Buncombe County Commissioners and Officials

Buncombe County Commissioners and Officials

It is well established that the Spanish exploration under Hernando DeSoto in 1540 passed through Western North Carolina and through Buncombe County. For years thereafter Spaniards conducted large mining operations at various places in what is now called Western North Carolina. They made no permanent settlement there.

The English claimed the country because of the discovery of North America in 1497 by John and Sebastian Cabot. The British King Charles I, in 1631  granted to Sir Robert Heath a vast territory in which was included all North Carolina except a narrow strip along its northern border. Little or nothing resulted  from this grant. In 1663 the British monarch Charles II, made a grant to Edward Earl of Clarendon; George, Duke of Albermarle; William, Earl of Craven; John, Lord Berkley; Anthony, Lord Ashley; Sir George Carteret; Sir John Colleton; and Sir William Berkeley, know as the Lords Proprietors, conveying to them a large scope of country, in which was included all North Carolina except a narrow strip immediately south of Virginia. This same monarch in 1665 made to these Lords Proprietors a second grant by which he greatly enlarged their holdings on the south and added to them on the north so as to embrace all of North Carolina. From these two grants to the Lords Proprietors North Carolina arose. 

BUNCOMBE COUNTY'S PEDIGREE

The Lords Proprietors soon laid off their lands into counties. The "first Government or County was that of Clarendon County on the Cape Fear River so called from the Earl of that title first mentioned in the Charter." In 1729 this County of Clarendon embraced within its borders the County of Buncombe. At that time the County of New Hanover, with indefinite western limits which seem to have extended to the Pacific Ocean, then called the South Sea; was formed, and the name of Clarendon as a county disappeared. From New Hanover in 1738 was cut off the County of Bladen whose western limits were not defined. From the County of Bladen was formed in 1749 the county of Anson, and its western border was not prescribed. Here Buncombe's genealogy branches in two prongs, to be united again in her own creation. 

That portion of her original territory which was taken from Burke County is traced as follows:  In 1758 Rowan County was formed from a part of Anson County and continued in its entirety up to the Revolutionary War; but in 1777 was formed from its western extension a county called Burke from a governor of North Carolina. 

That portion of Buncombe's original territory which was taken from Rutherford County is traced as follows: In 1762 was formed from the western part of the County of Anson a county named Mecklenburg in honor of the new English Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg in 1768 from the western part of Mecklenburg was erected a county called Tryon in honor of the royal Governor Tryon of North Carolina; but in 1779, while the Revolutionary War was in progress, the name of Tryon for a county was dropped ....

... and that county was divided into two counties, one on the east called Lincoln and the other  on the west called Rutherford, in honor of General Griffith Rutherford. 

In 1792, while David Vance from the upper Reems Creek settlement was member of the legislature from Burke County, and Colonel William Davidson, who lived on the south side of Swannanoa River about one-fourth of a mile below Biltmore, was a member of the legislature from Rutherford County, the County of Buncombe was created from the western ends of Burke and Rutherford Counties and named in honor of Colonel Edward Buncombe of eastern North Carolina, who received the wound which led to his death at the Battle of Germantown while fighting on the American side in the Revolutionary War. The western and southern boundaries of Buncombe County were then made the territory which is the State of Tennessee and the States of Georgia and South Carolina as they now are. 

In 1842 was formed from the counties of Burke and Rutherford a new county by the name of McDowell; and, under an act of the legislature passed in 1925 that section of McDowell County known as Broad River Township became a part of Buncombe County. 

In the meanwhile, Buncombe County has lost most of the area of its original creation. In 1808 that  part of the original territory which lies west of its present western border became the new County of Haywood; in 1828 the western part of Macon County became the new County of Cherokee; in 1861 the southeastern corner of Cherokee County became the new County of Clay; in 1853 parts of Haywood and Macon County became the new County of Cherokee; in 1861 the southeastern corner of Cherokee County became the new County of Clay; in 1853 parts of Haywood and Macon Counties became the new County of Jackson; in 1870-1871 parts of Macon and Jackson Counties became the new County of Swain; in 1871-1872 a part of Cherokee County became the new County of Graham. In 1833 Yancey County was formed from parts of Burke and Buncombe Counties. In 1850 Madison County was formed from parts of Buncombe and Yancey Counties. In 1838 Henderson County was formed from the southern end of Buncombe County; and in 1851 another part of Buncombe County was added to Henderson County. In 1861 Transylvania County was formed from parts of Henderson and Jackson Counties. Thus eleven counties of North Carolina have for their territories lands which were embraced in the original County of Buncombe, the present Yancey County territory and that territory taken from Yancey County in making Madison County both being parts of territory taken from Buncombe County in forming Yancey County. 

COURT HOUSES

When the legislature created the County of Buncombe it appointed a committee of six members to determine the location of the County Seat, three from the country south of Swannanoa River and three from the country north of that stream.  Each set of committeemen wished to have the county-town on its side of the river. They disagreed and the next legislature substituted a new committee for the work, of the same number from each side of the river, but, in order to insure a decision, added the committee William Morrison from Burke County. The report of the committee which placed the location north of the river was signed only by the committeemen who lived north of that stream and William Morrison. The delay thus caused in locating the county-town was the reason for the County Court's meeting so long at the residence of Colonel William Davidson.

The first court house of the county was a log structure built across the head of Patton Avenue at the place where that avenue entered Main Street or the Public Square. At that court house was held the first court which met in what is now Asheville. 

The land of Samuel Chunn and Zebulon Baird on which this court house was constructed was that part of the Public Square immediately in front of the Thomas Building on the western side of the Public Square and the southern side of Patton Avenue at the corner, and the land of James Brittain and Andrew Erwin spoken of was that part of the Public Square in front of the Adhwville Library and a little to the north. In April, 1805, it was "Ordered by court (that) John Strother, John Stephenson, Samuel Murray, Senr., Joseph Henry, and Thomas Foster, Senr., be appointed commissioners for the purpose of procuring a public square, from the lot, or land holders in the town of Asheville, most convenient and interesting to the public, and least injurious to individuals, that the nature of the Case will admit of "Who are to meet the 2d Saturday of July."

On January 23, 1807, deeds were made to "the Commissioners, Samuel Murray, Enr., Thomas Foster, Jacob Byler, Thomas Love and James Brittain appointed by the General Assembly of the State aforesaid to purchase or secure by donation lands sufficient for a Public Square in the Town of Asheville, in the County and State aforesaid, as follows:

By D. Vance, for $10, part of lot 30, Rec. Book A 231.
By John Patton, for $20, part of lot 13, Rec. Book A. 233.
By Zebulon and Bedent Baird, for $60, parts of lots 13 and 40, Rec. Book A 234.
By Samuel Chunn, for $35, parts of lots 13 and 39, Rec. Book A. 237.
By Andrew Erwin (Asignee of Jeremiah Cleveland), for 1 cnet, part of lot 12, Rec. Book A, 239.
By J. Patton, Jr. for Patton and Erwin, "for the good will and respect we bear towrds the County of Buncombe, the town of Asheville aforesaid and the public in general," part of lot 14, 15, and 29, Rec. Book A, 523. 

What is said here about the Court House renders it probable that it was not the original log structure but a more commodious building. Later its place was taken by a brick house built between 1825 and 1833 in the erection of which John Woodfin, at a later time Chairman of the County Court, had control and his son, the late N.W. Woodfin, then a boy, carried mortar and bricks. This last gave way to a handsome brick building which was erected from bricks of the burned house on the part of the Public Square now occupied by the fountain, the burned building having stood where the Vance Monument is now. The contractor for building the small one-story brick house just mentioned was the late B.H. Merrimon. 

In 1876 this small one-story house was replace by a pretentious  brick house which occupied its site made of bricks burned at the eastern end of Clayton Street; and of it J.A. Tennent was the architect and H.W. Scott the contractor. Then, in 1903 the present brick courthouse was built on the southern side of College Street while M.L.Reed was chairman of the County Commissioners. Kenneth McDonald was its architect and it was placed upon land conveyed to the County on certain conditions by the late George W. Pack for a county Court House."