USA > North Carolina > Watauga County > A history of Watauga County, North Carolina. With sketches of prominent families > Part 9
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of James P. Taylor, who had obtained it from his father, Henry Taylor, June 2, 1893. The deed is dated December 4, 1903, and the consideration is $3,500.00 for the 525 acres conveyed. (Book I, P. 592.)
Rev. William West Skiles .- This good man was born in 1797, came to Watauga County soon after the school was started at Valle Crucis, studied theology and medicine, and made him- self generally useful and helpful to all with whom he came into contact. He died at the home of Col. John B. Palmer, on Lin- ville River, December 8, 1862, and his remains were buried first in the graveyard of the first St. John's, but moved in 1889 to their present resting place in the graveyard of the present church of that name a few miles below Valle Crucis. He taught school, kept store and practiced medicine among the poor people of this county for many years. He never married. He is still remem- bered by many of the older people of Watauga and vicinity. His life was full of good deeds.
"The Angelus."-Although a bugle was used to summon the little Valle Crucis family to work and to worship, there is, never- theless, something about the story of this old institution, com- bined with the name of the valley and its atmosphere and surroundings, which recall the lines of Bret Hart's famous poem, "The Angelus:"
"Bells of the past, whose long forgotten music Still fills the wide expanse, Tingeing the sober twilight of the present With color of romance ;
I hear your call, and see the sun descending O'er rock and hill and sand, As, down the coast, the mission voices blending, Girdle the sunny land."
CHAPTER VIII. Ebenezer Fairchild.
First Light on the Jersey Settlement.1-From a sketch of the Greene Family of Watauga, by the late Rev. G. W. Greene, Baptist missionary to China, we learn that "about the middle of the eighteenth century a colony moved from New Jersey and settled in Rowan County, North Carolina. This "Jersey Settle- ment" is now a part of Davidson County, and lies near the Yadkin River, opposite Salisbury . H. E. Mccullough, of England, had secured grants to large tracts in North Carolina, tract No. 9 containing 12,500 acres, including much of the land of the Jersey Settlement. Jeremiah Greene bought 541 acres of this tract. This land is described as lying "on the waters of Atkin or Pee Dee," on Pott's Creek. This creek passes near the village of Linwood, within a mile of the Jersey church, and empties into the Yadkin, not far away. This land was bought in 1762. Some years later, when this tract of land was divided between his two sons, Richard and Isaac, the new deeds were not registered, but the names of the new owners were written on the margin of the page where the old deed was registered. The Yadkin becomes the Pee Dee in South Carolina. In his "Rhymes of Southern Rivers" M. V. Moore says that Yadkin is not an Indian name, but a corruption of Atkin or Adkin. If Atkin's initials were P. D., then P. D. Atkin might very easily have become P. D. Yatkin, just as "don't you know" becomes "doncher know." Henry Eustace McCulloh was doubtless the "H. E. Mccullough, of England," referred to by Mr. Greene, as he was the agent of the province of North Carolina in Decem- ber, 1771, and was commended for good conduct (Col. Rec.,
1 Rev. Henry Sheets, author of "A History of Liberty Baptist Association," the successor of the Jersey Settlement Church, says that the McKoys, Merrills, McGuires, Smiths, Moores, Ellises, Marches, Haydens, Wisemans and Tranthams are the names of some of the leaders of the Jersey Settlement, but that letters to prominent men in New Jersey failed to secure any information as to this colony. Governor Ellis's ancestors were among these settlers, and many residents of Ashe, Watauga and Alleghany claim the same distinction.
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Vol. IX, p. 206), and he surrendered land in Mecklenberg, claimed by John Campbell, Esq., of England, without authority, as Campbell claimed, although there was a direction in the min- utes of the council journals that the attorney-general directing McCulloh was to surrender it .? (Id. p. 790.) It seems that land in large tracts had been granted to certain persons of influence on condition that they be settled within certain dates, for G. A. Selwyn, of England, appointed H. E. McCulloh to surrender any part of three tracts of 100,000 acres each, which had been granted to him upon the above conditions. (Id. Vol. VI, pp. 996-7.) This was in November, 1763, only a year after Jeremiah Greene bought his 541 acres from H. E. Mccullough. This would seem to account for the reference by Bishop Spangenberg to the 400 families from the North which had just arrived in 1752, and for the fact that most of the land east of Rowan County had been already taken up at that time. (Id. Vol. IV, p. 1312.)
Meager Facts Concerning.3-This settlement consisted of about ten square miles of the best wheat land in the South, and was located in Davidson County, near Linwood. It was com- posed of many people from New Jersey who had sent an agent there to locate and enter the best land still open to settlement. According to Rev. C. B. Williams in his "History of the Bap- tists in North Carolina" (p. 16), "The exact year in which the Jersey Settlement was made on the Yadkin is not known. It is probable that this settlement left New Jersey and arrived on the Yadkin between 1747 and 1755. Benjamin Miller preached there as early as 1755, and the facts indicate that there were already Baptists on the Yadkin when Benjamin Miller visited the settlement. The Philadelphia Association has in its records of 1755 the following reference: "Appointed that one minister from the Jerseys and one from Pennsylvania visit North Caro- lina." But Miller appears to have gone to the Jersey Settle- ment still earlier than 1755 (p. 17). Another preacher
2 See, also, Col. Rec. Vol. V, p. xxxii.
" The first mention of this settlement is probably by Bishop Spangenberg (Col. Rec., Vol. IV, p. 1311 to 1314), in which he spoke of 400 families with horses and wagons and cattle having emigrated from the North to North Carolina.
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who visited the Jersey Settlement was John Gano. He had been converted just before this time, and was directed by Benjamin Miller, pastor of Scotch Plains Church, New Jersey, to take the New Testament as his guide on baptism. He became a Bap- tist, and, learning of Carolina from Miller, decided to visit the Jersey Settlement on his way to South Carolina. This he seems to have done in 1756. During his stay at the settlement he tells us in his autobiography that "a Baptist Church was constituted and additions made to it." He left the colony early in the year 1759, and so the church must have been organized between 1756 and 1758. There is a tradition that while there Gano married a Bryan or a Morgan, one of the antecedents of the Bryan family of Boone.
John Gano .- It appears from Rev. Henry Sheets' History of the Liberty Baptist Association (Raleigh, 1907), that the Rev. John Gano had been a Presbyterian, but met Rev. Benjamin Miller, the pastor of the Scotch Plains Baptist Church in New Jersey, who induced him to take the New Testament on the mode and subjects of baptism. In a short time he joined the Baptists and became a minister. On his way to South Carolina, Mr. Gano visited the Jersey Settlement on the Yadkin, and soon after his return home was induced to make a second trip, when he was strongly solicited to move among them. It was on this second journey that he was accompanied by Ebenezer Fair- child, and, by traveling about eight hundred miles, arrived after a journey of five weeks. We have most of Ebenezer Fair- child's diary of their trip to and from the Yadkin, though the first few pages are missing. Fairchild was in a wagon, while Gano and his wife and child were in a chair or chaise, which turned over on one occasion, though no one was hurt.
Ebenezer's Diary .- It begins October 21, 1757, at some unnamed place along the road, where he got up and wrote a letter to his wife, Mr. Gano preaching on the 23d, after which they drove to a Mr. Winchester's, where they remained till Tuesday morning on account of the rain. It was on the day following that Mr. Gano upset the chair, "but they wasn't hurt." Mr. Gano preached that night on "What will ye that I should
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do unto you?" after which Fairchild smoked a pipe and went to bed. The next day they crossed Menoe Crosse Creek and came to Frederick Town, stopping at Arthur Charleston's, "where they did a little business." They soon forded the "Patomoc," and put up all night at Mr. Nolens. The next day "we see a wench that said she was a negroe to Mr. [undecipherable] son." They then crossed "Goos" Creek and turned out of the Bell Haven Road to a tree marked with a B, where they slept in the woods that night. All the next day they drove in the rain and crossed Bull's Run, and, going on seven "milds furder," came to "one powel ordnari, or powel town." This was Saturday night, and they found forty-five travelers already there, but they re- mained all night. Having a house to themselves, did not, how- ever, prevent their being kept awake till after ten o'clock by the fiddling and dancing of seven men. The next day Ebenezer was so upset by the want of rest the night before that he could "hardly get any ease lying in the wagon" till he remembered the cause of his restlessness. On the Sabbath John Gano preached from Galatians-chapter and verse undecipherable. "They be- haved quite od-talked in meeting and did not sing with us, ex- cept two or three of them." The next day they crossed Seder [Cedar?] Creek and came to a "taverne," but passed on to the "Rapahannock and crost it." As it was then night, they went to James Alieson, "but he would not let us stay there, so we drove on again about half a mild and campd in the woods." There Mrs. Gano was quite unwell, but they got her some sage tea and got her to bed also. The next day was November Ist, and they drove ten miles before taking breakfast, going nine miles further on to the south branch of the Rappahannock "and foarded it and ate supper at John Bannon's," where Mrs. Gano spent the night, Fairchild and her husband camping out. There they bought half a bushel of apples for a shilling. Later on they reached Porter's tavern, where they "drank a dram," and then went on again, Mr. Gano buying a turkey on the way, which they dressed and ate at camp that night. The following day they killed a deer by the way and had steaks for supper that night. At a tavern kept by someone unknown to Ebenezer, he got a
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quart of cider, and ate his dinner alone. Mr. Gano left him at the next tavern, and Fairchild "lay alone that night." But "as there were a bought (about) sixteen Irishmen or there a bought, there was noise all rownd." The next day he got up early and crossed a prong of the James River at Tucker Woodles'. On Saturday they reached Jacob Micaux's, on the south side of the James River, where Fairchild went hunting, but got nothing. At night he and Micaux's family sang psalms, hymns and said poetry till bed time, when he "went to his duty." That is, he had to go out and stay with the wagon, near which several "Irishmen" were camping, who usually "made a noise." The next morning he went early to what seems to be "Guglin" Court House to meet Mr. Gano, who preached from I Peter, 9th chapter, verse 18, "If the righteous scarcely be saved," etc. On the fifth they bought two hens and "made broth, ate supper and went to bed." The next day Ebenezer killed a pilot (snake), and they "past by a smith's shop and a taverne." Then they "crossed Allen's Creek and went two mild furder and campt." On Friday, November IIth, they reached "ronoak and fared over," meaning probably that they ferried over. They bought corn at David Michels, where Gano again left Ebenezer and "he shifted for himself." The 13th was the Sabbath, when Fairchild salted the horses. Gano overtook Fairchild after crossing the Tar or the Haw River, the word being uncertain, bringing with him John Shurman, but Shurman went on to his own home that night. They proceeded on to Orange, but how do you suppose he spelt it? "Orring!" The next day Uriah Carl and another, whose name cannot be deciphered, "being weary of traveling so slo, set out for themselves at high speed, but Tuesday we overtook them, but they set out again." Mr. Gano bought two more hens a short time afterwards, which Fairchild is careful to state that they "cooked." As it rained, Mrs. Gano got into the wagon "and rid till we came to Little Creek, where she got out and maid tea." They came at length to John Hunt's and then drove two miles to Colonel Smith's, where they took out the teams, "unloaded the waggin, and maid it our home." Subsequent disclosures show that they made Colonel Smith's
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their home-not the "waggin" -- where they remained till three days after Christmas, when they set out for their New Jersey home again; not, however, before Fairchild had recorded the fact that "John Stits Gano this day walked half acrost the room all alone-a bat came into the room tonight." While at Colonel Smith's, also, it seems that Fairchild was converted by Mr. Gano's sermon of November 26th, for he writes: "Blessed be God, it was a good day for my sole." While out hunting there they saw "a man on horseback with a woman behind him a straddle." During their stay there Fairchild went to visit Ephriam Coxe, where a woman told him she had lived there six years and had been but to three houses in that neighborhood. On Christmas Day Mr. Gano preached a sermon at Colonel Smith's house, but spent the night at John Hunt's, taking break- fast with Isaac Thomas. There Fairchild "tuned my fiddel, and maid ready to start homeward the next day." But that night he records the fact that he hopes things will grow better; that "men and women do try to preach. Some men do preach with the Bibel wrong end up; sometimes two or three are preaying at once, two or three exhorting at same time." Mr. Marshal McLean, Mr. Breed, Mr. Stain, McMulkey, Mr. Bentin, and how many more separately ministered there I do not know. John Hunt and Benjamin Marvel separately, but preaching; but I believe they are three good men. Mr. McDaniel
(name undecipherable), Mr. Swetens, Mr. Wilson, Mr. Minten- these all separately ministered, besides Mr. Marshall. These "are from round about-all but nineteen within fifty mild of Mr. Gano at the Jersey Settlement." They had intended to start back on the 27th, but the weather being bad, they went instead to look at a piece of land. He did not like this as well as land on Muddy Run, with a "sand spring" near the door. To this spring after dinner he took Mrs. Gano, who liked it. He adds forebodingly: "How it will sute my wife I don't know, but I hope well, and my wife to come and see for herself." "After we rid about awhile we went to John Hunt's, there staid till dark, then came home." On the 28th of December they set off on horseback for New Jersey, and reached there on the fif- teenth or sixteenth of January, 1758, after crossing the "sus ka
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hannar" on Friday, the 13th. This was a quick trip, compared with their journey down. The most notable thing that occurred on their return journey was a receipt for a sore backed horse: A pint of salt and a quart of wheat flour, mixed with water in a stout bag or sack. This is then placed on "a clean place in the fire, where it is baked to a hard or firm lump." Then it is gritted up into a powder and poured on the sore place on the horse's back. It was prescribed by "John poepper, hoarse doctor, Mary Land."
Mr. Gano Constitutes a Church .- In Mr. Sheet's history (p. 75) Mr. Gano said that before he left the Yadkin a Baptist Church was constituted and many additions made to it. But he left it in 1758 because of war with the Cherokee Indians. A second son was born to him November II, 1758. And the new church did not survive his departure very long (p. 76). In a note (p. 76) Mr. Sheets thinks they never had another pastor, and that the records were destroyed or carried off, and the church finally scattered and became extinct. The settlement was on the Yadkin River in what is now Davidson County, and mainly on the south side of what is now the Southern Railway track, near what has always been known as the Indian Trading Ford.
A Colonial Document.
By His Excellency JONATHAN BELCHER, ESQ.,
Captain-General and Commander-in-Chief of the Province of Nova Caesarea, or New Jersey, and Territories thereon depending in America, CHANCELLOR and VICE- ADMIRAL in the same, etc .:
To EBENEZER FAIRCHILD, EsQ. :
Reposing especial trust and confidence in him, he was "under the broad seal of Great Britain" appointed "insigne of that com- pany whereof John Brookfield is captain. You are, therefore, to take the said company to your charge and care as insigne. Done at Elizabethton in New Jersey the 14th day of July in the 3Ist year of His Majesty's reign, Anoque Domini, 1757. Seal.
J. BELCHER."
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Lincoln a Plagiarist ?- On a blank discharge from Sir Henry Clinton, K. B., General and Commander-in-Chief of all His Majesty's forces within the colonies, lying on the Atlantic Ocean, etc., is written :
Cyrus Fairchild, his hand and pen; He will be good, but God knows when.
As this is attributed to Abraham Lincoln by some of his biogra- phers as an example of precocious literary ability, it may sur- prise them to learn that it was current in Watauga County before Lincoln was born.
An Ancient Document .- Among the papers of the late Ebe- nezer Fairchild is an agreement dated May 23, 1761, by which John Stevens and Alexander Rutherford, for themselves and the devisees of Mary Alexander, undertake to convey to Ebenezer Fairchild, of Newtown, in the county of Sussex, eighty acres of "rights for unappropriated land in the Eastern Division of New Jersey, except Romopok, upon the payment of sixty pounds Proclamation Money of New Jersey."
Carpenter and Yeoman .- There is also a deed from Peter Dukerson, carpenter, of Morristown, province of East New Jersey, to Ebenezer Fairchild, yeoman, of the same place, for fifty acres in Morristown, for seventy-two pounds, dated May 16, 1754, and in the 27th year of His Majesty King George the Second of Great Britain.
On Bound Meadows Run .- There is a warrant for the sur- vey of fifty-three and three-tenths acres of land in the county of Sussex on the head of a southwest branch of Wall Kill, called the Bound Meadows Run, for the devisees of Mary Alexander at the request of Ebenezer Fairchild, by virtue of a warrant to her and Robert Hunter Morris for 1,600 acres of land to be taken up in any part unappropriated in the Eastern Division of New Jersey. It is dated December 9, 1757, and recorded in Book W4, page 14, by virtue of her last will and testament, which is recorded in Book A5, page 9. All recorded in the Public Records of the Proprietors of New Jersey, in the Sur- veyor General's office at Perth Amboy, in Book S, page 389. John Smyth, Jr., Surveyor General.
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AN OLD LETTER.
Morris Town, August 23d, 1771.
The Church of Jesus Christ in this place holding Believers
Baptism Laying on of Hands Eternal Election & Final Per- severance of the Saints in Grace &c
To the Church of Christ in Roan County in North Carolina of the same Faith, or to any one of the sister churches to whom These Presents may Come, Greeting :
Whereas our Brother Ebenezer Fairchild has Been Baptized in a Regular Way and Received by Us in Full Communion who for some time gave Good Satisfaction to this Church, But after faling into some Sensorious Errors was Laid under Suspension, And is now Removed from us without a Regular Dispensation has Sent us a Letter Dated September 28, 1770, wherein he seems to make very humble Confession of his Sins and Griev- ance to the Church and Desires Forgivness for it which, as he Confesses, was Drinking too hard, Loose Living, and also not keeping his Place in the Church which he Acknowledges and Begs our Prayers to God for him that he may be Enabled to Live up to the Profession he has made, which may the Lord help him to do.
Wherefore as his Life and Conversation is now better Known to you than to us, Although by what we Hear from him we do hope he is a Humble Penitent, Therefore, if you do Receive him, he is Dismissed from us, and the God of all Grace Bless you all. Amen.
Brother Ebenezer Fairchild we rejoice to hear from you such agreeable News may the
James Goble
Daniel Walling
John Brookfield
Lord grant you Grace and live Agreeable to the profession
Ezekiel Goble
Sam'l Parkhurst.
you have made ... Pray for us. Signed by us at our Meeting Part for All.
The Fairchild Ladies .- These ladies, whose names were Rachel and Clara, lived in Watauga County during the first quarter of the nineteenth century on Howard's Creek, where
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William Hardin now lives. Rachel Fairchild had married a man named Smith, but he died soon afterwards, and she and her sister were generally known as Fairchilds. They were the daughters of Cyrus Fairchild, son of Ebenezer Fairchild. They reared Wyatt Hayes, and after his marriage deeded to him their land, he having agreed to support them the remainder of their lives. In Deed Book F, page 497, is the record of a deed from "Cirous" Fairchild to Rachel and Clary Fairchild, showing that Rachel did not continue to be known by her late husband's name at that time. The consideration named is "for divers good and causes and considerations for the service of my daughters, Rachel and Clary Fairchild, for the last fifteen years and longer." The land was the 200 acres which Ebenezer Fairchild had en- tered on Howard's Creek when he first came to this country. The deed is dated April 26, 1843. It is probable that their father died soon afterwards, for when Wyatt Hayes was four years old his mother died, and he was taken to the home of the Misses Fairchild in 1846, where he remained till they died, excepting the time when he was in the Civil War, where he had part of one of his feet shot off at Mechanicsville in the first of the Seven Days Fight around Richmond in 1862.
CHAPTER IX. Various Churches.
True Democrats .- According to Kephart (p. 268), "the mountaineer is intensely, universally Protestant, and, as John Fox says, 'he is the only man in the world whom the Catholic Church has made little or no effort to proselite.' Dislike of Episcopalianism is still strong among the people who do not know, or pretend not to know, what the word means. The first settlers among the Appalachians were, mainly, Presbyterians, as became Scotch-Irishmen, but they fell away from that faith, partly because the wilderness was too poor to support a regular ministry and partly because it was too democratic for Calvinism, with its supreme authority of the clergy . This much
of the seventeenth century Calvinism the mountaineer retains : a passion for hair-splitting argument over points of doctrine and the cocksure intolerance of John Knox; but the ancestral creed itself has been forgotten. The circuit rider, whether Methodist or Baptist, found here a field ripe for his harvest. Being himself self-supporting and unassuming, he won easily the confidence of the people. He preached a highly emotional religion that worked his audience into an ecstacy that all primi- tive people love. And he introduced a mighty agent of evangel- ization among outdoor folk when he started the camp-meeting."
Our Morals .- "As for the morals of our highlanders," con- tinues Kephart (p. 274), "they are precisely what any well-read person would expect, after taking their belatedness into consid- eration. In speech and conduct, when at ease among themselves, they are frank, old-fashioned Englishmen and Scots, such as Fielding and Smollet and Peppys and Burns have shown us to the life I have seen the worst as well as the best of Appalachia but I know that between the two extremes the great mass of the mountain people are very like persons of similar station elsewhere, just human, with human frailties, only
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a little more honest, I think, in owning them . The worst have not been driven into a war against society, and still have good traits, strong characters, something responsive to good treatment. They are kind-hearted, loyal to their friends, quick to help anyone in distress."
Pioneer Baptists .- Roosevelt says (Vol. III, pp. 101, 102) : "Presbyterianism was not, however, destined even here [in the Watauga Settlement] to remain the leading popular creed. Other sects, still more democratic, still more in keeping with back- woods life and thought, largely supplanted it. Methodism did not become a power until after the close of the Revolution, but the Baptists followed close on the heels of the Presbyterians. They, too, soon built log meeting-houses here and there, while their preachers cleared the forests and hunted elk and buffalo, like other pioneer settlers. To all the churches the preachers and congregation, alike, went armed, the latter leaning their rifles in their pews1 or near their seats, while the pastor let his stand beside the pulpit." True to the above account, the Bap- tists were the first to penetrate to what is now Watauga County. Three Forks Church was started in November, 1790, but, while it was the first in what is now Watauga County, it had been preceded in the territory west of the Blue Ridge by the Beaver Creek and Old Fields churches. From Rev. Charles B. Wil- liams' "History of the Baptists in North Carolina" (p. 121) we learn that Three Forks Baptist Church became an association by that name in 1840, and that "like the Yadkin and Catawba associations, the Three Forks had a sharp struggle with anti- missionism. But its churches are now taking their stand in the regular lines of the convention's advanced work. It numbers thirty-three churches, with a membership of 2,728, and con- tribued in 1900 to all objects $1,457.00." Col. Thomas Bing- ham, for several terms a member of the State legislature and clerk of the Superior Court of Watauga County, was born 1845, and remembers that as late as 1854 or 1855 two Missionary Bap- tists appeared at the Cove Creek Baptist Church, near which his father then lived, but were not made welcome in the church.
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