IN 188S occurred in Buncombe County a change in the law regulating the care of stock raised in that region. Before that time any one who chose to do so might turn out his cattle and hogs to seek food wherever they could find it. Of course, this made it necessary for farmers to protect their crops by surrounding them with fences. After a while the timber required for fences became scarce. Then, in 1885, the law was so changed that owners of livestock must prevent them from depredating on lands of other people. Fences then disappeared. For economic reasons the change was unavoidable, but the absence of fences detracted much from the beauty of farms. Before this the fences had contributed greatly to the appearance of agricultural districts, especially where such fences were of planks. This was often the case, particularly along roadsides. A farm so fenced was a great beauty in the landscape, and its roads were most attractive to the traveller.

When carriages became less numerous and stock-driving through the country had ceased, less attention was paid to roads and even the turnpike companies allowed their privileges to lapse. In 1848-1849 the State of North Carolina directed the building of the Western Turnpike from Salisbury westward to the Georgia line. In 1854-1855 Asheville was ordered to be the eastern terminus of this road. Then the road was constructed, but was never a good one. When railroads arrived all care of other roads was, for a time, abandoned. Meanwhile the streets of Asheville, from increased use by a growing population, were in such condition that, in seasons of winter or prolonged rains, they were often impassable. Paving with crushed rock, obtained from the place where the "New Reservoir" is now, was put upon some of the streets near the city's centre and toward the depot, beginning about 1884. Then other streets were paved with stone blocks. At last, in 1890, a system of paving was adopted. The first of this was on that part of South Main Street from the Public Square southward toward Southside Avenue. The material used for this work was pavingvbricks and the contractor for the work was General P. M. B.

Young, the distinguished Confederate cavalry officer. In 1896 Mr. Caney Brown was chairman of the Board of Commissioners of Buncombe County and revived the matter of road improvement. He and his successor, Mr. J. E. Rankin, did a small amount of paving with crushed rock on the road between Asheville and Biltmore; but in 1900, when Mr. M. L. Reed was chairman of that boa'rd, the county commenced systematically to pave its roads and put iron and concrete bridges over the streams where the roads crossed them.

The Western North Carolina Railroad was the first to reach Asheville. This was in 1881. Its first depot in the place was a frame building erected for the purpose where West Haywood Street crosses that railroad in the vicinity of the old Smith's Bridge place. After a year or so the present freight depot on Depot Street was built and its northern end used for a while as a passenger station-house while the remainder of the building was used for freight. Then the present passenger depot was constructed. The Asheville and Spartanburg Railroad was completed to what is now Biltmore, but then was Best, in 1886. Through the enterprise of the late Captain C. M. McLoud. the city had a telegraph line connecting it with Henry Station on the Western North Carolina Railroad (now abandoned as a station) about three miles west of Old Fort, a year before the railroad came. In 1887 the first street cars were put upon the streets of Asheville. It was an electric trolley system from the beginning and ran at first only from the Public Square to the present passenger station. Its builder, a Mr. Davidson, gave a dinner at this station when the car made its first full trip down. That trip was by way of Southside Avenue. About one year later the streets began to be lighted with electricity, chiefly through a tall tower or mast which stood on the Public Square, there having theretofore been for a short time a few gas lamps near that square. Telephones were introduced in 1886. Until about 1876 Asheville's sidewalks were exceedingly few and short and were constructed entirely of round stones which were then found in great plenty on or near the surface of the ground on Battery Park hill. Then some walks were built of thick planks running longitudinally along the street, two planks about six inches apart constituting the sidewalk. These gave way to sidewalks of flagstones and these to bricks and these to concrete.

The road which left the present Patton Avenue at or about what is now the head of Asheland Avenue ran southwestwardly entering the modern Aston Park at its northeastern corner and circling with the top of the ridge until it came to the present French Broad Avenue at about the southeastern corner of Aston Park. That portion of this road which lay about fifty feet to the south of what is now the Meri-wether Hospital was used in 1865 and 1866 for a tournament ground by the young Confederate soldiers who had just returned from the army. The first of these tournaments were ridden only with the sabre. The rider attempted to catch on his sabre a metal ring of about two inches in diameter suspended loosely from the arm of an upright post, which arm projected over the course at about half way, while the ring hung just a little above the rider's head. At one-fourth the length of the course, one on the right hand and the other on the left, stood by the side of the course two posts about as high as a horse. These posts were surmounted by large wooden balls supported on the posts by small pieces of wood six inches long and just large enough to hold the balls. The rider ran his horse at a rapid gallop along the course and sought as he passed to cut these small necks with his sabre so that the balls would fall to the ground and in the middle of the course catch the ring on the same weapon. Later the sabre and balls were abandoned and the rider attempted to catch one or more suspended rings with a long lance which he carried. At this place and at about the same time was held a barbarous "gander-pulling" in which instead of the ring was suspended a live gander with greased neck, while every rider attempted to pull off the bird's head. This brutal performance was never repeated. It is said to have been practised elsewhere in early days. (See Judge Longstreet's Georgia Scenes.) On this old field was Asheville's earliest baseball ground. Here occurred in 1866 the first game of that kind ever played in Buncombe County. Soon it supplanted the old "town-ball," of which it is a modification, and later it passed largely into the hands of professional players.

On this ground, too, which was uninclosed, were for many years conducted picnics and other popular sports and were held political speakings and other outdoor public gatherings. All these were by permission of the owners of the land or without objection from them.

In Asheville's early days the merchants of Buncombe Count) hauled their goods in four-horse or six-horse wagons from Charleston, South Carolina, and Augusta, Georgia, making annual trips and spending a month or more in the journey. The front pair of horses or mules always was adorned with jingling bells above their heads. Later when railroads came into general use these merchants made their purchases in Baltimore or New York, going in person to those markets usually every spring and every fall for the purpose. At the close ot the war on the South Asheville was sixty miles from the nearest point of every of three railroads, Morganton in North Carolina, and Greenville in South Carolina and Greeneville in Tennessee, and goods were usually hauled in wagons from the last of these. Then the railroad from Morristown to Wolf Creek in Tennessee was completed as far as Wolf Creek and the goods were so brought from that place. Then the Western North Carolina Railroad reached Marion, North Carolina, and then Old Fort and then Henry Station and from these places, respectively, while one was the nearest railroad station, Asheville's merchants brought their goods by wagon.

At first the money used in Buncombe County was of the English denominations of pounds, shillings and pence and it was for pounds and shillings that the first lots in Asheville were sold. Later occasionally Mexican dollars, or as they were usually called "Spanish milled dollars," were in common use. Then came the United States currency. As late as 1872 there were in circulation in Asheville a good many silver six-pence (six and one-fourth cents) and shilling (twelve and one-half cents) pieces. From 1830 to 1835 two men named Bechtler of Rutherfordton, North Carolina, obtained an act of Congress %vhich permitted them to coin, in private coinage, gold gathered in the piedmont portion of Western North Carolina and South Carolina and in Northern Georgia. They produced a good many coins of the denominations of one dollar, two and one-half dollars, and five dollars, the one dollars being far the most numerous. These coins contained a little more gold than their denominations called for, and were produced for many years, constituting with Mexican silver dollars the principal money of that region. Often they were counterfeited in brass; but, as the brass was less easily bent than the gold, a practice grew up of test-

ing the genuineness of a Bechtler coin by placing it in the crack of a door and bending it in order to see how easily it was to bend. For this reason most of such coins which exist have creases across them. They are now very scarce, however, and command large premiums from collectors. During the war on the South both the Treasurer of Buncombe

[In Picture]-

Bechtler Coins

County in behalf of the State and Asheville for itself issued paper money; the county in denominations of five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five and fifty cents and one dollar; and the town in the same denominations less than one dollar. But probably the greater part of the mercantile transactions up to about 1875 was by exchanging country produce for goods, or as these transactions were differently called, "barter," or the customer selling his produce and "taking it out in trade." Sometimes the merchant had two prices which he would pay for produce, giving more when the seller agreed to "take it out in trade." Asheville never had a complete market house until the present building called the City Hall was erected in 1892 ; but ever mercantile establishment, except a drug store, was a general store which sold all

[In Picture] - Asheville Confederate Currency

kinds of goods and bought all kinds of country produce, although for a short time before that market-house was built there was in the city a sort of market-house.

Asheville's first burying-ground was at the southeast corner of Eagle Street and Market Street, but later on this was changed to a burying-ground on the east side of the present Church Street between the Presbyterian Church and Aston Street. Then in 1865 a Methodist

burying-ground was established on the western side of Church Street immediately south of the Central Methodist Episcopal Church, South, church building. There were also some burials in the churchyard of Trinity Episcopal Church immediately south of that church building on the eastern side of Church Street, and some on the same side of that street immediately north of the Presbyterian Church. All these graves on Church Street, with the exception of that of James Patton, were removed to Riverside Cemetery when it was established in 1885 by the Asheville Cemetery Company incorporated on August 4th of that year. In this way it came about that many graves in Riverside Cemetery contain bodies which were removed to it from other burying-grounds and some of which have been removed twice. Among the latter is the grave marked by the oldest tombstone in that cemetery. It is that of John Lyon, the distinguished English botanist, "a gentleman through whose industry and skill more new and rare American plants have Lately been introduced into Europe than through all other channels

whatever." John Lyon died of consumption in the old Swain Building on the eastern side of South Main Street, in September, 1814, at the age of 49, a lonely stranger in a strange land among strangers thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean from any relative, but cared for by strangers with great tenderness. His body was buried in the old burying-ground east of Market Street and removed thence to the old Presbyterian graveyard east of Church Street and finally to its resting place in Riverside Cemetery near the southeastern corner. No doubt the oldest burying-ground in the county is the Shawano Indian burying-ground on the eastern banks of French Broad River about one mile above the mouth of Swannanoa River. Probably the oldest burying-ground of white people in the county is the old Robert Patton burying-ground near the town of Swannanoa. The Newton Academy graveyard is now the oldest graveyard in Asheville; but the oldest graves in Asheville were the "Indian Graves" on Patton Avenue, immediately west of the crossing of Lexington Avenue, which were used as a landmark to indicate the place selected for Buncombe's county town. This and the other circumstances attendant upon the making of that location seem to disprove the old story told about that location, as about the location of other towns, that the commissioners determined to put the town at the bar-room at which they had met for the purpose of drinking and had been drinking. There was no bar-room where they determined should be the site of the county town of Buncombe. Had there been, it would have been called for in making the location. The more detailed story that the bar-room was at a, cross-roads where the proporietor professed to be deaf and would ask every traveller who stopped to inquire his way whether he said that he wanted a whiskey or brandy, is equally set at rest in the same way.