The counties of Western North Carolina, in the year 1777, were all embraced in Burke, Wilkes, and Tryon. Ashe was carved off Wilkes, in 1799, and Alleghany off Ashe in 1859. Tryon, which bore the name of the most obnoxious of the colonial governors, was divided into Lincoln and Rutherford, in 1779, and the hated name obliterated. Cleveland was cut from both these counties in 1841. Caldwell was taken from Burke in 1842, and McDowell was erected out of territory from Burke and Rutherford; and Catawba from territory from Lincoln, in the same year. Easton was carved off Lincoln in 1846. Buncombe was erected in 1791, out of territory previously embraced, partly in Rutherford, but mainly in Burke. It is the parent stem of all the trans-Blue Ridge counties, excepting Ashe and Alleghany. The first branch was Haywood, in 1808, from which Macon was taken, in 1828, and Jackson in 1850. From territory of both these Swain was made in 1871. Cherokee was cut off Macon in 1839. From its territory Clay was formed in 1861, and Graham in 1872. Henderson was cut off Buncombe in 1838; Polk from Henderson and Rutherford in 1855; and Transylvania from Henderson and Jackson in 1861. Yancey was erected from Buncombe in 1833; Watauga from Yancey, Wilkes, Caldwell, and Ashe, in 1849. Madison was erected of territory from Buncombe in 1850; and Mitchell in 1861, from territory from Burke, McDowell, Caldwell, Watauga, and Yancey.
The counties of Western North Carolina, in the year 1777, were all embraced in Burke, Wilkes, and Tryon. Ashe was carved off Wilkes, in 1799, and Alleghany off Ashe in 1859. Tryon, which bore the name of the most obnoxious of the colonial governors, was divided into Lincoln and Rutherford, in 1779, and the hated name obliterated. Cleveland was cut from both these counties in 1841. Caldwell was taken from Burke in 1842, and McDowell was erected out of territory from Burke and Rutherford; and Catawba from territory from Lincoln, in the same year. Easton was carved off Lincoln in 1846. Buncombe was erected in 1791, out of territory previously embraced, partly in Rutherford, but mainly in Burke. It is the parent stem of all the trans-Blue Ridge counties, excepting Ashe and Alleghany. The first branch was Haywood, in 1808, from which Macon was taken, in 1828, and Jackson in 1850. From territory of both these Swain was made in 1871. Cherokee was cut off Macon in 1839. From its territory Clay was formed in 1861, and Graham in 1872. Henderson was cut off Buncombe in 1838; Polk from Henderson and Rutherford in 1855; and Transylvania from Henderson and Jackson in 1861. Yancey was erected from Buncombe in 1833; Watauga from Yancey, Wilkes, Caldwell, and Ashe, in 1849. Madison was erected of territory from Buncombe in 1850; and Mitchell in 1861, from territory from Burke, McDowell, Caldwell, Watauga, and Yancey.
Two elements, in the settlement and population of the mountain country, have not been considered in the foregoing pages. The one is, happily, well nigh extinct, the other is the main hope of the future. In early times, criminals and refugees fromjustice made the fastnesses of the wilderness hiding places. Their stay, in most cases, was short, seclusion furnishing their profession a barren field for operation. A few, however, remained, either adopting the wild, free life of the chase, or preying upon the property of the community. The latter occupation has been entirely abandoned by their posterity. There was a time when it was unsafe to turn a good horse out to range on the grassy mountain tops, but that time is passed. There are communities in the mountains in which all the commands of the Decalogue are not punctiliously observed, but “Thou shalt not steal,” is seldom violated. Cattle and horses pasture on every range, stables are everywhere without locks, houses are left open, and highway robbery is remembered only as a tradition of the past.
By the element in the settlement referred to as the hope of the future, we mean those classes who have come for the purpose of engaging in business, and to establish summer homes, attracted by salubrity of climate and beauty of scenery. Representatives of the latter class have handsome estates at several places in the French Broad valley and along the Blue Ridge.
Immigration for business purposes is just starting. The mineral deposits and the lumber stores are bringing in good citizens from abroad. With abundant resources, both of material and power, there is a wide field here for manufacturers. The native population has not husbanded the capital needed to start the ball rolling. Although settled for 100 years, Western North Carolina is a new country in many respects, but the day of its rapid development is near at hand.
The great obstacle to development in the past has been the section’s isolated position, an obstacle now almost removed. The building of a turnpike from South Carolina to Tennessee was justly regarded a great public improvement when it was completed in 1827, but during the last half century horses havebeen too slow to carry on the world’s work. General Hayne, of South Carolina, was one of the first projectors of a railroad through the mountains. It was to run from Charleston to Cincinnati, a line which there is good reason for believing will be pushed to completion at no distant day. The original project was given chartered form in 1835.
The Western North Carolina road was also an early project, and is a part of the system of public improvements contemplated by the state government. A charter was granted in 1855. The state authorized the issue of bonds for three-fourths of the stock, the remaining one-fourth being subscribed by private individuals. R. C. Pearson was chosen president, and J. C. Turner engineer. It was the latter gentleman who first surveyed a route over the Blue Ridge via Swannanoa gap. The construction of this road reached to within five miles of Morganton, when the war opened and all operations were stopped. After the war, under the successive administrations as president of A. M. Powell, S. M. D. Tate, and Major J. W. Wilson, work was continued. The latter gentleman, combining the office of engineer with that of president, took the first locomotive around the coils and through the tunnels into the Swannanoa valley. The road was sold and passed under its present management, which is associated with the Richmond & Danville company, in the spring of 1880. It has been completed to its junction with the E. T. V. & G. R. R., and is being pushed over and through the massive transverse chains of the plateau to its western terminus. The scenery along its lines is spoken of at various places in the following pages. The Blue Ridge has been crossed by the Spartanburg & Asheville railroad, and there is good ground for hope that the Carolina Central will be extended from Shelby to Asheville at an early day. All these enterprises are necessarily expensive, and consequently showthe confidence which capitalists place in the future of the region whose resources will be opened up.
On account of the secluded position of Western North Carolina, there is little to be said under the head of military reminiscences. The mountain men, in the War of 1812, shouldered their rifles and marched to distant climes, in defense of their country’s honor.
During the late struggle, this section escaped the desolation which the greater portion of the South suffered. Stoneman’s Federal cavalry made a raid, after the “surrender” of Lee into the trans-Blue Ridge country. He passed by Hendersonville and Asheville, whence a Confederate fort had been erected. Dividing into small squads, his men pillaged the country as they went west.
A dare-devil expedition was accomplished by the Federal raider Kirk, who, with his company of 325 East Tennesseeans, crossed the mountains, through Mitchell county into Burke, surprised a larger force of Confederates, and succeeded in capturing all their stores and taking the men prisoners of war.
The mountain men were divided in sentiment and action during the war. Most of the property holders joined the Confederate forces, while the poorer classes refused to volunteer, and, when conscripted into the service, deserted at the first opportunity. There were exceptions, of course, with respect to both classes—some of the larger freeholders being Union men, and some of the poor people in the coves being enthusiastically loyal to the state.
The Southern Alleghanies, though “the oldest in the world,” have not yet settled down to a state of absolute rest. Shocks and noises in several localities have frequently been felt and heard, much to the discomfort of inhabitants of the vicinity. There are reminiscences in the northern part of Haywood county of shocks as early as 1812, and from time to time eversince. The restless mountain is in a spur of the New Found range, near the head of Fine’s creek. General Clingman was the first to call public attention to it, which he did in an elaborate paper in 1848. There are cracks in the solid granite of which the ridge is composed, and towards its foot, chasms four feet wide, extending at places in all directions, like the radiating cracks made in a rock by a light blast of gunpowder. There are evidences of trees having been thrown violently down, and a trustworthy gentleman declares that a huge oak was split from root to top by the opening of a chasm under it. General Clingman says:
“I observed a large poplar tree which had been split through its center so as to leave one-half of it standing 30 or 40 feet high. The crack or opening under it was not an inch wide, but could be traced for hundreds of yards, making it evident that there had been an opening wide enough to split the tree, and that then the sides of the chasm had returned to their original position without having split so as to prevent the contact of broken rocks.”
“I observed a large poplar tree which had been split through its center so as to leave one-half of it standing 30 or 40 feet high. The crack or opening under it was not an inch wide, but could be traced for hundreds of yards, making it evident that there had been an opening wide enough to split the tree, and that then the sides of the chasm had returned to their original position without having split so as to prevent the contact of broken rocks.”
A great mass of granite was broken into fragments, and after one of these shocks every loose stone and piece of wood was moved from its original place. These jars, accompanied with noise, used to occur at intervals of two or three years, but none have been felt for some time.
About the year 1829 occurred a violent earthquake, covering a limited area, in Cherokee county. One of the Valley River mountains was cleft open for several hundred yards, making a chasm which is still visible.
Silas McDowell, a careful observer, late of Macon county, stated, in a paper, that there was a violent shock on the divide between Ellijay and Cullasaja many years ago. A chasm opened in the north side of the mountain, accompanied with crashing sounds. Satoola mountain, bounding the Highlands plateau, it has been stated, has crevices from which smoke issues at intervals.
In Madison county there is a mountain which has been knownto rumble and smoke. The warm springs are heated by volcanic action, probably by hot gas from the earth’s molten interior, seeking an outlet through crevices in the rocks and coming in contact with underground water currents.
The most famous of the restless mountains of North Carolina is “Shaking Bald.” The first shock, which occurred February 10, 1874, was followed in such quick succession by others, as to cause general alarm in the vicinity. This mountain for a time received national attention. Within six months more than 100 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 minerals 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 scientific exploration of the grand summit of the Alleghany system, was hinted at in the introduction, but on account of the great names associated with the subject it is worthy of fuller treatment. The extraordinary botanical resources of the mountains were first made known by one of the most distinguished botanists of his day, Andre Michaux, who made a tour of the valleys and some of the heights in 1787. In 1802 his son, an equally distinguished botanist, scaled the loftiest range. Both these naturalists reported having found trees and other specimens of alpine growth, that they had observed nowhere else south of Canada. This was the first hint that the Black mountains were the highest summits east of the Rockies.This judgment was based entirely upon the plant life of the region explored.
It was from entirely different data that John C. Calhoun arrived at the same opinion in 1825. David L. Swain, afterwards governor and president of the State University, was then a member of the legislature from Buncombe, his native county. Calhoun was Vice-President of the United States. Meeting each other in Raleigh, the latter made a playful allusion to their height, saying that in that respect they were like General Washington. “We can also,” said the Vice-President, “congratulate ourselves on another fact, that we live in the vicinity of the highest land east of the Rocky mountains.”
“The suggestion,” says Governor Swain, “took me entirely by surprise, and I inquired whether the fact had been ascertained? He replied that it had not been by measurement, but a very slight examination of the map would satisfy me it was so.”
Dr. Elisha Mitchell, of the State University, five years later, concurred in the opinion of Vice-President Calhoun, and announced to the Board of Public Improvements his intention to make a systematic geographical exploration. In the year 1835, with no other interest than that of contributing to scientific knowledge, he made the first barometrical measurements west of the Blue Ridge. With great labor and infinite patience he climbed the several peaks of the Blacks. In the language of a subsequent explorer: “At the time Dr. Mitchell gave his observations with regard to the height of the Black mountain it was more inaccessible than now, by reason of the progress of the settlements around its base, so that he was liable to be misled, thwarted by unforeseen obstacles, in his efforts to reach particular parts of the chain, and when he did attain some point at the top of the ridge, nature was too much exhausted to allow more than one observation as to the immediate locality.” Any onewho has left the beaten path, and attempted to penetrate the tangled thickets of laurel on the slopes of the Black, will have some conception of the explorer’s difficulty.
Dr. Mitchell’s report was the first authoritative announcement of the superior altitude of the highest southern summit to Mt. Washington. This report gave rise to much controversy among geographers, but its correctness was soon universally yielded.
In 1844 Dr. Mitchell again visited the region, making observations in the interest of both geology and geography, and to confirm his former measurements. About this time Hon. Thomas L. Clingman, then a member of Congress, and a man of scientific tastes, began to make observations in different sections—the Balsams, Smokies, and Blacks. In the latter group he subsequently published that he had found a higher peak than the one measured by Professor Mitchell. In the controversy which followed, the fact of General Clingman having measured the highest point of ground was undisputed. The question was: Had Dr. Mitchell measured the same peak, or had he mistaken another for the highest, and ceased his investigations without going to the top of the true dome?
Admitting the possibility of having been mistaken, the Professor, in the summer vacation of 1857, embraced the first opportunity to review his measurements. Accompanied by his son, Charles Mitchell, he began at the railroad line to run a line of levels, that he might test the accuracy of his barometer. They reached the Mountain house, half way up the Black, at noon on Saturday, June 27th. Dismissing his son and assistant, the professor left, saying he intended to cross the range by the route he had gone in 1844, desiring to see the guide who at that time accompanied him. On Monday Charles Mitchell climbed to the place appointed to meet his father, but the day passed without his appearance. The next day passed. “He must have met with some accidental delay,” was the consolation.But another day’s absence dispelled this hope. On Thursday morning the alarm was spread. Messengers were sent across the range to the valleys below. He had not reached the place for which he had started. Friday evening the report of his disappearance reached Asheville. From every direction came men of all grades and avocations in life. Following them came their, wives and sisters, anxious to help in the search for the lost man’s body in that wilderness of more than 100,000 acres, whose funereal gloom conceals caverns and pitfalls into which the incautious traveler may disappear.
At least 500 men were engaged in the search, which began on Friday, within one day of a week after the professor was last seen. It was Tuesday before the trace of human footsteps was discovered. Thomas Wilson, who had acted as the professors’s guide, in 1844, in following the course they had then taken, distinguished a mark in the green turf, near the highest summit. Wilson declared it to be the summit they had both been on, and the professor had measured. The old hunter, followed by rugged mountaineers, hurried down a branch of Cane creek. The marks of the wanderer became plainer, as the ground became rougher. Down a splashing stream they followed for more than a mile, to a sheer waterfall of about forty feet. A broken laurel branch and torn moss told the story. Below in the circular pool fourteen feet deep, of crystal water, lay the body perfectly preserved.
The place has been thus described:
“The pure waters enveloped him in their winding sheet of crystal; the leaping cataract sang his requiem in that wondrous and eternal song, of which old ocean furnishes the grand, all comprehensive key. Cream and white flowers flaked the billowy thickets of the dark green laurel, and tall conical firs, delicately tapering spruces, interlocked their weeping branches, from shore to shore.”
“The pure waters enveloped him in their winding sheet of crystal; the leaping cataract sang his requiem in that wondrous and eternal song, of which old ocean furnishes the grand, all comprehensive key. Cream and white flowers flaked the billowy thickets of the dark green laurel, and tall conical firs, delicately tapering spruces, interlocked their weeping branches, from shore to shore.”
Enveloping the body in a sheet, they carried it up the mountain to the summit, whence, at the request of the family, it was conveyed to Asheville for burial. A year later it wasdis-interred, re-carried, and amid a large concourse of people, deposited on the very pinnacle of the Appalachians. There rests the “Christian hero’s dust.”
Since his death, Professor Mitchell’s claim to the credit of having measured the peak which bears his name is admitted. He measured a great many other pinnacles, but owing to the imperfection of his instruments and other causes, he was somewhat inaccurate. The credit of having made the first extensive survey and accurate measurements, is due Arnold Guyot, professor of physical geography in Princeton college. He was assisted in his long and unremunerated task, covering three summer vacations, by General Clingman, M. E. Grand-Pierre, and E. Sandoz. Their survey was begun in the Blacks in 1856. Professor Guyot’s report has been revised and completed by Dr. W. C. Kerr, the late state geologist of North Carolina.
To Dr. Curtis, of the University, the state is indebted for an exposition of its botanical resources. He embodied in his collection and several reports, the researches of Professors Gray and Carey, who, as early as 1841, traversed the highest ranges. Had Dr. Curtis’ labor been appreciated by the state government, North Carolina would have one of the best collections of botanical specimens in the country.
We have now briefly sketched the settlement and leading incidents in the progress of this highland country. The reader has no doubt reached the conclusion that the mountaineers must be a happy people, for “their annals are tiresome.” Should he visit the region, and stop in the homes scattered through the picturesque valleys, he will find the confirmation of that conclusion. If the inhabitants have little beyond the lavishments of nature to boast of, they have the compensating knowledge that they have little to be ashamed of. Their race and blood has furnished to the country three of its Presidents—Jackson, Polk, and Johnson; but greater than any of these, of the same kin,was that splendid specimen of statesmanship, John C. Calhoun, born in the sub-montane district of South Carolina. The same race has given to the gallery of frontier heroes, Daniel Boone, of the Yadkin, and David Crockett, of the Nollichucky. Old Buncombe itself has filled the governor’s chair with two incumbents, Swain and Vance; has given the State University a president, Swain; and to the United States Senate two of the most useful representatives the state has ever had—Clingman and Vance. Of such ancestry, and of such representatives of its capacity for development, any section might be proud. Of the attention its natural features has received from the outside world, it has scarcely less reason for pride and congratulation.
THE SPARKLING CATAWBA SPRINGS.
THE SPARKLING CATAWBA SPRINGS.
THE SPARKLING CATAWBA SPRINGS.
And the steed it shall be shodAll in silver, housed in azure,And the mane shall swim the wind;And the hoofs along the sodShall flash onward and keep measureTill the shepherds look behind.—Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
And the steed it shall be shodAll in silver, housed in azure,And the mane shall swim the wind;And the hoofs along the sodShall flash onward and keep measureTill the shepherds look behind.—Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
And the steed it shall be shodAll in silver, housed in azure,And the mane shall swim the wind;And the hoofs along the sodShall flash onward and keep measureTill the shepherds look behind.—Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
THERE is something in a long ride on horseback that time cannot obliterate. At its recollection one feels again the motion of the horse, and can well imagine the bridle-reins in his fingers. With these sensations come the cool breath of morning, the smooth stretches of road through sunlight and shadow, the rough trail by wild, rushing waters, the vistas of rich meadows and fields, and the green and purple outlines of mountains. Such scenes become so impressed upon the memory that one might well question with Byron:
“Are not the mountains, waves, and skies a partOf me and of my soul, as I of them?”
“Are not the mountains, waves, and skies a partOf me and of my soul, as I of them?”
“Are not the mountains, waves, and skies a partOf me and of my soul, as I of them?”
This sketch is of a ride taken by the writer, through some of the most scenic sections of the mountains. Treating, as itdoes, of the country and people as they are, the tourist in quest for information, preparatory to a trip through the same region, need look no further than these pages.
In the interest of my pocket, I hired a sound young horse, at thirty-three and a third cents per day. He was my selection from several that could have been taken from the same class of people, at a schedule of prices ranging from twenty-five to fifty cents. If the tourist intends traveling for a month or more, the wisest plan is to buy a horse, and then sell at the finish. Money can be saved by this operation, unless being ignorant concerning horse flesh, he falls into the hands of an unscrupulous jockey.
It was in August, and clear bright skies for a season were predicted by the weather prophets, when, early one morning, I mounted my steed before an Asheville hotel. In the saddle-bags for myself was an extra suit of blue flannel, two pairs of socks, a rubber coat, comb, and brush; and for the horse two shoes and a paper of nails, to provide against losses which might occur twenty-five or more miles from where a horse-shoe could be procured. Country blacksmiths depend to a large extent upon their customers to furnish the materials for their work.
There is a road that winds from the center of Asheville, onward down hill and up, by pleasant door-yards, white-washed, stone-wall fences, and trimmed groves, to the bridge over the Swannanoa-river. Just beyond it, a wide road, turning sharp toward the left, is the route to Hickory Nut gap, and the comparatively level county of Rutherford beyond.
From this point the road runs through pleasant valleys, by mills, small streams, dwellings, and under forests, for eight miles, to the base of the mountains, whereon is the opening of the noted gap—the gateway to the picturesque region of Broad river. On the summit of the pass a limited view can be had ofBuncombe county valley lands, dotted with cornfields, checkered with forests and mountain-bounded.
The road now begins to descend through beautiful sylvan scenes, combining all the gloom, luxuriance, wildness, and beauty of rocks, vines, pines, rhododendrons, crystal waters, dark ravines, and blue streaks of sky.
Where the Broad river crosses the road with a wide sweep, I drew rein before a frame dwelling, whose scanty farm lands gave no promise of yields which would afford enough extra money, by ten years’ savings, to be used in painting its dingy sides. Fastened to it was a porch with one end concealed by trailing vines, choked with dust. Before the weed-grown potato patch was a rickety, board fence, on the top of which was seated a man dressed in seedy, dusty, brown shirt, pantaloons, hat, and shoes.
Upon my inquiry whether dinner could be afforded here for horse and man, he slid lazily off his perch with the remark:
“Plenty oats an’ hay; no corn. Will ye lite?”
The man started with my horse for the stable, and I went toward the house. High steps reached up to the porch. On the latter stood a table, white with powdered plaster of Paris, and covered with dental instruments and teeth for false sets. Before it sat at work a middle-aged man.
“Pleasant day,” I said.
“Eh? What’s that?” wrinkling his narrow forehead.
“Fine weather,” I repeated.
“Can’t hear you,” shoving his chair a little nearer mine. He was evidently deaf.
“A pleasant day, this!” I thundered.
“Damn the weather! Where you from?”
“Asheville.”
“What’s your business?
“Seeing the country.”
“Seein’ the country?” Then with a cynical curl of his lip, “Poor business,” and he continued, whittling at his plaster cast.
I felt interested in the man. His cordial manners prompted me to fall on his neck, but I restrained myself. Then I took up the examination.
“You’re not a native. You have a foreign air about you, you have,” I shouted.
“You’re right.”
“Where do you hail from?”
“Been living with the Osage Indians for the last twelve years.”
I thought as much. He was all Indian, and I concluded to avoid him, but he did not intend to drop the subject so easily.
“Do you see that Osage relic?” pointing to an Indian blanket hanging on a hook against the wall. “That’s one of the things I brought back with me. I’m a man with a history. I can give you some points about a country that is a country.”
He again lapsed into silence. On the invitation to procure points, I determined to interview him.
“What were you doing among the Indians? Hunting?” I asked.
“No.”
“A trader?”
“No.”
“A dentist?”
“No.”
“What then?”
“None of your damn business!”
I felt disconcerted. Evidently, the man was a gentleman,—he objected to being interviewed. The tack looked like a bad one; clouds a little too electric for fine sailing. A thin-haired woman in a calico dress and rough shoes, with a care-wornexpression on her pale face, was sitting at one end of the porch. She now spoke, in a voice inaudible to the unapproachable:
“Don’t pay any attention to him. He’s been drinkin’. Hit allers makes him ugly.”
“Who is he?” I whispered.
“My husband. We’ve been married a year; soon arter he cum from the West.”
And then she sighed and looked out across the rickety fence, the roaring waters of the Broad river, the brown mill and the few houses by it, and then at the stony-faced mountains beyond. I sighed in sympathy.
A bare-footed black girl stuck her head out of the door and announced that dinner was ready. Being tired and hungry, I was not backward in answering this notice, and moved into the dining-room. On my plate, after helping myself from everything on the table, were a chunk of fat pork, a piece of doughy, hot, wheat bread, and some boiled green beans. A tin cup of butter-milk was beside the mess to wash it down. Let me say right here that this was an exceptional meal! I have been on many tramps and rides through the Carolina mountains, but never had I met with such a reception and such fare. They were not backward in demanding half a dollar, the usual price asked by the mountaineer for supper, lodging and breakfast for man and his horse.
The man in brown, as he mended my saddle bags after dinner, filled my ears with a recital of the mysteries of Bat cave. He represented it as the wonder of the mountains. Its gloomy depths contained chambers of marvelous dimensions, while bats, the unholy habitants of darkness, stuck to the walls and flitted in its precincts. He volunteered as a guide, and as it lay on the way to Chimney Rock hotel, I mounted and rode along with him.
By the bouldered river, before the guide’s cabin, I tied myhorse, and, by means of a foot-log, crossed to the opposite bank. It was a half-mile walk. We waded through the soft soil of several corn-fields, pitched almost perpendicular on the mountain side; climbed a number of rail fences; and after a steep ascent over tree-trunks and rocks, we arrived at the mouth of the cave. An air as cold as a winter lake breeze came from the darkness. It chilled us through and through. We went in without torches. There were rifts in the apex of the roof, high above, through which sunlight poured, dimly lighting up the whole interior. It failed most miserably to meet my expectations.
“Where are your bats, Dotson?” I asked.
“Hit’s cu’rous; I don’t see nary one.”
Dotson shaded his eyes, as he spoke, and peered down into a well-like hole, that broke away from our feet, and whose opposite wall, rock-piled in front, ascended straight upward till the sides closed.
“Nor do I,” I returned; “where are they?”
“Hit ’pears they aint ’ere. I ’low they been skeered out,” he drawled, rubbing his cheek.
That was all the satisfaction I obtained in regard to bats. A little curiosity is connected with the cave, from the fact that it is in granite rocks. At some convulsion of the mountain’s crust, the walls of granite were rent asunder, and then their tops, meeting again, left an opening between them. The air in it is cold and dry, for there is no water dripping in its interior. There is another smaller, but deeper, cave near the one just described. Torches are needed and one must crawl to enter it. The rocks around it are also granite.
I was on my horse again. The scenery for the next two miles is of a sublime description. The stone portals of a collossal gateway rise against the sky. The large mountain on the north is the Round Top. It presents a red cracked-stone front,and resembles the venerable ruins of a massive building, once swept by fire. Opposite to it is a line of Titanic stone cliffs—the front of Chimney Rock mountain. A luxuriant forest grows half way up its precipitous slope to the foot of the cliffs of bare rock, in height over 1,000 feet. A silver thread of water can be seen springing from the top-most edge, and falling down the bare face. It is the highest water-fall in the mountain system. The eastern end of the mountain projects its top forward, an abrupt headland. Its summit is covered with trees. From the glimpses caught of it along the shaded river, one might liken it to the bare forehead of some Cæsar, with laurel crown, overlooking the distant lands of Rutherford county.
Around the traveler, as he rides, are beautiful wood-land landscapes. A river, dammed with brown boulders, flows by the roadside. Where its channel narrows, it runs deep and smooth under the birches, oaks and pines; then at the shallows, among the rocks, it becomes a foaming torrent. The road is on a stone causeway, high above the crooked stream. Between the over-arching trees, glimpses of level road, yellow and dusty, can be seen at times. In the center of the valley, that widens out from the foot of the stone-fronted mountains, is a comfortable farm-house, enlarged for summer boarders, and kept by General G. W. Logan. It is the central point to view this scenic region of the mountains. It is reached by good roads from Rutherfordton, seventeen miles; Hendersonville, nineteen miles; Asheville, twenty-three miles; and Shelby, the terminus of the Carolina Central railroad, forty miles distant.
One mile from the hotel are the Pools. The stream is known as Pool creek. It seeks its level down a steep ravine, clothed principally with pines and oaks. Over three ledges of brown rock, whose edges still remain abrupt, the crystal waters of the stream plunge in quick succession, in as many thundering cascades. Where the cascades fall are basins, or pot-holes,formed perfectly round by the whirling of the waters. They are from ten to fifteen feet in diameter and of fabulous depth. The lower one is the largest, and has been sounded (as any one in the neighborhood, with straight face, will tell you) to the depth of 200 feet without striking bottom. Fifteen feet of the stock end of a giant pine projects out of it. The beauty and wildness of the spot could not be enhanced by a knowledge, even if true, that a depth of more than 200 feet of water lay in the lower pool.
On the edge of the ford of the river, our party halted to witness a sunset. It was an admirable point for observation. Before us spread a level, yellow field, forming the bottom of a beautiful, little valley. High mountains bound this vale on north and south, while directly in front of us, like companion sentinels, guarding the western gateway down which the sun was to march, stand Round Top and Chimney Rock mountains. Behind Chimney Rock, trending toward the west, arise in close succession, a number of mountains with distinct, broken summits,—a long palisade, fencing the gap in whose depths rushes the Broad river. In the center of the west, stands Bear Wallow mountain, the last visible knob of Hickory Nut gap. The sun was sinking behind the white cumuli that capped this mountain. Streamers of golden light, like the spokes of a celestial chariot, whose hub was the hidden sun, barred the western sky. The clouds shone with edges of beaten gold. Their centers, with every minute, changed to all hues imaginable. The fronts of the sentinel mountains were somber in the shadows, while the gap was radiant with the light pouring through it, and every pine on the top of the palisade stood black against the glowing sky.
It was dusk a few minutes after, but the roar of the river continued; the scents of summer filled the air; the trees bowed in luxuriant greenness over the road; the chirping of insects mademusical the valley; the mountains rose gloomy and magnificent in the twilight.
The famous Bald mountain forms the north wall of the valley. Its sterile face is distinctly visible from the hotel porch. 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 valleys, shook windows to pieces in their sashes, and even startled the quiet inhabitants of Rutherfordton, 17 miles away. Since then rumblings have occasionally been heard, and some people say they have seen smoke rising in the atmosphere. 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 upheaval of the mountain.
The region of the gap is famous for sensational stories. In 1811, when known as Chimney Rock pass, a superstitious tale of a spectre cavalry fight, occurring here, was widely published in the newspapers of the day. The alleged witnesses of the spectacle were an old man and his wife living in the gap before Chimney Rock fall. So much interest was created in Rutherfordton by its recital, that a public meeting was held and a delegation, headed by Generals Miller and Walton, with a magistrate and clerk, visited the old couple and took their affidavits, to this effect: For several evenings, while shadowsfilled the pass and sunlight still lingered on the mountain summits, they had seen, from their doorway, two bodies of cavalry advance toward each other across the sky. They heard the charge sounded, and saw them meet in conflict, with flashing swords, groans, shouts of victory, and then disappear. Three more settlers testified as witnesses of the same vision. They were all believed trustworthy, but evidently deluded by some natural phenomenon. Giving credence to the tale, explanations were advanced, but none are satisfactory.
It is a half-day’s ride of unmarked interest from the bank of Broad river across the Bald mountains to the Catawba. The road is an old mail route to Marion, McDowell county. The air was hot and sultry in the middle of the day, when, after crossing the Bald mountains, I traveled over the foot-hills through woods of scrubby oaks and pines. The road was white, dry, and dusty. The branches of the impoverished trees, hanging with a melancholy droop, seemed panting with heat, and craving the presence of a breeze. Hawks circled overhead, and on a rail fence, visible at one break in the forest, a line of crows was roosting, with their glossy black plumage reflecting the sunlight. Their cawing heightened the effect of the scene. A ride alone through such scenery, and under such influences, tells upon one’s strength and spirits. After winding through a beautiful valley, and a moment later fording the Mill fork of Catawba river, I found myself in the little village of Old Fort. Its houses line a wide street, running parallel with the Western North Carolina railroad, and range along several short cross streets. A wooded hill rises back of it. During the Revolutionary war, and after, a fort with a strong stockade, enclosing a spring, stood on the bank of the stream. There were no battles fought here, but many depredations by Cherokees occurred, in which several people were killed in the vicinity. It is from this fort that the town takes its name.
About an hour before sunset, on that August day, I left Old Fort, by way of a well-traveled road, for Pleasant Gardens. There is many a level stretch for a gallop along this road, and I improved the opportunities afforded for a rapid push on my journey. Through the country I went, with the fields on my right, and the woods of the hills on my left; past large, pleasant-looking farm houses in the midst of ancestral orchards and wide-spreading farm lands. The streams are clear, but slow and smooth-flowing. The number of persimmon trees and hollies along the roadside mark a difference between the woods of this section and those of the higher counties.
It was after one of my easy gallops, that, bursting from a twilight wood, I beheld lying before me a valley scene of striking beauty. A broad and level tract of farming land, covered with meadows, corn and pea-fields, stretched away from the forested skirts of the hill-sides. From my point of observation not a house dotting the expanse could be seen, and not even the sound of running water (a marked feature of the higher valleys) disturbed the evening stillness. A cool pleasant breeze was stirring, but it scarcely rustled the leaves overhead. The dark outlines of Mackey’s mountains filled the foreground, making a broken horizon for the blue sky. On the right lay low hills. On the left the summits of a lofty line of peaks, behind which the sun was sinking, were crowned with clouds of flame, while the scattered cat-tails held all the tints and lustre of mother of pearl. That night I stopped in Pleasant Gardens, one of the richest and most beautiful valleys to be found in any land. It is miles in extent. John S. Brown was my hospitable and entertaining host. The large, frame house and surroundings vividly reminded me of my native state. Everything showed evidence of thrift and neatness, and withal a certain ancestral air, one that only appears with age, overhung the approach to, and portals of, the mansion. It was built a centuryago, but many additions and repairs have been made since the original log-raising. Osage-orange hedges line the path to it under the cluster of noble trees. On the left as you approach, only a few feet from the house’s foundations, flows Buck creek with swift, clear waters: a trout stream in a day before civilization had cleared its banks.
Under a clouded sky I mounted my horse on the third morning of my journey, and set out from Pleasant Gardens. The fording of a stream is of so frequent occurrence in a trip through the Carolina mountains, that one is apt to have a confused recollection of any one river or creek that he crosses, although few are devoid of beauty or wildness. Those of the Catawba, as it flows through McDowell county, have lost the characteristics of the mountain ford. Boulders and out-cropping ledges of rock are absent; the rush and roar of crystal waters have given place to a smooth and less transparent flow, or noiseless, dimpled surface; the banks are of crumbling soil, and, instead of rhododendrons and pines, alders and willows fringe the waters’ edges.
The great valleys of the Catawba are covered principally with unfenced fields of corn. The road leads through rustling acres, where one’s horse, guided with slack rein by absent-minded rider, can, as he walks along, break a green ear of corn from the standing stalk, without stretching his neck over a fence. To prevent cattle from running at large through these thickly-planted lands, gates are swung across the roads at the division fence of each plantation, and from necessity, the traveler must open them to ride through; and then, from moral obligation, he must shut them behind him. The farm-houses are home-like in appearance. They denote prosperity, happiness and culture in the families inhabiting them. Many are of antique architecture, and set back on level lawns, under ornamental trees and flourishing orchards.
Toward the middle of the morning, the sharp outlines of the Linville mountains showed themselves in the east, and after an abrupt turn from the Bakersville road, I struck the North fork of the Catawba, and rode twelve miles along its picturesque course. Its waters have a peculiar, clear, green hue, and speak of speckled trout in their depths and shaded rapids. Without a guide, I could have followed up the North fork, under the shadows of Humpback mountain, and, by a trail, have crossed the ridge to the Linville falls; but by this route the wild scenery of the Linville cañon is lost. Bryson Magee was my guide to the Burke county road along the summit of Bynum’s bluff. Just after a slight shower, he overtook me as he was returning from a day’s work for a North Fork farmer. He had an open, tanned countenance, fringed by a brown beard, and capped by a head of long hair, hidden under the typical mountain hat—a black, slouch felt, with a hole for ventilation in the center of the crown and minus the band. An unbleached, linen shirt, crossed by “galluses” which held his homespun pantaloons in place, covered his body. He wore shoes and walked leisurely.
“Is there anyone on this road who can guide me up Bynum’s bluff?” I asked him, after returning his “howdy.”
“Why, some niggers live nigh hyar who could do hit, but they’re all at work two mile below.”
“Any one else I could get?”
“Not a soul, except—”
“Who?” I asked.
“Wal, stranger—I reckon you’s a furriner—I kin do hit, but I’m powerful tired: worked all day.”
When we arrived at his log cabin, he had definitely determined to go. It was then four o’clock, and clouds were driving thick and dark across the sky. We tied the saddle-bags to the saddle, and then began the ascent. Bryson led my horse; I walked on behind.
Before we had proceeded 100 yards, a light rain began falling. This did not deter us, for Bryson, like all the denizens of the coves, was callous to dampness, heat, and cold, and as for myself, a rubber coat came in play. The flinty ground was set with whortleberry bushes—a true indicator of sterility. These berries were ripe, and we gathered them, as we tramped along the trail, while the clouds grew heavier around us, and the rain swept in blinding sheets through the scrubby forest. There was no thunder to add variety to the storm, only the moan of the wind, and the sound of tree tops swaying in the gusts. The water poured in streams from my hat, and my legs, to the knees, were soaked from contact with wet bushes; but gradually it cleared over-head, and when we reached the main road, on the summit of the ridge, the clouds had parted, and through their rifts the sun, still an hour high, poured a burning glory over the dripping forests.
Looking southward in the direction the guide pointed, a mighty, rock-topped mountain, lifting itself into the sunlight above the fog, was visible. It appeared like a stone wall rising from the ocean. Squared off in sharp outlines, without trees or lesser visible vegetation on its level summit, it presents a striking contrast to the other peaks of the Alleghanies south. It is the Table Rock mountain, 3,918 feet in altitude. Hawk-bill, a peak named from its top being crowned with a tilted ledge of moss-mantled rock, resembling the beak of a hawk, stood before me as I turned toward the left. Its altitude is 4,090 feet. Both these peaks are accessible for climbers, and are much visited by tourists curious to examine the character of their rock formation.
“We jist hit it,” broke forth the guide, “a minute more an’ we wouldn’t seen ’em. See, the fog’s crawlin’ up, slow but shore.”
It was as he had said. The massed vapors in the low sunkvales were being driven upward, and a moment later they had enfolded Table Rock and Hawk-bill, and were creeping through the woods around us. I now handed him fifty cents, the price for a day’s common labor through that section, and, shaking hands, we separated. It was five miles to the nearest house, and lacked only one hour of sunset. Three miles had been passed over, when a sound, as of some distant waterfall, struck on my ears. It was a soft, steady, liquid murmur. Halting my horse, I sat in the saddle and listened, then dismounted, tied, and walking through the weeds a few steps, reached some broken rocks at the edge of a precipice. Clinging to a tree, I leaned over and looked below through perpendicular space over 1,000 feet. I shouted from the sensations created by the wonderful wildness of the scene.
At first sight down into a cañon, that seemed almost fathomless, I saw an inky, black band stretched through the depths, with surface streaked with silver. It was the Linville river, but distance rendered its waters motionless to the vision. A thin mist lent an indescribable weirdness to the scene, and seemed veiling some mighty mystery in its folds. “Wrapping the tall pines, dwindled as to shrubs in dizziness of distance,” it was being shaken from its foothold by varying breezes, broken into separate sheets of vapor, and pushed upward along the perpendicular walls. It curled and twisted weirdly through the tangled pines, filling black rents in the opposite mountain’s face, shielding a ragged, red cliff here and there, but at every movement mounting toward the cañon’s rim. Soon the profile faces on the upper cliffs jutted out in clear air; the brick-like fronts of rock, in pine settings across the chasm became plainly visible; the lower forests stood free; the dark river, sweeping in an acute angle, within stone drop below, tossed upward its eternal echo; the mists had clustered in thick clouds on thesummit of an unknown peak, and then all grew dusky with the approach of night.
A scene is sublime, according to its power to awaken the sense of fear; the more startling, the more sublime. The view of Linville cañon from the Bynum’s Bluff road possesses, in the writer’s opinion, more of the elements of sublimity than any other landscape in North Carolina. The region of the Linville is one of scenery grandly wild and picturesque. The only region that approaches it in wildness and sublimity—being somewhat similar in the perpendicularity of its mountains and the clearness of its stream, but contrasting by the fertility of its soil and luxuriance of its forests—is the Nantihala River valley.
The Linville range is a spur of the Blue Ridge, separated from the latter by the North Fork valley. It trends south, and for a distance is the dividing line between Burke and McDowell. Its highest altitude is about 4,000 feet. Jonas’ Ridge runs parallel with it on the east, and between them, through a narrow gorge, over 1,000 feet deep, flows Linville river. The rocks of these mountains are sandstones and quartzites. The soil is scanty and sterile, and the forests scrubby. The falls are distant from Marion on the Western North Carolina railroad, about twenty-five miles, and reached as the writer has described. From Morgantown, on the same railroad, they can be reached by a day’s ride in conveyance over the highway on the summit of the mountains. Hickory is also a point from which to start, and one frequently taken by tourists.
That night I dried my clothes at T. C. Franklin’s fireside, one mile from the falls of the Linville. Around the crackling logs (this was in August) was a small party, such as is often collected at mountain wayside farm-houses. Steaming their clothes with me at the broad hearth, were two Philadelphia lawyers. A few days previous, closing their musty tomes, filing away their legal documents, and reconciling importunateclients with fair promises, they had locked their doors to silence, dust and cobwebs, and started southward. In Virginia they each bought a horse, and equipped like myself, they were doing the mountains. It was not only their first visit to Western North Carolina, but their first trial in that mode of traveling; and, like all innocents abroad, they had gathered some interesting matters from personal experience. While the good-wife rattled away at the plates on a table just cleared by us of everything in the shape of food, in spite of the steady patter of rain on the roof, warmed by the glowing fire, and growing enthusiastic over mutual praise of the mountain scenery, we drifted into the following conversation:
“That view from the Roan eclipses everything I have ever seen in the White, Green, Catskill and Virginia mountains; but I would not ascend it again for all the views from Maine to Florida, if I had the same experience to pass through,” said one, whose black hair, eyes, beard and dark complexion gave him a brigand appearance.
“No,” returned his pleasant, fair-faced companion, “You know the peril of your being abroad nights. Some one else, less timid, might actually shoot you.”
“Were you in danger of being shot?” I asked.
“Yes; shot for a highwayman,” answered he of the open countenance, and then he laughed.
“How so?”
“Oh! Hal’s joking about the shooting business. I was taken for a robber; that’s a fact; but what I mean by an unpleasant experience was our being lost on the Roan.”
“I intend to ascend the Roan. Is the way hard to find?” I spoke to the dark-visaged man.
“It is from the Tennessee side. We took that route, with explicit directions how to reach the hotel on the summit. It was only fifteen miles distant from our stopping-place, but itrained, and a dark morning gave us a late start. From Cranberry to the foot of the Roan we pursued a trail way, and a tangled pursuit it was. At the base of the mountain we wound ourselves up in a net-work of log roads that, cut by the lumbermen, branched out in every direction, crossing and recrossing each other in the great woods. Extricating ourselves from this, we climbed the mountain, arriving on the ridge about sunset. Just before gaining the ridge, we met a party of four tourists on foot, whom we saluted and left behind. A painted gate led us astray, and we followed the ridge leading to the Little Roan. We retraced our steps in the rain and darkness, and took shelter near the delusive gate in an empty but comfortable cabin, erected evidently for lost wayfarers. I went out after we had started a fire, and found the party of four men seated on a log in the rain at some distance from the cabin. I invited them to return with me, but they declined. I said nothing more, considering themnon compos mentis.”
“A singular party. Did you discover any reason for their refusal?”
“Yes,” began the one addressed as Hal, “Mat’s face, dress, and figure frightened them; and, as they told the landlord in the morning, in spite of their being well armed, they preferred an all night’s roost in the rain to falling into the clutches of a highwayman.”
“Well, that’s so” said Mat, nodding his head and smiling; “However, we were lucky in finding the cabin before they did. Had they got there first, they would have barred the door against us, and, perhaps, warned us away with a few pistol shots.”
Our social ring was at this point broken up by a party who seemed too much preoccupied with themselves to join us, and so we separated for the night. The party in question consisted of two newly married couples. The knots had been tied inMorganton, a few days previous, and they were then on their bridal tour. They drove up in the rain, unharnessed and tied their horses under the dripping trees (for the stable was full), and came in upon us.
On the next morning, under a clear sky, I wound my way on foot under the limbs of kalmia and rhododendrons to the Linville falls. It is a wild approach. Over the hedges tower ancient hemlocks with mossed trunks. The blue-jay screamed through the forest, and around the boles of the trees and along the branches, squirrels, known as mountain boomers, chased each other, halting in their scampers to look down on the disturber of the solitude. Once, a brilliant-breasted pheasant, roused by my footsteps, from a bed of fern-crested rocks, sprung in air close before me, and with a startled whirr, sailed up a shaded ravine. A sportsman, with a shot-gun, could easily have winged the bird in its flight, thereby securing a valuable trophy for the taxidermist. The cock pheasant of the mountains has not a shabby feather on his body: They are found in many sections of the mountains, but not in great numbers. The hollow drum-like sound caused by beating their wings against their bodies, is in most instances their death tattoo. At its sound from the neighboring cove, the hunter takes down his rifle, creeps near the favorite log, and generally makes a dead shot.
An old mountaineer, famous as a narrator of bear and fish stories, was particularly fond of telling one relating to pheasant shooting. One autumn day, having already marked the forest locality from which the drum of a pheasant resounded every morning, he crept near with his rifle. The bird had just jumped in place and was drumming within his sight. He took deliberate aim and fired. On running to the log he discovered a red fox struggling in his death throes on the opposite side of the log, and in his mouth a dead pheasant. Reynard, as themountaineer explained, marking the frequented log, had secreted himself close beside it, and, while the mountaineer was aiming, was preparing to seize the bird, and did so at the moment the trigger was pulled.
The heavy thunder of the falls swept through the forest, increasing as I advanced. The path diverged at one point, and, taking the right hand trail, by means of the roots of the laurel, I descended a cliff’s face in cool, dismal shade. At the bottom, I came out on a black ledge of rock, close to the river. A stupendous fall was before; stern walls of a rocky cañon, 100 feet high, around me, and a blue sky smiling above. I climbed a stair-way of moist rocks, and walked along the path on the cliff’s front to a point directly before the fall’s face. The great volume of the Linville river, formed from drainage for fifteen miles back to the water-shed of the Blue Ridge, here at the gap between Jonas’ Ridge and the Linville mountains, has cut asunder a massive wall, leaving high perpendicular cliffs towering over its surface, and then, with a tremendous leap, pours its current down through space, fifty feet, into the bottom of the cañon. It seems to burst from a dark cavern in the mountain’s center. A pool, sixty feet across, looking like the surface of a lake with dark waves white-capped, spreads in a circle at the base of the cliffs. After recovering from the dizziness of its plunge, the river, leaving the piny walls on either side, rushes along in view for a short distance, and then disappears around the corner of a green promontory.
If one, in retracing one’s steps, takes the left hand trail at the point of divergence, and follows it to the edge of the cliffs, a magnificent downward view will be obtained, both of the foot of the cataract, and above, where its waters race in serpentine course, increased in velocity by the plunges over smaller falls only a few yards up the gorge.
A wilder solitude, a more picturesque confusion of crags,waters, woods, and mountain heights, can scarcely be found. But even here, man once fitted for himself a dwelling-place; for plainly visible across the tops of the trees, was a little cabin on a small, sloping clearing. No smoke curled upward from its weather-worn roof; its doors had been torn away and chimney leveled. A few cows pastured before it.
After dinner I left Franklin’s to ride over a good road up the Linville river. The afternoon passed without any occurrences or scenes of marked interest, and the sun was slowly sinking toward a mountain-rimmed horizon when, making a last inquiry in regard to my route, I entered a wilderness, unbroken by human habitation for nearly five miles. It was a great, green-lined way. Linns, birches, and hemlocks met over-head, rendering dark the shadows. Under this forest, grow in richest luxuriance dark hedges of rhododendron, too dense for easy penetration, and reaching up to the lower branches of the trees. It was late in season for their flowers, still many of them were white and purple with bloom. So deep and luxuriant was the foliage of the forest and its undergrowth, and so cold the waters of the stream that crossed and recrossed or occupied the road-bed itself, that the air was chilly at the hour in which I rode, and must be so even at noon-day.
The shade continued to deepen, and the chilliness of the air increased; still, in spite of the apparent great distance I had covered, no house presented itself, and in only one place did the branches of the trees separate themselves sufficiently to see out. Then, far beyond, I saw the black summit of the Grandfather. That was all. The waters of the stream are of a rich, Rhine-wine color. At one point that day, I noticed, attached to a fence above the stream, a board bearing the words, “No fishing allowed on this land.” This is the only posted warning against angling that I have seen, or know of, in the mountains.
In that twilight hour the stream seemed to sing a dolefulrefrain over the smooth boulders and gnarled ivy roots. An owl hooted from its hidden perch in a mossed pine; and a scared rabbit, interrupted in its evening meal on an apple dropped by some lonely wayfarer, fled across the road, and disappeared in the gloom of the thickets. A more dismal woodland for a twilight ride could not well be imagined in the possibilities of nature. It would naturally be more dismal to the unfamiliar traveler, tired with a long day’s ride, and despairing of reaching a farm-house before the approach of a cloudy night.
Suddenly the forest on one side opened, and a clearing of dead, girdled trees, with brush fires blazing here and there among the white, standing trunks, lay before me. Further on was a meadow and a small house, from whose chimney a wreath of smoke was ascending straight to the zenith. Over the house and farm loomed the rock-crowned summit of the Peak of the Blue Ridge. An unshapely ledge cropped from the mountain’s top.
I was now on the summit of one of the gaps of the Blue Ridge, at an elevation of 4,100 feet. On one side down a gradual descent through the wilderness described, flow the waters of the Linville on the way to the Atlantic; on the other, close on the dividing line, wells up the spring forming the Watauga, whose waters mingle with the Mississippi. A short mile below this point, down the Watauga side, is Calloway’s, at the foot of the Grandfather, as the sign-board directly before the gate will tell the man who stops to read it. In the dusk, I dismounted here, tossed my horse’s bridle to a barefooted boy, and then lugged my saddle-bags to the porch before the unpainted front of a new addition on an old house. I was well received and seated.
Beside the road, before the house, was presented that evening a scene that merits description. It was the camp of a family who, having abandoned one home, was seeking another. Anopen fire blazed on the ground. Its light shone on a white covered, rickety wagon, at whose rear end were feeding, out of a box strapped there, a mule and a horse. The mule was all ears; the horse all ribs, backbone, and neck, plainly appearing through a drum-tight hide. Around the fire was a squalid group consisting of a man, woman, and four small boys. The man and boys were barefooted, and wore nothing but hats, breeches, and shirts. The woman had on a tattered gown, and had her pinched features concealed within a dark bonnet. At that moment they were drinking coffee in turns from a single tin cup, and eating corn bread. The pinched features, straggling hair, and sallow, almost beardless face of the man, made his a visage of stolid apathy. At intervals, a gust, sweeping down the narrow valley, would lay low the flames and whirl the smoke in a circle, enveloping the group, and awakening a loud coughing from the woman. My supper was not ready until after I had seen the last one of the family crawl after the others into the wagon for the night.
The next morning I went out to talk with them as they ate breakfast.
“Where are you from?” I asked.
“Tenesy,” answered the man, giving the accent on the first syllable, a pronunciation peculiar to the uneducated natives.
“How do you come to be here?”
“Movin’. Got ejected in Tenesy, an’ we’re now huntin’ a new place.”
“Where?”
“Dunno. We reckon on squattin’ somewhar in the Blue Ridge.”
“Will you buy or rent the property?”
“Buy?” answered he, with an expression of astonishment on his face; “What do you reckon I’d buy with, stranger? I ain’t got a copper, an’ thet mule, hoss, wagin, an’ hay an’ cornin hit, an’ them harnesses, could’nt be swapped fer much land, I reckon. All I’ve got? Yes, ’cept the ole woman an’ them boys. I’ll jist put up a cabin somewhars in the woods, plant a crap, an’ stick thar till they done driv me out.”
After this reply, he leaned forward and poured out another cup of coffee for himself and family, as I slowly turned and walked away. No more poverty-stricken families can be found than some of these occasionally seen moving through the mountains. This one had property in a team and wagon, but I have met them traveling on foot and carrying their sole possessions.
A family of the latter description I came across near the Ocona Lufta in Swain county. It was a warm May day, and the road was dry and dusty. I was on foot with a companion from the Richland valley. On descending a short hill to a small stream gliding out from under a clump of wayside willows, we met the party. There were eight of them, as destitute, ragged, forlorn, and withal as healthy a family as I ever saw. The father and husband was fully 70 years of age. His long gray hair, although unkempt; his wrinkled face, and mild blue eyes, had something in all to arouse reverence and pity in the most thoughtless of mankind. He was dressed in an unbleached muslin shirt, much the worse for wear; a pair of pantaloons so completely covered with patches that it would have taken an artisan tailor to distinguish the original ground-work; a pair of cloth suspenders, and a battered hat. He was bare-footed, and carried on his shoulders half a bushel of corn. The wife and mother was much younger. Her face was stolid enough to be utterly indifferent to their condition. She had on the least possible quantity of clothes to cover her form, and a calico bonnet on her head. Under her arm was a bundle of spring onions, probably gathered from some convenient yard near which they had encamped in true gypsy fashion. The eldest daughter, agrown woman, was no better attired than her Mother. She had in her possession a roll of tattered blankets. The five remaining, frowzy children, barefooted and ragged like their sire, had in their respective keepings, a coffee-pot, two or three gourds and an iron kettle. This was the whole family with a full inventory of their worldly possessions. They said that they were moving back to Tennessee; that they had been burnt out; that the head of the family could not earn more than 20 cents per day; that it was “split the Smoky mountings or bust.” We were under the impression that the 20 cents per day included the board for the family. We gave them some small change and tobacco and then separated.
The Grandfather mountain, in the extreme southern corner of Watauga county, is the highest point of the Blue Ridge. The elevation is 5,897 feet, and being 35 miles in an air-line distant from the loftier summits of the Black mountains, and fifteen miles from the Roan, over-topping as it does all the nearer peaks by an altitude of nearly 1,000 feet, it commands an almost limitless view of mountain country. It merits the name of Grandfather, for its rocks are of the Archæan age, and the oldest out-croppings on the globe. Two other reasons for its name are ascribed; one from the profile of a man’s face seen from the Watauga river; the other from the resemblance of the rhododendrons, when clad in ice and snow, to the white, flowing beard of a patriarch.
Differing from all the mountains of the South, dense labyrinths of rhododendrons and pines begin at its base. The traveler enters their shadows by the road-side, and for two and a half miles, the distance from Calloway’s to the summit, they are continually with him. Although the first two miles are often accomplished on horseback, it is too steep for easy riding. The path winds like the trail of a serpent, brushing by the bases of low, vine-draped cliffs, around yellow hemlocks, anddisappearing in the rocky channel of a torrent, or into hedges of rhododendrons.
On the morning that I made the ascent, I was impressed with the noticeable absence of birds. Not a note from a feathered songster resounded through the forest. No life was visible or audible, except occasionally on the cliffs, quick-eyed lizards, of the color of the rocks, appeared and then disappeared in the mossed crevices of the stone.
One-half mile from the summit, under a tall, dark cliff whose cold face seems never to have been kissed by sunlight, bubbles a large spring. Its water is of a temperature less than eight degrees above the freezing point. This, as far as is known, is the coldest spring south of New York state. Here the steepest part of the ascent begins. At intervals old logs are piled across the narrow trail, and in places rocks have set themselves on edge. Grasses grow rankly with weeds and ferns. These, covered with the moisture of the clouds that had dropped with the night about the forehead of the Grandfather, and only lifted with daylight, wet the person pushing through them as thoroughly as if he had fallen in the torrent.
The summit of the mountain is a narrow, ragged ridge, covered with balsams. If these trees were cleared from the central pinnacle, a sweeping view toward every point of the compass could be obtained, without change of position. As it is, they obstruct the vision, and to see out on every side it is necessary to move to three points, all close together, known as the Watauga, Caldwell, and Burke views.
Let the reader imagine himself stationed at one of these views. Mantling the steep declivities are the wildernesses of black balsams. A cool breeze swings and beats their branches together. The sun rides in an atmosphere so clear that there seems no limit to vision. A precipice breaks away from your feet, but you do not notice where it ends; for at the attempteddownward look, the mountains below, like the billows of a stormy ocean stilled in their rolling by some mighty hand, crowd upon the vision. They have all the colors of the ocean, wave beyond wave, surge beyond surge, till they blend in with the sky, or hide their most distant outlines in the cumuli bounding the horizon. You fancy hearing the sound of breakers, and look directly below as though seeking for the reason of no roar arising from the waves lying at the base of the headland. Then the dream of the sea vanishes. There lie the forests, dwarfed but real, dark green, covering the unsightly rocks and ending at brown clearings, in whose centers appear farm-houses, the almost invisible fences running wild over the hills, the yellow road revealed at intervals, and the silver threads of streams.
It was on a beautiful Sunday morning that I left Calloway’s and rode down the western slope of the Blue Ridge. A quiet, seemingly more hallowed than that of other days, was brooding over the valley through which, beside the Watauga, the road descended. The fields and meadows were vacant; and the mountaineers, observant of the Sabbath, were all within their homely dwellings, or assembled at the meeting-house of the neighborhood. This place of prayer is a plain, unpainted, frame building, enclosed by a rail fence, beside the road. Just before reaching it your horse must splash through a roaring, crystal ford of the Watauga. When I passed it that morning, services had already begun, and the sounds of a hymn, sung by all the congregation, in strong, melodious chorus, came wafted through the trees. A long line of saddled horses and mules were ranged along the fence, or tied to the rhododendron hedges on the opposite side of the road. The house seemed packed; for many of the men were standing bare-headed in the sunlight before the crowded door, and a number of young folks were gathered in groups about the yard, the latter more intent on their own conversation than on what was doing indoors.Some of them nodded to me as I passed. This manner of the mountaineers saluting every one, friend or stranger, is a pleasant one, and prevents, in the traveler, all feelings of loneliness arising from his being in a strange country.