USA > North Carolina > Western North Carolina; a history, 1730-1913 > Part 33
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A LONG - DISTANCE QUARREL. Long before the invention of telephones two farmers of Beaver Dams, Watauga county, established the fact that they at least had no need for wires and electricity, by indulging in the first wireless telegraphy on record. Elijah Dotson and Alfred Hilliard each owned a hill-side farm three miles apart. One morning Alf saw Elijah resting in his field, and jokingly told him to go to work; whereupon Elijah told Alf to go to a region devoid of snow and ice. This was the commencement of an oral duel that lasted half the day, and until the dinner horn summoned both to the midday meal. The success of this feat was due to strong lungs rather than to any peculiar carrying power of the atmosphere of Watauga, though it is the clearest and purest in the State.
A ROMANCE OF SLAVERY DAYS. On October 16, 1849, Silas Baker, a slave belonging to Miss Elizabeth Baker, loved a negro woman named Mill or Millie, the prop- erty of William Mast of Valle Crucis. About this time Jacob Mast, William's uncle, returned from Texas, and the servants discovered that he would soon marry Elizabeth Baker, and return with her to Texas. That she would take Silas with her was most probable; and, unless Jacob Mast should buy Millie and take her also, these dusky lovers would be sepa- rated forever. It is likely that they satisfied themselves that Jacob would not buy Millie; but probably reasoned that, if William Mast and his wife were dead, there would be a sale of his slaves to settle the estate, at which they hoped that Jacob would buy Millie. So, it is supposed, for there was never any tangible proof against either, that these two ignor- ant and infatuated lovers poisoned William Mast and his wife by putting wild or poison parsnips into their coffee. But the scheme miscarried; for, though William and his wife died that day (October 16), Jacob Mast took Silas to Texas with him, while John Whittington bought Millie and sold her to
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people in Tennessee, which effectually parted them forever. Elbert Dinkins of Caldwell county was then teaching school in the neighborhood, and was boarding at William Mast's; and he told Dr. J. B. Phillips of Cove creek the above facts.
ANOTHER VERSION. Will Shull, a respected colored man, who was born March 10, 1832, claims that Millie's motive was revenge for a severe chastisement which she had received at the hands of her master, William Mast, as punishment for having stolen a twenty-dollar gold-piece from his own young master and playmate, Andrew Mast, a son of David and Polly Mast, when she had been at this home washing clothes. Millie had given this money to Charles, another negro, who belonged to John Mast of Sugar Grove, to have changed for her; but Charles took the money to the store of Henry Taylor at that place, and as he and Andrew Mast were courting Emeline and Caroline, the two daughters of John Mast, Taylor asked Andrew if he could change the money for him. When Andrew saw it he recognized it as his own, as he had previously marked it. Charles, of course, laid the blame on Millie, who in turn tried to hold the colored boy Will Shull responsible. When Will heard of Millie's false charge, he loaded a small shotgun which had but recently been given him and started to shoot Millie, but was stopped by Mrs. Polly Mast, who told him Millie had confessed. Millie did not wish to poison Mrs. Mira Mast, who did not usually drink coffee; but on that fatal morning she had partaken with her husband, William Mast, of the potion Millie had prepared for him alone. William Mast was then at work on the bridge over the Watauga, a mile below Shull's Mills, when he was taken sick and got medicine from Philip Shull that morning. Will acquits Sile.
SILAS BAKER AND HIS BUGLE. Rev. L. W. Farthing, however, who remembers Sile well, says that the public sen- timent of that day held Sile guilty as the prime mover and instigator of the plot. He says that Sile was a large, impu- dent black man, between thirty and forty years old, and blew a long tin horn on his way to and from his work-a bugle. This was probably a stage horn; for soon after the opening of the new turnpike down the Watauga river stage coaches ran on it from Abingdon via Mountain City (then Taylorsville), Trade, Sugar Grove, Shulls Mills, Blowing
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Rock, and Lenoir, to Lincolnton. They were drawn by four horses and driven by colored drivers, a Mr. Dunn of Abing- don having been the owner of the line. One of the stands or stopping places, where the horses were changed, was at John Mast's at Sugar Grove; another was at Joseph Shull's (where James M. Shull now resides) and one was at the Coffey gap of the Blue Ridge, where Jones Coffey now lives. These stages ran for several years prior to 1861, when they were withdrawn.
JIM SPEER'S FATE. About ten or twelve years prior to the Civil War, four white men of Watauga county, went with James Speer of Beaver Dams to South Carolina. Their names are still remembered by a few of the older citizens. Speer was not considered "right bright," as the expression goes, meaning that while he was not utterly imbecile, he was yet stupid or dense intellectually. He agreed to be blacked and sold as a negro, with the understanding that he was to "wash up" after they had returned home, "escape" from bondage, and share in the proceeds of the sale. All these things were done except the division of the spoils. At the next Big Muster following Jim's return, a quarrel was over- heard between him and his confederates in the swindle, during which it is supposed Jim demanded his share and threatened "to let the cat out of the bag" if it was not forthcoming. He returned to his home on Beaver Dams and shortly afterwards disappeared forever. It was supposed that he had been done away with. About 1893 John K. Perry, Esq., found a human skeleton in the cliffs in the rear of his dwelling on Beaver Dams, and still has the skull in his possession. These are sup- posed to be the remains of Jim Speer. 1 5
JOSHUA PENNELL. In 1859 or 1860, Joshua Pennell of Wilkes left a will setting all his slaves free, and providing for their removal to a Free State, and their support there until they could raise a crop. Pennell was a bachelor. Joshua Winkler was made executor, and old citizens of Boone remem- ber seeing him and the negroes pass through that town one bright Sabbath morning on their way to Kansas. Henry C. Pearson, Winkler's brother-in-law, accompanied them also. 1 6
"A WANDERING MINSTREL HE." During the seventies, William Murphy of Greenville, S. C., wandered through these mountains making music every day. He, like Stephen
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Foster, was regarded as a half-vagabond, but he was toler- ated for the pleasure his enchanted violin gave whenever he drew his magic bow across its strings. There can be little doubt that men of his genius feel the indifference and neglect of their contemporaries; and it may be that, from their Cal- varies of poverty, they, too, realize that we know not what we do. For to them the making of music is their sole mission here upon earth, and come poverty, obscurity or death, ay, come even disgrace and obliquy, they, like Martin Luther at Worms, "can do no otherwise, God helping them." Indeed, it is the highest form of worship, and David's Psalms still live while all the Ptolemies of the past have been forgotten. Foster's songs are linking earth to heaven more and more as time goes on, and will be sung for eons and for eons. There can be no higher destiny than that a man should pour out his full soul in strains of haunting melody; and though Stephen Foster be dead and "the lark become a sightless song," the legacy he has left behind him is more priceless and more bountiful than those of the builders of the pyramids or the conquests of Napoleon and Alexander.
Murphy, too, is dead, but while he lived, like the grass- hopper "beating his tiny cymbals in the sun," he poured forth those matchless orisons that none who ever heard them can soon forget. For, while he was not a creator, he was the slave and seneschal of the masters who have left their melodies behind them for the ravishment of a money-mad and sordid world. And when he drew his magic bow across his violin's sentient strings, his genius thence evoked sweet strains in- formed with soul to all who had the heart to comprehend their message and their meaning.
Was it a jig or waltz or stately minuet? one's feet moved rythmically to the "sweet melodic phrase." Was it dirge, lament or lovelorn lilt ? one saw again the hearse-plumes nod, sobbed out his heart with pallid Jeane, or caught the note of bonny bird blythe fluting by the Doon. Was it mar- tial air or battle-hymn ? then, once again, came forth the bagpipe's skirl, the pibroch's wail, "what time the plaided clans came down to battle with Montrose." Again, with change of air, there dawned once more that "reddest day in history, when Pickett's legions, undismayed, leapt forth to ruin's red embrace."
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But best, ah, far, far best of all, was that wonder-woven race his fine dramatic instinct had translated into song, in which the section-riven days of 'Sixty-one were conjured back again from out their graves and ghostly crements, and masqueraded full of life and hate and jealousy. For then we saw, as if by magic, the mighty racer, Black Hawk, typifying the North, and his unconquerable rival, Gray Eagle, the steel- sinewed champion of the South, start once again on that matchless contest on the turf at Louisville. We heard again the wild, divided concourse cheer its favorite steed along the track, and saw the straining stallions, foam-flecked with sweat-now neck and neck, then one ahead, but soon overtaken, and both flying side by side again, their flame-shot nostrils dripping blood-till Gray Hawk, spent, but in the lead, dropped dead an inch without the goal, his great heart broken, as the South's was doomed to be a few years thence, when
"Men saw a gray, gigantic ghost Receding through the battle-cloud ; And heard across the tempest loud The death-cry of a nation lost!"
THE VALLEY OF COUSINS. Valle Crucis is also called the Valley of Cousins because of the kinship between most of its inhabitants. Ex-Sheriff David F. Baird, a descendant of Bedent, says that all of Valle Crucis between the ford of the river on the road to Cove creek up to the ford at Shipley's home was sold by the original Hix who came to this section, for a shot-gun, a pair of leggins and a hound dog. A man named Hix was drowned in a "hole" of water in Watauga river below D. F. Baird's farm, and the place is called the "Hix Hole" yet. This original Samuel Hix was the first settler of this valley, but Bedent Baird was not long behind him. Bedent's son Franklin was the father of David F. Baird, who was born June 10, 1835, and was sheriff from 1882 till 1886, and from 1890 till 1894. He went with his uncle Joel Moody to carry the body of Rev. Wm. Thurston from its place of temporary burial at Valle Crucis to Pittsboro, N. C., in 1856. Another prominent family of this section, which has inter- married with the Baird family, is that of the Shulls. Fred- erick Shull and his wife came from Germany about the year 1750. He was a weaver and paid for their voyage by weav- ing while his wife worked in the field. Her name was Charity.
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Simon Shull was a son of this marriage, and the father of seven children by his wife, Mary Sheifler, a daughter of Phillip and Mary Ormatenfer Sheifler. She was born in Loudon county, Va., May 5, 1772. Simon Shull was born in Lincoln county, October 24, 1767. Simon Shull's children were Mary, Sarah, Phillip, John, Joseph, Temperance and Elizabeth, born between March 19, 1793, and April 10, 1808. Joseph was the father of James M. Shull, and Phillip of Joseph C. Shull. Simon Shull was married on Upper creek, Burke county, by Rev. William Penland, March 25, 1790, and died February 12, 1813.
OTHER CLOSELY RELATED FAMILIES. Reuben Mast first lived where David F. Baird now lives, but the place had been settled before Mast went there. Reuben Mast sold it to John Gragg about. 1849, and moved to Texas, where he died. Gragg lived there till 1867 and sold to David Wagner, and moved to Tennessee. David Wagner divided the place among his three sons, and David F. Baird bought the shares of John and Daniel Wagner on the east side of the river, about 1874. He had married a sister of these two Wagners in 1870. Joel Mast lived below the road at the place where T. Hardee Taylor lives. David Mast lived where Finley Mast now lives. John Mast lived at Sugar Grove, while Noah Mast lived on Watauga river where Wm. Winkler now lives. These were brothers. Henry Taylor came to Sugar Grove from Davidson county about 1849 and went into mer- chandising there. He married Emaline, daughter of John Mast, buying the Joel Mast farm at public auction. Taylor then moved to Valle Crucis, and bought the place where his son, T. Hardee Taylor, now lives from Joel Mast about 1850 or 1851. He made his money by selling to those who earned wages by the building of the turnpike. He was born August 20, 1819. His wife was born January 5, 1826. They had six children. After her death, September 21, 1880, he married Rachel Gray, by whom he had four children. He died March 6, 1899, and his last wife died March 3 of the same year. He bought the Ives land from Robert Miller before the Civil War. Into the valley of Cove creek in 1791 came Cutliff Harmon, from Randolph county, and bought 522 acres from James Gwyn, to whom it had been granted May 18, 1791, his deed from Gwyn bearing date August 6,
.
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1791. Cutliff married Susan Fouts, and was about ninety years of age when he died in 1838, his wife having died sev- eral years before, and he having married Elizabeth Parker, a widow. He had ten children by his first marriage, none by his second. Among his children were Mary, who married Bedent Baird; Andrew, who married Sabra Hix; Eli, who married the widow Rhoda Dyer (born Dugger); Mathias, who married and moved to Indiana; Catherine, who mar- ried Benjamin Ward, and went west; Rebecca, who married Frank Adams and moved to Indiana; Rachel, who married Holden Davis; Sarah, who married John Mast; Nancy, who married Thomas Curtis, and Rev. D. C. Harmon, born April 17, 1826, and died December 23, 1904. Among those who came about the time Cutliff did were the Eggers, Smith, Councill, Horton, Dugger, Mast and Hix families. The farm Cutliff bought is now owned by M. C., D. F. and D. C. Harmon. "Patch farming" was the rule, the settlers going to the Globe on Johns river for corn, as they raised only rye, buckwheat, Irish potatoes, cabbages, onions and pump- kins on the new and cold land of Watauga river. A common diet was milk and mush for breakfast and soup and cider for dinner and supper, according to Malden C. Harmon in the Watauga Democrat of April, 1891. The intermarriage of these families has brought about a neighborhood of closely related citizens, and Cove Creek and Valle Crucis are spoken of as the Valley of Cousins, Sugar Grove being also a part of Valle Crucis. Just down Watauga river from Valle Crucis is another settlement called Watauga Falls. Among the first to settle there was Benjamin Ward, who had seven sons, Duke, Daniel, Benjamin, Nicodemus, McCaleb, Jesse and James. He also had three daughters, one of whom was named Celia. Benjamin Ward, Sr., was a most enterprising and worthy man, and his widow lived to be 105 years of age, while their son Ben lived to be 110. Duke married Sabra, widow of Andrew Harmon, and moved to Illinois. Ben. Jr., went to Cumberland gap, and his son Duke came back and married Lucy Tester; while Amos, son of Duke, Sr., came back from Illinois and married Sally, sister of Lucy Tester. They had two sons, L. D. and John, the latter hav- ing been killed before Richmond in 1863.
W. N. C .- 23
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SAMUEL HIX, LOYALIST. According to Rev. L. W. Far- thing, who was born April 18, 1838, and has lived in Beaver Dam township and at Watauga Falls postoffice all his long life, Samuel was the name of the first Hix who came to what is now Watauga county. He got possession of all of what is now known as Valle Crucis, including the Sheriff Baird farm, either by grant from the Crown or from the State, and was there during the Revolutionary War. Being a Loyalist he kept himself concealed by retiring to a shanty near Valle Crucis, still pointed out as his "Improvement." He sold the Valle Crucis land for a rifle, dog and sheepskin to Benjamin Ward, the latter later selling it to Reuben Mast. Hix then got possession of the land at the mouth of Cove creek, but Ward got this also and sold it to a family named Summers. This family, consisting of man and wife and five children, were all drowned in their cabin at night during a freshet in the Watauga river, and their dog swam about the cabin and would allow no one to enter till it had been killed. This is still spoken of as the "Summers Fresh"- the highest anyone now remembers. The bodies of the family were recovered and are buried on the opposite side of the river from the mouth of Cove creek. Samuel Hix in 1816 obtained a grant to 126 acres, on part of which Rev. L. W. Farthing now lives, and his grave-stone still stands three miles below St. Judes postoffice, and a quarter of a mile below Antioch Baptist church. Benjamin Howard took the oath of allegiance to the American government in 1778 (Col. Rec., Vol. 22, page 172), but Samuel Hix seems never to have become recon- ciled. Even after the war he hid out, coming home at dark for his supplies. His five boys were mischievous, and they manufactured a pistol out of a buck's horn, which they fired by applying a live coal to the touch-hole, when their father returned from the house carrying his rations, thus fright- ening him so much that he would drop them and return to his concealed camp in the mountains. The children of Sam- uel Hix were Golder, David, Samuel, Harmon and William; Sally, who married Barney Oaks; Sabra, who married Andrew Harmon, who was killed by a falling tree on L. W. Farthing's .present farm, and Fanny who never married. Samuel Hix cared more about hunting than anything else, and it was said he knew where there was a lead mine in the mountains
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out of which he ran his own bullets. James Hix and James (?) Tester, were drowned in what is still known as the Hix "Hole" in Watauga river below Sheriff Baird's farm, and Sam Tester rode his bull into the water in order to recover the two bodies, about 1835. Samuel Hix had a negro slave named Jeff, and two apple trees planted soon after his removal to the L. W. Farthing place, one at Samuel's cabin and the other at Jeff's, lived till within recent years.
NOTES.
1" Asheville's Centenary." "Ibid.
"Stokes Penland's statement, October, 1912, at Pinola.
"Chapter seven of "Dropped Stitches."
"Account by T. L. Lowe, Esg.
"From "The Heart of the Alleghanies," p. 271.
"So called from its fancied resemblance to a bunk.
$Letter of Col. D. K. Collins to J. P. A., June 7, 1912.
"Frequently called "mind" tor mine.
1.Related by Judge G. A. Shuford.
1 1 Ibid.
12From same letter.
18Minute Docket B, p. 202, Watauga.
1'Ibid., E, p. 352. "Statements of J. K. Perry and W. L. Bryan, May, 1913.
Statement of W. L. Bryan, July, 1913.
CHAPTER XIV DUELS
THE LAW OF DUELING. From the beginning of the nine- teenth century the practice of dueling had been common throughout America, the North, even, not being exempt, as witness the fatal encounter between Aaron Burr and Alex- ander Hamilton. North Carolina had, in 1802, (Rev. Stat., Ch. 34, sec. 3) made it a crime to send a challenge or fight a duel or to aid or abet in doing either; but, according to the strict letter of the law, it would be no crime to send a chal- lenge from without the State or to fight a duel on the soil of another State, and in all the duels fought in this section great care was taken to go across the State line into either South Carolina or Tennessee. No effort, apparently, was ever made to punish those who as principals, seconds or surgeons had participated in such encounters, it having been considered that the law of North Carolina had not been violated unless the duel had actually been fought on its soil. No duel was fought within the State; but in the Erwin-Baxter and the Hilliard-Hyman duels, the challenges had most probably been sent and accepted in Buncombe county. However, as such matters were of a secret and confidential nature, it is likely that no evidence of such challenges was ever presented to a grand jury of that county, as, if it had been, true bills would doubtless have been returned against those charged with having sent or accepted the challenges. For dueling was never approved by the common people of this section, and its practice was confined strictly to a small class of profes- sional men and politicians. The quarrels of farmers, mer- chants and others were settled in the good old fist and skull, or rough and tumble, style, in which knives and pistols were never used. Section two of Article XIV of the Constitution of North Carolina of 1868 gave dueling its death blow for- ever; for, while there is nothing more sacred than a politician's honor, prior to 1868 nothing had been found that could pre- vent him from fighting duels for its preservation; whereas, the moment he discovered that unless he found some other means of protecting it he would have to forego the honor of
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A. C. AVERY.
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holding office in North Carolina, he immediately and forth- with discovered a way!
THE JACKSON-AVERY DUEL. At some time prior to the admission of Tennessee into the Union Andrew Jackson and Waightstill Avery, lawyers, fought a duel on "the hill on the south side of Jonesboro, Tenn. It seems to have been arranged that neither party desired to injure the other, and both fired into the air, pistols being the weapons used. John Adair was Avery's second, Jackson's being unknown.
"There are two versions as to the cause of the duel, the first being that Jackson had ridiculed Avery's pet authority- Bacon's Abridgment-and Avery, in his retort, had grown, as he afterwards admitted, too sarcastic, intimating that Jackson had much to learn before he would be competent to criticise any law book whatever. Jackson sprang to his feet and cried: 'I may not know as much law as there is in Ba- con's Abridgment, but I know enough not to take illegal fees.' Avery at once demanded whether he meant to charge him with taking illegal fees, and Jackson answered 'I do, sir,' meaning to add that he had done so because of his ignor- ance of the latest law fixing a schedule of fees. But Avery had not waited for him to finish his sentence and hissed in Jackson's teeth 'It's as false as hell.' Then Jackson had challenged Avery and Avery had accepted the challenge. When they had arrived on the ground and exchanged shots, they shook hands; after which Jackson took from under his arm a package which he presented to Avery, saying that he knew that if he had hit Avery and had not killed him the greatest comfort he could have would be Bacon's Abridg- ment.' When the parcel was opened it contained, cut to the exact size of a law book, a piece of well cured bacon.
"The other version is that Avery promised to produce Bacon's Abridgment in court the following morning and that Jackson had gone to Avery's room and removing the book had sub- stituted a piece of bacon in its stead in Avery's green bag. When Avery opened this bag in court the next day and the bacon fell out, he was so incensed that he challenged Jackson at once. The challenge had been accepted and shots ex- changed, whereupon each had expressed himself as satisfied and the matter ended." 1
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COL. F. A. OLDS' ACCOUNT. In Harper's Weekly for Decem- ber 31, 1904, is an account of this duel which had and still has the approval of Hon. Alfonzo C. Avery, oldest descendant then living of Hon. Waightstill Avery. It contains the challenge, which follows:
Sir :
August 12, 1788.
When a man's feelings & character are injured he ought to seek a speedy redress; you recd a few lines from me yesterday & undoubtedly you understand me. My character you have Injured; and further you have insulted me in the presence of a court and a large audience. I therefore call upon you as a gentleman to give me satisfaction for the same. I further call upon you to give me an answer immediately with- out Equivocation and I hope you can do without dinner until the busi- ness is done; for it is consistent with the character of a gentleman when he Injures a man to make speedy reparation; therefore I hope you will not fail in meeting me this day from yr Hbl. St.
Col. Avery. Yrs. ANDW. JACKSON.
"P. S .- This Evening after court is adjourned."
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