USA > North Carolina > Western North Carolina; a history, 1730-1913 > Part 59
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THE FLY STILL IN THE OINTMENT. Thus, the new con- stitution still left something to be desired: the senate was to consist of fifty. senators, the number from each senatorial dis- trict being determined, not by population, but by the amount of taxes paid. That did not suit the white men of the west at all.
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PREVALENCE OF EASTERN NAMES. With the exception of Swain, no county west of the Blue Ridge is named for a citi- zen of this section; and, except Bakersville and Bryson city, no county seat is named for a son of the west. These honors had to be bartered away to get the legislature to consent to the formation of every other county west of the Blue Ridge. For even eastern men admit that we obtained our just dues only by barter and trade.
SECTIONALISM RAMPANT. Of this period Chief Justice Clark 11 says :
"During the time Capt. Burns was in the legislature [1821 to 1834] the east had a disproportionately large representation. The west had increased very greatly in population and demanded an increase in rep- resentation, either by the creation of new counties in the west or by calling a constitutional convention. These measures were voted down in the general assembly, or if a new county was created in the west a new one was created in the east-just as in congress before the war, if a non-slave-holding state was admitted into the Union, a slaveholding state was admitted to balance it. Capt. Burns, though he was from Carteret county, on the very borders of the ocean, his was the odd vote that created Macon county in 1827. In 1822 he voted for Davidson county. He voted for the creation of Yancey county in 1827, the vote being a tie. The speaker voted 'aye', but the bill was lost in the senate. In 1828 he voted for Cherokee, though the measure then failed, the county not being created till eleven years later, in 1839. In 1833 Capt. Burns was in the senate and again voted for the creation of Yancey county, which measure then passed. The grateful west promptly named the county seat of the new county 'Burnsville.'
"We of this day can hardly realize the bitter feeling that then ex- isted between the east and west in our State until the inequality of repre- sentation was remedied by the constitutional convention of 1835."
As the Cherokees agreed to go west in 1835 we should have here a-
RECAPITULATION OF INDIAN TREATIES, the principal of which, concerning the mountains of Western North Carolina, may be briefly summed up as follows :
Treaty of 1761, by which the Blue Ridge was made the boundary;
Treaty of 1772 and purchase of 1773, by which the ridge between the Nollechucky and the Watauga rivers, from their sources in the Blue Ridge westward, and from the Blue Ridge to the Virginia line, was made the boundary line;
Treaty of Hopewell, 1785, by which the line was moved westward to a line running just east of Marshall, Asheville and Hendersonville;
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Treaty of Holston, 1791, establishing Meigs & Freeman's line;
Treaty of 1819 by which the line was moved west to the Nantahala river;
Treaty of New Echota, or 1835, by which the Cherokees surrendered all lands east of the Mississippi, and agreed to remove.
FROM 1833 TO 1849. Notwithstanding the changes wrought in the constitution by the convention of 1835, the west made but little progress politically, as during those sixteen years only one additional county was permitted to organize, and that was Henderson, taken from the southern part of Bun- combe in 1838. But, although the Senate was to continue to represent the landed interests till 1857, when the consti- tution was amended by the Legislature so as to distribute senators according to population, 12 between 1848 and 1862 seven new counties were established west of the Blue Ridge, viz .: Watauga, 1849; Jackson, 1851; Madison, 1851; Alle- ghany, 1859; Mitchell, 1861; Transylvania, 1861; and Clay, 1861.
A NATURAL DIPLOMAT. 13 "In 1848 William H. Thomas entered the Senate from Macon county, and remained there till 1862. In those twelve years he accomplished more for western North Carolina than any other man who ever lived. In addition to securing the creation of the seven new coun- ties above referred to, he had the Western Turnpike from Salisbury to Murphy constructed and paid for out of the sale of Cherokee lands; he secured a charter for the Western North Carolina Railroad and saw it finished to within a few miles of Morganton at the foot of the Blue Ridge, and had the charter so altered that after the road should reach Asheville it should go west toward Murphy as rapidly as it proceeded northwest toward Paint Rock. In addition to this he caused turnpike roads to be built all through the mountains, and helped to organize the companies which constructed them, by giving barbecues and holding public meetings at which he taught the people the importance of making good roads. And, in the meantime, he was using his powers of persuasion to in- duce South Carolina to endorse four million dollars of the bonds of the Blue Ridge Railroad that was to enter our State at Rabun gap and proceed down the Little Tennessee to Cin-
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cinnati. He was also engaged at this time in looking after the affairs of the Eastern Band of Cherokees, by whom he had been adopted when a youth. He lived to see the rail- road completed to Murphy." A monument of bronze is due to his memory from the people of Western North Carolina.
SECESSION. On the 30th day of January, 1861, the Legis- lature submitted to the people the question of holding a con- vention to consider secession; but it was voted down. But when, in April, 1861, President Lincoln issued a proclamation calling on North Carolina, with the other states still in the Union, to contribute her quota of troops to be used in co- ercing those states which had withdrawn to return to the Union, the Legislature voted for a convention, and on the 20th day of May it unanimously adopted the ordinance of secession.
NORTH CAROLINA DID NOT FIGHT FOR SLAVERY. 14 "One of the most significant proofs of the fact that the status of the negro was not, at the South, regarded as the issue, was the ardor with which the non-slaveholding portions of the population flew to arms at the call of their respective states, and the fidelity they exhibited for the cause through four years of struggle, self-denial, suffering, death and social de- struction.
FEW SLAVE-HOLDERS IN THE MOUNTAINS. "Especially was this true of the North Carolina mountaineer. In the greater portion of that section of the State extending from the eastern foot-hills of the Blue Ridge to the western boundaries of Clay and Cherokee, the slave-owners in 1861 were so rare that the institution of slavery may be said, practically, to have had no existence; and yet that region sent more than fifteen thousand fighting men-volunteers-into the field. 15
REGIMENTS. "The Sixteenth, Twenty-fifth, Twenty-ninth, Thirty-ninth, Fifty-eighth, Sixtieth, Sixty-second, Sixty-fourth, Sixty-fifth and Sixty-ninth regiments were composed exclu- sively of mountain men; and in addition they were numer- ously represented in the "Bethel," Ninth, Eleventh, Fourteenth, the "Immortal Twenty-sixth," the Nine- teenth regiments, and other organizations. This estimate does not include a large number of men from the same territory, who during the progress of the war were em- bodied in independent commands, and did gallant service in
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the campaigns in Virginia, in the southwest and in the im- mediate locality of their homes. These mountaineers were the descendants of the sturdy, hard-fighting Scotch-Irish, who, to a man, were Whigs in the Revolution, and by their stub- born resistance of the British aggressions, contributed so much to the establishment of the independence of their country. Nor does it include thousands who joined the Federal army.
NOT REBELS, BUT SONS OF REVOLUTIONARY SIRES. "The men of Western Carolina, whose sublime devotion and cour- age, with that of their comrades from other portions of the South, have made the heights of Gettysburg and Fredericks- burg and Sharpsburg, the plains of Manassas and Chicka- hominy, the wilderness of Chancellorsville and Chickamauga, the valleys of Virginia, Georgia and Tennessee, immortal, had in their veins the blood of the patriots who fought at Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, Yorktown, Savannah, Guilford, Eutaw Springs and Kings Mountain-and, let it never be forgotten, they fought, and fighting died, for the same great divine right-the right of a people to ordain and control their own government." 14
OUR "WAR GOVERNOR'S" RIGHT HAND. 16 Governor Vance was the colonel of the 26th North Carolina regiment when he was elected to the high office of governing his people in the most momentous and troublous time in their history; but notwithstanding that fact, he realized that he was not a trained and educated soldier. He therefore, summoned to his side at the outset of his term that accomplished officer and gen- tleman, General James Green Martin, who had graduated from West Point in time to lose an arm in the Mexican War and to be brevetted for gallantry on the field of Cherubusco. He was, therefore, continued as adjutant general, to which position Gov. Clark had appointed him in 1861, and the legis- lature wisely gave him great power and put money freely at his command, in preparing our troops for battle. Without factories and without markets, forty thousand armed and well-drilled men had been turned over to the Confederacy within seven months; while in less than one year after North Caro- lina left the Union the State had nearly sixty thousand men in camp. He did not stop then, but as rapidly as pos- sible Gen. Martin added regiment after regiment until seventy- two regular regiments had been formed. Later in the war
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three regiments of boys too young for regular duty were organ- ized. In addition to these, in the days of sore need, five regi- ments of old men were pressed into the service of the Con- federacy. Then came the Home Guard, the whole aggregating 125,000 soldiers.
ARMA VIRUMQUE. And not only did he make soldiers, but he also went actively into the manufacture of arms. He hired two Frenchmen to make swords and bayonets at the armory at Wilmington, while workmen in Guilford made 300 rifles a month. The State took charge of the old United States arsenal at Fayetteville and made excellent rifles. One pow- der mill near Raleigh made weekly 4,000 pounds of powder. Pistols, swords, cartridge-boxes, gun-caps, bayonets, car- tridges, powder, lead, etc., to the value of $1,673,308 were furnished the soldiers before April, 1864.
QUARTERMASTER; ALSO COMMISSARY. The Legislature in 1861 directed Gen. Martin to clothe the soldiers as best he could, and he started a clothing factory at Raleigh, and required all the mills in the State to send him every yard of cloth they made. Officers were sent into the far South to buy all the shoes and cloth they could find, while women at home furnished blankets, quilts and comforts, even cutting up their carpets and lining them with cotton to be used for blankets. In 1862 Gen. Martin asked Gov. Clark to buy a ship to run the blockade and bring in supplies from foreign ports; but as the Governor's term was nearly out, he asked Gen. Martin to submit his plan to Governor Vance. He did so, and the Governor approved it; and Gen. Martin sent John White to England, where he bought the Ad- Vance, named in honor of the Governor. This ship brought in many cargoes of goods before it was captured. The State bought cotton and rosin and in foreign ports exchanged these for such supplies as were most in demand. Other ships ran the blockade also, bringing in 250,000 pairs of shoes and cloth for 250,000 suits, 2,000 fine rifles, 60,000 pairs of cotton cards, 500 sacks of coffee for the sick, medicine to the value of $50,- 000 and other articles. For these supplies the State spent $26,363,663. From these stores North Carolina contributed largely to the Confederate government, and during the last months of the war we were feeding one-half of General Lee's army.
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GENERAL MARTIN TAKES COMMAND AT ASHEVILLE. His work of organizing and supplying the troops having ended, Gen. Martin took command of the troops in and around Ashe- ville in 1864. He spent the rest of his life here, and died a "mountain man" just as "Zeb" Vance had always been, though his residence had been in Charlotte for years, and we are proud of their records.
MANY WELCOME PEACE. The sentiment for the Old Union did not wholly die in Western North Carolina even during the heat of the armed conflict which followed secession; and after having in vain asserted by nearly four years' warfare its con- scientious contention that the general government had no right to force any state to furnish troops to coerce any other state to remain in the Union, many of the best and most in- fluential citizens of these mountains, after the defeat of Hood at Franklin, Tennessee, and the evacuation of Savannah by the Confederates, considered further resistance as not only futile but a needless waste of blood and treasure, and that such people at home should make known their sentiments to the commanders of the Union forces in the South. Their hope was thus to avert further bloodshed and the destruction of property; and, as Sherman had not then started on his barbarous march through South Carolina, it is interesting to consider how much of suffering and loss might have been spared to the women and children of that State and elsewhere if their counsel had been followed.
PEACEFUL OVERTURES. In pursuance of this sentiment there is the best authority for making public the following facts: In January, 1865, there met in one of the rooms of the Old Buck Hotel at Asheville the following men: A. S. Merrimon, Weston Holmes, Alfred M. Alexander, J. E. Reid, J. L. Henry, Adolphus E. Baird, G. M. Roberts, I. A. Harris, and Adolphus M. Gudger. A paper declaring that the people were tired of further warfare and desired peace and the res- toration of the Union was prepared by Judge A. S. Merrimon and signed by each of the above-named citizens. Adolphus M. Gudger undertook to have it delivered to Judge John Baxter at Knoxville. He did so, and it was put into the hands of the military commander then in charge of that city. Major W. W. Rollins, now postmaster at Asheville, saw and read it in January, 1865. It doubtless did much good in the
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saving of property when the Union forces invaded this terri- tory in April and May following. Of these men A. M. Alex- ander, J. L. Henry and I. A. Harris were officers of the Con- federate Army at the time they signed that paper. All are now dead except Dr. I. A. Harris, who lives at Jupiter, Bun- combe county. This paper is said to be in existence, and its exact wording would be a matter of great interest at this time when there is so universal a sentiment in favor of the Union. 17
AFTER THE WAR. During the Civil War which followed secession, the writ of habeas corpus was not suspended in North Carolina or New York; but after peace had been declared Governor W. W. Holden, provisional governor, suspended it, and appointed Col. George W. Kirk, who had raided the mountain section during the war, to enforce martial law. North Carolina sent more troops into the Confederate army than any other Southern State; and while there were many desertions from the soldiers who had joined the Confederacy from the West, the mountain section was by no means a lag- gard in defence of the cause of the Confederacy.
RECONSTRUCTION. Gov. Holden called a convention which met in Raleigh October 2, 1865, but its work was rejected by the people by a vote of 19,570 for and 21,552 against, many of the whites being then disfranchised. Gen. E. R. Canby, com- manding the Second Military District, ordered a constitutional convention which met January 14, 1868. The office of lieutenant governor was created, and that of superintendent of public works; all voters were made eligible to office; the number of the Supreme and Superior courts was increased and provi- sion was made for their election and that of magistrates by the people; the County Court system was abolished and county government by a board of commissioners substituted. The sessions of the Legislature were changed back to one each year; provision was made to establish a penitentiary; negroes were given equal rights before the law with all whites, and a census of the State was ordered every ten years. A homestead of $1,000 in real estate and $500 in personal prop- erty was exempted from execution; Gov. W. W. Holden was impeached and removed from office in 1871; and Lieutenant Governor Tod R. Caldwell succeeded him.
THE EXHAUSTION OF THE JUDICIARY. One of the charges against Gov. Holden had been the suspension of the writ of
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habeas corpus in Alamance and Caswell counties, during what was called Kirk's War, and the existence of the Ku-Klux Klan in 1869 and 1870, when, Col. Kirk, having refused to recognize the writs of the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Pear- son had declared that "the judiciary was exhausted." Judge George W. Brooks, of the United States District Court for the eastern district, however, pitted the strong arm of the United States against this defiance of judicial authority, and Kirk and Holden yielded. 1 8
CONVENTION OF 1875. There was a Constitutional Con- vention, against the calling of which the eastern counties had voted solidly, held in Raleigh, September 6, 1875, which pro- vided that separate schools should be provided for white and colored; that there should be criminal and inferior courts; that there should be a department of agriculture; limiting the per diem of members of the Legislature to four dollars a day during a session of sixty days; providing for the election of magistrates by the Legislature; reducing the num- ber of judges, and disfranchising persons who had been con- victed of infamous crimes. Sessions of the Legislature were again made biennial. In 1900 an amendment was adopted re- quiring a quasi-educational qualification for voters after 1908, except for the descendants of those who could vote prior to 1860. The period during which that exception was opera- tive passed in 1908; but the fact that certain "free persons of color" had enjoyed the right to vote prior to the constitution of 1835, 19 saved the exception, commonly called the "grand- father clause," from discriminating against anyone "on ac- count of race, color or previous condition of servitude."
REGULATING PASSENGER RATES. In 1908 the Legislature passed an act limiting passenger rates on railroads to two cents per mile; and the railroads, after some litigation, finally compromised by agreeing to charge not over two and one- half cents per mile.
STATE-WIDE PROHIBITION. In 1908 the Legislature sub- mitted to the people the question of prohibiting the manu- facture and sale of malt and spiritous liquors anywhere in the State, and the measure was adopted by a large majority.
THE "NO-FENCE" LAW. In 1885, pursuant to an act of the Legislature passed at the request of Hon. Richmond Pear- son, member of the House from Buncombe county, the voters
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of that county voted to eliminate fences in most of the town- ships, and requiring the owners of cattle, sheep, horses and "hawgs" to keep them in bounds. Buncombe was the pio- neer county in adopting this economic reform; and Richmond Pearson the legislator who had the courage to secure its en- actment. A quarrel grew out of this matter which resulted in the sending of a challenge to Mr. Pearson by Adjutant General Johnston Jones; but the day of duelling had passed forever, and the matter was adjusted.
Upon the election of Hon. Z. B. Vance as governor and a Democratic Legislature the magistrates were empowered to elect the county commissioners. This was done to enable the eastern counties to control their board of commissioners in counties where negro votes predominated. But it finally re- sulted in great dissatisfaction, and helped to defeat the Demo- cratic Party in 1894. The Republicans changed the law, in 1895, making the county commissioners elective by the people.
SWAIN, GRAHAM AND AVERY. Not much was left to be done in the way of division of the mountain territory when the Civil War came to put a stop to legislation along this line. Swain county was formed in 1871 and in 1872 Graham was formed out of a portion of Cherokee because it was cut off from the rest of the State by two high ranges of moun- tains on the east and south and by the Little Tennessee river on the north. Its county seat is Robbinsville. The county seat of Swain is Bryson City, named for the late Col. Thad. D. Bryson who, as a member of the Legislature, secured its establishment as a county. Avery county was formed in 1911, and its county seat is Newland, named for Lieut. Gov. New- land of Caldwell. It is at the Old Fields of Toe, and the court house and jail are completed. In this county is some of the finest scenery in the South.
ONLY CRUMBS FOR THE WEST. Although Gen. Thomas Love had been in the Senate and the House from 1793 to 1828, except in 1797-98, and John and Elisha Calloway and George Bower from Ashe almost as long, it was not until Governor Swain was elected by the Legislature a Superior Court judge for one of the eastern circuits that there was the slightest breach in the wall of sectionalism. His election by the legislature to the governorship in 1832 and afterwards to to the presidency of the University followed; but up to his
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election to the bench there had never been a judge from west of the Ridge and there has never been a judge from this sec- tion elected to the Supreme Court, Judge Augustus S. Mer- rimon having moved from this locality long before his eleva- tion to that office. And, with the exception of Judge Swain, there was never a Superior Court judge from the mountains till 1868, when Judges James L. Henry and Riley Cannon were elected under Reconstruction. Gov. Zebulon B. Vance of Buncombe was elected governor in 1862-64, and Gov. Locke Craig of the same county in 1912; but they and Governor Swain are the only governors this part of the State has ever had. Hon. James L. Robinson of Macon and Rufus A. Doughton of Alleghany have been presidents of the Sen- ate, and James L. Robinson was elected speaker of the House in 1872 and 1874, but it was not till 1901 that Hon. Walter E. Moore of Jackson was elected speaker. In 1876 Dr. Samuel L. Love was elected State auditor from Haywood, and the Hon. Robert M. Furman in 1894. Hon. Theodore F. David- son was elected attorney general in 1884 and 1888 and R. D. Gilmer in 1900. General Thomas L. Clingman of Bun- combe was elected to the U. S. Senate in 1858, and Judge Jeter C. Pritchard in 1895 and 1897. Col. Allen T. David- son was elected to the Provisional Congress of the Confeder- acy in 1861 and in 1862 by the people. In 1864 Judge George W. Logan of Rutherford county succeeded him. Hon. M. L. Shipman of Hendersonville has been labor commissioner for several years.
FELIX WALKER. 20 When the Missouri question was under discussion, Mr. Walker secured the floor, when some impa- tient member asked him to sit down and let a vote be taken. He refused, saying he must "make a speech for Buncombe," that is, for his constituents. Thus "bunkum, " as it is usually spelt, has become part of our vocabulary. Mr. Walker was born in Hampshire county, Va., July 19, 1753, and became a merchant. His grandfather, John Walker, emigrated in 1720 from Derry, Ireland, to Delaware, where his father, also named John, was born. The younger John moved first to Virginia and afterwards to North Carolina, settling within four miles of Kings Mountain. He was a member of the first convention at Hillsboro, July, 1775, and of the Provin- cial Congress which met there, August 21, 1775, afterwards
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serving in the Revolutionary War. He died in 1796. Felix went with Richard Henderson to Kentucky (then called Louisa), 1774-1775, where he was badly wounded by Indians. He then joined the Watauga settlement and became the first clerk of the court of Washington county. While holding this office he went to Mecklenburg county, and was made captain of a company of State troops which was placed at Nollechucky to guard the frontier against the Indians. After serving four years as clerk he moved to Rutherford county, N. C., where in 1789 he was appointed clerk of the court of that county. He represented that county in the General Assembly in 1792, 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802, and 1806. In 1817 he was elected member of Congress, and for two succeeding Congresses. R. B. Vance succeeded him in 1823. Walker was a candidate again in 1827, but withdrew in favor of Sam. P. Carson, who defeated both Vance and James Graham. Walker then removed to Missis- sippi, where he died in 1828, at Clinton.
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