WRITERS &
MOUNTAINS
3

EXPLOITATION

"These hills are jist dirt waves, washing through eternity. My brethren, they hain't a valley so low but what it will rise agin. They haint a hill standing so proud but hit'll sink to the low ground o' sorrow. Oh, my children, where air we going on this mighty river of earth, a-borning, begetting, and a-dying --- the living and the dead riding the waters? Where air it sweeping us? ..." Quote from Kentucky preacher, Sim Mobberly, whose 1940 sermon echoes the sentiments of James Still in his River of Earth, written in the same year.

Progress and exploitation often go hand-in-hand. The bleak landscapes painted by these quotes came with the later exploitation of the southern Appalachians for timber and coal which left the mountain dweller stripped of resources and often broken in spirit. But many the earliest explorers of the Southern Appalachians had an element of exhilarated exploration and promise in their narratives. Anton Postl (pseud. Charles Sealsfield), writing in the 1820's noted that "The productions of this beautiful country might, if properly cultivated become inexhaustible sources of wealth and prosperity to its inhabitants..." [Charles Sealsfield, The Americans as They are: Described in a Tour Through the Valley of the Mississippi, London: Hurst, Chance, 1828. ]

LAND SPECULATION

Land speculation was rampant during the period following the Revolutionary War and in North Carolina it was extraordinarily active in the 1790's. The speculation activity was stimulated by two legislative acts. One the swamp act of 1784 did not affect western North Carolina, but its extension in 1794 covered the whole state and low-lying areas were then brought under the permissive survey terms of the act. Also in 1794 the legislature  revised the sale price of state land to 50 shillings per 100 acres. This act intended as a stimulus resulted in a flood of investors. By 1798 some five million acres of land had been amassed by speculators. Speculators included in-state as well as out-of-state investors. John Gray Blount, North Carolina merchant held some one-million acres in Buncombe County alone. William Cathcart, Robert Morris, William R. Davie, Andrew Beard, William Tate, Robert Tate, William Cochran, John Holdiman, Jacob Eshleman, and other speculators held lands in western North Carolina that stagger the imagination. It was at this time that Tench Coxe began to acquire the lands from the crest of the Blue Ridge to near Charlotte. His initial land purchases in Rutherford County totaled 115,494 acres and these grew with his appetite for land. Just how many acres were sold in western North Carolina during this initial feeding frenzy is uncertain. The first accounting of lands privately held did not occur until 1815 when the state placed a tax on privately held land. At that time the total privately held lands in North Carolina were recorded as 21,419,764 acres. ["Report of  Public Treasurer," Legislative Documents, North Carolina, 1834-1837.]  The amassing of land through the speculation process caused such great concern at the national level that legislation was enacted to slow the process of acquisition by absentee land owners. 

1795

TENCH COXE

SPECULATION LAND COMPANY

In Philadelphia in September of 1795, two agents, Andrew Baird and Lewis Beard, approached Tench Coxe, assistant to Alexander Hamilton, the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States under Washington's administration,  regarding land holdings of some half million acres in western North Carolina. The Baird agents represented the interests of the Rutherford Land Company that consisted of some 18 members or Trustees, including William W. Erwin , James Greenlee, and others. The Rutherford Land Company was apparently created by Greenlee who owned extensive tracts in Burke County, North Carolina. Andrew Baird, a former New Jersey iron master, knew members of the Coxe family and this possibly accounts for the primary interest in Coxe as an investor. The Bairds offered Coxe an opportunity to purchase some or all of the land holdings of the Company, described as "east of the Blue Ridge Mountains" for 9 cents an acre. The tracts Tench Coxe eventually purchased, included land in present day Rutherford County, Polk County, Henderson County, Cleveland County, McDowell County and in Buncombe County. [William W. Ervin and Andrew Baird to Coxe, Sept. 17, 1795, Coxe Papers.]

[60/0219] Document referencing prices of land in Patent 1024 - 13,000 acres, and in Patent 250 - 2,000 acres. Dated April 26, 1907. Valued at $69,166.  [TRANSCRIPT]

[40/0164] Letter from People's Bank, Monroe, North Carolina dated February 3, 1903, to C. Bayliss Justice. Document is a letter of transmittal containing options for the Davis Mine. Signed Roscoe Phifer(?), Cashier.  [TRANSCRIPT]

[44/0473a-d] Extract of Letters sent by the owners of the "Speculation Land Company" - signed by James Thompson, Goold (sic) Hoyt, James B. Murray, and Arthur Bronson. 1. Letter of Instruction to Jacob Hyatt dated March 10, 1825. Hyatt is told to see a number of specified people in Rutherford County and to inquire about purchasing their lands, and to obtain a contract and price for each executable at a later date. The purpose of which was to create a settlement, the location of which was to be determined later. He is told to act as a farmer from New York wanting to relocate to the area. He is also told which lawyers to use. Hyatt is also instructed to inform "those settlers that purchased land from Augustus Sacket that the new owners will treat them fairly both in regard to the prices of the land and terms of payment". In those cases where "their title is not valid or for other reasons they will take legal measures to dispossess them". (For additional correspondence between the owners of the "Speculation Land Company" and Jacob Hyatt see Patton P.16 - 45.) 2. Letter to Joseph Caron, Esquire dated March 11, 1825. This is a Letter of Introduction for Jacob Hyatt to engage Carson as legal counsel. 3. Letter to Jonathan Bloom dated June 10, 1825. The letter states that Bloom is to act as a conciliator on their behalf to the people who "have been abused by Sacket". 4. Letter to James Stevens dated January 31, 1826. This letter references the need of having a local individual, preferably from Rutherford County, to serve as their local agent, and asks for recommendations. [TRANSCRIPT]

[44/0169a-b] Letter from William M. Justice (at the time he was the Superintendent of Schools for Polk County) to one of his brothers, probably C. B. Justice, dated April 13, 1907. Among other items, he advises him not to place any more options on Grant 1024 for 90 days. As a company in Landrum is planning to put a dynamo on the river to generate power to be transferred to Landrum to operate some mines. "If they do this, the first thing they will do is build a railroad to be able to ship their machinery. Joe Lee of Landrum is so confident that the thing will go through that he has invested considerable money." If this enterprise succeeds it will open up means of transportation whereby timber products can be moved. This has always been "one great hindrance to selling" land. "I tell you this for what it is worth." Signed ___ and William M. Justice.  [TRANSCRIPT]

[53/196a-b] Letter from C. B. Justice to Bro. Smith (William Smith, Attorney), dated April 23, 1907. The letter concerns the need for a legal opinion regarding 36 acres sold on the waters of Big Hungary and P___ Creeks of the Green River. The heirs of the owner sold the land and made a Deed calling for the center of the River as a boundary, which the original Deed did not call for. "Can the new owner hold it, and if not how are we to get rid of him? Also a similar problems exists concerning a 50 acre tract on the Green River that the owner defaulted on and, in 1903 another party paid the balance due and now claims a boundary to the center of the River. Can we confine this individual to the South side of the River?" Signed by C. B. Justice. Included in the letter are surveys of the tracts. [TRANSCRIPT]

1800-1812

REV.  FRANCIS ASBURY

FROM THE JOURNAL OF REV. FRANCIS ASBURY

In the year 1800, Bishop Francis Asbury began to include the French Broad Valley in his annual visits throughout the eastern part of the United States, which extended as far west as Kentucky and Tennessee. (1922. Sondley, F. A. Asheville and Buncombe County, p. 106.)

"...in Nov. 1802: 'Wednesday 3. We labored over the Ridge and the Paint Mountain; I held on awhile, but grew afraid and dismounted and with the help of a pine sapling, worked my way down the steepest and roughest part.  I could bless God for life and limbs.  Eighteen miles this day contented us; and we stopped at William Nelson's Warm Springs.  About thirty travellers having dropped in, I expounded the Scriptures to them, as found in the third chapter of Romans, as equally applicable to nominal Christians, Indians, Jews and Gentiles.' (1922. Sondley, F. A. Asheville and Buncombe County, p. 109.)

"In Oct. 1805: 'North Carolina. We came into North Carolina and lodged with William Nelson at the Hot Springs. Next day we stopped with Wilson in Buncombe.  On Wednesday I breakfasted with Mr. Newton, Presbyterian minister, a man after my own mind: we took sweet counsel together.  We lodged this evening at Mr. Fletcher's Mud Creek. At Col. Thomas's on Thursday, we were kindly received and hospitably entertained.' (1922. Sondley, F. A. Asheville and Buncombe County, p.111.)

"'North Carolina, Wed. Oct.1 [1805]. I preached at Samuel Edney's. Next day we had to cope with Little and Great Hunger mountain.  Now I know what Mills Gap is, between Buncombe and Rutherford: one of the descents is like the roof of a house for nearly a mile: I rode, I walked, I sweat, I trembled and my old knees failed; here are gullies and rocks and precipices; nevertheless the way is as good as the path over the Table Mountain--bad is the best.  We came upon Green River.' (1922. Sondley, F. A. Asheville and Buncombe County, pp. 111, 112.)

"Oct. 1809....Eight times within nine years I have crossed these Alps [mountains of western North Carolina].   If my journal is transcribed it will be as well to give the subject as the chapter and verse of the text I preached from.  Nothing like a sermon can I record.  Here now am I, and have been for twenty nights crowded by people; and the whole family striving to get round me. (1922. Sondley, F. A. Asheville and Buncombe County, p.113.)

1812 "North Carolina--Wed., Dec. 3 [2]. We went over the mountain, 22 miles, to Killon's [Killion's or Killain's refers to the residence of the late Capt. I.V. Baird on Beaverdam, where today there is a historical marker on Beaverdam Road that tells of Asbury's trips to 'Killion's.'] mentions Asbury and Killion.] . "Thurs. 4 [3]. Came on through Buncombe to Samuel Edney's: I preached in the evening.  We have had plenty of rain lately.  Friday, I rest. Occupied in reading and writing.  I have great communion with God.  I preached at Father Mills's. (1922. Sondley, F. A. Asheville and Buncombe County, p. 114.)

1827-28

ELISHA MITCHELL

FROM THE LETTERS OF ELISHA MITCHELL

Letter to "My Dear and Good Wife,"

"Sunday Morning. After breakfast as we were sitting in the Piazza, an old gander named Ellwood (I don't know how to spell his name), called in with a keg in a bag in which he had brought whiskey to sell at the muster yesterday. Found abundance of fault with Mr. Mitchell⁵² the candidate, and also with Baker⁵³ the other candidate. When about to go he was asked to stay for preaching--"No, he had said yesterday he was not going to hear him preach--no man never could attend to everything." I told him he seemed to be descended from Ishmael--his hand was against every man. I hoped that every man's hand is not against him. Smith tells me this same fellow raised a report on the muster ground yesterday--that I received 9,000 dollars for passing through and looking at the rocks. Preached at 12 to a considerably attentive congregation. After dinner rode down 10 miles to Watauga. Smith purchased a bottle of brandy and but it in my saddlebags. Stopped at a distance of a miles at Hardin's ⁵⁴ (he is a candidate for a seat in the Senate) to avoid a shower of rain and again at Council's store to collect our company, which finally amounted to 7--the two candidates, Mitchell and Calloway, Smith, and Myself, Farthing, a person name not known, and Noah Mast⁵⁵, to whose father's on Watauga we are going. The prospect in some places where the chestnuts now in bloom grow upon rich grounds on the declivities of the mountains, and are covered with a most luxuriant foliage, is enchanting. Council's store was open, some were hunting, a waggon hauling plank; Mitchell and Calloway electioneered by the way, and, as I was riding on Sunday with what propriety could I reprehend these things. And yet it seemed necessary, on Mr. Smith's account, that I should ride. Passed from the deep gap road about 3 miles to Mr. Mast's and observed a discontinuance in the gneissoid horneblende rocks at this point and a commencement of others which appeared to be in [torn] of the transition. The low grounds on the Watauga above the Stone Mountains are wide, tho they cease at the mountains or a little above, and on these low grounds Mr. Mast (a German) has a good plantation and a son settled both above and below him. Young Mast send out for Henry Holtsclaw who agreed to accompany us to Grandfather tomorrow and then to go on with Mr. Smith to the old fields of Tow. We heard of a family in which was a young lady, apparently about 20, tolerably good looking, and who is the Grace or Goddess that Collin's speaks of in his ode to the Passions "with a bosom bare." There were two little children, the youngest of whom, Smith tells me, is the result of a "fox paw" [fauxpas] of Mademoiselles. She refused to tell who was its father, but his identity is well understood. I am told that when she found herself pregnant she asked him to marry her, telling him at the same time that if he did not take her then, but left her to bear the scandal alone, she never would have him--that he is willing to marry her now, but cannot get her. Both the mother and the child seem to be treated with tenderness and affection by the family, and what is most strange her brother is said to be on the most intimate terms with his sister's seducer. The young woman appears to feel her situation. It appears at first sight very unreasonable that a transgression of this kind should be attended with such fatal consequences to the one party, and instead of being regarded as a disgrace, be sometimes almost gloried in by the other. And yet I think it is partly by the appointment of the Creator himself, and therefore, for good reasons, as well as by the custom and fashion of society, that it is so. Reference is evidently has in everything relating to these matters to the welfare of the children and to a provision for their sustenance and support. This demands affection on the part of both parents. But in order that this should be strong and unswerving, it is needful that there be no uncertainty about the parentage of the child--that neither husband nor wife way be in danger of bestowing their affection upon the offspring of others. But on the part of the wife there can be no doubt. She can never be in danger of nursing her husband's illegitimate children for her own. The only security a husband has is found in the purity of his wife's character before her marriage--an assurance that he possesses her affection now and an experience of her veracity. Hence I am inclined to believe by the appointment of God, a man has a greater horror of sharing the person of the woman he loves with another man than a woman has of sharing with a woman, though the principle or feeling originally thus influenced is doubtless strengthened by the institutions of society. And hence incontinence before marriage by diminishing the security the husband should have of the fidelity of his wife after marriage sinks her value so much in the society of which she is a member, and is in fact a greater crime in a woman than in a man. If it be said that it is still unreasonable that she should suffer so much more, the truth of the assertion may be denied for whilst men have many hardships to undergo in the field and other places to which she is not called--her education points very much to one of the greatest objects of her existence, the continuance of the species. Man is tempted in the affairs of life in a thousand different ways. Nearly all her temptations have reference to one thing--unswerving virtue in regard to this one thing, and therefore with her one principal point of morality and religion, and if she falls here she is taught to expect that her fall will be great; it is reasonable that it should be great. I do no mean all the while to excuse the hard-hearted and unfeeling indifference with which a man will for a brief transport of passion sacrifice the happiness of a fellow being for months and years, and then look with a cold and indifferent eye upon the ruin of which he is the author. I wish it to be strongly emphasized upon my daughters that where a woman is concerned, no man is to be trusted--every man is half a demon.

Monday Morning. Foggy, cloudy and rainy; purchased small bear skin from Mr. Mast. At nine proceed a small distance up the creek where one of the young Masts keeps a bachelor's hall, when a bad rain coming on we stopped and agreed for a tickler of balsam, for which I afterwards paid a dollar. Started soon after, though it still rained and our guide was rather unwilling to proceed, and indeed, we were thoroughly wet when we got two or three miles up to Robert Barnhill's, originally from Mecklenburg. In the neighborhood is a hunter who has two women living with him; to one of them he owes and to the other he graciously discharged the duties of a husband; one has 3 children, and the other one and another at hand. 'Tis a region for these irregularities. The Leather Stocking of these regions, and whom we would have had as a pilot, but that he is in the woods, has a wife living on Sandy River in Kentucky, and the children of that wife, and another woman living with him here on the Watauga. Another hunter, has a wife living in N.Ca., and supports or keeps only the daughter of man who lives in Tennessee. In a rude hunter's state of society the women become schquaws [squaws], very pretty ones, but schquaws notwithstanding. We had still 8 or 9 miles to go to the top of Grandfather. We passed on over one ridge after another winding through the woods over logs and rocks, and through laurels, walking when we could not ride, passing some mountains and knobs with very indecent names, seeing only one small deer which we did not kill, crossing the head of Linville river, which flows into the Catawba, and arrived at the foot of Grandfather, where we were obliged to leave our horses about one o'clock. The Linville and Watauga head up under the mountain, and from the place, where we took our dinner we could get water from either, within two or three hundred yards. Of course we were on the summit of the Blue Ridge. The ascent of the mountain is rough, thickety and disagreeable. Steep, perpendicular cliffs in places but in general not very difficult. About half way up we met with a Fir-Balsam tree. It is sometimes a foot and a half in thickness and pretty tall. The balsam resides in small blisters or cavities in the substance of the oak which are cut out at the precious fluid passed into a vial. They say that the exudation obtained in the same way as common turpentine has not the same properties--but I have my doubts. It is the panacea or universal remedy of the mountains--cures wounds, rheumatism, flux, et cetera. It grows quite to the top but it is stunted and smaller there, and along with one other tree occupies exclusively the highest points. The summit of the mountain is moist and wet, producing carexes which I wished to but could not study. Holtsclaw had been often upon it but only in search of bears of which it is the favorite winter retreat. They retire to dens in the cliffs in December and come out in February, passing the time in sleep. This is time for the hunters to find their retreats and taken them out. They lose nothing of their fatness, and their flesh is thought to acquire additional delicacy; they have nothing in their bowels during their sleep--I write this at Jefferson, July 11, Friday. I leave today for the lower end of the county were I hope to go out to the Elkspur Gap on Saturday into Wilkes.

I thank you for your letter. I may write again from Wilkes.

Yours, E. Mitchell

Mitchell, Elisha.
Diary of a Geological Tour by Dr. Elisha Mitchell in 1827 and 1828, in series James Sprunt Historical Monographs 6 (1905): 1-74. Chapel Hill, NC: the University, 1905.

FULL TEXT online - in New River Notes

*1849

CHARLES LANMAN

LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHENY MOUNTAINS

Charles Lanmam was also an artist. He was a student of Asher B. Durand in New York City and through Durand he developed a deep sense of landscape. In 1846, as a mature artist just shortly before traveling to North Carolina, he was made an associate of the National Academy of Design.  His love of exploration and travel can be seen in the range of his paintings and the accounts of his travels. His paintings are held by the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C and like that of Durand, his art includes a range of mountain views. When Lanman writes about the region, he does so largely through the lens of the visual artist, and is particularly attuned to the aesthetics of his views. But, there are elements of the scientist in his observations of local flora and fauna, and also elements of the elitist seen in his condescending observations of the local mountaineer's intelligence.

LETTER IX.

Franklin, North Carolina, May 1848

The distance from Murphy to this place is reported to be fifty miles. For twenty miles the road runs in full view of Valley river, which is worthy in every particular of the stream into which it empties, the Owassa. It is a remarkably cold and translucent stream, and looks as it it ought to contain trout, but I am certain that it does not. On inquiring of a homespun angler what fish the river did produce, he replied: "Salmon, black trout, red horse, hog-fish, suckers and cat-fish." I took the liberty of doubting the gentleman's word, and subsequently found out that the people of this section of country call the legitimate pickerel the "salmon," the black bass the "black trout," the mullet the "red horse," and a deformed sucker the "hog-fish." And now, while I think of it, I would intimate to my friends residing on the Ohio (to which glorious river all the streams of this region pay tribute) that their salmon is none other than the genuine pickerel of the North and South, their white perch only the sheep's head of the great lakes, and their black perch is but another name for the black or Oswego bass. So much for a piscatorial correction.

The only picture which attracted my particular attention in passing up the fertile but generally neglected bottom lands of Valley river, was a farm of twenty-five hundred acres, one thousand acres being as level as a floor and highly cultivated. The soil seemed exceedingly rich, and it was evident yielded a considerable income to its possessor. I heard, in fact, that the proprietor had been offered twenty-five thousand dollars for this farm. And in what kind of a house does my reader imagine this wealthy man resided? In a miserable log hovel, a decayed and windowless one, which a respectable member of the swine family would hardly deign to occupy. Instances something like to this had already come to my knowledge, and caused me to wonder at the inconsistency and apparent want of common sense manifested by some of the farmers of this country, but this instance capped the climax. But again, the individual alluded to is a white man, and prices himself upon being more intelligent and acute than his neighbors; and yet one of this neighbors is an Indian woman, who raises only about five thousand bushels of potatoes per annum, but occupies a comfortable dwelling and lives like a rational being.

After leaving the above valley, my course lay over two distinct spurs of the Alleghanies, which are divided by the river Nan-ti-ha-la, and consequently called the Nan-ti-ha-lah Mountains. In ascending the western ridge, I noticed that at the foot and midway up the pass the trees were all arrayed in their summer verdure, and among the forest trees were many chestnut and poplar specimens, which were at least seven or eight feet in diameter; while the more elevated portions of the ridge were covered with scrub and whit oak, which were entirely destitute of foliage and not even in the budding condition. No regular cliffs frowned upon me as I passed along, but the mountains on either side were almost perpendicular, and in one or two places were at least twenty-five hundred feet high. In the side of the highest of these mountains, I was informed, is a deep fissure or cave, which extends to the summit of the hill, where the outlet is quite small. When the wind is blowing from the northwest it passes entirely through this long and mysterious cavern, and when issuing from the top cones with such force as to throw out all the smaller stones which one may happen to drop therein. In descending this spur, the road passes directly along the margin of the most gloomy thicket imaginable. It is about a mile wide and somewhat over three miles in length. It is rank with vegetation, and the principal trees are laurel and hemlock. Even at noonday it is impossible to look into it more than a half a dozen yards, and then you but peer into the opening of leafy caves and grottoes which are perpetually cool and very desolate. It is said to abound in the more ferocious of wild animals, and no white man is yet known to have mustered courage enough to explore the jungle. During the existence of the Cherokee difficulties, the Indians were in the habit of encamping on many places on its margin for the purpose of easily eluding their pursuers; and it is reported of one Indian hunter, who entered the thicket, that he never returned, having, as is supposed, been overpowered by some wild beast. It was upon the margin of this horrible place, too, that the following incident occurred. An Indian woman once happened to be traveling down the mountain, unaccompanied by her husband, but with three young children, two little girls and a papoose. In an unexpected moment an enraged panther crossed their trail, and while it fell upon and destroyed the mother and one child, the elder girl ran for her life, carrying the infant on her back. The little heroine had not gone over a half a mile with her burden before the panther caught up with her, and dragged the infant from her grasp; and while the savage creature was destroying this third victim, the little girl made her escape to a neighboring encampment. "

Lanman, Charles.Letters from the Allegheny Mountains. [The author's travels through northern Georgia, western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee and the valley of Virginia] New York: G.B. Putnam, 1849. [Afterwards reprinted in v. 1 of his Adventures in the wilds of the United States and British American provinces. Philadelphia, 1856] Includes Qualla Town, home of a band of Cherokee Indians, pp. 84-114.] 

View on the Swannanoa River, near Asheville, Western North Carolina from King

1850's

D. H. Jacques, Charleston, S. C.  He was the author of many books, a poet of parts and editor of an agricultural magazine, The Rural Carolinian.  He was a physician by profession.  Sometime in the 1850’s - exact date unknown - the Asheville News published the poem, "Swannanoa," attributing the authorship to Jacques. In his work, North Carolina Poetry, Walser says of "Swannanoa," "No poem written in North Carolina before the War Between the States has been more popular."  Many poets have claimed the authorship of the poem.  Sondley appears to believe that Jacques was the author.  Walser asserts that the authorship "still remains a mystery."  Calvin H. Wiley in his 1851 edition of the "North Carolina Readers" attributes the poem to an unnamed contributor to the Asheville News.  Mary Bayard Clarke in her Wood-Notes (1854) includes it as one of her poems.  A Charlotte poet of about the same time - Shilo Henderson - also claimed that he was the author.  Ramsey is inclined to the view that the weight or available evidence supports Jacques.

Swannanoa

Anonymous, found in Richard Walser, North Carolina Poetry, Richmond, VA: Garrett & Massie, 1951.

Swannanoa, nymph of beauty,
I would woo thee in my rhyme,
Wildest, brightest, loveliest river
Of our sunny Southern clime!
Swannanoa, well they named thee
In the mellow Indian tongue;
Beautiful thou art, most truly,
And right worthy to be sung.

I have stood by many a river,
Known to story and to song ---
Ashley, Hudson, Susquehanna,
Fame to which may well belong; ---
I have camp'd by the Ohio,
Trod Scioto's fertile banks,
Follow'd far the Juniata,
In the wildest of her pranks, ---

But thou reignest queen for ever,
Child of Appalachian hills,
Winning tribute as thou flowest,
From a thousand mountain-rills.
Thine is beauty, strength-begotten,
'Mid the cloud-begirded peaks,
Where the Patriarch of the mountains,
Heav'nward for thy waters seeks.

Through the laurels and the beeches,
Bright thy silvery current shines,
Sleeping now in granite basins,
Overhung by trailing vines,
And anon careering onward,
In the maddest frolic-mood,
Waking, with thy sea-like voices,
Fairy echoes in the wood.

Peaceful sleep thy narrow valleys,
In the shadow of the hills,
And thy flower-enamelled border,
All the air with fragrance fills.
Wild luxuriance, generous tillage,
Here alternate meet the view,
Every turn through all thy windings
Still revealing something new.

Where, O graceful Swannanoa,
Are the warriors who of old
Sought thee at thy mountain sources,
Where thy springs are icy cold?
Where the dark-browed Indian maidens,
Who their limbs were wont to lave
(Worthy bath for fairer beauty)
In thy cool and limpid wave?

Gone forever from thy borders,
But immortal in thy name,
Are the red men of the forest;
Be thou keeper of their fame!
Paler races dwell beside thee;
Celt and Saxon till thy lands,
Wedding use unto thy beauty --
Linking over thee their hands.

1860

FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED

A JOURNEY IN THE BACK COUNTRY

Olmsted, Frederick Law. A Journey in the Back Country, 1853-1854. New York: Burt Franklin, 1860.

1864

ELIZABETH HAVEN APPLETON

A HALF-LIFE AND A HALF A LIFE

This is a story of adventure, but with a feminine twist, and it's the story of a Kentucky woman, not one from North Carolina. The young woman,  whose bounded life-style is expanded by her friendship with a wealthy "outsider" finds herself torn between "mountain values" and the chaotic years leading to the war . She first explores, through the realm of her imagination a life unlike the one she has known and then her dreams  give way to action and the outcomes are not what she planned, but are fitting to her "stature" in life. It is a story about class and about boundaries and about social reform. Her story is one of the earliest examples of  women's social dislocation in the developing industrial America.   Janet, the protagonist, is an intellectually curious young lady who pushes against convention when she meets a wealthy "outsider" who supports her eagerness to learn and who helps her to develop elements of the upper class. He encourages her to explore the world beyond Cattlesburg, Kentucky where she lives. She complicates her benefactor's life by falling in love with him. When she realizes that he is in love with another woman and her affection will never be returned, she is left heart-broken but is prompted to explore her own resources. She leaves on a flatboat up the Big Sandy, to the Ohio and on to Cincinnati where she re-connects with a childhood friend who is also born in the mountains. With his help, she is able to redeem her life and becomes a  school teacher of "migrants" from the Appalachians who have come to the city for work. Remarkably, this story is told over and over again in the many migrations out of the mountains when coal goes bust, or lumbering fails, or the salaries of urban life tempt the young. Told with intelligence and amazing insight , the story may be autobiographical.  The narrative captures the tension of urban and rural, and as it wrestles with the troublesome issue of "class" that recurs frequently in literature of this date, it sets a precedent for other inspiration stories. Here, the Mountains of eastern Kentucky serve as a sub-text that frames both the spatial and the social dislocation. This is a "back home" story in which the protagonist seeks to give order to her broken life in the secular and urban environment of Cincinnati, by calling forth regional friendships and by serving mountaineers who are in similar circumstances --- underemployed, outsourced, and dislocated. This early story may well have influenced the later "Esmeralda," which has similar themes of dislocation and "back-home" impulses, and  back to the mountains yearning.

Appleton, Elizabeth Haven. "A Half-Life and a Half a Life," Atlantic Monthly, 13: 157-82 (February 1864).

1867

The journalism historian, Joseph Becker describes Frank Leslies' Illustrated Newspaper as one of the first newspapers to understand the power of illustration. Leslie used the journalism of sensationalism to catch the reader's attention and did so successfully and rapidly. Founded in 1855, this illustrated newspaper was the first of its kind in the U.S. and had a large circulation. Not surprisingly, the circulation was the greatest during the Civil War era when it thrived on sensational stories and very graphic illustrations.  Reportedly Joseph Becker, one of the lead illustrators of the newspaper, said the company motto was "Never shoot over the heads of the people,"  and this was apparently very sage advice, as the newspaper did not fold until 1902 just short of the last publication of its competitor, Harper's Weekly, which ceased publication in 1919. The illustration seen here has been "colorized" to increase its visual appeal by a later artist. Whether the "colorization" occurred just after publication, as was common, or much later when the illustration was separated from the original newspaper and sold in the ephemera markets of the twentieth-century, is not known.  The original wood blocks used to create the illustrations were only in black ink. The wood-block prints were created by a series of small 2" blocks that were farmed out to carvers and then rejoined to form the original sketch, then printed. Many woodcarvers were used to produce a large work based on an artist's sketch. The illustration seen here is one that follows this pattern. The later illustrations moved to the more economical metal plate reproduction.

The illicit distillation of liquor featured in this 1883 issue of the popular illustrated newspaper was a frequent theme that appeared in descriptions of the mountains of Appalachia and western North Carolina.  The illustration here is by J.S. Hodgson.

 Harper's ran these two early articles that had a wide appeal.

Guernsey, A.H.  "Illicit Distilling of Liquors." Harper's Weekly 11: 773 (7 December 1867).

Guernsey, A.H.  "Hunting for Stills." Harper's Weekly 11: 811 (21 December 1867)

1870

1870
1871

HENRY E. COLTON

PICTURESQUE AMERICA 1870  

 
"We have already printed, from different correspondents, in recent numbers of the journal [Appleton's Journal], glowing accounts of the mountain scenery in North Carolina; and in an earlier number (date of October 16,1869) we gave an illustration of a mountain-scene in this region. The subject, therefore, is already tolerably familiar to our readers. The chain of mountains that crosses the western part of North Carolina, combines the Blue Ridge, the Alleghany, Smoky, and Cumberland ranges; and among these is obtained the highest altitude of the Appalachian chain. While Mount Washington, of the White Mountains, is 6,285 feet above the level of the sea, there are fourteen distinct peaks of the Black Mountains that exceed this altitude. The highest of these is Clingman's Peak, which is 6,941 feet according to one authority, and [6,901 ?] according to another. The Black Mountains, twenty miles northeast of Asheville, are a semicircular mass about twenty miles in length, deriving their name from the dark-green foliage of the balsam-fir-trees which line their top and sides.

Among the mountain-streams that have their source among these towering hills is the famous French Broad, whose wild and romantic course from Asheville to the Tennessee line abounds in the most picturesque and beautiful scenery. It cuts its way through mountain-gorges of fearful height, runs dimpling among green hills, winds itself around mountain-islands, whose heavy and tangled undergrowth, with their clinging vines and glowing flowers, are of tropical luxuriance, sleeps sullen and dark between huge cliffs, rushes down rocky declivities with a deafening roar, ever changeful in its wild beauty. Sometimes are seen piled up in the river's centre great rocks and trees hurled into weird and fantastic masses by the powerful flood. A notable feature of the river is the rocky ledges that run diagonally across its course. Many of these are square stones resembling man's handiwork. A fine highway follows the banks of the river, often trespassing upon its waters as it is crowded by the overhanging cliffs. Some twenty miles east of Greenville, the traveller [sic] from Asheville approaches the celebrated Chimney Rocks - a series of lofty cliffs broken at their summits into detached piles of rocks, which have the likeness of colossal chimneys. These rocks rise abruptly to the height of nearly three hundred feet; a little beyond these cliffs a turn in the road brings the traveller [sic] to the famous Painted Rocks, another series of stupendous cliffs rising to an altitude of two hundred and sixty-three feet direct from the river's edge, and having a reddish-brown color, from which their name is probably derived, although some accounts attribute their designation to the Indian pictures said still to be seen on them. Tufts of grass, wild-flowers, and branches of bracken enliven their rough sides, and add to their fine effect. The geological formation of the rocks of this region is primary or azoic, consisting of granite, gneiss, mica, and hornblende, with very slight alluvial or tertiary deposits. They abound with metals-copper, quicksilver, lead, zinc, iron, and even gold and silver. It is probably a heavy intermixture of iron or copper that gives to the Painted Rocks their peculiar color.

The scenery increases in interest as the traveller [sic] nears the Warm Springs, thirty miles from Asheville, a locality once greatly the resort of the elite of the South. A more beautiful spot could scarcely be found. The pleasant hotel, and the cottages, in the midst of fine grounds and under the shelter of the noblest old trees; the Warm Spring itself in whose limpid waters it is almost impossible to sink, and whose temperature stands at eighty degrees Fahrenheit the year round; the French Broad in its varied course almost encircling the plateau on which the hotel is built, and filling the air with its rushing music; the everlasting hills rising around; the lofty mountains, majestic and fatherly, standing with a saintly presence like a benediction over the gentle valley, give one the impression irresistibly of security and protection. We know of no resort that can excel this in situation and surroundings of beauty, or in balmy and delicious climate.

A short distance from the hotel stands a bold and picturesque rock, called "The Lover's Leap." This Mr. Fenn has illustrated by two views-accompanying this number of the JOURNAL - one, as approaching it by night, just at moonrise - the other, as the rock appeared next morning at early sunrise. The reader, doubtless, looks for some tale of horror connected with this rock; but, not withstanding this very natural expectation, we regret to say he must be disappointed. A tradition of some sort must originally have given to the rock the designation by which it is known; but the name has long outlived the story. A diligent inquiry, by our artist, failed to elicit the slightest fact that would serve to throw light upon the subject. Everybody among the residents knew the name, but no one had a scrap of tradition or story bearing upon it. It was a tempting occasion to invent some thrilling legend of unhappy lovers who, in their despair, had flung themselves from the frightful diff; but our artist suppressed this poetic temptation, and relates the facts as he found them.

The Indian name of the French Broad is Tselica. William Gilmore Simms has given a beautiful poetic version of a legend of this river. "The tradition of the Cherokees," he says," asserts the existence of a siren in the French Broad, who implores the hunter to the stream, and strangles him in her embrace, or so infects him with some mortal disease, that he invariably perishes." In Mr. Simms's poem, a wearied stranger comes to the stream to rest:

"Brooding thus, and weary, a song rises
From the very billows, soft and clear;
Such as evening bird, with parting ditty
Pours at twilight to the floweret's ear.
Wild and sweet, and passionate and tender;
Now full, now faint; with such a touching art,
His soul dissolves in weakness, and his spirit
Goes with the throbbing sweetness at his heart.
 "He looks, with strained eyes, at the lapsing waters,
And, lancing bright beneath the billows, lo!
Flashes white arms, and glides a lovely damsel
Bright eyes, dark locks, and bosom white as snow.
"He sees, hut still in moment glimpses only,
Gleams of strange beauty, from an eye all bright
As when some single star, at midnight flashes
From the cold cloud, above the mountain's height.
"As raven black as night float free her tresses,
Out-flung above the waves by snowy arms,
Now o'er her bosom spread, and half betraying. ~
While half-concealing still her sunny charms.
Wild was the dreamy passion that possessed him;
Won by the siren song and glimpsing charms;
He leaped to join her in the wave, but shuddered
At the first foldings of her death-cold arms."

Colton, Henry E. "Picturesque America: The French Broad River, North Carolina. Illustrated by Harry Fenn."  Appleton's Journal 4: 26 (November 26, 1870), .p 644

See also: Colton, Henry E. "Western North Carolina "Western North Carolina,"  Appleton's Journal, Volume 5, Issue: 112, May 20, 1871 p. 587-588 

THOMAS LANIER CLINGMAN

WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA

Thomas Lanier Clingman was born in Huntsville, Surry (now Yadkin) County, N.C. on July 27^th, 1812.  His father was Jacob Clingman, a local merchant and the son of a German immigrant; and his mother was Jane Poindexter, who had French and Scottish ancestry, along with a Cherokee great-grandfather.  Jacob Clingman died when Thomas was four years old, and he was raised and taught by his mother and her brother, Francis Alexander Poindexter.  In 1829 Clingman entered the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and graduated with high honors in 1832.  Clingman then studied law under William Alexander Graham, but just as he was about to enter the practice in 1835 he was elected to the House of Commons of North Carolina.  On his defeat for reelection in the Legislature in 1836 he moved to Asheville, Buncombe County to practice law. He was a student Elisha Mitchell's and the two of them eventually developed a competitive relationship regarding who could speak with authority on the mountains of western North Carolina. In 1855 he explored and measured the highest point of Black Mountain and  in 1858 he debated with Elisha Mitchell over who had been the first to climb and measure the highest point in the Eastern United States.  Eventually Mt. Mitchell was declared the tallest mountain and Clingman’s name went to another mountain in the Black Mts.  The argument accidentally led to Mitchell’s death when he was caught in a storm on the mountain and fell to his death. Through his survey work Clingman spread the knowledge that North Carolina was a site to find diamonds, rubies, platinum, corundum, and various other rare minerals.  He also opened the mica-mines in Mitchell and Yancey counties. 

Clingman also worked in other sciences, receiving two patents for electric lighting.  His work did not prove significant, but did provide the idea of zirconia as an incandescent substance to other inventors.  He practiced law, promoted the medicinal qualities of tobacco, worked in land speculation, and wrote and lectured on religious as well as scientific matters.   Though he was known for his intellectual pursuits he was also known to have a bad temper and a habit of talking to himself.  He courted several women throughout his life but never married.  In the 1890’s Clingman’s health deteriorated and he was under the care of his relatives.  He died on November 3^rd, 1897 in the Morganton, N.C., state hospital, and is buried in Riverside Cemetery in Asheville.

MOUNT PISGAH

"ANY of our readers have learned, from the careful measurements of Professor Arnold Guyot, of Princeton-prosecuted as they were through three summers-that there are in North Carolina about thirty designated mountain-peaks that surpass in altitude Mount Washington, of New Hampshire. The elevated area of North Carolina is more than two hundred miles in length, by an average breadth of fifty miles. Its eastern boundary is the Blue Ridge, which separates the waters of the Atlantic from those falling into the Mississippi. It attains its greatest elevation at the Grandfather Mountain. The western boundary of this plateau is the great Alleghany chain, which, though cut by the rivers through several passes, has a greater general elevation, and many higher peaks, than any in the Blue Ridge. Through North Carolina this range is known in its course by the several names of Roane, Unaka, Iron, and Smoky. The last name indicates that portion which, from its extent, large mass, great altitude, and the number and height of the ridges connected with it, has been pronounced by Professor Guyot the culminating point of the Alleghanies. Its highest peak, as measured and named by him, appears on the maps of the Coast Survey as Clingman's Dome. Besides these great ranges, there are a number of cross-chains, the most prominent of which are the Black and the Balsam. The last of these, from its extent, and general altitude, and the great number of its peaks, surpassed only by those of the Black and Smoky, is the most important of all the cross-chains. It extends from the Smoky, across the State, to the border of South Carolina, and, for the distance of nearly fifty miles, it is covered by the balsam -trees from which it takes its name. On some of the old maps, at a point in its course, one may see marked "Devil's Old Field." This spot must not be confounded with the "Devil's Supreme Court-House," in which the devil, according to Cherokee lore, was to try all mankind at the last day. This Devil's Court-House, situated twenty miles west, on the border of Jackson and Macon Counties, is an immense precipice, nearly a mile long, and eighteen hundred feet high, being so curved as to form a part of the arc of a circle. When one in front looks at its concave surface, he sees, half-way up, an immense opening, which constitutes the throne of the author of evil, where bad spirits are to hear their doom. But the Devil's Old Field is an opening of several hundred acres on the top of the Balsam range. The Cherokees regard the treeless tracts, at various points on the mountains, as the footprints of Satan, as he stepped from mountain to mountain. This old field, however, being his favorite resting - place, was more extensive than were his mere footprints. In fact, this was his chosen sleeping-place. Once, on a hot summer day, a party of irreverent Indians, rambling through the dense forests of balsam and rhododendrons, sudden ly came into the edge of the open ground, and, with their unseemly chattering, woke his majesty from his siesta. Being irritated, as people often are when disturbed before their nap is out, he suddenly, in the form of an immense serpent, swallowed fifty of them before they could get back into the thicket. Ever after this sad occurrence, the Cherokees, as the sailors say, gave this locality a wide berth. After the whites got into the country, a set of hunters, known by the name of Q-, either by daring or diplomacy got on better terms with the old fellow. As their reputation was any thing but good, envious people used to say that they escaped injury at the hands of Satan upon the same principle that prevents a sow from eating her own pigs. These Q-s spoke in favorable terms of the personal cleanliness of his majesty, and his regard for comfort, asserting that they had often gone to the large, overhanging rock, in the centre of the field, where he slept, and, out of mischief, in the evening had thrown rocks and brushwood off his bed, and that next morning the place was invariably as clean as if it had been brushed with a bunch of feathers. Of late years no one has seen him in those parts, and it is believed that, either tired of the loneliness of the place, or because he could do better elsewhere, he has emigrated. Near the southern end of the Balsam Mountain, two spurs leave it on the east side and run out for a dozen miles toward the north. As one goes along the most westerly of the two, he comes to the Shining Rock, an immense mass of quartz so white as to resemble loaf-sugar. Though the lightning for thousands of years has with furious anger launched its bolts against it, the mass, standing like an immense edifice of snowy marble, glitters in the distance, and is not unaptly termed the Shining Rock. A few miles farther along, the ridge rises into an angular eminence more than six thousand feet high, and known as the Cold Mountain. The name was applied on account of this occurrence: Several hunters were on the top of the mountain when it was covered by a thick sleet. The heels of one of them, to use a skater's phrase, "flew up," causing him to sit down very suddenly. Instead, however, of his remaining quietly thus at rest, the merciless action of the force of gravity, conspiring with the inclination of the ground, caused him to slide rapidly for a couple of hundred yards down the mountain-side. When finally he did bring up in a bank of snow, he was decidedly of opinion that this mountain was the coldest one he had ever seen. In fact, when afterward questioned if he was not very cold, he said: "Yes, as cold as Cicero in his coldest moment!" He had doubtless heard some local orator pronounced as eloquent as Cicero, and thus concluded that the old Roman was a man of superlatives generally. Since that day the peak has rejoiced in the name of Cold Mountain. The twin-ridge, which, leaving the Balsam near the same locality, gradually diverges to the east, terminates in the beautiful peak, Mount Pisgah, of which we give a view. Its top, five thousand seven hundred and fifty-seven feet above the sea, is a triangular-shaped pyramid. Standing alone as it does, it affords a magnificent view for a hundred miles around. It forms the corner of the four counties of Buncombe, Henderson, Transylvania, and Haywood. The view presented is from the valley of Hommeny [Hominy] Creek, at a point a little to the east of north from the mountain. From whatever direction it is seen, its outline is not less pointed than it is in this picture, and is always a striking object before the eye of the spectator. Though one must travel twenty two miles from Asheville to reach its summit, its distance in a direct line is under fifteen. Its beautiful blue on a summer evening is sometimes changed into a rich purple by the rays of a red cloud thrown over it at sunset. In winter it is even a still more striking object. Covered by a fresh snow in the morning, its various ridges present their outlines so sharply that it seems as if they had been carved by a chisel into innumerable depressions and elevations. After one or two days' sunshine, the snow disappears on the ridges, but remains in the valleys. The mountain then seems covered from summit to base with alternate bands of virgin white, and a blue more intense and beautiful than the immortal sky itself presents. While there are many views to be seen from Asheville and its vicinity, that from McDowell's Hill, two miles south, is the best. When there, one sees in the west Pisgah, the Cold Mountain, and some of the highest peaks of the Balsam, with many intervening ranges; while to the northeast rises the great mass of Craggy, with its numerous spurs crowned by its pyramid and dome, and the southern point of the Black in the distance. The beautiful Swannanoa makes a handsome curve as it passes through the green carpet, two hundred feet below, to unite with the French Broad, which seems to come afar from the base of Pisgah. One who has not been there, has yet to see the finest scene in North Carolina, probably not equaled by any east of the Mississippi. T. L. CLINGMAN"

Clingman, Thomas L. Mount Pisgah, North Carolina, Appleton's Journal: A magazine of general literature, 10 [issue 249] December 27, 1873, p.817.

See also: Clingman, Thomas L. "North Carolina—Her Wealth, Resources, and History , ... "Western North Carolina." Appleton's Journal, 5 [issue 112] (1871): 587-88.
  

 SERIES 4