ASHEVILLE and its vicinity was a favorite summer resort of John C. Calhoun. Probably no greater triumph of inductive reasoning could anywhere be found than the process by which that extraordinary man, merely by an examination of the map, reached the Conclusion long before the facts had been demonstrated by measurement, that in the Black Mountains near Asheville was the highest land in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. He repeatedly declared this to be the fact to Governor Swain and others before any measurement of those altitudes had been made. Finally, in 1835, and 1844, Elisha Mitchell, D.D., who had been professor of mathematics and natural philosophy in the University of North Carolina, and then held in that institution the chair of chemistry, mineralogy and geology, measured these mountains, and found one of them to be, as Calhoun had declared he would, the highest peak east of the Rocky Mountains. Dr. Mitchell was born in Washington, Litchfield County, Connecticut, August 19, 1793. After graduating in Yale College in 1815, he was elected to a chair in the North Carolina University in 1817, was married in 1819, ordained by Orange Presbytery in 1821, made professor of chemistry, mineralogy and geology at the University in 1825, became Doctor Divinity in 1840, and died June 27, 1857.

A controversy arose between him and the late General T. L. Clingman as to who had first measured the highest peak. Dr. Mitchell undertook to establish his claim, and was proceeding through these mountains to Big Tom Wilson's in order to get up evidence for this purpose, when, being overtaken by night, he fell over a declivity and was drowned at what was afterwards called Mitchell's Fall on Cat Tail Creek of Cane River in Yancey County, near the scene of his greatest achievement. For days his disappearance could not be accounted for, and numerous parties from all directions flocked to the mountains in search for him. At last his body was found and brought to Asheville, where it was buried in the churchyard of the Presbyterian

[In Picture] - Mitchell's Falls—Yancey County—Cat-tail Branch of Caney River—Scene of Death of Dr. Elisha Mitchell in 1857

Church on Church Street. Later it was removed and reburied on the top of the highest peak of the Black Mountains, named in his honor, Mitchell's Peak. Here a monument has in late years been erected to him.

There was no dispute as to Clingman's having measured the high peak in 185S or as to Mitchell's having measured peaks of the Black Mountain in 1844. The only question was as to whether or not Mitchell had measured the high peak in 1844. In this last mentioned year his guide had been Thomas Wilson of Yancey County, commonly called "Big Tom Wilson"; and when Mitchell lost his life he was on the way to the home of Wilson in order to secure a statement from the latter that the high peak was one of those which Mitchell had measured the altitude of in 1844. It was Wilson who led the party that discovered Mitchell's dead body. For years following this, great numbers of people visited Mitchell's Peak every summer, approaching it by way of the North Fork of Swannanoa. At the foot of the mountains near which has been for years the "intake" of the Asheville Waterworks, was built a house for the entertainment of the visitors and halfway up the mountain, five miles above that house, Mr. William Patton, of Charleston, South Carolina, built another house where such visitors might spend the night, and for some time he kept it up. Finally during the war on the South this latter house, commonly called the "Mountain House," or Half-way House," was left without any one to care for it and at last decayed and fell. Years later visitors to Mitchell's Peak began to reach it from the town of Black Mountain over the peak called Greybeard and later over a logging railroad.

Mitchell's Peak has been variously called Mitchell's Peak, Mitchell's High Peak, Clingman's Peak, Black Dome, and sometimes Mount Mitchell, although this last name has also been given to another peak of the same range a few miles away. According to the measurements of A. Guyot the high peak is 6,701 feet above sea-level at its top, but a later measurement of Professor Turner puts its altitude at 6,711 feet. T. L. Clingman made it 6,941 feet and Dr. Mitchell made it 6,708 feet high, although the latter's former measurement was 6,772 feet.

[In Picture] - Mitchell's Peak

Mitchell had been led to measure the heights of peaks in these mountains called the Black Mountain by the hope of finding here the highest land in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, because he found here a greater variety of vegetation than anywhere else and much of this vegetation towards the tops of the mountains in "the Black" was of a character that belonged only to high altitudes or far northern latitudes.

About 1873 the United States established and for some time maintained on the top of Mitchell's Peak a meteorological signal station and built there a log cabin in which the men so employed lived. Their food and other supplies were carried to them from the settlement ten miles or more below chiefly by the late Charles Glass on his back.

When about the year 1836 a railroad from Cincinnati to Charleston, which should pass through Asheville, was projected, Robert Y. Hayne, the great South Carolinian, who had vanquished Daniel Webster in debate and cowed Andrew Jackson in resolution, was made its president. At a meeting of this company, held in Asheville in 1839, Mr. Hayne, who had continued to be its president, became dangerously ill, and died here September 24, 1829.

During the war on the South, Asheville became in a small way a military centre. Confederate troops were from time to time encamped at Camp Patton, at Camp Clingman on French Broad Avenue and Philip Street, at the crossing of Flint Street and Cherry Street on the north side of Flint Street called Camp Jeter, on Battery Park hill then Battery Porter, on Beaucatcher Peak now called Beaumont, on Woodfin Street opposite the former site of the Oaks Hotel, on Montford Avenue near the residence of J. E. Rumbough, on the hill near the end of Riverside Drive north of T. S. Morrison's, and on the ridge immediately cast of the place where North Main Street last crosses Glenn's Creek, just before reaching French Broad River, once owned by the children of the late N. W. Woodnn. At this last place, on April 5, 1865, a battle was fought between the Confederate troops at Asheville and a detachment of United States troops, who came up the French Broad River. The latter was defeated and compelled to return into Tennessee. This was the battle of Asheville.

In 1869 S. C. Shelton, who had just removed from Virginia and settled in Chunn's Cove, introduced into Buncombe County the culture of tobacco, which theretofore had been raised in that region only in small patches planted by old women and negroes. Soon tobacco came to be the chief crop of the farmer and in two or three years equally so in Madison and other adjoining counties. About 1888 Asheville had six or seven large warehouses devoted, in the season for sales, to the marketing of tobacco raised in Western North Carolina, which was said to be the finest and best in the world. Packing-houses were numerous throughout the business parts of the city; but the warehouses were on the site of the present Millard Building at the corner of North Main and Walnut streets, and in the southern portion of the Swannanoa Hotel on South Main Street, and on Valley Street, and at the northwestern corner of Walnut Street and Lexington Avenue (then called Water Street), and at the southeastern corner of Patton Avenue and Bailey Street (now Asheland Avenue) where is now the street-car building. In two or three years more the business had disappeared and a very few pounds of tobacco were raised in Western North Carolina. The danger from early frosts, the labor and risk in curing, and the variations in prices, have all been assigned as reasons for this sudden change in farming, while some tobacco-buyers said that the soil no longer produced as fine a quality of the article as before.

The Confederate postoffice was in the old Buck Hotel building on North Main Street, now Langren. The Confederate commissary was on the east side of North Main Street between the Public Square and College Street. This old building was afterwards removed to Patton Avenue, whence it was removed again to give way to a brick building. The Confederate hospital stood on the grounds afterwards occupied by the Legal Building. The chief armories of the Confederate States were at Richmond, Virginia, and Fayetteville, North Carolina, but there were two smaller establishments, one at Asheville, North Carolina, and the other at Tallahassee, Alabama. (1 Davis's Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, page 480.)

The armory at Asheville was in charge of an Englishman by the name of Riley as chief machinist. It stood on the branch immediately east of where Valley Street crosses it. About a hundreds yards or a

little more north of it was the armorer's house on the same lot. Here when North Carolina was one of the Confederate States of America, the Confederate flag from a high flag pole was constantly displayed. There it floated in the breeze and rested in the sunlight, the emblem

"Of liberty born of a patriot's dream, Of a storm-cradled nation that fell."

These buildings were burned by the United States troops when they entered the town in the latter part of April, 1865.

In 1840 the charter of the City of Asheville was amended by an act of the Legislature, Chapter 58, which recites that

"The main street in Asheville is too narrow, and the laying out of one or more cross streets and the ascertaining the extent of the public square and the boundaries of the village and the encroachments upon same are demanded by the public convenience"; and appoints Philip Brittain, Thomas Foster and James Gudger as commissioners to buy land for widening the street, and making cross streets, and for other purposes. Afterwards, on January 11, 1841, the Legislature passed another amendatory statute whereby "James M. Smith, James W. Patton, N. W. Woodfin, Isaac T. Poor and James F. E. Hardy" were ''incorporated into a body politic and corporate by the name of the 'Board of Commissioners for the town of Asheville,' " with certain powers therein defined. Still later by an act ratified March 8, 1883, and entitled "An act to amend the charter of the town of Asheville," the town of Asheville ceased to exist as such, and thenceforth became "The City of Asheville."

In 1901 another act of the legislature enlarged the territorial limits of the city. Then again on March 4, 1905, another act was passed further extending the city's northern and southern borders until at the southwestern corner they reached nearly to the mouth of the Swannanoa River, and reached on the east one hundred feet east of the. mountain crest. Various small municipalities had then recently been incorporated on the northern and southern borders of the city. On the northern part had been so formed on February 28, 1889, the town of Ramoth, the name of which had been changed to Woolsey, on March 2, 1903. At the same end and further west had been thus formed on

February 17, 1893, the town of Montford. Then on the southern end had been so formed on February 27, 1891, the town of Kenilworth, and west of that had been thus formed on March 7, 1887, the town of Victoria. This act of March 4, 1905, enlarging the city's limits, took into these the territory of Woolsey and Montford and Victoria and part of the territory of Kenilworth and repealed the charter of all of these small towns except that of Kenilworth, and even the charter of Kenilworth in so far as it related to territory formerly belonging to that municipality but now transferred to the City of Asheville. On February 9, 1889, the legislature had incorporated the town of West Asheville for territory opposite Asheville and on the western side of French Broad River. This charter was repealed on March 8, 1897; but the town was reincorporated on March 6, 1913. On March 5, 1917, provision was made in an act of legislature for a consolidation of West Asheville with the City of Asheville if so approved by a vote of the two corporations at an election on the question to be held in June, 1917. The election was held at the time so appointed and resulted favorably to the consolidation and West Asheville became a part of the City of Asheville.

For many years Asheville was the only municipal corporation in Buncombe County. After a while a good number of small towns within that county were, from time to time, incorporated by special legislative enactments

On September 7, 1832, there was formed at what is now the southern end of Weaverville a campmeeting place called "Salem." Adjoining this was a church building provided for on the north on September 20, 1844. Then, on December 19, 1849, was provided a Methodist Parsonage on the east; and on June 17, 1851, a Temperance Hall and school house adjoining the church and camp ground on the west. Then a college on the north of the church and Temperance Hall lots was incorporated under the name of Weaverville College on December 15, 1873. At this place, on March 16, 1875, was formed by legislative charter the town of Weaversville, which on March 8, 1909, was made the town of Weaverville by an act of the legislature then passed. Some years before the war on the South a settlement on Newfound Creek in the northwestern part of Buncombe County was named

Leicester in honor of Mr. Leicester Chapman, a naturalized Englishman then engaged in merchandizing at the place. To the public, however, it soom became somewhat jocularly known as "Lick Skillet" and even as "The Skillet." Even yet the name of Leicester is pronounced in the neighborhood by many people just as it is spelled and not as the English pronunciation of Lester would have it. The town was incorporated on February 9, 1874, but the act of final incorporation was repealed March 2, 1905.

On March 29, 1880, the State of North Carolina sold its interest in the Western North Carolina Railroad Company to W. J. Best and his associates. At that time the railroad of that company had been extended west to the Blue Ridge vicinity but not across to where is now the town of Biltmore. When it reached that far the place was made a station and called Best. In May 3, 1888, Mr. G. W. Vander-bilt began to buy land in that neighborhood and erected on that his handsome mansion (finished in 1895) and Biltmore Estate. In his purchase he included Best, and built on its site the town of Biltmore on the southern side of Swannanoa River. That town was incorporated under the name of Biltmore on March 6, 1893. Its corporate limits were enlarged so as to cross Swannanoa River and take in some land to the north of the stream and the stream itself on March 6, 1903, and it now adjoins the City of Asheville.

To the south of Biltmore is the town of South Biltmore incorporated February 15, 1895.

Black Mountain, where for many years before the arrival of the railroad there had been a postoffice called Gray Eagle at Mr. S. Dougherty's, was incorporated March 4, 1893; and its close neighbor Montreal is the town of the ''Mountain Retreat Association," incorporated March 2, 1897.

Arden was incorporated March 13, 1895.

Alexander became a town February 21, 1905.

Swannanoa was first made a railroad station and called "Cooper's" in honor of A. D. Cooper who then owned the land; but soon the name was changed to "Swannanoa."

Hazel was incorporated February 28, 1891, and Jupiter March 12, 1895.

Buena Vista was incorporated March 4, 1891; but its charter was repealed in 1903. So, too, Inanda was incorporated in 1893 and its charter was repealed March 7, 1901.

Other places, such as Fairview, Ridgecrest, Acton, Turnpike, Sky-land, Busbee, Candler, and Barnardsville, had grown up in the county, chiefly since the railroads came.

The matter of early roads in Buncombe County has been already mentioned. The Asheville Plateau was approached through gaps in the surrounding mountains although usually the roads through these gaps were scarcely worthy of the name. Going from Asheville toward the east there was a road which passed up the French Broad River and over the mountains near Caesar's Head into what is now Greenville County of upper South Carolina; then further north the road from Asheville ran by way of the present Hendersonville through Saluda Gap and on to what is now the City of Greenville, and to Columbia in separate branches; then yet further north was what was called the Howard Gap Road which left the road to Saluda Gap at Fletchers on Cane Creek and taking to the east passed through Howard's Gap and by way of the modern Lynn to the town of Spartan-burg; then still further north the Mills Gap Road left the road to Saluda Gap at the present Busbee and ran by way of Edneyville across Mills's Gap at Point Lookout Mountain down to Green River; then another road left the Mills Gap Road before reaching Mills's Gap and running further east went through Cooper's Gap north of Mills's Gap and near Sugar Loaf Mountain; then further north still a road known as the Hickorynut Gap Road turned to the east at the present town of Biltmore and passed by the modern Fairview and through Sherrill's Gap later called Hickorynut Gap and down Broad River, and a road from Edneyville and on through Reedy Patch Gap (the lowest gap in these mountains) into the Hickorynut Gap Road at little north of Chimney Rock, and then still to the north the Swannanoa Road ran up Swannanoa River and passed through Swannanoa Gap (originally one-half mile south of the Big Tunnel place and later at that place) down Davidson's Mill Creek to the Old Fort. Going from Asheville toward the west the road ran to the Pigeon River at the site of the present town of Canton and on to Clyde, but forked with one fork

passing down Pigeon River into Tennessee and another running on west, one branch by Franklin and through Rabun's Gap into Georgia, another branch down Tuckaseigee and Little Tennessee rivers into Tennessee, and a third branch between them into the present Cherokee County. From Asheville going to the north the road ran down French Broad River, the Old Warm Spring Road often leaving the river to the west for considerable distances, but the later Buncombe Turnpike keeping near that stream's eastern or northern bank, passing opposite Warm Springs to Paint Rock; another road led northward from Asheville by way of the present Weaverville beyond which it forked, with the left fork passing over into Tennessee in the Watauga region and the right fork running to the modern town of Burnsville. Mr. S. M. Feather-stone has aided me much in locating some of the eastern gaps just mentioned.

Of these roads in early days, that between Paint Rock and Saluda Gap was most used, especially after the construction of the Buncombe Turnpike, which was for many years kept in excellent repair by squads of hands under the direction of the late Colonel Enoch H. Cunningham. All the more prosperous people of the country kept handsome carriages and a pair of fine horses whose only duty was to draw the vehicle and with a negro man who generally gave his entire time to the care of the carriage and its horses. At a very early day wealthy men from South Carolina and Georgia began to spend their summers in these mountains and came with their beautiful carriages and horses. Thus, particularly in summer but throughout the year, a traveller on one of the principal Buncombe roads, and especially on the Buncombe Turnpike, was sure to meet many handsome equipages on any portion of his journey.

Then, too, even as early as 1800, stock-raisers of Kentucky and Tennessee had begun to drive their hogs and horses and cattle in large droves through Buncombe County to the markets of South Carolina and Georgia. This species of travel greatly increased when the Buncombe Turnpike was opened. To such an extent was this increase that at the proper season of the year one passing along that road in daytime was scarcely ever out of sight and hearing of one or more of these droves. Even turkeys were driven to market in the same way, the

drivers using whips with pieces of red flannel tied to the end of the lash. At one period there passed through Asheville in these droves every year from 140,000 to 160,000 hogs in the months of November and- December. For the entertainment of these drivers and their droves taverns sprung up along the road at about every five miles and their capacities were often taxed to the utmost. The country raised the corn which, in enormous quantities, was required to meet the demands of this extensive business. This brought considerable profits to the farmers, the merchants and the innkeepers, and prosperity to the entire community. The business of driving stock continued, though in decreasing quantities, until about 1870, when it ceased. Railroads had increased everywhere and furnished the stock-raisers of Kentucky and Tennessee cheaper and quicker methods of reaching the markets with their products.