USA > North Carolina > Watauga County > A history of Watauga County, North Carolina. With sketches of prominent families > Part 23
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drap, drug, friz, shet and shuck, and of weak preterites in div, driv, fit, rid, riz, seed, throwed, etc. Even our most illiterate "startle" the "furriner" by the glib use of such words as tutor for rear or train, denote for signify, caviled for quarreled, dis- cern for realize and proffered for offered. He says that cuckold and moon-calf, which have none but a literary usage in America, are often heard in the mountains, and of the much-derided "hit" he says, "His, pronoun hit, antedates English itself, being the Anglo-Saxon neuter of he;" and on another page, 280, he says hit and it are used indifferently, as euphony may seem to require. We use fray for affray or fight, and fraction for rupture, which we find in Troilus and Cressida. "Feathered into them" he says is heard here, and refers to the time when arrows were driven into the flesh up to the feathers. We call married women "mistress" and "miz" for short, and aged men "old grandsir." We still "back" letters, instead of addressing them, as was the custom before envelopes were invented. We call a choleric person "tetchous," and, like Ben Franklin, we "carry" our wives and daughters to different places when we accompany them there. To most of us molasses is "them," and license to marry invariably is called "a pair of licenses." Of some of our idioms he cites : "I swapped hosses, and I'll tell you for why ;" "Your name ain't much common;" "You think me of it in the mornin';" "The woman's aimin' to go to meetin';" "I had a head to plow today;" "Reckon Pete was knowin' to the sarcum- stance ;" "I knowed in reason she'd have the mullygrubs over them doin's," and "You cain't handily blame her."
Place Names .- He gives a number of names of places which have adhered to them for years merely because of some event which happened there. Among these are Dusk Camp Run, Mad Sheep Mountain, Dog Slaughter Creek, Drownin' Creek, Burnt Cabin Branch, Broken Leg, Raw Dough, Burnt Pone and Sandy Mush. The fighting spirit blazes forth in Fighting Creek, Shoot- ing Creek, Gouge-eye, Vengeance, Four-Killer and Disputantia. Personal names are common everywhere, as Jake's Creek, Dick's Creek and Jonathan's Creek. But he had not heard of the Snow Wine Branch of the Beech Mountains, and so did not include it.
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Not Guilty in Watauga .- Several words and colloquialisms are recorded which seem strange to some of us in Watauga County, as gin for if, do' for door, dauncy for mincing, doney- gal for sweetheart, toddick or taddle for the toll-measure at a mill, swivvet for hurry, upscuddle for quarrel, etc.
Occult Errors .- Both Mr. Kephart and Miss Morley are struck with the use of "soon" for "early," but to most of us there is nothing wrong in this use, and we "fling a rock" in South Carolina as well as in the mountains when to "furriners" we throw a stone. Why, too, should we not ask, "Are you plumb bereft?" if we wish to know if one is entirely bereft of one's senses? What, too, is wrong with "Sam went to Andrews or to Murphy, one," or "I don't much believe the wagon will come today," or "'Tain't powerful long to dinner, I don't reckon?" They may be plainly wrong to others, but to us they are "plumb right." In conclusion, he adds that instead of having a limited vocabulary of three hundred words, he had himself taken down from the lips of Carolina mountaineers some eight hundred dialectical or obsolete words, to say nothing of the much greater number of standard English terms that they command.
No Foreign Words Admitted .- Mr. Kephart has detected only three words of directly foreign origin in the vocabulary of the mountaineers (p. 289)-doney, from Spanish or Italian donna; kraut, from the Germans, and "sashiate" or "sashay," from the French chasse. And he calls attention to the fact that, although the eastern band of Cherokees have lived with the Smoky Mountain highlanders for from seventy to eighty years, the mountain dialect contains not one word of Cherokee origin. Many of the whites, however, do use the word "O-see-you," which is the Cherokee for "Howdy do." What he calls the obso- lete title of linkister or interpreter, is nothing but a corruption of the present word linguister.
Our Literary and Moonshine Fame Secure .- Kephart, in his "Southern Highlanders," agrees with us in thinking that ours is the purest English spoken anywhere in the world today. As has been shown, he commends us for very, very much. He con- demns us for little, if anything. And to this high praise we can
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now add that of no less distinguished a literary lion than Mr. Cecil Chesterton, of London, England-not Connecticut. This is how he is quoted in the Literary Digest for June 19, 1915 (p. 1469) : "I do not want anybody to suppose that I am sug- gesting that the American language is in any way inferior to ours (the English!). In some ways it has improved upon it in vigor and raciness. In others it adheres more closely to the English of the best period. Thus an American uses the word 'sick' as it is used in the Jacobean Bible-to his not inconsider- able embarrassment sometimes, I should think, when he finds himself in European society. Also he uses old forms like 'gotten,' which we have abbreviated. If you want the purest Shakespearian English, I believe you have to go among the illicit whiskey distillers on the Southern mountains. But I was never fortunate enough (in a double sense) to come in contact with this ancient and delightful race."
Ante-Bellum School Teachers .- Following is a partial list of school teachers who taught at various places in Watauga prior to the Civil War, as remembered by several old men and women at various points in what is now and used to be Watauga County : James McCanless, William Roland, George N. Evans, Vine Thompson, H. H. Prout, Mack McCleard, Culver Wise, Josiah Wise, Levi Chandler, Joseph Culberson, Levi Chandler, John Wise, Alex Dobson, John Patterson, Sterling Sallens, Wm. C. Wise, George Grissom, Isaac and Harvey Wise,
Miller, Wm. Thomas, Pink Matheson, Erastus Longacre, Samuel Watson, a one-armed man; Levi Heath, H. A. McBride, Joel Dyer, Wm., Reuben and James Farthing, William Draughan, -Byland, Poovey, Wm. Cannon, T. C. Coffey, Abner C. Farthing, Edward Faucett, Lewis Church, Thomas Hodges, Martin Harrison, Joshua Rominger, Jonathan Norris, Joseph Woodring and Christian Woodring, L. Dow Allen, W. W. Pres- nell, Hamilton Blackburn, H. B. Blackburn, Charles Lippard, T. C. Land, Carroll McBride, A. F. and H. A. Davis, Timothy Moretz, Leonard Phillips, Thomas Bingham, J. B. Miller, Frank Whittington, Christian Moretz, Dr. Thurman, David Calton, Geo. Dyer, John Kennedy, Robert Coffey, Elbert Dinkins.
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Our Schools .- The public schools of Watauga are matters of record and need no extended mention in these pages. To rescue the story of ante-bellum efforts in education is quite as much as there is occasion for in this work. In old days there were no schools till after the crops were gathered in and secured for the winter. Then men were employed to teach in various locali- ties upon written contract, the teacher boarding among the pa- trons. There is still preserved among the many valuable old papers of Col. Henry H. Farthing, of Timbered Ridge, a con- tract duly executed between the subscribers and Alfred Fox for a school to commence on the 9th of November, 1835, and last three months, for which the teacher was to receive $1.50 for each scholar and board for himself, and the subscribers "agree to tolerate him with due and legal authority in school." It is nowhere recorded that any school teacher in these mountains got rich by teaching school, but Massachusetts herself has no such record for any of her ante-bellum pedagogues, either. Then, too, there were what were termed "Saturday and Sunday teachers," who taught on those days, or, sometimes, only on Saturdays, when they were called "Saturday teachers." The coming into Watauga County of Rev. Henry H. Prout in 1843, or 1845, to teach school was a great step forward, and old men now living on upper Watauga speak of him as the most scholarly man they ever met, and credit him with having taught them more than they ever learned from any other teacher. Unfortu- nately, during the first term of the regular school at Valle Crucis, about 1845-46, several unruly boys were sent there from east of the Blue Ridge, under the impression that the school was a sort of reformatory for recalcitrant youths. This disheartened sev- eral of the ladies connected with the mission, and they withdrew one after another (Skiles, p. 20). However, after Mr. Thurs- ton's death, in 1846, Rev. Jarvis Buxton came, after which the school got a good start, Mr. Prout going up to Mrs. Edward Moody's to teach.
"Straights and Pot-Hooks."-Mrs. Battle Bryan used to tell her son, Col. W. L. Bryan, of Boone, that the way in which writing was taught in her girlhood was by requiring the be-
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THE APPALACHIAN TRAINING SCHOOL, BOONE, N. C.
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ginner to make numerous vertical lines, one after the other, till a degree of perfection was attained, when the same straight lines were required to be made, but with the addition of small curved lines, turning upward, and called hooks. The arithmetics that preceded Davies' were Pike's, Smiley's and Fowler's, and the spelling book that was the forerunner of Webster's Blue Back was Dillsworth's. A few of these old school teachers are now distinctly remembered by Col. W. L. Bryan, who supplies the following :
Phillip Church .- When about twelve or thirteen years old, he went to Phillip Church, who lived in the edge of Ashe County, near Riverside. He taught at the old Lookabill school house, which stood close to David Lookabill's residence, one mile east of Soda Hill, and on the road leading from the Deep Gap of the Blue Ridge to the Deep Gap between the Snake and Rich moun- tains where those mountains come together and where the road forks, one prong going to Zionville, N. C., and the other to Trade, in Tennessee. It was a free school, which was usually taught in the fall and winter, after the crops had been gathered and there was little for the children to do. He attended this school about three months, or one session. Soon after the close of that session Church married Samuel Trivett's daughter, and moved with his father-in-law to the Poga Creek settlement be- tween Beech Creek and Ford of Elk, where he died in 1914. Colonel Bryan got as far as "abase" at that time.
Jonathan Norris .- This pedagogue was called "Lame Jona- than," because he had rubbed brimstone-powdered sulphur- over a skin eruption and had then gone in swimming. The re- sult was almost complete bodily paralysis, though his mind remained clear. He taught at the Lookabill school house also, and Colonel Bryan attended his school parts of two terms. Norris lived till he was about sixty years old, when he died at his home near Soda Hill.
Eli M. Farmer .- Colonel Bryan's next teacher was Eli M. Farmer, at the same school house. This gentleman married a Miss Austin, of Caldwell County, and died on Cove Creek about 1890.
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Burt Davis .- This was the next teacher, but he taught at Soda Hill school house and at Eli Brown's school house. Davis married Carolina Moretz first, and, after her death, Martha Lookabill. His first wife was a daughter of Squire Johnnie Moretz, and his second the daughter of David Lookabill. The latter still lives on Elk Creek, above Todd. Davis himself, how- ever, died about 1900.
Todd Miller, of Wilkes County, was the next of Colonel Bryan's instructors, and he taught at the Ben Greene school house between the latter gentleman's residence and where his son, Jacob, now lives on the Little Fork of Meat Camp Creek. It was there that he went through Davies' arithmetic and ended his school days. This was in the fall or winter of 1857, and after the Colonel had been clerking for Joseph Councill and Allen Myrick. Before that he had studied Fowler's arithmetic. That and the blue back spelling book were the only books he had during all his school days. His mother told him that Dills- worth's Speller was the spelling book which had preceded the blue back.
The Twisting Temple .- Battle Bryan called the school house on Meat Camp by this name because the frame was not exactly plumb and square, but leant a little to one side. The district has kept that name ever since. The house stood where Frank Reagan lives now. The district has, however, been divided into the Tugman School and the Green Valley School, and a better house has replaced the Twisting Temple. Still, this old Twist- ing Temple School District has furnished one congressman, E. S. Blackburn; one lawyer, E. S. Blackburn; two teachers, two physicians, the latter being Thomas Blackburn and B. W. Ferguson.
Lees-McRae Institute .- Without the slightest flourishing of trumpets or sounding of the big bass drum, Rev. Edgar Tufts came to Banner's Elk about 1901 and established a boarding and day school for girls. This has been successful from the begin- ning and continues to flourish. The terms are reasonable and the instruction thorough. Within recent years Grace Hospital was started, Mrs. Helen Hartly Jenkins, of New York, having
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given more than anyone else. It is equipped with a complete operating room and laboratory. It has several rooms for pa- tients undergoing treatment. The cool and pure mountain air aids much in all surgical operations. The Grandfather Orphan- age was started in the spring of 1914, the Lybrook farm having been secured for that purpose. The capacity of the orphanage has been doubled already. Girls are given practical instruction in many useful arts. The key to these benefactions is "IN, OF, FOR," meaning that they are in the mountains, of the mountains and for the mountain people. This tells the entire story most eloquently. The church which is nearing completion will be one of the most attractive architecturally in the State. The two large conglomerate rocks or pudding stones on either side of the entrance are in themselves rare curiosities. The school most sensibly closes during the cold months of winter, and is open during the summer, spring and fall months, opening in the spring and closing in December. The good already ac- complished and yet to be achieved is incalculable.
School Teachers in Boone Before Civil War .- Miss Annie Rutledge, from Wilkesboro, taught in the court house. Miss Barber, of Lenoir, taught in the court house. While being driven in a buggy by Joshua Winkler from Lenoir to Boone, with trunk on back of buggy, they met a man named Dooley as they came up the mountain from Patterson towards Blowing Rock. They talked with him and started on. Soon they found that the trunk was missing. Winkler went back, but never got the trunk. It was never recovered.
Col. J. B. Todd also taught in the court house. After the Civil War Henry Dixon, of Alamance, taught in the court house. W. B. and Robert Arrowood and Professor Blake, of Davidson College, their uncle, taught in a small one-room house which stood in the corner of the lot where Dr. J. W. Jones now lives, near the present drug store. Professor Blake started the school, but left it in charge of his nephews when he returned to David- son. W. B. Arrowood is now a Presbyterian preacher. They boarded with Dr. J. G. Rivers. Miss Margaret Coffey taught in 1869. After the Arrowoods, came Prof. John McEwen, who
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taught in Masonic Hall. James Warner taught here three months. James H. Hall, of Mount Airy, also taught at Masonic Hall in 1874. Then came Mr. McEwen. J. F. Spainhour and J. F. Hall taught at the academy which stood where Calvin Cottrell's stable now stands. This consisted of two large rooms, one above the other, and had been built but not quite finished by the Three Forks Baptist Association. It turned the building over to the Boone Baptist Church, which finished it. W. F. Shull was another teacher who has not been forgotten.
A Normal School at Boone .- By chapter 229, Laws of 1885, a normal school was authorized at Boone for the training of teachers, and a sum not to exceed $500.00 was appropriated out of the University Normal School Fund with which to pay in- structors. This was a small beginning, but it has had a great ending.
Appalachian Training School .- In 1903, Professors B. B. and D. D. Dougherty were teaching a private school at Boone, having succeeded in securing the erection of a large and commo- dious building for that purpose. But in that year the legislature incorporated the Appalachian Training School and made an appropriation for its support. It had already begun, however, for in 1899 the sum of $1,500.00 had been appropriated on con- dition that a like sum should be provided by the people. By several yearly appropriations following the first, the present plant was built, consisting of about a dozen buildings, a water power electric light plant and library. There are 500 or more acres of valuable land belonging to the school. There are three sessions annually, with an attendance of from four to five hundred. There is a competent faculty.
T. P. Adams went to Raleigh at his own expense in 1905 and urged the inauguration of the training school, and when in the late fall of the year the science building was about to be left exposed to the elements all winter, he carried mortar and brick for one month till the roof was on. He also insisted on the pur- chase of the Edmisten farm, containing the present dam and electric light plant, and in the face of much opposition from other directors, succeeded in having the purchase completed be- fore the option expired.
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Skyland Institute .- This school was started about 1891 by Miss Emily C. Prudden. She conducted it for a short time, after which it was turned over to the American Missionary Association. About 1912 this association reconveyed it to Miss Prudden, since which time it has not been open. It was a girls' school, with industrial training, and did a vast amount of good. It was located at Blowing Rock.
The Silverstone public school house is now said to be the best in Watauga County, containing four large rooms and an auditorium with a seating capacity of from 800 to 1,000 people. The chief movers and workers in this were John Mast, Larkin Pennell, Newton Mast, A. J. Wilson, A. L. Wilson and T. P. Adams. It cost, without paint or equipment, $2,000.00, all of which is fully paid. The present term is five months, and in another year it will probably be nine full months. Silverstone School District was the first in the State to vote a special tax to continue the school two months and for compulsory attendance.
Walnut Grove Institute .- In December, 1903, Finley P. Mast agreed to give three acres on the Old Meeting House hill, where the Cove Creek Baptist Church used to stand, for a school building and campus. T. C. McBride, J. H. Bingham, D. C., W. H. and J. C. Mast agreeing to give $100.00 each, and to procure all subscriptions possible, began work and finished the school house in August, 1904. It is large and convenient. This district then voted a tax of thirty cents on each hundred dollars of property and ninety cents on each poll for six years, without a dissenting vote. In 1910 the same tax was renewed for five years, with but two votes in the negative. Not one dollar was paid to complete the actual work of construction of the institute, W. E. Dugger, Ben. Dugger, J. C. Smith, D. C., W. H., J. H. and J. C. Mast doing the work themselves.
Other Schools and Academies .- Cove Creek Academy was built about 1885, Enoch Swift, J. H. McBride, W. F. Sherwood and Asa Wilson being active in its inauguration and subsequent support. Rev. Wiley Swift, who is so active in the cause of the factory children's interests, is a son of Enoch Swift. The academy at Valle Crucis was built about 1909, and W. W. Mast,
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T. H. Taylor, T. C. Baird, J. M. Shull, D. F. Mast, W. E. Shipley, C. D. Taylor, W. H. Mast and D. F. Baird were its principal promoters.
Valle Crucis School for Girls .- On the site of the old Ives school has been reared several large and convenient buildings in which a school for girls is taught. It was opened about 1903, Rt. Rev. Junius M. Horner, bishop of the Missionary District of Asheville, being ex-officio its head and directing mind. Many of the girls of the neighborhood have taken advantage of this opportunity to gain an education, while at the same time learning many useful lessons in domestic affairs. Great good is being accomplished and the people are coming more and more to ap- preciate the advantages offered by this school.
First Agricultural Instruction .- From De Rosset's "Church History of North Carolina" we learn that Bishop Ives had a herd of blooded cattle sent to Valle Crucis, from which it was intended to produce a finer breed of cattle in this section. Also, from Haywood's "Bishops of North Carolina," that the Valle Crucis Farm was early put under the direction of a young agri- culturist from New York, which was the first practical instruc- tion ever given in any school or college in North Carolina.
Prominent in the Cause .- Messrs. D. D. and B. B. Dough- erty, of Boone, have been and still are active in the cause of edu- cation, as is also Col. E. F. Lovill, who for years has done yeoman service for the Appalachian Training School without reward or the hope of reward. He has been for years chairman of the board of trustees. These gentlemen also have been active in trying to get railroads to this section, and have not abated one whit of their efforts because of failure. Moses H. Cone, de- ceased, late of Blowing Rock, not only built a school house there, but agreed to contribute four dollars for every dollar that was given by anyone else. His loss was irreparable.
The Lenoir School Lands .- On the 16th day of February, 1858, the late William Avery Lenoir conveyed to Thomas Farth- ing, trustee, five tracts of mountain lands, aggregating about two thousand acres, lying principally on Beech Creek and the waters of Curtis's Creek and Elk River. The considerations moving him thereto were his appreciation of "the kind regard
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MISSION SCHOOL AT VALLE CRUCIS.
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manifested toward him by the citizens of Watauga County, to promote the settlement of this new county and the education of the children in the same, and Thomas Farthing's promise to execute the trust without charge or deduction except for taxes, etc." Mr. Farthing was the trustee who was to sell such lands as he could and invest the proceeds in interest-bearing securities for fifteen years after the date of the deed, and then turn the sum so resulting over to such a school board as the State might provide, and if none were so provided, to the school authorities of Watauga County for the education of its children. The Civil War came on, however, and Thomas Farthing died without having executed the trust, whereupon his widow and heirs and W. W. Lenoir, representing the estate of W. A. Lenoir, also deceased, on the IIth of August, 1877, joined in a deed con- ferring this trust on R. H. Farthing, son of Thomas. The lands have been sold and the proceeds applied as directed. (Deed Book L, p. 409.)
School House Loan Fund .- By chapter 372, Laws 1911, a permanent fund was established to aid in the construction of school houses. This fund was provided from the "fines, for- feitures and penalties" in criminal cases, and the same was to be loaned to such school committees as might need such money to aid in the erection of school houses, to be repaid in ten annual instalments, the whole bearing only four per cent. interest.
Samuel Lusk .- This gentleman was not a schoolmaster, but he was a most conscientious stonemason, and was employed to build a chimney for a schoolhouse on Meat Camp. When the chimney was finished it drew well-very well indeed, but it was in the wrong direction, and instead of drawing the smoke from the fireplace up the flue and out at the top of the chimney, it drew the air from the top of the chimney down into the school- room, thereby causing the chimney to smoke outrageously. It was said by James Reagan that it even drew the buzzards out of the sky. This hurt Uncle Sammy's feelings inexpressibly. He came from Lincoln County to the Castle Settlement a few miles above what is now called Todd, but afterwards moved to Dutch Creek, near Valle Crucis, where he died, leaving a family of highly respected children.
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Col. W. W. Presnell .- This gentleman lost an arm in the Civil War and had to teach thereafter for a livelihood. His wife also lost an arm during the same trying period while helping to feed a cane mill. The first schoolmaster to whom he went was Eli Mast, who taught in one of the sang factories in the meadow just below Joseph Ward's barn on the old Whittington property. This was about 1847 or 1848. Mark Holtsclaw, Thomas Smith, Wm. Carver, Col. Joe B. Todd, Joshua Fletcher, Larkin Pips, Smith Reece, Jacob Hayes, D. C. Harman and Thomas Hodges were other schoolmasters who taught public schools on Brushy Fork from 1848 till the Civil War. Colonel Presnell also tells of a man called "Master" Huff, a school teacher, master being the most common designation for teachers at that time. He taught writing by causing the students to make straight marks, to which were added loops, called pot-hooks. The Dillsworth Speller preceded the Blue Back many years.
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