USA > North Carolina > Watauga County > A history of Watauga County, North Carolina. With sketches of prominent families > Part 17
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Obeyed Orders .- Boone court house was pierced with holes to fire through, while a barricade was made around it of timbers taken from an unfinished building which then stood where the Blair hotel now stands, and from another half finished house then standing near Blackburn's present hotel. Deep Gap and
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Blowing Rock also were fortified, traces of both fortifications being still visible. William P. Welch, now living at Deep Gap, recalls the fort and many incidents connected with the fortifica- tion of that place. It was a palisaded fort enclosing about one acre and ditched around. The J. D. Councill house stands now on the site of his father's residence, destroyed by fire in the fall of 1878, which was used as a hospital for the wounded soldiers who fell in that skirmish.
Other Details .- From the same source (p. 330) it is learned that when camped ten miles west of Jonesboro, Tenn., the train came up and "the First and Second Brigades drew all the rations the men could carry conveniently. On the 26th of March the command moved, cutting loose from all incumbrances in the way of trains. One wagon, ten ambulances and four guns with their caissons were the only wheeled vehicles that accompanied the expedition On the 27th a portion of the command moved up the Watauga River, and after halting for a short time at the mouth of Roan Creek to feed, marched until 12:00 p. m., when we bivouacked on the eastern slope of the Iron Mountain until daylight, when the march was resumed. About 10:00 a. m. on the 28th, when approaching the town of Boone, it was learned that there was a meeting of the home guard in that town to take place on that day. Major Keogh, aide-de-camp to Major-General Stoneman, went forward with a detachment of the Twelfth Kentucky Volunteer Cavalry and surprised and routed the rebels, killing nine8 and capturing sixty-eight. At Boone the command separated, General Stoneman, with Palmer's Brigade (First), going by way of Deep Gap to Wilkesborough, whilst I, with Brown's Brigade (Second) and the artillery, moved toward the place by the Flat Gap road. . . At 9:00 p. m. Brown's Brigade arrived at Patterson's factory, at the foot of the Blue Ridge, and found an ample supply of corn and bacon. I remained in rear to give my personal attention to the artillery, which did not arrive at the factory until 7:00 a. m. on the 29th. After feeding and resting, the march was resumed at II:00 a. m., a guard having been left in charge of the forage and subsistence
8 Only three men were killed, and five wounded.
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until the arrival of Colonel Miller, who had orders, after sup- plying his command, to destroy the remainder and burn the factory. The order was executed According to Gen- eral Stoneman's report (p. 324), his command was detained on the Yadkin River three days by a freshet, but the tithing depots along the route traversed by their various parties furnished them with supplies in the greatest abundance. "The number of horses and mules captured and taken along the road, I have no means of estimating. I can say, however, that we are much better mounted than when we left Knoxville. Have a surplus of led animals and sufficient besides to haul off all of our captures, mount a portion of the prisoners and about a thousand contra- bands [negroes], and this after crossing Stone Mountain once and the Blue Ridge three times and a march made by head- quarters since the 20th of March of 500 miles and much more by portions of the command. The rapidity of our movements has in almost every instance caused our advanced guard to herald our approach and made the surprise complete."
A Real Home Guard .- The men who met in Boone on the day Stoneman arrived were Confederate soldiers at home because of wounds or illness or on parole. They had met to form a real home guard, not against the Federals, but against the robbers and marauders of both sides. Soon after the close of hostilities the Federal authorities at Salisbury authorized some of the Con- federate soldiers who had been officers in the army to organize a home guard for Watauga County. Col. Joseph W. Todd, who then resided in this county, was made captain, and he soon re- stored order in and about Boone. He moved to Jefferson, where he became a practicing attorney. He was born September 3, 1834, at Jefferson, and died there January 28, 1909. He married Miss Sallie Waugh, of Shouns. For his ancestry, see sketch of Jos. W. Todd, his cousin.
Robbing Mrs. Jonathan Horton .- While Kirk's men were stationed in Boone, about the first part of April, 1865, John
9 Clem Osborne, of North Fork, was at the factory for the purpose of buying thread. He was chased to the top of the factory, and when about to be killed, gave a Masonic sign, which saved his life. Some time afterwards when apparently "tipsy" he was urged to tell what sign he had given and what words he had used. He gave a sign, and mumbled certain words indistinctly, but which turned out to be "Calf rope." He wasn't nearly so drunk as he pretended to be.
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Ford, William Thomas Benson and John Roland were said to have been concerned in the robbery of Mrs. Jonathan Horton, on Shearer's Hill, near Three Forks Church, and taking from her clothing a purse containing some jewelry. She was made to dismount and give up her horse, but as she got down she gave the horse a lick with her riding switch and he ran away home, thus escaping capture. Later on Ford and some of his com- panions stopped at the home of Ransom Hayes, at what is now known as the Green Brick House, and one of Hayes' daughters, now Mrs. W. L. Bryan, noticed that he was wearing on the lapel of his coat a gold brooch, containing a miniature of Mrs. Horton's husband, Col. Jonathan Horton. She asked him what he was doing with it, and he said he had no use for it, and gave it to her and requested that she return it to Mrs. Horton, which was done. In the "Worth Correspondence" (Vol. II, p. 267), Colonel Carr, of the commission to investigate oppressions of Union people, claims that Benson, who, with two others, was indicted for highway robbery from the person of Mrs. Horton, was of the Union army and had been ordered to impress horses, to which Solicitor Bynum replied that the evidence before him showed that if Benson "ever had belonged to the Union army he had deserted, and the robbery was under no authority, but for his own private gain and done under circumstances of wanton outrage and cruelty." It cannot be determined from the court records what the facts were as to the indictment, but several old men yet living were at the trial of John Ford at least, and re- member that Judge Buxton, who presided, held that the evidence showed that the robbery had been committed before Lee's sur- render and was not indictable under Andrew Johnson's procla- mation of amnesty. It is not at all certain that John Roland was even charged with that offense, and it is well established now, from the general opinion of his neighbors near Cook's Gap, that Benson had nothing to do with the robbery, even if he was in- dicted for it. The facts about Benson are said to be about as follows: William Thomas Floyd Benson was a member of a regiment in the Confederate army and lived near Wilmington, N. C. He, with several others, deserted and got to Buck's Ridge,
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near where Jordan Hampton's residence now stands. Here they camped and rested a week, buying a heifer of William Cook and paying for other rations they consumed while there. They then went to Carter County, Tennessee, where Benson enlisted in Stoneman's command as William Thomas Floyd, enlisting at Jonesboro. He now draws a pension in that name. When some of his relatives some years ago came from Wilmington to Blow- ing Rock and enquired for Thomas Benson, they were directed to go to Cook's Gap, where they identified him as their kinsman. He is said also to have drawn his share of his father's estate some years ago. His character is good.
"Peace, Peace, When There Was No Peace."-The great Civil War was over at last, and the harassed and impoverished people of Watauga County hoped for a cessation of hostilities and the burial of all animosities, feuds and misunderstandings. Most men and women "took heart of hope" and began all over again. Ploughshare and reaping-hook took the place of sword and rifle. But others were completely discouraged and inclined to .move away and seek homes elsewhere. Among these was Jordan Councill, the second, who had been the foremost and only merchant in this section from about 1820 till Boone was formed into the county seat. He decided to sell out before the United States government confiscated all he had. Squire Daniel B. Dougherty, however, took a more hopeful view of the future. Councill offered to sell out to Dougherty for half the value of his land, and Dougherty, who is said to have had little or no money, agreed to buy. Accordingly, on the first day of August, 1865, Jordan Councill gave D. B. Dougherty his bond for title to all his land and property in and around Boone when Dougherty should pay him $3,000.00 cash. (Deed Book M, p. 248.) Coun- cill moved away, but returned and recovered all the property Dougherty had not sold, the proceeds of that which had been sold having been applied on the bond. But that had not been all. In the May and June following Appomattox, a sort of guerilla warfare had been going on "below the Ridge," and the returned Confederate soldiers at the request of the Federal authorities formed themselves into a Home Guard for the protection of
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such little personal property as had escaped the robbers during the war, for the country was for months infested with all sorts of roving characters, returning soldiers, adventurers and desper- adoes of all kinds. Henry Henly, who lived just below Blowing Rock, was killed at the capture of Fort Hamby, and anarchy seemed to have "come down on us like night."
Fort Hamby .- Even after the surrender the trouble con- tinued. "Several worthless characters deserted Stoneman's com- mand along this march and formed with native bushwhackers bands under the leadership of two desperate men, Wade and Simmons. Wade's party located in a log house on a high hill half a mile north of Holman's Ford of the Yadkin River, in Wilkes County. Being heavily armed with army rifles and pis- tols, they made daily raids into the surrounding country, robbing, plundering and terrorizing the citizens, taking everything they could find to eat, as well as horses, etc. Their practice was to ride up to a house, dismount and enter, pointing loaded guns at any persons occupying the house, threatening to shoot if they opened their mouths, while others were searching closets, trunks, drawers, etc., taking what suited them. The people for miles and miles in the country surrounding lived in constant dread of them, as they seemed filled with a spirit of hatred and revenge, treating all persons not in sympathy with them with the greatest cruelty. The house they used was finely located for offensive as well as defensive operations. On a high hill, facing the Yadkin River on the south and front, and Lewis' Fork on the west, their guns could sweep the country for a half a mile each way up and down the river. The house was two stories, with portholes cut in the upper story. It was formerly occupied by a family named Hamby, and after being fortified was known as Fort Hamby. The robbers, numbering probably twenty-five or thirty, made several raids into Caldwell and Alexander Counties insulting in the grossest manner the women and children Major Harvey Bingham, with a small home guard, followed the raiders out of Caldwell County on May 6th (1865) sur- prising the defenders in the fort at night. The men begged for their lives, and no arms being in sight, Major Bing-
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ham gave them time to dress. The prisoners rushed for their guns and fired on the attacking party, killing two, Robert Clark, son of General Clark, and Henry Henly
the others made their escape, leaving the dead bodies on the ground. The next week they raided the home of Rev. J. R. Green in Alexander County. But his son was home from the army and fired on the robbers, driving them off. Col. Wash- ington Sharp, of Iredell County, gathered about twenty men, pursued . and rushed up to within a few yards of the fort, when Wade's men opened fire and killed two, Mr. James Linney, brother of Hon. R. Z. Linney, and Mr. Jones Brown
the others made a hasty retreat, leaving the two dead bodies. Colonel Sharp then collected a squad of about twenty returned soldiers, and sent a message to Caldwell County for
help . . . Among those who went were A. S. Kent, T. L. Norwood, Jas. W. Norwood, George H. Dula, Robert B. Dula, and S. F. Harper. They collected others along the way and waited at Holman's Ford for the Alexander company about May 18th. The robbers had killed a woman at the ford the day before. The fort was surrounded, and at nightfall a kitchen near the fort was set on fire and from it the fort itself caught. Sharp was in command. The besieged asked what would be done with them if they surrendered, and were told that they would be killed. They came out, with Wade in front holding up his hands as though he intended to surrender, but kept running and escaped. His comrades, four men, then surrendered and were tied to stakes and shot, after the Rev. W. R. Gwaltney had prayed for them. This ended the marauding and robbing in that section. Henry Hamby was from Watauga County. The above was condensed from "The Capture of Fort Hamby," by S. Finley Harper (p. 45); "Reminiscenses of Caldwell County, North Carolina, in the Great War of 1861-65," by G. W. F. Harper.
Blalock's Threat .- When Keith Blalock was told that John B. Boyd had arrested Austin Coffey and that Coffey was dead, he swore he would kill Boyd if it took forty years after the war to do so. It did not take nearly so long, for on the evening of February 8, 1866, when Boyd and William T. Blair were going
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from a house on which they had been at work they met Blalock and Thomas Wright in a narrow path at the head of the Globe. Blalock asked, "Is that you, Boyd?" and Boyd answered, "Yes," at the same time striking Blalock with a cane, the blow being aimed at his head. Blalock caught the blow on his left wrist, ran backwards a few steps and shot Boyd dead with a seven- shooting Sharp's rifle. Keith made Blair turn Boyd's body over, and finding that all life was extinct, turned and left the scene, stopping at Noah White's house to tell him what had been done. Blalock was examined before the Provost Marshal at Morganton, and he sent the case to Judge Mitchell at Statesville, but Gov- ernor Holden pardoned him before trial.10
Post Bellum Echoes .- From "Correspondence of Jonathan Worth," published by Edwards & Broughton Printing Co., Raleigh, 1909 (Vol. II, p. 725, etc.), we learn that Major Frank Walcott, one of the military commissioners sent to investigate al- leged persecutions of Union men in Watauga County, wrote that "Union men were pursued with malicious persecutions ;" that Austin Coffey was murdered by the Home Guard and that no steps were taken to prosecute his slayers, and that "a clearer case of self defense than Blalock's killing of John Boyd could not be made out." To these charges W. P. Bynum answered that Blalock had killed Boyd since the war, but not in the discharge of any military duty or order, and that the grand jury found true bills against all implicated in the killing of Austin Coffey, and that the case would be tried at the fall term of the Superior Court of Watauga County. The destruction of the records by fire in March, 1873, precludes any record evidence from that source, but tradition says that the solicitor failed to make out a case and the men were acquitted.
10 John Boyd was born in Caldwell County. Blalock was born June 21, 1836, and died near Montezuma, N. C., August 11, 1913, the result of an accident on a hand-car.
CHAPTER XIII. Some Thrice-Told Tales.
The Calloway Sisters .- Benjamin Calloway was one of the pioneers of this section, having his home on the upper Watauga. Two of his daughters, Fanny and Betsy,1 must have been women of unusual physical charm. That each was possessed of a char- acter of motherly devotion which halted at no sacrifice can never be doubted by anyone who knows their true story. It was the fate of one of these women unconsciously to supplant another woman in the affections of her husband, and of the other to be supplanted by a "mere strip of a girl." But the time came when each was widowed while yet the father of her children lived. Still, notwithstanding the ruin of their affections, each "found a way out of the wreck to rise in, a sure and safe one," through her children, each emerging from the fiery furnace of affliction without the smell of fire upon her garments, nay, glorified and almost apotheosized beneath her crown of martyrdom.
Pioneer Hunters .- There was much in the wild, free life, no less than in the picturesque costume of the backwoods hunter of this period, garbed in hunting shirt, fringed leggins, moccasins, powder horn and bullet pouch, to attract the fancy of young girls in this mountain wilderness. Light-hearted, care-free, debonair, they sang and danced and frolicked when they came in from their traps and camps in the peaks and crags of the wilder mountains. For they had regular huts or homes at dif- ferent places on their "ranges," where they lived in solitude, often, for months at a time. One of them is thus described in the "Life of W. W. Skiles" (p. 53, etc.).
- "They pushed bravely on, however, and at nightfall came to a small clearing in which stood the solitary cabin of a hunter. It
1 Ben Calloway was closely related to Col. Richard Calloway, of the Kentucky pioneers, and named his daughters for the two daughters of Richard Calloway, Fanny and Betsy, who, on the 17th of July, 1776, were captured by Indians with Jemima, second daughter of Daniel Boone, while boat-riding on the Kentucky river, one of whom, Betsy, married Samuel, a brother of Richard Henderson.
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was built of unhewn logs; the chimney consisted of sticks, cross- ing one another, well daubed inside and out with clay. The roof was shingled with oak boards three or four feet long, kept in place by logs laid lengthwise, well pinned down, with here and there a heavy stone to give additional strength against winds. The floor was of hewn lumber, three or four inches thick. There was but one room in the cabin, with a rude bed or two in one corner, three or four rough chairs of home make, a bench or two, a table to match in the center, and a huge fireplace where logs of six or seven feet could be piled together. Over the door, on wooden pegs, lay the rifle, always within reach and always loaded. Against the outer wall of the cabin were hung antlers of deer, while skins of wolf, bear and panther were hung up there to dry. Here, in the heart of the forest, lived Larchin Calloway, a famous hunter, and here the party from Valle Crucis was made heartily welcome. They were hungry and dripping wet from head to foot, but the latch-string of a moun- tain cabin door always hangs outside in token of welcome."
James Aldridge .- This hunter and pioneer has been, of late years, somewhat overshadowed by the fame of his son, Harrison, probably as great a marksman, trapper and backwoodsman as his father. As well as can be now ascertained, James Aldridge came to what is now called Shull's Mills about the year 1819 or 1820, his first son by Betsy Calloway having been born De- cember 15, 1821. James claimed to be a single man, and soon persuaded Betsy Calloway to marry him. He must then have been at least thirty-five years old, for he had left a wife and five children in Virginia on the Big Sandy River,2 his first wife hav- ing been born a Munsey, according to James A. Calloway, one of James' grandsons. It is claimed that he married Betsy, but as such a marriage would under the circumstances have been a nullity, it is immaterial whether he did or not. Certain it is that she always went by the name of Betsy Calloway and that she bore him seven children: Harrison, who married Jensey Clark ; Tempe, who married Benton Johnson; Jane, who married Ensley
2 The Big Sandy separates Kentucky from old Virginia, now West Virginia, and rises about 100 miles north of Abingdon. It was visited by Boone in the autumn of 1767, accompanied only by a man named Hill, according to Bruce (p. 48), who says he then visited the West Fork of that stream. Aldridge may have lived on the Virginia or the Kentucky side of the Big Sandy, but his descendants in Watauga always speak of his home as having been in Virginia.
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Issacs, Perrin Winters, Henry Shull, of Virginia, and John Calhoun; Ellen, who married Frank Fox; Benjamin, who mar- ried Millie Burleson and yet lives, Crossnore being his post office ; Waightstill, who married Polly Johnson and lives near Benja- min, and Emeline, who married Abram Johnson. Harrison, in memory of a faithful dog which saved his life from wild hogs, had that dear friend buried on a ridge above the home of his son, James A. Aldridge, and requested that he be buried there also. His tombstone, surrounded by a substantial stone wall, records the fact that he joined the Baptist Church October 22, 1870, and died January II, 1905.
James Aldridge was seen and remembered by very few men or women who are living today. Those who saw him say he was slightly above the average in stature, with dark hair and blue eyes. He was a great fiddler and hunter and of a happy disposi- tion. He first lived near where G. W. Robbins' hotel now stands, but after the birth of Harrison moved to the Hanging Rock Ridge, near Nettle Knob, a mile from James A. Aldridge's present house, for it seems that he had been "squatting" where he first settled, but entered and obtained grants to land in 1828. There he built two substantial cabins, with large fireplaces, so deep, in fact, that the dogs frequently went behind the fire and between it and the back of the chimney, where they sat and blinked at the people in front of the hearth. There is a cleared place in the "swag" of the ridge above Robbins' hotel which is still pointed out as the place where James Aldridge burnt willow logs and limbs to make charcoal for powder, which he manu- factured for his own use.
The Real Wife Appears .- The exact date of the coming of the real wife into the life of Betsy Calloway is not certain, but shortly after the birth of Waightstill, her last child, which must have been about two years after the birth of Benjamin, he having been born about 1834, say, 1836, a fur peddler of the name of Price, as Levi Coffey remembers it, came to the home of Edward Moody above what is now Foscoe.3 Here he met
3 In his geological tour through Ashe in 1828, Dr. Elisha Mitchell speaks of a hunter as living on the head of the Watauga River with the children of his real wife, who was then residing on the Big Sandy, in Kentucky, and his own children by another woman with whom he was then living as his wife. If this refers to James Aldrich, then Betsy Calloway had two children by him after his first wife appeared in the scene, for both Ben and Waightstill were born after 1828.
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James Aldridge, and, knowing something of his past, returned to the Big Sandy and told Aldridge's wife what he had dis- covered. Soon afterwards a woman riding a fine horse stopped at Edward Moody's, asked the way to James Aldridge's house, and was directed there. The next morning, before day, Aldridge came to Moody's and bought a bushel of wheat, which he had ground on Moody's little tub-mill at the mouth of what is still called Moody's Mill Creek, near Foscoe. After it had been ground it was "hand-bolted," that is, sifted through cloth by hand. James explained that "the cat was out of the bag at last," meaning that his wife had appeared on the scene. When asked how Betsy "took it," he answered that she was sulky, but that he himself was treating both women exactly alike, and had no doubt but that Betsy would soon get over it. But she never did. She told Aldridge plainly that he had deceived and outraged her and her children, and that while she had no other home than his, and must perforce remain there in order to rear her children, their relations had ceased. Finding that Betsy was not disposed to contest her rights, Mrs. James Aldridge lost interest in James and returned to her former home on Sandy. Soon afterwards several of her children appeared on the scene, the boys being Sam, Frank and James, while a girl, Rachel, married William Calloway, and remained permanently, the boys returning to Big Sandy. James followed his wife back to Big Sandy, where he remained awhile, but soon came back to Watauga, but finding no welcome from Betsy, he again returned to Big Sandy. It is likely that his real wife would have no more of him either, for Betsy and her oldest son, Harrison, visited his hut there and found him living with a young girl. He threw some bear skins on the floor, where she and her son passed the night, leaving at dawn the next day. James came again to Watauga, when Ben was four years old, gave him a dime and patted him on the head. But he brought two large brindle bear dogs with him, and his little son was afraid to put foot out of doors while they re- mained. This must have been about 1838, since which time no one has seen James Aldridge in Watauga County. His grandson, James A. Aldridge, says he heard that his grandfather died on Big Sandy during the Civil War, aged 110 years.
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