Toward the close of the nineteenth century Professor F. M. Wautenpaugh of Omaha, Neb., succeeded in having a large and convenient building erected on a high hill overlooking Solitude, and for four or five years conducted a business college and high school most satisfactorily. But the stockholders grew impatient for a dividend on the money they had invested in the enterprise and the school closed. It is now owned by a religious society popularly known as the Holiness People. A religious paper called The Sword of the Lord, is published monthly at Solitude by Rev. E. L. Stewart. There is also a public school house, neat and attractive, which is attended by about 140 children.

BAPTIST HIGH SCHOOL, MURPHY. The Baptist high school occupying the site of the former residence of the late Ben Posey, Esq., a distinguished lawyer, was b'iilt in 1906-7, and afterwards enlarged. There are dormitories and other buildings. It is in the southern part of town, about half a mile from the court house.

THE MURPHY GRADED SCHOOL. The Murphy graded school cost $30,000 and stands on Valley River avenue in the eastern part of the town, midway between Murphy and East Murphy. It is built after the colonial style and overlooks Valley river from its site on a splendid elevation. It has twelve class rooms, a library, an auditorium, a principal's office, closets, electric lights and water. It was built in 1909 and is a credit to the community.

CULLOWHEE NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL. "In 1888, a number of the leading citizens of Cullowhee, desirous of a better school than the ordinary public school of that day, organized themselves into a board of trustees for the establishment of what was to be known as the Cullowhee High School. They procured the services of Prof. Robert L. Madison as principal, and under his leadership and supervision the school began to flourish and make rapid progress. In 1893, the institution was recognized by the State, and through the efforts of Hon. Walter E. Moore, representative from Jackson, an appropriation was secured for the purpose of establishing a Normal department of the school for the training of teachers. At the session of the General Assembly, in 1905, through the efforts of Hon. Felix E. Alley, representative from Jackson, the appropriations were still further increased and the name of the school was changed to Cullowhee Normal and Industrial School, the institution then becoming a State school for the training of teachers.

"The State has recently erected a large and commodious home for young ladies. The building was designed by a competent architect, is well furnished, and is equipped with water works, steam heat and electric lights. The administration building is furnished with patent desks and chairs, is lighted by electricity and heated by steam. The handsome auditorium is seated with opera chairs and will accommodate six hundred persons. The institution has a newly installed sewerage system and is supplied with an abundance of pure water from distant mountain springs. The electric light and steam heating plants are both located on the school grounds and owned and operated by the institution.

"The supreme purpose of the school is the development and training of teachers. It proposes not only to give the student training in the fundamental and cultural branches of study, but so to train him or her as to prepare them to teach."

MISSION WORK OF NORTHERN PRESBYTERIANS. In the summer of 1884 Dr. Thomas Lawrence was a guest of Rev. L. M. Pease, originally of New York city, who, with his wife, had founded the famous Five Points mission in New York city, but who had removed to Asheville in the seventies, and had started and was then conducting a school for girls. On a drive into the country Dr. Lawrence was impressed with the fine looks and intelligence of some boys he saw at a school, and Mr. Pease offered to devote all his landed property near Asheville for a training school for girls of the vicinage. At that time the Home Mission Board was seeking a location for some such training school. The result of this conversation was the transfer of this property to the Home Mission Board. The late Mrs. D. Stuart Dodge was active and influential in effecting this. The terms were satisfactory to all concerned, and a life annuity from the private purse of the Rev. D. Stuart Dodge, D. D., of New York, having been secured to Mr. and Mrs. Pease, the Home Industrial school was soon thereafter organized, in 1887, with Mr. Pease as superintendent and Miss Florence Stephenson as principal, a position she still holds. The success of this school encouraged the evangelization of the mountain region and the Normal and Collegiate Institute was opened in September, 1892, with Dr. Lawrence as president and Mrs. Lawrence as principal, with a faculty of fourteen expert teachers and officers, on part of the Pease property. Dr. Lawrence retired when he reached seventy-five years of age in 1907, and Prof. E. P. Childs succeeded him. Thereafter five other boarding schools have been established in this section, it being the policy of the Presbyterian Church to hand these flourishing schools to their respective communities just as soon as they are able to assume the expense and responsibility of their support and management. Of the twenty-two elementary day schools planted during the last quarter of a century in the more sequestered and needy communities seven have been successfully transferred to local public school authorities. The remaining fifteen are still doing good work; while in four other centers additional social, kindergarten and Sabbath school work is being done under the management of the board. Miss Florence Stephenson, Miss Mary Johns, Miss Julia Phillips, Miss Frances Goodrich, Dr. J. P. Roger, a Christian physician, have done a great work for our people and their names are house-hold words in many a mountain cabin. Dr. G. S. Baskerville made a success of the farm school on the Swannanoa river, after the school had been organized by Prof. Samuel Jeffries, a graduate of the agricultural department of Cornell University, in 1893. Dr. J. P. Roger is in charge of the farm school now.

The following is a list of the schools and churches established in Western North Carolina, exclusive of those established elsewhere in the South:

Normal and Collegiate Institute, 1902. Prof. E. P. Childs, president. Miss Mary F. Hickok, principal. Fifteen teachers and officers. Average enrollment, 304.

Home Industrial School (preparatory to the Normal and Collegiate Institute), 1887. Miss Florence Stephenson, principal. Teachers and officers, ten. Average enrollment, 140.

Pease Home (for little girls), 1908. Miss Edith P. Thorpe, matron. Adjunct to Home Industrial School, and furnishing school of practice for Normal and Collegiate Institute.

These three boarding schools for girls occupy, with the chapel, manse, and superintendent's home, the beautiful suburb of Asheville, ceded by Mr. Pease. The whole plant is valued at $200,000.

Farm School, nine miles from Asheville, on the Swannanoa river, 1895, J. P. Rogers, superintendent. Sixteen teachers and officers. Spacious school and farm buildings and 650 acres of fertile land.

These four flourishing boarding schools form the Asheville group. Their success has been largely possible through the wlse counsel and constant beneficence of Dr. D. Stuart Dodge, New York City, who inherits a name which has, for three generations, been synonymous with philanthropy.

Bell Institute, Walnut, Madison county, 1908. Miss Margaret E. Griffith, principal. Five teachers and officers. Average attendance, 284; 65 boarders. Value of school property, $12,000.

Dorland Institute, Hot Springs, Madison county, 1887. Established by the late Dr. Luke Dorland, in his old age, after a long life of eminent usefulness in other fields. Miss Julia E. Phillips, principal. Eleven teachers and officers. The plant is valued at $40,000, and provides school room and dormitory accommodations for 70 girls, farm and home for 30 boys, having, in addition, an attendance of 60 day pupils.

Stanly McCormick Academy, Burnsville, Yancey county. Prof. Lowrie Corry, principal. Seven teachers and officers. Six buildings, including school building, principal's home, separate dormitories for boys and girls. Average attendance, 206; 50 boarders. Building and grounds valued at $46,000. This prosperous academy has a magnificent patron in Miss Nettie McCormick, Chicago, Ill.

Besides the schools of higher grade, above mentioned, a successful academy was maintained more than ten years at Marshall, which prepared for and subsequently gave place to the excellent graded school now being maintained by the public authorities.

In addition to these boarding schools, 21 elementary day schools were meanwhile being planted in the remotest and most inaccessible regions, under carefully trained Christian teacher--fourteen in Madison, four in Buncombe, and three in Yancey county, with an average attendance of 1,200 pupils, under 41 teachers. The moneys invested in school buildings and teachers' homes, the people contributing as they were able, would aggregate $30,000.

In accordance with their policy, as already remarked, the board, in the more recent years, has been gradually retiring from these fields as the local authorities became able and willing to take over the work. The value of properties in buildings and lands, held for educational purposes, including the seven boarding and 21 day schools, aggregates $400,000, not to make mention of the salaries of, on an average, more than 100 efficiently trained teachers necessarily employed.

Col. Robert Bingham, one of the most experienced and eminent educators of the commonwealth, in an article published in the North American Review, refers to the prudence and wisdom which has characterized the administration of this mission school work, and says, in substance: "Of all the moneys donated by northern philanthropists for the betterment of education in the South, those contributed by the Northern Presbyterian Church has been most judiciously and wisely expended."

The list of the organized churches is as follows: Oakland Heights, Asheville, Buncombe county; College Hill, Riceville, Buncombe county; Reems Creek, Reems Creek, Buncombe county; Brittain's Cove, Brittain's Cove, Buncombe county; Jupiter, Jupiter, Buncombe county; Cooper's Memorial, Marshall, Madison county; Barnard, Barnard, Madison county; Allanstand, Allanstand, Madison county; Big Laurel, Big Laurel, Madison county; Dorland Memorial, Hot Springs, Madison county; Burnsville, Burnsville, Yancey county.

SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH SCHOOLS.^[16] Glade Valley School, near Sparta; organized 1910; boarding and day school for boys and girls; buildings and furnishings worth $20,000. Five teachers in regular service; 130 students; full academic course; board and tuition per month, $10.

Lees-McRae Institute, at Banner Elk; established 1901; boarding and day school for girls; industrial, there being no servants Buildings, furnishings and farm worth $25,000. Eight teachers; 165 students; usual academic course with manual training. Tuition and board per month, $8.

Lees-McRae Institute at Plumtree; organized 1902; boarding and day school for boys; industrial, large farm connected with school; buildings, farm, furnishings, stock, etc., worth $22,000. Five teachers and about 110 students. Course prepares for freshman class in good college. Board and tuition, $8, many of the students making as much by their own labor.

Mission Industrial School, near Franklin; organized 1911; boarding and day school for girls; industrial, no servants. Buildings and furnishings worth $10,000. Five teachers and 75 students. Course same as that of best high schools. Board and tuition, $8 per month.

The Maxwell Home and School, near Franklin; organized 1911, for homeless boys who are destitute. Manual training, chiefly, the farm containing 500 acres. Buildings, furnishings and farm, worth $15,000. Three teachers, capacity for 30 boys at present. With $50 to get a start, a boy can make his own way here.

Mountain Orphanage. At Balfour, established in 1905 by Home Mission Committee of Asheville Presbytery. Mr. and Mrs. A. H. Temple have charge of 40 children. Property worth $5,000.

COLORED PEOPLE'S SCHOOLS.^[17] "Very soon after the war the importance of the education of the colored people, now citizens and voters, was impressed upon the minds of the thinking people of this section. The first effort in this direction was the parochial school of the Protestant Episcopal Church, which was opened in 1870, and was taught by Miss A. L. Chapman of Rochester, N. Y. After two years she was succeeded by Rev. Mr. Berry, who was both pastor and teacher. This double office has been filled without interruption by educated and influential colored men up to the present time, and many heads of families look back with gratitude to the little room on South Main street, and the parochial school building on Valley street, where the rudiments of an education were obtained, and foundations of character laid, which have been a blessing to them and their households.

"In 1885 Rev. L. M. Pease, recognizing the importance of hand, as well as head and heart training, erected a bui1ding for an Industrial school on College street, and opened it the same autumn with three thoroughly educated colored teachers. At the close of the school year, being financially unable to continue it, he deeded the property to the Woman's Board of Home Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which continued the work under the superintendence of Rev. Newell Albright, whose health was such as to require a residence in this climate. When Mr. Albright resigned after one year, the school was thoroughly organized and established and has continued to do excellent work under the superintendence of Miss A. B. Dole, who, by her judicious management of the race question, and devotion to the interests of the colored people, has made many friends among both races.

"Rev. C. F. Dusenberry of the Presbyterian Church has a parochial school on Eagle street, under the auspices of the Holston Presbytery, where industrial work is taught to some extent, and a kitchen garden conducted.. The purpose of this is to teach correct methods of housekeeping, such as making fires, washing dishes, setting and waiting on tables, laundry and chamber work.

"In the Victoria suburb a combined chapel and school house was erected five years ago by a donation from Mr. Taylor of Cleveland, O., where a flourishing day school has greatly benefited the population. Mrs. W. I. Erdman was the projector and manager of this school till her removal to Philadelphia one year ago. The teacher's salary is paid by the Freedman's Board of the Presbyterian Church, by which they are also appointed.

"In 1892, Mr. Stevens, the principal of the public school for colored pupils, was greatly in~pressed with the necessity of an institution for colored young men on the plan of the Y.M. C. A. He set about devising plans for the erection of a building for this purpose, and made a journey during vacation to Bar Harbor, Me., for the purpose of soliciting aid from Mr. George Vanderbilt. In this he was successful, and Mr. Charles McNamee was commissioned to erect a structure, suitable for the purpose contemplated, on the corner of Eagle and Market streets. It is a fine, substantial building with a tiled roof. There are stores and offices on the first floor and a large lecture hall. On the second floor is a library and reading room, a parlor and school room and the office of the superintendent. This was occupied by Mr. Stevens for one year, and the following one by Mr. John Love, an Asheville boy, who was graduated at Oberlin, O., and resigned one year ago to take work in Washington, D. C. The present incumbent is B. H. Baker, a graduate of Howard University.

"The lecture hall has been in demand for lectures, concerts, exhibitions and entertainments, and on Sunday afternoons for a song service with a large attendance. There is a religious service one night in the week, a night school for boys and a kindergarten eight months in the year."

CHARLES McNAMEE, ESQ., for many years the attorney and adviser of Mr. George W. Vanderbilt, who erected the Young Men's Institute at the corner of Eagle and Spruce streets, Asheville, for the use of colored people, about the year 1893, in a letter dated October 24, 1895, says that he is the trustee of the property and that "It was the original intention that the income of the building over and above the running expenses should be devoted to paying Mr. Vanderbilt back the principal and interest of the cost of the building and ground." The foregoing references are to times prior to November, 1895.

MRS. HETTY MARTIN. This good lady was the wife of the late General James Green Martin. They came to Asheville during the Civil War, after which they faced poverty with brave hearts. Mrs. Martin was the daughter of the ate Charles King, president of Columbia College, New York, granddaughter of Rufus King, first American minister to the Court of St. James, and a sister of General Rufus King of the United States army. Notwithstanding her northern birth and ancestry, Mrs. Martin's fidelity to the South was unquestioned. Recognizing the fact that if left to their own resources the newly enfranchised negro race of the South must necessarily retrograde, Mrs. Martin soon after the Civil War exerted herself to advance their educational and religious training. It was through her influence that St. Mathias Episcopal church was organized and for years supported by the aid of white people. She also assisted in the erection and furnishing of the flue new church that crowns one of the hill-tops in the eastern part of Asheville, and in which so many reputable and self-respecting colored men, women and children have received spiritual guidance. Her influence for good in this community is incalculable.

MISS ANNA WOODFIN. This good woman is a daughter of Col. N. W. Woodfln, and although a confirmed invalid for many years, she has, nevertheless, exerted a wonderful influence for good in this community. In 1884 she was largely instrumental in organizing the Flower Mission, of which she is still an honored member. This was intended to be "an auxiliary to the State branch of that department of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, with the object of carrying flowers to the homes of the sick and destitute1 to prison cells, to hospitals and almshouses." Bible texts and songs and readings often went with the flowers. Its work revealed the need of a hospital and, as the society was interdenominational, the cooperation of all the churches was secured, and soon the Mission Hospital was open in 1885. The Associated Charities is also an outgrowth of this grand scheme.

DONATION OF A LIBRARY. About 1905 Professor Charles Hallet Wing, of Brighton, Mass., donated to the county of Mitchell on certain conditions a large and well-arranged library building and 15,000 selected and valuable books, a book-bindery, etc., all situated at Ledger, on the road from Marion to Bakersville, where Professor Wing lived several years and gave the people in the neighborhood the free use of his library, besides binding without charge any pamphlets or books in need of such treatment.

PROFESSOR CHARLES HALLET WING. Of this public-spirited gentleman we read (Carolina Mountains, p.326) that "after many years of notable service as professor of chemistry in the Boston Institute of Technology" he came to Ledger, Mitchell county, N. C., "before there had been any change in the customs of the country, to escape the turmoil of the outer world. Professor Wing vehemently disclaimed any share in changing - he would not call it 'improving' the life of the people, but he made his charming log house, his barn and outbuildings, also his fences with their help." He also built a school house and library building, provided two teachers, and himself "conducted a manual training department." There were 250 applicants for admission to his school the first year it was opened, ranging from six to forty years in age. This school was successfully conducted "without the infliction of any sort of punishment." Fifteen thousand books were sent there by friends of Prof. Wing, and the library was kept by a native youth who was taught to rebind books, "as some of the most used books were those that had been discarded by the Boston Public Library." Small traveling libraries of seventy-five volumes each were sent around the country and loaned. "The library was free, with rules, but no fines, and it is illustrative of the quality of the people that the rules were not broken and that at the end of the first year not a book was missing, none had been kept out overtime, while less than six per cent of those taken out had been fiction" (p.327).

GEORGE W. PACK. Elsewhere has been mentioned the donation by this gentleman of a valuable library building to the city of Asheville, and his aid to the free kindergartens of that city.

BREVARD INSTITUTE. This school for training girls and boys in the practical things of life is situated near Brevard, and was started in 1895. "Besides the ordinary academic subjects and special religious training the pupils are taught a dread of debt, promptness in attending to business obligations of every sort, a love for thoroughness and accuracy in doing work of every sort, self-control in the expenditure of money, and a knowledge of simple business transactions."' There is also a business course, a department of music and one of domestic art. (Carolina Mountains, pp.225-226.)

ALLENSTAND COTTAGE INDUSTRIES. This is a form of settlement work which began, "long before the present wave of prosperity had drawn near the mountains," in the north-western portion of Buncombe county "away up on Little Laurel, near the Tennessee line … and close under the wild Bald mountains." It was "formerly a stopping place or 'stand' for drovers who stopped over night with their cattle, sheep, horses and swine" on their way from Tennessee to South Carolina. Here old4ashioned spinning, weaving and dyeing were revived and are being taught. (Carolina Mountains, pp.226-228.)

BILTMORE INDUSTRIES. From the same work (p. 231) we read that wood-carving is taught and practiced at Biltmore, as well as old-fashioned spinning, weaving and dyeing, and also embroidery, some of the graduates in wood-carving carving chairs for the great establishment of Tiffany of New York, and more than one hundred of the pupils are earning a livelihood by the wood-carving craft.

SCOTCH BLOOD ANSWERS FIRST CRY TO BATTLE. From the Carolina Mountains (p.149) we learn that although the men of these mountains had remained for years without an ideal and were without Opportunity to display their natural ability and trustworthiness of character, nevertheless, when George W. Vanderbilt began his operations at Biltmore he employed these very men and kept them under an almost iron discipline. He found "the Scotch blood at the first call to battle ready," and now "all the directors of the great estate, excepting a few of the highest officials, are drawn from the ranks of the people, who proved themselves so trustworthy and capable that in all these years only three or four of Biltmore's mountaineer employees have had to be discharged for inefficiency or bad conduct."

NOTES:

1. Hill, p. 175.
2. Ibid., 376.
3. G. R. McGee's, p. 110.
4. From "Alexander-Davidson Reunion," 1911, by F. A. Sondley, Esq. p. 24.
5. Col. J. M. Ray in Lyceum, p, 19, December, 1890.
6. Col. Allen T. Davidson in Lyceum, p.6, January, 1891
7. Asheville Centenary.
8. From Judge J. C. Pritchard's address before Normal and Collegiate Institute, 1907.
9. "Reminiscences" of Dr. J. S. T. Baird, 1905.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Condensed from William West Skiles' "A Sketch of Missionary Life." 1842-1862. Edited by Susan Fenimore Cooper, N.Y., S. P. Pott & Co., Publishers.
14. From facts furnished by Prof. D. D. Dougherty.
15. By G. H. Haigler, Hayseville, N. C.
16. Information furnished by Rev. R. P. Smith, superintendent and treasurer.
17. Woman's Edition, Asheville Citizen. The references are prior to November, 1895.

NOTE: Newton Academy is on the east side of South Main Street, Asheville, and nearly opposite the Normal and Collegiate Institute.

That the "evil that men do lives after them while the good is oft interred with their bones" seems to be untrue in the ease of the frauds of Swepson and Littlefield. The former was a native of North Carolina and Littlefield of Maine. Together, they managed to sell about $4,000,000 of the bonds of the Western North Carolina railroad, which had been endorsed by the State, and appropriated the proceeds to their own use. This delayed the building of that road from 1869 to 1880. But most of the younger people have never even heard of this gigantic theft. The true story as told to the Shipp Fraud Investigating Commission follows in condensed form, and every statement in this chapter not otherwise noted was taken from that report between pages 220 and 498.

Soon after the Reconstruction election of 1868 there was a special session of he legislature which, by an act ratified August 19, 1868, divided the Western North Carolina railroad into the Eastern Division--to extend from Salisbury to Asheville-and the Western Division-to extend in two lines, one to Paint Rock and the other to Ducktown, in Tennessee. The State also agreed to take two-thirds of the stock of the Western Division, which was authorized to issue its stock, not exceeding $12,000,000, for the completion of these two lines. Under this act, subscriptions were invited, and 3,080 shares of stock subscribed. Of this stock Milton S. Littlefield, a carpet-bag adventurer, subscribed to 2,000 shares and Hugh Reynolds, of Statesville, to 1,000 shares. But only five per cent of eighty shares subscribed by citizens line of this proposed road was paid in cash, Littlefield and Reynolds giving their drafts for five per cent of their subscriptions, payable to the order of Geo. W. Swepson, who was elected president at the meeting to organize the Western Division, which was held in Morganton October 15, 1868. Four directors, representing the private stockholders, and eight, representing the State, were also elected at that meeting. As, however, the whole of the Western Division was required to be under contract for its construction before the State could be called on for its subscription, the directors made a contract with M. S. Littlefield for this work; but it was understood that it was a mere nominal contract, for the purpose of complying with the terms of the charter, the actual work to be let afterwards to bona fide contractors. But, as no provision had been made for a special tax levy to pay the interest on the bonds, the act did not accomplish its purpose.

Mr. Swepson went to Raleigh in the fall of 1868 and urged the passage of another bill through the legislature to cure this defect; but was told by Littlefield and a man named John T. Deweese, who were lobby lawyers, that he would get no bills through the legislature unless he paid the same percentage that all the other railroad presidents had agreed to pay--viz., "ten per cent in kind of the amount of the appropriations." Swepson agreed to this and claimed that he afterwards "paid Littlefield $240,000 in money and some bonds for his services in procuring the passage" of the necessary legislation (Ch. 7 and 20, Laws 1868-9). Swepson had certified to the Executive of the State on October 19, 1868, "that the entire road had been let to contract"; and at some subsequent date he received from the State treasurer $6,367,000 of special tax bonds of the State, and began hypothecating or selling them in New York.

But in the spring of 1869 the case of the University Railroad v. Holden (63 N. C., p.410) came before the Supreme court on the question of the constitutionality of the special tax bonds authorized to be levied for the railroad; and Chief Justice Pearson, believing that his associates on that bench would be compelled to agree with his reasoning, wrote an opinion declaring those bonds unconstitutional, meaning to submit it to his brethren for their approval or rejection. So confident was he that they would agree with his conclusions, that he told Col. Wm. Johnson, a lawyer and an intimate friend, that the court had decided the University Railroad bonds to be unconstitutional. He then read his opinion to Col. Johnson, and Johnson told Swepson on Thursday, July 1, 1869, that "he had just seen the opinion in Judge Pearson's room" and that it "made the whole of the special tax bonds unconstitutional."^[1] But, before the decision of the court was announced, a motion was made by Judge Fowle for a further hearing. The motion was granted and the majority of the judges concurred in holding the University railroad act to be constitutional, thus over-ruling the chief justice, who, however, filed a dissenting opinion. Mr. T. H. Porter, representing Soutter and Company, stock brokers of New York City, came to Raleigh and arranged with the lawyers for the rehearing.

There was much discussion in the State as to this decision. According to the testimony of James C. Turner, as given before the Shipp Fraud Commission (p.307), G. W. Swepson told him in New York "on more than one occasion that he had in his pocket a decision adverse to the one given and published by the court, and that it had cost a large amount to obtain the published opinion." Indeed, Mr. Swepson himself swore (p.207) that his proportion, as president of the Western Division of the Western North Carolina railroad was "60 State bonds, charged as paid attorneys, and the following cash charges: Paid attorneys in Raleigh $2,000. Attorneys, establishing validity of bonds, $21,250." When it is remembered that there were ten railroads to which bonds aggregating $25,250,000 were authorized to be issued at the same session as the University railroad bonds had been authorized, Swepson's proportion of expenses in securing a favorable decision would indicate the expenditure of an enormous sum of money.

But the Shipp Fraud Commission examined Judges R. M. Pearson, E. G. Reade, W. B. Rodman and R. P. Dick, four of the Supreme court judges, upon the question of obtaining this decision, and found that none of these judges knew of any improper or corrupt means or practice concerning it. The only thing that could be construed as of a doubtful character was Judge Rodman's statement, to the effect that, in August 1869, after the decision had been rendered, G. W. Swepson voluntarily offered his personal guarantee to a brokerage in New York for the margin on $100,000 of special tax bonds for ten days; but claimed that, as the bonds had not been sold till after the expiration of ten days, Swepson's liability had ended and the loss had been charged to the judge. As this is the only instance in the history of the State in which our Supreme court was even suspected of having been corruptly influenced, it is pleasant to be able to record the fact that the men who paid out the money and the men who received it have left their testimony on record completely exonerating the members of the court. Yet------!

T. H. Porter, in a letter of May 31, 1870, states that Badger, Fowle, Col. E. G. Haywood, and Judge S. J. Person, attorneys, agreed to undertake the ease for $15,000, and if they won, they were to receive an addition in State bonds. Judge Daniel G. Fowle testified before the Shipp Fraud Commission (p.463) that he and his associates had received the cash and bonds agreed upon, the suit having been won.

It appears that the only roads which Mr. Porter represented in this suit were the two divisions of the Western North Carolina, the Wilmington, Charlotte and Rutherford, and the Western railroad companies.^[2] Twenty-five of the bonds received by the attorneys were those of the Wilmington, Charlotte and Rutherford railroad and fifty of the Western Division of the Western North Carolina railroad-the Western railroad seemingly not having contributed any. (This was not the Western North Carolina Railroad, however.) As Swepson's share was $60,000 in bonds and $21,250 in cash, and as the attorneys got $75,000 in bonds and $15,000 in money, nearly $100,000 in bonds, and $6,250 in cash remain unaccounted for. It may be that Soutter & Co., the New York brokers represented by Mr. Porter, got this difference.

But, as indicative of the methods then in vogue, John T. Deweese, represented by Swepson as Littlefield's partner, had difficulty in settling with the Atlantic, Tennessee & Ohio railroad for services in getting the legislature to authorize that road to issue its bonds (ratified February 3, 1869) in exchange for a like amount of State bonds, and gave Mr. R. C. Kahoe $4,000 of these bonds to act as nominal plaintiff in an action to restrain the State treasurer, D. A. Jenkins, from issuing $2,000,000 of these bonds. John T. Deweese, the real party in interest not having been a tax payer, sued out the injunction in June, 1869; and R. Y. McAden, Swepson's nephew, settled this suit by handing over more than $100,000 of these bonds. Of these bonds, Judge Watts got $5,000, "in accordance with the contract between Deweese and himself, as stated in the report of the Bragg committee." Fowle and Badger, lawyers associated with E. G. Haywood, Esq., received $16,000 of these bonds for their services in this case, but returned them to the railroad company upon becoming satisfied that it was really a blackmailing scheme. As, by the time the bonds were issued, they had fallen in price to less than 30 cents on the dollar, the Atlantic, Tennessee & Ohio railroad returned to the State treasurer all except such as had been used in compromising the injunction suit.

According to the testimony of Col. N. W. Woodfin before the Shipp Fraud Commission (p.291) Swepson and Littlefield intended to build the Western Division, but to do it upon mortgage bonds, and otherwise so leave it in debt as to enable themselves to buy it in when sold for the debt. In the meantime, the money for which the special tax bonds might be sold was to be used by them "in speculation and otherwise, in order to strengthen themselves to buy it."

But, long before this time, people of the mountain section were clamoring that work should begin on the railroad, while Swepson was trying to sell as many of the bonds of the Western Division as possible before the price declined in consequence of the sudden flooding of the market with the special tax bonds to which the other nine railroads were also entitled. On various pretexts he postponed the signing of actual contracts for actual work until he could obtain better prices for his bonds, and caused the State treasurer, D. A. Jenkins, to issue some of the bonds for the Western Division prior to all others, and to decline to furnish bonds to the other railroads entitled to them on the ground that the plate from which they were to be printed had been broken. A question had arisen in New York as to Swepson's right to sell the bonds of the Western Division, and at a called meeting of the directors, held in Asheville, July 2, 1869, the president of the company was "authorized to sell any securities of the company, or to pledge them for loans when in his judgment the interests of the company required it; and in case such securities be sold to invest the proceeds in such way as he may deem best." A certified copy of the above resolution was sent to him in New York.

SWEPSON AND DIRECTORS. At this time no one in Carolina stood higher in public respect than George W. Swepson, while the directors were of the best people in this section. They did not, and had no reason to, suspect him of duplicity. They had had no experience either in the building of railroads or the management of corporations. He told them that unless he could sell the bonds he could not build the railroad, and that he could not sell them unless they gave him full authority not only to sell but to apply the proceeds as he saw fit. They gave it unsuspectingly and in full confidence in him. No breath of suspicion ever fell upon any of them in consequence, or that they shared any of Swepson's ill-gotten gains. They had done in good faith what they believed right in order to secure the speedy building of the railroad.

On the 13th of October, 1869, at a meeting of the stockholders at Asheville, M. S. Littlefield was elected president in place of G. W. Swepson, who refused to serve any longer on the ground that "his management had been a good deal censured and he was suspected of improper conduct by the Western people…. " Gen. Clingman, Col. Davidson and Col. Woodfin opposed the election of Littlefield to office.

So outspoken had become the criticism of the management of this railroad and the sale of all the special tax bonds that the legislature, by an act which was ratified March 24, 1870, appointed J. L. Henry, N. W. Woodfin, W. P. Welch, W. G. Candler and W. W. Rollins commissioners to "examine fully into the affairs of the Western Division and to make a full and final settlement of all accounts and liabilities of Geo. W. Swepson, and to collect all assets" and apply the same to "the construction of the railroad." It had full power and was authorized to sit in New York or elsewhere.

But by the time this commission was appointed both Swepson and Littlefield had left the State, the latter never to return. The commissioners, however, immediately took up their work, going to Washington and New York, and effected a settlement with Swepson before the act appointing them was repealed, which was done at the session of 1873-74. (Ch. 119.)

The grand jury of Buncombe county returned a true bill against Swepson and Littlefield (Minute Docket E., No.32) for conspiracy to defraud the State; and by a joint resolution of January 25, 1871, the governor was requested to offer a reward of $5,000 for the delivery of Milton S. Littlefield to the sheriff of Buncombe county. But Littlefield was in Florida, Holland or England and the governor of Florida refused to grant an order for his extradition from that State.

The settlement which the commission had effected with Swepson was dated the l6th day of April, 1870, at Washington, D. C., and was probably the best possible in the circumstances, as Swepson made it appear that he had already so encumbered all his tangible property that if a suit were brought "it was almost certain that nothing would be realized." Swepson was frightened and penitent, and Littlefield was not present to inspire him with courage. Now, as the directors had authorized Swepson to sell and pledge these securities and invest their proceeds as he saw fit, and as they had not advertised that the contracts would go to the lowest bidders, and as, in the contracts themselves, no time limit was made the "essence of the contract," it was plain that Swepson and Littlefield were not alone to blame for the condition into which the affairs of the Western Division had fallen. In his testimony before the Shipp Fraud Commission Judge J. H. Merrimon said (p.277): "It appeared to me, from what I saw at the meetings of the board of directors, which I attended, that they were a useless body of men; did nothing, and if they had any power or authority to do anything, they seemed never to exercise it, except when they were told by Swepson."

By this compromise Swepson paid $50,000 cash and gave his drafts on Littlefield as president of the Jacksonville, Pensacola and Mobile railroad and endorsed by M. S. Littlefield and G. W. Swepson as president of the Florida Central rail road, aggregating $264,000, payable four and twelve months after date, $164,000 of which was secured by a mortgage on certain lands of Swepson's in North Carolina, the said lands to be discharged upon payment on each tract as follows:

In addition to the above, upon which no amount was fixed for their redemption, the mortgage was to cover the marble and lime lands in Catawba county, owned in co-partnership with Dr. A. M. Powell, "about 90,000 acres in Macon, Cherokee and Clay counties, known as the Olmstead lands, and a lot of about 50,000 acres held by Joseph Keener in trust for Geo. W. Swepson."

It was further agreed that the draft for $164,000 might be paid in railroad iron delivered at Portsmouth, Virginia; and that if an umpire, to be appointed by N. W. Woodfin and M. W. Ransom, in casc they could not agree, should decide that Swepson had not been authorized by his board of directors to invest the proceeds of the sales of these bonds in these Florida railroads, then Swepson was to guarantee that $880,000 of the amount of $1,287,436.03 transferred in Florida railroad securities should be paid or made fully secure and that, otherwise, there should be no such obligation on Swepson's part.

In addition to the above the agreement provided that an interest in the above named railroad, amounting to $1,287,466.03, should be transferred and conveyed to the Western Division of the Western North Carolina Railroad Company.

It developed soon afterwards that, although Swepson claimed to have turned over these securities in the Florida railroads to Littlefield, yet, when the latter became president of the Western Division, in October, 1869, he then stated that they were the property of the Western Division, having been purchased with the proceeds of the sale of the special tax bonds of said railroad, but had been pledged with Edward Houston, of Georgia to secure the payment of a large indebtedness of Littlefield to said Houston, and were about to be sold. Thereupon the Western Division obtained an injunction in the Supreme court of the State of New York in October, 1870, restraining Littlefield and Houston from making the sale. But, before the order could be served, Houston "fled with the said stock and bonds from New York to New Jersey, and from there to Georgia, in order to avoid the law and keep fraudulent possession" of the securities, which rightfully belonged to the Western Division. This stock consisted "of about 4,370 shares (being nearly the entire capital stock)" of the Florida Central Railroad Company, "which company had then no mortgage debt upon its line of railroad, which was sixty miles long, completed and in good running order." The bonds of the Pensacola and Georgia railroad and of the Tallahassee railroad amounted to $1,000,000, and cost Swepson $720,000 of the proceeds of the special tax bonds of the Western Division, including "some stock in said company and paying expenses incident to such purchases." These railroads had been sold in March, 1869, under foreclosure, and brought in by the trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund of the State of Florida for $1,400,000, "the amount of the whole mortgage indebtedness of both of the railroads." Thus, the Western Division had secured legal title to a majority of the stock of an unencumbered railroad 60 miles in length and owned ten-fourteenths of two other Florida railroads absolutely unencumbered. If, therefore, the settlement effected at Washington had stood intact, there is little doubt but that the courts would have confirmed the interest of the Western Division in these three Florida railroads, as its money had been invested in them.

But Col. Woodfin was soon called to London, England, where a supplemental settlement was made on the 10th of November, 1870, with Littlefield, representing the Florida railroads, by which he agreed to take for the interest of the Western Division in those Florida railroads 800 eight per cent bonds of the State of Florida, of $1,000 each, and enough rails, etc., to lay 53 miles of railroad down the French Broad river to Paint Rock, including sidings, etc. This iron was to be delivered duty free at Norfolk, Va., in three lots, aggregating 1,800 tons, and the rest at New York, the last shipment to be completed by September 1, 1871. An additional shipment was to be made of 1,000 tons to New York, with the necessary chairs and spikes to lay the same, by September 1, 1871, "the shipping of which the said S. W. Hopkins & Co. are to guarantee." But, to get this settlement, Mr. Woodfin had to agree in writing that he would pay a claim of $20,000 held by Henry Clews & Co., of New York, against Geo. W. Swepson, and to leave the 800 Florida bonds with Hopkins & Co. for sale at such price as Mr. Woodfin should direct. Mr. Woodfin also receipted for two hundred sterling, paid him at that time. With the lights this was a most excellent settlement. He did not complications existing in Florida.

This iron was shipped according to agreement but was diverted by Hopkins & Co., to Detroit, Mich. for the purpose of completing the Rock Fish Railroad, a branch of the Michigan Central. Major Rollins discovered this before the iron was actually laid down, and attached it. Mr. Woodfin arrived soon afterwards from New York with a warrant for the arrest and a requisition for the return to New York of S. W. Hopkins, the contractor, with whom Major Rollins had thought he was about to effect a satisfactory settlement. The officer from New York would not wait till this settlement could be effected and hurried his prisoner, Hopkins, back to New York City. By the time the case was to be heard on the question of ownership of the iron the clerk who had identified it for Major Rollins had disappeared and the iron and $10,000 in cash which had been deposited to indemnify the real owner of the iron was lost to the State. The clerk had been "seen."

But that was not to be the end of the bunco game by any means; for in May of the very year of which in April he had signed the Washington agreement, Geo. W. Swepson, while president of the Florida Central railroad had, without any authority of the board of directors of that road, issued $1,000,000 of bonds, which he signed as president in Washington, D. C., and caused one H. H. Thompson, who was not the treasurer of that road, to sign as such treasurer, F. H. Flagg being then the lawful treasurer. But Swepson and Littlefield gave Houston, to whom Littlefield was indebted, Littlefleld's note for $163,000 secured by 4,370 shares of stock and 103 Pensacola and Georgia railroad bonds, and the $1,000,000 of Florida Central railroad bonds, which were to be fraudulently issued by them. Thus, the value of the interest in the Florida railroads had been surreptitiously reduced very materially if not altogether destroyed; for in January, 1871, Littlefield paid his $163,000 note and obtained from Houston the surrender of the collateral which had been given to secure its payment. Then, one Thomas E. Codrington appeared on the scene and got possession of the fraudulent $1,000,000 of Florida Central bonds, which, under acts of the Florida legislature of June 24, 1869, and January 28, 1870, he surrendered to the State of Florida, and obtained in their stead a like number of Florida State bonds. But, strange to relate, Codrington got, instead of Florida State bonds, $1,000,000 of bonds of the Jacksonville, Pensacola and Mobile Railroad Company, which had been authorized by act of the Florida legislature of June 24, 1869, but of which only $3,000,000 of an authorized issue of $4,000,000 had been issued by the governor of Florida. Thus, apparently, had been cured the illegality of the same amount of bonds which Swepson had issued in Washington for the benefit of the Florida Central Railroad Company, to which the signature of H. H. Thompson, the fictitious treasurer, had been attached.

For this transaction, in January, 1872, Governor Harrison Reed of Florida was impeached and removed, and after the carpet-bag regime was entirely overthrown in 1876, and Hon. Thomas Settle of North Carolina had been appointed judge of the district court of the northern district of Florida, a hope was entertained that a court of equity would place the Western Division of the Western North Carolina Railroad in at least as good a position as it had occupied when its money had been originally invested in the three Florida railroads, and would not allow it to suffer by the illegal and fraudulent acts of those who had ceased to be its agents when those acts had been committed.

Now, Major Rollins had been elected president of the Western Division of the Western North Carolina railroad upon the disappearance of M. S. Littlefield and, subsequently, to the presidency of the Eastern Division, and, followed the railroad's interest into Florida, and the control of the Florida railroads. Accordingly, in February, 1877, he instituted a suit in equity in the circuit court of the United States for the Northern district of Florida, in which the Western Division of the Western North Carolina railroad sought to have the bonds of the Florida Central railroads, which had been exchanged for Florida State bonds, declared unlawful; but Judge Joseph P. Bradley, one of the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, in an opinion filed May 31, 1879, dismissed the bill with costs, on the ground that the Western Division of the Western North Carolina railroad, by agreements made at Washington and in London, had "acquiesced in the issue of the bonds and only claimed to share in the proceeds thereof." The Supreme Court of the United States afterwards affirmed this decision in a case entitled Florida Central Railroad Company v. Schutte and others, upon the ground that, in the language of Chief Justice Waite: "There can be no doubt that the governor of Florida was active in promoting the sale, as was also the chairman of the commission appointed by the General Assembly of North Carolina. The bonds were taken at once to London and from there put on the market in Holland where most or all of these sales appear to have been made. The bonds were undoubtedly steeped in fraud at their inception; but they were nevertheless State bonds on the market in a foreign country, etc." The court held in effect that as the Western Division had adopted the property purchased by an embezzler with its money, its rights were subordinate to those of innocent purchasers of the same class of securities, and were charged with all the liens Swepson had put upon them.^[3]

North Carolina afterwards repudiated all of these special tax bonds along with others which had been issued by the carpet-bag government of 1868-70.

NOTES:

1. In Galloway v. Jenkins (63 N. C., p. 147) the Supreme Court had held only a short time before that the State could not contract a debt to build a new railroad except by an affirmative vote of the people, because to do so before the bonds of the State had reached par would violate Art. 5, Sec. 5, of the State Constitution; although it is true that in this case Judges Reade and Settle had dissented.
2. Hon. Samuel W. Watts was the Superior court Judge who had issued the injunction in June, 1865. Shipp's Fraud Com. Rep., p. 447
3. 103 U. S. Rep., 327 (13 Otto—ll8-l45).

AN IMPOSSIBLE TASK. To give a full and detailed account or description of all the peculiar physical features of this Land of the Sky would be impossible in the allotted space. Doubtless there are many that are unknown to the writer. The facts given, however, may be relied on as an under- rather than as an over-statement.

WAS IT EVER "LAKE TAHKEEOSTEE?" "Whether or not the valley of the French Broad near Asheville was ever, as has been supposed, the head of a mountain lake, whose lower or deepest part was above Mountain Island and Hot Springs, is an unsettled question for the geologists.^[1] Certain it is that the French Broad has cut its way through the mountains at Mountain Island, as is apparent to the most casual observer of the mountains at that place, not only in the obvious signs that still remain to indicate the exact spot where it cut through, but also in the unquestionable beds of that river in the days gone by now on the tops of the mountain ridges which lie along its western banks, probably 200 feet higher than its present bed, and only a short distance above the Mountain Island. These old beds cross the channel of the present stream below the Palisades at Stackhouse's and above the Mountain Island. They contain many stones worn smooth and rounded by the abrasions to which their position in the river subjected them." This is also true of the stones on Battery Park hill. Dr. Sondley suggests that this may have been the famous lake mentioned by Lederer in his account of exploration into North Carolina in 1669-70, as it "fits the description and lies near the place," describing his visit to the Sara Indians who were subject to "a neighbor king residing upon the bank of a great lake called the Usbery, environed on all sides with mountains and Wisacky marsh." The water of this lake was a little brackish, due to mineral waters flowing into it, and was about ten leagues broad. He cites Hawk's History of North Carolina, p.49.

MINOR ODDITIES. On the waters of Meat Camp, Watauga, is a field formerly belonging to David Miller who represented Ashe in the House of Commons in 1810,1811 and 1813, still known as the "Sinking Spring Field," because its water sinks shortly after appearing on the surface of the ground. In this field was also the largest white oak of which people still speak, said to have been 32½ feet in circumference and from 50 to 60 feet to the first limbs. There are several immense springs which gush out of the earth in what is still known as The Meadows, mentioned in the will of Robert Henry as having belonged to him at the time of his death, but which is now owned by the heirs of Dr. Hitchcock of Murphy. On a ridge on the bank of Little Santeetla, near where John Denton used to live, is the largest single spring in the mountains, the stream from it being almost a creek. On the same ridge at the point known as Howard's Knob, near Boone, and probably half a mile to the northeast, is a place about ten feet in diameter on which it is said no snow was ever known to lie, and a piece of the ore taken from it melted into lead. There is also still some talk of a Swift and Munday mine, now long lost, but supposed to be somewhere in Ashe. What metal it was supposed to contain is not now known.

CHEOAR AND NANTARALA RIVERS ORIGINALLY ONE. In the description of the Nantahala quadrangle (1907) the United States Geological survey says of the Nantahala and Cheoah rivers:

THE BALDS. There are no balds on the Blue Ridge; but from Whitetop at the Virginia line to the Stratton and Hooper balds in Graham county, the Great Smoky mountain summits, abound in bald spots. They are usually above the 5,000-foot mark, and contain no trees whatever. Instead, they are carpeted with rich wild grass, and tradition says that before white men turned their cattle on them to graze, this grass was "saddle-high." Some of the transverse ranges have these balds also, notably the Nantahalas and the Balsams. There must be a thousand acres of almost level and perfectly bald lands on the Roan and Yellow mountains, and a large acreage on the Tusquittee and Nantahala. From Thunderhead in Swain to the Little Tennessee river there is a succession of bald summits, and the Andrews bald just north of Clingman's Dome covers a considerable area. There are invariably small springs flowing from the edges of these bald spots, where cattle slake their thirst in midsummer. From a distance these green patches seem to be yellow, hence the name of the Yellow mountain just north of the Roan. Surrounding these balds are usually forests of balsam trees in primeval state. The Blacks and Clingman's Dome are covered with them, also the Balsam mountains, in Haywood county. The soil is black and deep.

STRATTON AND HOOPER BALDS. At the head of Santeetla and Buffalo creeks in Graham county, near its junction with Cherokee, are the Hooper and Stratton Balds, named for first settlers by those names. Near them are the Haw Knob and Laurel Top; and to the north Hangover, Hayo and Fodder Stack mountains. Just below the Hangover is the residence of Dave Orr, one of the pioneers of that section and still a famous bear hunter. In 1897 a bear caught his bell-wether, and the next day Dave belled a cowardly young hound and left him to gnaw upon the carcass of the dead sheep, and waited. Soon the pup came running, with bruin at his heels. Dave had a "mess of bar meat for dinner that day."

TUSQUITTEE BALDS. The view from the balds of Tusquittee is unsurpassed in the mountains. There are several bald prominences on this mountain, one of which is known as the Medlock Bald and another the Pot Rock Bald, from a depression in the rock almost the exact size and depth of an ordinary pot. It is at least two miles along the top of this mountain, which forms an elbow in its course.

To the north of this range and scarcely three miles distant is the parallel range, known as Valley River mountains, and they are separated by Fires creek. They come together at a point called Nigger Head. This is at the head of Tunah and Chogah creeks, and there is a high, narrow ridge running from it to the Weatherman Bald, across which deer and bear used to have to pass when driven by the hunters from the head of Chogah creek or Fires creek. It was along this sharp ridge, scarcely wide enough for a narrow footpath, that "Standers" used to be placed in order to get a shot at the fleeing game. The late Alex. P. Munday of Aquone used to be a famous bear hunter, and his old dog, "Nig," and his gray stallion, "Buck," knew better where to go than he did himself in order to get the best stand for a shot. It is near here that one finds the Juckers and Weatherman "roughs," or rocky places, grown up in vines, laurel and spruce pines. "Roughs" is sufficiently descriptive of them. On the Valley River mountains the principal peaks are Beal's Knob, White Oak Knob, the Big Stamp Knob and the Peachtree Knob.

MITCHELL'S PEAK. This highest point east of the Rocky mountains is about thirty miles from Asheville. The road used to go via what is now Black Mountain Station and the old Patton house, near what is the intake of the city water works and Gombroon, up the North Fork of the Swannanoa river almost to the Estatoe gap, where it took to the left, and passing the Half Way house,' built by the late William Patton of Charleston, S. C., zig-zagged up to the top. There is now a road via Montreat and Graybeard. Another trail is from Pensacola, in Yancey, in trying to follow which Prof. Mitchell lost his life, and another from South Toe river. It is also possible to go along the ridge from Celo at the head of Cattail. In 1905 Mr. R. S. Howland constructed a road from what is now the E. W. Grove park to the top of Sunset mountain, thence to Locust gap, thence to Craven's gap, and thence to within half a mile of Bull gap, the grade being about one per cent from Overlook Park, and costing over $50,000. Later on Dr. C. P. Ambler constructed a road from this terminus to his house on a slope of Craggy, and known as Rattlesnake Lodge. From there on, in 1911, a riding way was built via Craggy to Mitchell's Peak; but it was never finished. This is the road that will be converted into "The Crest of the Blue Ridge" highway, and will pass Mitchell's Peak and go On via Altamont to Linville gap, over the Yonahlossie road to Blowing Rock. Work was done on this road near Altamont in the Summer of 1912. The view from Mitchell's Peak is somewhat obstructed by the balsam growth surrounding it, and as clouds hover over it almost constantly, disappointment often attends a visit to this lofty point. In 1877 there was a hut made of balsam logs and covered with boughs, that afforded shelter to visitors, in addition to that under the shelving ledge of rock, beneath which hundreds of visitors have shivered and lain awake for hours. About 1885 the U. S. Weather Bureau established a station there, when more comfortable quarters were constructed for the observers. They had to "pack" their supplies up late in the fall, and were practically isolated till spring. That house, however, like the first spoken of, was afterwards burned by vandals. Other vandals, later on have shot holes through the monument to Prof. Mitchell, and one fiend sank his axe-blade clean through one of its sides. There is a good spring near the peak. In 1912 a lumber company erected another shelter on top, and quarters can be secured for a night's lodging under certain conditions. Mr. William Patton of Charleston built the first trail to the top in 1857-58.

THE GRANDFATHER. From Linville city in Avery county, from Banner Elk, and from Blowing Rock good trails run to the top of the highest of the five peaks of the Grandfather. Pinola and Montezuma on the Linville river railroad are the nearest railroad points. The view is splendid-unsurpassed, in fact. Near the top is a spring which is said to be the coldest in the mountains, being 45° in all seasons. Alexander McRae's and the Grandfather Inn are the nearest stopping places. McRea was born in Glenelg, Inverness county, Scotland, and came over to America in 1885, and has furnished music on the bagpipes to visitors- to the Grandfather ever since.^[2]

THE ROAN MOUNTAIN. This can be reached from Mountain station on the East Tennessee and Western North Carolina Railroad or from Bakersville, three miles Toecane ou the Cincinnati, Clinchfield and Ohio Railroad. It is much patronized by hay-fever patients. There is fine hotel there. The view is better than any other. It over 6,000 feet above the sea.

NANTAHALA BALDS. The Wayah, Wine Spring, Rocky, Jarrett's and Little balds are the principal peaks. They can be reached from Franklin or from Aquone, both in Macon county. The view is splendid.

THUNDERHEAD. Just above what is still known as the Anderson Road, an abandoned wagon road from Tennessee to the Spence cabin in Swain, stands Thunderhead, one of the lofty peaks of the Great Smokies. From it Miss Mary N. Murfree saw the picture her pen painted in one of her stories of this region.

A PEN PICTURE. "On a certain steep and savage slope of the Great Smoky Mountains the primeval wilderness for many miles is unbroken save one meagre clearing. The presence of humanity upon the earth is further attested only by a log cabin, high on the rugged slant. At night, the stars seem hardly more aloof than the valley below. By day, the mountains assert their solemn vicinage, an austere company. The clouds that silently commune with the great peaks, the sinister and scathing deeds of the lightnings, the passionate rhetoric of the thunders, the triumphant pageantry of the sunset tides, and the wistful yearnings of the dawn aspiring to the day--these might seem only incidents of this lonely and exalted life. So august is this mountain scheme that it fills all the world with its massive multitudinous presence: still stretching out into the dim blue distances an infinite perspective of peak and range and lateral spur, till one may hardly believe that the fancy does not juggle with the fact."^[3]

HELLS. There are many tangles and thicketty places in the coves of these mountains, and others where the laurel and ivy and small spruce pines so cover the banks of the streams as to render locomotion along them impossible. are necessary to hew a way in many places, and woe to that man who ventures too far into their depths by crawling or creeping between their rigid branches. At the head of Tellico creek in Tennessee and in the Rainbow country of North Carolina, where the State line is now in dispute, is what is called Jeffries Hell. It is said that many years ago a man named Jeffries got bewildered in that place and spent nine days there without food before he managed to effect his escape. There are other hells in the mountains, but Jeffries' is the largest and most famous.

THE CHIMNEYS. At the head of one of the Pigeons, and just west of Collins gap, visible from the Ocona Lufty road, are three sharp, pyramidal shaped pinnacles called the Chimneys. They are covered with small spruce pines and rocks, but how any soil manages to cling to such steep mountain sides is a mystery. They are green in winter because of the spruce pines covering them, and present a striking contrast to other peaks around them.

GRAPHIC PEN PICTURES. In "The Heart of the Alleghanies" we have glowing descriptions of the view from Clingman's Dome, the culminating point of the Great Smoky range, and which Gen. Clingman measured in 1857; of the Great Balsam Divide, the Plott Balsams, and of the mysterious Juda-Culla Old Field, just south of the Old Bald gap between Richland creek and Caney Fork river; which always "presents a weird and unnatural appearance…. Its only growth presents a peculiar yellowish look, and the fact that no tree or sapling has ever grown within its limits has not been accounted for scientifically." Here, the legend says, the giant Tsulkalu made a clearing for his farm. Here flint arrow-heads and broken pottery have been found, showing "almost conclusively that some of the Cherokees themselves … occupied it as an abiding place for years." This book also tells of the "fire-scalds," and of the Devil's Court House in the Balsams, which, however, is not his Supreme court house the latter being on Whiteside mountain. Gen. Clingman, in his "Speeches and Writings," describes Shining Rock in the Balsams most strikingly; and says of the Devil's Old Field on the Balsams that it was the Devil's chosen resting place. He also accounts for the balds by saying the Indians supposed they were made by the devil's footsteps as he walked over the tops of the mountains. A fine description of the Tuckaseegee falls above Webster is given in the "Heart of Alleghanies."

OTHER NOTED ROCKS. Buzzards' Rocks and the Dogs' Ears, near Shull's Mills, Watauga county; Black Rock, above Horse Cove; Satula (pronounced Stooly) near Highlands; Samson's Chimney, near Howard's Knob at Boone; Hawk's Bill and Table Rock, between Morganton and Linville mountain; Riddle's and Howard's Knobs, near Boone; Nigger Head, near Jefferson, and scores of others are objects of local interest in various localities. Hanging Rock, above Banner Elk, and the North Pinnacle, on the Beech mountain, in the same locality, are noted rocks, from the last of which a fine view can be had after an easy climb from a good road.

TRACK ROCKS. "Some distance further to the west (from Juda-Culla Old Field) on the north bank of Caney Fork, about one mile above Moses' creek and perhaps ten miles above Webster, is the Juda-Culla Rock, a large soap-stone slab covered with rude carvings, which, according to…tradition, are scratches made by the giant in jumping from his, farm on the mountain to the creek below."^[4] Tracks of elk, wolves, etc., are said to be visible in a rock at the head of Devil's creek in Mitchell county.

"THE ROCKS." What are locally known as "The Rocks" are two immense masses of stone standing detached m a pasture field on the road from Plumtree to Bakersville They are a landmark. Bynum's Bluff is also noted.

SMALL NATURAL BRIDGE. Just over the ridge from the Caney Fork of the Tuckaseegee river, in what is called Canada, and where it has been suspected that one or more blockade stills have existed in time past, present and (will) to come, is Tennessee creek. It flows under a small natural rock bridge when it is normal, and over it when it is "full."

THE TRIANGLE TREE. Almost one mile above Fairfax post office on the Little Tennessee river, in Swain county, stood, until a great freshet came and washed it away eight or ten years ago, one of the most unusual and remarkable freaks in the shape of tree growth in America. But so isolated had it become by reason of the practical abandonment of late years of the wagon road from Bushnel to Rocky Point that few strangers ever saw it, while to the few natives of region, who had seen it for years and years, it called marked attention.

It was a large spruce pine at least three feet in diameter five feet above the ground where a limb or branch of a diameter of at least eighteen inches left the main trunk at an angle of about forty-five degrees and extended out toward the river, while three feet above its point of departure from the main trunk a second limb or branch, twelve inches in diameter, shot out in the same direction as the first, but at an angle of seventy-five or eighty degrees and joined itself to the first limb six or seven feet from its base so perfectly that it grew into and had become a part thereof, thus forming with the main trunk a perfect triangle of living wood. It was easy to climb into this triangle and by sitting astride the first or lower limb to hold the body erect against the trunk of the tree immediately under the second limb. It is a pity it was never photographed, but the dimensions given above are accurate, since they were carefully measured and noted while the tree was still standing in all its glory.

THE HIGH ROCKS. Just below the mouth of Eagle creek are what are locally called the "High Rocks." They are a tumbled mass of solid rocks, some of them larger than a two-roomed house, resting one upon the other above the riverside and extending almost to the top of the mountain. They are apparently now just where they found themselves when eons and eons ago some cataclysm of nature tumbled these mountains about as though they had been pebbles and grains of sand.

THE CHIMNEYS. On the road from Montezuma to Banner Elk and just before reaching the Sugar Gap, are two other large masses of rook projecting out of the side of the mountain like two enormous and discolored incisor teeth. One of them is said to be eighty feet in height and the other and further one from the road, nearly as high. There is no photograph of these immense rock heaps, but fortunately there is no danger of their destruction by a freshet or other cause. They are called "The Chimneys."

THE DEVIL'S CAP. Eight miles from Altamont and about three from the Cold Spring hotel in Burke county, on Ginger Cake mountain, and just east of Linville river, below Linville Falls, is what is called the Devil's Cap. It is a perpendicular mass of rock sixty or seventy feet high and about twenty feet in diameter, surmounted by a large flat stone so placed on its pedestal as to look as if it must surely soon slide off and fall to the ground. It is in a little swag or gap in this ridge, and is best seen from the top of a precipice near by, from which can also be had through a rift in the dense foliage, a magnificent view of the wild and romantic Linville Gorge, the wildest and most inaccessible m the mountains, with the possible exception of that of the Nantahala, between the "Apple Tree" place and Jarrett's Station on on the Murphy branch of the Western North Carolina Railroad. This freak of nature, the Devil's Cap however, has been photographed.

DUTCH CREEK FALLS. Within half a mile of Valle Crucis school, Watauga, are the Dutch creek falls, which are about eighty feet in height. The little stream spreads itself evenly over the surface of the precipice down which it slides rather than falls, forming a fine picture as seen from the gloomy gorge below. It is more easy of access than falls generally are, and is well worth a visit.

LINVILLE FALLS are at Linville, a postoffice and village in what is now Avery county. The falls had in 1876 two distinct falls, each about 35 feet in height, the upper falls pouring into a small basin and then plunging over another precipice into the black pool below. But, of late years, the lower ledge of rock has given way from some cause, and much of the water passes under and around the boulders into which it has been broken, instead of falling smoothly over a straight line of rock, as formerly. It is the most accessible of all falls now.

ELK FALLS. Three miles from Cranberry are the Falls of Elk, and they are about as high as the Dutch creek falls, but carrying more water in the descent. The cascades or rapids of the same creek a few miles above, at Banner's Elk, are also worth a visit.

WATAUGA FALLS are a few hundred feet west of the North Carolina and Tennessee line. They are hardly falls, but rapids, pouring an immense volume of water through a narrow gorge, and requiring several hundred feet at that place to gain comparative smoothness. The scenery around the falls is wild and imposing, the rocks left bare by the current being immense, It is only about a quarter of a mile from the Butler-Valle Crucis turnpike.

THE "DRY" FALLS. The Dry, or Pitcher falls, of the Cullasaga river, four miles from Highlands, are so called because the stream leaps from the precipice above and leaves a clear dry space beneath, behind and under which one can pass to the further side dry-shod. It is about seventy-five feet in height and the water pours over the rock ledge from which it leaps much as does a stream poured from the mouth of a pitcher.

HICKORY-NUT FALLS. The Hickory Nut Falls are just east of the Hickory Nut gap of the Blue Ridge. This appears to be a mere ribbon of water hung from the top of the precipice, but in reality it is a creek of such size as to have power to turn a grist mill before leaping to the gorge nine hundred feet below.

CHIMNEY ROCK. Between this loftiest waterfall in the Appalachians and the Hickory Nut gap road is the Chimney Rock, an enormous rock mass on the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge, eighty or ninety feet in height. The large trees growing around it reveal by contrast its immense size and height. Though, till within the last twenty years, no man had ever scaled its height to let the plummet down, a ladder-like stairway now reaches its summit and a wooden railing extends all the way around it.

THE POOLS. The Pools, just above the old Logan hotel or tavern in the same picturesque locality, are three circular holes from eight to fifteen feet in diameter, in the rock bed of the creek, all of which are said to be bottomless. It is evident that they were made by the revolution of small stones on the softer surface of the creek bed, kept in constant motion by the continual flow of the creek; but they are not bottomless, nor is there any danger of suction, as swimmers disport themselves in their cool depths every summer.

ESMERALDA'S CABIN. Just across the road is the detached rock mass locally known as Esmeralda's cabin, because of the delightful romance located in that region by the gifted Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett, called "Esmeralda," and which was popular twenty-five years ago. Indeed, the novel was dramatized and successfully played at that time in New York and all over the country.

SHAKING BALD. Here, too, is Esmeralda Inn, long kept by Col. Thomas Turner, a veteran of the Federal Army, and now by his son, while not far away is Bat Cave, a gloomy cavern in the face of the mountain above one prong of the Broad river; and Shaking Bald, a mountain top which, in the seventies, caused considerable newspaper comment because of the noises said to have been heard in that locality. Earthquake shocks and volcanoes even were predicted for several years but nothing ever came of the stories. This locality, one the most charming and picturesque in the mountains, is quately described in Christian Reid's "Land of the Sky, the novel which gave its name to this entire region. It was published in l875^[5] and was one of the means of drawing public attention to the beautiful scenery of the mountain region of North Carolina and its unsurpassed summer climate. The Hickory Nut region is in what is called the Thermal Belt.

HOT SPRINGS. Paint Rock and Hot Springs, on the French Broad river, about forty miles northwest from Asheville, are two other remarkable places in this mountain region worthy of mention, which the same gifted author described with her facile pen in the same charming story. Hot Springs was discovered in l787 by some soldiers from the Watauga settlement when in pursuit of a band of Cherokee Indians, and has been a noted health resort ever since. Although its waters are strongly impregnated with mineral and have medicinal properties, they are as clear as crystal. They are very beneficial for gouty and rheumatic troubles. There is a large and well appointed hotel which is very popular every season of the year.

PAINT ROCK. "The Painted Rock" of old - Cherokee days, or "Paint Rock" of our times, is a rock cliff over a hundred feet in height which has a red stain on its outer surface caused by the oxidation of the iron in its composition. Whatever figures of men or animals ever existed upon its face have long since disappeared. There is the usual romantic story of one or two lovers throwing himself or herself, or themselves, from the top of this rock and from the top of another rock nearly as high in the neighborhood of Hot Springs, called Lover's Leap, but there is no tangible evidence that any local lovers ever were so foolish.

THE SMOKING MOUNTAIN. Twenty years ago there were a series of newspaper stories of a smoking mountain above Bee Tree creek in Buncombe county, and many citizens visited the locality in question only to be disappointed, while none save those living constantly in the neighborhood ever saw the smoke, and by the time others were called from a distance it had disappeared. What it was, if anything more than autumn haze or imagination, was never established. It, however, "had nothing to do with anything regarding volcanic action."^[6]

THE WALKS. A short distance below Flat Shoals of Watauga river, and near the Tennessee line, are a series of immovable natural stepping stones, regularly placed across the bed of the river, and over which one may walk dry-shod even when the stream is considerably swolen. Hence the name-- The Walks.

"THUS FAR." Almost from the Virginia line to the Little Tennessee river there is a fringe of balsam or white spruce crowning the crest of the western escarpment known as the Smoky mountains, except where the dense blue fringe of trees is broken by the "balds." But, remarkable as it may seem, there is not a single tree or sapling of the balsam growth south of the Little Tennessee, although the Gregory Bald, only a few miles to the northeast, is fringed by a dense growth of balsams which extend to both the Big and Little Parson balds. The soil and climate and, indeed, the altitude of the range south of the Little Tennessee, are almost identical with those to the north, but neither bird nor breeze has ever carried the balsam seed across the river and imbedded it in the soil beyond in a manner that has resulted in its growth across which the dead line of that rapid stream.

HELL's HALF-ACRE.^[7] "The bear-hunters are the only men familiar with these head-waters of the Richland creek. At the foot of the steep, funereal wall lies one spot known as Hell's Half-Acre. Did you ever notice, in places along the bank of a wide woodland river, after a spring flood, the great piles of huge drif~logs, sometimes covering an entire field, and heaped as high as a house? Hell's Half-Acre is like one of these fields. It is wind and time, however, which bring the trees, loosened from their hold on the dizzy heights and craggy slopes, thundering down into this pit.

"THE CHIMBLEYS AND SHINIES."^[7] The "Chimbleys and Shinies," as called by the mountaineers, form another feature of the region of the Gulfs. The former are walls of rock, either bare or overgrown with wild vines and ivy. They take their name from their resemblance to chimneys as the fogs curl up their faces and away from their tops. The Shinies are sloping ledges of rock, bare like the Chimneys, or covered with great thick plaits of shrubs, like the poisonous hemlock the rhododendron, and kalmia. Water usually trickles over their faces. In winter it freezes, making surfaces that, seen from a distance, dazzle the eye.

"HERRYCANES." The effects of a hurricane in the Balsam mountains are described thus in "The Heart of the Alleghanies )

Violent windstorms are rare in these mountains, owing to the fact that they are broken up as they approach from the lowlands east, west and south; but there are two other places called "herrycanes," one being on a branch at the head of Tusquittee creek in Clay county, and the other on Indian creek just above its junction with Ugly creek, thus forming Cataloochee creek in Haywood county. The Clay hurricane occurred soon after the Civil War or during it, and the Haywood hurricane about 1896. The fallen timber in Clay is still visible, while a whole mountain side in front of Jesse Palmer's residence is covered with the rent fragments of giant trees which have been uprooted or twisted from their trunks bodily.

LOOKING-GLASS FALLS. These are in Transylvania county and are on G. W. Vanderbilt's "Pisgah Forest tract." In the sale of his timber in 1812, he reserved twenty acres around these falls.^[8]

NOTES:

1. From "Asheville's Centenary."
2. Balsam Groves, 221-232.
3. From "The Despot of Broomsedge Cove," by Miss Mary N. Murfree.
4. Nineteenth Eth. Rep., p. 407.
5. D. Appleton & Co., publishers, but now out of print.
6. Joseph Hyde Pratt, State Geologist, to J. P. A., April 5, 1912.
7. Zeigler and Grosscup. p. 64.
8. Buncombe Deed Book, No. 161, p. 118.

PREHISTORIC WORKINGS. Evidences of the early working of mines in this mountain region are so frequent and unmistakable as to leave no doubt that in several places mining was carried on at least three hundred years ago. But by whom is the problem.

The Andrews Sun of January 4, 1912, having stated that Tristan de Velazquez carried on mining in Cherokee county, the matter was submitted to the Librarian of Congress with the following result:

NOT TRISTAN DR VELASQUEZ. "We have been unable to find any mention of Tristan de Velazquez in the histories of early Spanish explorations in the southeastern states. It seems probable that the article quoted has confused the names of Don Luis de Velasco and Don Tristan de Luna y Arellano. Velasco, as viceroy of New Spain, sent out an expedition in 1559 under command of Luna y Arellano to establish a colony in Florida. One of the latter's lieutenants appears to have led an expedition into northeastern Alabama in 1560. According to Charles C. Jones, in his 'Hernando de Soto, 1880, Luna's expedition penetrated into the Valley river valley in Georgia and there mined for gold, but this statement is questioned by Woodbury Lowery in his 'Spanish settlements within the present limits of the United States,' New York, 1901, p. 367. There appears to be no authority for the statement that this expedition entered the present limits of North Carolina. A Spanish account of this expedition will be found in Garcilasco de la Vega's 'La Florida del Inca,' Lisbon, 1605."^[1]

A brief history of early gold mining in the Southern states may be found in George F. Becker's "Gold fields of the Southern Appalachians," in 16th annual report of the United States Geological Survey, 1894-95. Some historical notes of interest are given in Nitze and Wilkins' "Gold Mining in North Carolina," Raleigh, 1897. (North Carolina Geological Survey Bullelin, No.10.)^[2]

"THE SPECIMEN" STATE. There are a great many kinds of minerals in North Carolina, especially in the mountain region. But, with few exceptions, the veins or deposits are in small quantities-so small in fact as to have given the State the title of the "Specimen State." Iron, copper, mica, talc, kaolin, barytes, corundum, garnet, and lime, however, have been found in paying quantities.

ANCIENT DIGGINGS. In his "Speeches and Writings" (p.130) Gen. Clingman gives an account of his work at the Sink Hole mines in Mitchell county in 1867. He thought there was silver ore there and exhibited some of it to several western miners in New York City, who declared it would assay three hundred dollars to a ton; but it produced only about three dollars. Gen. Clingman, however, had caused a shaft to be sunk and two tunnels to be carried entirely below the old excavations, but found nothing but raica. In the same chapter he speaks of a tradition among the Indians that long ago white men came on mules from the South during the summer and carried off a white metal with them, and thinks the remains of old works in Cherokee give countenance to the report.

SINK HOLE MINES. These are about seven miles southwest from Bakersville and two miles from Galax. From present appearances it would seem that a large number of men had been at work there for years. The mines are on a ridge in front of D. Pinkney Chandler's home, and are from sixty to eighty feet in diameter at the top. They extend along ridge for one-third of a mile. They seem to have been a series of concentric holes, all of which have long since filled up from the debris which had been removed from them. But, standing with their roots on some of this waste originally taken from these holes are several large trees nearly three feet in diameter. "Timber," says Gen. Clingman, "which I examined, that had grown on the earth thrown out, had been growing as long as three hundred years." He speaks also of "a slab of stone near one of these workings that had evidently been marked by blows of a metalic tool." But Mr. Chandler, who has lived there and worked in the mines, thinks the miners carried the waste from these holes on their heads or shoulders, and dug downward only so long as the inclined, cone-like sides would bear a narrow, spiral track used to remove the earth. The walls are not perpendicular, but sloping making a hole in the shape of an inverted cone. The marks of tools are still visible on these sloping sides when the dirt that has fallen back is thrown out; for this earth that once had been removed is still loose, and one can tell the moment he gets outside the original excavation by the increased hardness of the ground. Stone tools five or six inches in length flattened, and two or three inches broad are still there, and some have been found at the bottom of these holes. Mr. Charles D. Stewart of Pinola dug out one of the highest of these sink holes in 1872 to a depth of 42 feet, removing therefrom a tree that had grown in the hole, with three hundred rings in its trunk. He also got stone tools out of this hole. While Gen. Clingman was at work there a tinner named Heap happened in, and taking a block of the mica, which had been thrown out as worthless, to Knoxville found that there was a market for it, and returned with a partner named Clapp and these worked the mine profitably several years. William Silver, about this time, ran a tunnel under this ridge seventeen hundred feet to drain the mine on his land, which was about halfway the length of the ridge. J. K. Irby and D. K. Young also worked there. Others are working there now, but getting only small returns. At the bottom of these mines the ground is too hard for stone tools. Gen. Clingman also mined for silver on Clinglnan's branch of Beech creek in 1871. (Watauga County Deed Book No.3, page 595.)

THE GAERETT RAY MINES. These are near Bakersville, and when a boy Mr. Ray observed a line of stone posts about fifteen feet apart on a mountain slope of his father's farm, and years afterward found that they marked a valuable mica mine, whose limits did not extend beyond them. They had never been worked, though there were a series of round basinlike holes in the soil of the slope.

ANCIENT MINING IN CLAY COUNTY. On a ridge on the left bank of Toonah creek, in Clay county, are many evidences of early mining, the surface of the earth having been left in many small but distinct ridges. Gold in small quantities is found in the creek bed, and the character of the white rock and pebbles still tempts searchers after gold to pan and wash the sand and gravel from the nearby hills. It has never paid, however.

MICA MINES IN ASHE. Of the mica mines in Ashe county the Director of the United States Geological Survey says (1909):

"Hamilton Mine is on the west slope of a mountain two miles northwest of Beaver creek. It was reopened by the Johnson-Hardin Company in 1907. Two tunnels were run into the hillside along the vein." The character and quality of the mica are stated.

The North Hardin mine is on a ridge about one and a half miles west of Beaver creek and has been worked on a large scale. It was operated by two open cuts and other pits, etc., which have proved the continuity of the pigmatite for over 100 yards and shown the thickness to vary from three to eight feet. "The mica has a beautiful rum color and is of the best grade."

The South Hardin mine is near the top of a small mountain or hill about one and one-half miles southwest of Beaver creek. "The color of the mica obtained was a clear rum color and the quality the best." The quartz streaks along the foot wall of the pigmatite contained beryl crystals from less than an inch to six to eight inches in diameter.

OTHER NOTED MICA MINES. There are other noted mica mines in what was formerly Mitchell county, among them being Clarissa, the Seeb Miller mine near Flat Rock, where Ray and Anderson killed two men in a fight over the property in 1884, and the Deake mine, near Spruce Pine. There are several mica mines in Yancey and Macon, from one of the latter, the Jotla Bridge kaolin and mica mine, a block of mica was taken "in 1907, which measured about 29 by 36 inches across and was about four feet thick."^[3] There are numerous other mica mines, in Jackson, Madison and Transylvania. In 1910 there were over 150 producers.

USES FOR MICA. Mica is used in sheet and ground form--sheet mica for stoves and lamps and for glazing, and it is also punched into disks and washers or cut by shears for use in stoves and electrical apparatus. Ground mica is used as an insulating material in electrical machinery, wall paper, etc. The value of the production of mica in North Carolina in 1910 was $230,460,^[4] as compared with $148,424 in 1909. The average price of sheet mica in the United States in l910 was 11.5 cents per pound, as compared with 12.9 in 1909; but the average price of sheet mica in North Carolina per pound, by far the highest price paid.

CORUNDUM AND EMERY. These minerals are found in Clay, Macon, Swain, Jackson, Transylvania, Buncombe, Madison, Yancey and Mitchell counties. The following facts are from Vol.1 of the N. C. Geological Survey, 1905, on Corundrum and the Periodites. It contains 464 pages and is devoted entirely to this subject. It can be had by paying the postage. It covers the ground fully.

Corundum was first discovered in Madison county in 1847, about three miles below Marshall, at the mouth of Little Pine creek. The late Dr. C. D. Smith of Franklin, discovered corundum on both sides of Buck creek in Clay County prior to 1875, and Major Bryson did some prospecting there in that year, followed two years later by Frank Meminger, who worked six months and removed about 30 tons. In 1887, a Mr. Ernst did some work at Buck creek, but from then till about 1891 the mine lay idle. About this time, however, Mr. Gregory Hart of Detroit, Mich., worked it on a larger scale for about eighteen months. About 1893 the Hamden Emery and Corundum Company purchased the mine and worked it to some extent, sending the mined product to the Corundum Hill works to be cleaned. It is now owned by the International Emery and Corundum Company of New York. There is every indication of an almost inexhaustible amount of corundum at this mine. It is said to be too far from the nearest-railroad point to justify its operation. The completion of a short logging road from Andrews to Chogah gap will considerably lessen this distance. Just across the mountain, on the head of Shooting creek is the Isbel mine and factory, where considerable work was done about 1897-1898. It is now idle.

CORUNDUM HILL. Corundum Hill mine, seven miles from Franklin on Cullasaja creek, was worked as early as 1871 by the late Col.C. W. Jenks. From 1878 to 1900 from 200 to 300 tons of corundum were cleaned up there every year, since which time only a small amount has been mined. It is owned by the International Emery and Qorundum Company of New York. The late Dr. H. S. Lucas was active in mining these minerals in Macon county for several years, and is credited with having made money in the business. The Buck creek and Corundum Hill mines are the most important as they have been the most productive mines in the State.

CRANBERRY ORE BANK. "The Cranberry Ore Bank in Mitchell [now Avery] is pronounced by Professor Kerr 'one of the most remarkable iron deposits in America.' Its location is on the western slope of Iron mountain, in the northwest part of county, about three miles from the Tennessee line. It takes the name Cranberry from the creek which flows near the outcrop at the foot of the mountain. The surrounding and; associated rocks are gneisses and gneissoids, hornblende, slate and syenite. The ore is a pure, massive and coarse granular magnetite. The steep slope of the mountain and ridges, which the bed occupies, are covered with blocks of ore, some weighing hundreds of pounds, and at places bare, vertical walls of massive ore, 10 to 15 feet thick, are exposed, and over several acres the solid ore is found everywhere near the surface. The length of the outcrop is 1,500 feet, and the width 200 to 800 feet" (State Geological Report). It was worked in 1820^[5] by the Dugger family. (See Chapter XVI, "Notable Cases and Decisions," section headed "Carter v. Hoke.")

CRANBERRY'S ANTECEDENTS. Dayton Hunter, Esq., lawyer of Elizabethton, Tenn., owns the land on which stood the first iron works of Tennessee, a deed now in Jonesboro, Tenn., calling in 1778 for Landon Carter's Forge Race. This forge stood about 700 feet east of the present court Carter county. This Landon Carter was the father S. P. Carter, who was both an admiral in the navy and a lieutenant general in the army of the United States. Dayton Hunter married a daughter of Rev. W. B. Carter, a Presbyterian minister and a noted Greek and Latin scholar. Whether Charles Asher had anything to do with this forge is not known, but on the 18th of December, 1795, he and his wife Molly conveyed to Julius Dugger for seventy pounds, "current money of Virginia," (Deed Book A, p.178), 88 3/4 acres on the south side of Watauga river, being part of a grant from North Carolina to said Charles Asher; and in May, 1802, John Asher conveyed to the same Dugger 45 additional acres on the same side of the same river (Deed Book C, p.421). On the 20th of November, 1822, John Asher (a son of Charles and Molly) conveyed to William Dugger (Deed Book C, p.577) one-fourth of all the land on Watauga river, "including the Forge," beginning on a mulberry tree on the north side of the Forge dam, and containing three acres and 54 poles, "which bargained land and one-fourth of the same, including the iron works, with all appurtenances thereunto belonging, or in anywise appertaining, with free privilege of roads for the use of said iron works, together with the building or repairing timber for the use of said Forge, and free course for water to said Iron Works," is the first reference on the records of the old Dugger Forge, four miles above Butler, Tenn., on the north side of Watauga river. This would also indicate what tradition preserves, that Asher was the original iron master, and that he took the Duggers in with him. Joshua Perkins, who is said to have built the Cranberry forge for the Duggers, was a son of Jacob Perkins to whom on the 18th of September, 1811, Richard White, of Washington county, Va., conveyed, for $1,500, 250 acres on the north side of Watauga river opposite the mouth of Elk creek, reserving to himself a right of way over the land conveyed, "up the hollow," in order to avoid the jutting rock-cliff which formerly blocked the passage of the road on the right bank. This is the time that Richard White left for Missouri, according to the tradition of that locality. So it would seem that Landon Carter was the forefather of Cranberry Forge, that he was succeeded by Charles and John Asher, and the Duggers, while Joshua Perkins was the real builder of Cranberry Forge in 1820.

MAGNETIC CITY. Soon after the Civil War John L. Wilder and associates started a forge on Big Rock creek, and a town which received the name of Magnetic City. But it was too far at that time from a railroad, and the forge was abandoned. The white houses around Magnetic City and the little valley in which they are situated afford a pleasant surprise to the traveler when he first catches a glimpse of them.

THE DAVIDSON RIVER IRON WORKS. Charles Moore, grandfather of Judge Charles A. Moore of Asheville, James W. Patton and Thomas Miller of Henderson county, many years before the Civil War, made a contract with George Shuford, a millwright, father of Judge George A. Shuford, to build a forge or furnace and a mill on Davidson River, some of the iron ore being hauled from Boylston creek, although some was brought only three or four miles from a mine on the Boylston road. The hammer used in connection with this iron forge or furnace was operated by water. These owners afterwards became incorporated as the Davidson River Iron Works. It was in operation until after the commencement of the Civil War, when the Confederate Government took charge of it and operated it till its collapse. After the war it was reopened and Judge Shuford remembers seeing from fifty to sixty hands at work there as late as 1866.^[6]

THE SUTTON FORGE. There was also another iron forge or furnace on Mills river, known as the Sutton forge, because it was owned by a man named Sutton. This, however, was not on so large a scale as that on Davidson river.

MEREDITH BALLOU, PIONEER MINER. From Mr. V. E. Ballou of Grassy creek we learn that there are valuable iron mines from eight to twelve miles from Jefferson and about fifteen miles from Troutdale, Va., the nearest railroad station.^[7] They were first discovered by Meredith Ballou, the great-grandfather of V. E. Ballou who came to Ashe from Virginia among the first settlers. These iron properties are still owned principally by natives of Ashe county, among whom are J. U. Ballou, Dr. Thos. J. Jones, the Gentry heirs, B. Sturgill and J. U. Ballon. Napoleon B. Ballou was son of Meredith and the father of J. U. Ballou "who built the first bloomery forge and made the first iron in the State, which industry was carried on till about the year 1890 or 1891. Since that time there has been expended in Ashe county some $275,000 or $300,000 in the way of purchase money and development work. This work has proven that there are large, well defined veins of ore of a superior quality in this section of the State, but only one of these properties has been transferred to any large capitalist." (See J. H. Pratt's "Geological History of Western North Carolina in Chapter XXIV of this history.)

IRON PRODUCTION.^[8] The Cranberry Iron mine has produced almost all the iron that has been produced in North Carolina for years. It produces a pig iron of exceptional quality, commanding a high price. It is magnetic, and the crude ore is shipped to Knoxville for reduction. It has been a constant producer for twenty-five years. Nearly one hundred years ago iron was made there by the old Bloomery methods, and no better iron has since been made by any method.

AUTHENTIC INFORMATION. From "The Iron Manufacturer's Guide" (1859, by J. P. Lesley), quoted by Prof. Hyde Pratt in his "Geological History of Western North Carolina," in the chapter preceding this in this history, we get what is otherwise a matter of conjecture and doubt as to the date and names of the different "bloomeries" and iron works of this region. There is also a mass of valuable information concerning other mines and mining by Prof. Pratt in that article, to which reference is particularly invited.

ORE KNOB COPPER MINE OF ASHE COUNTY. (Information by Messrs. John Dent and H. D. Baker.) About nine miles east of Jefferson, is the Ore Knob Copper mine in Ashe county, which was first opened and worked for iron by Meredith Ballou, a Frenchman, many years ago. He mined the ore and hauled it to his forge at the mouth of Helton creek, and made wrought iron of it; but it was found to contain too much copper and sulphur, coating up the tools with copper and was not so good as that from the North fork of the New river. About four years before the Civil War a Virginia corporation, known as the Buckhannon Company, operated Ore Knob, for copper, and hauled the richest ore to Wytheville, Va., sixty miles away, by wagons, drawn by shod oxen. These men had bought it from Jesse Reeves, and after working the mine a year or more, sold it to George S. Miller and associates, who, after the Civil War, sold it to the Clayton Co., of Baltimore, Md. This company, under the management of John Dent now a resident of Jefferson, developed the mine scientifically, had the best of machinery installed, and established a smelter at the mine. They began work about 1873 and continued it till about 1877, when the price of copper declined. They shipped the manufactured sheet copper to Baltimore, via Marion, Va., and worked from 300 to 600 hands. Work seems to have continued in a smaller way till 1880, when it stopped altogether, Mr. Dent leaving there in December, 1883. This is the first place in North Carolina where copper was made from the ore and refined up to the Lake Superior grade. The ore was piled on burning wood heaps and burned from five to to seven weeks, by which time most of the sulphur would have been driven off, after which the roasted ore was smelted with charcoal in shaft furnaces and refined down to 99Ç per cent pure copper. The vein's general direction is northeast and southwest, with nearly a vertical dip. Among the principal stockholders of the company were James E. and S. S. Clayton and J. S. and Herman Williams.^[9] The land in which the mine lay had belonged to John W. Martin, who conveyed his interest therein to the Clayton Company, the mineral rights therein having been sold under execution at the court house door and bought in by the same company. Work was commenced on the 17th day of March, 1873. Some suppose that this was a mere pocket; but its distance from a railroad was probably the true reason of its abandonment. There is an undeveloped copper mine on Gap creek, near the line between Ashe and Watauga.

ELK KNOB COPPER COMPANY.^[10] In 1899 this company entered into a contract with J. A. Zinns and Joseph Bock of Minnesota for the operation of a copper mine on Elk Knob, and bought the engine of Vassas Brothers, who had failed at making pipes out of laurel roots in Boone, which business they had started in 1897 in a building in the rear of Blackburn's hotel.^[11] The copper mine was abandoned in a few years, and litigation ensued between Zinns and Bock.

CULLOWHEE COPPER MINE. This is in Jackson county, where some copper was produced in 1909 and 1910; but it is almost too far from a railroad to pay. It has a shaft 177 feet deep and a tunnel 4,000 feet in length.

ADAMS-WESTFELDT COPPER MINE. This is on Hazel creek in Swain county; but the property has been in litigation since 1900. It is on the lead from Ducktown, and is said to be rich. (See this case in Chapter XVI.)

GRAPHITE. The Connally mine at Graphiteville, between Round Knob and the Swannanoa tunnel is in McDowell county. It was operated a few years prior to 1907, but, owing to the difficulty of extracting the ore economically, it was abandoned. There is said to be an inexhaustible quantity on the land.

KAOLIN. Is obtained principally from Jackson, Mitchell and Swain counties. Over $100,000 of this mineral has been produced in this State in a year.

AMETHYST has been found in Macon, especially on Tessentee creek. The Connally mine on this creek has been worked by the American Gem and Pearl Company of New York and the Rhodes mine by the Passmore Gem Company of Boston.

TALC AND PYROPHYLITE DEPOSITS. There are talc deposits in Swain and Cherokee counties. A. A. Campbell of Cherokee was the pioneer in this mining, having shipped it by wagons before the days of railroads to Cleveland, Tennessee. It was then $80 per ton, however. It was used as early as 1859 to line the copper furnaces at Ducktown, Tenn. The principal talc mines are the North Carolina Talc and Mining Company at Hewitts, Swain county; the Alba Mineral Company near Kinsey, Cherokee county; the American Talc Company, and the Glendon Mining and Manufacturing Company, at Glendon, Moore county. Hewitts mine is the largest and best. Water interfered with the operation some years ago, but that has since been remedied. There is also a talc mine in Mitchell county, near Spruce Pine.

BARYTES. Crude barytes has been produced in the vicinity of Marshall, Stackhouse, Sandy Bottom and Hot Springs in Madison county. This substance has been produced in this county since 1884. The value of the product in 1910 was $145,315. Owing to its weight, it is called "heavy spar." There was a mill for crushing barytes at Warm Springs (now Hot Springs) in August, 1884. ("On Horseback," page 139).

THULITE was mined in North Carolina, in the Flat Rock mine, in 1908. It furnishes attractive gems when cut en cabochon with the enclosing feldspar.

ZIRCON was produced in 1909 from the Jones mine near Zirconia, Henderson county, when operated by M. C. and C. F. Toms. Two thousand pounds in 1909 was valued at $250.

PRECIOUS STONES. During 1908, 1909 and 1910 there was little systematic mining for gems in this region.

MARBLE AND LIMESTONE. The main marble outcropping begins on the Nantahala river below Hewitts and extends southward down to Valley river, a distance of over 25 miles. A shorter and parallel band extends from the head of Peachtree creek nearly ten miles southwestward and up Little Brasstown creek. The North Carolina Mining and Talc Company are developing their marble deposits at Hewitts. High freight rates prevent the development of this property.

THE CASPERIS MARBLE COMPANY. The Casperis Marble Company is now operating marble quarries at Regal, a few miles east of Murphy, and is supplying stone to several railroads. Mr. S. Casperis of Columbus, Ohio, is one of the largest stone operators in the United States. An extensive finishing plant employing about 50 men is operated in connection with the quarry. The quality of what this company calls the "Regal Blue," now being quarried, is said to be unexceled in the United States. The possibilities of marble production near Andrews and Brasstown appear to be almost limitless.

CHASING PETROLEUM RAINBOWs. Notwithstanding the opinion of scientists that "there is no petroleum to be found in the area west of the Blue Ridge in North Carolina, as the rocks were formed long before the period of time at which those carrying petroleum were formed," in the year of grace 1902, in the county of Buncombe, and within two miles of Asheville, W. A. Baird and wife and many others on Beaver-dam creek in Buncombe county, gave W. T. Sidell and E. E. Stewart of West Virginia, leases to mine oil and gas for one-eighth part of the oil and $200 a year for the use of all the gas that might be discovered or produced. (Deed Book, 124, p.73.)

OIL EXCITEMENT ON COVE CREEK. Soon after the Big Freshet of May, 1901, indications of oil appeared near N. L. Mast's store on Cove creek, Watauga county; and A. J. McBride, a reputable citizen, collected the oily film on top of a pool of water by absorbing it with blotting paper. This burned brilliantly; and in July, 1902, W. R. Lovill, Esq., a lawyer of Boone, obtained options on the lands of J. T. Combs and members of his family, B. F. Bingham, T. B. Fletcher and others, for one year. Mr. Lovill interested Gen. J. S. Carr of Durham in the matter, and the latter sent Major Hamlet of Roanoke to investigate. The fiat formation of the rock strata indicates unmistakably the presence of oil, but the ancient character of the rocks contradicted these indications, they being gneiss of the oldest character. But, during the year 1907, the Carolina Valley Oil and Gas Company, composed of men from New York and Pennsylvania, put down a hole near N. L. Mast's store 800 feet deep, and then abandoned the work, claiming that the drill had begun to take a slanting course. This company had a map prepared which indicated that there is oil in many places in Watauga and Avery counties. It is certain that the formation of the rock strata along the lower part of Cove creek and below its entrance into Watauga river is as nearly fiat as it is possible to be. Oil leases were also taken on lands around Sutherland, Ashe county.

AGE OF OUR ROCK FORMATION. From Professor Pratt's Geological History of Western North Carolina, Chapter XXIV in this work, it is clear that "all the rocks of Western North Carolina are amongst the oldest geologic formations," from which we may conclude that we are occupying land that is more ancient than that of the Euphrates, the Nile, or the Jordan so long associated in our minds with the Garden of Eden, the Ptolemys and Old Testament stories.

HIGH HONOR FOR OUR NATIVE GEMS. In the "Carolina Mountains" we learn that the finest specimens of emerald green crystalized corundum in the world, measuring 4½ x 2 x 1½ inches, is now in the Morgan-Bemet collection in New York. It was taken from Corundum Hill, near Franklin, in 1871. From Cowee creek comes the new gem Rhodolite. "remarkable for its transparency and great brilliancy (p. 268)," large sea-blue aquamarines, and beryls, both sea-green and yellow, tourmalines, purple amethyst, discovered on Tessentee creek by a landslide, and "smoky and citron-green quartz crystals in the Black mountains,… from which have been cut many beautiful objects by the Tiffany lapidaries of New York" (p. 272). Salmon pink chalcedony, agates, green chrysoprase and red and yellow jasper, also are mentioned. North Carolina minerals "are treasured in the greatest collections in the world, in this country very fine ones being on exhibition in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History (N.Y.), in the U.S. National Museum at Washington, D.C., in the Field Columbian Museum, Chicago, as well as many smaller museums."

VALUE OF MINERAL PRODUCTION IN FOLLOWING COUNTIES^[12]

NOTES:

1. H. H. B. Meyer, Chief Bibliographer Congressional library, to J. P. A. January 16, 1912.
2. Ibid.
3. Economic Paper No. 23, N.C., Geo. and Econ. Survey, 1911.
4. Ibid.
5. From "The Iron Manufacturer's Guide," 1859, by J. P. Lesley.
6. Not mentioned in "The Iron Manufacturer's Guide," 1859, by J. P. Lesley.
7. Harbard's Bloomery Forge at the mouth of Holton creek was built in 1807, and washed away in 1817; "Iron Manufacturer's Guide," 1859.
8. Economic Paper No. 23, N. C. G. and E. Survey, 1911, p. 30.
9. The Ore Knob Mining Co. was incorporated by Ch. 29, Pr. Laws of N. C., 1881, John S. Williams, Washington Booth, James E. Tyson and others of Baltimore and James E. Clayton and others of Ashe incorporators.
10. Deed Book V, Watauga, p. 238.
11. Ibid, T, p. 472.
12. From 25th Annual Report of the Department of Labor, 1911.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. That there were many outrages committed on and near the Tennessee line during the Civil War is too well known to admit of doubt. That all the blame does not rest on one side alone is equally certain. These mountains were full of "outliers," as they were called, and they had to live somehow. They did not belong especially to either side; they simply wanted to keep out of the war. It was a great temptation to cold and hungry men on foot to steal horses, food, bedding and clothing, and many of them yielded to the desire. Raiding parties went into Tennessee from North Carolina and raiding parties from Tennessee came into the North Carolina mountains. The trails and wagon roads through these mountains were usually guarded by Confederate troops. When they could not capture those who were riding or driving horses and mules from one side to the other they shot them down. Toward the close of the war lawless men robbed those they thought had money or other valuables. That the names of those who figured in this unfortunate period as oppressors or oppressed should be preserved, as far as possible, is evident to all who appreciate the duties of impartial history. Therefore, not to keep alive unpleasant memories, but to preserve names, dates and events, some of these occurrences are here related. Some of them were attended with unnecessary cruelty, but no mention is made thereof. That some of the women at home had as hard a time as the men in the field is shown by Mrs. Margaret Walker's story. The facts given in this chapter are meant merely to supplement those given in "The North Carolina Regiments," published by the State in 1901.

NORTH CAROLINA IN THE CIVIL WAR.^[1] From the address at Raleigh, Way 10, 1904, by Hon. Theo. F. Davidson, the following is taken : "She [North Carolinas was next to the last state to secede from the Union, and in February, 1861 she voted against secession by 30,000 majority; yet, with a military population of 115,365, the State of North Carolina furnished to the Confederate army 125,000 men…Of the ten regiments on either side which sustained the heaviest loss in any one engagement during the war, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey furnished one each, and North Carolina furnished three. North Carolina furnished from first to last one fifth of the entire Confederate army, and at the surrender at Appomattox, one-half of the muskets stacked were from North Carolina. The last charge of the Army of Northern Virginia under Lee was made by North Carolina troops, and the last gun fired was by Flanner's battery from Wilmington ton, N. C. The men of North Carolina were found (lead farthest up the blood-stained slopes of Gettysburg. 40,275 soldiers from North Carolina gave their lives to the Confederacy-more than one third of her entire military population, and a loss of more than double in percentage that sustained by the soldiers from any other state. Of this number 19,678 were killed upon the field of battle or died of wounds; and it is now a historical fact, questioned by none, that the greatest loss sustained by any regiment on either side during the war was that of the twenty-sixth North Carolina regiment at Gettysburg.^[3] It carried into action 800 men and came out with eighty, who, with torn ranks and tattered flag, were still eager for the fray. The charge of the fifth North Carolina regiment at Williamsburg ranks in military history with that of the Light Brigade at Balaclava. That charge gave the regiment and its brave and illustrious commander, Col. D. K. McRae, to immortality."^[2]

Carved on the Confederate monument at Raleigh are these words:

"FIRST AT BETHEL, FARTHEST AT GETTYSBURG AND CHICKAMAUGA AND LAST AT APPOMATTOX."

These claims are amply sustained in Vol. I, "Literary and Historical Activities in North Carolina, 1900-1905," as follows: First at Bethel, by E. J. Hale (p. 427); Farthest to the Front at Gettysburg, by W. A. Montgomery (p. 432); Longstreet's Assault at Gettysburg, by W. R. Bond (p. 446); Farthest to the Front at Chickamauga, by A. C. Avery (p. 459); The Last at Appomattox, by Henry A. London (p. 471); The Last Capture of Guns, by E. J. Holt (p. 481), and Number of Losses of North Carolina Troops (p. 484).

ASHEVILLE A MILITARY CENTER. "During the War Between the States, Asheville became in a small way a military center.^[3] Confederate troops were from time to time encamped at Camp Patton, at Camp Clingman on French Broad Avenue and Phillip street, on Battery Porter Hill (now called Battery Park), at Camp Jeter (northeast and northwest corners of Cherry and Flint streets), and in the vicinity of Lookout Park. Fortifications were erected on Beaucatcher, Battery Porter, Woodfin street opposite the Oaks Hotel, Montford avenue near the residence of J. E. Rumbough, on the hill near the end of Riverside drive north of T. S. Morrison's, and on the ridge immediately east of the place where North Main street last crosses Glenn's creek, now [1898] owned by- the children of the late N. W. Woodfin. At this last place, on April 11th, 1865, a battle was fought between the Confederate troops at Asheville and a detachment of United States troops, who came up the French Broad river. The latter was defeated and compelled to return into Tennessee. This was the Battle of Asheville.

WAR-TIME LOCATIONS IN ASHEVILLE. "The Confederate postoffice was in the old Buck Hotel building on North Main street.. The Confederate commissary was on the east side of North Main street between the public square and College street. This old building was afterwards removed to Patton avenue, whence it was removed again to give way to a brick building. The Confederate hospital stood on the grounds afterwards occupied by the Legal building, where is now the Citizen office.^[4] The chief armories of the Confederate states were at Richmond, Va., and Fayetteville, N. C., but there were two smaller establishments, one at Asheville, N. C., and the other at Tallahassee, Ala. (1 Davis's Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, 480.)

CONFEDERATE ARMORY. "The armory at Asheville was in charge of an Englishman by the name of Riley as chief machinist. It stood on the branch immediately east of where Valley street crosses it. Here, when North Carolina was one of the Confederate States of America, the Confederate flag from a high flag-pole was constantly displayed. There it floated in the breeze, and rested in the sunlight, the emblem

Of liberty born of a patriot's dream,
Of a storm-cradled nation that fell.

"These buildings were burned by the United States troops when they entered the town in the latter part of April, 1865."

THE FLAG OF BETHEL. The flag of Bethel was made and presented to the Buncombe Riflemen by Misses Anna and Lillie Woodfin, Fanny and Annie Patton, Mary Gains and Kate Smith. It was made of their silk dresses. Miss Anna Woodfin made the presentation speech and after the war embroidered upon it "Bethel. " It was carried by the First North Carolina regiment at the battle of Bethel Church, the first battle of the Civil War.

A HERO OF THE MERRIMAC. Riley Powers of Buncombe was a member of the crew of the "Merrimac" when she fought the "Monitor" in Hampton Roads. He saw her launched and witnessed her blowing up.

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL J. A. KEITH. In the spring of 1863 Lieutenant-Colonel J. A. Keith of Marshall, with part of the 64th Regiment, went to the Shelton Laurel country in Madison county to punish those of that section who had taken part in the looting of 'Marshall, which had taken place only a short time before. At this looting men and boys from Shelton Laurel had broken into stores and removed salt and other property. Col. Keith captured thirteen old men and youths. He made them sit on a log, and without having given them even the pretense of a trial had them shot …. Some of these were mere boys. The trench in which they were buried is still shown to the curious. This section was filled with deserters from both armies and those seeking to escape conscription in Tennessee and North Carolina. They carried on a sort of guerrilla warfare, and fought from rocks and crags. But this wholesale execution instantly aroused the indignation of the entire mountain section. Governor Vance demanded Keith's resignation, and he was dismissed from office in disgrace.^[5] He was arrested after the Civil War and placed in jail at Asheville; but before he could be tried in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Western District of North Carolina, President Johnson's proclamation of amnesty was issued and he escaped trial altogether. In the account of the 64th Regiment by Capt. B. T. Morris, in "North Carolina Regiments," this act is characterized as being too cruel.^[6]

EARLY SIGNS OF DISAFFECTION IN THE MOUNTAINS. On the 7th of July, 1863, the General Assembly of the State provided for the organization of the Guard for Home Defence, commonly called the Home Guard, which was to consist of all males from 18 to 50 not in the Confederate Army, and John W. McElroy was appointed brigadier general and placed in command, with headquarters at Burnsville.^[7] On the 12th of April, 1864, he wrote to Gov. Vance from Mars Hill College, where he then had his headquarters, that on the Sunday night before a band of tories, headed by Montrevail Ray, numbering about 75 men, had surprised the small guard he had left at Burnsville, and broken open the magazine and removed all the arms and ammunition. They had also broken open Brayley's[Bailey?] store, and carried off the contents; had attacked Captain Lyons, the local enrolling officer, in his room, wounding him slightly, but allowing him to escape. They had broken all the guns they could not carry off, taking about 100 State guns; also some bacon. On the day before, being Saturday the 9th of April, a band of about fifty white women of the county assembled together and marched in a body to a store-house near David Proffitt's, where they "pressed" appropriated -about sixty bushels of government wheat, which they carried off. He adds: "The county is gone up. It has got to be impossible to get any man out there unless he is dragged out, with but very few exceptions. There was but a small guard there, and the citizens all ran on the first approach of the tories. I have 100 men at this place to guard against Kirk, of Laurel, and cannot reduce the force; and to call out any more home guards at this time is only certain destruction to the country eventually. In fact, it seems to me, that there is a determination of the people in the country generally to do no more service in the cause. Swarms of men liable to conscription are gone to the tories or to the Yankees-some men that you have no idea of-while many others are fleeing east of the Blue Ridge for refuge. John S. McElroy and all the cavalry, J. W. Anderson and many others, are gone to Burke for refuge. This discourages those who are left behind, and on the back of that, conscription [is] now going on and a very tyrannical course pursued by the officers charged with the business, and men [are] conscripted and cleaned out as [if] raked with a fine-toothed comb; and if any are left, if they are called upon to do a little home-guard service, they at once apply for a writ of habeas corpus and get off. Some three or four cases have been tried by Judge Read the last two weeks, and the men released …. If something is not done immediately for this county we will all be ruined, for the home-guards now will not do to depend on.^[8] Thus North Carolina, the only Southern State which did not suspend the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War, was paying the penalty.

COL. KIRK'S CAMP VANCE RAID. On the 13th of June, 1864, Colonel Kirk, with about 130 men, left Morristown, Tenn., and marched via Bull's Gap, Greenville and Crab Orchard, Tenn., to Camp Vance in North Carolina, six miles below Morganton "where he routed the enemy with loss to them of one commissioned officer, and ten men killed-number of wounded unknown. His own losses were one man killed, one mortally wounded, and five slightly wounded, including himself. He destroyed one locomotive in good condition, three cars, the depot and commissary buildings, 1200 small arms, with ammunition, and 3,000 bushels of grain. He captured 279 prisoners, who surrendered with the camp. Of these he brought 132 to Knoxville, with 32 negroes and 48 horses and mules. He obtained forty recruits for his regiment; but did not, however, accomplish his principal object: the destruction of the railroad bridge over the Yadkin river. He made arrangements to have it done secretly after he had gone, but they miscarried. On July 21, 1864, Gen. Stoneman front-Atlanta thanked and complimented Col. Kirk upon this raid; but instructed Gen. Scofield at Knoxville to encourage Col. Kirk to organize the enemies of Jeff Davis in Western North Carolina rather than undertake such hazardous expeditions."^[9]

DETAILS OF THE EXPEDITION FROM THE GUIDE. They were afoot, carrying their rations, blankets, arms and ammunition on their shoulders.^[10] They had no wagons or pack animals while going there. They reached what is now Carter county, Tenn., on the 25th, where they- were joined by Joseph V. Franklin, who now lives at Drexel, Burke county, N. C., who acted as guide. They went from Crab Orchard on Doe river-the same place that Sevier and his men had passed on their way to Kings Mountain--crossing the Big Hump mountain and fording the Toe river about six miles south of Cranberry forge, where they camped near David Ellis's. He was a Union man and cooked rations for them. On the 26th they scouted through the mountains till they came to Linville river, which they crossed about one mile below- what is now Pinola, and camped. They- met John Franklin and made him go back a few miles with them, when they released him. The next day they passed through a long "stretch of mountains"^[11] and it was evening when they got down on the eastern side; but, instead of camping then, they pushed on, and crossing Upper creek came to the public road leading to Morganton just at dark. This was twelve miles from Morganton, but they marched all night, and at daybreak got to "the conscript camp at Berry's Mill Pond, just above what was then the terminus of the Western North Carolina railroad. Here they formed a line of battle and sent in a flag of truce, demanding surrender of the camp in ten minutes, at the end of which time it capitulated without resistance." Accounts differ as to the number of conscripts in the camp, Kirk's men claiming 300 and^[12] Judge Avery giving their number as "over one hundred of the Junior Reserves who had been gathered there to be organized into a battalion."

Kirk "then took a few men and went down to the head of the railroad and captured a train and the depot. We had aimed to go to Salisbury, but the news got ahead of us, and we gave it out … Ç% a had an engineer along for the purpose of running the locomotive and a car or two to carry us to Salisbury, where we intended to release the Federal prisoners confined there, arm them, and bring them back with us; but the news of our coming had gone on ahead of us, and we gave it out."^[13] "While the militia and citizens who did not belong to the Home Guards were gathering on the day of the capture, 28th June, one of Kirk's scouts^[14] was shot at Hunting creek about half a mile from Morganton by R. C. Pearson, a leading citizen of the town."^[15] Kirk then turned back, crossed the Catawba river and camped for the night. The next morning they resumed the march, crossing Johns river, and came into the road leading from Morganton to Piedmont Springs. Following this road they crossed Brown's mountain, where they were fired into by the pursuing Confederates. This was fourteen miles from 'Morganton and one mile from the home of Col. George Anderson Loven, who was one of the party of sixty-five men and boys who attacked Kirk at Brown's mountain. This was about 3:00 or 3:30 p. m.

"Kirk formed a line of battle, putting fifteen or twenty prisoners taken from Camp Vance in front. About fifty of our men fired on Kirk's men, killing one prisoner, B. A. Bowles, a drummer boy- of Camp Vance, who was about thirty years of age, and wounding also a boy of seventeen years of age from Alleghany county, another one of Kirk's prisoners. Dr. Robert C. Pearson was seriously wounded in the knee by Kirk's men. We then retreated, but Kirk retained his position for ten minutes after we had gone. When we fired on them I heard Kirk shout: `Look at the damned fools, shooting their own men,' referring to the Camp V ance prisoners whom he had so placed as to receive our fire. Kirk's men had about sixty horses and mules loaded down with all the best wearing apparel they could gather up through the country, and all the bedding they could find, all of which they had packed into bed ticks from which the feathers and straw had been emptied. After our militia had withdrawn, Kirk's men remounted, the horsemen going around the fence, and the infantry, three hundred or more, going up through Israel Beck's field for a near cut to the road above."^[16] According to J. V. Franklin, he, Col. Kirk and several others were wounded at Beck's farm near Brown mountain.

"We then crossed Upper creek," continues Franklin's account, "and came to the foot of Ripshin mountain and went up the Winding Stairs road, where we took up camp for the night." This position is near what is now called the Bark House and only two miles from Loven s Cold Spring tavern. They camped behind a low ridge, which commands the only road by which the Confederates could approach, but down which they could be enfiladed. This was twenty-one mile from -Morganton. At daybreak Kirk's pickets reported that the Confederates were approaching, "when Col. Kirk took twenty-five men and went back and had a fight with the pursuing Confederates. It was here that Col. Waightstill Avery was wounded and several others…. "^[17] According to Joseph V. Franklin's letter, "there were twelve Cherokees and thirteen white men who fought Col. Avery's pursuing party.

"The fog was dense as the militia came up the road. Col. Thomas George Walton was in command of the militia. Kirk's men formed on a ridge and behind tree, from which position they could enfilade the column, which had to approach by a narrow road. Kirk men fired on the advance files before the main body had come up. Col. W. W. Avery, Alexander Perry, seventeen years of age, and N. B. Beck were in front. they fired on Kirk. Avery was mortally wounded and Çn old gentleman named Philip Chandler, from -Morganton, also was mortally wounded. Col. Calvin Houck was shot through the wrist, and Powell Benfield through the thigh, neither wound being serious. Col. Avery died the third day after having received the wound. There were said to have been twelve hundred men in the militia under Col. Walton; but only a few were in the advance when they came upon Kirk's camp, as they were scattered for a mile or more along the road down the mountain; and having no room in which to form except the narrow cart-way that `vas enfiladed by the enemy, they retired. Kirk went across Jonas's Ridge unmolested, burning the residence of the late Col. John B. Palmer as they passed about ten o'clock that morning. Two conscripts named Jones and Andrew McAlpin had been detailed by the Confederate government, under the late Thomas D. Carter, to dam Linville river just above the Falls for the purpose of making a forge for the manufacture of iron which was to have been hauled from Cranberry mines; and when they heard that Kirk had passed down, they went down Linville mountain by a trail, and sent two teams and wagons loaded with property from the dam above Linville Falls to follow, only they were to go by the Winding Stairs road, the only one practicable at that time.' These wagoners had gone into camp at the top of the Winding Stairs road when Kirk and his men arrived after their fight at Beck's faun. Of course, they were promptly captured and turned back."^[18] The buildings at Camp Vance were burned.^[19]

"There were bacon and crackers there which Kirk's men packed on mules which they captured, and took away with them.^[20] George Barringer was another man they met on Jonas's Ridge and forced to go a part of the way with them, but he escaped. The yarn thread found at Camp Vance was given to the neighborhood women before the camp was burned.^[20] They got back to Knoxville, having lost but one man (Hack Norton) and sent their prisoners to Camp Chace in Ohio. No recruits joined them going or returning. The distance traveled was about two hundred miles."

W. H. THOMAS AND THE UNION MEN OF EAST TENNESSEE. Col. Thomas was not a Secessionist, but claimed that any people, when denied their constitutional rights, if oppressed, always had the right of self-defense, or revolution. It was his desire to keep the Southern people united that induced him to enter the Confederate army, coupled with a desire to keep the Cherokee Indians from joining the Federal army, as some of them had done at the commencement of the Civil War.^[21] He wanted to keep them out of danger and to guard the mountain barriers from the incursions of Federal raiding parties from the Tennessee side; for he never doubted that the Mississippi valley would, sooner or later, be in the possession of the United States troops. So, he got an order from General Kirby Smith in the spring of 1862 to raise a battalion of sappers and miners, and enlisted over five hundred of the people of East Tennessee, where the Union sentiment was predominant, and put them to making roads, notably a road from Sevier county, Tennessee, to Jackson county, N. C. This road followed the old Indian Trail over the Collins gap, down the Ocona Lufty river to near what is now Whittier, N. C. He was conciliating the East Tennesseans who had joined his sappers and miners when General Kirby Smith was transferred to another field of activity. The first order of Smith's successor in command required these Union men of East Tennessee to lay down their picks and shovels and join the Confederate army. In 24 hours there were 500 desertions. Then followed the attempt to enforce the Confederate conscript law, which drove these East Tennesseans to join the army of General Burnside. This army soon forced Col. Thomas and his Indians back from Strawberry Plains into the mountains of North Carolina, and the white wing of his Legion to Bristol, Virginia.

COSBY CREEK. After the Confederates lost possession of East Tennessee it was the policy of the Confederate government at Richmond to guard all the passes on the Tennessee boundary so as to keep free and clear their line of communication from Richmond through Danville, Greensboro, Salisbury and Charlotte to Columbia and the South. In order to do so this section of the country was made into the Military District of Western North Carolina and Brigadier General R. B. Vance was placed in command. He had a brigade under his command. They succeeded in keeping the Federals under General Burnside penned up in Knoxville, but never did dislodge them from that city. After Chickamauga, General Longstreet came from Virginia and drove the Federals back into Knoxville and besieged that place. But the exigencies of General Lee's army were such that Longstreet was ordered to return with his army to Virginia. No sooner had Longstreet started with his army for Richmond than Burnside followed him, harassing his men, and it was to draw Burnside off that General Vance teas ordered to make a demonstration by going through Quallytown, up Ocona Lufty and through the Collins Gap down into Tennessee. It was during a cold snap in January, 1864, and fortunately Vance had but two or three wagons; but he managed to take them up the mountain successfully. Still, when the artillery got to the top, following the rough road Col. Thomas had constructed, it had a hard time getting down the other side. The cannon were dismounted and dragged over the bare rocks to the bottom, while the wheels and axles of the carriages were taken apart, divided among the men and so carried to the foot of the mountain, when they were reassembled. The guns were not tied to hollow logs, as in Napoleon's passage of the Alps, but were dragged naked as they were down the steep mountain side. Capt. Theo. F. Davidson had this done.

GENERAL VANCE DIVIDED HIS FORCE. After reaching the foot of Smoky mountain on the western side, General Vance sent Col. Thomas and his Indians and Col. J. L. Henry with his mounted battalion to Gatlinsburg, Tennessee, and taking with him from three to five hundred men went on toward Seviersville. Much to his surprise, he captured an unguarded wagon train of about eighty loaded wagons and their teams and drivers, and immediately started back with them. When he reached Cosby creek Meeting House he stopped his command to eat dinner, but failed to put out pickets to notify him of the approach of the enemy. It was while engaged in eating dinner that a pursuing body of Federal cavalry dashed upon the resting Confederates and captured many of them, including the General himself, who was taken to Camp Chace and kept there till the close of the war. Captain Theo. F. Davidson, who was acting adjutant general, and Dr. I. A. Harris, escaped by going to Big Creek and through Mount Sterling gap into Haywood county, and thence to Asheville. Others also escaped. Colonels Thomas and Henry, learning of the fate of the rest of the expedition, returned into North Carolina by the route they had come, and Col. Thomas' Indians resumed their places near Ocona Lufty.

A SPARTAN MOTHER.^[22] During the last year of the war deserters from both armies, who generally were thieves and murderers, banded themselves together, and were called bushwhackers. About this time three men were murdered twelve miles from Valleytown, near Andrews, and this band of lawless men swore revenge on the best five men in this valley. Mr. William Walker was warned of his danger, but said he was an innocent man, and had fed out nearly everything he had, and he would not desert his family. He was sick at the time, and friends pleaded in vain. "On October 6, 1864, there came to my house at 11 A. M., twenty-seven drunken men.^[23] They had stopped at a still house and were nearly swearing drunk. Dinner was just set on the table, but they did not eat, as they were afraid they would be poisoned, but they broke dishes from the table, and went to my cupboards, and smashed my china and glassware. At the time Mr. Walker was warned, I took his papers and hid them, but he was so sure he would not be molested. that he made me put them back in his desk, but they were all taken." In spite of her tears and his pleadings he was taken from her. She followed with her sister the next day on horseback for fifteen miles, beyond which her sister `vas afraid to go; but Mrs. Walker went on six miles further, alone, where friends persuaded her to return home, which she did after one of them had gone to Long Ridge to ascertain if there -were any tidings from her husband there. Nothing was found, however, and she has never had any satisfactory word of him since. She had searches made by the government, the 'Masons, the war department and others, but discovered nothing. When she got back home she found that these thieves and thugs had stolen nearly all her bedding, and had even taken her dead baby's clothing, leaving not even a pin, needle or knitting needle, and tramping her fifteen feather beds full of mud. Still, neighbors contributed to her assistance; but it was three years after the war closed before she could buy even a calico dress for herself. Coley Campbell, a Methodist preacher and a tailor, taught her to cut and make men's clothing and by dint of hard work and strict economy and fine business management she reared five boys into splendid men. She also kept boarders and won the reputation of being the finest housekeeper in the mountains. But she suffered : "I wept for three years," she says in her narrative, "and two pillows were so stiffened by salt tears that they crumbled to pieces. My husband told a woman, Mrs. McDaniel, where he stayed all night after his capture, that he only worried that I might not live to raise the boys; but that if I did, he knew they would be raised right." How nobly she carried out that prediction is attested in the lives and characters of these sons themselves. She died December 9, 1899.

WILLIAM JOHNSTONE. "During the last years of the war the mountains became infested with deserters from both armies, desperadoes, who lived in caves and dens and issued forth for plunder and robbery.^[24] Among the number of murders committed by these we recall three of peculiar atrocity. The house of Mr. Win. Johnstone, a wealthy South Carolinian, was entered by six men who demanded dinner; the old gentleman set before them all that his house afforded; after partaking of his dinner and without a word of dispute they shot him dead in the presence of his wife and young children.

OTHER OUTRAGES. "Gen. B. M. Edney, a brave man, was shot down in his own room after making a desperate resistance. Capt. Allen, son-in-law of Mr. Alexander Robinson, a man of wealth and high social position, and a gallant soldier, after the armies had surrendered, while working at a mill near his home trying to earn bread for his wife and child, was murdered in cold blood, and his body stripped of coat and boots and left on the roadside."

"AN OLD MAN, MY LORD." In the fall of 1864 Levi Guy, an old and inoffensive white man who had allowed his sons to shelter at his home when being hunted for their robberies in the neighborhood of Watauga Falls, was hanged by Confederates from a chestnut tree which grew between the present dwelling of David Reece and his barn across the State road. The tree has disappeared. Guy- lived near Watauga Falls, just inside North Carolina. The names of those who committed this act are still known, and all those who have not died violent deaths have never prospered.

MURDERED BY MISTAKE.^[25] "Old Billy Devver," as William Deaver was locally known, was killed at the old Deaver place in Transylvania towards the close of the Civil War. It occurred through a mistake. He had a son, James, who was a captain in the Confederate Army and among whose duties was that of the arrest of deserters and outliers from the Confederate Army. He thus had incurred the enmity of men of that class, who were called in that country by the plain and unmistakable word "robbers." One night one of these robbers called at the Deaver home, expecting to find the Confederate Captain within. It seems, however, that he was not at home, but that his father, William Deaver, was. Therefore, when this robber called at the house and Old Man Billy came to the door, the robber asked him if he was Captain Deaver. He said he was, and believing that he was the Confederate Captain for whom he was seeking, the robber shot him dead at his own door.

SHOT THEIR HOST AFTER DINNER.^[26] Philip Sitton, near the Henderson and Transylvania line, was shot down by a party of these robbers as soon as they had finished eating a dinner they had ordered and which Sitton had furnished. They left him lying in his blood, believing his wound was mortal, but he recovered.

DEATH of ROBERT THOMAS.^[26] Robert Thomas, who lived on Willow creek in Transylvania county, was killed by these robbers in 1864.

JESSE LEVERETT A PENITENT. "In the time of the war there was a very notorious character at large in this part of the State," says Mrs. Mattie S. Candler in her history of Henderson county, "Jesse Leverett. He was known and feared by both sides, as he made a practice of piloting deserters through the Federal lines to Kentucky, taking them through here (Hendersonville) by way of Bat Cave and thence to the Tennessee lines. He was an outlaw and a desperado with such bold working methods that he continued this practice throughout the war, and was not even injured. Later he went to Illinois, discovered the error of his ways, and ended his career as a very earnest preacher."

"A HARD ROAD TO TRAVEL OUT OF DIXIE." Such was the title of an article in the Century for October, 1890, giving a very readable description of the escape and vicissitudes of a party of Federal prisoners who had escaped from prison in Columbia, S. C., and made their way to these mountains. They passed through Transylvania county, crossed Chunky Gal mountain between 'Macon and Clay and came down on Shooting creek where they had a fright at the house of a Mr. Kitchin. He had taken them in and was allowing them to sit before his fire when the Confederate Home Guard appeared on the scene, the prisoners escaping through a window. Another story in a later Century told of another party and their adventures on Tuckaseegee river in Jackson county. Col. Geo. W. Kirk began his military career in the Union Army by piloting Union men from these mountains into the Federal lines in Tennessee.

AN UNDERGROUND MOUNTAIN RAILROAD. Just as the Abolitionists before the Civil War had what were called "underground" railroads from Mason's and Dixon's line and the Ohio river to Canada, the Union element of these mountains had their underground railway to Kentucky and East Tennessee from the prisons of the South in which captured Federal soldiers were confined. T. L. Lowe, Esq., in his history of Watauga county, prepared for this work, gives some account of the assistance given by the late Lewis B. Banner, of Banners Elk:

"He was a strong Union man and his home was the home of the oppressed and struggling Union sympathizer trying to get through the Federal lines in Kentucky, and many a time through great personal sacrifice and danger did he pilot men through the mountains so as to avoid the vigilance of the Homeguard. On one occasion he rendered valuable services to a brave Massachusetts soldier, which services were remembered by the recipient for many years. The soldier's name was 'Major Lawrence N. Duchesney. He had been for 13 months a prisoner in the Libby prison, 73 days in the dungeon; was sent to Salisbury, N. C., and from there was being transferred to Danville, Virginia, and while en route jumped from the train and made his way across the country, and finally, foot-sore and weary, he reached the home of Mr. Banner where he was tenderly cared for until he was able to travel, and then Mr. Banner, or '1; Uncle Lewis' as we all are ever wont to affectionately call him, took him on a horse at night through hidden paths through the mountains to a place of safety. Major Duchesny some few years ago paid the family of his deliverer a visit, but his old friend had been dead many years. Major Duchesney had a home at Skyland, N. C., where he and his wife he buried."

ALLEGHANY DURING THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES.^[27] Alleghany furnished several companies during the war; one, Company F, 22d North Carolina regiment, with Jesse Reeves as the first captain, and Company I, 61st North Carolina regiment, with Dr. A. B. Cox as the first captain. J. H. Doughton, later in the war, organized another company, but when he arrived on the field of service, he found these two companies in such a depleted condition that he disorganized his company for the purpose of recruiting them. Alleghany furnished a great many more soldiers beside these companies, who served in various commands; some in Virginia, some in Tennessee, but mostly in the 37th Virginia battalion. Companies F and I were constantly recruited, but when the war was ended, there were not more than 50 or 60 men in both companies. But Alleghany's greatest trials were caused by deserters and bushwhackers. These men would hide in the mountains in order to evade active service on the battlefield. At first they seemed to have stolen only necessary food and raiment, but later took to robbing and murdering. With the able-bodied men in the army, the women and children were left at their mercy. The few old men and others unable for active service constituted a home guard, but were powerless to cope with these desperate outlaws. Alleghany appealed to Surry county in 1863 for aid-Surry county sent about 100 men to aid the Alleghany home guard; these men crossed the Blue Ridge at Thompson's gap and camped at what is known as the "Cabins." They sent four of their number to Duncan's Mills, about five miles distant for a supply of meal. These four men had passed Little River Church and it was almost dark, when the robbers snatched one of their men (Jeff Galyen) from his horse and hurried him off through the woods. The other men turned their horses and hurried back to the main body. Next morning early the whole force started in search of Galyen and the robbers. They found neither; and, after hanging Levi Fender (the stump of the old sapling on which he was hung can still be pointed out about one and one-half miles east of Sparta), they returned home. Within a few days Galyen was found in a few hundred yards of the place where the robbers had disappeared with him, on his knees by a tree, shot dead. One of the robbers, Tom Pollard, afterwards acknowledged to the killing, and said, he did it while Galyen was on his knees begging for his life. It was decided by the officers to send General Pierce with his soldiers into this section. These soldiers scoured the country, captured a number of the robbers and carried them to Laurel Springs, where a number of them were hung. Among those hung, were Lewis Wolfe and Morgan Phipps. Later Hoke's cavalry was sent into the county, but still robbery, murder and lawlessness continued.

In October, 1864, the fight at "Killen's Branch" took place. This is about one mile Northwest of Sparta, on the main road leading from Sparta to 'Mouth of Wilson, Virginia. Here the Home Guard was ambushed by a band of bushwhackers under Henry Taylor. The bushwhackers were concealed in a dense ivy thicket by the roadside and fired upon the Home Guard as they were passing. The Home Guard promptly returned the fire. The fighting continued for some time, when both sides withdrew. Of the Home Guard, Felix Reeves was killed and Wiley Maxwell, Jesse Reeves and Martin Crouse were mortally wounded. This was the last fight of any importance between the outlaws and the Home Guard.

A CIVIL WAR JOAN OF ARC. It was in this fight that Mrs. Cynthia Parks, wife of Col. Jaines H. Parks, then living in Sparta, who, when she heard the firing and saw the horses, of the wounded men running loose through the streets of the town, mounted her horse and rode to the scene of the combat, in order that she might render what aid she could to the wounded Home Guard. Later on the same day she brought the mail into Sparta. The mail carrier had been fired upon and had deserted his mail. She went to the place where the mail had been left and brought it to the postoffice.

During Reconstruction, Alleghany did not suffer from carpet-bag misrule as did some of the other counties of the State, owing, probably, to the small number of negroes in the county, and to the fact that most of the outlaws had fled. But still, we find instances where such men as Captain J. H. Doughton and Jesse Bledsoe, the first sheriff of the county, were dragged before the court. Feudalism must not have existed to such a great extent as elsewhere in the South, for J. C. Jones, Who Was sheriff of the county during the war, continued to be sheriff under the provisional government.

IN HAYWOOD COUNTY. Owing to the remoteness of Cataloochee creek in Haywood county, raiding parties from both armies figured extensively hereabouts during the Civil War, and several soldiers were killed along the roadsides, among them being Manson Wells of Buncombe, while Lewis Williams, who was with him, escaped. TÇ-o men named Groomes and Mitchell Caldwell were killed just above the point where the Mount Sterling and Little Cataloochee roads join. Henry Barnes was killed one mile east of Big creek. Levi Shelton and Ellsworth Caldwell were killed in 1863 on Caldwell Fork, between the McGee house and the gap of the mountain behind Harrison Caldwell's. Solomon Groomes killed a man named Townshend on Big Creek in 1861 or 1862 with an ax, on account of his daughter's relations with Townshend, and although he pleaded insanity, he was hanged just west of the bridge across Richland creek, and near the present passenger depot at Waynesville, in 1862.

WATAUGA'S EXPERIENCES. When, on March 28, 1865, Stoneman came into Boone he was fired on from the upper story of the house now occupied by Mr. J. D. Councill, opposite the present Blair Hotel, and his men then killed the following: Ephraim Morris, J. Warren Greene, J. M. Councill, and wounded Sheriff McBride, Thomas Holder, Calvin Greene, W. W. Gragg and John Brown. Two days later Kirk's men came into Boone and fortified the court house, which then stood where Frank A. Linney, Esq., now resides, by cutting loop - holes in the walls, and erecting a stockade made of timbers from a partly finished building which then stood where the Blair Hotel now stands and a house which then stood near the present Blackburn Hotel. He remained in Boone till Stoneman returned, when he, too, left. He also fortified Cook's gap and Blowing Rock, cutting the trees away from the road leading up the mountain. He also arranged to signal from mountain-top to mountaintop from Butler, Tenn., to Blowing Rock. Fort Hill at Butler is still visible, and was one of his fortified posts. When Stoneman's men got to Patterson, Clem Osborne of North Fork was there after thread, and the Federals chased him to the top of the factory, firing on him as he ran. Just as he was about to be overtaken he gave a sign which was recognized by a Mason among his pursuers, and his life was not only spared but he was sent back home with his team and wagon and all that properly belonged to him. The people of Beaver Dams had a particularly trying time with the outliers, and many are the harrowing experiences they were forced to undergo for nearly three years. When salt got scarce during the war men cut small hickory saplings from one to two inches in diameter and bound them into bundles and took them by wagon to the Salt Works in Virginia and traded them for salt, the hickories being split and made into hoops for barrels. After the close of the war Union people sued the more prosperous of their neighbors on the border of Watauga and Tennessee for damages for killing, wounding and arresting Union marauders, and in most cases lost, though the expenses of the litigation were ruinous to the Southern men who won. Among those sued were Commodore Perry, father of J. K. Perry of Beaver Dams, and Thomas Dougherty of Dry Run, Johnson county, Tenn.

BUSHWHACKER KIRKLAND. Between Yellow creek and the Little Tennessee in Graham county as it now exists used to live two men by the name of Kirkland, one of whom came to be called before the end of the Civil War, "Bushwhacker" Kirkland, and the other "Turkey-Trot" John Kirkland. They joined the Confederate Army at the commencement of the Civil War, but soon afterwards found themselves members of an independent command which was frequently accused of committing certain depredations upon the property of certain Union-loving citizens living in East Tennessee and in the neighborhood of the Great Smoky mountains. According to John Denton of Santeetla, who had been in their company when they were in the regular Confederate Army, they were brave men physically.

CAPTAIN LYON'S RAID. During the expiring days of the Civil War Captain Lyon of the United States Army came from Tennessee through what is now known as the Belding Trail to Robbinsville, Graham county. That trail was then known as the Hudson trail from the name of the man who first lived where David Orr now lives on Slick Rock creek; but the trail itself had been used by the Cherokees for years when the first white people came to that section. Lyon's men killed Jesse Kirkland, a kinsman of "Bushwhacker" and "Turkey-Trot John," and two other men, one of whom was named Mashburn and the other Hamilton; and probably two or three others. This was done on Isaac Carringer's creek, about half a mile from its mouth. They killed an Indian in Robbinsville, which was then or had recently been the home of Junaluska, the Indian chieftain; and then went up Santeetla, where they spent the night, returning the next day to the Unaka mountains and camping that night on the Bob Stratton Meadow.

COL. KIRBY DRIVEN BACK. From "The Last Ninety Days of the War," chapter XVI, by Mrs. Cornelia Phillips Spencer, we learn that during the second week of April, 1865, a brigade of infantry under Col. Kirby was moved by the Federals from Greenville, Tenn., on Asheville, but were met near Camp Woodfin-now Doubleday-by a part of Gen. J. G. Martin's command, and so successfully repulsed that they turned about at once and returned to Greenville.

GENERALS MARTIN AND GILLAM AGREE. "When it was found that General Gillam intended to take Asheville Gen. Martin ordered his whole command, consisting of the 62d, 64th and 69th North Carolina, and a South Carolina battery (Porter's) and Love's regiment of Thomas's Legion, to the vicinity of Swannanoa gap …. Love's regiment reached the gap before Gillam did," fortified it and repulsed him. After vainly trying to effect a passage here Gen. Gillam moved to Hickory Nut gap. Palmer's brigade was ordered to meet them there; but Gen. Martin, giving an account of this affair, adds, "I regret to say the men refused to go." They had heard rumors of Lee's surrender. Porter's battery having been ordered to Greenville, S. C., was captured on the road there by Gen. Gillam. On Saturday April 22, Gen. Martin received news of Gen. Johnston's armistice with Gen. Sherman, and sent two flags of truce to Gen. Gillam, one of which met him on the Hendersonville road, six miles south of Asheville, on Sunday. At an interview between Generals Gillam and Martin, Monday, it was agreed that the former should proceed with his command to Tennessee and that he should be furnished with three days' rations. Gen. Gillam reached Asheville on the 25th and with his staff dined with Gen. Martin. The 9,000 rations were furnished him, and that night his command camped a few miles below Asheville, afterwards going on to Tennessee. Col. Kirk and staff had dashed into town while it was in possession of Gen. Gillam's troops, but perfect order was preserved while they were there, and they "were compelled to leave in advance of General Gillam. " The People of Asheville had the mortification of seeing the guns of Porter's battery, that had guarded the crest of what is now Battery Park hill, just captured, driven through by negroes. Following the Federal army was an immense train of plunder, animals of all sorts, household goods and treasures.

"Tuesday night passed quietly. The town was guarded only by Captain Teague's company. A small party of Federals, under flag of truce, passed through during the 26th, carrying dispatches to General Palmer, then approaching from Morganton via Hickory Nut gap. At sunset on the 26th, Gen. Brown, in command of a portion of the same troops that had just passed through with Gillam, suddenly reentered the place, capturing all the officers and soldiers, and giving up the town to plunder. The men captured were paroled to go home, the officers to report to Gen. Stoneman at Knoxville. " This was within 24 hours after General Gillam had assured Gen. Martin that he would give him the forty-eight hours' notice provided for in the Johnston -Sherman truce before renewing hostilities. The residences of Gen. Martin, Mrs. James W. Patton, Judge Bailey, Dr. Chapman, a Presbyterian minister, and others were pillaged. The author adds: "The Tenth and Eleventh Michigan regiments certainly won for themselves in Asheville that night a reputation that should damn them to everlasting fame …. On Thursday, parties scoured the country in all directions, carrying on the work of plunder and destruction. On Friday they left, having destroyed all the arms and ammunition they could find and burned the armory. On Friday afternoon, they sent off the officers they had captured under a guard," but Gen. Brown refused to leave a guard behind for the protection of the town from marauders. On the 28th Gen. Palmer sent a dispatch from some point on the Hickory Nut gap road releasing Gen. Martin, his officers and men who had been captured by Gen. Brown, because Brown had not given the promised notice of the termination of the armistice. General Palmer also prevented two negro regiments in Yancey from entering Asheville.

GENERAL PALMER's DISPATCH. Following is the dispatch referred to:

HEADQUARTERS EAST TENNESSEE CAVALRY DIVISION,
HICKORY NUT GAP ROAD,
April 28, 1865.

General:--I could not learn any of the particulars of your capture and that of Colonel Palmer and other officers and men at Asheville on the 26th, and as my troops at that point were obliged to leave immediately, there was no time to make the necessary investigation. I therefore ordered your release on a parole of honor to report to General Stoneman. On further reflection I have come to the conclusion that our men should have given you, under all the circumstances, notice of the termination of the armistice, and that in honor we cannot profit by any failure to give this notice. You will therefore please inform all the officers and soldiers paroled by General Brown last evening and this morning, under the circumstances above referred to, that the parole they have given (which was by my order) is not binding, and that they may consider that it was never given. Regretting that your brother officers and yourself should have been placed in this delicate situation, I am, general, very respectfully your obedient servant,

Wm. J PALMER,
Brevet Brig. Gen. Commanding.
To Brig. Gen. J. G. Martin, Asheville.

PERRY GASTON BRINGS FIRST NEWS. J. P. Gaston of Hominy walked all the way from Appomattox and showed his parole. This was nearly three weeks after Lee's surrender. Stoneman was besieging Asheville on the South and Kirk's regiment on the north. Gen. Martin went out under a flag of truce and made an agreement to furnish three days' rations to the Federal troops-and furnished them-on condition that they should not disturb private or public property.

GENERAL JAMES GREEN MARTIN. He was the son of Dr. William Martin and Sophia Dange, and was born at Elizabeth City, N. C., February 14, 1819. He entered West Point in July, 1836, was graduated in July, 1840, and was commissioned a second lieutenant of the First regiment U. S. Artillery. In 1842 he served on the frontier of Canada in the Aroostock War, or "War of the Maps," and married at Newport, Rhode Island, July 12, 1844, Miss Mary Ann Murray Reed, a great granddaughter of George Reed, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and also of Gen. William Thompson, a brigadier general of the Revolutionary army. During the three days' assault on Monterey, Mexico, September 21, 22, 23, 1846, he was still a second lieutenant, but he was in command of his battery, with "Stonewall" Jackson as his second in command. At Cherubusco, August 20, 1847, his right arm was shot off. He turned over his command to Jackson, and taking his sleeve in his teeth, rode off the field. He was brevetted major for "gallant and meritorious conduct" at the battles of Contreras and Cherubusco, and presented with a sword of honor by the citizens of Pasquotank county, on which were engraved the battles in which he had taken part. He was then transferred to the staff and appointed assistant quartermaster and stationed at Fortress Monroe, Philadelphia and Governor's Island for several years, when he was ordered to Fort Snelling, Minnesota, where Mrs. Martin died. February 8, 1858, he was married to Miss Hetty King, a sister of Gen. Rufus King of the U. S. Army, and eldest daughter of Charles King, president of Columbia College, New York, and the granddaughter of Rufus King, the first American minister to the court of St. James. He was a member of the Utah expedition with Gen. Albert Sydney- Johnston, and was at Fort Riley, Kansas territory, when the Civil War began. He resigned when North Carolina seceded, and served in this State and in Virginia till the close of hostilities. Penniless after the close of the war he read law and commenced its practice in Asheville in copartnership with the late Judge J. L. Bailey. He died and was buried at Asheville, October 4, 1879.

LEWIS M. HATCH. This distinguished citizen and soldier served in South Carolina during part of the Civil War, and, hence, is not mentioned in the records of "North Carolina Regiments." He was born November 28, 1815, at Salem, N. H., but went to Charleston, S. C., in 1833. He joined the Washington Light Infantry, April 15, 1835, and served with that company in 1837 in the Seminole War. He was promoted to the captaincy of that company in 1855, and in 1856 he marched his company to Cowpens, which trip resulted in 1876 in the erection of the Daniel Morgan monument at Spartanburg. He was an expert swordsman, an athlete, and walked from Charleston to New York, when a young man, in thirty days, averaging 30 miles a day. On the last day he walked 60 miles. Gov. Pickens appointed him quartermaster general in 1860, and the fine service from then till 1865 was due to him. In 1861-62 he commanded the 21st South Carolina Infantry. To him was largely due the victory at Secessionville in .June, 1862. He served subsequently in Virginia. In March, 1866, he moved to Asheville, where he died January 12, 1897. While living in Charleston he was in the commission business.

COLONEL JAMES THOMAS WEAVER. He was the youngest son of Jacob Weaver and Elizabeth Siler Weaver. He was born near Weaverville, Buncombe county, North Carolina, on November 30th, 1828. He received such education as the schools of that section would then afford. Later he attended the Burnsville Academy in Yancey county and prepared himself for civil engineering. May 24, 1855, he married Hester Ann Trotter, a daughter of William Trotter of Person county, N. C., but prior to the marriage of Hester Ann, William Trotter with his family moved to Macon county in the year 1846. During the seven years after his marriage, and prior to his enlistment in the army of the Confederacy, James Thomas Weaver was actively engaged in farming and as a surveyor of lands. During this interval he acquired a comfortable competency, consisting of lands, etc., and was considered a thrifty and progressive man in his community. He enlisted in the army early in 1862 as captain of Company A, which he organized, and this company was assigned to the Sixtieth North Carolina regiment. In 1864 he was made lieutenant colonel of this regiment. He served in the Army of Tennessee throughout the war, or until his death. He was in command of the Sixtieth regiment in the second battle near Murfreesboro, Tennessee, occurring between the armies of Hood and Thomas. He was killed in this engagement on December 7th, 1864.

COLONEL EDWARD F. LOVILL. He was born in Surry county, February 10, 1842, married Miss Josephine Marion of the same county February 15, 1866, and moved to Boone in 1874. He was admitted to the bar in February 1885, and was commissioner to the Chippewa Indians from 1893 to 1897. He was captain of Company- A of the 28th North Carolina Infantry, and on the second day of Chancellorsville commanded that regiment in the absence of Col. Samuel D. Low. Of this incident Col. Lowe reported: "While absent, Gen. Stuart again commanded the line forward, and my regiment charged through the same terrible artillery firing the third time, led by Captain (Edward F.) Lovill of Company A, to the support of our batteries which I had just got into position on the hill from which those of the enemy had been driven."^[28] Captain Lovill had commanded the same regiment during the midnight attack of the night before. Upon the death of Col. Asbury Speer at Reems Station and the resignation of Major Samuel Stowe, Captain Lovill was senior officer of the 28th till the surrender at Appomattox; and commanded the regiment at the battle of Jones' farm near Petersburg in the fall of 1864, where he was severely wounded. He returned to duty in March, 1865, and was recommended for promotion to the colonelcy of his regiment at the time that James Lineberger was recommended for the lieutenant -colonelcy and George McCauley for the majority, but the end came before these appointments were published. He was wounded in the right arm at Gettysburg. At Fredericksburg "Captain Lovill, of Company A, the right company of the regiment, stood on the railroad track all the time, waving his hat and cheering his men; and neither he nor Martin (who had just shot down the Federal color bearer) was struck."^[29] Soon after the battle of Jericho Ford, in September, 1864, Natt Nixon, a seventeen-year-old boy of Mitchell's river, Surry, was desperately wounded, and at night Captain Lovill and Private AI. H. Freeman, a cobbler of Dobson, went to get him, as he had been left within the enemy's lines. They called him and he answered, saying the Federals were between him and them, but had been to him and given him water. Freeman put down his gun and accoutrements and shouting in a loud voice "Natt, I'm coming after you. I am coming unarmed, and any man who shoots me is a damned coward," started. It was night, but no one fired at him, and he brought his stricken comrade back to Captain Lovill; but the poor boy died near a farm house to which he had been borne before daylight. Colonel Lovill is a director of the Oxford Orphanage, having been appointed by Gov. Aycock. He is chairman of board of trustees of the Appalachian Training School and a lawyer of ability.

MAJOR HARVEY BINGHAM. In the winter of 1864-65, the Home Guard battalion of Watauga was camped on Cove creek near what is now Sugar Grove, the name of their camp having been Camp Mast. Harvey Bingham was the major, and Geo. McGuire, who had been absent from the county for a long while before his return and election, was captain of Company A. Jordan Cook was captain of Company B, of which Col. W. L. Bryan of Boone was first lieutenant. Major Bingham and his adjutant, J. P. Mathewson, left camp to go to Ashe to confer with Captain McMillan, who commanded a cavalry company there, about cooperating with his battalion in a raid he then contemplated. During his absence Company B, under command of Lieut. Bryan, was camped at Boone; and Captain McGuire sent him word about. dark that he expected an attack on Camp Mast that night. Lieut. Bryan, however, did not start for that place till the following morning, and when he got near it, discovered the cabins in smoking ruins and all of Company A absent. McGuire had surrendered them to Col. Champion of the Federal Army the night before. They were taken to Camp Chase and kept till the close of the war. It is said, however, that McGuire was not treated as a prisoner, but was allowed a horse and rode away with the officers to whom he had surrendered his men. It was thought at the time that McGuire had betrayed his men to the enemy, and he certainly had surrendered them under the protest of many of his subordinate officers; one of whom, Paul Farthing, told him that if the company was surrendered Farthing's life would be surrendered, meaning that he would not survive captivity. He, and a nephew who was surrendered with him, shortly afterwards died in Camp Chase. After the war Major Bingham was a candidate for the State senate before a democratic convention held at Lenoir, and the late W. B. Farthing stated that Bingham was suspected of complicity with McGuire in the surrender of the troops at Camp 'last, and that if he was nominated the people of Watauga would not support him. This led to his defeat and there was talk of a duel between these two; but both decided it was best to leave the issue to the future rather than to two leaden bullets, and the matter was dropped. But feeling still ran high against Major Bingham, and he and his wife, a daughter of John B. Miller of Wilkes, left Watauga together and rode on horseback to one of the western counties, where they taught school till a better feeling pervaded their home county, when they returned. He soon removed to Statesville, where he studied law and practiced law. He died there, a respected citizen and able lawyer, and time has fully vindicated his memory of the unjust suspicion that once drove him from his home; and no one now doubts his entire loyalty to the cause of the Southern Confederacy.

POST-BELLUM TROUBLES. Soon after the surrender deserters from both armies committed depredations in and near Jefferson. The citizens of Jefferson sent a delegation to Salisbury for protection, and returned soon afterward with Captain Wills of New York, who organized a home guard in every voting precinct. Union and Confederate soldiers who had served honorably were admitted, but their ranks were closed to deserters from each army. Jonathan Osborne was made captain of the North Fork company. Order was soon restored but not before 40 or 50 of these deserters had started into Jefferson, the leader of whom carried a United States flag. They came up Helton street, but when opposite the jail they were met by Joshua Baker, who had been sheriff. Single-handed and alone, he seized the flag, and and swore that no such gang of horse-thieves should disgrace it by carrying it. His brother, Zack Baker, stood near and told him to hold on to the flag. These two intrepid men cowed the band of outlaws and the flag was yielded up and given into the keeping of a Union man. Zach Baker was equally brave, and no deserter ever entered his dwelling near Creston till negro soldiers belonging to the regular United States army came at the close of hostilities and did some pilfering. Mr. Baker had sent word to these white marauders that he was waiting for them with a welcome they would not soon forget. They tried to take some of his horses once, but he defied them to do so; and on another occasion, after they had secretly stolen a few horses, he followed them to Tennessee, identified the horses as his property, and took them back with him in spite of the threats of the robbers to kill him.

NOTES:

1. See Vol. I, "Literary and Historical Activities in N. C., 1900-1905," pp. 427 to 484.
2. From The Morning Post, Raleigh, May 11, 1904.
3. Co. A of this regiment went from Ashe county, and the "Wilkes Volunteers" from Wilkes. Z. B. Vance was its first colonel, but was soon elected governor of the State.

3. From "Asheville's Centenary."
4. The New Legal Building, the finest office building in the city, stands there now.
5. See Governor Vance's Correspondence, 1863.
6. Statements of Gen. James M. Ray and Judge J. C. Pritchard.
7. Literary and Historical Activities in N. C., Vol. I, p. 485.
8. Series 1, Vol. LIII, p. 326, Rebellion Records.
9. Condensed from Rebellion Records, Series 1, Vol. XXXIX, p. 232. The guide, J. V. Franklin, says Kirk had only 130 men; but J. C. Chappell, who was with Kirk also, says he had 300 whites and 26 Indians. Wm. Blalock, who saw them at Strawberry Plains, says Kirk had 200 men. The official report says the number was 130. It was supposed by the people of Burke that Kirk intended to take an engine and car and go to Morganton and release and arm the Federal prisoners there.
10. According to Wm. Blalock, Kirk's men passed through Crab Orchard, and went up Chucky river, passing through Limestone cove, and crossing the mountain at Miller's gap, two miles from Montezuma, then called Bull Scrape. They then got to the Clark settlement, two and one-half miles from Montezuma, and camped there in a pine thicket. Next day they passed through the Barrier Settlement on Jonas's Ridge.
11. Letter of J. V. Franklin to J. P. A., March 2, 1912.
12. From Judge A. C. Avery's account in Vol. IV, N. C. Regiments.
13. J. V. Franklin's letter before quoted.
14. Hack Norton of Madison county, N. C., was his name, according to same letter.
15. Judge Avery's account, before quoted.
16. Statement of Col. George Anderson Loven to J. P. A. at Cold Spring tavern, near Jonas's Ridge postoffice, N. C., June, 1910.
17. J. V. Franklin's letter before quoted.
18. Col. G. A. Loven's statement before quoted.
19. Col. George W. Kirk was born in Greene county, Tenn., June 25, 1837 and died at Gilroy, Calif., February 15, 1905.
20. J. V. Franklin's letter before quoted.
21. Captain James W. Terrell in The Commonwealth, Asheville, June 1, 1893.
22. From an account written by Mrs. Margaret Jane Walker, wife of Wm. Walker. She was born March 15, 1826. Married October 15, 1844.
23. Ibid.
24. From the "Woman's Edition" of the Asheville Citizen, Nov. 28, 1895, by Miss Fanny L. Patton.
25. Related by Judge G. A. Shuford.
26. Ibid.
27. By S. F. Thompson, clerk of the court, Sparta, N. C.
28. Series I, Vol. XXV, Part 1, Rebellion Records.
29. Vol. II, N. C. Regiments, 1861-65, p. 475.