USA > North Carolina > Western North Carolina; a history, 1730-1913 > Part 28
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She must have been educated better than the average woman of that day. Finding that she could not get rid of the body by burning it, she concealed portions of it under the floor, in rock cliffs and elsewhere, claiming that he had gone off for whiskey with which to celebrate Christmas, and had probably fallen into the river, which had soon thereafter frozen over. A negro with a "magic glass" was brought from Tennessee, and as the glass persisted in turning downward, the floor was removed and portions of the body found. The weather growing warmer other parts of the remains revealed them- selves, a little dog helping to find some.
Two BAIRD FAMILIES. Indicative of the almost utter desolation of these early scattered mountain communities is the story of the two Baird families. On the 20th of April,
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1795, John Burton sold to Zebulon and Bedent Baird all his lots in Asheville "except what lots is [already] sold and maid over."3 In 1819 Bedent Baird represented Ashe county in the House of Commons. He was not the Bedent who had bought the lots from John Burton. ' Certain it is that another Bedent Baird lived at Valle Crucis in what is now Ashe county, and his descendants constitute a large and influential family in that county at this time, just as the Bairds of Buncombe do in that county. But these two families seem never to have heard of the existence of the other till the 28th of January, 1858, when Bedent E. Baird wrote to Adolphus E. Baird at Lapland, now Marshall, in answer to Baird's note of enquiry, which he had penciled on the margin of a news- paper. In that note he had claimed Bedent as a relative and stated that he resided at Lapland; but he failed to sign his name or state the county in which Lapland was situated. A. E. Baird received the letter promptly, but seems never to have answered it. In it Bedent gave a full family history; and the letter was published in full in the Asheville Gazette News on February 20, 1912. This letter was read and preserved by the numerous Bairds in Buncombe but no one seems to be able to trace the exact relationship between the Buncombe and the Watauga Bairds. That they are the same family no one who knows them can doubt, as they look, and, in many things, act alike, besides having the same given names in many cases. 5
THE COLD SATURDAY. This date is fixed in Watauga by the fact that John Hartley was born on that day, which is set down in his family Bible as February 8, 1835. On June 5, 1858, a freeze killed corn knee-high, and all fruits, vegetables and white oak trees between Boone and Jefferson, according to the recollections of Col. W. L. Bryan of Boone. There was a slight frost at Blowing Rock on the night of July 26, 1876. There was snow on the Haywood mountains June 10, 1913. "THE BIG SNOW." Just when occurred what old people call the "big" snow cannot be determined to the satisfaction of everyone. Mrs. Eliza Burleson, of Hawk, Mitchell county, and the mother of Charles Wesley Burleson of Plum Tree, was born on the 5th of April, 1820, on Three Mile creek, her father having been Bedford Wiseman. She married Thomas Burleson, now deceased, in 1840, and after the Big Snow, and
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still remembers the hunters who came to her father's house from Morganton with guns and dogs and well nigh exter- minated the deer, which could not run on the frozen surface of the deep snow, their sharp hoofs plunging through the crust, thus rendering locomotion impossible. Strange to say, near this very place is now the largest private collection of deer in the mountains-Bailey's deer-park being well stocked, while a small number of deer still wander wild in the neighborhood and are hunted every fall. George W. Vanderbilt's and the Murchison deer parks also contain a number of these animals, as well as several other smaller collections.
"SNEW, BLEW AND FRIZ." T. L. Lowe, Esq., of Banner Elk, thinks that two hundred years ago elk, moose or caribou roamed these mountains, and that there was little or no under- brush or laurel or ivy then. He speaks of a big snow which fell during the Fifties which recalled Dean Swift's great snow in England, when he said "first it blew, then it snew and then it friz." A large number of deer were killed at this time for the same reason, the frozen crust. In Watauga they still tell of a big snow which entirely obliterated all evidence of fences and shrubbery; but the year seems to have been prior to 1850.
OTHER WEATHER EXTRAVAGANCIES. From Robert Henry's diary we learn that in "the summer of 1815 no rain fell fromn the 8th of July till the 8th of September. Trees died." Also that, "on the 28th day of August, 1830, Caney branch (which runs by Sulphur spring five miles west of Asheville) ceased to run. Tom Moore's creek and Ragsdale's creek had ceased to run some days before; the corn died from the drouth. This has been the driest summer in sixty years to my knowledge. Our spring ceased to run for some weeks previous to the above date." Again: "The summer of 1836 was the wettest summer in seventy years in my remembrance." This is the climax: "Thursday, Friday, and Saturday next before Christmas, 1794, were the coldest days in seventy years," though as he had been born in 1765 he could not then have been quite thirty years of age himself.
A MODERN "BIG SNOW." On the 2d and 3d of December, 1886, a snow three feet in depth fell in Buncombe and adjoin- ing counties. On December 6th the newly elected officers of Buncombe county were required by law to present their offi- cial bonds to the county commissioners for approval; but,
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owing to the snow, it was impossible to travel very far. As a consequence R. H. Cole, who had been elected register of deeds, and J. V. Hunter, who had been elected treasurer, could not provide bonds acceptable to the commissioners, and J. H. Patterson who had been defeated was appointed register of deeds, and J. H. Courtney, who had also been defeated, was appointed treasurer.
TWO RECENT COLD SNAPS. On the night of February 7, 1895, there was a dangerous fire on Pack Square, Ashe- ville, threatening for awhile the entire southeastern section of . - the city. The thermometer was seven degrees below zero. On the morning of February 13, 1899, the thermometer was 1312 below zero at Asheville.
MOUNT MITCHELL. " In 1835 Prof. Elisha Mitchell made the first barometrical measurements of our mountains, and his report was the first authoritative announcement of the superior altitude of the highest southern summit to that of Mount Washington in New Hampshire. In 1844 he and Gen. T. L. Clingman took observations in the Balsam, Smoky and Black mountains, and Gen. Clingman subsequently pub- lished a statement to the effect that he had found a higher peak in the Blacks than the one measured by Dr. Mitchell. "It was admitted that Gen. Clingman had measured the high- est point, the only question being whether that peak was the same as that previously measured by Dr. Mitchell."
DISCOVERERS DISPUTE. To settle the matter Dr. Mitchell ran a series of levels from the terminus of the railroad near Morganton to the half-way house built by Mr. William Patton of Charleston, S. C., in 1856. From this place Dr. Mitchell started alone to Big Tom Wilson's in Yancey by the route he had followed in 1844. He intended to meet his son Charles at an appointed place on the Blacks the following Monday, he having left the half-way house Saturday, June 27, 1857. His son waited and searched for him till Friday following, when news of the professor's disappearance reached Ashe- ville, and many men set out to search for him. On the fol- lowing Tuesday Big Tom Wilson, who had been the professor's guide in 1844, discovered his trail and found the body in a pool of water at the foot of a waterfall, since called Mitchell's creek and Mitchell's fall. The body was taken across the top of the Blacks to Asheville and there interred in the Pres-
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byterian church yard; but a year later it was taken back to the Peak and buried there. 13
THE MERITS OF THE CONTROVERSY. Dr. Arnold Guyot of Princeton College, in an article published in the Asheville News, July 18, 1860: "The statements Dr. Mitchell made, at different times, of the results of his measurements failed to agree with each other, and, owing to unfavorable circum- stances and the want of proper instruments, the precise loca- tion of the points measured, especially of the highest, had remained quite indefinite, even in the mind of Dr. Mitchell himself, as I learned it from his own mouth in 1856. I may, perhaps, be permitted to express it as my candid opinion (without wishing in the least to revive a controversy happily terminated) that if the honored name of Dr. Mitchell is taken from Mount Mitchell and transferred to the highest peak, it should not be on the ground that he first made known its true elevation, which he never did, nor himself ever claimed to have done; for the true height was not known before my measurement of 1854, and the coincidence made out quite recently may be shown, from abundant proofs furnished by himself, to be a mere accident. Nor should it be on the ground of his having first visited it; for, though, after his death, evi- dence which made it probable that he did [came out,] he never could convince himself of it. Nor, at last, should it be because that peak was, as it is alleged, thus named long before; for I must declare that neither in 1854, nor later, during the whole time I was on both sides of the mountain, did I hear of another Mount Mitchell than the one south of the highest, so long visited under that name; and that Dr. Mitchell himself, before ascending the northern peak, in 1856, as I gathered it from a conversation with him, believed it to be the highest. Dr. Mitchell has higher and better claims, which are universally and cheerfully acknowledged by all, to be forever remembered in connection with the Black Mountain. . From these
facts it is evident that the honorable senator [T. L. Clingman] could not possibly know when he first ascended it that anyone had visited or measured it before him, nor have any intention to do any injustice to Dr. Mitchell.
As to the highest group in the Great Smoky Mountains, how- ever, I must remark that, in the whole valley of the Tucka- seegee and Oconaluftee, I heard of but one name applied to the
.
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highest point, and it is that of Mount Clingman. The great- est authority around the peak, Robert Collins, Esq., knows of no other. Gen. Clingman was the leader of a party which made, in 1858, the first measurement, and the party was composed, besides himself, of Mr. S. P. Buckley and Dr. S. L. Love. He caused Mr. Collins to cut a path six miles to the top, which enabled me to carry there the first horse
ever seen on these heights. . . The central or highest peak is therefore designated as Clingman's Dome, the south peak, the next in height, as Mount Buckley, the north peak as Mount Love."
THE MONUMENT. The monument to Professor Elisha Mitchell, on the crest of the highest peak east of the Rocky mountains, was completed August 18, 1888. It is bolted to the bed-rock itself, is of white bronze-an almost pure zinc- treated under the sandblast to impart a granular appear- ance, cause it to resemble granite, and prevent discoloration; and was made by the Monumental Bronze Company, of Bridgeport, Conn. It was erected by Mrs. E. N. Grant, a daughter, and other members of Prof. Mitchell's family. Its dimensions are about two and one-half feet at the base and about twelve feet high. It is a hollow square and without any ornamentation. Vandals have shot bullet holes in it and an ax blade has been driven into one of its sides. Professor W. B. Phillips, now the professor of Geology at the University of Texas, had charge of its erection. It contains the follow- ing inscriptions:
Upon the western side, in raised letters is the single word:
" MITCHELL"
On the side toward the grave is the following:
"Erected in 1888.
"Here lies in hope of a blessed resurrection the body of Rev. Elisha Mitchell, D.D., who, after being for 39 years a professor in the Univer- sity of North Carolina, lost his life in the scientific exploration of this mountain in the 64th year of his age, June 27th, 1857."7
A MEMORABLE RIOT. During the Seymour and Blair cam- paign of 1868 a riot occurred on the public square at Asheville in which one negro was killed and two others seriously wounded. Trouble had been expected, and when a negro knocked a young Mississippian down, twenty or more pistols were discharged
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into the crowd of negroes, while from several store doors and second-story windows shotguns and rifles were discharged into the fleeing blacks. That night a drum was beaten in the woods where now is Aston park and a crowd of negroes assem- bled there, and reports spread that they would burn the town. Messengers were sent to surrounding towns, and by daylight three hundred armed white men from adjoining counties arrived. For two weeks the streets were patrolled at night. Oscar Eastman, in charge of the Freedman's Bureau, had an office in the Thomas building on the southwest corner of the square; but after the riot Eastman could not be found for several days, as it was thought he had incited the negroes to arm themselves with stout hickory sticks and shout for Grant and Colfax, the immediate casus belli. Giles McDowell, a large, bushy-headed negro and a Democrat, came up South Main street and shouted "Hurrah for Seymour and Blair," whereupon the other negroes made a rush for him, during which the young Mississippian was knocked down. Giles fled; but another darky by the name of Jim Greenlee fell on his face at the first shot, groaning and hollering. After the shoot- ing was over it developed that Jim was unhurt, but had wisely pretended to be hurt in order to keep anyone from firing at him. In 1874, Eastman, who had made himself very obnox- ious, was indicted in Buncombe Superior court twenty-five times for retailing whiskey and once for gambling. At the Spring Term of 1869 George H. Bell, William Blair, Erwin Hardy, Gaston McDowell, Ben. Young, Natt Atkinson, J. M. Alex- ander, J. W. Shartle, E. H. Merrimon, Henry Patton, Simon Henry, Robert Patton, John Lang and Armistead Dudley, pleaded guilty to the charge of riot, and were taxed with the costs.
A BACKWOODS ABELARD AND ELOISE. The tomb of the Priest Abelard and his sweetheart Eloise, in Paris, is visited by greater numbers than that of Napoleon. But the grave of poor, ignorant and deluded Delilah Baird near Valle Crucis is neglected and unknown. Yet she as truly as Eloise gave her life for love; for although she knew that John Holsclaw was a married man, she thought he was taking her to Kentucky when as a child of fifteen she followed him to the Big Bottoms of Elk in the spring of 1826, where she lived a life of faithful- ness and devotion to her lover and their son and daughter, and
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died constant and true to her role as his widow in God's sight, if not in that of man's. Having sold her land the poor re- pressed, stinted creature indulged in gay dressing in her later years, which caused some of her relatives to fear that she was not competent to manage her money matters; but a com- mission of which Smith Coffey was a member, found that she was. (Deed Books R., p. 574, and A., p. 498.) In 1881-82 she wrote to a childhood friend, not a former sweetheart, Ben Dyer, at Grapevine, Texas, to come and protect her interests and she would give him a home. He came, but was not satisfied, and on May 26, 1882, sued her for his trav- eling expenses and the worth of his time; but recovered only $47.50, the price of a ticket to Texas. (Judgment Roll and Docket A., p. 172, Watauga county; See Chapter 13, "Loch- invar Redux.")
NIMROD S. JARRETT. In the early fall of 1873 Bayliss Hen- derson, a desperado from Tennessee, wandering about, heard that Col. N. S. Jarrett would leave his home at the Apple Tree place on the Nantahala river, six miles above Nantahala station on the Western North Carolina Railroad, and the same distance below Aquone, where his daughter, Mrs. Alexander P. Munday, and her husband lived. Henderson had been told that Jarrett would carry a large sum of money with him as he had to go to Franklin to settle as guardian for wards who had become of age. On a bright Sunday morning he was to start alone, as Henderson had been told, and on that morning he did start and alone. Half a mile below the home where Micajah Lunsford used to live he overtook Henderson, who was strolling idly along the road. Henderson walked a short distance by Jarrett's horse, but falling back a pace drew his pistol and shot the Colonel in the back of the head at the base of the brain. He took his watch and chain and the little money he had in his pocket, and hearing some one coming he waded across the Nantahala river and watched. The person he had heard was Mrs. Jarrett, the dead man's wife, a cripple, who had ridden rapidly in order to overtake her husband and ride with him to Aquone where she was to have stayed till he returned from Franklin. She went on and told Micajah Lunsford and a crowd soon gathered about the body. The footprints of a man near the body were measured, but before the body was removed Henderson came upon the scene. It
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was noticed that the heels of his shoes were missing, but that in other respects his shoes made a print exactly like those which had been there before his arrival. He was arrested and taken to Franklin. The trial was removed to Jackson county, where he was convicted and hanged, the Supreme court refusing a new trial. (68 N. C.) While Henderson was in Macon jail he sent a man named Holland to a certain tree near the scene of the murder, where he found the watch, chain and money. Later on Henderson escaped and went back to the place where he had lived before the murder, but was found hiding i a brush-heap soon afterwards and returned to prison. Col. Jarrett was 73 years old.
A FORGOTTEN CRIME. In the spring of 1855 the home of Col. Nimrod S. Jarrett at Aquone, Macon county, was burned in the day time, and one of his children, a little girl, perished in the flames, though her mother had gone into the burning dwelling in the effort to find and rescue her, and had been dragged out by force. About 1898 a man named Bill Dills died on the head of Wusser creek, and confessed that he had set fire to the house in order to prevent suspicion falling on him for having stolen several small sums of money, his idea being that their loss when discovered, would be attributed to the fire.
QUAKING BALD. "The most famous of the restless moun- tains of North Carolina is 'Shaking Bald.'" The first shock, which occurred February 10, 1874, was followed in quick succession by others and caused general alarm in the vicinity. This mountain for a time received national attention. Within six months more than one hundred shocks were felt.
The general facts of these terrestrial disturbances have never been disputed, but concerning their cause, there has been widely diversified speculation. Is there an upheaval or subsidence of the mountains gradually going on? Are they the effect of explosions caused by the chemical action of min- erals under the influence of electric currents ? Are they the effect of gases forced through fissures in the rocks from the center of the earth, seeking an outlet at the surface? These are questions on which scientists differ. Be the cause what it may, there is no occasion to fear the eruption of an active volcano. "The famous Bald mountain forms the north wall of the valley. Its sterile face is distinctly visible from the porch
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of the Logan hotel. Caves similar to Bat cave are high on its front. In 1874 Bald mountain pushed itself into prominence by shaking its eastern end with an earthquake-like rumble, that rattled plates on pantry shelves in the cabins of the val- leys, shook windows to pieces in their sashes, and even star- tled the quiet inhabitants of Rutherfordton, seventeen miles away. Since then rumblings have occasionally been heard, and some people say they have seen smoke rising in the atmos- phere. There is an idea, wide-spread, that the mountain is an extinct volcano. As evidence of a crater, they point to a fissure about half a mile long, six feet wide in some places, and of unmeasured depth. This fissure, bordered with trees, extends across the eastern end of the peak. But the crater idea is effectually choked up by the fact that the crack is of recent appearance. The crack widens every year and, as it widens, stones are dislodged from the mountain steeps. Their thundering falls from the heights may explain the rumbling, and their clouds of dust account for what appears to be smoke. The widening of the crack is possibly due to the gradual up- heaval of the mountain. " 8
TRIAL OF THOMAS W. STRANGE. On the 27th day of April, 1876, Thomas W. Strange was acquitted in Asheville for the murder on the 19th of August, 1875, of James A. Murray of Haywood county before Judge Samuel Watts and the follow- ing jurors: W. P. Bassett, J. L.Weaver, John H. Murphy, Owen Smith, W. W. McDowell, B. F. Young, John Chesbrough, G. W. Whitson, S. M. Banks, W. A. Weddin, and P. F. Pat- ton. W. L. Tate of Waynesville was the solicitor. There was much feeling in Haywood and Buncombe counties because of this acquittal. During his confinement in jail Preston L. Bridgers, his friend, voluntarily stayed with Thomas Strange. The court was held in the chapel of the Asheville Female College, now the high school. Judge Watts was from the eastern part of the State and was nick-named "Greasy Sam."
"BIG TOM" WILSON. Thomas D. Wilson, commonly known as "Big Tom, " on account of his great size, was born Decem- ber 1, 1825, on Toe river, near the mouth of Crabtree creek, in the Deyton Bend. The "D" in his name was solely for euphony. He married Niagara Ray, daughter of Amos L. Ray, and settled at the Green Ponds, afterwards known as the Murchison boundary. The place was so called because of
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several pools or ponds in Cane river, on the rock bottom of which a green moss grows. He died at a great age a few years ago. He was a great woodsman, hunter and trapper- a typical frontiersman, picturesque in appearance and original in speech and manner. He is said to have killed over one hundred bears during his life. His knowledge of woodcraft enabled him to discover Prof. Mitchell's trail, resulting in the recovery of his body, when the scientist lost his life on Black mountain in the summer of 1857. 13
LEWIS REDMOND, OUTLAW. He was part Indian, and was born and reared in Transylvania county, having "hawk-like eyes and raven-black hair." When fifteen years of age he was taken into the family of "Uncle Wash Galloway," a pioneer farmer of the county, and after he was grown and had left his home at Galloway's, he began "moonshining." War- rants were issued for his arrest, but the deputy United States marshals were afraid to arrest him. Marshal R. M. Doug- lass, however, deputized Alfred F. Duckworth a member of a large and influential family of Transylvania county. Red- mond had sworn he would not be arrested, but young Duck- worth went after him notwithstanding. Another deputy by the name of Lankford accompanied him. They came up with Redmond in the neighborhood of the East Fork, March 1, 1876. Redmond and his brother-in-law Ladd were driving a wagon. Duckworth told Redmond to stop, as he had a warrant for his arrest. Redmond stopped the wagon, and asked to hear the warrant read. Duckworth dismounted from his horse and began reading the warrant, but holding his pistol in one of his hands while he did so. Redmond said, "All right, put up your pistol, Alf, I will go along with you." While Duckworth was putting his pistol in his pocket, Ladd passed a pistol to Duckworth, and before "a man standing near by could speak," Redmond put the pistol to Duckworth's throat and fired. Then he and Ladd jumped from the wagon and ran. Duckworth followed them a dozen or more steps, firing his pistol as he ran; but fell in the road from the shock of his wound. He died soon after being taken to his home, and Redmond escaped. Redmond was caught later in South Carolina for some offence committed there, but escaped. ยบ Later on he was captured in Swain county at or near Maple Springs, five miles above Almond. He was living in a house
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which commanded a view of the only approach to it, a canoe landing and trail leading from it. A posse crossed in the night and were in hiding near-by when daylight came. Redmond left the house and went in the upper part of the clearing with a gun to shoot a squirrel. One of the posse ordered him to surrender. Redmond whirled to shoot at him, when another of the posse fired on him from another quarter, filling his back with buckshot, disabling but not killing him. He was taken to Bryson City, and while recuperating from his wounds received a visit from his wife. She managed to give him a pistol secretly which Redmond concealed under his pillow. A girl living in the house found it out, and told Judge Jeter C. Pritchard, who was one of the men guarding him at that time. He told his companions, and it was agreed that he should disarm him. This was done, warning having first been given Redmond that if he moved he would be killed. "Redmond served a term in the United States prison at Albany N. Y., and after being released moved to South Carolina, where, I am informed, he killed another man, an officer, and was again sent to prison."9 During the term of Gov. Wade Hamp- ton a long petition, extensively signed by many ladies of South Carolina, was presented to the governor for his pardon. He called himself a "Major," and claimed to be dying of tuberculosis. The pardon was granted in 1878, and Red- mond has given no trouble since. He was never tried for killing Duckworth. 10
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