Some Early Recollections of Asheville and Western North Carolina
Written at the Request of John P. Arthur by Mary Gudger Moore

You have requested me to write you some early recollections of Asheville and surrounding country, and I will do so with the greatest pleasure as I have often thought of doing so before.

I am now quite an old lady, nearly eighty years, and my memory takes me back to the time when Asheville was only a small village of a few hundred inhabitants.  My father, Col. Samuel B. Gudger, took me there when quite a little girl to attend a fourth of July celebration and Jubilee speaking.

We stopped at the Buck Hotel, kept by Mr. James Smith, the first white man born in Western North Carolina, a rambling wooden building at the head of North Main Street.  The speaking was conducted on a wide platform erected on the site of what is now Battery Park Hill, then a woodland.  The speakers were Governor David L. Swain and Mr. Thomas L. Clingman and there were some patriotic songs sung by the brother James M. and [?].  The young ladies of Dr. and Mrs. Dickson's school marched double file to the speakings.  The citizens of Asheville had planted an old cannon on top of the hill, where the hotel now stands, and at intervals they fired off a grand salute in honor of the day and occasion.  Towns people living at the foot of Mt. Pisgah, some twenty or thirty miles away, afterwards found some holes blasted by lightning perhaps, and said the cannon did it.  The barbeque dinner was served in a grove out towards where the Railroad Station is now located and all that country out there was a forest.

The Court House was a wooden structure, made of logs I think, located on top of a hill said to have been 15 feet high on what is now Pack Square.  It was a low building, the lower floor as basement was used for the county offices, and the second story was the court room.  Its approaches were by stairways going up from the ground on both sides to a platform on top. and through a folding 

Asheville, as I knew it then, was a village of one street - Main - all other were simply roads coming in from the different sections.  This street was rather a section of the road leading down the French Broad River, on the north into Tennessee, and over the Hickory Nut Gap and Saluda Mountains into South Carolina.  Over this road, in the fall, immense droves of hogs were driven into South Carolina, and the two hotels, the Buck on North Main and the Eagle on South Main, derived considerable revenue from keeping them.  They could buy corn very cheap and pay for it in goods at a high percent, and feed the hogs and care for their drivers at pretty good prices, and it was a profitable business.

The earliest citizens of Asheville were the Pattons, Smiths, Erwins, Chunns, etc.  Governor David L. Swain's father, George Swain, was also a citizen of Asheville, living on South Main Street, on a lot where I think the American Hotel now stands.  He and his son-in-law, a Mr. Coleman, had a hat factory outside of Asheville and did a profitable business, as all traffic with the outside world was carried on at a very great disadvantage; the road into Tennessee on the north and into South Carolina on the south being the only outlets and that over dangerous mountains.  There was little money and currancy of the country consisted of the skins of fur bearing animals, brick, wool, pottery, beeswax and tallow.  Governor Z. B. Vance was once asked what the currency of

James Gudger Esq., living in the Turkey Creek section, had a tannery and a considerable business in that time furnishing all the citizens of Buncombe with leather.  It was a slow process for it took a year to make the finished product from the raw material.  The shoes, especially of the country people, were made by hand.  The wealthier people usually had some old negro servant who made the shoes for the family, and I remember how I hated them.  They were so ugly and had no fitness or limberness about them.

Col. James Lowry, my grandfather and a half brother of Gov. David L. Swain, who had been brought up in Asheville and settled in the Sandy Mush Valley after his marriage, built the first brick house west of Asheville.  It was large and cumbrous for that period.  He also built the first fine flouring mill in Buncombe, as I am informed.  People came to his mill from all directions, and he found a ready sale for all his surplus flour in Asheville.  Any flour fit to eat, up to that time, had to be bought from him.

As far back as the memory of the oldest jubilant quotes "Our mountain country, now The Land of the Sky," was the scene of much visiting and old time hospitality among the wealthier class of citizens.  There was plenty of game and fish in the country.  The land was fresh and produced abundant crops, and the people did not require many charities.  Then friends and relatives came from the cotton belt, and were entertained free of charge.  They spent their time horseback riding, driving over such roads as they then found, and picnics on the mountains enjoying the health given atmosphere without the aid of pills or doctors.

There were scarcely any doctors then.  My mother has often told me there were only two in Asheville at that time, Doctors Vance and Hardy, and none in the country.  Later Dr.  Neilson Hilliard and Dr. Lester came to Asheville, and an elderly gentleman, Dr, Mitton, settled in the Hominy Valley.  The country people doctored themselves with roots and urbs [sic], and when compelled to have a doctor and could induce them to come over such roads as they had, "He blistered and he bled'em, with calomel he fed'em," till they either died from exhaustion or lived if they had vigorous constitutions.

There were more lawyers than doctors, as "lawing" was a more profitable business.  Among a certain class of people fighting was the order of the day, and then there were many cases of assault and battery, and the jail, a primitive building back of the Court House, was sometimes full of them.  The most prominent lawyers that I can remember were the brothers Nicholas and John Woodfin.  I remember when quite a girl, going by the jail on my way to school and hearing the prisoners sing and make a great noise.  It gave me a sort of creepy gruesome feeling, and I hurried by as fast as my feet would carry me.  The lawyers who prosecuted or defended them, generally "sized up their clients," and took about what they had, leaving the low fellows between the "old man of

There were some merchants then, but they had to bring their goods to Asheville at such an expense over the mountains, they charged any percent they wished and the people were at their mercy -  calico was fifty cents per yard and other things in proportion.  Many of the wealthier citizens sent their schooner wagons with goods and necessaries for their families.  Somewhere in the forties or early fifties two gentlemen, Col's Rankin and Pulliam, came up from Tennessee and opened up a retailing establishment in Asheville.  They put down goods at reasonable figures and they revolutionized trade.  People could dress better and things took on a brighter aspect.

As far back as I have any account of Asheville and its early settlement, its people took considerable interest in education.  They were not able to build colleges or other large institutions of learning, but they did build the old Newton Academy and always kept up a good school there.  My father and mother were educated there, as was also nearly all first class men and women of that period; many coming from the western counties, then sparsely settled.  The ground on which it stands is classic soil, and the people of Asheville show a commendable spirit in preserving it.  Later on a gentlemen and lady, Dr. and Mrs. Dickson, opened up a school for young ladies in the basement of the Methodist Church, a rather plain frame building on what is now Church Street.  After they went away Rev. Erastus Rowley, a northern gentleman, came south and taught the school there for years.  Many of the first class young ladies of town and country were educated there.

About that time the citizens of Asheville, assisted by the Holston Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, opened up a school in a brick building that had been used a a school for boys on what is now College Street near the foot of the

Not far from the close of the Revolutionary War - a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian - at the head of a small squad of men in a rebellion under the command of General Rutherford was sent from beyond the Black Mountains to drive back the Cherokee Indians - a fierce warlike tribe living in the extreme western part of North Carolina, that had become very troublesome.  They came straight up the Hominy Valley and Mr. Moore, the gentleman spoken of, was so struck with its beauty and the fertility of its soil, he determined to locate here if he lived to get through the war.  He did so, settling in the Lower Hominy Valley, about eight miles from where Asheville was afterwards located.  He brought with him his family , white and black, and brought the first wagon across the French Broad River.  His youngest son, Capt. Charles Moore, inherited his fathers name and property and at the time (1850) of which I write, just when the Asheville College was at its best, was a man of  broad mind and liberal views having a large family of children to educate, and seeing the necessity of better schools in the country, he determined to open one of high grade.  He did so, building a small but comfortable house - employing a teacher - a Presbyterian minister, Rev. Jacob Hood, and furnishing him a home and many more conveniences on his place, all at his own expense.  The school was called Sand Hill Academy, and soon became self-sustaining.

The house Capt. Charles Moore inherited from his father, William Moore, was built of logs, of course, soon after the Revolutionary Was, is considerably over one hundred years of age, and is among the oldest houses in Buncombe County.  It has been remodeled and is quite a modern house.  The present owner, Dr. Gudger, after he had purchased the house found an old land grant for lands in Hominy Valley to William Moore signed by the first Constitutional Governor of North Carolina, Richard Caswell.  It was found in a crack between the logs in a closet in the family living room.

I cannot remember a period in the history of our mountain country when there were not some sort of free schools taught here.  But they were of short duration - only about two months in the fall, and were usually taught by men who knew less than the children of well informed parents.  Women were seldom employed as they were considered the weaker vessel and not capable of teaching.  I remember when a little girl stalling at long division in arithmetic at one of their schools.  My teacher talked through his nose and I could not understand much that he said, and could not get any of his instructions into my befuddled brain, so I consoled myself by thinking it did not matter as women were incapable of learning "figures"

Penmanship was then considered quite an accomplishment and was given more attention then than now.  That and spelling in the old "Blue-backed Speller," reading lessons in the Testament, and some of the simplest arithmatic [sic] was the curriculum.  I do believe when I quit those schools I could spell every word in the Blue-Backed Speller and most of the reading lessons too, but I have forgotten most of it now.  I remember it said "Ann can  spin floss," and I hated Ann and wished she had been in a foreign country for I detested spinning and weaving, though my Mother wished me to learn.  They were taught as the fine arts in those days and were considered great accomplishments.

On one occasion she sent my sister and me to a large upper room, all to ourselves, and told us we must learn to spin and must spin enough yarn to make one of our negroes a blanket.  We spun the yarn during the Spring, Summer, and Autumn; but we spent most of out time spinning thrilling yarns of wild western scenes.  Some of out Fathers, who lived in that far away country, had visited our house, and we had listened with breathless interest to their thrilling accounts of the "Great Father of Waters" and the prairies that lay beyond with their frequent fires, their bands of roaming Indians and herds of buffaloes.

In the schools we had attended, was a boy and girl we hated like rank poison; the boy because he dared to aspire to be our sweetheart and the girl, we considered moral pollution.  We must have been wretched little midgets in those days, for we sinned the idea that they should not so much as touch the hem of our garments.  They were our hero and heroine, not that we could do them any harm, but hat we might pour out our vials of wrath upon them.  We had them cross turbulent rivers at the peril of their lives, flee from prairie fires, be chased by Indians and threatened with death by buffaloes, but we never let them be killed.  Once we kept them alive for future use in our stories.  They were rare and wished we had written and preserved them but have forgotten them.

Many of the early settlers of Western North Carolina were men and women of culture and refinement, and with fairly good educations.  They were of pure English, German and Scotch-Irish extraction and were brave adventurous spirits coming here from an old world civilization to carve in the wilderness a destiny and home for themselves and children.  Their descendents have not, perhaps, come up to their standards, for want of their advantages; but they have at least kept their blood pure from any admixture with the floating immigrant element - the scum of Europe - that come to our shores.  They suffered many disadvantages and inconveniences from the lack of good roads, bridges across the streams, suitable building material and improved implements to cultivate their farms after they had opened them up; for they were far from necessity, tillers of the soil.  Much of the lumber used in building their houses was sawed by hand; but they could use logs and make rooms enough to be comfortable.  They had no stoves to cook their food, but prepared their meals at broad fireplaces with cranes swung in them, where they hung their boiling pots and kettles.  Their floors were covered with
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*"Sela" - Biblical word for rock

They did not make their bread from meal ground like the Jewish custom, "two women grinding at one mill," but often time had trouble having it ground at all, as mills were few and far between.  To help out this difficulty, they used quantities of hominy made from the grains of uncooked corn.  I remember how I loved to fish out these grains, when a child, from their boiling kettles and eat them with salt.  Their small hominy was beaten by hand in wooden mortars with wooden pestles.

Robert Henry Esq., your grandfather, who was very fond of small hominy, devised a plan where by he could have it beaten without physical labor.  He put his corn in a mortar at the foot of a hill, swung a pestle above it to a pole turning on a pivot and the other end attached to an open box or tray under a spout of water carried down the hill.  When this box or tray was full, it fell with a thud and the pestle went up.  When the water spilled out, the pole went up and the pestle down cracking the corn.  This was kept up all day and his hominy was ready for his supper and breakfast.  After a while he began to miss his corn and thought someone was stealing it; so he watched and found an old cow that roamed at large by it.  He had learned to time his head to the motion of the pestle and when it went up, thrust it in and took a mouth full and drew it out before it came down.  In this way he had eaten up his corn.

This old gentleman was also very fond of "Bitters" and usually kept a bottle pretty well filled on the mantle in his room.  On one occasion when he was a

Our beautiful "Land of the Sky," with its health giving atmosphere, seems condusive to the development of men of brain and brawns.  Quite a respectable number of our "mountain boys" have risen to eminence and made good records for themselves as statesmen and jurists - some filling places of honor and trust - and through great difficulties, which their more fortunate  brothers, who have had better advantages, have failed, thus demonstrating that pluck and energy are not always the outgrowth of wealth and learning.  many also of our "mountain girls" have kept peace with their brothers, and are enjoying many advantages in the higher walks of life.  An eminent philosopher once said - "The

When I was young I longed to cross the "blue-grit" line that bounds the horizon, and see what lay beyond.  It was to me a fairy world and its inhabitants enchanted beings; but I never enjoyed that privilege till after I was married and had children of my own, who married and lived in other states.  Then I found human nature very much the same the world over, and the people very much like one people, thought not nearly so picturesque.  There is charm and beauty about out mountain people not found elsewhere.  Their very language and motions portake of the grandeur of our mountains - the beauty of our valleys - the ripple of our mountain streams.  Long may we be a mountain people and retain out native simplicity.

According to tradition our beautiful valleys, the upper and lower Hominys, with their two clear crystal streams running into one, nearly large enough to be called a river, once bore soft easy flowing musical Indian name of Connehannee, their name for hominy made from the grains of uncracked corn.

Up to the time of the American Revolution, and for some time afterwards, this whole country was an unbroken wilderness.  Few, if any, white men had penetrated into it as far as I can learn, and there were few, if any, Indians of any permanent settlements by the Indians.  This entire territory between the Black Mountains on the east, and the Nantahalas on the west, was the "happy hunting ground" of the fierce warlike Cherokees, living west of the Nantahalas.  They came here every year and built their camp fires on the banks of our beautiful mountain streams, hunted the game and fished in our streams, and made their connehannee to eat with their game, calling our streams and valleys by its name.  Some years later some white men came through exploring the country, and bought their connehannee giving their English version, hominy, to it.  Now we are simple citizens of Hominy instead of the more classic Connehannee as we might have been.

The land they entered from the state, and on which they settles and opened up a fine plantation, spread out into a lovely valley with a clear stream - North Hominy - running through it at the foot of a beautiful mountain peak with a cove running up into it, and a brook coming down.  Tribesmen said an old Indian named Santula once lived there, and the cool brook and mountains took his name; but afterwards and old white woman, named Peggy Higgins, had a hut built there and lived for many years.  The mountain peak is now called "Peggy's Knob" though the brook still retains the name "Santula's Branch." Mr. and Mrs. Webb went almost every year with some of their household - a white woman they had brought up and several of their most efficient negroes - to the head waters of Reems Creek where there was a large orchard of sugar maples and made their years supply of sugar and syrup.  That white woman often entertained my sister and I for hours with stories of their camp life there, the sugaring etc.  Mr. Webb died before middle life.  Our Aunt lived a widow for many years - ninety five at her death.

As she had no children she lived along with her negroes - several families - on her large plantation.  In her old age she bequeathed all her large estate to my father's parents; and after his marriage she requested him to come and settle near her for company and protection.  he did so and she gave him enough of her

There Cherokee Indians were a wild roving restless tribe, roaming about from place to place.  There are still some well defined Indians tribes to be found in Western North Carolina.  One especially, that I am informed of, is on the Gaston place on Lower Hominy, seven or eight miles west of Asheville.  There is also a small Indian mound on this place and a field where they have found many Indian arrow heads which was supposed to have been a battle ground between the Cherokee and Catawba Indians, living there beyond the Black Mountains east of Asheville, who sometimes invaded their territory.  The Cherokees often raided into McDowell County at the foot of the Black Mountains, then the western limit of the white settlement, terrorizing its inhabitants - killing and scalping all who would not flee quick enough to their forts and stockades - plundering and burning their houses, and driving off their stock of all kinds.

Once when I was visiting some friends in Old Fort, a small town in McDowell County, located in the very spot where there was once a stockade inclosing a fort and a clear spring of running water, I met an old gentleman who told me that at one time when the Indians were invading the country, quite a number of the inhabitants had succeeded in reaching this stockade.  They had been there for several days and were getting tired of the enforced confinement.  A party of young people volunteered to go out to a peach orchard just in sight where they could see the peaches looking red and ripe.  They succeeded in reaching the orchard and one young lady sprang upon a low limb saying she would shake the peaches down, when the Indians sprang out from behind rocks, shrubs and trees and made a dash at

This same gentleman, Mr. Moffitt, told me he knew an old lady when he was quite a boy, that had been scalped by these blood thirsty Indians and left as dead.  She survived, however, and lived to be quite and old woman - eight years - and left a large posterity behind her, but no hair ever grew where they tore out the scalp.  She always parted what she had left in such a way as to hide it.

These Cherokee Indians owned a large territory; all of the west of the Nantahalas, part of North Georgia and east Tennessee.  How long they had owned it, we have no record, but there are evidences of trails and mounds of an ancient occupation.  There were no white settlers in north Georgia at the time of which I write, that we may have account of, but there was a considerable settlement in east Tennessee with only the river - Tennessee - between them and the Indian nation.  They often raided there.

My brother-in-law, J. L. Young, has an old flaw spinning wheel, his great-great-grandmother, then living in Tennessee, was spinning on when the Indians came to attack them.  She was spinning by an open fire, her children gather around her, her husband reading to them, when they heard them coming.  She put back her wheel, put out the lights and made her children hide as best they could.  Her husband sprang to the port hole with his gun (all houses were made with port holes then), and she made ready to load for him - (flint lock guns of which all families kept two or three).  There was only a small party as her husband could see in the moonlight, and he fired with such telling effect that he drove them off, killing or wounding one he thought.  he could see two Indians bearing a

The white settlers became so expert in picking off the Indians, they at last got afraid to venture into their territory, but would give them some sort of warning so that they might go with their families to the stockades and forts, thus giving them better opportunities of robbing their houses and driving away their stock.  The white people grew tired of this kind of warfare and determined to put a stop to it.  So one morning when one young lady brought an Indian arrow to her father that she had picked up in the yard, he knew at once the Indians meant to come that night and attack them.  He went round to all his neighbors and they determined to gather in a body at the ford of the river when the Indians were to cross and drive them back.

They did so, forming in a solid body on the bank just within the shadow of the trees, the mothers and daughters, as many as could leave their homes, just behind them to reload their guns.  About midnight they heard the splash of water on the opposite bank, and could see by starlight, there was a large party of Indians.  They waited till they were in easy range, and then gave them broadside - another and another - the women loading their guns as fast as they could.  So many of the Indians were killed and wounded and carried down by the currant, and there was only a small number that reached the opposite bank.  The settlers were never troubled by them again, but became prosperous and happy for the country was new and fertile, full of fish and game, and many things to make their lives comfortable and pleasant.

When I commenced writing my early recollections of Asheville and surrounding country, I had no thought of writing the history of the Cherokee Indians, but I find, as I go on, their history intimately connected with the history of the first settlers here; it is hard to separate the two.  My work has grown on my hands and the more I have written the more I find to write.

About the year thirty seven, as I am informed, the U. S. Government made a treaty with their chief Junaluska and his braves on condition that he and his people would either come under our government and obey our laws, or accept lands in Arkansas - then a territory - for this land here.  They chose the latter proposition and agreed to go peaceably to their new homes; but when the time came many of their private members, not understanding the nature of the treaty, refused to go and the U. S. Government had to send troops to combat them.

My husband, William H. Moore, was then a young man, just out of college and ready for anything that promised to be a frolic, enlisted in the volunteer company under Capt. James Killian, sent to drive the Indians back, and marched with them on foot from Asheville to Franklin, Macon County, North Carolina, then a small village, not much better than an Indian outpost, when he was mustered into service.  He was then selected by Capt. Montgomery, U. S. Army, Commandant

On one occasion an old Indian and his five stalwart son refused to come in and threatened to kill anyone who came to take them.  My husband was permitted to go with a squad of men to take them.  They made a dash, surrounded the wigwam and entered it before the Indians had time to use their guns.  The old Indians understood some English and the Captain of the squad reasoned with him and told him he could not stand out against so great a power as the U. S. Government; till at last the old man consented to go peaceable, but requested them to let him pray in his wigwam before he started.  They consented, and all knelt down and the old man prayed to the Great Spirit in his own language.  They did not understand a word he said, but knew he was giving up his home and sacred alters and it was hard for him to do.  When they arose from their knees, there was not a dry eye in the little hut.  He went with them and the troops treated him kindly, as they did all those they too away with him, not leaving till they saw them settled comfortably in their new homes in the far west - a suitable Indian Paradise - a happy hunting ground - where they had all their simple hearts could wish.  I say this to the honor and credit of my own Nation.

My husband was not permitted to go west with the Indians or the troops who took them then, but was certain to remain at Fort Lindsey to dispose of all the supplies he had on hand.  Afterwards he marched back to Asheville where he was honorable discharged.  For his service in the Indian Wars, "I receive a pension of $144.00 a year for which I am very thankful.  Though not a large sum, it has

I do not know whether Junaluska went with his tribe to their new territory or whether he returned afterwards, but certain it is he died in his ancient domain and was buried there beside his wife.  The DAR members have put a marker at his grave - a huge granite boulder - with his name and deeds engraved upon it and an iron railing around it all.  It is said of him that he was a very great man, and had many noble qualities and was vastly superior to his race.  In many instances he befriended the white race and his memory is embellished in song and verse.

On one occasion he saved the lives of General Andrew Jackson and his men.  They were encamped on the east bank of the Tennessee River, just below Knoxville, only divided fro the Indian nation by the river.  The Indians determined to attack and kill them, had their canoes tied to the opposite bank ready at nightfall to fall upon them and massacre them.  Junaluska found it out and cut their canoes loose and they floated down the river, thus defeating their plans.

Some time after the Indians had been gone from their homes, and I do not remember how long, my father, Col. Samuel B. Gudger, with a company of surveyors, was sent there by the state to survey the territory thus acquired to lay it off in lots suitable to come into sale.  He found a beautiful country, much leveler and more susceptible of improvement than the land east of the Nantahalas; but the Indians had burned over it every year till the soil was greatly impoverished.  There was little, if any, timber for building or farm uses.

He found many evidences of ancient occupation, trails, burial grounds and mounds that bore the "wrinkle of antiquity."  The trails, especially through the spans of hills and villages, were often worn so bad by the constant passing of their feet and that of their ponies, and the washing rains, a man could pass through them and not be seen in the steepest places; while in the hollow

About the year thirty nine or the early forties, there was a large land sale in Franklin, Macon County, North Carolina, of the land acquired of the Indians and soon afterwards white settlers began to pour into that country.  They found it a pleasant country to live in, but so destitute of building material, they had to live in the Indian wigwams till they could net better ones, and fence their small farms (for they could not have large ones) with poles made of young saplings that had grown since the Indians left.  it is now a beautiful country with pretty towns and villages scattered here and there, and a railroad running through it.  The Indian wigwams are gone, and pretty homes are seen everywhere.  It is also well timbered now.

I once visited some friends in Macon County, North Carolina where there had one been an Indian settlement.  There was still a wigwam in the yard near the family residence.  the lady had fixed it up for a guest chamber as her house was small.  The young lady, who was visiting with me, and I spent the night in that wigwam and enjoyed it immensely.  The walls were built with poles notched at the corners, but so low we had to bend our heads when we went in at the door.  The roof ran up in the center high enough to make it comfortable and the walls were 

I do not remember whether the floor was simply a dirt floor or was made of planks, but I rather think the lady had had a plank floor laid down.  She had papered the walls and overhead, and put a nice clean bed, a washstand with toilet arrangements on it, and some chairs in it.  We thought it the coziest room we had ever seen and I remember it with pleasure that has a note of sadness in it.  That was many years ago when life was full of rosy dreams.  Ah me!  How the years have sped by since then, leaving only memories behind them, some sweet and tender, some sad and sorrowful.

There is still a remnant of the Indians - about fifteen hundred - living on their ancient domain; some who returned after they went west and others who died in the mountains and never went, for they all clung with true devotion to their "home and sacred alters."  They have come under our Government and are law abiding people, but are of little or no help to us.  They are simple Indians and will be to the end of the chapter - children of nature with no ambition beyond satisfying their simple wants.  Our people have tried to elevate and improve them by building up schools and churches among them, and supplying teachers and ministers of the gospel to interest and convert them, but with little, if any, success.

The U. S. Government pays them yearly a liberal sum of money for lands their fathers possessed, but they squander it in strong drink and useless goingson that profit them little.  The Government also sends a limited number of them (twelve I think) yearly to Carlisle, Pennsylvania and they go through the form of getting an education and receiving diplomas, but that is about all.  A friend of mine, who lives near their domain, told me they came home ostensibly educated Indians, but some laid aside their classic robes and donned their old barberic habits of

An yet there is a note of sadness in their history that appeals to our sympathy.  Their happy carefree roving lives, their hopeless fight against forceful invaders, their firm faith in "The Great Spirit", their joyous look forward to a "happy hunting ground" beyond their life, all have in them the elements of a romance and a pathos that stirs the inner depth of our human natures.  Even their language, thought meager, has in it a note of poetry and a soft musical rhythm not found in our more precise English.  What names could be more beautiful that the Indians names - Nantahala, Cullasagee, Junaluska, Tahkeyostee, Swannanoa, Hiawatha, Minnihaha etc.  The Indian is fast passing away and will, before many years perhaps, be only a memory full of tragedy and romance.  Future generations will doubtless sit around their firesides and listen with thrilling interest to the strange wild story of their lives and skills.  It remained for Longfellow to write their epic that will go down through the ages as their memorial.

CONCLUSION

And now my dear friend and cousin, John P. Arthur Esq., I have complied with your request and have written all that I could think of would interest you, even to the minutest detail; and if it should prove dull and uninteresting, you may just attribute it to old age and its infirmities.

My narrative carried me back as far as my memory and the traditions of my parents and grandparents extend, and covers that period n our country's history when it was in its formation or junior stage, where the wild Indian once roamed at will and chased the deer and panthers.  Lovely towns and villages and even cities have sprung up and many other evidences of a more enlightened civilization.  There are so many improvements now and so much to make life worth the living.  This beautiful "land of the Sky" has so many attraction with its tall mountains

If I were not so afflicted and did not so long to be at rest with the loved ones gone before in our "Father's house of many mansions," I'd love to live on forever and not have to pass through the "dark valley and the shadow of death" and then............

"I don't know how to tell it,
but if such a thing could be,
As the Angels wantin' boardin'
and they called around on me,
I'd like to 'commodate 'em all,
the whole invading flock,
When the frost is on the pumpkin,
and the fodder's in the shock."