Western North Carolina; a history, 1730-1913, Part 4

Author: Arthur, John Preston
Publication date: 1973
Publisher: Spartanburg, S.C., Reprint Co
Number of Pages: 744

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the southwest corner of Macon county; then it turns due west, running parallel with the 35th, and about one mile south of it, on towards Alabama. One peculiarity of this survey is that Estatoa, or Mud Creek Falls, which has long been considered as being in Georgia, are, according to the map, in North Carolina. Mud creek crosses the State line a few yards above the falls into North Carolina, and at about half way between the falls and the Tennessee river passes back into Georgia. But, by examining some old records belonging to the State Library at Raleigh in 1881, I am convinced that the line between the States of Georgia and North Carolina has never been correctly surveyed."

THE NORTH CAROLINA AND TENNESSEE BOUNDARY. By the Cessions Act, Revised Statutes, 1837, Vol. ii, p. 171, North Carolina authorized one or both United States Senators or any two members of Congress to execute a deed or deeds to the United States of America of the lands west of a line begin- ning on the extreme height of the Stone mountain, at the place where the Virginia line intersects it, running thence along the extreme height of the said mountain to the place where Watauga river breaks through it, thence a direct course to the top of the Yellow Mountain, where Bright's road crosses the same, thence along the ridge of said mountains between the waters of Doe river and the waters of Rock creek to the place where the road crosses the Iron mountain, from thence along the extreme height of said mountain, to where Nole- chucky river runs through the same, thence to the top of the Bald mountain, thence along the extreme height of the said mountain to the Painted Rock, on French Broad river, thence along the highest ridge of the said mountain to the place where it is called the Great Iron or Smoky mountain, thence along the extreme height of said mountain to the place where it is called Unicoy or Unaka mountain, between the Indian towns of Cowee and Old Chota, thence along the main ridge of the said mountain to the southern boundary of this State." ·

The 10th section provided that "this act shall not prevent the people now residing south of French Broad, between the rivers Tennessee and Pigeon, from entering their pre-emp- tions on that tract, should an office be opened for that purpose under an act of the present general assembly."

HISTORY OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA

TO PAY DEBTS AND ESTABLISH HARMONY. The reasons for making this cession are set out in the act itself and are to the effect that Congress has "repeatedly and earnestly recom- mended to the respective States . . . claiming or owning vacant western territory," to make cession to part of the same, as a further means "of paying the debts and establish- ing the harmony of the United States;" "and the inhabitants of the said western territory being also desirious that such cession should be made, in order to obtain a more ample pro- tection than they have heretofore received." The act also provides that neither the land nor the inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be estimated in ascertaining North Carolina's proportion of the common expense occasioned by the war for independence. Also that in case the lands laid off by North Carolina for the "officers and soldiers of the Continental line" shall not "contain a sufficient quantity of lands fit for cultiva- tion to make good the quota intended by law for each, such officer or soldier who shall fall short of his proportion may make up the deficiency out of lands of the ceded territory." Having been admonished by the claim of the citizens of Watauga that until Congress should accept the ceded territory they would be in a state "of political orphanage," the legislature, later in the session of 1784, had been careful to pass another act by which North Carolina retained jurisdiction and sover- eignty over the land west of the mountains, and continued in force all existing North Carolina laws, "until the same shall be repealed or otherwise altered by the legislative authority of said territory." The act ordering the survey is ch. 461, Potter's Revisal, p. 816, Laws 1796.

THE FIRST TENNESSEE BOUNDARY SURVEY. From the narratives of David Vance and Robert Henry of the battles of Kings Mountain 39 and Cowan's Ford, as well as from the dairy of John Strother, can be gathered a fine account of the survey from Virginia to the Painted Rock on the French Broad and the Stone on the Cataloochee Turnpike. The sur- vey began on the 20th of May and ended Friday the 28th of June, 1799. The original of Strother's diary is filed in the suit of the Virginia, Tennessee & Carolina Steel and Iron Com- pany vs. Newman, in the United States court at Asheville, N. C. The actual survey began May 22d, "at a sugar-tree and beech on Pond mountain, so called from two small ponds on it."

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Both trees are now gone, and a stone four feet by two feet by sixteen inches in thickness, is buried in the ground where they stood, with a simple cross, east and west, chiseled upon it. Its upper surface is level with the ground, and it was placed there in 1899 or 1900 by a Mr. Buchanan of the United States coast survey. Marion Miller and John and Alfred Bivins assisted him. Mr. Miller still lives within a mile and a half of the corner rock. Strother's party set out from Asheville May 12, and reached Capt. Robert Walls on New River, where Strother arrived on the 17th, and met with Major Mussendine Mathews, of whom Judge David Schenck says "0 that he "rep- resented Iredell county in the House of Commons from 1789 to 1802 continuously. He was either a Tory or a Cynic, it seems." They were awaiting the arrival of Col. David Vance and Gen. Joseph McDowell, but as they did not come, Strother went to the house of a Mr. Elsburg on the 18th.

THE PARTY GATHERS. Col. Vance and Major B. Collins arrived on the 19th, and they all went to Captain Isaac Weaver's. They were General Joseph McDowell, Col. David Vance, Major Mussendine Mathews, commissioners; John Strother and Robert Henry, surveyors; Messers. B. Collins, James Hawkins, George Penland, Robert Logan, Geo. David- son, and J. Matthews, chain-bearers and markers; Major James Neely, commissary; two pack-horse men and a pilot. They camped that night on Stag creek. On the night of the 23d of May they camped "at a very bad place" in a low gap at the head of Laurel Fork of New river and Laurel Fork of Holston at the head of a branch, "after having passed through extreme rough ground and some bad laurel thickets." A road now runs through that laurel thicket, built since the Civil War, and runs from Hemlock postoffice, where there is now a narrow gauge lumber railroad and an extract plant, to Laurel Bloom- ery, in Tennessee. A small hotel now stands half on the North Carolina and half on the Tennessee side of the line those men then ran, and the gap is called "Cut Laurel" gap because it is literally cut through the laurel for a mile or more. 41 Thou- sands of gallons of blockade whiskey used to be carried through that gap when there was nothing but a trail there. It is called by Mr. Strother a low gap, but it is one of the highest in the mountains. On the 28th they went to a Mr. Miller's and got a young man to act as a pilot. Strother went from Miller's

HISTORY OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA

"to Cove creek, where I got a Mr. Curtis and met the company in a low gap between the waters of Cove creek and Roan's creek where the road crosses the same," on Wednesday night, the 29th.

CROSSED BOONE'S TRAIL. This, in all probability, is the gap through which Daniel Boone and his party had passed in 1769 on their way to Kentucky. It is between Zionville, N. C. and Trade, Tenn., and the gap is so low that one is not con- scious of passing over the top of a high mountain. Tradition says that an Indian trail went through the same gap, and traces of it are still visible to the north of the present turn- pike. The young man who had been employed as a pilot at Mr. Miller's house on the 28th was found on the 29th not to be a "woodsman and of course he was discharged." On June 1st they came to the "Wattogo" river, where they killed a bear, "very poor," upon which and "some bacon stewed together, with some good tea and johnny cake we made a Sab- bath morning breakfast fit for a European Lord." There is a tradition among the people living near the falls of the Watauga at the State line, that the line between the peak to the north of the falls and the Yellow mountain was not actually run and marked; but the field notes of both Strother and Henry show that the line was both run and marked all the way. The reason the line was run from the peak north of the Watauga to the bald of the Yellow was because the act required it to be run in precisely that way; the language being "to the place where Watauga river breaks through it [the mountain], thence a direct course to the top of the Yellow Mountain where Bright's road crosses the same." As it is impossible to see the Yellow from the river at the falls where the river breaks through, it was necessary to get the course from the top of the peak north of the river.

RATTLEBUGS. On Saturday, June 1st, they came upon "a very large rattlebug," which they "attempted to kill, but it was too souple in the heels for us." On the night of May 31st they had had "severe lightning and some hard slaps [sic] of thunder."

LAUREL AND IVY. There are some who, nowadays, contend that ivy and laurel did not grow in these mountains while the Indians occupied them, and cite as proof that it is almost

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impossible to find a laurel log with rings indicating more than a hundred years of growth. But Bishop Spangenburg men- tions having encountered laurel on what is supposed to have been the Grandfather mountain in 1752, and John Strother, in his diary of the survey between Virginia and North Caro- lina in 1799, repeatedly mentions it, both before and after crossing the ridge which divides the waters of Nollechucky from those of the French Broad. What are now known as the "Ivory Slicks," is a tunnel cut through the otherwise impen- etrable ivy on the slope between the Hang Over and Dave Orr's cabins on Slick Rock, south of the Little Tennessee.

TWO WAGON ROADS ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS. Even at that early date there seem to have been two roads crossing the mountains into Tennessee, for the very next call of the statute is "thence along the ridge of said mountain between the waters of Doe river and the waters of Rock creek to the place where the road crosses the Iron mountain." Bright used to live at the Crab Orchard, long known as Avery's Quarters, about a mile above Plum Tree, and where W. W. Avery now lives. 42 On the 5th of June Major Neely "turned off the line today and went to Doe river settlements for a fresh supply of provisions," and was to meet them at the Yellow mountain, where on that day the trees were "just creeping out of their winter garb," and where "the lightning and thunder were so severe that they were truly alarming." From "the yellow spot" on the Yellow, whither they had gone to take observations, but were prevented by the storm, "we went back and continued the line on to a low gap at the head of Roaring or Sugar creek of Towe [sic] river and a creek of Doe river at the road leading from Morganton to Jonesborough, where we encamped as wet as we could be." This fixes the main road between North Caro- lina and the Watauga settlement, which had been finished in 1772, and over which Andrew Jackson was to pass in the spring of 1788.43 Robert Henry mentions a Gideon Lewis as one of the guides from White Top mountain, and it is re- markable that a direct descendant of his and having his name is now living at Taylor's Valley, near Konarok, Va., and that several others now live near Solitude or Ashland, N. C.

WAS THIS EVER "NO MAN'S LAND"? When the survey- ing party came to the Yellow they found that the compass had been deflected when it had been sighted from the peak just

HISTORY OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA

north of Watauga Falls, caused doubtless by the proximity to the Cranberry Iron mountain, of whose existence apparently they then had no knowledge. Of late years some have supposed that the "territory between the Iron mountain and the Blue Ridge, after the act of cession, was left out of any county from 1792 or 1793 till 1818 or 1822, and was without any local government till it was annexed to Burke county." L. D. Lowe, Esq., in the Watauga Democrat of July 3d, 1913, gave the following explanation: "It is quite true that there was no local government, but it was not for the reason that this part of the territory was not claimed by Burke county; but it was because the lands had been granted to a few, and there were only a limited number of people within the territory to be governed, hence there was very little attention paid to it." In previous articles in the same paper he had shown that "the reason this territory had not been settled at an earlier date" was because "the State had been paid for more than three hundred thousand acres embraced within the boundaries of six grants, " but had failed to refer to the fact that "these grants or some of them had especially excepted certain other grants within their boundaries-for example, certain grants to Waightstill Avery, Reuben White, John Dobson and others. Within the past twenty-five years it has been clearly demon- strated that some of the Cathcart grants run with the Ten- nessee line for 14 miles."

HOME COMFORTS. "Mr. Hawkins and myself went down to Sugar creek to a Mr. Currey's, where we got a good supper and a bed to sleep in," continues the diary. Evidently the food in the camp had about given out, for we hear nothing more of meals "fit for a European Lord;" but, instead, of the comforts of good Mr. Currey's bed and board. Here too they "took breakfast with Mrs. Currey, got our clothes washed and went to camp, where Major Neely met us with a fresh supply of provisions. It rained all day [and] of course we are still at our camp at the head of Sugar creek."

PLEASANT BEECH FLATS. The next day they crossed "high spur of the Roan mountain to a low gap therein where we encamped at a pleasant Beech flat and good spring."

Any one who has never seen one of these "pleasant beech flats" would scarcely realize what they are like. As one ascends any of the higher mountains of North Carolina, the

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size of all the trees perceptibly diminish, especially near the six thousand feet line, to be succeeded, generally, on the less precipitous slopes, by miniature beech trees, perfect in shape, but resembling the so-called dwarf-trees of the Japanese. They really seem to be toy trees.

JOHN STROTHER'S FLOWERS OF RHETORIC. It was here that they "spent the Sabbath day in taking observations from the high spur we crossed, in gathering the fir oil of the Balsam of Pine which is found on the mountain, in collecting a root said to be an excellent preventative against the bite of a rattle- snake, and in visioning the wonderful scene this conspicuous situation affords. There is no shrubbery grows on the tops of this mountain for several miles, say, and the wind has such a power on the top of this mountain that the ground is blowed in deep holes all over the northwest sides. The prospect from the Roan mountain is more conspicuous [extensive?] than from any other part of the Appelatchan mountains."

CLOUDLAND. A modern prospectus of the large and comfortable hostelry, called the Cloudland hotel, which has crowned this magnificent mountain for more than thirty years, the result of the ardor and enterprise of Gen. John H. Wilder of Chattanooga, Tenn., could not state the charms of this most charming resort, now become the sure refuge of hundreds of sufferers from that scourge of late summer and early autumn and known'as hay fever, more invitingly.

UNSURPASSED VIEW. Of the magnificence of this view a later chronicler has this to say: "That view from the Roan eclipses everything I have ever seen in the White, Green, Cat- skill and Virginia mountains." This is a statement put into the mouth of a Philadelphia lawyer in 1882 by the authors of "The Heart of the Alleghanies, " p. 253.

MOUNTAIN MOONSHINE. On Monday they "proceeded on between the head of Rock creek and Doe river, and en- camped in a low gap between these two streams. The next day they went five or six miles to the foot of the Iron mountain to a place they called Strother's Camp, where they had some good songs, "then raped [wrapped] ourselves up in our blank- ets and slep sound till this morning." Here "Cols. Vance and Neely went to the Limestone settlements for a pilot, returned to us on the line at two o'clock with a Mr. Collier as pilot and two gallons whiskey, we stop, drank our own health

HISTORY OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA

and proceeded on the line. Ascended a steep spur of the Unaker mountain, got into a bad laurel thicket, cut our way some distance. Night came on, we turned off and camped at a very bad place, it being a steep laurelly hollow," but the whiskey had such miraculous powers that it made the place "tolerably comfortable."

BAD LUCK ON THE THIRTEENTH. On Thursday the 13th, if they were superstitious, the expected bad luck happened; for here they were informed that for the next two or three days' march the pack-horses could not proceed on the line- that is, could not follow the extreme height of the mountain crest. This was a calamity indeed; but what was the result? How did these men meet it? We read how:

BETWEEN HOLLOW POPLAR AND GREASY COVE. "Myself [John Strother] together with the chain-bearers and markers packed our provisions on our backs and proceeded on with the line, the horses and rest of the company was conducted round by the pilot a different route. We continued the line through a bad laurel thicket to the top of the Unaker mountain and along the same about three miles and camped at a bad laurelly branch." On Friday, however, they came "to the path crossing [the Unaker mountain] from Hollow Poplar to the Greasy Cove and met our company. It rained hard. We encamped on the top of the mountain half a mile from water and had an uncomfortable evening."

DEVIL'S CREEK AND LOST COVE. It seems that the infor- mation Mr. Collier had given "respecting the Unaker moun- tain was false," and Mr. Strother prevailed upon the com- missioners to discharge him on Saturday the 15th of June. They then crossed the Nolechucky "where it breaks through the Unaker or Iron mountain." Here it is that that match- less piece of modern railroad engineering, the C. C. &. O. R. R., disputes with the "Chucky" its dominion of the canon and transports from its exhaustless coal mines in Virginia hundreds of tons of the finest coal to its terminus on the Atlantic coast.

ROBERT HENRY MEETS HIS FATE. Here, too, it being again found "impracticable to take horses from this place on the line to the Bald mountain, Mr. Henry, the chain-bearers and markers, took provisions on their backs [and] proceeded on the line and the horses went round by the Greasy Cove and

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met the rest of the company on Sunday on the top of the Bald mountain, where we tarried till Tuesday morning."

"TARRYING" IN THE GREASY COVE. One cannot help wondering why they "tarried" here so long; but no one who has ever visited that "Greasy Cove" and shared the hospital- ity of its denizens need long remain without venturing a guess; for it is a pleasant place to be, with the "red banks of Chucky" still crumbling in the bend of the river and the ravens croak- ing from their cliffs among the fastnesses of the Devil's Look- ing Glass looming near. " The C. C. & O. have their immense shops here now, covering almost a hundred acres of land.

VANCE'S CAMP. From the Bald mountain, now in Yancey county, it seems that Col. Love became their pilot; and five or six miles further on in "a low gap between the head of Indian creek and the waters of the south fork of Laurel, we encamped and called it Vance's Camp." The richness of the moun- tains is noted.

THE GRIER BALD. This Bald is sometimes called the Grier Bald from the fact that David Grier, a hermit, lived upon it for thirty-two years. 45 Grier was a native of South Carolina who, because one of the daughters of Col. David Vance . refused to marry him, built himself a log house here in 1802, just three years after Colonel Vance had passed the spot, and it is probable Grier first heard of it through this gentleman. In a quarrel over his land he killed a man named Holland Higgins and was acquitted on the ground of insanity "and returned home to meet his death at the hands of one of Hol- land's friends."

BOONE'S COVE. On Wednesday the 19th of June, after having suffered severely the previous night from gnats, they went to "Boone's Cove, between the waters of Laurel and Indian creeks," while on the 20th they had to pass over steep and rocky and brushy knobs, with water scarce and a consid- erable distance from the line. All day Friday their horses suffered from want of water and food, part of the way being impassable for horses; while on Saturday it took them "four hours and 23 minutes" to cut their way one and one-fourth miles to the top of the mountain, where, after getting through the laurel, they "came into an open flat on top of Beech moun- tain where we camped till Monday at a good spring and excel- lent range for our horses."

HISTORY OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA

A RECRUIT OF BACON. On Monday, the 24th of June, their provisions began to fail them again, but they proceeded on the line six miles and "crossed the road leading from Bar- nett's Station to the Brushy Cove and encamped in a low gap between the waters of Paint creek and Laurel river."46 They had a wet evening here; but as they "suped on venison stewed with a recruit of bacon Major Neely brought in this day from the Brushy Cove settlement," we may hope their lot was not altogether desolate; for it is possible that this enterprising commissary, Major Neely, might have brought them something besides that "recruit of bacon"; for it will be recalled that on a former occasion he went for a pilot and returned not only with a pilot but with two gallons of a liquid that "had such marvelous powers" that it made a very "bad place" "tolerably comfortable."

BARNETT'S STATION. At any rate, they knew they were nearing the end of their long and arduous journey, for they had now reached the waters of Paint creek, which they must have known was in the neighborhood of the "Painted Rock," their destination. The Barnett Station referred to above was probably Barnard's old stock stand on the French Broad river, five or six miles below Marshall.

OFF THE TRACK FOR AWHILE. After losing their way on the 25th and "having a very uncomfortable time of it" on Paint creek, they got on the "right ridge from the place we got off of it and proceeded on the line five miles and encamped between the waters of F. B. R. [French Broad river] and Paint creek."

"HASEY" AND "ANCTOOUS." Thursday 27. This morning is cloudy and hasey. The Commissioners being anctoous to get on to the Painted Rock started us early"; but they took a wrong ridge again and had to return and spend an uncom- fortable evening.

DROPPING THE PLUMMET FROM PAINT ROCK. However, on Friday, the 28th day of June, 1799, they reached the Painted Rock at last and measured its height, finding it to be "107 feet three inches high from the top to the base," that "it rather projects out," and that "the face of the rock bears but few traces of its having formerly been painted, owing to its being smoked by pine knots and other wood from a place at its base where travellers have frequently camped. In the year 1790 it was not much smoked, the pictures of some

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humans, wild beasts, fish and fowls were to be seen plainly made with red paint, some of them 20 and 30 feet from its base."

ANIMAL PICTURES HAVE DISAPPEARED. How much more satisfactory this last sentence would have been if he had only added: "I saw them." For, as the rock appears today, the red paint seems to be nothing more or less than the oxida- tion of the iron in the exposed surfaces, while all trace of "some humans, wild beasts," etc., mentioned by him have entirely disappeared.

THE REAL "PAINTED ROCK." However, he leaves us in no doubt that they had reached the real Painted Rock called for by the Act of Cession, ceding "certain lands therein de- scribed"; for he goes on to say that, while "some gentlemen of Tennessee wish to construe as the painted rock referred to" another rock in the French Broad river "about seven miles higher up on the opposite or S. W. side in a very obscure place," that "it is to be observed that there is no rock on French Broad river that ever was known as the painted rock but the one first described, which has, ever since the River F. Broad was explored by white men, been a place of Pub- lick Notoriety."

SURPASSES A "BEST SELLER" OF TO-DAY. This is the next to the concluding sentence in this quaint and charming nar- rative a narrative that one hundred and fifteen years after it was penned can still be read with more interest than many of the so-called "best sellers" of the present day.

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Western North Carolina; a history, 1730-1913, Part 4

Author: Arthur, John Preston Publication date: 1973 Publisher: Spartanburg, S.C., Reprint Co Number of Pages: 744

Author: Arthur, John Preston
Publication date: 1973
Publisher: Spartanburg, S.C., Reprint Co
Number of Pages: 744