USA > North Carolina > Western North Carolina; a history, 1730-1913 > Part 27
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65
CHURCHES AND SCHOOLS. The early settlers were Scotch- Irish, as a whole, and their descendants are a hardy, hospit- able and enterprising pouplation, 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, cloth-
284
HISTORY OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA
ing and manners have changed, and it is the exception nowa- days to find a boy or girl of twelve years of age who cannot read and write.
MILITIA MUSTER DAYS. On the second Saturday of Oc- tober each year there was a general muster at each county seat, when the various companies drilled in battalion or regi- mental 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, chest- nuts, 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, am- munition 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 Col. A. T. Davidson in The Lyceum for January, 1891, the older people "had no money to buy with. All the necessaries of life were pro- cured 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 prod- ucts, bring their forces together and make trips to Augusta loaded with bacon, peltries and such other marketable arti- cles 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 broth- ers 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
285
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS
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 hushel of salt, 50 cents worth of coffee and a gallon of molasses. There was a general rejoicing, all going home sat- isfied 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, ex- pecting 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 ad- verse possession. Two other reasons were that landowners could not have prevented the ranging of cattle except by fenc- ing 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 own- ers 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 sum- mer and during the fall. "There annually passed through Buncombe county an average of 150,000 hogs, driven on foot about eight miles daily, which required 24 bushels daily for each 1,000 and were fed on corn raised in Buncombe. " 2 8
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 thor- oughfare. Its stockholders made money, so great was the travel. 29 James Garrett had a stand about one mile below
286
HISTORY OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA
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 oppo- site the mouth of Pine creek Samuel Chunn gave bed and board to the weary drovers and feed to "his dumb driven" cattle, sheep, hogs, horses, mules or turkeys. At the lower end of what is now Marshall, Joseph Rice lived and at the upper end of that narrow village David Vance kept a tav- ern-a long one-probably 150 feet in length, huddled be- tween 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 Alex- ander'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 in a single drove. 3 0
OLD ROAD HOUSES. "The stock stands, as the hotels be- tween 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 an- other, at ten another, and another at thirteen and a half. After this, at 16, 18, 21, 22, 28, 33, 36, 37, 40 and 47 mile- posts 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
287
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS
Rock to Asheville. I have known ten to twelve droves, con- taining from 300 to one or two thousand stop over night and feed at one of these stands or hotels. Each drove was 'lot- ted' to itself, and 'corned' by the wagon-load, the wagon being driven through each lot with ten or a dozen men scat- tering 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 tobacco 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 an- other. 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 home 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. " 3 1
HOG-KILLIN' TIME. "This hog killin' was a big time, and 'away 'fo' day' as the negroes, who were the principal partic- ipants, would say, twenty to thirty hands would build im-
288
HISTORY OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA
mense 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 burning until the stones reached a red-heat. In the meantime, a platform would have been made out of puncheons, 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 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 and scraped down, opened, the entrails removed, and after cool- ing, be cut to pieces, thus making hams, shoulders and mid- dlings. 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 broil- ing 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 Christmas 'guns.' "' 3 2
OUR DEPOTS SIXTY YEARS AGO. "Forty years ago Char- leston 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 corn 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 hun- dred 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
289
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS
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 Ashe- ville 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 go- ing 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 dash- ing over and against the rocks that it was actually not fit for a horse to drink!".
HERBS AND ROOTS. Ginseng was for years the principal herb that commanded cash in this section, but at first it 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 gympsum 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 busi- ness 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 W. N. C .- 19
290
HISTORY OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA
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 missed 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.
1The Century Magazine for September, 1890.
"Asheville's Centenary.
"Fifth Eth., Rep. 147.
"Roosevelt, Vol. III, p. 225.
"Asheville's Centenary.
"Thwaites, p. 30.
"Hominy creek in Buncombe got its name from a hominy mill with a pestle worked by water.
"These graters are still used in many places.
·Thwaites, p. 32.
10Thwaites, p. 32. The late Col. Allen T. Davidson used to tell of a famous hunter named "Neddy" McFalls 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 Coverlets," by Eliza Calvert Hall.
12Collier's Editorial, April 6, 1912. John Fox, Jr.'s novels.
""The murder of the gambler, Rosenthal, in August, 1912, on Broadway, New York, N. Y.
Tarbell, Vol. I, p. 5
1ªByrd, 212.
1"Zeigler & Grosscup, p. 96.
1"Ibid., 94-96.
"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.
1ºAsheville's Centenary.
".Ibid.
"From "A Life of Deacon William West Skiles."
"Asheville's Centenary.
"Description furnished by Col. David J. Farthing of Butler, Tenn. This applies only to the guns whose barrels were not bored out. The late Col. 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.
"Mace's "School History of U. S.," 1904, p. 287.
"Asheville's Centenary.
"""Balsam Groves," p. 17.
17Thwaites, p. 35.
"A. T. Summey in Asheville's Centenary.
"John A. Nichols' statement to J. P. A., July, 1912.
291
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS
"Upon the organisation of the Western Division of the W. N. C. R. R. Co., the stock and property of the Buncombe Turnpike Co. were exchanged for an equal amount of stook in the Western Division. Shipp's Land Com. Report, pp. 284-285.
"Col. J. M. Ray in Lyceum, p. 16, December, 1890. "Ibid., p. 17.
"Ibid., p. 16.
""The reference was to a time shortly before any paving had been done in Asheville. "In the " Autobiography of Rev. C. D. Smith," p. 2, we find that ginseng was "manu- factured," 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.
CHAPTER XII EXTRAORDINARY EVENTS
JUNALUSKA. In the fall of 1910 the General Joseph Win- ston Chapter, D. A. R., unveiled at Robbinsville, Graham county, a metal tablet, suitably inscribed, to Junaluska and Nicie his wife. The tablet was attached to a large boulder which had been placed on the graves of these two Cherokees. Mrs. George B. Walker of Robbinsville read a paper in which was given the chief facts of the career of this noted Indian chieftain; among which was the recovery by him of an Indian maiden who had been sold into slavery and taken to Charles- ton, S. C., by proving by microscopic tests that her hair had none of the characteristics of the negro's. He also, on sep- arate occasions, saved the lives of Rev. Washington Lovin- good and Gabriel North, whom he found perishing from cold in the mountains. He went with the Cherokees to the west in 1838, but returned, and was allowed to remain, the legislature of North Carolina of 1847 having, by special act, made him a citizen and granted him 337 acres of land near what is now Robbinsville. The Battle of the Horse Shoe was fought August 27, 1814, according to Alfred M. Williams' Life of Sam Houston (p. 13), and on March 27th, according to others. It was called the Battle of To-ho-pe-ka, and was fought in a bend of the Tallapoosa river, Alabama, by Gen. Andrew Jack- son in the Creek War. It was fortified across the neck of the peninsula by a fort of logs against which Jackson's small cannon were ineffective. But in the rear there were no forti- fications except the river itself, so that Gen. Coffey, Jackson's coadjutor, could not cross. But Junaluska swam the river and stole the canoes of the Creeks, strung them together and paddled them to the opposite shore, where he filled them with a large number of Cherokees, recrossed the river, led by him- self, and attacked in the rear while Jackson attacked in front, Sam Houston and his Tennesseans scaling the walls and grap- pling the Creeks hand to hand. The Creeks asked and received no quarter, Houston himself being desperately wounded. This ended the last hope of the Creeks as a nation. I-su-nu- la-hun-ski, which has been improved into Junaluska, is Cher- .(292)
293
EXTRAORDINARY EVENTS
okee for "I tried but failed," and was given this chief because at the outset of the Creek War he had boasted that he would exterminate the Creeks, but, at first, had failed to keep his promise. The following is the inscription on the tablet: "Here lie the bodies of the Cherokee chief Junaluska, and Nicie, his wife. Together with his warriors, he saved the life of General Jackson, at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, and for his bravery and faithfulness North Carolina made him a citi- zen and gave him land in Graham county. He died Novem- ber 20, 1858, aged more than one hundred years. This monu- ment was erected to his Memory by the General Joseph Win- ston Chapter, D. A. R., 1910." Before his death Junaluska conveyed his land to R. M. Henry. But Sheriff Hayes admin- istered on the estate of the deceased Indian and got an order from the court for the sale of the land to make assets. Under the sale Gen. Smythe of Ohio became the purchaser, and took possession. The case was carried to the United States court, where Henry won. But Judge Dick held that it was a case in equity, and set aside the verdict of the jury, heard the evidence himself and decided it in favor of Smythe. Henry did not appeal. See record in office of clerk of United States court, Asheville. It was decided in the seventies.
PEYTON COLVARD. This pioneer was of French extraction, the name originally having been spelt Calvert, according to the Rev. Mr. Verdigans of the Methodist Church, South. Peyton Colvard came to Ashe county after the Revolutionary War. The Colvards of Cherokee and Graham are descend- ants, as is also Dr. J. W. Colvard of Jefferson, Ashe county.
PART OF NEGRO MOUNTAIN FALLS. About the year 1830 Peyton Colvard lived in a log building which stood on the site of the present Jefferson Cash store of Dr. Testerman, and on the morning of February 19, 1827, the day his daughter Rachel, now the wife of Russell Wilbar of Texas, was born, a huge mass of rock fell from the top of Negro mountain and ploughed a deep furrow, still visible, down its side for a quarter of a mile. The main mass of this rock, almost intact, is still visible, with a small tree growing on it, while large trees have since grown in the ravine left by the fall of this immense boulder.
THE FALLING OF THE STARS. Several people still living remember this wonderful and fearful event. Col. Jolin C. Smathers, who then lived on Pigeon river above Canton, remem-
294
HISTORY OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA
bers it distinctly. He remembers hearing women wailing and men praying. Francis Marion Wells, still living on Grass creek in Madison county, remembers it also. He is now over ninety-two years of age. Mrs. Eliza Burleson, still living on the head of Cane creek in Mitchell county, remembers the occurrence. She also is over ninety-two years of age.
FRANKIE SILVER'S CRIME AND CONFESSION. According to Mrs. Lucinda Norman, the only living sister of Charles Silver, now (1912) 88 years of age and residing at Ledger, Mitchell county, N. C., Frances Stewart Silver murdered her husband, Charles Silver, at what is now Black Mountain Station on the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railroad-the mouth of the South Toe river-on the night of December 22, 1831.' She was tried before Judge Donnell, June Term, 1832, and convicted at Morganton, where she was executed July 12, 1833. On appeal her conviction was affirmed by Judge Ruffin (14 N. C., 332). She escaped from jail but was recap- tured. She cut her husband's head off with an ax, and then dismembered the body, after which she tried to burn portions of it in the open fireplace of her home. She left a poem lament- ing her fate, in which she refers to "the jealous thought that first gave strife to make me take my husband's life." She also pleads that her "faults shall not her child disgrace." She also relates in the poem that
"With flames I tried him to consume But time would not admit it done."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.